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Begin your journey towards Generational Wealth! In today's episode, Devon Harris will shed some light on some miraculous things that he's doing recently gotten started but he's really making some waves in the industry. For all of the newbies out there that are getting started, struggling to find your first deal, or doing flip first property, you really need to tune up and listen to Devin. So.. GET READY to take notes here and learn how is the right process of finding deals and flipping properties in one of the hottest markets in the country. Don't miss out and be sure to watch/listen to the full episode as Devon Harris' answered our HOT SEAT questions directly to the point and learn actionable tips and key metrics that will help you along your journey.
Devon George Petersen, known affectionately across the world as the ‘African Warrior' is Africa's only professional darts player. Devon carries that mantle with great pride and responsibility, recognising that, every time he competes, he carries the hopes of a continent and is a role model to millions. Born on 4th June 1986 in Mitchell's Plain, Cape Town, Devon learnt the sport of darts from his father, George. It was obvious that Devon was blessed with a significant talent and he swiftly became the youngest man ever to represent both Western Province and South Africa. After a string of tournament victories in his homeland, progression to the professional game seemed inevitable and Devon made his PDC World Darts Championship debut at the Alexandra Palace, London in 2011, aged 24. Notable appearances followed at the World Cup of Darts where Devon represented the Rainbow Nation with great credit in reaching the quarter-finals, both in 2012 (when partnered by Shawn Hogan) and 2014 (when partnered by Graham Filby). In this episode: Devon's story from a rural town in South Africa to the professional darts circuit. Talent and skill. Mindset for darts and how Devon has utilised meditation to help him perform at the highest level. The benefits Devon has seen from using meditation. Physical and mental prep that Devon uses to prepare for his darts performance. How Devon and many other players are revolutionising the sport of darts. Devons world famous walk on and what it means to him. What it's like being the only African player on tour and carry the weight of not only South Africa but the entire continent of Africa. Why Devon loves being challenged and thrives off of pressure. How Devon focuses on challenges and not fears. Devon's vision for the future. His 3 top tips to improve your mental health. Plus much much more. Connect with Devon: https://devonpetersen.co.uk/ https://www.instagram.com/IMTHEDEVONPETERSEN/ https://twitter.com/devon_petersen Connect with Me: https://www.kinetikfitness.co.uk/ https://www.instagram.com/aliwestcoach/?hl=en https://www.facebook.com/thekinetikfitnessshow https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR9Oe_kjET63UrlCyIXlsnA Join Our Mailing List For Daily Fat Loss Tips: https://mailchi.mp/ali-west/email-capture Book a coaching call with me: https://westcoachingconsultcall.as.me/consultation Sponsor Discounts: Get 5% off Red Light Rising Products Use code: ALIWEST: https://redlightrising.co.uk/shop-all/ Get 15% off Shilajit use code: aliwest: https://www.purehimalayanshilajit.com/buy-shilajit/ Get 20% off your Mudho Health DNA Testing Kit use code ALDNA: https://muhdo.com/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thekinetikfitnessshow/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thekinetikfitnessshow/support
Former Ducks track and football star Devon Allen joins this week's podcast to discuss returning for his second Olympics in Tokyo and the landmark ruling that will allow NCAA athletes to make money off their name, image and likeness.2:00 How this year's Olympic Trials compared to the prior Trials 7:10 How Devon's approach to the hurdles has changed since the 2016 Trials14:45 The possibility of not having fans in the arena in Tokyo17:30 Devon's favorite piece of Olympic gear20:00 The Allen family plan for watching Devon compete at the Olympics23:00 What it was like competing in the re-imagined Hayward Field25:00 Devon weighs in on the new NCAA rules that allow athletes to profit off their name, image and likenessSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Former Ducks track and football star Devon Allen joins this week's podcast to discuss returning for his second Olympics in Tokyo and the landmark ruling that will allow NCAA athletes to make money off their name, image and likeness.2:00 How this year's Olympic Trials compared to the prior Trials 7:10 How Devon's approach to the hurdles has changed since the 2016 Trials14:45 The possibility of not having fans in the arena in Tokyo17:30 Devon's favorite piece of Olympic gear20:00 The Allen family plan for watching Devon compete at the Olympics23:00 What it was like competing in the re-imagined Hayward Field25:00 Devon weighs in on the new NCAA rules that allow athletes to profit off their name, image and likenessSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
FORTUNE THE BOLD W/ DEVON KERSHAW FORTUNE FAVOURS THE BOLD W/ Devon Kershaw! Canadian Olympian and World Champion Cross country skier, student, father & husband Devon Kershaw joins the podcast this week. Check Out Devon: https://twitter.com/devonkershaw?lang=en INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/dkersh/ PROFILE: https://olympic.ca/team-canada/devon-kershaw/ SUPPORT TEAM CANADA: fund https://olympic.ca/foundation/support-team-canada/ Time Codes: 0:00 - Intro Bumper 0:10 - Introduction Of Show 0:30 - Devon's Transition to Where He Is Now 4:30 - Training In Sudbury 7:00 - Hardest Part About Training For Cross Country Skiing 10:00 - What is a misconception people have about Olympic athletes? 15:30 - How to create a connection with our area 21:45 - How to get a sponsorship deal in Canada? 26:30 - Is the pressure different in the Olympic games vs. any other event? 30:45 - Why Devon doesn't believe in the word "Regret' 32:30 - Most and least memorable moments 39:00 - How failure can help you achieve your goals 43:00 - Be relentless towards your goals 52:08 - What is Devon Kershaw studying in School? 56:00 - What was an eye opening thing about studying in Oslo 59:25 - How Devon became a resident of Norway 1:06:00 - What does Norway do Differently 1:07:00 - Why Canadian Politics are Rough 1:08:00 - Why don't we have a Canadian license 1:2300 - Devon's Final Message 1:30:00 - Conclusion New Here: Link Up With Glen: https://www.instagram.com/glenyg96/ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2cJr8YrI1xPPMkrYRpAfBc? si=AqVKuWuBRoaoP9iG5kMZ8g *SEND QUESTIONS TO ME THROUGH INSTAGRAM: @ https://www.instagram.com/glenyg96/
The greatest gift Devon Harris, Leader of the Keep on Pushing Foundation, ever received was the belief that a positive attitude and a never say die philosophy would carry him farther than he could imagine. It's with this attitude, that Devon became part of the original Jamaican Bobsled team that competed in 1988 and inspired the movie Cool Runnings! At the heart of Devon's message are the lessons he has learned of the power of persistence over obstacles in order to live one's best life. His book, https://www.amazon.com/Keep-Pushing-Lessons-Cool-Runnings/dp/0976408279 (Keep on Pushing) brings this message about how everyone can keep on pushing and working for their dreams every day of their professional as well as personal lives. Let's dive right into Devon's incredible story and learn the keys to communication that motivates entire countries! In this Episode: [00:01 - 07:00] Opening Segment I introduce and welcome Devon Harris Original Jamaican Bobsled team Importance of authenticity and motivations Devon gives some background about joining the Bobsled team Started training at the age of 15 Anyone can become an olympian with an extraordinary desire Becoming part of the team while being part of the army Just kept trying [07:01 - 19:55] Communicating with Authenticity; Selling the Dream Devon gives insights into the communication needed within an athletic setting Speaking the same language The challenges faced Passing on the vital information Tailoring the information to different individuals Tips on being a good listener Having a loose agenda Listening with your heart not just your ears Give up trying to be impressive The importance of context The Keys to being a great leader Endeavor to put yourself in the other person's shoe We all want to be treated as a full person Communicating your persistence to other people Selling the dream What you can and can't influence It requires diplomacy Keeping up the team spirit You have to train and develop the other person [19:56 - 31:50] Motivating an Entire Country Devon talks about the value of diversity and how to drive it Nature is not homogenous Taking cues from sports The person who can get the job done Driving social mobility Recognizing that different people have the ability to contribute The benefit of the hope of opportunity How Devon identifies with disadvantaged people Motivating people on a mass scale Inspiring people through a story Writing the book instead of reading it The importance of authenticity Something about him/her Devon talks about leadership from his army days Prepare and practice; put the work in [31:51 - 40:10] Closing Segment The most impactful conversation of your life? Devon talks about her Grandmother Amazing storyteller Having the vision and goal One communication skill you wish you had more of in the past? To ask more questions The best communicator that you know? Michael Manley, Winston Churchill, and Nelson Mandela, JFK Simple way to express your thoughts Charisma and down to earth Being a visionary How to find Devon Links below Final Words Tweetable Quotes: "Keep your mouth shut, and keep your ears open… You really need to hear, as in feel, not just with your ears but with your heart.” - Devon Harris “My philosophy is that you endeavor to put yourself in the other person's shoe.” - Devon Harris Resources Mentioned: https://www.amazon.com/Keep-Pushing-Lessons-Cool-Runnings/dp/0976408279 (Keep on Pushing) You can connect with Devon on https://www.linkedin.com/in/keynotespeakerdevonharris/ (LinkedIn), https://twitter.com/keeponpushing88?lang=en (Twitter), and https://www.instagram.com/keeponpushing88/?hl=en...
In our first collaborative roundtable, we cover the background, breakdown, and suggested solutions to Gamer Toxicity. Special thanks to Sami and Jett from the Color Me Geeked Podcast for joining us! Check them out via @ColorMeGeeked. Table of Contents: 0:00 - Intro 1:20 - Meet Sami and Jett from Color Me Geeked! 4:14 - Background on Bryar and Devon 5:53 - Chapter One: Your Toxic Gamer Stories 6:30 - Chris Chris Chris writes in with a solution 6:47 - Angie shares her toxic experience 7:10 - Sami shares her toxic experience 8:02 - Rei shares her toxic experience 8:35 - Matt shares his Call of Duty toxic experience 9:08 - Dominic shares his toxic experience 9:35 - Issaic shares his Black Ops toxic experience 10:24 - Bryar shares his toxic experiences 11:01 - Jett shares his toxic experiences 13:04 - Devon shares his toxic experiences 15:03 - Chapter Two: Social Media Gamer Toxicity 15:36 - Jett’s research into toxicity online 21:20 - Gaming does not need to center around a white male protagonist 21:45 - Characters we identify and click with 28:28 - With Peter Parker’s redesigned face on PS5 affect our ability to enjoy Spider-Man’s upgrade 27:39 - Chapter Three: In Store Gamer Toxicity 28:48 - The forthcoming supply and demand issues on Black Friday 34:00 - Some of the best parts of working in retail 37:06 - The different types of Toxic Shoppers 37:52 - How some men just refuse to accept information from women 42:00 - Does the difficulty you play on dedicate your level of gaming? 42:18 - A listener requested to be left anonymous, but wrote in about toxicity 50:00 - What do you have to do to prove you’re a gamer? 51:44 - A story from a female former GameStop Employee 53:00 - When we’ll let our kids play online 54:25 - The parental responsibility of raising kids to game properly online 56:30 - Bryar shares his favorite toxic child stories 58:57 - Stop dropping your kids off in stores 1:00:07 - The importance of ESRB Ratings in video games 1:02:01 - The Console Wars 1:07:29 - What version of the PS5 is the most valuable? 1:16:00 - How spoiled are modern gamers? 1:24:00 - Chapter Four: The Toxic Online Gaming Community 1:25:00 - Bryar’s introduction to online gaming toxicity was on the Xbox 360 1:26:30 - The early days of Battlefield’s online community 1:27:50 - The early days of Halo 1:29:40 - The early days of Call of Duty 1:30:02 - There is an ESRB rating for a reason 1:30:59 - The role parents play in online toxicity 1:32:43 - Practicing swear words 1:39:30 - The escalation of violence in video games 1:42:32 - How is the online gaming community today? 1:46:20 - Devon’s Toxic Rocket League story 1:47:40 - Bryar’s experience with Final Fantasy Online 1:52:28 - Rei has considered starting her own female only gamer community 2:01:41 - Chapter Five: Fixing the Online Toxicity Problem 2:02:10 - Jett kicks off how he’d fix gamer toxicity 2:06:11 - How Sami would fix gamer toxicity 2:07:46 - How Bryar would fix gamer toxicity 2:17:37 - How Devon would fix gamer toxicity 2:39:29 - Closing 2:40:11 - How to find the Color Me Geeked Podcast
Our guest today, Devon Estes, approached us about the possible opportunity for Elixir to optimize and build out the pandas data analysis and manipulation tool, sharing why he thinks it would be a valuable addition to the Elixir open source ecosystem. But Devon joins us to contribute to our ongoing discussion about performance and training in the Elixir world, sharing about his current work on the beta for Sketch Cloud, his previous Erlang consultancy role at one of the largest banks in Europe, and the massive responsibility he carried while working on the bottom line application. He continues to advise listeners on the considerations for optimizing Erlang performance and solving database-specific problems, and the memory constraints he comes up against in the Sketch Cloud application. Devon talks about Benchee, a benchmarking library created by his friend, and how the two of them have continued to develop this tool, including its performance testing capabilities and how they deconstructed the benchmarking steps to build out the library. He also talks more broadly about the importance of considering the data when distinguishing between facts and opinions in conversations about performance. Key Points From This Episode: What Devon believes would be a valuable addition to the Elixir open source ecosystem. Why optimizing and building out the pandas tool will be worth a company’s time and effort. Devon’s experience with pandas and Python, and recognizing the opportunity for Elixir. Working on the beta for Sketch’s Cloud that will allow real-time collaboration. Devon’s consultancy role at Klarna, one of the largest banks in Europe. The responsibility involved in working on the bottom-of-the-stack application at Klarna. Considerations for optimizing Erlang performance and why you should look at the tail. Solving the database performance problems – running queries and searches – at Klarna. The unique memory constraints of Sketch Cloud and the problem with receiving large files. More about Benchee, a benchmarking library, and all its performance testing capabilities. Deciding whether a function is responsible for other things when benchmarking. The time Devon spends on optimizing performance and the first two steps in the process. The profiling process of determining which function is slow and writing a benchmark for it. Distinguish between a fact and an opinion by considering the data (or lack thereof). Keeping in mind that truth is time-bound, and it also applies to benchmarking. Deconstructing the steps in the process of further developing Benchee. How Devon became a maintainer of the Elixir track for Exercism, and what the role involves. Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: Devon Estes — http://www.devonestes.com Devon Estes on Twitter — https://twitter.com/devoncestes?lang=en Devon Estes on GitHub — https://github.com/devonestes pandas — https://pandas.pydata.org Python — https://www.python.org Sketch — https://www.sketch.com Klarna — https://www.klarna.com/international/ Erlang — https://www.erlang.org PostgreSQL — https://www.postgresql.org Ruby — https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/ Adopting Elixir — https://www.amazon.com/Adopting-Elixir-Production-Ben-Marx/dp/1680502522 Exercism — https://exercism.io JavaScript — https://www.javascript.com Benchee — https://github.com/bencheeorg SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/ Elixir — https://elixir-lang.org Elixir Wizards Podcast — https://podcast.smartlogic.io Update: What's Inside a Reduction? http://www.devonestes.com/inside-a-reduction Special Guest: Devon Estes.
Dental billing and insurance can be tricky to navigate. There are a lot of components to it from medical cross coding to claim submissions, patient billing, and so on. However, it doesn't have to be so complicated, especially if you're working with a company that caters to your individual needs such as D-TECH Billing and Claims. DeVon Banks is CEO of the company and joins me on this episode of the podcast to talk about what she's going to be teaching you at the Delivering WOW Live Summit 2020! DeVon is one of our highly-anticipated speakers at this year's event and we are so excited to have her and her team join us at the Summit in New Orleans, March 13-14th 2020. DeVon is an industry expert in insurance, revenue cycle management, and Dentrix. Her and her team at D-TECH Billing and Claims work tirelessly to help hundreds of dental offices across the country through practice management software training, dental billing, medical cross coding, and more. They take the headache out of technology management, so you can focus on what you do best – caring for your patients! In this episode, we discuss: How DeVon and her company helps dental practices grow through medical billing How medical billing is evolving in the dental industry Why a lot of dentists struggle with insurance and medical billing What type of things you can bill for that you might not be aware of What DeVon will teach at the Delivering WOW Live Summit 2020 If you want to find out more about DeVon and D-TECH Billing and Claims, you can visit the website here: https://www.dtechbc.com Have you got your tickets to the Delivering WOW Live Summit 2020? Don't miss the ultimate event for dental practices, taking place at Mardi Gras World in New Orleans, LA, March 13-14th 2020! If you want to come along and receive 12 hours of CE from speakers such as Devon, Sandy Pardue, Laura Hatch, Len Tau, and many more, get your tickets today!
Molecule is an open market based platform that incentivizes the development and co-creation of pharmaceutical IP. Molecule’s CEO, Devon Krantz, discusses the dire state of pharmacological R&D and its cost—literally and figuratively—to patients. Molecule, on the other hand, encourages a patient-centric approach to pharma. How? Devon puts it this way: “We are focusing more on bio-techs, on smaller research labs, on academia. [What we] want to incentivize is for researchers, scientists, and academics to take their IP and put it onto the Blockchain, into an open market, which then enables other people to buy into the market and freely grow that market. We’re democratizing access to cures.” Devon elaborates on the innovative and complex ‘why & how’ during the rest of the conversation.
Molecule is an open market based platform that incentivizes the development and co-creation of pharmaceutical IP. Molecule’s CEO, Devon Krantz, discusses the dire state of pharmacological R&D and its cost—literally and figuratively—to patients. Molecule, on the other hand, encourages a patient-centric approach to pharma. How? Devon puts it this way: “We are focusing more on bio-techs, on smaller research labs, on academia. [What we] want to incentivize is for researchers, scientists, and academics to take their IP, and maybe it's in an underfunded area, and put it onto the Blockchain, into an open market, which then enables other people to buy into the market and freely grow that market. We’re democratizing access to cures.” Devon elaborates on the innovative and complex ‘why & how’ during the rest of the conversation.
Announcement: We have a new free masterclass available for you! Learn how our clients elevate their voice, impact & income in their spiritual business: http://bit.ly/rwl-masterclass - We’ll show you a step-by-step game plan to elevate your voice, impact and income even if you consider yourself a highly sensitive person and are afraid of visibility, sharing your voice or being seen... I recently heard Elizabeth Gilbert speak on the topic of creativity … and since then I’ve been thinking A LOT about how creativity supports us in feeling healthier and more alive. The universe is constantly creating (think about the plants, stars, asteroids, really the whole universe is constantly shifting, changing, growing, evolving and being creative) so when WE are being in creative, it’s like we are aligning with the natural laws of the universe. It’s turning out to be an incredible antidote to depression, grief, illness and anxiety, among other ailments. It was so fun to dive into this topic with artist Devon Walz talk about the rich topic of creativity on this week’s episode… In this episode we discussed: How Devon stays focused, motivated and continually inspired in the creative process Her story of moving through depression, undergoing a lot of healing and learning how to do art and business in a way that works for her as a result The role of trust and intuition in the creative process + life in general! Staying committed to personal truth while building a business in our masculine, fast-paced society The role that emotional work + self-care continues to play in art and business The main blocks holding back creatives and visionaries from doing their work Why we need artists + visionaries to be doing their work in the world and the role they're playing for all of us How art aids in shifting the consciousness How Devon faces her fears in the realm of creativity + entrepreneurship Stay in Touch with Devon: Instagram @devonwalzart Website: devonwalz.com Devon Walz is a professional artist, muralist, mentor and dreamer. She believes that creativity and beauty are powerful medicine for us all and sees her own art as the most essential way to know herself. Through her colorful and etheric-feeling abstract paintings, she explore the ways that emotion, energy and form collide. Devon mentors developing creatives along their path and helps them to realize their most honest expression. Her approach is one that combines practical strategy, emotional healing and deep love. In addition to mentorship and online courses, she hosts 1-on-1 painting weekends (for artists and non-artists alike) to make a mess, break out of perfectionism and discover their soul’s language in her Southern California art studio. Her work has been licensed by companies big and small, and is held by collectors around the globe.
Crystals are having a moment - but what the heck are you supposed to do with sparkly rocks and do they actually do anything? These are the questions I set out to answer when I sat down with energy healer and crystal connoisseur, Devon Cajuste, who also happens to be a former NFL Tight End. Not only do we go deep on how to use energy work to heal your body, but Devon is also an excellent example of living fully in his purpose. On today's episode, we cover... How to use energy healing as a part of your self-care routine The simple meditation strategy that will help you feel more connected and alive, every single day How I used energy healing to return to my original unicorn magic self How Devon healed a serious shoulder injury with energy work (and how you can heal yourself too) How and when to use crystals in your meditation (and how they can amplify what you're already doing) How to choose the best crystals (and their care and keeping) How to hone your intuition to manifest everything and anything you want in your life All the links: - Follow Devon on IG @devoncajuste86: https://www.instagram.com/devoncajuste86/ - Devon's website: https://www.dcajuste.com/ - www.aewellness.com/podcast - www.aewellness.com/SORE - Join the free Body Nerds FB community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/aewbodynerds/ - Come hang out with me on Instagram @hollaformala : https://instagram.com/hollaformala/ - Download a free plan with 9 simple things to soothe yourself when you're in pain: http://www.aewellness.com/pain-free
Is creating a culture of quality a top priority at your MedTech company? But you’re not sure how or when to start? Today’s guest is Devon Campbell, founder of Prodct LLC, a MedTech company helping to establish and implement holistic, efficient, and practical product development and manufacturing strategies. In this episode, Devon shares valuable insight with listeners on the topic of quality culture within companies. His proven approach has helped a wide range of medical device professionals achieve success, from both a cultural and product development standpoint. Some of the highlights of the show include: ● When: Sooner than later, start a culture of quality to accelerate clinical/regulatory approval and achieve market success for your company. ● How: Devon helps companies create a culture of quality by aligning their systems and processes to meet future goals and objectives. ● Devon works with all staff, teams, and departments involved to better understand challenges and changes with a company’s quality management system (QMS). ● Culture of Quality: Start small and early on with the end result in mind to address compliance and quality related to product development. ● Compliance vs. True Quality: Purposefully and consciously develop and deliver a quality product and data to meet the needs of those who benefit from the device. ● Exciting events and exits are not all about making money by being acquired by companies, but receiving acknowledgement and appreciation from them. ● NanoView is a perfect example of how to build a culture of quality by going above and beyond, even overboard, by implementing and using a QMS. ● Document control is more important than you realize. Approach it in a phase-savvy way; pause and push yourself to document early and revise often.
Welcome to today’s show with my good friend and fellow young investor Devon King. On today’s show, you will learn the following. -How Devon got started -What Devon does to make the most out of his real estate flips -How to successfully “Wholetail” Houses -How to have successful partnerships -Why Devon enjoys his unique freedom and lifestyle -Great advice for younger folks who want to break into the entrepreneur game. Contact Info for Devon Instagram @devonking10
Devon Berrier founded Layton, a clothing line offering chic and modern options for nursing moms. Following the birth of her first child, Devon wanted to create fashionable and comfortable breastfeeding-friendly options, something she found was missing as a new mom herself. In our conversation, Devon shares about her experiences as a business owner and mom and how she manages that delicate "balancing" act. She opens up about her experience with postpartum anxiety and how she moved through it. And a BIG congratulations to Devon and her family, as they just welcomed baby number three to their family last week! (April 2019). In this episode, you’ll hear about: Devon’s story (2:30) How Devon’s company Layton was born (3:20) The working Mom dance (6:38) Book: You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero Book: You Are a Badass at Making Money by Jen Cincero Book: You Are a Badass Everyday by Jen Cincero Devon’s postpartum experience (13:52) Partners and caregivers need to be aware of how to support women going through postpartum (18:54) A documentary about the seriousness of postpartum depression: When the Bough Breaks Devon has generously offered a 25% off coupon on all Layton styles for you! Visit https://www.laytonshop.com/ and enter PURE25 at checkout.
Welcome to the final episode of series 13! Devon George joins us once again to discuss the character creation process for her game, Edifice. This episode, we not only dive deep into how this game stacks up to others, but we also do a little bit of fanfic, figuring out how our characters may have fared were we to actually play. Leave us reviews in any, or all, of these places: Character Creation Cast on Apple Podcasts (The best place to leave reviews for us)! https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/character-creation-cast/id1363822066?mt=2&ls=1 Character Creation Cast on Podchaser: https://podchaser.com/CharacterCreationCast Character Creation Cast on Stitcher https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/character-creation-cast?refid=stpr Character Creation Cast on Facebook https://facebook.com/CharacterCreationCast Guests and Projects: Devon George Website: https://www.devongeorgestudios.com/ Twitter: @dgeorgestudios (https://twitter.com/dgeorgestudios) Shadow of the Cabal Art: https://www.shadowofthecabal.com/song-of-the-crane-l5r-5e/ Descent Into Midnight Art: https://descentintomidnight.com/ Valhalla Llamas Art Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Announcements 00:01:18 - Reintroductions and Character/Edifice Recaps 00:10:10 - D20 for your thoughts - How Devon got into RPGs 00:15:26 - Devon’s character creation process 00:18:56 - How does character creation in Edifice stack up to other games? 00:29:20 - How do the mechanics of character creation in Edifice reinforce the feel of the game? 00:34:18 - How does the process of creating the character set our expectations for play? 00:39:53 - The biggest flaw in Edifice character creation? 00:53:10 - How Devon factored the interaction with community into character creation? 00:55:33 - This is the Fanfiction section of the podcast 01:16:26 - Take it up a level… or…? 01:18:27 - Episode Closer 01:21:38 - Show Blurbs 01:22:27 - Outtakes Game systems and materials discussed in this episode: Edifice Beta: https://www.devongeorgestudios.com/projects/ Music: Opening: Meditation Impromptu 03 (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Kevin_MacLeod/Calming/Meditation_Impromptu_03) by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) Clip 1 & 2: I’m Building a Heart (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Steve_Combs__Simon_Mathewson/Notes/01_Im_Building_a_Heart) by Steve Combs and Simon Mathewson (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Steve_Combs__Simon_Mathewson/) Main Theme: Hero (Remix) (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Steve_Combs/Principal_Photography_1493/11_Hero_Remix) by Steve Combs (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Steve_Combs/) Our Podcast: Character Creation Cast: Twitter: @CreationCast (https://twitter.com/CreationCast) Facebook: https://facebook.com/charactercreationcast/ Discord: http://discord.charactercreationcast.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/creationcast/ Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/CharacterCreationCast Amelia Antrim: @gingerreckoning (https://twitter.com/gingerreckoning) Ryan Boelter: @lordneptune (https://twitter.com/lordneptune) Our Website: http://www.charactercreationcast.com Our Network: http://oneshotpodcast.com Network Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/oneshotpodcast
Devon Loftus is the founder of Moon Cycle Bakery, a sweet treat service that delivers hormone-supportive treats to people on their cycle. Devon and her team at Moon Cycle value celebration, empowerment, choice, and knowledge – and the power of a forking delicious brownie. Stigma is used to isolate people, but Moon Cycle is combatting that through community. Together, these Moon Cycle Mamas are breaking down the stigma surrounding menstruation and femininity, striving to reunite people with the awesome power of being a woman. The tools in their arsenal? Education, Matcha Coconut Bites, love, Sweet Potato Brownies with Chocolate Chunks, empowerment, and Chocolate Cup Sweetened with Ginger + Honey. “Do right by yourself, even if it’s not the most popular decision or other people don’t quite understand. It’s not always easy, but I think it’s really important and it’s where a lot of our self-empowerment and self-love come from.” –Devon Loftus We also discuss: What “hormone-supportive” ingredients are & how they can help How Devon was inspired to start the business during her Bachelorette party Taking Moon Cycle international Traveling to Europe to check out their bakeries Developing a community, in addition to product How stigma isolates us Food as medicine, on an emotional and physical level Devon’s next big goal Common menstrual signs and cravings & why so many women crave chocolate How Moon Cycle Bakery is working to educate people on mooncyclebakery.com The ins and outs of subscriptions, distribution, and pricing Resources: mooncyclebakery.com Instagram: @mooncyclebakery Facebook: facebook.com/mooncyclebakery Twitter: @mooncyclebakery Devon Loftus’s Bio: Meet Devon Loftus – founder of Moon Cycle Bakery, a one-of-a-kind hormone-supportive natural sweet treat delivery service. Loftus launched Moon Cycle Bakery in 2017 with the goal of helping people regain their sense of self-care, and to help others find support during cycles that can be challenging and alienating. Recipe development is a team effort between Loftus and her team of experts, which include nutritionists, herbalists, and acupuncturists. Each ingredient is carefully selected to ensure maximum support of the female body during their time of the month. Treat delivery is synced up to customer’s cycles and arrives at ones doorstep at the perfect moment. “We care; we don’t make claims,” explains Loftus. “Moon Cycle Bakery is a small team of people who genuinely care about the well being of others, our bodies, and the knowledge that continues to support it. We all take the time to read studies, discuss recipes with experts, and collaborate with high-quality, integrity driven brands.” Where did the idea come from? During Devon’s “west coast bachelorette party,” her now husband, Brian, walked into the bar with a homemade 3 tiered chocolate cake with cookie dough icing and chocolate ganache. Devon’s friend tapped Brian on the shoulder and said, “I just needed to tell you, this is the best thing I have ever eaten. And I don’t know if it’s because I’m about to get my period or not, but I almost cried.” Needless to say, Devon was completely in love with such an honorable and real reaction and with a huge smile Devon assured her: “Don’t worry, Summer, we’ll bring you a slice every month.” Prior to launching her own business, Loftus worked for a women’s lifestyle website, and experienced the fast-paced life of the fashion industry. She started her own clothing line, which taught her how to collaborate, find factories, build a team, understand profit, and more. During this period Loftus battled a variety of severe health issues, triggered by work stress. She quickly realized the traditional 9-5 route was not conducive to her creativity and health, and learned how crucial self-care is. Loftus has a B.A. in Creative Writing and Journalism, and studied product development at FIDM. In her spare time Devon works on her book, practices yoga (she is also a certified instructor), and enjoys connecting with nature. She currently resides in Tenino, Washington, in a tiny home on a farm with her husband Brian and dog Olive. Just Forking Around is produced by Podcast Masters
Shownotes and links for this episode can be found at http://sarahsantacroce.com/episode65 Seven years ago, Devon Smiley was sitting in her cubicle, daydreaming of spending a month in Paris when her inner voice said, “But you’re not that type of person.” Today, Devon has gone rogue with her own business as a negotiation consultant and she LIVES in the City of Lights. How did she learn to overcome those limiting beliefs and thrive as an introverted entrepreneur? Devon serves as a mentor for solopreneurs and professionals who are sick of settling and determined to negotiate for what they deserve. She’s distilled nearly 15 years and $5B of negotiation experience into actionable advice that helps her clients ‘make the ask’ with confidence. Devon has been featured in Glamour magazine and the Chicago Tribune and worked with elite companies like Mars Chocolate and Rolls-Royce. Devon also does pro bono work with nonprofits including UN Women and The Clinton Foundation. Today, Devon explains how she transitioned from front-line corporate negotiator to her current role in mentoring small businesses, entrepreneurs and startups. She shares her introverted superpower to identify important information and design strategy accordingly. Devon also discusses how she has procrastinated her way out of opportunities over the years and what she is doing to get more comfortable with networking. Listen in as Devon describes the AHA moment when she realized the limits she was placing on herself and learn how she has overcome the negative inner voice that was holding her back! Devon's favorite quote "Today I will do what others won’t…so tomorrow I can do what others can’t” *** Become a VIP of my community Be the first to know whenever I release a new podcast or host a special webinar for introverts. And as a welcome present get my '4-part Guide 'How Saying 'NO' Can Help You Grow! http://sarahsantacroce.com/sayno/ *** In this episode you’ll learn… Devon’s role in helping entrepreneurs develop negotiation skills. The challenges freelancers face in setting boundaries with clients. How a corporate mentoring role inspired Devon to start her own business. Why Devon prefers a diverse client base that spans several industries. How Devon supports clients in building the confidence to set fair pricing. Devon’s insight on the how introverts tend to approach negotiation. How Devon coaches clients through 4- to 6-month mentorships. Devon’s introverted superpower of identifying important information. How Devon has procrastinated herself out of networking opportunities. Devon’s experience with making connections at non-business events. The AHA moment when Devon realized the limits she was placing on herself. Devon’s scheduling strategy for setting limits and managing your energy. How Devon leverages Shapr for one-on-one networking opportunities. How the book Hilda helped Devon overcome her negative inner voice. Dorie’s gratitude for friends who know her better than she knows herself. Other links and resources mentioned in this episode: Devon’s Website Devon on Twitter Devon on Instagram Devon on LinkedIn LinkedIn Local Google Calendar Shapr Hilda: Tackle Your Inner Naysayer, Get Out of Your Own Way, and Unleash Your Badassery by Coach Jennie Coach Jennie Sarah’s Book List How Saying ‘No’ Can Help You Grow Thanks for listening ! Thanks so much for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed it, I would be super grateful if you'd share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post. And if you don’t have it yet, get your free 4-step Guide on How to Say no to Grow. You'll be added to my list as well so I can share the latest episodes and other introvert related resources with you. Also, please leave a review on iTunes. I'm told that they really matter so if you'd take a minute I'd appreciate it. And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes or on Android to get notified for all my future shows. Warmly Sarah
Most teachers know that when they leave school their work is not finished. Sometimes there are papers to grade, lessons to plan, and evaluations to give, etc. Devon and Tiffany are two examples of teachers sharing their passion for the arts. Outside of being art teachers in the classroom, they’re both actively involved in the Wisconsin Art Education Association. Listen to how they advocate art in any given situation and how you can too. Show Highlights Devon and Tiffany share their roles in planning and graphic design How to get involved with the Wisconsin Art Education Association (WAEA) The election process to becoming a member of the board The importance of networking with other art teachers The opportunities the WAEA’s annual fundraiser provides How Devon and Tiffany’s art leadership carries over to the school level Ways to be an advocate for Art Education The art pieces that inspired Devon and Tiffany most Ways to get others to take art, and your artwork, seriously Resources: http://devoncalvert.weebly.com/ Wisconsin Art Education Association
In today's interview, I sit down with Devon Tilly from The Art Of Construction Podcast and learn how he built a company culture to take his successful business far into the future. Devon has been recognized nationally for his innovation and creativity within the building industry. In today's conversation, we go deep into people and technology. As we all know, there are more people going out of the industry than coming in. Devon has some great ideas on how to attract and retain the best from that limited supply, which is a requirement to grow any successful business. What you'll hear in this episode: Devon's podcast, his company, Mountain View Window and Door, and his love of people and technology How Devon figured out that he didn't fit into the corporate world and found his Art of Construction tribe Why Devon started the podcast: to teach others and give good information How Devon uses YouTube to push out content without being “noise” What is your purpose, cause, and passion? Devon's is a commitment to excellence Focus on your WHY, not your WHAT Getting, retaining, and leading good people in your business As the CFO, know what you're good at and what you're not good at. Devon says to “Elevate and delegate and get it off your plate.” How Devon's company job titles “stand out from the crowd in a world of noise” What Devon says about price: Build trust and relationships first The key to not being sales-y: LISTEN The importance of price, service, and quality Four core values: do the right thing, be a problem solver, Get Stuff Done (GSD), and have a commitment to excellence Devon's internship program with Boulder University and others, to bring young people into the construction industry because so many are on the way out (the average roofer is 42 years old!) Devon explains his TAT program (Trusted Advisor Training) Why Devon describes himself as a disruptor and a micro-influencer What's next for Devon? Digital training programs, more podcasting, videos---all to be the platform for moving the next generation of people and technology forward in the art of construction Resources: Need Help Answering the Phone? Use Ruby Receptionists! Click here and use the code Roofer50 for a special discount! Or Call Ruby at (844) 326-7829 The Art of Construction Podcast Refining Moments by Gregory K. Hernandez Mountain View Window and Door Episode #65 Growing My Roofing Business on the Art Of Construction Podcast Episode #22 Tom Reber from The Contractor Fight
Listen Here: iTunes | Overcast | PlayerFM Keep Up with the North Star Podcast Here My guest today is Devon Zuegel, a writer of code and writer of words who spends her time unlocking human potential through incentive design and tools for thought and cities. In this conversation, we jump from coordination problems to urban planning to travel to architecture. We compare cities like Singapore and San Francisco and talk about the power of urban density and architecture to make us happier and healthier. Then, we talk about writing, specifically the three tiers of common knowledge, how to find good ideas, and the concept that Devon calls playing chess with yourself. One thing sticks out from this podcast and other conversations with Devon. Above all else, Devon lives in obsessive pursuit of high leverage ways to spend her time and energy. In the past, that’s led her to computer science and in the future, I suspect it will lead her to cities and infrastructure. Why cities? Devon offers an excellent answer. Cities are big enough to have real importance in the world and small enough to be nimble and somewhat understandable and there are a lot of cities. You can actually hope to make some comparisons in a way that you can’t really do with countries. Please enjoy my conversation with Devon Zuegel. Links Bloom Algorithms To Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions Georgism Devon’s articles related to this episode: Advice on Writing Why Flaking Is So Widespread in San Francisco A Day In Singapore: Urban Identity 2:03 Devon on coordination problems and the problems they’ve caused, such as climate change and housing issues, and how clever solutions to these problems are the reason humans have progressed so much in the past hundreds of years 6:19 Human cognition and thought as it is augmented by media, cities and blockchains and the benefits of this augmentation 8:10 The most classic tool for thought and why it’s such a catalyst for healthy and productive cognition, long term and short term memory function and increased IQ 16:41 Devon’s writing process and why she defines it as playing chess with herself 17:45 How Devon has been able to get her writing to flow and the three categories of topics available to write about, common knowledge, obscure knowledge and the intersection in the middle 20:17 Devon’s theory of on why people in San Francisco are so flaky in comparison to sister cities like Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City 28:16 How Devon chooses what rabbit holes she wants to go down prior to writing an article and how to make most topics interesting by creating a model around the idea 32:25 What makes Singapore so interesting to Devon, in regards to history, culture, GDP growth, etc. and her major observations after visiting the country 47:20 The moment Devon became aware of the effect of architecture and how it can make employees less involved with their colleagues by not promoting micro-interactions 50:53 The five metrics that a house should be described with, that are never used, when being promoted on websites like Airbnb, Zillow, Craigslist, etc. 57:00 Devon chooses the three metrics that she’d pick when it comes to the city she lives in and the home she’s living in for maximum interaction, convenience and mental economy 1:03:16 Algorithms To Live By and why Devon sees it as the best self help book she’s ever read, despite it not being a self help book 1:05:37 Devon’s opinion on Georgism and how people talk about economics as a spectrum from capitalism to socialism or communism and the third category of economic goods that it doesn’t touch upon 1:07:30 Devon’s changing opinions and her epistemic status placed on each of her blog posts written with a strong opinion 1:10:03 Devon’s philosophy of travel and why she views it as scale free regardless of how many or little places you visit 1:11:51 Devon’s philosophy of productivity and how she writes down dozens of notes and uses long form emails to repurpose her ideas into publishable articles Subscribe to my “Monday Musings” newsletter to keep up with the podcast. Quotes “I am very interested in coordination problems. I think that they explain a lot of the problems that we see in the world, everything from climate change to nuclear disarming to issues in cities to making it so that people can actually live where they are the most productive to housing policy. I could go on and on. The solution to coordination problems is incentive design, and clever solutions that are some of the reason humans have been able to progress to the extent they have throughout the past few hundred years.” “The most classic tool for thought, and one that I think we tend to take for granted, is writing. Most people think of writing as a way to communicate ideas that they’ve had in their head to other people. Obviously, it does serve that purpose and people sell books for a reason. But, I think it goes way beyond that.” “In the last year, I have found that writing has gotten a lot easier for me. There’s probably a lot of reasons for this but I think the core is that I realized there are three categories of topics you can write about. There’s the stuff that everybody knows that is trivial to write about because it’s easy. On the other end, there’s stuff that nobody knows yet or nobody around you knows yet, so it takes a lot of time to figure it out and it takes a lot of research. Now, there’s this middle area between common knowledge and really obscure knowledge of stuff that you have a unique perspective on because of where you happen to be in life and you understand it so intuitively that you can just talk, think and write about it fluidly. But, a lot of people don’t know it yet. That’s the sweet spot.” “For me, it’s very important that I can walk places. Walking is a way to interact with your community in these small ways, every single day. The way people get comfortable in a place and in a social group is not through one really intense interaction, but through a bunch of smaller ones where you see things from different angles. You experience, what does my neighborhood looks like on a sunny day, on a cloudy day, or when I’m tired. These tiny, trivial things help you understand, much better, how things function. You get to know the vibe so much better and you meet people you wouldn’t meet if you were in an Uber.” “Algorithms To Live By is the best self help book I’ve ever read and it’s not intended to be a self help book, it’s intended to be an algorithmic look at certain problems that people see day to day. But, it helps me frame certain problems that I personally run into in terms of the algorithmic complexity. I realized the stress that I was feeling about certain things I was worrying about, were actually totally rational.” Subscribe to my “Monday Musings” newsletter to keep up with the podcast. TRANSCRIPT DEVON: I am very interested in coordination problems. I think that they explain a lot of the problems that we see in the world. Everything from climate change to nuclear disarmament to issues in cities and making it so that people can actually live in where they're the most productive, in housing policy. Well, I could go on and on and on with the list. So the solution to cooperation problems is incentive design. And I think clever solutions to incentive design are some of the reasons why humans have been able to progress to the extent that they have throughout the last few hundred years. So a primary example is contract law, it makes it possible for people to trust one another. Other examples are the development of risk and the concept of commodifying the risk. DAVID: I was having a conversation yesterday in another podcast and the guest was saying that in 1471, what happened was people were able to pool maritime risk. And what happened was it let big expansive ship voyages happen because you could pull risks together. And so if you invested in a ship and say that ship broke down, then you wouldn't lose all your money. And by pooling risk and by coming up with new financing and coordination solutions, you could do things that weren't previously possible. I thought that was really interesting. DEVON: Totally. That's a great example. Actually. Old maritime risk looks a lot like venture capital today wherein venture a lot of things fail. A lot of things fail spectacularly. But if you can spread out that risk across a whole pool of investments, it only takes a few to like really, carry the whole fund. In the case of maritime investments, a lot of the ships broke down, they had problems. But if one ship came back with a whole load of goods that could repay all of the rest of the costs. However, most, most investors back then couldn't take that risk because most of them would have failed. They might've lost all their money before they hit that one big one. And so by the development of that maritime risk, they were able to get past that sort of short-term problem and to get into the run longer returns. I think that's a really good metaphor for all sorts of problems that we run into wherein the short term it's rational to do a thing that is not as interesting, that it's not as lucrative, but it's also not as risky. But if we're able to coordinate as a society, as a company or whatever level you want to talk about. So one more concrete example to bring it down from like highfalutin, venture capital and maritime risk, you could just look at cooperation problems as simple as when you're dating someone for the first time, there's that standard wait three days until you text them back after you met them because you want to come off as cool. You don't want to come off as desperate, right? But if you really like each other, like all this is going to signal is that you don't like them very much. And that may be rational for you because you don't want to come off as desperate. But if you're both doing that, you end up with an outcome where it seems like you don't like each other very much and it takes a really long time to actually realize that you do. Ideally, you would have some neutral trustable third party who could be a person A, person B, out Alice and Bob like you both like each other. You told me that you liked each other, just go for it. You know, have fun. And I think a lot of healthy relationships that I've seen have actually started in this way because of some small quirk at the very beginning. It can be super useful, but a lot of the pain that I see my friends going through when they date is literally just the result of playing games because rationally, you're supposed to. It's basically a prisoner's dilemma. And so if you can have someone who forces you into the correct quadrant where everyone is better off, that's much better. DAVID: So then let's jump into sort of human cognition and human thought. Maybe begin with media. What interests you? Sort of when I think of where this conversation is going to go today. So much of it is about augmentation, right? Like cities augmenting the potential for humans interact and making that so much easier. And blockchain augmenting human coordination is making that easier. And then here with thought and having tools, augmenting human thoughts and letting us go places that we probably wouldn't be able to go if we were stuck in the mountains on our own. DEVON: I think the underlying reason I'm interested in incentive design is because it allows us to unlock human potential and allows people to do much cooler stuff that makes them happier, healthier, makes life more worth living. I see ways to augment our cognition as serving that same purpose though from a different angle. The umbrella term that people sometimes give this is tools for thoughts and we have basically the same brains that we and our ancestors had thousands of years ago, but we're able to do so much more. Part of that is because we've developed incentive design. The other reason is because we've developed tools for giving our cognition more leverage. And I use the term leverage actually very specifically. You can only get so strong no matter how much you lift. How once you go to the gym, like you're still not going to be an order of magnitude stronger. You're definitely not going to be two orders of magnitude stronger. However, if you design an engine, if you just even add a lever that gives you that leverage, you can do so much more with your muscles. I see that that translates directly to your brain. The most classic tool for thought and one that I think we tend to take for granted is writing. Most people think of writing as a way to just communicate ideas that they've had in their head to other people. It obviously does serve that purpose. People sell books for a reason, but I think it goes way beyond that. So one thing that writing does for you is it expands your working and your long-term memory. With the long-term memory, it's pretty obvious. You take notes, maybe you don't remember all the details, but you can look them up later. DAVID: To your point, even today I was writing something this morning and I wrote something that I wrote about a year ago and I have no recollection of writing it and I read it and I was like, wow, that's actually pretty smart and it really helped me, but I think to your point, there's a permanent element of writing and being able to sort of work through sentences and craft them, makes it so that you can achieve thoughts because of the repetition and the sort of tweaking and editing of writing that you can't do if you're just speaking like we are right now. DEVON: 100 percent. And I've also had that experience more times than I can count of like coming across something I've written and being like, oh, this is interesting, I wrote that. That came out of my brain. And as long as you have enough of a pointer to that idea that you can find it when it's necessary, or it gets surfaced by accident because you happen to open up an old notebook. That's extremely powerful. It makes you much better at remembering. I think even more importantly, a writing helps you with your short term memory, your working memory. There have been a lot of studies showing that a working memory is one of the highest things correlated with IQ and the ability to solve problems. And I think the reason for this is because if you have good working memory, you can hold a lot of state in your head and you can sort of fiddle with that state. You can hold contradictory but potentially correct ideas and outcomes in your head while you work through the problem. And then they collapse into one at the end. DAVID: Describe state real quick for someone who doesn't have the computer vocabulary that you do. DEVON: So state is what is the current status of the world right now. Let's say you're working through a personal problem and with your family or something, and you want to go through step by step and sort of understand the implications of what different people have done. You're getting the story from different friends, like maybe you're helping reconcile like your aunt and your uncle or something like that, having marital problems and you want to understand how they got to that point and how, given where they are right now at that point, like how different changes result in better or worse outcomes. Understanding the current state of the situation and then like fiddling with it and being able to hold all of those sort of partial computations in your head are really important to be able to compare them and to be able to move forward and find a solution. DAVID: So you're saying that writing and sort of computers at large now help us hold more state so then we can move on to higher-order tasks that perhaps aren't memory, that our brains are really well suited for. DEVON: Exactly. And they're more interesting. And working memory can kind of provide abstractions. I think the best metaphor for working memory or external working memory is like scratch paper, that there's a reason why math teachers always tell you, feel free to use as much scratch paper as you want. That's not just because they hate trees and they want to waste all paper. It's because being able to externalize that process is really, really helpful. Offload is the perfect word. DAVID: So back to writing. DEVON: I think it actually goes even much further than memory. With writing, it is fundamentally the process of externalizing an idea which allows you to play with it in ways that I don't think are so easy when it's in your head. I'm certainly not capable of it. Writing things down can reduce the amount of ego that you have as you fiddled with an idea. Maybe I'm just crazy, but when I wrote them down and almost pretend like the person who wrote that wasn't me, it was like, that's past Devon or someone else entirely. I can detach myself from it much more in a way where, when I am a thinking through something just in my head and lying in bed wondering. I'm not going to be as rigorous about it. Now that's not strictly worse. There are other things like everyone has great thoughts in the shower for instance. It's very common. But it doesn't serve all purposes, especially if you're trying to vet and find the nooks and crannies of an idea. When you write it down, when an idea has inconsistencies or gaping holes, they are clear and right in the face when it's written down in a way that is just so easy to gloss over when they're in your head. DAVID: And also when you're speaking, you can sort of gloss over some of the inconsistencies with emotion, right? If I speak really deeper and confident with what I'm saying, actually there's an element of trust there. It was really funny. So we had a meetup in Queens a couple of weeks ago and my buddy goes on Snapchat stories and he goes really confidently, coming to the meetup and he goes "Did you know that the reason it's called Queens is because Queen Elizabeth came to New York in 1754?" and you're sitting there being like "Man, you know, why are you being so smart here?" And then he finishes the thing and he goes "Well, I just made that up, but you believe me because I said it so confidently." So what writing does is it strips out the emotion out of a form of communication and it allows logic to take over emotion. DEVON: Right. And it allows you, it gives you something like almost physical to move around and change. I'm a really big believer that constraints are actually a good thing in your thinking because if you're completely working in a vacuum, you have nothing to push off of. You have no feedback cycles. Whereas if you can just get a draft onto the page, you can fiddle around with it so much more. And I find that writing that draft in the first place, that's usually the hardest part, but once I have something to work off of, it gets much, much easier. It helps you find implications that you didn't realize there were, which again, I don't fully understand like the cognitive science behind why this is. But by putting it on the page, you start seeing these almost trails in your head of like, given this, given I said this, what are the implications there? And you can actually follow those trails and like come back to them after you've written them down and realize, oh, this thing does have an implication I hadn't considered. One of my favorite things to do when I'm writing is just looking up synonyms for words. And the reason is not just to make myself sound smarter. Though, that's always a plus. But much more importantly is that by looking up synonyms, you can think about which words don't make sense here. Even though they are technically synonyms. And why they don't make sense and analyzing that is extremely useful. It's sort of a generator function for coming up with new ideas. Similarly, I think choosing the right word is also really important. Words come with such heavy connotation that picking the right one can be the difference between concepts really striking home and like feeling kind of flat. So I highly recommend people using sources when they write, all over the place. I actually use sources when I write code as well, for variable names and class names and things like that, because it helps you. Computer science and programming is basically the art of abstractions and abstractions is another way of saying names mostly. And coming up with really good names for things is a really critical piece of being able to write good software. So I think the source, I go to thesaurus.com probably 300 times a day. I have never actually counted, but it's a lot of times. I've always idea called playing chess with yourself. DAVID: Walk me through that. DEVON: So I think writing, especially the writing process, before you've published, as kind of like playing chess or yourself. There's that Pixar short, it's called like Geri’s Chest Game or something like that. And it zooms in on this guy sitting on a park bench playing chess and his partner isn't around. And you're like, oh, I guess maybe they went to the restroom, maybe they're coming back and then all of a sudden the camera zooms in and he's like on the other side, playing with the white pieces now. And then he flips back and forth and you realize he's just having a ton of fun and playing against himself. And he's really excited against himself. This is a hard thing to do inside of your own head, but it's actually a lot easier when you've externalized something because once you have that writing on the page, you can treat that as sort of another person almost. And play around with it in a way that is just much harder when you're by yourself. DAVID: Totally. And then the other thing is I think you have sort of an uncanny knack for generating unusual ideas and I don't say this to discredit you, but I think that you've built some systems to make that a hell of a lot easier. Walk me through different tiers of common knowledge. So I got an email last week from a guy who said, I love your writing, but the biggest thing preventing me from writing is that I always think that everybody else knows the things that I know and that's the biggest thing. Stopping. And I responded and I said, well, that's not necessarily the case, but I wasn't able to formulate something that I think that you've been able to grasp in terms of different ways of thinking about what is common knowledge? If you could describe that. And then how does that translate to writing and drafting an idea? DEVON: Yeah, that's a great question. So in the last year, I've found that writing has gotten a lot easier for me. There's probably a lot of reasons for this, but I think the core one is that I realized there's sort of three categories of topics that you can write about. There's the stuff that everyone knows that's like trivial to write about it because it's easy. The sky is blue. Okay, good. That's awesome. No one wants to read that. Very common knowledge. On the other end, there's stuff that no one knows yet or no one around you knows yet. And so it takes a really long time to figure it out, requires a lot of research. I can point to some examples of things I've written where I'm very proud of this writing that I've done, but it was a slog all the way through. Some of the stuff that I wrote about, the federal housing administration last year, just required poring through hundreds of documents from old FHA manuals and things that I don't know if people have looked at in a while and I found some novel stuff, but it also was a ton of work. Now there's this middle area between common knowledge and like really obscure knowledge of stuff that you have a unique perspective on because of where you happen to be in life and you understand it so intuitively that you can just talk and think about it fluidly. But actually a lot of people don't know it yet and I think that that is the sweet spot for generating a lot of streams. DAVID: How would you know when that's true? DEVON: That's a hard question. For a long time, I just thought that this the way I think is the way that everyone thinks. And so I was like, no one really wants to read about like my theory on flaking in San Francisco. Everyone in SF knows that already. DAVID: But what's your theory on flaking? DEVON: I haven't lived really in any other city, but my impression from talking with friends is that the rate of flaking is extremely high, with friends, with romantic partners, et cetera, relative to sort of sister cities like New York or Chicago or LA. I think part of the reason is that people in my social circles in San Francisco really understand opportunity cost well. There's a very casual culture here where it seems like an acceptable flake. And we also are like, even more so than other millennial types, are very technologically savvy. So if 10 minutes before your coffee date you're like, oh, sorry, I got caught up in something. Can we reschedule next week? It feels trivial because it's just a text. You're not going to literally stand them up because they just won't show up. But the problem with this is that it's another cooperation problem where we ended up in this equilibrium where it feels acceptable for everyone to flake all the time and just not show up to their commitments. But then like everyone's worse off because your scheduling is more complicated. You never really know. If things are going to happen when you think they're going to happen, you kind of don't want to be seen as like the pathetic one who doesn't cancel the plan. So you almost are incentivized to flake because if someone flakes on you enough times, you're like, well, I don't want to look like an idiot. I don't want to be taken advantage of here. So, next time we make plans I'm going to double book and see which one feels more interesting that day. And I think that leads to a real breakdown of trust and like happiness and satisfaction with relationships. Since I realized this, I've personally made a stance where I'm like, I will not flake on something unless I have an exceptionally good reason. And my friends I've noticed have also started to like follow up with me where I've put a stake in the ground. It helps that I wrote a blog post about it. I put a stake in the ground of like, I don't want this to be okay anymore because it's like making everyone's life worse. DAVID: What about San Francisco makes flaking uniquely common here? DEVON: I think there's a mentality of casualness where if you walk around the city, no one's ever dressed up. I mean, literally today I am wearing yoga pants and a tee shirt, and people want to look mostly clean cut, but they'll wear athletic gear almost all the time. I think that is indicative of a broader social casualness. Certain social norms are not as strong and in fact, the social norm is to not have strong social norms. And if you want to come off as like cool and casual. If someone is placed on you and you say something and you're like, hey dude, you flaked on me last time too. That's sort of like a point against you. You're seen as uptight or something. Maybe LA is also more similar to this, but I think like in New York, I feel like there's more of a seriousness in the way people interact where it's like your people get dressed up when they go out. Like when I go to New York, I always feel super underdressed. I think that carries over to a lot of parts of the culture. Where you don't break dates unless you have a good reason. Whereas I can look back on my calendar before I had all of these thoughts and honestly I was either breaking or having commitments broken on me like 50 to 70 percent of the time. And I don't think I'm unique in this because I've had conversations with a lot of people on my team. So I want to go back to writing, but I just want to summarize why I think that falls into the second category of common knowledge. So the first category is things that everybody knows like the sky is blue. The third category is things like the history of FHA housing, which probably requires a lot of research and nobody knows those things. But the second category is things that everyone sort of has a common framework for discussing like flaking. But because you are in a social circle that has a high opportunity cost in San Francisco, you have unique insight into that problem. And when we have a common knowledge, a common way of speaking about something and you have unique insight into that same sort of thing, that is when you should go pursue an idea and share it with the world. DEVON: Totally. I think that's a really good framing of it. I especially like the term common knowledge. Because I don't think anything I said in the post was surprising to anyone, but I think finally sitting down and putting the pieces together as to why all of this stuff comes together, I think is the difference. And just taking the time to sort of reflect on like various dynamics in your own life I think can be a really powerful generative tool. DAVID: I gotta ask, as you think about your writing, you think about your learning sort of your process for living, so to speak. It's cool because I like people like this. Your process for living is also a process for sharing, right? It's almost like a co-dynamic between the two where you live, you share, you share, you live, and I think that they, they sort of co-evolve and develop. Who were the people who have really inspired you to become like that and who were the mentors, digital or physical that have really inspired you? DEVON: There have been a lot. And this actually ties really nicely into the framework of like common knowledge to obscure knowledge. I think I used to think that a writing had to be this big formal process where you sit down with an argument or a spectrum and you try to decide where on that spectrum of arguments you lie and then you dive deep into the literature and you study it, and then you pop out weeks later and you've like displayed to the world this thing, this masterpiece you've been working on. A lot of writing does follow that. A lot of great writing. And I don't think people should stop doing that by any means, but I think there's this other type of writing that is treat your ideas less as a final project product and more as a process. Someone who I think does this very well, I don't know him personally, is Ben Thompson at Stratechery. He writes about the same stuff day after day, but each time he writes about it, he turns it a little bit in his mind. He comes at it from a slightly different angle and over the course of years he has built this canon of like what aggregation theory and he has this whole vocabulary that he's built up and you can see when you go back to his earlier writing, the idea is not fully developed at all, but the writing itself was the thing that developed the ideas. And I think that that is a huge mindset shift that I've had where I used to think first you have the ideas and then you write them down, but actually, you should have some seed of an idea. But then when you start writing, that's what actually brings it out and like causes it to flourish and grow. Another person who's played a really big role in helping me realize the value of this is Tyler Cowen (my podcast episode with Tyler). His blog, Marginal Revolution is just like one of my favorite things on the internet. It's the most ridiculous set of things. It's the intersection of all stuff and he doesn't take it that seriously. DAVID: Right. And the juxtaposition of ideas that you find there puts your brain in crazy places because he'll share, NBA basketball, his recent trip to Ethiopia, and then markets and everything in some weird market that you've never heard of. And I think that really cool ideas and really cool ways of thinking come not necessarily when you discover a new idea, but when you juxtapose ideas that you're vaguely familiar with and then your brain just goes in weird places through that. DEVON: Yeah, by having this huge diversity of sources and ideas, it allows for a type of lateral thinking that I think is really missing in the world. And something I particularly love about Tyler's work is that he both does and doesn't take it seriously at all. So by does, I mean he does, he spends all of his time doing this and he cares about deeply. So he's serious in that sense, but he also treats it as this big game where he's just like, you know, I'm just having fun, I'm pursuing the things I find interesting and I will go down the rabbit holes that seem interesting and ultimately they will become useful. DAVID: So talk about that. So that is a really important part of the learning journey, especially on the internet. so if you take before the internet, right? Like, think of the process of going into the library to research a project in college, right? You go to the librarian and you say take me to history and then it's between like book number 800-899 on the little codes and sort of you spend time in history. But you said something there that I don't think you realize that you said, but it is what it means to learn on the internet. It's sort of having hunches and ideas that certain rabbit holes are going to be interesting and having the audacity to go down those rabbit holes. But how do you gauge what rabbit holes do you want to go down? DEVON: So I think it doesn't matter. I actually think that almost everything can be interesting if you try to build a model for it. Now so things aren't interesting if you try to just rote memorize stuff and I think that that's going to be true with basically every topic actually. However, if you try to understand why things happen and build a causal model in your head, everything's interesting. When I was much younger I felt like, ugh, I like playing sports but I don't really enjoy watching sports. And I think this is a pretty typical like nerd opinion to have. But I realized that if you actually watch a game and you tried to understand sort of where the threads are, like if you pull this thread here, what happens to the fabric over there, have this ongoing game. It's extremely fascinating. Same with a mortgage history. Like if the FHA had done this like tiny little thing differently, like what would have been the rippling effects downstream and why do you think that's true? What are the other explanations for that same behavior? So I don't think the specific rabbit hole really matters that much as long as you are actively forcing yourself to build a model. DAVID: It's interesting because I was just watching the NBA finals and with the Warriors. So Stephen Curry, the reason where he is so good, is because after he passes the ball, he runs to the corner and tries to catch it and you just watch it and it's like, it's amazing to watch. But just, it's funny because. And then I would also watch switches on screens and what not. These are things that sound advanced, but they're super simple. And just by having two or three things that I could sort of hook to, then it opened the door for the rest of it. And it was funny because to go back to Tyler when, whenever I try to learn something the best advice that I've gotten from Tyler Cowen is the idea of entry points. Find something that you like, something that it's intuitive, a metaphor that you like, start there. And then as you begin any sort of learning journey, start with an entry point that you're familiar with and use that as your balances, your crutch to go explore new territory. DEVON: I strongly agree with that. So in high school, I thought of myself as much more of a liberal artsy type of person. I was always pretty good at math and science and so on. I didn't struggle but it just didn't click until I was 16, 17. My boyfriend and I at the time rebuilt a 67 Mustang that he owned and we did an engine swap. We replace the rear end, we did a lot of work on this car. And suddenly all of the engineering and engineering related skills that I've picked up over time became fascinating. I was like, I want to understand how all this works. I picked up something like thermodynamics books and like this, this car was the entryway to all sorts of things and now this is a particularly useful one because if we did it wrong we would die while we were driving it. So like we had pretty good motivation to figure stuff out. But I think finding some sort of entryway into that is critical. And I mean working on the car has literally changed my career in the sense that I don't think I would have gone into mechanical engineering and then computer science if it hadn't been for that thing. I mean the guy helps too, but the car was like really this concrete thing I could imagine in my head and then want to understand the pieces that made up the whole thing. DAVID: Totally. Well, I want to switch gears and talk to you about the thing that I'm most excited to talk to you about today, which is really cities and with the intersection of architecture and incentives. Maybe we can start with Singapore and I'm going to ask that selfishly because I'm really interested in Singapore. I think there's a lot to learn from Singapore, but you were also just there and you've written a lot about Singapore. What is so interesting to you about Singapore? DEVON: Oh man. What is not interesting about Singapore? So Singapore I think is one of the most interesting countries in history. And that's saying something, given that it's only been around for I think 50 or 60 years. It is a city-state. It's only about 5 million people. It is ethnically extremely diverse. There are ethnic Chinese, ethnic Malays, ethnic Indians, and many, many other groups there as well. And it's one of the safest places in the world and it has a booming economy and it has been for a long time, seen as like a center of stability in a region that has not always been stable. So all of those things are incredible about Singapore and that would be crazy for any city or any country, but especially considering where they came from, where they had, I don't remember the exact number, but they had GDP, I think equivalent to like Vietnam in the sixties, and now they have significantly higher GDP than almost any country in the world. One of the highest. Now GDP doesn't measure everything, but it correlates with a lot of important things. The reason I think if I had to pick one reason why I'm fascinated by Singapore, it's because it has one of the weirdest types of governance ever. DAVID: Describe the governance. DEVON: The governance is increasingly less so now, but it's quite to totalitarian. It's not very Democratic at all. DAVID: It's funny because my first thought is whoa, that's not good. But it seems like you're hinting at something else. DEVON: I also think it's not good. And if the whole world were run the way Singapore is run, I don't think that would be a good thing for the world. In part because of the specific things that Singapore does, like it still has like physical punishment and so on for not very big crimes. But then also beyond physical and capital punishment. It also just like having one system for the whole world is not a great thing. It's extremely fragile. Things can go wrong in ways that ripple across the entire world. Now that sounds extreme, but I bring that up because I think Singapore is interesting because it is the opposite. Not only does it not, not only is the whole world not governed the way Singapore is. Singapore is tiny. So even if you really strongly dislike what Singapore is trying to do, what it's experimenting with, it's relatively easy to leave. Now I want to add the strong caveat that like leaving the country you were born in is never an easy decision. And I am not like underplaying that. But it is relatively much easier than leaving a massive country that is not deeply interconnected with the world. And so the thing I find exciting about this country is that it provides this room for experimentation at a relatively low cost. If the entire United States were to take on an experiment, say universal basic income or something else entirely, and if it were to go wrong, it would just, it would be a disaster. It could cripple the country and it would affect roughly 20 million people, something like that. And like you also wouldn't even really be able to know if what the causal mechanism was if UBI was the thing that screwed up or something else entirely. Whereas if you can run a bunch of smaller experiments, which this is the idea of federalism, then you can actually compare the results. People can leave if they really don't want to be part of this experiment. And I think this is really important. People don't like the concept of being experimented on and I get it, but if we don't experiment with new models, we're never going to improve. And so I think the question shouldn't be, should we experimental or should we not experiment. It's like, yes we should, but we should find the ways to have the greatest diversity of experiments while also minimizing the cost. DAVID: Right. Like a lot of what China's doing is sort of A, B testing cities, but the downside risk is impacting millions and millions of people. And I think to your point about minimizing the downside, you know, you could argue that they've gone too far. DEVON: Yeah. I think there's a Slate Star Codex blog post that has a great word for this. It calls it archipelago communitarianism. The concept is like we could have a bunch of cities or very small countries, that had radically different systems and the only promise that they make to each other is that they won't stop the people from leaving those places if they really want to. Maybe there are a few other rules too. I'm not gonna remember the entire details of the blog post, read it a few years ago, but I love this idea of having like little islands of extremity to really push an idea to its limit. And if it, if everyone leaves them, that means that that's not what people wanted. DAVID: Well, that's sort of where the whole voice exit loyalty idea of crypto is coming from. Traditionally in terms of countries, you could voice and you could sort of vote and you could say we want to change the way that things are run by speaking up and there's an exit where you can leave. But traditionally with citizenship, you haven't really been able to leave your country. Even if you're abroad, you still have to pay taxes as an American citizen. And so you're forced to be stuck between voice and loyalty. Whereas now we're switching to where you can still voice your opinion, but if you don't like it, you can exit. And there's a lot of freedom that I think comes with that. DEVON: Yeah. I think it's not just that you can still voice your opinions and also you can leave, it's that you can voice your opinions often better if you have a very small community. A single person has much more sway over the outcome. So it seems very likely to me that it's much easier for a person in a very small community to be able to make a change in that community to begin with and like shape it in their own image than it would be for a massive country like the US or Brazil or something like that. So by bringing it down to a smaller scale, you both get added exit rates, but you also get a greater voice. DAVID: Totally. So you were just in Singapore. What stuck out about being in Singapore to you? Let's go to two places. What is the biggest thing that surprised you when you were there? And what is the biggest thing that you've been thinking about since you came back from Singapore? DEVON: I knew that Singapore had great Infrastructure. I knew that its citizens were well educated, that a lot of its systems just worked. But I didn't realize how much this is embedded in the psyche of the place. It's not just that like, stuff works well and some people forget about it and like go ahead and do their own thing. It's like the most central place of the city right next to Maxwell's Hawker Center, which is like a big destination in the core of the city. There's this place called the URA, the urban research association. I don't remember the exact acronym. Basically, it's this like big gallery on urbanism and like what it means to be an effective city with good governance and what it will take for this to continue and get better over time. I went into this gallery exhibit because I can't keep away if you say that it's like an urban museum. I'm like, okay. It's Devon catnip. I couldn't help but to go in. And I was there at 3:00 PM on a Tuesday and it was full of students, the sense that I got is that like every Singaporean student probably goes there like once a year. I don't even think that we have a gallery like that in San Francisco. And certainly not in the center of the city and kids definitely don't go there all the time. There was this overall sense of understanding of why things work so well, how things won't necessarily keep working well in the future unless we do something about it and like a sense of responsibility that people in the community have to like be a presence voice, which seems very contradictory with some sort of a more totalitarian style of ruling. But Singapore may be the only place in the world where there's a brain drain into the government and not out of it. That is very consistent with what I saw. It's very deeply respected to be a good technocrat. Someone who understands how systems work and like truly wants to make them better. DAVID: They pay well, what else? DEVON: They pay very well. There's really high prestige going in. I haven't really thought about this too hard. DAVID: Okay. Then we'll switch gears. So you said something really interesting about cities before we were recording the podcast that I thought that you phrased perfectly and that you're especially drawn to cities because they're in this middle of scale, right? Where they're big enough to have an importance on the world stage, right? Like a city like New York, San Francisco, Singapore, they're a big deal. But then there are small enough to be nimble and still sort of understandable like it's hard to sort of wrap your head around what it means to be American because they're just so much going on here, but then also sort of what you were talking about earlier in terms of experimenting. There's a lot of them so you can sort of abstract lessons from each one. And so it's this perfect size, perfect density, perfect volume that makes cities really interesting to study. Right? DEVON: Totally. I think that the nimbleness is really important. There is some digital ID that Singapore is rolling out for all of its citizens pretty soon and they're going to just do it. They have 5 million people, which is a lot of people to roll something out to, but it's big enough for this ID to really matter, but it's small enough where they're like, we can just do this, we can just, we can just make it happen. And I think that's thrilling that you can experiment with something of that size. At the same time, you have this really tight feedback loop. If your trash isn't picked up tomorrow, you're gonna notice within a week you're going to probably start writing letters and like your trash better get picked up. I think at the national level, the feedback loops are much longer and it's just harder to know if people are governing you well at all. And that's a recipe for disaster. It leads to much more misalignment of incentives. DAVID: Definitely. Tight feedback is key to learning. DEVON: It's key to everything. Like if you don't have a tight feedback loop, you're just not really going to improve I think, and you're actually very likely to do things that aren't purely for signaling that you care as opposed to actually doing the right thing. DAVID: Go off on that because that's an idea I haven't explored. DEVON: Yeah. Officials in the US tend to do grandstand a lot, at the federal level. And the reason for this is because they don't even really know if they're having the impact they want to have or that their constituents want them to have. The only real information that people get on both sides is like what someone said, even after the facts, even a decade later, it can be very difficult to draw any meaningful causality stemming from a particular leader. I think that's true in any organization ever. Even as small as a single person organization. You can't do randomized controlled trials on like everything or almost anything. But the problem just grows in scale to a huge extent as you get bigger. I think if you can keep it to a smaller size, it's like, well, you either did your job or you didn't. And the problems are much more manageable, the relationships are less opaque. It's just a much more transparent system overall. DAVID: Totally. So, I mean, for me what's been really interesting is in New York studying art decor, one thing that I love about architecture is I've been thinking about this idea a lot, where a lot of history is sort of subject to the narrative fallacy where it's written by the winners and the really good book on this is The People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. He admits that it's biased, but he tries to tell American history from the perspective of the losers. And if you have a generic understanding of American history, you're going to get so many ideas pumped into your head that are totally different. So what's really cool about architecture is, if you look at something like the Chrysler building and at the very top of it and in the lobby and sort of the birds hanging off the side, you know, 60 feet below the top of the building, you can see this like technological enthusiasm, this almost sense of like a utopian spirit that technology in the twenties and the roaring twenties was going to come and save the world. And through the architecture of New York, you can really understand the city in a way that understanding history might not allow you to do. DEVON: Yeah. And I think it's especially interesting to see how buildings change over time in reaction to that original time when it was created and how they shift. I think the moment when I really became aware of the importance of architecture was in my very first job, we started out in this very small office that was cozy and like my desk was far away from the restroom and the kitchen. So when I wanted to take a break, I'd have to walk past everyone and I'd have like a little conversation and I felt very positive about all my coworkers and I feel like we had a really good rapport. About halfway through my time there, we moved into a totally different building. It was supposed to be fancier, it was nicer by everything you could put on paper. But the shape of the rooms was super messed up. Basically, everyone was very close. It was more like a doughnut where like all of the good stuff was in the center and good stuff, meaning, like the kitchen. And so you didn't have to walk past anyone to go see it, which was kind of nice if you're focusing on a problem or you want some alone time, there are pluses to that, but you don't end up having these interactions. And as a result, I almost immediately started feeling like the only people I knew in the company were my team and a lot of the work that I was supposed to be doing was cross-functional. So this made me significantly worse in my job just immediately. Now, of course, this doesn't stop you from having coffee with a coworker and the sales team or something or organizing something with the product team or you know, inviting them to sit at your table at lunch. But these micro-interactions are really critical for building that rapport, for making, keeping people on context. I almost felt like I was a remote worker, and I don't mean to insult remote work. I think that there are huge pluses to that, but it's really undercut the benefits of being in the office as soon as we moved into this new place. DAVID: It's funny because I feel like so much of architecture now, we place such an emphasis on the outside of a building what most people see. But I don't know that we have the same sort of rich discussions about the experience of actually being somewhere. And I guess the example that comes to me is natural light. Like I value natural light in indoors just to such a high degree. It's like the number one thing that I care about in a building, but so often we look at the outside of buildings, so we say, oh that's beautiful. It looks great in a photo, but the experience of being inside of it, I don't actually know that the incentives are aligned for architects to think about that. DEVON: I agree. I mean if you have ever spent time looking for an apartment on Craigslist or a place on Airbnb, actually everything and I'll explain that later. But on craigslist it's like it tells you the square footage, it tells you how many rooms, how many bathrooms there are, which are obviously important details, but it does very little to describe features like natural light and things that make you actually happy, how livable it is. I think part of the problem for this is that it's a much harder thing to commoditize, which means that like it's harder to measure. It's harder to compare two things, there's not a strict measure that you can really use. But it really matters. It really matters a lot. The experience of being in a place is totally different from the way people will often describe a room, at least in describing a room in comparable terms. I think maybe it seems possible. Maybe someone just needs to build a vocabulary for it. DAVID: Okay. Let's play a little game. So if you had to take five metrics for deciding a house on Zillow, right? We have rooms square foot, but if you had five metrics that don't exist right now, what would it be? You do some, I do some. DEVON: Okay. I kinda like this, I'm thinking of it sort of like the, you know, the big five personality. It's kind of like that. DAVID: So you get three, I get two. DEVON: Let's see, I'd say flexibility. Like how much can you change the space to fit your own needs? Is it like very tightly custom designed? The purest example of this would be like the cabinets are built into the walls so you can't move the cabinets. Versus like a lot of ability to move stuff around. DAVID: Mine is the density of power outlets. Most houses don't have nearly enough. DEVON: Oh my god. The computer science building at Stanford has almost no power outlets, which is insane because you go there for the office hours and you know, everyone's there for hours and hours and hours and everyone's computer starts dying around hour three and there's one power outlet and the whole building. Yeah, that needs to change. DAVID: Here's another one. Where I really like houses where the rooms are super private and the open spaces are super public. So you have the kitchen, the living room, the dining room, all sort of in the same room because at the houses that I grew up in, the kitchen was always separate from the dining room. And so whenever we would cook as hosts, It was always sort of awkward because you sort of had to choose. Whereas you get this awesome communal vibe, but I think it really helps with family dynamics if all that is sort of in the same room and it has really good natural light and there's a nice ambiance in there because then people can cluster there. But then you balance that with like the privacy of the rooms. DEVON: I'll expand that one to like the ability to pass through. So in the house I live in right now, it's very hard to get to the backyard. DAVID: Yeah, describe this house because it's actually really cool. It's a commune with 10 people, but like really intelligent people here. DEVON: We call it an intentional community because commune has a lot of economic implications that probably don't apply. So I'm one of 10 people who live in this house. We're actually expanding to an upper floor and it'll be 16 soon. And we're just a group of people who we all care a lot about, having really easy relationships and what that means is I think a lot of the most meaningful and happiness-inducing experiences and interactions that you'll often have will be these little micro-interactions. It's very similar to what I was talking about with my old office. Where if it's really expensive to meet up with someone and hang out with them, it takes money, time, and energy. You have to have to call them, which seems like not a big deal. But here's an intention that's necessary therefore it to happen. You're only going to become close with people where you have an explicit reason to do so. Like sort of a motive almost. Whereas if you're just in the same place, this is why people love college so much. If you're just in the same place with a lot of people who are energetic, motivated, ambitious, like these amazing things will happen where you'll just bump into each other throughout your day and like amazing things will happen without intention and I think that's amazingly valuable and really easy to undervalue. DAVID: You make a really good point because that's almost in a place where that's not the case. Having relationships where you meet somebody right away is almost the mark of a good friendship. It was Saturday night, 11:00 PM a couple of weeks ago. My friend calls me and he goes, what are you doing right now? And it was the first time that happened to me in New York, but it was this like moment in our friendship where in order to do that. Like that happened all the time in college. Like that's college 101. Oh, what are you doing right now? But for it to happen in New York? First of all, was like shocking to me and second of all it was like this mark of our friendship where to get there with somebody takes so much more work because of the way that New York is built and that happens daily in this house here, which I think is really cool. DEVON: It's amazing. I mean, it's amazing you say that that's the case in New York because New York is probably one of the best places in the entire US for this. Like in the opposite sense of what you're talking about. Now imagine if you guys lived in Irvine, California or a far-flung suburb of Salt Lake City or something comes up for you to meet up with this person. Like right now it's just, you jump on the subway, you're there in a few minutes. Not that big of a deal. In those places, you have to like get in your car. Maybe you have to get your snow boots on. You can't get drunk and go home, which is also a good way to bond with people. Also, when you arrive, it will likely just be the two of you, probably no one else was invited, whereas like in a city, maybe you meet up at a bar where there's like a bunch of other random people around you who ended up being really interesting. Actually one of my closest friends. I met like at an event at the MoMa, and just because we like bumped into each other at a mixer afterward. That wouldn't have happened if we weren't in the city. You don't have things like the MoMa in far-out suburbs. And so this is like another example of not just architecture but the general built environment, having dramatic effects on the way you actually interact with the world. DAVID: So let's play another game. If you were to take, I gave you three, we're just going to do metrics again, three metrics or three data points that you could pick and you're going to choose where you live, the house that you lived, a location, what city, what the house looks like, what would the three that you picked be? DEVON: That's a good one. One would be, how long does it take for you to walk from where you live to like your top 10 favorite locations in the city? I think if the answer is a long time and especially if the answer is like you can't even walk there, that's not a good sign for me. Now I don't mean this to be normative for everybody. Other people do have other preferences. Some people want to like go on a big ranch in Idaho and like never see another human. Again, totally not my type but good for them. I'm not saying it's the case, but for me it's very important that I can walk places. I think the reason for this is because walking is a way to interact with your community in these small ways every single day where I think the way people get comfortable in a place in a social group is not through just like one really intense interaction, but through a bunch of smaller ones where you sort of see things from different angles you experienced, you know, what does my neighborhood looked like on a rainy day, what does my neighborhood look like when it's a cloudy day, what does it look like when I'm kind of tired? And these sound like tiny, trivial differences. But you can understand much better how things function. Maybe usually on a sunny day people will like to sit outside at Maxfield's coffee down the street, but on a different one, people sort of tuck inside and it has this closer vibe. You get to know the vibe just much better and you end up meeting people that you probably wouldn't meet if you were in an uber going from point A to point B all the time. So walking is one. Another one would be if for random and sort of once in a while type things like I had to get a necklace fixed the other day, how easy is it for this to be a part of your daily routine? So is it like you have to drive like way out of your way and find some really specialty store to do it? Or like what I did, I was able to walk two blocks away. There's a little jeweler who was able to fix it in three minutes and I walked back and that was like not even my whole lunch break. That was just a little pause in the middle of my day. I grabbed coffee on the way and I came back and up until that point, I had no idea that jeweler was there and we had a nice conversation. But it was just right there. And I love that my whole community can be inside of this little circle. Number three. DAVID: I'll give you my three real quick. So my first one would be natural light, as I've said many times before. That's super important to me. The second one, yours is walking, for me, it's like not having to use a car. So I actually sort of like taking public transportation so I just don't like driving and I don't really like being in cars. So those are the two. The third one would be I like being able to walk, especially to food. Like at my old apartment I was super close with everyone who worked at the bagel shop and I'm pretty close with all the ladies who work at maya taqueria, my local taqueria. And the last one would just be a high density of super intellectually hungry people, which for me is why I've chosen to live in New York. DEVON: Oh, I see. So we can expand this beyond built environment. I would definitely make that my third one as well. This is why I'm in San Francisco, New York maybe is a good choice too, but there is just always someone I can talk to about whatever crazy idea I have going in through my head or is going through their head any given day. I find not everybody here necessarily wants to discuss these ideas, but by using twitter you can actually find these people and like create this strong core where I've basically tricked my brain. The thinking that like everyone around me is just this crazy monster of ideas, continually coming up with new things. There's so much intersection of like different types of people doing work in the city. Everything from like researchers to engineers to entrepreneurs to artists. And unfortunately, fewer these days, as a city gets more expensive. And they're all just mixed together in this pretty small city where you can always find them. But then I think the important component is you also have to have some tools that sort of overlay this to help find them. Just walking around the city. Like I was talking about before, won't surface all of these people and you also are less likely to get outside of your current network if you just stick in your small neighborhood. DAVID: Let's do a quick fire round. So I'm going to ask you like five, six questions and try to keep your answers to like 30 seconds or less. Why do you love Stewart Brand so much? DEVON: He is a polymath. A lot of people take crusades on things. They pick one idea and they just drive it for years and years. Stewart takes hundreds of ideas and makes them all good and is still able to keep a really strong sense of identity despite not having like one thing that he ties himself. DAVID: So I have a theory that personality will end up being almost like the last mode and that sort of so much of what's happening in society right now is like brands are sort of disappearing where many people have less likely to have a favorite brand. But I think that the internet has made it really easy to connect with people. And Stewart Brand is always sort of been a pioneer of technology and I think that people can move around and explore different things through their personality in ways that institutions can't. And I think that that's really helped somebody like Stewart Brand. I don't actually think that focusing on the same thing is like a vector that really matters when it comes to consistency with a person. DEVON: I think that's true. And I think Stewart and Tyler are two fantastic examples of this being 100 percent possible. I think that most people don't realize that and they think that they have to pick one thing and so that you see th
Today’s guest excels in a world many of us fear or even dread. No, not a trip to the gynecologist or figuring out who is paying on a first date; today we’re talking monetary negotiations! Devon Smiley is a negotiation of consultant and speaker with over 15 years of experience. She’s closed 5 billion dollars of commercial contracts as a lead negotiator and is here today to give us the inside scoop of how to ask for (and get) what we want in life! This episode includes: Devon talks the pros and cons of her unique last name! How Devon got into negotiation consulting Devon talks the importance of relationship building and how to have healthy conversations about money The “New School” way of negotiation: techniques that Devon says should be left behind, or at least updated! How much do you think you’re worth? How to practice negotiations -- why Devon says you should ask for the simple things first Devon tells us what to do if you find yourself getting angry or nervous during negotiations Body language techniques: Devon explains how different body poses are often interpreted by others Jen and Devon talk about the importance of practicing your pitch to make your wording crisp and concise Who should start? Why Devon thinks it’s an advantage to give your number first Why life is is too short for us to be not asking for what we need!
In today's three word rebellion spotlight, we have Devon Smiley. Devon is an absolute expert in a skill that each of you, including me, 1000% need for our businesses and our speaking business: she is a negotiation consultant and speaker and has 15 years of experience with Forbes' finest and small businesses alike. In today's episode, we talk about: How Devon got into the business of negotiation Why she is rebelling against the classic, "alpha-dog" style of negotiation The difference between being grateful and just settling with what you're given Devon's best negotiation tips, especially for those just starting out Why reframing your view of negotiation begins with everyday interactions
On today's show, I have Devon Smiley who is a Negotiation Consultant located in Paris, France! I'm not going to lie, I didn't really know what a negotiation consultant actually did before speaking to Devon. Of course they help with negotiating but ...what does that exactly mean? Devon shares all about how she got into negotiating as a career, the mistakes most people make when it comes to negotiating (whether it's for a new contract with a client or increase in pay at work or more), her best tips on negotiating and what to do if you've lost the upper hand, and so much more! Excited for you to tune in and hope you enjoy! Full show notes at: http://brittneyllynn.com/039 In today's episode, you'll find out: How Devon got started as a negotiation expert. How you can better negotiate throughout your daily life. The most common negotiation mistakes people make and to not make those mistakes yourself. The biggest struggle Devon has as a negotiation consultant. Her best tips on recovering when you think you've lost the upper hand in a negotiation. What people misconceive about negotiation consultants. Devon's advice on pitching yourself and putting yourself out there. How to be better about asking for help when you need it. Links mentioned: Day in the Life podcast interview with Jessica Freeman Clarity in 5 Worksheet Follow Devon: Website Instagram Twitter Like the show? There are several ways you can help! Subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify or Google Play Leave an honest review on iTunes. The ratings and reviews help for two reasons: 1) Most importantly, I get to know you, the listener, and what content you enjoy the most. 2) The more reviews the podcast has, the better chance it has at getting in front of new listeners. Follow on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram Join the Facebook group to interact with guests and other listeners Join the Day in the Life newsletter
Can you imagine averaging 8:40 pace for 100 miles? Nope, neither can I, but today's guest has done just that, and won many big time races like Leadville 100 mile this year (2017), and has also run a 2:38 marathon! How is that for range? Devon Yanko talks of her huge success after a long layoff, and her struggles with imposter syndrome and the dark places our minds go when the negative thoughts kick in. Devon is honest and real, and shares the thoughts many of us are afraid to admit, like running well, but not enjoying the process along the way, is it really worth it? Or is it better to run happy the entire time, but finish a little further down? In Leadville 100 mile this year, Devon had a goal of being the happiest person out there, and made sure to congratulate every runner she saw out on the course, realizing that if you are out there doing something hard, those negative thoughts will be trying to drag you down, and maybe a friendly hello or well done would help (and it did). Devon shares her amazing idea of yelling, "PLOT TWIST" when things get tough in races, to shake yourself out of a funk, and make yourself smile. We also discuss how we as runners get too confident in what we are doing, and feel like we are entitled to certain results (guilty!). Finally, we go over the other part of Devon's life, the part that keeps her balanced, the bakery she owns with her husband, and how they manage to squeeze in 70-90 miles a week when the only available times were 2am runs. We talk about brands that truly care about individuals, not just the bottom line, and why Hoka and Oiselle are her favorite brands for being good role models to other companies, making the world a better place. This interview is for you if you enjoy hearing from others who have been given tough life situations, but have made the best of it, and keep a great perspective on life. Devon is real and fun, and I know you are going to love her as much as I do. Today's Guest Devon Yanko One of the best female ultra runners out there, Devon Yanko won the 2017 Leadville 100 mile race while greeting and celebrating every runner she saw on the course. Devon has run the third fastest 100 mile time in history, but is still humble and genuine. Owner of M.H Bakery, Devon lives a balanced, fun, and happy life. What You Will Learn About Why she only had one goal for Leadville 100 mile (which she won); to be the happiest person out there. How to mentally talk yourself back into the race when your emotions take over The strategies Devon uses in ultra events to combat the negative chatter Why yelling, "PLOT TWIST!" in a struggle during a race could snap you out of a tough patch How Devon balances being the owner of her bakery and her training What do you want your athletic identity to be? Inspirational Quotes For some reason, because of my huge success after this long layoff, I was having really bad imposter syndrome. I went into a very deep, dark place in my mind, a lot of self-doubt and questioning my worth, and that Javelina was just a fluke, an outlier. I had gone into western states super prepared, very zen, very calm, and then the first thing that happened that I hadn't considered threw me off, and I ended up making mistakes. I had to watch the race pass me by. It is really important to me that I am a good person while I am doing this. It had been a hard year for injury, recovery, and personal stuff, so I thought leading up to Leadville that I am a version of myself I really like, and I want to be a good person out there. I would rather be happy the whole time, than be miserable and win, because that it detracts from the experience. I am just thinking about how big the climb is, and something flashed in my mind, a perspective of just keeping happy even when things are hard and I yelled out loud, "PLOT TWIST!". I am a very process driven person, and I find when I lose focus on the process and start focusing on the outcome, like I deserve this PR or when am I going to do this thing I set out, if you focus on the process towards that, if you are doing everything you possibly can, genuinely doing all of the things to produce an outcome that is physiologically capable for you, then a lot of times you need to just go back to the process and focus on that, rather than getting wrapped up in the time. Make sure whatever that goal is, you are working towards that goal and you are willing to do the work and focus on the process. Point yourself towards that goal, but you shouldn't have everything wrapped up in the outcome. When you start wrapping up your identity with outcomes, it's just very dangerous, you start thinking this is who I am, and if I am not that, I am somehow unacceptable. (About Trail running) Other than the fact they are approximately, within a couple of miles, the same distance, they are completely different, that really helped me to keep that perspective that I am not just wrapped up in time. That also translate to not just having myself think,I just focus on my running. For the majority of people, having the other aspects of their life, helps keep balance. The relationship and what the company stands for, what they are willing to get behind is important. The best way for people to go about finding their own success is to be willing to experiment with things. Resources Mentioned Last week's interview with Phil Maffetone Leadville 100 mile Javenlina Jundred Devon's blog post on Leadville 100mile M.H. Bread and Butter Dave's Killer Bread Hoka One One Oiselle Hoka Adweek Women Who Fly Videos Devon's Twitter Devon's Instagram Generation UCAN and BodyHealth sponsored this episode of Running for Real. Two products you can rely on. Even if you are trying to tweak your diet to be ready for race day. Generation UCAN is the ONLY fuel I needed during my marathons, and you can get 15% off with code RUNNING4REAL at Generationucan.com BodyHealth Perfect Amino helped my body recover MUCH faster after runs and workouts, I couldn't imagine my training life without them. You can get 10% off at BodyHealth.com using coupon code TINA10
Please leave a review at http://openskyfitness.com/review Start to Improve Your Health Today "Just know that you're doing the best that you can and be kind to yourself. Especially with unpredictable stresses, they can be really debilitating. emotionally and physically." - Devon Dionne On today's episode of the Open Sky Fitness podcast, we'll be discussing how to navigate yourself through stressful times and how important it is to not be a victim or your situation and take control of your situation. In everyday life, we may face predictable and unpredictable stresses that can throw us off course to living a healthy lifestyle. Listen and learn about our favorite tools that not only help other people, but Devon and I as well get back on track with our health. Predictable vs. Unpredictable Stresses "Stress is a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from an adverse or very demanding circumstance." - Devon Dionne Predictable stress is when you know something is coming up in the future and you can start planning ahead now as far as eating healthy, getting enough sleep, and fitting in some exercise: Vacations Business trips Family reunions Parties Holidays Unpredictable stress occurs when you least expect it and you probably didn't plan for it: Accidents, Injury A death A breakup or divorce Losing your job A Natural disaster Rob & Devon's Best Tips to Regain Focus on Your Health "Getting mad at yourself only creates more emotional stress. You're just human and its normal that different stresses will come up. Don't try to be a super hero and just forgive yourself for getting off track. " - Rob and Devon Dionne When you don't plan ahead or the unexpected actually happens, follow these initial steps to focus back on your life, health, and wellness: Accept that you're off track and forgive yourself. Get a piece of paper and write down a list of healthy habits that you want that are out of integrity. Base and create your list off of the 4 Pillars of Integrity: Fitness, Nutrition, Community, Lifestyle Devon's Routine to Get Back on Track Everyone has different goals and methods for helping them get back on track with their health. For Devon, the following steps help: Drink tons of water and eat lots of vegetables. Cut out sugar completely and eat more potatoes, squashes, and other starchy vegetables to give her back her energy. Drink half the amount of caffeine and try to switch to green tea rather than completely cutting out caffeine. Fit in 1-2 days a week to workout so that it becomes an easy habit to add back to her routine. Outsource Help to Make Your Goals Happen If you live with another person or have a family, talk to them about your healthy lifestyle goals and ask them to help you make them happen. For example, if your family tends to have a lot of sweet and salty processed foods around the house, kindly ask them to eat them outside of the house to help you not feel tempted to break your goals. To make your life even more stress-free, turn to and hire other people to help you: House cleaners Personal trainers Bookkeepers Personal Assistant Life Coach Nutritionist The list goes on and on as far as the amount of people that are out there who can help you really tackle the problems you want to solve. You might be thinking to yourself, "Okay, but it's super expensive for me to hire someone like a professional cleaner." Rather than thinking about the money, you can always see it as a way to win back the time you would have lost if you had ton all of those task on your own. Thursday Night Live Q & A Sessions with Rob and Devon Each Thursday night at 7pm PST via the closed Open Sky Fitness Facebook Group , Devon and I will be online to answer an questions you may have about health, wellness, fitness, nutrition, lifestyle etc. Ask us anything! Get Your Own Open Sky Fitness Apparel! For a limited time, Devon and I will be taking orders for Open Sky Fitness apparel in our online OSF Store. We have sweatshirts, tanks, and T-shirts for men and women. Get yours today! Start Building Your Own Workouts and Meal Plan! Download Results Tracker here! Click To Download Home Workout Templates or text the word, "lifting," to 33444 to download the templates. Download the OSF Food Journal Now! Have a Question or Review for Rob or Devon? We love answering questions and getting feedback from you, our listener! If you have any questions to ask us, want to share a review of the show, or tell us any suggestions for guests/topics that you think would be great to have on the show, just email Rob at rob@openskyfitness.com or Devon at devon@openskyfitness.com or you can also leave us a review at www.openskyfitness.com/review, ask a question in the closed Open Sky Fitness Facebook Group and even text OSFreview to 33444 to get the link. What You'll Hear on This Episode 00:00 Open Sky Fitness Introduction 1:15 Opening comments with Rob and Devon 2:10 Don't forget to buy some Open Sky Fitness apparel this week! 4:00 Open Sky Fitness Q& A: Thursday nights 7pm PST via the closed Open Sky Fitness Facebook group 7:00 Questions from the OSF Facebook group: How can you respond to people who tell you, "Oh you're so lucky to have a fast metabolism." But the reality is that you work hard to have a healthy lifestyle through food and exercise. 10:50 OSF Facebook group question: Will doing both cardio and weight lifting in the same session oppose each other? 13:50 OSF Facebook group question: "My biceps are lopsided. Is this normal? Should I be working one harder than the other to even them out?" 18:00 How do you get your health back on track? Is it better to jump right in to it or start slowly? 20:00 How Devon gets back on track with her health. 26:00 What is stress and how does it affect out lives? How can we take control of it? 27:40 The two different types of stress: predictable and unpredictable stress. 31:40 Steps to regain control of your stress and get back on track 40:30 What to do if it's difficult to schedule and fit in healthy changes? 45:00 How to navigate future predictable stress. 49:00 How to stay healthy during vacation, traveling, or over the holidays. 54:00 Navigating unpredictable stresses in life. 58:00 Don't be afraid to ask for help in your mission to get healthy. 1:02:10 Closing comments with Rob and Devon 1:03:15 Open Sky Fitness Closing RESOURCES MENTIONED DURING THE SHOW: Leave us an iTunes review Join the The Open Sky Fitness Podcast Group on Facebook Contact Rob for One-On-One Coaching Sessions Learn more about our upcoming guest, Dr. David Perlmutter Check out OSF Episode 72 with Jenny Schatzle: 10 Holiday Tips for Staying Healthy To Download Rob’s FREE workout templates click below** Download Templates Ask Rob a Question or tell him what is working for you: Email Rob@OpenSkyFitness.com To leave a Review for Rob and the Open Sky Fitness Podcast CLICK NOW! Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show and I read each and every one of them. Contact our amazing sound engineer Ryan? Send him an e-mail here: info@stellarsoundsstudio.com Thanks for Listening! Thanks so much for joining us again this week. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below! If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post. Do you have any questions (and would like to hear yourself on the Open Sky Fitness Podcast)? Click on the link on the right side of any page on our website that says “Send Voicemail.” And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic updates. It’s free! Thanks for listening/reading Episode 149: Getting Back on Track with Your Health! We hope you have gained more knowledge on how to be a healthier you.
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