Podcasts about John So

Ever wonder what other people talk about with their financial advisors? A new survey of nearly 400 experienced advisors reveals the biggest concerns, challenges, and financial goals their clients are facing today. From retirement planning to healthcare costs to working longer than expected, we're breaking down the key takeaways and how they compare to what we see in our own client conversations.   Helpful Information: PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/ Contact: 813-286-7776 Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com   Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is an SEC Registered Investment Advisor. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. The topics and information discussed during this podcast are not intended to provide tax or legal advice. Investments involve risk, and unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Be sure to first consult with a qualified financial advisor and/or tax professional before implementing any strategy discussed on this podcast. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Insurance products and services are offered and sold through individually licensed and appointed insurance agents.     Marc: Ever wonder what people are talking about with their financial advisors? Well this week on the show we're going to discuss a new survey of nearly 400 experienced advisors revealing the biggest concerns, challenges, and financial goals that their clients are facing. We'll see how that compares with what the guys see here on the show. Let's get into it this week on Retirement Planning - Redefined.   Welcome to the podcast, everybody. Thanks for hanging out with John and Nick and myself as we talk investing, finance and retirement. And guys, we're going to share this survey. We'll put a link into the show descriptions as well for folks that want to check it out, but want to run some of this information past you guys and see does that correlate with what you're seeing, do you think it's accurate, not accurate, and just spitball and talk a little bit about some of the stuff out here.   The survey was done of nearly 400 experienced advisors all with around 20 years or more of a business, practicing business, so interesting. They didn't really say exactly the age bracket of all the people they were talking to, so there could be some folks that are not necessarily retirement age. They could be younger as well as older, but I want to run down some of this stuff and just get your guys' take on it.   How you doing this week, John?   John: I'm doing well. Daylight savings is messing with me a little bit, but I'm adjusting pretty well. And one of my kids, actually both my kids, they're testing for an honor belt in karate.   Marc: Oh, nice.   John: So they're excited.   Marc: They're going to whoop on you. Be careful.   John: It's funny you say that. They're running around the house kicking me now. It's like I wanted to get them into some self-defense stuff, but now I'm getting kicked.   Marc: So now you got to walk around with some pads on.   John: Pretty much.   Marc: Make sure you're not getting beat up too much. Very cool. Well watch the shins, man. They'll get you in the shins.   Nick, how you doing, buddy?   Nick: Good. We're staying busy.   Marc: He's like, "Good." Well, let's break this down a little bit, guys.   John: That's the sound of a guy that's in the middle of planning a wedding.   Marc: Right? That's what I was just thinking. He's like, "I got to make another decision. I don't want to make a decision." Let's jump into this and we'll see if we can make this easy for you this week, Nick.   So seeking out a financial advisor, the first part of this survey, advisors in the survey said 52% of their clients have sought out financial advisors to help with the retirement planning. About 34% surveyed were just looking for somebody to build wealth with. And in an era where everybody can call themselves a financial advisor, does that strike you as interesting? What do you guys think about that, 52% looking for retirement planning versus 34 just looking for some sort of wealth building, whoever wants to start?   John: Yeah, those numbers seem accurate to me. Well, I guess I'm a little surprised it's not more looking for help with retirement planning.   Marc: Okay.   John: I'd say the majority of our clients are retirement planning based, "Hey, I want to make sure my plan's good. I want to make sure I don't outlive my money." As far as building wealth, that does come up quite a bit, and Nick will jump in as well, but I'd say most of our clients are looking for retirement planning and just making sure they're on track and making sure that they're making the right decisions.   Marc: And it's two different mindsets too, right, Nick? I mean, so you need to decide what it is that you're looking for. I mean, not to say that you couldn't work with a retirement planner who also can help you with some of the wealth building, but it is a different skillset as well. If you're just looking for someone only to help you build the wealth, that's a little bit easier, I would think.   Nick: Yeah, and I would almost, if I were to say maybe put that in other words, we talk with people at the three phases of money as far as their life goes are accumulation or growth, distribution, taking their money in retirement and then transfer when they leave money. And so I would say from that initial, that wealth building, that's most likely accumulation focused. And because so many people accumulate their money while working in their 401(k)s and that kind of thing, I think it tends to be a little bit of a different conversation and it's those people that as you get closer to retirement. So without having ages, it does make it, the numbers are interesting, and I agree with John, I would've thought maybe it'd be a little bit higher from the standpoint of the retirement planning side, but-   Marc: Well, I mean, if you're just trying to grow the money, again the market's been, obviously we haven't had a prolonged downturn, and it's been choppy here lately, but we haven't had a prolonged downturn since '08, '09, so there's a lot of information out there about saying it's a little bit easier to build the wealth. But the preservation stage, which retirement is a little bit more complicated. There's more things going on than just the portfolio.   But with that in mind, check this out. Over half of the survey of financial advisors said the average client asset minimum was 760,000. I found that to be good. I know different areas are going to be more or less depending on the economic state of the area, but when you often hear that people aren't doing a very good job saving for their retirement future, three quarters of a million dollars is not bad.   Nick: It's definitely interesting to see the numbers and how they've changed over the last five to seven years where, and you mentioned it earlier where we've had a long prolonged period of time with the market going up, and so there's quite a bit of people meeting with us or ending up with more money than they had thought that they would or that sort of thing. There's a little bit of concern with that that only lasts for so long and that there's some correction and all that kind of stuff to happen. But absolutely, definitely that puts most people in the wheelhouse of where they need to be to have a successful retirement.   Marc: I mean, it's not bad. John, do you guys have a minimum? I mean, I know different advisor firms do different things. You can't service everybody. There's only so many hours in a day. So you'll hear something where somebody says, "Well, we work with people with 250,000 who have saved or more in assets," or some or a million or whatever. Do you guys have a breakdown?   Nick: We don't have a set minimum that we advertise or market.   Marc: Okay.   Nick: I would say that the majority of the people that meet with us tend to have what many institutions have as their minimum. So in other words, a lot of places will tell people, like you referred to that, they're looking to work with clients that have 250,000 or more just from an efficiency standpoint of trying to make sure that they can service their clients and that sort of thing, and so we end up above that with most clients. But the reality is, is that the conversations that we have with clients are really we don't keep that rule set in stone because for us, it's more of a relationship-based.   Marc: Individually based kind of thing? Okay.   Nick: Yeah, and really it's something we're looking for people that are serious about planning. I would say if you were to draw a line between what we were talking about earlier where a growth or retirement planning in a more broadly focused strategy, so they're focused on that. They're serious about it. We reference like, "Hey, we don't want to convince you that you needed an advisor. We want you to know that you need one and we want to interview for the job," kind of concept.   Marc: No, that makes sense because I mean if you're giving suggestions and someone's not willing to take them, you're just wasting each other's time versus... Yeah.   Nick: Exactly, and we found that that'll waste more time than in theory working with somebody that maybe isn't where they're going to be yet. And also-   Marc: It needs to be a reciprocal relationship.   Nick: For sure. Communication's super important for us because we've also found that we've had people come in that maybe are under that 250, but their parents are wealthy and they ended up being a teacher or something that maybe didn't allow them to save as much money as some sorts of jobs, and they're going to inherit money and they need assistance that way. So I'd say we're pretty comfortable with our process and how we approach that sort of thing and really look for it on a relationship basis, communication basis, and how we all get along.   Marc: That makes sense. And it's got to be a two-way street. I mean, when we do the podcast, it's not designed to turn every listener into a client if they're not already a client, but it is designed to say, "Hey, if it's the right relationship field going both ways, then we're happy to help if we can." That's pretty cool. So that's a good way of looking at that.   John, check out some of these top concerns. Let me know what you think here. So no surprise, number one, outliving their assets, 38% of the people surveyed. That's pretty much always number one, right? Outliving your money.   John: Yeah.   Marc: 31%, generating reliable income streams, a pretty high number as well.   John: Yes.   Marc: Okay. Then it drops off to a pretty stark, down to 12% for a future stock market crash. Now with some context here, this survey was completed at the end of last year, so it was December of '24. Do you think that number's gone up recently?   John: I would willing to bet that number's gone up. I think we were talking about the market, the last real big downturn was '08, and I think in the last 10 years, we've only had two years of the market being down, the S&P 500. I think it was, what, '22 and 2014, I believe.   Nick: I'd almost say that's a leading indicator that there's going to be, it's one of those things. Once people get that comfortable, that's usually when it comes.   Marc: I mean, it's been a while, right? So because nobody's worried about it whenever it's riding high. We only seem to worry about it whenever we're in the middle of it falling a little bit. But the one that really surprises me is all the way down to 8% for healthcare costs. Now if you guys are focused more on helping people with retirement planning and strategies, that to me, again depending on the ages of the people that answered this survey, healthcare costs at 8% seems awfully low because it's pretty costly, and we need to be having those conversations when we're, especially as we're getting older.   John: Yeah, for sure. This one, it is very important, and I think it's same thing we're talking about the stock market where it's been doing well. And when you're healthy-   Marc: It's great.   John: ...you think you're going to be healthy for a long time.   Marc: You don't think about it. Right, exactly.   John: You don't think about it all. It's back of your mind. I'll tell you where we see a lot of people concerned about it is if they had to do some care for their parents. Then it becomes top of mind of like, "Hey, this was a lot that I just went through." And taking care of them or seeing, whatever, if they have to go into a facility, and then in turn that's where we see the most of our clients that are concerned about healthcare costs is if they had to take care of a loved one.   Marc: Nick, according to the survey on that topic, advisors that were surveyed in this, were saying that clients should be more concerned about healthcare costs at around 54% unanticipated healthcare cost. Will you agree with that as well? Because I mean, obviously it comes out of the blue, it can totally derail the whole strategy.   Nick: Yeah, I think part of that is, from an advisor perspective, the whole concept of long-term care, obviously I'd say many advisors have a good grasp on long-term care, but I think it's become increasingly difficult for advisors to help clients plan for that with insurance or certain products that are out there. If we went back 10 years and from, let's just call it 2015 back through maybe 2005, that was the golden era per se for clients to be able to secure a reasonably priced policy from a long-term care perspective. So I think maybe that ties into the concern that advisors have is that at the end of the day it's a really expensive problem that clients can have, but it's also an expensive solution that a lot of clients are reticent to spend on something that may not be an issue, especially in a state like Florida where all of the insurance, people have serious insurance fatigue here.   Marc: Oh, I'm sure.   Nick: So it's a funny thing. The one time I actually answered a soliciting call earlier this morning was from State Farm calling me to, and they asked me if they could shop my car insurance for me, and I said, "Sure, let's try it." And sure enough, it was going to be $1,400 a year more than what I'm currently paying.   Marc: Thanks for the help.   Nick: And she laughed too, and she's like, "Well, can I call you in six months?" I was like, "You can try."   Marc: You can try.   Nick: I don't think you guys are going to come down that much. And so it's just crazy with what people are paying here. And so I think, long story short, I think that really ties into it as well for advisors.   Marc: And I'll hit you with this last one, John. I'll let you start and then I'll let Nick jump in if he wants to. And again, this survey was completed at the end of last year, so you can't take the current market downturn into this conversation. But according to the survey, an average of 63% of clients age 55 or older intended to work to 65 and beyond. 63% of people wanted to continue working up to 65 or beyond, yet only 30% of those clients are actually still doing it. So I guess my question is, does this surprise you that people want to keep working longer? And if so, what are some of the main reasons why you guys are seeing people want to work into their older ages?   John: It doesn't surprise me. I think with the shift really since COVID of being able to work remote, I've seen a lot of people that sit there now thinking like, hey, I work from home. I can travel still and log in. And it's given them a comfort of just saying, yeah, I'm making good money. I can continue to do this.   Marc: Feather than nest some more, right?   John: Yeah, so it's just building up the nest egg and allows them maybe to feel comfortable doing some more travel that they otherwise maybe wouldn't have felt so comfortable doing. We talked about the fears of outliving your assets, so I've seen a lot of that. And then there's a lot of studies out there saying, just keeping sharp of mind. So I've seen that where people are like, "Hey, I don't want to retire because I want to stay active. I want to have a purpose and continue to do things." So I think I'm not surprised by that number.   Marc: Interesting.   John: Because we're having more conversations of people wanting to work longer because they enjoy what they're doing. And with Zoom, it's become very easy to continue to work longer.   Marc: Well Nick, I'll give you this last piece here. 48% of those people feel like they don't have enough saved to live on through retirement. I mean, you're talking about half. So half of the people surveyed don't think they have enough, so that sounds like it just comes back to just not truly having a plan or even really knowing what it is that you've got. They've probably never sat down and really pulled this stuff together so they don't feel confident.   Nick: Correct. I think you nailed it there. The uncertainty of not having a plan and not knowing and understanding what things look like really oftentimes causes procrastination, and then all of a sudden it's 5, 7, 10 years later and there could have been a couple of small tweaks or a couple of small adjustments. I mean, in reality, there's been so many times when within 30 minutes if John and I meeting with somebody the initial time, we can tell three to five things that they could do that wouldn't have a significant impact on their life, but would have a significant impact from a positive perspective on their overall planning. And so whether it's informing themselves and holding themselves accountable or working with an advisor, which we have found, and there's been a ton of studies that have found that having that partner to help guide them through the decision-making process, that there's significant value there and the average rates of return and all that kind of stuff show that because of the decision-making.   Marc: Well, think about what you're going through with the wedding planning stuff. So there was a thing a couple years ago we were talking about, some of the most stressful events we can do in life, one of them was planning for a wedding. One of them was planning for retirement, right?   Nick: Yeah.   Marc: There's a lot of decisions to be made. And so having somebody to lean on I think goes a long way into removing some of that stress because it does get overwhelming. And at some points you're just like, ah, screw it. I don't even know what to do anymore. So being able to talk with guys like yourselves and say, "Okay, look. Here's some thoughts we had," or, "Here's what we were afraid of," or whatever the case is, it gives you that sounding board to bounce some ideas off of and maybe get some reassurance.   Nick: Yep, fully agree.   Marc: Yeah, and so are you having that same problem from the wedding standpoint?   Nick: Right now we're interviewing planners-   Marc: There you go.   Nick: ...and the prices have gone up, so it's-   Marc: But you're looking for help, right, because it's a lot.   Nick: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.   Marc: John, you don't want to be the wedding planner?   John: No, no. I did that 12 years ago-   Marc: I got you.   John: ...and I want no part of that.   Marc: I got you. Well, all right, guys, good conversation as always. Thanks so much for hanging out. So at the end of the day, I mean you find these surveys are pretty interesting. And I think a lot of this stuff comes back fairly similar each time, is that people are looking for some assurance. They're looking for some clarity in some of these situations, so that's the point of running through the planning process is finding out what do you got, where do you stand and how's it working for you, and do you need to make some changes?   Often people feel like we're going to have to do some major overhaul, and it scares them. But a lot of times when you run through the planning process, many people are in better shape than they realize. You just need some tweaks here and there. So if you want to have those conversations for yourself, reach out to John and Nick and get started today at pfgprivatewealth.com. That's pfgprivatewealth.com. Get yourself onto the calendar for a consultation and a conversation.   And don't forget to subscribe to us on Apple or Spotify, whatever podcasting app you like using. Retirement Planning - Redefined is the name of the show with John and Nick, and we'll see you next time here on the program. Thanks, guys. Take care of yourself.

Finding what you love doing beats chasing money every time. Today on the IC-DISC Show, we're talking with John Sacco, owner of Sierra International Machinery, a trailblazer in the recycling industry. Starting as an agri-packaging business, John transformed the company into a recycling equipment powerhouse, moving from marketing Italian made machines, to designing their own balers and conveyors, and now offering a comprehensive range of recycling equipment with renowned service quality. He's been a lifelong industry advocate. Serving as past ISRI chairman and creating the "Repurposed" docuseries on Prime Video, a series showcasing how 75% of new American steel comes from recycled materials. Activities that help companies recruit talent by highlighting the environmental benefits of an industry often misunderstood by policymakers and the public. It's a great conversation revealing how critical recycling is for disaster recovery, processing debris, and supplying rebuilding materials. Listen in to hear why John believes finding your passion, as he did at age 59, brings more satisfaction than any bank account.     SHOW HIGHLIGHTS We explore Sierra's transformation from a leader in agri-packaging during the 60s and 70s to a pioneer in recycling machinery, sparked by the introduction of an Italian machine in the 1980s. John discusses the significance of Sierra's involvement with trade associations like ISRI, now REMA, emphasizing the role of advocacy in correcting industry misconceptions and celebrating milestones such as serving as chairman. John and I delve into Sierra's innovative marketing approach, highlighting their docuseries on steel recycling that unexpectedly gained popularity on Prime Video, enhancing the industry's image. He addresses the broader industry challenge of attracting and retaining talent, drawing parallels to Mike Rowe's advocacy for essential yet undervalued jobs. We highlight the environmental advancements in the U.S. steel industry, including its leadership in recycling and the significant role of recycled aluminum in the automotive sector. John shares advice on prioritizing passion over profit, emphasizing personal growth and the rewarding aspects of the journey, including attending industry conferences and personal milestones. He reflects on Sierra's collaborative team effort in expanding product offerings, driven by customer needs and market opportunities, while maintaining a strong reputation and high-quality service.   Contact Details LinkedIn - John Sacco (https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-sacco-8a8a1b10/) LINKSShow Notes Be a Guest About IC-DISC Alliance About Sierra International Machinery GUEST John SaccoAbout John TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) John: And there's a lot of misconceptions about our industry. So staying involved is, you know, I've done it and that's kind of why I've also done a lot in regards to the docuseries on our industry and stuff like that. Dave: Good morning John. How are you today? John: Doing good. Doing good, that's awesome, not bad. Dave: How are you today Doing good? John: Doing good. That's awesome, not bad. How are? Dave: you doing Dave. That's good, I'm doing great Now are you a? Native of California. John: Yeah, I was born and raised in Bakersfield, California. Dave: Oh, wow, Okay. So did you grow up around the scrap business? John: Well, actually I grew up more in the agri-packaging side of Sierra. We used to have a company called Sierra Bag and we used to supply agri-packaging products. We were at one point the leader in selling bagging and ties to the cotton industry. Years ago in the 60s and 70s, there used to be over 2.2 million bales a year of cotton grown in the San Joaquin Valley and we used to sell the bagging and use bags and make potato bags and onion bags. We had the recycled materials facility but I really wasn't involved with that. I was more involved during the summers as a kid working in the bag plant. Dave: Okay, so how did the transformation then go on your end to where you get more involved in the recycling space. John: Well, it started when my dad had found a machine out of Europe, out of Italy, and he thought that the market in America could use these machines. Which he was right. And at 19, by late 1985, his partner, 42 years, a buddy of his, who he met during World War II, was, he was ready to retire, he had some health issues and he was just ready to call it quits. And so, in early 1986, what he did was sold the Jagger packaging, bought his partner out and had me start marketing the machines. So, not knowing a whole lot about Ferris and non-Ferris, quite frankly, I was forced to learn it kind of on the fly and getting involved with selling the equipment. Dave: Okay, and did you get involved with the company right after you graduated from USC? John: I did. For two years I was on the agri-packaging side, traveling around to potato sheds, onion sheds, selling the products that we had, and then in 85, started going to the cotton gins. Also, we held a at the time a patent on the cotton module which when they harvested cotton in the field they'd make these big well, for lack of a better word a big log of cotton before they sent it into the cotton gin and we had a tarp for it into the cotton gin and we had a tarp for it. So when it if it rained because the harvesting of cotton was late September, early October and so if it rained it could ruin the grade so we had this cotton module cover and we had a patent. So we sold a lot of those throughout America to the cotton industry. Dave: Okay, and then it was shortly after that that you got more involved in the recycling machinery. John: That's correct. Yeah, when my dad sold all the agri-packaging in 86, all of that went away. So that was when he wanted me to market the machines, because I had taken marketing at USC. So I just basically said, hey, market these machines. Dave: That's what I've been doing ever since and there's a little more to it than that because at some point you all started developing your own machinery. Is that correct, that's? John: correct. We you know our clientele base also was in need of two-ram balers for the processing of non-ferrous materials, you know, aluminum, copper, and also in the fiber industry for paper. And so we decided to start building two-ram balers and hired an engineer who was at the time unemployed and got involved and built a plant down in southern Georgia and expanded today. So we finished, we opened up in October of 2008 and building two ram balers and conveyors for the metal side and also the waste sector. So that's grown nicely over the years. Dave: That is great. And then you guys have expanded your product offering. Then beyond that to other aspects, right? John: That's correct. Yeah, so you know, for recycled materials facilities we offer a wide variety of products from 2-ram balers, conveyors, shears, shear balers, portable balers, grapples and material handlers, so it's a wide variety of equipment that can go into a lot of different aspects of the waste sector and the recycled material sector. Dave: Okay, and then at some point, you became involved in the Trade Association. Was it ISRI then, or was that? John: Yeah, it was ISRI back. It was in the late 1990s that I got involved and you know I got involved, I enjoyed and it was fun for me on a personal level and then in two I was elected to be secretary-treasurer of at the time it was ISRI. It's now REMA, the Recycled Materials Association. So I did that stint, you know, as secretary-treasurer and you move up to chair, and I was chairman in 2011, 2012,. But have stayed involved with the Trade Association because I believe in having a strong voice for an industry in the states and in, you know, in the nation's capital. You know policymakers don't really know what we do and there's a lot of misconceptions about our industry. So staying involved is you know there's a lot of misconceptions about our industry. So staying involved is, you know, I've done it and that's kind of why I've also done a lot in regards to the docu-series on our industry and stuff like that. Dave: Okay, I can't believe that it's been 12 years ago. 13 years ago I guess that you were the chair. I think that's when I first met you in San Diego, I think on the aircraft carrier at a social function. John: Yeah, when we met on the aircraft carrier, that was 2010. Excuse me, that was 2000. Yes, it was 2010. And that was the final night party of ISRI at the time on the USS Midway, and at that party I was officially at that moment, the chairman of ISRI. So yeah, as long as it was, it does seem just like yesterday, david, and it was a great party. But yeah, it just seems like yesterday. Yeah, the sound of it is a long time ago. Dave: Wow, yeah, the time does go by. Now I'm curious, as your product line expanded, I'm curious was that more of a case of you just saw an opportunity and that's kind of what drove it, or was it more your customers coming to you saying, hey, we really need help in this area. Would you guys develop something? Or is it a mix of the two? John: Well, it's a little bit of everything. I have a great team here and the people at the time who was on the team, you know, said well, we should get involved with this type of equipment because we have a need for it. You know our customer base asked for it and you know I won't take the credit for it and you know it's I won't take the credit for it because in the end it's a team here at Sierra and you know I have a brother involved who's my partner now, his son, my nephew's involved and so over the years it's just it's about discussing what we can do, how we grow. How do we you know you got to grow your revenue. How do we grow it? And by adding different products into the mix. And then the manufacturer out of Italy, the Tabarelli family, they have a wide, they had the material handler. So we just started just a couple years ago starting to really, you know, push into that market and you know we'll gain our traction. It takes a little time but it's a team effort here and it's just a lot of people have. You know my general sales manager has been with us since 1988. And you know he has a lot of great ideas as well. So, as a team, we've worked together to develop the products we needed to come into the market. And what's really unique is when you deal with our company. There's, like I say, a wide variety of equipment that you can handle or you can purchase from Sierra and that we service. So we have the ability to sell a lot of different machines, yet we have the ability to service each and every one of those machines with the same intensity. So it's been good. Dave: No, that's excellent. With the same intensity, so it's been good. No, that's excellent. Do you? Is it that aspect of that ability to you know service, all that equipment? Is that one of the main reasons your clients choose you? What's the feedback you receive from your customers, as far as you know why they end up choosing you? John: Well, there's a lot of reasons. We have built, you know, a really good reputation and we work on it every day to improve. In our service department we carry the parts and we have the technicians, but we also have a very high quality piece of equipment. Series repurposed season one, season two really tells the story of our industry and, as the former chairman of israel, now rima, I keep advocating for the industry with what I do with our social media and you know, when you have two seasons on prime video, people notice that. So there's a lot of things involved. We have good people, we try to do the right thing at all times and that's our motto the Sierra way is the right way. It's not fancy. So I think there's a lot of things that we do that enhance our image and you know people like to do business with us because of all the above. You know, is it just one thing? You know, one customer may like the service, one customer may like our advocacy, which I've heard. A lot of people like our equipment per se, and there's just a lot of things that go into it. So I think it's multifaceted, dave, and it's just not one item. We try to just try to build everything we do, improve our marketing, our brand, improve our service. You know that's our motto is to try to get better every day. We don't want to be the best, we just want to be better, because being better is a journey that every day, if you come in the office and you say how can we be better, you don't rest on what you did yesterday. So it's, you know, we got a good culture, we got great people. You know our technicians also are a great face to the company, our salespeople as well. So I think it's just a multitude of things. Dave: Well, that's an insightful answer. I appreciate that. As far as that docuseries, I've always been curious what's the story behind that? Did you just wake up one day and say you know what I want to be on TV, or was it a little different than that? John: Oh, it's a lot different than that. Interesting how it all came about. A gentleman I've worked with Darren Doan for over a decade on creating content and stuff we've done together. We had this idea back I don't know 22, early 22, to do a thing called the Sierra Summit. We were going to bring in Mike Rowe and the top 100 metal processors in America have this big event and the Ukraine war broke out and what happened with that is a lot of processed steel out of Europe was handled through in Ukraine and our supplier of the Shears, portable balers, had a supply chain issue plus a pricing increase. That was dramatic. And so we decided well, we better keep our powder dry and not spend this money for the summit. And so about a month later things you know, the steel market for europe started settling, and I don't know. I just had this idea of doing this docuseries on steel making being made from recycled steel and start changing the narrative, because I got tired of hearing the word junk, waste, trash. And I think that was one of the biggest obstacles to our industry. And I don't know, I've been in front of the camera with my social media posts, so being in front of a camera didn't bother me. But telling the story of a steel mill using recycled steel as the raw materials coming from out facilities like our own here at Sierra was a fun thing. So I thought, well, you know, we could put our equipment in this, we can tell the story. We're going to advocate for the industry, we can get this out there. I never had any intention of getting it out to Prime Video. My whole intention was to tell a fun story in a cinematic way that people would like and find entertaining and educational. And it turned out to be just that. And so we did season two, where we actually what we learned from season one. So then we weren't focused on the output of rebar at cmc and the construction projects needing rebar, so we showed a lot of projects that had rebar. And where did the rebar come from? So you backtrack it all into the recycled materials and so, uh, it just kind of grew from that. I don't mind being in front of a camera, you know, wanting to be in front of a camera or not minding it, or I think are two different things, but the fact is that I enjoy creating the content. It's fun for me to get into a steel mill. It's fun to tell the story, to talk to people and you, you know, when I released the series, there's so many people who've used it to show their families what they do. You know there's so many people who don't understand what our industry is about. And then you got schools and you know companies using it, even like SAB they were season one. They used it for recruiting and safety and telling their story and CMC is the same as well as telling their story of how their steel mill is really the foundation of infrastructure, because you have to start with rebar and any hospital and school and manufacturing plant. You've got to start with rebar in any hospital and school and manufacturing plant and you know you got to start with rebar and rebar comes from recycled metal, so it's a good story and they've been able to educate people to draw, you know, to attract and retain talent. Our industry isn't the sexiest, so it's shed a light on our industry that our industry actually is doing more to reduce CO2 emissions than any other industry in the world today and it attracts people who want to do something good for the mother earth and have a good paying job at the same time. Dave: That's awesome. Did that surprise you when, like CMC and some other companies, use that as like a recruiting and education of themselves? John: No, that was part of my sales pitch to them. Dave: Okay, okay. John: I knew, for whatever reason, why I knew that our industry has we have an image problem this I know, and it was still there. And attracting and retaining talent is a struggle, and it's not just our industry. If you talk to any facility, any company in America today, they all have the same issues. You know, I've just finished filming at the Toyota Motor Plant in Troy, missouri, where they make cylinder heads and their number one issue is attracting talent in the mechanics. They can't find them. And steel mills same thing. Every industry in America is struggling to find talent, and so I know that if you don't tell your story, if you don't make your company look cool, who wants to come to work for you? Dave: Yeah yeah, it seems like Mike Rowe is kind of on a similar mission from a little different perspective, really trying to encourage, you know, more people to come into the trades. John: Well, mike Rowe, yes, and you know, look, mike Rowe is an incredibly successful human being and you know, he has to show. You know, dirty jobs and I think kind of that's what we are. We're dirty jobs but we're networked. You know, I don't say we're essential. Essential is a COVID word that the government used to pick winners and losers. You know, you go to the hospital, david. Do they take your essential science or do they take your vital science? Sure, they take your vital science, right. So our industry is vital for the health of the nation. You don't build a hospital with us, right? You know, if you build a hospital, expand a hospital, you got to start where, on the ground floor, you have to start with the foundation, and that starts with rebar that starts. That comes from our industry. You want to build a school? Same thing. You want to build a highway. You know the steel used in the highway. You know, when you think this, 75% of all new steel in America is made from recycled steel Three quarters, that is a monstrous percentage and it's only growing. And you know another thing that is vital to national security is a vibrant steel industry. Okay, you don't build Navy ships with plastic. You don't build a military without steel, right? So you better have a very vibrant and strong steel industry, at the same time saying that America's steel industry is the cleanest steel industry in all the world. Over 75% of our steel mills are EAS electric arc furnace steel mills that use recycled steel to make new steel. Well, why is that important One? We're producing the steel a country needs for our infrastructure, for our military, healthcare, education and our farming and food industry. We also do it in the cleanest way, because recycled steel at EAF reduces CO2 emissions in the 60 percentile. And now that there's more micro mills coming online, more straight line casting of products and steel mills, with the new mills coming online, which reduce the energy consumption and reheating and continuous casting, so you're actually starting to see the numbers improve versus the BOF furnaces that you see that are heavy in China and India and Russia and Europe, south America yes, there are new EAFs going to those parts of the world, but their main steel production comes from the integrated steel mill that uses coking coal and iron ore, which is far greater pollutant, gives us far greater CO2 emissions. So not only is our steel industry vibrant in the United States, we are the cleanest in all the world. So we really are leading the way and I think people. That's kind of why I want to tell the story because people don't. You know we did man on the streets. You know you get me started on this, but you know people don't know steel's the most recycled item in America today. People don't even know what a steel mill is. They don't even know where new steel comes from. You drive a car. You don't have any idea. The majority of the metal in that car comes from recycled steel or recycled aluminum, for that matter. So people don't know this. So it's been kind of fun telling the story with Repurpose and we're getting ready to. We just finished filming everything we need for season three of repurpose. It's going to be on aluminum recycled aluminum and our focus will be on driving the auto industry okay, because you know this, david, that you cannot build an aluminum motor block transmission housing or casings differential casings with virgin aluminum I did not know that. Dave: And it has to be made from recycled aluminum. John: So see this. People don't know this and why is that? because of the alloys, the strength of the material. To take virgin aluminum and then make all, put in all the additives to make the motor block the strength, you, um, you can't do it. So they use recycled aluminum, and you know toyota is a big user. And also recycled aluminum, you know it goes into the light weighting of um automobiles, which gives you much greater miles per gallon and you know produces co2. So again, people don't know this and so I'm enjoying telling the story and getting it out there. Dave: I can tell you have a real passion for the education and helping change or improve the image of the whole industry. John: Well, I think that our policymakers, like in California, we have a real problem in the state of California the automobile shredder they want to deem it hazardous waste facilities and that's just not fair. It's not accurate to recycle for recycling in its own right, but it's hugely detrimental to the raw material supply chain for our industry here in america. That makes all these products that we need. You know we talk about when you take it in the life of an automobile, what do you do with it? And the end of life of an automobile. When you shred it, you gain the, the steel, the aluminum, the copper, stainless and plastics. And what do you do with that? You recycle it and that gets repurposed into new steel, new aluminum, new copper products, new stainless, and it's so. You know. It's just detrimental because our image, because I'll guarantee you, if you walk the halls in Sacramento and you told people, do you know the car you drive that has aluminum transmission housing, that has the aluminum motor block can't be made with virgin aluminum, they wouldn't know that. And this is part of the education process and I think once people know more about what our industry is, they'll realize how vital we are and that's really been a lot of fun for me and you know season three, as we're getting ready to do it gonna use. You know our facility here in bakersville is. You know where we process aluminum? We bail it in the bailers we make. And it's a lot of fun to be able to say the bailers we sell, that process that bail aluminum, are made from steel that comes from recycled steel from ssab. That we did in season one. So it really shows the circularity of our industry and what real sustainability really is. You know it's a buzzword and people, quite frankly, just have no clue what it really means. So I'm trying to bring out the real identity of our industry and try to really change the narrative because it needs to be changed. Once we were heroes during world war ii by supplying the mills with all the metals they needed to fight tyranny, and now we're the bad guys. Dave: Um, that's, we got to get back to being the good guys again I agree, could I mean I, you know just general building anything in California has become more challenging and regulatorily limited. Do you think somebody could even put in like a new shredder operation today, or would it just take? Them Wouldn't even be able to do it Because it's considered hazardous waste Is this considered hazardous waste? John: Yeah well, it's just the process. Nobody, you know, it's just a really crazy process, but you know you reminded me of something. So we have these just absolutely horrific, devastating fires in LA right, and we saw the whole Pacific Palisades and Altadena, the Pasadena area just devastated. What industry is going to rebuild those neighborhoods? Dave: Yeah, the steel industry. John: Well, so when you clean up these neighborhoods and we have a new piece of equipment down there processing the metals and sending it down to a company at Long Beach to process, it's our industry that's going to rebuild these neighborhoods. We're cleaning it up because what's what is left after the fires? Metal products, and all these metal products are being processed and going to be repurposed and sent to mills, steel mills, aluminum copper foundries, and all this new material that they're making from that raw material is what's going to go into rebuilding these neighborhoods. And you can't rebuild a neighborhood without us because we're the raw material suppliers for all that stuff that goes into the housing from the rebar, from the foundation, steel stuff. Now you're going to see a lot more steel being used in the manual in the building of houses in this area because of the fire. What about appliances? You don't build appliances with plastic. Easy-bake ovens aren't how you build refrigerators and ovens and toasters and coffee pots. And all the copper that's going to go into the electrification of these neighborhoods will have 36% recycled copper content into it. All the window panes that'll have aluminum windows and brass, you know, forurposing in it, getting into the consumers to make new products so you can rebuild, wow that's. I haven't thought about that for a second. Dave: Yeah. John: You know. And so the policymakers need to hear this. They need to understand that this is what we do. They need to understand this the most vital. Because, let's say, we don't exist in California. Well, what would you do with all that material? Can't ship it to China. China doesn't take containers of steel anymore. They don't buy bulk loads of steel anymore from the West Coast of the United States. They don't. That's just a misnomer. People, oh, you're sitting in China. They don't, that's just a misnomer. People, oh, you're sitting in China. No, we're not. And people think that, again, it's the ignorance Not calling people ignorant in a negative way. They just don't understand what we do. They don't understand where our materials are going, and I like to say CO2 emissions have no borders. So if Our materials are exported to an EAF steel mill somewhere maybe Malaysia, vietnam, korea, japan, if you will Well, our materials are also going into EAF. So what is that doing? It's reducing CO2 emissions. So our raw materials, be it used here in the US or be it used anywhere in the world, is actually helping to reduce the CO2 emissions in the world. Sure, actually helping to reduce the CO2 emissions in the world? Sure, you know, aluminum reduces CO2 emissions and energy consumption in the 90 percentile, copper's in the 80 percentile. You tell me an industry that's doing that today. You can't the recycled material industry. It's our raw materials that we process. So this is why this narrative, this is why these type of conversations, hopefully are heard by people who will now understand. Wait a minute, I've got this industry all wrong. Dave: Yeah, yeah. No, that's your your passion for trying to educate as many people as possible. It really shows through and you can see it really. It really drives you, so I appreciate it. Well, I can't wait to see season three. I can't believe how the time has flown by. Just wrapping up, I have just three remaining questions. John: Yes, sir. Dave: One is in your role with Sierra. What gives you the most satisfaction and enjoyment? John: Great question. Well, I think we have some great people here and I enjoy the people in the company I've seen in our, for instance. This is an example only and this is, you know, this could be had in every department, but we just have some really high quality people who really are fighting for the same cause. You know fighting, I call it fighting for the same right. And you know I get great satisfaction seeing these young kids who are growing. You know are technicians, for instance, who are growing, who've committed themselves to this culture and you see them growing and they're growing in their abilities and they're growing in their pay scales and you see their cooperative nature and how nature and how they have the can-do spirit. That gives me great pleasure. I enjoy doing this content as well. This gives me great pleasure making the REAP series. So those are my answers to that. Dave: That's great. That's not surprising. So the second of the three is imagine if you had a time machine and you could go back and give some advice to the 25-year-old John. What advice might you give with the benefit of hindsight? John: look, I didn't find what I really loved doing until I was about 59 years old. I'm 63, okay, so find what you love doing, that that beats money all day long. Yeah, and the money I just think, chasing money. You know it's great. You know I mean sure it's. You know I've done well, I'm not gonna begrudge it. But I think the one who smiles and is happiest wins the game of life, not the one with the biggest bank account. I look at Warren Buffett a guy worth just oodles and oodles. I've never seen that dude smile. He is just a grumpy old man. That's my perception of him, my point. And maybe he is a gregarious guy in person, but God, his persona is just grumpy. And my point to you is money doesn't buy happiness. Sure, it makes misery more tolerable, as my dad used to say. But I would tell a 25-year-old me stop chasing money and find happiness through what you love doing. Dave: A great answer. So the last question is is there anything that we did not discuss today that you wish we had? John: Well, no, I you know, I think, david, you know your, your company, with what you do, with your IT desk and helping with consulting. You know that's important. You know there's so many facets of our industry that people can improve upon, and I guess what we didn't talk on are areas in which how can an individual who sees this and is in the recycled materials industry capitalize on stuff that they don't know exists and what you do? I mean, I get what you do and so how do people really, where do they go to learn more about this industry and how they can improve their business? You know there's a lot of things that can be done. You got to be careful how you say this, because you know taxes are burdensome, especially when you live here in California. How can you have a legitimate business concern that can reduce your taxes legally? Because you know avoiding taxes is one thing, evading is illegal. You go to jail for evading taxes, and so you know it's hard because I'm not an accountant and I don't understand the whole time. But there's so much more, I think, for people to learn about our industry and I think, david, with what you're doing, with your setting up companies that are exporters, to understand the benefit of the laws that are out there for companies that export. People need to learn more about that, and I think that's you know. I wish I could have touched more on it. I don't know it like you do, but it is something that I think that's what I would say is to help people learn. There's other avenues to make your business grow and save some of your money, and when you save legally on taxes, you're saving money, so you can invest that in your company. Dave: No, I appreciate you mentioning that. And you know, my most satisfying part of my role is helping our entrepreneurial clients, you know, increase their after-tax income. It's really just. It's such a privilege to be, you know, kind of in the stands watching these amazing entrepreneurs do their magic. And you know, we have scrap metal clients who have, you know, the last decade have, you know, increased their business 10X. And I'm not saying that's because of the IC disc, it probably has little to do with it, but it's just a great. It's just very enjoyable to see the best and the brightest entrepreneurs, just, you know, do their magic. So that's why I love, why I'll be at the REMA conference in May. I can't spend enough time with those people. It's a blast. Well, john, thank you again for your time and I look forward to seeing you in San Diego in a couple of months. John: I presume, yes, sir, I'll be there. I'll be coming for my son's graduation at TCU, so I'll arrive. I'll miss some of the governance you know, as a former chair you're always involved with that but I'll be there for the show and I'll have my. My son is will be a graduate and I will have no more kids going to school. Dave: That's awesome. Well, that's also a landmark event. Well, hey, john, thank you again for your time. I really appreciate it, Thank you. Special Guest: John Sacco.

April Fool's Day is all about jokes and pranks, but when it comes to retirement planning, getting fooled can cost you real money. Today, we're uncovering the beliefs that fool retirees and pre-retirees into making bad financial moves.   Helpful Information: PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/ Contact: 813-286-7776 Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com   Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is an SEC Registered Investment Advisor. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. The topics and information discussed during this podcast are not intended to provide tax or legal advice. Investments involve risk, and unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Be sure to first consult with a qualified financial advisor and/or tax professional before implementing any strategy discussed on this podcast. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Insurance products and services are offered and sold through individually licensed and appointed insurance agents.     Host: April Fool's Day is all about jokes and pranks, but when it comes to retirement planning, getting fooled can cost you some real money. So we're going to talk about that. A little early for April Fool's, maybe, but we're going to still talk about it this week here on the podcast. So let's get into it.   Hey, everybody, welcome to the show. Thanks for hanging out with us here on Retirement Planning Redefined, with John, and Nick, and myself, as we talk investing, finance, and retirement. And we're taping this a couple of weeks before April Fool's Day. It should drop right around there, but we'll have a conversation with the guys. What's going on, Nick, buddy, how are you?   Nick: Good, good. Staying busy.   Host: Yeah. Well, that's always good. Good stuff. John, I know you and I were just chatting before we got rolling, we're worn out. But you hanging in there?   John: Yeah, doing all right. And don't let Nick fool you, he's got a lot going on.   Host: He's got a lot going on.   John: You tell him the news.   Host: He did. Yeah.   Nick: John's favorite topic. Got engaged a little over a month ago.   Host: Awesome, awesome.   Nick: Yeah, in the full throws of wedding planning, which is, of course, extremely exciting.   Host: That you're doing a little of, or a lot of, or zero of?   Nick: I would say some impact. My fiance is originally from Columbia, and the way that they do things for weddings there is a lot different than here.   Host: Okay, cool.   Nick: So yeah, so there's a little bit of translation from that perspective.   Host: Nice, nice.   Nick: Yeah, that's interesting. But it'll be good.   Host: Very cool. Nice.   Nick: It'll be good.   Host: Well, congratulations. Very, very cool.   Nick: Thank you. Appreciate it.   Host: All the best to the newlyweds. Very good stuff. We won't pull any April Fool's Day pranks on you then, in that regard. We'll just take to the financial stuff here this week.   So the idea, guys, being that, look, the media is nonstop, the onslaught of social media, internet, whatever. There's always something out there. And you just want to make sure you're vetting some stuff before you... Fool's gold, right? Before you just jump into something and maybe make a mistake.   So we'll start with tax conversation. So as at this time that we're taping the podcast, we don't know if the TCJA will get extended or not. Odds are fairly good, we'll see how the year plays out. But if they don't, they expire at the end of the year, the current tax code that we're under.   So are you taking that information and maybe thinking, hey, I don't have to do any tax planning for the future, because maybe the taxes are going to stay really low like they have been historically? Or are you being proactive and saying, "Well, there's a chance that taxes could still go up, because we owe a lot of money"? So whoever wants to jump in, get started on that. But what do you think about the tax situation and not fooling yourself into just thinking everything's going to stay exactly the same?   Nick: Yeah, I can start with this one. So one of the things that we really emphasize with clients and people that we work with is, especially when it comes to taxes, that the best thing that you can do is to expect change. So whether it's something changing at the end of this year, a couple years from now, whatever it is, the goal is to allow yourself to be adaptable to whatever's happening.   So the easiest way to do that is to have different types of accounts. So to have Roth accounts, pre-tax accounts, and more of a traditional brokerage account where we can factor in capital gains instead.   But even more specific, when it comes to the whole concept of potentially underestimating taxes, there's still a lot of confusion for people on how much of their social security is going to be taxable, or include-able in their taxable income. I had a conversation with my parents about it, and I had to convince them that I was correct and knew what I was talking about after 20 years, because of a way that something that they heard on the radio or saw on TV was phrased, made it very confusing to them. So just-   Host: Sure, I mean, there's the conversation that they might get rid of it, but they haven't done it yet. So you still got to be planning for stuff.   Nick: Yeah. But even outside of that, the way... It was interesting, and I do want to bring it up now that I remember it.   Host: Sure.   Nick: The way that it was being marketed was that the concept of, "Hey, most people don't know that your social security, how much you pay in taxes on your social security will go up at age 73." And so, really, the concept of that was, "Hey, when required minimum distributions kick in, and you have more taxable income, there's a chance that more of your social security income will be include-able in your tax and how much you pay in taxes." So it was kind of a roundabout way to scare people. So it allowed us to have the conversation about, for a huge chunk of people, 85% of their social security is going to be include-able in their taxable income, at least how the law is now, and just how other types of income may impact that.   Host: Oh, and that's a great point though. That really highlights exactly the point of this conversation, is that depending on how you phrase things, it's very easy to get misled by stuff. And so that's a great illustration of that, Nick. So thank you for sharing that.   And it definitely walks that... And that's what all these are going to do. John, like the next one around Medicare misunderstandings. So my mom's forever, she's 83, she's forever going... And my brother's now, he's over 65, so she's educating him. She's schooling him on the stuff she's been doing for a while with Medicare. And it's like, it doesn't cover everything. And people still sometimes think that, "Hey, at least I've got to 65. Now I've got this Medicare thing. I'm in good shape." And it is a great program, in a lot of ways, but it doesn't cover everything.   John: Yeah, that's accurate. And a lot of people, unfortunately, don't realize that. And a big thing that, when you get Medicare age, age 65, Medicare has a lot of moving parts to it, and there's a lot of different options.   Host: Oh, yeah.   John: So depending on whether you go, let's say, on an Advantage Plan, if you're on Plan F, or G, you get the supplement, it's going to determine what is covered. And then, also, you want to look at, do your current providers even take Medicare? So you might be looking at it and think that you're going to be all set-   Host: Great point.   John: ... And then you come to find out that your provider who you like doesn't even take it. So yeah, it definitely does not cover everything. So when you're doing your planning, when we do it, we always try to make sure, "Hey, this is our set price for Medicare." Then we adjust as we determine what plan the client's going to go with or help them determine what's their best option. But also, you want to plan for some out-of-pocket medical expenses for what it doesn't cover.   Host: Yeah, I think she's changed her dentist a couple of times just because they don't take it anymore. They changed or whatever. And of course, dental being one of those things that people often don't realize is, a lot of stuff's not covered there.   John: And prescriptions.   Host: Yeah, and eye. The eye stuff is really interesting. Some of the eyeglass stuff, like going to the eye doctor for just basic optometry stuff is not covered. But then the cataract stuff, some of it was. So it's very strange. So you want to make sure you're understanding what is and what isn't taken care of there with Medicare. So that's certainly a good one as well.   Nick, what about the set it and forget it retirement plan strategy. When you're talking about things getting kind of mis-sold or kind of mislabeled out there, some people will be like, "Hey look, you got to get a plan together. You put stuff in there. You let it ride and you roll from there." Right? Well, some things can set it and forget it, but some things can't either.   Nick: Yeah. So kind of a good example of maybe the set it and forget it concept, saw come up a little bit more in the last couple of years, where had some clients that were moving towards retirement, and they had done a good job of saving and building up the nest egg, and they were somewhat familiar with, maybe take 4% a year and I can live off of 4% a year.   But with rates being in that point of time where we clicked up, where they could get four to five, five and a half percent in money market CDs, et cetera, they had kind of just said, "Hey, want to shift to the sidelines, want to avoid the market. I'm just going to take my 4-5% and live off the interest." And the conversations that we had to really have were, conceptually, that'll be good for now, for the next year or two. But most likely, there's going to be a point in time within the next three to five years that rates are going to change, and that 5% might turn into 3%, or two and a half percent.   And even on, let's just use 2 million bucks. So maybe they could do 5% on 2 million is a hundred grand a year, good to go. Now if we shift to two and a half, 50 grand a year off of the portfolio, with their intention of trying to maintain principle, that starts to rewind a little bit.   And so, it's a good example of realizing how the dynamics of a plan change, and that if you're only factoring in what's happening now, or in the next short term, next couple years, that not understanding updating and adjusting your plan to current circumstances, or maybe a broader sense of what could happen, could really put somebody in a difficult position.   Host: Yeah, that's a great point as well. So there's so much stuff you got to think about when you're factoring all these things in. And John, the market's been choppy. The time we're taping this, it's been a little choppy out there. So some of the tariff conversations-   John: Just a little bit.   Host: A little bit, or whatever is kind of making the market uneasy. But chasing and obsessing, not necessarily just over the market highs, but also high dividend stocks. So sometimes people will say, "Well, a good alternative to doing X or Y is to get high dividend stocks." What's some thoughts there?   John: There's different strategies for what you're trying to accomplish. And one of the problems with this one, especially if you're going to retirement and you're thinking of, "Hey, I'm just going to have high dividend paying stocks," is that those things can change. If all of a sudden we have a recession, or the economy's not doing well, or that particular company's not doing well, guess what they could do? They could just change your dividend.   So if you had a plan, going back to what Nick's example, they're like, "Hey, I've got this stock. It's giving me 4- 5%," and you think you're okay. And all of a sudden some news comes out and that dividend drops, and now your whole plan just slightly changed. So with dividend paying stocks, they're not guaranteed. And depending on how high of a dividend paying stock it is, the higher sometimes could be correlated with a little bit being more aggressive and more risk.   So I've seen, this actually reminds me of a meeting I just had this week, where someone was in talking to a friend of theirs, and they were trying to say, "Hey, just put all your stuff in these high dividend paying rates," and all these things. And I'm looking at it like, "Hey, this is pretty aggressive. You're getting a good yield. But if we have some type of pullback, not only will your dividend potentially go down, but the value of this stock could also drop."   Host: Sure. Yeah.   John: So it's just important to understand what you're in and what could change.   Nick: I think I'd also like to jump in on that.   Host: Sure.   Nick: Because I've had this conversation with some clients quite a bit. And one of the things that I tried to emphasize is that if we look over, because a lot of times the generation that's been drilled with dividend paying stocks is a generation now that's kind of entered into retirement, where they were really starting to invest in coming up through the period of higher interest rates, when dividend paying stocks perform better.   And frankly, if you look over the last 10, really post recession, post '09 and 2010 recession, in an environment with lower rates, if somebody was invested the last 15 years in only dividend paying stocks, then the returns that they have gotten are pennies compared to being involved in-   Host: Wow.   Nick: ... growth related investments. Think of tech, think of the Magnificent Seven now, think of all the areas of the massive growth over the last 10 or 15 years, and there was significant opportunity cost. So the environment that we're in, where those companies were really rewarded for, the cost of borrowing was low, the ability to reinvest and grow was high. Even when you factor in stock buybacks, I mean, you had companies that were making more money in stock buybacks than they were in producing their own products. So the environment of what's happening has a significant impact on that as well.   Host: That's great points, guys. So it's easy to get lulled into whatever kind of marketing, or whatever kind of news headline, or whatever the case is. So just make sure that you're not falling for it. Or at least not without vetting some things out and talking with your financial professionals.   So if you've got some questions, as always, you need some help, you should always run anything you hear by on our podcast, or really any other, even the big talking head shows, talk with someone local in your area about your unique situation so that you're getting some hands-on advice and conversation. And if you need some help, John, and Nick, and the team are available at pfgprivatewealth.com, that's pfgprivatewealth.com. So you can subscribe to the podcast. You can find it there. Of course, you can get some time on the calendar through the website, lots of good tools, tips, and resources. And of course, you can subscribe to us on Apple, or Spotify, or whatever podcasting app you like using.   So again, pfgprivatewealth.com. That's going to do it this week. Guys, thanks for hanging out, as always, and breaking it down. Congratulations once again, Nick, on the upcoming nuptials. And John, buddy, have a great week. We'll see you next time here on Retirement Planning Redefined.  

Are you and your spouse on the same page when it comes to what retirement is going to look like? If not, it's time to talk. Listen to this episode where we'll explore why it's so important for couples to have detailed conversations about their finances and retirement futures. We'll cover exactly what you need to discuss, and how to handle any disagreements.   Helpful Information: PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/ Contact: 813-286-7776 Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com   Disclaimer: Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is an SEC Registered Investment Advisor. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. The topics and information discussed during this podcast are not intended to provide tax or legal advice. Investments involve risk, and unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Be sure to first consult with a qualified financial advisor and/or tax professional before implementing any strategy discussed on this podcast. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Insurance products and services are offered and sold through individually licensed and appointed insurance agents.     Mark: Are you and your spouse on the same page when it comes to what retirement is going to look like? If not, it's time to talk. So check into this episode where we explore why it's important for couples to have detailed conversations about not only their finance, but their retirement futures and their dreams, this week on Retirement Planning, Redefined.   What's going on? Welcome into the podcast. Thanks for hanging out with John, Nick, and myself as we talk investing, finance and retirement. And we're going to go to couples therapy this week here on the podcast a little bit, or maybe we'll make it more manly, I guess, and call it a team sport.   However you want to look at it, you want to be on the same page with your spouse, with your loved one when it comes to retirement. I wanted to talk a little bit about that this week, guys, to see how many people generally are on the same page by the time they sit down with professionals like yourselves, financial professionals, or if it's happening a lot in real time, right in front of you. So we'll get into it this week.   What's going on, John? How are you bud?   John: Hey, I'm doing good. How are you?   Mark: Doing pretty good, hanging in there. Looking forward to chatting about this a little bit.   Nick, I hope you're well.   Nick: All good.   Mark: All good as usual. Well, that's very good.   Nick: Good start to the season for the bills, so I'm happy.   Mark: All right, well there you go.   Nick: It's early. It's early, but...   Mark: My lions, my lions are all right for right now. We'll see. I don't have a lot of hope. 40 years doesn't bode well when you have one good season in 40 years, but we'll see.   Nick: I get it, [inaudible 00:01:33].   Mark: All right, so let's dive into this couple stuff here. Why is it important for couples to work together on their retirement plan? I mean, you come in, somebody sits down for the first time with you guys for a consultation, and they're just not even remotely on the same page. That's got to be a bit more problematic, yeah?   Nick: Yeah. Not being remotely on the same page is tricky. I would almost say we probably, at least for John and I, we probably don't run into it too much where they're completely on separate pages.   Mark: Well, that's good.   Nick: I would say that there tend to be different ways that they think about money and kind of communicate about money. To be honest, that's one of the reasons that I would say that John and I like working together as a team with clients is because oftentimes one of us will kind of pick up more on the vibe that one of the people in the relationship is on, and then vice versa the other way around.   And so I'd say it's pretty rare that people in a couple tend to think about finances the same way. Even though they might end up having similar goals on the backside, they kind of attack it a little bit differently. And really it's, I think we joke sometimes, I think at this point we're 80% therapist, 20% financial advisors.   Mark: Right.   Nick: And really it's just trying to get people closer to the same page, and realizing that a lot of the things that they're talking about are pretty similar and they're just going about different ways to attack that.   Mark: Well, John, to expand on that, when somebody sits down for the first time, do you guys, if they haven't really discussed some of those big issues, is it important that they maybe try to knock some of that out before they come in to see an advisor? Or does it not really matter as long as it's getting done?   John: Yeah, I don't think it really matters. I think sometimes they're not even really sure exactly what to be knocking out prior. So to delay meeting with someone just to try to figure out, "Hey, are we on the same page?", I don't think makes sense. I think what tends to happen in our meetings is we'll ask some questions that kind of get them thinking a little differently. Like, "Oh, I didn't think about that." And ultimately, I think what we do when we do our planning, they tend to have some things come out and then they tend to kind of understand where the other one's coming from and that kind of lines up.   Mark: Yeah. Well, I mean, I talk to advisors all across the country and I certainly hear stories often about people saying, one person will say something and the spouse will go, "Since when? I never heard of that."   Nick: It definitely happens sometimes for sure. I would say almost that tends to be more on the lifestyle side of things.   Mark: Okay, all right.   Nick: Versus almost purely financial.   Mark: Like "I want to go scuba diving in every major ocean or something." And the other one's like, "What?"   Nick: Yeah, when the husband pulls, "I want to drive across country in the RV" card, that's where I've seen a lot of the sideway looks where... My parents are a good example, it's like my dad doesn't like to drive to Publix, but then he said he wanted to drive-   Mark: Across the nation.   Nick: ... In an RV, because that's going to be more relaxing. And I remind him that a thousand miles is a lot worse than five. So there's things like that absolutely. How to spend that time, or even just the extra time together. I've almost seen it where it tends to be a little bit of a smoother process for couples when one person retires first, and maybe there's a year or two lag, where they kind of have a little bit of a staggering on spending an extra 50 hours a week together, which can be a little bit of a shock.   Mark: Sure, yeah, it's a totally different animal. Yeah.   Nick: Yeah, a totally different ballgame. So I would say from at least my experience with clients, it tends to be more in the lifestyle side of things. What I've seen most often with couples are it's rare that it's a 50/50 input on finances.   A lot of times I'll see it where one person might be a little bit more strategic on expenses, and then the other one might be a little bit more focused on the actual investments, things like that. But they end up being kind of having the same goal or outlook, but the lifestyle and how they're going to spend their time in retirement and how much they're willing to spend to do those sorts of things tends to be a little bit different.   Mark: All right, John, well let me throw this one your way. So my wife and I are not usually on the same page when it comes to certain different things in a relationship, like most couples. And when it comes to risk, we are completely different.   So how can couples navigate if they are in different places risk-wise? Because let's be honest, I mean the statistics are what they are. Typically, us fellas tend to want to take a little bit more risk, and a lot of times the ladies tend to want to play it a little safer. Not always, but that's kind of the average.   So how do you guys handle that and what's some advice there?   John: So we'll do risk tolerances for each client when that comes up. And we we'll find that someone, again, might be more aggressive than the other, so maybe their accounts are invested, maybe a moderate where someone else's, the spouse might be invested conservative. So that, having separate accounts makes that a little bit easier.   It becomes more difficult when it's the, a joint account. And what we'll do at that standpoint is we kind of go back to the plan. So a lot of the times it's what type of rate of return are we trying to achieve from the planning standpoint. We kind of have conversations, and we'll try to blend the two of them together.   I'd say for the most part, I don't want to speak for Nick, but he could jump in, have never really had this come up as an issue. It's kind of like, "Hey, this is how you want to do it. This is how this other person wants to do it." And for the most part, the spouses are okay with it as long as they're achieving their goals.   Mark: Interesting.   Nick: For the clients that tend to be, for the ones that have a little bit more of that risk appetite, we found through conversation that they have the risk appetite when things are good.   Mark: Sure. Everybody likes it when it's up, right?   Nick: Yeah, for sure. And not necessarily when things are bad. And so we're big fans of almost having, for lack of a better term, like a petty cash drawer or just kind of a smaller investment account that will carve out. So when there are clients that want to have that higher risk appetite, want to take opportunities to really kind of get some big upside.   Mark: So that's your speculative casino type money, right?   Nick: Yep.   Mark: If you will.   Nick: Yup, yup, exactly. And really too, because I would say the majority of our clients are pretty close to retirement or in retirement, they tend to, at least in our experience, be a little bit over that phase with any sort of larger amounts of money. Oftentimes they come to us and they're like, "All right, we had our fun and we're ready to be a little bit more in line on the risk side of things with the investment decisions that we're making." And oftentimes when we have that conversation of, "Hey, if you get an itch, let's have this off to the side and it'll help you make better decisions with the rest of the money." That tends to be kind of a winner for everybody.   John: No, I was going to say, yeah, that's kind of what we reference sometimes as a cave, this is kind of your play account where you want to buy some individual stocks and things like that, where the fluctuation won't really make a big impact overall on your plan. So as Nick mentioned, that kind of satisfies some of the very aggressive clients.   Mark: Okay. Well, so you mentioned the fact a second ago that a lot of your clients tend to be nearing or into retirement, and with a different demographic comes different feelings and mindsets about money.   So with that in mind, we tend to find that, which is really weird if you think about it this way, a lot of times you tend to find that in couples, going through the life, building of the life, raising the children, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, typically the wife tends to budget the money, handle the money, so on and so forth. She's doing all that stuff in the house. But when it comes to retirement, it tends to seem like us guys tend to take the lead there.   Is it okay for one person to handle all the financial matters? Or do you guys really prefer that both people have a good understanding, even if it's not your bag, do you still prefer them to have a general, I don't know, 10,000 foot view of what's going on?   Nick: Yes. I would say too, more and more that, again, from our experience, and maybe it's our clientele where you've got a lot of households that are both people work, both have retirement accounts, and although they may make some differences from the perspective of risk in their portfolios and stuff like that, it tends to be a collaborative effort. Again, I would say we have, anytime we do planning, we have clients fill out an expense worksheet. It's rare that they both fill it out. It's usually one of the two that are filling out the expense worksheet.   And so it does tend to get kind of broken up a little bit from who focuses on what. But it's definitely important that they're both on the same page and have a good grasp and an understanding. And I would say too is the easiest example of that, and the people that work with us kind of know this is there's one report that we go over with clients, it's like a cashflow. It's in detail, wall of numbers, lots of columns, can be kind of intense. And then there's an area called the decision center, which takes all those columns and it puts it into kind of a graph format and it's more interactive.   And I think that's kind of almost the best illustration of the different sides of the brain where one person in the couple sometimes likes the details and likes the column report and they like to, because they can go in on their client side of the portal and go through that and re-review it. And the other one is, "Hey, let's zoom out. Give me the broader picture. Are we good? Are we not good? Give me an idea of a couple of decisions that we need to make moving forward and let's go from there."   Mark: And there's no right or wrong to either one, it's just what is your personal appetite? But I think neither, like if both of you don't have a good understanding, John, that's a recipe for trouble later on too.   John: Yeah, no, I'd agree with that. It's important for both to at least have an idea of what's happening and working as a team, whether one takes a lead and one takes a backseat, we encourage everyone to have a general understanding. Because this past year has been interesting where I've had some clients have some health issues, pass away. And you got to make sure that both pistons are aware of what's happening because you don't want that situation where it's like, "Hey, I don't know where anything is. What do I do?" So [inaudible 00:11:43].   Mark: That's exactly the point, right? Yeah, that's the worst case scenario. And it often, it happens more times than people realize. So you both want to have a decent understanding, even if it's not your thing. And again, no gender roles there. It tends to be the case, but I mean, my wife is way smarter than I am, and she actually deals with, she's very analytical and deals with money and numbers all the time for work. And it's one of those things where when it comes to our retirement, she's like, "I don't want to deal with it. So you deal with it."   And it could just be as simple as, "I deal with numbers all the time, I don't want to deal with it yet another way." So no matter what it is, you find a way to make it work, but not having a decent understanding of what you have, and why you have it and who to turn to in the event of a catastrophe, is a recipe for disaster. So obviously if you're working with a financial professional and a team like the guys at PFG Private Wealth, then at least you also have that resource to turn to when something does happen like John just mentioned.   So one final question here, I'll let you both kind of jump in and chime in a little bit here. What final piece of advice would you give to couples who are maybe just beginning their retirement planning journey, when it comes to making sure that they both are feeling comfortable?   Nick: I think it depends on what phase they are in life, but in general, I think it's hard to screw it up long-term, if you're saving money. So even if you are very conservatively saving the money and you're not getting much return on your money, that kind of instills an ingrained habit of saving money and being used to living on the rest. That will lead you to better habits and better outcomes.   You can always take the next step in, whether it's working with an advisor, whether it's doing research by yourself and then making better and smarter decisions on how you invest that money that you saved. That tends to be kind of the easier part. But the behavior of saving that money first and then going from there, is the number one thing, I think that's important.   Mark: Okay. That's his advice there. What do you about you, John, what do you think?   John: Yeah, it's really similar. You can never go wrong saving. And it's really just kind of the words that just get started. Just get started saving, just get started planning, get started with any of it. Whether you have kids, you want to make sure that estate documents are in place, insurances are in place.   So depending on what phase, it's just a matter of getting started with the overall planning, and saving is definitely where you want to be the forefront. Because like Nick said, you can't go wrong. You're never going to be mad looking back saying, "Man, I saved way too much for retirement."   Mark: Right, exactly. Taking the forward steps and doing something to quote the rush song, right? If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. So don't make that choice to do nothing. Do something for yourself and your future self and get started today. Make sure that you are planning for retirement and having conversations with your loved ones so that you guys are on the same page.   And of course, as always, if you need some help, make sure that you get onto the calendar with qualified professionals like the team at PFG Private Wealth. You can find them online at pfgprivatewealth.com. That's pfgprivatewealth.com to get yourself some time on the calendar to sit down with John and Nick and get started today.   This has been Retirement Planning, Redefined. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on whatever major podcasting platform app you like to use. They're on all of them. So you can just type in Retirement Planning, Redefined in the search box, or just go to pfgprivatewealth.com.   We'll sign off for this week. For John and Nick, I'm your host Mark, and we'll catch you next time.

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: ... Wait, our models of semantics should inform fluid mechanics?!?, published by johnswentworth on August 26, 2024 on LessWrong. This post is styled after conversations we've had in the course of our research, put together in a way that hopefully highlights a bunch of relatively recent and (ironically) hard-to-articulate ideas around natural abstractions. John: So we've been working a bit on semantics, and also separately on fluid mechanics. Our main goal for both of them is to figure out more of the higher-level natural abstract data structures. But I'm concerned that the two threads haven't been informing each other as much as they should. David: Okay…what do you mean by "as much as they should"? I mean, there's the foundational natural latent framework, and that's been useful for our thinking on both semantics and fluid mechanics. But beyond that, concretely, in what ways do (should?) semantics and fluid mechanics inform each other? John: We should see the same types of higher-level data structures across both - e.g. the "geometry + trajectory" natural latents we used in the semantics post should, insofar as the post correctly captures the relevant concepts, generalize to recognizable "objects" in a fluid flow, like eddies (modulo adjustments for nonrigid objects). David: Sure, I did think it was intuitive to think along those lines as a model for eddies in fluid flow. But in general, why expect to see the same types of data structures for semantics and fluid flow? Why not expect various phenomena in fluid flow to be more suited to representation in some data structures which aren't the exact same type as those used for the referrents of human words? John: Specifically, I claim that the types of high-level data structures which are natural for fluid flow should be a subset of the types needed for semantics. If there's a type of high-level data structure which is natural for fluid flow, but doesn't match any of the semantic types (noun, verb, adjective, short phrases constructed from those, etc), then that pretty directly disproves at least one version of the natural abstraction hypothesis (and it's a version which I currently think is probably true). David: Woah, hold up, that sounds like a very different form of the natural abstraction hypothesis than our audience has heard before! It almost sounds like you're saying that there are no "non-linguistic concepts". But I know you actually think that much/most of human cognition routes through "non-linguistic concepts". John: Ok, there's a couple different subtleties here. First: there's the distinction between a word or phrase or sentence vs the concept(s) to which it points. Like, the word "dog" evokes this whole concept in your head, this whole "data structure" so to speak, and that data structure is not itself linguistic. It involves visual concepts, probably some unnamed concepts, things which your "inner simulator" can use, etc. Usually when I say that "most human concepts/cognition are not linguistic", that's the main thing I'm pointing to. Second: there's concepts for which we don't yet have names, but could assign names to. One easy way to find examples is to look for words in other languages which don't have any equivalent in our language. The key point about those concepts is that they're still the same "types of concepts" which we normally assign words to, i.e. they're still nouns or adjectives or verbs or…, we just don't happen to have given them names. Now with both of those subtleties highlighted, I'll once again try to state the claim: roughly speaking, all of the concepts used internally by humans fall into one of a few different "types", and we have standard ways of describing each of those types of concept with words (again, think nouns, verbs, etc, but also think of the referents of short phrases y...

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: ... Wait, our models of semantics should inform fluid mechanics?!?, published by johnswentworth on August 26, 2024 on LessWrong. This post is styled after conversations we've had in the course of our research, put together in a way that hopefully highlights a bunch of relatively recent and (ironically) hard-to-articulate ideas around natural abstractions. John: So we've been working a bit on semantics, and also separately on fluid mechanics. Our main goal for both of them is to figure out more of the higher-level natural abstract data structures. But I'm concerned that the two threads haven't been informing each other as much as they should. David: Okay…what do you mean by "as much as they should"? I mean, there's the foundational natural latent framework, and that's been useful for our thinking on both semantics and fluid mechanics. But beyond that, concretely, in what ways do (should?) semantics and fluid mechanics inform each other? John: We should see the same types of higher-level data structures across both - e.g. the "geometry + trajectory" natural latents we used in the semantics post should, insofar as the post correctly captures the relevant concepts, generalize to recognizable "objects" in a fluid flow, like eddies (modulo adjustments for nonrigid objects). David: Sure, I did think it was intuitive to think along those lines as a model for eddies in fluid flow. But in general, why expect to see the same types of data structures for semantics and fluid flow? Why not expect various phenomena in fluid flow to be more suited to representation in some data structures which aren't the exact same type as those used for the referrents of human words? John: Specifically, I claim that the types of high-level data structures which are natural for fluid flow should be a subset of the types needed for semantics. If there's a type of high-level data structure which is natural for fluid flow, but doesn't match any of the semantic types (noun, verb, adjective, short phrases constructed from those, etc), then that pretty directly disproves at least one version of the natural abstraction hypothesis (and it's a version which I currently think is probably true). David: Woah, hold up, that sounds like a very different form of the natural abstraction hypothesis than our audience has heard before! It almost sounds like you're saying that there are no "non-linguistic concepts". But I know you actually think that much/most of human cognition routes through "non-linguistic concepts". John: Ok, there's a couple different subtleties here. First: there's the distinction between a word or phrase or sentence vs the concept(s) to which it points. Like, the word "dog" evokes this whole concept in your head, this whole "data structure" so to speak, and that data structure is not itself linguistic. It involves visual concepts, probably some unnamed concepts, things which your "inner simulator" can use, etc. Usually when I say that "most human concepts/cognition are not linguistic", that's the main thing I'm pointing to. Second: there's concepts for which we don't yet have names, but could assign names to. One easy way to find examples is to look for words in other languages which don't have any equivalent in our language. The key point about those concepts is that they're still the same "types of concepts" which we normally assign words to, i.e. they're still nouns or adjectives or verbs or…, we just don't happen to have given them names. Now with both of those subtleties highlighted, I'll once again try to state the claim: roughly speaking, all of the concepts used internally by humans fall into one of a few different "types", and we have standard ways of describing each of those types of concept with words (again, think nouns, verbs, etc, but also think of the referents of short phrases y...

Anthony Diana and Therese Craparo are joined by John Collins from Lighthouse to provide an overview of some of the challenges and strategies around data retention and eDiscovery with Microsoft's AI tool, Copilot. This episode explores Copilot's functionality within M365 applications and the complexities of preserving, collecting and producing Copilot data for legal purposes. The panelists cover practical tips on managing Copilot data, including considerations for a defensible legal hold process and the potential relevance of Copilot interactions in litigation. ----more---- Transcript: Intro: Hello, and welcome to Tech Law Talks, a podcast brought to you by Reed Smith's Emerging Technologies Group. In each episode of this podcast, we will discuss cutting-edge issues on technology, data, and the law. We will provide practical observations on a wide variety of technology and data topics to give you quick and actionable tips to address the issues you are dealing with every day.  Anthony: Hello, this is Anthony Diana, a partner in the Emerging Technologies Group at Reed Smith, and welcome to the latest Tech Law Talks podcast. As part of our ongoing podcast series with Lighthouse on Microsoft M365 Copilot and what legal departments should know about this generative AI tool in M365. Today, we'll be focused on data retention and e-discovery issues and risks with Copilot. I am joined today with Therese Craprro at Reed Smith and John Collins of Lighthouse. Welcome, guys. So, John, before we start, let's get some background on Copilot. We've done a few podcasts already introducing everyone to Copilot. So if you could just give a background on what is Copilot generally in M365.  John: Sure. So the Copilot we're talking about today is Copilot for Microsoft 365. It's the experience that's built into tools like Word, Excel. PowerPoint, Teams, Teams meetings. And basically what it is, is Microsoft's running a proprietary version of ChatGPT and they provide that to each one of their subscribers that gets Copilot. And then as the business people are using these different tools, they can use Copilot to help generate new content, summarize meetings, create PowerPoints. And it's generating a lot of information as we're going to be talking about.  Anthony: And I think one of the interesting things that we've emphasized in the other podcasts is that each M365 application is slightly different. So, you know, Copilot for Word is different from Copilot for Exchange, and they act differently, and you really have to understand the differences, which we talked about generally. So, okay, so let's just talk generally about the issue, which is retention and storage. So, John, why don't you give us a primer on where is the data generally stored when you're doing a prompt and response and getting information from Copilot?  John: So the kind of good news here is that the prompts and responses, so when you're asking Copilot to do something or if you're chatting with Copilot in one of the areas that you can chat with it, it's putting the back and forth into a hidden folder in the user's mailbox. So the user doesn't see it in their outlook. The prompts and responses are there, and that's where Microsoft is storing them. So there's also files that get referenced that are stored in OneDrive and SharePoint, which we may talk about further. But in terms of the back and forth, those are stored in the Exchange mailbox.  Anthony: That's helpful. So, Therese, I know we've been working with some clients on trying to figure this out and doing testing and validation, and we've come across some exceptions. You want to talk about that process, I'll say.  Therese: I think that's one of the most important things when we're talking about really any aspect of Copilot or frankly, new technology, right? It's constantly developing and changing. And so you need to be testing and validating and make sure you're understanding how it's working. So as you said, Anthony, you know, we found early on when Copilot, our clients first started using Copilot, that the prompts and the responses for Outlook were not being retained in that hidden folder, right? And then Microsoft has since continued to develop the product. And now, in most cases, at least we're seeing they are, you know, similarly, for those of you who are using transcriptionless Copilot, so it's Copilot that doesn't can give you meeting summaries and answer questions during the meeting, but doesn't retain the transcript, because people had some concerns about retaining transcripts, we're seeing that those Copilot artifacts, so the prompt and the response are now currently not being retained in the hidden folder. So a lot of this is you need to understand how Copilot is working, but understand that it's also a dynamic product that's constantly changing. So you need to test it to make sure you're understanding what's happening in your environment with your organization's use of Copilot.  Anthony: Yeah. And I think it's critical that it has to constantly be tested and validated. Like any technology, you have to constantly test it because the way it's happening now, maybe even if it's being retained now, could change, right? If they revise the product or whatever. And we've seen this with Microsoft before where they may not always, you know, they change where it's stored because for whatever reason, they decided to change the storage. So if you have an e-discovery process and like, you just have to be aware of it. Or if you're trying to retain things and you're trying to govern retention, you just have to make sure you understand where things are stored. Okay, so John, if you could explain presently sort of how retention works with Copilot data that's stored in the hidden folder of Exchange.  John: So what Microsoft has done so far is they've made it possible for the prompts and responses that we were talking about. So when you're in Word or Excel or PowerPoint, or if you're using the chat function inside of the Teams or in general, those are the subject to the same retention that you've set for your one-to-one in your group chats. So if you have a 30-day auto-delete policy for your one-to-one in group chats, that's going to be applied to these Copilot interactions. So I've heard, and I think you guys may have heard this as well, that Microsoft is going to split those off, but it's not on the roadmap that we've seen, but we've heard that they are going to make them two separate things. But right now they're the one in the same.  Therese: Yeah, and I think it's the good and the bad news, right, for people who are looking at Copilot and how do I best manage it. The good news is that you can control retention. You can set a retention on it that's within the organization's control and you can make the decision that's right for your organization. The bad news is that it has to be the same as whatever right now is for whatever you're setting for Teams chat, which may or may not be how long you would like to retain the Copilot data. So there are some features that are good, that gives you a little bit control to make decisions that are right for the organization. But right now, they're only partially controllable in that sense. So you have to make some decisions about, you know, how long do you need Teams chat? How long do you need Copilot? And where's the right place in the middle to meet business needs, right? And also to take into consideration how long this data should exist in your organization.  Anthony: Yeah. And John, we've heard the same thing and heard from Microsoft that they're working on it, but I haven't heard if there's a roadmap and when that's happening. But we have several clients who are monitoring this and are constantly in contact with Microsoft saying, when are we going to get that split? Because at least for a lot of our clients, they don't want the same retention. And I think, Therese, we could talk a little bit about it in terms of what people are thinking about, what to consider. Once we get to a place where we can actually apply a separate retention for Copilot, what are the factors to consider when you start thinking about what is the appropriate retention for this Copilot data?  John: And Therese, do you want them to be ephemeral where you could have a setting where they just go, they aren't captured anywhere? I'd be curious if you guys think that's something that you would want clients to consider as an option.  Therese: Well, look, I mean, the first thing all of our clients are looking at is business needs, right? Is this with anything, right? Do the artifacts from Copilot need to exist for a longer period of time for a business use? And in general, the answer has been no. There's no real reason to go back to that. There's no real reason to keep that data sitting in that folder. There's no use of it. The users don't go, like John, as you said, you can't see it. Users aren't going back to that data. So from a business perspective, you know, number one thing that we always consider, the answer has been no, we don't need to retain these Copilot artifacts for any business reason. The next thing we always look to is record retention, right? Is there a legal regulatory obligation to retain this Copilot artifacts that are coming out? And in most cases, when our clients look at it, the answer is no, it's not a record. It's not relied on for running the company. It doesn't currently fall under any of the regulations in terms of what a record is. It's convenience information or transitory information that may exist in the organization. So typically, again, that next component is records. And typically, at least with Copilot, we're seeing that the initial output from Copilot, the question and the response, are not considered records. And so once you get to that point, the question is, why do I need to keep it at all? Which is, John, to what you're alluding to, you know, today for all data types, whether it's Copilot or otherwise, right, over-retention presents risks. It presents privacy risks and security risks, all kinds of risks to the company. So the preference is to retain data only for as long as you need it. And if you don't need it, the question arises, do you need to keep it at all? Do you need it even for a day? Could you make it ephemeral so that it can just disappear when it's gone because it has served its useful life and there's no other reason to keep it? Now, we always have to consider legal holds whenever we have these conversations, because if you have a legal hold and you need to retain data going forward, you need to have a means of doing that. You need to be aware of how to retain that data, how to preserve that data for a legal hold purpose if you deem it to be relevant. of it. So that's always the caveat. But typically when we're seeing people look at this, when they actually sit down and think about it, there hasn't been to date really a business or records reason to retain that data in the ordinary course of business.  Anthony: And so it's a matter of how do you enforce that? And whether, John, I mean, when we talk about ephemeral, it is retained. So ephemeral would be probably like one day, right? So it would basically be kept for one day, which raises all kinds of issues because they're there for one day. And as we've seen with other, whether it's team chats or any type of instant messaging, once it's there, and we're gonna talk a little bit about preservation, it's there, right? So for one day it's there. So let's talk a little bit about sort of the e-discovery issues and particularly preservation, which I think is the issue that a lot of people are thinking about now as they're rolling this out is, can I preserve this? So John, how do you preserve Copilot data?  John: So that's pretty straightforward, at least in one respect, which is if you're preserving a user's Exchange Online mailbox, unless you put in some kind of condition explicitly to exclude the Copilot prompts and responses, et cetera, they're going to be preserved. So they will be part of what's being preserved along with email and chats and that type of thing. So the only The only question is, and if we're going to get into this, Anthony and Therese, but the reference files, the version shared and all that. But as far as the prompts and responses, those are part of the mailbox. They're going to be preserved.  Anthony: So you're talking about a potential gap here then. So let's just talk about that. When you're doing prompts and responses, oftentimes you're referencing a specific document, right? It could be a Word document. You're asking for a summary, for example, of a Word document. it's going to refer to that document in the prompt and response. So what is or isn't preserved when you preserve the mailbox in that situation?  John: Well, I know we were talking about this before, but there's really, the question is, do you have the version shared feature enabled? Because the Microsoft documentation says if you want referenced files to be preserved as part of your Copilot implementation, you have to enable version shared. But in our testing, we're seeing inconsistent results. So in one of our tenants, we have version shared, and that's exactly what it's doing is if you say, summarize this document or use this document to create a PowerPoint, it is treating it almost like a cloud attachment. And it's it, but that's not, but that's not for preservation purposes. That's at the collection stage. It goes back to the topic that I know you guys, we talk about this a lot is, well, do I have to preserve every SharePoint and OneDrive where something might live that somebody referenced, right? And that's kind of the question there with the reference files.  Anthony: Got it. So you're not preserving it necessarily because like a modern attachment, which we've talked about in the past, it's not preserving it. Although if they're looking at a document from their OneDrive and you have the OneDrive on hold, that document should be there. So when you go to collect it, you can. Assuming that there's this setting, you have to have the version shared. So it's actually linking that attachment to this Copilot data. So a lot to digest there, but it's complicated. And again, I think you point out, this is a work in progress you have to test, right? You cannot assume that based on what we're saying, it's actually going to work that way because we've seen the same thing. You have to test and it often changes because this is a work in progress and it's constantly being changed. But that's an interesting point to think through. And again, I think from a preservation standpoint, Therese, is it required to preserve it if you have Copilot data and they're referring to a document? Is it similar to like an e-comms where we say, generally in the e-comms front where we talk about a Team's message, we always said, well, you need it because it's the complete electronic communication. So therefore to get completeness, we generally say you should be producing it in the like Copilot data, do we think it's going to be any different?  Therese: Look, I mean, I think it depends is the answer. And if you look out there, even when we're talking about e-discovery, when you look at the cases that are out there talking about links, right, links to attachments or links to something that's in an email or in an e-comm, it's mixed, right? Right. The courts have not necessarily said in every case you have to preserve every single document for every single link. Right. You need to preserve what is relevant, even with production. Courts have said I'm not going to make them go back and find every single link necessarily. But if there's something that is deemed relevant and they need that link, you may have an obligation to go back and find it and make sure that you can find that document. So I don't think it's as clear cut as you must, you know, turn on version shared to make sure that you can, you are, quote, preserving every single referenced file and every single Copilot, you know, document. We certainly don't preserve every single document that's referenced in a memo, right? Or in a document that it refers to. There's a reference to it and maybe you have to go find that. So I think that it's not really clean cut. It's really a matter of looking at your Copilot setup. And making some strategic decisions about how you are going to approach it and what makes the most sense and making sure you're communicating that, right? That the structure and the setup of Copilot is coordinated with legal and the people who need to explain this to courts or to regulators and the like. And that you're educating your outside counsel so that they can make sure that they are representing it correctly when they're representing you in any particular case that says, this is how our Copilot works. These are the steps that we take to preserve. This is why. And this is how we handle that data. And I think really that's the most important thing. We're sort of, this is a new technology. It's, we're still figuring out what the best practices are and how it should be. I think the most important thing is to be thoughtful. Understand how it functions. Understand what steps you're taking and why. So that those can be adequately communicated. I think most of the time when we see these problems popping up, it's because someone hasn't thought about it or hasn't explained it correctly. Right? And that's the most important thing is understanding the technology and then understanding your approach to that technology from a litigation perspective.  Anthony: Yeah. And I think one of the challenges, right? And I think this is both a risk and a challenge. And we've heard this from a lot of litigation teams as this Copilot is being launched is it's not always accurate, right? Like it's, and I think you maybe make the argument that it's not relevant because if I'm a user and I'm asking a question, and it comes back, and it's just answering a question, and it's wrong, but you don't know that. I mean, it's Copilot. It's just giving you an answer. Is it really relevant? What makes it relevant? I may be asking the question of Copilot relating to the case. Let's assume that it's relating to the case in some way, underlying matter. You ask a question, you get a response back. Do you really need to preserve that? I've heard from litigators saying, well, if they go to Google, and they do a Google search on that topic, we're not preserving that necessarily. So what do we think that the arguments are that it's relevant or not relevant to a particular matter?  Therese: I mean, look, relevance is always relative, right, to the matter. And I think that it's difficult with any technology to say it's never relevant, right? Because relevance is a subject matter and a substantive determination. Just to say a particular technology is not relevant is a really hard, I think, position to take in any litigation, frankly. It's also very difficult to say, well, it's not reliable, so it's not relevant. Because I can tell you, I've seen a lot of emails that are not reliable, and they are nonetheless very relevant, right? The fact that somebody asked a certain type of prompt in certain litigations could be quite relevant in terms of what they were doing and how they were doing it. But I think it's also true that they're not always going to be relevant. And there's a reliability aspect that often comes in, I think, probably less so at the preservation stage and more so at the production stage. Right, in terms of how reliable is it, is this information? Again, this is about understanding the technology. Does your outside counsel know that if you are one, are you going to take the position that we're not going to produce it because it's not reliable, right? And be upfront about that and take that position and see if that's something that you can sustain in that particular case. Can you can explain that they would not be relevant here and it's not going to be reliable in any case, right? Are you going to take that position or not? Or at the very least, if you are going to produce it, that you understand that it is inherently unreliable, right? A computer gave an answer to a question that may or may not be right, and depends on a user reviewing that. You know, if the user used it and sent it out, you can review, that's when it becomes important or valuable. But understanding the value of the data, so you take appropriate positions in litigation, so that if for some reason Copilot artifacts are relevant, you can say, well, sure, that may be on a topic that is relevant to this case. But the substance of that is unreliable and meaningless, right, in this context. So I think, I mean, one of the funny things that I always think is, right, we say email is relevant, but not all email is relevant. We preserve all email because we don't have a way at the preservation stage to make a determination as to which email is relevant and which email is not, right? But I think that's true, right, with Copilot. I mean, at the end of the day, unless you are being upfront that I'm not preserving this, or you can say this type of data, there are cases where email is not relevant, right, at all for the case, unless you could take that position. You preserve that data because you don't know which of those Copilot interactions are on the topic that could matter or could be relevant. But you're thoughtful again down the road about your strategic positioning about whether or not it should be produced or whether or not it has any value in evidentiary value in that litigation given the nature of the data itself.  Anthony: And John, you talked a little bit about this. I know you're doing some testing. Everyone's doing some testing now on collecting and reviewing this data, this Copilot data. What can you tell us about? You got prompts and responses. Are they connected in any way? Is there a thread if you're doing a bunch of them? How does it all work based on what you're seeing so far?  John: Right. Well, like a lot of Microsoft, when it comes to e-discovery, some of it's going to depend on your licensing. So if you have premium eDiscovery, then for the most part, what we've been seeing in our testing is that when you collect the chats or when you collect the Copilot information, what it's going to do is if you select the threading option and the cloud attachment option, it's going to treat the Copilot back and forth largely like it's a Teams chat. So you'll see a conversation, it'll present as an HTML, it'll show you, it'll actually collect as cloud attachments, the files that are referenced, if you've got that set up. So to a large degree, in terms of determining if things are relevant and that type of thing, you can do keyword searches against them and all of that. So at this point, what we're seeing with our testing is that for the most part, it's treating the back and forth as these chat conversations similar to what you see with Teams.  Anthony: And I'm sure there'll be lots of testing and validation around that and disputes as we go forward. But that's good to know. Okay, well, I think that that covers everything. Obviously, a lot more to come on this. And I suspect we'll be learning a lot more about Copilot and retention and discovery over the next six months or so, as it becomes more and more prevalent, and then starts coming up in litigation. So thank you, John and Therese, and hopefully you all enjoyed this and certainly welcome back. We're going to have plenty more of these podcasts on this topic in the future. Thanks.  Outro: Tech Law Talks is a Reed Smith production. Our producers are Ali McCardell and Shannon Ryan. For more information about Reed Smith's Emerging Technologies practice, please email techlawtalks@reedsmith.com. You can find our podcasts on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, reedsmith.com, and our social media accounts.  Disclaimer: This podcast is provided for educational purposes. It does not constitute legal advice and is not intended to establish an attorney-client relationship, nor is it intended to suggest or establish standards of care applicable to particular lawyers in any given situation. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Any views, opinions, or comments made by any external guest speaker are not to be attributed to Reed Smith LLP or its individual lawyers.  All rights reserved. Transcript is auto-generated.

Where was God on October 7?To my dear Jewish brothers and sisters:A question keeps surfacing since the October 7, 2023 Hamas massacre of innocent Israeli's in Southern Israel.  It is the same question that is asked about the Holocaust.  The question is “Where was God?”I want to try to answer that question today and it won't be easy.  Telling the truth is never easy and receiving it can be even more difficult.  But if you love people, you have to tell them the truth and I love my Jewish brothers and sisters.  So here is the truth and I hope you can receive it.  The truth is this: We all sin and we all deserve to die.Listen to what Adonai says through the prophet Ezekiel:“"Behold, all souls are Mine; The soul of the father As well as the soul of the son is Mine; The soul who sins shall die.” (Ezekiel 18:4, NKJV)But surely we don't all sin, do we?  We do, because we are all born with sin in us.  Listen to what King David, the sweet psalmist of Israel, said:“Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.” (Psalms 51:5, NKJV)We all sin, brothers and sisters.Brothers and sisters, people died in the Hamas attack.  There were deaths, many deaths.  How many of those deaths could have been prevented?  I don't know.  That is an important question.  But I want to talk about something else right now, something much more important.  I want to explain something about death to you but then I want to focus on life.  Did you know that there are two types of death?  One type leads to nothing but death.  That is eternal death.  The person who dies in sin will experience eternal death.  There is a second type of death and this type of death leads to eternal life.  That's a good type of death.  This type of death leads to living with God forever, for eternity.  That is a good death.  If I was in Southern Israel on October 7, I would not have wanted to die.  But if I did die, I'd want my death to be a good one, a death leading to eternal life.Is there a way that you and I can know that when we die, we will go to heaven to be with God, that we will have eternal life?  Yes, there is.  And that is very important, because everyone dies.  In order to go to heaven when we die, we must be free of sin.  How does that work?In the Old Testament dispensation there was a tabernacle and later a temple.  There, God ordained animal sacrifices that provided a covering for sins.  God talked about this through Moses, in Leviticus:“For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.'” (Leviticus 17:11, NKJV)But animal blood provided only a temporary covering for sins.  That's why these sacrifices had to be repeated constantly; they had to be repeated after every new sin.  But there is no longer a temple in Jerusalem.  So how can people receive forgiveness of sins today?  God told us how through the prophet Jeremiah:“"Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."” (Jeremiah 31:31-34, NKJV)Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD.  Those days have come.  They are here, now.  Jesus, the Messiah, inaugurated this new covenant 2,000 years ago.  Jesus talked about it at the last supper which was a Passover seder:“For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” (Matthew 26:28, NKJV)Then, He went to the cross where He shed His blood and died.  He was the perfect blood sacrifice, because He was and is God.  His blood is perfectly holy, and it provides for permanent and total forgiveness of sins for all who accept it.  His blood was offered once and that was sufficient.  Listen to the apostle John:“So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, "It is finished!" And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.” (John 19:30, NKJV)All who believe in this finished work of the Messiah on the cross, those who believe it through faith, become sons and daughters of God; they are born again.  The apostle John, Yohanan, said this in the New Testament:“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:12-13, NKJV)And God's Old Testament prophet Habakkuk said this in the Tanach:“"Behold the proud, His soul is not upright in him; But the just shall live by his faith.” (Habakkuk 2:4, NKJV)Brothers and sisters,God was there on October 7 and during the Holocaust.  He was there, welcoming His children, those destined to die then and who were born of God, into heaven to be with Him.  They are in heaven now.  Their deaths led to eternal life.One day soon, Yeshua, Jesus, the Messiah will return.  Then, the unrighteous – like Hamas – will be unable to harm anyone anymore.  They will be confined to Sheol awaiting their final judgement by God and then they will be consigned to the Lake of Fire for eternity.  Then there will be no more October Sevenths, ever.  But now, today, you should accept the work that Jesus did for you and me on the cross because you will have the guarantee of eternal life when you die.  God was there on October 7, and He is here now.  He offers you the gift of eternal life.  Please don't turn Him down.  Please don't ever say “I'm Jewish and Jews don't believe in Jesus”.  That is simply not true.  Please don't be proud, but be just, as Habakkuk said.  Listen to the testimony of Rabbi Daniel Zion who saved 50,000 Bulgarian Jews from Hitler's ovens and the testimony of Rabbi Sam Stern who lived through the Holocaust and found his Messiah.  Both those testimonies are on this very site.  Please, brothers and sisters, choose life.Thank you for listening.  This is Art Wolinsky. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit awolinsky.substack.com

This week on the blog, a podcast interview with the writer of a great new book, “London After Midnight: The Lost Film,” a book about the classic lost Lon Chaney film.LINKS A Free Film Book for You: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/cq23xyyt12Another Free Film Book: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/x3jn3emga6Fast, Cheap Film Website: https://www.fastcheapfilm.com/Daniel's Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/p/London-After-Midnight-The-Lost-Film-100075993768254/Buy the Book “London After Midnight: The Lost Film”: https://www.amazon.com/London-After-Midnight-Lost-Film/dp/1399939890Eli Marks Website: https://www.elimarksmysteries.com/Albert's Bridge Books Website: https://www.albertsbridgebooks.com/YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/BehindthePageTheEliMarksPodcastTRANSCRIPTJohn: So, Daniel, when did you first become aware of London After Midnight? Daniel: I was about seven years old when I first stumbled into Lon Chaney through my love of all things Universal horror, and just that whole plethora of characters and actors that you just knew by name, but hadn't necessarily seen away from the many still photographs of Frankenstein, Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And the Phantom was the one to really spark my interest. But this was prior to eBay. I couldn't see the film of Lon Chaney's Phantom of the Opera for a year. So, I kind of had the ultimate build to books and documentaries, just teasing me, teasing me all the time. And when I eventually did watch a few documentaries, the one thing that they all had in common was the name Lon Chaney. I just thought I need to learn more about this character Lon Chaney, because he just found someone of superhuman proportions just who have done all of these crazy diverse characters. And, that's where London After Midnight eventually peeked out at me and, occupied a separate interest as all the Chaney characterizations do.John: So how did you get into the Universal films? Were you watching them on VHS? Were they on tv? Did the DVDs happen by then?Daniel: I was still in the VHS days. My dad is a real big fan of all this as well. So he first saw Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on TV when he was a kid. And prior to me being born he had amassed a huge VHS collection and a lot of those had Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Henry Hull, Claude Rains, Vincent Price, what have you.And a lot of them were dedicated to Universal horrors. And as a young curious kid, my eyes eventually crossed these beautiful cases and I really wanted to watch them. I think my first one I ever watched was The Mummy's Tomb or Curse of the Mummy. And it's just grown ever since, really.John: You're starting at the lesser end of the Universal monsters. It's like someone's starting the Marx Brothers at The Big Store and going, "oh, these are great. I wonder if there's anything better?" Jim: Well, I kinda like the fact that you have come by this fascination, honestly, as my father would say. You sort of inherited the family business, if you will. The book is great. The book is just great. And I'll be honest, I had no, except for recording the novel that John wrote, I really had no frame of reference for London after Midnight.John: Well, Jim, were you a monster guy? Were you a Universal Monster kid?Jim: Oh yeah. I mean, I had all the models. I love all of that, and certainly knew about Lon Chaney as the Phantom of the Opera, as The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I knew he was the man with a thousand faces. I knew he, when he died, he wrote JR. on his makeup kit and gave it to his kid. So, I knew stuff. But London after Midnight I didn't know at all, except for the sort of iconic makeup and that image, which I was familiar with. What was the inspiration for you in terms of writing this book?Daniel: Like you say, I really had no immediate go-to reference for London after Midnight, away from one or two images in a book. Really clearly they were very impactful images of Chaney, skulking around the old haunted mansion with Edna Tichenor by his side with the lantern, the eyes, the teeth, the cloak, the top hat, the webs, everything. Pretty much everything that embodies a good atmospheric horror movie, but obviously we couldn't see it.So that is all its fangs had deepened itself into my bloodstream at that point, just like, why is it lost? Why can't I see it? And again, the term lost film was an alien concept to me at a young age. I've always been a very curious child. Anything that I don't know or understand that much, even things I do understand that well, I always have to try to find out more, 'cause I just can't accept that it's like a bookend process. It begins and then it ends. And that was the thing with London after Midnight. Everything I found in books or in little interviews, they were just all a bit too brief. And I just thought there has to be a deeper history here, as there are with many of the greatest movies of all time. But same with the movies that are more obscure. There is a full history there somewhere because, 'cause a film takes months to a year to complete.It was definitely a good challenge for me. When we first had our first home computer, it was one of those very few early subjects I was typing in like crazy to try to find out everything that I could. And, that all incubated in my little filing cabinet, which I was able to call upon years later.Some things which were redundant, some things which I had the only links to that I had printed off in advance quite, sensibly so, but then there were certain things that just had lots of question marks to me. Like, what year did the film perish? How did it perish? The people who saw the film originally?And unlike a lot of Chaney films, which have been covered in immense detail, London after Midnight, considering it's the most famous of all lost films, still for me, had major holes in it that I just, really wanted to know the answers to. A lot of those answers, eventually, I found, even people who knew and institutions that knew information to key events like famous MGM Fire, they were hard pressed to connect anything up, in regards to the film. It was like a jigsaw puzzle. I had all these amazing facts. However, none of them kind of made sense with each other.My favorite thing is researching and finding the outcomes to these things. So that's originally what spiraled me into the storm of crafting this, initial dissertation that I set myself, which eventually became so large. I had to do it as a book despite, I'd always wanted to do a book as a kid.When you see people that you idolize for some reason, you just want to write a book on them. Despite, there had been several books on Lon Chaney. But I just always knew from my childhood that I always wanted to contribute a printed volume either on Chaney or a particular film, and London after Midnight seemed to present the opportunity to me.I really just didn't want it to be a rehash of everything that we had seen before or read before in other accounts or in the Famous Monsters of Filmland Magazine, but just with a new cover. So, I thought I would only do a book if I could really contribute a fresh new perspective on the subject, which I hope hopefully did.John: Oh, you absolutely did. And this is an exhaustive book and a little exhausting. There's a ton of stuff in here. You mentioned Famous Monster of the Filmland, which is where I first saw that image. There's at least one cover of the magazine that used that image. And Forrest Ackerman had some good photos and would use them whenever he could and also would compare them to Mark the Vampire, the remake, partially because I think Carol Borland was still alive and he could interview her. And he talked about that remake quite a bit. But that iconic image that he put on the cover and whenever he could in the magazine-- Jim and I were talking before you came on, Daniel, about in my mind when you think of Lon Chaney, there's three images that come to mind: Phantom of the Opera, Quasimoto, and this one. And I think this one, the Man in the Beaver hat probably is the most iconic of his makeups, because, 'cause it is, it's somehow it got adopted into the culture as this is what you go to when it's a creepy guy walking around. And that's the one that everyone remembers. Do you have any idea, specifically what his process was for making that look, because it, it is I think ultimately a fairly simple design. It's just really clever.Daniel: Yes, it probably does fall into the category of his more simplistic makeups. But, again, Chaney did a lot of things simplistic-- today --were never seen back then in say, 1927. Particularly in the Phantom of the Opera's case in 1925, in which a lot of that makeup today would be done through CG, in terms of trying to eliminate the nose or to make your lips move to express dialogue. Chaney was very fortunate to have lived in the pantomime era, where he didn't have to rely on how his voice would sound, trying to talk through those dentures, in which case the makeup would probably have to have been more tamed to allow audio recorded dialogue to properly come through.But with regards to the beaver hat makeup, he had thin wires that fitted around his eyes to give it a more hypnotic stare. The teeth, which he had constructed by a personal dentist, eventually had a wire attached to the very top that held the corners of his mouth, opening to a nice curved, fixated, almost joker like grin.You can imagine with the monocles around his eyes, he was thankful there probably wasn't that much wind on a closed set, because he probably couldn't have closed his eyes that many times. But a lot of these things become spoken about and detailed over time with mythic status. That he had to have his eyes operated on to achieve the constant widening of his eyelids. Or the teeth -- he could only wear the teeth for certain periods of time before accidentally biting his tongue or his lips, et cetera. But Chaney certainly wasn't a sadist, with himself, with his makeups. He was very professional. Although he did go through undoubtedly a lot of discomfort, especially probably the most, explicit case would be for the Hunchback of Notre Dame, in which his whole body is crooked down into a stooped position.But, with London After Midnight, I do highly suspect that the inspiration for that makeup in general came from the Dracula novel. And because MGM had not acquired the rights to the Dracula novel, unlike how Universal acquired the rights of the Hunchback or, more importantly, Phantom of the Opera, by which point Gaston Leroux was still alive.It was just a loose adaptation of Dracula. But nevertheless, when you read the description of Dracula in Bram Stoker's novel, he does bear a similarity to Chaney's vampire, in which it's the long hair, a mouth full of sharp teeth, a ghastly pale palor and just dressed all in black and carries around a lantern.Whereas Bela Lugosi takes extraordinary leaps and turns away from the Stoker novel. But it must have definitely had an impact at the time, enough for MGM to over-market the image of Chaney's vampire, which only appears in the film for probably just under four minutes, compared to his detective disguise, which is the real main character of the film.Although the thing we all wanna see is Cheney moving about as the vampire and what facial expressions he pulled. It's just something that we just want to see because it's Lon Chaney.John: Right. And it makes you wonder if he had lived and had gotten to play Dracula, he kind of boxed himself into a corner, then if he'd already used the look from the book, you wonder what he would've come up with, if Lugosi hadn't done it, and if Chaney had had been our first Dracula.Jim: You know, the other thing that I think of strictly like through my actor filter is here's a guy who -- take Hunchback or Phantom or even this thing -- whatever process he went through to put that makeup on, you know, was hours of work, I'm sure. Hunchback several hours of work to get to that, that he did himself, and then they'd film all day.So, on top of, I mean, I just think that that's like, wow, when you think about today where somebody might go into a makeup chair and have two or three people working on them to get the look they want. Even if it took a few hours, that person is just sitting there getting the makeup done. He's doing all of this, and then turns in a full day, uh, in front of the cameras, which to me is like, wow, that's incredible.Daniel: Definitely, it's like two jobs in one. I imagine for an actor it must be really grueling in adapting to a makeup, especially if it's a heavy makeup where it covers the whole of your head or crushes down your nose, changes your lips, the fumes of chemicals going into your eyes.But then by the end of it, I imagine you are quite exhausted from just your head adapting to that. But then you have to go out and act as well. With Chaney, I suppose he could be more of a perfectionist than take as much time as he wanted within reason. And then once he came to the grueling end of it all, he's actually gotta go out and act countless takes. Probably repair a lot of the makeup as well after, after a couple of takes, certainly with things like the Hunchback or the Phantom of the Opera.John: And, you know, it's not only is he doing the makeup and acting, but in, you know, not so much in London After Midnight, but in Phantom of the Opera, he is quite athletic. When the phantom moves, he really moves. He's not stooped. He's got a lot of energy to him and he's got a makeup on that, unlike the Quasimoto makeup, what he's attempting to do with the phantom is, reductive. He's trying to take things away from his face.Daniel: Mm-hmm.John: And he's using all the tricks he knows and lighting to make that happen, but that means he's gotta hit particular marks for the light to hit it just right. And for you to see that his face is as, you know, skull-like as he made it. When you see him, you know, in London After Midnight as the professor inspector character, he has got a normal full man's face. It's a real face. Much like his son, he had a kind of a full face and what he was able to do with a phantom and take all that away, and be as physical as he was, is just phenomenal. I mean, he was a really, besides the makeup, he was a really good actor.Daniel: Oh, definitely. Jim: I agree with that completely. I kind of in what I watched, I wonder if he was the makeup artist, but not the actor and he did exactly the same makeup on somebody else. And so we had the same image. If those things would've resonated with us the way they do today. I think it had everything to do with who he was and his abilities in addition to the incredible makeup. He was just a tremendous performer.Daniel: Absolutely. He was a true multitasker. In his early days of theater, he was not only an actor, but he was a choreographer. He had a lot of jobs behind the scenes as well. Even when he had become a star in his own time, he would still help actors find the character within them. like Norma Sheera, et cetera. People who were kind of new to the movie making scene and the directors didn't really have that much patience with young actors or actresses. Whereas Chaney, because of his clout in the industry, no one really interfered with Chaney's authority on set. But he would really help actors find the character, find the emotion, 'cause it was just all about how well you translate it over for the audience, as opposed to the actor feeling a certain way that convinces themselves that they're the character. Chaney always tried to get the emotions across to the audience. Patsy Ruth Miller, who played Esemerelda in in the Hunchback, said that Chaney directed the film more than the director actually did.The director was actually even suggested by Chaney. So, Chaney really had his hands everywhere in the making of a film. And Patsy Ruth Miller said the thing that she learned from him was that it's the actress's job to make the audience feel how the character's meant to be feeling, and not necessarily the actor to feel what they should be feeling based on the script and the settings and everything.So I think, that's why Chaney in particular stands out, among all of the actors of his time.John: I think he would've transitioned really well into sound. I think, he had everything necessary to make that transition.Jim: There's one sound picture with him in it, isn't there, doesn't he? Doesn't he play a ventriloquist? John: I believe so.Daniel: Yes, it was a remake of The Unholy Three that he had made in 1925 as Echo the ventriloquist, and the gangster. And yes, by the time MGM had decided to pursue talkies -- also, funny enough, they were one of the last studios to transition to, just because they were the most, one, probably the most dominant studio in all of Hollywood, that they didn't feel the pressure to compete with the burgeoning talkie revolution.So they could afford to take their time, they could release a talkie, but then they could release several silent films and the revenue would still be amazing for the studio. Whereas other studios probably had to conform really quick just because they didn't have the star system, that MGM shamelessly flaunted. And several Chaney films had been transitioned to sound at this point with or without Chaney. But for Chaney himself, because he himself was the special effect, it was guaranteed to be a winner even if it had been an original story that isn't as remembered today strictly because people get to hear the thing that's been denied them for all this time, which is Chaney's voice. And he would've transitioned very easily to talkies is because he had a very rich, deep voice, which, coming from theater, he had to have had, in terms of doing dialogue. He wasn't someone like a lot of younger actors who had started out predominantly in feature films who could only pantomime lines. Chaney actually knew how to deliver dialogue, so it did feel natural and it didn't feel read off the page.And he does about five voices in The Unholy Three. So MGM was truly trying to market, his voice for everything that they could. As Mrs. O'Grady, his natural voice, he imitates a parrot and a girl. And yeah, he really would've flourished in the sound era. Jim: Yeah. John: Any surprises, as it sounds like you were researching this for virtually your whole life, but were there any surprises that you came across, as you really dug in about the film?Daniel: With regards to London after Midnight, the main surprise was undoubtedly the -- probably the star chapter of the whole thing -- which is the nitrate frames from an actual destroyed print of the film itself, which sounds crazy to even being able to say it. But, yeah the nitrate frames themselves presented a quandary of questions that just sent me into a whole nother research mode trying to find out where these impossible images came from, who they belonged to, why they even existed, why they specifically existed.Because, looking for something that, you know, you are told doesn't exist. And then to find it, you kind of think someone is watching over you, planting this stuff as though it's the ultimate tease. To find a foreign movie poster for London After Midnight would be one thing, but to find actual pieces of the lost film itself. It was certainly the most out of body experience I've ever had. Just to find something that I set out to find, but then you find it and you still can't believe that you've actually found it.John: How did you find it?Daniel: I had connections with a few foreign archives who would befriend me and took to my enthusiasm with the silent era, and specifically Chaney and all the stars connected to Chaney films.And, quite early on I was told that there were a few photo albums that had various snippets of silent films from Chaney. They didn't really go into what titles these were, 'cause they were just all a jumble. All I knew is that they came from (garbled) widow. And he had acquired prints of the whole films from various, I suppose, junk stores in Spain.But not being a projectionist, he just purely took them at the face value that he just taken the images and snipping them up and putting them in photo albums, like how you would just do with photographs. And then the rest of the material was sadly discarded by fire. So, all we were left with were these snipped relics, survivors almost to several Chaney lost films. Some of them not lost, but there were films like The Phantom of the Opera in there, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Mockery, The Unknown. But then there were several lost films such as London After Midnight, the Big City, Thunder. And All the Brothers were Valiant, which are mainly other than Thunder are all totally complete lost films.So, to find this little treasure trove, it was just finding out what the images meant and connecting them up, trying to put them in some sort of chronological scholarly order. Grueling, but it was very fun at the same time. And because I had identified myself with all of these surviving production stills from the film -- a lot of them, which formed the basis of the 2002 reconstruction by Turner Classic Movies -- it didn't take me too long to identify what scenes these surviving nitrate frames were from. But there were several frames which had sets that I recognized and costumes that I recognized, but in the photographic stills, they don't occupy the same space at the same time. So, it's like the two separate elements had crossed over. So that left me with a scholarly, question of what I was looking at. I was able to go back and, sort of rectify certain wrongs that have been accepted throughout the sixties as being the original, say, opening to London after Midnight. So I've, been able to disprove a few things that have made the film, I suppose, a bit more puzzling to audiences. Some audiences didn't really get what the plot was to begin with. So, it was nice to actually put a bit more order to the madness finally.John: At what point did you come across the original treatment and the script?Daniel: The treatment and the script, they came from a private collector who had bought them at auction a number of years ago who I was able to thankfully contact, and they still had the two documents in question. I had learned through Philip J Riley's previous books on London after Midnight that he had the two latter drafts of the script, the second edition and the third draft edition.And, again, the question of why and where. I just always wondered where that first draft of the script was, hoping it would contain new scenes, and open new questions for me and to study. And once I've managed to find those two documents, they did present a lot of new, perspectives and material that added to the fuller plot of the original hypnotist scenario, as opposed to the shortened, time efficient London After Midnight film that was ultimately delivered to audiences. So again, it helped to put a little bit more order to the madness.Jim: You found an actual piece of the film that you were able to, somebody got images from it? And then you found the scripts? But the images are terrific and they're all in your book. They came from what exactly?Daniel: The just below 20 images of the film came from originally a distribution print, a Spanish distribution print, from about 1928. Originally, they were on 35 millimeter indicating that they were from the studio and as is with a lot of silent films that have been found in foreign archives.Normally when a film is done with its distribution, it would have to be returned to the original studio to be destroyed, except for the original negative and a studio print, because there is no reason why a studio would need to keep the thousands of prints when they have the pristine copy in their vault. But, in a lot of smaller theater cases, in order to save money on the postage of the shipping, they would just basically declare that they had destroyed the film on the studio's behalf. There was no record system with this stuff and that's how a lot of these films ended up in the basements of old theaters, which are eventually when they closed, the assets were sold off to collectors or traveling showmen. And eventually these films found their ways into archives or again, private collections. Some of which people know what they have.A lot of times they don't know what they have because they're more obsessed with, naturally, more dedicated to preserving the films of their own culture that was shown at the time, as opposed to a foreign American title, which they probably assume they already have a copy of. But it's how a lot of these films get found.And, with the London After Midnight, example, there were the images that I found spanned the entire seven reels, because they came from different points in the film. It wasn't a single strip of film, of a particular scene. Having thankfully the main source that we have for London After Midnight is the cutting continuity, which is the actual film edited down shot for shot, length for length.And it describes, briefly, although descriptive enough, what is actually in each and every single shot of the film. And comparing the single frame images from the film with this document, I was able to identify at what point these frames came from during the film, which again spanned the entire seven reels, indicating that a complete seven reel version of the film had gotten out under the studio system at one point.As is the case, I'm assuming, 'cause these came from the same collection, I'm assuming it was the same with the other lost Chaney films that again, sadly only survive in snippet form.John: It's like somebody was a collector and his wife said, "well, we don't have room for all this. Just take the frames you like and we'll get rid of the rest of it." So, you mentioned in passing the 2002 reconstruction that Turner Classic Movies did using the existing stills. I don't know if they were working from any of the scripts or not. That was the version I originally saw when I was working on writing, those portions of The Misers Dream that mentioned London After Midnight. Based on what you know now, how close is that reconstruction and where do you think they got it right and where'd they get it wrong?Daniel: The 2002, reconstruction, while a very commendable production, it does stray from the original edited film script. Again, the problem that they clearly faced on that production is that there were not enough photographed scenes to convey all the photographed scenes from the film. So what they eventually fell into the trap of doing was having to reuse the same photograph to sometimes convey two separate scenes, sometimes flipping the image to appear on the opposite side of the camera. And, because of the certain lack of stills in certain scenes cases, they had to rewrite them.And sometimes a visual scene had to have been replaced with an inter-title card, merely describing what had happened or describing a certain period in time, as opposed to showing a photograph of what we're meant to be seeing as opposed to just reading. So, they did the best with what they had.But since then, there have been several more images crop up in private collections or in the archives. So, unless a version of the film gets found, it's certainly an endeavor that could be revisited, I think, and either do a new visual reconstruction of sort, or attempt some sort remake of the film even.Jim: That's an idea. John: They certainly have the materials to do that. I've got an odd question. There's one famous image, a still image from the film, showing Chaney as Professor Burke, and he is reaching out to the man in the beaver hat whose back is to us. Is that a promo photo? Spoiler alert, Burke is playing the vampire in the movie. He admits that that's him. So, he never would've met the character. What is the story behind that photo?Daniel: There are actually three photographs depicting that, those characters that you described. There are the two photographs which show Chaney in the Balfor mansion seemingly directing a cloaked, top hatted figure with long hair, with its back towards us. And then there is another photograph of Chaney in the man in the beaver hat disguise with a seemingly twin right beside him outside of a door.Basically the scenes in the film in which Chaney appear to the Hamlin residents, the people who are being preyed upon by the alleged vampires, the scenes where Chaney and the vampire need to coexist in the same space or either appear to be in the same vicinity to affect other characters while at the same time interrogating others, Chaney's character of Burke employs a series of assistants to either dress up as vampires or at certain times dress up as his version of the vampire to parade around and pretend that they are the man in the beaver hat. Those particular shots, though, the vampire was always, photographed from behind rather than the front.The very famous scene, which was the scene that got first got me interested in London After Midnight, in which the maidm played by Polly Moran is in the chair shrieking at Chaney's winged self, hovering over her. It was unfortunate to me to realize that that was actually a flashback scene told from the maid's perspective.And by the end of the film, the maid is revealed to be an informant of Burke, a secret detective also. So, it's really a strong suspension of disbelief has to be employed because the whole scene of Chaney chasing the maid through the house and appearing under the door, that was clearly just the MGMs marketing at work just to show Chaney off in a bizarre makeup with a fantastic costume.Whereas he is predominantly the detective and the scenes where he's not needed to hypnotize a character in the full vampire makeup, he just employs an assistant who parades around in the house as him, all the times with his back turned so that the audience can't latch on as to who the character actually is, 'cause it must have posed quite a fun confusion that how can Chaney be a detective in this room where the maid has just ran from the Vampire, which is also Chaney?John: Yeah, and it doesn't help that the plot is fairly convoluted anyway, and then you add that layer. So, do you think we'll ever see a copy of it? Do you think it's in a basement somewhere?Daniel: I've always personally believed that the film does exist. Not personally out of just an unfounded fanboy wish, but just based on the evidence and examples of other films that have been found throughout time. Metropolis being probably the most prominent case. But, at one point there was nothing on London After Midnight and now there is just short of 20 frames for the film. So, if that can exist currently now in the year 2023, what makes us think that more footage can't be found by, say, 2030? I think with fans, there's such a high expectation that if it's not found in their own lifetime or in their own convenience space of time, it must not exist. There's still a lot of silent lost treasures that just have not been found at all that do exist though. So, with London After Midnight, from a purely realistic standpoint, I've always theorized myself that the film probably does exist in an archive somewhere, but it would probably be a very abridged, foreign condensed version, as opposed to a pristine 35-millimeter print that someone had ripped to safety stock because they knew in the future the film would become the most coveted of all lost films. So, I do believe it does exist. The whole theory of it existing in a private collection and someone's waiting to claim the newfound copyright on it, I think after December of last year, I think it's finally put that theory to rest. I don't think a collector consciously knows they have a copy of it. So, I think it's lost until found personally, but probably within an archive.Jim: Lost until found. That's a great title for a book. I like that a lot. What do you think of the remake, Mark of the Vampire and in your opinion, what does it tell us about, London After Midnight?Daniel: Well, Mark of the Vampire came about again, part of the Sound Revolution. It was one of those because it was Chaney and Todd Browning's most successful film for the studio. And Browning was currently, being held on a tight leash by MGM because of his shocking disaster film Freaks, I suppose they were a little bit nervous about giving him the reign to do what he wanted again. So, looking through their backlog of smash silent hits, London After Midnight seemed the most logical choice to remake, just simply because it was their most, successful collaboration. Had it have been The Unholy Three, I'm sure? Oh no, we already had The Unholy Three, but had it have been another Browning Chaney collaboration, it might have been The Unknown, otherwise. So, I suppose that's why London After Midnight was selected and eventually turned into Mark of the Vampire. The story does not stray too much from London After Midnight, although they seem to complicate it a little bit more by taking the Burke vampire character and turning it this time into three characters played by three different actors, all of which happened to be in cahoots with one another in trying to solve an old murder mystery.It's very atmospherical. You can definitely tell it's got Todd Browning signature on it. It's more pondering with this one why they just did not opt to make a legit, supernatural film, rather than go in the pseudo vampire arena that they pursued in 1927. Where audiences had by now become accustomed to the supernatural with Dracula and Frankenstein in 1931, which no longer relied on a detective trying to find out a certain mystery and has to disguise themselves as a monster.The monster was actually now a real thing in the movies. So I think if Bela Lugosi had been given the chance to have played a real Count Mora as a real vampire, I think it would've been slightly better received as opposed to a dated approach that was clearly now not the fashionable thing to do.I suppose again, because Browning was treading a very thin line with MGM, I suppose he couldn't really stray too far from the original source material. But I find it a very atmospherical film, although I think the story works better as a silent film than it does as a sound film, because there's a lot of silent scenes in that film, away from owls, hooting and armadillos scurrying about and winds. But I do think, based on things like The Cat and The Canary from 1927 and The Last Warning, I just think that detective sleuth with horror overtones serves better to the silent world than it does the sound world away from the legit, supernatural.John: So, if Chaney hadn't died, do you think he would have played Dracula? Do you think he would've been in Freaks? Would Freaks have been more normalized because it had a big name in it like that?Daniel: It would've been interesting if Chaney had played in Freaks. I think because Todd Browning used the kinds of individuals that he used for Freaks, maybe Chaney would've, for a change, had been the most outta place.John: Mm-hmm.Daniel: I do think he might have played Dracula. I think Universal would've had a hell of a time trying to get him over because he had just signed a new contract with MGM, whereas Todd Browning had transferred over to Universal by 1930 and really wanted to make Dracula for many years and probably discussed it with Chaney as far back as 1920.But certainly MGM would not have permitted Chaney to have gone over to Universal, even for a temporary period, without probably demanding a large piece of the action, in a financial sense, because Universal had acquired the rights to Dracula at this point. And, based on the stage play that had, come out on Broadway, it was probably assured that it was going to be a giant moneymaker, based on the success of the Dracula play.But because of Cheney's, status as a, I suppose retrospectively now, as a horror actor, he was probably the first person to be considered for that role by Carl Laemmle, senior and Junior for that matter. And Chaney gone by 1930, it did pose a puzzle as to who could take over these kinds of roles.Chaney was probably the only one to really successfully do it and make the monster an actual box office ingredient more than any other actor at that time, as he did with. Phantom, Blind Bargain and London After Midnight. So, I think to have pursued Chaney for a legit, supernatural film would've had enormous possibilities for Browning and Chaney himself.You can kind of see a trend, a trilogy forming, with Browning, from London After Midnight, in which he incorporates things he used in Dracula in London After Midnight. So, he kind of had this imagery quite early on. So, to go from – despite it's not in that order -- but to have London After Midnight, Mark of the Vampire, and he also did Dracula, he clearly was obsessed with the story. And I think Chaney was probably the, best actor for someone like Browning who complimented his way of thinking and approach to things like silence. As opposed to needing dialogue all the time, loud commotions. So, I think they dovetailed each other quite well, and that's why their ten year director actor relationship was as groundbreaking as it was.Jim: If the film does surface, if we find the film, what do you think people, how are they gonna react to the movie when they see it? What do you think? What's gonna be the reaction if it does surface?Daniel: Well, the lure of London After Midnight, the power in the film is its lost status rather than its widespread availability. I think it could never live up to the expectation that we've built up in our heads over the past 40 to 60 years. It was truly people, fans like Forrest J Ackerman that introduced and reignited the interest in Chaney's career by the late fifties and 1960s. That's when London After Midnight started to make the rounds in rumor, the rumors of a potential print existing, despite the film had not long been destroyed at that point. So, it was always a big mystery. There were always people who wanted to see the film, but with no access to home video, or et cetera, the only way you could probably see the film would've been at the studio who held everything. And, by the time the TV was coming out, a lot of silent films didn't make it to TV. So again, it has just germinated in people's heads probably in a better form than what they actually remembered. But, the true reality of London After Midnight is one more closer to the ground than it is in it's people are probably expecting to see something very supernatural on par with Dracula, whereas it's more so a Sherlock Holmes story with mild horrorish overtones to it that you can kind of see better examples of later on in Dracula in 1930 and in Mark of the Vampire.It's a film purely, I think for Lon Chaney fans. For myself, having read everything I can on the film, everything I've seen on the film, I personally love silent, detective stories, all with a touch of horror. So, I personally would know what I am going in to see. I'm not going in to see Chaney battling a Van Helsing like figure and turn to dust at the very end or turning to a bat. I'm going to see a detective melodrama that happens to have what looks like a vampire. So, it certainly couldn't live up to the expectations in people's minds and it's probably the only film to have had the greatest cheapest, marketing in history, I would think. It's one of those films, if it was discovered, you really would not have to do much marketing to promote it.It's one of those that in every fanzine, magazine, documentary referenced in pop. It has really marketed itself into becoming what I always call the mascot of the genre. There are other more important lost films that have been lost to us. The main one again, which has been found in its more complete form, was Metropolis, which is a better movie.But unlike Metropolis, London After Midnight has a lot more famous ingredients to it. It has a very famous director. It has a very famous actor whose process was legendary even during then. And it's actually the only film in which he actually has his make-up case make a cameo appearance by the very end. And it goes on the thing that everyone in every culture loves, which is the vampirism, the dark tales and folklore. So, when you say it, it just gets your imagination going. Whereas I think if you are watching it, it's probably you'll be looking over the projector to see if something even better is going to happen.The film had its mixed reactions when it originally came out. People liked it because it gave them that cheap thrill of being a very atmospherical, haunted house with the creepy figures of Chaney walking across those dusty hallways. But then the more important story is a murder mystery.It's not Dracula, but it has its own things going for it. I always kind of harken it back to the search for the Lochness Monster or Bigfoot. It has more power in your mind than it does in an aquarium or in a zoo. Hearing someone say that they think they saw something moving around in Lochness, but there's no photographic evidence, you just have the oral story, that is much more tangible in a way than actually seeing it in an aquarium where you can take it for granted. And it's the same with London After Midnight, and I think that's why a lot of hoaxster and pranksters tend to say that they have seen London After Midnight more than any other lost film.Jim: For a film that I would say the majority of the world does not have any frame of reference, and I'm using myself as the sort of blueprint for that, no frame of reference for this film. That image is iconic in a way that has been, I mean, it at first glance could be Jack the Ripper. I was talking to John before we started the podcast, once I locked in on that image, then I started to think, oh, the ghosts in Disney's Haunted Mansion, there's a couple of ghosts that have elements of that. I mean, it was so perfectly done, even though we don't, I bet you nine out ten people don't know the title London After Midnight, but I bet you seven outta ten people know this image.Daniel: Definitely, it has certainly made its mark on pop culture, again, I think because I think it's such a beautiful, simplistic design. Everything from the simplistically [garbled] to the bulging eyes and the very nice top hat as well, which is in itself today considered a very odd accessory for a grotesque, vampire character.But it's one of those things that has really carried over. It's influenced what the movies and artists. It was one of the influences for the Babadook creation for that particular monster. It was an influence on the Black Phone. It's just a perfect frame of reference for movie makers and sculptors and artists to keep taking from.John: Yep. It's, it'll live long beyond us. Daniel, one last question. I read somewhere or heard somewhere. You're next gonna tackle James Whale, is that correct? Daniel: James Whale is a subject, again, coming from, I happen to come from the exact same town that he was born and raised in, in Dudley, England. So, it's always been a subject close to home for me, which is quite convenient because I love his movies. So, I'm hoping to eventually, hopefully plan a documentary feature on him, based on a lot of family material in the surrounding areas that I was able to hunt down, and forgotten histories about him and just put it together in some form, hopefully in the future.John: That would be fantastic, and we'll have you back at that point.Jim: So, let's pretend for a minute that the audience is me, and they'd have absolutely no idea who James Whale is or what he's done. Just for a minute, let's pretend.John: Pretend that you don't know that?Jim: Yeah.Daniel: James Whale is the most known for his work for directing Frankenstein with Boris Karloff in 1931. But he also directed probably some of the most important horror films that have ever existed in the history of motion pictures. The Old Dark House, which can be cited with its very atmospherical, and black comedy tones, The Invisible Man with Claude Rains and Gloria Stewart in 1933. And, the most important one, which is probably the grand jewel in the whole of the Universal Monsters Empire, which is Bride of Frankenstein in 1935, which is the ultimate, example of everything that he had studied, everything that he'd learned with regards to cinema and comedy, life and death, and just making a very delicious cocktail of a movie in all of its black comedy, horrific, forms that we're still asking questions about today. One of his first films that he did was for Howard Hughes Hell's Angels, in which -- because he'd coming over from theater -- when again, films in America were taken off with the sound revolution. They all of a sudden needed British directors to translate English dialogue better than the actors could convey.So, James Whale was one of many to be taken over to America when he had a hit play called Journeys End, which became the most successful war play at that point. And he did his own film adaptation of Journeys End. He also did a really remarkable film called Showboat, which is another very iconic film.And again, someone with James Whale's horror credentials, you just think, how could someone who directed Frankenstein directed Showboat? But, clearly a very, very talented director who clearly could not be pigeonholed at the time as a strictly horror director, despite it is the horror films in which he is remembered for, understandably so, just because they contain his very individualistic wit and humor and his outlooks on life and politics. And being an openly gay director at the time, he really was a force unto himself. He was a very modern man even then.

Allen   Welcome passive traders. Welcome to another edition of the Option Genius Podcast. Today, I am here with someone that's going to blow your mind. I'll give you his name, you probably haven't heard from him. But what he says is going to make a big difference for you. So John S. Pennington Jr. in 2008, co founded a family of private investment funds that by 2021 had over $28 billion of assets under management and completed a successful IPO on the New York Stock Exchange. John then retired that same year but remains a significant stakeholder and is now partner Emeritus at the company. He has been married 38 years with three sons, five grandchildren, and he recently wrote a book which we're going to be talking about called Dollars, Gold, and Bitcoin. It's right here, I could not put it down, you can find it on Amazon and Audible. You guys need to get a copy of this book, because we are not going to be able to talk about everything in this book on this interview. John, thank you so much for being here. John   Allen, so good to be here. Thanks for having me. Allen   So now I have done. I have heard you speak in the past. And so a few podcasts, I don't should have looked at the episode, but it's one of the past episodes called billionaire lessons. I have talked a little bit and gone over some of the things that you presented on which were covered in your book as well. So it was one of our most popular episodes, really happy that you're here. I just want to get into it. So the book is titled dollars gold and Bitcoin. Now I've already you know, talked about your successful guy you're doing well. Why did you write this book?  John   When I retired, some people asked me to speak on stage. And I, you know, I didn't charge them. And I just went to these masterminds and I thought, What do I want to talk about? And, you know, I just I looked at what everyone else talks about. And I thought, well, I got to talk about something different. So I started talking about economics and the Federal Reserve and the strength of the dollar and how, you know, the dollar is just a fantastic product worldwide. And I actually, you know, followed the Federal Reserve and how they promoted the US dollar over the years, and how they nudged people to make their product more acceptable around the world. And I kind of used that formula. In my company, or me and my partner's company, as we grew, we kind of use the same type of tactics that the Federal Reserve and the US government has used over the years to promote their number one product, which is the US dollar.  And so so it's kind of a, it's kind of reflection of my business history. But it's also a reflection of how I studied and watched the the greatest product ever become the greatest product ever. How did it get there, and then I just kind of wanted to learn from the best. So I just kind of use those tactics with me and my partners to kind of push our business kind of the same way. So that's why I kind of wrote it.  Allen   Cool. Now, you know, the first time I heard you speak, I've heard you speak twice. And the first time and second time, I'm listening to you, and you are taking these what seemed to be very random events around the world. Yes. It's like, Oh, this guy said this, made this comment. And then this person visited this country, and then nothing happened. And then that happened. And then you took all of these to me, they were just random, you know, like watching the news. You story after story. But you took them and you whoa, this intricate, detailed story that linked them all together. And I'm like, Whoa, how does this guy think like this? how do you how do you come up with this? , John   I don't I don't know. I just I just I think as an entrepreneur my whole life, I started my, well, my career, but when I was a young man, I just was really slow reader. I wasn't a good, I wasn't a good student. And I knew that I could not survive in corporate America. I just knew it would eat me alive. It didn't I just wouldn't fit there. And so I knew I had to be my own boss. And that means I probably need to just start my own companies. And so I remember looking in the mirror and this is I think I was 17 or 18. And I said to myself, these words and and I I've repeated this in the mirror, every year, 10 times a year, whatever, I don't know how many for 30 something 40 years, but I said this to myself in the mirror of John, you're not afraid of being poor. And John, you're not afraid of being old, you're just afraid of being old and poor at the same time. And that is stuck with me to push myself in the areas of, I have to start my own business, I have to save money to take risk, right. And so I started 14 businesses in my lifetime ish. And three, I've made a lot of money on obviously, the one I did with the funds and still in it made a lot of money, I three I've lost money on and the rest of them in the middle, you know, I made some money on them, they were pretty good for a while. But you know, so over those periods of time, when you'd make good money on one, you have to save the money and live beneath your means. So that when the next opportunity comes up, you have a war chest to go and try again. Because if you try a business, and it doesn't work, you lose the time and money. And sometimes I might, I've had a couple of businesses in a row not work. So you spend 910 months getting a business launched, and then you wait six, seven months, it doesn't work, and you go on men 18 months later, and now you're kind of out of money if you didn't save, and then you have another idea come up, and then you try that idea. And that's going to take a year, year and a half to figure out and spend all the money. So you always I always live below my means way below my means so that I would always have a war chest to take risk until I really, really, really made it. And when I first started my first fund in 2004, and then my second fund in 2007. And my third fund in 2008. You know, I didn't really know if it was going to work, work, work work work until about 2013. And up until that time, I was driving a car with 200,000 miles on it, you know, so but once I got there, then I got a Mercedes, you know, a small number, say a used Mercedes kind of thing. And so, but I was always I always lived beneath my means because I just knew I had to be a entrepreneur. So what I'm getting at was my business antennas, my business antennas my whole life since I was 17. I had been up trying to read listen to receive things, right? And when I graduated college in 8898, with an economics degree which if you have an economics degree, there's not a lot of really, you're not trying to do much right unless you go on to get a masters or PhD trained. Well, what do you I'm saying, right? I didn't matter I had a degree in and I wanted to start my business. My first business that I started right at night, not my first business but but my first successful business right out of college is in 1989 Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, they took down the wall in Germany, there used to be a wall right down the middle of Berlin, a physical wall, and they took it down. And before that time, kids in Eastern Europe could not get American products. They can watch American TV or watch American movies, but they couldn't get made in USA products. And when that wall came down, there was a flood demand because the US was like this golden child. And everyone loved the US for about 99 About 95 They just love love, love anything made the USA was the best. And they wanted American huge Levi's. Or they want American Levi's jeans because Mr. Levi Strauss in San Francisco was the first guy to ever make denim jeans. And he did him with a button flying and the original was the button fly 501. Well, all over the all over the world. These were being sold for hundreds of dollars. They were a fashion gene but in the Western United States, we'd had them for 100 years they were worth jeans. We grew up with them in high school, right but so anyway, two of my partner's eventually moved to Southern Germany and I stayed in in Utah, and I collected us Levi fiber ones all over the United States, mainly the Western United States, cleaned them up, sewed them had seamstresses, scrubbing them, cleaning them up taking the stains off of them sewing, and it shipped to my partners in Germany, and they sell them to Prague and all over the western eastern states. So I could buy new fiber ones on sale for 1499 in Utah, and they would go for 100 $120 in profit. So I had my antennas up. And so when I found out early on in Ada or early on at nine that we had a friend over there in Europe saying that people were at you know, walking up to him on the street trying to buy his jeans on down for $100 100 US dollars. And we could buy them used at a thrift store over here for $6. What's the probability I can make a business so we I ran this business for nine years From 89 to about 1988 1998. We ran this was my first real big, huge business. And it was booming. I mean, we were doing a lot of jeans. I think our best year total sales was $8.5 million. US Levi's, I think that was 9094, maybe 95. Somewhere in there. But it was the fast business. And I had, you know, seems so what I'm trying to say is, you asked me the question, how do I think this way, right? If you have your business antenna up, always trying to receive some information, and someone tells you, hey, people in Austria are paying $100 For usually buy 501 jeans, and you live in a place where you can buy them for $10. You have to think of how do I make that into a business? What's the probability? Not the prediction? What's the probability I can make that into a business? And that was my first real run into business employees in Germany employees here. It was really a fantastic, great, like classic arbitrage. Yep. Just yeah, that's right. We were value adding we were cleaning them up, right. We were selling them. We were repairing them. But yeah, it was it was a kind of arbitrage. Take a product. That's a  in Nevada, or California or Utah. Move it to a place where it's a fashion gene and charge what the going rate is. Yeah.  Allen   Cool. Awesome. All right. So let's get into the book. Now. I think that correct me if I'm wrong, but the big topic or the big overwhelming subject matter of the book is how the Fed operates and how they boxed in Bitcoin, John   or the US dollar no sorry, or gold or US dollar or the Chinese yuan. The basic point of the book is, I use the example of trying to box Bitcoin in because it appears to be an a competitor to the US dollar. Right. Gold. One point is your was a part of the US dollar and competitive US dollar. And I go in the book, I dip into the Chinese yuan that has become trying to become a competitive US dollar and the Fed, Federal Reserve's  number, the US government's number one product, it sells better than hotcakes, people say it's selling like hotcakes. Well, they should start saying it's selling like the US dollar. So Allen, if I gave you $1 a second, right, like 123456. And I never stopped, never slept Neverland the restroom, it would take me 31.7 years to give you $1 billion. In other words, if you wanted to count to 1 billion, you would still be on the Zoom call this podcast 31 years from now. Right? So I tell them that on stage a lot because a lot of people misrepresent the word 1 billion they misinterpret it. They'll say John, I was just outside. And I saw this huge flock of birds, there must have been a billion birds. And I was gonna know there wasn't, you know how I know. I did the math. You know why I did the math. When my fund hit $1 billion. We started with managing $1 billion. It was like, holy cow, how much is a billion I started calculating it. 31.7 years of seconds. So when we talk about big numbers, I always do that on stage. So people really getting getting their head, how big $1 billion is and how erroneous that a lot of people use the term billion over time. So let me just do a little history for you. Okay. So, in 1914-ish, the Federal Reserve was created because there was a stock market crash in 1907, not not 2007 1907, the stock market crash. So they created the Federal Reserve. And then in 1929, we know there was a huge stock market crash again. So 1929, the country's really, really, really hurting. And then in 1933, two things happen. The SEC was created so that we would never have a crash again, okay. And in May 1933, now get this in May 1933, the president, FDR, he signed an executive order that made it illegal for your grandfather and my grandfather to own gold. So you had to sell all of your gold to the Federal Reserve. Or if you had a gold note, because it used to be that dollars were backed by gold, you had to sell your gold note your gold coin or your gold bars to the Federal Reserve. And they would give you a paper dollar for it. And then they would take that gold and put it in Fort Knox, and that gold would backup the US dollar and help us get out of the recession or the depression. And so if your grandfather, my grandfather was caught with five gold coins in their pocket, they could go to jail. This is United States of America. Okay, but it was patriotic, I think I think if you go back it was kind of patriotic. Like, we're all doing this together. We're all in together. We all have To support our number one product, the US dollar. Okay, so, so in that that was 1933. Okay. And so how long did that last year? 41? Obviously, so 1971 ish. Oh, wow. I'll get there in just a second. Okay. Yeah. So in 1944, we knew we were going to win the war. Why? Well, we were making 96,000 planes a year, and Germany was making 38,000 planes a year. We were making, I don't know if the numbers were making 21,000 tanks, they were making 4000 tanks. We just knew by math, we were gonna win the war. So 1944 44 countries sent 1000 people to a little place called Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. And they went there to reset the dollar. So the dollar was reset by the Federal Reserve in 2019 14. Then it was reset again in 1933, by the gold confiscation, and then in 1944, it was reset again. So what happened was at 1944, everyone agreed all the countries Listen, the French franc is no longer going to be backed by gold. The French franc is going to be backed by the US dollar. And the US dollar is going to be backed by gold. Why? Because this is a crazy Alan, this is a craziest This is in 1944, the United States had 66% of all gold bullion in the world. We had it here. And there are a couple of reasons. In the first part of World War Two, we didn't get involved. We were just selling our tanks, our steel, we're selling steel to Russia, they're paying us in gold. We're selling whatever to France, they're paying a single in a world war, one synth kind of same thing happened, you know, so, and we had a gold confiscation in 1933. It was illegal for a US citizen to own gold, but it wasn't in 1944. Say 1946. Okay, my granddad had a $100 bill. He couldn't turn that in for gold. But if you were a US, if you were a French citizen, and you had a $100 bill, you could turn it in for gold. Okay, so we have like we always do, we abused this thing called the world reserve currency. Okay, we abused it. And by 1971, President de Gaulle of France knew we had been printing too many paper dollars, okay. Too many paper dollars. So he sent two ships across the Atlantic with all of their US dollars. Okay. So he sends the two ships over, and he demands here's my US dollars, give me my goal. And on. It was a Sunday night, August 15 1971, President Nixon came on live TV and announced to the world. He said basically, this, market manipulators around the world are trying to hurt our US dollar. And so he said temporarily, we're going to stop having the dollar backed by gold right now. Right? So he just told to tape your show. You're not getting your gold, right. And that was a temporary fiat currency. And that has lasted till today. So it's 5354 years old ish, right? Our dollars 5354 years old. Okay. So, and it was Allen   supposed to be temporary? It was that it was supposed to be temporary?  John   That's what he said. He said, This is a temporary pause,  Allen   just like like income tax? John   Yes, exactly. So, but in 1990, am I gonna get my dates wrong? I was gonna do a cheat sheet because I don't want to mess my dates up. The 1960. The world reserve currency, the dollar was about 45% of all world reserve currency. Okay. In 2001, it was about 70 plus percent, maybe 78% of all world reserve currency is US dollars. And 19. In 2023. Just last year, my last statistics were 58%. Okay, so in 2023, US dollar is 58% of all the world reserve currency. The euro is 20%. Okay, the Chinese yuan is 2.7% of world reserve currency. Right? So we have a huge huge Headstart and a dominance with with our number one product across the world. And so we we mean you and everyone listening to this in the United States that use US dollars, we have an advantage where we we can go anywhere in the world and just throw our US dollars around and people will love them. Yeah, that's not true for other countries, right? You have to live in other countries. You just can't walk around and use your your fiat currency and just pay for things. And so we have a huge advantage. And so my question in my book is, how did that happen? How did we are the beneficiaries how do we become the beneficiaries of having most of the world use US dollars and In one way, in 1944, the Bretton Woods Agreement. No, it doesn't doesn't say this, okay. But this is kind of what happened. After World War One. Everyone's Navy is gone. China's Navy's gone. Japan's Navy's gone. Germany's Navy's gone, Italy's need is gone, France Navy's gone, everyone rushes Navy's got everyone's Navy is gone, the US has their navy intact, and Britain had some Navy still intact. Okay. And so basically what happened was we basically said, listen, navies are one of the most expensive things for a country to have. And if you just kind of agree to buy and sell your oil in US dollars, you don't even need anymore, we the United States will protect your shipping lanes. And so a little country anywhere in the world, if they buy and sell in oil in US dollars, then you don't need a navy anymore. And that allows us little countries sell their goods all over the world and take take their citizens from poverty levels up to you know, middle class. And so this is a phenomenon that's happened since 1944. Now, in 1971, when President Nixon did this, that's when our dollar became what's called the petro dollar. And that's when it really kind of heated up. And, you know, Saudi Arabia. So let's, let's just go to 1974. Okay, you live in Germany, and you want to buy a container of oil for Germany? You can't, you know, wire your Deutsche Marks from Germany down to Saudi Arabia. No, no, no, no, you have to wire your Deutsche Marks, using the SWIFT system, which will get back into the SWIFT system to the New York Fed, the New York Fed will then change your Deutsche Mark into US dollars, then you can wire US dollars to Saudi Arabia, then Saudi Arabia will send you oil, this creates insatiable demand for US dollars, right. And so to have a the number one product on the planet, by definition, you have to have insatiable demand, right? That's by definition, you have to have huge demand, right? So and the reason I know this, because we will make off the assembly line, we'll make a trillion dollars of our product, we'll make a trillion of them. And you and I will work 80 hours a week to get them more. The other people will lie, cheat and steal to get them right. They'll risk their lives on, you know, some crab ship in north north Pacific, you know, trying to get crabs and almost die trying to get more of these dollars. And then they'll will make another trillion and you Emil work 80 hours a week. Other people lie, cheat and steal. It's an insatiable demand for this product. And how did it get that way? And so to have insatiable demand, there's, I've outlined four ways in my book, one way is you tax your citizens in US dollars. So this year, I have to get us dollars to pay my taxes, I can't pay in cows, I can't pay in gold, I can't pay in Bitcoin. So that creates insatiable demand. Secondly, most countries around the world have to get us dollars to buy oil, because Saudi Arabia is the kingpin. Okay? That's it. That's the second way. A third way that you can attack a great is you create a worldwide Swift, bank to bank transfer system worldwide, where you transfer money back and forth. And it's a huge system, it's guaranteed, you know, bank to bank, and it's $1 based system. So if you want to transfer big large money from bank to bank worldwide, you have to have US dollars. And the fourth way to create insatiable demand is you can flood the world with low interest rate US dollar loans, that everyone has to pay you back for 30 years. So for 30 If you take one of these loans, for 30 years, you're gonna have to find us dollars to pay this loan back. Does that make sense? Now I'm going to stop there for questions. I got a few more things to say on that. But But do you want to any questions there Allen   that yeah, no, I'm totally with you. I mean, the SWIFT system is it's like basically, you know, you're forcing everybody to use your product, because you don't have a choice. I'm giving you money, and you have to use my system. And that's why, you know, when when they put all the sanctions on Russia a couple years ago, it was you know, supposedly, okay, we're gonna take you off the SWIFT system. Yeah. That was a mistake, big mistake. But it's like, oh, that was supposed to be the end of Russia as we know it.  John   But yeah, so I'm gonna get back to that in a minute. But that was definitely a mistake of the United States of America, because that hurt the glorification of their number one product, the US dollar, so let's go back to loans. Okay. Okay. All right. So the date is December 2018. Okay. The Federal Reserve says the economy is doing fantastic. Unemployment rate is low. You know, we're going to do next year in 2019. We're going to increase interest rates three times. Okay, great. Then less than 45 days later in December 2019, this is 45 days, they say, Oops, we made a mistake. We're not going to raise interest rates three times next year. We're going to lower interest rates three times next year. And I went, what just happened? I have an economics degree, right? Something huge just happened. I didn't know what it was. But I knew something big just happened. So I'm reading I got my antennas up trying to read everything I can. So March, a few months later, I read this report that says in Europe, there are $3 trillion $3 trillion of sovereign bonds, trading at negative interest rates. I have an economics degree. I've never read a book. I've never read a paragraph. I don't even know what a negative interest rate is. It's a bond that if you buy it, you're guaranteed mathematically to lose money. Why does that? Why would that even exist? Not in a couple billion, but 3 trillion? Why? That doesn't make any sense. Okay. And then a few months later in July, this is the summer 219, I read a new report. It's no, it's no, it's no longer 3 trillion, it's 14 trillion. What? There's $14 trillion. Okay, so then I think, okay, now I kind of know why the Federal Reserve lowered their interest rates almost to zero really fast. Because they're like, Listen, if you're going to borrow money around the world, you can borrow in Germany at zero. Or you can borrow US dollars at just a little above zero. So we're going to lower interest rates to compete, because we're trying to create insatiable demand for our number and product. And for the next three or four years, if you're just borrowing borrowing German and Spain dollars, right? That means you're not borrowing US dollars, right? And that's, that's not creating  in the future. So what did the Federal Reserve they lower interest rates, but that doesn't just do it, you have to actually go into the market. So think about what I'm about to say here. They lowered interest rates, plus the Federal Reserve went out, and they purchased bonds, $120 billion per month for over 30 months. Because when you buy bonds, buy bonds, buy bonds, buy bonds, buy bonds, the price of bonds goes up. And that means the yields go down. Right. So if every month I'm purchasing 100 billion $120 billion for the bonds, I'm keeping interest rates low, plus the Federal Reserve as interest rates low. So they keep it low for years and years and years, a few years. So that when you borrow money, you're least not borrowing someone else's money, you're borrowing our number one product, and that creates insatiable demand for their number one product. Does that make sense? Any questions? Yep. Yep. So my antennas again, back to your original question my antennas, how do I like this? My antennas are always looking for things that don't make sense. And then I try to read, how does it make sense? And when I keep putting the US dollar in the middle of things that don't make sense? It kind of makes sense. So I tell people, my book, I said, my book look, guys, ladies, I don't know if I'm right. I just I don't really run my life trying to predict the future because I don't think anyone can predict the future, right? I run my life on probabilities. And so I'm just saying the probability of me being right about the US dollar and being the number one product, Federal Reserve, and either US government and the Navy and whatever, I have a high probability of being correct, but I'm not I'm don't think I'm right. I might have a 20% probability I'm wrong. 80% that I'm right. If you don't agree with me that i Okay, fine. I agree. I might be 20% wrong, but just probability, right. So that's, that's where the essence of the book comes from. Allen   Right. Okay. Now, since you brought up the Fed, that was one of my other questions. It was in the book, you mentioned that, you know, the Fed is been out there talking a lot lately about oh, we want you know, our inflation rate to be 2%. We want unemployment to be a certain number, blah, blah, blah. But you're you've basically said that, that's what they're saying. But what they're doing is something opposite, and they actually wanted it to be much higher.  John   Yeah, so this is what happened a few years ago after the financial crisis. 2008 9, 10,  11 Okay. The world realize that the world is a lot more fragile than you think it is. So Germany, not in Germany, sorry, Russia and China started buying gold. And every year they bought more gold and we're going to 1013 they bought more gold 2014 They kept buying gold. And I was watching this going okay. You know it listen, if I if I ran China, I was president of China. I would not like the fact that I have to get us dollars to buy Oil, that. And so I'm not blaming China, I'm not blaming Russia, I'm just saying, I'm on this side of the negotiating table there on that side, I'm just explaining their side. So they might have got together and said, Listen, in the future, we think the US dollar is going to have some cracks in it. And if it ever has a big crack, we can introduce the Russian ruble and the Chinese yuan as alternative currencies. And therefore, then we can start buying oil in our own currency that they're planning in the future. I see US presidents are kind of like temporary employees. They're 40 years, Putin has been president for what 27-28 years, they'll probably be president for another 20 years. We don't know. Xi Jinping is usually I've said his name, right. He changed the Constitution, and allows him the option to be president for Life for life. Yeah, yeah. So these guys are long term strategist, our president has to get reelected. He's a temporary employee, so they have an advantage over us. Okay. So anyway, so then a few years back, China and Russia, say, you know, we should do let's start $1 called the BRICS dollar, we'll call it Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa. And these countries will come together and have their own dollar called the BRICS dollar that is going to be backed by commodities. So if you have a barrel of oil, you get so many bricks dollars, if you have a bushel of wheat, you get so many bricks, if you have gold, you get so many bricks dollars, and they've been trying to launch this for years. Okay, so, so obviously, the Fed seeing this, and that's a competitor to the US dollar, and it's going to be a competitor to US dollar. So the Fed is strategically trying to move around to to make sure that doesn't happen. And that might explain why, you know, Putin, one of the reasons Putin took over Ukraine, Ukraine has a lot of oil and a lot of wheat. And he's like, the BRICS dollars going to be real in a couple of years. If I have all this, we know I get more brickstone That might be one of the reasons, okay. So. So the Fed trying to in this last year and a half just or two years, raising interest rates, the Fed to protect their number one product, and this is this theory. And again, I know your some of your listeners are gonna say, John, you're just you're being way too conspiracy. But when there's a lot of money on the table, a lot of crazy things happen because people coordinate a lot of things. Anyway, I think it's coordinate because the US dollar is the waterline in the table. So a few years back, China started to try to buy oil from Saudi Arabia using the yuan, because China is a big oil importer. Okay. And so far, I think we so far, I don't think Saudi Arabia has done it yet. But and not just to convince Saudi Arabia not to do it. The Fed i Okay, let's, let's just hypothecate the Fed wants to hurt China wants to lower their acceptance of the yuan around the world, and you want only accepted by 2.7% of world currency. So it's not that big a threat yet, but it could be in the future. Okay. So China does it to themselves. They have a big huge that in the last two years, they have a big, huge real estate collapse. They have a big huge employment collapse. Hundreds of companies have moved out of China to Germany have hundreds of companies from Germany, Japan and the United States have moved out of China. They've gone to India, they've gone to Thailand, they've gone to South Korea, all countries that purchase their oil in US dollars. China has been trying to purchase oil, not using US dollars. So we got to hurt that we have to hurt that country, because Okay, so how can I hurt that country? Well, one, China has said they're going to de dollarized the world. China said we're going to start selling our US Treasuries. Okay. Okay. So what we can do so let's just say, the Federal Reserve to make sure every time China sells US Treasuries, they lose a lot of money, because they bought US Treasuries back when bond prices were low. So let's just say if the Fed wanted to get interest rates to five and a half 6%. Okay, I thought it was gonna go six and a half, but it went to five and a quarter, five and a half. Okay. They can't tell you and me, Alan, hey, you a US citizens. We're just gonna raise interest rates to 2% because inflation is 2%. And we'd go Yeah, that's okay. That's okay. But if inflation is 2%, they could never convince us that they can raise to five and a half percent. That'd be egregious, right? But wait, if inflation is 9%, then you and I would accept 5% interest rates. Right, right. We don't like it, but we realize everyone has. Okay, so how do I get it? How do I get inflation to 9% when it's been almost zero for years and years and years and years and years? You print a lot of money. You see inflation come along, and it goes from zero to 2%. And you tell everyone with your mouth, on a microphone, it's transitory. It's just transfer Everyone calm down. Then a few months later, it goes to 3% inflation. Now, we're not going to move rates, we're going to keep rates low, at a quarter percent, we're not going to raise them because transitory it goes to 4%. And they let it run, it goes to five, it goes to six. And then they say, Well, maybe it's not transitory, maybe we need to raise interest rates, then it goes to seven, they started raising interest rates, and it goes to nine, and they're able to raise interest rates to five and a quarter percent, the fastest rate in history. And they lit they stopped, they stopped them there. Why? Because if they every time, they have interest rates sitting at five and five and a quarter percent, every time China goes to sell their US Treasuries, they get killed financially, it kills them. So my conspiracy theory is, hey, if the number one job of the Federal Reserve is to protect and promote the US dollar, they have ancillary jobs, low unemployment, high GDP, I get it, but their number one job, their baseline job is to predict or promote the US dollar, then, if they have a competitor to the US dollar, China coming around, we need to crush China's dollar. And right now, China prints more money than we do. Because they're huge depression right now, because of all the things that happened to him. And so they're selling all this, you know, US Treasuries, because they have to, because they don't want to because they're losing money on it. Why? Because they're trying to keep their economy afloat. Now, the Fed is sending a message to Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia, aren't you so glad? That a few years back, you didn't start selling your oil in yuan? Because you would have billions of you want in your bank right now? And the yuan is tanking. Right. So people say now, five or six years ago, if you told me, I agreed China was going to take over the world, China was going to be a superpower with us now. I don't believe that anymore. Clearly. Okay. China has had 40 years of the fastest economy growth ever, right? No society has ever grown faster than China has last 40 years. And they're only 2.7% of the world reserve currency. So are you telling me if they have the same growth for next 40 years? They would be 7%? No, I'm saying. Allen   I have to interrupt this message. Because I am super excited. I haven't been this excited about something in trading since I first discovered trading options. Okay, it is that important. Now, look, this is a new strategy that I've discovered recently, that is just out there, kicking butt and taking names. I can't give you all the details here. But if you go to market power method.com and get all the information again, that's market power. method.com. Trust me, you want to know what this is. Now back to the show. John   And so when someone says we're going to replace the US dollar, I give them this example. And I love people in Arizona. I love Arizona, but I'm just gonna give this example. Okay, it's not it's just a hypothetical. Let's just say you and me agree that all the water in Arizona is bad. Okay, we both agree. What do you want to do? Well, we want to, we want to, we want to replace it with Gatorade, okay, so we searched the whole world for all the Gatorade in the world, and we bring it back. And it's not even a drop. We can't even, we can't even begin. So if you want to replace the US dollar, you have to replace it with something, you just can't not have it anymore. You have to replace the water with something. And there's not enough of anything that none of you want in the world, none of euros. There's nothing in the world big enough to replace the US dollar for years and decades to come. So the US dollar in the dominance is going to be around for a long time. Now the BRICS dollar, they're going to chip away at it right. So China, you know, is a net importer of oil, and they're a net importer of food. The United States is a net exporter of oil and an exporter of food. We have a geographic advantage over most countries on the planet. We can have a bad precedent, bad precedent, bad precedent, bad precedent, bad precedent. And we still kind of survived because we have things that other people don't have. The Mississippi Valley is two thirds of the country. Although arbitrary rivers, you can it's a slow moving river, you can put grain on that barge and floated anywhere. A lot of countries don't have that. And we produce a lot of oil and a lot of everything. And we just have a kind of an advantage over most countries. So China has got to, you know, build pipelines as quick as possible to Russia. They have to solve their oil problem, because without solving their oil problem, supply they You can't attack Taiwan. Because our aircraft carriers, our Navy could cut off most of their oil within 120 days. It all comes mostly over the water until China gets that pipeline. Right. And they know it. They know that they are. They're not ready. They have an Achilles heel. So let me give you a crazy thing that happened in in the news just last year. I'm reading the report watching the news. China brokered a peace deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Why? Doesn't even make any sense. But if you put the US dollar in there, it makes sense. So China is trying to de dollarized the world. They go to Iran, they say Iran, listen, who do you hate more? United States or Saudi Arabia? Oh, we hate the United States. Okay, fine. Okay, listen, if you want to really, really hurt United States, we have to de dollarized the world. Okay, how we're gonna do that? Well, one way is you can stop attacking Saudi Arabia, because the United States has an aircraft carrier off the side of Saudi Arabia to protect Saudi Arabia against you. And Saudi Arabia needs the aircraft carrier, and the F 30. Fives on their bases and 5000 troops in Saudi Arabia, they need all that. That's why they can't sell oil from Saudi Arabia to China and the yuan, because they have to keep being in good graces with the United States. Because Saudi needs that military protection. But Iran if you stop attacking Saudi Arabia, maybe this year, next year, Saudi Arabia goes You don't want we don't need military protection anymore. So we're going to start selling our oil to shock to China in the yuan. And then the the domino effect, the US dollar comes crumbling down over years, and the United States power around the world gets demolished. So again, back to my probabilities. The Alan, I don't know if I'm wrong. It just seems when I put the US dollar in crazy situations. It makes total sense. Now, a few months later, President Biden realized he was losing the battle in the the, you know, the whatever battle you want to call it in the Middle East. What does he do? He takes his number one product, the US dollar, and he sends I think about $6 billion to Iran in humanitarian aid. That's his number. I'm proud to say I ran I ran And we're still your friends. If you're gonna trade around the world, here's some US dollars to trade in. Right, Allen   right. Yeah, that came out of nowhere. It was like, what, what's going on? John   Why, why? Why? Why do you do that? Because a few months earlier, there was a peace agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Why? Because they want to de dollarized. They want to convince Saudi Arabia. They don't need us, Doc, but but the Fed is now still sending. There's two messages, right. And so about a year ago, year and a half ago, President Biden flew to Saudi Arabia. The thing about this, President states flies to see the prince. The prince didn't come to see him. He went to see the prince. Now we don't know what he said. Allen   And everybody made fun of him. Everybody, ever they funded media was all I got. I John   gotta give President Biden kudos. Right? Because I think I know what he was doing. I think he was over there convincing the Saudi prince not to sell oil in anything but US dollars. He creates because Allen   they had made an announcement. Before that happened. They had made an announcement that we're going to we're going to switch and we're going to do both or something that I remember something's right. Yeah. John   So if you ever take a negotiation class, okay. There is there's a lot of different ways to negotiate. But one of the ways one of the tricks in negotiation is you ask a question to your opponent, and then you let them try to answer it. So we I don't know what I don't know what President Biden said. But he could have said this. Okay. Mr. Saudi prince, if you start selling your oil to China in the yuan, all right. How am I as the US President going to convince the US Congress to pay for aircraft carriers off your coast 5000 troops on your soil, sell you f 30 fives, and then also give you satellite information from our secret satellites? How are we going to pay for all that? If you start selling your oil in you want then what you do in negotiation? You zip your lip, you shut up, you say no more and you sit back. And you you allow your opponent to try to very uncomfortably answer your question. And they sit there and go. Well, you can no you could you Oh, you know what? You know what, Mr. President, you can't convince Congress to pay for all that. Exactly. So therefore don't sell your oil to China in year one. And then a few years later, guess what? The Yuan is crashing because they're spending so much money. because we got interest rates up to five, because we want to win because we got the inflation to nine. So we five and now the Chinese economy look China did to themselves, we just poured gas on. Okay, one more example. That is. So we know of two people that sold a lot of oil not using US dollars. And that was Moammar Qaddafi of Libya, and Saddam Hussein of Iraq. Both of these gentlemen, I don't know how else to say it a few years after they did this large sales of oil without using US dollars. Both of these gentlemen were killed. They left the planet. And I'm not saying the US killed them. What I am saying is the US backed away from them, and let other people get them all the way, you know, take them out, right. So the last person that we know of that is doing oil and gas, not using is Putin. Putin said less Jaffa the war, he says, you know, after we took him off the SWIFT system, which we shouldn't have done, we should have left them on SWIFT system to keep them using US dollars. We took them on SWIFT system, we weaponize the US dollar. And that allowed China and Brazil go wait a minute. If the government the United States can seize my US Dollars anytime they want, then the US dollar really isn't a store of value. It's that yeah, that woke the world up a little bit. And we shouldn't have done it. Right, because our number one product is now damaged a little bit. Okay. But anyway, so Putin says, hey, you know, we're going to do so Putin goes into Ukraine and button think about the rhetoric. Biden says, We think Putin, you're a bad guy you gotta get out of Ukraine. Then Putin says, we're no longer selling our oil and gas, we're only going to take rubles and gold. Then Biden changed his rhetoric. Biden said, we now need a regime change in Russia. That's way different than saying we need you out of Ukraine. When you say I need a regime change, I think about Moammar Qaddafi, and Saddam Hussein. Right. That's a big difference. Okay. So what happened was a few months after that, after Putin says we're not selling, we're not selling oil and gas. With us dollars anymore. There's there's a pipeline, there's two pipelines that go under this was this was hilarious, isn't it? Yeah. There are two pipelines. They go from Russia under the Baltic Sea to Germany, and they sell Germany natural gas. Well, a few months after this happened that Putin said, I'm not going to take us dollars anymore. Someone with a submarine blew up. Nord Stream one and Nord Stream to Allen   someone we don't know who know, they claim responsibility, John   no responsibility. And I'm sure I'm sure that you know, President Biden, when he talks to the Saudi prince goes, Hey, Saudi prince, we're so glad you're still you know, selling all of your oil in US dollars. No one by the way. Did you hear about Nord Stream? One Nord Stream two? Yeah, crazy, right? We live in a crazy, crazy world. It's just I'm sure he reminds everyone this right? That you don't mess with the number one product the United States, you just don't mess with it. Right? So this is all these are all chapters in my book, at least the first half of the book, you know, a lot of economics that I'm trying to about. I'm just trying to get people to think on a different level. And a different thing that kids these days like to play these video games all weekend long, they'll go on three day weekend, you know, never go to sleep. Well, this what I've explained to you is the biggest game ever invented. Yep, there is no bigger game. And when I'm explaining to it's the biggest risk game, the biggest global game. It's the biggest game ever. And I'm studying it and watching it. And it is fascinating to me. And I don't even know if I'm right. But man when I keep doing probabilities, and it just seems I'm right.  

Are you planning for your retirement with the confidence that you're making all the right moves? In today's episode, we'll unveil the crucial income planning mistakes that could jeopardize your retirement and show you how to craft a financial plan that's built to last decades, not just years. Tune in to ensure your retirement strategy is foolproof against common pitfalls and ready to secure your financial future.   Helpful Information: PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/ Contact: 813-286-7776 Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is a registered investment adviser. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investment involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment adviser to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Transcript of Today's Show: For a full transcript of today's show, visit the blog related to this episode at https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/podcast/ ----more---- Marc: Are you planning for your retirement with the confidence that you're making all the right moves? Well, on today's episode, we'll unveil the crucial income planning mistakes that could jeopardize your retirement and show how to craft the financial plan that's built to last decades, not just years. Tune in to Retirement Planning Redefined. All that, coming up next.   Hey everybody, welcome into the podcast, John and Nick joining me once again to talk investing, finance, and retirement here on Retirement Planning Redefined with the guys from PFG Private Wealth. John and Nick are financial advisors helping folks get to and through retirement. You can find them online, if you've got some questions, need some help, at pfgprivatewealth.com, pfgprivatewealth.com. And we're going to talk about some income planning mistakes this week here on the podcast.   What's going on, gents? How you doing, Nick? What's going on, buddy?   Nick: Good, good. Just staying busy. Just crazy that we're almost April. I guess we're approaching April at this point. Just had some friends in town, so that's always a little bit chaotic. But no, everything's good. No complaints.   Marc: John, how's it going in the crazy household that is yours my friend? You doing all right?   John: It is crazy. I don't want to get into it. But yes, it is a madhouse. I'll leave it at that. But, yes.   Marc: But having little ones always is, but that's good.   John: Yeah, you know well.   Marc: Well, and it's April, right? It's a busy time of year, too, a lot of things happening with taxes and financial strategies and everything. Anyway, it's spring, all that good stuff.   So, let's talk about some income planning mistakes. Let's kick it off with something simple. I teed it up a little bit in the intro there about being retired for decades, not just years. I know that we all fundamentally think that, John. We're like, "Yeah, of course, we're going to be retired for decades." But somehow or another it disassociates, I think, as we're getting thirties, forties, maybe even in our early fifties. We don't really put as much thought to it, I guess, as we should.   For me, for example, all the men in my family die young. I've already had heart surgery at a young age, so I could easily jump onto that path of, well, I'm not going to live that long, so whatever. I am not going to really worry about planning for decades. But that's just a bad move, especially if you've got people that you love, loved ones that you may want to make sure they're taken care of too. So, ways to think about it, right?   John: Yeah, the worst thing you could do is plan to retire for a few years, and next thing you know, run out of money, you don't know what's happening anymore. But no, we get this quite a bit where I can remember clearly Nick and I were doing a plan and the money around the eighties, it was looking a little tight. The person was pretty excited. We were like, "We need to make some adjustments to make sure it lasts age 100." He is like, "No, I'm good." He's like, "I'm not lasting until 80 or 83." And we were like, "Okay, well, we'll still do our due diligence to make sure your money lasts for a while," but [inaudible 00:02:55]   Marc: What if you're wrong? That's the thing. And did this person have a spouse? Were they married?   John: He had a spouse there. He was semi-serious, but we ended up making some adjustments to it. But that is something we had quite a bit. When we do our planning, we make sure it goes to age 100, because you can't predict the future. And with technology and everything that's going on now, people are living longer.   Marc: For sure.   John: It's just the healthcare industry, there's just always new innovative things happening. But it's a mindset that I will say people need to understand.   And that goes with building a portfolio. Just had a conversation with a client this week, and we're doing some things, and they're just looking at everything short-term. I had to remind them and say, "Hey, you're looking at a 20, 30 year period where there's some long-term money here. Not everything is the next five years." And just talking to her made her realize that of just saying, "Hey, I'm still invested for the long term. I can't make adjustments just based on expecting the next four or five years." So, that is a mindset people really don't understand with the investment portfolio. You still have some long-term money, because your retirement is going to be 20, 30 years, not just four or five.   Marc: No, a great point. Glad you were able to have that conversation with her and get her eyes moving. I think that's a real value add right there that people don't often take into account when working with a financial professional. We tend to think, "Well, it's the X's and the O's. They're going to help me figure out the dollars and the cents." But there's also really thinking through and behavioral analysis a little bit, behavioral changes that we have to walk through, because you guys see this day in and day out.   And Nick, I'll throw number two over to you. Part of that, as John was just saying, "Hey, you've got to set things up for short-term and long-term," social security is going to play a big factor in that. So, starting it too early could really change your long-term numbers.   Nick: Yeah, there's an extra emotional attachment to social security, which we very much understand.   Marc: Whether you're mad at it or not, whether it takes off or not.   Nick: Yeah, and we totally understand that. For us, we always try to integrate the social security decision with the overall investments and the overall plan. Just like with anything, we always approach it from the perspective of, hey, our job is to tell you the impact of the decisions you may make, and then ultimately it's your money.   But, for sure, one of the biggest negatives, especially if they're financial situation is pretty solid otherwise, starting social security too early these days makes a difference. Really the last few years have really played that out. Anybody that started social security before COVID and maybe didn't necessarily need to, between the inflationary adjustments that have happened, which they still would've received, that inflationary adjustment compounds with the delay. And so, the jumps in benefits for anybody that's waited those few extra years have been substantial, and people that are starting it now are pretty happy that they waited, and it's made a difference for them.   Marc: Well, if you don't have a strategy, you could be costing yourself tens of thousands. This could be big dollars over the course of your lifetime. I get it. We're all terrified about what's going on in the world, because every five seconds it seems like there's some new, crazy, weird, wonky thing happening in the world that is 2024. But you've still got to make sure that you're making the right decision so that these planning mistakes don't come back to bite you 10, 15, 20, 25 years down the line. So, good points, for sure.   Hey, John, what about bonds? For years, you'd go 60/40. You'd go standard portfolio. You'd go to bonds as we age for safety. Last couple of years though, they ain't been all that great. So, is it still one of those things where assuming it's a safe source is a good move, or not?   John: Yeah, I would say it's not to assume that that's going to be 100% your source of income. We're going to-   Marc: From a safe side, right?   John: Yeah, yeah. We're going to touch on inflation and things like that. We've talked about being retired for decades, so you want to make sure that you have some equities in the portfolio so you are keeping up with costs of living going up. If you're just in bonds and fixed income, you're going to lose out on a lot of upside. And then, if you look at the past years, although interest rates have gone up obviously the last couple of years, there was about a 15, 20-year period where you get a bond and it's giving you two or 3%. That's nearly not enough to supplement most people's income.   Marc: Oh, for sure.   John: So, you definitely want to diversify, make sure you're planning for the long term for some growth, and also you want to adjust to an environment where interest rates are very low and the bond yields just aren't enough to sustain what you're trying to do.   Marc: And at the time we're taping this here, it's just at the very end of March, it'll probably be out sometime here in April of '24, Powell still saying that even though the numbers came back in, inflation was a tad higher, I think, just last month then what they anticipated core inflation. He's still saying that nothing's changed for him, and that they may be looking at cutting rates throughout 2024. So, who knows?   But Nick, that does play into inflation as John just teed it up. Our fourth point here is it's going to play into it no matter what's going on with the dynamic that we have right now. But even just basic inflation, even if you just go sticking with the normal 3% we've seen for years and years and years, if you don't take this into account, and again, our topic being income planning mistakes, you are seriously messing yourself up, because five grand right now, if that's your expenses, is not going to be five grand in 10 years. It just isn't.   Nick: Yeah. I would say too, especially in this area, I think there's been some studies at the inflation rate in the Tampa Bay area has been higher than other places.   Marc: Okay.   Nick: I've had multiple conversations with clients where there's been this... I think because there was such a period of scarcity in getting decent fixed rates, whatever it was, eight to 10 years, it's like people are just taking a deep breath and just saying, "Oh, finally I can get four and a half or 5% on my money again," which is great, but the issue is that some are assuming that it's going to last for a long period of time. Last year is a really good example from the perspective of that five-ish percent, whether it's a CD or money market or whatever, solidified last year. We had some clients that shifted more over, and we had many conversations about it. But again, it's like the S&P then did, what, around 20% or something like that?   So, there was an opportunity cost there. When the market's up like that, you really don't want to lose out on those years. And so, the inflation is compounded. For example, even just people that are in Florida and live in a condo, maybe they've lived in a condo for a while, all the condo rules and association rules have changed. They're like, "I've seen association fees double in the last two or three years," and it's really putting a lot of pressure on people. Even if their mortgage is paid off, but they've been on somewhat of a fixed income, there's a lot of pressure happening there.   And so, yeah, we try to just keep emphasizing even if it's a small portion of the money, even if it's only 20 to 40% of the overall portfolio where we have something related to growth, more marketed towards that, getting them to understand that, hey, this is for money down the road. No matter where the rates are right now, the one thing I can promise you is they're going to change. And so, that's been a little bit of a different conversation than we've had to have probably, I'd say, the 10 years previous to that. So, it's going to be interesting to see how people start to react when the cuts do happen.   Marc: Yeah, because you're talking about having to keep up with inflation, you need to have some stuff at growth. You've got to have some stuff at risk, basically, so that you can pick up gains in the market, things of that nature, wherever it's coming from. But you've got to have some money out there taking a few chances, because you do have to keep up with or outpace inflation.   I guess that really just brings me to my last point here, John, and you guys can both jump in if you'd like to on this, but you've got to have other income streams besides just social security, plain and simple. That's all fine and good, but you've got to have some other income streams and some of that needs to be safe, and some of that needs to help you with the future money, which is growth.   John: Yeah, 100%, Mark. Social security might cover thirty to forty-percent of someone's expenses, and covers a portion of what they need for income there, but really important to have some other income stream, whether that be real estate, whether it's your investments.   Right now, we're talking about rates, rates are really strong. We have a lot of clients looking into these income annuities, because they look really appealing right now. Because as interest rates go up, those annuity products typically tend to look a little bit better. So, just having that guaranteed income or just reliable income source to put on top of social security really gives a nice buffer.   I don't want to speak for Nick, but I have found when you have your floor of guaranteed income, it helps you make better decisions even with your other money, where if the market's volatile, but you say, "Hey, I have X amount of dollars guaranteed income coming in in this pool of money here that's set aside for growth," even when it's a little volatile, it's just giving you a little more peace of mind to saying, "Hey, I know my baseline expenses are covered, so I'm going to be okay." We find that that does help people make better decisions when they have multiple income streams.   Marc: Yeah, you got to do it, right, Nick? It's just the point of the fact that you want to have that diversification not only in income but also with tax buckets. You just want to have some general good broad diversification in your entire portfolio.   Nick: Yeah, absolutely. The diversification, and I alluded to it earlier, it's just as important as ever. Having the higher floor on fixed rates has been helpful the last couple years, but the phrase that I've used quite a bit lately is zoom out. We need to zoom out and continue to zoom out, because that's really important, for sure.   Marc: That higher view of things versus trying to narrow in?   Nick: Yeah.   Marc: Yeah, I got you. Well, so there's some income planning mistakes that we can certainly make, so make sure that you're avoiding these. And of course, if you think, "Well, I don't do this every day," or, "This is something that I just can't wrap my brain around all the time because I'm just too busy living my life and working my own job," or whatever the case might be, that's why you have a financial team to help you out.   So, if you need some help, and of course you've got questions, always reach out to a qualified professional like John and Nick before you take any action to see how something's going to fit into your unique situation. They're financial advisors to PFG Private Wealth. You can find them online at pfgprivatewealth.com. That's pfgprivatewealth.com.   And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast Retirement Planning Redefined on Apple or Spotify or YouTube platforms. That's going to do it this week for us. We'll be back with more on future episodes. So again, hit that subscribe button and we'll catch you next time on Retirement Planning Redefined with John and Nick.

Dive into the dazzling world of Jay Jackson, also known as Laganja Estranja, where the art of dance meets the boldness of drag, creating a spectacle of talent and transformation. In this episode, host John Corella and the renowned drag queen and choreographer explore a myriad of topics, from dance and television to the vital intersection of LGBTQ issues within the dance world.   Laganja opens up about her extensive dance background, sharing insights from her early ballet classes to her evolution into an international performer. She discusses her affinity for contemporary dance and how her dance competition background has uniquely shaped her choreography, blending various styles and expressions.   The conversation also delves into the significant role of dance in the drag community and its ongoing evolution. Laganja pays homage to influential figures in her career, such as her drag mother, Alyssa Edwards,  and Candis Cayne, and discusses her recent choreography projects, including collaborations with Lady Camden and Trixie and Katya.   A central theme of the episode is the importance of representation and inclusion in the dance industry, especially for the transgender community. Laganja speaks passionately about the need for transgender individuals to be in leadership positions, advocating for their community. She candidly shares her experiences and challenges as a transgender performer, shedding light on the industry's landscape.   This episode provides an insightful look into Laganja Estranja's multifaceted career as a dancer, choreographer, and drag queen, highlighting the transformative power of dance in the LGBTQ+ community and the significance of embracing one's true identity in the arts.   Quotes “I think definitely now that newer generations are becoming drag queens, there's definitely a crossover. You know, I used to really be the only like dancing queen in L.A. that had background dancers that were choreographed. You know, which was so crazy to me, because now you see that in L.A. all the time. But I think over the years, drag has become more dance centric and more focused on the tricks that you can do on stage, as opposed to just the look or the lip sync of it all.” (26:04 | Jay Jackson)  “Respect in general is something that my parents instilled in me at a very young age. Both my parents were high school counselors for 30 plus years and so they raised me to be very in touch with my emotions and in touch with other's emotions.” (29:41 | Jay Jackson)  “I want to respect those that have helped me become successful. So even though I never really took voguing classes before Drag Race or was in the ballroom community, I wouldn't have had such an outlandish appeal on the TV show if it hadn't been for all those that came before me. That's why when I went back for All-Star 6, I wanted to pay ode or paid homage to Tandy Amon-Dupree, who was known for flying out from the ceiling into a split. And so again, anytime people bring up that entrance, I always try to say her name because What I truly believe is even though those people may have never placed their hands on me, their art, their lineage, what they left has inspired me to be the artist I am today.” (30:23 | Jay Jackson)  I worked with Meryl Streep once. And I could visibly see her nervous. I used to think, Oh, if you're the people that are the best in their art, they never get nervous. So I would feel kind of shame over my nerves. And so I always tell the kids that when they feel nervous, that it's because you care. Even the greats. (35:51 | John) “So much of, you know, who I am, my character, everything, it comes from her [Alyssa Edwards]. I mean, she's my drag mother.” (41:57 | Jay Jackson) Links Dance Dance Dad with John Corella on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dancedadwithjohncorella/ John on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/john_corella/   Laganja on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laganjaestranja Laganja on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LaganjaEstranja   Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Rounding Up Season 2 | Episode 8 – It's a Story, Not a Checklist! Guest: Dr. John Staley Mike Wallus: There's something magical about getting lost in a great story. Whether you're reading a book, watching a movie, or listening to a friend, stories impart meaning, and they capture our imagination. Dr. John Staley thinks a lot about stories. On this episode of Rounding Up, we'll talk with John about the ways that he thinks that the concept of story can impact our approach to the content we teach and the practices we engage in to support our students.  Well, John, welcome to the podcast. We're really excited to talk with you today. John Staley: I'm glad to be here. Thank you for the invitation, and thank you for having me. Mike: So when we spoke earlier this year, you were sharing a story with me that I think really sets up the whole interview. And it was the story of how you and your kids had engaged with the themes and the ideas that lived in the Harry Potter universe. And I'm wondering if you could just start by sharing that story again, this time with the audience. John: OK. When I was preparing to present for a set of students over at Towson University and talking to them about the importance of teaching and it being a story. So the story of Harry Potter really began for me with our family—my wife, Karen, and our three children—back in '97 when the first book came out. Our son Jonathan was nine at that time and being a reader and us being a reading family, we came together. He would read some, myself and my wife would read some, and our daughter Alexis was five, our daughter Mariah was three. So we began reading Harry Potter. And so that really began our journey into Harry Potter. Then when the movies came out, of course we went to see the movies and watch some of those on TV, and then sometimes we listened to the audio books. And then as our children grew, because Harry Potter took, what, 10 years to develop the actual book series itself, he's 19 now, finally reading the final book. By then our three-year-old has picked them up and she's begun reading them and we're reading. So we're through the cycle of reading with them.  But what they actually did with Harry Potter, when you think about it, is really branch it out from just books to more than books. And that right there had me thinking. I was going in to talk to teachers about the importance of the story in the mathematics classroom and what you do there. So that's how Harry Potter came into the math world for me, [chuckles] I guess you can say. Mike: There's a ton about this that I think is going to become clear as we talk a little bit more.  One of the things that really struck me was how this experience shaped your thinking about the ways that educators can understand their role when it comes to math content and also instructional practice and then creating equitable systems and structures. I'm wondering if we can start with the way that you think this experience can inform an educator's understanding for content. So in this case, the concepts and ideas in mathematics. Can you talk about that, John? John: Yeah, let's really talk about the idea of what happens in a math classroom being a story. The teaching and learning of mathematics is a story that, what we want to do is connect lesson to lesson and chapter to chapter and year to year.  So when you think about students' stories, and let's start pre-K. When students start coming in pre-K and learning pre-K math, and they're engaging in the work they do in math with counting and cardinality initially, and as they grow across the years, especially in elementary, and they're getting the foundation, it's still about a story. And so how do we help the topics that we're taught, the grade level content become a story? And so that's the connection to Harry Potter for me, and that's what helped me elevate and think about Harry Potter because when you think about what Harry Potter and the whole series did, they've got the written books. So that's one mode of learning for people for engaging in Harry Potter.  Then they went from written books to audiobooks, and then they went from audiobooks to movies. And so some of them start to overlap, right? So you got written books, you got audiobooks, you got movies—three modes of input for a learner or for an audience or for me, the individual interested in Harry Potter, that could be interested in it. And then they went to additional podcasts, Harry Potter and the Sacred Text and things like that. And then they went to this one big place called Universal Studios where they have Harry Potter World. That's immersive. That I can step in; I can put on the robes; I can put the wand in my hand. I can ride on, I can taste, so my senses can really come to play because I'm interactive and engaged in this story. When you take that into the math classroom, how do we help that story come to life for our students? Let's talk one grade. So it feels like the content that I'm learning in a grade, especially around number, around algebraic thinking, around geometry, and around measurement and data. Those topics are connected within the grade, how they connect across the grade and how it grows. So the parallel to Harry Potter's story—there's, what, seven books there? And so you have seven books, and they start off with this little young guy called Harry, and he's age 11. By the time the story ends, he's seven years later, 18 years old. So just think about what he has learned across the years and how what they did there at Hogwarts and the educators and all that kind of stuff has some consistency to it. Common courses across grade levels, thinking, in my mind, common sets of core ideas in math: number, algebra, thinking, geometry, measurement of data. They grow across each year. We just keep adding on.  So think about number. You're thinking with base ten. You then think about how fractions show up as numbers, and you're thinking about operations with whole numbers, base ten, and fractions. You think about decimals and then in some cases going into, depending if you're K–8 or K–5, you might even think about how this plays into integers. But you think about how that's all connected going across and the idea of, “What's the story that I need to tell you so that you understand how math is a story that's connected?” It's not these individual little pieces that don't connect to each other, but they connect somehow in some manner and build off of each other. Mike: So there are a couple of things I want to pick up on here that are interesting. When you first started talking about this, one of the things that jumped out for me is this idea that there's a story, but we're not necessarily constrained to a particular medium. The story was first articulated via book, but there are all of these ways that you can engage with the story. And you talked about the immersive experience that led to a level of engagement. John: Mm-hmm. Mike: And I think that is helping me make sense of this analogy—that there's not necessarily one mode of building students' understanding. We actually need to think about multiple modes. Am I picking up on that right? John: That's exactly right. So what do I put in my tool kit as an educator that allows me to help tap into my students' strengths, to help them understand the content that they need to understand that I'm presenting that day, that week, that month, that I'm helping build their learning around? And in the sense of thinking about the different ways Harry Potter can come at you—with movies, with audio, with video—I think about that from the math perspective. What do I need to have in my tool kit when it comes to my instructional practices, the types of routines I establish in the classroom?  Just think about the idea of the mathematical tools you might use. How do the tools that you use play themselves out across the years? So students working with the different manipulatives that they might be using, the different mathematical tools, a tool that they use in first grade, where does that tool go in second grade, third grade, fourth grade, as they continue to work with whole numbers, especially with doing operations, with whatever the tool might be? Then what do you use with fractions? What tools do you use with decimals? We need to think about what we bring into the classroom to help our students understand the story of the mathematics that they're learning and see it as a story. Is my student in a more concrete stage? Do they need to touch it, feel it, move it around? Are they okay visually? They need to see it now, they're at that stage. They're more representational so they can work with it in a different manner or they're more abstract. Hmm. Oh, OK. And so how do we help put all of that into the setting? And how are we prepared as classroom teachers to have the instructional practices to meet a diverse set of students that are sitting in our classrooms? Mike: You know, the other thing you're making me think about, John, is this idea of concepts and content as a story. And what I'm struck by is how different that is than the way I was taught to think about what I was doing in my classroom, where it felt more like a checklist or a list of things that I was tracking. And oftentimes those things felt disconnected even within the span of a year.  But I have to admit, I didn't find myself thinking a lot about what was happening to grade levels beyond mine or really thinking about how what I was doing around building kindergartners' understanding of the structure of number or ten-ness. John: Mm-hmm. Mike: How that was going to play out in, say, fifth grade or high school or what have you. You're really causing me to think how different it is to think about this work we're doing as story rather than a discrete set of things that are kind of within a grade level. John: When you say that, it also gets me thinking of how we quite often see our content as being this mile-wide set of content that we have to teach for a grade level. And what I would offer in the space is that when you think about the big ideas of what you really need to teach this year, let's just work with number. Number base ten, or, if you're in the upper elementary, number base ten and fractions. If you think about the big ideas that you want students to walk away with that year, those big ideas continue to cycle around, and those are the ones that you're going to spend a chunk of your time on. Those are the ones you're going to keep bringing back. Those are the ones you're going to keep exposing students to in multiple ways to have them make sense of what they're doing. And the key part of all of that is the understanding, the importance of the vertical nature as to what is it I want all of my students sitting in my classroom to know and be able to do, have confidence in, have their sense of agency. Like, “Man, I can show you. I can do it, I can do it.” What do we want them to walk away with that year? So that idea of the vertical nature of it, and understanding your learning progressions, and understanding how number grows for students across the years is important. Why do I build student understanding with a number line early? So that when we get the fractions, they can see fractions as numbers. So later on when we get the decimals, they can see decimals as numbers, and I can work with it. So the vertical nature of where the math is going, the learning progression that sits behind it, helps us tell the story so that students, when they begin and you are thinking about their prior knowledge, activate that prior knowledge and build it, but build it as part of the story.  The story piece also helps us think about how we elevate and value our students in the classroom themselves. So that idea of seeing our students as little beings, little people, really, versus just us teaching content. When you think about the story of Harry Potter, I believe he survived across his time at Hogwarts because of relationships. Our students make it through the math journey from year to year to year to year because of relationships. And where they have strong relationships from year to year to year to year, their journey is a whole lot better. Mike: Let's make a small shift in our conversation and talk a little bit about this idea of instructional practice. John: OK.  Mike: I'm wondering how this lived experience with your family around the Harry Potter universe, how you think that would inform the way that an educator would think about their own practice? John: I think about it in this way. As I think about myself being in the classroom—and I taught middle school, then high school—I'm always thinking about what's in my tool kit. I think about the tools that I use and the various manipulatives, the various visual representations that I need to have at my fingertips. So part of what my question would be, and I think about it, is what are those instructional strategies that I will be using and how do I fine-tune those? What are my practices I'm using in my routines to help it feel like, “OK, I'm entering into a story”?  Harry Potter, when you look at those books, across the books, they had some instructional routines happening, some things that happen every single year. You knew there was going to be a quidditch match. You knew they were going to have some kind of holiday type of gathering or party or something like that. You knew there was going to be some kind of competition that happened within each book that really, that competition required them to apply the knowledge and skills from their various courses that they learned. They had a set of core courses that they took, and so it wasn't like in each individual course that they really got to apply. They did in some cases, they would try it out, they'd mess up and somebody's nose would get big, ears would get big, you know, change a different color. But really, when they went into some of those competitions, that's when the collection of what they were learning from their different courses, that's when the collection of the content. So how do we think about providing space for students to show what they know in new settings, new types of problems? Especially in elementary, maybe it's science application type problems, maybe they're doing something with their social studies and they're learning a little bit about that. As an educator, I'm also thinking about, “Where am I when it comes to my procedural, the conceptual development, and the ability to think through and apply the applications?” And so I say that part because I have to think about students coming in, and how do I really build this? How do I strike this balance of conceptual and procedural? When do I go conceptual? When do I go procedural? How do I value both of them? How do I elevate that? And how do I come to understand it myself? Because quite often the default becomes procedural when my confidence as a teacher is not real deep with building it conceptually. I'm not comfortable, maybe, or I don't have the set of questions that go around the lesson and everything. So I've got to really think through how I go about building that out. Mike: That is interesting, John, because I think you put your finger on something. I know there have been points in time during my career when I was teaching even young children where we'd get to a particular idea or concept, and my perception was, “Something's going on here and the kids aren't getting it.” But what you're causing me to think is often in those moments, the thing that had changed is that I didn't have a depth of understanding of what I was trying to do. Not to say that I didn't understand the concept myself or the mathematics, but I didn't have the right questions to draw out the big ideas, or I didn't have a sense of, “How might students initially think about this and how might their thinking progress over time?” So you're making me think about this idea that if I'm having that moment where I'm feeling frustrated, kids aren't understanding, it might be a point in time where I need to think to myself, “OK, where am I in this? How much of this is me wanting to think back and say, what are the big ideas that I'm trying to accomplish? What are the questions that I might need to ask?” And those might be things that I can discover through reflection or trying to make more sense of the mathematics or the concept. But it also might be an opportunity for me to say, “What do my colleagues know? Are there ways that my colleagues are thinking about this that I can draw on rather than feeling like I'm on an island by myself?” John: You just said the key point there. I would encourage you to get connected to someone somehow. As you go through this journey together, there are other teachers out there that are walking through what they're walking through, teaching the grade level content. And that's when you are able to talk deeply about math. Mike: The other thing you're making me think about is that you're suggesting that educators just step back from whether kids are succeeding or partially succeeding or struggling with a task and really step back and saying, like, “OK, what's the larger set of mathematics that we're trying to build here? What are the big ideas?” And then analyzing what's happening through that lens rather than trying to think about, “How do I get kids to success on this particular thing?” Does that make sense? Tell me more about what you're thinking. John: So when I think about that one little thing, I have to step back and ask myself the question, “How and where does that one thing fit in the whole story of the unit?" The whole story of the grade level. And when I say the grade level, I'm thinking about those big ideas that sit into the big content domains, the big idea number. How does this one thing fit into that content domain? Mike: That was lovely. And it really does help me have a clearer picture of the way in which concepts and ideas mirror the structures of stories in that, like, there are threads and connections that I can draw on from my previous experience to understand what's happening now. You're starting to go there.  So let's just talk about where you see parallels to equitable systems and structures in the experience that you had with Harry Potter when you were in that world with your family. John: First, let's think about this idea of grouping structures. And so when you think about the idea of groups and the way groups are used within the classroom, and you think about the equitable nature of homogeneous, heterogeneous, random groupings, truly really thinking about that collectively. And I say collectively in this sense, when you think about the parallel to the Harry Potter story, they had a grouping structure in place. They had a random sorting. Now who knows how random it was sometimes, right? But they had a random sorting the minute the students stepped into the school. And they got put into one of the four houses. But even though they had that random sorting then, and they had the houses structured, those groups, those students still had opportunities as they did a variety of things—other than the quidditch tournaments and some other tournaments—they had the opportunity where as a collection of students coming from the various houses, if they didn't come together, they might not have survived that challenge, that competition, whatever it was. So the idea of grouping and grouping structures and how we as educators need to think about, “What is it really doing for our students when we put them in fixed groups? And how is that not of a benefit to our students? And how can we really go about using the more random grouping?”  One of the books that I'm reading is Building Thinking Classrooms [in Mathematics: Grades K–12: 14 Teaching Practices for Enhancing Learning]. And so I'm reading Peter [Liljedahl]'s book and I'm thinking through it in the chapter when he talks about grouping. I think I read that chapter and highlighted and tapped every single page in it multiple times because it really made me think about what's really happening for our students when we think about grouping. So one structure and one part to think about is, “What's happening when we think we're doing our grouping that's not really getting students engaged in the lesson, keeping them engaged, and benefiting them from learning?” Another part, and I don't know if this is a part of equitable systems and structures or just when I think about equity work: One of the courses that they had to take at Hogwarts was about the history of wizarding. I bring that up in this space because they learned about the history of what went on with wizards and what went on with people. And to me, in my mindset, that's setting up and showing the importance of us sharing the history and bringing the history of our students—their culture, their backgrounds, in some cases their lived experiences—into the classroom. So that's us connecting with our students' culture and being culturally responsive and bringing that into the classroom. So as far as an equitable structure, the question I would ask you to think about is, “Do my students see themselves in my mathematics classroom?”  And I say it that way versus “in the mathematics,” because some people will look at the problems in the math book and say, “Oh, I don't see them there. I don't see, oh, their names, their culture, their type of foods.” Some of those things aren't in the written work in front of you. But what I would offer is the ability for me as the educator to use visuals in my classroom, the ability for me to connect with the families in my classroom and learn some of their stories, learn some of their backgrounds—not necessarily learn their stories, but learn about them and bring that in to the space—that's for me to do. I don't need a textbook series that will do that for me. And as a matter of fact, I'm not sure if a textbook series can do that for you, for all the students that you have in your classroom or for the variety of students that you have in your classroom, when we think about their backgrounds, their culture, where they might come from. So thinking about that idea of cultural responsiveness, and really, if you think about the parallel in the Harry Potter series, the history of wizarding and the interaction, when you think about the interaction piece between wizards and what they call Muggles, right? That's the interactions between our students, learning about other students, learning about other cultures, learning about diverse voices. That's teaching students how to engage with and understand others and learn about others and come to value that others have voice also. Mike: I was just thinking, John, if I were to critique Hogwarts, I do wonder about the houses. Because in my head, there is a single story that the reader comes to think about anyone who is in Harry's house versus, say, like Slytherin house. John: Yes. Mike: And it flattens anyone who's in Slytherin house into bad guys, right? John: Mm-hmm. Mike: And so it makes me think there's that element of grouping where as an educator, I might tell a single story about a particular group, especially if that group is fixed and it doesn't change. But there's also, like, what does that do internally to the student who's in that group? What does that signal to them about their own identity? Does that make sense? John: That does make sense. And so when you think about the idea of grouping there at Hogwarts, and you think about these four fixed groups, because they were living in these houses, and once you got in that house, I don't think anybody moved houses. Think about the impact on students. If you put them in a group and they stay in that group and they never change groups, you will have students who realize that the way you did your groups and the way you named your groups and the way they see others in other groups getting more, doing different, and things like that. That's a nice caution to say the labels we put on our groups. Our kids come to internalize them and they come to, in some cases, live up to the level of expectations that we set for “just that group.” So if you're using fixed groups or thinking about fixed groups, really I'd offer that you really get into some of the research around groups and think, “What does it do for students?” And not only what does it do for students in your grade, but how does that play out for students across grades? If that student was in the group that you identified as the “low group” in grade 2, [exhales] what group did they show up in grade 3? How did that play with their mindset? Because you might not have said those words in front of students, but our students pick up on being in a fixed group and watching and seeing what their peers can do and what their peers can't do, what their group members can do and what their group can't do. As our students grow from grades 2 to 3, 4, 5, that really has an impact. There's somewhere between grade 3 and 5 where students' confidence starts to really shake. And I wonder how much of it is because of the grouping and types of grouping that is being used in the classroom that has me in a group of, “Oh, I am a strong doer [of mathematics]” or, “Oh, I'm not a good doer of mathematics.” And that, how much of that just starts to resonate with students, and they start to pick that up and carry that with them, an unexpected consequence because we thought we were doing a good thing when we put 'em in this group. Because I can pull them together, small group them, this and that. I can target what I need to do with them in that moment. Yeah, target what you need to do in that moment, but mix them up in groups. Mike: Just to go back and touch on the point that you started with. Building Thinking Classrooms has a lot to say about that particular topic among others, and it's definitely a book that, for my money, has really caused me to think about a lot of the practices that I used to engage in because I believed that they were the right thing to do. It's a powerful read. For anyone who hasn't read that yet, I would absolutely recommend it. John: And one last structure that I think we can speak to. I've already spoken to supports for students, but the idea of a coherent curriculum is I think an equitable structure that systems put in place that we need to put in place that you need to have in place for your students. And when I say a coherent curriculum, I'm thinking not just your one grade, but how does that grow across the grades? It's something for me, the teacher, to say, “I need to do it my way, this way…”. But it's more to say, “Here's the role I play in their pre-K to 12 journey.” Here's the chapter I'm going to read to them this year to help them get their deep understanding of whichever chapter it was, whichever book it happened to be of.  In the case of the parallel of Harry Potter, here's the chapter I'm doing. I'm the third grade chapter, I'm the fourth grade chapter, I'm the fifth grade chapter. And the idea of that coherent curriculum allows the handoff to the next and the entry from the prior to be smoother. Many of the curriculums, when you look at them, a K–5 curriculum series will have those coherent pieces designed in it—similar types of tools, similar types of manipulatives, similar types of question prompts, similar types of routines—and that helps students build their confidence as they grow from year to year. And so to that point, it's about this idea of really thinking about how a coherent curriculum helps support equity because you know your students are getting the benefit of a teacher who is building from their prior knowledge because they've paid attention to what came before in this curriculum series and preparing them for where they're going. And that's quite often what the power of a coherent curriculum will do.  The parallel in the Harry Potter series, they had about five to seven core courses they had to take. I think about the development of those courses. Boom. If I think about those courses as a strand of becoming a wizard, [laughs] how did I grow from year to year to year to year in those strands that I was moving across? Mike: Okay, I have two thoughts. One, I fully expect that when this podcast comes out, there's going to be a large bump in whoever is tracking the sale of the Harry Potter series on Amazon or wherever it is.  John: [laughs] Mike: But the other question I wanted to ask you is what are some books outside of the Harry Potter universe that you feel like you'd recommend to an educator who's wanting to think about their practice in terms of content or instructional practices or the ways that they build equitable structure? John: When I think about the works around equitable structure, I think about The Impact of Identity and K–8 Mathematics: Rethinking Equity-Based Practices by Julia Aguirre, Karen Mayfield-Ingram, and Danny Martin as being one to help step back and think about how am I thinking about what I do and how it shows up in the classroom with my students.  Another book that I just finished reading: Humanizing Disability in Mathematics Education[: Forging New Paths]. And my reason for reading it was I continue to think about what else can we do to help our students who are identified, who receive special education services? Why do we see so many of our students who sit in an inclusive environment—they're in the classroom on a regular basis; they don't have an IEP that has a math disability listed or anything along those lines—but they significantly underperform or they don't perform as well as their peers that don't receive special education services. So that's a book that got me just thinking and reading in that space.  Another book that I'm reading now, or rereading, and I'll probably reread this one at least once a year, is Motivated[: Designing Mathematics Classrooms Where Students Want to Join In] by Ilana [Seidel] Horn. And the reason for this one is the book itself, when you read it, is written with middle schools' case stories. Part of what this book is tackling is what happens to students as they transition into middle school. And the reason why I mentioned this, especially if you're elementary, is somewhere between third grade and fifth grade, that process of students' self-confidence decreasing their beliefs in themselves as doers of math starts to fall apart. They start to take the chips in the armor. And so this book, Motivated itself, really does not speak to this idea of intrinsic motivation. “Oh, my students are motivated.” It speaks to this idea of by the time the students get to a certain age, that upper fifth grade, sixth grade timeframe, what shifts is their K, 1, 2, 3, “I'm doing everything to please my teacher.” By [grades] 4 or 5, I'm realizing, “I need to be able to show up for my peers. I need to be able to look like I can do for my peers.” And so if I can't, I'm backing out. I'm not sharing, I'm not volunteering, I'm not “engaging.”  So that's why I bring it into this elementary space because it talks about five pieces of a motivational framework that you can really push in on, and not that you push in on all five at one time. [chuckles] But you pick one, like meaningfulness, and you push in on that one, and you really go at, “How do I make the mathematics more meaningful for my students, and what does it look like? How do I create that safe space for them?” That's what you got to think about. Mike: Thanks. That's a great place to stop. John Staley, thank you so much for joining us. It's really been a pleasure. John: Thank you for having me. Mike: This podcast is brought to you by The Math Learning Center and the Maier Math Foundation, dedicated to inspiring and enabling individuals to discover and develop their mathematical confidence and ability. ©2023 The Math Learning Center - www.mathlearningcenter.org

This week on the blog, a podcast interview with screenwriter and author Neal Marshall Stevens about his new book on horror, “A Sense of Dread (Getting Under The Skin of Horror Screenwriting).”LINKSA Free Film Book for You: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/cq23xyyt12Another Free Film Book: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/x3jn3emga6Fast, Cheap Film Website: https://www.fastcheapfilm.com/Neal's book at Michael Wiese Productions: https://mwp.com/product-author/neal-marshall-stevens/Neal on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0139605/Brian Forrest's Blog: https://toothpickings.medium.com/Eli Marks Website: https://www.elimarksmysteries.com/Albert's Bridge Books Website: https://www.albertsbridgebooks.com/YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/BehindthePageTheEliMarksPodcastNeal Stevens Transcript JOHN: Neal, you have a really long and storied history in the horror cinema. Can you remember the very first horror movie that had an impact on you? NEAL: Well, actually, looking back, the first movie that scared the hell out of me wasn't a horror movie. It was actually a Disney movie called Johnny Tremaine. It was a kid's movie. And there was a scene in that movie, Johnny Tremaine was a kid during the Revolutionary War who knew Paul Revere, who, as you may remember, was a silversmith. And there's a scene in that movie, the British are coming and Paul Revere has got this urn of molten silver.It gets knocked onto a table. Johnny Tremaine trips and puts his hand face up into the molten silver and fries his hand. And I'm sure I know I, every kid in the audience goes like (sound effect.) But that's actually not the scariest part of the movie. Later on, surgeons are unwrapping his burnt hand, and they look down and they react in horror.His fingers have healed together, stuck together. We don't see it and they say, “Oh, we're going to have to cut his fingers apart,” which also happens off screen. And again, in our imagination, imagining no anesthesia back then, it's a revolutionary war. So, poor Johnny Tremaine has to have his healed together fingers cut apart. The memory of what that must be like has lasted. I must have been like five or six when I saw it. My parents dragged me to see Johnny Tremaine, it's a happy Disney movie. I'm 67 years old, so it's been over a half a century since I saw this movie and was appropriately traumatized by those images. So, Disney knew how to scare little kids. That's for sure. JOHN: He sure did. Wow. That's a horrible story. NEAL: Yeah. As for official horror movies that scared the hell out of me, again, we used to watch Phantasmic Features on the TV in Boston. I remember a movie called Teenagers from Outer Space. They weren't actually teenagers. They were all in their thirties. But anyway, these invaders had a skeleton ray that as they would aim it at someone, it would flash and you're instantly reduced literally to a skeleton. And they were, they didn't care who, so as soon as they come out of their spaceship, there's a barking dog—bzzzt!—and the dog falls down, reduced to bones. They didn't care. They would use it as a woman's climbing out of a swimming pool—bzzzt!—skeleton floating in the pool. The casualness with which completely innocent people are reduced to skeletons. Again, absolutely horrifying. Couldn't have been much older than nine or ten when I watched this movie. But the fact that human flesh has reduced the skeletons, but also the casual innocence of which people are reduced to flesh is stripped off their bones. It's terrifying to me. BRIAN: I wonder how you parlayed that early sense of, “Oh, I like horror movies” into, “I want to create horror as a genre. “ NEAL: Well, I was one of a whole generation of kids who got super eight cameras and made, you know, we made stop motion movies and made monster movies in their basements. Pursuant to that, I was writing scripts when I was 13 years old. I guess people now do it with phones. We didn't have cell phones back when I was a kid, but we had super eight cameras and then, you know, a little cartridge things that we'd slug in. And so, I made tons of those little stop motion movies down in my basement. BRIAN: Do you still have some of them? NEAL: I guess I may have them somewhere. I think I have an old creaky super eight projector somewhere. I don't think you can get a bulb for it anymore. BRIAN: I've got one up there. I wonder if it would work? NEAL: Yeah. That's the big question. I wonder if it would work? Heaven only knows. JOHN: But that's a great way to learn visual storytelling. NEAL: Yeah. When I ultimately went to NYU grad film and, and all the films that we shot the first year were all silent. First silent film then silent with sound effects, but you weren't allowed to use sync sound until you got to second year, if you made it that far. JOHN: Did you make it that far? NEAL: Yes, I did. I actually graduated. Back at NYU, it was a very rough program at the time. They cut the student enrollment in half going from first to second year. So it was, it was a rough program back then. JOHN: That's brutal. NEAL: Yeah. JOHN: So, you leave film school with something under your arm that you've shot. Where does that lead you? NEAL: It certainly didn't get me much in the way of employment at the time. I ended up going right back to NYU. I ran their equipment room of all things for something like six years. But during all those six years I was writing. They had like a computer that they used to turn out the schedules. And then when I weren't writing schedules, I was using that computer to write my screenplays using WordStar. If anyone remembers that old program. God, it was horrible, but it was free, because they had the equipment room. And eventually I sent some stuff to Laurel Entertainment, which is the company that did Tales From the Dark Side. And they had an open submission program. If you signed a release form, you could send them stuff. And I'd gone in and I'd met Tom Allen, who was their senior story editor. I had a screenplay and I went in and talked about it. He liked it. It wasn't for them, but then he invited me to submit ideas for their new series, their follow-up series to Tales from the Dark Side, which is a thing called Monsters. And I went in, and I pitched some ideas, and they bought one. And it turned out to be their premier episode of Monsters. And shortly after that, tragically, Tom Allen passed away. And the VP, Mitch Galen, invited me in and said, “Would you like to take over and be our senior story editor on Monstersand our other projects?” And meanwhile, you know, for the second part of that whole series, I was still working in the equipment room at NYU and also working as a senior story editor on Monsters and being their creative consultant and reading hundreds of scripts for Laurel Entertainment. And then eventually I quit the equipment room, and I went and I worked for them full time and wrote a bunch of episodes for Monsters. And I was a story editor on The Stand and The Langoliers— which wasn't so good—but on a bunch of other projects, it was just an enormous learning experience. And The Stand I think turned out really well. Other stuff, The Langoliers, did not work out really well. And a bunch of other projects that were not horror. BRIAN: Why do you think some things, especially, let's talk about Stephen King, why do you think some of those things adapted well and some didn't? NEAL: Well, The Langoliers was not, it wasn't that great. Wasn't that strong a project. And I think the idea, trying to make that and stretch that out into a mini-series. wasn't that strong. It wasn't that strong, the material wasn't really there. I think there are times when staying faithful to the material is the right approach. It certainly was the right approach with The Stand. Working with The Langoliers, you know, there were certainly elements of The Langoliers that were strong. And other stuff that was really just so-so. And I think if you'd had the willingness to step aside and do something different with it, it would probably have ended up—especially because they were expanding it into a mini-series—being just devoted to the original material, I think, ended up with a product that was really thin. Plus, we had hired a special effects company that the Langoliers themselves were just horrible. It was really substandard, honestly. So, it did not work out very well. BRIAN: I'm guessing with all these different projects you had to work on, you probably had to start dealing with types of horror and genres of horror that weren't in your comfort zone. Maybe not even what you wanted to do. What kind of learning curve was that for you? NEAL: You end up having to deal with a lot of different kinds of horror, especially with, you know, working in Monsters, where you just were turning stuff out tremendously fast. But also, I grew up with a certain kind of horror.I was never a huge fan of slasher stuff. I missed that whole era of horror. Certain kinds of movies appealed to me. That particular kind of transgressive material never really clicked. JOHN: Why do you think that is with you? NEAL: Because this simple act of repetitive bloodletting, for me, it always felt thin. I mean, it's not that I objected to explicit violence or explicit gore. I mean, I think that Dawn of the Deadunquestionably is one of the most brilliant horror movies ever made. And there certainly, George Romero didn't pull back from explicit violence. Or a movie like Hellraiser, the same deal. It's a question of how the filmmaker employs the use of graphic violence to elevate the material. What I've told people when you watch a movie like Dawn of the Dead, the first 10 or 15 minutes of that movie—which by the way, I saw when it virtually when it first came out and saw it in the theater—you had never seen anything like that opening scene in terms of graphic violence from being bitten and heads being blown off and all the rest. You were just put through the ringer, watching that opening. And after that opening, the movie was never that violent again. He never showed anything like that again.And you didn't have to, because you—having seen that opening scene, you were—you were so blown out of your seats. You said, “I'm watching a movie where anything could happen to anyone.” And that was a kind of really intelligent and that kind of thoughtful use of violence is what George Romero was always able to do. It was understanding how graphic images can affect the psychology of the viewer. JOHN: Do you think it's also that with Romero's films, they're actually about something, whereas a slasher film is really just about a body count, but with Romero, he always had another thing going. NEAL: Well, of course, I mean, no movie that isn't about anything is ever going to really, from my perspective, be worth watching. But I mean, even a movie like Hostel, which is exceptionally violent and harrowing, is certainly about something. And I think Eli Roth's movies, which get a really bad rap, are very much about something. He's got something to say with his depictions of violence and his images. Not necessarily to my taste. I certainly wouldn't say that he's not, he's making movies that are certainly about something. He's not a dumb filmmaker by any stretch of the imagination. JOHN: So, you work on Monsters, and then what happens? NEAL: I worked on Monsters. I worked there for around six years, and then they were acquired by a big studio, and they were shut down. And so, I was out of work. I'd known a woman named Debbie Dion from Full Moon. I figured, well, I'll give that a shot. I'll call her up and see, maybe I could write for a Full Moon. And so, I gave her a shot. I, you know, reintroduced myself and said, you know, “I'm looking to see if I could get some job, maybe writing features for Full Moon Entertainment, Charlie Band's company.” And they said, “Well, we pay around $3,000 for a feature.” And I said, “Well, I got paid more than that for writing an episode of Monsters. That doesn't seem like such a good deal.” And then my unemployment insurance ran out. BRIAN: Suddenly it's a very good deal. NEAL: Sounds like suddenly a very good deal. But, you know, I made it very clear that money buys one draft, and if you want to rewrite, you got to pay me again, because I knew what development was like, where they just expect draft after draft after draft, and I'd say, “I can't do that, that doesn't make any sense.” And also, having worked for Monsters, I had learned to write really fast. I could write a pass on a Monsters episode in two days, so I knew that I could write fast, because these were 80-page scripts. And so, I started writing for Full Moon, and over the course of like the next few years, I wrote something like... 50 or 60 features for Charlie Band. And a lot of them got made, because they're not wasting money on movies that don't get made. Tons of them got made. And in the midst of doing that, I was, you know, whenever I got a break writing a full movie, I would write spec scripts, you know, in the hopes I could sell something of my own that wasn't for $3,000. I didn't have an agent at that point. I didn't have a manager at that point. And so, I'm not really good making cold calls to people. It's not my thing. I just like to sit, write my scripts. I'd come home one day, and I saw my wife was on the phone having this long conversation with someone. When she was done, I said, “Well, who was that?” “Oh yeah. I called up to order something.” I said, “So she's really good at getting on the phone and talking to people and calling them.” And so, I convinced her to be my manager. So, she agreed. She changed, you know, she went out under her maiden name. She managed to get an option on a science fiction script that I'd written that, I mean, it was ultimately bought. It was never made. And then I decided, you know what? Horror is really my bread and butter writing for Charlie Band. But I don't really have a horror spec. And most of what was out those days in horror didn't really scare me that much. I should really write a script that would scare me. So, I wrote a script called Deader, which I thought had all the stuff in it that I thought was really scary. And Judy went out with that script, sent it to a bunch of people, sent it to some folks at Stan Winston's company, as they had a development deal. The producer that she talked to really liked it, asked if he could sort of slip it to some people. He did, he sent it to someone, a producer at Dimension, it's based in New York, and he really liked it. And they showed it to Bob Weinstein. Bob Weinstein called us on Sunday. Am I half awake? Talk to Judy. Because they didn't know that Judy was my wife. He said, “This is the best goddamn script I've read. I'm like three quarters away. Come in on Monday and we'll talk about it.” So, we came in on Monday and they bought the script. And of course, at that point, it sort of went all over town. And for a very short period of time, it was like the flavor of the month and everyone loved me. And I got myself an agent and got myself like three pictures. And as I was a really big, big to-do. From that, I also got 13 Ghosts. I had like a really big opinion of myself after, after that sale. JOHN: Has that been tempered since then? NEAL: I kind of got the opinion that like, wow, selling scripts is easy. People wanted to hire me because that script was super hot and was all over town. I learned subsequently there are flavors in writers, and I was like that flavor of the month. That fades and then you have to really do a lot more work to get things sold. That was a hard lesson to learn. But I've managed to keep working over the years. I've written many scripts, sold some, and it's been a decent career. BRIAN: I was just wondering, you were having all the success writing screenplays, when did you decide to make a jump to writing a book? NEAL: Over the last five or six years, I've been teaching. A woman that I knew from NYU, actually, Dorothy Rumpolsky had been instrumental in starting a screenwriting program at David Lynch Institute for Cinematic Studies. And she realized at one point that she had a number of students who wanted to work in a horror. She remembered me back from NYU many years ago. So, she got in touch with me and wanted to know if I was interested in mentoring those students. And I said, absolutely. I done some other online teaching at other places. And so, the way it works is, you fly out for an opening few days where you meet the students. And then you fly back to where you come from. They go back to where they come from. And it's all done remotely, the mentoring. And so, I've been doing that now for five or six years. And during that kind of get together, you meet a bunch of guest lecturers and other teachers, other mentors. And a number of those people had written books for Michael Wiese productions. And, in the course of chatting, they suggested, well, you, you know, “You have a kind of encyclopedic knowledge of horror and horror cinema. That might be a good book for Michael Wiese. Give them a call and see if you can come up with a pitch and an interesting take on it.” And so I did, and I called them and they responded. And so we were off to the races. JOHN: The book is really, maybe delightful is the wrong word, but it's a captivating book because as you read through it—you have outlined breaking down our different types of fears—you can immediately in your mind go, “Oh, that's what that movie was doing. Oh, that was that. That's what was happening there.” What was your research process like? NEAL: I think that the research kind of developed over the decades as I studied what made movies scary and what was working, not only in the movies that I was watching, but in the movies that I was writing. I mean, in the same way that when you work as a screenwriter, it becomes almost second nature to try to figure out what was working and what wasn't. Talking to fellow filmmakers and screenwriters, you have to say, “How many times do you watch a movie?” And a lot of times I will watch a movie 8, 10, 20 times. And there's a process that works when you watch a movie that many times, where you say “Certain things will work every time you watch a movie.”In the same way that you can watch a comedy and you can laugh every single time as certain things comes up. And other times, you start seeing the nuts and bolts and say, “Well, this is always working and here they're just connecting stuff.” And you start saying, “Ah, I get it. I see what they're doing. I see how they're taking this piece that works and this other piece that works and they couldn't quite, they kind of, they found some connective tissue to stick it together. I see exactly what they're doing.” And you start understanding—whether you're watching a comedy or you're watching a drama or you're watching a scary movie—they knew exactly how to make this thing scary. And this is how they're doing it. And they understood exactly how to make this thing scary. And it's like, ah, this is what they're using. Whether it is a spider crawling on someone, that's always going to work. Or, “Oh, I see, this is just a jump scare.” And the jump scare is, I understand, that's just, because a big bang, a loud noise, a hand reaching in from, that's just, that's always going to work. It's going to work no matter what. It's just a kind of placeholder scare, because they couldn't think of anything better. And there are movies where it's just jump scares. And you can always use a jump scare. You can sneak up on a cat and jab it and it'll jump. It's an instinctive response. And if a movie is just relying on jump scares, you know it's because they don't have anything better. They haven't got any deeper than just having the phone ring and they turn up the soundtrack. You can always get an audience to jump by putting a loud sound on the soundtrack. JOHN: Is there an example you can think of though, where there is a jump scare that you think is a genuinely good, effective jump scare? NEAL: I can think of a movie that has two really excellent jump scares. John Carpenter's The Thing. When the doctor's giving the electric shock to the guy's chest, and the chest opens and slams shut on his hand. Didn't expect it.That's a super great jump scare. It is perfectly integrated into that scene. Everyone jumps, but it's also a brilliant continuation of that scene. Second jump scare, when MacReady is testing everyone's blood. And saying, “We're going to do you next,” puts the needle in, and that thing jumps out of the Petri dish.Fantastic jump scare. We didn't see it coming. Everyone jumps. And it's again, it's perfectly integrated into that scene. So, two brilliant jump scares in what's already an incredibly brilliant movie. BRIAN: I remember watching the commentary on Jaws and Spielberg said he got greedy with his jump scares. He had the moment towards the end of the film, you remember that Jaws comes out of the water while it's being chummed. And he said he got this great reaction from the audience, and he wanted one more. And he went back, and he added in the scene earlier where the corpse face comes through the hole. And he said he never got the audience to react as well to the shark after he added in that corpse face coming through the hole of the ship. And I wondered, do you think there's a point of diminishing returns with jump scares in one movie? NEAL: I think there absolutely is. I mean—and I have no end of admiration for Jaws. I think it may be one of the most brilliant movies ever, and it certainly has stood the test of time. JOHN: So, we've each come armed with some movies here that I thought it would be fun to talk about them with you, so that you could sort of delve into the different types of fear that are outlined in the book and we'll just sort ofcheckerboard back and forth here. I'm going to start with one of my favorite sense of dread movies, and that's Don't Look Now, with Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie, directed by Nick Roeg which I saw way too young. First R rated movie I saw. I remember I knew that it was supposed to be really scary, and I went with my older brother, and we were standing in line and the seven o'clock show was letting out. And I said to my brother, “Well, it can't be that scary. They're not saying anything.” Not realizing that they had all been stunned into silence about the last five minutes of that movie. So, what are your thoughts on Don't Look Now and where does that fit? NEAL: When I talk about the sense of dread, which is what my book is about, it's the notion of those aspects of our lives that we think of as safe and secure and dependable and sacred being suddenly or unexpectedly penetrated by the unknown or the unnatural, the unexpected. And you have to say, well, what are the things that we depend on? We depend on our homes. We depend on our families. And so that relationship of parent and child, what violates that? And the loss of a child, loss is already wrenching. And so, this sense of parents having lost a child, but then this notion that, well, maybe not, maybe the child is still out there somewhere, is so deeply disturbing. And so this weird, this quest, this pursuit in them. And meanwhile, in the background, you have the sense of a killer, of killings going on. This really disturbing notion of the woman's half decayed body being pulled out of the water is just as an image is—and again, the notion of human body being reduced to mere flesh—it's deeply disturbing. And nakedness, coupled with decay, it's deeply disturbing. And all of this sort of happening in the background. We don't quite know how these pieces connect. The notion that the search for the child and the notion that there's a killer on the loose. We know, because the nature of cinematic storytelling is telling us that somehow these things are going to connect, because, I mean, in the real world, there are countless thousands of things drifting around that don't necessarily hook up. But we know that one thing is going to collide with another. And so, there's this growing sense of profound unease, because we know, somehow, this child in this Red Riding Hood cape is wandering around, it's like, is this the child? Is the child going to become embroiled in this? But what we don't, certainly don't expect is the ending that confronts us in the finale, which is so incredibly, the reversal is so terrifying and so hits us in the face of that sense of innocence—revealed in such a terrifying way—is the essence of dread. Where we expect to find innocence, we find a nightmare. JOHN: What's great about what Nick Roeg did there was—if you read Daphne du Maurier's short story—he basically shot the last paragraph of that short story. Cinematically, he figured out the way that she's laying out what's going on with Donald Sutherland's character at that moment. He figured out a way to make it cinematic. So, like you say, all the pieces suddenly fall into place in those last few seconds. And, like you said, we've been brought to this place, we had no idea that that's where it was going to turn. Neal, tell me about Enemy from Space, and what you like about that. NEAL: Enemy from Space is the second of the three Quatermass movie, adaptations of the serial. It's in the same vein as Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and all these other movies about human beings who are being invaded and infested by alien forces. In this case, over the past few years—but in the context of the story—there have been rains of these tiny little meteorites. Anyone who finds them, they crack open and what's inside infests human beings. And you can find these tiny little burn marks, these V shaped marks on them. And the parasites take them over and make them into these kind of human slaves. And the premise is they serve this larger being, this kind of group entity, and they proceed to start building these atmosphere plants, with the goal ultimately to turn the earth into a colony for these beings that come from outer space. But the notion of these human beings, they have infiltrated our government, infiltrated our community, and they gradually take people over, scary enough. And they have built this enormous plant that looks, he says, this looks just like this proposed lunar base with these giant atmospheric domes. A group of people managed to infiltrate one of these bases and he looks inside, manages to get close enough to look inside one of these domes and inside are the parasites. When they're released, they grow together into this thing that looks like a giant blob. That's what it looks like outside of the human hosts. And a bunch of these guys are trapped inside of the atmosphere of plant. And they realize this thing, they can't survive outside the human body. They need methane to breathe, because that's what their home planet is like. “What we need to do is we need to pump oxygen into this dome to kill this thing. That'll destroy it.” And voices come over to say, “Look, this guy's crazy. There's nothing inside this dome. You send some representatives over, we'll show you anything you want.” And Quatermass says, “You're crazy if you go over there, you're going to be infected. You're going to be taken over.” But they managed to divide, they send the guys over and Quatermass is pleading with them, “Listen, they're going to get on this speaker. They're going to tell you that everything is fine, but you can't listen. Don't listen to them, whatever you say.” And then they hear this sound. This hideous sound of screaming coming down the pipes, the pipes that they've been sending oxygen down to the dome. They say, “What the hell is that? What's going on?” And then they look, they see the pressure has gone way up. There's something wrong. And the pipe is burst, the pipe that's sending oxygen to this dome. And they say, “What is it? What's happened?” And they look and something is dripping down through the pipe. And they say, “What is it?” It's blood. They took the guys that they sent, and they pushed them into the pipe. They say those pipes have been blocked with human pulp in order to keep the oxygen from coming into the dome. That is one of the most, again, all you see is just these drops of blood coming out of the cracked pipe, but that has resonated as one of the most terrifying moments from any movie that I saw, again, as a little kid. I've seen the movie recently and it's still incredibly terrifying. And again, the architecture of this web of pipes, the cold black and white architecture, is horrifyingly chilling. And the notion of human beings being reduced to mere flesh, being used as material for blocking a pipe. And the pipe's only like, it's like this big. So, you can imagine this person shoved into a pipe is hideous. JOHN: It is available on YouTube if anybody wants to watch it after that. Brian, do you want to ask about folk horror? BRIAN: Actually, I was going to jump ahead just because of what Neal was just talking about. I thought this would dovetail nicely into a question I had about a fear of contagion. And you can wrap body horror into this. Movies like The Thing or 28 Days Later, or probably The Quatermas Experiment as well. How does that fear of our own bodies being infected or watching another body change or be infected in unnatural ways? How does that—I don't want to use the word appeal—but how does that appeal to our sense of dread? NEAL: Well, I think you also have to run back to one of the most common— whether it's psychological or physiological—which is obsessive compulsive disorder. You say, well, what exactly is obsessive compulsive disorder? We have built in grooming behaviors, whether it's cleaning our hands, we clean our skin. That's wired into us. And when you turn the dial up too far, that turns into obsessive compulsive, obsessive hand cleaning or scratching, itching, hair pulling, all that stuff. It's wired in behavior, in the same way that dogs will scratch, we will scratch. And so, all of that, we react to it in the same way that if you see a spot of dirt on someone's forehead, it's almost impossible to “Clean that thing off. Get rid of that thing.” I mean, we're built in a certain way to respond to distortions, infections, invasions, in the same way that if someone's eye is cocked to one side, we react to it. Someone's face is distorted. We react to it negatively. We have to work not to respond to it. It may be a bug, but it may be a feature, because we are built to respond to a diseased or distorted members of our community. It's a survival trait. And so, in some ways, horror movies respond to that. Distorted human beings, Hunchback of Notre Dame or Igor or anyone else who are distorted, deformed, limbless creatures—Freaks—are employed in horror movies in a variety of different ways. BRIAN: And it's a very different thing from seeing an arm chopped off versus seeing an arm with three hands that are all operating. Both of them is something happening to your body that you might revolt towards, but it's a very different reaction though, right? NEAL: It is, but it's—in a sense—it's all variations of the same thing. There's a central human norm, and that which varies from the human norm beyond a certain point triggers a reaction that says, “That's not the way it's supposed to be.” And it's just, eyes are too close together, eyes are too far apart, eyes are too big, or there's an extra one. There's one missing. We recoil from it. We recoil from something that is too different, too far off the norm. And of course, in strictly social terms, you can say, but why, why should we? We shouldn't really respond in that way to others who are too different. But we do respond that way, and it comes with the programming in a very real degree. JOHN: How does that connect, then, to another movie on your list, The Island of Lost Souls, from 1932? NEAL: I think it's central to that list. The notion of the difference between that which is human and that which is animal. And Moreau, who experiments with making animals into human beings, but not really. And the sort of terrifying revelation when our hero and the woman—who we know to be an animal woman, but she looks fundamentally human—escape out into the woods and come across the animal person village. And the realization to what extent Moreau has been experimenting. It's not just tens or dozens. The animal people just come flooding out of the woods. And it's just hundreds. And the extent and the depth and the kind of nightmarish quality, they're all different. They're all horrible. And it's just like, what has Moreau been doing? He experiments with these animals, gets them to a certain state, and then he just discards them and moves on to something else. This utterly careless, sadistic god of this army of nightmares. And you sort of see when they do their, you know, “Are we not men?” And you just see row upon row upon row of these hideous nightmare faces. And you just say, “My God, what has this guy been doing for years? Just making these monsters.” JOHN: It's a classically creepy movie. I do want to ask you about the classic ghost story movie, The Haunting, and what that says about our fears. If you can, maybe tie that into Ghostwatch, because there's a similar sort of thing going on there. NEAL: They're both intriguing. They both are opening us up to this notion of unseen nightmare forces, especially the original Haunting, which shows us nothing. All you ever see: Doorknob turning. A face that may or may not be in the wall. This horribly loud banging on the door. A moment where someone thinks that her hand is being held, but there's no one there. It is simply this notion of a house that is born bad, but never really fully explained. Again, you have this idea of the world itself that should be well behaved, that should be governed by comprehensible natural laws. But there's something deeper and darker and incapable of truly being understood, nevermind being controlled. And if you just prod it a little bit too much, you're going to open it up to forces that are utterly destructive and utterly malevolent. And in both of these cases, you have this man of science and his team that are going to find out. “We're going to find out for sure whether there really are ghosts, whether there really is a supernatural, whether it really is life after death. We're going to nail this down for science.” Yeah, don't do that. Don't do that. These are things that are, that are not meant to be explored, not meant to be examined. Go back. BRIAN: I'm reminded of Van Helsing's sign off on the original Dracula, where he said, “Just remember, there really are such things in this world.” NEAL: Yeah. Yeah. And, and the same thing is true in some ways on a much more terrifying scale with Ghostwatch, where it's just, it's this kind of, “It's all just fun and Halloween, we're going to explore this. It's the most haunted house in Britain.” And it's broadcasters whose faces everyone knew at the time, and they were playing themselves. Going to this haunted house where you had these poltergeist phenomena. And we're all going to, “We're going to do it live and call in with your own experiences about being haunted.” And it all just goes so horribly wrong. JOHN: Now, Neal, I just watched that for the first time this week. Heard about it for years. I had no idea that those were real broadcasters. I thought they were really good actors. But to someone in Britain watching that, those are faces they saw all the time? NEAL: Yeah. Those are real broadcasters. They had their own shows. They were real, the real deal. JOHN: Wow. I highly recommend renting it because—it'll test your patience a little tiny bit, because it is quite banal for quite a while, as they lead you into it. But now this new bit of information that these are all faces that that audience who saw it, quote unquote, live that night, it's as terrifying as I imagined the Orson Welles' War the Worlds would have been. Because it seems very real. NEAL: And apparently the way they did it, is that there was a number you could call in. And if you called in that number, they would tell you, it's like, “Don't worry, this is all just a show.” But so many people were calling in, they couldn't get through. BRIAN: This really is War of the Worlds. NEAL: So, they never were able to get to that message that would tell them, don't worry, it's all just a show. So apparently it panicked the nation, because part of the premise was at a certain point, the ghost that was haunting the house got into the show. And so, the studio itself became haunted. It was really spectacularly well done. JOHN: It is. It's great. Let's just sort of wrap up here real quick with Neal, if you have any advice for beginning screenwriter about how to best create a really powerful and effective horror screenplay, any little tips. NEAL: Well, first of all, and I touched on this before, jump scares don't work on the page. You need the loud bang. You need the hand reaching in from the side. You describe that and it doesn't work. So, you have to rely on creating that sense of dread. And while writing screenplays, you have to keep things tight. The concept, the idea—in the same way comedy screenplays have to be funny—scary screenplays have to be scary. It has to be scary on the page. If it's not scary on the page, you're not going to sell the screenplay. And that's the fundamental trick. You got to make it scary on the page. JOHN: Excellent advice. All right, let's just quickly, each one of us, tell our listeners a recent favorite horror film that you've seen in the last couple years.I'll start with you, Brian. BRIAN: Just last night, I saw Haunting in Venice. And it worked because I had seen the other Kenneth Branagh/Agatha Christie adaptations, and I was very familiar with, and you know, you already know generally that kind of detective whodunit story: it's going to be very, you know, using logic and rationality.And when they had this episode that was sort of a one off—sort of a departure from that usual way that mysteries are solved—it was very effective. I think if I'd seen it without having already watched a bunch of Agatha Christie adaptations, I would have said, “Oh, that's an okay Halloween movie.” But having seen those other ones, it was an excellent Halloween movie. JOHN: Excellent. That's on my list. The movie I would recommend, which really surprised me, my wife literally dragged me to it because it was a French film called Final Cut, which is a French remake of a Japanese film called One Cut of the Dead. At about the 30-minute mark, I was ready to walk out, and I thought, why are we watching this? And then they took us on a ride for the next hour that, it's a really good ride. It's called Final Cut. BRIAN: And this is not to be confused with the Robin Williams Final Cut from... ? JOHN: Not to be confused with that, no. Or if you can go back to the original and watch the Japanese version. But what's great about the French version is they are literally remaking the Japanese version, to the point where they've made all the characters have Japanese names. Which the French people struggle with enormously. It's a highly effective film. Neal, how about you? Take us home. NEAL: Okay. It's not a new movie, but I just saw it very recently. It is a Chilean stop motion animated film called The Wolf House. It describes the adventures of a young Chilean woman who escapes from a repressive German colony and ends up in this bizarre house in which she blends into the walls. She's escaped with two pigs who grow up with her in this house, but again, nothing, no way in which I describe it is going to convey to you how deeply disturbing and chilling this movie is. It really is quite indescribably bizarre and disturbing and just well worth your time to watch. It's not quite like any other movie I've ever seen.

John Wynkoop, Cloud Economist & Platypus Herder at The Duckbill Group, joins Corey on Screaming in the Cloud to discuss why he decided to make a career move and become an AWS billing consultant. Corey and John discuss how once you're deeply familiar with one cloud provider, those skills become transferable to other cloud providers as well. John also shares the trends he has seen post-pandemic in the world of cloud, including the increased adoption of a multi-cloud strategy and the need for costs control even for VC-funded start-ups. About JohnWith over 25 years in IT, John's done almost every job in the industry, from running cable and answering helpdesk calls to leading engineering teams and advising the C-suite. Before joining The Duckbill Group, he worked across multiple industries including private sector, higher education, and national defense. Most recently he helped IGNW, an industry leading systems integration partner, get acquired by industry powerhouse CDW. When he's not helping customers spend smarter on their cloud bill, you can find him enjoying time with his family in the beautiful Smoky Mountains near his home in Knoxville, TN.Links Referenced: The Duckbill Group: https://duckbillgroup.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jlwynkoop/ TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. And the times, they are changing. My guest today is John Wynkoop. John, how are you?John: Hey, Corey, I'm doing great. Thanks for having me.Corey: So, big changes are afoot for you. You've taken a new job recently. What are you doing now?John: Well [laugh], so I'm happy to say I have joined The Duckbill Group as a cloud economist. So, came out of the big company world, and have dived back in—or dove back into the startup world.Corey: It's interesting because when we talk to those big companies, they always identify us as oh, you're a startup, which is hilarious on some level because our AWS account hangs out in AWS's startup group, but if you look at the spend being remarkably level from month to month to month to year to year to year, they almost certainly view us as they're a startup, but they suck at it. They completely failed. And so, many of the email stuff that you get from them presupposes that you're venture-backed, that you're trying to conquer the entire world. We don't do that here. We have this old-timey business model that our forebears would have understood of, we make more money than we spend every month and we continue that trend for a long time. So first, thanks for joining us, both on the show and at the company. We like having you around.John: Well, thanks. And yeah, I guess that's—maybe a startup isn't the right word to describe what we do here at The Duckbill Group, but as you said, it seems to fit into the industry classification. But that was one of the things I actually really liked about the—that was appealing about joining the team was, we do spend less than we make and we're not after hyper-growth and we're not trying to consume everything.Corey: So, it's interesting when you put a job description out into the world and you see who applies—and let's be clear, for those who are unaware, job descriptions are inherently aspirational shopping lists. If you look at a job description and you check every box on the thing and you've done all the things they want, the odds are terrific you're going to be bored out of your mind when you wind up showing up to do these… whatever that job is. You should be learning stuff and growing. At least that's always been my philosophy to it. One of the interesting things about you is that you checked an awful lot of boxes, but there is one that I think would cause people to raise an eyebrow, which is, you're relatively new to the fun world of AWS.John: Yeah. So, obviously I, you know, have been around the block a few times when it comes to cloud. I've used AWS, built some things in AWS, but I wouldn't have classified myself as an AWS guru by any stretch of the imagination. I spent the last probably three years working in Google Cloud, helping customers build and deploy solutions there, but I do at least understand the fundamentals of cloud, and more importantly—at least for our customers—cloud costs because at the end of the day, they're not all that different.Corey: I do want to call out that you have a certain humility to you which I find endearing. But you're not allowed to do that here; I will sing your praises for you. Before they deprecated it like they do almost everything else, you were one of the relatively few Google Cloud Certified Fellows, which was sort of like their Heroes program only, you know, they killed it in favor of something else like there's a Champion program or whatnot. You are very deep in the world of both Kubernetes and Google Cloud.John: Yeah. So, there was a few of us that were invited to come out and help Google pilot that program in, I believe it was 2019, and give feedback to help them build the Cloud Fellows Program. And thankfully, I was selected based on some of our early experience with Anthos, and specifically, it was around Certified Fellow in what they call hybrid multi-cloud, so it was experience around Anthos. Or at the time, they hadn't called it Anthos; they were calling it CSP or Cloud Services Platform because that's not an overloaded acronym. So yeah, definitely, was very humbled to be part of that early on.I think the program, as you said, grew to about 70 or so maybe 100 certified individuals before they transitioned—not killed—transitioned to that program into the Cloud Champions program. So, those folks are all still around, myself included. They've just now changed the moniker. But we all get to use the old title still as well, so that's kind of cool.Corey: I have to ask, what would possess you to go from being one of the best in the world at using Google Cloud over here to our corner of the AWS universe? Because the inverse, if I were to somehow get ejected from here—which would be a neat trick, but I'm sure it's theoretically possible—like, “What am I going to do now?” I would almost certainly wind up doing something in the AWS ecosystem, just due to inertia, if nothing else. You clearly didn't see things quite that way. Why make the switch?John: Well, a couple of different reasons. So, being at a Google partner presents a lot of challenges and one of the things that was supremely interesting about coming to Duckbill is that we're independent. So, we're not an AWS partner. We are an independent company that is beholden only to our customers. And there isn't anything like that in the Google ecosystem today.There's, you know, there's Google partners and then there's Google customers and then there's Google. So, that was part of the appeal. And the other thing was, I enjoy learning new things, and honestly, learning, you know, into the depths of AWS cost hell is interesting. There's a lot to learn there and there's a lot of things that we can extract and use to help customers spend less. So, that to me was super interesting.And then also, I want to help build an organization. So, you know, I think what we're doing here at The Duckbill Group is cool and I think that there's an opportunity to grow our services portfolio, and so I'm excited to work with the leadership team to see what else we can bring to market that's going to help our customers, you know, not just with cost optimization, not just with contract negotiation, but you know, through the lifecycle of their AWS… journey, I guess we'll call it.Corey: It's one of those things where I always have believed, on some level, that once you're deep in a particular cloud provider, if there's reason for it, you can rescale relatively quickly to a different provider. There are nuances—deep nuances—that differ from provider to provider, but the underlying concepts generally all work the same way. There's only so many ways you can have data go from point A to point B. There's only so many ways to spin up a bunch of VMs and whatnot. And you're proof-positive that theory was correct.You'd been here less than a week before I started learning nuances about AWS billing from you. I think it was something to do with the way that late fees are assessed when companies don't pay Amazon as quickly as Amazon desires. So, we're all learning new things constantly and no one stuffs this stuff all into their head. But that, if nothing else, definitely cemented that yeah, we've got the right person in the seat.John: Yeah, well, thanks. And certainly, the deeper you go on a specific cloud provider, things become fresh in your memory, you know, other cached so to speak. So, coming up to speed on AWS has been a little bit more documentation reading than it would have been, if I were, say, jumping right into a GCP engagement. But as he said, at the end of the day, there's a lot of similarities. Obviously understanding the nuances of, for example, account organization versus, you know, GCP's Project and Folders. Well, that's a substantial difference and so there's a lot of learning that has to happen.Thankfully, you know, all these companies, maybe with the exception of Oracle, have done a really good job of documenting all of the concepts in their publicly available documentation. And then obviously, having a team of experts here at The Duckbill Group to ask stupid questions of doesn't hurt. But definitely, it's not as hard to come up to speed as one may think, once you've got it understood in one provider.Corey: I took a look recently and was kind of surprised to discover that I've been doing this—as an independent consultant prior to the formation of The Duckbill Group—for seven years now. And it's weird, but I've gone through multiple industry cycles and changes as a part of this. And it feels like I haven't been doing it all that long, but I guess I have. One thing that's definitely changed is that it used to be that companies would basically pick one provider and almost everything would live there. At any reasonable point of scale, everyone is using multiple things.I see Google in effectively every client that we have. It used to be that going to Google Cloud Next was a great place to hang out with AWS customers. But these days, it's just as true to say that a great reason to go to re:Invent is to hang out with Google Cloud customers. Everyone uses everything, and that has become much more clear over the last few years. What have you seen change over the… I guess, since the start of the pandemic, just in terms of broad cycles?John: Yeah. So, I think there's a couple of different trends that we're seeing. Obviously, one is that as you said, especially as large enterprises make moves to the cloud, you see independent teams or divisions within a given organization leveraging… maybe not the right tool for the job because I think that there's a case to be made for swapping out a specific set of tools and having your team learn it, but we do see what I like to refer to as tool fetishism where you get a team that's super, super deep into BigQuery and they're not interested in moving to Redshift, or Snowflake, or a competitor. So, you see, those start to crop up within large organizations where the distributed—the purchasing power, rather—is distributed. So, that's one of the trends is the multi-cloud adoption.And I think the big trend that I like to emphasize around multi-cloud is, just because you can run it anywhere doesn't mean you should run it everywhere. So Kubernetes, as you know, right, as it took off 2019 timeframe, 2020, we started to see a lot of people using that as an excuse to try to run their production application in two, three public cloud providers and on-prem. And unless you're a SaaS customer—or SaaS company with customers in every cloud, there's very little reason to do that. But having that flexibility—that's the other one, is we've seen that AWS has gotten a little difficult to negotiate with, or maybe Google and Microsoft have gotten a little bit more aggressive. So obviously, having that flexibility and being able to move your workloads, that was another big trend.Corey: I'm seeing a change in things that I had taken as givens, back when I started. And that's part of the reason, incidentally, I write the Last Week in AWS newsletter because once you learn a thing, it is very easy not to keep current with that thing, and things that are not possible today will be possible tomorrow. How do you keep abreast of all of those changes? And the answer is to write a deeply sarcastic newsletter that gathers in everything from the world of AWS. But I don't recommend that for most people. One thing that I've seen in more prosaic terms that you have a bit of background in is that HPC on cloud was, five, six years ago, met with, “Oh, that's a good one; now pull the other one, it has bells on it,” into something that, these days, is extremely viable. How'd that happen?John: So, [sigh] I think that's just a—again, back to trends—I think that's just a trend that we're seeing from cloud providers and listening to their customers and continuing to improve the service. So, one of the reasons that HPC was—especially we'll call it capacity-level HPC or large HPC, right—you've always been able to run high throughput; the cloud is a high throughput machine, right? You can run a thousand disconnected VMs no problem, auto-scaling, anybody who runs a massive web front-end can attest to that. But what we saw with HPC—and we used to call those [grid 00:12:45] jobs, right, the small, decoupled computing jobs—but what we've seen is a huge increase in the quality of the underlying fabric—things like RDMA being made available, things like improved network locality, where you now have predictive latency between your nodes or between your VMs—and I think those, combined with the huge investment that companies like AWS have made in their file systems, the huge investment companies like Google have made in their data storage systems have made HPC viable, especially at a small-scale—for cloud-based HPC specifically—viable for organizations.And for a small engineering team, who's looking to run say, computer-aided engineering simulation or who's looking to prototype some new way of testing or doing some kind of simulation, it's a huge, huge improvement in speed because now they don't have to order a dozen or two dozen or five dozen nodes, have them shipped, rack them, stack them, cool them, power them, right? They can just spin up the resource in the cloud, test it out, try their simulation, try out the new—the software that they want, and then spin it all down if it doesn't work. So, that elasticity has also been huge. And again, I think the big—to kind of summarize, I think the big driver there is the improvement in this the service itself, right? We're seeing cloud providers taking that discipline a little bit more seriously.Corey: I still see that there are cases where the raw math doesn't necessarily add up for sustained, long-term use cases. But I also see increasingly that with HPC, that's usually not what the workload looks like. With, you know, the exception of we're going to spend the next 18 months training some new LLM thing, but even then the pricing is ridiculous. What is it their new P6 or whatever it is—P5—the instances that have those giant half-rack Nvidia cards that are $800,000 and so a year each if you were to just rent them straight out, and then people running fleets of these things, it's… wow that's more commas in that training job than I would have expected. But I can see just now the availability for driving some of that, but the economics of that once you can get them in your data center doesn't strike me as being particularly favoring the cloud.John: Yeah, there's a couple of different reasons. So, it's almost like an inverse curve, right? There's a crossover point or a breakeven point at which—you know, and you can make this argument with almost any level of infrastructure—if you can keep it sufficiently full, whether it's AI training, AI inference, or even traditional HPC if you can keep the machine or the group of machines sufficiently full, it's probably cheaper to buy it and put it in your facility. But if you don't have a facility or if you don't need to use it a hundred percent of the time, the dividends aren't always there, right? It's not always worth, you know, buying a $250,000 compute system, you know, like say, an Nvidia, as you—you know, like, a DGX, right, is a good example.The DGX H100, I think those are a couple $100,000. If you can't keep that thing full and you just need it for training jobs or for development and you have a small team of developers that are only going to use it six hours a day, it may make sense to spin that up in the cloud and pay for a fractional use, right? It's no different than what HPC has been doing for probably the past 50 years with national supercomputing centers, which is where my background came from before cloud, right? It's just a different model, right? One is public economies of, you know, insert your credit card and spend as much as you want and the other is grant-funded and supporting academic research, but the economy of scales is kind of the same on both fronts.Corey: I'm also seeing a trend that this is something that is sort of disturbing when you realize what I've been doing and how I've been going about things, that for the last couple of years, people actually started to care about the AWS bill. And I have to say, I felt like I was severely out of sync with a lot of the world the first few years because there's giant savings lurking in your AWS bill, and the company answer in many cases was, “We don't care. We'd rather focus our energies on shipping faster, building something new, expanding, capturing market.” And that is logical. But suddenly those chickens are coming home to roost in a big way. Our phone is ringing off the hook, as I'm sure you've noticed and your time here, and suddenly money means something again. What do you think drove it?John: So, I think there's a couple of driving factors. The first is obviously the broader economic conditions, you know, with the economic growth in the US, especially slowing down post-pandemic, we're seeing organizations looking for opportunities to spend less to be able to deliver—you know, recoup that money and deliver additional value. But beyond that, right—because, okay, but startups are probably still lighting giant piles of VC money on fire, and that's okay, but what's happening, I think, is that the first wave of CIOs that said cloud-first, cloud-only basically got their comeuppance. And, you know, these enterprises saw their explosive cloud bills and they saw that, oh, you know, we moved 5000 servers to AWS or GCP or Azure and we got the bill, and that's not sustainable. And so, we see a lot of cloud repatriation, cloud optimization, right, a lot of second-gen… cloud, I'll call them second-gen cloud-native CIOs coming into these large organizations where their predecessor made some bad financial decisions and either left or got asked to leave, and now they're trying to stop from lighting their giant piles of cash on fire, they're trying to stop spending 3X what they were spending on-prem.Corey: I think an easy mistake for folks to make is to get lost in the raw infrastructure cost. I'm not saying it's not important. Obviously not, but you could save a giant pile of money on your RDS instances by running your own database software on top of EC2, but I don't generally recommend folks do it because you also need engineering time to be focusing on getting those things up, care and feeding, et cetera. And what people lose sight of is the fact that the payroll expense is almost universally more than the cloud bill at every company I've ever talked to.So, there's a consistent series of, “Well, we're just trying to get to be the absolute lowest dollar figure total.” It's the wrong thing to emphasize on, otherwise, “Cool, turn everything off and your bill drops to zero.” Or, “Migrate to another cloud provider. AWS bill becomes zero. Our job is done.” It doesn't actually solve the problem at all. It's about what's right for the business, not about getting the absolute lowest possible score like it's some kind of code golf tournament.John: Right. So, I think that there's a couple of different ways to look at that. One is obviously looking at making your workloads more cloud-native. I know that's a stupid buzzword to some people, but—Corey: The problem I have with the term is that it means so many different things to different people.John: Right. But I think the gist of that is taking advantage of what the cloud is good at. And so, what we saw was that excess capacity on-prem was effectively free once you bought it, right? There were there was no accountability for burning through extra V CPUs or extra RAM. And then you had—Corey: Right. You spin something up in your data center and the question is, “Is the physical capacity there?” And very few companies had a reaping process until they were suddenly seeing capacity issues and suddenly everyone starts asking you a whole bunch of questions about it. But that was a natural forcing function that existed. Now, S3 has infinite storage, or it might as well. They can add capacity faster than you can fill it—I know this; I've tried—and the problem that you have then is that it's always just a couple more cents per gigabyte and it keeps on going forever. There's no, we need to make an investment decision because the SAN is at 80% capacity. Do you need all those 16 copies of the production data that you haven't touched since 2012? No, I probably don't.John: Yeah, there's definitely a forcing function when you're doing your own capacity planning. And the cloud, for the most part, as you've alluded to, for most organizations is infinite capacity. So, when they're looking at AWS or they're looking at any of the public cloud providers, it's a potentially infinite bill. Now, that scares a lot of organizations, and so because they didn't have the forcing function of, hey, we're out of CPUs, or we're out of hard disk space, or we're out of network ports, I think that because the cloud was a buzzword that a lot of shareholders and boards wanted to see in IT status reports and IT strategic plans, I think we grew a little bit further than we should have, from an enterprise perspective. And I think a lot of that's now being clawed back as organizations are maturing and looking to manage cost. Obviously, the huge growth of just the term FinOps from a search perspective over the last three years has cemented that, right? We're seeing a much more cost-conscious consumer—cloud consumer—than we saw three years ago.Corey: I think that the baseline level of understanding has also risen. It used to be that I would go into a client environment, prepared to deploy all kinds of radical stuff that these days look like context-aware architecture and things that would automatically turn down developer environments when developers were done for the day or whatnot. And I would discover that, oh, you haven't bought Reserved Instances in three years. Maybe start there with the easy thing. And now you don't see those, the big misconfigurations or the big oversights the way that you once did.People are getting better at this, which is a good thing. I'm certainly not having a problem with this. It means that we get to focus on things that are more architecturally nuanced, which I love. And I think that it forces us to continue innovating rather than just doing something that basically any random software stack could provide.John: Yeah, I think to your point, the easy wins are being exhausted or have been exhausted already, right? Very rarely do we walk into a customer and see that they haven't bought a, you know, Reserved Instance, or a Savings Plan. That's just not a thing. And the proliferation of software tools to help with those things, of course, in some cases, dubious proposition of, “We'll fix your cloud bill automatically for a small percentage of the savings,” that some of those software tools have, I think those have kind of run their course. And now you've got a smarter populace or smarter consumer and it does come into the more nuanced stuff, right.All right, do you really need to replicate data across AZs? Well, not if your workloads aren't stateful. Well, so some of the old things—and Kubernetes is a great example of this, right—the age old adage of, if I'm going to spin up an EKS cluster, I need to put it in three AZs, okay, why? That's going to cost you money [laugh], the cross-AZ traffic. And I know cross-AZ traffic is a simple one, but we still see that. We still see, “Well, I don't know why I put it across all three AZs.”And so, the service-to-service communication inside that cluster, the control plane traffic inside that cluster, is costing you money. Now, it might be minimal, but as you grow and as you scale your product or the services that you're providing internally, that may grow to a non-trivial sum of money.Corey: I think that there's a tipping point where an unbounded growth problem is always going to emerge as something that needs attention and needs to be focused on. But I should ask you this because you have a skill set that is, as you know, extremely in demand. You also have that rare gift that I wish wasn't as rare as it is where you can be thrown into the deep end knowing next to nothing about a particular technology stack, and in a remarkably short period of time, develop what can only be called subject matter expertise around it. I've seen you do this years past with Kubernetes, which is something I'm still trying to wrap my head around. You have a natural gift for it which meant that, from many respects, the world was your oyster. Why this? Why now?John: So, I think there's a couple of things that are unique at this thing, at this time point, right? So obviously, helping customers has always been something that's fun and exciting for me, right? Going to an organization and solving the same problem I've solved 20 different times, for example, spinning up a Kubernetes cluster, I guess I have a little bit of a little bit of squirrel syndrome, so to speak, and that gets—it gets boring. I'd rather just automate that or build some tooling and disseminate that to the customers and let them do that. So, the thing with cost management is, it's always a different problem.Yeah, we're solving fundamentally the same problem, which is, I'm spending too much, but it's always a different root cause, you know? In one customer, it could be data transfer fees. In another customer, it could be errant development growth where they're not controlling the spend on their development environments. In yet another customer, it could be excessive object storage growth. So, being able to hunt and look for those and play detective is really fun, and I think that's one of the things that drew me to this particular area.The other is just from a timing perspective, this is a problem a lot of organizations have, and I think it's underserved. I think that there are not enough companies—service providers, whatever—focusing on the hard problem of cost optimization. There's too many people who think it's a finance problem and not enough people who think it's an engineering problem. And so, I wanted to do work on a place where we think it's an engineering problem.Corey: It's been a very… long road. And I think that engineering problems and people problems are both fascinating to me, and the AWS bill is both. It's often misunderstood as a finance problem, and finance needs to be consulted absolutely, but they can't drive an optimization project, and they don't know what the context is behind an awful lot of decisions that get made. It really is breaking down bridges. But also, there's a lot of engineering in here, too. It scratches my itch in that direction, anyway.John: Yeah, it's one of the few business problems that I think touches multiple areas. As you said, it's obviously a people problem because we want to make sure that we are supporting and educating our staff. It's a process problem. Are we making costs visible to the organization? Are we making sure that there's proper chargeback and showback methodologies, et cetera? But it's also a technology problem. Did we build this thing to take advantage of the architecture or did we shoehorn it in a way that's going to cost us a small fortune? And I think it touches all three, which I think is unique.Corey: John, I really want to thank you for taking the time to speak with me. If people want to learn more about what you're up to in a given day, where's the best place for them to find you?John: Well, thanks, Corey, and thanks for having me. And, of course obviously, our website duckbillgroup.com is a great place to find out what we're working on, what we have coming. I also, I'm pretty active on LinkedIn. I know that's [laugh]—I'm not a huge Twitter guy, but I am pretty active on LinkedIn, so you can always drop me a follow on LinkedIn. And I'll try to post interesting and useful content there for our listeners.Corey: And we will, of course, put links to that in the [show notes 00:28:37], which in my case, is of course extremely self-aggrandizing. But that's all right. We're here to do self-promotion. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me, John. I appreciate it. Now, get back to work.John: [laugh]. All right, thanks, Corey. Have a good one.Corey: John Wynkoop, cloud economist at The Duckbill Group. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice while also taking pains to note how you're using multiple podcast platforms these days because that just seems to be the way the world went.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.

On this episode, we will continue our conversation on what expenses may change when you enter into retirement. Helpful Information: PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/ Contact: 813-286-7776 Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is a registered investment adviser. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investment involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment adviser to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Transcript of Today's Show: For a full transcript of today's show, visit the blog related to this episode at https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/podcast/ ----more---- Mark: Back here for another episode of the podcast with John and Nick from PFG Private Wealth. On Retirement Planning Redefined, we're going to get back into our conversation from the prior episode about cashflow. We went through some categories, housing, work stuff, healthcare, taxes, so on and so forth, on how those expenses will change either to the plus or the minus, depending on our setup. Well, this is the time to talk about the setup. So as we are assessing our retirement expenses, we'll break these down into a couple of categories. So we're going to talk about those with the guys. John, welcome in buddy. How you doing this week? John: Hey, I'm doing all right. How are you? Mark: Hanging in there. Doing pretty well. How about you, Nick? Nick: Pretty good. Staying busy. Mark: Staying busy and enjoying. So we're taping this before the fourth, but we're dropping this after the fourth, so hopefully you guys had a good fourth? Nick, you probably went up and saw family, yeah? Nick: Heading up north to just, yeah, extended family and friends. That fourth week makes it an easier week to get away because everyone's doing stuff anyways. Mark: Yeah, yeah. It's always funny when we have the holidays and we're kind of taping the podcast ahead of time because then drop it because we're not around, so sometimes I get confused on my dates. So yeah, again, we're talking about this before the fourth about what we'll probably will be doing on the fourth. So John, are you on grill duty? Because I know I am. I'm stuck on it. John: No, no. My brother's forcing me to have a cookout at my house, so I told him if I'm providing the house, he's the one on grill duty. Mark: Okay, that'll work.   John: He's visiting from Boston, so he's excited because my other brother's down here and my sister, cousin, and actually the best man in his wedding is married to my sister, so he decided to come down.   Mark: So Marketing 101. So the second you said Boston, all I hear is these Sam Adams commercials right now, "Your cousin from Boston." Every freaking time I hear Boston, that's the first thing I think of. Or Sam Adams beer, I go right there. All through the hockey playoffs and NBA playoffs, I kept seeing those commercials so it's embedded in my brain. But hey, that's the point of marketing, right, is to be those little earworms, so you go out and buy whatever it is that you go out and buy. And speaking of that, that's my transition into the must haves versus the nice to haves. So if we're talking about those accounts, those different categories that we went through on the prior episode, guys, how do those things now play into for our cashflow? Again, cashflow is the conversation wraparound, it's the wrapper of this whole endeavor. We need to break this down. And do you guys do this with clients? Is it something you encourage them to do, because everybody's individual needs and wants are going to be a little bit differently, but do you break things up in the must-haves versus the nice to haves? Nick: I would say to a certain extent, we do. We kind of list basic expenses and discretionary expenses. Mark: So give us some musts. What's the musts? Nick: So obviously housing, healthcare, food and groceries, some form of transportation, whether it's one vehicle, two vehicles. Getting rid of debt. Those are all things that are obviously needs. [inaudible 00:03:02] Mark: Life essentials, right? Nick: Yeah, for sure, for sure. Depending upon the people, some things are discretionary. I would say most of the people that we work for can't afford to have some sort of traveling in retirement. Mark: Yeah, so is two trips a year or is it five trips a year? That's kinds how it starts to change? Nick: Yeah, exactly. Or even a big trip every X amount of years. So like a baseline travel budget of X, and then let's add one of the things that we commonly do is, let's say the travel budget is $6,000 a year from a baseline standpoint, and then every three years they want to do an additional trip of another 6,000, that's one trip. And so we can scatter that in throughout the plan and show them what it looks like and toggle that on and off. And with how we do planning, we can show them the impact of doing something like that and what it does to their plan. So for the higher tier, nice to have. For discretionary expenses, we will use our planning software and kind of show them, Hey, here's the impact on your plan if you want to do that. Because we always preface everything, it's telling people that it's your money, we're not telling you how to spend your money or what to do with your money, our job is to show you the impact of the decisions that you make. Mark: That makes sense, yeah. Nick: So let's arm you with that information so that you understand if you do these things, then let's make an adjustment accordingly. And for sometimes it helps them put into perspective where not everything is a yes or a no. And what I mean by that is, well, let's just say that there's two lifetime trips that they wanted to really do, and so they like to have a bigger travel budget, but really when you boil it down, it's like, okay, I want to make sure I go to these two places. So we make sure that we can accomplish those and make adjustments elsewhere. [inaudible 00:04:58] Mark: Yeah, because the must ... I'm sorry to cut you off, but I was thinking about this as you were saying it. The must-haves, like the housing, the health, food, you're not going to have any kind of discretionary wiggle room. Well, you don't want to. Now you could say, okay, we'll eat less food, or something like that, but that's not the goal in retirement, you don't want to go backwards. So the place typically we do make some adjustments in the cuts are in the nice to have categories. Nick: Yeah, and usually it's almost more of a toggle where even to a certain extent of, we've had conversations where, hey, if things are going really well in the markets and we're able to take advantage and take a little extra money out in years where things have gone well, that's kind of the impetus to do this sort of thing. Mark: Kind of pad the numbers a little bit.   Nick: Yeah. Mark: John, let me get you on here for, besides the expenses we covered, some of the things we went through, what are some contributing factors that will affect cashflow problems that you guys see in retirement? So all these different things, whether it's healthcare, housing, whether it's whatever, give me some bullet points here for folks to think about on things that can, not in a category per se, but like outside effectors, outside influencers, that can really cause us cashflow problems in retirement. John: The number one I'd say, concern for most people going through retirement is longevity. How long does my money need to last? Mark: And that's the great multiplier, right? Because if you live longer, it makes everything else go up. John: Correct. Yeah. So that's one thing we look at, and we do plans. We're planning for age 100, and we'll always get people like, well, I'm not living that long. But the thing is, that's always ... Mark: What if you do? John: Exactly. So it's like, Hey, listen, if you live to 100, guess what? Mark: You're covered. John: Your plan looks good. You could live to 90 and the plan looks good. So we always plan for, we again, overestimate the expenses, overestimate the life expectancy, Mark: And then you don't have to live with your cousin in Boston, right? John: Exactly. That's right. Mark: All right. What else besides longevity? John: Another big one we're seeing right now is inflation. Because with retirement, you're not getting a paycheck anymore, so your ability to earn is now gone. So your nest egg is providing that income for you and social security. And keeping up with inflation, especially the last few years has been a challenge for quite a few people. And mostly I would say for me, I've noticed my food bill has gone up drastically in the last couple of years, more than anything else is really. Because we talked about musts and nice to have, if trips go up, you could say, all right, I'm going to go on a little bit lesser trip, or not go as much, but you know, you got to eat and you got to have healthcare. So those things there are big ones to really consider going into retirement and to be aware of, is the plan [inaudible 00:07:42] Mark: Yeah, a friend of mine, for Memorial Day, we were talking about cookouts earlier, so we got July 4th, you're probably hearing this after July 4th, but how much did it cost you to buy this stuff? So a friend of mine posted a picture around Memorial Day that he bought three steaks, and he lived in the New York area, Nick, actually. And the tag on the thing was like 60 bucks for three steaks. It was like, holy moly. And I know different parts of the country are more expensive than others, but it was just where I'm at, it was like, wow. And they weren't like that impressive of a steak. So to your point, you got to eat. Nick: To be honest with you, I think there's a little bit of ... Mark: Price gouging. Nick: ... ridiculousness and price gouging going on right now from the perspective of a lot of different areas. I just got my six months notice on my car insurance, I've been complaining to everybody about it. One vehicle, no accidents [inaudible 00:08:34] John: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Nick, this isn't a therapy session, right? Mark: Well remembered, well remembered, John, from the prior episode. Very good. Nick: Yes. I drive probably 7,000 miles a year at the most and paying almost $2,500 a year for car insurance. But the crazy part is that, so okay, if it's always been high, that's one thing, but two years ago when I had switched companies, it was about 1,700. So again, we take ... Mark: Inflation. Nick: Do the math on that. I'm sorry, but 50% is not inflation, there's some 50% in two years and it's kind of wild. And then even just going, the area that we're in has been massive growth in this area, but even what the restaurants are charging, and it's just inflation impacts different areas differently. Mark: It's an excuse. I mean, just like anything, we've turned it into excuse, just like the supply chain problem issue. A friend of mine was trying to get his RV worked on and they were like, well, we're still having supply chain issues for a valve. And it's like, really, a valve on an RV, it's been three years. I don't know if supply chain issue really holds in that argument, but if companies are dragging their feet or employers, somebody's just taking long, that's just an excuse. And I think that's the same thing with the inflation. Is it real? Yes. But to your point, are some of these numbers really truly justified? But they can use that, well, inflation's bad. That's the excuse they use in order to hit you with a 50% increase. Nick: Yeah, and I'd say from a planning perspective, because people get concerned about that from a planning perspective, and saying, well, hey, we had much higher inflation last year than we did in our plan moving forward, and [inaudible 00:10:27] Mark: Are we going to be okay to survive it, yeah. Nick: Yeah, and the easiest way that we mitigate that from a planning perspective is we reprice current expenses. So in other words, repricing the current expenses allows us to take that into consideration, the increases that we've had, and then use more normal rates moving forward, which is how you more accurately display that from a planning side of things. Mark: Gotcha. All right, John, so you hit us with longevity and inflation as a couple of areas that can contribute to cashflow problems. Give me a couple more before we wrap up this week. John: Investment returns is another spot, depending on what type of plan you do or type of planning, if some people will really have their income depend on what their portfolio is returning for them. Mark: So we're talking about sequence of return risk, kind of thing? John: Yeah. So if you having a down year and there's not as much income coming in from your portfolio, well that could ultimately affect your cashflow. Or if it's a down year, and we go back to longevity of, Hey, how long is my portfolio going to last, just have a 20% dip in the market, you're going to be a little concerned about pulling out in that period of time, because once you pull out, you know, you realize those losses, and there's no more recovering [inaudible 00:11:41] Mark: Yeah, it's a double way, it's the market's down and you're pulling money out. So the truth that makes the longevity factor interesting. Okay. John: So one more thing on this. This is really important, and especially what we're seeing in the last couple of years where you have some type of plan where if you are dependent on that, you have almost like a different bucket to pull from in a time like this. So you really want to position yourself to be able to adapt to downturns in the market which could affect your income. Nick: One of the things, and I've been having this conversation quite a bit lately, is that previous to last year, for the dozen years leading up to that, rates in return on fixed or cash and cash equivalence was so low, you couldn't get any return on that money, that really people shifted predominantly, or at least in a large way, to take more risks, meaning more upside, so more heavily on the [inaudible 00:12:39] Mark: Well, because the market was going up too. We get addicted to that, so it's very easy to go, well, it does nothing but climb, it's done it for 12 years in a row, so let's keep going, right? Nick: Yeah. And a little bit of that's a circle where it's part of the reason it kept climbing, is because people were saying, well, and not just, but it's just a contributing factor where it's like, well, hey, I'm literally getting zero return here. So inflation's eating away at my money anyways, I might as well take a little bit more risk. And so earlier this year in the majority of our client portfolios, we took some money off the table because now we can get four to 5% in something that has no risk, and that lets us kind of at least take a deep breath, see what's going on, get some sort of return, where most of our plans, we use five to 6% in retirement anyways. Mark: Yeah, that's a good point. You just got to be careful, right? Because we don't know how long those rates will last either, so you don't want to lock yourself into anything too hefty either, without making sure it's the correct move for you. Especially, I'm thinking more like CDs for example. Nick: Yeah. We still target things that are short term, that sort of thing. But for a retiree, even from the perspective of, let's just use the million dollar number, there's a huge difference between five years ago, where if you wanted to do a one year CD and you could get 0.8%, that's $8,000 on a million bucks versus 5%, even just for a year, now it's 50,000 of income. I mean, one is you can't pay your bills, another one is going to be much more comfortable. So for a retiree, one of the sunny side or glass half full part of what we've been dealing with from an inflation perspective, is that at least there's a little bit more return on safer money as we try to re-plan and readjust. Mark: Yeah. No, that makes sense. So one more category here that I want to hit for just cashflow problems in retirement, John, you did longevity inflation and investment returns. I'm going to assume the fourth one's probably just the emergencies, the things that life throws at you in retirement years? John: Yeah, a hundred percent. Emergency funds, it's [inaudible 00:14:44] Mark: Got to have one. John: ... for that, because you just don't know what's going to happen. Mark: Murphy's Law's going to happen, right? John: Murphy's Law's been happening for the last three years. So basically a big one is healthcare expenses, which we touched on as a must have. So big health event could really dip into your emergency funds. Or again, especially here in Florida with the roofs, have talked to some clients and friends who basically were having homeowners insurance issues here, and then carriers are basically saying, Hey, for you to get renewed, you need a new roof. And all of a sudden it's like, what? I just go, my roof's fine. It's like, well, it's outdated, you know, you need a new one, or else [inaudible 00:15:24] Mark: And so they're not covering maybe the full cost or some of the cost, I guess, but they won't insure you. John: I had some friends actually get notices saying, your roof's too old. If you don't replace it, we're dropping coverage. Mark: Oh geez. Okay, yeah. John: So that's an emergency expense. Mark: Definitely. John: Roofs aren't necessarily cheap, so important to have an emergency fund because like you said, Murphy's Law, you have no idea what's going to come up and you want to be prepared for that. Mark: Yeah. No, that's a good point. Nick: The roof thing is pretty wild here too, because a lot of people have tile roofs down here. And depending upon the size of the house, a tile roof is going to cost you, what John? Between 50 and a hundred thousand dollars? John: Yeah, 50 to a hundred grand. Mark: Really? Holy moly. Nick: And so, yeah, and then if you're in a neighborhood that has association rules and all these other things, it can get a little squirrely. So just understanding even little basic things like that, where especially people that came maybe from up north where it's just shingle roofs and 10, 12 grand, 15 maybe, and then [inaudible 00:16:25] Mark: Yeah, I was going to say, my metal roof was like 20, and that was like eight years ago. Nick: Yeah. So there's just things like that where we always very much emphasize having an emergency fund. Mark: Yeah, definitely. All right, good stuff. Talking just cashflow issues, things to consider here on the podcast the last couple of weeks. So if you're worried about the cashflow or you're just worried about making sure your plan is accurate for the time of life you're in, especially if you're one of these folks that maybe got a plan, you're like, ah, I got a plan put together like a decade ago, or whatever. Well, it's not a set it and forget it, it shouldn't be a set it and forget it, anyway. Even insurance policies, sometimes it's very easy to get one and throw it in the drawer for 20 years and forget about it, but all those things can be looked at and reviewed and see if there's a better way to put a strategy together. So if you need a first opinion or second opinion, reach out to John and Nick and the team at PFG Private Wealth. Find them online at pfgprivatewealth.com. That's pfgprivatewealth.com. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Google, Spotify, whatever the case might be. Whichever podcasting platform app you like, just type in retirement planning redefine in the search box. Or again, find it all online, pfgprivatewealth.com. For John, Nick, I'm your host, Mark. We'll catch you next time here on the podcast. This has been Retirement Planning Redefined.

Have you heard about the multifamily market oversupply that's been increasing since the undersupply during the COVID-19 pandemic? In this episode, Jason chats with John Carlson, President of Mark-Taylor Residential about Insight on the multifamily market oversupply. Mark-Taylor Residential has currently an inventory of 22,000 units and over 34,000 residents, being a multifamily leader in Arizona. You'll Learn... [06:33] What is the Multifamily Market Oversupply? [14:44] The Fundamentals of Real Estate and Property Management [20:05] Why Property Managers Need Their Own Portfolio [25:11] What will Happen to the Market Next? Tweetables “If you're that light, people are going to be reaching out to the light when it gets dark.” “Property managers, they have no concern about being the bad guy. They're totally cool with making sure that things work and running it like a business.” “You have to make sense of the market.” “I think it's a smart move that every property manager should be also building up their own investments.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: Property managers have a duty to be involved a little bit politically to prevent this firestorm from happening. And this is an opportunity to go and be the canary in the coal mine or be the Paul Revere shouting, from the horse, letting everybody know, Hey, there's a problem coming.  [00:00:18] Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you're interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently then you are a DoorGrow hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. [00:00:55] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the bs, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show. [00:01:19] My guest today, I'm hanging out here with John Carlson. From Mark Taylor residential, and I mean, it sounds like you guys are doing some big things. They're in Arizona, they have 22,000 units, 34,000 residents. This is not a small operation, so John, welcome to the show. [00:01:37] John: Jason, good morning everybody. Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.  [00:01:41] Jason: Cool. So we're going to be chatting a bit about multifamily market over supply, which I'm guessing is pretty much what it sounds like. So, but John, maybe give us a little bit of background on you first and how you got into this and your relationship with Mark Taylor and all of this kind of stuff. Give us some backstory.  [00:02:00] John: Sure, brevity matters. So, grew up in the Midwest Southern Minnesota. Farmer by trait with stepfather from age 10 until 18. Realized that was not for me. I'm not the micro dirty jobs kind of guy. You can see. I like the dressed up look. Yeah. So at age 16, I really thought about what I wanted to do in life, and of course didn't know. I was good at math, so I decided to be an electrical engineer. So I went to school for that. Worked for a great small company called vtech for about five years. Was able to finish school while working there and travel the world and discovered Phoenix and realized Minnesota was not long for me and what I wanted to be and do long term. So, chose Phoenix with my girlfriend Megan at the time. Traveled to Phoenix to look at apartments. I think we toured 15 or so apartments in one day. We had the big apartment guide book, if you remember those. Yeah, listeners. So we were feeding through those and there's a big eight fold and it had Mark Taylor communities. So we toured three or four of those and landed on San Cervantes. I always joke with my team, we actually broke into the amenity space because the office was closed, it was past six o'clock. So I just remember seeing this beautiful, resort style pool, sand, beach area, ramada water features. And I'm like, Megan, we have to live here. So, We flew back that night landed. I called the manager, Michelle Sinclair the next day and secured a two bedroom apartment class, a brand new for $940 and a month free concession.  [00:03:28] So we moved a few weeks later and this was just prior to 9/11. Megan had a job. I was scheduled to fly back to Chicago to a final interview with a fuse company. They were opening a satellite office in Phoenix, and that was scheduled on 9/13 2001. Okay. So clearly there were no flights that day. The world was on edge, including me, and they put a hiring freeze on. So I was off to the races with my fax machine and sending out resumes if everyone knows what a fax machine is, right? So, that lasted a few months and lo and behold, Michelle, the manager, came to me and said, Hey, Would you consider part-time leasing while you wait for a position in engineering? And in my fixed mindset, I said, no. I'm an engineer pounding my chest. And a week later I realized I had to pay bills and electricity and all of those things, car payments, so I signed on and never looked back. I fell in love with the organization, real estate, and truly found my home as we like to say. And that's Mark Taylor.  [00:04:27] Jason: Cool. That's quite a story. So it's pretty interesting. And so now what do you do at Mark Taylor? So everybody's clear.  [00:04:34] John: So today I run Mark Taylor as president. As you mentioned, now 23,000 units Class A both Phoenix and Las Vegas. So in two states so, regional but have a pretty good grasp of the market across the country. So, And I think, a lot of us know us nationally from a brand recognition standpoint. We've been in business almost 40 years. So that's Mark Taylor in a nutshell.  [00:04:56] Jason: So, That's awesome. Yeah, it's quite a story to go from starting to help with leasing to being president of the company. I think you skipped a lot of steps in between, but I enjoyed the beginning. So, what was the time gap there just for the audience to understand? [00:05:13] John: So I started leasing in 2002. My girlfriend Megan, moved back to Minnesota a year later. So I was here by myself. So I had a lot of time to figure out leasing real estate in the business. So I just moved my way through the organization. Like I said, I was good at math. I think I always had an appetite for real estate and I just really sunk my teeth into this business. And, as I always tell my new hires and the younger generation folks like lean in on mentors, find the best leaders. I found some great leadership mentors, people that were patient with me Yeah. And building up my skillset including Scott Taylor and Jeff Mark, our founders. And I just felt like that really helped my growth and my pathway and I worked my ass off. And I think, you can never look back and poo work ethic and sure. My mom and my father helped me with that years ago.  [00:06:02] Jason: Yeah. Growing up on a farm, you're going to learn some work ethic. Yeah. Whenever we were bored, my dad would say, we'd learn never to say we were bored because he would put us to work. We'd be working in the yard.  [00:06:13] John: I think I used that word for about 10 years.  [00:06:15] Jason: So I'm never bored. I am creative and I'm never bored, so it doesn't happen. All right, so cool. Well, John it's awesome to connect. So what year did you become president? How long? 2016. Okay. Okay, cool. Yeah, I mean, that's a cool story right there. That's a cool story. So let's get into this topic: multifamily market oversupply. I mean, there's a lot of multifamily stuff going up here in Austin. I'm seeing it pop up everywhere. There's building and building. So, what are you seeing there in Arizona? What are you seeing, maybe you think is happening here in the US and the market?  [00:06:51] John: Sure, let me start with, I'll start with, Phoenix Metro and all this broaden out. So, Phoenix, like most of the country was undersupplied from a multifamily perspective since really 2011. And I think if you just look back at the gfc the greater financial crisis in 2008 and nine and 10 that really I'll say put development in a paralysis type state. And Phoenix specifically was almost like the Black Plague. No one wanted to even think about investing here. And as most of the audience knows, I mean, it takes a long time to, to buy a piece of dirt, zone prep, design, get zoning approvals and get it through the city and actually build a unit that's two to three or four years depending on project type. So it took a long time to build up supply. So being undersupplied for a decade really resulted in a lot of things that we hadn't seen historically in Phoenix or across really the national landscape. So fast forward to the pandemic and we're starting to kind of get our, I'll say druthers in terms of supply. We're starting to get a better balance of that. An interesting data point we were delivering 18 to 22,000 units in the mid eighties in Phoenix, and had never delivered. 10,000 units in a year, past 1987 until last year. So if you think about the population adjustment, 19, just say 95 versus today, that's, almost 2 million people different. So, clearly there was an undersupply component. Fast forward to today and we're delivering and will deliver about 16 to 17,000 units in Phoenix Metro. Again, hadn't delivered past 10,000 units until last year when we delivered just over 13,000. So, yeah, I'll just say the equilibrium was in the landlord's favor, and unfortunately for renters that was costing them in terms of, monthly rent and you add to the field, the tailwind of Covid. Lots of folks came to Phoenix and I call it the Boomerang effect. Although the boomerang never came back, meaning. A lot of folks got to experience Phoenix for the first time, and I think this was a condition across the country. They found great spots where maybe there was a little bit less restriction in the Covid era, if you will. [00:09:04] And there were people coming here from California nonstop saying, God, I really enjoy Phoenix. I'm going to rent a place for six months. My employer's allowing me to be flexible at this point, and I'm going to test this out. And I think a lot of people decided to stay. So, as always, jobs create future apartment demand, but in this instant, if you worked in San Francisco, but you were living here in a six or 12 month lease, we weren't absorbing your job, but we were definitely taking your monthly payment. So, it was unique in that aspect and a lot of things changed from Covid. Obviously we can touch on that later, but expand.  [00:09:34] Jason: Yeah. A lot more remote work. Everything flowed in the nation from places with less freedom to places with more freedom. [00:09:42] John: That's just what one would expect. Yeah. And that's what happened. So I think people got a taste for Phoenix. They realized July and August aren't that bad. Yes, it's an oven for a couple of months, but we're okay. HVAC and other things. So, I think that accelerated what I think people were already starting to figure out that Phoenix was great and I think that happened across the country. So, not only Phoenix, but broadened that out. So across the country, I think there was a similar pattern in terms of lack of development, both in single family, which has to be mentioned because that's a component of our housing shortage and multifamily. So fast forward to today. You had a couple things happen, so you had some momentum in real estate. [00:10:22] You had zero interest rates, essentially that environment for 10 to 15 years, and you started to have all of these developers starting to get their, I'll say, momentum and build units. And of course a lot of Class A units were delivered and are being delivered. And so, what's happening now is you're seeing a surge in that. And part of that has been fueled by delays in construction. So if you think about the covid related supply chain issues, some of that's kind of worked through itself over the last 12 to 18 months, which is good. So inventories are better. Pricing maybe has reprieved a bit, but if you say, supply chain issues, labor issues, which is the biggest component of that you have construction deliveries that are delayed, say three to 18 to 24 months. [00:11:08] So a lot of these deals, the 16,000 units specifically in Phoenix are result of that. Otherwise this would've been delivered prior. So I, I think that's a big component of the oversupply. Which at the end of the day if you go into, I can go down to a bunch of soapbox areas, but if you think about the renter, which is most important to me there should be a nice equilibrium in the market that's the best for all of us, right? [00:11:31] You get about a 3% rent growth, which has been the case since 1982, 3.2% rent growth average by year. That kind of fits with historical cpi. So when you're raising rents 20% or 10% that's not sustainable. I'll just say it that way. So this supply cresting is benefiting the renter for sure. Yeah. Q1 Phoenix was down 3% probably the lowest in the country. And, supply cures a lot of things. I'll say it that way.  [00:11:59] Jason: Yeah. So I mean, everything's, the pendulum's swinging, right? And it's going to move back towards middle or back towards equilibrium. But how do we stop the swings? Because probably, you'll have a bunch of developers, they've been building stuff out because everybody's trying to capture all the opportunity that seems to be happening in all these markets like here in Austin. It's crazy. I'm sure it's crazy in Florida, like all the areas, there's lots of people moving from states that were more, more liberal and more control, and they're moving more towards areas where there's a little bit more freedom financially. And it'll be interesting to see if some of these places, the people that are moving, if they bring their policies with them and if those areas start to shift and change. But some of these areas what you see going on in San Francisco, what you can see going on in California, what you see going on in Seattle. I mean, some of these places do not look like great places to live anymore. Like it's getting chaotic. Sure. Because of some of the policies. So we're going to see a lot of money, I think shift, continually shifting towards these areas of freedom, and as that's happening, are these builders overbuilding? do you think that's going to be happening? That there's going to be too much like, it's like a gold rush?  [00:13:14] John: Sure. Well, I think that ship has mostly sailed because of the interest rate environment. So yeah. I think most of us pick any sector have forgotten how to live in an interest rate environment. We were 0% essentially. So, if you look across the spectrum, I think you're going to see zombie companies, fade away. You're going to see the old adage from really 17 to 21. It's weird to say old, but you had startup companies that were negative cashflow that would not, be able to pay for a printer, but they would just get another round of funding, it's almost like a Ponzi scheme. So I think getting back to some fundamentals from a business more of an institutional business, historical methodology makes sense for the entire market. And I think this will force guys or groups or developers to be much more thoughtful as they go to market or try to build deals, right? It just it's not the wild west or, the top of the bubble. I think fundamentals matter. I think how you think about your business, how you look at, your construction, your development, your cost structures, what rent should be, all of those things are probably okay for guys that have done this the right way for a long time. I think it's the fringe guys that are greedy and are taking advantage of certain market conditions. And that's fine. Everyone has their angle. But I think this will shake out in a way where you get back to some real core guys or core groups that know what they're doing and fundamentally will help shape the future of multifamily the right way. [00:14:44] Jason: So you mentioned the fundamentals. So what do you feel like are the fundamentals that business owners in the property management space should be focused on? That's going to prove to be effective in the long term. I mean, obviously the company that you are president of has been focused on the fundamentals and has been doing well consistently. We've got a lot of listeners that are probably much smaller than your business and what do you think they should take away from and maybe could learn from what you guys are doing at Mark Taylor?  [00:15:18] John: Yeah, I think you know Jeff Mark, Scott Taylor, our founders, taught me a lot of great things about real estate. And if you look at their track record they've never lost a deal or a unit or a dollar in real estate in 38 years of business, which is impressive considering all of the cycles and dynamics of what happens economically. So I think it comes down to when I look at Mark Taylor, we started as a developer, became a manager. Now we consult, we asset manage all of those things. And I think their fundamentals have always kept them in check, right? They've never gotten to a point where, oh, let's be greedy or let's stretch. If you have an investment model, here's your box. Never go outside of that, right? And so, I think back to, 2006, we sold everything we owned except for one deal. [00:16:03] In June of 06 at the peak it was a different environment then. And then we went pencils down post 2007. We built our last deal, San Porte and Tempe, and then hit pause on the other five pieces of dirt. We had a lot of guys just kept going nope, this thing's never going to end. And the first out of the ground in 2011 because we are also a data company, we've been collecting enormous amounts of data since 1985. Yeah. And everything said, tailwind, green light. So, we bought as many pieces of dirt as we could and built the most units from 11 through 15. And it really transformed our business and got us really on the front end of the last cycle. So, I think all of those things happened within our box. And today, we're moving through really the last two deals of our construction pipeline, and we'll probably be on pause or pencils down until the market makes sense again. And I think as simple as that sounds, you have to make sense of the market. So when you're seeing real cap rates below 3%, sometimes, below two and a half in 1920 and 21, you kind of got to scratch your head and say, okay, is that long? That in terms of going through a next 2, 3, 4, 5 years or next cycle. Does that make sense? And the problem with that is if you're not putting in fixed debt or fixed rates and you have guys saying, oh, the music's never going to stop, I'll just put floating rates on these or a three-year arm, that's a problem. [00:17:24] So you're seeing guys that made potentially bad decisions or got outside of their box. Seeing what happens when the market shifts and rates move like they did. No one can control the Fed. And seeing the acceleration of those rates has really created a dynamic where things will start to break. And I think we're seeing that now, or at least those things are percolating.  [00:17:45] Jason: So for the listeners, help them understand at Mark Taylor the how the portfolio works. Are you doing third party or are you owner operators? because you're talking about selling off properties and you're doing management. [00:18:01] So, Give the listeners an idea. We talked about kind of the size of it, but what percentage is stuff that you developed that you've owned or that you own currently and then like that you're managing?  [00:18:15] John: Yeah, great question. So we today, we get really all facets of the business. So our development ownership. So today we have about 5,200 units that are owned and self-managed. So we're about 80% third party. And I think the third party management aspect and also managing your own assets gives us a really nice balance. Yeah. So we're able to, in terms of properties that we own, turn my life back on properties that we own. We get to test new things like centralization and new software, new systems, new methodology. And on the third party side, we get to learn from ownership groups all over the world. We have owners from Japan, Tokyo all over the country large institutions, MetLife, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, et cetera, to Mom and Pops. And I think the deal flow that was occurring in 17, 18, 19 and certainly at the peak in 2021 showcased us in a, in terms of how we supported. Transaction capital markets. So every deal that comes on the market, we underwrite and it helps us get a true feel for what's happening in the market from an operational perspective. [00:19:20] A competitor's not going to send me their financial statement, but guess what? I get to get one when they go on the market. And then we see and track through great relationships, how those things happen. Meaning how many people are signing cas if there's 500 cas in one deal, there's obviously appetite for Phoenix. So, really understanding the transaction markets, the capital markets understanding, how guys are achieving debt, equity and all of those relationships has really kept us well-rounded. So, that's fed into Mark Taylor Consulting. So today we, we consult with a variety of developers groups with marketing programs and plans asset management nationally. So, it gives us a lens into a lot of different areas that really. Just allows us to take advantage of our expertise knowledge and data.  [00:20:05] Jason: Yeah, and that's interesting. So one of our coaches that we have he said that it's really surprising that a lot of property managers don't have their own portfolio. They don't have their own properties that they have ownership in. There's quite a few. And he says, that's kind of like going to the restaurant, asking the waiter what's good there. And they said they've never had anything. And so I think there's an advantage, like, if you believe in real estate investing, I think it's a smart move that every property manager should be also building up their own investments. That's where some of the funds should be going towards to build up their own portfolio and their own investments, because, That's, that is smart for the future. That being said, building up a business is probably one of the most profitable things if you do it effectively to get an ROI on that exists. So you mentioned you mentioned focusing on the data. And you have all this data that a lot of people just don't have or don't have the opportunity to see at the level that you are doing it at. What is the data telling you right now that you think property management business owners that are doing third party should be focused on right now? [00:21:14] John: I think that, it's always predictable with each cycle, so I think back to. When we were coming out of the Great Recession, and I still have a, somewhere I have a sign. It was the old Clear Channel Billboard sign. It was just a little standup model. And we had three months free San Palacio, and there were other groups doing four months free. And these were prorated concessions. Wow. And when I think. To that timeframe. And most of my current generation of, leasing agents, service technicians, haven't been through a downturn. It's been a pretty good market since 2012. Yeah. And when I'm in company meetings, they'll say, raise your hand if you've worked in the gfc. And everyone's like this except for some execs. So. Trying to help them understand the cycles of this business is important. So, last year we did a lot of coaching and training on, okay, this is what owners are going to start to look for as the market shifts, right? When your rents are going up 10% NOIs here, you're above budget. There's not a lot of detailed conversations from most owners, meaning you're hitting all of those targets, things feel pretty good. But when it's doing this, And the market's softening, and now rents are going back and retracting. Now what do they do? They start to look at marketing costs. [00:22:26] They dig in like, what's going on exactly? Is my phone number on my website go directly to, someone that will answer it? Are my phones being answered? What's this expense over here? They become expense conscious, marketing conscious and personnel conscious. That's predictable. So my marketing team said, wow, you were right. We're getting a lot of calls now from owners. Of course you are. Yeah, the dynamics shifted and it's not even bad. It's just softened. So wait till maybe you're not covering debt, right? So I'd say that most of our groups are well capitalized. That's not an issue, but that's going to be for certain third party management groups. That's going to be an issue, right? Because they're going to pay debt before they pay your payroll depending on your property management agreement. So how does that work out? You're going to have to start to scale back on expenses. They're going to say, Hey, We need to save $20,000 this month, how are you going to do it? [00:23:13] So it just changes the dynamic of how you function as an operator. And I think back to your original point, us as ownership, that really helps us because we know in terms of our focus of maximizing the bottom line or financial potential of each asset. Man, it's a lot harder in this type of environment and it's going to get a bit harder for the next 12 to 24 months. [00:23:34] Jason: Yeah, I'm a little bit of a conspiracy theorist, but I think leading into the next election, every election year, things get really crazy. So, and it seems like nothing makes sense right now, like everything is just getting worse and crazy and, It doesn't seem to make sense, but I think it's it'll be crazy leading into 2024. So it'll be interesting. And I think, yeah, there will likely, it sounds like, be a wave of owners reaching out, owners wanting more support, investors wanting more help with what they're dealing with and trying to figure stuff out. There's probably quite a few that just I think ever since the pandemic, it woke people up because lot of the investors that were DIY and doing it themselves, they realized that they don't like being the bad guy. And if things do get crazy and things financially get tight, maybe for renters or for owners, right? Then property managers, they have no concern about being the bad guy. They're totally cool with making sure that things work and running it like a business because they've heard it all. Sure. They've been they're numb to all the BS and the stories and the, drama. Whereas, a lot of the homeowners and the property owners like, that's hard. It's hard, it's uncomfortable to deal with those situations. But when things are good, They're like I don't know that I need a property manager. But I think the need will increase. So this is interesting. So, well, is there anything else you'd like anyone to know about this idea of multifamily market oversupply or maybe about Mark Taylor or how should we wrap this up? [00:25:11] John: Well, I would start with just, from a. Current to long term perspective. So I think the over supply is happening. You're seeing it in Austin and Phoenix and other markets, and that will eventually fill up, right? So you have no choice but to stabilize. So your rents might not be what you performed, but are underwrote in your performer. But the reality is, at some point those will stabilize. And I think if you look past the next 24 months, 36 months and beyond, and really look at the last part of this decade, which is weird to say, but the late twenties. I think, we have to look at the country or this environment as there is going to be a housing supply shortage and I'm including single family for sale, single family for rent. And if you just go back to something we touched on earlier the attack on our industry and landlords and developers in general. Rent control is just. Commonly brought up by legislatures every year, including Arizona. And, the things that have, I'll say mostly ruined certain markets. I won't name St. Paul Portland and I could keep going. Uh, But those policies and how they've thought about creating housing. For their constituents and their population has clearly give them a great f And I think if you look across the spectrum of groups or cities or states that have done this well we have to fight for those policies. [00:26:36] And if we don't fight the wrong policies will occur and this housing shortage will just get, I think, substantially worse quickly. So, we have to think about policies. We have to think about doing things the right way, making sure that we have an ability to develop and create supply so that we can house folks that want to move to Austin, Phoenix and everywhere else where people believe in liberty, freedom and all the things that we believe are, founded in the constitution and belief in the US makes sense. So here we are today, Phoenix and Austin being two of them.  [00:27:12] Jason: Yeah, it'll be interesting. If there's a shortage supply shortage coming in, housing, and then people think the solution is rent control it. That's like pouring gasoline on the fire. They're like, Hey, let's just make this worse. It's, I mean, it's wrong politicians that are doing the stupidest thing ever. It was the wrong thing and destroying things. And so, yeah. I think that's everybody listening, property managers have a duty to be involved a little bit politically to prevent this firestorm from happening. And this is an opportunity to go and be the canary in the coal mine or be the Paul Revere shouting, from the horse, letting everybody know, Hey, there's a problem coming. People are going to start trying to push this rent control idea and it's a bad idea if for no other reason than helping the industry. Use it as a vehicle or platform for some self-promotion for your business in your market, and get on some news channels. But I think that would be a great idea because then you're going to look like a profit when this stuff starts to come down and they're implementing rent control and there was a problem and you're like, Hey, I was the one that told you so people are going to start to listen to you. [00:28:16] This was like Winston Churchill, right? Yeah. Hitler started taking over and he was like, Hey, I've been telling everybody, and they're like, okay, you help us out. And if you're that light, people are going to be reaching out to the light when it gets dark. And because they know you, you have been talking about this. So maybe it's time for property managers to get a little bit noisy about this rent control stuff that's coming and not just hope and pray that it doesn't happen. You don't have to deal with it so. [00:28:43] John: No question. No question.  [00:28:45] Jason: Cool. Well, John, really great having you on the show. Any call to action you want to leave anybody with or? How can people check out your company or whatever you'd like.  [00:28:54] John: Yeah, check us out mark-taylor.com. That's mark hyphen taylor.com. Like I said, third party manager development consulting. If you're thinking about, developing a project in Arizona or you want to learn more about, data and terms of multifamily market conditions, Arizona, Nevada will soon be launching a subscription model, so you'll get access to a lot of our great reports. [00:29:17] And data, which will be incredibly helpful for those that are just trying to understand the market and what's next. So, reach out to myself directly. You can find me on the website and I appreciate you having me, Jason. It's always good to talk to great guys.  [00:29:31] Jason: Like really great to have you. Thanks for coming on the show.  [00:29:34] John: Thank you. Talk soon. All right.  [00:29:37] Jason: So, really exciting to have John come on the show today. I think this brought up some ideas of what everybody needs to be paying attention to in the future, and property managers, your job for your investors is to see a little bit of the future and protect your investors and your clients, right? And hopefully we had mentioned also becoming an investor yourself if you're not already doing that. So for those of you that are struggling with your property management business right now, you're like, I don't have time right now to even think about getting a little bit politically active about rent control, or, I don't have time right now to even worry about the data or the future. I'm struggling to figure out how to like make money in my business, or I'm struggling with all the questions my team are throwing at me all the time. Why can't they just think for themselves? Reach out to DoorGrow, we can help you make your business scalable. We can help make it easier and we can help remove that secret pain that a lot of you have that are over 200 doors that deep down, if you add more doors, your life's not going to get better, personally, it's going to get harder. And so we psychologically get reversed towards growth and adding more doors. We can help solve that problem. We just need to make your business scalable and get you out of all the things that you really don't enjoy doing. [00:30:54] And we're really good at helping people do that. So if you'd like to start stacking and adding a hundred, 200 plus stores a year in your property management business and grow it and scale it, we have clients that are doing that and we have proven it and our model works and we can help you do that as well. [00:31:11] So reach out to DoorGrow. And if you're one of the startups or smaller companies and you're under a hundred doors, we can help you get very quickly, get those doors stacked up and start and get the growth going. So reach out to DoorGrow. Check us out to DoorGrow.com. Click the big pink button. We have a free training that's 95 minutes long of me just dropping value, and that's going to change your mindset about what it takes to grow your property management business and to make it scalable. [00:31:38] Check that out and it's free. It's right there. There's a YouTube video on that page that we set up. So, and book a call with us. We'd love to talk with you and see if we can help you grow and scale your business. We're always looking for really awesome growth-minded property managers to be part of our Mastermind community. We have some amazing people in there that are getting awesome results. [00:32:00] Jason Hull: You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social, direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!  [00:32:26] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

This intro is written from ChatGPT with the following prompt: "Please write an introduction to a podcast called The Hold Up hosted by two men named John.  In this podcast they watch movies they haven't seen in many years to see if they still hold up.  This month they are watching Ex Machina from 2012 directed by Alex Garland." [Theme music fades in]Narrator: "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to 'The Hold Up' podcast, where nostalgia meets critical evaluation. Join your hosts, John and John, as they journey back in time to rediscover the films that once captivated their imaginations. Will these beloved classics withstand the test of time? Or will they crumble under the weight of their own hype? Let's find out!"[Upbeat music fades in]Host 1 (John): "Hey there, movie lovers! I'm John, and alongside me is my fellow film fanatic, also named John. Together, we're your guides on this cinematic voyage."Host 2 (John): "That's right, John! Each month, we delve into the depths of our childhood memories and revisit iconic films that shaped our love for the silver screen. We're on a mission to see if these movies still hold up, or if our younger selves were just caught up in the hype."Host 1 (John): "Absolutely, John. And this month, we're diving headfirst into a sci-fi masterpiece that had everyone buzzing when it hit the screens back in 2012. We're talking about 'Ex Machina,' directed by the brilliant mind of Alex Garland."Host 2 (John): "Ah, 'Ex Machina'! A film that left us questioning the boundaries of artificial intelligence and human nature. I remember being blown away by the mind-bending plot and the stunning performances."Host 1 (John): "But here's the twist, folks! It's been years since we last watched 'Ex Machina.' So, we're strapping ourselves in for a fresh viewing, armed with the knowledge and experiences we've gained since then. Will it still mesmerize us like it did before? Or will it fall flat in the face of our newfound perspectives?"Host 2 (John): "We'll be examining every aspect, from the performances to the screenplay, the visual effects to the thought-provoking themes. And, of course, we'll be sharing our unfiltered thoughts and engaging in spirited discussions that will have you on the edge of your seat."Host 1 (John): "So, grab some popcorn, dim the lights, and join us on this adventure through time and film. Let's uncover the mysteries of 'Ex Machina' and decide if it still holds up. Welcome to 'The Hold Up'!"[Theme music swells, then fades out]Narrator: "Don't miss the next episode of 'The Hold Up' podcast, as John and John unravel the enigmatic world of 'Ex Machina.' Tune in, subscribe, and prepare for a trip down memory lane that just might change the way you see your favorite films. Remember, it's all about the nostalgia, and whether it can stand the test of time."[Upbeat music fades out]

John Mille, Principal Cloud Engineer at Sainsbury's UK joins Corey on Screaming in the Cloud to discuss how retail companies are using cloud services. John describes the lessons he's learned since joining the Sainsbury's UK team, including why it's important to share knowledge across your team if you don't want to be on call 24/7,  as well as why he doesn't subscribe to the idea that every developer needs access to production. Corey and John also discuss an open-source project John created called ECS Compose-X.About JohnJohn is an AWS Community Builder (devtools), Open Source enthusiast, SysAdmin born in the cloud, and has worked with AWS since his very first job. He enjoys writing code and creating projects. John likes to focus on automation & architecture that delivers business value, and has been dabbling with data & the wonderful world of Kafka for the past 3 years.Links Referenced: AWS Open-Source Roundup newsletter blog post about ECS Compose-X: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/automating-your-ecs-container-architecture-deployments-with-ecs-composex/ ECS Compose-X: https://docs.compose-x.io/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-mille/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/JohnPre32286850 TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: It's easy to **BEEP** up on AWS. Especially when you're managing your cloud environment on your own!Mission Cloud un **BEEP**s your apps and servers. Whatever you need in AWS, we can do it. Head to missioncloud.com for the AWS expertise you need. Corey: Do you wish your developers had less permanent access to AWS? Has the complexity of Amazon's reference architecture for temporary elevated access caused you to sob uncontrollably? With Sym, you can protect your cloud infrastructure with customizable, just-in-time access workflows that can be setup in minutes. By automating the access request lifecycle, Sym helps you reduce the scope of default access while keeping your developers moving quickly. Say goodbye to your cloud access woes with Sym. Go to symops.com/corey to learn more. That's S-Y-M-O-P-S.com/coreyCorey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. Today my guest is a long-time listener, first-time caller. John Mille is a Principal Cloud Engineer at Sainsbury's, which is UK-speak for ‘grocery store.' John, thank you for joining me.John: Hi, Corey. Thanks for having me.Corey: So, I have to begin with, I guess, the big question that I used to run into people in San Francisco with all the time. They would work at Walmart Labs and they would mention in conversation that they work at Walmart, and people who weren't aware that there was a labs out here figured they were a greeter at the grocery store. Do you ever wind up with people making that sort of fundamental assumption around the fact, oh, you work at Sainsbury's as a checker or whatnot?John: No. But it actually is one of the—if you look at one of the job descriptions from Sainsbury's, the first thing is, why would you join a retail company to do tech? And as it turns out, tech—I mean, I think retail companies, as any other companies in the world, rely on Cloud more and more and more. And I think that one of the things that is interesting today is, if you look at the landscape of retailers, I've heard many times people saying, “We don't want to go for AWS because we're giving money to the competition.” And actually, I think AWS does a fantastic job overall giving you all the tools to actually beat them as your competition. And as it turns out, we've had really, really great success running a lot of our workloads on AWS for many, many years now.Corey: On some level, if you can't come to terms with the idea of Amazon as competition, you shouldn't be using AWS, regardless of what industry you're in, because their entire company strategy is yes. It's very hard to start to even come up with industries that they don't have some form of presence within. On some level, that's a problem. In fact a lot of levels, that's something of a problem.Everyone tends to wind up viewing the world in a bunch of different ways. I like to divide companies into two groups. More or less it's, is the AWS bill one of the top three line items at the company? And if the answer's no, on some level, you know, that usually is an indicator that there's a sustainable business there that, you know, both our grandparents and our grandchildren will be able to recognize, in the fullness of time. You absolutely have a business that winds up falling into that category, whereas, “Oh yeah, I fix the AWS bill,” yeah, my parents would have no idea what I do and my kids don't have much of a better one. It feels like it's very point-in-time type of problem. At least I hope.Technology is not the core of what grocery stores tend to do, but I also don't get the sense that what you're doing is sitting there doing the back office corporate IT style of work, either. How do you use technology in the overall context of the business?John: Well, so we use it in a very wide variety of sense. So, you obviously have everything that has to do with online shopping, orders and all of those sort of things, which obviously, especially with the drive of Covid and being everybody from home, has been a huge driver to improve our ability to deliver to customers. But certainly, I think that Sainsbury's sees AWS as a key partner to be able to go and say we want to deliver more value. And so, there's been a number of transformation over the years to—and one of the reasons I was hired is actually to be part of one of those transformation, where we're going to take existing infrastructure servers that literally—I usually say to people, “Oh, are we doing an upgrade this month? Has somebody gotten their little brush to go and brush onto the hard drives to make sure that nothing is going to die?” And actually do that transformation and move over to the cloud in order to never have to really worry about whether or not they have to manage hardware and infrastructure.Corey: It's strange in that I never got very deep into containers until I was no longer hands-on hardware, managing things. I was more or less doing advisory work and then messing around with them. And you'd think given my proclivities historically, of being very unlucky when it comes to data, you would think that this would be great because, oh yeah, you blow away an ephemeral container? Well, that's kind of the point. We'll all laugh and it'll re-instantiate itself and life goes on.But no. Making fun of them was more or less how I tended to do approach them for the longest time until I started to see them a little bit… well I guess less as a culture, less as a religion, and more as an incredibly versatile packaging format, which is probably going to annoy the people I know who are the packaging [unintelligible 00:04:58] for Linux distributions. How do you tend to view them? And how did you start using them?John: Right. So, that's a great question. So historically, I was a student at, I think the school were one of the original creators of Docker were. And one of the things that you learn when you do development at the school is that, you know, containers [unintelligible 00:05:18] new invention. Docker, I think, came on the platform as the way to, you know, give everybody a great framework, a great API, to drive the deployment of containers in the world and bundle them and ship them around the world, on your laptop and somebody else's, and help a little bit with, you know, solving the problem of it works on my laptop, but not just on the laptop properly. Maybe.It's obviously gone viral over the years and I really enjoy containers; I quite like containers. What I find interesting is what people are going to do with. And I think that over the last few years, we've seen a number of technologies such as Kubernetes and others come into the scene and say—and trying to solve people's problem, but everybody seems to be doing, sort of, things on their own way. And historically, I started off using ECS, when it was terrible and you didn't have security groups per containers and all of this. But over the years, you know, you learn, and AWS has improved the service quite significantly with more and more features.And I think we are today in the place where there's this landscape, I think, where a lot of workloads are going to be extremely ephemeral and you can go [unintelligible 00:06:28], you know, wherever you want and you have a bit—if you have a platform or workflow that you need to have working in different places, maybe Kubernetes could be an easy way to have a different sort of sets of features that allows you to move around in maybe an easier way. But that also comes with a set of drawbacks. Again, I look at using EKS, for example, and I see okay, I have to manage IAM in our back now, whereas if I used something like ECS, for the whatever the [unintelligible 00:06:56] cloud vendor of choice, I don't have to deal with any of this. So, I think it's finding the fine balance between how you do orchestration of containers now and what works for you and is any sustainable over the time, more than about are you going to use containers? Because the chances are, somebody is using containers.Corey: My experiences and workflows and constraints are radically different than that of other folks because for a lot of the things I'm building, these are accounts that are I'm the only person that has access to them. It is me. So, the idea of fine-grained permissions for users from an ARBAC perspective doesn't really factor into it. Yes, yes, in theory, I should have a lot of the systems themselves with incidents roles being managed in safe and secure ways, but in many cases, the AWS account boundary is sufficient for that, depending on what it is we're talking about. But that changes when you start having a small team of people working with you and having to collaborate on these things.And we do a little bit of that with some of our consulting stuff that isn't just the shitpost stuff I build for fun. But there's multiple levels beyond that. You are clearly in a full-blown enterprise at this point where there are a bunch of different teams working on different things, all ideally going in the same direction. And it's easy to get stuck in the weeds of having to either go through central IT for these things, which gives rise to shadow IT every time you find a corporate credit card in the wild, or it winds up being everyone can do what they want, but then there's no consensus, there's no control, there's no architectural similarity. And I'm not sure which path is worse in some respects. How do you land on it?John: Right. So, what I've seen done in companies that works very well—and again, to the credit of my current company—is one of the things they've done really well is build a hub of people who are going to manage solely everything that has to do with accounts access, right? So, the control, IAM, Security Hub, all of those sorts of things, for you. There's things that are mandatory that you can't deal without, you have permissions boundary, that's it, you have to use those things, end of story. But beyond that point, once you have access to your accounts, you've been given all of the access that is necessary for you to deliver application and deploy them all the way up to production without asking permission for anybody else apart from your delivery managers, potentially.And I think from there, because there is the room to do all of this, one of the things that we've done within my business unit is that we've put in place a framework that enables developers—and when I say that it really is a question of allowing them to do everything they have to do, focus on the code, and I know it's a little catchy [unintelligible 00:09:33] a phrase that you hear these days, but the developers really are the customers that we have. And all that we do is to try to make sure that they have a framework in place that allows them to do what they need and deploy the applications in a secure fashion. And the only way to do that for us was to build the tools for them that allows them to do all of that. And I honestly haven't checked a single service IAM policies in a very are longtime because I know that by providing the tools to developers, they don't have this [will 00:10:05] to go and mess with the permissions because their application suddenly doesn't have the permissions. They just know that with the automation we've providing them, the application gets the access it needs and no more.Corey: On some level, it feels like there's a story around graduated development approach where in a dev environment you can do basically whatever you want with a big asterisk next to it. That's the same asterisk, by the way, next to the AWS free tier. But as you start elevating things into higher environments, you start to see gating around things like who has access to what, security reviews, et cetera, et cetera, and ideally, by the time you wind up getting into production, almost no one should have access and that access that people do have winds up being heavily gated. That is, of course, the vision that folks have. In practice, reality is what happens instead of what we plan on. The idea of it works in theory, but not in production is of course, why I call my staging environment ‘theory.' Does that tend to resonate as far as what you've seen in the wild?John: Yeah. Very much so. And when I joined the company, and we put together our [standard 00:11:11] pipelines for developers to be able to do everything, the rule that I would give to my team—so I manage a small team of cloud engineers—the one rule I would say is, “We have access to prod because we need to provision resources, but when we're going to build the pipelines for the developers, you have to build everything in such a way that the developers will only have read-only access to the production environment, and that is only to go and see their logs.” And at least try to foster this notion that developers do not need access to production, as much as possible because that avoids people going and do something they shouldn't be doing in those production environments.Now, as the pipeline progresses and applications get deployed to production, there are some operational capabilities that people need to have, and so in that case, what we do is we try to fine-tune what do people need to do and grant those people access to the accounts so that they can perform the jobs and I don't have to be woken up at two in the morning. The developers are.Corey: One thing that I think is going to be a cause of some consternation for folks—because I didn't really think about this in any meaningful sense until I started acting as a consultant, which means you're getting three years of experience for every year that you're in the wild, just by virtue of the variety of environments you encounter—on some level, there's a reasonable expectation you can have when you're at a small, scrappy startup, that everyone involved knows where all the moving parts live. That tends to break down with scale. So, the idea of a Cloud Center of Excellence has been bandied around a lot. And personally, I hate the term because it implies the ‘Data Center of Mediocrity,' which is a little on the nose for some people at times. So, the idea of having a sort of as a centralized tiger team that has the expertise and has the ability to go on deep dives and sort of loan themselves out to different teams seems to be a compromise between nobody knows what they're doing and, every person involved should have an in-depth knowledge of the following list of disciplines.For example, most folks do not need an in-depth primer on AWS billing constructs. They need about as much information fits on an index card. Do you find that having the centralized concentration of cloud knowledge on a particular team works out or do you find that effectively doing a rotating embedding story is the better answer?John: It varies a lot, I think, because it depends on the level of curiosity of the developers quite a lot. So, I have a huge developer background. People in my team are probably more coming from ex-IT environments or this sort of operation and then it just naturally went into the cloud. And in my opinion, is fairly rare to find somebody that is actually good at doing both AWS and coding. I am by no means really, really great at coding. I code pretty much every day but I wouldn't call myself a professional developer.However, it does bring to my knowledge the fact that there are some good patterns and good practices that you can bring into building your applications in the cloud and some really bad ones. However, I think it's really down to making sure that the knowledge is here within the team. If there's a specialized team, those really need to be specialists. And I think the important thing then is to make sure that the developers and the people around you that are curious and want to ask questions know that you're available to them to share that knowledge. Because at the end of the day, if I'm the only one with the knowledge, I'm going to be the one who is always going to be on call for this or doing that and this is no responsibility that I want. I am happy with a number of responsibilities, but not to be the only person to ever do this. I want to go on holidays from time to time.So, at the end of the day, I suppose it really is up to what people want or expect out of their careers. I do a job that it was a passion for me since I was about 14 years old. And I've always been extremely curious to understand how things work, but I do draw the line that I don't write anything else than Python these days. And if you ask me to write Java, I'll probably change job in the flip of a second. But that's the end of it. But I enjoy understanding how Java things work so that I can help my developers make better choices with what services in AWS to use.Corey: On some level, it feels like there's a, I guess, lack of the same kind of socialization that startups have sort of been somewhat guided by as far as core ethos goes, where, oh whatever I'm working on, I want to reach out to other people, and, “Hey, I'm trying to solve this problem. What is it that you have been working on that's germane to this and how can we collaborate together?” It has nothing to do, incidentally, with the idea that, oh, big company people aren't friendly or are dedicated or aren't good or aren't well-connected; none of that. But there are so many people internally that you're spending your time focusing on and there's so much more internal context that doesn't necessarily map to anything outside of the company that the idea of someone off the street who just solved a particular problem in a weird way could apply to what a larger company with, you know, regulatory burdens, starts to have in mind, it becomes a little bit further afield. Do you think that that's accurate? Do you think that there's still a strong sense of enterprise community that I'm just potentially not seeing in various ways because I don't work at big companies?John: It's a very fine line to walk. So, when I joined the company, I was made aware that there's a lot of Terraform and Kubernetes, which I went [unintelligible 00:16:28] all the way with CloudFormation is yes. So, that was one of the changes I knew I would have. But I can move an open mind and when I looked around at, okay, what are the Terraform modules—because I used Terraform with anger for an entire year of suffering—and I thought, “Okay, well, maybe people have actually got to a point where they've built great modules that I can just pick up off the shelf and reuse or customize only a tiny little bit, add maybe a couple of features and that's, it move on; it's good enough for me.” But as it turns out, there is I think, a lot of the time a case where the need for standardization goes against the need for business to move on.So, I think this is where you start to see silos start to being built within the company and people do their own thing and the other ones do their own. And I think it's always a really big challenge for a large company with extremely opinionated individuals to say, “All right, we're going to standardize on this way.” And it definitely was one of the biggest challenge that I had when I joined the company because again, big communities and Terraform place, we're going to need to do something else. So, then it was the case of saying, “Hey, I don't think we need Kubernetes and I definitely don't think we need Terraform for any the things—for any of those reasons, so how about we do something a little different?”Corey: Speaking of doing things a little bit different, you were recently featured in an AWS Open-Source Roundup newsletter that was just where you, I think, came across my desk one of the first times, has specifically around an open-source project that you built: ECS Compose-X.So, I assume it's like, oh, it's like Docker Compose for ECS and also the ‘X' implies that it is extreme, just, like, you know, snack foods at the convenience store. What does it do and where'd it come from?John: Right. So, you said most of it, right? It literally is a question where you take a Docker Compose file and you want to deploy your services that you worked on and all of that together, and you want to deploy it to AWS. So, ECS Compose-X is a CLI tool very much like the Copilot. I think it was released about four months just before Copilots came out—so, sorry, I beat you to the ball there—but with the Docker Compose specification supported.And again, it was really out of I needed to find a neat way to take my services and deploy them in AWS. So, Compose-X is just a CLI tool that is going to parse your Docker Compose file and create CloudFormation templates out of it. Now, the X is not very extreme or anything like that, but it's actually coming from the [finite 00:18:59] extension fields, which is something supported in Docker Compose. And so, you can do things like x-RDS, or x-DynamoDB, which Docker Compose on your laptop will totally ignore, but ECS Compose-X however will take that into account.And what it will do is if you need a database or a DynamoDB table, for example, in your Docker Compose file, you do [x-RDS, my database, some properties, 00:19:22]—exactly the same properties as CloudFormation, actually—and then you say, “I want this service to have access to it in read-only fashion.” And what ECS Compose-X is going to do is just understand what it has to do when—meaning creating IAM policies, opening security groups, all of that stuff, and make all of that available to the containers in one way or another.Corey: It feels like it's a bit of a miss for Copilot not to do this. It feels like they wanted to go off in their own direction with the way that they viewed the world—which I get; I'm not saying there's anything inherently wrong with that. There's a reason that I point kubernetestheeasyway.com to the ECS marketing site—but there's so much stuff out there that is shipped or made available in other ways with a Docker Compose file, and the question of okay, how do I take this and run it in Fargate or something because I don't want to run it locally for whatever reason, and the answer is, “That's the neat part. You don't.”And it just becomes such a clear miss. There have been questions about this Since Copilot launched. There's a GitHub issue tracking getting support for this that was last updated in September—we are currently recording this at the end of March—it just doesn't seem to be something that's a priority. I mean, I will say the couple of times that I've used Copilot myself, it was always for greenfield experiments, never for adopting something else that already existed. And that was… it just felt like a bit of a heavy lift to me of oh, you need to know from the beginning that this is the tool you're going to use for the thing. Docker Compose is what the ecosystem has settled on a long time ago and I really am disheartened by the fact that there's no direct ECS support for it today.John: Yeah, and it was definitely a motivation for me because I knew that ECS CLI version 1 was going into the sunset, and there wasn't going to be anything supporting it. And so, I just wanted to have Docker Compose because it's familiar to developers and again, if you want to have adoption and have people use your thing, it has to be easy. And when I looked at Copilot the first time around, I was extremely excited because I thought, “Yes, thank you, Amazon for making my life easy. I don't have to maintain this project anymore and I'm going to be able to just lift and shift, move over, and be happy about it.” But when the specification for Copilot was out and I could go for the documentation, I was equally disheartened because I was like, “Okay, not for me.”And something very similar happened when they announced Proton. I was extremely excited by Proton. I opened a GitHub issue on the roadmap immediately to say, “Hey, are you going to support to have some of those things together or not?” And the fact that the Proton templates—I mean, again, it was, what, two, three years ago now—and I haven't looked at Proton since, so it was a very long time now.Corey: The beta splasher was announced in 2020 and I really haven't seen much from it since.John: Well, and I haven't done anything [unintelligible 00:22:07] with it. And literally, one of the first thing did when the project came out. Because obviously, this is an open-source project that we use in Sainsbury's, right because we deploy everything in [ECS 00:22:17] so why would I reinvent the wheel the third time? It's been done, I might as well leverage it. But every time something on it came out, I was seeing it as the way out of nobody's going to need me anymore—which is great—and that doesn't create a huge potential dependency on the company for me, oh, well, we need this to, you know, keep working.Now, it's open-source, it's on the license you can fork it and do whatever you want with it, so from that point of view, nobody's going to ask me anything in the future, but from the point of view where I need to, as much as possible, use AWS native tools, or AWS-built tools, I differently wanted every time to move over to something different. But every time I tried and tiptoed with those alternative offerings, I just went back and said, “No, this [laugh] either is too new and not mature enough yet, or my tool is just better.” Right? And one of the things I've been doing for the past three years is look at the Docker ECS plugin, all of the issues, and I see all of the feature requests that people are asking for and just do that in my project. And some with Copilots. The only thing that Copilot does that I don't do is tell people how to do CI/CD pipelines.Corey: One thing you said a second ago just sort of, I guess, sent me spiraling for a second because I distinctly remember this particular painful part. You're right, there was an ECS CLI for a long time that has since been deprecated. But we had internal tooling built around that. When there was an issue with a particular task that failed, getting logs out of it was non-trivial, so great. Here's the magic incantation that does it.I still haven't found a great way to do that with the AWS v2 CLI and that feels like it's a gap where yes, I understand, old tools go away and new ones show up, but, “Hey, I [unintelligible 00:24:05] task. Can you tell me what the logs are?” “No. Well, Copilot's the new answer.” “Okay. Can I use this to get logs from something that isn't Copilot?” “Oh, absolutely not.” And the future is inherently terrible as a direct result.John: Yeah. Well, I mean, again, the [unintelligible 00:24:20]—the only thing that ECS Compose-X does is create all the templates for you so you can, you know, then just query it and know where everything has been created. And one of the things it definitely does create is all of the log groups. Because again, least-privileged permissions being something that is very dear to me, I create the log groups and just allow the services to only write in those log groups and that's it.Now, typically this is not a thing that I've thought Compose-X was going to do because that's not its purpose. It's not going to be an operational tool to troubleshoot all the things and this is where I think that other projects are much better suited and I would rather use them as an extension or library of the project as opposed to reinvent them. So, if you're trying to find a tool for yourself to look at logs, I highly recommend something called ‘AWS logs,' which is fantastic. You just say, “Hey, can you list the groups?” “Okay.” “Can you get me the groups and can I tell them on a terminal?”And that's it. Job done. So, as much as I enjoy building new features into the project, for example, I think that there's a clear definition between what the project is for and what it's not. And what it's for is giving people CloudFormation templates they can reuse in any region and deploy their services and not necessarily deal with their operations; that's up to them. At the end of the day, it's really up to the user to know what they want to do with it. I'm not trying to force anybody into doing something specific.Corey: I would agree. I think that there's value to there's more than one way to do it. The problem is, at some point, there's a tipping point where you have this proliferation of different options to the point where you end up in this analysis paralysis model where you're too busy trying to figure out what is the next clear step. And yes, that flexibility is incredibly valuable, especially when you get into, you know, large, sophisticated enterprises—ahem, ahem—but when you're just trying to kick the tires on something new, I feel like there's a certain lack of golden path where in the event of not having an opinion on any of these things, this is what you should do just to keep things moving forward, as opposed to here are two equal options that you can check with radio boxes and it's not at all clear what you which does what or what the longer-term implications are. We've all gotten caught with the one-way doors we didn't realize we were passing through at the time and then had to do significant technical debt repayment efforts to wind up making it right again.I just wish that those questions would be called out, but everything else just, it doesn't matter. If you don't like the name of the service that you're creating, you can change it later. Or if you can't, maybe you should know now, so you don't have—in my case—a DynamoDB table that is named ‘test' running in production forever.John: Yeah. You're absolutely right. And again, I think it goes back to one of the biggest challenges that I had when I joined the company, which was when I said, “I think we should be using CloudFormation, I think we should be using ECS and Terraforming Kubernetes for those reasons.” And one of the reasons was, the people. Meaning we were a very small team, only five cloud engineers at the time.And as I joined the company, they were already was three different teams using four different CI/CD tools. And they all wanted to use Kubernetes, for example, and they were all using different CI/CD—like I said, just now—different CI/CD tools. And so, the real big challenge for me was how do I pitch that simplicity is what's going to allow us to deliver value for the business? Because at the end of the day, like you said many, many times before, the AWS bill is a question of architecture, right? And there's a link and intricacy between the two things.So, the only thing that really mattered for me and the team was to find a way, find the service that was going to allow to do a number of things, A, delivering value quickly, being supported over time. Because one of the things that I think people forget these days—well, one of the things I'm allergic to and one of the things that makes me spiral is what I call CV-driven tech choices where people say, “Hey, I love this great thing I read about and I think that we should use that in production. How great idea.” But really, I don't know anything about it and is then up to somebody else to maintain it long-term.And that goes to the other point, which is, turnover-proof is what I call it. So, making tech choices that are going to be something that people will be able to use for many, many years, there is going to be a company behind the scenes that he's going to be able to support you as well as you go and use the service for the many, many years to go.Corey: I really want to thank you for taking the time to speak with me today. If people want to learn more, where's the best place for them to find you?John: So, people can find me on LinkedIn. I'm also around on Twitter these days, although I probably about have nine followers. Well, probably shouldn't say that [laugh] and that doesn't matter.Corey: It's fine. We'll put a link into it—we'll put a link to that in the [show notes 00:29:02] and maybe we'll come up with number ten. You never know. Thanks again for your time. I really appreciate it.John: Thanks so much, Corey, for having me.Corey: John Mille, Principal Cloud Engineer at Sainsbury's. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice along with an angry comment that you go to great pains to type out but then fails to post because the version of the tool you use to submit it has been deprecated without a viable replacement.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.

Augmented reveals the stories behind the new era of industrial operations, where technology will restore the agility of frontline workers. In this episode of the podcast, the topic is "Lean Operations." Our guest is John Carrier, Senior Lecturer of Systems Dynamics at MIT. In this conversation, we talk about the people dynamics that block efficiency in industrial organizations. If you like this show, subscribe at augmentedpodcast.co (https://www.augmentedpodcast.co/). Augmented is a podcast for industry leaders, process engineers, and shop floor operators, hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim (https://trondundheim.com/) and presented by Tulip (https://tulip.co/). Follow the podcast on Twitter (https://twitter.com/AugmentedPod) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/75424477/). Trond's Takeaway: The core innovative potential in most organizations remains its people. The people dynamics that block efficiency can be addressed once you know what they are. But there is a hidden factory underneath the factory, which you cannot observe unless you spend time on the floor. And only with this understanding will tech investment and implementation really work. Stabilizing a factory is about simplifying things. That's not always what technology does, although it has the potential if implemented the right way. Transcript: TROND: Welcome to another episode of the Augmented Podcast. Augmented brings industrial conversations that matter, serving up the most relevant conversations on industrial tech. And our vision is a world where technology will restore the agility of frontline workers. In this episode of the podcast, the topic is Lean Operations. Our guest is John Carrier, Senior Lecturer of Systems Dynamics at MIT. In this conversation, we talk about the people dynamics that block efficiency in industrial organizations. Augmented is a podcast for industrial leaders, process engineers, and shop floor operators, hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim and presented by Tulip. John, welcome to the show. How are you? JOHN: Trond, I'm great. And thank you for having me today. TROND: So we're going to talk about lean operations, which is very different from a lot of things that people imagine around factories. John, you're an engineer, right? JOHN: I am an engineer, a control engineer by training. TROND: I saw Michigan in there, your way to MIT and chemical engineering, especially focused on systems dynamics and control. And you also got yourself an MBA. So you have a dual, if not a three-part, perspective on this problem. But tell me a little bit about your background. I've encountered several people here on this podcast, and they talk about growing up in Michigan. I don't think that's a coincidence. JOHN: Okay, it's not. So I was born and raised in the city of Detroit. We moved out of the city, the deal of oil embargo in 1973. I've had a lot of relatives who grow up and work in the auto industry. So if you grew up in that area, you're just immersed in that culture. And you're also aware of the massive quote, unquote, "business cycles" that companies go through. What I learned after coming to MIT and having the chance to meet the great Jay Forrester a lot of those business cycles are self-inflicted. What I do is I see a lot of the things that went right and went wrong for the auto industry, and I can help bring that perspective to other companies. [laughs] TROND: And people have a bunch of assumptions about, I guess, assembly lines in factories. One thing is if you grew up in Michigan, it would seem to me, from previous guests, that you actually have a pretty clear idea of what did go on when you grew up in assembly lines because a lot of people, their parents, were working in manufacturing. They had this conception. Could we start just there? What's going on at assembly lines? JOHN: I'm going to actually go back to 1975 to a Carrier family picnic. My cousin, who's ten years older than I, his summer job he worked at basically Ford Wayne, one of the assembly plants. He was making $12 an hour in 1975, so he paid his whole college tuition in like a month. But the interesting point was he was talking about his job when all the adults were around, and he goes, "Do you know that when they scratch the paint on the car, they let it go all the way to the end, and they don't fix it till it gets to the parking lot?" And I'll never forget this. All the adults jumped on him. They're like, "Are you an idiot? Do you know how much it costs to shut the line down?" And if you use finance, that's actually the right answer. You don't stop the line because of a scratch; you fix it later. Keep the line running. It's $10,000 a minute. But actually, in the short term, that's the right decision. In the long term, if you keep doing that, you're building a system that simply makes defects at the same rate it makes product. And it's that type of logic and culture that actually was deeply ingrained in the thinking. And it's something that the Japanese car companies got away from. It's funny how deeply ingrained that concept of don't stop the line is. And if you do that, you'll make defects at the same rate that you make product. And then, if you look at the Detroit newspapers even today, you'll see billion-dollar recalls every three months. And that's a cycle you've got to get yourself out of. TROND: You know, it's interesting that we went straight there because it's, I guess, such a truism that the manufacturing assembly line kind of began in Detroit, or at least that's where the lore is. And then you're saying there was something kind of wrong with it from the beginning. What is it that caused this particular fix on keeping everything humming as opposed to, I guess, what we're going to talk about, which is fixing the system around it? JOHN: There's a lot of work on this. There's my own perspective. There's what I've read. I've talked to people. The best I can come up with is it's the metrics that you pick for your company. So if you think about...the American auto industry basically grew up in a boom time, so every car you made, you made profit on. And their competitive metric was for General Motors to be the number one car company in the world. And so what that means is you never miss a sale, so we don't have time to stop to fix the problem. We're just going to keep cranking out cars, and we'll fix it later. If you look at the Japanese auto industry, when it arose after World War II, they were under extreme parts shortages. So if one thing were broken or missing, they had to stop. So part of what was built into their culture is make it right the first time. Make a profit on every vehicle versus dominant market share. TROND: Got it. So this, I guess, obsession with system that you have and that you got, I guess, through your education at MIT and other places, what is it that that does to your perspective on the assembly line? But there were obviously reasons why the Ford or the Detroit assembly lines, like you said, looked like they did, and they prioritized perhaps sales over other things. When you study systems like this, manufacturing systems, to be very specific, how did you even get to your first grasp of that topic? Because a system, you know, by its very nature, you're talking about complexity. How do you even study a system in the abstract? Because that's very different, I guess, from going into an assembly and trying to fix a system. JOHN: So it's a great question. And just one thing I want to note for the audience is although we talk about assembly lines, most manufacturing work is actually problem-solving and not simply repetitive. So we need to start changing that mindset about what operations really is in the U.S. We can come to that in the end. TROND: Yeah. JOHN: I'll tell you, I'm a chemical engineer. Three pieces of advice from a chemical engineer, the first one is never let things stop flowing. And the reason why that's the case in a chemical plant is because if something stops flowing for a minute or two, you'll start to drop things out of solution, and it will gum everything up. You'll reduce the capacity of that system till your next turnaround at least. And what happens you start getting sludge and gunk. And for every class I was ever in, in chemical engineering, you take classes in heat transfer, thermodynamics, kinetics. I never took a class in sludge, [laughs] or sticky solids, or leftover inventory and blending. And then, when I first went to a real factory after doing my graduate work, I spent four to six years studying Laplace transforms and dynamics. All I saw were people running around. I'm like, that's not in the Laplace table. And, again, to understand a chemical plant or a refinery, it takes you three to five years. So the question is, how can you actually start making improvement in a week when these systems are so complex? And it's watch the people running around. So that's why I focus a lot on maintenance teams. And I also work with operations when these things called workarounds that grow into hidden factories. So the magic of what I've learned through system dynamics is 80% to 90% of the time, the system's working okay, 10% or 20% it's in this abnormal condition, which is unplanned, unscheduled. I can help with that right away. TROND: So you mentioned the term hidden factories. Can you enlighten me on how that term came about, what it really means? And in your practical work and consulting work helping people at factories, and operations teams, and maintenance teams, as you said, why is that term relevant, and what does it really do? JOHN: Great. So I'm going to bring up the origin. So many people on this call recognize the name Armand Feigenbaum because when he was a graduate student at the Sloan School back in the '50s, he was working on a book which has now become like the bible, Total Quality Management or TQM. He's well known for that. He's not as well known for the second concept, which he should be better known for. Right after he graduated, he took a job in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, for one of the GE plastic plants. Here he comes out of MIT. I'm going to apply linear equations. I'm going to do solving, all these mathematics, operation constraints, all these things. When he gets into that system, he realizes 30% of everything going on is unplanned, unscheduled, chaotic, not repeated. He's like, my mathematical tools just break down here. So he did something...as important as marketing was as an operational objective, he named these things called hidden factories. And he said, 30% of all that work is in these hidden factories. And it's just dealing with small, little defects that we never ever solve. But over time, they actually erode our productivity of systems that can eat up 10% to 20% of productivity. And then, finally, it's work that I'm doing. It's the precursor to a major accident or disaster. And the good side is if you leave the way the system works alone, the 80%, and just focus on understanding and reducing these hidden factories, you can see a dramatic improvement quickly and only focus on what you need to fix. TROND: So, for you, you focus on when the system falls apart. So you have the risk angle to this problem. JOHN: Exactly. And so just two things, I'm like a doctor, and I do diagnosis. So when you go to the doctor, I'm not there to look at your whole system and fix everything. I'm like, here are first three things we got to work at, and, by the way, I use data to do that. And what I realized is if everyone just steps back after this call and thinks about today, right? When you get to the end of the day, what percent of everything in that factory or system happened that was in your schedule? And you'll start to realize that 30% of the people are chasing symptoms. So you need data to get to that root cause, and that will tell you what data to collect. And second, look for time because what you're doing is these hidden factories are trying to keep the system running because you have a customer. You have your takt time, and so people are scrambling. And if you put that time back into the system, that's going to turn into product. TROND: John, I'm just curious; when you say data, I mean, there's so much talk of data and big data and all kinds of data. But in manufacturing, apart from the parts that you're producing, I mean, some of this data is hard to come by. When you say data, what data will you even get access to? JOHN: I come from the Albert Einstein School is. I need a ruler, and I need a stopwatch. Go into any system that you work in, whether it be your factory or your house, and ask the last time someone measured how long something took, and you will find a dearth of that data. And the reason why I love time data is it never lies. Most data I see in databases was collected under some context; I can't use it. So I go right in the floor and start watching 5 or 10 observations and looking at all the variation. The second point I ask is, what's a minute worth in your system or a second? So if we're in an auto assembly plant, in a chemical plant, if we're in a hospital, in an operating room, those minutes and seconds are hundreds of thousands of dollars. So within about 20 minutes, not only have I measured where there's opportunity, we're already on the way to solving it. TROND: So, so far, you haven't talked much about the technology aspects. So you work at a business school, but that business school is at MIT. There's a lot of technology there. It strikes me that a lot of times when we talk about improvements, certainly when we talk about efficiencies in factories, people bring up automation machines as the solution to that tool. And I'm sure you're not against machines, but you seem to focus a lot more on time, on organizational factors. How should people think about the technology factor inside of their operations? JOHN: So, first, you brought up...my nickname is Dr. Don't. And the reason they call me Dr. Don't [laughs] is because they'll go, "Should we invest in this? Can we buy these robots?" I say, "No, you can't do that." And I'm going to tell you why. First is, I was quote, unquote, "fortunate enough" to work in a lot of small and mid-sized machine shops during the 2009 downturn. And I was brought in by the banks because they were in financial trouble. And the one thing I noticed there was always a million-dollar automation or robot wrapped in plastic. And large companies can get away with overspending on technology, small and mid-sized companies can't. And so what you really want to do is go and watch and see what the problem is, buy just as much technology as you need, and then scale that. First is, like I just said, I was just in a plant a few weeks ago, and they just implemented several hundred sensors to basically listen to their system. That's all good. It's data we need. Two problems, why'd you put in several hundred and not put in 20? And second, when we inspected it, about 15% were either not plugged in or weren't reading. So what happened was if we would have started with 20 and put the resource in analyzing that data, then when we scaled to the several hundred, we'd have had our systems in place. Instead, we overwhelmed everyone with data, so it really didn't change the way they work. Now we fixed that. But your question was, why am I skeptical or slow to invest in technology? Technology costs money, and it takes time. If you don't look at the system first and apply the technology to solve the system problem, you're going to end up with a million-dollar piece of equipment wrapped in plastic. If you go the other direction, you will scale successfully. And no one's better at this than Toyota. They only invest in the technology they need. Yet you can argue they're at least as technologically sophisticated as all the rest. And they've never lost money except in 2009 so that is a proof point. TROND: What are some examples of places you've been in lately, I don't know, individual names of companies? But you said you're working kind of mid-sized companies. Those are...[laughs] the manufacturing sector is mid-sized companies, so that sounds very relevant. But what are some examples in some industries where you have gone in and done this kind of work? JOHN: I work for large companies and small and mid-sized. And I'm a chemical engineer, but I love machine shops. So I sit on the board of a $25 million machine shop. They make parts for a diesel truck and some military applications. They make flywheels. So one of their big challenges is in the United States and in the world, we're suffering with a problem with castings. We received our castings. Interesting thing is there are void fractions. One of the things I do want to share is as a systems guy, I'm not an expert in mechanical engineering or any of that, but I can add value by helping look for defects. Let me tell you what their challenge is. So, first of all, more of their castings are bad. Then this surprised me...I learned from asking questions. If you've ever been in a machine shop, one thing I learned about when you're making casting is that there are always bubbles in it. You can't avoid it. The art of it is can you put the bubbles in the places where they don't hurt? You minimize the bubbles, and you move them to the center. So one is we're getting bad castings, but the second part was when we made some of these castings, and they had a void problem in the center. So that doesn't cause a problem with your flywheel. The customer sent them back because they're becoming oversensitive to the defects that don't count. And it's because they switched out staff. So I guess what I'm trying to say here is our supply chain is undergoing this new type of stress because we're losing the type of expert system expertise that we've had from people that have worked in this industry 20 to 30 years. That's a really important aspect. The second is we're in their line balancing all the time. I think a lot of the things you learn in class, you spend one class on load balancing or line balancing, operation and manufacturing, and then you go into a factory, and no one's doing it. So I just wanted to share two points. My one factor is doing that they cut 30% of their time. Another system I'm working in they have one experienced supervisor managing four new people on four different setups. What I realized is there's not enough of that supervisor to go around. We're like, why don't we shoot videos like the NFL does [laughs] and watch those films of how people do their work? Because when you're an expert, Trond, and you go to do a task, you say, "That has five steps." But if I sent you or me new, we'd look and go, "There are really about 80 steps in there." And you explained it to me in 15 minutes. How am I going to remember that? So shooting film so people can go back and watch instead of bothering your supervisor all the time, which they won't do. So what I do think, to wrap up on this point, is when you talk about technology, the camera, the video that you have in your pocket, or you can buy for $200, is the best technology you can probably apply in the next three to six months. And I would greatly encourage everyone to do something like that. MID-ROLL AD: In the new book from Wiley, Augmented Lean: A Human-Centric Framework for Managing Frontline Operations, serial startup founder Dr. Natan Linder and futurist podcaster Dr. Trond Arne Undheim deliver an urgent and incisive exploration of when, how, and why to augment your workforce with technology, and how to do it in a way that scales, maintains innovation, and allows the organization to thrive. The key thing is to prioritize humans over machines. Here's what Klaus Schwab, Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, says about the book: "Augmented Lean is an important puzzle piece in the fourth industrial revolution." Find out more on www.augmentedlean.com, and pick up the book in a bookstore near you. TROND: I wanted to ask you then, derived from this, to what extent can some of these things be taught as skills on a systemic level in a university or in some sort of course, and to what extent? Do you really just have to be working in manufacturing and observing and learning with data on your own? By extension, to what extent can a manager or someone, anyone in the organization, just develop these practices on their own? And to what extent do you need mentorship from the outside to make it happen or see something in the system that is very difficult to see from the inside? JOHN: So it's interesting you ask that because that's very much the problem I'm dealing with because as good as our universities are, the best place to learn operations in manufacturing is on the factory floor. So how do you simulate that approach? I teach lean operations at MIT Sloan. And what I do with my students is I ask them to pick a routine task, video two minutes of it, and reduce that by 30%. And I've done this two years in a row. When you look at these projects, the quality of the value streams and the aha moments they had of time that they were losing is stunning. You know what the challenge is? They don't yet always appreciate how valuable that is. And what I want them to realize is if you're washing dishes or running a dishwasher, why is that any different from running a sterilization process for hospital equipment? Why is that any different from when you're actually doing setup so that maintenance can get their work done 30% faster? I've given them the tools, and hopefully, that will click when they get out into the workspace. But I do have one success point. I had the students...for some classes, they have to run computers and simulations during class. So that means everyone has to have the program set up. They have to have the documentation. So you can imagine 5 to 10 minutes a class, people getting everything working right. One of my teams basically said we're going to read...it took about five minutes, and they said, we're going to do this in 30 seconds just by writing some automated scripts. They did that for our statistics class, and then they shared it with their other classmates, beautiful value stream, video-d the screens, did it in about four or five hours. The next class they took later I found out they did that for a class project, and they sold the rights to a startup. So first is getting them that example in their own space, and then two, helping them make analogies that improving things in your own house isn't all that much different than the systemic things in a factory. TROND: Learning by analogy, I love it. I wanted to profit from your experience here on a broader question. It takes a little bit more into the futuristic perspective. But in our pre-conversation, you talked about your notion on industry 4.0, which, to me, it's a very sort of technology, deterministic, certainly tech-heavy perspective anyway. But you talked about how that for you is related to..., and you used another metaphor and analogy of a global nervous system. What do you think, well, either industry 4.0 or the changes that we're seeing in the industry having to do with new approaches, some of them technology, what is it that we're actually doing with that? And why did you call it a global nervous system? JOHN: When I graduated from school, and I'm a control systems skilled in the arts, so to speak. And the first thing I did...this is back in the '90s, so we're industry 3.0. When you're in a plant, no one told me I was going to spend most of my time with the I&C or the instrumentation and control techs and engineers. That's because getting a sensor was unbelievably expensive. Two, actually, even harder than getting the budget for it was actually getting the I&C tech's time to actually wire it up. It would take six weeks to get a sensor. And then three, if it weren't constantly calibrated and taken care of, it would fall apart. And four, you get all those three workings, if no one's collecting or knows how to analyze the data, you're just wasting [laughs] all your money. So what was exciting to me about industry 4.0 was, one, the cost of sensors has dropped precipitously, two, they're wireless with magnets. [laughs] So the time to set it up is literally minutes or hours rather than months and years. Three, now you can run online algorithms and stuff, so, basically, always check the health of these sensors and also collect the data in the form. So I can go in, and in minutes, I can analyze what happened versus, oh, I got to get to the end of the week. I never looked at that sensor. And four, what excited me most, and this gets to this nervous system, is if you look at the way industries evolved, what always amazes me is we got gigantic boilers and train engines and just massive equipment, physical goods. Yet moving electrons actually turns out to be much more costly in the measurement than actually building the physical device. So we're just catching up on our nervous system for the factory. If I want to draw an analogy, if you think about leprosy; a lot of people think leprosy is a physical disease; what it is is it's your nerves are damaged, so because your nerves are damaged, you overuse that equipment, and then you wear off your fingers. And if you look at most maintenance problems in factories, it's because they didn't have a good nervous system to realize we're hurting our equipment. And maintenance people can't go back and say, "Hey, in three months, you're going to ruin this." And the reason I know it is because I have this nervous system because I'm measuring how much you're damaging it rather than just waving it. And now it becomes global because, let's say you and I have three pumps in our plant, and we need to take care of those. They are on the production line, very common. What if we looked at the name of that pump, called the manufacturer who's made tens of thousands of those? There's the global part. So they can help us interpret that data and help us take care of it. So there's no defect or failure that someone on this planet hasn't seen. It's just we never had the ability to connect with them and send them the data on a platform like we can with a $5,000 pump today. So that's why I look at it, and it's really becoming a global diagnosis. TROND: It's interesting; I mean, you oscillate between these machine shops, and you had a medical example, but you're in medical settings as well and applying your knowledge there. What is the commonality, I guess, in this activity between machine shops, you know, improving machine shops and improving medical teams' ability to treat disease and operate faster? What is it that is the commonality? So you've talked about the importance, obviously, of communication and gathering data quicker, so these sensors, obviously, are helping out here. But there's a physical aspect. And, in my head, a machine shop is quite different from an operating room, for example. But I guess the third factor would be human beings, right? JOHN: I'm going to put an analogy in between the machine shops at the hospital, and that's an F1 pit crew. And the reason I love F1 is it's the only sport where the maintenance people are front and center. So let's now jump to hospitals, so the first thing is if I work in a hospital, I'm talking to doctors or nurses in the medical community. And I start talking about saving time and all that. Hey, we don't make Model Ts. Every scenario we do is different, and we need to put the right amount of time into that surgery, which I completely agree to. Where we can fix is, did we prepare properly? Are all our toolkits here? Is our staff trained and ready? And you'd think that all those things are worked out. I want to give two examples, one is from the literature, and one is from my own experience. I'd recommend everyone look up California infant mortality rates and crash carts. The state of California basically, by building crash carts for pregnancies and births, cut their infant mortality rate by half just by having that kit ready, complete F1 analogy. I don't want my surgeon walking out to grab a knife [laughs] during surgery. And then second is, I ran a course with my colleagues at MIT for the local hospitals here in Boston. You know what one of the doctor teams did over the weekend? They built one of these based on our class. They actually built...this is the kit we want. And I was unbelievably surprised how when we used the F1 analogy, the doctors and surgeons loved it, not because we're trying to actually cut their time off. We're trying to put the time into the surgery room by doing better preparations and things like that. So grabbing the right analogy is key, and if you grab the right analogy, these systems lessons work across basically anywhere where time gets extremely valuable. TROND: As we're rounding off, I wanted to just ask you and come back to the topic of lean. And you, you use the term, and you teach a class on lean operations. Some people, well, I mean, lean means many things. It means something to, you know, in one avenue, I hear this, and then I hear that. But to what extent would you say that the fundamental aspects of lean that were practiced by Toyota and perhaps still are practiced by Toyota and the focus on waste and efficiency aspects to what extent are those completely still relevant? And what other sort of new complements would you say are perhaps needed to take the factory to the future, to take operational teams in any sector into their most optimal state? JOHN: As a control engineer, I learned about the Toyota Production System after I was trained as a control system engineer. And I was amazed by the genius of these people because they have fundamentally deep control concepts in what they do. So you hear concepts like, you know, synchronization, observability, continuous improvement. If you have an appreciation for the deep control concepts, you'll realize that those are principles that will never die. And then you can see, oh, short, fast, negative feedback loops. I want accurate measurements. I always want to be improving my system. With my control background, you can see that this applies to basically any system. So, in fact, I want to make this argument is a lot of people want to go to technology and AI. I think the dominant paradigm for any system is adaptive control. That's a set of timeless principles. Now, in order to do adaptive control, you need certain technologies that provide you precision analysis, precision measurement, real-time feedback loops. And also, let us include people into the equation, which is how do I train people to do tasks that are highly variable that aren't applying automation is really important. So I think if people understand, start using this paradigm of an adaptive control loop, they'll see that these concepts of lean and the Toyota Production System are not only timeless, but it's easier to explain it to people outside of those industries. TROND: Are there any lessons finally to learn the way that, I guess, manufacturing and the automotive sector has been called the industry of industries, and people were very inspired by it in other sectors and have been. And then there has been a period where people were saying or have been saying, "Oh, maybe the IT industry is more fascinating," or "The results, you know, certainly the innovations are more exciting there." Are we now at a point where we're coming full circle where there are things to learn again from manufacturing, for example, for knowledge workers? JOHN: What's driving the whole, whether it be knowledge work or working in a factory...which working in a factory is 50% knowledge work. Just keep that in mind because you're problem-solving. And you know what's driving all this? It is the customer keeps changing their demands. So for a typical shoe, it'll have a few thousand skews for that year. So the reason why manufacturing operations and knowledge work never get stale is the customer needs always keep changing, so that's one. And I'd like to just end this with a comment from my colleague, Art Byrne. He wrote The Lean Turnaround Action Guide as well as has a history back to the early '80s. And I have him come teach in my course. At his time at Danaher, which was really one of the first U.S. companies to successfully bring in lean and Japanese techniques, they bring in the new students, and the first thing they put them on was six months of operations, then they move to strategy and finance, and all those things. The first thing that students want to do is let's get through these operations because we want to do strategy and finance and all the marketing, all the important stuff. Then he's basically found that when they come to the end of the six months, those same students are like, "Can we stay another couple of months? We just want to finish this off." I'm just saying I work in the floor because it's the most fun place to work. And if you have some of these lean skills and know how to use them, you can start contributing to that team quickly. That's what makes it fun. But ultimately, that's why I do it. And I encourage, before people think about it, actually go see what goes on in a factory or system before you start listening to judgments of people who, well, quite frankly, haven't ever done it. So let me just leave it at that. [laughs] TROND: I got it. I got it. Thank you, John. Spend some time on the floor; that's good advice. Thank you so much. It's been very instructive. I love it. Thank you. JOHN: My pleasure, Trond, and thanks to everybody. TROND: You have just listened to another episode of the Augmented Podcast with host Trond Arne Undheim. The topic was Lean operations, and our guest was John Carrier, Senior Lecturer of Systems Dynamics at MIT. In this conversation, we talked about the people dynamics that block efficiency in industrial organizations. My takeaway is that the core innovative potential in most organizations remains its people. The people dynamics that block efficiency can be addressed once you know what they are. But there is a hidden factory underneath the factory, which you cannot observe unless you spend time on the floor. And only with this understanding will tech investment and implementation really work. Stabilizing a factory is about simplifying things. That's not always what technology does, although it has the potential if implemented the right way. Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars. If you liked this episode, you might also like other episodes on the lean topic. Hopefully, you'll find something awesome in these or in other episodes, and if so, do let us know by messaging us. We would love to share your thoughts with other listeners. The Augmented Podcast is created in association with Tulip, the frontline operation platform that connects people, machines, and devices, and systems. Tulip is democratizing technology and empowering those closest to operations to solve problems. Tulip is also hiring, and you can find Tulip at tulip.co. Please share this show with colleagues who care about where industrial tech is heading. And to find us on social media is easy; we are Augmented Pod on LinkedIn and Twitter and Augmented Podcast on Facebook and YouTube. Augmented — industrial conversations that matter. See you next time. Special Guest: John Carrier.

John shares his journey with grief and how celebrity photoshop nude fakes have given him solace. He'll discuss how he's been able to cope with writer's block since his mother's death, and how he's hoping to take his hobby to the next level. Tune in for an intimate look into his healing process, and come out with a newfound perspective on grief.Host Brianne Davis provides helpful advice, poignant stories, and plenty of laughter. Join John on this emotional, heartfelt journey to find healing and hope on Secret Life._____If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction, depression, trauma, sexual abuse or feeling overwhelmed, we've compiled a list of resources at secretlifepodcast.com.______To share your secret and be a guest on the show email secretlifepodcast@icloud.com_____SECRET LIFE'S TOPICS INCLUDE:addiction recovery, mental health, alcoholism, drug addiction, sex addiction, love addiction, OCD, ADHD, dyslexia, eating disorders, debt & money issues, anorexia, depression, shoplifting,  molestation, sexual assault, trauma, relationships, self-love, friendships, community, secrets, self-care, courage, freedom, and happiness._____Create and Host Your Podcast with the same host we use - RedCircle_____Get your copy of SECRET LIFE OF A HOLLYWOOD SEX & LOVE ADDICT -- Secret Life Novel or on Amazon______HOW CAN I SUPPORT THE SHOW?Tell Your Friends & Share Online!Follow, Rate & Review: Apple Podcasts | SpotifyFollow & Listen iHeart | Stitcher | Google Podcasts | Amazon | PandoraSpread the word via social mediaInstagramTwitterFacebook#SecretLifePodcastDonate - You can also support the show with a one-time or monthly donation via PayPal (make payment to secretlifepodcast@icloud.com) or at our WEBSITE.Connect with Brianne Davis-Gantt (@thebriannedavis)Official WebsiteInstagramFacebookTwitterConnect with Mark Gantt (@markgantt)Main WebsiteDirecting WebsiteInstagramFacebookTwitterTranscript[0:00:00] John: My favorite actress, for example, she'll never, like, do like, nude scenes or anything like that, so I kind of look at the fakes. This is kind of fantasy. [0:00:19] Brianne Davis: Welcome to the Secret Life Podcast.[0:00:22] Brianne Davis: Tell me your secret, I'll tell you mine.[0:00:30] Brianne Davis: Sometimes you have to go through the darkness to reach the light. That's what I did. After twelve years of recovery in sex and love addiction, I finally found my soulmate myself. Please join me in my novel, secret Life of a Hollywood sex and love Addict. A four time bestseller on Amazon. It's a brutal, honest, raw, gnarly ride, but hilarious at the same time. Check it out now on Amazon.[0:01:01] Brianne Davis: Welcome to Secret Live Podcast. I'm Brianne. Davis-Gantt. Today, I'm pulling back the curtains of all kinds of human secrets. We'll hear about what people are hiding from themselves or others. You know, those deep, dark secrets you probably want to take to your grave. Or those lighter, funnier secrets that are just plain embarrassing. Really the how, what, one way, or live at all. Today. My guest is John. Now, John, I have a question for you. What is your secret?[0:01:27] John: So my secret is I collect celebrity photoshop, nude, fakes.[0:01:32] Brianne Davis: How long have you been doing that?[0:01:34] John: Since 2000.[0:01:36] Brianne Davis: 2000, okay, so dive in. What made you start doing that? Did you create them yourself? Like, take me back when that all started. Was something going on?[0:01:48] John: No, I didn't create any at that time. Basically what had happened is I was watching a new TV show that had just come out, I think, andromeda andromeda yeah, it's like a side fiction TV show.[0:02:03] John: Yeah.[0:02:04] John: I liked one of the actresses and so I pretty much went to Google, looked for her nude, and stumbled across the fake. And that was the first fake I ever found of her.[0:02:16] Brianne Davis: Okay.[0:02:17] Brianne Davis: Did you buy it or do you.[0:02:18] Brianne Davis: Just take it from is it free? How does that work?[0:02:22] John: Free? I just found it on Google image search.[0:02:26] Brianne Davis: Okay.[0:02:27] John: And pretty much like, just copied the image to my computer at the time was really old.[0:02:36] Brianne Davis: What do you think it is about the fake? Because there are a lot of celebrity nudes that are real, but you only like the fake ones.[0:02:44] John: No, it's more back then, she had never done that. Okay, so it's more of a fantasy thing.[0:02:57] Brianne Davis: Yes. So you've been doing that for almost 23 years.[0:03:02] John: Yeah, it's slowed down quite a bit. I don't collect as much anymore. Basically, if I see one I like, I just download it and stick it with the rest of them.[0:03:15] Brianne Davis: So how many do you think you have that's embarrassing? Well, that's why we are here. This is a show where we get to say all those embarrassing things. I have been there. I have said very many embarrassing things.[0:03:29] John: So I have about last count, over 15,000.[0:03:34] Brianne Davis: 15,000?[0:03:36] John: Yeah. Over.[0:03:37] John: Wow.[0:03:38] Brianne Davis: Over. Oh, my God. What do you do with them? They just sit there. Do you go through them? Do you, like, celebrate that? Like, what do you do with them?[0:03:47] John: Sometimes I just look at them and admire the work that went into them. Because some of them you can really tell because some people who make them just do a crappy don't put an effort into it.[0:04:04] John: Yeah.[0:04:05] Brianne Davis: So you almost see them as artwork.[0:04:07] John: Yeah.[0:04:08] Brianne Davis: And then do you find someone you like or you don't know, and then you go watch all their movies or their TV shows?[0:04:14] John: Sometimes. And there are some that I found and liked and then later just hated them. Because see, I think I have an OCD thing, and I see one minor detail that's off, and it bugs me.[0:04:36] Brianne Davis: That's all you focus on.[0:04:37] John: Yeah.[0:04:38] Brianne Davis: Got it. So if it's a bad art, if it's bad, do you keep that or do you throw that away or you still keep it?[0:04:46] John: I keep it. I guess there's some that are just not great that I keep. I think keeping them is nostalgia's sake.[0:04:54] John: Got it.[0:04:55] Brianne Davis: So it's almost like somebody collecting baseball cards or something. It sounds like there's this compulsion to it a bit.[0:05:04] John: Yeah. In the last couple of years, I've kind of started semi getting out of it.[0:05:11] Brianne Davis: Okay. What does that mean?[0:05:15] John: I used to look for new ones pretty much every day. Nowadays I look maybe every couple of weeks.[0:05:26] Brianne Davis: Oh. So what's been going on where you've decreased the searching for them in your life?[0:05:33] John: Maybe as I get older, I just don't enjoy them as much.[0:05:36] Brianne Davis: Does anybody in your life know about them?[0:05:40] John: Three people.[0:05:41] Brianne Davis: Three people? Who are those three people?[0:05:43] John: Two were by choice, and one was not by choice.[0:05:46] Brianne Davis: Oh, so you got caught?[0:05:48] John: Yeah. So basically the one who caught me was one of my female cousins.[0:05:55] Brianne Davis: Oh, no. So you went on your computer and and saw them?[0:05:58] John: I had collected some early this was back in high school, and I had collected some mended day at school. And I brought them home, loaded them on the computer, and forgot to close the images out. She came up to visit, came up to my room and walked in, and I turned around to something else, and all I heard was, what's this?[0:06:24] Brianne Davis: Oh, my God. Did your stomach drop?[0:06:27] John: That's one way of putting it in.[0:06:30] Brianne Davis: Okay. What happened?[0:06:31] John: We're like sheer panic.[0:06:33] John: Yeah.[0:06:34] John: And it's like, adjoked by folks.[0:06:37] Brianne Davis: How old were you at the time?[0:06:39] John: Between 16 and 18. And she never did she pretty much.[0:06:46] Brianne Davis: Just kept that secret?[0:06:48] John: Yeah. She pretty much said, this is normal. Looking at this kind of stuff is normal, and sat down and just looked through them. And she, like, recognized some of the celebrities. The other two were by choice. This is what I've been doing.[0:07:08] Brianne Davis: Who were they?[0:07:09] John: Just good friends.[0:07:10] Brianne Davis: Okay. And what they say?[0:07:12] John: Pretty much same thing. Like that kind of stuff is normal.[0:07:15] John: Yeah.[0:07:15] Brianne Davis: Looking at porno images and all that is completely normal. But the difference between yours is that they're fake and you know they're fake. So what about it? Do you like that aspect of it that I'm curious about, that you know they're not real, but you still like them.[0:07:31] John: Well, I guess the closest fantasy, because some celebrities will never do, like, nude scenes or pose nude for magazines. Like, my favorite actress, for example. One of my favorite actresses is named Danielle Panabaker. She'll never do, like, nude scenes or anything like that, so I kind of look at the fakes. This is kind of fantasy.[0:08:02] Brianne Davis: Yeah, it's complete fantasy. And do you think with looking at those, that it keeps you distant from having a relationship in real life or no.[0:08:14] John: You mean like a girlfriend or yeah, not really. I kind of don't have much interest in a girlfriend at this point.[0:08:25] Brianne Davis: Oh, really? Have you ever had a girlfriend?[0:08:27] John: No, I've just never had the interest.[0:08:31] Brianne Davis: Okay, here's my question for you. When did you start looking at pornographic images? At what age do you think?[0:08:39] John: REM high school days.[0:08:41] Brianne Davis: High school?[0:08:44] John: I think the first one was Playboy.[0:08:46] Brianne Davis: So when we look at those images a lot and I've done a lot of work around this, it desensitizes our own sexuality, because then the fantasy is more it becomes everything instead of the reality. The reality of a person being with another person or a woman doesn't match the fantasy. Do you think that's true?[0:09:10] John: I guess it depends. Now, with fakes, usually people get aroused by this stuff. I don't.[0:09:21] Brianne Davis: You don't? No, not at all.[0:09:24] John: Well, I mean, back when I first started collecting, maybe. No.[0:09:29] Brianne Davis: So interesting. Not at all. So when you look at it and it's just like, oh, that's a great fake, they did a good job with taking her face and putting it on. That's what you look at mostly than the nude.[0:09:43] John: Yeah, pretty much. Like, a few years ago, I used to use fakes as wallpapers on, like, my tablet.[0:09:50] Brianne Davis: Yeah.[0:09:51] John: But now I don't do that much anymore.[0:09:54] Brianne Davis: Okay.[0:09:55] John: Mostly because I go out in public a lot now.[0:09:58] Brianne Davis: So you're getting out of the house?[0:10:00] John: Yeah.[0:10:01] Brianne Davis: That's probably why you've been doing less, do you believe? Because you said it's been, like, less used to do it every day and now you're doing it weekly.[0:10:10] John: Yeah, it's actually possible. I have a few friends I hang out with, and so that kind of helps.[0:10:18] Brianne Davis: It does help. It does help. I believe when we are stuck with these images, especially when they are fantasy, when we deny ourselves that authentic connection with other human beings, we miss out. And the moment you open yourself up to that and you're getting out of the computer screen with these images and with actual friends, that's what is a real connection.[0:10:41] John: And I think I started heavily collecting quite a few years ago because of grief?[0:10:48] John: Yeah.[0:10:49] Brianne Davis: What were you going through?[0:10:50] John: My mom died from cancer about 1011 years ago, and that's about when I started heavily collecting.[0:10:59] John: Yeah.[0:10:59] Brianne Davis: That's where you found comfort, right?[0:11:01] John: Yeah.[0:11:02] Brianne Davis: Not feeling alone. A huge loss.[0:11:05] John: Yeah. And I read this article online about how one guy got into fakes and it completely destroyed his life.[0:11:15] John: Yeah.[0:11:16] Brianne Davis: What did he say in the article? Why it destroyed his life.[0:11:19] John: He decided to start looking at fakes at his place of employment. I can safely say I've never done.[0:11:31] Brianne Davis: You haven't done that?[0:11:32] John: No. But the article also did the flip side where it actually saved somebody's life because I guess, like me, they lost their mother.[0:11:42] John: Yeah.[0:11:43] John: And they were thinking about ending stuff, so I guess that saved them.[0:11:49] Brianne Davis: Well, it did, because we reach for those outside things that we feel connected to, and it doesn't feel safe with another human being, especially if you lost somebody so important to you so they can give you that outlet of connection.[0:12:02] John: Yeah, I can agree with that.[0:12:04] Brianne Davis: Have you been doing work on the loss and the trauma of it with your mom?[0:12:09] John: Yeah, I had a therapist for a while. I think I'm kind of there now. Not easy. Never really all that easy.[0:12:19] Brianne Davis: No, grief is never easy. We run from grief. But are you finally feeling like you've felt it and moving through it?[0:12:27] John: Yeah, I think so. I've also got friends I talked to about it, too.[0:12:32] Brianne Davis: Oh, good.[0:12:34] John: One of my friends went through the same thing, actually.[0:12:38] Brianne Davis: Well, that always helps when I'm going through a hard time to find a group of people that have been through similar situations and they have them online. All over online as well. Grief and loss groups.[0:12:50] John: Yeah. I found this app, actually, called Seven Cups. Kind of like a sort of therapy app where you can go and talk to people.[0:12:59] John: Yeah.[0:13:00] John: And it's kind of helped me a bit.[0:13:02] Brianne Davis: Good.[0:13:03] John: Now, I have to admit, back when this all happened, I did used to make them.[0:13:09] Brianne Davis: You did used to make them for a short period. And what did that feel like when you were actually making the fake nude photos of celebrities?[0:13:18] John: That's hard to describe. Proud that I made one that looked decent, actually, because I still have one I made that is still my favorite.[0:13:29] Brianne Davis: What is it? Who is it?[0:13:31] John: Her name is Cody Depblo from the TV show NCIS. And it was like a lingerie style fake, not even nude. And that's still my favorite one I've made.[0:13:44] Brianne Davis: I know her. She's very nice. But here's the thing. I did want to ask you this, and I know probably our listeners are wondering, do you ever think of the actual person you're doing the nude of? Like, when you're cutting out their face or you're seeing their face and you know that's not them? Do you ever actually think of that.[0:14:06] John: Person in what way?[0:14:08] Brianne Davis: I don't know. If they choose not to be nude and then someone puts their face on a new body, have you ever thought about how that could make them feel?[0:14:16] John: Yeah, that's kind of why I stopped.[0:14:19] Brianne Davis: Oh, tell me about it. So you had that thought. What was the feelings that came up?[0:14:23] John: Pretty much just yeah, maybe they don't want this. Yeah, let's not do this.[0:14:28] John: Yeah.[0:14:29] Brianne Davis: That they're a human being as well.[0:14:31] John: Yeah, pretty much that.[0:14:32] John: Yeah.[0:14:33] Brianne Davis: And do you think that was one of the reasons about hanging out with friends more, getting out into the world and then that realization that they're humans as well?[0:14:41] John: Yeah, quite a bit, actually. And I haven't made one in seven, nine years.[0:14:49] Brianne Davis: Well, it seems like you're kind of an artist, too. Have you ever thought of trying to do something even different with your art because you enjoy art?[0:14:57] John: It seems like I kind of have. I've started not officially, not like paid stuff, just editing images into wallpapers and just like posting it to a deviant arc page.[0:15:14] Brianne Davis: I think you'd be great at it. There's something in it that inspires you, and I think it takes dedication and you have that. I don't know.[0:15:23] John: Yeah, I used to have something that was like that, but I used to write quite a bit.[0:15:28] Brianne Davis: Maybe it's time to pick it back up.[0:15:30] John: The issue is, ever since my mother died, I've had writer's block.[0:15:35] Brianne Davis: I know. And believe me, I know, writer's block and all that and trauma and all that, but it's like maybe you reaching out to me and wanting to come on and share the secret isn't a way for you to step through it now.[0:15:49] John: Yeah, that could be a good way of looking at it. And I've started dabbling with writing a bit more.[0:15:56] John: Good.[0:16:00] Brianne Davis: Well, I'm so grateful you came on. I'm so grateful to have this conversation. I never expected to have this conversation. It's been beautiful and I understanding so much. And thank you for reaching out to me.[0:16:14] John: Yeah, no problem.[0:16:15] Brianne Davis: And if you want to be on the show, please email me at secretlifepodcast@icloud.com. Until next time.[0:16:27] Brianne Davis: Thanks again for listening to the show. Please subscribe rate share or send me a note at secretlifepodcast.com. And if you like to check out my book, head over to secretlifenovel.com or Amazon to pick up a copy for yourself or someone you love. Thanks again.[0:16:44] Brianne Davis: See you soon.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

INTRODUCTION: I hold a Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Exposition, with an interdisciplinary in Literature, from Moody Bible Institute. I was one of two recipients of the MBI Homiletical Jury Award for outstanding preaching in 2016. I have experience as a youth pastor, pastoral intern, academic journal editor, and guest speaker. I used to be a part of the largest cult in the United States. In 2019, I published my first book, The Cult of Christianity, as a first step in addressing the subtle issues of this complex system. In 2021, I continued my work with this podcast!   INCLUDED IN THIS EPISODE (But not limited to): ·      How Christianity Is A Cult·      A Look Into TCOC Book's Cover Art·      How The Church Exploits Vulnerabilities ·      Civil Rights Movement Implications·      Explained: Control – Contain – Convert·      Refusing Cake To The Gays! – But Why Though?·      The “Karen-ness” Of Christians ·      Fake Oppression·      Getting Over Self-Condemnation For Falling For The Church·      The Honor In Self-Deprecation  CONNECT WITH JOHN: Website, Social Media & Books: https://linktr.ee/thecultofchristianity  CONNECT WITH DE'VANNON: Website: https://www.SexDrugsAndJesus.comWebsite: https://www.DownUnderApparel.comTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sexdrugsandjesusYouTube: https://bit.ly/3daTqCMFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/SexDrugsAndJesus/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sexdrugsandjesuspodcast/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TabooTopixLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devannonPinterest: https://www.pinterest.es/SexDrugsAndJesus/_saved/Email: DeVannon@SDJPodcast.com  DE'VANNON'S RECOMMENDATIONS: ·      Pray Away Documentary (NETFLIX)o  https://www.netflix.com/title/81040370o  TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_CqGVfxEs ·      OverviewBible (Jeffrey Kranz)o  https://overviewbible.como  https://www.youtube.com/c/OverviewBible ·      Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed (Documentary)o  https://press.discoveryplus.com/lifestyle/discovery-announces-key-participants-featured-in-upcoming-expose-of-the-hillsong-church-controversy-hillsong-a-megachurch-exposed/ ·      Leaving Hillsong Podcast With Tanya Levino  https://leavinghillsong.podbean.com  ·      Upwork: https://www.upwork.com·      FreeUp: https://freeup.net VETERAN'S SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS ·      Disabled American Veterans (DAV): https://www.dav.org·      American Legion: https://www.legion.org ·      What The World Needs Now (Dionne Warwick): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfHAs9cdTqg  INTERESTED IN PODCASTING OR BEING A GUEST?: ·      PodMatch is awesome! This application streamlines the process of finding guests for your show and also helps you find shows to be a guest on. The PodMatch Community is a part of this and that is where you can ask questions and get help from an entire network of people so that you save both money and time on your podcasting journey.https://podmatch.com/signup/devannon  TRANSCRIPT: John Verner [00:00:00]You're listening to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast, where we discuss whatever the fuck we want to! And yes, we can put sex and drugs and Jesus all in the same bed and still be all right at the end of the day. My name is De'Vannon and I'll be interviewing guests from every corner of this world as we dig into topics that are too risqué for the morning show, as we strive to help you understand what's really going on in your life.There is nothing off the table and we've got a lot to talk about. So let's dive right into this episode.De'Vannon: John m is back with us again to go harder into his very provocative book, the Cult of Christianity. Join us today as we discuss the ways in which the church mind fucks us, violates us, and exploits people's vulnerabilities. Also, I hope that through this episode you begin to find a sense of healing in knowing that if you or your loved one has been devastated by the.[00:01:00]You are not alone, honey. We are in this together. John and I are with you,and we will walk with you every step of the way.Hello everyone and welcome back to the Sex Drugs in Jesus podcast. I'm your hostess with the mostest, Devon Huber. And I have with me the lovely, the handsome, the talented, the smart, intelligent, brave, bold, and in touch with his emotions. John er, he is the John: host, John De'Vannon: er mm-hmm. , John er. He is the host of The Cult of Christianity podcast.And the author of the book titled the same. He was on my show before to talk about, well, the book, but then we got so deep into his history in the podcast. We didn't get a chance to talk about the [00:02:00] book, so I had to have the motherfucker back on so we can dive into this shit. How the fuck is you? John: I is fine.20, 20, 23 feels like a little bit of a reset. And so I'm, I'm kind of living in that head space of like, all right, what's next? Since we last spoke, I went, I can't, I don't think I had started back working on my master's in journalism. And so that's been taking up a lot of time. I'm, I'm, it's all online, but I'm studying at N Y U mm-hmm.And that's been awesome. I've been, been doing some religious reporting stuff, which is, is fun. I'm excited to kinda move towards that, doing religious reporting. It's pretty fun. De'Vannon: Well, congratulations. Congratulations. And all of it was a good thing. . So you're religious reporting like say for, for like, for like the university's press John: or like where Yeah.For right [00:03:00] now. Yeah. And then yeah, I'm already, I'm hopefully gonna sell my first, I'm actually right after we record this, I'm gonna have a meeting to hopefully sell my first story of a church investigation I did. Cuz that's what I wanna do. I want to, not just Christian churches, but I want to go into churches and colts and investigate them and figure out what's really going on De'Vannon: as someone should.Have you heard of the Trinity Foundation in Texas? John: Yeah. You mentioned that last time we talked. I didn't, I didn't look too far into them, but I know there's, there's several. This is a relatively new thing that's popping up that's actually really, really important work. De'Vannon: So what you're telling me is there's organizations who investigate churches more than that one.This is becoming like a trend. Well, John: religious reporting has been around for, for decades, but it's been done in a very kind of general way. And I think there's being a small push to be like, let's actually look at individual, like if someone is whistle blowing on their [00:04:00] church or is like giving us leads about a specific church, that it should be fair game and we should investigate them like we would any other business.De'Vannon: Right. Well, I wish you success with that as you get going and keep going, be sure to let me know if there's anything that I can do for you because, you know, I don't give a fuck about churches, but I give all the fucks. I give all the fucks about Christ as I always say. Mm-hmm. , but the church. Yay Jesus. And that's the way that, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.Now, before we get too much into this, I want you to tell me about that coffee mug in your hand. Can you hold it up the camera so that we can see Yeah. What it says. Apostate coffee roasters. You mind giving us a little bit of history on what the fuck apostate means and where you got that from? Yeah.John: Apostates just a derogatory term that different cults and religions have thrown at people who, typically it's someone who, like me, who used to be a part of the faith and is no longer [00:05:00] but it's, it's more broadly a pro. A similar word would be something like heretic. But the, yeah, so prostate coffee roasters, they're this coffee company that is run by ex Mormons and Mormons are not allowed to drink coffee.So it's a very like, empowering thing for them to roast their own coffee and make it so they're awesome. Love 'em to death. They're great. Make good coffee. So their De'Vannon: whole show is one big clap back. Not the whole show. Their whole fucking concept is one big clap back. Mm-hmm. . So do you have any idea why Mormons think coffee is Satan?Why do they think coffee is of the devil? John: Yeah. I don't know personally too much. You know, I didn't grow up Mormon or anything. I do know that just in my studies of Colts , what they do is one move to do is to control what people eat and drink. You know, in Southern Baptist culture that looks like alcohol [00:06:00] you know, in, in certain pockets of Christianity, historically there was only certain kinds of bread you could use for communion.Anytime you're trying to regulate what people are eat, eating, you're regulating what they're putting into their body. That's just a, that's just a very like kind of you've mentioned stuff like hypnosis. It's, it's a very like, Kind of mind numbing way to control a person is to control what they eat and drink.The other big one I talk about a lot is controlling what you wear. That's like a, that's a big thing that pops up in different cults. You'll see usually a distinction between how clergy dress and the followers and how people dress on Sunday versus the rest of the days is common in Christian circles.So basically if you can control what someone expresses and you can control what someone intakes, it's very easy to control their mind cuz you're already controlling their body. . [00:07:00] Mm. So that would be my, my, my spin on it. I don't know the theo, I don't know what theological reason they made up for coffee.Like I, I'm sure there's some, I'm sure somebody said it was you know, too addicting at some point is probably the modern version, I would assume. De'Vannon: Well, if that was the case, at least those bastards were even across the board, you know, unlike say the Pentecostals who were like, that was show not drinketh of the vine, but they're gross in a fucking gallon of coffee in the back every Sunday and like that.But that's all good, right? . John: Yeah. Well that's also, yeah, especially, especially if they go the grape juice route too, because even grape juice is from a vine. So that's kind of. , De'Vannon: it's all silly. The marijuana, the L s D mm-hmm , the shrooms, the coffee beans, the grapes, and any of their derivatives is something that is of the Lord.And it is not for humans to tell us what the fuck. We can't do really with [00:08:00] anything, but it's certainly not anything that grew up out the fucking dirt. Hmm. So, speaking of artistic expressions, cuz you're also fucking artistic. I mentioned the, the cover for your podcast the last time, but I wanted to talk about that again because I feel like it's just so enigmatic and so polarized and you have this big, huge fucker standing on like a pedestal and his little minions bowing before them for him sucking his dick or whatever the case may be, paying HOK in some way.And the interesting thing is you can't tell whether or not that's supposed to be a preacher, a rabbi, a pope, a pastor that's supposed to be God, you know, or Jesus or some like sort of deity. , and I know you said it before, but I'd like you to just tell us again why you went with this cover art, because I think it's so true.John: Well, this is a, every so humans like categories we like [00:09:00] to find a group. We like to label things as good and bad. And there's not necessarily anything wrong with that. That's just kind of how our brains work. And the problem is we've got kind of this weird concept of good guys and bad guys, and the church is pretending to be the good guys while they're being the bad guys.But you end up having to label specific things that are wrong because there's so many goodhearted people in. . And so a lot of times when I critique Christianity, people wanna spend the conversation of, well, you're not critiquing Christianity. You're critiquing this version of Christianity, which isn't necessarily wrong, I am way more focused on White American evangelicalism than the rest of it.But White American evangelicalism was not a term when there were slavery in the us. There it existed, but we hadn't [00:10:00] labeled it that yet. The Crusades, the was not only white people, was not American people and was certainly not evangelicals, but the Crusades were bad . And it stemmed from their beliefs their Christian beliefs.So I can't say everything all at once. , but what I hope the art communicates is the, the problem that I've spotted, the category that I think everything else falls from is the idea of leaders and followers of other people submitting to someone else. I don't really, I, I think it's worth bringing up white supremacy.I think it's worth bringing up patriarchy. I think all those things are very much worth talking about, but I don't think it's the only thing going on. I think we have a we're, we're sometimes scared, and I think we've been made to be scared of pointing out that what's really going on in churches is that cult structure of one man with [00:11:00] other people having the knee bow to him either literally or metaphorically.So again, the art is, is purposely vague because I think unless there's some fundamental changes 40 years from now when evangelicalism won't exist, it will be gone. We won't be calling anyone an evangelical anymore. The same problems, the same structure, the same issues will still be present unless there's foundational changes.Chow, I'm De'Vannon: getting Game of Thrones flashbacks. Okay. Like, how many season is it gonna take to get you to bend the knee? John Snow, get on down there. Boy. and motherfucking service. Yo, queen God damnit. And so . John: Yeah. Well seasons is an interesting way of thinking about it. Both television and, and you know, weather or whatever.But it's true. Like there's seasons of Christianity that that kind of come and go. But what seems to remain is that structure of one person being in charge of others or [00:12:00] multiple people being in charge of multiple others. But there's always that hierarchy. So again, I, I have tried to update the art before, but I think it, I think it's just the, it, it's, it's about what I'm talking about most specifically.You know, that my art. on that is in line with the problem I'm trying to point to. There's many other people who are doing great work to dismantle white Evangelicalism and I support all those people. But to me, that's not my niche. That's not what I'm trying to talk about. Hmm. Then De'Vannon: tell us like it, you know, and make it official here.What, what are you trying to talk about? What is your mission in this world? Hmm. John: I'm not just against Christianity, I'm against cults. I just know how much of a cult Christianity is. Hmm. And the reason I'm against cults is it's an erase. It erases people's identity. It makes their vulnerabilities their whole personhood.It [00:13:00] it, it limits them to a very narrow way of. , and I think there's cult speak outside of, you know, there's a lot of cult speak in the business world. There's a lot of cult speaking, just American culture when it comes to politics. So I'm against all of it across the board, the one I'm just super familiar with, and can get very detailed and very like you know, just kind of a prime example.And unfortunately a very big example in the US is Christianity. And one of the ways, it's the biggest example is it's absurd that the largest cult is the most protected class of people in the country. Like, that's concerning to me. We have an organiza a loosely organized group of people that are protected by constitutional rights and legal rights more than anyone.and they're not oppressed, but they're that protected and that's a very dangerous, as we've seen, very dangerous combination. So they're worth talking about the most, and it's the one I can [00:14:00] talk about the most, but I'm against cults across the board. I'm not just bitter about my church hurt, I'm not just upset because of this, that, and the other.This is a real problem that really needs to be talked about in real ways and real solutions need to happen. De'Vannon: That's interesting you say like the, these ultimate people's vulnerabilities, their whole personality. I've never heard it stated like that before. So from from the people who've reached out to you in response to your book or your show or the work that you're doing, do you have any sort of, I don't know if we would call it a testimony, any kind of bullshit somebody shared with you that a, a church or a cult put them through that was particularly scary or moving to you that you can recall?John: Yes. To me. So I, I have two thi things that I think of with that question. One is, nothing surprises [00:15:00] me anymore. Nothing . It, it can still hurt. It can still shock me. It never surprises me. It only makes me feel like, yeah, that makes sense. And frankly, I only feel like I was five clicks away from being the victim or perpetrator of whatever bad thing happened, because that's what the system breeds.It, it breeds perpetrators and victims . I mean, that's just what it does. There's, there's many horrifying stories. Sometimes I avoid telling them because, When you tell like a really I guess salacious, for lack of a better word story, like someone who, like, you know, I have an episode of my podcast where I interview a guy who was kidnapped by Christians, right?About as extreme as it can get. What people do is go, well, those Christians were crazy. Those were the crazy ones. [00:16:00] Or like, if someone talks about, you know, this is unfortunately becoming, we're all becoming aware how common this is. When someone was sexually harassed or abused by someone in the church they, they go, well, that, that guy needs to leave.Like he's, you know, he's bad. And, and the church would, that church was bad, but you should come to my church. You should do this, you should do that. It, it just gets a little exhausting for me to kind of engage and. Let me tell you this horrible story because frankly, the horrible story doesn't change anyone's mind because the cult won't let it change your mind because your empathy has been pressure washed out of you.You, you don't, you don't ha the story doesn't tug at you because the thing that tugs at you more is you've been told how ashamed you are and how shameful your existence is. And the only hope for reming that shame is believing in Jesus Christ. And so that belief that's so firmly held is actually gonna [00:17:00] trump your ability to be empathetic towards someone's story.So yeah, I could sit here and I could, off the top of my head at least tell you three stories that would make a lot of people who are unfamiliar with churches that would make their jaw drop, but it wouldn't change anything. And it's very sad because we want to believe that people's horrifying stories change stuff.And I think it does and to, and I think it can. . But I think a lot of the times it actually ends up being counterproductive because the cults, the cult leaders are anticipating that they've already done a lot of work to build a firewall against that particular human thing of storytelling to promote change.You know, I no better example than like Martin Luther King Jr. Right. You know, told amazing stories, was a great orator. Not the per, not a perfect person, but someone who told a lot of great stories and who was, showed the impact. And we like to [00:18:00] pretend that that changed the church and up more positive direction.But did it, I mean, I, I mean, what, what tangible, measurable things can we point to that were changed within church culture? I'm not talking about American culture in general. There was great things that came outta the Civil Rights Movement. What did the church really change? Not a lot. It just changed their verbiage, which they always changed their verbiage.But, but systemically what really changed. So if you want horrible stories, I can give them, but that's why I'm hesitant to a lot of the time is cuz I'm not sure it's actually that helpful. De'Vannon: What you said is, look, you said what you said . Okay. Did I accept that when I think of Martin Luther King or any of the civil rights, I never, ever think about the church, you know, except for the fact that the church stood silently by why people were murdered in the streets and stuff like that, you know?You know. [00:19:00] How's it say that? Well, John: and, and I mean, I mean, even Evangelicals hated Martin Luther King Jr. They called him a thug. They. There, there's a letter from the guy who wrote the Left Behind books. There's a letter from him to Wheaton College because they had a memorial service after King was shot.And he said, how could you celebrate the life of this man? They didn't just passively like, not like m l K, they hated him. Jerry Falwell hated Martin Luther King Jr. Because he was for segregation. So like, and again, like I, I, you know, I know this is an intense topic to go to right off the bat, , but, but I just think, I think we, I think sometimes those of us who have left the church think if we just tell enough stories of how bad we've been hurt, Christians will change.They don't give a shit. They don't, and it's, and some of it's not even their fault. A lot of the followers have been brainwashed to not give a shit. And [00:20:00] so the, the best hope is we can, with our stories, what we can do is help people who have already left know that they're not alone. Which is huge and that's really important work and people who are looking for a way out might find the way out.But if you're talking about systemically changing what cult leaders are gonna do it, it ain't gonna do shit. De'Vannon: Right. I concur. So, you know, that's why like in my ministry, man, I am preaching not to church people, but the people who have already been hurt or people who, who know people and love people who have been hurt because people don't go to church for the betterment of humanity.People go to church for entirely selfish reasons, to keep themselves outta hell, to work out their own self, soul, salvation, whatever it is. They're going there to get their blessing, their miracle. They're come up, they're not going there cuz they give a fuck about you. And then so yeah, I concur. There is no talking to them hardheaded people.Like if they're setting up there every god damn Sunday or whatever, they're not gonna be able to hear us [00:21:00] because they're constantly being re indoctrinated and re hypnotized by the big man up on stage or we god damn week. or the woman or the who of the fuck ever twirling about. So yeah, they're a lost cause shot of a miracle.John: Yeah. I, or also just explaining systemically what happens, you know, if you, if you're able to generalize it more than just a specific person, like one person's story and you can show them the patterns. You know, I used to be a cult leader, you know, I studied to be a pastor. I got out, I was hardheaded then.But the reason I got out was not because I heard a story that was finally, you know, enough, it was cuz I kept seeing the same thing over and over again. And I was like, this is just how a cult operates. And I was in denial about it. So I think cult leaders, the way you do reach them is say, don't you know what you're doing?Like, you know? Right. And if you actually focus the conversation on that and not just the extreme cases of bad things that happen, but actually point [00:22:00] to like the pattern. Like, okay, so do you have control over your congregation? . Like, that's a great question to ask a pastor because they'll, they'll struggle.They cannot give a yes or no que answer to it. But just be like, do you have control over your congregation? And you'll it then watch how they react. Cuz you'll see some interesting things. . You De'Vannon: can also ask 'em to apologize for something and get that same reaction cuz those bastards won't say they're sorry.And so, so now that you're speaking about control, I wanted to talk about, so y'all, his book, the called of Christianity is broken down into three succulent sections. The first one is called control. The section one is the sexual, the sec, second one is called Contained. Clearly I need to gimme some dick.Where the fuck did that come from? And the third one is called Convert. And you'll always, whenever you hear John's talk, he'll always say, control, contain, convert, control, contain, convert. And so, and that's how his book is broken down. And if I may, I'm gonna [00:23:00] read a little sniff it. That kind of echoes what you were just saying.And Howard, I had already taken down in my notes. Now, this is John speaking y'all, and he's saying, I don't recant anything in this letter. I said, holding back tears. I was feeling tired, dressed down, confused and hurt, yet unwilling to go again. So what I knew to be true, the truth was I had spent three hours in a boardroom that reminded me of the one I had seen in The Apprentice.I want you to tell us what the hell was going on here and why were you crying. . John: So yeah, so this is the first chapter of the book, and this is kind of, I, I, you know, my, my rose bud, my whatever, my my or villain or hero origin story, depending on how you look at it. So I was 16 years old going to a pretty stuffy church Presbyterian church, p c a for whoever that means [00:24:00]something to suit and tie church.And I was, I was angsty, you know, at the same time I was also in a punk band. I had grown out my hair. I was still very Christian, like, very conservative Christian, in fact. But I, you know, was around people who, you know, I, I, I was ex, I was becoming an adult, right? Like in as much as a teenager does.And the church was just ridiculous. And so, like, I, I had this whole rigamarole of, of beef with the, the leadership of the church. So I sent a letter. to email. I emailed the pastor and said, here are my problems with this church. And I had broken it into four sections of just like, they don't respect the youth of this church.They have a bad view of music. That was important to me cuz they were like, they had this whole, like, contemporary music is evil. They were like one of those. And [00:25:00] then they there were a couple other things. Oh, they, the way they hated Catholics actually really bothered me. The way they talked about Catholics was very not okay in my opinion.And then basically I'd told them I would never invite a friend to church here. Like I would never, like, do y'all want to actually save people? Because I would never invite. Yeah. So I wrote this whole long letter, sent it to the pastor. He forwarded it to the elders. I told my dad afterwards about it and my dad and dad was like, can I read it?And I was like, sure. I signed it to him. He is like, all right, proud of you. This is good stuff. . And so I told my parents that I wanted to face the elders alone. So we would go to their session room, which was a long wooden table, had like chairs on all around it. And then on the wall it had pictures of Martin Luther.It had Swingley and it had John Calvin. And then it had like these bookshelves that [00:26:00] were just like full of like reformation propaganda. And so it's me and the three elders I knew the most. And then for, for three hours they talked to me about how my long hair was sinful, which was the first time like, I thought, only crazy churches believe that, right?And they were like, no, you're trying to look like the world with your hair. And I was like, what? And then they talked about my best friend who dressed in all black, like how, you know, they're dressing in all black. Same friend was in the band with me and was just like, said, they look like the world.Talk to me about how I was the one who was disrespecting them. They weren't disrespectful of you, of youth. I was disrespectful to them and that yeah, that basically I, and, and I didn't confront them correctly. I shouldn't have written a letter. When you have a problem with someone, you go and confront them, and then if they don't listen, you bring another, you [00:27:00] know, the whole Matthew 18 dumb ass shit.And so I just, I, I was a wreck and so I cried. Eventually my dad came in, and that's the cool part of the story. My dad comes in and he goes, what happened? And, well, no, my dad comes in and actually the first things outta his mouth was who was yelling at my son. And it was a, it was a good moment for me and my dad.Our, our relationship only got stronger after that moment. then they started talking about the hair and stuff. Then my dad goes, look behind you. And there's like, you know, his wingy with his long beard and stuff, and he is like, and my dad goes, the person who sh what? I can't even remember the terminology anymore.The person who led me to the Lord, that's how they talk. The person who led me to the Lord had long hair. Like, what are you talking about? You know? and so it kind of got tense and then yeah, at the end I say I don't recant, which was a paraphrase of what [00:28:00] Martin Luther said when he was brought before, Catholics and, and excommunicated.cuz I thought that would be an extra sting of, since they idolize this man so much. that was the first time I switched from being a blind follower. I stayed a Christian for many years after that, but I stopped blindly following what church leaders say that day. De'Vannon: I like that whole recant thing.Like I was saying earlier that you said what? You said , I'm might, I might hit a bitch with that one day I recant, not it. John: Lost the fuck out. Yeah. It, it's a little dramatic. Well, because they, well, one of the elders said like, do you, do you have like, I want to give you the last word. Is there anything you wanna say?Because I could tell by the look on their face, they felt like they did something good. They felt like they did a good job of putting me back on the right path. [00:29:00] And I was like, guys, y'all just proved everything I said. Like, I, why would I recant anything? and they were, they were mad frankly. They were mad.De'Vannon: They always are. They, they were that way with Lakewood, you know, you know, when they, when the ki when the, when the kids choir director and the adult choir director were firing me from all aspects of volunteering for not being straight. Despite the, despite, aside from the fact they would call me in the office and question who I'm dating and stuff like that, trying to get all into who I'm fucking and whatnot.Well, I mean, we can't even fuck even doing all that. Just, you know, or hold hands or shit, I guess, whatever their rules were, you know? Mm-hmm. , when they offered me their conversion therapy package in order to stay and to be demoted, quote unquote, to an usher from being on, you know, camera and television and stuff in the more public ministries, and I got up to walk the fuck out, they were so confused, you know, that I didn't accept their conversion [00:30:00] therapy package.And they, when they were talking to me, they felt like they, they, they, they felt like I had hurt them and offended them. You know? Like, how could you, how could you hang out with gay people when you're not here, ? John: Yeah. I mean, when you, when you think, when you, you, when you think you're divinely appointed by God people aren't supposed to argue with you.And if they do, they're spo. If someone argues with you, they're arguing with the Lord. I mean, there's some who would never say, no, no, no, no, no. Like it's, it's, I don't, I don't have that kind of authority, blah, blah, blah. But I'm like, but in practice, like, I mean, this is what we keep agreeing to by showing up to church is that you're divinely appointed by God to do whatever the hell you wanna do, frankly And so, I, I don't know. I mean, it's, it's, but it's so sad, right? It's so sad that it happens to not only, you know, [00:31:00] adults or like people who've put a lot of work into the church. it happens to very vulnerable people. It happens like in my case, to a child. I mean, I was 16 years old and I had grown ass men ripping me a new one because I just challenged their bad behavior.I mean, this is what we were working with. Imagine if I was like a woman when I did that, or like, You know, or, or like, you know, not, not white, you know? yeah, like, I, I, I mean, it's just horrifying, right? It's, it's all about once you deviate from, the, the program, I mean, you're gonna, you're gonna experience some, some shaming at minimum.De'Vannon: Hmm. Some shaming in some shade. Yeah. Especially white men, they don't like to be told what to do and, and that they're wrong. They're accustomed to stepping on all the little brown people and stuff like that. But for the record, my brother, I think you got plenty of soul. You are always invited for the motherfucking cookout.any damn [00:32:00] day about to be crawfish season down here. Come stay with me. I got room in my house. I'll get you some soul food and fattening you up a little bit. , John: man, I miss soul food. You know, there's obviously a lot of great stuff here in Atlanta, but now I'm vegan, so like, so much of it is like off the table for me now.It's very sad. De'Vannon: So that means no crawfishes for you. Well, vegan is not. Yeah. There's no dairy in that, right? There's no dairy in, yeah, video1579991175: but John: it's a, it, it's an animal though. De'Vannon: You can't eat any animals either. John: Okay. I'm gonna have no animal, no dairy, some vegan De'Vannon: seafood shit for you. John: So some collards though. I can have some collards, which is good.You know, I De'Vannon: grow mustard greens. I got them in the backyard right now. Ooh. Okay. I cut you a pot. John: Let's goDe'Vannon: So the section called contain mm-hmm. march. Stuck out to me. In, in, in here. So I have long loathed Christian people for this fake oppression and things like that. Like what you mentioned earlier. We're gonna talk about [00:33:00] the myth of Chris and Daria. Mm-hmm. , after we talk about this whole people not wanting to make cake for the gaze.Bullshit. I like the way you said it. I'm gonna read a little ex sweeped as bugs bunnies, , sometimes racist ass would. Say he can't help how Disney dressed him. Sometimes he was in drag, sometimes he was talking to people in blackface. But there's a whole thing out there on YouTube about, you know, Disney and the different cartoons, racism.Go look it up cuz unfortunately Bugsy was in there too. So Romans 12 versus 20 through 21. This is from the book, says to the contrary, if your enemy is hangry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink For Baso doing, he will heap pointing cold on his head. So do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good.John goes on to say, perceiving gay folks as enemies is [00:34:00] problematic in and of itself, but even if you do, I fail to see how refusing to give people some cake. Cake, cake, cake, cake scores you any brownie points for the God.John: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it, it is wild, right? Like that's, it's, it's, it's just, and it shows the contrary, like there's an evangelical message of we need to serve all people. And then there's another message that they're saying at the same time is like, but not if, I'm like, well, if there's a but not if, then the first thing doesn't make any sense.De'Vannon: And Jesus is saying, it is your most basic bitch Christian level. You gotta feed a bitch. You know, two people can be in a relationship and on the verge of divorce. I mean, if a pot of food is cooking, you, you can at least share that. I mean, yeah. Nevertheless, you've been commanded to do so. You're not supposed to leave people starving and without clothing.No matter how much you [00:35:00] disdain them, you're supposed to piss on them if they're on fire. It's stuff like that, no matter how much you don't want to mm-hmm. . So you conservative assholes out there when you don't wanna make me a cake because I walked in with eyeshadow on, just know. You're written of in the scriptures.You hateful ho. Yeah. Now then this myth of oppression, like you talked about earlier. Christians are a bunch of big fucking Karens running around something like. The God the world is against them. The moment they can't stop. I don't know, a trans athlete from participating in sports, then, oh my God, I'm being silenced.My rights are not being heard. I'm being so persecuted. Bitch, no one's coming after you. You just got told no for trying to come after somebody else. No one actually attacked you. . Mm-hmm. . I can't say anything more about this. So tell us who the hell, Chris. Chris and Aria . John: If, if memory serves me, I was telling you before we started recording, I, I wrote this [00:36:00]book a while ago, so I'm like, I don't actually remember all, everything, but the, that's the, the couple that supposedly got saved early on and, and really it was all about Chastity.Like they were like this couple that was, you know, like, oh, chastity is so great. and then because they're seeking to convert others. I think according to the story, it's Rome supposedly who throws a, i I think one gets fed to a lion, the other gets fed, burned at the stake, whatever. It's a pretty classic version of just early church persecution.There's a million different stories like this of just like different Christian heroes who were early Christians who, you know got converted and, and then they, you know like start, started bolstering the movement and Rome doesn't like it, so they killed them. 90% of those stories aren't true. They never happened.They were made up. It was just, it was just made [00:37:00] up. I mean, I really don't know what else to say about it. It's just, it's unverified. There were a few that happened and there was also some early Jewish persecution in that same time. That was absolutely happening. , but Jewish Christians, which was what they were at first did that kind of lumped their Jewish Christ Christendom beliefs with other sex of Judaism that were actually being persecuted.And so it just became this kind of whole glob of like of myth of saying that like, oh, if the people find out you're Christian, they'll wanna kill you for it. And that bread, like this whole martyrdom complex which is very similar obviously to a Messiah complex. And so yeah, it's just, it just, there's a lot of stories like that that, you know, you, you're free to fact check.Never happened. But they're told from the pulpit they're, you know, they're told the old, you'll hear a mirror million [00:38:00] different versions of basically like they were singing songs while they were being burned alive. They were reciting scripture while they were being burned alive. Didn't happen.It just wasn't very common. Occasionally there was some mob violence that was killing Christians, but it just wasn't a common thing. De'Vannon: I can't believe that the band was really playing as the Titanic ship went down either . But if that's what might not have, well, if that's what Rose wanna say, then we'll have to believe Rose or what the fuck ever.I want that diamond bitch, you know? . Okay, . So basically the Christian Church is a bunch of drama queens and stuff like that. And I, I, I don't know, you know what I want you to talk about, like, people who leave the [00:39:00] church and like blame themselves or haven't been duped by them because I went through that for like a really long time. , you know, it's like I was mad at myself, as they say, for buying this bullshit. True. I, looking back on it now, with a healthy mind, I was vulnerable.They took advantage of me, but I did not think that way for a many, many years. It's like, why was I so stupid? Why did I let them do that? You know, there's a grieving that happened in some, some self-loathing that came in there on me.John: Well, let me tell you a story. Yesterday I was driving to the grocery store and I saw someone on the side of the road that had a sign that said, Jesus saves. And I got outta my car and I went and talked to them. After about 30 minutes, I realized this was the most beautiful person I ever met. And guess what?The story I just told you is not. [00:40:00] So no . Not that I've just made that up. I didn't go to the grocery store yesterday. Oh. So the thing got me yo , I got, I got everybody. And that's why you shouldn't feel duped. We trust, that's what we do as humans. When someone's put, when something's put in a story form, we're compelled by what they're saying.That doesn't make anyone stupid. That makes us have empathy. That makes us like beautiful people. We don't need to blame ourselves. We need to blame people who take advantage of that. Now, I was able to just tell you I was lying and no harm is really done right. , we gotta now, but there might be a listener who goes, oh, I can't trust this guy.If he's able to lie that good, you know, fine. Don't. But the thing is, churches have built an entire system that took the storytelling, the beautiful storytelling of Judaism and just wrecked it for their own purposes. and added, took away, changed, edited [00:41:00] the story. You are not stupid for wanting to believe in a story that, that, that, that's just the thing you have to know.There's no, there's no stupidity. It's all on them . It's all on them to bear the responsibility of, of having power, of having and kind of a monopoly on redemption narratives. I mean, they've kind of created this universe literally where the, they, they have a redemptive narrative that is attributed to them.They should wield that power carefully, and they don't. So no. Anyone who gets caught up in believing it, don't blame yourself for that. That's, you're a human being. Don't blame yourself for very normal human things to do. And don't blame other people who are still believing it. understand where they're coming from.It does take work. It's not easy. I don't have a [00:42:00] magic bullet solution, but I just think being aware of why you fell for it is important. Cuz most people didn't fall for it for evil reasons. They usually fell for it for really, really good, important reasons. Mm-hmm. . De'Vannon: So a another quote that you say from your book, it's concerning these foolish people.You say, John says, y'all the claim that they are in a relationship with Christ, that their churches are their families and that they love sinners, but hate sin and that divine beauty is interwoven through all of it. John says, cool story bro. Doesn't mean you're on a cult. . John: Yeah. Well, and it's true. It's just like there's, there's a, there's an element of family that, that they pretend to provide.and that's fine. And sometimes it, it's not all pretend. Sometimes they do some really important things for each other. I don't see why that's intention with the idea that they're a [00:43:00] cult though. I, I, I think, I think you can do good things while being in a cult. I just think cults are bad things. De'Vannon: Just don't drink the Kool-Aid bitches.I'm just saying. Pour it upon the ground and run the fuck away. So then the final run, run, run, run for is run. So the final section called Convert. Hmm. I thought this was such a confident statement for you, for you to write, and I just, I'm just like reading it cause we wanna talk about hell and whether or not you believe it's real, because one of his chapters is I believe it's called a, a yeah, it's called a made up thing called Hell.Y'all. John is the most titillating, tantalizing, thought provoking. This makes you wanna dive into them like some good pussy or some good pussy. Chapter titles. I mean, the, the, the, the, the, I'm gonna read some of 'em. Slave Segregation, sorry. Faux wait. Merit faux [00:44:00] Meritocracy with a side of the Theocratic Tyranny.Selective History, the Myth of Oppression. Made of thing. Call held superficial and super fiscal. You know, the, the, the, just the Fuckings chapter Titles are art. You know what it's gonna be about. And, you know, shit's gonna be edgy and fresh and everything that, that, you know, that we need right now. And so, whew, chapter ta fucking chapter titles gave me life.So, so from, from, yeah. The John: chapter titles are better than the book. So , De'Vannon: that right there is exactly what I'm gonna read now. You exude so much fucking confidence because of the way you're able to slay yourself and kind of make fun of yourself, but then not really, you know, you have to have like the biggest pp or just not even care because you, you just, you're just so like authentically you and you're so like, relaxed about it.Y'all, this is what John says about himself growing up. He says, I doubt [00:45:00] I am the only one to have grown up dabbling in mature discussion topic. It is way too. Wait, what the fuck? Wait, wait. Lemme say that again. I doubt I'm the only one that have grown up dabbling, mature discussion topics way too young to remember being younger than 10 and debating with my cousins over suspicion about who goes to hell.Young is honestly, I'm sure of any philosophers, theologians, our professional commentators, communicators have been around or had been around for this adolescent think tank vomit, would escape from their mouths quicker than corrections even. So good for us for trying to figure out life's deepest questions.And I thought, how, how? Just confident, you know, just to, just to be able to look back on yourself and laugh without being negatively critical. You know, like, I can't believe I thought or did that way. Ha ha ha, ha ha. But here I [00:46:00] am today, so. Can you speak to us about that sort of self-confidence? Where did you get that from?How are you able to look back and say, my God, you know, I was a mess, but not attack yourself. You know, just appreciate where you were then while taking in where you are now. Make jokes about it and just go on swinging your big dick through life, . John: So how do you Well, I was gonna say, I was gonna say the large penis is most of itBut I, no, I think it's so here's the thing. Truth be told, most of my friends would not describe me as confident. Writing provides a, allows me to be the best version of myself. And so what comes across in my writing as confidence is probably what I want to be. It's not always what I am. [00:47:00] The other answer I'll give is therapy.I, I punish and it used to be worse. So I've come a long way, but I punish myself for some of who I was. But I had a therapist. Tell me once how many years is enough to punish you for what you did? On very different things, you know? I mean, I have a, I have a lot of shame about all sorts of things I wish I had done differently in life.But what's, but what's my sentence, right? Like, what, what, what, how long do I have to negatively talk about who I was before? It's enough, before enough time has passed, before I've given myself enough lashes, so to speak. Like, what's the number? Put a number to it. And when she said that to me, it kind of, just reshaped how I thought about things.I'm like, there really isn't anything [00:48:00] stopping me from being the person who I want to be. So that's a little deeper answer than that little anecdote about me talking to my cousins about hell . It was. But I think I, I appreciate you seeing that that that is something actively working on as we speak, and something I want to get better at is, and it's not so much self-confidence, although I, I, I, I, I know I'm witty and I, you know, I, there's just certain personality traits I know about myself.But I wanna love myself and I haven't figured it out yet, but I used to not even want to. And that's the, the biggest change that happened in my life is when I, not, not when I woke up one day and started loving myself, but when I woke up one day and said, loving myself should be a goal. because for a long time it wasn't even a goal, and I was indoctrinated to believe that it would actually steer me away from heaven or my loved ones, or [00:49:00] love in general.If I tried to love myself, I would become selfish. I would become sinful. I would become self-serving because the only way, proper way to love yourself would be to love God. I don't agree with that anymore. I, I think that I th first off, there's a trope going around that's been going around for a while, that you have to love yourself before you can love other people.Bullshit. I'm calling bullshit on it. You can love people so deeply while you hate yourself. You can, you can have all sorts of love. The, the, the, the truth behind that trope is it will not be sustained. You can't sustain love for other people if you're not actively practicing love with yourself.Because love is a practice. It's not just like a thing, you can't help. It takes work, it takes choices. It does take feelings, but it takes controlled [00:50:00] feelings. It takes managed feelings. And for most people it takes some therapy. And therapy can look different for different people. It doesn't have to be sitting on a couch.You know, I, I used to do activity therapy with my therapist going on walks. You know there's all sorts of things you can do for you, and no one's gonna know what you need more than you. But yeah, I, when I look back at my past self, I do feel a lot of shame. But the fact that my goal is to not makes all the difference in the.De'Vannon: Well, I hope you overcome all of that. And I just, there no, remember Jesus being on the cross where I think he had a murder on one hand and a thief on the other? And you know, the Lord says the only sin he won't forgive you for is if you blaspheme the Holy Ghost, which is not something really easy to do.I don't think most people even know what the fuck that means. And so that doesn't mean that as a human we don't have to work through, you know, shame and [00:51:00] guilt. But, you know, I just always like to remind people, you know, and you of that, you know, all things are forgiven no matter what, you know, you know, according to the word of, of Jesus and his work on the cross.So this means a murdering people, oh God, fuck y'all. I'm not saying go out and slice people down, just thinking, go run to the church and ask for forgiveness. That's not what I'm saying. But I'm saying like, if you're sitting in jail somewhere and you done done it and it's been 20 years and you killed whatever person, Okay, that's over.Now, you know, you have a path forward, but Jesus does require us to tell the truth about everything, you know, to make whatever amends we can to people realistically, you know, and safely, you know, if the person's around, he wants us to as, as, as he says, leave our gift at the altar and go get right with the person.And not to let the sun go down on our anger. But there is always redemption. There is always grace, is grace is sufficient for us. No matter what you have done, you just don't blast being the Holy Ghost. Everything else. It's fine. I regret having sold so many god damn narcotics to people who I [00:52:00]could tell were too, were so weak-willed that I could bend them, you know, to, to my, to my desire.You know, sometimes I think about that, but you know what? It's over. I don't sell drugs anymore. I hate the fact that I prayed on them in their vulnerabilities. You know, to make myself feel good. That's John: such a big one. Can, can I focus on two things real quick? Whatever the hell you want. Okay. Okay. Because pr preying on vulnerabilities is a big part of my shame too.Hmm. And it's really hard because I grew up in a cult that taught me how to pray on people's vulnerabilities. Subtly, not like explicitly, but just being in that environment and all of that. So that's a hard, hard thing. So good on ya. For, for, you're correct. I mean, it's something you can't change.It's not, you know, the damage is done. And you do have to accept that that was a u that [00:53:00]doesn't exist anymore or even more accurately. That's a u that you've done work to and make sure that you're not prey on vulnerable people anymore. And whatever small bit of you that was either naturally good at it or indoctrinated to be good at preying on other people, if you're able to change that about yourself, you are so much better off than so many people who are in the cult who cannot turn that off and have no mechanism to turn that off.The second thing is I don't think you need Jesus for that forgiveness and grace personally. I don't wanna take it away from anyone . That's not, that's not my personality. I'm like, if that, if that, but I just, I would, I would be amiss and offbrand if I didn't if I didn't say you do not need Jesus to have grace.You need yourself to give grace to yourself. Forgiveness is something you can offer yourself to. And [00:54:00] so I, I just, I, I have to get that in there of like, Jesus is a cool archetype, is a cool story, is a cool whatever for it, but you don't need it. And if it's too triggering for you, walk the fuck away.Get the fuck out of there. You don't need it. De'Vannon: I say both because even with Jesus offering all, even when Jesus offering all the forgiveness in the world, if a person cannot accept it or cannot conceptualize that as a reality, then it, it'll never, even though they have it, it won't be in their reality. So to them it won't exist.And so I, I hear you on the self-work part of it. I throw Jesus in there. John doesn't, why, why don't you, why don't you feel like, so do you think, do you, do you think Jesus is more of like a story if he was like a cool guy, do you not believe that he is the son of God? Oh, he is not John: Well, and I'll say why he is not First off, Jesus is only as much God as you and I are.In my [00:55:00] opinion is how I would spin that if I wanted to. Son of God was coined by Paul. Jesus never said he was a son of God. He does make that like illusion where in, in John where he says like I am the father or whatever. Son of God is specifically a Greek term that Paul was using because that was a more familiar Greek idea.Judaism did not have the idea of a son of God. The Jewish understanding of Messiah was not supposed to be a God. It was supposed to be an enlightened human being. So those are just things that developed later. So I just, that terminology doesn't resonate in my worldview. Again, I'm not here to necessarily dog on people's personal beliefs, at least of all yours.But, but I, I more just want to make that clear distinction that it's like what I like about Jesus. Is what's reported about him through a very biased lens, , and through like a very [00:56:00] like developed and evolved narrative, the redemption narrative that we've landed on with Jesus is incredibly powerful, and I think a beautiful story that is probably more beautiful than any other story in literature I can think of.And there might be some sort of value that you can attach to it. I just don't think you need to worship Jesus to get anything De'Vannon: interesting. Oh, I don't take any of this personal, I'm always one thing about Christianity in the, in the, in the, the pursuit of spirituality. In my humility, I guess it might not be too humble for me to call myself humble, but you know, like , that my fucking humility, my fucking god damn humility, I, I understand that not everything is known about the approach to God, the approach to the trinity.You know, I don't believe that I have all the answers and I have enough sense to know anything that I think could be wrong, except for in the case that I've had, like [00:57:00] something miraculous happen, like a dream, a vision, an angelic appearance, you know, a touch by the Holy Ghost, you know, or something like that, you know?Mm-hmm. , my personal experiences, you know, you know, are non-negotiable to me, but my understanding of word of, of what's written absolutely negoti because you know, as I've gotten more into it in trying to learn the original Bible languages and the way they were written in the cultural influence and stuff like that, I've had something like, wow moments.Like, what the fuck? Now, when I was over in the Middle East last year, you know, I was shocked to learn that, you know, where was I at? I was in the United Arab Emirates. You had an Egyptian tour guide and stuff like that, and he was all like taking us all these moss and stuff. He was like, , we don't believe that Messiah has come, you know?Mm-hmm. at all. They're, they're like, Jesus was cool, and they're all about worshiping God. They believe Allah and God are like the same to them, but they're like, N Jesus just one of the other enlightened ones, but they're very dedicated to their, to [00:58:00] God and everything like that. I feel like more dedicated than Christians are, and they're more real about it and shit like that.You know, if I, you know, I could, I could easily fit into, into, you know, the Arabic culture over there. So I'm not surprised to hear you say that you don't necessarily think Jesus is the son of God, because those people don't either. I, I choose to believe that they're massive prosperity comes from their devotion to who they believe in and the way that they treat each other.Mm-hmm. so, so So, so what you're saying is based on what you read and researched Son of God, and Jesus always called himself the son of man according to what I read. You know, but, but I've never, I've never what considered what you've said before, that someone else called him Son of God, you know, he never called himself a Christian.You know, anything like that. Or as you put it, John, you say, every man before Jesus came up with rules, Jesus got rid of him. And then every man after [00:59:00] him added more rules. Mm-hmm. . So people, yeah, people tend to like to add shit. I quote you on that from time to time on my show, I'll be like, John Vanier said this, and soJohn: Yeah. Well, and to be very clear, I, I, I admire and even dare say I'm am inspired by Jesus. But I just, I just, the only, the only thing when it comes to the practical side of things is just anytime my, like my alarm bells go off, when there's a direct tie between, you need Jesus. . That's just like a big red flag to me.Not because some people might need Jesus actually, like personally in their own personal life, it might enrich it, it might give them a spirituality. I like to think of it as a template. It gives them like a template for their spirituality. That's great. But the second it's pe all people need Jesus.Then I'm like, fuck no. I'm like, , get, get that, get that outta my face. Because that is, [01:00:00] in my opinion, going back to the artwork. That's what can create that like hierarchy is just creating that need for Jesus. De'Vannon: Yeah, and that's another thing. I have enough goddamn fucking humility to, to realize that not everybody's going to be a follower of.I know that, you know, as I, as I say, from time to time, I'll hang out with somebody who, who sucks Satan's dick, as long as they're not trying to personally hurt me, because not everybody's gonna be a Christian. Mm-hmm. or be a follower. I hate, I hate the word Christian. So do you feel the same way about like God and the Holy Spirit?Like in terms of non deifying them? John: Woo. Man, once you open up the Trinity, that's a whole freaking new, that's a universe. I'll know if you, if you read that after, after the prologue of, of my book. But I, I believe it's cut off into three sections. Jesus was awesome. God might be [01:01:00] great, and the Holy Spirit haunts me.And the, the God might be great is kind of a, a nod to Christopher Hitchens, who's one of my favorite authors who wrote God is Not Great. Because my, my answer to him is, well, he might be. , but probably not. You know, it's kind of like, yeah, the, I, I, I know what you're saying, but you know, I also understand that most people, for most of history, I think it's a very arrogant stance to to act like the idea of God is silly.I think that's a pretty arrogant stance to have. So it's not one I take when I say the Holy Spirit haunts me. There are spiritual experiences, like you said, for you, they're non-negotiable, right? Like you have these experiences that define your life. I've had those myself. Here's the thing, they are negotiable for me.And I would love to just say this was all in my head. I [01:02:00] can't, I can't know that , but I would love to be able to say that. So for me, I, it's a little different because Jesus, the character of Jesus is the one that's especially in evangelicalism, but in Christianity as a whole, is the one who's dare I say, name has been taken in vain.The most you know, as far as like using him as a character, using him in a very manipulative way. When you get to the Holy Spirit, like you can get really culty really quick when you start talking about like Pentecostals and like, you know, just some of the hooping and the hollering and God told me this, so it must be true that that stuff is yikes.But the concept of God is kind of, has no meaning because the word God means so many different things to so many, to the, to each individual we imagine him that that's like in the, in the proper sense, we imagine him. So maybe less dangerous than, [01:03:00] than. You know, saying you need God is probably less dangerous than saying you need Jesus, but I'd prefer you to say neither, you know and you need the Holy Spirit might be even more dangerous, but it's just probably rarer, you know?But yeah, I don't know if those are just initial thoughts. Again, because, because I'm not an atheist. I don't, I don't claim to be, but I think atheists get a lot of shit because people think they're crazy. And I'm like, well, they're certainly not crazy. I mean, they're the most rational of all of us.They, they're just, you know, I, I just, I just don't identify with it. But I, all of that to say I just love all people and I don't want people to feel like they have to go through a very narrow lens in order to receive love, forgiveness, whatever they want to receive in life. They don't need Jesus for that.They don't need God for that. They don't need the Holy Spirit for. De'Vannon: why.you say you feel like you're, like, what I would call a, like an indisputable encounter with God that I [01:04:00] had. I find it non-negotiable. You said you would like yours to be negotiable. Mm-hmm. , why do you say you would like to be, or you like still fighting against your, the church or your experience?So if God approached you personally, what you're, what I'm hearing you say is that, you know, it's really not negotiable, but you would like it to be. John: Why? I know it's not negotiable for you and I know it's not negotiable for most people. It is negotiable for me. How do you the, the, the thing? Yeah. Well, I don't, most of the time cuz I, I got other shit I gotta doThink about it. But no, I, I, you know, I, I had, I had a, I have a conversion story. I, I felt the presence of God or Jesus or whatever I, I assume as much as anyone. I mean, right? Like I went and studied to be a pastor, like clearly it meant something. I don't think I was just a full on narcissist who was like, oh, I'm gonna be the voice of God, like, da da da da da.Like, I don't, I really don't think, I think it was motivated. [01:05:00] Pretty hol wholesomely and like . I thought it was a, I prayed a lot. I prayed more than anybody I knew, you know? Like, I'm like, surely this was all real, right? I don't know. I was 11. What the fuck do you know, at 11? Like, I'm, I'm like, there, there's, and what do you know when you've been indoctrinated for over a decade?That when you feel certain things, it's definitely this. Oh, like, I'm like, you know, there's like, there's placebos, there's, there's all sorts of things we know about what we can do with our own brain. Then I'm like, I'm not gonna say it was definitely this, or definitely that. I don't know, and I probably never will know, but I'm not gonna live my life based on those experiences because that is that's cheating myself out of a very full life.De'Vannon: Okay, I see what you're saying. What you're saying is due to, you haven't been such a young Impressional age when you went through everything, you don't know if that's like some sort of P t s D, some sort John: of, or, [01:06:00] or even in adult life, you know, like there, I had spiritual moments, if you wanna call 'em that, like an adult life, you know, I was a worship leader.I, I remember very vividly sometimes I was leading worship and like, would be struck with something that felt otherworldly. The whole g the whole gauntlet, whatever a Christian can tell you about their experiences with Jesus, I'll see you one and I'll raise you one, you know, but but I just, I'm just like, but I'm not gonna pretend that because I felt like it was something and I was told to feel like it was something that, it definitely was that thing.I, I just, I wanna, I wanna have a little more humility than that and have a little more understanding of alternative worldviews. De'Vannon: I think churches should start paying all of us reparation checks, s for all this motherfucking mental health shit that we have. So yeah, the checks need to start. The money needs to start flowing the other fucking way away from these churches and

Welcome to January 16th, 2023 on the National Day Calendar. Today we celebrate making something out of nothing and a man with a dream.  John: Uh, Anna, We're recording. What are you eating? Anna: Nothing.  John: No you're eating something. Anna: No nothing. Marlo? Marlo: Yeah? John: Marlo, what are you eating? Marlo: Nothing either actually. John: So who's eating? Anna: Alright, alright. It's me. I'm eating a fig newton. I'm celebrating National Fig Newton Day and I'm sorry. I didn't bring enough for everybody. John: But they're ooey, gooey rich and chewy inside! Anna: I know, I'm sorry. Marlo, what are you celebrating? Marlo: Because of you I'm celebrating National Nothing Day. John: Oh, I'm celebrating nothing with you too, Marlo. Anna: That's a good call. Somebody's gotta do it. John: Yeah, way to be a team player. Marlo: Yeah, thanks, Anna! President Johnson once called Martin Luther King Jr. the apostle of nonviolence because of his legendary service through civil disobedience. As a clergyman, activist and leader of the civil rights movement, Dr. King is perhaps best known for his “I Have A Dream” speech. Hallowed in our history books as one of the all time greats, this speech was almost heard by no one. Right before the event the sound system was sabotaged and reportedly fixed on orders by Attorney General Robert Kennedy. What's more, King had not planned to “share the dream,” but improvised this portion upon the encouragement from singer Mahalia Jackson. On Martin Luther King Jr. Day we honor the unifying spirit of a man who changed the world by speaking from his heart. I'm Anna Devere and I'm Marlo Anderson. Thanks for joining us as we Celebrate Every Day!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

John Ridd is the Co-Founder and CEO of Greenpixie, which is building solutions to reveal and reduce cloud emissions. Chad and Will talk to John about giving a clearer view of AWS emissions down to the service level, why cloud emissions are a much bigger sustainability issue than most people realize, and how this will be the next big issue of the climate crisis. Greenpixie (https://greenpixie.com/) Follow Greenpixie on Twitter (https://twitter.com/greenpixiehq), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/greenpixiehq/), or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/greenpixie/). Follow John on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-c-ridd/). Follow thoughtbot on Twitter (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: CHAD: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Chad Pytel. WILL: And I'm your other host, Will Larry. And with us today is John Ridd, the Co-Founder, and CEO of Greenpixie, which is building solutions to reveal and reduce the emissions of the cloud. CHAD: John, thank you so much for joining us. I have to admit that as a developer, this is something that I've been thinking a lot about recently. We practice test-driven development. We run continuous integration, even the things that we have running in the cloud in terms of the websites that we run and that kind of thing. I'm also just really becoming aware of when I make a new branch in everything that I run, and I'm making a code change and pushing that up to GitHub; it then kicks off a build every single time any team member is doing that. And I can just see the impact that even just a single software product can have potentially on our environment. And I've started to become more and more guilty about that. So I'm excited to talk to you about how [laughs] we might be able to fix that problem. JOHN: Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the big reasons that we've really seen the opportunity in the cloud emissions space is this disconnect really between how developers are incentivized to think, and rightfully so. They need to build and innovate at all costs; that's what drives the innovation in any tech company or any company. But the sustainability way of thinking and thinking, what am I building? What servers am I using and turning on? Just hasn't been in the conversation with developers. And they're the ones who are making these decisions using cloud providers to build out the products that the company needs. So it's great to hear that you're now aware of this impending issue from development. CHAD: So I'm excited to dig more into the product. But I'm curious, you were doing digital marketing before starting Greenpixie, right? JOHN: Yeah, I ran my own marketing consultancy, worked with a number of companies, big and small. And where I found my knack was sort of demand generation; really, starting off projects from nothing is what I've always done. It's clear now that...so Greenpixie was a bootstrap startup. Really using that ability to at least come up with an idea and take it from zero to one, bring demand to an issue, that's how Greenpixie started. And it actually started with the head of engineering, Chris, who I met at my co-working space, and really we traded ideas through a hackathon on the weekend. And I had this idea when it came to website emissions and just knew that there was a software and a product play there. And what we do is connect into Google Analytics, put it through some carbon algorithms, and give them the ability to see how much digital carbon the website is producing. And from my marketing background, we've developed our own marketing, internal marketing software, which is a combination of we've built our own email servers with a high inbox. And we do semantic web scraping to find relevant prospects in the sustainability space. So we built the MVP and put this idea for Greenpixie out to the world, and the overwhelming response that we got was people being shocked at the idea of digital carbon and how their digital operations do have a sustainability impact. It really gave us the confidence to think there's demand for this idea of emissions. And since then, we've now moved into carbon emissions down the carbon rabbit hole. But my marketing experience explains how it started in the first place. CHAD: So how does...sometimes when faced with, I think, all kinds of climate issues, people can feel overwhelmed or helpless or feeling like what do I do as an individual to have an impact? So what does Greenpixie and Cloud NetZero enable an individual, team, or company, or developer to actually see and do? JOHN: Cloud NetZero connects into the leading cloud providers. So at this stage, we can give a clearer view of your AWS emissions down to the service level. And this is a key first step. So we take a you can't affect what you can't measure philosophy. And that was a big, big step for us. And by cutting into the cost and usage reports and putting it through our carbon algorithms, we can then get visibility to engineers. So everything you're building up in the cloud, we then give a full transparent view of the associated emissions that are being created from that by using our algorithms and methodology to convert the electricity used from the computation and storage and take into account the geographic location of the data centers of which you're using. As you can imagine, there are different carbon intensities in different countries during different times of the day. So we actually hook up into an API that gives us this carbon intensity data down to the hour. So we give a really comprehensive view of your carbon emissions footprint, which is what we consider the gold standard in sustainability. Because what makes the digital vertical so unique within sustainability is we've got data coming out of our ears. [chuckles] The data is there to connect into the software, so we can give this crystal clear picture. Whereas in other branches of sustainability, if you're into supply chains, et cetera, you've got real-world problems that you have to put real-time into. So that's the first step that we do is giving you this clear picture of your emissions. And from that, we then proceed to suggest reduction strategies to reduce those emissions. WILL: John, I'll be honest. Before getting on the podcast with you, I never thought about my cloud emissions as a developer. Now I'm seeing, wow, there is a lot there with that. On your Twitter, I saw this stat: imagine driving 1.3 billion miles all the way to Saturn. The carbon you would release would be about the same as the amount from all of these streams of Netflix's top 10 shows in the month that were released, 6 billion hours of viewing. I'm just mind-blown just thinking about that. For someone who is just now thinking about my cloud emissions, what would you tell me as a developer or any CEO that's listening to the podcast? JOHN: So yeah, you're right. This is a much bigger sustainability issue than most people realize. Currently, it's estimated around 2% of global emissions are from the cloud and data centers use, which puts it near the level of the aviation industry. And because the cloud is so esoteric and it's called the cloud, you think it's light and fluffy, and you're like, okay, it's over there; it's fine. But there's a hard infrastructure that makes up the digital world that we enjoy, and that's thousands of racks of servers. That's so much gallons, like, millions of gallons of water used to cool these data centers. And because of this, there are countries such as Ireland and Singapore that have now begun to ban further construction of data centers. Because in Ireland, over 10% of the grid is taken up by these, well, I believe there was an article in The Telegraph that referred to these data centers as vampires, [laughs] vampires on the grid sucking all this energy up. And the reason that this exists is it comes down to a company level or to a developer level. You're renting these data centers in order to grow your operations. And this aggregate demand goes straight into why these data centers exist and how much electricity they're using. But what you can do for a certain output...because we're a tech company and we love tech. And that makes us different to maybe some sustainability, really hardline sustainability environmental point of view because we actually think you can achieve the same output for 40% less energy use. So there's waste that is pretty rife across the cloud space, and that also comes with the amount of money spent on the cloud. There can be servers that have been left turned on that are no longer used. There can be non-essential computation that could be moved to low carbon intensity hours of the day. And there's so much that can be done and still basically enjoy and build the tech that we all aspire to build. CHAD: I'm going to resist taking a tangent into What We Do in the Shadows and the energy vampire, or we can call them Colin, I guess, instead of vampires. JOHN: Yeah, yeah. [laughter] CHAD: So I used the calculator that you have on the website on our website, thoughtbot.com. I was pleased to see that it produces less carbon than 95% of websites. What goes into that calculation, though? JOHN: So what we do on the estimator, on the webpage, the calculator, so we take into account whether your server being used is green or standard based on requesting that homepage. And then, really, there's a lot of overlap with PageSpeed optimization, rightfully, so the heavier the web pages, the more images. And if it's been coded lazily and it's heavy, which it hasn't been in your case, which I'm sure you're really happy about, that basically does have an effect on the electricity used in order to serve the website. And we also provide a website carbon report, which goes a step further and takes into account your Google Analytics, which goes for all your pageviews and takes into account some other factors too. CHAD: When you're looking at the carbon footprint of a website, am I understanding that you're also taking into account the carbon footprint of the people viewing what it takes to view the website on the client too? JOHN: It's very interesting, and we are going into the client side of emissions. That is definitely something that we're looking into and continue to do so. But now we focus more on the cloud. We stuck with websites as our main priority, that would mean the next step was going into client side, and it can, and that logic does go up. And it shows the ability of measuring sustainability impact when it comes to digital because, of course, you can get device information from Google Analytics, and that can then be used to give an accurate prediction. But that is something that we would definitely consider doing in the future. But you see the potential. It can go in all these different directions. CHAD: A little bit of a meta question, then, so the calculator is running on people's websites. What is the carbon footprint of running the calculator on the site? [laughs] JOHN: Well, that's the thing; we do have transparency of our own operations. So we're a seed-stage startup, and our operations might get a lot bigger. But for now, and given the sustainable approach, we take with how we run our cloud and run these tools, around two tons of CO2 we produce in a month from operations. But looking into other tech companies, you can imagine how AWS can get when it comes to the bigger companies and everything in between. It can really be hundreds or tens of tons. That has been currently unaccounted for and not addressed, which put into perspective, it's acting on your carbon emissions as an individual. And let's say you're a developer who has the power to do this. You can have the effect of like ten times going vegan or not using air travel. So it's just really we really love the idea of combating carbon emissions, and developers, particularly combating carbon emissions is, using your unique skills in order to fight the climate crisis in a way that a non-technical person couldn't. CHAD: So what are some of the things that you're doing as a company to solve that for yourself? Are there particular cloud hosting providers that are actually better than others? JOHN: Yes, it does vary. So there are the big cloud providers, and we are on AWS due to the startup credit scheme, which, as you can imagine, that's very beneficial when you're starting from a bootstrapped model. And within AWS, you can actually...so choosing the geographic location of where you're spinning up the servers is one way you can reduce that. So our servers are in Ireland. So we're part of that issue actually, now that I think about it, because they have a relatively low carbon intensity. And that's one way that we ensure the carbon we're using is minimized. But there's a whole spectrum. So if you wanted to go at all costs and convenience and costs are out the window, there are niche carbon fighters, which actually are off-grid renewable power data centers. If you have the means, that is the optimum you can go in terms of the carbon intensity. But in terms of how we build, so just the typical making sure that we're turning off products, features, and servers that we don't use and being mindful of that, putting non-essential compute to low-carbon intensity periods in the day and just minimizing costs and using computation for a certain output is how we take that philosophy. MID-ROLL AD: Are your engineers spending too much time on DevOps and maintenance issues when you need them on new features? We know maintaining your own servers can be costly and that it's easy for spending creep to sneak in when your team isn't looking. By delegating server management, maintenance, and security to thoughtbot and our network of service partners, you can get 24x7 support from our team of experts, all for less than the cost of one in-house engineer. Save time and money with our DevOps and Maintenance service. Find out more at: tbot.io/devops. WILL: On your website, I see that 127 billion is wasted in idle cloud spend, so obviously, one of your goals is to reduce that amount. What other goals is your company looking forward to solving? JOHN: I would say our main goal is to reduce millions of tons of needless cloud emissions using scalable software. That is our guiding light. But within that, it correlates largely with cost savings for companies. So we could actually save companies millions of pounds as well or millions of dollars. So I'm from the UK; [laughter] I went for pounds. Yeah, that's the big push; that's our guiding light. And we really want to be the torchbearers for digital sustainability as an idea. So having the awareness, we take responsibility for driving awareness for the issue also. As a team, we have a great combination of technical minds but also creative and marketing, getting the message out there and demystifying carbon emissions. So it's a technical issue because there's a technical issue when you dig into it. But we want to put it in a way that a non-technical decision maker in the C-suite would understand the issue in terms of the effects that you can have as a company in a sustainability drive. CHAD: So you mentioned you got started from that original hackathon idea. And how did things progress for you from there? You now have a team of people working. Did you end up taking some investment in order to continue on? JOHN: We did. We actually started it...so we started it as a passion project from that hackathon, saw the potential. I saw a small business opportunity through the website measuring. And we saw there was demand out there, so we started there. Then we saw it as a side project and continued to see potential and made the call to basically...the initial team was three of us. We went full-time and said let's see what we can do with this. Then I came from a marketing consultancy...I self-funded it to the means that I could for the first six months. It's an interesting experience when you get possessed by an idea, and it's just I need to see this through. I see the potential. It's for a great cause. I think there's a big business opportunity here. And then, really, it came to that point, and we did start going down the investment route. We were part of an incubator associated with the University of Cambridge called Carbon13. It's a really interesting program where they put together experts in climate science, the developers. And you come together to try and come up with these big ideas to basically reduce millions of tons of emissions as a startup. And there was plenty. There was, for example, there was offsetting companies, there was carbon credit startups, everything you can imagine. And it was there that we got put on the investment journey because at the end of the program, you get what was an £80,000 investment to then move on and then go down the VC route. Turns out we didn't get the investment despite us being one of the favorites. It didn't work out for various reasons. And then we were in a situation where I was like, okay, we need to get this investment in order to keep going and scaling the team. And we ended up being VC-backed for our pre-seed from a company in London called Ascension. So we did a £250,000 pre-seed round to get things going. And that's why we have a team who is now working on this full-time. And it's been a bit of a journey, but the trials and tribulations of startups is just the game. And now we're looking to get our seed round. We're hoping to be closing by the end of the year. CHAD: Congratulations on the progress so far. Why do you think Ascension was interested in investing in you? JOHN: So, really, at pre-seed stage, I've talked to VCs and said market, founder, co-founders, anything else is just too early to really know with any certainty. So I think they saw that we were committed, enthusiastic about the idea. Will, the other co-founder, and CTO, is a full-stack developer. It's his second startup. And with my demand generation background, we thought we were a good fit. But really, I think a lot of time and thinking, and commitment has gone into (blood, sweat, and tears) has gone into thinking how we can create a product or software company that addresses carbon emissions. And I think investors have a good radar of when people are really committed, and that's what we were. WILL: You've recently done a soft launch of Cloud NetZero. Can you give me more information around that? JOHN: Yeah, absolutely. We did our soft launch, so this is after the pre-seed investment. We got the 250,000. And we built the product that we laid out in that pitch, which was a software that integrates to AWS and gives you this granular breakdown of your emissions by service. And that was what we presented on our soft launch. We did an in-person event, which we just got a small room and managed to...so around 50 people turned up, which we're pretty proud of. And people do seem to be attracted to this idea. We use my marketing background [laughs] to kind of bolster those numbers. But it was a really great experience. So it was actually on the side of our co-working space where we did a hackathon originally. And it was a bit of an experience, quite a heartwarming experience that everyone has come together. I'm just like, oh, it was in that room that it started as an idea, and now 50 people coming from VC backgrounds, from sustainability, from tech are all coming together. And considering we started in COVID times, to have everyone in the room was just great. So it was great. Yeah, thanks for highlighting it. I really have good memories of that soft launch. CHAD: So people can get a demo and sign up now. JOHN: Yeah, absolutely. So the product is up and running. It went from idea to reality which we're very, very proud of the product team for hitting it on time as well. So we did a 100-day push, and on the 100th day, it was ready for us. And we actually got a big update Monday next week, which is going to be the V 1.1. I call it V2, and then my CTO says, "No, it's V 1.1." [laughter] CHAD: Oh, you need to make your CTO understand that for marketing purposes, you need to make your version numbers bigger. JOHN: Yeah, yeah, he's just like, "If you think that's V2, you don't know what you're saying." [laughter] You can contact us, and we can basically show you the onboarding to get you closer to your cloud provider. And you can have a crystal clear picture of your carbon emissions. And the companies we're talking to now so software companies, so pretty well-known brands. We're now in conversation with as well as just your heavy-duty tech companies. And they're really our ideal client we're looking to now because they have a large amount of carbon emissions, and they want to be really measuring them for their sustainability initiatives. They are actually going to be required to...from the beginning of next year, there's regulation creeping in that's going to make companies measure their Scope 3 emissions, and we have the product to do that. And once we go over that first stage of measurement, then the next step is giving you recommendations to reduce it ultimately, and that will be both in cloud emissions and costs. So we actually are a cost-saving software ultimately because we can highlight wasted cloud spend, and there's a lot of it in these tech companies. CHAD: So you've launched. It sounds like you're focused on getting customers and making sales. How does the pricing work for the product? JOHN: At the moment, we are charging 10K a year to use the software. This is for...so it would be your mid-sized tech company is really who that's aimed for. Anything that goes into really heavy-duty cloud emissions analysis would be probably just down the road just because the complication gets considerably...there's a lot more computing that we need to do on our end, which there are costs associated with that. And there's a lot more, as you can imagine, a lot more hand-holding in order to get integrated and that type of thing. So the pricing would be larger for those more developed companies who have huge AWS accounts. CHAD: A lot of companies' pricing is one of the things that they struggle with early on. I assume you'll learn, and your pricing model will change. But is there something that particularly you weren't sure about when it came to the pricing? JOHN: So the pricing it's really what we're seeing from other parallel softwares on the market more towards the cost reduction side of the cloud. They don't focus on emissions. It's...we'll plug the right place for that. And I think given the opportunity cost, especially from the sustainability and measurement perspective, the alternative is companies are spending a lot of money on sustainability consultants to try and figure out these emissions for the reporting means, and our software does the heavy lifting for you, as any good product does. And with the cost savings on top of that, it's about right for now. But as we improve the product and can accommodate these bigger enterprise clients, the price model will evolve and probably get more expensive. But not to overcomplicate; it is the logic at this point. And once we do have the ability to take on these more complex arrangements, the pricing would reflect that. Yeah, so that's the plan. WILL: Well, John, I thank you for coming on the podcast and being a part of it. Is there anything else that you would like our audience to know? JOHN: We're shouting from the rooftops about carbon emissions. This is going to be the next big issue of the climate crisis. So I truly believe that there are estimates that digital emissions will rise past 10% of global emissions by 2030. Our thirst for data isn't going anywhere. And there's a real chance that computing principles such as Moore's Law that have allowed these improvements in hardware to keep up with the demand for data won't necessarily last forever. And from that, we need to really wake up to the fact that the digital world, despite it being, yeah, it seems like it happens by magic, there is real sustainability impact. But the good news is we think that using the scalability of software...because the scalability of software that has seen so much success for companies can be used to have an equally positive impact on the planet and prevent this issue of digital emissions by using the inherent scalability of digital and availability of data. So that's really what I'm preaching at the moment. And we believe the best first step for that would be a product called NetZero because it gives transparency over these emissions. You can see it in front of your eyes, and then decisions can be made in order to reduce them. That's what I chose to be my soapbox moment. [laughter] CHAD: That's great. John, if folks want to find out more, see that demo, get in touch with you; where are all the different places that they can do that? JOHN: greenpixie.com is where you can just contact us, and we'll be straight on the phone with you. Another place to see what we're really up to and get more ideas of digital sustainability the best place is probably our LinkedIn company page. We're quite active on there. If you want to take your first steps into digital sustainability, start there. And if you think your company is ready to act on their carbon emissions or you just want to find out a little bit more, then yeah, just contact us through our website, and we'll have a chat. CHAD: Awesome. Everything that John just mentioned is going to be linked in the show notes, along with a complete transcript for this episode. You can subscribe to the show and find all of that at giantrobots.fm. WILL: If you have any questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. CHAD: You can find me on Twitter @cpytel. WILL: And you can find me on Twitter @will23larry. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. CHAD: Thanks for listening, and see you next time. ANNOUNCER: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success. Special Guest: John Ridd.

Augmented reveals the stories behind the new era of industrial operations, where technology will restore the agility of frontline workers. In this episode of the podcast, the topic is "How Academia Shapes Manufacturing". Our guest is John Hart (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajhart/), Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director at the Center for Advanced Production Technologies at MIT. In this conversation, we talk about John's research on micro and nanotechnology and material science, which universities and colleges that teach manufacturing, the role of MIT in this ecosystem, and why now is a key moment in manufacturing history. If you like this show, subscribe at augmentedpodcast.co (https://www.augmentedpodcast.co/). If you like this episode, you might also like Episode 92 on Emerging Interfaces for Human Augmentation (https://www.augmentedpodcast.co/92). Augmented is a podcast for industry leaders, process engineers, and shop floor operators, hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim (https://trondundheim.com/) and presented by Tulip (https://tulip.co/). Follow the podcast on Twitter (https://twitter.com/AugmentedPod) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/75424477/). Trond's Takeaway: There has never been a more interesting time to be in manufacturing or to watch manufacturing. The tremendous breakthroughs that we are about to witness have been made possible by a confluence of emerging technologies and startup innovations, as well as a growing awareness of the importance of building human-centric technologies. We are indeed at a crossroads with profound challenges in the growing talent shortage, the need for workforce training, an aging industrial base, and the demands for manufacturing competency from the wider innovation ecosystem. We have to make progress fast, and innovations are just maturing to be able to do so at the scale and pace required. It will, again, be amazing to watch the manufacturing industry. Parts of it will perhaps, again, become the industry of industries. Transcript: TROND: Welcome to another episode of the Augmented Podcast. Augmented reveals the stories behind the new era of industrial operations where technology will restore the agility of frontline workers. Technology is changing rapidly. What's next in the digital factory, and who is leading the change? And what are the skills to learn and how to stay up to date on manufacturing and industry 4.0. In this episode of the podcast, the topic is How Academia Shapes Manufacturing. Our guest is John Hart, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director at the Center for Advanced Production Technologies at MIT. In this conversation, we talk about John's research on micro and nanotechnology and material science, which universities and colleges that teach manufacturing, the role of MIT in this ecosystem, and why now is a key moment in manufacturing history. Augmented is a podcast for industrial leaders, for process engineers, and for shop floor operators hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim and presented by Tulip. John, how are you? Welcome. JOHN: I'm well, Trond. Great to see you. Thank you for having me. TROND: Well, I'm excited to have you talking about...well, hopefully, a lot of different things, but how academia gets to shape manufacturing, this fascinating venture that is manufacturing. But you yourself, John, you grew up in Michigan, is that right? You were close to this from an early age. JOHN: I was close to it. Yeah, I grew up in Royal Oak, Michigan, a suburb north of Detroit. If you know the Detroit Metro area, there are the mile roads, and the Detroit River is sort of Zero Mile. And I grew up between 14 and 15 Mile Roads, so in the hotbed of the good, old U.S. auto industry. TROND: Well, exactly. Because looking a little bit at your background here, you spent quite a few years as a summer intern at General Motors before you got yourself to...or actually perhaps in the beginning, in your undergrad years from UMichigan, is that right? JOHN: I did. After my first year at UofM, I worked as a summer intern at GM and went back a few years in a row in different roles in different areas. And honestly, when I decided to pursue a graduate degree and ended up at MIT, I thought I might just get my master's and go back and work in the auto industry, but things changed, and here we are today. TROND: Well, here we are today. You got yourself an undergrad from UMichigan. And you worked there for a little while, I believe, but then came to MIT with a master's, Ph.D. This is way back. But you won the prize for the best doctoral thesis in micro and nanotechnology. So that set you off on the path to rediscover nanomaterials, I guess. JOHN: Yeah, well, it's a really maybe exotic combination of topics. My master's thesis was on precision machine design, the design of these large mechanical couplings for industrial robots. And then, for my Ph.D., with the same advisor, I worked on carbon nanotube synthesis. But there you have the dipoles of manufacturing research, materials, processing, and mechanical design that have shaped how I've taken things forward since then. TROND: Well, but it is in these unique combinations that innovation starts to occur, right? JOHN: Yeah, exactly, combining different topics. And that's one reason I love manufacturing is that it is the union of materials processing, and automation, and software, and now also getting more interested in the organizational workforce aspects. It's a very rich, multidisciplinary layered topic. TROND: Yeah. And we'll explore this both from the organizational angle, and, indeed, I'm super interested in this material angle on things because it seems to me like you're exploring the very, very small nanostructures, but then you're then printing them on the very large canvas. So you're exploring materials from one extreme to the other. JOHN: Yeah. Well, it depends on your objective and what topic you're working on. There are cases in our research where we need to understand the formation of materials, not quite from the atom up but from the nanoscale or microscale up. And there are cases where we more or less abstract or coarse grain those link scales and focus on macroscale properties. TROND: Well, and then you also focus quite a bit on teaching. I noticed that you actually launched the first massive online course on manufacturing processes, and hopefully, we'll get to this a little bit as well. JOHN: Sure. TROND: But teaching and basically working on the next generation of manufacturers, whether they be the engineers or really anybody else, has certainly been one of the big challenges in manufacturing really forever. What is it that fascinates you so much about teaching this to a grander audience than the usual university audience? JOHN: Well, first, I'll say I believe that the top priority of universities, including in the area of manufacturing, is to educate future leaders and engineers. That said, the number of people we educate on our campus is a small fraction of those who could really benefit from what we teach and the way we teach. And that's not just geographically, but it's also in terms of their role in the workforce. So I believe manufacturing education should address all levels of the workforce. And to get at your question more directly, when I came to MIT, I was asked to take over our core undergraduate manufacturing class in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. And as I learned to teach the class for myself, I was intrigued by this emerging trend of digital learning, and this was 2015, 2016. And I was able to get some funding from MIT internally to create an online version of the course that would be offered free to the world, and probably 100,000 People have taken it so far. And it's been a great experience and evidence of how there is very broad interest in manufacturing really across the world. TROND: 100,000 people have taken this course. JOHN: Yeah. Well, I'll say 100,000 people have signed up for the course. This is the classic trade-off with online courses. It doesn't mean 100,000 people complete the course. It means that number signs up and hopefully took something away from it. It also speaks to the flexibility. You can sign up for a course and maybe just listen to one lecture, but if you take something valuable away from it, that's great. TROND: So I wanted to talk a little bit about how academia shapes manufacturing. And I know that there are, you know, you and I work at MIT, and you've had experiences obviously at University of Michigan. But there are other manufacturing centers and institutes all around the world. Could you lay out this landscape a little bit for us so that we get a sense of where the excellent centers of manufacturing are located? I mean, one structure, just to pick that, is manufacturing institutes, and I know that's sort of dear to your heart for a couple of different reasons that we'll get into. But what are some of the centers beyond MIT where there is activity that is organized in a way that really is something to focus on? JOHN: First, I think of in the U.S., Carnegie Mellon, Georgia Tech, Purdue, Michigan, Stanford, places that have defined manufacturing centers or have a body of work that relates to manufacturing that I would say there's a critical mass of faculty, and students, and affiliation with industry. Also, Penn State in the area of additive manufacturing and product design. It's hard to be comprehensive. I don't want to forget anyone big, but that's a sample of some of the notable ones. Internationally, a lot of activity in Europe; I admire the University of Cambridge, the Institute for Manufacturing there, where manufacturing is more or less a department, or it's within the Department of Engineering, which is analogous to what we would say is a school or college of engineering here in the U.S. And they have a broad set of activities that have been there for decades focused on manufacturing at the IFM. TROND: And if you think about the best schools to get educated in this topic, is it necessarily only the top brands? I mean, certainly, they have different roles. So when it comes to undergrads or even shorter, or I guess even community colleges have a really fundamental role in the formation of this sector, can you talk a little bit about that? JOHN: Oh, for sure. When you think of manufacturing education, we must think of the full stack of institutions that educate the workforce, from vocational institutions to community colleges where the student's goal may just be to complete a vocational program or complete a two-year degree and then exit the workforce, all the way to the four-year degrees, advanced degrees, and executive education. And given how manufacturing is paramount in the workforce and the economy, we need to educate folks at all those levels. But by far, the largest number of people are at those vocational community college levels and then to the bachelor's level. So I have a Ph.D. I love to mentor Ph.D. students. But that's a small fraction of the manufacturing workforce. TROND: What about in the U.S. setting? There's something called the Manufacturing USA, and there are these institutes that have sponsorship from various government agencies, most of them through the Department of Defense. But there's also a bunch at the Department of Energy and one, I guess, from the Department of Commerce. What is the role of basically government-sponsored sort of research and innovation activities in this field? It would strike me, I guess, that historically, it's quite important. JOHN: Certainly. You're alluding to the manufacturing innovation institutes, the MIIs that were started during President Obama's administration. Actually, MIT's work, the Production in the Innovation Economy study, and the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership, which emerged from that, was key in scoping the MIIs, and now there are 16 or so around the country. It's one example of public-private partnership. Public-private partnership is key to cultivating interest in manufacturing and also providing resources for technology translation and commercialization. I think the MIIs have had a great impact on awareness of manufacturing, on R&D, and really applied research in some critical technology areas. But it's only a small part of what we need to do to regrow and expand our industrial base in the U.S. TROND: So I want to move us shortly to MIT to discuss both your own research activity and how extensively you are now aiming to take a more organizing role to kind of get more out of all of the exciting work that's happening at MIT. But before that, I just spotted perhaps an older project of yours that I thought was extremely cool. You were once called a nanoartist, and you had this NanoArt Nanobliss gallery with visualizations. You previously mentioned Obama. I believe you made a NanoArt structure called Nanobama or something of that sort. How did this come about? And, again, I mean, I'm guessing this just sort of testifies to your interest in science communication as much as in the depths of science, which we'll get into in a moment. JOHN: You got it. The inspiration was how do we communicate what we're doing in the lab to broader audiences just to make them aware of what's happening in new technology, new materials? In that case, it was nanotechnology. If you don't mind, I'll tell you a bit more of the story. When I was an assistant professor at Michigan, we were doing a lot of work on carbon nanotube manufacturing, which was a follow-on from my graduate work at MIT. And I admired President Obama, or he was a presidential candidate at that time. And without implying a political inclination, I somehow put together the words nano and Obama in my mind. TROND: [laughs] JOHN: And I said, wow, it would be cool to have a Nanobama. So one thing led to another, and I actually worked with some students in my group to fabricate these little portraits out of carbon nanotubes representing Shepard Fairey's portrait of Obama that was used widely during that first presidential campaign. And I just posted it online, I think one day after the election, and it took off. It went viral, so to say, and was featured as Nature's Image of the Year. It was printed on the newspapers you used to get as you walk onto the subway in the morning around the world. There was a company that would syndicate this stuff, and they just sent it around. So it got a lot of attention. And it showed me the power of an image in communicating something. And, of course, President Obama, that was a historic election. The play on words was exciting, and also the fact that it was a little bit intriguing science and technology that was nano was interesting. And one more thing, a colleague of mine at Michigan then was working in the White House, and he said, "Hey, can you send us a Nanobama?" So I made this frame with a little piece of the real material, and a picture of it from the microscope sent it to Washington. I didn't hear anything about it until I got a call from the White House asking me to declare the value for the President's tax return because he decided to keep it; I kid you not. And then, after Obama left office, I was with my family at a bookstore in Wellesley, and I saw the book, the retrospective book of Pete Souza, the White House photographer. And I opened up the book, and I see a picture of Obama and John Boehner in the Oval Office in the middle of this book. And right on the doorframe is the Nanobama. So it actually made it to the White House, which was a pretty awesome feeling. TROND: It must be an awesome feeling, and, again, I think that, especially in this field of manufacturing which is so challenged at times, right? And people are talking about how these factories are greedy, or is this a great job, or whatnot. And there have been all of these historical moments. But then there is also this fascination around the topic of certainly of technologies and the excitement around it. Why don't we continue a little bit on this strand before we get into sort of the overall role of MIT? I'm really curious about how your research has evolved. So generally, I get that you're combining these nanostructures with manufacturing and materials research, and certainly, you have applied it to additive manufacturing. How would you say that your research has evolved over these years? What are the things that you have been doing? I've picked up on a few things that I definitely wanted to cover. I mean, certainly, you've been working on this industrialization of 3D printing, both as a research area and as a commercial area. Carbon nanotubes must have been kind of where you started. I'm curious where that work is going. And then I saw that very recently, with a student, you've been doing some work that I'm personally very enthused about, which is a plant-derived composite that might replace, hopefully, plastics with sort of a hardness and stiffness that is somewhere at the boundary between conventional plastics and metals. I mean, for me, I don't quite see how all of these things are intimately connected. Where do you go for, you know, where's my next proposal here, and where's my next patent? JOHN: They aren't necessarily closely connected. But I like to say that the themes are typically one or more of materials, manufacturing, and mechanical systems or automation. And what I love about manufacturing, especially in the materials domain, is to control a process, to understand a process, and then to do something new, you need to investigate its fundamentals. And sometimes, you need to design a new instrument or machine to get the job done. So our work is often problem-inspired or opportunity-inspired. Like, the cellulose work that you mentioned recently was actually sponsored by a large consumer products company interested in a more sustainable composite material that could be used in packaging. And we looked at potential routes to formulating different materials, and we landed on cellulose. And then, we developed a formulation, a mixture of cellulose nanocrystals and polymers that ended up having exciting mechanical properties, particularly very high hardness, and toughness, more so than existing polymers. And another unifying theme is scalability. It's important not to worry too much about scalability in the early stage of research, and there's lots of amazing research that's just for science. But we like to do things that we hope will be scalable one day, so choosing ingredients that would be cost-effective or using techniques that could be industrialized, even if the techniques look very different in the lab. And maybe I've lacked to give a precise definition or focus, but I think it's also indicative of the broad span of manufacturing. And manufacturing has many, many dimensions beyond the ones that we work on in my lab at MIT. TROND: Well, you kind of answered a question that I was going to ask, too, which is it doesn't seem like you start in a linear fashion, you know, in other words, you start with some sort of basic problem that everybody in their literature has established and then you move to this, that, or the other. Sometimes it comes from a company. The challenge comes from a company, but you formulate the solution completely. It seems to me that students also have lots of ideas and kind of formulate projects. Talk to me a little bit about this process of where the problem comes from versus where the solution and impact comes from because you seem to...sometimes the output truly is just, you know, like, in this case, art or a physical prototype, and you're sort of happy with that outcome. Other times, you're actually delivering something into, presumably, eventually, an assembly line. JOHN: Yeah. And we work as hard as we can on technology translation, both in terms of the knowledge that we publish but also in terms of the steps that we take to spin technology out. You're right; the early stage is very important. And I like to often see the early stage as a collaboration between myself and the researchers. And in many cases, the core idea we end up pursuing comes largely from the research or the research team. In many cases, it might be seeded by the interest of a sponsor or an idea I have, and then we work together on actually figuring out what's the approach, what are the outcomes, and what's the path to success. MID-ROLL AD: In the new book from Wiley, Augmented Lean: A Human-Centric Framework for Managing Frontline Operations, serial startup founder Dr. Natan Linder and futurist podcaster Dr. Trond Arne Undheim deliver an urgent and incisive exploration of when, how, and why to augment your workforce with technology, and how to do it in a way that scales, maintains innovation, and allows the organization to thrive. The key thing is to prioritize humans over machines. Here's what Klaus Schwab, Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, says about the book: "Augmented Lean is an important puzzle piece in the fourth industrial revolution." Find out more on www.augmentedlean.com, and pick up the book in a bookstore near you. TROND: You have commercialized at least two ventures together with others at MIT and external people as well that I know about for sure. I wanted to just briefly mention both Desktop Metal and VulcanForms. Let's perhaps cover Desktop Metal first, so that's a 3D printing company. Tell me how that got started and what your role was there. JOHN: So I was very fortunate to be a member of the founding team of Desktop Metal. So there were seven co-founders, and we launched the company in early fall of 2015. And Ric Fulop, who's the lead founder and CEO, approached me at that time, and he heard that I was interested in working on 3D printing and, of course, knew a bit about my background in manufacturing and machine design and asked me to jump on board. And funny story, how just connections persist over the years; I actually knew Ric when I was a grad student because I was doing my carbon nanotube work using the space of now my colleague, Yet-Ming Chiang. And at that time, Yet and Ric were launching A123 Systems, a successful battery company. So that was a reason why I think Ric knew to get in touch with me when he heard about me. And serendipity was a great experience. TROND: Serendipity when you are in the right places, right? If you're hanging around Yet-Ming Chang, yeah, that's right, very special serendipity. Tell me a little bit about VulcanForms. Until very recently, you couldn't talk so much about it. Nowadays, you did go out in New York Times. I've read that piece. So there is a little bit more detail around it. Let me ask a very basic and perhaps dumb question, large-scale metal 3D printing, what's the big deal there? I thought didn't Desktop Metal do 3D printing? So it's kind of a dumb question. Why is there a second company? Is there really such a variety? I think that the regular person just thinks 3D printing is 3D printing. JOHN: 3D printing is a broad and deep subject. Like, first of all, 3D printing processes exist for polymers, for metals, for many other materials. And there are even several 3D printing technologies for metals. I'll tell the origin story for VulcanForms quickly if that's okay, and then get back to the question. So when I came to MIT as faculty in 2013, I had been a professor at Michigan for a few years. And I landed, and one of the topics I thought of looking into was 3D printing. I was actually asked by a colleague to teach a class not on 3D printing, but I was able to propose the topic. And in that class, there were many incredible students. One of them, named Martin, stuck around at MIT after finishing his master's in manufacturing, and we ended up comparing notes and launching VulcanForms in 2015, a little bit before Desktop Metal came to be, but not that long before. And we stayed quiet for seven years. We raised our seed round a couple of years ago. And the focus of the company is number one, laser-based metal additive manufacturing. And second, while we've built our own additive technology, we're a manufacturing company. So we produce parts at scale, and that is a real need and has been a barrier to growth of the additive industry. There's so much interest and uptake in additive. But the ability to achieve high-quality production using additive as the formative step in the process at scale has largely been untouched. So from the early days, we thought that we could approach the market with that plan to become a manufacturing company. TROND: Staying quiet for seven years that can't have been [laughs] particularly easy. JOHN: Yeah, it's not easy, but it's very, very worth it because we got to focus. And also, there are different boundary conditions that allow you to keep your head down and get work done, and one of them is having great and patient investors who believe in your approach and who see the progress behind the curtain. And as a result, we felt we would hold off launch. And we were fortunate to get picked up by the New York Times earlier this summer. And now we're excited to talk about what we do. TROND: Yeah, that article did hint a little bit at what your printers can print that others cannot and kind of at what scale. Can you give some examples of the kinds of things that you are now contracted to print or are perhaps already printing? JOHN: So the company is focused on a variety of industries, generally industries where high-value metal parts are difficult to manufacture and where there is a real pent-up need for more agile, high-value manufacturing medical devices such as medical implants, semiconductor components, not microchips but cooling devices for various computer systems. We have a lot of business in the aerospace and defense area, working with several of the defense primes, both on additive parts and on machining, honestly. The company, as described in the New York Times article, we acquired a machine shop in Newburyport, Massachusetts, earlier this year. And that was twofold, one because in order to deliver finished parts, you need to often integrate additive with machining. So it's not just 3D printing; it's building a stack of software and physical processes to create a finished part. Second, advanced machining is also a digital manufacturing technology, and as a company, we're very interested in applying our capabilities as a digital manufacturing organization to the area of CNC machining as well. TROND: So, taking that experience then from these two companies and your vast interest and research area plus your interest in communication, what is it that you're now focused on at MIT more largely? That's another kind of secret that's slowly being let out. But you have had this notion and have shared this with me and others, obviously. There was a seminar open to whoever was invited, I think, but not a full public launch. Manufacturing at MIT has historically been quite important, but you think that there's even more, to be done. You lined up a couple of the projects, but there are many more things that MIT has done. Could you maybe just briefly address the role of MIT historically in influencing manufacturing? And what else is it that you now want to accomplish? JOHN: Yeah, for sure. And since I came to MIT nine years ago, I've learned of the incredibly rich history that the institute has in manufacturing, both on the technology side, you know, in the mid-1950s, building among the first CNC machines, ultimately transformed commercial aviation in 1980 building one of the first 3D printers in the world, and so on. But not only that, but also, historic accomplishments in the social sciences, understanding the globalization of manufacturing, you know, what delineated the U.S. versus the Japanese auto industry in the 1980s. What is the intrinsic role of manufacturing in innovation, the production, and innovation economy led by my colleague Suzanne Berger in around 2010. And then broader than manufacturing, though, the work of the future study just a couple of years ago looking at the connection between technology and work. So looking at all those accomplishments and understanding the present moment that we're in, which I can also reflect on later, I've been exploring how to create a new presence for manufacturing at MIT. And the term manufacturing at MIT is more or less a placeholder representing the community of faculty and students across disciplines, both technology and social sciences, that touch on all the dimensions of manufacturing. So as we've returned from Zoom life to more in-person life, I've been making my way around campus and building a team of folks, faculty advisors, external advisors, industry partners, and so on to hopefully put forward a new center at MIT that has a focus on manufacturing across the disciplines. And this is not to replace existing activities but just to augment those activities and bring industry together with us to support research, to lean deeply into workforce training programs, to collaborate with public organizations at the state and federal level and internationally, and also hope to cultivate more entrepreneurship. Because my experience, fortunate experience as an entrepreneur over the past several years tells me that there's opportunity for more new companies that contribute to the future of manufacturing, whether they're manufacturing companies actually making stuff, whether they be software and services companies. Or perhaps the biggest need is hardware companies for whom manufacturing is a route to success. So you may not be manufacturing something yourself, or you may not be manufacturing goods for others, but understanding manufacturing and scaling a process is really key. And that intellectual DNA of manufacturing is more cross-disciplinary than ever. And I've observed over my nine years at MIT how there's just more engagement in manufacturing as a discipline, as this cross-disciplinary theme. And that's an area where I feel such a center can really play a role by adding something to the intellectual community across the institute. TROND: There are so many things that come to mind when you produce this narrative because, I guess, on the one hand, manufacturing is a little bit of everything. On the other hand, it is clearly very delineated because it's all about making things and making them at scale. And there's a whole industry, but, of course, every industry almost has a manufacturing arm. How do you delineate the subject of manufacturing? And I'm sort of curious, you know, at MIT, if you use a broad church definition, almost everybody there contributes to manufacturing. So that would be both a challenge and an opportunity, I guess. JOHN: Yeah, you're exactly right. So, first, within MIT, we have many collaborations with different departments and other research centers. And the nature of the collaboration depends on what the focus is. Second, when it comes to interfacing with industry, I've come to look at industry as kind of a grid where you could say the columns are the end users, say, aviation and space or consumer or construction. And then, the horizontal lines in the grid are technologies, robotics and automation, 3D printing, software and IT, et cetera. And getting a little bit in the weeds of the organization here, so first, we're working on launching a flagship industry consortium, or we're recruiting flagship industry partners for a new center. And those will be companies, world-leading manufacturing companies across the grid. Second, we will operate consortia in different technology in industry areas that may be located within our center that may be in collaboration with others around MIT to really drive focus. And when industry comes and interacts with us, I want them to understand how their business fits into the broader spectrum. And we find particularly in the work related to 3D printing that companies appreciate being connected with peers across the value chain. They say 3D printing is materials at the frontend and finished parts at the backend, and there are some machines and software, and so on. When you bring companies together across their value chain, across their supply chain, under the umbrella of an academic organization with this sort of problem-solving mindset, we find that that can be valuable to the companies that we partner with. TROND: And, John, there's obviously a scale at MIT that's hard to replicate for any university or school just because there are so many people involved in technical innovation. But on the other hand, I would say there has been a sense that other sectors if you could call them that, have always been moving much faster than manufacturing. And, you know, okay, fine, there are industrial revolutions, but the ones we talk about now as industrial revolutions are more, you know, they are maybe on the software side and stuff, but that the core of manufacturing it may be because of its inherent nature. It's complex; it's about physical infrastructure, at least a lot of it still. So it's hard to innovate in that sector. Would you say that one of the ambitions you have with this manufacturing at MIT initiative is to speed up that innovation? And if so, what are the mechanisms that would bring manufacturing as a whole, I guess, on an even faster sort of clip? JOHN: First, if I look within MIT, we see the opportunity to combine the physical side, the mechanical engineering, the material science, with the digital side, with software, and controls, and computation. And that's an area where it's clear that new technologies can be de-risked, can be scaled more quickly. And it really requires this symbiosis of the physical processes and the digital intelligence. Second, I think we can do better research. I can do better research by understanding where the big problems and opportunities are. And by connecting closely with industry, forming networks with various stakeholders, we can define better problems that we can ask our students to solve. And third, I've noticed, especially over the past year with all the geopolitical discussions and the imperative for sustainability, that we're at a time where there's this alignment between industry and government and the investment community and manufacturing, physical manufacturing, physical industry is vital. We can't do enough there to catch up, to grow. And I think that's a real opportune moment to recognize that while I think the pendulum has swung to the digital world and software over the past 10, 20 years, life has changed for the better in so many ways. We have to focus on the physical world now, especially to address the climate crisis, and also think of how we can improve economic equality across our communities, how we can provide better job opportunities, how we can deliver education to individuals who don't have the opportunity to go to university or don't have the resources to travel, all those things. So that's another reason why, one, I see manufacturing as this rich, cross-disciplinary topic that I can file a patent and write some exciting papers and graduate with a Ph.D., but it means so much more to feel technology at scale. And second, you need the intersection of these disciplines to understand not just technology but organizations and human dynamics to create change and create positive impact. TROND: So I realized that we're going to have to cover... there are so many other questions I have for you is what I'm trying to say here. But my last question in this round, I think, is going to be one on...we briefly mentioned, or you briefly talked about augmentation. And you know that I have a special interest; obviously, the topic of the podcast and the title is augmentation. So there is something here about the tension, perhaps between augmentation and automation. How do you see that tension or the relationship between working from the human-centric perspective that technologies are in service to perhaps augment people and processes versus this automation perspective which maybe takes, and I'm paraphrasing here, a little bit more of an efficiency approach and tries to go for machine scale first and then just adjust everything later? How do you see those two things now, as perhaps, you know, manufacturing is coming into another kind of growth moment? JOHN: If I understood you correctly, I don't think they're mutually exclusive, right? Certainly -- TROND: No. Not necessarily. Not necessarily. JOHN: Certainly, manufacturing will become more automated in places where automation makes sense. Certainly, automation is challenging to implement to scale, to get right. But in some cases, the driver to more efficient technology-first manufacturing is automation. In other cases, and hand in hand with that, human workers and businesses, organizations can only become more effective and efficient, working in synergy with data and automation. I'll use the example of someone overseeing a 3D printer, a state-of-the-art 3D printer, and watching the screens to make sure everything is going well and doing a better job by being presented with information that shows, hey, this might be a problem, or there are no problems here, but being empowered to make that data-driven decision. And also, from my work outside of MIT, we find that folks who do best operating that advanced equipment with digital data might have a machining background. They might also have a passion for gaming on the side. So they might be used to sensing and responding to dynamic digital events. And that's another comment on skills evolving in the workforce too. TROND: Well, I mean, one thing that is for certain is that if MIT gets its act together on manufacturing, things will happen. I trust that we're going to have to come back and talk about a lot of emerging projects here in the coming years if you get people lined up. So very exciting. Thank you for speaking to me. Is there sort of a challenge that you want out there to the community when it comes to how, you know, not just academics can contribute to shaping manufacturing but how we all should think of these manufacturing challenges? Is it something that we should leave to experts right now because it's so complicated? Or are there ways that the broader interested public can get engaged in this problem? Is it possible to engage, and where should one engage? JOHN: That's a great question. First, to the general public, I'd say stop and think about what manufacturing means to you, or find one of your favorite things and look up how it's manufactured. Imagine the life, the journey of the product as it comes to your door. And second, I'd say the area where most of us can make an impact is in education and learning and contributing to our communities. Perhaps if you're an engineer working somewhere, you might want to teach at a community college one night a week if you have time in a future semester or explore ways that you can bring new knowledge, new technology to your organization if it makes sense. TROND: Exciting challenges. Thank you so much for sharing a little bit of what you're up to with us, John. JOHN: Thank you, Trond. TROND: You have just listened to another episode of the Augmented Podcast with host Trond Arne Undheim. The topic was How Academia Shapes Manufacturing. Our guest was John Hart, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director at the Center for Advanced Production Technologies at MIT. In this conversation, we talk about John's research on micro and nanotechnology and material science, which universities and colleges that teach manufacturing, the role of MIT in this ecosystem, and why now is a key moment in manufacturing history. My takeaway is that there has never been a more interesting time to be in manufacturing or to watch manufacturing. The tremendous breakthroughs that we are about to witness have been made possible by a confluence of emerging technologies and startup innovations, as well as a growing awareness of the importance of building human-centric technologies. We are indeed at a crossroads with profound challenges in the growing talent shortage, the need for workforce training, an aging industrial base, and the demands for manufacturing competency from the wider innovation ecosystem. We have to make progress fast, and innovations are just maturing to be able to do so at the scale and pace required. It will, again, be amazing to watch the manufacturing industry. Parts of it will perhaps, again, become the industry of industries. Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars. If you liked this episode, you might also like Episode 92 on Emerging Interfaces for Human Augmentation. Hopefully, you'll find something awesome in these or in other episodes, and if so, do let us know by messaging us. We would love to share your thoughts with other listeners. The Augmented Podcast is created in association with Tulip, the frontline operation platform that connects the people, machines, devices, and systems used in a production or a logistics process in a physical location. Tulip is democratizing technology and empowering those closest to operations to solve problems. Tulip is also hiring, and you can find Tulip at tulip.co. To find us on social media is easy; we are Augmented Pod on LinkedIn and Twitter and Augmented Podcast on Facebook and YouTube. Augmented — industrial conversations that matter. See you next time. Special Guest: John Hart.

This week on the blog, a podcast interview with Dawn Brodey and Brian Forrest, talking about the various film versions of “Frankenstein” and “Dracula.”Dawn gave me 4.5 films to revisit: The 1931 version of Frankenstein, Frankenweenie (the feature and the short), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and Young Frankenstein.Meanwhile, Brian assigned me the original Nosferatu, the 1931 Dracula, Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, Horror of Dracula, Dracula in Istanbul and Bram Stoker's Dracula. LINKSDawn's podcast (HILF): http://dawnbrodey.com/ - showsBrian's Blog and Vlog, Toothpickings: https://toothpickings.medium.com/ A Free Film Book for You: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/cq23xyyt12Another Free Film Book: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/x3jn3emga6Frankenstein (1931) Trailer: https://youtu.be/BN8K-4osNb0Frankenweenie Trailer: https://youtu.be/29vIJQohUWEMary Shelley's Frankenstein (Trailer): https://youtu.be/GFaY7r73BIsYoung Frankenstein (Trailer): https://youtu.be/mOPTriLG5cUNosferatu (Complete Film): https://youtu.be/dCT1YUtNOA8Dracula (1931) Trailer: https://youtu.be/VoaMw91MC9kAbbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (Trailer): https://youtu.be/j6l8auIACycHorror of Dracula (Trailer): https://youtu.be/ZTbY0BgIRMkBram Stoker's Dracula (Trailer): https://youtu.be/fgFPIh5mvNcDracula In Istanbul: https://youtu.be/G7tAWcm3EX0Fast, Cheap Film Website: https://www.fastcheapfilm.com/Eli Marks Website: https://www.elimarksmysteries.com/Albert's Bridge Books Website: https://www.albertsbridgebooks.com/YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/BehindthePageTheEliMarksPodcastDawn and Brian TRANSCRIPT John: [00:00:00] Before we dive into the assignment you gave me—which was to watch stuff I hadn't seen and also rewatch stuff I had seen to get a better idea of who's done a good job of adapting these books—let's just jump in and talk a little bit about your area of expertise and why you have it. So, I'm going to start with you, Brian. I was very surprised after working with you a while to find out that you had a whole vampire subset in your life. Brian: A problem, you can call it a problem. It's fine. John: Okay. What is the problem and where did it come from? Brian: I was just vaguely interested in vampires for a while. When I was in my screenwriting days, someone had encouraged me to do a feature length comedy about vampires, and that led me to do a lot of reading. And then I just kind of put it aside for a while. And then I was, I had just finished a documentary for Committee Films and they said, do you have any other pitches? And I thought, and I said, you know, there's still people who believe in vampires even today, that could be really interesting. And I put together a pitch package. Then, the guy in charge of development said, [00:01:00]this is what we need to be doing. And then it stalled out. Nothing ever happened with it. And I said, what the hell. I could do this on my own. I could fly around and interview these people. And I did, I spent a couple years interviewing academics and some writers. And along the way, I started finding all these very intriguing moments in the history of either vampire lore or fiction or even just people who consider themselves vampires today. And all these things would connect to each other. It was a lattice work of vampires going back hundreds of years. It didn't fit the documentary, unfortunately, but I found it way too interesting. And I said, I need some kind of outlet for this. And so I started writing about it on Tooth Pickings. And that eventually put me in touch with people who were more scholarly, and it opened up a lot more conversations. And now I can't get out. I'm trapped. John: Well, the first sign is recognizing there's a problem. [00:02:00] Okay. Now, Dawn, you had a different entryway into Frankenstein. Dawn: Yeah, well, I was a theater major and a history minor at the University of Minnesota. Go Gophers. And, this was in the late nineties, early two thousands, when there were still a lot of jobs for people who had degrees and things like this. Or at least there was a theory that this was a reasonable thing to get educated in. And then I graduated in 2001, which was months after 9/11, when all those jobs went away. And so, I had this education so specific and what was I gonna do? And gratefully the Twin Cities is a great place for finding that kind of stuff. And one of my very first jobs out of college was at the Bakkan museum. So, the Bakkan museum was founded by Earl Bakkan, who is the inventor of the battery-operated pacemaker. And he has always, since childhood, been obsessed with the Frankenstein movie that came out in 1931. And he attributes [00:03:00]his great scientific invention and many others to a science fiction in general. And to the spark of the idea that comes from sources like this. So, when he opened the museum, he insisted that there'd be a grand Frankenstein exhibit. And that means going back to the book, and that meant going back to the author, Mary Shelley, who wrote the novel Frankenstein, she started writing it when she was 16.And so, I was hired because—boom, look at me—my degree is suddenly colliding, right? So, I was hired by the Bakkan museum to create a one-woman show about the life of Mary Shelley, where I would play Mary Shelley and would perform it within the museum and elsewhere. And through the course of that research, I read the novel for the second time, but then I read it for my third, fourth, fifth onwards and upwards. Because the show was about 45 minutes long, I referenced, you know, the novel, the books, the popular culture, the science behind it. And the deep dive just never stopped. And so long after I was required to do the research and the show was done and up, I just kept reading. [00:04:00] And it gave me the opportunity to meet experts in this field and the peripheral field, as I would sort of travel with this show and be an ambassador for the museum and stuff like that. And, yeah, it still curls my toes. John: All right, so with that background. I'm going to just be honest right here and say, I've read Dracula once, I've read Frankenstein once. So that's where I'm coming from, and both a while ago. I remember Frankenstein was a little tougher to get through. Dracula had a bit more of an adventure feel to it, but something I don't think has really been captured particularly well in all the movies. But they both have lasted and lasted and lasted.Why do you think those books are still, those ideas are still as popular today? Dawn: I will say that I think Frankenstein, it depends on what you mean by the idea. Because on the surface, just the idea of bringing the dead to life, is, I mean, the Walking Dead franchise is right now one of the most popular franchises. I mean, I think we are really pivot on this idea. And I remember saying to a friend once that the part in [00:05:00]Revelation where the dead rise is like the only part of the Bible that I don't question. It's like, oh, the dead will get up. You know, we always just seem to be real sure that at some damned point, they're getting up. And so I think that that is part of why that it sticks in our brains. But then the story around Frankenstein—especially as it was written in 1818—has so many universal and timeless themes, like ambition and what is right and wrong. And the question that Jurassic Park posed in 1995 and continues to—1993 around there—and continues to pose, which is: just because science is capable of doing something, should it do something? And how do we define progress? Surely the very idea of being able to beat death and not die seems to be kind of the ultimate goal. And here is someone saying, okay, so let's just say, yeah. We beat death and everyone goes, oh shit, that'd be terrible. [00:06:00] You know? And then also, I always love the idea of the creature, the monster, Frankenstein's creature himself, who has a lot of characteristics with which people have identified throughout history. Some people say, for example, that Mary Shelley's whole purpose for writing Frankenstein was a question of: didn't God do this to us, make us these ugly creatures that are imperfect and bumbling around and horrifying? And then once he realized that we weren't perfect, he fled from us in fear or fled. He just keeps going and every generation has a new media that tells the story a little bit better, a little bit different, and yeah, there we are. John: I will say that for me, the most memorable part of the book was the section where the monster is the narrator and is learning. And I think with the exception of Kenneth Branagh's film, it it's something that isn't really touched on that much. There's a little bit in Bride of Frankenstein, of him going around and learning stuff. But the sort of moral questions that he [00:07:00] raises as he's learning—what it is to be human—are very interesting in the book. And I wish they were in more of the movies, but they're not. So, Brian on Dracula, again, we have dead coming to life. Why do we love that so much? Brian: Well, it's one of the questions that made me want to make a film about it myself: why has the vampire been so fascinating for hundreds of years? Why does it keep coming back? You know, it ebbs and flows in popularity, but it never leaves. And it keeps seeming to have Renaissance after Renaissance. Dracula specifically, I think one of the interesting things about that novel is how many different lenses you can look at it through and not be wrong.People have looked at it through the lens of, is this thing an imperialist story? Is it an anti-imperialist story? Is it a feminist story? Is it an anti-feminist story? And you can find support for any of those views reading Dracula. And I think that some of it might be accidental; there's times where Dracula is catching up to whatever the cultural zeitgeist [00:08:00] is right now. And we look at Dracula and we say, oh, he was thinking about this back then. Or maybe Bram Stoker was just very confused and he had a lot of different ideas. John: All right, let's explore that a little deeper. You each gave me an assignment of some movies to watch or to re-watch that you felt were worth talking about, in relation to your subject of Frankenstein or Dracula. I'm going to start with Frankenweenie, just because I had not seen it. And in going through it, I was reminded—of course, as one would be—of watching Frankenweenie, I was reminded of Love, Actually. Because I came to the realization after years of Love, Actually being around that it—Love, Actually—is not a romantic comedy. It is all romantic comedies, all put into one movie. And Frankenweenie is all horror films. Condensed, beautifully and cleverly into one very tasty souffle. [Frankenweenie Soundbite] John: I stopped at a certain point making note of the references to other horror films. Just because there are so many of them. But the idea that it references everything from Bride of Frankenstein to Gremlins. They do a rat transformation that's right out of American Werewolf in London. The fact that they have a science teacher played by Martin Landau doing the voice he did as Bela [00:10:00] Lugosi in Ed Wood. I mean, it's a really good story that they just layered and layered and layered and layered. What was it about that movie that so captivated you? Dawn: Well, so much of what you just said. And also it seems to me the epitome of the accessibility of the story of Frankenstein. The idea that if anyone can think of any moment in which if I could bring someone back to life. But what I love about it too, is that the novel Frankenstein that is not Victor Frankenstein's motivation. It generally tends to be the motivation of almost every character, including the Kenneth Branagh character--at some point, he, when Elizabeth dies, his wife dies for the second time, he says, yes, I'm going to try to bring her back. But it is so not the motivation of the scientist in the book. It is just ambition. He just wants to do something no one else has done. And lots of people die around him and he really never, ever says to himself at any point in the novel, I wish I could bring them back, I'm going to bring them back. That's never, that's never part of it. He just wants to be impressive. And so, I love [00:11:00] that it starts with that pure motivation of wanting to bring the dead to life; just wanting to bring your dog back, so that it's so accessible for everyone watching it. Who wouldn't wanna try this? But then, even in that scene with the teacher, when he shows the frog. And he's demonstrating that if you touch a dead frog with electricity, its legs shoot up, which give the kid the first idea of bringing his dog back. Which is like a deep cut in, in the sense that that's nothing -- Mary Shelley herself and her friends were watching experiments exactly like that before she wrote the book: galvanism and animal magnetism were these really popular public demonstrations happening in London and elsewhere where they would do just that. But because electricity itself was so new, I mean, it blew people's hair back you know, that these dead frogs were flopping around. It was the craziest thing. And a lot of them were thinking to themselves, surely it is only a matter of time before we can, we're gonna have our dead walking around all the time. So, it was so circulating and so forward. [00:12:00] So it's not just movie references and it's not just Frankenstein references. That movie really includes source deep source references for how Frankenstein came to be. And I just love it. John: Which brings me to Frankenstein, the 1931 version, in which Colin Clive has a similar point of view to what you were talking about from the book. He just wants, you know, he wants to be God. [Frankenstein soundbite] John: What I was most impressed with about that movie or a couple things was: it starts, it's like, boom. We're in it. First scene. There there's no preamble. There's no going to college. There's no talking about it, right? It's like, they're starting in the middle of act two. And I think a lot of what we think of when it comes to Frankenstein comes from that movie, [00:13:00] that the stuff that James Whale and his cinematographer came up with and the way they made things look, and that's sort of what people think of when they think of Frankenstein. Now, as you look back on that movie, what are your thoughts on the, what we'll call the original Frankenstein? Dawn: Yeah. Well, I love it. You'll find with me and Frankenstein that I'm not a purist. Like I love everything. Like I have no boundaries. I think this is great. One of the things that 1931 movie did was answer—because it had to, anytime you take a novel and make it a movie, you take a literary medium and make it a visual medium, there's obviously going to be things that you just have to interpret that the author left for you to make for yourself individual. And in this instance, that individual is the cinematographer. So, we're gonna get their take on this. And one of the real ambiguous things that Mary Shelley leaves for you in the novel is the spark of life. What is the spark of life? She does not in any [00:14:00]detail describe lightning or static or any of the recognizable or, or future developments of how electricity would've been. Brian: I was shocked when I first read that book and saw how little space was devoted to that, that lab scene. It's blink of an eye and it's over. Dawn: “I gathered the instruments of life around me that I may infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my.” Period. I just, what I love is what I love about film in general is that they went, oh, spark being all right, girl, it's a dark and stormy night and you know, and there's chains and there's bubblers and there's a thing. And the sky opens. I mean, God bless you, like way to just take that thought. Make it vivid, make it, build a set, make us believe it. And it's so, so pervasive that in Frankenweinie, you know, which of course is about Frankensein. [00:15:00] Like that is one that they do: he's got the white robe that ties in the back and the gloves. And in Young Frankenstein, it's the, you know, that lab scene. And so I love that. And the other thing that they had to do was describe the look of the creature, make the creature—Frankenstein's monster himself—look so like something. Because she, similarly in the novel, says that he is taller than a regular man, has dark hair and yellow watery eyes. That's all we know about what the Frankenstein looks like. And so, in 1931, Boris Karloff with the bolts. And it's black and white, remember, we don't think his skin is green. That he turned green at some point is kind of exciting, but of course he was just gray, but just dead flesh, you know, rotten, dead walking flesh is what's frightening. And, I just thought that the movie did that so well, John: I think the makeup was kind of a green/gray, and that when color photos came out of it, that's why someone went, oh, [00:16:00] it's green, but it wasn't green. Brian: I thought I saw a museum piece of, you know, an actual makeup bit that Jack Pierce did and I thought it was greenish. Dawn: Yeah. Greenish/gray. I think, yeah, the rots, just kind of trying to capture the sort of rotten flesh. Brian: It's just like the bride's hair was red. Dawn: That's right. That's right. My day job here in Los Angeles is as a street improviser at Universal Studios, Hollywood. And two of their most treasured characters of course are Frankenstein and Dracula. So, while most people might separate them, John, they are usually arm and arm where I work every day. And the bride has recently come back to the theme park as a walking character, and they gave her red hair. We don't mess around. John: That's excellent. But you mentioned Dracula, let's jump into the 1931 Dracula. There's a connection point between the two that I want to mention, which is the amazing Dwight Frye, who is Fritz, I believe in Frankenstein. And I'm not the first one to mention his naturalistic [00:17:00] acting kind of putting him above everybody else in that movie. Famously, when he's running up the stairs, stopping to pull his socks up at one point. He's just really, really good in that. And then you see him in Dracula as the, essentially the Harker character. I think he was called Harker -- Brian: Yeah. Well, he's Renfield in Dracula. They merged those two characters. I thought it was a smart move for a first attempt at the film. Yeah. And Dwight Frye, he's in a lot of other Universal horrors, too. Dwight Frye often doesn't get the credit. He somehow was not the leading man he should have been. John: I don't know why that is. He turns up again as an assistant in Bride of Frankenstein. He's a towns person in Frankenstein meets the Wolfman. And then he tragically died on a bus ride to an auto parts job that he took because he wasn't getting any acting work, which was too bad. A really, really good actor. Brian: There is another intersection besides the fact that they were both produced by Junior. Lugosi was put into the [00:18:00] short, the trial film they shot for Frankenstein. I can't call it a short film, because it was never intended for release. But they shot a cinematic test reel and they had Lugosi play the monster, but he was under a sheet the whole time. I think he may have been able to pull the sheet off. It's a lost film. We don't know for sure. We just have kind of the recollections of a few crew people. John: I've never heard of that. I would love to see that. Brian: I would too. I think a lot of people would really love to see it, but it was as much a kind of a testing ground for Lugosi— whether they wanted him to be the monster—as it was for some of the techniques, the things they wanted to try in the film. And what I understand is the producer saw the test reel and they said, yes, we love this look, this is the look we want you to give us. And then it's whatever version of Lugosi not getting that part you want to believe: whether Lugosi turned it down or the producers didn't like him or something. But he ended up not taking that part. John: But he is of course always known as Dracula. So, what are your thoughts on their adaptation? Which [00:19:00]again is not the first adaptation but is the kind of first official? Brian: Yeah. The first to bear the name Dracula, although, well, I'll back up a second. Because some releases of Nosferatu called it Dracula. He would be named as Dracula in the subtitles, you know, because that's an easy thing to do in silent film, you can just swap that out however you want to. But yes, it's the first authorized official film adaptation. John: Well, let's back up to Nosferatu, just for a second. Am I wrong in remembering that the Bram Stoker estate—Mrs. Stoker—sued Nosferatu and asked that all prints be destroyed? And they were except one print remained somewhere? Brian: Close. That is the popular story that she sued Prana Films. She won the lawsuit. All films were set to be destroyed. Now there's a guy named Locke Heiss and a few others who've been doing some research on this. And they will tell you that there's no proof that a single print was ever destroyed. It's a more fun story to say that, you know, this one was snuck away and now we have the film. But there was no real enforcement mechanism for having all the theaters [00:20:00]destroy the film. Who was going to go around and check and see if they actually destroyed this film or not? Nobody, right? So maybe some people destroyed it. Maybe Prana Films destroyed their remaining copies. But the exhibitors kept all of theirs and there's different versions and different cuts that have been found. So, we know that some of these reels went out in different formats or with different subtitles or even different edits. And some of them have made their way back to us. John: There's some really iconic striking imagery in that movie. That haunts me still. Brian: What I always tell people is see the film with a good live accompaniment, because that still makes it hold up as a scary film. If you see a good orchestra playing something really intense when Orlok comes through that door. It feels scary. You can feel yourself being teleported back to 1922 and being one of those audience people seeing that and being struck by it. John: What do you think it would be like to have [00:21:00] seen that or Dawn to have seen the original Frankenstein? I can't really imagine, given all that we've seen in our lives. If you put yourself back into 1931, and Boris Karloff walks backwards into the lab. I would just love to know what that felt like the first time. Dawn: You know, what is so great is I was fortunate enough to know Earl Bakkan who saw the movie in the theater in Columbia Heights, Minnesota when he was 10 years old.And he went, he had to sneak in. People would run outta this, out of the theater, screaming. I mean, when they would do the close up of Frankenstein's Monster's face, you know, women would faint. And of course that was publicized and much circulated, but it was also true. People were freaking out. And for Earl Bakkan—this young kid—the fear was overwhelming, as you said. And also in this theater, I was lucky enough, I did my show in that theater for Earl and his friends on his 81st birthday. So, I got to hear a [00:22:00] lot of these stories. And they played the organ in the front of the curtain. Brian: Is this the Heights theater? Dawn: Yes, the Heights. Brian: Oh, that's an amazing space. Dawn: So, they played the organ in there and it was like, oh my God. And it was so overwhelming. So, I'm glad you asked that question because I was really fortunate to have a moment to be able to sort of immerse myself in that question: What would it have been like to be in this theater? And it was moving and it was scary, man. And yeah, to your point, Brian, the music and the score. I mean, it was overwhelming. Also, I think there's something that we still benefit from today, which is when people tell you going in this might be way too much for you, this might scare you to death. So just be super, super careful. And your heart's already, you know… John: And it does have that warning right at the beginning. Dawn: Yeah. Versus now when people sit you down, they're like, I'm not gonna be scared by this black and white movie from 1931. And then you find yourself shuffling out of the bathroom at top speed in the middle of the night. And you're like, well, look at that. It got me. Brian: That reminds me, there [00:23:00] was a deleted scene from the 1931 Dracula that was a holdover from the stage play. Van Helsing comes out and he breaks the fourth wall and he speaks directly to the audience. And he says something to the effect of—I'm very much paraphrasing—about how we hope you haven't been too frightened by what you've seen tonight, but just remember these things are real. And then black out. And they cut that because they were afraid that they were really going to freak out their audience. Dawn: It's like a war of the world's thing, man. It's oh, that's so great. I love that. [Dracula Soundbite] John: So, Brian, what is your assessment of the 1931 version? As a movie itself and as an adaptation of Stoker's work? Brian: The things they had to do to try to adapt it to film, which they borrowed a lot of that from the stage play. They used the stage play as their guide point, and I think they made the best choices they could have been expected to make. You know, there's a lot of things that get lost and that's unfortunate, but I think they did a decent job. I don't find the 1931 version scary. I like Bela Lugosi. I think he's a great Dracula. I think he set the standard. With the possible [00:25:00]exception of the scene where the brides are stalking Harker slash Renfield, I don't think the imagery is particularly frightening. The Spanish version, I think does a little bit better job. And you know the story with the Spanish version and the English version? Dawn: We actually talk about it on the back lot tour of Universal Studios. Because they shot on the same sets in some cases. Brian: Yeah. My understanding is that Dracula shot during the day, Spanish Dracula would shoot at night. So, they got to benefit maybe a little bit by seeing, okay, how is this gonna be shot? How did Todd Browning do it? Okay. We're gonna do it a little bit differently. It's a little bit of a cheat to say they move the camera. They do move the camera a lot more in the Spanish version, but the performances are a little bit different. I'm going to, I can't get her name out. The actress who plays the ingenue in the Spanish Dracula, I'm not going to try it, but you can see her kind of getting more and more crazed as time goes on and her head is more infected by Dracula. You see these push-ins that you don't see in the English version. There's blocking [00:26:00] that's different. I put together a short course where I was just talking about how they blocked the staircases scene. The welcome to my house, the walking through spider web. And how it's blocked very differently in the two versions. And what does that say? What are these two directors communicating differently to us? In one, Harker slash Renfield is next to Dracula. In one, he's trailing behind him. In one, we cut away from the spider web before he goes through. And in the other one, we see him wrestle with it. That's not really what you asked, John. Sorry, I got off on a tear there. John: I agree with you on all points on the differences between the two films. Although I do think that all the Transylvania stuff in the English version is terrific: With the coach and the brides. The Spanish version, the biggest problem I have is that their Dracula looks ridiculous. Brian: He's not Bela Lugosi. You're right. John: He looks like Steve Carell doing Dracula and there is no moment, literally no moment [00:27:00] where he is scary, whereas Lugosi is able to pull that off. Brian: There's a lot of people who have observed that the Spanish Dracula would be a superior film were it not for Bela Lugosi being such an amazing Dracula in the English version. John: He really, really nailed it. Brian: And since he learned his lines phonetically, he could have done the Spanish Dracula. Just write it out for him phonetically, because he didn't speak English very well. John: If we could just go back, you know, cause a lot of things in history we could change, but if we could just be at that meeting and go, Hey, why not have Bela do it? Okay. So then let's jump ahead, still in Dracula form, to Horror of Dracula. From 1958. With Christopher Lee as Dracula and Peter Cushing as Van Helsing. [Soundbite from Horror of Dracula] Brian: For some people, Lee is the ultimate Dracula, and I think that's a generational thing. I think he's great. He's got the stage presence and I love Peter Cushing as Van Helsing. I don't like the film as a whole. It feels like I'm watching a play with a camera set back. It doesn't work for me the way it works for other people. That is personal taste. Don't come after me. John: It does, however, have one of the greatest, ‘Hey, we're gonna kill Dracula' scenes ever, with Peter Cushing running down the table and jumping up and pulling down the drapes and the sun. Brian: Oh, right. Interesting. Because in Dracula, the book, the sun is not deadly, remotely really. But that's [00:29:00]the influence of Nosferatu being pasted onto the Dracula cannon, that the sunlight is deadly to Dracula. Dawn: I remember having this fight very enthusiastically in the nineties when Bram Stoker's/Winona Ryder's Dracula came out and I was already sort of a literary nerd. And they were like, hey, they have a scene with him walking around during the day. And I was like, yeah, nerds. That's right. That's cuz vampires can walk around during the day.I was very already, like, you don't know anything, go back to history. Brian: And there's a seventies version where he's out on a cloudy day, but he is not hurt either. There suggestions in the book that he's more powerful at night. Dawn: He's a creature of the night. I always understood he had to wear sunglasses. He was sort of like a wolf. Like they show him as a wolf during the day; it can happen, but it's not great. Brian: I like the way they did it in the Gary Oldman version. He's suited up. He's got the sunglasses on. There's not a whole lot of skin exposed. But he's not [00:30:00] going to turn into smoke. John: Well, okay. Let's talk about that version and Kenneth Branagh's version of Frankenstein. Dawn: Ug. John: I'm not going to spoil anything here, when I say it doesn't sound like Dawn cared it. Dawn: You open this, you opened this can of worms. John, sit down for a second. Listen. He calls it: Mary Shelly's fucking Frankenstein. I inserted the fucking. I'm sorry, I wasn't supposed to say that. He calls it. He calls it. How dare you, Kenneth, Brannagh, call this Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. So that was A-number one. But I went into it all excited: It's Kenneth Brannagh. Love him. He calls it Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and he starts with the ship captain out at sea, just like the book. And so I pull up my little, you know, security blanket and I'm like, oh, Kenneth Brannagh, do this to me, buddy. Do it to me buddy. Show me Mary Shelley Frankenstein as a movie. [00:31:00] And then he just fucks it up, John. And he doesn't actually do that at all. It's a total lie. He screws up every monologue. He makes up motivations and then heightens them. And it's dad. The acting is capital B, capital A, capital D across the board. Everybody sucks in this movie. It looks bad. The direction is bad, and it has nothing to do. He tries to bring Elizabeth back to life. This is a huge departure from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Thank you very much, Mr. Brannagh, that's all I have to say for now. John: All right, I was fooled by the fact that he started at, at the north pole. Dawn: That's because he's tricking us, John. That's because it's the whole movie is a lie. John: Okay with that same mindset, what do we think of Bram Stoker's Dracula by Francis Ford Coppola? Dawn: I love that one. Brian: I'm afraid that I don't have, I can't match Dawn's intensity in either respect. Um, except I thought Robert DeNiro [00:32:00] was really good in Frankenstein. Dawn: But that's no, he's not. you're wrong. Your opinion is valid and wrong. Yeah, I'm kidding for listeners who don't know me. I am, I am kidding. Of course. Everybody's opinion is valid except for that one. Yeah. The movie, everything about that movie is bad. John: He is, I think, miscast. Dawn: And Helen Bonan Carter is one of the finest actresses of not just our generation, but of all time. And she sucks in this movie. John: Right. So. Bram Stoker's Dracula. Brian: Bram Stoker's Dracula. [Soundbite: Bram Stoker's Dracula] Brian: Also produced by Branagh. And I assume that is the connection, why they both start with the author's name. I always call it Coppola's Dracula because it gets too confusing to make that distinction. I thought it was a decent movie, but it didn't feel like Dracula. It felt like someone who had heard of Dracula and wrote a good script based on what they had heard. So many divergences that bothered me, although I think it's aged better than it felt the first time. I remember seeing it when it first came out in the nineties and not thinking much of it. And I think audiences agreed with me and it seems like it's been kinder, that audiences have been kinder to it as it's gotten older. John: Okay. Dawn, you love it. Dawn: I loved it. I loved it. It, you know what though? That was one of [00:34:00] those movies that unlike, unlike Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, I can't look at with like an adult critical eye because I, what year did it come out? Was it like 90, 92? I'm like middle school getting into high school and like Winona Ryder was everything. Vampires are everything. I mean, Gary Oldman is the, is a great actor and it's so sexy, very sexy. The sex is Primo. And so I remember loving it, very moving. I don't remember comparing it as certainly not as viciously to the novel because I read Dracula after I had seen the movie. And so there's always that inherent casting where Nina is always going to be Winona Ryder. But I do remember really loving the Gothic convention of the letter and that the movie did seem to utilize and to great effect how letter writing can build suspense and give us different perspectives in a, in a unique cinematic way. Brian: [00:35:00] The two or three biggest stakes that film puts in the ground are not to be found in the book. So there's no love story in the book. There's no Vlad in the book. John: Can I interject there? Isn't that basically, didn't they just rip that off of Dark Shadows, The idea of my long lost love is reincarnated in this woman. I must connect with her. Brian: That is a good question, John. I'm glad you asked that because I call it the doppelganger love interest. Right? We first see that, the first time I know of it happening, I'm sure there's an earlier precedent, is in The Mummy, but then Dark Shadows does it. But that's not where Stoker, I mean, that's not where Coppola and a screenwriter claimed to have gotten the idea. They claimed to have gotten it from Dan Curtis's Dracula in 74. John: Dan Curtis, who produced Dark Shadows, with Barnabas Collins, falling in love with his reincarnated love. Brian: But Dan Curtis's Dracula comes out two years after Blacula. That has a reincarnated love interest. John: Not only does the Blaclua [00:36:00] have a reincarnated love interest, but if I'm remembering movie correctly at the end, when she says I don't want to go with you. He goes, okay. And he's ready to go home. It's like, sorry to bother you. Brian: No, uh, in Blacula, he commits suicide John: Oh, that's it? Yeah. He walks out into the sun. Brian: He goes home in a different way. John: Yes. He's one of my favorite Draculas, the very stately William Marshall. Brian: Yeah, absolutely. That is a favorite of mine. John: Anyway, you were saying stakes in the ground from Coppola's Dracula. Brian: Well, the, the love story, the equating Dracula with Vlad the Impaler. And I felt like they did Lucy really bad in that movie. They had her turn into a wanton harlot, which is not in keeping with the book. Some things are okay, but they really said these are the building blocks of our story and that bugged me. But Anthony Hopkins I liked, so, all right. Dawn: Alright, but see, this [00:37:00] the itch that still that still makes me wanna scratch though: why say Bram Stoker's Dracula? Why say Mary Shelley's Frankenstein? I mean, because I think you heard the venom, obviously. If they took Mary Shelley's name off that thing, you can make Frankenweenie. And I will love, like, I love Frankenweenie. Do your Frankenstein homage all day, all the time. But when you call, when you say it's Bram Stoker's, I think that this is what has been frustrating historians like me and getting high school students Ds in English class ever since. Because it just creates the false perception that you've basically read the book. Right. Or that you, if you know the thing you know the book and it's just a cheap ploy. And I don't like it. Brian: I think, somebody correct me on this, that there, there had been a plan to do a reboot of the Universal monster franchise, and these two movies were supposed to be the reboot of it. [00:38:00] And then they would've then done HG Wells' Invisible Man. John: The Mummy killed it. They've tried to reboot it several times. And that was the first attempt. Brian: Yeah, I've heard that called the dark universe. They were trying to do their own MCU. Dawn: Yeah. Well, at Universal Studios, there is of course in, in LA, in general, there's the property wars, you know? What what's, who has what? And sometimes those get really blurred. Like why does Universal Studios have Harry Potter? When we can see Warner Brothers from the top of our wall/ And that's obviously, you know, those things happen. But when it comes to like the IP or intellectual property, those original monsters are so valuable and they always are at Halloween. And then it's like, sort of, how can we capitalize on this? And yeah. And it's cross generational. Brian: All they really own right now is the look right? They own Jack Pierce's makeup job from Frankenstein. Dawn: But I think that that's exactly the point; [00:39:00] the delusion of what is it that you own if you own, you know, Frankenstein, whatever. But yes, there was definitely an interest to sort of revamp all of the original Universal Monsters they call them and it's the Mummy, Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Invisible Man. John: It's everybody who shows up in Mad Monster Party. Dawn: Exactly. [Soundbite: Mad Monster Party] Dawn: But yeah, The Mummy, starring Tom Cruise, was a tremendous flop. And I think that sort of took the wind out of everybody's sails. John: Let me ask you this, Dawn. If Mel Brooks had titled his movie, Mary Shelley's Young Frankenstein, instead of Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein, would you have a problem with that? Dawn: Yeah, no, but no, I would not have had a problem, because that would've been irony and juxtaposition. Not just a straight lie. John: So that brings us to some comedies. Young Frankenstein and Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein, which I was very surprised and a little unnerved to [00:40:00] realize a few years back, Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein was made a mere 10 years before I was born. And I had always assumed it was way back then. And it's like, no, it wasn't all that way back then. It was pretty, pretty recently. Brian: That happened to me when I realized that Woodstock was only six years before my birth. And it always seemed like ancient history. John: Is that the common thing, Madame Historian? That people kind of forget how recent things were? Dawn: Oh yeah. Remember Roe V. Wade. Sorry, too soon. Brian: We're recording this on that day. Dawn: Yeah, absolutely. I think that it happens to everybody so much faster than you think it's going to. I remember looking around in the nineties feeling, well, surely the seventies was ancient history, you know, because they had That Seventies Show, which debuted as like a period piece. I am still very young and hip and happening and [00:41:00] they are in production for That Nineties Show right now. And I said to my husband, That Nineties Show. I was like, Jesus, I guess that's 20 years because I was in the nineties they did That Seventies Show. And he goes, no baby that's 30 years. And I was like, I'm sorry. I said, I'm sorry, what? He goes, the nineties was 30 years ago. And I just had to sit down and put my bunion corrector back on because these feet are killing me. John: All right. Well, let's just talk about these two comedies and then there's a couple other things I wanna quickly hit on. What are our thoughts on, let's start with Young Frankenstein? [Soundbite: Young Frankenstein] Dawn: I told you I'm not an idealist and we're not a purist about Frankenstein, but I am an enthusiast. So that is why I told you to watch Kenneth Branagh's movie, even though I hate it so much. And that is also why I love Young Frankenstein, because I think that it is often what brings people into the story. For many, many people, it introduces them to the creature. They may know literally nothing about Frankenstein except for Young Frankenstein. And that's actually fine with me because I'm a comedian myself. And I believe that parody is high honor. And often when you parody and satirize something, especially when you do it well, it's because you went to the heart of it. Because you got right in there into the nuggets and the creases of it. And there is something about Young [00:43:00] Frankenstein as ridiculous as it is that has some of that wildness and the hilarity and The Putting on the Ritz. I did find out from my Universal Studios movie history stuff, that that scene was very nearly cut out. Mel Brooks did not like it. And he just didn't like that they were doing it. And of course it's the one, I feel like I'm not the only one who still has to make sure that my beverage is not only out of my esophagus, but like aside, when they start doing it. [Soundbite: Young Frankenstein] Brian: And I understand they were about to throw away the sets from the 1931 Frankenstein when Mel Brooks or his production designer came up and said, Stop stop. We want to use these and they were able to get the original sets or at least the set pieces. John: I believe what it [00:44:00] was, was they got Kenneth Strickfaden's original machines. Ken Strickfaden created all that stuff for the 1931 version and had been used on and off, you know, through all the Frankenstein films. And it was all sitting in his garage and the production designer, Dale Hennessy went out to look at it because they were thinking they had to recreate it. And he said, I think it still works. And they plugged them in and they all still worked. Brian: Oh, wow. Dawn: Oh man. It's alive. John: Those are the original machines. Dawn: I didn't know that. That's fantastic. John: At the time when I was a young kid, I was one of the few kids in my neighborhood who knew the name Kenneth Strickfaden, which opened doors for me. Let me tell you when people find out, oh, you know of the guy who designed and built all those? Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I know all that. One of my favorite stories from Young Frankenstein is when they sold the script. I forget which studio had said yes. And as they were walking out of the meeting, Mel Brooks turned back and said, oh, by the way, it's gonna be in black and white, and kept going. And they followed him down the hall and said, no, it can't be in black and white. And he said, no, it's not gonna work unless it's in [00:45:00] black and white. And they said, well, we're not gonna do it. And they had a deal, they were ready to go. And he said, no, it's gonna stay black and white. And he called up Alan Ladd Jr. that night, who was a friend of his, and said, they won't do it. And he said, I'll do it. And so it ended up going, I think, to Fox, who was more than happy to, to spend the money on that. And even though Mel didn't like Putting on the Ritz, it's weird, because he has almost always had musical numbers in his films. Virtually every movie he's done, he's either written a song for it, or there's a song in it. So, it's weird to me. I've heard Gene Wilder on YouTube talk about no, no, he didn't want that scene at all, which is so odd because it seems so-- Brian: I never thought about that, but you're right. I'm going in my head through all the Mel Brooks films I can remember. And there is at least a short musical interlude in all of them that I can think of. John: But let's talk then about what's considered one of the best mixes of horror and comedy, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein [00:46:00] [Soundbite: Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein] Brian: As with comedies of that age, it, it starts off slow, but then it starts to get very funny as time goes on. And all the comedy is because of Abbot and Costello. They are the, [00:47:00] the chemistry they have on screen. I don't know how much of that was actually scripted and how much of it was just how they rolled with each other. But it works really well. Not much of the comedy is provided by the monsters or the supporting cast or even there's maybe a cute, a few sight gags. But wouldn't you say most of the comedy is just the dynamics between them? John: It is. The scary stuff is scary and it's balanced beautifully at the end where they're being chased through the castle. The monsters stayed pretty focused on being monsters and Abbot and Costello's reactions are what's funny. Dawn: If I may, as someone who has already admitted I haven't seen much of the movie, it's feels to me like it may be something like Shaun of the Dead, in the sense that you get genuinely scared if zombie movies scare, then you'll have that same adrenaline rush and the monsters stay scary. They don't have to get silly. Or be a part of the comedy for your two very opposing one's skinny, one's fat, you know, and the way that their friendship is both aligning and [00:48:00]coinciding is the humor. Brian: I believe there is one brief shot in there where you get to see Dracula, Frankenstein's monster and the Wolfman all in the same shot. And I think that might be the only time that ever happens in the Universal Franchise. During the lab scene, does that sound right John? John: I think you really only have Dracula and the Wolfman. I'll have to look it up because the monster is over on another table-- Brian: Isn't he underneath the blanket? John: Nope, that's Lou Costello, because it's his brain that they want. And so they're fighting over that table. And then just a little, I have nothing but stupid fun facts. There's a point in it, in that scene where the monster gets off the table and picks up someone and throws them through a window. And Glenn Strange, who was playing the monster at that point -- and who is one of my favorite portrayers of the monster, oddly enough -- had broken his ankle, I believe. And so Lon, Chaney, Jr. put the makeup on and did that one stunt for him, cuz he was there. Brian: He did that as Frankenstein's monster? John: Yes. Frankenstein. Brian: I didn't know that. Yes, I [00:49:00] did not know that. So he plays both of those roles in that movie? John: Yes. Let me just take a moment to defend Glenn Strange, who played the monster three times: House of Dracula, House of Frankenstein, and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. In House of Frankenstein, he is following up the film before that, which was Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, in which, in this very convoluted universe, Lugosi is playing the monster, even though he didn't wanna do it in 31. Because his brain in Ghost of Frankenstein had been put into the Monster's body. So, in Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, it is Lugosi as the Frankenstein monster. It is Lon Chaney Jr., who had played the monster in Ghost of Frankenstein, now back to playing Larry Talbot. So, it is Wolfman versus Frankenstein. And the premise of the script was he's got Ygor's brain and it's not connecting properly. He's gone blind. They shot that. They had tons of dialogue between the two characters of Larry Talbot pre-wolfman, and the monster, Bela Lugosi. And the executives thought it sounded silly. So they went in and they cut [00:50:00] out all of Lugosi's dialogue out of the movie. So now you have a blind monster stumbling around with his arms in front of him, but he doesn't talk. And if you look at the movie, you can see where he's supposed to be talking and they cut away quickly. And it's really convoluted. Glenn Strange who then has to play the monster next, looks at that and goes well, all right, I guess I'm still blind. I guess I'm still stumbling around with my arms in front of him. Which is the image most people have of the Frankenstein monster, which was never done by Boris in his three turns as the monster. So with, in that regard, I just think Glenn Strange did a great job of picking up what had come before him and making it work moving forward. Anyway, a couple other ones I wanna just hit on very quickly. Brian asked me to watch Dracula in Istanbul. Under the circumstances, a fairly straightforward retelling of the Dracula story. I would recommend it--it is on YouTube--for a couple of reasons. One, I believe it's the first time that Dracula has actual canine teeth. Brian: Yes. John: Which is important. But the other is there's the scene where he's talking to Harker about, I want [00:51:00] you to write three letters. And I want you to post date the letters. It's so convoluted, because he goes into explaining how the Turkish post office system works in such a way that the letters aren't gonna get there. It's just this long scene of explaining why he needs to write these three letters, and poor Harker's doing his best to keep up with that. That was the only reason I recommend it. Brian: That movie is based on a book called Kazıklı Voyvoda, which means The Warrior Prince and it was written in, I wanna say the 1920s or thirties, I wanna say thirties. It's the first book to equate Dracula and Vlad the Impaler, which I've come back to a couple times now, but that's significant because it was a Turkish book and the Turks got that right away. They immediately saw the name Dracula like, oh, we know who we're talking about. We're talking about that a-hole. It was not until the seventies, both the [00:52:00] fifties and the seventies, that Western critics and scholars started to equate the two. And then later when other scholars said, no, there, there's not really a connection there, but it's a fun story. And it's part of cannon now, so we can all play around with it. John: But that wasn't what Bram Stoker was thinking of? Is that what you're saying? Brian: No. No, he, he wasn't, he wasn't making Dracula into Vlad the Impaler. He got the name from Vlad the Impaler surely, but not the deeds. He wasn't supposed to be Vlad the Impaler brought back to life. John: All right. I'm going to ask you both to do one final thing and then we'll wrap it up for today. Although I could talk to you about monsters all day long, and the fact that I'd forgotten Dawn, that you were back on the Universal lot makes this even more perfect. If listeners are going to watch one Dracula movie and one Frankenstein movie, what do you recommend? Dawn, you go first. Dawn: They're only watching one, then it's gotta be the 1931 Frankenstein, with Boris. Karloff, of course. I think it has captured [00:53:00] the story of Frankenstein that keeps one toe sort of beautifully over the novel and the kind of original source material that I am so in love with, but also keeps the other foot firmly in a great film tradition. It is genuinely spooky and it holds so much of the imagery of any of the subsequent movies that you're only watching one, so that's the one you get. But if you do watch any more, you've got this fantastic foundation for what is this story and who is this creature? John: Got it. And Brian, for Dracula? Brian: I was tossing around in my head here, whether to recommend Nosferatu or the 1931 Dracula. And I think I'm going to have to agree with Dawn and say the 1931 for both of them, because it would help a viewer who was new to the monsters, understand where we got the archetypes we have. Now, why, when you type an emoji into your phone for Vampire, you get someone with a tuxedo in the slick back hair or, I think, is there a Frankenstein emoji? Dawn: There is, and he's green with bolts in his neck. [00:54:00] Brian: Yeah, it would. It will help you understand why we have that image permanently implanted in our heads, even though maybe that's not the source material. We now understand the origins of it. Dawn: And if I may too, there's, there's something about having the lore as founded in these movies is necessary, frankly, to almost understand what happens later. I mean, I get very frustrated in 2022, if there is a movie about vampires that takes any time at all to explain to me what a vampire is, unless you're breaking the rules of the vampire. For example, you know, like in Twilight the vampire sparkles, like a diamond when it's out in the sunshine and is the hottest thing ever. That's really great to know. I didn't know that about vampires. That wasn't necessarily true before, you know, but you don't need to take a lot of time. In fact, when you do read Dracula, one of the things for me that I found very frustrating was the suspense of what is it with this guy? They were like: He said we couldn't bring [00:55:00] garlic and they take all this time. And you're kind of as a modern reader being like, cuz he is a fucking vampire. Move on. Like we know this, we got this one. It's shorthand Brian: That's one snide thing I could say about the book is that there are times where Dracula's powers seem to be whatever his powers need to be to make this next scene creepy and move on to the next chapter. John: He was making it up as he went along. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

INTRODUCTION: I hold a Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Exposition, with an interdisciplinary in Literature, from Moody Bible Institute. I was one of two recipients of the MBI Homiletical Jury Award for outstanding preaching in 2016. I have experience as a youth pastor, pastoral intern, academic journal editor, and guest speaker.  I used to be a part of the largest cult in the United States. In 2019, I published my first book as a first step in addressing the subtle issues of this complex system. In 2021, I continued my work with this podcast!  INCLUDED IN THIS EPISODE (But not limited to):  ·      The Cult That Is Christianity ·      Control – Containment - Conversion·      How Sermons Are Put Together·      Toxic Positivity ·      Churches' Role In Divorce·      Religious/Church Trauma·      How The Church Likes To Be Like The World·      Different Rules For Leaders Vs. Followers In Church·      Why We Have Trust Issues With The Church·      Where Did All These Rules Come From?·      An Interesting Explanation Of Narcissism ·      Religious Discrimination  CONNECT WITH JOHN: Website, Social Media & Books: https://linktr.ee/thecultofchristianity CONNECT WITH DE'VANNON: Website: https://www.SexDrugsAndJesus.comWebsite: https://www.DownUnderApparel.comYouTube: https://bit.ly/3daTqCMFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/SexDrugsAndJesus/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sexdrugsandjesuspodcast/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TabooTopixLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devannonPinterest: https://www.pinterest.es/SexDrugsAndJesus/_saved/Email: DeVannon@SexDrugsAndJesus.com  DE'VANNON'S RECOMMENDATIONS: ·      Pray Away Documentary (NETFLIX)o  https://www.netflix.com/title/81040370o  TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_CqGVfxEs ·      OverviewBible (Jeffrey Kranz)o  https://overviewbible.como  https://www.youtube.com/c/OverviewBible ·      Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed (Documentary)o  https://press.discoveryplus.com/lifestyle/discovery-announces-key-participants-featured-in-upcoming-expose-of-the-hillsong-church-controversy-hillsong-a-megachurch-exposed/ ·      Leaving Hillsong Podcast With Tanya Levino  https://leavinghillsong.podbean.com  ·      Upwork: https://www.upwork.com·      FreeUp: https://freeup.net VETERAN'S SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS ·      Disabled American Veterans (DAV): https://www.dav.org·      American Legion: https://www.legion.org ·      What The World Needs Now (Dionne Warwick): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfHAs9cdTqg  INTERESTED IN PODCASTING OR BEING A GUEST?: ·      PodMatch is awesome! This application streamlines the process of finding guests for your show and also helps you find shows to be a guest on. The PodMatch Community is a part of this and that is where you can ask questions and get help from an entire network of people so that you save both money and time on your podcasting journey.https://podmatch.com/signup/devannon  TRANSCRIPT: [00:00:00] You're listening to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast, where we discuss whatever the fuck we want to! And yes, we can put sex and drugs and Jesus all in the same bed and still be all right at the end of the day. My name is De'Vannon and I'll be interviewing guests from every corner of this world as we dig into topics that are too risqué for the morning show, as we strive to help you understand what's really going on in your life.There is nothing off the table and we've got a lot to talk about. So let's dive right into this episode.De'Vannon: Hey, y'all and welcome back to the sex drugs in Jesus podcast. I love having you every week. I, so look forward to it and this week is no different and we're coming in hot and heavy with episode 67. As we talk about some religious and church trauma. Y'all John Verner is my guess. And this man is a smart motherfucker.He is well educated. He is well learned, well traveled and well studied. He's the author of the book [00:01:00] called the cult of Christianity. He hosts a podcast after the same title. And in the days episode, we're discussing his very hurtful history with churches as he opens up about his very, very, very personal experiences while he's giving us at the same time, a very inside look at how churches work, because he's been on staff at churches and things like that before.I hope you're delighted about everything. John has to say take a listen.Hello? Are you beautiful bitches? I would like to welcome you right back here to the sex drugs and motherfucking Jesus podcast. I have with me a delicious that nutritious man by the name of John M I'm gonna pronounce his name as VAE because John: VAE, I love that.That's so no one's ever done that. That's good. That's my name from now on. I love that De'Vannon: he is the host of the coat of Christie Andy podcast, and he is [00:02:00] a, the author of a delicious and nutritious book titled the same. And everyone knows my history, my chaotic and turbulent history with the church. And so when I discovered this son of a bitch, I decided, Hey, John: hi.Hi. Hi, how you doing today? I am doing great. Thank you so much for having me on I love the, the title of your pod. I was laughing cuz haven't had a ton of sex. I've only done a little bit of drugs, but boy, I've done a lot of Jesus. So I'm, I'm happy to be on. De'Vannon: Oh, the way Jesus is packaged by these churches makes him just as much of a narcotic as anything.John: absolutely. Absolutely. De'Vannon: So you've had all the drugs and so. In your own words, tell us your history and everything. Before I open my cock holster and do it for you. John: all right. Sounds great. Yeah. So I grew up very religious [00:03:00] very Christian. I had what you might call like a, a reformed upbringing, which is kind of a more conservative and formal version of evangelicalism.And my dad was in leadership in the church. Church was a part of life. We went to Sunday morning and evening service. We went, you know, a couple times during the week. And so all my social life was at church. I was homeschooled. So church was kind of the world to me. But I was always a pretty skeptical child.Things didn't quite add up to me. So it wasn't until age 11, where I officially converted after asking a lot of questions about how we could trust the Bible and what if we're all questions? And so I was really good. Other than that, though, I was a goody two shoes, you know, never did nothing [00:04:00]wrong.But then after I converted to Christianity officially, I yeah. Decided to take it very seriously to the point where at 17 years old, I felt the call to be a pastor. And so started looking at college options and. There weren't a ton for undergrad. And so I was like, well, I want to, I wanna get going now I'm on fire now.Praise Jesus. So wanted to, I wanted to go be a pastor and I didn't want to have to wait eight years to do it. And so I found a good at the time reputable college where I could study biblical exposition. So I went and got that degree. I have a bachelor of arts and biblical exposition with an interdisciplinary literature and got that, got married, got hitched.And by the time I graduated, [00:05:00] I was a little burned out. I thought it was just normal ministry burn. And so I figured I'll take a little time off from this church stuff. I'll still go to church regularly. I was still a youth pastor. That's what taking it taking time off. Looks like when you're a Christian is just doing less, but still being very active.And so. Then I went through a very, very messy divorce that kind of drove me into a downward spiral. Had a bit of a, a flirtatious dance with alcoholism. I like to say where you know, I, and nothing really mattered anymore. And I was trying to reconcile all the problems I had had with Christianity my whole life that I just kept kind of putting on the back burner.And I got burned by the church. My ex-spouse got burned by the church as well through the process of our divorce. And I was like, you know, I'm not sure, I'm not sure if all of this [00:06:00] is true. Fast forwarding through a lot of funny stories. You get to me living in a van, traveling with my cat across the country where I started to write my book, the cult of Christianity, how church's control, contain, and convert.So I wrote that book was expecting a lot of backlash, got some . But not as much as I was expecting, I suppose. So that was nice and refreshing. And then in early 20, 21 I was thinking of different ways to promote the book. And I was like, oh, a lot of authors have podcasts to promote their books.So let me do it that way. And I was like, but you know, probably only six people will listen or whatever, it'll be nothing. And then the podcast did way better than the book did and so I got to start interviewing people. I was very interested in interviewing, including Christians that's. Some of my favorite stuff to do is get into interviews with [00:07:00] Christians.And so that's kind of what I do now. And currently I'm between seasons, but it's really been rewarding to be able to talk about from both my experience and my expertise. How Christianity, especially white American evangelicalism functions as a cult. That's me. De'Vannon: Hallelujah, tabernacle and praiseSo we're gonna dig deep into everything that you just said. I wanted to get into your podcast artwork though. Mm-hmm cause it there's this huge guy standing on a pedestal platform or a chair or something like that. And then three minions surrounding him and bowing. And I couldn't tell, is that supposed to be God or is that supposed to be the church or a preacher?What does that, what does this artwork mean John: to you? Wow, this is FA nobody's ever asked me this. This is a great question. So I've gone through different iterations of artwork have even consulted with other people to update the artwork, cuz it's pretty [00:08:00] old at this point and I haven't been able to get away from it.And one of the main reasons is I love the non-descript nature of it. There it's it's for, for your audience, it's basically clip art and it looks you can't tell if it's. The gender, the race you can't tell if it's God or if it's a preacher. And I like that because I think that's a lot of what goes on at church who, who is being worshiped.Who's the one bowing, the knee, who's the one on the pedestal. So every time I've tried to make the artwork more grabby or more interesting, I end up saying more with it than I mean to but the, the, the, the way I interpret it and other people can interpret it. Other ways is cults have hierarchies.There's always leaders and followers. There's always one person or several people on pedestals, and then other people just basically having to [00:09:00] submit to their authority and in any environment where that is demanded, I think it can qualify as a cult. My three alliterative words are control containment, conversion.And so I hope that the art communicates like that's, if you were able to zoom out and take away all the social constructs, that's kind of what Christianity actually is concur. De'Vannon: Yeah. I appreciate the, I appreciate the the ambiguity of the huge figure. And I I've said the same thing myself and I've, and I've been, I've done this in the past, you know, worship to pastors without really realizing it.I worship the building, the worship leaders you know, anybody up on a stage and yeah. And, you know, so, and I learned in, in my hypnotherapy training, you know, when a person is on a stage, we subconsciously bow them in a way, you know, before we even realize that just by virtue of them being on a stage.And [00:10:00] we're not really as critical of people as we should be, just because they're on a stage. So you said your Bible college was credible at the time. Did they fall into some scandal or anything since you grew? Oh John: A handful it's moody Bible Institute. You can just Google moody Bible Institute, controversy, moody Bible Institute, title nine moody Bible Institute you know abuse, whatever while, while I was there, I mean about just while I was a student there were about.I would say at least two or three, pretty like nationally recognizable scandals. The thing is, it's such a small school that people forget about it very quickly. The campus I went to doesn't even exist anymore. It's it's shut down. They only have one campus now in Chicago and I believe they're struggling pretty hard.But yeah, the, the [00:11:00] what's funny though, is the education I received at the secondary campus, I would say was, was shockingly solid. It was, it was pretty good. But the culture was brutal. It was bad toxic from the top down. De'Vannon: Lie, scandals and John: deceptions. Yeah, the fun. So De'Vannon: a gondola , but you were pretty good.I read where you, you were one of two recipients of the, the moody Bible Institute, home tical jury award for outstanding ING in the year 20 scene. So does that mean you can hoop and holler or John: what? Yeah, I, I won preaching. So yeah, it was silly. It's it's so every graduating senior at moody Bible Institute, I believe on both campuses faces a Holi jury homily, just meaning sermons a jury, meaning people who judge youAnd so [00:12:00] you stand before, it's usually a panel. I think it's four judges, usually a preacher from the local community, the preaching prof. An administrator and another professor and yeah, scored almost perfect on my sermon. So it was fun. But can you imagine anything more boring than a bunch of 22 year olds preaching 30 minutes sermons for three to five hours over two days and sitting through them and marking them on how good their gestures are, their use of visual aids.Did I get the big idea of their sermon? That kind of thing. But I'm apparently I was really good at it, so I don't know what that says about me, but you, De'Vannon: you preached for three or to five hours straight for three John: days. Oh, I just preached 30 minutes, but there was the students rotate through. Okay.For hours. Yeah. Okay. So what De'Vannon: I'm curious about. You, you, you, you, you just said like a few of the things that they critique you on. [00:13:00] I wanna know exactly how they analyze a sermon for quality, because this is my gripe I have with, with this new culture where these churches, the, they pre-write the sermon, they gotta get previewed by the board or whatever, you know, before it's put out to the church, I feel like they're doing that so they can be sure they have certain keywords and phrases and everything.So they can effectively, still mind fuck the congregation. to me, it feels like it's not as authentic. You know, it as how, when you read, like, you know, the Hebrew Bible and everything like that, when those people preach, they just got up and spoke. It was the same thing were the preachers who raised me.There was none of this. I need to write it down shit. And so, yeah. What, what rubric, what are they checking for? John: Wow. This is a huge, I mean, this is worth a whole episode. I, I, I particularly enjoy deconstructing how servants work, because I think a lot of people don't [00:14:00] even know the process and there are a million different styles.So the camp I was trained in would be called big idea, preach. There are literally books about different styles and structures of sermons. But the I guess philosophy or, or ministry style I, I was trained in is called big idea preaching. Big idea. Preaching just means there's one big idea you're trying to get across throughout the whole sermon.It's you repeat one phrase? The sermon I won on the big idea was God lets us be lonely so that we will know he is our only which boy, is that a problematic statement? But, but it won. And so, so, so many things, one in, in the camp I'm trained in, you memorize your sermon, meaning you manuscript it, you type every single word you're going to [00:15:00] say, and you memorize it.You have no notes. And I'm very thankful for that, cuz it makes you an effective speaker. But when. I'm most cynical about my degree. I joke that I have a degree in Ted talks because that's kind of what sermons, at least in the more trendy churches are now. Some of the more old school, if you're in a traditional Protestant church, you might hear three point sermons that was very common.They'll usually have an alliteration or something like that, you know, three CS or, you know, four DS or whatever. Mm-hmm, kind of a point by point sermon that's pretty common. Most sermons are gonna have a, basically like a, a three part structure, a hook, you know, where you get people interested in listening to you.It could be a personal story or an anecdote from history or something like that. Then it's got the meat of the content that can look like reading through the Bible and commentary style, you know, where you're just commenting on the verses as you're going through, or it can [00:16:00] be principles you've drawn out.You might, this is where you would do word studies or talk about the original context and then application, or what, why is this relevant? Is usually the third part in the style I was trained in. And that third part is where you relate it back to Jesus and the gospel story. So sermons are very ordered and structured now in different eras of history, they have been different things.And even in the us, I mean, during the great awakening, they were very you know, fire in brimstone. We joke about that, but, but they were oftentimes off the top of the head and very impassioned different cultures worldwide have viewed sermons very differently. Sermons, in my opinion, didn't even really exist back in ancient Judaism they, they were more storytellers and, and so there might have been parables, but what we would think of [00:17:00] now as a sermon, I, I don't think quite existed until probably the apostolic era.Probably I don't even personally think Jesus preached sermons which is not a popular belief, but I think he was just speaking and people were following him. And some of it got written down. So, so sermons mean different things to different people. But if we're talking about the word preach and Greek, I mean, it really just means proclaiming or talking.It, it's not a thing that a special person ordained by a committee reviewed by peers is supposed to speak about, it's not an academic thing or at least it wasn't originally. So it's definitely turned into something quite different than it used to be.What do De'Vannon: you think about Joel Ostein? John: I love him. De'Vannon: wait. I bring him up. I know. I, I get to sarcasm in your toes. Yeah. I, I [00:18:00] bring him up because that's the church that I was at before I got kicked out. And mm-hmm, I talk about, I talk about Lakewood church a lot because that's where my greatest church trauma happened at.Had it been at beque church of God in Christ or Sally's church, or the way that I would talking about beque or Sally and not Joe Ostein, but that's just where the shit went down. And it just happens to be the largest church in America. And but it's convenient for my task. Since he is, since he does own the largest church in America, other churches look up to him and they try to emulate the things that they do.And so, and that's why I like to dissect them all the time, because you have a lot of people, there's people who even like stream and broadcast their service into like their gym auditorium. And that is their service. Right. At least the case when I still went there. So their influences is global mm-hmm what, what do you, what, what, just tell me what you think [00:19:00] about them.John: So I have a, probably the strangest X evangelical non-Christian anymore relationship with Joel Ostein in that everyone wants to talk about him. And they did when I was at Bible college too, like in, in a negative light. And he deserves a lot of it. Don't get me wrong. I mean, he is, he is very like outwardly Almost unapologetically in it for the money.I mean, you don't have to be a super like analytical person to just look at his church and go something doesn't add up here. The problem with him is he is a great scapegoat for more local churches and people who think they're better than Joel Ostein. And they're not doing the exact same things that Joel Ostein does.He's a great scapegoat for them to say, yeah, you gotta watch out for wolves and sheeps closing, like Joel Ostein instead of facing how they operate Colts in very similar ways. So [00:20:00] that's kind of the angle I come at it from don't get me wrong. Everything negative anyone's ever said about Joel Ostein is probably true.But he does not scare me as much as the local churches do. Primarily because local churches don't have a national audience. They're not under the same kind of microscope. They can get away with a lot more. So those are just my initial thoughts, but I'm happy to dig into more De'Vannon: dissect the preaching style.So when I was there, people used to, you know, criticize him for being too happy. They would say people would jump up in the middle of a sermon and holler and stuff before security and their asses out of the building and stuff like that. I'd show up the church and there'd be protestors and everything like that.I thought all of that was a bit extreme. Mm-hmm but, but I don't know. I mean, on the one hand, I [00:21:00] was like, I'm happy to hear something happy instead of the fire in the Bri me Stoney. But since after I got kicked out of there, I went through so much bad stuff. The person I am now like a message, like his would be too, like Milky, like it wouldn't sustain.Like it, it doesn't really speak to deep shit. John: Yeah. Well, so the it's kind of like the concept of toxic positivity, right. He, and, and in Christian circles, they'll call it the prosperity gospel. So yeah, I think that's bad. I think it's bad not to be able to admit that life is tough and hard and like has bad things in it.And when you're unable to articulate that it's suspicious. I because the background I came from was never positive and toxically cynical. Again, Joel Ostein doesn't trigger me as much. I'm like, oh look, someone being a nice person. Who's a Christian. That's refreshing. [00:22:00] So, so that's kind of what I, I think, but I will say, so I read, I read your best life now.And I, you know, I was in a culture that thought Joel Ostein was the devil. And so I always kind of was more charitable towards him than a lot of other people. But as far as the preaching style, he's a great speaker and people who emulate him are gonna be great speakers. Why? Because it's the same formula Ted talks do.You can watch a Ted talk and think it's the most amazing thing you've ever heard. And then you sit back for another five minutes and you're like, I have no idea what they actually. Like, I, I don't, I don't know if they said anything of value at all, or if they just have such a good speaking style that it was engaging, regardless of whether the material was actually relevant to anythingSo I think the same thing goes on with Joel Ostein. I think it's nice to listen to 'em it feels good. And then you sit back and you go, you didn't really say anything like nothing, [00:23:00] nothing profound was said, I De'Vannon: concur. And y'all when he says your best life. Now he's talking about Joel's first book. And I read that one too.And I agree with you. I was like, and even as I was going to church there for all those years, it got to a point, well, the sermons started being repeated from time to right. And then I would kind of be like and especially now that I'm away from it, I'm like the fuck that you really just say , but you know, that's a part of the whole.Hypnosis aspect of it, you know, by the time you're done with all the laser lights and the worship and the smoke fog and everything like that, your critical mind is blasted. Like you don't have any yeah. You're just open to whatever the fuck is going to be said. And and what you said about it being a formula, it's true.Like I see the same shit replicated in all the OST stings, the way they preach. Mm-hmm, be it, the ones there at Lakewood or their extended family to have other churches in Texas and stuff like that. [00:24:00] And the way they all crank out these books and everything, you know, it finally collected me when, like, this is not it's like, so like rare and special.This is not necessarily God saying thou shall preach this. Or thou she write this book, right. Bitch has got an ABC 1 23 algorithm. And you're just repeating the same shit over again. Mm-hmm and then my problem is with that is that they don't share it to the whole world. Like they're only giving it to like their select few people.Yeah, John: well, any good business model, you don't give away all your content for free, right? And churches are no different. You know, they, they claim everything is free. But it's not, it's, it's a, it's an MLM. It's you know, the, and, and that comes in my opinion, from their theological perspective, that all you need to have a good life is to just believe Jesus was God.I mean, that's a crazy formula to assume, and it comes with a million asterisk because you can [00:25:00] believe Jesus is God, but then all of a sudden you have to serve in the church. You have to have these kind of sexual practices. You have to raise this kind of family. You there's a lot of strings attached the further in you goDe'Vannon: hallelujah, tabernacle and praise. So I wanna go back to this divorce, so sure. How do you identify sexually? John: I don't no, I I I, for, for the sake of my queer friends, I will say that I am SISs head to society. SISs head SISs head SISs head as I'm a cisgender man heterosexual. Sure. Yeah, we'll just go with that.Personally. My, my personal feelings about sexuality is everybody's on a spectrum. The labels are helpful sometimes, but for broad stroke purposes, but if [00:26:00] you actually wanted to get to know me, a simple conversation with a simple label will never do the trick. Oh. De'Vannon: So I might get to have my way with you yet.John: gotta keep the hope alive. De'Vannon: Hercules Hercules. And so, yeah, so, so. I wanna know just how nasty it got with this divorce. Cause I've talked to people like I was kicked out cause they found out I wasn't straight. And they were like, basically you're pedophile will give you conversion therapy if you want it.Other than that, you can't stay. Yeah. So when, and I, but I I've heard of churches treating people who get divorced the same way. Like I don't think getting divorced is I have a lot of opinions on that, but just tell me what happened. I wanna know just, just how nasty did they get? John: Yeah. So I I'll mention, you know, there's obviously parts that I'll omit just outta respect for my expo.But what I will say is it, it came about suddenly it wasn't directly related to any [00:27:00] spiritual issues. We were both, I mean we met at Bible college. So, you know, there, there were expectations that went along with that that I think. Both of us had expectations that changed as we got older, but had no tools to communicate them because we were so indoctrinated to do it a Christian way, but the Christian way did not fit what we wanted to be in our life.So and I wish I was as mature as I am now to, I, I would never have been able to articulate that while it was happening. And, and I was a pretty bad husband. I, I do take 99, if not a hundred percent of the responsibility for that marriage ending. But as far as how it related to the church, they wanted to be so involved and basically micromanage the process of us getting [00:28:00] back together, which initially was both of our goals.When we first separated, we did, we didn't do a clean break. You know, we were. She they had moved out and we were trying to you know, figure out if there was a path forward. And we were, you know, seeing a relationship coach we were actually communicating better than we ever had, but the church was concerned that our relationship coach wasn't, you know, a biblical counselor or whatever.And every time they would meet with us, which we met with them a lot both the head pastor and associate pastor it was like a very mob like, or mafia, like where, you know, well, what are you, are you doing it this way? You know, what, what kind of do, are you interested in our community? I, we would sometimes skip church, right?Because we were exhausted cuz it was an exhausting time and every time we skip church, they would say, even if it's too triggering for y'all to come to ours, you'd need to be going somewhere. [00:29:00]You should never skip church basically. And so it, it, it. It really hurt because by this point I had been burned by churches in big ways, at least two times prior.And so this was definitely a final straw moment for me because I knew what to expect and it happened. And it was just kind of like the, the two previous experiences had really led me to believe that churches can be really toxic, but they're not supposed to be. And the third one was kind of the, the, you know, what do they say in comedy?Two is a suggestion, three confirms the pattern. It was a confirming the pattern that, oh, this is what churches do. This isn't like exception to the rule anymore. They make people feel like crap if they don't do things their way. And it hurt really bad. So that was all kind of vague. I can get [00:30:00]into some more of the details, but, but in general, the idea was.If I did not follow a very specific pass path, I was not going to be welcome regardless of the fact that I had more religious education than most of the congregation, regardless of the fact that I had been a pastoral intern and youth pastor with them, regardless of the fact that I had written some of their policies to protect their children because they had none, regardless of all this effort I had put in, it didn't matter.I was still under their control. De'Vannon: What do you think gives churches the this, this notion that they can poke their nose and the people's personalized? Why do John: they're they're divinely appointed to do so in their head? I mean, that's, that's why they're there. God has put them there to watch over the F.I mean, this is, it is it's from top to bottom, their mentality. [00:31:00] There's there's leaders and followers at church. There always will be because that's, that's the structure that has, has come about. And Catholicism it's stark, right? Like it's, it's obvious, like you have the Pope, you have priests. It's a very, like, you know, they'll even be like you know what clergy is supposed to be abstinent depending on who you ask, but most would say are supposed to be abstinent.I mean, there's like these hu and dressed differently. I mean, these are huge markers, the same things present in evangelicalism and Protestantism. It's just more secretive. It's not as out to the public. They dress different, they talk different, they look different, they eat different. They have different schedules.Everything is different between leaders and follow. Because De'Vannon: when I was and all, all of those activities reinforces the hypnosis and the mind. Fuck. Yeah. Cause it was, I was at Lakewood. They would bring me into the office and ask me if I had a girlfriend. Yeah. You know, see what I'm John: like. It [00:32:00] matters like yeah.De'Vannon: You know, like and that's a huge problem I have with Joel because when he gets on camera, he's all like, everyone's welcome, you know, case sirrah. Yeah. But then he has these policies going on behind closed door that are very discriminatory. Some people have even alleged, possibly legal, you know, and stuff like that.And and so it's just really like a trip. And so you said that you wrote policies to protect children, protect them from. John: Well, just like with any church, you should have policies about you know, relationships with youth ministers and, and kids and, and policies about you know, if, if you're gonna do like any kind of field trips with kids, that kind of stuff, you should just have policies things for parents to sign, just to protect you legally.It's, it's honestly as much to protect the church as anything else from, from lawsuits. But in my opinion, you should also just wanna protect kids from [00:33:00] abuse. And they just didn't have, I mean, they were a pretty young church plant and they just didn't have any after I was pretty much shown the door at that church, I learned they, the policies, they said they weren't gonna use that.I had written, they ended up using them anyways and plagiarizing and saying someone else had written them, not my biggest the biggest crime anyone's ever done against me. So I'm like, I'm happy those policies are there. so it's fine. But yeah, I mean, it's, it's just, it was kind of the, the toxicity of that environment, De'Vannon: because I was wondering.Like when I signed up the volunteering in the kids department at Lakewood, they had like a clause on their saying specifically that they did not want any homosexual serving around their children. Wow. John: That's specific. Dang, because De'Vannon: they hold a they're, they're the type of people who are like, you're either straight or a pedophile and that's wild and that's just where they're at on that.There is no spectrum for them. And so and so when you said you wrote policies to protect children, I was wondering if it was that same sort of anti LGBTQ thing? No, [00:34:00]John: no, I I've I at my most evangelical and at my most bigoted, which I, I would say I was still bigoted. I still never believed in othering.Queer people. It just never, it never got in at that indoctrination. She never sat in there. it just didn't work. My best friend she's trans and we grew up in the same church together. Same churches actually, when I switched changed churches in high school her family did as well. And so when, when sh I, I, even before she came out, like, I, I wasn't super gung-ho about being bigoted.I always thought Westboro was evil, even at my most evangelical, like, you know, that kind of vitriol hate. I never understood, but I would still say, you know, the bigoted things of like, it's not the best way to please God or some bullshit like that. But but yeah, a after she came out and I started reading [00:35:00] more I kind of took the opinion.I was like, even if it is a sin, which I probably did still think it was. I just was like, it just doesn't seem like that big of a deal. like, I, and it's also someone else's business and it probably didn't help at the time that I had my own hatred towards my own sexuality. You know, even just like masturbating felt like, you know, very shameful to me.So I probably thought it was all garbage. So like who cares which is not necessarily the health healthiest mindset. So no, by the time I was, I was writing church policy. I was not I was not like, yeah. And make sure they're not gay, that, that wasn't in my head at all.Hallelujah. De'Vannon: Tabernacle and praise. What, what for you, do you feel like is the deepest, the deepest [00:36:00] religious or church trauma that you received from your time? I agree with you. It really, really sucks when you've served at a church for a while and you have this history and stuff like that, and it all gets discarded right along with you, because in their opinion, you have fallen from grace.You've done any, you know, you've, you've, you know, none of it, none of it matters. You know, the years that I was at Lakewood and the, the 10, the 10, 12 hours you know, the 10 to 12 hours that I was there every week and stuff like that, you know, it's all great. And we can't replace you. We can't do it without you, until they find the blemish.Then suddenly, you know what, we have a new person coming in today and your services are like, you know, no longer need you're fired from everything. Goodbye. Unless of course you do our conversion therapy package. For me it felt like a [00:37:00] bad breakup. It can, yeah, terrible breakup and It was like the end of a relationship.And, and that is my deepest church or religious trauma that I have ever experienced anywhere. So I'm wondering what it is for you. John: Yeah, it's really hard to rank trauma because it all kind of compounds and turns into the same, cuz you know, even if it's not religious trauma, even if it's any kind of trauma, typically you're going to experience similar kinds of trauma throughout your life.Just based on your personality type, your ways of thinking, how you develop as a child, those kind of factors. So it's hard for me to just like pick a, like a silo, like, oh, this one is the, is the kick. I like to talk about my first one, which is it's a very first chapter in my book. I talk about [00:38:00] being I had written a letter to the pastor and elders at 16 years old at the church I was attending. And I I felt that they were not treating the, the youth, the young, young adults and teenagers very well at that church. They weren't being very respectful towards youth and they had different problematic teachings that I was identifying at 16 years old.And so when I'd written this letter, they said, well, let's talk about it. And so they called me into the church into this horrible, like boardroom meeting. And it really did, like, I don't know if you ever watched the apprentice I did. And like that kind of boardroom, it was just very daunting.And they, they, it was three, the three elders I knew the best. And my parents and I and [00:39:00] I actually asked to do it alone. I was like, this is my deal. I wrote the letter. My parents don't need to be here. And so my parents asked if they'd be comfortable with that. So so they asked, they asked my parents, if it was okay, if I faced them alone, they said, yes. And They just ripped into me for like two to three hours. They called my long hair sinful. That was the big, the big thing I took with me, which is why to this day I still have long hair.And they, you know, said the way we dressed was like the world. They said we hugged the female youth too long, me and my, my best friend and just all this crazy stuff. And it was the first time. And, and what was so crazy about it? They were using scripture so wrongly to justify all their shitty opinions, like clearly like no sane person knowing the context or what the [00:40:00] verses even said themselves would use it.There's that verse that says, let no one despise you for your youth. They use that to say, and that means you shouldn't be worthy of SPR of despise. like, it literally communicates the opposite of that. And so that was the first moment. So I think. I obviously experienced in my opinion, probably worse trauma later related to churches.But I think that was of the aha moment of, oh, even if I'm gonna remain a Christian, I really need to pay attention to what they're actually saying and why they're saying it. So that's the one that sticks with me and probably is responsible for some of my current trust issues. My current anxieties that kind of thing.De'Vannon: It's funny to me how, when it's convenient, these preachers wanna be like, Hey, don't be like the world. Don't, don't fuck with be Zub, you know, and don't [00:41:00] do all that. But when it comes time, you know, time for something that is going to to benefit them, Then they want to be like the world. And so I see this when it comes time to the way they structure the church business models.Yeah. When they pay out salaries and shit like that when they organize the churches behind the scenes and form them mezz like LLCs and shit like that, you know, they don't pay taxes and stuff like that. That's one of my biggest gripes against Lakewood because my friend Barry Bowen, who works with the Trinity foundation in Texas, which investigates churches and stuff like that did, did, did some digging and found out that Lakewood church only has like one actual member on file.You know, it's run by the whole, the whole family is on the board. It's just a bunch of, EENs making all the decisions, but, you know, Which is a very like worldwide thing, you know, there's no voting happening. There's no [00:42:00] congregation, no involvement in decisions and stuff like that. So on the one hand, it's like, Hey, you all are a member, but not really.you know, it's just like in word indeed. So we're gonna pay everyone at church corporate salaries, like the world, we're gonna go business model, like the world, we in a structure, our goddamn sermons, like the motherfucking world, but we don't want y'all to hug too much cuz that would be too worldly and don't drink and for God's sake, cause don't go to a gay bar cause we can't have you looking like the world?No, can we John: yeah. Well and, and again, no notice that pattern. Who can look like the world and who can't, the leaders can look like the world, the followers cannot. The leaders, the, the same rules do not apply to both leaders and followers in church. And what's funny is they would teach with, with their words.They would say, because leaders are held to a higher standard, but time and time. And again, we find they're held to a much lower standard than [00:43:00] followers are. De'Vannon: These are the hypocrites that Jesus warned us about. John: Yeah, Jesus doesn't seem like he was that big of a fan of religious leaders. So no, De'Vannon: he really wasn't though.And, and I wanna give a shout out to my homeboy, Steven, from the book of acts who also threw all the shade at the religious leaders too. He got his ass stoned for it, but you know what? A great honor that Jesus stood up from his position, seated at the right hand of God to receive him at his death. So I'm hashtag team Steven all the way.Fuck the preachers. Fuck the Pope. Fuck every goddamn damn body, but yay God. And so, so I'm gonna switch gears now to your, particularly to your podcast up until now. We just kind of like been talking yeah. About you. So your podcast are called Christianity. I wanna read just some of the titles. I think the titles are just like really titillating [00:44:00] mm-hmm Conversion therapy, Catholicism and Protestant Protestantism.There's so much history between Catholicism and protest Protestantism because my friend Jeffrey Crans runs a website called overview bible.com and he get, he has these really colorful pictures that breaks down like the Bible and shit like that, and is really super fantastic. And I cannot wait to have them on my show, but, you know, from him, I learned, you know, originally like the Catholics had like said like 73 books of the Bible and the Protestants had like 66 and it was like this whole thing and shit like that.And I really don't like the Catholic church. Let's see mental health too narcissism marketing divorce, faith versus works afterlife. And then religious freedom, which is one that I pulled a few questions from. Okay. So [00:45:00] So you talk about like what, what, what, what we've been lied to about. And I was happy to listen to your podcast and hear your own words, echo some of my greatest gripes bitches, moans legitimate complaints against the church.And I don't know if they all meant well, if they were just trying to give us their versions of the truth. So they didn't trust us to make up our own damn minds. But I think about how, like when I was raised and they told me don't drink any alcohol at all, because it's all terrible and bad, don't do any drugs at all because they're all terrible and bad.Don't masturbate. Don't look at porn, don't dance, secular music. Don't go to the bar. And as I've gotten older, now, I realize there's actually therapeutic uses for drugs. And the Lord said not to get drunk, but not to have it, you know, not to not have any of it at all. So if you lied about this, then now I don't trust anything else you have to say.Mm-hmm . And so what do you think about that? John: Yeah, well, alcohol is the drug I have the most experience with. So [00:46:00] you know, and so Christianity, especially the American variety has a really strange relationship with alcohol. There's certainly like subcultures kind of like Baptist are, are the ones that come to mind that take a very anti alcohol stance which is odd since if what's reported about Jesus is to be believed.He definitely drank and enabled people to drink. So it's weird to be a complete tea total, but I would also guess that among Christian cultures, alcohol's probably the most abused drug among them because they're, it's not seen as taboo in the us as some of the other drugs. So, so either way, in my opinion, with alcohol, it's kind of one of those things where if they're prohibiting it it's for the sake of their control, if they're abusing it, it's for the sake of control or containment or coping with [00:47:00]what they're dealing with, you know, so to me, it, it always will just go back to the controlling containment and conversion.So yeah, as far as like how they present that and lie and, and make it, you know, either add rules that aren't present in, in scripture or early Christianity. So my perspective probably goes like this, I think. I think Jesus was the first to reduce a lot of rules. And then ever since him, every Christian has added rules, I think Paul added rules, I think actually most of the apostles added rules personally.I think that a lot of the early church was trying to figure out what it was like to not have as many rules as the previous versions of Judaism. I think that Constantine made all these religious rules now have a relationship with [00:48:00] the, the state and with governments, you know, I think after the east west schism, there were, you.At the, the east Orthodox church and the Roman Catholic church had arguments about how you interpreted the nice creed and, and created more rules out of one creed. I mean, it just, it, it snowballs to the point where you're in the United States and your average church is just going to say things that are, that don't have a source in the Bible that don't have a source in historical understandings of Judaism that don't have historical understandings of what's reported about Jesus.So the lies, whether they're intentional or not don't really matter. It's just, it's so distant. It's hard to even comprehend or trust much of any of it, in my opinion. Mm-hmm De'Vannon: and you were saying like on this particular episode about religious freedoms, how [00:49:00] you feel like the religious freedoms most often protect.Like already established religions. Yeah. As opposed to individual people's religious freedoms. And you give a really nice history of how there used to be all these Christian mandates at different states. And they used to have to recite belief in the Trinity or stuff like that. I think like in Massachusetts.So speak to us about how the religious freedom in this country is really more for organized religion and not John: the person. Well, it's, it's, it's not very much freedom or religion, right? Like it's, , it's it's it's politics more or less. I mean, freedom. The word freedom means very little in Christianity across the board.In my opinion, I the only freedom that I ever resonated with was this idea of freedom in Christ. And now looking back, I'm not sure how much I even resonated with that idea. There's this whole problem of free will of like, does God control everything or are we. Just kind of robots following a script [00:50:00] or are we just doing whatever we want and God judges us based on it.I mean, it's, it's very confusing when you start getting into the idea of freedom and Christianity specifically, but true religious freedom would look like I can practice my religion in any way that doesn't harm others or myself. That's, that's pretty simple. I don't know what that has to do with abortion.I don't know what that has to do with marriage. I don't, I, I don't understand what the disconnect is there. From a rational perspective, I really didn't understand it that much when I was a Christian, even when I thought that gay marriage was sinful, whatever, I thought that meant, I thought it should be legal, cuz it didn't make any sense.Right? It's like, well, marriage is a legal process in the country. It's it's the same word. Clearly means something different to Christians than it does to non-Christian. So why should we be regulating what other people do? Again, that, that [00:51:00] controlling that cult-like mentality of thing, everyone needs to do it our way or get out.That's present in this, this idea of religious freedom which really, again, it's just a, it's just, , it's just a lie. I mean, it, it really just means Christian exceptionalism. I mean, that's probably the, the best term for what it's actually describing De'Vannon: hall, tabernacle and praise. And you also were saying like how the religious rules, the people, and now this is all.White men making up all these rules and shit like that. One of my biggest gripes is that when all this shit was done, when king James, who, according to the book of queer documentary on the discovery channel king, James himself, the author of the king James Bible was a big old queer honey, if you haven't seen it, you need to watch it.You know, all these people, these are all just like white homies. [00:52:00] They didn't have women at the table. They didn't have indigenous people at the table. They didn't have other racists. And certainly not black people, not in this country. We were only three fourths of a person for fuck's sake, you know, for so long, they didn't give a shit about what any of us had to say.And so, so it is impossible that the Bible was interpreted, translated and put together and all of this with everybody in mind, this was written white perspective, you know, Sounds about white. Let me see here. Mm-hmm so, so you said that, you know, religious, the religious rules were designed though by some white man who had some God sense because not every white, white boy is a fucking fool.You actually have some John: good one. We mostly are though. just to be very clear. We're mostly fools. I was gonna say De'Vannon: it. And so if you were saying like the, the few good white men actually put these religious rules in place to protect the church from hurting people, you were saying really didn't originate from within the church.The church had their own way. They would've spun out all [00:53:00] Willy nilly. So talk about how the, the rules are really designed to, to, to stop the church from becoming a monster, even though it did anyway. John: Yes. You're talking about some of the founding fathers at the beginning of the, yeah, so, so the, so first of all, not only were they white guys, they were white young guys, the worst kind you know, at the, at the founding of our country and like.It's there's there was so much religious tension at the founding of our, you almost never hear this, but like it's, you don't have to look far. You can just read what these guys wrote. They like, some of them thought Christianity was the worst thing that has ever happened in history and wrote explicitly saying that, I mean, I'm paraphrasing slightly.I might be paraphrasing in a nicer way than what they were saying. And then there were some who thought it should be a theocracy straight. Puritans very much had this mentality that we just need to be [00:54:00] completely different from the church of England. That's what we need to be. Then you had you know, like you had clashing of cultures at the beginning that state to state the religious culture was different in the original 13 colonies.You know, the north was much more well, I'll start with the south. The south was much more like Calvinist and like formal. The, the middle colonies had much more of this kind of quakes, like approach to spirituality. And then the north was creating something new entirely. I mean, it was, we've always been divided.There's never been like a Christian nationalist foundation. There's never been a Christian nation in that sense. And there's also never been like a completely anti-religion vein through what was written. History's complicated. and sometimes we're just too dumb or too lazy to actually take a look and read about all the different things that are going on in an era and just read what the winners said.And that's really [00:55:00] irresponsible in my opinion. So yes, there were some rules that were trying to protect people. The first amendment was supposed, was never supposed to be. Churches can do whatever they want. It was always supposed to be we'll keep the church under the law. As long as the church understands, they are not above the law, they can do whatever they want.That was what the first amendment was supposed to be. Now it means churches are above the law. They can have those tax exemptions. They can abuse people and deal with it internally, unlike businesses or other organizations, they can exempt themselves from title IX stuff, which is what protects people from being sexually abused on college campuses.They can exempt themselves from that. This is the kind of craziness we're dealing with now. And you can only do that if you're master manipulators, who are the, the largest cult that's ever existed, goddamn. De'Vannon: Okay. [00:56:00] So John: In my opinion, I should always say that just after everything, say De'Vannon: child, it is what it is.You know, I pray for people to take their own look at stuff. And it's hard cause you know, people are raised as kids into this cult, you know? And so trying to unwind, fuck somebody, you know, as bad as it is. I thank God for all of the knowledge that's also available. Yeah. Because it's not like you have to go dig up a, a thick ass concordance.Like what I had when I was in, you know, learning and shit, right. That you can like Google shit. You can watch documentaries. You can listen to podcasts. There's so many books about the fuckery of the church. And so a person is only going to stay ignorant if they kinda wanna stay ignorant in this day time.So it's like the worst it gets. I feel like God is also still giving us a way out of it or a reprieve, you know, to some people. John: Yeah. Well, I, I agree. I would say the unfortunate thing about the information age. It is great. It is great that you can [00:57:00] access. I, I I'm partial to books. I think articles are fine, but really to get to know history, especially read a whole book.But I will say what's unfortunate about that is as equal to the truth as we have in the information age, just as much propaganda is out there and Christians are propaganda making machines. They've been doing it for a long time. They're better at it than anybody. So I, I want to hope, oh, with all this information, a kid who's struggling with church will be able to, you know, watch a TikTok video, go down an internet rabbit hole and find out all this good stuff.The problem is they can also go down a rabbit hole and become a school shooter. They can go down a rabbit hole and become a Christian nationalist just as easy. So that's quite frightening to me.So true. So true. De'Vannon: Well, well, people better get close to God and gain spiritual understanding, you know? Yeah. That way you can have some discernment about what it is that's [00:58:00] being presented to you and be able to detect whether or not it's good or bad. John: Discernment's very important spiritual or not, but yes, having a discerning mind and, and I'm not anti spiritual personally.So I think there's definitely a a route that, of spirituality that can be very positive and good for both your own soul and for other people.De'Vannon: Should I throw a touch of shade? Do it. I'm just going to say, say, and I'm talking about Paula white mm-hmm and again, Jolo thing just because why not? I just think it's really, really fucked up when as separated church and state is supposed to be, you see people like Paul White.Hanging out with Donald Trump, you know, of course he was surrounded by evangelicals anyway. And I just, I really, it just really bugs me. You know, I got kicked out of Lakewood for hanging out in S in the gay district, you know, when I wasn't at church. And then Joe [00:59:00] Osen was on stage with Kanye west, you know, who is the last time I checked.Isn't exactly like, you want your kids to grow up and be like that guy, you know, John: he went off the rails. Holy cow. Which time . Yeah, exactly. De'Vannon: do you mean when he was on stage with Joel or some? Just in general. John: Oh, he is just author. Yeah. I mean, just post-Trump era, just post Trump, era Kanye. I mean, he's always been a little bit narcissistic and crazy, but like, man, he really took it to 11 after, after that.And De'Vannon: so it just, it just baffles me, but I guess it doesn't. We don't really know these preachers. We just know the face that put on. When they're in front of the camera, we don't really know them motherfuckers, you know, for you to think that it is a high moral ground to break bread with Kanye west on stage.You know, [01:00:00] I don't get that, you know, and then to be like, Donald Trump is the greatest person. He's the savior of God he's sent, I don't get this. So John: yeah. Unfortunately I feel like I do get it. I feel like it fits perfectly only because from my understanding of the development of Christianity it narcissists are rewarded.I mean, that's just what it does. It rewards an narcissism. And so yes, I, I think it's very sad and upsetting when yeah. Jesus who might have been, I'm really gonna say something controversial. Jesus, who was probably queer himself. Would've definitely Spent more time with, in a, in a gay community than he would've with a, a president.I mean that, I think that's a it's it would be crazy to characterize Jesus any other way. That De'Vannon: do be facts though, because when he was here, he did hang [01:01:00] out with the unpopular people. You know, it was him who defended the, the town who, you know, with him hanging out the John: ma the majority of Christians, even after Jesus died for the first hundred years, war prostitutes, criminals and tax collectors, the outcast of society, those for the first hundred years.And, and probably a little bit after that, but definitely those first a hundred that's who wanted to be Christians, there was a version of Judaism that now accepted those people. Whereas before there was a version of Judaism that would never accept those kinds of people.De'Vannon: So you're saying you believe like Paula white, Joel Ostein, and a lot of these religious people are straight up narcissists. John: Well, you have to be to being right. I mean, to, to do, to have the kind of image they do. I mean, I find, I have to fight narcissism with a small podcast, right? Like, I can't imagine having that many people looking at you.You said something earlier where you said we, we see these preachers, but we [01:02:00] don't really know who they are. I don't think they know who they are because the the religion messes with your head when I was just preaching to a youth group or getting paid to, you know, go across state lines to give a sermon or whatever.I, I didn't have time for introspection. I was a narcissist as much as anyone. It's part of why I was such a bad husband. I, I, you get in your head about these things automatically. It's a, it's a toxic system from the top down and no one is exempt from the, the horrible mindsets it can instill in you. De'Vannon: Give me more of this.Give me an example of a narcissistic thought, a narcissistic thing that you did than you feel like is common among preachers. John: Well, yeah, it's hard for, it's harder to think. It's not like a thought it's like your, okay, so this is gonna, might be long winded. So I apologize if it [01:03:00] is. If you narcissism is primarily bred when it's not like an actual mental disorder, but when it comes about later in life, it's primarily bred from an apathetic mindset, meaning you don't care about anything when you don't care about anything.The only thing that grounds you to reality is yourself. That's it. That's all you've got because you have to live in your body. You have to wake up, you have to go to sleep, you have to eat, you have to do these things. So the only real reality is yourself. So. It rather than having thoughts people treat the word narcissism, like it just means like abusing people or something.Narcissism is unfortunately way deeper rooted than that. It's an inability to get outside yourself in the way it ends up coming out in a more so sociopathic way, meaning you don't care about right or wrong, you [01:04:00] end up just living your life, devoid of taking into account other people's feelings. So for me, one of the biggest regrets of my life is how, when I was married, I just did not give a shit about my spouse's feelings.I just didn't care. My feelings mattered more than theirs. It wasn't like a conscious decision where I was like, woke up and was like, well, what I want matters and what they want. Doesn't that wasn't my mentality. It was bred in, it was a state of mind where I would want to do something that they, and they would want to do something else.And I won because I cared more about what I wanted to do than what they wanted to do. It applies in church culture, too. Pastors, you see it all the time as a pastoral intern, I, I had another pastoral intern with me. We had a great, I idea for a homeless ministry that would've been so great. It was basically like make a little, I, I lived in Spokane Washington at the time, huge homeless community.I was like, [01:05:00] why don't we make little kits? Like just, you know, protein bars, socks, like, you know, just, just something to lift their day. We can get the whole church together to put the together these boxes and then distribute them. Then we're meeting people and we're serving people and it's great. And everyone's involved and it's cool.The pastor was resistant to it for bullshit reasons. What size socks is would we get, would we be competing with other homeless ministries in the area? What are we talking about? at this point? And so it ended up not coming to fruition because I think two things, one, I think he thought his thoughts were more valuable than ours.And two, I think he was scared because if I'm able to do ministry better than he is, that's a threat, you know? And, and, and I don't think he was like the most narcissistic person I've ever met in my life. I just think it's bred into the culture. A preacher is gonna be either De'Vannon: really, really, really strong or really, [01:06:00] really, really, really weak mm-hmm okay.And that's just the way it is that the problem is you can't just look at them and tell on which side of the fence they're falling. Right. You will rarely ever hear a preacher say, they're sorry. About anything. John: And when they, without a million caveats, at least at least a De'Vannon: million, and when they change their, I hear them say some shit like this.When they, when they find out they've been wrong about something, they'll say like a, I don't preach that the way I used to, or my, my thinking is evolving. So basically bitch, you're saying you were wrong. And then, so you're not gonna apologize to the people who you misinformed for the past years before your mind changed.Nope. John: Well, and even if they do, this is where the narcissism comes in. Even if there's apology, the apology, isn't about the people hurt. The apology is about them and their growth. And you know how, oh, I, you know, when I was a young preacher, when I was preaching at 24, I was wrong about this, this and this, but now listen to how great I am.Like you're saying, who cares about all those people? He hurt [01:07:00] it's about him or, or she now be progressive there's evil women pastors now too. Gotta be, gotta be progressive progress at that. De'Vannon: Yeah, you're right. They have a lot of eye statements and stuff like that, and they don't care. And, and it's in the book of Jeremiah, I think 21 where the Lord has a gripe against these preachers who, who scatter his sheep and is flock and they don't turn around and go and look for them.And you know, all of us who've been kicked out discarded and everything like that. Like when I got kicked out, no one called no one wrote, no one did anything. Right. You know, I don't know if I was just classified as a heretic and just, just gone. But I mean, the PA the priest, the priest was supposed to put a concerted effort into getting anybody who they lose instead of just charging along trucking along and just writing more books and selling out more arenas and filling, you know, getting more money, you know, you know, fuck a next book, bitch.You lost a member. You're supposed to stop everything to go and find them. [01:08:00]John: Yeah, that that mentality has honestly never been a as, as long as churches have existed. That's never been the attitude of church leadership. Even if it was supposedly commanded by Jesus it's it's, it's never been present in history.Oh, well, De'Vannon: shit. So then the last thing that we're going to talk about and we're gonna have to have you back on and really dig into your book. Mm-hmm ca

Augmented reveals the stories behind the new era of industrial operations, where technology will restore the agility of frontline workers. In episode 17 of the podcast (@AugmentedPod), the topic is: Smart Manufacturing for All. Our guest is John Dyck, CEO at CESMII, the Smart Manufacturing Institute.After listening to this episode, check out CESMII as well as John Dyck's social profile:CESMII: (@CESMII_SM) https://www.cesmii.org/ John Dyck: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnsdyck/ In this conversation, we talked about  democratizing smart manufacturing, the history and ambition of CESMII (2016-), bridging the skills gap in small and medium enterprises which constitute 98% of manufacturing. We discuss how the integration of advanced sensors, data, platforms and controls to radically impact manufacturing performance. We then have the hard discussion of why the US is (arguably) a laggard? John shares the 7 characteristics of future-proofing (interoperability, openness, sustainability, security, etc.). We hear about two coming initiatives: Smart Manufacturing Executive Council & Smart Manufacturing Innovation Platform. We then turn to the future outlook over the next decade.Trond's takeaway: US manufacturing is a bit of a conundrum. How can it both be the driver of the international economy and a laggard in terms of productivity and innovation, all at the same time? Can it all be explained by scale--both scale in multinationals and scale in SMEs? Whatever the case may be, future proofing manufacturing, which CESMII is up to, seems like a great idea. The influx of smart manufacturing technologies will, over time, transform industry as a whole, but it will not happen automatically.Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at Augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars. If you liked this episode, you might also like episode 8 on Work of the Future, episode 5 Plug-and-play Industrial Tech, or episode 9 The Fourth Industrial Revolution post-COVID-19. Augmented--the industry 4.0 podcast. Transcript: TROND: Augmented reveals the stories behind a new era of industrial operations where technology will restore the agility of frontline workers. In Episode 17 of the podcast, the topic is Smart Manufacturing for All. Our guest is John Dyck, CEO at CESMII, the Smart Manufacturing Institute. In this conversation, we talked about democratizing smart manufacturing, the history, and ambition of CESMII, bridging the skills gap in small and medium enterprises, which constitute 98% of manufacturing. We discuss how the integration of advanced sensors, data, platforms, and controls radically impact manufacturing performance. We then have the hard discussion of why the U.S. is, arguably, a laggard. John shares the seven characteristics of future-proofing. And we hear about two coming initiatives: Smart Manufacturing Executive Council & Smart Manufacturing Innovation Platform. We then turn to the future outlook over the next decade. Augmented is a podcast for leaders hosted by futurist, Trond Arne Undheim, presented by Tulip.co, the manufacturing app platform and associated with MFG.works, the manufacturing upskilling community launched at the World Economic Forum. Each episode dives deep into a contemporary topic of concern across the industry and airs at 9:00 a.m. U.S. Eastern Time, every Wednesday. Augmented — the Industry 4.0 podcast. John, how are you today? JOHN: I'm well, Trond. How are you? TROND: I'm doing well. I'm looking forward to talking about smart manufacturing. What brought you to this topic, John? We'll get into your background. But I'm just curious. JOHN: This is my favorite topic, as you probably know. So I appreciate the chance to pontificate a little. I've been at this nexus between IT and OT for the last two decades of my career or more and found over these past two decades that this is one of the most complex pieces of manufacturing period, this sort of unique challenge between the world of operations and the world of IT. And the work I did at MESA (Manufacturing Enterprise Solutions Association) on the board and as the chairman of the board exposed me to a lot of the great vendors in this ecosystem. And through that work, I found that most of them struggle with the same things. We're all struggling in different ways. And so the opportunity to take one step back and look at this from a national and a global perspective and try to find ways to address these challenges became a very unique opportunity for me and one that I've enjoyed immensely. And so just the prospect of making a real difference in addressing these challenges as a nation and as an ecosystem has been just a privilege and one that I get really excited about. TROND: So, John, you mentioned your background. So you've worked in both startups...I think you were raising money for a startup called Activplant, but also, you have worked in large manufacturing for GE and Rockwell, so the big guys, I guess, in a U.S. context for sure. When this institution, C-E-S-M-I-I, CESMII, got started, what was its main objective, and what was the reason why this institution got launched? I guess back in 2016, which is not an enormous amount of time back. Give us a little sense of who took this initiative. And what is the core mission of this organization right now? JOHN: So Manufacturing USA is the umbrella organization under which these institutes, CESMII being one of them, were created. There are a total of 15 of these institutes, all funded with the exact same business model and funding model, and each of them having a different lens on the specific manufacturing problem that they're addressing. And ours, as the Smart Manufacturing Institute, is directly focused on creating a more competitive manufacturing environment by addressing innovation and research challenges that inhibit manufacturers from doing what they need to do in this fourth industrial revolution. So our mandate is to cut the cost of implementing smart manufacturing by 50%. Our mandate is to drive energy productivity, energy efficiency. Fundamentally, the agency that funds CESMII is the Department of Energy, which means that our overarching objective is to drive energy productivity as a basic metric. But we also believe that whether that's a direct challenge meaning addressing energy, performance energy efficiency directly, or an indirect outcome from a more efficient process, or a more effective supply chain, whatever that manufacturing initiative is, that we'll create a better product, a better process that will have direct and indirect impact on energy productivity, which is the connection back to our agency and the source of the funding that we have to accomplish these really important goals. TROND: And one of the really big identified gaps, also it seems, is this discrepancy between the big and the small industry players. So small and medium enterprises famously in every country is basically...the most of industry is consisting of these smaller players. They're not necessarily startups. They're not necessarily on this growth track to become unicorns. But they are smaller entities, and they have these resource constraints. Give me a sense of what you're doing to tackle that, to help them out, and to equip them for this new era. And maybe you could also just address...you called smart manufacturing industry 4.0, but I've noticed that that's not a term that one uses much. Smart manufacturing is kind of what you've opted for. So maybe just address that and then get to the small and medium-sized. JOHN: This is, I think, one of the really important observations that we try to make and the connections that we try to make to say that the status quo, the state of the industry today, Trond, is the result of three or four decades of what we did during the third industrial revolution. We began talking about the fourth industrial revolution many years ago. But we can't just turn that light switch on and assume that overnight everything we do now, despite the cultures we've created, the technologies we've created, the ways of doing things we've created, is now all of a sudden just new and exciting and different, and it's going to create that next wave of productivity. So when I talk about smart manufacturing and equating it with the fourth industrial revolution, it's truly the characteristics and the behaviors that we anticipate more so than what we're seeing. Because the critical mass of vendors and systems integrators, application and software products in this marketplace still resemble more of industry 3.0 than they do industry 4.0. And it's part of our vision to characterize those two only in the context of trying to accelerate the movement towards industry 4.0 or the fourth industrial revolution. Because it's that that holds out the promise of the value creation that we've been promised for ten decades but really aren't seeing. So that's the way we see the industry 4.0 versus the other concepts that we talk about. Digital transformation is another important term. All of that happens in the context of some initiative in a manufacturing operation to improve. We've been improving for three or four decades. What's different today? Well, it's not just relabeling [laughs] your portfolio to be industry 4.0 compliant. So anyway, that's a pet topic of ours just to help as a national conversation, as a set of thinking and thought leader organizations and individuals to put the spotlight on that and ensure that we're doing the things that we can to accelerate the adoption, and the behaviors, and the characterizations of what it really means to be industry 4.0. So to your point -- TROND: Yeah, I was just curious. The term revolution anyway is interesting in a U.S. context [laughter] and in any society. So it implies a lot of things, but it also certainly implies a speed that perhaps isn't necessarily happening. So there's all this talk now about how things are speeding up. But as you point out, even if they have some revolutionary characteristics, at the edge, there are some other things that need to happen that aren't necessarily going to happen at the speed of what you might imagine when you use the word revolution. It's not going to turn over like a switch. JOHN: That's exactly right. Well said, Trond. Manufacturing and bleeding edge never come together in the same sentence, and so it takes time for...and more so on the OT side than the IT side. Right out of the IT world, we have industrial IoT platforms. We have augmented reality. We have powerful AI machine learning tools. But what is the true adoption on the plant floor? Well, that's where the behaviors, and the cultures, and the characteristics of how we've always done things and the reluctance to adopt new things really comes in. And it's as much a part of the vendor and systems integration ecosystem as it is on the manufacturing side. And that's, again, this whole thing becomes...to drive (I really don't think it's a revolution to your point.) an evolution or accelerate the evolution towards Industry 4.0 requires the ecosystem to get engaged and to recognize these really important things have to change. Does that make sense? TROND: Yes. A lot of them have to change. And then to these small and medium enterprises, so I've seen a statistic that even in the U.S., it's around 98% of manufacturing. That is an enormous challenge, even for an association like yours. How do you reach that many? JOHN: Here's an interesting epiphany I had shortly after I came to CESMII and was working through exactly this challenge: how does an organization like ours access and understand the challenges they face and then look at the ecosystem that's there and available to serve them? The epiphany I had was that in my entire career with both big global corporations like Rockwell Automation and General Electric and specifically even the startup organization that I helped raise VC for and venture capital funding for and build and ultimately see acquired; I had never been in a small and medium manufacturing plant environment. The entire ecosystem is focused on large brands, recognized brands, and enterprises that have the potential for multisite rollouts, multisite implementation. And so the business models, the marketing models, the sales, the go-to-market, the cost of sales, everything in this ecosystem is designed towards the large enterprises called the Fortune 1000 that represent the types of characteristics that any startup, any Global Fortune 500 organization is going to go pursue. Which then says or leaves us with a really important conversation to say, how can the small and medium manufacturing organizations become part of this dialogue? How can we engage them? What does an ecosystem look like that's there to serve these organizations? And where an implementation organization like a good systems integrator can actually make money engaging in this way. And so that's where the needs of that ecosystem and our specific capabilities come together. The notion that democratization which is going to help the big manufacturers, and the big vendors, and the big integrators, and the big machine builders, the same things that we can do to cut the cost of deploying smart manufacturing for them, will enormously increase the accessibility of smart manufacturing capabilities for the small and medium manufacturers. And so that's where typically -- TROND: John, let's talk specifics. Let's talk specifics. So smart manufacturing, you said, and I'm assuming it's not just a community effort. You're intervening at the level also of providing a certain set of tools also. So if we talk about sensors, and data, and platforms, and control systems, these are all impacting manufacturing performance. To what extent can an association like yours actually get involved at that level? Is it purely on the standardization front, sort of recommending different approaches? Or is it even going deeper into layers of technology and providing more than just recommendations? JOHN: So the short answer is it depends on the domain, and the area of networking, and sensors and controls. Those are areas where longer-term research and investment to drive innovation to reduce the cost of connecting things becomes really important. And that's one of the threads or one of the investment paths that we pursue through what we call roadmap projects where there are longer, larger in terms of financial scope and further out impacts. We're hoping we'll have a dramatic impact on the cost of connecting machines and sensors and variable-frequency drives and motion systems or whatever sort of data source you have in an operation. So that's one track. The other piece which gets to the actual creation of technologies is more on the data contextualization, data collection, data ingestion side. And you mentioned the word standards. Well, standards are important, and where there are standards that we can embrace and advocate for, we're absolutely doing that. Part of the OPC Foundation and the standards that they're driving, MQTT and Sparkplug, becomes a really important area as well. And the work that MTConnect is doing to solve many of the same challenges that we believe we need to solve more broadly for a subset of machine classes more in a CNC machine tool side. But this effort, smart manufacturing, is happening today, and it's accelerating today. And we can't wait for standards to be agreed on, created, and achieve critical mass. So we are investing in a thin but vital layer of technologies that we can drill into if you'd like as a not-for-profit, not to compete in the marketplace but to create a de facto standard for how some of these really important challenges can be addressed, and how as a standard develops and we fund the deployment of these innovations in the marketplace and kind of an innovation environment versus a production environment. Not that they don't turn into production environments, but they start as an innovation project to start and prove out and either fail quickly or scale up into a production environment. So this idea of a de facto standard is a really important idea for us. That's our objective. And that's what we believe we can build and are building is critical mass adoption for really important ideas. And we're getting support from a lot of the great thought leaders in the space but also from a lot of the great organizations and bodies like, as I mentioned, the OPC Foundation, The Industrial Internet Consortium, the German platform industry 4.0 group responsible in Germany for industry 4.0. We're working towards and aligning around the same principles and ideas, again, to help create a harmonized view of these foundational technologies that will allow us to accomplish the dramatic reduction of the cost of connecting and extracting information from and contextualizing that information. And then making it available in ways that are far more consistent and compelling for the application vendor. The bar or the threshold at which an application developer can actually step into the space and do something is in a pretty high space. If you kind of look back, and I know this analogy is probably a little overused, but what it took to build applications for devices and phones, smart devices, and smartphones before Apple and Android became commonplace meant that you had to build the entire stack every single time. And that's where the industry is today. When you sit down in front of a product, you're starting from scratch every time, regardless of the fact that you've created an information model for that paper-converting machine 100 times in 20 different technology stacks. When I start this project, it's a blank slate. It's a blank sheet of paper every single time. Is that value-add? Is that going to help? No. And yet it requires a tremendous amount of domain expertise to build that. So the notion of standardizing these things, abstracting them from any individual to technology stack, standardizing on them, making them available in the marketplace for others to use that's where democratization begins to happen. TROND: So what you are about to create is an innovation platform for smart manufacturing. Will that be available then to everybody in the U.S. marketplace? Or is it actually completely open for all of the industry, wherever they reside? And what are the practical steps that you would have to take as a manufacturer if you even just wanted to look into some of the things you were building and maybe plug in with it? JOHN: So we're not about to build, just a minor detail there. We've been working on this for a couple of years. And we have a growing set of these implementations in the marketplace through the funded projects that we were proud to be able to bring to the marketplace. So the funding, and right now within the scope of what we're doing here as an institute, the funds that we deploy as projects, these grants, essentially mean that we spend these grants, these funds in the U.S. only. So in the context of what we do here, the smart manufacturing innovation platform, the creation of these profiles, the creation of the apps on top of the platform by our vendor ecosystem and domain experts in this ecosystem those are largely here and exclusively here in the U.S, I should say. So from that perspective, deployments that we have control over in terms of funding are uniquely here in the U.S. What happens beyond that in terms of where they're deployed and how they're deployed, we know we live in a global manufacturing environment. And as our members who want to deploy these capabilities outside of the U.S., those are all absolutely acceptable deployments of these technologies. TROND: But, John, so all of these deployments are they funded projects so that they're always within involvement of grant money, or is some part of this platform actually literally plug and play? JOHN: So there are several threads. The projects that we fund are obviously one thread. There's another thread that says any member of ours can use any implementation of our platform or can use our platform and any of the vendors that are here as a proof of concept or pilot, typically lasting 3,4,5,6 months for free of charge. What happens then that leads to the third component is after your pilot, there's one of two things that's going to happen. The system will be decommissioned, and you ideally, well, I shouldn't say ideally...you fail fast, the system is decommissioned, and folks move on. Ideally, the pilot was a success. And that generates a financial transaction for the parties involved in that. And that organization moves towards a production rollout of these capabilities. So CESMII's role then diminishes and steps away. But this notion of a pilot actually came from a conversation with one of our great members here at Procter & Gamble. They talk about innovation triage and the complexity of just innovating within a large corporate environment like Procter & Gamble. The fact that just to stand up the infrastructure to invite a vendor, several vendors in to stand up their systems costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and takes months and months and months just to get started. This notion that we can provision this platform in minutes, bring our vendor partner technologies to bear in minutes allows them to execute what they call innovation triage. And it really accelerates the rate at which they can innovate within their corporation, but it's that same idea that we translate back down to small and medium manufacturing, right? The notion that you don't have to have a server. You don't have to sustain a server. You don't have to buy a server to try smart manufacturing in a small and medium manufacturing environment. If you've got five sensors from amazon.com and lightly industrialized Raspberry Pi, you have the means to begin the smart manufacturing journey. What do you do with that data? Well, there are great partner organizations like Tulip, like Microsoft Excel, even Microsoft Power BI that represent compelling democratized contemporary low-cost solutions that they can actually sustain. Because this isn't just about the cost of acquiring and implementing these systems, as you know. This is also about sustaining them. Do I have the staff, the domain expertise as a small and medium manufacturer to sustain the stuff that somebody else may have given me or implemented here for me? And so that's just as an important requirement for these organizations as the original acquisition and implementation challenges. TROND: It's so important what you're talking about here, John, because there's an additional concept which is not so pleasant called pilot purgatory. And this has been identified in factories worldwide. It's identified in any software development. But with OT, as you pointed out, with more operational technologies, with additional complications, it is so easy to just get started with something and then get stuck and then decide or maybe not decide just sort of it just happens that it never scales up to production value and production operations. And it seems like some of the approaches you're putting on the table here really help that situation. Because, as you mentioned, hundreds of thousands of dollars, that's not a great investment for a smaller company if it leads to a never-ending kind of stop and start experimenting but never really can be implemented on the true production line. JOHN: Yeah. Spot on, Trond. The numbers that we're seeing now...I think McKenzie released a report a couple of months ago talking about, I think, somewhere between 70% and 80% of all projects in this domain not succeeding, which means they either failed or only moderately succeeded. And I think that's where the term pilot purgatory comes in. I talk almost every chance I get about the notion that the first couple of decades of the third industrial revolution resulted in islands of automation. And we began building islands of information as software became a little more commonplace in the late '80s and '90s. And then the OTs here in the last decade, we've been building islands of innovation, this pilot purgatory. The assumption was...and I get back to the journey between where we thought industry 3.0 or the third industrial revolution became the fourth industrial revolution. The idea was that, man, we're just going to implement some of these great new capabilities and prove them out and scale them up. Well, it gets back to the fact that even these pilots, these great innovative tools, were implemented with these old ideas in these closed data siloed ways and characterizations. And so yeah, everybody's excited. The CEO has visibility to this new digital transformation pilot that he just authorized or she just authorized. And a lot of smart people are involved, and a lot of domain experts involved. The vendors throw cash at this thing, and the systems integrators, implementers, throw cash at this thing. And even if they're successful, and broadly, as an individual proof of concept, there are points of light that say, we accomplished some really important things. The success is not there, or the success isn't seeing that scaled out, and those are the really nuanced pieces that we're trying to address through this notion of the innovation platform and profiles. The notion that interoperability and openness is what's going to drive scale, the notion that you don't have the same stovepipe legacy application getting at the same set of data from the same data sources on the shop floor for every unique application, and that there are much more contemporary ways of building standardized data structures that every application can build on and drive interoperability through. TROND: Yeah, you talk about this as the characteristics of future-proofing. So you mentioned interoperability, and I guess openness which is a far wider concept. Like openness can mean several things. And then sustainability and security were some other of your future-proofing characteristics. Can you line up some of those for us just to give some context to what can be done? If you are a factory owner, if you're a small and medium-sized enterprise, and you want to take this advice right now and implement. JOHN: Yeah, we've tried as an association, as a consortia, Trond, it's not just CESMII staff like myself who are paid full-time to be here that are focused on identifying and developing strategies for the challenges that we believe will help manufacturing in the U.S. It's organizations that are members here and thought leaders from across the industry that help us identify these really fundamental challenges and opportunities. And so, as an institute, we've landed on what we call the smart manufacturing first principles. There are seven first principles that we believe characterize the modern contemporary industry 4.0 compliant, if you will, strategy. And just to list them off quickly, because we have definitions and we have content that flushes out these ideas, sort of in order of solve and order of importance for us, interoperability and openness is the first one. Sustainable and energy efficient is the second one, security, scalability, resilient and orchestrated, flat and real-time, and proactive and semi-autonomous. And so these we believe are the characteristics of solutions, technologies, capabilities that will move us from this world of pilot purgatory and where we've come from as an ecosystem in this third industrial revolution and prepare us for a future-proof strategy whether I'm a small and medium manufacturer that just cares about this one instance of this problem I need to solve, or whether I'm a Fortune 10 manufacturing organization that understands that the mess that we've created over the last 25 years has got to make way for a better future. That I'm not going to reinvest in a future...not that I can rip and replace anything I've got, but I've got to invest in capabilities moving forward that represent a better, more sustainable, more interoperable future for my organization. That's the only way we're going to create this next wave of productivity that is held out for us as a promise of this new era. TROND: John, you have alluded to this, and you call it the mess that we've created over the last 25 years. We have talked about the problems of lack of interoperability and other issues. This is not an easy discussion and certainly not in your official capacity. But why is the U.S. a laggard? Because, to be honest, these are not problems that every country has, to a degree, they are but specifically, the U.S. and its manufacturing sector has been lagging. And there is data there, and I think you agree with this. Why is this happening? And are any of these initiatives going to be able to address that short term? JOHN: So this is probably the most important question that we as a nation need to address, and it's a multifaceted, complex question. And I think the answer is a multifaceted, complex response as well. And we probably don't have time to drill into this in detail, but I'll respond at least at a 30,000 foot-level. Even this morning, I saw a friend of mine sent me a link about China being called out today officially as being a leader in this digital transformation initiative globally, as you've just alluded to. So, from our perspective, there are a couple of important...and like I said, really understanding why this is the case is the only way we're going to be able to move forward and accelerate the adoption of this initiative. But there are a number of reasons. The reason I think China is ahead is in part cultural, but it's also in part the fact that they don't have much of the legacy that we've built. Most of their manufacturing operations as they've scaled up over the last decade, two decades, really since the World Trade Organization accepted China's entry in this domain, their growth into manufacturing systems has been much, much more recent than ours. And so they don't have this complex legacy that we do. There are other cultural implications for how the Chinese manufacturing environment adopts technologies. And there's much more of a top-down culture there. Certain leaders drive these activities and invest in these ways. Much of the ecosystem follows. So that's, I'll say, one perspective on how China becomes the leader in this domain very quickly. Europe is also ahead of the U.S. And I think there are some important reasons why that's the case as well. And a part of it is that they have a very strong cultural connection to the way government funds and is integrated with both the learning and academic ecosystem there in most of Europe as well as with the manufacturing companies themselves. It seems to have become part of their DNA to accept that the federal government can bring these initiatives to the marketplace and then funds the education of every part of their ecosystem to drive these capabilities into their manufacturing marketplace. We, on the other hand, are a much more American society. We are individualistic. The notion that the government should tell manufacturers what to do is not a well-accepted, [laughs] well-adopted idea here in the U.S. And that's been a strength for many manufacturers, and for many, many years. The best analogy that I can come up with right now in terms of where we are and where we need to go and CESMII's role in all of this, and the federal government's role in all of this, which I think brings a healthy blend of who we are as a nation and how we work and how we do things here together with a future that's a little more also compatible with these notions of adopting and driving technology forward at scale, is the reality that in 1956, President Eisenhower convinced Congress to fund the U.S. Interstate Highways and Defense Act to build a network of interstate highways, a highway network across this country to facilitate much more efficient flow of people and goods across this country. Apparently, as a soldier, many decades before, he had to travel from San Diego to Virginia in a military convoy that took him 31 days to cross the country [laughs], which is a slight aside. It was apparently the catalyst that drove the passion he had to solve this problem. And that's the role that I think we can play today, creating a digital highway, if you will, a digital catalyst to bring our supply chains together in a much more contemporary and real-time way and to bring our information systems into a modern industry 4.0 compliant environment. And that's setting those, creating those definitions, defining those characteristics, and then providing the means whereby we can accelerate this ecosystem to move forward. I think that's the right balance between our sense of individualism and how we do things here in the U.S. versus adopting these capabilities at scale. TROND: That's such a thoughtful answer to my question, which I was a little afraid of asking because it is a painful question. And it goes to the heart, I guess, of what it means to be an American, to be industrial, and to make changes. And there is something here that is very admirable. But I also do feel that the psychology of this nation also really doesn't deeply recognize that many of the greatest accomplishments that have been happening on U.S. soil have had an infrastructure component and a heavy investment from the government when you think about the creation of the internet, the creation of the highway system. You can go even further back, the railways. All of those things they had components, at least a regulation, where they had massive infrastructure elements to them whether they were privately financed or publicly financed, which is sort of that's sort of not the point. But the point is there were massive investments that couldn't really be justified in an annual budget. JOHN: That's right. TROND: You would have to think much, much wider. So instead of enclosing on that end then, John, if you look to the future, and we have said manufacturing is, of course, a global industry also, what are you seeing over this next decade is going to happen to smart manufacturing? So on U.S. soil, presumably, some amount of infrastructure investment will be made, and part of it will be digital, part of it will be actually equipment or a hybrid thereof that is somewhat smartly connected together. But where's that going to lead us? Is manufacturing now going to pull us into the future? Or will it remain an industry that historically pulls us into the future but will take a backseat to other industries as we move into the next decade? JOHN: Yeah, that's another big question. We've been talking about smart manufacturing 2030, the idea that smart manufacturing is manufacturing by 2030. And a decade seems like a long time, and for most functions, for most areas of innovation, it is, but manufacturing does kind of run at its own pace. And there is a timeline around which both standardization and technologies and cultures move on the plant floor. And so that's a certain reality. And we were on a trajectory to get there. But ironically, it took a pandemic to truly underscore the value of digital transformation, digital operations, and digital workers, I can certainly say in the U.S. but even more broadly. So a couple of important data points to back that up. Gartner just recently announced the outcome of an important survey of, I think, close to 500 manufacturing executives here in the U.S. in terms of their strategic perception of digital transformation, smart manufacturing. And I think they specifically called it smart manufacturing. And it was as close to unanimous as anything they've ever seen; 86% or 87% of manufacturing executives said that now digital transformation, smart manufacturing is the most strategic thing they can invest in. What was it a year ago? It was probably less than half of that. So that speaks to the experience these organizations have gone through. And the reality that as we talk about resilience, some people talk about reshoring, and some of that will happen. As we talk about a future environment, that's...I shouldn't say disruption-proof but much more capable of dealing with disruption not just within the four walls of the plant or an enterprise but in the supply chain. These capabilities are the things that will separate those that can withstand these types of disruptions from those that can't. And that has been recognized. And so, as much as these executives are the same ones that are frustrated by pilot purgatory, it's these executives that are saying, "That's the future. We've got to go there." And we're seeing through this pandemic...we hear CESMII are saying the manufacturing thought leaders understand this and are rallying around these ideas more now than ever before to ensure that what we do in the future is consistent with a more thoughtful, more contemporary, future-proof way of investing in digital transformation or smart manufacturing. TROND: John, these are fascinating times, and you have a very important role. I thank you so much for taking time to appear on my show here today. JOHN: Trond, I appreciate that. I appreciate the privilege of sharing these thoughts with you. These are profound questions, and answering the easy ones is fun. Answering the hard questions is important. And I appreciate the chance to have this conversation with you today. TROND: Thanks. Have a great day. JOHN: You too. TROND: You have just listened to Episode 17 of the Augmented Podcast with host Trond Arne Undheim. The topic was Smart Manufacturing for All. Our guest is John Dyck, CEO at CESMII, the Smart Manufacturing Institute. In this conversation, we talked about democratizing smart manufacturing and the history and ambition of CESMII, bridging the skills gap in small and medium enterprises, which constitute 98% of manufacturing. We discuss how the integration of advanced sensors, data, platforms, and controls radically impact manufacturing performance. We then have the hard discussion of why the U.S. arguably is a laggard. We heard about two coming initiatives: the Smart Manufacturing Executive Council & the Smart Manufacturing Innovation Platform. We then turned to the future outlook over the next decade. My takeaway is that U.S. manufacturing is a bit of a conundrum. How can it both be the driver of the international economy and a laggard in terms of productivity and innovation, all at the same time? Can it all be explained by scale, both scale in multinationals and scale in SMEs? Whatever the case may be, future-proofing manufacturing, which CESMII is up to, seems like a great idea. The influx of smart manufacturing technologies will, over time, transform industry as a whole, but it will not happen automatically. Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars. If you liked this episode, you might also like Episode 8 on Work of the Future, Episode 5 on Plug-and-play Industrial Tech, or Episode 9 on The Fourth Industrial Revolution post-COVID-19. Augmented — the Industry 4.0 podcast. Special Guest: John Dyck.

John: I'm worried about China. Jane: Oh yeah? What about it? John: Well more I'm worried about the example they're setting, and that western governments will start implementing their technocratic oppression style to turn us all into a bunch of brainwashed, homogeneous obedience machines. Jane: What makes you think Chinese people are all brainwashed and homogeneous?  John: Oh my God, don't you watch the news? Have you not heard of their social credit score system? The state censorship and propaganda those people are subjected to? The CCP literally doesn't let them have access to western social media platforms because our free thought and democratic values might interfere with their conformity policing. How have you not heard about this? It's in the news constantly. Jane: Constantly? John: Oh yeah, it's like a major news story all the time. All across the political spectrum, too. Fox News, CNN, The Washington Post. Alternative media too like Infowars and The Epoch Times; even lefty YouTubers like Vaush talk all the time about how bad it is in China. Jane: So because you're being given the same message by all the western media you consume, you're worried about the enforcement of thought conformity in... China? John: Yeah. Of course. Jane: And this is why you're worried that, at some point in the future, that kind of brainwashing and homogeneity might someday be inflicted upon us by powerful people in the west? John: I mean yeah, if the CCP doesn't do it to us first. Did you know they're trying to take over the world? Jane: They are? John: Oh yeah! The Chinese want to take over the world and give us all a social credit score so we'll all think the same. How do you not know about this? Don't you ever watch TV? Jane: How do you know it's true though? John: That they want to conquer us and give us a social credit score? Come on! Open your eyes! Have you seen how they treat their own population? They're genociding the Uyghurs as we speak! Millions and millions of them in Nazi-style extermination camps! Plus they deliberately released the Covid virus to hurt us after cooking it up in a lab, they're taking over Hollywood and infiltrating our political and academic institutions, and they've colonized the entire continent of Africa! Of course the CCP wants to rule us! Don't you ever watch Tucker Carlson? They're truly, deeply evil, and we've got to do something to stop them. Jane: Sounds like you've got this China thing all figured out. You're right, that sounds really scary. I can't imagine what it would be like, living in a thought-controlled dystopia where your rulers are brainwashing everyone into obedience and making sure everybody thinks the same way about stuff. John: Yeah! Finally you get it! I'm glad you've come around. Honestly you're the first person I know who didn't already understand these things about China.  Jane: I'll bet. John: So do you think it will happen? Do you think our government will implement a social credit score system to make us all believe lies and propaganda, like the Chinese? Jane: You know, I wouldn't worry about it. ___________ Reading by Tim Foley and Caitlin Johnstone.

We've assembled a list of priorities to keep in mind as you count down the days to retirement. Helpful Information: PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/ Contact: 813-286-7776 Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is a registered investment adviser. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investment involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment adviser to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Transcript of Today's Show: For a full transcript of today's show, visit the blog related to this episode at https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/podcast/ ----more---- Mark: Hey everybody. Welcome to the podcast. It's retirement planning, redefined with John and Nick and myself talking about the countdown to retirement. What to do on those days, as we're getting closer, working our way towards it. We've assembled a list of priorities to keep in mind, as you are counting down those days to retirement. And we were getting ready to get this podcast started and we were kind of laughing at some of the things that we seem to run out of in this whole supply chain issue, had ourselves a good giggle along the way. So hopefully we'll have a good podcast for you to tune into as we talk about these things, because there's some good stuff on here. And guys at the time we're dropping this, I think we're going to drop this right after Memorial Day if I'm not mistaken. Anyway, it's right around it.   Mark: And Memorial Day is kind of the unofficial kickoff to summer. It's not technically summer yet, right? I think it's what June 20th or something like that. But when we get to 50 and a lot of times, if you want to think about this countdown 50 plus, it's kind of the unofficial kickoff to retirement. We're not actually retired yet, but we start thinking about it, paying more attention to it. So on and so forth. So John, the first one on my list is getting healthy and staying healthy. Many of us develop chronic issues in our 50s. So it's a good time to put some thought onto this so that you can actually enjoy those golden years.   John: Yeah, 100%. I would even because I'm sure, I don't know in the previous podcast I talk about my health issues, but I think it's important for everyone at any age, especially though I will say 50.   Mark: True.   John: Focusing on health and getting to the gym and just do whatever makes you feel good. But when you have an health issue and you can't do the things you were doing, I'll tell you it's quite a, it's a challenge. It's quite upsetting. And I'll say from the clients that we work with, we see a big difference in those that actively in retirement are working out, maybe seeing a trainer a couple of days a week to those that are not. And as you age, I think it's more, it's very important just to stay active because you're not recovering like you were in your 20s.   Mark: No, I think that's a great point. I like that too. Yeah, we should start sooner. Right. But if you kind of want to put a, some sort of a time table or something to it when we get, and it kind of works with our conversation for retirement, just get there, start making some of these changes. So you can really enjoy what we call the go go years. Right. So when we first get to that early days of retirement. And then this is a really big one, we could kind of merge two and three together, but we'll do them a little bit separately, but two Nick, is the free time. Now there's a lot of it. And maybe silver lining in the pandemic has been the fact that many couples got to realize life together, 24/7 working from home, being at home.   Mark: Because that's what retirement is. That's a big shift that we don't often talk about. We put a lot of focus on saying, yeah, we want a big travel and we want to go out and play a ton of golf or whatever. But like there's a lot of free time and you're spending it with that significant other that maybe you guys didn't see each other for eight, 10, 12 hours a day. Now you're together all the time. I don't know how many advisors I talk to where they're like, they have funny stories about one spouse or the other saying get them out of my house. They're driving me nuts.   Nick: Yeah. The time challenge can be significant. I can tell you two things that I would recommend against. And those things would be watching a lot more news and,   Mark: Right.   Nick: Deciding that social media is going to be your new hobby.   Mark: It's not your friend. Right.   Nick: If anything, there's a pretty good documentary on Netflix. I forget what it's called, but it's about social media and really kind of the big data side of things and how the algorithms work and really kind of feed into things. And in general, there's been a lot to handle for people over the last few years with the pandemic and everything else going on. So can not underestimate the importance of having constructive hobbies, doing things that kind of keep you sharp or engaged. And even from the standpoint of being social, things that you can do both alone and with others. The relief that people get from a psychological standpoint of being engaged with others and doing different things, kind of being out and about is really, really important and it's going to help keep you fresh. It's going to help you be able to focus on the things that are important versus the things that aren't, and that you don't have control over. And so, making sure that you're developing hobbies, and we would say that that's even separate from things like travel and that type of thing where,   Mark: Right, right.   Nick: Being inquisitive, doing things that have your brain still working are really important.   Mark: That's a great point. And John, I mentioned blending two and three together. So two was determining what you want to do with your free time. Three, we put post retirement career, maybe career is too heavy of a term, but a post retirement something. Right. Retire away, like if you hate your job, let's just say you despise it and you can't wait to retire and you're leaving with nothing else to go to. Like, I get that frustration, but I think people tend to be happier if they're retiring to something. And maybe that's not necessarily another career, but something like, even if you took a year off and literally did nothing, I'm sure you guys have story upon story of retirees who first enjoy doing nothing. But as humans, I think we crave some sort of structure, something to help us kind of fill the time and fill the days.   John: That's 100%. It's important to really start thinking about that. And I can't tell you how many times we've been in meetings and it's when do you want to retire? And the response is, well, I don't know if I'm ever going to retire, but I want to leave this job at this age.   Mark: Right. Right.   John: So it turns into what am I going to do next? And I think kind of what you said there. My mother watches my kids and that's kind of a level of importance to her and she watches them two or three days a week, and there's actually a study where grandparents that kind of are helping out their children, watch their grandchildren actually live a little bit longer. And I think it's all about that level, feeling important.   Mark: Yeah.   John: So whether that's watching grandkids, my clients had started to be a realtor and they actually end up making more money than they were at their previous job. So whatever it is, it's just making some type of level of importance. Whether it's making money, helping out family, volunteering is just feeling like you got to get up and do something in the morning.   Nick: And a good way to kind of sum that up as purpose.   Mark: Purpose. There you go.   Nick: Purpose. When people feel like they have a purpose for both themselves and those around them, they tend to do a lot better.   Mark: Yeah. No I'm with you there. And we used to retire at let's say 65 and you probably were passing away at 67, right? So sitting on the porch for a year or two and doing nothing felt great because we were tired. We were worn out. The concept of retirement is a little less than a 100 years old. So a lot of stuff is actually changed quite a bit. So a post retirement, something or another post retirement purpose instead of career. I like that. Thanks, Nick. We'll use that. And going forward is a great way to think about that on this countdown days to retirement list. Let's go to number four, Nick. So why don't you throw us some things to think about in the opportunity to save more. Again, I mentioned 50, right? So at 50 plus, some stuff starts to change and there's actually some good time to catch up a little bit or just cycle a bit more away if you need to.   Nick: Yeah. Oftentimes whether it's in their 50s or early 60s, people have, maybe they have children coming off the payroll and they don't necessarily plan to figure out how are they going to be able to recapture some of those dollars that they're used to spending on the kids and kind of help them really build up their retirement and maybe catch up from all those years of taking care of the kids. That can be something that's a big deal. One thing that's come up multiple times in the last, I'd say three to four weeks with what's been going on in the market is, we have clients emailing or calling us asking, Hey, the market's down, should we stop saving? And, the way that we try to kind of explain to people is that markets are cyclical.   Nick: We have had this period of time, 10, 12 years, where the markets have generally gone up and people's conception of what, or I should say, perception of what, typically happens in normal cycles, one to three to four year cycles is a little bit thrown off, but an easy way to think about this is that this is why we have a plan in place. You want to continue to save. And if anything the thought process is that you're buying at a discount from what things were previously. So in a lot of ways, the market's on sale. And so continuing to average in and chipping away and taking advantage of the benefits of being able to save money pre-tax, or those sorts of things is an important thing.   Mark: Yeah. It can make a huge dent, right? We're hopefully making the most money we've ever made and all that good kind of stuff. So 50 plus there's should be some good opportunities to sock a bit more away. And that might help John with number five, which is reducing down the debt. So even if you're not necessarily putting more away into a retirement account, because you've done a good job or whatever, maybe the focus is take some of that extra money with the kids being off the payroll and get rid of some of that, especially bad debt.   John: Yeah. 100%. I mean, with rates being as low as they have been, we have seen a lot of people go into retirement with mortgages, but you're at 2.6%, that's nothing crazy, but let's take mortgage out of it. Other debt definitely recommend trying to get that down and off completely, but get it off your books because when you go to retire, it's a big cash flow, where's your income coming from? Social security, pension, investments. The last thing you want at that point where there's no longer a paycheck coming in is debt. What that's doing at that point, it's really eating into kind of things you want to do, which we talked about for hobbies or enjoyment. And then on top of it, it actually adds some stress level to Hey, I need more income coming in to pay out all these bills and all this debt. So definitely before you hit retirement, it's good to be debt free. It's easier to pay off the debt in your working years than when you're not working.   Mark: Yeah. And on the concept of the house, right, there's always the arguments back and forth there, the different things. So certainly, that can also still be on the get debt free list if you'd like. I don't think it's a bad idea to necessarily get rid of it, but just make sure that you're doing that smartly and not being house rich cash poor as the saying goes or whatever the case is. So just kind of bear that in mind.   Mark: But yeah eliminating, if bought an RV or the big plans where the RV in retirement, maybe getting that paid down, if you bought it a little early or whatever, or boat, or I don't know, muscle car, whatever it might be. Right. Just get rid of the stuff that you've got some debt on. And then Nick, the final one here, number six on the list on just counting down stuff is the risk conversation. So if we're reducing our debt, maybe we ought to also think about reducing our risk. Now last year, people would've said, I'm not reducing my risk, the market's on fire, but right now they're like, okay, well let's maybe reduce the risk. Point being at 58 should we be investing like we're 38?   Nick: Yeah. So risk is an interesting word. And we wanted to take a little bit of time to kind of chat about this because there are different types of risk, and depending upon who you talk to, how they rank the different types of risk via priority is different. So for example, inflationary risk, which is something that we're dealing with right now, that's a risk. So in other words, losing the spending power of our money via inflation is something that we need to keep and take into consideration. However, we're in this kind of perfect storm where taking too much risk, if you're shifting money out of cash per se and moving substantial amounts of money into the market, you're dealing with a significant amount of market risk. And then we have interest rate risk from the perspective of, as they've increased interest rates, that's really pushed down the prices of bonds and bond funds.   Nick: And one conversation that we've been having with people is them not necessarily realizing that the bond market and even if you look at the most general bond index is down almost 10% year to date. And so we've been trying to take a lot of time in one-on-one meetings with people to try to explain how this has an impact and really this is a, with what we're dealing with right now is probably the best case in the last 15 years or so to show people why it's important to be diversified and understand that trying to fully time the market, whether it's from the stock side to the bond side, to the cash side, real estate, et cetera, it can be really tricky. And when things are going great, it's hard to remember that, but right now it's showing us that it's really important to make sure that when we think about our risk, that we're taking into consideration poor times, not just great times and understanding that just because maybe throughout the majority of your investing career, taking less risk has meant, Hey, let's reduce our stock exposure and increase our bond exposure.   Nick: It doesn't mean that that's always going to stay flat or go up, there's risks along with that too. So, diversification, understanding that sometimes we do run across periods of time where we just kind of have to take our medicine where all markets have been up for the most part over the last 12 years. There's going to be times where we run into corrections, which is kind of what we're dealing with now. And we have to be patient and try not to go overboard with overreacting to the short period of time. Sometimes looking at the lens through the last, even one year, two year, three year period of time and realizing that in the scheme of things we need to just kind of stay steady.   Nick: But yeah, in general, I would say that making sure that you kind of do an update on what you feel comfortable with from a risk parameter. Now is a good time to reevaluate that. Because what we have seen is that people have been comfortable with a certain amount of risk over the last 10 years, because things have just been going up. And so now that things aren't just going up, what they thought of risk and how they feel comfortable managing it is substantially different than it has been.   Mark: Yeah. Oh definitely. Our risk tolerance level's been like, yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine with the risk. I'm fine. Whoa, wait a minute. I'm not so fine now, right?   Nick: Yeah. The risk over the last 10 years has been okay. I'm okay getting 8% instead of 15%,   Mark: Right.   Nick: Not oh, I'm okay being down negative 11 versus negative 20.   Mark: Yeah. Yeah.   Nick: Everything's been more on the positive side of things and even with COVID, we had the fastest bear market in history where it boomeranged right back up. And so even though that only happened a couple years ago, people have already forgotten about that.   Mark: Oh yeah. Yeah.   Nick: So, yeah. And I can't emphasize enough the importance that this sheds on having a plan and thinking longer term.   Mark: Well, there you go. So that's some countdown items to think about for the days towards retirement, sixth list, list of six things there, excuse me, that you can think about and address towards your retirement strategy. And those are the things that you'll go through when you have a plan put in place when you're working with a team like the team at PFG Private Wealth. So if you're not, then reach out to them and have a conversation, set up some time to get that started, pfgprivatewealth.com, that's pfgprivatewealth.com. That's got all the tools, tips, and resources there. You can schedule some time. You can reach out to John and Nick and the team and get started that way. Of course, you can also find the podcast, subscribe to us on whatever platform you like to use there. So you can catch future episodes as well as check out past episodes. Again, pfgprivatewealth.com. That's going to do it this week for the podcast for John and Nick. I'm your host Mark. We'll see you next time on Retirement Planning Redefined with John and Nick from PFG Private Wealth.

When we listen to a missionary it often causes us to reflect. Does my life have a larger meaning like there's? Do I see God at work as they do? Listen in to today's show where we hear the story of a couple who changed the trajectory of their lives by leaving the business world to become missionaries. Why this topic at this time? Today's episode is in response to a podcast listener by the name of Patty who said she'd like to hear more interviews with missionaries. I can see why. They are some of the most interesting people around. To talk with a missionary is almost always an interesting conversation. And more than interesting, whenever we truly hear the story of another person, whether they're a missionary or not, it can't help but cause us to reflect upon our own story. For today's show, I interviewed two of my friends, Billy and Laura Borkenhagen, to learn from them and their life-changing missionary story. One thing that's different about today's episode is that I have a word-for-word transcript of my interview in the show notes. It was done using AI - artificial intelligence software. I have been wanting to experiment with this for a while. And if actual transcripts are something you'd like to see more of, please let me know. Okay. Let's get on with it. Interview transcript John: So Laura and Billy, tell us a little bit about your journey to becoming missionaries. I mean, you both had pretty great careers and you left all of that to become missionaries in a camping ministry. Laura, why don't we start with you first? Laura: Sure. So yeah, Billy and I met in college and Billy became an architect and I began working in marketing. We both worked at the Kohler Company for our careers. I even traveled internationally for, a bit of time, which was really fun and fixed up a house. And I, I ran, I started my own photo business and Billy started working downtown in Milwaukee. We had three kids and life was, you know, kind of how I had it planned in my Excel spreadsheet of how I wanted my life to be. Yeah. And so we had taken our family with our three kids up to camp just to attend a winter camp and, just really had a great time. And so the next year we decided to go back and while we were there, I was reading in the dining hall. They have all the missionaries, like a little bio about each one of them and I was reading them. And at the end there was a job posting. I wasn't looking for a job, but I just, in that moment, I knew that that was my job. And that kind of just started a journey of us asking questions. And yeah, it was a bit of a story, but we, we ended up both joining as missionaries at, at Fort wilderness. And now we're here in the north woods. John: Well, tell us a little bit about what camping is at Fort wilderness and what your role is there. Laura: Sure. Fort wilderness is a camping ministry it's in Northern Wisconsin and it really aims to do, do four things. They get people out in God's creation in the outdoors just immersed, in what God's created, gives people God's word. So at all the different camps and retreats, there's always a speaker or, or way for you to hear, hear God's word. And then they use adventure programming. So things like horses and water slides and tubing Hills, and swimming and all sorts of adventure things. And then the fourth one is community. And so, so you're, you're always in Christian community. So it uses those four things and it's year round, summer, winter fall. And then there's camps for families. There are things just for youth where they get dropped off for, for a week or so there's a college age program. And then there's adult programs where it's like, just adults, like a men's retreat or women's retreat. John: So you're doing, you're doing your marketing thing, part-time from your home and Billy's still working in the Milwaukee area as an architect, correct? Laura: Yeah. That's how it started. I, I saw this job posting and I said, Hey, would you consider someone working part-time remote because I'm not moving that was my quote. And funny how, how God, every time I've said I would not do something, I feel like I've done it. John: Yeah. Laura: Yeah. So the, they were like, well, maybe like why? And I was like, well, I'm not interested in moving, but oh, I'd love to like work for Fort. And so they entertained the idea. They're like, sure, like think about it, pray about it. So I applied, I interviewed and I became the first ever remote employee. Working from the Milwaukee area while Billy was working in Milwaukee and the plan, I was willing to raise support as a missionary, but they said, well, we've never had anyone working remotely. So they offered me a six month contract where they paid me and they said at six months, if it works out, then we'll talk about raising support said, okay. So the six month mark comes and, and COVID had hit. And so I, I was not the only remote employee anymore cuz lots of people were working remote at that point. Laura: But the six month mark came and we were up at camp helping out and I was supposed to have this meeting about raising support. But before that meeting Billy's boss approached him and said, Hey,, there's really no job available, but I really need an architect. And you're married to Laura. Like, would you guys consider moving up here and, joining staff. And we were like, um maybe I'm not sure. And so the short story, they sent us home and said pray about it for the next 30 days. And we said yes, after that 30 days, cuz we really felt, felt the Lord every, there was a hundred instances where we felt like, wow, the Lord is just really showing us and opening this door. John: Yeah. And Billy, that was quite a, I mean it was big change for Laura, but, but you actually gave up a pretty great job as an architect. How did, how did that, how did God work in your life to, to do such a thing? Billy: Yeah. I really thought that I would retire at HGA cuz it was a really good firm and my opportunity to work there was pretty unique and through one of my college professors, so I had a good job and I liked it. I think the shortest way I can answer that. The short story is that by a combination of the opportunities at Fort wilderness, the special needs that they had and then some things that God was doing, not only in my life, but in Laura's life, separately, but at the same time. And each of us made it pretty clear to us that this is something that, we should step into. And that was kind of the answer to the prayer that we got. So that's the very short version of that story. I think the longer version is that God had showed me very clearly that we weren't in total control of our lives. Billy: As much as you think you are, as much as you think the way you live or the job you have or the community you're in is giving you some sense of control God had shown us in personal ways that we're actually not in control. And so that put our minds in a place where I think we were willing to consider leaving all of the stuff that we've built up over the years and taking a risk of stepping in, into sort of this unknown role and fulfilling this, what was a, a clear need, but an unknown role for us. And so the timing of that sensation with the open doors and the opportunities and all of that is really what compelled us to seriously pray about it and determined this is where God was leading us. John: Mm yeah. So it's not like you were, you were running away from something that, you know, things are going along pretty well. And, but here is something that was better that God was leading you to. Billy: Yeah,Absolutely. I mean, it's still to be honest, you know, sometimes at our worst we're tempted to think like, man, did we, you know, you get to this point where can't go back and you're like, did we make a mistake? You know, going forward. And yeah. And I think a lot of that is just the enemy tempting us and trying to, you know, keep us from what God's called us into. But yeah, absolutely. It wasn't certainly wasn't running away. In fact it was quite when we came to Fort wilderness, for me personally, I had a lot of support and encouragement from peers and coworkers and even my own supervisor when I left and broke the news to him that I was, you know, gonna be resigning in the next month and talked to him. He this was God's grace. Billy: He had offered that, you know, he is like, he's like, I, I'm not gonna ask you to stay and offer you more money cuz I understand why you're doing this, he's like, but if things don't work out in spring and your support raising, isn't going well, he's like just call me, you know, I could throw some work your way and you could work remotely. Everybody was working remotely at that time. Anyway. So things like that were super helpful and leaving on leaving with good rapport and on good terms is, you know, something you still think about, especially in those moments when you're doubting and you know, wondering, and life is seeming more complicated than it probably should be. John: Yeah. Yeah. Interesting, you know, one definition of a missionary is someone who goes from one culture to another culture to, in some ways spread the good news of Jesus Christ. Now you move from one part of Wisconsin to another part of Wisconsin, but did you notice any cultural differences between where you were living in, in an urban setting compared to ....your smiling ... Um compared to living in the north woods? Tell us about the change in culture. Laura: Yeah, yeah. That's such a good, good question. You know, I think, I think I know that I downplayed this. I was like, and we've, we've had this whole discussion of what is the definition of a missionary and, and there's different ones. You know, at Fort we raise, we raise our support, meaning that our salaries paid to us. We had to talk to our church and friends and family and they support us monthly and that money pays our salary. So you know, that, that was one thought I had and because we were doing that support raising, I was like, yeah, I'm mean, and there isn't really the cultural thing because we're in Wisconsin and we're still gonna be in Wisconsin. And I, I should have, have thought about that more. It's been a drastic cultural change, both from just living in the city to living in the north woods, but also just not being on the corporate world schedule economy. Laura.: It's been challenging. I think mainly because I downplayed it. It was like, it's no, no big deal. We're just moving four hours away. It's no big deal.... And it, it has been a big deal. Mm. And I, you know, John, you told us, you have a lot of people that listen to your podcasts that are missionaries. And so I don't want that to come across as we did something as, as hard as moving to another country. In fact, I'm saying, wow, this has been a struggle. And we moved four hours and I can't imagine someone moved actually to a different our country. Yeah. we, you know didn't have language barriers or, or any of, of those things. So I don't, I don't wanna diminish, I mean yeah. Mm-Hmm, even more strength it must take to, to go to another country. John: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. How about for you, Billy? What, how has the cultural change, affected you or did it,? Billy: Yeah, certainly I think, especially cuz we moved from a pretty tight knit community and we had a lot of overlap between our church community and our living community mm-hmm . And so the people that we'd see and bump into at church on Sunday were also people that we'd see and bump into, you know, walking around sidewalks and we're just kind of doing life together. And that's, so it's a little, it's much more spread out up here just physically and logistically to overlap and to kind of get insights into people's lives or invite people into your lives is just logistically more challenging. So that was a, that's a big thing. I think that just drives sort of a different culture in the way. Probably that people are just and this is, I don't like to make general statements, but are just less accustomed to always being around mm-hmm you and other of people, you know, it's just, it's just kind of, there's a different vibe to it. Billy: But I think to add to what Laura was saying one of the challenges, and maybe this is less about culture is just being, feeling unestablished. I think when you go from a place where you feel established or you built a home and a life and you go to another place, whether that's 30 minutes away or on the other side of the world, there's a part of you. I think that I felt that where we feel like foreigners a little bit, like we're not, we, we didn't grow up here. You know, we haven't, our kids weren't raised here. We don't have the history, we don't know the places. We don't know the landmarks, all the, all the things that make you kind of have this sense of home and establishment, we're trying to piece together and, you know, get a grip on a little bit. So in that sense, maybe that amplifies the, what we perceive as like a difference in cultures from one to the other. But I think, that's a big part of it. John: Mm. Yeah. You know, one of those things that, we talk a lot about on the podcast is relationships. Have you noticed any differences in relationships where you're living now compared to where you were living, where you came from? Are they, are they different? Are they the same? How has your move affected the relationship between the two of you and, you know, your children, your parents? Has that been affected in any way? Billy: Yeah, I think , sometimes there might be the sense that if God's calling you to something and you understand that call and you accept that call, that you've arrived and you've, you've kind of done it and accomplished, you know, like the rest of this story is, and they lived happily ever after, you know, and I think that one of the things I've come to recognize, especially with relationships is that God doesn't, you know, call the equipped, but that he calls everybody, especially us to come here to grow. And so we've, I think that Laura and I, you know, between the two of us have had growth in our relationship, even in the past weeks. And some of that, I contribute to God, specifically pushing us and growing us in areas together as a married couple. And a lot of it has to do with, you know, that whole being established thing. I think that maybe he hasn't let us get too established yet because he does want us to not be too dependent on things. He loves us too much to let us get established in maybe bad routines or things like that. Mm-Hmm so he's working on us and you know, would he have done that? Had we not slipped into this fall? I don't probably, I don't know, but it seems like as we're here specifically, you know, making our work, his work, he's been pretty intentional in growing us as a married couple. John: Mm-Hmm. Yeah. Laura: I think yeah, our relationships have, have definitely every single one has changed. One thing we were talking about just tonight was so we had this great community where we lived and with our church and our neighborhood and Bible studies, we were in, like, we just, we had this great, great community. Right. And like, lots of people knew we were Christians, but yet we become a missionary. Right. And, so now all these friends know that we did this big thing and moved, right. And like Billy said, like, somehow you can feel like you've arrived. And, and cuz people would say that to you like, oh, I could never do that, but I'm so glad you're doing it. Like as if we're all of sudden somehow elevated, which is just not true, God comes to us in our brokenness. But, the really surprising, you know, the sad change is like, of course, like you don't keep in touch as much as you want because we're here now. Laura: And a lot of our relationships where we lived, like everyone walked places, we only had one car and we almost never used it. Like, so you would just run into people and connect with them. And so that's gone, like, you know, you still can text people and call people, but like that daily interaction it's not there. And so that, that was a great, great loss, but this beautiful thing that's come is people, whether they support us financially or not, we'll text us prayer requests. And it's like, I used to talk to you every day and you never asked me to pray for you. but now I'm a missionary. And like, I get the honor of people reaching out and being like, Hey, this is going on. I know you said that we could reach out for prayer you prayed for this. And I was like, wow, like, so that's been a beautiful change in, in the relationship. Mm-Hmm. That I wasn't expecting to be honest, like I was not expecting that at all. So, yeah. John: Cool. And, tell us about your, kids. You got three young kids. What about your relationship with them and their own individual relationships? Can you comment on that? Laura: You know, it was, it was a really big change for them too. And, and for context, our kids, when we moved were, seven, five and three, when we moved and, and I thought, you know, yeah, they've got friends, but they're super young. You know, they're not gonna, I, I didn't think it would be a huge deal, but there was a lot of factors. They were in public school, COVID hit. Then they were home. Then we decided to homeschool. Then we decided to become missionaries. And so they had like major change after major change, after, or major change. So I, I think there's been highs and lows mm-hmm and I think, I think something God's taught me in it is you can plan all you want and pick out, oh, this community is gonna be best for my kids, or this school is gonna be best, or this church home is gonna be best. But at the end of the day, there's not one perfect place to raise kids. And it's gonna be hard whether we're missionaries in the Northwood of Wisconsin or we're in this perfect picked out community. Mm-Hmm because we had picked out, you know, where we lived was because of the schools and the church and the community and, and there's pros and cons to any place you live. And at the end of the day, you have to put the time into parenting and you've got to rely on the Lord. John: Mm-Hmm Laura: I think the Lord's for sure. Been teaching me that since we've been here. John: Yeah. Yeah. Were there any surprises when you started, when you moved? Laura: Was that a yes, no question? The answer is yes. John: . Can you share one ? Billy: Yeah, I don't want, I don't mean this to sound critical or anything. But I think that for some reason, I thought that I worked in the secular world and that the secular world was very secular. And then you come and where I was going to work , you know, is kind of the church and the ministry. And so I had sort of this ideal in my mind about how that would look and function, and honestly you get into it and you start to discover like, oh, wait a minute. There's actually like, people are still people even here. And there's brokenness mm-hmm and there's challenges. And there's, you know, places where maturity is needed or places where maturity is really strong. And so one surprises that I found myself in moments, like looking back and thinking like, wow, actually in some ways I found my, my company that I worked for to be, you know, in moments could be more empathetic and in moments could be more concerning about, you know, like work life balance or stuff like that. Billy: And, again, I don't mean that to sound like a criticism, especially Fort wilderness is an amazing organization. And, you know, I think we're super blessed and impressed with it, but there's just a, you know, a reckoning of the ideals that we sometimes falsely build up in our mind about how, how ministry is gonna be this perfect place. Everyone's gonna be working hand in hand in community. But like, in fact it is work and , it's called work for a reason because it is difficult and people aren't perfect and we aren't perfect. And, but yet by God's grace we all, you know, so somehow come together and do something. John: Yeah. Yeah. Cool. For each of you, what have you found to be some of the more rewarding things about what you do? Billy: Do you wanna go, Laura: You can go first. Billy: Well, I think it's really cool being like I'm, so I'm a registered architect and I'm an architect by trade and been doing that for years. And I came from a firm of, you know, there are 110 people in it and like 80 architects, people who think and work like I do. And we, you know, we understand the craft that we come together around to do. So being, being the only architect now has on one hand challenges, because you don't have the depth of resources you had and you know, you're always kind of comparing yourself to your, your past or your peers, in the industry. But on the other hand it's really cool cuz you feel like, man, I really matter here. Like I really like I'm bringing the skillset that's unique and prepared us for it. And I matter in this role and I, I really feel like I belong here. And so I think that's been rewarding as we've seen projects come together and as we kind of solidify with our teams and you know, work together really well and actually see stuff get done, it's, it's kind of a cool feeling. You feel like you really had a big impact on it. John: Mm-hmm great. Laura: Yeah. And I'd, I'd say I think our unique area of ministry of, what Fort does, family camps in general, the people coming are all Christians to the family camp. Like you come to family camp to have a certain experience and you likely wouldn't sign up to attend a Christian family camp if you're not Christian in general. Right. So, so that part of the ministry people come and they are expecting and willing to talk about deep things because you're the missionary staff. And so, you know, I worked years at the Kohler company and had maybe one spiritual top discussion with a colleague because it's like taboo in the workplace to talk about anything. Right. Spiritual. Yeah. Yeah. And so if to get on that level with someone took years of working with them and it's like, we're up here at camp. And like our first summer I'm like, I just had this incredible conversation and this camper was talking to me about that. Laura: Right. And it's just like happening all over. And so that was like super encouraging. And then the youth camps and all winter, the youth groups come up all winter and, and so that you've got just all sorts of people. Like they're not, not all Christians and they're seeking and so yeah, I've just been, just touched the whole, the whole year. And I, I guess maybe it, it, after working corporate world for a long time, I hope that I never lose that this first year joy that every time campers are there, there's an opportunity for an incredible conversation. Yeah. yeah. Yeah. You know, and, and the flip side of that, honestly, though, John is like, there are days when I'm doing my marketing stuff that I just feel like I'm doing marketing stuff. Right. And, and I think as someone who, this is our first time working in ministry and I, I cringe at that term because you work as a Christian, I think you're always working in ministry. You're just not always being paid. Right. Like, yeah. So I guess I think, you know, we're one year in living up here and, and I'm still, I'm still wrestling through, I think a lot of that of am I, am I doing ministry when I'm plugging away at my computer? Mm-Hmm you know, or is it only when I'm talking with campers? Billy: Yeah. Laura: And there's a guilt in that right. Of like, and then you have camp is fun. So it's like, I never wanna leave because I might miss out on some incredible conversation. And then I'm like, but wait, like this isn't about me. Like God is actually doing the work. So I can go home like, , I can go rest. Right. Billy: It's a bit of an identity crisis at times, because it's like on one hand, I'm, I'm a professional who came from the corporate world and I'm, for me, I'm an architect and I do architect and we drive projects and I know what to do as an architect. So I've got that title. But on the other hand, I'm sort of this, I guess, cliche, missionary title too, you know, it's like, and so I feel like, like you're saying, if I'm doing my architecture stuff really well, it takes a lot of, you know, time and dedication. And I feel like, okay, I'm, I'm being a good architect, but now I'm not being a good mission area because I'm not doing ministry with people and you know, and so then it's like, all right, now, what is mission? What is ministry then? Billy: Is it designing the projects and, you know, making them successful or is it serving lunch with a camper or having the spiritual conversation or preaching, or, you know, where, when I'm an architect one minute, and the next minute i'm a missionary and, you know, maybe, you know, why doe it gotta be so complicated? but, but there's a bit of that where you feel like you're doing one well, and you're neglecting the other, or you're doing the other well, and you're neglecting the first and mm. It's kind of a strange gray area. Cause you're, yeah. You know, you're compared to professionals on one hand, but also this definition of a missionary on the other hand. John: Yeah. That was interesting. What have you learned about yourself? You've been there now? What a year and a half, two years, is it Billy: Deep questions. You know, I think, I think one thing that I've learned is I didn't think that where I lived and the house I had mattered to me as much as it apparently did. I Billy: Hmm. You know, and I think that we were talking a little bit earlier about, you know, this idea of being established and all that, and it's, it's more uncomfortable than I probably thought it would be. You know, I kind of had this idea that I could live. We could live anywhere. You know, we're pretty flexible. We're nimble all this stuff, but it's just weird how these silly thoughts come to you. You like the neighborhood we live in now, demographically is, is much poor, very different, mostly all rentals. Like, so you have, you know, it's, it's not hard to see that there's like a lot of brokenness and the families and things around here. And, you know, in Wauwatosa I think we lived across the street where our next neighbor's house was a $600,000 house. And now , I think the house across the street from us is probably worth $60,000, you know? Billy: So it's like Uh, starkly different. And so you have these dumb thoughts of like, man, my kids, like, what are they gonna grow up understanding of it? You know, like how is this gonna affect them and all this stuff. So I think God has used our living situation to expose idols in our hearts and in his grace has pushed us to deal with those things and to really understand what, you know, what is, what is important. And so I think that's a way that I've seen, I know I've been growing in that. I think we've both been growing in that. Mm. Laura: Yeah. I think the biggest thing I've learned about myself is that I had a lot of deep rooted pride in, in money and my own achievements. Like, like I went to college and, you know, I was a straight A student. And so then you, you get the job and your paycheck comes and you're like, yeah, I deserve that money. In fact, I probably should be paid more because mm-hmm. , I've worked for this and I'm a hard worker and right. Like it, you can just, I mean, I never said those words out loud, but I definitely thought them in my head. And then the Lord leads us to this thing that we have to raise support. Right. And every time, so how it works when we get a paycheck, every paycheck there, we get a sheet in it with all these names and the amount that that person gave in that two week pay period. Laura: Mm. And it's really hard to be prideful when you get a sheet like that every week. And you're like, no, like the reason I get to do this work is because all these people believed that this ministry was worth it and believed that Billy and I were being called to it and are willing to give the funds so that, so I can get paid. And every time I open those little envelopes, I'm like, oh, it's not about me. Like it, like, I just it's. I mean, we've been getting them for a year. Like, and I still can just feel like I need that reminder every two weeks to not be prideful. And I'm like, wow, I had a way bigger pride issue than I thought I had. John: Mm-Hmm. Laura: Like, like, okay, like, you know, and so it gets back to this like dual purpose. It's like, has the Lord called us here because we're, we have skill sets and we have something to offer that Fort needs. Yes. But has he equally called us here because he's working in us and, and through us, like, because we're broken sinful people, like yes. Like both those things are true. Billy: Yeah. Laura: And, I think that's a good place to be, to have both those being true. John: Yeah. What advice would you have for someone who is where you were a year and a half, two years ago? What advice would you have for someone who would be considering leaving a secular job to be, to become a missionary? Billy: I would say that if, if God is really calling you to that, then you can't go wrong and he, he's not calling you because you're equipped and you may, and you may be, and maybe you have a skillset to offer, but it's like, Laura was just saying, he's calling you to equip you. He will equip you. And in ways that are far reaching beyond the actual work that he's calling you to do, mm-hmm,, he's deeply concerned with you. He's deeply concerned with the condition of your heart and he loves you. And that's why he's calling you into it. So if he's, yeah, if you, if he's calling you then do it, but it doesn't mean that the rest of the story is, and they lived happily ever after mm-hmm John: Yes. Billy: He calls us to grow us. Laura: Yeah. I'd echo that. And, and I would also say if you feel the Lord's leading, you, you know, you need to get on your hands and knees and, and make sure that he's, he's the one leading that it's not something in your own mind. And, and I think you do that in prayer. I think you do that in, in his word, you do that by reaching out to, to some really trusted friends, which, you know, John, that, we did that when we were in our, our discernment time period. And for us, all three of those areas in our individual prayer in our time spent in the word and the trusted friends we met with all three pointed to, to going. And at that point we said, yes, we didn't, we didn't ask about the money. Or we were like, well, we can't say no. Now, like, if God has said yes, in all three of those areas, like, I mean, that that's, I that's how we discerned our decision. And so I, I put that time in that discernment process, for sure. John: Yeah. Yeah. Well, this has been great. It's getting going longer than I told you it would go. So I appreciate your appreciate your time. If people wanted to find out more about Fort wilderness, how could they do that? What's the website and all of that. And I'll have it in the show notes too. Laura: Yeah. So it's, it's fortwilderness.com. It's a new website that I had the privilege of working on. So thanks for asking about that, John. John: That's right. I forgot. Yeah. That's a great website. Laura: That's been my big work for the last like eight months. It's not perfect, but, but we did launch the new website and you can find out about the ministry there. You can see the missionaries that are serving there and many are still raising support. Yeah. And you can, you can get in touch with us. We love praying for people and getting to know people so, yeah, that'd be great. John: Mm-Hmm. Good. Well, thanks again. We love you guys and we, we miss you, but we're just really, really excited to see how God is using you for his glory in Northern Wisconsin and all the people that come from all over to learn more about Jesus and you are important parts of that ministry, important parts of facilitating that kind of activity and advancing God's kingdom. So we applaud what you do, that's for sure. So again, thanks for your time. And we will stay in touch. So what does all this mean for YOU? Some of the questions I asked Billy and Laura I found helpful for all of us to ask ourselves How has God led us to what we are doing now? How are relationships impacting our lives? What are the rewarding things about our jobs, or if we're not employed, what's rewarding in the ways we spend our time? What have we learned about ourselves in the last year or two? Here's the main takeaway I hope you remember from today's episode Taking the time to listen to a missionary, to hear their story of how God has led them and is growing them, can inspire us to listen more deeply to God so that we can grow too. I'd love to hear any thoughts you have about today's episode. Closing In closing, I hope your thinking was stimulated by today's show to think about how you can listen to a missionary, or even your friends, to hear their story of how they got to where they are today. For when you do, it will help you experience the joy of relationships God intends for you. Because after all, You Were Made for This. Well, that's it for today. In the meantime, create a little joy for the people you meet this week. Spread some relational sunshine. And I'll see you next time. To check out Fort Wilderness, go to fortwilderness.com Related episodes you may want to listen to 139: Why Should I Listen to This Podcast? 143: Initiate with People to Enrich Our Life - Part 1 144: Initiate with People to Enrich Our Life - Part 2 Our Sponsor You Were Made for This is sponsored by Caring for Others, a missionary care ministry. We are supported by the generosity of people like you to continue this weekly podcast and other services we provide to missionaries around the world.

There are some important terms you're going to come across as you prepare for retirement. Having a basic understanding of these will help you achieve financial success, so we'll cover what they mean and what you should know on today's episode. And don't worry. We won't go quite so far down the rabbit hole where we expect you to be able to explain how a company's P/E ratio meshes with it's Alpha and Beta ratings to determine how much stock you should buy. Helpful Information: PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/ Contact: 813-286-7776 Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is a registered investment adviser. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investment involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment adviser to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Transcript of Today's Show: For a full transcript of today's show, visit the blog related to this episode at https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/podcast/ ----more---- Mark: Hey everybody welcome into the podcast. Thanks for hanging out with John and Nick and I, as we talk about Retirement Planning Redefined here on the podcast. As always, don't forget to subscribe to us on whatever platform you like to use. Find all the information you need at pfgprivatewealth.com. That's the guys website pfgprivatewealth.com. Lot of good tools, tips, and resources to be found there. We're going to have another conversation today about some financial jargon. This is more kind of investment terms you might want to know or have heard and maybe you want to get a better understanding on, especially if you're sitting down and you're shopping for a professional or something like that. You want to kind of understand some of these things that you're talking about. Now we're not going to go super deep. We're not going to get into PE ratios and alphas and betas and all that kind of stuff, but we're going to keep it kind of high level. So we'll jump into that this week on the podcast, Nick, what's going on, buddy? How you doing?   Nick: Pretty good. Pretty good. Staying busy. We're recording this, just kind of closing up tax season. So happy that that is over for-   Mark: I bet.   Nick: Everybody that is at least not filing an extension.   Mark: Yeah.   Nick: But yeah, it's obviously a lot going on in the world. So it's been keeping us pretty busy.   Mark: Yeah that's true. Very true. John, what about you buddy? You glad tax season's over?   John: Yeah. Yeah. It's a fun kind of hump to get over.   Mark: I like that little pause. It's fun. Yeah.   John: Yeah. So, no, it's good. It's kind of a mark that people have on their calendar, so that's over with, and really we start to kind of get busy afterwards.   Mark: Yeah.   John: Because a lot of people kind of delay meetings until after tax season, so excited to get back at it. And then also excited that NBA playoffs started. So Boston Celtics are playing the Nets right now.   Mark: Alright now, there you go.   John: Gearing up for that, so-   Mark: There you go. Very good. Well we probably should have done a show really on tax planning versus tax preps right after tax season because really tax planning is something you should be doing all year long with your retirement professional anyway, but we're not going to do that this week. Maybe we'll do that here in the next couple of weeks, we'll come up and do something.   Mark: But for now let's talk about some terms that people hear and probably should know. Maybe you know, maybe you have that kind of cursory high level view, whatever the case might be. Maybe you don't. So let's talk about a few of these. Let's kind of start with fiduciary guys. And this is a term that I think people should know. They should know what it is. I kind of wish, and I was thinking about this before we started that our politicians had to do what fiduciaries have to do, right? They have that legal, moral, ethical responsibility to do what's right for their client AKA us as American citizens. I wish our politicians had to be fiduciaries, but either way explain what it is and maybe a little bit of the difference between that and like suitability.   John: Yeah. So fiduciary, especially in our world's investment advisor, it's where the fiduciary is obligated to put the client's best interests ahead of their own. So really looking to do what's best for the client, regardless of any other factors. And what you mentioned there with as far as, how does that compare to suitability, where kind of like a broker has to recommend something that's suitable for the client, so there's a big difference when you start to kind of analyze that is something might be suitable for you, but it might not be the best thing for your situation.   Mark: Right.   John: Or maybe there's other things out there that are better. So fiduciary has the due diligence and say, "Hey, I'm making this recommendation. And based on my expertise, my knowledge, everything I've compared it to this is what I believe is the best for you." And also if there's any conflict of interests for the advisor as a fiduciary, they must disclose that to you upfront.   Mark: Yeah.   John: So one thing, what people really need to do when they're interviewing advisors or kind of taking that step to try to find someone to work with, it's really one of the first questions should be asking. I'd say the good thing is the industry is really going in this direction-   Mark: Mm-hmm (affirmative).   John: Over the last, decade or so. It's really been kind of going, fiduciary, fiduciary, so that's.   Mark: Making that the standard, making it more the standard?   John: Yeah. Yeah, no, I think that's a great point. So if I'm getting this right, then maybe to kind of break this down for people, and Nick feel free to chime in, but so if there's three options available, suitability would say, "Hey, any of these three technically work for my client, but this one actually pays me better or there's a reward of a trip or something like that attached to it." You're not doing the wrong thing by picking that. It's still suitable. Whereas a fiduciary has to go with the absolute best thing for the client period. Is that a fair way to break that down in layman's terms?   Nick: Yeah, I think that's a pretty fair way to kind of break it down and it can get tricky because when you really get into the nitty gritty in theory, people can argue about what's better now versus what might be better down the road and that sort of thing.   Mark: Right.   Nick: But if anything, I think what's important for people to understand is the conflicts of interests, the potential conflicts of interest and where they come from. So, if you're working with an advisor that is tied in with a parent company that has proprietary products, then they're probably not able to function as a fiduciary. So-   Mark: Gotcha.   Nick: Understanding that there's a conflict of interest, a potential conflict of interest, there is just something that people should ask about so that they understand it. It can be from experience just kind of chatting with people. It can get a little overwhelming for people to kind of really drill down understanding the difference between fiduciary and standard versus a suitability standard. But people oftentimes understand conflict of interest. And just to kind of piggyback a little bit on your short little rant earlier about politicians, many people would be shocked to know that many politicians are able to invest in companies even though there may be conflicts of interests.   Mark: Yeah.   Nick: And the fact that's able to happen. And there's some websites that track those sort of things, but oftentimes they're privy to information that will impact a company in the marketplace and they're able to take advantage of it even though, the rest of the country can't do that, so-   Mark: Yeah, I was just even talking financially. In just their basic decision making when they pass laws.   Nick: For sure. For sure. But that's a good example of them not passing laws that-   Mark: True.   Nick: Aren't good for everybody.   Mark: Well and to John's point, so there's nothing wrong with asking, right? When you go in and sit down with someone, you just say, "Hey, are, are you a fiduciary?" Right? That's a fair question, and there's nothing wrong with asking that.   Nick: Agreed.   Mark: Yeah. Okay. All right. So let's move on to the other big term right now that everybody's getting hit over the head with, on a regular basis, and that's inflation. At the time we're doing this podcast guys, the CPI numbers came out a couple of weeks ago for March, pretty ugly. Gross is a term that has been thrown around quite a bit some of these numbers, 8.5% on the inflation, we're talking what 48% on gas, 35% up on used cars, food 13 to 17% up. So inflation break it down a little bit.   Nick: Yeah. So inflation has to do with spending power of money. And so one of the easiest ways for people to kind of think about it is, you mentioned food for example, one of the things that we kind of joke around with people is they were able to a couple years ago, do you remember when you could walk out of Publix and get everything you needed for 70, 80 bucks versus it now costing 100, $120 for the same amount of stuff. And the tricky thing with inflation is that it's there on a consistent basis year to year, but every 10 to 15 years, it kind of creeps up on us. And then we realize, Hey, this is kind of annoying.   Nick: And then obviously we have times we're in right now where there's some hyper inflation and kind of pocket books are getting hit. The one thing that I would say just to kind of pour some water on it is that although there are some real substantial issues that people are dealing with, there are some kind of, I guess, what we would almost call acute factors that are having an impact on it, that we would hope subside to a certain extent within the next year or two. But also there are going to be ramifications that we're already starting to see where the FED is doing things to try to combat inflation, like increasing interest rates, which we're kind of already on the docket, but has been getting pushed down. The cans been getting kicked down the road for a while.   Nick: And so things like mortgages, mortgage rates are now I think mid fives I read, whereas a year ago, closer to three. And I was just having a conversation with somebody to kind of put that in real world numbers. A half a million dollar mortgage at rates a year ago, a half a million dollar financed amount is from a monthly payment standpoint is equivalent to around 370,000 now, or if you look at it inverse half a million dollar mortgage at current rates is going to cost you around $700 a month more than it was a year ago. So that's going to have a real impact on housing prices and a lot of other things as well. So those are some real world examples of how inflation kind of impacts our life.   Mark: All right. So yeah, obviously we're hyper aware, we've talked about it before a little bit, but inflation we always kind of think of, at least I do it anyway, like calories, right? We know it exists and we don't often put a lot of thought into it until it's slapping us in the face, so to speak. And it's definitely doing that right now, so a lot people very concerned about that. So when we are talking about that, what happens is you start thinking, well maybe I should take a little more risk or whatever the case is with my portfolio to try to outpace inflation or keep up with it or whatever the case is, especially in these crazy times. So that leads us into risk tolerance guys. So what is your risk tolerance? And is that a wise move to try to take on more risk to combat something? Usually it's not.   John: No, it's not. And this is one of the most probably important things in building a portfolio that someone should really take a look at, and it's often overlooked. So risk tolerance is, to kind of bring it down to the simplest form is how much loss is an investor willing to take in their portfolio? How much volatility can they tolerate? So one of the things that we do when we are building a portfolio for our clients, the first thing actually is we have them go through a risk tolerance questionnaire to determine, are they conservative, moderate, aggressive? And from there we really help us design the portfolio so that way we can kind of match up the expected volatility of the portfolio with kind of what they could bear.   John: Because one of the worst things you could do investing is jumping around. And I hate to say it seeing a little bit right now I've already kind of feel a few phone calls I'm like, hey what should we do with the market? And if this volatility's already got you nervous and it hasn't really, it's been a pullback but it hasn't been anything too significant.   Mark: Right.   John: You really need to take a look at am I invested correctly because as we all know, as you shift to conservative or to cash, and then the next week the market just rally up and all of a sudden you just lost all. You realized your losses and didn't get to recover from it.   Mark: Yeah, knee jerk reaction is not the best right now. Right?   Nick: Yeah. And I would even jump in with that too going along with what John said where I think we have hit that point where people have forgotten what it's like to have bad markets, or even a normal market cycle of having a negative year. Even during COVID when the markets pulled back, 35, 40%, they bounced back by the end of the year. So it was never really realized. There was a short period of panic, but the recovery was quick, but.   Mark: Mm-hmm (affirmative).   Nick: There's a lot of people that don't remember that hey, there are going to be years where the market is down 10% for the year, the whole year. 12 whole months, so that's something that's interesting that's happening right now that we're seeing. Plus, historically where people would shift would be to fixed income or bonds. And that's not necessarily a safe place right now, either. So we're kind of in this, almost unicorn phase that only comes along every 50 or 60 years where there's not a lot of opportunities in many places. And so there's going to definitely have to be some patience involved-   Mark: I like that.   Nick: In the next 12 to 18 months.   Mark: Yeah. I like the unicorn phase. That's a good way of putting it. It's definitely been interesting, that's for sure. So do you guys kind of with the risk tolerance, is it kind of that number kind of system? Do you guys do that risk tolerance kind of thing where you kind of give someone almost like sleep number, if you will. If you're 100 or if you're a 20, how does that work?   John: Yeah. So how we do it and I've used actually some programs that do that. They give you a risk number based on how you answer questions. We have a set of some pretty good questions that give us an idea of what that person can kind of stomach.   Mark: Okay.   John: And what their expected return is. It's really, when you start to break it down, it's a lot of the same questions just asked differently to really kind of understand how the person ticks.   Mark: Yeah.   John: So we do a real good job of figuring that out. And then as advisors, part of our job is to make sure we put them in the appropriate portfolio based on how they answer.   Mark: Yeah. Because it's pretty easy to say conservative, and you go, what does that even mean? Right? Or I'm moderate.   John: Yeah.   Mark: Well what does that mean? That's probably a wide window, right?   John: It is.   Nick: Yeah. And then I would say one of the things that without it sounding like a commercial for ourselves, one of the things that we do that's a little bit different than some places that we do have what's called like a tactical tilt to how we manage money, where if we do have significant concerns, we will tamp down the risk. So maybe if somebody's normally in a portfolio that's a 50/50 mix stock to bond and what we would consider a moderate portfolio, if we have significant concerns in the market, we may drop them down to 30% on the stock side of things in certain cycles where we have high concerns. So sometimes what we found is that helps allay some fears for some people that there's some proactive potential changes, where if we really feel like it's going to hit the fan, we will make that change.   Mark: Right. Okay. So risk tolerance, another big one then definitely making sure that you're having that proper risk tolerance for yourself, especially in these inflationary times. When it becomes, it's hard to not feel, I think as humans, we feel like if we don't do something, we're doing something wrong or we have to take action or therefore we've made a mistake. And sometimes doing nothing can be a smart move. Especially in volatile times when it comes to a financial standpoint, if you don't know the correct answer, making no move might be a good place to start at least. That way you're not having that knee jerk reaction. And then of course, talk with a professional. Get some advice, and get a good strategy in place so that you know the right moves to make at the right time. Let's do another one here, guys, another technical one, dollar cost averaging, what is that?   Nick: So dollar cost averaging is the easiest example that most people have exposure to on a regular basis. And they don't probably realize that they're doing it is when people are contributing to their 401k. So every two weeks, a certain amount of your paycheck goes into your 401k and you have a set allocation and you are buying in to that allocation at whatever price it's at that point in time. So the thought process with dollar cost averaging is that you are balancing, you're investing over a period of time. Where sometimes you'll be buying at a premium, sometimes you'll be buying at a discount, but the objective is to continually invest and make sure that you are not trying to time the market.   John: And part of that is also what we're finding with the current market where it's at, with people with money on the sidelines, it could be a good way to kind of take some of the risk of putting all your money into the market and all of a sudden it dropping. So there's a strategy to basically say every, if I have 100,000 I want to put into the market every month or so, I'm going to be putting in 10 grand into it. That way, if it does dip down immediately, I only have $10,000 at risk. So dollar cost averaging, as Nick mentioned, most people are doing the 401k, not knowing it, but if you have money on the sideline in a volatile market, or if you're nervous, it is a good way to kind of get money that was on the sideline into the market.   Mark: Okay. All right. Well let's do one more guys and we'll wrap it up this week. Asset allocation, another big term we hear. We probably get that tossed around a little bit. Give us the kind of high level view of what that is. And because often I think people wind up feeling like they have a whole bunch of one thing and they're diversified because they've, I don't know, for example, I've got a whole bunch of mutual funds, so therefore I'm good. So explain what asset allocation is and is that correct? What I just said, is that really diversified or not?   John: Yeah. So asset allocation's kind of taken diversification to a different level. You could have seven different mutual funds, but if it's all the same type of funds, for example, like a large cap growth fund, they're going to do the same thing in reality when the market goes up or down. So when you do asset allocation, you're spreading your money, your portfolio within different asset classes, such as large cap stocks, small stocks that Nick mentioned, fixed income earlier, cash, some alternatives.   John: So what you do there is when you're building a portfolio and again, starting with your risk tolerance and your goals, you determine, hey my risk tolerance is X, here's my goals. I should be in a, let's just call it in income in growth portfolio. Well, what's the right mix of asset classes to make that work and to kind of bring it down to layman's terms here? Imagine kind of cooking, you're making recipe for a pie. The pie has certain ingredients to make it work and make it taste good. And that's basically what you're doing in your investments. It could be 20% large cap, 5% small cap, 20% fixed income, and our job as advisors and wealth management is we build that portfolio for the client if they hire us to do so.   Mark: Gotcha. Okay. All right. That's a good way of breaking that down. You just think about like a pie. So, and who doesn't love pie? So there you go. All right guys, thanks so much for the conversation this week. Good stuff talking about these technical terms, some jargon here. Hopefully we kept that pretty high level and it helped out with some of the things that you might be thinking or hearing. And if you've got questions, definitely reach out to the guys.   Mark: As always, before you take any action sit down. If you're already working with them, maybe share this podcast with someone who might benefit from it. If not, if you've been listening for a while, just reach out to them, have a conversation, and chat with them for yourself. You can find all of it at pfgprivatewealth.com. That's their website pfgprivatewealth.com. They're financial advisors at PFG Private Wealth, which makes a lot of sense. So make sure you subscribe on Apple, Google, Spotify, all that good kind of stuff. That way you can catch past episodes as well as future episodes. For John and Nick I'm your host, Mark. We'll catch you next time here on Retirement Planning Redefined.

“John: So the first thing our friend Nap points out here is the habit we all have of putting off until tomorrow things that should have been done yesterday. Doubting Thomas: You mean like taking out the trash? John: Nope. That has to happen the night before it's picked up.” Referenced Links: AI Voices & Other Stuff @ Online Tone Generator Credits: These podcasts are productions of Little Red Hen Industries. Learn about financial education & personal financial management in this episode with John Brandy on the Simple Success podcast. Learn more about Simple Success with John Brandy using our all-in-one access link here Visit the Simple Success with John Brandy website today! We have websites for both podcasts & there's a Listen Notes site for even more personal ideas. Send us a video, audio or text message, but of course you'll have to head to the show notes to get links. Simple Success Web: https://www.simplesuccesswithjohnbrandy.com/ A Choice Voice Web: https://www.achoicevoice.com/ iOS Simple Success: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/simple-success-with-john-brandy/id1549566678 Droid Simple Success: https://podcasts.google.com/search/simple%20success%20with%20john%20brandy iOS A Choice Voice: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-choice-voice-with-john-brandy/id1560026051 Droid A Choice Voice: https://podcasts.google.com/search/a%20choice%20voice%20with%20john%20brandy Support: https://anchor.fm/simplesuccess/support https://anchor.fm/achoicevoice/support Voice Msgs: https://anchor.fm/simplesuccess/message https://anchor.fm/achoicevoice/message ListenNotes (Podcast Playlists & Stuff): https://www.listennotes.com/playlists/john-brandys-podcast-playlist-GxK2g7uwZDU/podcasts/ Finally, you can find us on Podmatch, where we consider guests & guesting on other pods. Podmatch Host https://podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/1611285111512x890580376127176400?return=true Podmatch Guest https://podmatch.com/guestdetailpreview/1611285111512x890580376127176400?return=true And really finally, our music and sound effects come from freesound.org --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/simplesuccess/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/simplesuccess/support

There are certain age milestones where you should really pay attention to your retirement planning progress. On this episode, we'll look at the most important birthdays as you approach retirement and cover the exact things you should be checking off your to-do list at each age. Helpful Information: PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/ Contact: 813-286-7776 Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is a registered investment adviser. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investment involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment adviser to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Transcript of Today's Show: For a full transcript of today's show, visit the blog related to this episode at https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/podcast/ ----more---- Mark: Hey, everybody. Welcome into another addition of the podcast. This is Retirement Planning Redefined, with John and Nick and myself, talking investing, finance, retirement, and birthdays.   Mark: We're going to get into important birthdays in the retirement planning process. As we get older, I don't think any of us really want birthdays, but these are some things we need to know. They're pretty useful. Some of this is pretty basic. Some of this stuff's got some interesting caveats in it as well. So you might learn something along the way. It can go a long way towards that retirement planning process.   Mark: We're going to get into that and take an email question as well. If you've got some questions of your own, stop by the website, pfgprivatewealth.com. That's pfgprivatewealth.com.   Mark: John, what's going on, buddy? How you doing?   John: A little tired. Got woken up at 2:00 in the morning with two cranky kids.   Mark: Oh yeah.   John: So if I'm a little off today, I apologize.   Mark: There you go. No, no worries. You get the whole, they climb the bed, and then you're on the tiniest sliver?   John: I got one climb into bed, I think kicked me in the face at one point.   Mark: Oh, nice.   John: Another one climbed into bed missing out on the other one, because they share a room. Then I had the sliver. I woke up almost falling off the bed.   Mark: There you go. And usually freezing because you have no blankets.   John: Yeah, yeah.   Mark: That's usually the way it goes. Nick's sitting there going, "I don't know what you guys are talking about."   Mark: What's going on, buddy. How you doing?   Nick: Yep. No. Pretty low maintenance over here.   Mark: Well, that's good. Hey, don't you have a birthday coming up?   Nick: I got a couple months still.   Mark: Okay, a couple months.   Nick: Yeah, I just got back from a trip a few weeks ago. Some buddies that I grew up with, a group of us have been friends for a really long time, I guess, going back to middle school. We're all turning 40 this year, so we rented a house in Charleston, and all survived.   Mark: Nice. There you go.   Nick: Yeah. It was good.   John: This is how you know Nick's turning 40. He came back with neck pain.   Mark: Exactly.   Nick: Yeah.   Mark: Hey, when you start to get a certain age, you start going, "When did I hurt that?" It's like, "I didn't even do anything." Yeah. You don't have to do anything.   Mark: Well, you know what? That's a good segue. Let's jump into this.   Mark: We're going to start with age 50. I turned 50 last year. First of all, the thing that sucks is you get the AARP card. I don't know about all that. That's annoying as a reminder that you're 50.   Mark: But the government does say, "Hey, let me help you out a little bit here if you need to catch up on some of the retirement accounts, help building those up." Talk to me about catch up contributions, guys.   Nick: Yeah. Essentially what happens is when you hit 50, there's two types of accounts that allow you to start contributing a little bit more money. The most basic one is an IRA or a Roth IRA, where the typical maximum contribution for somebody under 50 is 6,000 a year. You can add an additional thousand to do a total of 7,000 a year. The bigger one is in a 401(k) or 403(b) account, where you're able to contribute, I believe it's an extra 6,500 per year.   Nick: This is also a good flag for people to think about where, hey, once that catch up contribution is available, it's probably a good time, if you haven't done any sort of planning before, to really start to dial in and understand your financial picture a little bit more. Because if you talk to anybody that's 60, they'll tell you that 50 didn't seem too far back. So that's a good reminder to dig into that a little bit.   Mark: Yeah. It adds up. It's not necessarily chicken feed. You might hear it and think, "Well, a thousand dollars on this type of account over a year, or 6,500 on the other type of account, whoopedidoo." But if you're 50 and you're going to 67, let say, for full retirement age, and we'll get to that in a little bit, that's 17 years of an extra seven grand. It's not exactly chicken feed, right?   Nick: No. It's going to be big money down the road.   Mark: Yeah, exactly. So that's 50.   Mark: John, talk to me about 55. This one's really similar to 59 and a half, which most of us are familiar with, but most people don't understand the rule at 55. So can you break that down a little bit?   John: Yeah. We don't see people utilize this too often, but an example would be let's say you're 50, 55, 56, and for whatever reason, you leave your current job. You have an opportunity, at that point...   John: Let's give a bad scenario. You get laid off. If you didn't have a nest egg saved up in savings, there's an opportunity to actually access some money from your 401(k) plan without penalty. What you'll do is, basically, you take the money directly from the plan, and you just have it go to your bank account, and the 10% penalty's waived.   John: Now, some people need to be careful with this. Once you roll it out to an IRA, this 55 rule here, where the 10%'s waived, ceases to exist. It has to go from the employer plan to you directly in that situation. It's a nice feature if someone finds themselves in a bad situation, or they need access to money, and the 10% penalty's gone, but you still have to pay your income tax on that money [crosstalk 00:05:03]   Mark: Of course. Yeah. That caveat being, it's only from the job that you've just left, right? It can't be from two jobs ago kind of thing. It's got to be that one that you've just walked away from, or been asked to leave, or whatever the case is. That's that caveat.   John: Correct.   Mark: It's basically the same rules, Nick, as the 59 and a half. It's just is attached to that prior job. But 59 and a half is the more normal one. What's the breakdown there?   Nick: Yeah. Essentially what happens is, at 59 and a half, you are able to take out money from your qualified accounts while avoiding that penalty without any sort of caveats. One thing to keep in mind is that usually you're taking it out from accounts that...   Nick: For example, if you're currently employed, the process of taking it out of the plan where you're employed can be a little bit different, but it's pretty smooth and easy if you have an IRA or something like that outside of the employer plan.   Nick: One other thing that happens in most plans, for people at 59 and a half, is, and we've seen it a bunch lately, where a lot of 401(k) plans have very restricted options in fixed income and those sorts of things, where most or many plans allow people to take inservice rollovers, where they're able to still work at their employer, but roll their money out of the plan to open up some options for investments outside of the plan.   Nick: That's not always the best thing for people. Sometimes the plans are great. Fees are really low. Options are great. So it may not make sense, but oftentimes people do like having the option to be able to shift the money out without any sort of issue.   Mark: Okay. All right. So that's the norm there. You got to love that half thing. You always wonder what the senators or whoever was thinking when [crosstalk 00:06:56]   John: Finally, they got rid of the 70 and a half [crosstalk 00:06:58]   Mark: Yeah. They get rid of that one. Yeah. We'll get to that in just a minute as well.   Mark: John, 62, nothing too groundbreaking here, but we are eligible finally for Social Security. So that becomes... I guess the biggest thing here is people just go, "Let me turn it on ASAP versus is it the right move?"   John: Yeah. So 62, you're now eligible. Like you said, a lot of people are excited to finally get access to that extra income. You can start taking on Social Security.   John: Couple of things to just be aware of is, any time you take Social Security before your full retirement age, you will get a reduction of benefit. At 62, it's anywhere, depending on your full retirement age, roughly 25 to 30% reduction of what you would've gotten had you waited till 66 or 67.   Mark: They penalize you, basically.   John: Yeah.   Nick: Yeah. Actually, if you do the math, it ends up breaking down to almost a half a percent per month reduced.   Mark: Oh wow.   Nick: Yeah. It really starts to add up when you think about it that way.   John: Yeah. We always harp on planning, so important if you are thinking about taking it early, once you make that decision, and after a year of doing that, you're locked into that decision. So it's important to really understand is that best for your situation.   John: Other things to consider at this age, if you do take early, Social Security does have what they call a earnings penalty slash recapture. If you're still working and taking at 62, a portion of your Social Security could be subject to go back to them in lieu of, for a better term, [crosstalk 00:08:27]   Mark: It's 19,000 and some change, I think, this year, if you make more than that.   John: Yeah.   Mark: Yeah.   John: Yeah. Anything above 19,000 that you're earning, 50% goes back to Social Security. [crosstalk 00:08:36]   Mark: Yeah. For every two bucks you make-   John: 5,000 goes back to Social Security. So that's really important.   John: Something that I just want to make, last point on this, is that earnings threshold is based on someone's earned income, and it's based on their own earned income, not household. That comes up quite a bit, while people say, "Well, I want to retire and take at 62, but my husband's still working. Am I going to have a penalty if I take it?" The answer is no. It's based on your own earnings record.   Mark: That's where the strategy comes into play too. Because if you are married, then looking at who's making more, do we leave one person's to grow, as we're going to get into those in just a second, to grow towards that more full number.   Mark: Again, that's all the strategy. It may make sense for one person to turn it on early, and the other person to delay it. That's, again, part of the strategy of sitting down and talking with a professional, and looking at all the other assets that you have, and figuring out a good move there.   Mark: Nick, let's go to Medicare. 65 magic age.   Nick: Yeah. Actually, my dad turns 65 this year. So we've been planning this out for him. He is a retired fireman, so he has some benefits that tie in with his pension.   Nick: One of the things that came up, and just something that people should think about or remember, even if they are continuing to work past 65, is it oftentimes makes sense to at least enroll in Medicare Part A. You can usually enroll as early as three months before your birthday. The Medicare website has gotten a lot easier to work with over the last year or two.   Nick: Part A, the tricky thing is that you want to check with your employer, because usually what happens for the areas that Part A covers, which is usually hospital care, if you were to have to be admitted or certain procedures, it's figuring out who's the primary payer, who pays first, who pays second. So making sure that you coordinate your benefits. Check in with HR, if you're going to continue to work.   Nick: If you are retired and are coming up on that Medicare age, make sure that you get your ducks in a row so that you do enroll. Most likely you're going to start saving some money on some healthcare premiums.   Mark: Technically, this starts about, what, three months early? It's a little actually before 65. I think it's three months when you got to start this process, and three months before and after.   Nick: Yep. Yeah. You can typically enroll three months before your birthday, and then through three months afterwards. There can be some issues if you don't enroll and you don't have other healthcare, at least for Part A. There can be penalties and that sort of thing.   Nick: Frankly, with Medicare and healthcare in retirement, this is a space that we typically delegate out. We've got some good resources for clients that we refer them to, because there are a lot of moving parts, and it can be overwhelming, especially when you start to move into the supplements and Advantage plans, and all these different things.   Mark: Oh yeah. And it's crucial. You want to make sure you get it right. A lot of advisors will definitely work with some specialists, if you will, in that kind of arena. So definitely checking that out when we turn 65.   Mark: Again, some of these, pretty high level stuff, some of this stuff we definitely know. But we wanted to go over some of those more interesting caveats.   Mark: Let's keep moving along here, guys. Full retirement age, 66 or 67. John, just what? It's your birthday, right?   John: It is your birthday. That's the time that you can actually take your full Social Security benefit without any reduction, which is a great thing to do. Then also that earnings penalty we discussed earlier at age 62, that no longer exists. Once you hit your full retirement age, 66 or 67, you can earn as much as you want and collect your Social Security. There's no penalty slash recapture.   John: When that happens, people have some decisions to make. If they're still working, they can decide to take their Social Security. I've had some clients that take it, and they use that as vacation money. I've had some other ones take it, and they take advantage of maxing out their 401(k) with the extra income. Or you can delay it. You don't have to take it. You get 8% simple interest on your benefit up until age 70.   John: So full retirement age, you got a lot of big decisions to make, depending on your situation. But you want to make sure you're making the best for what you want.   Mark: Definitely.   Nick: Just as a reminder to people that that 8%, and you had mentioned it, but it does cap out at age 70. So there's no point in waiting past 70, because it doesn't increase any more.   Mark: Right. Thanks for doing that. It wasn't on my list, but I was going to bring it up real fast. So yeah. People will sometimes email and they'll say, "Hey, I want to keep working past 70. How's that affect Social Security." It's like, "Well, you're maxed out, so you got to just go ahead and get it done." You can still work if you're feeling like it. Your earnings potential is unlimited, but it's just a matter of you're not going to add any more to it. So I'm glad you brought that up.   Mark: John, you mentioned earlier, they got rid of the other half. Thank God. The 70 and a half thing, just because it was confusing as all get out. They moved it to 72.   Nick: Yeah. Required minimum distributions, as a reminder for people, are for accounts that are pre-tax, where you were able to defer taxation. 401(k), traditional IRA, that sort of thing. At 72, you have to start taking out minimum distributions. It starts at around 3.6, 3.7% of the balance. It's based on the prior year's ending balance. It has to be taken out by the end of the year.   Nick: An important thing for people to understand is that, many times, people are taking those withdrawals out to live on anyways. So for a lot of people, it's not an issue at all. However, there are a good amount of people that it's going to be excess income.   Nick: Earlier mentioned, hey, at age 50, really time to check in and start making sure that you're planning. One of the benefits of planning and looking forward is to project out and see, hey, are these withdrawal going to cause you to have excess income at 72, where maybe we're entering into a time that tax rates could be higher, tax rates could be going up, which is fairly likely in the next five to 10 years. So if we know and we can project that, then we can make some adjustments to how we save, should you be putting more money into a Roth versus a traditional, and how we make adjustments on the overall planning.   Nick: So making sure that you understand how those work, and then the impact that it has on other decisions to take into account for that situation, is a huge part of planning.   Mark: Definitely. Those are some important birthdays along the way. You got to make sure you get this stuff done. 72, there's the hefty penalties involved if you don't do that. Plus you still got to pay the taxes. All this stuff has some crucial moments in that retirement planning process, so definitely make sure that you are not only celebrating your birthday, but you're also doing the right things from that financial and that retirement planning standpoint along the way.   Mark: Again, if you got questions, stop by the website, pfgprivatewealth.com. That's pfgprivatewealth.com. You can drop us an email question as well, if you'd like. That's what we're going to do to wrap up the show right now.   Mark: We got a question that's sent in from Jack. He says, "Hey, guys. I've thought about meeting with a financial advisor to plan my retirement, but I've never used a budget or anything like that before. So I'm wondering, should I budget myself for a couple of months before I meet with a professional?"   Nick: Based upon experience, putting expense numbers down on paper is one of the biggest hurdles for people to get into planning. But with how this question is phrased, I would be concerned, because it's kind of like the situation of starting a diet. You start a diet. You're going to eat really good for two to three weeks. You're trying to hold yourself accountable. You're functioning in a way that isn't necessarily your normal life.   Nick: One of the things, as advisors, that we want to make sure that we understand are what are you really spending. It's great to use a budget, but if you're budgeting to try to look good in the meeting, which we've seen happen, you're painting a false picture, and you're not letting us know what the finances actually look like.   Nick: So I would actually say to put down the real expense numbers in place, let's see what it really looks like, and then if we need to create a budget after we've created a plan, then that's something that we can dig into.   Mark: Yeah. John, let me ask you, as we wrap this up, sometimes people associate seeing a professional financial advisor with a budget. Also, people have a cringe to the B word. They think, "Well, I don't want to live on a fixed budget," or something like that.   Mark: That's not necessarily what we're talking about, right? That's not probably what Jack is referring to. He's just trying to figure out, I guess, more income versus expenses, right?   John: Yeah, yeah. The first step is to analyze your expenses. That could be what he's referring to as far as, "Hey, should I take a look? Should I get my expenses down before I meet with someone?"   John: I'd agree with Nick, even if that's what you're looking at, versus the budgeting, I would say no. I think the first step is sit down with an advisor, because they can assist in categorizing the expenses correctly based on today's expenses, versus what expenses are going to be at retirement.   John: I think it's important just to get going rather than trying to prep. Because we've seen a lot of people that have taken ... They've been prepping for years to meet. That's years where they haven't done anything, and they've, unfortunately, lost out on some good opportunities, otherwise, if they just said, "Hey, I'm going to sit down first, see what's going on."   Mark: Yeah. It gives you that built-in excuse.   John: [crosstalk 00:18:26]   Mark: It gives you that built in, "Well, I'm not quite ready." Well, you might never be ready if you play that game. Especially a lot of times when it's complimentary to sit down with professionals, have a conversation. Most advisors will talk to you, no cost or obligations. So why not right? Find out. Just get the ball rolling. That's the first step. It's usually the hardest part too.   Nick: Yeah. One thing that we typically tell people is that we are not the money police. We are not here to tell you that you can't use your money the way that you want to use it.   Nick: The way that we view ourselves, and what our role is as an advisor, is to help you understand the impact of decisions. Whether those decisions have to do with spending money, saving money, whatever, it's to make sure that you understand the impact of your decisions so that you make better decisions. That's it.   Mark: There you go. Yeah. It's your money, at the end of the day, your call, but certainly having some good, well, coaches in your corner, if you will, advisors to help advise, that's the whole point. But I like that. Not the money police.   Mark: All right. That's going to do it this week, guys. Thanks for hanging out. As always, we appreciate your time here on Retirement Planning Redefined. Don't forget. Stop by the website.   Mark: If you need help before you take any action, we always talk in generalities, and try to share some good nuggets of information, but you always want to see how those things are going to affect your specific situation.   Mark: If you're already working with John and Nick and the team at PFG Private Wealth, fantastic. Then you already have a lot of this stuff in place. But if you have questions, or you're not working with them, or you've come across this podcast in whatever way, or maybe a friend shared it with you, definitely reach out and have a chat. pfgprivatewealth.com. That's pfgprivatewealth.com. Don't forget to subscribe on whatever podcasting platform app you like to use.   Mark: We'll see you next time here on the show. For John and Nick, I'm your host, Mark. We'll catch you later here on Retirement Planning Redefined.

“John: So this guy, this Dallas Hostetler, makes a go of this thing and even trademarks the name ‘Tax Freedom Day'. Doubting Thomas: And he still owns it? John: No, he retired and donated everything to something called the Tax Foundation. I'll do a Wikipedia link in the show notes about that whole thing.” Referenced Links: The Tax Foundation Really Lame Countdown Clock AI Voices & Other Stuff @ Online Tone Generator Credits: These podcasts are productions of Little Red Hen Industries. Learn about financial education & personal financial management in this episode with John Brandy on the Simple Success podcast. Learn more about Simple Success with John Brandy using our all-in-one access link here Visit the Simple Success with John Brandy website today! We have websites for both podcasts & there's a Listen Notes site for even more personal ideas. Send us a video, audio or text message, but of course you'll have to head to the show notes to get links. Simple Success Web: https://www.simplesuccesswithjohnbrandy.com/ A Choice Voice Web: https://www.achoicevoice.com/ iOS Simple Success: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/simple-success-with-john-brandy/id1549566678 Droid Simple Success: https://podcasts.google.com/search/simple%20success%20with%20john%20brandy iOS A Choice Voice: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-choice-voice-with-john-brandy/id1560026051 Droid A Choice Voice: https://podcasts.google.com/search/a%20choice%20voice%20with%20john%20brandy Support: https://anchor.fm/simplesuccess/support https://anchor.fm/achoicevoice/support Voice Msgs: https://anchor.fm/simplesuccess/message https://anchor.fm/achoicevoice/message ListenNotes (Podcast Playlists & Stuff): https://www.listennotes.com/playlists/john-brandys-podcast-playlist-GxK2g7uwZDU/podcasts/ Finally, you can find us on Podmatch, where we consider guests & guesting on other pods. Podmatch Host https://podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/1611285111512x890580376127176400?return=true Podmatch Guest https://podmatch.com/guestdetailpreview/1611285111512x890580376127176400?return=true And really finally, our music and sound effects come from freesound.org --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/simplesuccess/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/simplesuccess/support

“John: You don't stress about stuff which blends in, do you? Doubting Thomas: I…I guess I don't. John: And you don't stress about things over which you have control either…do you? Doubting Thomas: Naw. John: So, the simple solution is to make your decision or decisions in advance. How much, how long, all that stuff.” This podcast and our other podcast are productions of Little Red Hen Industries. Learn all about financial education and personal financial management in this episode segment with John Brandy on the Simple Success podcast. Learn more about Simple Success with John Brandy using our all-in-one access link here Visit the Simple Success with John Brandy website today! We also have websites, and you can subscribe to both podcasts and there is a Listen Notes site for even more cool and personal ideas. You can send us a video, audio or text message, but of course you'll head to head to the show notes, either on your phone or on the web, to actually get links and stuff. And those clickable links are in the show notes. Simple Success Website: https://www.simplesuccesswithjohnbrandy.com/ A Choice Voice Website: https://www.achoicevoice.com/ iOS Link for Simple Success: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/simple-success-with-john-brandy/id1549566678 Droid Link for Simple Success: https://podcasts.google.com/search/simple%20success%20with%20john%20brandy iOS Link for A Choice Voice: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-choice-voice-with-john-brandy/id1560026051 Droid Link for A Choice Voice: https://podcasts.google.com/search/a%20choice%20voice%20with%20john%20brandy Support: https://anchor.fm/simplesuccess/support https://anchor.fm/achoicevoice/support Voice Messages: https://anchor.fm/simplesuccess/message https://anchor.fm/achoicevoice/message ListenNotes (Podcast Playlist And Other Cool Stuff): https://www.listennotes.com/playlists/john-brandys-podcast-playlist-GxK2g7uwZDU/podcasts/ Finally, you can find us on Podmatch, where we consider guests as well as consider guesting on other people's pods. Podmatch Host Profile https://podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/1611285111512x890580376127176400?return=true Podmatch Guest Profile https://podmatch.com/guestdetailpreview/1611285111512x890580376127176400?return=true And really finally, the music for our pods comes from “Cute” by Bensound, and from “Piano Background” by Nick Simon Adams, both on freesound.org. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/simplesuccess/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/simplesuccess/support

John Burns co-authored Big Shifts Ahead: Demographic Clarity for Businesses, a book written to help make demographic trends easier to understand, quantify, and anticipate. Before founding John Burns Real Estate Consulting in 2001, John worked for 10 years at KPMG Peat Marwick—2 as a CPA and 8 in their Real Estate Consulting practice. John Burns founded the company to help business executives make informed housing industry investment decisions. The company's research subscribers receive the most accurate analysis possible to inform their macro investment decisions, the company's consulting clients receive specific property and portfolio investment advice designed to maximize profits. Gary Beasley is CEO and Co-Founder of Roofstock, the leading online marketplace for buying, selling and owning single-family rental investment homes. Recognized as a leader in the future of real estate, Roofstock was featured on Forbes' 2019 Fintech 50 list. Gary has spent most of his career building businesses in the real estate, hospitality and tech sectors. After earning his BA in economics from Northwestern, Gary ventured west to earn his MBA from Stanford, where he caught the entrepreneurial bug and still serves as a regular guest lecturer. Immediately before starting Roofstock, Gary led one of the largest single-family rental platforms in the U.S. through its IPO as co-CEO of Starwood Waypoint Residential Trust, now part of Colony Starwood Homes. In this episode, we discuss the current state of the real estate market and the economy more broadly. Gary and John share their thoughts on what has been happening year over year in the housing market; what 40-year highs of inflation, rising interest rates, and geopolitical unrest mean for real estate investors; and highlight some of the risks that investors are faced with today.    Episode Links: https://www.realestateconsulting.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/john-burns-real-estate-consulting/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/gary-beasley-956647/ https://www.roofstock.com/ --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today with me I have two very heavy hitters in the real estate space. John Burns, CEO of John Burn's real estate consulting, and Gary Beasley, co-founder and CEO of Roofstock. So without further ado, let's jump into hearing their thoughts and opinions around what's been going on in today's real estate market.   John Burns and Gary Beasley so happy and excited to have you both back on the podcast. Thank you for taking the time to hang out with me today.   John: You bet.   Gary: Hey, Michael, great to see you.   Michael: So I of course, know a little bit about both of your backgrounds and who you are. But for those of our listeners that might not be familiar with who you both are, if you could give us a quick two minute, two second intro of who you are, where you come from, and what it is you're doing in real estate and John, if you want to go ahead and start, that'd be great.   John: Okay, I'm the CEO of John Burn's real estate consulting, I founded it back in 2001, to figure out what's going on the housing market for a lot of people, mostly big companies and that's what we do.   Michael: Love it and Gary?   Gary: Sure, I am Gary Beasley, I'm the co-founder and CEO of Roofstock and we've been at this for about six and a half years now. Building out really the complete ecosystem for single family rental investors and I've known John now, I think, John, since about when you started the company, it feels like we've known each other for a while we when we I think when we met we we both had dark hair. Remember that?   John: It's been a very long time.   Michael: That's great. Well, I wanted to chat with you both around a lot of things that I've been getting questions about, and I'm sure that the two of you have as well and that's just kind of what's been going on with the housing, market and economy over the last couple years since the pandemic started. So I would love to just jump into things get into the meat and potatoes and get both of your thoughts on really year over year, what's been going on at the macro level in the housing market.   John: Well, I guess I go first, if you let me go back maybe three years, so but pre the pandemic because I think it's relevant. The housing market was extremely hot. We have a different view than a lot of people on on how undersupplied the market was, we don't think it was I just applied at all actually until about 2019, then it started to be under supplied and with interest rates. So damn low everywhere in the world, people had figured out that single family rental housing was a great investment just to get some yield and we were seeing a lot of investors come in to the market, then COVID hit so you know investors are very volatile. They stopped for a few months, and then they came back very strong and probably the biggest difference in the last year is the fear of inflation has piled in on top of the need for yield and it's double the reason to invest in rental homes. So we're seeing money from all over the world focused on housing in America.   Gary: I would agree that clearly the residential market has been booming and I would say despite a number of factors that you would have thought might have slowed it down. We went through a global pandemic, and housing chugged right on through and we could talk later perhaps about why some of those things happen. But the reality is really kind of across price points and geographies. You've seen robust demand for housing and if you look at price increases year over year, John, I know you track the SFR space really closely and it kind of mirrors what's been going on even if you look at owner occupied sales, but home prices have been going up call it 15 plus percent, year over year, pretty consistently. That's a big number, when you think about historically, it's been about 4%. If you go back 40 years on a compounded basis. That's how it had been up until fairly recently.   So a lot of you know in rents have lagged that a bit but you've seen high single digit to low double digit rent increases as well in a lot of these markets and so in oftentimes, I feel rents are a little bit of a lagging metric because especially a lot of the mom and pop owners don't raise rents every year don't raise them, really even to market so we're seeing a lot of homes come to market today that have rents that are 10 or 20%, below where the markets are today. So, so you've got just a lot of demand for the product and, you know, we're at an interesting time now, and I'm sure we'll talk about, you know, some of the current dynamics in the market, interest rates have moved up quite a bit in the last, you know, month to six weeks, we've got a lot of interesting things going on geopolitically, we're not yet seeing that impact, demand or pricing. One would think that those factors should that have an impact over time. But for now, I think just the supply demand dynamics very, very much in the favor of demand over supply.   Michael: Okay. Interesting and I'm curious to get both of your opinions on this, I mean, we are at such a unique time, kind of in history and curious to know your guys's thoughts on do you think that real estate investing fundamentals have it all shifted because of where we find ourselves today? John, I'll let you go first on this one.   John: I don't know if the fundamentals have shifted, because I've seen this game before. But what is different is that by investing in rental homes has become a very easy thing to do, thanks to Roofstock and others. I mean, prior to 2012, you couldn't get on your computer and figure out exactly how much a home was worth and how much it could rent it for in about five minutes, you can now there's all sorts of vehicles where you can invest in funds and completely passively invest in housing and I think it's become an asset class that really was very illiquid, and pretty lumpy before that now has become more liquid and I think that is a permanent change in the market, doesn't mean things can't go down. But I think it's actually had a permanent positive increase permanently on home prices.   Gary: I would agree with John, I don't think the fundamentals, I don't think the fundamentals of real estate investing have changed. But I would say perhaps some of our maybe preconceptions or assumptions about how it would perform is I kind of mentioned earlier, or maybe a little bit challenged, and that there's just so much demand for the product and in the pandemic. You know, it was almost counterintuitive that home prices would go up and rents would go up. But when you think about the fact that people really demanded shelter, safe shelter, and there was an exodus of from a lot of the coastal cities to secondary and tertiary markets drove a lot of that demand. So but I think still, the fundamentals of real estate are very much about location and supply and demand. Those things, those fundamentals I think are true. I think one of the things we're seeing though is perhaps there are different things get that can drive, demand and pricing for different types of real estate assets. So if you look at for example, housing, and industrial, which have done quite well, throughout the throughout the pandemic and the aftermath, and then you had some real estate asset classes that really suffered, because you look at office and retail and and REIT in hotels, things like that. So it's it. I think real estate broadly can be influenced by different things. The fundamentals of each have to be examined, but certainly for housing. It's been it's been very strong, despite what might you might have considered some some headwinds.   Michael: Okay, interesting and you both touched on inflation in the conversation thus far and so I'm curious to know, how much of the demand do you think is being really driven by inflation? And do you think that folks are right or wrong to be considering real estate investing as a hedge or as a defense against inflation?   John: People's expenses are going up and your investments should beat inflation and nothing in the treasury market does it in fact, nothing in the high yield bond market pretty much does it now too, I don't know how you earn returns. But this was going on pre COVID and that's why I mean that there was a surge of money coming into the market pre COVID. We at our conference at the end of 2019, we had Bruce flat, the CEO of Brookfield asset management, who at the time manage more than $500 billion was fundraising all over the world and he literally said that this is the most significant thing he seen in the last 15 years, is everything that produces cash is gonna go up in value, and that was pre COVID and so that this this has just got even more accelerated because inflation wasn't even part of the equation. Now if you're now if you need to beat inflation in your return and inflation is right now the latest print is seven 8% where you're going to get seven or 8%? And so housing, if wages go up which they are, you can raise rents, if the cost of the structure going up is going up, which it definitely is, every single component in the house has gone up, their cost of construction has gone up at least 10% in the last year. That's an inflation hedge too, because nobody's gonna replicate what you own for the same amount of money. It's very much an inflation hedge.   Gary: Everything points toward continued inflation, in my view in the housing market. Now, that being said, interest rates going up, you would think should moderate that. That's an offsetting influence, but the cost of the inputs, the labor and the materials, clearly upward pressure, everything that's going on in the world, disrupting the global supply chain, and the cost of transport and all that putting upward pressure, Pete wage inflation to keep people in their seats, and to hire people. That's allowing people to have more and more money to spend on housing that's also pulling pricing up. It's hard to see how much that's going to, in an absolute basis reduce the price of housing, I do think that we will see some moderating of the rate of inflation of homes over the upcoming quarters and years, I think that 15% is gonna come down naturally. But I don't see, I don't see it coming down to the point where it actually reverses and you see absolute price declines, like we saw in that really unusual time in the Great Recession, which was, arguably a once in a generation adjustment to housing prices there. I think, a lot of fundamental differences between what we're seeing today and and what we saw back then this is not a credit bubble.   John: So I agree with everything you said until this is not a credit bubble. I mean, maybe you meant a credit bubble on housing, because I agree with you.   Gary: That's what I mean, I mean that there's a lot of embedded equity, as opposed to people, you know, having 3% or less equity in their homes, they've got 20 plus percent equity. Now, you can talk about the I wasn't speaking to the global kind of free money, credit bubble, but…   John: Well, that's a I think there's a credit bubble going on in the world on pretty much everything else. I mean, Dodd Frank, made it impossible to do it on a mortgage going through a bank. But people are lending against crypto, it's the highest borrowing and stock prices ever. We're seeing deals even in single family rental that well, I would say are being done with pretty much no due diligence, because it's a mess piece. So there's a little bit of equity in front of me and what I worry about is a recession caused by a credit bubble outside of the housing market, which impacts housing demand and you know, that's when housing was struggle, but I think everything else in the world would struggle at the same time, maybe even more, so. So I'm not, I'm not saying get into stocks or bonds, because it's just that, that that's what caused the great financial crisis, and it was housing last time. I think it's other stuff this time. We were seeing flip flipper loans are being securitized on Wall Street. I mean, there's, you know, I see that in my business, one of my clients is lending against crypto balances. You know, I think another famous person just came out and said, if you've got if you can put up crypto, I'll give you the value of your crypto to make a down payment for a house, that there's some different stuff going on. That concerns me but not on buying rental homes or Roofstock more concerning on the economy.   Michael: Okay and so curious, John, just, you know, personal thoughts. What's a good defense?   John: You know, normally it would be cash, but holding on to cash it goes down 7% in a year. So I think Howard Marks who's a famous investors calls this an everything bubble. We're in an everything bubble right now and how do you invest in an everything bubble? I have no idea. That's why I run it…   Gary: Maybe maybe negative interest rate German bonds don't seem so crazy.   Michael: Yeah.   John: Well, no, exactly. So, so if you're, if you know, in the coming world, losing 3% is probably a good deal relative to everybody else if that's if that's how that plays out.   Michael: All right, well, keep both you keeping your eyes and ears peeled and let me know if you hear something great for hedge against the everything bubble, I'd appreciate it.   John: Well, it's it's still specific. I mean, that that's what the smart people aren't doing. They're just, they aren't going to do just a sector. They're looking at everything carefully and in this industry, if you don't have a lot of competition going around where you're making investments, that's a far safer place to be if there's some great job growth in your conference. In a job growth because those employers are profitable and making money and going to be there all the time, that's a different story than the job growth being in a sector that's currently losing money, for example.   Michael: That makes total sense, that makes total sense. I'm curious if we could take a step back and understanding that neither of you work for the Federal Reserve, but I'm curious to know your thoughts and kind of get some insight into? I mean, you talked about the wage growth going up, and then the cost of goods and services going up? How do we not get into this upward death spiral? And I know, Gary, you mentioned, you know, raising interest rates could curtail that, but it seems like there's just so much money out there how to, how do we kind of ease down from this?   Gary: Yeah, well, I think there's it I don't know, if there's been a tougher, it's never easy being involved with setting Fed policy, but you have a lot of things to balance here. This is a tightrope act. So you want to slow the economy here, enough to curtail inflation, yet, not necessarily throw it into a big recession, you've got a lot of things going on overseas, that should you could argue are already going to cause things maybe to slow a bit because of what's going on over there. So do they need to pump the brakes as much here. So maybe that means that the Fed doesn't raise as aggressively here and what that may mean is, you know, rates grow a little bit more slowly and maybe the economy tends to overheat despite the global weakness. So it's a really, really challenging balancing act, I think that the Fed is under enormous pressure to curtail inflation and so I think, despite that, we'll probably err on the side of pumping the brakes a little bit heavier, even though that may mean we're risking recession. That would be I'd be curious, John, if you have a view. But if I had to, like on the continuum of what they're more worried about right now, normally, they're, you know, I would say that they've been historically more worried about not wanting to put us in the recession. But we've never, in a long time had these sort of inflationary pressures and in particular, where I think people feel it, it seems to be at the gas pump, right? We're always talking about fuel prices people feel that very deeply and there's a lot of political pressure, even though the feds, in theory, a political, political pressures tend to work their way into those decisions.   John: Yeah and my 30 plus years of paying attention to this, I've never seen the Fed more politically tied than they are right now. They frankly, they seem to me to be puppets of elected officials. I mean, the fact that Powell had to announce for months and months and months, they were going to raise rates, but never raised them once until he got reappointed will tell you something. So I mean, I always honestly think it seems to me like elected officials are calling the shots right now and I think the ultimate fear is a recession or we want to get inflation down, because inflation isn't good either and then, you know, the way I think about this, too, is there's, if you really talk about people's true costs, there's a huge variation in inflation. So if you're a homeowner who owns your car, you know, your your housing costs haven't gone up at all, maybe you got a little bit of a property tax reassessment, you haven't had to go back and purchase a car or release a car and if you are close to work or working from home, frankly, your cost of living might be down over the last year or two.   If you're somebody who's commuting to work, Rance had to you know, really your lease was up had to get another car. I mean, your cost of living can be up to 15 to 20% and the Fed seems to be focused on those people, rightly or wrongly. But that that's how I'm thinking about this is it's a huge difference in what's actually happening depending on what you are, and then the wage growth. You know, if you're in the hospitality sector, you haven't seen anything. But if you're a construction worker or a truck driver, your wages are up dramatically. So and those are the ones I that we're seeing that are buying homes, renting homes, people that are affluent, able to work from home, hey, I can I can now go out to the suburbs and rent a really nice house and my housing costs are gonna go down, not up because my boss says I only need to come into work twice a week. So it's it's very complicated story on picture painting here, but that's exactly I think how the Fed is looking at it.   Gary: Yeah. And then you also have, obviously those who own assets versus not I mean, this is similar to what John was talking about, but not only can you have the cost of living impacted a lot, a lot less if you own your assets. But in fact, John, you may know this figure I read it, I think last week, some fairly sizable percentage of the US population made more off of their homes this year than they did from their jobs. The power, the power in an inflationary environment of owning assets, it's kind of hard to overstate it. That I think one of the reasons, I think we're seeing more and more kind of first timers wanting to own their first investment property, even if they aren't in a position to own the home they're living in right now. Going to some of these lower price markets, and getting on the ownership bandwagon and just writing that asset appreciation. It's, you know, it's a powerful force.   Michael: Yeah, absolutely.   John: I think you were going to say, it's a powerful drug.   Gary: Well, some people do become addicted to it…   John: We're starting to see that. So people are taking the $200,000 in price appreciation of their house with a refi out of their investment, and then using it to buy three or four more homes, right, that that's what's going on right now. So it is it is addictive.   Michael: Yeah. That makes total sense.   Gary: Yeah. Well, it's been it's been a, a tried and true, a tried and true way for real estate investors to make money, right is to buy that first property, refinance it, take that money, buy more properties and build. But I think, John, to your point, what's happening is, a lot of people are doing that with their primary home equity to get started, as opposed to being more of the intentional investor who just started to do that, I think more and more people are doing it with, you know, equity in their homes, which I think in many ways makes a lot of sense from a diversification standpoint, rather than having so much of your wealth, personally tied up in a single property address, where you happen to live, where you're really subject to the vagaries of your local real estate market, local job market, all that kind of stuff, because that's where you tend to work to diversify into other markets and other assets, I think does make a lot of sense.   Michael: John, would you agree?   John: Yeah, no, diversification makes a lot of sense. I just, I also think it makes a lot of sense to watch how much leverage you've got and to make sure you've got the cash flow, you know, just in case something bad goes wrong. And I think people that are investing like that, and doing exactly what you're saying, are going to be great. But last time, what we saw was, people just were ignoring that and then you lose your job, and then you lose your tenant, and you're your host. So you got you got to be careful here and I think the more I'm a generalized a little bit here, but the more mature people that have seen this before doing that, and I'm sensing the younger people only think home prices only go up and I are more willing to take more risk than I would recommend.   Michael: John, kind of to that point. I'm curious to get both your guys' thoughts if someone is taking out equity their home, because interest rates are so low, and they've seen the value go through the roof and they're going to go buy investment properties. What's the harm? What's the risk there? I mean, and how does someone know if they are over leveraged? If their cash flow is covering their mortgage payments? I mean, if the value dips, nothing really changes for them from a payment standpoint. So how should people think be thinking about being over leveraged or how much risk is too much?   John: I mean, that's a very personal decision for folks. You know, confidence in your employment situation is probably the most important thing and depends on what you do.   Gary: Yeah, I think, Michael, I mean, to your point, as long as they think it is an important point, in a rental home portfolio. Yeah, even if prices drop of that home and you've got a fixed mortgage, your payments don't change, right and unless rents come down, which they traditionally have not, they tend to be more sticky in single family rentals than say in apartments. We followed a lot of that data over time. So you should be okay. Even if on paper, the value of your home, your rental home has gone down. But I think in the primary residence, which is where John I think was going is if you let's say you have you know, 60% equity in your home and you lever it up to 90 through various means, then all of a sudden, you may be at a point where if you lose your job, and you don't have the reserves, you may be in a little bit of a tougher spot because you don't have that home equity to tap, which historically has just been a really nice thing to have as as a safety net and so when that if that were to happen you might have to sell some of your other properties or you have your equity elsewhere and it's not like you can't necessarily get at it.   But I do think in times where you do have some uncertainty, some global uncertainty and some things like that, having some reserves, make sense, not being over levered, make sense, play the long game, I think that's one of the things that we talk to people a lot about is, this is not a, you know, get rich, quick fix and flip, you know, strategy when you're buying investment properties?   Michael: Are you serious?     Gary: So over the long run, Michael, you're going to do just fine. But you have to be patient. So no, but there's plenty of there's plenty of ways you could make bats to win quickly win or lose quickly. But that's generally not what people are doing with us and I think there's times when people are more risk on is a lot of confidence to maybe lever up and things like that, I think this is a time to be more a little bit more thoughtful about all about leverage ratios and so yes, you give up some levered return, potentially. But if you're in a, I would argue if you're in a place where home prices are going up at such an extraordinary rate, you don't need as much leverage to get a phenomenal return. Even if you're only 50% levered, and your home's going up seven or 8% a year, that asset level, you know, obviously, you're doing much better than that, and the return on equity level, so I would say just don't get greedy. It's a long game and you know, make sure you're, you're around to, you know, fight another day, in case there's any sort of corrections.   Michael: To play the end of the game.   John: I mean, that that's the perfect, that's how I see it, too, is cut the long game. And that's how everybody who's been doing this for decades will all tell you that that's exactly the way to play it. I am I am seeing and hearing and running into 20 somethings who aren't listening to Gary's advice and I have no idea if that's 1% of the market or 40. But they're out there and fortunately, they're not getting loans from banks that 90% LTV, at least that I can find, so that's, that's good.   Gary: I mean, Michael, you talk to a lot of people all the time, what is what is your assessment are people do you think people are thoughtful about this? Do you think that is? Do you agree with John, that people who might not have seen a down cycle might be overly optimistic or do you think that they're better informed?   Michael: Yeah, you know, I think it's really a mix of the two, I think that there are two big camps. One camp says this is going to go on forever and that tends to be the folks that haven't seen a recession before and then there's the folks that say, you know, we're it's got to come down at some point and so let's just kind of see what happens and those tend to be the more seasoned folks. So I'm curious, I'm curious to get your guys's thoughts on for those two camps and someone who's just trying to get started trying to get their foot in the door? How should they be thinking about that, is this something that they can kind of catch on the upswing or is do they really need to be a bit more timid and reserved and say things are maybe a little bit too hot right, now let me let me just take a seat on the sidelines and see how this all plays out?   John: So we've been calling this the high risk high reward the part of the cycle now for 13 months. So I would have told you 13 months ago to be cautious and the person who would have taken a lot of risk what I made far more money than the person who listened to me so but that's how these things play out at the end at the end of the cycle. When you take a lot of risk you should make a lot of reward right? But you know, you also need to know when to take some chips off the table you know, unless you believe we're never going to have a recession again which I don't believe that and then also what Gary said has been very true for single family rental rents. The rents have been very stable over time compared to apartments because there's basically been very little construction of rental homes forever and there's always been a ton of construction in apartments and that's when you get hurt killed is when you know three huge apartment complexes open up down the store down the street totally empty and have to lease up 500 units you're done that even though billed for rent is growing pretty significantly in Phoenix right now it's still a lot smaller level of supply than apartments. So this is a more stable investment than comparative some other rental classes for sure.   Gary: Yeah, it's it's really we like to say it's a lot easier to go up then sideways because if you could you go vertical with apartments and it takes a lot more land and it's typically much more difficult to add the single family rental supply and then over time, you also have more than one on exit on the on the rental homes because you could you could exit to a yield investor or ultimately, an owner occupant. So that's I think one of the things that I've always liked about single family rentals is you've got built in optionality. It's very rare in a real estate investment, to have two very distinct buyer sets on the back end, right. You have an office building, you're going to sell it to an office investor. Same with a hotel, they would, but so this is, you know, I think a unique aspect of single family rentals, which gives, you know, it kind of gives investors a bit of a of a hedge.   Michael: Yeah, that makes total sense. Curious, what do you tell investors who come to you and say, John, Gary, you know, I can't seem to break in, all my offers are getting outbid by all cash offers that are 10 to 15% above asking, I can't go that hi, how can I get my foot in the door? What should I be doing? What tactics should I be using?   John: I mean, I might be the wrong person to ask because my clients tend to be very large companies, and this is for their capital partners, this is less than 10%, or maybe of what they're investing in the spectrum of certainly less than 20%. So they may be all in in this industry. But it's it's not, what you're alluding to, is maybe somebody with 100% of their net worth or 80% of their net worth getting in. That's, I don't advise on that, I mean, people are building rental homes, with the appropriate amount of leverage in good locations. That's where we're coaching people to go, there's also people building rental homes, with a lot of leverage in tertiary locations, right, where there's a lot of other construction going on and that that would be to me a higher risk scenario. I think I think there's room for 100 unit rental community, brand new built in every city in America of size, because you can pull it there's 1000s of people that rent ratty old homes with lousy landlords, and there's a percentage of them that would really love to rent something new. Well, and what's your biggest fear is the tenant that said, they're going to sell the house you live in it, you're gonna have to move out? Well, you know, if you're in a rental community that's owned by a public REIT, they're not selling the house, you know that that fear is gone. They may charge you a little more, because it comes with better service and other things. But I think that's a tremendous long term opportunities to build rental homes.   Michael: Interesting perspective, Gary?   Gary: Yeah, well, I would say, people should do their research, and be patient, be opportunistic, but but not be afraid to act with conviction when they find things that make sense for them and so I think, what we find is, on Roofstock, a lot of times people will come and they will look at properties for months and months and months and talk to people and kind of develop their strategy and eventually, something is going to hit your radar, that's going to check most of the boxes and in this market when that happens, as long as you've done enough work to kind of know this, then be ready to act, you know, I wouldn't recommend somebody come and buy the first home they see because then you're not you just don't have enough data. But when you see where these things are trading and all that, and so that's why I say you know, be disciplined, but also act with conviction, when you find something that does work if you do want to get exposure.   Otherwise, you could sit back and just sort of watch things. But you can also wait a lot of times with stock market, also people want to buy on a dip and just wait, maybe there is a little bit of a correction and that could be a time for people to want to wade back in. The challenge with waiting for a dip is, as John pointed out, there just hasn't been even throughout COVID there's been no dip, it's just, you know, been up into the right and, and so, you know, I don't recommend people just, you just buy because of the momentum, right? You want to, again, you want to feel good about the markets you're buying in and the home that you're buying. But also, it's really hard to time a market. It's just it's almost impossible. So heard that that's why overtime, we recommend people not, you know, even if you're only in a position to buy a home now once but, you know, have a design to own a portfolio of them over time and buy them at different points in the cycle and over time you get that market exposure. It's just, it's hard to time your ins and outs perfectly.   Michael: Yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. Well, I'm curious now to get your guys' thoughts and opinions looking forward, which I know is always a dangerous thing to do, but I'm going to ask you both take out your crystal ball and in talking, John, you mentioned about new newly built homes built to rent communities and so I'm curious to hear your opinions around, if the housing starts that we're seeing, since COVID, are going to have an impact, you know, several years down the road 8-10, you know, 5-10, eight years down the road, kind of like we're seeing now, as a result from the 2008, lack of home starts.   John: Yeah, we've done more research on that than anybody else. There's a couple people with some very simple analysis that says we're short, about five to 6 million homes. I think we're short about 1,000,007, which is still a lot of homes and that's not the same shortage in Buffalo as it is in Dallas. So you know, this is we've got the numbers by market. But at a high level, if we're short, 1,000,007 homes, there's 1,000,007 homes that have brand new homes that have paid for our permit that haven't been finished yet. So we've got all of that under construction and it's taking about nine weeks longer to build a house for the best production builders in the country. So this is taking a very long time, so it's going to be at least a year before we satisfy that, because there will be some growth along the way, too. So I'm not what is different about this cycle is the lack of construction. But what I want to point out is there's this notion that the low level of supply just means that this is almost a sure thing and I think the most important thing for housing has always been job growth always, even rates can go up dramatically. But if everybody's got their job, okay, we're, you know, maybe prices will be flat for a while, but we'll be fine. It's when you see massive job losses that we cycle down hard.   So that's why I was I was bringing up earlier the whole credit cycle issues. You know, know, if we if we knew exactly how much debt every company had in every industry had and how much they could cover their cash flow, I think I'd have more certainty. Some analysis I've seen is there's quite a few publicly traded companies that aren't currently generating enough cash to pay their debt service. That makes me concern they're not in the housing industry. In fact, the homebuilders have never been better capitalized like, they're amazing. They have the lowest debt levels ever and the bonds that oh, yeah, and the bonds they borrowed, they don't mature for like four or five or six years. So I mean, the homebuilt talk about a safe play, in terms of going through the cycle, I think it's the builders. I'm not recommending stocks, because I don't do that for a living, because I think all of this is priced in. But I'm telling you, publicly traded home builders are very, very strong, right now.   Gary: Yeah. You know, it's interesting, because John does such good research. So I have no reason to doubt the million seven. But I have seen, you know, estimates between four and 6 million homes deficit in in. So I don't know what the right number is and I'm sure that the method, there's methodologies that but but it's still, it's a couple of at least a couple million homes. The question is what, you know, what does that mean, going forward? Do we catch up as quickly? Can we catch up in a year or two?   That's, I think, optimistic. I think it'll be interesting to see if we do. One of the things that John mentioned was job growth, and that historically has been a real driver. What I think is so interesting now is jobs are so distributed and because companies are adding jobs doesn't mean the jobs are going to be where the companies are located and that kind of makes everyone's head explode. If you're trying to forecast, what's the impact of job growth, it really comes down, arguably, more to population growth. So local jobs are one thing and some things have to be localized, right? If you're going to work at a hotel, the hotel is in a particular place, if you're going to be a software engineer, working for Apple, you know, maybe you could be anywhere or any of these other places and so it's a it's a different calculus than I think it was 10 years ago of treatment, trying to forecast job growth from companies and then okay, well, people are going to need to live within a 30 minute commute or 45 minute commute it that's all upside down. So I think it does bode well for some of these secondary and tertiary places that have seen disproportionate growth. But then you also have these places like in Austin that continue to explode and arguably housings no longer very affordable but they keep building more houses and people keep buying them and keep renting them and there's plenty of land in a place like Austin and so I think almost looking at where taxes are low, and people can still get relatively affordable housing almost seems to be more powerful than local job growth. But I'd be curious about, you know, John's view of that.     John: No, he's right. There's a there's a large sector of the economy where you can live wherever you want and I mean, we, we've been doing this since before COVID, as I was never, never believed that all the best people to hire on the world, we're always within commuting distance in my office. So we've been hiring in good locations, and but you got to get the right person who can do that and companies have figured that out now. So your it is about a great location, it is about where I can get a lot of house for my money if I'm a tenant, or if I'm a homebuyer or I can pay lower income taxes, or I can have better weather. So it's really the same place as people were moving pre COVID. It's just more people have been given the permission to move. So you're right, the job growth. It's pretty correlated to the metro area. But I would say the more outlying areas should see more price appreciation, and they are seeing more price appreciation right now, because more people are being allowed to go there.   Michael: Okay.   Gary: Yeah and it's almost interesting. It's a little bit like the job, the jobs are almost coming with the people. So you think of a place like Boise, Idaho, where people move there not for jobs, necessarily, but because they could bring their jobs with them and they all had all this embedded equity in their homes for more expensive markets. So now you have all these people moving into a market like Boise, and you get incredible growth in the prices of homes in Boise. But now people are working from Boise. So are those jobs created in Boise are there jobs that now exist in Boise because it was inexpensive, and it's a nice place to live?   Michael: Yeah, I was gonna ask John, does that make it kind of squirrely to nail down that job growth metric because of this new phenomenon?   John: Yes and no, so there's two jobs surveys, there's one where they call the employer and said, how many people did you hire this month? That's based on where the employer is located. But the one where they call people and say, are you looking for work or not, that comes up with the unemployment number, that's where you live. So actually, we always triangulate the two. So I'll use my example. So we perfect example, I'm in Orange County, California, we hired somebody in Boise, but she could live anywhere. She's showing up on my here in Orange County on one survey, and she's showing up in Boise and the other, so you just you need to look at both the sample size on where the company's located is higher and better and the unemployment number at the Metro levels more volatile. So you got to look at a trend over time and not just overreact to a month or two.   Michael: That's super interesting. Okay, and great to know, too. So, the last question I have for you both, and I think I already know the answer. But for everyone listening, I'm gonna ask on their behalf and your guys' opinions, have there been asset classes that have become more valuable and less valuable as a result of the pandemic and if so, what, in your opinion, are they?   John: You can handle crypto, Gary. I am not going to touch that one.   Gary: Why don't you start then?   John: As I as I said earlier, I think new technology which was not around prior to 2012, has allowed the single family rental business to just blossom permanently And it's, it's now gonna be a permanent part of people's portfolio passively investing in real estate And that has already pushed up prices more than it would have been going forward. Whatever price appreciation would have been otherwise, it'll probably push it up a little bit more. The only thing you have to concern to certain yourself where there is, you know, the government doesn't like that And they tend to be pro homeownership. So you gotta watch regulation. I am seeing a lot of our clients tend to avoid California because they're afraid of rent control. So and there was just a Bloomberg article that 12 Different states have had rent control proposed because of all of this. So you just got to keep your antenna up on on that side. But the rent control is being proposed seems to be more reasonable. It's at the rate of inflation or maybe 1% higher than that, that you can raise rents. It's not, you know, zero or something ridiculous.   Michael: Okay and what in your opinion has been devalued or become less valuable, if anything?   John: Um, I can't think of anything that's become a …Cash!   Gary: It's it makes sense, right? I mean, you're you're losing. I mean, John, John mentioned, if you're literally if you have money sitting in your checking account, right now it's point 001% and we've got 678 percent inflation, that's how much you're losing by sitting in cash and so that does create a risk incentive to put it somewhere. And you know, I would say, Michael, I mentioned this earlier, but I think housing and industrial, which is driven a lot by distribution for E commerce, a lot of those have been really darlings of, of, for investors, they've become very much in favor and I do think you're still seeing some challenges with in some questions about office space demand and you know, not that there aren't always office investors, and there are always going to be people in offices, but there's probably structurally some percentage of less space that companies are going to utilize and so that puts maybe some uncertainty into the minds of investors, if there's another I think, I think a lens people investors are looking at today is okay, there's going to be another pandemic someday, what are the likely implications of this and, you know, office, retail, traditional retail was hurt by the pandemic, but it was also being crushed just by Amazon, right, and so you, so that's, I think, got its own challenges. And then hospitalities is very cyclical anyway, if people stopped traveling, you know, they didn't travel for a while.   So those those I think are, you know, maybe a little slightly more challenged than housing, which is, which has proven to be much more resilient than, than I think most people thought and, as a consequence, you have a lot of a lot of investors, not just, you know, traditional or not just individual investors or institutions from here. But yet people from all over the world saying, well, US housing looks pretty interesting, relative to other places that they could invest.   Michael: Yeah.   John: There's something we take for granted here called Title laws that don't exist in other countries. I mean, people in other countries don't want to buy real estate there, because the government could take it away from them. You know, and I hear that from foreign investors. That's one of the things that they love about investing in America.   Michael: Pretty scary notion if you had to be overseas   John: …Or get I should have mentioned everything that Gary said to I mean, there's a lot of huge funds, pension funds, who like to put a percentage of their assets a 10% in real estate all the time, and it would traditionally go into retail and office and hotel. Do you think they're ever going to go back to the same percentage of retail hotel and office? Probably not, it's going to be far more in this business. Because retail is now industrial. I mean, it's a warehouse and in line, you know, the best retail centers are all going to be fine in the best locations, but they're in line space is dead. So, so you're right, that's gonna push more money into our business.   Michael: Okay, well, guys, this was super informative. I know I had a lot of fun. Hopefully our listeners did, too. If people want to learn a little bit more about each of you, where's the best place for them to do that?   John: Oh, we've got a website https://www.realestateconsulting.com/ I post pretty regularly on LinkedIn. So you can look up John Burns on LinkedIn and get some free stuff every day.   Gary: I love the free hoodie that you got right there, Michael. John, I know you've got a Roofstock hoodie as well. I don't know if you ever wear it.   John: I do, I should have bought it today, I'm sorry about that I should.       Gary: So yeah, I think I would just encourage people, if they want to learn more about what we're doing at Roofstock just come to https://www.roofstock.com/ you could also follow me or hit me up on LinkedIn, I post pretty regularly there as well. But yeah, and keep checking out the podcast I know Michael's been doing a great job along with Pierre and the rest of the team here trying to get they couldn't get any interesting guests this this time so they got John and me but I know they've been otherwise doing getting some pretty interesting folks and doing a great job.   John: Well I saw that you're then the one of the top 1% of podcasters in the world. Hopefully we didn't push it down to 2%.   Michael: A filler episode though this this was great you guys. Thank you so much for taking the time and I very much looking forward to chatting again as we continue along this crazy trajectory that we're on.   Alright, everyone that was our episode, a big thank you to John and Gary for taking the time out of their extremely busy schedules to hang out with me and chat about what's been going on in the real estate market and where we might be headed going forward. As always, if you liked the episode, feel free to leave us a rating or review wherever it is you get your podcast, and we look forward to seeing on the next one. Happy investing…

01:09 - Jenna's Superpower: Being Super Human: Deeply rooted in what is human in tech * The User is Everything 04:30 - Keeping Focus on the User * Building For Themself * Bother(!!) Users * Walking A Mile In Your Users Shoes - Jamey Hampton (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-zYKo8f7nM) 09:09 - Interviewing Users (Testing) * Preparation * Identifying Bias * Getting Things Wrong * Gamifying/Winning (Developer Dogs & Testing Cats) * Overtesting 23:15 - Working With ADHD * Alerts & Alarms * Medication * Underdiagnosis / Misdiagnosis * Presentation * Medical Misogyny and Socialization * Masking * Finding a Good Clinician Reflections: John: Being a super human. Jacob: Forgetting how to mask. Jamey: Talking about topics that are Greater Than Code. Jenna: Talking about what feels stream-of-consciousness. Having human spaces is important. Support your testers! This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: JAMEY: Hi, everyone and thanks for tuning in to Episode 276 of Greater Than Code. I'm one of your hosts, Jamey Hampton, and I'm here with my friend, Jacob Stoebel. JACOB: Hello, like to be here. I'm with my friend, John Sawers. JOHN: Thanks, Jacob. And I'm here with our guest, Jenna Charlton. Jenna is a software tester and product owner with over a decade of experience. They've spoken at a number of dev and test conferences and is passionate about risk-based testing, building community within agile teams, developing the next generation of testers, and accessibility. When not testing, Jenna loves to go to punk rock shows and live pro wrestling events with their husband Bob, traveling, and cats. Their favorite of which are the two that share their home, Maka and Excalipurr. Welcome to the show, Jenna! [chuckles] JENNA: Hi, everybody! I'm excited to be here with all the J's. [laughter] JAMEY: We're so excited to have you. JOHN: And we will start with the question we always start with, which is what is your superpower and how did you acquire it? JENNA: On a less serious note, I have a couple of superpowers. One I discovered when I was a teenager. I can find Legally Blonde on TV [laughter] any kind of day [laughs] somewhere. It's a less valuable superpower than it used to be. But boy, was it a great superpower when you would be scrolling and I'm like, “Legally Blonde, I found it!” [laughter] JAMEY: I was going to ask if one of your superpowers was cat naming, because Excalipurr is very good. It's very good. [laughs] JENNA: I wish I could take credit for that. [laughter] Bob is definitely the one responsible. JAMEY: So it's your husband superpower, cat naming and yours is Legally Blonde. Got it. JENNA: Mine is Legally Blonde. [laughter] I also can find a way to relate anything to pro wrestling. JAMEY: I've seen that one in action, actually. Yes. [laughter] JENNA: But no, my real superpower, or at least as far as tech goes is that I am super human. Not in that I am a supremely powerful human, it's that I am deeply rooted in what is human in tech and that's what matters to me and the user is my everything. I'm not one of those people who nerds out about the latest advancement. Although, I enjoy talking about it. What I care about, what gets me excited, and gets me out of bed every day in tech is thinking about how I can solve a deeply human problem in a way that is empathetic, centers the user, and what matters to them. JAMEY: Do you feel like you were always like that naturally, or do you feel like that was a skill that you fostered over your career? JENNA: I think it's who I am, but I think I had to learn how to harness it to make it useful. I am one of those people who has the negative trait of empathy and when I say negative trait, there's that tipping point on empathy where it goes from being a powerful, positive thing to being something that invades your life. So I am one of those people who sitting in a conference room, I can feel the temperature change and it makes me wiggle in my seat, feel uncomfortable, get really awkward, and then default to things like people pleasing, which is a terrible, terrible trait [laughs] that I fight every day against. It's actually why remote work has saved me. But I've had to learn how to take caring about people and turn it into something that's valuable and useful and delivers because we can talk about the user all day and take no action on it. It's one thing to care about the user and to care about people. It's another thing to understand how to translate that care into something useful. When I learned how to do that in testing, my career changed and then when I learned how to translate that to product, things really started to change. JAMEY: That's amazing. JENNA: Thank you. [laughs] JACOB: I feel like so often at work I sit down at 9:00 AM and I'm like, “Okay, what do our users need in this feature, or how could this potentially go wrong and hurt our users?” And then by 9:20, everything's off the rails. [laughter] As work happens and here's a million fires to put out and it's all about things in the weeds that if I could just get them to work, then I could go back to thinking about to use it. You know what I mean? How do you keep that focus? JENNA: So part it is, I don't want to say the luck, but is the benefit of where I landed. I work for a company that does AI/ML driven test automation. I design and build experiences for myself. I'm building for what I, as a tester, needed when I was testing and let's be honest, I still test. I just test more from a UAT perspective. I get to build for myself, which means that I understand the need of my user. If I was building something for devs, I wouldn't even know where to begin because that's not my frame of reference. I feel like we make a mistake when we are designing things that we take for granted that we know what a user's shoes look like, but I know what my user's shoes look like because I filled them. But I don't know what a dev shoes look like. I don't know what an everyday low-tech user shoes look like. I kind of do because I've worked with those users and I always use my grandmother as an example. She's my frame of reference. She's fairly highly skilled for being 91 years old, but she is 91 years old. She didn't start using computers until 20 years ago and at that point, she was in her 70s. Very, very different starting point. But I have the benefit that that's where I start so I've got to leg up. But I think when we start to think about how do I build this for someone else and that someone isn't yourself, the best place to start is by going to them and interviewing them. What do you need? Talk to me about what your barriers are right now. Talk to me about what hurts you today. Talk to me about what really works for you today. I always tell people that one of the most beneficial things I did when I worked for Progressive was that my users were agents. So I could reach out to them and say like, “Hey, I want to see your workflow.” And I could do that because I was an agent, not a customer. They can show me that and it changed the way I would test because now I could test like them. So I don't have a great answer other than go bother them. Get a user community and go bug the heck out of them all the time. [laughs] Like, what do you mean? How do you do this today? What are your stumbling blocks? How do I remove them for you? Because they've got the answer; they just don't know it. JAMEY: That was really gratifying for me to listen to actually. [laughter] It's not a show about me. It's a show about you. So I don't want to make it about me, but I have a talk called Walking a Mile In Your Users' Shoes and basically, the takeaway from it is meet them where they are. So when I heard you say that, I was like, “Yes, I totally agree!” [laughs] JENNA: But I also learned so much from you on this because I don't remember if it's that talk, or a different one, but you did the talk about a user experience mistake, or a development mistake thinking about greenhouses. JAMEY: Yes. That's the talk I'm talking about. [laughs] JENNA: Yeah. So I learned so much from you in that talk and I've actually referenced it a number times. Even things when I talk to testers and talk about misunderstandings around the size of a unit and that that may not necessarily be global information. That that was actually siloed to the users and you guys didn't have that and had to create a frame of reference because it was a mess. So I reference that talk all the time. [laughs] JAMEY: I'm going to cry. There's nothing better to hear than you helped someone learn something. [laughter] So I'm so happy. [chuckles] JENNA: You're one of my favorite speakers. I'm not going to lie. [chuckles] JOHN: Aw. JAMEY: You're one of my favorite speakers too, which is why I invited you to come on the show. [laughs] JENNA: Oh, thank you. [laughter] Big warm hugs. [laughs] JOHN: I'm actually lacking in the whole user interviewing process. I haven't really done that much because usually there's a product organization that's handling most of that. Although, I think it would be useful for me as a developer, but I can imagine there are pitfalls you can fall into when you're interviewing users that either force your frame of reference onto them and then they don't really know what you're talking about, or you don't actually get the answer from them that shows you what their pain points are. You get what maybe they think you should build, or something else. So do you have anything specifically that you do to make sure you find out what's really going on for them? JENNA: The first thing is preparation. So I have a list of questions and that time with that user isn't over until I've answered them. If it turns out that I walked into that room and those questions were wrong, then we stop and time to regenerate questions because I can bias them, they can bias me, we can wind up building something totally different than we set out to do, which is fine if that's the direction we went end up going. But I need to go into that time with them with that particular experience being the goal. So if I got it wrong, we stop and we start over. Now, not everybody has to do that. Some people can think faster on their feet. Part of being ADHD is I fall into the moment and don't remember like, “Oh, I wrote myself a note, but there's also” – I just read a Twitter thread about this today. I wrote myself a note, but also to remember to go back and read that note. So [laughs] all of those little things, which are why I really hold to, “I got it wrong. We're going to put a pin in this and come. Let's schedule for 2 days from now,” or next week, or whatever the appropriate amount of time is. There have been times – and I'm really lucky because my boss is so good at interviewing users so I've really gotten to learn from her, but there have been times when she'll interview a user and then it totally turns the other direction and she goes, “Well, yes, we're not building this thing we said we were going to build. I'm going to call you again in six months when I'm ready to build this thing we started talking about.” Because now the roadmap's changed. Now my plan has changed. We're going to put a pin in this because in six months, it may not be the same requirement, or the same need. There might be a new solution, or you may have moved past that this may be a temporary requirement. So when we're ready to do it, we'll talk again. But the biggest thing for me is preparation. JAMEY: I have a question about something specific you said during that near the beginning. You said, “They can bias me and I can bias them,” and I wonder if you have any advice on identifying when that is happening. JENNA: When it feels like one of you is being sold? JAMEY: Mm. JENNA: So early in my career, before I got into tech, I worked in sales like everybody who doesn't have a college degree and doesn't know what they want to do with their life does. Both of my grandfathers and my father were in sales. I have a long line of salespeople running through my blood. If I realize that I feel like, and I have a specific way that I feel when I'm selling somebody something because I like to win. So you get this kind of adrenal rush and everything when I realize I'm feeling that. That's when I know ooh, I'm going to bias them because I'm selling them on my idea and it's not my job today to sell them on my idea. I know they're biasing me when I realize that I'm feeling like I'm purchasing something. It's like, oh, okay. So now I'm talking to somebody who's selling me something and while I want to buy their vision, I also want to make sure that it makes sense for the company because I have to balance that. Like I'm all about the user, but there's a bottom line [laughs] and we still have to make sure that's not red. JOHN: So you're talking about a situation where they maybe have a strong idea about what they want you to build and so, their whole deal is focused on this is the thing, this is the thing, you've got to do it this way because this would make my life the most amazing, or whatever. JENNA: Yeah, exactly. Or their use case is super, super narrow and all they're focused on is making sure that fits their exact use case and they don't have to make any shifts, or changes so that it's more global. Because that's a big one that you run into, especially when you're like building tools. We have to build it for the majority, but the minority oftentimes has a really good use case, but it's really unique to them. JOHN: What's the most surprising thing you've taken away from a user interview? JENNA: I wouldn't say it's a surprise, but probably the most jarring thing was when I got it wrong the first time and when I got it wrong, I was really wrong. Like not even the wrong side of the stadium, a different city. [chuckles] Like a different stadium in a different city wrong. [laughs] It caught me off guard because I really thought that what I had read and what I understood about the company that I was working with, the customer that I was working with. I thought I understood their business better. I thought I understood what they did and what their needs would be better. I thought I understood their user better. But I missed all of it, all of it. [laughs] So I think that was the most surprising, but it was really valuable. It was the most surprising because I was so off base, but it was probably the most valuable because it showed me how much I let my bias influence before I even step into the conversation. JOHN: Is there a difference between how you think about the user when you have your product hat on versus when you have your tester hat on? JENNA: Oh, absolutely. When I have my product hat on, I have to play a balancing game because it's about everybody's needs. It's about the user's needs. It's about the business' needs. It's about the shareholders' need. Well, we don't really have shareholders, but the board's needs, the investors' needs. And when I'm testing, I get to just be a tester and think about what do I need when I'm doing this job? What solves my problem and what doesn't? What's interesting about testing and not every tester is like this, but I certainly am. I mentioned that I like to win. Testing feels like winning when you find bugs. So I get to fill that need to win a little bit because I'm like, “Oh, found one. Oh, found another one. Yes, this is awesome!” I get really excited and I don't get to be that way when I'm product person, but when I'm testing person, I get to be all about it. [laughs] JAMEY: I love that. That's so interesting because to me as a developer, I get a similar feeling when I fix bugs. I feel crappy when I find bugs, [chuckles] but I get that feeling when I fix them. So it's really interesting to hear you talk about that side in that way. I like it. JENNA: Have I ever shared with you that I think developers are like dogs and testers are like cats? JAMEY: Elaborate. JACOB: Let's hear it. [laughs] JENNA: Okay. So I like dogs and cats. That's not what this is about. JAMEY: I like dogs and cats, too. So I'm ready to hear it. [laughs] JENNA: Dogs are very linear. If you teach a dog to do a trick and you reward them in the right way, with the exception of a couple of breeds, for the most part, they'll do that for you on a regular basis. And dogs like to complete their task. If they're a job, because a lot of dogs, they need jobs. They're working animals, it's in their DNA. If their job is to go get you a beer, they're going to go get you a beer because that's their job and they want to finish their job. Cats, on the other hand, with the exception of their job of catching things that move for the most part, they are not task oriented and really, a cat will let a mouse run past it if it's just not in the mood to chase it. It's got to be in the mood and have a prey drive and they don't all. So a cat, you can teach them a trick and if you reward them the right way, sometimes they'll do it and sometimes they won't. Some breeds of cats are more open to doing this than others. But for the most part, cats are much more excited about experimentation. So what happens if I knock on that glass of wall water? What happens if I push on that? What happens if I walk up behind you and whack you in the back of the head? They're not doing it because they're mean, they're doing it because the response is exciting. The reaction to their input in some way is exciting to them as opposed to finishing tasks. Because if you've ever had a cat catch a mouse, they're actually sad after they have caught the mouse. The game is over, the chase is done. It's not fun to give me the mouse; it's fun to chase the mouse. So testers are a lot like that. The chase and the experimentation are a whole lot more fun than the completion. When I find a bug, that's the chase, that's the good part of it. That's like, “Oh yeah, I tracked it down. I figured it out. I found the recreate steps.” After I found the bug, it's not as fun anymore. [chuckles] So I've got to find the next one because now I'm back on the hunt and now that's fun again. Dogs on the other hand, it's like, “Oh, I finished the task. I'm getting my reward. I get to cross this off. My list feels really good” Very different feedback. So I think that's part of it is that devs love to finish things and testers love to experiment with things. JOHN: Yeah. JAMEY: I think that's really insightful. JOHN: Yeah. [laughter] JAMEY: I'm like a I put something that I did on my to-do list so that I could cross it off and it feels like I did something kind of person. [laughter] JACOB: I think we, at least I was, early in my career kind of trained to have that mindset and trained away from no, we're not here to like experiment with the newest and coolest thing. We're just trying to ship features. We're just trying to fix bugs. We're just trying to finish the task. Please do not be overly experimental just for fun, which is an over simplification because everyone needs to be creative at some point. But I totally agree. JENNA: Well, and testers do have to balance that, too because there is such a thing as over testing and you hit this tipping point where it becomes wasteful and you move from I've delivered valuable information to now I'm creating scenarios that will never happen. Yes, a user can do pretty incredible things when they want to, but we can only protect from themselves to a point. Eventually, it's like okay, you've reached that tipping point now it's waste. [laughter] JOHN: Yeah. I remember some research that came out recently that if you call the cat and it doesn't come, it understands what you're asking for and it's like, “Nah.” JENNA: Yeah. Maka not so much. But Excalipurr, when she's sleeping, she'll hear you. That cat is out cold. She has zero interest in what you're saying, or doing. Nothing is going to disturb her well-earned slumber. [chuckles] JACOB: I'm kind of amazed how like my cat is just easily disrupted by the smallest noise when awake and then when he's sleeping, he's dead to the world just like you said. He clearly can't hear it, or if he is, there's something switched off in his brain when he's sleeping, because he's a total spaz when he is awake. [laughter] JENNA: I don't know. I think my vet could explain it better. He actually walked me through what happens in a cat's brain when they were sleeping. I don't remember why. I think we were waiting for a test to come back, or something and he was just killing time with me. But there was this whole neurological thing in their brains that looks for certain inputs and even biochemically, they're wired to certain sounds that are things that they should get awakened by and other things, it's like yeah, that matter. For some reason, though my cats have weird things that they're really tuned into. If you knock on the door, Excalipurr—we call her Purr—will go bananas. She is furious that someone has knocked on the door. Same thing if something beeps like microwave beep, the sound of if I've got a somebody on speaker phone and their car door opens and it beeps, she is mad. She could be dead asleep and she hears that and she is furious. But otherwise, nothing bothers her. She's out cold. [laughs] JAMEY: I also hate when people knock on my door so I can relate to that. JOHN: Yeah. JENNA: Don't come to my door if I'm not expecting you. JACOB: Yeah. JENNA: Also don't call me if I'm not expecting you. [laughs] JAMEY: I have exactly one person I open the door for. His name is Joe and he's our neighborhood person who comes and collects everyone's bottles and cans. But I recognize the cadence of his knocks so that I can answer the door for him and not other people. [laughter] JOHN: So you said earlier that working with ADHD, you had to develop some sort of techniques for how to handle that well in your life. Do you want to talk more about that? JENNA: I don't know if I would say I handle it well, but I handle it. [laughter] Most of the time. Typically, I do you pretty well. So I have lots and lots of alerts for myself. Because as I mentioned, I'll write myself a note, but you still have to have the – somebody said the name of it today and I forgot what it was, but there's a type of memory that tells you to like, “Hey, go look at your notes that you created for yourself,” because you can write the notes, but forget that the notes exist and never go look for them again. So I have lots of like alerts and alarms that tell me like, “Hey, go do this thing. Take your meds. Check to make sure that you have everything you need on the grocery list.” I have a couple of times a day that I have a reminder to go check my to-do list [chuckles] because otherwise, I just won't remember. I'll put the system into place and forget that the system exists and even with those helps, sometimes it'll just slip by especially I'm busy during those alerts. But I try really hard to use those. The most effective thing for me, though is definitely my medication. I was chatting about everybody before we started and I mentioned that because of supply delays and all of the rules around how early you can refill and the rules around not being able to transfer your script from one pharmacy to another and all that kind of stuff, I was without my medication for let's see Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, because I didn't get it until midday yesterday and I was sick. So [chuckles] too many factors at one time that I was just not at all functional over the weekend. I forgot steps in what I was cooking. I forgot things on the grocery list. I couldn't stay awake. That was probably more being sick but. So for me, that's probably the most effective thing. Also, just as a note for those of us assigned female at birth, I that ADHD symptoms get worse [laughs] as we hit 40 and up that all of the hormonal stuff winds up interacting with how our attention is, because I couldn't figure out why my dose had to go up. I was like, “I've been on it forever. Why do we have to raise the dose?” And she's like, “Well, there's some things going on,” and I have a feeling it's all about premenopausal stuff, because for those who don't know, I'll be 40 in June. Not a teenager anymore. [laughs] So all sorts of things that I need to keep it all in balance and things that I'm learning about being in my age group and having ADHD that nobody talks about because of the assumption that ADHD is something only children have and that ADHD is something that you grow out of. When you don't grow out of it; it just kind of changes. And that it's not just men and people who are assigned male at birth that there's a lot of us out there, varying genders. We've got to talk about it more because a lot of us feel like we're wandering the wilderness, trying to figure out what's on in our heads. [laughs] JOHN: Yeah. I remember hearing recently that ADHD and ADD present differently in AFAB people and so, it goes underdiagnosed because of that. It doesn't show up in the classical symptom lists in the same way. JENNA: Yeah. So the classic symptom list was developed around pre-pubescent and puberty age boys and in girls, it doesn't tend to present as not being able to sit still. Although, there's still definitely some of that. It presents more in being like a Chatty Cathy as they say like, “Oh, they talk all the time.” So it presents differently and as we get older and all of the other like stuff starts to factor in, AFAB tend to get identified instead as borderline personality disorder, or bipolar as opposed to ADHD, or even anxiety as opposed to ADHD. Because when you feel like your brain is going a mile a minute, it makes you anxious. So they give you an anti-anxiety medication instead of dealing with the fact that you feel like you can't keep up with your thoughts. There are so many different factors there, but we're learning a lot more about the presentation of ADHD and autism in people who are assigned females at birth. JOHN: Yeah. I don't know a ton about the history of the diagnosis and everything, but I can assume well, because it's the society we live in that there's a giant pile of sexism going on in there, both in who is studied and who they cared about succeeding in classical schooling and the work environment and all sorts of biases up and down the hierarchy. JENNA: Absolutely. There's both, the medical misogyny, but also the socialization because there's an expectation of good girl children and the behavior that girl children should display. So we are socialized to force ourselves to sit even if it means sitting on your hands. You're socialized to doodle instead of wiggling because good girls sit still. So there's all of that kind of stuff that plays into it, too. Even things like if you develop a special interest, which typically people associate with autism, but certainly has some crossover with ADHD because they're very closely related. You learn to either hide that special interest so you just don't talk about it, or you become that person that has the weird quirky thing because ADHD girls are always quirky, right? [chuckles] They're a quirky girl. There's no neurodivergence there. They're just quirky. They're just different. I guess, in many ways, I was kind of lucky because my mom taught autistic, intellectually disabled, and other disabled early childhoods. So she identified early, like kindergarten, that I was probably ADHD. I was dealing with it like really early. Also, she had this kind of belief about raising kids without gender, but also not doing it very well. So I wouldn't say it was a successful thing. [laughs] So let me tell you, we didn't have girl toys and boy toys. We had building blocks and stuff like that. We weren't allowed Barbies. We also weren't allowed Hot Wheels. Very gender in neutral things. But when, as a teenager, I dressed really androgynous, I was told to put on a dress because she is a girl. So I don't know. [laughter] It didn't really work. But I think that a lot of that played into me being identified really early. I'm probably getting off track, but the benefit of is that I learned a lot about it from an early age and I was able to develop systems that work for me from an early age. Most people who are assigned female at birth don't get the benefit of that. My hope is that our kids, I don't have any kids, but to the people my age that have kids, my hope is that their children are being identified earlier so that they are able to get those systems in place and be more successful in the long term. JACOB: I'm autistic and sometimes I think about the fact that I think that my white male privilege let me get away with some of the less great behaviors that came naturally to me and did not force me to develop masking skills until much later in my life. So when you were talking about that, I can sort of relate to that by the opposite that that's making a lot of sense to me, that I could see how all these sort of societal pressures to sit still and behave weren't put on me. I was just encouraged to just be a weird individual and be myself and how that wasn't put on me in places where maybe it probably should have been. So that makes a lot of sense. JENNA: I have to say, though, I think I've forgotten how to mask COVID has definitely killed masking for me. I have completely forgotten how to make small talk. [laughs] JACOB: Yeah, me too. JENNA: [laughs] I can't do it anymore. I've also forgotten how to fix my face. I was never great at fixing my face. Everything I'm thinking, feeling wears on my face, but I'm even worse at it than I used to be. [laughs] JAMEY: I also struggle with fixing my face, but I've actually been finding that I love wearing face masks in public because I can interact with someone without having to worry about what my face is doing and it takes a lot of the pressure off me, I feel. JENNA: I think it does. So I have resting friendly face. [laughter] For those of you who've never met me in person, I am 4' 10”. I'm really short. I'm also kind of wide. I'm fine with it. But little ladies in the grocery store will ask me to help them reach things because I look friendly and approachable. [laughter] But I can't reach them any better than they can! [laughter] Sometimes they're taller than me. So face masks have allowed me to blend in more, which is really nice because I get less of random people coming up to talk to me. People will joke that I make a friend everywhere I go because people just start talking to me and I don't really care. I'll talk to them, that's fine. What I really laugh at is since I can't fix my face, I will put on a plastered-on smile and somebody will be like, “You are really mad at me right now, aren't you?” I'm like, “No, everything's fine. I'm super okay with this,” and they're like, “Yeah, you are furious so we're going to stop.” [laughs] Like I can manage an angry smile without meaning. [laughter] JAMEY: It's interesting what you said about people talking to you randomly, because I also I tend to be that, the kind of person that people talk to randomly in general. I've been having an interesting experience recently where I've been on testosterone for about a year and a half and I'm like finally hitting the point where the way people perceive me in public is different than it used to be. That got cut down dramatically immediately and in a way where people's eyes slide off of me in public. I'm not there in a way that never used to happen to me and it was really interesting realization for me to realize how much of that was the socialization that people think they're entitled to a woman's time and attention. It's not exactly what you were talking about, but it made me think of it and I've been thinking about it a lot lately. [laughs] JENNA: But it's true. It's really true. I think everyone who's perceived as a woman gets it, but gets it in different ways. I tend to get it from people who feel like I'm a safe place to go to. So little old ladies talk to me, little kids talk to me. Now to be fair, bright pink hair, little kids think I'm great. [laughter] Especially when my tattoos are showing, too. The parents are usually like, “Okay, okay. Leave them alone.” [laughter] But I'm also—no offense to anyone who identifies as male in the room—the person that men don't typically stop and talk to, or even notice. I remember I was taking four boxes of nuts to my coworkers and I think it was Fat Tuesday, or something so I was bringing in these special donuts from my favorite donut place around the corner. I had four boxes of donuts and this guy doesn't grab the door, or anything. Just leaves me to try and push the door open with four boxes of donuts. But then granted, she was gorgeous, beautiful blonde starts walking the other direction. He notices her right away, grabs the door, and opens it for her. It's like oh, okay. I've had that happen quite a few times and not to sound dramatic here, but that's part of the reality of living in a fat body that you do get overlooked by others. So the little old ladies tend to tend to gravitate towards me and then other women, men gravitate towards them. I think no matter, what women experience this and people who are perceived as women, because I do identify as non-binary. But let's be honest, people in the broader world perceive me as a woman. We all get it. We just get it very differently and in different ways, but I can't think of a single woman who hasn't experienced it in some way. JAMEY: Definitely. JOHN: Yeah. I've read so many rants frankly from women who have absolutely loved masking well in public because they don't get told to smile and they don't present as female as normal. So they don't fit into that category as much and so, they don't get that same attention. I look very male so no one ever does that to me, but I can imagine what a relief that must be. JENNA: I definitely think it is for some women, especially in super public spaces. JAMEY: I feel like I derailed from ADHD and I want to bring it back. [laughter] I did have a question I was going to ask anyway. So I'm bringing it back to that, which is that I feel like these conversations, like the conversation we're having right now about ADHD, is something that I've been seeing happening more, especially about ADHD and adults. I think it's just something that people have been talking about more the past few years in a way that's positive. I know a lot of people who were like, “Oh, I got diagnosed recently as an adult. I started on medication and I never realized this was what was making my life so hard and my life is so much easier now.” I have several friends that are like really thriving on that currently. So I guess, my question for you is that as someone this whole story you told about being aware of this much younger and being able to make all these coping mechanisms and things like this. What would your advice be to someone who's now, as an adult, realizing this about themselves and then coming to grapple with it? JENNA: Let me preface with this. I'm not one of those people who says medication is the only way; there are lots and lots of ways to manage ADHD symptoms. But I feel like the most beneficial thing you can do for your is to find a clinician that listens to you, that believes you, that doesn't dismiss your experiences because there are as many different presentations of ADHD as there are people who are ADHD. If you've met one ADHD person, you've met one ADHD person; we all have different traits. So finding somebody who is willing to hear you, listen to you, and partner with you, as opposed to try and dictate to you how to manage, how to cope is critical. Part of that is arming yourself with all the information that you can. But the other part of it is being a really, really good self-advocate and if you aren't comfortable with that kind of self-advocacy, finding somebody that's willing to partner with you to help be your advocate. I know a lot of people in the fat community who have personal advocates for medical appointments, because they feel like they're not heard when they go to the doctor. Same thing for us as people who are neurodivergent. We don't get heard all the time and if you feel like your clinician isn't hearing you and because there is a real barrier to getting a new one many times—oftentimes we're stuck with someone. Finding that person that's willing to walk with you is huge. It is really easy to find yourself in a situation where you lose control of your decision-making to a provider who makes the decisions for you, but is clever enough to convince you you're making the decision yourself. That's my biggest advice is don't fall into that trap. If something feels wrong, it's wrong. If a medication doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for you. There are multiple different types of medications, classifications of them, and different brands for a reason is because we all need something different. Like I went through Ritalin, Adderall, finally to Vyvanse because Ritalin and Adderall weren't working for me. Adderall worked, but it raised my heart rate. Ritalin made me feel manic. My provider listened to me when I said I feel manic. I feel out of control, and she's like, “If on the lowest dose you feel out of control, this is not a way to go.” I have a friend who has been pushed off of taking stimulants because she has a history of addiction. She has a history of addiction because she's ADHD and she was self-medicating. It took four different providers to finally get to somebody who said, “Yeah, the stimulants are what worked for you.” The non-stimulant options weren't working, but she had to go and demand and demand and demand and it was the only way to get heard. So I probably got on a tangent there, but self-advocacy, finding someone who will work with you, and getting an advocate if you don't get hurt. JAMEY: I think that advice will be really helpful for people. So thanks. JOHN: Yeah. JENNA: I'm always very worried that I'm going to cross a line and upset somebody, but it just is, right? JACOB: I don't know what line that would be. I feel like everything you said was just really empowering and I wish someone said that to me 10 years ago, honestly. JENNA: I hope it's helpful, but I've had people who haven't realized that even though they're an adult, because they're neurodivergent that they are forever a child. JACOB: Yeah, I know. JENNA: So their opinion, their experience doesn't matter, it's invalid, and those are the folks that sometimes get really upset when I talk about self-advocacy. That's a big personal journey to realize that hey, you are a grown up. You make these decisions. [laughs] You are allowed to be an adult now. In fact, you need to be an adult now. JAMEY: That's also very insightful, I think. JOHN: Yeah, and interestingly, it ties in with – so my company had an event for Black History Month. We're a healthcare company, we have a lot of clinicians of color and they put together a panel discussion about Blackness in a healthcare context and literally one of the panelists was talking about how do you cope with there's still prejudice, there's still people joining medical school right now that believe that Black people don't experience pain as strongly as other people. How do you deal with that? They said almost literally the same thing. You take advocates with you to your medical appointments so that you can have more opinions. You can have someone to help fight for you, someone to help make those arguments, and point out things that you might not be noticing at the moment about how the provider is acting, or just to give you that moral support to actually voice your like, “Hey, what, wait, wait, wait, this is not right. Let's back up and talk about this again.” So I think that advice is important in so many intersections that I'm glad you laid it out like that. JENNA: It's a really interesting conversation that I wound up having. I've had sleep problems my whole life and by the way, if you're ADHD and you have sleep problems, you're not alone. It's a pretty common symptom [chuckles] to have disrupted and disordered sleep partly because our brains get bored and then we wake up. Our brains don't know how to focus on sleep. Interesting study that somebody's undertaking. But my neurologist that I see for sleep asked me to be part of a panel conversation with a team of doctors and they basically asked me questions about being ADHD and having sleep issues. And one of the things that these doctors had never really considered is that I know enough about my own body and my own sleep to know why all of the things that they've suggested haven't worked. One of them was like, “Did you try having more potassium?” I remember I just stopped myself and I said, “Listen, my parents have told me stories of how I wouldn't sleep as an infant.” We're talking about somebody who was sleeping 2, or 3 hours a night as a toddler. This is not a new thing. This is not insomnia. This is not stress related, stress induced sleep loss. This is a chronic medical condition. I said, “If you think that I haven't tried more potassium, having peanut butter at night, turning off devices an hour before bed, not watching TV before bed, not reading before bed, using the sleep training apps, going for a sleep study. If you think I haven't done this stuff, I don't know how to help you, because if you think I've made it this far in my life without trying anything, we have a whole another conversation to have.” It's the same thing. I'm going to say this and it's going to sound really hurtful to providers, but they think that we were born yesterday and until that change, we just have to keep proving them wrong. JAMEY: I think that you won't probably hopefully hurt the feelings of providers who aren't like that. Because my suspicion is that providers who aren't like that are like, “God, I know.” [laughter] JENNA: I hope so. I hope so because they're patients, too. I really wonder what it's like for them to go to a doctor. JAMEY: Yeah. I didn't want to totally derail into a different conversation again, but I just want to kind of note that this all really resonates with me also as a trans person, because I know way more about trans healthcare than doctors do. [chuckles] So I go in and I say, “This is what we're going to do because I know all about this,” and my doctor's pretty good. He listens to me and he works with me, but he says like, “Cool, I don't know anything about that so sounds good,” and it's just wild to me that I have to learn about all of my own healthcare to do healthcare. JENNA: Yeah, which that's a whole another conversation about how important it is to – like we talk about diversifying tech, which is important, but we also have to diversify the community. Until there are trans clinicians, until there are more Black clinicians, until there are more assigned female at birth clinicians, we are going to continue to find ourselves in these situations and we're going to continue to find ourselves in dangerous situations. I think about—getting off track for a second because that's what I do. I live in Cleveland. Well, I don't live in the city of Cleveland, but Cleveland is my nearest metro area. I'm 10 minutes outside of the city. Cleveland has one of the worst infant and maternal mortality rates for Black women in the country. We also have some of the lowest numbers of Black OB-GYNs in the country. There is a direct correlation there. No offense to my white men, friends, but all of these white men sitting here in their ivory tower guessing at how they're going to solve this problem while at the same time women like Serena Williams nearly die in childbirth because they don't listen to her. It's like, so you're going to come up with these solutions when you're not even listening to some of the most educated and informed patients that you have? It's why there's a whole coalition of Black women in Cleveland that have started a doula organization that they're becoming doula to support other Black women in the city because they don't feel like the medical community is here for them. It's the exact same thing. Like until we have this diversity that's so needed and required, and reflects patients, people are going to die. JAMEY: Yeah. On the flip side of that, when you do have a provider that shares your background in that way, it's so empowering. My new endocrinologist is trans and the experience is just so different that I couldn't have even fathom how it was going to be different beforehand. [chuckles] JENNA: That's amazing, though. That transforms your care, right? JAMEY: Yeah. Totally. JENNA: But it all comes back to what I said about how I care deeply about the human [chuckles] because this is all the human stuff. [chuckles] JOHN: Yeah. JAMEY: So what we like to talk about here on Greater Than Code, the human stuff. JENNA: That's why I love Greater Than Code. [laughs] I can't help myself, though. Whenever I say human stuff, or think about human stuff, I think about Human Music from Rick and Morty. [laughter] That whole thing has always stuck out in my mind. [laughs] Just look up Human Music from Rick and Morty and you'll get a giggle. [laughs] JAMEY: I think it's a great time to do reflections. What do you think? JOHN: Yeah, I can start. I think there's probably a ton I'll be taking away from this. But I think what struck me the most is right at the beginning when you were talking about your superpower, you talked about yourself as a super human, not super human, but as a just super human, just you're really human. All of us are, but we don't think of ourselves that way. I just love that framing of it as just that I'm here as a human and I'm leaning into it. I really like thinking that way and I'll probably start using that term. JACOB: I related really hard to the forgetting how to mask situation since COVID. I don't know if that's a full reflection, or not, but I relate really hard to that. JAMEY: I feel like in a way my reflection is so general, I think it's so great to talk about stuff like this. I think that it's really important. Like I was kind of saying about we have more people realizing things about theirselves because people are just more are open about talking about this kind of topics. I think that that's really amazing and I think that when people like Jenna come on shows like Greater Than Code and we can provide this space to have these kind of conversations. That, to me feels like a real a real privilege and I almost can't come up with a more specific reflection because I hope people will listen to the whole show. [chuckles] JENNA: What's been really amazing is getting to talk about whatever just feels stream of consciousness in this conversation has connected a lot of dots for me, which is really neat because outside of tech, for folks who don't know, I'm a deacon at my church, which is also a very human thing because I provide pastoral care to people who are in the hospital, or who are homebound, or who are going through crisis, or in hospice care, or families who have experienced a loss. All of these things interconnect—the way that I care for my community, the way that I care for my broader community because I have my church community, I have my tech community, I have my work community, I have my family. All of these very human spaces are the spaces that are most important to me. If you are my friend, you are my friend and I am bad about phone calls and stuff, but you are still somebody who's on my mind and if something happens, I'm your person. You just message me and I'm there. It all interconnects back to all of these like disparate ideas that have just coalesced in one conversation and I love that and that makes my heart very full. JAMEY: Thank you so much for coming on the show. Is there anything that you want to plug? JENNA: So I have a couple of talks coming up. At InflectraCon, I am doing a risk-based testing talk and Agile Testing Days, I am doing a workshop on test design techniques. If you came to CodeMash, it's that workshop, it's fun. Support your local testers! That's my big plug. Support your testers! [laughter] JAMEY: Think about them as the experimental cats. I think that will be helpful for people. [laughter] JENNA: Yes! [laughter] JAMEY: Thank you so much. This was great! JOHN: Yeah, I loved the last line of your reflection. That was beautiful. JENNA: Aw, thank you. Special Guest: Jenna Charlton.

INTRODUCTION: About John Follis / "LEAVING GOD” John Follis is the award-winning writer/director of the documentary "LEAVING GOD” (2017).  Winner of a Hollywood International Documentary Film award the film explores a major cultural shift happening in America -- a shift away from religion and God. Paralleling this trend it also shares John's fascinating personal story. Described as “Compelling” by the BBC, "LEAVING GOD” has been seen by over 36,000 people from 98 countries via Vimeo, YouTube, and TopDocumentaryFilms.com.     Before becoming a filmmaker John was an award-winning Madison Ave ad man who actually helped sell God. His 16-year ad campaign for New York's Marble Church received national attention via The New York Times, USAToday and TIME magazine. That story is included in the film.    INCLUDED IN THIS EPISODE (But not limited to): ·      A Documentary About People Leaving God·      Preachers Coming Out!!!·      Separation Of Church and State·      Radical Republicans·      The Ways Churches Hurt People·      Why Religious Persecution of People Is Wrong·      The Differences Between God And The Church·      Tribalism Defined·      The Importance Of Obtaining Discernment·      Catholic Shade  CONNECT WITH JOHN: Website & Film: https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/leaving-god/YouTube: https://bit.ly/3IvRjH0Facebook:   https://bit.ly/357oAuAInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/johnfollis/Twitter: https://twitter.com/JohnFollisLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnfollis/  CONNECT WITH DE'VANNON: Website: https://www.SexDrugsAndJesus.comYouTube: https://bit.ly/3daTqCMFacebook:   https://www.facebook.com/SexDrugsAndJesus/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sexdrugsandjesuspodcast/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TabooTopixLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devannonEmail: DeVannon@SexDrugsAndJesus.com  DE'VANNON'S RECOMMENDATIONS: ·      Pray Away Documentary (NETFLIX)o  https://www.netflix.com/title/81040370o  TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_CqGVfxEs ·      Upwork: https://www.upwork.com·      FreeUp: https://freeup.net·      Disabled American Veterans (DAV): https://www.dav.org·      American Legion: https://www.legion.org INTERESTED IN PODCASTING OR BEING A GUEST?: ·      PodMatch is awesome! This application streamlines the process of finding guests for your show and also helps you find shows to be a guest on. The PodMatch Community is a part of this and that is where you can ask questions and get help from an entire network of people so that you save both money and time on your podcasting journey.https://podmatch.com/signup/devannon  TRANSCRIPT: [00:00:00]You're listening to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast, where we discuss whatever the fuck we want to! And yes, we can put sex and drugs and Jesus all in the same bed and still be all right at the end of the day. My name is De'Vannon and I'll be interviewing guests from every corner of this world as we dig into topics that are too risqué for the morning show, as we strive to help you understand what's really going on in your life.There is nothing off the table and we've got a lot to talk about. So let's dive right into this episode.De'Vannon: Hello? Hello. Hello. Are you beautiful people out there in the world? I am so fucking happy and excited to have you with me again. One more week today, I'm talking with a man by the name of John Follas. His man is an award winning creative director, writer, and filmmaker. Now he didn't made a documentary called leaving God.And in this film, he's talking about the ways church has hurt people in this mass Exodus of people away from Christianity and religion. [00:01:00] It's not very often. Did I hear people's story about the ways that, that they were hurt by the church? Like how I was? So this was a particularly close to home.So in this show, we're going to talk about preaches coming out and we're not talking about coming out gay honey. They coming out another way and talking about why religious persecution of people is wrong and the differences between God and the church. Take a listen, baby. Hello, John. Hey, Davanon Mr. John. Fallas welcome to the sex drugs in Jesus podcast. How are you today? I am John: awesome. Awesome. Thanks for having me on your show. De'Vannon: Thank you for stopping by and thank you for creating the film you have. Today we're gonna be talking a lot about it and the things that are in it.The title of it is leaving God. And it's a free video's out there for all to see through your YouTube channel and [00:02:00] different things like that. I'll let you tell people exactly how to find it and everything. I was impressed with how, how personal you got in the documentary because usually whenever I watch a documentary.The, the emphasis it's like the lenses turn on whatever the subject matter is, or, or whoever the, the documentary is about. But you you, I think you tow the line well in between covering the subject matter and, and talking a lot about yourself and a lot about your personal life. And that transparency is something that I, I find to be like gold.I really, really love a good transparent person. And and so I appreciate that, that willingness to, to expose yourself like that, because, you know, that's what really connects people to the story. Right. Exactly. So tell us in your own words then about this film and why on earth would you make such a.[00:03:00]John: Well, I made it because it talks about one of the most major cultural shifts currently happening in America right now, which is more and more people leaving the church, leaving religion and leaving God. So that's why I made it. I thought that's a very, I I'm, I pay attention to pop culture. I, I, I paying a attention to what's half happening in society and because my personal story was part of that cultural shift that's happening in America.It definitely related to me on a personal level, as you just mentioned in the introduction. So I mean, this is something that I had been, I, I, you know, like you, I'm interested in the big themes of life, sex money not so much drugs. Jesus, God health. You know, all those, the big themes in life are the ones I wanted to know as much [00:04:00] as possible about because the more you know about these big themes, I think the more, the better happier life you will have, you know, the more things you can figure out.Right? So I've always been intrigued by the of God. And once I was old enough to begin thinking for myself, when I'd say probably high school and college, I started pursuing my curiosity about God and trying to learn as much about who God is and how I can, you know, if he, or she, or whatever it is, is really that powerful and can be so helpful in my life.I wanted to really, you know, see what it's about. So I could work it to my benefit. Right? So this documentary really part of it talks about what I just mentioned, but the, the main catalyst was again, [00:05:00] paying attention to current events and just continuing to see more articles about churches closing and more and more people walking away from the church and religion.And I think the tipping point Devana and for me was when I started doing some research about ministers and priests who were coming out. Right. I mean, I can't think of anything more taboo than coming out as a nonbeliever. If you're a priest or a minister. Religious, you know, someone in the clergy, nothing.I can't think of anything more taboo than that. So when I did re because I, I wasn't sure that there were people like that, but I started doing some research in 2017 just to see if I could find any stories about that. And that led me to something called the clergy project, which was a project dedicated specifically [00:06:00] to people like this.People in the clergy who had changed their minds about God and religion. And didn't have a place to go to kind of talk about it, get support. So the clergy project was started, I think in 2012 or something like that, specifically as a place for these people to go, to get, get Presa ministers, clergy, people, to kind of talk about their feelings, cuz they were in a lot of pain, right.It's almost, you know, it's like being L G B T or transgender. Right. And not having a place to go and talk about that. Right. You know, if you're, if you're in a society that is not supportive of who you are as a person and what you think and how you believe you're gonna be living a very isolated life with a lot of pain and feeling afraid to talk about these things are a big part [00:07:00] of who you are and what you, how you think.So. The clergy project was really intriguing to me. And that to me, was the tipping point. The idea of these priest ministers coming out, I thought would make an interesting documentary. I didn't think my story was that unique because there's just so many people who grew up religious and through circumstances over time, change their perspective on that.There's nothing really that unique about that. But when you start talking about clergy members who spent their career as, as a priest or minister or something like that, and then suddenly, or maybe not so suddenly, but for whatever reason to they no longer believe, I thought that was a very subject that deserved to be looked at.And I thought that would at least be the start of my documentary, where it went from there. I wasn't totally sure, but that was the, that was the tipping point for me to say I've gotta try making something [00:08:00] about this, cuz this is just too interesting.De'Vannon: Hmm. Yeah. So in the, in the video and that is a very interesting point. It, it seemed like it, it, the, the part about the clergy coming out was kind of sprinkled through it. And I seemed like it got a little bit more gritty about it towards the end. And I do have a lot of questions that I want to ask about the clergy, but before I get on that, I want to kind of kinda lay a bit of framework here.So, and I wanna read like, Like a, a quote from this, or from, from about the from about the film that I thought was interesting and says that the, the fastest growing religion in the United States seems to be no religion at all. [00:09:00] A 2016 study conducted by the public religion research Institute found that a quarter of the subject survey claim, no religious affiliate and this surprising figure increased substantially among the younger generation.Now in the video, it was showing like I think it was graphs or charts about how, how, how, how younger people like at each generation less and less, less and less seemed to have any sort of religious affiliation at all. And I thought that this was so interesting because like, I'm about to be 40 this year.And my boyfriend's 25. And so. And so, so all his friends are like in between like maybe 21 and 25, you know, somewhere around in that range. And when it comes to the matters of religion and stuff like that, all of them that I know of so far are the same way. They're just kind of like, we don't do religion, you know, we just don't have that.You know, it's not what they [00:10:00] do and stuff like that. And I thought about, you know, as to why this could be, you know, you know, what example do they have to really go of, you know, look at what look at what has become of the church, you know, with the, with the preachers leaving and what, how crazy religion looks on television?You know, you got all your evangelicals and all the Republican nonsense mixed into it, you know, why do you think that that so many young people specifically like young people are not interested in religion? I think it's because of the bad example that, that they have had to look at, but what do you think.John: Don't know. I think, you know, it doesn't really matter what I think. I think it's just, you know, I, what concerns me a little bit is when I talk about this film to people and tell them the title of it, they think that I'm anti God and that this film is about my opinion [00:11:00] and my bias against God. And that's not what the film is about.I mean, you watched it. This is a documentary and I, I approached it like an investigative journalist and then talking about what's happening. Starting with these priest ministers who are now leaving the church and then talking about the statistics of the general population and then weaving my personal story into it for, you know, the second half of the film.So I mean, I'm glad to give you my opinion, but my opinion doesn't really matter. I want people to come to their own, you know, come to their own conclusions. I'm no expert, I'm no theolo, you know, theologian it doesn't, you know, why people are leaving. Everyone's got their own reasons. I just, you know, I, I think that it doesn't the, the, I would guess that the younger people are leaving more and more are leaving religion in church is because it doesn't serve them in a, in [00:12:00] a way that it serve their parents.I mean, I can just tell you from my experience, I mean, the reason. I grew up religious is because my parents this was part of their tradition. It was just a thing to do on Sunday. You went to church and if you didn't, it was a sin. So there was, you know, some, some some of that fear of God and extend there to keep you, you know, going to church on, on Sunday. One of the things I point out in the film Devana and is one of the, the, the, the reasons, many people especially people of a certain age, younger people under, under 40 has been the internet because they have more access to information. If they're, if they wanna get, get the facts on stuff, they can, they can research it.So there was an interesting graph that I showed. In the film that that the, the shift away from religion began B about 30 years ago in the early to mid nineties. And it has increased significantly [00:13:00]since then for, you know, up, up until about the, the early nineties, it was about five to 7% of people who consider themselves nonreligious. But since since that time it's gone up significantly every year. And even since I made the film in 2016, it's gone up about 5%. When I made the film, I was using a, a pew research statistic from 2016 that said it was about 24% or 25%. And just two months ago, they came out with an update on that.It's now closer to 30%. So there is a parallel between people walking away from church, religion, and God, and use of the internet. So that may be a contributing factor. De'Vannon: Right? Well, I appreciate your, your insight on that. I love the sharing of insights and opinions, you know, because it's thought provoking, it'll still get people thinking, you know, and it'll still lead them to their own, [00:14:00] to their own conclusions, but sometimes people need that little nudge.And so, so speaking more on the preachers who came out, you know, it's so interesting whenever I hear the term coming out and using a reference, that's not G B T Q I a. And so But it still, it still echoes the same vulnerability and risk of exposure and fear that can mean coming out. And so yeah, on the video, you've got these preachers going on, television preachers who had, you know, were, had, you know, pretty high up and everything like that.Now they're no longer in these religions anymore because of various reasons. You know, and then there, and one of em, I just should say one of 'em was from Louisiana. One of the guys that I profiled Jerry, I can't remember his last name, but you may recall if you watch it recently. Devana and at the end of the film, I, I took some, some a clip from a New York times [00:15:00] documentary that followed this guy around for a while.John: And He had a really hard time. I mean, it's, it's hard enough coming out anywhere as a nonbeliever, but when you're in the deep south in a small town, Louisiana, I don't have to tell you what that's like. And his wife left him his congregation, you know, naturally turned on him. He was outta work.He had to leave the state eight. He basically, he, he was like a man without a country. And I don't know what he's doing now, but he really paid the price for coming out as a nonbeliever, which is why it's so courageous, I think to do it's like, you know, now I just watched a clip on tick to talk. Talking about the the Russian propaganda machine and they showed a clip of a Russian female newscaster, just, you know, like a robotically reading the script from Putin about what's going on and right behind her, there was a, a, a woman holding [00:16:00] up a, a sign saying this is all bullshit. They're you're telling you lies, just went up.It went viral. So it takes a lot of courage. I guess I'm making a parallel sometimes to stand up for what you believe, you know, you're gonna pay the price. So I, I, I, I can't tell you how much admiration and respect I have for people who are willing to come out for what they believe when it's not popular.De'Vannon: Right. And I found the interesting that when these preachers came out, it's like they turned. Into into like atheists. It's like the, the, cause a lot of the quotes you have towards the end of the film are like kind of like, you know, atheistic in nature. So I can kind of see how some of the people you were saying in the beginning, how some people might see that you might feel like you're Antigo.I kind of was thinking that too, by the end of the film, like I wonder if he's Antigo, like, I don't know. I'm gonna ask him about that. So where exactly [00:17:00] at your point in your life, do you stand on God? And then I want to get back to, to this vibe that I was getting from the preachers in the film. Okay. So I'm not John: Antigo. And just the quotes that you're referring to were from people like mark Twain mm-hmm and George Washington and people like that who made comments. That were very quotable that basically shared their opinion about God or church mm-hmm . So again, this is nothing about this film, this opinion, those were quotes from these people.And I think there's a lot of people in America that have a belief that this that our forefathers wrote the constitution based on a Christian perspective. And some of the quotes, I some of the people that I quote are from the founding fathers [00:18:00] kind of contradict that, that theory. So, and again, you can look up, you can research everything that I have in the movie. Is you is, is true. And you, you could, you could research it yourself, but I just thought it would be interesting to just share the perspective of some, some famous people who had perspectives on what I just talked about in the film about God and religion mm-hmm and, and church. So yeah, so I, I'm not Antigo, I don't really care what people believe as long as it doesn't mess with my life.You know what I'm saying? As long as they don't tell me that I've gotta, you know, I think the problem start, the problem I start having with, with religion is when it gets political, I, I really, you know, talking about our forefathers, anyone knows, who knows anything about the constitution knows that there's, there's a division between church and state John Adams, when he [00:19:00] wrote and, and Thomas Jefferson, when they constructed.The declaration of independence in the constitution were very clear about that. They wanted to make sure that unlike things in England and other countries, they didn't didn't want politics and, and religion to to cross pollinate. They wanted to have a definite separation between church and religion.They didn't wanna have any ministers telling people to be involved with people's rights as human beings and, and the things that they put in the, in the, the constitution. So what's happening is that, especially in the, in the Republican party they have crossed that line many times. I mean, I think religion has become a big part for many politicians, especially in the Republican party and the constitution and the declaration of independence [00:20:00] is very clear about keeping that separate De'Vannon: too true, too true.I say that all the time, but you know, here we are. So what, what, what interested me the else about the preachers in your film? It's like they went from being all about God and in the church and whenever whatever happened, it caused them to be done with that. Like, one of them was preaching like. Like kind of like, you don't need Donna.There is no, like you don't need, there is no divine power out there. You already have all, all the power that you need within you. So it's, it was like he abandoned all concepts of God all together and then he switched gears. And so, and it reminded me of how I felt when I got kicked out of Lakewood church in Houston, Texas, you know, for not being straight.And, and I, and I took a very negative reaction to that. And then I stopped associating with God and I never got to a point where I was like, he doesn't exist, but I stopped going to [00:21:00] church and everything like that because of the hurt that I received there. And so, which was, which was an immature to, for me to do, I shouldn't have done that.I should have, you know, I taken a more positive approach to that. Got some counseling, went to a gay affirming church and not let what happened at Lakewood cause me to stop, you know, my faith all together. Are John: you or at Lakewood? Is that Joel Stein, right? Oh, wow. Okay. De'Vannon: So and so and so I have a blog about that on my website and I go into detail and in my memoir, but you know, I wasn't, you know, I'm not straight.And I was, you know, singing the adult choir. I was teaching the kids ministry worship leading in the kids ministry. And I applied for a job there. They went look up, looked up my social media on MySpace page as a part of their application process, cuz the, the 2, 2, 2 or three years that I've volunteered there four or five, you know, at least what 1, 2, 4 days a week at the church, wasn't enough to vouch for my, my work ethic.[00:22:00] They needed to go ask my space as well. And so while, while they were looking, they saw that I was hanging out in S which is the gay district in Houston. And I had a really RA photo on my cover. So because of that, they fired me from all the aspects of ministry and everything like that. And so. And so that's John: how they, so what did they, did they give you a reason for that to van on when they fired you?Did they tell you, why did they say, you know, we don't like gay people. De'Vannon: She said that you can't be doing that hanging out there with them. Ah John: so did you ask her to be more,go there with them. I love that. De'Vannon: so it was on me because I shouldn't have lied on the application. When I filled out the application, the volunteer in the kids ministry, they had on their straight up, like, we don't want gay people were being around our children [00:23:00] and you know, the mind that I have now, really, they actually John: had that.Yes, that was on in, in writing. In writing. Yes. And this is Joel Olsteen's church saying we don't want, hold on a second.We don't the, we don't want gay people hanging around our children, correct. With Joel Olstein church. Okay. De'Vannon: And so, okay, John: go ahead. I wonder what he, I wonder what he would say if he was interviewed about that and confronted with that on their application. I wonder how he would answer that you should get him on your show. Davanonhe would make a great kiss for you. De'Vannon: I don't know what I would ever say if I was face to face with him, but, you know, I don't know how good it would go. I need to, I need to mature my war before that day comes. So, but I thought, John: I thought they're [00:24:00] supposed to love everyone. De'Vannon: You know, churches are not like that.You know, they are, they have an agenda. Every church has an agenda. Tell me about it. And you know, but for all, and it's not just. And that sort of stuff happens at all kinds of churches. The Hillsong church in Australia, which are very good friends with Lakewood church have the same policy. And they're very bold about it.They're like no gay people can be on staff or volunteer here. They said it countless times. They don't give a fuck. So, and but you know, the mind that I have now, if I ever come across that on an application or something, then I know that that's simply not the organization for me to be at, but I had just got out of the military serving during don't ask don't tell.And so I was conditioned to function in an environment where I couldn't fully be myself. So I just thought it was another Don as don't tell situation. I've had some PE, some legal friends of mine tell me that it's not legal for a church to do that. I didn't even know that it even much gotten to the realm of illegality.You know, I just was like, well, [00:25:00] I wanna volunteer. I'm not trying to like, fuck any children or anything like that. So. That's, you know, and especially with the litany of paperwork, you know, they do like full background checks and every damn thing on new social security numbers, you know, and everything just to volunteer.It's not like, it's not like I'm gonna give them all of that information on me, how to find me and everything to go in there and commit a crime. It's like the dumbest thing John: did you van, and I'm curious is because I don't know if it's legal or not, but I would wonder about that. Did you ever do any research on that or speak to any legal authorities to find out if that's De'Vannon: true?No. And even because by the time I got done with all of my nervous breakdown and everything that that helped to contribute to we're talking a good10 years after, so whatever statute of limitations, I was sure it would've been pass that, but it would never hurt to look into cuz I didn't, I think the person who I was talking to said it gets into the realm of like discrimination or something like that. [00:26:00] And so, which made sense when they said it, but I was so.Fucked up in my head whenever they fired me from volunteering that I, that I couldn't, I couldn't even much, I didn't think I was just like, okay, well fuck them. And so, but, but the preacher in the film reminded me of that because when he was talking about how he doesn't really believe in God anymore, we don't.And you know, it sounded to me like he was coming from like a place of pain and it sounded like he was still hurting from that. And it really reminded me of how I was back then. And I wonder, you know, in the future, once he's healed, you know, if all of that, if he would still be like, you know, anti, he was very more like, like anti guy.And he was saying like, there's nothing Toine, you know? And so, so I, I, so I wanna encourage people, you know, Not to conflate church and God, you know, those are two separate things, religion, and [00:27:00] God are two separate things. And the confusion that I had when I got kicked outta Lakewood was I didn't separate the two.And so when the church rejected me, I took that as though God had rejected me and I allowed that to it cause a rift where there should not have been a rift, you know? And I feel like, well, they're John: pretty, you have to admit, they're pretty connected. religion and God. Right. De'Vannon: Well, when I say religion, I mean denominations like denominations churches, the physical manifestation of what God is supposed to be, they are connected.But at the same time, it's like, they're not, it's like when two people are married, they're connected and they do become one in many ways. But at the same time, they're very much still individuals and, and everything that a preacher says is not. The divine voice of God. And every decision at a church makes is not the divine will of God.And so we gotta learn how to put them together when they are together, but how to separate them when they need to be separated. [00:28:00] Cuz they're not always in tandem. John: So divine and I'm gonna make a suggestion to you. I, I it sounds like you're not ready to have, have Joel Olstein as a guest on your show, but here's someone that you might, you might be open to because while you were talking about refr referencing that, that minister in my film, I just remembered the guy's name.And he is, he is the guy from Louisiana. His name is Jerry Dewitt, D E w I T T. So if he's written a couple of books he's had a podcast. So if you pop him into Google I think he will find him. Jerry that's J Jerry with a J E R R Y D E w I T T. And you could, you could invite him on your show and ask him these questions yourself.He might, you know, since you're a Louisiana boy and, and he is too he might, he might be to be on your guest mm-hmm [00:29:00] and, you know, talk to a homeboy De'Vannon: I'll reach out. You never know what could be. It would be great. Yeah. To talk to someone who used to be in clergy who left. Yeah. You know, I'm coming from a, from a volunteer perspective, he's coming from a, from aler clergy's per perspective.That could be pretty kick ass. Yeah. So, John: so, so like I said, I don't, you know, I, I, I kind of, I get off on a tangent there, but you know, as far as my feelings about. Being against God. Again, I, I don't this is a free country. People are free to be who they are and believe in what they want to, as long as it doesn't mess with my life.And the only way someone's belief in a particular religion or God would mess with my life is it's that starts getting involved with politics. For example, if I was a woman and I believed in abortion and I had some [00:30:00] co you know, ultra conservative or evangelical Congress, people who were trying to overturn Roe versus the, the, he weighed, then I would probably have a problem with that.Do you know what I'm saying De'Vannon: as do I, and you know, the crazy thing about it is the whole concept of what God is. It's subjective. Everybody's gonna have a different opinion about that. How to interpret scripture as subjective. Everybody's gonna have a different opinion about that. You know, there's, there's precedent in the Bible about why it's not a good idea to try to establish laws against people based on your personal beliefs.And that is, that is the main takeaway that I get from the convert version story of SA, because what did Saul do before he became Paul? He was a big person in the San Hedron. The San Hedron was a part of the religious people who governed, you know, over there in the middle east. He went to them, got permission to go and [00:31:00] persecute people who were not living according to his opinion of how they should.That's exactly what it was. I believe in this. They're not living how I think they should. So I'm gonna go make them do it. That was his whole point of going to Damascus and Jesus knocks him off his horse, the blinding light, the whole story. We know how it goes. And Jesus is like, yo dude, cut this shit out.This is not how I want you to go about it. And that's exactly what Republicans are doing when they say, Hey, we think those people over there should live a different way. Let's go make some laws to force 'em it's the same thing. But when they read through the Bible, they're not reading about it on how to improve themselves.They're reading. If they read it at all, you know, is about how to change other people. And when I was in seminary, before I left seminary, one of the reasons I left seminary was cuz one of the professors was just like, yeah, we want to control people in churches. And he said this as, just as just like the sky is [00:32:00] blue.And I was like, what the fuck are you talking about? so, and John: he actually said he wants to control people. Yes. He was at the law, profess least he was on, at least he was honest about De'Vannon: it. At least he was honest, but I was, but it wasn't just him, but all the classmates were nodding in agreement. Like they didn't have a problem with what this man was saying.And so he was like, and he was coming from a Baptist background if I recall correctly. And, and I was just like, no, we would not be controlling people. it's not what this is about. But, but the Republican culture and everything like that is so much about control, which I believe stems from insecurities and fear within people cuz confident, happy.People don't go about the business of trying to make life miserable for other people. , you know, it's just not what we do. We're too busy being happy. so, right, right. John: And so, well, they think they're on a mission. This is what, what the problem I have with religion and ultra religious people is because [00:33:00] they feel like they're on a mission from God and they're doing in God's will it's the same motive behind the, do you know, have you heard of the crusades?Do you know what the crusades were about? Are you to history? Yes. Okay. Do you know, do you know what the crusades De'Vannon: are about? Yeah. That's getting into the church, like prosecuting people and I think like heritage fix, you know, and maybe John: like the crusades, the crusades were A mission done. I think they were done in the, in the 10 or 11 hundreds that were initiated by a couple of popes during that time period where they felt that they were on a mission from God to convert the people who were not Christians and sent all their troops kind of, kind of like what Putin is doing to Ukraine. These guys did to the middle east, they got all their, their armies and their weapons, and they went on a mission from God, their, on their, on their [00:34:00] shirts, the van, their would be these big red crosses. They, they that's how they identified themselves. These big, giant red crosses. They were, they were so Christian soldiers and they got these huge forces and they marched into the middle east.And they just started slaughtering people because it was easy for them to do because when you, when you look at people who don't think the way you do or look the way you do, it's easy to minimize them. Right. And it's easier to to do bad stuff to them because you think that they're less right? They're, they're, Heins, they're nonbelievers, so it's an easy excuse to kill them.And, and that's what the, the crusades were about. They were doing. They totally believe they were on a mission from God. And in God's name, just murdered. Tens of thousands of people. I mean, look it up. It's pretty, pretty scary. De'Vannon: Yeah. I do have [00:35:00] that I wrote a blog about that and I have a, a link and they called it like, I think like the inquisition and I think they labeled people as like heretics and I think there was like a, that's John: a different that's that's, that's similar, but different.Okay. Similar that is different than the crusades. Okay. But same idea. You know, going after people that don't think a certain way, that's, that's the, the common thread between the two. De'Vannon: That makes sense. But, but John: I, you know, I'm making a parallel, you mentioned the Republicans and again, the parallel that they believe that many of them are evangelical.And if I, if I'm, if I'm Understand it correctly is that the whole idea is that you've gotta basically convert everyone to think the way you do evangelize. That's the whole premise of E even I can't even say evangelism to, to, you know, go out and witness and change [00:36:00] people and convert people. And to your minister's point, control people, you know, that's not uncommon that he was evangelical.You said, and that's what he said to you. And that that's what many evangelicals believe they might not be. So honest about it. You know, Joel may not admit that that's what he is looking to do. That you've gotta be a certain way. You've gotta look a certain way. You've gotta have a certain sexuality.You've gotta conform to their version of the Bible. And if you don't off with your head, That, De'Vannon: that mentality seemed to kind of like prevail because when they fired me, they let me know that I wasn't the first one, they were like, we do this all the time. , you know, you know, the, they did offer, you should have John: been wearing a wire.You should have been wearing a wire. So you had that on, on, on all De'Vannon: audio. Well, you know, this is back like. Gosh, [00:37:00] and maybe like 2008, 2009. So the concept of everything being recorded and being so available, I think we may have just been converting from flip phones and shit, you know, and pages, you know, technology.Wasn't like, you know, everything, wasn't like, Ooh, I got you on camera. You know? Yeah, no, no, I'm John: just I and De'Vannon: facetious. But I've thought about that before, like how great it would be if I, if I could, if I would've had that recorded, you know, and stuff like that. But I had no idea that that's what they would've done.Cause I thought maybe I was gonna actually be getting hired or something, but instead, instead I got fired. Well you, when you saw, when you watched my doc, I I had a somewhat similar situation where I received a letter from the church saying don't come to Bible study anymore. Remember that part in the film.Right. Right. Because you cause you, you y'all had an interesting thing going on where you had a singles ministry at this church now we're in New York city and it was like the marble something collegiate marble [00:38:00] collegiate church. And the singles group was twenties and thirties. You were in your forties and they had a real strict thing about that.So they would, as you say, in the film, tap people on the shoulder in a way and tell them, Hey, you're too old. So stop coming here. And John: so what was, well, it wasn't, it wasn't let me just interrupt you. It wasn't real strict. Because we're talking about as an experience in the film or part in the film.I talk about experience. I had, where I was kind of dragged into a Bible study. I really wasn't interested in going, but someone dragged me into this thing. It was after the, the Sunday sermon and there were probably 40 people in there and there were quite a few people in there that were over 40. I looked around and I was not the, I was maybe 45, 46 at the time. So I I was reluctant to go because I thought it was strict. I thought, you know, you get carted at the door to make sure you're, you're under 40, which you know, is kind of silly when you think of a church, both about how inclusive they are [00:39:00] to restrict a Bible study to people of a certain age. I don't really understand the logic behind that, but I certainly was not the only one who was over 40. And, and even though that's the reason that they gave me in the letter that I shouldn't continue going the real reason is I suspect something that was quite different that I mentioned in the film. De'Vannon: Right? Because you challenged the the preacher, he asked the question. And then your, he asked if anyone had any questions during this Bible study and your question was something like, what is truth?Oh, no, your question was, is it true? Correct. And then he was silent. He really couldn't say much. And then you said something to kind of help him out of the rabbit hole that, that he found him. And then he said something like, truth is objective or like, what is truth? Right. John: Which was a pretty lame answer.As far as I was concerned. well, churches do, but, but it [00:40:00] was, it was shortly thereafter that I received a letter saying we really value you as person and don't come to Bible study anymore. You're too old. De'Vannon: Right, but in the video, you know, and that sucks that that happened to you. But in the video you said that, that, that, that did happen to other people.And then you observed that those people not only stopped going to the group, but they stopped going to the church as well. And I, I, and I, and that's a very, I thought that was very interesting point because sometimes when I tell people say I got kicked out of lake, it, they go that they tell you, you can't come back.And then I have to make it clear. When you kick a person out of one, part of a church, you kick them out of the whole church because it makes it very fucking awkward. When you try to go back there, it feels weird. It feels, I don't even have a word for it. It feels alien. Suddenly you just don't, it feels like a whole different world.When someone's told you that you, [00:41:00] for being who you are being the age or who you choose to love how old you are or whatever physical characteristic you have or something that. You really can't help. We don't want you here. John: well, it makes you feel like you're not fully accepted, De'Vannon: right? So you don't have to say bitch, leave the whole church and don't come back.You know, just telling someone to get out of any part of it, because a church is, is not supposed to be like that. You can't like everyone come on in, the doors are open, but we only want certain, certain of you in certain portions of the church, you know, that just doesn't work that way. Well, what John: I, what I, what I've discovered dev van en sounds like you've discovered it as well, is what churches say and what they do are often very different things.De'Vannon: This is true. And a big part of my ministry, my calling, whatever you want to refer to it as is to get people to a point where [00:42:00] they can. See, what, what is real and what is fake and understand, like you say, in your video, that just because someone's a preacher doesn't mean that they are right, or that they're gonna be right all the time.They're just human. And and so, so we gotta take these preachers and pastors off of these pedestals, we gotta take these churches off of these pedestals. Now, you know, a word came up called, try that somebody in your film said, and I thought that that was very interesting. And he said that our tribal instincts can override our rational thought of a writer.One once upon a time said, no, man is an island. Okay. Because we have this innate sense to, to congregate. Be it gangs to be it in a church. Be it. And the military, you know, this, this, this there's this group, you know, we need each other. And so we are always gonna find some kind of way. When I got kicked outta church, I replaced the church group with the, with the nightlife.And then I began to dive deeper into like the clubs and stuff like that. And that's ultimately how I became a [00:43:00] drug dealer. And I didn't know it then, but we're gonna always and seek out communities some kind of way, because that's just how we're designed. And then in the case of, and then we let our need for community override our rational.So we'll stay at the church and listen to the preacher and try to be involved. Even though we've seen things that we know don't make sense, you know, and we rationalize it a way.Which ain't good. You know, if we see something and it doesn't make sense, then that should be addressed. If if the priest are abusing the altar boys or different people, we can't just sweep it under the rug and rationalize it away and go, oh, I'll just stay right. John: Well, it's almost like being in a bad marriage, right?You're you're in a marriage and you get used to it. I, and the longer you're in it, the more you're willing to accept bad behavior because you're kind of used to it. And you kind of you rationalize that while there's a lot of good [00:44:00] in it. Because it's hard to walk away. I mean, a church for many people and certainly was with me was a very big part of my life.Mm-hmm so it's easy to rationalize. Well, it's not perfect. And no church, what church is perfect. Right? And it's, you know, it's a very, and listen, I don't fault people for thinking that way to each his own, you know, they're right. Nothing is totally perfect. The church that I went to in New York, wasn't perfect.But the reason I stayed involved with it as long as I did is be because of tribalism, I, I looked forward to seeing my friends every Sunday. Sometimes I would just skip the sermon and I'd go straight to the coffee hour, just so I could hang out with my friends. That was very, very, a big, important part of my life in New York city that I valued.But once I got over were 40 and was not so welcome in the, in the singles group, they really didn't have a singles group for I'm trying to think. Oh yeah, they [00:45:00] did have a singles group for people. Over 40 and everyone was 70. So I remember Dick dip dipping my toe in there when I was like 42. And the next youngest person to me was like 63.So I did not feel like trying to ingratiate myself to a new group with people were you know, 10, 15, 20 years older than me, especially when I'd been just part of a group for the past 15 years of people, many, many people just, you know, a couple of years younger than me. So I didn't really, I, I didn't like the fact that they had a hard cutoff at 40, you know, I, I, I just thought that didn't make a whole lot of sense.Like, what are they trying to tell you that if you're not married by the time you're 40, you're a loser, you know, which is kind of what they were saying. At least that's a message. That's how I interpreted. De'Vannon: In, in other churches, Lakewood and other churches too. Have, [00:46:00] you know, the, the groups divided by ages, I think just either have a singles fucking group or don't have one regardless of the age, because a 20 year old, a 20 year old may be attracted to a 60 year old.You know, the very concept of that is trying to act like is trying to force people into a certain age range. That's very presumptuous. John: Yeah. And, you know, listen, it, it it really hurt a lot of people. I mean, I was just a little perturbed by it, but there are a lot of women very attractive, smart career women in New York city, right.Who spend most of their twenties and thirties focusing on their career, which is very much the case of the kind of women you meet in New York city. So, you know, here they are Approaching 40. Right. And now suddenly they're thinking, gee I, I, I do I wanna have a family? Do I wanna switch gears here? I'm still single. But at least church is a big part of my life. And then having a, being, having them [00:47:00] get tapped on the shoulder saying us, sorry, you're out of this group. I mean, that was a pretty big deal for a lot of those women who were really, really hurt by the fact that they were no longer welcome.Welcome in this single group is hard enough for anyone to turn 40. You're gonna be turning 40, but especially at think in our society for women. I don't think, you know, our society is rarely friendly to women that you know, of a certain age, older women. So that's a pretty big birthday for many women.And on top of dealing with that on an emotional, psychological level to have your church saying sorry we, you really can't come to this group anymore group that they may have been a part of for 5, 10, 15 years, where all their friends were to get, you know, tapped outta that group. That makes no sense to me, especially coming from a church that on their website says how inclusive [00:48:00] they are and welcoming they are to everyone.De'Vannon: Yeah. And then it just, its a certain type of.That I just, it just can't be described because you think about the money that you've given to the church and the time you spent volunteering and stuff like that, it does feel like a marriage or some sort of relationship and to be dismissed from it, for any for, and unless you've done something bad against the church and like stolen their money or actually done something, then maybe they could say something, but they still shouldn't dismiss you.It feels like a bad breakup. And John: for me it means bad. It's bad business. I have to say, you know, from a business perspective, listen, every, every church is paying attention to their finances. Right? So the last thing you want to do is do something that's going to Get people to leave your church, especially when you're in your early forties, [00:49:00] in New York city, you're in your prime earning years.And this is what I mentioned in the film. Why would you wanna do something that upsets someone enough that they're gonna walk away from, from the church and stop giving their charitable contributions? I mean, the church, their lifeblood are, is charitable contributions. So, you know, loosen up a little bit with your, with your rules on Bible studies.You know, I mean, gimme a freaking break here and stop scaring people away or not scaring people away, but push people away with a stupid rule. Like, you know, an age thing. It just, it just made no sense to me. And when I brought that to the attention of the minister minister, who I knew was interested.In keeping people coming to the church because he hired me to do an ad campaign to attract more people. So I knew he was very concerned about attracting and keeping people to, to [00:50:00] the church. I didn't understand why he just kind of dismissed the fact that that people were leaving the church because they felt as you said, you kick 'em outta one group.They're not gonna feel welcome. If that's the main connection to the church, there's a good chance that they're gonna stop coming to that church. If they can't continue going to that group where all their friends are,De'Vannon: these are decisions that people make when they're not accustomed to being rejected or being told they can't come places.So, you know, people. You would hope to not to get that same sort of behavior from people who are, have been the victim of discrimination and all kinds of prejudice throughout life, but people who have always been accepted will never get why, why, why do they, why, why did they just leave? You know, we only kicked them outta one part.We don't see what the big is. That's right. That's right. So right. But you know, when I think about preachers like that, I hope and pray that they [00:51:00] didn't start out with cold hearts. You know, you know, my, my spiritual leader told me that, you know, a preacher is either gonna be really, really strong or really, really weak.And that, that, that there's no in between. And so it, to me, like maybe these preachers start out with the best of intentions, but in the process of time, as the congregation grows, as the money grows, you know, or something like that, maybe their, maybe their motives get corrupt, but, and they don't even realize that it's happening, cuz it happens so gradually. You know, maybe it is all at once, but there's not much we can do about that, but I want church people and people who still look up the preachers and listen at what they say to become, to have a greater level of scrutiny that they, than what they have now to actually judge what the preachers saying and not just accept that it's fact.And if some foolishness shows up, then the whole, their priest you're accountable, they don't get to get away with things and, you know, and, you know, and, and things matter like that. [00:52:00] Right. You a quote that you had in here, which stuck out in my nogging a concerning your, your marriage, you know, you, you know, you, your divorced man, and you talk about that.In the film. You said, if I had to pick a moment, when my attitude about God began to sour, this would be it you're talking about a woman that you had met in church. I think it may have been in the singles group that I'm not sure. Yeah, but like it, wasn't the singles group, you in church, everything's going great.All the boxes are checked, but a few weeks later there's trouble. You, you said you felt betrayed by her in, by God. John: So for your listeners I'll do a little ex explaining here in the film. I talk about a woman. I met at church in the singles group that I got married to. And the quote that Devana just referred to was [00:53:00] the quote that I said in the film that Happened the day I got married in the church that if there was a time that my attitude about church and God began to sour this would be it the day that I got married at the church.And the reason I said that, and as I share in the film is that despite the fact that I met this woman in church, and I thought the marriage was ordained by God. Our marriage went downhill immediately. I mean, immediately it was a crash and burn that could never have predicted, and I didn't understand it. It like, it was like my wife had become turned into a different person. Immediately after we got married, I didn't understand what was going on. It seemed pretty clear that even though she gave me an ultimatum, it's kind of ironic because I wasn't so [00:54:00] sure about getting married and it took her giving me an ultimatum to make the decision to get married. And, but once I made that decision, I was, I was committed. But my wife's attitude seemed not, seemed, definitely changed immediately after we got married. And I was blindsided by it and I couldn't in it because as I said, I thought this marriage and this relationship was ordained by God.So it really challenged. My beliefs in God, when the marriage started going downhill and we were in marriage counseling and I was impersonal, we were in personal counseling, but she got involved with another guy. And didn't seem that interested in getting back with me. So, so it didn't really matter how much I tried, if I'm with a partner who is not exhibiting behavior to support the idea of [00:55:00]being in a marriage anymore. And we went through, we were separated for almost three years, so I was not willing to give up on the marriage, even after I found out that she had been involved with another guy, I was willing to continue to work on the marriage and try to get it back on track. She did not seem to have that similar perspective.And so that kind of changed my attitude about things being ordained by God. And that's when I began questioning the whole idea of God and all that stuff. Why? But I thought our marriage was based on that. Why De'Vannon: did you think it was ordained by God? What did God did God tell you something that he speak to you in some way to make you believe?John: Well, first of all, I met the woman in church, so that's a good start, right? When you meet someone in church, you think, okay, maybe God has something to do with bringing us together because it is God's house, right? [00:56:00] That's what church is supposed to big God's De'Vannon: house. I'll say that that's an assumption that a lot of us make.And I used to be that way when I attended churches and I was in singles groups too. And that that's a pitfall. I wanna warn people right now, not to get into, as you walk through life with God and you gain spiritual understanding, don't go put God's mouth on things. You know, if he didn't speak, just cuz you're in church and you meet some woman or some dude or whatever.That don't mean automatically that you should run off and marry them as they say, not everyone in church is saved, you know, and not, not everything, not everything that happens under his roof is ordained by him. But see, we get caught up in our emotions and stuff like that. And then, and then, and the stuff the preachers are telling us, and then we, sometimes we wanna say that that's the voice of, of God when God didn't actually speak.And so, so basically you're saying y'all met in church. All the, the boxes are being checked. This looks like it would be of God, but God didn't necessarily speak to you personally. [00:57:00] Well, John: I thought I had a supernatural experience to Von. Okay. In addition to what I just said beyond the fact that we met in church and our relationship blossomed at church events and retreats that we attended together, but there was one experience that I, I was, I had convinced myself was a supernatural met that I received from God.And that was when we were sitting in church one Sunday morning. And as the minister was preaching about something to do with God's love and bringing people together, whatever he was talking about at the moment he was talking about God's love and loving people. I felt myself. Bathed in light and brightness.And the reason I felt that way is because there was a beam of light that was coming through one of the stain glass windows and was shining directly on me and my [00:58:00] girlfriend at the time. So it was a very, very directed beam of light that was just hitting the, the window at a certain way. That for at least maybe a minute or two was illuminating, the two of us.And I said, oh my God, this is the sign. Because I at the am, we had been going out for a while and I think she had been kind of hinting at getting married. And I, I still had some doubts about whether or not this was something I, I was ready to do. So when that experience happened to me, I thought it was a sign by a sign from God.De'Vannon: Do you still think it was? No. So if it wasn't a sign from God, do you think maybe you kinda like ma made it up or just, just, this is what you believe, what you were wrong. John: Listen, when you, when you're, when you're indoctrinated into religious thought, right. It's easier for [00:59:00] you to justify natural things as supernatural De'Vannon: Uhhuh.yeah, that does happen too. So we, so we wanna avoid that. We wanna gain discernment. We wanna always be praying for discernment so we can see the truth of things. And but you know, to me, like, You know, with her, you know, seeing the other guy she's actually having sex with him, she's become an adultist, you know, at this point, you know, you know, was she that, you know of, you said she was seeing the other guy, do you know she was sleeping with him?Yes. Cuz I asked her. Okay. And so that's according to G she and John: she, and she admitted it. De'Vannon: Oh, she was a bold bitch, you know? And according to Jesus' teachings, you know, the only reason that people can lawfully get divorces in the case of infidelity. So it's almost like God was giving you a way out through this, whether you wanted to take it, you know, or not, at least the door was [01:00:00] open to, to the divorce legally, this, this brings me to another issue I take with people who take issue with people, meaning like you're.Straight people, quote, unquote, your Republicans and everything like that. And these preachers who are on like their fifth marriage and shit who get divorced all the time, for reasons other than infidelity, but in the Bible, you know, Jesus said, if you get divorced for any reason, other than infidelity, then that's wrong.And this voice he's concerned that you're still married. Yet. We find in churches all across the land that people in, all these unions have been divorced, but it was not for infidelity. And somehow it's perfectly okay. And then they continue on preaching against gay people and women who won get, get, get abortions and everything like that.But they don't really preach too much about how you're supposed to stay married unless it's for infidelity. So that's one of my pet peeves that I have now. I don't go around judging people who were divorced for reasons other than infidelity. Cuz I don't care. [01:01:00] Cuz like you said, what, what they're doing and who they're fucking don't affect me.But since they wanna have problems with other people, you know, I bring it up because there's they're because they're hypocrites. Now you, during this time you went to go see a, a preacher, a priest or whatever, cuz he is, this is a Catholic church, right? Not a Catholic church. Okay. No, no. This is a preacher. And and he told you to stay married. He's like divorce is not the way, but then later on he would get like, I think two divorces or something like that.And I don't think he was removed from that post from being a preacher. And so how did that make? He was, John: he was the, he was the head minister of the church that I'd been going to for 15 years. De'Vannon: Okay. He was a head minister. He told you not to get divorced later on. He gets a divorce twice, twice. How did that, how did that make you feel?John: Well, what do you think?De'Vannon: I might have said some John: exploitation. The, the H I, you, I think you [01:02:00] said it earlier, it's the H word hypot. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I can't think of anything more hypocritical than someone telling you, you shouldn't get divorced and then they get divorced, not once, but twice.I mean, that's the definition of hypocritical and it extends De'Vannon: beyond that because he didn't get removed from that position. I mean, us, both of those wives cheated on him and he had the lawful way out, but yet they're removing people for being two years over the age limit. You know, in, in the singles John: group?Well, I wasn't removed just to be clear the van and I wasn't removed from church. I just got a letter saying, please don't come to this group anymore. De'Vannon: all right. That makes it so much more palatable. John: I wanna be clear. I don't wanna, I don't wanna unfairly you know, trust the church. I still have the letter by the way.So, De'Vannon: but people I've talked. I talked to [01:03:00] someone before who got divorced and they removed him from his volunteer positions in church. So it's very interesting, you know, but you know, those, those double standards get applied everywhere you go. When I was in the middle was the same way. Somebody who was like to say is their first year in the air force.If they got a DUI, they get kicked out. If they were got, if they were caught drinking underage. But if they, someone who had been in there 20 years did the same thing. They wouldn't be treated as harshly, you know, The standards, they just don't seem to apply when you get higher up in organizations. Mm-hmm so the last thing I wanna talk about before we wrap this up is a little bit about Catholicism.I love to throw, throw shade at the Catholic church because I don't, I, I really, I have, I have no disrespect for Catholic people. I just think that is one huge mind. Fuck. And I cannot understand [01:04:00] where they come up with all of these damn rules and shit that have nothing to do with the Bible. And I guess the popes made it up or someone who's supposed to be holy made it up.And then therefore it is believed by people, but the, the billions of people who make up the Catholic church and give the church it's power and things like that. And I just don't see what they're getting. In return. The Bible tells us not to pray to angels and to anyone, but God, and they're praying all these saints, there's all these dead people.There's all these robes and all this kneeling. When I, when I went one time and I was like, am I sucking Dick in the sanctuary today? Or what is going on? Why am on, on my knee? well, of my needs were half the John: service. Well, hopefully you weren't doing that in church, Savannah. It De'Vannon: would've made it worth it . If, if, if, while I was down there, one time someone had stuck something in my mouth.So I'm gonna quote you again. You had some interesting one [01:05:00] liners, John: if you have, well, there might have been a few priests that would be happy De'Vannon: to accommodate you. I think I would've been too old for them at the right age. I think I might have been in my twenties and you know, and then the right age of 21, you know, they seem much too old for them.And so, you know, you never know. So you sad in here. I don't know if you have any books, man, but if not, I think you should write one. Cause you have some interesting one-liners in their, in this film. So referring to Catholic sex, sex education, you said to get a basic sex education, you need to be taught by people who had sex, who actually had sex, who actually had sex.So you were talking about getting sex education from like these crazy ass looking nuns and stuff like that. So just tell us, as we begin to wrap up about your Catholic experience and what you think of the Catholic church. John: So in the film I talk about going to parochial school, junior high school which was [01:06:00]13, 14, 15 years old.And one of the required courses was weekly courses was a course in religion and they kind of cross pollinated religion and sex education with, I guess, you know, they could only hire so many teachers and I guess they couldn't have a dedicated teacher teaching sex education and a Catholic school.So the, the teacher was teaching religion integrated some what, what they considered sex education. I would say sex lack of education would be a better way to phrase it. And one of the things they I was told at the age of 13 was that I'm, I'm trying to remember cuz it was quite a while ago, but the clear message I got was that you really should not be having sexual thoughts in your head.And if you do or do it too much, or don't turn your brain off immediately, once that sex sexual [01:07:00] thought pops in your head, if you don't immediately shut that down, you're walking on thin, thin ice with Jesus and, and you, you don't wanna, you don't wanna sin in against Jesus now, do you? So that was kind of the message I got is that it would be a, a sin or could be a sin against Jesus.If you don't shut down really quickly, any sexual thought about you know, my case, naked women or naked girls that, that pop into your head, you, which is a pretty big mind fuck to tell a 13 year old kid. And I have to tell you when you're, whe

01:47 - Nyota's Superpower: To hear and pull out people's ideas to make them more clear, actionable, and profitable! * Acknowledging The Unspoken * Getting Checked 07:15 - Boundaries and Harmony 10:35 - News & Social Media * Addiction * Filtering * Bias 18:54 - The Impact of AI 23:00 - Anyone Can Be A Freelance Journalist; How Change Happens * Chelsea Cirruzzo's Guide to Freelance Journalism (https://docs.google.com/document/d/18rwpMH_VpK8LUcO61czV2SzzXPVmcVhmUigf1_a7xbc/edit) * Casey's GGWash Article About Ranked Choice Voting (https://ggwash.org/view/79582/what-exactly-is-ranked-choice-voting-anyway) * First Follower: Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy | Derek Sivers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW8amMCVAJQ) 40:13 - The Intersection of Cybersecurity and Employee Wellness: Resiliency * @selfcare_tech (https://twitter.com/selfcare_tech) Reflections: Casey & John: “A big part of resilience is being able to take more breaths.” – Nyota Damien: You can be the expert. You can be the journalist. You can be the first mover/leader. Applying that conscientiously. Nyota: Leaving breadcrumbs. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: PRE-ROLL: Software is broken, but it can be fixed. Test Double's superpower is improving how the world builds software by building both great software and great teams. And you can help! Test Double is hiring empathetic senior software engineers and DevOps engineers. We work in Ruby, JavaScript, Elixir and a lot more. Test Double trusts developers with autonomy and flexibility at a remote, 100% employee-owned software consulting agency. Looking for more challenges? Enjoy lots of variety while working with the best teams in tech as a developer consultant at Test Double. Find out more and check out remote openings at link.testdouble.com/greater. That's link.testdouble.com/greater. DAMIEN: Welcome to Episode 275 of Greater Than Code. I'm Damien Burke and I'm here with John Sawers. JOHN: Thanks, Damien. And I'm here with Casey Watts. CASEY: Hi, I'm Casey! And we're all here with our guest today, Nyota Gordon. Nyota is a technologist in cybersecurity and Army retiree with over 22 years of Active Federal Leadership Service. She is the founder, developer, and all-around do-gooder at Transition365 a Cyber Resiliency Training Firm that thrives at the intersection of cybersecurity and employee wellness. Welcome, Nyota! So glad to have you. NYOTA: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you. CASEY: Yay! All right. Our first question—we warned you about this—what is your superpower and how did you acquire it? NYOTA: My superpower is to hear, pull out people's ideas, and make them more clear, more actionable, and more profitable. DAMIEN: Ooh. NYOTA: Yeah, that's one of my friends told me that. And how did I get it? I'm a words person. So I listen to what people say, but I also listen to what they don't say. CASEY: What they don't say. NYOTA: Yeah. CASEY: Can you think of an example? NYOTA: Like that. Like when you did that quiet thing you just did, I saw that mind blown emoji because there's a lot in unspoken. There's a lot in body language. There's a lot in silence. When the silence happens, there's a lot when someone changes the topic, like that stuff is a lot. [chuckles] So I listen and I acknowledge all of that. Maybe we all hear it, or don't hear it depending on how you're processing what I'm saying, but we don't always acknowledge it and respect it in other people, DAMIEN: You have to listen to the notes he's not playing. [laughter] Do you ever have an experience where things that are not said do not want to be heard? NYOTA: Absolutely. But that's part of acknowledging and so, you can tell when people are like, “I do not want to talk about that.” So then I would do a gentle topic change and not a hard left all the time, because you don't want to make it all the way weird, but it may be like, “Oh, okay so you were talking about your hair, like you were saying something about your hair there.” I try to be very mindful because I will get in your business. Like, I will ask you a million questions. I'm very inquisitive and maybe that's one of my superpowers too, but I'm also aware and I feel like I'm respectful of people's space most times. CASEY: I really like that in people when people notice a lot about me and they can call it out. When I was a kid, my family would call me blunt, not necessarily in a bad way, but I would just say whatever I'm thinking and not everyone likes it right away. But I really appreciate that kind of transparency, honesty, especially if I trust the person. That helps a lot, too. NYOTA: I was just saying that to my mom, actually, I was like, “You know, mom, I feel like I need a different quality of friend,” and what I mean by that is my friends just let me wild out. Like I ask them anything, I say anything, but they don't kind of check me. They're like, “Well, is that right, Nyota?” Like, Tell me, why are you saying it like that?” But they just let me be like ah and I'm like, “Mom, I need to be checked.” Like I need a hard check sometimes. So now you're just letting me run wild so now I'm just seeing how wild I can get. Sometime I just want maybe like a little check, a little body check every now and then, but I try to be mindful when it comes to other people, though. It's the check I want is not always the check that other people want. CASEY: Right, right. DAMIEN: What is it like when you're being checked? What happens? NYOTA: It's hard to come by these days so I'm not really sure [chuckles] when I'm getting my own, but I'll ask a question. I'll just kind of ask a question like, “Well, is that true?” people are like, “This world is falling apart,” and you know how people are because we are in a shaky space right now and I'm like, “But is that absolutely true for your life?” How is everything really infecting, impacting what have you being exposed to in your own life? So as we have the conversation about COVID. COVID was one of my best years as far as learning about myself, connecting with people better and more intimately than I ever really have before and we're talking virtually. So things are going on in the world, but is it going on personally, or are you just watching the news and repeating what other people are saying? JOHN: That's such a fascinating thing to do to interrupt that cycle of someone who's just riding along with something they've heard, or they're just getting caught up in the of that everything's going to hell and the world is in a terrible place. Certainly, there are terrible things going on, but that's such a great question to ask because it's not saying there's nothing bad going on. You're not trying to be toxically positive, but you're saying, “Let's get a clear view of that and look at what's actually in your life right now.” NYOTA: That part, that part because people are like, nobody's looking for crazy Pollyanna, but sometimes people do need to kind of get back to are we talking about you, or are we talking about someone else? DAMIEN: That's such a great way of framing it: are we talking about you, or are we talking about someone else? NYOTA: Yeah. CASEY: It reminds me of boundaries. The boundary, literally the definition of who I am and who I care about. It might include my family, my partner, me. It's may be a gradient even. [chuckles] We can draw the boundary somewhere on that. NYOTA: Yeah, and I think we also get to speak even more than boundaries about is it in harmony? Because I feel like there are going to be some levels that are big, like my feelings are heard, or I'm feeling like I just need to be by myself. But then there are these little supporting roles of what that is. I think it's as you see, some parts are up and some parts are down because sometimes when it comes to boundaries, it's a little challenging because sometimes there has to be this give and take, and your boundaries get to be a little bit more fluid when they have to engage with other people. It's those darn other people. [chuckles] DAMIEN: But being conscientious and aware of how you do that. It's a big planet with a lot of people on it and if you go looking for tragedy, we're very well connected, we can find it all and you can internalize as much of it as you can take and that's bad. That is an unpleasant experience. NYOTA: Yeah. DAMIEN: And that's not to say that it's not happening out there and that's not to say that it's not tragic, but you get to decide if it's happening to you, or not. NYOTA: Right. DAMIEN: And that's separate from things that are directly in our physical space, our locus of control, or inside of the boundaries that we set with ourselves and loved ones, et cetera. NYOTA: Because it's so easy to – I say this sometimes, guilt is a hell of a drug because sometimes people are addicted to guilt, addicted to trauma, addicted to a good time and not even thinking of all the things that come with those different levels of addiction. So I think we get fed into this news and this narrative, like we were speaking of earlier a of everything's bad, this is a terrible place, everyone's going to hell. Whatever the narrative is the flavor of the moment and there's so many other things. It's a whole world, like you said. It's a whole world and I think the world is kind of exactly what we're looking for. When I was in the military, every town is exactly what you need it to be. [laughter] Because if you're looking for the club, you're looking for the party people in little small towns. But I could tell you where every library was. Don't call me nerdy because I am, but I don't care. All right. I could tell you where every library was. I could tell you where every place to eat. I could tell you all of those things, but then you'll ask me like, “Where's the club?” And I was like, “There's a club here?” Because that's not what I'm looking for. That's not the experience that I'm looking for. So I would dare say every place is exactly what you're looking for, what you want it, what you need it to be. CASEY: We're talking about the news a little bit here and it reminds me of social media, like the addiction to news, the addiction to social media. In a way, it is an addiction. Like you keep going to it when you're bored, you just reach for it. That's the stimulus, that's your dopamine. I think of both of those, news and social media, as a cheap form of being connected to other humans. A bad, low quality, not a deep connection kind of thing. But what we all would thrive if we had more of is more connections to others, which like community, authentic relationships with people. But that's harder. Even if you know that and you say that's your goal, it takes more work to do that than to pick up Facebook app on your phone. I deleted it from my phone six months ago and I've been happier for it. [laughter] NYOTA: Like delete, delete? Like delete? CASEY: Well, it is on my iPad in case I have to post a shirt design into a Facebook group. I'm not gone gone, but I'm basically gone and I know that I don't interact on it and it's boring. I don't post anything. I don't get any likes. I don't even want to like anyone's post and they'll say, “Oh, you're on.” I don't do anything. Like once every three months, I'll post a design. NYOTA: Is that for every social media channel? CASEY: I'm still on Twitter. NYOTA: Twitter. CASEY: I'm still on Twitter and LinkedIn kind of for business reasons. But if I could drop them, I think I would, too. NYOTA: Did you say if you could? CASEY: If I could drop them and not have business repercussions. NYOTA: Mm. DAMIEN: This sounds like a great idea to make more profitable. NYOTA: [laughs] I'm thinking does a lot of your business come from –? I feel like LinkedIn is social, but. CASEY: I wouldn't say that I get new business from these necessarily, but I do end up with clients and potential clients and people I've talked to before saying, “Ph, I saw that thing and now that I saw you wrote a blog post about doing surveys for an engineering org, now I want to talk to you.” NYOTA: Mm, okay. CASEY: Like that is pretty valuable and when I'm writing something like a blog post, I want to put that somewhere. But anyway, I am happier that I'm off of Facebook and Instagram, which I wasn't getting as much value out of. Other than connection to people, the shallow connection to people and instead I switched to messaging people. I have text message threads and group chats and those are much more intimate, much more stuff being shared, more connection to those individuals. NYOTA: I agree with that. What about you John? Like what is your relationship with social media right now? JOHN: So I've always been sort of arm's length with Facebook. So it's been just like eh, I check in every week, maybe just sort of see. I scroll until I lose interest, which is 10 minutes the most and then those are my updates. That's all I see and then occasionally, I'll post a meme, or something. I don't really do a lot there. Usually, I keep it around just for the people that I'm in touch with that are only on Facebook and I only have connection to them. But you bring up an interesting point about there's a positive and a negative to being able to filter your social media. For example, with Reddit and Twitter, you only see the stuff for people you're following and/or the subreddits that you're subscribed to. So you can very much customize that experience into something that isn't full of most of the crap people experience on Twitter, or Reddit. So there's that positive there because you can craft a world that's maybe it's all kitten pictures, maybe whatever, and post about programming, whatever it is. But you do have the problem of filter bubbles so that if you are in something that's a little bit more controversial, you do end up with that echo chamber effect and lots of people jumping in, or if you're in a sub that's interesting to you, that's also very contentious and the threads go off the rails all the time, but you can control that. You can see like, “Well, no, get it out of here. I don't need to deal with that static.” I rely on that a lot to sort of focus in on what I'm using it for, whether it's keeping up with specific friends, or specific topics and then trying to filter out as much of the things I don't want as possible. NYOTA: Is Facebook's your only social media channel? JOHN: No, I'm on Twitter. I don't usually post a lot, usually just retweet stuff and read it. NYOTA: That's kind of lame a little bit. I'm not saying, I'm just saying that your social media choices – [laughter] DAMIEN: Wow. NYOTA: But I think you're are right, though. I'm a lot better off for it because I did find myself going down a social media rabbit. It was easy for me to cut off the news. I actually stopped watching the news in 2007 when I became an officer. They were like, “As an officer, you have to watch the news. You have to be aware of what's going on in the world,” and I was like, “Oh, okay,” and then I walked away from that lady and I was like, “I'm not watching the news anymore.” DAMIEN: Hmm. NYOTA: Because I felt like she was trying to trick me in some kind of a way, but you get what you need. If it's something that I need to know, it comes to me it. It comes to me like. Believe me, it'll come to you. She was a little bit too adamant about what I needed and how the news was a part of it. It just felt a little not right and so, I actually stopped. DAMIEN: The news is a very specific thing like that word, the news [chuckles] Is anything new about it? [chuckles] The news is a group of organizations, a group of media organizations that are all very much alike. The Economist, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The L.A. Times, The Chicago Tribune, NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox News, MSNBC. These are all organizations that operate the same, they cover the same things, and they do them in largely the same way along of course, some political partisan differences. But it's not new and for most people, it does not serve them, or inform them. NYOTA: Yeah. It's very divisive. DAMIEN: I used to get my news from Jay Leno. [laughter] That was better than CNN more and funnier, too. NYOTA: That part. [laughs] I think it's just interesting how it's such a whole world with a whole bunch of people with various levels of experiencing, bumping into each other, and like you're saying, this is what everyone's reporting on. Nothing else happens? Nothing good happens anywhere else? CASEY: Yeah. NYOTA: Nothing? See, that's not true. [laughter] Like that can't be real for me and so, I'm not going to be able to include that in where I spend my time. JOHN: Yeah. I used to have NPR on in the car whenever I was in the car, I was like, “Oh, it'll keep me inform,” blah, blah, blah. But eventually, I was like, “You know what? They still talk about the same crap. They're just from a perspective I agree with slightly more.” But even when they do human interest stuff, or stuff that isn't about a war, or some sort of crisis in Washington, it's still so negatively biased. Even the stuff that's theoretically positive, it still has this weird you should be concerned about this vibe to it and eventually, I was realizing that there's no room for that in my life. DAMIEN: Yeah. We talk about how harmed full Facebook is to society and individuals. But this is not again, new. [chuckles] Facebook optimizes for engagement, which causes harm as a byproduct. It's the AI-fication of what media has been doing ever since there has been mass media. NYOTA: Yeah. It's interesting because there was a moment in there. So I even got on social media because I was always gone. I lived wherever I lived while I was in the military and so, it was a way to let my family know, “Okay, I'm here. Look, I ate this.” [chuckles] All of those things. So there was a part where Facebook made a drastic turn on my feed and I was like, “Ohm this is so bad!” And then I was like, “Okay, wait, wait. Who's bad? Who is this coming from?” So I cleaned up my whole Facebook feed and then it became a happy place again and then now where it is, it's a place where it's only seven people out of the thousand Facebook friends I have. I was like, “Okay, well that's not it either. That's not it.” So it's just interesting how AI has such a impact of what we listen to, or what we talk about. So now it's these days I'm like new shoes, new shoes, new shoes. Because I want that to come up on my – I don't even – you know what I'm saying? Because I know that you're listening, so I'll get it later. So now I almost treat it like an administrative assistant so I can look it up later. [laughter] CASEY: Hilarious. NYOTA: Yeah. JOHN: Please target some ads around shoes to me. NYOTA: I did. Yeah, because they're listening. CASEY: And it works, doesn't it? I know. NYOTA: Yes. CASEY: I know it works. NYOTA: Yes. CASEY: That still blows some people's minds. If you could say the name of a product and you'll see it the next day. If you have your ads on, it's listening and your phone is listening. Everyone's phone is listening. NYOTA: Yes, yes. Because you're looking at something like – I don't even really listen to the music. What is it? Spotify! And then it's like, you're listening to Spotify, but why is my mic on? You want to hear me sing the song? Why does my mic have to be on? I don't understand that part. Like why? They'll be like, “Oh, she has a great voice on her.” Is that why you're listening? [laughter] Why are you listening? I don't understand that part. So I don't know. DAMIEN: There's a deal coming your way. NYOTA: [laughs] Come on. Let's go. JOHN: I assume the public reason for it is so that you can do voice searches and like, “Hey, play me some more Rebecca Black,” or whatever. But who knows what else they're doing with it once you've got it turned on, right? It could be whatever. DAMIEN: Actually listening in on people is not the technically most effective way of getting those results. If you say the brand name of a shoe, it's probably because the people around you are talking about it and what do they search on Google? What ads have they seen? It's easier to say, “Oh, you're in the room with these people who are interested in these things,” or “You're in conversation with these people who are interested in these things. Let me show you these things without honing through massive amounts of audio data.” CASEY: Yeah. Both are possible and that one's easier. I'm sure they both happen and at what frequency, that's hard to study from beyond outside, but we know it's all possible and we know it's happening. If this is news to anyone listening, you can look this up. There are a million articles about it and they explain why and how, and some people did some empirical tests and I don't have any handy, but I've read it over and over and over on the internet and the internet's always right. NYOTA: That's what I heard [laughs] and not from the news. CASEY: I have these Google Home Minis in my house and all of them, the mics are off. So if ever the power cable gets jingled, it says, ‘Just so you know, the mic's off and I have to say it for a really long time. This is a very long recorded message. So that you'll want to turn your mic back on,” and it says that. Can you believe it? [laughter] DAMIEN: That's not the actual text of the message, right? I have to check. NYOTA: These little home speakers are cool in all the worst ways, but the best ways, too. So my Alexa, I'll be asking her whatever and then I'll say, “Thank you, Alexa,” and she'll say, “You're very, very, very, very welcome,” like she's singing, yes. [laughs] DAMIEN: Wow. You people have corporate spying devices in your homes. It's unbelievable. NYOTA: But you have one, too. It's just your phone. So we all have them. DAMIEN: Yeah. She promises me she doesn't listen unless I ask. NYOTA: That's what mine said! CASEY: Mine said it! [laughter] I don't trust them either. I don't even trust that the mic off necessarily works. Part of me is tempted to go in and solder the mic off. I never want the speakers to have the mic. I will not use that feature at my house. But I do want speakers in every room enough that I'm willing to take the risk of the switch not working. NYOTA: Yeah. At this point, I think I've just big brothers watching, or at least listening, [chuckles] Big brother really like, “Oh, I need to turn that off. She's talking about the big brother. We'll blush over here.” [laughs] CASEY: I want to go back to something I was thinking on the news. Sometimes I hear, or I know about things in the world because I'm someone who's in the world sometimes and the topics I want to hear in the news don't always come up. Like, DC Rank the Vote is happening and there was eventually an article about it and another article. I wrote one, eventually. Anyone can be a freelance journalist. So if the news isn't covering stuff you want it to. NYOTA: I like that. CASEY: You can literally write the news, too. NYOTA: Mm. CASEY: They might even pay you for it. DAMIEN: [chuckles] You can write the news, too. Say it again, Casey. CASEY: You can write the news, too. There's a really cool freelance journalism guide, that I'll put in the show notes, by someone in D.C. Chelsea Cirruzzo, I think. I didn't pronounce check that, but she wrote an awesome guide and it led me to getting an article published in Greater Greater Washington, a D.C. publication about ranked choice voting. I was like, “Why is no one talking about this? It's happening here. It's a big problem.” So I wrote about it. Other people write about it, too and they have since then, but you can be the change you want in the world. You can. Journalism is not as guarded and gated as it might seem. NYOTA: That's so interesting because I think what's interesting is we know that. We know that we can contribute, we know that we can write, but then you're like, “Wait, I can contribute! I can write!” CASEY: Mm. NYOTA: So I think that's, thank you for that reminder. CASEY: Yeah. But the how is hard and without a guide like Chelsea's, I'm not sure I would have broken in to do it. I needed her to go through it and tell me this is the process, here's the person in the org, what they do, what they expect and how you can make it easy for them, and you need the pitch to have this and that, has to be timely and like –. All that made sense. I'm like, “Oh sure, sure, sure.” But I couldn't have come up with that on my own, no way. NYOTA: But she bundled it together like that. CASEY: Yeah. DAMIEN: I would have never imagined that's a thing you can do because that's an entire degree program. That's a post-graduate degree program, if you'd like, and I see people who've been doing this for 20 years and do it poorly and they seem like smart people. [chuckles] So what makes me think I could do it? NYOTA: Because we can do whatever we want. CASEY: I mean, these publications do have editors and it's their job to help make the quality, at least meet the low bar at minimum that the publication expects. But if you are really nerded out on ranked choice voting, or something, you might be the local expert. If you're thinking about writing an article, you might be the best person to do it actually. NYOTA: Mm, that's good. That's the quota right there. CASEY: So what are you nerding out about lately? Anyone listening to this, think about that to yourself and is there an article about it you can just share? I like that. I don't have to write every article ever. If not, you can think about writing it. NYOTA: I like that. DAMIEN: And what strikes me is like where the bar is for local expert. Like I believe a 100% that you're the local expert on ranked choice voting because I know enough about ranked choice voting to know that people don't understand it. [chuckles] CASEY: Yeah. And after I wrote the article, I found a group of people and so, now there's like 10 of us at this level where we get it and we're advocating for it. But I'm one of the top 10 at that point still, sure. And there are details of it that I know, details other people know that I don't know, and we're all specialists in different nuanced details and together we're stronger and that's a community, too. It's been a lot of fun advocating for that in D.C. JOHN: That's awesome. NYOTA: It's interesting the visual that I'm getting in my head, like you're over here dancing by yourself and then you back up and they're like, “Oh shoot. Other people are dancing to this same song,” and then you look and you'd be like, “Look, y'all, we're all dancing,” but you're still the lead dancer and they're the backup. [laughter] I don't know why I got that visual. CASEY: I like this image. NYOTA: Yeah. CASEY: I want to give the other organizers some credit. I think they're the lead. But I found them eventually. I couldn't have found them if I didn't write the article probably. I looked it up. I Googled it once, or twice. They have a website, but I don't know, it didn't come up for me right away, or it did, but I didn't know how to contact them and getting into breaking into that community is its own barrier. NYOTA: That's unfortunate. But you're the lead to me. I mean, you're Casey. I mean [laughter] they're okay. CASEY: Thank you. NYOTA: I mean they're okay for what they're doing, but they're not you, so. No shade on what they're doing. CASEY: Sure. JOHN: I just posted a link to a talk by Derek Sivers about how the first followers are actually more important than the first leader and it's a fantastic talk. It's pretty short, but really amusing and it makes such a fantastic point. Like Casey, you were out there, you posted the article and then all these other people show up. So now I've got this like group of 10 and then those people – you and they are all doing outreach and they are expanding that group of people that are up to speed on this stuff and are advocating for it. So there's this nucleus and it's expanding and expanding. CASEY: Yeah, and each person we get, then they can bring in more people, too and it's a movement, it's growing. I think we'll have it soon. There's literally already a bill passed in D.C. It's passed a committee and now it's gone to the bigger committee, the whole process, but there's a real bill that's been passed some steps. NYOTA: You might as well do a TEDx. I mean, you might as well. JOHN: Yeah. CASEY: Good idea. Yeah, yeah. NYOTA: But they just let anybody do them. I have one. They just give them out. They're like, “Let Nyota do it.” “Okay. I'll just – let me do it.” You can do it. You have something to talk about, it's the same. It's like the news. Why not you? CASEY: Yeah. NYOTA: You're already talking about it. CASEY: True. NYOTA: I mean, you get a TEDx, you get a TEDx. [laughter] CASEY: Look at this, Nyota inspiring us. DAMIEN: I'm inspired. Why not me? NYOTA: No, really. DAMIEN: I'm serious. That is not sarcasm. I mean that very sincerely. I'm thinking about all the things I want. I'm going to call Casey later on and go, “Okay. You know how to bring ranked choice voting to a government. How are we going to bring it to another one?” And I think about all the other – CASEY: Yeah. DAMIEN: I'm actually trying to bring ranked choice voting to my neighborhood council. I pushed to an amendment to our bylaws, which has to be approved by another organization, which I can't seem to get ahold of. [laughs] But we're doing it and why shouldn't we be doing it? Why not us? NYOTA: Why not? CASEY: Yeah. Oh, I've got resources to share with you. We'll talk later, Damien. JOHN: Well, that's also great because that again, is going to spread. Once the local organization is doing it, people start getting experience with it. They're like, “Oh yeah, we did it for this thing and it worked out great. Now I sort of understand how it works in practice. Why the heck aren't we doing it for the city council and for the governor?” And like, boom, boom, boom. DAMIEN: Yeah. Ranked choice voting is interesting because as much as people don't understand it, it's really simple [chuckles] and I think overwhelmingly, people need experience with something to understand it. CASEY: Yeah. Yeah. DAMIEN: And we have a lot of experience with plurality voting in this country, in my country at least. We have almost none with ranked choice voting. NYOTA: I think it's interesting how people get so excited about presidential elections and that sort of thing, but your life really happens at your local elections. CASEY: So true. NYOTA: Your quality of life is your local elections, like you're talking about these roads being trashed. Well, that's at the local. Biden and Kamala, they have nothing to do with those potholes all along this road. I think so people miss that. You're like, “Those elections are great. Presidential election, awesome.” But your local elections? Those are what matter for where you live and I'm like, “Why are people missing that?” CASEY: Yeah. DAMIEN: I think it goes back to the news. CASEY: Sure. That's a part. NYOTA: Darn you, news. [laughs] DAMIEN: Right, because national news is leveraged. NYOTA: Mm. DAMIEN: The national broadcast is made once and broadcast to 300 million people in the country. Local news does not have that leverage. CASEY: True. NYOTA: Mm. They need to get their social media presence together then because people are listening to Instagram. CASEY: I'm thinking about everyone's mental model of how change happens, too and I don't think a lot of people have a very developed mental model of what it takes to make change happen. I do a workshop on this actually and one of the examples I use is for gay marriage in the US. You can see the graph; you can look it up. We'll include in the show notes, a picture of gay marriage over time and it's like one's place, one's at another place, like very small amount. Just maybe not even states like counties, or some lower level, a little bit of traction, a little bit of traction, a little traction. Eventually, it's so popular that it just spikes and it's a national thing. But along the way, you might look here from the news that when it became a national thing, that's the first time, that's the first thing you heard about it. But along the way, there was all these little steps. So many little steps, so many groups advocating for it, and the change happened over time. I also think about the curve of adoption. It's a bell curve. For the iPhone, for example, some people got it really early and they were really into this thing. Like PalmPilots were really the earlier edge of smart devices. Some people had that; they're really nerdy. Some people are still holding out on the other end of the bell curve. Like my mom's best friend, she still has a flip phone and she doesn't have any interest in a smartphone. I don't blame her. She doesn't need it. But she's the lagger, the very far end lagger of on this model and to get change to happen, you've got to start on whoever is going to adopt it sooner and actually like get them involved. Like the smaller states, the smaller counties that are going to support gay marriage or whatever the issue is, get them to do it and then over time you can get more of the bell curve. But a lot of people think change happens when you get the national change all of a sudden, but there's so much earlier than that. So, so, so much. Like years. 30, 40, 50, a 100 years sometimes. [chuckles] NYOTA: Yeah. This is the dance that John was talking about that he posted about this. CASEY: The first follower, yeah. NYOTA: Yeah, first followers. But you get to be the first leader if you allow it. If you really want change like you're saying. Instead of looking for someone to follow, [chuckles] we get to decide how we want to live. DAMIEN: Yeah. This seems true at work. If there's a cultural norm you don't like, you can change it by getting your allies on board and aware of it, socializing it and more and more people and gradually over time and eventually, that thing's not happening anymore. Like, I don't know. An example is eating at your desk over lunch. Not the best social norm. I don't want that at places I work. I want people to take a break, rest, and be better off afterwards. But you can get it to happen gradually by getting more people to go to lunch room, or go out of the office and you can change the culture in the office with enough dedication and time if you put your mind it. NYOTA: Yeah. But what we don't get to do is complain about it. Right? [chuckles] CASEY: Mm. Whenever I have some kind of conflict, I think about do I want to accept it and stop complaining, or do something about it? NYOTA: Mm. CASEY: Or I guess the third option is neither and then I'm just frustrated. I don't like to choose that one if I can ever avoid it. [chuckles] Do something, figure out that I can do something like work on it, or accept it, which is kind of giving up. But you can't do every change you ever think of. NYOTA: No. CASEY: It's not really giving up. Acceptance does not mean giving up, but it does mean you can put your mind down and focus on other stuff. NYOTA: Yeah. That's triage. That's what that is. [laughs] CASEY: Triage. Yeah, yeah. [laughter] DAMIEN: That third option is really important because I choose that a lot. It's important to know that and acknowledge it. [chuckles] It's like, oh no, I've chosen to be frustrated. Okay. NYOTA: Yeah. Good. CASEY: And you can, yeah. Sometimes when I choose to be frustrated, it's that I'm still working on it. I'm working on figuring out if I can do anything, or not. I don't know yet. DAMIEN: For me, it's I'm not willing to do, or figure out what it is to do, but I'm also not yet willing to accept it so I just shouldn't to be frustrated. CASEY: Sure, yeah, yeah. DAMIEN: And the frustration. If I acknowledge that and recognize that, the frustration can better lead me to go, “Okay, no.” Making the change stinks. But [chuckles] the frustration is worse and lasts longer, so. NYOTA: And then you start speaking from your frustration, which is even worse [laughs] and then it bleeds over. CASEY: Not effective. NYOTA: Yeah, it bleeds over into other things and because now you're saying stuff like, “See, this is what I'm talking about.” [laughter] No, I don't. No, I don't see what you're – no. Are we talking about the same thing? Because now you're just frustrated all over the place. CASEY: Yeah. [laughter] NYOTA: What are you talking about again? Are you talking about work? CASEY: When someone's in that situation, I have to ask them, “Would you like to be effective at this?” DAMIEN: Ooh. [laughter] NYOTA: Oh, that's a shank. [laughter] CASEY: They might not want to be. They might just want to vent. That's fine. It helps me set my standards, too. Like, do they want support, or do they want to vent? NYOTA: I'm going to write that down. CASEY: I mean, it sounds pointy. Here's my blunt side showing. I meant it. You can answer yes, or no. It's why it's a question. I'm not going to give you obvious answer question. I expect one. NYOTA: Yeah. That's good right there because I'm just getting to the part where I'm like, “Do you want me to help, or you just want me to listen?” Because I'll be like, “Oh, I know the answer to this!” And they'll be like, “Oh, I don't. You always trying to help!” First of all, stop talking to me then. [laughter] DAMIEN: Can you tell my friends that? NYOTA: Right? CASEY: Yeah. NYOTA: Like don't come to me because I just want to help. I've got a solution and if you don't want a solution, don't talk to me. CASEY: Sure, sure. That's the kind of support you're offering. NYOTA: Yeah. CASEY: You're offering that support and if they want it, great. If they don't, sounds like you're setting the boundary. Good. NYOTA: Right, right. Oh, I don't have a – no, I have no problems setting a boundary. Yeah, no problems because the thing is this is your third time. Like at some point, you need to either want to do something, or quit talking to me about this. CASEY: Yeah. NYOTA: Like that part. CASEY: I'm pretty patient supporting friends like that, but there is a limit to the patience. Yeah, three. That sounds like pretty good. I might even go to six for some people before I start telling them no. NYOTA: Mm. CASEY: [laughs] I mean, “You have to do something, or complain to someone else.” NYOTA: Yeah. Like, are you going to do something – are we still talking about this like? CASEY: Yeah. Some people need the support, but it's not necessarily me they're going to get it from because I don't have that much energy and time to put toward that. NYOTA: Yeah. I just think that's important to, but my friends know that already. Like, don't talk to me about your allergies, or don't talk to me about your fitness, or you can't fit your clothes. For me, I don't buy new clothes because I can't fit them. I won't allow myself to do that. CASEY: Some people do. NYOTA: Yeah, so – [overtalk] DAMIEN: I'm sorry. Buy clothes you can't fit? NYOTA: No, I don't buy new clothes because I can't fit my old ones. DAMIEN: Ah, okay. NYOTA: Right. DAMIEN: I know that one. NYOTA: I only buy new clothes because I want new clothes. DAMIEN: Mm. NYOTA: I put that around myself like, it's not because I don't want to go outside and walk, or you know. But then I don't allow myself to get too thin in the other direction either, because that means I'm doing something that's probably not that healthy, like not eating real food. I will just eat potato chips and that's it. [chuckles] So I have to – like, if it's too far to the left, or to the right, then I know that I'm doing something that's not healthy. I've got to reel myself in. I don't have any other checkers. I'm my own self-checker. I don't have a spouse that's going to be like, “Hmm, those jeans look a little snug.” [chuckles] I don't have it. [laughs] It's just – [overtalk] DAMIEN: Well, what I'm hearing, though is it's going to be, you set a high bar for checking people. So for somebody to check you, they're going to have to be really insightful and not candy-coated. NYOTA: I don't like candy. CASEY: Yeah. [laughter] NYOTA: Yeah. CASEY: Like direct. NYOTA: Yeah, because I don't need a bunch of like, “Oh, Nyota. How are you today?!” You don't really have to be like, “Oh, so I heard what you said about that.” I don't think that – that's not right, or however the check comes, like however it comes. CASEY: Yeah. NYOTA: But I want that because I know I'm not right about everything. I know that and I don't pretend to be all-knowing. I just want somebody to kind of reel me in sometimes like reel me in. Please reel me in. [laughter] Because I'll just keep – I'm a habitual line stepper. You know what I'm saying because now I'm just going to keep on seeing what you're going to let me slide with. Even as a kid, my mom was like, “You're always everywhere.” Like, “You're always – like, “We could never find –” I was the kid that why they came out with those harnesses for kids. [laughter] That's – CASEY: What an image. NYOTA: Yeah. I'm that kid because I just want to see, I want to go look, I want to go what's over here. Like what's around. Are you going to let me slide? Are you going to let me say that one? What else you're going to let me slide with? It's that so that's why they created those harnesses for kids like me. [chuckles] DAMIEN: Your bio says your firm thrives at the intersection of cybersecurity and employee wellness. What's the intersection of cybersecurity and employee wellness? JOHN: I was just going to ask that. I want to know! NYOTA: I think it's resiliency. DAMIEN: Mm? NYOTA: Yeah. So cybersecurity is that resiliency within organizations and then that wellness of people is that resiliency that's within humans. When those two come together, it's a healthier—I can't say fully healthy. It's a healthier work environment because when we get to show up to work healthy, resilient, drinking water, getting rest, being able to have emotional intelligence, social intelligence; all of those things are what I count as being resilient. And then when you can show up to work that way, then you're not showing up to negatively impact the network because you're not focused. You're not paying attention. You're clicking on every link because it looked like it – it seemed fine. But had you been like you had one moment of awareness to pause, you would see oh, this is not right. When I put my mouse over that, I see that the link at the bottom is not where I'm supposed to be going. So that place is resiliency at work. DAMIEN: That is an extremely advanced view of security, maybe it's from your time as an officer, but the general view of security is it's this wall you put up and you make the wall really secure, you make the wall really strong and really tall, and that way you keep everything out. It's like, well, no. Anybody who has gone to office training school knows about defense in depth. NYOTA: Right. DAMIEN: Knows you can't maintain any particular perimeter indefinitely. The French found that out to much of their chagrin. [laughs] NYOTA: Oopsie. DAMIEN: That's a Emmanuel line reference. That's not news. [laughter] To go all the way to like – and I see where you're going with this. Phishing emails don't work on people who are calm and relaxed when nothing's urgent. NYOTA: Yes. DAMIEN: Where they can go, where they can stop and think, and have that wherewithal and that energy and that reserve. NYOTA: Right, even at home. Especially how all of these scams are on the rise, Navy, federal, IRS, all kinds of people. If you're just one moment aware, you'd be like, “Wait, have I ever engaged my bank in this way?” DAMIEN: Hm mm. NYOTA: Like ever? Have they ever called me and asked me for my six digit? They called me and I didn't call them? Like, I just think if you just take a breath and then think part of being resilient is being able to take more breaths. DAMIEN: Wow. Yeah. Wow. CASEY: Ooh, I like that line. NYOTA: Yeah. We know that one of the biggest vulnerability to cybersecurity posture of anything that happens is people because we are normally that vulnerability, we're normally that weakness in the network because we are human. So anything that we get to do to reinforce ourselves, guard ourselves up, it's always going to have a positive second, third, fourth order of effects. DAMIEN: How does upper management react to that when you come in and say, “We're going to improve your cybersecurity, give your employees more days off”? NYOTA: So I'm actually new having this conversation within leadership, but they already have leadership corporations, they already have this structure in place. Just haven't heard anyone tie it together specifically to their cybersecurity posture. So there's already a lot of wellness initiatives, you can talk to counselors. I think we already have these initiatives in place, but they're just kind of ethereal, they're kind of out here, but to say, “Now tie that not just to our bottom line, because employees are less willing to have turnover, but let's tie it to the security of the network because our employees are aware and they're more vigilant.” So it's just kind of helping them to see the work that we're already doing within corporations. We get to laser focus that into a place. CASEY: Hmm. I like it that this gives way to measuring the outcome of those programs, too. You can correlate it, too. NYOTA: Yeah, instead of like, “Oh, we're happy at work. We're skipping and holding hands down the hallway.” Well, that may not necessarily be what you want, but you do want less infractions on the network. More opportunities to be successful but not having to spend so many manhours undoing cybersecurity risk. CASEY: I want to zoom out. I want to go meta with you. You're helping them become more resilient. How do you make sure your changes there are resilient? When you leave, they persist? You can Mary Poppins out and they're still the way they were before you arrive. NYOTA: Mm, that's a good question. So during the time that we work together, they also buy a bundle of coaching. They have opportunity to come back for where I can do, like, “Hey, y'all it's time for the refresh,” and not in a lame way. I'm actually creating on workshops now and it involves coloring books. Because when we were in Afghanistan, Iraq, and all the places we colored, and I just feel like coloring saves lives and when I'm saying people, I'm talking about mine, because it is very calming and not those crazy ones that are really small and you have to have a pen. So I'm talking about a 5th-grade coloring book with big pictures where it's relaxing and you're talking amongst your peers. It involves that. Setting them up with skills to be able to well, if you do nothing else, make sure you're playing the gratitude game in the mornings. What is the gratitude game? I play this game with myself. Every morning when I wake up, I say three things that I'm grateful for, but it can't be anything that I've ever said ever before. DAMIEN: Mm hm. NYOTA: I play this game. It's always making you search for the gratitude, always looking for that shiny light. There's always a better today, a better tomorrow, and so, even if there's something as that and drink water, because there's a lot of things that happens when you're dehydrated. There's a lot of clarity that doesn't happen when you're thirsty and so, even if it's just those two things and reminding people, just those two things have even had an impact on my life. Do you see my skin popping? Do you? [laughter] I'm just saying. Water is your friend. [laughs] So just those, just kind of even a pop in, a retraining. Hey, remember. Remember sleep, remember relaxing, remember get up and walk around your cube, and the filter water is so much better. It tastes so much better than bottled water. I'm just, it's better. I'm holding up my filtered water. Picture here, I keep it at my desk while I work if I'm on a lot of calls in a row. NYOTA: Yeah. CASEY: I can go through water. NYOTA: And that's why you're alert. I don't think people understand that being dehydrated really makes you lethargic and you're like, “Are they talking? I see their mouth moving. I can't pay attention. What is happening. What is that?” And being dehydrated is not good. Don't do that. Just take a little sip of water. We're talking about water, just take a little sip of your water. Go get some water. [chuckles] If you're listening, get some water. [laughs] CASEY: Reminders help. I'm going to post one of my favorite Twitter accounts, @selfcare_tech. NYOTA: Ooh. Please. CASEY: And they do a water reminder probably every day. Something like that. So I'll just be on Twitter and I'm like, “Oh yeah. Thanks.” DAMIEN: [laughs] See, we can turn social media even to our good. CASEY: Yeah. We can find some benefit. NYOTA: But we get to decide and I think that's another thing that people don't. Like, they negate the fact that you get to decide. You get to decide where your life is, or isn't. You get to decide where you're going to accept, or not accept. You're going to decide if I work at this job, it's for my greater good, or not. We get to decide that. You've already created your life up to this point. So what does it look like later? We've created this life that we have and people take responsibility for that. Who do you get to be tomorrow? Who do you get to be today? The thing is we always get what we ask for. So I've been asking for a bold community, I've been asking for a community that pushes and pulls me and here comes Casey, here comes Andrea, here comes you guys and I'm like, “I think that's so interesting.” We do get what we ask for you. CASEY: It sounds like you're manifesting the world around you. I like that word. NYOTA: Yeah. CASEY: I don't even mean it in a metaphysical spiritual sense, but even just saying. Back when I was an engineering manager and I wanted to become a PM, I told people I wanted to be a product manager and by telling a lot of people, I got a lot more opportunities than I would have. NYOTA: Yes. CASEY: Telling people was very powerful for that. NYOTA: And in my Christian Nyota way, that's what happens. Miracles come through people. So give people an opportunity to be your miracle. JOHN: So we've come to the time on our show where we do reflections, which is each of us is going to talk about the things that struck us about this conversation, maybe the things will be thinking about afterwards, or the ideas we're going to take forward. Casey, do you want to start us off? CASEY: Yeah. I wrote down a quote from Nyota. She said earlier in this episode, “A big part of resilience is being able to take more breaths,” and I just think that applies anywhere the word resilience applies and I want to meditate on that for over the week. JOHN: I'm right there with you. That is really sinking in and applicable in so many ways. I love it. DAMIEN: Yeah, and involving taking some breaths while you do that, huh? [laughter] I am really inspired by this conversation. The ideas of you can be the expert, you can be the journalist, you can be the first mover, the first leader. Realizing that in my life, I'm going to be looking for ways I want to apply that conscientiously. How to make sure not to try apply it everywhere. [laughs] But I get to decide. I get to decide who I am and who I'm going to be in this world and what this world is going to be like for me, so that's awesome. NYOTA: That is good. I like that one, too. And along those lines for me, it's like when Casey's like, “I mean, I knew this, I knew this, I knew this, I knew this, but when someone had created this bundle for you to be able to follow, I really heard when we do things, leave breadcrumbs so someone can come behind us and also be able to support. Because if you don't – leave some breadcrumbs. So I thought that was – she was like, “I knew these things but she had created this framework for you to be able to do it, too,” and I heard leave some breadcrumbs. So I really like that. DAMIEN: Yeah. John, do you have a reflection for us? JOHN: No, I mean, really, it's the same as Casey's. [laughs] Yeah, that statement is really going to sit with me for a while. I like it a lot. CASEY: I'm going to make a t-shirt of it. NYOTA: [laughs] I love a good t-shirt. DAMIEN: Well, Nyota. Thank you so much for joining us today. NYOTA: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so honored to be amongst such caring, intelligent, thoughtful people and so, I appreciate you all for having me. Special Guest: Nyota Gordon.

On this episode, we'll breakdown a recent CNBC article that analyzes a recent Morningstar study. The study found that most of us have at least one money bias, some of us more than one, and that those biases are very possibly costing us money in our checking, savings, investing and retirement accounts. Listen to see if you might be impacted by a specific money bias and for strategies to get it back under control. Helpful Information: CNBC Article: https://cnb.cx/3KKXSHf PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/ Contact: 813-286-7776 Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is a registered investment adviser. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investment involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment adviser to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Transcript of Today's Show: For a full transcript of today's show, visit the blog related to this episode at https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/podcast/ ----more---- Mark: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. It's another addition of Retirement Planning - Redefined with John and Nick from PFG Private Wealth. We got to fun and interesting podcast this week to talk about, money biases and what those are, and are they costing you a little bit? If you have a money bias and you're going to be probably surprised to find out that you indeed do most people, I think do have biases about a lot of things. So, that's going to be on the podcast this go around. And of course, if you've got questions you need some help, always reach out to theguys@pfgprivatewealth.com. That's p-f-g, private wealth.com. John, what's going on, buddy? How you doing?   John: Hey, doing good. How are you?   Mark: Hanging in there. Doing pretty well. We were chatting a little bit off air and just talking about life, moaning and groaning a little bit, but overall you're doing okay? Hanging in there?   John: Yeah. Yeah. We, we just wrapped up a golf tournament that we hosted with Bern's Steakhouse. It's our second one.   Mark: Nice.   John: Yeah. Finalizing the numbers, but looking like a pretty decent donation to a couple of local Tampa charities here, which are Blue Star Families and then Jackson In Action, 83 Foundation, both a military base. So, so we're excited. It was a great event and we look forward to delivering the check soon.   Mark: That's fantastic. Awesome. Nick, how you doing my friend?   Nick: Doing pretty good. It's been a little bit of a crazy month, but have some vacation coming up, which will be nice, although I'm going to Key West and it'll be my first time going there, so...   Mark: Okay.   Nick: I'm looking forward to seeing what that's like.   Mark: Well, I don't know how you're getting there, but I filled up my truck yesterday and it cost me triple digits for the first time. It was over a hundred bucks.   Nick: Yeah. Luckily I'm flying. So...   Mark: All right.   Nick: We're good to go.   Mark: Well, the inflation numbers came in for February 7.9%. I don't know if you guys saw that at the time we're taping that they just came out this morning, so yay. Right? So people are definitely frustrated and we're kind of concerned. There's a lot going on, obviously the stuff in the world and the market's been reacting to that inflation is up. And so I thought it would be interesting to kind of have this chat. And we were talking about these money biases and how we feel about some of the different things. And I thought maybe it'd be a good idea to share some of this stuff with the listeners. So what we'll do is we'll also put a link to the article. This was a CNBC article guys, that was based off a Morningstar study. And I'll let you guys talk about Morningstar if you'd like to, just to explain that to the folks in a second.   Mark: But the study found that most of us have at least one money bias, some of us more than others, and that biases are very possibly costing us additional money in our checking, savings, or investing in retirement accounts. So, we'll see how this kind of impacts you and you'll kind of learn a little bit about this along the way. So a couple of key points before we dive in is that everybody has different attitudes about money. No real shock there, right? We know that, but that new behavioral financial study from Morningstar found that 98% of the respondents exhibited one or more. So when we say just about everybody has one, that's pretty true and that they are likely costing them some money. So we'll jump right in and get going here and with take away number one. Nick, what are the four main biases that they talked about and that you guys see?   Nick: Yeah, we really wanted to kind of focus on this with this chaotic as the beginning of the year has been. we think that people taking a little self inventory on, on how they might make some decisions would be beneficial. So right. The first bias is called a present bias or really kind of like present time. So really what this focus is on is kind of the tendency to go for immediate rewards over long term goals, or, the good old instant gratification. I would say that, what's interesting is, this can definitely be different for different age bands. So for people that, kind of like in that baby boomer era, they have their toes in this, for sure, whereas younger clients definitely. I would say it's a little bit more dominant just because of the things that they're used to and convenience and instant gratification.   Mark: Sure. The world we have. Yeah.   Nick: Yeah, for sure. And I think this is something that's real important because this become a stronger and stronger bias just with things that we're used to like news cycles and stuff like that. So, so that's, that's the first one.   Mark: Well, let, let me ask you a follow up on that real quick, Nick, before you move on. So with that present bias basically like it's that idea of, I feel like I need to do something now. Right? So like we'll use the market falling as an example. Right this minute we're down about 10% I think in the S&P or into a correction, I guess officially. So I must... I must need to do something now, so I can see the response, the immediate response. That way I feel like I've done something that's really what a present bias is.   Nick: Yep. Very much reactionary.   Mark: Okay.   Nick: Typically, and usually for most people, taking action at something like this, it's oftentimes too late. So that can really turn into this kind of yo-yo effect of, waiting where this is one of the things that lead people to buy high in sell low, which is kind of the opposite.   Mark: Which is the wrong. Yeah. Okay.   Nick: Yeah.   Mark: So that's the first one.   Nick: Yep. And then second one, is what's called base rate neglect. So really what happens is, this is kind of focused on how you judge the probability of something happening based upon new information, while you essentially ignore your original assumptions. So this is something where, for example, the whole concept of best laid plans. So this is where planning can really come into play, where might get a call from a client that, maybe it's a certain sector of the market. Hey, I want, I really want to jump into this certain sector of the market and they're not taking into consideration that maybe they already have exposure to that.   Nick: Or again, maybe it's a little bit too late and they're forgetting all of the effort and all the time that has been put into kind of creating the overall plan and then overreacting to good or bad news. And, this is definitely something like, for example, for myself, right. That I have to have, people remind me, I know that this is something that happens to me where it's like, because I do try to consume a lot of information and process, a lot of information and news where, dependent upon what's going on. This can kind of throw me a little bit for it.   Mark: I gotcha. So let, let me, John, let me of get you in here on this for a quick second. So for example, what I'm hearing then, so the NASDAQ for example, is technically into bear territory now, cause it's down 20 plus percent. So people calling up and saying, Hey, I need to get out of tech might be an example of this base rate neglect because they're seeing the current situation and they're reacting to the news versus does it make sense for their overall long term strategy?   John: Yeah. A hundred percent. It's the whole, kind of going into behavioral finance where it's, you're selling out when, when you shouldn't be, in reality, now's the time you know, if, as Nick mentioned, it's probably too late at this point.   Mark: Sure. Right.   John: It may be best just to stay of the course and stay in it, but a hundred percent that's kind of what we typically see.   Mark: Okay. All right. Go ahead Nick, what the third one for us?   Nick: Sure. So third one is overconfidence. This is an interesting one. Also, one that I know that I have a bias, where it's the whole concept of putting too much weight in your own abilities to make good financial decisions.   Mark: Sure. Yeah.   Nick: So, another way to think about this can be, is wanting to be right. And we tend to all want to be right. But then sometimes we will, double down or not take into consideration a concept of like a sunk cost where Hey, we're not always going to be right. And sometimes it's okay to make mistakes. You just want to learn from that. Oh definitely. And not double down, triple down, that sort of thing. So understanding that there's law of large numbers and there's efficiencies in different areas of the market and or planning. So being over confident, and again, this is something where if you look at the pie, you want to have your plan, your investment strategy, all that you want that pie to be, around 90% or so of the very strong part of your fundamental long term plan.   Nick: So sometimes having some of these biases on a small portion will help you really learn, usually people don't, they try to do it on a much larger portion. So that's a little bit of a takeaway too, is in moderation. Some of these things can be good because there are places where you can have a lot of upside that if you do it with the right amount of money and you take a little bit of risk with a smaller amount of money can help you kind of work through some of these biases without over overacting over correcting.   Mark: Oh, definitely. And if you think about the overconfidence bias here, Nick, I mean, we've basically been on a 12 year run, 12 plus year run with the market. So everybody's been feeling pretty confident. I mean, 1920 and 21 all finished up with double digit years.   Nick: Right.   Mark: So it's easy to feel confident when, when everything's going up, everybody's a genius, right?   Nick: Oh yeah.   Mark: So it's when it's going down that you start to get a little more concerned and maybe that overconfidence comes into play. And since we mentioned down, go ahead and go to the fourth one, which is the final one.   Nick: Sure. So the fourth one is going to be loss aversion. So a classic case of this is, because there's different types of risk as well. And one of the risks that we talk about sometimes are inflationary risks, which we're seeing now. So in other words, for people that might be way too heavy in cash over prolonged period of time, or they're afraid to take any sort of risk, they don't necessarily think about the trade off. So they, again, this is the concept of having a plan and having balanced, not only in your investments, but in your strategies and your overall planning is really important because as we see, sometimes people's thought processes, well, hey cash, if I'm in cash, it's okay. I just don't want to lose my money while, in times of massive inflation or just compared to other areas of the market, there can be significant downside to, the concept of what some people may think is no risk can actually have quite a bit.   Mark: Okay. So those are the four biases then. So you've got the present bias, the base rate neglect of the overconfidence bias and the loss aversion. So John here's the interesting part to me about this whole thing is take away number two, is that 98% of people are exhibiting at least one of these, what they found was the lower, the level of bias, the better your overall financial health. So if you only have one let's say of these four, then you're probably in better shape than someone that has two, which again, it kind of makes perfect sense, but there was some interesting statistics and information in this. So why don't you talk to me a little bit about that?   John: Yeah, yeah. That is pretty interesting. Basically the lower level of bias you have, the better financial health you end up having. And it's one of the ones here is like the present bias where basically research showed, if you have a low level of present bias, you were three times as likely to spend less than the money you that you make. So basically you're going to be saving more money. So again, it's kind of... You kind of look at this in life. You don't have that instant gratification. You're kind of looking at the long term of, Hey, I don't need this today. You know, if you go to the store and buy something, do I really need that now? No, I don't. I can hold off on it. You know, just making better financial decisions all around when you kind of break it down. Another one that was interesting with, with that, with the present bias was there's seven times more likely to plan for the future.   Mark: Yeah.   John: So, so I get... [crosstalk 00:11:36] go ahead.   Mark: I was trying to say, so what I'm hearing there is then, is if they don't re... If you don't react, if you don't give into the instant gratification bias, you typically were a better saver. Sounds like.   John: Better saver, better planner, just not reactionary to what's going on. So it's really the long term goal seems to be in mind with these type of people.   Mark: Seven times more likely. That's pretty good.   John: Yeah. It makes me think I need to... I need to be a little less into gratification for myself.   Mark: There you go.   John: You know, it's, I'm getting off topic here, but it's funny. I was talking to my wife the other day with, we got Disney plus for the kids.   Mark: Sure.   John: And it's like, oh, I want to watch this. And I started thinking, I'm like, man, I just remember just sitting there looking at the guide until, a TV show would finally pop on or a move I wanted to watch because you couldn't watch things right away. You back in the late eighties.   Mark: And in those places, it's great. Right. We enjoy that kind of stuff. But then what happens to this kind of this point is next thing you know, you've got 12 subscription services and you're not using them all. So yeah.   John: Yeah. So anyhow, starting off on a tangent.   Mark: No, you're fine.   John: But yeah, another one would be, overconfidence, lower level bias there. They found that people would have basically more savings. So again, back when Nick was staying with overconfidence in and I fall into this quite a bit, it's like, ah I have some time I can build that up or whatever. And I've seen this quite a bit with some retirees. So, if you're not over, you tend to save a little bit more and last one is the loss aversion of having lower 401k balance, the less bias you have towards that, the more apt you are to take a little more risk and save more into your 401k. And just as Nick mentioned here, not sit in cash and try to outpace inflation.   Mark: I gotcha. So yeah, if you, if you're a bit more overconfident, you feel like you can kind of well, I'll take some chances, right. Because I can get it back. So therefore I can build that savings back up or whatever the case is. So really interesting takeaways from that standpoint, when you think about it, because we all fall into one of these, whatever it might be. And so the lower level of money bias, typically the better financial health. Nick, so talk to me about some of the solutions Morningstar offered because they called it build a money life that fits your priorities, which makes a lot of sense for what you guys do as advisors to kind of find that right mold or fit for the individual.   Nick: Yeah. So it's pretty interesting in... We joke a decent amount of time with clients and among each other that, our business is probably 20 to 30% finance and 70 to 80% therapist. And really it's helping people with these sorts of things. So some of the things they talked about as far as what they call building a money life is kind of put some speed bumps or have a process in place for your decision making. So, one of the things that we try to get our clients to do as an example is that we have the... Because we are a planning focus firm and we use planning tools and software to help people model out different scenarios, we try to get them to start thinking through that realm because a lot... People have often like the quite, well, what about this?   Nick: Or what about that? Or should you know, one of the most common is, do I put extra money towards the mortgage or do I save some money? And the answer for everybody is different based upon what they've done up until that point. And so, for those that work with us, what we try to get them to do for those speed bumps is to say, number one, number two; number one, if there's something that you're concerned about, walk us through, what is the scenario that you're concerned about? So for example, if you're concerned about, the cost of fuel, cost of inflation, those sorts of things, in what way are you concerned about how that applies to you specifically? So not just the world and everybody on the news and all that kind of stuff, but how does it involve you specifically?   Nick: And so, okay. So, sometimes what people realize is that it's not going to impact their life in a dramatic way. It could have some sort of impact on, the economy and those sorts of things. But most of the times it's not going to have a massive impact on their life. And then we take it. So maybe, we figure that it could have some sort of impact. So then we can kind of go to the planning software and kind of model it and say, okay, well, if these things happen, let's take a look and see what it looks like. And okay, so now that you see what it looks like, here are some of the decisions that you can make to bring that sort of risk down and have a little bit of clarity. And then we can go ahead and try to implement those decisions.   Nick: So instead of just these open-ended concerns of things that are not in anybody's control, let's look at the things that we do have in control. And those decisions that we can make to impact and make it easier. And kind of referring back to what we talked about earlier, where that kind of high level of base rate, and then the overconfidence for lower savings and checking, sometimes what ends up happening is that, and we try to remind people of this is, having a solid base of savings, cash savings is your permission slip for a lot of different things. So when people look at and realize like, Hey, that this is... These are exactly the times that we emphasize having this cash handy because we can deal with these fluctuations in the market. We don't have to make irrational decisions because you've built this buffer and you've given yourself this permission slip to deal with these different sorts of circumstances.   Mark: That's a great point. Yeah.   Nick: Yeah. So that can be interesting. And then if, you're doing it on your own, maybe making some sort of process where, hey, you've got a couple of rules that you take into consideration where once you get to certain gains on an underlying investment, you're okay selling, or you sell with half and maybe you let the rest of it ride. Or you just kind of give yourself a buffer time. You know, sometimes people will joke that they have rules for emails, like when they're mad. So, give it an overnight, you're ready to fire off an email, maybe it's to a coworker it's to a family member, whatever.   Mark: Right. Yeah.   Nick: Or text message.   Mark: Wait till you cool down.   Nick: Yeah, wait to cool down. And, or maybe haven't had an adult beverage and give it a little bit of time because oftentimes, when we sit on it, we see that maybe even though we didn't think we were, maybe we were a little over confident in what our thought process was previously.   Mark: So yeah. I like that idea, John, what do you think? Like one of the things they had on there, and I think this is a good idea was the whole, wait three days to make an important decision. I'll use an exam... I mean, you've got the little ones there. That's great advice to try to, raise kids on as well. My dad used to do that with me. Hey man, if it's a good idea, on Monday, it's still going to be a good idea on Friday. Right. But if something changed or you don't feel like it's a good idea, then it's good that you waited before you took action. I've been thinking about buying a muscle car here recently. And of course, gas prices have got me second guessing that. So I went and looked at one last Friday and I still haven't made a decision because I wanted to take that time to make sure I was making that right choice. Right. Don't... That's that instant gratification, I guess, take a few days... [crosstalk 00:18:48]   John: [crosstalk 00:18:48] A hundred percent.   Nick: [crosstalk 00:18:49] Or you might be getting a really good price right now. I mean...   Mark: Well, that's true too, but.   Nick: So if you really want it...   Mark: What do you think, John?   John: I think it's always best to wait a couple of days to see if that's something you really want. I think, like you said there, it's going to be there, and the price could jump up in three days in this environment. But I think it's always best kind of way it a little bit before you make financial decisions. So you ultimately feel comfortable with decisions that you made. That it wasn't kind of an impulse buy or decision...   Mark: Right. [crosstalk 00:19:20].   John: That could affect the rest of your life.   Mark: So, well, the speed bump idea was really good, right? The Morningstar, they called it speed bumps to place your... Slow down your decision making as Nick alluded to. And if you think about the stock market, right, they've got those circuit breakers in place. We saw that with COVID right. When the circuit breakers would kick in to prevent any more trading because it was falling so fast. So if you want to kind of use that same analogy, have some speed bumps or some circuit breakers in place for your decision making process. So lots of different ways we can look at it.   John: Yeah, another one in the article I was reading through is really, and it goes back to what we're saying here, and what we always say is having a plan, a sense of direction and to tune out the news and really stop taking advice from your friends where it's basically, "hey, I did this", or "I'm buying this." And especially with, we don't advise on crypto, but you know, "I'm buying some crypto" and stuff like that. It's really, have your plan and stick to what your plan is for versus listening to what other people are doing. That was also in the article, which I thought was an interesting point.   Mark: Yeah. Very good points. Well, I tell you what, like I said, we're going to link this into the, to the show notes and information there. So if you'd like to check that out, you can. And as always, if you've got some questions, we'll wrap this up this week about a money bias, your own money bias, which one you may be affected by. You should be able to tell if you suffer from the present bias that give me now thing, that base rate and neglect where you just react to the news, the overconfidence of feeling like you've got it all figured out, you've mastered it all. Or maybe just the loss of version where that fear of losing money, just really kind of cripples you either way, it could be costing you money. So reach out to the guys, if you've got questions on how to control this.   Mark: And I think that's some of the value that an advisor brings to the table is they're not going to have those biases about your portfolio plan because it's not their money, right? So they're there to help guide you and be that sounding board and be that coach. So reach out to John and Nick, if you some questions at PFGprivatewealth.com, that's PFGprivatewealth.com. Before you take any action, you should always check with a qualified professional, like the guys, they are financial advisors at PFG Private Wealth. Don't forget to subscribe to us on Apple, Google, Spotify, or whatever platform you'd like to listen to. And if you'd like to learn more about some of those charities that they were... John was talking about earlier in the show, or maybe attend the next time they do one of those events, again, reach out to them at PFG Private Wealth. For John and Nick, I'm Mark, thanks for hanging out with us. We'll see you next time here on the podcast, Retirement Planning - Redefined.

01:48 - Kate's Superpower: Empathy * Absorbing Energy * Setting Healthy Energetic Boundaries * Authenticity * Intent vs Impact 10:46 - Words and Narratives Carry Power; Approaching Inclusive Language * Taking Action After Causing Harm * Get Specific, But Don't Overthink * Practice Makes Progress * Normalize Sharing Pronouns * No-CodeConf (https://webflow.com/nocodeconf) * No-CodeSchool (https://nocodeschool.co/) * Gender Expresion Does Not Always Equal Gender Identity 21:27 - Approaching Inclusive Language in the Written Word * Webflow Accessibility Checklist (https://webflow.com/accessibility/checklist) * Asking For Advice * Do Your Own Research/Work 29:18 - Creating Safe Places, Communities, and Environments * Absorbing and Asking * Authenticity (Cont'd) * Adaptation to Spaces * Shifting Energy 42:34 - Building Kula (https://kulayogadenver.com/) While Working in Tech * Community Care, Mutual Aid-Centered Model * Using Privilege to Pave the Way For More People * Alignment Reflections: John: The dichotomy between perfectionism and authenticity. Arty: Words carry power. Kate: Having an open heart is how you can put any of this into action. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: PRE-ROLL: Software is broken, but it can be fixed. Test Double's superpower is improving how the world builds software by building both great software and great teams. And you can help! Test Double is hiring empathetic senior software engineers and DevOps engineers. We work in Ruby, JavaScript, Elixir and a lot more. Test Double trusts developers with autonomy and flexibility at a remote, 100% employee-owned software consulting agency. Looking for more challenges? Enjoy lots of variety while working with the best teams in tech as a developer consultant at Test Double. Find out more and check out remote openings at link.testdouble.com/greater. That's link.testdouble.com/greater. JOHN: Welcome to Greater Than Code. I'm John Sawers and I'm here with Arty Starr. ARTY: Thanks, John. And I'm here with our guest today, Kate Marshall. Kate is a copywriter and inclusivity activist living in Denver. Since entering tech 4 years ago, she's toured the marketing org from paid efforts to podcast host, eventually falling in love with the world of copy. With this work, she hopes to make the web a more welcoming place using the power of words. Outside of Webflow, you'll find Kate opening Kula, a donation-based yoga studio, and bopping around the Mile High City with her partner, Leah. Welcome to the show, Kate. KATE: Hi, thank you so much! ARTY: So we always start our shows with our famous first question. What is your superpower and how did you acquire it? KATE: My superpower, I've been thinking about this. My superpower is empathy. It can also be one of my biggest downfalls [laughs], which I actually think happens more often than not with any superpower. I once heard from a child, actually, they always seem to know best that too much of the good, good is bad, bad. [laughter] So it turns out sometimes too much empathy can be too overwhelming for my system, but it has really driven everything that I've done in my career and my personal life. As for how I acquired it, I don't know that you can really acquire empathy. I think it's just something you have, or you don't. I've always been extremely intuitive and if you're going through something, it's likely that I can feel it. So I think I'm just [laughs] I hate to steal Maybelline's line, but I think I was born with it. JOHN: You talked about having a downside there and I've heard – and I'm curious, because most people talk about empathy as a positive thing and wanting more people to develop more empathy, but I'd to love hear you talk a little bit more about what you see the downsides are. KATE: Yeah. As someone who struggles with her own mental health issues, it can be really overwhelming for me to really take on whatever it is you're going through. Especially if it's a loved one, you tend to care more about what they're feeling, or what they're going through and an empath truly does absorb the energy of what's happening around them. So although, it does influence a lot of the work that I do, both in my full-time career and opening my yoga studio and everything in between, it's also hard sometimes to set those boundaries, to set healthy, really energetic boundaries. It's hard enough to voice your boundaries to people, but setting energetic boundaries is a whole other ballgame. So it can tend to feel overwhelming at times and bring you down if the energy around you is lower than what you want it to be. ARTY: So what kind of things do you do to try and set healthy, energetic boundaries? KATE: Ah. I do a lot of what some people would call, including myself, woo-woo practices. [chuckles] Obviously, I practice yoga. I teach yoga. I'm super passionate about holistic, or energetic healing so I go to Reiki regularly. I'm in therapy, talk therapy. All of those things combined help me build this essentially an energetic shield that I can psych myself up to use any time I'm leaving the apartment. If it feels a high energy day, or if I'm meeting up with a friend who I know is going through something, I really have to set those boundaries is. Same thing kind of at work, too. So much of the time that we spend in our lives is spent at work, or interacting with coworkers or colleagues and same thing. Everyone's going through their own journey and battles, and you have to carry that energetic shield around you wherever you go. JOHN: One way I've often thought about having those sort of boundaries is the more I know who I am, the more what the limits of me are and the barrier between me and the universe is. So the work that I do, which includes therapy and other things, to understand myself better and to feel like I know what's me and what's not me, helps me have those boundaries. Because then I know if there's something going on with someone else and I can relate to it, but not get swept up by it. KATE: Yeah. It's so funny you say that because I was actually just having a conversation with a friend a couple weeks ago that has really stuck with me. I was kind of feeling like I was messing up, essentially. Like I was not fully able to honor, or notice all of the triggers of the people around me. I think especially at the end of the year and as a queer person who is surrounded by queer community, it can be really tough around the holidays. So that energy can just be generally more charged and I was finding it difficult to reconcile with my idea of perfection in that I really want to honor every person around me who has triggers, who has boundaries that maybe haven't been communicated, and it almost feels like you're almost always crossing some sort of line, especially when you're putting those perfectionism expectations on yourself. My friend was like, “I don't think it's as much about being perfect at it as much as it is feeling like you're being authentically yourself and really authentically interacting with those people.” I don't know if I can really voice what the connection is between being able to honor triggers and boundaries of the people around you and feeling like your authentic self, but there's something about it that feels really connected to me. As long as you're trying your best and feeling like you're coming from a place of love, or connection, or compassion, or empathy whatever feels most to you, that's really all we can do, right? JOHN: Yeah. I feel like that authenticity is such a tricky concept because the thoughts that you're having about wanting to be perfect and take care of everyone and make sure you're not triggering anybody and not stepping on any of your own things, that's also part of you that is authentically you. You may not want it to be that way, but it still is. [laughs]. ARTY: Yeah. JOHN: So I still don't have a really clear sense in my mind what authenticity really is. I think probably it settles down to being a little bit more in the moment, rather than up in the thinking, the judging, the worrying, and being able to be present rather than – [overtalk] ARTY: Totally. JOHN: Those other things, but it is tricky. KATE: Yeah. It can be tricky. Humans, man. [laughter] It really is like being a human and part of the human experience is going to be triggering other people. It's going to be causing harm. It's going to be causing trauma to other humans. That's just part of it. I think the more you can get comfy with that idea and then also just really feeling like you're doing everything you can to stay connected to your core, which usually is in humans is a place of love. You're rooted in love for the people around you. How could you criticize yourself too much when you know that you're coming from that place? ARTY: I feel like things change, too as you get feedback. In the context of any intimate relationship where you've got emotionally connected relationship with another person where you are more unguarded and you're having conversations about things that are more personal, that have at least the potential to hurt and cause harm. Like sometimes we do things not meaning to and we end up hurting someone else accidentally, but once that happens—and hopefully, you have an open dialogue where you have a conversation about these things and learn about these things and adapt—then I think the thing to do is honor each person as an individual of we're all peoples and then figure out well, what can we do to adapt how we operate in this relationship and look out for both people's best interests and strive for a win-win. If we don't try and do that, like if we do things that we know we're harming someone else and we're just like, “Well, you should just put up with that,” [laughs], or whatever. I think that's where it becomes problematic is at the same time, we all have our own limitations and sometimes, the best thing to do is this relationship doesn't work. The way that we interact causes mutual harm and we can't this a win-win relationship and the best thing to do sometimes is to separate, even though it hurts because it's not working. KATE: Yeah. I feel like sometimes it's a classic case of intent versus impact, too. Like what's your intention going into a conversation and then how does that end up actually impacting that person and how can you honor that and learn from that? That's actually one thing that I love so much about being a writer is that words do carry so much power—written word, spoken word, whatever it is. They hold so much power and they can cause harm whether we want them to, or not. Part of being an empath is caring a lot about people's lived experiences and I really see it as more than putting – being a writer and doing this every day, I see it so much more than just putting words on a page and hoping signs up for the beta, or watches the thing registers, or the conference. It's words can foster connection, words can build worlds for people; they can make people feel like they belong and I believe that I'm on this planet to foster that connection with each other and with ourselves. So it all connects for me. It all comes back around whether we're talking about being in a romantic relationship, or our relationship with our parents, or our caregivers, or the work that I do every day it all comes back to that connection and really wanting to make people feel more connected to themselves, to each other, and like they have a place with words. ARTY: Yeah. It's very powerful. Words and narratives, I would say too, just thinking about the stories that we tell ourselves, the stories that we tell one another that become foundational in our culture. It's all built upon were words. Words shape the ideas in our head. They shape our thoughts. They shape how we reflect on things, how we feel about things, and then when people give us their words, we absorb those and then those become part of our own reflections. KATE: Yeah. ARTY: We affect one another a lot. I think that's one of the things I'm just seeing and talking to you is just thinking about how much we affect one another through our everyday interactions. KATE: Yeah, and I think a lot of this comes down to – there's something you said earlier that resonated in that it's really about the action you take after you cause the harm, or after you say the thing that hurts the other person and it's less about – and that's what made me say intent versus impact because you see the impact, you acknowledge it, and you make a decision to lessen that next time, or to be aware, more aware next time. This is really at the core of all the work I do for inclusive language as well. It's just the core principle of the words we use carry a lot of power. And I was actually just chatting with someone in the No-Code space. We connected through Webflow a couple weeks ago and he said, “I think people are so scared to get it wrong when it comes to inclusive language,” and I experience this all the time. People freeze in their tracks because they don't know how address someone and then they're so scared to get it wrong and they're like, “Oh, so sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,” and they're so apologetic. And then that makes it worse and it's just a whole thing. In this conversation, we were talking specifically about misgendering people. My partner is non-binary. They're misgendered every single day when we go to restaurants, when we are just out and about. So this is something that is a part of my life every day. I told him that fear is so real and I carry that fear, too because I don't want to hurt people because I want to like get it right. It comes back to that perfectionism, that expectation that I put on myself, especially as a queer person to get it right all the time. But so much of the good stuff lies in how you approach it and then how you fix it when you mess it up. Like, it's not so much about the thing, it's about the way that you approach it. If you approach inclusive language with an open mind, an open heart, and a real willingness, like true willingness to learn, that's what's important going into it and then you're already doing the work. You're already an ally. You're already however you want to put it. And then when you use an ableist word, or you use a racist word, or you misgender someone, your actions for following that speak volumes. I think we can really get caught up in the action itself and it's more about how you go into it and then how you try to fix it. ARTY: So I'm thinking for listeners that might identify with being in a situation of being in the headlights and not knowing how to respond, or what to do. Other than what you were just talking about with coming at it with an open heart, are there any specific recommendations you might have for how to approach inclusive language? KATE: Yeah. Yeah, I have a couple really, really good ones. So often, the way to speak more inclusively, or to write more inclusively is just to get more specific about what you're trying to say. So instead of saying, “Oh, that's so crazy,” which is ableist, you can say, “Oh, that's so unheard of.” That's a good example. Or instead of unnecessarily gendering something you're saying like, “Oh, I'm out of wine, call the waitress over.” It's server instead of waiter, or waitress. You kind of start to essentially practice replacing these words and these concepts that are so ingrained into who we are, into society at large, and really starting to disrupt those systems within us with challenging the way that we've described things in the past. So just essentially getting more specific when we're speaking. When it comes to misgendering people specifically, it's really important to not be overly apologetic when you misgender someone. I can give an example. If a server, for example, comes up to me and my partner and says, “Can I get you ladies anything else?” And I say, “Oh, actually my partner uses they/them pronouns. They are not a lady,” and they say, “Oh my God, I'm so sorry. Oh shit!” And then that makes my partner feel bad [chuckles] for putting them in that position and then it's kind of this like ping pong back and forth of just bad feelings. The ideal scenario, the server would say, “Oh, excuse me, can I get you all anything else?” Or, “Can I get you folks anything else?” Or just, if you're speaking about someone who uses they/them pronouns and you say, “Yeah, and I heard she, I mean, they did this thing.” You just quickly correct it and move on. Don't make it into a production. It's okay. We get it. Moving on. Just try not to overthink it, basically. [laughs] Get more specific, but don't overthink it. Isn't that like, what a dichotomy. [laughter] JOHN: That ties back to what you were saying about perfectionism also, right? Like you said, you freeze up if you try and be perfect about it all the time, because you can't always know what someone's pronouns are and so, you have to make a guess at some point and maybe you're going to guess wrong. But it's how you deal with it by not making everybody uncomfortable with the situation. [laughs] KATE: Yeah. JOHN: And like you said, ping pong of bad feelings just amplifies, the whole thing blows out of proportion. You can just be like, “Oh, my apologies.” Her, they, whatever it is and then very quickly move on and then it's forgotten the next minute. Everything moves on from that, but you're not weeping and gnashing and – [laughter] KATE: Yeah. JOHN: Well, it means you don't have to keep feeling bad about it for the next 3 days either, like everyone can move on from that point. KATE: Right. Yeah, and just doing your best to not do it again. JOHN: Yeah. KATE: Once you learn, it's important to really let that try to stick. If you're having trouble, I have a friend who really has trouble with they/them pronouns and they practice with their dog. They talk to their dog about this person and they use they/them pronouns in that. Practice really does make perfect in this – not perfect, okay. Practice really does make progress in this kind of scenario and also, normalize sharing pronouns. JOHN: Yeah. KATE: It's more than just putting it in your Zoom name. It's more than just putting it in your Instagram bio. A good example of really starting this conversation was during Webflow's No-Code Conf, our yearly conference. It was mostly online and we had a live portion of it and every single time we introduced someone new, or introduced ourselves, we said, “My name is Kate Marshall, my pronouns are she/her, and I'm so happy to be here with you today.” Or just asking if you don't know, or if you're in a space with someone new, you say, “What are your pronouns?” It's really is that easy. Webflow made some year-round pride mech that we launched over the summer and we have a cute beanie that says “Ask me my pronouns.” It's like, it's cool to ask. It's fine to ask and that's so much better than unintentionally misgendering someone. It's going to take some time to get there, but normalize it. JOHN: Yeah, and I think there's one key to that that has always stuck out of my mind, which is don't ask pronouns just for the people you think might have different pronouns than you would expect. KATE: Yes. JOHN: Make it part of all the conversations so it's not just singling somebody out of a group and saying, “I want to know your pronouns because they're probably different.” That's not good. KATE: Right, because gender expression does not always equal gender identity. JOHN: Yeah. KATE: You can't know someone's gender identity from the way that they express their gender and that's also another huge misconception that I think it's time we talk more about. JOHN: So we've been talking a lot about conversations and person-to-person interactions and inclusive language there. But a lot of what you do is it on the writing level and I imagine there's some differences there. So I'm curious as to what you see as far as the things that you do to work on that in the written form. KATE: Yeah. So this is actually a really great resource that I was planning on sharing with whoever's listening, or whoever's following along this podcast. There is a really wonderful inclusive language guidelines that we have published externally at Webflow and I own it, I update it regularly as different things come in and inclusive language is constantly evolving. It will never be at a final resting point and that's also part of why I love it so much because you truly are always growing. I'm always learning something new about inclusive language, or to make someone feel more included with the words that I'm writing. This table has, or this resource has ableist language, racist language, and sexist language tables with words to avoid, why to avoid them, and some alternatives and just some general principles. I reference it constantly. Like I said, it's always evolving. I actually don't know how many words are on there, but it's a good amount and it's a lot of things have been surfaced to me that I had no idea were racist. For instance, the word gypped. Like if you say, “Oh, they gypped me” is actually racist. It's rooted in the belief that gypsy people are thieves. [chuckles] So it's things like that we really kind of go deep in there and I reference this constantly. Also, ALS language is a really big consideration, especially in the tech space. So instead of – and this can be avoided most of the time, not all of the time. We do work with a really wonderful accessibility consultant who I run things by constantly. Shout out to Michele. Oh, she was actually on the podcast at one point. Michele Williams, shout out. Lovely human. So a good example is instead of “watch now,” or “listen now,” it's “explore this thing,” “browse this thing,” “learn more”. Just try not to get so specific about the way that someone might be consuming the information that I'm putting down on the page. Stuff like that. It truly does come down to just getting more specific as just a general principle. JOHN: So it sounds to me some of the first steps you take are obviously being aware that you have to mold your language to be more accessible and inclusive, then it's informing yourself of what the common pitfalls are. As you said, you have consultants, you've got guides, you've got places where you can gather this information and then once you have that, then you build that into your mental process for writing what you're writing. KATE: Yeah, and truly just asking questions and this goes for everyone. No one would ever – if I reached out to our head of DEI, Mariah, and said, “Mariah, is this thing offensive?” Or, “How should I phrase this thing to feel more inclusive to more people?” She would never come back at me and say, “Why are you asking me this? You should already know this,” and that is the attitude across the board. I would never fault someone for coming to me and asking me how to phrase something, or how to write something to make it feel better for more people. So it's really a humbling experience [laughs] to be in this position. Again, words carry so much power and I just never take for granted, the power essentially that I have, even if it is just for a tech company. A lot of people are consuming that and I want to make them feel included. JOHN: Yeah. The written face of a company is going to tell readers a lot about the culture of the company, the culture of the community around the product. KATE: Yeah. JOHN: Whether they're going to be welcome there, like what their experience is going to be like if they invest their time to learn about it. So it's really important to have that language there and woven into everything that's written, not just off the corner on the DEI page. KATE: Yeah. That's what I was just about to say is especially if you're a company that claims to prioritize DEI, you better be paying close attention to the words that you're using in your product, on your homepage, whatever it is, your customer support. I've worked with the customer support team at Webflow to make sure that the phrasing feels good for people. It truly does trickle into every single asset of a business and it's ongoing work that does not just end at, like you said, putting it on a DEI page. Like, “We care about this,” and then not actually caring about it. That sucks. [laughs] JOHN: Oh, the other thing before we move too far on from last topic, you're talking about asking for advice. I think one of the keys there, a, being humble and just saying, “I would like to know,” and you're very unlikely to get criticized for simply asking how something can be better. But I feel like one of the keys to doing that well is also not arguing with the person you've asked after they give you an answer. KATE: Right. Yes. Especially if that person is a part of the community that your words are affecting, or that your question is affecting. It's such a tricky balance because it's really not the queer community's job to educate people who are not queer about inclusive language. But when that person is willing to share their knowledge with the you, or willing to share their experience with you, you've got to listen. Your opinions about their lived experience don't come into that conversation, or shouldn't come into that conversation. It's not questioning the information that you're given, but then it's also taking that and doing your own research and asking more people and having conversations with your friends and family trying to widen this breadth of information and knowledge as a community. Like I said, kind of dismantling the things that we're taught growing up by capitalism, by society, everything that kind of unnecessarily separates and then doing better next time. I've actually had conversations with people who are very curious, who come to me with questions and then the next time I interact with them, they're just back to factory settings. That's so disappointing and just makes me feel like my energy could have been better spent having that conversation with someone who is more receptive. So I think it really is just about being open to hearing someone's experience, not questioning it, and then really taking that in and doing the work on your own. JOHN: Yeah, and part of that doing the work is also for the things that you can Google for the things where you can look at it from the guide, do that first before asking for someone's time. KATE: Yeah. JOHN: So that they're not answering the same 101 questions every time that are just written in 15 different blog posts. KATE: Yes. Especially if you're asking a marginalized person to do the work for you. JOHN: Yeah. KATE: Intersectionality matters and putting more work on the shoulders of people who are already weighed down by so much ain't it. [laughs] ARTY: Well, I was wanting to go back to your original superpower that you talked about with empathy. We talked a lot about some of these factors that make empathy of a difficult thing of over empathizing and what kind of factors make that hard. But as a superpower, what kind of superpowers does that give you? KATE: Ah, just being able to really connect to a lot of different people. I mentioned earlier that I believe it's my purpose, it's my life's work on this planet at this time to connect people to themselves and to each other. The more asking I can do and the more absorbing I can do of other people's experiences, the better I am at being able to connect with them and being able to make them feel like they belong in whatever space I'm in. I can't connect with someone if I don't try and get it. Try and get what they're going through, or what their experiences are. That's why I do so much time just talking to people, and that's why I love yoga and why I want to start this studio and open this space. Because we live in a world where we don't have a lot of spaces, especially marginalized communities don't have a lot of spaces that feel like they're being understood, or they're truly being heard, or seen. Me being an empath, I'm able to access that in people more and therefore, bringing them closer to safer spaces, or safer people, safer communities where they really feel like they can exist and be their full, whole, and complete selves. It's really special. ARTY: We also touched this concept of authenticity and it seems like that also comes up in this context of creating these safe spaces and safe communities where people can be their whole selves. So when you think about authenticity, we talked about this being a difficult and fuzzy word, but at the same time, it does have some meaning as to what that means, and these challenges with regards to boundaries and things. But I'm curious, what does authenticity mean to you? How does that come into play with this idea of safety and creating these safe spaces for others as well? KATE: Yeah. I feel like there's so much in there. I think one of the biggest things to accept about the word authenticity, or the concept of authenticity is that it's always changing and it means something different to everyone. We are all authentic to ourselves in different ways and at different times in our lives and I think it's so important to honor the real evolution of feeling authentic. There are times and days where I'm like who even am. It's like what even, but there's always this sort of core, root part of me that I don't lose, which is what we've been talking about. This ability to connect, this feeling of empathy, of compassion, of wanting to really be a part of the human experience. That, to me, kind of always stays and I feel like that's the authentic, like the real, real, authentic parts of me. There are layers to it that are always changing and as people, we are also always evolving and always changing. So those different parts of authenticity could be what you wear that make you feel like your most authentic self. It can be how you interact with your friends, or how you interact with the person, getting your popcorn at the movies, or whatever it is. Those can all feel like parts of your authentic self. That means something different to everyone. But I think that's such a beautiful part about it and about just being human is just how often these things are changing for us and how important it is to honor someone's authenticity, whatever that means for them at that time. Even if it's completely different from what you knew about them, or how you knew them before. It's this constant curiosity of yourself and of others, really getting deeply curious about what feels like you. ARTY: I was wondering about safety because you were talking about the importance of creating these safe communities and safe environments where people could be their whole, complete selves, which sounds a lot like the authenticity thing, but you trying to create space for that for others. KATE: Yeah. Well, the reality of safety is that there's no one space that will ever be a “safe space for everyone,” and that's why I like to say safer spaces, or a safer space for people because you can never – I feel like it's all coming full circle where you can never meet every single person exactly where they need to be met in any given moment. You can just do your best to create spaces that feel safer to them and you do that with authentic connection, with getting curious about who they are and what they love, and just making sure that your heart's really in it. [chuckles] Same with inclusive language. It's all about the way you approach it to make someone feel safer. But I do think it's an I distinction to remember. You're never going to be safe for everyone. A space you create is never going to be safe for everyone. The best you can do is just make it safer for more people. ARTY: When I think about just the opposite of that, of times that I've gone into a group where I haven't felt safe being myself and then when you talk of about being your complete whole self, it's like bringing a whole another level of yourself to a space that may not really fit that space and that seems like it's okay, too. Like we don't necessarily have to bring our full self to all these different spaces, but whatever space we're a part of, we kind of sync up and adapt to it. So if I'm in one space and I feel the kind of vibe, energy, context of what's going on, how people are interacting, the energy they put forth when they speak with whatever sorts of words that they use. I'm going to feel that and adapt to that context of what feels safe and then as more people start adapting to that, it creates a norm that other people that then come and see what's going on in this group come to an understanding about what the energy in the room is like. KATE: Yeah. ARTY: And all it takes is one person to bring a different energy into that to shift the whole dynamic of things. KATE: Yeah. The reality is you'll never be able to change every space and I think that's such a good point. It makes me feel like saying you have to be protective of your energy. If you go into a space and it just doesn't feel right, or there's someone who is in the room that doesn't feel safe to you, or that doesn't feel like they're on the same page as you, it's okay to not feel like you need to change the world in that space. Like you don't always have to go into a space and say, “I'm going to change it.” That is how change is made when you feel safe enough. That's why it's so important to foster that energy from the jump. That's just a foundational thing at a company in a yoga studio, in a home, at a restaurant. It can be changed, but it really should be part of the foundation of making a safer space, or a more inclusive space. Because otherwise, you're asking the people who don't feel safe, who are usually marginalized people, or intersectionally marginalized in some way. You're asking them essentially to put in the work to change what you should have done as the foundation of your space. So it's a such a delicate balance of being protective of your energy and really being able to feel out the places where you feel okay saying something, or making a change, or just saying, “No, this isn't worth it for me. I'm going to go find a space that actually feels a little bit better, or that I feel more community in.” ARTY: And it seems like the other people that are in the group, how those people respond to you. If you shift your energy, a lot of times the people that are in the group will shift their energy in kind. Other times, in a different space, you might try to shift energy and then there's a lot of resistance to that where people are going a different way and so, you get pushed out of the group energy wise. These sorts of dynamics, you can feel this stuff going on of just, I just got outcast out of this group. Those are the kinds of things, though that you need to protect your own energy of even if I'm not included in this group, I can still have a good relationship with me and I can still like me and I can think I'm still pretty awesome and I can find other groups of folks that like me. It definitely, at least for me, I tend to be someone who's like, I don't know, I get out grouped a lot. [laughs] But at the same time, I've gotten used to that and then I find other places where I've got friends that love me and care about me and stuff. So those are recharge places where I can go and get back to a place where I feel solid and okay with myself, and then I'm much more resilient then going into these other spaces and stuff where I might not be accepted, where I might have to be kind of shielded and guarded and just put up a front, and operate in a way that makes everyone else feel more comfortable. KATE: Yeah, and isn't it so powerful to feel cared for? ARTY: I love that. KATE: Like just to feel cared for by the people around you is everything. It's everything. That's it. Just to feel like you are wanted, or you belong. To feel cared for. It can exist everywhere is the thing. In your Slack group, or whatever, you can make people feel cared for. I have never regretted reaching out to a coworker, or a friend, or whoever an acquaintance and saying, “Hey, I love this thing about you,” or “Congratulations on this rad thing you just launched,” or whatever. It's the care that's so powerful. ARTY: I feel like this is one of those things where we can learn things from our own pain and these social interactions and stuff. One of the things that I've experienced is you're in a group and you say something and nobody responds. [laughs] KATE: Yeah. ARTY: And after doing that for a while, you feel like you're just shouting into the void and nobody hears you and it's just this feeling of like invisibility. In feeling that way myself, one of the things I go out of my way to do is if somebody says something, I at least try and respond, acknowledge them, let them know that they're heard, they're cared about, and that there's somebody there on the other side [chuckles] and they're not shouting into the wind because I hate that feeling. It's an awful feeling to feel invisible like that. KATE: Awful, yeah. ARTY: But we can learn from those experiences and then we can use those as opportunities to understand how we can give in ways that are subtle, that are often little things that are kind of ignored, but they're little things that actually make a really big difference. KATE: Yeah, the little things. It really is the little things, isn't it? [laughs] Like and it's just, you can learn from your experiences, but you can also say, “I'm not doing this right now.” You can also check out. If you are giving and giving. and find that you're in the void essentially, more often than not, you can decide that that's no longer are worth your time, your energy, your care, and you can redirect that care to somewhere else that's going to reciprocate, or that's going to give you back that same care and that's so important, too. JOHN: Yeah, and it sounds like starting a yoga studio is not a trivial undertaking and obviously, you're highly motivated to create this kind of an environment in the world. So is there anything more you'd like to say about that because that ties in very closely with what we're talking about? KATE: Yeah. It's so weird to work full-time and be so passionate about my tech job and then turn around and be like, “I'm opening a yoga studio.” It's such a weird, but again, it's all connected at the root, at the core of what I'm trying to do in this world. The thing about Kula is that it's really built on this foundational mutual aid model. So being donation-based, it's really pay what you can, if you can. And what you pay, if you're able to give an extra $10 for the class that you take, that's going to pay for someone else's experience, who is unable to financially contribute to take that class. That's the basis of community care, of mutual aid and it's really this heart-based business model that is really tricky. I'm trying to get a loan right now and [chuckles] it's really hard to prove business financials when you have a donation-based model and you say, “Well, I'm going to guess what people might donate per class on average.” So it's been a real journey, [laughs] especially with today's famous supply chain issues that you hear about constantly in every single industry. I have an empty space right now. It needs to be completely built out. Construction costs are about triple what they should be. Again, coming from this real mutual aid community care centered model, it's really hard, but I have to keep coming back. I was just telling my partner about this the other day, I have to keep coming back to this core idea, or this real feeling that I don't need to have a beautifully designed space to create what I'm trying to create. When I started this, I envisioned just a literal empty room [chuckles] with some people in it and a bathroom and that's it. So of course, once I saw the designs, I was like, “Oh, I love this can lighting that's shining down in front of the bathroom door.” It's like so whatever, stereotypical. Not stereotypical, but surface level stuff. I really have had to time and time again, return to this longing almost for a space that feels safer for me, for my community, for Black people, for disabled people, for trans people, for Asian people; we don't have a lot of spaces that feel that way and that's just the reality. So it's a real delicate balance of how do I like – this is a business and I need money, [laughs] but then I really want this to be rooted in mutual aid and community care. It comes back to that car and that inclusivity, creating authentic connections. It's tricky out there for a queer woman entrepreneur with no collateral. [laughs] It's a tricky world out there, but I think we'll flip it someday. I really think pioneering this idea, or this business model at least where I'm at in Denver, I think it's going to start the conversation in more communities and with more people who want to do similar things and my hope is that that will foster those conversations and make it more accessible to more people. JOHN: Yeah, and I think every time someone manages to muster up the energy, the capital, and the community effort to put something like this together, it makes it just slightly easier for someone else a, they can learn the lessons and b, they're more examples of this thing operating in the world. So it becomes more possible in people's minds and you can build some of that momentum there. KATE: Yeah. And of course, it's really important to note and to remember that I come from a place of immense privilege. I have a great job in tech. I'm white. I am upper middle class. Technically, I'm “straight passing,” which is a whole other concept, but it is a thing and this is the way that I'm choosing to use my privilege to hopefully pave the way for more people. I do not take for granted the opportunity that I'm given and like I said, intersectionality matters and all of that, but I still have a lot of privilege going into this that I hope turns into something good for more people. ARTY: It also takes a special kind of person to be an entrepreneur because you really have to just keep on going. No matter any obstacle that's in your way, you've just got to keep on going and have that drive, desire, and dream to go and build something and make it happen and your superpowers probably going to help you out with that, too. It sounds like we've got multiple superpowers because I think you got to have superpowers to be an entrepreneur in itself. KATE: Yeah. I don't know, man. It's such a weird feeling to have because it just feels like it's what I'm supposed to be doing. That's it. It doesn't feel like I'm like – yes, it's a calling and all of that, but it just feels like the path and that, it feels more, more natural than anything I guess, is what I'm trying to say. The more people follow that feeling, the more authentic of a world, the more connected of a world we're going to have. I see a lot of people doing this work, similar things, and it makes me so happy to see. The words of one of my therapists, one of my past therapists told me, “Always stick with me,” and it was right around the time I was kind of – so I'd started planning before COVID hit and then COVID hit and I had to pause for about a year, a little bit less than a year. It was right around the time I was filing my LLC and really starting to move forward. It was actually December 17th of last year that I filed my LLC paperwork. So it's been a little over a year now. He told me, “How much longer are you willing to wait to give the community this thing that you want to give them? How much are you willing to make them wait for this space?” And I was like, “Yesterday. Yesterday.” Like, “I want to give people this space immediately,” and that has truly carried me through. This supply chain stuff is no joke. [laughs] and it has really carried me through some of the more doubtful moments in this journey. Yeah, and I feel like, man, what powerful words. Like, I just want to keep saying them because they are such powerful words to me. How much longer are you willing to make them wait? And it's like, I don't want to. [chuckles] So I guess I'm going to go do it. [laughter] Throw caution to the wind. [laughs] JOHN: Well, I think that ties back into what you were talking about is as you were thinking about designing the space and what kind of buildout you're going to need, and that can be a guide star for what actually needs to be there. What's the actual MVP for this space? Does it need a perfect coat of paint, or is what's there good enough? Does it need all the things arranged just so in the perfect lighting, or does it just need to exist and have people in the room and you can really focus in on what's going to get you there? And then of course, you iterate like everything else, you improve over time, but. KATE: Right. JOHN: I love that concept of just cut out everything that's in the way of this happening right now as much as possible. KATE: Yeah, and what a concept, I think that can be applied to so many things. Who am I trying to serve with this thing and what do I need to do to get there? It doesn't have to be this shiny, beautiful well-designed creation. It just needs to serve people. The people that you want to serve in the best way possible, and for me, that's getting this space open and actually having it in action. ARTY: I think once you find something that feels in alignment with you, you seem to have lots of clarity around just your sense of purpose, of what you want to move toward of a deep connection with yourself. One thing I found with that is no matter how much you get rejected by various groups in the world, if you can be congruent and authentic with yourself and follow that arrow, that once you start doing that, you find other people that are in resonance with you. They're out there, but you don't find them until you align with yourself. KATE: Yeah. Community. Community is so powerful and I love that you just said alignment because that really is truly what it is. It's finding the thing that makes you feel like you're doing something good and that feels authentic to your core, to those core principles of you that never really change. The things that are rooted in love, the things that are rooted in compassion, or whatever it is you care about. Community, that alignment is absolutely key. It's also, when I say I was born with my superpower of being an empath, this desire to create this space feels, it feels like I was also born with this desire, or born with this alignment. So I feel like so many times it's just going back to the basics of who you are. ARTY: Like you're actualizing who you are. KATE: Yeah. Like full alignment, enlightenment, that all kind of falls into place when you're really making the effort to be connected to your core. ARTY: It seems like a good place to do reflections. So at the end of the show, we usually go around and do final reflections and takeaways, final thoughts that you have and you get to go last, Kate. JOHN: There are a whole lot of different things that I've been thinking about here, but I think one of the ones that's sticking with me is the dichotomy between perfectionism and authenticity, and how I feel like they really are pulling against one another and that, which isn't to say things can't be perfect and authentic at the same time. But I think perfectionism is usually a negative feeling. Like you should do something, you're putting a lot of pressure, there's a lot of anxiety around perfectionism and that is pretty much an opposition to being authentically yourself. It's hard to be in touch with yourself when you're wrapped up in all those anxieties and so, thinking about the two of them together, I hadn't made that connection before, but I think that's something that's interesting that I'll be thinking about for a while. ARTY: I think the thing that's going to stick with me, Kate is you said, “Our words carry so much power,” and I think about our conversation today out just vibes in the room and how that shifts with the energy that we bring to the room, all of these subtle undercurrent conversations that we're having, and then how a sort of energy vibe becomes established. And how powerful even these really little tiny things we do are. We had this conversation around inclusive language and you gave so many great details and specifics around what that means and how we can make little, small alterations to some of these things that are just baked into us because of our culture and the words that we hear, phrasing and things that we hear, that we're just unaware of the impact of things. Just by paying attention and those little subtle details of things and coming at things with an open heart, regardless of how we might stumble, or mess things up, how much of a difference that can make because our words, though carry so much power. KATE: Yeah. And the thing you just said about having an open heart is truly how you can put any of this into action, how you can remain open to learning about authenticity, or what it feels like to not fall into a trap of perfectionism, or how to speak, or write, or interact more inclusively with other human beings. I feel like being open, being openminded, being open-hearted, whatever it is, is just really a superpower on its own. Remaining open and vulnerable in today's world is hard work. It does not come naturally to so many people, especially when you're dealing with your own traumas and your own individual interactions and maybe being forced into spaces where you don't feel safe. To remain open is such a tool for making other people feel cared for. So if that's the goal, I would say just being open is truly your superpower. JOHN: I think that's the quote I'm going to take with me: being open is the key to making people feel cared for. KATE: Yes. I love that. ARTY: Well, thank you for joining us on the show, Kate. It's been a pleasure to have you here. KATE: Thank you so much. This has been just the energy boost I needed. Special Guest: Kate Marshall.

02:01 - Kat's Superpower: Terrible Puns! * Puns & ADHD; Divergent Thinking (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divergent_thinking) * Punching Down (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=punching%20down) * Idioms (https://www.ef.edu/english-resources/english-idioms/) 08:07 - Security Awareness Education & Accessibility * Phishing * Unconscious Bias Training That Works (https://hbr.org/2021/09/unconscious-bias-training-that-works) * Psychological Safety * 239: Accessibility and Sexuality with Eli Holderness (https://www.greaterthancode.com/accessibility-and-sexuality) * Management Theory of Frederick Taylor (https://www.business.com/articles/management-theory-of-frederick-taylor/) * Building a Security Culture For Oh Sh*t Moments | Human Layer Security Summit (https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=21&v=d2girBtrbCQ&feature=emb_logo) * Decision Fatigue 20:58 - Making the Safe Thing Easy * (in)Secure Development - Why some product teams are great and others aren't… (https://tldrsec.com/blog/insecure-development-why-some-product-teams-are-great-and-others-arent/) * The Swiss Cheese Model of Error Prevention (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1298298/) 22:43 - Awareness; Security Motivation; Behavior and Culture (ABC) * AIDA: Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDA_(marketing)) * Inbound Marketing (https://www.hubspot.com/inbound-marketing) 33:34 - Dietary Accessibility; Harm Reduction and Threat Monitoring * Celiac Disease (https://celiac.org/about-celiac-disease/what-is-celiac-disease/) * A Beginner's Guide to a Low FODMAP Diet (https://www.benefiber.com/fiber-in-your-life/fiber-and-wellness/beginners-guide-to-low-fodmap-diet/?gclsrc=aw.ds&gclid=Cj0KCQiAnuGNBhCPARIsACbnLzqJkfl2XxxUQVSAGU96cmdVl5S7gn6GXnOQAHf-Sn0zEHvBBKINObUaAlOvEALw_wcB) * Casin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casein) * DisInfoSec 2021: Kat Sweet - Dietary Accessibility in Tech Workplaces (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG1DApAlcK4&feature=youtu.be) Reflections: John: Internal teams relating to other internal teams as a marketing issue. Casey: Phishing emails cause harm. Kat: AIDA: Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDA_(marketing)) Unconscious Bias Training That Works (https://hbr.org/2021/09/unconscious-bias-training-that-works) The Responsible Communication Style Guide (https://rcstyleguide.com/) This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: PRE-ROLL: Software is broken, but it can be fixed. Test Double's superpower is improving how the world builds software by building both great software and great teams. And you can help! Test Double is hiring empathetic senior software engineers and DevOps engineers. We work in Ruby, JavaScript, Elixir and a lot more. Test Double trusts developers with autonomy and flexibility at a remote, 100% employee-owned software consulting agency. Looking for more challenges? Enjoy lots of variety while working with the best teams in tech as a developer consultant at Test Double. Find out more and check out remote openings at link.testdouble.com/greater. That's link.testdouble.com/greater. JOHN: Welcome to Episode 263 of Greater Than Code. I'm John Sawers and I'm here with Casey Watts. CASEY: Hi, I'm Casey! And we're both here with our guest today, Kat Sweet. Hi, Kat. KAT: Hi, John! Hi, Casey! CASEY: Well, Kat Sweet is a security professional who specializes in security education and engagement. She currently works at HubSpot building out their employee security awareness program, and is also active in their disability ERG, Employee Resource Group. Since 2017, she has served on the staff of the security conference BSides Las Vegas, co-leading their lockpick village. Her other superpower is terrible puns, or, if they're printed on paper—she gave me this one—tearable puns. [laughter] KAT: Like written paper. CASEY: Anyway. Welcome, Kat. So glad to have you. KAT: Thanks! I'm happy to be here. CASEY: Let's kick it off with our question. What is your superpower and how did you acquire it? KAT: [chuckles] Well, as I was saying to both of y'all before this show started, I was thinking I'm going to do a really serious skillful superpower that makes me sound smart because that's what a lot of other people did in theirs. I don't know, something like I'm a connector, or I am good at crosspollination. Then I realized no, [chuckles] like it, or not, terrible puns are my actual superpower. [laughter] Might as well just embrace it. I think as far as where I acquired it, probably a mix of forces. Having a dad who was the king of dad puns certainly helped and actually, my dad's whole extended family is really into terrible puns as well. We have biweekly Zoom calls and they just turn into everyone telling bad jokes sometimes. [laughter] But I think it also probably helps that, I don't know, having ADHD, my brain hops around a lot and so, sometimes makes connections in weird places. Sometimes that happens with language and there were probably also some amount of influences just growing up, I don't know, listening to Weird Al, gets puns in his parodies. Oh, and Carlos from The Magic School Bus. CASEY: Mm hmm. Role models. I agree. Me too. [laughter] KAT: Indeed. So now I'm a pundit. CASEY: I got a pun counter going in my head. It just went ding! KAT: Ding! [laughter] CASEY: I never got – [overtalk] KAT: They've only gotten worse during the pandemic. CASEY: Oh! Ding! [laughter] Maybe we'll keep it up. We'll see. I never thought of the overlap of puns and ADHD. I wonder if there's any study showing if it does correlate. It sounds right. It sounds right to me. KAT: Yeah, that sounds like a thing. I have absolutely no idea, but I don't know, something to do with divergent thinking. CASEY: Yeah. JOHN: Yeah. I'm on board with that. CASEY: Sometimes I hang out in the channels on Slack that are like #puns, or #dadjokes. Are you in any of those? What's the first one that comes to mind for you, your pun community online? KAT: Oh yeah. So actually at work, I joined my current role in August and during the first week, aside from my regular team channels, I had three orders of business. I found the queer ERG Slack channel, I found the disability ERG Slack channel, and I found the dad jokes channel. [laughter] That was a couple of jobs ago when I worked at Duo Security. I've been told that some of them who are still there are still talking about my puns because we would get [laughs] pretty bad pun threads going in the Slack channels there. CASEY: What a good reputation. KAT: Good, bad, whatever. [laughs] CASEY: Yeah. KAT: I don't know. Decent as a form of humor that's safe for work goes, too because it's generally hard to, I guess, punch down with them other than the fact that everyone's getting punched with a really bad pun, but they're generally an equalizing force. [chuckles] CASEY: Yeah. I love that concept. Can you explain to our listeners, punching down? KAT: So this is now the Great British Bake Off and we're talking about bread. No, just kidding. [laughter] No, I think in humor a lot of times, sometimes people talk about punching up versus punching down in terms of who is actually in on the joke. When you're trying to be funny, are you poking fun at people who are more marginalized than you, or are you poking at the people with a ton of privilege? And I know it's not always an even concept because obviously, intersectionality is a thing and it's not just a – privilege isn't a linear thing. But generally, what comes to mind a lot is, I don't know, white comedians making fun of how Black people talk, or men comedians making rape jokes at women's expense, or something like that. Like who's actually being punched? [chuckles] CASEY: Yeah. KAT: Obviously, ideally, you don't want to punch anyone, but that whole concept of where's the humor directed and is it contributing to marginalization? CASEY: Right, right. And I guess puns aren't really punching at all. KAT: Yeah. CASEY: Ding! KAT: Ding! There goes the pun counter. Yeah, the only thing I have to mindful of, too is not over relying on them in my – my current role is in a very global company so even though all employees speak English to some extent, English isn't everyone's first language and there are going to be some things that fly over people's heads. So I don't want to use that exclusively as a way to connect with people. CASEY: Right, right. JOHN: Yeah. It is so specific to culture even, right. Because I would imagine even UK English would have a whole gray area where the puns may not land and vice versa. KAT: Oh, totally. Just humor in general is so different in every single culture. Yeah, it's really interesting. JOHN: Yeah, that reminds me. Actually, just today, I started becoming weirdly aware as I was typing something to one of my Indian colleagues and I'm not sure what triggered it, but I started being aware of all the idioms that I was using and what I was typing. I was like, “Well, this is what I would normally say to an American,” and I'm just like, “Wait, is this all going to come through?” I think that way might lead to madness, though if you start trying to analyze every idiom you use as you're speaking. But it was something that just suddenly popped into my mind that I'm going to try and keep being a little bit more aware of because there's so many ways to miss with communication when you rely on obscure idioms, or certain ways of saying things that aren't nearly as clear as they could be. [chuckles] KAT: Yeah, absolutely. I'm sure that's definitely a thing in all the corporate speak about doubling down, circling back, parking lots, and just all the clicking, all of those things. [laughter] But yeah, that's actually something that was on my run recently, too with revamping one of the general security awareness courses that everyone gets is that in the way we talk about how to look for a phishing – spot a phishing email. First of all, one of the things that at least they didn't do was say, “Oh, look for poor grammar, or misspelled words,” because that's automatically really exclusive to people whose first language isn't English, or people who have dyslexia. But I was also thinking we talk about things like subtle language cues in suspicious emails around a sense of urgency, like a request being made trying to prey on your emotion and I'm like, “How accessible is that, I guess, for people whose first language is English to try and spot a phishing email based on those kind of things?” Like how much – [chuckles] how much is too much to ask of…? Like opinions about phishing emails, or the phishing training anyway being too much to ask of people to some degree, but I don't know. There's so much subtlety in it that just is really easy for people to lose. JOHN: Yeah. I mean, I would imagine that even American English speakers – [overtalk] KAT: Yeah. JOHN: With a lot of experience still have trouble. Like actually, [chuckles] I just got apparently caught by one of them, the test phishing emails, but they notified me by sending me an email and saying, “You were phished, click here to go to the training.” And I'm like, “I'm not going to click on that!” [laughter] I just got phished! KAT: Yeah. JOHN: But I think my larger point is again, you're talking about so many subtleties of language and interpretations to try and tease these things out. I'm sure there are a lot of people with a range of non-typical neurologies where that sort of thing isn't going to be obvious, even if they are native English speakers. KAT: Exactly. Myself included having ADHD. [laughs] JOHN: Yeah. KAT: Yeah. It's been interesting trying to think through building out security awareness stuff in my current role and in past roles, and having ADHD and just thinking about how ADHD unfriendly a lot of the [laughs] traditional approaches are to all this. Even like you were just saying, “You got phished, take this training.” It seems like the wrong sequence of events because if you're trying to teach someone a concept, you need to not really delay the amount of time in between presenting somebody with a piece of information and giving them a chance to commit it to memory. ADHD-ers have less working memory than neurotypical people to begin with, but that concept goes for everyone. So when you're giving someone training that they might not actually use in practice for several more months until they potentially get phished again, then it becomes just information overload. So that's something that I think about. Another way that I see this playing out in phishing training in particular, but other security awareness stuff is motivation and reward because we have a less amount of intrinsic motivation. Something like, I don't know, motivation and reward system just works differently with people who have trouble hanging onto dopamine. ADHD-ers and other people's various executive dysfunction stuff. So when you're sitting through security training that's not engaging, that's not particular lead novel, or challenging, or of personal interest, or is going to have a very delayed sense of reward rather than something that immediately gratifying, there's going to be a limitation to how much people will actually learn, be engaged, and can actually be detrimental. So I definitely think about stuff like that. CASEY: That reminds me of a paper I read recently about—I said this on a previous episode, too. I guess, maybe I should find the paper, dig it up, and share. KAT: Cool. [laughter] CASEY: Oh, but it said, “Implicit bias awareness training doesn't work at all ever” was an original paper. No, that's not what it said of course, but that's how people read it and then a follow-up said, “No, boring! PowerPoint slide presentations that aren't interactive aren't interactive.” [laughter] “But the interactive ones are.” Surprise! KAT: Right. That's the thing. That's the thing. Yeah, and I think there's also just, I don't know. I remember when I was first getting into security, people were in offices more and security awareness posters were a big thing. Who is going to remember that? Who's going to need to know that they need to email security at when they're in the bathroom? [laughs] Stuff like that that's not particularly engaging nor particularly useful in the moment. But that DEI paper is an interesting one, too. I'll have to read that. CASEY: Do you have experience making some of these trainings more interactive and getting the quicker reward that's not delayed and what does that look like for something like phishing, or another example? KAT: It's a mixed bag and it's something that I'm still kind of – there's something that I'm figuring out just as we're scaling up because in past roles, mostly been in smaller companies. But one thing that I think people, who are building security awareness and security education content for employees, miss is the fact that there's a certain amount of baseline level of interaction and context that you can't really automate a way, especially for new hires. I know having just gone through process that onboarding weeks are always kind of information overload. But people are going to at least remember more, or be more engaged if they're getting some kind of actual human contact with somebody who they're going to be working with; they've got the face, they've got some context for who their security team is, what they do, and they won't just be clicking through a training that's got canned information that is no context to where they're working and really no narrative and nowhere for them to ask questions. Because I always get really interesting questions every time I give some kind of live security education stuff; people are curious. I think it's important that security education and engagement is really an enhancer to a security program. It can't be carrying all the weight of relationships between the security team and the rest of the company. You're going to get dividends by having ongoing positive relationships with your colleagues that aren't just contact the security team once a year during training. CASEY: And even John's email, like the sample test email, which I think is better than not doing it for sure. But that's like a ha ha got you. That's not really [chuckles] relationship building. Barely. You've got to already have the relationship for it to – [overtalk] KAT: No, it's not and that's – yeah. And that's why I think phishing campaigns are so tricky. I think they're required by some compliance frameworks and by cyber insurance frameworks. So some places just have to have them. You can't just say we're not going to run internal phishing campaigns, unfortunately, regardless of whether that's actually the right thing for businesses. But I think the angle should always be familiarizing people with how to report email like that to the security team and reinforcing psychological safety. Not making people feel judged, not making people feel bad, and also not making them sit through training if they get caught because that's not psychological safety either and it really doesn't pay attention to results. It's very interesting, I remember I listened to your episode with Eli Holderness and at some point, one of the hosts mentioned something about human factors and safety science on the evolving nature of how people management happens in the workplace. How there was this old model of humans being a problem to be managed, supervised, and well, just controlled and how the new view of organizational psychology and people management is more humans are your source of success so you need to enable their growth and build them up. I think a lot of security education approaches are kind of still stuck in that old model, almost. I've seen progress, but I think a lot of them have a lot of work to do in still being, even if they're not necessarily as antagonistic, or punitive, they still feel sometimes paternalistic. Humans are like, “If I hear the phrase, ‘Humans are the weakest link one more time,' I'm going to table flip.” First of all, humans are all the links, but also – [overtalk] JOHN: Yeah. KAT: It's saying like, we need to save humans, which are somehow the security team is not humans. We need to save humans from themselves because they're too incompetent to know what to do. So we need, yeah – which is a terrible attitude. CASEY: Yeah. KAT: And I think it misses the point that first of all, not everyone is going to become a security expert, or hypervigilant all the time and that's okay. But what we can do is focus on the good relationships, focus on making the training we have and need to do somewhat interactive and personal and contextual, and let go of the things you can't control. [chuckles] JOHN: Yeah, I think Taylorism is the name for that management style. I think it came around in the 40s and – [overtalk] KAT: Really? JOHN: Yeah, ruined a lot of lives. [laughs] Yeah, and I think your point about actually accepting the individual humanity of the people you're trying to influence and work with rather than as some sort of big amorphous group of fuckups, [laughs] for lack of a better word. Giving them some credit, giving them, like you said, something that's not punitive, somewhere where they don't get punished for their security lapses, or forgetting a thing, or clicking the link is going to be a lot more rewarding than, like you said, just making someone sit through training. Like for me, the training I want from whatever it was I clicked on is show me the email I clicked on, I will figure out how it tricked me and then I will learn. I don't need a whole – [overtalk] KAT: Yes. JOHN: 3 hours of video courses, or whatever. I will see the video, [chuckles] I will see the email, and that is a much more organic thing than here's the training for you. KAT: Exactly. Yeah, you have to again, give some people a way to actually commit it to memory. Get it out of RAM and into SSD. JOHN: Yeah. [laughter] KAT: But yeah, I love that and fortunately, I think some other places are starting to do interesting, innovative approaches. My former colleague, Kim Burton, who was the Security Education Lead at Duo when I was there and just moved to Texas, gave a webinar recently on doing the annuals security training as a choose your own adventure so that it could be replicated among a wide group of people, but that people could take various security education stuff that was specific to their own role and to their own threat model. I really liked that. I like being able to give people some amount of personalization and get them actually thinking about what they're specifically interacting with. JOHN: Yeah, yeah. That's great and it also makes me think about there are undoubtedly things I'm pretty well informed in security and other things that I'm completely ignorant about. I'd rather not sit through a training that covers both of those things. Like if there's a way for me to choose my own adventure through it so that I go to the parts where I'm actually learning useful things. Again, a, it saves everybody time and b, it means I'm not fast forwarding through the video, hoping it'll just end, and then possibly missing things that are actually useful to me. CASEY: I'm thinking of a concrete example, I always remember and think of and that's links and emails. I always hover and look at the URL except when I'm on my phone and you can't do that. Oh, I don't know. It has never come up in a training I've seen. KAT: Yeah, you can click and hold, but it's harder and I think that speaks to the fact that security teams should lead into putting protections around email security more so than relying entirely on their user base to hover every single link, or click and hold on their phone, or just do nothing when it comes to reporting suspicious emails. There's a lot of decision fatigue that, I think security teams still put on people whose job is not security and I hope that that continues to shift over time. JOHN: Yeah. I mean, you're bringing up the talking about management and safety theory that probably came from Rein Henrichs, who is one of our other hosts. But one of the things he also has talked about on, I think probably multiple shows is about setting the environment for the people that makes the safe thing easy. KAT: Right. JOHN: So that all the defaults roll downhill into safety and security rather than well, here's a level playing field you have to navigate yourself through and there's some potholes and da, da, da, and you have to be aware of them and constantly on alert and all those things. Whereas, if you tilt the field a little bit, you make sure everything runs in the right direction, then the right thing becomes the easy thing and then you win. KAT: Exactly, exactly. I think it's important to put that not only in the technical defaults – [overtalk] JOHN: Yeah, yeah. KAT: But also process defaults to some degree. One of my colleagues just showed me a talk that was, I think from perhaps at AppSec Cali. I'll have to dig it up. But there was somebody talking about making I guess, threat modeling and anti-abuse mindsets more of a default in product development teams and how they added one single line to their sprint planning—how could this feature potentially be misused by a user—and that alone just got people thinking just that little process change. JOHN: Yeah. That's beautiful. But such a small thing, but constantly repeated at a low level. It's not yelling at anyone to… KAT: Yeah. JOHN: Yeah. KAT: Yeah. And even if the developers and product designers themselves weren't security experts, or anti-abuse experts, it would just get them thinking, “Oh hey, we should reach out to the trust and safety team.” CASEY: Yeah. I'm thinking about so many steps and so many of these steps could be hard. The next one here is the security team responsive and that has a lot to do with are they well-staffed and is this a priority for them? Oh my goodness. KAT: Yeah. [laughs] So many things. CASEY: It's layers. But I'm sure you've heard of this, Kat. The Swiss cheese model of error prevention? KAT: Yeah. Defense in depth. CASEY: Yeah. [chuckles] I like to bring it up on the podcast, too because a lot of engineers and a lot of non-security people don't know about it. KAT: Hmm. CASEY: Do you want to explain it? I don't mind. I can. KAT: Oh, yeah. Basically that there are going to be holes in every step of the process, or the tech and so, that's why it's important to have this layered approach. Because over time, even if something gets through the first set of holes, it may not get through a second set where the holes are in different spots. So you end up with a giant stack of Swiss cheese, which is delicious, and you come out with something that's hopefully pretty same. [laughter] CASEY: Yeah, and it's the layers that are – the mind-blowing thing here is that there can be more than one layer. We don't just need one layer of Swiss cheese on this sandwich, which is everybody pay attention and don't ever get phished, or it's your fault. You can have so many layers than that. It can be like a grilled cheese, really, really thick, grilled cheese. [laughter] KAT: Yes. A grilled cheese where the bread is also cheese. CASEY: Yes! [laughs] MID-ROLL: This episode is supported by Compiler, an original podcast from Red Hat discussing tech topics big, small, and strange. Compiler unravels industry topics, trends, and the things you've always wanted to know about tech, through interviews with the people who know it best. On their show, you will hear a chorus of perspectives from the diverse communities behind the code. Compiler brings together a curious team of Red Hatters to tackle big questions in tech like, what is technical debt? What are tech hiring managers actually looking for? And do you have to know how to code to get started in open source? I checked out the “Should Managers Code?” episode of Compiler, and I thought it was interesting how the hosts spoke with Red Hatters who are vocal about what role, if any, that managers should have in code bases—and why they often fight to keep their hands on keys for as long as they can. Listen to Compiler on Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you listen to podcasts. We'll also include a link in the show notes. Our thanks to Compiler for their support. CASEY: Earlier, you mentioned awareness, Kat as something interesting. You want to talk about awareness more as a term and how it relates to this? KAT: Oh, yeah. So I – and technically, my job title has security awareness in it, but the more I've worked in the security space doing employee security education stuff as part of all my job. I know language isn't perfect, but I'm kind of the mindset that awareness isn't a good capture of what a role like mine actually should be doing because awareness without behavior change, or action is just noise. It's just we're all very aware of things, but if we don't have an environment that's friendly to us putting that awareness into some kind of action, or engagement, or response, we are just aware and scared. [laughs] CASEY: Yeah, awareness alone just makes us feel bad. We need more than that. KAT: Yeah. So I think security awareness is sometimes just a product of a term that got standardized over several years as it's in all of the compliance control frameworks, security awareness is a part of it. I don't know it's the best practice thing. I hope over time it will continue to evolve. CASEY: Yeah. KAT: As with any other kind of domains. JOHN: Yeah. I think that maybe security motivation might be a better term for it. KAT: I've seen a bunch of different ones used. So I end up speaking in terms of, I don't know, security education and engagement is what I'm working on. Security culture is my vision. I've seen things like security awareness, behavior, and culture, ABC, things like that. But all this to say security awareness not being in a vacuum. CASEY: I like those. This reminds me of a framework I've been thinking about a lot and I use in some of my DEI workshops. AIDA is an acronym. A-I-D-A. The first one's Awareness, the last one is Action, and in the middle is Interest and Desire. KAT: Nice. CASEY: So the questions I use to frame is like, are they aware of, for example, if they're misgendering someone? That's the context I'm using this in a lot. Are they aware of this person's pronouns in the first place? Are they interested in caring about this person and do they want to do anything about it and did they do it? Did they use their proper pronouns? Did they correct their actions? It's like 4 stages – [overtalk] KAT: I like that. CASEY: AIDA. It's used in marketing a lot for like a sales funnel, but I apply it to all sorts of how do you get someone from aware to action? KAT: I like that a lot. It's been interesting working at a place that makes a product that's more in the sales and marketing space. Definitely learned a lot because a couple of previous roles I've had been with security vendors. I think one of the interesting ideas that was a new concept to me when I started was this idea of inbound marketing, where instead of just cold contacting people and telling them, “Be interested in us, be interested in us, buy our stuff,” you generate this reputation as being of good service by putting out useful free nuggets of content, like blog posts, webinars, and things. Then you get people who are interested based on them knowing that you've got this, that you offer a good perspective, and then they all their friend. They are satisfied customers, and they go promote it to people. I think about this as it applies to security teams and the services they provide, because even though corporate security teams are internal, they've still got internal customers. They've still got services that they provide for people. So by making sure that the security team is visible, accessible, and that the good services that they provide are known and you've got satisfied customers, they become promoters to the rest of their teams. Think about like security can definitely learn a lot from [chuckles] these sales and marketing models. CASEY: I can totally imagine the security team being the fun team, the one you want to go work with and do workshops with because they make it so engaging and you want to. You can afford to spend your time on this thing. [laughter] KAT: Oh yes. CASEY: You might do it. [laughter] JOHN: Yeah, and I think marketing's a great model for that. Marketing sort of has a bad reputation, I think amongst a lot of people because it's done badly and evilly by a lot of people. But it's certainly possible and I think inbound market is one of those ways that you're engaging, you're spreading awareness, you're letting people select themselves into your service, and bring their interest to you. If you can develop that kind of rapport with the employees at your company as a security team, everybody wins. KAT: Yeah, absolutely, and it can absolutely be done. When I was working at Duo a couple jobs ago, I was on their security operations team and we were responsible, among other things, for both, the employee security education and being the point of intake; being the people that our colleagues would reach out to with security concerns to security and it definitely could see those relationships pay off by being visible and being of good service. CASEY: So now I'm getting my product manager hat on, like team management. KAT: Yeah. CASEY: I will want to choose the right metrics for a security team that incentivizes letting this marketing kind of approach happen and being the fun team people want to reach out to have the bigger impact and probably the highest metric is like nobody gets a security breach. But that can't be the only one because maybe you'll have a lucky year and maybe you'll have an unlucky that's not the best one. What other metrics are you thinking of? KAT: That's the thing, there's a lot more that goes into not getting pwned than how aware of security people are. There's just way too many factors to that. But – [overtalk] CASEY: Yeah. I guess, I'm especially interested in the human ones, like how come – [overtalk] KAT: Oh, yeah. And I mean like – [overtalk] CASEY: The department allowed to do the things that would be effective, like incentivized and measured in a sense. KAT: Yeah, and I think a lot of security education metrics often have a bit of a longer tail, but I think about not – I don't really care so much about the click rates for internal phishing campaigns, because again, anyone can fall for a phish if it's crafted correctly enough. If it's subtle enough, or if just somebody's distracted, or having a bad day, which we never have. It's not like there's a pandemic, or anything. But for things that are sort of numbers wise, I think about how much are people engaging with security teams not just in terms of reporting suspicious emails, but how often are they reporting ones that aren't a phishing simulation? How much are they working with security teams when they're building new features and what's the impact of that baseline level before there's, I don't know, formal process for security reviews, code reviews, threat modeling stuff in place? What does that story look like over time for the product and for product security? So I think there's quite a bit of narrative data involved in security education metrics. JOHN: Yeah. I mean you could look at inbound interests, like how often are you consulted out of the blue by another team, or even of the materials you've produced, what's the engagement rates on that? I think that's a lower quality one, but I think inbound interest would be fantastic. CASEY: Yeah. KAT: Yeah, exactly. I was thinking to some degree about well, what kinds of vulnerabilities are you shipping in your code? Because I think there's never 100% secure code. But I think if you catch some of the low-hanging fruits earlier on, then sometimes you get an interesting picture of like, okay, security is being infused into the SDLC at all of these various Swiss cheese checkpoints. So think about that to some degree and that's often more of a process thing than a purely an education thing, but getting an education is an enhancer to all of these other parts of the security programs. JOHN: So in the topics for the show that you had suggested to us, one of the things that stood out to me was something you called dietary accessibility. So can you tell me a little bit more about what that means? KAT: So earlier in this year, in the middle of all of this pandemic ridiculousness, I got diagnosed with celiac disease. Fortunately, I guess, if there was a time to be diagnosed with that, it's I'm working remotely and nobody's going out to eat really. Oh, I should back up. I think a lot of people know what it is, but just in case, it's an autoimmune disorder where my body attacks itself when I eat gluten. I've described it in the past as my body thinks that gluten is a nation state adversary named fancy beer. [laughter] Ding, one more for the pun counter. I don't know how many we're up to now. [laughs] CASEY: I have a random story about a diet I had to do for a while for my health. I have irritable bowel syndrome in my family and that means we have to follow over really strict diet called the low FODMAP diet. If your tummy hurts a lot, it's something you might look into because it's underdiagnosed. That meant I couldn't have wheat, but not because I had celiac disease; I was not allergic to the protein in wheat flour. I was intolerant to the starch and wheat flour. So it would bother me a lot. People said, “Do you have celiac, or?” And I was like, “No, but I cannot have wheat because the doctor told me so, but no, it's not an allergy.” I don't know, my logical brain did not like that question. [laughter] That was an invalid question. No, it's not a preference. I prefer to eat bread, but I cannot, or it hurts my body according to my doctor. KAT: [chuckles] So you can't have the starch and I can't have the protein. So together, we can just – [overtalk] CASEY: Separate it! KAT: Split all of the wheat molecules in the world and eat that. [laughs] CASEY: That's fair. I literally made gluten-free bread with gluten. [laughs] I got all the gluten-free starches and then the gluten from the wheat and I didn't have the starch in the wheat and it did not upset my stomach. KAT: Oh man. JOHN: Yeah. I've got a dairy sensitivity, but it's not lactose. It's casein so it's the protein in the dairy. CASEY: Protein, uh huh. KAT: Oh, interesting. CASEY: I apologize on behalf of all the Casey. [laughter] Casey in. KAT: Who let Casey in? CASEY: Ding! KAT: Ding! No, but it's made me think a lot about as I was – first of all, it's just I didn't fully appreciate until I was going through it firsthand, the amount of cognitive overload that just goes into living with it every day. [laughs] Speaking of constant state of hypervigilance, it took a while for that to make it through – I don't know, me to operationalize to my new life that's going to be my reality for the [laughs] rest of my life now because it was just like, “Oh, can I eat this? Can I eat that?” All of that. Something that at least helped ease me out of this initial overwhelm and grieving period was tying some of the stuff that I was dealing with back to how would I do this in my – how would I approach this if this were a security education and security awareness kind of thing? CASEY: Oh, yeah. KAT: Because it's a new concept and it's a thing that is unfamiliar and not everyone is an expert in it. so I'm like, “How would I treat myself as the person who's not an expert in it yet?” I, again, tried to get myself back to some of those same concepts of okay, let's not get stuck in thud mode, let's think about what are some of the actual facts versus what's scaremongering. I don't need to know how much my risk of colon cancer is increased, because that's not how helpful for me to actually be able to go about my day. I need to know what are the gluten-free brands of chips? That's critical infrastructure. CASEY: I love this parallel. This is so cool. KAT: And so I thought about to – I've mentioned earlier, decision fatigue as a security issue. I thought about how can I reduce the decision fatigue and not get stuck just reading all the labels on foods and stuff? What are the shortcuts I can take? Some of those were like okay, let me learn to recognize the labels of what the labels mean of a certified gluten-free logo and also just eat a lot of things that would never have touch gluten to begin with, like plain and raw meat, plain potatoes, plain vegetables, things like that. So just anything to take the cognitive load down a little bit, because it was never going to be zero. It's interesting. Sometimes, I don't know, I have tons of different interests and I've always interested in people's perspective outside of security. A lot of that stuff influences the way I think about security, but sometimes the way I think about security also ends up influencing other stuff in my life, so. CASEY: Yeah. I think that's brilliant. Use – [overtalk] KAT: And interesting to connect with those. CASEY: The patterns and you're comfortable with, and apply them. KAT: Exactly. CASEY: A lot of really cool ideas come from technology. KAT: Yeah, and go for harm reduction, not nothing because we don't live in a gluten-free world. It's like I can try to make myself as safe as possible, but at some point, my gut may suffer a data breach and [laughs] when I do, should be blameless and just work on getting myself recovered and trying – [overtalk] JOHN: Yeah. I mean, thinking about it as a threat model. There's this gluten out there and some of it's obvious, some of it's not obvious. What am I putting in place so that I get that 95th percentile, or whatever it is that you can think of it that way? I like that. KAT: Exactly. It's an interesting tie to threat modeling how the same people – even if people have the same thing that they can't eat, they may still have a different threat model. They may, like how we both had to avoid wheat, but for different reasons and with different side effects, if we eat it and things like that. CASEY: I love these parallels. I imagine you went into some of these in that talk at DisInfoSec. Is that right? KAT: Yeah. A little bit. So DisInfoSec, it's a virtual conference in its second year of existence, specifically highlighting disabled speakers in the InfoSec community run by Kim Crawley, who's a blogger for Hack the Box. There was a really interesting lineup of talks this year. Some people, I think about half of them touched on neurodiversity and various aspects of security through lenses of being autistic and ADHD, which is really cool. For mine, I focused on those of us who have disability-related dietary restrictions and how that affects our life in the tech workplace, where compared to a lot of other places I've worked, there's a lot of free food on the company dime hanging around and there's a lot of use of food as a way to build connection and build community. CASEY: Yeah, and a lot of stuff, a lot of people can't eat. I'm with you, uh huh. KAT: Yeah. I just took stock of all of the times that I would take people up for lunch interviews, go out to dinner with colleagues when they're in town, all of these things. Like snacks in the office. Just there not being a bathroom on the same floor as me for multiple jobs where I worked. [laughs] Things like that. So I really wanted to – the thing that I wanted to highlight in that talk in general was systemic level accommodations to be made for people with be they celiac IBS, food allergies, diabetes rather than relying on people individually requesting accommodations. This universal design model where you've got to make sure that your workplace is by default set up to accommodate people with a wide range of disabilities including dietary needs and a lot of times it doesn't come down to even feeding them. It comes down to making sure their health insurance is good, making sure people can work remotely, making sure that – [overtalk] CASEY: Higher levels of Swiss cheese on that. They are various levels. KAT: Yeah, the levels of Swiss cheese. A lot of stuff cascades from lunch interviews, making sure that if you do them at all, that you're really flexible about them. JOHN: Yeah. I can definitely relate to the being able to work from home, which I've done for the last decade, or more, has been huge for being able to have a solid control of my diet. Because it's really easy to have all the right things around for lunch rather than oh, I've only got half an hour, I can run out to the sub shop and I'll just deal with the consequences. Because that's what's nearby versus, or trying to bring food into the office and keep it in the fridge, or the free – that's a whole mess. So just like you said, good health insurance, working from home, these are things that allow for all sorts of different disabilities to be taken care of so well that you don't – that's the base, that's table stakes to formatting kind of inclusion. KAT: Exactly, exactly. CASEY: Yeah. KAT: Exactly. Yeah, and I think what sometimes gets missed is that even there are other things that I need to – the ability to just sometimes lay down, the ability to be close to a bathroom, and things that are not food related, but definitely are my reality. [laughs] CASEY: And companies went out, too. By accommodating you, they get all of your expertise and skills and puns. In exchange for flexibility, they get puns. KAT: [laughs] And I still make puns about gluten, wheat, rye, and barley even though I can I eat them anymore. That will never go away. CASEY: They just keep rising. KAT: Wheat for it. Wait for it. [laughter] CASEY: Ding! KAT: That's just my wry sense of humor. CASEY: All right. We're getting near end of time for today. This point, let's talk about reflections and plugs. JOHN: I can go first. I think the thing that's definitely sticking with me is thinking about the internal teams relating to other internal teams at a company as a marketing issue. Security is obviously one where you need to have that relationship with pretty much every team. But I'm thinking all sorts of all the way around development, DevOps, tech QA. Everyone can think this way and probably gain something from it as a what are we presenting to the rest of the company, what is our interface, and how do we bring more things to it such that people like working with our interface a lot so that we have great relationships with the rest of the team? I think I'm going to keep thinking about that for a while. CASEY: I'll share a reflection. I liked noticing that those phish emails can cause harm to people—they can feel bad and then make them less receptive. I've always been a fan of them overall. But thinking about that impact, I might have even been the one to say that, but it was still surprising to me when that came out of my mouth. Say, oh yeah, it hurts people in a way, too. We don't have to have that painful experience to teach people. It can be done in a safer environment. I wonder what else we can do for training of things like that to make it more positive and less negative. I'm going to be thinking on that. KAT: Yeah. And I wrote down AIDA. Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action. Did I get that right? CASEY: Yeah. KAT: I'm definitely going to look into that. I think that's a great model for education of all kinds. CASEY: Yeah. If you want to go even deeper, there's like 6 and 7 tier models on the Wikipedia page links to a bunch of them. That's just the most common. KAT: Awesome. CASEY: For plugs, I just want to plug some homework for you all. Everyone listening, there's this Unconscious Bias Training That Works article that I've mentioned twice now. I hope you get to read that. And I guess, the AIDA – It'll be in the show notes for sure. And then the Wikipedia page for AIDA marketing just so you have a spot to look it up, if you forget about it. Try to apply that to situations, that's your homework. KAT: I think something I plugged on Twitter quite a bit over the years and a lot when we were talking about the language that we use earlier, I'm a huge fan of the Responsible Communication Style Guide, which was put out by the Recompiler, which is a feminist activist hacker publication. So they've got guides on words to avoid, words to use instead for when talking about race, gender, class, health, disability status. It's written for a tech audience and I really like that as a resource for using inclusive language. JOHN: Yeah. It's great stuff. CASEY: I love it. All right, thanks so much for are coming on our show today, Kat. Special Guest: Kat Sweet.