American technology company
POPULARITY
Categories
We've been covering what's happening in Minnesota, and the killing of Alex Pretti, all week on The Verge. To begin this episode, Nilay explains why — and why so many others seem to feel the same way right now. After that, the hosts talk about the CEO-studded screening of Melania Trump's documentary last weekend, the disastrous public appearance from Tim Cook, and whether Cook and other CEOs have any other option but to capitulate to the Trump administration. Then it's time for some gadgets: we talk about the super-foldy, super-expensive Samsung Galaxy Z Trifold, the Clawdbot / Moltbot phenomenon, and whether Google can finally put Chrome OS and Android together the right way. Finally, in the lightning round, it's time for Brendan Carr is a dummy, Tesla's anti-car pivot, Apple's design hires, and more. Further reading: On the ground in Minneapolis after the killing of Alex Pretti I grew up with Alex Pretti Creators and communities everywhere take a stand against ICE It doesn't matter if Alex Pretti had a gun Why won't anyone stop ICE from masking? Tim Cook, Andy Jassy, and AMD CEO Lisa Su are at the White House for a VIP screening of the Melania doc. Tim Cook had ‘a good conversation' with Trump about deescalation Cook in 2020: Speaking up on racism From The New York Times: Amazon's $35 Million ‘Melania' Promotion Has Critics Questioning Its Motives From The Hollywood Reporter: ‘Melania' Set for a $3 Million Opening Despite Amazon's $35 Million Marketing Push Here's Tim Cook hanging out with accused rapist Brett Ratner at the Melania screening What TikTok's new owners mean for your feed TikTok USA is broken TikTok is still down, here are all the latest updates TikTok is still struggling in the US due to a “cascading systems failure.” TikTok US is mostly back up and running TikTok blames its US problems on a power outage Oracle admits it broke TikTok. Congress doesn't seem to know if the TikTok deal complies with its law Is New TikTok banning the word “Epstein” in DMs? Not really. TikTokers are heading to UpScrolled following US takeover Mark Zuckerberg is all in on AI as the new social media Meta is stopping teens from chatting with its AI characters Bluesky is testing ‘live' features to take on X Best gas masks The Samsung Trifold will cost nearly three grand Google just leaked a first look at Android for PC in action Chromebooks train schoolkids to be loyal customers, internal Google document suggests Moltbot, the AI agent that ‘actually does things,' is tech's new obsession Clawdbot's bad day I used Claude to vibe-code my wildly overcomplicated smart home The FCC's Late Night Comedy Show Tesla discontinuing Model S and Model X to make room for robots Tesla says production-ready Optimus robot is coming soon Tesla hits a grim milestone: its second straight year of decline Elon Musk invests $2 billion in Elon Musk Hang on, there's a Trump Phone Ultra coming too? Halide co-founder Sebastiaan de With is joining Apple's design team The Stream Deck-packed gaming keyboard is a monster of good ideas Subscribe to The Verge for unlimited access to theverge.com, subscriber-exclusive newsletters, and our ad-free podcast feed.We love hearing from you! Email your questions and thoughts to vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Send us a text!This week:A deep dive into Apple's new Creator Studio and whether it's actually a good value for creative professionalsEverything you need to know about AirTag 2!Not one but TWO new MacBook Pros are likely coming this year.A rundown of 20+ Apple products expected to launch this year, from Macs and iPads to totally new stuff.Google's new $7.99 AI Plus plan and what it says about the rapidly heating AI arms raceRevelations from my trip to Stockholm using my $2K mirrorless vs my iPhone 17 Pro cameraOur sponsorssupport.thecultcast.comunfork.thecultcast.comCultClubJoin us in the CultClub (it's totally free!)This week's storiesApple Creator Studio review: Incredible value for most creative proshttps://appleinsider.com/articles/26/01/28/apple-creator-studio-review-incredible-value-for-most-creative-pros10+ Things to Know About the New AirTag 2https://www.macrumors.com/2026/01/26/10-things-to-know-about-the-new-airtag-2/Apple Reportedly Aiming to Upgrade the MacBook Pro Twice This Yearhttps://www.macrumors.com/2026/01/25/macbook-pro-two-upgrades-in-2026-rumor/Apple to Launch These 20+ Products This Yearhttps://www.macrumors.com/2026/01/25/rumored-apple-products/Google Brings Cheaper $7.99 'AI Plus' Plan to 35 Countries, Including U.S.https://www.macrumors.com/2026/01/27/google-ai-plus-plan-expansion/
Apply to Work With Tier 11: https://www.tiereleven.com/apply-nowAre you still pausing “winning” ads because Meta tells you the CPA is broken? In this episode, we break down the next layer of our three-part series on why turning off Meta's conversion obsession is the smartest move you can make right now.John Moran walks us through a real case study where individual category campaigns, feeder strategy, and engagement metrics drove an 80% lift in new customers. We unpack why hook rate, CTR, and directional signals matter more than platform-reported conversions, and how Shopify and blended nCAC become the real source of truth.We also connect the dots between Meta and Google in a way most marketers completely miss. You'll hear how improved Meta creative reduced Google spend by 20% while increasing total new customers by 37%. And if you want proof that Meta is a top-of-funnel growth engine and not an attribution tool, this episode lays it out step by step.In This Episode:- Why should not pause winning ads- Hook rate & outbound CTR benchmarks- Example of benchmarking with nCAC- Amazon, Google, and Meta sales overlap- Case study: Meta's impact on Google resultsMentioned in the Episode:Previous Episodes On Why You Should Not Pause Ads: https://www.youtube.com/@perpetual_trafficTier 11's nCAC: https://www.tiereleven.com/ncacTier 11's Data Suite: https://www.tiereleven.com/what-we-do/data-suiteListen to This Episode on Your Favorite Podcast Channel:Follow and listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/perpetual-traffic/id1022441491Follow and listen on Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/59lhtIWHw1XXsRmT5HBAuKSubscribe and watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@perpetual_traffic?sub_confirmation=1We Appreciate Your Support!Visit our website: https://perpetualtraffic.com/Follow us on X: https://x.com/perpetualtrafConnect with John Moran:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnmorangadsConnect with Ralph Burns: LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ralphburnsInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/ralphhburns/Hire Tier11 - https://www.tiereleven.com/apply-nowConnect with Lauren Petrullo:Instagram -
Puglia is having a moment but won't be long before big crowds arrive. Join us as we open the door to Puglia as we know and love it - from thousand-year-old olive groves and life-changing burrata to the whitewashed hilltop towns tourists haven't discovered yet. Discover why this region offers southern Italian warmth without the crowds, which places to prioritize (and which to skip), and the accommodation quirks you need to know before booking.This is the Puglia that isn't on page one of Google.Final spots available for May & September 2026 tours: get Puglia trip detailsRead the full episode show notes here > untolditaly.com/309The premium Untold Italy app has ad-free access to our complete archive of 300+ episodes searchable by place and topicFOLLOW: Instagram • Facebook • YouTube GET OUR NEWS: Subscribe hereTRIP PLANNING: Learn more hereJOIN US ON TOUR: Upcoming departuresThe Untold Italy travel podcast is an independent production. Podcast editing and audio production by Mark Hatter. Production assistance by the other Katie Clarke
The AI Breakdown: Daily Artificial Intelligence News and Discussions
As Meta and Microsoft report earnings, markets are sending a mixed but revealing signal about AI: this doesn't look like a classic bubble fear so much as a judgment about who's winning the AI narrative. Meta is rewarded for aggressive spending paired with visible revenue impact, while Microsoft is punished for caution and slowing cloud growth despite massive backlog demand. The takeaway isn't that investors are fleeing AI—it's that they're increasingly selective about which AI stories they believe will convert spending into growth. In the headlines: SoftBank eyes another $30B into OpenAI, ServiceNow deepens its Anthropic partnership, Microsoft scrambles to respond to Claude Cowork, Google upgrades Chrome with agentic browsing, and Tesla invests $2B into xAI.Brought to you by:KPMG – Discover how AI is transforming possibility into reality. Tune into the new KPMG 'You Can with AI' podcast and unlock insights that will inform smarter decisions inside your enterprise. Listen now and start shaping your future with every episode. https://www.kpmg.us/AIpodcastsZencoder - From vibe coding to AI-first engineering - http://zencoder.ai/zenflowOptimizely Opal - The agent orchestration platform build for marketers - https://www.optimizely.com/theaidailybriefAssemblyAI - The best way to build Voice AI apps - https://www.assemblyai.com/briefSection - Build an AI workforce at scale - https://www.sectionai.com/LandfallIP - AI to Navigate the Patent Process - https://landfallip.com/Robots & Pencils - Cloud-native AI solutions that power results https://robotsandpencils.com/The Agent Readiness Audit from Superintelligent - Go to https://besuper.ai/ to request your company's agent readiness score.The AI Daily Brief helps you understand the most important news and discussions in AI. Subscribe to the podcast version of The AI Daily Brief wherever you listen: https://pod.link/1680633614Interested in sponsoring the show? sponsors@aidailybrief.ai
A study by SEO tools company SE Ranking found that Google's AI Overview relied heavily on YouTube channels as “trusted medical sites” over traditional medical sites to pull information to answer user queries. Is this a cause for concern and should the company be more transparent on where its AI tools are pulling answers from? Robb shares his experience with Samsung's Dex since getting back from CES. Is it ready to replace his main laptop? Tesla says it will stop producing the Model S and Model X to free up factory space for its Optimus humanoid robots. Starring Sarah Lane, Tom Merritt, Robb Dunewood, Tasia Custode, Len Peralta, Roger Chang, Joe. To read the show notes click here! Support the show on Patreon by becoming a supporter!
Shout! A football podcast on the Buffalo Bills with Matt Parrino and Ryan Talbot
The Buffalo Bills introduced Joe Brady as head coach on Thursday and fans have applauded the new head man's mission statements. Matt Parrino and Ryan Talbot react to Brady's first day on the job and what it means moving forward. Love SHOUT? Want to buy some swag to support the show and get decked out in our official gear? Check out the brand new "SHOUT!" store for apparel, headwear and much more! https://sportslocker.chipply.com/SHOUT/store.aspx?eid=405259&action=viewall What is the "SHOUT!" Bills text insiders? Want to join? You can get analysis from Matt and Ryan right to your phone and send texts directly to them both! Text 716-528-6727 or Click here: https://joinsubtext.com/c/shoutbuffalobills Sign up for the NYUP Bills newsletter! Don't miss all the Bills coverage. Head over to www.Syracuse.com/newsletters to start getting your Bills stories and the podcast delivered right to your inbox. The "SHOUT!" Buffalo Bills football podcast is available on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, and wherever you listen to podcasts Follow @MattParrino (https://x.com/MattParrino) and @RyanTalbotBills (https://x.com/RyanTalbotBills) on X Find our Bills coverage whenever you consume social media Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/buffalobillsnyup Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/buffalobillsnyup X: https://x.com/billsupdates Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
BYU basketball star freshman AJ Dybantsa turned 19 years old on Thursday. The perfect birthday gift this weekend would be a win over Kansas in historic Allen Fieldhouse. Dybantsa and BYU will be looking for that win this weekend, and they will have to do it against KU star Darryn Peterson, who remains on pace to play this Saturday, after suffering an ankle injury. KSL Sports BYU Insider Mitch Harper continued to discuss the matchup by welcoming in Kansas insider Henry Greenstein of the Lawrence World-Journal and KUsports.com to get a lowdown on this Kansas squad. Subscribe to the Cougar Tracks Podcast to stay up-to-date with all the daily episodes. Cougar Tracks is on YouTube and X every weekday at Noon (MT), and KSL NewsRadio at 6:30 p.m. (MT). Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cougar-tracks/id1146971609 YouTube Podcast: https://kslsports.com/category/podcast_results/?sid=2035&n=Cougar%20Tracks Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2NCF1KecDsE2rB1zMuHhUh Download the KSL Sports app Google: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bonneville.kslsports&hl=en_US iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ksl-sports/id143593 Mitch Harper is a BYU Insider for KSLsports.com and hosts the Cougar Tracks Podcast daily on KSL Sports YouTube and KSL NewsRadio (SUBSCRIBE). Harper also co-hosts Cougar Sports Saturday (12–3 p.m.) on KSL NewsRadio. Follow Mitch’s coverage of BYU athletics in the Big 12 Conference on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram: @Mitch_Harper. Want more coverage of BYU sports? Take us with you wherever you go. Download the new and improved KSL Sports app from Utah’s sports leader. Allows you to stream live radio and video, keeping you up-to-date on all your favorite teams.
Send us a textAce and Zim look into Trey Hendrickson, Tee Higgins and the rest of the AFC North coaching changes. SUBSCRIBE to the Wincinnati YouTube channel: https://rb.gy/yz5l4y FIND & FOLLOW the Wincinnati podcast on your favorite platforms:LISTEN on Buzzsprout: https://rb.gy/4d3xksLISTEN on Apple Podcasts: https://rb.gy/bwwbsiLISTEN on Spotify: https://rb.gy/daasvlLISTEN on Stitcher: https://rb.gy/0rc4rwLISTEN on Google: https://rb.gy/xgvsmpLISTEN on iHeartRadio: https://rb.gy/t03chpLISTEN on Amazon: https://rb.gy/vbumtvFOLLOW Ace & Zim on Twitter, where they'll share the latest news about the Cincinnati Bengals and interact with Bengals fans, and host Twitter spaces.Ace: https://rb.gy/gmx9fnZim:https://rb.gy/pb7nvwWincinnati podcast: https://rb.gy/wegjep
Voices of Search // A Search Engine Optimization (SEO) & Content Marketing Podcast
Content updates drive measurable traffic recovery for enterprise SEO teams. John Vantine, Director of SEO at GoodRx, has built cross-functional frameworks powering discovery across Google and ChatGPT over seven years of proven results. He outlines traffic-based content refresh signals that consistently deliver higher performance than original articles, plus systematic monitoring approaches that alert teams when content falls off performance cliffs.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
In this episode of Cybersecurity Today, host Jim Love explores the burgeoning world of actionable AI agents, examining key developments from companies like Google and Anthropic. The episode delves into the rapid rise of MoltBot, an open-source AI agent tool that has taken the developer community by storm. Jim also highlights the significant security concerns associated with these advanced AI systems, including delegated control, exposable credentials, and the potential for real-world consequences due to misuse. The podcast wraps up with a discussion on the future implications of these technologies and a preview of upcoming research by David Shipley from Beauceron Security on phishing. Brought to you with the support of Meter, delivering integrated networking solutions for optimized performance and scale. Cybersecurity Today would like to thank Meter for their support in bringing you this podcast. Meter delivers a complete networking stack, wired, wireless and cellular in one integrated solution that's built for performance and scale. You can find them at Meter.com/cst 00:00 Introduction and Sponsor Message 00:24 Emerging AI Agents: Google and Anthropic 01:59 The Rise of Molt Bot 07:51 Security Concerns with AI Agents 11:09 Looking Ahead: The Future of AI Agents 13:47 Conclusion and Upcoming Episodes
The Strange Brew - artist stories behind the greatest music ever recorded
Ric Sanders, the fiddle player who has been an integral part of Fairport Convention for 40 years, takes us on a journey through his extraordinary musical life. From his early days discovering electric violin, to his simultaneous membership in both Soft Machine and the Albion Band, Sanders’ career reads like a who’s who of British jazz-fusion and folk-rock. Speaking with characteristic warmth, Sanders discusses the upcoming Fairport Spring 2026 UK Tour and provides insights into life on the road. Beyond Fairport, Sanders reveals the rich tapestry of collaborations that have shaped his musical journey: moments following Indian violin legend L. Shankar on stage, late-night jam sessions with Nigel Kennedy in Malvern pubs, and the influence of Ashley Hutchings. He also discusses his ongoing projects, from the Ric Sanders Trio to his recent work with Rosalie Cunningham. While Ric considers himself “a very lucky little fellow” it’s clear that luck has been matched by extraordinary talent and a passion for making music. Further information Fairport Convention Spring Tour 2026 Ric Sanders podcast tracks Podcasts also available: Ashley Hutchings, Rosalie Cunningham, Gordon Giltrap, Dave Mattacks, Chris Leslie, Simon Nicol (2023), Dave Pegg This podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, Google apps and all usual platforms If you like what I do please support me on Ko-fi The post Ric Sanders – Fairport Convention appeared first on The Strange Brew .
Get a shoutout on Congratulations: holler.baby/chrisdelia
In early 2024, executives at artificial intelligence start-up Anthropic ramped up an ambitious project they sought to keep quiet. It was code-named Project Panama, and internal documents filed in court described it as an “effort to destructively scan all the books in the world.”According to the filings, the company had spent tens of millions of dollars to acquire and slice the spines off potentially millions of books, before scanning their pages to feed knowledge into the AI models behind products such as Claude, its popular chatbot. A judge ruled this fair use.Details of Project Panama emerged in more than 4,000 pages of documents in a copyright lawsuit brought by book authors against Anthropic. The company agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle the case in August – but a district judge's decision last week to unseal a slew of documents in the case more fully revealed Anthropic's zealous pursuit of books.Today on “Post Reports,” technology reporter Will Oremus explains the lengths to which AI firms such as Anthropic, Meta, Google and OpenAI went to obtain colossal troves of data with which to “train” their software – a frantic and sometimes clandestine race to acquire the collected works of humanity. He and host Martine Powers discuss how AI companies' efforts sometimes might have crossed over into the illegal, and how authors and artists might fare in an AI-centered future. Today's show was produced by Rennie Svirnovskiy. It was edited by Dennis Funk and mixed by Sam Bair.Subscribe to The Washington Post here.
My guest today is Gokul Rajaram, Founding Partner at Marathon Management. Gokul is one of the most prolific product builders and investors of the last twenty years. He has built the core ad and product businesses at Google, Facebook, Square, and DoorDash, working at each company during its most formative scaling periods. Alongside his operating career, Gokul has invested in more than 700 companies, giving him an unusually broad view into how products are built and scaled. This conversation is about how product building is changing with AI. We discuss the one thing Gokul believes is truly future-proof in AI, why companies like Zendesk and Slack are more exposed than Salesforce or NetSuite, and the only sources of defensibility. We also talk about everything Gokul has learned from helping build the most important ads businesses, including the only three ways an ad business can make money, how those constraints shape product decisions, and what consumer behavior change threatens every major platform. Gokul shares lessons from working closely with Larry and Sergey, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and Tony Xu. Please enjoy my conversation with Gokul Rajaram. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. ----- This episode is brought to you by Ramp. Ramp's mission is to help companies manage their spend in a way that reduces expenses and frees up time for teams to work on more valuable projects. Go to ramp.com/invest to sign up for free and get a $250 welcome bonus. ----- This episode is brought to you by Vanta. Trusted by thousands of businesses, Vanta continuously monitors your security posture and streamlines audits so you can win enterprise deals and build customer trust without the traditional overhead. Visit vanta.com/invest. ----- This episode is brought to you by Rogo. Rogo is an AI-powered platform that automates accounts payable workflows, enabling finance teams to process invoices faster and with greater accuracy. Learn more at Rogo.ai/invest. ----- This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. WorkOS is a developer platform that enables SaaS companies to quickly add enterprise features to their applications. Visit WorkOS.com to transform your application into an enterprise-ready solution in minutes, not months. ----- This episode is brought to you by Ridgeline. Ridgeline has built a complete, real-time, modern operating system for investment managers. It handles trading, portfolio management, compliance, customer reporting, and much more through an all-in-one real-time cloud platform. Visit ridgelineapps.com. ----- Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com). Timestamps (00:00:00) Welcome to Invest Like The Best (00:00:53) Meet Gokul Rajaram (00:02:05) How Product Development is Changing with AI (00:07:32) Philosophy of Product Management (00:10:19) What is Future-Proof in AI Era (00:11:25) Building AI Applications Today (00:15:03) Systems of Record vs Agent Companies (00:16:58) Which Legacy Software Companies Are Most Exposed (00:22:15) Stickiness in the AI Era (00:24:10) Learning from Larry Page and Sergey Brin (00:28:15) Learning from Mark Zuckerberg (00:31:31) Learning from Jack Dorsey (00:35:40) The Art of Great Product Design (00:36:49) Weekly CEO Communication (00:40:27) Three Ways to Succeed in Advertising (00:44:27) What Should Scare Major Ad Platforms (00:48:24) North Star Metrics (00:50:09) Self-Serve Products (00:54:50) Careers in the AI Era (00:59:03) Stay Long Enough to Have Impact (01:00:10) Founder Authenticity and Superpowers (01:02:21) Navigating the Idea Maze (01:03:42) Role of Boards (01:06:31) Excellence in Customer Acquisition (01:09:11) The Kindest Thing
Hour 1: Bob's Movie Club Presents: High Fidelity (2000). Jack Black! Lisa Bonet! John Cusack's character isn't lovable, but isn't that the point? It's clear why this is so many people's favorite movie. Here's what the whole gang thought. Will the Atmospheric River ever return? The Bay Area Super Bowl is only 2 weeks away! Do you remember the best Super Bowls of all time? And a fact about horses... oh boy. Hour 2: Our sister station Live105 is being inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame! Celebrities: sometimes they're jerks! Can you guess which ones? Magicians can be cool! Vinnie has tortilla chip supremacy. GenZ has entered the wedding chat. (51:02) Hour 3: 'Bridgerton' Season 4 is here! Does this season hold up compared to the rest? Neilson has revealed the top streamed shows of 2025, and they aren't what you'd expect. Meanwhile, ‘KPop Demon Hunters' was the most watched movie of the year. Premiering today on Disney+ is Marvel's new show ‘Wonder Man' - with rave reviews. Let us SOLVE your problems! BadAdvice973@gmail.com. Hello Saratoga, good bye short-term rentals! College students are using AI humanizing programs to make sure their work can't be detected as AI. Tesla drops major production news. A new app, Upscrolled, is trying to make its name as a new Tik Tok competitor. A snow plow driver escorted an ambulance to the hospital during the big storm this past weekend. (1:33:04) Hour 4: Three music legends to choose from. Bruce Springsteen was inspired to put out a tune after this weekend. Courtney Love is doing her own autobiography. Here's a good reason to watch The Grammys this Sunday. Google knows there was a big winter storm - here's what people are searching for. Absolute Tabasco is here for the spice (and drink) lovers. It's too late to swim in the Potomac. (2:15:15)
Three music legends to choose from. Bruce Springsteen was inspired to put out a tune after this weekend. Courtney Love is doing her own autobiography. Here's a good reason to watch The Grammys this Sunday. Google knows there was a big winter storm - here's what people are searching for. Absolute Tabasco is here for the spice (and drink) lovers. It's too late to swim in the Potomac.
DOLLAR DOOMSDAY - 01.28.2026 - #911 BestPodcastintheMetaverse.com Canary Cry News Talk #911 - 01.28.2026 - Recorded Live to 1s and 0s Deconstructing World Events from a Biblical Worldview Declaring Jesus as Lord amidst the Fifth Generation War! CageRattlerCoffee.com SD/TC email Ike for discount https://CanaryCry.Support Send address and shirt size updates to canarycrysupplydrop@gmail.com Join the Canary Cry Roundtable This Episode was Produced By: Executive Producers Sir Jamey Not the Lanister*** Sir LX Protocol Baron of the Berrean Protocol*** Arnold W*** Producers of TREASURE (CanaryCry.Support) Malik, Cage Rattler Coffee, Mrs Tinfoilhatman, Veronica D, Sir Scott Knight of Truth, Sir Casey the Shield Knight Producers of TIME Timestampers: Jade Bouncerson, Morgan E Clankoniphius Links: JAM SHOW NOTES: ARMAGEDDON 7:26 Clip: Doomsday Clock hits 85 seconds to midnight (CBS) →→ US/Russia nuclear treaty to expire next week, Trump "if it expires, it expires" (Reuters) TRUMP 34:37 Clip: "I've made a lot of people rich" Trump says value of the dollar is 'great', currency hits 4-year low (Reuters) MONEY/BLACKROCK 48:00 BlackRock says investors can no longer rely on bonds for portfolio safety (CNBC) AI/BLOCKCHAIN/BIBLICAL 1:03:46 Clip: CEO of Citadel says we need an "AI Savior" (X) Claude reply causing concern for sentient AI and humanity (X) Note: Essay from CEO Anthropic, says his focus on biology > cyber atm (Dario Modei) ERC-8004 to launch on Ethereum for AI Agents ENCHANTED/NEW WORLD ORDER 1:27:38 Musk Considers Timing SpaceX IPO With Planetary Alignment, FT Reports (X) Dev creates astrology-powered CPU scheduler for Linux, makes decisions based on planetary positions and zodiac signs (Tom's Hardware) Clip: Guy uses Numerology and made 8 figures on ZCash (X) TRANSHUMAN Clip: Yale prof., survive the next 10 years, we're going to revers aging (X) ADS 1:45:04 Google agrees to fork over $68MN to settle claims that its Assistant was SECRETLY recording your convos WITHOUT 'Hey Google' & feeding them straight to targeted ads (BBC) EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS 1:56:52 TALENT/TIME END 2:22:48
Google dismantles a huge residential proxy network. Did the FBI take down the notorious RAMP cybercrime forum? A long running North Korea backed cyber operation has splintered into three specialized threat groups. U.S. military cyber operators carried out a covert operation to disrupt Russian troll networks ahead of the 2024 elections. Phishing campaigns target journalists using the Signal app. SolarWinds patches vulnerabilities in its Web Help Desk product. Amazon found CSAM in its AI training data. Initial access brokers switch up their preferred bot. China executes scam center kingpins. Our guest is Tom Pace, CEO of NetRise, explaining how open-source vulnerabilities are opening doors for nation-states. An unsecured webcam peers into Pyongyang. Remember to leave us a 5-star rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Miss an episode? Sign-up for our daily intelligence roundup, Daily Briefing, and you'll never miss a beat. And be sure to follow CyberWire Daily on LinkedIn. CyberWire Guest Today, Tom Pace, former DOE cyber analyst and CEO of NetRise, joins the show to explain how open-source vulnerabilities are opening doors for nation-states and why visibility into who maintains code repositories matters. Selected Reading Google Disrupted World's Largest IPIDEA Residential Proxy Network (Cyber Security News) Notorious Russia-based RAMP cybercrime forum apparently seized by FBI (The Record) Long-running North Korea threat group splits into 3 distinct operations (CyberScoop) Secret US cyber operations shielded 2024 election from foreign trolls, but now the Trump admin has gutted protections (CNN Politics) Phishing attack: Numerous journalists targeted in attack via Signal Messenger (Netzpolitik.org) Signal president warns AI agents are making encryption irrelevant (Cyber Insider) SolarWinds Patches Critical Web Help Desk Vulnerabilities (SecurityWeek) Amazon Found ‘High Volume' Of Child Sex Abuse Material in AI Training Data (Bloomberg) Initial access hackers switch to Tsundere Bot for ransomware attacks (Bleeping Computer) China Executes 11 People Linked to Cyberscam Centers in Myanmar (Bloomberg) North Korean Hackers' Daily Life Leaked in Video (The Chosun) Share your feedback. What do you think about CyberWire Daily? Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us by completing our brief listener survey. Thank you for helping us continue to improve our show. Want to hear your company in the show? N2K CyberWire helps you reach the industry's most influential leaders and operators, while building visibility, authority, and connectivity across the cybersecurity community. Learn more at sponsor.thecyberwire.com. The CyberWire is a production of N2K Networks, your source for strategic workforce intelligence. © N2K Networks, Inc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dr. Shadé Zahrai is a behavioral researcher, award-winning peak performance educator, and leading authority on confidence and self-doubt. A former corporate lawyer with an MBA and background in psychology, she has designed and delivered transformative programs for Fortune 500 giants including Google, Microsoft, LVMH, JP Morgan, and McKinsey. Named one of LinkedIn's Top Voices for career development, Shadé has taught over 7 million learners on LinkedIn Learning. Her TEDx talks and viral videos have amassed more than 300 million views, and her work has been featured in The New York Times, Adweek, CNBC, and Yahoo Finance. Today on the show we discuss why self-doubt doesn't disappear with success and often intensifies as responsibility and visibility increase, how distorted self-image rather than lack of confidence drives chronic self-doubt, the four psychological traits that quietly shape how confident or insecure someone feels day to day, why confidence is the wrong target and self-trust is what actually eliminates doubt long-term, how comparison and impostor syndrome escalate as people level up and why that's a sign of growth, and the practical tools that help stop internalizing doubt while rebuilding real self-trust through action and much more. Today's sponsor: The Predictive Mind Understand how your brain and mind actually work so you can change patterns that hold you back. Use code DOUG15 for 15% off at https://predictivemind.io/ ⚠ WELLNESS DISCLAIMER ⚠ Please be advised; the topics related to health and mental health in my content are for informational, discussion, and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your health or mental health professional or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding your current condition. Never disregard professional advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard from your favorite creator, on social media, or shared within content you've consumed. If you are in crisis or you think you may have an emergency, call your doctor or 911 immediately. If you do not have a health professional who is able to assist you, use these resources to find help: Emergency Medical Services—911 If the situation is potentially life-threatening, get immediate emergency assistance by calling 911, available 24 hours a day. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org. SAMHSA addiction and mental health treatment Referral Helpline, 1-877-SAMHSA7 (1-877-726-4727) and https://www.samhsa.gov Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Steal our winning strategy to optimize your content for AI discovery: https://clickhubspot.com/swa Attend Kieran's free Webinar on Reclaiming Strategic Time in the AI Era: https://hubs.la/Q040m6fn0 Ep. 396 Could ChatGPT become a $47 billion ads business by matching Google's user monetization? Kipp and Kieran dive into the massive opportunity for marketers as ChatGPT and AI platforms launch new ad products. Learn more on three gold rush opportunities in the coming wave of AI ads, how intent-based advertising will change conversion rates and ROI, the new playbook for building apps and review sites, and why better analytics and targeting will transform your marketing strategy for 2026. Mentions ChatGPT https://chatgpt.com/ MoneySuperMarket https://www.moneysupermarket.com/ Get our guide to build your own Custom GPT: https://clickhubspot.com/customgpt We're creating our next round of content and want to ensure it tackles the challenges you're facing at work or in your business. To understand your biggest challenges we've put together a survey and we'd love to hear from you! https://bit.ly/matg-research Resource [Free] Steal our favorite AI Prompts featured on the show! Grab them here: https://clickhubspot.com/aip We're on Social Media! Follow us for everyday marketing wisdom straight to your feed YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGtXqPiNV8YC0GMUzY-EUFg Twitter: https://twitter.com/matgpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@matgpod Join our community https://landing.connect.com/matg Thank you for tuning into Marketing Against The Grain! Don't forget to hit subscribe and follow us on Apple Podcasts (so you never miss an episode)! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/marketing-against-the-grain/id1616700934 If you love this show, please leave us a 5-Star Review https://link.chtbl.com/h9_sjBKH and share your favorite episodes with friends. We really appreciate your support. Host Links: Kipp Bodnar, https://twitter.com/kippbodnar Kieran Flanagan, https://twitter.com/searchbrat ‘Marketing Against The Grain' is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by Hubspot Media // Produced by Darren Clarke.
Let's be real: are you creating content everywhere but connecting with no one?Posting daily, showing up on multiple platforms, but your audience isn't growing. Your email list is stagnant. And the profit you thought would follow? It's not there.Here's the hard truth: you might be building your entire business on borrowed land.That's exactly what happened to today's guest, Jenny Melrose. She had 660,000 followers on Google+. Then one day, the platform shut down and she lost every single one of them. That painful lesson completely transformed how she builds audiences—and it's why she's here to share what actually works.Jenny is a former reading specialist turned marketing strategist, author of Influencer Entrepreneurs, and host of the Influencer Entrepreneurs podcast. She's been building online businesses since 2009 and has weathered every major shift in the digital landscape.In this conversation, we dive into her PACK framework for standing out authentically, why your personal brand is your greatest defense against AI, how to create one piece of content and repurpose it into multiple formats, and why your email list is the only audience you truly own.If you've ever felt invisible online despite showing up everywhere, or wondered how to use AI without sounding generic, this episode will change how you build your business.Get ready for systems, strategy, and the wake-up call you need about where you're investing your energy online.What You'll Learn:The PACK framework: Positioning, Authenticity, Confidence, and Kindness (and why each matters more than ever)How to find your unique positioning by looking at your real life experiences and the problems people already come to you forWhy complete flexibility in your business will actually drive you insane (and what to do instead)The content creation system that starts with keyword research and ends with SEO-optimized blog posts, podcast episodes, and YouTube videosHow to use AI effectively: as a brainstorming assistant, outline creator, and editor, without losing your unique voiceHow to stop comparing yourself to that 35-year-old making millions (and be kind to yourself instead) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Apoorv Sharma is an AI SEO strategist, co-founder of Derivate X, and a leader in AI-first marketing for SaaS and tech companies. Based in Bangalore, India, Apoorv helps brands navigate the rapid shift from traditional search engines to LLMs and AI platforms like ChatGPT and Gemini. By optimizing content for AI visibility instead of just Google rankings, he empowers organizations to appear where modern buyers make decisions. Known for his hands-on, research-driven process, Apoorv guides clients through the evolving world of AI search and digital discovery, helping them future-proof their presence, drive revenue, and adapt to the pace of technological change. https://youtu.be/Oh_O7PFdz9Y In this episode of Marketer of the Day, Apoorv joins Robert Plank to reveal the new playbook for AI SEO. He explains how business owners can adapt to shifting search patterns, why top-of-funnel content is fading, and the steps needed to win in AI-driven rankings. Discover the real challenges behind AI SEO: from accidental brand confusion and overcoming search system quirks to navigating a price-sensitive market and justifying the investment. Apoorv shares actionable strategies for targeting long-tail queries, associating SEO efforts with revenue, and continuously adjusting content and positioning to stay ahead as AI reshapes how buyers find and trust solutions online. Quotes: “Search behavior is shifting so fast, even people who don't know English are using ChatGPT more than Google.” “SEO without clarity is just wasted money.” “The top of the funnel is almost dead. Focus on the middle and bottom; those are your lowest-hanging fruits.” “AI SEO isn't just about rankings; it's about training the librarian so your content gets recommended to the right buyers.” Resources: Derivate X (official site) Apoorv Sharma on LinkedIn
Agile in Construction: Team Happiness as the True Measure of Scrum Master Success in Construction With Felipe Engineer-Manriquez Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. "The teams that are having fun and are light-hearted, making jokes—these are high-performing teams almost 99% of the time. But the teams that are overly sarcastic or too quiet? They're burning out." - Felipe Engineer-Manriquez Felipe offers a refreshingly human definition of success for Scrum Masters: team happiness. After years of traumatic experiences in construction—days when he pounded his steering wheel in frustration during his commute—Felipe developed what he calls being a "human thermometer." He can sense a team's emotional state within 5 minutes of being with them. His proxy for success is a simple Likert scale of 1-5: 5 is Nirvana (working at Google with massages), and 1 is wanting to jump out the window. Felipe emphasizes that most people in construction internalize stress and push it down, so you have to ask directly. When he asked an estimator this question, the man quietly admitted he was at a 2—ready to walk away. Without asking, Felipe would never have known. The key insight: schedule improvements happen as teams move closer to a 5. And the foundation of it all? Understanding. "People do not have an overt need to be loved," Felipe shares from his Scrum training. "They have an overt need to be understood." A successful Scrum Master meddles appropriately, runs toward problems, and focuses on understanding teammates before trying to implement change. Self-reflection Question: If you asked each of your team members to rate their happiness from 1-5 today, what do you think they would say, and what would you learn that you don't currently know? Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Start/Stop/Keep Felipe's favorite retrospective format is Start/Stop/Keep—but his approach to introducing it is what makes the difference. He connects it to something construction teams already know: the post-mortem. He explains the morbid origin of the term (surgeons standing around a dead patient discussing what went wrong) to emphasize the seriousness of learning. Then he reframes the retrospective as a recurring post-mortem—a "lessons learned" cycle. Start: What should we begin doing that will make things better? Stop: What should we no longer do that doesn't add value? Keep: What good things are we doing that we want to maintain? Felipe uses silent brainstorming so everyone has time to think, then makes responses visible on a whiteboard or digital display. The cadence scales with sprint length—45 minutes for a week, 2 hours for two weeks, half a day for a month. His current team committed to monthly retrospectives and pre-writes their Start/Stop/Keep items, making the facilitated session efficient and focused. [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]
BYU basketball is preparing to take on the Kansas Jayhawks at historic Allen Fieldhouse on Saturday. For Kansas, the Jayhawks are expected to have Darryn Peterson available, who is recovering from an ankle injury. That sets up a matchup of the potential top two picks in the NBA Draft with AJ Dybantsa and Darryn Peterson on Saturday afternoon. KSL Sports BYU Insider shares his initial thoughts on Kansas as we get ready for the Top-15 matchup. Former BYU Egor Dёmin is thriving with the Brooklyn Nets after being selected to the NBA Rising Stars game. Subscribe to the Cougar Tracks Podcast to stay up-to-date with all the daily episodes. Cougar Tracks is on YouTube and X every weekday at Noon (MT), and KSL NewsRadio at 6:30 p.m. (MT). Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cougar-tracks/id1146971609 YouTube Podcast: https://kslsports.com/category/podcast_results/?sid=2035&n=Cougar%20Tracks Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2NCF1KecDsE2rB1zMuHhUh Download the KSL Sports app Google: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bonneville.kslsports&hl=en_US iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ksl-sports/id143593 Mitch Harper is a BYU Insider for KSLsports.com and hosts the Cougar Tracks Podcast daily on KSL Sports YouTube and KSL NewsRadio (SUBSCRIBE). Harper also co-hosts Cougar Sports Saturday (12–3 p.m.) on KSL NewsRadio. Follow Mitch’s coverage of BYU athletics in the Big 12 Conference on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram: @Mitch_Harper. Want more coverage of BYU sports? Take us with you wherever you go. Download the new and improved KSL Sports app from Utah’s sports leader. Allows you to stream live radio and video, keeping you up-to-date on all your favorite teams.
In this episode, Kyle sits down with Talyah Hayward of Tidely to talk about using AI and automation in a remodeling business without overcomplicating things. The conversation focuses on simplifying systems, reducing noise, and being intentional about what's worth automating so technology actually saves time instead of creating more work. Tide-ly helps contractors and trades get organized and build systems for growth through smart processes, AI automation, and practical business organization so their companies can scale without overwhelm. See services offered here. ----- This episode features a real remodeler success story from Contractor Growth Network. Joe Frei, a remodeler in Tucson, Arizona, shares how his business consistently ranks at the top of Google and generates consistent remodeling leads while working with a marketing partner focused on long term growth. Explore real client results and case studies at Contractor Growth Network Results, learn how they help remodelers build marketing that works at Contractor Growth Network, and check out their Podcast for weekly insights designed to help remodelers grow smarter. ----- Explore the vast array of tools, training courses, a podcast, and a supportive community of over 2,000 remodelers. Visit Remodelersontherise.com today and take your remodeling business to new heights! ----- Takeaways Minimizing software is crucial for efficiency. Streamlining processes can save significant time. AI can enhance productivity in remodeling businesses. Balancing automation with personal touch is essential. Leadership commitment is key to implementing new systems. Understanding the fear of change is important for team buy-in. Consistent training and support help in adopting new tools. Financial automation can drastically reduce bookkeeping time. Marketing strategies can be improved with AI assistance. It's important to evaluate the purpose of new tools before implementation. ----- Chapters 00:00 Introduction and Connection 04:03 Streamlining Processes in Remodeling 07:12 The Role of AI in Remodeling Businesses 09:59 Automation Strategies for Efficiency 13:10 Practical Examples of Automation 15:59 Enhancing Client Communication and Follow-Up 21:38 The Importance of Calendar Management 22:28 Automation vs. Personal Touch in Business 26:12 Embracing Technology in the Trades 29:27 Consistency in Implementing New Systems 32:11 Financial Management and Automation 34:37 Creative Uses of AI in Marketing 35:23 Identifying Ideal Clients for Tidely
Creator Studio is out and the rollout was rough. We review it, plus AirTag 2 launch, Tesla ends production of Model S and X, Gemini keeps beating ChatGPT, Sonos finally released new hardware, Apple Invites might be bad, and is TikTok dying?Ad-Free + Bonus EpisodesShow Notes via EmailWatch on YouTube!Join the CommunityEmail Us: podcast@primarytech.fm@stephenrobles on Threads@jasonaten on Threads------------------------------Sponsors:Framer - Start creating for free at framer.com/primary and get 30% OFF an annual plan!Copilot Money - Limited-time get 2 months FREE when you sign up at: try.copilot.money/primary------------------------------Links from the showI Tested Apple's New Creator Studio for 2 Weeks - YouTubeApple's Rumored AI Pin Forces a Simple Question: What Do People Actually Want?Apple's Creator Studio Isn't an Adobe Killer. It's Something Else EntirelyApple introduces new AirTag with expanded range and improved findability - AppleA brief note about one more AirTag 2 difference - 9to5MacSebastiaan de With on Bluesky@stroughtonsmith - MastodonTesla Finally Announced the End of an EraI Bought an 11-Year-Old Tesla in 2024 — Worth It? - YouTubeApple Signs Deal for Brandon Sanderson's 'Cosmere' Universe Movies and TV Shows - MacRumorsGoogle adds Gemini AI-powered ‘auto browse' to Chrome | The VergeMoltbot (Formerly Clawdbot) Showed Me What the Future of Personal AI Assistants Looks Like - MacStoriesSonos unveils its first new hardware product in over a year - 9to5MacOpenAI is working out how much to charge for ChatGPT ads | The VergeTikTok Faces Outage and Censorship Concerns Days After U.S. Ownership Deal Closes - MacRumorsDisgruntled TikTok Users Turn To UpScrolled—Which Outranks TikTok On App Store ★ Support this podcast ★
Jello again. It's the fifth anniversary of Jack Benny's debut on radio. So, Mary writes a poem, Phil offers a truce, and the gang throws a Buck Benny party.Episode 256 of The Jack Benny Show. The program originally aired on on May 2, 1937.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/classic-comedy-of-old-time-radio--5818299/support.Please email questions and comments to host@classiccomedyotr.com.Like us on Facebook at facebook.com/classiccomedyotr. Please share this podcast with your friends and family.You can also subscribe to our podcast on Spreaker.com, Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, and Google podcasts.This show is supported by Spreaker Prime.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/classic-comedy-of-old-time-radio--5818299/support.
TikTok has agreed to settle a landmark social media addiction lawsuit just before the trial was set to kick off. The social video platform was one of three companies — along with Meta’s Instagram and Google’s YouTube — facing claims that their platforms deliberately addict and harm children. A fourth company named in the lawsuit, Snapchat parent company Snap Inc., settled the case last week for an undisclosed sum. Details of the settlement with TikTok were not disclosed, and the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. At the core of the case is a 19-year-old identified only by the initials “KGM,” whose case could determine how thousands of other, similar lawsuits against social media companies will play out. She and two other plaintiffs have been selected for bellwether trials — essentially test cases for both sides to see how their arguments play out before a jury and what damages, if any, may be awarded, said Clay Calvert, a nonresident senior fellow of technology policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Today on AirTalk, Larry speaks to CNN tech writer Clare Duffy to offer a primer on the case and understand its long-term implications. With files from the Associated Press
In this mini-panel, Jack, Paige, Paul, and Noel discuss how AI reshaping developer tooling is impacting open source monetization, including the recent Tailwind layoffs and the collapse of Tailwind documentation traffic caused by AI. The conversation expands into broader developer tooling business models and reacts to claims like Ryan Dahl stating that the era of humans writing code is over. They also cover the Astro Cloudflare acquisition, what it means for the Cloudflare developer platform, and how this shapes the frontend frameworks future. Hot takes include light mode vs dark mode SaaS, shifting developer aesthetics, and why AI productivity for developers may now come down to workflow design rather than raw coding skill. Resources Tailwind Layoffs and AI Tailwind layoffs: https://www.businessinsider.com/tailwind-engineer-layoffs-ai-github-2026-1#:~:text=Tailwind%20laid%20off%2075%25%20of,on%20our%20engineering%20team%20lost Tailwind layoffs: https://github.com/tailwindlabs/tailwindcss.com/pull/2388#issuecomment-3717222957 Ryan Dahl Tweet: https://x.com/rough__sea/status/2013280952370573666 Apple and Google joint statement: https://x.com/NewsFromGoogle/status/2010760810751017017 Astro joins Cloudflare Astro joins Cloudflare: https://blog.cloudflare.com/astro-joins-cloudflare We want to hear from you! How did you find us? Did you see us on Twitter? In a newsletter? Or maybe we were recommended by a friend? Fill out our listener survey! https://t.co/oKVAEXipxu Let us know by sending an email to our producer, Elizabeth, at elizabeth.becz@logrocket.com, or tweet at us at PodRocketPod. Check out our newsletter! https://blog.logrocket.com/the-replay-newsletter/ Follow us. Get free stickers. Follow us on Apple Podcasts, fill out this form, and we'll send you free PodRocket stickers! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket provides AI-first session replay and analytics that surfaces the UX and technical issues impacting user experiences. Start understanding where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com. Try LogRocket for free today. ChaptersSpecial Guest: Jack Herrington.
At Whistler 2024 there was a different kind of green that covered the slopes of Blackcomb Mountain. Among the old-growth forest of towering trees every once in a while you'd spot a a green flash……flourescent green to be exact on top of the heads of the crew from Google. Those hats belonged to Team Green Lightning. Some may argue there is nothing “lightening” when you are climbing 4 mile 3900 foot ascents up a mountain for 36 hours, but a team they were. Colleagues by day, turned cheerleaders and confidants on the mountain. Brian Goldstein was part of Team Green Lightening. He had dabbled in endurance sport and always had a curiosity in his personality toward the extreme….but like us all it's not too long before you find out that 29029 isn't an ordinary endurance challenge, its a catalyst and an invitation to step into a new version of ourselves.
Hey Fam! Today I'm talking about a skill that most people skip... and that's a BIG mistake. This is Fonzi BTW hijacking the show
In this episode of the Marketing Club on Clubhouse, host Favour Obasi-ike, MBA, MS discusses "Social Business: LinkedIn SEO Best Practices with Marketing Tactical Strategies". The conversation, with industry friends and guests Jolanta, Celeste, and David Baker, delves into the nuances of optimizing your LinkedIn presence to increase visibility and build a strong personal brand. The episode covers a range of topics, from the importance of a clean and professional LinkedIn profile URL to the strategic use of LinkedIn features like newsletters and polls. The speakers emphasize the long-term value of content creation, the significance of building an email list, and the power of leveraging AI tools to enhance your marketing efforts.This podcast episode is packed with actionable advice for anyone looking to leverage LinkedIn for business growth and personal branding and social business building.Learning TopicsLinkedIn Profile Optimization: Learn how to optimize your LinkedIn profile for maximum visibility, including the importance of a clean URL and a well-crafted headline.Content Strategy: Discover effective content strategies for LinkedIn, including the use of polls, GIFs, and newsletters to engage your audience.The Power of Email Marketing: Understand why building an email list is crucial for long-term business success and how to integrate it with your LinkedIn strategy.Leveraging AI Tools: Get insights into using AI tools like Shield App to analyze your LinkedIn performance and gain a competitive edge.Long-Term SEO Value: Learn about the long-term benefits of creating high-quality content and how it contributes to your overall SEO strategy.Need to Book An SEO Discovery Call for Advertising or Marketing Services?>> Book a Complimentary SEO Discovery Call with Favour Obasi-Ike>> Visit Work and PLAY Entertainment website to learn about our digital marketing services>> Join our exclusive SEO Marketing community>> Read SEO Articles>> Subscribe to the We Don't PLAY Podcast>> Purchase Flaev Beatz Beats OnlineEpisode Timestamps[00:00 - 01:53] Introduction to LinkedIn SEO and its importance for business growth.[01:53 - 05:26] The importance of a clean and professional LinkedIn profile URL.[05:26 - 08:08] How to optimize your LinkedIn headline and avoid keyword stuffing.[08:08 - 15:45] The long-term value of content and the 24-month yield of an article.[15:45 - 23:10] The importance of building an email list and not relying solely on social media platforms.[23:10 - 33:31] How to use LinkedIn polls to engage your audience and gather insights.[33:31 - 40:12] Using GIFs on LinkedIn to make your posts more visually appealing.[40:12 - 50:30] The benefits of creating a LinkedIn company profile and using newsletters.[50:30 - 01:05:00] Discussion on various AI tools and search engines like Perplexity, ChatGPT, and Gemini.[01:05:00 - 01:15:00] Guest David Baker shares his story about getting locked out of his LinkedIn account and the importance of owning your audience.[01:15:00 - 01:25:00] Introduction to Shield App, an AI tool for LinkedIn analytics.[01:25:00 - 01:36:45] Final thoughts and key takeaways from the speakers.Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)Q: Why is it important to have a clean LinkedIn URL?A: A clean LinkedIn URL (e.g., linkedin.com/in/yourname) is crucial for SEO and personal branding. It makes your profile look more professional and easier to find. Avoid URLs with random numbers or characters, as they can hurt your visibility.Q: Should I use hashtags on LinkedIn?A: The speakers suggest that hashtags are not essential on LinkedIn. It's more important to create high-quality content that resonates with your target audience. However, if you do use hashtags, use them sparingly and strategically.Q: How can I make my LinkedIn posts more engaging?A: You can use polls, GIFs, and visually appealing content to make your posts more engaging. Polls are a great way to interact with your audience and gather feedback, while GIFs can add a touch of personality to your posts.Q: What is the Shield App?A: Shield App is an AI-powered analytics tool for LinkedIn. It helps you track your content performance, understand your audience, and gain insights to improve your LinkedIn strategy. The speakers recommend it as a valuable tool for serious LinkedIn users.Q: Why is building an email list so important?A: You don't own your social media followers. If you get locked out of your account or the platform changes its algorithm, you could lose your audience. An email list gives you a direct line of communication with your followers that you control.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Voices of Search // A Search Engine Optimization (SEO) & Content Marketing Podcast
Most SEO teams lack dedicated product-focused roles despite technical implementation challenges. John Vantine, Director of SEO at GoodRx, has built cross-functional generative search frameworks over 7 years that drive discovery across Google, ChatGPT, and emerging platforms. He advocates for hiring SEO professionals in product management roles who can maintain technical roadmaps, collaborate directly with engineering teams, and execute strategies that manifest as user-focused features with search optimization built-in. This product-led SEO approach bridges the gap between strategic planning and technical execution at enterprise scale.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay and it's time for a BONUS January Indulgence Gospel!This episode is free for everyone. If you enjoy it, consider a paid subscription to Burnt Toast! It's the best way to support our work and keep this an ad- and sponsor-free space. You'll also get behind some of our most popular paywalled episodes like:
What if your packaging could dissolve back into nature instead of polluting our oceans?
Danielle DiMartino Booth, CEO and Chief Strategist at QI Research, breaks down why the Fed's decision to pause was both premature and political, arguing Powell is "committing policy errors to quietly dig at the administration." She explains why the Fed should have cut today — and why she believes we need 100 basis points of cuts given deteriorating labor market data that Powell is choosing to ignore. Danielle unpacks the DOJ subpoena drama, revealing that betting markets dropped Powell's odds of leaving by August from 90% to 60% after the charges, and she believes he's now "enjoying the cat and mouse" with Trump. She revisits her open letter calling for the FOMC to elect Chris Waller as chair, explains why Rick Rieder would be "inviting the fox into the hen house," and shares her bold prediction: unemployment will have a 6 handle within a year. Plus, she discusses the hidden stress signals in Buy Now Pay Later data and why gold is behaving like a "meme stock." Links: Danielle's open letter: https://quillintelligence.com/2025/12/10/the-weekly-quill-open-letter-2/Danielle's open letter part 2: https://quillintelligence.com/2026/01/22/the-weekly-quill-open-letter-ii-public/Danielle's Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/dimartinobooth Substack: https://dimartinobooth.substack.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DanielleDiMartinoBoothQIFed Up: https://www.amazon.com/Fed-Up-Insiders-Federal-Reserve/dp/0735211655Timestamps: 0:00 Welcome 1:05 The Powell subpoena: Danielle's reaction 3:35 Betting markets: Powell leaving odds dropped 4:51 Powell is the cat, Trump is the mouse 5:54 Why Powell is being political by NOT cutting rates 6:35 How Powell moved the goalposts on rate probability 7:32 The contradiction: Integrity vs. ignoring the American people 8:33 Financial conditions are easy because of passive investing, not the Fed 9:19 The shutdown has affected data integrity 10:05 Outlook for the year: Rate cuts coming? 10:50 Conference Board labor differential — recession signal 12:06 Should he have cut today? Yes. We need 100 basis points of cuts12:52 Open Letter Part Two: Why the FOMC should have elected Chris Waller 15:03 Rick Rieder: Inviting the fox into the hen house? 16:34 Who will be the next Fed chair? 17:35 What we don't understand about Fed chair transitions 19:04 The questions reporters should have asked Powell 21:29 Hidden signal: Google searches for "file unemployment" keep rising22:28 Buy Now Pay Later for dental bills and utilities — the stress is real25:41 Gen Z risk appetite and the environment that shapes investors 26:45 Gold is a meme now 29:01 DoubleLine roundtable: Long utilities, short financials 31:14 Commercial real estate capitulation and bankruptcies 32:14 Bold prediction: Unemployment will have a 6 handle by next year33:20 Parting thoughts: Don't forget about your neighbors 33:45 Closing
Tune in to the One LIFE Podcast. This week we will be talking from the topic, FORGIVE QUICK!!!Do you exercise forgiveness towards others quickly or is your forgiveness delayed? It's a very simple question, but not always an easy answer. It's important that we forgive others. Forgiveness is a "spiritual" dextox. The faster you release it, the less damage it does inside of you!!! Listen on Apple, Google, Spotify and I Heart Radio. Pray this eposiode blesses you.
“Drum circles were created to build inclusivity, equity, and diversity.” In this episode, Nick speaks with Andrew Ecker to explore the cultural significance of drumming, particularly within indigenous communities, and highlights the historical context of drum circles as a means of fostering inclusivity and diversity and healing from trauma and addiction. What to listen for: Drumming and sound healing, overall, can positively impact our mental well-being The historical context of drumming reflects a blend of various cultural influences Drumming fosters community and shared experiences Addiction is based in shame and can often be spurred on by our early experiences Embracing our calling heals ourselves and others “All of us are connected to the earth. All of us are indigenous. All of us have the air, the water, the fire, and the earth flowing through us.” Identity goes deeper than culture or job titles; it's rooted in our relationship to the earth and life itself Separation from nature often fuels disconnection, anxiety, and burnout The elements are a reminder that we're not isolated individuals; we're part of a living system Reclaiming earth-based identity can be deeply grounding and healing “Do something for people — and you'll discover the truest truth of who you are.” Service often reveals purpose more clearly than self-reflection alone Helping others pulls us out of isolation and into meaningful connection You don't need to be “healed” or perfect to make a difference Showing up for others strengthens self-trust and self-worth About Andrew Ecker Andrew is a speaker, author, and creator of the Drumming Sounds Protocol, an evidence-based wellness intervention that blends ancient rhythm traditions with modern neuroscience to improve mental health, recovery, and community connection. With over 25 years of experience facilitating more than 5,000 drumming and sound-based programs, Andrew has worked with hospitals, treatment centers, universities, and tribal nations across the country. His book, The Sacred 7, explores identity, ancestry, and the transformative power of ceremony—a topic that resonates deeply with audiences seeking meaning, resilience, and personal empowerment. As a former youth outreach leader and recovery coach with over two decades in sobriety, Andrew brings a powerful, real-world perspective to conversations about trauma, healing, and spirituality. His ability to blend science, story, and spirit makes him a compelling guest for podcasts focused on wellness, recovery, leadership, and conscious living. https://www.drummingsounds.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-ecker-sacred7/ https://www.facebook.com/andrew.ecker1/ For our audience, please enjoy a free copy of Andrew's book, “The Sacred 7” — it's available for download at http://thesacredseven.com/ Resources: Interested in starting your own podcast or need help with one you already have? https://themindsetandselfmasteryshow.com/podcasting-services/ Thank you for listening! Please subscribe on iTunes and give us a 5-Star review! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mindset-and-self-mastery-show/id1604262089 Listen to other episodes here: https://themindsetandselfmasteryshow.com/ Watch Clips and highlights: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk1tCM7KTe3hrq_-UAa6GHA Guest Inquiries right here: podcasts@themindsetandselfmasteryshow.com Your Friends at “The Mindset & Self-Mastery Show” Click Here To View The Episode Transcript Nick McGowan (00:02.959)Hello and welcome to the Mindset Self Mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. Today on the show, we have Andrew Ecker. Andrew, what’s going on? Andrew Ecker (00:13.602)How’s it going, Nick? Nick McGowan (00:15.649)It’s good. I’m glad that you’re here. I’m excited for us to talk about music and drum circles and sound healing and all the things that relate to all of that. And we were gonna have a call maybe like a year and a half ago or so. And there’ve been some people that have like backed out of the show and I’ve been like, that’s fine. You can do whatever you want to do. But you were one of the people I was like, I hope he comes back. So I’m glad that you’re here. I’m glad that people are gonna be able to hear this conversation. And why don’t you get us started? Tell us what you do for a living and what’s one thing most people don’t know about you that’s maybe a little odd or bizarre. Andrew Ecker (00:48.769)Awesome. So before we do that, I’d like to just take a moment and honor myself in the space by introducing myself formally in traditional language of my ancestors. This is a language called Nde Baza, which basically means the people’s tongue. So Dago Tse, Tse Nde, Andirector Yenise, Adon Dae Nshinigye, Nde Nshe, Irish Pashachin, Nde Dasha Tshe, German Dasha Nali, Kote Goe Itshliye, Portland, Oregon, Enishe. Shama’e, Kathy Lindsay Woye, Shaza’e Del Eccorale. So my name is Andrew Eccor, my mother Kathy Lindsay, my father Del Eccor, my mother’s mother Elva Gallegos, Apache woman from New Mexico. She grew up in a little town called Capitan right outside the Mescalero reservation. Although my ancestral lines go back to the Madera Valley of Texas and Chihuahua, Mexico. The Apaches from this area are called La Pond Band Apache. My father’s mother Evelyn Beatty, an Irish woman from Pennsylvania. She actually was very proud that our ancestor William Beatty fought in the Revolutionary War to establish this country. So I do consider myself a son of the revolution on that side of my family. My mother’s father Leroy Lindsay, a Korean and Vietnam War veteran, and my father’s father Wayne Ecker, a World War II veteran. I have a daughter Bailey, son Peyton, a beloved fiancee named Monica. I was born in the ancestral land of the Multnomah Clackamas of Malamit in Portland, Oregon. although I currently reside in the ancestral land of the Akmal, Atom, the Peaposh and the Hohokam in Phoenix, Arizona. And very grateful to be here with you. So the thing that I do primarily is I work in healthcare and I’m a drum circle facilitator and sound medicine practitioner and also a peer support specialist, recovery coach. Most of the work that I do is in variety of different healthcare settings. So everything from psychiatric lockdowns to memory care, skilled nursing, prisons, jails, drug and alcohol treatment facilities, I facilitated about 5,000 wellness-based events with a protocol I’ve developed called Drumming Sounds. So Drumming Sounds is a step-by-step process of creating outcomes that are wellness-based. So reducing stress, increasing immunity, lowering blood pressure, Andrew Ecker (03:13.865)helping people connect through music and really creating a safe, sacred space for people to come into group drumming. So group drumming is a really powerful wellness intervention and so it’s a small group of studies done on it and it’s pretty amazing what the science community has found. So yeah, so that’s what I do and also do some coaching stuff, of course, help people out. Something unique about me, that a lot of people don’t know. You know, I grew up in a home where both my parents were addicted to drugs and my mom died of a cocaine overdose and my father died of cirrhosis of liver caused by hepatitis C. So growing up in that environment, I was around a lot of really intense experiences. And I think something that a lot of people don’t know about me is that because of that, My relationship with PTSD as a child was something really intense and my first suicide attempt I was seven years old. I remember attempting to hang myself at seven and thankfully, you know, I didn’t succeed. But from the time of that first attempt till really probably my late 20s, I was dealing with suicidal ideation and a severe relationship to other mental health concerns, including situational schizophrenia, depression, anxiety. These are all things I live in relationship with today. Nick McGowan (05:01.261)So, where do I go from here? know, way to drop everything on us. I first off want to thank you and appreciate how you started this and being able to show back to your ancestors and being able to talk from your original language. I think we can sometimes forget about where we come from. Our genetics do not. our generational trauma does not. There’s so many things that, like you dealt with so much with your parents. I’m sure we could just tackle through all of that, but what your parents dealt with, that then they transferred along to you and what their parents dealt with, et cetera, et cetera, and how all of that was tossed to us. Most people I don’t think really think about that because they just think, well, my parents are assholes, so I’m trying to do better or whatever. It’s like, well, let’s actually take steps back generations before that. and before that, before that. And I think we can sometimes also forget about where you actually came from. Like you rattled off a lot of family members. And as I was thinking about it, I was like, I’m making me, I maybe go like two layers deep. People beyond that, I don’t really know. And I don’t really know if they’re still around or what the hell’s going on or whatever, because of the way that I was raised. And it’s interesting to think about how we should. actually get back to more community-based things, but there’s a lot of unlearning to do with all of that. And I’ve read through the stuff you’ve sent. I’ve seen the different things you’ve done. I’ve known about you for a little bit, but I wouldn’t have even been able to know about the things that you’ve just rattled off. And really, mean, shit, where do you want to start with this? and thinking about from a mental health and a mindset and overall transformation, self mastery. I’m not trying to just throw out buzzwords, but like there are categorical things we can talk about here, you know? Andrew Ecker (06:59.456)Yeah. Andrew Ecker (07:03.264)Yeah, for sure. And that’s really why I’d like to share that traditional introduction because it does give us an opportunity to understand what healthy communities have looked at as self-identity, really the foundation of creating a healthy person. We’re talking about tens of thousands of years of this idea that we are our parents, we are our grandparents, we are from someplace and we live someplace. You know, these principles of self-identity. And just like you were sharing, know, remembering that is very important because we live in a time where our earth-based identity has been systematically erased from our mindset. And this is done through systematic organization of space, you know, ideas like the patriarchy, manoralism and feudalism. You know, these really predominant institutions systematically created a separation from us being our family and being from the earth. Yet all of us are connected to the earth. All of us are indigenous. All of us have the air, the water, the fire, the earth flowing through us. And the more that we can remember that, the more that we can validate that we are valuable just as a person. The contemporary culture has created this idea that we’re a job. And that’s our identity, that’s our value. And that idea was really created around feudalism and manalism historically because these were the only… Well, everyone in those systems was a job-based identity other than the landlords. And the landlords were the ones who were able to have an earth-based identity. If you weren’t have land and land title, You were a smith, a parson, a knight, a sewer, all of these behavioral based ideas of identity. And as we begin to really look at these constructs, you can see that the devaluing of the human condition is a purposeful and an intentional plot to really create what we’re faced with today. And what we’re faced with today is a lot of people Andrew Ecker (09:26.423)wandering around feeling valueless, hopeless, and really in a condition that promotes the use of destructive behaviors such as substances. know, myself, growing up in an environment where I remember the D.A.R.E. program coming into my school, and you know, during D.A.R.E., a lot of people don’t remember, but the D.A.R.E. police were getting children to turn in their parents for using cannabis. and for using substances. And I remember my mom was really scared that this was going to happen. So she kind of cornered me one day and said to me, you know, if they come into your school, you can’t tell them that we use this. And it was really weird to me, because like those were the best times I remember. You know, my job as a little boy was to clean the stems and the seeds out of the cannabis. You know, back when cannabis had stems and seeds. You know, and people rolled a joint. It wasn’t a free roll. You know, but my family used to sit around and smoke and that was when they were social. You know, nobody was drunk fighting. Nobody was in the bathroom or in the bedroom with the door shut. You know, doing intravenous drugs, they were social. And I just couldn’t understand that as a kid. But yet I remember them coming into my school and they had flags and Nick McGowan (10:24.073)You Andrew Ecker (10:51.996)guns and these were great big intimidating police officers. And I remember my heart racing and my palms getting sweaty. And thankfully they didn’t interrogate me. But what they did was they said to this group of children, if you have one drug addict parent, you’re 50 % more likely to become a drug addict. Now I’m not saying that they did this intentionally to give children this idea that they’re genetically flawed. They were trying to impart to these kids. that, you know, don’t use drugs. That’s what, you know, is the big thing. You know, just say no, all this stuff. But what it did for me is it told me, well, 50 and 50, that’s 100. That must be who I am. And this was the first time in my life that anyone told me I was genetically flawed. You know, and the extension of eugenics isn’t something that is merely a part of, you know, the Nazi regime. Nick McGowan (11:35.326)Hmm. Andrew Ecker (11:47.256)You know, eugenics enters into childhood ideas in these sorts of systematic ways. You know, now, you know, fast forward, we’ve come to a place of understanding that it’s not just eugenics, but it’s epigenetics and really looking at how we can create environments that create successful human beings. And that’s what I’m able to do with the drum circle. You know, the drum circle is really an environment that creates a healthy human being. as to where the destructive forces of incarceration, imprisonment and devaluing people because they have a mental health concern created those behaviors that were a part of my parents’ lives and unfortunately a part of my life. know, it wasn’t that moment that I became a drug addict when the Derikoff said that to me. But later on, as I would grow older, that seed started to take root. And when I was a teenager, I ended up in the spoon with my dad, meaning I was using heroin with my father. You know, my mom used to use me to shoplift. I was in and out of drug houses. I mean, it was, I was exposed to things as a little boy that only makes sense today in my path of service. You know, as I’ve learned to manage these things and as I’ve learned to show up and help people reconnect to who they are, it’s all made perfect sense to me. But as a little boy, man, I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know how to deal with it. I just wanted the pain to end. know, and, you know, thankfully I found heroin because heroin helped me through my suicidal ideation. Because I don’t know if I would be alive today if it wasn’t for heroin. You know, things got real bad for me when I was, you know, 17, 18 years old. Nick McGowan (13:41.68)I gotta be honest, I never thought I would hear anybody else say that thankfully I had heroin because that changed things. I overdosed on heroin when I was 19. And the people that were there in the room, I’m thankful that they wanted to save their own lives and one person like beat the shit out of me so I threw everything up. But I remember walking home smoking a cigarette after that being like, what the fuck just happened? All right. And looking up being like, all right, I guess there’s some reason why I’m here. And I think back to that. But that wasn’t like that one moment, just like the moment that you were talking about or any of those other little moments were just a bag of moments in a sense. All these things, like even as a little kid, you don’t really know. Like, and I totally understand where you’re coming from with the parents hanging around, smoking joints, all of that. I was in parts of some of that. My mom and dad were never together and it was like totally separate ways of being and all of that. living in and out of bars, basically, like being the kid eating a maraschino cherries and all that shit, and everyone just smoking cigarettes like a pack at a time and out around your face. There are people that don’t understand those things. Even like the dare stuff. I’ve had conversations with people kind of recently, like within the past handful of months, where some people were like, dare scared the shit out of me. And I didn’t want to touch like caffeine or anything else. Other people were like, I learned there were drugs out there. So was like, great, can I have some? And then other people went through stuff like you where they’re like, well, you’re telling me this is how it is. I think it’s interesting how we can suspect that, let’s just say, dare wasn’t trying to brainwash. know, let’s just say that their thing was like, we want to help and we want to make sure that you have the statistics. But these are also adults that are like, well, 50 % of you become addicts. So why don’t we just tell the kids that you take it as one way. Some other kid takes it a different way. And there’s no repercussion to that at all to then like, that wasn’t a thing that you then brought up the next day in school. It like, know what? Yesterday, I learned this thing and now I feel like the rest of my life is gonna change. That just started to grow bit by bit by bit. And then you already had the genes of being addicted. Nick McGowan (16:02.023)I know I have to come back to some fucking question basically. And my question at all times with that sort of stuff is like, how do we stop that from happening? Because even with the DARE stuff, it’s like, yeah, cool, thanks. Now I know there are other drugs out there and also know what the end is and I’ll fall back to marijuana because like, why the fuck? It’s a fucking plan. But all things in moderation and like all those different aspects to it. But what do we do? You know, like you move to music. And as a musician and creative myself, I moved toward that too, but I often think of the times of smoking a joint and playing music and like those are happy moments. but to some people that might be destructive and all of that, but you moved closer into music. So I think music sometimes can be part of our addiction, you know, like I’m addicted to sound. but being able to turn that into a healing thing. So I don’t want to just jump past everything you went through. Andrew Ecker (16:57.041)Thank Nick McGowan (16:59.844)with your parents because that made you who you are. But being able to look back at some of those moments to go, now with the work that you do, the way that you were raised, what are some of those bridge points that you can look at and go, man, I was really looking for community. I was looking for ways to do this and do that. You know what I mean? Andrew Ecker (17:18.16)Yeah, exactly. I really believe that all addiction for me is based around relationship and filling the void of the absence of relationship with the substance. And I remember the first time that this really happened to me, me and my mom were out shoplifting all day. I was just a little guy. I was, you know, probably eight, nine, I don’t know, somewhere around there. I remember being all bundled up and maybe even younger. I was you know, elementary school age. And she takes me to the park and she left me there at the park with a bucket of chicken. And I remember her saying, I’ll be right back and her driving off and me eating that chicken to fill the void and the fear of my mom not coming back for me. Being left at the park and knowing in my childhood mind that she was going to a dope house and there could have been something that happened. It was just the anxiety of that entire situation I was feeling with the warmth of that chicken. And then later on, you know, as I started to grow in my own personal self mastery, I started to look back at the patterns of loneliness and grief and isolation and how every time that I found myself using, really, it was that idea. It was about creating camaraderie at first, community. finding a judgment free zone. You know, I grew up being bounced around family member to family member. So definitely had home insecurity and really wasn’t, you know, in a place where I felt like I had a home. So I didn’t feel that sense of security that maybe most people grow up with. So when I found the security of friends that would accept me, you know, just if I got high with them, that’s all I needed. It wasn’t like I needed to be smart, it wasn’t like I needed to be funny, it wasn’t like I needed to be athletic, you know, it wasn’t like I needed to be a great musician, any of those things. I just needed to show up and get high and you know and have money to get high or be able to hustle and that was really my first support system was the community of people that I was using with and what happens for most people that are in the struggle of substance use disorder Andrew Ecker (19:43.015)is that they focus on what not to do. And they never really understand what the drugs and alcohol gave to them. You know, asking myself, what was it that heroin gave to me? What was it that alcohol gave to me? And how can I effectively create a way of meeting that need? Because we all have human needs. Every single one of us is going through something. And you know, it’s a lot easier when we go through it together and building that foundation of community. is so important in me being able to have functional behaviors today. So I’m constantly evolving in the way that I’m able to show up in community. I have my drum circle community. I have the people that I serve in the institutions and healthcare and the schools. And then I also have other activities like doing poetry or playing pickleball, going to the gym. You know, these are ways that I definitely look at creating community where I’m at. There was a time when church was a really big part of my life. You know, now I go to sweat lodge and I have a spiritual community there. Uh, you know, I’m not opposed to going to meetings, but I, know, I don’t go to a lot now, but definitely going to 12 step meetings and all of these things are a great way that we can build a supportive community. And when you ask, you know, Like when we think about children that have been affected by the mental health crisis, you know, how do we help them navigate? How do we help the youth navigate? And I think it’s really about creating a fortified sense of community. And, you know, when we think about drumming, oftentimes we go to this idea that drumming is this exclusive experience for indigenous communities, that it’s something that really is ceremonial and ritualistic and yes there is definitely ritual and ceremony but drum circles began as creating a culture of inclusivity, equity and really diversity because the drum circle of North America originated in the 1700s in New Orleans and under French colonial occupation Native Americans, Africans, Europeans, people from all over the world Andrew Ecker (22:09.146)were able to gather with the common language of group drumming. And that group drumming created a foundation for jazz, blues, R &B, gospel, and eventually rock and roll. So when I go in and I facilitate a drum circle, it’s from the American experience of group drumming that has always been about creating a culture of diversity, has always been about creating a space of connection. through diverse groups. And when we have that sacred space, we can know that something good is gonna happen. And we as Americans, we don’t know that the only truly American instrument is the drum kit. The jazz drum kit is really the only truly American instrument. So we have this vast history of drumming together that is hundreds of years old, literally as old as the concept of of America, yet for some reason this sort of stuff isn’t taught in school. And it’s not taught to us about the richness of creating a culture of diversity, of inclusion, of equity, and what the brilliance of that looks like in an artistic sense. And I think today we’re threatened by a voice that is coming from a group of people that says that diversity, inclusion, and equity is something to fear. And I’m like people, that’s the very greatest gifts that we’ve given to the world has come from us coming together as a people. And it feels good. You know, it feels good to give yourself an opportunity to be around people in an activity that you normally wouldn’t be around. And I think that that’s the power of our journey and the wellness and the brilliance of our community. Nick McGowan (23:58.594)Hmm. Andrew Ecker (24:04.405)And when we can get back to teaching each other that, when we can get back to fortifying the space of that concept of what that America looks like, we’ll have the brilliance of being the shining city on the hillside that calls the weary, that calls the hurting, that calls the desperate. And you know, the struggle that my parents went through, the pain that they were going through, and the ostracization of being criminalized for having a mental health issue. You know, that’s what this country has done very effectively. You know, 90 % of people in our prison system have a mental health issue. And that is sad that we have done this to the most vulnerable people in our population. And we have more people in prison than any industrialized nation in the world. But if you counted the people that were in psychiatric lockdowns, memory care, skilled nursing, and other forms of institutionalization, that number would be astronomical. And these are the people that I have spent the past 20 years working with, helping, desperately giving to, because in that space, I feel fulfilled as a human being, but I also get to see some of the most brilliant experiences and miraculous experiences in my life, Nick. I mean, we’ll go into these memory care facilities where we have late stage Alzheimer’s patients that are nonverbal and we’ll set the drum down in front of them. The nurses sometimes will come over and say, they won’t play, don’t even bother. I mean, this is our healthcare workers and we’ll say, no, just keep it there. And next thing you know, you see them tapping their foot. And before you know it, they’re playing and they’re singing and You know, it’s just miraculous to know that the tens of thousands of years of evidence-based practice of utilizing group drumming has not been wasted and that it’s still relevant to the healthcare conversation and it still is meaningful and it still helps people. Nick McGowan (26:15.97)Why don’t see how it can’t not continue that way, you know? Like, I think everybody that will listen to this will have heard at least one time, music is the universal language. And for us to be able to actually feel music, there are people that don’t really understand music. They don’t feel it the same way musicians do, let’s say. Like there are sometimes I’ll share things with people and I’m like, listen to how this happens with this and my God. then it just does things to you. You feel that at different times. Other people don’t know that. That’s just not part of their being. Yet still, they can feel the frequencies. If we really break it down into quantum level, we are all waves and frequencies anyway. And all of this ties into everything. man, I’m sitting here like I got chills even as you’re talking about, because I’m visualizing that older person who the healthcare workers are basically like, we see them every day. They don’t do anything because we also don’t do anything different. Andrew Ecker (26:48.163)yes. Nick McGowan (27:15.083)And we’re kind of jaded and overworked and fuck, I could really use a vacation. Like they have their own problems. And then they’re just like, no, don’t worry about them. They’re not going to do it. But that frequency will still get in there. So I could imagine it’s got to be a, that’s probably one of those things like drum circles per se is one of those things that people probably won’t go to on the top list of 30 things that they’re going to do to work on themselves at first. You know, so even Like if somebody were to say, you’re having these problems, you have some addiction, you have anything and they go, well, go to a drum circle. I would imagine most people would look at somebody like a dog would like, what the fuck does that, what do you mean? so what would you say to those people that haven’t even thought of that? This is one of those things where like, wow, I’ve talked to somebody, I went to a doctor and I’m doing these and we’re doing blah, blah, blah. What advice do you give to those people that this has been one of those things that. was probably not even deep, deep in their mind, even as a musician, to think about how drum circles and drumming could help them. Andrew Ecker (28:19.943)Well, I definitely feel that a lot of that has been because of the cultural stereotypes about drumming and this idea of, you know, the witch doctor or voodoo or, you know, something along these lines. you know, it just is, it’s crazy to really unpack when you have communities that have thrived with a relationship to the earth, lived functionally for tens of thousands of years. And at the heart of those communities, is group drumming, dancing and singing. I mean, this is literally the oldest wellness based event that we have as human beings. And somehow, you know, through the lens of religion and not even really, I would say because I was a pastor for three and half years that I can tell you that there’s a lot of reference in the Bible even of sound medicine. I mean, David, you know, played the leader for Saul who had like mental health concerns. And it’s, mean, there’s references to the women of Israel coming out playing the drum. So it isn’t like an educated Judeo-Christian bias. It’s an uneducated Judeo-Christian bias that creates this narrative that, those brown and black people are the people, those savages, that drum. And it’s really unfortunate because even Nick McGowan (29:21.642)Mm-hmm. Andrew Ecker (29:48.061)in the very progressive world of integrative medicine, there still is a void around drumming. I am a presenter at some of the most prestigious healthcare conferences in the United States. And I remember confronting a doctor that was talking about mindfulness and he had, he was a keynote and he had this tree of mindfulness and all of these branches led to different aspects of mindfulness. One of them, of course, went to yoga, Tai Chi, but there wasn’t a branch that went to drumming and dance. And I confronted him in front of the entire group of doctors, 500 doctors. And I said, why isn’t there a branch to drumming? And he was very apologetic. And he said, there needs to be a branch on that tree to drumming. And I said, yes, we’re working on making that happen. But it is overlooked. Nick McGowan (30:37.513)Hmm. Andrew Ecker (30:46.148)And you know, I can tell you that I am a part of a community of people that have the more that they drum, they may have come to a drum circle and been drinking and smoking. But by the time, you know, a couple of years go by and they get around people like myself that are completely abstinent from substance use and I’m drumming and having a great time and dancing, the more that they start to question, well, do I really need this? And then it’s just Nick McGowan (31:13.566)Hmm. Andrew Ecker (31:13.911)a matter of them just being in that environment. And I have friends come up to me and say, Hey, you know what? I didn’t tell anybody about this, but I haven’t drank in, you know, six months. And I’m like, right on, you know, and friends come up and say, I haven’t smoked in a year and I just kind of went away because drumming as well as you know, Nick, music gives us that feeling of community connection. I mean, there is no deeper connection. that you can experience, then when you hit a note or when you play a rhythm and everybody ends together and nobody said stop, or the thing just fades away into the brilliance of the experience and you’re just like, holy crap. This, mean, as a musician, and if you talk to musicians, they can tell you precisely when that happened in their life, because it’s one of those memories. Nick McGowan (31:51.954)Mm-hmm. Andrew Ecker (32:09.966)that is embedded into you on a cellular level. It is literally like you’re touching God. I mean, it is so powerful. And every person, we have communities where that was literally the entire community experience. I was fortunate enough to go to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and meet with the Havasupai. And I did three suicide prevention programs down there. This is the most remote Native American tribe in the continental United States. Nick McGowan (32:13.95)Mm-hmm. Nick McGowan (32:26.279)you Andrew Ecker (32:39.159)There’s no roads to their nation. There’s no airstrips. It’s only horseback helicopter or foot. That’s the only way you can get down there. And I met with an elder named Tiny Haunan. And Tiny was playing the drum and singing. And he said, when I was a little boy, we used to drum, dance and sing for a week straight. He said the people would fall asleep on the ground, wake up, start singing and dancing again. And they would drum literally for an entire week. Now the frequency of that, the cellular alliance, the reconfiguration of the energetic meridians in the body, like there is no place for depression in that environment. There’s no place for anxiety in that environment. I mean, you’re literally rewiring your nervous system and coming into our harmonic connection with the earth. And this is really what it means to be an earthling. You know, the music that we play, Nick McGowan (33:21.758)you Andrew Ecker (33:38.14)is something that we practice to play at the level that we can play at. But everybody knows that there’s a point where the instrument is playing you. And when you’re in that mystery, man, when you are in that mystery, like every single person deserves to experience that in their lives. Every single person deserves to be in the brilliance of that experience because it solves the issues, man. It solves it. Nick McGowan (33:50.055)Mm-hmm. Andrew Ecker (34:06.196)And when you taste that, you’re hungry for it forever. And I’ll go to, you know, like I facilitate drum circles and that really doesn’t happen in a drum circle. But a taste of that does happen. Like a place of connection to the feeling of support and the intricacy of music and even the freedom that you can experience in that space, it will happen. And You know, it does take a level of mastery to experience the depths of that. And hopefully people will be able to go on their journey with music to that place. like that is, dude, I mean, there’s nothing better than that right there. I mean, if you could take and put that into a bottle, people would spend their lives wanting to… And that’s why musicians do what they do, They will… Nick McGowan (35:02.119)Mm-hmm. Andrew Ecker (35:02.624)They will literally sleep on the couch of their best friend to go experience that. They will literally not go to work to go experience that. They will do whatever they possibly can to experience that. you know, unfortunately, in a world that doesn’t value music like our ancestors did, you know, for tens of thousands of years, and even today, you know, you go to India, they have ceremonies that are a month. where it’s just people drumming, dancing and singing for a month straight. You you go to Hopi right here in the United States on the Hopi reservation. They’re doing that same idea because the practice of living in integration with the earth promotes the quality of the earthling condition. So where you’re not worried, you go sleep in a mud house rather than go try to make a billion dollars so that you have a big old fancy house. if you get that experience of community. You know, and that experience of community solves everything, man. And we got to get it in our schools. We got to get it in our our our health care facilities. We’re trying our best. We train 350 people now in the drumming sounds protocol. We’re out there doing it every day, you know, and just trying to live our best lives. So is it the solution? I think that we have, like I said, thousands, literally people, thousands of years. Nick McGowan (36:17.638)Hmm. Andrew Ecker (36:30.459)of evidence-based practice out there. Like, wake up, people, wake up. Like, yeah, we need drumming. You know? Nick McGowan (36:39.836)Yeah, I mean, even just the community level of that, but the music and the frequency level of all of it and everything that ties into it. I love the work that you’re doing. I really do. I think it’s crazy that the arts and music especially is being taken out of different schools and everything’s being really like commodified almost, even when you think of music. For the most part, pop music. It’s an ABA, CAB sort of situation. It’s the same thing. There was even a thing like 10, 15 years ago where somebody played a Nickelback song forward and layered over another Nickelback song backwards and it was the same. And it was like, that is crazy. But that’s what is being pushed to us instead of feeling through all of this and allowing yourself to actually get into it. I’m really glad that you got to the point where you were saying that the music is playing you. Because any musician that’s really been in, I don’t know, in any sort of jam session or in a live band or something, even if you’ve remotely tasted that little bit, you know that that’s a real thing. And that’s a whole different level. And you’re right, that is divine. Like you are literally in it. I’d played guitar in worship bands for the better part of a decade. And if it weren’t for music, I wouldn’t have been there. Andrew Ecker (37:54.712)Dude, it’s fast, yeah. Andrew Ecker (38:03.5)Yeah. Nick McGowan (38:03.961)I wouldn’t have ended up having a relationship with God. And I also now at this point, no, he’s not some bearded dude on a fucking chair somewhere. Like it’s much bigger than that. But being able to feel that, like there are things where you couldn’t manufacture this feeling. So I’m glad he pointed out, like if we could bottle it, that would be great. But at the same time, the rest of the world is trying to bottle fucking everything else. So I’m glad that we can’t because you need to experience that, you know? Andrew Ecker (38:12.974)Yeah Andrew Ecker (38:20.322)Yeah. Andrew Ecker (38:28.202)I know, I know. You do, Nick McGowan (38:33.743)What a cool thing, man. And I really love the work that you’re doing. I appreciate you being on with us today. For the people that are on their path towards self-mastery, what’s your advice to those people that are walking toward that? Andrew Ecker (38:45.772)You know, I think first just be gentle with yourself and just understand that, you know, loving yourself is the simplest thing. I was doing my best and you know, we man, life is rough, man. I mean, we, we lose people. go through all kinds of stuff and people used to tell me all the time, you know, Andrew, you need to love yourself, especially when I was little, you know, they would tell me this and I, I’d be like, you know, I felt like I was doing something wrong, you know, like What does that mean? And you know, it really is as simple as just saying, I was doing my best through everything, you know, through the alcoholism, through the drugs, but look at what’s going on in your life. And if it isn’t working for you, change, you know, like don’t be stuck in a pattern that is something destructive. You know, being in a place where you can manage your thoughts is a very important aspect to living your successful life. allowing for the thoughts that don’t serve you to simply fade away and sometimes to be confrontational with those thoughts. You know, I remember reading God is love and I thought if I just focus on love, maybe all these thoughts of suicide would would leave me. So every time any anxiety came into my life, I would just simply start screaming love in my mind and take control of my mind. You know, sometimes we just have to overpower those thoughts that aren’t serving us. And, you know, I think that for me, the greatest act of my own self mastery is the place of service. Being of service to others has brought me to a place where I feel the best, Andrew. And sometimes, you know, showing up isn’t easy. Sometimes it’s hard, but I think about the people that I drum with in the institutions and You know, just to give everybody a really brief story before we kind of close this up. For 10 years, I went to this skilled nursing hospital. And for 10 years, this man would come out and he was in a bed and his hands were atrophied. And I’d have to pry his fingers open and put a maraca in his hand. And he would shake the maraca and say, Hallelujah, Hallelujah. You know, and he had this great big smile on his face. Andrew Ecker (41:11.164)And this man’s name that I’m mentioning today is Vance Gribbins. And one day I came to the hospital and I said, Where’s my buddy Vance? And they told me he went home to heaven. I was like, good for him. You know, I said, How long did he live in this hospital? I’ve been coming here for 10 years. And they said he lived in that hospital for 28 years. And for 28 years, man, he lived in a body that that he couldn’t feed himself, you know, and 28 years he was in a hospital bed. But every single time he had an opportunity to show up for drum circle or sing along or balloon toss or bingo, he was there. And you know, today we have people that have everything in their lives. They have money, they have beautiful homes, cars, all this stuff. And to get them to go out to, you know, an art display or to go and show up at an open mic or a drum circle. You know, it’s like the end of the world. They would rather sit in front of their TV and watch Judge Judy need potato chips. And I’m just calling people on their bullshit. You know, if we want to have a good world, we got to get out of our house. We got to connect with our neighbors. We got to say hi to people. We can’t just look down at our phone every time we see a homeless person and try to escape eye contact. You know, we need to engage with people and be the brilliance that we are. You know, the medicine that you have inside of you is a medicine that we need as a community. And that’s what this world needs right now. We need love. We need togetherness. You know, I stopped giving money to people when they would ask me for money on the street. But I immediately will say to a person, hey, can I pray for you? You know, and sometimes people will say, you know, hell no, I don’t want that. And sometimes people will say, you know what? I appreciate that. Please pray for me. And I remember one time me and Monica were in my my fiancee. We were in Salt Lake. And this guy had chains, gold chains on and he just put out a joint. I could tell he smelled like cannabis and everything. He’s like, hey, man, you got any money? I was like, no, but I could say a prayer for you. And I’m saying a prayer for this guy. And he’s like, that’s the good shit. That’s what he was saying. And you just never know how you’re going to impact somebody’s life if you make yourself available. So Nick McGowan (43:34.615)Yeah. Andrew Ecker (43:35.493)You know, want to be in the place of self mastery, be available for community. You know, get out there and do something that is just to be available. Volunteer, you know, go show up at the homeless shelter. Develop a podcast that’s giving to the community. Do something for people. You know, do something for people. And you know, you’re to find the truest truth of the truth that you are. And you’re going to make a difference in the lives of people. Nick McGowan (44:02.656)It’s hard to not clap right now and like really fucking root, you know what I mean? So thank you, dude. I appreciate that. I’ve been refraining back from the like, fuck yeah, yeah. You know, so I really appreciate it. And how that was also one of those. and by the way, one more fucking thing. Here it is. Man, that’s awesome. I think there are small things that we can do. Andrew Ecker (44:13.013)Yeah! Andrew Ecker (44:23.581)Yeah. Nick McGowan (44:32.002)to really help us be able to start down that path? Because you’re talking about a lot of things and to some people, and I try to break stuff down to like, what could anybody be thinking about being super analytical or whatever of like, man, that’s a lot of shit. And there’s like a lot of things that are going on. I’m having really hard time with this one little thing in my life right now. So taking those smaller steps, like even saying get out and do community, do community in the way that feels right for you to do. Like there are people that will go to church on Sunday and that’s my community time. And as soon as they walk out, they’re yelling at their kids, they’re hating on everybody. it’s like, you’re not really doing community at that point. And community can look different to everybody. And sometimes it’s just showing up literally in the neighborhood. And like you’re saying, and dude, I think we all do it. There are people around, look down at your phone. I do that at times where I’m lost in my own head and I’m thinking about things. I’m just… going through my phone, because I’m like, don’t want to have an interaction with somebody else. And as soon as I’m aware of that, I’m like, fucking, I gotta put my phone away. Hi, you know, like, just taking that step to get out there a little bit. You obviously love what you’re doing. And this is part of your calling and a deep purpose of yours. And I think the big thing for all of us to be able to take away from that is whatever that looks like for us, just lean into it. Just get into it a little bit more and enjoy that. And I… I love that you were talking about the amount of music and the things that go into that, like the feelings that we can get from all of that and how that opens people that haven’t been open for years and years and sometimes decades. So, Andrew, I appreciate you being on here. It’s been a pleasure having you on, man. I really appreciate it. Before I let you go, where can people find you and where can they connect with you? Andrew Ecker (46:16.065)so yeah, drumming sounds is pretty much the easiest way there. you know, if you Google drumming sounds, it’ll pull me up, but I’d like to give everybody a free copy of my book based on the traditional introduction of my ancestors, but applicable to any sort of person. it’s just a system of self identity and you can get that at the sacred seven.com. It’ll also put you into my email list and you can find out events we’re doing music festivals, trainings, drum circles, all that stuff. Nick McGowan (46:51.511)Again, man, it’s been pleasure having you on. Thank you for your time. Andrew Ecker (46:54.273)Thank you, Nick.
How to Use AI for B2B Storytelling Without Losing Your Brand So many B2B companies and marketing teams waste budget on generic content that fails to resonate or support core business goals. In an era where AI-generated is everywhere, smaller B2B brands often struggle to maintain a unique identity while competing against larger firms with massive content engines. The key to staying relevant lies in a B2B brand’s ability to be authentic, human-centric, and strategically consistent despite the pressure to automate everything. So how can B2B brands effectively integrate AI into their marketing workflows without losing their unique voice and brand integrity? That's why we're talking to Nick Usborne (Founder, Story Aligned), who shared his expertise on leveraging AI through the lens of strategic storytelling. During our conversation, Nick discussed the critical distinction between simple narrative and a brand’s unique story, highlighting a significant gap where only 7% of top AI prompt libraries actually focus on storytelling. He shared actionable advice on building a “story vault,” training staff to avoid “brand drift,” and enforcing consistent AI usage to maintain the trust of the audience. Nick also underscored the importance of keeping human elements at the forefront of content creation to prevent AI from feeling overly mechanical, and advocated for a balanced approach that ensures scalable growth without sacrificing a brand's authenticity. https://youtu.be/dtgvg2-XXoU Topics discussed in episode: [02:53] The “Why” Behind AI Adoption: Why companies must embrace AI not just for efficiency, but to avoid being left behind by competitors who are already scaling their reach. [04:10] The “Moat” of Storytelling: Why narrative and voice can be easily copied by AI, but your brand's unique “lived story” is the only defensible moat you have. [11:27] Pitfalls of Inconsistent AI Use: The dangers of “shadow AI” use by employees (e.g., Using personal accounts vs. company custom GPTs) and how it leads to brand drift. [16:46] The Human Element vs. AI: Nick explains why AI can describe the beach but can't “feel the sand between its toes,” and why human “messiness” is key to connection. [24:26] Building a Story Vault: Nick provides a practical framework for formalizing your brand's folklore—from founder stories to customer service wins—so they can be systematically used in AI content. [28:17] Actionable Steps for Marketers: Three immediate steps to take: build your story vault, interview key stakeholders (founders, early employees), and analyze customer service transcripts for sentiment. [30:11] The Problem with “Killer Prompt” Libraries: Why copying “top 20 prompt” lists is a strategic mistake that leads to generic, non-differentiated content. Companies and links mentioned: Nick Usborne on LinkedIn Story Aligned Transcript Nick Usborne, Christian Klepp Nick Usborne 00:00 AI can do a wonderful job in many ways, but it’s never walked down the beach and felt the sand between its toes. It’s read about it. It’s never eaten ice cream. It’s read about that, but it’s never felt it. So that’s what I mean by lived experience. I think that content and stories that truly resonate with people you use those kind of touch points the the deeply human side of being alive. And like, say, I think AI can get close when you prompt it really well, but also, there’s a messiness that makes us recognize one another, the little mistakes we make. That’s what makes us human. We are messy. AI, it’s not very good at being messy. You can ask it to be messy, and it’ll try to figure that out, but it’s really not the same. And like I say, I think people are very sensitive to this kind of nuance. Christian Klepp 00:51 When brands rely on the same AI tools and prompts, they start to sound like everyone else. That loss of voice can hurt trust and lead to something called Brand drift. So how can B2B Marketing teams scale content with AI while staying true to their story? Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers in the Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp, today, I’ll be talking to Nick Usborne, who will be answering this question. He’s the Founder of Story Aligned, a training program for Marketing teams that want to scale content using AI while protecting the integrity of their brand story and voice. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B Marketers Mission is. Mr. Nick Usborne, welcome to the show, sir. Nick Usborne 01:32 Thank you very much. Thank you Christian. Thank you for having me. Christian Klepp 01:35 Pleasure to have you on the show. Nick, you know we had such a fantastic pre interview call. It was a bit of a you did drop a few hints and clues about what was to come, and I’m really looking forward to this conversation. I’m going to keep the audience in suspense a little while longer as I move us into the first question. So off we go. Nick Usborne 01:55 Okay. Christian Klepp 01:56 All right, so, Nick, you’re on a mission to equip Marketing teams to scale AI powered content while staying aligned with their organization, story and voice. So for this conversation, let’s focus on the topic of how to use AI for B2B content without losing trust. And it is at the time of the recording, the end of 2025 and of course, we’re going to talk about AI, but we’re going to zoom in on something specific as it pertains to B2B content and a little bit of branding in there as well. But I wanted to kick off this conversation with two questions, and I’m happy to repeat them. So the first question is, why do you believe it’s so important for brands and their Marketing teams to embrace AI so that they can scale? And the second question is, why does this approach require the right prompts and guardrails? I think that’s one thing that you mentioned in our previous conversation, the whole the whole piece about prompts and guardrails. Nick Usborne 02:53 Well, the first question, why do companies need to embrace AI? And the ridiculous answer to that. It’s not a good answer, but it’s true is that because everyone else is, because your competitors are, and they will create content at scale while you are not, and they will achieve reach that you can’t achieve without AI. And in fact, if they do it well, their content, their new content, will be very good, content deeply researched beyond perhaps what you can do. So it’s like everything within AI right now, like, like, Why? Why do all the companies like open AI and Google and Meta, why they all racing? Because if they don’t, someone else will get there first. And it’s, I’m not saying it’s a great reason, but I think it is the fundamental reason for companies to embrace AI, is that you will be left behind if you don’t. This is a transformational moment, and as much as we’d like to have choice, I think in this matter, we don’t have a lot of choice. So that’s my answer to that question. Repeat the second question for me. Christian Klepp 04:00 Absolutely, absolutely so based on, based on that, like, why does this approach require the right prompts and guardrails? Nick Usborne 04:10 As part of my business, I’m constantly researching this, and in particular, I’m researching the prompts people do so when say, could be writers coders, but in our world. Let’s say writers, principally, or marketers, are using AI. They’re using prompts, and they’re generally prompting about two things. One is narrative, like, what should we say? Or, you know, please write us a blog post about x. So that’s the that’s the topic, that’s the narrative. And then they’ll put in something say, oh, please do it in a voice that is authoritative and yet accessible. All right, so now that’s a voice. What they haven’t mentioned is what I think is the foundational layer, which is, which is story. And that’s important, because story is the only thing that is uniquely yours, if you have an narrative, if you, if you have voice, if you talk about something in a particular way, I can copy that with AI. I can copy it at scale. I can, I can look at the transcripts of Christian podcasts, and I can say, oh, I want to do one in exactly. Tell her the same topic. I can, you know, so when you focus on narrative, on what you write about in voice. I can copy it. There’s no moat. The only moat you have is with story, because every company’s story is unique. We can look at origin stories, foundation stories, we can look at customer stories through case studies, things like that. Those are always unique. No one else has Apple’s origin story. No one else has virgin Atlantic’s Founder’s story, etc. But we did some research recently. Actually, we did some research months ago, and I reconfirmed it earlier this week. I ran it. I ran it all again to look at the data. If you look at the top 20 prompt libraries that you know the big, trustworthy companies and organizations that put out prompt libraries for companies. If you look at the top 20 libraries and the 1000s and 1000s of prompts within there, 76% of those prompts are about the narrative. What to say? 17 are about voice. How do you sound? Only 7% relate to story. So this, to my mind, is where we have a problem. We have a disconnect. Everyone is going crazy, prompting for narrative and story, both of which have 0, zero mode, anyone can copy them at scale. And only 7% this very small percentage, are actually focusing on the one thing that is uniquely theirs and cannot be copied or challenged. So that when you say, when you, when you say I’m on a mission, that’s the mission for me to say, Hey guys, wake up. You’re You’re prompting the wrong things in the wrong way. Let’s like, go back and look at story Christian Klepp 07:12 Absolutely, absolutely. It almost sounds like an oxymoron to us to a certain degree, because you’re saying scaling B2B content using AI without losing trust. Because, you know, the narrative that I keep seeing on social media, particularly LinkedIn, is that if people are using AI, there is a bit of a trust factor there. But I think it’s to your point and correct me if I’m wrong, it’s being able to embrace AI and you leveraging it the right way, so it’s not, it’s not, it’s not to replace, it’s not to replace the writers, right, or to replace the Marketers, I hope not. Nick Usborne 07:50 It may replace some. But, yeah, yeah. I mean, I mean, you’re right, and the keyword you mentioned there is trust. I think, I think trust is going to be the most valuable commodity that a company can have in the months and years to come, because people don’t actually don’t if we’re talking about brand. So we’re trying to protect brand with story, right? And brand is something that a lot of companies have spent millions of dollars building and protecting over years or decades and well, one of the things let me come back to trust in a moment. But if I’m looking at brand, and I’m looking at all the stuff goes out there, it either builds brand or it burns brand. And if you burn brand, you lose trust. So if you’re going out with a whole bunch of content that sounds like everyone else is that it’s kind of meh. It’s ordinary. It’s in the middle, which is what AI is really good at. Without the right prompting, it will give you kind of in the middle, mediocre output. So you got to be much better at prompting than just like a, I don’t know, being careless about it, or taking a shortcut, shortcuts, or being lazy about it, because then you get brand drift, and all of a sudden the brand doesn’t sound quite right. And when that happens, you lose trust. And when you lose trust, you lose revenue. I mean, you really do. And people are getting very sensitive to brand of brand trust we saw recently. Was it tracker barrel tried to just change its logo. People freaked out. People freaked out. Christian Klepp 09:27 It was an awful rebrand, but, yes. Nick Usborne 09:30 Yeah, but it wasn’t. These weren’t. These weren’t. Saying is, I don’t think the design is up to snuff. It’s like, don’t mess with my tracker barrel. We actually feel very strongly about the brands. Talk to people who are absolute fans of Apple. Doesn’t matter that it costs twice as much, perhaps as not quite as good. It’s Apple. It’s my brand. Don’t mess with my brand. So we’re very sensitive to our loyalty to brands. And in fact, in some sense, it’s brand define us like a football team, a baseball team, in part, we can be defined by the brands that we support, local, Pepsi. You know, it’s like everywhere. So when a company uses AI carelessly at scale and all of a sudden that blog post, it kind of sounds like them, but something’s a tiny bit off. And then that LinkedIn update. Again, yeah, it’s them, but again, it’s, did I say is that the same as they were six months ago? You get the you get these little these little things that sound off, and now you get brand drift. And now you get people feeling uneasy, and the public are sometimes we think we can just make the public believe whatever we want them to believe, or companies to believe whatever we want them to believe, but actually, individuals, in their home lives and in their business lives are very, very sensitive to brand and they’re very, very sensitive to voice and what they hear, and if it’s off, they really don’t like it, and that does translate into loss of trust, and that does directly translate into loss of revenue. Christian Klepp 11:07 Absolutely. I’m going to move us on to the next set of questions, particularly that one pertaining to key pitfalls that Marketers need to avoid when they’re trying to scale their B2B content using AI without losing trust. So what are some of these key pitfalls they should avoid, and what should they be doing instead? Nick Usborne 11:27 What I’m hearing from inside a number of companies is that there is an inconsistency in how people are using AI and even when systems are in place, that not everyone follows the system. So it’s early days. It is. These are messy times for, you know, working with AI within companies. So I think it’s really important that companies do have some frameworks in place, that people within the organization are using the same tools in the same way, and that they are encouraged to be consistent in what they do. So I’ve heard stories of where companies are set up, you know, they’re using Copilot, or whatever they use, and then some of the manager will walk by someone’s desk, and they’re actually, actually, they’re using Claude on their phone. That person like phone, and it’s like, well, yeah, but no, this is now, you know, you have no control. You also have to get people to do what they ask. I was talking to a Founder the other day. She has a PR (Public Relations) company, plenty of clients, and she’s smart. She’s created custom GPTs for each client. So each custom GPT is trained on with with a kind of database of information on that client and the content, so that you know when you when you ask it to do something else, it’s already has the context and the voice instructions and everything, and you can and it’s great, you get this consistency. But she says, what’s happening is some of her employees come in in the morning, they start work on client X, and they’re using that custom GPT. Then they move on to client Y, but they keep using the original custom GPT and not switching out. So the management has put in the structure in place to be consistent and to output the best, you know, the best content, but the employees are not always playing game, you know, going along with that. So so I do think we’re in a messy period now where companies are not entirely sure how to apply this, how to structure it, what kind of frameworks and guidance to put in place. What guardrails to put in place? Like? Again, I’ve heard horror stories of people grabbing content that should not be shared and putting it into a large language model and then turning that into customer facing or public facing content. Christian Klepp 13:57 Oh, plagiarism. Nick Usborne 14:04 So yeah, it is messy. So what I would say is, before you even try to make the best of the use of AI that you do, need to put systems and frameworks in place and educate your staff. So if you want your staff to use AI effectively give them access to training. Don’t just throw them at a tool and say, go for it, because they won’t know what to do with it, or they’ll be able to create stuff, but they won’t be able to create good stuff. So invest in the systems, invest in the frameworks and instructions, and invest in training for the people who are going to be using the tools. Christian Klepp 14:46 Definitely some relevant points. I wanted to go back to something you said, though, because I think it’s really important. It’s certainly one thing to have the prompts and the guardrails in place and some kind of like, framework and structures. But to your earlier point, how do you enforce that? And I think you gave a really good example about like, if you have a custom GPT, and then they resort to like, using. Um Claude on their personal accounts, and then it’s a little bit like the wild west out there, isn’t it? Nick Usborne 15:06 It is, it is, and it’s and it’s, how do you enforce it? Well, that’s going to be a company by company decision. Like, like the Founder with the PR of the PR company, when she was telling me about how her employees just weren’t doing what they were asked. I was like, part of you is thinking about, why haven’t you kind of cracked down on this? But again, it depends on the company and what options you have when it comes to enforcing stuff like this. But I do think you need to, because then if we circle right back, if you have people who are untrained, and that’s the company’s responsibility to train their employees. If you have people who are untrained and they’re using these tools inconsistently, that is when you far more likely then to see errors for, you know, unforced errors like publishing stuff that you shouldn’t but you’re also going to see more brand drift, because you’re going to get this inconsistency between output and that is a disaster. Like I say, companies have sometimes spent, in a decade, several years in establishing and building a trustworthy brand. And people are very unforgiving. You can, you can lose all that goodwill very, very quickly. So, yeah, training frameworks make sure people are, you know, working within those boundaries, but as a company, it’s your responsibility to help make that happen. Christian Klepp 16:29 Yeah, yeah. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. You kind of brought this up already, but you mentioned that AI can help to scale content, but it can’t replicate your lived story, so please explain what you meant by that, and provide an example. If you can, Nick Usborne 16:46 AI can do a wonderful job in many ways, but you know, it’s never walked down the beach and felt the sand between its toes. It’s read about it. It’s never eaten ice cream. It’s read about that, but it’s never felt it. So that’s what I mean by lived experience. So I think that content and stories that truly resonate with people, you use those kind of touch points, the deeply human side of being alive and like say, I think AI can get close when you prompt it really well, but also there’s a messiness that makes us recognize one another, the little mistakes we make, that’s what makes us human. We are messy, and it’s not very good at being messy. You can ask it to be messy, and it’ll try to figure that out, but it’s really not the same. And like I say, I think people are very sensitive to this kind of nuance and the lived story. It’s the it’s the weird stuff. I think that resonates. So I’ve spent quite a bit of my career doing copywriting for companies, and for a long period, I was doing some freelance, a lot of freelance copywriting. So this is just a little side note, a little side story for you. I used to live on a hobby farm. We had some sheep and pigs and chickens and all that good stuff, the good life. And also had freelance customers. And I went in, and I was and I went, you know, you go out, you feed the animals, you come in, I sit down to work, and my client said, this is just on the phone. This is even before the internet. Client said, Hey, you’re late. I was just out farming the pig and feeding the pigs. And the guy says, what? And this, I hadn’t realized. I never told him that I lived on a farm. He thought somewhere. So anyway, we talked a little bit about the pigs, then we get to work. So the project we’re working on worked out really well, and it won an award. So we fly off to your hometown, Toronto, for the awards ceremony, direct marketing awards ceremony, and he stands up and he says, Thank you very much. Blah, blah, blah. And special thanks to Nick Usborne, the pig farming copywriter. And I’m like, I’m like, in the audience, and I’m thinking, oh, please no. This guy is like, rebranding me constantly in front of all my peers, all my potential clients for next year. Big drama turns out so, so that that’s messy, all right? AI wouldn’t do that, you wouldn’t imagine that it wouldn’t do that. That’s a deeply human moment of my humiliation and him laughing, and everyone slapping me on the back and laughing and asking about my pigs. Turns out, over the next 12 months, I got a few phone calls out of the blue. And I say, Hello, Nick Usborne. I said, Oh, is that Nick Usborne? The cover of James Barber. And I say, why? Yes. And so I actually got work out of that, because it was such a distinct difference from every other copywriter out there. I was the only copywriter who had pigs. So that was just a fun story, but it also speaks to the difference between humans and AI, and it’s a live that’s a lived experience, and it’s a lived anecdote, and I tell the story, and it’s a true story that is really important, I think so, even when we use AI, even when we use it at its best, and it can be really good when you use it well, I think everyone should keep leave space for the human in the loop, as they say, keep that human element in there, big for those stories. So I so I encourage companies to create what I call like a story vault. So there’s the obvious stories, like the Founder story, the origin story, the six original success story, also put in the little quirky stories, like that one I just described, and and make that part of your process. And also go, you know, if you’re creating something with AI and it’s a big project, take the time to go and interview someone, talk to someone, get a human story, put it in just because you’re using AI, doesn’t mean to say that everything you create has to be 100% AI, you can, you can? I do this all the time. I look for it a draft with AI, then I’d go back in and I’ll rewrite the beginning with an anecdote, like the small s story, not a big dramatic story, just a little story. And what it does then is that then connects it with us, because as people, we recognize stories. Story is profound to all of us. I think in every country in the world, parents read their children bedtime stories. It’s something we share in common. It’s how we communicate, and it’s how we recognize our humanity in a sense of like, if you tell me a story, you connect with me, and vice versa. So that’s why I think stories are so important in this world of AI, because if you just go AI, it can get a little cold, and sometimes, as a reader, you don’t quite understand what’s happening and why, but you kind of feel it. There’s an absence. There’s something missing, and that what’s what you feeling is missing is that human touch, that human element, Christian Klepp 21:59 Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, there’s like, there’s like, telltale signs, right? Like em dash being one of them, Nick Usborne 22:06 em dash Christian Klepp 22:07 Yes, or Yeah. Or it tends to, like, regurgitate the same type of war. It’s like, I find it loves using the word landscape or navigate, you know, things of that nature, right? Nick Usborne 22:20 Yeah. Christian Klepp 22:21 Or uses these funny like, you know, the colon or for, for, for titles of episodes, for examples. Nick Usborne 22:30 In titles, even when I give it clear instructions, do not use them. So sometimes, when I create content like that is, I’ll create it in with one model like say, GPT5, and I’ll take it over to flawed, and I’ll say, hey, please edit and clean this up for me, and remove any, you know, repetition or whatever. And sometimes it comes back say, hey, looks pretty clean, pretty good. Other times it’ll change stuff. And then, of course, always I will, you know, I will review. And that’s the other thing that the companies need to think about. Is that, at the moment, content generation at scale within companies, it is a bit like a conveyor belt in a factory of all these boxes flying off the end into the FedEx back of the FedEx van, and without, without any kind of quality control, which, which is actually what you do have with income within you know, if you’re manufacturing, and you do have quality control, and you pick out every 20th item or whatever to make sure that it’s good, a lot of that isn’t happening, that isn’t happening with a lot of people using AI is people don’t even see it. It’s fully automated, like, like a week’s worth of social media is automated, or a month’s work worth, and no one, no human, has read it or reviewed it. It’s just flying out automatically. And that is where at some point you’re inevitably going to have a problem. And it may not be a big problem, it may be lots and lots of small problems, lots of lots of things sounding not quite right, and then all of a sudden, when you’ve got enough little things not sounding right, then you start getting a medium sized problem. Christian Klepp 24:06 Yeah, yeah. No, exactly, exactly. Okay. Now, you talked about it a little bit in the beginning, but talk to us about some of these, these frameworks and these processes that B2B companies can use to help them, you know, organize themselves and reap those benefits of AI without losing trust. Like, what are some of these processes and frameworks? Nick Usborne 24:26 I do some training, and I have done a few rubrics where people can kind of use those to formalize the process. But I think if we talk about story, and I think I already mentioned the idea of each company having a story vault, so be formal and deliberate about it. Everyone can chat about their company’s stories, but if I say to you, hey, is there a folder? Can I can I get a Google folder and find a compilation of all of these stories? And have you graded those stories in terms of how strong and relevant? And they are, and how engaging they might be, or how evocative they might be, and the answer is almost always no, the story is around. But there’s no story vault, and there’s no rubric in place to grade those stories and decide which might be the most appropriate points at which to share those stories. So it’s that, it’s that formalizing the process, and I don’t like being 100% rules based, but I think in the AI world right now, where we are in that kind of messy middle period, I think it’s really important to have some systems in place so that we do have a consistent output, so that when you so that your brand doesn’t suffer from brand drift, and that you don’t make some significant missteps along the way. So somebody within the organization needs to be responsible for this. Maybe it’s the Chief AI Officer, if you have one, or otherwise, somebody in Marketing. So yeah, help people with training, but also help them by giving them some framework, some rubrics and some just a system like, you know, hey, picked up a story from customer service, put it in the story vault, categorize it. Customer service in the story vault says someone else can come back and find it. So it’s not just word of mouth. It’s not accidental. There’s a place where people can go to and then you’re going to do the same with narrative, the things we say. And you have another vault, as it were, and another rubric to to assess voice, how we say it. So it’s just this formalization of the process, and also trying to make sure that people use these systems as you put them in place. So somebody’s got to be walking along behind, behind and sort of, and again, it’s like, I guess, like early days of anything. Not every, not everyone will love the process. Not everyone loves using AI. But it’ll come. It’ll come. People will get in their heart better, not only using AI, but doing it well and following these processes. Christian Klepp 27:02 Okay, fantastic, fantastic. Let me just quickly recap, because I was writing this down. So obviously, having a story vault, grading them if you can, if possible, having systems and frameworks in place, training the team and getting them to familiarize themselves with the systems having a vault for narrative and voice, I think was the other piece. And finally, using, using the systems, once you have them, not letting them collect dust, as it were, right? Nick Usborne 27:32 Like and it is, I get it right now. I get it. It’s hard for a lot of companies, because I think using AI has been very kind of mixed. Some companies have dived straight in. Others are resistant, particularly companies that have compliance issues, financial, medical stuff like that. They’re being very careful, very cautious, and for very good reason. So the rate of adoption is very uneven at the moment, Christian Klepp 28:01 Absolutely, absolutely, all right. Nick you’ve given us plenty here, right? But if we’re going to talk about actionable tips, like something that somebody who’s listening to this conversation that they can take action on right after listening to this interview, what are like some of the top three things you would advise them to do? Nick Usborne 28:17 Well, I guess first is just we’ve talked quite a bit about the story, the story of collecting stories. Just do that because, like I say, I think story is your is your superpower, because it is the only place where you have a moat you don’t in what you say and how you say it. Anyone can copy you, and I can automate copying you through AI as well, but I cannot steal your story, because it’s just not true if, if it’s not my story. So I’d always start there and again, start, start that. Build the vault, select the story and formalize that process. Interview the Founders, if you can, interview early employees, even if they’re retired, interview the first three clients, if you can access them, interview customer service. So often overlooked, customer service in one way or another, so long as that’s not all automated, if there’s still humans in that loop, then have conversations with them. And you can, you can, you can, get transcripts, customer service transcripts, and feed them into AI and say, hey, please analyze and summarize this. What are, what are the most powerful messages we can get from our customer service? Sort of stream of content? Do? Do a sentiment analysis? What are people upset about? What are people happy about? So, yeah, story, I think, is like, I say, it will be your motive, it will be your savior. So first start to formalize that process of getting story and then making sure that it finds a place, somewhere in your automation of, you know, AI generated content, Christian Klepp 29:58 Fantastic, fantastic stuff. Okay, soapbox time. What is the status quo in your area of expertise that you passionately disagree with, and why? Nick Usborne 30:11 I guess again, I’m just going to overlapping. I don’t know what a status quo, but the thing that I passionately disagree with is is every time you see most or a social media title that says top 20 killer, unbeatable prompts. Christian Klepp 30:31 Oh, yeah. Nick Usborne 30:32 No, no, no, absolutely, just, just no for two reasons. One is that they’re going to be generic. They’re not going to apply to your company in particular, they’ll be generic, and just because they work for someone else does not mean they’re going to work for you. And like I say, we did, I’ve done research on those prompt libraries, and only 7% of them even touch on story. So if I’m writing stories, the most important thing almost all of those prompt libraries are missing out on that. They’re just focusing on narrative and voice and ignoring stories. So not good and and, yeah, so, so that is, I don’t know whether the status quo, but it’s something I keep seeing, and it irritates me when I get it. I understand why they’re doing it, but not helpful for your company. Christian Klepp 31:18 Yeah, you and me both. I mean, those are the those are the pulse they attempt to ignore immediately. I mean, I just skim through it and see the prompts, and I’m like, Nah, but I think it’s human nature too, isn’t it? Like everybody wants to chase the next hack. They want to find that the you know, the shortcut, like the quickest route to get something done. And I get that, but it sometimes does more harm than good. Nick Usborne 31:43 Easy button, but also to be fair and to be a little bit more generous. This is early days, and so people are looking for help. And if it says top 20, this is, oh my goodness, thank you. I’ll take that now. Over time, that’ll change, and people will become a little more sophisticated, I think, but like us, like you. You know, I get it. I understand why those those posts and titles are attractive, and that’s why people create them. But we can do better. We can do better Christian Klepp 32:12 Absolutely, absolutely we can, and we will, hopefully, all right, here comes the bonus question. I’ve been thinking about this one, but Nick Usborne 32:23 I feel strangely nervous. I feel nervous, but it’s a bonus question. Christian Klepp 32:30 Just breathe. Just breathe. I mean, clearly from this conversation, you know, writing is in your blood, right? It’s something that you are passionate about, but it’s also something you’ve done professionally for a long time, I suppose. The bonus question is, if you had an opportunity to meet your favorite writer or author, living or dead, who would it be, and what would you talk about? Nick Usborne 32:55 One of the people, I really admire, and I’ve already spoken to him, is David Abbott. So David Abbott is a copywriter from from England, and he had an agency called Abbot Mead Vickers, and he was an amazing writer. So I’ve already met him. Who I haven’t met I would like to re write to meet is Susie Henry. She was the copywriter behind a series of advertisements in the UK for an insurance company, and she is just a delightful writer, so I told you, well, no, I hadn’t told you. Maybe I will tell you I’m like, when I started out copywriting, it was at the tail end of the Mad Men period, and creatives were the Kings and Queens, and copywriting was such a craft, it was something to be absolutely proud of, like we’d go through so many drafts, and it was, I was, you know, I was, I was a craftsman, learning from other craftsmen. And David, ever I met, he was in a fantastic writer, just written Susie Henry so good, very, very conversational writer, which was very unusual for that time. So I’d like to meet and talk with her, and I still can’t remember the fiction writer. He’s science fiction writer. I completely lost blank on his name, and I’ve actually met him once briefly, but I’d like to get back to him and chat, but I can’t, because he’s he’s since passed. Christian Klepp 34:19 Oh, I see, I see, I see. All right, well, that’s quite the list of people, but, um, but yeah. No, fantastic. No. Nick, thank you so much for coming on the show and for sharing your experience and expertise with the listeners. And please quick introduction to yourself and how people can get in touch with you. Nick Usborne 34:37 All right. Hi. My name is Nick Usborne, so my business build Story Aligned. So storyaligned.com and what we do there is pretty much, what I’ve talked about today is we train teams within companies to look at story, narrative and voice with a lot of emphasis on story, because that’s where the note is, so if you get a Story Aligned, you’ll find we have a white paper you can download. We have a blog that you can read, the description of the training. So yeah, if this interests you, if you find this an interesting topic, there’s plenty to do when you get there. So Story Aligned, A, L, I, G, N, E, D, yeah. Story Aligned. Christian Klepp 35:21 Fantastic, fantastic. And we’ll be sure to pop that into the show notes so that it’ll be easy for everyone to access. But once again, Nick, thank you. Nick Usborne 35:28 Sorry, one last thing, if you want to please opening myself up, if you want to just talk to me directly, you can write to me at nick@storyaligned.com. Christian Klepp 35:38 Perfect, perfect. Nick, once again, thanks so much for your time. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon. Nick Usborne 35:44 Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. It’s been a pleasure. Christian Klepp 35:47 Thank you. Bye for now. You.
This is only part 1 of our interview that you don't want to miss if you want to find the next "Tesla"Hans Nelson went from being a traditional, "Dave Ramsey-style" diversified investor to a high-conviction stock picker who spots growth before the rest of the market even wakes up - and he reveals his strategy on the show.Part 1 - https://youtu.be/6ByLmyX1yL0Part 2 - https://youtu.be/bXeM6-VrlK8FREE 90 Day Guide - https://cutt.ly/ptcQd1y2Get ahead of the 97% and read this episode's takeaway - https://idealwealthgrower.substack.com/p/double-your-investment-iwg-episode***WHO IS AXEL? A business consultant. A real estate investor. A mentor. Avid Tesla fan & investor. AI in the Age of Abundance thought leader. His wife's gardener.
Dating Advice, Attracting Quality Men & Dating Tips For Women Podcast! | Magnetize The Man
Take Our FREE Quiz To Create A Relationship Where You Feel Safe, Chosen & Cherished Without Loneliness, Hot-And-Cold Men Or Ending Up Alone Click: http://MagnetizeYourMan.com/PDSUBSCRIBE FOR GOOD LUCK IN LOVE!Follow Us On Instagram: https://Instagram.com/MagnetizeYourManFollow Us On TikTok: https://TikTok.com/@MagnetizeYourMan Subscribe To Our Podcast: https://MagnetizeYourMan.buzzsprout.com/shareFollow Us On Facebook: https://Facebook.com/MagnetizeYourManFollow Us On X: https://Twitter.com/MagnetizeMenFollow Us On Threads: https://Threads.net/@MagnetizeYourManCheck Out Our Blog: https://MagnetizeYourMan.com/Blog~ Your Expert Love Coaches, Brody & Antia Boyd ~Husband and wife team Antia & Brody Boyd have been helping thousands of successful women all over the world for over 20 years combined to magnetize their man to share their life with & have a loving, long-term & committed relationship ASAP without loneliness, trust-issues or emotionally unavailable men.Antia studied Attachment Styles & Personality Psychology at U.C. Berkeley, Brody has a degree in Communications & Interpersonal Relationships and they have been keynote speakers on hundreds of stages, radio & TV shows all over the world including Google, the Harvard University Faculty Club and Good Morning San Diego.They have also been featured on ABC Radio, Brides Magazine & The Great Love Debate and for over a decade studied EVERYTHING they could get their hands on in the areas of male psychology, feminine communication & creating an incredible relationship fast without low-confidence, anxiety or rejection.They look forward to helping YOU to attract your man for a happy, healthy and supportive relationship the easy way and becoming one of their newest success stories soon as well! Check Out Antia's Full Love Story: https://MagnetizeYourMan.com/AboutAntia~ Incredible Client Love Stories & Reviews! ~“My man and I are very happy as we are exploring and enjoy our new life together. Our coaching together was very helpful in my ability to stay centered in the reality of a true intimate loving relationship unfolding. It has also helped me in nurturing it too. Thanks so much for your support!” -A. G.“One year since the day my fiancé and I met is just around the corner, and we are now married! We are in love and don't want to live life without one another. I have lived with him for 6 months and have been the happiest I have ever been in my life. Thank you so much for the coaching… I will check in very soon. Lots of love!” -L. W."My guy is so easy to love and be with. It's a treat to share time with him. He now makes me feel so special in his ways. He isn't afraid to be himself with me... the best compliment. LOVE the program, and now I'm learning how to be in a healthy relationship!" ~F. W."I just wanted to let you know that I met a really great guy. He has done a lot of personal work and we are enjoying really good communication. I just wanted to thank you for the help and suggestions that you gave me. I am optimistic!!" -D. K.More Love Stories & Reviews: https://MagnetizeYourMan.com/Reviews#Relationships #Dating #RelationshipAdvice #DatingTips #RelationshipTips #DatingAdviceSupport the show
I've been deep in analysis mode lately, studying not just my own industry but content creators across platforms, trying to understand what audiences truly want in 2026. The biggest shift I'm seeing? People aren't consuming content just for information anymore. They want information plus perspective. They want to be told what matters, what to ignore, and what deserves their energy. In this episode, I break down the 5 things your audience actually wants to see from you in 2026. 1st is identity-confirming content. This goes beyond "five signs you're ready for X,"and actually mirrors your evolution to help them see themselves in your journey. 2nd is authority without overteaching. Your audience doesn't want more instructions; they want you to teach them how to think, not just what to do. That's what makes you irreplaceable in a world where anyone can Google a how-to guide. The 3rd thing audiences are craving is emotional certainty. People are exhausted by frantic posting, desperate Hail Mary marketing, and hot takes that are just mean-spirited. They want to follow creators whose presence feels like safety—someone who can calm their nervous system and create a space where they feel accepted, no matter how they think or behave. 4th is selective transparency without oversharing. There's a massive difference between sharing intentional behind-the-scenes decisions and just processing your emotions in public with no through line. They can spot the difference between someone crying on the internet for engagement versus someone sharing something with real depth and meaning. The goal is to be human and real without turning your platform into a chaotic emotional brain dump. Finally, your audience wants content that feels like a brand experience. They want to feel like they're entering a world, not just scrolling past a person. This means visual continuity, recurring storylines, and a clear "thing" that you're known for online. When someone lands on your profile, they should be able to binge your content and see a through line. Connect with me: Website Join our email list! Instagram Pinterest Become the celebrity of your niche and learn how to turn your marketing into a campaign that actually sells out. In the Campaign Crash Course™, you'll learn how to build anticipation and sell your offers with the same strategy behind brands like SKIMS, Poppi, and Rhode — all in just 60 minutes. https://highflierpowerhouse.com/course Get creative support to turn your content into sales before, during and after your launches. From content classes to learn new campaign marketing skills, to custom designed assets completely done for you, we've thought of it all inside Sales Studio. Join today: https://highflierpowerhouse.com/retainer Triple your audience, demand and sales with a 90-day marketing reinvention designed to position you as the #1 choice in your industry and change the way you show up online. Apply for The Industry's Choice https://highflierpowerhouse.com/industrys-choice
In this episode, Avanish and Drew discuss:Drew's early journey from systems integrator to one of Salesforce's first top sales leadersHow Salesforce's “connect the dots” sales motion enabled enterprise expansion beyond PLGWhy relationship visibility—not lack of relationships—is the real bottleneck in enterprise salesThe concept of “social capital” and why misused intros burn trust instead of creating itCTD's hybrid model for individuals and enterprises—and why both matterDrew's vision for CTD as a trust layer and emerging relationship platformHost Avanish SahaiAvanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and served as a Board Member of Hubspot from 2018 to 2023; he currently serves on the boards of Birdie.ai, Flywl.com and Meta.com.br as well as a few non-profits and educational boards. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow. From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase. Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early to mid-stage startups in Silicon Valley.About Drew SechristDrew Sechrist is a Salesforce veteran who helped grow the company from $0 to over $1B in revenue. As the #1 global sales manager and account executive, Drew mastered the art of leveraging relationships for warm introductions to close deals faster and bigger.With co-founder Ian Swinson, another Salesforce alum with deep expertise in CRM and social networks, they've built Connect The Dots™ to empower professionals and companies to harness the power of their networks. The vision? A free, intuitive way for individuals to carry their relationships with them, while helping companies replace expensive, ineffective cold outreach with strategic network intelligence.About Connect The Dots (CTD)CTD is the Relationship Activation Platform that helps go-to-market teams instantly find and request introductions to key decision-makers using real relationships from across their company, board, investors, advisors, customer champions, and more.Whether it's a warm path through your CEO, a trusted investor, a strategic partner, or even a personal connection, CTD reveals who actually knows your target buyers and makes it easy to request and track trusted intros at scale. We turn hidden networks into a repeatable, high-impact channel for modern sales teams. Learn more at www.ctd.aiAbout TidemarkTidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale. Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years. Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.Relevant LinksFollow our host, Avanish SahaiLearn more about Tidemark
Main pointsOpenAI's Financial Instability: OpenAI is facing a catastrophic financial burn of approximately $15 million daily, with projected losses exceeding $14 billion in 2026. This is coupled with a mass exodus of key leadership (CTO, Chief Research Officer, and Chief Scientist) and a massive $134 billion lawsuit from Elon Musk.The Component Crisis & Market Saturation: OpenAI's hoarding of GPUs, RAM, and SSDs has caused consumer prices to skyrocket (e.g., DDR5 RAM jumping from $300 to over $1,000). Despite this, newer models like GPT-5 are reportedly disappointing users, while Google's Gemini has surged to 650 million monthly active users.The "Agent" Marketing Myth: An internal Google playbook reveals that 99% of "AI Agents" currently on the market are merely "marketing buzzword packaging" consisting of simple API calls. True autonomous agents require a rigorous "AgentOps" infrastructure—including four-layer evaluation frameworks and security protocols—that most startups currently lack.Unsustainable Infrastructure & Economics: Experts warn that the AI bubble mirrors the 2008 housing crash. The "fundamental math" is failing: energy and capital costs are quintupling while performance gains diminish, requiring OpenAI to generate $2 trillion in annual revenue (15x current growth) just to remain viable.The AI Layoff Wave: Significant job cuts are being attributed to AI restructuring and automation, with 245,000 tech jobs lost in 2025. Major 2026 layoffs include 48,000 at UPS due to automation and 30,000 corporate roles at Amazon, signaling a shift from human capital to AI integration.Referenced X Users @BoringBiz_@nitinthisside_ @anon_opin
Is SEO dead or just different? If you've been relying solely on social media to grow your business, you're missing a massive opportunity. Today I'm joined by Kara, an SEO expert who's been doing this for 5+ years, to break down exactly how search engine optimization works in the age of AI and what you need to do to get discovered online.Google had 5.5 billion searches per day in 2022. In 2025 it's almost 17 billion. SEO isn't dead, it's evolving, and if you're not planting seeds now, you'll be kicking yourself in two years. We're covering how SEO actually works (it's more than just keywords on your website), the difference between Google search and AI search (and why you need to optimize for both), the EEAT framework (Experience, Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness) and why firsthand experience now matters more than information, the three essential starting points (optimize your website, build strategic backlinks, create blog content), the shocking stat that businesses with blogs convert at 13 times the rate of businesses without them, how Pinterest acts as true top-of-funnel and drives purchases (not just inspiration), why the information-as-value era is dead and what's replacing it (insight, storytelling, and thought leadership), how to repurpose your podcast or YouTube into SEO-rich blog posts without starting from scratch, and realistic timelines for SEO ROI (6-12 months for local, 12-24 months for broader markets).If you're exhausted from the social media hamster wheel and want traffic that compounds over time instead of disappearing in 24 hours, this episode is your roadmap.Timestamps: 00:52 Welcome to Ambitious: Meet Kara, the SEO Expert03:09 Diving into SEO: Basics and Misconceptions05:27 SEO Strategies: Blogging, Keywords, and Beyond08:44 The Evolution of SEO in the Age of AI12:17 Creating Depth in Content: Beyond Quick Wins17:56 Leveraging SEO for Long-Term Success26:13 Repurposing Content for SEO: Practical Tips31:03 The Role of Pinterest in SEO Strategy35:51 Understanding Pinterest's Role in Marketing37:46 The Importance of ROI in Marketing38:55 Pinterest as a Platform for Action and Inspiration41:17 Optimizing Your Website for SEO47:00 Leveraging AI in Content Creation01:00:01 The Long-Term Benefits of SEOResources Mentioned: Kara's Free Private Podcast: Build it Once, Get Found for MonthsConnect with Kara: InstagramTikTokWebsite To join the Ambitious Network for free, click HERE. To connect with Kate on Instagram, click HERE. To apply for ITI, click HERE.To submit a question to be answered on the podcast, click HERE.
MORIARTY AND TRAV ARE BACK!!! And they've both been playing plenty to tell you about. Plus, the legend of Nicco has been spreading...MORE PLACES TO FIND USCrubscribe ► https://bit.ly/CrubcastGet the show early and get exclusive content at our Patreon ► https://www.patreon.com/crubOur Crubcasts are recorded LIVE at https://www.twitch.tv/crub_official every Tuesday at 7pm Eastern, with EXCLUSIVE Pre- and Post-ShowsJoin our Discord ► https://crub.org/joinBlueSky ► https://bsky.app/profile/crub.orgCome join our Steam group ► https://steamcommunity.com/groups/crubclubPodcasts are available on Apple, Google, Spotify, and other platforms are available at ► https://crub.orgSHOW NOTESCassette Beasts:https://store.steampowered.com/app/1321440/Cassette_Beasts/Tainted Grail:https://store.steampowered.com/app/1466060/Tainted_Grail_The_Fall_of_Avalon/Definitely Not Fried Chicken:https://store.steampowered.com/app/1036240/Definitely_Not_Fried_Chicken/The Séance of Blake Manor:https://store.steampowered.com/app/1395520/The_Sance_of_Blake_Manor/BRAZILIAN DRUG DEALER 3: I OPENED A PORTAL TO HELL IN THE FAVELA TRYING TO REVIVE MIT AIA I NEED TO CLOSE IThttps://store.steampowered.com/app/3191050/BRAZILIAN_DRUG_DEALER_3_I_OPENED_A_PORTAL_TO_HELL_IN_THE_FAVELA_TRYING_TO_REVIVE_MIT_AIA_I_NEED_TO_CLOSE_IT/TODAY'S CRUBCAST HOSTSJustin: https://www.youtube.com/@WorldFamousJtart9Moriarty: https://www.youtube.com/@reallycoolNicco: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl56kbl3tb-KiGEHT7MUGUgTrav: https://www.youtube.com/@ThatTravGuyCHAPTERS00:00 So...Highguard, huh?04:14 Moriarty played Cassette Beasts!!! And hasn't played Tainted Grail12:22 Cyberschlong 7714:48 Definitely Not Fried Chicken17:40 Geoff Keighley blowback?19:31 Nicco elaborates on Blake Manor23:27 WHAT has Trav been doing26:43 The tale of Nicco spreads ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
On Episode 102 of the Daebak K-Rambles Podcast, Jess and friend Carol from Kdramas Musings dive headfirst into 2025's Dynamite Kiss, starring Jang Ki-yong and Ahn Eun-jin.Jess and Carol break down this polarizing, messy, and occasionally swoon worthy rom-com K-drama, unpacking the endless tropes, the kind-but-chronically-lying female lead, stock characters, bloated business machinations, and a romance built on a canyon-wide misunderstanding that tests even rom-com disbelief. Highlights include missing children (plural!), morally dubious love triangles, runaway strollers, corporate espionage, noble idiocy, amnesia, unserious closing dance sequences, and so much more!GUEST: CarolKdrama Musings Podcast: Available on Spotify, Google, AppleInstagram: @kdramasmusingsTikTok: @kdramamusingsIntro Music Credit: “Golden Coconut Club” by Tearliner, from the Cheese in the Trap OST. Used with permission from the artist.Rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, follow us on all the socials, and be sure to let us know what you want to see in Season 8!
Más de cuatro mil personas se han unido a demandas colectivas argumentando que los medicamentos para bajar de peso les causaron graves problemas de salud.Decenas de manifestantes se enfrentaron con agentes de seguridad pública quienes les lanzaron gases lacrimógenos. Esto frente al centro de detención de Dilley, Texas donde se encuentran el niño Liam Conejo Ramos y su padre.El FBI investiga el ataque contra la representante demócrata Ilhan Omar durante un Town Hall en Minneapolis mientras pedida la abolición de ICE y la renuncia de Kristi Noem.El secretario de Estado Marco Rubio afirmó ante el Senado que la administración Trump no tiene planes de ejecutar nuevos operativos militares en Venezuela.Comienza el juicio contra Meta y Google por diseñar plataformas que generan adicciones en niños y adolescentes.