Podcast appearances and mentions of david one

The counsel and the guidance that St. John offers in this letter is unparalleled. His understanding of the role of the spiritual elder and the nature and manner of engaging those in his responsibility is deep and astute, both psychologically and spiritually. Yet what stands out the most in this letter is the dynamic that must exist between the spiritual elder and those in his care. The Abbot or the elder could never be described as an administrator or a master platoon leader in the military. Simply put, he is to be an embodiment of Christ to those in his care, being willing to lay down his life on their behalf. It is crucified love that saves and redeems us, and it is the same love that must guide the words and actions of one who has been given the responsibility for the care of others. What drives the heart of such an elder is the understanding of the care that he himself has been given, the consolation that God has offered to him. These realities move him to share what he himself has received an abundance. In fact to fail to do so is a reflection of a lack of charity as well as gratitude. By nature, a spiritual elder longs to help those in his care to avoid the pitfalls that the Evil One places before them in the spiritual life. He must be sensitive to the most subtle movements among the members of his community and the spirit that is manifesting itself among them.  Likewise, driven by love he must foster a sense of generosity between the members of the community and those in his care. He cannot allow himself the luxury of treating everyone the same - any more than a parent addresses the needs of their children in a mechanical fashion. St. John tells us “the overseers must heed to the sowing of the seed: to the season, person, quality, and quantity.” The elder must nurture and nourish as need demands. And finally, the one who does this in the fullest measure acts in a hidden fashion so that all glory and gratitude is directed toward God.  May God give us such faithful shepherds! --- Text of chat during the group: 00:10:09 Suzanne Romano: I just this minute received word that Bishop Richard Williamson passed away this evening. Please pray for his immortal soul. 00:10:54 Anna Lalonde: Are you moving there? 00:11:06 Anna Lalonde: In California 00:11:23 Anna Lalonde: Awesome 00:16:20 David: One thing I like about my Dad who keeps a saying from my Grandfather is when someone says thank you. He always says No thank God I am able. A small detail but I have come to appreciate it more with age and now do the same 00:23:04 Zachary Morgan: alhamdulilah! 00:39:34 Anthony: This relationship of shepherd to sheep reminds me of the "royal priesthood" described by St Ephrem in The Cave of Treasures.  Adam and his successor priest-kings on the mount of paradise took the care of all the faithful in their hands....until the numbers of faithful dwelling on the mountain dwindled, going into the plain and mingling with Cain's people.....and then God sent the Flood. 00:40:09 David: When I taught at a catholic school in Spain one of my mentors used to say there two types of teachers: One that seeks control and power and the other is one who learns more than the students about himself and faith. 00:51:50 Joseph Muir: For those who don't have the book, the two quotes at the end of the last paragraph come from the prophets Jeremiah and Obadiah, respectively 00:54:57 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "For those who don't ..." with

Sometimes during a group it is as if a light comes on that illuminates some aspect of life in a magnificent fashion and that speaks to each person in the group whatever their background or station in life. This was true in particular this evening as we continued to discuss St. John's writing “To the Shepherd” on the responsibilities of a spiritual elder. As we made our way through the text, it became clear that St. John's teaching about the care of souls applies to all of those who are responsible for the formation of others; not only priests or religious, but also parents, teachers, friends, etc.  Not one of us is free from the charge of the salvation of others; aiding them through our prayers, taking opportune moments to clarify their understanding of the faith, being living witnesses of the gospel and the love of the cross. All of us have the responsibility of seeking purity of heart and freedom from the passions in order that we might be able to discern with clarity and humility the needs of those around us. Lacking this, St. John tells us, we undermine our capacity to be well disposed and compassionate to each individual for whom we are responsible or who enters our life. How is it that we can serve others if we cannot discern good from evil and everything in between? In fact, St. John tells us it is a great disgrace for a superior to pray for or hold forward spiritual gifts to others that he himself is not acquired. How is it that he can faithfully guide others to God and to become partakers of the glory of God if he has no understanding of this within his own heart. Experience is the truest teacher and if the superior lacks that experience, he may only bring harm to others. Those who are spiritual elders, fathers, or mothers, must not be tempted to set aside this role in order to enjoy worldly friendship with those in their charge. It can be a natural thing to want companionship and to some extent this can exist. However, if a familiarity develops between the superior and others, he may lose the capacity to guide and feel constrained to do the bidding of others; never to contradict them, refuse them, or correct them. The elder must be pure of heart and able to understand the interior life and also the realities that sanctify us within the life of the church. The elder must be able to create a culture that forms a mind and heart directed toward God, the love of neighbor and the love of virtue. He must be able to discern the emotional capacity and maturity of others, so as not to push too hard and risk breaking their spirit or neglect giving counsel or correction of those who are quick witted and naturally gifted. Such purity of heart alone allows the elder to perceive supernatural realities and to understand the struggles that individuals have with multiple demons. The elder must be able to cure passions thought by others to be incurable. In this sense, he must have truly put on the mind of Christ and be the most humble and obedient member of the community. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:14:02 Bob Cihak, AZ: P. 251, # 14   00:19:16 carol_000: Is much known about the repentance of Joseph's brothers or God chastising them for their treatment of Joseph   00:26:27 David: I think this is a big problem also in families. My oldest son felt I was often to hard on him. Now that he is 27 he has mentioned several times that I was the only one that loved him and was always there. It is really hard but being a father is different than being a friend only there to enjoy the good times and not try to guide someone to what has value.   00:28:48 Art: Reacted to "I think this is a bi..." with

Episode 178: Social Media in MedicineDr. De Luna and Dr. Song explain the role of social media in medical education and how online journal clubs have become more useful in recent years.  Dr. Arreaza offers insights into our role as educators and sources of truth.Written by Patrick De Luna, MD. Comments by David Zheng Song, MD, and Hector Arreaza, MDYou are listening to Rio Bravo qWeek Podcast, your weekly dose of knowledge brought to you by the Rio Bravo Family Medicine Residency Program from Bakersfield, California, a UCLA-affiliated program sponsored by Clinica Sierra Vista, Let Us Be Your Healthcare Home. This podcast was created for educational purposes only. Visit your primary care provider for additional medical advice.Intro to episode (voiceover): Get ready to listen to a great conversation between three doctors diving into the impact of social media on medicine. It's no secret that social media shapes our lives—not just as professionals, but also as humans and members of our society. Every second, new information floods our feeds, and with the rise of artificial intelligence, it's becoming harder to separate fact from fiction. As doctors, we have a crucial role in clearing up confusion and supporting evidence-based practices. You'll hear insightful tips from Dr. De Luna, Dr. Song, and Dr. Arreaza—but remember, you also have a role in spreading the truth, you must be a reliable source of online truth and correct misinformation quickly. Also, use reliable sources, recommend fact-check websites, including Snopes, and FactCheck.org, and avoid “back-and-forth” arguing about fake news online, because as you keep arguing, fake news will continue to spread.Social Media in Medicine.Patrick: Social media has helped both physicians and patients obtain and expand their knowledge of medicine. This role in medical knowledge expansion has been more prevalent since the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in the form of podcasts (like this one), medical content creators, and personalities.  This growing medium has helped physicians to deliver medical knowledge in an efficient, but layman, format which can become a great outreach and educational tool. Arreaza: This podcast was created 3 days before the lockdown. It has been an educational tool for those who record and hopefully for those who listen to us.Patrick: In today's episode, we will explore a little about how this more accessible approach to medical learning has shaped our medical education landscape. We'll explore a recent study that shows the breakdown of how social media is used among medical professionals and the concerns that physicians have about medical education through social media. We will discuss how platforms such as X/Twitter have “Journal Club” threads and their implications. Furthermore, will discuss how online personalities have been able to bring medical education discussion to the broader population, and what we can learn from their work. David: Who is your favorite medical educator?Patrick: Dr. Mike (YouTube FM), Dr. Glaucomflecken (ophthalmologist comedian), and HealthyGamerGG (gamer), and yours?David: Curbsiders (THE internal medicine podcast)Arreaza: I like Dr. Glaucomflecken as well. He is a comedian but he is becoming a little more political. The AFP podcast is my favorite.David: We will explore and discuss how we could make quality and accurate medical education content and, hopefully, mitigate concerns about creating future educational content for physicians and patients alike. Analysis of Healthcare Professional Social Media UsePatrick: Social media has traditionally been used to share about your social life (posting pictures of your cat and family vacation), stay up to date on news and what is happening among your peers, as well as (for some select folks) a platform for content creation and a means of a career. Healthcare professionals also participate in social media in the same manner. David: Some social media users are called “influencers”. Arreaza: The term “influencer” is becoming a somewhat negative term online because many “influencers” are giving a bad reputation to that term, to the point that many prefer to be called “content creator.”Patrick: In a recent study published in Taylor and Francis' Medical Education Online, 72.1% of the participants reported use of social media to some degree. Out of the 72%, 11.5% of the surveyed report using social media sites exclusively for professional purposes, 22.8% for strictly personal use, and 65.7% for both. David: The most used social media platforms among healthcare workers were Facebook at 70%, YouTube 58%, LinkedIn 52%, Instagram 42%, Twitter (now called X) 27%, TikTok 10%, and Reddit at 5% among those surveyed. Those are 6 different media, which ones do you currently use, Patrick?Patrick: [Add response]. 20.4% of the surveyed indicated they use clinically focused social media platforms as well. This same survey found that respondents specializing in addiction medicine, family medicine, pediatrics, and psychiatry were more likely to use social media for continued professional development as compared to other specialties. David: Social media among the participants was highly used for staying informed with medical news and actively participating in medical discussions online, especially about medical management and treatments. Of note, the data is based on a population that skews more toward physicians and medical professionals who have practiced for more than 15 years. Arreaza: Doximity is one of those platforms that I have used in the past, and it contains interesting articles but they have to be read “with a grain of salt,” because they are editorials.The “New Journal Club” OnlinePatrick: Multiple residency programs report using social media as a form of engagement about published journal articles and updates to medical practice. Medical education may benefit from the implementation of social media and similar platforms as a medium for professional development, according to an analysis performed by Medical Education Online. The use of social media among many physicians has changed from content consumption (passive) to active participation in furthering medical education. David: This is reflected heavily in how platforms such as X (formerly known as Twitter), have become a forum towards a new form of “Journal Club”.Tweet Threads can now be utilized for further publication discussion in an open online space.  Good examples of this can be found among Twitter feeds from publication sites like the New England Journal of Medicine or #IDJClub (Before their move to Meta's Threads in November 2023). The Infectious Disease Journal Club, using the handle @IDJClub, published a study in May 2022 highlighting the impact of 20 months of journal club hosting through Twitter.Patrick: The authors of the study state that it may be harder for physicians outside of academic circles to have opportunities for well-scaffolded discussions and continued maintenance of critical appraisal skills. Due to an explosion of questionable medical literature during to COVID-19 pandemic (AKA fake news), they report a higher need for avenues to keep the practice of critical appraisal, thus we need to expand journal club access outside of academic sites.Arreaza: From May 19, 2019 – August 7, 2021, the @IDJClub account was followed by almost 9,500 followers from 114 countries and hosted 31 journal club posts and discussions. During the study, they found data that shows a decrease in participation in journal clubs use in residencies, as well as a lack of expert hosts to lead those discussions. Patrick: In addition to the increased accessibility, the survey makes a case that online interdisciplinary journal clubs can be an effective tool to update medical professionals and for practicing critical appraisal of the research studies. 75% of respondents believed that they learned more from these #IDJClub discussions than in their traditional journal club forums (if such forums were available to their respective programs). A case is made where it could be reflective of easier access, the make-up of how the publication is presented, and how the overall journal club is run. Concerns and Challenges to AvoidDavid: As well-intended and useful as these platforms for medical education can be, some authors from AAFP recommend that we be mindful of problems that can occur from misapplied use. Patrick: One problem that has been brought to the AAFPs' attention is potential society and licensing board actions. Medical boards, such as our own California Medical Board, can sanction physicians, uphold practice restrictions, or even take away physician licenses due to unprofessional behavior in social media content creation. This is especially worrisome if posting scientifically misleading or untrue claims.David: One example was an incident here in Bakersfield where 2 physicians used YouTube to post the results of COVID-19 tests at their urgent care during the peak of the pandemic. They misled the public in stating the disease did not have serious ramifications as the CDC stated. Due to the large number of viewers, the physicians were censured by medical societies due to their distribution of biased and unfounded information to the public. Patrick: AAFP authors suggest that for medical statements and discussions posted on social media for general patient education, it is recommended to add hyperlinks or direct sources with any online interaction in-so-that it better qualifies accuracy. If it's unverifiable, it would be best to add written caveats about the information's non-verifiability or that it is in the process of continued research. Patrick: At this time, there is some effort made by social media platforms to help indicate that the post is made by a reputable source. For example, when a licensed medical professional posts on YouTube, there are information panels that appear that will give context to the health content that is viewed. At the time of this episode, YouTube also currently allows channels to apply to be indicated as a licensed medical professional in the channel's posts. The applicants are examined by three different medical societies: the Council of Medical Specialty Societies (CMSS), the National Academy of Medicine (NAM), and the World Health Organization (WHO) to standardize how health education should be shared online. David: An example being Dr. Lin of Common Sense Family Doctor, an online medical blog for patients and physician education. In his statement to AAFP, he states that he wanted to post educational content twice a week, however, it required 3 to 4 hours a week to create. This can be time-consuming and distracting from other responsibilities.Arreaza: Social media can change mind. What other concerns do you think should be considered when physicians try to educate patients in an online environment?Social Media Platforms to Teach Medicine to the Greater Public Patrick: In general, social media platforms can be used to educate the public. One AAFP panel of authors wrote that some key points are important to consider when creating online content that is meant for public use.We must define our goals toward the subset population we are directing the education towards. Is it providing general health education? Is it promoting a practice? Is this used to advocate for a cause?We must consider who our audience is. For example, if our goal is to create a professional message to incite political or societal change towards public health policy, it would be best to utilize platforms that involve policymakers, political leaders, and/or patients that can inform them of what we want to achieve. Focus on general topics. These can include topics such as viral medical discussion trends on platforms like TikTok (ex. Ozempic), fitness and wellness, nutrition, or topics that you yourself have interest or expertise in. This can lead to the production of original content such as informatic YouTube series', podcasts such as this one, or discussion threads. AAFP recognizes that this can become a creative outlet for physicians and can reduce burnout.ConclusionPatrick: We can see the transformative impact of social media on medical education, and how it's further evolved since the COVID-19 pandemic. We explored how platforms like Twitter have redefined traditional journal clubs, making scholarly discussions more accessible across global medical communities. Moreover, we examined the role of influential medical content creators in bridging the gap between healthcare professionals and the general public. Patrick: While social media presents unprecedented opportunities for disseminating medical knowledge, our discussion also highlighted the challenges, including the need for accuracy in content, navigating professional conduct, and addressing algorithmic biases that can influence online interactions.Patrick As we conclude, it's evident that social media has revolutionized medical education by fostering broader engagement and democratizing access to knowledge. However, both physicians and content creators must uphold ethical standards and ensure the accuracy of information shared online. By navigating these challenges thoughtfully, we can harness its full potential as a powerful tool for advancing medical education and improving health outcomes in our local communities. ____________________This week we thank Hector Arreaza, Patrick De Luna, and David Zeng Song. Audio editing by Adrianne Silva. Intro by Raj Ajudia, MSIII. Even without trying, every night you go to bed a little wiser. Thanks for listening to Rio Bravo qWeek Podcast. We want to hear from you, send us an email at RioBravoqWeek@clinicasierravista.org, or visit our website riobravofmrp.org/qweek. See you next week! _____________________Links:Topf, Joel M., Introduction: Social Media and Medical Education Come of Age, Seminars in Nephrology, Volume 40, Issue 3, 247 – 248. https://www.seminarsinnephrology.org/article/S0270-9295(20)30043-7/fulltextNguyen BM, Lu E, Bhuyan N, Lin K, Sevilla M. Social Media for Doctors: Taking Professional and Patient Engagement to the Next Level. Fam Pract Manag. 2020;27(1):19-14. https://www.aafp.org/pubs/fpm/issues/2020/0100/p19.htmlIserson KV, Derse AR, Delpier M. Navigating the Hazards of Social Media. Fam Pract Manag. 2022;29(3):15-20. https://www.aafp.org/pubs/fpm/issues/2022/0500/p15.htmlVan Ravenswaay L, Parnes A, Nisly SA. Clicks for credit: an analysis of healthcare professionals' social media use and potential for continuing professional development activities. Med Educ Online. 2024 Dec 31;29(1):2316489. doi: 10.1080/10872981.2024.2316489. Epub 2024 Feb 15. PMID: 38359156; PMCID: PMC10877644. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10877644/Doctor Mike, YouTube Channel, https://www.youtube.com/@DoctorMikeDr. Glaucomflecken, YouTube Channel, https://www.youtube.com/@DGlaucomfleckenHealthyGamerGG, YouTube Channel, https://www.youtube.com/@HealthyGamerGGGet info on health-related content, Google Support, https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9795167Apply to be a source in YouTube health features, YouTube Help, https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/12796915Theme Song: Works All The Time by Dominik Schwarzer, License #5924333, PremiumBeat.com.  

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Our next SF event is AI UX 2024 - let's see the new frontier for UX since last year! Last call: we are recording a preview of the AI Engineer World's Fair with swyx and Ben Dunphy, send any questions about Speaker CFPs and Sponsor Guides you have!Alessio is now hiring engineers for a new startup he is incubating at Decibel: Ideal candidate is an “ex-technical co-founder type”. Reach out to him for more!David Luan has been at the center of the modern AI revolution: he was the ~30th hire at OpenAI, he led Google's LLM efforts and co-led Google Brain, and then started Adept in 2022, one of the leading companies in the AI agents space. In today's episode, we asked David for some war stories from his time in early OpenAI (including working with Alec Radford ahead of the GPT-2 demo with Sam Altman, that resulted in Microsoft's initial $1b investment), and how Adept is building agents that can “do anything a human does on a computer" — his definition of useful AGI.Why Google *couldn't* make GPT-3While we wanted to discuss Adept, we couldn't talk to a former VP Eng of OpenAI and former LLM tech lead at Google Brain and not ask about the elephant in the room. It's often asked how Google had such a huge lead in 2017 with Vaswani et al creating the Transformer and Noam Shazeer predicting trillion-parameter models and yet it was David's team at OpenAI who ended up making GPT 1/2/3. David has some interesting answers:“So I think the real story of GPT starts at Google, of course, right? Because that's where Transformers sort of came about. However, the number one shocking thing to me was that, and this is like a consequence of the way that Google is organized…what they (should) have done would be say, hey, Noam Shazeer, you're a brilliant guy. You know how to scale these things up. Here's half of all of our TPUs. And then I think they would have destroyed us. He clearly wanted it too…You know, every day we were scaling up GPT-3, I would wake up and just be stressed. And I was stressed because, you know, you just look at the facts, right? Google has all this compute. Google has all the people who invented all of these underlying technologies. There's a guy named Noam who's really smart, who's already gone and done this talk about how he wants a trillion parameter model. And I'm just like, we're probably just doing duplicative research to what he's doing. He's got this decoder only transformer that's probably going to get there before we do. And it turned out the whole time that they just couldn't get critical mass. So during my year where I led the Google LM effort and I was one of the brain leads, you know, it became really clear why. At the time, there was a thing called the Brain Credit Marketplace. Everyone's assigned a credit. So if you have a credit, you get to buy end chips according to supply and demand. So if you want to go do a giant job, you had to convince like 19 or 20 of your colleagues not to do work. And if that's how it works, it's really hard to get that bottom up critical mass to go scale these things. And the team at Google were fighting valiantly, but we were able to beat them simply because we took big swings and we focused.”Cloning HGI for AGIHuman intelligence got to where it is today through evolution. Some argue that to get to AGI, we will approximate all the “FLOPs” that went into that process, an approach most famously mapped out by Ajeya Cotra's Biological Anchors report:The early days of OpenAI were very reinforcement learning-driven with the Dota project, but that's a very inefficient way for these models to re-learn everything. (Kanjun from Imbue shared similar ideas in her episode).David argues that there's a shortcut. We can bootstrap from existing intelligence.“Years ago, I had a debate with a Berkeley professor as to what will it actually take to build AGI. And his view is basically that you have to reproduce all the flops that went into evolution in order to be able to get there… I think we are ignoring the fact that you have a giant shortcut, which is you can behaviorally clone everything humans already know. And that's what we solved with LLMs!”LLMs today basically model intelligence using all (good!) written knowledge (see our Datasets 101 episode), and have now expanded to non-verbal knowledge (see our HuggingFace episode on multimodality). The SOTA self-supervised pre-training process is surprisingly data-efficient in taking large amounts of unstructured data, and approximating reasoning without overfitting.But how do you cross the gap from the LLMs of today to building the AGI we all want? This is why David & friends left to start Adept.“We believe the clearest framing of general intelligence is a system that can do anything a human can do in front of a computer. A foundation model for actions, trained to use every software tool, API, and webapp that exists, is a practical path to this ambitious goal” — ACT-1 BlogpostCritical Path: Abstraction with ReliabilityThe AGI dream is fully autonomous agents, but there are levels to autonomy that we are comfortable giving our agents, based on how reliable they are. In David's word choice, we always want higher levels of “abstractions” (aka autonomy), but our need for “reliability” is the practical limit on how high of an abstraction we can use.“The critical path for Adept is we want to build agents that can do a higher and higher level abstraction things over time, all while keeping an insanely high reliability standard. Because that's what turns us from research into something that customers want. And if you build agents with really high reliability standard, but are continuing pushing a level of abstraction, you then learn from your users how to get that next level of abstraction faster. So that's how you actually build the data flow. That's the critical path for the company. Everything we do is in service of that.”We saw how Adept thinks about different levels of abstraction at the 2023 Summit:The highest abstraction is the “AI Employee”, but we'll get there with “AI enabled employees”. Alessio recently gave a talk about the future of work with “services as software” at this week's Nvidia GTC (slides).No APIsUnlike a lot of large research labs, Adept's framing of AGI as "being able to use your computer like a human" carries with it a useful environmental constraint:“Having a human robot lets you do things that humans do without changing everything along the way. It's the same thing for software, right? If you go itemize out the number of things you want to do on your computer for which every step has an API, those numbers of workflows add up pretty close to zero. And so then many points along the way, you need the ability to actually control your computer like a human. It also lets you learn from human usage of computers as a source of training data that you don't get if you have to somehow figure out how every particular step needs to be some particular custom private API thing. And so I think this is actually the most practical path (to economic value).”This realization and conviction means that multimodal modals are the way to go. Instead of using function calling to call APIs to build agents, which is what OpenAI and most of the open LLM industry have done to date, Adept wants to “drive by vision”, (aka see the screen as a human sees it) and pinpoint where to click and type as a human does. No APIs needed, because most software don't expose APIs.Extra context for readers: You can see the DeepMind SIMA model in the same light: One system that learned to play a diverse set of games (instead of one dedicated model per game) using only pixel inputs and keyboard-and-mouse action outputs!The OpenInterpreter team is working on a “Computer API” that also does the same.To do this, Adept had to double down on a special kind of multimodality for knowledge work:“A giant thing that was really necessary is really fast multimodal models that are really good at understanding knowledge work and really good at understanding screens. And that is needs to kind of be the base for some of these agents……I think one big hangover primarily academic focus for multimodal models is most multimodal models are primarily trained on like natural images, cat and dog photos, stuff that's come out of the camera… (but) where are they going to be the most useful? They're going to be most useful in knowledge work tasks. That's where the majority of economic value is going to be. It's not in cat and dogs. And so if that's what it is, what do you need to train? I need to train on like charts, graphs, tables, invoices, PDFs, receipts, unstructured data, UIs. That's just a totally different pre-training corpus. And so Adept spent a lot of time building that.”With this context, you can now understand the full path of Adept's public releases:* ACT-1 (Sept 2022): a large Transformers model optimized for browser interactions. It has a custom rendering of the browser viewport that allows it to better understand it and take actions.* Persimmon-8B (Sept 2023): a permissive open LLM (weights and code here)* Fuyu-8B (Oct 2023): a small version of the multimodal model that powers Adept. Vanilla decoder-only transformer with no specialized image encoder, which allows it to handle input images of varying resolutions without downsampling.* Adept Experiments (Nov 2023): A public tool to build automations in the browser. This is powered by Adept's core technology but it's just a piece of their enterprise platform. They use it as a way to try various design ideas.* Fuyu Heavy (Jan 2024) - a new multimodal model designed specifically for digital agents and the world's third-most-capable multimodal model (beating Gemini Pro on MMMU, AI2D, and ChartQA), “behind only GPT4-V and Gemini Ultra, which are 10-20 times bigger”The Fuyu-8B post in particular exhibits a great number of examples on knowledge work multimodality:Why Adept is NOT a Research LabWith OpenAI now worth >$90b and Anthropic >$18b, it is tempting to conclude that the AI startup metagame is to build a large research lab, and attract the brightest minds and highest capital to build AGI. Our past guests (see the Humanloop episode) and (from Imbue) combined to ask the most challenging questions of the pod - with David/Adept's deep research pedigree from Deepmind and OpenAI, why is Adept not building more general foundation models (like Persimmon) and playing the academic benchmarks game? Why is Adept so focused on commercial agents instead?“I feel super good that we're doing foundation models in service of agents and all of the reward within Adept is flowing from “Can we make a better agent”…… I think pure play foundation model companies are just going to be pinched by how good the next couple of (Meta Llama models) are going to be… And then seeing the really big players put ridiculous amounts of compute behind just training these base foundation models, I think is going to commoditize a lot of the regular LLMs and soon regular multimodal models. So I feel really good that we're just focused on agents.”and the commercial grounding is his answer to Kanjun too (whom we also asked the inverse question to compare with Adept):“… the second reason I work at Adept is if you believe that actually having customers and a reward signal from customers lets you build AGI faster, which we really believe, then you should come here. And I think the examples for why that's true is for example, our evaluations are not academic evals. They're not simulator evals. They're like, okay, we have a customer that really needs us to do these particular things. We can do some of them. These are the ones they want us to, we can't do them at all. We've turned those into evals.. I think that's a degree of practicality that really helps.”And his customers seem pretty happy, because David didn't need to come on to do a sales pitch:David: “One of the things we haven't shared before is we're completely sold out for Q1.”Swyx: “Sold out of what?”David: “Sold out of bandwidth to onboard more customers.”Well, that's a great problem to have.Show Notes* David Luan* Dextro at Data Driven NYC (2015)* Adept* ACT-1* Persimmon-8B* Adept Experiments* Fuyu-8B* $350M Series B announcement* Amelia Wattenberger talk at AI Engineer Summit* FigureChapters* [00:00:00] Introductions* [00:01:14] Being employee #30 at OpenAI and its early days* [00:13:38] What is Adept and how do you define AGI?* [00:21:00] Adept's critical path and research directions* [00:26:23] How AI agents should interact with software and impact product development* [00:30:37] Analogies between AI agents and self-driving car development* [00:32:42] Balancing reliability, cost, speed and generality in AI agents* [00:37:30] Potential of foundation models for robotics* [00:39:22] Core research questions and reasons to work at AdeptTranscriptsAlessio [00:00:00]: Hey everyone, welcome to the Latent Space Podcast. This is Alessio, partner and CTO in Residence at Decibel Partners, and I'm joined by my co-host Swyx, founder of Smol.ai.Swyx [00:00:15]: Hey, and today we have David Luan, CEO, co-founder of Adept in the studio. Welcome.David [00:00:20]: Yeah, thanks for having me.Swyx [00:00:21]: Been a while in the works. I've met you socially at one of those VC events and you said that you were interested in coming on and glad we finally were able to make this happen.David: Yeah, happy to be part of it.Swyx: So we like to introduce the speaker and then also just like have you talk a little bit about like what's not on your LinkedIn, what people should just generally know about you. You started a company in college, which was the first sort of real time video detection classification API that was Dextro, and that was your route to getting acquired into Axon where you're a director of AI. Then you were the 30th hire at OpenAI?David [00:00:53]: Yeah, 30, 35, something around there. Something like that.Swyx [00:00:56]: So you were VP of Eng for two and a half years to two years, briefly served as tech lead of large models at Google, and then in 2022 started Adept. So that's the sort of brief CV. Is there anything else you like want to fill in the blanks or like people should know more about?David [00:01:14]: I guess a broader story was I joined OpenAI fairly early and I did that for about two and a half to three years leading engineering there. It's really funny, I think second or third day of my time at OpenAI, Greg and Ilya pulled me in a room and we're like, you know, you should take over our directs and we'll go mostly do IC work. So that was fun, just coalescing a bunch of teams out of a couple of early initiatives that had already happened. The company, the Dota effort was going pretty hard and then more broadly trying to put bigger picture direction around what we were doing with basic research. So I spent a lot of time doing that. And then I led Google's LLM efforts, but also co-led Google Brain was one of the brain leads more broadly. You know, there's been a couple of different eras of AI research, right? If we count everything before 2012 as prehistory, which people hate it when I say that, kind of had this like you and your three best friends write a research paper that changes the world period from like 2012 to 2017. And I think the game changed in 2017 and like most labs didn't realize it, but we at OpenAI really did. I think in large part helped by like Ilya's constant beating of the drum that the world would be covered in data centers. And I think-Swyx [00:02:15]: It's causally neat.David [00:02:16]: Yeah. Well, like I think we had conviction in that, but it wasn't until we started seeing results that it became clear that that was where we had to go. But also part of it as well was for OpenAI, like when I first joined, I think one of the jobs that I had to do was how do I tell a differentiated vision for who we were technically compared to, you know, hey, we're just smaller Google Brain, or like you work at OpenAI if you live in SF and don't want to commute to Mountain View or don't want to live in London, right? That's like not enough to like hang your technical identity as a company. And so what we really did was, and I spent a lot of time pushing this, is just how do we get ourselves focused on a certain class of like giant swings and bets, right? Like how do you flip the script from you just do bottom-up research to more about how do you like leave some room for that, but really make it about like, what are the big scientific outcomes that you want to show? And then you just solve them at all costs, whether or not you care about novelty and all that stuff. And that became the dominant model for a couple of years, right? And then what's changed now is I think the number one driver of AI products over the next couple of years is going to be the deep co-design and co-evolution of product and users for feedback and actual technology. And I think labs, every tool to go do that are going to do really well. And that's a big part of why I started Adept.Alessio [00:03:20]: You mentioned Dota, any memories thinking from like the switch from RL to Transformers at the time and kind of how the industry was evolving more in the LLM side and leaving behind some of the more agent simulation work?David [00:03:33]: Like zooming way out, I think agents are just absolutely the correct long-term direction, right? You just go to find what AGI is, right? You're like, Hey, like, well, first off, actually, I don't love AGI definitions that involve human replacement because I don't think that's actually how it's going to happen. Even this definition of like, Hey, AGI is something that outperforms humans at economically valuable tasks is kind of implicit view of the world about what's going to be the role of people. I think what I'm more interested in is like a definition of AGI that's oriented around like a model that can do anything a human can do on a computer. If you go think about that, which is like super tractable, then agent is just a natural consequence of that definition. And so what did all the work we did on our own stuff like that get us was it got us a really clear formulation. Like you have a goal and you want to maximize the goal, you want to maximize reward, right? And the natural LLM formulation doesn't come with that out of the box, right? I think that we as a field got a lot right by thinking about, Hey, how do we solve problems of that caliber? And then the thing we forgot is the Novo RL is like a pretty terrible way to get there quickly. Why are we rediscovering all the knowledge about the world? Years ago, I had a debate with a Berkeley professor as to what will it actually take to build AGI. And his view is basically that you have to reproduce all the flops that went into evolution in order to be able to get there. Right.Swyx [00:04:44]: The biological basis theory. Right.David [00:04:46]: So I think we are ignoring the fact that you have a giant shortcut, which is you can behavioral clone everything humans already know. And that's what we solved with LLMs. We've solved behavioral cloning, everything that humans already know. Right. So like today, maybe LLMs is like behavioral cloning every word that gets written on the internet in the future, the multimodal models are becoming more of a thing where behavioral cloning the visual world. But really, what we're just going to have is like a universal byte model, right? Where tokens of data that have high signal come in, and then all of those patterns are like learned by the model. And then you can regurgitate any combination now. Right. So text into voice out, like image into other image out or video out or whatever, like these like mappings, right? Like all just going to be learned by this universal behavioral cloner. And so I'm glad we figured that out. And I think now we're back to the era of how do we combine this with all of the lessons we learned during the RL period. That's what's going to drive progress.Swyx [00:05:35]: I'm still going to pressure you for a few more early opening stories before we turn to the ADET stuff. On your personal site, which I love, because it's really nice, like personal, you know, story context around like your history. I need to update it. It's so old. Yeah, it's so out of date. But you mentioned GPT-2. Did you overlap with GPT-1? I think you did, right?David [00:05:53]: I actually don't quite remember. I think I was joining right around- Right around then?Swyx [00:05:57]: I was right around that, yeah. Yeah. So what I remember was Alec, you know, just kind of came in and was like very obsessed with Transformers and applying them to like Reddit sentiment analysis. Yeah, sentiment, that's right. Take us through-David [00:06:09]: Sentiment neuron, all this stuff.Swyx [00:06:10]: The history of GPT as far as you know, you know, according to you. Ah, okay.David [00:06:14]: History of GPT, according to me, that's a pretty good question. So I think the real story of GPT starts at Google, of course, right? Because that's where Transformers sort of came about. However, the number one shocking thing to me was that, and this is like a consequence of the way that Google is organized, where like, again, you and your three best friends write papers, right? Okay. So zooming way out, right? I think about my job when I was a full-time research leader as a little bit of a portfolio allocator, right? So I've got really, really smart people. My job is to convince people to coalesce around a small number of really good ideas and then run them over the finish line. My job is not actually to promote a million ideas and never have critical mass. And then as the ideas start coming together and some of them start working well, my job is to nudge resources towards the things that are really working and then start disbanding some of the things that are not working, right? That muscle did not exist during my time at Google. And I think had they had it, what they would have done would be say, hey, Noam Shazir, you're a brilliant guy. You know how to scale these things up. Here's half of all of our TPUs. And then I think they would have destroyed us. He clearly wanted it too.Swyx [00:07:17]: He's talking about trillion parameter models in 2017.David [00:07:20]: Yeah. So that's the core of the GPT story, right? Which is that, and I'm jumping around historically, right? But after GPT-2, we were all really excited about GPT-2. I can tell you more stories about that. It was the last paper that I even got to really touch before everything became more about building a research org. You know, every day we were scaling up GPT-3, I would wake up and just be stressed. And I was stressed because, you know, you just look at the facts, right? Google has all this compute. Google has all the people who invented all of these underlying technologies. There's a guy named Noam who's really smart, who's already gone and done this talk about how he wants a trillion parameter model. And I'm just like, we're probably just doing duplicative research to what he's doing, right? He's got this decoder only transformer that's probably going to get there before we do. And I was like, but like, please just like let this model finish, right? And it turned out the whole time that they just couldn't get critical mass. So during my year where I led the Google LM effort and I was one of the brain leads, you know, it became really clear why, right? At the time, there was a thing called the brain credit marketplace. And did you guys know the brain credit marketplace? No, I never heard of this. Oh, so it's actually, it's a, you can ask any Googler.Swyx [00:08:23]: It's like just like a thing that, that, I mean, look like, yeah, limited resources, you got to have some kind of marketplace, right? You know, sometimes it's explicit, sometimes it isn't, you know, just political favors.David [00:08:34]: You could. And so then basically everyone's assigned a credit, right? So if you have a credit, you get to buy end chips according to supply and demand. So if you want to go do a giant job, you had to convince like 19 or 20 of your colleagues not to do work. And if that's how it works, it's really hard to get that bottom up critical mass to go scale these things. And the team at Google were fighting valiantly, but we were able to beat them simply because we took big swings and we focused. And I think, again, that's like part of the narrative of like this phase one of AI, right? Of like this modern AI era to phase two. And I think in the same way, I think phase three company is going to out execute phase two companies because of the same asymmetry of success.Swyx [00:09:12]: Yeah. I think it's underrated how much NVIDIA works with you in the early days as well. I think maybe, I think it was Jensen. I'm not sure who circulated a recent photo of him delivering the first DGX to you guys.David [00:09:24]: I think Jensen has been a complete legend and a mastermind throughout. I have so much respect for NVIDIA. It is unreal.Swyx [00:09:34]: But like with OpenAI, like kind of give their requirements, like co-design it or just work of whatever NVIDIA gave them.David [00:09:40]: So we work really closely with them. There's, I'm not sure I can share all the stories, but examples of ones that I've found particularly interesting. So Scott Gray is amazing. I really like working with him. He was on one of my teams, the supercomputing team, which Chris Berner runs and Chris Berner still does a lot of stuff in that. As a result, like we had very close ties to NVIDIA. Actually, one of my co-founders at Adept, Eric Elson, was also one of the early GPGPU people. So he and Scott and Brian Catanzaro at NVIDIA and Jonah and Ian at NVIDIA, I think all were very close. And we're all sort of part of this group of how do we push these chips to the absolute limit? And I think that kind of collaboration helped quite a bit. I think one interesting set of stuff is knowing the A100 generation, that like quad sparsity was going to be a thing. Is that something that we want to go look into, right? And figure out if that's something that we could actually use for model training. Really what it boils down to is that, and I think more and more people realize this, six years ago, people, even three years ago, people refused to accept it. This era of AI is really a story of compute. It's really the story of how do you more efficiently map actual usable model flops to compute,Swyx [00:10:38]: Is there another GPT 2, 3 story that you love to get out there that you think is underappreciated for the amount of work that people put into it?David [00:10:48]: So two interesting GPT 2 stories. One of them was I spent a good bit of time just sprinting to help Alec get the paper out. And I remember one of the most entertaining moments was we were writing the modeling section. And I'm pretty sure the modeling section was the shortest modeling section of any ML, reasonably legitimate ML paper to that moment. It was like section three model. This is a standard vanilla decoder only transformer with like these particular things, those paragraph long if I remember correctly. And both of us were just looking at the same being like, man, the OGs in the field are going to hate this. They're going to say no novelty. Why did you guys do this work? So now it's funny to look at in hindsight that it was pivotal kind of paper, but I think it was one of the early ones where we just leaned fully into all we care about is solving problems in AI and not about, hey, is there like four different really simple ideas that are cloaked in mathematical language that doesn't actually help move the field forward?Swyx [00:11:42]: Right. And it's like you innovate on maybe like data set and scaling and not so much the architecture.David [00:11:48]: We all know how it works now, right? Which is that there's a collection of really hard won knowledge that you get only by being at the frontiers of scale. And that hard won knowledge, a lot of it's not published. A lot of it is stuff that's actually not even easily reducible to what looks like a typical academic paper. But yet that's the stuff that helps differentiate one scaling program from another. You had a second one? So the second one is, there's like some details here that I probably shouldn't fully share, but hilariously enough for the last meeting we did with Microsoft before Microsoft invested in OpenAI, Sam Altman, myself and our CFO flew up to Seattle to do the final pitch meeting. And I'd been a founder before. So I always had a tremendous amount of anxiety about partner meetings, which this basically this is what it was. I had Kevin Scott and Satya and Amy Hood, and it was my job to give the technical slides about what's the path to AGI, what's our research portfolio, all of this stuff, but it was also my job to give the GPT-2 demo. We had a slightly bigger version of GPT-2 that we had just cut maybe a day or two before this flight up. And as we all know now, model behaviors you find predictable at one checkpoint are not predictable in another checkpoint. And so I'd spent all this time trying to figure out how to keep this thing on rails. I had my canned demos, but I knew I had to go turn it around over to Satya and Kevin and let them type anything in. And that just, that really kept me up all night.Swyx [00:13:06]: Nice. Yeah.Alessio [00:13:08]: I mean, that must have helped you talking about partners meeting. You raised $420 million for Adept. The last round was a $350 million Series B, so I'm sure you do great in partner meetings.Swyx [00:13:18]: Pitchers meetings. Nice.David [00:13:20]: No, that's a high compliment coming from a VC.Alessio [00:13:22]: Yeah, no, I mean, you're doing great already for us. Let's talk about Adept. And we were doing pre-prep and you mentioned that maybe a lot of people don't understand what Adept is. So usually we try and introduce the product and then have the founders fill in the blanks, but maybe let's do the reverse. Like what is Adept? Yeah.David [00:13:38]: So I think Adept is the least understood company in the broader space of foundational models plus agents. So I'll give some color and I'll explain what it is and I'll explain also why it's actually pretty different from what people would have guessed. So the goal for Adept is we basically want to build an AI agent that can do, that can basically help humans do anything a human does on a computer. And so what that really means is we want this thing to be super good at turning natural language like goal specifications right into the correct set of end steps and then also have all the correct sensors and actuators to go get that thing done for you across any software tool that you already use. And so the end vision of this is effectively like I think in a couple of years everyone's going to have access to like an AI teammate that they can delegate arbitrary tasks to and then also be able to, you know, use it as a sounding board and just be way, way, way more productive. Right. And just changes the shape of every job from something where you're mostly doing execution to something where you're mostly actually doing like these core liberal arts skills of what should I be doing and why. Right. And I find this like really exciting and motivating because I think it's actually a pretty different vision for how AGI will play out. I think systems like Adept are the most likely systems to be proto-AGIs. But I think the ways in which we are really counterintuitive to everybody is that we've actually been really quiet because we are not a developer company. We don't sell APIs. We don't sell open source models. We also don't sell bottom up products. We're not a thing that you go and click and download the extension and like we want more users signing up for that thing. We're actually an enterprise company. So what we do is we work with a range of different companies, some like late stage multi-thousand people startups, some fortune 500s, et cetera. And what we do for them is we basically give them an out of the box solution where big complex workflows that their employees do every day could be delegated to the model. And so we look a little different from other companies in that in order to go build this full agent thing, the most important thing you got to get right is reliability. So initially zooming way back when, one of the first things that DEP did was we released this demo called Act One, right? Act One was like pretty cool. It's like kind of become a hello world thing for people to show agent demos by going to Redfin and asking to buy a house somewhere because like we did that in the original Act One demo and like showed that, showed like Google Sheets, all this other stuff. Over the last like year since that has come out, there's been a lot of really cool demos and you go play with them and you realize they work 60% of the time. But since we've always been focused on how do we build an amazing enterprise product, enterprises can't use anything that isn't in the nines of reliability. And so we've actually had to go down a slightly different tech tree than what you might find in the prompt engineering sort of plays in the agent space to get that reliability. And we've decided to prioritize reliability over all else. So like one of our use cases is crazy enough that it actually ends with a physical truck being sent to a place as the result of the agent workflow. And if you're like, if that works like 60% of the time, you're just blowing money and poor truck drivers going places.Alessio [00:16:30]: Interesting. One of the, our investment teams has this idea of services as software. I'm actually giving a talk at NVIDIA GTC about this, but basically software as a service, you're wrapping user productivity in software with agents and services as software is replacing things that, you know, you would ask somebody to do and the software just does it for you. When you think about these use cases, do the users still go in and look at the agent kind of like doing the things and can intervene or like are they totally removed from them? Like the truck thing is like, does the truck just show up or are there people in the middle checking in?David [00:17:04]: I think there's two current flaws in the framing for services as software, or I think what you just said. I think that one of them is like in our experience, as we've been rolling out Adept, the people who actually do the jobs are the most excited about it because they don't go from, I do this job to, I don't do this job. They go from, I do this job for everything, including the shitty rote stuff to I'm a supervisor. And I literally like, it's pretty magical when you watch the thing being used because now it parallelizes a bunch of the things that you had to do sequentially by hand as a human. And you can just click into any one of them and be like, Hey, I want to watch the trajectory that the agent went through to go solve this. And the nice thing about agent execution as opposed to like LLM generations is that a good chunk of the time when the agent fails to execute, it doesn't give you the wrong result. It just fails to execute. And the whole trajectory is just broken and dead and the agent knows it, right? So then those are the ones that the human then goes and solves. And so then they become a troubleshooter. They work on the more challenging stuff. They get way, way more stuff done and they're really excited about it. I think the second piece of it that we've found is our strategy as a company is to always be an augmentation company. And I think one out of principle, that's something we really care about. But two, actually, if you're framing yourself as an augmentation company, you're always going to live in a world where you're solving tasks that are a little too hard for what the model can do today and still needs a human to provide oversight, provide clarifications, provide human feedback. And that's how you build a data flywheel. That's how you actually learn from the smartest humans how to solve things models can't do today. And so I actually think that being an augmentation company forces you to go develop your core AI capabilities faster than someone who's saying, ah, okay, my job is to deliver you a lights off solution for X.Alessio [00:18:42]: Yeah. It's interesting because we've seen two parts of the market. One is we have one company that does agents for SOC analysts. People just don't have them, you know, and just they cannot attract the talent to do it. And similarly, in a software development, you have Copilot, which is the augmentation product, and then you have sweep.dev and you have these products, which they just do the whole thing. I'm really curious to see how that evolves. I agree that today the reliability is so important in the enterprise that they just don't use most of them. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's cool. But it's great to hear the story because I think from the outside, people are like, oh, a dev, they do Act One, they do Persimon, they do Fuyu, they do all this stuff. Yeah, it's just the public stuff.Swyx [00:19:20]: It's just public stuff.David [00:19:21]: So one of the things we haven't shared before is we're completely sold out for Q1. And so I think...Swyx [00:19:26]: Sold out of what?David [00:19:27]: Sold out of bandwidth to go on board more customers. And so we're like working really hard to go make that less of a bottleneck, but our expectation is that I think we're going to be significantly more public about the broader product shape and the new types of customers we want to attract later this year. So I think that clarification will happen by default.Swyx [00:19:43]: Why have you become more public? You know, if the whole push has... You're sold out, you're my enterprise, but you're also clearly putting effort towards being more open or releasing more things.David [00:19:53]: I think we just flipped over that way fairly recently. That's a good question. I think it actually boils down to two things. One, I think that, frankly, a big part of it is that the public narrative is really forming around agents as being the most important thing. And I'm really glad that's happening because when we started the company in January 2022, everybody in the field knew about the agents thing from RL, but the general public had no conception of what it was. They were still hanging their narrative hat on the tree of everything's a chatbot. And so I think now one of the things that I really care about is that when people think agent, they actually think the right thing. All sorts of different things are being called agents. Chatbots are being called agents. Things that make a function call are being called agents. To me, an agent is something that you can give a goal and get an end step workflow done correctly in the minimum number of steps. And so that's a big part of why. And I think the other part is because I think it's always good for people to be more aware of Redept as they think about what the next thing they want to do in their careers. The field is quickly pivoting in a world where foundation models are looking more and more commodity. And I think a huge amount of gain is going to happen from how do you use foundation models as the well-learned behavioral cloner to go solve agents. And I think people who want to do agents research should really come to Redept.Swyx [00:21:00]: When you say agents have become more part of the public narrative, are there specific things that you point to? I'll name a few. Bill Gates in his blog post mentioning that agents are the future. I'm the guy who made OSes, and I think agents are the next thing. So Bill Gates, I'll call that out. And then maybe Sam Altman also saying that agents are the future for open AI.David [00:21:17]: I think before that even, I think there was something like the New York Times, Cade Metz wrote a New York Times piece about it. Right now, in a bit to differentiate, I'm seeing AI startups that used to just brand themselves as an AI company, but now brand themselves as an AI agent company. It's just like, it's a term I just feel like people really want.Swyx [00:21:31]: From the VC side, it's a bit mixed. Is it? As in like, I think there are a lot of VCs where like, I would not touch any agent startups because like- Why is that? Well, you tell me.Alessio [00:21:41]: I think a lot of VCs that are maybe less technical don't understand the limitations of the-Swyx [00:21:46]: No, that's not fair.Alessio [00:21:47]: No, no, no, no. I think like- You think so? No, no. I think like the, what is possible today and like what is worth investing in, you know? And I think like, I mean, people look at you and say, well, these guys are building agents. They needed 400 million to do it. So a lot of VCs are maybe like, oh, I would rather invest in something that is tacking on AI to an existing thing, which is like easier to get the market and kind of get some of the flywheel going. But I'm also surprised a lot of funders just don't want to do agents. It's not even the funding. Sometimes we look around and it's like, why is nobody doing agents for X? Wow.David [00:22:17]: That's good to know actually. I never knew that before. My sense from my limited perspective is there's a new agent company popping up every day.Swyx [00:22:24]: So maybe I'm- They are. They are. But like I have advised people to take agents off of their title because it's so diluted.David [00:22:31]: It's now so diluted.Swyx [00:22:32]: Yeah. So then it doesn't stand for anything. Yeah.David [00:22:35]: That's a really good point.Swyx [00:22:36]: So like, you know, you're a portfolio allocator. You have people know about Persimmon, people know about Fuyu and Fuyu Heavy. Can you take us through like how you think about that evolution of that and what people should think about what that means for adepts and sort of research directions? Kind of take us through the stuff you shipped recently and how people should think about the trajectory of what you're doing.David [00:22:56]: The critical path for adepts is we want to build agents that can do a higher and higher level abstraction things over time, all while keeping an insanely high reliability standard. Because that's what turns us from research into something that customers want. And if you build agents with really high reliability standard, but are continuing pushing a level of abstraction, you then learn from your users how to get that next level of abstraction faster. So that's how you actually build the data flow. That's the critical path for the company. Everything we do is in service of that. So if you go zoom way, way back to Act One days, right? Like the core thing behind Act One is can we teach large model basically how to even actuate your computer? And I think we're one of the first places to have solved that and shown it and shown the generalization that you get when you give it various different workflows and texts. But I think from there on out, we really realized was that in order to get reliability, companies just do things in various different ways. You actually want these models to be able to get a lot better at having some specification of some guardrails for what it actually should be doing. And I think in conjunction with that, a giant thing that was really necessary is really fast multimodal models that are really good at understanding knowledge work and really good at understanding screens. And that is needs to kind of be the base for some of these agents. Back then we had to do a ton of research basically on how do we actually make that possible? Well, first off, like back in forgot exactly one month to 23, like there were no multimodal models really that you could use for things like this. And so we pushed really hard on stuff like the Fuyu architecture. I think one big hangover primarily academic focus for multimodal models is most multimodal models are primarily trained on like natural images, cat and dog photos, stuff that's come out of the camera. Coco. Yeah, right. And the Coco is awesome. Like I love Coco. I love TY. Like it's really helped the field. Right. But like that's the build one thing. I actually think it's really clear today. Multimodal models are the default foundation model, right? It's just going to supplant LLMs. Like you just train a giant multimodal model. And so for that though, like where are they going to be the most useful? They're going to be most useful in knowledge work tasks. That's where the majority of economic value is going to be. It's not in cat and dogs. Right. And so if that's what it is, what do you need to train? I need to train on like charts, graphs, tables, invoices, PDFs, receipts, unstructured data, UIs. That's just a totally different pre-training corpus. And so a depth spent a lot of time building that. And so the public for use and stuff aren't trained on our actual corpus, it's trained on some other stuff. But you take a lot of that data and then you make it really fast and make it really good at things like dense OCR on screens. And then now you have the right like raw putty to go make a good agent. So that's kind of like some of the modeling side, we've kind of only announced some of that stuff. We haven't really announced much of the agent's work, but that if you put those together with the correct product form factor, and I think the product form factor also really matters. I think we're seeing, and you guys probably see this a little bit more than I do, but we're seeing like a little bit of a pushback against the tyranny of chatbots as form factor. And I think that the reason why the form factor matters is the form factor changes what data you collect in the human feedback loop. And so I think we've spent a lot of time doing full vertical integration of all these bits in order to get to where we are.Swyx [00:25:44]: Yeah. I'll plug Amelia Wattenberger's talk at our conference, where she gave a little bit of the thinking behind like what else exists other than chatbots that if you could delegate to reliable agents, you could do. I was kind of excited at Adept experiments or Adept workflows, I don't know what the official name for it is. I was like, okay, like this is something I can use, but it seems like it's just an experiment for now. It's not your product.David [00:26:06]: So you basically just use experiments as like a way to go push various ideas on the design side to some people and just be like, yeah, we'll play with it. Actually the experiments code base underpins the actual product, but it's just the code base itself is kind of like a skeleton for us to go deploy arbitrary cards on the side.Swyx [00:26:22]: Yeah.Alessio [00:26:23]: Makes sense. I was going to say, I would love to talk about the interaction layer. So you train a model to see UI, but then there's the question of how do you actually act on the UI? I think there was some rumors about open app building agents that are kind of like, they manage the end point. So the whole computer, you're more at the browser level. I read in one of your papers, you have like a different representation, kind of like you don't just take the dome and act on it. You do a lot more stuff. How do you think about the best way the models will interact with the software and like how the development of products is going to change with that in mind as more and more of the work is done by agents instead of people?David [00:26:58]: This is, there's so much surface area here and it's actually one of the things I'm really excited about. And it's funny because I've spent most of my time doing research stuff, but there's like a whole new ball game that I've been learning about and I find it really cool. So I would say the best analogy I have to why Adept is pursuing a path of being able to use your computer like a human, plus of course being able to call APIs and being able to call APIs is the easy part, like being able to use your computer like a human is a hard part. It's in the same way why people are excited about humanoid robotics, right? In a world where you had T equals infinity, right? You're probably going to have various different form factors that robots could just be in and like all the specialization. But the fact is that humans live in a human environment. So having a human robot lets you do things that humans do without changing everything along the way. It's the same thing for software, right? If you go itemize out the number of things you want to do on your computer for which every step has an API, those numbers of workflows add up pretty close to zero. And so then many points along the way, you need the ability to actually control your computer like a human. It also lets you learn from human usage of computers as a source of training data that you don't get if you have to somehow figure out how every particular step needs to be some particular custom private API thing. And so I think this is actually the most practical path. I think because it's the most practical path, I think a lot of success will come from going down this path. I kind of think about this early days of the agent interaction layer level is a little bit like, do you all remember Windows 3.1? Like those days? Okay, this might be, I might be, I might be too old for you guys on this. But back in the day, Windows 3.1, we had this transition period between pure command line, right? Being the default into this new world where the GUI is the default and then you drop into the command line for like programmer things, right? The old way was you booted your computer up, DOS booted, and then it would give you the C colon slash thing. And you typed Windows and you hit enter, and then you got put into Windows. And then the GUI kind of became a layer above the command line. The same thing is going to happen with agent interfaces is like today we'll be having the GUI is like the base layer. And then the agent just controls the current GUI layer plus APIs. And in the future, as more and more trust is built towards agents and more and more things can be done by agents, if more UIs for agents are actually generative in and of themselves, then that just becomes a standard interaction layer. And if that becomes a standard interaction layer, what changes for software is that a lot of software is going to be either systems or record or like certain customized workflow execution engines. And a lot of how you actually do stuff will be controlled at the agent layer.Alessio [00:29:19]: And you think the rabbit interface is more like it would like you're not actually seeing the app that the model interacts with. You're just saying, hey, I need to log this call on Salesforce. And you're never actually going on salesforce.com directly as the user. I can see that being a model.David [00:29:33]: I think I don't know enough about what using rabbit in real life will actually be like to comment on that particular thing. But I think the broader idea that, you know, you have a goal, right? The agent knows how to break your goal down into steps. The agent knows how to use the underlying software and systems or record to achieve that goal for you. The agent maybe presents you information in a custom way that's only relevant to your particular goal, all just really leads to a world where you don't really need to ever interface with the apps underneath unless you're a power user for some niche thing.Swyx [00:30:03]: General question. So first of all, I think like the sort of input mode conversation. I wonder if you have any analogies that you like with self-driving, because I do think like there's a little bit of how the model should perceive the world. And you know, the primary split in self-driving is LiDAR versus camera. And I feel like most agent companies that I'm tracking are all moving towards camera approach, which is like the multimodal approach, you know, multimodal vision, very heavy vision, all the Fuyu stuff that you're doing. You're focusing on that, including charts and tables. And do you find that inspiration there from like the self-driving world? That's a good question.David [00:30:37]: I think sometimes the most useful inspiration I've found from self-driving is the levels analogy. I think that's awesome. But I think that our number one goal is for agents not to look like self-driving. We want to minimize the chances that agents are sort of a thing that you just have to bang your head at for a long time to get to like two discontinuous milestones, which is basically what's happened in self-driving. We want to be living in a world where you have the data flywheel immediately, and that takes you all the way up to the top. But similarly, I mean, compared to self-driving, like two things that people really undervalue is like really easy to driving a car down highway 101 in a sunny day demo. That actually doesn't prove anything anymore. And I think the second thing is that as a non-self-driving expert, I think one of the things that we believe really strongly is that everyone undervalues the importance of really good sensors and actuators. And actually a lot of what's helped us get a lot of reliability is a really strong focus on actually why does the model not do this thing? And the non-trivial amount of time, the time the model doesn't actually do the thing is because if you're a wizard of ozzing it yourself, or if you have unreliable actuators, you can't do the thing. And so we've had to fix a lot of those problems.Swyx [00:31:43]: I was slightly surprised just because I do generally consider the way most that we see all around San Francisco as the most, I guess, real case of agents that we have in very material ways.David [00:31:55]: Oh, that's absolutely true. I think they've done an awesome job, but it has taken a long time for self-driving to mature from when it entered the consciousness and the driving down 101 on a sunny day moment happened to now. Right. So I want to see that more compressed.Swyx [00:32:07]: And I mean, you know, cruise, you know, RIP. And then one more thing on just like, just going back on this reliability thing, something I have been holding in my head that I'm curious to get your commentary on is I think there's a trade-off between reliability and generality, or I want to broaden reliability into just general like sort of production readiness and enterprise readiness scale. Because you have reliability, you also have cost, you have speed, speed is a huge emphasis for a debt. The tendency or the temptation is to reduce generality to improve reliability and to improve cost, improve speed. Do you perceive a trade-off? Do you have any insights that solve those trade-offs for you guys?David [00:32:42]: There's definitely a trade-off. If you're at the Pareto frontier, I think a lot of folks aren't actually at the Pareto frontier. I think the way you get there is basically how do you frame the fundamental agent problem in a way that just continues to benefit from data? I think one of the main ways of being able to solve that particular trade-off is you basically just want to formulate the problem such that every particular use case just looks like you collecting more data to go make that use case possible. I think that's how you really solve. Then you get into the other problems like, okay, are you overfitting on these end use cases? You're not doing a thing where you're being super prescriptive for the end steps that the model can only do, for example.Swyx [00:33:17]: Then the question becomes, do you have one house model that you can then customize for each customer and you're fine-tuning them on each customer's specific use case?David [00:33:25]: Yeah.Swyx [00:33:26]: We're not sharing that. You're not sharing that. It's tempting, but that doesn't look like AGI to me. You know what I mean? That is just you have a good base model and then you fine-tune it.David [00:33:35]: For what it's worth, I think there's two paths to a lot more capability coming out of the models that we all are training these days. I think one path is you figure out how to spend, compute, and turn it into data. In that path, I consider search, RL, all the things that we all love in this era as part of that path, like self-play, all that stuff. The second path is how do you get super competent, high intelligence demonstrations from humans? I think the right way to move forward is you kind of want to combine the two. The first one gives you maximum sample efficiency for a little second, but I think that it's going to be hard to be running at max speed towards AGI without actually solving a bit of both.Swyx [00:34:16]: You haven't talked much about synthetic data, as far as I can tell. Probably this is a bit too much of a trend right now, but any insights on using synthetic data to augment the expensive human data?David [00:34:26]: The best part about framing AGI as being able to help people do things on computers is you have an environment.Swyx [00:34:31]: Yes. So you can simulate all of it.David [00:34:35]: You can do a lot of stuff when you have an environment.Alessio [00:34:37]: We were having dinner for our one-year anniversary. Congrats. Yeah. Thank you. Raza from HumanLoop was there, and we mentioned you were coming on the pod. This is our first-Swyx [00:34:45]: So he submitted a question.Alessio [00:34:46]: Yeah, this is our first, I guess, like mailbag question. He asked, when you started GPD 4 Data and Exist, now you have a GPD 4 vision and help you building a lot of those things. How do you think about the things that are unique to you as Adept, and like going back to like the maybe research direction that you want to take the team and what you want people to come work on at Adept, versus what is maybe now become commoditized that you didn't expect everybody would have access to?David [00:35:11]: Yeah, that's a really good question. I think implicit in that question, and I wish he were tier two so he can push back on my assumption about his question, but I think implicit in that question is calculus of where does advantage accrue in the overall ML stack. And maybe part of the assumption is that advantage accrues solely to base model scaling. But I actually believe pretty strongly that the way that you really win is that you have to go build an agent stack that is much more than that of the base model itself. And so I think like that is always going to be a giant advantage of vertical integration. I think like it lets us do things like have a really, really fast base model, is really good at agent things, but is bad at cat and dog photos. It's pretty good at cat and dog photos. It's not like soda at cat and dog photos, right? So like we're allocating our capacity wisely, right? That's like one thing that you really get to do. I also think that the other thing that is pretty important now in the broader foundation modeling space is I feel despite any potential concerns about how good is agents as like a startup area, right? Like we were talking about earlier, I feel super good that we're doing foundation models in service of agents and all of the reward within Adept is flowing from can we make a better agent? Because right now I think we all see that, you know, if you're training on publicly available web data, you put in the flops and you do reasonable things, then you get decent results. And if you just double the amount of compute, then you get predictably better results. And so I think pure play foundation model companies are just going to be pinched by how good the next couple of llamas are going to be and the next what good open source thing. And then seeing the really big players put ridiculous amounts of compute behind just training these base foundation models, I think is going to commoditize a lot of the regular LLMs and soon regular multimodal models. So I feel really good that we're just focused on agents.Swyx [00:36:56]: So you don't consider yourself a pure play foundation model company?David [00:36:59]: No, because if we were a pure play foundation model company, we would be training general foundation models that do summarization and all this other...Swyx [00:37:06]: You're dedicated towards the agent. Yeah.David [00:37:09]: And our business is an agent business. We're not here to sell you tokens, right? And I think like selling tokens, unless there's like a...Swyx [00:37:14]: Not here to sell you tokens. I love it.David [00:37:16]: It's like if you have a particular area of specialty, right? Then you won't get caught in the fact that everyone's just scaling to ridiculous levels of compute. But if you don't have a specialty, I find that, I think it's going to be a little tougher.Swyx [00:37:27]: Interesting. Are you interested in robotics at all? Just a...David [00:37:30]: I'm personally fascinated by robotics. I've always loved robotics.Swyx [00:37:33]: Embodied agents as a business, you know, Figure is like a big, also sort of open AI affiliated company that raises a lot of money.David [00:37:39]: I think it's cool. I think, I mean, I don't know exactly what they're doing, but...Swyx [00:37:44]: Robots. Yeah.David [00:37:46]: Well, I mean, that's a...Swyx [00:37:47]: Yeah. What question would you ask? If we had them on, what would you ask them?David [00:37:50]: Oh, I just want to understand what their overall strategy is going to be between now and when there's reliable stuff to be deployed. But honestly, I just don't know enough about it.Swyx [00:37:57]: And if I told you, hey, fire your entire warehouse workforce and, you know, put robots in there, isn't that a strategy? Oh yeah.David [00:38:04]: Yeah. Sorry. I'm not questioning whether they're doing smart things. I genuinely don't know what they're doing as much, but I think there's two things. One, I'm so excited for someone to train a foundation model of robots. It's just, I think it's just going to work. Like I will die on this hill, but I mean, like again, this whole time, like we've been on this podcast, we're just going to continually saying these models are basically behavioral cloners. Right. So let's go behavioral clone all this like robot behavior. Right. And then you figure out everything else you have to do in order to teach you how to solve a new problem. That's going to work. I'm super stoked for that. I think unlike what we're doing with helping humans with knowledge work, it just sounds like a more zero sum job replacement play. Right. And I'm personally less excited about that.Alessio [00:38:46]: We had a Ken June from InBoo on the podcast. We asked her why people should go work there and not at Adept.Swyx [00:38:52]: Oh, that's so funny.Alessio [00:38:54]: Well, she said, you know, there's space for everybody in this market. We're all doing interesting work. And she said, they're really excited about building an operating system for agent. And for her, the biggest research thing was like getting models, better reasoning and planning for these agents. The reverse question to you, you know, why should people be excited to come work at Adept instead of InBoo? And maybe what are like the core research questions that people should be passionate about to have fun at Adept? Yeah.David [00:39:22]: First off, I think that I'm sure you guys believe this too. The AI space to the extent there's an AI space and the AI agent space are both exactly as she likely said, I think colossal opportunities and people are just going to end up winning in different areas and a lot of companies are going to do well. So I really don't feel that zero something at all. I would say to like change the zero sum framing is why should you be at Adept? I think there's two huge reasons to be at Adept. I think one of them is everything we do is in the service of like useful agents. We're not a research lab. We do a lot of research in service of that goal, but we don't think about ourselves as like a classic research lab at all. And I think the second reason I work at Adept is if you believe that actually having customers and a reward signal from customers lets you build a GI faster, which we really believe, then you should come here. And I think the examples for why that's true is for example, our evaluations, they're not academic evals. They're not simulator evals. They're like, okay, we have a customer that really needs us to do these particular things. We can do some of them. These are the ones they want us to, we can't do them at all. We've turned those into evals, solve it, right? I think that's really cool. Like everybody knows a lot of these evals are like pretty saturated and the new ones that even are not saturated. You look at someone and you're like, is this actually useful? Right? I think that's a degree of practicality that really helps. Like we're equally excited about the same problems around reasoning and planning and generalization and all of this stuff. They're very grounded in actual needs right now, which is really cool.Swyx [00:40:45]: Yeah. This has been a wonderful dive. You know, I wish we had more time, but I would just leave it kind of open to you. I think you have broad thoughts, you know, just about

Tom welcomes to the show a long time Traction member, David Hayes, who shares his journey to real estate investing, rehabbing vs wholesaling properties, and why real estate investment truly was something which he couldn't afford to fail. Today, David joins the show to talk about overcoming the ‘fear of success', face-to-face negotiation tactics, and the importance of sticking to your exit strategy.Key Takeaways01:02 – Tom introduces today's guest, David Hayes, who joins the show to discuss how he had no choice but to succeed in real estate investment and the concept of ‘buying correctly'06:11 – The fear of winning09:12 – Rehabbing properties and wholesaling17:45 – To buy, or not to buy?21:06 – Face-to-face negotiation tactics23:45 – David's mindset and why he's been a Traction member for years27:46 – Being comfortable with the uncomfortable31:22 – Dealing with taxes and investing in deductions33:16 – The most impactful thing Tom has taught David and the art of conversing with others38:45 – Advice David would give to the negotiation skeptics42:31 – Advice David would give to anyone hesitating to get involved in real estate investment53:21 – Overcoming the excuses and dealing with being a ‘perfectionist'1:00:47 – Tom thanks David for joining the show and sharing his storyTweetable Quotes“Back then it wasn't so much that I was investing, but I was fine-tuning my craft. I took a lot of courses. I learned a lot of information. I learned a lot, but I didn't know how to put it into action.” (01:36) (David)“People buy courses and they invest their money in education. But, education is only part of the equation; you have to put action behind it. And if you don't put action behind it, nothing's gonna happen. And a lot of time that inaction is because of fear.” (05:38) (David)“I don't deal with motivated sellers because they don't fit my criteria. I need HIGHLY motivated sellers. I need a person that I can ask the question, ‘If you don't buy from me and I don't buy from you, what's your next move?'” (10:57) (David)“With this particular wholesale deal, I gave three different offers. The chances of getting a house when you make three offers and they make sense is very high. It's a lot higher than just making one offer.” (22:09) (David)“One of the things that I learned about real estate is that sometimes you have to just go out on blind faith. People don't feel comfortable with that. And, if you're not gonna do it the way people who are successful are doing it, then that means that you're gonna try to learn it your way, which is going to take more time.” (27:46) (David)“You need to know how to talk to people. And if you can talk to people and make people relax around you, then they can believe in you. And if they believe in you, then they'll listen to what you have to say. If they're not sure about you - if you go in and they don't get a good vibe from them - it takes a lot of work before you can turn around and get them to believe in you later on. So, the best thing to do is, from the minute you meet them, be very humble.” (36:16) (David)“You have to know what your goal is. And based off your goal, you'll know what you need to do. So, if you need immediate cash, then you want to wholesale. If you want to develop legacy money, then you want to buy cheap. Sometimes it requires a combination of the two.” (44:50) (David)“When you buy something, know what your exit strategy is before you buy and stick to it.” (50:04) (David)Guest ResourcesTom's...

In the studio today is David Leon, Director of Workforce Programs at the Virginia Department for Aging and Rehabilitative Services (DARS), and Kate Kaegi, Project Manager for the DIF. In recognition of Disability Awareness Month, the second podcast of our DIF series includes David and Kate explaining how Virginia's DIF grant was initiated, implemented, and adjusted to best reach their initiatives of placing 750 individuals with disabilities in STEM and healthcare careers, registered apprenticeships, and State, County, and City jobs. Learn about the challenges they navigated and what they recommend when applying for a DIF grant.   Listen Here   Full Transcript:   {Music} David: Don't be afraid to apply for a diff grant. It is an amazing opportunity to infuse energy and enthusiasm into your workforce. It is a chance to stretch, learn new skills, try new programs. You get to see staff flourish and more importantly, get some really cool outcomes for the clients we serve.   Kate: I was a little intimidated with the idea of RSA, but what I have found is this RSA is there to help us. They want us to succeed.   David: You can accomplish some great things.   Speaker1: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow.   Carol: Well, welcome to the Manager Minute. Joining me in the studio today is David Leon, director for workforce programs at the Virginia Department for Aging and Rehabilitative Services, or DARS, and Kate Kaegi, project manager for the DEP. So David, how are things going at DARS?   David: They are great. We are plugging along, working on our grant. A colleague has a SWITZI grant, so it's been neat to really try a bunch of new things here in Virginia.   Carol: Very cool. So how are you Kate?   Kate: I am doing spectacular. Thank you for having me here today.   Carol: You bet. So, David, you and I had a chance to visit in a podcast on work incentives counseling in April of 22. And just so you know, you were one of my top five downloads. And when I think of Virginia, I always think of you and all the amazing things that have been cooking all the time. You guys always have something in the hopper and this is no different. So I started a series of podcasts focused on the diff grants and career advancement, and you are the second in my series and happened to fall in October with a nod to Disability Employment Awareness Month. So I want to just give our listeners a little snippet again about the diff grant. And so this particular round, the grant activities are geared to support innovative activities aimed at improving the outcomes of individuals with disabilities. And the Career Advancement Initiative model. Demonstrations were funded in federal fiscal year 2021. They were intended to identify and demonstrate practices supported by evidence to assist eligible individuals with disabilities, including previous served participants in employment who reenter the program to do the following. They were looking at advancing in high demand, high quality careers like science, technology, engineering and math, or those Stem careers to enter career pathways in industry driven sectors through pre apprenticeships, registered apprenticeships and industry recognized apprenticeship programs to improve and maximize competitive integrated employment outcomes, economic self-sufficiency, independence and inclusion in society, and to reduce reliance on public benefits like SSI, SSDI, or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and State or local benefits. Now, I remember reading in the announcement some of that sort of I thought it was disturbing data that provided the base for why RSA picked this particular area and chose to fund it. And they based it on the program year 2019, RSA 911 data. And some of the things that they said were participants that were exiting the program in competitive integrated employment reported a median wage of 12 bucks an hour and working like 30 hours a week. And the top ten most common occupations were reported. They were like stock clerks and they were order fillers, customer service reps, janitors, cleaners. I call it the whole Food, Filth and Flowers. So I know through this initiative they were trying to do more. So let's dig into what you guys have cooking in Virginia. David, tell our listeners a little bit about yourself. How did you get to VR?   David: Thanks, Carol. Started as a job coach years ago. We won't say when. It'll make me feel old, and I worked for a private nonprofit. I then assisted in Virginia, working with individuals, exiting a training center and moving towards community living. From there, I came back to the Richmond area to work for a community service board and again was a job coach and then worked within a sheltered work and day services program before coming to DARS, where I started with the Ticket to Work program and now have that the work incentives and a few grants and the workforce programs.   Carol: You and I have very similar backgrounds. I too was a job coach. I did work in a sheltered workshop for a while as well and all of that. It's always interesting how people find their way to VR. Kate, how about you? Why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and how you got to VR?   Kate: I kind of fell into this. A lot of times, similar to other people. Unexpectedly, I found out about East Carolina's rehab program and that they had a scholarship for people who wanted to get their master's. And I'm like, Oh, free money. So I jumped into that. Absolutely loved it. I did my internship at the Wilson Workforce and Rehabilitative Center. It was called something or a different title when I started back in the day. As I tell my kids, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, I was there, started off there as an evaluator and then kind of moved across the state, became a rehab counselor in the field, have done transition counseling, substance abuse counseling, went back to Boca Vale for a little bit, even dipped my toes into the world of job coaching and worked with David for a period of time at the CSV, came back to DARS, worked with the Department for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and also, as an aside, also had joined the military during that timeframe on the reserve side. So I'm out of that at this point. So I have quite an eclectic background. As a supervisor once said that I couldn't make up my mind what I wanted to do, but it was all overall 24 years of work working with individuals with disabilities in a variety of areas. So it really kind of dovetailed well for me to work in the first dif grant that we received prior to this grant where I was a VMA or Virginia Manufacturing Association liaison for our grant. And when we were working on this Phase two grant, it was just pulling from what we've learned previously and growing from there. And so here I am.   Carol: I love it, it positions you really well for the work under this new grant. Very cool. Thanks for sharing that. So, David, why don't you paint us a picture of Virginia DARS How many staff do you have? About how many people are you all serving?   David: Okay, DARS comprises the Division of Rehabilitative Services, the Disability Determination Services, Aging Services. We have roughly 28 to 30 offices around the state and are currently serving just around 18,000 clients. If you include Pre-ETS in those totals.   Carol: that's a bunch., holy cow. I didn't realize you guys were that big.   David: Yeah, and that doesn't include however many cases DDS is handling or our aging or the other units. But that's a little bit about DARS, and I like to say we stretch from the Atlantic Ocean all the way to almost as far west as Detroit. If you go down to Bristol, Virginia, which is technically a little further than Detroit. So lots of types of environments and communities and very unique challenges in different areas.   Carol: Yeah, so you're definitely facing different geographical issues and I'm sure probably even economic differences. You know, if you're talking the coast versus maybe more of a rural area. So I'm sure there's probably some challenges there with even getting providers or how you're providing services.   David: It's interesting. One of the things we've been able to see in, for instance, Southwest Virginia, there is an economic center that's only 16 miles away from an office. But to get there, you go over three mountains and it could take two hours. So are those jobs really accessible to someone without a vehicle? On paper from Richmond, it might look like, why aren't we placing folks in this community out of that office? Well, it's a two hour drive each way, and that's the only way to do it. You mentioned at the beginning those top ten job areas. And one of the things we're really trying to challenge ourselves with now is giving people the information to make an informed decision about a career choice. But if they choose a career that might not look as great, what is the best potential version of that job? What is the job within that sector that actually could become a career? So at the beginning when we were starting to work on this, our agency had been in order of selection for years with categories closed and with the pandemic. That all changed. But the clients we were seeing didn't change and their goals didn't change. I think that's going to be a longer term conversation. But if we can do things to promote the best version of a position. And so I'll just give you one example. And our commissioner, other folks would probably say, why do we have so many folks who want jobs in food service or in this? Because typically they're low paying. Typically there's a lot of turnover. It's hard to become stable. One of the first projects we worked on in this grant was a partnership with a school nutrition program, and we've been able to help a few individuals enter into work in a kitchen at a school where they have the same hours. Monday through Friday. They have the opportunity for benefits. In one case, we couldn't find transportation. That school system was allowing the individual to take the school bus for that person. That's a really stable job and it's somewhere they can grow and thrive for years. So I do want to just say we have to think a little bit differently about what Kate or I or others might think of as a career. How do we find that best option for someone where there is room for growth, but equally important room for that time for stability to get to mastery, to then look at other skills and hopefully down the road they'd come back, not because they lost that job and need it again, but because they've learned so much that they want to go on to the next thing of their own accord.   Carol: Yeah, I like that you said that because I remember that when we visited before talking about that best version of that job. So not to mean that no one can work in kind of food, filth and flowers. I know I say that and it sounds sort of condescending and it's not meant to be. But we typically relied on kind of those occupations, really entry level. But I like that you're taking a spin on that and really looking deeper because we need folks to work in those occupations too. And there's people that love doing that work. But how like you say, can you do the best version of that? So you have benefits and you're looking at those long term like working in a school district, you can get retirement and all these different really awesome things that go with that. So, Kate, I'm going to switch to you. So big picture, break it down for us on your grant proposal and what you're hoping to accomplish with I know you had said you have three core components. Talk a little bit about that.   Kate: Sure. I do want to make a caveat that I love about this grant is it is a demonstration grant, meaning we have the opportunity to try out innovative products and projects across the state. I just want to put a caveat on that to keep that in your mind as I'm going forward here. So our main goal is to place 750 individuals with disabilities in federal, state, county, city jobs and or registered apprenticeships or also Stem and health careers. So we have those three main components on that. And when we looked at this grant and David worked on the development and the proposal for this, we really wanted to touch individuals that had been kind of missed in the first grant. And this I think, is something as we're doing a grant, you're learning all the time. And we wanted to make sure that we were hitting those unserved and underserved across the state. So individuals that aren't as plentiful in different areas. So say like Winchester has a large Hispanic population, does that reflect the number served in the actual DARS office? How do we get Spanish speaking individuals more involved in DARS? How do we get women who may only recognize those areas that you talked about that flower filth? And because that's what they're aware of, that's the work they've done in the past. So I just need another job in that area. How can we open up some possibilities? Have you thought about the IT field? Have you thought about advanced manufacturing and can you see yourself doing that? So providing those opportunities, it's a way for us to look at those unserved and underserved across the state. And we're defining that as we're going and we're looking at the census data, we're looking at who we're serving within each state. And then we're also looking at our plans, the plans that the rehab counselors are creating. What are those plans? What is the main goal? Overall we see a lot of customer service because it's kind of a catch all. What does that mean? Is that customer service as a helpdesk technician as opposed to just somebody as a receptionist? So we're really helping both the VRC, the counselor, and the candidate explore possibilities like that.   Carol: I like that. I just love what you guys are doing and really fundamentally getting down, digging in and really focusing on those folks that have been underserved or unserved and just taking that twist on the occupation because there's a wide range like within customer service, you have the job from here to here.   Kate: Exactly.   Carol: Yeah, that is very cool. Now, I know you all had some really weird hiccups in the beginning when you were starting out with this particular grant. So what were some of those kind of hiccups and how did you overcome that? And Kate, I'll probably shoot to you first on this.   Kate: So part of the thing that I didn't mention was is that the roles that our team players have. So we have a liaison with Department of Labor and Industry, specifically the registered apprenticeship side. So they have their foot in the DOLI world and the foot in the DARS world. We also have a team member who has their foot in the Department of Human Resource Management Liaison, and then also her toes are also dipping in the DARS. So we've had some different team members on that. We also have a quick response, counselor, somebody who can go in and respond to immediate needs of employers, of an individual that might be working with them, that has a disability, that might need some help, whether that's in a registered apprenticeship or on that particular job. During the first year we hired and we had everybody up and running and we had two team members, one had a medical emergency and had to move away from the position because there was some driving involved. And then unfortunately, we had Lisa Hanky, who passed away unexpectedly on us. So, you know, you get all getting that hiring going and then all of a sudden we lost two individuals, so we had to restart that process.   David: But Kate, if I can add to that, and I believe this is true for everyone in our round of this DIF funding, I believe we were told two days before the beginning of the project, it was about a day after that that, you know, many agencies coming out of the pandemic have had challenges with staffing and we had those challenges in our procurement division. So getting contracts signed, getting those staff replaced. But the other thing that has been a challenge and we're finally coming out of. We created three positions that this agency has never had, and it had meant that we had to learn how to provide quality support to two other state agencies in the context of working with DARS and similarly with our quick response counselors. So we created these positions that we had an idea of how they could work. But once someone got into those roles and was learning the other agency, we've had to be flexible in understanding how they can actually benefit our clients and our agency. And that has been a learning process.   Carol: You guys bring up a really good point because I think sometimes when folks are applying for the DIF grant, you're not recognizing off the get-go That first year can be a struggle because like you said, you found out two days before and then you get the money. And then as we know with any state government, it takes time to hire and like to get through all those processes. And so RSA may be on one hand going like spend the money and you're like, we're trying, but we've got to get through all our HR processes and all this crazy stuff. So it takes a little bit to get rolling in that first year. And I know we often on the TA world are talking with people as they're applying for grants going just know as you're going into it that first year, you're probably not going to spend the amount of funds you projected originally because there's just is a time factor and getting through all of that.   Kate: Absolutely. That was the one thought that David and I, if you know, we apply for another one down the road, maybe making that first year a little bit less intensive and spreading it out from year 2 to 5 because that's where the major work will be done.   Carol: Yeah, that's smart. Very smart. So I know you guys were talking about some challenges. What are some other particular challenges that you're experiencing right now?   Kate: Well, I'll get started on that piece. One of the things we have found similar to the staffing, the challenge that we had when we first started of hiring individuals, we're finding a turnover in staff in DARS. And so we are having a lot of younger counselors that have, in some cases don't have a rehab background. They might have a social work background. So we have a lot of training that we're doing and then redoing on that. We're having a training coming up in October for the VOC rehab counselors and we're getting kind of back to basics. What makes a good referral for our Pathways Grant, looking at those possibilities of not just that receptionist job, let's look at helpdesk. What are the opportunities that are out there? And so that has been kind of a challenge, is just retraining. And I think this is kind of normal across the board. But these rehab counselors are busy. They have a lot more documentation they have to put in Aware. There's a lot more individuals coming through their door because we have the rapid engagements, so they are overwhelmed. And how can we dovetail our services to best support them, how to make the referral process as easy as possible for them, what supports make the most sense for them? So that's been one of the interesting challenges.   Carol: So, Kate, have you guys done anything around just the way in which your staff or the support of those counselors, do you have like other staff that are kind of wrapped around them, whether you call them maybe a rehab tech or some sort of a case aide or whatever it might be that can help the counselors with sort of all the documentation requirements and that kind of thing. Have you done some work in that?   Kate: Actually, here in Virginia, we do have support. We have vocational evaluators, placement counselors and what they call employment service specialists that run the job club and things like that. And they can help support with some of the paperwork. But similar to other states that actually have like a rehab tech that would do some of the counseling or the that kind of thing, not as much. And each office is run a little bit different. That's part of the appeal. And what I mean by that is, is some of the offices might not have a vocational evaluator, some might have a placement counselor that might be covering more than one office so that there is enough differences on that piece. But yeah, that has been a struggle for keeping all of that work and getting it done for them.   Carol: Yeah, You're definitely joined by your colleagues across the country on that. I keep hearing that over and over. David did you have anything else you wanted to add to that about any of the particular challenges?   David: Yeah, I think we wrote this knowing we needed to do some things better and serve certain populations differently to get to where people had the same outcome regardless of gender, race, ethnicity. And that is still a challenge. We are learning that we have a long way to go to effectively serve those folks who have English as a second language. And when we started the project, we started with like a counselor advisory board to help not only create buy in, but inform us what the counselors needed. We have now shifted to an advisory board geared towards helping us do better with the Hispanic Latino population, and that English is a second language. So we're hoping over this next year, working with members of our state who are representative of those groups will actually help us figure out what services are going to be most likely to bring people in for help. What supports we will need to think about providing for those individuals to be successful. And again, it goes back to how do we help people see for themselves greater opportunities and careers than they might have.   Carol: So are you linked in then with your like your WIOA partners on your adult basic ed side? Like under that, you know, the English as a second language, Like they're more expert than us in working with that group?   Kate: Absolutely. One of our key partners is the Virginia Adult Learning Resource Center, who teach the adult ed, they help support them across the state when we get further along I'll talk about some of the projects that we're working with with them.   Carol: Yeah, that's excellent. I love that. So I know you guys are seeing some exciting results. What kind of exciting results are percolating up?   Kate: So one of the things that we found as we're moving forward is we actually had working with adult Ed, we had a program that we were doing Intro to IT, where we're starting a basic starting platform for accounting fundamentals, and we were ready to go. We had seven individuals in this first cohort, and one of the things we found was the individuals that we met, even though we just came through Covid with all of the tech training, we had individuals they knew enough to get on to Zoom and to do some items, but we really needed to step back and do some basic tech training. So, they had enough gaps in their knowledge that they couldn't move forward without some major help. So what happened on this is, is we stepped back and started to do some digital literacy training and they moved forward with that. And each of those individuals are now moving forward with the accounting fundamentals this summer. So stepping back, we're actually looking at what we're calling digital work skills training, which is really exciting opportunity for individuals to get started with North Star digital literacy. We're working on goal setting some soft skill development just to get them started on that end. So we have individuals that would typically not be able to go to a virtual training actually get started there. And what we're finding with that end is, is that we have some individuals, you know, those customer service people who just want to do clerical, they're getting introduced to IT. And so we've had a few individuals that have moved on to our next training, which we call the Max Career Lab. And Max Potential is an employer here in Virginia. And I think they go into other states as well, several other states. And what they are, they're a temp agency for IT employment. So they hire individuals to work with Dominion, to work with, you know, with all these employers doing various IT. But they have a unique hiring model. They actually have an opportunity where individuals come in and they go through a career lab five day, three hours a day, 15 hours of a career lab. Then they do an interview. During those five days, they do an overview of data analytics, networking, all these different career areas. So they'll do an hour and a half of overview of the career, and then they do an actual interactive activity that they break out in groups for. So it's a great way to explore the IT field. So we've hired them to actually run career labs for us. They do the 15 hours, then they get homework and then they have an interview assessment. So the interview is just like a typical interview that they run, but they follow up with what activities that they're interested in. So this has been a wonderful way for us to explore different IT areas and to help individuals determine what area of IT they want to do. Here in Virginia, we're blessed. We've got Nova, we've got a lot of IT careers, but counselors and vocal evaluators don't always know how to direct somebody into the right avenue because technology is always changing. You know, cybersecurity, cybersecurity, that's always a great one, right? Because we're right here in Nova. However, not everybody wants to do cyber. Have you thought of data analytics? Have you thought of the different networking positions? Have you thought of machine learning? You know what, all is out there? And so it's an opportunity for us to do a hands on career exploration and next steps with an actual employer running the sessions for us.   Carol: That's cool. Yeah, I hadn't heard about a career lab before like that. That is very intriguing because so many people learn much better, you know, by actually experiencing seeing what that's about because it can sound cool. You read about something like the cybersecurity was the big deal, but then you get into it and you're like, Oh, I don't really want to do that, you know? So giving them that opportunity, I think that's fabulous.   Kate: Yes, and we have had our first cohort. We had 25 people sign up. We had 22 complete the whole piece. That includes the interview.  Of that group we had six individuals. So they compare the group together, but they also compare them to the other public groups that they have across the board. So of those individuals, six are encouraged to look at direct work experience. The rest have been encouraged to do a few other activities, like maybe develop more professional skills or develop more tech training, possibly, you know, accounting fundamentals. We had one that decided they did not want to do IT training. And I'm thinking, what a great opportunity you now know what you don't want to do. And for us, that can be great, right? So we're looking at some other options for that young man. It has been a wonderful opportunity. We're now in our second cohort and our hope is, is to keep continuing this as we're going through this grant and to see how we can set this up once the grant is over.   Carol: Very cool. Have you had any surprises kind of as you've started this. I know you're in year two. Are there any surprises?   David: I think there are always surprises. This is right. Staff and surprises some of the opportunities that have come up. I don't think we anticipated. So we've shifted to take advantage. One of the big pieces of this grant is our focus on state hiring and the individual we hired for that aspect worked diligently during the first six months with them on an alternative hiring process through the legislation, had a go live date, whether we were ready or not. And what we didn't understand is during the first year, this process, it wasn't available to current state employees who may be disabled. That created a lot of issues for folks who were upset that they couldn't access this to move up within state government. We weren't able to change that ourselves, but it was changed in legislation. And starting in July of this year, we were allowed to offer a certificate of disability to someone who was currently employed and that has seen an increase. We've had roughly 1500 people request certificates of disabilities. I think part of what was surprising is what a great opportunity that has become as a referral source for DAR's. Roughly 300 individuals have chosen to get more information and receive VR services, and we are seeing that as a really nice piece of the process. Additionally, I think we finally had our first individual who went from what we call part time wage employment to full time classified, which was one of the intents of the process we developed. So it's nice to begin to see that work. But for Kate and I, we have to remind ourselves some of this might take two, three, four years before we really actually see these things that could be possible in action. And I think the other big surprise there is just how great of a partner our Department of Human Resource Management has been. They recently allowed us to present to 120 hiring managers and we will be a regular part of their monthly recruitment network action meetings. They've bought into our use of windmills training. They advertise it every month and we are co-sponsoring a job accommodation network training in October for them that they will heavily market to state hiring managers. So I think that's been really great. And then the other surprise, it turns out that our division of registered apprenticeship within the Department of Labor and Industry is moving to a new state agency. So we will see what that does. You know, you think things are pretty stable and static in certain ways, but they can change. That's been a surprise. But it's not a good or bad. It just, you know, might be a chance to actually work with more of our partners more directly.   Kate: And David, another surprise that we had was the use of data. We have been doing some trainings with the field and they you know, when you bring numbers involved, people get a little, oh, I don't know if I want to touch this, but what we found was the counselors, the evaluators, the placement, they enjoyed looking at this data. They ate it up. So the use of data as a tool to look at who we're serving, how are we serving them, has been an eye opener. At least it was a surprise for me. Now I'm a vocational evaluator, so I love data and I thought I was, you know, unique. But I'm not you know, everybody is, you know, surprisingly likes that data.   Carol: Yeah.. Well, and definitely how you present it to the field, you know, if you're just like blah, blah, blah, whatever, they really are interested because it's the culmination of their work, you know, so they see what's happening. It really helps to paint that picture and then they can react and respond and do things in a different way in response to that data. So I think that's smart that you guys are doing that. Now. I know you both had talked about shifting the conversation around employment and shifting that whole narrative on barriers to advancement and employment. Talk a little bit about that.   Kate: So one of the things that the counselors are really good at is, is when somebody comes in the door and they say, hey, you know, I need help finding work. But when we look at the definition of what we do, it's getting and but it's also keeping or advancing in your career. So what is that advancement look like? So if you have somebody coming in who I need a job right away, maybe this is where somebody is going to go for a stock clerk. But what about the idea of doing a quick training so that they can get a credential in the Certified logistics associate and then moving from there, maybe when they do that interview, now that they have that credential, maybe they can ask for a little bit of a raise. And what is the next step on that piece? So we've definitely looked at that. How do we make, as David said, the most of the career that you're looking at or the other areas that we've already talked about? Let's look at other areas.   David: One of the things that actually came from one of our offices that they wanted was we've heard more and more about attrition and attrition from application to plan, but also attrition from plan before employment or before successful closure. And we have created a group called Work Wise, which is designed for individuals who have just become employed to meet once a week in the evening, talk about their jobs, have an opportunity with a staff person to talk through issues, challenges. It's been really a powerful group, and I've been pleasantly surprised at how the individuals who choose to participate in a couple of cases did not want to stop going when their case was closed because of how valuable it was to in close to real time talk through things that were happening at work with someone with a VR counseling background. And that has been a really powerful group because it's also given folks to learn from each other and get to that stability and confidence to maybe also look for future opportunities. I know we're getting ready to also hold a salary negotiation training for folks. So again, let's help people think through and have those skills now that they may use now or they may use later when an opportunity to move up comes around. And similarly, we've started a group that we're calling money wise where we've partnered with a local credit union with that hope of how can we help make sure folks maximize their the benefits they choose to take advantage of from an employer. How do we help someone make sure that if there's a 401 match and it's X amount, that they do that much at the very least, Right. Those things that everyone is told, Well, if there's free money from an employer, you take it or if there's tuition assistance or some other thing, maybe there are things to plant some seeds. So someone would continue to move forward.   Carol: I can see how so much of this work that you are doing is so foundational and will be of benefit to, you know, your other colleagues across the country with the things you've uncovered and the things that you are working on, these different classes and groups and all of that. I'm sure other people are going, Gosh, I want to do that too. I think this will be amazing to help plant the seeds across the country. Now, David, I know you were concerned about implementing something that could withstand the test of time. And I know DIF grants are meant it's a demonstration grant. You're trying something out, but you want to also be able to carry forward these ideas into the future. So how are you guys structuring this to make that happen?   David: We really are thinking about sustainability and to Commissioner Hayfield's credit, that's been one of the things that she and Dale Batten have really stressed to us. It's great to do great work in a period of time, but how can we make sure that the things that have the potential to be value add or transformative continue and don't just end the day the funding stops? And we've really thought through many of the activities that we are creating, we are working on from at the beginning. What would this look like when there's no funding? How will we continue these? It's part of our partnership with Valray. We're working to get some of these pieces put into Canvas and set up through that learning management system. But within some of the positions, you know, one of our hopes is that the DHRM VR liaison could become its own full time non restricted position at the end. Similarly, we would hope that for the others, or at least those activities become a part of multiple staff strategically throughout the state. And that's one way we're looking at it.   Kate: And yeah, we're looking at the train, the trainers, also the tools that we're using. One of the pieces for vocational evaluators would be English language acquisition and knowledge. So there are assessments that are out there that can test somebody's English language, which is important for us to know if we're working with individuals and we're trying to place them on the job. So how do we get the tools necessary into the hands of the individuals and trained up for that so that that can be moving forward? So we're being proactive for these individuals that we hope to come into our doors a little bit more often.   Carol: That's excellent. So what do you guys see as your next steps? Where are you going from here? The point you're at right now, what are the next steps?   Kate: So a lot of our programming that we're doing right now is in partnership with adult ed. We see a great marriage between DARS and Adult Ed because Adult Ed works with a lot of individuals with disabilities already. They're adult educators. They can provide a little bit more support for our learners for credential training. They've got different things that are across the state. I'm working with our rehab center, Wilson Workforce and Rehabilitation to really figure out how can we marry these? Right now I'm coordinating all these trainings. Is there a way that the center can provide this? And this gives the center an opportunity to look at a virtual environment? What does this look like? We're not sure what it looks like, but we're giving a try to see for that next piece so that max potential with the employer, can that be run through Wilson so that it is open and able to run after the grant is over.   Carol: So for our listeners that would want to apply for a grant, but they've been afraid to do so. What advice would you give to other people?   David: Don't be afraid to apply for a grant. It is an amazing opportunity to infuse energy and enthusiasm into your workforce. It is a chance to stretch, learn new skills, try new programs and get some great outcomes. If there are things you've wanted to try and you don't necessarily have the budget to do or don't seem to fit a demonstration grant is a phenomenal opportunity, and when I came into this agency under grants and special programs, usually we had to worry about things like a match component. And if you have the chance to apply for a grant where there isn't a match and you are willing to be patient with that work, you can accomplish some great things. You get to know your partners better. You get to see staff flourish and stretch and more importantly, get some really cool outcomes for the clients we serve.   Carol: Love that infuse that energy and enthusiasm. I wrote that down. That was a great. You're like giving a commercial for the RSA DIF Grants, that's awesome.   Kate: One thing I would add on this too is when I first came in eight years ago on the other grant, I was pretty much kind of a newbie in the grant world, and I was a little intimidated with the idea of RSA. But what I have found is, is RSA is there to help us. They want us to succeed. And if you have a solid grant application and know what you want to do, they will help you give you some ideas. They invited other states to meet with you to kind of talk about different things. So they have been very good about sharing knowledge and they want to see us succeed.   Carol: That sounds so great. Well, I am going to definitely tell our listeners like they should reach out to you too, if they've got some questions to reach out to David and Kate, because you all have a lot of very cool stuff cooking, and I'm sure you're willing to talk to others about what you've been doing as they're thinking about maybe applying some of this, even though they may not have a DIF grant, but applying some of the things that you're learning into their own work in their states?   Kate: Absolutely. We're here.   Carol: Excellent. Well, I appreciate you both. Thanks for spending time with us. And I look forward to circling back with you a little bit in a couple more years as time flies on this grant and see where you're coming in at and those good results. So have a great day.   David: Thank you very much.   Kate: Thank you.   {Music} Speaker1: Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time, brought to you by the VR TAC for Quality Management. Catch all of our podcast episodes by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening!  

When a business is sold, it can create a lot of anxiety and challenges for both the existing team and the new owners. Communication is critical to making the transition as smooth as possible so the business can continue and grow. Today's guest, David Nemes, is an entrepreneur and an active business investor who's been part of several acquisitions.On this episode of The Clarity Advisors Show, David and host Ken Trupke discuss the challenges that come with the transition to new ownership, and David talks about his experience working on bank closures.Timestamps(00:59): David's background(03:01): Ensuring a smooth transition(04:38): Communicating before the deal's done(05:58): Mistakes David's made and what he's learned(07:51): Building internal support(13:13): How David got into bank closures(17:38): Explaining loss share(20:19): Things that work and don't work(23:44): David's recommended reading and listening(27:10): Ways to connect with David Nemes Episode Quotes“Walking in on Day One, you're not the smartest person in the room.” (David)“It's always an awkward kind of moment because there's fear. So, you've just got to really be warm and tell them it's going to be okay and we're going to do the right things.” (David)“One of the things that I've learned is to have some industry expertise that you can bring in with you, whether that's just someone advising or the old owner sticking around. But you need a plan for leadership transition.” (David)“I like to say I'm a mile wide and inch deep on a lot of things, and I'm a quick learner. But there's nuance to every industry.” (David)“In my experience, coming into companies as an advisor, it's helpful to build some kind of internal champions – people you can count on to tell you what's happening. They don't necessarily have a position, but they've been around long enough, or they've just got the respect of the people.” (Ken)“We're not going to be successful doing nothing. We are going to be successful doing something, even if it's not exactly right. At least we're trying.” (David)“The phrase I like to use is, ‘We can't steer a parked car,' so let's at least get the car moving.” (Ken)“You have to first understand how you think and what drives you and your behaviors.  You have to be comfortable in your own skin about who you are and how you operate and understand that not everyone's going to operate there, no matter what you try to force them to do.” (David)“There's capital, there's opportunity, and there's operators. I am not an operator. I help operators reach success.” (David) Recommended Reading and ListeningInsights from Oak Tree Capital by Howard MarksWarren Buffet's annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholdersThe Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else by Hernando De SotoConnect with David NemesDavid Nemes on LinkedIn  

1 Kings 9 NLT read aloud by Simon MacFarlane. 1 So Solomon finished building the Temple of the Lord, as well as the royal palace. He completed everything he had planned to do. 2 Then the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time, as he had done before at Gibeon. 3 The Lord said to him, “I have heard your prayer and your petition. I have set this Temple apart to be holy—this place you have built where my name will be honored forever. I will always watch over it, for it is dear to my heart. 4 “As for you, if you will follow me with integrity and godliness, as David your father did, obeying all my commands, decrees, and regulations, 5 then I will establish the throne of your dynasty over Israel forever. For I made this promise to your father, David: ‘One of your descendants will always sit on the throne of Israel.' 6 “But if you or your descendants abandon me and disobey the commands and decrees I have given you, and if you serve and worship other gods, 7 then I will uproot Israel from this land that I have given them. I will reject this Temple that I have made holy to honor my name. I will make Israel an object of mockery and ridicule among the nations. 8 And though this Temple is impressive now, all who pass by will be appalled and will gasp in horror. They will ask, ‘Why did the Lord do such terrible things to this land and to this Temple?' 9 “And the answer will be, ‘Because his people abandoned the Lord their God, who brought their ancestors out of Egypt, and they worshiped other gods instead and bowed down to them. That is why the Lord has brought all these disasters on them.'” 10 It took Solomon twenty years to build the Lord's Temple and his own royal palace. At the end of that time, 11 he gave twenty towns in the land of Galilee to King Hiram of Tyre. (Hiram had previously provided all the cedar and cypress timber and gold that Solomon had requested.) 12 But when Hiram came from Tyre to see the towns Solomon had given him, he was not at all pleased with them. 13 “What kind of towns are these, my brother?” he asked. So Hiram called that area Cabul (which means “worthless”), as it is still known today. 14 Nevertheless, Hiram paid Solomon 9,000 pounds of gold. 15 This is the account of the forced labor that King Solomon conscripted to build the Lord's Temple, the royal palace, the supporting terraces, the wall of Jerusalem, and the cities of Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer. 16 (Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, had attacked and captured Gezer, killing the Canaanite population and burning it down. He gave the city to his daughter as a wedding gift when she married Solomon. 17 So Solomon rebuilt the city of Gezer.) He also built up the towns of Lower Beth-horon, 18 Baalath, and Tamar in the wilderness within his land. 19 He built towns as supply centers and constructed towns where his chariots and horses could be stationed. He built everything he desired in Jerusalem and Lebanon and throughout his entire realm. 20 There were still some people living in the land who were not Israelites, including Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. 21 These were descendants of the nations whom the people of Israel had not completely destroyed.[f] So Solomon conscripted them as slaves, and they serve as forced laborers to this day. 22 But Solomon did not conscript any of the Israelites for forced labor. Instead, he assigned them to serve as fighting men, government officials, officers and captains in his army, commanders of his chariots, and charioteers. 23 Solomon appointed 550 of them to supervise the people working on his various projects. 24 Solomon moved his wife, Pharaoh's daughter, from the City of David to the new palace he had built for her. Then he constructed the supporting terraces. 25 Three times each year Solomon presented burnt offerings and peace offerings on the altar he had built for the Lord. He also burned incense to the Lord. And so he finished the work of building the Temple. [...]

Paula David's one woman show is a journey through menopause and a discovery of self.It is poetic and musical, has movement and dance and examines something that all women experience and few have the courage to speak about.  It is also highly amusing!Paula spoke to us about the show ahead of her one night at the Exchange in Twickenham on 29th March as part of the One Woman Wednesday season.Book tickets for the show here:https://exchangetwickenham.co.uk/event/blood-sweat-vaginas/Guest:  Paula DavidHost:  Lottie WalkerEditor:  Harry JacobsThank you for listening. If you've enjoyed today's podcast do subscribe via your streaming platform so that you never miss an episode and you can catch up on past episodes.If you'd like to help us to keep the podcast going in these tough times, please consider becoming a patron. It's really easy to do. Just go to :https://www.patreon.com/bluefiretheatreif you're more comfortable with a one off donation you can do this via our website:https://www.bluefiretheatre.co.uk/or buy us a coffee on:https://ko-fi.com/bluefiretheatreEven the smallest donation helps us get our shows on the road and keep the lights on in the studio and we are so grateful for all your help and support.And finally...don't forget to follow us on social media. We'd love to hear from you!Find us at:https://twitter.com/famous_heardhttps://www.instagram.com/bluefire_tchttps://www.facebook.com/bluefirepodcast

In the studio, today is David D'Arcangelo, Commissioner of the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind. David has focused on making MCB the best it can be. Learn about the concept of disability as a qualification, the Accessibility Technology Survey, the entrepreneurial program developed with NIB, and dig into the 32 reallotment projects MCB has done over the past few years.   David is the Idea Guy and shares a lot of information in this brief 30-minute conversation.   Find out more about what is happening at MCB:     MCB Home Page 2020 Reallotment Project Summary 2021 Reallotment Project Summary   Listen Here   Full Transcript {Music} Speaker1: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow.   Carol: Well welcome to the Manager Minute. Joining me in the studio today is David D'Arcangelo, Commissioner of the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind. Thanks for joining me today, David. How are things going in Massachusetts?   David: Going very well. Looking forward to a great 2023. And thanks for having me again.   Carol: You bet. Me too. I love this 2023. I have my little resolutions for this year. You know, I really want to be intentional. That's one of my things. So I know I had you on the show over a year ago and we were talking about some of your great employment strategies during National Disability Employment Awareness Month. And you have had so many cool initiatives going on in your state that I think of you as the Idea Guy. I put you and Joe Xavier from California up there as two bold leaders in VR that we can all learn something from. Now, I know you've been keeping your head down and really looking forward focused on making your agency the very best it can be. And it also seemed like you were having some just really amazing employment successes for customers during COVID. So now more than ever, we need to take some serious steps to address the problem of spending VR dollars and improving outcomes. And you started looking at the problem when you first started at MCB and you hit the ground running. So let's dig in. I know we have lots to talk about. So David, can you remind our listeners about yourself? Where did you come from and how long have you been at MCB?   David: Sure. Well, I'm a consumer of MCB also, and being legally blind from a young age. I remember getting VR services back when I was in junior high school and high school. So that's really my first impression with MCB was as a consumer, as a young man. But since joining MCB in 2018, I came over from the Office on Disability, where I was the director of the Massachusetts Office on Disability. So when the MCB position opened up and got an opportunity to serve. And, making great strides for these past five years and looking forward to hopefully more time to be able to get our people employed and help lead our people to more independence and self determination.   Carol: That's awesome. So can you tell us a little bit about MCB? Like, how many staff do you guys have and how many customers are you serving currently?   David: Sure. So we're one of the first blindness agencies in the country. We often argue with Connecticut, if they were first, we were first, but we were established in 1906 with one of our first commissioners being Helen Keller. So we have a long history and track record of providing services for people with blindness throughout Massachusetts. We currently serve approximately 24,000 people in Massachusetts with all types of services. Massachusetts is a little bit different than many of the other states. We don't provide just for VR services, and that's not to diminish VR services, but we also provide what we call our services or social rehabilitation services and deafblind extended support services. So we serve people who are blind and deafblind and people with blindness and then additional significant disabilities. So that adds up. Our 24,000 people and our range of blindness really is the whole spectrum. So everybody from hi partial and legally blind like me all the way to somebody who has no light perception at all. And we know from the data that we've collected that actually there's probably more people at MCB as consumers who have visions closer to me than vision, closer to somebody who has no light perception at all. So we've got some data that's going to be coming out that I would encourage everybody to look at. We did an assistive technology survey recently with all of our consumers that really reveals information that I think people will take notice of because many times people were thinking that, oh, well, your consumers, they can't see, so they're not on the Internet or they're not taking part with this technology. And our survey really sheds new light on that. So stay tuned for that. You can check that out on our website, Mass.gov/MCB. It's really going to be an important survey when we reveal these results. It's going to be eye opening for people.   Carol: Well, cool. Yeah. Shoot me a note when that comes out. I'm really interested in seeing that. Do you also serve individuals like starting as babies? Like because some programs I know do that. We did not in Minnesota but I know some start very young with kids.   David: Yeah in Massachusetts we serve people from birth to death. So cradle to grave with all of our services and the social rehabilitation services that we provide are really geared around independence and self determination. So we will start providing services as soon as somebody gets that mandatory report of legal blindness and they're declared, which we are the keeper of, that we register somebody as legally blind after their doctor, their eye care provider, has provided us with that record. And then we get the services flowing, whether it's teaching Braille or providing assistive technology, orientation and mobility, training, all of these core services, we really believe getting those in place first.   Carol: Yeah   David: That's really going to help in terms of VR. It's setting the bedrock so people are already independent and self determined and then can focus on their career goals.   Carol: Yes. So smart. You've got the foundational pieces in place and early, you know, you're getting at the students early, which is incredible. That is great. That is great. So I really liked your getting grounded in that three part framework. You talk about it and I was reading it again on your website about the Path to Prosperity is Paved with Perseverance. Can you tell me more about that?   David: Sure. Carol, thanks. Really. I first said that publicly during the commencement address that I gave for Lesley University's Threshold Program. Lesley University has a great program for people with intellectual disabilities where they provide a college like experience. And back in 2017, when I was director of the state's Office on Disability, I had the great opportunity to be able to provide the commencement address there. And that's really where I first laid out that I believe the path to prosperity is paved by perseverance. Or what does that mean? I think that becoming employed is not a one step thing. There are many steps on that path on your career journey. So we really try to instill in to our consumers here at MCB that there is no get rich quick scheme. This is not a one click approach like so many of us are conditioned today through these devices and through technology. Just one click in your in. Getting a career, getting employed, getting your job, getting on that path to prosperity takes many steps. You got to hang in there because it's not easy. If it was easy, it would be done easily and everybody would do it. Everybody would be a multimillionaire. It takes many steps and depending upon your disability or in mass commission for the blind on your blindness, there's such a spectrum. And really we have to work with everybody individually because everybody is in a different stage in life. And some people are aging into blindness. Some people, it comes upon them quickly. Some people have it from a young age, some people come to it at mid age. It's so different for everybody. And we really just want to make sure that people are clear what the expectations that we're going to be with them through their journey along this path and that it does take time. All good things come in time. So that's really what the path to prosperity is paved with. Perseverance is about that you've got to persevere. These are challenging things. The very essence of being a person with a disability. Disability comes with challenge, It does. And so we try to get people to accept their disability, accept that challenge and then help them work through it. And so I believe in people and I believe anybody can become employed. I think work matters. I think it goes to the identity of a person. If I were to see you in the grocery store and we would have strike up a conversation, invariably one of the first questions that you or I would ask each other is, Well, so what do you do? And if you're employed, you're going to tell me about your job because it goes to the identity, it goes to who you are and what you're accomplishing. So work matters. Our consumers matter, and that's why we want to try to get them employed, because there's so many contributions in our community that we're trying to bring out for the benefit of our consumers, but also for the benefit of society. I really believe that our people have a lot to give and you've got to hang in there. That's part of being on the path to prosperity.   Carol: I think that is one of the cool things with blind services. It's very foundational. All the things that you have to learn. And I remember being at Minnesota blind and just seeing that, especially with people that came in that were new to their vision loss and it happened abruptly. Something happened, an illness or something overnight almost, and you wake up and you can't see and everything changes. How you read, how you get around in the world, how you get around in your home and your clothes and like how you do everything and having to learn all those foundational pieces first and getting that acceptance and then working on work skills because you can't just launch right into that when somebody goes, I don't even know if I'm wearing the orange socks with the black suit. I don't know what I have on.   David: One of the initiatives we've been working on and we keep advancing is something that I came up with about ten years ago that I've been trying to encourage people in VR to embrace, and that is the concept of disability as a qualification. I really believe that the lived experience that our people have to learn to problem solve around is a qualification in and of itself. Let me give you an example. If I were to take somebody with good vision and ask them to cross a busy intersection, they probably wouldn't think twice of it. Right?   Carol: Right.   David:  But to take one of our consumers who can't see and ask them to cross an intersection, the skills involved and the intestinal fortitude involved with crossing that intersection. You know what? I want that person on my team, if they're going to be able to go out and have the intestinal fortitude to be able to do that and then the demonstrated skill to be able to do it, because that takes sophistication, if that life experience does not qualify you for some type of role that deals with problem solving. How many employment opportunities are there out there for people who are good problem solvers, for people that have a solid backbone and won't just roll over? Right?   Carol: Right. I love that you say that.   David: Those are qualifications, those matter.   Carol: They do matter. So I'm just going to say a little thing about me. When we were in Minnesota at the blind agency, all of the leadership team and the VR counselors, the staff, you had to go through six weeks of sleep shade training, so you were under sleep shades for six weeks. And so doing that as a new director myself, having that experience, it's just a taste, but we did go to one of our Adjustment to Blindness Training Centers. We had the experience of the classes all day under sleep shades. I still remember at the end of the day, walking out. I had my cane. I was still had my sleep shades on. I'd taken them off and I got in my car. I scared a lady that was across the street. She's like, That blind lady is driving now, but getting that very firsthand experience about that problem solving that goes into everything you do during the day that is so interesting and very applicable to the world of work, for sure.   David: Yeah. So that's why we're pushing disability as a qualification. We believe that those lived experiences are going to help employers and a really good qualifications for employees.   Carol: Yeah, that's very cool. Very interesting thought. So I want to take you back to 2020. You asked for reallotment dollars, but you had some very specific initiatives you wanted to accomplish and in fact, you were dealing with the pandemic and you wanted to figure out your role in pioneering a path forward in a post-COVID recovery. So talk to me about what went into that 2020 that ask for reallotment dollars and kind of how you framed up all of those initiatives.   David: Sure. Well, we wanted to make the best use of our time knowing that we were not going to have the community interactions and be able to travel freely like we had been doing. So we said, let's study this and let's come up with some things now, some of the things we had put in motion, some of the plans that we had put in motion were prior to COVID. So it seemed that we were prescient on some of them, like our ad campaign we did, What's Your Vision? So now we've been on Massachusetts television with our announcements, not just public service announcements, but paid ads to be able to get the message out to employers, Hey, we've got candidates for you and get the message out to our consumers that, hey, we'll work with you to get on this path to employment. So there's campaigns like that. But then we followed it up. Once we knew COVID was in there and we did our Quest for Independence, which is a graphic novel which is aimed at not only the consumer, but people in the consumer's sphere of influence, their brothers, their sisters, their fathers and mothers and guidance counselors and people there so that those people can understand the path to employment that we lay out in the process that we do. So it starts at pre training and goes through all of the steps along the way and we make it like a questing journey. We made it like kind of cool and try to put it in a format that people of Pre-ETS age would be more apt to buy into. So many of the VR documents are black and white text only small print, like who's reading that? Who's consuming that? Certainly not a 15 or 18 year old person that we're trying to get interested in the workforce. So whether it's things like that or whether it's studying Disability as a Qualification that we just talked about or trying to do some of the other surveys that we put together, we really tried to make the best use of our time. I think in all total now we're up to 32 or 34 reallotment projects that we've done over the past three or four years.   Carol: Oh my gosh!   David: Yeah. We've really tried to make good use of our time and build the catalog of information. And all of this is available to VR people if they want to visit our website again, Mass.gov/MCB. All of the re allotment projects are out there. We have studies on the Built Environment in the Workplace. We have studies on Disability as a Qualification on Assistive Technology. So many different topics we have data on as well as these ad campaigns. We did one with Sleep Machine recently. We worked up 16 different types of consumers and interactions that it's not a one size fits all approach. We really got it into 16 different approaches, so it tries to suit all of the different demographic areas, and that's a VR approach that we took so many different projects that we encourage people to find out more on our website.   Carol: I know you did a lot of data analysis. There were a lot of projects around different data analysis, so maybe talk about one or two of those and how you used that data to now kind of inform your programming or whatever you're doing now at the agency.   David: Well, the assistive technology one is a perfect example like. When I came to MCB and I said, I want to do a survey, they kind of like chuckled and I'm like, Why do you want to do? And I said, Well, how many of our people have email or how many of them use the Internet? I remember distinctly without naming names, but some really veteran VR people saying, none of our people use the Internet Commissioner or they don't do this. Well, come to find out that 70% use it daily. That right there was like informing our programming because no longer was I going to allow this myth to be put forward that our people don't use the Internet. That's just not so. Now we've got to make sure that we're making these sites accessible. So a recent proposal that I've been working on is a registered apprenticeship program for our consumers who are blind. Who better to make these websites accessible than people who are already using screen reader technology? So we're trying to get two registered apprenticeships, one in making web pages accessible, and then the other for making other online things accessible apps and forms and documents online and things like in the electronic space. So we're working right now with the Department of Labor, but we're also seeking other states. You need five states to be able to make a cohort to do it. So if people are interested in joining our cohort, please contact us and let us know if you want to join in this registered apprenticeship program that we're going to be launching soon.   Carol: That's super cool and very smart and needed. I mean, there's a lot of sites, a lot of websites in a lot of trouble because they are not accessible. I love that you did the Assistive Technology survey. I've thought for years, like the invention of Apple and the iPhone and all of that single handedly changed just information for people who are blind, visually impaired because that device is accessible and it was built-in. There's so many cool apps now and things out there that our folks are using now. I know you also contracted out for your comprehensive Statewide Needs Assessment and that that isn't necessarily new. A lot of states do that because it's much easier to contract with someone than do it yourself. But what was different about that particular assessment and how do you use the information that you got from that?   David: Yeah, again, I think that was the one where we put it out there and the awarded bidder I think was the public consulting group. So they're a pretty big firm. They had worked in other states before. I think one of the things that they had worked in was like Indiana. And so we work with them. Obviously our sister agency, MRC, we wanted to make sure that we were kind of on the same page as well. So I think that helped and really it helped strengthen the things that we already knew we were doing well. They really came in and were able to look at that and say, Yeah, you know what, you should probably keep doing that. Did identify some areas and we've made some adjustments as well. And I think now in this post COVID world, we were prescient that we were trying to already get our people to be able to work remotely, whether it be our staff, who a significant amount of our staff are actually our consumers also, which were very prideful in that they'd been remote prior to COVID. And so now the trends in employment with less and less people in an office environment, we really were again, a little bit ahead of the curve in trying to predict that We think that's where the workforce is going. There's going to be more and more opportunities that are away from an office environment. So if you can work online effectively, that's just going to increase opportunities for our consumers.   Carol: Oh, I agree 100%. So how has all of this helped your numbers? Like where are you at today? Do you feel like have things moved up or are you getting customers back? How about people getting into employment, all these different initiatives? Has it led to some success and outcomes?   David: Yes, it has led to success and outcomes. Our numbers are up generally across the board. There's a couple of exceptions, but things we really like to talk about is the nature of the jobs that we're able to help our people navigate into. And just to be clear, we are very up front with our people. People like, get me a job, get me a job. We're very upfront with them and say, we can't get you a job. We can help you get you a job. We don't get anybody jobs. Our consumers get themselves jobs. We're there to help and build value and work within whether it be any of the networks that we develop with stakeholders or using the existing public systems or education, whatever the case may be. It's consumer driven, it's consumer informed, and it's consumer driven. We make that clear that really we're just a partner in this, and it's up to the consumer to be able to make the final decision. One of the things that I think is very successful is that there's more choice than ever before. I think our consumers were faced with maybe one opportunity, and if they didn't take it, it was like, all right, let's start all over again. Or, you know, now let's go on another six month search. Now our consumers are being presented with multiple offers, multiple opportunities. That's a really good sign. Another really good sign is the nature of the jobs that they're getting. We're now going past just the entry level job or the base job, and we're into more management. Some of our placements are six figure placements. These are consumers that many of them have been with us for a while, but some are fairly new. So like before, this is where I think our ad campaign is really helped us because consumers who maybe hadn't approach MCB before are now approaching MCB. So we're doing our best to reduce the stigma of what it means to join MCB. So many people before who were low vision, high, partial, legally blind...   Carol: Yes...   David: ...didn't really feel that they were. Well, I can see I'm not really blind. Well, if you're legally blind, then you're entitled to the services. And so people with existing track records of employment that they've been in the workforce for 20 years and now they've lost their vision. Before, many of them were just leaving. And then we would find out five years later, well, I left because I was depressed or I left because I couldn't do the job. Now we get to them more quickly and actually work with them and the employer to let them know, Hey, we're there for you. We're there to provide these reasonable accommodations. We're there to emphasize the great skills that you have. So many of these things can be remediated now with technology. So we're seeing six figure placements. We're seeing management level placements. These are all very encouraging signs. But again, they didn't just happen overnight. It's the culmination of all of these programs working together. And most importantly, let me just give a great shout out to our counselors, our VR counselors develop these relationships and work with these consumers. And really, they're part of the secret sauce here, sitting at their kitchen table with them and their families and letting them know that we're going to be there with them. I think that's irreplaceable. And you can create whatever program you want and fund it however you want. At the end of the day, that needs to happen. Without that, I don't think we'd be having the success that we're having.   Carol: I love that. I know your PSA campaign was really clever because I had looked at the ads. Very cool. Are you still continuing to do that? Is that still going on?   David: Yeah. So we're looking at another reallotment project to fund another ad buy. We're going to have a dialogue with RSA about it. I think we can show that we got results from it and if we can, I'm hoping that they'll say that that's a good use of the money. You know, right now we've gone through some change. We've had a significant aging of our MCB workforce. We've had retirements of people that have been at the agency for 40 years, 38 years, 39 years. So I think COVID really helped in a way where it gave people a pause to be able to adjust. And that's not only our consumers and our counselors, but really like the whole workforce. And as a result, many people are saying, you know what, it's now time I've put my time in and it's time to give it up to the next generation, which is good. But it's a challenge because now we spent a significant amount of time trying to backfill these positions and like something with orientation and mobility. I think one of our O & M people we got from California, another one from Michigan. So hunting around trying to find talent can be challenging and we're certainly not trying to raid other agencies or muscle other competition out because Massachusetts is the state where the cost of living is quite high. We want to make sure if we're getting people here, that they're positioned for long term success. So we've definitely been trying to navigate some of that, as I think many of my colleagues can probably resonate with on at their state level.   Carol: Oh yeah, that is the hot topic of the day. The mass retirement and kind of exodus of people out of VR. I know when I was at Minnesota, this is, you know, ten years ago I walked in the door in HR hands me a list saying I think it was over 50% of the staff were eligible to retire in the next three years. I just went, what? And they did, you know, people did because people have been with the agency. They all started together. They'd been there 30, 40 years together. And they all went. And then that just got exacerbated by the pandemic. People going out the door for sure. If people are wanting to find your PSA information, is that also on your website still?   David: It sure is. And it's on our YouTube channel as well. When I came to MCB, we had no social media. Now we've got Instagram and Facebook and Twitter and our own YouTube channel and all of these avenues that we've gotten such great input from our consumers and their families because, yeah, it's about serving the consumer, but it's also about serving their families because that's oftentimes the people that are working with the consumers just as much, if not more than our counselors. So it's about empowering the whole consumer. And what I mean, the whole consumer, I mean, it's their extended family. It's their spouse or their son or their daughter or their niece or their nephew. They're aunt, their uncle or their friend or neighbor. It takes a village. And we've had good success with that approach.   Carol: Great. It absolutely does take a village. Can you give that website address one more time?   David: Yeah, sure. It's. Mass.gov/MCB. So, its Mass dot gov. Forward slash m c b.   Carol: Excellent! Yeah. Because I know you have a lot of really good stuff out on the website, so I know you are always thinking you don't ever stop. You're on to the next thing. So what's up on deck next for MCB?   David: Yeah, I think we just need to continue to now emerge from the pandemic and continue to assimilate so many new staff that we've got. I mean, I think of our 130 staff, about 40 of them are new within the past couple of years. So there's a big assimilation going on, number one, but really making sure that our community feels safe to get back out there and independent and self determined, ready to go. That's job one.  Is getting that adjustment to blindness, that acceptance of blindness, continuing to find new consumers to be able to provide the services to. Then once we do that, then at the tried and true, it's wash, rinse, repeat on what our counselors and what VR has established so well. It's mentoring and then interning and then interviewing and then getting a job and then staying upwardly mobile in that job and trying to move up into management or entrepreneurial. And one of the new things we're working on that we piloted last year successfully with National Industries for the Blind is this entrepreneurial program. We really believe that that is the future for many of our consumers that are interested in a small business opportunity, and that is establishing an e-commerce presence online where you own your own thing and you're really an entrepreneur at that point, selling products and services online through their accessible platform. For years, we tried to get our consumers interested in selling on Amazon or eBay or these other e commerce platforms. But the platform itself, the app, the technology itself was not accessible to screen readers working with the national industries of the blind and tremendous credit to them for investing a significant amount of their time and resources into making an e commerce platform that is accessible for screen reader technology. This is a huge opportunity for people with blindness who are interested in being their own business owner online in the e commerce space. Like I said, we piloted last year. We proved the proof of concept. We have another class now going in. I would encourage anybody who thinks they have a consumer interested in this space to contact national industries of the Blind. Mention the pilot with Massachusetts that we've done. They'll know what you're talking about and get your consumers enrolled because this really is the future and it's a great opportunity.   Carol: Yeah, I thought that was a super smart idea when I was reading because that was one of your re allotment projects was to study it and to look at it and to figure that out so that can actually be a viable option for your customers.   David: That's right. We didn't just rush in horns first. We studied it, we spent time, looked around, conferred with NIB, and NIB has done a great job. Like I said, they've really made a major investment here and using their Ability One shops that they've had, they have such a tremendous network of providers and vendors that many of the products, I think it's about half of the products are actually made by blind people also. So it's almost like a double win when you really get down to it. To be able to sell these products online. We're very optimistic about it. Good things start humbly and that's where we started. We started with the first class. I think we started with 12 people. Then it went to 6 because some people didn't have the screen reader skills necessary that you would need. Then from the 6,, 3 of them dropped out because they didn't want to own the lemonade stand. They just wanted to work the lemonade stand right there from the 3. It went to 2 and then 1 ended up actually seeing it all the way through and becoming profitable. So we've proved the proof of concept. We just now need more consumers. So if you've got consumers in your area, let's get them going.   Carol: Well, it always starts with 1. You need one, you know, and then there's 2 and then there's 3 and it keeps moving up. That's great. At least it gives another opportunity. And it really is the gift that keeps on giving. You know, when you look at using those reeallotment dollars, it doesn't just benefit you. In Massachusetts, the work that you're doing can benefit the whole country.   David: Yeah, I really think that, Carol. And if people again go to Mass.gov/MCB, look at the, again now, I think it's either up to 30 or 32 different real allotment projects that we've done. There's quite a bit of information in there from studies to these campaigns to the Quest for Independence guide that we did, all of these different things. they're there for everybody else to be able to use. If we've had success, you can just kind of repurpose it and have success in your area with it.   Carol: Well, and your quest to  independence. Guide You've been being very modest about it, but that is hilarious because it's a comic book and you're the superhero. In it. It is the coolest thing. I thought that was the most clever thing I had seen in that Pre-ETS space.   David: Well, thanks, Carol. If it leads to one more employment, then we'll be pleased.   Carol: Yeah, that's cool. So, David, I know there's a lot of new directors across the country like you were a few years ago. What kind of advice would you give them as they're wrestling with ways to effectively spend their funds?   David: Yeah, it would really be, Don't just settle for what has been done previously. I've found the people at RSA to be very supportive, to be willing to listen, and just because it hasn't been done doesn't mean it can't be done. Find out what your consumers need and then figure out how to backtrack that to these federal dollars to be able to get them the resources that they need to be successful, whether it's a small business enterprise or Randolph Shepherd or they want to go to kind of a more traditional route of getting employed, whatever the case may be. There's a program that can be crafted to individualize everybody so that they feel like the job they're getting is the job for them, because that's what we want you to spend so much time getting somebody in the workforce. We want to make sure these people are staying in the workforce, staying gainfully employed, because again, we really believe that independence and self determination, that's the thing that you've got to get through so that people can long term stay viable on their own.   Carol: Well, well said. Thanks so much for being on the show today. I've been a big fan of yours for a long time and I just really wanted to get your message out to our listeners and have folks look at your website and the very cool things you can do. I know there's a synopsis of all of your projects so people can get a really good sense of what you did and what you learned. I think it was brilliant, so I wish you the very best of luck in 2023 and thanks for joining me today.   David: Carol, Thanks so much. You do such a great job. I appreciate you. Thanks for everybody for listening. And please contact us if we could be a support in any way.   Carol: Thank you.   {Music} Speaker1: Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time, brought to you by the VR TAC for Quality Management. Catch all of our podcast episodes by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening!

ORN Dawn Lester and David Parker show notes 10/18/22 Part one Their book: The Nature of Reality; It's Stranger Than You Think How to determine what is or isn't fake news regarding health? Looked at original papers, books in libraries, multiple sources, rather than the censored internet. Dr. Stefan Lanka trained as a virologist. Perfect candidate to tear virology apart. Tenet of Lester/Parker book that there no viruses is accepted by well-respected researchers. Must read the methodology to understand the validity of research papers. Sources coming up with more charades to hide that there is no virus. Want to keep people in fear. There never was a COVID disease. No one died from COVID. Symptoms and illness were given a false label. What are they ill from? Not germs. Toxic substances, poor nutrition? Historically, corporations and US Army caught spraying toxic stuff on the populace. Dr. Kary Mullis, inventor of PCR test, said it shouldn't be used to prove an illness. British government banned autopsies on people who supposedly died from COVID. No excess deaths during the “pandemic”. UK April 2020 2 week death peak explained by use of ventilators and high dose hydroxychloroquine. Propaganda that hospitals were full and overrun. Fear can also manifest as a disease. Quantum physicist said: There's no out there out there. You can create a reality and interact with it, e.g. when you're dreaming, that's solid and separate to you. Are dreams just the day's debris? Or their own reality? Are we here to learn who we are and what our reality is? Energy attributed as the basis of all creation. But we don't know what energy really is. E = MC2 is telling you how much energy is required to give the appearance of matter. People don't understand the nature of reality until they realize matter, energy, and consciousness are the same thing. Reality is an expression of consciousness. Healing is changing your consciousness. Demonstrated with placebo and nocebo effects.

Overview David marketed throughout his career and has used that information to get his books into bookstores. Book https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TNPPZXW?binding=kindle_edition&searchxofy=true&qid=1664217895&sr=8-2&linkCode=ll2&tag=discoveredwordsmiths-20&linkId=f48c82d9de91dd1a77931dbbf8f01f08&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl YouTube https://youtu.be/PjtRr3E5ms8 Transcript Let's move on and talk some author stuff for all the authors listening. So before we talk about our topic, which is going to be lessons learned in marketing what are some things you personally have learned? You mentioned some things you've learned from your editor. How to write what to put in the book and that, so talk about some of those things that you've learned from when you started with book one to now with book five. [00:25:26] David: One of the big things that I've learned and I had a a professor that I I went to for some help sometimes. And. He told me I had a, I tried to overwrite things and I remember one thing that he told me, he says, trust your reader. He says, they're smart enough to read. They read one of your books, they can read at least of an eighth grade level. And he said, trust them, you don't have to tell 'em over and over. about something. And that, that I did that in my first book. And I got away from that. I learned and there's just a lot of things. A good editor can point out to. That you do. And any of these independents that write books and don't get a good editor and have a thorough editor, not just one editor. I, I have a editor that I use just for Spanish because I use a lot of Spanish words in my books. And I have them check to make sure that the Spanish in my books. Is correct. And that, that's the thing about the Indies and they, when they went to everybody, started going to the, in indie or self-published they, we can just let's face it. We can put a book out there and throw it up on, on the deal. Have an ebook overnight. A lot of stuff's got out there. That's just not good literature and we've gotta. The all authors have gotta make sure their works are edited, properly edited and formated and ready to be published. I think that's key and I've always done that cause I'm whatever I do, I want it done. [00:27:04] Stephen: Okay, nice. And that's a good lesson right there. And when you're writing, so you're in your RV and you've got your dog helping you out. So what do you use to write what services or what software do you like, or do you do anything special with your writing? [00:27:19] David: Not anything special. I put everything on this laptop right here that we're, I've written three books on this laptop that we're using here to communicate with. I take it along. It's a small laptop I use word and I get it all together and I don't worry. Too much about my grammar or anything at that as I'm reading it, I'm trying to get the story out as it's in my mind. And one of the fallacies that I have when I get into a good scene, I'll sometimes write till I just can't go anymore. I think the record is about 18 hours, but I had a good scene going. It was up here. And I wanted to get it. I wanted to get it on paper, so that's that's how I write. And I don't have anything special software or anything like that. But I have some good people. I have a good assistant who goes over and she's got an Eagle eye. She can miss a. If I see something or just a little space off she's on top of it. And I get it, her to get it in tip top shape before I go to an editor. But I use in this last book, I had six what I call advanced readers. Once we got the manuscript where we thought it ought to be, I sent it out to six good readers who I knew and never. Ever ask somebody that loves you to critique your work. always find somebody afar. That'll do and give you a good a good critique, [00:28:53] Stephen: right? I, yeah I found that out. I had several close friends and family members read my book a...

This week, Pastor Chris continued in our series through the life of David with a word about friendship. David had people around him who stood by him through difficulty, pain, ease, and celebration. Those he called friends were often the key to helping him to endure in Christ. Jonathan was a fierce, and faithful warrior of God who desired to walk closely with David. These two were committed to each other in Christ, while King Saul became jealous and fearful of David's anointing. Pastor Chris encouraged each of us to cultivate friendship, and to pursue forgiveness and healing where friendships have caused pain.

David experienced life's highest of highs and lowest of lows, yet through it all He never lost faith in God. Perhaps the height of His confidence in God came at his lowest personal and professional moment. After suffering the breakdown of his family and facing an insurrection led by his own son, David was ready to leave it all behind. Empty handed, exiled from his own kingdom, David's faith was rock solid. On the brink of losing everything he had dreamed of and prayed for, David retained a peace that was beyond understanding. David had an unshakeable hope. In this message, we take one final look at David's life and chronicle how his later years saw many heartbreaks and disappointments. Through it all, David exemplified how we all should face these seasons of our lives, and showed us how we might remain hopeful.

Everything is being controlled in your life by your subconscious mind which is a powerful secondary system. Learning how to activate communication between conscious and subconscious minds is valuable for achieving success, happiness, and wealth. In this episode, Dr. David Snyder will discuss how an individual can use his subconscious mind to his benefit. Standout Quotes: "Each of those negative feelings is like a little movie on an endless loop. The way you find them is by focusing on the positive thing. Noticing where the negative feeling is in the body, and then using the magic frame to remove it." [David] "Remember, human beings have two sets of beliefs or two sets of thoughts, the thoughts they know about and the thoughts that they don't." [David] "One of the things that I've discovered over and over and over again is that people can have the mindset, they can have the, they can have all this energy, they can have all this focus and all this direction. But if they don't have the skills to put that energy and enthusiasm to work, they're dead in the water, and they might as well not even have that because they can't, they can't realize it." [David] Key Takeaways: Your autonomic nervous system, or unconscious mind, will respond to any question you pose. So many of the problems we face in life, caused by the poor questions we ask our neurology. We can live a more empowered life if we ask ourselves better questions. Scientists, psychologists, and researchers have revealed that lucky people share roughly five to six personality features. And if you realize that anyone can design protocols, you can magnify these traits to the point where they become the dominant force in your life once you comprehend them. Seven diverse language patterns are used to extract the aspects that make up a fascinating, immersion-absorbing experience for a human being. People will automatically want to listen to you if you incorporate these language patterns into your typical speaking style. They'll develop a strong desire to do what you want, and for the right reasons. Episode Timeline: [02:13] Learning the entire identity by silo [12:37] The Personality Traits [16:23] The Seven Distinct Language Patterns [21:24] The Limiting Beliefs [22:27] The Reframe Game [30:57] The NLP Power Mastermind Mentoring Program [55:29] Two ways to be motivated [56:52] The book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini 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

David's rise from shepherd boy to prince of Israel happened suddenly and took the nation by storm. He was beloved like none other in his generation. What once was a secret between the prophet Samuel and his family soon became a forgone conclusion: David was destined to be Israel's next king. Like any rising star, David became enraptured by his assumed destiny. From his musical skills, war trophies, and favor under Saul, it would have been hard for even the most modest person to dismiss the hype. David seemed too blessed and important to fail. However, just as quickly as he rose to fame, he saw it all unravel and taken away. King Saul turned on him and soon after, the whole nation. Within days, David went from prince to pauper, from hero to fugitive. The next chapter of his life would be spent on the run, making a series of selfish decisions as he attempted to cling to his destiny. Yet, it was during this dark episode wherein David realized that God had a greater plan for him. In the aftermath of tragedy, David begins to understand his true destiny and sees God transform him into a man after God's own heart.

David is remembered and celebrated as a man after God's own heart. He received this compliment from God Himself, when early on in his life, he made seeking and following God his ultimate desire. In this message, we talk about the desires and motivators that all of us are driven by, and how so often we are left disappointed by where they take us. We hear about God's desire for us and how this should convince all of us to pursue Him with our whole heart. Hear from David about how fulfilled and blessed our lives can be when we desire the God who desires us. His entire life story is one that proclaims the goodness and favor of God, but it all began when he was just a kid with a harp, worshipping His Good Shepherd.

Overview David and I discuss making sure your brand and book align and how they support each other. Even though David writes non-fiction, the advice applies to fiction and non-fiction. David also offers any listeners of Discovered Wordsmith a free copy of his book - Better by Design. Contact him at his website: https://davidbsavage.com YouTube Transcript [00:01:27] Stephen: So let's move on to some author stuff and discuss a little bit about the process of writing and publishing. So you've written a whole series of books. What are some things that you have learned? That you're doing different than you used to do? [00:01:41] David: One of the things that I've found is I'm writing anyways, I'm a writer, I've always been a writer. So obviously one of the common things that you probably hear from your guests is just make the commitment. And for me that means sit down at my laptop at five 30 every morning. And whether brilliance [00:02:00] comes out or not, you're committing. To that you're committing to your purpose. The other part of it is that while it's, you're either a writer or a pretender and to be a better writer, I look at the outcome that I want. So it's actually not the book. It's not having, seven books to others and then three to come. It's actually a, what's my purpose. What's my. When people reach out to David B. Savage, who do they think they're reaching out to? So that's the bigger lesson that I've learned in the last, eight years as a publishing more often is that writing books helps me clarify. My thoughts helps me bringing in other wisdom helps me learn. But it also. Really helps me to understand that I'm creating a promise to my readers. No, I haven't made a million dollars who got that big cash advance from, whomever. But [00:03:00] when people come to me for a coaching or consulting or a conflict resolution or helping them design new projects, they know what they're getting. So it is really a stream of offerings where the books as a writer is only a part of it. So for example many of us just like the right, but we really don't like to stand in front of a podium or standing between two company presidents that are fighting. If that's the case, But for me, it's the full meal deal. And I need to present myself and write consistently as somebody that really encourages and supports and provides proof of collaborative leadership. So they, I guess on the on the ego side, I think a lot of people. And orphan their books. Oh, I wrote a book now I can stop all of this challenge and pain for the last two years I've been through in developing this [00:04:00] masterpiece. So now I can get back to my real life. No, it can't work that way. That, that is truly just an ego thing. If we know why we're writing who we are, the services we offer to our clients and to our grandchild. It all flows together and it has to flow together. So I really encourage other writers to be your brand. What your book is, needs to be aligned with what your purpose is and what your, what you offer to the world. [00:04:27] Stephen: And that's what we're going to talk a bit about is be your brand. Elaborate on that a little bit more. What are you trying to tell authors about be your brand and how their book is their brand that they are there? [00:04:39] David: For me the the influence and my bank account is filled. Because I can offer workshops, I can offer conflict resolution. I can coach executives, all of that stuff, but it's a chain that comes from all the books and the talks and the articles, et cetera. But in fact they, I guess the real point is [00:05:00] we by learning together by being consistent, Not spending two torturous years, getting your baby out there and then orphaned in it. I while I'm writing three future books, I'm constantly referring in my coaching and my clients in my articles online referring to the quotes from the books tools in the books,

Mind Control is the idea that certain psychological practices may alter or control the human mind. It has subsequently been taught that the brain's complexity can be transformed to suit a specific persona in which it can readily relate to others, but at what cost? Join Dr. David Snyder as he shares all about how this process works. Standout Quotes: “One of the problems that females often have is they give first of all, they have resting bitchface, which makes the right kind of guy not want to approach them.” [David] “One of the things that we have to teach the ladies in our class is we have to teach them how to signal approachability.” [David] “If you are not getting approached, if people are ignoring you, or seemingly not paying attention to you, chances are the key is in your body language, you're not signaling somebody who wants to be approached, wants to be interacted with, and or you're simply not being proactive enough.” [David] Key Takeaways: Another challenge that women usually have is their body language of shyness, aloofness, holding back, or being reserved, as you call it. As a result, the good ones, who will respect a woman's limits, will read your nonverbals and will not approach or engage because they are reading your nonverbals. Much of the socialization that many women receive due to culture, religion, and different cliques, and other aspects of mythology that are passed down from generation to generation teaches women to send out signals that attract sociopaths, narcissists, and pickup artists. You must set an example of proactiveness by saying, "Hey, I've got something I'd like to contribute or something I'd like to say." And that's going to make you feel rather strange; you're also likely to have certain restricting attitudes about doing so that need to be addressed. However, an essential component in being approachable is your state of mind and body language, and they are both inextricably linked. Episode Timeline: [11:17] The Self-Mastery Supercharger [16:14] Women's Biggest Common Issues [19:25] Feelings Manifests Through our Eyes [20:38] The Social Status [24:41] The Art of Listening to People [27:44] Comfort and Connection [34:39] "The Resistance" by Dr. Michael Pantalon [35:51] The Conversational Hypnotic Pain Relief [37:23] How to put yourself into an Alpha Brainwave State [38:19] The Spiegel eyeroll test [41:51] The restore personal autonomy [44:17] The Psychology of Persuasion Book by Dr. Robert Cialdini [45:25] The Commitment and Consistency Method 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

When you develop a bond with another individual, you are building connections. You can profit from the aid of others through connections, and you can also serve others when they need it. Is there, however, a hidden component to creating a long-lasting, high-quality relationship with the individuals you wish to impress? Dr. David Snyder will talk about ways you can make a lasting impression to anyone you want. Standout Quotes: “Each human being has a certain number of repetitions, that they have to hear those words. The longer you tend to give those words back, the more rapidly you move towards that eureka moment where they just decide this is what I want.” [David] “When you start satisfying these more primal needs, it opens up your bandwidth to become more discerning and a willingness to help others.” [David] “One of the most powerful, the most unstoppable the most underrated, and overlooked persuasion technique on the planet is the art and science of storytelling.” [David] Key Takeaways: The power of storytelling has practically altered the trajectory of human history. It is the progression of human history—everything that humans do, both within and externally. Your neurology constructs a story out of it, a cause and effect relationship with the feel of a storyline. CPI one, the foundation for killer influence, was the most powerful persuasion strategy because it was the quickest, easiest, and most potent to apply. Alpha stories are those that inspire, motivate, prime, and have a persuading push to them. These are alpha stories if you tell people inspirational stories about people who have conquered difficulties and tremendous obstacles. These are stories that lend weight to the persuasion you're using. Episode Timeline: [08:58] The Secrets on how to take your life to the next level. [19:09] The Power of Storytelling [19:56] The CPI System [21:07] Connection Stories [22:08] The Alpha Stories [22:42] The Omega Stories [25:28] The Process Transportability [26:06] The Ninja Stories [31:34] The Website "www.killerinfluence.com/go." 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

On the podcast we talk with Robbie about finding your super users, the real reasons for subscription fatigue, and why pricing isn't as important as you might think, especially early on.Our guest today is Robbie Kellman Baxter, consultant, keynote speaker, and author. She's advised many of the world's leading subscription-based companies, including serving on the advisory board of Strava. Her most recent book, “The Forever Transaction” is a deep dive into everything consumer subscription, and a must read for anyone in the space.In this episode, you'll learn: Identifying and attracting lifetime value customers How to get and maintain customer loyalty Three causes of subscription fatigue Why customers cancel their subscriptions Links & Resources Strava Intuit Survey Monkey Oracle The Subscription Economy Tien Tzuo: Subscribed Eric Crowley Seth Miller CrossFit Shopify Calm Matthieu Rouif PhotoRoom GoPro Elevate VSCO Robbie Kellman Baxter's Links Robbie Kellman Baxter's website Follow Robbie on Twitter Robbie's book: The Forever Transaction Robbie's book: The Membership Economy Robbie's LinkedIn Follow us on Twitter: David Barnard Jacob Eiting RevenueCat Sub Club Episode Transcript00:00:00 David:Hello, I'm your host, David Barnard, and with me, as always, RevenueCat CEO, Jacob Eiting.Our guest today is Robbie Kellman Baxter, consultant, keynote speaker, and author. She's advised many of the world's leading subscription-based companies, including serving on the advisory board of Strava. Her most recent book, “The Forever Transaction” is a deep dive into everything consumer subscription, and a must read for anyone in the space.On the podcast we talk with Robbie about finding your super users, the real reasons for subscription fatigue, and why pricing isn't as important as you might think, especially early on.Hey Robbie, welcome to the podcast.00:00:58 Robbie:Thanks for having me. I'm excited to chat with you both. 00:01:00 David:I was introduced to your work by somebody recommending your book, The Membership Economy, and it really struck me. I was so excited that you agreed to be on the podcast, because here's a book written in 2015, and we'll talk about your other book that was written more recently, but written in 2015. I was looking through it, scanning the chapters, so I bought the book. I was like, this is everything we're talking about now, thinking it's all so novel with subscription apps, but really consumer subscriptions have been around for decades. You've been working in this space way longer than any of us.So, I thought it would be really fun to have you on the podcast to talk more broadly about these principles of consumer subscriptions that apply equally to D to C subscriptions, as well as the app space that we work in. That's where I wanted to kick things off.So, how did you get your start in consumer subscriptions?00:01:57 Robbie:A couple of threads came together. I was in product-marketing for what is now called SaaS, for five years, right before I hung out my own shingle and started consulting. So, I had that background as a product manager working with software products that were being sold as subscriptions, and then as an independent consultant.My fifth client was Netflix. I fell in love with their business model, and I was wondering why isn't everybody else falling in love with their business model, too? This is amazing. Recurring revenue, predictable cashflow, the amount of data they were collecting on their customer. The fact that they're offering was just a much better way of delivering on a promise that many of us wanted delivery for, which is a professionally created catalog of video content delivered in the most efficient way possible. It meant not having to put a raincoat over your jammies to go pick up a movie, with cost certainty and no late fees.I was consulting with Netflix. I was already a customer, and a few people started calling and saying, “Hey, we heard you worked with Netflix. We want to be the Netflix of our space.” Whether that was news, or music, or bicycles, or dental pain management products, or clothes, there was a lot of interest in what it was that Netflix was doing.So, I started trying to create frameworks, trying to say, what are they doing? Which parts are applicable to other businesses, and which parts are just unique to that group of people solving that particular problem?That's really where I got started, and it turns out to be big enough and deep enough that it's kept me really busy for, it's been 20 years, 20 years. 00:03:55 David:Fifth client to, to land as a consultant. That's a. Really great. And so you were with them before they even introduced the, video on demand on the internet, right. You started with them when it was DVDs in the mail, 00:04:09 Robbie:Yeah. 00:04:10 David:Traditional D to C subscription service. 00:04:13 Jacob:But, but even then was satisfying a lot of those, almost all of those conditions. Right. I didn't have to go outside just to my mailbox, not too bad price certainty. I didn't have late fees. and then like, you know, insanely large catalog. Right. you know, it was, it was, it wasn't. We tend to wait for the technology to get that right.And then, then we had VOD being, 00:04:33 Robbie:Yeah. And they were already thinking, I mean, it was amazing to me. So I was there, you know, the time that I worked most actively with dev 2001, 2003, even during that time, which was all DVDs, all three DVDs out at a time, they were already thinking about streaming versus, you know, should they let you download it?And then have it explode after, you know, you know, some duration. What was the best way to deliver it? Should they come through your, you know, for awhile? I remember I think it came through your PlayStation or your, your we, were thinking like, 00:05:06 Jacob:My first like set top box experience with Netflix would have been on Nintendo. Yeah.00:05:10 Robbie:Yeah. I mean, so they, they were already thinking about it and I think that's a really important part of any subscription is even if your subscription works great today and it's good enough to get people to sign up the product team has to be thinking, how are we going to continue to evolve it in particular fringy? Right. How do we continue to stay relevant to these people while also having those new and improved features that bring new people in? And I think a lot of organizations. I have been taught to over-index on acquisition benefits and not thinking as much about those, the sticky engagement benefits that often are really hard to talk about credibly. Right? If I say to you, you know, sign up for my subscription, my, my video subscription, because it's the most, it's the easiest to find the next piece of content. And you're going to love our algorithm, right? People aren't going to believe you. You don't have credibility. So, all they're going to say is, oh, you have Hamilton, I'll sign up for that.And then I'll cancel. And then it's still up to you, you know, if you're Disney plus to get them from Hamilton to princess movies, national geographic titles, ESPN, all the other great stuff that they have. Star wars.00:06:26 David:I'm 00:06:26 Robbie:Yeah. 00:06:26 David:My son right now. Yeah. That's great. And then I do want to kind of step back and you're kind of right into the weeds with some really actionable advice, but I want to, I want to step back a little bit and talk more broadly. So after working with a few, companies in the subscription space and Netflix so early eventually wrote this book, The Membership Economy, which I love.Phrase and wanted to ask actually, did you, did you coin that phrase then how did you at the time and how do you still kind of define this membership economy that you wrote about. 00:06:57 Robbie:Yeah. Well, first of all, I'd love to say that, like I just came up with it and it was so natural and obvious, but, you know, I was thinking, I was like, is it, is it about subscription pricing? Is it about premium services? Is it about recurring revenue? Should I call it the recurring revenue that I was trying to think?What is it? And where I came out was it's not about the subscription pricing, which I think is a tactic. it's a tactic that you earn the right to do by having. Relationship that is trusted with your customer. The customer trusts you so much that they're like fine. You can charge me every month or you can charge me every year and I will just keep paying you and not look for alternatives.And for me, that was based on a certain kind of human relationship. And that's where I came up with this concept of membership that you belong. That it's, you're committing upfront to a long-term relationship as a vendor, and then you earn the right to have subscriptions. So that was kind of where I came up with it.I worked with Netflix. I also worked. At that time Intuit. I worked with a survey monkey and their predecessor. Uh Zoomerang and I worked with Oracle on the B2B side, and those were some of the companies that helped me sort of connect the dots and figure out how. The framework, of, you know, here's some ways to think about what happens when you treat your customers like membership members.Here's what you need to track. Here's how you need to think about it. And here's what it, what it can do for you. Honestly, the first book, all I was trying to do is say, this is a good idea. You might want to consider it for a bunch of reasons.00:08:26 Jacob:Think of it in opposites. I think it's is it the. the Zuora founder's book subscription economy,but but you're right in the sense that subscription kind of implies like 00:08:37 Robbie:Okay. 00:08:38 Jacob:Particular tactic for monetization that does go really well with this concept. But when I think of membership, as opposed to just subscription, like membership implies also community to me, right.00:08:48 Robbie:Yeah. 00:08:49 Jacob:Like building this. This, this ecosystem, this community that, that, which was then in genders trust, which then allows you to monetize, right. And and this great business model. about it in those terms, I think is a really nice way to put it as opposed to like, let's take something.Let's take something that, that we were monetizing another way and just slop noodle on it, which is something a lot in the, in the app world, this transition from paid upfront or micro-transactions driven apps to subscriptions, some have made it and some have not. And I think the ones that have made it are the ones who look at it in that light, in the membership light, in the.Earning their business repeatedly through content or through community. so I, yeah, that, that framing I think is really accurate.00:09:36 Robbie:Your point about, you know, so many companies to slap a subscription price onto whatever they already had, you know? Okay. We have a usage based model. Let's see what happens if we do a subscription based model for the same product, or let's see what happens if we take, you know, a model where you have ownership, where I download the app and it's mine, and I can use it forever, even if it's really, really obsolete.If it solves my problem, who cares, to one where you're being forced to pay every month. Yeah, extensively to get upgrades and maybe access to your peers and some kind of community functionality. It really is a different product. You need a different product for subscription than for, you know, a purchase or usage based model.And, you know, I love teens books. Subscribed is a great book. I recommend it to people. It's very, well-read has a lot of interesting ideas. but I didn't go with that, you know, subscription economy model just because I really want. To focus more on the culture and the relationship and not jump straight to let's get some of that subscription pricing stuff so that we can get a good valuation, you know?00:10:39 Jacob:Yeah. Yeah. I, it, you made me think of this one experience I had just as an anecdote was, X-Box in for three or four years ago, released an Xbox subscription. And I thought this is a really cool one because I could defer, I buy another X-Box every three or four or five years. So it was like, oh, I'll just spread that cost out.I didn't have a lot of cash at the time. I was like, this is a great 40 bucks a month. I get a new Xbox, right. And so I went in to do this at the, at the Microsoft store. What it really was, was they were giving me like a cash advance, like they were giving me, like, basically I had to get a credit check to get a subscription.And I was like, this is 00:11:12 Robbie:That's not a subscription. 00:11:13 Jacob:In mind. Exactly. Right. Like I thought I was joining the, the X-Box club and I was going to just get an expert and they're going to place my Xbox for me. Right. example. of that case of just like slapping subscription pricing on what was essentially a loan.00:11:26 Robbie:Yeah. Yeah.00:11:27 Jacob:Now my credit score, I have loan for a 19 20 16 Ford edge and a next box, on those are my two like credit items I've ever had. So it's really weird.00:11:37 Robbie:And they've come a long way. I mean, Microsoft has come a long way with their subscription strategies, you know, not just on the gaming side, but you know, with, with office 365 and you know, they've done a lot of thinking about subscription, but it really is super complicatedto, to make it work. 00:11:54 Jacob:Right? Like with software zero marginal costs or whatever you can It makes a lot of sense. will say, I will say, I want to give Microsoft some credit, back in the gaming world there Xbox game pass product product, which I also subscribed to has been amazing.I bought a new X-Box game in forever, cause I don't really care about title individuality. I just, whatever it is, $10 a month or $15 a month. And I get access to like 50 different games that rotate. Plenty. That's plenty for me. And I will probably never unsubscribe from that. Right. But it feels like a 00:12:22 Robbie:Yeah. 00:12:22 Jacob:Cause it's, software-driven, in there. There's like there's changing and there's events stuff that comes in and out and they make it a big thing. built it up into this, into this. Yeah. This kind of, it feels like a membership, as opposed to, yeah, just slapping an affirm loan on an X-Box purchase, basically.00:12:39 David:I do want to step back to your, to your book, The Membership Economy, and, I love the subtitle. Find your super users, the forever, transaction and build recurring revenue. finding super users is something we've actually talked a lot about here on the podcast. So looking for those cohorts, one of our recent podcast, guests, Eric Crowley.Talked about locals versus tourists. Seth Miller, another recent podcast guests talked about how, you know, figuring out these cohorts was just a huge unlock for their business. so what's your process? How do you recommend clients find these super users and how do you think about these, super users?You mentioned all the way back in 2015 before any of us were thinking about these things.00:13:24 Robbie:Yeah. Well, so for me, what I think about with super you. So I think about, you know, anybody does subscriptions knows. Segmentation is like re like the most important thing. You have to know who your customer is. Not just at the moment of acquisition, what they look like. You know, when you're like, that's the person I want, but how are they going to behave once they join?The moment of transaction becomes the starting line for understanding your customer, not the finish line. What like, oh, we knew them well enough to get them to buy it. We knew them well enough to get them to buy. And then to get them to make this a habit and then to get them to go deeper and to stay for a long time and maybe even bring their friends.So, you know, the first thing I always do with my clients, I say, let's focus on who you're, who you're making the problem. What is the promise you're making, who are you making it to? and that's kind of part one. And then we map out the journey. What is it? What is the goal that they have that is ongoing or the problem that they have that is ongoing?And what are the moments on their journey where you might be able to intervene and help. Right. So in the beginning it might be just one or two places, right? I'm I'm, I'm QuickBooks. I help you at tax time, but then it might be, oh, and I'm going to help you with some other key moments in your process of adulting financially.Right. You know, one of the things is you move at your parent's house and you pay your own taxes. Another is you might take out a loan for that. Awesome. You know, for whatever car you said, you know, you're going to get an, get a car and you need a loan and you know, they can help you. And so you're layering in those different beds.On a journey cause you want them to stay. You want to keep providing value. and then once you know what that person looked like, then you go tell your marketing team to go get lookalikes, get more people like that. Super users goes one step beyond that, which is not only are they great customers, you know, high customer, lifetime value, easy to serve, whatever.They also were putting their own money and effort, their own resources into strengthening your model. So these are people that bring in. These are evangelists who bring in other members. These are people who give you feedback on your products and services, which sometimes doesn't feel like a gift, but always is a gift.And it's, people who are willing to help onboard. New members. Right? So the ones that, you know, explain in the user group, you know, that, you know, this is, this is how you use that product, or this is, this is my workaround, or this is, you know, what was hard for me and how I fixed it. So those people, you know, that make referrals, that that speak out on your behalf that gather, you know, others they're so valuable.And I got really into this idea actually with CrossFit. my sister is a, is a big CrossFitter and watching her. in addition to all the money she was spending to, to be a member of this CrossFit box, the amount of time and effort she was spending to onboard new members to invite them over. When the, when the box was closed, she and her husband would put out their equipment on their live on a cul-de-sac.They put it all out on the street and invite the whole box, come over and get their workout done there because they love the community so much, right. Their own time and money to support the community.00:16:27 David:There kind of specific, Ways, especially digitally like, with, with or customer service, what are the tools that, that you see people be successful in finding those kinds of users and understanding those patterns and who they are and what they 00:16:45 Jacob:Yeah. 00:16:45 David:Like. And those sorts of things. 00:16:47 Robbie:So the, the starting point, I think is always lifetime customer value. So. You look at the group of customers who stay the longest and spend the most right. And the ones that people would say, we wish we could make more of these, you know, and then you look, you develop hypotheses. What does this group share?And it can be as simple as writing the names of your first 10 customers on a boards. These are the 10 customers we had. These five have been awesome. These. You know, didn't stick around long canceled, complain a lot, you know, whatever the reason is. And then you try to come up with what is, what did this group share that this group doesn't share?That's the simplest way in a, in a data world where you have the data you're doing the same thing, but digitally, how did they onboard? What was the source of the lead? what time of year? Like which cohort are they in? Did they join? You know, people like, for example, with QuickBooks people that join in tax season, Might be behave very differently than people who join as a new year's resolution or who joined in August.Right. What kind of person starts thinking really hard about managing their money in August? Great. you know, so, so looking for those things, developing hypotheses, looking at the data, trying to say what's the difference between our most valuable customers and our not most valuable customers, which is not your worst customers, because your worst customers are often outliers, but just the ones where you're like, they're just not that good.They came for two months, they left, they binged, they used up, you know, they were using us really heavily for six weeks. And then they left. What's different about them than the ones who continue to use this gradual. For five months. and I think that's where the hypotheses come out and then tactically, what you do after, you know, as you look at the difference in onboarding those different groups and you optimize your onboarding experience.To build those habits and then you mark it. This is often requires a tremendous amount of discipline. You mark it to only attract the high value people and not to attract the others. So if I walk into McDonald's with a gown on with my husband and I say, it's our 20th anniversary, show us to your finest team.Give us the best you've got. And we'd like a nice bottle of champagne, right? Customer's not always right at McDonald's. Right. They're not going to say, oh man, Robbie needs champagne. Somebody scraped down to the seven 11 and you know, get a bottle of Prosecco and you know, we'll try to pass it off. They say, that's not really what we do here.Dummy. They might not say dummy, but they might be thinking it, right. That's not what we here, you know 00:19:10 Jacob:The 00:19:12 Robbie:Right. We're here, you know, we're cheap, we're fast. It tastes good. Your kids love it. You can drive through and eat it. But we don't do, we don't do special occasion stuff. And so they know who they are.Right. And they're okay with me not coming in. Right. They're even okay with me saying, by the way, don't go to McDonald's, it's a terrible place to celebrate your anniversary. Right. They're kind ofCause it. 00:19:32 Jacob:Just all 00:19:33 Robbie:Right. The leaning is terrible. It makes your skin look awful. You know, the point is that if they took care of. Right. What am I going to do? I'm going to tell you, you know what, just go there for your anniversary. Just tell them it's your anniversary. They'll run out and get all the stuff you need. Right? And then they have all these people that are expensive to serve. Right? It's the same thing digitally, right? If you bring in the wrong people who are going to binge on your content in the first month, or the people who are going to push you to create features that nobody needs, except that.Right. It's just going to throw your whole business off in the wrong direction. So having that discipline upfront to know what you do and you don't do well. And to say no to some prospects, it's really hard to say no to prospects, right? If they have money and they're like, just add this feature and I'll pay.You know, Netflix in the early days, a lot of people wanted them to have video games. Right? Video games were also on discs seems easy, right? As an outsider, as an expert, right? I'm like, ah, video games, same thing. Video games work in a totally different way. And what Netflix said is we don't really understand how people would view.Games. We don't understand how they've use them. We don't understand how many we need. We don't understand how they value that. We don't understand how to negotiate terms with gaming companies, but that's a whole different thing we're going to, we have plenty of runway here. Just focusing on video content.00:20:51 Jacob:Yeah, it's, it's really interesting that, that, that feeling as a founder, especially true in SaaS, when you have literally 10 customers and like you will do 00:20:59 Robbie:Yeah. 00:21:00 Jacob:For the, your 11th, it's a little bit true in consumer. Two in the early days, like you, you're just kind of like, how do I get the funnel bigger?How do I, how do you, I think you are a little bit myopic on, the top of the funnel and not thinking about this long-term thing, partially because we don't have a lot of data. You launched your app six months 00:21:19 Robbie:Yeah. 00:21:19 Jacob:Trying to make decisions on customer lifetime value. And you don't really have a good sense because you don't know who's sticking around.You probably don't have a ton of data, but one thing you said. That really got my gears turning was that of putting them on a board and just looking at them, looking at the 10 customers or whatever it is, a hundred, even in consumer SaaS, where you have hundreds of 00:21:37 Robbie:Yeah, 00:21:38 Jacob:So it's not that many, you can grab it.You'll be surprised at how many things I've in my old days in consumer's house of like just clicking into a customer and just watching how they use the app, like an individual, right. It doesn't, not data, but it gives you hints and you can start there. And then, and 00:21:54 Robbie:Yeah. Hypotheses, right? 00:21:55 Jacob:Yeah. Hypothesis. And then you actually talk to those people, if you can, like get them on the 00:22:00 Robbie:Yeah. 00:22:00 Jacob:Surprised what they tell you. One of our, our guests Matthew and photo room a few weeks ago talked about, they would take their app to McDonald's and just show it to people to keep the McDonald's references going, and get like in-person feedback.And that helped them learn, you know, they, they were, they were an app that thought that. For everybody and find out later that they're actually like, kind of like a pursuer app for Shopify people, people 00:22:23 Robbie:00:22:24 Jacob:And people with, with e-comm and, and that like kind of exploded their business for this exact case.You're talking about where they found out. Okay. Yeah. We're not for this entire, like long tail of low intent users where for this really core set, but that can be really scary if that sets kind of 00:22:39 Robbie:It's always scary to niche down, but it's almost always. a good strategy. And I wanted to tag onto something else that you said, Jacob, which I think is really important. People often say, how can I make any decisions about, you know, based on, you know, who has the highest customer lifetime value?When, you know, we've only been around for three months or six months, we have to wait until they leave. Hopefully not for three years or five years, but what I've found. And, you know, I wonder if you've seen the same thing. Most people who leave leave in the first two months. So what you really want to do is optimize for onboarding, you know, are they adopting habits that look like people who are steady users getting value, and you can often tell that in the first month, by how many people drop off by who stays and buy, you know, are they bingeing or are they using it in kind of a normal way? And so you don't have to wait for 18, 18 months or however many periods, a lot of it, you get your answer right away. Do they cancel at the end of the first period?00:23:43 Jacob:Yeah, it's good to think about your product in terms of not just. Like signups and getting through the end of onboarding, like that day one experience, but think about what hooks are like, what are the things that people are actually investing contingent on? I always think that that's, that's a, know, you think about this long-term relationship, giving users, in your product to invest and to give back and to connect, like putting in 00:24:05 Robbie:Yeah. 00:24:06 Jacob:Themselves.Like there's passive usage consumption. Netflix does a good job. Like you can save, listen stuff that they do a lot of this just in passively, right? Like you consume content and they learn about you and then they have a profile. but I think some of the best apps, like let put in and that's going, gonna also not only probably make them stickier users, but also it gives you early indications and some things to hook on and be like, okay.I mean, Dropbox, this was a big thing in Dropbox. This story. they, they could get people to like understand the concept, but we had massive product issues, getting people to put a file in the thing, right? Like 00:24:41 Robbie:Yeah. 00:24:42 Jacob:Not necessarily the most user friendly thing. Like is some sort of app that runs in the background whenever they would, they did, they pulled users in, they watched them do it and totally fail.And then they fixed the product. Right. and, that's, that's. core product problem, but it relates to this this story of getting somebody to membership, right? Like getting them 00:25:00 Robbie:Yeah 00:25:00 Jacob:And focusing on that.00:25:02 David:One of the things that you talked about in your most 00:25:05 Robbie:No. 00:25:05 David:That I think, is so important to understanding the activation. Is is this concept of a forever promise. And so, so your most recent book that forever transaction we'll we'll link to in the show notes and whatnot. but in order to activate, in order to even just build a business, especially a subscription business, you need to start with Promise that you're going to make to customers. and then, especially again, like you said earlier to justify recurring payments, like, so tell me how you think about a forever promise and how, how any app, any business that wants to set up recurring payments should be thinking about this forever promise.00:25:47 Robbie:Yeah, it's, it's really simple. You take a step back and you say, when my customers come to. What is the ongoing problem they're trying to solve, or what is the ongoing goal they're trying to achieve and how can I best align my product and my messaging with that goal, that ongoing goal or that ongoing problem.So what can I promise them about it? So with a Netflix, it's about, you know, entertaining. You know, I'm going to provide you with the biggest selection of professionally created video content delivered in the most efficient way, right. With cost certainty. you're never going to have to pay extra fees and you know, there's a lot of, a lot of apps that are around.You know, helping you with some part of your business process, getting a certain kind of work done or tracking your finances or creating beautiful images for, you know, personal use for your hobbies. What have you gaming apps for fun? And I think first getting really clear on what your promise is and who you're making it to, and then you design the features and benefits to support them.Forever on their journey. And you say, as long as you continue paying me regularly, I am going to continue improving the way I deliver on my promise to you. Right? If I'm a gym, I'm going to have new equipment, I'm going to have new classes. I might offer you stuff online. If I'm news source, I'm going to offer it maybe through an app.Maybe I'm getting the access to the journalists. Maybe I'm getting, get the access to conferences or webinars on top of news because. My promise is I'm going to help you understand the world around you so you can make better decisions. And I don't have, like, if you even think about that promise, There's nothing about that promise that makes you say it needs to be a newspaper, right?It could be a conference. It could be classes, it could be a community of like-minded people sharing their learnings and their observations. So why not layer all of that in over time so that you get closer and closer to guaranteeing that they're going to get the impact that they hoped for on an ongoing basis.00:27:55 Jacob:It's interesting. in some ways relates to like what a company mission can be for a different audience. Right? You say, you know, revenue has as a mission. And that's one thing that I won't change, right. That that's kind of what we do. And that's part of joining the company and whatever. But, but I do think there's value in communicating that as well.This is like the customer facing version of that. Like, what's our 00:28:15 Robbie:Exactly. 00:28:16 Jacob:Charter. Like, why are we here? And what can I 00:28:18 Robbie:Right, 00:28:19 Jacob:That's not going to change. Right. It, especially when you think in those terms of not the like person who's coming to do a very quick transactional thing as in, I'm going to binge you put it, or maybe I just some trying this out, or I have this like one limited life or limited pain, like a limited time pain. Like what's 00:28:35 Robbie:Yeah. 00:28:36 Jacob:Engagement that we're going to do, is really interesting ground when I read the, framing of just the forever transaction forever promise. It's really exciting because we have the infrastructure for the first time in human history to really make this efficient at scale that like computers can do these sort of like, patronage relationships for us.Yeah. And, rethinking how we frame and, and relationships with customers, I think. Yeah. I mean, it's some of the work are a bit ahead of us on.00:29:05 Robbie:Yeah. Well, I mean, I, you know, I've been here a lot. Like I got here first cause I was here for a long time, but you know, it kind of a dubious distinction, but you know, I think you're right. Like you step back and you say, what are the problems? What's the ongoing problem. The ongoing problem is I'm constantly running out of laundry detergent.Right? The ongoing problem is I look in my closet and I have nothing to wear for this occasion, whatever this occasion might be. Right. you know, something that I think is really interesting to think about, you know, Amazon. Talks about removing all friction from all buying decisions, right. They started with just books.Right. And you still have to wait two weeks to get the book right when you ordered it, but they had this. All the different friction in all the different buying decisions. We're just going to, you know, layer by layer. We're gonna remove all of those things. And, you know, at some point, you know, I think they want to get to the point where I think to myself, those are really cool headphones that Jacob's wearing.I wish I had those. And before I even say. They're on my ears. And then I'm like, oh, these are uncomfortable. And they make my hair look bad. They're gone. Right. That it's almost magical. That's what they're moving to. No friction. I don't even have to say a word. It just happens. you know, I think having that kind of guidance of like, that's what we're trying to do, there's so many times when I've gone shopping and I've needed something, whether it's like buying a new house or buying a white blouse for an event and thinking this shouldn't be that hard.I have enough money to pay for. I know exactly what I need it for. And I've already spent four hours or four months, or in the case of buying a house for years, trying to find, you know, the needle in the haystack. It should not be this. When, when you say it should not be this hard, that's probably00:30:46 Jacob:An 00:30:46 Robbie:Good, 00:30:47 Jacob:Opportunity. 00:30:48 Robbie:Opportunity.Yeah, 00:30:49 Jacob:No, I I'm. I mean, I'm just sitting here thinking about revenue. Cats are, you know, this is a shameless plug time to talk about my company, but, I think about our forever promise and we, our mission is like we help developers make more money. That's our goal. but I almost think that. Kind of like a short, pithy way of like phrasing. It really it's about how do we remove the way he put his barriers? Like, how do we remove all the barriers for a developer to make money? How do we remove all the for a developer to value with software for other people? and often like people see a lot of these.Yeah. Subscription, infrastructure problems, data problems, all these, all these things are not why somebody got into it. Right. When they started Netflix, it wasn't like, I just can't wait to do like cohort analysis. 00:31:35 Robbie:Okay. 00:31:35 Jacob:Like all these things, it's like, no, we want to deliver entertainment to people the easiest way possible.And so, you know, for us, like, In some ways, our particular problem that we're, we've committed and, and going to the forever thing to, you know, our product is, it's a subscriber, it's a, it's a subscription essentially. but it's a long-term commitment by the nature of it. It's very infrastructure-related so like I've always talked how to, you know, is there something the early days had to give a lot of assurances to folks like yeah.We're, we're sticking around like, yeah, this is, 00:32:06 Robbie:Yeah. 00:32:07 Jacob:The long-term goal for us. But I think, I think that comes down to consumers too. Like the best companies I've seen. In our space doing consumer software apps, subscription apps essentially have like a really deep connection to the mission. And the problem I think of calm, I think of, 00:32:24 Robbie:Yeah. 00:32:24 Jacob:Photo room, this app, we work with that the, you know, they've been in vision, computer vision, and they've worked for GoPro and they've just, this is in their DNA to 00:32:34 Robbie:00:32:35 Jacob:Of image manipulation.And then, and then on the other spectrum of that, you think of. Companies that are just stamping out, don't know anybody ever heard that company stamping out utility apps or like whatever it is, and then slapping a subscription thing on it. Yeah, it works. I'm going to get marginally more LTV than they were, you know, before, but 00:32:54 Robbie:Yeah. 00:32:54 Jacob:Not going to, that's 00:32:55 Robbie:Yeah. 00:32:56 Jacob:The level of like computer or like problem solving for consumers that we were then we were doing before.00:33:02 Robbie:I think you have to be really passionate about the customer needs and the customer's journey rather than on your product. And this is, this is always a really rough conversation because a lot of businesses, really, really, really hold their products in high regard, whether it's. Automobiles or, you know, software, I mean, software, you know, most companies around here in Silicon valley, like the software team, they run everything.Like that's, that's the talent and everything, you know, they can build what they want. And, you know, I, I used to joke that, you know, when you work with. The car world, right? Sometimes it's just about the cup holders, right? It's not about, it's not about the big engine, right. Which is what a lot of the people, a lot of people go into the world of cars, automotive because they love cool cars, but a lot of people who buy cars.Don't buy cool cars. They buy practical cars that solve certain problems for them. And you have to be passionate about the problems you're solving for the customers. That again. So I did a lot of work early on with, in my sort of subscription life in the high-end bicycle industry. I was working with the bicycle product suppliers association, really, really interesting space.But one thing about it is that most people who own bike stores and work in bike stores and sell bikes and manufactured by. Our bike researchers and off-road, you know, risk-taking bike enthusiasts that have nine bikes at home, there's a whole huge untapped market of people who just need a bike to get to school or a bike to get to work or a bike for, for Saturdays to go to the farmer's market.And they ask really annoying questions at the bike store. Like, does this come in pink or can I get a basket for this? Or, this going to get em, you know, Reese on my, on my work pants and at some point, even, you know, like there's always this tension because the people who create the products, sometimes they're like those aren't problems I want to work on.Right. Or, you know, I worked in the hospital, you know, kind of in the, in the, in the health industry. And I talked to a lot of surgeons and they're like, yeah, you guys can do whatever you want around customer, this customer that treating customers like patients, whatever. But I want to see my patient unconscious on a table and I'll cut them open and I'll fix them and make them better.And I don't want to do all that other stuff. Right. it's hard because they're the talent. you know, I think this is a big issue with subscriptions because those Mark Key elements, aren't always the thing that's going to drive engagement, retention.00:35:30 Jacob:It's falling in love with your own product, right. It's falling in love with the 00:35:33 Robbie:Yeah. 00:35:34 Jacob:And not the problem, you know? you 00:35:37 Robbie:Exactly. 00:35:38 Jacob:I mean, I've been in the, you know, in the past, when I was in the weeds, like you start to really over it. I think analytics can actually like be, this is where, yeah.Back to the discussion of like, just throw 10 users on the board and maybe don't like, get the finest. Tooth comb to like go through your data. First is like, when you have like super high fidelity data on everything, you can start to get really data oriented. But if your product is the thing, collecting the data, you sort of inherently bias the data collection you're doing based on the product you have.You miss a lot of opportunities because you're not just thinking about the problem space. I worked on this app called elevate, which was training, and I can remember so many. So many like heated discussions about, this flow, should we do this or X and Y and Z. And not as many as we should have had about like, why are people actually coming to this app like addressing those questions from like head-on, and thinking about ways that we can improve the product with that.The beginning. And I haven't seen that revenue cat too. Like we have a lot of which are really deep and rich and people use and they're in love with, and we can, you know, you can spend a lot of brain power and a lot of focus thinking about the next iteration of that thing. The re yeah, like you said, the, the, the, the bike shop owner who's really into bikes are like really into some particular technology touch with.Yeah, these bigger things, it's like forever promise this, like, what are we actually building? Like what does revenue cap mean? And in a decade when the problems we're solving now, actually, maybe aren't that relevant the case. We've talked a lot about media companies and I almost snuck in a metaverse joke.And now I will just refer to OMA 00:37:14 Robbie:Yeah. 00:37:15 Jacob:Joke your headphones, but like, Yeah, we think about this as like modes of consumption are going to be changing. that's where these, like, missions, customer mission or forever promises kind of come in. It's like making sure that regardless of a Netflix delivered on a DVD or on a streaming set top box, or into some sort of like brain 00:37:34 Robbie:Okay. 00:37:35 Jacob:Like this, the subscribers will transfer.Right. 00:37:38 Robbie:Yeah. 00:37:39 Jacob:Yeah. And this is one of my, like now I'm now I'm ranting, but think is one of the reasons I'm still really excited about all of these pieces coming together, is because it does just feel like we've reached some stage in our economy where we can align a lot more incentives this way.Then maybe we have been able to in the past, which I think is just exciting.00:38:00 David:But as we align those incentives and people get more and more subscriptions. Nice little transition there. Thank you, 00:38:07 Jacob:That's great. David, you're getting this podcasting thing, like really turning it in.00:38:11 David:There is a growing, chorus of, but subscription fatigue, People are tiring of all these subscriptions and no matter how much you can align incentives And everything else, people are just not going to want to pay subscription. So having, having seen the, the growth in subscription, consumer subscription starting way back at Netflix in the early two thousands, and now we are layering on more and more and more.What what's your perspective on this, this concept of subscription fatigue, our consumers really tiring of, paying in this way. 00:38:49 Robbie:Yeah. So the upside of, you know, this explosion and subscriptions is that consumers, and actually businesses alike are much more receptive to subscription offerings. They understand them, they understand the value they can provide if they're done. Right. and they're easier than ever before for any kind of company.You know, from the smallest mom and pop up to the, you know, the biggest multinationals to offer subscription pricing. The downside is there's this glut of subscriptions. Every company has them and not all of them are well-designed as, as we've been discussing. and that leads to subscription fatigue, and, and there's sort of three things.Contribute to that. One of them is where these, the product does not justify subscription pricing, right? This is a product I'm going to need once and you're requiring me to subscribe to it. That feels unfair. you know, or I'm never, I'm hardly ever going to use this in. You're making me subscribe, even though, you know, my use case doesn't justify that investment.Second problem is kind of the flip side of that, which I think of the subscription overwhelm or subscription guilt, which is. This great value. Actually, your product is fantastic, but I can't use all the value because of my own issues. And that makes me feel bad about myself. Like this is when you, you know, you have the new Yorker magazine piling up on your bedside table.Right. And you just cause you just want to Netflix and chill cause you're tired. But like your thought at the beginning of the day is I'm going to get so smart. I'm going to read all these great. That makes you feel bad about yourself, you can't, you know what I would suggest for example, that a new Yorker does is to educate consumers, that you only have to read one or two articles to get the full value of your subscription.It's all you care to consume, not consume all of it or you're, you're lazy. but I think that overwhelm, or, you know, same thing with blue apron where the meal kits are in your fridge and you're not using 00:40:34 Jacob:No, Don't even fatigue. it's a rough subject.00:40:39 Robbie:Yeah. Cause you feel bad, like the meals are calling to you and you're like, don't go out with your friends. 00:40:44 Jacob:Yeah. 00:40:44 Robbie:In the fridge. Don't be a waster. 00:40:47 Jacob:With my spouse about cooking because we have the giant meal kit to do. but it's great. I love the time.00:40:53 Robbie:Yeah. So then, and then, and then I think the last one, I mean, but it's, it's great. Cause it's not the fault. The meal is great. It's I don't feel like eating it today or someone invited me over for like the crazy one is when someone invites you to dinner. And so then it's not even a question of finances.You're like, well, either way, I'm not going to have to spend any more money and I'm going to get a delicious dinner. Do I want to make the blue apron dinner or go to my friend's house? Who just invited me? Well, I can't go to my friend's house because I feel bad throwing the blue apron in garbage 00:41:19 Jacob:To, the lettuce is going to be wilted by the next by tomorrow.So. 00:41:22 Robbie:Day I can cook. And then the last issue, so there's there's know, bad product-market fit. There's this subscription overwhelmed or subscription guilt. And then the last one is hiding the cancel button. And I'm really interested in what you guys think about that one. Cause a lot of subscriptions, make it really hard for you to get out of this.Cancel anytime relationship, even though. That's what they pitched. Join and cancel any time. If you can find the cancel button, which we've hidden behind 27 clicks with a call us on Tuesday, you know, extra hurdle.00:41:54 Jacob:Yeah, I think it's, well, my take is it's terrible. And anybody that does, it should really reevaluate what they're doing in software. Cause like, I think it violates that trust, right? Like, welcome. We're going to ask for this thing where you're gonna you're you're gonna let us charge. We're just going to suck money out of your bank account every month, because you've decided to like enter this relationship with us and then we're going to go ahead and betray that trust.Right. We can turn around and betray that 00:42:16 Robbie:Yeah,Advantage. 00:42:17 Jacob:But, yeah, I hadn't. Thought of fatigue in so many channels like that are so many aspects, but like the, the overwhelming aspect is interesting. And I resonate. I feel that, like, I feel that with, with dinner boxes, for sure, but even in software too, there's certain pieces of software.Like, I feel like, ah, I can't cancel it cause I have these intense and things like that. And that's not really what you want to, those, aren't the relationships you want to focus on. Right? Like so. 00:42:40 David:Side there, I think like I use this example a ton, but, Visco, I'm not a daily user. I'm not even necessarily a monthly user, but when there's a photo of my kids or just a photo, I took that I really cherish. I important into Visco and Fisco makes it better. And that to me is so valuable that I didn't even care.I mean, 20 bucks a year, I think is too cheap for their product. I would pay a lot more, even though I maybe only use it quarterly sometimes, or maybe once a month or, you know, when I'm on vacation, maybe I use it every day for a week, but it's interesting that that product. Doesn't create that sense of, oh, I'm not getting enough value out of it because I get so much value when I do. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Maybe if it were $60 a year, it would be too much. But I mean, I just, I just would never consider canceling because I it's just, when I have a photo I care about, I take it to Bisco and it's better and it like, that's their forever promise and it just resonates so well with me that I don't, I don't get that, guilt you know, I get more than $20 a year of value out of 00:43:49 Jacob:00:43:50 Robbie:Yeah, I think, I mean, it's interesting. I think one of the things about this, you know, sort of dealing with subscription overwhelm is, you know, is it framed like whatever the customer is, anchoring their pricing to. where they say it's valuable enough. So, so for example, I worked with, one of these produce box companies, and one of their challenges was that most of their customers said that most weeks they ended up throwing something away.Right. Because it's never the exact right amount of produce. Right? So you end up at the end of the week with like soggy kale or, you know, turnips, and then you go on vacation and you come back and they put them into with these turnips. But one of the things that we did is we set expectations. That it's okay to throw out a little bit of produce that you're still getting a better price than you would at the store.And you're still supporting farmers, local farmers. So sometimes it's as simple as just reframing what the expectation is like saying for Visco. You know, if you, if you use, you know, if you use this for two or three, you know, memory pictures a year, You know, doesn't that pay for itself in 20 bucks worth, you know, three great shots of your life.You know, the three best moments of 2021. a lot of it is about, is about, I think, expectation setting and understanding your customer and what the value is. Like. I don't know how much I pay for Amazon prime. I don't care.00:45:05 Jacob:Yeah, 00:45:06 Robbie:I it almost every 00:45:07 Jacob:I 00:45:07 Robbie:Mean, I don't. 00:45:08 Jacob:A decade ago and haven't thought about really 00:45:11 Robbie:Right. But I use it every day. Like I don't care what it costs. I mean, if they start charging $3,000, I would care. But like, if it's a hundred dollars a year or $85 a year or $115, I don't care. And that's a really important point about pricing is that at least I've found with many of the subscription companies I've worked with and a lot of, you know, software products when they don't sell well, when their business isn't growing, they immediately jumped to the. Must be too expensive. We'll have to lower our price. But in so many cases, it's not about the price. It's about the value. I'm not using it. If I'm not using it, it doesn't matter if it's a dollar or a hundred dollars. and so thinking about why aren't they using it before you jump right to, well, I guess I'll take 10% off the top.00:45:56 David:Yeah, let let's let's talk pricing real quick.Cause you, you do have several strategies that you get through in the book and in what you were, what you were just explaining was one of the things I really took away from your book. is it you say in the book that it's more important to understand product-market fit and willingness to pay than finding the exact right price.And so you, you were, you kind of backed into explaining that, but let, let's elaborate a little bit. And essentially what you were just describing was that a product that doesn't have product-market fit, it doesn't matter what you price it. You know, what are, what are your, what else, what are your thoughts on that?00:46:36 Robbie:Yeah. I, I just think, I mean, in so many things in life, you're kind of on a continuum. Like, you know, I remember when many years ago I started doing weightlifting and, you know, I told people that I was doing it to be more fit and you know, stronger, and now it's very common, but at the time a woman doing weightlifting, you know, working out with weights and people would say to me, I don't want.Huge muscles. And I was like, oh honey, you are so far from that being a problem. Like we're at the other end of the continuum. Like there are certainly people, women who work out and get too muscly and that's not what they want men to wear. Like then it intervenes with my ability to do my sport. But for most people it doesn't just happen.And I think in the world of apps, I think most people. Kind of over index on pricing and think that that's going to be the key thing to figuring this out. When a lot of times there's actually a pretty big gap between, you know, kind of where you can make money and where your customer is willing to pay there's lots of room, lots of different prices. And as long as you launch somewhere in that. You're going to make some money and over time, there's lots of ways to become more sophisticated and get to a better and better price point. But a lot of people assume that if they have a highly elastic product, meaning that for every dollar you increase your pricing.Your number of customers drops by a predictable percentage. And I think in many cases for a lot of products that are inelastic, if I use it, I'll pay anywhere between five and $10 month. And if I don't use it, I will pay nothing. And so if you notice that people aren't are canceling and they're the same people who aren't using the product, it's probably not a pricing problem.It's probably a product problem.00:48:17 Jacob:Right. I mean, if you're talking about product-market fit and a forever relationship like that, I'm going to pay incident money in terms of my lifetime. Right? Like I'm going to pay 00:48:27 Robbie:Great. Right. And it's, and the thing is that people assume like, so what I would say is if. If you're trying to figure out your first price, I'd say, don't worry about it too much. if you need to do a land, grab like a Spotify priced low and you can raise your price later, although that's hard, but just do it cause you, you want people to adopt your solution.If you're worried about, you know, hurting your core business, And so, you know, then start by pricing really high and you can lower it as you have increased confidence and understanding of use case. But there's a lot of room in there and that's really, my advice is be somewhere in that range. And if people aren't buying it or aren't staying.Look for the other signs of what might be driving it besides pricing, like, is it that they, you know, failure to launch? They never onboarded. They never activated, they never used the best features. is it that they were using it for a while and then their usage trickled off. Maybe they used it up, right?Either they binged or, you know, they've watched everything they've seen, maybe their job changed. So these features are no longer relevant to their work, but really try to be a detective about where the problem is like. it's like you have a party, in a bar you're not making money from the party in the bar. Like before you lower the price at the front door, see like, are people walking by and not recognizing that you have a party, so you have nobody in there because that's an awareness problem or is it that people come in the front door and can't find their way to the food and drink and music. And so they think it's a lame party is that they leave and they never come back.You know, that's an onboarding problem. Is it that they've been eating all the food and dancing to all the music and they're like, I'm tired of these songs. I'm tired of this food, which is a different kind of product problem, product assortment problem. Or is it, I went downstairs to the food and there was no food and the music, you know, the speakers weren't working and that's an operational issue.Right. So fix the problems before you drop the price.00:50:20 David:That's such...00:50:21 Jacob:I mean I think about it, if you have product-market fit, you're going to go this way (up and to the right on the curve). All the price is going to do is maybe define that inflection on that curve. Exponential curves, the slope doesn't matter often all that much in the longterm. You can optimize it eventually, but it's really getting that product-market fit. Then it just takes care of itself.00:50:52 David:That that is a great bit of advice to wrap up on.Your book, The Forever Transaction, is fantastic. Reading it was so fun just to think about—we put our blinders on with this podcast and in the space we work in with apps—but realizing that so many of the ideas that we think about, so many of the problems we work on, are things that are across the entire industry, across all consumer subscriptions, even a lot of overlapping in B2B SaaS.So, it was just so fun reading your book, and then getting to ask you questions here. I had 30 more questions that I wanted to ask you. I could go another hour or two, but I'll, put links to your LinkedIn, to your website, to your Twitter in the show notes.Is there anything else you wanted to share with our audience as we wrap up?00:51:42 Robbie:No, I think we covered a lot. If there's one thing that I want to leave people with, it's this idea that if you start with the promise you're making to your customers, helping them with an ongoing problem, or achieving an ongoing goal that's important to them, and then you optimize your offering around that, your chances of both acquiring and retaining your customers going to go way up.00:52:06 David:Such great advice. Great place to end.You mentioned that there's some extra goodies listeners can get if they click on the link in the show notes, they can get your book and some extra goodies along with that.So, thank you so much for being on the podcast.00:52:22 Robbie:Yeah. A real pleasure.

THE GREAT KING DAVID (DAVUD A.S) in one part --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/ottoman1453/message

Our guest today is Eric Crowley, a tech investment banker with GP Bullhound. With investments in companies ranging from Spotify to Whoop, and clients such as AllTrails, Pinkbike, and Lingoda, GP Bullhound provides transaction advice and capital to many of the leaders in the Consumer Subscription Software space.On the podcast we talk with Eric about his 2021 report on Consumer Subscription Software, the truth about LTV calculations, and the new era of organic user acquisition.In this episode, you'll learn: Was 2020 just a “COVID Bump,” or a shift in consumer behavior? Are the Bumble & Duolingo IPO multiples justified? How savvy developers are adapting to Apple's App Tracking Transparency The truth about LTV The new era of customer acquisition Links & Resources Spotify Whoop AllTrails Pinkbike Lingoda Bumble Duolingo Instacart Match Group Netflix Noom Weight Watchers Tinder The Dyrt Day One Journal Automattic Tech Crunch Scribd Pandora Eric Crowley's Links Follow Eric on Twitter GP Bullhound GP Bullhound insights Eric's LinkedIn GP Bullhound 2021 CSS survey Follow us on Twitter: David Barnard Jacob Eiting RevenueCat Sub Club Episode Transcript00:00:00 David:Hello, I'm your host. David Bernard. And with me, as always, RevenueCat CEO, Jacob Eiting. Our guest today is Eric Crowley, a tech investment banker with GP Bullhound. With investments in companies ranging from Spotify to Whoop, and clients such as AllTrails Pinkbike, and Lingoda, GP Bullhound provides transaction advice and capital to many of the leaders in consumer subscription software.On the podcast, we talk with Eric about his 2021 report on consumer subscription software, the truth about LTV calculations, and the new era of organic user acquisition.Hey, Eric, welcome to the podcast.00:00:56 Eric:Hey, David, Jacob. Thanks for having me back. It's always a pleasure. 00:00:59 David:Yeah. Every year you release this report, so we had to get you back. This is the third annual Consumer Subscription Software Report, and I wanted to kick off just asking you a little bit about the motivation, and where your headspace is in thinking about creating this. Who the target is, and what kind of questions you're asking yourself as you prepare this report.00:01:24 Eric:Yeah. The report is the GP Bullhound Consumer Subscription Software Report. I call it CSS, which is kind of a playoff SaaS. This is the third year I've been writing it, and it started back in 2018. I worked with a company called AllTrails that was starting to monetize really well by selling subscriptions.It was like a light bulb went off in my head. I was like, this is a phenomenal way to provide a consistently improving product to consumers, where the margins are pretty good. It's easy to access a ton of different people globally through the app stores or through the web, and I just got really excited about it.I started putting some notes down on my own, and then GP Bullhound really supported me in saying like, “Hey, this is actually a pretty big trend. There's gonna be some amazing companies built around this space,” and companies like RevenueCat, that are supporting CSS companies, are just as exciting.So, we've been slowly educating ourselves. The goal behind the report is really just to force me to do some thinking about the space. What it looks like. What it will be. As a banker, you can quickly focus on transaction, transaction, transaction, and not really do any long-term thinking about where the world's going.It's putting myself in your guys's shoes. You guys are building RevenueCat not for what the world looks like today, but for what the world looks like in three to five years. I try to take the same approach with CSS, and think about where's the world going to go. So I talked to a lot of smart people as I put the report together. Entrepreneurs, investors, get their opinions.You guys can see their interviews in the report, and then ultimately we publish it. The audience I like to think about is entrepreneurs, people that are thinking about starting a CSS company, or already launched one, and they're looking to improve their metrics, or think about their target audience as entrepreneur-rich.By partnering with them, investing in their businesses, it takes them to the next level. The other way I like to think about it, it's my own personal scoreboard. I love to flip back two years ago and see, was I right about this company? You're publishing in public, so people can always come back to you and say, “Man, you were way off.” So, I look forward to that.00:03:26 Jacob:I remember the F finding the first one, the 2018, I guess, reporter 2019, whenever the first one you put out,00:03:33 Eric:2019, I think that's how we met actually.00:03:36 Jacob:Did you reach out to me or? I think I found it, or I don't remember what it was, but00:03:39 Eric:We've had a mutual friend, Nico introduced us and said, Hey, you guys should talk about this. and then I think we just went off on a two hour tangent.00:03:47 Jacob:But yeah, I remember being, it's still, there's still not a ton of like really focused research or writing on this space. and I think that, that, you know, this will probably won't be true for very long, right. As long as it continues to grow, but like going back to like who it's for. I mean, I imagine it as some, you know, end of the day, if you're employing.Pushing into some kind of lead gen. Right. But it does provide a lot of value for, you know, even if you're not interested in a transaction or whatever, just. Some like holistic data on a space. Cause like, I, the same, I mean, Eric, you said we're, we're thinking three and five years in the future. It's like, I wish like a lot of times I'm thinking like three to six weeks in the future.Right. and so it's even useful, I think, you know, even if you're, you know, I, you know, we're, we're in a bit of an interesting place as a infrastructure provider to be at kind of a bird's eye view, but it. Founder on one of these CSS apps, you know, like it is useful for you to know, like what's the meta environment, how's it evolving, you know?And if nothing else to like connect you with other people who have experimented with things and stuff like that. So, yeah, I think it provides beyond, beyond the, the, the lead gen aspect of it. It provides a lot of value for people. So I'm glad, I'm glad you're, you're still doing it. 00:05:04 Eric:Yeah. And just for any of the listeners, it is free. So you just go to the GP, bullhorn.com website. It's all easy to download and then you can see all our past reports as well. So 00:05:12 David:Yeah, and we'll drop it in the show notes. but, yeah. And, and, and speaking of all that, you know, it, it's something we as RevenueCat want to get more into as well. I mean, just seeing how much value you've created in producing these reports, and we're kind of sitting on a, you know, Processing over a billion dollars a year in, subscription revenue.We've got a lot of interesting data that, that we, that I'm very personally excited to share that we haven't, kind of had the infrastructure to, to do yet, but are, are getting there. And, so hopefully we'll, we'll have our own kind of, state of subscriptions that dives into the data and some of the trends and stuff in a different way than, than your kind of, strategy and higher level look at things.But when one thing that has happened, in the actually. It was announced before your last report, but actually implemented since your last report. And that's the app tracking transparency and iOS 14, which didn't actually ship till iOS. What was it? 14.4 or five or something. So, so we're kind of just now starting to see the impacts of it.And, and, you know, you took a couple of slides in your report to start discussing it. And it really is kind of one of the biggest topics and top of mind for subscription app developers, because it really is a huge shift in the landscape. So I want it to. Start with talking about that. And one of the things you shared in the, in the presentation is that you feel like it's a short-term pain, that's ultimately going to lead to a long-term gain.So I'd love to hear your thinking around what that pain is, but then also what you see the long-term game being.00:07:01 Eric:Yeah, it's a, it's a, great point. And, you know, anytime apple or Google make changes to their, their, their app stores, right. It's a seismic shift throughout the industry because it's something that impacts everyone. And so everyone has to be aware of these changes and then ultimately have a plan for them.And so I think that the change you're talking about David is really the. The implementation of, removing tracking for a lot of, a lot of these businesses specifically, like. And so what the change did with IDFA, is it, it really deprecated the ability for, for marketers within some of these CSS businesses to really accurately target people, specifically using Facebook or some of these other social networks.And so what it's doing is it. It's impacting the conversion rates on, CSS, CSS, businesses, marketing to consumers. And so if you just can't find that person that just is in love with, for example, biking, if you're a Strava marketer, it just takes you a lot longer to find that specific subscribers you might have to market to 10 people now to find two subscribers versus before you can market to five people and find two subscribers.And so it just means marketing efficiencies going down. And that can mean. Growth rates. It can impact conversion rates and ultimately impact just financials of these businesses. And so it's a pretty important consideration for any, CEO marketing team on how they go out and get their, their business in front of consumers.If Facebook's no longer as efficient, they have to find other ways. And so. So my, my thought is like, this is a short-term problem, right? It's something that's going to take people two to three months to adapt and find a new way to reach consumers. But ultimately my hope is for the space is you see the long-term game, which is what I was referencing.People really focus on organic ways of acquiring customers. Right? So instead of just pumping ads through Facebook and trying to find someone who fits a profile, you spend a lot more time really narrowly targeting your demographic, your niche, and then finding ways for them to find your product organically either.You know? So like a company that I work with, we sold a company called Pinkbike and so what they do is they partner with, the trade associations for mountain. And those trails associations now act almost as the marketing partner of pink bike to let consumers know about the fact that all the trail details.Is on, is on the pink bike app or it's called trail forks. And so that's, that's a really powerful, organic customer acquisition tool that they don't have to pay for. And so you're seeing, seeing the same thing happen with, like Strava is doing this, pre.com recently partnered with the NFL. So if your team's got a last fourth quarter fuel goal and you need to get something kicked, you can go to pray.com and submit a prayer for your kicker. I wish I was joking. It's a pretty brilliant idea. So I think this is really good for the sector overall, but yeah. Happy to dive into it. It's it's a fascinating00:09:37 Jacob:We it's a callback to a sub club podcast content, but, Greg, this, the plant app, this is something that they were doing, which is like, we're partnering with, plant nurseries. Yeah. To like, get their app into people's hands. And, yeah, I don't know if it's an earned media or. Bought media, but this is more like this is earned, right?This is like building an audience. You've seen it in the maker community, actually a lot, like in the indie SaaS community, more it's a different game when it has to be consumer scale. Right? Like there's a little bit different. You have to build maybe a bit more than you would in like, oh, just blog about.Built this thing and that's enough to get Indies, but you can apply the same thing, right? It's like produce content, produce something like low investment for users to get engaged with your brand because you're not building an app unless you have some, I mean, maybe you are, but you're not going to build something with very high, like multiples.Like if you're, if you don't have something unique to offer in the first place, but put that into like a more like lightly consumable format, start to build that audience and then make that an on-ramp and yeah, I agree. Like that's, that's something you own, right? Like your brand is. your brand doesn't exist on the app store, right?Like your brand can exist outside of these, like shifting sands and regulations and whatnot, and ultimately is like, you know, going to get reflected in your asset value if that's something you care about. Right. So, 00:10:53 Eric:Yeah, that's a key thing we talk about, right. If any business that we look at that's potentially selling or, or thinking about raising capital, right? It's like, how are you finding your. And if you're, if you're one channel is Facebook, and then consequently, like doing Facebook ads or apple ads on the, on the app store, that becomes pretty challenging.And so you want it to be such a good product, right? So it involves more work upfront. And just as you're talking about Jacob, the product's gotta be better. It's gotta be more efficient. It's got to reach consumers where they are with the problem they have. it becomes a lot more viral and a lot more sticky.So I think, I think it's going to be good for the sector.00:11:26 David:You wouldn't want to name names of course, but I am curious if. Had any clients, or just talks about anybody in the space where they were very reliant on Facebook specifically, and then, and have really struggled as things have changed. You know, I've been seeing some tweets around the, the consumer packaged goods space where some of these CPG companies are really struggling.And so I'm just curious. You know, without naming names, if, if there's any kind of high level things you could share around, apps that have struggled in this new paradigm. 00:12:02 Eric:Yeah. I mean, I definitely can't name names, you know, obviously I keep everything confidential with my clients, but even non-clients, you've seen CACs go up 20, 30%. you see, like, if you think about like conversion rates from installs to subs, That's a big metric of actual intent. Did you find the right user, right?Did someone just click on it and download it? Great. But if they're not actually subscribing that wasn't a successful transaction for you. And so the way I think about this, David is it's the app stores made tracking a lot harder, so it's harder to find your right consumer. So imagine if you're a CPG company, you walk into a grocery.And instead of stuff, being laid out perfectly across the shelves at the right height for you, they just tossed everything in the middle of the store and said, find what you want. Just go pick it out. Right. You're going to have much lower conversion. You're going to have much lower purchase rates because people aren't being targeted with the stuff they want to see.And so I think now you have to find, you know, it becomes more of a specialty situation where you're walking into a store that has stuff for just outdoor gear or very healthy granola. Right. And you're going specifically to that store for that. That's probably better in the long term, for a lot of these companies, 00:13:01 Jacob:Yeah, but there's, there's a lot of, there's a lot of folks that have benefited from this ease relative ease, right. And any sort of market disruption is going to be painful. I was like, anecdotally, I mean, David, we've heard on this podcast and elsewhere people who have just like straight up pause acquisition, who are like all re scrambling because yeah.You get it tuned to this very fine knife edge. And I imagine for like consumer physical goods, like DDC stuff, it's even worse because their margins are thinner than software. Right. 00:13:28 Eric:And you've got inventory and everything. Yeah. It's a totally different. 00:13:31 Jacob:But, you know, as you do like you, the market reshuffles and the people, I can figure it out, the fastest are gonna are going to come out the best.So. 00:13:39 Eric:There's going to be a shift though. So people under this is like that seismic shift that just shows how much of your reliance is on maybe one or two channels. Right? Two, two major tech companies sitting here in San Francisco. If you're super, truly relying on those and you're doing great, fine.But if a bump happens, right, how exposed are you? And so like, this will be a benefit. Right. I think it's going to be a huge benefit for Tik TOK. Right? I think people are finding really good ways to acquire customers through tic-tac. And so that's a very interesting channel. I think it'd be really good for influencers, right?If you have people that are very passionate about a certain space and then they go out and, you know, have a very core customer base that loves what they do specifically. It's going to be pretty powerful for them to.00:14:18 David:Yeah, and I was just gonna say, anecdotally, you know, we haven't done a super deep dive in our data, but at a, at a high level, I was. Bracing for our numbers to take a big dip. Like I, I mean, Jacob and I had talked about it in the spring about, you know, how, what is going to look like for RevenueCat, you know, are some of these subscription apps just going to completely unwind and people are apparently figuring it out because you know, it keeps going up until the right. 00:14:49 Jacob:I mean the consumer, the consumer need hasn't disappeared. Right. So maybe if they just weren't driven, you know, it's not going to, it can't just disappear overnight. Right? Like if you never, if you, if you are a Coke fan who never saw Coke out again, and it's like, you're still gonna buy it. Right. Like there's, there's, there's a certain amount of demand.That's just going to find the supply. But, but yeah, no, I mean, it's hard for us to, to definitively say looking at our data and aggregators. Cause there's so much, but they're definitely. Like this summer was definitely slower than we've had in the past. Like on my, as I'm writing my investor updates of the year and each month and stuff looking at it.But yeah, it wasn't like this catastrophic, you know, macro thing. And they were talking about a lot of like, you know, probably outliers that we hear about people who were affected, you know, more than others, but overall. I, I don't think our, I don't think our prediction last year of, of a potential recession was necessarily false.Like it doesn't, it definitely doesn't feel like it's sped up the ecosystem. Right. But it doesn't necessarily feel like a depression, right. Maybe, maybe a slight recession or just the normalization. 00:15:49 David:Looking at our data in aggregate that, some folks use this to their advantage and actually, and, and accelerated because they knew it was coming and they did focus more on product and organic and other things. And so for whatever, you know, losses, there were. Other folks more than made up for that.And that's it kind of the interesting thing about working with so many, I mean, we're closing in on 10,000 apps on revenue cat. And so, you know, you kind of have a pretty broad basket where you, you know, there are going to be winners and losers, but in aggregate subscription apps are just continuing to tick along and do really well. 00:16:26 Eric:David it's like you read directly from bullets on my report. I, I, I completely agree with you.00:16:34 David:Another thing I wanted to dive into was the, the COVID bump. Cause that's, that's another thing that's kind of been on everybody's mind is simultaneous to this. I was 14 and, and this is something we've talked about again internally, with revenue cat, is it. This summer was the, everybody who was vaccinated and, and Delta hadn't kind of bumped yet.And so, you know, may, June and July, there was a big shift socially. kind of it felt like it, especially in the U S that we were coming out of the pandemic. and, and so simultaneous to the app, tracking transparency, going into effect, we had these like societal shift. And then now we're kind of back into it a little bit with the Delta surge, but just curious what your thoughts are on how much of the boosts we saw in 2020 really was dependent DEMEC and then how much of that will actually linger as kind of shifting consumer preferences and shifting consumer spend.00:17:36 Eric:Yeah. I mean, there's, there's absolutely a companies that benefited from us is called the removal of inf in in-person conversations. Right? So like Bumble and DuoLingo, two companies that both went public, right. They both benefited because their, their business model is designed around, not meeting in person for the first couple of conversations.Right. And so. There's no way to say that they didn't benefit. the way I think about it, though, in this, in the CSS space, it's very similar to like the overall e-commerce space, right? Is consumers looked around to find a solution for a problem they're having right. Instacart you couldn't, you couldn't go to the grocery store or maybe you felt less comfortable going to the grocery store.So you tried an Instacart for the first time. Maybe you were, you know, thinking about meeting someone, you know, long-term but you never, you never wanted to try online dating or you couldn't go to the bar. So you tried online dating for the first time and sorry. What the pandemic did was it really opened up people's eyes to other options from what they'd been doing for the last 20 years, 50 years, whatever it was.And so they had to find other solutions to, you know, their demands, their needs. And so I don't, I think it's absolutely a COVID bump, but I still look at it as really as an accelerant of people adopting new products and services that they would have tried in three to four years. but the pandemic kind of pushed them to try something, to move out of their comfort zone and try something new.So, you know, I absolutely think you'll see a little bit of a downshift in, in some of these companies that had a really big boom, right? Like language learning. People had nothing to do for four to five months, especially over some of the winter times. So people tried new hobby, tried language learning, you know, that'll probably go down a little bit, but overall, if you look at it from like a five-year trend, It's going to be up substantially from where it was in 20 17, 20 18, 20 19, and 2020, you know, made it look like a little bit of bump, but eventually I think those companies will continue to grow and surpass what anything they did in 2020. 00:19:21 David:Yeah, that's really interesting.00:19:22 Jacob:I'll back that up as well with the, the unreleased, Jacob looks at graphs and then gives a, gives a hand wavy descriptions of them. But we, yeah, we, we were, I was kind of bracing for it as well. And then I would say this summer was slow and like, David was. We're not sure why. I think it was, I think it was a number of factors things have since picked up again.But I think generally summers are slow for software a and then B. Yeah, I think we were seeing kind of like a little bit of the payback for, for COVID perhaps it's a, it's a vial. I think it's a plausible theory. We don't, it's really hard to prove. but we have not seen, you know, we, we saw our COVID experience was really drastic.And we have not seen. Similar, like back off from that, like, it has been like, it has been like we just compressed six months and I'm saying partially, this is just revenue casts, individual story because of where we were last year. But then I think also it's, it's indicative of the system in general.It's like, I think, yeah, we just compressed a whole bunch of, like consumer behavior change into like a very short period of time. And yeah, we're not gonna be able to keep that up. Right. We're not gonna be able to continue. To, to crunch that in, or we'll run out of consumers eventually. But, but it doesn't look like everybody's, you know, because, you know, I think the story for CSS in general, it's like we've delivered value for people, right?Like it's, it's a good, it's a good product, right? The whole line, not every product is good, but in general it's like a it's, it's a decent deal. And so I, I think more people discovering that. Yeah, it can only get bigger, right.00:20:55 Eric:Yeah, I think we talked about it in our first year, our first time together, right on the last podcast, which is if these businesses are truly making consumers' lives better, this is going to be a very long-term.00:21:04 Jacob:Yeah. 00:21:05 David:And speaking of that, and the two companies you just mentioned, in the, Time since we last spoke, but Bumble and DuoLingo went public and some other consumer subscription, apps went public. so tell me a little bit about your, your perspective on the, the public investor. Excitement for CSS.I mean, we're seeing pretty high multiples in the both of those IPS did, did very well. so what are you seeing in the, in the public investor space?00:21:33 Eric:Yeah, I think, I think the public market has really woken up to this business model, the power of it and understanding, you know, it's public markets. They do a lot of pattern matching, right? If they've seen something be super successful, they look for something that looks similar to that. And so I think a lot of people are waking up to, how powerful Salesforce is not waking up.They're well awake, very aware of SAS businesses. But I think they're seeing that same pattern starts to take, hold on, CSS. It just has different metrics. Right? And so, you know, Bumble's now public, the match group's been public for quite some time. Once I spun out of IAC, you've got Netflix and Spotify, which are fantastic examples of the international global reach of Content, and how consumers are very sticky for something they love.And so. These businesses who can get to scale really quickly, like you nuMe, right, is a competitor to weight Watchers. Weight Watchers has been around for decades, but Newman built a better mouse trap and they acquired customers at a really quick rate. And, you know, they're well over 400 million in revenue and ready for the public market.So I expect them to go public. Pretty soon. And so I think there's going to be a lot of businesses that follow them that are using this, this metric. So, and then that'll cascade all the way through, from public market investors as, as exit opportunities all the way down to, you know, series a series B investors, seeing this business model work and scale.00:22:47 Jacob:Yeah. I mean, I guess my, like, what's your, like, I, I, when, when we started seeing these go public in the last, like couple of years, so, well, I mean, honestly, it's like, Since we started RevenueCat, like was actually the, kind of the first unicorns, even like, I guess Bumble might've been passing unicorn when we got started, but like there weren't a ton and now it's like every, every month there's a funding announcement for a CSS company.That's a, that's a university. I mean, partially that's just like valuations going up and stuff like this, but like, how do you see. The evolution of this market. Long-term, you know, so DuoLingo pops becomes the first, you know, are they going to be like Salesforce and just be dominant in that space forever?Or do you see it being maybe more dynamic than sasses?00:23:31 Eric:I think it's a little more dynamic than SAS for, for a couple of reasons. One, new consumers like to try stuff, right. And so if it's with like a Salesforce or something, right. That integrates into your day to day operations from a business model perspective, right. So if something breaks there, right.Your business. 00:23:47 Jacob:Is very high. 00:23:48 Eric:Yeah, it's a little higher, right. And it's not just you using it. It's your entire business. Right? So you've got 10 people using this product or 20 people or 5,000, depending on the size of your company. Right. In CSS. It's it's you, maybe you and your family. Right? So it's a little bit of a different switching cost.So that's, that's one. However, these companies can scale a lot of. and they can, they don't have like the heavy, heavy cost and, you know, on the sales and marketing side. So I think they have an ability to actually get to profitability a lot faster, especially if they have an organic customer acquisition engine.And so I think that's going to be a big difference between that, between CSS and SAS. 00:24:23 Jacob:So, yeah, you mentioned the metrics are different. What are, what are the metrics that folks are, public investors are looking at for these companies that it might be different from a SAS company?00:24:33 Eric:Yeah. I mean, a lot of them are the same metrics, but the numbers that are like good are different, right? So like on a SAS business model, right. Revenue growth is just as attractive as a CSS business model revenue growth. Right. Everyone wants to see high double digits, triple digit numbers on revenue growth.But like an interesting thing is net revenue retention. Now that's very different, right? In CSS, you typically don't upcharge people or have additional seats be filled because it's just one person. Right. So, you know, maybe you get an. 00:24:59 Jacob:It's not much expansion opportunity. 00:25:00 Eric:Yeah, you can, you can do maybe some, some packages, upgrades, and people are starting to experiment that you can pack it and you can experiment with bump, bundling 00:25:07 Jacob:But it's certainly never going to be greater. It's never going to be net positive, right? 00:25:11 Eric:No, you're never going to see a net positive number where a lot of the SAS businesses, right.People are looking for net revenue, retention, numbers of north of one, 20, 120% net revenue retention 00:25:18 Jacob:I mean the opposite of churn, right. Which if you have a CSS business with opposite, Congratulations. like 00:25:25 Eric:Yeah. You're doing something well, and I haven't found it yet, but yeah, 00:25:28 Jacob:You might be the only one 00:25:29 Eric:Yes, I think that's right. 00:25:31 David:Quick, point though, to counterpoint to what y'all were both just saying, of all the apps, dating app, it's totally slipping my mind. 00:25:40 Jacob:Tinder. partnership. David, look at us. We're like on a wavelength. 00:25:46 David:They, they have in-app purchase. They have consumable in-app purchases to boost your, profile. They're one of the few that I've seen that could potentially actually have a. A a positive, net revenue retention. whereas most subscription apps are just a subscription. it's going to be interesting to see if other subscription apps can pull off that sort of model that you could actually generate a, a net net revenue retention. 00:26:19 Eric:I think you nailed it, David. So that's coming from. Right. I think people first experimented with, Hey, how do I get someone to buy my product every year or every month? Right. And now is how do you make it even better? So they're starting to listen to their core users. And we talk about this a little bit on the LTVs.And what do these people want and what makes this experience even better for them. And I think you nailed it with Tinder, right? It's the most, it's the easiest thing to convince people to, to encourage more is more, you know, more relationships, right? People love more relationships and people are willing to pay for that.And so, you know, then what else, what else could this go down the path of, right. What other options could people pay for additional services? Or what we've seen is like marketplaces or transactions spinning on. Right. So if you have a really passionate user base and they're going out there doing, camping, for example, like on, on the dirt, it's a camping site, right?What about doing a marketplace to buy and sell use tents right now is not a subscription, but now if someone's paying, like, okay, now they bought something through your marketplace and you get 10% of that purchase price. So there's going to be a lot of stuff. I think that happens there, to encourage that, to encourage that LTV numbers start rising, I just haven't seen a ton yet, make it happen above 00:27:26 Jacob:It's a scale problem. I need to do that either be at such scale for that to make sense. So I was going to say for anybody, listening to this, that hasn't reached 20 million in ARR, probably north of that do not add a marketplace to your 00:27:37 Eric:I totally agree with that. Very, very much focused focus, focus. And so I would even say like closer to 50 00:27:43 Jacob:Yeah. I mean, until you're like, how do we get this thing public? Or how do we show, like, how do we show like N plus one revenue streams, right? Like it's kinda more what it's about than it is necessarily the revenue generated. 00:27:53 Eric:I'm just a dreamer though. You're just a realist. I'm here, I'm here. And you're just telling me all that stuff that could go wrong. 00:27:58 David:One of the things you just kinda touched on that I wanted to dive deeper into was, was a truth about LTVs. And I love this slide on the, on your presentation, kind of defining these two cohorts, which I've never heard, defined this way. And I really loved the analogy and I'm going to start sort of stealing it from you and use.And crediting you of course. but in the presentation you define, tourists and locals, and then talk about kind of the importance of identifying these different cohorts. So tell me about Who the locals are and why that matters and who the tourists are and how companies can start, analyzing their data to understand this and better target marketing, better, craft the experience in the app and, and those sorts of things. 00:28:46 Eric:Yeah. So we're going to geek out here guys, and, really go deep into STSS. Right? So this is where, this is where my brain goes sometimes on a Saturday night, which is just exciting. but so the way I've been thinking about CSS a lot, and so the LTV component of CSS, which is lifetime value, Which I'm sure all your listeners are very, very well aware of is kind of like how much money can you make from this consumer over time.Right. And it's a function of your pricing and it's an, a function of your turn rate. And so, a lot of people are very focused on this metric as investors or buyers, right? Because it's effectively, how valuable is your customer? So it's an extremely important metric. The problem with this metric and lots of other metrics is it's, it's derived from an app.Right. It's looking at all your users that come into your, in your ecosystem is paying customers. And then how do they perform over time? and it's, it's driven, it's driven off an average of all your users. And so when I've gone through some of my client's data and you look at their user base, right, we, we quickly discovered there's a, there's kind of two different profiles.And I won't use any names here, but let's just, let's just say it's, a walking company, right? So you're, you've got people that go out and they, they sign up, you have a hundred people that. And 20 of them start walking every day and they're, and they, this is what they love and they're tracking, they're walking and you've got another 40 that do it for like a month or two.And then they kind of drop off and then just like, I'm going to go do biking or skateboarding or something. And I switch and you've got another people that sign up. They subscribed to it because their friend pressured him into it and they hate walking and they're never going to walk again and they turn off immediately.Right. So you kind of have those three different groups, some that are just going to do whatever. Some that do it for two to three months and then leave. And then some that do it the first month. And then say, forget this. I'm never going to use this again. And so the problem is your LTV of each one of those three groups are very, very different.And so what, we've, what we've been guiding investors and entrepreneurs, as they think about their growing their businesses, really find out who those locals are, who those people that are going to come and use your app every day, every week, every summer, whatever, whatever the metric is that you're looking.And find ways to measure that, right? Because ultimately that's who you need to bring to your community. And one, those people make the community run more robust, right? Cause they're constantly contributing feedback into the. To, they're much more likely to stay around with you guys. And so you need to find those tools that they're looking for.Right? Like seeing around the corner and saying like, okay, this person loves walking. What else can I provide them? What about a weather forecast? So now that they are about to go out and walking, you know, what does the weather look like? And, oh my God, this is now, this is my one-stop stop for, for walking.And so I think w we've been guidinGP Bullhound's like if you use the averages as a broad metric and that's great, and you should, because investors are going to want to know that, but, but really dig deep into your, your cohort and understand like who's using this every day, all day and what do they need. And so if you can really identify that and show that LTV to, to invest in.I think you can get people a lot more excited than just like that average LTV, right? Cause this shows them potential of what it can be over three to five years, which is really important if you're two or three year old company. Right. And try to convince someone to invest in you showing them that lifetime value of the tour or the locals is going to be a lot more valuable than that average.00:31:46 Jacob:I mean, if you think about just as the, you know, I think it's one of the, you highlighted one of the hard parts of assessing these businesses early on, is that yeah. Your cohort, your total subscriber base is very heavily biased on like your most recent cohort, because often you're also growing, right?Like that's often, like your most recent cohort might be the size of your first five, you know? just because, and for that reason you can really have scurry looking data. but you know, if you think five years from now, mostly. Those other two groups you mentioned there they'll have turned out from most cohorts.Right? And then the only ones remaining for four years of cohorts will be these locals and these long-term retention. And then your total subscriber base is gonna look very different than it does today. Right. And yeah, I'll admit revenue. I've tried to solve this problem in the product. And we still are trying to solve this problem in the product.It's how do we like show people? Cause you're, you're dealing with a mixed population, right? And like you, you can also also run into a problem with begging the COO or like doing very, like, look, you got to invest in and say like, look, look how great my retention is. If I just ignore them. Bad users. Right?Like, let me just look at the good ones. Right. But there is something there in that. What you're talking about, Eric, that long, that very long-term view is that if these users really do retain for a long time, eventually they will be the lion's share of. Subscriber base. And that churn that we talk about, like, you know, if you're adding 1% of your total user base, the most you can experience off of that as like 1% of churn, right.Versus when you're adding half, you know, if you have 110,000 subscribers and you add 10,000 in a month, that's going to be a huge effect to your overall subscription subscription base. Right. so yeah, I think, I think, you know, we certainly have a lot to build on the tooling side. Right. And I think it goes to what you're talking about.Air. We're very early. Like, I think we've just kind of solved infrastructure, like infrastructure. I mean, I would even say kind of, cause there's a lot for us that we need to do yet. but as far as like data science and actually yeah. Being able to outside of a spreadsheet, understand this stuff. It's it's, it's not trivial.It's not trivial. All 00:33:51 Eric:It's extremely hard. And I think like, cause there's so much more you could do once you've broken those two cohorts into tourists and locals, right? Like how do you acquire the locals versus how do you acquire the tourists? Are tourists coming through like Facebook, apple store and the locals are coming from referrals.Okay. So maybe your Facebook spend, is that even worth doing the spending on right. If they're, if they're turning off after a month or two, you know, subscribers is a vanity metric, right. If they don't. All right. You can grow. We talked about this in our 2020 report. We have like this cheetah versus thoroughbred.Right. And it's really easy to show a ton of growth. And you've got all these subscribers and everything is fantastic. Right. But if those subscribers get tired and they turn off right away, you kind of probably wasted money on them. Right. Maybe you got paid back in a month, right. So you didn't lose like on the CAC spend right in here, but you're not building your business.Right. You're just gonna you're pinching pennies. 00:34:36 Jacob:But not a lot of work. Right? Like it's not actually getting translated into business 00:34:39 Eric:Exactly. So is it better to kind of focus on the product, right? Figure out what those, those, tourists are using and spend less time on the marketing side and really nailed the products like, Hey, you'll probably grow slower, right? And That's an issue. That's a risk you have to take, but maybe you can grow more efficiently, more capital efficiency.00:34:55 Jacob:Capital's free now, so that's not a 00:34:58 Eric:That's a fair point of half my fault, I'll take full responsibility for some of that. Right. 00:35:03 Jacob:I think it's interesting how this like feeds into, you know, kind of going back to targeting and ad targeting how often. Optimized Facebook campaigns on like trial conversion. And that doesn't even that doesn't, that's all your tourists and your locals. I mean, maybe some of those that never even start a trial would be cause, but there's a lot of tourists in that group that started trial right.Or convert a trial. And a lot of people are targeting off of that. Right. And so as these methods become less. Good. it will force it'll force developers to yeah. Maybe do one of these scary things actually talk to users, right? Like actually like find those locals, like go in your analytics. And I think just the thing as you were talking about, I just want to point out that, like, I don't think you necessarily need to define this off of monetization retention either could just be retention, like pure usage retention, but it could also be engagement.Yeah. I think about the way Facebook, Oriented their growth teams very early on, which was like findinGP Bullhound that connected, like that was a really key step for them in their product, was to get people to make like three or four. I forget there's some number of friends and they oriented all of their growth efforts around that.Find the thing that people do in your. Shows that they're engaged and give them opportunities to show that. And then, you know, you can use that as an indicator. Okay. Talk to those folks and actually talk to them, right? Like find out, always put something in your app that lets you reach out to them in some way.And like, have you can get on a zoom call. I've done. It's easier now in SaaS land because like, I, I, I, people I'm an app. People like I know how to talk to them, but when we were, when I was working in consumer. Phone calls were more awkward, right? It was different. You're not going to books like outside of computer land, but still like just incredibly valuable.And, and, and, and I think like, you know, if we want to talk about the way to build the way to fully realize how CSS is going to, I'm just going to go all in on your turmeric, by the way, I said, I'm going to, 00:36:57 Eric:That.00:36:57 Jacob:I'm going to push it. We're going to standardize. But 00:36:59 Eric:It's not trademark, but knock it out. 00:37:01 Jacob:All right. So to fully like, to fully realize the potential to like help problems for people.Like, I think we need to lean into this more of this model. Right. Rather than I've always kind of like had an uncomfortable relationship with how our RevenueCat fits into the like hyper fast monetization stuff. Right. I'm like, get users, check your CAC, put more money into Facebook. Right. And so, the more the industry gets away from that. The happier I am. I don't know. Like you said, maybe it doesn't go quite as fast, but I think the overall Tam will be larger. Right? If we take that approach,00:37:33 Eric:Think that's right. And, you know, I mean, I've talked to a bunch of founders that haven't raised capital. Right. And they build something that like their users love. Right. Like, so I don't know if you guys saw the deal with day one that got bought by automatic braised almost as your outside capital.Right. He built. 00:37:46 Jacob:Big fans that they won. 00:37:47 Eric:Yeah. Yeah. I was a big,I got it's an awesome business and he did that exact same thing. Right. He just listened to his users. He didn't care about vanity metrics grew really nicely. Right. And it wasn't like, you know, he's not getting tech crunch publishing, but that's fine. Right. You know, on an amazing business.And then, you know, I've got a fantastic exit out of it. So I think, I think people are really waking up to that's a very much a possibility here in the.00:38:08 David:Yeah, one thing I wanted to highlight too, in that graph that you made, and for people that are listening to this, you can go to the show notes. We'll have links to the, Eric's presentation and you can find this chart, but to visualize it00:38:25 Jacob:Page 18. it open right here. 00:38:27 David:Following along at home, the, line for the locals drops.So, you know, even, even for locals, you're going to have some turn early on, but then it essentially flat lines. and I'm sure you did that very purposely to kind of illustrate how. How long term some of these, these, this retention can end up being, and it's something we've actually been talking on the podcast about recently is that we're so early in the space.We don't even really know what, how to measure LTV. Cause you're going to have people who ended up subscribing for decades. and years and years and years, if not decades. And so, and, and then, you know, to your point about the cheetah versus thoroughbred, another great chart in the patient number, Jacob Page number00:39:16 Jacob:I 00:39:17 David:Cheetah versus thoroughbred but in that tuna versus thoroughbred, The other aspect to locals, and we're kind of touched on it earlier is that those cohorts start to stack. So when you identify this cohort, that is going to be a very long-term cohort. That's going to stay subscribed and have very low churn. You, you acquire a hundred thousand this year, and then they're still there next year.And you put a hundred thousand on top of that. And those are still there next year. And by year three, you know, you just continue to grow this pie of people who are very, very sticky in the product. And I think that's part of what. you know, what you're talking about with delinquent and Bumble and other companies is like, we're still just starting to understand even as different as this is from SaaS.We're starting to see similar dynamics as far as. Early on the churn is so high, but then you do have this really strong stickiness over the long-term that, that, that can build a really healthy business of people who really love your, your product and really are invested in it and are going to stay for a really long time.So yeah, I just wanted to point that out that, that I, I love that aspect of the chart of how flat that line is for the locals. 00:40:35 Eric:I mean, you, you can see it in your own spending patterns, right? Like how many of you guys have subscribed to Netflix or Spotify for more than five years? I bet it's a good chunk of your listeners. Right? So, I mean, if I look at my phone, right, I'm going to subscribe to all trails for the next decade, 00:40:47 Jacob:Yeah, I've got CSS. I I've started subscribing to in 20 13, 14, like as 00:40:52 Eric:Yeah. 00:40:52 Jacob:It was a thing, 00:40:53 Eric:I've, been a script user for four years and I still download audio books or download other books from like the San Francisco library. Cause I'm probably the cheapest banker of all time. but you know, I still use script 00:41:04 Jacob:It's finding margin, Eric you're finding margin. That's what that is. 00:41:07 Eric:Exactly. I've pinched counties all day.But yeah, so I mean, I, I think those tails David to your point are still being written. And so that's the whole point, right? If you use average LTV and you say, all right, well, we have 30% churn that math means you lose every user in three years, and that's just not how it works. And if with really good businesses that are delivering value, right?And so then once you convince people of that, right, the investment case becomes a very different company.00:41:30 David:And speaking of that, you, you had a great, slide on investor benchmarks. And so I wanted to get to that real quick, tell me about how you, how you thought. These different metrics. And what, and how investors think about these metrics? Because you know, we're talking about LTV and in there you have LTV to CAC of you, you know, for a really strong app, that investor would be super excited about.You're closest to. Six X versus less than three X, you start to cool off. So, yeah. Walk us through each of these metrics and kind of how you think about it, how you think investors think about it, And even how that's kind of maturing as we understand the space better. 00:42:10 Eric:Yeah. And just to note like these metrics are all different for different types of businesses, right? If you've been around for a year, these metrics are very different versus if you've been around for 10 years, right. If you're in high growth, you know, venture back, spending a lot of money, these metrics look very different than if you're a bootstrap business, you know, just trying to inch out.You know, 10% growth a year. Right. So they can be very different. And the important thing is how does the story of your business and what you're trying to accomplish tie to these metrics? Right. So that's what we spent a lot of time talking to founders about is, is what's good based on what you're trying to do.Right. So it's just how you, how do you tell your story through the metrics? but yeah, so a couple of your points on the S on the slide, we talk about like user growth rates, gross margins, LTV to CAC, churn rates, free to paid conversion rate, and then sales efficiency. and then, you know, just to talk about something different, we, we talked about LTV a little bit earlier, but maybe talking about, churn, right.And so like how quickly do people churn off? Right. And so that's, there's a couple different ways to interpret churn, right? It's one, they didn't find your product. Too. They thought it was really expensive. or if they're not turning, they really love something you've put together. Right. And they decided to pay you multiple times for that either monthly or annual.And so what we just try to do is try to tell the story of where the business is at and where it's going by looking at these metrics. And so, you know, that's why it's so important to truly understand these metrics, because if you don't understand the metrics, it's hard to tie that to the story. so we spent a lot of time with any client or even non-clients just talking about this stuff to truly understand, you know, what investors care about.And it's, you know, if someone's buying the business, they may care a very good. They may care about very different metrics for someone who's investing your business for growth, right? So someone's going to put 40%, $40 million on your balance sheet to go grow. They may be focused less on LTV to CAC now because your LTV is not formally formed, right.They don't know how good it is, but they will focus very heavily on churn, which is a reflection of how good your product is and how good you're finding consumers that love your product. Right. So those, those are metrics that they may focus. They made me more comfortable spending a lot of money in the next two years.Right. So your CACs going to look a lot worse because they watched, you acquire a lot of users to make the platform a lot better. Right. And a lot of CSS businesses, right. UGC is a, is a, is a spinoff of user activity on the post. Beautiful uploading photos reviews. They're adding new new items on, on the platform for other users to use.And so it's worth spending more money to get those people in the first two to three years because your platform becomes that much better and that much more valuable, right? So you may be willing to burn down to a, an LTV to CAC of three X or something like that in the near term, or sometimes even two extra one X, because it's a land grab for those.Once you're on their platform right now. You want to see that LTV to CAC, start to move up a little bit, right? So you start to put it to four or five, six X, LTV to CAC. So it's all about where your business is. It's each different stage, but it's important to have a story and a message around why your numbers are, what they are.00:45:03 Jacob:Of the, I have the slides up in third slide, 37 for anybody who's following along at home. all of these as a veteran SAS CSS person, every annual user growth rate, gross margin to be cash I'll clear me, sales efficiency ratio. Can you talk about that one? Cause that one's, that one's, not as a little foreign to me. 00:45:22 Eric:Yeah. It's, it's a, it's more of a metric that's come out of SAS just to be honest. So it's thinking about like, it involves like how, how many users are you gaining? It's how much revenue you're gaining versus how much money are you putting out there? So it's a little bit of a different metric. and most CSS businesses don't get to that yet because they typically don't have heavy sales team.And so we've included it because you're starting to see some of these CSS businesses really start to grow. And so how much revenue gaining versus how much revenue you're losing and how much is it costing you to do that? And so that's when you're starting to get into like the tens to $20 million of, of, marketing spend a year, it's, it's, important to understand like how efficient is that spend being, and this is the best metric 00:46:00 Jacob:We, it says called sales, but you actually throw in marketing, spend in there as well. So it's like all go to market spend 00:46:07 Eric:Yeah. Are using head count, not just like the ad dollars. right. 00:46:10 Jacob:Right. 00:46:11 Eric:It's like a fully loaded CAC number, like 00:46:13 Jacob:Your, all of your people telling Facebook what to do, 00:46:17 Eric:Yep, exactly. Exactly. 00:46:18 Jacob:Content graders, like all that stuff, right? Yeah. 00:46:20 Eric:If you've got a hundred people running around campus, right. Promoting your app. Right. Okay. How much those people cost. Right. So it's an important way to think about how much you grow. And it's a way to think about like how well can you grow a capitally efficient capital with limited amounts of capital.So it's an important one. We look at it, it's typically a later stage, right? So you've gotta be like north of 20 million of 00:46:40 Jacob:So he's going to be super high when you're small, right? Because you're, you're your. 00:46:43 Eric:Sir. Request important. 00:46:44 Jacob:People are discreet. Right. And that you can't, you're not continuous. So, and also your, your, your revenue just grows less because of like, you know, you're smaller, you're less, well-known like, you're less is momentum is things like this. 00:46:56 David:Well, we're starting to run low on time, but there's so much more I want to talk to you about, but just to hit one last thing. I also love this chart you did, of Pandora versus Spotify. It's such a. And encapsulation, really everything that we've been talking about on this podcast is to see how well Spotify revenue has compounded over the past few years versus a Pandora, which, which look was the juggernaut.You know, when, when, when Spotify started. so, so walk us through this chart. And in how and why you think, you know, Spotify was able to, to grow the way they did while Pandora really struggled. And obviously there's a ton of, you know, other business factors and execution and other things. But, but I think overall, this does speak to the power of CSS.00:47:54 Eric:Yeah. And this is, this is something we did back in 2020 when we were just trying to decide like, Hey, what's is this CSS thing real? And, and a big question you get from, from investors. And listen, I think a lot of them have stopped asking this question because the case studies are out there is why would someone pay monthly or annually for something they can get for free?And by get for free, it means listening to, or watch. Right. And so I wanted to see like, alright, graphically or like actually numbers to will people, more companies make more money by making that really hard decision and say, pay me for what I'm giving you first. I'll give you something for free and exchange every half hour, you watch two minutes of ads, right?That's a really hard question to say, because it involves you putting a lot of value in your product. And so entrepreneurs, you know, product developers have to. Is this worth money or am I giving something out to people that, Hey, they'll kind of use it if they get it for free. Right? So it's a, it's a gut check for people to say, like, did I build something that someone will buy?That's hard. That's really challenging. Ask yourself, especially if you've started with advertising. and Spotify, you know, listen, they were a small company based in the Nordics, right. Versus Pandora US-based juggernaut and, and raised a lot of money. Right. That's a tough challenge. And so they took a really tough thing and said like, Hey, we're going to get.And make people pay for our product and we're going to make it better. But the crazy thing that happens though, right, is you make so much more on a user from subscriptions than you do from average. Right on advertising. You're trying to pick up pennies per subscription on some or pennies per user on the subscriber.You're making 10, 20 bucks a month, depending maybe maybe $60 a year for a subscriber. So the amount of users you have compounds so quickly, and then if you have that heavy retention, all of a sudden, you've got these really thick layers of cashflow that come in every year, use that cashflow. You invest it back in.He invested back in product and you do it again and again and again, and all of a sudden you've got a better product. And if you have a better product, people will come to it. And if it's something that they're using daily, right. Why would you not be comfortable like paying five bucks? Right. If I think about like how much my Netflix subscription is, right.It's $11 a month or something like that. Right. Well, I probably watch 10 hours of Netflix a month, right? So I'm paying a dollar an hour to be entertained. Pretty good deal. And so, like, I think if people, people start doing that math and you start to see like how powerful that that subscription is for user versus an ad driven, it becomes pretty interesting.And so I think you've seen this case study play out over and over and over across CSS, where if you build a good enough product, you know, a 10 X product versus the free option, people will pay for it. 00:50:24 David:And Spotify does double dip as well, which is interesting is that they have a good enough free tier and people can listen for free. But they choose to spend, even though they can. And so, so Spotify is a great example of, of double-dipping with a great freemium tier, but then a good enough product in a compelling enough reason that people will pay.00:50:47 Jacob:Yeah, another dimension. I don't know the specifics of Pandora and Spotify. It's like fundraising history, but if you have like the subscriber. Subscription revenue momentum makes capital more easy to access. And you look at some of this. I think of some of the strategic stuff that Spotify has done. Like they got the Beatles on Spotify pretty early on and lets up, they spent big on partnerships and Content and stuff.And if you have momentum, if you have hard dollars, it's a lot easier to go to an investor and be like, Hey, like I want to raise X million dollar. Revenue growth. I have, like, this is very clearly a business. I can remember raising money in the pre revenue is everything era or like trying to raise money.And it was like a lot harder. Right. Cause it was just like hand waves and we're going to grow and like, and now it's like, yeah, for better or worse, you go over the curtain and you show something. Right. But the big benefit too, I think for founders, it's not just for investor, for founders. It's like, yeah, you build a great business.You're building a safety net, right? Like if you can't fundraise, it's not the end of the world. Like you have options. And I think that's part of the reason why also, I mean, now we're getting into fundraising like macro, but that's part of the reason the funding environment is crazy because businesses are sturdier than they've ever been.Like they need capital less than they've ever needed it. Right. And so like, that's why it's gotten cheaper. or, you know, evaluation's gotten higher same thing. Right. So, Anyway. Yeah. And this is a fascinating to put this. I already was not on here, which was my horse. And I was like really pulling for them.And then it gets to a whole different story of why that's not on there. But, but yeah, it's fascinating.00:52:11 David:Well, I think that's a really fun place to end the story of Spotify, one of the biggest juggernauts in the space. We're going to include in the show notes a link to the report, a link to your LinkedIn and Twitter to follow along.Anything else you want to share as we wrap up? 00:52:27 Eric:No guys. Always a pleasure to join you. One thing for your audience users, we are trying to make the GP Bullhound CSS report a resource for founders. This year, for the first time ever, we did include a link to a survey.So, if you want to contribute your data, what we'll do is aggregate everything, anonymize it, and then we'll provide back a summary to users to say, “Hey, here's your LTV to CAC. How does this compare to other founders at this stage?” We are trying to be a resource. I'll probably give you guys that link, if you don't mind. We'd love to have as many people as possible. No pressure.Of course, all of it would be anonymized. This isn't a marketing tactic for us. It's us giving back to the community. We'd love people to take a second to do the survey, but if not, don't hesitate to email me, tweet at me, hit me on LinkedIn with questions, comments, and specifically stuff We got wrong. Absolutely love to hear where we can learn.00:53:22 Jacob:Yeah. 00:53:23 Eric:Because we're not building, we're just talking about what you guys are doing.00:53:26 Jacob:By the time you print this thing, it's like, stuff's changed, right? Like it's changing so fast.00:53:32 Eric:The whole Apple thing when we were publishing was happening everyday. And I was like, this is unbelievable.00:53:36 Jacob:And wait to...00:53:36 Eric:Since July, and I have to change every minute. Yeah. I had to change a PowerPoint. You guys had to change code. So I think one was a lot harder.00:53:44 David:Well, it was great having you on, Eric, and we'll have to make this an annual thing.00:53:49 Eric:Sounds good.You're welcome.00:53:51 Jacob:Yeah, we'll see you next year. 00:53:52 David:See you in 2022.00:53:54 Eric:All right. Thanks David. Thanks Jacob.

Our guest today is Seth Miller, Founder and CEO at Rapchat. Seth is on a mission to democratize music creation with Rapchat's mobile app. Rapchat takes the friction out of making music, and has helped millions of artists unleash their creativity.Seth earned his bachelor's degree in business administration, with an emphasis on management information systems, from Ohio University. Before founding Rapchat, Seth worked as a consultant for Adidas, and an IT Systems Engineer.On the podcast we talk with Seth about bootstrapping his way to signs of product market fit, raising money from strategic partners like Sony Music, and what it's like to have Facebook completely rip off your app.In this episode, you'll learn: Finding the right niche for your app Bootstrapping and early funding Using the right marketing channels for your app Filtering out the wrong users for your app's paid features How to transition your app from free to paid Links & Resources Sony Nico Wittenborn Twitter Adjacent Complex Seth Miller's Links Follow Seth on Twitter Rapchat Follow us on Twitter: David Barnard Jacob Eiting RevenueCat Sub Club Episode Transcript00:00:00 Seth:We would be dead for sure if I didn't learn how to code. It's an invaluable skill that I'll have in this organization and future organizations. It also just helps me think about things. It's a really great way to look at the world sometimes.00:00:31 David:Hello, I'm your host, David Bernard. And with me as always, RevenueCat CEO, Jacob Eiting. Our guest today is Seth Miller, founder and CEO at Rapchat. Seth is on a mission to democratize music creation with Rapchat's mobile app. It takes the friction out of making music, and has helped millions of artists unleash their creativity on the podcast.We talk with Seth about bootstrapping his way to signs of product market fit. Raising money from strategic partners like Sony, and what it's like to have Facebook completely rip off your app.Hey Seth, welcome to the podcast!00:01:06 Seth:How's it going? Thanks for having me.00:01:07 David:It's been a long time coming. You and I first chatted way back in 2019. You were the first office hour call I ever took at RevenueCat.00:01:18 Seth:Oh, wow. 00:01:19 David:Yeah, going way back in my RevenueCat days. 00:01:22 Jacob:It tells you how bad of a CEO I am that we've never actually spoken on the phone in those two years.00:01:30 Seth:Or how good David was!00:01:31 Jacob:Yeah.00:01:32 Seth:I was sold after one call. I'm like, all right, dude, where do I sign up? How do I get this going? 00:01:37 Jacob:We have a lot of cross connections, because you're an Adjacent portfolio. Nico is a co-investor. We're also both Ohio-based. So, yeah, lots of cover today.00:01:54 Seth:We got to hang out. 00:01:55 Jacob:We should. It's beautiful in Ohio today, but I'm not going to make an Ohio podcast.But, maybe kickoff and tell us, what is Rapchat?00:02:07 Seth:Yeah, absolutely. So, Rapchat is the easiest way to make music on your phone. We have an iOS and Android app. You really just like tap in, and open the app. We have hundreds and thousands of free beats on the app. So, you just pick a beat, you can record over it, and then you can share that anywhere.We have people making full-length studio-quality songs from their phone and sharing it to Instagram and SoundCloud. And then also on the platform, we have a social layer as well. Which is really cool. Pretty much a recording studio in your pocket, with a community, with a social layer.Similar to Visco, or Instagram for music. Our mission is really to democratize music by providing access and tools to the next billion music creators.00:03:01 Jacob:How did you get on this idea?00:03:05 Seth:Well, like just scratching my own itch in the early days. Almost eight years ago when I was in college, apps were really starting to become a thing, and same with social networks and you-do-see platforms that let you create content and share it. You know, the golden era of Vine, Snap, all of that. But there was nothing for music.I also had a hobby of freestyling with my friends. So, we'd get together, throw on beats, and rap, and some people would sing and just create all sorts of stuff. It was something that I noticed that was like, yeah, this should exist on your phone. I should be able to do this with my high school buddies that are on a different campus that I used to do it with.That was really it, just scratching my own itch. Then over time, I think we've really come to realize that there's just this massive opportunity to do this at scale for those that really want to make music and take it seriously.So, I've kind of outgrown my own use case a little bit, even though we have people that come and have fun, but really we're focused on providing tools for the everyday artist that historically has been kind of gatekeeped out of participating in music. So, we try and give them everything we can in their pocket, and still feels like we're only getting started. 00:04:26 Jacob:It's not as easy to pirate logic these days I imagine, like it used to be.00:04:31 Seth:Yeah. Right.00:04:32 David:What did those early days look like? Did you learn to code? Did you have a coding background? What did those early days look like, and when did you get the app out? 00:04:43 Seth:Yeah, I mean, pure chaos and it's not too much different today, you know, it's just a little more organized. yeah, the first version of the iOS app was June, 2014. I think it was June 7th and that was really. I wouldn't even pass as an alpha version think especially with how good some of the test flights are, but, you know, it was very basic.It was, you could open the app record one track over like 10 predefined beats that had to come with the app store bundle, like would even have server side, like beats, and. Like, we just wanted to test that people would do it. And you know, of course the first couple of months, is just getting friends off Facebook and family to download it.But then, I started to notice like, you know, a little bit of traction and then more traction and then basically quit my job. I was like, all right, I gotta, I gotta really go after this. And it, that exactly. That's when I taught myself how to code too, because, I had a lot of help in the early days, just from like friends, faculty members, anyone I could get to work on it But then after, you know, I noticed there's just like basically early signs of product market fit, I guess, if you will now, but people sharing it. I was like, I really want to make updates to this thing and I can't afford any engineers and I don't know anything about fundraising. So it was like the only way I could make any updates and then wrote really shitty code for like three years.And, but got enough traction improved to kind of, you know, enter the startup space, the fundraising space. Now, luckily we have really amazing engineers and I still write some code here and there. That's probably not that great, but, you know, I love it. So,00:06:22 David:Did you have any co-founders? 00:06:24 Seth:Yeah, so we, I mean, we had a team on campus in the early days, that, you know, we're helping out. We've had a lot of people along the way, help out in different parts of the journey it's been. An epic journey, you know, and, lots of ups and downs, but yeah, we've had lots of different people help us out.And, now we have a fully distributed team, and still relatively small 10 people, but, lots of great product builders and, yeah, it's a lot of fun00:06:54 Jacob:Yeah. David can, can probably talk more to the pain of not like having on staff. Like it's not so much. I mean, yeah. I mean, the cost is a thing for sure. But like, I think a bigger thing often is the, the, the turnaround time, right? The iteration time of not having well, you know, even if you're. You know, product person who's non-technical and you have a technical co-founder, there's even like friction there and communicating the ideas.Right. If you're not really in sync. And so having that all in one mind can really like speed things up. And in the early days, that's what it's all about. Right? It's all about iteration speed. It's all about getting, you know, different sticking stuff, different stuff to the wall. As fast as possible to see what takes off.So, that's always the advice saying, I don't know if there's anybody that listen, this is there, there probably are people in the podcast in a similar situation where they're like, maybe they didn't study programming or whatever. Like it's gotta be, I mean, I don't know so that you can, you can go against this.Maybe it's not the case, but it feels like it's probably the best way to invest your time is like, get to the basics, like as fast as you can.00:07:59 Seth:Yeah, I think so. I mean, the amount of time you'll spend trying to like find a co-founder that codes. Sure. The ultimate is like, you find a co-founder you guys gel and like, they know how to code and you know, you know how to do everything else, but like, I dunno, we would be dead for sure. If I didn't learn how to code and it's an invaluable skill that I'll have in this organization and future organizations, it also just helps me like, think about things like it's a really great, like, you know, way to look at the world sometimes.00:08:32 Jacob:Yeah. You're not bamboozled by engineers too, which 00:08:34 Seth:Yeah. Yeah. And I can like talk to engineers and I think like, it really helps me get, buy-in like I can go to the engineering team and be like, yeah, no, tell me the real shit. Like, you know, what's really going on and we can have technical combos as opposed to like, you know, kind of the, I don't know if it's just a whatever stereotype of early CEO that's like, I need this and this is why, and I'm going to go sell and you know, that can get you into trouble and. Yeah. So anyway, I, I'm a huge advocate. I get some people are really, it's a scary thing to learn. It does take time. You're really bad for00:09:08 Jacob:Ever, basically, I don't think, I don't think you ever get, you're not going to be good. Like every engineer you work with is going to be like, oh right, like this 00:09:16 Seth:Exactly, But I do think it's, it's really helpful, especially those in the early days. Cause like, trust me, you can look at Google and be like, oh, I need to raise money for my startup, which is what I did.And eventually we did, you know, do some fundraising, but It's again, the amount of time you'd spend trying to figure out how to fundraise and just jump in this like really deep ocean versus, you know, a skill that you'll have for life that will instantly, you know, provide value in your current job even.Yeah. I'm, I'm all for it. I mean, I try to get people to code no matter what, 00:09:47 Jacob:I guess like you mentioned kind of that, that early stage. Finding product market fit. Like how long if something's called wandering the desert, but like how long did you wander the desert? Like how long until, and then when you first started to see those indications, because probably market fits this, like it's, it's a bad term because like, It means different things to different people and founders can deceive themselves all the time.And, you know, even, even YC is like, I think one of the best orgs for defining this and communicating this there, their definition is not very good right there. Like, it just feels like it's going faster. It's like, okay. Like you can still lie to yourself really easily. So what did that look like for you?00:10:26 Seth:Yeah, no, I could not agree more and could go on lots of, lots of rants about this, or just in general, like, you know, benchmarks or anything like that. I think. You know, and I'll just speak for myself. Cause like you said, it's like totally different for every company. but the, the first signs is when I remember I was working the first and only job I had out of college, I was a systems engineer at progressive insurance.So I was in their data center, literally like working on servers, had no idea what I was doing, but, I was there for like six months and I remember I was like at work, searching Twitter, like Rapchat on Twitter, just to. And then over time, like more and more people just kept sharing their tracks to Twitter and like saying how much they love it.And then app store reviews were a big thing. I mean, it's just clear that we like, like people truly loved the product. and that was kind of the first step. And you can't really like quantify. It's not like, oh, there was a thousand Twitter it's, you know, quotes or. 00:11:29 Jacob:You weren't measuring like day one retention, day 30 retention. 00:11:32 Seth:Was, I learned that I learned all that stuff over time and like, we track, we track a lot of that stuff, but I'm telling you like the most important stuff was like the qualitative in the early days.Then, but you need qualitative at scale. Like it's not just like your friend, you know, it's like, plus you know, 50,000 I may use at that time or whatever it was. And I think that. That was really key. Like the first thing is like, people were actually able to record music on their phone and share it.Some people were really good at it. Like this is, this is kind of like obvious now, but it wasn't back in the day. Like there was like technical challenges there where, you know, people didn't think it would be a thing. Some people still don't think it's like a billion opportunity, but like, you know, we had to prove out that people would really record music on their phone.Like that was, it seems so obvious, 00:12:21 Jacob:What was the propeller heads app? gosh, what was that called? 00:12:25 Seth:Had a few, I00:12:26 Jacob:There was, there was, I remember this bad podcasting. I don't know the name of it, but I remember there being some really key like music apps that were kind of around that era. Right. It was like, the phones were finally getting fast enough to be able to do this without like just falling over and dying in 00:12:41 Seth:Yeah. Yeah. 00:12:42 Jacob:Timeframe.00:12:42 Seth:And Andrew, it's still like really freaking hard to get. Right. But I mean, over time now we have like a process of like, how we think about, you know, does our product work for a certain market? And it's changed. Like I would say you never really—we're not in a desert, but you never stop wandering Like your product evolves over time. The market evolves over time. We've seen different personas evolve and grow in our community over time. and now, like I said, in the early days, a lot of it was providing just like a fun, social media app that was music-based for the F for everyone. And now, while we do have those components, it's much more about providing a really great recording studio in your pocket with a community of creators for the everyday artists.Like, so now we've actually. Zoned in a little more and focused on one or two specific segments. And we have really strong metrics engagement, now subscriptions for that specific persona. So I think that's a big thing. Like in the early days, you'd read all these blogs and, you know, what to look at for retention or what to look at for product market fit.But a lot of times it's not married with context of like personas. And so for the first three years, I mean, we were getting whatever millions of downloads a year. But like this person, in India's here to have fun. This person in Georgia is here to take it seriously. And we were just looking at it all blended.And so like, once we learned to actually be like, no, like when now we literally ask, like, why are you here? Like, what are your aspirations? And, then we view things through that lens. That's been one of the biggest unlocks, like, it it seems obvious again, but. If you don't think that way then in the early days, you're just kind of like wondering like, well, why is my day one retention?Like not changing. It's like, well, you know, you're getting 30% of your users from this like really bad channel and they're low intent. And like, you should filter those out. because that's noise.00:14:42 Jacob:I it's so tricky though, because I was in a similar position when we were trying to work on growth elevate. And, you can, you can really easily. That thing where founders are trying to lie to themselves, it's a very easy way to lie to yourself. Right. And be like, yeah, I have a great retention if I just ignore all the users with the bad retention.Right. And it's like,00:15:02 Seth:Yeah. Yeah.00:15:03 Jacob:I think context is the important thing. Right. It's like, okay, like what are the actual context for this? And I mean, it makes me think of, the photo room, a founder who we had on a couple, a couple of weeks ago. I don't know the ordering of the pockets come down, but they also had a similar situation where they found it, like within their greater per user base, like a persona where retention was really strong intent was really high.And then it's kind of great because it gives you, I feel like from a founder and product perspective, it gives you license to focus right. A little bit and be like, okay, like we found this profile, that's going to be our most important. And we're going to like really put our energy here. And it kind of clarifies a lot of like things for the, you know, product decision-making. 00:15:43 David:One thing to interject on this real quick is that, I think a lot of people underestimate just how amazing Facebook got at doing this for founders. Because that the feedback loop and Facebook's algorithm and how much data that had on people prior to app tracking transparency and apple is kind of unwound all of this, but that's part of why Facebook has worked as the like user acquisition main channel for so many apps to grow is because all of what you were talking about, Jacob, and you were talking about.They just do it automatically with really sophisticated eye AI and way more data than you're ever going to have to understand people's intent and the, the, the types of people who are going to. Oh, well in your app. So when you're feeding those subscription monetization events back to Facebook and Facebook's experimenting with $50,000 a year money, what are they really doing?They're doing what you can do. And now with app tracking transparency, we're going to have to do it more is they're finding those personas and then advertising to them to get you that return on investment. I think people underestimate how great Facebook did it at finding the. Amazing personas that work in your app.But now, like it's kind of back to doing what you've done. So I'd love to hear a little bit more to, you know, early on just seeing it on a, you know, Rapchat trending on Twitter and like following all that stuff. Like, I think a lot of. Over instrument early and just need to like hit some critical mass first.But then as you get a little further along, you know, you've talked about building this like product market fit engine, like how, like, what's your, what's your stack. And then how do you think about measuring and learning about those personas and then kind of building for them and orienting the app around that?00:17:44 Seth:I mean, there's a lot there. So, I mean, again, for context, like we are now just getting into that game, which is like the worst time ever to get into the game where, you know, we're actually trying to bring those users in with our dollars at00:17:59 Jacob:Maybe, but, but you know, as it's been disrupted, right. So there's opportunity. You, you you'll have probably a better time than somebody who's trying to adapt from something they got used00:18:07 Seth:Right. We're going the other way. Pretty much like, so. 00:18:10 David:Facebook charged a lot to do it. That's the thing it's like, they captured a lot of that revenue by figuring it out for you, but if you can figure it out and then find those channels that reach those personas in a more cash efficient way you actually are at, at, in a better place. It's just more work on your side of things, but then you understand your customers better.So there's benefits to,00:18:30 Jacob:So, so maybe Seth put it on a timeline for me. So like you said, 2008, 2009. So you're, you're getting on a, a decade of, of working on this, right. It's been, it's been, how long have you been working on. 00:18:41 Seth:2013,00:18:43 Jacob:Sorry. Sorry. How are you telling me a college point? This is before the podcast. Sorry. I'm very good broadcaster.It's yeah, 2013. So it's still okay. 7, 8, 8, 8 years or so. So when, when did, when I guess like we are, when did to kind of lead into David's question, like when did you kind of transition from like, maybe it's it's recently, but like at some point, did you go like, okay, like how do I grow this thing? Like, what's the, what's the, you know, I see this happening a lot.Consumer apps cause consumer apps really, it maybe they're inherently viral, but they almost always have to have something to drive the growth. Like some sort of mechanism. When did, did you ever have a point where you started transitioning, start to think about that more as part of the company-building 00:19:26 Seth:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so I mean to date, like, you know, we've had over 7 million people create music in over a hundred countries and over 80% of that's been organic. So it's like, you know, we've really, that was our whole thing forever because we didn't have capital. we may have had capital, but we didn't have enough to have remotely a good budget so we really, yeah, we, we kind of tweaked and refined our viral loops in the early days because that's all we had. So when I say scrolling on Twitter, that was like the first instance before you could eat, there was a time period where you couldn't even post on Twitter, you had to open the messages in the app, and then we made it really simple.Again, all this shit's so obvious now, and now every app does it, but you know, we made it really simple to post a link to your Rapchat to your Twitter and your Facebook. I remember it was only Twitter and Facebook, like two ugly square buttons. because those were the things at the time. And that worked though.I mean, we saw a 10x Return on that. And I mean, to date, you know, that type of flow, come in, create content, share externally, bring your friends in. Some of them will either have the app. Some of them will go to the landing page on the website, download the app, that loop. I mean, that's been millions and millions of downloads.So, you know, we're kind of lucky in that sense that, you know, being a UGC and having some network effects, like that's really been key. and. And just continuing to improve the onboarding, improve the recording experience, improve the sharing experience. Like at some point we, you know, added Instagram and video where we auto-generate a video for you.That was a really good moment because people, and now that's our most used features, like sharing a video of your. because those do better on social network algorithms. So I think, you know, we've kind of had the core loop identified for quite some time and it's just been consistently tweaking and investing and making that better now, since we've had that—and that's kind of driven itself and still drives itself, you know, we're looking at all these different other components as well.So, we're testing out some paid stuff. we're testing out. Different types of like content marketing and like, we have our own podcast now and we really are bullish on like, you know, creating educational content for the mass music maker across different channels and think we can do some really cool stuff there.We're starting to explore different parts of like the growth stack, and even web like SEO and web, we haven't invested in. And we think it's a huge opportunity because we want to expose this content to. To everyone and we can create unique experiences per platform, and we have the bandwidth to do it now.So now it's kind of the fun part. whereas, you know, before it was, yeah, pretty much all organic. 00:22:12 Jacob:Surviving 00:22:13 Seth:Yeah.00:22:13 Jacob:How did you make money with the app, like throughout the history and when did you realize subscriptions were the only and best way to make money on the app store?00:22:19 Seth:Yeah, nice plug. no, I mean, we didn't, we didn't make money forever. Like until last year I think we hit like we're hitting year one. So we'll, you know, we'll figure out these yearly renewal renewals and all that, but, yeah, we didn't make money. Like we basically punted making money. Jury's still out.Like I think if I were to start another app company, I would just implement subscriptions way earlier. But, you know, this is what, when we started and we raised our first round of funding. So we've raised three rounds of funding and,00:22:51 Jacob:When did you raise your. 00:22:53 Seth:First round was 2017 and it was very much like, of course the investors are like, no, no, no, don't make money. know, grow user base, do what Twitter did.00:23:02 Jacob:Oh, you need money. I've got some right here. 00:23:05 Seth:Yeah. Just keep raising venture capital. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Essentially like, just get on the treadmill of ambiguous. And then at some point you can do an advertising layer and that's how it's done. Like that's that's and it's not like we had any much better ideas either.And we're like, all right, like, yeah, let's just keep growing the user base.00:23:22 Jacob:How did you get, how did you get this for years? You just like eating ramen and work in side jobs and 00:23:27 Seth:Yeah, dude. Yeah, Yeah. I mean, so two of them were at college. It was like part-time, you know, like grind in, it took a minute to just to get the test flight out and then the first version then. After progressive I for a year, you know, I just, I mean, I cashed out my 401k and paid some decent money at progressive and sold Bitcoin at like $250 a coin and yeah. Things like that. So 00:23:50 Jacob:Nice. 00:23:52 Seth:Max out some credit cards. I mean, whatever00:23:54 Jacob:You do what you gotta do. Right. it was real, scrappy until that, that, that first round. So, I mean, that's, that's the trade off there. Like you don't either you're at makes money and like you can flow and like kind of live off it or yeah, you got to do that kind of stuff and then eventually bridge to capital.So I was kind of curious, like how, 00:24:10 Seth:Yeah. And, and to be honest, like that, wasn't the only time we had to be scrappy. Like even after the first round, you know, like a lot of companies, we were kind of like, okay, we scaled our user base. Like I think, I dunno 10 X after the seed round, but it still wasn't quite like series a level. So we were kind of stuck in between rounds and it's like, oh shit.Back off payroll. Okay. Like, here we go again. And, you know, it's, it there's Mo there's been moments, multiple moments like that. and without revenue, it was like, you're kind of at the, you 00:24:41 Jacob:Is this it's a safety net, right? Like it's something you can go back on. Right? That, that, that I I've, I've been the receiver of that advice. Not, not in this round, that building revenue cap, but in the past of the like, just go, go, go. And it's, it's not bad advice. Cause it does like that's how Instagram did it.Right. There's examples of companies. But it's that classic. Like you, you know, people with a portfolio of tens or hundreds of companies giving advice to somebody with a portfolio of one and like the risk there, the, the, the, the, the, the risk equation is fundamentally different there, right. between people.And it's just one of those tensions with venture capital that exists. And like, you just got to negotiate. So, yeah. It's, it's, yeah. You know, it's a story we've heard all too much. I think it's why. No, I, I be, obviously I've got a horse in the race, but like, it's why I think subscriptions are great. Right.Cause it just like, you can still use venture capital. And in fact, like, I think it's going to be very accelerative. Right. But, but like you have options, right. And you're like less fragile now. 00:25:45 Seth:I mean, and I'm happy to say, like after that grind now we're absolutely in the best place we've ever been. We have, you know, recurring revenue, we have more cash at the bank than we've ever had, like multiple years of runway. And we should hit cashflow positive, like pretty soon. So it's like totally different ballgame.And I think to answer your other question, we turned out subscriptions. Yeah. About a year ago. And it really changed the like perspective of product building too. And I think that's a fundamental difference, like when we were raising our seed round and, you know, we had, I mean, we do, we have a social network on top of our tool and people were like, Hey, why don't you just try and get to like a billion users?Like that really changes how you build product and what type of features you prioritize? Like, yeah, you're going to be more like, okay, let me put it in another sharing. Like, let me really nudge you to share or like, 00:26:35 Jacob:Eyeballs. Right? you don't care. You don't care. What's behind them, right. You're just like 00:26:38 Seth:Like you basically focus on the top of the funnel instead of the middle, bottom of the funnel and like with subscriptions. Yeah. I mean, subscriptions bottom, bottom of the funnel and that's cool because it kind of focused, it, it focuses you more and that's, that was just a really, it was all big unlock, like last year and know, frankly, we had to figure out how to make money. We were kind of like in between again and, yeah, it just came to us.David came to us and convinced us to do revenue00:27:07 Jacob:Yeah, I forgot. I forgot that that was the, that was the case. I mean, that was part of the thesis of, of what we built to. I ideally lower the barrier and, and stuff like that. So, but how has, like, has has that, because I think there's one that you kind of mentioned just like top of funnel versus bottom of funnel, you think of an app that's driven by virality.There's like disadvantages to reducing, right. To like, so you must be balancing that really delicately, right? Because you still, you don't want to, you don't want to take the gas out of that, that viral loop 00:27:40 Seth:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, especially a year ago when we were like, oh man, we've had a free app. We have like, you know, 400,000 monthly active users or whatever it was at the time. And we're about to introduce this like paid product, you know, it was kind of nerve wracking that tastefully. You know, we took the approach where we didn't paywall any of the current functionality, like you could come in, you could do everything you did before.In fact, we upgraded the free functionality as well, and then we built new stuff. So like new vocal effects, new ways to like automatically make your song sound better using algorithms, and a few other cool things that people wanted and we paywalled like additional functionality. So I think that was really crucial to do it that.Way and we spent, you know, a few extra months building that, but, that was key. And then people converted and they're still converting because it's just like you get the core experience you come in and then, you know, we gradually level them up and we've launched one subscription product We have Rapchat gold, which again, unlocks Supreme creator tools.But now we're working on a second one that we're going to layer on top that helps these artists make money and gets their songs on Spotify and apple music. And that's going to kind of complete the artist journey. So, building subscription products can be like really fun and fulfilling for both parties.You know, it's like, we're finding ways to help you in your career. And also like, we don't have to start either, you know, it's like we can00:29:04 Jacob:Yeah,00:29:05 Seth:Grow together. And that probably sounds too happy, but like really it, it is like, it's, been 00:29:10 Jacob:You know, it's almost like an efficient market, right. Where people are paying for value and 00:29:15 Seth:That. 00:29:15 Jacob:Value is getting created, right? Like it's almost like a good way of00:29:19 Seth:Yep.00:29:20 Jacob:Like00:29:20 Seth:I like that.00:29:21 David:So tell me a little bit more about, about the fundraising process, as an app and kind of being at a, you know, you said there was that kind of in-between time where it's like, you, you, you had all these signs of product market fit. You were going after the big opportunity. And then when you switched to subscriptions, it wasn't too long after that, that you, went and raised money, right?Did did the subscription product really take off or was it just early and signs of it? It really taking off that, seed investment. 00:29:54 Seth:When we closed that round, you're talking about that's, you know, whatever public and, that, that was around Nico and adjacent came in, you know, we were a couple months into subscription, so it's not like we had a ton of data, and we weren't even like fully rolled out. Now we had proof that.People Liked it and good conversion rates and stuff like that. But I think that was iteration one of the paywall and iteration, one of the flow and really early. but I do think it changed the pers, like how, investors perceived our company and we, we proactively changed it too we're like, no we're building subscription products for our best users.You know, we, we were able to kind of take control of the pitch more-so than before where it's like, you're not making money. How are you going to make money? Are you going to be a social network with ads? Are you going to be a tools company? It's like, No like, this is, this is what we are like, you know?And, that really put us in control. And, yeah, once we got Nico and a few other, like we, it was also just a good time in the market. Like, I feel like in the past couple of years—you guys have seen, there's been a lot of activity on the investor side getting into subscription. apps On the market side with IPOs on the founder side with building really great apps that scaled.I mean, Adjecent's whole portfolio as an example. so I think people were also like, that was the first time where the market worked in our favor. Right. Because before were a music tech social app, it's like, no one wants to fucking touch that. 00:31:19 Jacob:You're like a, you're like Instagram, but smaller.00:31:22 Seth:Yeah. Right. Like, and so. It also like it, it was kind of a perfect storm, I guess.And, yeah, we were very fortunate to get in the right investors that understood the market and also understood like the vision, like the vision was a lot clearer and like, I know Nico really latched onto it and his kind of thesis was perfect for like what we're doing for music. so yeah, it just, it, it was a good fit obviously Sony was in it and like, you know, that, that was kind of a big key moment to get validation from like the music industry where it's like, oh, they're a lot more open and flexible to some of these new-coming technologies and apps and companies.And in fact, like see value in working together, that kind of knocks down that like historical music/tech graveyard of the industry, killing every music tech startup.00:32:13 Jacob:They learned their lesson once probably.00:32:15 Seth:Yeah. Pretty much. 00:32:16 David:Yeah, I'm I'm really curious about, about Sony specifically. And then, you know, you've already been talking about Nico, but you, after, after raising that round and going through that process, what, what's your perspective and maybe even any advice to people thinking about this, about that kind of strategic alignment and the kind of value add, you know, finding that, that company/investor/founder fit. any lessons you've learned from that? 00:32:45 Seth:Yeah, it's hard one 00:32:48 Jacob:Was going to say, I was going to ask like, why? because it sounds like you're leverage different changed probably right from 00:32:54 Seth:Yeah. 00:32:54 Jacob:Because I, I can't imagine, did you raise this first rounds in Ohio?00:32:57 Seth:Yeah, it's some in Ohio, some in the Midwest. You know, smaller funds on the coast, but mostly, 00:33:04 Jacob:To have changed drastically since even 00:33:06 Seth:Yeah. 00:33:06 Jacob:Those first couple of rounds, right? Like it's going00:33:08 Seth:Yeah, for sure. For sure. No, we have a lot more left. I mean, we're, we can be a lot more choosy. We've got to pick like really great investors as of late. it's a whole different, yeah, it's been, it's been crazy.Crazy awesome. But yeah, I mean working, I don't know that you'll get a lot of different advice in working with strategics or big industry partners and depending on who you talk to, some will say don't touch them at all. Some we'll say, if you can work with them, work with them. you know, all I can say is, from my experience, like, it's, it's not easy.Like you're working with a massive, usually a public company and they have a lot more process than, than you do. So like literally getting a deal done is just going to take longer, be more strenuous, probably have a couple of strings. We were fortunate enough for it to be a really good, like clean same terms type of deal, but.It's, it can be really difficult. and that's kind of up to the founder and the company to figure out like, is it worth it? you know, for us major record labels are. Still kind of the end state for a lot of potential artists in their journey. Like they still provide a lot of value if you get to that point.So like, of course we want to, for the long tail, for our, millions of creators, give them that opportunity. if we can help bridge the gap to get signed at some point, that's really, that's really interesting to us. but yeah, it's hard and again, it's very contextual. It depends on every deal.It depends on every company and in general, It's just, it's gonna take a, it's gonna take some time, 00:34:36 Jacob:Yeah. dealing with like a big company, like, like Sony, like venture deals, probably the only thing you're probably tooled for this stage. Cause like that's a bit cleaner, right? Like a venture deal. It's like they invest money. Yeah. If you can get it on the same terms as like another venture investor, like it keeps it clean versus like if you're working on partnerships or something like that, it gets more complicated and I think different.And I'm sure, I'm sure that's probably something you're thinking about going forward. It's like, how do you actually like begin to really engage on those partnerships? I think that's even harder. So in this specific case, or like maybe a more general case, I can venture a small, like venture investment. It can be like a nice way to kind of just like, get your foot in the door with, with a company or like a strategic, just kinda meet people.Just kind of give them some visibility. And then as you grew up, but I would be, I would ha I would caution against like, trying to engage on some big, hairy, strategic, like, partnership deal. I would like push that out until you get a bit bigger. And like you said, like can match the, like the bandwidth differences a little bit better.00:35:33 Seth:Yeah. I have like our own general council full00:35:36 Jacob:And a partnerships 00:35:37 Seth:Tons of it. yeah, 00:35:41 Jacob:That might probably not the best use of your time at this stage. Right. So.00:35:45 Seth:No, I totally agree. I mean, that's, that's, that's pretty spot on 00:35:48 David:And how did you even get an intro? I mean, if you don't mind sharing, like, it seems like it is such a perfect fit, but even those perfect fits, like sometimes it's hard to just even get your foot in the door. 00:36:00 Jacob:Email CEO, 00:36:01 Seth:Yeah, right. honestly, like that's, shit, I don't even know. I mean, I think someone might have intro to us, or I, I reached out to somebody, I mean, we've had a lot of different contacts. I mean over the years and you guys know this, but like now, okay. We've been startups for five, six years and have pretty good network and investors, partners, founders, and it's just kind of a flywheel like now, you know, things come in, things go out.Like it's kind of a engine. I think with that one, it was later on in my like startup journey. So I had a lot of. Connections out there already with the other major labels too. It's like, you know, we we've talked to, we've kept in touch. That was one thing I think we've done really well throughout, like our time, even though we, you know, we've been around for a minute, but we've consistently like kept people updated, whether it's investors, whether it's potential employees, whether it's partners and you know, sometimes like the guy you knew or girl who.Four years ago that you were talking to at a specific part of a bigger company is now leading venture. Right? Like in that, that type of stuff happens a lot. And I don't think this is one of those instances. Like I literally think we talked to one division of Sony and then someone like, introduce us to another like, oh, you should talk to the U S music department or whatever.And, you know, all that to say, like, it's just happens. Like you just reach out to people or people reach out to you. There's there's no like magic 00:37:29 Jacob:These, big places have venture teams typically, right. Or they have like some venture part of their Corp dev wing. That's like, has, you know, funds and knows what they're doing usually. but, but yeah, I mean, it's tricky to. Pick partners like, cause yeah, you also, like we're, we're a interesting company in the sense that like we have kind of many implicit partners.Right. and it, it, it, you know, there's no, like there's no like cap table, you know, wedding rings between any of us, which, which maybe simplifies or doesn't, 00:38:01 Seth:I thought you guys own like 10% or at yet.00:38:04 Jacob:Yeah, that was, that was that's how you got our free plan. 00:38:07 Seth:Right, right. 00:38:08 Jacob:Days you didn't read the full, you didn't read the 00:38:10 Seth:Yeah. 00:38:11 Jacob:Terms of service, parody, parody, comedy. 00:38:14 David:Yeah, I did. I did want to ask, Facebook. Kind of jumped into your space not too long ago. 00:38:22 Jacob:Where were you? Cause you, we guarantee you, you remember when you saw this, but w what were you doing when, like you saw like, Facebook, like clingy guys?00:38:31 Seth:I honestly think I might've been sitting right here. Like I think I was just working.00:38:35 Jacob:Yeah. 00:38:36 Seth:It was nothing special.Like. 00:38:37 Jacob:That's Like a S a founder moment. Like, there's these moments where you're like, oh, somebody just like a bullet, just grazed my ear. Right?00:38:43 Seth:No, I wish I could say I was like at the gym on the treadmill and then it came in and I like jumped up the treadmill. 00:38:50 Jacob:It's most likely you're sitting at your desk, 00:38:52 Seth:Yeah, statistically. Yeah. no, it was, it was kind of a weak, like I don't, I don't even know how to describe the emotions. I mean, I was just like, I kind of laughed. It was just like, okay.You know, I definitely wasn't. Like scared or super worried or freaking out, like, you know, it's maybe, I don't know, 2019 me or something or in the early days would, I'm like, oh shit, like now I can't get venture funding or now I can't like keep building, like, they're going to crush it. But I mean, we've been around in some minute ourselves, so yeah, I just, it was kind of funny and ironic.And then it went like many viral on Twitter with a lot of, you know, my network and other people. And then, I had friends sending it to me like, oh dude, what do you gotta do? And, I don't know, man, like just probably download it and see how bad it is and go from there.They're like, yeah. And it was, and honestly, it was just kind of a fun thing.Like, you know, it, it did, like we got press around the round and then some people could write about that. And it was kind of a funny story and somewhat of a badge of honor, like people, you know, they copy a lot of the top apps. And again, it's just kind of like validation that like clearly you're onto something.I mean, they used the same. Color scheme emojis at okay. One of my most proud things. 00:40:10 Jacob:Stuff that makes you angry, right? As a 00:40:12 Seth:Yeah. 00:40:12 Jacob:They cloned you it's that they 00:40:14 Seth:Yeah. 00:40:15 Jacob:Right? That's what makes me mad. 00:40:16 Seth:The thing that really got me was, Like for our like, button, right. it's a flame, it's like an emoji. And like when you hit it, it like turns into the actual emoji flame. And I always thought that was like the sickest thing ever.Like they did the same exact thing. I was just like, all right. Like, I mean, that's what the little things are, what confirmed that they actually kind of like really looked at your, your app. But, no it's been, I don't even know what they've been up to. I don't even know if they shipped updates. It's zero concern to us. it was just kind of fun. It was like funny to share with the team and, investors and, you know, a lot of investors were like, hell yeah, like that's a good sign. Like 00:40:55 Jacob:Yeah, you should hire somebody off the team. 00:40:57 Seth:Yeah, right. Oh, trust me. I would love to 00:41:00 Jacob:Because like you just think about like, yeah, I, I think you've got the right mentality about it. I'm not even telling you this as like, trying to make you feel better. Like really? Cause like, think how much more skin in the game you have it. I don't know who built this.It's probably some product managers like promotion, packet, project or whatever. I'm being condescending to people working in big companies. But you know, but, but, but think about it like this, you know, this is a, this is a one-time thing there's trying out, right? This is. Passion, right. This is your life or you've last whatever years, right?Like good luck. Unless it, unless they just happened to be way more talented and way more funded, which maybe Facebook is, but like they're not, they don't execute perfectly on everything. Right. So, I think you just smile and you just be like, yeah, let's go, right. It's not, it's not like apples competing with you and being like we're pre installing a chat wrap 00:41:42 Seth:Right, right. Yeah. 00:41:44 Jacob:Which you know, could happen, but 00:41:46 Seth:Sure. Yeah. I mean garage band. Yeah, I appreciate that. I mean, the thing is also like, look in the early days we were. I'm just sharing this for context. Like we were, you know, one of the first apps that actually let you record your voice over a beat and share it like that was like New.Okay. Now there's plenty of apps where you can come in and record vocals. You know, different types of audio for beats and like music making apps are kind of a commodity. but what we've done that I mentioned, and we kind of fell into this was like, we built that social layer, that community layer, and you can't replicate that, you know, like they can come in and replicate the tool and have a feed, but like, nah, dude, we already have like hundreds of thousands of like passionate creators that have been with us that have been riding with us. And my favorite thing was when complex tweeted. And like complex being like a very like cultural industry outlet. And they tweeted out and their responses to that were just like the most hilarious thing. I don't even think I could say like half of it, but it was like, basically like Zuck this like reptile coming into like, you know, vulture culture vulture and like, oh shit, that would be my worst nightmare.People said about us and they don't like, it's just are we're authentic. And you know, we really care about the community and that's, you know, That's 00:42:59 David:That's awesome. Well, I think that's a great place to wrap up. We're coming up to the top of the hour, but I did want to give you a few seconds to pitch. I know you're hiring and you got a lot going on right now. Any specific roles at the company that you think our audience might be a great fit for? 00:43:17 Seth:Yeah, for sure. I appreciate that. I mean really just like product builders, and I say that broadly. So, engineers, designers, growth marketers, we're looking for really great people to help us scale. Again, we're still a small team. Ten people fully remote and, really looking to scale the product and the company. Now that we have some stability it's a great time to jump on board. We really think that this era of mass music creation has begun, and we kind of kickstarted it, but we're only getting started, right? We just have a really strong opportunity to provide the everyday stack for the everyday artists.00:44:04 David:Yeah, that's amazing. I took a look at your careers page. It looks like there's some great opportunities there across the whole stack, which is fun. 00:44:13 Seth:Where were you looking at, David?00:44:17 Jacob:You guys are welcome to have this conversation, but just let me leave the room, please.00:44:22 Seth:I'm kidding. I'm kidding.00:44:25 David:I do have a background in audio engineering.00:44:27 Jacob:Yes. True.00:44:31 David:No, I'm not in the market. I have too much fun having conversations like this with people like you.00:44:37 Jacob:Alright, thank you for listening to the Sub Club podcast. 00:44:41 David:That's a great place to go out on there. Thank you so much, Seth, for being on the podcast. It's been great. You've been so generous with your time and just sharing.Seth's been on multiple other podcasts. He's been on app promotion stuff. So, I love it when people in this space are open and share about the successes, the failures, how they're building things.So thanks for your time today and for being so active in the kind of broader app maker community. 00:45:11 Seth:Yeah. I just want to say, thanks. Thanks to you guys. The podcast is awesome. I listen to it, every episode. Not to plug your product, but your product, we love it. It's been instrumental in building a real business over here.00:45:30 Jacob:That's awesome. 00:45:31 Seth:I just appreciate you guys. Yeah. 00:45:36 Jacob:Thanks. It was great to meet you.00:45:38 Seth:Likewise, man. Let's let's hang out. You guys take care.

08.30.21 Icke David - One by Patrick Timpone

Dads are constantly flooded with messages to be helpful and supportive to their birthing partner, but where are those specific tips on how to do just that?Cue David Arrell. David has developed a passion for everything surrounding birth with his main focus centered around helping dads learn the things he wished he knew when he became a dad for the first time. According to his own words, “I am just a dude who has been through this journey.”With his very specific dad tips as well as big ideas, David's advice will take your birth support partner from feeling clueless, guilty, and overwhelmed to feeling hopeful, empowered, and inspired. When both partners learn to be a strong team during pregnancy, their bond during labor and throughout parenting will thrive even more.And the tip that gets 100% of his recommendation? “Dude, Hire a Doula.”Additional linksThe VBAC Link on Apple PodcastsDavid's website: Welcome to FatherhoodWelcome to Fatherhood: The Modern Man's Guide to Pregnancy, Childbirth, and FatherhoodFull transcriptNote: All transcripts are edited to correct grammar, false starts, and filler words. Meagan: Happy, happy Wednesday everybody. This is Meagan and Julie. You are listening to The VBAC Link. You are going to be excited just like we are for this episode today, so make sure you are somewhere where you can hear all the words, and honestly, you probably want your birth partners to list them as well. We have David Arrell. He is an author, entrepreneur, consultant, and men's coach currently in Colorado. We have actually had quite a few special guests in Colorado which is really fun. He is passionate about coaching men on how to more fully embrace and embody help, masculinity, and especially through the powerful modalities of partnership. His most recent work-- now I can't speak.Julie: Sorry.Meagan: You're fine. --in this area is a book and we have the book. We are so excited. It's called Welcome to Fatherhood and I really like it because it is like “WTF”.Julie: WTF.Meagan: Through the whole thing, it's the modern man's guide to pregnancy, childbirth, and fatherhood better known as WTF. So this is really a big deal because in so many ways, and I even talk about this with my doula clients. There are so many things in pregnancy that are so woman-focused or birther-focused, right? We kind of forget sometimes about dad and his role. That's, as the doula, so important for me not to forget that and make sure that dad doesn't feel that because I remember the day in my second labor. I remember my husband had to sleep on the couch in the corner and everyone coming in not addressing him, not talking to him, not saying anything that's happening, not asking him has an opinion on anything, and it only revolves around me, and so I just think this is so awesome. A lot of dads enter childbirth clueless not because they don't want to know, but because people don't include them, right?And then fatherhood. I also know that as a mom and my husband, we've had times where I'm like, “No. I am doing it right and he is doing it wrong.” I remember someone saying, “You are both doing it right. You are doing it your way,” and I loved that. So I am really excited to talk to him today and get to know more about his book, and the role, and the fourth trimester coming back home, and how to give these tips to these dads because they need them.Julie: I was just going to jump in and say, “I love this,” because David, our guest today, literally wrote the book for dads about the fourth trimester, what to do when you get home with baby, well, I mean, it is for pregnancy, and childbirth, and fourth trimester, right? So that's the first three months after the baby is born. It's from a dad‘s perspective. He gets it. He has been there. That's what me and Meagan really like about it because, at The VBAC Link, we are doulas, but we have also had VBACs. We have been there. We get you. I feel like he is right on our level, but talking to the dads because yes, like Meagan said, dads, a lot of time, get forgotten. I wish my husband would've had something like this back when we started into parenting because he was completely oblivious about pregnancy, and birth, and everything. I dragged him to a HypnoBirthing class but that's about it, and now he knows way more about birth than he ever thought he would ever have dreamed to know about, but this is going to be really helpful. So we are excited. We have asked our social media followers questions. We have some questions for him. Review of the WeekJulie: But anyway, before I keep talking, holy cow. Let me read a Review of the Week.This is from Natalie in San Diego. It is on Apple Podcasts and she says, “I am SO thankful I found this podcast. I've always wanted a vaginal birth and felt like I could never get one after my C-section in 2018. I started listening to this podcast when I got pregnant (currently 28 weeks) and then I asked my provider if I was a good candidate and she said, ‘No.'”Dang it. Oh my gosh. Sorry. That kind of caught me off guard. That was probably a little bit of an inappropriate laugh. That's what I do when I get caught off guard. I laugh inappropriately. All right, let's see.“She said, ‘No,' so I resigned to the fact that I would need a RCS with this pregnancy and stopped listening for about a month but the nagging feeling that I could ask more questions and advocate for myself more just never went away. I started listening again and realized that so many women switch providers late in the game so why couldn't I? After requesting my post-op report and asking my OB more questions, I realized that I am a good candidate and that she just wasn't supportive, so at 26 weeks I switched to an amazingly supportive provider here in San Diego, hired a doula, and signed up for HypnoBirthing!” Hey, speaking of HypnoBirthing…“I'm doing everything I can to educate myself and am so hopeful for a VBAC this April or early May.”Oh my gosh, maybe like right now.“I wouldn't have had the courage to do any of this without the stories from the women on this podcast so thank you!!!”Do you like my commentary? I don't think I can read a review without jumping in and putting my own thoughts into the review. Anyway, talk about being long-winded. Okay so, thank you for the review. We love reviews. You already know that if you haven't had a chance yet, please go leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Google or Facebook. Wherever you leave us a review, it will help us reach other people, so if you enjoy the podcast and think everybody should have a listen, definitely go ahead and give us a review in whichever is in the easiest place for you to do so.Q&A with David ArrellMeagan: Okay, David. We are excited to dive in with you. We have questions and all these things that we want to ask you, but I would love to invite you to share a little bit more about your book because I know I just went right through it. But tell us more. What inspired you to do this?David: Sure. Thanks for having me on, ladies. I really appreciate it. I think part of my inspiration was the gap that I experienced as a guy who has really committed to trying to be that “helpful and supportive partner” and I thought I was doing all the things. As our first pregnancy, and then ultimately the labor and delivery, and then that first experience for us of that fourth trimester, I have looked back and I realized there are so many opportunities where I wish I had done some things a little bit differently, but I realized I didn't get the information, or the education or the encouragement that I felt would have helped me be that much more helpful and supportive for my wife during her pregnancy, and childbirth, and coming back home. So I looked around and even the birth classes I took, the amazing doula we worked with, which I will circle back to later, and some of the books I read, there just wasn't that sort of succinct, clear sort of discussion of some of the things that are really important for us guys to really get a better sense of. And also, just some specific things like, “Hey, guys. Really think about doing this,” or “If you did this one thing a little bit differently, you might have more success.” So that was my main inspiration. It was to pave the path a little easier for the guys coming after me who are going to be going through their own sort of pregnancy adventure.Meagan: Love it. Love it. You know, I have a client, a husband, who started a podcast. Kind of the same thing. He was just like, “After the first birth experience, I just realized there was so much more that dads needed to know,” so I love what you guys are doing. This is going to be awesome. So are you ready for the list of questions? Julie, I don't know if you want to go back and forth, but we have a list of questions that some of our followers have asked. Julie: Yeah.Meagan: if you don't mind, I would love to jump into those.Julie: Let's do it.David: Sure. Let's jump right in.Meagan: Perfect. Okay, so number one is: Best advice for husbands to support wife in labor? I know you talk about pregnancy a lot in your book too. You talk about all of it, all the trimesters, but we are going to jump right into labor. Best advice for husbands to support their wives in labor?David: Sure. The way I describe that journey though, going into labor, is if the pregnancy is a rollercoaster going up the hill, slowly working its way to the top, once you realize, “Oh wow. We are really in labor,” that's when that rollercoaster crests the hill and goes zooming down the other side. It's a very different sort of immediacy for all parties concerned.The main thing I tell the guys out there is Big Idea #10 in the book. The book has Big Ideas and Dad Tips. But Big Idea #10 is that your new mantra is to be attentive, be calm, and be competent. At the end of the day, regardless of all the other things going on, if you as the dad, the partner, perhaps the most important support partner in the room here, if you can maintain that mantra and really be attentive to mama and all of the things that are happening for her whether it's holding a hand, or rubbing a brow, or adjusting a position for more comfort, or be calm.There are definitely times I know in my wife's childbirth and some of the guys I talk to also where things get a little active, but still, for us guys, we have to be calm. We have to be that rock in the storm of the emotions and feelings for our partners to connect to. And then being competent. This comes down to feeling like you have done the work ahead of time with the education and the practice where you feel pretty good about what your role is, what it's not, and how to really show up as that competent person throughout this process. So that's the mantra. Be attentive, be calm, and be competent.Meagan: Yes. I love that. You know, something that happened in one of my labors-- I have had three babies and my third baby, my labor was 40--Julie: Are you going to tell the story about the pillow? You should tell the pillow story.Meagan: Oh no, but I should. 42-hour long laborDavid: Wow.Meagan: My husband had a not-so-supportive moment where I was doing my thing in my zone. Sometimes we moan. That's what we do. Our uterus is the strongest muscle in our body and it's contracting around a baby really hard. It doesn't feel awesome so you have to work through it, right? He totally shoved a pillow in my face and told me to muffle myself because he and the other kids were trying to sleep.Julie: I think that Rick needs a copy of your book.Meagan: I know. But there was a moment in my labor and I had been laboring for a really, really really, long time, and what had happened that I just still to this day will remember the feeling that came over me. All he did was touch my back and lean into me, kind of just grazed around my head and my shoulders, and it was a complete moment of, “I am not alone in this,” even though I knew I wasn't alone. I had a great team. Just that touch was exactly what I needed and like you said, it could be a touch of a brow, or an adjustment, or just being there. It was just amazing. So I would not disagree at all with that.David: I'm glad he bounced back. That's good. That's good.Meagan: Yeah. Yeah. Between that and then when he looked at me and was like, “Remember, this is what you wanted.” I was like, “This is not what you say to me right now.”David: Well, that's the trick. So many of us guys get these-- the general vibe is we are told to be helpful and supportive.Meagan: But you don't know how.David: But we are not given explicit instruction beyond that and so we guess, and then we guess wrong, and we get frustrated, and so that's exactly it. It's the different challenges that we go through and the learning curves that can be really steep sometimes.Meagan: Absolutely.Julie: Yeah. I get that. Do you know what's so funny? While you were just talking, we are actually going to make the link to where you can go and buy David's book Welcome to Fatherhood and the link, I just had to say this because it is so funny. The link is going to be thevbaclink.com/wtf. So we will make it super easy for you to go and find his book.Meagan: I love it.David: Exactly. That sentiment is very popular.Julie: I mean, yes. You started at Tip #10, right? So I am just like, “Yeah. It's really good stuff.” I haven't read all of it, but I have skimmed through it and I have had my husband skim as well and there is some really good stuff here. So we are going to put it in the show notes. This is normally what we would do at the end of the episode, but I just had to say it. I am making the link right now. So anyway. Great stuff.I remember my husband felt helpless too. For my Cesarean birth, he still says it was the scariest moment in his life. Watching me on the operating room table, not knowing if I was okay, not knowing if baby was okay and I'm sure he would have really appreciated this type of advice to help him because men instinctively have this nature to support their partners and fix the problem, right? They want to be strong and they want to be able to comfort them, and childbirth is such a foreign concept that it can really-- what are the words I'm looking for? It can really just, it's not familiar to you. So you don't really know what to do and it can cause birth partners sometimes to feel a little hung up, and uncertain, and unsure, so just giving them these tools, like you talked about, and telling them what to do-- yeah. You are supposed to be supportive of your wife during labor, but this is how you do that. I think it's so valuable. It's so valuable. So I really appreciate that.Oh, next question. I guess that's on me.David: Well, let me jump in with one quick thing here.Meagan: Sure.David: One of the challenges as guys I have seen happen in my experience and some of my buddies is that we get into the labor and delivery and like you mentioned, it's overwhelming, it's a novel experience, but then also, that sort of fix-it vibe just doesn't work. There's nothing for us to fix. Our partners are maybe going through some pretty intense experiences and sensations, and we are just sort of supposed to be-- you know, we feel very helpless sometimes. I remember at one point, my wife was squeezing my head really hard and she was really having a challenging series of contractions there and I just felt so helpless. And so that's where I think this mantra comes in, but I definitely wanted to touch base on one other thing. I think it's one of the Dad Tips that I am very strong on. Most of them are recommendations, but this one, I am very strong on and that's Dad Tip #7: “Dude, Hire a Doula.”Julie: Yes.David: That would get 100% of my recommendation energy. Some of them are 60, 70, does this work for you? But dude, hire a doula. That doula is going to be your wingman too. Not just your partner's, but your wingman to really help you. They can give you some tips. They can give you some direction. They can help normalize some of the beeping and some of the other things that are going on. Again, I can circle back to this a little bit later, but that's definitely what will help you focus on your job which is to be that supportive partner. Most dads out there are not birth professionals, so you can just focus on your partner and your mantra, and let your doula really help adjust you as necessary. So I didn't want to skip over that Dad Tip #7: “Dude. Hire a Doula.” Please.Julie: I love that you said that. It reminds me of an article I read a long time ago. I think it was called, Just Hire the Damn Doula. It was a blog.David: Perfect.Julie: it was a dad‘s perspective and he was just like, “This is why you need a doula. Do you know what to do when she is at 4 centimeters and she's only been there for three hours? No, you don't. Do you know how much blood is normal? No, you don't. Do you know what positions to do to help or what labor positions to help encourage baby to descend? No, you don't know that.” He was just like, “You just need a doula.” Anyway, that was a really broad explanation of the article, but I love that. As a doula myself, I make my clients' partners be present at their prenatal visits because it's really important to me to not only get to know the dynamic of their relationship so I can better strengthen that during the labor process, but also so I can get to know the dad and how to support him because doulas are also for dads. I know a lot of times they think, “Oh yeah, doulas are just for the mom, but we are here just as much for you guys to help you know how to best support your partner. The best feeling in the whole world is right after the baby is born and then the dad comes over and gives me a great big hug and I am totally not a hugger. Like as I doula, I can put my hug face on and I can hug if people want touch and stuff, but by nature, I am not a hugger. But when a dad comes and grabs me off my feet-- I just remember this one particular moment. He spins me around and he is like, “Thank you so much.” This was after a VBAC birth and I was just like, “Wow. This is really cool.” It is just really extra special when the dads say those kinds of things.Every dad is a little bit different, but I really appreciate that you say that. I think it's important because a lot of times, dads think that doulas will replace them, but really, a good doula will really work on enhancing your relationship in knowing how to better support your wife. Okay, ready for the next question?David: Sure.Julie: All right. So I don't know. We kind of have already talked about this. I think there might be some overlap a little bit in some of these things, but you have got lots of great tips and advice in your book, so I am sure that we are not even going to scratch the surface into that, but the question is: What do you tell men to do to support women during pregnancy?David: The subtitle of the book is “Better connected, better prepared.” And so I think that focus really helps shape some of the suggestions that follow in that envelope and that's what is so important. I think some of the dads out there-- I know for me, that connecting bit was tricky because my experience of pregnancy is sort of like it's happening over there whereas, for my wife and every other person who has been pregnant, it's literally the biggest deal ever. It's like, “No. This is now. I am already a mom. I am monitoring my vitamins, and sushi, and which cheese I should eat,” and all of these different things. That sense of motherhood is very real but whereas for us dads, a lot of times, we don't think we are dads until the baby gets here.So one of the things I think that's important to remember is that both of those truths are true for each person, but for us dads, there is plenty of opportunity for us to reach over and really try to better connect with mama and her experiences, and just knowing how real and important that is, is a great first step to putting that as a top-tier priority rather than just sort of like, “Oh yeah. We are pregnant and the baby will be here in a couple of months,” kind of thing.So there are so many things you can do as the dad to really get in there. I mentioned hiring a doula is a great thing, a birth class where are you are excited and you want to take on that. You're just as excited about the birth class as mama is. That's a great way to really foster that connection where you are going through that together and learning about it together. Another thing I like are some of these pregnancy tracking apps where-- I know my wife and I really enjoyed each week, as the pregnancy progressed, sitting down and watching the five or ten-minute little video about what's happening this week. Some of them are pretty funny. They compare the size of a growing baby to French pastries or random, exotic animals, and so we would laugh about how baby is the size of a hedgehog this week or the size of a croissant, a big one.So those things where you're really connecting with mama and really doing your part to get really on the inside of her journey as well, all of those things are great ideas because at the end of the day, the goal is to really have that relationship be really strong and vibrant as you are going through the delivery, and then you come home for that fourth trimester because now you're parents together. Now is not the time to figure out how to be a team. Being a team starts during that pregnancy.Meagan: Yes, yes. Love that. I love that. If you can walk in as a team, into parenthood, it's just going to set yourself up so much better.Julie: And can I just say, dad? Even if you don't love the whole “baby is the size of a kumquat” thing, just pretend you do.David: Exactly.Julie: Just pretend.David: Exactly.Julie: Just fake it until you make it.Meagan: Or if the class that you are taking is HypnoBabies or HypnoBirthing and you're like, “Oh, this is really weird,” try your hardest to get in there. I know sometimes it is far-fetched or far out there and it's like, “This is so strange,” but this is something that she may have picked that resonated with her to help her cope through this labor journey, and crazy enough, it will connect. Like when you said, “Take childbirth education classes,” it will connect you two together so much more and help you in all stages.Julie: I love it.David: Exactly. It's funny, I've heard some dad say, “Well, I am not having a baby, you are.” Like, discussing this with their partners about these different things and you know, not that they are adamant about it, but that's their reality and I'm like, “Yeah dads. I get it.” Having a baby is a huge deal. I mean, it's easy for some guys to think, “Well, that's how all of us got here. There may be one or two test-tube babies running around, but we all got here this way,” and it's like, well, this is the first-time experience or second-time experience for your partner. This is a very huge deal. Don't look at it in the abstract. Look at it in the concrete. Your partner is excited and enthusiastic, as are you. It's meaningful. It's a little bit scary. There's a lot of uncertainty. Really get in there to be that supportive partner by connecting with her and her journey rather than sort feeling like you need to stay on your side of the fence in your journey. So that connection piece is so important.Julie: Great life advice too.Meagan: Yeah. Yeah, seriously. You know what? Are you going to write the next one on marriage? Because all of these tips-- this is also how to have a really great date. Julie: We're taking notes. I'll give it to my husband. I'll be like, “Read this. Just kidding.”David: That all becomes so much more pressing once baby gets here. I am a terrible illustrator but if I had any skill, I would have drawn a little series of two stick figures: mama, dada, and then a little small tiny baby stick figure. This is what you think it's going to be, and then the second one would have been the same size mama, dada, and then this giant Michelin Manbaby illustration like, this is the impact of a new baby on your lives. It is not this third thing that joins you.Meagan: It's not tiny.David: No. It's just the middle and the center of everything.Meagan: Yes.David: So now is the time to forge those teammate bonds.Meagan: Love that.Julie: Yes, absolutely.Meagan: Love that. Okay, so this is a hard one because sometimes I know it can be daunting when you are in the birth room and in labor and stuff, but it says: Do you encourage men to stand up for their wives' wishes during labor and birth? And I'm going to add on to that one and say: If you do, what do you feel like is the best way for a dad to say, “Okay. I know she didn't want this. I am going to try to make sure that we go about this a different way”?David: Well, my first answer is yes, absolutely. Dad is the main support person looking out for the bigger picture. I know there were times in my wife's-- especially with our first baby where she couldn't hear anybody else in the room. She couldn't see anybody else, hear anybody else. It was sort of that fugue state that some women go through and she needed me to basically repeat everything that the doula was asking or our OB was asking.So yes, you need to be fully connected there. This circles back to-- I mentioned a doula already, but having that really trusted birth team where both mama and dada can really feel like their birth team is on the same page with you. They are looking out for your best interest and baby's best interest obviously as well. But that birth team coming in, as I mentioned before, most dads aren't going to be birth professionals, but that's where that birth team comes in.So to whatever degree you can start with that team, really be all on the same page. We have gone over the birth preferences. We understand where we want to go with this whether it's what types of pain management we want to use, with breathing, or massage, or etc. But there are times where things might get a little tricky.Like for example, during our first birth, we had a very low intervention birth, no pain medications, and at one point, my wife was struggling a little bit. They wanted to put an oxygen mask on her face and she did not want that. She was trying to swat it away and I felt like I needed to go with her wishes rather than whatever the nurse was trying to do. And so I gently removed the oxygen mask from her face. I looked at both our doula as well as the OB and I am like, “if she doesn't absolutely need this right now, then it's only going to cause her more duress and anxiety to be fighting off this mask which is not what we are looking for.” And they both agreed. But that was on me to not just sort of automatically go with whatever is happening, but to remind them of what our plan was.So again, absolutely stand up for those wishes during the labor and birth. The more you are on the same page with both your wife or your partner and that birth team ahead of time, the easier it is for you to do that because you are not worrying about somebody coming in and trying to change the birth plan, or there is a shift change and a new OB comes in and they have a different idea or they haven't read your birth preferences, so the more you're clear about that as a team, I think the easier it is for us guys to be less focused on being an intervention blocker and more focused on being that supportive teammate with our mantra of being attentive, and calm, and competent, focusing on our birthing partner and being supportive for her.Meagan: Yes. I love that. So tell me, I am trying to think how to ask this. What tips would you give for those dads who are very medical-minded? and trust-- I don't want this to sound negative. My husband is very much like, “What the doctor says, we do because the doctor is the professional. He went to school. He knows it.” But then there are also times where I am like, “But that's really not what I want and I have researched differently.”He told me that he felt like I put him in a really hard place because he was like, “I feel like I was against you and the doctor because I believed what the doctor was saying but you wanted something more. I wanted to make you happy, but I wanted to do what he said because I was worried.” Do you know what I mean? What tip, if you have any, specifically for that type of situation where we have got a dad who doesn't know how to navigate that feeling that they have?David: I think you hit a really, that's a really perfect space because that's where it can be so tricky for us guys. Especially if we have had some experiences in the past where doctors have been helpful or if we have had experiences in the past where they have been unhelpful. We are bringing our own stuff into this equation also. And I think, I know doulas are explicitly focused on the non-medical aspects of all of that birth, but having a doula with you where you can at least have a consultant. It's okay in about 98% of the circumstances to say, “You know what? I need to think about this for a minute.”Julie: Yes.David: I mean, if it's not an emergency, emergency, then you can always ask for a few minutes. You can try to speak with your partner depending on her level of awareness, and consciousness, and interest in the topic, and your doula as well, or even phone a friend. But you usually have time.Sometimes I find that those circumstances relax a little bit when you create some time around them to really sit with it and check-in with your partner. “I know our birth preferences. We wanted to do A. They are really recommending B. What should we, can we wait a few minutes? Do we need to decide now?” Because things can change pretty quickly in a birth and sometimes waiting, things sort of tend to clarify both whether it's the circumstances shift, or the answer that you are working with shifts, or your agreement around the answer shifts.So I would say, look for more time to let things settle or simmer a little bit more before you make a decision. If you don't need to make it right that second, then look for some time. That will usually help the consensus clarify where you're not feeling like you're being pushed into making a decision because nobody likes that sense of being rushed into a decision especially if it doesn't need to be made right that second.Julie: Yeah.Meagan: Love it. Love it, love it, love it. Time. Okay.Julie: Absolutely. Great advice.Meagan: All right, Julie. You are on the next question.Julie: All right. These last two made me chuckle. Okay.How do you convince your husband to read this book and be a better support?Meagan: Yeah.David: You know, that's a great question. I joke sometimes that-- this material, I started offering in a workshop format, an in-person workshop.Julie: That's cool.David: The challenge was that the guys who most needed the workshop were the ones that were actually the most oblivious to the fact that they needed the workshop.Julie: Yeah.David: So well, I think there are a couple things I will mention. One, this book is not like many of the other books out there. Some of the books out there are 500 pages. They are very encyclopedic which is great for the guys that really want to get into those details of the changes mama is going through, the developmental trajectory of baby, but for guys who aren't interested in that, it's just all starts to sound like Charlie Brown's teacher. It's like, “Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah.” And they're like, “God, what am I supposed to do? Where is the part where it says, ‘do this?'”Julie: Yeah.David: So that's the book I wrote. These are some specific things you can do at various times in the pregnancy, and labor, and even the fourth trimester. All the dad tips. There are 28 of them in there, but each of them are very specific for that time period. Dad Tip #, randomly, #2 is knowing the baby's age in weeks. The baby is not four months. You probably wouldn't know it at five weeks, but they are 12 weeks, or 15 weeks, or 17 weeks. That is relevant early on, but that falls away once you are in labor and delivery. It doesn't matter how many weeks you are at this point. So those are very specific things. That's what the book is built on. It is built on these very specific dad tips as well as these big ideas that helps shape your understanding.I joked with you earlier that one of the early subtitles I was playing around was, “All the things I wish I did better the first time.”Julie: Yeah. I know. We could all write a book like that.David: Right. Right. But that's kind of the goal is like, I want the guys out there to have a chance to read this and their list, which, there will be a list of things they wished they did better the first time, or even the second time, or third time. I want that list to be shorter than mine.So that's where it is coming from. It's not another, “You are doing it wrong” kind of book and it's not super encyclopedic. It's short. It's sweet. It's pretty much to the point. It's written by, I am just a dude who has been through this journey. I talk a little bit. It's straight talk. I have done a great job in not cursing on the podcast, but there are some curse words mixed in there, a little salt and pepper, because when us guys get joking around, sometimes our language flows a little bit more freely.That's how the book is written. It's not preachy. It's not, again, like I mentioned, not a “You are doing it wrong” book. It's like, “Hey man. Yeah. This is challenging. It's tough and sometimes it's really hard.” One of the early big ideas is what I call the “Dude Zone to Dad Zone and Avoiding the Dud Zones”.Meagan: Yeah, I was going to say I saw that in there. “Avoiding the Dud Zones”. Yes.David: Yeah. The two dud zones I talk about-- I talk about the journey you are on. I tell the guys, “You don't know it, but right now you're on this journey from the dude zone to the dad zone. The dude zone is when you're hanging out. You have your relationship. You have your job and all these other hobbies and cool things that are priorities for you, and now that you are going to be, you are a dad, but you're going to be a dad when the baby gets here, as these expectant fathers are thinking, but you need to move into that dad zone,” which is shifting some things around, looking at things a little bit differently, re-prioritizing a couple things and during that pregnancy journey, things are really tricky for us guys because we know we are supposed to be helpful and supportive. We don't know what that means and we bump into doing it wrong a lot.We are guessing. We are sort of like, “Well, I don't know.” We are trying to figure it out, and so the two dud zones I talk about are Wimpy Town on the left and Jerkville on the right. Wimpy Town are the guys that just gave up on trying to figure it out and they basically say something to the effect of, “Just tell me what to do and I will do that.” They are defeated. They have given up on trying to figure out because they're just tired. They are just frustrated with guessing wrong but that's not really a good place to be. No expectant mama wants to have to tell her partner what to do, and when to do it, and all of that kind of stuff. That's not a good teammate or good teamwork there.And on the other side is Jerkville. Those are the guys that occasionally will be like, “You know what? I don't know what to do. I'm guessing. You do it. I saw a zebra pop out a baby last night on a nature show and the zebra was running around five minutes later. I don't quite understand what's going on here.” They get a little testy and defiant. That journey to the dad zone, you can bump into those dud zones a lot.There were many times I felt like I had one foot in Wimpy Town and one foot in Jerkville and I was like, “I don't know what to do. I really want to be great and to be an awesome partner, but last night this worked and then tonight, the same thing is the worst idea ever. I am trying to remain connected but it is just really tricky.” So that's where I am coming from. A lot of what I am trying to offer here is specific tips to help these guys make that journey from the dude zone to the dad zone with fewer slips into those dud zones. So that's another reason I would say, give it a shot out there.Julie: Love it.Meagan: That's awesome.Julie: That's great. Yeah. I am going to add in a little question before Meagan asks the last one and we wrap it up. What about the dads who are less assertive? I know for some dads, it's harder for them to stand up for their partner in the birth room. It's harder for them to tell the doctor that they want to do something different even if they agree that they should do something different. Everybody's personalities are different, but what advice would you give for those dads who are less confrontational but who want to be a solid, strong support for their wife?David: That's a really good question.Meagan: Yeah. Would time still be the suggestion or do you feel like there is a different approach for those guys?David: I think time is always a great first place to start because then you have a chance to marinate a little bit and think about what the question is that is being asked of you or the suggestion. You have a chance to speak it over, talk it over a little bit with you. Ideally again, this gets back to that doula and having a great doula as your wingman. This is a great resource for us guys to discuss some of these things and also to check in with our partner and see how they're feeling. Sometimes, something that is very clear in the birth plan or the birth preferences, as things progress, your partner may change her mind also and you don't want to be adamantly holding the ground against something that your partner has now shifted her opinion on too.So that's where having those conversations-- but it's tricky. I am not an OB. I am not a midwife. I am not an auto mechanic. I am not going to argue against these people too strongly when they are specifically trained to do these things and I am not. So it's really hard because most of us guys who aren't birth professionals don't really feel like we have too strong of a leg to stand on when push comes to shove.Julie: Yeah.David: We want our partners to be safe. We want our babies to be safe and that's what the experts are there for ideally. That's what their focus is too. So I still think time is your best first resource to ask for, and then to just confer with your partner and confer with other people on your birth team. “What would you do if this was your partner? What would you do if this was your baby?” could be some good questions to ask back or “What are some other options?” But at the end of the day, sometimes you have to make a decision and you just have to make the best one you can at the time with what information you have.Julie: Yeah. Totally. Yeah, I guess that was kind of a bad question. It had already been answered, but I think maybe you gave a different perspective from it and we learn by repetition, right? All right, Meagan, you are up. Last question.Meagan: Yeah. So one of the questions is: Are men actually reading your book? And I can almost guarantee that the answer is, “Yes”. But yeah, do you feel like you have had a good turnout from your book?David: Yeah. So far, it's been pretty exciting. The book just came out in the fall of last year and one of the funny things about this is, assuming that they purchased a book somewhat early in the pregnancy, they are just now getting into the actual experience of having labor and delivery, and that fourth trimester. The sales have really been taking off recently which is great, but I have been starting to get some feedback from some of the guys out there and from some of the mamas too. I've gotten a couple thank you emails recently.Meagan: Awesome.David: I have gotten a couple more that said, “I probably should have taken you more seriously earlier in the journey.”Julie: Aw snap.Meagan: That's awesome feedback though. You are like, “Yeah, okay. I am writing something really good here.” Yeah.Julie: You're like, “Heck yeah. I'm so legit.”David: I got one. It was like, “It's 3:00 a.m. I am working at one of your Dad Tips. My baby was crying. They are finally asleep in my arm and I am typing this on my phone with one hand, but thank you so much for this tip. This was great, some of the suggestions. I have looked back at the book also in some of the earlier chapters and I was thinking, ‘Yep. Should have done that. Yep. That would have been better.'”So ultimately, at the end of the day, it's the guys out there who have had a chance to go through the pregnancy journey and now their buddies are going through their own pregnancy journey and their friends are asking them, “Hey, what kind of tips or advice do you have for me?” A couple of guys have said, “My first step is going to be to read this book and I am going to give them my copy.” And I am like, “That's great. Pass it on.” Let the information get out there and make these birth experiences for all parties-- mama, dad, and baby too. Anything any of us can do to make that a little bit smoother and easier is great.So yes. Thankfully, they are reading it out there. Some of the mamas too. I got one email from a mama recently who, she had glanced through the book in preparation whether she should recommend it to her husband or not and she said she learned a lot about how he was looking at the pregnancy that she was able to be more, I don't wanna say compassionate, but--Meagan: Understanding.David: Understanding, yeah. Like, “This is hard for him too. He is not only over there or not connecting with me, but he has got his own journey and a lot of this is new.” You can't hold somebody accountable for something they haven't been trained to do or informed about. So she was able to be a lot more understanding and workable in connecting with him and his journey too which I thought was awesome. I thought, “That was unexpected but great.” Teamwork makes the dream work.Meagan: Seriously though. That's what I'm saying though. So many people are focused on what mom is doing. Mom is carrying baby. Mom is growing. Mom is doing this. Her boobs are getting big. You know, all these things, but it's not like, you know what? Dad is struggling seeing her in pain. Dad is struggling seeing her not sleep very well. Dad is struggling with the fact that soon there's going to be a child to take care of. You know? There is so much. And so I love that, that she was like, “I was able to understand his point of view too.” That is really cool. That is really, really cool.David: Yeah, that was neat. I really liked that one because, at the end of the day, the parenting partnership is what's really going to be coming into play here, and whatever we can do to strengthen those bonds coming from both the mom's side and the dad‘s side, that just makes that family unit so much stronger to work with those fourth trimester challenges, of which there can be many.Julie: Yeah.Meagan: Yes.David: So build those bonds now.Meagan: Well, and I just want to touch back on what you said, there is so much in your book that talks about things before baby even comes. And so Father's Day is in June? When does this air?Julie: This is airing on June 2. When is Father's Day?David: Awesome.Meagan: Okay, see? Father's Day is not June 2. It is after. This is a great Father's Day present. So I am just going to quickly go over a couple of the chapter titles. “The Dad Instinct” which, in my opinion, is awesome that you are calling it that. It seriously made me so happy when I saw that because we always talk about mama's instinct, mom instinct knows best. Guess what? Dad's instinct knows best too. So “Dad's Instinct”, “We Are Pregnant: Through the First Trimester”, “The Second Trimester: Setting the Table”, “Third Trimester: Giddyup Cowboy”. Oh yeah. That's when all of the complaining happens. “Labor and Delivery: The Time is Now”. “Welcome to Fatherhood: The Fourth Trimester”.And then he's got tips and gift tracker spreadsheets, oh my gosh, go-bag essentials, birth plan topics, big ideas. I mean, there is so much in this amazing book. So ladies, grab this book for your husband. Read it together. Read it together.Julie: thevbaclink.com/wtfMeagan: WTF, yes.Julie: Alive and active. I just tested it on my browser. It is on Amazon, both paperback and audio versions.Meagan: Which is awesome. Are you the person reading it?David: The Kindle is available, but the audio version is not yet available.Julie: Oh sorry. I saw Kindle. Yeah.David: That's okay.Julie: No, sorry.David: Yeah, Kindle is there. I did do the audio and I am waiting for that to get a little bit more polished up with some of my coughing and whatnot taken out, but that will be available soon too. So we are almost there.Julie: We can relate.Meagan: Awesome.Julie: Yay.Meagan: Okay ladies, Father's Day is coming up. Definitely go grab this.Julie: Perfect. All right. Was there anything else you wanted to add before we cut you loose?David: No, this was great. I really enjoyed coming on here chatting with you ladies. Everything around birth is something I am super passionate about and like I said, anything out there that is helping people have a little bit easier, smoother journey is fantastic. So thanks again for having me on. I really appreciate it.Meagan: Thank you for joining us.Julie: Yeah, absolutely. It was fun having you on. All right, ladies, we are going to drop the link to his book in our bio, so go ahead and click on it there.Meagan: Do you have social media, David?David: I have a Facebook page that is pretty not active. I have been getting a lot of requests to get on Instagram and do some fun live videos, but I am a little bit behind the curve on that. So hopefully I can get that soon. But the website has tons of great resources on there. It's just www.welcometofatherhood.com.Julie: Perfect.David: Like you mentioned, the birth plan, the gift tracker spreadsheet, and all kinds of cool stuff. So you can always reach me through there too and send me emails. I love emails. I love questions and comments so please send them on in.Meagan: Awesome.Julie: Perfect.ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Head over to thevbaclink.com/share and submit your story. For all things VBAC, including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Julie and Meagan's bios, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

02:15 - David’s Superpower: Being Confused * Norms of Excellence (https://notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-31-09:20.html) * The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance (https://www.amazon.com/Inner-Game-Tennis-Classic-Performance/dp/0679778314) 11:56 - Daily Writing * David’s Newsletter: Overthinking Everything (https://drmaciver.substack.com/) * Unfuck Your Habitat (https://www.unfuckyourhabitat.com/) 15:47 - Learning to Be Better at Emotions 23:22 - Achievement and Joy as Aspirational Goals * [Homeostasis vs Homeorhesis](https://wikidiff.com/homeostasis/homeorhesis#:~:text=is%20that%20homeostasis%20is%20(physiology,to%20a%20trajectory%2C%20as%20opposed) * Aspiration: The Agency of Becoming by Agnes Callard (https://www.amazon.com/Aspiration-Agency-Becoming-Agnes-Callard/dp/0190639482) * Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed by James C. Scott (https://www.amazon.com/Seeing-like-State-Certain-Condition/dp/0300078153/ref=sr_1_2?crid=HEYGC212F6SG&dchild=1&keywords=seeing+like+a+state+by+james+c+scott&qid=1613057768&s=books&sprefix=seeing+like+a+state%2Cstripbooks%2C164&sr=1-2) * Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein (https://www.amazon.com/Philosophical-Investigations-Ludwig-Wittgenstein/dp/1405159286/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1JRUU030WBCWQ&dchild=1&keywords=philosophical+investigations&qid=1613058025&s=books&sprefix=philos%2Cstripbooks%2C209&sr=1-1) Reflections: Jessica: Trying not knowing yourself. Rein: You shouldn’t be the owner of all your desires. Instead, you should measure your life by how well you follow the intentions that arise out of your values. Jacob: Thinking of yourself as the sum of all of the habits you maintain or don’t. David: The [Homeostasis vs Homeorhesis](https://wikidiff.com/homeostasis/homeorhesis#:~:text=is%20that%20homeostasis%20is%20(physiology,to%20a%20trajectory%2C%20as%20opposed) distinction, and cleaning a home as an ongoing process. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: SPONSORED AD: Whether you're working on a personal project or managing enterprise infrastructure, you deserve simple, affordable, and accessible cloud computing solutions that allow you to take your project to the next level. Simplify your cloud infrastructure with Linode's Linux virtual machines and develop, deploy, and scale your modern applications faster and easier. Get started on Linode today with $100 in free credit for listeners of Greater Than Code. You can find all the details at linode.com/greaterthancode. Linode has 11 global data centers and provides 24/7/365 human support with no tiers or hand-offs regardless of your plan size. In addition to shared and dedicated compute instances, you can use your $100 in credit on S3-compatible object storage, Managed Kubernetes, and more. Visit linode.com/greaterthancode and click on the "Create Free Account" button to get started. JACOB: Hello and welcome to Greater Than Code, Episode 223. My name is Jacob Stoebel and I'm joined with my co-host, Rein Henrichs. REIN: Thanks, Jacob and I'm here with my friend and also stranger because we haven't done this together in months, Jessica Kerr. JESSICA: Thank you, Rein! And Iím really excited today because our guest is David MacIver. Twitter handle, @DRMacIver. David MacIver is best known as the developer of Hypothesis, the property-based testing library for Python, and is currently doing a Ph.D. based on some of that work. But he also writes extensively about emotions, life, and society and sometimes coaches people on an eclectic mix of software development, intellectual, and emotional skills. As you can probably tell, David hasn't entirely decided what he wants to do when he grows u and that's the best because if you had decided well, then so few possibilities would be open. David, hello! DAVID: Hi, Jessica! Great to be here. JESSICA: All right. I'm going to ask the obligatory question. What is your superpower and how did you acquire it? DAVID: So as you saw me complaining about on Twitter, this question doesn't translate very well outside of the United States. JESSICA: Yeah, which is fascinating for me. DAVID: I'm a bit too British to say nice things about myself without sounding like I'm being self-deprecating. JESSICA: Self-depreciating it is! DAVID: [laughs] So I thought about this one for a while and I decided that the answer is that I'm really good at being confused and in particular, I have a much more productive response to being confused than it seems like most people do because basically, the world is super confusing and I think I never know what's going on, but then I notice that I know what's going on and I look at it and I'm just like, ìHmm, this is weird, right?î And then I read a book about it, or I sort of poke at it a bit and then I'm not less confused, but I'm less confused about that like, one little facet of the world and have found ten new things to be confused about. [laughter] JESSICA: Nice. DAVID: Usually, I can then turn this into being slightly better at the thing I was previously confused about, or writing about it and making everyone else differently confused than they started with. JESSICA: Definitely confused. That is a win. That's called learning. DAVID: Yeah, exactly. [laughter] This is where a lot of the writing you were talking about comes from and essentially, about 2 years ago, I just started turning these skills less on software development and more just going like, ìLife, it doesn't make sense, right?î [laughter] And noticing a whole bunch of things, I needed to work on and then that a lot of these were shared common problems. So I am, if anything, far more confused about all of it than I was 2 years ago, but I'm less confused about the things I was confused about that and seem to be gradually becoming a more functional human being as a result of the process. So yay, confusion. JESSICA: That superpower, the productive response to confusion, ties in with your reaction to the superpower question in general, which is as Americans, we're supposed to be ñ we want to have power. We want to be special. We want to be unique. We want to make our unique contribution to the world! And as part of that, we're not comfortable being confused because we need to know things! We need to be smart! We need to convey strength and competence and be the best! I hate the superlatives. [laughter] I hate the implied competition there, but instead, we could open our hearts to our own confusion and embrace that. Be comfortable being uncomfortable. DAVID: One of the things that often comes up for me is it's a thing that I think is slightly intentioned with this American tendency youíre pointing at, which is that I kind of want to be the best, but I don't really want to be better than other people. I just want to be better than I am now. I wrote a post a while ago about neuromas of excellence like, what would a community look like, which helped everyone be the best version of themselves and one of the top lists was basically that everyone has to be comfortable with not being good at things, but another is just that you have to not want to be better to the other people. You just need want to be better. Again, this is where a lot of the writing comes from. I've just gone, ìWell, this was helpful to me. It's probably helpful to other people.î That's not as sense of wanting to change the world and wanting to put my own stamp on things and it does require a certain amount to self-importance to go, ìYes, my writing is important and other people will like to read it,î but then other people like to read it so, that's fine and if they don't, that's fine, too. JESSICA: Well, you didn't make anyone read it, but you did start a newsletter and let people read it. JACOB: Is this weird thinking reflect a journey that you took in your life? Because I think about my company and my team and how incredibly generous everybody is and even still, I just find it's natural to compare myself to everyone else and needing to not be on the bottom. Part of me wonders if that's just like a natural human tendency, but just because it's natural doesn't make it so. JESSICA: Way natural American. JACOB: Yeah, basically I'm asking how do I stop doing that? [laughter] DAVID: It's definitely not something I've always been perfectly good at. But I think the thing that helped me figure out how to do this was essentially being simultaneously at the bottom of the social rung, but also super arrogant. So it's your classic nerd kit thing, right? It's completely failing at people, but also going, ìBut I'm better than all of you because I'm smart,î and then essentially, gradually having the rough edges filed off the second part and realizing how much I had to learn off the first part. I think sometimes my attitude is due to a lot of this is basically, to imagine I was a time traveler and basically going back in time and telling little David all the things that it was really frustrating that nobody could explain to me and I sadly haven't yet managed to perfect my time machine, but I can still pay it forward. If nobody was able to explain this to me and I'm able to explain it to other people, then surely, the world is a better place with me freely handing out this information. I don't think it's possible, or even entirely desirable to completely eliminate the comparing yourself to others and in fact, I'd go as far as to say, comparing yourself to others is good, but I think theÖ JESSICA: Itís how do we have a productive response to compare ourselves to others? DAVID: Yeah, absolutely. There's a great section in The Inner Game of Tennis, which is a book that I have very mixed feelings about, but it has some great bits where he talks about competition. If you think of a mountain climber, a mountain climber is basically pitting themselves against the mountain, right? They're trying to climb the mountain because it is hard and you could absolutely take a helicopter to the top of the mountain, but that wouldn't be the point. It's you're improving yourself by trying a hard thing. I mean, you're improving yourself in the sense that you're getting better at climbing mountains. You might not be improving yourself in any sort of fully generalizable way. JESSICA: Okay. [laughter] DAVID: When you are playing tennisóbecause this is a book about tennisóyou are engaged in competition with each other and you're each trying to be better than the other. In this context, essentially, what you are doing is you are being the mountain for each other. So you are creating the obstacles that the other people overcome and improve themselves that way and in doing this, you're not just being a dick about it. You're not doing this in order to crush them. You're doing this in order to provide them with the challenge that lets them grow. When you think about it this way, other people being better than you is great because there's this mountain there and you can climb it and by climbing the mountain, you can improve yourself. The thing that stops everyone becoming great is feeling threatened by the being better rather than treating it as an opportunity for learning. JESSICA: Yeah, trying to dynamite the mountain instead of climbing it. Whereas, when you are the mountain for someone else, you can also provide them footholds. Rein, do you have an example of this? REIN: I sure do, Jess. Thanks for asking. So I was just [laughs] thinking while you were talking about this, about the speed running and speed running communities. Because speed running is about testing yourself against a video game, which in this case, serves the purpose of the mountain, but it's also about competing against other speed runners. If it was purely competitive, you wouldn't see the behaviors, the reciprocity in the communities like sharing speed running strats, being really happy when other people break your record. I think it's really interesting that that community is both competitive, but there's also a lot of reciprocity, a lot of sharing. JACOB: And it's like the way the science community should work. It's like, ìOh, you made this new discovery because of this discovery I shared with you and now I'm proud that my discovery is this foundation for all these other little things that now people can be by themselves in 10 seconds instead of 30.î JESSICA: Yeah. Give other people a head start on the confusion you've already had so that they can start resolving new confusions. DAVID: Yeah, absolutely. Definitely one of my hopes with all of this writing is to encourage other people to do it themselves. Earlier this year, I was getting people very into daily writing practices and just trying to get people to write as much as possible. I now think that was slightly a mistake because I think daily writing is a great thing to do for about a month and then it just gets too much. So I will probably see if I can figure out other ways of encouraging people to notice their confusion, as you say, and share what they've learned from edge. But sadly, can't quite get into do it daily. JESSICA: This morningís newsletter you talked about. Okay, okay, I can do daily writing, but now I want to get better at writing. I've got to go do something I'm worse at. DAVID: Yeah, absolutely. I think daily writing is still a really good transitional stage for most people. To give them more context for this newsletter for people listening. Basically, most of my writing to date, I just write in a 1- or 2-hour sitting from start to finish. I don't really edit it. I just click publish and I've gotten very good at writing like that. I think that most people are ñ I mean, sometimes it's a bit obvious that I haven't edited it because they're obvious typos and the like. But by and large, I think it is a reasonably high standard of writing and I'm not embarrassed to be putting it out in that quality, but the fact that I'm not editing is just starting to be sort of the limiter on growth for me. It's never going to really get better than it currently is. It's certainly not going to allow me to tackle larger projects that I can currently tackle without that editing skill. JESSICA: [laughs] I just pictured you trying to sit down and write a book in one session. [laughter] And then you'd be tired. DAVID: Yeah. I've tried to doing that with papers even and it doesn't really work. I mean, I do edit papers, but Iím very visibly really bad at editing papers and it's one of my weaknesses as a academic is that I still haven't really got the hang of paper writing. JESSICA: Do you edit other people's papers? DAVID: I don't edit other people's papers, but I provide feedback on other people's writing and say, ìThis is what worked for me. This is what didn't work for me. Here are some typos you made.î It's not reading as providing good feedback on things, that is the difficult part of editing for me. It is much more ñ honestly, it's an emotional problem more than anything else. It's not really that I'm bad at editing at a technical level. I'm okay at editing at a technical level. I just hate doing it. [laughs] JESSICA: That is most problems we have, right? DAVID: Yeah. JESSICA: In the end, itís an emotional problem. DAVID: Yeah, absolutely. I think that is definitely one of the interesting things I've been figuring out in my last 2 years of working on learning more about emotions and the various skills around them is just going, ìOh, right. It's not this abstract thing where you are learning to be better at emotions and then nothing will change in your life because you're just going to be happier about everything.î I mean, some people do approach it that way, but for me, it's very much been, ìOh, I'm learning to be good at emotions because this really concrete problem that I don't understand, it turns out that that's just feelings.î [laughter] It's like, for example, the literature on how to have a clean home, turns out that's mostly anxiety management and guilt management. It's like fundamentally cleaning your home is not a hard problem. Not procrastinating on cleaning your home is a hard problem. Not feeling intensely guilty and aversive about the dirty dishes in the sink and is putting them off for a week. I don't do that. But just as a hypothetical example. [laughter] I mean, not a hypothetical example, I think a specific example that comes from the book, Unfuck Your Habitat, which is a great example of essentially, it's a book that's about it contains tips, like fill the spray bottle with water and white vinegar and also, tips about how to manage your time and how to deal with the fact that you're mostly not cleaning because of shame, that sort of thing. Writing books are another great example where 80% about managing the feelings associated with writing; it turns out practical problems pretty much all come down to emotionsóat least practical life problems. REIN: Sorry, I was just buying Unfuck Your Habitat real quick. [laughter] DAVID: It's a good book. I recommend it. JESSICA: Our internal like emotional habitat and our external habitat are very linked. You said something earlier about learning to be at emotions is not just you're magically happier at other things in your life change. DAVID: Yes. I mean, I think there are a couple of ways in which it manifests. One of them is just that emotions often are the internal force that maintains our life habits. It's you live in a particular way because moving outside of those trained habits is scary or aversive in some way. Like the cleaning example of how, if your home is a mess, it's not necessarily because you don't know how to make your home not a mess. Although, cleaning is a much harder skill than most people treat it as speaking as someone who is bad at the practical skills of cleaning, as well as the emotional side of cleaning. But primarily, if it were just a matter of scale, you could just do it and get better at it, right? The thing that is holding you in place is the emotional reaction to the idea of changing your habits. So the specific reason why I started on all of this process was essentially relationship stuff. I'd started a new major relationship. My previous one hadn't gone so well for reasons that were somewhere between emotional and communication issues, for the same reason basically every relationship doesn't go so well, if it doesn't go so ñ Oh, that's not quite true. Like there are actual ñ JESSICA: Some people have actual problems. [chuckles] But these things are. I mean, our emotions really, as sometimes we treat them as if they're flaws. As if our emotions are getting in our way is some sort of judgment about us as not being good people, but no, it just makes us people. DAVID: For sure. JESSICA: So you started on this journey because of the external motivation of helping someone you're in a relationship with, because it's really hard to do these things just for ourselves. DAVID: It is incredibly hard to do things just for ourselves. I guess, that is exactly an example of this problem, right? It's that there is a particular habit of life that I was in and what I needed to break out of that habit of life was the skills for dealing with it and then figuring out these emotional reactions. But unfortunately, the thing that the habits were maintaining, it was me not having the skills and so having the external prompts of a problem that was in the world rather than in my life, as it was, was what was needed to essentially kick me out of that. Fortunately, it turns out that my standard approach of reading a thousand books now was one that worked for me, in this case. I probably haven't read a thousand books on this, but that certainly worked. JESSICA: It wouldnít surprise me. [laughs] DAVID: I read fewer books than people think I do. I may well have read more than a hundred books about emotions and therapy and the like. But I probably haven't, unless I cast that brush really broadly, because I mean, everything's a book about emotions and therapy, if you look at your right. REIN: Have you read any books by average Virginia Satir? [laughter] DAVID: I don't know who that is, I'm afraid. JACOB: Drink! REIN: Excellent! Excellent news. [laughter] JESSICA: Itís about Virginia Satir, right? REIN: Virginia was a family therapist who wrote a lot about processing emotions and I have been a huge fan of her work and it's made a huge difference in my life and my career. So I highly recommend it. DAVID: Okay. I will definitely hear recommendations on books. What's the book title, or what's your favorite book title by? REIN: I think I would start with The Satir Model, which is S-A-T-I-R M-O-D-E-L. The Satir Model, which is about her family therapy model. JESSICA: Chances are good, you've read books based on her work. I was reading Gerry Weinberg's Quality Software Management: Volume Two the other day, which is entirely based on The Satir Model. REIN: Yeah. He was a student of hers. One of the things that she likes to say is that the problem is never the problem, how we cope is the problem. JESSICA: Can we have a productive response to the problem? DAVID: Yeah, that absolutely makes sense. I think often, the problem is also the problem. [laughter] JESSICA: It's often self-sustaining like the habits you're talking about. Our life habits form a self-sustaining system and then it took that external stimulus. It's not like an external stimulus somehow kicked you in the butt and changed you, it let you change yourself. DAVID: Yes, absolutely. I guess what I mean is ñ so let's continue with the cleaning example. The problem is that your flat is messy and your flat is messy because of these life habits, because your emotional reactions to all these things. If you do the appropriate emotional work, you unblock yourself on shame and anxiety around a messy flat, and you look around and you've saw you've processed all these emotions. You fixed how you respond to the problem and it turns out your flat is still messy and you still have to clean it. I think emotional reactions are what either ñ Iím making it sound like emotional reactions are all negative and I really don't mean that. I mean, that way is just ñ JESSICA: Oh, right because once you've dealt with all that shame and the anxiety and stuff, and maybe you've picked up your flat some, and then you come in and you have groceries and you stop and you immediately put them away and you get a positive, emotional feeling from that as you're in the process of keeping your flat tidy. The emotions can reinforce a clean flat as well. DAVID: Yeah, absolutely. I think this is something that has always been one of my goals more than it is what am I active? JESSICA: No, I love this distinction that you're making here. Is it a goal or is it something I'm activelyÖ? The word goal is [inaudible]. DAVID: Yeah. So I think for me, one of the other problems, other than the relationships it starts, was me essentially realizing that my emotional experience, it wasn't bad. I mean, it wasn't great, but I wasn't actively miserable most of the time, but it also just didn't have very many positive features, which it turns out is also a form of depression. It's very easy to treat depression as just like you're incredibly sad all the time, but that doesn't have to what it can be like flatness is. So I think very much from early on in my mind was that the getting better at emotions wasn't just about not being anxious. It was also about experiencing things like joy, it was about being happier and I think having this as sort of an aspirational goal is very, very motivating in terms of a lot of this work and in terms of a lot of trying to understand all of this, because I think I don't want to be miserableóit only gets you so far. If you have a problem that you're trying to solve, and that turns out to be an emotional block, you have to actually wants to solve the problem. It's like, I think if you don't want to clean the flat, then it doesn't matter how much you sort of fix your anxiety around that. You're still just going to go, ìOkay. I'm no longer anxious about this messy flat. That's great,î and your flat is going to stay messy because you don't actually want it not to be and that's fine. JESSICA: Itís just fine, yeah. Who cares? Especially now. DAVID: Unless it becomes a health hazard, but yeah. [laughter] DAVID: Certainly like thereís ñ JESSICA: If you're affecting the neighboring flats with your roaches, thatís fine. DAVID: [laughs] Yeah. JESSICA: So you were talking about joy as an aspirational goal, but it's not the kind of goal where you check the box at the end of the year and declare yourself worthy of a 2% raise. DAVID: [laughs] No, absolutely not and I think for all big goals, really, I find that I want to be very clichÈ and say, it's the journey, not the destination. JESSICA: But it is! No, it totally is! DAVID: Yeah. JESSICA: See, the word goal really irks me because people often use it to mean something that you should actually reach. Like write every day per month, that's a goal that you find benefits from hitting, but feelings of joy are, as you said, aspirational. I call it a quest, personally. Some people call it a North Star. It is a direction that can help you make decisions that will move you in that direction, but if you ever get thereÖ No, that doesn't make sense. You wouldn't want to exist in a perpetual state of joy. That would also be flat. [laughs] DAVID: No, absolutely. And I think even with big but achievable goals, it still is still quite helpful to treat them in this way. So for one, quite close to my heart right now, a goal of doing a Ph.D. I think you've got a 3-, 4-year long project in the States, I think it's more like 5 or 6 and if you treat the Ph.D. as it's pass/fail, like either you get the Ph.D. or those 3 or 4 years have been wasted, then that's not very motivating and also will result in, I think, worst quality results in work. Like the thing to do is ñ JESSICA: Like anxiety, stress, and shame. DAVID: Yeah. Yeah, very much so. [chuckles] So just thinking in terms of there's this big goal that you're trying to achieve of the Ph.D., but the goal doesn't just define a pass/fail; it defines a direction. Like if you get better at paper writing in order to get your Ph.D., then even if you don't get your Ph.D., you got better at paper writing and that's good, too. JESSICA: Because the other outcome is the next version of you. DAVID: Yes, exactly. JESSICA: Itís about who does this aspirational goal prompt you to become? REIN: This reminds me of the difference between homeostasis and homeorhesis. Homeostasis is about maintaining a state; homeorhesis is about maintaining a trajectory DAVID: That makes sense. Yes, very much that distinction and also, one of the nice things about this focus on a trajectory is that even if a third of the way through the trajectory, you decide you don't want to maintain it anymore and actually you're fine where you are. This goal was a bad idea or you've got different priorities now, possibly because a global pandemic has arrived and has changed all of your priorities. Then you still come all that way. It's like the trajectory doesn't just disappear backwards in time because you're no longer going in that direction. You've still made all that progress. Youíve still got to drive some of the benefits from it. JESSICA: Yeah. There's another thing that maybe it's an American thing, or maybe it's wider than that of if it doesn't last forever, then it was never real, or if you don't achieve the stated goal, then all your effort was wasted. DAVID: Yeah. I don't think itís purely an American thing. It's hard to tell with how much American pop culture permeates everything and also, I shouldn't say that although I'm quite British, I am also half American. So Iím a weird third culture kid where my background doesn't quite make sense to anyone. But yeah, no, I very much feel that. This idea that permanence is required for importance and it's something that every time I sort of catch myself there, I'm just like, ìYeah, David, you're doing the thing again. Have you tried not doing the thing?î [chuckles] But it's hard. It's very internalized. JESSICA: If you clean your flat and a week later, it's dirty again. Well, it was clean for a week. That's not nothing. DAVID: Yeah. I do genuinely think that one of the emotions that people struggle with cleaning. Certainly, it is for me. JESSICA: Oh, because it's a process. It is not a destination. Nothing is ever clean! DAVID: Yeah. JACOB: I think of myself sometimes as I want to be the kind of person that always has a clean home, as opposed to, I like it when my house is clean. JESSICA: Yeah. Is it about you or is it about some real effect you want? JACOB: Yeah. Is it about like the story that that I imagine I could project if I could project on Instagram because I'm taking pictures of my pristine house all the time, or is it just like, I like to look around and see things where they belong? DAVID: Yeah. I'm curious, does this result in your home being clean? JACOB: No, it doesnít and thatís sort of the issue that I'm just realizing is it's not actually a powerful motivator because it's just not possible trying to imagine that I could maintain homeostasis about it. It's not a possible goal and so yeah, it's not going to happen. REIN: Yeah. The metaphor here is it changes motion, but it's always happening so it's more like the flow of time than motion through space. JESSICA: Itís not motion, too. REIN: Actually staying the same is very hard to do and very expensive. DAVID: Absolutely. JESSICA: No wonder it takes all of our feelings to help us achieve it. [chuckles] DAVID: So the reason I was asking by the way about whether this idea of being the sort of person who has a clean home is effective is that this ties in a little bit to what today's newsletter was about. There's this problem where when you have self-images that are constructed around being good at particular things, being bad at those things is very much, it's a shame trigger. It's essentially, you experienced the world as clashing with your conception of yourself and we get really good at not noticing those things. You see this a lot with procrastination, for example, where you are putting off doing a thing because it does force you to confront this sort of conflict between identity and reality. I think sometimes, the way out of it is just to identify less with the things that we want to achieve in the world and just try and go, ìI'm doing this because I want to and if I didn't want to, that would be fine, too.î Essentially, becoming fine with both an outcome and failing to achieve that outcome is often the best way to achieve the outcome. JESSICA: So practicing editing in order to practice editing, whether you achieve writing a book or not, whether you're good at it or not, and it does come back to the journey. If what you're doing is a means to an end and yet not in line with that end, it often backfires because the means are the end. In the end, they become it. So having a clean house is stupid. That's not a thing. Picking up is a thing. That's something you can do and what I am picking up. True fact! [laughs] You don't have to worry about whether you can, are you doing it? All right then, you can! Whereas, having a clean house is not a thing. DAVID: Very much. This kind of ties into the comments about books earlier, where you were talking about how many books I read, and one of the things that I think very much stops people from reading books is the idea that oh God, there are so many books to read, I'll never get through all of them. JESSICA: If I started, I have to finish it. DAVID: Oh, yeah. I mean, people definitely shouldn't do that; books are there to be abandoned if they're bad. JESSICA: I read a lot of chapter ones. DAVID: Yeah. I have a slightly bad habit of buying books speculatively because they seem good and as a result, I think my shelf of books that I'm probably never going to get around to read, but might do someday and might not and either is fine is probably like a hundred plus books now. JESSICA: I love that shelf. I have big piles everywhere. [laughs] There's always something to read wherever I sit and most of it, I will never read, but it's beautiful. DAVID: I'm currently in a very weird experience where I write, for possibly the first time in my life, I have more bookshelf space than books. JESSICA: Huh, that's not a stable state. DAVID: No, no. This will be fixed by the time I leave this flat. The piles will return. JESSICA: You will maintain the trajectory. DAVID: Yeah. [laughs] Because I'm just reading. I can read these as many books because I just sit down and read and at some point, I will finish a book or I will abandon the book and both are fine. But I think if you treat this as a goal where your goal is to read all the books, then that's not the thing and also, I think people go, ìMy goal is to read a hundred books a year,î or I don't know how normal people guesstimates are. JESSICA: Itís like, is it really or itís their goal to learn something. DAVID: Yeah, exactly. JESSICA: And the means is reading books. DAVID: Yeah. I think if one instead just goes, ìI like reading and it's useful so I'm going to read books,î you'll probably end up reading a lot more than setting some specific numerical goal. Also, you run into sort of Goodhart's law things where if your goal is to read a hundred books in a year, great buy the Mr. Men set. But wait, it's not a thing in ñ the Mr. Men are a series of kidsí books which tells ñ JESSICA: With the big smiley face? DAVID: Yeah. Exactly, that's the one. [laughter] You can read a hundred of those in a weekóI assume there are hundred Mr. Men books, I don't actually knowóand youíll probably learn something. JESSICA: Then again, you might choose Dynamics in Action, never get through it, and then feel bad about it, and that would be pointless because you learned more from the introduction than you did from the Mr. Men series. DAVID: I don't think I've even opened my copy of Dynamics in Action. I think you recommended on Twitter or something and I was just like, ìThat does sound interesting. I will speculatively buy this book.î JESSICA: It's a hard book. DAVID: Yeah. It's far from the hardest book on my shelves, but it's definitely in the top. I'm going to confidently say top 20, but it might be harder than that. I just haven't done a comparative analysis and I don't want to overpromise. [laughter] JESSICA: The point being read books because you want to know. DAVID: Yeah. JESSICA: Or sometimes because you want to have read them. That's the thing. There's a lot of things I may not want to pick up, but I do want to have picked up and I can use that to motivate me. DAVID: Yeah, and even then, there are two versions of that and both are good, actually. I think one of them sounds bad. One version is you want to have read it because you want to understand the material in it and the other one is just, you want to be able to say that you have read it and thus, you ñ and probably for the status game and also, just sort of as a box ticking, like I think ñ JESSICA: Oh, itís not completely wrong. DAVID: No, it's not completely wrong. JESSICA: You still get something out of it. DAVID: Yeah. JESSICA: On the other hand, if you want to read it because you want to be the kind of person who would read it. I don't know about that one. DAVID: Yeah, I agree. I thinkÖ JESSICA: Then again, life habits. Sometimes, if you want to be the kind of person who picks up and so you fake it long enough to form the habit, then you are. DAVID: Yeah, absolutely and I read a book recentlyóof course, I didóby Agnes Callard called Aspiration, which I'm glad I read it. I cannot really recommend it to people who aren't philosophers, because there's a thing that often happens with reading analytic philosophy, where the author clearly has a keen insight into an important problem that you, as the reader, lack and the way they express that insight is through an entire bookís worth of slightly pedantic arguments with other analytic philosophers who have wrong opinions about the subjects. JESSICA: Half of Dynamics in Action is like that. DAVID: Yeah, I think it very complicated. REIN: Was it written as a thesis? DAVID: I don't think so. I'm not certain about that, but it might've been. It ended up being quite an influential book and I think she was mentioning that there's going to be a special issue of a journal coming out to recently about essentially, its impact and responses to it. But I think it's just genuinely that analytic philosophers had a lot of really wrong opinions about this subject. So the relevance of this is the idea she introduces the book is that of a proleptic value where ñ JESSICA: Proleptic, more words. DAVID: Proleptic basically, I think originally comes from grammar and it means something that stands in place for another thing. A proleptic value is what you do when you're engaged in a process of aspiration, which is trying to acquire values that you don't currently have. So she uses the example of a music student who wants to learn to appreciate the genre of music that they do not currently appreciate and they find a teacher who does appreciate that genre and they basically use their respect for that teacher as a proleptic value. They basically say, ìI don't currently value this genre of music, but I trust your judgment and I value your opinion and I will use your feedback and that respect for you as a value that stands in place of the future value of appreciating this genre of music that I hope to acquire.î So I think this thing of reading a book because you want to be the sort of person who reads that kind of book can have a similar function where even though, you don't really wants to read the book, that process of aspiration gives you a hook into becoming the sort of person who does want to read the book. JESSICA: That's like being the mountain for each other. DAVID: Yeah. JESSICA: In some ways. You're not going to get a view yet. You're only 10 feet off the ground, but meanwhile, just climb to climb because it's here. DAVID: Yeah. I'm not necessarily very good at being the sort of person reading books for this reason. Partly because there are so many books, I have so many other reasons to read, but yeah. JESSICA: Yeah, you're fine. You don't need more reasons to read a book. DAVID: [laughs] But I think two books that I have read mostly to have read them rather than necessarily because I was having an amazing time and learning lots of things reading them are Seeing Like a State by James Scott, which it's a good book. I don't think it's a bad book, but it is very much a history book that also has a big idea and there are like 70,000 blog posts about the big idea. So if you're going and wanting just the big idea, read one of the blog posts, but I'd seen a reference so many times and I was just like, ìYou know, this seems like a book that I should rate,î and my opinion is now basically that like, if you like history books and if you want lots of detail, then yeah, it's a great book to read. If you just want the big idea, donít. JESSICA: Right, because other people have presented it more succinctly, which probably happens with your Aspiration book that you talked about. DAVID: I would like it to happen with the Aspiration book. The Aspiration book is only a few years old. JESSICA: You've written a ñ oh, okay, so it's too soon for that. So you'll write about it, if you haven't yet. DAVID: Yeah, I havenít yet. Looking at it, it was published in 2018 and you have the paperback from 2019. So this is really cutting-edge philosophy to the degree that there is such a thing. [chuckles] JESSICA: Yeah. Oh no, what do you mean? [inaudible]. REIN: Seeing Like a State is. DAVID: Well, I've had this argument with philosopher friends where I was arguing that it was a thing and the philosopher friend was just like, ìIs it a thing, though?î Because the interesting thing about philosophy is just that it never goes out to date. People are sort of engaging with the entire historical cannon so the question is not does new philosophy get done? The question is more, I think is this less ñ? JESSICA: This isnít really a cutting edge. DAVID: Yeah, exactly. JESSICA: Itís more kind of a gentle nuzzling. DAVID: [laughs] Yeah. But also, is this more cutting edge than, I don't know, reading Aristotle's Nicomachean ethics? I don't know. JESSICA: Philosophy [inaudible]. DAVID: Yeah, I personally think that there is cutting-edge and this is on it, but plenty of room for philosophical dialogue on that subject if you can sort of dig Socrates up and ask him about it. [laughter] Yeah, and speaking of philosophy, the other book that I have read essentially to have read it rather than because I was getting a lot out of it was Wittgensteinís Philosophical Investigations where I essentially read it in order to confirm to myself that I had already picked up enough Wittgenstein by osmosis that I didn't really need to read it, which largely true. JACOB: This is the part of the show where we like to reflect on what we took from everything and just wrap things up a little bit. JESSICA: I have one thing written down. We talked a bit about who you are and who you want to be as a person, and how sometimes what you want to do is in conflict with how you think of yourself. Like, when you think of yourself as good at something, it's hard to be bad at it, long enough to learn better. It occurs to me that in our society, we're all about getting to know yourself and then expressing your true self, which is very much a homeostasis more than a homerhesis. But what have we tried not knowing yourself? What if we tried just like, I don't know who I am and then I can surprise myself and have more possibilities. That's my reflection. REIN: All of this discussion about happiness and pleasure, and diversion and striving reminds me a lot of Buddhist philosophy, or what I should say is, it reminds me a lot of my very limited understanding of Buddhist philosophy. Specifically, this idea that you shouldn't judge your life by the outcome of your preferences; that you shouldn't identify yourself with your wants and cling to the outcome of things. You can acknowledge that these things have happened and you can avoid unpleasant things, but you shouldn't be the owner of all of your desires. Instead, what you should do is measure your life by how well you follow the intentions that arise out of your values. JACOB: Yeah. Maybe to put another way, I'm starting to think maybe I could think of myself as the sum of all of the habits I maintain or don't, and try to think of outcome of those habits as what a lagging indicator, I guess, or as a secondary and think more of myself like, ìWell, what are the things that I find I am naturally doing and if I'm not, what can I do to just try to enforce it for myself that I'm going to do that more?î Or maybe I don't care. DAVID: So I'm not finding myself with sort of a single cohesive summation of the conversation, but I've really enjoyed it and there's been a couple of things I'm going to take away from it and mull over a bit more. I really liked the homeostasis versus homeorhesis distinction. I'd obviously heard the first word, but not the second word and so, I'm going to think about that a bit more. Sort of tying onto that, I very much liked Jessica's point of how a clean home isn't really a thing, you can only do cleaning and thinking much more in terms of the ongoing process than trying to think of it as a static goal that you are perfectly maintaining at all times. Slightly orthogonal in relation to that, but I'm also just going to look up Satir as an author and maybe read some of her books. [chuckles] REIN: Yay! DAVID: Because as we have established, always up for more reading. [laughs] JACOB: That should wrap up our Episode 223. I'd like to thank David for joining us and weíll see you next time. Special Guest: David MacIver.

Alex is the owner of LA Aerial Image. Introduction Alex was the first guest when the podcast came out about a year and a half ago. Alex was an original RC plane flyer. Then when he was older, he was able to afford this stuff. One day at the airfield, he saw some guy with a quad copter and knew he needed to have one. Then he decided that he didn't just want it to be a hobby. So he took his photography background as a hobbyist and then just got into video and just started doing video with drones. He does a whole array of different things, such as 3-D modeling for construction sites David: Do you do real estate? I tell a lot of people to start with the real estate because it's easy to get in. Everybody knows a realtor and you can get jobs fairly easy, but you can't stay in the industry. For Alex, he says, it's just not fun. In the meantime, he picked up an Amazon prime show called The Bay and he’s also been shooting for the Pop Star network for three seasons now. David: How did you land your first construction client? What did they want? My first construction job was subcontracted from another guy. They did some progress shots and 3-D modeling. Alex has done 3-D modeling for rock quarries too, so they can judge their materials and measure them. The person who subcontracted to him found Alex on Google. He needed a pilot in LA because he was getting business there but lived in Oregon. David: One thing people are asking who are interested in industries like construction, but don't know the lingo, is “How do I give a sales pitch to an engineering firm or construction or contractor?” What would be your sales pitch for 3-D models? I don’t have to do sales pitches right now; the contractor is doing them. I learned a lot of the lingo onsite because when I first went in, I didn't know either. I learned the lingo just talking to the guys onsite. For the most part you just need to explain that it will save them time and money. Construction guys are busy as hell. If you can send them an “as built”, which is a PDF that shows all the information. David: How often did they have you go out there and do a 3-D model of the whole site? It depends on where they're at in the building. In some cases it was once per week, in others cases every other week. “We’re going to do a testimony video of one of the biggest companies we work with, how they used the 3-D model, how it worked and how it saved them money. We’ve saved them tens of thousands of dollars in the long run.” David: How much are you able to charge these construction companies or engineering firms for flying every other week and doing a three D model? About $1500 bucks a flight in total is what the contractor charges. It takes Alex only about 45 minutes to do a model and then he makes $300 when most of the guys on the site made $50 or $60 an hour. David: What’s your favorite type of thing to work on: What's the most fun for you? What do you like doing the best? “I like the film stuff; I like being on set. As the drone guy, there’s lot of waiting around, which can be a little stressful, but other than that, it’s fun.” David: Do you think the Inspire 2 has helped you get those jobs? Yes, for sure. If you don’t have an Inspire 2, they’re not going to be hiring you for that job. David: What would you say you’ve learned that's new in the drone world? Are you getting better at the stuff you already know how to do, or do you feel like you've honed any specific skills? With nine years of drone flying under his belt, Alex has had more crashes in the last couple of years than ever. “I think I got complacent with my flying and I'm thinking ‘I got this.’ I think I need to get back to the basics and be a little more aware. I got a little loose.” Sometimes you might just get on autopilot and not really be thinking it through as carefully.   David: When you're flying for these construction sites, do they require you to have a tight amount of insurance? You have to have insurance and a lot of times it's at least 2 million. It could be up to 5 million. They have really expensive workers' comp and they have to pay the personnel. They preach safety all day long.   David: What’s changed from getting business now from when you were first doing it. Now, are you actively searching for any business or it just all comes to you? Alex says he wants to get better at looking for it. All his work lately has been “just coming to him.” He spends about $50-$100 per month on Google Click ads. And, he says, he doesn’t even get that many people from Google. Most of it is referral. “As long as you’re good at what you do, they're going to call you back or they're going to pass your number to someone else. Don’t get discouraged. You have to work actively on your business to grow it.” Alex says it isn’t about just buying a drone. You have to learn to be a good business owner, provide good customer service and create relationships. You might have to do some free jobs here and there to get the people to know your services and to know your work. Alex says, “Just start somewhere and build it.” Connect with Alex: Instagram: @laaerialimage Have a Drone Business? Want to be Interviewed for Season 3? Complete this questionnaire: Drone to 1K Business Owner Application Training from Drone Launch Academy Part 107 Exam Prep Course ($50 off) Aerial Photo Pro Course ($50 off) Aerial Video A to Z Course ($100 off) Aerial Roof Inspection Pro Course ($100 off) Drones 101 Course ($20 off) Other Places to Listen iTunes Stitcher Google Play Spotify TuneIn

Chris is the owner of Chris Dantonio Drone Photography Introduction: Chris says he got in a “little late” and “by accident”, because he started about four years ago at 43 years old. His parents bought him a little toy drone that had a small camera. He flew it for a week, broke it and knew he needed something better. He then bought a $100 drone and broke that in about a month. The DJI Phantom 3 Standard was his first real drone. He started taking pictures around Philadelphia just as a hobby, and really enjoyed it because he’d grown up around photography. His father, a photograph teacher at the local high school, would set up backgrounds to do portraits in the living room. “Photography has always been a part of my life and to be able to do it with a drone and be able to show people things in the city, especially that you didn't even know were there, is nice.” He could show people things that are very rarely seen from the ground level, which intrigued him more. He started an Instagram account, which has been a godsend, Chris says, because it's free. It doesn't cost any money and, with good work and hard work, you get followers. Chris just hit 10,000 followers a couple of months ago. After that, Chris knew he had to get licensed in order to sell pictures. Sure enough, he bought a study guide, studied for six months and took the test. “It's because of the study guide, I did really well. For those of you wondering ‘Should I get a study guide?’ I’d highly recommended it...” Then the business started, almost by accident. David: What year did you get your first Phantom and when did you say, ‘let’s get rolling on this’ and decide to get your Part 107? Do you do drones as a full-time gig or do you have a full-time job or some other supplemental income to go along with your drone business? I got the Phantom in 2016, started studying in 2017 and took the test in early 2018. This is a part time thing for me. Leaving my day job is really far off. I’m also an executive chef for an elite school outside of Philadelphia, so I have a job that allows me to do the drone thing, since nights and weekends are perfect for drone work. David: It's nice to have something that covers your bills and provides the freedom to experiment and pursue things without pressure to make immediate income. There’s pressure to get it going, but you don't want so much overwhelming stress that you're just going to crumble. Chris agrees that it adds stress to a day job—in addition to family and everything else going in in his life, but it’s also nice to pick and choose what jobs you want to do because your next mortgage payment isn't relying on that. Chris hasn't bought a drone with his own money for two years; the business has paid for all of the equipment. In early 2018, Chris got an email from an Instagram follower who worked for American Idol who was from Philadelphia and had seen Chris’ work. That was his first real big job. He had to join ICG Local 600 to shoot as a contractor for the show, which he pays dues for, but found out how beneficial it would be down the road for future work.  The show was high stress, they worked all day, but got a very high reward. The third shot of the opening of American Idol was their shot.  When subsequent clients came, it helped because they knew that we had already worked for a popular show. David: With American Idol were you just shooting content and handing it over and their guys were editing it? For all his major jobs, Chris gave them raw footage and they had somebody in their organization that handled all of the editing, cutting and doing everything with it. This was the case for Comcast, American Idol, and NFL films. David: What happened next? How did your next client find you? The next person to call was Comcast who wanted to purchase rights to footage for unlimited use. Chris says every job they've had—big or small—has all found them through Instagram. Chris says, “it's a smart business tool that doesn't cost money...the key is getting reposted to get your name out there.” With Comcast, a higher-up had been following him for a while, seeing Chris post shots of cool and different angles of the city. He has never really done any outbound sales activities to pursue clients. “I would be out there shooting regardless. If I had a thousand followers or less, I would still be out there shooting that much because I love it, which makes it easier.  if you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life.” David: One of the things people love on this podcast is specifics and numbers. It inspires people to know what's possible. Can you tell us what you make? His daily rate early on (for American Idol) was $1500 for an all-day shoot. Comcast wanted five photographs and five 15 to 30 second videos. He quoted $500 per still/$1000 per video. He said he’d give them the whole package for $6,000—they didn't bat an eyelash and wrote the check. To come up with those numbers, Chris researched what rights he was giving up for unlimited use. If it had been exclusive—where he was never allowed to use that footage—the number would have doubled because he’d lose all future profit from that footage. He did a lot of research as to what Getty images charges for a single image and then cut the deal. Chris says, “It's extremely important to go online and research things, as well as talk to friends in the photography industry, who you will meet through Instagram. They will help you figure out what your service is worth to you.” Later, a photography director for NFL films reached out, asking for footage of the NFL films building for the opening of a new show. He shot all kinds of things for three hours, getting paid $1500. He got to work with cameramen who’d shot some of the most important sporting events of our time. They knew exactly what they wanted, which made it so much easier on Chris to be directed in that way. David: It sounds like you're getting pretty good pricing per gig. How many jobs are you flying per month and what are you getting paid these days? Chris tends to average two or three jobs a month, but sometimes those jobs have multiple flights. His pricing has increased a little bit—his hourly rate is now $300/hr; his daily rate is $2000. David: One of the biggest questions is ‘How do I find clients?’, ‘How do I find work?’ For Chris, many commercial projects have come from family members or people he knew in high school. He got a Land Rover Jaguar job from a high school friend who is now the sales manager there. He knew Chris was into this because he posted on Facebook constantly. It was all about getting the word out that that he’s “the drone guy” on social media. David: Obviously, it pays to have really good photos that are worth sharing...Do you have any strategies when you're posting on Instagram? Are you also posting to Facebook or doing them independently? Chris does not post to Facebook every time because he has a separate Facebook account just for the drone business. Philly Drone Shots is the only Instagram account he has, and it’s listed as a business. He usually posts directly and separately to Facebook. Chris’ advice is, “When posting to Instagram, hashtagging and tagging are how you get seen with little followers. If you're just starting out on Instagram, hashtag and tag large accounts in the city you live in with things like #gameofdrones, #photooftheday, #dronephotography. When people look at those hashtags, they see your photos, whether they follow you or not. That's how you build your followers.” He got 500 followers just from a repost from a local news organization that has 213,000 followers. Last words from Chris... “If you keep working at it, they WILL come. They will find you and they will see you.” Connect with Chris: Website: Chris Dantonio Drone Photography Philly Facebook: Chris Dantonio Drone Photography Instagram: @phillydroneshots Have a Drone Business? Want to be Interviewed for Season 3? Complete this questionnaire: Drone to 1K Business Owner Application Training from Drone Launch Academy Part 107 Exam Prep Course ($50 off) Aerial Photo Pro Course ($50 off) Aerial Video A to Z Course ($100 off) Aerial Roof Inspection Pro Course ($100 off) Drones 101 Course ($20 off) Other Places to Listen iTunes Stitcher Google Play Spotify TuneIn

La photo de surf lui a appris la patience, la radiographie la rigueur et le street art la composition. Moralité : ses photos voyagent en première classe ! Une composition unique, un jeu avec des ombres hors normes et des lumières juste bluffantes… Bref, les photos de DavidOne sont reconnaissables dès le premier coup d'oeil.  Le garçon du bassin d'Arcachon est tombé dans l'amour de la photo depuis sa planche de surf. Des clichés pas toujours évidents à prendre dans de telles conditions ! Malgré ça, David réussit à se faire remarquer auprès de rédacteurs en chef de magazine de surf. Le début d'une aventure photographique qui le fera surfer sur la vague ! Sa passion pour le street art et ses talents de graffeur lui ont permis d'approcher la photo avec un oeil différent. Des voyages à travers le monde et de nombreuses récompenses ont continué de développer le côté artistique du photographe. Un talent qui ressort totalement même lorsque David choisit l'intemporalité dans ses photos en noir et blanc. Notre échange ensemble est une occasion de vous faire découvrir comment de multiples facettes professionnelles et passions peuvent améliorer votre créativité. Cultiver sa différence est une chose essentielle pour sortir du lot. C'est la raison pour laquelle David va vous donner ses conseils comme par exemple d'adhérer à une association de photographes. Mon interview avec DavidOne va notamment vous permettre de : Comprendre pourquoi il est nécessaire d'imposer l'organisation du mariage selon vos heures à vous Déceler les signes qui font que ça match ou pas lors d'un rendez-vous pour signer Comment ajuster la balance entre photographe auteur et photographe de mariage Découvrir pourquoi l'Islande est à faire au moins une fois dans sa vie de photographe Percevoir le moment où une pose s'impose dans la photo de mariage   Les personnes mentionnées dans ce podcast : Alex Webb  et son expérience avec l'agence photographique Magnum Photos Max Weber et son séjour à Lyon Chris Mann et son travail outre-manche Franck Boutonnet et les autres adhérents de l'association de photographie alias Bruno Mayor, Christophe Viseux, Fred Bruneau, David Bacher, Emmanuel Bergère, David One, Antoine Monfajon, Jacques Mateos, Ivan Franchet, Sokebana et Christophe Flers. L'objectif préféré de DavidOne : 35 mm f1/4 et 85 mm f1/8  Le site internet de DavidOne : https://www.davidone.fr/photographe Le Facebook de DavidOne : https://www.facebook.com/Davidone.Photography Le compte Instagram de DavidOne : https://www.instagram.com/i.am.davidone/  ------------------------- ▼ Formez-Vous Gratuitement à la Photographie de Mariage ▼

Introduction * Most important thing to do for virus, economy, social well being? * Lot of our malaise when feeling overwhelmed, flat, anxious or overstressed is due to confused priorities, or, what's really important?     * “One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Mk 12:28–29     * So, we know loving God and neighbours is primary     * But, how do we figure out what that means for our lives, personally? PART 1: Unhealthy ways to decide what's important * Imagine if you made decisions about our children our marriage or our friends on these bases.     * I will do what you want because I am feeling guilty about mistakes I've made in the past.     * I will do what you want because I'm afraid otherwise you might hate me or leave me.     * I will do what you want not because it makes you happy with because it makes me feel better. * That would not be a healthy relationship with a human * It certainly is not a healthy relationship with God. Questions for the groups: What was the important thing they knew or learned? Why was and is this important? How would the importance of this manifest itself in your life? Five characters to show us the way 1. David “One thing I ask from the LORD, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.” Ps 27:4 * It's easier to teach a Christian the bible than it is to teach them how to worship. * David - a man after God's own heart. * ‘Beauty’ = favour, pleasantness * A good quiet time could be to meditate on what is ‘beautiful’ about the LORD. Would that include His holiness, mercy, long-suffering nature, loving-kindness, integrity, justice, completeness, perfection, wisdom, .....? Interesting that in Ps 50.1-6, His/Zion’s beauty is expressed in terms of fire, speaking, tempest, judgment etc. * His desire to be close to God is very active - ‘ask’, ‘seek’ X2, ‘dwell’, ‘gaze’ * ‘dwell’ used of a married couple who have set up house together 2. Rich young ruler “Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”” Mk 10:21 * Do you have any barriers to full surrender to Jesus? * He starts on his knees, but turns his back on Jesus * This man has no material needs and no law-needs. He knows he has other needs, but what are those needs. Jesus is about to tell him - and it is clearly not what he man expected. 3. Mary ““Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”” Lk 10:41–42 * Sometimes good things are why we miss out on the best thing. * The better priorities, chosen consistently over time, yield a lasting legacy of godliness 4. The blind man “He replied, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”” Jn 9:25 * Important to remember the transforming power of Jesus in our lives. * It's never doctrine that converts anyone, it's always the evidence of the power of Jesus in peoples' lives. * Perhaps especially true for our children * Have your testimony ready. 5. Paul “Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Phil 3:13–14 * Baggage from the past will obscure what is important for the present and the future. * Paul did not deny his baggage, but he did not let it get in the way of being ambitious for God. * We never fully ‘arrive’ on earth, but progress can be a delight Conclusion What have our characters taught us about what is important? * David: knowing that God is at the heart of prayer * Rich young ruler: knowing God is at the heart of surrender * Martha: knowing God is at the heart of service * Blind man: knowing God is at the heart of witness * Paul: knowing God is at the heart of ambition Suggestion: * Use these characters as a way of assessing what's important going into 2021 * As a filter to help assess where you are & want to be in 2021 Scriptures used in or related to today’s lesson: Ps 27:4; Matthew 23:23; Mark 10:21; 12:28-29, 33, 39; Luke 10:41-42; 16:15; John 9:25; 1 Corinthians 15:3; Philippians 3:13-14 Please add your comments on this week’s topic. We learn best when we learn in community.  If you’d like a copy of my free eBook on spiritual disciplines, “How God grows His people”, sign up at my website: http://[www.malcolmcox.org](http://www.malcolmcox.org/).  God bless, Malcolm

Sermon for the Watford and Dublin churches 22 November 2020 Introduction Most important thing to do for virus, economy, social well being? Used to have one priority, now have several! Lot of our malaise when feeling overwhelmed, flat, anxious or overstressed is due to confused priorities, or, what's really important? Near end 2020 Review and reset This question has been asked since time immemorial “One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” (Mark 12:28–29 NIV11) So, we know loving God and neighbours is primary But, how do we figure out what that means for our lives, personally? That's what today's lesson is about...... PART 1: Unhealthy ways to decide what's important a. Guilt b. Fear c. Makes us feel better Imagine if you made decisions about our children our marriage or our friends on these bases. I will do what you want because I am feeling guilty about mistakes I've made in the past. I will do what you want because I'm afraid otherwise you might hate me or leave me. I will do what you want not because it makes you happy with because it makes me feel better. That would not be a healthy relationship with a human It certainly is not a healthy relationship with God. Questions for the groups: What was the important thing they knew or learned? Why was and is this important? How would the importance of this manifest itself in your life? PART 2: Healthy ways to figure out what's important Five characters to show us the way 1. David “One thing I ask from the LORD, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.” (Psalm 27:4 NIV11) It's easier to teach a Christian the bible than it is to teach them how to worship. David - a man after God's own heart. ‘Beauty' = favour, pleasantness A good quiet time could be to meditate on what is ‘beautiful' about the LORD. Would that include His holiness, mercy, long-suffering nature, loving-kindness, integrity, justice, completeness, perfection, wisdom, .....? Interesting that in Ps 50.1-6, His/Zion's beauty is expressed in terms of fire, speaking, tempest, judgment etc. His desire to be close to God is very active - ‘ask', ‘seek' X2, ‘dwell', ‘gaze' ‘dwell' used of a married couple who have set up house together 2. Rich young ruler “Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”” (Mark 10:21 NIV11) Do you have any barriers to full surrender to Jesus? He starts on his knees, but turns his back on Jesus This man has no material needs and no law-needs. He knows he has other needs, but what are those needs. Jesus is about to tell him - and it is clearly not what he man expected. response, however, moves beyond command to an abondonment and trust that involve the losing of self in yielding, trustful communion....The move is from willing duty to utter delight.” Brueggemann, Psalms, 196 3. Mary ““Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”” (Luke 10:41–42 NIV11) Sometimes good things are why we miss out on the best thing. The better priorities, chosen consistently over time, yield a lasting legacy of godliness 4. The blind man “He replied, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don't know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”” (John 9:25 NIV11) Important to remember the transforming power of Jesus in our lives. It's never doctrine that converts anyone, it's always the evidence of the power of Jesus in peoples' lives. Perhaps especially true for our children Have your testimony ready. 5. Paul “Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13–14 NIV11) Baggage from the past will obscure what is important for the present and the future. Paul did not deny his baggage, but he did not let it get in the way of being ambitious for God. We never fully ‘arrive' on earth, but progress can be a delight Conclusion What have our characters taught us about what is important? David: knowing that God is at the heart of prayer Rich young ruler: knowing God is at the heart of surrender Martha: knowing God is at the heart of service Blind man: knowing God is at the heart of witness Paul: knowing God is at the heart of ambition Centring on Jesus makes what's important clear Suggestion: Use these five characters as a way of assessing what's important to you going into 2021 As a filter to help you assess where you are and want to be in 2021 Scriptures used in or related to today's lesson: Psalm 27:4; Matthew 23:23; Mark 10:21; 12:28-29, 33, 39; Luke 10:41-42; 16:15; John 9:25; 1 Corinthians 15:3; Philippians 3:13-14 Questions for the breakout rooms: What was the important thing they knew or learned? Why is this important? If this was important to you, how would it show up in your life? Thank you for listening to this podcast. You can find more episodes in our feed. Our web site is http://www.watfordchurchofchrist.org.    Join us in our adventure: 10.30 AM on most Sundays at Laurance Haines School, Vicarage Road, Watford, Hertfordshire, WD18 0DD.   Please add your comments on this week's topic. We learn best when we learn in community.    Do you have a question about the Bible or the Cahristian faith? Is it theological, technical, practical? Send us your questions or suggestions. Here's the email: thewatfordchurch@gmail.com.   Thanks again for listening. Have a super day.   God bless,   Malcolm   Watford, Watford church of Christ, Malcolm Cox, mccx, Croxley Green, Bushey, Leavesden, Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, ICOC, ICCM, Chesham, Chorleywood, Aylesbury, Croxley, Laurance Haines School, Vicarage Road, Bible teaching, Sunday School, Youth Ministry, Watford Church, Churches in Watford, Churches in London, Churches in Hertfordshire, Watford UK, Holywell, Watford England, Watford in Hertfordshire, West Watford, Churches of Christ, 

You can’t compartmentalize integrity.To be a world-class leader, you must incorporate integrity into all areas of your life.David Wood does exactly that.Meet DavidOne of my favorite people in the world, David is a no filter, no bullshit, straight-shooter filled with love and compassion. He is a world-class leader that has taught over a million students all over the world. He’s the type of person that’s just as comfortable leading a team to the 19,000 ft summit of Kilimanjaro as he is brain-storming with billionaires about changing the world.His message of love, service, caring, and compassion comes right through no matter where he is or who he’s teaching. As an Enneagram 7, he is the Enthusiast.How he got where he is today.“I’m a teacher that’s all about real transformation, which is hard and honest. People struggle with it; after all, if it was easy, we’d all be doing it.The ability to walk into any room, anywhere, and have people drawn to you comes from transparency and congruence. I really care about people, but am not invested in what they think. I go into every relationship really looking for the things I like in people.”When you can find a part of someone to connect with, all the other parts seem to open up.“Ask yourself: How am I behaving inside? Am I being congruent and fearless? Fearlessness, to me, is the ability to walk up to a stranger and hug them or give them a genuine compliment. It’s a fearless approach to truth and a willingness to be rejected and never worry about it.”Quotes:5:08 David“I really care about people, I’m just not invested in what they think.”7:55 DavidIf I want up to someone and they snub me, I don’t take it personally because I know it says more about what they’re feeling inside than it says about my intentions. 10:28Our greatest wounding is backed up to our greatest gift.24:01 DavidIf your kids can’t talk to you about the things that they’re doing, it’s because you’re creating that by being disingenuous yourself.26:50 I knew as a 9 year old that my parents were full of sh*t.28:19 David One of the great ways is not what they become but it’s how we communicate and whether we can really be truthful together—that to me is my benchmark of how am I doing with my kids.34:14 DavidFor me to be most effective, I feel suffocated in the corporate world. 36:50 David Whether you’re a man or a woman, grow a set of balls and actually tell the truth.40:57 DavidRather than post a quote, why not tell a story about how you brought the quote to life.42:19 DavidThat’s where my courage comes in—I am completely willing to let go of everything I have in order to discover what I can’t possibly see.

David Sonn is the Founder and President of Arc Intermedia, a HubSpot certified, digital only agency that focuses on “customer acquisition using digital strategies and digital tactics.” David ran a web development company for 13 years but found that he and his partner had become “production monkeys,” delivering a commodity and competing with offshore developers. “You never want to sell or have to build a model based on price,” he says. Ten years ago, when people started requesting Search Engine Optimization, David found his niche. Intrigued by the ability to precisely measure results, he founded Arc Intermedia -- and got out of the website building business and into the business of building businesses.  David may have started his agency “really slow and really small,” but he didn't start “really cheap.” He hired the most experienced SEO and paid search experts he could find, people who could lead practice area development. He says, “When you're a somewhat small agency that we are, every person counts.” Hiring and investing in the right people is critically important. In this interview, David provides a wide range of tips on building a strong digital business. Marketing initiatives need to start with strategy. When clients try to tell Arc Intermedia what they want the agency to do, David says it is critically important to understand “the good, the bad, and the ugly” about that business, to get to know the client well enough to discover things of which even the client may be unaware, and to know the client's goals – what the client is trying to accomplish – before building the strategy and implementing the strategically determined tactics. As many people in marketing say, content is king. Marketers need to know how to leverage that content through SEO, distribution, credibility, and across social platforms. While a variety of tactics can be used get leads, to drive people to a website, to fill out a form, to give them “stuff,” people often resist filling out forms because they don't want the sales calls that immediately follow. David recommends giving people something of value in exchange for their personal information.  The key to building customer relationships is nurturing potential clients through broad exposure on a variety of platforms and providing a variety of (non-sale) interactions. Use marketing automation to nurture clients to help close the deal. Clients often come to Arc Intermedia and request adding a particular tool, such as SEO, to their marketing mix. David reminds us that today's digital marketing requires an integrated process to succeed. SEO, social presence, publication on an industry website or blog . . . these things “loosen the soil” and build the familiarity and credibility that makes a paid search or display ad work.  Customer acquisition is what “moves the needle for the bottom line of a company.” Paid search has evolved to a high level of sophistication. Precise targeting produces a wealth of data. Advertising on social platforms – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter – should be backed by “great strategy.” Knowing when to pivot, why you need to pivot, and having the ability to pivot is critical.  David describes paid search as a “sprint,” and SEO as a “marathon.” He feels that it is important for both parties to set their expectations realistically about what's going to be accomplished when. He requires SEO contracts to be for at least 12 months – SEO takes that long to show a return. After a year, when he shows clients where they were in month zero and what has been accomplished in the year that followed, “the contracts basically renew themselves.” SEO on paid media optimized for terms and topics in high demand? He says, “It's infinite traffic if you do it correctly.” David can most easily be found on his agency's website at arcintermedia.com.   Transcript Follows: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I am joined today by David Sonn, President and Founder of Arc Intermedia based in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. Welcome to the podcast, David. DAVID: Thank you. Hi, Rob. How are you? I appreciate you including me today. ROB: Great to have you here and have a little pre-call with you before this. Tell us about Arc Intermedia. What is this agency, and how did it get started? DAVID: Arc Intermedia is what I call a digital only agency. Why I need to make that designation is I've been around the block for a while, so I have experience in traditional advertising and that kind of thing, but with this agency, when I built this agency 10 years ago, I wanted to hyper-focus only on digital strategies and digital tactics. We basically will come to a customer that needs more customers. I don't care if you're Apple Computers or you're a two-man band working out of a garage; everybody needs more customers. So we built this agency on customer acquisition using digital tactics. ROB: Got it. How long has the business been around? DAVID: I founded this 10 years ago. Oh, by the way, we're 10 years old this year. ROB: Happy birthday. Anniversary, whatever you want to call it. DAVID: Thank you. [laughs] Yes. ROB: The digital tactics even over that time have changed a lot. What were the tactics on Day Zero when it's you and – were you by yourself? Did you have partners in the earliest stages of the firm? DAVID: I'm going to back up and tell you a little different story. I promise, promise, promise to get there. Before I had Arc Intermedia, back in 1996 I founded one of the first interactive firms in Philadelphia. When we went into business, and I had a partner at the time, we built websites. At the time, 1996, a lot of companies didn't even have websites yet. There was no roadmap whatsoever. We thought this was a fantastic idea. We thought, hmm, this internet thing has a chance to stick around. So we built a company around it without a real plan. We raised some money from friends and family and just got after it. We made a lot of mistakes, but it was all good. 13 years of success proved that out. But I did find that when I had that web development company, we basically became production monkeys. Clients began to tell us what they wanted, what colors, this, this, and this, and we just became builders, not thinkers or advisors. When you're in that space and you begin to try to build a commodity like that, you're now competing against the whole world. And oh by the way, it's really hard if you think you're going to compete against offshore solutions on price. You never want to sell or have to build a model based on price. I began to look at the business and say, hmm, is this really what I want to continue to do? Near the tail end of it, we began to get more and more requests for SEO, search engine optimization. We were building these websites, but no traffic was coming to them. Clients wanted us to do SEO. I began to get my hands involved in SEO, and then jointly, paid search – way, way, way back, the origin of that was – I don't know if you remember the GoTo Network? It was the beginnings of all of it. ROB: Oh yeah. DAVID: I got my hands involved in the GoTo Network, and I got real excited. I'm like, look, we can build out some strategies. We have some money, and we instantly can begin to drive traffic to these websites. Then I had clients calling me up and telling me that they were getting all these sales leads and things were changing, and what was going on at the website? That was a light bulb moment for me. I really didn't want to be involved in the web building business anymore. I wanted to be in the business building business. I got real excited. Being an entrepreneur, I started to get that itch again. I'm like, I built this company and it's now been 12-13 years. I think it's time for me to bust a move into something else that I want to do. This customer acquisition piece – the part that actually moves the needle for the bottom line of a company – became very exciting to me. Then I did, and now back to your original question, I began to explore some of these original tactics much further. I didn't see any companies out there specializing in it. The agencies of the land, the traditional ad agencies, still wanted to spend your money on radio and TV and that kind of stuff and things that couldn't be measured. As scary as digital is in that you can measure right down to the penny, to the click, to this, to that, that actually was really, in some weird way, extremely enticing to me. That we could see it, we could measure it, and I could stand up and find the client and say, “I succeeded” or, hopefully not, “I failed.” But for some reason that was an incredible, incredible attraction to me. I decided that it was time to dissolve the web development company, and I launched Arc Intermedia, but this time I decided to start really slow, really small on purpose. It was myself and Mike Maier, who came over with me. It was just the two of us, and we started the company. We hyper-focused on some of the basic tactics of the day. There was SEO; it was much different than it is today, but it was SEO, and there was the paid search and that piece. Then as I began to see what was working for customers, the different technologies and tactics that were evolving, I began to build the experts around it. I went out and got one of the best SEOs, Ron Sansone, in the Philadelphia area, and he began to build out our search practice. From him, I added more people with SEO experience, paid search experience. Rasheed Hendricks heads up our paid advertising department, and he's just absolutely fantastic. That piece is ever-evolving. And then, as you probably have heard from doing many of these interviews, content is king. You need to know how to leverage content. Content can be leveraged from an SEO standpoint, from a distribution standpoint, from a credibility standpoint, from a social standpoint, all of it. You and I were talking a little bit about how we're HubSpot certified. Katie Schieder on my team is in charge of content and content marketing, and she does a fantastic job with her team. There's a lot of different pieces, and I know I'm maybe sounding like I'm rambling right now, but hopefully I answered your question. ROB: One thing I hear in there is a strong recognition and appreciation for a team of experts in the different subject areas. One thread I want to pull on a little bit that's unique about your story is you mentioned in your previous business, the web development shop, that you had investors. We talk a good bit about investors, but what we most often talk about on this podcast is people who are proud and grateful to not have investors, and maybe sometimes a chip on their shoulder because they know other people who have raised money and have gone out of business. What did you learn from having investors, and what would you say to other people who think they wish they had investors? You mentioned it was friends and family, so we didn't go out and raise $100 million, but still there are entailments to that. DAVID: There is nothing – nothing – sexy about having investors. Zero. Now, I was super fortunate that we ended up raising money through friends and family. And oh by the way, that was because no bank would touch us. When we had a plan to build a web development company back in 1996, every bank says, “Oh, that's fantastic, but I need a 150% collateral that we are going to freeze for every dollar that we give you.” If I had a 150% collateral that I could do, I wouldn't be sitting at that bank looking for money. That was just silly. So obviously that never went through. But we were fortunate that we were able to do it through friends and family and a lot of people who supported us. I will tell you, there's an incredible extra weight on your shoulders because you don't want to fail them. In my mind there was no chance, ever, in any way, shape, or form, that I wasn't going to return every dollar back to the people that invested in us – and then some, of course. My success was definitely going to be their success, and I was going to make sure that happened regardless, even if it meant that I was going to pay that money back personally. I was going to get it done. When you're taking VC money, that's a different approach and you can't always do all of that. But having investors is not sexy or anything that you should really go for unless you absolutely have to. Now, when I had Arc Intermedia, the one thing that was to my benefit was that I was going to start small, and I'm also now a little bit older, a little bit wiser. I self-funded my whole thing. The beauty there is, I never had anybody standing on my shoulders. I never had anybody that I had to answer to in that regard. So my advice would be try, try, try to do it on your own or figure out a way to do it on your own or try to figure out where you can get investment from people that trust and believe and love you, and then the VC thing is separate. Last. ROB: Right on. I think I would perceive in the web world, when you talk about the '90s, you'll hear a lot about some of the sticker prices people paid for pretty simple websites by our standards. You'll hear half a million, a million, 10 million. You mention competing with offshore now and this race to the bottom. Certainly it has been cheaper and cheaper to get a pretty good website. You can pay a kid from a high school and get something pretty decent. You can pay a pro less than you would pay one person in a year for sure. You don't see that same race to the bottom in the marketing world. You can't get 10 times as much marketing for the same price as you could 5 years ago. What do you think it is that keeps it from becoming a race to the bottom where some high school kid can hop out and just crush your B2B marketing? DAVID: Because there's so much more that goes into it. The tools now are very sophisticated with paid search and all the data you can get back and the targeting you can do, if you're going to do advertising on social platforms – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, all that. But at the end of the day, there has to be some really great strategy in there, and there has to be the ability to pivot and the eye to know when to pivot or why you need to pivot. Then the other part of it is the customer. Can the customer tell you what their cost of acquisition needs to be? Or can you then prove it out? For example, Rob, if I said to you, “Hey, you give me $1,000 bucks, and for every $1,000 bucks you give me, I'm going to give you $10,000 back in business,” you would do that all day long. You would figure out how many thousands you could give me so I could give you tenfold back. To answer your question, I think that only happens if you really have the people that have the expertise and the daily eye on this stuff to really know what works. The customer acquisition piece and the journey and all the points in between, it doesn't happen by chance. It's not by luck, and it's also not subjective. You used websites as the example. We can sit here and argue that the homepage needs to be a shade of blue or maroon or what have you, and maybe we're both right. Who knows? But at the end of the day with digital marketing, either I'm driving results and giving you a positive return or I'm not. I think that's the difference. ROB: That makes sense. There's infinite rounds of competition, and there's a level of spending that's always going to meet the value. The value of what people buy online keeps on going. People are buying more stuff online, and you need smarter people to drive those tools as you go. You mentioned some key folks that you have on your team, and you had clearly built a team before with your web dev shop. How did you think about assembling your team differently as you were building your second business? DAVID: This is probably an old adage that you've heard before, but it's always hire slow, fire fast. Thank God, I've not had to fire anybody at Arc Intermedia. I've got that great of a team. That's actually one of the things that I really do hang my hat on. In 10 years, we've never had anybody leave but one person, and it was more or less just a career change in that case. We still remain friends with that young woman to this day. But hiring the right people on the front end and making an investment in the right people is critically important. What my process was – and I'm going to use the SEO one as an example because it's clean and easy – I began to see in the marketplace that SEO was critically important, but I also could see that I could build a business around it. When I wanted to go and build the SEO, I didn't want to just hire a mid-tier person or an entry-level person or something where we were going to, together, learn it on the fly. Rather, I thought the most important or better move was to make the investment in a senior level person who had been doing it and we could build off of that person and let that person build out the practice, if you will. That's my approach. When you're a somewhat small agency that we are, every person counts. We're mean and lean and there's no place to hide, and everybody has to be able to show for what they bring to the table. My entire team, basically, is built with fairly senior level people that I would say are experts in their field. It's just been a much better approach than what I've seen others do. ROB: How do you think about positioning? When you have a senior person, that SEO offering also has to be a little bit of a premium offering. SEO certainly can have one of the highest long-term ROIs, but it can also be one of the slowest marketing tactics to start to bear fruit. How do you walk a customer along expectations around the sticker price you need to show them to bring the team that you have to bear on SEO? DAVID: You actually used my word, expectations. You've got to set the expectation correctly up front. As a joke, we say SEO is the marathon, paid search is the sprint. If you begin to lay out and set those expectations, both parties can get their head around what's going to be accomplished when. Part of that is, with SEO, we will not take on a contract that's less than 12 months, and the reason being is it is completely unfair to judge us on anything less than 12 months. 3 months in, if you were to look at what we were doing, you'd say, “You guys don't know what you're doing” or “This is a complete waste of money.” And they'd be right, because there wouldn't really be the return in 3 months. Wouldn't really be the return there in 6 months. But what you've got to do is look at a plan that's been executed correctly over a 12-month period, step back and say, “This is where we were month zero. Now look where we are.” Honestly, the contracts basically renew themselves because once you can show what can be delivered with SEO – and the beauty of SEO on paid media – it's infinite traffic if you do it correctly. If you're optimizing for terms and for topics that are in high demand, you can drive a great deal of traffic. And then if you have set up your customer journey correctly on the website and begin to show those conversions and whatever it may be, whether it be ecommerce or registrations or sales leads or what have you, it kind of sells itself if you do it correctly. Now, as far as a high ticket, SEO is a very difficult industry. It's getting a bit better, but we're constantly up against the – I don't know what to really call them outside of where they begin to make promises for SEO for $200 a month. We're always fighting against that. But our price point – and you've got to remember it's all labor-based, so people need to get paid. Especially when you have senior level people that you alluded to, they've got to get paid and you've got to offset those costs. So yeah, good SEO is not cheap, but I will tell you this: look at an SEO contract for 12 months, the cost of it, and compare that to some kind of media play. Compare that to a TV or radio campaign. Or even sometimes the money we really need to move the needle in paid search just because the search terms may be very costly, and if you don't have X amount of dollars, you're spitting in the wind. You'd be foolish to think you're going to get any kind of return because you can't drive the volume to get the return. In the grand scheme of things, SEO is actually not expensive if you're comparing it correctly. ROB: Right, it just doesn't track as quickly. “I did X dollars of SEO this month and it generated this amount of results.” You have to be more patient than that. We have talked a good bit about SEO. I know that is where you started, but I know you've also been thoughtful about layering in other service offerings to the business. What have you added in, and how did you reach those decisions of starting to embrace something where a lot of times agencies will partner on offerings they're not ready to do or ready to do yet? DAVID: I often find clients will come to us, and sometimes they will have a need. The need may be that they need more sales leads or they need to sell X amount more widgets. But often they come to us with a tactic in mind. For example, “We need to do SEO.” “Why do you need to do SEO?” It's just because that's what they've been told, that's what they've heard, that's what they may not be doing. They may not be coming up in the search results, so they think that's what they need. But really what we're seeing today now in digital marketing is it's more of what we call an integrated approach. It's the SEO, it's the presence on social, it's the being published on an industry website or a blog that begins to loosen up the soil so that when we do finally hit them with a paid search ad or a display ad, they've seen us before. There's some kind of credibility that's been built up just because they've seen us in multiple places, and we've nurtured them along and we can close the deal. Many of these things now work so hand-in-hand, and again, we always want to start strategy first. Don't tell us what to do; tell us what you're trying to accomplish. Then once we understand the goals and we're all on the same page with the goals, we'll build out the strategy. Then the strategy will dictate the tactics. That then leads into, what did we think made sense to bring in-house? With SEO, the counterbalance was the paid search. We had started doing some paid search from the very beginning, but not to the level of what we're doing today and what we needed to. That was a no-brainer, to make sure we headed up that department with paid search. Paid search is nice because people are looking for your exact service. In fact, paid search is one of my favorite forms of advertising because it's people actively looking for what you have. You just need to get in front of them. Conversely, people who are a bit more passive or are not actually searching, we need to prospect. And the best way to prospect is through display advertising or social advertising and those kinds of things. Again, having that piece of the pie just made a ton of sense of another piece that we need to layer on. Now, we can talk all day long about different tactics of driving people to a website, to filling out a form, to be giving them stuff, but the place that I see people now fall short of is you've got the sales lead; now what? The customer fills out a form. One of the reasons they don't want to fill out a form is because they know immediately they're going to get a phone call from a salesperson, and that's the last thing they want. So you've got to look at it a bit differently. “Hey, fill out this form and I'm going to give you something of value.” I always say you've got to give something to get something. Maybe they fill out the form to get some kind of a free tool or a download or a piece of advice or a consultation or something like that. But if you're really, really going to do this and you think you're going to get a return on that initial investment, you'd better be able to nurture. The nurture piece comes in with this marketing automation. For example, I know I've already said it before, but we're HubSpot certified, and that platform allows us to do a lot of different things. We can do email marketing and we can manage the workflow all the way through. If they open this email and they click on this, we know that they're demonstrating X interest in something, and we can then take them down the next path of providing them the next piece of content. We can nurture and we can build that relationship without the phone call, without the salesperson getting after them. So having the marketing automation piece was something we absolutely needed to bring in because we were doing such a fantastic job with driving leads on the front end that we needed to have the nurturing piece on the back end. ROB: It seems like you not only are comprehensive in the different services you provide, but you have to be comprehensive in your understanding of the business to be able to nurture leads along. You can get a first conversation, but to be able to nurture and build trust and credibility with somebody else's customer is not something you can get from just an onboarding form for a new client. How do you get to that depth of knowledge where you're actually building trust on behalf of a business that's not yours? That's a challenge. DAVID: You're right, it really is. I'll tell you, we get down into the weeds to the nth degree of some stuff that I never thought I needed to know about, from tuberculosis testing to hospice care to minor league baseball to all kinds of stuff. If you're willing to make a commitment to a new client – and to be honest with you, we do say no. There's times that we're like, “This isn't going to be a fit for us for XYZ reasons.” But when you finally say, “I am going to commit to you,” commit means I've got to learn your business, and I've got to find the skeletons in the closet. I've got to understand the good, the bad, and the ugly. Honestly, it's a constant learning process. We often will do onboarding with a client and we'll try to learn and glean as much information as we can, and as we launch programs, we begin to understand that what they were telling us is completely wrong. And they didn't even know it. So there's that piece of it too. Also, there's times where we'll do pilot programs of things just to begin to gather data. I'd like to believe that our team is very smart, and we have a lot of experience to begin to make some great guesses. But at the end of the day, we're not always right. You've got to look at the data. You've got to really look at what's happening in a given space and then be ready to pivot and think about things completely differently than when you went into it. But it's ongoing. There's no end to it. I'm still learning about tuberculosis and all those kinds of things. [laughs] ROB: It's more and more valuable for more and more people to be marketing online. David, when you are looking at what is next for you and what's next for Arc Intermedia and marketing in general, what are you excited about? DAVID: One of the things I'm excited about – we're in a horrible global pandemic, and one little tiny, tiny good thing that's come out of this from a digital marketing standpoint is I'm now having clients who we've been talking to about this for a long time understand that the lion's share of the budget really does need to start going to digital. Digital can deliver. It can be measured, and it's the one actually bringing in the leads. Just in this past 6 months, we've had a number of clients tell me that they're going to do major shifts in their budget for 2021 more towards the digital space. Why that makes me excited is if you give me more budget, I can do more things. I can expand out that integrated approach. I can go deeper in different tactics and strategies that we maybe have been pushing for that we couldn't just straight up because of budget. We can get after more of the content marketing piece, the content distribution piece. We can begin to see how we can tie different paid tactics to some other things that we're doing on the site. We can also look at different offer types and incentives to help ring the bell. ROB: That makes sense. The margin for execution on a small budget – there's just not a lot of room for mistakes or a lot of room for experimentation. I can absolutely see where having real digital budgets is a meaningful thing. David, when people want to track you down, when they want to connect with you and with Arc Intermedia, where should they go to find you? DAVID: Of course, we have that wonderful website that we've just done some updates to. We've even got our anniversary video out on the homepage, so I would direct everybody to arcintermedia.com. A lot of people find me on LinkedIn because that's a super easy way. Occasionally some people may find me over on Twitter. But I would say website. ROB: [laughs] Sometimes we find a different version of ourselves over on Twitter. DAVID: Yeah, I think I'm pretty good on that front. [laughs] For the most part. You won't me on Facebook, I will tell you that. ROB: Got it. Just have to have a shadow account to manage some of the client relationships? [laughs] DAVID: We have a love/hate relationship. I love the data that Facebook gives us to market on behalf of our clients. I'm not super fond of participating on Facebook myself. ROB: I understand completely. Even after they ban QAnon, who knows what's next? Or if they'll actually accomplish that. Who knows? Anyhow, David, good to connect with you. Good to have you on the podcast. Congratulations on 10 years of Arc Intermedia, and really of making a living going out and killing your own food for much longer than that with the web dev shop before that. DAVID: Yes indeed. Working without a net. ROB: [laughs] Indeed. Thank you so much, David, and be well. DAVID: Rob, I really appreciate your time. Thank you. ROB: Thank you for listening. The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast is presented by Converge. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting, email info@convergehq.com, or visit us on the web at convergehq.com.

David Nunan joins us to discuss the input we use in language lessons and what we do with it.For more podcasts, videos and blogs, visit our website Support the podcast – buy us a coffee!Develop yourself! Find more about our teacher training courses Watch as well as listen on our YouTube channel Ross Thorburn: Hi, everyone. Welcome back to "TEFL Training Institute" podcast. I'm Ross Thorburn and this week we're talking about authentic texts. It's a topic I've wanted to talk about for a long time.I can remember, even as a first year teacher, printing off news articles and bringing them to the classroom and, much more recently, using textbooks made for American primary schools with students, young learners, here in China.Obviously there's huge advantages to using authentic texts. You get all this real language which has been unfiltered and it's real and it's natural, and hopefully the texts can be very motivating for students.There's also lot of downsides as well to using authentic texts. It can be very difficult to understand. Sometimes I think they can be really off‑putting for students, if you get presented with something that's real and you can't understand any of it.I think as a student that can be a really demotivating experience. So, to help us with this topic today, we have David Nunan. David is, I think it's not an exaggeration to say, one of the most influential people in our field in the last 40 years. David, as well as writing numerous academic books for teachers and researchers, he's also author of the bestselling coursebook series "Go for It!" and David is currently based in Hong Kong.Enjoy the interview.Ross: David, thank you very much for joining us. To start off with, would you like to tell us a bit about your experiences of using authentic materials as a teacher?David Nunan: Yeah. I'm a dinosaur. I trained in the '60s, early '70s, and was trained in the audio‑lingual methods. "This is a pencil. Pen. This is a pen. Idiot. You're an idiot."Ross: [laughs]David: The funny thing was, in the mid '70s coming to the UK to do a couple of higher degrees including one in language teaching...Prior to that, the language institute I was working at at the university in Sydney with a number of highly enthusiastic teachers who were bored out of their brains with all this audio‑lingual stuff, we started doing things.I developed a listening course by actually lugging this reel‑to‑reel tape recorder out and interviewing native speakers, then using that as a resource in the classroom. One of my other co‑teachers, Jane Lockwood, she used to work with Mario Rinvolucri at Pilgrim School in the UK. Of course she had got all of the Mario, she had the Mario virus. She was great, she was great on using drama techniques and so on.We were kind of inventing communicative language teaching without actually knowing what we were doing. [laughs] In those days, the label was only just starting to come into currency. But using authentic materials and using simulations and getting the learners to do stuff out of the classroom and all those other things.Ross: I can image, David, quite a few listeners are going to be doing a Google Image search for a reel‑to‑reel tape recorder after that.Let's talk a bit more about this notion of authenticity, then. There's obviously this idea of authenticity in terms of the language. How real it is, is it something recorded specifically for a language class? Like your example earlier, something from a real conversation or from a TV show or radio show or maybe even a news article, something like that.The other bit of the puzzle there, I guess, is what you get students to do with that. If the idea of task authenticity, so our learners, for example, listening to something and then giving an opinion and discussing it, or using it to solve some kind of problem or maybe they are doing something more focused on the language like read this passage and then circle the verb.Suppose there are different possibilities there combining either authentic or inauthentic text with authentic or inauthentic tasks. Can you tell us a little bit more about those? What are the advantages and disadvantages there?David: Yeah. Well, the minute you take a piece of authentic language into the classroom you deal with authenticating it, in a sense.The authenticity of the input, the reading and the written‑spoken text that they're exposed to, but then there's the notion of task authenticity. I've seen teachers take ‑‑ no, I'm not necessarily criticizing it ‑‑ but I'll get a piece of authentic listening material. Then I'll get the student doing a close activity and listen to this weather forecast [inaudible 4:35] .The other aspect is learner authentication. You can have an authentic piece of listening material and you can have an authentic task. For example, listen, your teacher has left a message on your phone about an excursion you're going to tomorrow. She gives the information right, make a note of the essential information like where to meet, what to bring, what to wear, and so on.When you see the [inaudible 5:01] in the classroom doing that kind of thing, it does resemble something they might actually do in the world outside the classroom. That's not to say what I call pedagogical tasks are not reasonable to do in the classroom.A lot of the techniques that got developed quite a few years ago things like jigsaw listening or spot the difference where learners have got two different versions of the picture and they have to describe the picture, and then figure out where the differences are.I don't know about you, I've never seen anybody outside of the classroom [laughs] saying. We'll guess what the differences are in my picture. It's pedagogically defensible. It's good for practicing particularly with lower level learners. It's good news. It's quite easy to create picture challenges that get them practicing things like prepositions of place.That's a typical one where you've got a beach scene or a picture of a...although that's good for activities. He's running, she's sleeping, he's swimming, practicing prepositions in place [inaudible 6:00] . We have two versions of somebody's bedroom, and with dining room and you have to exchange information to decide where things are.Ross: Going back to authentic texts then, there are a lot of reasons why those might be too difficult for students to understand. I think a lot of teachers assume that in order to simplify text, you probably want to make it shorter and take out some of the more difficult words. But that's not always the case.Taking out words or taking out difficult words can end up making a text more difficult rather than more simple.David: Craig Shodron and his colleague Catherine Parker years ago, did a study where they were looking at simplified texts versus what they called elaborative modification or some fancy term on that. What that meant was that if you're using a listening text, might be a lecture or it could be a conversation, rather than dumbing it down.More or less keep it to the original, authentic picture, you add in a lot of redundancy. In other words, you say the same thing. I'm doing it now. Right? You add in a lot of [inaudible 7:16] . In other words, you say the same thing using slightly different words and you do comprehension checks and you know what I mean? You know what I mean Ross?[laughter]Ross: Yes, I do understand. That redundancy idea is really nice, isn't it? Because you just demonstrated, it's also very natural as well. Something I think that happens quite a lot in spoken conversation anyway.Let's talk about written texts for a moment. You are also [laughs] a very successful coursebook writer, David. How do you go about using texts when you write coursebooks?I guess there's two schools of thought on this. One of them is decide on the language that you want to teach and then create texts around those words or grammar points or whatever, or the other end of the spectrum is finding authentic texts and then teaching from those.David: What I've tried to do is to get texts that are engaging for the learners at a given level. For example, when I wrote the textbook for middle school to junior high kids who go for it, it was originally written for Latin America, but then the Ministry of Education in China decided that they wanted to adapt that one for use in schools in China.I actually took a sabbatical for about 10 months. I just spent the whole time running back and forth to Beijing. Working with a team up there. Because it was co‑published deal with PP. As you probably know, you can't fit if you're writing for the schools in China. They have to be co‑published and so PP with the co‑publishers.Anyway, so step number one was to find texts that would be engaging, Interesting, given subject matter, and so on for the kinds of learners that we were running the material for. Then make sure I was building in the appropriate vocabulary because when the text goes up for approval by the Ministry, they'll look through and I have long lists of pages and pages of vocabulary.A lot of those vocab lists really don't make any sense. At one stage, I pointed it out.Ross: Sorry, David. Those lists, are those coming from an exam board. Is that right?David: From the Ministry of Education in China, yeah. There were very interesting conversations. Another project I was working on, I had this graded vocab list, and that had to be built in, and I pointed out that, for a start, there were certain vocab items that I wouldn't even know. I'm Australian. I wouldn't teach kids in that situation. Like, kangaroo was on the list, but computer wasn't. [laughs]I know with corpus linguistics, that they have corporate now, that they don't have a lot more integrity, but a lot of them, the West's General Service List, that was written in about 1951, that was the most comprehensive fun.A lot of the vocab lists that subsequently got developed came from that. Paul Nation's obviously the last word on that and, as Paul points out, it's not just frequency of the occurrence, but it's also what equals, I think, potency, how potent a particular vocab item is for learning.Ross: So I suppose that sort of demonstrates the value of using authentic texts as the sort of building blocks of your coursebook, then you don't have those problems of inauthentic language. Authentic texts, I guess, almost by definition, are going to include more of the most frequent vocabulary in them and then that more frequent vocabulary, I guess, is going to be more useful to students?David: Yeah. But you also get a lot of low frequency words. One of the books that I used, when it came out years ago in the UK, was Michael Swan and Catherine Walter's "Cambridge English Course" and, particularly in the higher levels, they actually used authentic listening materials. I remember one of them.There was one lesson, I was prepping for, it must have been an interview, because they were working with CUP, it must have been an interview with somebody who worked in the CUP office.You know, "OK. You're employed, so you've got to come and sit down and be interviewed."This was pretty well‑unexpurgated. I was listening to it and whoever was interviewing said, "So, what do you do?" and the guy said, "I'm a printus reader." Well, what? I had a look at the tapescript. He was a printer's reader. He was a proofreader basically, for the publisher. [laughs]Extremely low frequency vocab item, and at normal speed, and I thought, "This is going to freak my kids out." So I actually gave them the vocab.Ross: I guess, there, David, you just hit on that authentic text can be really, really challenging for learners. Do you have any advice on how to use authentic text with, especially, very low level learners? How would you go about doing that?David: One of the techniques that I use is this progressively structured listening, where first, the low level learners...one of the big challenges getting them over the...you know how it completely freaks you out. When I first came here to Hong Kong, 25 years ago, when I decided to try and start learning Cantonese by myself, without taking regular classes or anything.It was just like this stream. I couldn't segment the stream of language in any way that made sense for a long time. Until I enlisted the help of some of my native‑speaking colleagues and so on. One of the techniques I used to use was to say, I'm going to play you five little forte conversations. Three of them are in English and two of them are not.You have to just listen and all you have to do is to be able to pick which ones are English, then of course, if the distractors are Hindi and Arabic, that's a lot easier to do than if the distractors are German or Dutch. I remember the first time I ever went to Amsterdam. I thought I could swear, sounded so English [laughs] but it wasn't.When they can do that, they realized that they can get some level of me even just identifying which conversations are English in which are and then maybe the next level, you might get them to identify how many speakers there are.Again, if there are three males or three females, that's how to do if there is a male or female and adult and a kid, then you get the missing four key words, you get them identifying whether the conversation is asking for directions to a hotel or asking directions to supermarket.As they start to get more relaxed then they're prepared to get the message. When you're listening to your first language, you don't listen to every big word. It depends on purpose for listening as well then you get the idea about listening just for gist or listening for specific information.Once they've listened to it, a text four or five times and they've done different things with the text through to some kind of information transfer, filling in a table or whatever, or the example I gave earlier about taking down key information from a mobile phone message, then they start to develop good listening skills in the target language.Ross: One more time, everyone that was David Nunan. If you enjoyed that and you'd like to find out more from David, check out his website, www.davidnunan.com. Thanks for listening and we'll see you again next time. Goodbye.

David Azar is Founder and CEO of Outsmart Labs, a digital marketing agency focused on riding new trends and platforms to drive more traffic, more visibility, and more online conversions. His agency works with clients to build a 360 strategy to drive those conversions in sales, traffic, and newsletter signups. David says, “Digital marketing changes so fast that it's about whoever adapts faster and whoever finds the opportunities in the market.”  The agency provides traditional digital marketing services -- Google strategies, Facebook, traditional social media strategies – but likes the advantage of being an “early adopter” of the newest trends. Where to be now, according to David? TikTok – the place where kids dance. Or not. In this interview, David describes the phenomenal growth of TikTok. The number of U.S. users grew from 27 million in July 2019 to 40 million in January 2020, and then to 65 million at the beginning of April, with 85 million users by mid-June. About 1 in 4 people in this country use TikTok, many of whom are “very involved,” to wit, 34% of TikTok users actively produce content.  David explains that TikTok's paid ads platform can cost over $50,000 a month. On the self-serve side, the budget can start as low as $1. TikTok has specific rules about content, posting, and addressing the audience, along with a powerful editing app. Videos created for Instagram won't work on TikTok.  David says now is the time for smaller brands to gain TikTok followers and community. The cost on TikTok is one-tenth that of Instagram. Big brand demand for influencers is low, so the spend on these initiators will produce a better ROI than an equivalent spend on TikTok ads. This cost is only going to go up, David warns. Today's users will only pay a fraction of what they will have to pay in a year to “get the same audience and the same followers.” The current TikTok algorithm promotes good content and makes it extremely easy to go viral. That, David says, will probably change. TikTok usually starts with a challenge. Someone responds to that challenge. The greater the number of people who respond, the better the chance that challenge will reach the “For You page “where everyone's going to see it and participate in that challenge.” Outsmart Labs partners with initiators who have up to a million followers to create concepts for its client brands. It then develops a first activation, one that will attract a lot of followers and eventually take the brand to the For You Page and “very large exposure.” Outsmart Lab clients have seen great ROIs on TikTok activation campaigns over the past year. Other areas of opportunity David discusses in this interview are local SEO and programmatic advertising. In regards to local SEO, David has found that close to 96% of retail establishments don't do anything to develop local SEO. Yet, many customers will look for a company offering a specific product or service in their community. Unfortunately, Covid-19 has impacted this “local market opportunity” for many businesses. But the situation also presents an opportunity for companies to rethink their websites and their business models. Programmatic advertising tracks customers from their cell phone locations and pushes strategic advertisements to these phones based on their location. Covid-19 presents an opportunity for companies to rethink their websites and their business models.  David can be reached at his company's website at https://outsmartlabs.com/. Transcript Follows: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I'm excited to be joined today by David Azar, Founder and CEO at Outsmart Labs based in Miami, Florida. Welcome to the podcast, David. DAVID: Hey, Rob. Thanks for having me. ROB: It's excellent to have you here. Why don't you tell us about Outsmart Labs? Many firms have a superpower, so what is yours?  DAVID: That's a great question, great way to put it. I think our superpower is definitely our team. I think the team that we have together is what makes all of our campaigns very successful. At Outsmart Labs, we focus very highly on new trends and new platforms. First, to introduce what Outsmart Labs is, we help clients with having more traffic, more visibility, and more conversions online, and we really build a 360 strategy in order to drive those conversions, whether those are sales, whether that's traffic, newsletter signups. I think the team we have is a team that's very hungry. We are at the forefront of trends. We were actually one of Google's top agencies, rising agencies, which really allowed us to have access to a lot of data. We're not scared of trying new platforms. For example, right now, what we've been doing over the last year, which we've been seeing really great ROIs on, is TikTok. TikTok activation campaigns. I think what clients like is the mix of finding traditional marketing, whether it is Google strategies, Facebook, traditional social media strategies, and also inputting some newer platforms. At the end of the day, digital marketing changes so fast that it's about whoever adapts faster and whoever finds the opportunities in the market. I think our clients like that in us, understanding that some of the things might not work, some might work, but overall the strategy is going to be a very good strategy in order to scale. ROB: Excellent. It sounds like from your first introduction, you are very results-focused. How do you align a channel like TikTok – what do good results look like on that channel? Are you looking primarily at brand impressions, or is there a deeper level you can go to with a campaign there? DAVID: Great question. I think I mentioned what's really important now n digital marketing is not just doing one platform; it's really the 360 approach. Think of yourself whenever you're online and you're shopping for something. Most likely, if you see an ad for something you're interested in, you'll click it, but most likely you won't convert that first time. So over time, the more you're going to be seeing that ad, the more likely you'll say, “Okay, now I'll take the time to convert.” TikTok actually has a great opportunity at the moment. Even though it's been seeing humongous growth – and clients always tell me, whenever I offer them to go on TikTok and I go, “You guys should go on TikTok,” they tell me, “But I don't understand. TikTok is just kids that dance. I don't understand why that's my market.” This is when we tell them the growth of TikTok over the last year. They had 27 million users in July of last year, 40 million in January – and I'm talking in the U.S. – 65 million in the beginning of April, and on June 15th they had 85 million users. So, 85 million users means that now 1 person out of 4, almost, in the U.S. has a TikTok account, so pretty much anyone. It's all about finding the right way of – the way you're going to be marketing your product. It's not about just doing dance. It's about finding your core values and creating it in a creative way. At the moment, that we're at right now, it's a huge opportunity because the TikTok algorithm works a certain way where it's actually very “easy” to go viral on TikTok, and the algorithm really promotes good content. To answer your question of what a good ROI on TikTok looks like, it depends on what the client is. Depends on the number of activations they're going to be doing on TikTok. But I think that right now, what brands should really focus on is gaining followers and gaining a community on TikTok. As you know with Facebook, Instagram, and other different platforms, the organic reach goes lower and lower as time goes by and as more users are using the platform. We are at a time with TikTok where they haven't changed their algorithm yet, and so far, if you do a good video and you make it to the For You page, pretty much anyone with the right center of interest is going to see your video. The way we look at it is not only do we do organic content for clients, where we're going to be creating videos for the clients, but in order to have quicker results, it's about doing activations with influencers – what we call initiators for TikTok. I don't know how familiar you are with TikTok. I don't know if you wanted me to talk to you about how the trend works to get to the For You page. But usually you want to have a challenge, and then someone's going to do the challenge, and the more people do the challenge, the more likely your challenge will get to the For You page where everyone's going to see it and participate in that challenge. In order to ensure that the challenge is going to make it to the For You page where everyone is going to see your challenge and you're going to have a huge amount of exposure, we actually partner with large initiators and we come up with the concept of whatever the client wants. They tell me, for example, if it's a cosmetic company, “We want to promote our skincare line. We want to showcase it to as many people as possible.” So, we're going to come up with a creative concept. For example, there's a trend that works really well, which you've probably seen, which is people have all these cosmetic products and they act as if they're DJing, and the lights go on and off and you're pretending you're DJing with cosmetic products. Everyone was redoing it, and you can get a lot of followers and people exposed to your brand by doing that. So, we actually partner with initiators that have a million or up followers, and then we work with them in creating the concepts. We have a general idea, we work with them and say, “This is the hashtag challenge that we want to create.” They help us do it, and then they launch the activation with us. Because they have such a large following – and 34% of people on TikTok are active content creators, meaning people do actually want to create content on TikTok because it's kind of the whole goal of TikTok. So once those large initiators create this first activation, then as you see it, you want to participate, and little by little we ensure that brands go to the For You page and get a very large exposure. It's really a tenth of the price of Instagram. Budgets are significant for a small business, but for larger businesses, it's not that much – especially when you're looking at the reach you can have. A TikTok campaign right now, activation ranges between $10,000 and $20,000 for an activation, but you're going to be reaching around – depending on how well the campaign performs – 10 million to maybe 30 million views, people watching your content. This is incomparable to any other metrics. The reason I was saying – you were asking what the superpower of Outsmart Labs is; it's really seeing those opportunities in the moments they're there, because in 6 months from now, the algorithm is going to change. In 6 months, maybe 3 months, 4 months, we don't know when they're going to change it, but that opportunity, as great as TikTok is still going to be, it's probably not going to be as great as it is now. TikTok is going to have to change the algorithm, just like Facebook did before, just like Instagram did before, because they have to make sure the content they're showing is quality content. Because obviously, they make money by showcasing a large number of pages, and the more pages users watch, the more the platform makes money. So, they want to make sure people stay on the platform. That algorithm is for sure going to change. There hasn't been an announcement by TikTok; it's just knowing how digital works. But I think right now is really the time where brands need to go on TikTok. Also, a lot of large brands at the moment – we have a variety of clients, some very large international groups, and every time we pitch TikTok to them – it's changing now in the last month, but originally for the last year, it's always been, “We really like TikTok. We see what's going on on TikTok, but on a global level, we haven't decided how we feel about TikTok.” This is where I think a lot of smaller brands have such a big opportunity, because at the moment, TikTok isn't really crowded by the biggest brands. Except if you're the NBA or brands that are more talking to a Gen Z audience, which already got onto the trend. The other bigger ones haven't. So, if you're a smaller brand, it's really the time for you to take it upon yourself to go on the campaign. I actually have another example of showing how important it is to get on the platform early. We have this client – I can't name it, but it's a large high-end fashion brand. Family business. Not one of the largest ones you can think of, but fairly known in the world of fashion. I was talking to them, pitching them TikTok, and the person in charge of marketing is about 32 years old. I was telling him why he should get on TikTok now, before everyone gets on it, and he told me, “You're right, David. I definitely see that because as a brand, I was lucky that I was in the U.S. when Instagram launched, and I told our founder to create an Instagram account for our brand, and within one year we gained 500,000 followers.” In the last 10 years, they only gained 75,000 followers because the algorithm changed. At the beginning of Instagram, it was much easier to push your organic content. Same thing with TikTok. Whoever's going to be able to take advantage of TikTok now, they're going to pay a fraction of the cost they'll pay in a year to get the same audience and the same followers. I don't want to make the whole talk about TikTok and bore you with just TikTok, but it's definitely a fascinating platform. Digital is so fascinating anyway. Every month or two or three, there's something different where there are opportunities to be seen. It's just about finding a way to adapt your brand values and your message to that audience. ROB: Definitely. Even though it's been very focused on TikTok for a moment, I think it underpins even the name of the brand, Outsmart Labs. It seems like we're in this moment of this TikTok channel that you mentioned. Instagram's been through it, Facebook's been through it. Even Google, from a search engine optimization perspective, has been through it. I think two things were true. One is that the algorithm was at a point where there were true legitimate tips and tricks that work and help you rank that you can actually know and, to an extent, master or be very good at. The other one – I'm not entirely sure, but I think you may have implied – essentially, this is a really good organic marketing channel, whereas – I don't even know; are you doing paid on TikTok? Or is the opportunity on the organic side so immense that it's worth going deeper there? DAVID: It really depends what kind of brand you are. The TikTok paid ads platform is fairly expensive. Usually it's over $50,000 a month in spend, so it's not accessible to everyone. They opened the self-serve on TikTok, which you can start at $1 or whatever budget you want to put in, so we do use that as well. The thing is, usually clients want to have fast results. Because influencers right now are not as in demand by all the big brands and haven't had those large contracts, at the moment, spending $1,000 on TikTok ads versus $1,000 on getting more initiators, I think at the moment it's better to go with the initiators. But I think in 3 months it's going to be something different, and most likely you're going to see a big rise – and that's also why I'm sure the algorithm is going to change, because they can't let that happen because that's how they monetize and make a dollar on an initiator doing something on TikTok. So, it's a mix of both, but when you talk organic, you definitely should. Especially if you're a brand that's a little popular where you have a market that knows you. People are just looking for people on TikTok. I think the DJ Khaled example is a great example with what he did with Snapchat. I don't know if he was still very popular at the time – I don't know if you know what happened. He got lost on his jet ski in Miami and started saying, “I'm lost in Miami” on Snapchat when Snapchat just started. Everyone picked up on it and helped him to find his way. Then over the course of the year, he became the most popular person on Snapchat and now has the success and popularity that we know he has. So, it's about taking it at the moment and finding the right video. The organic does work really well, and people are looking for those brands. If you look at a lot of the brands that don't create any content at the moment, but they're a little famous, they have followers already on their account even though no one's really posting anything. So, I think doing some organic content is definitely great just because the algorithm works so well. If you do a good video – the thing is, you have to spend time in creating videos specifically for TikTok. Whatever you share on Instagram is just not going to make it to TikTok. TikTok has its rules, has its way of posting, its way of addressing the audience. The editing app is quite incredible in TikTok. So, you need to utilize all of that to make it work. It's a mix of everything. In order to have quick results, definitely activation with influencers is number one because you definitely see a switch right away. But obviously if you're going to be investing in the platform, you definitely want to think of also organic content and what you're going to be producing. A great tip I give clients that are scared and saying, “I don't know what I'm going to be posting if I do organic content” – first of all, that's what we do, so usually we take care of it. But other than that, the whole concept of TikTok is they suggest challenges and trends that they want people to do. Sometimes when you're a big brand or you're a little famous, if you just find a creative way to participate in a challenge, it gives you a chance of going viral. There's not that much creativity that goes into it because you know the trend and the kind of video that you need to create. ROB: Wow. It's very clear you are, as best I can tell, completely up-to-date on the now. Let's rewind a little bit, though, to the very beginning. What is the origin story of Outsmart Labs? What got you started in this business? DAVID: Actually, it started very early. I was 16 years old. Before even Outsmart Labs, just digital marketing and my love for digital marketing and the possibilities that it offers. When I was 16 years old, I was put on a project. We created the first professional sports team affiliate marketing website. It was for the team – I'm French; I'm from Paris, so it was the team of Paris. We had sponsors like Nike, a kayak company of France, large car companies. We went to the sponsors, they wanted more exposure, and we told them, “Why don't you give us discounts, and whenever a fan goes through our website and goes through to your page from our website, they'll get discounts from Nike, or on kayaks.” During that whole project, I was in love with how, as long as you think it, you can reproduce it. Then I fell in love with digital marketing, went to school at University of Miami, got very lucky that it was the beginning of Facebook and Twitter, so I got to see that grow. I started an event company when I was in school. All of our promotion was done through Facebook, and we had about 800 students come to our events every time, so I saw the power that Facebook had. Basically, a free tool was giving me the strength that a paid tool would give me. I always thought that was super interesting. If you think smartly, you technically don't necessarily need to spend a lot to get a lot. Doesn't mean you don't spend a lot of time, but in terms of actual dollars spent, it doesn't have to be that much. Then as time grew, I worked for a large firm called Amadeus, which is the reservation system of every plane ticket that you book. They didn't have a social media presence at the time or Facebook, so I did it for them. It was a fascinating project. I was like, “You know what? I'm doing this for all those different clients; why don't I just create my own agency and take it from there? I know there's a lot of people that don't know how even Facebook works or are new to the trends, so why don't I help them?” We started Outsmart Labs 9 years ago now, and it's been growing ever since. We have clients in a lot of different industries. What I really love – I personally love innovation. I personally love thinking big picture, thinking how to beat the system in ways like you were mentioning before, the secrets that are not really told, but that you guess from Google, but also applying the rules and putting it all together and making it work. So that's what we've been doing. We've been working with clients in hospitality, in travel, in luxury, even in mental health. I really love thinking about a lot of different industries. A lot of clients ask us, “But you've never worked in that industry. Is that a problem? I'd rather have an expert in whatever space,” and I tell them all the time, honestly, if someone is knowledgeable about digital marketing, there are so many tools out there that allow you to analyze all the competitors, analyze what they're buying, what they're doing, what kind of ads, what wording they're using, so it's almost not even that important. It's even almost better to use an agency that maybe doesn't have as much experience in the specific industry because in order to get to that level, they're going to have to do so much more research. Because it's changing so fast, that research is going to pay off into a smarter strategy than whoever did it a year from today. That's basically how Outsmart started and the logic and what I love personally about digital marketing, and I think everyone on the team is similar to that. ROB: That's really excellent. If you look out a little bit even beyond now – TikTok rose, it's working; there's probably some other platforms you've worked on – Instagram, there's probably some stuff you can do even on Facebook. But what are the next potential frontiers that you see coming? Are there maybe two or three new opportunities you see emerging that maybe it's just experimental budget for your clients now, or maybe it's already humming for a very select subset of them, but we might be thinking a little bit more about in 6-12 months? DAVID: One opportunity that I see that's a really big opportunity – unfortunately, because of the current situation of COVID and physical retail not being as open as it was prior, it might not be as big of an opportunity as it should be, but in a world where there's no COVID or in places where it's less affected by COVID and stores are open, local SEO is something that I see overperforming. It's something that not a lot of people put a lot of effort in. If you want a little definition of what local SEO is, it's how you get your retail business, your physical business, to show up on Google whenever someone makes a search query under which your business should show up. It's showing the closer local retails, whether retail or hospitals or mental health institutions or insurance companies or cosmetic stores or whatever that is. Local SEO is not necessarily very difficult to do in terms of what needs to be done; it's just very time-consuming. Because Google and all of those platforms create data, people tend to assume that because they're finding their business on Google or when they google their name, automatically they're registered within all the local directories within Google, within Facebook, within all of those platforms, which is actually not true. It's just a crawler doing it. So, actually spending a bit of time on local SEO – and about 96% of retail don't do anything on local SEO. I'm talking even the largest brands that we work with. Some of them tell me, “Everyone knows my brand. There's no point in me working on local SEO.” Sometimes if someone types in “cosmetic store near me,” you want that store to show up first versus a competitor. So, I think that's definitely a trend that I've been seeing. It's not necessarily a trend that's just now. It's been two years where no one's getting on that, and I really think it's working really well. Another thing that I would say – real-time bidding, programmatic advertising, definitely something we see also. Very efficient. Being able to target people based on their location, historical location or actual location, allows you to target and trigger a message very customized to each audience. Not necessarily something very new, and not necessarily something everyone's doing. It's also a little more expensive to do, so that's why maybe a lot of smaller businesses don't do it. But doing it smartly and using the tool for another purpose – which we do a lot for some of the clients that can't afford those budgets – you can really leverage programmatic advertising to your benefit to create a new audience, to track foot traffic in a location, to drive more foot traffic, to drive brand awareness. All of those are great things with programmatic. In terms of other opportunities, I think just being active in general. But that's not really an opportunity; that's just a truth. Those are the three that we're working on the most. Influencer marketing with TikTok mostly. We do YouTube, we do Instagram, but where we see the biggest growth is TikTok in that sense. ROB: For someone who's never dabbled in programmatic or real-time bidding or hasn't done so in a while, how has that ad inventory changed – the ad units, where they get displayed, how they're bought? I think it may not be what people used to think it was in terms of where the ads actually show up. Have they caught up to Facebook a good bit in terms of targeting? DAVID: What's interesting about programmatic is, first of all, not a lot of people know that this even exists. I think if more people knew how it worked, I don't think people would accept to share their location on their apps as often. Just to explain quickly how programmatic works, every time you download an app and you agree to share your location with the app, your device ID goes onto a stock market that anyone can buy. Along with that device ID, it gives your browser data saying you're using Chrome, Safari, your phone is in English, French, Spanish, and you were at this exact location. On average, someone shares their location between 25 to 40 times a day. With programmatic advertising, the great thing is we have a really great understanding of who every person is because it's not just what you search, it's not what you pretend to be on social media; it's actually who you are by where you live, what time you leave for work, what time you get to work, what time you leave from work, what type of restaurants you go to, do you run, do you not run, do you bike, do you not bike, and all those different things. Then how it works and where it's displayed – think of yourself whenever you play Candy Crush, whenever you read the New York Times or whenever you read CNN. There are ads on those platforms. Those ads are ad placements that can be bought by anyone and it can input your ad into that. This is how programmatic works. The beauty of programmatic from an advertiser standpoint is that as long as you can think it, you can do it. You can initially drive traffic – so you could have two competitors. Let's pick an example at random and say McDonald's and Burger King. That's actually a campaign we ran with one other restaurant. What we could do is geolocate every single Burger King, if you're McDonald's, for example, and say everyone that's waiting in line at a Burger King, I want to send an ad that says “Claim this $1 menu at McDonald's.” You see that ad on your phone, you can click “Add to your wallet.” It looks like the exact same thing as a plane ticket when you add it to your wallet, and then automatically it's claimed. Then you can trigger that alert once it's on the phone any way you want. You can say I want to look at the 10 closest McDonald's to this Burger King where the person redeemed this coupon, and any time the person comes within 100 feet of my McDonald's, I want a notification on his phone saying “Don't forget to claim your $1 menu at McDonald's.” Or you can say, people tend to go eat at 12:00; at 11:30, I want to send a notification to all those phones saying “Hey, don't forget to come eat your McDonald's.” And you can go back 90 days, so technically you can geofence every single one of your competitors' stores, go back 90 days, take all of the global data from all of those stores, and target those customers. The possibilities are endless with programmatic. ROB: There's absolutely a lot going on there. David, as we wrap up this conversation, what are some other things that we should know about either the journey of Outsmart Labs or what's next for you and the firm? DAVID: Two things we're excited about. The first thing is digital marketing has always been huge. Obviously, a lot of brands spend a lot of money on digital marketing. No one's really questioning the efficiency of digital marketing anymore. But still, for brands that are not ecommerce only, digital marketing came second to the retail business or their traditional marketing, and I think this whole situation of coronavirus has repurposed or made people reconsider the positioning of digital within their mix of marketing assets. A lot of companies have noticed that once they got all their stores closed, all they had left was their website. A lot of companies haven't even thought about where their in-store POS was not synced with the website POS, so all of a sudden they were left with nothing. So I think this whole coronavirus has gotten brands to rethink how to consider their digital strategies and understanding they should be relying a lot more on it because the chances of this going down is lower and people are shopping more online. To me, whenever I pitch a client, there's a lot of indication in terms of saying why it's necessary for them. I think the last 3-4 months in that way, we skipped through that. Now they know, “It's necessary, we need it; how do we do it?” I look very much forward to this because of the positioning of Outsmart. We tend to also pitch things that are not so traditional. As much as we do traditional, we always try to test things. You always need to pick your clients because not every client is willing to test things – and it makes sense; it's their money, and they want to maybe spend money just where they know the return on investment they're going to get. So that's what I'm really excited for. I think we're going to talk to a lot more clients. A lot more clients are going to be willing to be even more out of the box in terms of what they're going to try to do to differentiate themselves and basically have more real estate online. ROB: David Azar of Outsmart Labs, thank you so much for joining us today. I think you've given us a clinic on a bunch of very targeted and effective tactics in marketing. Congratulations to you and the firm on everything. DAVID: Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure to talk for the 30 minutes. ROB: All right, David. Be well. DAVID: Thank you. You too. Bye. ROB: Bye. Thank you for listening. The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast is presented by Converge. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting, email info@convergehq.com, or visit us on the web at convergehq.com.

Charmaine Rayment is a voluntary missionary at Jews for Jesus. She has a real passion for worship ministry. Sister Charmaine has agreed to become a contributor to a podcast series called “A Life of Worship”. This is the first part of a teaching series entitled “David: The Heart of a Worshipper”. Music is from Matt Redman. Below, you will find some notes from the episode. Follow our Spudcaster page for more podcasts. Notes from this episode DAVID – THE HEART OF A WORSHIPER PODCAST 1 Creation – perfect worship on earth existed. After the fall – different attitude in man’s worship of God as demonstrated with Cain and Abel (Gen. 4:3-7), and Aarons two sons Nadab & Abihu (Lev. 10:1-3). Worship always has been and always will be manifest in our lifestyle as a result of our relationship with God. Know God personally – (Spiritual re-birth vs dead religion). Worship is a response to God’s revelation about Himself. DAVID One of the characters in the Bible through whom we can learn so much about worship is David – The sweet singer of Israel (2 Sam. 23:1). A man after God’s own heart (1 Sam. 13:14 & Acts 13:22). DAVID’S CONTRIBUTION TO WORSHIP Established the Tabernacle of David whereby he appointed some of the Levites to minister in music before the Ark of the Lord (1 Chron. 16). Wrote Psalms (73 of the 150 Psalms in the Bible are attributed to him) and made musical instruments for the musicians to use in their worship (1 Chron. 23:5; 2 Chron. 7:6; 2 Chron. 29:26). Was given the blueprint for the building of the Temple of Solomon (1 Chron. 22) and set apart those whom would minister in music during the worship in the Temple. SHEPHERD – HUMBLE BEGINNINGS What was it that God saw in David? We are not told what David’s relationship with God was like during this period but it was during this season that he was anointed by Samuel as the future king (1 Sam. 16). The fact that God tells Samuel that He had chosen the future king amongst Jesse’s sons, tells us that God saw something in David. In 1 Sam.13:14 Samuel already tells Saul that God has sought out a man after his own heart. SEASON OF FAVOR King Saul – season of favor (harpist and armor-bearer). SEASON OF HARDSHIP King Saul becomes jealous of David and his success and plots to kill him. In the process Saul enlists 3000 men to chase, capture and murder him. David now has to flee for his life and for the next 7-8 years with the 400 men that have joined him, lives in hiding as he flees from Saul and his men. Read Psalms 18; 34; 52; 54; 56; 57; and 59 which were written during this time. SEASON OF FAVOR Anointed as King of Juda and reigns over Judah for 7 ½ years. Anointed king of Israel and reigned over all Judah and Israel for 33 years. David commits murder and adultery thus breaking 2 of the 10 commandments (2 Sam. 11). David repents when rebuked by the prophet Nathan (2 Sam. 12). Psalm 51 reflects David’s penitent heart. David’s son Absalom conspired against him in order to take over the kingdom (2 Sam. 15-18) and again David has to flee. Psalm 3 reflects once again David’s faith in God to deliver him from his enemies. In having looked at the life of David, we can see that no matter what the circumstances were, David always placed his trust in God and as he experienced God in his life, he responded in worship. PODCAST 2 WORSHIP WITH A HEART LIKE DAVID. David earnestly sought to know God and as a result, he knew the God whom he worshiped. David fully engaged his heart in worship to God and was fully surrendered in His worship to God. David learned to worship God in any situation and expected his perspective to be changed during worship. David didn’t take approaching God’s throne lightly. David embraced the sacrifice of worship. David’s honesty with God drew him into worship. This is obviously not an exhaustive list of things we could learn from David’s worship. But I hope it’s enough to encourage us to worship with a heart like his that says, “My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast; I will sing, yes, I will sing praises!” (Psalm 57:7). In having looked at the life of David, we can see that no matter what the circumstances were, David always placed his trust in God. David didn’t just know about God (He also would have had access to the books of Moses and would have known about the numerous times that God guided, protected and provided for his people), but he knew God as he had personally experienced God in his life. The question is, do we have that kind of relationship with God?

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号:VOA英语每日一听Shirley: David, so earlier, I was telling you I've always wanted to go to Africa and I'm just wondering, is that whole safari scene the cliche...David: It's not a cliche, but it's something real you have to experience when you get there on the safari. What you see on National Geographic and this ... you know .. documentaries is true. It's nothing ... it's not anything that ... they wouldn't show you that's not true that you'll find in Kenya.Shirley: Wow! So I could be just out there ... what driving around in my car and on my own just seeing all those animals?David: No, you don't get to drive in your own car. They provide services for you like ... we have like for instance in Kenya we have an institute called KWS: Kenya Wildlife Service that does that and it has its own warders that are highly trained to protect you when you're in the forest.Shirley: OK, so the tourists are kind of regulated?David: Yeah, sort of.Shirley: All right. So what could I expect to see if I go out?David: You can expect to see the wildlife itself: animals in their own habitat, some sleeping, some walking, some hunting. You never know. It depends on the time when you're doing your safari.Shirley: Am I gonna get chased by a rhinoceros?David: No, they actually don't chase you cause, you know, most of the time you're just passing by. You're not disturbing them, but at times you get into contact with animals. You know, animals live in packs, so when one animal is excommunicated from its pack, it's an angry animal. For instance, buffalo, so when you find one buffalo by itself, that's not a really nice thing.Shirley: So, what would happen if I found a buffalo by itself?David: That's what we call a charged buffalo. It's really angry. It's been excommunicated from it's pack and it cannot join the other pack so it attacks at anything, you see, sometimes they are really dangerous and that's why you need the game warders who carry like ammunitions just to protect the tourists.Shirley: Wow! Really! So what's the chance of me getting attacked by a wild animal?David: One in a million. But you never know. You can never rule these things out.Shirley: So it doesn't happen very often?David: It doesn't happen very often but at times in the past it's happened.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号:VOA英语每日一听Shirley: David, so earlier, I was telling you I've always wanted to go to Africa and I'm just wondering, is that whole safari scene the cliche...David: It's not a cliche, but it's something real you have to experience when you get there on the safari. What you see on National Geographic and this ... you know .. documentaries is true. It's nothing ... it's not anything that ... they wouldn't show you that's not true that you'll find in Kenya.Shirley: Wow! So I could be just out there ... what driving around in my car and on my own just seeing all those animals?David: No, you don't get to drive in your own car. They provide services for you like ... we have like for instance in Kenya we have an institute called KWS: Kenya Wildlife Service that does that and it has its own warders that are highly trained to protect you when you're in the forest.Shirley: OK, so the tourists are kind of regulated?David: Yeah, sort of.Shirley: All right. So what could I expect to see if I go out?David: You can expect to see the wildlife itself: animals in their own habitat, some sleeping, some walking, some hunting. You never know. It depends on the time when you're doing your safari.Shirley: Am I gonna get chased by a rhinoceros?David: No, they actually don't chase you cause, you know, most of the time you're just passing by. You're not disturbing them, but at times you get into contact with animals. You know, animals live in packs, so when one animal is excommunicated from its pack, it's an angry animal. For instance, buffalo, so when you find one buffalo by itself, that's not a really nice thing.Shirley: So, what would happen if I found a buffalo by itself?David: That's what we call a charged buffalo. It's really angry. It's been excommunicated from it's pack and it cannot join the other pack so it attacks at anything, you see, sometimes they are really dangerous and that's why you need the game warders who carry like ammunitions just to protect the tourists.Shirley: Wow! Really! So what's the chance of me getting attacked by a wild animal?David: One in a million. But you never know. You can never rule these things out.Shirley: So it doesn't happen very often?David: It doesn't happen very often but at times in the past it's happened.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号:VOA英语每日一听Shirley: Hi, David. How are you?David: I'm fine, thank you, Shirley.Shirley: So, environmental issues ... we were talking about them earlier throughout the world, and you're from Kenya.David: Yes, I'm from Kenya.Shirley: So, what's happening over there?David: One of the environmental issues we are having is deforestation, which is really affecting both the wild animals and people living around the forest and, you know, the environment in general.Shirley: So, what's actually happening to the people that ... for example the people who actually live around the forest area?David: Cause you know, when you tend to interfere and come in between the wild animal's habitat and things like that, you somehow create like an imbalance in between the people and the animals and sometimes it's not a really nice thing cause animals tend to come close to where people live instead of living in their own habitat, which is a really bad thing.Shirley: So, are they like attacking people .... or?David: They really don't attack but it's not a really nice picture or scene to know that you're vulnerable at any time.Shirley: What about livestock of the people that are close to forest areas?David: You know, that's one of the things that are in danger cause, you know, if wild animals come to where people live, and they have livestock, probably they'll want to be eaten.Shirley: So, what's actually causing the deforestation?David: People are trying to burn charcoal, so that they can get, they're trying to burn the trees so that they can get charcoal and sell cause as you know everyone is not living to the living standard that they're supposed to be living, and they're trying in every way to earn an extra dime to support their families, so they turn to deforestation and the cutting down of trees, and this has been one of the major causes of deforestation cause when you're trying to get charcoal and sell, you have to cut a tree and that results to deforestation and other causes that come along with deforestation and like soil erosion: things like that.Shirley: So what's being done to try and remedy this, or to try and counterbalance the effect?David: The activist groups that are coming together like ... you all know the Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai.Shirley: Yes.David: She has her own green belt movement in Kenya. She's been for so long trying to discourage people and educate people in what deforestation does to the country and how it affects people and the environment in general.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号:VOA英语每日一听Shirley: Hi, David. How are you?David: I'm fine, thank you, Shirley.Shirley: So, environmental issues ... we were talking about them earlier throughout the world, and you're from Kenya.David: Yes, I'm from Kenya.Shirley: So, what's happening over there?David: One of the environmental issues we are having is deforestation, which is really affecting both the wild animals and people living around the forest and, you know, the environment in general.Shirley: So, what's actually happening to the people that ... for example the people who actually live around the forest area?David: Cause you know, when you tend to interfere and come in between the wild animal's habitat and things like that, you somehow create like an imbalance in between the people and the animals and sometimes it's not a really nice thing cause animals tend to come close to where people live instead of living in their own habitat, which is a really bad thing.Shirley: So, are they like attacking people .... or?David: They really don't attack but it's not a really nice picture or scene to know that you're vulnerable at any time.Shirley: What about livestock of the people that are close to forest areas?David: You know, that's one of the things that are in danger cause, you know, if wild animals come to where people live, and they have livestock, probably they'll want to be eaten.Shirley: So, what's actually causing the deforestation?David: People are trying to burn charcoal, so that they can get, they're trying to burn the trees so that they can get charcoal and sell cause as you know everyone is not living to the living standard that they're supposed to be living, and they're trying in every way to earn an extra dime to support their families, so they turn to deforestation and the cutting down of trees, and this has been one of the major causes of deforestation cause when you're trying to get charcoal and sell, you have to cut a tree and that results to deforestation and other causes that come along with deforestation and like soil erosion: things like that.Shirley: So what's being done to try and remedy this, or to try and counterbalance the effect?David: The activist groups that are coming together like ... you all know the Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai.Shirley: Yes.David: She has her own green belt movement in Kenya. She's been for so long trying to discourage people and educate people in what deforestation does to the country and how it affects people and the environment in general.

David - What is your name and what do you do at KijabeLilian - I’m Lilian and I’m an Ob-Gyn in Kijabe, for the last four years, but been here a lot longer.David - When did you start?Lilian - 2007, internship for two months, elective term, 2009 internship for one year. I left for 8 months and came back in October 2010. Then residency, and I came back fully in 2015.David - Who is your husband and when did you meet?Lilian - He’s George (Otieno) – we met in undergraduate in our third year of medicine and surgery. When we came to Kijabe from the first time we were already dating.David - Lilian is head of Ob-Gyn at Kijabe, here you say obs/gyn, is that right? George was head of internal medicine, but now he’s promoted right? He’s inpatient subdivision head. Both do so much for the hospital, they’re amazing.What we’ve been talking about lately, and working on, are some of your needs for the OB department. Some we’ve gotten sorted and some are in process. Two years ago, we were having a big problem with the delivery room. And now that’s done.Lilian – Thank God. Now we can walk in and smile and not be embarrassed. That used to be my nightmare. For example, patients come, they don’t know where the delivery room is, and they walk into this ugly room. That used to be a very big problem for me, it was nothing for a woman delivering her first child. I’m happy.David – And now it’s really nice.Lilian – Thank you for spearheading that process for renovation.David – It’s night and day different. I think there is a process we are going through, not just in Kijabe, but in Kenya, where the bare minimum is not acceptable anymore.Lilian – No it’s not. We have to give the best to our women. . .and to any patient who walks into any hospital. I think we have gotten used to the poverty mentality to the point that we are not willing to go the extra mile to make things better, as opposed to just living today.David – We were just talking with a doctor who wanted to come visit a clinic doing more open surgeries than laparoscopy. Which is reality for a lot of places. But here in Kijabe, I feel like we have the option to do things with excellence. That’s why you’re here!Lilian – That’s why we are here. To make a difference, and to live our purpose too, which is to do everything with excellence.David – What we’ve been talking about is how as Friends of Kijabe, we can help with the Obs/gyn department – what is feasible to do, and in some ways, what is the Christian thing to do.Why don’t you tell me about the patients or populations/demographics that have been the most stressful, and that we agree these might be able to most easily address their needs?Lilian – Among the patient populations we’ve been concerned or have special interest about have been cancer patients who come and need urgent care, yet they’re not able to pay for the services offered. These are patients who are coming and don’t have National Insurance Cover. National cover requires three months to mature, even if someone was to apply as soon as the diagnosis is made, but that is too long to wait.David – Because with cancer, usually they’ve waited too long anyway right?Lilian – Yeah, so by the time they are coming, we need to make radical decisions at that point. As much as it may be a small population, we feel like the care they deserve should be accorded to them, regardless of their financial status. That’s why we feel they need support.David – So for gynecology-oncology patients, do they require surgery and chemotherapy or sometimes just surgery?Lilian – It depends on the type of cancer and the stage or the spread. Early cervical cancer patients might require only surgery and that is it, unless they have evidence of spread, like in the lymph nodes in which case they need chemo-radiation. In case of radiation-therapy they have to be referred out of Kijabe.David – Chemo, you can usually do here now?Lilian – Ovarian cancer, most of those cases will go through surgery, then eventually will require chemotherapy after, which can be given to them in Kijabe.Some cases are strict referrals, for example, advanced cases, which are not operable. We will refer for the combined chemotherapy/radiation therapy. The few we are able to handle here require chemotherapy and surgery.David – This is becoming a big issue in Kenya, it’s all over the news.Lilian – It’s all over the news. I think, partly because of improved diagnostics. There is more advocacy for screening and early detection. There are over 3,000 deaths from cervical cancer every year.Our joy has been able to sort patients at an affordable cost compared to what they would have to pay in Nairobi.In 2016, we had 11 cancer surgeries for gyne. In 2017, we rose to 31, in 2018, we had 41. We hope this year we can have an even higher number that are detected early to get surgical management. There is more awareness and people are coming through referrals and we are doing aggressive screening for cervical cancer.David – I don’t know if it would directly relate to your patient population in Kijabe, but life expectancy in Kenya has grown 1 year every year for the last 15 years. Fifteen years ago, life expectancy was 48 and now its 63.Lilian – Yes, it’s 63 now.  It’s an improvement. As much as we know many are still dying, I really think there is something positive happening as far as improving primary health care and advocacy for many things, with health being a big agenda for the president. We are seeing a lot happening even in the country places. We appreciate that they are doing something.David – That’s gynecology/oncology, what’s your other patient demographic that you personally stress over? This isn’t something out there, it’s something very close to your heart.Lilian – For gyne-onc, I’ve also lost family through cancer and I think there is so much we can do in terms of primary prevention and early detection, which is not really emphasized so much. I think for Kijabe that’s one area we could do well in.A second type of population we see are young pregnant women who need emergency care and they can’t access to the point of saying “don’t admit me.” We know that whatever happens on the other side, the care they will get is substandard.For example, a patient who comes with preeclampsia in the 7th month of pregnancy, the baby requires newborn ICU admission and the mom require HDU or ICU care, clearly you can’t refer those patients because of finances.There are teenage girls with unplanned pregnancies coming with no insurance cover, who require emergency, comprehensive obstetric care. That population is at very high risk for mortality and morbidity for both mothers and babies. They may be few, but those few deserve to live.David – you’re concerned specifically about abortion or if the baby does come, what happens to the baby afterwards.Lilian – We’ve had different encounters with primary school, high school girls coming and wanting a termination, and we’ve said no. But even if we say no, we are supposed to be giving them solutions, alternatives. Who is going to help with the clinics? They are already high-risk by virtue of age, by virtue of them wanting to terminate. Who takes care of the clinic bills, who takes care of the delivery, who takes care of the child afterward in postpartum clinic reviews? If baby requires specialized care, what happens? These are young girls who are prone to depression, psychosis, suicide, and I feel like they deserve better because that’s a point of ministering to them. I think those few hours we spend with them are enough to actually change their lives, not just because of their condition, but even in terms of eternity.These high-risk patients that come to us and they don’t have better options, I think they deserve more. Especially those who come with unplanned or what you call crisis pregnancy.David – There is precious-few resources for things like that.Lilian – One, young people are condemned by society for making wrong choices. Two, there are no options given to them. If they are given, they are poor options, like terminations, which means going to the backstreets to terminate. It is cheaper of course and it won’t be known. That has resulted in high mortality for girls.Among the top 5 [maternal] killers in our country, we still have abortion. Beyond hemorrhage and hypertension, have abortion topping because of girls going to the back streets for termination of pregnancies.As we take care of them and do abstinence and user protection, when all those steps have been bypassed, we need solutions for these girls.David – I’ve seen Kijabe babies be placed in homes.Lilian – There are many options, it’s just I think we don’t take that time that has to be spent walking with such, there is the financial aspect that must be considered from way before, during pregnancy, delivery and thereafter. We have a few rescue homes that do a job for these girls, but not all go to the rescue homes. So, can we be a sort of rescue home in terms of the medical care that we’re giving.David – And we can make sure that they are not making bad decision for lack of finance. A delivery in Kijabe is $250 or $300.Lilian – That could be all it takes for them to actually see there is hope.David – Who is the one you were telling me about that came with the grandmother.Lilian – At least a happy one. This was a sixteen year-old, who got pregnant while in form 2.  For you guys, that would be 10th grade. Every time she would come for a clinic, she would be accompanied by the grandmom who would pay the bills for the clinic. And the grandmother would make sure she was okay.This was a grandmother who lost her daughter, and her daughter left her with a grandchild who became pregnant. She was taking care of the great grand-child after the delivery.I think what really made my heart feel warm was the love, and the fact that she was there to support her and tell her, I’m here, I will pay your bills, and I’ll take care of my great grandchild, and you’ll go back to school after the first few months.That love shown to this young girl who may have opted for termination if there was no other option.The grandmother was able to afford some coins to walk through the journey. No fancy clothes for the babies, but maybe, some coins to buy a packet of chips, to say, “I’m here for you.”David – One other one that was very special for several of us and for me personally, the first time I walked through this process, was a teenager who came in with a pregnancy, I think it was twins and they lost the first twin. I think it was 30 or 32 weeks. I heard about it from Dr. Mary Adam, “Hey, there’s this little baby and the mom has gone, she has abandoned.” All the nurses and the doctors at the hospital, said, “this is our baby.” That was the first person we ever crowdfunded for individually. The way it happened was amazing. I walked through the NICU one day with a camera. She raised her hands up to me. "You want this picture don’t you? You want people to take care of you!" In that picture she was wearing a diaper that came up to her neck, and now when you see her, she is two years old, she is round and chubby.For what it takes to do the right thing, in my mind, it’s such a tiny amount of money, to take care of the mother and the baby.We do have some general funding coming in toward this. We hope that can increase over time, as some of our obgyn’s become involved. Also, any of you guys who might be listening to this, anyone who gives to the Friends Fund, a portion of that goes to vulnerable patients. Basically we want to say yes when someone needs something. That’s the goal.Anything you would like to add?Lilian – Just requesting humbly for support wherever it comes from. Of course we are very grateful for those who have had Kijabe in their minds, and for whichever way they support, whether by been human resource, whether it’s financial, whether it’s prayers, whether it’s encouragement.David - AbsolutelyThe Estimated Incidence of Induced Abortion in Kenya: A cross-sectional study. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4546129/

It’s November 2017 – 12 rounds of chemotherapy, 8 weeks in the hospital over 9 months - this husband and father of three sons is fighting for his life with a rare form of blood cancer. A CT scan reveals the return of the tumor and the chance of surviving has been shot. He has 6-12 months to live or find a cure overseas. But that was then! Cut to August 2019, and in front of me is what can only be described as a living, breathing miracle. In January 2017, New Zealand author and comedian David Downs resolved to lose weight and spend more time with family and friends. A few weeks later, he thought he had come down with the flu but tests revealed that David had advanced blood cancer. He went straight into an aggressive course of chemotherapy. With family and friends supporting him, David endured a grueling year long journey, filled with as many dramatic twists and turns as a Hollywood movie. Early 2018 I caught up with David in LA. He had just taken part in a clinical trial for CAR T cell therapy in Boston. It was his desperate last-ditch attempt to save himself after being told he only had months to live. One year later, here we are again - sitting at my kitchen bench catching up, sipping New Zealand wine, and talking about his second chance at life.

In 1987, 3 scientists, 1 from Cambridge and 2 from Oxford, were brought together by their shared passion for the markets and for computers.  Little did they know, that over the next 3 decades, this passion would lead them to build 3 world-leading multi-billion dollar Systematic Investment businesses.  Today, I would like to share another Golden Nugget with you, from my conversation with Michael Adam, David Harding and Marty Lueck, also known as the founders of AHL. In this post, we focus on how markets and the importance of Asset Allocation have evolved since the beginning; a crucial insight into what has made them so successful.  So enjoy these truly unique takeaways from my conversation with Michael, David and Marty, and if you would like to listen to the conversation in full, just go to Top Traders Round Table Episode 11. The World's Biggest Neuron Network Niels: Historically, at least, the role price of a market has been the only input in systematic models, certainly in the trend following space. The universe of markets have also been very well defined, being highly liquid, exchange traded, like futures on CME. Tell me, how have you evolved when it comes to the data you use and the markets you trade? David: We trade a lot of equities and we use a lot of other data sources, basically. Niels: What could they be? David: You got me there. (Laughter) Most of the risk is on endogenous variables like price, intra-relationships between markets, and various convolutions of price, sectors, and this sort of thing. Obviously, we have all the balance sheet data, all the fundamental data, all the weather data, there are all sorts of different types of data. We have a lot of experimental systems with small amounts of money on them. I expect we have one or two bigger allocations with key data inputs, but those I'm keeping to myself. Niels: What about you Marty? Are you looking in new directions when it comes to data and markets? Maybe I can follow-up because that's my next point I want to ask, is about are you also moving off the exchange? What's the motivation for doing that and what are the risks you have to take into account if indeed you are? Marty: Well, so the first question is data and the evolution of the trading programs. Of course, we have an appetite for new ideas, new influences on markets, new effects. As David says, "If we knew what the next big thing was we wouldn't tell you and it wouldn't be research."  I think there's a lot of hype these days with machine learning techniques and all this just explosion of new data sources that surely the answer is in there somewhere. If you just leave it to the folks at Google the answer will become immediately apparent. My view is it's a little bit harder than that. There's plenty of work to be done and there's plenty of opportunities. So, I'm not going to claim that we've got some fantastic new system that employs satellite data and engages recursive neural net and presto we know what's happening tomorrow and next week. 'I think all three of us have a healthy paranoia around operating in the markets, and that comes from the real experiences of thinking it was safe when it wasn't safe.' So, no, it is overhyped. On the other hand, it is there. That data exists and there's more information out there than there's ever been, ever. You need to work out how to assimilate, how to digest and how to use that stuff. David: One of the things that experience has taught all of us is danger of hindsight bias or over fitting to data sets. You saw this recently in a rich data set, or maybe 5 or 6 years ago. This Google Trends is a huge and rich new data set, obviously, a vast amount of data using Google's algorithm which forecasts when there are going to be flu epidemics. It made the front page of all the newspapers. It made the BBC News. This is somewhere between irritating and intimidating when your entire career has been based around time series analysis and yo...

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

Watson: For you specifically, I want to get a sense of how that transition was. You said you were very successful as a wedding photographer. I know for me, I only do photography as a hobby, but I get that feeling of joy when I get the perfect picture, and edit it, and I’ve given a few people some of my productions, and I’m so happy. And to go from that, where that doesn’t directly translate. For Arianna, her medicine translates directly. But you, there was a time of trying to fit into this huge jigsaw puzzle that is Kijabe, there was a lot of faith and trusting in God, how was that like? How did you end up where you are and in what you are doing. David: Wow, you are so good at this, that is a great question. For me, photography was not an end, it was a means to an end. I love creating things, I love exploring, and doing things that I’ve never done before. That’s the part of photography I loved, creating something out of nothing. This was not here before, and now it is, you’re bringing something new into the world. That was the part I enjoyed most about photography. That definitely translates into the work I do with Friends of Kijabe now. There is not a definite map, a definite script. There are concepts. Watson: Like a framework. David: There is a framework, that’s a good way to phrase it. There is a framework for my job, it’s very people-focused, it’s relationship-focused, a big part that I enjoy is it is creativity-focused. How do I call people into the work that is happening here, how to I let them feel engaged with that, how do I give them something that resonates with their hearts? It’s really interesting and challenging. Most days, I wake up and what I do during the day, I did not know existed when I woke up. An email comes through and there is a new challenge or problem to solve, that aspect is really fun. But finding that place was a challenge. What realistically happened is, I never found it on my own. When Ann Mara - she had been working to start Friends of Kijabe for several years - when she and Mike were transitioning to Ireland, she said “Hey, here’s this thing, can you make something of it?” And my answer was, “I have no idea.” (Laughter) But I called Arianna’s uncle, John Richter, and he was the exact right person. He said, “Let me go down the hall and talk to my friend.” And six weeks later Friends of Kijabe existed, and the next question became, now what do we do with it? Watson: Now we have a non-profit. David: A little bit like photography, it is a season, in the back of my mind, I’m always aware of that. How do I build something where I’m both completely in the center of it, outside of me. Watson: Self sustaining. David: It (Friends of Kijabe) won’t ever be self-sustaining in the sense where it can run on its own, but how do I give other people the tools where they can carry it. It’s a really fun, interesting challenge. Watson: I see. I like how you started by saying you were somehow able to boil down to the core reason of why you like photography so much. Once you said that statement, it clicked in my head that as a creator, a content creator or as a creative, you definitely had a place to plug in. Even if it didn’t exist before, or it wasn’t clear in the beginning. It’s something that God worked behind the scenes, to get Ann Mara to approach you, and then you had the exact right person to call, and the exact right processes that went through, and Friends of Kijabe is now existing and is functioning in such a way. Sometimes I look at the beginnings of something like this, and then I imagine ten years down the line how those people will be looking back and wondering, “How did this begin. How did they go through the initial teething problems? And how did they get the first tens and hundreds, and millions?” because I believe it will be millions. David: It really is interesting and that journey. . . I feel like, at least in our family, there are two kinds of people, the Arianna’s and the David’s And Arianna is the one who knew, from the time she was 5 years old that she wanted to be a doctor in Africa. Intellectually she had no idea what that meant, but she literally wrote down on paper, “I’m going to Africa.” For me it was the total opposite, where I’ll wake up and not know exactly where I want to go during a day. So, we balance each other out very well in that sense. That leading, and continual doors opening, and the orchestration. . . You hear people sometimes talk about God’s tapestry, like weaving of a tapestry. That is so unbelievably evident in my life. I can look back and say, Wow! This led to that, this led to that, this led to that. It’s nothing I would have imagined 15, 20 years ago, that I would be in these places. But it’s amazing, it’s really good. Watson: For a creative like you, whose 9-5 is creating content, and you find out in the morning what you need to do that day, how do you keep on top of your to-do list? How do you stay productive? David: The biggest challenge is being productive in the right direction. And even with work there are lot of things like that, there are things that take a lot of time that don’t yield results and there are some that are simple that are the most important. Trying to remember to make the most important thing the most important, that’s the biggest deal. Watson: Prioritizing your tasks, and like you said, it’s an 80-20 principle. 20% of your work is what ends up achieving 80% of your outcomes. Now, at the beginning of your week, Monday through Friday or for you, Monday through Monday. How does your day look like, how does your week look like? How do you project and know I’ll spend these days doing this project and these days doing another project? David: I do like the way you phrased that, because that’s the way I view my work, project by project. Even making a podcast or doing my emails, I still see those as an individual thing. Sometimes I can spend 8, 10, 12 hours on one email, putting it together. That’s not phrased exactly right, that’s not phrased right. I need better picture, I need another story. It can take significant time to put those together. The best weeks for me are the weeks where I start out and I have nothing planed. Or maybe only one or two things, so when interesting things come up I can pursue them. I’m not a naturally organized person. I don’t know if you’ve met Ree’L, but she and her husband Jason moved to Kijabe a few months ago. She’s super-super organized, loves spreadsheets, and she’s been helping me with the hardest part of my work, which is accounting. I can do it, but it’s just not my skill set. I’m glad I worked on it for the last year-and-a-half because I understand what’s happening. But to have somebody else who loves that to say hey, “here’s my numbers, let’s look at and discuss it.” Being able to hand off things that are life-draining, offloading some of those things, that’s been really helpful. I’ve done that to Salome also. One of the temptations for me is to be in the hospital, doing things that don’t move Friends of Kijabe forward. Not that they’re not important, but do they have strategic purpose. Are they moving us toward big goals? Watson: Are they high-yield? David: Exactly. One of the things that has changed for me is because of John Richter, our board chair, our board guys and Ken Muma – sitting together and saying, “What is the purpose of Friends of Kijabe?” And we decided I should be doing the one biggest thing that there is. This year we decided that is fundraising for operating theatres. So instead of me having 27 jobs and trying to juggle all of them, I have one job and then multiple ways to accomplish that. That has been unbelievably freeing, because when someone comes up to me in the hallway and says, “Can you come up with money for this little thing,” I can say, “no that’s not my job this year.” Not that it’s not important, if I can, I’ll try to help them think about how to succeed. But I’ll try not to take it on to myself as my responsibility. My responsibility is, “What does the Director General say, what does my Board Chair say?” Watson: I think it’s really important for creatives to have clarity about the big picture and the big goal so that you don’t end up getting lost in your own mind. You can have so many ideas and so many projects that you begin and reach half-way and another great idea comes in and you want to start. But the really big goal reigns you in, but gives you more freedom do really dive deep, to your heart’s content. David: That is a fantastic way to phrase it. It’s been really fun, and a big mental shift for me. Arianna’s family - I keep mentioning them, but they are all amazing - I was talking to her aunt a little while ago, and she said, “When you’re really going to see success is when you get crystal-clear about your message and the change you are making.” I feel like I’m on the verge of that, it’s in my head but I don’t fully know how to articulate it. But keeping the main thing the main thing is a part of that. We’re 103 years into Kijabe, and what does it take to make another hundred years possible? What steps do we have to do today to get to forever? Kijabe Forever, how do we get there? The answer to that a lot of times is not another blood pressure cuff. Really, it’s getting people to work as a team on the most important things, then moving to the next most important thing. Ken Muma said, “David, why are you fundraising for that over there?” “Well, because it’s a need.” “Yeah, of course it’s a need, there are so many needs. But if you do this one big thing, it can do many. It can fund, maybe not all the things, but thirty of them instead of one need.” That’s the difference between meeting needs and actually being strategic. Watson: I see, it’s like synergism. When you pool all your energies together, they multiply, don’t just add up, they multiply on top of each other, and you have a bigger impact together than alone. Wow, that must have been a really interesting meeting. David: That’s the big change that I hope will continue in the coming years. That’s why we’re doing work as a hospital on culture change. To get people to view each other as part of a team, working together, for the good of everybody. It takes a lot of time and a lot of repetition, a lot of meetings, but it’s really, really valuable. It’s fun to watch happen, and fun in my little way, to be a part of it. Watson: You mentioned doing stories, and the accounting part of your job. As far as what you were given from the DG, are there several ways of meeting that goal as a department or Friends of Kijabe, under which you can have little projects? Like stories, part of that is podcasts, photos, and something else. Do they all fall under something big, like a main three or four? David: The core of it is how to build a team, a wide, diverse team who is very engaged. I’ve thought a lot about different stakeholders this year, there’s expat missionary doctors, Kenyan missionary doctors, partner organizations like Samaritan’s Purse and Bethany Kids, our Friends of Kijabe board, and donors who have either served as doctors here or are connected to doctors here. That’s more how I think of it. How do I serve them, how do I give them what they need? The way I think of it, this is God’s ministry, this is God’s mission in Kijabe. We get to partake in that, we are stewards of it in some sense. How do I enable people to participate in what God is doing here? That is the core of my job. What do I need to give them to be involved, to come along on that journey? This was a big turning point last year, I read some book, it was terrible, but the title was amazing: Who Do You Want Your Customers to Become? Instantly, I thought, “Who do I want the people around me to become?” There are donors, my kids – who do I want my kids to grow up to be? Who do I want my wife to be, how do I want her to succeed? Thinking of people not as static, but as we’re all on this journey, and how do we build the journey together, how do we go together? That was a really powerful image to me. It’s different for the different groups, but there are a lot of overlaps, but at the core of that is what you said, it’s stories. The reason we do what we do is because of stories, right? It’s our motivation. What story do we tell ourselves about the world we live in and our place in it? From you talking, a big part of your story is the opportunity to help people, to make communities better, to give people wholeness and life. That’s a really big value to you. It’s way more valuable to you than money or having a really nice car. Reinforcing that for people, giving them vocabulary, ways to think about that, ways to speak about that is a gift, it’s a really big gift. Here’s the most important thing that’s happening in the world, this is a significant part of God’s work. Both, “here’s how you can be a part of it,” and “wow, you are a part of it, look at what that means, look at the significance of it.” For another doctor listening to you talk, they realize, “oh, this is why I went into medicine.” It’s a reminder that this is what the essence of following Jesus is all about. And we have to constantly be reminded of those things. Watson: That’s true, that’s true. I like that approach. Stories. The stories we tell ourselves affirm and confirm our reasons for doing the things we do. And hearing it come from someone else reminds you of why you started and why you are going on. I do envy you, it’s an amazing job you do. David: But you’re a part of it, that’s the big thing. It’s not me alone. That’s the fun part of it now, being able to connect people like you to some who you will meet and others you may never meet this side of heaven. But that you can still somehow have an impact on their lives, I think that’s phenomenal. Watson: Have you talked to the neurosurgeon, Dr. Kim? I got to hear behind the scenes how Kijabe hospital is able to over a 1.2 million shilling surgery at 100,000, surgeries in Nairobi that cost ten times what they do in Kijabe. How much he has given of his time, resources, mobilizing friends and mission agencies. Those stories remind me of why I fell in love with Kijabe, and why I want to stay. They give me drive to do more, achieve more and be more. People are doing it and it’s possible. You know every one person who is helped, that’s a family who is represented, that’s a community, a village, an estate. It spreads out. All the negativity in the world, in the country. I like to think of myself as a focal point of good. Like in the perspective of God knows if Watson is there, something good is going to happen there. I don’t need to send legions of angels, I just put that guy there, and I know he’s going to change the area. And I put this other person there and this other person there. And the country will change because it’s beginning in those points. David: One of the next people I want to talk with is Ima Barasa. She said when she talks to Interns, it is in terms of light and dark. We did this today, this is light. We beat the darkness with this specific action, it was a victory for the light. Watson: I was listening to an audiobook recently called Atomic Habits. He says every action we do is like we are casting a vote. You want to have as many votes as possible for your good habits and few as possible for your bad habits. Imagine every time you do something you are in a polling booth casting a vote. If every time I’m doing something for a patient, I do my best. If I’m called at three in the morning, I wake up, I take the call, I give my advice, I do what I am supposed to. I am casting a vote to the good. Eventually we’ll have enough votes to turn the tide. If we lose, we lose by the one vote I didn’t cast. If we win, we win by the vote I did cast. David: I like that, turning the tide. It’s an interesting aspect of being in Kijabe and Kenya right now. In your lifetime, it’s gone from a mostly impoverished nation to now a developing nation and it’s on this upward trajectory. These decisions you’re making and these things that you’re doing have not necessarily been done here before. There is a template and a road map for them, they have been done in other hospitals in other countries. But it’s the first time it’s been done in Kijabe. These little steps you take will influence far, far downstream. When you talk about, “how do we set up the 24-hour trauma service?” It’s never been done here before. You know it can be done, but you get to be the first to do it. Watson: I don’t want to hold out, to be negative for the many months It has not yet happen. But instead I want to contribute to the push to make it happen. Another example he gives, if there is a block of ice on the table and it’s 15 degrees, then the temperature starts to rise, but the moment it goes from 28-29 and you begin to see it melt, it’s not the one degree change that melted the ice, but the increment of all the small changes. Every day I go to work, we talk about it, we engage people about an improvement in theatre, the time when it happens the atmosphere will be right, everyone will be ripened. And it will be all the more successful because of the small gains we’ve that been getting all this time. Improving efficiency, training the scrub techs so that the ones at night are just as good as during the day, the equipment at night is just as good as during the day. David: I like that. I had this moment over the summer, we were in the woods camping by the river. There had been a rainstorm, and there was this one drop on at tree. And I’m picturing that falling to the ground and then making its way to the river and where it joins all these other drops. It’s this huge river, but it’s really one drop plus one drop plus one drop, and all moving in this direction together. Watson: And all together they are so powerful David: That’s the beautiful thing about Kijabe, there are so many people actively doing that. We do fight, there are differences, usually not of whether something is good or not good, but differences of priority. Watson: It’s more trying to, as you said, but it’s never “you shouldn’t even be doing that.” It is different angles heading forward. David: Thank you Watson!

This week we threw out our standard format to look at our five-plus year journey as podcasters, and talk about how we plan to shake up our format in 2019. Audio listeners might want to visit the blog to watch the video because we do some screen sharing to show our analytics in the second half of this episode. You can find the video at http://beyondsocialmediashow.com/254 We want this podcast to be as valuable for you as it is for us to produce, so we’d like to know what you like, what you don’t and what you wish we’d add. In this episode, we covered why we started, the technology and marketing channels we use (we started on BlogTalkRadio!) and our equipment, which is supremely simple. We talked about the marketing efforts we each make for the show, things we’ve tried that were successful, and some that were not. If you’re podcasting, or thinking about starting a podcast, we hope that the information we’ve shared will be very helpful to you. Among the formats we’re considering: Focusing on a single topic per episode Once a month episode devoted to cool tools One interview a month by Dave and B.L. and a really top tier guest Demos of the tools we use, like SEMRush, Lisbyn, Hootsuite, etc. Mini-case studies of projects we’re doing, to demonstrate how to get and measure results More Pro Tips from B.L. and David One monthly episode with our current format of Good, Bad & Ugly in marketing, advertising, PR and digital communications, plus Shiny New Objects, Politics and Stats you need to know We don’t just want to tell you what we want to tell you. What we really, really want to know is what YOU want to hear. So please email us (David’s email& BL’s email), Tweet to us, comment on our LinkedIn or Facebook page, or send smoke signals, but do send us your thoughts.

Blair asks David to make some predictions about the new year, and then they discuss some ways that businesses can prepare for and react to (God forbid) an economic downturn.   TRANSCRIPT BLAIR ENNS: David, predict the future. Coming year, the year ahead ... It doesn't matter when people are listening to this or when we've recorded it, but in the year ahead is it going to be a year of abundance or is it batten the hatches, we've got trouble? DAVID C. BAKER: I think it'll probably be right in the middle. I think it'll be- BLAIR: Oh, come on. Make a guess. DAVID: Oh, no but that is a real prediction. BLAIR: Don't you love driving through these small towns and rural parts of whatever country and you see these fortune tellers that read the cards or whatever? And they're all in these shitty little offices. I'm just wondering, how does that work? DAVID: How come they're not in palaces? BLAIR: Yeah. Right. Or the 49th floor of some high rise condominium. DAVID: You talk with your clients, a lot of them every week, and I do as well, it'd be interesting to see what you're feeling right now. What they're feeling right now. My sense is that there's quite a bit of uncertainty, like the stock market wasn't great through last year, and unemployment is still low, and there's some political uncertainty. The world feels a little bit fragile. But really that's kind of in our heads. DAVID: The actual business results have been pretty good for almost everybody in the marketing field. There are a few isolated examples of firms that have struggled a lot. Often because they lost one big client or something like that. But it's generally, firms have been doing really well, and there's thinking okay, is this next year, is this year, 2019, going to be as good as last year? DAVID: I don't think it will be better. I don't think it will be a whole lot worse. I think we'll be lucky to have a similar year. But what do you think? BLAIR: For context, we're recording this on December 21st, 2018. So Happy Solstice by the way. So we're going into 2019 wondering how things are going to shake out. And the stock market, see I don't pay much attention to the stock market but I just noticed that all the gains for the year have been wiped out in the last few weeks. So the market is down. There is discussion within the broader financial markets about whether, or not we're headed for another 2008-ish crisis. There is the global political unrest and uncertainty. BLAIR: But in the face of all that, if you ask me to make a prediction of the year ahead ... this has nothing to do with reality, I realize as I was thinking about it. And only to do with whatever is going on inside of me. But I always believe my future is bigger than my past, to steal a phrase from Dan Sullivan, from Strategic Coach. So I'm an eternal optimist. BLAIR: Now it doesn't mean I think that the market conditions are going to improve next year. I actually don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about this. That's why I'm going to interview you on it. Because you've spent some time thinking about it. And this can't be right, but it's a great way to go through life. I actually think it really doesn't matter what the markets do. BLAIR: If I'm running a well run business, I will be able to survive anything. So, that's the way I think about. And then how I think about a bad year, looking back on it, might be entirely different. But I go into it with this, you might call it naiveté, around what's going to happen. But you should hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Is that the saying? DAVID: Yeah. That's a really interesting perspective. And by the way, you are so messed up in the head. BLAIR: I know. I acknowledge that. DAVID: You think I wouldn't be surprised anymore by the stuff you say. BLAIR: What surprised you? DAVID: Well, you said something really powerful, that I don't want to pass up. I want to make sure that people don't miss it. And that's that from a personal performance, or a firm performance standpoint, next year will be better than last year. And that's separate than what the marketplace might bring us. I think that's really, really smart thinking. DAVID: I want to clarify having, in that broader context, that yeah, I absolutely believe that too. Every one of my clients is going to be running their business better in 2019 than they were in 2018. But what will the marketplace bring them? And I think that's just brilliant the way you just separated those two things. BLAIR: So I've spent a lot of time contemplating the question of, is there such thing as free will? Do we human beings have free will? Then one day I realized, you know what, it's kind of a stupid question. Because the answer is it doesn't matter. You should live your life like you have free will and you have total control. And I feel the same way about business. BLAIR: You should operate your business like you have complete control over what happens. Because I think in those moments when we feel helpless and out of control; and if we have a tendency to blame the market, really most of us we're running businesses that can survive a downturn in the market. If we're making correct and courageous decisions and preparing ourselves appropriately, it really doesn't matter what happens in the market. BLAIR: Now there are some exceptions to that. Maybe we'll get into that. Because some vertically specialized firms in particular are more susceptible to an economic downturn. Is that right? DAVID: Right. For sure. I think of this as ... so you, the people listening to this, are the captain of the ship. You're standing on the deck, and you can't control the winds that are going to come your way, but how far out should you look so that you can take corrective action if you see an iceberg coming. That's kind of your job as the captain. You can't just rail at the winds, assuming that you're going to change them. But you can get your crew ready. You can think about the decisions you need to make, as far in advance as possible. Think about the culture of the crew and all of those things. DAVID: So it's a unique balance that nobody else at the firm has to think like you do with a finger firmly on the immediate pulse, but also looking far ahead, and making those smart decisions that way. BLAIR: Okay. Let's begin by talking about those things that our listeners can do to prepare before a downturn even hits. So if you suspect, or if you're worried about the economic conditions in front of you, wherever you are in time, what are some of the things that you should do to prepare yourself? DAVID: Well, one of the things that you might do is think about, rather than building a much more expansive, slash expensive, amount of money going to people, you could give somebody a one time bonus, instead of building that amount into their usual salary. Because it's very difficult to take money away from somebody, so that would be one thing that you could do. I don't mean a Christmas bonus. I just mean, instead of an annual bonus, maybe you'd give them just a one time bonus, rather than raising their compensation. That'd be one thing to think about. DAVID: Obviously if you've been doing the opposite for a long time that's going to raise a few eyebrows, but it also might just be prudent thinking, and say, "Hey listen. You've kind of maxed out within the salary range that we set for your role. But you've been a fantastic employee. I don't want to build a whole lot of fixed, higher money going to salaries, but I do think you deserve something. So here it is." I think that might be the first thing you probably think about. BLAIR: I think that's a great way to phrase it. Because as you were describing it I was thinking, well how do you communicate this? So you communicate it by saying, "I want to acknowledge your good work." I guess this is my question. Would you acknowledge nervousness about the market? Because of the market et cetera, I don't want to build in higher, fixed salaries. Or would you always come back to, you've kind of maxed out in the salary band. Is it appropriate to communicate to your people, I'm doing this move because I'm concerned about the larger economic conditions? DAVID: Not unless not mentioning it would strike them as odd. So if they are feeling the same thing, because of what they're seeing in the news, and what you're talking about. And if you don't acknowledge that potential for something right around the corner then I think you're going to look kind of stupid. But if saying that feels more like an excuse to them, then I wouldn't say it. So just sort of acknowledge what is widely viewed in the marketplace. I think that's how I would view it. BLAIR: So preparation point number one is to consider bonusing people rather than building salary raises into fixed compensation. What else should people do to prepare? DAVID: I'm really just working down the income statement thinking about where most of the money goes. Right? And most of the money goes to people. Where does it go next? Well it used, and this is kind of changing a little bit, because of how expensive benefits are for people. But where it goes next is facilities. DAVID: So this is not the time to sign a 15 year lease. Right? It might be as long as you have some outs. And those outs are the ability to sublease to somebody else, or the ability to give them six or twelve months notice at any point in the lease, and walk away from it at that point. Or maybe if you're providing a personal guarantee for the entire term of the lease, that personal guarantee is capped at some certain amount. DAVID: So when you think about how you might need to adjust the size of your firm, other than people, facility is the next thing to think about. So just really careful about some of those long term decisions that you're making. BLAIR: Okay. That makes total sense. What else? DAVID: This is one I want to talk about together. And it's just this notion that lead generation, if done well, is this massive fly wheel. Where I grew up we had to supply our own electricity, and there's this diesel generator. I remember how slow that thing would start. You'd have to crank it over by hand and it would go ... little faster, faster. And then once you turned it off it would take forever to slow up. You could lose a hand if you put your hand in there too quickly. That to me is what lead generation is like. It takes so long to spin up. DAVID: So if you don't have your own lead generation plan well in place, before some sort of downturn hits, then you are screwed, my friend. Because it just takes so long. People are always asking me, after we fix positioning and lead generation at a firm, and you're doing the same kind of work as I am, well what results should I expect? How long should this take? And the answer isn't the same for everybody. But frequently it sounds something like this. "Well, if you do everything right, you should expect to land the first right fit client in about six months. And then about every three months you're going to land another one." And they look back at you thinking, that is not what I expected to here. DAVID: So you've got this downturn that hits and then you decide to get your act together. Sorry friends, it's too late. You know. What do you think about how long this kind of stuff takes to spin up? BLAIR: Well, and both of these issues, positioning, and lead gen in particular, they also affect how you see the new business position. So if you don't have the flywheel, the lead generation flywheel moving already, by creating content, building a reputation, et cetera, putting stuff out there that positions you and drives inbound inquiries. If that's not happening and then you hit an economic downturn ... and let's say you've got the new business seat is empty, and you decide oh we need new business, we have to fill it. You're going to look at the new business seat as you want to feel it with somebody who does lead generation the old fashioned way. The outreach, the cold outreach way. BLAIR: And when times are good and your lead generation flywheel, to continue the metaphor, is turning with little effort, then most small to midsize independent firms, probably don't need a business development person who is its salesperson. They need somebody who is actually good at navigating a sale to a close. BLAIR: Just very quickly, if you need your new business person to generate leads for you, rather than navigate the leads that marketing is generating for you, than you want somebody who has got a very high competitive drive. Who's rejection proof. Who goes, goes, goes. Who talks people into things. When leads are coming from marketing then you tend to think of a salesperson as somebody who is a little bit more patient and consultative, who's good at navigating. Is a little bit more discerning, so they have a lower competitive drive. And they're good at navigating opportunities through to a close. And in a lot of firms that can be the principal or another senior person. BLAIR: If your lead generation flywheel is turning you don't need that kind of old school typical new business person, who's out there smiling and dialing. DAVID: Right. BLAIR: But as soon as the downturn hurts and you realize that you haven't done the hard work on the lead generation flywheel issue, then you're going to panic, and you're going to go looking for a salesperson, lead generator, who's going to smile and dial and try to talk people into things. DAVID: I always picture those people driving a Taurus for some reason. BLAIR: Why? DAVID: I don't know. They drive 300 mile max trip and it's usually a dark colored Taurus, and they're wearing a polyester suit. Maybe I'm a little prejudiced about those sales people. BLAIR: Yeah. Maybe you are. DAVID: Yeah. Maybe. BLAIR: Okay. So we're talking about preparing for a downturn. You've talked about trying to keep your fixed comp lower by maybe bonusing people, rather than raises. You've talked about being careful about signing long term leases. You've talked about do your positioning and lead generation planning and work in advance, so that the flywheel is still spinning even in a down economic period. What else? Anything else on the preparation list? DAVID: Last thing maybe would be just to pay down as much as possible, the debt that you've already incurred from either ignoring operational issues that you should have solved in other ways, or maybe from the last downturn, or whatever. Get that off the books. Because when you are looking at reducing your monthly outlay there are some things that you simply can't touch. One of those is the debt. So if you have debt, still on the books, in a downturn, you have to cut the people side even deeper than you would have wanted to. You can't cut the facility. You can't cut the debt. So you have to cut the people side deeper. DAVID: So you really want to focus there, and in particular you want to focus on any debt that's personally guaranteed. Which for any smaller firm listening, almost all of it is. Even the credit cards. That would be like a term loan from a bank or a line of credit. Sometimes in the bigger firms, it's not. If there's a distinction there and some of the debt is personally guaranteed, and some isn't, then focus on the part that's personally guaranteed. So that if there's a really big disaster and we have to walk away from the firm you won't be as harmed personally outside of the corporation, that is the business. BLAIR: Yeah. This in a previous episode we talked about the idea of steady pressure and a pulse of something hitting. So the steady pressure in this case might be debt. You're carrying an unnecessarily high debt load, and then the pulse is rapid economic downturn. You've talked before about how ... I don't know if you abhor debt, but you can correct me if that's wrong. I think you've got a great line about how debt covers up some other issues. Right? It hides things. Is that right? DAVID: Right. Right. Debt is okay in some cases. I personally hate it for anything except for appreciating assets. But where I particularly hate it is where it's just covering up sins that need to be solved in other ways. Whatever the reason for the debt that's on the books, get rid of it as much as you can before a downturn. Then of course if the downturn does hit you could borrow again. I don't think you should. You could borrow again. But mainly it's about giving yourself the flexibility of not cutting more people than you would have otherwise done. BLAIR: Yeah. If you're carrying a lot of debt in good economic downturns, the likelihood of you surviving an economic downturn is not good.   BLAIR: So let's move from how to prepare to how to react. So let's say, God forbid, the market keeps dropping. Other things happen. And we get something close to what happened in 2008, and a big part of the economy kind of takes a big hit. Or freezes outright for a little while. I think you're a big proponent of having a plan. Right? Essentially having a plan, in writing, that you enact at the appropriate time. Is that fair? DAVID: Yeah. Because it's very emotional when it hits. So whether it affected the world around you, and you weren't being singled out, or whether it was just you losing a big client. Whenever that happens it tends to freeze you. It's emotional. You don't know exactly what to do and the best way to prepare for that, I found, is for you as a management team to get together before it happens, and put two plans together. One is the adjustment plan. One is the survival plan. And you put it in a folder. I mean, maybe it's not really a physical folder, where somebody could find it. Maybe it's just in a folder on your computer, or whatever. You just pull that plan out. It will still need to be modified a little bit. But it's a fantastic starting place. DAVID: The adjustment plan would say, "Okay. We probably need to get rid of this one administrative person. We're going to need to slim down and have two fewer account people. Whatever." Then the survival plan is much deeper than that. "We are going to sublease half of our facility. We are going to stop our cooperation with this other firm that we've been doing. We are going to put off this particular purchase. We are going to draw down our line of credit, up to this amount but not a penny beyond that. I am going to cut my salary." Whatever all of those things are. You just pull out the appropriate plan. The adjustment plan or the survival plan, and then you put it into place. DAVID: If you haven't done that then you're typically going to lose two or three weeks worth of very valuable time in reacting the way you probably should. BLAIR: Okay. So I'm imagining, it's a little bit of war planning or just scenario planning. You have these two folders. Here's what's going to happen when things go bad. But I also imagine that that subjective measure of when things go bad, changes as things are going bad. So you probably should have some objective measure that says, when this happens or when revenue or AGI per FTE, or when this client leaves. Or a client of a certain size leaves, or whatever. Is that what you're saying? And if so what would those objective measures be? DAVID: That isn't what I was saying but I really like adding that. Because otherwise, you just don't know when ... so if we were part of the military planning in the U.S., we might say, "Okay if North Korea launches this missile, this is what we're going to do." That would be very easy to measure. But if we say, "Okay how do we measure our relations with that country getting worse, and so on." DAVID: So one of the things that I've seen some firms do is that when they add generous benefits ... so they say, "Okay we're going to pay for everybody's parking now." That makes sense. A lot of firms say that. But what they don't do is they say, "We're going to pay for everybody's parking now, because now our fee billings per full time equivalent employee are above X. And by the way, if they drop below X again, then we will no longer be able to do that." So they layer the generosity, and they tie those individual layers to specific performance metrics. DAVID: The ones that they would particularly pay attention to would typically be the fee billings per full time equivalent employee. Or it could be net profit. That net profit frequently would need to be indexed so that if the principal pays themselves less money to help get through a downturn, we recognize that. And say, "The net profit lower would be a whole lot lower if I hadn't lowered my compensation." So, that's what I mean by indexing that. DAVID: But I like that. So we're going to go to this folder if we lose this client. Any client that represents more than 25% of our billings. Or we're just going to go to this folder if we have two quarters in a row with less than five percent net profit. Or something like that. That's how I would think about it. BLAIR: So I think our listeners need to go out and buy one orange folder and one red folder. DAVID: One red folder. Right. BLAIR: Okay. What else should we be thinking about in terms of our reaction plan? DAVID: You know when you work with a firm, and I work with a firm, and we're sitting there looking at their situation for the first time, it's really obvious to both of us that the roots of what they're struggling with came about many years ago, or many months ago. Then you stop and say, "How did that happen? What led to that?" And frequently it's when they began to chase cash instead of chasing profit. DAVID: So they had these people that were working for them. They didn't want to lay them off. So they said, "Okay I know this is not an ideal client but at least it's something for them to do. We're not going to make a lot of money, but we'll make more money than if we didn't take work for them." And that's fine if you want to do it. But what you don't want to do is lie to yourself here and say, "And then when things get better we'll convert them into the good client that we had hoped they would be at the first." That is simply not going to happen. It's very unlikely that that's going to happen. DAVID: What you want to do is not necessarily, you wouldn't be able to drop this edict on yourself and say we're just never going to chase cash. We're really going to chase profit only. That's probably unrealistic. But at least be honest with yourself and say, "We are going to take this client. We're not going to make much money. But at least it's going to cover our overhead. We know that as soon as we are able to we are going to replace them with a client that will deliver profit to us." So just being honest at the very beginning and recognizing when the switch in your head flips, and you chase cash instead of chasing profit. BLAIR: That's a really important point. And you wrote something years ago, and I quoted you again within the last two weeks on the subject. I think the article was titled, it wasn't the title it was the point of it. Most cashflow problems are profitability problems. DAVID: Right. BLAIR: And somebody said to me the other day, "Oh yeah, we're going to do X. It's just an issue of cashflow." And I probed deeper into that to try to determine whether it was a cashflow problem or a profitability problem. But the interesting idea there is some people know it's a profitability problem. We're just not getting validation from the market that what we do is actually worth something. And others are somewhat delusional about it. So they might know it and they might be spinning a story to you. Others might be spinning a story to themselves. BLAIR: So you're saying, be honest with yourself. First of all. About whether or not we're talking about cashflow or profitability. But in this specific situation, I really like how you said it, it's unrealistic to say never take something for the cash. Because there are times when you've got good people sitting there with nothing to do, and along comes a project that isn't profitable, and you think, 'yeah, what's the harm. It will keep them busy. Maybe they'll enjoy it. There's no profit in it for us but allows me to keep those resources around.' So you're saying that perfectly valid. Just be honest with yourself, and maybe your teammates or your leadership team about what you're doing. DAVID: Yeah. Exactly. And when you mask a problem and say it's cashflow, what you're really saying is this is a problem with my clients. If you said profit, that's really a problem with the way you're running the business. So it's easy to deflect some of the decisions you're making around that. DAVID: You know the other thing I would do too, working down this list, is just about, do you really want to continue this business? In the past it never seemed to be an option to just close the business because there was so much stigma attached to that. But I don't see that stigma in the marketplace anymore. I don't see the stigma of failure like I used to. In fact, I see more stigma associated with people who stick it out, and they really shouldn't. Instead the courageous decision is not to stick it out. The courageous decision is to just stop it. Right? DAVID: But you want to make that choice for yourself. Like every professional athlete, they want to chose when they stop. They don't want their contract to not get renewed, or get shuffled down to a minor league team or something. Just deciding, making a good decision, early on, and not just bleeding all of the money that you do have out to fix this thing that in the end never gets fixed. BLAIR: Now you work with about 50 firms a year. How many times a year are you advising your clients to shut their businesses down? DAVID: About, probably two a year. So four percent or so, of those firms. BLAIR: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. What else is on the list of how to react to a downturn? DAVID: Maybe you need to get rid of that partner. Maybe this is the right time to do it. The firm will never be cheaper if you need to pay them out. This is going to be the cheapest you'll ever get it. That would be one way to look at it. BLAIR: So I'm imagining a firm of two partners, and both partners are listening individually, and they're both thinking, 'Yeah.' DAVID: Yeah. BLAIR: I'm going to get rid of that other partner. DAVID: And they're trying not to flinch as they listen to betray what they just thought of. Yeah. BLAIR: Okay you're both in the car together. You're not making eye contact. This is getting really awkward. You better stop for coffee. Or switch to country music. DAVID: Surely it's not that bad. We don't have to go to country music. BLAIR: We can stop right now. We're done. This podcast will not get any better. DAVID: It probably won't. Why do you not get through a tough time, if you do have a partner? You would think that having a partner would make it easier to get through a good time. When in fact sometimes it's just that you're not on the same page. You're not pulling the oars in the same direction. I often think that, oh there's a great opportunity to adjust your partnership. Especially if this highlights how one of you is just not carrying your share of the weight. BLAIR: Insert awkward silence here. We just stirred up a whole hornets nest, didn't we? Anything else on your reaction list before we get to things that we don't dread about a downturn? DAVID: No, that's about it. Those are the big things. But if you get those you've covered almost all of it. BLAIR: Okay. So I'll just recap. So it happens, you've got to have two folders. One is like things are going bad and when things are really bad. You want to have objective measures where possible. You want to know who you're going to layoff because as you've pointed out, that's probably the easiest part of your overhead to deal with, is the personnel. Don't chase cash instead of profit. Unless you're honest with yourself about what it is that you're doing. Think about shutting it down if it's appropriate. If you're thinking of getting rid of your partner, now is a really good time to do it. Probably financially as well. Okay. BLAIR: So you and I have talked about this before, in private conversations. We have each talked about this from a stage, or written about it. But a downturn isn't all bad, is it? Why? Why isn't it bad? DAVID: No, and I'd want to hear what you have to say about this because you have a very strong evolutionary way of thinking about this. Right? BLAIR: Yeah. DAVID: You see animals killed where you live and you realize it's a part of life. Maybe firms dying now and then is a part of life. It just sounds so cruel when we say it, right, but thinning the herd is okay. If maybe you don't survive, maybe you didn't deserve ... did I just say that? Maybe you don't deserve to survive right? BLAIR: Yeah. DAVID: And if you do survive than tomorrow you're going to have fewer competitors. And it's kind of sad for them, but it's kind of a good time, too, right? Oh that just sounds so awful saying it. BLAIR: Well first let's put it in a larger context. Because I think for most of listeners here, let's just acknowledge, we're all very fortunate to be born when we're born and where we're born. And to be running businesses. And if our business fails what's the worst that's going to happen? If we've been successful entrepreneurs to a point, and our businesses fail, then we will regroup and we'll be fine. We will start another business, or we will go work for somebody else, and we will put those skills to bear. BLAIR: A small number of people, for whatever reason, whatever else they're dealing with in their lives, it's not going to be so easy. So let's just acknowledge that there's always some human suffering. But as we talked about in one of the podcasts a couple of episodes ago, the worst case scenario really, for most of us, isn't all that bad compared to most of the population on the planet. BLAIR: So with that greater context, the idea is that a downturn is like a disease running through an animal herd. It kind of kills the sick and the weak. And in some ways it's a horrible ... well it's a ruthless metaphor. It's not horrible. But in the end it makes the herd stronger. There have been times when I've heard you say, you know if you've opened a design firm in the last ten years, and you haven't made money, then you're an idiot. Because the economic times have been so good that all you had to do was- DAVID: Did I really say it like that? BLAIR: Yeah. Maybe on paraphrasing. But you've essentially said, times are so good that it's really hard not to make money. We have to make exceptions for the exceptional situations. Like when you're young, you're just starting out. You're highly leveraged debt wise. Taking all this risk when you're just starting out. I'm a big fan of those people. And other things, you care for a sick loved one, et cetera. There are all kinds of extenuating circumstances. But generally speaking there are some firms that continuing with the ruthlessness streak, that the world's just not going to miss. DAVID: Right. BLAIR: If they go out of business. Because the honest to God truth is they weren't creating value in ways that other firms, that may have been somewhat similar to theirs, were creating real value. So if you're not creating real value in the world, and an economic downturn hits and your firm gets wiped out, you can feel sorry. You can say, "Oh the odds were stacked against me." But statistically the odds are probably that your business isn't going to be missed. DAVID: Yeah. BLAIR: So what does that do to the profession? It makes it stronger. At least in theory it does, doesn't it? DAVID: It does. And even though it does sound callous I concur exactly with what you're saying. So if you are running a firm right now, and you know how well you're positioned, you've got this lead generation flywheel spinning. And you've got good people, and you don't have a lot of debt. What if next year is bad? In the world around you. What if the environment does take a turn for the worse? In some ways you ought to be rubbing your hands together, and saying, "Oh man. This is going to clear my head. I can't wait to make sharper decisions and to think more clearly about this. And to not tolerate some of the poorer performers that I have. And to use my time more wisely. It's okay." DAVID: So as we face some of the uncertainty that's coming up, I hope the people that get nervous are the ones who should get nervous. And they get off their asses and start fixing their lead generation problem, mainly. That's the big one. I know you've got some events coming up. I've got some events coming up. People need to take that sort of stuff seriously. Or if they just know what the answer is, then they just need to get off the couch and start doing things. Those are the people I want to hear this and just really implant this sense of excited, not urgency, but excited about the future. Excited about taking their firm a little bit more seriously. I think is a message we want for people. BLAIR: You wrote to me an economic downturn is like a breath of cold, fresh air, on a cold winter day, in the mountains. What the hell did you mean by that? DAVID: You just can't ignore it. You just climb out of the tent and ... oh my goodness. It opens up your lungs in a way that it doesn't. And you feel alive, like you're never going to feel alive in an apartment in a city somewhere. Right? BLAIR: Yeah. When I read that I thought some of us our wartime CEOs. When there isn't something wrong, when we're not under attack, by say a competitor or a larger economy, then we are not at our best. When you see threat on the horizon that's when, you know it's like that bracing cold air. It's like, all right. I recognize that in myself. I don't know if you see it in yourself. I recognize it in some of my clients. BLAIR: There's nothing like a little bit of threat to reinvigorate you about your business. And that's what I was when I read your line that an economic downturn is a breath of cold, fresh air, on a clod winter day, in the mountains. DAVID: Yeah. And I didn't mean that as a Hallmark card either. I meant it as a terrifying, sort of invigorating statement. BLAIR: Yeah. DAVID: This has been fun. BLAIR: It has been fun. So let's just leave our listeners with this. We hope an economic downturn is not in your immediate future, but if it is we'd like you to think about it, like a breath of cold, fresh air, on a cold winter day, in the mountains. Okay. Thank you David. DAVID: Thank you Blair.

Special Guest: Kris Van Houten: @krivaten | krivaten.com In this episode, we are joined by Kris Van Houten to chat about Functional CSS and Styled Components: pros and cons, the problems that they are trying to solve, and how to choose between one or the other. This show was produced by Mandy Moore, aka @therubyrep of DevReps, LLC. Transcript: DAVID: Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 116 of The Frontside Podcast. I'm David Keathley, a software developer here at Frontside and I'll be your host for today's episode. Joining me as a co-host is Jeffrey Cherewaty. JEFFREY:: Hey, there. DAVID: And we've got an amazing guest with us today, Kris Van Houten. Kris is the author of a very interesting functional CSS library called Elassus, a good friend of mine and today, we're going to be talking about how that compares with another new pattern I've been seeing everywhere recently: styled-components. Hi Kris. KRIS: Hey, how's it going? DAVID: Doing great. Let's just go ahead and jump into things. Kris, you want to give us a little introduction to your functional CSS library? KRIS: Yeah, for sure. I guess, first of all about me. I've been primarily a frontend developer for about seven or eight years now. I don't know, at some point you start losing count but over the years, I worked largely within the Ember framework but I've also worked within React and Vue. Like most of developers over the years, you tend to require an affinity towards certain areas of software development and for me, those areas tend to lean towards accessibility but also, learning how to write CSS with what I call like the future in mind. To try to keep the story as short as possible but a couple of years ago, I was working on a project and started to realize that our CSS is one of those things that just continues to grow over time along with the rest of our application but I also noticed that we tend to have a lot of areas of repetition within our CSS, like how many times are we setting text align to center, how many times are we setting the text color to the primary color or to gray or something of that nature and maybe we could create a utility library that just does all the stuff for us, similar to if you've ever worked with Bootstrap that they had utility classes that allow you to do some things like set the text alignment or the text color or font size and things of that nature. I started thinking around it but eventually, I changed jobs and that idea kind of just went to the side but then, I'd say about a year and a half or two years ago, I came across a blog post called '15kb of CSS is all you'll ever need' and so, immediately I was intrigued. It was actually a blog post on Medium that was talking about the benefits of using something like Tachyons or base CSS, which are two different functional CSS libraries. To explain what I mean by functional CSS, it's just a whole library, a whole arsenal of these utility classes that just do one or two things that allow you to basically take any design and implement it by composing all these classes together throughout your HTML. I was looking at Tachyons, looking at base CSS and thinking, there's a couple of things I like to customize about this but at the time, when I was looking at it, I couldn't really figure out how to customize those values very easily and so, I did every developer does and just decided to make my own and that's where Elassus came into play, where it's a CSS library that is entirely made up of functions that generate your CSS based off of the value of variables in Sass. Everything is customizable, all the way down to how the class names look and the syntax that you use. If you hate what I'm doing, you can customize it very easily. A lot of people might wonder why would you want to use functional CSS, what are the benefits that you get out of it and really, one of the first two things that comes to mind for me that really attracted me to it was that your CSS files start small and they stay small. For the most part, depending on the configuration and the particular library that you're using, your entire CSS payload can be anywhere from 10 to 20 kilobytes, minified and gzipped, which is in stark contrast to some other projects I've worked on, where just one of the many CSS files you're downloading are 745 kilobytes. Dramatic improvements there, so that's why it was instantly appealing to me. But one of the other nice things you kind of get for free by default is a consistent design pattern, right out of the box. Because if you're working on a large team that has maybe multiple designers and many developers, one designer might implement something with the spacing system that's maybe based on five pixels: your padding, your margins, your widths, might be five, 10, 15, 30 pixels, 45 pixels but then maybe, another designer is implementing something based off of more material design, which is base-4 pixels, so it's like four pixels, eight pixels, 16 and so on. Over time, little differences like this can really show up as you navigate between pages of your application and with functional CSS, you're given a limited number of options to choose from. As a result, it actually makes your application feel like it's one cohesive consistent piece of software between pages and between the features that you're navigating through. Those are really two areas that have really attracted me to functional CSS and I guess, is a tl;dr -- if that was a tl;dr in fact -- of what functional CSS is and why I like it. DAVID: One of the things we've got here was the problem that functional CSS and styled-components are both trying to solve. KRIS: Like I said earlier, a lot of the applications that many of us might be working on, they tend to grow at time by either adding features or rewriting and improving existing feature. In JavaScript, over the years, we have made tremendous improvements in our tooling with things like code splitting and tree shaking to really limit and minimize the amount of payload that we're sending to our users at the end of the day. But really, it's only up until recently we hadn't really been talking about how we do that for CSS and typically, as developers, we had deadlines, we're working with them in sprints, we had a real strict time constraints on what we can work on and for how long and so, we tend to focus on making sure the features look right, they work right, and that our test passed. In CSS cleanup is just one of those things that often doesn't get cleaned up as often as you would like. Sometimes, that's also because we assume that a particular set of styles is probably getting used by another team, working on a completely different part of the application. As a result of just not being able to work on this problem or this issue, we likely have many, many kilobytes of orphan styles being shipped to our users at the end of day and our style sheets tend to grow over time. If there's one thing that's kind of become a mantra within software development over the last few years, it's that every kilobyte matters. One of the main reasons I wanted to come and talk to guys today was about some things that I've been tinkering with on the side, just to figure out how we solve this problem and so, their approach of using functional CSS is one of those things but using something like styled-components, which is mostly used in React library of the solution of writing your CSS in your JavaScript and that's another approach to how to tackle this problem. DAVID: That's an interesting thing you said there. I remember, whenever I started off in software development, one of the big no-nos for styling is don't put your styles in your JavaScript. It's interesting to see that that has kind of changed. KRIS: Yeah, indeed. I remember listening to a podcast about two, maybe three years ago and they had a panel on and they were talking about there's a new thing called CSS and JS and I was like screaming in my car like, "This is the most horrible thing in the world you could possibly do. Why would someone want to do this?" and obviously over the last couple few years, the technology has definitely matured and they definitely hardened it, to where when I was working on updating my personal blog, working on moving over to Gatsby, I didn't want to have to pull an entire functional CSS library because I kind of thought that would be overkill for just a couple small pages and so I was like, "Let me try this whole styled-component thing. That way if I'm going to hate it, I can hate it from the experience point of view." I actually found that the developer experience of working with styled-components was really nice and so, I kind of became converted over to that way of thinking about, "I'm not a hater. It's actually a really nice way to write your CSS for your blog or your applications." JEFFREY:: I count myself still as a skeptic about this whole idea, so I'm excited that we're going to talk about it now and then, you have the opportunity to sell me on it, which should be fun. Some of the work I've been doing on lately, we've been doubling down on the idea of CSS modules, that at least fix some of the encapsulation and problems around CSS where everything is sending up in a global scope. How do these ideas of functional CSS kind of take that even farther? What advantages are there over using, just simply using say, CSS modules where we're fixing the global namespace. KRIS: I'd say with functional CSS, again the things that kind of mine for me are you keep the file size small, you have your design patterns that you can get for free right out of the box. Your styles are pretty low specificity, meaning that if you ever have a need to where you get a really customized something because you just can't do a functional CSS, which I found to be very, very few and far between as far as the number and instances I've come across, it's very easy to overwrite if you need to go back into, I guess old fashioned way of actually writing some CSS yourself. But then you also have the benefit of not having to come up with clever class names to describe the different states or different use cases of your component that you're working on or the future that you're trying to implement and so, I'd say those are definitely some of the pros of why I like using functional CSS at the end of the day. I will say that there are some cons -- I'll be completely honest -- and say that one of the areas where functional CSS tends to have a weak spot is in the area of browser specific issues. In my experience, I tend to have a lot of issues with iOS Safari and it's like the bane in my system sometimes. Sometimes, worse than i11 but if you have to really target something that's exclusively for a specific browser, that's really not doable from what I've seen in functional CSS. That's where we should have to go back in and handwrite some CSS for that kind of situation. But also, one of the cons is that sometimes, depending on the element or the component you're trying to style, I think the example is if you have a nav bar that can toggle between being a sidebar but also a top nav bar, that's a completely different set of styles and to achieve those few layouts at the end the day, you have to have a completely different collection of class names that you have to toggle between based off of the state of that component or that feature that you're working on. While that's doable, especially with something like a frontend framework like Vue, React or Ember, it's just a little pain point that sometimes you have to work around but I say, those are the pros and admittedly some of the cons of using something like functional CSS to tackle your styling needs. JEFFREY:: My favorite thing that you mentioned there was how hard naming is. I think everyone can agree, very strong of it, just naming things is the hardest thing. What has been your experience in learning these? They're almost new domain languages for like we want to padding of this amount. Have you found that pretty easy to get up to speed and get fluent in or have you run into some blocks in kind of learning these new languages that some of these CSS tools have presented. KRIS: That's a really good question. When I first started digging into Tachyons -- that was the first functional CSS library I started working with -- there is definitely, I'd say a small learning curve of maybe, I was trying to implement it just to see how it worked and it took me, maybe a couple of hours, if that, to kind of get a feel for how they write their classes and how the classes are put together to do certain things. But once you kind of get through that little initial pain point, it's pretty easy. In one of the things that when I was working on my own implementation of it, I wanted to make sure that no matter what you're doing, all the class names are consistent, that the patterns that you use to your class naming is consistent and I guess, because I wrote it, then it wasn't so hard for me but I also understand that that's not the case for everybody. When I wrote Elassus, one of the things I did is I actually was able to create a compiled JSON version of all the CSS and actually, use that to create like a little React search tool. If you're looking for padding or margin, you can just enter that in a search bar and it'll tell you all the options in the classes that are associated with that and that's one thing I did to kind of help with that barrier but it definitely can be a bit of a learning curve but like I said, it's maybe an hour or two of your time to really get familiar with it. JEFFREY:: That is not bad. KRIS: No, not at all. I was actually really surprised at how fast I got up and running with it. DAVID: That actually ties into something that I was kind of curious about myself. Whenever I went through the coding bootcamp that I did a couple years ago, after we finished going over raw CSS and how that works and the basics of that, they introduced us to Bootstrap as our first real CSS library to play with. That was fairly achievable for someone brand new to frontend work in general. What I was curious about is would you see these functional CSS libraries as equally accessible or maybe, more advanced than something like Bootstrap or Foundation. KRIS: I never thought about that before. I think I kind of see it like as the next step. I've worked on several products over the years where Bootstrap was what they started with. As we went on to build out the feature set of the product, we started to find ourselves battling with the various styles that we get at from Bootstrap for free. I think one of the things about working on a website, where actually using Bootstrap is that sometimes you can just kind of tell that it's a Bootstrap based website. I don't know if I'm making any sense to you guys -- DAVID: Oh, yeah. Definitely. KRIS: That was another reason why I wanted to have something... That had basically forced me to decide how my navigation bar looked. It forced me to think more about how my sidebar is looked or what my spacing scale -- it's the term I like to use -- based on what you're using for your pure margins, your paddings or what's your heights, things like that. It make me think about what those values should be and that's how you kind of break out of the box of having everything look like it was built in the same framework. I would say it's more of a next step if you're talking about your experience as a developer. Yeah, learn CSS. I think it's still incredibly valuable to know CSS and for me, like you David, I kind of got started and learned about this thing called Bootstrap and you can quote me. Back in the day, I said, "This is like the jQuery for CSS. It's amazing," but quickly, I kind of ran into some of those issues that I mentioned earlier and kind of force me think about, "Maybe, I don't want to use Bootstrap. Maybe, I want to handle my own thing," and so, I say functional CSS, as far as like again your education level, it's more or less that step of if you think about how do you want to solve certain problems in our design. DAVID: Okay. We've gone over functional CSS with some and styled-components, how would you choose between the two? KRIS: This is actually really hard because I actually like both approaches. I'm not one of those guys that's like, "That one sucks. I don't want to use it." I actually think both have their place and so, I know I kind of sound like the typical 'this versus that' blog post in technology right now but I will say that there's a few questions you should ask yourself and ask your team if you're considering changing up your approach to CSS. One of those is what is the preferred developer experience of your team. That's something we've been talking about a lot at the company. What we mean by that is how enjoyable is it to work in a particular codebase? Do your developers mind writing their CSS, instead of a JavaScript file? Or would they prefer to have something where they can actually read the HTML and build a C, just by looking at the elements in the classes that are being applied there? What this layout looks like or what's being applied to this layout? You know, questions like that can definitely help determine what direction you should go. Again like I said, one thing I love is that both approaches remove the developer's burden from having to come up with clever class names for all the different use cases or states of your components. I think you're going to get a win-win either way there. However, if you're using React, we already have a ton going on in our JSX and so, if adding a series of class names to determine your design tips is overwhelming for you, then maybe give styled-component a try because it can definitely simplify your JSX output a little bit. If the idea of having JS to handle your CSS seems a little fishy, I think one of the cons of using styled-components is that we're asking JavaScript to do yet another thing for us. If you're one of those people who has a problem with that, then give functional CSS a try. There's definitely more than one flavor out there and I've tried out almost all of them and like them. They all have their nice tidbits inside of them. I'll say, if you prefer to have easy theming, if you're working on a project that has to have a lot of theming involved, then I might be more toward styled-components. If design consistency and design patterns is a priority, then maybe functional CSS is an option for you. With both of those scenarios, easy theming in patterns is possible in both. It's just one is harder in one than the other. With styled-components, there are implementations of it in Vue and Ember but they don't seem to be very widely used yet, so I'd say use at your own risk or contribute to open source to make them better. I'd say for right now, if you don't mind being locked into using React, then styled-components is pretty cool. It also allows you to transfer your styled-components from one project to another without having to worry about. [inaudible] all the CSS because that's a big deal but I would ask myself those kind of questions to determine what solution I would choose. JEFFREY:: I am interested in the performance implications of these tools. You touch earlier on by using tools like this, you can definitely shrink your CSS payload by a lot, so what is the actual output of using these tools? What will it look like? Do you end up with still an external CSS file or is it a scenario where you're kind of getting some CSS injected into your markup? KRIS: Yes with one and no on the other. With functional CSS, you typically have a CSS file that is compiled and maybe, you're using Sass to do the operation for you or post-CSS, so you get an output CSS file that you help you fetch on the frontend of your application. Like I said, [inaudible] if these files are between 10 to 20 kilobytes, which is remarkably small. With styled-components, it's a totally different approach. It's a totally different implementation as well, unless you have a normalize or perhaps a reset CSS that you're fetching on the frontend, all the styles are actually -- I guess, I should start with earlier. What happens is you define your styles in your JavaScripts and at runtime, the component will read the styles that you set and then create a unique class for that instance into the head of your document. It's basically a single class use for that component and so, all in all, it gets compiled at runtime. There's no additional CSS files being injected. It's actually being created dynamically in your actual HTML document. One of the things I was first concerned about was what are the performance implications of having JavaScript do this for us and over the last couple of years, as the technology has been maturing, performance has been an issue but I think it was with V4 -- version 4 styled-components that just released, I want to say, in September or October, they have tremendous performance improvements. It's rapidly fast now, so it's not really something you need to be concerned about. I'd say again, it's one of those things: Can you get over the mental hurdle of having JavaScript do one more thing for you? And can you get used to the developer's ergonomic practice of writing CSS inside a JavaScript file? I know it kind of takes a little bit of getting over that because it just seems so strange but you also get a lot of perks by doing that with having easy access to theming, you get to use some of the power of JavaScript to help build out your CSS, which can be nice as well even if it kind of feels weird. JEFFREY:: Yeah, I agree with the ergonomics do feel weird but you'll get some benefits out of doing that. In the styled-components where it'd bring on the fly, I'm happy to kind of figured out the performance like runtime implications with that but it seems to me that now you no longer have a cache CSS and that you're having to get that all the time on the fly. Maybe for some systems, that is okay but that's definitely something that I would miss having -- the idea that CSS actually can be a little heavier because it will always be cached. KRIS: That is totally a valid point. I think one thing I do kind of like about the styled-component approach is that when you delete a component, all the styles go with it, so you no longer have orphaned styles just hanging out there that are getting shipped down to your user. I agree that the caching is definitely a concern but I just kind of start to weigh the pros and cons and again, you have to decide for your product, for your team what works best for you. Also, one of the pros that I would bring up is that you don't have any orphan CSS hanging out in your application anymore, which is definitely one of the key contributors to growing bloat in your files over time. JEFFREY:: That is very nice. KRIS: Yeah. DAVID: That ties into a question that I was kind of wondering. As your projects get larger and larger and more complex, your style sheets tend to grow along with that and one of the issues that you might have as time goes along is visual regressions like styling bugs. How does using functional CSS or styled-components sort of deal with that or prevent that? KRIS: With functional CSS, like I said, you have those patterns kind of built in out of the box. As long as you don't change the value of what a particular class renders out of, maybe someone goes in and without thinking of it, they change the second value of your spacing scale to a lot of pixels just because they felt they needed to. You're not going to have visual regression that happen over time because the whole premise of functional CSS, those values don't change. Those are basically meant to be seen as immutable values, immutable classes. You shouldn't have style regressions that pop up over time as people continue to work on your application. With styled-components you still have that risk unless you are setting all those same values and your theme properties that you can use within styled-components. Unless you're setting all your different spacing values, you have a tendency to potentially run the same issue. But actually, now that I think about it, maybe not because with styled-components, every component is unique. Every components styles are completely unique, so again, unless you're changing those core values of your themes, you should not have visual regression that happen in a totally separate part of your application when you're working on say, the home page. I would say both handle that pretty well, now that I'm thinking of it. DAVID: That's cool. KRIS: This reminds me, I'm working on a particular piece of software at a particular feature of my work and we don't use functional CSS or styled-components yet. I'm trying to get them to move over so again, this is all stuff I do on my free time but I'm working on editing a component and I had to make some pretty drastic changes to it and I was like, "How is this going to break on some other page that I'm not aware of yet," and so, this requires a lot more going back and checking all the various uses of this particular component. We used it in 10 or 11 different places on different pages and so, we have to go back to each and every single one of those use cases to make sure I didn't break something. Whereas if I was using one of these two approaches, it wouldn't be something that I would have to be concerned about. This is what I'm trying to push through on my own job as well. DAVID: Yeah, it really eat up your time. KRIS: Yeah. JEFFREY:: I want to talk for a few minutes about media queries because, I think that the situation is kind of handled. It's definitely something I've run into: CSS variables and with post-CSS tooling. I'm interested in kind of how does the media query story is handled with the setup. KRIS: With functional CSS, you tend to have, basically say, I have a class that sets a margin on the top of 16 pixels, for example. Let's say that that class name is MT-3... I don't know, meaning for like the third position in your spacing scale, 'MT' stands for margin top. If you wanted to only use that style for perhaps, like your medium break point, then different libraries have a different way to approach this, basically, you're 'MT-3--medium' or '--desktop.' It's the additional characters that you append to the class name to target that specific media query. Also, depending on the framework that you're using, you can also target pseudo states, whether or not this element is focused or on hover, maybe you want the background code to change. There's variations of those classes that allow you to target those specific states, which is really nice in functional CSS. Again, just by looking at the classes that you're adding to your DOM, you don't have to scroll through your style sidebar to figure out like what styles are associated with this class name and why it's being overwritten by these 10 other things that we have going on. Again, you can just look at the HTML and see what's happening and what should happen if you hover over an element. With styled-components, you can still use media queries and all that stuff right out of the box. In order to keep your media queries consistent, that way not everybody is having a handroll, at least by every single time that you need to use them. You can actually store your media queries in a separate JS files and it's kind of import them as you need them, which again, kind of feels like a weird developer ergonomic for your CSS but definitely, it comes in handy and definitely keeps your styling consistent the more you break out the various pieces into small pieces or small components like that. That's how to handle things like media queries and things like that. JEFFREY:: It's interesting how these approaches are kind of pushing the web towards, I'm feeling a lot more like native development, where you build your style and your visual look in conjunction with your component code and those things are not really ever separate. I think, there's some interesting influences coming in there from some made up things. KRIS: One thing I think about a lot, especially when I'm thinking about functional CSS is I'm reminded of this image I saw kind of posted on Twitter somewhere in the interwebs. It was a picture of the Super Mario Brothers start screen and the entire Super Mario Brothers video game was something like 23 kilobytes. This screen that you're looking at, which was like the start screen was like 345 kilobytes or something. My numbers are probably off but it was something drastic like that and this makes me think about, if you were to go back through, there's a couple of documentaries about how the loops that developers had to jump through in order to make old video games for Nintendo Entertainment System back in the late-80s -- I'm probably dating myself right now -- but the things they had to go through and to think about in order to make those games work the way they did is insane and I kind of feel like over the last... I don't know, maybe 10 or 15 years, because we've gotten such fast computers and such fast mobile devices and so on and so forth, we've kind of gotten crazy. I look at video games now and they're 100 gigabytes sometimes and I kind of feel like they didn't need to be 100 gigabyte video game and I think -- DAVID: But it's so much cooler because it is. KRIS: I'm not saying it's not cool but I'm think like if they really took the time to pay attention to some of these details, we probably could automate this a little better. Maybe, I'm just being biased but I think about we're kind of starting to do the same thing and talk about the same kind of problems in web development. Again, just because we can have a 745 kilobytes of CSS file and thought the world falling over, it doesn't mean we should, so maybe, let's take into consideration that not everybody is using a cinema display on a super-fast MacBook to view your application, what about the person who's using an outdated Android device that hasn't been updated in three or four years? How's your product going to work on their device? I'm really glad that people actually started to take that kind of thing into consideration and it even reminds me a little bit of another area that I think a lot about is the area of accessibility: how do people with various impairments or disabilities use your software and how can they use your software but also, outside of that, how do people, who maybe don't have the money to have a fancy mobile device like you have, use your product along those same veins. It kind of dips into the same vein of accessibility when we're talking about how do we optimize our products to make them usable by everyone despite their income level or their ability to have a fancy, nice desktop or a latest iPhone. JEFFREY:: Awesome. DAVID: Yeah. Definitely, you think about who are the majority of users on the internet these days and really, it's an emerging market with underpowered devices and the internet is becoming much more and more accessible for people to get on and browse, so you really got to keep those people in mind. KRIS: Definitely, especially if you're creating software that you want people across around the world to be using, a lot of people don't have access to crazy high speed internet like we do here in the States, so we should probably be taking more time to consider what it looks like for those people to use our product. At my company, what we've been talking about is like we should be testing and basically, starting mobile first with all of our development to see how does this work on our mobile device. I'm a remote developer so we're trying to figure out how to get me mobile devices that I can actually test on our VPN but it's something that we're trying to move towards at my company as well. DAVID: Okay, that about wraps up Episode 116, our final episode of 2018. Man, the year has gone by fast. We are the Frontside. We're the frontend specialists who make your largescale application projects run smoothly by helping your team assemble the right tools and implement the right automated processes. We can ensure your projects can move forward on time and without regressions while preserving quality and long term maintainability. If that's something you're interested in, please get in touch with us at @TheFrontside on Twitter or Contact@Frontside.io via email. Do send us any questions you might have, any topics you'd like to hear about in the future. We look forward to hearing from you. Thanks again to the wonderful Mandy Moore for producing today's podcast. You can find her on Twitter at @RubyRep and that's it.

Series: Psalms Title: Was David really a man after God's own heart? Text: Psalm 51 Summary: God calls David “a man after God’s heart,” but why? The narrative we tend to attach to that mantra is one of heroism and valor. David killed enemies and slayed giants, so the story goes, and if we follow a path of heroism and valor we too can be like David. But is that really the narrative that the Bible uses of David? One of the dangers of this version of the story is not only how it falsely holds up a hero narrative, but how it allows for us to downplay the far reaching, seriousness of his sin. This sermon explores the seriousness of David's sexual abuse, as well as the magnitude of God's grace.

Listen Here: iTunes | Overcast | PlayerFM Keep up with the North Star Podcast. My guest today is Michael Nielsen a scientist, writer and computer programmer who works as a research fellow at Y Combinator Research. Michael has written on various topics from quantum teleportation, geometric complexity and the future of science. Michael is the most original thinker I have discovered in a long time when it comes to artificial intelligence, augmenting human intelligence, reinventing explanation and using new media to enable new ways of thinking. Michael has pushed my mind towards new and unexpected places. This conversation gets a little wonky at times, but as you know, the best conversations are difficult. They are challenging because they venture into new, unexplored territory and that's exactly what we did here today.  Michael and I explored the history of tools and jump back to the invention of language, the defining feature of human collaboration and communication. We explore the future of data visualization and talk about the history of the spreadsheet as a tool for human thought.  “Before writing and mathematics, you have the invention of language which is the most significant event in some ways. That’s probably the defining feature of the human species as compared to other species.” LINKS Find Michael Online Michael’s Website Michael’s Twitter Michael’s Free Ebook: Neural Networks and Deep Learning Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science Quantum Computation and Quantum Information Mentioned In the Show 2:12 Michael’s Essay Extreme Thinking 21:48 Photoshop 21:49 Microsoft Word 24:02 The David Bowie Exhibit 28:08 Google AI’s Deep Dream Images 29:26 Alpha Go 30:26 Brian Eno’s Infamous Airport Music 33:41 Listen to Speed of Life by Dirty South Books Mentioned 46:06 Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig 54:12 Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut People Mentioned 13:27 Rembrandt Van Rijn’s Artwork 15:01 Monet’s Gallery 15:02 Pierre Auguste Renoir’s Impressionist Art 15:05 Picasso’s Paintings 15:18 Paul Cezanne’s Post-Impressionist Art 25:40 David Brooke’s NYT Column 35:19 Franco of Cologne 56:58 Alan Kay’s Ted Talk on the future of education 57:04 Doug Engelbart 58:35 Karl Schroeder 01:02:06 Elon Musk’s Mars-bound company, SpaceX 01:04:25 Alex Tabarrok Show Topics 4:01 Michael’s North Star, which drives the direction of his research 5:32 Michael talks about how he sets his long-term goals and how he’s propelled by ideas he’s excited to see in the world. 7:13 The invention of language. Michael discusses human biology and how it’s easier to learn a language than writing or mathematics.  9:28 Michael talks about humanity’s ability to bootstrap itself. Examples include maps, planes, and photography  17:33 Limitations in media due to consolidation and the small number of communication platforms available to us  18:30 How self-driving cars and smartphones highlight the strange intersection where artificial intelligence meets human interaction and the possibilities that exist as technology improves 21:45 Why does Photoshop improve your editing skills, while Microsoft Word doesn’t improve your writing skills? 27:07 Michael’s opinion on how Artificial Intelligence can help people be more creative “Really good AI systems are going to depend upon building and currently depend on building very good models of different parts of the world, to the extent that we can then build tools to actually look in and see what those models are telling us about the world.”  30:22 The intersection of algorithms and creativity. Are algorithms the musicians of the future? 36:51 The emerging ability to create interactive visual representations of spreadsheets that are used in media, internally in companies, elections and more. “I’m interested in the shift from having media be predominantly static to dynamic, which the New York Times is a perfect example of. They can tell stories on newyorktimes.com that they can’t tell in the newspaper that gets delivered to your doorstep.” 45:42 The strategies Michael uses to successfully trail blaze uncharted territory and how they emulate building a sculpture   53:30 Michael’s learning and information consumption process, inspired by the idea that you are what you pretend to be 56:44 The foundation of Michael’s worldview. The people and ideas that have shaped and inspired Michael.  01:02:26 Michael’s hypothesis for the 21st century project involving blockchain and cryptocurrencies and their ability to make implementing marketplaces easier than ever before “The key point is that some of these cryptocurrencies actually, potentially, make it very easy to implement marketplaces. It’s plausible to me that the 21st century [project] turns out to be about [marketplaces]. It’s about inventing new types of markets, which really means inventing new types of collective action.” Host David Perell and Guest Michael Nielsen TRANSCRIPT Hello and welcome to the North Star. I'm your host, David Perell, the founder of North Star Media, and this is the North Star podcast. This show is a deep dive into the stories, habits, ideas, strategies, and rituals that guide fulfilled people and create enormous success for them, and while the guests are diverse, they share profound similarities. They're guided by purpose, live with intense joy, learn passionately, and see the world with a unique lens. With each episode, we get to jump into their minds, soak up their hard-earned wisdom and apply it to our lives. My guest today is Michael Nielson, a scientist, writer, and computer programmer, who works as a research fellow at Y Combinator Research. Michael's written on various topics from quantum teleportation to geometric complexity to the future of science, and now Michael is the most original thinker I've discovered in a long time. When it comes to artificial intelligence to augmenting human intelligence, reinventing explanation, or using new media to enable new ways of thinking, Michael has pushed my mind towards new and unexpected places. Now, this conversation gets a little wonky at times, but as you know, the best conversations are difficult. They're challenging because they venture into new, unexplored territory and that's exactly what we did here today. Michael and I explored the history of tools. This is an extension of human thought and we jump back to the invention of language, the defining feature of human collaboration and communication. We explore the future of data visualization and talk about the history of this spreadsheet as a tool for human thought. Here's my conversation with Michael Nielson. DAVID: Michael Nielson, welcome to the North Star Podcast. MICHAEL: Thank you, David. DAVID: So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. MICHAEL: So day to day, I'm a researcher at Y Combinator Research. I'm basically a reformed theoretical physicist. My original background is doing quantum computing work. And then I've moved around a bit over the years. I've worked on open science, I've worked on artificial intelligence and most of my current work is around tools for thought. DAVID: So you wrote an essay which I really enjoyed called Extreme Thinking. And in it, you said that one of the single most important principle of learning is having a strong sense of purpose and a strong sense of meaning. So let's be in there. What is that for you? MICHAEL: Okay. You've done your background. Haven't thought about that essay in years. God knows how long ago I wrote it. Having a strong sense of purpose. What did I actually mean? Let me kind of reboot my own thinking. It's, it's kind of the banal point of view. How much you want something really matters. There's this lovely interview with the physicist Richard Feynman, where he's asked about this Indian mathematical prodigy Ramanujan. A movie was made about Ramanujan’s mathematical prowess a couple of years ago. He was kind of this great genius. And a Feynman was asked what made Ramanujan so good. And the interview was expecting him to say something about how bright this guy was or whatever. And Feynman said instead, that it was desire. It was just that love of mathematics was at the heart of it. And he couldn't stop thinking about it and he was thinking about it. He was doing in many ways, I guess the hard things. It's very difficult to do the hard things that actually block you unless you have such a strong desire that you're willing to go through those things. Of course, I think you see that in all people who get really good at something, whether it be sort of a, just a skill like playing the violin or something, which is much more complicated. DAVID: So what is it for you? What is that sort of, I hate to say I want to just throw that out here, that North Star, so to speak, of what drives you in your research? MICHAEL: Research is funny. You go through these sort of down periods in which you don't necessarily have something driving you on. That used to really bother me early in my career. That was sort of a need to always be moving. But now I think that it's actually important to allow yourself to do that. That's actually how you find the problems, which really get, get you excited. If you don't sort of take those pauses, then you're not gonna find something that's really worth working on. I haven't actually answered your question. I think I know I've jumped to that other point because that's one thing that really matters to me and it was something that was hard to learn. DAVID: So one thing that I've been thinking a lot about recently is you sort of see it in companies. You see it in countries like Singapore, companies like Amazon and then something like the Long Now Foundation with like the 10,000-year clock. And I'm wondering to you in terms of learning, there's always sort of a tension between short-term learning and long-term learning. Like short-term learning so often is maybe trying to learn something that feels a little bit richer. So for me, that's reading, whereas maybe for a long-term learning project there are things I'd like to learn like Python. I'd like to learn some other things like that. And I'm wondering, do you set long-term learning goals for yourself or how would you think about that trade off? MICHAEL: I try to sit long-time learning goals to myself, in many ways against my better judgment. It's funny like you're very disconnected from you a year from now or five years from now, or 10 years from now. I can't remember, but Eisenhower or Bonaparte or somebody like that said that the planning is invaluable or planning plans are overrated, but planning is invaluable. And I think that's true. And this is the right sort of attitude to take towards these long-term lending goals. Sure. It's a great idea to decide that you're going out. Actually, I wouldn't say it was a great idea to say that you're going to learn python, I might say. However, there was a great idea to learn python if you had some project that you desperately wanted to do that it required you to learn python, then it's worth doing, otherwise stay away from python. I certainly favor, coupling learning stuff to projects that you're excited to actually see in the world. But also, then you may give stuff up, you don't become a master of python and instead you spend whatever, a hundred hours or so learning about it for this project that takes you a few hundred hours, and if you want to do a successor project which involves it, more of it. Great, you'll become better. And if you don't, well you move onto something else. DAVID: Right. Well now I want to dive into the thing that I'm most excited to talk to you about today and that's tools that extend human thought. And so let's start with the history of that. We'll go back sort of the history of tools and there's had great Walter Ong quote about how there are no new thoughts without new technologies. And maybe we can start there with maybe the invention of writing, the invention of mathematics and then work through that and work to where you see the future of human thought going with new technologies. MICHAEL: Actually, I mean before writing and mathematics, you have the invention of language, which is almost certainly the most significant single event in some ways. The history of the planet suddenly, you know, that's probably the defining feature of the human species as compared to other species. Um, I say invention, but it's not even really invention. There's certainly a lot of evidence to suggest that language is in some important sense built into our biology. Not the details of language. Um, but this second language acquisition device, it seems like every human is relatively very set to receive language. The actual details depend on the culture we grow up on. Obviously, you don't grow up speaking French if you were born in San Francisco and unless you were in a French-speaking household, some very interesting process of evolution going on there where you have something which is fundamentally a technology in some sense languages, humans, a human invention. It's something that's constructed. It's culturally carried. Um, it, there's all these connections between different words. There's almost sort of a graph of connections between the words if you like, or all sorts of interesting associations. So in that sense, it's a technology, something that's been constructed, but it's also something which has been over time built into our biology. Now if you look at later technologies of thought things like say mathematics, those are much, much later. That hasn't been the same sort of period of time. Those don't seem to be built into our biology in quite the same way. There's actually some hints of that we have some intrinsic sense of number and there's some sort of interesting experiments that suggest that we were built to do certain rudimentary kinds of mathematical reasoning but there's no, you know, section of the brain which specializes sort of from birth in solving quadratic equations, much less doing algebraic geometry or whatever, you know, super advanced. So it becomes this cultural thing over the last few thousand years, this kind of amazing process whereby we've started to bootstrap ourselves. If you think about something like say the invention of maps, which really has changed the way people relate to the environment. Initially, they were very rudimentary things. Um, and people just kept having new ideas for making maps more and more powerful as tools for thought. Okay. I can give you an example. You know, a very simple thing, if you've ever been to say the underground in London or most other subway systems around the world. It was actually the underground when this first happened, if you look at the map of the underground, I mean it's a very complicated map, but you can get pretty good at reasoning about how to get from one place to another. And if you look at maps prior to, I think it was 1936, in fact, the maps were much more complicated. And the reason was that mapmakers up to that point had the idea that where the stations were shown on the map had to correspond to the geography of London. Exactly. And then somebody involved in producing the underground map had just a brilliant insight that actually people don't care. They care about the connections between the stations and they want to know about the lines and they want some rough idea of the geography, but they're quite happy for it to be very rough indeed and he was able to dramatically simplify that map by simply doing away with any notion of exact geography. DAVID: Well, it's funny because I noticed the exact same thing in New York and so often you have insights when you see two things coming together. So I was on the subway coming home one day and I was looking at the map and I always thought that Manhattan was way smaller than Brooklyn, but on the subway map, Manhattan is actually the same size as Brooklyn. And in Manhattan where the majority of the subway action is, it takes up a disproportionate share of the New York City subway map. And then I went home to go read Power Broker, which is a book about Robert Moses building the highways and they had to scale map. And what I saw was that Brooklyn was way, way bigger than Manhattan. And from predominantly looking at subway maps. Actually, my topological geographical understanding of New York was flawed and I think exactly to your point. MICHAEL: It's interesting. When you think about what's going on there and what it is, is some person or a small group of people is thinking very hard about how to represent their understanding of the city and then the building, tools, sort of a technological tool of thought that actually then saves millions or in the case of a New York subway or the London underground, hundreds of millions or billions of people, mostly just seconds, sometimes, probably minutes. Like those maps would be substantially more complicated sort of every single day. So it's only a small difference. I mean, and it's just one invention, right? But, you know, our culture is of course accumulated thousands or millions of these inventions. DAVID: One of my other favorite ones from being a kid was I would always go on airplanes and I'd look at the route map and it would always show that the airplanes would fly over the North Pole, but on two-dimensional space that was never clear to me. And I remember being with my dad one night, we bought a globe and we took a rubber band and we stretched why it was actually shorter to fly over the North Pole, say if you're going from New York to India. And that was one of the first times in my life that I actually didn't realize it at the time, but understood exactly what I think you're trying to get at there. How about photography? Because that's another one that I think is really striking, vivid from the horse to slow motion to time lapses. MICHAEL: Photography I think is interesting in this vein in two separate ways. One is actually what it did to painting, which is of course painters have been getting more and more interested in being more and more realistic. And honestly, by the beginning of the 19th century, I think painting was pretty boring. Yeah, if you go back to say the 16th and 17th centuries, you have people who are already just astoundingly good at depicting things in a realistic fashion. To my mind, Rembrandt is probably still the best portrait painter in some sense to ever live. DAVID: And is that because he was the best at painting something that looked real? MICHAEL: I think he did something better than that. He did this very clever thing, you know, you will see a photograph or a picture of somebody and you'll say, oh, that really looks like them. And I think actually most of the time we, our minds almost construct this kind of composite image that we think of as what David looks like or what our mother looks like or whatever. But actually moment to moment, they mostly don't look like that. They mostly, you know, their faces a little bit more drawn or it's, you know, the skin color is a little bit different. And my guess, my theory of Rembrandt, is that he may have actually been very, very good at figuring out almost what that image was and actually capturing that. So, yeah, I mean this is purely hypothetical. I have no real reason to believe it, but I think it's why I responded so strongly to his paintings. DAVID: And then what happened? So after Rembrandt, what changed? MICHAEL: So like I said, you mean you keep going for a sort of another 200 years, people just keep getting more and more realistic in some sense. You have all the great landscape painters and then you have this catastrophe where photography comes along and all of a sudden you're being able to paint in a more and more realistic fashion. It doesn't seem like such a hot thing to be doing anymore. And if for some painters, I think this was a bit of a disaster, a bit of dose. I said of this modern wave, you start to see through people like Monet and Renoir. But then I think Picasso, for me anyway, was really the pivotal figure in realizing that actually what art could become, is the invention of completely new ways of seeing. And he starts to play inspired by Cezanne and others in really interesting ways with the construction of figures and such. Showing things from multiple angles in one painting and different points of view. And he just plays with hundreds of ideas along these lines, through all of his painting and how we see and what we see in how we actually construct reality in their heads from the images that we see. And he did so much of that. It really became something that I think a lot of artists, I'm not an artist or a sophisticated art theory person, but it became something that other people realized was actually an extraordinarily interesting thing to be doing. And much of the most interesting modern art is really a descendant of that understanding that it's a useful thing to be doing. A really interesting thing to be doing rather than becoming more and more realistic is actually finding more and more interesting ways of seeing and being able to represent the world. DAVID: So I think that the quote is attributed to Marshall McLuhan, but I have heard that Winston Churchill said it. And first, we shape our tools and then our tools shape us. And that seems to be sort of the foundation of a lot of the things that you're saying. MICHAEL: Yeah, that's absolutely right. I mean, on the other side, you also have, to your original question about photography. Photographers have gradually started to realize that they could shape how they saw nature. Ansel Adams and people like this, you know. Just what an eye. And understanding his tools so verbally he's not just capturing what you see. He's constructing stuff in really, really interesting ways. DAVID: And how about moving forward in terms of your work, thinking about where we are now to thinking about the future of technology. For example, one thing that frustrates me a bit as a podcast host is, you know, we just had this conversation about art and it's the limits of the audio medium to not be able to show the paintings of Rembrandt and Cezanne that we just alluded to. So as you think about jumping off of that, as you think about where we are now in terms of media to moving forward, what are some of the challenges that you see and the issues that you're grappling with? MICHAEL: One thing for sure, which I think inhibits a lot of exploration. We're trapped in a relatively small number of platforms. The web is this amazing thing as our phones, iOS and whatnot, but they're also pretty limited and that bothers me a little bit. Basically when you sort of narrow down to just a few platforms which have captured almost all of the attention, that's quite limiting. People also, they tend not to make their own hardware. They don't do these kinds of these kinds of things. If that were to change, I think that would certainly be exciting. Something that I think is very, very interesting over the next few years, artificial intelligence has gotten to the point now where we can do a pretty good job in understanding what's actually going on inside a room. Like we can set up sufficient cameras. If you think about something like self-driving cars, essentially what they're doing is they're building up a complete model of the environment and if that model is not pretty darned good, then you can't do self-driving cars, you need to know where the pedestrians are and where the signs are and all these kinds of things and if there's an obstruction and that technology when brought into, you know, the whole of the rest of the world means that you're pretty good at passing out. You know what's inside the room. Oh, there's a chair over there, there's a dog which is moving in that direction, there's a person, there’s a baby and sort of understanding all those actions and ideally starting to understand all the gestures which people are making as well. So we're in this very strange state right at the moment. Where the way we talk to computers is we have these tiny little rectangles and we talk to them through basically a square inch or so of sort of skin, which is our eyes. And then we, you know, we tap away with our fingers and the whole of the rest of our body and our existence is completely uncoupled from that. We've effectively reduced ourselves to our fingers and our eyes. We a couple to it only through the whatever, 100 square inches, couple hundred square inches of our screens or less if you're on a phone and everything else in the environment is gone. But we're actually at a point where we're nearly able to do an understanding of all of that sufficiently well that actually other modes of interaction will become possible. I don't think we're quite there yet, but we're pretty close. And you start to think about, something like one of my favorite sport is tennis. You think about what a tennis player can do with their body or you think about what a dancer can do with their body. It's just extraordinary. And all of that mode of being human and sort of understanding we can build up antibodies is completely shut out from the computing experience at the moment. And I think over the next sort of five to ten years that will start to reenter and then in the decades hence, it will just seem strange that it was ever shut out. DAVID: So help me understand this. So when you mean by start to reenter, do mean that we'll be able to control computers with other parts of our bodies or that we'll be spending less time maybe typing on keyboards. Help me flesh this out. MICHAEL: I just mean that at the moment. As you speak to David, you are waving your arms around and all sorts of interesting ways and there is no computer system which is aware of it, what your computer system is aware of. You're doing this recording. That's it. And even that, it doesn't understand in any sort of significant way. Once you've gained the ability to understand the environment. Lots of interesting things become possible. The obvious example, which everybody immediately understands is that self driving cars become possible. There's this sort of enormous capacity. But I think it's certainly reasonably likely that much more than that will become possible over the next 10 to 20 years. As your computer system becomes completely aware of your environment or as aware as you're willing to allow it to be. DAVID: You made a really interesting analogy in one of your essays about the difference between Photoshop and Microsoft Word. That was really fascinating to me because I know both programs pretty well. But to know Microsoft word doesn't necessarily mean that I'm a better writer. It actually doesn't mean that at all. But to know Photoshop well probably makes me pretty good at image manipulation. I'm sure there's more there, but if you could walk me through your thought process as you were thinking through that. I think that's really interesting. MICHAEL: So it's really about a difference in the type of tools which are built into the program. So in Photoshop, which I should say, I don't know that well, I know Word pretty well. I've certainly spent a lot more time in it than I have ever spent in Photoshop. But in Photoshop, you do have these very interesting tools which have been built in, which really condense an enormous amount of understanding of ideas like layers or an idea, different brushes, these kinds of ideas. There's just a tremendous amount of understanding which has been built in there. When I watch friends who are really good with these kinds of programs, what they can do with layers is just amazing. They understand all these kind of clever screening techniques. It seems like such a simple idea and yet they're able to do these things that let you do astonishing things just with sort of three or four apparently very simple operations. So in that sense, there are some very deep ideas about image manipulation, which had been built directly into Photoshop. By contrast, there's not really very many deep ideas about writing built into Microsoft Word. If you talk to writers about how they go about their actual craft and you say, well, you know, what heuristics do use to write stories and whatnot. Most of the ideas which they use aren't, you know, they don't correspond directly to any set of tools inside Word. Probably the one exception is ideas, like outlining. There are some tools which have been built into word and that's maybe an example where in fact Word does help the writer a little bit, but I don't think to nearly the same extent as Photoshop seems to. DAVID: I went to an awesome exhibit for David Bowie and one of the things that David but we did when he was writing songs was he had this word manipulator which would just throw him like 20, 30 words and the point wasn't that he would use those words. The point was that by getting words, his mind would then go to different places and so often when you're in my experience and clearly his, when you're trying to create something, it helps to just be thrown raw material at you rather than the perennial, oh my goodness, I'm looking at a white screen with like this clicking thing that is just terrifying, Word doesn't help you in that way. MICHAEL: So an example of something which does operate a little bit in that way, it was a Ph.D. thesis was somebody wrote at MIT about what was called the Remembrance Agent. And what it would do, it was a plugin essentially for a text editor that it would, look at what you are currently writing and it would search through your hard disk for documents that seemed like they might actually be relevant. Just kind of prompt you with what you're writing. Seems like it might be related to this or this or this or this or this. And to be perfectly honest, it didn't actually work all that well. I think mostly because the underlying machine learning algorithms it used weren't very clever. It's defunct now as far as I know. I tried to get it to run on my machine or a year or two ago and I couldn't get it running. It was still an interesting thing to do. It had exactly this same kind of the belly sort of experience. Even if they weren't terribly relevant. You kind of couldn't understand why on earth you are being shown it. It's still jogged your mind in an interesting way. DAVID: Yeah. I get a lot of help out of that. Actually, I’ll put this example. So David Brooks, you know the columnist for the New York Times. When he writes, what he does is he gets all of his notes and he just puts his notes on the floor and he literally crawls all around and tries to piece the notes together and so he's not even writing. He's just organizing ideas and it must really help him as it helps me to just have raw material and just organize it all in the same place. MICHAEL: There's a great British humorist, PG Boathouse, he supposedly wrote on I think it was the three by five-inch cards. He'd write a paragraph on each one, but he had supposedly a very complicated system in his office, well not complicated at all, but it must have looked amazing where he would basically paste the cards to the wall and as the quality of each paragraph rose, he would move the paragraph up the wall and I think the idea was something like once it got to the end, it was a lion or something, every paragraph in the book had to get above that line and at that point it was ready to go. DAVID: So I've been thinking a lot about sort of so often in normal media we take AI sort of on one side and art on another side. But I think that so many of the really interesting things that will emerge out of this as the collaboration between the two. And you've written a bit about art and AI, so how can maybe art or artificial intelligence help people be more creative in this way? MICHAEL: I think we still don't know the answer to the question, unfortunately. The hoped-for answer the answer that might turn out to be true. Real AI systems are going to build up very good models of different parts of the world, maybe better than any human has of those parts of the world. It might be the case, I don't know. It might be the case that something like the Google translate system, maybe in some sense that system already knows some facts about translation that would be pretty difficult to track down in any individual human mind and sort of so much about translation in some significant ways. I'm just speculating here. But if you can start to interrogate that understanding, it becomes a really useful sort of a prosthetic for human beings. If you've seen any of these amazing, well I guess probably the classics, the deep dream images that came out of Google brain a couple of years ago. Basically, you take ordinary images and you're sort of running them backwards through a neural net somehow. You're sort of seeing something about how the neural net sees that image. You get these very beautiful images as a result. There's something strange going on and sort of revealing about your own way of seeing the world. And at the same time, it's based on some structure which this neural net has discovered inside these images which is not ordinarily directly accessible to you. It's showing you that structure. So sort of I think the right way to think about this is that really good AI systems are going to depend upon building and do currently depend on building very good models of different parts of the world and to the extent that we can then build tools to actually look in and see what those models are telling us about the world, we can learn interesting new things which are useful for us. I think the conventional way, certainly the science fiction way to think about AI is that we're going to give it commands and it's going to do stuff. How you shut the whatever it is, the door or so on and so forth, and there was certainly will be a certain amount of that. Or with AlphaGo what is the best move to take now, but actually in some sense, with something like AlphaGo, it's probably more interesting to be able to look into it and see what it's understanding is of the board position than it is to ask what's the best move to be taken. A colleague showed me a go program, a prototype, what it would do. It was a very simple kind of a thing, but it would help train beginners. I think it was Go, but by essentially colorizing different parts of the board according to whether they were good or bad moves to be taking in its estimation. If you're a sophisticated player, it probably wasn't terribly helpful, but if you're just a beginner, there's an interesting kind of a conditioning going on there. At least potentially a which lets you start to see. You get a feeling for immediate feedback from. And all that's happening there is that you're seeing a little bit into one of these machine learning algorithms and that's maybe helping you see the world in a slightly different way. DAVID: As I was preparing for this podcast, you've liked a lot to Brian Eno and his work. So I spent as much time reading Brian Eno, which I'm super happy that I went down those rabbit holes. But one of the things that he said that was really interesting, so he's one of the fathers of ambient music and he said that a lot of art and especially music, there will sort of be algorithms where you sort of create an algorithm that to the listener might even sound better than what a human would produce. And he said two things that were interesting. The first one is that you create an algorithm and then a bunch of different musical forms could flower out of that algorithm. And then also said that often the art that algorithms create is more appealing to the viewer. But it takes some time to get there. And had the creator just followed their intuition. They probably would have never gotten there. MICHAEL: It certainly seems like it might be true. And that's the whole sort of interesting thing with that kind of computer-generated music is to, I think the creators of it often don't know where they're gonna end up. To be honest, I think my favorite music is all still by human composers. I do enjoy performances by people who live code. There's something really spectacular about that. So there are people who, they will set up the computer and hook it up to speakers and they will hook the text editor up to a projector and they'll have essentially usually a modified form of the programming language list a or people use a few different systems I guess. And they will write a program which producers music onstage and they'll just do it in real time and you know, it starts out sounding terrible of course. And that lasts for about 20 seconds and by about sort of 30 or 40 seconds in, already it's approaching the limits of complex, interesting music and I think even if you don't really have a clue what they're doing as they program, there's still something really hypnotic and interesting about watching them actually go through this process of creating music sort of both before your eyes and before your ears. It's a really interesting creative experience and sometimes quite beautiful. I think I suspect that if I just heard one of those pieces separately, I probably wouldn't do so much for me, but actually having a done in real time and sort of seeing the process of creation, it really changes the experience and makes it very, very interesting. And sometimes, I mean, sometimes it's just beautiful. That's the good moment, right? When clearly the person doing it has something beautiful happen. You feel something beautiful happen and everybody else around you feel something beautiful and spontaneous. It's just happened. That's quite a remarkable experience. Something really interesting is happening with the computer. It's not something that was anticipated by the creator. It arose out of an interaction between them and their machine. And it is actually beautiful. DAVID: Absolutely. Sort of on a similar vein, there's a song called Speed of Life by Dirty South. So I really liked electronic music, but what he does is he constructs a symphony, but he goes one layer at a time. It's about eight and a half minute song and he just goes layer after layer, after layer, after layer. And what's really cool about listening to it is you appreciate the depth of a piece of music that you would never be able to appreciate if you didn't have that. And also by being able to listen to it over and over again. Because before we had recording, you would only hear a certain piece of music live and one time. And so there are new forms that are bursting out of now because we listen to songs so often. MICHAEL: It's interesting to think, there's a sort of a history to that as well. If you go back, essentially modern systems for recording music, if you go back much more than a thousand years. And we didn't really have them. There's a multi-thousand-year history of recorded music. But a lot of the early technology was lost and it wasn't until sort of I think the eighth, ninth century that people started to do it again. But we didn't get all the way to button sheet music overnight. There was a whole lot of different inventions. For instance, the early representations didn't show absolute pitch. They didn't show the duration of the note. Those were ideas that had to be invented. So in I think it was 1026, somebody introduced the idea of actually showing a scale where you can have absolute pitch. And then a century or two after that, Franco of Cologne had the idea of representing duration. And so they said like tiny little things, but then you start to think about, well, what does that mean for the ability to compose music? It means now that actually, you can start to compose pieces, which for many, many, many different instruments. So you start to get the ability to have orchestral music. So you go from being able to basically you have to kind of instruct small groups of players that's the best you can hope to do and get them to practice together and whatever. So maybe you can do something like a piece for a relatively small number of people, but it's very hard to do something for an 80 piece orchestra. Right? So all of a sudden that kind of amazing orchestral music I think becomes possible. And then, you know, we're sort of in version 2.0 of that now where of course you can lay a thousand tracks on top of one another if you want. You get ideas like micropolyphony. And these things where you look at the score and it's just incredible, there are 10,000 notes in 10 seconds. DAVID: Well, to your point I was at a tea house in Berkeley on Monday right by UC Berkeley's campus and the people next to me, they were debating the musical notes that they were looking at but not listening to the music and it was evident that they both had such a clear ability to listen to music without even listening to it, that they could write the notes together and have this discussion and it was somebody who doesn't know so much about music. It was really impressive. MICHAEL: That sounds like a very interesting conversation. DAVID: I think it was. So one thing that I'm interested in and that sort of have this dream of, is I have a lot of friends in New York who do data visualization and sort of two things parallel. I have this vision of like remember the Harry Potter book where the newspaper comes alive and it becomes like a rich dynamic medium. So I have that compared with some immersive world that you can walk through and be able to like touch and move around data and I actually think there's some cool opportunities there and whatnot. But in terms of thinking about the future of being able to visualize numbers and the way that things change and whatnot. MICHAEL: I think it's a really complicated question like it actually needs to be broken down. So one thing, for example, I think it's one of the most interesting things you can do with computers. Lots of people never really get much experience playing with models and yet it's possible to do this. Now, basically, you can start to build very simple models. The example that a lot of people do get that they didn't use to get, is spreadsheets. So, you can sort of create a spreadsheet that is a simple model of your company or some organization or a country or of whatever. And the interesting thing about the spreadsheet is really that you can play with it. And it sort of, it's reactive in this interesting way. Anybody who spends as much time with spreadsheets is they start to build up hypotheses, oh, what would happen if I changed this number over here? How would it affect my bottom line? How would it affect the GDP of the country? How would it affect this? How would it affect that? And you know, as you kind of use it, you start to introduce, you start to make your model more complicated. If you're modeling some kind of a factory yet maybe you start to say, well, what would be the effect if a carbon tax was introduced? So you introduce some new column into the spreadsheet or maybe several extra columns into the spreadsheet and you start to ask questions, well, what would the structure of the carbon tax be? What would help you know, all these sorts of what if questions. And you start very incrementally to build up models. So this experience, of course, so many people take for granted. It was not an experience that almost anybody in the world had say 20 or 30 years ago. Well, spreadsheets data about 1980 or so, but this is certainly an experience that was extremely rare prior to 1980 and it's become a relatively common, but it hasn't made its way out into mass media. We don't as part of our everyday lives or the great majority of people don't have this experience of just exploring models. And I think it's one of the most interesting things which particularly the New York Times and to some extent some of the other newsrooms have done is they've started in a small way to build these models into the news reading experience. So, in particular, the data visualization team at the New York Times, people like Amanda Cox and others have done this really interesting thing where you start to get some of these models. You might have seen, for example, in the last few elections. They've built this very interesting model showing basically if you can sort of make choices about how different states will vote. So if such and such votes for Trump, what are Hillary's chances of winning the election. And you may have seen they have this sort of amazing interactive visualization of it where you can just go through and you can sort of look at the key swing states, what happens if Pennsylvania votes for so and so what happens if Florida does? And that's an example where they've built an enormous amount of sort of pulling information into this model and then you can play with it to build up some sort of understanding. And I mean, it's a very simple example. I certainly think that you know, normatively, we're not there yet. We don't actually have a shared understanding. There's very little shared language even around these models. You think about something like a map. A map is an incredibly sophisticated object, which however we will start learning from a very young age. And so we're actually really good at parsing them. We know if somebody shows us a map, how to engage, how to interpret it, how to use it. And if somebody just came from another planet, actually they need to learn all those things. How do you represent a road? How do you represent a shop on a map? How do you represent this or that, why do we know that up is north like that's a convention. All those kinds of things actually need to be learned and we learned them when we were small. With these kinds of things which the Times and other media outlets are trying to do, we lack all of that collective knowledge and so they're having to start from scratch and I think that over a couple of generations actually, they'll start to evolve a lot of conventions and people will start to take it for granted. But in a lot of contexts actually you're not just going to be given a narrative, you know, just going to be told sort of how some columnist thinks the world is. Instead, you'll actually expect to be given some kind of a model which you can play with. You can start to ask questions and sort of run your own hypotheses in much the same way as somebody who runs a business might actually set up a spreadsheet to model their business and ask interesting questions. It's not perfect. The model is certainly that the map is not the territory as they say, but it is nonetheless a different way of engaging rather than just having some expert tell you, oh, the world is this way. DAVID: I'm interested in sort of the shift from having media be predominantly static to dynamic, which the New York Times is a perfect example. They can tell stories on Newyorktimes.com that they can't tell in the newspaper that gets delivered to your doorstep. But what's really cool about spreadsheets that you're talking about is like when I use Excel, being able to go from numbers, so then different graphs and have the exact same data set, but some ways of visualizing that data totally clicked for me and sometimes nothing happens. MICHAEL: Sure. Yeah. And we're still in the early days of that too. There's so much sort of about literacy there. And I think so much about literacy is really about opportunity. People have been complaining essentially forever that the kids of today are not literate enough. But of course, once you actually provide people with the opportunity and a good reason to want to do something, then they can become very literate very quickly. I think basically going back to the rise of social media sort of 10 or 15 years ago, so Facebook around whatever, 2006, 2007 twitter a little bit later, and then all the other platforms which have come along since. They reward being a good writer. So all of a sudden a whole lot of people who normally wouldn't have necessarily been good writers are significantly more likely to become good writers. It depends on the platform. Certainly, Facebook is a relatively visual medium. Twitter probably helps. I think twitter and text messaging probably are actually good. Certainly, you're rewarded for being able to condense an awful lot into a small period. People complain that it's not good English, whatever that is. But I think I'm more interested in whether something is a virtuosic English than I am and whether or not it's grammatically correct. People are astonishingly good at that, but the same thing needs to start to happen with these kinds of models and with data visualizations and things like that. At the moment, you know, you have this priestly caste that makes a few of them and that's an interesting thing to be able to do, but it's not really part of the everyday experience of most people. It's an interesting question whether or not that's gonna change as it going to in the province of some small group of people, or will it actually become something that people just expect to be able to do? Spreadsheets are super interesting in that regard. They actually did. I think if you've talked to somebody in 1960 and said that by 2018, tens of millions of people around the world would be building sophisticated mathematical models as just part of their everyday life. It would've seemed absolutely ludicrous. But actually, that kind of model of literacy has become relatively common. I don't know whether we'll get to 8 billion people though. I think we probably will. DAVID: So when I was in high school I went to, what I like to say is the weirdest school in the weirdest city in America. I went to the weirdest high school in San Francisco and rather than teaching us math, they had us get in groups of three and four and they had us discover everything on our own. So we would have these things called problem sets and we would do about one a week and the teacher would come around and sort of help us every now and then. But the goal was really to get three or four people to think through every single problem. And they called it discovery-based learning, which you've also talked about too. So my question to you is we're really used to learning when the map is clear and it's clear what to do and you can sort of follow a set path, but you actually do the opposite. The map is unclear and you're actually trailblazing and charting new territory. What strategies do you have to sort of sense where to move? MICHAEL: There's sort of a precursor question which is how do you maintain your morale and the Robert Pirsig book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. He proposes a university subject, gumptionology 101. Gumption is almost the most important quality that we have. The ability to keep going when things don't seem very good. And mostly that's about having ways of being playful and ways of essentially not running out of ideas. Some of that is about a very interesting tension between having, being ambitious in what you'd like to achieve, but also being very willing to sort of celebrate the tiniest, tiniest, tiniest successes. Suddenly a lot of creative people I know I think really struggle with that. They might be very good at celebrating tiny successes but not have that significant ambitions, but they might be extremely ambitious, but because they're so ambitious, if an idea doesn't look Nobel prize worthy, they're not particularly interested in it. You know, they struggle with just kind of the goofing around and they often feel pretty bad because of course most days you're not at your best, you don't actually have the greatest idea. So there's some interesting tension to manage there. There's really two different types of work. One is where you have a pretty good goal, you know what success looks like, right? But you may also be doing something that's more like problem discovery where you don't even know where you're going. Typically if you're going to compose a piece of music. Well, I'm not a composer, but certainly, my understanding from, from friends who are, is that they don't necessarily start out with a very clear idea of where they're going. Some composers do, but a lot, it's a process of discovery. Actually, a publisher once told me somebody who has published a lot of well-known books that she described one of her authors as a writing for discovery. Like he didn't know what his book was going to be about, he had a bunch of kind of vague ideas and the whole point of writing the book was to actually figure out what it was that he wanted to say, what problem was he really interested in. So we'd start with some very, very good ideas and they kind of get gradually refined. And it was very interesting. I really liked his books and it was interesting to see that. They looked like they'd been very carefully planned and he really knew what he was doing and she told me that no, he'd sort of come in and chat with her and be like, well, I'm sort of interested over here. And he'd have phrases and sort of ideas. But he didn't actually have a clear plan and then he'd get through this process of several years of gradually figuring out what it was that he wanted to say. And often the most significant themes wouldn't actually emerge until relatively late in that whole process. I asked another actually quite a well-known writer, I just bumped into when he was, he was reporting a story for a major magazine and I think he'd been working, he'd been reporting for two weeks, I think at that point. So just out interviewing people and whatever. And I said, how's it going? And he said, Oh yeah, pretty good. I said, what's your story about? He said, I don't know yet, which I thought was very interesting. He had a subject, he was following a person around. But he didn't actually know what his story was. DAVID: So the analogy that I have in my head as you're talking about this, it's like sculpture, right? Where you start maybe with a big thing of granite or whatnot, and slowly but surely you're carving the stone or whatnot and you're trying to come up with a form. But so often maybe it's the little details at the end that are so far removed from that piece of stone at the very beginning that make a sculpture exceptional. MICHAEL: Indeed. And you wonder what's going on. I haven't done sculpture. I've done a lot of writing and writing often feels so sometimes I know what I want to say. Those are the easy pieces to write, but more often it's writing for discovery and there you need to be very happy celebrating tiny improvements. I mean just fixing a word needs to be an event you actually enjoy, if not, the process will be an absolute nightmare. But then there's this sort of instinct where you realize, oh, that's a phrase that A: I should really refine and B: it might actually be the key to making this whole thing work and that seems to be a very instinctive kind of a process. Something that you, if you write enough, you start to get some sense of what actually works for you in those ways. The recognition is really hard. It's very tempting to just discount yourself. Like to not notice when you have a good phrase or something like that and sort of contrary wise sometimes to hang onto your darlings too long. You have the idea that you think it's about and it's actually wrong. DAVID: Why do you write and why do you choose the medium of writing to think through things sometimes? I know that you choose other ones as well. MICHAEL: Writing has this beautiful quality that you can improve your thoughts. That's really helpful. A friend of mine who makes very popular YouTube videos about mathematics has said to me that he doesn't really feel like people are learning much mathematics from them. Instead, it's almost a form of advertising like they get some sense of what it is. They know that it's very beautiful. They get excited. All those things are very important and matter a lot to him, but he believes that only a tiny, tiny number of people are actually really understanding much detail at all. There's actually a small group who have apparently do kind of. They have a way of processing video that lets them understand. DAVID: Also, I think you probably have to, with something like math, I've been trying to learn economics online and with something like math or economics that's a bit complex and difficult, you have to go back and re-watch and re-watch, but I think that there's a human tendency to want to watch more and more and more and it's hard to learn that way. You actually have to watch things again. MICHAEL: Absolutely. Totally. And you know, I have a friend who when he listens to podcasts, if he doesn't understand something, he, he rewinds it 30 seconds. But most people just don't have that discipline. Of course, you want to keep going. So I think the written word for most people is a little bit easier if they want to do that kind of detailed understanding. It's more random access to start with. It's easier to kind of skip around and to concentrate and say, well, I didn't really get that sentence. I'm going to think about it a little bit more, or yeah, I can see what's going to happen in those two or three paragraphs. I'll just very quickly skip through them. It's more built for that kind of detailed understanding, so you're getting really two very different experiences. In the case of the video, very often really what you're getting is principally an emotional experience with some bits and pieces of understanding tacked on with the written word. Often a lot of that emotion is stripped out, which makes can make it much harder to motivate yourself. You need that sort of emotional connection to the material, but it is actually, I think a great deal easier to understand sort of the details of it. There's a real kind of choice to be to be made. There's also the fact that people just seem to respond better to videos. If you want a large audience, you're probably better off making YouTube videos than you are publishing essays. DAVID: My last question to you, as somebody who admires your pace and speed of learning and what's been really fun about preparing for this podcast and come across your work is I really do feel like I've accessed a new perspective on the world which is really cool and I get excited probably most excited when I come across thinkers who don't think like anyone who I've come across before, so I'm asking to you first of all, how do you think about your learning process and what you consume and second of all, who have been the people and the ideas that have really formed the foundation of your thought? MICHAEL: A Kurt Vonnegut quote from his book, I think it's Cat's Cradle. He says, we become what we pretend to be, so you must be careful what we pretend to be and I think there's something closely analogously true, which is that we become what we pay attention to, so we should be careful what we pay attention to and that means being fairly careful how you curate your information diet. There's a lot of things. There's a lot of mistakes I've made. Paying attention to angry people is not very good. I think ideas like the filter bubble, for example, are actually bad ideas. And for the most part, it sounds virtuous to say, oh, I'm going to pay attention to people who disagree with me politically and whatever. Well, okay, there's a certain amount of truth to that. It's a good idea probably to pay attention to the very best arguments from the very best exponents of the other different political views. So sure, seek those people out, but you don't need to seek out the random person who has a different political view from you. And that's how most people actually interpret that kind of injunction. They, they're not looking for the very best alternate points of view. So that's something you need to be careful about. There's a whole lot of things like that I enjoy. So for example, I think one person, it's interesting on twitter to look, he's, he's no longer active but he's still following people is Marc Andreessen and I think he follows, it's like 18,000 people or something and it's really interesting just to look through the list of followers because it's all over the map and much of it I wouldn't find interesting at all, but you'll find the strangest corners people in sort of remote villages in India and people doing really interesting things in South Africa. Okay. So he's a venture capitalist but they're not connected to venture capital at all. So many of them, they're just doing interesting things all over the world and I wouldn't advocate doing the same thing. You kind of need to cultivate your own tastes and your own interests. But there's something very interesting about that sort of capitalist city of interests and curiosity about the world, which I think is probably very good for almost anybody to cultivate. I haven't really answered your question. DAVID: I do want to ask who were the people or the ideas or the areas of the world that have really shaped and inspired your thinking because I'm asking selfishly because I want to go down those rabbit holes. MICHAEL: Alright. A couple of people, Alan Kay and Doug Engelbart, who are two of the people who really developed the idea of what a computer might be. In the 1950's and 60's, people mostly thought computers were machines for solving mathematical problems, predicting the weather next week, computing artillery tables, doing these kinds of things. And they understood that actually there could be devices which humans would use for themselves to solve their own problems. That would be sort of almost personal prosthetics for the mind. They'd be new media. We could use to think with and a lot of their best ideas I think out there, there's still this kind of vision for the future. And if you look particularly at some of Alan Kay's talks, there's still a lot of interesting ideas there. DAVID: That the perspective is worth 80 IQ points. That's still true. MICHAEL: For example, the best way to predict the future is to invent it, right? He's actually, he's got a real gift for coming up with piddly little things, but there's also quite deep ideas. They're not two-year projects or five-year projects, they're thousand year projects or an entire civilization. And we're just getting started on them. I think that's true. Actually. It's in general, maybe that's an interesting variation question, which is, you know, what are the thousand year projects? A friend of mine, Cal Schroeder, who's a science fiction writer, has this term, The Project, which he uses to organize some of his thinking about science fictional civilizations. So The Project is whatever a civilization is currently doing, which possibly no member of the civilization is even aware of. So you might ask the question, what was the project for our planet in the 20th century? I think one plausible answer might be, for example, it was actually eliminating infectious diseases. You think about things like polio and smallpox and so many of these diseases were huge things at the start of the 20th century and they become much, much smaller by the end of the 20th century. Obviously AIDS is this terrible disease, but in fact, by historical comparison, even something like the Spanish flu, it's actually relatively small. I think it's several hundred million people it may have killed. Maybe that was actually the project for human civilization in the 20th century. I think it's interesting to think about those kinds of questions and sort of the, you know, where are the people who are sort of most connected to those? So I certainly think Doug Engelbart and Alan Kay. DAVID: Talk about Doug Engelbart, I know nothing about him. MICHAEL: So Engelbart is the person who I think more than anybody invented modern computing. He did this famous demo in 1968, 1969. It's often called the mother of all demos, in front of an audience of a thousand people I believe. Quite a while since I've watched it and it demonstrates a windowing system and what looks like a modern word processor, but it's not just a word processor. They're actually hooked up remotely to a person in another location and they're actually collaborating in real time. And it's the first public showing I believe of the mouse and of all these different sorts of ideas. And you look at other images of computers at the time and they're these giant machines with tapes and whatever. And here's this vision that looks a lot more like sort of Microsoft Windows and a than anything else. And it's got all these things like real-time collaboration between people in different locations that we really didn't have at scale until relatively recently. And he lays out a huge fraction of these ideas in 1962 in a paper he wrote then. But that paper is another one of these huge things. He's asking questions that you don't answer over two years or five years. You answer over a thousand years. I think it's Augmenting Human Intellect is the title of that paper. So he's certainly somebody else that I think is a very interesting thinker. There's something really interesting about the ability to ask an enormous question, but then actually to have other questions at every scale. So you know what to do in the next 10 minutes that will move you a little bit towar

When it comes down to it, who is there that I can really rely on? ​

Julie Hunt is a speaker, author, and creator of Smart Kids 101. In her new book, I'm About to Get Up!: Persevering Through Loss and Grief, she shares her account of overcoming the ultimate in despair. "God is good all the time, and all the time God is good." Julie Hunt: A devoted wife to Kye of 11 years, a mother to two beautiful children, and together they are blest as a blended family with 7 adult children and 3 grandchildren. When she decided to become a stay-at-home mother, she created Smart Kids 101 (a DVD-based life skills curriculum for kids). Julie has educated over 25,000 children. "Do not gloat over me, my enemy. Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light." ~ Micah 7:8 BOOK: I'm About to Get Up! Persevering through Loss and Grief Enjoy the multitude of topics discussed including loss and grief. You'll discover many gems of wisdom throughout this coffee chat. Tears were shared. Hope ignited. Sit back and let yourself hear how grace is sufficient! Wife, step-mother, grandmother too. The Rainy Day Coffee Love of her life The dreadful call Prayer Confidence Swirl of thoughts Not knowing Insecurity Realist The Wedding Band Life and Death Saying goodbye No regrets Faith Grace Valley of Death Nashville Country Scene Television Production Smart Kids 101 Funeral Pit of Grief Caring for others Loss Grandfather's death Boyfriend's death Brutal murder of best friend Unstable ground The Ultimate Despair Hurt Widow A Newly-Wed The Mask Emotional stability Grieving the Loss Orphan thoughts Disappointment Love Christian posture Scars Nichole Nordeman "Legacy" Father heart message Writing her life's message Walking in the prayers BOOK: I'm About to Get Up! Persevering through Loss and Grief "For the death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart." ~ Ecclesiastes 7:2b  Quotes and statements within the interview: "It's the little things you can build a marriage on." "We were an All-American family." "I knew it probably wasn't good, but I was trusting God." "This will be ok because God is good." "That was such a gift that they forgot." "I went into mother bear protection mode." "My confidence was in the Lord." "Get your sword out and fight." "I felt a squeeze and saw a squeeze." "It forever changed me." "You just don't know how to walk these things out. You just take the Lord Jesus' hand and do the best you can." "I'm always going to swing for Christ." "I have a big God and I dream big!" "I knew that God was bigger and I couldn't limit Him." "It just doesn't go away." "Grief has its own timetable." "Putting them at the cross of Jesus is what heals all wounds." "It's not until I got still and got real that I started addressing those gaping wounds of my own heart." "I was an emotional mess!" "But what the deficit was that I didn't understand was fully His love for me." "Grace is sufficient." "We were created to have a relationship with God."   What would you tell someone struggling with loss and grief? Get real with your pain. Have that conversation with God. Pour out your heart, real and honest. What has your story gifted you? My testimony "My testimony is going to unlock prison doors and set people free." Resources mentioned in the episode: Connect with Julie Hunt; http://thejuliehunt.com NEW BOOK - I'm About to Get Up! Persevering through Loss and Grief Facebook: facebook.com/TheJulieHunt Instagram: instagram.com/thejuliehunt Twitter: twitter.com/thejuliehunt Memorial Video of David   "One step at a time leads to miles of greatness!" Ready to see if coaching and a mentorship is for you? It's time you TAKE A.I.M. ~ Action Ignites Motivation. This is FREE for you. Stop trying to do it by yourself. Invest in YOU! You are worth the time!!!   ANNOUNCEMENT: Ready to shine your light and tell your story. Please click on MY STRENGTH IS MY STORY. Here you can submit yourself to appear on the podcast or make recommendations as who you would like to hear. This is going to be a beautiful series!   Listen to Create Your Now on iHeart Radio. Click here. The Create Your Now Archives are LIVE!! You can subscribe and listen to all the previous episodes here.  http://bit.ly/CYNarchive1 and http://bit.ly/CYNarchive2   PERISCOPE USERS!!! Click here for ANDROID Users / GOOGLE  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tv.periscope.android Click here for APPLE Users  https://itunes.apple.com/app/id972909677   THE NO FUSS MEAL PLAN Twitter@KristianneWargo@CreateYourNow Facebookwww.facebook.com/TheKISSCoach www.facebook.com/CreateYourNow Contact me at YourBestSelfie@CreateYourNow.com Read more from Kristianne, a contributor to The Huffington Post, MindBodyGreen, and She Owns It. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristianne-wargo/ http://www.mindbodygreen.com/search?q=kristianne+wargo   DOMESTIC BEAUTIES (Announcements) 1. Come and let's connect on Facebook - Women Of IMPACT  http://facebook.com/groups/thewomenofimpact 2. Create Your Now ~ Your Best Selfie can be heard on iHeart Radio!  3. Create Your Now Archive 1 is LIVE! You can subscribe and listen to all the previous episodes here. http://bit.ly/CYNarchive1 4. Create Your Now Archive 2 is LIVE! You can subscribe and listen to all the previous episodes here. http://bit.ly/CYNarchive2 5. NEW Website! Go check it out and tell me what you think. http://www.createyournow.com 6. Sign Up for The A.I.M. Academy! You will be the first to learn all about it. http://createyournow.com/m-academy-2 7. Schedule a Discovery Call. This is a free 30-45 minute call for those serious about coaching with me. 8. Newsletter and Library: If you desire to get weekly emails,be sure to sign up here so you can stay connected. http://createyournow.com/library   Music by Mandisa - Overcomer http://www.mandisaofficial.com   Cover Art by Jenny Hamson

There have been many atrocities over the course of human history – with few like World War 1. War isn’t for everyone (obviously), but which characters would fare the worst through the horrors of WW1? Neil ensures ACME profits continue to rise, Tull throws an alcoholic onto the frontlines and new guest Marcus curbs his enthusiasm. Meanwhile, Isla tries to settle in to her new home under Flint’s care and Randall Jnr. begins to have his doubts. FOLLOW OFF-PISTE: FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/offpistepodcast/ TWITTER: twitter.com/offpistepodcast YOUTUBE: http://bit.ly/2cxPrlZ EMAIL US: offpistepodcast@gmail.com

We're continuing our conversation with David Rosenvall.  He's the guy who came up with the idea that the Book of Mormon lands may have occurred in the Baja Peninsula.  I've also asked him to critique John L. Sorenson's theory.  Sorenson has the dominant theory where the Book of Mormon took place in Central America.  I'll ask David to critique John's theory. David:  One of the things that I think the Mesoamerican models do is they focus very much on the human geography, and I think they've done a really good job at identifying things in Mesoamerica that can be tied back to the Book of Mormon culturally: language perhaps, structures, some of those types of things.  Where they get in trouble is where they try to place the physical geography on top of that, things start turning sideways, distances and so forth, you get all sideways. GT:  Well let's talk about that for a second. David:  You bet. GT:  To me that's one of the biggest problems.  When you think of North and South America, well north and south makes a lot of sense.  But when you get to Mesoamerica, the narrow neck of land is actually situated east and west.  It's not north and south. David:  Yeah, so the orientation is a problem.  One thing we do in the text is we assume it was given to us by the gift and power of God.  We don't need to retranslate it.  If it says east, it's east.  If it's west, it's west.  If the swords rusted, they're made of steel.  Animals are the animals stated and so forth. When you get into some of the other geography, you're having to rotate things and stretch distances.  That's ok; let them work that out.  But our model is, what does the text say?  And apply it using the science we know today.  We find a location that can fit.  That's the basis.  That's it.  Read the text and use science to try to review it. There is a post at Wheat and Tares where someone explains why Sorenson's model is ok. I also want to point to an area that David has focused on is the area of language. There's a great work done by Brian Stubbs that has followed the language of some of these people.  He's tied a group of Native Americans called Uto-Aztecan people, identified by their language and you can see how they have moved and they ended up as the Aztecs in Central America.  If that's who are the Book of Mormon people, you would see their culture where they were found when the Europeans found them.  But trace them back to where their language came from and you'll find it's southern California and northern Baja. We'll talk more about language in a future episode, but let me ask you.  Do you see think the east-west orientation is a problem for Sorenson's model?  What do you think of the Baja model? Check out David's introduction to the theory in the previous post, and check out the video below or audio above.  Don't forget there are less than two weeks to sign up for the free book! https://youtu.be/xx6_thStKWY  

Introduction: Kelly Coughlin is CEO of BankBosun, a management consulting firm helping bank C-Level Officers navigate risk and discover reward. He is the host of the syndicated audio podcast, BankBosun.com. Kelly brings over 25 years of experience with companies like PWC, Lloyds Bank, and Merrill Lynch. On the podcast Kelly interviews key executives in the banking ecosystem to provide bank C-Suite officers, risk management, technology, and investment ideas and solutions to help them navigate risks and discover rewards.   And now your host, Kelly Coughlin.   Kelly: Good morning. This is Kelly Coughlin. I've got David Shoemaker on the line. We’re going to do a podcast with David. He's the President of Equias Alliance.   David: Good morning.   Kelly: Good morning David. How you doing?   David: I am well.   Kelly: Just to kind of lay the foundation here I thought we’d talk very briefly about my relationship with David and Equias. As David knows, I'm a CPA. I've been in the investment and banking ecosystem for many years and as part of a consulting gig about a year and a half ago I came across the BOLI industry, the bank owned life insurance industry, and then Equias Alliance. I decided at that time, after looking at this asset class, that this is a space I wanted to get into. And I looked at the competitors, once I decided I liked the product, and decided who are the competitors, Equias, in my mind, rose above everybody else out there.     It wasn’t just me that thought that. I believe American Bankers Association selected Equias as their endorsed vendor. I think another dozen or state banking associations also selected them. Is that a fair statement?   David: Ten of them.   Kelly: Ten, clearly they emerged in my mind and in other’s mind as the key player out there. I met with David and I found him to be a key player in the industry, so I thought I'd do a podcast disclosing that I have an independent consultant relationship with David’s company, Equias. I thought we’d do a podcast and talk about first of all just give us a brief background on who you are, how you got into this space, some background and then we’ll talk about the product generally and how you got into this space and what your take is on that. You want to kick it off with some brief bio on who you are?   David: I graduated from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, with a major in accounting, then worked for Deloitte Touche for nine years and an investment banking firm for three years. Then, while I was in investment banking, one of my clients was looking at an insurance product and asked me to help evaluate it knowing that I was a CPA technical type.     I liked what I saw, but what I didn’t like was that, it had a four percent front-end load charge. I thought it was a good asset class, but if we could get rid of the load charge we could make it very viable for banks to want to use as an asset class. I've been in bank owned life insurance and nonqualified differed comp for the last twenty-seven years now. I've worked with hundreds of banks over that period of time. I live in Memphis. I have a wife and six children. There’s a lot to do on a daily basis just keeping up with the family.   Kelly: All right, taking from your statement that you saw what was going in the market, the four percent front-end load. Let's elaborate on that because my understanding based on discussion with others including yourself is that you were one of the early pioneers of crafting the product offering as it is right now. What was the need in the market at that time? Give us a general year when that was. Then, where was the gap in products available and the products needed by the bank? What did you see at that time?   David: The year was 1989. There were several products available in the market, but they all had loads of between two and four percent. That means if you purchased a million dollars of BOLI asset and you had even a two percent load that was a $20,000 initial reduction of your cash value. You’d have to reduce your earnings and capital by $20,000 per million. I saw that as a hindrance to banks wanting to buy that asset.     So my partner at the time, who was an attorney, and I decided we could go to insurance carriers and see if they could provide a product that had no-loads which would be more viable for a bank. During that process we found that there's more to it than we’d initially understood. The carriers have to pay a premium tax to the state which generally averages about two percent. Then the federal government has a tax called the DAC or Deferred Acquisition Cost tax that effectively costs around a point and a quarter.     Carriers at time were not comfortable with essentially front ending that asset to give a hundred percent credit after they paid the taxes because they would potentially lose the money if the policy didn’t remain on the books. It took a fair amount of discussion and a fair amount of time, but my partner and I were able to convince four carriers to do no-load contracts.     At that time, I guess there were two other firms that we knew of in the business. They were Bank Compensation Strategies who pioneered the business and then there was Benmark. They were the primary players in, it wasn’t called BOLI then, the bank owned life insurance market. The need for it was to find a product that was viable to banks that didn’t have these loads charges and the idea behind it, back in that day, was primarily to fund nonqualified, deferred compensation plans for management and Boards of banks.   Kelly: That was the primary need for the product, not as an investment per se, but to help fund the nonqualified benefit portion.   David: Yes, to maybe take it a step further. There were not really any regs back until 1991 that were clear as to what a bank could purchase and couldn’t purchase. They could not buy life insurance as an investment asset. They could buy it to fund specific needs. A nonqualified, deferred comp plan was widely considered to be one of those specific items that could be funded with life insurance. It was not clear at the time that you could buy life insurance to informally fund health care and 401K and other retirement benefits and group life benefits and so forth.     Even in the first regs that were issued in 1991, bank reg; I think it’s called BC249, essentially said that you can’t buy life insurance as an investment. You can buy it to offset the cost of certain benefit plans. Even then it wasn’t clear whether that covered health care and 401Ks and things like that, so the initial design of bank owned life insurance was primarily for the purpose of nonqualified deferred compensation plans.   Kelly: The regs specifically prohibited it as an alternative investment asset class. Is that mainly because of that front-end charge and regulators didn’t want to see the hit to capital?   David: That was not the reason. They just viewed life insurance as not a normal asset for a bank from an investment standpoint. It was for specific purposes, but not considered to be an investment in the same terms as Treasury’s and agencies and municipal bonds.   Kelly: Now, that has changed since those early years correct that regulatory perspective?   David: Technically no, in 1996 there was a guidance issued under OCC96-51 which specifically gave authority for a bank to buy life insurance to informally fund retirement benefits and health care. So even today you can't buy life insurance purely as an investment. You have to purchase it from a regulatory standpoint to offset and/or recover the cost of employee benefit plans.     For instance, if a bank had no employee benefit plans; if they weren’t providing health care or 401K’s or retirement plans or nonqualified plans, they really could not buy life insurance and hold onto it until the death of the insured because they would not have a valid reason under the regs to buy that life insurance.   Kelly: They could only buy like Key Man life insurance.   David: They could buy the Key Man, but when that Key Man would leave the bank they’d have to surrender the policy because there was no need for it once that key man left.   Kelly: A bank does not have to have a nonqualified benefit plan. It could just have any sort of benefit plan. It could be health insurance. It could be 401K, any sort of benefit, correct?   David: That's correct, as long as they're providing employee benefits. From experience, if a bank provides health care coverage typically the cost of health care in today’s market is so high that health care alone is enough to justify buying bank owned life insurance generally up to twenty-five percent of capital.   Kelly: Right, so do you see BOLI as primarily an alternative asset class or an insurance product with investment benefits or does it kind of depend on what the needs of the bank are?   David: I would say it depends on the needs of the bank. I'd say it probably leans more toward the alternative asset class in that you look at the features of bank owned life insurance as a tool to produce earnings that would help the bottom line and help recover employee benefit expenses. BOLI has features that are attractive from that standpoint.   Kelly: As an alternative asset class, and I know you and I've had this discussion offline a couple times, if you consider the investment features as an alternative asset class what asset class does BOLI compete against best or worst I suppose? Where do you think, if you were a bank and they liked the features and benefits of BOLI and they need as a replacement. What asset do you think it replaces best MUNI’s, agencies, loans? As I see it, it could be a loan to an insurance company. Where do you see it?   David: It's hard to say that BOLI replaces any particular investment because the features are different than all the other asset classes that are traditional for a bank. If you go down that path and talk about, for instance, BOLI versus MUNI’s there is some common characteristics in that they both have income that's not taxable that helps produce generally higher returns than most taxable asset classes.     There are a lot of differences in those two asset classes, for instance, MUNI’s generally have a fixed rate interest rate, whereas BOLI is an adjustable interest rate. The credit quality of both are high. The BOLI carriers tend to be large, very well-known, highly rated carriers, so very strong credit quality. BOLI has no mark to market in the asset, that in reporting periods whereas municipal bonds generally have to do a mark to market of capital through the OTTI adjustment. BOLI essentially doesn’t have a diminution of value when rates rise whereas municipal bonds could.     Now, from the value of municipal bonds relative to BOLI is that it's always tax-free rather than tax deferred. BOLI’s tax deferred technically, but if held until death its tax free. If you surrender a BOLI contract before maturity, before the person dies, you have a tax liability for the gain plus an extra ten percent for the it’s called a modified endowment contract penalty. BOLI effectively has minimal liquidity from the standpoint of once you buy it you intend to hold it until death, because you don’t want to incur the tax liability.     Whereas a municipal bond if you decided to sell that you would still retain all the income that you've earned to that point tax free. Sometimes banks put municipal bonds in the hold to maturity buckets so they can't really sell the bond; it becomes an illiquid asset for them as well. There's some pros and cons to each, but BOLI does hold up well generally considering the pros and cons of it to any of the asset classes.   Kelly: But, especially MUNI’s.   David: Yes, I think from that standpoint rather than one versus the other it might be some combination of the two for diversification.   Kelly: From my perspective, I see MUNI yields to get higher yield you have to extend duration, so you look at the risk of extending duration versus investing some assets in bank owned life insurance. I've only been doing this for a year now. It’s seems that like half the banks have BOLI on the balance sheet and half don’t.     From my perspective, it's kind of a CPA, risk manager, investment person I don’t really see why a bank wouldn’t max out their twenty-five percent of net capital. Now, that sounds pretty self-serving I know, but in your experience what's the single biggest reason for a bank to not include BOLI in its assets class, because there certainly is a reasonable amount of bias and hesitancy for Boards and CFO’s to get BOLI. What's the single biggest reason that you see for a bank to not include it in their asset class?   David: The stats on BOLI are that sixty percent of the banks across the country have BOLI and forty percent don’t. For banks over a hundred million it's about two-thirds that have BOLI and one-third that don’t. It’s fairly common for banks above one hundred million to have an investment in bank owned life insurance. For those that don’t, it generally falls into one of two to three reasons.     Probably the most prevalent is a bank that has high loan demand. The bank wants to make loans to its local market because that helps build franchise value. If they have high loan demands, say their loan to deposit ratio is over a hundred percent, they may not have the liquidity to hold BOLI at the current time. All their attention and all their liquidity is going into making loans. While BOLI competes with loans well on the yield side, the tax equivalent yield side, banks tend to want to have loans for building the franchise value versus owning bank owned life insurance. If they have the option, they're going it put it into loans rather than BOLI assuming they feel comfortable with the credit quality of those loans. That's probably the biggest reason.     Number two is that some banks don’t fully understand the asset, haven’t taken the time to fully understand it. The pros and cons and features of BOLI is not traditional with a lot of banks. There's this uncertainty about something that's not traditional. They may think “We haven’t done that before and I don’t want to take the time to learn pros and cons.” Maybe they’ve had a presentation and it wasn’t presented in a way that made it clear what the pros and cons are. They maybe saw it as too much of a sales push instead of laying out all the pros and all the cons kind of thing.     Keep in mind that for BOLI to be approved by a bank it generally requires a hundred percent agreement, meaning you must have the CFO of the bank, the CEO of the bank and usually everybody on the Board to be in unison that they want to buy BOLI. You can have one person dissent out of ten, for instance, and that could keep it from happening.   Kelly: Why is unanimity required?   David: It’s not required. It's just generally the way it is. First off, if you don’t have the CEO and CFO on board it probably won't go to the Board. You need both of them. The Board, they normally just don’t want BOLI to be something that causes dissention among the Board members. That's not always the case, but typically they need all Board members or at least eighty to ninety percent approval before they would invest in the asset. I haven’t really run into it, but I don’t think you’ll see BOLI being approved on a five to four vote.   Kelly: Yeah, but that would be true with just about any asset class. Let's say the bank wanted to, the CFO proposed extending duration. Don’t you think that unanimity would be expected or the same standard would be expected for that decision to extend municipal bond duration versus like in a BOLI decision?   David: Yes, I would think so. On investments they have their investment policy that's been approved by the Board and that decision would have to be made within the investment policy about extending duration. Yes, I would think you would need a very high approval rate of the Board members before you would change the investment the policy to do something that effectively increases the risk.   Kelly: Do you see BOLI as being subject to…say within the scope of the banks investment policy in your experience?   David: No, BOLI has its own policy. One of the requirements under the regs is that you have to have a BOLI policy before you can purchase it. You would establish a bank owned life insurance policy; in a sense it's an investment policy for BOLI all to its own. It explains within the policy the bank’s view of BOLI; the percentage of capital that the bank would be willing to purchase; the percent to any one carrier; the due diligence that would be done before purchase; carrier selection; vendor selection. How would they go about deciding which carriers, which vendors and so forth? That all has to be documented in a policy before the bank can even go about purchasing a BOLI product.   Kelly: The bank either includes that as a chapter within the investment policy or they have it as its own separate investment policy.   David: I have pretty much only seen it as its own separate policy. If they include it within the investment policy it would be its own chapter. It's fairly lengthy. It's usually ten - fifteen pages of policy all to itself.   Kelly: How has the industry changed since the early years?   David: In the early years, I guess from a salesperson’s standpoint the hard part was to get a bank to talk to you about BOLI because it just wasn’t common and owning life insurance as an asset was not normal. It was outside the box and a lot of bankers didn’t want to discuss doing something that was outside the box. The biggest hurdle was getting the audience.     Today, most banks know about BOLI so they've heard about it and they have had many, many sales calls about it. Other banks they know have purchased it, so they understand at least the term and what it is. Now, there are just a whole lot of sales calls from insurance sales folks asking about BOLI. They're aware of it. It's just very, very competitive and maybe difficult for the bankers to understand the difference in firm A versus firm B.     The other way that's changed, when I started doing this the only products available were what's called general account products where the carrier provides a universal life insurance product or some whole life products that have an interest rate or dividend rate. Then the main risk to the bank was a carrier’s credit whether the carrier would be able to pay the claim later. Today, you have not only general account which are still very popular, but since then there's been a lot of purchases of what is called hybrid separate account products and also variable separate account products.     Variable separate account products are where the assets are segregated from creditors somewhat like a mutual fund. The bank can choose to invest the money within a particular investment bucket; although, for a bank it as to be eligible investments unless it's used as a hedge against a deferred comp plan. Those have some higher risk features, a little bit more moving parts. They have a stable value wrap sold by a registered product or private placement memorandum and so they're more complicated. Most community banks shy away from those because of the complications and the mark to market within the portfolio.     Then, there's a hybrid separate account product that has features very much like a general account. It has an added credit enhancement that if the carrier were to ever become insolvent the assets within the separate account by legal definitions are segregated from creditors of the insurance carrier so that those assets would only be available to the policy holders. These new asset classes have been pretty popular and have essentially enhanced the options for banks to buy bank owned life insurance.   Kelly: The first generation of BOLI was the general account, no-load product and then the second generation would be some of these the hybrid accounts and some of these more sophisticated product structures. But the core concept was the same, right?   David: That's correct, basically similar structure from a standpoint of no loads, no surrender charges, single premium, just a difference in the chassis if you will.   Kelly: Right, the risk sharing to a certain extent, right, because was the separate account available back then in the early years?   David: You could buy a separate account that was called variable universal life. It was a shelf product, but banks really didn’t buy it then because you had mark to market. Say it was all in a bond fund but the interest rates went up and the value of the bond fund went down five percent you’d have to take an immediate mark to market on your balance sheet and income statement. That was not very attractive to a buyer. If you're a bank you don’t want that kind of volatility on your income statement.   Kelly: Even though that's the nature of a municipal bond portfolio, they have to mark those.   David: A municipal bond portfolio they mark to market, but not through the income statement. They mark to market through the capital account.   Kelly: Right.   David: It doesn’t flow through income.   Kelly: Right.   David: Whereas if you were to do the same thing in a variable universal life insurance contract and have that mark to market risk you’d have to mark that through your income statement because the cash value is changing.   Kelly: One of the things that I noticed about Equias, again this sounds somewhat self-serving, but I’ll say it anyway. This relates to the industry changes. When I see Equias, it just seems to be a highly professional organization. I think eighteen consultants and thirty some support personnel and I believe seven CPAs and a bunch of attorneys, MBA’s that kind of thing. It just seems that one of the things that appears to have happened with Equias having emerged as the key player is the element of professional consulting capabilities versus I would suspect in the early years, and currently, many of potentially our competitors, it's mainly a bunch of insurance guys, right, trying to sell product?  I would think in the early years that's what it was all about, insurance guys trying to sell insurance to a new market…banks.   David: Yes, there was a lot of that. The business model that Equias developed was this is not an area that banks have a lot of expertise in and that they need support services so that they can spend a minimal amount of their time dealing with the technical stuff and don’t have to pay a lot to CPA firms and law firms to help them through the process.     We set up the firm with the idea that we could provide those services at costs that are competitive with anybody in the marketplace. Through volume we could provide more services and all the technical services that a bank would need, but do it in a very cost effective way. That’s where we actually have eight CPAs and two attorneys and a former OCC regulator, former bankers, bank directors, and a former head of the BOLI area for one of the major insurance carriers.     We've staffed our firm with very, very experienced, competent, technical people including the consultants are all very experienced, so that we could be a real asset to the banks. It'd be hard for our competitors to match our knowledge and experience and to duplicate what we can do.   Kelly: One of the things that got my attention was I think you're one of the few that has a SOC 1, Type 2 audit. Not many insurance “agencies” have that kind of thing going on. That was a good plus in my mind with you guys.   David: Yeah, it covers our implementation process, as well as our administration process, and covers not only the BOLI side of it, but covers the nonqualified benefits side. We’ve set up internal controls when we established the company and we followed those controls. We've been able to go through the audit process very efficiently and effectively.   Kelly: I’ll probably be criticized for this being an infomercial for Equias, but what the heck. That's what we can do. All right let's finish with one final thing. I’ll give you the choice. This is a question I ask every guest either your favorite quote or, what I like the best, is tell us what one of the stupidest things you’ve said or done in your business career.   David: One of the early days in my career I remember having gone to this bank to explain BOLI and the nonqualified plans probably for the seventh or eighth time. Some of the Board members were wearing out with me coming back almost it seemed like every month. One of the Board members, who was an attorney, when I came back this time she just looked and “Oh no, not you again.” I said, “Yeah.” She said, “Look, if I vote for this, does that mean you won't come back and you'll leave us alone?” I said, ‘You’ve got my word on that.” I guess in that case persistence paid off.   Kelly: It's good, yeah.   David: It wasn’t one of those real positive “I'm glad to see you” kind of moments.   Kelly: That's right; you got the deal done though.   David: Yeah, I was able to get it done through persistence, not through the sales process really.   Kelly: Yeah, that's good. All right, David, thanks for your time. I appreciate it.   We want to thank you for listening to the syndicated audio program, BankBosun.com The audio content is produced by Kelly Coughlin, Chief Executive Officer of BankBosun, LLC;  and syndicated by Seth Greene, Market Domination LLC, with the help of Kevin Boyle. Video content is produced by The Guildmaster Studio, Keenan Bobson Boyle. The voice introduction is me, Karim Kronfli. The program is hosted by Kelly Coughlin. If you like this program, please tell us. If you don’t, please tell us how we can improve it. Now, some disclaimers. Kelly is licensed with the Minnesota State Board of Accountancy as a Certified Public Accountant.   Kelly provides bank owned life insurance portfolio and nonqualified benefit services to banks across the United States.  The views expressed here are solely those of Kelly Coughlin and his guests in their private capacity and do not in any other way represent the views of any other agent, principal, employer, employee, vendor or supplier of Kelly Coughlin.  

On today's show, we talk about a force that has the potential to make an impact on the depression and anxiety of millions of people.  What is that force, and how can it help you and your family.     So, what’s up with David? One thing I haven’t told you about him yet, is that David is Catholic. And every Wednesday night, he goes to confirmation class. His teacher is nice, and tries really hard to get this group of teenagers to care about the class, but the fact is that most of them don’t want to be there.   David spends the time daydreaming, and he mostly thinks about homework and friends, the usual teenage stuff, but on one particular Wednesday night, he’s not in a great mood, and he starts thinking about how much this feels like a waste of time. And a resentment starts to build.   It starts as a resenting this class, but quickly builds to resenting his teacher, his priest, his church, and then pretty soon, he’s feeling a pretty intense anger toward the Catholic church as a whole.   For his whole life, David’s gone through the motions, first confession, first communion, and now confirmation, and he never really questioned anything until this confirmation class.   One way the class has influenced him is that it has forced him to think: Do I believe this stuff? Do I really belong here?   And so on this Wednesday night, his resentment gets him thinking a lot more about these hard questions, “Why doesn’t anyone ever talk about if God is real or not? They talk about God like it’s a given that we just believe in him, but what if I’m not sure. It’s like everyone is just going through the motions, just coming to this stupid class because our parents make us, because that’s what you’re supposed to do. I can’t believe I’m sitting here, pretending like I’m 100% on board, filling out this worksheet like a good little Catholic boy.”   He wants to stand up and just say this to the entire room, to just unleash the doubt and profanity that’s swirling around in his head. But, his anxiety part is not going to let that happen, so instead, he opens up to a blank page in his notebook, and goes to town. He writes this angry rant with so much passion, that he tears the page with his pen. Every third word is an F bomb, and as he goes, he feels the pressure that’s been building in his head start to release.   He’s still writing as the teacher dismisses class, and he takes some deep breaths, and goes home.   Hi I’m Corey Busch, and you’re listening to The Teen Mind. Today, as you guessed, we’re talking about faith…I know, didn’t see that one coming. We normally think about religion and God in this box over here, and then mental health in this other box over there. But really, they are very closely related. Religion can have a negative impact on mental health, and it can have a positive impact. Today, we’re going to talk about how faith in a higher power can be a huge benefit to a person’s mental health, and why the teenage years are so important in the formation of faith.     But first, back to David.   That night, he can’t stop thinking about it. He wants to drop out of confirmation, he wants to write an angry letter to the priest or the bishop or the pope or all of them.   But most of all, he just wants to talk to someone, he still feels like he needs to get this off his chest, to know that he’s not the only person that thinks these things.   So, he works up the guts to say something to his mom. His anxiety is worked up, but it’s not completely taking over. So he goes to his mom and says,   “Mom, what’s the point of going to confirmation class? It’s super boring and I just really don’t want to do it.”   Sheila closes her book. She just sits there for a few seconds, thinking of what to say. She starts with what she thinks she’s supposed to say:   “Well, umm…y’know ummm, I didn’t love my confirmation class, but I’m really glad I went because, yknow, it…it umm…was kind of a necessary thing to getting to where I am now with my faith.” She sees him look down and nod, like, “I thought that’s what you’d say.” But She can’t let this rare chance to have a real conversation with her teenage boy slip through her fingers, so she changes her approach: (big breath) “Yknow, David, I kindof just said that because I didn’t know what else to say. What’s on your mind…what are you thinking about?”   “I just don’t see the point in any of this…confirmation, going to church, saying the “Our Father” and the “Hail Mary.” Like the only reason I do all that is because it’s what I’m supposed to be doing, and it doesn’t even mean anything to me, and it’s making me really angry, I guess. Y’know everyone talks about God like, ‘of course he exists’, and I don’t know…I don’t know if I believe in God…What if God doesn’t exist, like I feel like I can’t even say that.”   He expects his mom to be shocked or angry or upset, but she isn’t. She is surprisingly calm. She just smiles at him.   “Y’know I thought these same things when I was your age. I never had the guts to say them out loud. I’m glad you did.”   He let out a long, slow breath.   “Can I tell you a story?” She asks.   “Okay.”   “For a long time, I didn’t know if I believed in God. As I got older, especially when you were born, I knew that I really wanted to believe, but I still wasn’t sure. I didn’t even know exactly what it meant to believe in God.   And then, we got a new priest, Father Julian was his name, and he was really smart, like just a very intelligent guy. And he talked about Jesus and God with such a passion, that it helped me to get over these thoughts that said, “I’m too smart to believe in God,” because if this, very smart man believes, then heck, I can believe too.   “But the big thing was your dad’s depression. There was a time there when his depression made me really angry and depressed, and I was so angry at him and feeling sorry for myself. And it was right during the worst of it, that Father Julian started talking, it seemed like every week, about how no matter how much pain you’re going through, no matter how alone you feel, that the most powerful being in the universe is on your side, not in an abstract way, but in a personal, very real way. He’s giving you a hug and telling you that he loves you no matter how messed up you are. And even now, there is a part of me that doesn’t know for sure if God is real, but there’s a much bigger part that knows believing in him is really good for me.   “I don’t know…does that help?”   “Yeah, it does. So, wait…you don’t know if you believe in God?”       So, I’m going to talk for myself, as Corey, and not as one of these characters, and I’m just going to put my cards on the table right now. I am a Christian, and a big reason I’m doing this episode is because my faith in God has helped tremendously with my anxiety, and I think that there is a very important place for spirituality when talking about mental health.   So, one thing I am not trying to do is convince anyone that you should believe in God. I don’t think I’m capable of doing that, and it’s just not my goal. Another thing I’m not trying to do is convince anyone that Christianity is better than other religions. Again, even if I wanted to do this, I wouldn’t be able to.   But I do want to say that faith in a higher power, who I’ll call God, has the potential to help a lot with anxiety, depression, and a whole bunch of other mental health problems. And if you believe in God, or think you might want to believe in God, or are curious about the mental health benefits of believing in God, then stay with me.   I first want to quickly acknowledge though some of the big negative impacts that religion can have on mental health. One of the biggest ones, I think, is when religion makes people think they have to follow certain rules, or have a certain sexual or gender identity, or even that they have to “be a good person” in order to belong, and be loved by God, and go to heaven. This kind of religion I think can be very harmful to people’s mental health. So I just want to be upfront about that. Religion is not some perfect thing that’s always going to be helpful.     So I want us to think about David, and his anxiety, and think back to a few episodes ago, when we talked about how David’s anxiety was born. It was born to protect him from rejection, especially rejection from his parents. And for most of us with anxiety or depression, this same fear plays a big part for us too. We are afraid of being rejected, because, as far our brains are concerned, rejection leads to death.   And so, as parents, one lesson we can learn from this is that it’s important to show our kids unconditional love and acceptance. But, we are human, we mess up, we get mad, we do things, no matter how great of parents we are, that send a message of rejection to our kids’ brains. There are no parents who give their kids perfect, unconditional love. But there is one being who does: God.   And even if you don’t believe that God exists, you still can acknowledge that the belief in a perfect being who loves you perfectly, no matter how much you screw up, no matter if everyone else thinks you’re a complete failure, that belief has the power to calm your panicking amygdala. Because no matter what happens, you can never be rejected by God.   And I think it’s important here to say that this is probably a very different understanding of God and Christianity than some of you are familiar with, especially if you hear people talking about how if you do this or don’t do that, then you’re going to hell and God hates you. Well, there’s a whole bunch of really intelligent Christians, I’ll mention their podcasts at the end of the show, who don’t believe that.   Listen to them, and you’ll hear that God is a perfect parent, that he loves you no matter what you do, and that he will never be disappointed in you or yell at you. He will just say, “yeah, you made a mistake, but I still love you just as much as I did before.” And, I’m just going to say it again, because I think it’s a really big deal: When you’re having anxiety or depression, you can tell your amygdala, “I understand you’re afraid of being rejected, but I can never be rejected by God.” And if you really believe this, then it will help your amygdala calm down, and your anxiety or depression will calm down with it.   And so what does this have to do with David? Well, David is in one of the most important stages of his life for faith development. The teenage years are when a lot of people really make their decision about God. Think about it, until adolescence, your brain is just not equipped to really decide whether or not you believe in God. And so when David is 16, and is forced, really in his confirmation class, to think about God, it’s the first time in his life he’s really ever asked himself that question: Do I believe? And as adults in our kids’ lives, no matter what belief system you have, it is extremely important to ask our kids questions faith, and then to just listen. In these conversations, the less we adults talk, the better.   Because another thing that’s happening for teenagers, is that they’re trying to figure out their identity. And if you try to tell a teenager what his identity is, he’s probably just going to reject that for no other reason than that you’re trying to force it on him.   And it turns out that identity is really important, not just in terms of which religious group do you belong to or not belong to, but it’s crucially important in the deepest meaning of faith, no matter what the religion.   I was listening to a guy talk about God and faith, and he said, when you think about the question, “who am I?” what comes up first for you? Is it, “I am a parent or I’m a friend, maybe it’s I’m an engineer, or a teacher, or maybe it’s I’m black or I’m gay, or I’m Chinese, or maybe it’s I’m kind or athletic or hard-working. Or is your answer, your first answer: “I am a child of God.”     What he was really asking was, what’s most important in your life, what is your primary identity? Your family, your career, your race, nationality or is it God? Because if you believe in God, but he’s not the most important thing, even more important than your family, your friends, your career, what he was saying is that you’re not doing it right.     And for me, and I think for most of us, my initial reaction was, wait a second here. I believe in God, I go to church, I pray sometimes, and now you’re asking me to make God more important than anything else in my life? More important than my family? I don’t know about that man. That sounds extreme.   And I’ll tell you, I’m still wrestling with this now, but I can tell you that I think I get it. Because if the most important thing in my life is my family, then when things aren’t going great with my family, that’s going to really bring me down. But if God is the most important, then, when family life gets tough, it doesn’t hit me as hard, and I’ll be able to be more mentally healthy with my family, and more supportive to them when they need me.   So, essentially, what this argument is saying is that faith has the power to bring about a deep sense of security and calm, even through really tough times. But most of the benefits don’t come if our primary identity is in something other than God.   Let me give you an example: For many of the parents I work with, their primary identity is as parents. This means that when things aren’t going well for their kid, deep down, they are afraid their kid will end up a failure, which then means they’re a failure as a parent. And if their primary identity is their parenthood, then failure as a parent is very scary for their amygdala. So they get very anxious or angry, and try harder to control their kid, to stop them from messing up. And the harder they fight for control, the more they push their kid away, and the worse things get.   And so it sounds like I’m making an argument for an all-or-nothing mindset about faith. If you’re going to believe in God, then you have to be all-in. Well, yes and no. But what I’m really saying is that all-in is the goal, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to always be there. Most of the time, I’m aiming to make God a bigger part of my life, but there’s also a part of me that crops up sometimes that thinks he probably doesn’t even exist.   So, what I’m really trying to say is that if you want faith to have a bigger impact on your mental health, then you need to decide what’s the goal? Is it to make God the most important thing in your life? Or is something else? And if you choose to make God your primary identity, then you can just talk with him. And it might sound something like a conversation Sheila had with God during Tom’s depression.   She said, God, I don’t know what to do. I feel so angry and miserable so much of the time. I’m so worried that Tom’s depression is going to be horrible for David. I want to quit work to be home with him, but we need to pay the bills. I want to make Tom go away until he gets over this, but I can’t do that either. Tell me what to do, please.   And using her mind’s voice, God said to her, “Give David to me, and I will protect him.”   And she imagined letting David go from her tightly wrapped arms and releasing him to God. And her anger and worry didn’t go away, but a calm security entered her body that gave her a small sense of peace. And without that, she may have had a breakdown herself, which would have made things even worse for David.   And so the most important thing you can do as a parent, or as a human being, to care for those around you, is to loosen you grip on them. And the only way to do this, is to tighten your grip on God. We humans need something to hold tightly. And for most Americans, we choose our families, our friends, or our jobs. And the thing about choosing to make God the most important part of your life is that it does not diminish your relationship with your family, friends or career, but it enhances it. Because when you don’t worry as much about making people mad at you, or about screwing up a big project, you’re more free to be yourself, and just a happier, more productive person.     And so at the dining room table, on that Wednesday night, David unleashes his angry rant against the Catholic Church. And where most parents would try to steer their child in a more rational or mature direction, Sheila just hears God say, once again, “give David to me.” And she remembers, she can’t control him, she can’t make him believe in God or be a Catholic. And so she loosens her grip, and she does not argue with him or point out why he’s wrong. She just listens, stays curious about his story, and when he’s done, she says, two of the most important words a parent can say to their child: “I understand.”   If you want to hear more people talk about God in a way that will help you or your teen’s mental health, listen to the podcasts put out by Mercy Vineyard Church in Minneapolis, and by Tim Keller, who’s at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City.

BOB HEATH has been the music therapist at Sobell House Hospice in Oxford since 2004 and also lectures in music therapy at the University of the West of England. He runs a range of training courses for music therapists and health care practitioners including a number of Creative Songwriting courses with colleague Jane Lings. He continues to pursue his interest in other music therapy contexts and works regularly in community mental health and learning disability settings.

Jules: The clash of cultures, faiths, races, and civilisations entire was hardly ever so agreeable as it is in this 1947, somewhat-forgotten classic. See vertiginous, mountain-perched bordellos revamped to serve as nunneries! See lanky actors in too-short short-shorts attempt to maintain their gravitas whilst riding Shetland ponies! See skin-tinted occidental girls reinvented as oriental firebrands! David: One ought not to rebel against nature, it seems. Nor the nature of things. A gaggle of nuns embark on a girl’s own Heart of Darkness.