Podcasts about david no

We'd love to help you to get from here to there in terms of eliminating waste in your business. When you're focused on getting those things done and when you've got processes and procedures in place to allow you to accomplish it more quickly, then everything gets a whole lot better. David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co-host Kevin Rosenquist, and I will be discussing eliminating waste in your business. Welcome, Kevin. Kevin: Great to see you. David. Excited to be here. David: I'm excited to have you here. Kevin: Yeah, so we're talking waste, obviously waste in business. There's different kinds of waste. A lot of people will immediately think of money, but that's not really what we're talking about, is it? David: Well, some of what we're talking about, I guess. Yeah. There's been a lot of talk about finding and eliminating waste in the news. So I thought, how does that really apply when you're operating a business? Kevin: Mm-hmm. David: Anyone in business, particularly small to medium sized businesses, must be aware of the fact that there is always likely to waste in the business. And as you pointed out, I mean, very often it starts with money. We're afraid that we might be wasting money, and in many cases we are. Kevin: Sure. David: But for most businesses who are reasonably run well, that's usually not the biggest thing. Kevin: What would you say is the biggest thing, or can you give me like your top three? David: Okay, sure. Yeah. I think for most of us it probably starts with time. Kevin: Yeah. David: Because the time that we waste is something that we can never get back. I think I heard Brian Tracy say this years ago. If you lose money, you can always make more, but if you run out of time, that's it. All the money in the world won't help you. That's pretty much how it went. Kevin: Yeah. I mean, there's no going back. So far they haven't figured out a way. David: No. We have not figured out a way to do that. So when we look at our days, weeks or even hours, we look at things like meetings. Are our meetings productive? Are our processes organized or disorganized? What are the distractions like during the course of a day? Because when we're focusing on one thing and then we're distracted and we have to switch back and forth, it requires flipping the switches in our brains and getting ourselves adjusted to the new thing that we're thinking about. All of those things consume time, which is, in many cases, even worse than money when we start wasting it. Kevin: You brought up a good one, meetings. And I think that's something, especially in this day and age of Zoom calls and all that stuff. I have a lot of friends who are in the corporate world or in the business world, and they talk about the needless meetings, the constant need for them, for people to feel like you got to get the crew together. Why are small businesses and medium sized businesses so focused on that and how can they like pull back? David: Yeah, it's a great question. I think there are some people who just feel like it's necessary. I think there are some business owners, some managers who feel like their presence in everyone's day-to-day life is critical Kevin: Right. David: And that's true more of some people than others. Some employees are happy to be able to just do their own thing and get everything done. Others do need more interaction. So it is an individual kind of thing. I think most business owners have to take a look at that and say, how much of me do they need? How much of their sales managers do they need? But being aware of the fact that each time we force everyone to get together, the clock is running. The clock's running on everyone. And when you have a bunch of people on one meeting, that means that all those people are tied up for that period of time. And if it's not productive for everyone on that meeting or in that meeting,

Change is coming... because change is always coming. And we need to try to stay ahead of it. And we're not always going to be able to do that. But we do have the ability to anticipate things that could potentially happen in the not too distant future and say, okay, if this happens, then what am I going to do? How am I going to adapt to that? David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the topic, Change is Coming. Don't Make it Harder. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: It's good to be here, David. Change is hard. Change is not easy in life, in business. We like comfort zones. We like to get in a groove. And I am the first to admit it. If I could find a way to not have to change in business and just cruise, I'm not opposed to just cruising. David: Yeah, well, status quo can certainly be comfortable until it's not, right? It's very comfortable until it's not. And when I say change is coming, I mean, so much of what we've been hearing lately is about all the potential changes that could be coming. And regardless, and I'm not going to get into politics ever at all on this podcast, but regardless of the outcome, there is going to be change coming, because it always does. It's the nature of life. It's the nature of business. Change is always coming. And so, When we try to fight it, when we try to avoid it, we make things harder on ourselves, right? The change is going to come. Now, we're going to have to change our approach very likely. We're going to have to do things differently. We're going to have to plan differently. There are all types of things that we are actually going to have to do. But if we focus on that, rather than the indignity of the fact that change is coming, we make it a lot easier on ourselves. Jay: Yeah, you're exactly right. I think about a change that we all had to go through, and that's the pandemic. And how that was all a change that we wondered if we were going to survive. It was going to destroy our businesses, our workplaces, our way of life, everything. You think about, we're home office now. And we're going to stay that way. And if you had asked me before the pandemic, I would have said, no, that wouldn't work. I look at my friends in the restaurant industry who pivoted to drive through only, and when the time came back to open up their dining rooms, they didn't want to do it. They really liked the drive thru model or the delivery model so sometimes being forced to change and being ready to change. You're going to discover, things that you would have ruled out otherwise, and you're going to be better for it, ideally. David: No question. That exact example, there's a restaurant that we go to in our area a lot, and when the pandemic came and you were no longer able to go into the restaurants, they started a pickup service. And it had never occurred to us to pick up from that restaurant before. We always went in, sat down, enjoyed the meal, and that was it. But after a while, you're like, well, I could really use some of that food. We don't feel like cooking. Okay, I'm going to give it a try. I'll go pick it up. And all of a sudden, that door was open for us as well. And so after you were able to go back into the restaurant, there were still a lot of times, and there are times now where we'll still pick things up and bring it home because now we know that it's possible. So what it gave them is a new revenue stream, right? At the time they had a new revenue stream, but they didn't have their primary revenue stream. So they were hurting. But then after things opened up again, they got the regular business back and now they have this takeout service that people are using more and more, it actually allows things to grow. So it's a perfect example why our topic is so appropriate. Change is coming. Change is inevitable. It's happening all the time. And the more we resist reality, the more problems we have. Jay: Yeah,

El Cid (Murciano) - A ver si David no me despide (20-07-2024) ====== ASUNTO COLECTA EQUIPO F (2024-2025) =============== Puedes colaborar con Equipo F aquí: https://gofund.me/853b1db6 ES34 1465 0100 9417 5070 9106 Bizum: 619811940 ============================================================= Más contenido inédito en: https://www.es-tv.es Aportaciones a Raúl: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=40527138 Nº de cuenta: ES75 3018 5746 3520 3462 2213 Bizum: 696339508 o 650325992 Aportaciones a David: https://www.patreon.com/davidsantosvlog Nº de Cuenta: ES78 0073 0100 5306 7538 9734 Bizum: +34 644919278 Aportaciones a Equipo-F: TITULAR: EQUIPO F CUENTA: ES34 1465 0100 9417 5070 9106 C ÓDIGO SWIFT: INGDESMM Conviértete en miembro de este canal para disfrutar de ventajas: https://www.ivoox.com/podcast-un-murciano-encabronao-david-santos-los-audios_sq_f11099064_1.html Canales de U.M.E.: El Cid

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There are so many situations where inadequate product knowledge, damaged reputation, and inefficient or poorly executed sales processes come from having untrained salespeople. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will discuss the incredible cost of untrained salespeople. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, it's such a pleasure to be here, David. Sometimes I think I'm that guy. I'm the untrained salesperson. So, this will be very informative to me, I hope. David: Okay. Well, you know, there's a difference between being untrained and untrainable. So, as long as you're trainable, that's a really big plus. Jay: OK, I feel a little better. David: No, I'm sure you're trainable, but untrained salespeople can really cause a great deal of harm to themselves, to their companies, to their prospects, to the businesses they're associated with. It is really kind of epidemic and It's largely unnecessary. A lot of it comes from, particularly in small businesses an employers desire to delegate it quickly, to get it off their plate. Like, "okay, I'm not doing this as well as I'd like. I better hire somebody else to do it." And they're hoping that that person is going to know how to do it. And if you don't have protocols in place, like we talked about in our previous podcast, then of course that just makes it that much more difficult. But the biggest problems that people are likely to run into, the obvious ones are lost sales opportunities, right? Cause I'm talking to somebody who could potentially buy, but I'm saying all the wrong things and I'm not positioning the company well, and I'm not finding the right needs that the people are actually looking for, and I'm saying the wrong things, there's no way that sales is going to happen. It's a bad reflection on the salesperson and the company, and the prospect will walk away thinking that that company is not good at what they do because the salesperson did not do a good enough job of explaining what they do. So, it creates a complete disconnect between what the business might be capable of and what the world is likely to think they're capable of. So that's a killer. Poor communication is another one that when you have a salesperson who is not trained on what they need to ask, what they need to find out from the prospect, how they need to address those questions and issues, that defines poor communication, because they're just going to say whatever comes to their mind or they're going to say, "well, I have to find out, let you know." Now there are situations in pretty much any sales scenario where that might be the case, where you don't have every single bit of information that they might need to know. So there will be situations where you might have to find something out. But if it's happening more than a couple of times at any particular sales presentation, you might want to look at the process that you're using to make that happen. The training that you have or have not received. Actually, this really does dovetail pretty well in our previous conversation about protocols. So if you're seeing this podcast and you didn't see that one, go back and watch that one as well because these things really tie together. Jay: Yeah, a couple of things come to mind. And the first is, how do you know you have an untrained salesperson? If they are not where you're at, if they're doing outside sales and they're sitting in somebody else's office, how do you know what they're saying and how they're interacting? That can be very difficult. The second thing is if they're on the phone making those calls, how do you assess their situation there? Like I said earlier, we have a system that records all phone calls coming in and out. So that's one way that we have to listen back to calls and give feedback. So maybe you have to go on those sales calls and listen. Maybe you have to have a hidden microphone,

We continued with St. John's summary of discernment and its particular fruit in the spiritual life. However, it does not read like a summary. Each saying opens us up to a divine reality and a participation in the life of Christ that comes to us by grace and the ascetic life. One cannot help but be captivated by the beauty of what St. John describes. It becomes evident that what we are being drawn into is the very beauty of Christ and that of the kingdom. Grace has the capacity to transform even the darkest of things within us and to illuminate the mind and the heart to see clearly what has eternal value. With the reading of each saying one begins to experience a holy desire growing within the heart. Thanks be to God! --- Text of chat during the group: 00:06:34 FrDavid Abernethy: page 217 page 14   00:25:57 Anthony: He says this while I'm making dinner....   00:31:19 David: Despair is suffering without meaning- Victor Frankl   00:49:34 Eric Ewanco: Reacted to "Κλίμαξ αγίου Ιωάννου.LadderClimatuspdf" with ❤️   00:49:43 Eric Ewanco: Reacted to "TheLadderofDivineAscent.pdf" with

- Presione el botón PLAY para escuchar la catequesis del día, y comparte si lo quieres -+ Lectura del libro de Isaías +En aquel tiempo, el Señor habló a Acaz:«-Pide una señal al Señor, tu Dios: en lo hondo del abismo o en lo alto del cielo-». Respondió Acaz: «-No la pido, no quiero tentar al Señor-». Entonces dijo Dios:«-Escucha, casa de David: ¿No les basta cansar a los hombres, que cansan incluso a mi Dios? Pues el Señor, por su cuenta, les dará una señal. Miren: la Virgen está encinta y dará a luz un hijo, y le pondrá por nombre Emmanuel, que significa “Dios con nosotros”».Palabra de Dios.

Find us on your favorite PODCAST app as all our YouTube debates end up on the podcast within 24 hours of being live. LINKS TO GUESTS: Kay Fellows: https://linktr.ee/KayFellowz Sulha: https://www.youtube.com/c/Sulha Cider & Port:  @CiderandPort  David: No link at this time Referral link to Visible cell phone service for only $20 a month for unlimited talk, text, and data (including unlimited high-speed hot spot data): https://www.visible.com/get/?3PQJ8VT MDD referral link to Planet Fitness, where you can be active for just $10 a month! https://www.planetfitness.com/referrals?referralCode=A404K8MP At Modern-Day Debate (MDD), our vision is to provide a neutral debate platform so everyone has their fair shot to make their case on a level playing field. Consider joining our Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/ModernDayDebate ) or our channel as a member. __________________________________________________________________ Modern Day Debate Discord: Craving a challenge for your debating prowess? Fancy a shot at debating on MDD? Look no further than our Official MDD Discord server! Accessible through the Discord App (Android/iOS/PC) or your browser, the choice is yours! Immerse yourself in non-stop debates, 24/7! Explore a variety of Text and Voice Channels designed for members to delve into discussions. Experience the thrill of live member debates on our Open Debate Stage, orchestrated by our dedicated staff, followed by occasional aftershows after the live stream debates! Ready to join the intellectual battleground? Simply click the link below on your device of choice and become part of the discourse! https://discord.gg/ModernDayDebate _______________________________________________________________________________ RULES FOR CHAT -Chats flagrantly disrespectful toward speakers will receive a warning. *Attack the ideas instead of the person. -Chatters continuing the disrespect after a warning will be banned. -Chatters violating YouTube TOS are banned immediately. ______________________________________________________________________________________ DISCLAIMER The views shared by guests on Modern-Day Debate are not necessarily representative of the views of Modern-Day Debate, James, or any university he has or has had any affiliation with. This includes our debate podcast. ______________________________________________________________________________________ I'm a Christian. If you ever want prayer or just someone to talk to after a horrible day, please reach out and let me know. I'm not a counselor and thus can't counsel anyone, but as mentioned, I'm happy to listen if you had a bad day. moderndaydebate@gmail.com __________________________________________________________________________________ #Debate #Podcast

In today's episode of Building Texas Business, join us for a fascinating discussion with our guest David Fletcher, General Manager of Lone Star Sports and Entertainment. David gives us exclusive insights into the sports business industry, highlighting the economic impact of major sporting events on Houston. We learn about LSSE's role in the city's sports landscape and the excitement for the upcoming Tax Act Texas Bowl. David also enlightens us on why Houston is a major sports hub, touching on upcoming events like the college football championship and the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Tune in for a thrilling exploration of the fast-paced world of sports business. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Chris talks with David Fletcher, the General Manager of Longstar Sports and Entertainment, about the intricacies and realities of the sports business world. David describes the significant economic impact of major sporting events on the business community, highlighting their ability to draw in substantial revenue and tourism. We discuss the role of LSSE in the Houston sports scene and its involvement in exciting upcoming events like the Tax Act Texas Bowl. David addresses some common misconceptions about the sports industry, revealing the hard work, long hours, and sacrifices behind the scenes. We delve into what it means to be a good teammate in the sports industry, focusing on traits such as being coachable, ready, and positive. David shares insights on why Houston has become a hotspot for sports business, citing its prime location, diverse population, and robust infrastructure. We discuss the upcoming national college football playoff championship and the anticipation it's generating in Houston. David gives a preview of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, expressing his enthusiasm for the global event to be hosted in Houston. I explore personal topics with David, such as his first job experience, his preference for Tex-Mex over barbecue, and his dream 30-day sabbatical destination. David shares his passion for skiing in Park City, Utah, expressing gratitude for the support and involvement of the Houston community in their work. LINKSShow Notes Previous Episodes About BoyarMiller GUESTS David Fletcher About David TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Chris: In this episode you will meet David Fletcher, general manager of Longstar Sports and Entertainment. David shares his insights into the business of sports, as well as the economic impact major sporting events can have on the business community. David, I wanna welcome you to Building Texas Business. Thanks for coming today. David: It's great to be here, Chris. Appreciate the opportunity. Chris: So let everybody know, you're the general manager of what's called Longstar Sports and Entertainment here at Houston. Tell the audience a little bit about what that company is and kind of how it fits into the sports landscape here in Houston. David: Yeah, longstar Sports and Entertainment, or LSSE, as we try to call it with such a long name, is really the events production and management company at Houston, texans. So we are a primary outlet for event production, promotion and really a focus to our efforts to date around filling event dates at NRG Stadium. Most of what we do, chris, is in the sports space, although we have certainly done fair share of shows in the entertainment side, but college football, international soccer, rugby are all really big parts of what we do and inside of that we can do anything and everything that we need to do to make an event successful. We've promoted and negotiated and done our own events. We work with partners like ESPN or the Major League Soccer to host events at our building for them. We work with global brands like Manchester United, real Madrid or even Taylor Swift to bring events to our place in a variety of different ways. So really our focus is on bringing people together in Houston and we've done some other things over the years some investments and some events outside of NRG Stadium. But at our core we are a major part of making NRG Stadium one of the world class destinations for events and we're very proud of what we've been able to do over the last 21 years. Chris: That's what I love about kind of the focus at LSSC and the Texans for that matter is really a focus on doing things for the benefit and betterment of Houstonians. It seems to be kind of maybe a core focus. David: No question. I mean, look, at the end of the day, our organization is only focus on three things it's creating experiences, it's delivering incredible vowed partners and it's about doing great things for Houston. So, in that core capacity, major events, whether it be bringing Leon O Messi to play at NRG Stadium in an event like Copa America a few years ago I mentioned Taylor Swift we had a chance to host her in 2018, or Keddie Chesney or George Straits or Tim McGraw done shows with all of them over the years to the big time college football, like the Tax Act Texas Bowl that we host each and every year. Our focus is on really those three initiatives and I think they play into exactly what you said, which our organization has been all about, and the family the McNair family has been all about since day one. Chris: So, speaking of the Tax Act Texas Bowl, where we've got a match up right around the corner with Oklahoma State and Texas A&M excited about that and I would think that there is some excitement from those fan bases about being here at Houston. David: No question, our 18th year of hosting that college football postseason spectacular that happens each and every year at NRG Stadium. Last 10 years we've had the Big 12 in SEC and you mentioned it Texas A&M, who's obviously one of, if not, the biggest collegiate brand in this part of the world, going and taking on Oklahoma State, an old rival there from the Big 12 days and 20th ranked Oklahoma State Cowboys, I might add, who made it all the way to the Big 12 championship game this year and have the nation's best running back in Oli Gordon. A lot of things to be excited about on both fan bases. Texas A&M obviously a great brand, but had their struggles on the field relative to their expectations this year. A lot of transition, including bringing in a really exciting new coach and Mike Elko, and this is an opportunity for both of these teams, but particularly Texas A&M, to start their 2024 March to the championship this December 27th. Chris: Very good. So let's talk a little bit just about you and kind of how you got into the sports industry and you've been general manager now at LSE like 10 years. That's crazy because I can remember when you first took over the role. So 10 years goes by fast. David: It goes by real fast, chris. Look, for me sports has been an incredible part of my life, like many, since my early days of youth, I know as a kid. For me there wasn't a day that didn't go by literally a day that I didn't have to go to some practice or didn't get to go to some practice of some kind, played a lot of sports really important to my family growing up and ultimately developed a very strong passion for sport itself. As I got a little older I was in school at the University of Texas I realized that you could make a business out of it. You could create a life around the, not just playing on the field, and for me my playing days they definitely ended in high school, which is okay. I still get to this day, get to go out there and try and hack it with the best of them every once in a while, but I do it vicariously most of the time in working with my kids and coaching them and watching them grow. So for me, like I said, I knew sport was a big part of what I had a passion for when I graduated from UT. I had an opportunity to be to work for an NFL team in my hometown right here in Houston Texas. They didn't even have a name until a few weeks into my job, but that was the Houston Texans, and so coming out of UT and having the opportunity to be a part of building a professional team no less an NFL team from the ground up was something that I thought was really cool and I thought would be something that would help fuel that passion further, and it has. There's no question, of course, as a graduate coming out of college, many of us, myself included had bills to pay, and working as an intern at any sports team is not a great way to pay off those bills very quickly. But you know, I knew I had. I knew I had a goal in mind. I knew that I could make a business out of this if I really focused on making the most of the opportunities I had about keeping a positive attitude and really just taking every opportunity I could to grow, and I did that. I worked at the Texans during that first season, had an opportunity after that to get into a sales side where I did start making money working in media sales after leaving the team, spent a few years doing that for the University of Texas Athletics and then with the Houston Rockets, but I had a chance to return back to the team in 2010 and have been with the Texans in some way or shape or form ever since and that's been a lot of fun to really get to be in my hometown to work for the NFL team ups and downs included along the way, right, as we've had some great years and some not so great years. But going back to what I talked about earlier about being able to make an impact, particularly in my hometown, it's been an amazing opportunity for me and I still wake up every day and I know this is gonna sound really silly and I've grown a lot in my career, but we office at NRG Stadium and there are a lot of days where I walk in I'll hear the voice guy, david Brady, in my head going welcome to NRG Stadium. Chris: And it's just for me as I walk in the office. David: You know, it's a subtle reminder in my head that you know what. This is something pretty cool and this is something really special and been fortunate enough to be a part of a lot of things that have helped grow this community as a sports destination and then hopefully a lot more going forward. Chris: That's great. I mean it's a very unique position, unique opportunity. It relates to working for an NFL franchise. Right, there's only 32 franchises that you can work for, so let's talk again. So you work your way up and then you get this opportunity to move into leadership and I like to talk to guests, entrepreneurs, about leadership. So let's talk about that with you, kind of give us a little idea of your journey. Who were some of your mentors that you kind of molded your leadership style after? David: Well, I think mentors are so important, chris. They're so important to provide you you know reality, to provide you guidance, to provide you you know somebody who can ultimately be a resource, good and bad, in any situation. You know, for me it started with a good friend of ours and I still think about him all the time as Jamie Roots, you know, arguably one of the best in the business, president of the Texans for 20 plus years and spent spent really so much time, energy and effort in creating and ultimately growing the Texans brand, and so getting a chance to watch him and be a part of his team for almost a decade myself was something that you know, I've taken so much from. You know, the things that we focused on were about relationships, and that's really where it starts in any of these businesses is, you know, whether you're working with clients, teammates or employees and just trying to find ways to connect. You've got to be able to connect at all levels and build relationships with people, no matter what role they're playing in your business. So it's starting with relationships first. You know, I think, looking at how Lone Star has been approached I talked to Jamie about this a lot over the years Texans, so important and ingrained in the business of, or the fabric of, the Houston community. But what Lone Star has really helped do is expand the reach beyond just football and reach into what is already arguably the most diverse community in the country and bring them in to a place that they could celebrate, that the passions they have can create memories that last a lifetime and ultimately, yes, do business. You know, and so you know, lone Star helps us reach in. We've done, you know, 21 Mexican national team soccer events at our stadium. We've hosted Beyonce. We've had, you know, lsu take on Wisconsin or, you know, coming up, the national championship game for college football. Yes, there's some core elements that are consistent across every sport, every entertainment property, every football event that I just mentioned, but each of those tie people back to our business, they tie people into, or they bring people into, our community and they ultimately, you know, give us an opportunity to create even more momentum for the team and for Houston going forward. So, when I look at how we've approached that from a leadership perspective, you know it's really been thinking about how our business, my business, can impact people outside of what we do in the Texans. And with that, you know, like I said from the beginning, it starts with relationships. Chris: Hey, you hit the nail on the head because I think that's true. No matter what business you're in, if you're a one man shop or you're growing it to be bigger, it's all about relationships, like you said, with your external partners but more importantly with your internal teammates. So, talking on that subject a little bit, let's talk a little bit. I know you know you've built a team around you at LSSC to help put on and promote these events. What are some of the things you look for when you're going through that process? One maybe identify whether it's through the recruiting process or onboarding or, as they're there, in kind of the training to make sure you're making the best decision you can in building that team. And then maybe we'll talk about the other side is when you know maybe this wasn't the right fit, the harder decisions to make. David: Well, I think it starts. You know I mentioned it earlier, but to me there's really three core elements of being a good teammate, and I think these matter whether you're the intern or you're the leader of the organization. One be coachable right. Nobody that I have ever met, even the best in the business, know everything right, so be able to take advice, take criticism, learn from your mistakes, and that's something I think's really important. Two be ready, right. Be when opportunities exist, don't be afraid to raise your hand, don't be afraid to speak up, don't be afraid to go all in. You never know when an opportunity could be the best opportunity for you if you don't ask. So be coachable, be ready and then, from my perspective, just be positive, right. The attitude is the only thing that any of us can control, and my experience and my life has taught me that if you focus on the good, you have a lot better chance of getting there than if you focus on the bad. And that speaks to communication internally. That speaks to the way you approach how you position your business. It speaks to how you approach your competition right. Ultimately, at the end of the day, if you focus on the good, there's a better chance you're gonna get good. Chris: Like I couldn't agree more on that positive mindset, kind of staying positive, focus on the positive, learn from the bad and the negative maybe, but your primary focus has got to be on improvement in a positive way. Yeah, again, there's books written about it all over, but mindset makes a big difference. David: No question, no question. Ultimately, if you're a teammate for us and you've got those qualities, we feel like that's a great start to being a positive contributor to our group. Chris: Well, no just from being around the organization as much as I have. Y'all are known the Texans and LSSE. You're known within the sports industry of training people to be great and I guess that's a blessing and a curse. You get really good people but then people come and take them. David: Well, I've always had the mentality, chris. I know it's one that may fly in the face of common thought, but look, if anybody's being approached or anybody's being seen as having an opportunity coming from where we have brought them to, then we've done our jobs the other day and so we wanna keep as many of those on our team as we can, no question, but many times, for a variety of reasons, you have to accept that maybe reality, and so do the best of what you've got, be ready for the next opportunity, keep moving forward. Chris: So, working in the world of sports, what's one of the things you think is maybe the biggest misperception that most have about what you do? Cause it sounds pretty glamorous. David: Well, that's probably the biggest misperception. I think that, and that I have access to every ticket for every event all the time. My wife still sometimes even has that misperception, but I love her for it. No, look, I think the reality is that. I think that people do think that. Well, let me back up. I think there can be a perception that it is all glamorous all the time. Right, there's a lot of very visible and very talented people that are in the media all the time, that are compensated well, that are creating brands of their own. There certainly is an element to that, but I think that more often than not, it's a job that, if you don't have a passion for what you're doing, what you're doing, it's gonna be hard, because the hours are long, holidays are not really holidays. The players have negotiated a very significant salary, and that's not always the case for everybody else. And on the business side, and there are so many facets of what working in sports can be, and I think that's also, at the same time, an opportunity A lot of people look at. Well, you work for a team so that you're working in sports. Working in sports can be working for an agency that's working with a brand that is creating a partnership with a team. It could be working on the media side, bringing the events to life through social, digital and television content. It could be being a lawyer that negotiates contracts. It could be taking tickets and welcoming people to NRG Stadium, and so there's just so many different ways. There are over 7,000 people that work on a major event day at NRG Stadium. Just on the day, just on the day itself, right Between part-time staff, texans, employees, police fire, you name it. That's crazy. So it's such a big it becomes its own little city. So ultimately, there's a lot of different ways that sports can touch somebody. Most often, people just think of the players and what happens on the field. Chris: Well, it's nothing. You said when you started that, and I think it's true and it transcends all industries Passion To be really good at what you do, you have to have a passion for it, because it's long hours and putting in real hard time to learn and advance and grow your expertise at whatever it is, and so it has to start and stop a passion. David: No question, and if I look towards my life personally, it's been the fuel that's put me on the path to the successes that I've had. I mentioned it from the beginning. I mean, I started out as an intern with the Texans. I'm very proud of the fact that I'm the only intern or the only member of the executive team at Texans that actually started out as an intern with the team itself and that wasn't by accident. I mean, certainly there's a lot of good fortune along the way and I was able to produce results when needed. But I look at that as a testament to. Without the passion that I had, I wouldn't have been able to go through the 120 hour weeks as an intern, making minimum wage, I might add. You know working on, you know lifting heavy equipment or organizing, you know volunteer groups or you know putting together hours of copy that may not even be used, right. I mean, it's just those things that are just little steps along the way that, personally, I had to do, but I think they apply to anybody who has felt success in their business is that it starts with that passion. Chris: Yeah. So let's turn the conversation a little bit and talk about something that I don't think gets talked about enough, certainly at least here in Houston. We, when you step back and look at it, we, being Houston, which means you and others have done an amazing job of making Houston a true, like sports event destination. So we can talk about that a little bit, but what I want to do is connect that to how that the impact that has on the business community in Houston, because it's significant. David: It's massive, you know. So I'll start with a couple of things. One, you know, I think Houston's success as a destination for sport really points to. You can point to a lot of things that have been contributing factors, and they all have been geography center of the country, center of the continent, certainly a very, a very easy to get to market with all the infrastructure here from the great airports, obviously our traffic and our freeways. But the port you know, the infrastructure itself is fantastic, have served us well over the last 20 plus years with this latest renaissance, and we'll going forward. You've got a Some may need some tweaking, right? Chris: No question about it. David: I mean NRG is certainly, you know, a fantastic, world-class facility throughout its history. But that definition certainly has changed over the years and there's opportunities to continue to be the biggest and the best that we're working towards getting in the future. But the market seven plus million people in the DMA it's the most diverse market in the United States. All of that creates a lot of reasons why Houston has been a major destination. But I think the most important element is the leadership and the people and when I say people I mean the people at all levels that help contribute to the experience that's created when major events. Stakeholders are looking for a place to go and they come into Houston and they get to see it. We've got a number of groups that have worked together very successfully over the years the Texans and Lone Star, nrg Park, houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, all the major professional teams, harris County, houston Sports Authority, houston First Mayor's Office, city and Fire, the Texas Medical Center. All of those groups and many others have created a winning formula with how we approach the event experience, whether it's a festival, a conference or the Super Bowl. You throw in the hospitality community, which Houston First is certainly a driver of, but the thousands of unbelievable hotels, restaurants and entertainment options that are here in this community and how they collaborate and work together around these major events. And you see, no other market in the country can offer what we have as a collective package, and that's why you've seen Houston be awarded more major sporting events than any other market in the country over the last 15 years. That's impressive. Chris: I mean, people don't know that. They don't, it doesn't get talked about. David: They don't, they don't. There's certainly a lot of energy around. You get the first one right and then it just kind of dominos and we've been very aggressive as a community in pursuing those options. We've been very successful and when we get those options here to put our best foot forward, there are great resources at state level that certainly help with that and a spirit of collaboration with the governor's office to try and generate as many major events in the state of Texas as possible. So those are all winning points in the formula for success. But it really starts with the people and as we look at the future of the sporting event business, the major event business in Houston, there's a reason why we keep going after this and a big part of it is what you talked about the economic impact. Pick any number of these. These events Final four, college football, playoff, national championship game, fifa World Cup, super Bowl, taksac, texas Bowl, copa America I'm missing thousands of events that happen and are the Major League Baseball All-Star game, nba All-Star game, mls Cup. All these events that you see have really generated billions of dollars collectively for our community and economic impact. That's people coming to Houston and staying in our hotels. They're going and having a great time down in Galveston. They are eating at some of the world's best restaurants and that fuels our economy. We don't have the typical transient business that a vacation destination like a Miami or New Orleans may have, where entertainment in the community can spark a lot of travel. We are very much focused on conference events and entertainment opportunities and we do it better than just about anybody else out there. Chris: So let's kind of try to, you know, put some context around that. You mentioned, and obviously I'm well aware of the Texas Bowl, Taksac, Texas Bowl economic impact of that event to the greater Houston area. David: Annual basis over the last 10 years has been over $30 million on average. Every single year, we'll have anywhere between 25 and 30,000 people traveling in, staying in our hotels, restaurants, for three or four days ahead of the event. You've got people they're even driving in, too right, people that are coming in from the outer areas getting to celebrate that event. So that's meaningful, especially when that event specifically happens every year. It's right, it's a re-accuracy. End of the year, end of the year, when a lot of people are traveling for the holidays or maybe not doing as much, we've got an event that brings people into our community. That brings people here that may not be from a drivable distance. They may be coming from, you know, south Carolina, or Louisiana, or Florida, or Colorado Now that the Big 12 has expanded or Arizona, so you know, it really is something that fuels those businesses and gives our community as a whole an opportunity to celebrate around a major event, and we're proud of what that particular event has done, as well as, obviously, many others. Chris: Then we've got a couple of big events on the horizon. I want to talk about some of that. So let's talk about the first one, and that's the national title football college football playoff championship on January 8. It's a huge deal. It's the last one, I guess, of the 14 format, but you know what can we look forward to as Houstonians, with that game right around the corner? David: Well, it's a true celebration of college football, a week-long celebration. So you know, from a community perspective, you know the impact has already started. The Houston Love Teachers campaign that the Harris County, houston Sports Authority and the College Football Playoff local organizing committee has put together is has already generated millions of dollars in support for and recognition of teachers in our community, excuse me and that's an impact that will obviously pay dividends well beyond the game itself on January 8. When you look to event week itself, got four teams and four big brands that are hoping to descend upon Houston right after the New Year's. Chris: Yeah, yeah, so we've got what I mean. I think, any way you slice it, there's four or two teams that show up here are going to have big followings. David: Well, they are, and so you know what that means. It's not just about the 70,000 people that will fill up NRG Stadium. You know, again, the week long of activities, with free concerts every night during the weekend leading up fan fest down at Georgia Brown, which will have all kinds of interactive opportunities for fans to celebrate and enjoy the game of college football. You've got a number of initiatives around the industry itself that you know just further fuel Houston as a destination for business around the sport conferences and events and media opportunities, literally billions, if not trillions, of impressions showcasing our city. Chris: So you're gonna have the eyes of the world really on Houston for that kind of that weekend leading up and, I think, encourage the Houstonians right to get out and enjoy it yeah, no question, I mean it is. David: Houston is one of the best college football markets in the country the, the tax act, texas Bowl and many other events that we hosted. Our place and throughout the city. You've age rice, you know hcu tsu, prairie view. There's so much around college football that really Houston should be part of this destination, going forward on a consistent basis, and I think we'll show that as we bring everybody together here next month very good, yeah, david. Chris: So I think there's a lot to be excited about having the national title game be in our backyard, and I hope Houstonians will show up and take advantage of all the the events that are being planned yeah, it's gonna be an incredible week. David: We've earned the opportunity and I know, just like we did with Super Bowl a few years ago, with Final Four earlier this year, sonians love their sport. They will be out and enjoying another great celebration, and that's something that we should be excited about, and it's not the only one. You look down the road. We've got the world's biggest event coming just two years from now. Chris: As well, and that's the World Cup that's right. David: Yeah, fifa World Cup returns to Houston in 2020, or returns to Houston, comes to Houston in 2026. Houston, one of the venues in North America that was selected and you know just when you think about the opportunity to host five, six, seven, eight events in NRG Stadium with an average audience of a billion people and names like Messi and Neymar and Mbappe, who probably mean a lot to many people in this community but are treated as icons around the globe, and for Houston to have its name among the great markets of the world, at a truly global market which we know from a business perspective and from a from a population perspective. It is but to have that that verification on that type of stage is something that you know. As a community we also be very proud of and Chris Canetti in the World Cup office and Janice Burke and everybody over at NRG Park that ourselves included that helped to be part of making that a reality. We know we got a lot of work ahead to live up those expectations that's great. Chris: Well, david, I appreciate you, you know coming on and sharing some of these specifics. I want to ask you just a few more questions about you personally. What was your first job before days? You know the years before you were the intern of Houston Texas so I my first job I'm gonna go with. David: I've got a 1, 1a, all right. So my first job really was I worked at a Kroger in Kingwood as a checker or, sorry, as a bagger. But my my first quote real job I didn't have that one very long was I. I ended up being a server at Kingwood Country Club and the reason I say that was my first real job is that I worked in the service industry throughout my career. I mean, I still do today, obviously, but I worked in the service industry for 10 years, all the way through my time in Austin, going to school at UT, and I will tell you that nothing will teach you more about the world good and bad, than working in the service industry and I am so appreciative of the opportunities that I got to again. Start with something simple as that. But as a funny story, chris, I will say my crowning achievement as a server is I did serve as Don Johnson, the actor, don Johnson's waiter for the 10 cup rap party, because Tim Cup was hosting. That's right and so I do have that up by resume. Chris: So there you go see one of the benefits of living in Kingwood that's right. Yeah, one of the many I'll add okay, so since you work so much in, I guess, service hospitality, this will be easy for you. All right, you prefer Tex-Mex or barbecue? Tex-mex all day long all right, and this one's gonna be hard for you to answer okay maybe not. If you could do a 30-day sabbatical, where would you go? What? David: would you do? That is a great question. I don't think it's very. I don't think it's very hard for me at all. I am an avid skier and my family and I have been fortunate enough to spend a lot of time in Park City, utah, and I try and get the 30 days even now it's not possible to do in our work, but I love Park City probably more than any place else in this planet, and so I'd love to be able to go up my family for three days and just ski our behinds off got you. Chris: Well, that's great. That's a good one. David, thanks again for taking the time. Congratulations to you and the rest of the team back at Energy Park, the Texans LSSE, for all you do for Houston well. David: Thank you, chris, and we appreciate your support and involvement as well. Special Guest: David Fletcher.

In this week's Black World News, Kehinde Andrews discusses a current case in Barbuda being fought about the construction of a new private airport and beach developments by largely US, UK, and Chinese foreigners. It's a fight by local "land defenders" against foreign multinationals carving up the island for tourism, "freedom," and tax reduction purposes. Developers are destroying the island's resources, including food security, culture, and livelihoods This case is part of a larger problem with the Carribean's legacy as slave colonies.  - Check out the MIP YouTube Channel - This is going to be the final episode of Season 1 of MIP's Black Studies Podcast Series, we hope you've enjoyed it! To wrap it up, this week Kehinde Andrews asks a mixture of Black Studies undergraduates and MA students from all three Black Studies degree courses at Birmingham City Uni (@MYBCU) about their POVs of the course. The students featured are Eileen, Nae, Esther, Laura, Fonce, and Charlotte. The courses are pretty much all female students currently.  - BLACK WORLD NEWS LINKS Barbudans battle for island in London courthttps://www.voice-online.co.uk/news/world-news/2023/11/08/barbudans-battle-for-island-in-london-court/ Gov't to finance new prison itself – Chang https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/lead-stories/20200608/govt-finance-new-prison-itself-chang ‘Black face of white supremacy' https://www.voice-online.co.uk/news/features-news/2023/11/02/black-face-of-white-supremacy/ Voice Online: Britain's Favourite Black Newspaper https://www.voice-online.co.uk/ Proudjamaicans (reel about neo-colonization of Jamaica's beaches)https://www.instagram.com/reel/CxojVXwxFiF/ Biographies of the Justices https://www.jcpc.uk/about/biographies-of-the-justices.html David Cameron rules out slavery reparation during Jamaica visit https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34401412 - GUEST INTERVIEW LINKS Birmingham City Universityhttps://www.bcu.ac.uk/ BLACK STUDIES (CRIMINAL JUSTICE) - BA (HONS) https://www.bcu.ac.uk/courses/black-studies-in-criminal-justice-ba-hons-2024-25 BLACK STUDIES - BA (HONS) https://bcu.ac.uk/courses/black-studies-ba-hons-2024-25 BLACK STUDIES - MA https://www.bcu.ac.uk/courses/black-studies-ma-2024-25 - Guest: Eileen, Nae, Esther, Laura, Fonce, and Charlotte (Black Studies Students) Host: @kehindeandrews (IG) @kehinde_andrews (T) Podcast team: @makeitplainorg @weylandmck @inhisownterms @farafinmuso Platform: www.make-it-plain.org (Web) | www.youtube.com/@MakeItPlain1964 (YT) - THE PSYCHOSIS OF WHITENESS: Surviving the Insanity of a Racist World By Kehinde Andrews Buy the Book:https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/316675/the-psychosis-of-whiteness-by-andrews-kehinde/9780241437476

Elon "anti-Semitic"? "Eliminate" Trump? Is paying taxes evil? Black kids stealing! SF bridge suicide net! Fun calls on sin, Jesus, and the Bible! (SILENT START 2-min) The Hake Report, Monday, November 20, 2023 AD TIME STAMPS * (0:00:00) SILENT START 2 MINUTES* (0:02:02) Topics* (0:03:04) Hey, guys! GWH tee (JLP store)* (0:05:06) Elon Musk endorses anti-Semitic conspiracy theories?* (0:15:53) Dan Goldman: Eliminate Trump, dangerous rhetoric!* (0:26:56) WILLIAM, CA: Crowd of black students off'd white kid* (0:34:32) WILLIAM: Paying taxes (re: Zeus call on "hypocrisy")* (0:41:20) So many black thieves! Everybody got their temptations!* (0:48:09) SF Golden Gate bridge suicide net, "symbol of hope, care"* (0:52:32) 988 hotline, government promoting mental crises* (0:56:30) "The Ladder" - Menomena (Happiness is Shouting Bingo!)* (1:01:12) Supers: Paying taxes, fear, Charlottesville, Trump* (1:12:04) Super: Definition of sin?* (1:25:04) DAVID, FL: Jesus, God, the Trinity* (1:28:22) DAVID: No sin "literal," Zechariah 14 (Jesus reign 1K years)* (1:33:38) DAVID: Hake reads 1 John 3: 1-10* (1:41:07) JOHN, KY: Bible, sin, Israelites, JLP instructions* (1:48:13) Super: A lady is even-keeled. How about "adult time"?* (1:53:53) "Ill-M-I" - Soul-Junk (2000 album "1956")BLOG https://www.thehakereport.com/blog/2023/11/20/the-hake-report-mon-11-20-23 PODCAST by HAKE SubstackLive M-F 9-11 AM PT (11-1 CT / 12-2 ET) Call-in 1-888-775-3773 – thehakereport.com  VIDEO  YouTube  |  Rumble*  |  Facebook  |  X  |  BitChute  |  Odysee*  PODCAST  Apple  |  Spotify  |  Castbox  |  Substack  (RSS)  *SUPER CHAT on asterisked above, or  BuyMeACoffee  |  Streamlabs  |  Ko-fi  SUPPORT HAKE  Substack  |  SubscribeStar  |  Locals  ||  SHOP  Teespring  ALSO SEE  Hake News on The JLP Show  |  Appearances (other shows, etc.)  JLP Network:  JLP  |  Church  |  TFS  |  Hake  |  Nick  |  Joel   Get full access to HAKE at thehakereport.substack.com/subscribe

David was the chief software architect and director of engineering at Stitch Fix. He's also the author of a number of books including Sustainable Web Development with Ruby on Rails and most recently Ruby on Rails Background Jobs with Sidekiq. He talks about how he made decisions while working with a medium sized team (~200 developers) at Stitch Fix. The audio quality for the first 19 minutes is not great but the correct microphones turn on right after that. Recorded at RubyConf 2023 in San Diego. A few topics covered: Ruby's origins at Stitch Fix Thoughts on Go Choosing technology and cloud services Moving off heroku Building a platform team Where Ruby and Rails fit in today The role of books and how different people learn Large Language Model's effects on technical content Related Links David's Blog Mastodon Transcript You can help correct transcripts on GitHub. Intro [00:00:00] Jeremy: Today. I want to share another conversation from RubyConf San Diego. This time it's with David Copeland. He was a chief software architect and director of engineering at stitch fix. And at the start of the conversation, you're going to hear about why he decided to write the book, sustainable web development with Ruby on rails. Unfortunately, you're also going to notice the sound quality isn't too good. We had some technical difficulties. But once you hit the 20 minute mark of the recording, the mics are going to kick in. It's going to sound way better. So I hope you stick with it. Enjoy. Ruby at Stitch Fix [00:00:35] David: Stitch Fix was a Rails shop. I had done a lot of Rails and learned a lot of things that worked and didn't work, at least in that situation. And so I started writing them down and I was like, I should probably make this more than just a document that I keep, you know, privately on my computer. Uh, so that's, you know, kind of, kind of where the genesis of that came from and just tried to, write everything down that I thought what worked, what didn't work. Uh, if you're in a situation like me. Working on a product, with a medium sized, uh, team, then I think the lessons in there will be useful, at least some of them. Um, and I've been trying to keep it up over, over the years. I think the first version came out a couple years ago, so I've been trying to make sure it's always up to date with the latest stuff and, and Rails and based on my experience and all that. [00:01:20] Jeremy: So it's interesting that you mention, medium sized team because, during the, the keynote, just a few moments ago, Matz the creator of Ruby was talking about how like, Oh, Rails is really suitable for this, this one person team, right? Small, small team. And, uh, he was like, you're not Google. So like, don't worry about, right. Can you scale to that level? Yeah. Um, and, and I wonder like when you talk about medium size or medium scale, like what are, what are we talking? [00:01:49] David: I think probably under 200 developers, I would say. because when I left Stitch Fix, it was closing in on that number of developers. And so it becomes, you know, hard to... You can kind of know who everybody is, or at least the names sound familiar of everybody. But beyond that, it's just, it's just really hard. But a lot of it was like, I don't have experience at like a thousand developer company. I have no idea what that's like, but I definitely know that Rails can work for like... 200 ish people how you can make it work basically. yeah. [00:02:21] Jeremy: The decision to use Rails, I'm assuming that was made before you joined? [00:02:26] David: Yeah, the, um, the CTO of Stitch Fix, he had come in to clean up a mess made by contractors, as often happens. They had used Django, which is like the Python version of Rails. And he, the CTO, he was more familiar with Rails. So the first two developers he hired, also familiar with Rails. There wasn't a lot to maintain with the Django app, so they were like, let's just start fresh, fresh with Rails. yeah, but it's funny because a lot of the code in that Rails app was, like, transliterated from Python. So you could, it would, it looked like the strangest Ruby code in the world because it was basically, there was no test. So they were like, let's just write the Ruby version of this Python just so we know it works. but obviously that didn't, didn't last forever, so. [00:03:07] Jeremy: So, so what's an example of a, of a tell? Where you're looking at the code and you're like, oh, this is clearly, it came from Python. [00:03:15] David: You'd see like, very, very explicit, right? Like Python, there's a lot of like single line things. very like, this sounds like a dig, but it's very simple looking code. Like, like I don't know Python, but I was able to change this Django app. And I had to, I could look at it and you can figure out immediately how it works. Cause there's. Not much to it. There's nothing fancy. So, like, this, this Ruby code, there was nothing fancy. You'd be like, well, maybe they should have memoized that, or maybe they should have taken that into another class, or you could have done this with a hash or something like that. So there was, like, none of that. It was just, like, really basic, plain code like you would see in any beginning programming language kind of thing. Which is at least nice. You can understand it. but you probably wouldn't have written it that way at first in Ruby. Thoughts on Go [00:04:05] Jeremy: Yeah, that's, that's interesting because, uh, people sometimes talk about the Go programming language and how it looks, I don't know if simple is the right word, but it's something where you look at the code and even if you don't necessarily understand Go, it's relatively straightforward. Yeah. I wonder what your thoughts are on that being a strength versus that being, like, [00:04:25] David: Yeah, so at Stitch Fix at one point we had a pro, we were moving off of Heroku and we were going to, basically build a deployment platform using ECS on AWS. And so the deployment platform was a Rails app and we built a command line tool using Ruby. And it was fine, but it was a very complicated command line tool and it was very slow. And so one of the developers was like, I'm going to rewrite it in Go. I was like, ugh, you know, because I just was not a big fan. So he rewrote it in Go. It was a bazillion times faster. And then I was like, okay, I'm going to add, I'll add a feature to it. It was extremely easy. Like, it's just like what you said. I looked at it, like, I don't know anything about Go. I know what is happening here. I can copy and paste this and change things and make it work for what I want to do. And it did work. And it was, it was pretty easy. so there's that, I mean, aesthetically it's pretty ugly and it's, I, I. I can't really defend that as a real reason to not use it, but it is kind of gross. I did do Go, I did a small project in Go after Stitch Fix, and there's this vibe in Go about like, don't create abstractions. I don't know where I got that from, but every Go I look at, I'm like we should make an abstraction for this, but it's just not the vibe. They just don't like doing that. They like it all written out. And I see the value because you can look at the code and know what it does and you don't have to chase abstractions anywhere. But. I felt like I was copying and pasting a lot of, a lot of things. Um, so I don't know. I mean, the, the team at Stitch Fix that did this like command line app in go, they're the platform team. And so their job isn't to write like web apps all day, every day. There's kind of in and out of all kinds of things. They have to try to figure out something that they don't understand quickly to debug a problem. And so I can see the value of something like go if that's your job, right? You want to go in and see what the issue is. Figure it out and be done and you're not going to necessarily develop deep expertise and whatever that thing is that you're kind of jumping into. Day to day though, I don't know. I think it would make me kind of sad. (laughs) [00:06:18] Jeremy: So, so when you say it would make you kind of sad, I mean, what, what about it? Is it, I mean, you mentioned that there's a lot of copy and pasting, so maybe there's code duplication, but are there specific things where you're like, oh, I just don't? [00:06:31] David: Yeah, so I had done a lot of Java in my past life and it felt very much like that. Where like, like the Go library for making an HTTP call for like, I want to call some web service. It's got every feature you could ever want. Everything is tweakable. You can really, you can see why it's designed that way. To dial in some performance issue or solve some really esoteric thing. It's there. But the problem is if you just want to get an JSON, it's just like huge production. And I felt like that's all I really want to do and it's just not making it very easy. And it just felt very, very cumbersome. I think that having to declare types also is a little bit of a weird mindset because, I mean, I like to make types in Ruby, I like to make classes, but I also like to just use hashes and stuff to figure it out. And then maybe I'll make a class if I figure it out, but Go, you can't. You have to have a class, you have to have a type, you have to think all that ahead of time, and it just, I'm not used to working that way, so it felt, I mean, I guess I could get used to it, but I just didn't warm up to that sort of style of working, so it just felt like I was just kind of fighting with the vibe of the language, kind of. Yeah, [00:07:40] Jeremy: so it's more of the vibe or the feel where you're writing it and you're like this seems a little too... Explicit. I feel like I have to be too verbose. It just doesn't feel natural for me to write this. [00:07:53] David: Right, it's not optimized for what in my mind is the obvious case. And maybe that's not the obvious case for the people that write Go programs. But for me, like, I just want to like get this endpoint and get the JSON back as a map. Not any easier than any other case, right? Whereas like in Ruby, right? And you can, I think if you include net HTTP, you can just type get. And it will just return whatever that is. Like, that's amazing. It's optimized for what I think is a very common use case. So it makes me feel really productive. It makes me feel pretty good. And if that doesn't work out long term, I can always use something more complicated. But I'm not required to dig into the NetHttp library just to do what in my mind is something very simple. [00:08:37] Jeremy: Yeah, I think that's something I've noticed myself in working with Ruby. I mean, you have the standard library that's very... Comprehensive and the API surface is such that, like you said there, when you're trying to do common tasks, a lot of times they have a call you make and it kind of does the thing you expected or hoped for. [00:08:56] David: Yeah, yeah. It's kind of, I mean, it's that whole optimized for programmer happiness thing. Like it does. That is the vibe of Ruby and it seems like that is still the way things are. And, you know, I, I suppose if I had a different mindset, I mean, because I work with developers who did not like using Ruby or Rails. They loved using Go or Java. And I, I guess there's probably some psychological analysis we could do about their background and history and mindset that makes that make sense. But, to me, I don't know. It's, it's nice when it's pleasant. And Ruby seems pleasant. (laughs) Choosing Technology [00:09:27] Jeremy: as a... Software Architect, or as a CTO, when, when you're choosing technology, what are some of the things you look at in terms of, you know? [00:09:38] David: Yeah, I mean, I think, like, it's a weird criteria, but I think what is something that the team is capable of executing with? Because, like, most, right, most programming languages all kind of do the same thing. Like, you can kind of get most stuff done in most common popular programming languages. So, it's probably not... It's not true that if you pick the wrong language, you can't build the app. Like, that's probably not really the case. At least for like a web app or something. so it's more like, what is the team that's here to do it? What are they comfortable and capable of doing? I worked on a project with... It was a mix of like junior engineers who knew JavaScript, and then some senior engineers from Google. And for whatever reason someone had chosen a Rails app and none of them were comfortable or really yet competent with doing Ruby on Rails and they just all hated it and like it didn't work very well. Um, and so even though, yes, Rails is a good choice for doing stuff for that team at that moment. Not a good choice. Right. So I think you have to go in and like, what, what are we going to be able to execute on so that when the business wants us to do something, we just do it. And we don't complain and we don't say, Oh, well we can't because this technology that we chose, blah, blah, blah. Like you don't ever want to say that if possible. So I think that's. That's kind of the, the top thing. I think second would be how widely supported is it? Like you don't want to be the cutting edge user that's finding all the bugs in something really. Like you want to use something that's stable. Postgres, MySQL, like those work, those are fine. The bugs have been sorted out for most common use cases. Some super fancy edge database, I don't know if I'd want to be doing, doing that you know? Choosing cloud services [00:11:15] Jeremy: How do you feel about the cloud specific services and databases? Like are you comfortable saying like, oh, I'm going to use... Google Cloud, BigQuery. Yeah. [00:11:27] David: That sort of thing. I think it would kind of fall under the same criteria that I was just, just saying like, so with AWS it's interesting 'cause when we moved from Heroku to AWS by EC2 RDS, their database thing, uh, S3, those have been around for years, probably those are gonna work, but they always introduce new things. Like we, we use RabbitMQ and AWS came out with. Some, I forget what it was, it was a queuing service similar to Rabbit. We were like, Oh, maybe we should switch to that. But it was clear that they weren't really ready to support it. So. Yeah, so we didn't, we didn't switch to that. So I, you gotta try to read the tea leaves of the provider to see are they committed to, to supporting this thing or is this there to get some enterprise client to move into the cloud. And then the idea is to move off of that transitional thing into what they do support. And it's hard to get a clear answer from them too. So it takes a little bit of research to figure out, Are they going to support this or not? Because that's what you don't want. To move everything into some very proprietary cloud system and have them sunset it and say, Oh yeah, now you've got to switch again. Uh, that kind of sucks. So, it's a little trickier. [00:12:41] Jeremy: And what kind of questions or research do you do? Is it purely a function of this thing has existed for X number of years so I feel okay? [00:12:52] David: I mean, it's kind of similar to looking at like some gem you're going to add to your project, right? So you'll, you'll look at how often does it change? Is it being updated? Uh, what is the documentation? Does it look like someone really cared about the documentation? Does the documentation look updated? Are there issues with it that are being addressed or, or not? Um, so those are good signals. I think, talking to other practitioners too can be good. Like if you've got someone who's experienced. You can say, hey, do you know anybody back channeling through, like, everybody knows somebody that works at AWS, you can probably try to get something there. at Stitch Fix, we had an enterprise support contract, and so your account manager will sometimes give you good information if you ask. Again, it's a, they're not going to come out and say, don't use this product that we have, but they might communicate that in a subtle way. So you have to triangulate from all these sources to try to. to try to figure out what, what you want to do. [00:13:50] Jeremy: Yeah, it kind of makes me wish that there was a, a site like, maybe not quite like, can I use, right? Can I use, you can see like, oh, can I use this in my browser? Is there, uh, like an AWS or a Google Cloud? Can I trust this? Can I trust this? Yeah. Is this, is this solid or not? [00:14:04] David: Right, totally. It's like, there's that, that site where you, it has all the Apple products and it says whether or not you should buy it because one may or may not be coming out or they may be getting rid of it. Like, yeah, that would... For cloud services, that would be, that would be nice. [00:14:16] Jeremy: Yeah, yeah. That's like the Mac Buyer's Guide. And then we, we need the, uh, the technology. Yeah. Maybe not buyers. Cloud Provider Buyer's Guide, yeah. I guess we are buyers. [00:14:25] David: Yeah, yeah, totally, totally. [00:14:27] Jeremy: it's interesting that you, you mentioned how you want to see that, okay, this thing is mature. I think it's going to stick around because, I, interviewed, someone who worked on, I believe it was the CloudWatch team. Okay. Daniel Vassalo, yeah. so he left AWS, uh, after I think about 10 years, and then he wrote a book called, uh, The Good Parts of AWS. Oh! And, if you read his book, most of the services he says to use are the ones that are, like, old. Yeah. He's, he's basically saying, like, S3, you know you're good. Yeah. Right? but then all these, if you look at the AWS webpage, they have who knows, I don't know how many hundreds of services. Yeah. He's, he's kind of like I worked there and I would not use, you know, all these new services. 'cause I myself, I don't trust [00:15:14] David: it yet. Right. And so, and they're working there? Yeah, they're working there. Yeah. No. One of the VPs at Stitch Fix had worked on Google Cloud and so when we were doing this transition from Heroku, he was like, we are not using Google Cloud. I was like, really? He's like AWS is far ahead of the game. Do not use Google Cloud. I was like, all right, I don't need any more info. You work there. You said don't. I'm gonna believe you. So [00:15:36] Jeremy: what, what was his did he have like a core point? [00:15:39] David: Um, so he never really had anything bad to say about Google per se. Like I think he enjoyed his time there and I think he thought highly of who he worked with and what he worked on and that sort of thing. But his, where he was coming from was like AWS was so far ahead. of Google on anything that we would use, he was like, there's, there's really no advantage to, to doing it. AWS is a known quantity, right? it's probably still the case. It's like, you know, you've heard the nobody ever got fired for using IBM or using Microsoft or whatever the thing is. Like, I think that's, that was kind of the vibe. And he was like, moving all of our infrastructure right before we're going to go public. This is a serious business. We should just use something that we know will work. And he was like, I know this will work. I'm not confident about. Google, uh, for our use case. So we shouldn't, we shouldn't risk it. So I was like, okay, I trust you because I didn't know anything about any of that stuff at the time. I knew Heroku and that was it. So, yeah. [00:16:34] Jeremy: I don't know if it's good or bad, but like you said, AWS seems to be the default choice. Yeah. And I mean, there's people who use Azure. I assume it's mostly primarily Microsoft. Yeah. And then there's Google Cloud. It's not really clear why you would pick it, unless there was a specific service or something that only they had. [00:16:55] David: Yeah, yeah. Or you're invested in Google, you know, you want to keep everything there. I mean, I don't know. I haven't really been at that level to make that kind of decision, and I would probably choose AWS for the reasons discussed, but, yeah. Moving off Heroku [00:17:10] Jeremy: And then, so at Stitch Fix, you said you moved off of Heroku [00:17:16] David: yeah. Yeah, so we were heavy into Heroku. I think that we were told that at one point we had the biggest Heroku Postgres database on their platform. Not a good place to be, right? You never want to be the biggest customer person, usually. but the problem we were facing was essentially we were going to go public. And to do that, you're under all the scrutiny. about many things, including the IT systems and the security around there. So, like, by default, a Postgres, a Heroku Postgres database is, like, on the internet. It's only secured by the password. all their services are on the internet. So, not, not ideal. they were developing their private cloud service at that time. And so that would have given us, in theory, on paper, it would have solved all of our problems. And we liked Heroku and we liked the developer experience. It was great. but... Heroku private spaces, it was still early. There's a lot of limitations that when they explained why those limitations, they were reasonable. And if we had. started from scratch on Heroku Private Spaces. It probably would have worked great, but we hadn't. So we just couldn't make it work. So we were like, okay, we're going to have to move to AWS so that everything can be basically off the internet. Like our public website needs to be on the internet and that's kind of it. So we need to, so that's basically was the, was the impetus for that. but it's too bad because I love Heroku. It was great. I mean, they were, they were a great partner. They were great. I think if Stitch Fix had started life a year later, Private Spaces. Now it's, it's, it's way different than it was then. Cause it's been, it's a mature product now, so we could have easily done that, but you know, the timing didn't work out, unfortunately. [00:18:50] Jeremy: And that was a compliance thing to, [00:18:53] David: Yeah. And compliance is weird cause they don't tell you what to do, but they give you some parameters that you need to meet. And so one of them is like how you control access. So, so going public, the compliance is around the financial data and. Ensuring that the financial data is accurate. So a lot of the systems at Stichfix were storing the financial data. We, you know, the warehouse management system was custom made. Uh, all the credit card processing was all done, like it was all in some databases that we had running in Heroku. And so those needed to be subject to stricter security than we could achieve with just a single password that we just had to remember to rotate when someone like left the team. So that was, you know, the kind of, the kind of impetus for, for all of that. [00:19:35] Jeremy: when you were using Heroku, Salesforce would have already owned it then. Did you, did you get any sense that you weren't really sure about the future of the platform while you're on it or, [00:19:45] David: At that time, no, it seemed like they were still innovating. So like, Heroku has a Redis product now. They didn't at the time we wish that they did. They told us they're working on it, but it wasn't ready. We didn't like using the third parties. Kafka was not a thing. We very much were interested in that. We would have totally used it if it was there. So they were still. Like doing bigger innovations then, then it seems like they are now. I don't know. It's weird. Like they're still there. They still make money, I assume for Salesforce. So it doesn't feel like they're going away, but they're not innovating at the pace that they were kind of back in the day. [00:20:20] Jeremy: it used to feel like when somebody's asking, I want to host a Rails app. Then you would say like, well, use Heroku because it's basically the easiest to get started. It's a known quantity and it's, it's expensive, but, it seemed for, for most people, it was worth it. and then now if I talk to people, it's like. Not what people suggest anymore. [00:20:40] David: Yeah, because there's, there's actual competitors. It's crazy to me that there was no competitors for years, and now there's like, Render and Fly. io seem to be the two popular alternatives. Um, I doubt they're any cheaper, honestly, but... You get a sense, right, that they're still innovating, still building those platforms, and they can build with, you know, all of the knowledge of what has come before them, and do things differently that might, that might help. So, I still use Heroku for personal things just because I know it, and I, you know, sometimes you don't feel like learning a new thing when you just want to get something done, but, yeah, I, I don't know if we were starting again, I don't know, maybe I'd look into those things. They, they seem like they're getting pretty mature and. Heroku's resting on its laurels, still. [00:21:26] Jeremy: I guess I never quite the mindset, right? Where you You have a platform that's doing really well and people really like it and you acquire it and then it just It seems like you would want to keep it rolling, right? (laughs) [00:21:38] David: Yeah, it's, it is wild, I mean, I guess... Why did you, what was Salesforce thinking they were going to get? Uh, who knows maybe the person at Salesforce that really wanted to purchase it isn't there. And so no one at Salesforce cares about it. I mean, there's all these weird company politics that like, who knows what's going on and you could speculate. all day. What's interesting is like, there's definitely some people in the Ruby community who work there and still are working there. And that's like a little bit of a canary for me. I'm like, all right, well, if that person's still working there, that person seems like they're on the level and, and, and, and seems pretty good. They're still working there. It, it's gotta be still a cool place to be or still doing something, something good. But, yeah, I don't know. I would, I would love to know what was going on in all the Salesforce meetings about acquiring that, how to manage it. What are their plans for it? I would love to know that stuff. [00:22:29] Jeremy: maybe you had some experience with this at Stitch Fix But I've heard with Heroku some of their support staff at least in the past they would, to some extent, actually help you troubleshoot, like, what's going on with your app. Like, if your app is, like, using a whole bunch of memory, and you're out of memory, um, they would actually kind of look into that, for you, which is interesting, because it's like, that's almost like a services thing than it is just a platform. [00:22:50] David: Yeah. I mean, they, their support, you would get, you would get escalated to like an engineer sometimes, like who worked on that stuff and they would help figure out what the problem was. Like you got the sense that everybody there really wanted the platform to be good and that they were all sort of motivated to make sure that everybody. You know, did well and used the platform. And they also were good at, like a thing that trips everybody up about Heroku is that your app restarts every day. And if you don't know anything about anything, you might think that is stupid. Why, why would I want that? That's annoying. And I definitely went through that and I complained to them a lot. And I'm like, if you only could not restart. And they very patiently and politely explained to me why that it needed to do that, they weren't going to remove that, and how to think about my app given that reality, right? Which is great because like, what company does that, right? From the engineers that are working on it, like No, nobody does that. So, yeah, no, I haven't escalated anything to support at Heroku in quite some time, so I don't know if it's still like that. I hope it is, but I'm not really, not really sure. Building a platform team [00:23:55] Jeremy: Yeah, that, uh, that reminds me a little bit of, I think it's Rackspace? There's, there's, like, another hosting provider that was pretty popular before, and they... Used to be famous for that type of support, where like your, your app's having issues and somebody's actually, uh, SSHing into your box and trying to figure out like, okay, what's going on? which if, if that's happening, then I, I can totally see where the, the price is justified. But if the support is kind of like dropping off to where it's just, they don't do that kind of thing, then yeah, I can see why it's not so much of a, yeah, [00:24:27] David: We used to think of Heroku as like they were the platform team before we had our own platform team and they, they acted like it, which was great. [00:24:35] Jeremy: Yeah, I don't have, um, experience with, render, but I, I, I did, talk to someone from there, and it does seem like they're, they're trying to fill that role, um, so, yeah, hopefully, they and, and other companies, I guess like Vercel and things like that, um, they're, they're all trying to fill that space, [00:24:55] David: Yeah, cause, cause building our own internal platform, I mean it was the right thing to do, but it's, it's a, you can't just, you have to have a team on it, it's complicated, getting all the stuff in AWS to work the way you want it to work, to have it be kind of like Heroku, like it's not trivial. if I'm a one person company, I don't want to be messing around with that particularly. I want to just have it, you know, push it up and have it go and I'm willing to pay for that. So it seems logical that there would be competitors in that space. I'm glad there are. Hopefully that'll light a fire under, under everybody. [00:25:26] Jeremy: so in your case, it sounds like you moved to having your own platform team and stuff like that, uh, partly because of the compliance thing where you're like, we need our, we need to be isolated from the internet. We're going to go to AWS. If you didn't have that requirement, do you still think like that would have been the time to, to have your own platform team and manage that all yourself? [00:25:46] David: I don't know. We, we were thinking an issue that we were running into when we got bigger, um, was that, I mean, Heroku, it, It's obviously not as flexible as AWS, but it is still very flexible. And so we had a lot of internal documentation about this is how you use Heroku to do X, Y, and Z. This is how you set up a Stitch Fix app for Heroku. Like there was just the way that we wanted it to be used to sort of. Just make it all manageable. And so we were considering having a team spun up to sort of add some tooling around that to sort of make that a little bit easier for everybody. So I think there may have been something around there. I don't know if it would have been called a platform team. Maybe we call, we thought about calling it like developer happiness or because you got developer experience or something. We, we probably would have had something there, but. I do wonder how easy it would have been to fund that team with developers if we hadn't had these sort of business constraints around there. yeah, um, I don't know. You get to a certain size, you need some kind of manageability and consistency no matter what you're using underneath. So you've got to have, somebody has to own it to make sure that it's, that it's happening. [00:26:50] Jeremy: So even at your, your architect level, you still think it would have been a challenge to, to. Come to the executive team and go like, I need funding to build this team. [00:27:00] David: You know, certainly it's a challenge because everybody, you know, right? Nobody wants to put developers in anything, right? There are, there are a commodity and I mean, that is kind of the job of like, you know, the staff engineer or the architect at a company is you don't have, you don't have the power to put anybody on anything you, you have the power to Schedule a meeting with a VP or the CTO and they will listen to you. And that's basically, you've got to use that power to convince them of what you want done. And they're all reasonable people, but they're balancing 20 other priorities. So it would, I would have had to, it would have been a harder case to make that, Hey, I want to take three engineers. And have them write tooling to make Heroku easier to use. What? Heroku is not easy to use. Why aren't, you know, so you really, I would, it would be a little bit more of a stretch to walk them through it. I think a case could be made, but, definitely would take some more, more convincing than, than what was needed in our case. [00:27:53] Jeremy: Yeah. And I guess if you're able to contrast that with, you were saying, Oh, I need three people to help me make Heroku easier. Your actual platform team on AWS, I imagine was much larger, right? [00:28:03] David: Initially it was, there was, it was three people did the initial move over. And so by the time we went public, we'd been on this new system for, I don't know, six to nine months. I can't remember exactly. And so at that time the platform team was four or five people, and I, I mean, so percentage wise, right, the engineering team was maybe almost 200, 150, 200. So percentage wise, maybe a little small, I don't know. but it kind of gets back to the power of like the rails and the one person framework. Like everything we did was very much the same And so the Rails app that managed the deployment was very simple. The, the command line app, even the Go one with all of its verbosity was very, very simple. so it was pretty easy for that small team to manage. but, Yeah, so it was sort of like for redundancy, we probably needed more than three or four people because you know, somebody goes out sick or takes a vacation. That's a significant part of the team. But in terms of like just managing the complexity and building it and maintaining it, like it worked pretty well with, you know, four or five people. Where Rails fits in vs other technology [00:29:09] Jeremy: So during the Keynote today, they were talking about how companies like GitHub and Shopify and so on, they're, they're using Rails and they're, they're successful and they're fairly large. but I think the thing that was sort of unsaid was the fact that. These companies, while they use Rails, they use a lot of other, technology as well. And, and, and kind of increasing amounts as well. So, I wonder from your perspective, either from your experience at StitchFix or maybe going forward, what is the role that, that Ruby and Rails plays? Like, where does it make sense for that to be used versus like, Okay, we need to go and build something in Java or, you know, or Go, that sort of thing? [00:29:51] David: right. I mean, I think for like your standard database backed web app, it's obviously great. especially if your sort of mindset bought into server side rendering, it's going to be great at that. so like internal tools, like the customer service dashboard or... You know, something for like somebody who works at a company to use. Like, it's really great because you can go super fast. You're not going to be under a lot of performance constraints. So you kind of don't even have to think about it. Don't even have to solve it. You can, but you don't have to, where it wouldn't work, I guess, you know, if you have really strict performance. Requirements, you know, like a, a Go version of some API server is going to use like percentages of what, of what Rails would use. If that's meaningful, if what you're spending on memory or compute is, is meaningful, then, then yeah. That, that becomes worthy of consideration. I guess if you're, you know, if you're making a mobile app, you probably need to make a mobile app and use those platforms. I mean, I guess you can wrap a Rails app sort of, but you're still making, you still need to make a mobile app, that does something. yeah. And then, you know, interestingly, the data science part of Stitch Fix was not part of the engineering team. They were kind of a separate org. I think Ruby and Rails was probably the only thing they didn't use over there. Like all the ML stuff, everything is either Java or Scala or Python. They use all that stuff. And so, yeah, if you want to do AI and ML with Ruby, you, it's, it's hard cause there's just not a lot there. You really probably should use Python. It'll make your life easier. so yeah, those would be some of the considerations, I guess. [00:31:31] Jeremy: Yeah, so I guess in the case of, ML, Python, certainly, just because of the, the ecosystem, for maybe making a command line application, maybe Go, um, Go or Rust, perhaps, [00:31:44] David: Right. Cause you just get a single binary. Like the problem, I mean, I wrote this book on Ruby command line apps and the biggest problem is like, how do I get the Ruby VM to be anywhere so that it can then run my like awesome scripts? Like that's kind of a huge pain. (laughs) So [00:31:59] Jeremy: and then you said, like, if it's Very performance sensitive, which I am kind of curious in, in your experience with the companies you've worked at, when you're taking on a project like that, do you know up front where you're like, Oh, the CPU and memory usage is going to be a problem, or is it's like you build it and you're like, Oh, this isn't working. So now I know. [00:32:18] David: yeah, I mean, I, I don't have a ton of great experience there at Stitch Fix. The biggest expense the company had was the inventory. So like the, the cost of AWS was just de minimis compared to all that. So nobody ever came and said, Hey, you've got to like really save costs on, on that stuff. Cause it just didn't really matter. at the, the mental health startup I was at, it was too early. But again, the labor costs were just far, far exceeded the amount of money I was spending on, on, um, you know, compute and infrastructure and stuff like that. So, Not knowing anything, I would probably just sort of wait and see if it's a problem. But I suppose you always take into account, like, what am I actually building? And like, what does this business have to scale to, to make it worthwhile? And therefore you can kind of do a little bit of planning ahead there. But, I dunno, I think it would kind of have to depend. [00:33:07] Jeremy: There's a sort of, I guess you could call it a meme, where people say like, Oh, it's, it's not, it's not Rails that's slow, it's the, the database that's slow. And, uh, I wonder, is that, is that accurate in your experience, or, [00:33:20] David: I mean, most of the stuff that we had that was slow was the database, because like, it's really easy to write a crappy query in Rails if you're not, if you're not careful, and then it's really easy to design a database that doesn't have any indexes if you're not careful. Like, you, you kind of need to know that, But of course, those are easy to fix too, because you just add the index, especially if it's before the database gets too big where we're adding indexes is problematic. But, I think those are just easy performance mistakes to make. Uh, especially with Rails because you're not, I mean, a lot of the Rails developers at Citrix did not know SQL at all. I mean, they had to learn it eventually, but they didn't know it at all. So they're not even knowing that what they're writing could possibly be problematic. It's just, you're writing it the Rails way and it just kind of works. And at a small scale, it does. And it doesn't matter until, until one day it does. [00:34:06] Jeremy: And then in, in the context of, let's say, using ActiveRecord and instantiating the objects, or, uh, the time it takes to render templates, that kinds of things, to, at least in your experience, that wasn't such of an issue. [00:34:20] David: No, and it was always, I mean, whenever we looked at why something was slow, it was always the database and like, you know, you're iterating over some active records and then, and then, you know, you're going into there and you're just following this object graph. I've got a lot of the, a lot of the software at Stitch Fix was like internal stuff and it was visualizing complicated data out of the database. And so if you didn't think about it, you would just start dereferencing and following those relationships and you have this just massive view and like the HTML is fine. It's just that to render this div, you're. Digging into some active record super deep. and so, you know, that was usually the, the, the problems that we would see and they're usually easy enough to fix by making an index or. Sometimes you do some caching or something like that. and that solved most of the, most of the issues [00:35:09] Jeremy: The different ways people learn [00:35:09] Jeremy: so you're also the author of the book, Sustainable Web Development with Ruby on Rails. And when you talk to people about like how they learn things, a lot of them are going on YouTube, they're going on, uh, you know, looking for blogs and things like that. And so as an author, what do you think the role is of, of books now? Yeah, [00:35:29] David: I have thought about this a lot, because I, when I first got started, I'm pretty old, so books were all you had, really. Um, so they seem very normal and natural to me, but... does someone want to sit down and read a 400 page technical book? I don't know. so Dave Thomas who runs Pragmatic Bookshelf, he was on a podcast and was asked the same question and basically his answer, which is my answer, is like a long form book is where you can really lay out your thinking, really clarify what you mean, really take the time to develop sometimes nuanced, examples or nuanced takes on something that are Pretty hard to do in a short form video or in a blog post. Because the expectation is, you know, someone sends you an hour long YouTube video, you're probably not going to watch that. Two minute YouTube video is sure, but you can't, you can't get into so much, kind of nuanced detail. And so I thought that was, was right. And that was kind of my motivation for writing. I've got some thoughts. They're too detailed. It's, it's too much set up for a blog post. There's too much of a nuanced element to like, really get across. So I need to like, write more. And that means that someone's going to have to read more to kind of get to it. But hopefully it'll be, it'll be valuable. one of the sessions that we're doing later today is Ruby content creators, where it's going to be me and Noel Rappin and Dave Thomas representing the old school dudes that write books and probably a bunch of other people that do, you know, podcasts videos. It'd be interesting to see, I really want to know how do people learn stuff? Because if no one reads books to learn things, then there's not a lot of point in doing it. But if there is value, then, you know. It should be good and should be accessible to people. So, that's why I do it. But I definitely recognize maybe I'm too old and, uh, I'm not hip with the kids or, or whatever, whatever the case is. I don't know. [00:37:20] Jeremy: it's tricky because, I think it depends on where you are in the process of learning that thing. Because, let's say, you know a fair amount about the technology already. And you look at a book, in a lot of cases it's, it's sort of like taking you from nothing to something. And so you're like, well, maybe half of this isn't relevant to me, but then if I don't read it, then I'm probably missing a lot still. And so you're in this weird in be in between zone. Another thing is that a lot of times when people are trying to learn something, they have a specific problem. And, um, I guess with, with books, it's, you kind of don't know for sure if the thing you're looking for is going to be in the book. [00:38:13] David: I mean, so my, so my book, I would not say as a beginner, it's not a book to learn how to do Rails. It's like you already kind of know Rails and you want to like learn some comprehensive practices. That's what my book is for. And so sometimes people will ask me, I don't know Rails, should I get your book? And I'm like, no, you should not. but then you have the opposite thing where like the agile web development with Rails is like the beginner version. And some people are like, Oh, it's being updated for Rails 7. Should I get it? I'm like, probably not because How to go from zero to rails hasn't changed a lot in years. There's not that much that's going to be new. but, how do you know that, right? Hopefully the Table of Contents tells you. I mean, the first book I wrote with Pragmatic, they basically were like, The Table of Contents is the only thing the reader, potential reader is going to have to have any idea what's in the book. So, You need to write the table of contents with that in mind, which may not be how you'd write the subsections of a book, but since you know that it's going to serve these dual purposes of organizing the book, but also being promotional material that people can read, you've got to keep that in mind, because otherwise, how does anybody, like you said, how does anybody know what's, what's going to be in there? And they're not cheap, I mean, these books are 50 bucks sometimes, and That's a lot of money for people in the U. S. People outside the U. S. That's a ton of money. So you want to make sure that they know what they're getting and don't feel ripped off. [00:39:33] Jeremy: Yeah, I think the other challenge is, at least what I've heard, is that... When people see a video course, for whatever reason, they, they set, like, a higher value to it. They go, like, oh, this video course is, 200 dollars and it's, like, seems like a lot of money, but for some people it's, like, okay, I can do that. But then if you say, like, oh, this, this book I've been researching for five years, uh, I want to sell it for a hundred bucks, people are going to be, like no. No way., [00:40:00] David: Yeah. Right. A hundred bucks for a book. There's no way. That's a, that's a lot. Yeah. I mean, producing video, I've thought about doing video content, but it seems so labor intensive. Um, and it's kind of like, It's sort of like a performance. Like I was mentioning before we started that I used to play in bands and like, there's a lot to go into making an even mediocre performance. And so I feel like, you know, video content is the same way. So I get that it like, it does cost more to produce, but, are you getting more information out of it? I, that, I don't know, like maybe not, but who knows? I mean, people learn things in different ways. So, [00:40:35] Jeremy: It's just like this perception thing, I think. And, uh, I'm not sure why that is. Um, [00:40:40] David: Yeah, maybe it's newer, right? Maybe books feel older so they're easier to make and video seems newer. I mean, I don't know. I would love to talk to engineers who are like... young out of college, a few years into their career to see what their perception of this stuff is. Cause I mean, there was no, I mean, like I said, I read books cause that's all there was. There was no, no videos. You, you go to a conference and you read a book and that was, that was all you had. so I get it. It seems a whole video. It's fancier. It's newer. yeah, I don't know. I would love to hear a wide variety of takes on it to see what's actually the, the future, you know? [00:41:15] Jeremy: sure, yeah. I mean, I think it probably can't just be one or the other, right? Like, I think there are... Benefits of each way. Like, if you have the book, you can read it at your own pace without having to, like, scroll through the video, and you can easily copy and paste the, the code segments, [00:41:35] David: Search it. Go back and forth. [00:41:36] Jeremy: yeah, search it. So, I think there's a place for it, but yeah, I think it would be very interesting, like you said, to, to see, like, how are people learning, [00:41:45] David: Right. Right. Yeah. Well, it's the same with blogs and podcasts. Like I, a lot of podcasters I think used to be bloggers and they realized that like they can get out what they need by doing a podcast. And it's way easier because it's more conversational. You don't have to do a bunch of research. You don't have to do a bunch of editing. As long as you're semi coherent, you can just have a conversation with somebody and sort of get at some sort of thing that you want to talk about or have an opinion about. And. So you, you, you see a lot more podcasts and a lot less blogs out there because of that. So it's, that's kind of like the creators I think are kind of driving that a little bit. yeah. So I don't know. [00:42:22] Jeremy: Yeah, I mean, I can, I can say for myself, the thing about podcasts is that it's something that I can listen to while I'm doing something else. And so you sort of passively can hopefully pick something up out of that conversation, but... Like, I think it's maybe not so good at the details, right? Like, if you're talking code, you can talk about it over voice, but can you really visualize it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think if you sit down and you try to implement something somebody talked about, you're gonna be like, I don't know what's happening. [00:42:51] David: Yeah. [00:42:52] Jeremy: So, uh, so, so I think there's like these, these different roles I think almost for so like maybe you know the podcast is for you to Maybe get some ideas or get some familiarity with a thing and then when you're ready to go deeper You can go look at a blog post or read a book I think video kind of straddles those two where sometimes video is good if you want to just see, the general concept of a thing, and have somebody explain it to you, maybe do some visuals. that's really good. but then it can also be kind of detailed, where, especially like the people who stream their process, right, you can see them, Oh, let's, let's build this thing together. You can ask me questions, you can see how I think. I think that can be really powerful. at the same time, like you said, it can be hard to say, like, you know, I look at some of the streams and it's like, oh, this is a three hour stream and like, well, I mean, I'm interested. I'm interested, but yeah, it's hard enough for me to sit through a, uh, a three hour movie, [00:43:52] David: Well, then that, and that gets into like, I mean, we're, you know, we're at a conference and they, they're doing something a little, like, there are conference talks at this conference, but there's also like. sort of less defined activities that aren't a conference talk. And I think that could be a reaction to some of this too. It's like I could watch a conference talk on, on video. How different is that going to be than being there in person? maybe it's not that different. Maybe, maybe I don't need to like travel across the country to go. Do something that I could see on video. So there's gotta be something here that, that, that meets that need that I can't meet any other way. So it's all these different, like, I would like to think that's how it is, right? All this media all is a part to play and it's all going to kind of continue and thrive and it's not going to be like, Oh, remember books? Like maybe, but hopefully not. Hopefully it's like, like what you're saying. Like it's all kind of serving different purposes that all kind of work together. Yeah. [00:44:43] Jeremy: I hope that's the case, because, um, I don't want to have to scroll through too many videos. [00:44:48] David: Yeah. The video's not for me. Large Language Models [00:44:50] Jeremy: I, I like, I actually do find it helpful, like, like I said, for the high level thing, or just to see someone's thought process, but it's like, if you want to know a thing, and you have a short amount of time, maybe not the best, um, of course, now you have all the large language model stuff where you like, you feed the video in like, Hey, tell, tell, tell me, uh, what this video is about and give me the code snippets and all that stuff. I don't know how well it works, but it seems [00:45:14] David: It's gotta get better. Cause you go to a support site and they're like, here's how to fix your problem, and it's a video. And I'm like, can you just tell me? But I'd never thought about asking the AI to just look at the video and tell me. So yeah, it's not bad. [00:45:25] Jeremy: I think, that's probably where we're going. So it's, uh, it's a little weird to think about, but, [00:45:29] David: yeah, yeah. I was just updating, uh, you know, like I said, I try to keep the book updated when new versions of Rails come out, so I'm getting ready to update it for Rails 7. 1 and in Amazon's, Kindle Direct Publishing as their sort of backend for where you, you know, publish like a Kindle book and stuff, and so they added a new question, was AI used in the production of this thing or not? And if you answer yes, they want you to say how much, And I don't know what they're gonna do with that exactly, but I thought it was pretty interesting, cause I would be very disappointed to pay 50 for a book that the AI wrote, right? So it's good that they're asking that? Yeah. [00:46:02] Jeremy: I think the problem Amazon is facing is where people wholesale have the AI write the book, and the person either doesn't review it at all, or maybe looks at a little, a little bit. And, I mean, the, the large language model stuff is very impressive, but If you have it generate a technical book for you, it's not going to be good. [00:46:22] David: yeah. And I guess, cause cause like Amazon, I mean, think about like Amazon scale, like they're not looking at the book at all. Like I, I can go click a button and have my book available and no person's going to look at it. they might scan it or something maybe with looking for bad words. I don't know, but there's no curation process there. So I could, yeah. I could see where they could have that, that kind of problem. And like you as the, as the buyer, you don't necessarily, if you want to book on something really esoteric, there are a lot of topics I wish there was a book on that there isn't. And as someone generally want to put it on Amazon, I could see a lot of people buying it, not realizing what they're getting and feeling ripped off when it was not good. [00:47:00] Jeremy: Yeah, I mean, I, I don't know, if it's an issue with the, the technical stuff. It probably is. But I, I know they've definitely had problems where, fiction, they have people just generating hundreds, thousands of books, submitting them all, just flooding it. [00:47:13] David: Seeing what happens. [00:47:14] Jeremy: And, um, I think that's probably... That's probably the main reason why they ask you, cause they want you to say like, uh, yeah, you said it wasn't. And so now we can remove your book. [00:47:24] David: right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. [00:47:26] Jeremy: I mean, it's, it's not quite the same, but it's similar to, I don't know what Stack Overflow's policy is now, but, when the large language model stuff started getting big, they had a lot of people answering the questions that were just. Pasting the question into the model [00:47:41] David: Which because they got it from [00:47:42] Jeremy: and then [00:47:43] David: The Got model got it from Stack Overflow. [00:47:45] Jeremy: and then pasting the answer into Stack Overflow and the person is not checking it. Right. So it's like, could be right, could not be right. Um, cause, cause to me, it's like, if, if you generate it, if you generate the answer and the answer is right, and you checked it, I'm okay with that. [00:48:00] David: Yeah. Yeah. [00:48:01] Jeremy: but if you're just like, I, I need some karma, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna answer these questions with, with this bot, I mean, then maybe [00:48:08] David: I could have done that. You're not adding anything. Yeah, yeah. [00:48:11] Jeremy: it's gonna be a weird, weird world, I think. [00:48:12] David: Yeah, no kidding. No kidding. [00:48:15] Jeremy: that's a, a good place to end it on, but is there anything else you want to mention, [00:48:19] David: No, I think we covered it all just yeah, you could find me online. I'm Davetron5000 on Ruby. social Mastodon, I occasionally post on Twitter, but not that much anymore. So Mastodon's a place to go. [00:48:31] Jeremy: David, thank you so much [00:48:32] David: All right. Well, thanks for having me.

In today's episode of the IC-DISC Show, we chat with Jerry Vaughn, founder and president of J Gault, a company revolutionizing business financing. Jerry explains how J Gault enables Main Street businesses to reap corporate credit opportunities by leveraging their EINs and NOT having to provide a personal guarantee. He shares insightful stories of entrepreneurs who, thanks to J Gault, secured lower interest rates and increased funding despite lacking revenue history or business plans. As Jerry describes, J Gault's approach prepares companies for economic uncertainty while ensuring they emerge stronger. Whether you're an entrepreneur looking to scale up or a small business owner pursuing growth, this discussion with Jerry Vaughn illuminates the transformative potential available by accessing business credit innovatively.   SHOW HIGHLIGHTS The episode features a conversation with Jerry Vaughn, the founder and president of J Galt, a company revolutionizing business financing. Jerry explains how Main Street companies can leverage their Employer Identification Numbers (EINs) to build corporate credit and access competitive rates. Real-life examples, such as Randy, a contractor from North Carolina, and a real estate investor from Texas, demonstrate how J Galt has helped transform businesses by improving their funding. Jerry emphasizes that J Galt's approach is not just about securing funding, but also preparing businesses for unpredictable events and ensuring their resilience. One of the major benefits of J Gault's approach is allowing smaller companies to avoid personal guarantees when accessing corporate credit opportunities. The company offers a membership program that provides lifetime support, including cash flow management services, business valuation assistance, and exit strategy planning. There are rules for "fundability" that businesses need to adhere to, such as having a business bank account, a registered phone number, a website, and a corporate email address. Building company credit on the EIN number and avoiding personal guarantees is a secret to accessing cash flow, according to Jerry. Jerry mentions that the mission of J Gault goes beyond merely selling—it's about serving and educating entrepreneurs and small business owners. The episode emphasizes that just because a business is labeled small doesn't mean it has to stay that way. With the right financing strategies, businesses can scale and grow. LINKSShow Notes Be a Guest About IC-DISC Alliance About J.Galt Finance Suite GUEST Jerry VaughnAbout Jerry TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) David: Hi, this is David Spray and welcome to another episode of the IC-DISC show. I had a great guest on today, jerry Vaughn, who's the founder and president of J Gault, and for those of you who are big and Rand fans, you may recognize that name. It's inspired by the character John Gault from the book Atlas Shrug by Ayn Rand. So J Gault is a disruptor in the business financing world and basically they allow main street companies privately held, closely held, small to medium sized companies to get access to the same corporate credit opportunities that large public companies have. And one of the biggest benefits of this approach is it allows smaller companies to get rid of the personal guarantee. I know for many of my clients that's one of their big frustrations is they really don't want to be personally guaranteeing business credit, business debt. Oftentimes it's because their spouse isn't keen on using their house as collateral for a business loan. So it's a great episode. We talk about a variety of different things some stories about customers of theirs. They have a membership program and it's really a great service that I find to be really intriguing. So I hope you enjoy the episode as much as I did. Good morning, jerry. Welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today? Jerry: I'm doing fantastic, David. I appreciate you having me on today. David: Well, my pleasure. So where are you calling in from today? What part of the world are you in? Jerry: A big metropolis of Indianapolis, Indiana. David: Ah well, one of your suburbs, I think, has the most roundabouts of any city in the country, carmel. Jerry: Yes, Carmel. Carmel in California and Carmel in Indiana just like the candy you would eat. David: Sure, have you been through any of those famous Carmel roundabouts? Jerry: Actually, where I live, carmel Fisher's, nobleville it's the city sister city is a roundabout. Yes, I actually like them. At first I was like what is this? But actually it moves traffic and sufficient as long as the people in front of you know understand. David: Yeah, I actually heard a podcast with the mayor of Carmel, because something like Carmel accounts for more than 50% of all the roundabouts in the US. It's a crazy number. And he was talking about all the benefits and he said the only drawback. He said there's a few times during the day, like peak traffic times, where it's arguably a little less efficient. But he said the other 23 and a half hours a day it's far more efficient because you never have to wait for a stoplight. And he talked to me have you ever been driving in the middle of the night and you come up to a stoplight and there's no traffic within a mile any direction? But technically you're supposed to wait for the lights to turn. Jerry: That is correct technically. David: Technically correct, I find. If it's three o'clock in the morning, I ask myself have I had any drinks this evening? And if I have, then I'm going to wait for the lights to turn. If I hadn't had any drinks that night, then how much trouble can I get into? Jerry: That is exactly right. I do the same thing. I'm like, well, there's nobody anywhere, you sit there and it feels like it's been 10 minutes, probably been a couple. But I'm like, really, why am I sitting here to stoplight? David: I know so are you a native of Indiana? Jerry: I am. I was actually born in Hoopston, illinois, but we grew up in a western city in Indiana, so almost to the border. But I've grown up as a Hoosier most of my life, okay. David: Nice Bye, folks, and fun Bye. Get into your business. So the name of the company resonated with me immediately because there's a character in one of my all-time favorite books by the name of John Galt and there's a famous phrase from the book called who is John Galt? Now, is this just coincidence, this JGalt, or is there any connection? Jerry: Well, I'm glad that you brought that up because it doesn't stand for Jerry Galt, I can tell you that. So we couldn't use John Galt because it's obviously patent and has a huge following. But it is off the premise of the book Atlas Shrugged by Anne Rand. So who is John Galt? The whole story of the government takeover, small business and controls and regulations and all of that and that fish, you know book that was written by a Russian immigrant that understood communism, came over. She saw it in the 1940s and she said what is going on? I'm saying the same stuff right here. So she wrote that fictional book in the 50s, as you know. But it's kind of a big deal and it's coming out and there's a big following and people get it. But yeah, you're exactly right, it is John Galt. David: So it's probably actually not a bad filtering process, because I find that there's three types of people in the world. There's people who've read Atlas Shrugged and think it's one of the greatest artistic works of all time. There's folks who've read it and think she's the devil and it's the worst thing ever written. And then there's folks who've never heard of it. So I find that people tend to follow one of three camps. There's not many people that are like yeah, I think I read it, I think I vaguely remember something about it. So it's probably a good self-selection process, right? Because the people who read it and think it's the most evil book ever written probably aren't the mindset of your ideal customer. Jerry: I'm guessing it's pretty close right, but it's surprising on how many people know, even myself. As we name the company, you know your particular activation system in your head, just like when we buy a car. Right then, after we buy a car, you start driving around like man. Look at all the people that bought the car I have this is great following my lead. Now, they were already there. I see who is John Galt stickers on the back of bumpers and on the back of their windshield. I've just it blows me away. But you're exactly right. Most of the entrepreneurs, because we are working only with main street business owners. Okay, small and medium-sized companies, not the wall street companies. So those are the people we're serving and most of them all of us that own businesses and have done that get the challenges and the works and we're just trying to do the best we can to serve the communities and then build a profitable and a great company with our services or products. David: Sure no, I like it. So her book, the Fountainhead, I have a slight preference for, like I mean they're my two favorite books, you know fictional books ever written, for sure. But I have a slight preference for the Fountainhead but only because the individualistic aspect. I assume you've read the Fountainhead too yes the individualistic aspect of the Fountainhead just resonates a little more. There's a great line in there where work has to sell an architectural commission to a committee and the committee all wanted to make changes to it and his sponsors, like they're minor, go for it. As you, you know, recall, he like can't do it. But he had a great line in there where he was talking, I think, to his, his buddy, his Irish construction buddy, explaining why he didn't get it and he said you know, I've never sold a project to a committee and that really resonated because that's how I've always been in my career. It's like you know, if I meet the entrepreneur and I have a conversation and it's a fit, good things happen. But when it's a committee, I don't seem to have much, much luck. Jerry: I'm glad you brought up this. One of my favorite things and that's when I you know it's amazing, it's. I agree with you. Both those books are in my top favorite fictional books ever written. But I think there's a lot of great content, especially for the entrepreneur, of what you have to do. I mean, if you're not a disruptor, if you kind of stay under a ceiling and you're like, hey, I'm not going to change where you work, I don't know what your thoughts are, but I kind of say that if you're an entrepreneur, a successful entrepreneur, normally you're kind of a freak. Right, you're looked at as a freak in the industry and I think that's well put on the committee. I'm not here to appease the committees, I'm here to disrupt the industry on how Main Street and business owners will get funding, not just through how the traditional style is. So that's not our company. So I think the whole Atlas shrugged and Fountainhead there, even though they're fictional books, there's a lot of great content and, I think, some kind of rules of engagement for the entrepreneur. David: Yeah, I was just before this. I had a call with a colleague and he really had very little familiarity with Ann Rahn's work and early heard of it, so he had just bought the audible for Fountainhead. So I'd recommend you start with Fountainhead, so we'll see how that goes. Jerry: That's excellent. David: So talk to me. So what are you guys doing to help those you know privately held, closely held you call them Main Street businesses. You know what's kind of your sweet spot, revenue wise? I get it's probably a broad one, but like for us, like 90% of our clients have revenues between 10 million and 100 million like what's your sort of sweet spot where most of your clients fall in? Jerry: I'd say 250,000 to 450 million a year. David: What if you had to narrow it down a little bit? Go ahead. Jerry: Your sweet spot today, david, is probably somewhere in that. I'm going to say 10 to 25 million is our sweet spot. You get to the 100 and 250 million dollar companies. They do have a lot of cash flow and they've got profits and they've got, you know, banks that give them lines of credit even though they're personally guaranteed. So it's a little harder to get in the door. But we're getting in the door with those now and they're seeing what's going on. But our sweet spot today would be that 10 to 25 million. David: Okay, that is helpful. And the reason I narrowed you down here is because our audience who CPAs and attorneys who have clients, when you say 250,000 to 450 million, it doesn't quite resonate. When you say 10 to 25, now all of a sudden they can think of their clients, or in the 10 to 25 range. So talk to me and you kind of touched on it talk to me about this whole personal guarantee thing and there's probably, I'm guessing, some history behind it. So what's the story? And talk to me about this personal guarantee thing. Jerry: Yeah. So when we say we're disruptors and I just want to make sure that your audience understands you know the 250 to 450. When you look at your EIN that tax number that you get from the IRS that's just like your SSN to building personal credit. Your EIN can build company credit. Your company has its own credit score and its own report and so does your personal social security number. So when you give that broad scope just for your audience, you get someone that's just starting out with a startup or they're cranking out 20,000 a month. It just gets hard to try to get funding without why bank revenue statements, tax returns, business plans, revenue looking at your personal credit just to try to get the operating budget to be able to run your company and then to grow and scale and seize opportunities to grow and scale, because we all know as entrepreneurs that when you have an opportunity in front of it, it's not like you can plan and then just hit exactly when it happens. When you need to seize an opportunity, you don't have 60 to 90 days to qualify for it. So we look at what Jay Galt's main premise is and our advantage and really how we impact that entrepreneur in the world is what we do is we focus on the EIN and to build credit on that. It's actually very simple. Has nothing to do with revenue, has nothing to do with what your financials, your tax returns or how long you've been in business. It's just about taking that tax number and making it fundable so you can get access to corporate vending and lending, and your rates are typically 0 to 5%. I mean, we're getting people vehicle and equipment loans at 1.9%. Corporate credit cards are 0% on three to 12 month terms, right, not just on balance transfers. So that's the power. That's how your Wal-Mart's and Googles and Amazons and your Apples of the world are able to do what you and I, david, have no problem with paying interest, as long as it's a positive arbitrage. What we can't do is pay 30% to 50% in interest when we're only making 25% to 35% in money. So how you flip the script is you got to get access and get your company fundable so you can get access to banks' monies to leverage that at better rates in terms, so you can grow in scale without going into what Debt risk or paying too much in interest where it's not a profitable proposition. We see that every day and I know you do, david, right. People get in these small little bridge loans and if they don't get them paid off they'll come out or close on your mortgage. David: And then the other aspect of it then is when the underwriting is done on the company's EIN, there's less of a need for personal guarantee right, because they're under the business Right Typically that doesn't even come into play your credit score, your personal inquiries or what your credit score looks like. Jerry: That has nothing to do with building company credit is vanilla. It doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman, you're a Democrat or Republican, what your religion is, because it's a tax number. There's no bias on that number. Where that can come into play on your personal credit, right when you walk into a bank. But it doesn't have that when you're looking at a company's index, because a company is not a man or a woman or a Democrat or Republican or a certain type of it. It's where your Social Security is tied to an individual. Your EIN, that tax number, is tied to the company. David: Okay, Well, that sounds good and is the motivation for your customers trying to get rid of the personal guarantee or trying to get better interest rates on borrowing. Jerry: Most of the time they get tired of the personal guarantee business. Right, you're married, you're watched like you're not putting the house on the line, right, exactly so if you want money, they always have you check a box and do a little initial where, hey, we're going to give you the money because we believe in you and you believe in your business. We just need you to check the box and this is just a what. This is just a normality. But if something would happen we know that's going to happen. If something would happen, you understand the banks right. Since we're giving you money is we'll have access to your 401ks, your kids college funds, your second home, your cars, your current home, your family's living underneath. That's just a technicality. So a lot of them want to get out of the personal guarantee business or they don't grow in scale because they don't want to risk tying up their personal assets to leverage to their company's funding. So that's the first thing. But getting corporate capital on your EIN, you're going to get 10, 20, 30, a hundred times the amount of money on your company. Then you're ever going to get on your SSN because you're only going to stretch that personal credit bubble so far, because then they're looking at underwriting risk on you personally. They look at the company's revenue, but the company has nothing to do with it. If you don't have a corporate credit. They're always going to look at your EIN first, but there's usually nothing there, so they always revert what Back to revenue bank statements, underwriting risk, ar balances, invoicing. So there's a lot that goes into that. So you can see how complex that gets and how it can. What limit you on getting and seizing opportunities and then, more importantly, getting better rates in terms of run the operation, so you can leverage the bank's money because, david, you and I get this right. I'd rather use the bank's money than my money. I'd rather take my money and put it in vehicles that does what with my money. David: No, that really makes a lot of sense. So what's the disruption you're doing is basically bringing this Wall Street credit access to Main Street businesses. Is that? Jerry: education Right. First thing we do is I was asking an owner. I said, hey, what's your personal credit score? And they always answer right, 720. What's your company's credit score? What do you think I get most of the time? David: Right, no idea what are you talking about. Jerry: Right. So we have a seven step blueprint, but we're all about education. We're not here to sell anything, we're here to serve. So, just like in the whole Atlas Shrug with J Galt, john Galt, right, we're here to serve and connect with people and give them education on things that they don't know. It's not the CPAs or the accounting firms fall. It's not the bankers, it's not the tax attorneys. That's not their job of what they do. What J Galt does is we do the same thing. People understand personal credit. They just don't understand company credit and how easy it is to get there. There's just a secret set of rules. So our job is to educate you on the seven step blueprint of how you can get your company fundable, so you, as the owner, can survive storms. Right, you don't have to worry about the four things that can take the legs out of a business economy. You and I do. We have control over economy, david. Nope, how about inflation? Nope, does that impact us? Sure, sure it does. How about a government regulation? David: No control, almost no control, I mean in theory. If you're part of a lobbying group, you know you might fit very little. And what's the fourth one? Jerry: Yeah, but then you're going to have to have some capital to have some of these lobbyists for it, right, they're not free, sure. And then the second thing is just a you ever. I don't know if you've ever experienced one of these at all, david, but you ever heard of a pandemic? David: I think I have. I think we had one of those like a hundred years ago. I heard about it 1918, I think we had one. Yeah, I think it was, if we had anything close. Jerry: I know you and I have never experienced one of those lately right. But, even on that it's a cripple of business. Some it's a lot of businesses actually did a really great job. Sure, a lot that it really affected there's over. You know, 60% of businesses haven't even made it back to pre-pandemic revenues today because they raise the prices, inflation's there. I mean you've got a lot of things going against you. So how do you survive that and how do you get through those things? How do you prepare for the storms and survive the storms? And it's really about if it makes sense for the business on you moving forward and getting to the goals or solving the challenges, but it's really about getting fundability on your company. That's the answer to that question or challenge. It's the most vexing problem with small and medium-sized businesses today is getting cash blow. David: Okay. So I love stories. I think they educate well. Do you have a story or two of, like, a client of yours that you could talk about anonymously and maybe kind of set up what their scenario was before they met you? What's their scenario like now that you can be mined? Jerry: Yes, we have a guy that's in the contracting business out of North Carolina. We'll call him Randy, okay, but he came to us and we actually approached him and we had a conversation. But he's been in business for almost eight years doing well, has access to his local Chevy dealer, his local bank, where he deposits his money, and his credit score wasn't bad. He said, oh, I know how to do this. I have a Dun and Bradstreet number, right, that's the largest credit bureau, like TransUnion is on our consumer side, Dun and Bradstreet is on the business credit side because there's business credit reporting agencies and there's personal credit reporting agencies, right? Well, personal credit reporting agencies nothing to do with your company. It's the business credit reporting agencies to have everything to do with your company. So that's another tip that I'll give your viewers out there and listeners today. Right, Okay, so, but with Randy as we were having the conversation, with Randy as we were having the conversation, David, he understood it, but he really didn't, because where he was going and putting his deposits in, he just thought this the way it was and he actually was doing pretty well. He had a credit line recommendation about 67,000 on his company. We ran his company credit report After four months and just getting his EIN fundable the same Chevy dealer that he's been buying his vehicles for the last eight years. He's been getting anywhere between a nine and 15% rate. Wow, After four months, with Jay Galdin focusing on his company EIN that tax number he would walk into the same Chevy dealer and got his lowest vehicle right About a $51,000 van for 1.9% interest rate. Wow, and that's impactful. He looked at me and he goes Jerry, I can buy five of these vans now instead of just one at a time, right, Because that interest rate is so impactful. So it's just about he's still going to pay interest, but 9% or 1 or 2%, which one's better for a company, right? So that's one success story. And that was just after four months of it's all intentional work. It doesn't take a lot, by the way, just so if you're asking. It only takes two to three hours a month to do this. I didn't say a day or a week per month, but it's like going to the gym, David. I mean, you're a healthy guy, right? You can sign up for a membership just because we're paying for a membership to the gym. Do we get six pack abs and do we get a healthy heart just because we pay a membership for a gym? David: Unfortunately not. Jerry: Or is there a thing you just take three pills a day and you can get physically healthy there? David: you go, that's what I'm looking for. Yeah, that's what we're selling today. Jerry: We're living an immediate gratification world, right, we want food today. We got DoorDash. We want same day shipping. We want our stuff today, and that's the world we live in. But to get access to that it does take the hustle and muscle. It doesn't take a lot, but you're going to have to do the work. It's just like taking a walk every day for 30 minutes is so good for our health and our heart and it's hard for us to find time to schedule it. But just like this, you have to put in the work if you're going to get your company f*****g and funded right. So that's one story. Second story is we have a real estate investor guy down in Texas and he's been in business for over 20 years. I mean he's a Texan, I mean you know Texas, I mean it's the Republic of Texas, I mean it's his own country. I mean you know what I'm saying there, right? I do, I do. I know you have some clients down there as well. So when I look at Texas, this guy had really a big ego, been doing a great job, very successful. He has over 105 properties, okay. So he's a big deal, okay. I'm not going to mention his revenue because some of my taggamer I was just saying, here he is. So he came to us and he couldn't get funded and he thought our program was full of it. Right, he says this is just sounds too good to be true. I don't. I've been doing this. I've got bankers, I've got a fractional CFO, I've got this figured out. I don't see your help. So then we got into asking about personal credit and company credit as company's credit score and he thought he had a good company credit score. So we ran the report, went through it. Here's the thing he had some blemishes, but here was the big problem on fundability. He'd been in business for 20 years and moved to a lot of different locations and it filled out a lot of paperwork. We're all busy. When you're an entrepreneur and you've got a hundred and over a hundred properties, I mean you're busy. Sure, you've got a lot of stuff going on. So he would have filled out the Dunn and Bradstreet and he put WM period with the secretary of state. He was listed as William. Well, you and I know that WM, period and William mean the same thing as humans, right, right, your cross references WM period and William. What does it say? A mismatch and it's an automatic decline. He also didn't have his phone number. Listen to this, folks your phone number can't be a cell phone number. It has to be a landline or a VoIP service. Now, the VoIPs can be what. It can be transferred to your cell phone number David, let me ask you a question When's the last time you use 411 or your area code in 5551212 to look up a business number 30 years, do you know? If your business landline or void number is not registered with 411 National Directory, it's an automatic decline for corporate funding. David: I did not know that. Jerry: So that's another secret rule. So this is some education that David and I are providing to just things like that Having a website or landing page, having a corporate email address. Your number has to be listed. You have to have a business bank account. There's just a little thing. And why is that, folks? Over 80% of small businesses fail in the first five years because of cashflow. Well, if you don't look like a real company, you don't have a phone number, you don't have the business bank account, merchant services, you don't have a corporate email it's a PO box. You can't use a PO box. Well, I have a UPS store, david. It's a fancy PO box. It's still a place where you don't live and they can't access you. So a home address can be used, even though I don't recommend it, because now they'll know where your family lives and lives the whole entire world. But you can do things and get systems and processes put in place. It's all about fundability. On the company, no different than you are personally, it's just a lot easier to get personal credit because there's over 4 million people using it to finance their lifestyle. However, on businesses, they tell us that we can be protected from lawsuits as a limited liability corporation and we'll get funding. Here's the only problem. We never signed up for the credit bureaus that report our business payments so we can build fundability with the corporate vendors and vendors, right? No one told us that. So when you go to deposit your money in the bank, david, what happens? They try to get you money. They look at you and they just said, hey, here's a business credit card, we can get you a line of credit, but we just need you to do what with it personally. Gary, you got to get it fundable and you got to find lenders and vendors that report. And this Texan okay that once we got his name right, got his phone number listed and he had a couple of blemishes that he wasn't aware of we were able to get him all of these commercial real estate loans with no guarantors, not leveraging his other properties. He was able to get corporate millions of dollars in corporate in less than a year, all on his company now, which is a couple of fundability rules and a couple of secrets that he wasn't available on how to turn his company in standing on his own two legs financially just by the fundability rules, the corporate credit bureaus and using vendors to report in the lining up so he can get access to the same things he was doing now, but he was personally guaranteeing everything leveraging his other properties or his name to continue to grow his real estate company. David: Yeah, and I imagine does that also mean that in theory, if he wanted to, if each project if he wanted to have as a separate entity, he could avoid that cross collateralization issue. Yes, because that's the other problem I understand there is that all 105 of those properties are all cross collateralized. So if he has one project that somehow just goes belly up or property that it risks the other 104 properties Correct. Jerry: And if you get it on your company, then it doesn't put that into play, because when you're using personal credit, they're always going to leverage those. Because you are, you're putting those other properties as a the guarantee against the loan for that new property. If it does go belly up or doesn't do as well as you thought, that happens, right. When you're in real estate, I mean, most time you have wins but there are losses. You don't have to put your other properties in jeopardy. Do those things on corporate credit. It's no different than if you guys remember Donald Trump, right? He opened up that huge casino, used $3 billion of the bank's money and then after two years it failed. I don't think Donald Trump wants anything to fail. He doesn't invest in things that are going to fail Just didn't work out because of economy, location and where the world was at the time. Well, he was able to walk away from that. Did it affect his personal credit? Nope. Did he have to give up any of his personal assets in that deal? I doubt it. No. Two weeks later, he bought a golf resort in Doral, florida, right, sure? So, without affecting anything with that. So that's the power of corporations. No different than I'll tell you another story. Remember Home Depot and Lowe's and LA Fitness? Right, those are all Wall Street corporations, right? Stock L's stock owned, and all of that During the pandemic. They were able to be open. You can only have 50 people in the store right, they were able to do that. But what about the local hardware guy in town? They had to be shut down. The local mom and pop fitness place? They had to be shut down. So there's a difference and that's why we talk about this. Jay Galt, we're here to give the power and advantage back to the main street business owners by building fundability so their corporation has the cash flow, the access because this is all about getting ready access, cash and capital for you to take on those storms, to survive those storms and to grow and scale. Walmart, sam Walton, would not have been the world's largest retailer if he didn't figure out corporate credit. He would still be in Benton, arkansas if that was the case. So now, obviously, then he went stock, went public as an IPO, so that made it a moral difference for him to get there. But he would have never got to that position if he wasn't able to scale that. Take advantage of the back in the 80s. Remember when he took down Kmart? Right, but it was through cash capital, corporate funding that allowed him to do the advertising and get belly up and take on the big giant. Now he's the big giant. So just consider that that just because you're labeled a small business owner doesn't mean you have to be small. What if you wanted to franchise? What if you wanted to grow and scale? What if you wanted to buy your own property and land and build your own manufacturing facility, get bigger into the corporate real estate market, be a truck driver and become a regional or national player? If those are things that you want to do and you just have an access, you're having problems accessing cash flow. The secret is building company credit on the tax number, that EIN number and getting out of the personal guarantee in the personal inquiry game. David: No, it makes sense so well. Thank you for those several stories. That illustrates it. So how does Jay Galt come into the picture? What's your role in helping these companies other than education? I'm sure there's more to it than that. How does your service work? Jerry: We're a SaaS company, which stands for Software as a Service. We have a robust platform that has seven-step blueprint inside of it that walks you step by step. But, more importantly, we have a white glove concierge service, kind of a do-it-for-you. But there's certain things you have to do. We can't use your bank lines of credit, your credit cards, and you don't want me to do that in your business, but we help you fix blemishes where to go to fix them. So we provide a coaching service that goes behind the SaaS platform so you're successful in your journey. So imagine getting a dedicated coach. They're not out of the Philippines or India. That's great for customer service. I think All of our credit analysts and our finance analysts. We have a whole back office advising team that helps our members. So we are a membership. There's a one-time fee that you would pay and when you come into that you get lifetime support from Galt through our SaaS product, the Getting Business Credit. So you have access to all of the corporate lenders and vendors that actually report. And our secret sauce is we won't work with your Put-Em-In Our Business Finance Suite unless they report to the credit bureaus. That'll help you for a robot, mobile and credit and if they don't show us the underwriting guidelines, because it's important to know what boxes must be checked before you apply for a loan, because in the corporate vending and lending world, if you get denied, you have to wait six to 12 months before you can reapply and that can really slow down momentum when you try to grow a business. So you don't have. That's not how consumer credit works, but that's how corporate credit works. So we have that. We also help with cash flow management. We really define ourselves as cash flow management experts getting you access and leveraging banks money at better rates and terms, understanding cash flow so you don't get into what expense or debt trouble, and then giving you a business valuation. David, this is the power. 98% of small business owners have never had a business valuation or appraisal done. So they're in the head and heart. They know what their company's worth, but you'll know exactly what it's worth, how to ensure it properly and where to invest your time. You'll get clear, sound facts about your company so you can invest your dollars and your time in the right parts to continue to grow the asset that you're building and properly protecting it, allowing you to do what Plan for an exit strategy and those are typically $10,000 on average. We provide that every year to our members with JGault. So we're really here with our three columns of getting corporate financing, access to lenders and vendors that report, understanding your cash flow management as you grow in scale, and then having your business valuation so you know the value, where to invest in it and to plan and know exactly if you want to sell it, when is the time to restructure, when is the time to sell it or if you're passing it down to one of your kids to run. Eventually you want to make it a generational company. Now you'll have corporate credit belt where they can walk into the seat, you can ride off into your retirement years and know that the corporate funding is going to be there for generations to come. So the legacy you can leave behind by building that company we passed on to generations, your kids, the grandkids and so forth and so on. David: No, it sounds great. So what should people do? Is their next step? If they're interested in learning more, Go to the website. What's kind of your first entry point for potential new customers? Jerry: I would highly recommend that you do that. David, I'm fine with you sharing my for your audience. It depends on how big that audience is my personal but I would go to jgaltio. That's J-G-A-L-T. No period, Just jgaltio and then you can check out our services and what we do and if there's more questions, there's a place where you can connect and have a private consultation if this is something you want to talk more about. David: Okay, that sounds great and that's jgaltio. Jerry: Yes. David: Okay, what is we're wrapping up here? Is there anything? I didn't ask you that you wish I had asked you? Jerry: Wow, that's a great question. You did a great job. I mean, obviously I can understand why you have a successful podcast out there, david. Well, you're too nice. Oh, no worries, I mean, you've been doing this a long time. The only thing that I would share with American entrepreneurs out there today is we're really passionate, and just me as an owner, my goal is not to sell something. I have four companies. The only reason why Cole and my partner and I started jgalt was to serve and educate. But there's more than education. It's all about impact. So if there's something where you're wanting to grow an asset and you want to get there, we're here to have an intelligent conversation, a consultation, if you will, about where you're at, where you're wanting to go, and about 80% you didn't ask this. So does everybody want jgalt? Of course we're going to think everybody needs jgalt right, it's our company. Same thing with yours, david. I'm sure you feel the same way. If you're exporting products, you will find a better guy right Outside the country. So we're really great at what we do. But only about 80% of the companies we talk to every week take advantage of jgalt services, because it's not for everyone. So there are depends on where you're at and what you're trying to accomplish. That's why we're kind of looking at ourselves as the doctors of business credit. It doesn't make sense for everyone. It may not make sense today, or it may not make sense at all If you're just have a side hustle or something in your house that you're just doing is just to make some additional income to pay off debt or something like that. We're truly looking at companies that are looking to grow and scale and really be disruptors, like us, in the product or the services that they're offering across the United States. David: Well, thank you for adding to that. So, as we wrap up, that's Jerry Vaughn with jgaltio Jerry, this has really been fun and I think there's a lot of great value that your company provides for small to medium size privately held companies. So I really appreciate you taking time to come on the show and share some information. Jerry: Yeah, you're very welcome. It was a pleasure to be on it, david, so thank you so much again for having me on my pleasure.

David Colebatch, CEO of Tidal, joins Corey on Screaming in the Cloud to discuss Tidal's recent shift to a product-led approach and why empathizing with customers is always their most important job. David describes what it was like to grow the company from scratch on a boot-strapped basis, and how customer feedback and challenges inform the company strategy. Corey and David discuss the cost-savings measures cloud customers are now embarking on, and David discusses how constant migrations are the new normal. Corey and David also discuss the impact that generative AI is having not just on tech, but also on creative content and interactions in our everyday lives. About David David is the CEO & Founder of Tidal.  Tidal is empowering businesses to transform from traditional on-premises IT-run organizations to lean-agile-cloud powered machines.Links Referenced: Company website: https://tidal.cloud LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-colebatch/ TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. Returning guest today, David Colebatch is still the CEO at Tidal. David, how have you been? It's been a hot second.David: Thanks, Corey. Yeah, it's been a fantastic summer for me up here in Toronto.Corey: Yeah, last time I saw you, was it New York or was it DC? They all start to run together to me.David: I think it was DC. Yeah.Corey: That's right. Public Sector Summit where everything was just a little bit stranger than most of my conversations. It's, “Wait, you're telling me there's a whole bunch of people who use the cloud but don't really care about money? What—how does that work?” And I say that not from the position of harsh capitalism, but from the position of we're a government; saving costs is nowhere in our mandate. Or it is, but it's way above my pay grade and I run the cloud and call it good. It seems like that attitude is evolving, but slowly, which is kind of what you want to see. Titanic shifts in governing are usually not something you want to see done on a whim, overnight.David: No, absolutely. A lot of the excitement at the DC summit was around new capabilities. And I was actually really intrigued. It was my first time in the DC summit, and it was packed, from the very early stages of the morning, great attendance throughout the day. And I was just really impressed by some of the new capabilities that customers are leveraging now and the new use cases that they're bringing to market. So, that was a good time for me.Corey: Yeah. So originally, you folks were focused primarily on migrations and it seems like that's evolving a little bit. You have a product now for starters, and the company's name is simply Tidal, without a second word. So, brevity is very much the soul of wit, it would seem. What are you doing these days?David: Absolutely. Yeah, you can find us at tidal.cloud. Yeah, we're focused on migrations as a primary means to help a customer achieve new capabilities. We're about accelerating their journey to cloud and optimizing once they're in cloud as well. Yeah, we're focused on identifying the different personas in an enterprise that are trying to take that cloud journey on with people like project, program managers, developers, as well as network people, now.Corey: It seems, on some level, like you are falling victim to the classic trap that basically all of us do, where you have a services company—which is how I thought of you folks originally—now, on some level, trying to become a product or a platform company. And then you have on the other side of it—places that we're—“Oh, we're a SaaS company. This is hard. We're going to do services instead.” And it seems like no one's happy. We're all cats, perpetually on the wrong side of a given door. Is that an accurate assessment for where you are? Or am I misreading the tea leaves on this one?David: A little misread, but close—Corey: Excellent.David: You're right. We bootstrapped our product company with services. And from day one, we supported our customers, as well as channel partners, many of the [larger size 00:03:20] that you know, we supported them in helping their customers be successful. And that was necessary for us as we bootstrapped the company from zero. But lately, and certainly in the last 12 months, it's very much a product-led company. So, leading with what customers are using our software for first, and then supporting that with our customer success team.Corey: So, it's been an interesting year. We've seen simultaneously a market correction, which I think has been sorely needed for a while, but that's almost been overshadowed in a lot of conversations I've had by the meteoric rise and hype around generative AI. Have you folks started rebranding everything with a fresh coat of paint labeled generative AI yet as it seems like so many folks have? What's your take on it?David: We haven't. You won't see a tidal.ai from us. Look, our thoughts are leveraging the technology as we always had to provide better recommendations and suggestions to our users, so we'll continue to embrace generative AI as it applies to specific use cases within our product. We're not going to launch a brand new product just around the AI theme.Corey: Yeah, but even that seems preferable to what a lot of folks are doing, which is suddenly pivoting their entire market positioning and then act, “Oh, we've been working in generative AI for 5, 10, 15 years,” in some cases. Google and Amazon most notably have talked about how they've been doing this for decades. It's, “Cool. Then why did OpenAI beat you all to the punch on this?” And in many cases, also, “You've been working on this for decades? Huh. Then why is Alexa so terrible?” And they don't really have a good talking point for that yet, but it's the truth.David: Absolutely. Yeah. I will say that the world changed with the OpenAI launch, of course, and we had a new way to interact with this technology now that just sparked so much interest from everyday people, not just developers. And so, that got our juices flowing and creativity mode as well. And so, we started thinking about, well, how can we recommend more to other users of our system as opposed to just cloud architects?You know, how can we support project managers that are, you know, trying to summarize where they're at, by leveraging some of this technology? And I'm not going to say we have all the answers for this baked yet, but it's certainly very exciting to start thinking outside the box with a whole new bunch of capabilities that are available to us.Corey: I tried doing some architecture work with Chat-Gippity—yes, that is how I pronounce it—and it has led me down the primrose path a little bit because what it says is often right. Mostly. But there are some edge-case exceptions of, “Ohh, it doesn't quite work that way.” It reminds me at some level of a junior engineer who doesn't know the answer, so they bluff. And that's great, but it's also a disaster.Because if I can't trust the things you tell me and you to call it out when you aren't sure on something, then I've got to second guess everything you tell me. And it feels like when it comes to architecture and migrations in particular, the devil really is in the details. It doesn't take much to design a greenfield architecture on a whiteboard, whereas being able to migrate something from one place to another and not have to go down in the process? That's a lot of work.David: Absolutely. I have used AI successfully to do a lot of research very quickly across broad market terms and things like that, but I do also agree with you that we have to be careful using it as the carte blanche force multiplier for teams, especially in migration scenarios. Like, if you were to throw Chat-Gippity—as you say—a bunch of COBOL code and say, “Hey, translate this,” it can do a pretty good job, but the devil is in that detail and you need to have an experienced person actually vet that code to make sure it's suitable. Otherwise, you'll find yourself creating buggy things downstream. I've run into this myself, you know, “Produce some Terraform for me.” And when I generated some Terraform for an architecture I was working on, I thought, “This is pretty good.” But then I realized, it's actually two years old and that's about how old my skills were as well. So, I needed to engage someone else on my team to help me get that job done.Corey: So, migrations have been one of those things that people have been talking about for well, as long as we've had more than one data center on the planet. “How do we get our stuff from over here to over there?” And so, on and so forth. But the context and tenor of those conversations has changed dramatically. What have you seen this past year or so as far as emerging trends? What is the industry doing that might not be obvious from the outside?David: Well, cost optimization has been number one on people's minds, and migrating with financial responsibility in mind has been refreshing. So, working backwards from what their customer outcomes are is still number one in our book, and when we see increasingly customers say, “Hey, I want to migrate to cloud to close a data center or avoid some capital outlay,” that's the first thing we hear, but then we work backwards from what was their three-year plan. And then what we've seen so far is that customers have changed from a very IT-centric view of cloud and what they're trying to deliver to much more business-centric. Now, they'll say things like, “I want to be able to bring new capabilities to market more quickly. I want to be able to operate and leverage some of these new generative AI technologies.” So, they actually have that as a driving force for migrations, as opposed to an afterthought.Corey: What I have found is that, for whatever reason, not giving a shit about the AWS bill in my business was a zero-interest-rate phenomenon. Suddenly people care an awful lot. But they're caring is bounded. If there's a bunch of easy stuff to do that saves a giant pile of money, great, yeah, most folks are going to do that. But then it gets into the idea of opportunity cost and trade-offs. And there's been a shift there that I've seen where people are willing to invest more in that cost-cutting work than they were in previous years.It makes sense, but it's also nice to finally have a moment to validate what I've assumed for seven years now that, yeah, in a recession or a retraction of the broader industry, suddenly, this is going to be top-of-mind for a lot of folks. And it's nice to see that that approach was vindicated because the earlier approach that I saw when we saw something like this was at the start of Covid. And at that point, no one knew what was happening week-to-week and consulting leads basically stopped for six months. And that was oh, maybe we don't have a counter-cyclical business. But no, it turns out that when money means something again as interest rates rise, people care about it more.David: Yeah. It is nice to see that. And people are trying to do more with less and become more efficient in an advanced pace these days. I don't know about you, but I've seen the trends towards the low-hanging fruit being done at this point so people have already started using savings plans and capabilities like that, and now they're embarking in more re-architecture of applications. But I think one stumbling block that we've noticed is that customers are still struggling to know where to apply those transformations across their portfolio. They'll have one or two target apps that everybody knows because they're the big ones on the bill, but beneath that, the other 900 applications in their portfolio, which ones do I do next? And that's still a question that we're seeing come up, time and again.Corey: One thing that I'm starting to see people talking about from my perspective, has been suddenly they really care about networking in a way that they did not previously. And I mean, this in the TCP/IP sense, not the talking to interesting people and doing interesting things. That's been basically steady-state for a while. But from my perspective, the conversations I'm having are being driven by, “Wait a minute. AWS is going to start charging $3.50 a month per assigned IPV4 address. Oh, dear. We have been careless in our approach to this.” Is that something that you're seeing shaping the conversations you're having with folks?David: Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean right off the bat, our team went through very quickly and inventoried our IPV4, and certainly, customers are doing that as well. I found that, you know, in the last seven years, the migration conversations were having become broader across an enterprise customer. So, we've mapped out different personas now, and the networking teams playing a bigger role for migrations, but also optimizations in the cloud. And I'll give you an example.So, one large enterprise, their networking team approached us at the same time as their cloud architects who were trying to work on a migration approached us. And the networking team had a different use case. They wanted to inventory all the IP addresses on-premises, and some that they already had in the cloud. So, they actually leveraged—shameless plug here—but they leveraged out a LightMesh IPAM solution to do that. And what that brought to light for us was that the integration of these different teams working together now, as opposed to working around each other. And I do think that's a bit of a trend change for us.Corey: IPAM has always been one of those interesting things to me because originally, the gold standard in this space was—let's not kid ourselves—a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. And then there are a bunch of other offerings that entered into the space. And for a while I thought most of these were ridiculous because the upgrade was, you know, Google Sheets so you can collaborate. But having this done in a way with particular permissions and mapping in a way that's intuitive and doesn't require everyone to not mess up when they're looking at it, especially as you get into areas of shared responsibility between different divisions or different team members who are in different time zones and whatnot, this becomes a more and more intractable problem. It's one of those areas where small, scrappy startups don't understand what the fuss is about, and big enterprises absolutely despair of finding something that works for them.AWS launched their VPC IPAM offering a while back and if you look at it from the perspective of competing with Google Sheets, its pricing is Looney Tunes. But I've met an awful lot of people who have sworn by it in the process, as they look at these things. Now, of course, the caveat is that like most AWS offerings, it's great in a pure AWS native environment, but as soon as you start getting into other providers and whatnot, it gets very tricky very quickly.David: No, absolutely. And usability of an IP address management solution is something to consider. So, you know, if you're trying to get on board with IPAM, do you want to do three easy steps or do you want to follow 150? And I think that's a really big barrier to entry for a lot of networking teams, especially those that are not too familiar with cloud already. But yeah, where we've seen the networking folks get more involved is around, like, identifying endpoints and devices that must be migrated to cloud, but also managing those subnets and planning their VPC designs upfront.You've probably seen this before yourself where customers have allocated a whole bunch of address space over time—an overlapping address space, I should say—only to then later want to [peer 00:13:47] those networks. And that's something that if you think you're going to be doing downstream, you should really plan for that ahead of time and make sure your address space is allocated correctly. Problems vary. Like, everyone's architecture is different, of course, but we've certainly noticed that being one of the top-button items. And then that leads into a migration itself. You're not migrating to cloud now; you're migrating within the cloud and trying to reorganize address spaces, which is a whole other planning activity to consider.Corey: When you take a look at, I guess the next step in these things, what's coming next in the world of migrations? I recently got to talk to someone who was helping their state migrate from, effectively, mainframes in many cases into a cloud environment. And it seems, on some level, like everyone on a mainframe, one, is very dependent on that workload; those things are important, so that's why they're worth the extortionate piles of money, but it also feels like they've been trying to leave the mainframe for decades in many cases. Now, there's a sense that for a lot of these folks, the end is nigh for their mainframe's lifespan, so they're definitely finally taking the steps to migrate. What's the next big frontier once the, I guess, either the last holdouts from that side of the world wind up getting into a cloud or decide they never will? It always felt to me like migrations are one of those things that's going to taper off and it's not going to be something that is going to be a growth industry because the number of legacy workloads is, at least theoretically, declining. Not so sure that's accurate, though.David: I don't think it is either. If we look back at past migrations, you know, 90, 95% of them are often lift-and-shift to EC2 or x86 on VMware in the cloud. And a lot of the work that we're seeing now is being described as optimization. Like, “Look at my EC2 workloads and come up with cloud-native or transformative processes for me.” But those are migrations as well because we run the same set of software, the same processes over those workloads to determine how we can re-platform and refactor them into more native services.So, I think, you know, the big shift for us is just recognizing that the term ‘migrations' needs to be well-defined and communicated with folks. Migrations are actually constant now and I would argue we're doing more migrations within customers now than we have in the past because the rate of change is just so much faster. And I should add, on the topic of mainframe and legacy systems, we have seen this pivot away from teams looking for emulation layers for those technologies, you know, where they want to forklift the functionality, but they don't want to really roll up their sleeves and do any coding work. So, they're previously looking to automatically translate code or emulate that compute layer in the cloud, and the big pivot we've seen in the last 12 months, I'd say, is that customers are more willing to actually understand how to rebuild their applications in the cloud. And that's a fantastic story because it means they're not kicking that technology debt can down the road any further. They're really trying to embrace cloud and leverage some of these new capabilities that have come to market.Corey: What do you see as, I guess, the reason that a number of holdouts have not yet done a migration? Like, historically, I've seen some that are pretty obvious: the technology wasn't there. Well, cloud has gotten to a point now where it is hard to identify a capability that isn't there in some form. And there's always been the sunk cost fallacy where, “Well, we've already bought all this stuff, and it's running here, so if we're not replacing it anytime soon, there's no cost benefit for us to replace it.” And that's actually correct. That's not a fallacy there. But there's also the, “Well, it would be too much work to move.” Sometimes true, sometimes not. Are you seeing a shift in the reasons that people are giving to not migrate?David: No, I haven't. It's been those points mostly. And I'd say one of the biggest inhibitors to people actually getting it done is this misconception that it costs a lot of money to transform and to adopt cloud tools. You've seen this through the technology keeps getting easier and easier to adopt and cheaper to use. When you can provision services for $0 a month and then scale with usage patterns, there's really no reason not to try today because the opportunity cost is so low.So, I think that one of the big inhibitors that comes up, though, is this cultural barrier within organizations where teams haven't been empowered to try new things. And that's the one thing that I think is improving nowadays, as more of this how-to-build-in-the-cloud capability becomes permeated throughout the organization. People are saying, “Well, why can't we do that?” As opposed to, “We can't do that.” You know what I mean? It's a subtle difference, but once leadership starts to say, “Why can't we do this modern thing in the cloud? Why can't we leverage AI?” Teams are given more rope to try and experiment, and fail, of course. And I think ultimately, that culture shift is starting to take root across enterprise and across public sector as well.Corey: One of the things that I find surprising is the enthusiasm with which different market segments jump onto different aspects of cloud. Lambda is a classic example, in that it might be one of the services that is more quickly adopted by enterprises than by startups and a lot of cases. But there's also the idea of, “Oh, we built this thing last night, and it's awesome.” And enterprises, like you know, including banks and insurance companies don't want to play those games, for obvious reasons.Generative AI seems to be a mixed bag around a lot of these things. Have you had conversations with a number of your clients around the generative AI stuff? Because I've seen Amazon, for example, talking about it, “Oh, all our customers are asking us about it.” And, mmm, I don't know. Because I definitely have questions about and I'm exploring it, but I don't know that I'm turning to Amazon, of all companies, to answer those questions, either.David: Yeah. We've certainly had customer conversations about it. And it depends, again, on those personas. On the IT side, the conversations are mostly around how can they do their jobs better. They're not thinking forwards about the business capabilities. So, IT comes to us and they want to know how can we use generative AI to create Lambda functions and create stateless applications more quickly as a part of a migration effort. And that's great. That's a really cool use case. We've used that generative AI approach to create code ourselves.But on the business side, they're looking forwards, they want to use generative AI in the, again, the sample size of my customer conversations, but they see that the barrier to entry is getting their data in a place that they can leverage it. And to them, to the business, that's what's driving the migration conversations they're having with us, is, “How do I exfil my data and get it into the cloud where I can start to leverage these great AI tools?”Corey: Yeah, I'm still looking at use cases that I think are a little less terrifying. Like, I want to wind up working on a story or something. Or I'll use it to write blog posts; I have a great approach. It's, “Write a blog post about this topic and here are some salient points and do it in the style of Corey Quinn.” I'll ask Chat-Gippity to do that and it spits out something that is, frankly, garbage.And I get angry at it and I basically copy it into a text editor and spent 20 minutes mansplain-correcting the robot. And by the time it's done, I have, like, a structure of an article that talks about the things I want to talk about correctly. And there may be three words in a sequence that were originally there. And frankly, I'm okay with plagiarizing from the thing that is plagiarizing from me. It's a beautiful circle of ripping things off that that's glorious for me.But that's also not something that I could see being useful at any kind of scale, where I see companies getting excited about a lot of this stuff, it all seems to be a thin veneer over, “And then we can fire our customer service people,” which from a labor perspective is not great, but ignoring that entirely, as a customer, I don't want that. Because by the time I have to reach out to a company's customer service apparatus, something has gone wrong and it isn't going to be solved by the standard list of frequently asked questions that I clicked on. It's something that is off the beaten path and anomalous and requires human judgment. Making it harder for me to get to people who can fix those things does not thrill and delight me.David: I agree. I'm with you there. Where I get excited about it, though, is how much of a force multiplier it can be on that human interaction. So, for example, in that customer's service case you mentioned, you know, if that customer service rep is empowered by an AI dashboard that's listening to my conversation and taking notes and automatically looking up in my knowledge base how to support that customer, then that customer success person can be more successful more quickly, I think they can be more responsive to customer needs and maybe improve the quality, not just the volume of work they do but improve the quality, too.Corey: That's part of the challenge, too. There have been a number of companies that have gotten basically rapped across the snout for just putting out articles as content, written by AI without any human oversight. And these don't just include, you know, small, scrappy content mills; they include Microsoft, and I believe CNN, if I'm not mistaken, had something similar with that going on. I'm not certain on that last one. I don't want to defame them, but I know for a fact Microsoft did.David: Yeah, and I think some of the email generators are plugging into AI now, too, because my spam count has gone through the roof lately.Corey: Oh, my God. I got one recently saying, “Hey, I noticed at The Duckbill Group that you fix AWS bills. Great. That's awesome and super valuable for your clients.” And then try to sell me bill optimization and process improvement stuff. And it was signed by the CEO of the company that was reaching out.And then there was like—I expand the signature view, and it's all just very light gray text make it harder to read, saying, “This is AI generated, yadda, yadda, yadda.” Called the company out on Twitter, and they're like, “Oh, we only have a 0.15% error rate.” That sounds suspiciously close to email marketing response rates. “Welp, that means 99% of it was perfect.” No, it means that you didn't get in front of most of those people. They just ignored it without reading it the way we do most email outreach. So, that bugs me a fair bit. Because my perspective on it is if you don't care enough to actually craft a message to send me, why should I care enough to read it?David: Completely agree. I think a lot of people are out there looking for that asymmetric, you know, leverage that you can get over the market, and generating content, to them, has been a blocker for so long and now they're just opening up the fire hose and drowning us all with it. So I'm, like, with you. I think that I personally don't expect to get value back from someone unless I put value into that relationship. That's my starting point coming into it, so I would maybe use AI to help assist forming a message to someone, but I'm not going to blast the internet with content. I just think that's a cheeky low-value way to go about it.Corey: I don't track the numbers anymore, but I know that at this point, through the size of my audience and the content that I put out, I have taken, collectively, millennia of human time focusing on—that has been spent consuming the content that I put out. And as a result of that, I have a guiding principle here, which is first and foremost, you've got to respect your audience. And I'm just going to have a robot phone it in is not respecting your audience. I have no problem with AI assistants, but it requires human oversight before it goes out. I would never in a million years send anything out to the audience that I hadn't at least read or validated first.But yeah, some of the signups that go out, the automatic things that you click a button and sign up for my newsletter at lastweekinaws.com, you get an auto message that comes out. Yeah, it comes out under my name and I either wrote it or reviewed it, depending on what generation of system we're on these days, because it has my name attached to it. That's the way that this works. Your credibility is important and having a robot spout off complete nonsense and you get the credit or blame for it? No thanks. I want to be doomed from my own sins, not the ones that a computer makes on my behalf.David: [laugh]. Yeah, I'm with you. It's unfortunate that so many people expect the emails from you are generated now. We have the same thing when people sign up for Tidal Accelerator or Tidal LightMesh, they get a personal email from me. They'll get the automated one as well, but I generally get in there through our CRM, and I send them a message, too. And sometimes they'll respond and say, “This isn't really David, is it?” No, no, it's me. You don't have to respond. I wanted to let you know that I'm thankful for you trialing our software.Corey: Oh, yeah. You can hit reply to any email I send out. It comes from corey@lastweekinaws.com and it goes to my inbox. The reason that works, frankly, at this scale is because no one does it. People don't believe that that'll actually work. So, on a busy week, I'll get maybe a dozen email replies to it or one or two misconfigured bounces from systems that aren't set up properly to do those things. And I weed those out because they drive me nuts.But it's a yeah, the only emails that I get to that address, honestly, are the test copies of those messages that go out, too, because I'm on my own newsletter list. Who knew? I have two at the moment. I have—yes, I have two specific addresses on that, so I guess technically, I'm inflating the count of subscribers by two, if advertisers ask. But you know, at 32,000 and change, I will take the statistical fudging.David: Absolutely. We all expect that.Corey: No, the depressing part, when I think about that is, there's a number of readers I have on the list that I know for a fact that I've been acquainted with who have passed away. They're never going to unsubscribe from these things until the email starts bouncing at some and undefinable point in the future. But it's also—it feels morbid, but on some level, if I continue doing this for the rest of my life, I'm going to have a decent proportion of the subscriber base who's died. At least when people leave their jobs, like, their email address gets turned off, things start bouncing and cool that gets turned off automatically because even when people leave voluntarily, no one bothers to go through an unsubscribe from all this stuff. So, automated systems have to do it. That's great. I'm not saying computers shouldn't make life better. I am saying that they can't replace a fundamental aspect of human caring.David: So, Corey Quinn, who has influence over the living and the dead. It's impressive.Corey: Oh, absolutely. Honestly, if I were to talk to whoever came up with IBM's marketing strategy, I feel like I'd need to conduct a seance because they're probably 300 years old if they're still alive.David: [laugh]. Absolutely.Corey: No, I get passionate about this stuff because so much of a lot of the hype now has been shifting away from letting people expand their reach further and doing things in intentional ways and instead toward absolute garbage, such as, “Cool, we want to get a whole bunch of clicks so we can show ads to them, so we're going to just generate all bunch of crap to your content and throw it out there.” Everything I write, even stuff that admittedly, from time to time, is aimed for SEO purposes for specific things that we're doing, but that's always done from a perspective of okay, my primary SEO strategy is write compelling, original content and then people presumably link to it. And it works. It's about respecting the audience and so many things get that wrong.David: Yeah, absolutely. It's kind of scary now because I always thought that podcasts and video were the last refuge of authentic content. And now people are generating that as well. You know, you're watching a video and you realize hey, that voice sounds exactly consistent, you know, all the way through. And then it turns out, it's generated. And there's a YouTube channel I follow because I'm an avid sailor, called World On Water. And recently, I've noticed that voice changed, and I'm pretty sure they're using AI to generate it now.Corey: Here's a story I don't think you probably know about yourself. So, for those who are unaware, David, I hang out from time to time in various places. There's a international boundary between us, but occasionally one of us will broach it, and good for us. And we have social conversations where somehow one of us doesn't have a microphone in front of our face. Imagine that. I don't know what that's like most weeks.And like, at some level, the public face comes off and people start acting like human beings. And something I've always noticed about you, David, is that you don't commit the cardinal sin, for an awful lot of people I meet, which is displaying contempt for your customers. When I have found people who do that, I think less of them in almost every case and I lose so much interest in whatever it is that they're doing. If you don't like the problem space that you're in and don't have respect for the people paying you to make these problems go away, you shouldn't be doing it. Like, I'll laugh at silly AWS misconfigurations, but my customers are there because they have a problem and they're bringing me in to fix it. And would I be making fun of? “Ha ha ha, you didn't spend eight months of your life learning the ins and outs of how exactly reserved instances apply in this particular context? What a fool is you.” That's not how it ever works. I wish I could say it wasn't quite as rare as it is but I'm tired of talking to people who have just nothing but contempt for their market. Good work on that.David: Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate that. You know, I had a penny-drop moment when I was doing a lot of consulting work as an independent contractor, working with different customers at different stages of their own journey and different levels of technology capabilities. You know, you work with management, with project people, with software engineers, and you start to realize everybody's coming from a different place. So, you have to empathize with where they're at.They're coming to you usually because you have a level of expertise, that you've got some specialization and they want to tap into that capability that you've created. And that's great. I love having people come to me and ask me questions. Sometimes they don't come to me nicely asking questions, they make some assumptions about me and might challenge me right off the bat, but you have to realize that that's just where they're coming from at that point in time. And once you connect with them, they'll open up a little bit more, too; they'll empathize with yourself. So yeah, I've always found that it's really important for myself personally, but also for our team to empathize with customers, meet them where they're at, understand that they're coming from a different level of experience, and then help them solve their problems. That's job number one.Corey: And I'm a firm believer that if you don't respect your customer's business, they shouldn't be your customer. It's happened remarkably few times in the however many years I've been doing this, but there have been a couple of folks that have reached out I always very politely decline to work with them when this happens. Because you don't want to make people feel obnoxious for reaching out and, like, “Can you help me with my problem?” “How dare you? Who do you think you are?”No, no, no, no, no, none of that. But if there's a value misalignment or I don't think that your product is going to benefit people who use it as directed, I will not let you sponsor what I do as an easy example. Because I can always find another sponsor and make more money, but once I start losing the audience's trust, I'll never get that back, and I know that. It's the entire reason I do things the way that I do them. And maybe, on some level, from purely capitalist perspective, I'm being an absolute fool, but you know, if you have to pick a way to fail and assume you're going to get it wrong, how do you want to be wrong? I'll take this way.David: Yeah, I agree. Keep your ethics high, keep your morals high, and the rest will fall into place.Corey: I love how we started having ethical and morality discussions that started as, “So, cloud migrations. How are they going for you?”David: Yeah [laugh]. Certainly wandered into some uncharted territories on that one.Corey: Exactly. We started off in one place; wound up someplace completely removed from anything we could have reasonably expected at the start. Why? Because this entire episode has been a beautiful metaphor for cloud migrations. I really want to thank you for taking the time to chat with me on this stuff. If people want to learn more, where should they go to find you?David: tidal.cloud or LinkedIn, I'm very active on LinkedIn these days.Corey: And we will, of course, put links to both of those in the show notes. Thank you so much for going down this path with me. I didn't expect it to lead where it did, but I'm glad we went there.David: Like the tides ebbing and flowing. I'll be back soon, Corey.Corey: [laugh]. I will take you up on that and hold you to it.David: [laugh]. Sounds great.Corey: David Colebatch, CEO at Tidal. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice along with an angry, upset comment that doesn't actually make cohesive sense because you outsourced it to a robot.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.

Episode 221 – Raising Christian Kids in a Creepy Culture 4 Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God. Script Notes: Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs, chapter 22, verse 6. English Standard Version ******** VK: Hello! Welcome to another episode of Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. I’m Victoria K and today we’re going to conclude a series we began last time on Anchored by Truth. We called this series “Raising Christian Kids in a Creepy Culture.” We called it that because today our culture can be downright hostile to people, especially children, develop a relationship with Jesus. Christian parents must make consistent, conscious, and disciplined choices to raise a Christian kid in this creepy culture. So, to help us finish off this series we’re happy to have someone in the studio who has done that – who has raised two kids who are now out in the world but still standing firmly with Jesus. As she has been throughout this series Candy Coates is with us in the studio again. Candy was a working mom with a very accomplished professional career and she is also the wife of a successful lawyer and businessman. Candy shared her own story of how her upbringing in a small Florida community helped shape her own steadfast faith in an earlier episode of Anchored by Truth. We would encourage all Anchored by Truth listeners who missed that episode to go to our website (crystalseabooks.com) and catch her inspiring story. I think Candy’s story makes a very important point in a very powerful way. Candy’s grandparents had a strong Christian faith. Her grandparents imparted that faith to her parents and her parents did that for her. And now Candy has passed that legacy along. We have no doubt that that tree of life that has been so faithfully cultivated will continue to bear fruit in future generations. Candy’s story emphasizes the fact that it is possible for faith to be passed from generation to generation. That is both sobering and encouraging for anyone with kids, grandkids, or great-grandkids. We can, and should, leave a legacy of faith until the Lord returns for us all. And today we want to discuss one way for parents and grandparent to ensure that they have ample opportunities to pass their faith along – and that is by using Crystal Sea’s humor series that we call Life Lessons with a Laugh. It’s not very common in our day and age for people to be able to use humor to begin discussions with their kids about the Bible or faith in Jesus but Crystal Sea’s Life Lessons do just that. We introduced our Life Lessons to Candy when she first came into the studio to share her testimony and I think it’s safe to say she loved them right from the beginning. Candy, when we first gave you copies of our David and Goliath and Noah Life Lessons you pretty much enjoyed them right away, didn’t you. Candy: I did indeed. And I’d also like to tell you how pleased I am to be back with Anchored by Truth as we close out this series. It’s been an amazing and important series because every Christian parent today needs help with the goal of helping their child build their faith in the Savior. And as you said I did enjoy the Life Lessons right from the start. As you soon as you played the first sample for me while we were touring in the studio I was engaged. That’s why I asked you to provide me with some samples that I could play in the car on the way home. VK: And just to clarify for the broadcast and podcast audience we produce episodes of Anchored by Truth several weeks before they are aired on radio or made available on the internet. So, when Candy first came into the studio none of the Life Lessons were available from our website. But several of our Life Lesson series are now available at crystalseabooks.com. And we will continue to release more of them there as time goes by. So, it makes sense to visit our website frequently to get our latest releases. Anyway, Candy was so engaged by the samples that we played in the studio that she asked to take a couple of series home with her. Of course, we were only too happy to do that. And the next time she came back she asked for more. Candy, why was that? Candy: Well, the simple answer is that they are funny. They are really funny and enjoyable in the best kind of way. The humor is clean and good-natured unlike so much of what is classified as comedy these days. There wasn’t anything in the Life Lessons that I would have minded playing for my kids. And I think that was kind of your point wasn’t it. You wanted parents or even youth group pastors or ministers to have a way to introduce spiritual topics to kids in a way that everyone would enjoy. VK: Well, yes that was our goal. We want people to return to being able to share their Christian faith, not only in their family, but also with friends and neighbors just as they would share a good backyard bar-b-que or a play date in the park. That seems to be so difficult these days for a lot of people. So, we wanted to make talking about faith, Jesus, and the Bible easier. And people always enjoy a good laugh. Candy: And I think you’ve achieved that. But one of the things I really appreciate about the Life Lessons is that each one helps kids, and grownups for that matter, think about the Bible and the Savior. And they do it in a way that makes it easy for kids to remember what they’ve heard. I really love the little songs that you’ve included in many of them. Kids are really drawn to music and rhymes. So, the ones you’ve used are spot on. VK: So, let’s play a sample of one of the song parodies that we have included in a Life Lesson. This example is from our Life Lesson series on David and Goliath. This lesson notes that the reason David had gone down to the valley of Elah and wound up in the confrontation with Goliath was because David’s father had sent some bread and cheese to David’s brothers and their comrades. Well, of course when you put bread and cheese together you’re pretty close to a pizza. - David No. 3: That’s amore’ parody - Candy: I love that example. The lyrics are clever but most importantly they make a point that kids need to know – that God loves us and that God wants us to know that He loves us. The parody you have used makes that clear but a mom or dad who is listening to that Life Lesson with their kids can point that out and reinforce it. And while you didn’t play the whole lesson - because we just don’t have the time - the lesson goes on the point out the importance of fellowship by using the example of David’s friendship with Jonathan, one of King Saul’s sons. We would never think of it today but David’s friendship with Jonathan was one the big reasons he eventually became the king himself. And how neat it would be for a family to listen to that Life Lesson and then have pizza with some friends. That’s one of the things I think the Life Lessons do so well. They point out that we can use pizza and friendships to serve the Savior. VK: And the song parodies that are included in some of the Life Lessons are one way we try to help parents and kids absorb and retain information. Too many people today forget that one of the reasons we can be so confident that the Bible’s history is accurate is because the Bible relates real names, places, and events. We can locate the valley of Elah on a map because it is a real place. And we know that many of the names that are contained in the Bible have been confirmed by archeological finds. And certainly people can understand that bread and cheese are real foods that have been eaten for thousands of years. So when the Bible reports that those were all part of David’s encounter with Goliath we can have confidence in the story’s accuracy. Candy: And helping people absorb important Bible details is something I think the Life Lessons do very well. I enjoyed the information that you gave in a couple of the lessons from the Noah series about how big the ark actually was and especially that the dimensions the Bible gives us for the ark made it stable on the ocean. VK: Let’s play a sample from that section of the Noah series. As the Life Lesson points out God gave Noah some very important information before Noah started building the ark. God answered a very important question for Noah – “How deep is your ark?” - Noah No. 4: starting with “I mean the ark had to be truly remarkable” - Candy: That section is great. You have another one of the cute song parodies. You have some funny lines like “a floppy rudder endangers a distressed dingy.” And you have some good information for parents and kids. The dimensions the Bible gives us for the ark are the same dimensions that are used to build ocean liners today. That shows that the information about the ark’s size makes sense from a real world perspective. In another one of the Noah Life Lessons that I listened to you talked about how large the ark was. The ark would have been big enough to hold up to 2,000 railroad cars of cargo – plenty of room for a lot of animals and the food to feed them since the vast majority of the animals on board were actually about chicken or rabbit size. Parents or youth group leaders can – at least, they should be able to – use any of those points to start a discussion about something important with their child or group. VK: We sometimes refer to audio products like the Life Lessons as “discussion starters.” A parent, grandparent, youth group pastor, or homeschool group leader can play a Life Lesson to get a discussion going. The Life Lessons only last about 6 to 8 minutes so in a group setting that is planned for an hour there is plenty of time after the Life Lesson ends for further discussion. Even in a half-hour time slot, there’s time for a Life Lesson followed by the parent or leader helping amplify the points raised. Candy: And one of the things I like about the Life Lessons is that you have covered a wide variety of Biblical topics. You have Life Lesson series on many of the famous Bible stories like David and Goliath, the Flood of Noah, and Daniel and the lion’s den. But you also have series on Bible topics like creation, angels, the Ten Commandments, and prophets. VK: We wanted to have enough different Life Lesson series so that a homeschooler, youth group leader, or parent who is teaching their child the Bible would have plenty of variety. And we wanted to cover important topics like the miracles that Jesus performed. Let’s listen to a sample from Life Lesson series on the miracles of Jesus. - Miracles No. 3: starting opening sections - Candy: See I love that section. There’s a strong visual about a bunch of construction workers building something. That will get kids – well, and adults too – attention about what is going on. And I like the fact that the AI is quoting scripture and that you provide the scripture reference. And I like the fact that later on in that lesson in a part we didn’t hear today that the kids learn about why that episode points to the fact that Jesus was divine as well as human. Even kids who have never read the Bible will hear the Bible and then hear a short explanation about why that part of the Bible is important to a basic Christian truth: that Jesus was fully divine as well as fully human. There’s a lot of teaching going on in that Life Lesson but it’s introduced in a humorous fashion. VK: As one of our recent visitors to Crystal Sea just said when he was listening to a sample Life Lesson humor gets people to lower their defenses. People need to know that Jesus can be their Savior. Candy: Amen to that. VK: But Jesus cannot be anyone’s Savior unless He is able to satisfy the demands of God’s perfectly holy justice. When we sin we sin against an infinite God. And a finite man cannot pay a debt to an infinite God. But Jesus can pay our sin debt because Jesus is both fully divine as well as being fully human. Theologians say that Jesus is one Person with two natures and there are a lot of scripture verses that demonstrate that. All that is great for a Sunday morning sermon or even an entire course in a seminary. But a lot of people, especially kids are not in church these days and they certainly are not going to seminary. But we can introduce even deep Christian topics in a simple and funny way and then see where the discussion goes. Candy: And one of the things that kind of a Life Lesson might do is stimulate the adults to go and look up the scripture for themselves. Too many adults these days can’t help kids develop their Christian faith because they have a weak faith themselves. So, even though these Life Lessons are great for kids, frankly there are a lot of adults who need them as well. And I know that I have listened to just about all of the Life Lessons that you have created and I can testify that they are funny. There are recurring jokes like RD getting Jerry’s name wrong all the time, but there is also a lot of variety. The visuals are funny and the sound effects are hilarious. But most importantly, the Life Lessons teach kids about Jesus. VK: That is always the most important thing, isn’t it? Kids need to know about Jesus, especially in this day and time. Many people today, even Christians have been hesitant about sharing their faith. But as Romans, chapter 10, verse 14 says, “how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them.” Those of us who know about Jesus have a responsibility to tell others about him. But these days that can be hard for some people to do. Candy: But that’s the beauty of the Life Lessons. They can make it much easier for people to tell others about the Savior even in those situations like a church youth group where you would think everyone would already know about Him. Well, they may know about Him but that’s not the question. Do you know what I mean? The question is not whether they know about Jesus but whether they know Jesus as their Savior. A lot of people might not know that you can use humor to help people know Jesus as their Savior but the Life Lessons with a Laugh prove that you can. You have a couple of songs in the Life Lessons that really demonstrate that. VK: And here is a short rhythmical piece from our Names of Jesus Life Lesson series that is a good illustration of that. - Names of Jesus No. 5: Jesus name rap - Candy: And I really like the parody that you did that you call “Danger Man.” VK: Before we close for today, let’s listen to that. Candy: I love that because people who don’t know Jesus are in danger – eternal danger. And none of us know how much longer that we have available to make a decision for Jesus to become our Savior. The Life Lessons are a great way to make sure that everybody, especially children, are introduced to the Bible and to the Savior. As you said, humor can get people to lower their defenses and a lot of people today are defensive when it comes to talking about Jesus. I think you guys have done a great job of helping people overcome any hesitation they might have about starting conversations with their kids or friends. VK: It’s clear from these last few episodes that Candy never had any hesitation about ensuring that her children knew about Jesus. And because of that her kids emerged from their school years, including college, with their faith intact. That’s a real compliment to her and her husband and to their commitment to truth. Well, we’d really like to thank Candy Coates for being our guest on Anchored by Truth today. I think we can all see that one big reason Candy’s children know Jesus and have a genuine love for him is because she has that love and knowledge. Candy’s story is a clear illustration of how sacred scripture –the Bible – continues to demonstrate its supernatural nature through lives that are changed for the better for all eternity by its saving power. Today for our closing prayer, how about if we listen to a prayer for our young children? We should always be in prayer for our children but we must also be willing to be doers of the Word not just hearers. Prayer and actively instructing children about Jesus are concrete steps that put our faith into action. ---- PRAYER FOR YOUNG CHILDREN VK: We hope you’ll be with us in the future when we’ll continue our discussion with Candy. And we hope you’ll take some time to encourage some friends to tune in too, or listen to the podcast version of this show. If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not perfect but our Boss is!” (Bible Quote from the English Standard Version) Proverbs, chapter 22, verse 6. English Standard Version ADDITIONAL STORIES 1. I think there are 3 big principles to keep in mind if you want to raise Christian kids in a creepy culture. (Get 3 or 4 different tracks of this discussion) a. Your actions must be intentional, purposeful, and consistent b. You must protect your children and allow them to behave in a manner consistent with their age; let kids be kids in an appropriate way; create a safe way for them to be kids c. You must either find a community that will be supportive of your desire for your kids to grow up as strong Christians or build one. Cross City was the kind of community you want for your kids but if your current community does not offer what you need, you must find it. Might be at church, might be at a Christian school or homeschool group, might be a ministry offshoot, might be a neighborhood. 2. God can touch other people’s lives through yours in amazing ways. Sometimes you can inspire and help people find or regain their faith when you aren’t even aware that you are doing it. For instance, one of the great times we had when our children were little was our trip out west. Caitlin was 4 and Mason was 6 and we … 3. One of the keys to raising kids who mature and develop properly is to be involved with their teachers and schools. Sometimes you may be blessed to have a great teacher like we were with one of Mason’s social studies teachers. We went to see him one day because … 4. When you’re trying to be faithful, God will sometimes confirm that you are doing something right when you least expect it. For instance, when Caitlin was in (grade or middle) school, I had to have some serious surgery. So, I hired a high school friend to … 5. Now, I’m not saying that raising Christian kids who maintain their faith is easy. It can such the fillings out of your head sometimes, but you have to do it. There is no alternative. But it can be challenging. A lot of the time you may be the only parent or one of a few that is truly shouldering the burden. At (Mason or Caitlin)’s school they used to put on a teacher appreciation breakfast … 6. To raise a Christian kid you also have to be prepared to listen to your child carefully. For instance when Caitlin was in the 4th grade one day she told me that she wanted to go to Holy Comforter School. …. 7. To raise Christian children you must be very conscious of the environment that will surround your children. Our oldest Mason went to public schools until he went to college. But the public schools were changing as he was going through them. By the time Caitlin was going through them … (Holy Comforter, Maclay) 8. We always made it a practice to not only know Mason and Caitlin’s schools and teachers but also to know their friends. And we would go out of our way to meet the parents of their friends. This was important … 9. You are going to have challenges crop up that you never expect. For instance, Caitlin had been a model student when she was in elementary and middle school, but when she got to high school one day she came to me and said … 10. As Christians we know that God is sovereign and that He knows what’s best even when we don’t understand that at the time. A good example is when Caitlin was getting ready to graduate from the University of Alabama and she thought she had completed all of her requirements. She had worked with her counselor … but (hammer it with prayer; stone; 311)

Have you ever been told “No” by God? It is a difficult moment in one's journey of faith when it becomes obvious that something that felt important to them was not as important to God. In fact, sometimes God exercises His holy right to deny us what we desire. In David's life, there came a moment when he had a noble idea to do something great for God. Though he received support from his spiritual adviser, God ended up telling David NO. From this moment we are able to address our own response when things in life do not turn out the way we had hoped. Do we become bitter? If so, do we realize that by doing so, we disqualify ourselves from God's alternative to what we desired? We must learn the difference between being redirected and being rejected. God will never reject us as His children. But He certainly redirects us from our plans to His better plans.

Have you ever been told “No” by God? It is a difficult moment in one's journey of faith when it becomes obvious that something that felt important to them was not as important to God. In fact, sometimes God exercises His holy right to deny us what we desire. In David's life, there came a moment when he had a noble idea to do something great for God. Though he received support from his spiritual adviser, God ended up telling David NO. From this moment we are able to address our own response when things in life do not turn out the way we had hoped. Do we become bitter? If so, do we realize that by doing so, we disqualify ourselves from God's alternative to what we desired? We must learn the difference between being redirected and being rejected. God will never reject us as His children. But He certainly redirects us from our plans to His better plans.

Despite the long line, the Heroes finally made it to the checkpoint and were able to speak to a guard. They explained what they were planning to do in the city, and the guard allowed them to pass. They crossed through the gate and were greeted by a small courtyard area. Inside the gate they peered around and saw that there were additional merchants. The courtyard appeared to be a sort of hub to allow for a resting place for those coming to or from the city. A few small signs noted the locations of inns and pubs. An armorer slammed his hammer down onto what appeared to be a thick piece of breastplate. The Heroes had arrived in the city.   Thanks to David for showing up! Check out his music using the link below: UGK David YouTube   Check out our sponsors: Great Looking Apparel with built in filtration, get your G95 Apparel today! G95 Apparel Surf the web with privacy, and never worry about region-locked streaming again with Surfshark! Surfshark Also check out all of our content and links on our website! Our Website

El peligro de querer tener un niño genio.En mi época de infancia se escuchaba que cuando un niño estaba gordito era porque estaba bien alimentado. Se creía que los niños gordos estaban llenos de proteínas que los defendería en caso de una enfermedad.Había muchos errores en la alimentación porque se creía que si sudabas tomándote una sopa era porque te estaba alimentando. Que si tenías los cachetes rojos era porque tenías una buena nutrición.Cuántas creencias falsas tenían nuestras madres y cuántas creencias falsas encontrarán luego nuestros hijos cuando hablen de nuestros actuales modos de formar familia.Te voy a dar uno (un error) que yo he encontrado:¡Qué bueno es tener un niño “genio”!Muchos padres de familia sueñan con tener un hijo con capacidades excepcionales. Yo digo con cierto chiste en la escuela para padres que hay quienes quieren un hijo con la cara de Leonardo DiCaprio y la inteligencia de Albert Eijsten, pero que lamentablemente les sale al revés: la inteligencia de Dicaprio y la cara de Einstein.Porque creemos que tener un niño genio nos va a dar ventajas en la sociedad. Lo haremos superior a los hijos de mi hermana, se ganará todos los concursos en su especialidad y nos hará sentir orgullosos de ser sus padres y de pronto hasta salga en las noticias.pero..¿Qué es un niño genio?Un niño genio es un término que se utiliza para describir a un niño que posee habilidades y capacidades intelectuales excepcionales en comparación con los demás niños de su edad. Los comparas con sus contemporáneos y lo ves avanzado porque hace cosas como: aprende a leer a temprana edad, dibuja excepcionalmente, canta con cadencia y voz proverbial, tiene una fuerza física superior, poseen habilidad corporal para un deporte, elasticidad poco común… ¡en fin!Son niños que pueden demostrar una comprensión avanzada en una o varias áreas de conocimiento, como las matemáticas, la música, la ciencia o el arte.Otros rasgos:Aprenden rápidamenteRetienen información.Son unos curiosos insaciables.Conectan conceptos aparentemente dispares.También pueden ser altamente creativos y tener una capacidad para pensar fuera de lo común.Pero, ¿y qué si el niño no nos nace genio?Pues, ¡Lo volvemos genio!¿Y cómo lo volvemos genio?Lo metemos a cursos de toda índole.Clases de inglés, clases de ballet (la vio bailando reguetón y se dijo: tiene talento para la danza” y la metió a ballet), guitarra, violín (entre más sofisticado sea el instrumento más inteligente me parecerá el niño) Violonchelo, Oboe. Nadie pone al hijo a estudiar maracas, pandereta, carraca.En el fondo, muchas veces un curso tras otro curso solo es la manera mágica que muchos padres encuentran para mantener entretenidos a sus hijos, lejos de su responsabilidad. La abuela se lo saca de un curso para meterlo en otro curso.El tiempo que deberían invertir con sus hijos se lo pasan trabajando para pagar los cursos de los hijos.¿Por qué tan desesperados por tener un niño genio?El niño predicador.La muchacha que tenía una bata que ella misma confeccionó “Aquí está creciendo un profeta” Ok. Suena bonito, pero arriesgado.Lo que nos paseo con José Daniel.No les estamos dejando disfrutar la infancia.>> No les dejamos vivir sus propias torpezas de niño.Vengo de los medios de comunicación y vi niños realmente trastornados. buenos para actuar o cantar pero se convirtieron luego en el proyecto econ´moico de sus padres. Sometidos a presiones ni propias para la niñez.Ser un niño normal también es increíble.Crecer a un ritmo normal disfrutándose todos los regalos que la vida da para cada día, para cada año, para cada etapa.No saber más de lo que deba saber disfrutando con ingenuidad.Quizá por estar queriendo fabricarte un hijo genio le estás robando la capacidad a tu niño o niña de disfrutar las cosas bonitas que tiene la niñez.Jugar con barro.Durar toda una tarde en la piscina.Montar la bicicleta por el barrio.Te dejo con estos versículos que escribió el rey David:No presione. No intente hacer que su hijo sea un genio, ya nació con las capacidades puestas por Dios.Salmo 139: 1313 Tú creaste mis entrañas; me formaste en el vientre de mi madre.14 ¡Te alabo porque soy una creación admirable! ¡Tus obras son maravillosas, y esto lo sé muy bien!15 Mis huesos no te fueron desconocidos cuando en lo más recóndito era yo formado,cuando en lo más profundo de la tierra era yo entretejido.16 Tus ojos vieron mi cuerpo en gestación: todo estaba ya escrito en tu libro;todos mis días se estaban diseñando, aunque no existía uno solo de ellos.Contacto directo con José: jose@joseordonez.netMENSAJES ESCRITOS Y AYUDAS PARA LA FAMILIA: https://joseordonezcristiano.com▶︎ Grupo exclusivo de amigos de José en Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/456812331344962/▶ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JoseOrdonezCristiano▶ Twitter: https://twitter.com/joseordonezcris▶ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joseordonezcristiano/▶ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/JoseOrdoñezCristianoCopyright © José OrdóñezJOJ Medios LLC USA

Did you know we have rainforest right here in the UK? Visit magical Bovey Valley Woods in Devon with us as we walk alongside a babbling brook and over a Tolkien-esque stone bridge among trees dripping with lichens and mosses and learn all about it. Site manager David Rickwood describes the features of UK rainforest, some of the fantastic species that live here and why this habitat is so important as he takes us on a lichen hunt, shows us an otter holt and much more. Find out what a rapid rainforest assessment involves with Tom, and meet Eleanor who is working hard to create a powerful alliance to protect rainforest in the South West. Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk Transcript You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees, for people, for wildlife.  Adam: When most people think about rainforests, they're imagining the tropical, densely overgrown jungles of, well, mainly of our imagination, because so few of us have actually been there. But what they don't think about is the rainforests of places as close to home as a Devonshire cream tea. And that's what's so shocking because Devon and some other parts of the UK have in fact some of the most important temperate rainforests the world knows. And it's shocking not only because it's a bit of a surprise that we have these rainforests, but we've not really been taking much care of them. The ecologist Dominic DellaSala said that today's European rainforests are mere fragments, a reminder of a bygone era when rainforests flourished and they're now barely hanging on as contemporary rainforest relics. Well, I'm off to see, well, I hate to describe it as one of those relics, but one of those jewels that remains with us in Devon to see what a British rainforest looks like, why it's important, and what's fun about it.   Well, I've come to Bovey Valley Woods, which, unsurprisingly, I suppose, lies in the valley of the River Bovey on the South East side of Dartmoor National Park, and rather close to Newton Abbot. You might have heard of that. There are lots of trees and there are lots of wildlife here, brimming with spring migrant birds, so we might come across the Dartford warbler, the brightly coloured kingfisher or the pied flycatcher, which arrives from Africa each spring to breed. We might come across some rather tiny hazel dormice, which I understand are here as well. I'm not here at night, but apparently if you are, there are lots of bats which hunt on the wing. And of course there's the Dartmoor ponies, which graze in the wildflower meadows around here, but we are planning on heading into the wood itself.  David: My name is David Rickwood and I work for the Woodland Trust and I'm a site manager here at Bovey Valley Woods.   Adam: Well, just describe to me sort of what we're looking out at now. We can, I can hear a stream somewhere nearby. So there's clearly that down in the valley, but describe what, what's going on around us.  David: Yeah. So we're on the eastern edge of Dartmoor. There are 9 river systems that rise on, on Dartmoor. They carve these kind of deep valley systems off the edge of the moor. So a lot of people, when they imagine Dartmoor, they're thinking about the big open expanses of the moorland, but actually all of these river valley systems are where the concentrations of ancient woodland and temperate rainforests sit. You know, they have this kind of ambient temperature all year round, so we don't have these extremes of heat and cold. And they provide those kind of perfect conditions really.  Adam: Yeah. I mean, when one thinks of Dartmoor, it is those, those bare sort of rather dramatic landscapes. But you were saying hidden in the creases around those are these, these rich temperate rainforest environments.  David: Absolutely. You see so although people think of the open moorland of Dartmoor and the high moor, actually, a lot of that biodiversity and a lot of the diversity is around the edges in these wooded valleys. So woodland bird assemblages is particularly important in this part of the world, so species like pied flycatcher, wood warbler, invertebrates like blue ground beetle, and, of course, all of these lichens, mosses and liverworts that are, you know, in these sort of niches in these temperate rainforests.  Adam: Right, so we've jumped into this discussion about rainforests. And we're in a temperate rainforest, but I'm still not sure what a temperate rainforest is, because it conjures up this image, sort of, of jungle, doesn't it, of hacking back dense forestry, of the Amazon, of sort of Victorian explorers, that's not the environment we're in, which leads, I think, me to a confusion, I think lots of people are confused about what it is we're talking about. How would you define a a rainforest?  David: OK, so in visual terms, a lot of the trees around here have what they call epiphytic plants. There's things growing on the trees, there's things growing on the rocks. There's things growing on other plants and you get this lush abundance of particularly mosses.  Adam: Yeah. So sorry, the epiphytic, it means it's living on it, but it's not actually taking its energy from that. It's quite a beneficial relationship?  David: Yeah. So if you were to go and look at a tree branch in, say, central London, you're not going to see it carpeted in mosses and lichen. So here the air quality is very high and so you get this abundance of of plants growing on other plants. And because it's so wet, moist and damp throughout the year, those plants can survive actually quite high in the canopy.  Adam: So the sorts of things that you're seeing in a rainforest are lichens. The trees aren't particularly different from trees you'd see elsewhere are they? The oaks and all of that. So it is, lichens are a big identifier and the amount of rain presumably?   David: Absolutely yeah. So we're we're talking about sort of 200 days a year where rainfall is occurring in some form that might actually be cloud, just wet mist, not necessarily pouring down with rain. And we're also talking about rainfall in excess of say 12 to 1400 millimetres a year.  Adam: And we're very lucky that we're in a rainforest and it's not raining. Well, it's lucky for me. So now this is a tell me about this piece of woodland itself.  David: And we're right on the edge of the moorland. And so the woodland here is gradually creeping out onto the edge of the moor, and it's spread out from these kind of core areas in the valley. Now, that's brilliant in terms of renaturalising the landscape. But actually it can be quite problematic for some of the species in temperate rainforests, so in particular on this site here we've got lots of very old veteran trees and ancient trees that grew in a landscape that was a bit more open, had a lot more light. And it's those trees that often have some of these really key species assemblages on base rich bark or what they call dry bark communities. So it's all quite niche in terms of the conversation. But those trees are really the stars in this valley and so whilst we're kind of managing the woodland here, we need to give, you know, conscious effort to kind of manage around some of those key areas.  Adam: So look, let's go off into the woodland, but just to tell tell me a bit about what we're gonna see the plan for the day.  David: OK. So the plan for the day is we're going to just walk down this track here and we're going to drop down to a place called Hisley Bridge and that crosses the River Bovey. And that in itself is a very enchanting and beautiful place, and I think probably some of this mystery around temperate rainforest will start to fall into place when you see that.  Adam: Well I tell you what, let's go, let's go off before we, before we go off on that adventure just, just pause for a moment to listen to that babbling brook. So we're talking about this rainforest in recovery or trying to build a rainforest here almost. How delicate is this environment?  David: It's interesting, I think probably in the past five or ten years, I think we've become increasingly aware, particularly through working with partners like Plantlife, actually how vulnerable these sites are and, and how the changing climate is going to be a real threat to sites like this. And whilst we're doing our best in terms of managing the site and trying to restore it and trying to create the right kind of conditions, there are some aspects about climate that we cannot manage. And so resilience is really this much sought after objective and I think on a site like this, it provides an interesting template because over the past 100 years this site has kind of spread out into the wider landscape. That expansion has created an element of resilience for us.  Adam: I'm not sure I fully understand, you're saying there is some resilience because of the expansion of it, but well, how does that create resilience?  David: So things like lichens, so so this, this site in particular is really important for lichens and Hisley Wood on the other side of the river is probably one of a handful of sites in England. As this woodland has expanded, it's allowed some of those species to actually move into the wider landscape. So instead of there maybe being 3 or 4 oak trees with a particular species here, there might be 100 oak trees with those species.  Adam: So the fact you've got more of them makes the whole thing more resilient, if something happens to one, it's not a disaster. Understood. So given, my feet are very wet, I I need new boots. Just just tell you if I'm grimacing, it's nothing to do with you. Oh, I was going to talk to you, but look at this. That is a bridge straight out of The Hobbit! Just, this is extraordinary! Tell me about that.  David: So this here is a historic bridge that would have provided the access to Boveycombe farmstead. So Boveycombe farmstead probably is mediaeval in origin, but the the structure that there's now is abandoned.  Adam: This is I mean just describe it, it's it's made of rocks and it looks so haphazardly done. It's straight out of, you do it in a film, isn't it? It's very high up, very slumped down. It is absolutely beautiful. I'm going to insist I take a photo of you on it. And and it's a lovely flowing river right underneath it as well.   David: Yeah so this is the River Bovey and about 200, 300 hundred metres upstream there's a confluence of the River Bovey and the Becka Brook. And these are sort of torrent rivers so they go up and down really quickly with the rainfall. So this area here and the bridge, in fact, at times becomes an island because the river comes up so high.  Adam: What where we are now, underwater?  David: Yeah so if you look at all of these stones, they're all water washed and you can see the sand from the riverbed that's been washed out here.  Adam: Oh, I can. Yeah, I can over there. It's amazing.  David: So coming here, you know, particularly in the autumn last year, November, December or the late autumn when we had a lot of rain yeah this was kind of underwater at this point. But these rivers are really important, or really important for things like salmon, spawning salmon, sea trout, yeah. So these, it's these kind of rivers that really would have had an abundance of salmon and sea trout in the past.  Adam: Do you still get some?  David: Yeah, we still get some now. And interestingly, even though it was super dry last July, the salmon numbers were the best they've been for probably 5 or 10 years.  Adam: I have many things to ask you, but we are gonna have to take a pause here as I take a photo. OK. Yeah. So the salmon, what other sort of wildlife have we got here?  David: So I don't if you can just look across the river there, but there's an oak tree and underneath the oak tree, the root plate has been hollowed out by the river.  Adam: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can see that. Yeah, it almost looks like there's, it's nothing supporting that tree.  David: Well, interestingly it does flex up and down, but that actually is an otter holt. So the otters move through this area on a regular basis and we've got a great little bit of footage actually of a mother with two kits in there and they're in there for a brief while. But these rivers are really good and things like otters are a really good sign that the fish population's good. So there'll be dippers on the river here, kingfishers, grey wagtails...  Adam: I, I got distracted by the beautiful bridge, but it's all, what I wanted to ask you about, this is such a sort of, environment on the edge that you're trying to protect, but at the same time it's Woodland Trust policy to encourage engagement, people to visit. In this particular area and this particular circumstance, is that a very difficult decision because actually you're going, hold on a second, you do want people to engage. On the other hand, this is an environment which really needs to be left alone for a while. Do you feel that tension at all?  David: Yeah, that's, that is an ongoing issue and so, for example here, one of the things we try to discourage, and we do that by just felling trees or putting in what you might describe as natural barriers, is we try and discourage some access to the river in certain areas. For example, like dogs, so dogs and the otter holt etc is not a great mix. And then you've got species like dipper that are nesting in these tiny little, really, balls of fern and grass along the edges here. And it's very, very easy for both a person, let alone a dog, to just flip those chicks out of that nest.  Adam: A black Labrador just dipping into the river there. I mean there, there's this sense of, you know, sort of called honey pot, sort of attractions and that was an issue I think, particularly in Dartmoor, over lockdown, wasn't it, where it's, sort of places became overwhelmed and I suppose again there's a tension, isn't there on the one hand, they can get overwhelmed. On the other hand, if you manage that well it drags people to the big, famous place and leaves the quieter places on their own. So it's a 2 sided coin. Do you think that's a, a good argument or not? You're smiling at me, almost going, no, no, it's, talking rubbish, no.  David: No, on the contrary, I think we have got to learn to manage it. And I think there's a number of aspects to that. I think we can try and draw people away from areas that we consider to be more sensitive. I think we need to engage people and try and broaden everybody's understanding of what's important about these places because the more people that appreciate them, love them and understand some of the nuance, and it is nuance, the more likely you are to be able to protect these places in the future and you know, for them to be sustained.  Adam: We've got a lot of travelling to do and not much time, so let's cross the bridge and you're taking me to some, some lichen. Oh, God, I'm just tripping over there, OK, right. We're we're we're going lichen hunting.   David: We are going to go lichen hunting. Although this isn't actually the best example, but there you go. Can you see these? There are these little teeth.   Adam: Little teeth underneath the lichen, and so that's why that's called dog lichen.   David: Yeah, and that's, it's part of a group of lichens that that behave in that way and they use those to actually attach itself to the moss or the rock.  Adam: That's not the nicest lichen I've seen, it looks very crumbly to me.   David: It looks a bit dry  Adam: It does look a bit dry, is that how it's meant to look?  David: Well you know, obviously we've had a very long dry spell.  Adam: Now I've just picked up a stick and this is covered in the lichen I love, but what is that? Do you know what, do you know what that's called? Now you see, I'm sorry I've embarrassed you.  David: No, no.   Adam: No don't worry about it, you don't have to know every bit of lichen.  David: No, it's palma... something or other, parmelia that's it.  Adam: It's parmelia, parmelia you see the noises are from his lichen advisors. Parmelia, I think it's so pretty. It's nicer than jewellery or something, you know, I think that's very nice. So OK. So we're heading down the other bank of the river and where are you taking me Dave?  David: Well, we're going to head down to a meadow that was cleared of conifer about 20 years ago, and so that's where part of this site has been restored. But on the way, we're going to have a look at a big ash tree and an oak tree that overhangs the river and that has a particular type of lichen called the lungwort growing on it.  Adam: Horrible name the lungwort. And was that, tell me if this is true, that, was it the Victorians who gave them these names, oh no actually it would have been before that, wouldn't it? Because it looked like an organ and they thought it, therefore, it was medicinal. Oh, well, it looks like a lung, therefore, if you've got a lung disease, you should eat that.  David: Yeah so that's exactly what, what it was. So this one looks like the inside of the lung, so it looks almost like the alveoli of the inside and people thought it was some kind of medicinal kind of treatment for any kind of ailment.  Adam: We should tell people don't eat this stuff.  David: No, don't eat it and certainly don't cut it or pick it, because it really is quite a rare species.  Adam: And that's this?  David: Yeah so there's, there's, there's several little pieces on this tree here.  Adam: I must be careful because I'm right by the river holding my phone, my recorder and if you hear a big splash, that'll be me going into the river, right? Yeah. Also I don't want to tread on all the lichens. Yeah, go on.  David: It's this one here. Which is looking a bit dry and crusty at the moment. So this is the, this is the lungwort. But if you look carefully this is an ash tree and this ash tree actually is dying.   Adam: I was going to say is this ash dieback?  David: Yeah so this is one of the trees that really will probably succumb to ash dieback in due course, but this one, thankfully, is leaning into this really big oak tree next door and the lungwort has managed actually to migrate across onto the oak. Can you see there's some small fragments here? And further up there's more fragments. So this is where potentially the loss of 1 species may be quite significant for the for the lichens that are growing on it.  Adam: And do you get involved? Do you give it a bit of a helping hand and sort of pick one up and put it over on the oak? Does, is that a thing that happens?  David: So we haven't done here, but that kind of translocation approach is being practised in some areas, particularly where the sites are almost pure ash. So this site here, we've got a range of species that lungwort can probably actually grow on. So we probably don't need to go down that route yet, but on some sites it's really critical. So they are translocating it.  Adam: I love that, I go ‘pick it up and put it down' and you very neatly go ‘that's called translocation', but you did it politely, so you didn't make me sound an idiot, and I tell you what I can't, I can't, I want a photo of the lungwort, but I'm, I can't come over that close. I'm going to fall in, so I'll give you my phone, and you can take a picture. That way I won't be climbing all over the place. Well, joining us with our band of merry men and women is actually someone who's responsible for a lot of work behind the scenes and actually bringing people together to make projects like this, this rejuvenation of this temperate rainforest possible.  Eleanor: So I'm Eleanor Lewis and I am the South West partnership lead for the Woodland Trust.  Adam: I know one of the big problems with these projects is that the Woodland Trust can't, perhaps doesn't even want to do them by themselves, so actually bringing in local communities, other organisations is super important.  Eleanor: Yeah, absolutely. I think the enormity of the kind of crises we face in terms of kind of climate change and biodiversity and nature just mean that no single organisation can do it on their own. And we can be so much more powerful and have far greater impact if we join together and create kind of partnerships and work at a landscape scale. So that's a fundamental part of my role really is identifying those kind of opportunities and working with other organisations to basically amplify all of our kind of organisational objectives. So at the moment we're seeking to kind of establish an alliance for the South West rainforest, so that's everyone from kind of Devon Wildlife Trust, Somerset Wildlife Trust, the National Trust and then you've got kind of Plantlife, RSPB, there's too many kind of to name, but a really kind of good mix of environmental kind of charities, but also those kind of policy makers. So we've been having conversations with Natural England and the Forestry Commission.  Adam: So what are you trying to get out of that association?  Eleanor: I think there's a number of different things, so there is already an existing alliance in Scotland, the Alliance for Scotland's Rainforest and I think one of the key things that has demonstrated is actually the power of having a kind of a coherent communications plan and therefore having a kind of 1 voice that is coming from all of these organisations  saying this is important, this is under threat and this is what we need to do is a really kind of key aim of the alliance.  Adam: Well Eleanor, thank you very much indeed. I do, I mean, I really do understand that sort of better together spirit really does help to achieve amazing things, so best of luck with that. I'm going to go off,  Dave is down there and I can see he's he's joined by a colleague I think there, so I'm going to go back and join them. But for the moment, thanks, thanks very much indeed.  Tom: So my name's Tom, Tom Pinches and we're contractors and consultants who work in the countryside.  Adam: And you're brought in to sort of identify trees that, it's called what this rapid, it sounds very flashy, so it's like you're the SAS of tree men, rapid reaction force. What is it called?  Tom: It's called the rapid rainforest assessment   Adam: Right and what is the rapid rainforest assessment?  Tom: The assessment formerly known as the rapid woodland assessment, it went through a little bit of a rebranding exercise.  Adam: Right, so what is it?  Tom: So the keyword there is rapid, so it's basically a toolkit which was developed by Plantlife to to easily identify temperate rainforests. I mean, my role as as a consultant really was to work with the volunteers.  Adam: Right. So showing them how to use this toolkit.  Tom: Yeah. So in theory it can be used by people with with less experience of ecological surveys. But there is some nuance there which requires a little bit of, a little bit of knowledge.  Adam: And so what sort of things are you testing? What, what are the the characteristics you're trying to find to identify this, this temperate rainforest?  Tom: So it it can be quite difficult to identify habitats and and that's something which ecologists have been struggling with for a while because there's no single identifying feature. So historically it was done by identifying indicator species. In certain habitats you tend to get communities of of species which which you find in that habitat. The problem with temperate rainforest is that those indicator species are plants like bryophytes, lichens, liverworts, mosses, which are very specialist, not not that many people can identify them, but the other things you can do are identify characteristics of the habitat. So these communities of species tend to be found in certain certain types of places. So one of the things we were looking at was was the structure of the woodland. We were looking at the age structure. We were looking at the amount of canopy cover, so those things are really important in temperate rainforest.  Adam: OK, so that's really critical, so this isn't Amazon rainforest transplanted to Devon tea land. This is, it does look different from a a jungle type Amazon.  Tom: So absolutely so the similarity is that they both require high rainfall, which is why you find them on the on the western edge of the UK where there's a lot of rainfall.  Adam: OK. And I don't wanna get obsessed by this, but why is it important that we identify this as rainforest, it looks just a very nice forest to me. The fact whether we call it temperate rainforest or just a bit of forest, doesn't seem to me to be that important. Why is it?  Tom: I mean, so temperate rainforest is is an incredibly rare habitat. So you could ask, why should we be conserving any incredibly rare habitats, I think, as a as a society, as an as a, as a, as a population, we all agree that that rare plants and rare habitats should be conserved, and so it's really important to identify them in order that we can conserve them. You know, we talk about diversity, we talk about diversity of species, biological diversity, diversity of habitats. And each of those sub habitats have their own biological diversity, biological uniqueness, and it's really important that we that we can identify as much nuance within those habitats and within that biological complexity as we can. So we can kind of save as much as we can, that's sort of under threat.  Adam: And it's beautiful as well as isnt it.  Tom: It is, yeah, it's really beautiful. They're some of the, I think some of the most beautiful habitats in the country, certainly in the country, maybe even the world. Very Tolkienesque, you know.  Adam: It is, as we crossed that bridge, I said if you're making a film of The Hobbit, that's what you put in The Hobbit.  Tom: Absolutely. And and and and you know these are habitats that inspired people like Tolkien to write about woodlands.  Adam: There is something mystical about them, isn't it? They do feel sort of magical places, little weird stuff could happen like stories.  Tom: They feel they feel timeless and ancient, and that's because they are ancient right and that's why they're so important because they're so old and they're so ancient. You know these really valuable habitats they're there because they've had so long such a long amount of time undisturbed to develop the diversity that they have.  Adam: Well, that is a fantastic point to end on Tom. And we are right in the middle of the woods right now and I have a train to catch, so I've got to make my way out to this place. So Tom, thank you very much, of course, my thanks to Eleanor and Dave and even the birds, the trees, the muds and the rivers which have given us our wonderful soundtrack for today. Thank you for listening. If you want to find a wood near you be it a temperate rainforest or something a little less exotic even, you can find a wood near you by going to woodlandtrust.org.uk forward stroke find a wood that's woodlandtrust.org.uk forward stroke find a wood. Until next time, happy wandering.  Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks with Adam Shaw. Join us next month, when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. Don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you're listening to us and do give us a review and a rating. And why not send us a recording of your favourite woodland walk to be included in a future podcast? Keep it to a maximum of five minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walk special or send us an e-mail with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to podcast@woodlandtrust.org.uk. We look forward to hearing from you.   

En este magazín en el que estrenamos alguna que otra sección, como tema principal os hablaremos de algunos famosos amantes de la moto. Me acompañan Ander, Álex, Javi, Ramón y David (El internet de la motos), además de algún que otro invitado sorpresa... -10/11 de Ramón, El Embrague. -Ruta de Álex: Ruta del Montseny , Las Grillerías y Montserrat https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1wo0ZX_WAniOwHjL7nC5bXXuH3BrUymr-?usp=sharing -El bicho raro (Javi): Bultaco Tirón. -La segunda oportunidad (David): No se cae la moto y presiones. Encuéntranos en: Instagram: https://acortar.link/bqWGOu Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/damerueda Telegram: https://t.me/dameruedagrupo Blog Dame Rueda: https://damerueda.home.blog/ Email: Damerueda@gmail.com Playlist Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/49SWACRL8UxP8rp43oUxZo?si=145f7011465c4084

He's here, he's there; Dr. Hillman brings drug safety everywhere! So given the rules and regulations he needs to follow, the title “vigilante” could be nothing but ironic.We chart David's progress through choosing pharmacology as a subject to study, and settling on pharmacovigilance as a career to pursue. Listen: The Bollywood beats come courtesy of Cambridge-based artist Anish Kumar whose music you can also find on Bandcamp: anishkumarmusic.bandcamp.com, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter.Watch:Subscribe to our YouTube channel now for all future recordings. Episode transcript[Background intro music playing is "Nazia" by Anish Kumar]Parmvir: Hello everyone. And welcome to another episode of the 2Scientists podcast, where inspiring scientists share their work with you, wherever you like to listen. Today we come to you from a rather unique spot, rather than a cafe or bar we are camped out in Kensington Gardens in London, because it's a glorious day and our podcasting equipment allows us to do that. But enough about me and us, we are here today, of course I am your host Parmvir Bahia here and we're here with David Basanta, but we also have with us another David who is very special to me, he is an old friend of mine from my PhD program, and we shared much time and much swearing over experiments together at University college London. How are you David Hillman? David: I'm doing well. Thank you. It's, as you say, it's a, it's a lovely day and, it's nice to be back with old friends. Parmvir: Yes, yes. Of course everything rotates background to COVID and whereas we would normally see each other once a year. It's been three, four, possibly? David: Three, I think that's yeah.Parmvir: Miserable. David: Yeah. Sad times we shall have to make up for it. Parmvir: We will, we will. There's a bottle of Cava with our name on it. Once we've done with this. David: And onion rings. Parmvir: And onion rings. Yes. Fancy Marks and Spencer's one's though. So let's start at the beginning. I'm not talking about like, where were you born kind of thing. Although you can mention Kidderminster if you'd like. So as I understand it, we had a relatively similar track as undergraduates. So you did a bachelor's in pharmacology, correct? David: Yeah, that's right. Parmvir: So tell us why, why pharmacology? David: So this is gonna age me, age us.So I, for my A levels, so for my senior school exams, I, studied chemistry, biology, and maths, and I wanted to study something at university that combined chemistry and biology. And so this is the bit that will age us. So back in the day, if you remember, you would go to the, career advice department who were trying to help people to steer people towards what options they might want to pick at university.And they had this huge telephone directory effectively, which, mapped together people's different, combinations of A level courses and then gave you a list of options that you could, study at university. So I was sat in this little tiny room with this career advisor person, and they were basically running through this list of different courses.And when they came to pharmacology, they'd already mentioned pharmacy, which, you know, most people know what it is, but then they said pharmacology and I stopped them and said, well, what's, what's the difference? And they actually gave a pretty good summary. They said, it's more the biology of medicine. It's more the, the research and development of new medicines. They said it's potentially a controversial topic because it's the pharmaceutical industry is itself sometimes controversial and there's other aspects to the industry, which are, challenging sometimes. But yeah, that's how it started. So I picked a few different pharmacology courses, one of which was King's College London. I was always very practical, so I liked the idea of doing a year in industry at some point. So I chose a sandwich course like you and yeah, so that took me to KCL all that time ago. Parmvir: Mm. So I didn't realize how similar our tracks had been, because I also did biology, chemistry and maths, and I wanted to do something with the chemistry and the biology.And I got put in that direction by David: did you pick it out of the phone book as well? Parmvir: I did. What was it called? There was a name for it. David: It was pretty like a UCAS publication. Parmvir: Yes. It was just, it was enormous. David: Yeah. Parmvir: But yeah, in any case, I also, I did a sandwich year and I got to go and hang out in Germany for a year, which was fun.But yeah. So obviously after that you came to do a PhD at UCL where we were, well, I was a year ahead of you, I think. David: Yeah. You were. Parmvir: Why? Why did you do a PhD? David: So well for the reasons that I guess a lot of people do them, which is that I wasn't sure what to do next [both laugh] and a PhD seemed like a good way to string it out for another few years before I figured that out.But the reason I landed on UCL was that when I did go and do my year in industry, which like you was for a large pharma company, I worked in a lab looking at some non-clinical safety models. And we were using electrophysiology techniques at the time that was sharp electrode electrophysiology.Parmvir: You're gonna have to explain what electrophysiology means. David: Oh, don't make me do that. It's been 20 years [Parmvir laughs]. Oh, it's basically where you take either isolated cells or tissues and you put tiny, tiny electrodes into them and measure the changing currents across cell membranes. And as you put different drugs on, you can look at different effects of those drugs how they affect the electrical signals that you can measure.And really it's ions moving back and forward across membranes by little things called ion channels. So yeah, so I'd done sharp electrode electrophysiology there. I went back to university to finish my last year, and then the question came up about what to pick for a PhD. And I thought, well, although I hadn't enjoyed electrophysiology, it's something that I had started to, I guess, gain an interest in. Plus I had some skills that in that area. So, yeah, so I found a course, rather a PhD studentship at UCL, which seemed to fit the bill. It was looking at using a slightly different electrophysiology technique, so patch, clamping in a different area, but I thought it was something that I could use what I'd learnt in my year in industry Parmvir: I gave you some of these questions beforehand. David: Yes, because I'm incapable of spontaneous reaction to questions [Parmvir laughs]. Parmvir: Actually, I loved it so much that I have to read out your description of what your memory is like. David: I was quite proud of that. I coined that yesterday. I used to think of my memory as a lobster pot. Parmvir: All right. So you said I've just come up with a good analogy for my recall memory. It's like a reference library. You have to put in a request and then go away for a bit. When you come back, I'll have retrieved something from the vaults. Hopefully. David: Yeah, exactly. Parmvir: But aside from that I wanted to say this might be something of a loaded question, but what did you think of your PhD experience?David: You know, I really, I look back on those years with fond memory. Now it's partly because looking back, you edit out all of the stress and anxiety associated with doing a research project like that. I remember at the time when I first started UCL ran some induction courses where they pulled together PhD students and other postgraduate students from all sorts of backgrounds and John Foreman who you'll remember who was the Dean of students at the time, he gave a little introduction to UCL, but also gave some interesting advice let's say and pointers.And one of the things he pointed out in that session was the high degree of mental illness that is encountered by students in general taking these types of courses because they are stressful. And you often feel like you are kind of on your own. Driving your own research project forward. Sometimes through difficult times. So I do remember that in particular, but you know, what I remember mostly is just how impressed I was with all of the people that surrounded me because our department was not particularly flashy in its kind of presentation, but there were some seriously impressive people there.So I always like to think of our lab in the sense of, you know, it was run by effectively by Dennis and, and Guy when we got there. But before then it had been run by Don and before then it had been run by Bernard Katz who was a Nobel laureate. So it felt like we were the either grandchildren or great grandchildren of a Nobel Laureate and the whole department was a bit like that. It had a lot of very understated people who were world experts in their, in their field. And I always felt like the dumbest person in the department. But that didn't bother me too much because you know, being surrounded by all this greatness and even just, you know, the little glimpses of things you would see at the kind of coffee breaks and in the corridors, some of those memories still live with me, you know. Bearing in mind, this was back in what, between 2001 and 2005.So very, very early days of smartphones, things like trios and things like that, which seem antiquated now. But I remember coming across two old professors, so probably in their seventies or eighties comparing their smartphones and that like little microcosm, are the things that I loved about the department.Parmvir: Actually, I mean, I think you're, you're definitely selling yourself short. Like nobody would say that you weren't smart enough to be there. And I think one of the things that kind of ties into the, the mental health aspect is that we all felt that way. David: Yeah. Parmvir: Except we didn't express it to anyone else. It's, it's utterly ridiculous. How can we all be the least smart person in the room that's just not possible. David: Yeah. Parmvir: And after that, we all got our PhDs anyway, so, you know yeah. David: I certainly have no regrets about it. And I look back on those times with, with very fond memories, for sure. Parmvir: Yeah. Just talk briefly about what you did for your project and what the difficulties were.David: So the lab that I joined, so which, which you were a part of as well, their specialty was calcium activated potassium channels. And over time, the lab had looked at these ion channels in various different settings. The project that I was given was looking at these channels in vascular endothelial cells, which was a cell type that no one in the lab had ever studied before.Parmvir: Mm. David: So one of the biggest challenges that we were hit with straight away was that no one in the lab could really help that much with firsthand experience of how to obtain these cells, how to isolate them, how to culture them, how to grow them and really how to manage those cell types. So you might well remember that, the first, probably nine months of my PhD was just spent trying to culture these cells. Parmvir: Mm-hmm David: and it started with you know, available tissue from rats and other small mammals.But then eventually we were not having success with culturing cells from those models. So I switched onto pigs and, you know, I'd done a bit of reading that, you know, these vessels, because they were much larger the blood vessels, it was easier effectively to culture cells from, so I looked in the phone book and I found the address of an abattoir out in the middle of Essex.And there began my weekly trip for getting on for two and a half years to the deepest, darkest corners of Essex to go and retrieve pig, coronary artery cells once a week. Parmvir: Yeah. And essentially you suffered because these things were so flat. [David laughs] And when you're trying to, so you, for anyone who's listening, you have to picture trying to get a very, very fine tube onto something that is incredibly flat, and essentially you need this thing to form a vacuum seal and that just wasn't gonna happen. David: No, so, you know, vascular endothelial cells, they're the cells that line blood vessels, which is why they're, they're very flat. They're like tiles almost on the inside of veins and arteries.And you know, with other cells in the lab that were being looked at like the ones that you were looking at, like DRGs and like neurons and things like that, you know, you were basically putting the, the electrode down onto like a ball. Parmvir: Yeah. David: So the gap between the bottom of the dish and the top of the cell was who knows, 10, 20 microns, something like that. The cells that we were looking at, they flattened themselves out so much, they were about one micron, I think we estimated and therefore the tiniest vibration in the room would destroy the cell. And yeah, so the first stage was trying to culture, the damn things, and that was extremely challenging. It took a long time, but nine months of the way through managed it, and then began the whole pain of trying to get electrical recordings from them, which turned out to be as difficult. Parmvir: Yeah. So one of the things, I don't know if we ever talked about this, but what did you aspire to do after you'd done your PhD originally?Like, did you have any kind of idea? David: I mean, I think I was always headed into the pharmaceutical industry, which is where I landed up. In my undergrad degree in, I think my either first or second year, I did a very nice course, which was a kind of practical introduction to the pharmaceutical industry and from very top level, how drugs are developed and how pharma companies are organized internally and how the research progresses. And that, I'd always found that interesting. I mean, I find the entire pharmaceutical industry absolutely fascinating. And still do to this day. It's such an amazingly complex industry. And so, yeah, so I think I'd always been heading in that direction. Sure enough, the PhD certainly made me decide I was done with bench science [Parmvir laughs]. So, you know, by the time you've spent three plus years plodding along with these experiments that have a success rate of one in 50 sometimes. Parmvir: Yeah. David: You know, days and weeks without getting any data, and towards the end, still being in the lab at three o'clock in the morning, trying to get something to work and breaking more and more glassware as time goes on [Parmvir laughs]Yeah, I decided I was done with bench science, although I loved being in the labs, I loved playing in the labs. But I was never that into the kind of reading of the scientific papers and that sort of thing. Once it came down to maths and things like that, I wasn't so engaged. I needed to see practical things. Parmvir: Yeah. I feel like at some point we realized we were both some kind of engineer at heart rather than David: Yeah. Maybe Parmvir: scientist, David: maybe. Parmvir: It's more like, how does this work rather than trying to answer a bigger scientific question. David: Yeah. Parmvir: But obviously you were, you were a little bit scarred by your experience there, and you ended up going off in, I guess, a very different track from what the standard academic education leads you towards. So I think at this point this might be a good place to put your disclaimer in. David: Yes. So I work in the pharmaceutical industry and over time I've worked for, and with a variety of different companies.Any of the content that I describe today are my opinions and my opinions alone, and often they're really based off things which are in the public domain. In fact it's all based off things that were in the public domain and also some of the education that I've received, because actually, even after I finished my PhD, I then years later went on to study a, another academic course specifically in pharmacovigilance and pharmacoepidemiology.Parmvir: Oh, where did you do that? David: London school of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Parmvir: Oh. David: And it's interesting because it's a short course and I felt was a very valuable course. It's a course where regulatory authorities also send their people to learn too. Parmvir: So there's a lot of questions I can ask next.But one of the things that your job description throws up is this word "pharmacovigilance". What does that mean? David: Okay. So somewhere because I'm not gonna do it justice from memory, I'm going to read out the WHO definition of pharmacovigilance. It doesn't roll off the tongue, unfortunately, which is why it's never quite there in my head.So per the WHO: pharmacovigilance is the science and activities relating to the detection, assessment, understanding and prevention of adverse effects, or any other medicine, or vaccine-related problem. So essentially it is the process and the science relating to drug side effects. Now as you'll remember from pharmacology days, very early on, you're taught that all pharmacologically active substances, if it applies to the human body have side effects. The same side effects are not encountered by every person.And you know, some of the side effects might have obvious clinical manifestations. Some might not, you might get side effects, never know you've had them. And of course they vary massively in severity. So when you are looking at a medicine, particularly one that you're introducing to kind of general use in humans, you have a trade-off to make because you have an expected therapeutic benefit, but you also have to be mindful of potential side effects, particularly serious side effects and how much tolerance you have for those versus the good that the drug is supposed to do.And achieving that balance is one of the big challenges that's faced in drug development.Parmvir: So what you do really, it kind of comes at the end of the whole process of clinical trials and so on for given products, right? David: It actually starts right at the beginning of clinical development.So. Parmvir: Oh, hang on, I have to ask David's question: does that make you a Pharmacovigilante? David: [David and Parmvir laugh] I've often wondered the same thing myself. But yeah, so pharmacovigilance takes off really where toxicology leaves. So before you can put a drug into clinical development, by which I mean development in humans, drugs first have to go through preclinical development and that's where all the various toxicology studies are run.Parmvir: Can you quickly define toxicology for us? David: Sure. It is really focusing on the well, the potentially toxic side of medicines. So before you put a drug anywhere near a human, you want to be absolutely certain that it doesn't cause various catastrophic side effects in humans.So, for example, you need to be confident that it doesn't cause cancer. You need to be confident that it's not gonna cause a heart attack immediately, or cause a stroke immediately or things like that. So as per regulations in pretty much every country in the world, before you put a drug anywhere near a human in a clinical trial, it has to go through a standard set of tests.And there's various ways to achieve that. You know, sometimes those are tests using computer simulated models. Sometimes they are using individual cells or cultured cells or tissues. And sometimes as is well known in the industry they're using animal models and these are legally required tests.So every drug that goes through the process has to go through these. So that's done before it gets to clinical development. And then you start with phase one clinical trials which are studies on, usually on healthy volunteers and they're very small trials. They involve perhaps a few tens of patients. And the only purpose of those trials is to look at the safety and tolerability of the drug. So this is the first time you're putting the drug into humans. There is a bit of an exception to that. So although these are usually conducted on healthy volunteers, for some drugs, including, for example oncology drugs. Those drugs are usually along the more kind of toxic end of agents, so it's not ethical to put those into healthy volunteers. So sometimes those studies are conducted in a patient population. So once a drug moves into human studies into phase one, from that point, really for the rest of the lifetime of that drug as a human medicine pharmacovigilance is involved. So all the way through the phase one, two and three studies and then once the drug goes onto the market, pharmacovigilance continues.So the companies or the pharmaceutical or biotech companies that are developing these assets have a legal requirement to collect and analyze this data on an ongoing basis pretty much forever. Until that drug is eventually, perhaps if it's lucky enough to get to the market, until it's withdrawn from the market, perhaps many decades later.Parmvir: Very good. And I think that there are probably some very topical things that have come up recently as a result of COVID 19, which is important to consider when we're talking about these things, in that we are not just relying on these clinical trials that have gone out to ensure that these things are safe, but once they're out there that you have to continue to get feedback from people who are taking these to ensure that they continue to be safe in the long term, right?David: That's true. So, you know, ordinarily in clinical development, once you get through phase 1, 2, 3, and if you are lucky enough to have a drug, which is sufficiently efficacious, tolerable to go to market, then yes, you know, the drug's released to market and you continue to monitor for this stuff.Vaccines are in a particularly special category because they are drugs that are given to healthy people. Mm yes. And so therefore the benefit risk balance is more complicated in some ways, because , you know, it's, it's hard to consider the benefit to the individual of taking a product when they don't yet have that disease.So now there are other drugs that are in a similar category, other drugs that are given to healthy people. This is where I can ask you some questions. So what, what do you think those other drugs include? Parmvir: Oh, goodness. Um, I'm trying to think off the top of my head, what they might be. David: Yeah. It's very unfair. Parmvir: All I can think of at the moment are the other vaccines. David: Okay. So, Parmvir: but there are lots of prophylactic things. Yeah. Yeah. I can't think of anything David: Contraceptives. Parmvir: The obvious prophylactic. Yes. David: Drugs used for travel. So things like anti-malaria tablets. Parmvir: Oh yeah. David: Drugs used for things like smoking cessation Parmvir: mm-hmmDavid: stuff like that.So again, these are all drugs that are generally given to healthy people. So, you know, and this is where benefit risk balance comes into sharp focus, because if you have a drug that has been developed to treat a very hard to treat cancer, let's say, then when you consider benefit risk balance you know, if these patients are effectively going to die without a treatment, and this is the only treatment available, you might be able to accept that a drug has a one in a hundred chance of causing a fatal stroke. Particularly if that drug is given in hospital and these things can be, can be managed. If however, you are developing a cough medicine, then your tolerance for any type of dangerous side effects is basically zero, and of course, many drugs elsewhere on that scale. So yeah, benefit risk balance is a key part of what has to be looked at during drug development. And yeah, as we say, vaccines are particularly challenging. Often these days when a new drug is developed the clinical development and the studies don't stop necessarily when the drug is released for marketing. So, often as a condition of the marketing authorizations that are granted for these drugs, there have to be continuing studies to look at safety. These are called post-authorization safety studies. And so there's ongoing collection of data in a rigorous way to keep monitoring for various things. Either new things that we didn't know about the drug before, because of course when you're in clinical development, your number of patients is normally quite small Parmvir: mm-hmm David: so you're less likely to spot very rare side effects. You wouldn't usually detect a one in 50,000 probability side effect in a clinical trial cohort. Parmvir: Yeah. David: But sometimes these post authorization safety studies allow you to pick up more of that and enable you to characterize some of the side effects that you do know about more in detail.Parmvir: Yeah. So David B here asks essentially how long do these things go on after the drug's been on the market? For example, is there still pharmacovigilance for aspirin? David: Yes. Every single drug that has a marketing authorization out there it is the law in pretty much every country in the world that all safety data that becomes available to the marketing authorization holders, that's the company that owns the rights to the drug and effectively sells the drug, they're required by law to collect process, analyze and report this data. Now as drugs age, the natural reporting rate for some of these drugs drops so the probability of a physician or a pharmacist or a nurse, or even a patient reporting a side effect probably drops over time because theses are not new medicines anymore, but even so, any data that is collected has to go through that process, which is the pharmacovigilance that we were referring to earlier. In addition to that, all companies with marketing authorizations have to look at scientific and medical literature. It all has to be reviewed, so in European requirements, including the UK on a weekly basis, companies have to trawl some of the big literature databases, such as PubMed and M base, they have to trawl that information for any articles on their drugs. And any indication of side effects or other similar challenges. Parmvir: So how is this information collected and processed? Cause you've said obviously doctors, nurses, patients, they will all report certain things. Mm-hmm how do you kind of get them to a central place and cataloged and how do you decide what are actual side effects versus David: So if we think about the front end of the process, most pharma companies out there will have medical information help lines. So these are help lines that are set out there so that healthcare professionals. So that's the physicians, the, the pharmacists, the nurses and others but also consumers can contact the company for more information about the medicine and also potentially report adverse events, side effects. In parallel to that the same thing's going on with the regulators. So in the UK, for example, we have the yellow card scheme, which these days is a web portal system where anyone can go in and report side effects of medicines they're taking. In the us, you have the MedWatch scheme, which is very similar. Most companies around the world have similar things. Plus you've also got ongoing clinical trials, clinical studies, so data is coming in that way too. We've got data coming in from literature that I've mentioned. The regulators, when they receive stuff directly, they often pass that information over to the pharma company.So essentially all this information is coming towards the pharma company. It all gets directed to a pharmacovigilance department. And then we go through the process of processing that data. And so that data comes in from everywhere around the world where the drug is available for patients to take both in clinical trials and on the market.So the process basically consists of firstly translating the data, if it needs to be translated that gets captured into a safety database and there are various commercial safe databases out there. This is where companies collate all the information received on their drugs. And it goes through a process whereby data is kind of standardized it's put into standard terminology in a way that is compatible with the regulatory requirements. A narrative is constructed. So we write a story of what's happened to the patient from beginning to end. We look at various things like if the information is available to us, you know, what other medications were the patients taking? What's their medical history? What was the sequence of events? So what was the time to onset if possible, if we have that information between the patient taking the drug and them reporting the side effect, what the clinical course of the side effect was, so did the patient recover? Was any adjustment made to the the, the dosing or any treatments given? And so all that gets written up, we then decide what other information do we need to know?And then there's a feedback loop to go and ask the reporter if they'll provide additional information. Usually we ask for more information on more serious adverse events. We don't wanna overburden the reporters. Now reporters in clinical trials, so physicians involved in those, they're legally obliged to help with that process. Spontaneous reporters that we refer to, which is just where any healthcare professional or consumer contacts, the company, that's a voluntary reporting system, so we can ask them for additional information, they don't have to provide it, but we have to ask the questions anyway. So the information gets pulled together. It then goes, usually goes through a medical review, so we have kind of scientists pulling the data together. And then we have physicians reviewing the case, making sure it makes medical sense. And then depending on the seriousness of the case and other attributes, that case might have to be reported out to regulators worldwide.And a lot of the reports which are serious, have to be reported out within 15 days of what we call day zero, which is the first day anyone in the company became aware of the report. Parmvir: Mm-hmm. David: But to give you an idea, the large pharma companies are dealing with potentially tens of thousands of reports a week that are coming in on all of their products. So these are vast systems that are set up and they have to be set up to be able to meet all of the regulatory requirements in terms of timelines, for reporting. So the data's coming in, the expedited reports are going out in the format that the regulators require. We also have to pull together what we call aggregate reports. So these aggregated analyses of data over time for newer drugs, for example, those are submitted in Europe every six months. And then over time as the drug gets older, the gap between reports gets longer. And then also we're doing something, what we call signal section, which is where we are analyzing the data. And we're looking for trends in the data. Where we think we've got patterns we're starting to then look into researching those patterns a little bit more, you know, if we start to see, for example that I don't know that we are getting what appears to be a disproportionate number of nose bleeds, let's say, in a patient cohort, we would, you know, do background research on, well, you know, is there a plausible biological mechanism that we know about through the development of the drug? Was there stuff seen in the animal studies or even the human studies that might indicate that there's a, there's a root cause here.We'll look into confounding effects. Are all these patients on other drugs, which actually are likely causing that? And yeah, so kind of an appraisal is done: what's going on? Is it likely to be caused by something else? And if not, you know, we, keep on looking and those conversations then have to be shared with the regulatory authorities.And over time, what you'll see is the labeling of the product, the professional labeling which in Europe, including the UK, is the SMPC, the summary of product characteristics, which is a bit like the instruction manual for the product, which is available to healthcare professionals and the simplified version of that PIL those little leaflets you find inside of packs, those eventually get revised on an ongoing basis to accommodate the new knowledge that we are gaining on the side effect profile of the drug. So this is an ongoing process and it happens throughout the entire lifetime of the, of the drug. Parmvir: But yeah, so here's a subject that no one's talked about for a little while. COVID 19 David: mm-hmm Parmvir: [laughs] Obviously I know there's probably a collective groan from people listening right now, but it seems like a relevant subject, given the conversations around safety that people are having with regard to the vaccine. So do you know if there's been like a major uptick in these reports by individuals, of side effects from the vaccines, or do you take account of the fact that so many billions of people essentially at this point have received at least one shot of the vaccine versus how many reports you get coming in?David: Yeah. So this is one of the big challenges, and one of the things I should have said about drugs like vaccines is because they're given to such vast numbers of people, it becomes a particular challenge to differentiate between things which are being caused potentially by the vaccine and other things, which unfortunately are just bad luck of being a human being.And by that, I mean, so years ago when I was doing one of the academic courses we were being taught about the vast amounts of research that had to be done in terms of epidemiology before the HPV vaccines were released. So these vaccines were being released for use in teenage girls, and at the time it was felt that there was perhaps an insufficient understanding of the general health of that population, including things like what is the probability of a freak occurrence that a teenage girl is going to have a stroke or something like that? Things which we think of as of course, they're exceptionally rare, but they do happen.Parmvir: Mm-hmm David: and I'm talking about in untreated populations. Parmvir: Yep. David: But of course, you know, some of these patients are also on birth control and things like that, that also have other risk factors associated with them so my understanding is before the HPV vaccines were released, a huge amount of epidemiology research was done so that when the new vaccines were released, we knew that we would expect, and I'm just gonna make up a number here that, you know, one in 500,000 teenage girls would have, I don't know, some kind of fatal event which would just naturally occur, you know, even without them having the vaccine. And so that's similar for other vaccine rollouts as well. There has to be a good understanding of the background events of other things that, people will have happen to them, which have nothing to do with the medicine that you are giving.So, you know, that data is kept available and kept an eye on by the regulatory authorities and also the pharma companies. We don't have background rates for everything, so being prepared for what might come and then, you know, there perhaps isn't so much panic when the first case comes in of a patient that has one of these catastrophic events but if you start to see more than that, that's when you start to perhaps get more interested in: is this really being caused by the vaccine or the drug of interest. So, yeah, a lot of upfront work has to be done before you even put the drug out there. I mean, in terms of the COVID vaccines and the treatments, because of the high degree of public interest and scrutiny a lot of these drugs when they were first given and the vaccines were first given, so adverse events, side effects were tracked through post-authorization safety studies. So actually a lot of people, when they got their first doses, consented to have maybe a follow up call from an investigator who would ask them about various side effects that happened. So in addition to all of the natural spontaneous reporting that was coming in, there were very large cohorts of past study data coming in which is a robust way to look at these things. I know as well, there were legitimate questions about, you know, the COVID vaccines in particular were produced fairly quickly compared to the usual 10 to 15 years in development of, of a product. But you know, there are various reasons for this. So vaccines are perhaps one of the medicines where it's more possible to template out the product and therefore switch out components. But they still have a product which is similar to other products that have previously been used. But also, the COVID era in terms of vaccine development and treatment development was, in my opinion at least a completely unique event in terms of drug development so far. If you think of drug development as a kind of universe, or I'm gonna use some wonky analogies here, but let's say as galaxies, which have solar systems within them that have planets within them.So if you think of the galaxy of drug development you have all of these different stakeholders involved. You have the pharmaceutical companies and biotech companies and the service companies that support them, that's one area. You have the regulatory authorities but you have many other stakeholders.You have patients, of course they're the most important. For chronic diseases you might have patient advocacy groups. But also, you know, you guys are part of this universe as well, because you are the ones doing basic research, which is the foundation on which all, you know, all of this is, is ultimately built. So you have universities and other research organizations. You have the funding bodies that sit behind those that decide where the research money goes. And then out the other end of the process you have ethics committees that are involved in approving clinical trials. You have payers. So these are the organizations that ultimately pay for medicinal products in the UK, for example, that's the NHS. Parmvir: Yep. David: In the US, that would be insurance companies. Parmvir: Yeah. David: You have many other stakeholders. So you have obviously healthcare professionals at the end of the day, new drugs have to be woven into the fabric of medicine. And so you have to bring HCPs along with you. There are the learning bodies as well in relation to HCPs, the kind of professional bodies.So that's really at a kind of galaxy level, these are all the different solar systems. And then within them, if you look at the pharmaceutical biotechnology and service provider solar system, within those you have an incredibly complicated set of different skills departments, functions, you have the functions that are doing discovery.So these are the early days of, development where, you know, biologists and chemists are working out, you know, what are the new therapeutic targets we can look at? Then you have the clinical development division. You have the patent divisions, you have the regulatory affairs functions. You have the pharmacovigilance functions. You have the medical affairs functions, you have the medical information functions [Parmvir cackles]. There are, and I'm going to miss out many, many. You have the, the bio stats folks, you have the medical writers. And then of course you have the manufacturing, which is in itself a completely different, you know, specialized world.So yeah, you're dealing with a very complicated process with lots of things which are interlinked. But for me, if you think of all these things, like if you use layout or different compass, let's say, and I'm talking about the compass you use to check direction, not the ones you used to draw circles [Parmvir laughs] and if you scatter them all out they'll all be pointing at different directions. You know, all of these different entities have their own priorities. Because of course the industry as a whole is developing many different medicinal products for different reasons. I think when COVID came along, it was like drawing a magnet across the top of all those compasses and it got all the needles to point in the same direction.So you had governments who had a clear incentive to try and support the development of treatments. So you had governments putting up money, which was perhaps slightly unusual. They were putting money into basic research, such as the type of stuff that you guys do. They were putting money into diagnostics, which are critical for things like COVID.They were putting money into the development of vaccines and into treatments. And then of course, you know, you have the pharma companies where there was a scramble to try and develop something, to help humanity in its hour of need. You had the regulators with a lot of focus on them you know, and everyone watching their, every move and trying to ensure that you know, as many processes that often might take months, or perhaps even years were made as efficient as possible.Parmvir: Mm-hmm David: And it was a unique point in time because everyone was lined up with the same objective. So it meant, for example, that, you know, parts of the industry, which are normally a nine to five job, became a 24/7 job. Parmvir: Yeah. David: For a short period of time.And there was a huge amount of collaboration, which happened between the different stakeholder groups, you know regulatory authorities offered perhaps free scientific advice to companies that were developing this stuff. They met very regularly with companies that were in development. They gave a lot of advice as to what their expectations were when the data was received by them. They shortened some administrative pathways let's say which usually take a lot of time. They prioritized resource. So there's resource specifically waiting for this data to come in. And so, yeah, a lot of normal processes were adapted so that things could be done as efficiently as possible.And the outcome was that, you know, these drugs went through the entire process in a much more efficient way than would usually be encountered. I think another thing as well is with things like vaccines, the side effects that we anticipate to see, including the rare unusual ones ordinarily these manifest within, you know, days or weeks.It's not something that usually we anticipate things to occur years later. So there was that aspect too, but yeah, it was a, it was a unique time. Parmvir: Yeah. And actually this is a good throwback to Dr. Carina Rodriguez's podcast because she ran one of the clinical trials for the vaccine in children at USF where I work.David: Oh, fascinating. Parmvir: Yeah, so she talked about some of the things that you mentioned as well. David: I should say I was not involved sadly in any of the COVID vaccine development, but you know, it was fascinating to watch and actually to see my profession become a talking point in the news every day. Parmvir: Yes. David: It was very interesting to see all of this play out.Parmvir: Yeah. So actually, that's probably a good point to pause and ask you, what do you actually do? David: Okay. So [everyone laughs]. So as I've kind of indicated the process of pulling in adverse event data of coding it, which is the term we use for tidying up all of the data, putting it into a safety database, writing those narratives, getting the medical review, getting the important cases out the other end to the regulators, writing the reports, doing the signal section.These are very complicated processes and every company will develop them slightly differently. You know, small biotech companies, they might only have one product. It might only be approved in one or two countries. A top five pharma company will have hundreds of products authorized in many countries around the world. But all of these processes are put together in compliance with extremely strict regulations. Regulations that as I said exist in almost every country in the world and actually the regulations kind of cross over in the sense of, if you have a product that's authorized for marketing in the UK and the US, for example you know, the UK requires you to collect all the data and analyze it as does the US.They also require you to collect the data from each other's territories so companies are in the middle of the very complicated regulatory framework, which is a little bit different in each country, but fortunately is harmonized through some international bodies and international terminology. But building pharmacovigilance systems is complicated and it has to be done right. Firstly, for the obvious reason that we want to protect patients it's in no one's interest that that that patients are not protected. But also, you know, the penalties for not complying with these complex regulatory requirements are severe. And so my job really, as a, let's say senior leader within a pharmacovigilance department is to make sure that we build the right structures.And for these companies that we that we keep an eye out on all the areas, which are potential challenges and that companies are being compliant with the legislation to which we're all held. And so, so yeah, so building pharmacovigilance systems, I think is the simplest way I can describe it.Parmvir: It sounds pretty heavy and pretty complicated. David: Yeah. I mean, if you look at the larger pharma companies, if you add up all of the resource that they put into pharmacovigilance that they're legally required to put into pharmacovigilance, to service the needs of their products. A lot of things are outsourced these days, if you the count everything that comes from the outsourcing organizations as well, the big pharma companies have thousands of people like me involved in the processing and analysis of this data. So it is a big area, and that is all we do. You know, we are not involved in any other aspect of the drug. Not involved in the sales and marketing, for example, with the product, that's almost the complete opposite side of the company to us, all we do is you know, work in this very professionalized, very standardized discipline, which is pharmacovigilance. Parmvir: So David has a couple of questions. So first one should be relatively quick, which is that, is there a regulatory authority that is the gold standard? David: [David laughs] This is a very politically sensitive one.There are certainly some regulatory authorities who, particularly in some of the larger markets who are let's say more prominent. So examples would be the US FDA, the food and drug administration that is the drug regulatory authority for the United States. In the UK, we also have an extremely prominent regulator, the MHRA they're one of the oldest regulators, I believe in the world. So that's the UK medicines and healthcare products, regulatory agency. But you know, every country has its own regulator and whilst there are some who put themselves out there, perhaps as world leading regulators, there are just as many others that are doing the same important job for their countries. The European Union and European Economic Area has a slightly more complicated system because they have a coordinating regulatory authority, which is the European Medicines agency, the EMA, who many of you all have heard about in news reports, particularly during the COVID situation. But at a national level, you also have all of the national regulators who are working in tandem with the EMA. Parmvir: Okay. So this sounds quite different from, obviously it's very different from what you were doing during your PhD. David: Yes. Parmvir: He also wants to know, how did your PhD work, prepare you to do what you do now. David: If I could sum it up in one phrase, and this is a phrase which is overused, but I think in this case, it is really true: problem solving.Parmvir: Mm-hmm David: because it's interesting, you mentioned earlier that you and I we're almost engineers. Well, I went from becoming a physical engineer, at least in a lab environment to a process engineer. And, you know, I always used to think very naively when I was doing the basic research with you, I used to think, look, we are solving problems that no one knows the answer to. This must be the hardest job in the world. [Parmvir laughs] We're not solving manmade problems. Manmade problems must be so easy to solve. But no manmade problems [Parmvir laughs] are also particularly challenging. And when I say manmade problems, you know, I'm not talking about problems that someone is deliberately created, it's just, you know, logistical challenges, and just the challenges caused by working in, you know, different regulatory envionments with different sets of requirements and how to build processes that meet all of the requirements at the same time. And react to events, of course, because it might well be that you've had a product that has been ticking along nicely for a long time. And then suddenly there is a safety concern with the product. And if that safety concern is in the public domain, you will be deluged with reports in relation to that product called stimulated reporting. And you know, of course sometimes companies will be subject to class action lawsuits particularly in the US. So they might also receive large volumes of reports all in one go. All of those reports have to meet the same legal timelines, but now suddenly you've got 10,000 reports landed on your desk. Each one takes four hours to process and they're all due to the regulators in 15 days. So yeah, it is challenging working in a hyper regulated environment. Parmvir: Essentially these are problems that come about because we are humans. David: Exactly. Yeah. Parmvir: And we have to somehow live together. David: Yeah. Parmvir: So I had a couple of questions from my little sister and these might not be directly related to your work, but they are related to the fact that you work within an environment that involves clinical trials and patients and so on.And so Sukhy wants to know are side effects from drugs, usually the same for healthy people versus patients. David: This is a great question and cause me a little bit of head scratching. I think, I mean, the answer is it depends, I think by and large. Yes. But there will be some exceptions and those exceptions include things like some of the oncology treatments, because obviously there is an interaction often between the drug and the tumor, for example, so in a healthy person you can't emulate that because there is no tumor. So an example would be a phenomenon called tumorlysis syndrome which can only occur when there's a tumor to react to the particular drug. But by and large, yes, we extrapolate safety data from healthy individuals initially, which is why the earlier phases of studies are done often in healthy volunteers with some exceptions. But yeah. Then when we move on to phase two and then phase three, phase two and three are conducted in patients that have the indication of interest, I have the disease that we're trying to treat.Parmvir: So another question she had: how do you know people who are not healthy will be able to tolerate the drugs given that initially that they're tested on healthy people?David: So the first thing I would say is I'm not an expert in the design of clinical trials, but as I said, as you go through phase one which are the trials that are normally on healthy patients, you actually start out with a tiny, tiny dose. So you have an idea of dosing from your animal studies, but the data isn't always transferrable. But you take the maximum tolerable dose in animals, including in the most sensitive animals. And you then cut that by huge factor by perhaps 500 fold. Parmvir: Right. David: So you start out with a tiny amount and then you escalate up the doses to see how the patients are tolerating the drug, not the patients subject, I should say. So these are healthy volunteers usually. Parmvir: Yep. David: So that's phase one, but yeah, then of course, when you go into phase two, you're dealing with a different patient population. I don't know exactly how that's always done, but of course, you know, trials are put together by experts in the field. And they involve, you clinicians whose expertise is this particular area of medicine.Parmvir: Yeah. David: And of course it's not just the physicians at the pharmaceutical company and the biopharma company and the scientists, I should say as well. Also, this stuff is going to regulatory authorities, it's going to ethics committees, all of whom will have their own areas of expertise. So, you know, protocols are designed around the patient and to ensure the patients are not put at unnecessary risk.Parmvir: Ah, sometimes David sends me one of those questions that really makes me giggle. And this is if regulations are so important and onerous, how do I start my own biotech in the garage? David: [David laughs] Well, it's interesting, you know, companies don't necessarily have to be that big themselves to get started, but what they will need is a lot of help.Parmvir: Yeah. David: So what you'll see these days is you know, new biotechs starting up. But they rely very heavily on outsourcing. So they will partner with service providers with contract research organizations, with contract manufacturing organizations, all sorts of other parties that have the expertise that perhaps they aren't able to pull together themselves.But yeah, there are some companies out there, particularly smaller companies in earlier development that are, you know, pretty small might have 20 people in the company. Parmvir: Yeah. David: But they will need to rely on the help of many others, because going back to the kind of universe description that I gave, you know, there are so many specialized areas that you need to have covered in order to pull together everything you need, both to run a clinical trial. and also to submit a marketing authorization application. And then also keep your product compliant with all of the legal requirements that are out there.Parmvir: It's a lot.David: It is a lot, and you know this is why drug development is so costly because it needs a truly vast number of specialists involved. And, you know, quite a lot of physicians as well. And also, you know, most drugs that enter drug development don't make it all the way through the other end, so the end costs of medicinal products also have to cover the cost of the drugs that didn't make it.And plus companies only have a certain period of exclusivity before their drug becomes generic, i.e., other companies can start making it. Parmvir: So this is purely from a personal perspective, from your point of view: what do you think about the fact that obviously you have these companies who have put so much money developing these things, which were designed to treat a global pandemic. And yet we found that for example, like entire continents, like Africa still don't have a lot of people vaccinated against COVID 19, and those companies will refuse to open up the patents to allow them to be able to get people to stay healthy. David: Yeah, it's an area that really I'm not really sufficiently qualified to talk on. And I'm not just saying that, you know, through not wanting to put my foot in my mouth, but particularly with some of the vaccine technologies that were used, they were not simple medicines to manufacture. So not simple to manufacture, not simple to store, not simple to distribute. And sometimes I guess, it is perhaps a legitimate concern of a company that if other companies start making their same drug to a lower quality, that can have ramifications elsewhere. Now I'm not saying that that was the reason behind some of what you mentioned. Now there was a vaccine that was developed the UK vaccine which was specifically developed from the outset to be made available in developing world countries, let's say, and specifically to be made available at cost. And even the way that product was designed, it can be manufactured and stored at fridge temperature Parmvir: mm-hmm, which is a big deal. David: Exactly. It is a big deal, you know, those are all very important components to consider. A vaccine that could be used in those environments. But even, I remember because I vacuumed up all of the documentaries I think on television, Netflix, everywhere else about all of the challenges that were being faced. And, you know, there were even things that you just wouldn't think about, which was, you know, because the mRNA vaccines had to be stored at -80 [degrees Celsius], there wasn't enough minus 80 freezers in the developed countries, let alone figuring out how to develop and ship these to other countries with different climatic conditions.And so you even had the manufacturers of that type of equipment, having to up their game and suddenly churn out much more equipment than they previously had. So, yeah, there's no simple answer. I mean, historically there've been other challenges in the past with other types of drugs, such as the HIV medications. In the end access to those drugs was resolved through very careful dialogue between companies, regulators others. Access issues, I believe to those drugs, and again, this is just basically what I see on documentaries and other things; where are access problems these days, they're not in relation to the drug supply chain they're in relation to other things like people not wanting to come forward and receive treatment because of the stigma associated with things like that.Parmvir: So in short, do you enjoy your work? David: I do. I mean, I can honestly say that in my work every day is different. I'm very privileged in my job to support a number of different companies that are developing different products with a very wide variety of indications. And also, you know, just when you think you've seen it all worked with a wide variety of medicinal products, suddenly something completely new will come along. For example, we are now on the precipice of many commercial gene therapies coming out. Parmvir: Ooh. David: And you know, those products have some different considerations. Perhaps some of these interventions are irreversible Parmvir: mm-hmm.David: So, you know, what happens if patients do start developing something rare and unexpected. You have patients surviving a lot longer than was originally envisaged so, you know, are there other things which come about you know, as a result of the underlying disease that just no one had ever seen before. And yeah, many other types of technologies and the regulations are always having to evolve to take into account of these new therapies and the challenges associated with them.Parmvir: Well, it sounds like you will continue to live in interesting times. David: Yeah. I don't think I'm going anywhere anytime soon . Parmvir: Well, thank you so much for your time today, David. That was fantastic. And yeah, as I say, we kind of thought of you as soon as we started thinking about the safety surrounding things like COVID vaccines and knew that was your jam.So yes, we very much appreciate your time today. David: Okay. Thank you very much. [musical interlude]David: So I mentioned earlier that at an early point in my PhD, I switched to studying vascular endothelial cells that were harvested from pigs. So essentially these were pigs that were being slaughtered for the meat industry. And so I had to look through a phone book and identify an abattoir that I could go to and get the tissue that I needed to do my experiments so obviously this all had to start somewhere. So I put in a call to an abattoir in deepest, darkest Essex. And I gingerly made my way on the train to this place, which of course was in the middle of rural nowhere. And unfortunately the first day that I picked to go, it was snowing. Now we don't get vast amounts of snow in Southern England, but this was a decent sprinkling of snow. So I arrived in this quiet rural destination and I walked across various fields. I think I'd perhaps just got GPS on my phone, but it was very early days. And I was lost in fields of white in no time at all. So I ended up putting in a call to, the guys, to, come and pick me up, which they very kindly did. So then, you know, at that time I really didn't know what a coronary artery looked like so what I decided to do for that first trip was I just collected the fresh hearts that they were able to bring out the processing facility. So these were kind of warm pig hearts, freshly harvested from animals. I think I had three hearts or something like that. And so I had a large polystyrene box with me with some ice in it. And I think they were kind enough to give me the ice, as I put these hearts inside bags and put them in the box and then started making my way back to London. And of course, you know, this being a cold day, the heating was on, on the train, and so as I was sat on the train, in fact, I think it was when I got onto the tube, I suddenly became horrified that my polystyrene box was starting to leak water. And of course I knew, but no one else knew on the tube that within that water were bags, perhaps not secured, very tightly containing hearts and containing probably a fair amount of blood.And I suddenly started sweating that this puddle that was starting to pull around my polystyrene box on the floor of the tube would suddenly start to go pink and then red. And then before I knew it, I would be in serious trouble. So it was just one of those situations where the tube journey seemed to get longer and longer, and I was sweating more and more and then it got to the point where I felt that I couldn't wait any longer, so I kind of dashed outta the tube at the next station went up what was perhaps one of the longest escalators on the underground and managed to just get out the other side before I caused perhaps a fake terrorist incident or something like that. I was trying to think about how I would explain that I'd got three hearts in my polystyrene box and a set of scalpels bearing in mind that pig's hearts are very similar size to human hearts as well. So, yes, I managed just about to get to the lab. I clearly looked quite distressed, I suppose when I got back to the lab. So I started telling this story to my PhD supervisor, Dennis, and uh a retired professor that had come into the department, Don. And before too long, the two of them were crying with laughter at my story.So, um, so yeah, so that was my very first trip and yes, never, never forgotten.[musical outro]David: Our lab, when we first joined, it was quite old and a bit dog eared. And there was one particular chair in the office, which was, I mean, it was like a typical office swivel chair, but it had definitely seen better days and it was extremely uncomfortable. And when we had lab meetings, no one wanted to sit on this chair. And so Parmvir and I nicknamed it, Beelzebub's stool.

Notas en español e inglés:1 Samuel 22: El poder de ayudar a otros en medio de tiempos difíciles.1 Samuel 22:1-5: De allí se fue David y huyó a la cueva de Adulam. Cuando sus hermanos y toda la casa de su padre oyeron esto, fueron allá a él. También se juntaron con él todos los oprimidos, todos los endeudados y todos los amargados de espíritu. David fue hecho jefe de ellos, y tenía consigo unos cuatrocientos hombres. De allí David fue a Mizpa, en Moab, y dijo al rey de Moab: —Permite que mi padre y mi madre habiten con ustedes hasta que yo sepa lo que Dios hará de mí.Los dejó, pues, con el rey de Moab, y vivieron allí todo el tiempo que David estuvo en la fortaleza. Entonces el profeta Gad dijo a David: —No te quedes en la fortaleza. Ve y entra en la tierra de Judá.Y David partió y se fue al bosque de Haret.-----------------------------------Ayer vimos que Dios ayudó a David librándolo de la mano de los filisteos. La primera reacción de David fue refugiarse en una cueva de una región llamada Adulam, que se convirtió en un lugar muy importante para David. En ese lugar, confundido y solo, posiblemente David estaba tomando fuerzas y pensando qué iba ahora hacer con su vida. Posiblemente David se estaba confortando en el Señor y quizá escribía alguna canción o salmos. Pero ese momento de reflexión y fortaleza se vio interrumpido con la llegada de aquellos que lo amaban y querían verlo, su familia. Y no solo ellos, también otros grupos de personas que buscaban ayuda y pensaron encontrarla en David: "los oprimidos, todos los endeudados y todos los amargados de espíritu".David dejó de enfocarse en su situación difícil, del peligro que lo perseguía, de la incertidumbre que lo agobiaba, y comenzó a levantar a otros que posiblemente estaban en una condición similar o peor que la de él. David los recibió en la cueva y comenzó a levantarlos poco a poco. Afirmó sus corazones apocados, o sea, avergonzados y humillados por situaciones difíciles que han experimentado. David fue el instrumento para darle un nuevo sentido de vivir a estos hombres que estaban llenos de amargura, decepcionados con la vida, llenos de deudas y sin poder prosperar por las cargas financieras o emocionales. Ninguno de ellos estaba listo para pelear en una batalla, para salir adelante victoriosos en una campaña militar. Sin embargo, David tomó el tiempo para ayudarlos a recuperarse, para que volvieran a creer que tenían un sentido de vivir, que todavía eran útiles para la sociedad. ¡David estaba reformando y rehabilitando este grupo de más o menos 400 hombres! La decadencia moral y espiritual en Israel causada por el mal liderazgo de Saúl estaba arruinando a mucho hombres, pero la experiencia de David como líder militar y como adorador del Señor fue la combinación perfecta para que estos hombres fueran ministrados espiritualmente y capacitados para convertirse en parte del grupo de los valientes de David, como más adelante se les llamó. Muchos de ellos pelearon batallas contra gigantes, y vencieron ejércitos extranjeros de forma magistral. Eran hombres dispuestos a dar sus vidas por David, y fueron los que lo acompañaron en todo su tiempo de exilio hasta cuando fue coronado rey de Israel y Judá. Aprendamos de David, que cuando ayudamos a otros es cuando podemos nosotros mismos superar muchas cosas a nivel personal. Si nos concentramos solo en nosotros todo el tiempo, estaremos perdiéndonos una gran oportunidad para poder crecer y madurar.Obviamente, David estaba trabajando en sus propios retos personales. Se refugió solo para analizar su vida, emocionalmente fue fortalecido por la visita de sus parientes y amigos, y después pudo ayudar a otros. Al hacer esto, levantó una tropa de guerreros y Dios confirmó su llamado y misión cuando el profeta Gad lo visitó para darle la Palabra de Dios.Si estás en medio de circunstancias difíciles y puedes darle la mano a alguien en peor condición, hazlo; Dios honrará tu esfuerzo y, a la misma vez, esta acción te ayudará a mirar con diferente perspectiva tus propios problemas. Dios te mostrará que no son tan graves como los ves y hasta usará tu situación, esa que te hizo meterte en una cueva de temor, y la convertirá en un lugar de fortaleza para ti y muchos más que se identificarán contigo y podrán surgir de la miseria y confusión. Además, estarán eternamente agradecidos contigo. Soy Eduardo Rodríguez.

People become more connected as a result of communication. Communication is a crucial management function that is intertwined with all other management responsibilities. It closes the gap between individuals and groups by facilitating the exchange of information and understanding. Is it, nevertheless, possible to exploit it to one's advantage? Dr. David Snyder will show you in this episode how to utilize language as a tool to effectively communicate your objectives and desires to others with guaranteed success. Standout Quotes: “When you invest in yourself, when you incur when you go through that discomfort you change and you become the person who deserves to have all those good things.” [David] “No matter how far inside you travel, no matter how deep inside you go, you will always be able to hear my words, follow my instructions, obey my commands. Because you realize everything I say and everything I do, is for you to go that you want the way that you want it by your standards and your definitions.” [David] “'I'm not the pleasure police. I don't care what you would do it. Who you were with what substances if any were involved? All I care about is that when you stop, step into that moment and relive it, when you see what you see, you hear what you hear. And you smell any taste what you smelling you taste.” [David] Key Takeaways: Speed attraction will show you how to walk up to anyone, get over your fear of the cold approaching, manage your state, step into that Rockstar meta frame. Figure out who genuinely wants to talk to you, and chat to them in such a way that you become the most intriguing person and around. When they make it, people find a way to fill this void, this space. But only if you are confident that it is what you desire. It has to be a must-have item. It's not a great thing to have. How to approach a person you want to be your mentor in the most efficient way is quite similar to how you'd approach an alpha, so it's a comparable protocol. You'll have to echo them a lot and know the criterion values. Episode Timeline: [00:09] The Mondo Supremo Package [06:10] The Speed Attraction [10:28] The Sales and Authenticity Mastermind Training [17:34] Investing on Yourself [25:14] The Secrets of Influencing Alphas [30:58] Camouflaging the Echo Technique [46:45] The Influence Through Three Pillars [51:53] The Powerful, Charismatic and Playful Technique [56:16] The Open Heart Technique Learn more about Dr. David Snyder and NPL Power at: Website: http://www.nlppower.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidsnydernlp/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DavidSnyderNLP Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/davidsnyderhypnosis YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/davidsnydernlp

Langley Vale Wood is a really special place. Created as part of the Trust's First World War Centenary Woods project, it's a natural living legacy for the fallen that symbolises peace and hope. Memorials offer space to remember in an evocative and moving tribute. As well as these important reflections on the past, the site has a bright future. Previously an arable farm that became non-viable, nature is now thriving, with butterfly, bird and rare plant numbers all up. Join site manager Guy Kent and volunteer David Hatcher to explore the ‘Regiment of Trees', the ‘Witness' memorial and Jutland Wood. Discover too how the site is being transformed into a peaceful oasis for people and nature and why some of these fields are internationally important. Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk Transcript Voiceover: You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust, presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive. Adam: Hello! I've got to start by telling you this. I have driven to Langley Vale today and I've been driving through suburban London, really not very much aware of my surroundings, and you come up this hill and suddenly everything falls away and you burst out onto the top of the hill and it's all sky and Epsom Downs. And the racecourse is just ahead of you! And it dramatically changes. So, it's quite, it's quite an entrance into the Langley Vale forest area. I've come to meet, well, a couple of people here. I've drawn up next to a farm, I don't really know where they are, but it gives me a moment to tell you a little bit about the Langley Vale project which is amazing. It's a lovely thought behind it, because it is about honouring those who died in the First World War, and of course, there are many ways in which we honour and remember the people whose lives were changed forever during that global conflict. There are war memorials, headstones, poetry and paintings – and those man-made accolades – they capture all the names, the dates, the emotions and the places. And of course, they are vital in recording and recounting the difficult and very harrowing experiences from that conflict. But, what this venture, I think, wanted to achieve with its First World War Centenary Woods Project was a natural, living legacy for the fallen. Flourishing places that symbolise peace and hope, as well as remembering and marking the dreadful events of war, but doing that in the shape of nature and hope for the future. Both now and for many, many generations to come, providing havens for wildlife and for people – and I'm one of those people – and so it's a great project, it's in its very early stages, but it's a great opportunity, I think, to have a look around today. So, oh! There's two people wandering down the road there in shorts, I think they're hikers, I don't think they are who I am seeing. [Pause] Adam: So, Guy you're the site manager here, just tell me a little bit about the site. Guy: So, we are on the North Downs here in Surrey. It's a huge ridge of chalk that runs along southern England and down through Kent, it pops under the channel and pops up again in France. And this chalk ridge has got very special habitats on it in terms of woodland, chalk grassland, and we're very thrilled here that we've been able to buy, in 2014, a formerly intensively managed arable farm that was actually not very productive. The soils are very thin here on the hills the chalk with flints, so, pretty poor for growing crops, and we were very lucky to buy it as part of our First World War Centenary Woods project as England's Centenary Wood. Adam: So, tell me a bit about the Centenary Woods part of this. Guy: So, the idea of the project was to put a new woodland in each country of the United Kingdom, that being Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England. This is the England site, and it is the largest of the four sites. We've actually planted 170,000 trees here. We did go through a full Environmental Impact Assessment and this enabled us to find out where we could plant trees because there are some special habitats here, and there is a national character to the North Downs – national character being that much of the woodland is planted on the high ground and much of the lower land is actually open space, be that for arable use or pasture. Adam: This is a Centenary Wood, so, is this just an ordinary woodland planted in the name of those who died during the First World War? Guy: Yes. The difference is… one of the reasons this site was selected was because we do actually have history here from the First World War. We've got a number of memorials that I hope to show you today. One of which commemorates a day in January 1915. Lord Kitchener inspected 20,000 troops here that had gathered and recently joined, taking up the call to join his new army. So, there were many sorts of civilians here in civilian clothing. They got up at 4am in the morning, I'm told, to all assemble here for him arriving at 10am with his equivalent French minister, and they inspected the troops for a very short period of time because they had other troops to go and inspect nearby. But many of those 20,000 actually then ended up going over, obviously, over to the frontline and many were not to return. Adam: Shall we have a walk down? And what is there then to commemorate that? Are there, are these just trees planted in memory of that occasion, or have you got a sort of statue or something? Guy: Yeah, well, the Regiment of Trees as we're just about to see, as you go around the corner… An artist, we commissioned an artist called Patrick Walls who has actually created some statues for us replicating that event. So, we have men standing to attention carved out of sandstone… Adam: Wow, yes. Just turning around the corner here and you can see this, yes, individual soldiers standing proud of a field of, actually, white daisies just emerging made from that sandstone you say? Guy: Yes sandstone. Adam: Sandstone soldiers. We are just walking up to them now, but behind that is all, I mean, I'm assuming this is a statue, but a statue made of trees. Guy: Indeed, what you're looking at there Adam is a memorial that we've called Witness. It's actually created by an artist called John Merrill and it is made up of parts of oak trees that have been assembled and it's inspired by the World War One painter Paul Nash, who was a cubist artist, and a particular painting of his called ‘Trees on the Downs' and that's inspired by that. And we're very lucky to have included within the memorial part of an oak out of Wilfred Owen's garden. Adam: Wow! Guy: Yeah so it's constructed to look like trees that have been obliterated, effectively, on the frontline, very evocative. Adam: Yes, you get very evocative pictures of a single tree either, you know, scarred black or sometimes actually still alive in a field of chaos. Guy: That's right yeah. And that's kind of trying to illustrate that in our memorial here, and what you can do, the public can actually walk through it. We've got a couple of benches within it, actually, where people can sit and contemplate, and actually written on the inside of some of these beams that go up are actually excerpts from poems from First World War poets. Adam: So, this first statue we're actually standing by it's sort of transformed in the flow of the statue – so it comes out of the ground as a sort of textured rock and as you go up 5 foot, 6 foot the statue also transforms into a man, but this man is wearing a suit and flat cap, so is a civilian. Guy: Indeed, and that's kind of trying to illustrate the fact that many of them are just joined up and a number of them haven't even got their uniform yet. Adam: So, let's move on, ahead of us, there's this sort of city gent on the left but looks a bit grander, but on the right, there are obviously… these look like officers. Guy: Yeah, the best, how I can best describe this is, that we've actually got 12 statues here and they're actually sitting among standard trees that were planted. So, we've got birch here, we've got beech, we've got whitebeam and we've got maple. But, these statues, the twelve of them, are in four lines. The guys at the back have only just joined up and they haven't had their uniform yet. And what the artist wanted to illustrate was the fact that all classes joined up at the same time. So, we have a working-class guy with his flat cap down the end there, we have our middle-class guy here with his hat on, and then we have the upper classes as well – it's meant to illustrate that everybody was in it together and joined in. Adam: I thought this was an officer, but I can see from his insignia he's a corporal. Guy: Indeed, and if you look at the statues Adam, as we go nearer the front to where Kitchener would have inspected, they all put the guys at the front who had all their webbing, all their uniform already, and as we move back through the lines it was less and less uniform and equipment. Adam: It's very evocative, I have to say, it's much more emotional than I thought it would be. Shall we go over to the sculpture? Guy: Yes let's. Adam: So, this is called ‘Witness'. Guy: So, this is ‘Witness' yes, and this is… John Merrill created this, he's got a yard in Wales where he works wood of this size. As you can see, it's quite a structure. Adam: So, yes as you say this size… So, I'm very bad at judging, six… I am trying to think, how many six-foot men could you fit under here? Six, twelve, I dunno thirty foot high? Was that fair? Guy: I tend to work in metres, I don't know about you, but I'm going to say about six metres at its highest point. Adam: So, it's made of, sort of, coming into it… it's… actually, it's quite cathedral-like inside. Small but is that a fair description? Guy: Yeah, I think so. Adam: *inaudible* Now, every second tree here has a line of First World War poetry etched into it rather beautifully. Do you want to read just a couple out for us? Guy: Yes… so here we have one saying: “And lying in sheer I look round at the corpses of the larches. Whom they slew to make pit-props.” [editor: Afterwards by Margaret Postgate Cole]. “At evening the autumn woodlands ring with deadly weapons. Over the golden plains and lakes…” [editor: Grodek by Georg Trakl]. Adam: Amazing, it's an amazing place. There are a couple of benches here and these are… Guy: These are the names of the poets. So, we have W Owen here, we have E Thomas, J W Streets, M P Cole, amongst others. Adam: Very moving, very moving. Okay, well it's a big site isn't it, a big site. So, where are we going to go to next? Guy: Well, we can walk through now Adam, we can see a new community orchard that we planted in 2017. Adam: So, we've come into, well a big part of, well there are a huge number of trees here. So, is this the main planting area? Guy: Yes, this is the main planting area. There are approximately 40,000 trees in here. Adam: We're quite near a lot of urban areas, but here they've all disappeared, and well, the field goes down and dips up again. Is that all Woodland Trust forest? Guy: That's right, what you can see ahead of us there is actually the first planting that we did on this site in 2014, on that hillside beyond. Adam: 2014? So, eight, eight… Guy: Eight years old. Adam: [laughs] Thank you, yes mental maths took me a moment. So, the reason I was doing that, is that they look like proper trees for only eight years old. Guy: It just shows you that obviously, you think that when we're planting all these trees now – that none of us will perhaps be here long enough to enjoy them when they're mature trees, but I think you can see from just by looking over there that that woodland is eight years old and it's very much started to look like a woodland. Adam: Very much so, well, brilliant. Well, very aptly I can see, starting to see poppies emerging in the fields amongst the trees. They do have this sort of sense of gravestones, in a way, don't they? They're sort of standing there in regimented rows amongst the poppy fields. So, where to now? Guy: So, we'll go to Jutland Wood, which is our memorial to the Battle of Jutland. Adam: The famous sea battle Guy: Yes, it was the largest battle of the First World War which raged over two days, the 31st of May to the 1st of June 1916. We're going to meet our volunteer, lead volunteer, David Hatcher now, who's been working with us on the site for a number of years, and he's going to tell you about this memorial that we've got to the Battle of Jutland. Adam: Right, I mean, here it's, it's different because there are these rather nice, actually, sculpted wooden stands. What are these? Guy: Yeah, these are… actually commemorate… we've got what we call naval oaks. So, we've got a standard oak planted for each of the ships that were lost in that particular battle and we've also, between them, we've got these port holes that have been made by an artist called Andrew Lapthorn, and if I can describe those to you, they are sort of a nice piece, monolith of wood with a porthole in the middle of…, a glass porthole, that indicates how many lives were lost and it has the name of the ship. Adam: So, this is HMS Sparrowhawk where six lives were lost, 84 survivors, but HMS Fortune next door, 67 lives lost, only ten survivors, and it just goes on all the way through. Guy: As you walk through the feature Adam, the actual lives lost gets a bit more, bigger and bigger, and by the end it's… there were very few survivors on some of the ships that went down, and they are illustrated on these nice portholes that commemorate that. Adam: And this is all from the Battle of Jutland? Guy: Battle of Jutland this is yeah. Adam: And just at the end here HMS Queen Mary, 1,266 lives lost, only 20 survivors from 1913. Very, very difficult. [Walking] Guy: This memorial, actually illustrates…, is by a lady called Christine Charlesworth, and what we have here is a metal representation of a sailor from 1916 in his uniform. And that faces the woodland here, where you can see ancient semi natural woodland that would have been here in 1916. So, this sailor is looking to the past and our ancient woodland. If we look to the other side of the sailor, we have a sailor from 2016 in his uniform and he's looking in the opposite direction, and he's looking at our newly planted trees – looking to the future. Adam: Let's walk through here, and at the end of this rather… I mean it is very elegantly done but obviously sombre. But, at the end here we're going to meet David who's your lead volunteer. So, David, so you're the lead volunteer for this site? And, I know that's, must be quite a responsibility because this is quite a site! David: That's very flattering - I'm a lead volunteer - I have lots of brilliant colleagues. Adam: Really? So, how many of you are there here? David: About seven lead volunteers, there are about one hundred volunteers on the list. Adam: And what do you actually do here? David: Ah well it's a whole range of different things. As you know this was an intensively farmed arable site. And there were lots of things like old fences and other debris. It was also used as a shooting estate, so there were things left over from feeding pheasants and what have you. Adam: Right. David: A lot of rubbish that all had to be cleared because it's open access land from the Woodland Trust, and we don't want dogs running into barbed wire fences and things like that. Adam: And it's different from, well I think, almost any other wood. It has this reflection of World War One in it. What does that mean to you? David: Well, it actually means a lot to me personally, because I was the first chairman of the Veteran's Gateway. So, I had a connection with the military, and it was brilliant for me to be able to come and do something practical, rather than just sitting at a desk, to honour our veterans. Adam: And do you notice that people bring their families here who have had grandfathers or great grandfathers who died in World War One? David: Yes, they do and in particular we have a memorial trail in November, every year, and there's a wreath where you can pick up a little tag and write a name on it and pin it to this wreath, and that honours one of your relatives or a friend, or somebody like that, and families come, and children love writing the names of their grandpa on and sticking it to the wreath. Adam: And do you have a family connection here at all? David: My father actually served in the, sorry, actually my grandfather served at the Battle of Jutland. Adam: Wow and what did he do there? David: He was a chief petty officer on a battleship, and he survived I am happy to say, and perhaps I would never have been here had he not, and all of my family – my father, my mother, both my grandfathers were all in the military. Adam: And do you remember him talking to you about the Battle of Jutland? David: He didn't, but what he did have was, he had a ceremonial sword which I loved, I loved playing with his ceremonial sword. Adam: Gotcha. And you are still here to tell the tale! [Laughter] David: And so are all my relatives! [Laughter] Adam: Yes, please don't play with ceremonial swords! [Laughter] That's amazing. Of course, a lot of people don't talk about those times. David: No. Adam: Because it's too traumatic, you know… as we've seen how many people died here. David: Yes. Adam: Well look, it's a relatively new woodland and we're just amongst, here in this bit, which commemorates Jutland, the trees are really only, some of them, poking above their really protective tubes. But what sort of changes have you seen in the last seven, eight odd years or so since it's been planted? David: It's changed enormously. It's quite extraordinary to see how some trees have really come on very well indeed, but also a lot of wildflowers have been sown. We have to be very careful about which we sow and where because it's also a very valuable natural wildflower site, so we don't want them getting mixed up. Adam: So, what's your favourite part of the site then? David: Ah well my favourite part…, I'm an amateur naturalist, so there's the sort of dark and gloomy things that are very like ancient woodland. We call them ancient semi-natural woodland. So there is Great Hurst Wood which is one of the ancient woodlands. Adam: Here on this site? David: Yes, on this site. It's just over there, but we have another couple of areas that are really ancient semi-natural woodland, but actually, I love it all. There's something for everybody: there's the skylarks that we can hear at the moment; the arable fields with very rare plants in; the very rare fungi in the woods. Actually, that line of trees that you can see behind you is something called the Sheep Walk, and the Sheep Walk is so-called because they used to drive sheep from all the way from Kent to markets in the west of the county, and they've always had that shelterbelt there – it's very narrow – so they've always had it there to protect the sheep from the sun, or the weather, or whatever. And it's the most natural bit of ancient woodland that there is, even though it's so narrow and it's fascinating what you can find under there. Adam: And I saw you brought some binoculars with you today. So, I mean, what about sort of the birds and other animals that presumably have flourished since this was planted? David: It's getting a lot better. The Woodland Trust has a general no chemicals and fertiliser policy and so as the soil returns to its natural state then other things that were here before, sometimes resting in the soil, are beginning to come up. We, I think, we surveyed maybe 20 species of butterflies in the first year… there are now over… 32! And there are only 56 different species over the country, so we have a jolly good proportion! We have two Red List birds at least here – skylarks and lapwings nesting. It's all getting better; it's getting a lot better under new management. Adam: [chuckle] Fantastic! Well, it's a real, a real joy to be here today. Er so, we're here in the Jutland woodland. Where, where are we going to next do you think? Where's the best place…? David: We're going to have a look at one of the wonderful poppy fields. Adam: Right. David: Because the poppies come up just as they did in Flanders every summer and it's, it really is a sight to behold. Adam: And is this peak poppy season? David: It's just passed… Adam: Just passed. David: So, we hope they are still there and haven't been blown away. Adam: It would be typical if I have got here and all the poppies have gone. Forget it, alright, let's go up there. So, well this is quite something! So, we've turned into this other field, and it is a field, well never in my life have I seen so many poppies! Mainly red poppies, but then there are…, what are these amongst them? Guy: Yeah. So, what you can see is a number of species of poppies here. The main one you can see, it's the red Flanders poppy. Adam: And is this natural or planted because of the First World War reference? Guy: No, it's mostly…, we did supplement this with some…, we've actually planted some of these poppy seeds, but most of them are natural and it's a direct result of the fact that we continue to cultivate the land. One of the most important conservation features we have here on site is rare arable plants. Bizarrely, these plants were once called arable weeds, but when intensification of farming began in the mid-20th century, the timing of ploughing was changed, the introduction of herbicides, all these things meant that these so-called arable weeds actually became quite rare and they were just hanging on to the edges of fields. What we've been able to do here is to continue to cultivate the land sympathetically for these plants and we now have much, much better arable plant assemblages here. We have rare arable plants here now, that mean that some of these fields are of national importance and a couple of them are of international importance, but a by-product of cultivating the land every year for these is that we get displays of poppies like this every year. Adam: And when you cultivate, you're talking about cultivating the land, you're planting these poppies, or what does that mean? Guy: No, it's almost like replicating the fact…, it's as if we're going to plant a crop, so we actually plough the field and then we roll it as if we're going to prepare a crop. Adam: But you don't actually plant a crop. Guy: No, no exactly. And then we leave it fallow and then naturally these arable plants tend to actually populate these fields. Poppies are incredibly nectar-rich, they're actually quite short-lived… Some of you may know poppies that grow in your garden, and they could be out in bloom one day and completely blown off their petals the next day. They don't, like, last very long, but they do pack a powerful punch for nectar, so definitely invertebrates… Because we don't use chemicals here anymore which would have been used constantly on this farm – and what that means is that many of these arable plants, they require low fertility otherwise they get out-competed by all the things you'd expect like nettles, docks and thistles. So as the land improves so will hopefully arable plant assemblages making them even more impressive than they already are. Adam: But actually, as the, as the soil improves isn't that a problem for things like poppies ‘cause they'll get out-competed by other plants which thrive better? Guy: It's a fair point, but what is actually crucial – is that to actually increase biodiversity in these fields it actually requires low nutrients. In terms of a lot of these fields, as well, we have, from years of chemical application, we have a lot of potassium, we have a lot of magnesium in them, and they have a lot of phosphorus too now. Magnesium and potassium tend to leach out of the soil so they will improve naturally, phosphorus tends to bind the soil and sticks around for a long time. So, we're trying to get these chemicals down to acceptable levels to make them more attractive for rare plants and therefore increasing biodiversity. Adam: Well, it is, it is like a painting and I'm going to take a photo and put it on my Twitter feed. I just, [gasp] so if anyone wants to see that, head over there. But it is beautiful, properly beautiful. I mean, so we were walking by this extraordinary painting of a poppy field to our right. It's a site which has been revolutionised because it was all arable farming less than a decade ago. What has that done for biodiversity here? Guy: Well, as we can imagine these fields, it's quite difficult to imagine them as we walk through them now, but these would have all been bare fields that were basically in crop production and there's clearly been an explosion of invertebrate activity here. We've got increasing butterfly species every year, our bird numbers are starting to go up, but also importantly we've got certain areas where habitats are being allowed to develop. So, we have a former arable field here that is now developing, it has been planted up with hazel coppice in a system we call ‘coppice with standards', where we plant… Adam: Coppice with standards? Guy: Coppice with standards yeah. Adam: Oo, well very grand! Guy: It is! It's an old forestry practice where they planted lots of hazel trees that would have been worked and then periodically in amongst them, there will be oak trees that would be allowed to grow longer and then harvested at a later date. What this has meant is that we've got long grass now that is growing between these trees and that's making it much more attractive for small mammals on site. Adam: Like what? What sort of small mammals? Guy: Things like voles, wood mice, field voles, these sort of things that make sort of tracks and sort of tunnels within the grass. And what that has meant is, as we go up the food chain is, that that's become more attractive now on the site for raptors. A nice story from two years ago - we have a volunteer that works with us who is a BTO bird ringer, and he sort of approached us to say “you've got barn owls nearby and your site is starting to develop nicely. How do you fancy putting up some raptor boxes to see if we can attract them in?” So, which was great, and we managed…, the local bird club donated some barn owl boxes, we put the barn owl boxes up in this field we have just talked about – the hazel coppice field – and the expert said “well they probably won't nest in it this year. They'll come and have a look…” Anyway, we put it up…, two months later… it was being used and we were able to ring those three chicks that came from that and they've been breeding ever since. Adam: Wow, how amazing! Must be very heartening to be working on the site which is growing like that so quickly. Guy: It is, it's amazing and when you consider that we're within the M25, we're very close to London, but we've got this site that is growing and it's only going to get better as we manage it sympathetically for the wildlife that it hosts. Adam: We're just coming round the bend and back to almost where we started into this field of standing soldiers amongst the growing trees, and the cathedral-like tree sculpture there which will take us back to the beginning. So we've just done a little tour… Guy: Yeah, Adam: So, I dunno half an hour, 40 minutes or so. Presumably, we skirted the edges of this… Guy: You certainly have Adam! It's a fraction of the site. We are 640 acres in size and we're just at the top part of it. This area that we've largely walked around today is very much focused on World War One and our memorials, but much of the rest of the site is, actually, is quite a bit quieter, there are fewer people around and the focus is definitely more on wildlife. Adam: Yes, well, it has been an amazing trip, I have to say, I've been to lots of different Woodland Trust woods all the way up the country, to the far stretches of Scotland. I have to say I think this is my favourite. It's quite, quite a site! And the memorial is done really tastefully and fits in with the landscape. I think this is quite, quite a site for you to manage, it's quite a thing. Guy: It's incredible and we are just so proud of it and we just can't wait to be able to open our car park and invite people from further afield, and not just locals who get to enjoy it as is the case at the moment. Adam: Absolutely. Well look, thank you! It started this morning, bright sun, it looked like I shouldn't need to bring a coat then all of a sudden, I thought “Oh my goodness”, we're standing under a completely black cloud but it has not rained, it is not raining, we're in running distance of the car so… Guy: Somebody's looking down on us Adam, at least for a couple of hours. Adam: They are indeed, well thank you very much! Voiceover: Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks. Join us next month when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers and don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes, or wherever you're listening to us, and do give us a review and a rating. And why not send us a recording of your favourite woodland walk to be included in a future podcast? Keep it to a maximum of five minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walk special. Or send an email with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to podcast@woodlandtrust.org.uk and we look forward to hearing from you.

Con menos de 6 m2 de áreas verdes por persona, Cerro Navia tiene buenas noticias: la recuperación urbana de la zona aledaña a la subestación eléctrica. Una iniciativa público-privada de la que conversamos con David Noé, vicepresidente de asuntos corporativos de Transelec. Y tras finalizar la Conferencia de los Océanos de la ONU, realizada en Lisboa, Mark Minneboo, director de Plastic Oceans para Latinoamérica, se refirió a los avances y retrocesos dados a conocer en el encuentro.

Join us at Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Wood, Leics to discover a thriving 10-year-old wood, chat royal trees and celebrate the Platinum Jubilee. We meet with site manager David Logan to explore the site's connections with the royal family, its special art features and some of the wildlife, sights and sounds you might encounter on a visit.  Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk. Transcript Voiceover: You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive. Adam: Well, like all good podcasts let's start with a story and this one obviously is about a tree. It stands in a quiet part of central London called Lincoln's Inn Fields – the centre of the legal profession. It sits, well, just outside of a gated 11-acres of parkland in one of the otherwise busiest and noisiest parts of the country. It was planted in 1953 and since then the well-heeled men and women of the legal profession, who worked there, often sheltered under its branches, passed it by, both ignoring it and perhaps enjoying it. In the 70 years that tree has been growing, there have been many monumental events and world figures who have both entered and left the stage. When it was first planted, Winston Churchill was Prime Minister. Since then, entering and often leaving the limelight – Elvis Presley, Martin Luther King, Yuri Gagarin, The Beatles, Marilyn Monroe, John F Kennedy, video players were invented, personal computers and mobile phones were created, and there have been 15 prime ministers. But in all that time, as a living witness to that history of the new Elizabethan Age, there has been only one monarch – Queen Elizabeth II. No one has played such a long-lived part in the nation's history as the Queen. The tree that still stands by Lincoln's Inn Fields is one of literally millions that have been planted in the name of the Queen. Trees, of course, have an even longer perspective on time than Her Majesty but both stand as witnesses and part of history stretching back and reaching forward far beyond the timescales most of us live by. It's very fitting, therefore, that on this Platinum Jubilee the Woodland Trust has partnered with the Queen's Green Canopy Project to invite everyone across the UK to plant a network of trees, avenues, copse, and whole woodlands, in honour of the Queen's service and legacy From a single sapling in a garden to a whole wood, the aim is to create 70 Platinum Jubilee Woods of 70 acres each – every tree bringing benefits for people, wildlife and climate – now and for the future. And so, I took this opportunity to visit the Trust's Diamond Jubilee Wood in Leicestershire, where I met the man responsible for looking after the woodland, David Logan. David: So, this is Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Woods and it's a flagship site of a scheme that the Woodland Trust has to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. So, what we endeavoured to do, and we've successfully done. We created 75+ woods of 60 acres or more and they were the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Woods. And, this is the flagship one of those woods, making it the largest single-owned block of native broadleaf woodland in the National Forest area. Adam: What immediate, I mean, we've not really gone in yet, but what immediately surprises me is this is really quite, well, it's a very young wood. Yet, it already but quite mature I mean, were these species, was this all planted? David: You're looking at a hedgerow and beyond that are the trees at the same height as the hedgerow. So yeah no, it is to me, you know, a refute to people who say 'why bother planting woods because you never get to walk under the bows of the trees' but these, only ten years ago this was planted and when you get into the site, you're definitely in a wood now 10 years later. Adam: those trees are all on the quite tall… David: They must be 10-12 feet tall. Adam: Yeah, looks even taller to me but then I'm unsure. Okay, go on, lead on. Tell me a bit about then what this site sort of is, why it's special, you know, biologically special? David: Because of, it's big! You get that really wild feeling when you're here. So, you know, 267 hectares are completely devoted to nature. There's not, well, I don't think there's anywhere else particularly like that in this part of the country. And, so yeah, it does stand out. We get lots of different wildlife: lots of birds, lots of invertebrates, butterflies and a really good show of wildflowers as well. We will see some of them. Adam: And what was here before? Was it just an empty field? David: No. So, it was an open cast coal mine. So, the whole lot was owned by UK Coal and then the central part of it where the lake is was the largest hole in Europe! When it was done 750,000 tonnes of coal came out. Adam: Wow! So, I mean, there's no sign of that at all, because open cast mining can be a real scar on the land, can't it? I mean, it doesn't look pretty and then yet is there still a hole, was that all backfilled? David: That's all backfilled yeah so all of the substrate that wasn't coal will have been stored around the site and then all put back in the hole. Adam: How long have you been here then? David: So, I've been site manager for three years now, so.... Adam: Right. David: Yeah, seen it develop.  Adam: So, what sort of, I mean, three years is not a long time, especially in the life span of trees, but what sort of changes have you seen over that period? David: I think the biggest one recently is we took away all of the tree tubes and the fencing that the original kind of planting scheme relied on to protect it from deer and rabbits. Yeah, which has completely changed the way the site feels. So, no more sea of plastic tubes and no more fences to get in the way. So, you can get to walk where you like now, as well as the wildlife can get around the site a bit easier, and it really has changed the way it all feels Adam: In terms of the local community engagement and their use of this wood, what's that like? David: It's been great. Yeah, been great right from the outset, so, we had a lot of community involvement with the original planting and then again with extensions, voluntarily. Adam: And how well used is it by the locals then? David: Yeah, yeah, very well used, very rarely do you ever come to the car park and there's less than five cars in it. Adam: We're coming to, I can see... what's that building over there? That looks very pretty! David: So, that is what we call the welcome barn. So, I've got two buildings I've got on this site. I've got the welcome barn and I've got bird hide as well. Adam: Wow! So, what happens? Is there someone with tea and crumpets in the welcome barn for us? David: Unfortunately not no, but there are some interpretation panels that tell you the story of the site and a nice mosaic that was made by the volunteers as well, at the beginning of the site. And then a little compost toilet round the back! Adam: Laughs Okay that's good, good to know, good to know! And tell me about the bird hide then. David: So, the bird hide is yet another lovely building overlooking a lake. So, the lake was kind of formed by the sinking of the coal mine and the soil around it, and yeah, so just a nice bird hide, we'll go and look at it. Adam: What sort of birds do you get? David: The most exciting bird that we've had here is a hen harrier.  Adam: Right! Wow! And look, and this welcome barn, this also seems to be unusual for a Woodland Trust site? You don't normally see these things. David: Don't normally get a building no, I'm lucky to have two! Adam: And look at... really, really lovely sort of mosaic on the floor – Woodland Trust mosaic which sort of looks quite 1950s like... Do you know how long this…? This can't be that...? David: No no, that was built when the barn was built and the site was created in 2012 and it's meant to, kind of, reflect the Roman history of the site. So, we've got a Roman road that we just crossed over there, and then we've got two areas of our underlining archaeology which we know are Roman on the site. And so, we know there's certainly a lot of Roman activity, hence a Romanesque kind of mosaic. Adam: So, just explain a bit about where we are. David: So, these are called the groves – The Royal Groves – as part of Royal Groves Walk, and as part of the creation of the site. There was a royal Grove created for each year of the Queen's reign, so, they're in a series of circles and each one has a post and people can sponsor the grove and the post and then they get their little plaque added to the grove post for their year. I believe that certain years become more popular than others for various reasons and, but yeah, you'll see all these names. My favourite one, I think, is just this one. This grove is dedicated to the dahlia. Adam: That's fantastic laugh dahlia appreciation society sponsors. So, tell me a bit about the trees we're seeing here, there's clearly a whole mixture. David: Yes. So, they're all native broadleaf trees. We have got birch and oak going round. There is no ash in this part of the wood because ash dieback was kind of discovered just as the planting was going ahead and so we're lucky. There is a compartment in the north which got ash put into it. You might see the occasional ash tree that's self-set. So, we've got a Jubilee Grove Trail going on at the weekend for the... to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee that's coming up, encouraging people to, kind of, wander around the trails, and we're going to have these tree rings, sections of a tree... one per decade of the Queen's reign and with various large events that happen within that decade there will be a tree ring. Adam: Will that be permanent? David: No, it'll just be for the month of June and there will be a large wicker crown somewhere onsite as well. Adam: That's all happening next weekend? David: Well, late this week, next weekend. Adam: You've got a lot of work to do. I'm amazed you've got the time spare to wander around with me. David: Yeah well. Yeah, yeah there's always... it's always a rare commodity time I'm afraid Adam. Adam: Now you didn't design this here? You're a new boy! David: I am a new boy here! Adam: So, who actually designed it? David: So, it was a lady called Kerrie who is here, here now. She knows lots more about the groves than me as the designer and helped put it all in. Adam: Brilliant, hi Kerrie! Kerrie: Hi Adam. I think I don't think I want to say that I designed the wood but... Adam: I was building you up! Kerrie: You were, thank you, but the layout of the groves and... I was certainly involved in the design of the concept and then how we spoke to individuals about whether they would like to be involved in this. So, it was an opportunity for families to dedicate their own acre of woodland and help us develop this wood, as well as being part of a feature that enables you to walk through the Queen's reign. Kind of, physically walk through every year of the Queen's reign, so it's really special. Adam: Which is amazing, isn't it?  Kerrie: Yes, it is.  Adam: Tell me a bit about this royal connection because this wasn't, sort of, just a random, sort of, marketing idea. There's a really good basis for this royal connection isn't there? Kerrie: Absolutely, yeah so, at the Woodland Trust in 2011 we started a project to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee – so, sixty years of the Queen's reign – and we wanted to enable people across the country to plant trees and create woodland. We did that in a number of ways. So, we had this aspiration to create sixty Diamond Woods each of 60-acres in size, which is a big, really big commitment! And we also encourage people to create Jubilee Woods which were much smaller copses of trees in community spaces. And we distributed trees to schools and communities all across the country. Actually, it was hugely successful so the wood we are here at today is the Woodland Trust's flagship Diamond Wood. And then we had landowners and organisations and local authorities who also wanted to be involved. We needed to create 60-acre woods, we didn't know if we'd get to sixty actually inaudible we did get to sixty, we surpassed that, we had seventy-five woods at that scale created! Adam: So, seventy-five 60-acre wood Kerrie: Plus woods yeah, amazing, so, it's the first sixty of the Diamond Woods and then we have fifteen woods that we call the Princess Woods. Adam: Amazing, and so this was to commemorate that reign, and this is a lovely theme though! You can wander through the years of the Queen's reign. But the royal connection to woods is long and deep, isn't it? Kerrie: It is yeah. So, we were really fortunate that Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal was patron of that project. But there's a long and well-established connection between the royal family and tree planting, and as part of the project that we did we wanted to map all the woods that were created, and the trees that were planted. So, we copied... Adam: So, for the, for the queen? Kerrie: For the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. So actually, we took inspiration and sort of copied the Royal Record that had been done previously to mark a coronation. So, we actually have physically created and produced, published a Royal Record which is a huge red tome and that charts where all those trees are. And this is something that had already been done before the Queen's father. It's actually very heavy and so we have a copy at our office in Grantham, there is a copy in the British Library, and we gave a copy both to the Princess Royal and to the Queen.  Adam: There are lots of royal connections to trees and tree planting even beyond Queen Elizabeth. So, tell me a bit about that. Kerrie: That's right, yes. So, in the 1660s Charles II commissioned several avenues of sweet chestnut and elm in Greenwich Park and in 1651 he hid from pursuers inside an ancient oak during the English Civil War. and I think that's one of the reasons actually that you see so many pubs called the Royal Oak. Adam: Right okay because he hid in one? Kerrie: He hid in one yeah. Adam: Now you came... when did you see the hole in the ground? This was an open cast mine? Kerrie: Yes. Adam: You saw that? Kerrie: Yes, before any trees were here. So, I can't believe it's been several years since I've been here today, and it is now it's a wood! Adam: Yeah, there is no sign of that is there? Kerrie: No absolutely not, a complete transformation. Adam: It is amazing, isn't it? How quickly really that the natural world can recover. I mean, it needs a bit of help obviously and certainly in this circumstance. But no sign of what must have been really quite horrific bit of landscaping. Kerrie: Yeah. I think given how stark it felt at the beginning and when we first saw all trees grow in the ground here. It is genuinely remarkable for the transformation in a ten-year period of time! You can hear the birds, the trees are overhead, you know, we've seen butterflies, caterpillars... It really feels like nature has reclaimed this space it's really really exciting Adam: And when you start, I mean, look it's already done! It's a success! It looks fantastic, but when you started was this always a ‘this is gonna work' or at that stage did you think ‘this looks horrible, this might be a disaster, no one might come, no one might get on board with this project'? Kerrie: Well. I think we all had the vision, we all had hope. There are colleagues of mine that have been working at the Trust for longer than me who knew how this would look. I just didn't know that. This is one of the first projects I worked on so, to see it within ten years, the change that's the thing that I find you know really amazing! I thought I would have to wait much longer, and I'd be coming back with grandchildren to say look at this, but actually, here we are within a decade and it is transformed. Adam: Brilliant! Alright, well let's move on, let's find David again. Kerrie: Well, David on a previous visit has actually shown the Princess Royal around this wood. So, in terms of royal connections David has been a royal tour guide. Adam: Okay, so we have a living royal connection here? Kerrie: We do. Adam: Look here's a little bench, I might just sit here for a while. Brilliant, ah there's a dedication, what does it say? 'In honour of Sally Whittaker who believed in the beauty of wildlife and protecting it'. I have to say I always do like stopping at a bench and reading those dedications. Brief pause So, David, I'm not the only super important person you've taken around this woodland, am I? David: You're not the only super important person maybe, you are charming Adam! Adam: Ahhh thank you that's very sweet, very sweet laughs come on tell me about the even more important people you've taken around! David: So, yeah well, the most important person I guess would be Princess Anne, the Princess Royal, alongside Darren [Moorcroft] the CEO of the Woodland Trust. So, I was pretty nervous that morning, to be honest. The CEO, I'd never met him before and obviously a member of the royal family! But yeah no, I remember being nervous at the beginning, and then by the end of the day when I finally said goodbye to Princess Anne I was longing to spend a bit more time with her. She is incredibly charming, yes. Adam: Yeah. So, we come to a waymark, which? It's left, is it? David: Follow the blue and white arrows. Adam: Right so, if there are... there two different paths? Does blue and white mean anything or? David: Yeah. So, there's three waymarked trails around the site and we just happen to be happening on a little bit that's on two of those. So, there's the woodland walk which is the longest walk around the whole of the wood, and then there's the Royal Groves Walk. And then there's the lake walk as well Adam: Right so, explain a bit about where we're heading off to. You're taking me into the centre of the woods, it feels like? David: Yeah. So, we're continuing along the groves and eventually, we will get to a broad open vista, and you will be able to see most of the features of the site. Adam: So, we are already walking out to what looks like a less wooded area. David: Yes, we're kind of skirting the western edge of the site now and then... Adam: It's a big site, isn't it? how long will it take to walk over the whole thing do you think? How long are these paths? David: Like a good tour of every feature of the site here's looking at half a day really, probably, and that's with a bit of pace on. Adam: I've only got short legs laugh so I'd add a few hours. So, there's another one of these posts. Shall we just have a look? 1985 were through to, anyway so... David: Green woodpecker there, did you hear? Adam: Oh no wow! I missed out, I've been looking out for posts, I missed the green woodpecker. So, we're just coming out of a rather wooded area into – it suddenly opens up very dramatically – and look at that it's a very different view! So I can see a lovely wildflower meadow almost and then at the bottom a huge lake! A huge lake. So, this is where the old open cast mining just sunk down a bit and has since got naturally filled? David: Yeah. So, what you're looking at now is the epicentre of the open cast coal mine and obviously the wider landscape around it. So, yeah that's our lake and the end of the groves walk. So, you can just see the final three or four grove posts just heading off down the hill. And then this was an open area left to retain the view and then on the other side of the lake we've got a 5-hectare exclusion zone so there's no paths in that area. Just, no paths in the area, just to allow nature to completely have five hectares for resting birds et cetera. Adam: Let's go down because I think... David: We've got something else to show you. Adam: Sorry go on, rushing ahead, what is it? David: So, we got this piece of land sculpture that was created by an artist called Rosie Levitan and there are calls every now and again. We get somebody asking if we can put some kind of panel up to explain what it's all about, but the artist herself expressly asked that not to happen. So, I think she is more inclined to allow you to kind of figure it out for yourself or come to your own conclusions as to what it's all about. So, it was created with money from the Arts Council at the inception of the site. So, no money that could have gone into conservation went into creating this piece of art. But yeah, I'll leave you to... Adam: Sorry, this is it? This is it? David: This is it; I'll leave you to come to your own conclusions. Adam: So, when you said a piece of art, I thought you meant like a large statue of something out of wood, but actually, this is a sort of an earth tiered... almost like amphitheatre going downwards counts I think 5 tiers there. David: It's in a spiral so you can walk around the outside which takes a lot longer than you think! Adam: Laughs Yeah right I think I might take the direct route down, but to be honest, it seems like a brilliant place to put on a play! David: Yes! That's my thoughts as well, yeah I'd love to get a play here. Adam: Yeah! Have you ever gone down then done a soliloquy? David: Errr not, well, do you want me to? Adam: Yes, if you if you've got a piece ready laughing David: Unfortunately, I haven't. I mean I could maybe do a jaunty jig or something like that? Adam: Yes, well look, we're recording. David: Yes, well, no let's not! Adam: That's a shame laughing I think you probably come down when there are not many people around. So, if you ever do see a man in Woodland Trust clothing doing a jaunty jig at the bottom of this amphitheatre-like piece of art you know who it is and that he just wouldn't do it for us laughter very nice, very nice. Adam: So, you're gonna take me down to the lake now? David: Yeah, take you down to the lake. Adam: And it's there that we are going to meet one of your volunteers, is that right? David: That is right yep, a chap called Gerald. So, he's been volunteering with us on the site since the site was created and in various different roles Adam: And I've just gotta say it is beautiful walking down here because there are just huge numbers of buttercups aren't there? David: Yes, it is stunning, isn't it? Adam: It is stunning, it's like a sort of it's like a painting! It's like a painting, brilliant! David: This is our pond dipping platform. Adam: There's a cuckoo Bird song Adam: That's very good, so Gerald, sorry, we're distracting you. I can see you distracted by some swans coming over with their little babies. They're coming over to investigate you think? Gerald: I think they are yes! It's good to see it, I, they must be relatively young because a few weeks ago they were they weren't about so it's... Adam: Right. We'll let these swans investigate us as I chat to you so tell me. I'm told you do tonnes on this site. What was the local community's feeling when the trust took over this site and sort of explained what it wanted to do? Gerald: Generally, really good because you can imagine if you've got an open cast colliery on your doorstep a wood is a big improvement! Adam: Well, that's what I was going to say, because sometimes there is, sort of you know, some resistance or sort of misunderstanding about what is trying to happen. But here you go ‘surely this is going to be better for everybody'? Gerald: Yeah, so I think, overall, the mood was very good. There will be people who say yes but why don't you do this because this is better? We had some debates about whether we could put in some fruit trees, for example, and because we're in a sort of prime growing area in Leicestershire here. And there were debates about whether that was acceptable, whether they were native trees or not. But it was all good healthy discussion and it's interesting to see how the trees have grown and they have particularly grown well on this area here which was the open-cast. When you think – this all was disturbed ground that was put back – the trees have grown probably better here than they have in parts of what was the agricultural land. Adam: I have to stop because the swans have properly come up to us now. There they are! How involved do you get now, now it's well established what do you actually end doing? Do you come down here most weeks or? Gerald: It's a couple of times a month at least now. During the pandemic, it was sort of very limited of course, and well before that time, I used to do a monthly walk which was really... Adam: This is your guided monthly walk? Gerald: Yes guided, with a series of friends and colleagues. Adam: Do you have a favourite part of the wood? Gerald: Actually, probably near the bird hide just along from there. Adam: Why? Gerald: I don't know really. It's gotta mix, you got a mix with the water, you got the mix of the trees, a bit of the open meadowland here, and yes, the bird hide does add a bit of character to the place. I think we're lucky to have that there. Adam: I think David's waiting for me there. Shall we go over and have a chat with him? We've paused for a moment because we're just passing a black Poplar and a little plaque next to it saying it was planted by BBC Breakfast on 1 June 2012 in celebration of Her Majesty the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. Gerald: Yes, we have the two black poplars here. Adam: There's another one here. Was that planted by ITV for balance? Laughter Gerald: Oh no much more prestigious. Adam: Oh sorry, yes it was planted by Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal who is patron of the Jubilee Wood Project on the 1 of June 2012. And doing very nicely! Gerald: Yes, they are indeed! They've both grown quite a bit in the last year, I think. Adam: Very nice! So, what's the way to the bird hide? Is it round here? Gerald: Just go up to post on turn left. It's at the moment, hidden by a willow screen. It's a piece of willow art, although it's not particularly obvious Adam: You can see they've been bent over at the bottom haven't they to form a sort of willow fence. Gerald: If you were to look down on it from a drone it will be an outline of a skylark. It's a little bit overgrown and that's on our task list for next winter to prune that and try and weave in the lower bit. So, it's going to task our skills! Laughter Adam: We're going into the bird hunt now. We're in the bird hide. David, ironically having seen lots of birds the moment I get in here actually I can't – oh I think there is one over there – but do people, is this a good actual spot to be watching birds from? David: Yeah, yeah because it gives you that cover so the birds don't necessarily know you're here. It is quite a light bird hide though but it was created in conjunction with the Leicestershire Wildlife Trust, so they must have built a few bird hides, but yes. Adam: To be honest it's lovely weather today. But if it was raining a little bit this would be a fantastic place just to sit down for a while, wouldn't it? David: Yes, it would yeah. Just get out of the rain, I've done that a couple of times! Adam: Right, fantastic, alright well where are we going to next? David: So, there's just one last thing I would like to show you onsite which is just a short walk back up the hill. Adam: Okay, what is that? David: It is called the photographic plinth and so it's basically some encouragement for people to keep on visiting the site year after year. So, what we've got is we've got a plinth that you put your camera on and then a brick area that you supposedly stand on so you can get exactly the same photograph every year. You can visit the site and you can watch your family grow as the wood grows around you Adam: What a brilliant idea! What a brilliant idea. Okay, okay so David so there is a plinth. David: Yes, this is our photographic plinth. What it needs is updating, because obviously when this was made smartphones didn't exist and now you wouldn't really get a smartphone balanced on that! Adam: Yes, that's true David: It needs a little block bit putting on so you can rest a phone on it. Adam: So, it's not only the trees which have changed, it's the technology that it's referring to. I'll tell you what, I mean, obviously I'm going to have my photo taken aren't I? Can I give you my, I haven't got a camera, I do have my smartphone, so I'll go stand... I'll go stand here, and in a couple of years I'll come back and I'll have even less hair. Hold on a second – do I look better with my hat off or on? Pause Neither. I feel that was an undiplomatic pause I felt. David: What I was thinking is that I need to see both to answer correctly, that's why I was thinking. So, I'm gonna take it from the correct position. Click There you go Adam: I'm not confident that looked any good from the look on your face. I'm not going to look at it now I'll check it when I'm home. There is clearly a lot more to it than I've managed to explore today but what a wonderful treat, on a lovely, beautiful Monday, in this very special royal year! To come and celebrate that here! thank you very much David. David: that's quite alright Adam it's been a pleasure Footsteps Adam: Well, that was a great walk and thanks of course to everyone who arranged that. It's a fantastic place to visit especially in this Royal Jubilee year. If you know about these things, you can find it at grid reference SK 390132. The nearest train stations are Burton, Tamworth and Loughborough, although they're all a bit of a car journey, I have gotta say, from each of those stations. But if you're looking for a woodland perhaps nearer to you do have a look at the Woodland Trust website which has a special site to find a wood near you it is woodlandtrust.org.uk/findawood. I do recommend you do that until next time happy wandering. Voiceover: Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks. Join us next month when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. And don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you're listening to us and do give us a review and a rating. Why not send us a recording of your favourite woodland walk to be included in a future podcast. Keep it to a maximum of 5 minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walk special, or send us an email with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to podcast@woodlandtrust.org.uk and we look forward to hearing from you.

About last night game

Episode 16: David Massey Salesforce Career Conversation with ROD. David talks about how he found his way into Salesforce. Originally a Salesperson at a travel company, he was one of the unlucky ones having to figure out a new career due to the impact of covid.  In less than two years, David has become a Salesforce Certified Consultant and now helps others to obtain their own certs. Lee Durrant: Hello, it's Lee Durrant here, with another episode of RODcast. We dive into people's Salesforce careers to find you little nuggets of inspiration that might help you in your Salesforce career. I'm pleased to say that joining me today is Dave Massey, who is-- I've lost count, but multiple certified Salesforce consultant and author of davejmassey.com, a website designed to help you learn Salesforce.   Hi, Dave, have I introduced you right there, mate? Is it author? Are we going to go with that?  David Massey: Yes, we'll go with author and thanks for having me, Lee. It's a pleasure to speak to you.  Lee: No, you too. We haven't spoken before, which, frankly for me, is a bit rare on this podcast because I've played it safe. I normally just talk to people that I know, but I couldn't help, like probably a lot of people in the Salesforce ecosystem, couldn't help noticing what you're up to and thought, from a selfish point of view, it'd be great to get you on our podcast and talk about your relatively short journey so far in Salesforce and the very quick rise to being a little bit of an influencer.  If you don't mind, perhaps giving us a very quick overview of who you are, then we can talk about, I guess, what's happened to you in the last few years if that's all right?  David: Yes, that's perfect. Where I am now is I'm an eight-time certified Salesforce consultant, working for a company called ThirdEye Consulting based out of London. Literally, two years and a week ago, I was actually a travel agent. It was only the 30th of March, I actually discovered Salesforce 2020, so the 30th of March 2020 was the first time I saw it. Prior to that, I'd worked in sales and service for a good 10, 15 years, selling everything you can think of from cars, to windows, to vacuum cleaners, to TVs, broadband, the works. Sold all of it and I found myself working in the travel industry.  I've been really successful. I'd been in it again, for about seven years at that point. I was doing really well with my sales team and when I say travel agents, technically, it's like a tour operator. Everything was custom built, everything was tailor-made, flights, hotels, transfers, trips, seven or eight week holidays, so something quite bespoke.  Again, was doing really, really well. Then COVID hit and as COVID hit, as most people know, in the travel industry, it is essentially minimum wage and then you earn all your money through commission. That's just the nature of the beast in sales, as you know. Yes, I walked into the office after COVID had hit and was just faced with the fact that I'd lost 50% of my commission overnight and all the other commission was going into a holding pot.  It couldn't really be touched, because it needed to be there to obviously keep everything going. It was a bit of a shock to walk into that. I'm married, I've got two kids, we've got a house, a mortgage, I've got a big dog that eats more than me. It was one of them where I had to look around and think, "Right, what am I going to do?"   Lee: You were made redundant, were you? Or what happened?  David: No, I wasn't made redundant. Literally, I just had to work full time through it, working from home because again, particular with the travel industries, it wasn't a case of, "Oh, right. Well, COVID shut down, lockdown, nobody does anything." Because we still had to manage all the flights, the hotels. Again, this is a bit people often didn't realize is we were working behind the scenes for minimum wage, working 10, 12 hour days because we're going through time zones to...

Homilías de los Siervos del Hogar de la Madre. Semana III de Cuaresma. Primera lectura Lectura del libro de Isaías Is 7, 10-14 En aquellos tiempos, el Señor le habló a Ajaz diciendo: “Pide al Señor, tu Dios, una señal de abajo, en lo profundo o de arriba, en lo alto”. Contestó Ajaz: “No la pediré. No tentaré al Señor”. Entonces dijo Isaías: “Oye, pues, casa de David: ¿No satisfechos con cansar a los hombres, quieren cansar también a mi Dios? Pues bien, el Señor mismo les dará por eso una señal: He aquí que la virgen concebirá y dará a luz un hijo y le pondrán el nombre de Emmanuel, que quiere decir Dios-con-nosotros”.Segunda lecturaLectura de la carta a los HebreosHeb 10, 4-10Hermanos: Es imposible que la sangre de toros y machos cabríos pueda borrar los pecados. Por eso, al entrar al mundo, Cristo dijo conforme al salmo: No quisiste víctimas ni ofrendas; en cambio me has dado un cuerpo. No te agradaron los holocaustos ni los sacrificios por el pecado; entonces dije –porque a mí se refiere la Escritura–: “Aquí estoy, Dios mío; vengo para cumplir tu voluntad”. Comienza por decir: No quisiste víctimas ni ofrendas, no te agradaron los holocaustos ni los sacrificios por el pecado –siendo así que es lo que pedía la ley–; y luego añade: Aquí estoy, Dios mío; vengo para cumplir tu voluntad. Con esto, Cristo suprime los antiguos sacrificios, para establecer el nuevo. Y en virtud de esta voluntad, todos quedamos santificados por la ofrenda del cuerpo de Jesucristo, hecha de una vez por todas. EVANGELIO DEL DÍA Evangelio según Lucas Lc 1, 26-38 En aquel tiempo, el ángel Gabriel fue enviado por Dios a una ciudad de Galilea, llamada Nazaret, a una virgen desposada con un varón de la estirpe de David, llamado José. La virgen se llamaba María. Entró el ángel a donde ella estaba y le dijo: “Alégrate, llena de gracia, el Señor está contigo”. Al oír estas palabras, ella se preocupó mucho y se preguntaba qué querría decir semejante saludo. El ángel le dijo: “No temas, María, porque has hallado gracia ante Dios. Vas a concebir y a dar a luz un hijo y le pondrás por nombre Jesús. Él será grande y será llamado Hijo del Altísimo; el Señor Dios le dará el trono de David, su padre, y él reinará sobre la casa de Jacob por los siglos y su reinado no tendrá fin”. María le dijo entonces al ángel: “¿Cómo podrá ser esto, puesto que yo permanezco virgen?” El ángel le contestó: “El Espíritu Santo descenderá sobre ti y el poder del Altísimo te cubrirá con su sombra. Por eso, el Santo, que va a nacer de ti, será llamado Hijo de Dios. Ahí tienes a tu parienta Isabel, que a pesar de su vejez, ha concebido un hijo y ya va en el sexto mes la que llamaban estéril, porque no hay nada imposible para Dios”. María contestó: “Yo soy la esclava del Señor; cúmplase en mí lo que me has dicho”. Y el ángel se retiró de su presencia.

What you'll learn in this episode: How David earned the nickname the “100-carat man” for selling some of the most expensive jewels in history What type of buyers are interested in eight-figure gems How David got the opportunity to write “Understanding Jewelry” with Daniela Mascetti Why the most incredible jewelry may be off the beaten path Why 18th century jewelry is so rare, and why people have refashioned old jewelry throughout history   About David Bennett Regarded internationally as a leading authority in the field of precious stones and jewelry, David Bennett is best known in his role as Worldwide Chairman of Sotheby's Jewelry Division, a post he held until 2020, after a brilliant 42 years career at Sotheby's. During his prestigious career David sold three of the five most expensive jewels in auction history and as well as seven 100-carat diamonds – earning him the nickname the ‘100-carat man'. David has also presided over many legendary, record-breaking auctions such as the Jewels of the Duchess of Windsor (1987), The Princely Collections of Thurn und Taxis (1992) and Royal Jewels from the Bourbon-Parma Family (2018). Among the many records achieved during his career as an auctioneer is that for the highest price ever paid for a gemstone, the CTF Pink Star, a 59.60ct Vivid Pink diamond which sold for $71.2 million in 2017, and the world record for any jewelry sale where he achieved a total of $175.1 million in May 2016. David was named among the top 10 most powerful people in the art world in December 2013 by the international magazine Art + Auction. In June 2014, Swiss financial and business magazine Bilan named him among the top 50 “most influential people in Switzerland”. David Bennett is co-author, with Daniela Mascetti, of the best-selling reference book Understanding Jewelry, in print since 1989. They have also co-written Celebrating Jewelry, published in 2012. In 2021, David and Daniela launched a unique website showcasing their unparalleled experience and knowledge in the field of jewelry. David Bennett grew up in London and graduated from university with a degree in Philosophy, a subject about which he is still passionate, alongside alchemy and hermetic astrology. Additional Resources: Website: https://www.understanding-jewellery.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/understandingjewellery/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UnderstandingJewellery Twitter: https://twitter.com/UJewellery_ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/19192787 Transcript: Whether you know his name or not, David Bennett is responsible for some of the most significant jewelry auctions in history. Before retiring from Sotheby's in 2020, David sold the Pink Star, the most expensive gem ever sold at auction, and whopping seven 100-carat diamonds. He's also the co-author of the jewelry bible “Understanding Jewelry” with his colleague Daniela Mascetti. He joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about his new business with Daniela; what it was like to handle some of the world's most precious jewels; and why he thinks gemstones hold incredible power. Read the episode transcript here. Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. Here at the Jewelry Journey, we're about all things jewelry. With that in mind, I wanted to let you know about an upcoming jewelry conference, which is “Beyond Boundaries: Jewelry of the Americas.” It's sponsored by the Association for the Study of Jewelry and Related Arts, or, as it's otherwise known, ASJRA. The conference takes place virtually on Saturday and Sunday May 21 and May 22, which is around the corner. For details on the program and the speakers, go to www.jewelryconference.com. Non-members are welcome. I have to say that I attended this conference in person for several years, and it's one of my favorite conferences. It's a real treat to be able to sit in your pajamas or in comfies in your living room and listen to some extraordinary speakers. So, check it out. Register at www.jewelryconference.com. See you there.   This is a two-part Jewelry Journey podcast. Please make sure you subscribe so you can hear part two as soon as it comes out later this week. Today, my guest is David Bennett, who you may be familiar with. He coauthored with Daniela Mascetti what is often referred to as the bible of the jewelry industry, and that is the ubiquitous book “Understanding Jewelry.” David spent his 40-year career at the international auction house Sotheby's. When he left, he held the position of Worldwide Chairman of International Jewelry. He's a veteran of gemstones and is often called the “100-carat man” because of his multiple sales of hundred-carat diamonds at record-breaking prices.    He and Daniela just published “Understanding Jewelry: The 20th Century.” They've also launched an online business, UnderstandingJewelry.com, which encompasses education, appraisals, travel and more. In his spare time, he is a part-time lecturer in philosophy, and he's also an astrologer. We'll hear more about his extraordinary jewelry journey today. David, welcome to the program.   David: A pleasure.   Sharon: So glad to have you. Tell us about your jewelry journey, how you became involved with jewelry and how you joined Sotheby's. It's an interesting story.   David: As you've already mentioned, I graduated in philosophy. Most people are rather surprised about that. It's a wonderful thing to study. It was a long time ago in the distant past. I graduated in 1973. I wanted, after university, to go to the London Film School because I've always been interested in film as a medium, but my father, who was basically a Victorian, thought that Hollywood was not the sort of thing for a young gentleman. He cunningly invited me for lunch with a friend of his who was a director at Sotheby's. He painted Sotheby's so glamorously, I might say, more than anything else, and he invited me to come on a one-year training in all the things that Sotheby's sold, from contemporary art to silver. I thought, “Oh, O.K., that's another year of education.” It was the beginning of many years of education, but I thought I'd try that.   In May of the following year, Britain and most of the world had fallen into disastrous economic times. London was working a three-day week because there wasn't electricity to power it. It's amazing when you think of it. Of course, as a result, there were very few jobs, so for the first time in my life until that point, I suddenly thought, “I'd better get about what I'm going to do.” Literally, I hadn't thought about it. I thought, “Well, something will come up, maybe a lecturer in philosophy.”    So, in this very difficult environment, my father's friend came to me and said, “Look, David, I've got a job for you.” I said, “Great, what is it?” He said, “It's in the jewelry department,” and I said, “The jewelry department. I don't even know how to spell sapphire. Is it two p's or one?” He said, “You'll love it. They have sales. They just started having sales in Switzerland. There's a lot of travel, and you'll be getting in at the ground floor of very interesting subjects.” I was very skeptical about it, but he said, “Look, more important than anything else, you need a job because the world's going into a very difficult time.” In fact, he turned out to be right, because it was at least 15 years before we started to get out of this massive crisis at the time. So, I took the job and that's how I got into it. It was sort of through the back door.    I knew nothing about jewelry, absolutely nothing about jewelry. It was a huge learning curve, a huge apprenticeship. I think I mentioned to you that I went out early on and bought some sheets of gold and silver. I learned how to work with the metal and how difficult it is to set a stone in a ring. I wanted to know about everything. I wanted to know about Roman jewelry, Greek jewelry. I thought, “If I'm going to spend my whole life doing this, I don't want to have any bits that I don't know at least something about.”    So, that's how I began. As always in careers, you get a lot of lucky breaks. People seemed to like me, which is very surprising, so there you are. I got quickly promoted, and my first big job was running the London Jewelry Department. That was in 1984. I took my first auction in 1979. The big break after that was that I was promoted to head of jewelry in Europe and the Middle East in 1989. I moved with that promotion to Geneva, which was a great move, a wonderful place. Then I started having to make my mark. I was in a highly competitive environment. Christie's the main competitor. It's an extremely good company as well.   We ran sales in Geneva. My principal sales were in Geneva twice a year and once at St. Moritz in the winter, at which we competed to do the largest turnover and the biggest, record-breaking sales and the biggest, record-breaking stones and so on. It was a great time, and I continued doing that until two years ago when I retired. By then, I'd become Worldwide Chairman of Sotheby's. During this career, I was very lucky because I saw some of the greatest jewels in the world. I still hold the world record for the most expensive diamond ever sold at more than $70 million. I sold the most expensive ruby ever sold for more than $30 million. There were so many wonderful collections, like the Windsor Sale in 1987, which is what made my name really. The jewels of the Duchess of Windsor are still the most incredible auction. So, it was a combination of determination and lucky breaks. Everybody's career is like this.   Sharon: What were your thoughts the first time you looked at a 100-carat? Was it, “Oh, there's another diamond?” or was it “Oh my god, how could that be?”   David: The first time I saw one was in the summer of 1990. I had just arrived in Geneva. I put together my first sale, really, in Geneva, and I wanted to make a mark, to do something that nobody else had done. I can see it now. In those days, I was in this splendid Medieval chateau in the middle of nowhere in France, and I got a phone call. In those days, mobile phones were virtually unheard of, so it was a big thing like a brick, and this chap said, “I've heard about you. I've got a very important stone I'd like you to come and see. Would you be able to come to Antwerp to meet me?” In those days, the answer was always yes. So, I left my family there and took a plane right to Antwerp.    This young chap, about the same age as me, passed a little bag across the table, and there was the first hundred carats of the Pashe Stone. Extraordinary. It was D color, internally flawless, actually like a piece of ice. It was absolutely crystal clear. I fell in love with it, so he said, “Do you think you could sell it?” I said I had absolutely no idea, but I'd love to try. He said it was $12 million. I can't remember the exact figures for it. That was probably nearly double what any other diamond had ever sold for, but in the beginning when you take risks, you're very comfortable.    When I got home that night, my wife said to me, “You look worried. What's the matter?” I said, “Well, I think I may have made the biggest mistake of my career.” She said, “What?” I said, “I've taken a diamond worth $12 to 15 million.” And she said, “You're kidding me.” I said, “No.” And then she said that awful question that began to haunt me: “Who would you be selling it to?” At that point, I didn't know. I had three months to find somebody. I remember it was rather amusing because the timing could not have been worse. A week after that—you're just about old enough, I think, to remember—Hussein invaded Kuwait. Do you remember?   Sharon: Yes.   David: You may remember what happened, because I remember it vividly. The world went into shock. Markets dropped. In Switzerland—can you believe it—we all had to suddenly take rations into our air raid shelters. I thought, “Oh, that's that, then. At least it lets me off the hook. Maybe he doesn't expect it to sell now.” Either way, it was a bit of a relief.    After this, I decided to start taking it around the world a bit. I took it to certain countries in the Middle East and began showing it to possible clients. One chap, I'll never forget it, came in and said, “Sir, can I see the stone?” and I said, “By all means.” He's looking at the stone, and I'm thinking, “He's been looking for a long time. Honestly, he really seems to like it.” So, I said, “Sir, are you buying for your wife?” There's a young man talking; my naivete. He looked at me with a slight grin and he said, “No.” So, I said, “For somebody else, then?” He said, “No, it's for nobody.” I said, “You want it because you think it's an investment?” He said, “Maybe partly, yes.” I said, “What's the main reason?” He said—it's something that's stuck in my mind ever since—“How can I put $14 million in my pocket any other way?” Maybe uranium. You'd still need a lead box, but it was an extraordinary thought. When you've got war around, this sort of thing matters, doesn't it? It's portable value. Throughout history, for the last 4,000 years, jewelry has also been used for that specific purpose because it's very portable.    So, I get up on the rostrum. I have no idea that I'm going to sell it. I think there were 200 lots before the final lot with this 100-carat diamond. The sale was going quite well. I opened the lot. I think I opened at $8 million. There wasn't much interest at all when they start bidding. Suddenly, right at the back of the room, this chap started waving his hand. I took the bids from him and knocked it down for him, “Sold!” All the cameras and TV stations and radios in the room are approaching the rostrum where I was standing. Of course, the first question to me is, “Who's the buyer?” Now, I looked at the back of the room, and the man who had raised his hand, as I was being asked the question, was moving very quickly out of the back of the room. I said, “Oh my god!” because that was the worst possible thing that could have happened in those days. This was before you had to register to bid. It could have been some sort of maniac. So, I quickly got my colleagues sitting beside me. I said, “Run after him. Find out who it is.” Luckily, they found him as he was leaving the hotel where we had been holding the sale. He was in fact the driver, the chauffeur, of the buyer. So, I was lucky that I was able to announce the buyer.   That was the first of many extraordinary experiences with highly valued stones, pink diamonds, blue diamonds. They make millions and millions. Within 10 or 15 years, $12 million had been dwarfed by bigger stones and higher-value things. It was an extraordinary career when I look back at it. I'm quite busy doing what I'm doing now, to be honest with you. There comes a point where something like that, that is so unpredictable—you don't know what the next stone is going to be, what the next collection is going to be—you suddenly start thinking, “Actually, I've done that. I'd like to do something else.” That's when Daniela and I, about two years ago, decided we would retire. We were above the age we were expected to do that, so we set up this company, which so far has been great fun.    Sharon: You mean your online company, UnderstandingJewelry.com.   David: Yeah.   Sharon: Did you decide to write the book and then it occurred to you to do this?   David: No, the history of the book is a thing in itself. Believe or not, I'm thinking back to 1986. I got a phone call. I'm in the office and this chap was on the phone. He said, “Mr. Bennett?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “I'm so-and-so. I'm from a publishing company. I'd like to take you for lunch,” and I said, “O.K.” We fixed it for a week's time. We arrived at this restaurant, and he said, “Thank you. Now, I'll explain why I want to see you,” and as he did so, he slid across the table an envelope. He said, “Have a look inside.” Inside in the envelope was a check for a man who just had his second baby, a check for the sort of sum of money that makes you think. I said, “What is this for?” because I was suspicious. He said, “That's an advance, because you're going to write me a book, and it's going to be called ‘Understanding Jewelry.' Amazing, isn't it?” I said, “Really?” and he said, “Well, what do you think?” I said, quite candidly, “That amount of money is quite persuasive. Let me think about it.” I thought about it for a couple of days and said yes, and he said, “O.K., I want the first manuscript within a year,” and they published the book within two years.     When I got back to the office, I said, “Goodness me, O.K. Well, you'd better get started.” I began quickly to realize that I wasn't going to be able to do this on my own because I had so many other things going on. Daniela was working with me in London at that time, so I approached her because she's a real academic. She loves research and everything else, so I said, “Look, would you be interested?” and she said, “Yeah, absolutely. Let's do it.” That's where it began.    It took about two years to write it. In those days, writing a book like that was much more complicated because when you put the book together, you have the negatives of everything, and you can imagine there were a huge number of photographs in the book. Each one of them had to be printed. It's not like nowadays, where you have digital photographs. It was a massive task, and without Daniela it would never have been written. We brought it out in the autumn of 1989, just as I was leaving to go live in Switzerland, and it was a huge success right from the word go. We thought, “We'll sell a few copies.” In fact, it's been incredible. They're saying it's the largest selling hardback book in jewelry in the world. It's been around so long.    Sharon: It wouldn't surprise me. I know you've had several updates.   David: And 10 reprints, separate editions in Russian, Japanese, Italian, Hungarian, even. It's been great. In 2012, we decided that we'd become old and ugly enough to think about another book, so we wrote one for ourselves called “Celebrating Jewelry,” which was done for our own pleasure. We just chose items that we'd sold throughout our careers and wrote a book about it. That was also celebrating the new photography that was available. “Understanding Jewelry: The 20th Century” came out at the end of last year. It's selling very well. We're working now on another book, “Understanding Jewelry: The 19th Century.” We're both looking forward to it, as it's one of our favorite periods of the history of jewelry.   Sharon: What made you decide to write “Understanding Jewelry: The 20th Century?” What made you decide it was time to write another book?    David: It was very simple, actually, because “Understanding Jewelry” runs a timeline. It begins from about 1750 and runs all the way through to when it was written, the late 20th century. With 20 years of hindsight about the 20th century, we're a little bit distant; we have a little bit of perspective about it. We thought the obvious thing to do was to complete the last two decades of the 20th century with the best of hindsight and everything else. It became clear to us that we'd like to do that also to the 19th century. So, we decided to have two new volumes which go into more depth about each of the time periods.   Sharon: Did you decide to launch the online business when you were writing the book? Did you think, “Oh, this would make a great business online?” or had you already thought about doing an online business?   David: I was thinking about it with what's happened in the last 10 or 15 years in our careers. What became quite clear to me was the power of the internet, particularly, for example, on the auction business. 20 years ago, you would have had virtually no bids coming online because they wouldn't be online. Even before I left two years ago, huge portions of the sale were being sold to online bidders, very often people who'd never seen a piece of jewelry that was being sold. It seemed to me that there was this opportunity for us to offer a service to people who were collectors of jewelry, but weren't able to see the jewels themselves. A lot of the new collectors are, as you know, from the Far East and, increasingly and in very recent times, from mainland China. What I think people need in this new online world is—we wanted to offer a sort of endorsement. We wanted to be able to say that we think this is a wonderful piece of jewelry. We've seen it. We've handled it.    We have this section to bring out very shortly, in the next month or so, beginning with London and Geneva and then New York and other cities, looking at what's on offer within the trade. We call it “Hidden Treasures,” because a lot of the great jewelry retailers or specialized retailers are not shop fronts on Madison Avenue or on Wall Street. You have to know where they are, and we've chosen pieces in their retailers to write about. We're not owned by price; we're not trying to sell them. It's just to say that these are great pieces; have a look at them. See what you think, and we offer other services that offset our evaluation services.    This summer in June, we're starting our first tour. It starts in Burgundy, where I'm sitting now, at my property in Burgundy, and then we move to Paris. We're going to take a group of 12 or 14 collectors. It'll be lectures and visits. Hopefully, the idea is that it'll be nearly a week of entertainment but also study. It's meant to be a learning thing as well as being entertaining. We're going to visit some great restaurants around here, great restaurants in Paris. We're going to visit the remaining French crown jewels. We've also been invited by some of the major historic jewel companies, Cartier, Boucheron, Valeria, so we'll be taking this group there to have an insider's look at these companies. This particular course, which will be between Burgundy and Paris, as I said, will feature jewelry from 1880 to World War II, so Belle Epoque, the Gaden style and Art Déco very roughly. It will be quite an intense six days I think, speckled with fun.    Sharon: I'm sure. It sounds very intense. It sounds like somebody would learn a lot. 

About DavidDavid is an AWS expert who likes to design and build scalable solutions that are fully automated and take care of themselves. Now he is focusing on selling his own products on the AWS Marketplace.Links: 0x4447: https://0x4447.com/ Products page: https://products.0x4447.com TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: Today's episode is brought to you in part by our friends at MinIO the high-performance Kubernetes native object store that's built for the multi-cloud, creating a consistent data storage layer for your public cloud instances, your private cloud instances, and even your edge instances, depending upon what the heck you're defining those as, which depends probably on where you work. It's getting that unified is one of the greatest challenges facing developers and architects today. It requires S3 compatibility, enterprise-grade security and resiliency, the speed to run any workload, and the footprint to run anywhere, and that's exactly what MinIO offers. With superb read speeds in excess of 360 gigs and 100 megabyte binary that doesn't eat all the data you've gotten on the system, it's exactly what you've been looking for. Check it out today at min.io/download, and see for yourself. That's min.io/download, and be sure to tell them that I sent you.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at Sysdig. Sysdig is the solution for securing DevOps. They have a blog post that went up recently about how an insecure AWS Lambda function could be used as a pivot point to get access into your environment. They've also gone deep in-depth with a bunch of other approaches to how DevOps and security are inextricably linked. To learn more, visit sysdig.com and tell them I sent you. That's S-Y-S-D-I-G dot com. My thanks to them for their continued support of this ridiculous nonsense.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. Today's promoted episode is brought to us by 0x4447. And my guest today is David Gatti, their CEO. David, thank you for taking the time to speak with me today.David: Thank you for getting me on the show.Corey: One of the things that I find fascinating about what you do and where you come from is that for the last five years, you've been running an independent company that I would classify based upon our conversations as pretty close to a consultancy. However, you've gone down the path that I didn't when I set up my own consultancy, and started actually selling software—not just software: Solutions—as a packaged thing that you can wind up doling out to various customers, whereas I just went with the very high touch approach of, “Oh, let me come in and have a whole series of conversations with people.” Your scale is a heck of a lot more. So, do you view yourself these days as a software company, as a consultancy, or something else entirely?David: So, right now, I did put aside the consultancy because yeah, one thing that I realized, it's possible but it's very hard to scale, it's also hard to find people at the same level. So yeah, the scalability of the business is quite hard, whereas with software sold on the AWS Marketplace, that is much easier to scale than what I was doing before, and that's why I decided to take a break from consulting and focusing one hundred percent on the products that I sell on the AWS Marketplace to see how this goes and how it actually works, and can a business be built around it.Corey: The common wisdom that I've encountered is that consulting, especially when you're doing it yourself, is one of those things that is terrific when you find yourself in the position that I originally did of your employer showing up and, “Knock, knock,” “Who's there?” “Not you anymore. Get out.” And there's a somewhat, in my case, limited runway as far as how long I've got before I have to go find another job. With consulting, you can effectively go out and start talking to people, and provided that you can land a project, it starts throwing off revenue, basically immediately, whereas building software, building packages, things that you end up selling to people, it's almost like a real estate business on some level, where you have to take a lot of investment up front to wind up building the thing, where—because no one is, generally speaking, going to pay you spec work to go ahead and build something for 18 months and come back and hope that it works.David: Right.Corey: I also bias towards the services because I'm bad at writing code. You, on the other hand, write things that seem to actually work, which is another refreshing difference.David: Yes. So, I did that, but now I have a guy that is just a Linux expert. So, you were saying that there is a high investment in the beginning, but what actually—in my case what happened, I've been selling these products for the past three years basically as a hobby. So, when I was doing AWS consulting, I was seeing, like, a company has a problem, a repeating problem, so I was just creating a product, putting it on the Marketplace, and then sending it to them. So basically, they had a situation where I can manage those projects to update when there's a need to do an update, and there was always a standardization behind that, right?So, if they had, you know, five SFTP servers, and there was a need to make an update, I was making the update on my image, putting it on the Marketplace, and then updating all those servers in one go in a much quicker fashion then managing them one by one, right? And so I had this thing for three years. So now, when I started doing this full-time, I have a little bit of a leap on what's going on. So, I already had a bunch of clients that are using their products, so that actually helped me not to have to wait three years before I saw any revenue coming in.Corey: I always thought that the challenge behind building something like this was that well, you needed to actually be conversant in a programming language; that was the thing that you needed to package and build these things. But I take a look at what you have on the AWS Marketplace—and I will throw a link to this in the [show notes 00:04:39]—but you offer right now four different offerings: A Rsyslog server, a Samba server, VPN server, and an SFTP server, and every one of those four things, back in my DevOps days, I built and implemented on AWS, generally either from scratch or from something in the Marketplace—and I'll get to that in a bit—that didn't really meet a variety of needs. And every single time I built these things, it drove me up a wall because I had to do this without, like, solving a global problem locally, myself, to meet some pile of needs, then I had to worry about the maintenance of the thing, making sure that the care and feeding continued to work. And it just wasn't—it didn't work for me in the way that I wanted it to. It never occurred to me that I really could have just solved this whole thing once, [unintelligible 00:05:28] it on the Marketplace, and then just gone and grabbed the thing.David: Exactly. So, that was my exact thinking here. Especially when your work with the client, this [unintelligible 00:05:38] was also great [idea 00:05:39] because when you work with clients, they want to do things as fast as possible, right? So, can they say, “I need an SFTP server?” Of course, it takes, you know, half a day to set up something, but then they scream at you and say, like, “Hey, do the next thing. Do the next thing. Do the next thing.” And you never end up configuring the server that you're making a reliable way, sometimes you misconfigure it because, oh I forgot this option, and now everybody on the internet can access the server itself.Corey: Wait, screw up a server config? That doesn't sound like something I would do.David: Well, of course not.Corey: Yeah, no one [unintelligible 00:06:08] they're going to until oops.David: Yes. You're amazing and you're perfect, of course, but I'm not. And I was seeing, like, oh, you know, in the middle of the night, oh, I forgot this option. I forgot this. I forgot that.And so there was never a, basically, one place when the configuration just correct, right? And that was something that sparked my idea when I realized the Marketplace exists. It's like, oh, wait a moment, I can spend few weeks to do it, right, put it there and never worry about it again. And so if when a client says like, “Hey, I need this,” I can deploy it literally, in less than one minute. You have any of those products that actually I'm selling up and running, right?And of course, the VPN is going to be a little bit slower because it needs to generate all the certificates at the beginning, but for example, the SFTP one is just poof, you're deployment with our CloudFormation file, provide username and password, and you're up and running. And I see, for example, this thing with clients, which sometimes it's funny, when there's two clients that they use the SFTP server only once a day for one hour. So, every day is like one new instance created, then one instance removed, and one instance created and one instance removed. And so it keeps on going like that.Corey: The thing that always drove me nuts about building these things out was first I had to go and find something on those rare occasions where I used the Marketplace. Again, I wasn't really working in the same modern Marketplace that we think of today when we talk about the AWS Marketplace. It was very early on, the only way that it would deliver software was via, “Here's an AMI, grab the thing, and go ahead and deploy it, and it's going to have an additional hourly cost on. It the end.” And more or less the whole Henry Ford approach of, “Oh, you can get it in any color you want, as long as it's black.”So, back in those days, I would spin up an OpenVPN server—and I did this at several companies—I would go and find the thing on the Marketplace from I think it was the OpenVPN company behind the project. Great, I grabbed the thing, it had no additional cost through the Marketplace. I then had to go and get a custom license file from the vendor themselves, load the thing in, then start provisioning users. And this had no integration that I could discern with anything else we had going on, so all of this stuff was built through the web config on this thing, there was no facility for backing the thing up—certificate, material, et cetera, et cetera—so if something happened to that instance or that image, or we had to go through a DR exercise, well, time to reprovision everyone by hand again. And it was annoying because the money didn't matter. At a company scale, it really doesn't for something like this unless you're into the usurious ranges. It does not matter.It's the, I want to manage this simply and effectively in a way that makes sense, and in many cases in a way that is congruent with our on-prem environment. So, “Oh, there's a custom AWS service that offers something kind of like this. Use that instead.” It's, yeah, I don't like the idea, personally, of having to use a higher-level managed service that I'm very often going to need the most, right when things are getting wonky during an outage scenario. I want something that I understand and can work with.And I've always liked, even if I have all the latest whiz-bang accesses into an environment, in production environments, I spin up something like this anyway, just to give myself a backdoor in the event that everything else breaks. And I really like how you've structured your VPN server as far as backing up its config, sharing its configs, you can scale it to more than one instance—what a ridiculous concept that is—and so on and so forth.David: So, it's not more than one—I mean, yes, you can deploy to more than one time, but the thing that—because again, when you were saying, like, companies don't care about the cost, right? It's more about how annoying it is to use and set up, right? And so I'm one of those people that when I, for example, see things like I've been playing with servers since the '90s, right, and I was keeping rebuilding and recreating everything every single time from scratch.And, yeah, it was always painful. It took always a lot of time. For example, our server took six months to set up the right way. And also the pricing [unintelligible 00:10:11] the competition has is quite aggravating, I will say. Like, it's very hard to scale above a certain point, especially for the midsize companies.And the goal with the Marketplace is also, like, make it as simple as possible. Because AWS itself doesn't make it easy to be on the Marketplace, and it's almost, like, crazy how hard it is. So, for anybody who will like to—who might think, like, “Oh, I would like to try this AWS Marketplace thing,” I would say should do it, but be super patient. You cannot rush it because it's going to take you on average six months to understand how even the process of uploading anything and updating it and managing it is going to take it because their website that they've built has nothing to do with the console and it's a completely custom solution that is very clunky and still very old-fashioned, how you have to manage it.Corey: Tell me more about that. I've never gone through the process of putting something up on the Marketplace. To my understanding, you need to be an AWS partner in order to use the Marketplace, correct?David: No you don't have to.Corey: Okay.David: No. Thankfully not. I hope it's not going to do this thing is not going to change. [crosstalk 00:11:20]—Corey: Yeah. I wound up manifesting it into existence by saying that. Yeah. If you're on the Marketplace team listening to this, don't do that, please. I really don't want to get yelled at and have made things worse for people.David: Don't give them ideas. [laugh]. Okay?Corey: Exactly.David: No, it's anybody can do it. But yeah, how to add a new product. So, the process is you have to build an AMI first. And then you have to submit the AMI to AWS by first creating a special AMI role—sorry, I always get confused AMI, [IAM 00:11:51], I never—IAM is users. Okay.Corey: I think we have a few more acronyms that use most of the same letters. I think that's the right answer here.David: [laugh]. So, either IAM or AMI, whichever is responsible for roles, you have to create a special role to give AWS access to your AMI. Then you submit the image to AWS providing the role that they have to use. They scan it and they do simple checks to make sure that you don't for example, have SSH enabled with regular users, do some regular scanning to make sure that you're not using an image from ten years ago, right, of Linux. And once you pass that, you are able to actually create your first product.Then you have to write your title, description provide, for example, the ports that needs to be open, the URLs to separate resources, the pricing page, which takes on average one hour to fill up because let's say that you have 20 instances that you support, and for every instance, you have to write the price for that instance per one hour. Then if you want to have a discount of let's say 20%—because you can set it by the hour, or someone can pay you for the full year. And so for the full year, you might have a discount. So, you have to have also the price per hour discounted by the amount of percentage that you want, and then you have to repeat it 40 times. Because there is no way to upload that.Corey: That feels like the internal AWS billing system in some respects. “Well, if it's good enough for us it good enough for our customers.” And—David: [laugh]. Exactly.Corey: —now, I have empathy for the folks in the billing system internally; their job is very hard, but that doesn't mean that it's okay to wind up exposing those sharp edges to folks who are, you know, paying customers of these things.David: Right. And it'd be a simple thing like being able to import the CSV file with just two columns and that would be perfect. But no, you have to do it by hand. There is no other way. So hopefully—Corey: Or someone has to. Welcome to the crappiest internship of your life.David: Exactly.Corey: It feels like bringing people into data entry for stuff like that is cheating.David: Exactly. So, you do that and then I don't remember exactly what the other steps are to a new creating a completely new product because I did that three years ago, and so now, I'm been just updating those products, but yeah, then they have to review your submission, and once everything is okay, then your product is on the Marketplace, and you can—are already accept everything. If you, for example, want to have the image also available in some specific regions that are not the default ones, you have to enable this by hand. I don't remember anymore how, but it's not obvious.Corey: And you have to keep redoing this every time they launch a new region as well, I would imagine.David: So, they say that you can have enabled the option to automatically add it, but it still won't work. Well, it will work, but… let's say, so in my case, I'm using CloudFormation. I gave a complimentary CloudFormation file where if you want to deploy my product, you go to the documentation page, you click the orange button, and you basically provide the parameters, and you click next, next, next and the product is deployed within a few minutes.And in that CloudFormation file, I have a map of every AMI in every region. Okay? So, if they add a new region and they automatically add the AMI there, then if you don't get notified that there is a new region, you don't know that you have to update the CloudFormation file, and then someone might say, like, “Hey, David, why this product is not deployed in this region.” It's like, “Oops. I didn't know that they have to update the CloudFormation file with a new region.” Right?Corey: Yeah, I'm a big believer in ClickOps, the idea of doing things in the console, but everything you're talking about sounds like a fraught enough process that I'm guessing you have some form of automation that helps you with a lot of this.David: Yeah. So, I hate repeating anything more than once, so everything in my book is automated as much as possible. The documentation, for example, how I structure it, there is a section that tells you how to deploy it by just using CloudFormation file and clicking next, next, next, next until you have it. And then there's also the option if you want to deploy manually because you don't trust what the CloudFormation file is doing, right? Of course, you can see the source file if you wanted to, but sometimes people are a little bit wary about big CloudFormation files.In any case, I have this option, but they have this option as a separate thing. So, AWS has an option where you could add a CloudFormation file that goes with your product. The problem is to be able to submit a CloudFormation file natively so they will take care of it requires you to get Microsoft Office 365. Because they give you an Excel file that has, I think, a few thousand columns. And for example, numbers under [unintelligible 00:16:40], when you export, you save the final—or sorry, you export it, it will cut around 500 columns. So, you miss, like, two-thirds of what AWS will likely to send you. And why they do that, I have no idea. I don't know if they still do it after three years, but when I was doing it, they told me like, “Hey, this is the file. Fill it by hand.”Corey: About that time period, that was exactly how they did large-scale corporate discounts on custom contracts is that they would edit the AWS bill in Excel, or if not, the next closest thing to it because there were periodically errors that looked an awful lot like someone typo-ing something by hand.David: What—Corey: Computers are generally bad doing that, and it took an extra couple of weeks to get those bills, which is right around the speed of human.David: Wow.Corey: I see none of those problems anymore, which tells me, that's right, someone finally upgraded off of Microsoft Excel to the new level. Probably Airtable.David: [laugh]. Maybe. So, I don't know if that process is still there, but what they did, like, then I realized, oh, wait a moment, I can just have a CloudFormation file in S3 bucket publicly available and just use that instead of going through that process. Because I didn't want to pay on a yearly basis for a product that I'm going to use literally once a year. That didn't make any sense to me and so I decided I'm going to do it this way. That's why, yeah, if they add on a new region, I have to go out and update my own CloudFormation file because I maintain that myself, whereas they would maintain it for me, I guess.Corey: The way that I see all of the nuts and bolts of the engineering parts of getting all these things up and running on the Marketplace, it feels like it is finicky; it is sharp edges that AWS is basically known for in many respects, but without the impetus of making that meaningfully better, just because there's such an overriding business reason, that—it's not like there's a good competitor for something like this. So, if you want to sell things to AWS people in most frictionless way possible, it reflects on the AWS bill, causes discounting, counts for their spend commitments, and the rest, it's really the AWS Marketplace is the only game in town for a lot of that.David: Right. So, I don't know if they don't do it because they don't have enough competition or pressure because to me when I first started doing this AWS Marketplace, it felt to me like more Amazon than AWS, right? It feels more like an Amazon team was behind it and not people from AWS itself. It felt like completely something different. Not to mention, yeah, the console that they provide is something completely custom that has nothing to do with the typical AWS console.Corey: I've heard stories about the underpants store division's seller tools as well; very similar to the experience you're describing.David: Mmm. And also the support is different. So, it's not connected to the AWS console one. The good thing about it, it's free, but it's also only by email. And so yeah, it's a very weird, clunky situation where I mean, I'm someone that, I guess, loves the pain of AWS. [laugh].I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. But when I started, I decided, you know what, I'm going to figure it out, and once I do, I'm going to feel happy that I was able to. Maybe that's their goal: It's to give us purpose in life. So, maybe that's the goal of AWS. I don't know.Corey: There are times I really wonder about that where it feels like it could be so much more than it is, but it's not. And, again, my experience with it is very similar to what you've described, where it's buying an AMI, the end. But now they're talking about selling SaaS subscriptions on it, they're talking about selling professional services—in some cases—on it. And effectively, it almost feels like it's trying to become the Marketplace through which all IT transacting starts to happen. And the tailwind that sort of is giving energy to a lot of those efforts is, if you have a multimillion-dollar spend commitment with AWS in return for discounting, you have to make sure you spend enough within the timeframe, 50% of all spend on the AWS Marketplace counts toward that.Now, other cloud providers, it's 100% of spend, but you know, AWS is nothing if not very tight with the dollar. So okay, fine, whatever. There's a reason for companies to go down that path. Talk to me a little bit about the business aspect of it because for me, it seems like the clear win, in the absence of anything else is—especially at larger companies—they already have a business relationship with AWS. The value to someone selling software on the Marketplace feels like it would be, first and foremost, an end-run around companies procurement departments.It's just oh, someone has to click a button and they're up and running, as opposed to going through the entire onboarding and contracting and all the rest, manual way. Other than the technical challenges of getting things up and running on it, how have you found that it works as far as getting in front of additional customers, as far as driving adoption? You could theoretically have—I imagine—have not gone down the Marketplace route at all and just sold this directly on your website, click here to buy a license file the way that a lot of stuff I used to as well, and would have cut out a lot of the painful building an AMI and putting it into the Marketplace story. What's the value to being in the Marketplace?David: Yeah, so in the beginning, the value was basically that it's on the Marketplace, as I was saying, I was using it with pre-existing clients, so it was easy for me because I knew AWS images were there. So, it was easy to just click my own CloudFormation file and tell the client after one minute, “Hey, it's up and running. You have a bunch of profiles for your VPN. Enjoy and have fun.” Right?That experience, once you have it on the Marketplace, it's nice because it just works. And you don't have to do much work. Then I realized that AWS, in the search bar in the console, when you were typing, for example, you know, you type EC2, S3, CloudFormation, to find the service, what they were doing originally is when you were typing in the search bar, you were getting the services of AWS, and then when there was nothing left, they were showing the results of the Marketplace, which was basically amazing because you have primetime in the console with your product, you had to do zero marketing, and you get every week, took new clients that are using our product. And the trend was growing pretty, pretty well.And that was a proposition that is just amazing. Like, nobody has that because you can have Fortune 500 companies using our product without doing anything. It just—is it simple to deploy? Yes. Does it provide value? Is the price great? And people were just using them. Fast forward now; what happened is AWS changed the console. And instead of showing, after the services, the Marketplace, like, now they show the sub-section of the services, they show the results from the blog, the articles, videos, whatever, I don't even know what they've put there—Corey: Originally, you could search my name in that search bar, and it would pop up a profile of me they did for re:Inforce in the security blog.David: [laugh]. There you go.Corey: “Meet Corey Quinn. A ‘cloud economist'—scare quotes and all—who does not work here. And it was glorious. Now, they've changed the algorithm so it pops up. “Oh, you want Corey Quinn, you must mean IoT Core.” So, that blog post is still there, but it's below the fold because of course they give precedence to a service that they have that nobody uses or understands. Because, Amazon.David: Yeah, of course. And so that was awful because suddenly I realized that, oh, I'm getting less and less new clients because you know, after six months, one year, people are shutting off their things because they're finished using them, and I will not getting new ones. But at that time, I was doing [AWS 00:24:06] consulting, so it's like, oh, maybe it was a glitch in the Matrix, whatever. I got lucky.But then after a few months, I realized, wait a moment. When I was working in AWS, I realized that the console results changed, and I went like, oh, that's what happened and that's why I'm getting less clients, right? So, in the beginning, that was a great thing and that's why I'm actually paying you to promote my business and my products because now there is no way to put the products in front of customers because AWS took it away. And so that's why I decided to actually go full-force on this to make sure that I promote as much as possible because that one cool feature that AWS was providing, they took it away for whatever reason because blog posts are more important than their partners, [laugh] I guess.Corey: Well, it depends on the partner and the tier of partner, and it feels like it's a matter—to be clear, full disclosure: I am not an AWS partner; I'm not partnered with any vendor in this space, for either real or perceived conflict of interest issues, so I don't have a particular horse in the race. But back when there were a small number of partners, the network really worked. Now, there are tens of thousands of partners, and well, what winds up being surfaced? Customers, as a result seem to be caring less about various partner statuses, unless they're trying to check a box on some contractual requirement. Instead, they just want the problem solved, and it's becoming increasingly challenging to differentiate just by the nature of how this works.I don't believe, in 2022, that you could build almost anything, and put it on the AWS Marketplace in isolation and expect that to suddenly drive adoption by the fact that you're there. It feels, to me, at least on the other side of the fence, that the Marketplace experience is all about, you go there and you look for the name of the thing that you already know that you want because you've heard about it from other means, and then you just click it and you go, and that's the end of it. It's a procurement story; it's not a discoverability story.David: Right. And yeah, so that's sort of a bit disappointing, and I even made a post on Reddit about it to just bring this up to AWS itself to say, like, “Hey, UI change is pretty severe.” Because I mean, they get a percentage of every hour, the products are running, so basically they shoot themselves in the foot by making less money because now they're getting less products are being shown to potential customers. So, yeah, that's a disappointing thing.When it comes to also you ask what other way there is to show their products to potential customers, so there is an option where AWS can help you out. And when I talked to them, I think last year, they said that if you reach $2 million in sales a year, then they will basically show you around other potential customers, right? Which is a little bit disappointing because especially if you're a small company like mine, it's pretty hard to get to that $2 million in a meaningful time. And if once you reach that point, you might go like, “Hmm, how is this going to help me if you now show me in front of other people?” So yeah.And of course, I understand them in a sense that if they show a product from the Marketplace to a big company and the product turns out to be of poor quality, then of course the client is going to tell AWS like, “Why you're showing us something that just doesn't do its job?” Right? But it'd be nice to have a [unintelligible 00:27:24] when you say, “Okay, you're starting out. After a few years, so we can show you to this midsize clients.” You don't have to go to, immediately, Fortune 500 companies. That doesn't make any sense, right?Corey: And I still—even the companies that are at that level, I've talked to them about how they've grown their business, and not a single one has ever credited anything AWS did to help them grow. Other than, “Well, they threw re:Invent, so we spent extortionate piles of money and set up a booth there, and the fact that we were allowed in the building to talk to people was helpful, I guess.” But it's all through their own works on this, I'm not convinced, to be very direct with you, that AWS knows how to effectively drive sales and adoption of things on their own Marketplace. That is an increasing source of concern.David: Right. And then there's no plan of what to do with a company that is starting on the Marketplace, once it's a few—or it's already a few years and established in the Marketplace and a big one. Yeah, they don't have any way to go about it, which is a bit disappointing. But again, I like a challenge. I like the misery of AWS, so I'm just doing it. [laugh].Corey: No, I hear you. Would you recommend other people in your position explore selling on the Marketplace, given the challenges and advantages both that you've experienced?David: So, if you were to start from scratch, it will take you, like, three years—maybe not three years, but it's not something that should be the primary revenue source of the business if you want to go into the AWS Marketplace situation because you have to have enough capital to do enough marketing to see if you can get in front of people. If you already do some consulting like me, where I did some stuff on the side, and then realized, oh, people are using it, people like it, they get some feedback, the want new features, like, “Oh, maybe I can start growing this bigger and bigger, right?” It's not something that's going to happen immediately. And especially the updating process that happens, it can get quite stressful because when you make an update—so you have a version of a product that's working and running, right? Now, you make an update and you have to spend at least a week or even sometimes two weeks to test that out to make sure that you didn't miss anything because you don't want people to update something and it stops working right?Corey: You can't break customer experiences on these things.David: Yeah. No.Corey: It becomes a nightmare.David: Because especially you don't know if, literally, a Fortune 500 company is using your product or, like, a tiny company that has only ten employees, right?Corey: Your update broke the file server with a VPN means it's unlikely that they're going to come back anytime soon, too.David: Right.Corey: You're also depending on AWS, in some respects, to steward the relationship because you're you don't have direct contact with your buyers.David: No. So, that's important thing. They don't give you access to the contacts; they give you access to the company information. So, I actually do have Fortune 500 companies using my products, but yeah, there's no way to get in touch with them. The only thing that you get is the company name, the address, the domain that they used to create an email. So, at least you can get a sense of, like, who this company is.But yeah, there is no way to get in touch if there is a problem. So, the only way that you can notify the customer that there's a new update is when you make an update, there is a text area that you can say what's new, what did you change, right? And that's the only communication that you get with the client. So if, for example, you do a big mistake, [laugh], you basically have that just little text box, and hopefully, someone reads it. But you know, AWS is known for sending 20 emails a week for every account that you open. Good luck getting through that noise.Corey: Hope that you don't miss the important ones as you go through. No—David: Exactly.Corey: —I hear you. These are problems that I think are on AWS's plate to solve. Hopefully, someone over there is listening to this and will at least reach out with a bit of a better story. I really want to thank you for taking the time to speak with me today. We'll include links, of course, to this in the [show notes 00:31:09]. Where else can people find you?David: They can find us basically on the product page of what we sell. So, we have products.0x4447.com/. That's where, basically, we keep all our products. We keep updating the page to provide more information about those products, how to get in touch with us, we provide training, demos, anything that you want. It's very easy to get in touch with us instead of—sometimes when it comes to AWS. So yeah, we are out there, pretty easy to find us. The domain—the company name is so unique that you either get our website or—Corey: Easy to find on Google.David: Yeah, so we're basically—the hex editor. And that's basically it. [laugh].Corey: Excellent. Well, we'll definitely put links to that in the show [notes 00:31:50]. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. I really appreciate it.David: Thank you very much.Corey: David Gatti, CEO of 0x4447. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice along with an angry comment that makes sure to mention exactly how long you've been working on the AWS Marketplace team.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

En su reposo. 04/03/2022. T14. E11. “Y pasado el luto, envió David y la trajo a su casa; y fue ella su mujer, y le dio a luz un hijo. Mas esto que David había hecho, fue desagradable ante los ojos de Jehová”. ‭‭2 Samuel‬ ‭11:27‬ Desagrado Todo parecía salir perfectamente. David No tenía que vivir las incomodidades y riesgos de la batalla. Disfrutó de una mujer ajena. Planeó y logró la muerte de Urías heteo, se quedó con su mujer y disfrutó de un nuevo hijo. Y nadie se había dado cuenta. Nadie sabía y por tanto nadie podía recriminarle. Pero los ojos de Jehová lo vieron todo. Aunque todo pueda salir bien. Aunque nadie jamás sepa de qué se trata lo que se esconde, Dios sí lo sabe. La capacidad de Dios de ver todo, de saberlo todo, aun aquello que se ha logrado esconder de la vista de todos, es una realidad que no debemos olvidar. David ni siquiera calculó eso. Mal haríamos en seguir su ejemplo en el descuido de esta verdad. Y lo peor, ante esos ojos fue desagradable. Es decir, no solo es que Dios lo vio, sino que claramente el Señor reprobaba la actitud de su siervo. Dios ve, y toma una postura sobre lo que ve. No olvidemos eso. Que este día no olvidemos que Dios ve, y que no deja pasar lo que ve, aunque parezca que todo va muy bien. ¿Qué es lo que Dios ve hoy? ¿Cuál será su postura sobre lo que ve en nuestra vida? Que su gracia nos ayude a no olvidar esta verdad. Isaí Rodríguez Ruiz

En su reposo. 02/03/2022. T14. E9. “Y le dijo David: No tengas temor, porque yo a la verdad haré contigo misericordia por amor de Jonatán tu padre, y te devolveré todas las tierras de Saúl tu padre; y tú comerás siempre a mi mesa”. ‭‭2 Samuel‬ ‭9:7‬ Promesa cumplida David y Jonatán habían hecho un pacto de amistad que confirmaron aún en medio de circunstancias adversas. Cuando Jonatán murió David no estaba en condiciones de cumplir la promesa que se habían hecho. Pero una vez consolidado en el reino, David volteó su mirada a la descendencia de su amigo. Escondido en Lodebar, Mefibo-set debió pensar que todo había terminado cuando la delegación del rey lo encontró y lo hizo viajar para encontrarse con el rey David. Lo normal a pensar en aquel momento era que su vida correría riesgo por considerarlo un peligro para el reino de David. Sin embargo, lo que ocurrió fue todo lo contrario a lo que esperaba el hijo de Jonatán. Fue restituido, le fueron regresados todos los bienes de su familia, fue honrado comiendo a la mesa del rey. Contrario a lo que se esperaba, a la costumbre cuando hay cambio en la familia que reina, arriesgando el futuro del reino de David. Pero nada de eso importa cuando hay una promesa que cumplir. David estuvo dispuesto a hacer todo lo que fuera necesario con tal de honrar su pacto con Jonatán. Nada obligaba a David a cumplir sus promesas, solo su propia conciencia, y eso bastó para llevarlo a actuar en consecuencia a su amor por su amigo Jonatán. Este pacto y su cumplimento por parte de David es un pálido reflejo del pacto de amor que Dios ha hecho con la humanidad, pues nada lo obliga a hacerlo sino su amor por el ser humano. Así mismo, este acto de David nos ofrece un poderoso ejemplo a los hijos de Dios para valorar nuestras promesas y cumplirlas con fidelidad y amor. Vivamos agradecidos con Dios que ha cumplido su pacto de amor con el mundo al enviar a su Hijo unigénito, y honremos nuestra palabra para honrar así a nuestro Señor y Salvador. Isaí Rodríguez Ruiz

En su reposo. 09/02/2022. T13. E22. “Pero el profeta Gad dijo a David: No te estés en este lugar fuerte; anda y vete a tierra de Judá. Y David se fue, y vino al bosque de Haret”. ‭‭1 Samuel‬ ‭22:5‬ Dirección espiritual De aquella huida de David de su hogar, al momento de este capítulo, han ocurrido muchos eventos y ha recorrido muchos kilómetros. Fue a Nob, a Aquis, a la cueva de Adulam y a la Mizpa de Moab. Vagaba sin un rumbo claro, no tenía idea de qué hacer y de cómo hacerlo. Las cosas iban saliendo poco a poco y solo cubría las necesidades básicas, como el cuidado que tuvo de sus padres. Tuvo que fingirse loco, habitar en las pésimas condiciones de una cueva y ahora en un lugar fortificado pero de otro reino. Justo cuando todo parece estar desordenado y sin sentido, aparece en escena un personaje de parte de Dios. No sabemos de donde vino, si ya se había juntado con David en alguno de los lugares donde estuvo, o llegó apenas. Lo cierto es que este profeta se convirtió en el instrumento que David necesitaba. Dos detalles llaman poderosamente la atención. Se le llama profeta, pero la palabra que ofrece no se enmarca en un momento profético; es decir, no hay la famosa expresión: “así dice el Señor”, precediendo al consejo de Gad. Esto significa que sus palabras eran apreciadas por el simple hecho de ser un profeta de Dios; y que toda palabra que saliera de su boca tendría el peso y la autoridad de un siervo de Dios. Es así como Gad guía a David a moverse de ese lugar, porque es un profeta y porque esto garantiza que su consejo ha de ser dirigido por Dios mismo para beneficio de su siervo David. Cuánta responsabilidad para Gad y cuántos beneficios para David. La autoridad espiritual de Gad es un peso que recae hoy sobre todos aquellos que han sido llamados por el Señor para guiar a otros. Pues sus palabras han de ser siempre estimadas por sus oyentes. Cuán necesario es que los siervos de Dios de todos los tiempos entiendan que sin necesidad de estar en un púlpito o en un momento espiritual, sus palabras tienen un efecto en quienes los escuchan por el simple hecho de ser personas en autoridad espiritual. Pero igualmente, qué importante es saber que contamos con la dirección divina. Esta puede darse por el medio sobrenatural que es la Palabra de Dios, pero también por el consejo sabio de quienes tienen autoridad espiritual para guiarnos. Cuando todo parezca perdido, cuando vamos por la vida sin rumbo, sin saber qué hacer, cubriendo apenas los vacíos que se nos van presentando, haciendo apenas lo justo para sobrevivir, la Palabra de Dios puede ser nuestra guía espiritual y el consejo de hombres y mujeres de Dios puede mostrarnos el camino a seguir. Seamos sensibles a su voz y obedientes a su palabra. Isaí Rodríguez Ruiz

Our guest today is David Noël, ex-SoundCloud VP turned leadership coach.In this episode, we had one of the most authentic, honest conversations about taking non-traditional paths to find your passion, admitting when it's time to leave your job, and remembering what is really important in life.David reflects on starting his leadership journey from a young age as a boy scout, how the transition from manager to leader isn't always easy and gives actionable advice on what it means to be a leader.________Connect with David on LinkedIn or on Twitter @David. Make sure to also subscribe to his Friday's Five newsletter.Become a better leader in 2 minutes a day with BUNCH, the AI Leadership Coach. Download it free on the App Store by searching “bunch coach.”Follow BUNCH on Twitter: @bunch_HQ or subscribe to our newsletter The Weekly Briefing on Substack for more frameworks and resources.________Things you learn in this episode:- The real difference between leaders and managers- Pursuing unconventional paths to finding your passion- How to recognize when it may be time to step down- Sticking to your core values during times of crisis- Integrating life and work experiences to avoid ranking work and career progression as more important

This episode is a celebration of the journey we have been on as this podcast comes to a close. We have had such a great time bringing you these interviews and we are excited about a new chapter, taking the lessons we have learned forward into different spaces. It's been a lot of work putting this show together, but it has also been such a pleasure doing it. And, as we all know, nothing good lasts forever! So to close the circle in a sense, we decided to host a conversation between the two of us where we interview each other as we have with our guests in the past, talking about mentorship, resources, coding as a leader, and much more! We also get into some of our thoughts on continuous delivery, prioritizing work, our backgrounds in engineering, and how to handle disagreements.  As we enter new phases in our lives, we want to thank everyone for tuning in and supporting us and we hope to reconnect with you all in the future!LinksDavid Noël-Romas on TwitterAlex Kessinger on TwitterStitch FixStripeJavaScript: The Good PartsDouglas CrockfordMonkeybrainsKill It With FireTrillion Dollar CoachMartha AcostaEtsy Debriefing Facilitation GuideHigh Output Management How to Win Friends & Influence PeopleInfluence

INTRODUCTION:My guest today is all the way from the UK and he is helping men build confidence, become their true selves, last longer in bed and masturbate like they mean it! His name is David Chambers and he is the host of The Authentic Man Podcast and an accomplished Dating & Intimacy coach. This man is a master of mindfulness and tantric practices and it was a real pleasure to talk about sex with him on my show.  INCLUDED IN THIS EPISODE (But not limited to):·      Expert Advice From A Dating Coach ·      Mindful Masturbation·      Secrets To Men Lasting Longer In Bed·      Self-Love & Self-Mastery Defined·      Why Some Men Sleep With LOTS Of Women·      Why Men STOP Sleeping With LOTS Of Women·      How The Subconscious Mind Rules The Conscious Mind·      Having Sex To Fill Emotional Voids·      Men And The Fear Of Rejection·      Avoiding Commitment·      Communication Barriers During Sex·      Toxic Masculinity CONNECT WITH DAVID:Website & Courses: https://www.theauthenticman.netPodcast: https://www.theauthenticman.net/podcastTwitter: https://twitter.com/iamauthenticmanFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/IAmTheAuthenticManInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/theauthenticman_/ DE'VANNON'S RECOMMENDATIONS:·      Pray Away Documentary (NETFLIX)       - https://www.netflix.com/title/81040370       - TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_CqGVfxEs SDJ MEMBERSHIP (FULL EPISODES):·      $2.99 per month.·      Donate any amount for 30 days of access.·      $25 per year.https://www.sexdrugsandjesus.com/membership-account/membership-levels/ TRANSCRIPT:You're listening to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast, where we discuss whatever the fuck we want to. And yes, we can put sex and drugs and Jesus all in the same bed and still be all right. At the end of the day, my name is De'Vannon and I'll be interviewing guests from every corner of this world. As we dig into topics that are too risky for the morning show, as we strive to help you understand what's really going on in your.There was nothing on the table and we've got a lot to talk about. So let's dive right into this episode.De'Vannon: My guest today is all the way from the UK. And he is helping them build confidence, become their true selves last longer in bed and masturbate. Like they mean it, baby yassss!!! His name is David Chambers and he is the host of the authentic man podcast. And he's also an accomplished dating and intimacy coach as well.This man is a master of mindfulness and tantric practices, and it was a [00:01:00] real pleasure to talk about sex with him on my show.Hello, David, the authentic man man's man. How are you doing today? David: I'm feeling, um, I'm feeling really, really kind of grounded and calm. I just, uh, just before we go on about an hour ago, I was laying on a massage table with my Reiki master doing a magic. So I'm now feeling stupid, like relaxed and said, so I'm really feeling, oh De'Vannon: shit, that's how you get ready for, uh, uh, for a fucking interview.You get the Reiki master over there. You get all of this in the house. David: Yeah. Then all the energy get relaxed, save big, De'Vannon: but see that's how your, your podcast intake, man, it starts off that way. Like your voice is so like low and calm. You've got like the massage music going and you're already getting people into the state of hypnosis before you [00:02:00] even much started talking about.What'd he really came there to talk about that day.David: Nevermind. De'Vannon: Okay. So David, tell us about how you got started on the path of being a dating coach. Talk to us about your history and your struggles and everything that led to that path.David: Yeah. Yeah. That's a good question. Um, I, uh, about, um, Let's say 15 years ago, uh, you know, you're young 20 something year old, man. And I was just not as happy with my day in life as I want it to be, you know, like many of us, you know, I'm sure I was 20 odd years old. I was kind of up and coming in my career and my tech career.And I was looking to expand my life and expand my horizons and do new things. And I was finding myself, going to the bars and clubs and meet women who they weren't really interested in. The sort of things I was interested in. They wanted to, you know, go to bars and clubs and maybe buy some handbags and [00:03:00] shoes and holiday and, you know, get drunk, that sort of thing.And I was feeling a little bit tired of that. I felt like I was growing out of that a little bit and I wanted to travel. I wanted to, you know, um, dive into new cultures, try new experiences, do things that push my comfort zone. So I was a bit frustrated with that. I started Googling one night as you do. Um, and I came across a book that promise to teach a man, you know, how to, to, to talk to women, how to talk to a higher quality women.I guess the phrase would have been in those days and a book was the game. Um, so like many amount at that time I picked up, I'd read it, cover to cover in a few weeks. Um, and I, I use some of the techniques. I definitely did. It went out and you know, some of the lines, you know, some of the first pickup, the kind of introductory lines as I probably call them is like, got me.Help me with confidence a lot of the time. So then I, I ended up at a bootcamp and at the end of that boot camp, I turned to the teacher, the head teacher, they had the guy who was running it and said, Hey, I think I could teach this [00:04:00] stuff, you know, on the bootcamp. He said, yeah, I agree. And that kind of started a path of, for about year and a half, doing that on the side, as well as working in my tech job.And during that year and a half, I started to develop to move away from a lot of the stuff that was in the game. I wasn't really that keen on a lot of what was in there to start with, but I started to really develop this idea of like having fun, you know, that, that mystery thing that a lot of men struggle with, especially when they get into a club, like having a good time, having fun with people like smiling, joking, laughing, uh, being in the moment being, you know, open and honest and, and so forth.So I really got into that. And then I got kind of fed up with that whole scene, that whole kind of men trying to pick up women. It become, I started to see there was a really dark side coming across students who didn't love. They didn't love meeting women. They just wanted to take advantage of them. And I didn't sit well with me, cause my, my point of view has been like a deep love and reverence for women.You know, I grew up, I've got four, four sisters sometimes I forget. Um, I've got four sisters, um, and I grew [00:05:00] up with them. So I really have a love for women. So I spent many years after that, just learning about myself, you know, self-dependent work, going to workshops, going to courses, you know, week-long things, things like that even went to a Buddhist monastery to stay for a week, uh, one year just to, you know, learn more about me and I, I had a partner.I was with fast forward a few years from there. Uh, we were together for about four years or we broke up when I was in Bolivia. We were traveling around the world. We traveled all fruit, India Southeast Asia flew over to south America to see the Olympics and broke up in a, in a hotel room in Bolivia, in a little town called.And it all really, for me, stemmed from the idea. And the thing that I struggled with was just speaking about my feelings and emotions and listening to her about taking it personally and making it all about me and what I've done wrong. So what that kind of created was a cycle where I didn't say how I felt, because I didn't want to upset her because I didn't want her to be acting for me.You have to deal with her [00:06:00] emotional reaction. So I was balling up all these feelings, all these desires, things that I wanted, and it just caused the breakdown of a relationship slowly over a year. And I really vowed to myself. Then I said, I'm not going to let it happen again. I don't want that to happen again.So I went on a bit of a journey after that. I kept traveling for about six months, discipline medicine did a lot of meeting new people, a lot of just open Hyde conversation. Um, and then after that I came back to London, uh, a friend of mine, uh, the guy who used to run the podcast with AMAT, he was like, let's do something.Well, this thing, let me, she's like, you know, there's so much data on, is this. Do this, say this where this then say this, then do this and then trick her into doing this. He was like, but we know that doesn't work. Long-term we know that that's very superficial and it doesn't build beautiful relationships.So the podcast was born, uh, originally it was called your thing, dating series, um, spending about day. And you know, in the last few months I've expanded it into and change the name to the authentic man has decided to step away [00:07:00] around Christmas time. So this has all led to a journey of like self-learning self-development growth.Um, Coming into myself, maturing more than anything. And a couple, there's a nother side that runs alongside, this is my love of sex, sexuality, tantra, and things like that. That I've also brought into my work. So now I'm, you know, doing everything from running workshops about masturbation, for play, a tantra for couples, tantric, massage,and the like. So it's really a combination and helped me grow and move forward. So out of my own pain, you know, I've turned this as I often say, your pain can become your gold. And for me, that's really been, been true for me. De'Vannon: Excellent breakdown of you. And I love how you have the small beginnings, as they say, as the Lord says in the Hebrew Bible to despise not the day of small beginnings and, you know, and you came from and where the, where there anybody out there believes in God or not is, you know, a thing, but it's just, it's [00:08:00] just good fucking sense, you know, to despise small beginnings, you know, he didn't get visited.David didn't get discouraged. And you know, he started, you know, he had his heart broken, he went through some shit, uh, you know, he started off helping somebody else and now he's become the guru himself. Now your website is absolutely fantastic. The authentic man.net. And because it's really like a resource and a hub, I love when websites are like that.So it's almost like, you know, Creative website. And you just happen to have some podcast episodes on there because you got everything else too. You got your blog going, you got courses, you design, you got workshop videos coming up and stuff like that. And so we're going to talk all about that in my show notes that I'm going to design for you, but I love it.It's a resource and men can go to you and find out how to become a better man. Um, I wanted to, so I was listening to one of your [00:09:00] podcasts episodes. And you said, uh, an interesting thing about self love. And I wanted to talk about self love, um, up front, because I think a lot of the work you do has that infused.I think all the work you do has used in it. You say something like self love is not always among ourselves. Uh, yeah. And, um, sometimes it requires discipline and self-mastery, which is something else that I came across a lot when I was researching you. So tell us what is self love and self mastery what's in not getting confused with.David: Hmm. I think. Hmm. Hmm. Good question. So, so self love to me is in a real nutshell, and I think for this is it's sometimes I just work with, see what comes up for me in the moment is like, you know, all the love we give to other people, right? For a lot of us, like, or the love that we want from other people, like maybe you want a boyfriend or a girlfriend who's gonna, you know, [00:10:00] take you out for dinner.Who's going to give you foot mass artist. Who's going to cook for you, who is going to, you know, tell you how beautiful you look and you know, all those things give that to you. That is, to me the real basics of self-love all the things you want from outside of you that you crave externally, right? You crave the validation, you crave the love, the feeding, the warmth, give that to yourself on a daily basis every day in some way, you know, like it, as I said before I came here today, I took myself and I went and got some Reiki for my Reiki master.And it's like, that's an act of self love, you know, because I'm giving myself the relaxation and the joy that I love to give to other people. Right. And I give that to myself. It's an act of self-love and where self-discipline kind of comes in, is that when you've go things like, say going to the gym, Now going to the gym can be an act of self-love, right?Because maybe you've decided that, you know, you want [00:11:00] your body to look a certain way or you live in something. You want your body to look a certain way. Maybe you want your body to feel a certain way. You know, you want to feel a certain way in your body. So there's going to take that. You go to the gym or you go to yoga or you do some running or lattes or whatever exercise you choose to do, but you're also going to need some discipline infused into that, right.To keep going, because these sorts of things take discipline and where the self-mastery comes in for me is also looking at yourself and asking questions about who you are and how you feel and what's going on for you. So inside of the example of going to the gym, maybe there's days where you're like, I don't fancy it today.I don't want to go today. And actually I want to go to the cake shop and eat a whole massive cake. That's normally for four people. It could be an act of self love for you to go and eat that cake. And this is where, you know, it's not always easy to tell because if you've been going through. You know, three times a week for four years, and you've never missed a session.But inside of [00:12:00] that, that self-love is giving you what you really desire and need in that moment is to have some cake to sell yourself. You'll sell some love and just have something in you that feels good. Right. But if you are on the flip side of someone, who's been trying to go to the gym for three years and you've gone about four times, right?And it's a normal story for you to want this cake inside that moment, your axis of bluff is to crack your ass to the gym right now, the self-mastery comes in is when you have that for that is like, Hmm, I don't really want to go to the gym and you go, Hmm. What is underneath that for what's going on there?Well, what's my, is there a fear there? Is there a concern? Is there a worry, right. You know, for some of us, if it's like going to the gym, it's like with almost fearful sometimes. If we do this thing, we will change as a person. And how will the world react to me or my family? Not likely my friends, not like me.Will I be less accepted because I changed. Right. And that kind of often sits in quite an unconscious place. So self-mastery, to me, it's like to look at why you do things, why certain things keep happening to you and [00:13:00] why things have happened to in the past. De'Vannon: I think that's a beautiful breakdown. And when you were explaining about the cake and the gym, my mind went to, so, so I have a clothing store called down under apparel and I've, I've worked with models before, and these guys are like zero body fat, eight packs, you know, all of that sort of stuff.And the first photo shoot that I ever did, you know, they showed up with a bag of like jelly. And, um, and they were, and I was like, I couldn't understand, like, I don't get it. You look like that. What's your eating bad. This isn't fair, plain explain, you know, like, bro, we don't do this all the time, but you know, it was like, you know, they had been preparing for, for the photo shoot.So they had been going without, until now they were rewarding themselves with those coveted, just the wheat and everything like that. And you know, you will see the Olympic athletes that they got the Olympics going. Now, as soon as they're done with the Olympics, they're at, McDonald's [00:14:00] getting fast food and everything and all of that and you know exactly what, and that felt that'd probably be so great going into them.You know, they're listening to this and going. Yep. Yep. Yep. Amen. Amen. And amen. And, um, Okay. So I w I would like for you to tell me about like a client success story, of course we won't, we'll call him Joe or whatever the hell you feel like calling him. Now, look, I want something juicy. I want, I want a train wreck case.Somebody was a hot day, um, feisty mess. And then when you looked at him and thought, maybe I can't do nothing with this when I don't know, somebody mess up from the float up is what I want to hear about. And then how, how you help them turn that thing around. David: Mm. A lot of guys that come to me, they're not like in, in real messages, there's not just small tweaks that they need.Right. There's really small tweaks. [00:15:00] So as a client, I had to, not too long ago, he, he hadn't been on a date in a few years. He hadn't had any sort of physical activity to me De'Vannon: that sounded like a train wreck to me. You've put in a nicely, that's what I call messed up from the flow up. Now you say no physical activity.So we hadn't had no sex in like four years. And what you're saying, oh, that's a train wreck. I'm gonna be quiet. Go head on. I just want people to be clear, that's a train wreck. David: So, so yeah, after working for a few weeks together, um, you know, you've got to, to going to like some speed dang events. Right. But he was interested in, so he went to some speeding events and beforehand, you know, we've been talking about conversation, how to show up, how to be playful, how to, you know, be, be the character that he is.And, you know, he goes to the speeding event. I think he leaves there. I mean, he's got like four or [00:16:00] five matches. I think there was like maybe 10 women there, four or five matches. And for him, he was blown away, you know? Cause this was like he's before he's been on date for ages. Right. So now he's like, wait, that's four or five matches.This is a problem I've never had. I don't. We do, I do. I come up with and I was like, well, you can go out with all of them. Right. You know, you don't have to choose in this moment. You know, if you want to go out with them, go out all of them. Right. So there's one, one guy goes to see a few times. And um, I think he goes on a few dates with her and the one day we were talking and he's like, oh, you know, I feel like on the beach was pushing to come back to my place.And I was like, So, so what, what did he do? He was like, no, no, you know, I didn't think it was right, blah, blah, blah. And then we kind of unpack that, right. Because sometimes we have these ideas of what's not right and wrong. It's like, well, what did you want? What did she want? Right. And what was authentically, there was no manipulation about that.So a few days later, um, [00:17:00] he was messaging me in the morning was like, oh, you know, the girl's saying these sorts of things to me. And I was like, what's true for you? What would you really love? You know? And he's like, I'd love to give her a massage. And I was like, okay, cool. Well, you know, talk to her about that.So that evening she goes around to his place. And, uh, I remember being a bit panicked beforehand again, he called and was like, you know, what's going on? He was like, I'm worried, you know, maybe, you know, she doesn't really want that. Maybe this, maybe that. And I said, okay, what's true for you. And what do you sense on her?Right. There's the two things you just feed into those things. Right. Don't get too much into like how things have to be, because things don't have to be any way. And, um, so they get the girl came round and they spent the night together, you know, and they had a good time. So, you know, I was very happy about that.And obviously, you know, it's not always as about getting laid and having sex, but he, they had a really beautiful eating together, massage and stuff like that. And they, they both share some, some kinks as well. So they're able to explore that [00:18:00] swapping together. So that was really beautiful to, to hear. Um, I didn't turn it to relationship for him, but he started to enjoy dating.I think that was the most important thing actually with, for him was after that he started to date. He started to enjoy it. It's like to have fun when he dated. Right. And this is a big thing for all of us to go from just dating, being this chore. Like it's like a job, like it's work. So to go to Ashley, realize that things about connecting with new human beings, we should always be a beautiful expanse.De'Vannon: Man. You're like the best big brother ever. Like that is like, gosh, if I'd had somebody in my life had given me a relationship like that, like that relationship, advice like that when I was younger, maybe I wouldn't have turned into a ho. And, David: um, De'Vannon: but that is absolutely. Incredible because he went from no physical interaction.He was abstaining forward for all kinds of reasons. And then when he did finally do it, you walked him through the anxiety. You were there, you were truly [00:19:00] his coach. I've, I've played sports before. There's nothing like having like a good coach in your corner. So they make you feel like you can do things you ordered or you, you don't think you can.And then that was a pivotal moment from her, for him, because that imprinted upon him, his understanding a different way of being, and that's what it's all about. So you can go from being a train wreck to a super fast training and, uh, and you know, living your best life. I want you to go back to how you were saying, like, in your twenties, you were having, you know, a lot of meaningless sex and everything.A lot of guys are like fucking their way through town, you know, clocking talking girls left and right. And so you said you were seeking for a lot of validation from him, but you really didn't get any validation from it. So. What inclined you to think that as a man, you should be sleeping with a whole bunch of women.And then at what point did you realize that look, this isn't working. David: Yeah, yeah, no, it's a [00:20:00] beautiful question. So really poignant question, because I think it has to start with the fact that I didn't really have a father who was in my life. My dad was, he doesn't actually live that far from even now, but he's not much of a, a present person in my life.Right. He's he's not emotionally able to be with a child. He's not able to really nurture in any way. And I know it's not his fault. You know, I've really spoken to him about this to a certain degree about his upbringing and realize that it really was his, that was like completely absent as a human being.But they're physically, which I think sometimes it's almost worse because you see the person there and you kind of think this is how it should be or this how it shouldn't be, but they don't give you a decent example. So I grew up with a lack of like masculinity, uh, example in my life and all the men have like friends of my mom's friends.I could always look at these men and go, you're not the sort of man that I look up and I should look up to. I always knew I was always like, Nope, you're not sort of managed to look up to. So I didn't have anyone in my life to say, [00:21:00] this is how you be a man. Right. So I remember going to university. Women start to pay attention to me.So I was like, oh, you know, I'll sleep one. And then I was sleeping with two and then I would be really honest and be like, look, I don't want a girlfriend. I wanna, you know, I want to enjoy myself. And I would tell them like, you know, so no one was expecting, I wasn't lying about it. Right. It's especially at the start, it wasn't really crying about it.So then I was like, oh, this is fun. And then other guys are like, oh Dave, you're the man. But they don't usually say those words, but they, you know, you get a lot of man points from, from men. And then on the, another perverse turn of this is that when you are being with a lot of women, other women also become more attracted to you, right?Because they see you with other women and they, they kind of gravitate towards you. So you're in this kind of cycle. And this was for years where, you know, I would go in and out of relationships, but I'd just be like sleeping with a lot of women at any given time, maybe four or five women I'm meeting up with for a number of months.And in many ways it was very flattering and very [00:22:00] validating way of being a man and being a virile, you know, accomplished man, especially in the bedroom. There was a day. And I never forget this day. She was, it was about, probably about 10 years ago, 10, yeah, 10 and 10 and a half years ago. And I slept with this girl and I left them my bedroom.So in the place I'm in now, and I sat on my sofa, which is different in front of you. I'm seeing, and I had some biscuits in the hand and I was eating the biscuits. And at one point I finished the biscuits and I just sat there, staring at the wall and I kind of had my head in my hands and then I laid down and fell asleep on the sofa.Right. But what I was feeling there was this emptiness. I didn't really want to go back into the bedroom with the girl because there was no real connection with me and her. And I was just like, this is empty. You know, this is empty.I was like this isn't, this is empty and it's not making me feel good, but it's externally validating [00:23:00] me. And it's very easy to get very addicted to that external validation. Right. And even get quite addicted to the evacuation of being with a woman and ejaculating and touching them and holding them.Right. It could be quiet and addictive thing. If you've never look at the underlying feeling that's happening, that you're running away from. Because often as a man, if you're just constantly chasing sex, you're chasing the next woman or the next man. Right. You're chasing something, but what's behind you.What are you running away from? Right? This is, we often forget. This is like often we just running away from ourselves and our own feeling of loneliness or worthlessness or, or a desire for connection. And in that moment, I was like, I thought. And I've got like four women I could call up tomorrow and they'd all come to my house, you know, and I felt lonely in those moments.So I started to make changes. Then I started definitely to make changes then in it, you know, sometimes I would say, let's say necessary. I felt I was, there was a point where I worried I was a sex addict, you know, I've, I've been accused by a woman. I was seeing, she was just like, you have an addiction, you know, you don't need to be sleeping with four women.And I really fought [00:24:00] about that for a long time and it worried me. Um, but after that I was like, you know, I don't need to live like this. I don't need to just kind of for want of a better phrase, churn through women in that way. You know? So I kind of left those day behind and you know, there's a couple of times I flirted with that life a little bit, but I was still a lot more conscious of.Am I doing this because this is a really beautiful experience with someone who I'm really enjoying my time with, or am I doing this just because I'm running away from like, you know, looking at my own thoughts and feelings about my own loneliness or my own inadequacy. So, you know, that's that self-mastery pieces again, you know, it's looking at why you're doing something and understanding that instead of just denying it, De'Vannon: that's like how I learned in my, um, kept the therapy training when I got my certification and hypnosis, you know, so much of it revolved around understanding the why behind the why, how we can do things like on autopilot or for all of these great reasons.And the real reason behind it is embedded deep within our [00:25:00] subconscious and then have noses all about breaking through the conscious mind and getting to the root of problem that a lot of times as it is that our upbringing, everything. So a person may be having baby out there being. Or, um, maybe having problems in their relationship at work, all kinds of things.And it's because of something negative anchored in their self and their subconscious in which the subconscious, I think was like 78% of the brain or something like that. And I think the content was only like 12% of our members. I mean, shit, 88%. 12% for the conscious mind of our member directly. So most of what we are doing is being manipulated by experiences that we've had before, until we became up to that.And what you're doing is in that vein of work and your experiences speak to that. So you were able to basically coach yourself, you know, you know, you know, to go to a better state of thinking and [00:26:00] being now. You also said that you avoided commitment and it was due to a deep seated fear of rejection or of choosing the wrong woman.I really want you to talk about the rejection aspect because from my dealings with men and, and y'all have dealt with a lot of them in Monday, mama, no mama. No. Uh, I did. I did with you there too, but I was, I was fucking a whole lot of men when I was like in the military and you know, and all of that as a little bit different, you know, but still I was, you know, trying to fill a void for me.You know, my dad, my dad would refer me to administrate and you know, that wasn't gonna happen. And so, you know, where do you go from there? And now I'm in the military. I'm 17. Don't ask. Don't tell. So I can't really say. Good relationship. I'll get kicked out, but you know, Nick is readily available. So what you gonna do?And so, David: and so,[00:27:00] De'Vannon: and then I was in a college town. I had,I was like 19 and everything, the fire, the fire. And so, um, but a lot of men have this like rejection. I don't know if you would call it a complex or whatever. You know, these big, strong, handsome men are, you know, who a lot of us, a lot of us girls would say, you just, it's always Leah concern, you know, can do no wrong.But when they approach us, they can turn and we can sit and say, Such fear, you know, coming off of men who we didn't would not have put, looked at that way, unless he started acting that way. So where is this fear of rejection coming from? What is it? What did he do with it? [00:28:00] David: Yeah. Yeah. And as you put it, so whoa, like sometimes the men, they think of it, you know, for want of a better word, you can, they come over and you can feel that there's this fear of being rejected.And there's a perverse thing that happens, especially if we're talking about, you know, the, the initial approach where you go over to someone and you're afraid of being rejected. So you speak almost quite timidly. You're not committed to the, you don't feel committed to whatever you're saying. So the person can feel the lack of commitment, but feels.There's something off here. There's a lack of safety in some way. So they then respond in crime. Right? And then the person who's feeling the rejection feels the response that is a bit cagey isn't full-blooded and then experiences rejection, often ejects. That's a very common cycle that happens in a bar or club.For me, it was a bit deeper than that. It wasn't this about the original rejectionist around inside of relationship. Right? Like not being accepted as I was, the rejection of me is like [00:29:00] not being accepted. The fear for me was the BMI relationship and they get to know me and then they would reject me.Right. Which would cause me to want in many ways, it's like to hide certain things, not say certain things about who I was, because if they, if I show them all the bits and pieces that they like. Most of that, they're going to like, and then they can accept me as I am. But the problem inside of that is, is there's a self-rejection that's happening constantly, right?Which wears away at us because we are basically telling ourselves that there's parts of who we are that are bad and wrong and needs to be hidden from other people. And that people will not accept about us and that we don't accept those parts. So there's that city, a cycle of continuous self-rejection of ourselves.It actually makes us feel worse. And also we project that, that rejection on to other people assume that they're doing the same thing to us because ultimately we always see the world for a lens of how we see ourselves. So a lot of the, the, the fear of rejection, isn't it. [00:30:00] That we think of the people who are rejecting us really it's about, we are continually rejecting ourselves, right?So for me, that was just like constant. Like, okay, if I say this, then she'll get upset. And if I say this, you went like that, you know, trying to hide. And it just becomes a very high energy game just to maintain things in a, in a way, instead of what I much prefer to operate in now, which is like, this is who I am.I've accepted who I am, but for the most part, because there's always bits, we're trying to take out the backpack right. And acceptable. This is who I am. I'm accepting. This is, this is how it is. Right. There's things here that could be better. There's things that could be improved. That's okay. But I look at them and I say, yeah, that's a part of who I am.De'Vannon: Okay. So it's about self-acceptance of what, but, okay. So, so when you say a fear of choosing the wrong woman, so is this something that happens once you made some. Improvement in yourself as a man. At what point did he [00:31:00] begin where you, um, avoiding commitment? Cause you were afraid you might pick the wrong girl.David: Um, this was continuous, continuous, like a continuous thing that I would be with the woman for maybe six months a year. And, but I'd also kind of have my half my eye on like, okay, if this doesn't work out, you know, I can still be fine kind of thing. Right. So the fear is that she's not the right woman for me.So if that's that fear is true, that I need to also be like looking out for what's wrong with her constantly, you know, nitpicking finding forth, but also have one eye on the exit. It's like, you know, it's basically like living with one foot out the door, meaning you'll never fully commit to someone. You never give them your all which, which for the other person is horrendous.Right. Cause it, it creates a lot of anxiety for them. But for me doing it, it also creates anxiety for me, for me. But it's also had me on this kind of high alert of always nitpicking back. Something that I [00:32:00] have to really be conscious of now. Right. Is that I give unsolicited advice to my partner now, or I'm like, oh, like even the other day she was cooking.Some planting, um, resonates. I've taught a Swedish woman to cook Jamaican food. So there is some time to see us. She loves it. Right. She's cooking. You're welcome. You're welcome. Bye.And she's, she's cooking the plant in and I'm like, oh, you need to cook that a bit longer. Oh, you should. You should tell him that. And it's like, I have to, then I w I sat down and I say, Hey, I'm leaving. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, because this is part of this like, oh, you could be better. This is wrong.Something's wrong. And it's something that I still have to manage. Right. So I have to be really aware, it's shine my light of awareness. But in the past it was worst because I wouldn't even, I would be nitpicking at the women I was with verbally, but also be like, well, you know, with all these things, you're definitely not the right one for me to be [00:33:00] with, you know?De'Vannon: Okay. Okay. So that, that kind of echoes whether it echoes what we were talking about with like the hypnotherapy, because what you're saying is you were dealing with her on the surface off of a, an, an inner belief that you had or interferes that you had and stuff like that. I've had to do that to, you know, and, and, and dial it back.Which, which is something hard for somebody who's as extra as Maya this to do, but, but it can be done. It can be done. So hopefully y'all, David: and it helps the relationships as well. Right? De'Vannon: Yeah. And when you do a little less, you know, I used to be, you know, like super critical and stuff like that. And I, I believe that was me speaking forward, the voice of those who were, who have been critical of me in the past, my dad and in the military, the church, you know, and, you know, then I brought that into the relationships and now I'm like, okay, why, why am I doing this?And [00:34:00] so it's always beautiful when we have that moment, you know, like you and I have had where we begin to question why we're doing what we're doing while we're thinking the way we're thinking, where did this come from? And then taking ownership of ownership of it and changing it to.Let's let's have some fun. We're going to talk about some sexual things. Now I want to know what are the secrets for men lasting longer in bed? And you said in my, in my readings of you, that it's not about, um, where you sit on your podcast. I believe it's not about being a porn star and lasting for hours.It's about lasting as long as you want to. David: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think we we've watched all this porn, right. Ultimately porn has become. I'll say it's education, you know, rightly or wrongly porn has become our sex education, but that's our generation, right? Because our parents were too scared to talk about sex because they were [00:35:00] clueless to be honest.Right. And you know, the younger generation I'm seeing now, I've got the younger sisters about 10 years or so younger. And at least they have, um, there's a bit more in, in terms of like healthy, uh, sexual kind of education now. So for us there was porn. So we watched porn and most of the porn we watched was, you know, a few minutes long.They were like going as hard as they could for, you know, five minutes, three minutes. And if you're watching, you know, Petra, heteronormative, poor, like me, it's all about the penis in the vagina. The woman is like weathering and screaming all over the place, even though no one's touching the crit risks. No one's done any foreplay.That's right. And that, and that becomes a man's education for sex. You know, a lot of guys, they go into sex and it's like, okay, cool. I need to give this one the best two minutes of their life, you know? And it's not even two minutes of like, oh, not including the floor place. Like no, that's includes the four pay because that's all they've seen.Right. That's the only reality of what sex is. [00:36:00] So I work with guys and it's like, okay, cool. You want to have you, you want to last longer because every man, almost every man you meet is like, yeah, I wouldn't mind last a bit longer. So I usually start with, with the pace. The first thing we do is slow down, slow things down, because as much as we think we're really enjoying a few minutes of hard action, there's actually so much more enjoyment to being hard on.We can slow down. We have a whole body. The, as I say now, I learned from my tantric lenses. Our whole body is an instrument of pleasure. We have all these senses that we can use for erotic pleasure. If we choose to, you know, the taste, the smell, the sound, if we just spend the time to, to drop in, to relax, to breathe and to, to be present.Right? So the first thing is to slow down, like when we in, in the, in the accident as well, and also to build up slowly, it's really important to build up slowly, because if you build up slowly as, as men, our arousal can rise very quickly, right. We can go from [00:37:00] fucking zero to erection, to penetrating in, in a 30 seconds.So it really is. We talking, you know, one minute to 30 seconds, but for us, like for me, it was sleeping with women. Women can take anything from 20 minutes to an hour, really to be ready for sex. Right. So there's a huge mismatch there. Right? You've got one minute and ready. You've got like 20 minutes, half an hour, I'm ready.And it's like, how do we marry this up? Right. So. The thing I teach men is to slow down, slow down, be present, be really focused on the sensations of touch with the person you're with. Even if you're with someone and they're trying to speed things up, slow things down a little bit. There's no rush. We're all conditioned to going really quickly.It's like the rest of our lives. We just run around like mad people all the time. Why? Because we're conditioned to do that. We don't stop and think, wait a minute. Can I do all this shit slowly? Yeah, I could. And I was, I might enjoy it more, you know? So, so that's the kind of in, in play [00:38:00] insects way of, you know, uh, slowing things down as well as I'd add in breathing, deep breathing is a good one, breathing very deeply, you know?Cause it moves. It also moves the sexual energy, the S the sensations around the body. You feel more, not just in your cock, not just in your, in your groin. You start to feel the sensations in your feet and your toes and your hands up the back of your spine and so forth. But I also teach men that before they're even having sex, they can start to do.At home on their own, right? In terms of, you know, like mindful masturbation practice, like a self pleasure practice that includes meditation, maybe a few minutes of meditation, then it includes some, some Breathworks and deep breathing, you know, to relax the body. And then when you do get to put your hands on your cock, right, don't just put your hands there.You have a whole body, you can touch, you can start to learn about the different parts of your body that you enjoy being touched on. You know, for many men, my belief is 90% of men have no idea that they can enjoy any other sort of [00:39:00] touch other than on their Cox. They don't realize that maybe they really sensitive in loads and it feels amazing for them to be, to be stroked or even just slightly licked, you know, because you just have to find that, right.But lot body parts, you just have to find that just right. Type of touch. Right. And you have to, you have to spend some time to experiment, you know, because it might not be firm. It might be soft. It might be like, Featherlight, it might even just be some blowing, right. That feels amazing. And you have this whole body to, to kind of find that out about, and there's like, there's all these different parts.And so you'd have to spend time, but if we'd done this at this free cock centered sex, you'll never know you've missed out on this whole life of all these beautiful sensations. So I teach mentor to, you know, be with themselves, be more connected to their own body and what they enjoy, you know, relax, but also to use different strokes when they're alone, you know, not just the standard up and down with one hand, you know, you use two hands, use a, get a flashlight and use that as well.You know, like really experiment, really being [00:40:00] playful. Being the playfulness of yourself to learn, because this allows you to understand your arousal a bit more. And it also means that when you start getting very aroused, when you're alone, you can slow down and you start to understand your arousal rate as it rises so that when you do go into the bedroom with someone else, you can slow down.When you find yourself getting very aroused, because you want it to last longer. And it means then you just riding the waves, man, just riding these waves as they get a bit higher and then you can choose exactly when you want to. When you want to comment when you want actually, De'Vannon: oh, I think what you just invented, I would call, um, masturbation meditation.David: That's exactly how I describe De'Vannon: it. You should call it patent. Trademark gets that, that our circle thing on there, new masturbation meditation, founds, Fabiola.I mean, for the man out there. [00:41:00] All y'all got sensitive. Nicole's ears pretty much for the most part, if I haven't slept with a thousand men and I have at least y'all yeah. The deck for sure. But your ears and your know-hows trust me. Just let, let somebody touch them and see what happened. David: Yeah. So De'Vannon: does this get into the area of sexual performance anxiety or is that kind of like the same thing?David: No, no, there's a lot of, uh, you know, sexual performance. Anxiety is something that is, is huge for men around lasting long enough, right? There's a, this concern is fear about lasting long. I've been big enough having a nice enough body pleasing the partner, you know, all these things play on the mind of, of, of, you know, sex performance, anxiety, even for men in relationship.I know that some of my clients are like their anxieties around that they have a much lower sex drive than their partner. So their anxiety almost [00:42:00] is like, I'm going to come home. You're going to want sex. And if I don't want to, how am I going to deal with, how am I going to manage that? Right. So all these sorts of anxieties I've already.I do a lot of work for men about, you know, what's the anxiety, what is it? How can you work for it? How can you discuss it with your partner? Right. Where does it really come from? Is it a real anxiety, even, you know, is it a real fear and worry when it comes to sex? Like the one around often that comes from men is like, oh, I want to please, my partner, I've heard, she's been with other men, you know, we want to please her.And it's like, okay, how do you think you go about that? How do you think you'd go about pleasing your partner? And this is a beautiful question, right? Because the way men come at sex a lot, right. Especially heterosexual man is I am doing sex to someone I'm doing sex to a woman. I am doing it to her. It's like, um, it's a it's, it's not a co-creation right.It's not a, uh, something you're both doing [00:43:00] together De'Vannon: from, from the woman's perspective. Sorry to get you off. But, um, so when, whenever, whenever. What I'm going to illustrate what you're saying. So like when I've received the deck from men before, it's like, man, look, they would look at me like I'm going to be like a workbench or like some sort of project.Okay. So while he's up there thrusting, everything's like, he's studying my reaction, everything like that and see what he is doing to me and the effect that he's having on me. It's a project to be done. This is what he's talking about, about people of the audience. And that's what I wanted to say. Go ahead and continue that.David: Oh, that's beautiful customer. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, it's a it's it's do you know what it is? It's very much nail on hammer. The hammer. The nail is the passive object in it. I mean, actually it's not that way. Right? Because, so when I do say so how are you going to please this partner you're going to be with [00:44:00] this woman.They're like, oh, then I need to know. I need to know, you know, how to make her calm. Okay, cool. How are you going to know how to do that? But you don't need to watch a video. Okay. What would you going watch? Uh, you know, there's some stuff on YouTube or, you know, porn or whatever, or other porn sites, right.Tutorials. Okay, cool. And then when you've watched that, what are you gonna do? Okay. So when I'm with her, and then I want to start remembering the stuff I learned and then do that stuff to her. Cool. How'd, you know, she liked it. Um, uh, she'll come how'd, you know, when she comes and, and you know, a lot of us, we, all men are not really sure.Right. That I dunno. Cool. And we get to down this line of, you know, sometimes they add in some more techniques to learn and I go, what else could you do? Sometimes they're done founded and I'm like, so could you ask her what she likes? And then there's usually a silence. Which I [00:45:00] can't do that. How am I going to do that?Then? She'll know, I don't know what to do. Why would, you know what to do? This is a completely new human being, and this here is just a coaching conversation. I've had like 20, 30 times. Right. And they're like, I can do that. I can ask them like what they like. Yeah. And then what will they tell me if they know?Yeah. And then you can do those things, right? Yeah. And then you know that they enjoy that because they told you because they told you beforehand. Yeah. And isn't that a much better thing. And it opens up a lot more, but this is so radical. Right. Because there's this idea that we should all know exactly how to have sex really well with any different person that comes along.Right. Which is really, when you think about is ludicrous. And what it also does on the flip side is with this masculine doing too, it also means that a woman becomes, she doesn't have any responsibility. Right. Which isn't good, right. For her own pleasure because it's [00:46:00] like, oh, he does this to me. So if I have a shit time out, fuck is his fault.Cause he shouldn't bet. So it means that all the responsibility sits with the man about, you know, being right, being good. And the woman's left generally unhappy. Right? Let's be honest about it. Right? If you canvas women around the world about their sexual enjoyment with, with the men that we've. So what my thing is rebalancing is like saying to women, and I think there's a lot of female empowerment.There's a lot of beautiful female empowerment happening. And I love to see, you know, I try to even be part of it, right. Where I can is like speak up as a woman and say, this is what I want. This is what I need is what I desire as a man. Hear that and hear that as like a person that you're with a woman you love, who's loving you.Who wants you to feel pleasure and wants you to know what she enjoys to bake. You can enjoy it together. And it becomes a co-creation instead of the project being done to.De'Vannon: A co a co-creation a project working on [00:47:00] together. Sounds a lot better. It really, really does. And, um, but, but you in pun intended, hit the nail on the head when you were talking about when you were talking about men, not men, not feeling like they could just ask the simple question, communicating and stuff like that is the, if the episode or of any sort of connectiveness that anyone that any two or more people are going to have together.And it's really just that simple or. And, you know, you could just ask, you know, there's the, there's no need to make it a pop quiz or an exam. There's just, it's just simple girl. What do you like? And look, women are freaky as hell and not like she's some shy little school girl, just because she don't come out at him.Perverted, you know, society has taught her, you know, she's got to act like a lady and that's a whole other thing, but trust me, she know what to do with a Dick. Women love sucking them. [00:48:00] She can move them and love the male anatomy and, uh, but a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of us, the girls are waiting on you to initiate a lot of stuff.But once you do that baby, well, then it's all good. You know,David: it's a question. Is it similar in the, in the Creek community? Is it there's there's men who are like, I do the De'Vannon: Dewey. And then what community, how did you refer to it? David: In the queer community? De'Vannon: Okay. Yeah, I thought she said, it's the term that I had been recognized. I was like, okay, this is a new thing from across the pond.Okay. So something in a gay world, if you are the penetrative one, the one who's sticking the Dick into the asshole or whatever hole you are choosing that particular day. Then we call you a top. If you are the one receiving the Dick and we call you a bottom, if you Afrique and you like at all, we call you versatile.And, um, [00:49:00] but yeah, it's very much, the dynamics are not the same. I'm glad you brought that up because that was going to be my next point, how these, these struggles are the same for gay men, straight men by men, men who prefer not to be labeled any kind of way, but at the end of the day, even in the gay world, I mean, I mean, I've had straight men by men, gay men and everything.It's the same across the board in terms of if they get stage fright, if they are feeling insecure and stuff like that, if they feel, you know, the whole, you know, men can get into their fields and it doesn't matter. And so everything that David has said, this applies to gay men, straight men. Then you have a lot of gay men who were super, super, super, super, super machismo that it doesn't matter.You know, he, he w he'll tell you that he's gay, but that doesn't, he doesn't view himself as a feminine or girly or anything at all. You know, it's all about, you know, and then they'll get into fights and everything [00:50:00] like that. Like, it doesn't matter. I'm not saying men are fighting us what they do, but that brings me to toxic masculinity.I want you to talk, talk to us about. What it is, you know, why it's a problem? Where does this toxic masculinity come from? My Naval guy who, who knows he's toxic has toxic masculinity. You know, like he knows it. He'll be like, yeah, I'll have toxic masculinity. Like, and you know, and then the conversation would go from there.And it, and it was because when I was a massage therapist, I was like, yeah, you should come get a massage. And Tommy was like, yeah, no only girls only girls get attached to me. And I was like, okay. You know, and that, you know, people don't want to have sex with you just so they give you a massage. Like it just, I'm sorry, it's not that serious.And he's like, you know, he was like, yeah, I know, I know. But I just have to talk to them as salinity. And you know, this is just how it is, you know, whateverfree from these expectations in this [00:51:00] toxic, I don't know. You talk, I don't know what to say by, David: so I think your friend there is a really good example actually, of where we talk about the self-mastery it's like he's identified, there's a problem right there. And he's identified that he actually, I don't know if it is a problem for him, that's, there's another, but he's not willing to look at the underlying thing.Like why is it that he's toxic and why does he hold these beliefs? And I guess also the question is is why is he not willing to give them up or try something different? Right. But that's a, that's a whole different conversation. So for me, the, the, the thing about toxic masculinity is that, and also the first thing that was spaced the word toxic masculinity and not synonymous of each other.Right. I think we've moved into a world where some people think that all masculinity is toxic and I really deeply disagree. And I could find so much evidence to only one who doesn't agree with that. So what we've, we've really got in this day and age, you've got the, the patriarchy, and I don't need to explain that to anybody.Right. Which you know, is [00:52:00] hurting black people is hurting white men as well is hurting everybody really. Right. But what it's saying is that it gives us these very small boxes that we have to live in. Like it's saying that. To be a masculine man. You can only be a certain way, right? Which is you need to be big.You need to be buff. You need to be straight. Uh, you need to want to have sex with women all the time. You need to probably, you know, earn good money, have a nice house, drive a fast car and all these things, right. And this box over here of what being masculine is, you know, think of, think of James Bond in the seventies.You know, that was for me is like not the pinnacle of masculinity, but he's very, he's very masculine manually. It doesn't show any emotion. That's something you can't do. If you're a masculine man, you can't show emotion. You can't care very much about anything. That's sweet. If you're a masculine man, you don't really care about anything.You know, you have to be quiet. Um, there's even an aggressive nature to being a real kind of masculine man. So all these things, if you put them all together, Right. There [00:53:00] are definitely part of masculinity. The problem that's really lacking when it used someone who is toxic exhibiting these toxic masculine traits is they lack, compassion and love right.For themselves. But it also have a people because if you have these masculine traits and you start to bring in compassion, right. And love the man who is saying, I can't have a massage from, from a guy when he brings love into that, he's like, oh, well, this actually would be really beautiful for me. Right.I'm going to, it's going to be nice and maybe. There's a bit of uncomfortability, but I can have compassion for my own uncomfortability and still do this thing. Right. And I think that's where we're really lacking is this love, this compassion, compassionate for each other. And we just talked through our world.You know, our capitalist world is just like, everything's about results. Everything's about money, you know, and we don't care about nurturing. We don't care about even creativity. You know, even something as simple as artistry is being decimated [00:54:00] really in our countries because Hey, if it doesn't make money, then it's worthless, you know, kind of thing.So, you know, all those things we would traditionally say are more feminine traits. And when I say masculine and feminine, I'm not saying these things are gendered. It's just the, you know, when we look at these things, you know, first of all, you look at some of the Eastern traditions, uh, like tantra for instance, is very much seen.You know, the feminine is the, what they often call Shakti's the energy of life. It is like full blooded flow and force. And the masculine is, is she, various consciousness is direction is, is boundaries is, is a container, right? And those two things together are, have amazing creative force, but on their own, they don't give you anything valuable.And I think this is a problem for a lot of men is they're just inhibiting all this masculine energy and they're not bringing in any of these, these more feminine traits that actually will help them grow as men, right. And grow and help us grow as a community, as a world to be more loving and kind and more [00:55:00] supportive to everybody and not just be so maybe self-centered and focused on results De'Vannon: and right in the thing is.You know, women, well, we're all lightened, our good and evil, masculine, and feminine everything everybody is. So that's a part of balance. And when we don't embrace it, then we get thrown out of balance. But see, even women like, like you were telling me before, expect certain preprogram masculine traits from men too, you know, I was one that way, you know, you know, especially coming from the south, you know, I was thinking men are supposed to act this way, you know?So if a guy did not act a certain way, I remember one time, this was really fucking, you know, tough to do, but like tattoos everywhere when I was like, you know, you know, on the streets. And they were like heavily involved in drugs and everything, you know, who was known, you know, having a big Dick and all of that, you know, you know, that type of guy [00:56:00] wanted like a grape soda or something one day.And I was thinking, you know, You know, you know, grape soda, you know, I was like, okay, that's kind of like girly compared to the sort of man that I'm looking at here standing before me, you know, but it wasn't right for me to put that, put that restriction on him. If he wants to pound some pussy and then go get a grape soda, then he could fucking pounds of pudding to get a very solid, it doesn't have to be or scotch or a bear or nothing like that.He don't have to go get high. And again, you know, he wants some, a Fresca, wherever the fuck makes Greg sodas, I don't drink soda, but you know that, you know what, that was his right. I shouldn't have done that to him. So what do I get that bullshit from in my mind? So that was me having some toxic bullshit going on about what he should be doing and rather than accepting him for what he was.And, um, so talk to us about how women can expect this too, from people and how this hurts women as well. David: Yeah, because we're all conditioned with the same [00:57:00] patriarchy, they're all conditioned with the same, uh, toss, toxic masculinity. So we've seen so much of this toxic mess and anything we've gone. Okay.This is how men should be. So then women are looking for a man, right. And they're like, they meet a man, maybe like me, for instance, who is, who would be like, you know, and I had this a lot when I was, um, in my twenties and even in my early thirties, it's like, women would be like, oh, you're quiet. You're quite girly.Really? Aren't, you're quite capped. I'd be like, yeah, I guess so. Yeah. I wear a color and I dance. I love to dance. I dance at my home on my own and I'll do all sorts of weird and wonderful things. And they'd be like, oh, that's quite girly. And I'd be like, yeah. And you see there, you're hearing in there, they have associated something like dancing in a man of something that's girly or wearing color.Like, you know, the shirt you have on right now. I'm like, that's a fucking awesome shirt. I'll be wearing that shirt if I was out, you know? So it's like, women would be like, oh, [00:58:00] that's a bit, you know? Okay. Are you, I used to get asked a lot. Are you gay? And I'm like, no, no, I'm not gay. And they'd be like, oh, I'm really sorry if I offended you.I'm like, no, no, no, no, that's fine. I understand why you said that to me. It's not offensive to me. That's what you're thinking. It's not about me. And this is the thing is that when we learn these, we conditioned into this toxic masculine way. And then we project it onto everybody and expect them to be this way.And then the worst thing is, is that. If we have this idea that men see difference, the woman has it. Oh, all men, you know, they sleep around, right. That's how they are because they are men, which is a toxic trait to say a woman sleep around. So then they meet a man and they're dating, or they get married to have babies.And they're like, oh, you know, all man, they sleep. My husband, you know, he's sleeping off a women. That's just how men are. And that's where she has taken on this toxicity that she's learned. She has kind of, um, embedded that into her belief system. And then she allows that to happen a life when really being a man and sleeping around they're, they're two different things.They don't have to go together. Or [00:59:00] even we get to worst things around things like physical abuse. You know, this idea that old men are aggressive, that good men are aggressive. So if you meet a man who's not aggressive, you're like, well, ah, he's not a real man. But you see another man over there who's like fucking frame glass or when at the, at the floor, because he's, you know, he spilled a little bit of his drink or something.You're like, oh, well that's a real man. That's where we, we kind of embed this toxic ideas into us. And then it hurts us as well, because this is the way the perverse way of the toxic masculinity is it also helps the men who are toxic because it's it strangles them into who they're allowed to be. You know, I have a friend of mine.Um, he is, I'd say it's pretty masculine guys tool. His bald is pretty bulky guy. And he did a lot of, uh, was it like street dancing? They do, it's a street dancing classes. Right. And he didn't tell anyone. He went to the street dancing classes because he was afraid that men would, would judge him would make fun of him.Right. And that fee could, there [01:00:00] is what toxic masculinity does. It stops. It stops us from expressing ourselves in the way that we'd really like to, because we fear the judgment of others. So we've in the adjustment of us. De'Vannon: Right. And when you're running around, like that expecting things from people that you shouldn't or expect things from yourself that you shouldn't, then you were out of balance and you won't be able to, to give love because you're not loving yourself.Right. And we can't give away what we don't have. David: Yeah. Yeah. De'Vannon: So then, um, I'm going to let you go ahead and have the last word and, uh, tell the listeners out there, your great wisdom and everything. I've so enjoyed our time today. So go ahead on and preach your gospel. David: What's there for me now.I think the thing that comes up for me is around how we deal with our emotions. I think. [01:01:00] This is a big part of the work I do, especially with men is that there's this idea that emotions are useless, and this is also a part of the kind of toxic masculinity, right? So we should, we should always do everything with the brain, but brain is superior to emotions and we should ignore them and we should, you know, get on with other things we're doing.And the truth is, is like our emotions are very valuable because they give us an understanding of, of our past as well, even because those emotions, some conflicts come from dysfunction. Beliefs and dysfunctional ideas we have, but

1251 跟老外一起去吃麵：吃蝦子不吐蝦子皮的泰偉Lily:And the third one is the seafood rice noodles. So I think there's lots of different kinds of seafood. Yes. Yeah. Do you remember those?David:There was octopus and clams and fish and fish cake, which I also ate. Let's see. What else was there? Oh, there were shrimp.Lily:You didn't even take off the shells.David:No, I read somewhere that the shells don't do any harm. And so I decided to try eating the shells once, and I liked that it was crunchy. So I continued eating the shells.Lily:OK. And then I remember when you were talking about rice noodles, you feel like it's really different than all the other noodles right?.David:Yeah. They tasted compared to the other noodles almost a little bit rough, and I liked that.莉莉：是的，第三個是海鮮米粉。所以我想有很多不同種類的海鮮。你還記得嗎？泰偉：有章魚、蛤蜊、魚和魚板，我也吃了。我想想，還有什麼，有蝦！莉莉：但你連殼都沒脫。泰偉：不，我讀到過殼不會有什麼危害。所以我決定嘗試吃一次殼，我喜歡它脆脆的。於是我繼續吃殼。莉莉：好吧。然後我記得你說米粉的時候，感覺它真的和其他所有的麪條不一樣，對吧。泰偉：是的。和其他的麪條相比，它們嚐起來有一點粗糙，我喜歡。接下來我們會播放我們在吃面之後的幾段討論，請別忘記了持續收聽，然後約上你的老外朋友一起上麵店！可以的話關注我們的IG & 臉書粉絲頁是Fly with Lily，或者是在Apple Podcasts 和喜馬拉雅FM給我一個五星的評價，這樣就會有更多人和我們一起踏上學英語環遊世界的旅程。

1251 跟老外一起去吃麵：吃蝦子不吐蝦子皮的泰偉Lily:And the third one is the seafood rice noodles. So I think there's lots of different kinds of seafood. Yes. Yeah. Do you remember those?David:There was octopus and clams and fish and fish cake, which I also ate. Let's see. What else was there? Oh, there were shrimp.Lily:You didn't even take off the shells.David:No, I read somewhere that the shells don't do any harm. And so I decided to try eating the shells once, and I liked that it was crunchy. So I continued eating the shells.Lily:OK. And then I remember when you were talking about rice noodles, you feel like it's really different than all the other noodles right?.David:Yeah. They tasted compared to the other noodles almost a little bit rough, and I liked that.莉莉：是的，第三個是海鮮米粉。所以我想有很多不同種類的海鮮。你還記得嗎？泰偉：有章魚、蛤蜊、魚和魚板，我也吃了。我想想，還有什麼，有蝦！莉莉：但你連殼都沒脫。泰偉：不，我讀到過殼不會有什麼危害。所以我決定嘗試吃一次殼，我喜歡它脆脆的。於是我繼續吃殼。莉莉：好吧。然後我記得你說米粉的時候，感覺它真的和其他所有的麪條不一樣，對吧。泰偉：是的。和其他的麪條相比，它們嚐起來有一點粗糙，我喜歡。接下來我們會播放我們在吃面之後的幾段討論，請別忘記了持續收聽，然後約上你的老外朋友一起上麵店！可以的話關注我們的IG & 臉書粉絲頁是Fly with Lily，或者是在Apple Podcasts 和喜馬拉雅FM給我一個五星的評價，這樣就會有更多人和我們一起踏上學英語環遊世界的旅程。

跟老外一起去吃麵：回憶吃麻醬麵的印象Lily:Do you still remember all the noodles we tried?David:No. I already forgot.Lily:Really? I'll help refresh your mind?David:Please do.Lily:The first one is the sesame noodles. What was your impression?David:I thought the Sesame noodles were very good. There's a shop near my house that serves sesame noodles, but the noodles that they used in the shop were much better.Lily:Yeah. Did we finish it?David:We did not.莉莉：你還記得我們試過的所有麵條嗎？泰偉：不，我已經忘了。莉莉：真的嗎，我能幫你恢復下記憶嗎？泰偉：求你了！莉莉：第一個是芝麻麵，印象如何？泰偉：我覺得芝麻麵很好吃。我家附近有一家賣芝麻麵的店，但是他們在這家店裏用的麵條更好吃。莉莉：是的，我們吃完了嗎？泰偉：並沒有。接下來我們會播放我們在吃面之後的幾段討論，請別忘記了持續收聽，然後約上你的老外朋友一起上麵店！可以的話關注我們的IG & 臉書粉絲頁是Fly with Lily，或者是在Apple Podcasts 和喜馬拉雅FM給我一個五星的評價，這樣就會有更多人和我們一起踏上學英語環遊世界的旅程。

跟老外一起去吃麵：回憶吃麻醬麵的印象Lily:Do you still remember all the noodles we tried?David:No. I already forgot.Lily:Really? I'll help refresh your mind?David:Please do.Lily:The first one is the sesame noodles. What was your impression?David:I thought the Sesame noodles were very good. There's a shop near my house that serves sesame noodles, but the noodles that they used in the shop were much better.Lily:Yeah. Did we finish it?David:We did not.莉莉：你還記得我們試過的所有麵條嗎？泰偉：不，我已經忘了。莉莉：真的嗎，我能幫你恢復下記憶嗎？泰偉：求你了！莉莉：第一個是芝麻麵，印象如何？泰偉：我覺得芝麻麵很好吃。我家附近有一家賣芝麻麵的店，但是他們在這家店裏用的麵條更好吃。莉莉：是的，我們吃完了嗎？泰偉：並沒有。接下來我們會播放我們在吃面之後的幾段討論，請別忘記了持續收聽，然後約上你的老外朋友一起上麵店！可以的話關注我們的IG & 臉書粉絲頁是Fly with Lily，或者是在Apple Podcasts 和喜馬拉雅FM給我一個五星的評價，這樣就會有更多人和我們一起踏上學英語環遊世界的旅程。

1 Samuel 17: 32-52 Y dijo David a Saúl: No desmaye el corazón de ninguno a causa de él; tu siervo irá y peleará contra este filisteo. 33Dijo Saúl a David: No podrás tú ir contra aquel filisteo, para pelear con él; porque tú eres muchacho, y él un hombre de guerra desde su juventud. 34David respondió a Saúl: Tu siervo era pastor de las ovejas de su padre; y cuando venía un león, o un oso, y tomaba algún cordero de la manada, 35salía yo tras él, y lo hería, y lo libraba de su boca; y si se levantaba contra mí, yo le echaba mano de la quijada, y lo hería y lo mataba. 36Fuese león, fuese oso, tu siervo lo mataba; y este filisteo incircunciso será como uno de ellos, porque ha provocado al ejéricto del Dios viviente. 37Añadió David: Jehová, que me ha librado de las garras del león y de las garras del oso, él también me librará de la mano de este filisteo. Y dijo Saúl a David: Ve, y Jehová esté contigo. 38Y Saúl vistió a David con sus ropas, y puso sobre su cabeza un casco de bronce, y le armó de coraza. 39Y ciñó David su espada sobre sus vestidos, y probó a andar, porque nunca había hecho la prueba. Y dijo David a Saúl: Yo no puedo andar con esto, porque nunca lo practiqué. Y David echó de sí aquellas cosas. 40Y tomó su cayado en su mano, y escogió cinco piedras lisas del arroyo, y las puso en el saco pastoril, en el zurrón que traía, y tomó su honda en su mano, y se fue hacia el filisteo. 41Y el filisteo venía andando y acercándose a David, y su escudero delante de él. 42Y cuando el filisteo miró y vio a David, le tuvo en poco; porque era muchacho, y rubio, y de hermoso parecer. 43Y dijo el filisteo a David: ¿Soy yo perro, para que vengas a mí con palos? Y maldijo a David por sus dioses. 44Dijo luego el filisteo a David: Ven a mí, y daré tu carne a las aves del cielo y a las bestias del campo. 45Entonces dijo David al filisteo: Tú vienes a mí con espada y lanza y jabalina; mas yo vengo a ti en el nombre de Jehová de los ejércitos, el Dios de los escuadrones de Israel, a quien tú has provocado. 46Jehová te entregará hoy en mi mano, y yo te venceré, y te cortaré la cabeza, y daré hoy los cuerpos de los filisteos a las aves del cielo y a las bestias de la tierra; y toda la tierra sabrá que hay Dios en Israel. 47Y sabrá toda esta congregación que Jehová no salva con espada y con lanza; porque de Jehová es la batalla, y él os entregará en nuestras manos. 48Y aconteció que cuando el filisteo se levantó y echó a andar para ir al encuentro de David, David se dio prisa, y corrió a la linea de batalla contra el filisteo. 49Y metiendo David su mano en la bolsa, tomó de allí una piedra, y la tiró con la honda, e hirió al filisteo en la frente; y la piedra quedó clavada en la frente, y cayó sobre su rostro en tierra. 50Así venció David al filisteo con honda y piedra; e hirió al filisteo y lo mató, sin tener David espada en su mano. 51Entonces corrió David y se puso sobre el filisteo; y tomando la espada de él y sacándola de su vaina, lo acabó de matar, y le cortó con ella la cabeza. Y cuando los filisteos vieron a su paladín muerto, huyeron. 52Levantándose luego los de Israel y los de Judá, gritaron, y siguieron a los filisteos hasta llegar al valle, y hasta las puertas de Ecrón. Y cayeron los heridos de los filisteos por el camino de Saaraim hasta Gat y Ecrón.

https://youtu.be/SUOycp-4jm4 2 sam 21:1-14 Interesting story here- There is a famine in the land, and David asks why to God and its because Saul was not nice to the Gibeonites. David wants to make it right with them, they say they don't want gold and sliver- they want to kill 7 of Sauls descendants. David offers up 7, they kill them and then David takes all their bones, with Saul and Jonathans bones and buries them in the family grave of Kish. And then God lifts the famine from the land.What? What do we make of this? Where does this story come from and where does it Go?There's a part of this story that really stuck out to me- And it was this idea of burying the bonesThe justification and explanation of the murder of 7 people as a means to appease the Gibeonites and God is not something I want to get into this morning- Honestly, parts of it make sense, and some doesn'tThe truth is that Saul was wrong and there was a blood penalty that needed to be executed to be made right- There was a covenant that Saul was supposed to keep that he didn't and years after his death it still needed to be made right here's where I got caught up- The bones. Why bury the bones? Why honor the dead? Why?David wasn't going to let circumstances change who he was- he was going to Honor GodSaul had done wrong- and the Gibeonites had been slighted- but David was going to be DavidHe had already decided way back in 1 Samuel 26:24 And indeed, as your life was valued much this day in my eyes, so let my life be valued much in the eyes of the Lord, and let Him deliver me out of all tribulation.”That he wasn't going to Kill or dishonor Saul- God had chosen Saul, who had chosen David and David was going to come along side what God was doing- he wasn't going to live for himself.And years after Saul was decapitated, burned and buried with his sons at Jabesh, David went and Got his bones and took them to the family plot of Kish in Benjamin Zelah.It takes a special type of person to have the grit to bury the bones- make it right 1. David wanted to do what was right It was right to bury the bones because it would bring peace in Israel- The fighting needed to stop. The nation needed to move on. Things needed to be made right.It was right because it honored Saul- It brought him to his rightful resting place with his father.David- No one else will, I will. Everyone will think something bout me- that's fine. I'll bury the bones. Ill do the right thing because no one else will- but I will. I will bury the bones.It is the right and honorable thing to bury the bones- and even if those around me don't understand it- I will do it because I am a man who follows YHWH. I will do it for himYou will notice- no one told David to bury the bones- He did it himself.James 4:17 Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.Often times when you do the right thing its to an audience of one- Sure this made it into scripture- but there wasn't any fanfare of adulation from the masses- It was unto God..What does it mean to you?Do you desire righteousness in your life only when others are watching, or do you live unto the lord? What “bones” do you need to bury to move on in your life?Sure, David had to bury literal bones- think about this- 1 sam 31 talks about Sauls death- and he was decapitated, burned and buried and David had to go dig up those bones- by himselfIt was the right thing to do, but it wasn't easy- we gloss over- but he was diggin it up!But if you're going to do the right thing- its going to be messy and you wont want to do itDo it anyway. Go dig up the rotting bones and bury them in their rightful place. Its right.I get it- Its hard being a Christian. Its hard doing the right thing all the time.2 Peter 2:21 For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them.Sometimes I think it would have been better to not have known- “ca...

ALPS Risk Manager Mark Bassingthwaighte sits down with ALPS CEO David Bell to discuss David's past, ALPS future, why every company should have a vision for their core cultural values (and what shouldn't be in it). Transcript:  MARK BASSINGTHWAIGHTE:       Welcome. This is ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the risk manager here at ALPS and joining me today is David Bell, our CEO. David, maybe can we take just one minute or so here for listeners that may not know a bit about who you are, what your background is. I'd love to have you just share a little bit because I think your background and experience is relevant to where we're going to go today in our conversation. DAVID BELL:        Sure. Well thanks, Mark first and it's a pleasure to be speaking with you. I guess the short version of my short history is I started my career in insurance out of college with Chubb and with that in a large company with a long history and a long vision for the future. Then after moving up through various roles at Chubb, after 9/11 Chubb, AIG and Goldman Sachs started a joint venture and I went with Chubb's capital to start that. And over the course of the next decade plus, we took that organization independent from its founding shareholders public and it was ultimately sold. DAVID:                 In 2012, we moved back to Montana where I had gone to college and my wife had been raised and had the good fortune of joining ALPS in 2012 and a very different type of organization, very different size. My career before that had been in a big multinational company. ALPS is a smaller domestic only company and really a fascinating juxtaposition of different types of cultural priorities and different types of opportunities. So, just I feel fortunate and blessed to have had this journey and to have the point in my journey be right here in this moment. MARK:                  Very good. You recall we sat down about two years ago and spent some time discussing the ALPS corporate vision at the time. I thought it'd be fun to kind of revisit that topic today. If I may, I'd like to start by asking a few questions about the process that you go through with us in terms of the company, with the hope of having this discussion and example serve as a concrete example to others wanting to learn sort of the how to, so putting their own vision in place. Before we really even start to dig into this, would I be correct in assuming that the success that you in the large multinational setting as well as the ALPS setting, you're contrasting these two, is very different, but does vision have a role? Do you feel that that was significant in terms of your success in both spaces? DAVID:                 100%. Even when the vision is quite different, as they have been over the course of my journey, not having one is dangerous and I think would lead to a rudderless ship type of approach organizationally, even if you feel like you're generally going in the right direction. If you have a community of people, whether that community is two or three or two or 3,000, if they're not rowing in the same direction with some sense of rhythm, then success would only come by accident and that's not a really good plan. MARK:                  I like that. I really do. I want to come back to that here in just a moment. Can we start just by having you share some of the highlights, whatever you feel comfortable sharing in terms of the ALPS vision for 2020? DAVID:                 Sure. Well the ALPS vision for 2020 is more of our strategic operational objectives. When you have a vision for the short term, this 12 month duration, it's more actionable, quantifiable, executable milestones. So, I would describe the vision as how do the success of those fold up more broadly into an intermediate and longer term vision? And that pertains to the vision as respects where the organization is going. I mean, why are we laboring as hard as we are and making sacrifices personally with time and otherwise to be here to try to strive to be better? There has to be a reason and it has to be beyond monetary in order to affect people, particularly people at all levels because you're going to have folks at the managerial level who are very much privy to the discussion around the why and the vision. Then you're going to have people who are just doing their job every day and they don't have the benefit of the philosophical discussions as to why. So, the vision needs to be as relevant for them as it is for the vision creators. DAVID:                 So, the 2020 vision is a puzzle piece that is simply the beginning of the equation for the intermediate and longer term vision of why are we doing what we're doing. We're all conditioned as humans to first and foremost think, how does this affect me? What's in it for me? So, I think from a managerial perspective, we would be wise and probably have an obligation to go to that place first. We're really going to think about this as it is seen through the filter of everybody else individually as why is this relevant to everybody who's here, and why should they care and sacrifice in order to realize this vision? And how bought in are they to the vision, and how much is the vision a function of their own engagement and involvement and contribution? MARK:                  What I hear, and I love that, it seems to me that part of this is really kind of trying to give some meaning and purpose at the individual level all the way to the corporate level in terms of these whys. I like that. Very, very good. I think this next question kind of relates to what you've been sharing, but I would like to be very specific about it in terms of some clarity. What is the value from a business sense and perhaps personal sense of having a corporate vision? I think we've hit that some, but I'd like sort of a concrete statement. DAVID:                 Sure. Well, I would break that down into two different categories. MARK:                  Okay. DAVID:                 The value of having a vision about the core values, meaning the cultural values of an organization, I think is essential. In fact that frankly, it's more important than the financial and operational vision because if you get the cultural values vision right, the rest of it will more naturally fall in place. If you don't get it right, it'd be very difficult to successfully execute on operational and financial objectives if at its core the culture has a cancer in it. So, you have to start with the cultural side. I think never more so than now when the labor force is increasingly made up of purpose-driven people, people who have an absolute expectation that there is something broader than a paycheck that's part of this compact. DAVID:                 So, the cultural vision, the cultural value that we've established at ALPS is intentionally very simple. We ask ourselves four questions and these questions, they are prominently placed around our environment but it's not kind of a sentence written on a wall for the purposes of marketing. It is really supposed to serve as the litmus test through which not just the words that we speak but ideally the thoughts that we have are filtered through that litmus test. They are quite simply, is it the truth, is it fair, does it benefit our people and the company and does it help us make a profit? Right. We didn't hire a fancy consultant to help us come up with those. I'm sure they could be worded more eloquently in some ways. DAVID:                 But it is, at its basic level, the most honest, intentional approach to say what are some things that we want to exhibit as individuals working in community that if we strive towards these four things, will life be better for all of us? I think we think the answer is yes. If we're committed to telling one another the truth and we are committed as an organization to speaking the truth externally, even when it's uncomfortable, then it doesn't mean that every day will be rainbows and unicorns, but every day will be a day that we can feel proud about what we've done. MARK:                  Yes. DAVID:                 That type of thing is important to people to have worth in their role. The second is, is it fair? Fairness is a subjective measurement. So one person's idea of fair is not the same as the other person's idea of fair. So, what the question of is it fair means is, do you as an employee of this company have confidence that the underlying motivation of the decision maker is to strive for fairness? It doesn't mean that we're always perfect or that we get it right all the time as it pertains to decisions about our own people internally or the endeavors that we have with our constituents and the people around us. We don't claim to be right 100% of the time, but we are always trying to be fair and we aren't afraid to pull back and correct ourselves if we feel we've jumped off course. So, it's the pursuit of fairness. DAVID:                 Then the third and fourth are somewhat kind of unapologetic affirmations of the reality. The third one is, does it benefit our people and the company? I mean, there is an unapologetic self interest that we have as an organization. Is what we're spending our time and money on going to benefit the people here and this organization because if it's not, then we should be thoughtful about how we allocate those resources. Then fourth, doesn't it help us make a profit? I think the need to make a profit can't be understated. It's very intentionally on the list and it's also intentionally not first. DAVID:                 It is there and we shouldn't gloss over the reality that without financial solvency and financial strength, we are not able to accomplish all of our other goals. So, we should keep a really sharp eye on that question. But we also don't wake up and work our days simply and solely for the purpose of making a profit because there's candidly no inspiration longterm for anybody. So, those are four of the cultural values. In our recent vision meeting, we asked what we don't want just so we can keep an idea of what we do want by acknowledging characteristics that many of us have seen exhibited at other companies or read about or watched. DAVID:                 I think it's healthy to spend just a few moments in discussion about what we don't want just so we call it for what it is. We put a label on it, don't want that, right. And some of those, there's just five of them that we talked about in the most recent meeting, which was "corporate" culture where you're just a job. You're a number. You're a commodity. You can be unplugged and somebody else plugged in there. That's not inspiring if you feel like you are commoditized. So, we don't want that. We don't want uncertainty from the fear or concern of financial instability. But it's one of the reasons why making a profit and financial success is on our top four that we do because it gives people a sense of calm and confidence in everything else that they're doing knowing that we do this from a position of strength. DAVID:                 Third, we don't want me people. We want we people. We acknowledged in our discussion that, I'll just speak for myself, as human beings, I am an inherently selfish person, right. My default position is one of self interest and selfishness. I believe that that's just the way that we were created. So, in order to not be a me and be a we, we have to consciously fight against that and be thinking first and foremost about the people around us. Then another is, we don't want to have a kind of that's not my job mentality. I mean, if the coffee needs to be changed, I should change the coffee. It doesn't matter who you are, if you come across it and it needs to be done, then you should do it. You should do it comfortable that other people do the same thing. DAVID:                 Then finally, and this is really important, gossip. I mean, gossip is a cancer that can debilitate companies. So, we are almost transparent to a fault, and in large part, in an effort to preempt any type of gossip. So those are things that you don't want, and then that quickly leads you to the type of cultural vision that you do want. You want folks that just take initiative. When people see a problem, they address it. When people have an idea about something that can be done better than the way we're doing it today, the first instinct should be action. The first thought should be empowerment that I have an idea that I think would benefit others, and I know that I work for a company that that idea can be put in motion in a relatively short period of time. DAVID:                 You want to be a solution provider both for our folks internally and for our customers. We have a business where we have a finance department and other and a HR department. We have legal departments where their constituents, their consumers are internal. They're our own people or our customer. Then we have departments, the business development and account managers and others and claims who are external facing. Their clients are our policy holders, our customers. So, we want to be solution providers for everybody. DAVID: Finally, we're just wrapping up here on the cultural what you do want, you want this to be a fun place to work. I'm not suggesting for a second that this is Disney World and that every day is like a vacation. I know the adage, if you find a job that you love, you'll never not work another day in your life. I personally don't subscribe to that. I think we can be honest about the fact that we come to our jobs because it's a living and we get paid for it. And hopefully it provides the means through which we can pursue some of our other passions in life. Hopefully, it is not the singular interest in your life. I think that would be unhealthy, but we are involved in a serious business. We take risks. We make promises. DAVID:                 There's lots of law and finance in what we do, but we should still be able to have fun. We should not take ourselves too seriously. We should be self-deprecating and people should not feel guarded. I think as we talked about this in the all company meeting, I think the sense amongst our staff is that we do a pretty good job at that. You want people around you to want you to win. I think whether it's who we're working next to or our marriage or our friendships, you want to be in community with people who are "for you", who genuinely want to see you succeed and to enter your success with you. DAVID:                 Then again, just from a vision perspective, size through diversification, right. I mean in our business there is strength in size and there is strength and protection in diversification. So that is something that we're quite intentional about. We want everybody finally to just know that they're supported, whether they're in our home office in Missoula or in any one of our number of remote locations around the country. I mean, whether I get to see you physically, regularly on a day to day basis or whether you're in Atlanta, Georgia or Richmond, Virginia or any of the other places, you should feel like you are as a valued and that the resources you're giving to succeed are as high a priority as anyone else. DAVID:                 So, those are cultural vision checkpoints. I would suggest that if we are wildly successful on making all of those real in the lives of everybody that work here, we will be and continue to be the best legal malpractice carrier in the country. Candidly, we would be the best in anything we were doing. If we, for whatever reason, stopped doing this and started doing something else as an organization full of people working together, we would do that well too. MARK:                  Yeah, I agree. I agree. Let me sort of share, just speaking personally for a moment. I have participated as all of us at ALPS have at the all company meetings and talking about these things. I like you're sharing the point of the discussion where folks, what don't we want? I think taking risks like that to invite these kinds of discussions really enables people to make it real. I describe our culture, what we do, and I think at an individual level as well as at the company wide level, we are really striving to be, and I think we accomplish this, authentic and intentional in our actions. Even in terms of just how we interrelate with each other, how we interrelate with our customers. MARK:                  I'll share David, for many years I would sign my email as you're emailing with different customers, internal and external, Mark and things like that. But in more recent years, I have a signature. I'll say, "Please don't hesitate to reach out if there's anything else I can do," but I'm more and more adding if I can be of service to you. I really take great pride in, and I think I am not alone or unique in this, I take pride in that's my experience of who and what ALPS is. That we do take joy and pride in being in service to others in what we do. MARK:                  So, I'm just trying to give our listeners a sense of what you're talking about is being internalized and taken up by those that you're trying to share the vision with. But can I ask, what is your process? When you sit down and think about vision, any thoughts to share or insights? Is this something that's very organic? How do you go about it? DAVID:                 Sure. Well, the cultural vision is an exercise of really drawing on both my personal experiences with positive cultures and destructive cultures. Then being in discussion with others internally in this company and just externally people who you just benefit from talking about their experiences and taking the good and the bad, and then coming up with a vision of what you want to pursue. So, I think it is generally in a constant state of evolution in that it's kind of being refined but at its heart, the truth and fairness, those are kind of time-tested, immovable virtues for a company. DAVID:                 So, when you hear people... When you do some of these things well, and we are by no means perfect. In fact, we make mistakes regularly and we strive to be better. The fact that we feel like we get better means that we've always got room to improve. But when you do these things well and as you hire people and they're exposed to this culture for the first time as an employee and they come from reputable companies, competitors or otherwise. And you listen to them as they describe their experiences here, it's really inspiring. It makes you want to make it better, refine it more because you kind of feel like you're really onto something. It does tap into a part of the psychology for all of us that just numbers alone I don't think can tap into. MARK:                  I think you and I have seen this over the years in terms of our professional experiences and looking at competitors and whatnot, but I think businesses, corporations, small law firms, you can come up and create a good vision. I think have something that's pretty solid and yet it doesn't go anywhere. The vision fails for lack of a better reason. Just it never gets implemented perhaps. Why do you think that is? What gets in the way of, in terms of your experiences, success with a vision? Any thoughts about that? DAVID:                 Well, that's a great one. I suppose there are risks that a vision is established, but it's not a core conviction, and so it's not front of mind. When we first started this discussion, Mark, I talked about the four cultural vision points, the truth and fairness. I described those as the litmus test, the lens through which all things should be filtered. You really have to, whatever your vision is for your small firm or your family or your nonprofit, if it's not important enough that it will resonate with you and with everyone else such that it's front of mind in all thoughts and actions, then there's a real danger that you drift away from it. I think that's one risk because you can have a strategy session with the people who you work with and two weeks later no one could even quote a single sentence of what was discussed in that. MARK:                  I have been through that more than once. Yes. DAVID:                 I'm sure there is value in those types of days, but it really needs to be something that people are genuinely bought into. So, I think drifting away from it as is one risk. A second risk that I suggest and I've experienced this in my various failures to pursue certain vision elements, I think a vision, like most other things, can be distilled down to a project needing project management. If you have a certain vision characteristic, you need to disaggregate it into its pieces, put it in align sequentially of what needs to be done and then manage it towards that goal. DAVID:                 A vision is a point that if you slice it into 10 sub points and then line them up from where you are right now to what would realize that vision, then you kind of methodically and actionably check off on those things. I think sometimes we think of visions in the softer context. So, we're not as disciplined at project managing our way, methodically checking off certain actions or behaviors that are marching towards realizing that vision. Then we wake up one day disappointed that we haven't realized the vision. MARK:                  Yeah. Yeah. I think when I look back on my own career over the years where it has failed, there tends to be we come up with this vision and then you sort of say it at the front line to the bulk of the company, "Implement this and do it." There's no tools. It's not a bottom-up kind of process in my mind. When you try the bottom-up, it fails. It has to be a top-down in the sense that, in the ALPS example here, you and upper management really do genuinely live and exemplify the vision just in the day to day interactions with everybody you interact with, again, internally and externally. I think that is also key to some of this. You have to walk the talk. That's been my experience anyway. DAVID: Yeah. Well thank you. I appreciate that observation. There are aspects of a vision that need to be top-down because in some ways that's the charge of leadership is to be spending time thinking and deciding about vision. But the vision is carried out by everyone else. So, if you just, in an autocratic kind of way, instruct people on what they're going to do when, that generally is not a recipe for success. But if you go to the folks who are going to be executing and say, "This is the vision. Can you do this? Do you have the resources necessary for you to accomplish this? And how long do you think reasonably it will take under an aggressive timeline for you to get it done?" DAVID:                 If the people are engaged and just being asked if they're prepared to sign up for this vision, being asked if they have been armed with the resources to fulfill what they've just committed to and just being asked how long they realistically they think it's going to take. Those are not particularly complex questions, but it's amazing the difference of whether or not you go through those other steps and ask those questions. Versus just barking out an instruction to people who then look at you as though you're hopelessly unrealistic about what it actually takes to get these things done. MARK:                  I absolutely agree with you. The way I describe that is there is a difference between allowing the workforce, however you want to define that, allowing them the opportunity to own the vision, giving them tools, explaining, those kinds of things. Versus having sort of the dictator approach, this is the vision, make it happen and I'm out. It has to be owned from top to bottom. Again, I think that's another key reason why ALPS has been successful at this. I'd like to switch just a little bit. Wellness and wellbeing has been a significant issue, as you're well aware, particularly in legal profession in recent years. MARK:                  ALPS has been involved in the national movement to put together some emphasis on wellbeing and some resources. It's been an exciting time. I think ALPS has done internally a good job focusing on wellbeing. Do you see, is there a connection, is there a relationship between the vision that you have, the vision that ALPS has embraced here and wellness, a wellness, a wellbeing component? Is there a connection there at all or in your mind is that sort of separate topics? DAVID:                 No, I think there's very much a connection between the division and the cultural priorities and wellness in general because whether it's at ALPS specifically where we happen to employ a lot of people who are attorneys and have been in their prior lives practicing attorneys and the legal community that we insure. That's obviously the wellness category is, at the legal profession, pretty well documented. I mean mental health, substance abuse, physical wellbeing, stress in the job. I mean, the role of the attorney is one where people can quite literally and often do work themselves to death because there really is not a governor on when it becomes an unhealthy. I think the small firms and solo practitioners or perhaps even most susceptible to it. They don't really have the check and balance of a lot of other people in an organizational structure. DAVID:                 So, I think there's similarities between the community of people of 20,000 people that we insure all around the country and the people that are within this organization itself. I think wellness it is really important. It's a tricky one because the cause and effect of what you spend time on and what you spend money on and how that correlates directly to measurable wellness outcomes is very difficult. So I'm a big metric fan and I tend to rely much of my decision making on data of some sort. The data there is a little bit harder to pin down, but you just know that there is a correlation and that that correlation is necessary even if it's not as mathematical as some of the other decision points that drive our business. MARK:                  One final little question I'd like to throw your way, before I ask it, I need to explain something to the listening audience here. In recent years, David has taken the time to meet individually with every single employee in the company. It is what we call a coffee talk. It's just sit down for however long that the conversation goes. There's no rules on the conversation. You talk about anything you want. So, I'm going to ask the question. Why do you do or what is the value of coffee talk to you? DAVID:                 That's a great question. Something as simple as a 45 minute conversation shouldn't have as many and as complicated benefit and reason as it does, but I get the benefit of a lot of information from those discussions. It's also a great opportunity for me to help demonstrate in our flat managerial structure that we aren't a hierarchy. That everybody has access to everybody else and that no manager should have any apprehension about me having a discussion. I should have an appropriate level of deference in the role that the manager's tasked with not to do anything to undermine them by having this direct one on one conversation with their staff member. But I learn a ton about what makes people tick, what's important to them. I get a ton of information about where there are obstacles in the day to day aspects of people's jobs, obstacles that are not that difficult to remove, but for whatever reason, it kind of helps to talk about it and enlist some assistance. DAVID:                 I pick up a lot of personal context of the journey that people go through, and this is perhaps the most valuable aspect of this. In my old life in the role that I had before, I was the COO of a large publicly traded multinational insurance company. So, I just didn't have the benefit of knowing people personally. I didn't want people to be a number, but there just wasn't really another option. I didn't have context of the life of that person in London or in New York in the decisions that I was making. DAVID:                 So, there's a real blessing to being in an organization of this size where you really get to put your thumb on the pulse of these people and the journey that they're going through and how their profession intersects with that, where it intersects positively, where it creates challenges. So, it really makes the whole game more of a human one but it is a pain to schedule. If we just be honest about the challenge, I had two coffee talks today and they're so different and they were both great. But when I'm traveling, and so these are generally done, unless I'm in one of our other locations with another employee, I'm generally doing these when I'm here. So, it is not an insignificant commitment of time, but it is a commitment that yields a result and return that makes it well worth it in my mind. MARK:                  Yeah, I would agree. Let me share again for our listening audience here why I think coffee talk is valuable. At the end of the day, it really just boils down to when you couple it with emphasis on wellbeing, the corporate meetings we have, we get together and have these discussions. But there's a two way street in play here and it's when a corporation through management and even you, David as the CEO, take the time to personally invest in the employees. It creates the opportunity again for the employees to reciprocate and invest personally in the vision and the mission of what the corporation is doing, what ALPS is doing. In my mind, I think that's just a huge invitation. I see that as fundamental to the success of implementing the vision and really keeping things moving forward so that we're not drifting to use your word. You're keeping the pulse on us, but we're also keeping the pulse on you as representative of the corporation. It's really good stuff. MARK: Well folks, we are out of time. David, I really appreciate the opportunity to sit down and visit a little bit. It's always a pleasure when we get together. I hope for those of you listening that you can appreciate. I thought this would be valuable because it's a real world example of how when a thought leader creates a vision and has the ability and a desire, intent, energy to implement this, you really can have some tremendous success. I don't think that these kinds of processes aren't limited to a corporation. This can happen in a three man law firm. So, I hope you found something of value. Thanks for listening folks. It's a good one. So long.

If a picture’s worth a thousand words, then a video is worth millions! That’s David Sime’s philosophy, anyway; he’s marrying online video marketing to XR technology, to reach people’s gaze — in a world with increasingly more competition for their attention — with Oncor Reality. Alan: Welcome to the XR for Business Podcast with your host, Alan Smithson. Today’s guest is David Sime, founder and technical director of Oncor Reality. With over 19 years of digital media experience, David delivers promotion and analysis at strategic, tactical, and operational levels. Disciplines include virtual reality, augmented reality, targeted online video, and strategic digital marketing across social media, mobile, pay-per-click, smart TV, and out-of-home mediums. David directs the multi-award winning digital media agency Oncor Video and now Oncor Reality. Based in London and Central Scotland, this multimedia team delivers results based in immersive media solutions across engineering, construction, hospitality, and luxury retail sectors all around the world. If you want to learn more about his company, it’s oncorreality.com. David, welcome to the show, my friend. David: Thank you for having me, Alan. Can I start paying you to introduce me in events? That sounded amazing, I’m really impressed by myself now. Alan: Okay, let’s restart. *David Sime, here we go!* David: [laughs] Alan: No? Too much? David: No, I think that– Alan: I mean– David: I think that’s just enough for me. Just enough. [chuckles] Alan: [chuckles] We’ll sell you the whole state, but you’ll only need the edge. David: [laughs] Alan: Oh man. David: I’ve been watching what you’ve been doing on LinkedIn for years, man. And it’s super impressive. I really, really enjoy watching all your travels and all the places that you go. I can only aspire to that kind of activity. But, hey, I’m doing my best. Alan: Well, I can tell you that I can’t go on LinkedIn anymore without seeing your smiling face, so you must be doing something right. David: I think I’m developing an addiction. That’s what I’m doing. [laughs] Alan: It’s like crack. David: I can’t seem to stay off. I managed to wean myself off Facebook. And then this came along, the specter or the methadone of the digital marketing world. And now here I am. But it’s great, because people are super friendly and a lot less rude than in any other channel. Alan: It’s amazing, because you really have– I’ve only experienced maybe 10 people — out of 30,000 connections and millions of views — that I’ve had to block. And that’s really amazing. I think it’s because people know that if they do dumb shit on LinkedIn, I know where you work. David: [laughs] Exactly. I mean, I’ve always said it’s the anonymity of social media that can be the problem, that makes people not behave themselves. LinkedIn, you are the representative of yourself, your business, everybody knows who you are, where you live. You just have to behave. Although some people still don’t. And it just seems ridiculous to me. Alan: The great thing is you can click a button, and they disappear from existence. David: [laughs] I know! Because you get people that ruminate and ruminate over this kind of stuff

https://youtu.be/nqY19QacC0c 1 sam 23:19-29 Title of Sermon- Three Hearts The heart of  A Ziphite-The Ziphites were descendants of Judah, just like David. They were supposed to be his brothers They were King Saul's spies and they alerted Saul every time David took refuge in their land. Three things characterize a ZIPHITE. One- A Ziphite betrays his own tribe (they were of the tribe of Judah)The Ziphites were of the tribe of Judah- but when the chips were down- they turned on David and took up with Saul- and were willing to sell out DavidREAD- V 19-20 and our part shall be to deliver him into the king's hand.Why were they even involved? They had no beef with David- They just wanted the adoration of Saul- They wanted to be a part of his plan and his power to destroy David- No love for TruthProverbs 16:28 A perverse man sows strife, And a whisperer separates the best of friends.This spirit is so prevalent in the world and church today- people love to create problemsTwo- A Ziphite is selfish at the expense of others Selfishness is the heart of the ziphite- Turning on others for their own benefit-  24 So they arose and went to Ziph before Saul.- No care who was hurt- self serving- David is our tribe- but we have much to GAIN from turningNinth Commandment- Exodus 20:16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.Three- A ziphite Cares nothing about God or his plansEven tho the ziphites were of Judah- they were not of YHWH- Who turns on David? What had David done? No seeking after God- to see what the heart of God was for the matter- What does it mean to you?Do you have a heart of Ziphite? Do you sow discord and betray your own tribe? Self serving?READ Proverbs 6:16-19 And sows discord among the brethrenThis is a very subtle approach of the Devil to split relationships and churches and familiesPersonally frustrated people either fix their issues or use hatred of others as a diversion to their problems- its easier to destroy others than face the realities of your brokennessThey unify in their disdain for others, form alliances to hide from their sinful heartIf that's your heart- you need to change- you're hurting yourself, others and God's peopleRomans 16:17 Now I urge you, brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and avoid them. These are the people described in  Romans 2:8 but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—indignation and wrath,Heart check time- Am I unifier or divider? Do I love and gather or do I hate and disperse? What do I talk about and whom do I talk about? Talk about yourself! Talk about Your Sins! I get it- Families raised this way- hard to break- Infighting, despair, alliances- Not in Church!It's the spirit of the Ziphite? Why destroy your own tribe? Defend them! (Man with wife in door) The heart of Saul As if the heart of the Ziphite was enough- the heart of Saul was even WORSE than the Ziphites- The Ziphites are the antagonist in this story- against David- But SAUL says they are of GOD1 Sam 23:21 And Saul said, “Blessed are you of the Lord, for you have compassion on me. 22 Please go and find out for sure, and see the place where his hideout is, and who has seen him there. For I am told he is very crafty.WHAT? How do you go from King of Israel to now looking at others sins and saying “you are blessed of God”- What level of spiritual depravity would you be at to now be praising evil?Wouldn't it be interesting if we lived in a time where Kings celebrated pride of Sin in streets?Isaiah 5:20  Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!This is not of God! The people of God- even more a King should NEVER celebrate EVIL EVER-Pro 17:15 He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just, Both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord.