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This Manager Minute episode spotlights how the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind and MassAbility are leveraging AI to improve service delivery. Host Carol Pankow discusses innovative AI applications with guests Lola Akinlapa, Nathan Skrocki, and John Oliveira. They explore an AI-assisted intake platform designed to streamline processes, enhance multilingual support, and enable faster access to services. The conversation also highlights AI-powered tools like policy lookup systems and data visualization platforms like Tableau. Emphasizing accessibility and transparency, the episode showcases AI's potential to alleviate administrative bottlenecks, support staff, and empower consumers while preserving the human touch in service delivery.   Listen Here   Full Transcript:   {Music} John: We were looking for items that might be helpful to our staff. As many of our veteran counselors move on to retirement, it became imperative that we find a way that the newer counselors could find access to information quickly.   Lola: We're not looking to reduce workforce. We're not looking to reduce your day to day operations, right. We're looking to streamline and to make the consumer's journey at MassAbility more accessible to them.   Nate: What we're doing is just enhancing and streamlining the process to better understand and strengthen their policy knowledge, to make their jobs a little bit easier.   Intro Voice: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow.   Carol: Well, welcome to the manager minute. Today joining me in the studio is Lola Akinlapa, director of strategic initiatives in Massachusetts. Nathan Skrocki, Policy director at the Massachusetts Commission for the blind. And John Oliveira, Commissioner for the Mass Commission for the blind. So how goes it, Lola?   Lola: Oh, everything is good. Thank you for having me, Carol. I think this is a really great forum to kind of spread the word on what we've been doing at the state of Massachusetts.   Carol: Excellent. How about you, Nate? How are you doing today?   Nate: Happy new year. Doing well. Glad to be here. Thank you.   Carol: Excellent. And last but not least, John, how is it? How are things? You got a new role.   John: Everything is great. A very cold day today, but we'll get through it. Uh, it's close to zero wind chill. So very cold day here.   Carol: Ah, it's like you guys are in Minnesota...   John: Yeah, I think so.   Carol:  Joining Jeff and I...   John: I think so.   Carol: Yeah. We were three below today. It was fabulous. Well I'm super excited about our topic. So artificial intelligence, although it's really not a new concept, it's gained significant attention in the recent years and the field of AI research was officially established during a workshop at Dartmouth College in 1956, where researchers optimistically predicted that human level intelligence machines would be achieved within a generation. However, it became clear the challenge was really greater than anticipated. But today, you know, we have AI everywhere seamlessly integrated into our life. You know, we've got Siri and Alexa. I rely on them all the time to your biometric scanning at the airports and the list goes on. And I had the good fortune to find out that Massachusetts is really standing out as a state that has embraced the broad implementation of AI and incorporating it extensively across various aspects of daily life and governance. So I want to dig in and learn some more from you guys. So I'd like to start out because our listeners like to get a little insight into all of you. If you could tell us about yourself and your role. And for our my two friends from the Blind agency a little bit. How you got into VR? And Lola, I'm going to start with you first.   Lola: Thank you, Carol. So a little bit about myself, as you mentioned, Lola Akinlapa, I am Director of Strategic Initiatives at now, formerly what used to be the Mass Rehab Commission and now known as MassAbility. I came into the agency back in 2014. I actually started in research and development, doing a lot of the analytic work. I actually was voluntold, I would say, to assist in a new project that we were implementing. It was a statewide case management system for our different divisions at MassAbility. Through that process, I was able to kind of take a step back to say, well, what do we need at this agency to push us toward the future?   Carol: Yeah, Lola, it is great being voluntold, because that leads to some of the best things when you're working on different things. So, Nate, how about you? How did you land at Mass Commission for the Blind?   Nate: I landed at MCB about eight years ago. At this point. I've been a manager within state government for many years and ended up at MCB. Hopefully this is where I'll be staying for many more years. I really like the mission of MCB and the work that we do as an agency to provide services to residents of Massachusetts.   Carol: Good stuff, good stuff. And John, you've switched roles, so I've known you for a while. But tell our listeners a little bit about yourself.   John: All right. Carol, I've been with the agency for, wow, 37 years.   Carol: Oh my gosh.   John: And started out in services and worked with the senior staff, senior consumers, and was in vocational rehab for a while, worked as director of staff development and training for a while. I headed up the assistive technology program for a while. I was deputy commissioner for something like 12 years, oversaw the programs, and I've been commissioner now for a year and a half.   Carol: Good for you. Well, sure good to see you again. So in the fall, I had the had the chance to attend an AI convening with Tony Wolf, who is the MassAbility Commissioner. And Tony was mentioning she kept talking about all these really cool things happening in Massachusetts. And I just I needed to learn more. So now, Lola, like, how is MassAbility moving in this AI space? And I know you're doing some things that are helping the consumer experience be quicker and easier. What's that look like?   Lola: Oh my God. It's been quite a journey to say the least. At our agency, we as many other agencies identified bottlenecks, identified issues with maybe the bureaucratic side of things where it takes longer to get someone from point A to point B. It was through, actually, our centralized intake unit where we discovered there's area for improvement here. And that area of improvement could be resolved through an assisted intake form. So at MassAbility, we're developing an AI assisted intake platform that's meant to support our staff at MassAbility, who are doing the intakes to allow them to have more leeway on doing what's more important to the work, which is getting our folks to the services they need. Through this intake form, we're actually removing the repetitive task. We're looking at some speech to text technology and then also some guided workflows. And we're also able to get multilingual support. And through the intake, it's meant to guide a lot of our consumers to feel a little bit more empowered to get from I'm stuck here, how do I get services that I need, whether I'm going to work or looking to live or transition into the community, instead of waiting months before someone can speak to you to get you through the process.   In this platform, we're actually able to allow our staff to have more time to be dedicated to more personalized interactions with our clients. So it's been a journey to kind of develop what that roadmap looks like. But we are super excited about this. We actually will be going live early this year through our MassAbility site, through our consumer portal, where it will be housed, and individuals will be able to go in, log in and fill out the form, and the form would guide them through the entire process without human interaction. And for us, I think it's really important to take a step back and really understand the purpose of this. Right. It's not to remove the individual from their work, right. It's to make some processes a little bit more streamlined, but then have our staff, our counselors, our case managers be able to focus on more of the human interaction. It's been quite a journey for us, to say the least.   Carol: So, Lola, are you working on that with your own state IT folk or who kind of is helping you mastermind all this?   Lola: So this is in collaboration with our IT folks at Executive Office of Technology. Also, we're working with a contractor who's been helping us build this platform out. They've been super great. It's been a very collaborative effort across the board. I would even have to throw in Microsoft because there's some work that they're assisting us doing, and it's been a team effort to get it to where it is today. And we're actually very proud of what we've done in such a short period of time.   Carol: Very cool, I like it. I know Lola, you had talked to me too, you were interested in doing something kind of in this data realm because I know data isn't cool always. But you were trying to do some stuff with Tableau and AI. So what does that look like?   Lola: Tableau. For folks that don't know, it's a visual data tool that we've been using at MassAbility for a little bit over four years now. The really cool thing about technology is as the years go on, the tools get better. Tableau was another way that we were using to kind of drive our data decision making at the agency. You know, things that are really core to the MassAbility beliefs in our missions. With Tableau, we're able to have a chatbot, and the chatbot would be utilized something similar like ChatGPT, where you could say, show me how many individuals are getting X services, or show me how many individuals are served in certain parts of the region. Right?   Carol: Yeah.   Lola: very cool things like that where you don't have to be a data analyst or a data science...   Carol: right.   Lola: to use Tableau. It kind of makes it more user friendly and at your fingertips. I think of it like on demand data. So that's something that we've been looking at that is in collaboration with an initiative that we have over at Northeastern. And we've submitted a proposal for that. So we haven't started, but we're looking forward to some of the cool and innovative things, because I think many state agencies will agree. Data is really, really interesting to look at, especially when you're looking to tell a story, when you're looking to improve just the overall outcomes of your agency, depending on what you're looking to achieve. So it's really been something great that we're looking forward to getting started. And then also on the back end, kind of showing and empowering our own staff as to what this data means, right? Because not everyone is a data scientist. Not everyone enjoys. It's a very dry subject, but I think this is a way to keep folks engaged in terms of what's really going on at the agency, and it kind of tells a story without having to truly understand the data to tell the story.   Carol: I love that. I think you'll find if you guys can make that all happen, there's going to be a lot of folks across the country that are going to be super interested in that piece because data has been so critical, especially as WIOA passed, and we're looking at so much more of the data and what really is happening for individuals with disabilities and getting into employment. And so I feel like sometimes we're data rich, but we're analysis poor. And people are like, I don't know what all this means. You get a little bit overwhelmed by the data. So I think that would be great for people to be able to do the old ChatGPT kind of thing and just ask a question and get the answer.   Lola: Absolutely.   Carol: I love that, that's very cool. So when you look at AI, there really has been considerable impact, too, for individuals who are blind and visually impaired. And Nathan and John, I mean, what are you guys seeing with the customers you serve? Just in general, when you think about AI and the work you're doing now?   John: Well, obviously in the assistive technology field, there's always been a lot of talk about incorporating AI to serve consumers. And over the past 4 or 5 years, many of the wearables have become very popular. And every year when you see these items, they get better and better. And that's benefiting a lot of our consumers tremendously. I'm sure that you've all heard about the meta glasses. Tremendous assistance for our consumers. You put on this pair of glasses, you can take pictures of the environment you're walking through. You can use it with description services such as Aira and Be My Eyes. And it works great for someone who doesn't know the area. For someone who's trying to do some work and needs to access print immediately, a great way to do this. Many other things are coming down the pipeline, but we were looking for items that might be helpful to our staff. As many of our veteran counselors move on to retirement, it became imperative that we find a way that the newer counselors could find access to information quickly. We do the trainings the usual way, but that takes quite a bit of time. And if you have questions and you want answers right away, we were looking for a solution and we came across this solution in Outlook Insight. I read about it somewhere, I called them, I spoke to an individual at the company and we agreed that we would meet at the NCSAB Conference. And I turned them on to Nate and his policy team. And he can give you more of the story about that journey going forward here.   Carol: So what do you know, Nate?   Nate: Thanks, John.   Carol: John is the idea guy and he's like, Nate, go do the thing.   Nate: And it works out great. So what we did was we connected with Outlook Insight, and we wanted a tool that would allow kind of a quick reference lookup for our case managers. So it could be that they have questions themselves and the policy or procedures. And making sure a case is executed properly or consumer may have a question and they want a quick reference for that. So what we did with Outlook Insight is develop a tool that takes all of our internal policies and all of the other policies that govern us, and kind of housed it all in one place and very similar to ChatGPT or some of these other AIs out there. You can ask it a question and it will provide a response. And when it provides a response, we have the ability to really take a look at where it's coming from. So it will include all the resources that it's pulling from with the response. So it will cite the documentation. So it might be some direction from RSA or some of our internal policies or another piece of policy that is out there, another piece of guidance that is out there. And it will cite that particular piece of policy where it's coming from. You can click on it. When you click on it, it will bring that policy up and you can read further, but it will also provide that response. So if you ask it what form is needed at this step of a case procedure, it will bring up what form is needed. Bring up the form and you can go from there.   Carol: Nice. So where are you at in the process with this rolling out?   Nate: We have rolled it out to some staff. It's not officially rolled out yet as an agency. It's something we're still testing. But we did roll it out to some staff to test to really kind of understand what they're using it for. Another piece of it is we're allowed to add tiles to this particular system. We can create these buttons or tiles above the search bar that will have preloaded questions. So say a consumer is going to college and we you know we might have a button that has the question on it. What is college reimbursement for a student at MCB. You can click on that and we'll bring up all the information about what's appropriate for college reimbursement, how much that college investment can be, so on and so forth. We wanted to get an idea of what people were asking it. We wanted to get an idea of what they're using it for, so we can kind of load in those different tiles on the top as well. And as we go through certain cycles in case management, those will change over the year, in the future when we do roll this out. And we also just were curious on what people were looking up for quick reference. And people are using it. It is a very good tool. It's been helpful for us in the policy unit. We're not getting as many questions for people that are using it, because they're going to that first to see if they can look up the policies on their own and get a response on their own. We do caution people though, because it is AI, so sometimes it does not provide the full picture. I guess is the best way to put it. It might give a partial answer. We haven't seen where it's giving any wrong answers yet, but sometimes it doesn't fill in the whole picture. So that's why we include the policies with the response, because people can go in and search further within that policy if they need to formulate a decision a little bit better.   Carol: Yeah, you bring up a really good point. You always have to trust but verify, even ChatGPT you throw something in there. And I use it a lot because it's super helpful and it'll be going along. It's really great. It gives this response and then you have some kind of wacky line comes in there and you go, I don't really know where that came from, but that isn't right. So you can't just turn it all over to the bot. You still have to use your own kind of critical thinking skills and take a look to apply it.   Nate: For sure. The advantage that we have, as opposed to like an open source AI, is we control what goes in and out of where it's pulling from. So we're the ones putting the policies in. Or as Lola had mentioned before, if you want statistics or something like that, you can put it in a document with certain statistics and it can pull from that. But we control everything in there. So it's not pulling from this open source where it might recognize something as helpful, but it really isn't. It's everything in there. We've kind of vetted and we understand it's something that is needed by the agency.   Lola: Absolutely. And just to Nathan's point, open source, we're talking about like Google, you know, you can get millions of results back and very true at MassAibility. Similarly, we obviously have regulations that we're following with RSA. And there are things that we have to control just to make sure the language is correct. So we're putting in what needs to be said at the bot kind of just follows that logic. So that's kind of the nice thing where you can still have that control, even if it is kind of AI, but it's still guarded. It's not as loose as just an open source would be.   Carol: Yeah, absolutely. It's a great point, Lola. And I know for the both of you, you know you're doing things that are impacting the staff. So staff can definitely have a reaction to this. Sometimes positive, sometimes not. Like we're all super excited. I see your smiling faces like, yay, we're doing the thing. And then they're like, you know, people feel like back what I was saying in the beginning, like, we're going to replace everybody with robots or something. And so staff can get concerned. So I'm going to kick this to you first, Lola, what's been kind of the response from staff about the things that you guys are trying to do?   Lola: Well, I'm very fortunate to work at an agency where folks are very open minded. Change is a little different, but we're very open minded at MassAbility. I think it's all about the messaging and the purpose on why we're doing certain things right. For sure. There are people that are going to have, you know, pros and cons about it, but I think how we message it is we're not looking to reduce workforce...   Carol: right.   Lola: We're not looking to reduce your day to day operations, right? We're looking to streamline and to make the consumer's Consumers journey at MassAbility more accessible to them. The option that we have right now and how we've messaged it to staff is it's an option, right? We're not removing the human aspect of it, but it's an option for individuals who are in certain circumstances that need to get something done a little bit faster, right? It takes a little bit longer to talk to individuals, but if it's something that they feel like, you know, I'm just going in and I'm looking for a job, I know everything I need to have. This is another outlet that they can use where the system itself is like, I'm not a person, but I can guide you like an individual, right? At the end of it, you will be meeting with a person. You will have that personalized experience, that interaction, but mostly for the admin and the data entry, right? We can repurpose that. We can shift that burden to some of the tools that we have available to us, like the AI assisted intake form. So that's really the messaging behind it, right? The messaging is not to impact staff. It's not to scare staff.   Carol: Right.   Lola: But it's more to help think of allowing people to have different options to come into the agency that aren't so impactful or don't feel like a bottleneck.   Carol: Yeah, I love that. I love that point. How about you guys, Nate or John? Have you seen any initial responses from staff, maybe different than you thought or how has it been going?   Nate: I think for us it's a little bit different too, because we're providing human services, so we're not replacing that in any way with an AI tool. We're not going to be replacing us, going out and sitting with a consumer and meeting them where they're at and providing the services that they need to be successful. What we're doing is really just enhancing and, like Lola said, streamlining the process to better understand and strengthen their policy knowledge to make their jobs a little bit easier. We haven't really explored any type of AI that would help with case management work or anything like that, and it's really tough because like I said, in the human service field and in Lola can probably also agree with this. Every consumer is so different. We're meeting with them a lot of times in person, especially at our agency, and providing the services that they need. A lot of it's hands on services, something that we're not going to be able to do with AI. What we're really looking at is how do we enhance their ability to provide and streamline services and make the experience better for the consumers and for our workers. And that's what we've done with this first policy tool. And I think it's been successful. I don't know if you have anything to add there, John.   John: Yeah, we're supporting the staff at this point. So it's not that we're trying to take staff out of the process. We're making it easier for you to do your job and for you to answer questions that you may have about the process of moving the client through the system, or even questions that a consumer may ask you, and you can explain to them. And if you're missing any of that data, you can pull it up on your laptop. And that tool is always with you. You can ask it at that point, or you can refer to other resources we have on that machine. So you could certainly help them get the information they need faster and help yourself process the information they've given you faster.   Carol: Well, having done technical assistance for years with state agencies, and I see the hundreds of pages in all your policy manuals and all this craziness, I'm sure staff will greatly appreciate anything that streamlines some of that work that they have to do, and all the things they have to retain. And you've got your policy and your procedure and your desk and your 14 other directions. It's a lot. I mean, it's a lot to keep track of, as well as just paying attention to the individual that's sitting before you. And so I think anything you can do to streamline that is great. I'm wondering if you all have other ideas. I know Lola, when I talked to you before, you are full of lots of thoughts. Do you have any next steps for accessibility that you're thinking about?   Lola: I have a couple of next steps right now. I have to rein myself in. We're for sure right now really focused on getting our automated intake form out. We're at the tail end of testing and everything has been looking great on the up and up. So we've been really trying to get our messaging around what that looks like, especially to our constituents that are looking for services. So folks just understand the purpose, the why and how we're trying to make this a little bit better. I'm hoping eventually one day I can take this to phase two where the eligibility pieces may come into play, but we're not there yet. Right. We're taking baby steps.   Carol: Yeah.   Lola: I'm really excited we've gotten this far. I know Nathan and I have had conversations a few months back about looking at something similar to what they're doing with the policy, because we have our own policies, right, that are kind of everywhere. They need to be updated and staff need to reference them or individuals are looking for them. So I think definitely what MCB has been doing has been in the back of our minds a little bit. But like we said, we're taking baby steps and hopefully we can get there. But I think across the board, these are all great initiatives.   Carol: Yeah, absolutely. How about you Nate and John are you guys looking at, you thinking a 2.0 on anything or some other areas you'd like to dabble in with AI?   Nate: I think it's rolling this out first and kind of once we get this completely rolled out to staff and kind of understand how well it's working, I think we can take those next steps. We're always keeping our finger on the pulse of technology and how it's advancing, and if it can assist us in any way, and we'll continue to do that. I think an interesting, it kind of fits in with AI is, you know, one of the biggest barriers for our consumers is transportation. And as far as AI goes, one of the big conversations in that community is automated cars and those type of things. And we have in the past provided some input about automation. And when they're creating those type of things for transportation, how to think about how it would benefit people with disabilities and those type of things. It's a long way off, but it's something interesting and something I personally get asked about a lot when I'm out speaking in different areas is, where is that? You know how close that is?   Carol: Yeah.   Nate: That's nothing we'll ever do as an agency. We're never going to be providing, you know, services. But we have provided some just some input in the past on that. But as far as like case management and service to consumers and those type of things, like Lola says, eligibility is something that's very interesting. If there's something that can help with that, it's for different programs within our agency. You know, when you're coming to MCB, we're a little bit different than MassAbility. By law, you have to be registered with us if you reach the threshold of legal blindness in Massachusetts. So you're registered with us. It's the law. But depending on what services you're receiving and what programs you're in and those type of things and maybe something interesting to look at in the future.   Carol: Yeah, definitely. Blind agencies have a lot of moving parts and pieces. So how about any advice you all might have for states that are starting to think about this? Because states are in all different, you know, places and people are kind of, their administrations. Some are very proactive, some are not. Do you have any advice, as you've been working through these projects that might help other people that are starting to dabble? Lola, I'll kick that to you first.   Lola: Yeah, I think that's all dependent just on where you are as a state agency, right? It's taken us a while to come to the realization, like, maybe there's something more we can do to kind of help the process that we're in. And it just so happened some of the things that we've identified as pain points, it looks like AI and technology would really help alleviate. And I'm not going to say remove because we're always going to have issues, but it would help alleviate some of those pain points. I think one of the things that would be insightful for folks to know, and just because the disability community loves the community, it's just when it comes to technology, we have to be very careful, right? We need to be mindful of some of the biases that come along with that. We need to make sure that the accessibility is actually accessible. It's usable, right? To Nathan's point, we serve various consumers ranging from different types of disability. And I think sometimes that gets lost in the conversation because we're so much let's get it to the next level and let's make it work for us and automate it. And I think we forget to take a step back and remember who we're doing it for, right? We're doing it for the folks that maybe don't have mobility, the folks that can't always read or have low vision, or the deaf or hard of hearing individuals. We really try to make this form all about the people. So I think as agencies are probably trying to embark on technology, those are some of the things that they might want to keep in mind. And it depends just where you are in the process. Just it was great timing for us, and I'm sure Nathan would agree. It was probably great timing for his agency to start some of the discovery process around how we can utilize AI.   Carol: Good advice. John, do you have anything you want to add?   John: Yeah. When you're going down this road, be prepared that you understand the process that your state has, because there's many other departments that come in and want to take a look at what you're doing and ask for a lot of different documentation. And so that all has to be done before any product can be deployed. And depending how bureaucratic the state is, it can be different. A large state might have a whole bunch of departments Moving in and wanting to take a look in a smaller state may not be as complicated or as cumbersome process as it can be. So just be aware. Once you understand the idea and you think of a potential product, make sure that you've understood all the steps you have to do at the state level to be able to deploy that product and not have it pulled when you're halfway through, or you've spent money on development so that it gets scrapped in the development stage. So just be very aware of how to get that process through the state.   Carol: Yeah, that's  very good advice. Nate you get the last word on this.   Nate: Patience. For a lot of reasons and pointing at both what Lola and Commissioner Olivera talked about here. You got to have patience to go through the process. But you also have to have patience to make sure that it is accessible. Here at MCB, we obviously have a myriad of different folks using it and with different abilities and ways that they approach the system. We got to make sure it works for all those different ways. And that wasn't easy either, but more so for the process. It's a long process. We're still in the middle of that process, but it's worth it. I do want to say that have the patience, but it is definitely worth it. AI is extraordinarily able to just provide a way to save time. You know, a question that may come up to us where we research a question, decide on what the answer is, reach back out to a worker, give them the answer and they go to a consumer. Give them the answer. It could be days. This is seconds. The time that it saves. And maybe even if you, depending on how it's deployed, the cost it could save in the long run. It's extraordinary and worth the time put in.   Carol: I love that you would mention that. There used to be something that I compared every year that came out from RSA, and I'd compare to the previous year, and so I'd always look at, you know, I'd do this side by side, kind of mark up what all change, what language changed. And it used to take me hours, you know, just to look through the document. Now I send it through a tool and literally in a minute it highlights everything that changed from one year to the next. I'm like, boom, done. You have it. People always are asking us questions as a TA provider, and I'm like able to immediately tell them what change they're like. How'd you do that analysis so fast? Well, I used my friend, you know, an AI tool that was able to do it. It really is an amazing Time saver. So how can our listeners find you guys? Could you leave us with like, an email address or something? Lola, would you mind saying your email address for the listeners in case somebody wants to reach out to what you're doing there?   Lola: Yeah, absolutely. I can be reached at Oluwafunke.Akinlapa@mass.gov. The spelling is o l u w a f u n k e dot a k I n l a p a at mass.gov.   Carol: Oh that's great. And then Nate or  John, do you both want to give your email or who's the contact there.   Nate: It's Nathan.w. Skrocki@mass.gov and I'll spell that out. It's n a t h a n dot w dot s k r o c k I at mass.gov.   Carol: Oh, that is awesome you guys! I really am looking forward to seeing your stuff roll out. You need to give me an update. I am super happy about this. In fact, we were having an AI conversation the other day on our GW team and I said, hey, I'm doing a podcast this week and they're like, you got to give us the names of the people, because some folks are working on something, they like, they're gathering up information from across the country. So I said I'd be happy to share. So thanks so much. And please do keep in touch. I wish you the very best with your projects.   Lola: Awesome. Thank you Carol.   John: Thank you Carol.   Nate: Thanks.   {Music} Outro Voice: Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time, brought to you by the VR TAC for Quality Management. Catch all of our podcast episodes by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening!

This is part 2 of my interview with John S Pennington Jr.  Make sure to listen to Part 1 first. Allen   It seems like I mean, because all the stuff you're mentioning, you know, Ray Dalio in his books, he talks about it too, you know, like, how does one Empire take over from another one? And it's because of the the currency, it's because of you know, and he's been talking about it for a while that there's a collision course coming. And everybody's afraid of it. You know, I mean, I'm even afraid of it. Because if we go to war in 10 years from now, you know, I have two boys that are 13 and 11, they're probably going to be drafted because everybody in the United States is overweight, and they can't fight it. So there's got to be some, right? There's gonna be some serious problem with the Army not having enough people. So my kids are gonna be fighting in a war. I don't want them fighting in and like, everybody's freaking out about it. And like you said, you know, China, they brokered the deal. They're making friends in the Middle East. They're making friends in Africa. They're giving loans like you said, US gave loans to everybody. They gave loans in trillions of dollars, not even billions, but I think it was trillions of worth of loans to build infrastructure in Africa that is then maintained owned and run by Chinese. It's not run by the Africans, the Chinese are in charge of it, the Silk Road Project that they built those highways all the way from China all the way to the, you know, the Mediterranean. I mean, yeah, they've been doing it crazy. And so it seems like everything that you're saying it lines up. And it's like, now that we see John   last year in the last year and a half, while the last few months, India has stopped on some level, not all the way stopped buying Russian oil. They just read some reports this last month that they have, they have curbed their Russian oil purchases. Really. Okay. Now, I don't know exactly why. But I do know, there's tons of companies that have moved from China, to South Korea, Thailand, and India. And I believe India is now choosing Wait a minute, we want to be in good graces with the United States because that's where we're going to suck up all those jobs on China. They're going to come to India. Right. And I think India's Modi, President Modi over there is making a strategic move to go with you know, the US dollar and to do that he's got to appease the the United States by saying you know what, Russia, we even though your oil is cheaper, doesn't matter. We're gonna go with US dollar purchases for oil. That Allen   could be because China is also having territorial disputes now with India over certain areas. It's funny because we have a an oil Options program where we train, we do coaching on oil options, and we you could see it in the news play out when Russia was putting all their tanks on the border of Ukraine, you know, everybody knew it, they're coming in, they're going to invade and everybody was like, when is it gonna happen? When is it gonna happen? I told her, I'll tell all my traders it's like, you know, just wait. It's not going to happen until the Olympics are open. Olympics are over because the Olympics are in China is like they have the closing ceremonies, like four hours later, boom, there's an invasion. It's like, okay, now we can play it now. It's, you know, it's, yeah, he was insane. So now you said, now I'm trying to figure out like, okay, alright, how can I make money off of this? Right. So it's like you said that Russia and China are still buying gold. So is that? Is that an investment that's going to continue to ramp up because I think gold is at all time highs right now? John   Yeah, it's all time high. Silver is kind of trying to get up there. But Silver's having a tough time. So let's go to Okay, let's go to the summer of 2020. All right, summer 2020. The SEC, which is part of the team, you have the team, you know, US dollar, the SEC sues JP Morgan. What are they suing him for? They're suing him for manipulating the precious metals market for nine years. Silver gold, okay. And they lose, JPMorgan loses and they're fined almost a billion dollars a billion dollar fine for nine years and mutilation the SEC. Okay. The point is, JP Morgan figured out how to manipulate and control a market that's 30 times bigger than Bitcoin. Gold and silver and gold for nine years. And they finally SEC found out about it pseudonym wins, finds you billion dollars, but guess what, no one that I know of went to jail. Allen   I mean, it wasn't that big in the news, they get headlines, John   kind of kept quiet, right. So millions of people that buy and sell silver and gold were fleeced out of how know how many much money but no one goes to jail. But you just find they probably made 20 billion but they're only find a billion it was it was 930 million, but I rounded a billion because we talked about a billion seconds earlier. Right? Okay, so nine 30 million, but close to a billion dollars. All right. So my theory in my book that I explain is you have precious metals market that have been manipulated through using futures and all kinds of different manipulations. And a year from there, now you're in summer of 2021. Bitcoin is trading around $31,000. This is July. Okay. So August, September, October, November, four months later, Bitcoin hits all time high $69,000. My theory is that the Federal Reserve, US government viewed Bitcoin as a competitor possible to the US dollar. And so they took the playbook that they learned from JP Morgan, and I think they had JP Morgan personnel help them do it right. Clandestine to control try to control Bitcoin. And that's why it went from 31,000 to 16,000 in a four, three and a half month period of time. So November it hits $69,000. And so how are the way that you control Bitcoin? Well, one JP Morgan used a futures market. Okay, now what I'm about to tell you all these things that I'm gonna tell you happen in November 2021. Okay, one bitcoin hits all time high. Number two, the SEC approves a Bitcoin ETF not I first bought only four futures right and they denied grayscale the spot one Why would you approve one for futures and not one for spot doesn't make any sense. So that happened November also, also November and Allen   hold that for people who are listening to spot means the current price futures means prices in advance. So the actual the actual Bitcoin John   not a Hypothecation the actual non derivative, the actual Bitcoin, right? So the SEC says no you can't you can't operate, we're not gonna allow you to operate a ETF that actually buys Bitcoin, we're only going to allow this other company, an ETF that actually buys futures on contracts, right just contracts, which is the what the way JP Morgan was one of the ways they were able to manipulate the silver and gold market for nine years. Okay, that's the third thing that happened in November, the SEC extends their lawsuit against a ripple XRP coin. Why XRP from the nanosecond XRP was invented. Its one goal was what to do to circumvent the SWIFT system, which would decrease the demand for US dollars. So the SEC extends the EC the lawsuit for no apparent reason. And they just kind of lost it. They lost the SEC last last summer, and then they appealed. So they're this lawsuit still going on against XRP? Okay, a former thing that happened in this month, in November, Hillary Clinton came out and said, Bitcoin could damage the US dollars, reserve world currency. Now, again, back to probabilities and predictions, you can say she just went to a microphone and just talking. That's you can believe that, or what's the is that a probability high probability? Or is the probability that she had been privy to previous meetings months earlier, that the Federal Reserve was going to try to pinch Bitcoin control, they don't want to kill it, they just want to control it. And so she got in front of microphone, which she loves to do to tell all her memes. Hey, listen to me, I always know the truth. I always give you the truth. Guess what the Bitcoin could take over the US currency, which is our number one product and why so he's she's sending a coded message, maybe? Maybe not. But the probability, I think the probability is high that she had some information that the government was using a clandestine approach to try to control Bitcoin, Allen   because she was a congresswoman and she was sitting on committees and all that, yes, yes. John   One other way you can control a traded commodity or traded stock or whatever or bitcoin is if you can get 45 to 60 days of trading volume, meaning if if bitcoin trades 100 coins a day, you would need 4500 coins. If it trades 1000 coins a day, you would need 45,000 coins are 60,000 coins. This is what how you do it. So let's just say hypothetically, that from July 2021 to November 2021, the Federal Reserve had to obtain 45 days of trading bonds 66 days trading bond that means they have to buy bitcoin. They're buying Bitcoin buying Bitcoin buying Bitcoin buying Bitcoin buying Bitcoin, that means the price is going up, up, up, up up. Once they have 45 or six days of trading volume, they take their 45 Day Trading bond, and they stick it at six $9,000. And they put it there for sale, all this at a limit price 60,000 or so we start buying you buy I buy we're buying. And then we keep hitting 69 69,006 96 Night Out signal, there's a ceiling, there's a price ceiling, the ceiling, and we can see it and we go Wait, there's a big seller at 16,000 or so mean, you start selling. So we start selling everyone starts selling and it goes down to 68,000. Guess who's buying at 60,000 The Federal Reserve, they're replenishing their 60 day supply or 45 day supply of trading volume. So that mean you go Wait, there's a buyer at 68,000 and we start buying again. And it goes to 68,000. They don't let it go to 69 because that would be a bullish chart, right? They can have a they can have a higher high. They can have a lower high and they put their 45 day trading volume boom right there as 68,800 and they start selling and same thing happens. We sell and it goes down. That's one way you can control a market right now. So lately as we know, Bitcoin has hit a new all time high. Yeah. And so maybe maybe what happened was, this is there's another hypothesis. Maybe they realized they alone couldn't do it. Okay. So last summer, the SEC basically told 11 companies Listen, we're going to approve 11 companies all at the same time to try A Bitcoin spot and ETF spot so they approved 11 ETFs to trade Bitcoin spot. Now, what I think happened in October, Bitcoin was trading 31,000 27,000 31,000 31,000 27,000 27,000 If Gessner of the head of the SEC told them Hey, guess what we're going to do? In a few months we're going to let you guys start trading Bitcoin what you guys should do is buy a Bitcoin to control the market. So Bitcoin went from 27,000 to sweat 72,000 Something like that. Right? Yeah, today, but I'm saying I'm saying on January I think was January 11. Okay, all the Bitcoin went up 11 Bitcoin went alive, right? Okay. Now think about what just happened on January 11. There are record number of buying a Bitcoin record number. And in 11, or 12 days, it goes from, from where it's at down to $39,000. Why there's a record number of buyers, it should go up. But wait, if all the ETFs bought at 31,000, knee ETFs, bought at 32,000 35,000 42,000 If they were buying it, so that when the ETFs went live, they could sell it to you. That's why the price went down. There's no other there's no other explanation. Because if they had bought zero, when a record numbers came in to buy bitcoin, they would have to take your US dollars and go buy Bitcoin that would go up, the way it goes down. It went down like 18% in 11 days with record inflows, that means that I believe BlackRock and all the other 1011 ETFs are in on the game of manipulation of Bitcoin, right? And so this is back to my theory that no matter what it is, if it's the yuan, or if it's gold, if it's Bitcoin, and it and it has the potential of damaging the number one product of all time, the Federal Reserve, the US Navy, the president, the SEC, the IRS, even the CIA, that's their number one job. Now, a lot of times Congress forgets their number one job. Allen   I was gonna ask you about that, too. I was like Congress get the memo. Because yeah, John   they don't get it. But but but people criticize. Powell had the federal they criticized him all the time. I don't. I think he's doing a great job. Listen, if we went back in time, okay, we'll go back in time, Alan, we're going back to 30 years, okay. 30 years ago, I said, you're going to be the head of the Federal Reserve. Okay. And I'm going to be Congress, right? Your job is to protect and promote the US dollar. And all I do that Congress, I spend trillion, I spend a trillion, I spend a trillion, I spend a trillion, I spend a trillion. And I say to you, hey, figure out how to pay for it. Right? So you can criticize Powell all you want. But man, he's still we still are 58% of the world reserve currency. And the Congress doesn't stop spending. It's like a couple. You have a couple one spouse spends tons of money on credit cards, and they turn the other spouse pay for it. Right. And Powell must be just for it. If I was I'd be screwed top my lungs, would you guys stop spending? All you got to stop because I'm doing my best to keep this number one product afloat around the world. I'm doing my best. Right. And so I don't criticize Powell. I've actually under the circumstances, I think he's doing a fantastic job, even though people call him stupid. People don't like what he says. But I don't listen to what he says. I just listen when he does. And I and I realize he has a partner called the US Congress. Who is there just out of control spending? Yep. And he's done it. He's doing a great job by keeping our agreements accepted around the world. Yeah, Allen   I agree with you. I mean, you know, after COVID, and all that money that was spent on everything, you know, to maintain it to not even go into recession to have Yeah, inflation was a it could have been a lot worse than who it was. Without all that spending all that money that's just unaccounted for. So John   I think right now, the Congress is spending about $1 trillion every four or five months, six months. That's, that's, that's what's going on right now. That's just amazing. So back to your question. As you can tell, I have long answers. Gold, silver, Bitcoin real estate, okay. If you keep spending a trillion dollars every six months, additionally, items are going to go up in price. Gold, silver, Bitcoin, eventually, it's just going to bubble up you. It's kind of you almost can't stop it. Right. wheat, wheat soybeans, I mean, real estate farmland, if you just give a trillion dollars every six months, and how long can the us do this? I bet they can. You know, look, look the US Dollar might be the greatest Ponzi scheme ever invented a headline, it might it might be, but this is the thing. There is no mathematical way to taper a large Ponzi scheme, it can't be done. So therefore, the only way to play it all out is to play it all the way through. Okay, just to play it out, right? Let's don't get mad at me. I didn't create this. I was born into this system. Right? I am pro US dollar. Why? Because I'm in the Ponzi scheme, because all of our money is in US dollars. I don't want to wake up tomorrow morning and have the US dollar at zero because I will be broke. My parents will be living in my basement. My kids who live in my basement way my my house would be for sale because I'd be broke because everything I have almost is in US dollars. Right? Bait US dollar based, right? I have some bitcoin I have some gold. I have some real estate, right. But it's US dollar base. You too. We're we're in the Ponzi scheme. Okay. So therefore I think with the US think about the US Navy, think about the powers think about everything they could they could for what proliferate this for another 20 3050 years. They are very powerful. The Federal Reserve is the most powerful entity, along with the US Navy, along with the IRS along with the SEC along with the President. They are incredible team. And look, look, you know, China, only having 2.7% 2.7% of the world reserve currency, and we have 58% and the Euros 20%. And they got it they got a big mountain to climb, right, and they can climb it, but it's gonna take a long time. But the problem is this. Again, China is now printing more money than we're printing. Because they're in a they're in a 1929 depression right now. It's bad over there. Unemployment is youth unemployment, ages 18 to 30. is so bad China stopped reporting it. That's how bad it is. They don't report it anymore. Yeah, the estimates they have, if you are a college aged kid in China, college, graduated kid in China, and you're in a big city. This is 18 to 30 years old, okay? You graduate in college, and you have a job. Your average salary is $700 to $950 a month. Wow. That's the average salary right now in a big city. In China. They're in a 1929 depression. So they're not going to fix this in one to six months. It's going to be years to fix this in China. And the US is, I believe, putting pencils on them trying to even control them because they're sending a message to Saudi Arabia. Anyway, so this is people go man, John, you really got a lot of information, like you just said, you have all this information. And you put together like a puzzle, right? And it's conspiracy theory. And I go, it might be I might be totally wrong. But it just keeps fitting together. The more I put more puzzle pieces together, they keep fitting. Yeah. So Allen   I have another question. And this is about a different commodity. Now, we talked a little bit of we talked about how the Fed control the prices of Bitcoin, how the Fed is controlled, trying to try and try to trying to or and how it's handling other issues. What do you think? Do you or do you think that they're doing something similar to oil prices? Because it's not oil? Yeah. It's not directly tied to the dollar, but it is tied to the economy. And yeah, John   yeah. So I remember when President Biden took office is first thing he did was he turned off the Keystone pipeline to Canada. And I was like, why? Allen   environmental reasons, right? Why John   would you do that? And I put the US dollar in, wait a minute, we have to buy some oil from Saudi Arabia. So we, as a gesture to Saudi Arabia, to keep oil prices up, we turn off the Keystone pipeline to reduce oil here in North America, so that Saudi Arabia can have a better something like that. And they you know, there is some type of manipulation a little bit around the world, but oil is huge, right? Everyone's got a little bit oil and some kinds of we have a lot of oil for some reason. Saudi Arabia has a lot. Russia has a lot. And so but I would say to you that oil is a commodity base is every once in a while manipulated, but you know, turning off spigots reduces supply, which increases so but what's happened is for the oil trader, your old traders the next 510 years, maybe five years, everyone has gone green, and they're making solar panels and windmills in Germany, right. And they've been the last, you know, since that big huge problem that we had in that tidal wave in Japan. With that nuclear reactor over there, that nuclear power plant, everyone went away from nuclear. So we went through this last winter I believe there were power outages or power Our reductions in Germany, Canada, there are places that just had was worried about their power being right. And so what happens is, so many people have swung over to the green agenda, which is a good thing. They've left the agenda in buying Chevron and Exxon Mobil, and they've left they've left, and so at Chevron, Exxon Mobil have stopped or reduced their exploration because they don't have as much money. Right? Okay. And therefore, that's going to keep oil prices higher. So what the green initiative has done is encouraged oil prices to be higher, because they've reduced the amount of money that can explore and extract more oil. So they've reduced it, therefore there's less of it, therefore, oil will be higher in the future. And I know, Saudis have turned down their spigot lately, you know, for the oil. And so I know that's happening. But oil is a long term play, mostly for me. It's a long term play, but I just kind of try to find the trend. And it seems like, to me the trend is up in general, because of what I just explained. Makes Allen   sense. Yeah. I mean, I tell people that you know, back in the day, the rich man used to have an engine, like a car with an engine and everybody else was on horses, right? Yeah. And then it became commonplace. And then it became the rich man had the electric vehicle, because he had to be rich to have a and then now it's gonna flip and it's gonna be like, Okay, now the rich guy has the combustible engine, and everybody else is driving the electric vehicles. And the really John   rich man has a horse. He hasn't a stable. You guys once a month. You know what I mean? Exactly. Back to the horse. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Allen   Cool. All right. So I do want to wrap it up with going into the future now, because we you know, you mentioned conspiracy theory. And now this one is, I see it coming. But the US digital dollar. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So let's do I want to hear on stage. John   You've heard me on stage on stage, I show a picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was a bodybuilder. And I show when he's an actor, and I show him as a governor. Arnold Schwarzenegger reinvented himself three times. The US dollar has to reinvent itself. It was gold in 1933. It was the Bretton Woods, you know, we will back the the French franc in 1944. In 1971, it turned into the Fiat dollar of the petro dollar. And now it's going to go into the digital age. And it's coming, I just don't know how long it's going to take for them to manufacture a crisis, that we will accept the US digital dollar, they have to have a crisis versus except for right now. No one wants to accept it. Because once you accept it, everyone knows what you spent your money on. Right? Because right Allen   now, I mean, you have credit cards, and you have wire transfers. And so like, what's the point? Why do we need that right? Well, John   but I can pay cash for something, and you don't know what I bought. Right? Right. And so but but once the digital dollar hits, and it's mandatory, everything, you know, there won't be there won't be I can imagine there won't be a tax return anymore. If you buy something at Walmart, the nanosecond, you buy it, a few pennies will go to Washington DC, every single day. And if you're buying Chinese goods, there's 17 pennies that go to Washington DC. If you're buying US goods, there's four pennies go into wash DC every time you buy something. So if you if you transfer money from your phone to your kids, so they can buy lunch at school today, every time you transfer money, there's two pennies going to go. So there's no tax returns. Everyone knows or not everyone, the federal government would know everything you spend your money on, where you spend your money. And they might say Well, that would reduce drug trafficking, that will reduce illegal activities that reduce a lot of things because everything is tracked, there is no gold, there is no silver, there is no Bitcoin, we have to outlaw it. And it might be and I hypothecate In my book, let's go to May 2033. That's the 100th anniversary of the gold confiscation that people said no, that can never happen America Well, in 1933. In May, they confiscated all our gold. And in May 19 In May 2033, it might come to the point where for the good of the country, the country is in so big of debt. If we could just collect all of our taxes from our citizens, we could pay our bills, but we can't because too many people are using gold. Too many people are using Bitcoin too many people are using cash and we can't track that and and that's how people cheat on their taxes. But if we switched to the US digital dollar, no one can cheat on their taxes. When they buy a boat we know it when they pay for lunch, we know it right and we collect our taxes, therefore as to be patriotic. Everyone must have if you own a business you no longer accept cash You know, alongside Bitcoin, you know, because we have to sugar up the US economy, and it's patriotic. And this is this hypothetical, but may 9, may 2033, just 100 year anniversary, it could happen if they can create, and I'm saying create a crisis in the American mind, where we're gonna go bankrupt United States unless we switch the US digital dollar. And that's the savior now. So something like that that's a hypothetical. You might it might be, it might be a cyber attack. You know, I don't know if you remember this, this, I think 2012 Maybe you remember a little country called Cyprus. Allen   I know of a John   little country called Cyprus, right. on a Monday morning, everyone woke up went to their bank. And the rich people who had I don't know the number, but it was over 100,000 are over 500,000 in their bank, half of their money was gone. The country confiscated half of the savings accounts of our all the rich people, because the country tried to go to the EU over the weekend, because they were bankrupt. and the EU turned them down. They said, Look, we'll give us a loan. They said no. So the EU turned them down. So the only thing that country could do was over the weekend, confiscate half of the money in all the bank and this is digital, this digital dollars, your digital, you can do this. They confiscated half of the money. And they said basically to the people, aren't you glad we did that? Because we wouldn't have done that. Your your your country, you'd have been worth zero. All your money would have been the zero we confiscated half of it, to pay for the government to keep us alive and open so that you could have half your money. This happened in Cyprus. Wow. So, you know, we when you say when you use the word, US government cannot. That's the wrong word. No, there's no Federal Reserve cannot that no, you should use shouldn't, wouldn't. But couldn't isn't a right word. Because in a digital age, everything is possible. They can change laws they can it's when people are desperate. And Money makes people desperate. Or lack of money makes people desperate. Things just happen that you thought could never happen. And I'm sure those people in Cyprus thought it could never happen. But on a Monday morning, it happened. Oh, yeah. She's, Allen   I mean, like you mentioned in the book, you talked about the Commerce Clause, right? And yeah, and I remember after 911, the government passed the Patriot Act, you know, it's a great, great name for a bill or a Patriot Act. Yeah. What does it mean? It means basically, if you look at it, they can take anybody off the street, pick you up, throw you in a hole, you have no representation. No, you can't talk to anybody for as long as they want as long as you are under suspicion. And it doesn't matter if you're a citizen or not. And it's like, okay, what happened to our liberties? What happened to the Constitution? Oh, it's not there anymore. Sorry. You know, so yeah, you're right. They can do basically anything. John   The word the word cannot, should not be in your sentence with the US government shouldn't wouldn't Yes, but cannot or couldn't. Don't don't say those words together with the US government. As Allen   you remember, when Modi took over in India, they had supposedly they had problems with, you know, the mafia and illegal gambling and illegal monies and all that. So he made everybody turn in their higher dollar notes. Yes, exactly. It's like everybody to come into cash and other notes and the people that bring it in, we'll baskets and stuff. So it John   he actually it was pretty thought out because he said the poor people need a $1 $5 bill or $10. Bill, the rich people, you don't need hundreds and $500 bills, you can all you do that electronically. You want to transfer large amounts of money, it's electronic. You want to transfer for tips, or you want to pay your guy to shine your shoes or mow your lawn. You still have small bills, because look, it's really hard to transfer $1,000,000,001 bills, because it would take up a whole truckload right? So, so that was Modi's compromise to keep the poor having money in their pocket, and to hinder the rich, or the drug dealers or whoever, for moving large amounts of money. It all has to be electronically because electronically, we can track it. Allen   Yeah, so I mean, that could be something that they do here. You know, let's take away the $100. Bill. We used to have $1,000 bills, right, I think yeah, back in the day. Yeah. A John   long time ago. Yeah. Yeah. Allen   So okay, so you're saying that in nine years is 2023 or 33 2033. And you also say in your book that every 10 years, there is some kind of financial catastrophe or collapse or John   if you think about it since 1971, okay, we won the fiat currency system. Okay. Okay, and this is roughly nine or 10 years, okay? The economy goes, boom, right? And there's opportunity. So 1971 Give me a few years for the fiat currency to get going. Okay, the petro dollar. In 1988, there was a stock market crash. And soon after that, the Berlin Wall came down, the Soviet Union crushed. And I took advantage of that I started selling us Levi's, the Eastern Bloc country, okay. 1999 comes around the.com bubble, right. And I missed it. There was a huge opportunity in internet. I knew it was going on, I just couldn't figure out how to make money at it. And it went, boom, and I missed that opportunity. Okay, 99 2000. Then in 2008, nine ish, there was a great recession. And I took great advantage of I started a huge fund that eventually was managing a family of funds, the lost family funds, 2008, that eventually, in 2021, was managing $28 billion assets under management. And today manages like 47 billion. Okay. And then 2020, there was the pandemic, right. And then we launched other funds called, they were called opportunities on funds that had huge tax advantages that we launched funds in that. So about every 10 years or so, since the fiat currency of 1971, the petro dollar, every 10 years, you know, it goes, the economy just goes boom, and boom means there's opportunity. And so a lot of the funds that started in real estate funds that started 289, and 10 made a ton of money, you can still make a lot of money, real estate, but we made a ton of money, because the economy was just blanketed low and we could buy things so cheap in 2009 and 10. It was it was crazy. So Allen   I don't know. I mean, we might be close to that timeline, you know, but 10 years and 33. It's somewhere in there. Well, John   are 2029, you know, 29? Right in there, right in there. 20 930-228-2930. Right there. That's about 10 more years. That's the tenure since the last one ish, right? Yeah. Allen   Do you have anything on your antenna that you're noticing now that would go boom? John   Well, again, it might be the US digital dollar that goes into it might be an opportunity there. Because, you know, maybe this is this, this is way out there. But maybe Congress is spending and spending and spending and spending and spending for a lot of reasons. But one reason is to cause a crisis. Well, so that we could be forced to go to the digital dollar. Oh, my right. Yeah, that's just a crazy i That's i That's not my blood, because that's just a crazy theory. But because I can't think I cannot figure out why. What's the purpose of this? Like, I can't figure out why President Biden lets all these illegals coming off our southern border. Yeah, I don't I don't get I know there's a reason. But I don't really understand the reason I'm trying to figure it out. And I haven't figured that one out yet. And yet, I can't figure out why the US Congress can't just stop spending some money. It might just be there's no conspiracy, they just spin spin spin. But it might just there might be another underlying reason. They're trying to force it because they look to get us to go the US digital dollar, there has to be a cyber attack, there has to be some big crisis, something like in Cyprus, that would cause us to go, okay. I'm okay with that. Like right now, we have five and a quarter percentage rates, you know why we're okay with that, because we had 9% inflation. But if we had 1%, inflation, we would never accept a five and a quarter percentage rate. So there has to be some type of crisis to get people to do things they don't want to do. And we no one wants to go to the Digital's digital dollar. But you would in a situation, there's scenarios that you would you would switch Yeah. Allen   And at this point, there's no alternative. And the Fed, like you said, is making it that way. And that's their job to make sure there's no alternative. Oh my Well, John, I really appreciate your time we've gone over thank you so much for it. And again really fun, everybody it's dollars gold and Bitcoin available at Amazon, get your copy. And we've touched everything in here. There's more in here that that is also John   on audible.com If you'd like my voice, you can listen to me for six hours and because I recorded the whole thing and all the time so if you don't read books, you listen to books, you can continue to listen to Mike scratchy voice for six more hours. Allen   Thank you so much. I appreciate you and everything that you've shared with us. John   Thank you very much for having me.

Go on the Champions! Stevie and Reidzo discuss their Trophy Day experience and regale each other with the Moments That Won The League, from Furuhashi's stunner in September at Ibrox to John "Thank you" Lundstram's title winning own goal! Reidzo also has a look ahead to the cup final on Saturday! Music Credit - The Motion - Where Is My Mind? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 Nicol and I discuss my betrayal, my cheating on her. I've said much about this since Ive started my "Sometimes Heroes Need Help" Life Leadership and Wellness program but you've never heard from her. If the truth be told she is the one thats courageous, she's the one that has defined for me the meaning of unconditional love. Nicol is the reason I still walk this earth. Sit back and give this episode a listen and  draw strength from her vulnerability. Next weeks episode we conclude with the lessons learned and how you continue to grow and individuals and a couple. Until next week, take care of yourselves and each other, God Bless, John Thank you for taking the time to give this podcast a listen. If you would like more information on other Law enforcement Life Coach initiatives, our "Sometimes Heroes Need Help" wellness seminar or our One-On-One life coaching please visit :www.lawenforcementlifecoach.comJohn@lawenforcementlifecoach.comAnd if you would like to watch the interview you can view it in it's entirety on the Law Enforcement Life Coach YouTube Channel : https://studio.youtube.com/channel/UCib6HRqAFO08gAkZQ-B9Ajw/videos/upload?filter=%5B%5D&sort=%7B%22columnType%22%3A%22date%22%2C%22sortOrder%22%3A%22DESCENDING%22%7D

The first episode in a  three part series, I sit down with Mrs. Kelly, aka, My Nicol. We discussed the early days of our relationship, my alcoholism, and her thoughts during that time. She gives advice about having a tough conversation with someone you love, how you can draw the line while remaining supportive. Next weeks episode we will do a deep dive on my betrayal, how she reacted, her thoughts, and concerns.  How she managed to stay committed to the relationship after being on the receiving end of one of the most regrettable decisions of my life. Until next week, take care of yourselves and each other, God Bless, John Thank you for taking the time to give this podcast a listen. If you would like more information on other Law enforcement Life Coach initiatives, our "Sometimes Heroes Need Help" wellness seminar or our One-On-One life coaching please visit :www.lawenforcementlifecoach.comJohn@lawenforcementlifecoach.comAnd if you would like to watch the interview you can view it in it's entirety on the Law Enforcement Life Coach YouTube Channel : https://studio.youtube.com/channel/UCib6HRqAFO08gAkZQ-B9Ajw/videos/upload?filter=%5B%5D&sort=%7B%22columnType%22%3A%22date%22%2C%22sortOrder%22%3A%22DESCENDING%22%7D

This week I sit down with a friend, Pat Fitzgibbons. Pat is a retired Leo, Army veteran, author, podcast host, and national liaison for The FHE Shatterproof first responder only treatment program conducted out of Deerfield Beach Fl. Pat and I had the conversation that most of you won't. My buddy killed himself Tuesday, August 15th,  after a series of really tough life events. It was years in the making and myself along with an entire cast of friends and buddies, some much closer to him than I, did our best to keep him here one more day. With every phone call, we as a group, were able to reframe the situation with him and provide a path forward. I thought, like most of us, that the worst was behind us, a son in college, the hope of a new relationship around the corner, we collectively believed he had the tools needed to keep fighting. We were wrong. How we live our life matters, the decisions we make, both the good and the bad have a ripple effect that is far reaching. Start making better life decisions, and know that you are loved, until next week, take care of yourself and each other. God Bless, and RIP TC.Patrick created a top ranked podcast called The Criminal Justice Evolution Podcast

Anxiety, it has been said, is ubiquitous. We all experience it and in its many manifestations. On a purely psychological level, one can never get to the heart or source of this feeling and its accompanying isolation. Often we find ourselves desperate to free ourselves from its grip. Therefore, we either immerse ourselves in the things of this world and maintain the illusion of security or we become paralyzed by it completely.  The desert fathers including St. John Climacus, however, remind us that through the incarnation everything about what it is to be a human being has been assumed and embraced by our Lord, including this experience that often plagues our existence. Christ is the source of all healing and in and through our immersion in His life through the sacraments and prayer we begin to enter into the peace of the kingdom. We are commanded in the Scriptures not to have any anxiety at all. However, this is not simply a command but a promise of grace and strength. If we hold on to our faith in the Lord, if we truly hope in his promises, then all anxiety and fear will flee.  To call upon the name of Jesus is to flog our enemies; meaning not only the temptations that come to us from the demons, but the fears that they would insert into our minds and hearts.  To mourn over one's sin, to acknowledge the brevity of our life, is the set aside all illusion and false security. It leads us to cling to Christ who is life and love. So often we too like the disciples are foolish and slow of heart to believe. Yet in Christ even the most improbable of things becomes possible - that in the soul dedicated to God fear and cowardice disappears. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:08:02 FrDavid Abernethy: page 163 Step 21   00:19:55 LauraLeigh: In #2, is he saying that this "old soul" should know better than to give in to cowardice?   00:23:10 Eric Ewanco: Fear is a lack of trust in God   00:23:13 Louise: Fear arises when we read a situation as a threat, while boldness arises when we read a situation as a challenge. With Christ, maybe we should see  all situations as challenges which we can face with Him.   00:24:09 Cindy Moran: Pray for me I lost my wallet today Yes I am anxious.   00:25:22 Rebecca Thérèse: I'll pray for you Cindy   00:25:26 LauraLeigh: Reacted to "I'll pray for you Ci..." with

One of the most difficult things about the faith is not simply desiring God with all of our heart, but allowing God and His desire for us to transform us and shape us. It means allowing Him to draw us into His own life and virtue. We are to become in the world what He is to us.  Therefore, we are immediately confronted with the fact that we have to let go of the limited powers of our own reason and judgment. We must place our faith and hope in the providence of God to guide us along the path that leads to salvation. Like Saint Peter there often comes a time in our life when another binds us and leads us where we do not want to go. There will likely be many occasions when we are called to die to self and sin and to live for God alone  - come what may.!  The afflictions that we bear and our desire NOT to force our will upon others can only emerge from this reality. We must put on the mind of Christ. We must become what we receive in the holy Eucharist. All that we suffer must be seen as united to Christ's redemptive work on the cross. Christianity is about as far from being a philosophical system or ideology as something could be. It is Divine Life and Love. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:01:48 FrDavid Abernethy: page 374   00:02:05 FrDavid Abernethy: Welcome Susanna   00:02:15 FrDavid Abernethy: Facebook friend :-0   00:02:33 Susanna Joy: Reacted to "Facebook friend :-0" with ☺️   00:02:49 Susanna Joy: Thank you, Father.   00:02:57 FrDavid Abernethy: You're very welcome   00:41:30 John: Would making asceticism an end in itself a type of obeying the letter of the law, rather than the spirit?   00:42:31 Susanna Joy: This is very helpful advice for me right niw, as I have been staying at my friend's spiritual community, and being so distressed at members'  contentiousness...wondering what to do and stay cenetered/bring a spirit if peace   00:42:50 Susanna Joy: *spirit of peace   00:46:15 Susanna Joy: Yes...exactly. .. Love must return to its Source in order to flow ever onward... Remembering to turn to Christ in these moments   00:49:02 TFredman: (My name is Tracey) The hardest Lent I ever had was when my spiritual director suggested a different type of fast - a fast from just what we are talking about. Taking his counsel to heart, I decided that a contentious coworker would not disturb my peace and I would love her - oh yes, she was my Lenten project. It was incredibly difficult. She did her best to destroy me and to talk about me to others and to in effect destroy our "team" during the most difficult season of our work. I suffered through that Lent and beyond more than I can express. But through it all, I was at peace and grace followed.   00:51:52 John: At a retreat in June, I was given a Holy Card with a prayer of St. Charles de Foucauld: An Act of Abandonment: "Father, I abandon myself into Your hands. Do with me what you will. Whatever You may do, I thank you. I am ready for all, I accept all. Let only your will be done in me, and in all Your creatures - I wish no more than this, O Lord. Into Your hands I commend my soul; I offer it to Thee with all the love of my heart, for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself, to surrender myself into Your hands, without reserve, and with boundless confidence. For You are my Father. Amen.   00:52:43 carol nypaver:

All that was to be redeemed had also then to be assumed in the Incarnation. All that is human and all that is part of the human experience must be embraced by Christ in order that it might be healed by his grace.  We are shown this in a very simple way in regards to one of our basic appetites as human beings - sleep. Like any other appetite, it must be ordered rightly; otherwise, it can end up stealing half of our life. Rather than being drawn into the rest of contemplation, we are often pulled into something much less helpful. Instead of engaging He who is Reality, Life and Love, we often seek to escape these things and enter into sleep or the myriad of ways that we can escape reality.  Therefore, when it comes to prayer, we are often embattled. Sleep can come upon us quickly or we can be drawn to direct or attention to the work of our hands. The Evil One can stimulate the mind at just the right time to pull us away from the comfort and consolation of God into conversation, food, sleep, etc. We must understand that we are engaged in a spiritual battle. When the devil sees us engaging in spiritual warfare, when he sees us developing the discipline of prayer, he will immediately seek to afflicted us with temptations and fantasies the moment the prayer is finished. He will try to snatch away from us the first fruits of the soul.  We can understand, then, why John tells us that bodily vigil leads to spiritual vigil or alertness. We need to be alert not to protect ourselves from the things of this world, but from the darkness that would enter into our hearts if we do not guard them. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:08:28 FrDavid Abernethy: page 162 para 10   00:09:06 angelo: Reacted to "page 162 para 10" with

Being thrown off balance! The experience of vertigo! This is what comes to mind when considering the writings from the Evergetinos this evening. Once again, the gospel is put before us in an unvarnished fashion. It is as if through the unclouded vision of the fathers suddenly the truth of the gospel appears before us and all of its starkness. We are to love and to become love. It is this reality that must shape and form our interaction with every person we encounter. It suggests a kind of vulnerability where we seemingly leave ourselves exposed to the world around us and its malice. So easily does the Evil One whisper in our ears, “If you give yourself in such a way, you will undoubtedly find yourself impoverished.” “Would God really ask such a thing from you?”  Such thinking makes us very calculating about our lives. We are comfortable with boundaries and sometimes the religious boundaries, the walls that we put up around ourselves in the name of God are the highest and thickest of them all.  Yet, we always have before us Christ crucified - arms outstretched and hanging naked upon the cross. He is mocked in the same way that our own hearts mock the truth when we shrink away from its demands in horror. To “think” about unconditional love always allows us to remain one step removed. If we keep the faith notional, we do not have to live it. The fathers, however, allow us no such luxury. Nor did they have confidence in their own virtue or rectitude. Humility understands one thing – all is Grace. This will forever compel us to look upon others with the generosity of God and ourselves as the recipients of incalculable and unmerited mercy. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:14:10 FrDavid Abernethy: dabernethy@gmail.com   00:24:14 LauraLeigh: Not sure how to do this in real life. Last week, I pitched a battle at work, and won. And it was no petty matter. I think it takes a lot of wisdom, a lot of discernment, to do this well. Me, I was lucky.   00:26:37 LauraLeigh: Thankfully, it wasn't about the Faith.   00:28:13 Louise: We lost you Fr.   00:28:14 carol nypaver: Yes   00:30:02 Eric Ewanco: “Here the parallel holds good—it is as absurd to argue men, as to torture them, into believing.”   Newman, John Henry, Sermon III, The Usurpations Of Reason, Preached December 11, 1831. MATT. 11:19, Sermons, Chiefly On the Theory of Religious Belief, Preached Before the University of Oxford (London: Francis & John Rivington, 1844), p. 48   00:52:02 Anthony: I do have a concern.  I don't want to be a sucker and I resent having been taken for a sucker. That helps drive my engaging religious  and cultural discussions and it's why I'm careful in what charitable works I agree to do.   01:00:33 Maureen Cunningham: What about the  Book  The Way of the Pilgrim  Hw would say the Jesus Prayer in silence   01:03:12 Paul Fifer: I see people walk in for help with food, gas, or money quite regularly.  Many I know for a fact are gaming the system and it really gets to me at times.   I have this quote written down from Mother Theresa to reflect on for those times. “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”   01:20:19 LauraLeigh: I love this message, but in the moment, I forget them.   01:23:41 John: Thank you Father!  

The healing of the soul! So often we lose sight of the meaning of the spiritual life and the disciplines that we embrace. We often look at them as being punitive or requiring us to give up something that we enjoy or take pleasure in. We can lose sight very quickly of the presence of God even in the practice of prayer.  This came forward when we discussed this evening something such as vigils. Rarely is the practice of vigil (breaking one's sleep to rise and pray at night) ever discussed as a valuable exercise for those not only living in a monastery. To order our appetite for sleep and to break the night for prayer is seen as nonsensical or something that could jeopardize one's health and well-being or one's capacity to work.  What we find in the spiritual tradition, however, is a far different vision. Bodily vigil leads to spiritual vigil; that is, spiritual vigilance or alertness. Arising during the quiet of the night, humbled in mind and body, one is able to enter into the deep silence of prayer and receive more freely what God desires to give us. Not experiencing the impediment of worldly distractions or the distractions of a multitude of thoughts we are able to open the mind and the heart to God fully. And in doing so we can also experience the deepest healing.  We begin to lose the desire to escape from reality in the things of this world or in sleep. The opening of the mind and the heart to God through deep prayer can bring about the repairing even of the deepest trauma caused by our own sin or the sins of others. God can pass freely into the deepest recesses of the human heart that learns how to become vulnerable to Him over time through the experience of His love and compassion. Trust emerges and with it hope. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:12:48 Nathan: (Thx Father, I'm using the Paulist Press CWS edition so that's helpful)   00:22:34 sharonfisher: I thought it was my dog whining! Lol   00:31:01 Maureen Cunningham: Page please, Thank You   00:31:29 Kevin Burke: 161   00:31:51 Maureen Cunningham: Thank you   00:35:59 John: Would practicing vigils have a positive effect on being subject to deceptive dreams? I've gone down numerous dead ends in the past trying to interpret dreams, or thinking that they were pre-cognitive, but most of them turned out to be mirages.   00:56:56 John: Sounds like vigils are a gateway to "the meat ye know not of."   00:58:43 Louise: Maybe the Beloved has given people insomnia (waking up in the middle of the night) so we can turn to ward Him during this quiet time.   01:00:56 Maureen Cunningham: sleep does not become your master,   01:02:20 Anthony: On vigils, prayers, rosaries,  looking at God as the other imposing an obligation on me makes these annoying. But maybe looking at God as the Other Who gave me His image as an integral part of myself would make vigils, etc desirable.   01:03:19 Kate: Father, would you have any advice on how to begin the practice of vigils for someone who does not have a spiritual director who could help incorporate this practice in the interior life?   01:06:09 Anthony: The cell becomes hell   01:13:13 Anthony: The 3 Apostles slept in the Garden out of sorrow.  I'll have disordered sleep out of sorrow.   01:15:29 Lee Graham: Prayer changes us   01:18:12 Ren Witter: Yea. The “type and number” narrative about confession really makes the sacrament so transactional, and more like a bad experience with your doctor than an encounter with God.   01:18:15 Bonnie Lewis: Father, I had a priest say that to me in the confessional.  It did hurt and surprise me.  I've never forgotten it, obviously.   01:18:58 sue and mark: Reacted to "Yea. The “type and n..." with

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.

Todays Episode is a reply to John's Comments to my recent article in the Catholic Exchange, link provided below.My reply to John: Thank you for your civil comment John. I have the sense that you are a seeker after the Truth. You are correct that Jesus' had family members in own lineage who were not perfect. Jesus addresses this, and other marriage and family situations, in his reply to the Pharisees in the Gospel of Matthew where he is questioned on divorce, and says, “In the beginning it was not so” (Matt 19:3-8). He then goes on to point them, and us, to the first two chapters of Genesis. John, most of the sexual confusion, addiction, and relationship dysfunction that I see in the world today is the result of trying to fill the infinite desires of the human heart with finite things and finite solutions. Modern men and women, shackled to the finite by their iPhone, education and a toxic culture live in disconnection, like cut-flowers, severed from their roots. They seem to have lost the heavenly perspective that their hearts are pointing them to. Jesus comes into our irregular, fallen world, not to normalize the fall but to point us to the larger story, which is an eternal love story, it's always been a love story. When you have an opportunity please read the first letter of John, it is beautiful and powerful. There you will read that, God is Love…and its not that we loved God, but that God loved us first (1 John 4:7-12). Please keep me in your prayers and I will keep you in mine. Jack Stolen Innocence - The Spiritual War On Children And FamiliesSubscribe to Jack's Substack Subscribe to the Magnificat, Daily Mass Readings and Much More! Please consider being a Sponsor! "The future of humanity passes by way of the family"--John Paul II.Please send donations to support our work to:John Paul II Renewal Center902 S Randall RoadSTE C #296St. Charles, IL. 60174Support the show     Email me with questions! Contact Jack: BWYR Podcast is a production of the John Paul ll Renewal Center or email him at info@jp2renew.orgPlease share this with your friends and family!Don't forget to sign up for our Newsletter!!  JPll Renewal Center email listSupport the show

This week I had the honor and privilege to sit down with Chad Shevlin, marine veteran, Purple Heart recipient, and current Captain of the Raymond Police Department in NH.  Chad discussed his call to service,  and his commitment to getting up after being knocked down. On April 10 2003, while deployed in Iraq with the 1st battalion 5th Marines, he describes the firefight where he took an RPG blast to the face, basically removing his lower jaw and the contents of his mouth. We discussed his will to live, and the strength that it took to not only survive but ultimately win. Chad gives new meaning to the word resiliency. Sit back and give this episode a listen, practice gratitude, and don't forget to tell someone special  in your life that you love them. Until next week, take care of yourself and each other, God Bless, John Thank you for taking the time to give this podcast a listen. If you would like more information on other Law enforcement Life Coach initiatives, our "Sometimes Heroes Need Help" wellness seminar or our One-On-One life coaching please visit :www.lawenforcementlifecoach.comJohn@lawenforcementlifecoach.com

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.

What you'll learn in this episode: Why every art student should have business classes as part of their curriculum How the American mythology of the starving artist is more harmful than helpful Why it's important to expand a creative business beyond just making How polymer clay went from craft supply to respected artistic medium Tips for entering jewelry and art exhibitions  About John Rose and Corliss Rose 2Roses is a collaboration of t Corliss Rose and John Lemieux Rose. The studio, located in Southern California, is focused on producing one-of-a-kind and limited-edition adornment and objects d'art, and is well known for its use of a wide range of highly unorthodox materials. The studio output is eclectic by design and often blended with an irreverent sense of humor. 2Roses designs are sold in 42 countries worldwide and are exhibited in major art institutions in the US, Europe, and China. Photos Available on TheJewelryJourney.com Additional Resources: Website Etsy Transcript: For John and Corliss Rose, business and artistic expression don't have to be in conflict. Entering the art world through apprenticeships, they learned early on that with a little business sense, they didn't need to be starving artists. Now as the collaborators behind the design studio 2Roses (one of several creative businesses they share), John and Corliss produce one-of-a-kind art jewelry made of polymer clay, computer chips, and other odd material. They joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about their efforts to get business classes included in art school curriculum; why polymer clay jewelry has grown in popularity; and how they balance business with their artistic vision. Read the episode transcript here.    Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is a two-part Jewelry Journey Podcast. Please make sure you subscribe so you can hear part two as soon as it comes out later this week.    Today my guests are designers John and Corliss Rose of the eclectic design firm 2Roses, located in Southern California. They sell worldwide. 2Roses is an award-winning design firm recognized for their use of unusual materials. Today we'll hear more about their jewelry journey. Corliss and John, welcome to the program.   John: Thank you. It's a delight to be here. Thank you very much.   Sharon: So glad to have you.  Tell us about your jewelry journey. Were you designers first? How did that work?   John: Actually, we both started rather early in life. Corliss started as an apprentice in her father's floral store when she was 10, and I was apprenticed into design and graphic arts at age 12. We both came up in the old-school apprentice system and were working professionally by our early teen. It wasn't until later, in our late teens, that we both started professional or, I should say, a traditional academic trend. So, we've always been in the arts, both of us, very early.   Sharon: Were you both attracted to jewelry early as part of this? Where did that come in?   Corliss: We met at art school, and our backgrounds and our career focus on developing a creative career were almost identical, so we hit it off right from the get-go. For the first 10 years of our relationship, we focused on our own individual creative paths, but we kept intersecting with each other. Eventually we made the decision to work together full time collaboratively for a creative endeavor. Jewelry, at that moment in time, was the highlight of where we wanted to focus our energies.   Sharon: Is that when you met, when you were both part of the apprenticeship, or when you were in college? Where did you meet?   Corliss: We met in art school in Chicago.    John: Prior to that, we had quite a bit of time to develop different practices and careers. So, we met midway, I suppose, in our journey.   Sharon: When you say you were apprenticed, was the idea that you would learn how to be a designer, how to be a florist, and that's what you were going to do?    Corliss: At that time, I was being groomed to take over my father's business. I learned not only the design aspect, but at a very early age, I learned cost accounting. I was learning the business aspect of it. I was pretty much indoctrinated from the very beginning that you're going to be an artist, but you're not going to be a starving artist. You need to make a profit out of this so you can flourish. Later on in my career, I had one gallery owner tell me that the work was wonderful, but price it this way because it's one thing to make your bread; it's another thing to put butter on it. So, it was something that I had gotten all along.   Sharon: Wow! Most people don't get that so early, so that's great.   John: All of the apprenticeships I did, it was all about how this is a business first, and we do creative things like manufacturing a product. So by the time we hit formal arts school, when we first met, we very quickly realized that we had a mutual experience of understanding of the art world and our career path. That's what was a very strong attraction; that we both looked at this as a business career. This isn't about abstract ideas of, “Let's be creative,” and all the mythologies that artists are inculcated with. We didn't seem to have that kind of thinking.   Sharon: Were you ahead of your peers in that respect? Were you ahead of your peers because you recognized the business aspect?   John: Oh my god, yes. Yeah, it was really like that. By the time we hit college, most of our peers were just starting out. They were just starting to learn their career paths and trying to figure out what they were doing. We already had several businesses going. For us, the academic training was more of a cherry on the cake and polishing skills. By that time, we were working professionals and had been for quite some time.   Sharon: Wow! Tell us about the jewelry you make. We'll have pictures when we post the podcast, but it's so unusual.   Corliss: We've always been driven by exploration and experimentation with what we call odd media. This is what drew us to art jewelry in the early days. It was like the wild west. Anything went, and we just threw out all the rules of traditional jewelry. Fashion and adornment were being challenged at that time. It was almost like a golden age, where there was a lot of free-flowing ideas, a lot of collaboration with John and me, and a lot of fluid dialogue creatively between the both of us.    John: You asked about jewelry, and one of the things is we didn't start out as jewelers. Both of us came to it through a lot of other mediums. Myself, I started out as a painter, illustrator, furniture maker, gem cutter, sign maker, designer of one thing or another, machinery. Corliss went through all sorts of other endeavors herself.   Corliss: It was basically when we had been together for 10 years, plus doing all of these interesting things, that we made the decision, “Jewelry would be a great direction to go into.” And just to pull the curtain back a little bit and give a peak, I think one of the nicest things that happened to me at that time was that as an anniversary gift, I received lessons for metalsmithing. I learned how to solder, and that was the beginning of it. What I learned, I taught John. We experimented with a lot of different processes and a lot of different materials, and it just started to take off from there.   Sharon: When you say metalsmithing, I would think you would go in the traditional direction, whereas you took the metalsmithing and combined it with polymer clay, it seems, which people don't do. I'm looking at what your website has, and that's unusual. How did you reverse course in a sense?   Corliss: We were very much interested in color. At that time, we were following the traditional path of experimenting with color and its relationship to metals: patinas,P Prismacolor pencils, enamels and things like that. Polymer clay was such a versatile material. It could mimic just about anything. At the time, the product was being developed in Europe, where it was originally manufactured, and there was a small group of people using the product and doing some pretty innovative things with it. I latched onto that train very, very quickly and took myself through the learning curve of how to work with it, and I got involved with that particular community for quite a while to absorb everything I could, like a big, old sponge. To this day, it plays a very vital role in a lot of work we do. Because we have been metalsmiths and I teach, I have been able to actually teach the incorporation of some of the simpler metalsmithing techniques with polymer to people who have only worked with polymer and opened up that door to them. It's been very rewarding in that respect.   John: You made a good observation about that crossover because as Corliss mentions, it's really a two-way street. What we recognized after a while is that introducing polymer clay to the metal world was one side of the sword, and then it was basically introducing metals into the polymer world. Corliss has developed a whole range of courses, workshops, if you will, going in both directions, and that's become a business unto itself.   Sharon: You seem very entrepreneurial. You seem to go on and on.   Corliss: As John would say, there are many paths to the artist's income.   John: Yeah, entrepreneurialism is really baked into the DNA. I have to go back to the apprenticeships that we both did that gave us a foundation in—I always express it as art as a business and business as an art.   Corliss: It was a work ethic, too.   John: Yeah. So, we tend to always look at what the business opportunities are, how to make money doing this. That's always an issue for anybody in the arts, and that's also part of what we have advocated for for the last 40 years. I have worked with the California University system for decades trying to introduce a business curriculum into the arts, and it's taken 40 years to actually get that message across. It's only been in the last 10 years that we've started getting any kind of acceptance. We've developed many programs for various universities to teach the business side of art, and it's been an obstacle course to get that through. It runs counter—or at least it used to run much more counter to the academic approach to teaching arts, which focuses more on technique than actually earning a living.    Corliss: I've had quite a few experiences with individuals who were poised for graduation in the next six months or so. We would have conversations about, “I don't know what I'm going to do next. I'm going to graduate, but I don't know how to start a business. I was never taught how to make this a practice.” That's where everything started. It started by recognizing that there is a need for it within the education system. It led to developing more and more sophisticated ways of instructing people and getting them a little more prepared for what comes after graduation.   John: The thing we found, though, is that this is a uniquely American perspective. We've developed programs for Canada, for Mexico, South America, and they embraced them. To them it's a no-brainer. It's only America where we've encountered any resistance to it.   Sharon: Interesting. Why do you think that is?   John: I think a lot of it is the mythology of art. I want to be specific about this. We are focusing on metals programs and jewelry design programs for this kind of thing. When I was involved in SNAG, we got into this quite in-depth. One of the biggest impediments is that the instructor basically had never operated a business himself, so to them, they were being asked to teach something they had no experience in. Basically, they got their master's degree, and they went from being students to teachers. That's it. The idea that there was another world out there, they would say, “Yeah, that's great. That would be wonderful, but that's not something I have any experience with.”    Sharon: That's interesting, the idea that art should be pure and sell itself.    John: That's one of the mythologies, so Puritan. It's your labor, I guess. One of the things that occurs to me: many people in the arts define themselves by what they do with their hands, and we have never done that. We conceive the opportunities of who we are by what we do with our minds and how we harness our creativity and create opportunities for ourselves to express that creativity. Jewelry is just one of those things. We have a long history in developing businesses, which goes back to the apprenticeships. From our perspective, it's all creative endeavor.   Corliss: I was a pastry chef.   Sharon: Wow!    John: A television pastry chef, no less   Corliss: Yes.   John: And she basically made formulations for a lot of very famous restaurants and product lines that you would know of.   Corliss: Making the croissants for Marie Callender's. Looked up the recipe for that.   Sharon: Wow!    John: That's Marie right there.    Sharon: How did all this meld into jewelry? I know you through Art Jewelry Forum. I know you do art jewelry, but how did everything you're talking about meld, at one point, into art jewelry? I know you do a lot of other different things, but in terms of the product, let's say.   John: We were both active artists in various spheres. One of the things we were doing a lot was running mining and prospecting operations. We were accumulating massive amounts of gem material, and it came to the point where we had to make a decision of what the hell we were going to do with all this stuff. That's when we came upon jewelry. We could either sell the material wholesale, which we were doing, but really the profitability in jewelry is that we had to finish the faceted stone and polish the rough material. You get the material by the pound, but you sell it by the carat.   Corliss: It was lapidary skills that was the predecessor to this. We were making cabochons. John was faceting and we were also carving. We were carving a lot of natural materials, like bone and wood. The jewelry morphed from that, and it started selling. I was actually schlepping things in a big case, and we found that our work was being very well received. It grew and built from that. Soon enough, we were incorporating precious metal into our pieces.   John: We started doing more of what I would call conventional jewelry, and we had quite a success doing that. Early on, we got contracts with Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom and some larger chains, and very quickly we found out that doing that kind of work is not what we wanted to do.   Corliss: Yes, multiples.   John: Like doing 5,000 of something. You can make money, but the toll that takes on your body—I know a lot of people that do that, and all of them have wrist problems. It leads to health problems. So, that kind of jewelry was when we were getting started and taking off.    When we discovered art jewelry, we lost our minds. It was the wild west. It was all of our art training, all of the things we thought of ourselves as, what we wanted to do in terms of unfettered creativity and experimentation, pushing the boundaries and the edge. That's what was happening in art jewelry. So, we said, “Yeah, that's where we want to go. If we're going to do jewelry, that's the kind of stuff we're going to do.” That's basically how we backed into this world.   Corliss: That's how it opened us up to a lot of different materials. We were in the frame of mind of purposely going out and looking for materials in a lot of different places, everything from upcycling to computer boards and things of that sort, a whole variety of things. We had friends who would tease us and bring us little offerings we could use in the studio and comment, “You two can make something out of anything.” We took that as a wonderful compliment and put ourselves in a position to receive a lot of very interesting material we could use.   John: Well, we had good circumstances and still do because of all these other businesses we were involved with. We had connections within the military, NASA, foreign governments, lights and heavy manufacturing, the medical industry. We were getting access to this insane array of stuff and materials. I've got stuff from someone's space capsule, a jet fighter, fossils of every kind, medical devices you wouldn't normally get your hands on. All of this became fodder for “Let's make jewelry out of it.” One example: I have what we call the world's most expensive pair of earrings. One of my contacts ran a medical manufacturing business, and they spent something like $35 million developing these little—   Corliss: Chips.   John: Yeah, for CAT scanners, and they failed. They didn't work as intended. So we stocked six of these prototypes, which literally cost $35 million, and they were like, “Well, we can't use them. Here, make some jewelry out of them,” which we did. We made earrings out of them, and I love that particular piece. It has a story because they went from being extravagantly expensive to being completely worthless, and now they're a pair of earrings. Somebody put some sort of value on it, I guess.   Sharon: It sounds like people who know you just ship you boxes and bones and screws and whatever they have.   John: We receive regular offerings from friends, which is a delight; it really is. Over the years, we've developed a solid foundation of collectors. We get a steady stream of commissions, and it's very typical to hear, “I have this thing. Can it be—” I mean, we've gotten everything from antiquities—   Corliss: We have Roman coins and special pottery shards.   John: And crazy stuff that people say. “Here, use this as the starting point and make me something.” We actually got a guy's pacemaker one time. “I've had this inside of me for the last six years, and now I'm going to wear it on the outside.”    Sharon: That's an interesting idea.   John: It was quite an interesting piece. 

What you'll learn in this episode:   Why we often have more information about gold than any other decorative object The difference between material culture and material studies, and how these fields shaped the study of art and jewelry What John wants visitors to take away from “Gold in America: Artistry, Memory and Power” Why history is much more global than we may think What it really means to curate, and why it's an essential job   About John Stuart Gordon   John Stuart Gordon is the Benjamin Attmore Hewitt Curator of American Decorative Arts at the Yale University Art Gallery. He grew up among the redwoods of Northern California before venturing East and receiving a B.A. from Vassar College, an M.A. from the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture, and a PH.D. from Boston University. He works on all aspects of American design and has written on glass, American modernism, studio ceramics, and postmodernism. His exhibition projects have explored postwar American architecture, turned wood, and industrial design. In addition, he supervises the Furniture Study, the Gallery's expansive study collection of American furniture and wooden objects. Additional Resources: Yale University Art Gallery Website Yale University Art Gallery Instagram John Stuart Gordon Instagram Photos available on TheJewelryJourney.com   Transcript:   Perhaps more than any other metal or gem, gold brings out strong reactions in people (and has for all of recorded history). That's what curator John Stuart Gordon wanted to explore with “Gold in America: Artistry, Memory, Power,” a featured exhibition now on view at the Yale University Art Gallery. He joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about why people have always been enchanted by gold; what he discovered while creating the exhibit; and why curation is more that just selecting a group of objects. Read the episode transcript here.  Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is the second part of a two-part episode. Today, my guest is John Stuart Gordon, the Benjamin Attmore Hewitt Curator of American Decorative Arts at the Yale University Art Gallery. Welcome back.    I'm curious; I know you recently had a group from Christie's studying jewelry that came to visit your exhibit. I'm curious if they asked different questions, or if there's something that stood out in what they were asking that might have been different from a group studying something else.    John: Every group is different. I love them all, and I learn so much from taking groups of visitors through because you start looking at objects through their lens. Recently a group of makers came through and, wow, that was a wonderful experience, because I could make a reference to, “Oh, look at the decoration on this,” and then, “Is it chaste or is it gadroon?” “What kind of anvil are they working with?” We have to answer these questions. There are some things I can't answer but a maker can identify easily, so I'm learning things.    Maybe someone who's a collector or an appraiser is thinking about objects in a very different way, wanting to know how rare it is, if there are only a handful, where they are, how many are still in private collections, what's in the museum collection. One of my favorite tours was with a small group of young children who had a completely different set of preconceived notions. I had to explain what an 18th century whistle and bells would have been used for because they'd never seen one before. I had to talk about what kinds of child's toys they remembered from when they were kids, trying to relate. Every group has a slightly different lens, and you can never anticipate the questions they're going to ask.   Sharon: Yes, they're coming at you from the weirdest angles. In putting this together, what surprised you most about gold in America? What surprised you most about putting this exhibit together? What made you say, “Gosh, I never knew that,” or “I never thought about that”? There's a lot, but what's the overriding question, let's say.    John: It's such a nerdy answer, and I apologize for being such a nerd, but what surprised me the most was an archival discovery. Mind you, this all takes place against the background of lockdown and having way too much time on our hands and looking for distractions. I pulled a historical newspaper database that the library subscribes to, and I typed in the word “gold” and pushed enter. There were about three million responses that came back, and I just started reading my way through. Not all of them were interesting, but I was struck by the frequency with which people were discussing gold, and I was struck by the global knowledge at a very early period. I would find articles written in the 1720s in colonial Boston talking about the Spanish fleets leaving Havana Harbor with amounts of silver and gold onboard. They would describe how much gold, how much silver, was it coins, was it bars, was it unrefined. There was a newspaper report coming out of New York in the 1750s talking about a new gold strike at a mine in Central Europe. That was truly unexpected: to realize that this material was of such importance that people were talking about it on a daily basis, and that it was newsworthy on this global scale. People weren't just talking about what was going on in colonial Boston or colonial Philadelphia. They were talking about what was going on in Prussia and Bogota. I think we often think of early history as very insular, and we think of our present day as global. History has always been global, and it was a lovely reminder of how global our culture always has been.   Sharon: That's interesting, especially talking about global. I just reread Hamilton. They're talking about Jefferson and Madison and everybody going over to France and coming back. I think about the boats, and I think, “Oh, my god.” I think of everybody as staying in place. You couldn't get me on one of those boats. What a voyage. But that was global. Everybody was communicating with everybody else. So, yes, it always has been that way, but it's very surprising, the movement that has been there for so long. We could go on and on about that.    Let me ask you this: Yale Art Gallery just received a donation from Susan Grant Lewin of modern jewelry, art jewelry, on the cutting edge. At the museum and gallery, is the emphasis more on jewelry as part of material culture and decorative arts? Not every museum or art gallery would have been open to it. What's the philosophy there?   John: Yes, we just received a gift of about two dozen pieces of contemporary jewelry from Susan Grant Lewin, who is a collector and scholar. We've also received a gift from the Enamel Arts Foundation, which is a foundation that collects and promotes enamel objects and jewelry. We have a long history of collecting jewelry, and it's based on historic collections. The core of the American decorative arts collection is the Mabel Brady Garvan Collection. It started coming to the art gallery in 1930. It's this rather storied collection. It covers everything you can imagine: furniture, glass, ceramics, textiles, you name it.    It was assembled by a man named Francis P. Garvan, who was a Yalee. He graduated in the late 19th century and he gave it in honor of his wife. His main love, after his wife and his family, was silver, and the collection at Yale is probably the most important collection of early American silver in any museum. Silversmiths and goldsmiths, the names are interchangeable, and it is mostly men at that period who were making silver objects and gold objects. They're also making jewelry. As you take the story forward, it doesn't change a lot. People who are trained as metalsmiths often will make holloware and/or jewelry. The fields are very closely allied, and the techniques are very closely allied. So for us, it makes complete sense to have this very important historical collection of metalwork go all the way up to the present.   We have a lot of 20th century jewelry, now 21st century jewelry. We also have contemporary holloware because we like being able to tell a story in a very long arc. The way someone like Paul Revere is thinking about making an object and thinking about marketing himself is related to how someone graduating from SUNY New Paltz or RISD are thinking about how to make an object and how to market themselves. Often it's the same material, the same hammers, the same anvils. So, it's nice to show those continuities and then to bring in how every generation treats this material slightly differently. They have their own ideas and their own technologies.    So, the Susan Grant Lewis Collection is a very experimental work. She has said she doesn't like stones, so you're not going to see a lot of gem setting and a lot of diamonds and rubies set in gold. There's nothing wrong with them, but she's more interested in people who are more out there, thinking about how you turn 3D printing into art or how you use found materials and construct narratives and make things that are more unexpected.   Sharon: I just want to interrupt you a minute.  SUNY New Paltz is the New York State University at New Paltz?   John: State University of New York at New Paltz. Sorry, I gave you the shorthand.   Sharon: I know RISD is the Rhode Island Institute—   John: We're going to have to submit an index on how to understand all my acronyms. Yes, RISD is the Rhode Island School of Design. There are a handful of institutions that have really strong jewelry departments and really strong metalworking departments, among them Rhode Island School of Design, State University of New York at New Paltz. You can add Cranbrook, which is outside of Detroit. There's a whole group of them that are producing wonderful things.   Sharon: So, you studied decorative arts. What was your master's in?   John: I was an art historian. I was very lucky in college to have a professor who believed in material culture, and I asked, “Do I have to write about paintings?” and she said, “No, you don't.” I was very lucky to find that in college. Then I went to the Bard Graduate Center in New York. It was a much longer title, the Graduate Center for Material Culture and Design. It changes its name every two years. My master's was in kind of a history of design and material culture. Then to get a Ph.D., there are very few programs that allow people to focus on material culture. Luckily, there are more with every passing year. When I was going to school, Yale is one that's always focused on decorative arts and material culture. Boston University, their American studies program is a historically strong program that allows you to look at anything in the world as long as you can justify it. So, that's where I went.   Sharon: Was jewelry like, “Oh yeah, and there's jewelry also,” or was jewelry part of the story, part of the material culture, the material objects that you might look at? Was it part of any of this?   John: It was. I am at core a metals person. My master's thesis was written on the 1939 New York World's Fair, looking at one pavilion where Tiffany, Cartier and a few others had their big exhibition of silver, gold and, of course, jewelry. My entry into it was silver, but I had to learn all the jewelry as well. So, jewelry has always been part of my intellectual DNA, but it didn't really flourish until I got to Yale, and that would be because of my colleague, Patricia Kane. She has a deep knowledge and interest in jewelry. We have done a few jewelry exhibitions in the past, and she has seen it as part of the collection that should grow. I arrived at Yale as a scrappy, young curator seeing what was going on in the landscape, and the jewelry is amazing. One of my first conferences I went to was a craft conference. I met jewelers and metalsmiths, and it's a really approachable group. They're very friendly. They like talking about their ideas. They like talking about their work, which is really rewarding.   Sharon: What were your ideas when you started as a curator? Did you have the idea, “Oh, I'd love to do exhibition work”? Curate has become such a word today. Everybody is curating something.   John: Yes, my head is in my hands right now. One of my pet peeves is that people talk about curating their lunches. The word curate actually means to care for, so I think about the religious role of a curate. It's the same role. Our job is really to care for collections. If you care for your lunch, you can curate it, but if you're just selecting it, please use a different word.    That idea of caring for objects, that's what really excited me as a curator; the idea that so much of what we do is getting to know a collection, to research it, to make sure it's being treated well, that things are stable when they go on loan, that when things need treatment, you work with a conservator or a scientist. I was really excited by that.    Over the course of my career, I've become much broader in my thinking. When you come out of graduate school, you've spent years focusing down deeper and deeper on one small, little subject. I was still very focused on a very narrow subject when I became a curator. That was early 20th century design. I love it dearly, but over the years my blinders have come off. I love American modernism. I also love 17th century metalwork. I love 21st century glass. You realize you love everything in the world around you.   Sharon: Would you say your definition of curate is still to care for? I'm thinking about when I polish my silver. I guess it's part of curating in a sense, taking care of things.    John: Polishing your silver or your jewelry is actually one of the best ways to get to know it. We're one of the few collections where it's the curators who polish the silver. We hold onto that task because we don't do it very often, because it's better to leave things unpolished if you don't have to. But when it comes time to polish something, the opportunity to pick something up, to turn it over, to feel the weight of it, to look closely at the marks and the details, that's a really special thing, to get to know your objects so well by doing it. I give a hearty endorsement of silver polishing. It's also a great emotional therapy if you've had a tough day. But to your question, I even more strongly believe that the role of a curator is someone to care for their collections.   Sharon: I really like that. It gives me a different perspective.   John: Yeah, because what we're doing is not just physical care; it's emotional care. In today's culture we talk so much about self-care and these kinds of tropes, but that's a lot of what we're doing. We're understanding history through our objects. We're understanding the objects better to have something preserved for posterity, so it can tell future generations stories.   Sharon: That's interesting. John, thank you so much. By the way, the exhibit ends in July, but the Susan Grant Lewin Collection is open through September. You'll be busy, it sounds like.   John: “Gold in America: Artistry, Memory, Power” closes July 10. The Susan Grant Lewin Collection of American Jewelry will be up through the fall. If you miss both of those or you're in a place where you can't get to New Haven, our collections are all online. All you have to do is go to our website, and you can just click through and spend a day looking at objects from the comfort of your living room.   Sharon: Yes, and very nice photos. As I said, I was looking at them before we started. I was very interested. What was that used for? Where did it come from? I guess being in Los Angeles, I'll have to do that. I'll be doing that from my living room. John, thank you so much. This is very, very interesting. I learned a lot and you have given me a lot to think about, so thank you so much.   John: Thank you for having me.   Thank you again for listening. Please leave us a rating and review so we can help others start their own jewelry journey.

What you'll learn in this episode: Why we often have more information about gold than any other decorative object The difference between material culture and material studies, and how these fields shaped the study of art and jewelry What John wants visitors to take away from “Gold in America: Artistry, Memory and Power” Why history is much more global than we may think What it really means to curate, and why it's an essential job   About John Stuart Gordon   John Stuart Gordon is the Benjamin Attmore Hewitt Curator of American Decorative Arts at the Yale University Art Gallery. He grew up among the redwoods of Northern California before venturing East and receiving a B.A. from Vassar College, an M.A. from the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture, and a PH.D. from Boston University. He works on all aspects of American design and has written on glass, American modernism, studio ceramics, and postmodernism. His exhibition projects have explored postwar American architecture, turned wood, and industrial design. In addition, he supervises the Furniture Study, the Gallery's expansive study collection of American furniture and wooden objects. Additional Resources: Yale University Art Gallery Website Yale University Art Gallery Instagram John Stuart Gordon Instagram Photos available on TheJewelryJourney.com   Transcript:   Perhaps more than any other metal or gem, gold brings out strong reactions in people (and has for all of recorded history). That's what curator John Stuart Gordon wanted to explore with “Gold in America: Artistry, Memory, Power,” a featured exhibition now on view at the Yale University Art Gallery. He joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about why people have always been enchanted by gold; what he discovered while creating the exhibit; and why curation is more that just selecting a group of objects. Read the episode transcript here.  Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is a two-part Jewelry Journey Podcast. Please make sure you subscribe so you can hear part two as soon as it comes out later this week.    Today, my guest is John Stuart Gordon, the Benjamin Attmore Hewitt Curator of American Decorative Arts at the Yale University Art Gallery. The Yale University Museum and Gallery is the oldest art museum in the western hemisphere associated with the university. John is going to be telling us today about one of the gallery's current feature exhibitions, “Gold in America: Artistry, Memory, Power.” We'll hear all about the exhibit and John's journey today. John, welcome to the program.   John: Thank you. Thank you for having me. I apologize; my endowed title is a total mouthful.   Sharon: No, no. Who is Benjamin Attmore Hewitt?   John: Benjamin Attmore Hewitt was a clinical psychologist who helped bring the idea of statistical study to psychology, and he was also a collector. He was an avid collector of federal furniture, and he was associated with the art gallery. He, in the early 80s, was a guest curator on an exhibit on card tables that we did called “The Work of Many Hands.” In the incredibly small world department, I'm joining you from my living room, where if I turn and look out my window, I'm looking at the house that he used to live in across the street from me.   Sharon: Wow! Was that an old house that was built on federal plans or is it a modern house, the one he built or that that he has?   John: It is a beautiful, Georgian-style house. It's quite gorgeous, and you can imagine it was perfect for his federal period collection.   Sharon: It sounds gorgeous.   John: It's just one of those small-world things, right? I ended up moving across the street from person who endowed my job.   Sharon: Sounds gorgeous. So, tell us about your career path. Tell us how you ended up at the Yale University Art Gallery.   John: Yes, it was a dream job for me. I grew up in San Francisco. I grew up in a household that loved art, so I'm one of those lucky people that grew up from childhood thinking art isn't scary; art isn't strange; art is something to be enjoyed. I always knew I wanted to be in the art world somehow. I went to Vassar College in Poughkeepsie for the history of art program. When I graduated, I didn't know what I wanted to do, but my first job was at Christie's auction house, and that was an amazing experience. You see everything when you work in an auction house. It's the fabulous things that get the headlines in the paper, but it's everything else that gives you an education. That was an incredible training for my eye.    I'm a slow thinker. I like taking my time. I like spending time with objects. The constant hustle and bustle of the auction world was a little too much for me, so I went to grad school. I went to the Bard Graduate Center in New York and got my master's. Then I had an internship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. One of my colleagues there, the curator Amelia Peck, once said that if you would like a job at one of the great collections, you need a Ph.D. So, I said, “O.K.,” and I went to Boston University for a Ph.D. in American Studies.    The whole time I was thinking, “I want to get a Ph.D. so I can get a job at a place like the Yale University Art Gallery,” because its collection is legendary. It was the collection that so many of my professors used when they were teaching their survey courses. It was a collection I knew, and it was my aspirational job. One day while I was studying for my orals, my college professor called me and said, “A job has opened up at the Yale University Art Gallery. You need to apply for it.” Being a grad student, I was like, “Oh, I'm a little busy right now. Maybe next week,” and she was like, “John, don't be stupid. These jobs don't come up very often. You really need to apply.” I was very lucky. I got the job. That was 15 years ago, and I have been there ever since.   The collection is extraordinary. The museum was founded in 1832. It was one of the oldest museums in the country. Its American decorative arts collection formed very early on but really got going in 1930, so it's also a very old collection. In the 1970s, one of the former curators, Charles Montgomery, felt it needed to go clear up to the present. So, our collection really spans centuries, and with that kind of span, you never get tired.    Sharon: It does. I was looking at your exhibit of gold online and I'm going, “Oh my god, this is going back.” I was looking at the gold collar you have and I thought, “This is really old.” What was that? The 3rd or 5th century or something like that? I can't even remember.   John: The museum's collections are encyclopedic. It goes from ancient Babylon up to the present day. Luckily, my slice of it is just the American, which is enough of a handful. There are two of us in our department, Patricia Kane and myself, and between the two of us, we need to cover pre-contact to the present in every medium. So, it's enough to make your head spin some days.   Sharon: What is it about the decorative arts that attracted you as opposed to another area of history that you could also go into museums for?   John: That's a great question. I loved the idea that decorative arts are like a lens into our world. Everything we make and own is a lens, but decorative arts have a way of telling you stories about the way we used the technology that went into making them, what a particular culture or a time period found important, as you make objects to fulfill needs and to fulfill aspirations. I loved the idea that you could take anything from a necklace or a teapot or a chair, and if you look at it enough ways, you could know a lot about the goals and dreams and technologies and resources of a given time period. I loved that idea, reverse-engineering culture through objects.   Sharon: That's interesting, yes. How did the gold exhibit come about? Was that something you and Patricia had been thinking about, or was that a directive from on high? How did that come about?   John: The gold exhibition came about because of the pandemic, to be completely honest. Two years ago, the museum closed down, like many museums did at the beginning of the pandemic, and our exhibition calendar went out the window. Loans were cancelled, exhibitions were cancelled, and the director of the Yale University Art Gallery, Stephanie Wiles, put out a call for in-house exhibitions, exhibitions we could work on in our spare time. We didn't know how long this was going to last. We thought we were going be home for a few weeks, and she wanted exhibitions that would be easy to slot into the calendar when the museum reopened and that would really shine a light on our collections, because those would be easier for the curators to research.    When I arrived at Yale in 2006, sitting on the shelf above my desk was a slim, little catalogue to an exhibition called “American Gold” that was done in 1963. I loved that little catalogue. I read it many times. I loved the material. Much of the material was drawn from Yale's collections because Yale has one of the strongest collections of early American gold. I thought, “Someday, maybe I'll revisit this.” It seemed amazing that no one had revisited this idea of gold since the 1960s because so much had changed about we think about the world, how we think about objects, what kind of theoretical models we use, and I thought I would do that exhibition at some point in the distant future. Then when our director said, “Are there are any ideas out there?” I said, “O.K., maybe I could do this now.” I suggested it, and it was a real treat. So, it was something that grew out of a spontaneous need but became a wonderful, wonderful research project.   Sharon: So, the objects for the most part are taken from your collection as opposed to loans, O.K. Tell us about the exhibit “Gold in America: Artistry, Memory, Power.” Tell us more about the whole exhibit. What do you want people to learn from it?   John: I was fascinated by the idea that gold is so compelling and so entrancing. There is something about this material that has been fascinating to humans for millennia. You think about the Egyptian pharaohs with their coffins covered in gold. Gold is the reason for so many wars and invasions, and all this is a sign of status. What is it about this material that has so much weight? I started talking to many of my colleagues, asking about the gold in their department, and we realized we could do a global show. It could be gigantic. It started getting away from me, and I realized, “O.K., let's just focus on one very narrow portion of this global story. We'll just focus on colonial American experience.”    As I started looking at those objects, I was struck by something rather uncanny. In the history of decorative arts, most objects are anonymous. We don't know who made them. We don't know who owned them. We don't know how they traveled through time. With metalwork, we do tend to know a bit more because there are makers' marks. There's a whole history of guild systems that are looking at the purity of metals, and with gold we know even more information. I think probably more than almost any other material, we know who made gold objects and who owned them, and it's because they often are inscribed or engraved somehow, or family histories come down with them. I found that so fascinating. That became the structure for the show, really thinking about these objects that have histories and why they were owned, why they were made, why they were cherished, thinking about this important material and how it intersects with human life over the span of a few centuries. That's what I want visitors to take away.    Most people think—well, we can actually do this right now. Sharon and everyone listening, just to yourself, think of three words that come to mind immediately when I say gold. Free associate. What are those words that come to mind? Sharon, I'm going to put you on the spot. What three words come to mind?   Sharon: It's like a blue elephant. What do I think? Shiny, valuable and decorative. In terms of jewelry, I think decorative. Those are the words that come to mind.   John: Shiny, valuable, decorative. I asked this question of a lot of people. Everyone I met for a while got that question, and value came up a lot. Then there were a lot of judgment terms, things like beauty or tacky. They were either positive or negative terms. People have an emotional, visceral reaction to gold. What I want people who visit the show to do is to move beyond those initial associations. We're drawn to it because it's valuable and we think it's beautiful, or we're skeptical of it because we think it might be gaudy. But I want them to really look at the objects and learn why someone might own something or why someone might want an object made out of this material. It's to move beyond those initial words into words about legacy and heritage or patriotism or pride, to get to that second layer. It's to let people know O.K., I'm going to think twice about what a gold ring might symbolize because I've looked at a gold ring that was all about mourning and commemorating the dead, or I've looked at something like a gold spoon that seemed a little flashy, but we know it was made by a Huguenot craftsman escaping religious persecution in New York, yet it was owned by someone who made their money selling slaves. Ideas of freedom and persecution are wrapped up in this material. There are so many stories that, once you start asking the objects, the stories come back to you in a way that I hope makes people pause when they leave the museum and see something else in their life. “Oh, that's an interesting idea.”   Sharon: I think what strikes me is the fact that when you're talking about gold, artistry, memory and power over the years, the wars that have been fought, I think of the Aztecs and Incas, where it was so cherished. We talked a little about this. Material culture, material studies. You'll have to explain the difference. That sounds like something I didn't grow up hearing. Maybe because you're in that world, it's something you've heard about for a long time. But what is material culture and material studies, and how does it relate to this?   John: That is such a big question. I'll try to do some honor to it. The idea of material culture as an academic field—and I'm sorry; I have to put on my dorky academic for a second—but the idea of material culture really came out in the 1960s and 1970s with this larger idea of a new history, a way of looking at the reinterpretation of historical sources, historical stories, questioning who has the right to tell history. It was a way to get away from just looking at the histories of wars and rulers, documenting dead white men written by more dead white men. Material culture is a way of looking holistically at the objects that are produced by a civilization and thinking about the everyday person or the person not on the throne. What can be learned from the things that are not just the dates of rules and wars? That field really transformed art history, history, American studies, anthropology, archaeology. It opened up various fields of study so that you could write an entire book about the development of the Coke bottle and have a valid historical discussion about everyday objects.    What's been fascinating—I grew up in this world. To me, material culture is my language. I grew up being taught by people who were on the front wave of this, so I'm totally indoctrinated. In recent years, I've seen a subfield emerge just called material studies. It makes chuckle a bit because it's like material culture with the culture taken out, which is probably not true, but it's really just going into the actual “thinginess” of objects: thinking about the marble that a statue was carved from, or thinking about the wood used to make a chair and diving deep into this elemental level of what the material of our world is, where it comes from and what stories it tells.    In terms of gold, your mentioning the Incas is, I think, a rather important reference, because where was the gold coming from? If we take an Inca material studies approach to this, we think about how, for many years, the Mediterranean in Europe, they weren't reusing and melting down and recycling the gold that was coming out of a very limited number of mines. Then suddenly, the Spanish discover or stumble across the New World, and they see these cities with temples filled with gold and palaces filled with gold, and they start looting them. As the conquistadors are conquering Central and South America, they're stripping the gold out, and then that gold is being melted down and being sent back to Europe. What does it mean to have this material that's so inherently fraught with conflict?    What does it mean for a silversmith in Boston in the 18th century? He's sitting on the edge of an empire working a small amount of gold that's incredibly valuable because he has to get it from London. He's aware that the Spanish have all this access to gold through the New World, and it's circulating around him. Then how does all of this change when gold is discovered at Sutter's Mill in California in 1849, and suddenly there's a whole new and incredibly large source of gold? It's augmented by further strikes in Colorado, and the West begins creating more gold. Think about this material, how its rarity is tied to conquest and imperial control.   There are some scientists who have been thinking, “Can we do tests on material to find out if there are little isotopes in the metal that can tell you whether the ring you're wearing today is gold that was from Northern California or from Afghanistan? Can we begin to map out the world and map out trade routes all based on scientific inquiry and matching scientific testing with archival research?” Your very quick dive into material culture versus material studies, it's endlessly fascinating.   Sharon: I know people get their doctorates in material studies around things like that. I should have asked you this at the beginning. Did you consider yourself an artist when you grew up with all this art? Before art history, were you creative? Were your parents in the creative end of the arts or were they teaching?   John: Being an artist was option number one, and I pursued that. Making art was a really important part of my childhood and developing a sense of identity. Then I learned about art history. I just loved art history, and I had to make that decision: would I go to art school or would I go to a liberal arts college? For me, art history won. I loved being able to parse out these stories and to look at objects and paintings and sculptures and think about all the different references. But having that history of making, I think, is very important. I have a lot of empathy for the skill and the creativity that goes into making.

Oh my goodness, it's EPISODE 300!!! I can't believe we have made it to 300 episodes! Normally, each week I sit down with an incredible entrepreneur, business owner, community leader, activist, author or speaker, and I find out their story and how they are using their gifts to change the world. But today is a big deal. I started this podcast in summer 2016, nearly six years ago. I never believed I would have made it this far. In honor of episode 300, I am answering listener questions, my husband joins as a special guest, we go over the top 10 most popular episodes and we honor a previous guest who has passed away. 5:42 – Question about ethical fashion Natasha asks: “When I was first learning about ethical fashion and what it means at the ripe age of 29 … I was telling my stepmom of its importance and how most garment workers aren't paid a living wage from fast fashion companies. I mentioned I was going to stop shopping at those companies, and she said to me, ‘But don't those people needs jobs, too?' I was a bit flabbergasted and to this day don't have a one sentence response. How would you answer that?” 9:52 – Two unaired episodes Mary asks: “Have you ever not aired a conversation?” Yes, there are two episodes that have never aired, and I explain why in the podcast. 13:16 – Coolest experience Carly asks: “What's one of the coolest things you've been able to do because of this podcast?” 14:55 – Favorite Australian food Sarah Ann asks: “What is your favorite Australian food?” Shout out to Sarah Ann, because she is one of the most encouraging listeners and even sent me a care package. 16:46 – Message from Sarah Ann “Thank you, Molly, for letting us into your family life and being the big sister that I never had.” 17:19 – Thank you, MamaSuds MamaSuds has been a wonderful partner to work with. If you've listened to this show, you know how much I love MamaSuds. 19:01 – Welcome, John! My husband John joins us for this part of the podcast, and he is my most requested guest. 23:25 – What does John love most about my job? Christy asks John: “What do you love most about Molly's job or what she does for a living?” John shares a funny story about jury duty and how he panicked when asked about my job. 26:10 – Favorite part of homesteading Cheryl Dunn asks: “What is your favorite part of homesteading?” Survival is not the answer, but there is a lot that we love. 27:51 – How to get finances in order Maria J. asks: “I know your husband is a financial advisor … I feel really overwhelmed with where to start with getting my overall finances in order. Where do I begin? Financial Peace? Total Money Makeover? Or should I just look somewhere else? 29:54 – John's favorite interviews Kelly R. asks John: “Do you have an interview that Molly has done that sticks out to you as one of your personal favorites?” 31:31 – Best marriage advice Bethany M. asks: “What is the best piece of marriage advice that someone has given you? And what is the best piece of marriage advice you would give someone else?” John doesn't think people give good marriage advice. 32:57 – How is Molly different? Tara L. asks: “How is Molly the most different today than when you first married her? 34:35 – Honoring a former guest Eric Erdman was a guest in April 2020 on episode 191 and passed away a few months later. He had cancer and started an organization called Give a Child a Voice. 35:45 – Top 10 most popular episodes 10 – Episode 100 – My and John's episode 9 – Episode 153 – Kevin Fredericks, KevOnStage 8 – Episode 263 – Christy Wright 7 – Episode 211 – Mary Marantz 6 – Episode 205 – Daniel Grothe 5 – Episode 165 – Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado 4 – Episode 158 – Jennifer Allwood 3 – Episode 71 – Devan and Morgan Kline 2 – Episode 135 – Kat Eckles 1 – Episode 137 – Rebecca Smith FEATURED QUOTES I am just overwhelmed right now, thinking about this episode and what it means. – Molly My goal each and every week is to just serve you with this show and to encourage you. – Molly I like knowing how to butcher chickens. Two years ago, I didn't know how to butcher a chicken. – John Know what you're spending and know how much you're bringing in. Spend a couple months just tracking your expenses. – John I feel like people don't necessarily give great marriage advice. – John Thank you to our partner of the show! Are you looking to clean up your household cleaning products this year? MamaSuds would like to help! The best way is to simply start with one product. Every time you run out of a specific cleaning product, replace it with a non-toxic one. Another tip, purchase a product that has multiple uses. The MamaSuds Collection has many multiple use products (castile soap or the toilet bombs are just a few!). Their blog has lots of great tips and a castile soap recipe that you can print and make a lot of your own effective cleaners! Give them a try at www.mamasuds.com and don't forget to use the coupon code MOLLY for 15% off your order!

Percussion Discussion - Episode 86 - John MacalusoJoining me today is John MacalusoOriginally a New Yorker, John now resides in Italy, John has played on around 200 albums so far in his incredible career as well as touring the world with many incredible artists and bands.Join John and myself as we chat about some of key moments from his quite remarkable career, including his early days taking lessons from the likes of Rod Morgenstein, Tommy Aldridge, Dom Famularo and the great Joe Franco who reccomended John for Norweigan rockers TNT.   We also chat about ARK the incredible progressive hard rock band, John was one of the fouding members along with guitarist Tore Østby and how they achieved their first record deal from a visit to a record store!   John goes into detail about the audition process and life on the road for Swedish guitar god Yngwie Malmsteen and how this included being driven to a bar in Malmsteens Ferarri, drinking for hours and then being asked to perform a drum solo!!   I couldnt let this conversation go by without mentioning John's incredible drumming  on Michael Romeo's 2 most recent albums - War Of the Worlds PT 1 from 2018 and this years War Of The Worlds PT 2.This was a hugely fun conversation, John is a real treat to talk to, a very funny guy with an incredible talent! i hope you enjoy it as much as did!John - Thank you for giving up your time so generously!Huge thanks to Alexander Ford at World Entertainment Inc. for connecting me with John.

Our Motto: Some of this is whimsy – some of this is true – the interpretation of it all is entirely up to you! Today is Friday, April 29th, 2022 In todays' episode: Maine Builds A Space Port Lewiston gets Electric Lights and free Postal Service (1882) New Feature: Maine Insect of the Instant Peaks of Interest *Special Shout-Out to our newest Supporter John B. of Florida! Thank you John* Thank you for listening! Please send your birthday wishes, comments and requests to mike(@)downeastmike.com --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/frank-w-norwood/support

Victoria: Hey everyone, it's Sensei Victoria Whitfield here, your journey partner in business, welcoming you back to episode193 of the Journeypreneur Podcast. This is your source for channeled holistic stress management techniques, guidance, inspiration and motivation to stay on your path to rapid financial ascension and massive impact as a conscious entrepreneur. The title of this podcast episode is Making Your Sales and Marketing Pop. So I get to have my friend John Golden from sales pub. Welcome to the podcast.   John: Thank you. Thank you. I bought an introduction in the past. Well, I hope I live up to this to this billing.   Victoria: I'm sure of it. So what I love about your personality, John, is that you are so positive and you have a really great CRM that also backs up our entrepreneurs being able to serve more people. So with that in mind, could you tell us like this, this could be you know, the very first time that someone is getting you here you learn about what you do in the world. And so with that in mind, if you could tell us in your own words, what it is you do, and especially what are the three things that you're known for?   John: Yeah. So what I do today is I'm today I'm the Chief Marketing Strategy Officer with Pipeliner CRM and I'm also the the editor in chief or executive editor of sales pop online sales. I do the podcast that I was delighted to have sensei Victoria on and yeah and so to be honest, I'm known for, for business strategy for marketing for sales. I was fortunate earlier in my career. I ran. I was CEO of a couple of companies. One was international sales training, consultancy how Thwaites been selling the Neil Rackham book. So, that gave me a great background and grounding it also I was fortunate to work for a parent company that owned all of these businesses, but they allowed you this this this is an entrepreneur's dream in some ways, right? They allowed you to run the business as your own. But But you did but you had their backing, you know, so but but you have to deliver, right? And so that was a great grounding.  And after that, then I started my own management consulting business. And one of my larger customers was Nicholas Kim, who had started Pipeliner CRM. He moved over from Austria to this state. We started collaborating it was going great and he then he asked me, come on, come partner with me. And that's kind of where I ended up today. I've worked at I've worked at startup companies. I worked in Silicon Valley during the.com. I'm originally Irish and that's where I ended up. I came to Silicon Valley in the mid 90s. I moved over there. And you know, that was a bit of a wild introduction, I have to say to to the States because that was as we know, that was a bubble. And so over the years, I think, yeah, I like to look I like to look at myself as having a lot of experience in different areas. And that I think, is the essence of if you're going to start or run your own business, you need to have at least a good foundation in each of those in, in business strategy in general, in sales and in marketing, and you don't have to be you don't have to be a super expert at all of them. But you do need some kind of grounding in those   Victoria: 100% So like, what I found is that a lot of people who so we've been in the game for a while like I'm entering year 12 Right. - Let's talk about it! - Thanks for stopping by! While you're here, let me ask you a question: Do you ever feel like you're having a hard time sustaining the level of energy you need in order to keep up with the demands of your business? Or do you find yourself struggling to stay consistent with your self care - like meditation, movement, and nutrition - because you're so busy and distracted at work? Searching for safe spaces to celebrate your wins and work through your sh*t as an energy sensitive entrepreneur? If that resonates, know this: you are in the right place; in fact your intuition has lead you here to the gateway for your next breakthrough: GO HERE NOW.

Fred – What is the difference between perfect and imperfect contrition? Yvonne - Comment on the girl who left her baby in the trash can. I think this is linked to postpartum depression. John - Thank you for encouraging parents to take kids out of public school. We are getting our son back. Yvette - Do you have any resources you can recommend for people who suffer from sever anxiety? Patrick gives the real history of Tarot Cards and their satanic deception Sam - Testimony about the power of the rosary. My daughter was reading tarot cards. We prayed the rosary for over a month and now she goes to daily Mass. Connie – I am reading 2 Corinthian 5:16 What does Paul mean when he says that 'From now on we regard no one according to the flesh?' Italy bans unvaccinated from public transit, hotels, dining B.C. family being evicted from Ronald McDonald House due to vaccine status

01:03 - Not Giving Into Peer Pressure 02:31 - Reaching Outside of the Accessibility World (Demystifying Accessibility) * Everyday Accessibility by Dr. Michele A. Williams (https://www.a11yproject.com/posts/2021-06-14-everyday_accessibility/) * Thinking About Disability Until It's Everyone's Normal Way of Thinking * Power Structures and Erasing Innovation * Recognizing Specialty * Cormac Russell: Four Modes of Change: To, For, With, By (https://www.skybrary.aero/bookshelf/books/4510.pdf) 12:37 - The Real Work of Accessibility: Organizational Change * Taking a Stance and Celebrating Innovation * Inclusion 17:52 - Avoiding Dysfunctional Ways of Working * The 5 Principles of Human Performance: A contemporary update of the building blocks of Human Performance for the new view of safety by Todd E. Conklin PhD (https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Human-Performance-contemporary-updateof/dp/1794639144) * Context Drives Behavior * How Leaders Respond Matters * Set Up The System So The Right Thing Is Easy 26:46 - Moral Obligations and Social Norms: Top Down * PAPod 36 - Martha Acosta Returns - The 4 Things Leaders Control (https://preaccidentpodcast.podbean.com/e/papod-36-martha-acosta-returns-the-4-things-leaders-control/) * Roles * Processes and Practices * Values/Norms * Incentives 31:20 - Personas: Translating Ideas and Principles Into Action * Software Security: Building Security In by Gary McGraw (https://www.amazon.com/Software-Security-Building-Gary-McGraw/dp/0321356705) 37:04 - Putting Accessibility Into Action * Knowledge Building: Iterate * Giving Access * “Appreciate the bunt.” * Clearer Consequences * Greater Than Code Episode 162: Glue Work with Denise Yu (https://www.greaterthancode.com/glue-work) 51:06 - “Disability Dongles” – Liz Jackson (https://www.cbc.ca/radio/spark/disabled-people-want-disability-design-not-disability-dongles-1.5353131) * The Lows of High Tech – 99% Invisible (https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-lows-of-high-tech/) * Infrastructure Disables Blind Navigation * The Models of Disability (https://www.disabled-world.com/definitions/disability-models.php) * The Pretty One: On Life, Pop Culture, Disability, and Other Reasons to Fall in Love with Me by Keah Brown (https://www.amazon.com/Pretty-One-Culture-Disability-Reasons/dp/1982100540) Reflections: Michele: Finding room for everyone to provide their perspective. John: The real solutions are infrastructural. Rein: Accessibility has to be built-in throughout the process of building and designing software. 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: REIN: Hello and welcome to Episode 257 of Greater Than Code. I'm your co-host, Rein Henrichs, and I'm here with my friend, John Sawers. JOHN: Thank you, Rein, and I'm here with our guest, Michele A. Williams. She's the owner of M.A.W. Consulting (Making Accessibility Work). Her 16 years of experience include influencing top tech companies as a Senior User Experience Researcher and Accessibility Consultant, and obtaining a PhD in Human-Centered Computing focused on accessibility. A W3C-WAI Invited Expert, international speaker, published academic author, and patented inventor, she is passionate about educating and advising on technology that does not exclude disabled users. Welcome to the show, Michele. MICHELE: Thank you so much, John and Rein. Thanks for having me. JOHN: You are very welcome and we'll start the show as we always do by asking our standard question, which is what is your superpower and how did you acquire it? MICHELE: I don't think I have the most creative answer to this. [laughs] I kind of hate those, “Oh, tell us something fun about yourself.” But the thing I thought about that came to mind was my ability to not give into peer pressure. [chuckles] And some ways that manifests for instance, I have a technology background and yet I'm almost the least technical person like I was probably one of the last people to get a smartphone. I love my flip phone and you couldn't take it from me. So this idea that everyone's doing this social media, all of that, I just joined Twitter last year. So I do things dagnabbit; when I need it, not necessarily just because there's groundswell. So I would say that's pretty good superpower. JOHN: All right. So you gave some examples there in your personal life with technology and social media. I assume that that's also a fairly powerful capability in a business context as well. MICHELE: I think so. Particularly when you're advocating for say, disabled people who aren't necessarily always advocated for, it definitely helps to have a more strong will and the ability to take a stance that turns others rather than consistently feeling like you're being turned around about what others want you to do. So I agree with that, thanks. JOHN: [chuckles] Excellent. And so it looks like you've been involved in the accessibility world on a number of different angles and capabilities and so, what have you found to be the most impactful of those? MICHELE: I tend to want to reach people who are outside of the accessibility world. Unfortunately, I think sometimes accessibility people can tend to talk to other accessibility people a little bit too much. I tend to like to recognize that it is something that everyone in the world should know a little something about. It is an expertise, but there are some ways that everyone can do it. I just recently wrote an article for A11Y Project called Everyday Accessibility. That's when you're making a Word document, for instance, using the Ribbon, using headings, and buttons, or bulleted lists. So I tend to want to bring everyone on board, and demystify accessibility and make it more attainable and easier to grasp and that feels so much like this expert field that takes years to break it down to those tangible pieces that still make a big difference. REIN: One of the things that I hear a lot when abled people are advocating for accessibility is, “Sure, this helps disabled people, but you should care about it because it helps abled people, too.” How do you feel about that? MICHELE: So that's a conversation that's been coming up a lot, too and I have a particular colleague that sent me their response, for instance and it's a stance that I don't particularly align with because the problem with that stance is you end up keeping the status quo. So there are real consequences to being in a society that does not value disability and you, as someone who doesn't have a disability, do not feel those effects. So until we are a more equitable society, we do have to call out the characteristics that make someone have negative effects. So the reality is yes, there are things like situational impairments, which is when the situation you're in mirrors the impact of a disability such as walking and texting—you're not seeing out of your periphery—or there's temporary disabilities, like you've broken your arm, and then there's just the natural process of aging. All of that is true and you can also figure designing for your future self for that last part. But again, I think that we have to be very mindful that right now we need to overemphasize and think about disability until it is our normal way of thinking. REIN: It also seems like it's conceding the ground that doing what's right for disabled people is enough of a justification. MICHELE: Explain that a little bit more, what you mean by that. REIN: So when you say it helps disabled people, but it also helps abled people, it seems to me like you're saying it's not enough for me to just say that this helps disabled people. I have to give you another reason. MICHELE: Absolutely, absolutely, and that ties back into ableism and the invisibility of disability and the devaluing of disability. Like you said, it's like a disabled person is not enough. It has to also include absolutely right with that way of thinking and that's another reason not to go that route of segmenting it in that way. JOHN: I think this ties into something that you had mentioned earlier that I find really interesting, this idea that able people are doing something for disabled people. MICHELE: Yes, and that's the big thing. When you say like, “What's been on your mind lately?” That's the one that comes to mind and it comes to mind for a couple of different reasons. None of them new, none of them – I did not discover any of this; people have been saying this for decades upon decades. But for me, my personal experience, I will give a talk, an accessibility talk, I might explain something about say, screen readers, or some other technology, or a particular disability and then the response is, “Well, it should work this way,” or “We should do this.” There's a lot of solutioning around what I've just presented without any context of ever having met say, a disabled person, or particularly a person in the disability community that has been talked about and that comes, I think from this idea, a couple of things. One, again, this idea of a power structure where, “Well, I'm doing this for you, disabled person.” Not understanding the empowerment that the disabled person has, or this misunderstanding and again, invisibility of disability in spaces like tech innovation and not understanding, okay, that touch screen you're using, that text-to-speech you love, those captions that you use at the bar; all of these things [chuckles] came from disability. We erased the innovation that came from someone designing for themselves and designing for their ability and it's assisted technology and therefore, it's an add-on when it's for disabled folks, but it's innovation when it's for people who don't have disabilities. I think we need to have a lot more discussion about this, particularly in spaces like user experience, where we're supposed to be all inclusive and all about the user. There's some ways that we really are reinforcing this mindset and this power structure, for sure. JOHN: So I want to check my understanding of what you're saying, just to make sure. Are you saying that when you present a problem, accessibility problem, the abled people, the other UX designers, the other people who want to be helpful jump in with, “Oh, we can do this, we can do that, or that” rather than saying, “Well, let's go talk to some disabled people and find out what they need and let that guide how we solve this problem rather than us just being like, ‘Oh, it would be great if dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.'” MICHELE: So to two stages to that. For the first one yes, that's the first thing that happens. In the assistive technology, broad accessibility world, this manifests in some very familiar ways. The first is the blind navigation. Every year, some engineer thinks they've solved blind navigation, pedestrian navigation. Meaning they've created a belt with vibrations on the left and right with an Arduino, or something and they go, “You don't need a cane anymore because it's going to vibrate left when you need to turn left and right when you need to turn right, and you can walk like a sighted person,” or some variation of that—robot guide dogs, smart cane, something like that, or the sign language gloves, or the stair climbing wheelchair. There's these sort of assistive technologies that always come out with very little context around whether it's actually happening, whether it's actually needed. But then there's something John, about what you said, too about let's see what people need and we'll build it. We have to be careful even with that, too because that assumes that I can't build for myself and that's not true either. [chuckles] Disabled folks are the most innovative people because the world is not accessible. There is a such thing as a specialty. Like I have an accessibility specialty, I have a design specialty, but I think we often think that's someone without a disability. No, a disabled person can also have these specialties, or they can be someone who has the idea of what they need and you're partnering with them with your specialty in say, design to create those solutions. So again, I think we have to be very careful about our wording and our viewpoints of what's actually happening. REIN: There's a framework that I've been using for this that actually comes from aviation safety and there's a European aviation safety magazine where Cormac Russell published an op-ed called Four Modes of Change: To, For, With, By. The idea is that change to is the mode where change has done to us without us. So this is a sort of authoritarian top-down thing. We've got no say in the matter. It's not even necessarily for our benefit. Then change for is a benevolent top-down approach. “I'm trying to help you, but I'm the one who decides what to change.” Change with is a participatory co-creating the change. And then change by is change done by us for us where if I'm, for example, a manager, my role would be find out what support you need so you can make the changes you want to make. MICHELE: Absolutely. Perfect. Thank you. I knew there was some reference. This appears in disability justice spaces, in any kind of space where you're talking about inclusion, we know that sometimes inclusion can be code for do things the way that the current power structure does it. Do things the way that the current people in charge of comfortable and assimilate rather than no, we're actually going to allow you to be your authentic self and come into these spaces. Part of the reason this has also been on my mind is because I fit into some of these other spaces as a woman and as a Black person. I think that sometimes my cohorts think well, because we have experienced some of that in our lives, we are immune to them giving that out to others. So as a Black person, a woman, even someone with intersectionality, I can't possibly do that to do was done to me to someone else. But we don't realize how much ableism is steeped into our society, such that it is very easy to do that with disability and not even realize it and not even realize you have the mentality that someone is inferior to you, incapable, and particularly when the disability has to do with neurological, or anything that we really don't understand. But even still, even that kind of categorization can go away because the idea is that any sort of disability triggers usually some sort of ableist response and these things can happen even if you've experienced it yourself. JOHN: So like so many of the other things we discussed on this podcast, it sounds like the real work of accessibility is organizational change. It's getting the power structures to change to allow these things to come into being rather than forcing them in there, or trying to – like you were saying, not forcing the change on the disabled people to fit in. MICHELE: I've been thinking about the roots of this, for sure. And thank you for that. Unfortunately, capitalism drives a lot of this and again, if we're talking specifically more to tech worlds and say, including accessibility into your tech, part of that is just because the buy-in sometimes comes from the internal stakeholders, not the end customer. Again, if you're not mindful, not careful, and don't have leadership that are careful. So the dirty little secret is for instance internally yes, you may be making education software for students, but you're really marketing to the teachers who are going to buy it, and you're then even more so really marketing to whoever the management structure is internally who's going to approve it to even be on the market. So you get further and further away from actually helping a student because you have all these other checks that it needs to impress, or you need to make the case for similar to what we were saying earlier, you have to make the case for disability. For instance, you have to say, “Well, blind people to do this.” You get this pushback of, “Well, blind people don't do that so we don't have to worry about it and you keep moving on.” So there is a shift that is hard, but I do think it goes back to what I was saying earlier about taking a stance. I think that people do need to individually start to take the stance that that may be how we do things now, or how it may even need to be done. But we do want to be careful buying into that completely because it's going to perpetuate the same. We know that that power dynamic internally of who the stakeholders are, again, also sometimes doesn't reflect the diversity of who we are designing for. We're going to keep getting the same result if we're not super mindful and super careful to take the stance that we are going to care about the diversity of the end users, the people that ultimately will have their hands on what we're making and celebrate that oftentimes those best solutions, again, come from the community who are doing the work. So celebrating the innovation that comes from being tied back to those end users rather than thinking the solution has to come from within. So changing that mindset around this difficult, but it takes taking a stand and recognizing it, too. JOHN: So it's trying to change my thinking around to the by style change around accessibility and my context is on the team of web developers who develop apps that are eventually used by some disabled people. So I'm trying to think about obviously, we need buy-in from the power structures as a company and to spend time on the work, but deciding what work gets done needs to be – that's where the inclusion comes in and I'm curious about what the steps are there that helped me get to that point where those people are included MICHELE: So here's a few ways that that comes about. One of it could just be, okay, this is the feature we're doing and we're going to make sure that this feature that we're doing—however that came about—is assessable. That can come from anything from how you're going to code, like making the decision to use standardized elements that come with accessibility built-in, or whatever knowledge building you can do internally to just bake it into how you are creating that feature. Then there is what is the feature and making sure that that, if nothing else, is as inclusive as possible, or at least not exclusionary. You're not making a feature that will exclude people. Again, that comes from an understanding of who is the audience and making sure everyone understands that. No one, I don't think has fully solved for how to make accessibility the thing that everyone knows does – it's difficult. It takes time. It takes training. It takes science from top down as well as then knowledge from the bottom up. It's a journey. But I think that there are places where decisions are made, that you know you're going one way, or the other, whether it's, I'm using a div, or a button, [chuckles] whether it's we're going to wait to put captions, or we're going to go ahead and build in time to do that, whether it's, again, we're going to put in this very visual feature, or we're going to take a little bit more time to understand how to have an alternative to that feature. So there's lots of places where you can be very intentional, that you are going to take the steps to learn about accessibility from your point of view and then incorporate it. REIN: So let's say that your VP of engineering mandates that every project has to meet a certain accessibility score, or something like that, but you don't train the developers. So you were saying top down and bottom up have to come together. I have seen things like that lead to some pretty dysfunctional ways of working. MICHELE: I can see that [laughs] and I think part of that comes from a misunderstanding that accessibility is not just something you say we're going to do. Like, it's not like we didn't do it because we just simply forgot, or we didn't do it just for reasons that can then you can flip a switch and turn it on. People aren't doing it because they weren't taught it, they aren't fully aware of the diversity of it, they aren't aware of what's required, and then leadership isn't aware. Therefore, that steps have to be taken. So there's a lot of rally around let's be inclusive, let's be assessable, but then there's less so when you learn oh, that means we have to maybe take half of the time to train and disrupt our workflow, or we have to do our workflow differently, or we have to go back to the code we've already written and been using for years and fix it. Those are some real decisions and those are some real consequences sometimes to that, too when you're a business that is expected to constantly move forward, but they are decisions that have to be made in order to actually put it in place, not just say you are for it. REIN: Todd Conklin has a book, The 5 Principles of Human Performance, and there are two that I think are especially relevant here. One is that context drives behavior. So if you want to know why someone is behaving the way they do, the thing to look at is the context that they're operating in, and the other is that how leaders respond to matters. When I think about this, I think if you have a design systems team, is that design system built to be accessible from first principles? Is the easy thing to do grab a component that's already designed to be accessible, or is the easy thing to do is throw a div on the page? MICHELE: Yeah, and there are, I think that the number one takeaway is none of it is easy because all of it is late. So there are initiatives like teachaccess.org; we really need to be embedding it in how we even learn the things that we learned, because then it does feel like we're almost disrupting industry to do this. When in reality, we just learned it wrong. [chuckles] We learn to cheat and to make it look and feel the way I want it to look rather than learning that there was a reason there's this thing called a button versus this thing called a div. Now, recognizing, too, though that standards come after innovation. So you can't standardize something that hasn't really even been explored, or even invented yet. So we understand that as you want technology to advance, it's more difficult to then say, “Okay, there's a standard for this and that will guarantee us accessibility.” So for instance, using native HTML elements isn't all, or when we look at mobile, native mobile elements is more difficult to do. This is still a new space, a growing space and so, sometimes we don't often know what that looks like. But that then requires again, that awareness piece of what disability looks like and this is where they're trying to catch augmented reality and virtual reality with XR Access and accessibility initiatives. Because if you're at least aware of the diversity of disability, you can catch it early enough so that when the standards come out again, we're making it less hard. Someone on a panel I was on last week, talked about like tech debt and this idea of well, it can be overwhelming. Well, if you have less things you need to maintain, it's less overwhelming and that comes from using standards and being aware of standards. You lessen your tech debt; that becomes part of the overall responsibility of standards bodies, for instance. So there are some again, tangible steps that I think just need more awareness and talking about over and over again until we get it right, that can be put in place, should be put in place. Hopefully, it will be put in place to make this less daunting over time. REIN: Yeah, and then on the how leaders respond thing. If someone builds something that's not accessible to you, do you punish them to just drive that behavior underground, or do you say, “Why weren't they able to do it? Do they not have the right expertise? Were they under too much time pressure?” How can I make the context better so that people are more likely to do the behaviors that we're trying to lead them towards? MICHELE: Yeah. Thinking a lot about that, too. So I tend to have two ways. I guess, it's sort of the carrot stick kind of thing, or maybe some other dynamic like that, but we know some people are going to get the altruistic side. Again, awareness. They just weren't thinking about disability. It's not something that's in their life. It's not something that was exposed to them. Once someone is exposed and understands a little bit of the work that needs to be done, they're bought in and they go for it. There are other folks that just are ablest. They just will not care. If it has not affected them personally in their lives, they are going to look – maybe like you said, maybe their motivations are something like money, even though they don't realize they're excluding more consumers. Whatever those things are, they're just not going to buy in. That's when unfortunately things like the threat of lawsuits, or bad publicity has to be the way that you get those folks to turn around, or again, you just do it. [chuckles] So that's when maybe the folks on the ground can just do it regardless and the one thing, I think about is this video that went around with this little baby and there was a parent and a teacher aide. I presume the baby was supposed to be doing their sound it out cards, flashcards, but didn't feel like doing it. The little baby sitting on the floor back turned, the mom and the teachers, they did it. They did the sound out cards. The baby's looking back still playing, but keeps looking back and eventually, the baby goes, “Wait a minute, that's my game,” and next thing you know, they're playing the game. So there is something also, too to like you said, maybe it's just a peer pressure thing. No one else seems to be doing accessibility so why do we have to be the ones to do it? But if the cool kids start doing it, if the company start exposing that they are doing it, if there's enough groundswell, people will just get on board with the thing that everyone is doing, too. So I think maybe there are three ways now—maybe I've added a third in my mind. There are ways – as a user experience person, I say user experience the person that you're dealing with. Like you said, get in their head, what are they thinking? What do you think they would want? But ultimately, understand that it isn't always going to be because it's the right thing and the faster you learn that, the more you might be able to actually get some results, too. JOHN: Yeah. I like what you said there, Rein about set up the system so that the right thing is easy and I think obviously, there's a lot of work to get to that point where you have the whole system built around that. But once you can get there, that's great because then, like you were saying, Michele, there's so much less effort involved in getting the thing to happen because that's just how everyone does it and you're just pulling the components are, or copy pasting from the other parts of the code that are already accessible so that it that stuff is already built into the process. And then it doesn't have to be quite so much of an uphill. Like even just uphill thinking process where you have to think differently than you used to in order to get the thing done in an accessible manner. MICHELE: Yeah. Again, unfortunately it's not embedded within us to do this, but maybe the next generation will, maybe the next couple of generations If we keep talking about it and we take the effort to start to shift ourselves, maybe it will be the thing that people can't even remember when they didn't do it. I do feel like we're in a cool moment right now where that might be possible. I'm hearing it more and more. I didn't learn it in school when I was doing computer science and software engineering, but I know some students now that are coming out that are. So I'm kind of hopeful, but the conversations really need to be said aloud and often in order for it to happen, for sure. REIN: You mentioned the larger structural problem here, which is that designing accessible software is a moral obligation and we work in an economic system that's not optimized around moral obligations. Let's put it that way. MICHELE: Yeah. [laughs] That will dollar. [laughs] I think again, there's that school, are we changing that, or we're going to work within it. I think you can do both. Some people should – we should really be tackling both, any kind of inclusion efforts, same thing. Do you do it from within, or outside? Do you work within the structure, or do you dismantle it? I think there's benefits to both. I think there's benefit to basically editing what isn't working about what we're currently doing. There's always an improvement and I tend to look at it that way. It's not so much as it's down with this and up with that. I think we just need to recognize, as human beings who can evolve and do things different, learn, grow, and get wiser, let's just do that. Let's do what we're doing better and when we recognize that we have a negative effect, let's solution something that is going to work better and just recognize that and do better. It's okay to edit. So I don't think we have to toss our hands up and say, “Oh, we'll never get there because of how this is.” That was invented, too. All of these things are constructs. At some point, the way we do things wasn't the way we did things; we did things completely differently. Empires can fall and rise and be redone. So we don't have to stay stagnant, but we can, again, start to make these changes. REIN: I think that even within a capitalist system, there's still a place for social norms. There's still a place for deciding which behaviors we're going to accept and which behaviors we're not going to accept and what we're going to do about those. I just wouldn't expect that to be the CEO's job. I would expect that to be the entire community of the company. MICHELE: The entire community with the CEOs. So the two companies that are the pillars, for instance, of accessibility, Microsoft and Apple, you hear their CEOs say, “We do things accessibly.” So it's not necessarily on them to forego stakeholders and stock prices and all of that. Certainly, you can't do too much if you don't have a company, so they have to do what they have to do, but there is still an okay from that and that's part of that top-down. Again, we need training. Is there money in the budget for training? That has to come from management. So there is still a recognition and it's just always beneficial when everyone is on the same page that this is how we operate; the message then doesn't ever get disconnected. It just shifts to the role of a person and they put it into practice in their own particular way. REIN: Martha Acosta, who is one of the few original women in safety science, she says that there are four things that leaders can control, or have leverage over—there's roles, there's processes and practices, there's values, or norms, and there's incentives. So I think this ties in with what you're saying about what the CEO's job could be. MICHELE: Versus stock prices? Yeah. [laughs] Versus yeah. Which unfortunately is, again, I think it's even upon the CEO to take a stance on what they are going to do with their company and their time. Because certainly, the pressures are coming to them sometimes not necessarily emanating from them. So I think there is opportunity, this is why there's opportunity for everyone to evaluate what are we doing. Like you said, we can decide what is important, how are we going to go about this? And if enough people start to be even more mindful than they were yesterday, shifts are going to inevitably happen. And people who disregard others, discriminate all of these other negative effects that we've seen will inevitably have less effects because the norm will be these other ways that we're trying to include and get better as a society. REIN: So one of the things I like to think about when we have guests, or ask guests to think about, is to think about this challenge from the perspective of a few different people. A few different personas. So I'm a manager, I'm a line level manager and the people that report to me are engineers. What can I do? Or I am a mid-level engineer, what can I do? How do we translate these ideas and principles into action? MICHELE: So what is to understand that there are, for instance, guidelines like there are web accessibility, web content, accessibility guidelines, or author and tool guidelines, because we do need to define what it means. At some point, there needs to be metrics and there needs to be measures that need to be placed to understand, did we do this? One way to do that is to translate those into those various roles. Some of that work has happened and some of it needs to happen. So there's understanding the tangible actions that can and should happen. But I think also, it's simply a matter of deciding that accessibility and inclusion and particularly in my world, disability is just going to be a part of everything. Every check that you make for whatever your role is. You were talking about different frameworks for different levels. Certainly, that's true. I think that we tend to separate out disability from those kinds of conversations as if it's different. It's not different. Making decisions for how you're going to manage your employees should be inclusive of disabled employees. The tools that you want them to use, the ways you want them to work, how “productive” you want them to be, how you're going to measure that. All of that should be mindful of the variety of people that you are supporting. Same with I am a developer so that means that I am writing code on behalf of a group of other people and that means I need to know who these people are. It's funny you say personas because—I know that's not probably what you meant, but in my role, obviously that triggers the user experience personas, which I'm not a fan of. That's all another podcast. [chuckles] But when we're talking about that so in user experience we're saying, “Oh, we're designing for these people, these target audience per se.” It'll be John who's the manager and he does this on his way to work and then there's Mary. Maybe she's a stay-at-home mom, but uses it this way. Dah, dah, dah, all these other characteristics. And then we'll go so now we need disability personas. No. [chuckles] John can also be quadriplegic. Mary can also have multiple sclerosis. So again, it goes back to the idea that we have separated out and made invisible disability. Oh, taboo. Even the word oh, it's taboo. Can't talk about disability. REIN: Yeah. Like imagine having a separate persona for a woman, or a Black person. MICHELE: Thank you. We don't do it. We don't do the whites only school and we'll get to the Black people later. We know that intrinsically, but we do it in everything. So same thing particularly when we're talking about inclusion of disability in all of these phases of say, an organization, we go, “And disability.” No, no, no. If we really want to think about it, disability is the equalizer. Anyone can become disabled at any moment at any time, it does not discriminate. It is the one thing that any human being can become at any time and yet we still separate it out as if it's this taboo, or a terrible thing. Now, again, there are negative outcomes of disability. Not saying that, but we have this tendency to segment it in ways that just absolutely don't make sense and aren't necessary and are detrimental and make it more work, so. REIN: There's a book called Software Security by McGraw. It's kind of old now, but the premise is still very relevant, which is that to make software secure, you have to build security in at the beginning, and you have to keep constructing and repairing it throughout the software development life cycle. So it starts with design, but it includes, you talked about different touchpoints in the life cycle, where you want to sort of check in on whether you still are as secure as you think you are. So that includes design. It includes code review. It includes testing. I wonder if this sort of an approach works for accessibility, too; we just sort of bake it into the fabric of how you design soft. MICHELE: It should be how it works. The moniker is shift left. That's absolutely what has to happen to do it well. You have to be thinking about it all the time. Everything that you do. So that's how my mind works now. It took a long time to do that. But now when I'm sending an email and I put a picture in, “Okay, let me put the alternative text.” I'm making a spreadsheet, “Okay, let me do the heading.” Like, I'm always constantly checking myself as I'm doing anything. “Okay, if I'm doing a podcast like this, is there a transcript, or are there captions?” I'm just constantly doing these checks. That takes time to build up, but it is the way you have to do it to make sure nothing slips through the cracks so that all the hard work that say, the design team, or the dev team did, and then QA comes in and doesn't know how to test it. We're all interdependent so it has to be everyone all the time, all throughout the process in order to get it from end to end to work; the weak link in the chain will break that. So very much how it has to go. REIN: It also seems like this there are small, actionable things that you could do to move in this direction. So for example, when you do code review, ask some accessibility questions. Maybe build yourself an accessibility checklist. Now I don't like checklists, but that's a whole other podcast, but it's better than not thinking about it. MICHELE: Yeah. As you're learning something, sometimes the checklist is helpful because you don't yet have it in your own mind and you don't want to forget. Now you don't want to – I'm sure what you're saying is you don't want to tie yourself to the checklist, too. REIN: Yeah. MICHELE: But as you're building up knowledge, yes, there are so many just tangible did I do this things that you might as well just keep a sticky at your desk, or however you want to do it and just start doing those things. Again, we don't have to keep talking about it. It doesn't have to be this revelation of inclusive buy-in in order to put captions on your videos. [chuckles] These things, you know. REIN: Yeah. This also seems like an opportunity for tech leads to do leadership to say, “Hey, so I looked at this and the contrast ratio is a little bit low. Do you think we could punch this up in a code review?” MICHELE: Yeah. The only thing, though is back to the beginning—being careful about these directives, making sure you understand the directives that you're doing because again, a lot of times, particularly when people are new to accessibility, they overdo it. So they hear a screen reader and they think it needs to read like a novel so they want to add in a summary of the page in the beginning, a summary of this section, and they want to overly describe the alternative text, the image down to the pixels. There's some give and take there, too. There's some learning you want to do, but you can iterate. You can learn one piece, get comfortable with it. Okay, now that this next piece. Knowledge building it's just what it is, is what it is. So there's absolutely knowledge building that you can do to get more comfortable and we need everyone to do this. There's certain parts that should be specialty, but unfortunately, the specialists are doing what everyone else should be doing the basics and so, we've got to shift that so that the specialists can do the specialty stuff, the harder stuff that may not quite get – [overtalk] REIN: That's exactly the same problem is having a security person on your team. MICHELE: Absolutely. So it sounds like you all have a focus on implementation. Like you're implementing and you want to know how best to make – I'm turning it on [inaudible]. [laughs] So you want to know how best to make it work for you, or is that what I'm hearing? REIN: I guess, I lean towards practice. I want to understand the theory, but then if I can't put that theory into practice, the theory is not very useful to me. If that makes sense. MICHELE: Absolutely makes sense. My company name is Making Accessibility Work and a lot of what I say is put accessibility into action, because I am very much tied to this idea that you can be absolutely on board with accessibility and not have any clue how to do it. [chuckles] And then the inverse can be true, too. You can absolutely do not care, but because you care about semantic HTML, you're doing more accessibility than the person who cares. There are these places that people can be in their understanding that neither one is actually, or you think one is helping, but the other actually is. I think people think you have to care. You have to want to Sometimes, you know what, you don't. Sometimes I just need you to fix the color contrast, [laughs] or yes, it's great that you care, but in doing so, you're actually, co-opting a message. You care a little too much and you are actually not letting disabled people speak for themselves because you've now discovered accessibility and now, you're all about it. So I think we've got to meet in the middle, folks. Let's care, let's do, let's demystify, but also understand there are some harder problems to solve, but understand where those are. Putting headings on the page is not the hard problem we need to solve. Just put the headings, making math and science more accessible, particularly when we've made it so visualization heavy. Yeah, let's go over there. Let's tinker with that, folks and that's where we need to be putting all this massive brain power. We've had Web Content Accessibility Guidelines for 20 years. HTML5, which addressed a lot of semantics for accessibility, has been out a decade. Y'all, hurry up and learn that and let's get that going so we can get over to this harder stuff. Get this brain power over to these more complex issues and newer innovations. JOHN: Yeah. I think if you're one of those people that cares, like you were saying, a little too much, or perhaps just a lot, you can end up with option lock because you want to solve all the problems and then you're just like, “But what do we do? What are we doing here?” Like, I'll just put the headings in, put the alt texts in, we'll start there. You've got to get moving. And that's partly where I'm coming from with some of the questions I'm asking is that process of just getting that boulder rolling a little bit so that it takes a little bit less effort to keep going in the future. MICHELE: Yeah, and there's no perfect way to do it. I think everyone's looking for okay, well, how do we do it? You're going to spend a year on how and again, miss the year of what and doing it. It is messy because you're hiring people, you've got people working who don't know how to do it; it's going to be disruptive. We didn't come in with this knowledge. I know you didn't hire people to then train them up and send them to school but unfortunately, you've got to do that. People need to know what to do differently, what they're doing wrong. So some of it is going to be experimental, iterative, and messy, but in the end, start giving access. We talk about language even. Do we say disability? Do we say people with? Or do we say disabled people? And do we say differently abled? Even these – okay you know what, the reality is you do all of that and still don't get access. What would be better is if you have a person with a disability at the table to tell you themselves, but you're worried about language and yet can't even hire someone with a disability. So again, it's getting out of these little zones that we sometimes get in and recognizing the real work that needs to be done and can get done today. REIN: I think there's a real temptation to fixate on the hard, or interesting problems in the tech world that might be wanting to build this distributed database with five nines of durability. But your API server has a bug where 1% of the requests are an error. So if you don't fix that, your five nines over here are useless. MICHELE: The flashy thing, yes. [laughs] The shiny thing, we want to gravitate. Oftentimes, there's no glory in what was considered the grunt work, the foundational work. But I think that's where leadership could come in. I heard someone say years ago, “Appreciate the bunts” in baseball that oh, chicks dig the home run. We love the home run, but sometimes, that bunt wins the game. But that's where a leadership can come in and appreciate laying found a scalable foundation of code that does not add to tech debt, or the diminishing of the bugs that you've kept rolling year after year after year, you close 50 of them. That's where, again, a change in mentality of what we value. Sometimes again, accessibility is not put at the front because sometimes it's just code changes that aren't visible to users. So users are going to think you spent a year and didn't do anything to your code, or some of them will. But again, I think that's a messaging and that's an appreciation of really trying to do, and that's even appreciating software engineering versus just COVID. I have a software engineering degree and that's when I realized, “Oh, we're not just supposed to sit down and start hacking away and make sure it runs for the teacher to check it and we're done.” There's an engineering to this, but you have to value that. But also, I think there needs to be clearer consequences like speaking of engineering. If it's a building, we know the building can collapse. I don't think sometimes we appreciate what can happen if we don't do that foundational work and I think that's a shift overall and then technology and appreciation of that work. REIN: And I appreciate what you did there, which was to subtly redirect me back to the context and to how leaders respond. Because if building that five nines database gets you promoted and fixing that bug doesn't, what are people going to do? MICHELE: Yeah. So what's valued and that's set. Someone sets that. That's made up. You can value whatever you want to value. You can praise whatever you want to praise. Complete tangent, but that takes me to my high school where they were intentional that the students who performed well were going to be recognized by the principal because oftentimes, it was the misbehaving students that went to the principal's office. So the principal knows all the misbehaving students, but doesn't know any of the students that are doing the actual work that the school is asking of them to do. Not trying to get too much into school systems but again, it's an intention that you will honor the work, the unseen work. We do these in other spaces; the behind-the-scenes work, the unsung heroes. That's an intentional step that you can take as well to celebrate that, too. REIN: We have an older episode on glue work and how valuable glue work is, but how rarely it's acknowledged, or appreciated, especially by leadership and also, how it has a gender characteristic, for example. It seems to me like it might be easy to put accessibility in the category of glue work rather than in the category of like you were saying, foundational things that make us have a reliable product and a product that works for everyone. MICHELE: And I don't know if how we've presented technology to consumers plays into that as well. Again, the new flashy wow. The other day, I just looked down at my keyboard on my computer and I just thought about we just take such advantage of the fact that I'm just sitting here typing on the keyboard. Someone had to decide what the material would be that doesn't scratch my fingertips. Someone had to decide how to make the letters so that they don't rub off, or how they light up in the back. There's so much detail that goes into almost everything that we use and we just get so dismissive of some of it. “What's next? Eh, that's okay.” So I think, again, it's a human condition. It's the human condition to appreciate what people are doing for one another in front and behind the scenes and absolutely. But I think that also ties into, again, ableism, too. We see in assistive technology, or an adjustment because of disability as okay, that thing we can do later. But then when it becomes Alexa, when it becomes the vacuuming robot, when it becomes the new latest and greatest thing, then it's front and center and everyone wants to work on it. But it's the same technology. [chuckles] It's the same reasons that you should do it. It just happens to benefit everyone. It came out of disability, but you didn't want to think about it until you've found a benefit for all the “others.” Again, I think that's a human condition we have to correct. REIN: There's a thing that happens once a month on Twitter, which is someone will post an image of pre-sliced vegetables and they'll say, “What kind of a lazy loser needs pre-sliced vegetables?” And then someone will respond, “Disabled people need pre-sliced vegetables.” And then the response to that will either be blocking them, or saying, “Oh my God, I'm so sorry. I had no idea.” I think that there's maybe that dynamic going on here as well. MICHELE: Absolutely what I was thinking about, too, like Nike's shoes recently that you don't have to tie. Well, who doesn't want to sit down and tie their shoes? People who can't sit down and tie their shoes, but that was also a marketing issue. They refused to market it for disability. Like where were the disabled people? Where were the people with chronic illness, or chronic pain, or body size that just does not lend itself to bending over and tying your shoes? Why did it have to be marketed in that other way that then took away the messaging that this is a useful piece of equipment? REIN: Yeah. Like why is this fit model not able to tie their shoes? MICHELE: Exactly. Rather than take the angle that – again, they're all made up. Someone just happened to decide laces. We could have very easily decided this other way at the beginning. We could have very easily decided Velcro was the way. We just, I don't know, somewhere along the way, came up with laces. I think people in general have to go through their own journey of recognizing that what they were told was fact, truth, and stance just with someone's made up thing. Even these companies that we've just hold as pillars started in garages. They may have started in garages a 100 years ago, rather than just 50, or 20 years ago. But these things are just built. So we can build them differently. We can say them differently. It's okay. So taking away that stigma that things have to go a certain way and the way that they've been going, or at least perceived to have been going. We have got to start dismantling that. JOHN: Harking back here, a point earlier about the new shiny is always held up as always better. I read an article recently about prosthetic arms and how everyone's always really interested in building new robotic prosthetic arms. They're the new shiny, they're the cool thing to work on, and people feel good about working on them because they feel like they're helping people who need them. But that in a lot of cases, they're not better than the one that was designed 30 years ago that doesn't do a lot, but has at least a functional hook. They were following one woman through the article who had gotten one of these new ones, but it actually wasn't any better and she ended up switching back to the old one because she could get it to do the things that got her through the day and – [overtalk] REIN: Made with titanium. [laughter] JOHN: And you can clearly see that probably the people that are designing these probably weren't working with people bringing that feedback into the process enough and it was designed for rather than designed by. MICHELE: Absolutely. So Liz Jackson coined the phrase “Disability Dongle.” That's another one that comes up. The prosthetic, the exoskeleton, absolutely. The thing that non-disabled people look at and awe and look at what technology is doing, disabled people are over in the corner going, “That ain't going to help us.” [laughs] If you had asked, we would have told you we don't need that. I think we've also reached a point where we're at the harder stuff and no one's willing to tackle, I don't think always the harder stuff. So for instance, going back to blind navigation, one of the things that makes navigating difficult as a blind person—and I learned this because I talked and worked with like 80 blind people. [laughs] So one of the conclusions that came to with that infrastructure disables blind navigation, you don't need a smart – a lot of people espouse a smart cane. Well, they had this white cane, but it needs an infrared and it needs buzzers and it needs – okay, you're going to give people carpal tunnel. The battery on that is going to die. It's not going to be reliable. And in the meantime, the thing you could have done is educate people on putting stuff at head level. So the way that we design our street signs, for instance, we do everything very car minded. We do a lot of things for cars and we forget people also have to walk and so you put obstacles, or you can educate people about trimming your trees, for instance so people aren't running into them, or how they park their cars so that they're not in the way. Some of it is also just not a technology solution. It may be more an environmental and human education solution, but you can't tell people, who have signed up to work in technology, that they must find a technology solution. So they end up solutioning amongst themselves in ways that actually aren't helpful, but they make themselves, like you said, feel better and they promote within themselves. It's difficult to get people to undo that. JOHN: Yeah, it strikes me like you were talking about the wheelchairs that can go ramps, the exoskeletons, and there are certainly use cases for those sorts of things. But I think the distinction there is those are a solution to make the disabled people more abled rather than making the world more accessible. Like what they need is lower countertop so that in the wheelchair, they can still cook. That's what they need. Not the ability to walk upstairs, or have like you said, this awe-inspiring exoskeleton that just draws more attention to them and probably doesn't even solve most of the problems. MICHELE: I'm just going to say amen. [laughs] That is it. That is the thing we need people to get. So you'll hear about the models of disability, too. Sometimes you'll hear about – you should hear about the models of disability and when people extract that and summarize that, they usually pull out two, which is the medical model, which is generally what we've been under, which is the effects of disability and how that affects the person. Therefore, these things need to happen to overcome and this sort of again, hospital, kind of what the body's doing, or what the mind is doing mindset, which is opposite of one that people often quote, which is the social model. The social model says, “No, no society, the world, my environment is disabling me. If you would just give me something more adaptive, more inclusive, I'd be good.” So a lot of examples of that, I recently read a Kia Brown's book with a book club and you'll have to insert [chuckles] the link. The Pretty One is what it's called. Kia has cerebral palsy and one of the things that was a feat for her was putting her hair in a ponytail and it made you think about scrunchies and the makeup of that. What if we just made the mechanism to have maybe a little bit more to it to grab your hair and put it in the ponytail rather than relying on the fact that you have two hands that you can do that with? So those are the differences in the mindsets of our views of disability that we need people to shift and even go sometimes again, deeper into what it is you're really doing when it comes to inclusion. Are you really being inclusive, or are you saying, “Hey person, come on to what I believe is the way of life”? JOHN: So reflections, then. MICHELE: My reflection, or takeaway would be that my hope is that we can find room for everyone. Everyone who wants to create great tech, everyone who has an idea, everyone who has a contribution. I hope that that doesn't continue to need to filter through say, a non-disabled person, or a certain status of job title. My hope is that we're starting to recognize that there's room for everyone to provide their perspective and it can be valued and it can be included in the ways that we operate at equal opportunity. So that's hopefully, my reflection and my takeaway. JOHN: All right, I can go next. I think really actually the point that that's really sitting with me is what I had just said, which dawned on me as I was saying it, as we were talking in the last minute there about how the real solutions are, like you said, infrastructural. They're changing the form of society to make the disabled person able to do what they need to do rather than bringing them up to the level of whatever was currently built, or whatever that – and even there's a weird value judgment in saying, bringing them up to the level. I'm uncomfortable saying it that way. So just changing the thinking, like you said, the social model is, I think a powerful change and thought process around this, and I'm going to keep turning that one around in my head. REIN: I think for me, I'm coming back to the idea that just like security, accessibility has to be built in throughout the process of designing and building software. You can't have a part of your software delivery life cycle where that's the only place where you think about accessibility. You can't just think about it during design, for example, and you can't just have a team of accessibility experts that you go to sometimes when you need help with accessibility. It's really everyone's job and it's everyone's job all the time. MICHELE: I love it. I'm going to change the world. [laughs] Special Guest: Dr. Michele A. Williams.

We all have something we want to pursue, a goal or an objective we want to reach. We might not always know what it is from the get-go, but as we go on, we can find what we value doing the most. Now, there may be obstacles in our paths, making it feel like our goals are but unachievable and improbable dreams. However, when you are pursuing what you value, nothing can stop you from achieving your destiny.   In this episode, world-renowned human behaviour specialist Dr John Demartini joins us to inspire you to start pursuing what you value. He shares advice and a range of wonderful stories on this topic. Learning about delegation can greatly help you with pursuing what you value. We also talk about the neuroscience of flow states and getting people to understand the quality of your work. If you're mulling over starting your journey to doing what you love, listen to this episode! This might be the push you need to reach for what you've thought was improbable.   Get Customised Guidance for Your Genetic Make-Up For our epigenetics health programme, optimising your fitness, lifestyle, nutrition, and mental performance to your specific genes, go to  https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics-and-health-coaching/.   Customised Online Coaching for Runners CUSTOMISED RUN COACHING PLANS — How to Run Faster, Be Stronger, Run Longer  Without Burnout & Injuries Have you struggled to fit in training in your busy life? Maybe you don't know where to start, or perhaps you have done a few races but keep having motivation or injury troubles? Do you want to beat last year's time or finish at the front of the pack? 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The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again, but I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within three years. Get your copy here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books/products/relentless. For my other two best-selling books, Running Hot and Running to Extremes, chronicling my ultrarunning adventures and expeditions all around the world, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books.   Lisa's Anti-Ageing and Longevity Supplements  NMN: Nicotinamide Mononucleotide, an NAD+ precursor Feel Healthier and Younger* Researchers have found that Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide or NAD+, a master regulator of metabolism and a molecule essential for the functionality of all human cells, dramatically decreases over time. What is NMN? 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Boost Your NAD+ Levels: Healthy Ageing Redefined Cellular Health Energy & Focus Bone Density Skin Elasticity DNA Repair Cardiovascular Health Brain Health  Metabolic Health   My  ‘Fierce' Sports Jewellery Collection For my gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection, 'Fierce', go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/lisa-tamati-bespoke-jewellery-collection.   Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode: Learn about delegation and how you can utilise it to make the most out of your job. Discover the two different flow states that come into play when you're doing what you love best. Listen to a variety of enlightening stories that show how pursuing what you value can change your life.   Resources Gain exclusive access and bonuses to the Pushing the Limits Podcast by becoming a patron! Listen to other Pushing the Limits episodes: #198: How to Prioritise and Reach Your Goals with Dr John Demartini Connect with Dr Demartini: Website | Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram | YouTube Check out Elon Musk's interview on 60 Minutes. A new program, BoostCamp, is coming this September at Peak Wellness!      Episode Highlights [04:21] Achieving the Improbable No matter what obstacles you face, you will get up again if you have a big enough reason. Each of us has a set of priorities. At the very top is our destiny, which is non-negotiable. When you're pursuing what you value, you'll continue regardless of pleasure or pain.  By delegating low-priority things, you can go on pursuing what you value.  [09:20] The Importance of Delegation As long as you're doing your top priority, something that produces the most per hour, it doesn't cost to delegate. Delegation frees up your time so you can pursue something that makes more income. However, when you don't recruit the right person, you end up losing money because you're having to micromanage and getting distracted.  [14:07] Hiring the Right People  Do the basics, such as references and background checks. Dr Demartini specifically asks what applicants would do if they never had to work another day in their life.  If they don't answer something close to the job description, he turns them down.  Don't hire somebody who can't see how the job you're offering can fulfil their highest value. Tune in to the full episode to hear how Dr Demartini helped one of his applicants pursue what they value! [26:06] Job Security vs. Pursuing What You Value Dr Demartini shares a story about how he guided a young man to chase after his dreams. He sees this man eight years later, the owner of eight franchises. Many people stay in their jobs because of security. However, quitting work and pursuing what you value is your choice. Dr Demartini's recalls a time when he accompanied a ditch digger to work. He was so proud of his job, as he brings water—and life—to people. It doesn't matter if the job seems small, as long as you're pursuing what you value.  [44:30] Taking Pride in What You Do When your identity revolves around pursuing what you value, the higher your pride is in your workmanship. You'll excel in whatever you do, as long as you're pursuing what you value.  People who are pursuing what they value go beyond what is expected of them. Whether you start early or late, you can always begin pursuing what you value.  Master planning is a way to get there quickly. [46:26] The Neuroscience of Flow States There are two flow states. The manic flow state is a high that does not last long, as it is driven by the amygdala and dopamine. You get into your real flow state when you are pursuing what you value—something truly inspiring and meaningful.  In the real flow state, you're willing to embrace both pain and pleasure while you are pursuing what you value. Dr Demartini likens the two states to infatuation versus love. Infatuation is short-lived and only sees the positives; love endures even the negatives.  Manic flow is transient; real flow is eternal. [53:33] Finding the Middle and Paying for Quality You shouldn't get over-excited about good things and over-depressed about bad ones. Stay in the middle. Looking at the downsides isn't cynicism. It shows that you have grounded objectives. Dr Demartini's father, who is in the plumbing business, carefully considers all variables before taking on a project. As such, he charges more than competitors. People will be more willing to pay for your work once you explain what sets it apart from others. If you get defensive about your work, you start to sound arrogant. Instead, try to be informative about the value of what you offer. [1:03:32] Staying Stable and Flexible  Dr Demartini is neither excited nor fearful about the future.  He looks at both sides so that he does not become too elated or depressed. Emulating this can help you be stable enough to keep pursuing what you value. Over support leads to juvenile dependency, while challenges encourage independence.  Adapt and do what needs to be done. If you can't delegate it to others, learn to do it yourself.   7 Powerful Quotes from This Episode [05:34] ‘Nothing mortal, can interfere with an immortal vision.' [07:00] ‘There's wisdom in not doing low priority things; there's wisdom in not pursuing something that's not truly and deeply meaningful to you.' [23:18] ‘Don't ever hire anybody who can't see how the job description you want can help them fulfil their highest value.' [44:37] ‘The pride in workmanship goes up to the degree that it's congruent with what you value most.' [50:26] ‘Fantasies aren't obtainable, objectives are.' [54:31] ‘If you're overexcited, you're blind to the downside.' [1:06:22] ‘People can be really resourceful if somebody doesn't rescue them.'   About Dr Demartini Dr John Demartini has been a public speaker for nearly 50 years. He is a world-renowned specialist in human behaviour, researcher, author, and educator. He empowers people from all walks of life by sharing his knowledge on self-development and financial wellness. One of his fields of interest is personal development where he has developed a curriculum of programs. One of his seminars, The Breakthrough Experience, uses his revolutionary techniques, the Demartini Method and the Demartini Value Determination Process.  If you want to learn more about Dr Demartini and his work, you may visit his website. You can also see him on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube Enjoyed This Podcast? If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends! Post a review and share it! If you were inspired to start pursuing what you value, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they too can be pushed to go after their passion. Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts. To pushing the limits, Lisa   Full Transcript of the Podcast Welcome to Pushing The Limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host Lisa, brought to you by www.lisatamati.com. Lisa Tamati: I want to welcome you back to Pushing The Limits. This week, I have Dr John Demartini. Now you may recognise that latter name. He's been on the show before. And he's definitely one that I want to have him back on again. He is an incredible teacher, and educator, and author of I don't know how many dozens of books. He's been working in the personal development in space for 50 years, I think. Incredible man.  I hope you enjoy part two of this very in-depth conversation about upgrading your life–how to grow your businesses. We talk about also how to reach your full potential. And what sort of things we put in our own way. So I hope you enjoy this episode with Dr John. Also, I would like to let you know we have a Boost Camp coming up. This is a, not a boot camp. It's all about upgrading your life. This is all about being the best version of yourself that you can be, upgrading everything in your life from your health fundamentals to things like sleep, and understanding your brain better your mood and behaviour. Lots and lots of science, and lots of information, and stuff that's going to be actually practical stuff that you can implement in your life to improve how you're performing your health, your vision and purpose in life. And aligning all of these things together.  I hope you'll come and join us. This is an eight-week program that is live with Neil Wagstaff and myself. Neil is my longtime coach and business partner. And he runs all the programs with me that we do with epigenetics, with running hot coaching, and so on. And he is an incredible teacher. I do hope you'll check it out. You can go to peakwellnessco.co.nz, peakwellness, p-e-a-k, peak wellness dot co dot NZ forward-slash boost camp, b-o-o-s-t-c-a-m-p. To find out more, and come and join us, it's going to be a fantastic writer and you're going to learn an awful lot and get to hang out with a whole bunch of people while you're doing it. So check that out.  I also like to remind you too, of our Patron program. We have a Patron program for the podcast to help us keep this on-air, keep us great content, to help us keep the mission going. If you're into doing that, please, for the price of a coffee or a month. Sorry, a coffee a month, you can be involved in this project. And you can also get a whole lot of exclusive member benefits for your troubles. So check all that out at patron.lisatamati.com, p-a-t-r-o-n dot lisa tamati dot com. Right. Now, over to the show with Dr John Demartini.  Hi, everyone. And welcome back to Pushing The Limits. I'm super excited to have an amazing name back again for a second round, Dr John Demartini. Welcome to the show, Dr John. It's fabulous to have you back again.  Dr John: Demartini: Yes, thank you for having me back.  Lisa: It's just–I was so blown away by our conversation last time. And I know you do thousands of these interviews and in the work that you do that you probably can't even remember what you talked about. But it was a real life-changing episode that ended up– we dived into some of your medical work earlier. We went all over the place with your breakthrough experience. I just felt like we didn't quite cover all the bases that I want to tap into your great knowledge.  Having you back again today, and today I thought we'd look at things like I want to dive into things like, ‘How do we achieve the impossible?' I've been doing a lot of work and researching around, what is it that makes incredible people incredible? And that they had the ability to overcome incredible odds and difficulties and obstacles in order to achieve some possible things. And I'm pretty much into a lot of the big thinkers out there. So I wanted to start directly if that's okay. How do we achieve the impossible, Dr John?  Dr John: Well, I don't know. Maybe that's a bit of a metaphor–the impossible is impossible.  Lisa: But yeah, it's a metaphor.  Dr John: Improbable, the improbable.  Lisa: Yeah.  Dr John: When the why is big enough the hows take care of thems elves. When you have a big enough reason for doing something, no matter how many obstacles you face, you get up again. And there was an interview. There was an interview by a gentleman I think from 60 minutes with Elon Musk. And they asked him after having three launches explode back to back. ‘You ever think about giving up?' He looked at the guy and he says, ‘I never give up. I'd have to be incapacitated.' Meaning that his mission to go to Mars is too important for any obstacle that might arise to stop it. I would say nothing mortal can interfere with an immortal vision.  Each of us, as you know, have a set of priorities. And the very top, top, top priority is non-negotiable. It's where human sovereignty and divine providence come together, where you feel that it's impossible for you not to fulfil your true destiny. I feel that way with my mission of speaking. I just felt that that was my destiny when I was 17. And I've been doing it 48 plus years now, be soon 49 in a few months. So if you'd have a big enough reason for doing it, you'll see the challenges on the way, not in the way. It's like Edison, a thousand ways to that didn't work for the light bulb to get the light bulb. There was no option about getting a light bulb, he knew he would come up with an answer, he just kept, ‘Okay, that doesn't work. Okay, next. That one doesn't work, next.'  When things are lower on your value, you'll do it if there's pleasure; you'll stop doing it if there's pain. When something's tying your value, you'll do it regardless of pleasure or pain. And you'll see both of them on the way, not in the way. So there's wisdom in not doing low-priority things. There's wisdom in not pursuing something that's not truly and deeply meaningful to you. People who do that build incremental momentum that reaches an unstoppable state, an inertia that's unstoppable. That's the key to extraordinary things. And when it's truly aligned with your value, your identity revolves around it, you feel it's impossible for you not to do it. It's not an option; it's who you are. Lisa: So this involves looking at your values determination, how to sort out what your real– because I think this is where a lot of us come unstuck. We have lots of things we want to do, and we're curious about lots of things and have lots of passions, and it's sorting out the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, in order, distilling down that vision so that you're actually hyper-focused and being able to concentrate on the things that you need to concentrate on. I know that's something that I definitely struggle with, when you have so many things that you're interested in. But you're really right when you say like, for me, with my story with my mom, if you remember bringing her back from the mess of aneurysm, there was a non-negotiable. We were doing it, and I was going to get her back or die trying was the attitude that I went inwards. That means sacrificing whatever it took to get to that place. And then we do get there, you know?  Dr John: Well, the thing is not to pursue low-priority things, and to know what those are, and say and delegate everything other than what's important. I don't do anything but research, write, teach. Those are the three things I love doing. But it's all about educating people in human behaviour. So that's the one thing that is non-negotiable that I do. Then I delegate everything else away. That way, you don't have to be distracted and run down. What drains you is doing low priority things. Lisa: Yeah. And this is a lot– yeah, this is a lot that a lot of people, especially startup entrepreneurs, and people that are just getting there, finding your way, are struggling with: the whole delegation thing when they don't have a team around them. What sort of advice do you want to give to people who are at the beginning of their career and don't have a team yet around them to help do all those aspects of it that are draining the hell out of their lives? Dr John: Well, what you do is you ask the question, ‘How is doing this action temporarily until I can find somebody to delegate it to helping me fulfil my mission?' Link it to your brain. Reframe its words. You see it on the way, not in a way, with the knowing that you're going to delegate it. And then, it doesn't cost to delegate. It costs not to. As long as you're doing what's highest in priority that produces the most per hour, it doesn't cost to delegate. Because you're releasing yourself to do the most important thing that produces the most income that produces more than the cost of the delegation, and that they can produce. And yet the person that would love to do that inspired to do that but doesn't have to be motivated to do that. They will spontaneously do it without even thinking about it, you can free yourself up. In 1982, end of 1982, I hired somebody to take care of my financial things: paying payroll, paying bills, bank reconciliations, all that stuff. Because I was sitting there in October of 1982. I was sitting there doing a bank balance, like, ‘What on earth am I doing?' I didn't want to do it. It was distracting, time-consuming. And while I was doing it, I didn't want to think about clients because it was interfering. I needed to get this done, and I'm pushing clients away. I freed that up, and I have not gone back, nor even seen a chequebook. That's 1982. Lisa: Gosh I would love that.  Dr John: I can't even tell you what a chequebook in my company looks like. Lisa: Or accounting or any software.  Dr John: I don't have any of that stuff. I have somebody that does that. That's their job. I– because that's a 20 to $50 an hour job. And why do I value my time? Well, I can make thousands per hour, and tens of thousands per hour. Lisa: But what about the people that can't make the ten thousands of per hour or the thousands per hour, and there's still a net, they're still in taking that leap into getting the first person in the team on board and the second person. I think there's a lot of people in that, jumping from, say, the $100,000 mark to the million-dollar mark of a turnover in a company where it's chaos. I think it's chaos beyond that as well. But it's that getting the initial, taking that risk when you don't have a solid income yet, and yet, you're taking a risk on hiring a business manager or hiring whatever, even assistants. Dr John: If you have a clear job description and you have a clear actions that you can do that can produce more per hour than having to do those things, and you can see, ‘Well, I'm doing five hours a day doing trivial. If I had those five hours, could I go out and close deals?' If you're willing to do that it doesn't cost, ever cost, to hire people.  Lisa: Yeah. So it's a mindset shift, really?  Dr John: Yeah. Because what happens is you think, well, if you're not going to be productive, and they're now, you're just going to pay somebody to do something you were doing, and you're not going to go produce more per hour than it's going to cost. But it frees you up to do something that closes a deal or makes a bigger deal. Makes more income. You're insane not to do it. Now, in my situation, I saw that if I was out doing presentations and taking care of clients, I can make more than tenfold what is going to cost, 20-fold to 100-fold what I was going to pay somebody to do it. It's a no-brainer.  It doesn't cost to hire somebody. Unless you do it ineffectively. You are somebody who doesn't love doing it, you're pushing him uphill, is not inspired by it, and you have the skill by it, and you're micromanaging him and you're having to distract yourself, and you're not doing the thing that produces. That's why it costs money. Not because of delegation, but inadequate delegation. Lisa: So in other words, recruiting the right people to your team is a huge piece of this and getting the right— So what are some of the things that you do when you're analysing somebody to take on into your team? What are some of the processes that you go through from an entrepreneurial standpoint? Dr John: Well, I do all the basics: references and checks and those things. But I just sit them down when I meet them if they get through the screening. I sit down with them. I said, ‘If I was to write a check right now for $10 million and handed it to you, and you never had to work another day in your life. What would you do with your life?' If they're, they don't say what the job is or close to it, I say, ‘Thank you very much.' I walk away.  Lisa: Right? Because they're not. That's not the key thing.  Dr John: That's not their dream. Can I share an interesting story? I don't think I shared this before. Sorry. If I had, just tell me, cut me off. When I was in practice many years ago, I was hiring a manager, and I was scaling up and delegating more and more. We were down to two people's potentials: one was a woman, one was a man. And the man was in for that evening, about five o'clock. I worked till six, usually, but at five, I was telling my patients, five o'clock, this gentleman comes in. He had passed much of the things I thought. But he came into my office. He had a little briefcase, is about 54, looks like a violator jet, this guy. He comes in, sits down on the edge of his chair, and he says, ‘Wow, this is a great opportunity. I've had the opportunity to work with your company would be fantastic. I'm awe-inspired.' I said, ‘Great. Hope you don't mind. But I just got a few questions.' And I had a check. This is back before I got rid of my checks. I got a check that my lady at the front organised. I had the check in front of me. And I said, ‘Your proper name is?' I put his name on the cheque. I wrote 10 million US dollars.  Lisa: It was a real piece?  Dr John: I didn't sign it, but I just put it there. I made sure he saw it. Because any facade he might have, if he saw a check with $10 million on it, his name on it, that's going to distract him. Because the infatuation of that's going to throw any facade that he might try to put on me, ultimately. So I said, ‘If I was to hand you this cheque,' and I showed him the cheque. ‘And I gave you $10 million upfront, and you never had to work another day in your life. What would you do?'  Lisa: What did he say?  Dr John: And he leaned back in his chair like this. He goes, he relaxed a second. He goes, ‘Wow, if I had $10 million. What would I do? I would manufacture furniture. I have a hobby. I love making furniture. I'd make furniture and open up furniture companies.' I said, I got up. I said, ‘Thanks very much.' He stood up and he was like, ‘What?' He said, ‘Well, did I get the job?' I said, ‘No.' ‘Do you mind if I ask why?' I said, ‘Very simple. I'm hiring you for a management position. You said if you had $10 million, you'd love to make furniture. If you're a great manager, how come you haven't managed your life in such a way where you can do what you love?' He just looked at me and he just paused because that's a very good question. ‘And I have nothing I could say, except, you just woke me up.' I said, ‘Thank you,' and I escort him out.  I watched him walk with his head down slowly to his car and sit in his car for a few minutes to just process that. He's like going, ‘Whoa. I thought I'm looking for a job. I'm enthused, I'm really excited, everything else. And I just got slammed with a reality check of what was really important to me. And the real truth was, is I love making furniture.' So he sat in that car, and finally slowly drove off and we ruled him out. We ruled the girl out. So we had to go through another round. Yeah.  Lisa: And so this is part of the process.  Dr John: Three weeks had gone by. And all of a sudden my assistant said. ‘Dr Demartini, there's a gentleman here a few weeks ago that was looking for a job. He's back.' ‘Alright, okay.' He said, she said ‘Should I just sent him back in?' I said, ‘Yeah.' I come down to the same office, same thing, comes in. I'm sitting in the same place, you sit in the same place. But this time, he walks in with a paper bag, a big paper bag, large paper bag with handles on. He said, ‘Dr Demartini,' shook my hand. He said, ‘Dr Demartini. I was here a few weeks ago,' I said, ‘Oh. Yeah, I remember you.' He said, ‘You changed my life.' I said, ‘How so?' He said, ‘When I was enthusiastic looking for the job, I've been looking for a job for three months. I didn't find one. I thought when you said, if I'm such a good manager, how come I haven't managed my own life? And you nailed me. I was a bit depressed after that, and I had a soul searching, and I had a conversation with my wife. Part of the reasons I was taking on jobs is for security instead of doing what I really love to do. And so after that conversation, I told my wife that and I said, “If I was to go out and try to build my own company in furniture manufacturing, would you endure the, whatever we go through to get there?” And she hugged him, and she says, “That's what you've always wanted to do. We'll make ends meet. We'll find a way.”'  He started his company. He started telling people he's there to make furniture and he started making pieces of furniture. He made a bed, and he made a dresser, and he started making furniture and stuff. He also made it available that he could do interior in homes that were being built. He started letting people know in his network. So he's back in my office three weeks later, and he told me that that's the best thing ever happened to his life. He says, ‘I've already got commissioned $5,400 worth of product with the furniture, and that's in three weeks. I'm on track, probably for making $10,000 to my first month now. And that's more than what I was probably going to get paid.'  I said, ‘Congratulations.' And this is what he said to me. He said, ‘You have no idea how much more energy I have, how inspired I am. I don't care about how many hours it is I'm working. I'm staying up, and I'm a different man. I'm loving it. I'm in, I now understand what an entrepreneur is, a bit.' And he said, ‘But this is what I want to do. Because you gave me such a gift. When I came in your office, I noticed the wood. Because you filter with your polar nuclei of your diencephalonic thalamus. You put, you filter reality coin, what you value most. So he noticed the wood in my office.  He said, ‘And I noticed that you had Kleenex boxes sitting on these little rolling carts. It would really be honourable for me if I could actually take those little Kleenex boxes, and melt my Kleenex box systems on your wall that match your wood. All you do is lift them up on a hinge, put the Kleenex box and pull the tissue, put it back down to replace it. And then you have more space on your thing, because I noticed you had less space on there than probably ideal. It really means a lot to me if I can put them in all your rooms.' I said, ‘I would be honoured to have those in there. And I want you to do me a favour. I want you to put your card on the bottom of each one. So I can, for referrals.' He said, ‘I would be glad to do that.' He said, ‘But that would mean a lot. Because you just changed my life.'  He ended up doing what he really loved to do, grew his business. I got complimentary things in all my rooms, which was an added bonus. But it just goes to show that people, when they're doing something that's deeply meaningful, truly inspiring, high in priority, they excel. So don't ever hire anybody who can't see how the job description you want to help them fulfil their highest value. Lisa: Be it personal and be it roles. And not this division of the company. Dr John: The actual actions. So you make sure you have a job description with all the actions and you ask your potential candidate: ‘How specifically is doing this actually going to help you fulfil what's most deeply meaningful to you?' If they can't answer it, don't hire them. If they answer with enthusiasm on all those things, you get them, grab them. If they don't, don't worry because they're going to be microman— you're gonna have to motivate them. Motivation is a symptom, never a solution to humanity. Lisa: And in changing that, I've got a friend Joe Polish. If you know Joe, he's a very famous marketing man and an incredible connector and so on. He talks about, he was talking about entrepreneurship one day, I forget the context of the situation. But he teaches about entrepreneurial things, how to do it. He's hugely successful. Someone said to him once, ‘You've had the same assistant for the last 21 years, for how many years, a lot of years. If she's been hearing you talk about how wonderful it is to be an entrepreneur to do all these things, how come she hasn't gotten that information and runoff and become her own entrepreneur?'  He called the lady over and he said, ‘Why is it that you still with me?' He knew the answer. But she answered, ‘Because I don't want to take on the risk. That's not my job. That's not my passion. My passion is to serve Joe and be the person in the backstage setting all those things up. That is my highest power. That is what I love. That's why I'm still here. I love working with Joe, and I love his mission. And that's what I'm happy doing.' That's the key, is not everybody should be an entrepreneur. Or everybody should be having the same mission. It's that she understands what her passions, what the job is. Dr John: If everybody was an entrepreneur, who would be working for him? Lisa: Yeah. We'd have a hell of a mess. And being an entrepreneur is a long, arduous, often difficult, lonely road full of holes, along the way, potholes. It isn't for everybody, but for people like you and for me, it's, I can go for it. I've got to be running my own ship. And learning from people like you is great for me because then I can see what helps my next steps and what I should be doing. Instead of—  Dr John: Can I share another story?  Lisa: Go for it. Dr John: So, right about the same time when I was hiring that other person, a young gentleman, late 20s, I'm guessing, mid to late 20s, came into my office, and asked if he could have a meeting with me. And he worked with Yellow Pages. There used to be a thing called Yellow Page.  Lisa: Yeah. I'm old enough.  Dr John: They were ads, telephone ads. You put a listing, it's free. But if you put a listing with a little box or a little ad in it, it's a little bit more. You bought the Yellow Page ad. So he was trying to sell Yellow Page ad. So he sat in my office. And he started to do this little spiel. And I had the time. So I took a moment to do it. Because I was curious what the prices were. And at the end of his little spiel, and not even to the end, three quarters through, I stopped him. I said ‘Stop. Just stop.' That was the worst presentation. That was so off. I said, ‘This is not what you want to do in life. What do you really want to do in life?' And he looked at me and he goes, ‘That bad?' And I said, ‘It was bad.' ‘I bet you haven't sold anything.' He says, ‘No, I haven't.' I said, ‘This is not you. What's your heart? Where's your heart? What do you really, really, really, really dream about doing in your career?' He said, ‘I want to be in the restaurant business.' I said, ‘Go to a restaurant today to get a job there, and work your way up until you own your restaurant.' He goes, ‘Well, I needed to hear that. Because I respect you and I needed to hear that from you.' And then I sold him a little audio cassette tape that I'd done, called The Psychology of Attainment. And he bought it, it was only 10 bucks.  He walked out with his $10 thing to listen to because I knew if he listened to it, it would encourage him to keep it going. He left there. Eight years go by, never seen the guy again. Eight years go by. I had moved to a new office. And I was on my way to go have lunch with my CPA. He picked me up. I came downstairs, he picked me up, took me to this little Super Salad restaurant nearby because we both had less than an hour to eat. So it's quick. Get in there and get a salad. You walk in and this Super Salad is a thing where you get a tray, and it's got a whole bunch of foods. And whatever it is they weigh it, and they charge you the acquired weight. So you get salad. You pay less if you get something with it.  As I walked in, and we started going to the line, I saw that young man grown up eight years older in this suit, talking to another man in a suit. And I said, ‘If you don't mind going get me a tray. And I'll catch up. I see someone I must say hi to.' I walk over to this guy. He's talking this man. He's not paying attention to me. I'm standing right next to him. And as he's talking I'm just standing there waiting for him to finish. All of a sudden he finishes, the guy starts to walk off he turns around as if he's going to say, ‘Can I help you?'  Lisa: Yeah, he didn't realise this.  Dr John: And obviously he looks at me and he goes, ‘Oh my god. Wow, wow.' He shook my hand, and ran off and got the other guy to come here, ‘This is the guy I told you about.' And he told him, ‘This is the guy.' And the guy said, ‘Oh, thank you. I'd love to meet you. He's told me all about you, he said you changed his life.' And I said, ‘Well didn't know until today. What impact– Lisa: What are you doing? Yeah. Dr John: But the guy told me, he says, ‘I have eight franchises. I come into my restaurant. That was the manager. I'm checking up on my restaurants and I'll go to the next one. I check them out once a week, I go make my rounds.' He said, ‘That day, I got me a job at Super Salad. I worked myself into a management position for over two years. As I was saving the heck out of my money, which your tape set said to do, I bought into the franchises and I got eight franchises.' Lisa: Jesus! Just from that one tape, that one conversation, see this is the impact– Dr John: I said to him, ‘You just inspired me.' It brought a tear to my eye to know that– because I thought maybe I was a bit tough on you. He said, ‘Sir, you did the most amazing thing to my life that day. Because the truth is, I wanted to be in the restaurant business. And now I am.' Lisa: Just interrupting the program briefly to let you know that we have a new Patron program for the podcast. Now, if you enjoy Pushing The Limits, if you get great value out of it, we would love you to come and join our Patron membership program. We've been doing this now for five and a half years and we need your help to keep it on air. It's been a public service free for everybody, and we want to keep it that way. But to do that, we need like-minded souls who are on this mission with us to help us out. So if you're interested in becoming a Patron for Pushing the Limits podcast, then check out everything on patron.lisatamati.com. That's p-a-t-r-o-n dot lisatamati dot com. We have two patron levels to choose from. You can do it for as little as $7 a month, New Zealand, or $15 a month if you really want to support us. So we are grateful if you do. There are so many membership benefits you're going to get if you join us, everything from workbooks for all the podcasts, the strength guide for runners, the power to vote on future episodes, webinars that we're going to be holding, all of my documentaries and much, much more. So check out all the details: patron.lisatamati.com, and thanks very much for joining us.  Lisa: You've encouraged him basically to have faith in the dream and to– because everybody else, like your family, often your friends, often are, ‘You can't leave that safe job.' I've had this conversation with my husband who's a firefighter. And he says like, ‘I can never leave the fire brigade because it's what I've always done. And that's how I've always, you know, it was my passion,' and so on. And I said, ‘Yes, but you don't have to stay there. That's your choice. Opt for security and– If you want security, if you want to do something, then do it. Life is short.' Dr John: All I know is that if you're not doing something you're inspired by, life can be pretty horrible. I see people. I didn't, I used to get, I lived in New York for a while. And we lived in Trump Tower there, fifty-sixth and fifth, right underneath Donald, so I knew Donald. So I live there for 29 years. And sometimes, you can take taxi. Sometimes, you take, when we're going in the airport, I got a limo. But just going around the city, sometimes I'd have a taxi. I get in the taxi and I– if there was a mess, sometimes I'd pass it by. I go, ‘No, smelly. No, no respect.' But again, in a taxi– if I'm in a hurry, it's hard to get, right? It's 3:30 to 4 o'clock march, I get in whatever I get, because I don't want to wait another 20 minutes. But I get it and I go, ‘How long have you been driving a taxi?' And they'll say a year, five years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, whatever it may be. I said, ‘Do you love it?' Some will look in the mirror and go, ‘Pays the bills, man.' And I said, ‘But do you love it?' He goes, ‘Are you kidding, man? If I got a thing in New York, you got to be nuts.' And they have that attitude.  Of course, the car is usually a mess. It's got ripped holes in it. It's got cigarette burns. It's got a little bit of an odour. You know it's not taken cared of; it's not clean. But then you get in another car. And, ‘How long have you driven a taxi?' ‘28 years.' I said, ‘Do you love it?' ‘I love it. I get to meet people like yourself. I meet the most amazing people every day. My father was a taxi driver. My grandfather was a taxi driver in New York. I know every city, every street, I know every part of the city. Here's my card. You want some water?' ‘Sure.' ‘Anything you need to let, give me feedback about my car, please tell me. If there's something not in order, if somebody left something there, if it's dirty, let me know. I'd like to make sure that everybody gets a good experience in my car. If you want to know about the city, you just ask me. Anytime you want to go anywhere in the city, you contact me. And there's my card, I will take you, and I'll make sure you got the best thing, and I'll be on time for you.' He was just engaged. And he loved it. And of course, I got his card. And I called him. And sometimes when I was going around the city, I would use him. He would even come back and pick me up. Lisa: And it shows you that it doesn't matter if you're cleaning toilets or you're a taxi driver or you're at the garbage disposal. Whatever job you're doing, do it well, for starters. That can be your mission in life, is to provide that service. It doesn't have to be taking on the world and flying to Mars like Elon Musk. It's just, do your job; do it well. I don't, I just– I have issue too, with people who just doing the job, getting the paycheck, not doing the job with passion.  You can tell. I walk into my gym and there's a new lady on reception who is just beaming from ear to ear, fully enthusiastic. I see her training; she trains like a maniac. She's just always happy and positive. When somebody comes into that gym now, they get a positive smiley receptionist. ‘Come in' and ‘How was your day?' The contrast to the other person that works at the gym who's surly looking, never smiles. And if you, say ‘Hello, how are you doing?' It's like, ‘Mmm.' And you think, ‘Wow, that is just the difference between someone who's just, “I'm so lucky to be here” and “I'm working.”'  Dr John: They're engaged versus disengaged. Can I share another story?  Lisa: This is great.  Dr John: Right. My father, I started working for my father when I was four. He owned a plumbing business. He wasn't a plumber. He's an engineer, but he had plumbers working for him. And my job was to clean the nipples. And they sound a little sexual, but it's actually, these little pipes and couplings, so it's interesting. But I used to scrape them out with a brush and oil them to make sure they would be preserved because they'll get a little rusty sitting around. Then, my dad would then, every once while, not every day, but most of the time, would give me the opportunity to go out with the plumbers to go on calls to learn plumbing. Everyone, so he would say, ‘Well, you're going to go with Joe today. You're going to go with Bob. You're going to go with Warren. You're going to go with…' And this one day, he said, ‘You're going to go with Jesse.'  I spend part of the day with Jesse. And Jesse was a ditch digger. He was an Afro-American man that was a ditch digger. And I said, ‘You want me to go with Jessie, am I going to dig a ditch?' He said, ‘Yes. I want you to go with Jesse.' I said, ‘Why?' He said, ‘You'll know when you get back.' ‘Okay.' So I go out with Jesse. We drive to this house that is about a 35-year-old house that needs a new water main from the street, the main from the street up to the house. And so he got a T-bar out, and he got a hose, and he got some paper, and he got a sharpshooter, which is a special shovel, and a little round-headed shovel, and a level and a string. This long string thing wrapped up on this piece of wood. And some, and another stick. The stick that had string around it where there are two sticks on either end. You could open them up unravelling. He stayed one at one place, stayed the other place, exactly where the line is going to go. Then he took a T-bar and went down into the ground to make sure there's no roots, no rocks, no anything that might interfere with the laying of a pipe. Then he watered it to make sure that you could go and if you dug it, it was just wet enough that it wouldn't crumble if you turn the sod over. And then he lined paper on one side of it. And then he showed me how to dig the ditch. I would go down to exactly the width of the sharpshooter, which is how deep it had to go. And then we would turn it over onto the paper. And that meant that the grass wasn't even cut, it was just folded over. Right. And we had a perfectly straight ditch. And then he showed me how to create the ditch with this other little thing. And it would go on top of the sides. It wouldn't fall off into the grass. It would just be on top of the paper, and on the inside. Then he took the level and he made sure that the grade was perfectly level from one place to the other because if you have a dip in it, water will sit there and rust and it'll wear out quicker. But if it flows exactly in line, you don't get as many rusting. We put this pipe down, pretty perfectly clear, perfectly graded. We levelled it, made sure it was perfectly level. We installed it to the house, into the main. We then put some of the dirt back over it. Put the sod back on, patted it down, watered it, squished it down, loosened up the grass so you couldn't even tell it had ever been done now. And we had a brand new waterline done. And when you're done, you could not, until you could walk around, you couldn't tell it was done. It was perfect. And then we got in the truck and started to drive off. And I asked, you know, Jesse, his name was. I said, ‘That was neat.' You know, I'm a young kid. And I said, ‘Call me J for John.' He said, ‘J, I have the greatest job on this planet, the greatest job a man could ever, ever, ever ask for.' And I said, ‘What do you mean?' I thought he's a ditch digger. He said, ‘Without water, people die. I bring life to people. My job is the most important job. They can't bathe. They can't drink. They can't make food. They can't do anything without my water pipe. I had the most important job on this planet. And I bring water to people. Without water people die.' And I thought, ‘Whoa.' And I came back and he said to me, ‘My job is to do such an amazing job that they call the office and complain that we never came.'  Lisa: Because they can't see where he's been!  Dr John: It's so immaculate. They don't believe that somebody came and they'll call and cuss out your dad. “Why is it not, why did you not do the main?” And your dad knows. Tell them, “If you don't mind just walk out. They will see that the main is there.”' They're unbelievably astonished that there was no mess and it's perfect. And he didn't tell us about Jesse, and the respect he does when he does water main. He knew that if I would go out there and learn from him, here's a man that does what he loves. Yeah, and he's the ditch digger. And in those days, you didn't make a little bit, you didn't make a lot of money. Lisa: And I love that. And it just reminds me of my dad. He was always cleaning up at the garden. He was a firefighter professionally, but he would be, every spare moment, gardening somebody's garden, cleaning up, landscaping, doing it. And he worked on films as a landscape artist and so on. He was always the one that was cleaning everything up, everything was immaculate by the end of the day. Whereas every, all the other workers were just, ‘Down tools. It's five o'clock, we're off,' sort of thing. Drop it and run. Everything was always a mess.  My dad, he always had everything perfectly done. And was, always came home satisfied because he'd spent, when he wasn't at the fire brigade, he spends his day with his hands in the dirt, out on the sun, physically working in nature, and loving it and doing a proper job of it. So yeah, it just reminded me because he taught us all those things as we were growing up too. And would take us and teach us how to paint and teach us how to, all of these things.  Dr John: The more something is high on your value that you're doing, your identity revolves around your highest value. Whatever is highest on your value, your identity revolves around. As a result of it, the pride in workmanship goes up to the degree that it's congruent with what you value most. Because you're inspired and love doing it. And it's, your identity goes around it. So my identity would rather revolve around teaching. So I'm inspired to do teaching. I can't wait to do it.  Whatever high an individual's values is what they're going to excel at most. And they are wanting to do it not because they have to, but because they love to. People do something they love to, completely do a different job than people that have to. They're creative, innovative. They go out of their way. They don't care if they have to work extra time. They don't care about those things because they're doing what they love. Lisa: Yeah, absolutely. I love it. You have some fabulous stories to illustrate the point. So whatever you're doing people, do it properly, and do it with passion, and try to get to where you want to. You might, this just takes time to get to where you want to go. You come out of school, you're not going to end up being near the top of your game. But you have to start somewhere and head towards what your passion is. I wanted to figure— Dr John: If you start out right at the very beginning, master planning, you can get there pretty quick. In 18 months, I went from doing everything, to do the two or three things that I did most effectively. I delegated the rest away. But my income went up tenfold.  Lisa: Wow. Yeah. Because you were actually doing the things that mattered the most. Dr John: Me going out and speaking and me doing the clinical work was the two things that I was, because that's the thing I went to school for. That's what I wanted to do. I didn't want to do the administrative or I didn't want to do all that other stuff. Hire people to do that. That freed me up. Lisa: Yeah, it's a fantastic message. Now, I wanted to flip directions on you if I could, and I've been doing a lot of study around flow states and optimising. How do we build into ourselves this ability to be operating at our best, which we've been talking a little bit about? What neurotransmitters are at play when we're in a flow state? How do we maintain this over time to remain inspired and not be worn down?  We think about flow state or I don't know how to put this into words, people. By that I mean, it's that state where you're just on fire, where everything's happening really well, you're at your genius place, your talents are being expressed properly, and you're just in it. I would get that when I'm running, or when I was making jewellery and I would, time would disappear, and I'd be just in this otherworldly place, almost sometimes. How do we tap into that? Because that is where we as human beings can be our optimal, be our best. Have you got any ideas around that as far as the neurotransmitters and the neuroscience of flow states? Dr John: Yes. It boils down to the very same thing I was saying a moment ago: not doing low priority things. There's two flow states though, and they get confused. Maybe people have confused a manic elated, utopic, euphoric high, which is a fantasy of all positives, no negatives in the brain that makes you manic. That flow state is a hypocriticality, amygdala-driven, dopamine-driven fantasy high that won't last.  Then there's a real flow state. When you're doing something that's truly inspiring and deeply meaningful, you get tears in your eyes getting to do it. You're not having a hypocriticality, you're having a supercriticality, where the very frontal cortex is actually activated, not the lateral but the medial one, and you're now present. It's the gratitude centre; it's grace. There you're in the flow because you're doing something you really love to do that you feel is your identity. That's where time stops.  Some people confuse a manic episode with that state. But a manic episode crashes. But the real flow state is inspired. That's when you're able to do what you love doing consistently. When Warren Buffett is doing, reading business statements, and financial statements, and deciding what companies to buy, this is what he loves doing. For me, I'm studying human behaviour and anything to do with the brain, and mind, and potential, and awareness. I'm that way. I can lose track of all time and just be doing it for hours. It's not a manic state. That's an inspired state. An inspired state is an intrinsically driven state where you're willing to embrace pain and pleasure in the pursuit of it.  You love tackling challenges and solving problems, and you'll just research and research or do whatever you're doing, and you just keep doing it because you won't stop. That's not a manic episode. Although manics can look similar, there's a difference. Though a manic state comes from the dopamine, you got a high dopamine, usually high serotonin, you got encapsulants, endorphins. But you also don't have, you're not perceiving the downsides. You're just seeing all upsides. You are blinded by little fantasy about what's going to happen. And that eventually catches you, because that it's not obtainable. Fantasies are not obtainable, objectives are.  Eventually, the other side comes in, and osteocalcins comes in and norepinephrine, epinephrine, cortisol, the stress responses. Because all of, all of a sudden your fantasy's not being met. But when you think you're going after the fantasy, just think of it this way: when you're infatuated with somebody, you're enamoured. You're in this euphoria. All you see is the upside, and you're blind to the downside. Actually, at this time, you say, ‘I'm in love.' No, you're infatuated. And then when weeks go by, and months go by, you start to find out, ‘Oh, I was fooled. That person I thought was there is not who I thought.' And you find out about this person. And that's short-lived. Yeah.  When you actually know that human beings can have both sides, and you don't have a fantasy of one side, but you embrace both sides, and know that they're a human being with a set of values. If you can communicate and articulate what you want in terms of those values, you now have a fulfilling relationship. It's a long term relationship. It's not volatile. It's not manic depressive. It's just steady. That's the one that's the flow. That's what allows the relationship to grow. The manic thing is transient. The real flow is eternal. Lisa: So it's the difference between being in love, and infatuated, and being in actual true real long-term love. Dr John: Well, infatuation, people confuse with love. If I have an expectation on you to be nice, never mean; kind, never cruel; positive, never negative; peaceful, never wrathful, giving, never taking; generous, never stingy; considerate, never inconsiderate. If I have a fantasy about who you are and I'm high because I think I've found this person, that's ‘Oh, well, it's all one-sided.' It's not sustainable. No one's gonna live that way. But if I have an expectation, if they're a human being with a set of values, I can rely on them to do what's highest on their value, and nothing more. I respect their value, I see how it's serving my value, and I can appreciate what they're committed to, and don't have any expectation except them to do what they do. They won't let me down. And I'll be grateful for them. Lisa: Why didn't you tell her that when I was a 20-year-old finding the wrong people in my life? Relationship-wise, are you going after the wrong types of people? Dr John: If you go after it a little infatuation, you have to pay with a broken crush. You never have a broken heart; you have a broken fantasy. Eventually, it helps you actually learn to go after what's in your heart. Lisa: And value what is really important. Gosh, wouldn't it be nice to have had never met a lot sooner? Dr John: There's no mistake, so much happened, because you wouldn't be doing this project. Lisa: No. Then this is what every piece of crap that's ever come your way in life has got an upside and a downside. Because I hear in one of your lectures talking about this: don't get ever overexcited, and don't get really depressed. It's always in the middle. You put it so eloquently, it was, whenever something good happens to you, don't get too overly excited about it. And whenever something bad happens to you, don't get overly depressed about it. Because there's something in the middle of there. You're not seeing the downsides of that good thing, and you're not seeing the upsides.  I've actually integrated that now into my life. When something good, I used to have this thing, ‘Oh my god, I have this breakthrough. I've had this breakthrough.' And ‘This happened to me.' And then I'll go and talk about it. And, because I'm a very open person and I found actually that's not good in a couple of ways. Because I'm overexcited about it. I've ticked it off in my brain almost as being happened. Dr John: If you're overexcited, you're blind to the downside. Lisa: Yeah. And you think it's already happened. Say you meet someone, new possible job, or it's a possible contract, or something like that. And you got all excited about it. Because you've got you've initiated the process, but in your brain, you've already ticked that box and got the job and you're off.  Dr John: Then you undermine it. And you said it's related about a job opportunity. You usually have it taken away from you. You're mostly unready for it. If you're really ready for the job opportunity, you're going to know what it's going to take workwise to be able to get paid. You'll already get the downside and your objective. And know, ‘Oh, that's gonna be 28 hours of work here.'  Lisa: That's not cynical, that's not cynicism. That's actually not realism.  Dr John: It's grounded objectives. People who keep grounded objectives don't have job opportunities taken away from them. But people who get elated about it, brag about it, talk about it, almost inevitably disappears. Lisa: Wow. Okay. And so you got to be looking at, I've elated— a couple of opportunities come up that are possibly I'm thinking about doing. I'm like, ‘That one's gonna take so much work in this direction. That means going to be the sacrifice for you.' And the old me would have just gone, ‘Yeah. Let's do it, jump in. And I'm like, ‘Am I just getting old or is this actually a better way to be?' Dr John: My dad taught me something as a plumbing industry. He'd have to, they'd say, ‘Okay, we're going to build this house. Here's all the plumbing that's going to be involved in it.' They'd see the plans. He'd have to do an estimate. What would it cost to produce all that, put that together? If he got elated and he didn't do his cost, by the time he finishes, he didn't make any profit. But if he does his due diligence and knows all the responsibilities, what happens if it rains? What happens if there's delays? What happens if the permits are delayed? He puts all the variables in there and checks it all off. He then goes in to the customer and says, ‘This is what it's going to cost.'  He said, sometimes the customer would come to him and say, ‘Well, yeah. But this other one came in at $10,000 cheaper.' My dad would sit there and he would say to him, he said, ‘I want to show you something. I guarantee you, the man that comes in at $10,000 cheaper, is not going to be thinking of all the variables. You're going to end up not having the job that we're going to do. Let me make sure you understand this. You may not hire me, and that's okay. But I want to make sure you're informed you make a wise decision. Because if you don't, you're going to go pay that side to save $10,000, it's going to cost you an extra 10.'  Lisa: Yep. Been there, done that. Dr John: Well, my dad used to go through it, and with a fine-tooth comb, he explained all the different variables. He says, ‘Now, what I want you to do is go back to the person that's giving you those things and ask them all those questions. If they didn't think about it, they're going to either not make money off you and they're not going to want to continue to do the work. Or they're not going to do a great job because they're losing money. Or you're going to end up getting a thing done, then they're never going to want to do follow up and take care of you again as a customer. So here's what it costs. I've been doing this a long time. I know what it costs. I know what the property is. So I'd rather you know the facts, and be a little bit more and make sure it's done properly. Then go and save a few bucks and find out the hard way.' Here's the questions they go check. They came back to my dad.  Lisa: Yep. When they understood that whole thing. And I think this is a good thing in every piece of, every part of life. It's not always the cheapest offering that's the best offering, which you learn the hard way. Dr John: I had somebody come to me not too long ago, maybe four months ago, earlier this year. And said, ‘I go to so and so's seminar for almost half the price of your seminar. Why would I go to your seminar?' And I said, ‘That's like comparing a Rolls Royce to a Volkswagen.' I said, ‘So let me explain what you're going to get here. Let me explain what you're going to get here. Then you can make a decision. If you want that Volkswagen outcome, that's fantastic. If you want a Rolls Royce, I'm on the Rolls Royce. I'm going to give you something about here.' And once you explain it, and make the distinctions, people will pay the difference.  Lisa: Yeah. And that's– in a business, you have to be able to explain to them as well. When I was a jeweller, when I started, I was a goldsmith in a previous life. And we used to make everything by hand and it was all custom jewellery, etcetera, back before China and the mass production and huge factories and economies of scale really blew the industry to pieces. For a long time you were actually in that hanging on to one of those and not transitioning into the mass production side of it because I didn't want to, but not being able to represent the value that actually what you were producing: the customisation, the personalisation, the handmade, and people wouldn't understand that.  You end up chopping your own prices down and down and down to the point where it no longer became a viable business. And that was the state of the industry and so on and so forth. But people could not see the difference between this silver ring and that silver ring. That one's a customised, handmade, personalised piece that took X amount of hours to produce. And this is something they got spit out of a production line at a team and other people are wearing. But people can't see the value difference. Dr John: Yeah, you have to, you're responsible for bringing it to their awareness. If you've been to a sushi restaurant, they have this egg that's in layers. I noticed that to get some nigiri with an egg on it with a little seaweed wrapped around it, it was like $4 per piece. And the other sushi was like $2 at the time. I thought, just an egg. Why would it be that much? And then I thought, and then I watched him prepare one, and how many hours it took to prepare one of those slabs of egg because he had to do it in layers. We had to loony take a pan, take an egg, poured in the egg, cook it just a certain level. And then lay that, scramble it, laid on top layer to time while it's hot, and layer by layer by layer by layer and cut it and everything else to make that thing. And I realised that is an individual egg-layered piece of egg. And I realised after seeing him I go, ‘That's a $10 egg.'  Lisa: This is cheap.  Dr John: I was thinking, ‘How the heck does he do that for four bucks? How did he make any profit out of it?' I never questioned it after th

Enjoy part three of this classic episode series where Andrew Warner from Mixergy interviews Russell on the ClickFunnels startup story! Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com ---Transcript--- Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. I hope you enjoyed episodes 1 and 2 of the interview with Andrew Warner at the Dry Bar Comedy Club where he was telling the Clickfunnels startup story. I hope you are enjoying this interview series so far, and I hope also this motivates you guys to go over to the mixergy podcast and subscribe to everything that Andrew does. Like I said, he is my favorite interviewer and I think that what he does is second to none. So I hope that you guys enjoy him as well, and go subscribe to the mixergy podcast. But with that said, I'm going to queue up the theme song, and when we come back we will start into part 3 of the Clickfunnels startup story interview. Andrew: I actually got, I did see, I don't know, I didn't see the video you mentioned, but I did see what it looked like. Here's one of the first versions. He compared it to Clickfunnels, he said, I mean to Lead Pages. He said, “Look at how Lead Pages has their stuff all the way on the left, all the controls.” Oh you can't see it. Oh, let me try it again, let me see if I can bring up the screen because this is just, it's just too good. Hang on a second. I'm just constantly amazed how you're able to draw people to you. So this is the article from Lead Pages, this is the first landing page from Clickfunnels, this is what he created before, this is what you guys did together. This is your editor and h e said, “Look, if you're on Lead Pages, their controls, their editor is all the way on the left and it's just moving the main content to the right, which is not looking right. And I prefer something that looks like this, with a hundred pixels on the left, a hundred pixels…” I go, who knows a hundred pixels, it's like you, what is this? Russell: Dylan is obsessed with that type of stuff, it's amazing. Andrew: Obsessed. And you draw people like that. You draw people like Dave, who is just phenomenal. Dave, the traffic and conversion event that he was just talking about, is that the one that you went to? Dave: The one after that. Andrew: The one after that. Okay, we'll come back to that in a second then. So this became your next version, you brought on a new partner, and then you did a webinar with this guy. Who is this guy? Russell: It's Mike Filsaime, one of my first friends online. It actually wasn't a webinar, it was a live event. He was doing a live event in San Diego and he was like, “You have to come and sell Clickfunnels.” And I was like, “Nobody's buying Clickfunnels.” We had a free trial and like, we couldn't give it away. It was crazy. And he's like, “Well, you're on this website, you're picture is there, you have to come and sell Clickfunnels, and I need you to sell it for at least $1000.” Because the way it works, if you speak at someone's event, you sell something, you split the money 50/50. So he's like, “It needs to be at least $1000.” And I was all bummed out. I didn't want to do it. And the event actually started, but they were streaming it live online, so I was actually sitting at our office in Boise, watching it as I'm putting together my slides to create Clickfunnels, and then flew out to the event. And then we had a booth, and I don't know if I told you this, we had a booth and Lead Pages had a booth right across the little hallway, skinny hallway. And Todd's wife was manning our booth and then Lead Pages was right there, and it was so funny because she was not shy at all about talking about Lead Pages. She's like, “Yeah, we're like Lead Pages except for way better. We can do this and this.” And the other guy is sitting there like, right in front of her as she's telling them everything. And it was..anyway, I digress. It was pretty funny. Andrew: By the way, she's still at it. I saw a video that you guys created, you were talking to her and she goes, “I will be Clickfunnels.” I go wait a minute, you still had that fire, okay. So you were at that event. Russell: So we're at the event and there's probably, I can't remember, 150-200 people maybe in the room. So I got the slides up and Dylan was there and he was like, when we got to the funnels he was going to demo the editor, so I did the whole thing, showed the presentation and we demo'd Clickfunnels and at the end of the thing I sold. And I've been good onstage, but by far, that was the first time in probably 8 years that I'd seen a table rush, where people are stepping over the things, jumping around, trying to get to the back to buy as fast as they could. Andrew: What did you say to get them to want to do that? Russell: We made a really, I mean we gave the presentation, and gave a really good offer at the end. They get a year of Clickfunnels for free, plus they get training, plus they were going to get all these other things for $1000. Andrew: It was $1000 training and a year of Clickfunnels for free, and then they become long term members. And it was also called, Funnel Hackers? Russell: Funnel Hacks, yeah. Andrew: Funnel Hacks. And that's the thing that became like… Russell: The culture. Andrew: This culture, this tribe. It wasn't just they were signing to learn from you, they were becoming funnel hackers. That's it. Russell: I mean, that wasn't planned though. It was like, I was trying to think about a sexy name for the presentation, so I'm like ah, Funnel Hacks. And somebody owned FunnelHacks.com, and I'm like, I'm still doing the presentation that way. And then later we made t-shirts that said, “Funnel Hackers” and then now we got 4 or 5 people have tattooed that to their bodies, it's really weird. But anyway, that's what happened. We did that and we sold it and I remember going to dinner that night with the guys who were there, and Todd and his wife and everything. And we were all excited because we made some money finally. But I was just like, “You guys don't understand, like I've spoken on a lot of stages, and I haven't seen a table rush like that.” And I remember back, there was a guy, he passed away a couple of years ago, his name was Fred Catona. And he was a radio guy. He was the guy who did the radio commercials for, do you guys remember, it's got the guy from Star Trek, what's his name? Audience member: Priceline. Russell: Priceline. He did the Priceline radio commercials and made that guy a billionaire. And he told me when we were doing the radio ads, “This is what's going to happen. We're going to test your ad and if it works, I'm going to call you on the phone and let you know you're rich. Because if it works, it means you're going to be rich.” So I remember going to dinner that night and I told the guys, “Just so you guys know, we're rich.” And they're like, “What do you mean? We made $150,000.” I'm like, “No, no, no. The way people responded to that, I've never seen that in my life. We're rich.” The response rate from that, I've never seen. Andrew: And then you went to webinar after webinar after webinar. Russell: On the flight home that day I'm texting everybody I've ever met. “I got a hot offer, this webinar crushed it. We just closed whatever percent of the room at Filsaime's event. Who wants to do it?” And we started filling up the calendar. Andrew: And the idea was, and you told me you did 2 to 3 some days. And the idea was, they would sell somebody on a course, and then their members would then hear how your software and your funnel hacking technique would help up what they just bought and then they would sign up. You're still excited, I can see it in your face. And then this thing took off. And then you started doing an event for your culture, your community, and this guy spoke, Tony Robbins. Russell: Oh yeah, there's Tony. Andrew: One of the first ones. Was he at the very first one? Russell: No, he came to the third one, was the first one we had him come to. Andrew: Yeah? Why do an event? Why do your own live event? Russell: So we've done events in the past. I know events are good, but I'd sworn off them because the last event we did, I think we sold 3 or 400 tickets and less than 100 people showed up and I was so embarrassed. I was like, “We'll never do events again.” And as soon as this, as soon as Clickfunnels launched and it was growing, everyone's like, “We want to do a meet up. We should do an event.” All the customers kept asking. And against my, I didn't really want to do it, but at the same time I was launching my book, and I had won a Ferrari in this affiliate contest so I was like, “What if we did an event and we had the Ferrari there and we gave it away and then we're…” we had other ideas for giving away other cars and it became this big, exciting thing that eventually turned into an event. And that was the first Funnel Hacking Live event in Vegas, and we had about 600 people at that one that showed up. And that's where it all kind of, it all started. Andrew: And it built how much, how many people are you up to now? Russell: Last year we had 3500 people and we're on track to have about 5000 at this year's event. Andrew: 5000? Yeah. Russell: Those aren't free tickets. Each ticket's $1000, so it's…. Andrew: So how much is that in total revenue? Russell: From the event? Andrew: Yeah. Russell: So ticket sales, last year was $3 ½ million, this year will be over $5. But at the event we sell coaching so last year we made $13 million in coaching sales at the event as well. Andrew: Wow, would you come up here for a second, Dave? Do you guys know Dave? Yeah, everyone knows Dave. You know what's amazing… {Audience catcalls} Andrew: That's amazing. Dave: I don't know who that is. Andrew: A catcall. I saw a video, you guys have this vlog now, a beautifully show vlog. You guys went to sales force's conference, you're looking at the booths and in the video, do you remember what you did as you saw the different booths? Dave: I think that one I went and asked what the prices for each of the booths were. Andrew: Yes, and then you multiplied. And he's like, you're not enjoying the event, you're calculating ahead, how much. “10,000 that's 100,000….” It's like wow, right. You do this all the time? Dave: Yeah. It's a lot of money in an event like that. Andrew: And you think, and if this was not your event, you would be doing the same calculation trying to figure out how much they brought in today. Wowee. Alright when you went to sales force did you calculate how much money they probably did from their event? Dave: We were doing that the whole time, absolutely. Andrew: You saw the building, you had to know… Dave: Oh my gosh. 61 stories. Andrew: Why? Why do you guys want to know that? Why does, how does that… I want to understand your drive as a company and I feel like this is a part of it. Figuring out how much money other people are making, using that for fuel somehow. Tell me. Dave: I think it actually goes back to Russell and his wrestling days. We had the experience of going to Chicago right after that, and super just exhausted. And it was one of those things where he literally landed, we walked down and we're underneath the tarmac and all the sudden Russell goes from just being totally exhausted to a massive state change. Where he's literally right back where he was with his dad and he and his dad are walking that same path to go to, I think it was Nationals. And I saw Dan Usher, who was doing the filming, capturing that moment and it's that type of a thing for Russell. Where all the sudden it's the dream, where as soon as you see it, it can then happen. And Russell's just been amazing at modeling, and again the whole idea as far as just going at a rapid, rapid speed. I mean it's “Ready, fire, aim.” Andrew: It's not you gawking at the sales force, what's the sales force event called? Dave: Dream Force. Andrew: Dream force. It's not you gawking at how well Sales Force's event, Dream Force is doing, it's not you having envy or just curiosity, it's you saying, it's possible. This is us. That's it. Dave: It's totally possible. Andrew: It's totally possible. We could get there. And when you're sizing up the building, you even found out how much the building cost. Who does that? Most people go, “Where's the bathroom?” How much does the building cost? Dave: There's a number. Andrew: It's you saying, “We could maybe have that.” Dave: We can have that, yeah. Andrew: Got it. And so let's go back a little bit. I asked you about Traffic and Conversion because the very first Traffic and Conversion conference you went to, you guys were nobodies. Nobody came and saw you. Dave: We were put out in North 40 pasture, way, way far away. Andrew: And some people would say, “One day I'll get there.” you told Russell, “Today we're going to get there.” Dave: Well Russell wanted, he was speaking and so whenever you're speaking at an event, it's important that you fill a room, like this. And there's nothing worse than having an event and having no one show up. It's just the worst feeling in the world. And so he's like, “All we need, I gotta find some way of getting people into the event. I wish we had like some girls who could just hand out t-shirts or do something.” And I was like, we're in San Diego, that's like my home town. Russell: Dave's like, “How many do you need?” That's all he said. Dave: It's just a number. It comes down to a number. How many do you want? So we ended up having, within an hour or so we had 5 girls there who were more than happy to dance around and give out t-shirts and fill the room. Andrew: and the room was full? Dave: Packed. Andrew: Packed. And why wouldn't you say, “One day, the next time we come to Traffic and Conversion, the tenth time we're going to do it.” Why did it have to be right there? Dave: It's always now.   Andrew: It's always now. Dave: It's always now. Andrew: It's always now. It's never going to be the next funnel, it's never going to be the next product launch. I'm going to do whatever we can right now, and the next one, and the next one. That's it. That's who you are. Dave: That's how it works. Andrew: And now you're a partner in the business. $83 million so far this year, you got a piece of that. Dave: Yes. Do i? Russell: Yeah. Dave: Just checking. Andrew: Do you get to take profits home now? Dave: We do. Andrew: You do, you personally do? Dave: Yes. Andrew: Are you a millionaire? Dave: Things are really good. Andrew: Millionaire good from Clickfunnels? Dave: yes. Andrew: Really? Dave: Yes. Andrew: Wow. And you're another one. I was driving and I said, “What was it about Russell that made you work for him? What was it?” and you said, “I've never seen anyone implement like him.” Give me an example of early days, something that he implemented…you know what, forget that, let's not go back to Russell. As a team, you guys have gotten really good at implementing. Give me an example of one thing that you're just stunned by, we did it, it came out of nowhere, we could have been distracted by funnel software, we could have distracted by the next book, we did this thing, what is it? Dave: You're here on this stage with JP, and this was what 6 weeks ago? Andrew: and this whole thing just came from an idea I heard. You use Voxer. Why do you use Voxer? Russell: I don't know. Andrew: Because you like to talk into it. Russell: Yeah, and you can fast forward, you can listen at 4x speed, you can forward the messages to people really easily, it's awesome. Andrew: and it's just train of thought, boom, here's what I think we're going to…No, it's not that. I heard it's, “I have a secret project…” Russell: “I'll tell you guys about it later.” And they all start freaking out. “Tell us now.” Andrew: “Secret project. I don't know what it, it's going to be exciting.” They don't know what it is, going to be excited. Russell: Do you know how it started, this one? I was cleaning my wrestling room listening to you, and you were, I don't know whose event it was, but you were at the campfire, it sounded like. And you were doing something like this and I was like, I want my own campfire chat to tell our story. And then I was like, “Dave, we should do it.” And now we're here. So thanks for coming to our campfire…. Dave: That's how it happens. Andrew: And that's exciting to this day. Alright, thank you. Give him a big round, thank you so much. You know what, I didn't mean for this to come onstage, but I'm glad that it is. This made you laugh when you accidentally saw it earlier too. Why is this making you laugh? What is it? Russell: So we're not shy about our competitors, even when they're our friends. So one of the companies we're crossing out is his. That's why it's funny. Andrew: It's one of my companies. That's Bot Academy there. It's also a company I invest in, that octopus is ManyChat, I've been a very big angel investor and supporter of theirs. I'm not at all insulted by that, I'm curious about it. You guys come across as such nice, happy-go-lucky guys. Dave asked me if I want water, I said “Dave I can't have you give me any more things. I feel uncomfortable, I'm a New Yorker. Punch me, please.” So he goes, “Okay, one more thing. I'm going to give you socks.” So he gave me socks. Really, but still, you have murder in your eyes sometimes. You're crossing out everybody. This is part of your culture, why? Russell: It comes back, for me its wrestling. When I was wrestling it was not, I don't know, there's different mentalities right. And I did a podcast on this one time and I think I offended some people, so I apologize in advance, but if you're in a band and everyone gets together and you play together and you harmonize, it's beautiful. When you're a wrestler you don't do that. You know, you walk in everyday and you're like, those are the two guys I have to beat to be varsity. And then after you do that, you walk in and you're like, “Okay who are the people I have to beat to be in the region champ, and then the state champ, and then the national champ?” So for me, my entire 15 years of my life, all my focus was like, who's the next person on the rung that I have to beat? And it's studying and learning about them and figuring their moves and figuring out what they're good at, what they're bad at so we can beat them. Then we beat them and go to the next thing, and next thing, and next thing. So it was never negative for me, it was competition. Half the guys were my friends and they were doing the same thing to me, we were doing the same thing to them. I come from a hyper competitive world where that's everything we do. And I feel bad now, because in business, a lot of people we compete against aren't competitive and I forget that sometimes, and some people don't appreciate it. But that's the drive. It's just like, who do we, if I don't have someone to, if there's not someone we're driving towards, there's not a point for me. Andrew: And even if they're, even if I was hurt, “I accept it, I'm sorry you're hurt, Andrew. I still care and love you. We're going to crush you.” That's still there. Russell: And I had someone, so obviously InfusionSoft was one of our people we were targeting for a long, long time and I had a call with Clayton and someone on his team asked me, “Why do you hate Infusion Soft so much?” I was like, “I don't, you don't understand. I don't hate, I love Infusion Soft. I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful for Lead Pages, I'm grateful for….” I told them, have you guys seen the Dark Knight, my favorite movie of all time? And it's the part where Batman and the Joker are there and Batman is like, asks the Joker, “Why are you trying to kill me?” And the Joker starts laughing and he's like, “I'm not trying to kill you. The reason I do this is because of you. If I didn't have you, there's no purpose behind it.” So for me it's like, if I don't have someone to compete against, why are we playing the game? So for me, that's why we're always looking… Andrew: It's not enough to say, it's not enough to just say “we're playing the game because we want to help the next entrepreneur, or the next person who's sick and needs to create…” no, it's not. Russell: That's a big part of it, but like, there's something… Andrew: Yeah, but it's not enough, it's gotta be both. Russell: My whole life there's, the competition is what drives me for sure. Andrew: And just like you're wrestling with someone, trying to beat them, but you don't hate them. You're not going to their house and break it down… Russell: Everyone we wrestled, we were friends afterwards. We were on the same Freestyle and Greco teams later in the season, but during, when we're competing, we're competing and everyone's going all at it. Andrew: Everyone's going all at it. That's an interesting way to end it. How much more time do we have? How much more time do we have? I'm going to keep going. Can I get you to come up here John, because I gotta get you to explain something to me? So I told you, I was online the other day, yeah give him a big round. I was online the other day, I don't even know what I clicked, I clicked something and then I saw that Russell's a great webinar person, everyone keeps telling me. Well, alright, I gotta find out how he does it. So I click over, “Alright, just give your email address and you can find out how..” Alright, I'll give my email address to find out how he became such a great webinar presenter. “Just give a credit card. It's only $4.95, so it comes in the mail.” It comes in the mail, that's pretty cool. Nothing comes in the mail anymore. Here's my credit card. It goes, “Alright, it's going to mail it out. Would you also like to learn how to use these slides? $400.” I go, no! I'm done. Russell: Welcome to the funnel. Andrew: Welcome to the funnel. I'm done. But I'm going to put in Evernote a link to this page so I don't lose it so I can come back. I swear. I did it. And this is my receipt for $4.95. Don't you ever feel like, we're beyond this? We're in the software space now, we're competing with Dropbox, we're not competing with Joe Schmoe and his ebook. And you're the guy who sold the, who bought the ad that got me. John: I know. Andrew: I asked you that. Do you ever feel a little embarrassed, “We're still in the info market space.”? John: No, I think it's the essence of what we do, of what Russell does. We love education. We love teaching people. I mean, the software is like the backend, but we're not software people. I mean, we sell software, but we teach people. All these people here and all the people at all of our events, they just want to learn how to do it better. Andrew: I don't believe it. John: Okay. Andrew: I believe in him. I don't believe in you. I believe that for you it's the numbers. Here's why I don't believe it. I'm looking in your eyes and you're like, “I'm giving the script. I'm good, I'm doing the script.” I see it in your eyes, but when I was talking to you earlier, no offense. This is why he does what he does. When I was talking to you earlier, you told me about the numbers, the conversion, how we get you in the sales funnel, how we actually can then modify…That's the exciting part. Don't be insulted by the fact that I said it. Know that we have marketers here, they're going to love you for being open about it. What's going on here? What's going on, keeping you in this space? John: Okay, from my perspective. Okay so, initially it was self liquidation on the front, which is what I was telling you. It was the fact that we were bootstrapped, we didn't have money to just like throw out there. We had to make sure we were earning enough money to cover our ads. And Russell had all the trust in the world in me, I don't know why he did, but he did. And he's just like, “Spend money, and try to make it self-liquidate.” I'm like, “Okay.” So we just had to spend money and hope that we got enough back to keep spending money. Andrew: And self-liquidate means buy an ad today and make sure that we make money from that ad right away and then software. John: Yeah. Andrew: And then you told, and then software's going to pay overtime, that's our legacy, that's our thing. And you told me software sucks for selling. Why? John: Software sucks, yeah. Andrew: Why? Everyone who's in info, everyone's who in education says, “I wish I was a software guy. Software is eating the world, they're getting all the risk back.” I walked through San Francisco; they think anyone who doesn't have software in their veins is a sucker. John: I asked the same thing to myself, you know. I was running ads, I'm like why can't I just run ads straight to the offer? Why do I have go to these info products? I want to get on the soft…. And then I was like, I feel like it's kind of like marriage. Like it's a big thing to say like, “You probably already built websites, but come over, drop everything you're doing and come over here and build websites over here on our thing.” And it's like, that's a hard pull. But “Hey, you want to build webinars? Here's a little thing for $5 to build webinars.” Now you're in our world, now we can talk to you, now you can trust us, now we can get you over there. Andrew: Got it. Okay, and if that's what it takes to get people in your world, you're going to accept it, you're not going to feel too good for that, you're just going to do it and grow it and grow it. John: Yeah. Andrew: What's your ad budget now? See now you're eyes are lighting up. Now I tapped into it. John: We spend about half a million a month. Andrew: half a million a month! John: Yeah. Don't tell the accountant. Andrew: Do you guys pay with a credit card? Do you have a lot of miles? John: Yeah, we do. In fact…. Andrew: You do! How many miles? John: In fact, the accountant came into my office the other day and said, “Next time you buy a ticket, use the miles.” Andrew: Are they with Delta, because I think you guys flew me out with Delta. John: Yeah, American Express is where we're spending all our money. Andrew: Wow. And you're a partner too? John: Yeah. Andrew: Wow, congratulations. John: Thank you. Andrew: I don't know you well enough to ask you if you're a millionaire, I'm just going to say congratulations. Give him a big round. John: Thank you. Andrew: Wow, you know what, I actually was going to ask the videographers to come up here. I wrote their names down, I got the whole thing and I realized I shouldn't interrupt them, because they're shooting video. But I asked them, why are you, they had this career where they were flying all over the world shooting videos for their YouTube channel. I'm sorry, I forgot their name, and I don't want to leave them out. Russell: Dan and Blake. Andrew: They were shooting YouTube videos, they were doing videos for other people. I said, “Why are you now giving it up and just working for Clickfunnels all the time? More importantly, why are you so excited about it?” And they said, “You know, it's the way that we work with Russell.” And I said, do you remember the first time that you invited them out to shoot something? What was it? Russell: It was the very first Funnel Hacking Live we ever had, and probably 2 weeks prior to that, one of our friends had an event and Dan had captured the footage, and he showed me the videos. “Did you check out my Ven Video?” I'm like, “Oh my gosh, that was amazing.” And I said “Who did it?” and he told me. So I emailed Dan and I was like, “Hey, can you come do that for Funnel Hacking Live?” And he's like, “What's Funnel Hacking Live?” So I kind of told him, and he's like, “Sure.” And it was like 2 weeks later and he's like, “What's the direction?” and I was like, “I don't know, just bring the magic man. Whatever you did there, do that here.” And that's kind of been his calling card since. He just comes and does stuff. Andrew: Bring the magic. He wants to have those words painted on the Toronto office you guys are starting. Literally, because he says you say that all the time. And the idea is, I want to understand how you hire. The idea is, “I'm going to find people who do good work, and I'm going to let them do it.” What happens if they wouldn't have done it your way? What happens if it would have gone a different direction? Russell: I see your question, and I'm not perfect. So I'm going to caveat that by, some of the guys on my team know that I'm kind of, especially on the design and funnel stuff, I'm more picky on that, because I'm so into that and I love it. But what I've found is when you hire amazing people like Todd for example, doing Clickfunnels. The times I tried to do Clickfunnels prior, build it was like, me and I'm telling developers, “here's what to do and how to do it.” And like there's always some loss in communication. With Todd, he's like, “I know exactly what I would build because I want this product too.” And then he just built it and he showed me stuff. And I'm like, “That's a good idea.” And he's like, “I did this too.” And I'm like, “That's a good idea.” And it's so much easier that way. So when you find the right people, it's not you giving them ideas, it's them coming to you with the ideas. And you're like, “that is a good idea. Go do it.” And it just makes, takes all the pressure off your back. So for us, and it's been fun because I look at, man, the last 15 years of all those different websites and the ups and the downs, the best people have always stuck. So we've got 15 years of getting the cream of the crop. It's kind of like, I'm a super hero nerd, but it's like the Avengers, at the end of, when Clickfunnels came about we had this Avenger team of people. And we're like, now we've put in our dues, now it's time to use all of our super powers to do this thing, and it all kind of came together. Andrew: Build it and build it up. And then as you were building it up, you then went to Sales Force. You guys invited me, you said, “Hey Andrew, we're in San Francisco, you're home town. Do you want to come out?” I said, “I'm going to be with the family.” And you said, “Good. Being with the family is better than hanging out with us.” But I still said, “What are you guys doing in San Francisco at Sales Force?” Because sales people don't need landing pages, yet you guys will probably find a way for them to need it. Then I saw this, this is the last video that I've got. There's no audio on it. I want you guys to look at their faces as they're looking up at these buildings, walking through the Sales Force office. Look, they're getting on the motorcycles in the lobby. They're looking all around like, “Oh gee.” Counting the buildings that are Sales Force labeled. Look at that! What are they doing? Not believing that this is even possible. And then just stopping and going, this is dream force. This is your dream. What did you get out of going to sales Force's event and seeing their office? Russell: Honestly, prior to Sales Force, I was kind of going through a weird funk in my business, because it was like, again there was the goals. So it was like, okay, we're going to do a million bucks, and then we did that. And then it's like, let's make 10 million a year. And then 50, and then this year we'll hit a hundred. And like, what's the next goal?  A billion, because a hundred million, 2 hundred million is not that big of a difference. And it was just kind of like, what's the point, what's the purpose? We've grown as big as any company that I know. And then last year, Dave and Ryan had gone out there and they were telling me stories like, “There's 170,000 businesses here.” And they were telling me all these things, and it sounded cool, but I didn't, and they were going crazy. You have to see this so you can believe it. But there's something about the energy about seeing something that makes it real. So this year I was like, I want to go and I want to see Benioff speak. I want to see the thing, the towers, I want to just understand it, because if I understand it, cool. Now we can reverse engineer and figure out how we can do it. So for me it was just like seeing it. I think in anything, any, as entrepreneurs too, if you're people believe that you can do it, you'll do it. If you believe you can lose weight, you'll lose 3eight. If you believe you can grow a company, and I don't feel like I believed that the next level was possible for us until I saw it. And then I was like, oh my gosh, this is not ridiculous. Benioff's not, none of these guys are any smarter than any of us. It's just like, they figured out the path. It was like, okay let's look at the path. And then let's look at it and now we can figure out our path. Andrew: And seeing it in person did that for you? Russell: Oh yeah. It makes it tangible, it makes it like, it's like your physiology feels it, versus reading a book about it or hearing about it. It's like you see it and you experience it, and it's like it's tangible. Andrew: I told you, I asked people before they came in here, “What are you looking for?” and a few of them frustrated me because they said, “I just wanted to see Russell. I just want to see the event.” I go, “Give me something I could ask a question about.” But I think they were looking for the same thing that you got out of there. And I know they got it. I'm going to ask them to come up here and ask some questions, and I want to know about the future of Clickfunnels, but first I've got to just acknowledge that, that we are here to just kind of pick up on that energy. That energy that got you to pick yourself back up when anyone else would have said, “I'm a failure of a husband, I can't do this.” Go back. The tension that came from failing and almost going to jail as you said, from failing and succeeding, and failing again. And still, that is inspiring to see. I want to give the whole Clickfunnels family a big round of applause, please everybody.

Today is a special episode of Talking Drupal, we look back over 300 episodes and pick out some of our favorite moments from Talking Drupal's past. We also bid farewell to Stephen the founder of Talking Drupal. www.talkingdrupal.com/300 Topics Stephen - Blink critter camera John - Thank you Stephen! Jason - Bike ride with the family Nic - Rebuilding API Dries - In Belgium Drupal Community End of Life for Drupal 8 John's Favorite episodes The Night before DrupalCon (79) Drupal 8 Cache System (233) Dries' First Episode (38) Nic's Favorite episodes Jono Bacon (265) First Episode (000) Wade Wingler (49) Stephen's Favorite episodes Off the Cuff and This and That Pre and Post Show discussion Jeff and Jacob guest appearances Jason's Favorite episodes Site vs System (55) Mobile Friendly Drupal (72) Tim congratulations Jacob congratulations Favorite moments Dinners / Game nights First NEDCamp afterparty Meeting Rob at NEDCamp Seeing fans live Resources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dries_Buytaert The Night before Drupal Con https://talkingdrupal.com/079 Drupal 8 Cache System https://talkingdrupal.com/233 Dries' First Episode https://talkingdrupal.com/038 First Module of the week Episode 2 https://talkingdrupal.com/002 Last Module of the week Episode 154 https://talkingdrupal.com/154 Jono Bacon https://talkingdrupal.com/265 First! https://talkingdrupal.com/000 Wade Wingler https://talkingdrupal.com/049 First OTC https://talkingdrupal.com/019 Longest break https://talkingdrupal.com/017 https://talkingdrupal.com/218 Site vs System https://talkingdrupal.com/055 Mobile Friendly Drupal https://talkingdrupal.com/072 Stats 299 episodes (one missing) 206 5 hosts 5 guest hosts 120 guests Only person to be guest, guest host, and host (Jason) First Module of the week Episode 2 Module filter https://www.drupal.org/project/module_filter Last Module of the week Episode 154 Mailchimp # module of the week 116 First OTC Episode 19 5 total This and That 4 total Longest break between appearances 201 (17, 218) Jen Lampton Oct 2 2013, Jul 9 2019 Most Frequent guests (5 appearances) Kathy Beck Kevin Thull Jacob Rockowitz Tim Lehnen Recording Google hangouts Youtube over the air Zoom 2013 - 29 2014 - 49 2015 - 30 2016 - 34 2017 - 19 2018 - 34 2019 - 36 2020 - 42 2021 - 27 (so far) 37 Average Guests Dries Buytaertdri.es @Dries Hosts Stephen Cross - www.stephencross.com @stephencross Nic Laflin - www.nLighteneddevelopment.com @nicxvan John Picozzi - www.oomphinc.com @johnpicozzi Jason Pamental - rwt.io @jpamental

Do you feel like you're nowhere near your goals? Do you want something so badly but think that it's impossible to achieve? Having goals in life gives us a sense of purpose. Whether they're for our career or relationships, goals push us to give our best. However, we sometimes set too many goals and find ourselves stuck. We can also feel discouraged from pursuing our dreams because we subject ourselves to other people’s standards. But while our plans may sometimes seem impossible, we have everything we need. If you can stay determined and learn how to prioritise, we can have our breakthrough. In this episode, Dr John Demartini joins us to talk about living your best life by structuring it. Learn how to prioritise and you can achieve anything. He shares the philosophy of the Breakthrough Experience, which has miraculously helped thousands of people reach their goals. John also discusses how to make decisions based on priorities, not emotions and instincts. 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If you have a big challenge ahead, are dealing with adversity or are wanting to take your performance to the next level and want to learn how to increase your mental toughness, emotional resilience, foundational health and more, then contact us at support@lisatamati.com.   Order My Books My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum Isobel with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again, but I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within 3 years. Get your copy here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books/products/relentless. 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Manufactured in an ISO9001 certified facility Boost Your NAD+ Levels — Healthy Ageing: Redefined Cellular Health Energy & Focus Bone Density Skin Elasticity DNA Repair Cardiovascular Health Brain Health  Metabolic Health   My  ‘Fierce’ Sports Jewellery Collection For my gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection ‘Fierce’, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/lisa-tamati-bespoke-jewellery-collection.   Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode: Learn about the Breakthrough Experience and how it has changed thousands of lives. Discover how to prioritise and determine your top priorities. John shares his secret to retaining Information in the quickest way possible.   Episode Highlights [05:00] About John Dr John is an educator, researcher and writer. He has spent over 48 years helping people maximise their potential. John wanted to know what allows people to do extraordinary things. That's why he distilled information from great minds throughout history. He made them into practical things that people today can use.  John had speech and learning challenges as a kid. At a doctor’s recommendation, his parents took him out of school and put him into sports. After having a near-death experience at 17, Paul Bragg inspired John to overcome his learning problems. With the help of his mom, he eventually learned how to read.  Listen to the full episode to learn more about John's inspiring story! [15:42] How Surfing Changed John’s Mindset Surfing has taught John that people are not going to excel without perseverance and commitment.  John converted his determination for surfing into persistence in reading.  [17:57] The Breakthrough Experience The Breakthrough Experience is a philosophy and program changing lives globally.  This system teaches you how to prioritise and structures life by priority. It breaks through limitations and helps achieve life goals.  John teaches people to use any experience, even challenges. These are catalysts for transformation and progress.  John has helped people learn how to prioritise to get their breakthrough experience in different areas of life. These include businesses, careers, health, relationships, among others. Lisa relates the Breakthrough Experience philosophy to when her mom had a severe aneurysm. [24:14] John Shares a Miraculous Experience At 27 years old, John handled a family with a son in a three-year coma. The family went to different hospitals in Mexico and the United States. However, they found none to help their son. They then went to John, and he thought of a maneuver to help the child. However, the treatment also came with significant risk. Listen to the full episode to find out how John helped a child get out of a three-year coma. [33:34] Jesse Billauer’s Breakthrough Experience Jesse Billauer, a surfer, decided to go to the Breakthrough Experience after a surfing accident.  At the time, he was depressed because he was physically unable to surf.  After the Breakthrough Experience, he learned how to prioritise and what his top priority was. Jesse became determined not to let anything stop him from surfing. Jesse developed a way to surf as a quadriplegic person. He taught others how to do the same.  [38:58] Herd Mentality in the Sciences New ideas are violently opposed and ridiculed. That's why people fear going against the norm. People who aim to survive follow the multitude. People who want to thrive create a new paradigm.  Each person can excel at anything if they focus on that, not on others' opinions.  [41:37] How to Prioritise John made a list of every single thing he does in a day over three months. He then placed multiple columns next to that list. The first column contains how much money each task produces per hour. The second column contains how much a job inspires him on a scale of 1-10. He also considered the cost and the time spent on each activity.  After doing that, he prioritised the activities that made thousands of dollars. He also focused on ones that scored ten on the inspiration scale.   John hired people for the low-priority tasks. This choice allowed him to be more productive in his top priorities. Within 18 months, his business increased tenfold. Listen to the full episode to learn how to prioritise and about investing in your top priority.  [56:19] How John Stays Looking Young John is almost 67 years old. However, Lisa describes him as someone who looks like a teenager. John doesn't eat junk. He drinks a lot of water, has never had coffee in his life and hasn't had alcohol in over 48 years. Doing what you love every day also slows down the aging process.  [58:03] Some Lessons from the Breakthrough Experience Nothing is missing in you. When you compare yourself to others, you'll try to live by their values or get them to live by yours. Both of these are futile.  Sticking to your values and priorities is key to resilience and success. People are different from each other, but no one is better than the other.  If you don't empower your own life, others will overpower you.   Your mission is something that you're willing to get through any means necessary. [1:06:38] How to Get Your Amygdala Under Control The amygdala is associated with emotions and the "fight-or-flight" response. Because we have neuroplasticity, we can remodel our internal system.  Perceiving challenges and feeling shame and guilt trigger an autoimmune reaction that attacks your body. Every time we choose to live by the highest priority, the amygdala calms down. The prefrontal cortex is reinforced. [1:12:03] The Mind-Body Connection Our psychological processes also affect our physiological processes.  People are used to blaming external factors. They don't take accountability for the things they experience.  John uses the example of when people get symptoms after eating unhealthy food. They don't face the fact that they brought it upon themselves.  Our bodies do an excellent job of guiding us. That's why we should learn how to listen to them. [1:18:13] The Journey to Financial Independence There is nothing evil about having money.  John believes that you can be a slave to money, or you can be a master of it.  Nothing is stopping you from doing what you love to do. [1:21:28] How to Retain Information Teaching what you've learned is the key to retention. Teaching compels your mind to organise ideas and reinforce them.  Teach the concepts as soon as you've discovered them. Don't wait until you're an expert on the subject. Resources Gain exclusive access and bonuses to Pushing the Limits Podcast by becoming a patron! You can choose between being an official or VIP patron for $7 and $15 NZD per month, respectively. Harness the power of NAD and NMN for anti-ageing and longevity with NMN Bio. Related Pushing the Limits Episodes 135: How To Make Better Decisions Consistently 183: Sirtuins and NAD Supplements for Longevity with Elena Seranova 189: Increasing Your Longevity with Elena Seranova Connect with John: Website | Facebook | Linkedin | YouTube | Instagram ‎The Demartini Show Demartini Value Determination Process The Breakthrough Experience program Join John's The Mind-Body Connection course Learn more about Jesse Billauer and his story. High Surf: The World's Most Inspiring Surfers by Tim Baker The Time Trap: The Classic Book on Time Management by Alec Mackenzie and Pat Nickerson  Brain Wash: Detox Your Mind for Clearer Thinking, Deeper Relationships, and Lasting Happiness by David and Austin Perlmutter The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing by Bronnie Ware   7 Powerful Quotes ‘I'm an educator, a researcher, a writer. I do a lot of interviews and filming for documentaries. I've been spending 48 years now on doing anything I can to help human beings maximise their potential.’ ‘I love studying and learning anything I can from those people that have done extraordinary things and then passing that on.” “I love anybody who's done something extraordinary on the planet in any field. I love devouring their journey.’ ‘No matter what the teacher was trying to do, I just couldn't read. And my teacher and my parents come to the school and said, ‘You know, your son's not able to read. He's not going to be able to write effectively’ because I wrote kind of backwards.’ ‘Well, I'm surfing the cosmic waves now. And in surfing big cosmic waves, radio waves that are big waves. Yes, that's the move from water waves into electromagnetic waves.’ ‘And so the Breakthrough Experience is about accessing that state. And breaking through the limitations that we make up in our mind and transforming whatever experiences you have into “on the way” not “in the way”.’ ‘She said that there was something that took over me, I can't describe it. It was like a very powerful feeling — like I had a power of a Mack truck. And me? I don't know how to describe it.’   About Dr John Dr John Demartini is an author, researcher, global educator and world-renowned human behaviour specialist. Making self-development programs and relationship solutions is part of his job. Among his most popular programs is the Breakthrough Experience. It is a personal development course that aims to help individuals achieve whatever goal they have. As a child, Dr John had learning challenges and could not read and write well until 18 years old. He has now distilled information from over 30,000 books across all academic disciplines and shares them online and on stage in over 100 countries.  Interested in knowing more about Dr John and his work? You may visit his website or follow him on Facebook, Linkedin, YouTube and Instagram.   Enjoyed This Podcast? If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends! Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they can achieve their life goals by learning how to prioritise. Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts. To pushing the limits, Lisa   Full Transcript Of The Podcast Welcome to Pushing The Limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host, Lisa Tamati, brought to you by lisatamati.com.  Lisa Tamati: Welcome back to Welcome back to Pushing the Limits. This week, I have Dr John Demartini. He is a world renowned speaker, teacher, educator, researcher, medical doctor. He's written I don't know how many books, countless, countless books. He's an incredible, incredible man who teaches literally thousands and thousands of people every year in his breakthrough experience. The information that you're going to get in this podcast could change your life. So I've given you a fair warning. He's an amazing, incredible man that, and I've talked to a lot of incredible people but this one is really next level, he started out as a big wave surfer in Hawaii, way back in the day. Even knew Laird Hamilton and people like that. Had learning disabilities and could hardly read or write, and yet managed to overcome all these things to become one of the greatest scholars that there is. He's read over 30,000 books. He has distilled the knowledge from people right through the ages, through leaders and philosophers and stoics and scientists. He's an expert in so many different areas. He teaches people in business, he teaches people how to overcome massive challenges in their life. So I really hope that you enjoy this episode. It is going to get uncomfortable in places because we’ll talk about really being accountable, really understanding our own physiology, and just so much more. An absolutely amazing interview. So I hope you enjoy it.  Before we head over to the show, just reminder, we have our patron membership for the podcast Pushing the Limits. If you want to join our VIP tribe, we would love you to come and do that. It's about the price of a cup of coffee a month or two. If you want to join on the premium level, we would love you to come and join us. Support the show. Help us get this work out there. We are passionate about what we do. We want to change lives, we want to improve your life, we want to improve the lives of others. And we need your help to do that to keep the show going. So please, head over to patron.lisatamati.com. Check out all the premium VIP member benefits here, and support the show. Be a part of this community, be a part of this tribe. Help support us and reach out to me or the team. If you have any questions around any of the topics or any of the guests that have come up. We would love to hear from you. Any feedback is always welcome. Please always give a rating and review to the show as well on iTunes or whatever platform that you listen to. That is really, really helpful as well. We do appreciate you doing that. And as a reminder, please also check out our epigenetics program. We have a system now that can personalise and optimise your entire life to your genetics. So check out our program, what it's all about. This is based on the work of hundreds of scientists, not our work. It has been developed over the last 20 years, from 15 different science disciplines all working in collaborating together on this one technology platform that will help you understand your genes and apply the information to your life. So check that out. Go to lisatamati.com and hit the Work With Us button and you'll see their Peak Epigenetics, check out that program. And while you're there, if you're a runner, check out our Running Hot Coaching program as well. Customised, personalised training plans made specifically for you, for your goals. You get a video analysis, you get a consultation with me and it's all in a very well-priced package. So check that out at runninghotcoaching.com.  Now over to the show with Dr John Demartini. Well, Hi everyone and welcome to Pushing The Limits. Today, I am super excited for my guest. My guest is an absolute superstar. Welcome to the show. Firstly and foremostly, thank you very much for taking the time out today. Dr John, I'm just really excited to have you. Whereabouts are you sitting in the world? Dr John: I am in Houston, Texas. I'm in a hotel room in Houston, Texas, even though it shows that I've got a library.  Lisa: Yeah,I love that background. That is a fantastic background. Really great. Well, greetings to Texas and I hope that everything is going well over there for you. Today, I wanted to talk about you, your work, the breakthrough experience. Some of the learnings and the exciting mission that you've been on for now. For 47 years, I believe. Something crazy like that. So Dr John, can you just give us a little bit of a background on you and your life and what you do on a day to day basis? Big question. Dr John: I'm an educator, a researcher, a writer. I do a lot of interviews and filming for documentaries. I've been spending 48 years now, over 48 years, on doing anything I can to help human beings maximise their potential, their awareness potential, and achieve whatever it is that they're inspired to achieve. So that could be raising a beautiful family to building a massive business to becoming fortunate or celebrity, doesn't matter. It's whatever it is that inspires them. I've been studying human behaviour and anything and everything I can get my hands on for the last 48 years to assist people in mastering a lot. That's what I love doing. I do it every day. I can't think of any else I'd rather be doing. So I just do it. Lisa: It's a bit of a role model for me, Dr John, because I think what you have achieved in this time, the way you've distilled information, I mean, you've studied, last time I looked on one of your podcasts, that was over 30,000 books, probably more now. And you've distilled the information from great masters throughout history into practical things that humans today can actually benefit from. Is that a good assessment of what you basically have done? Dr John: I'm writing right now a 1200 page textbook on philosophers and great minds through the ages. I summarise it. I love studying and learning anything I can from those people that have done extraordinary things, and then passing that on. So yes. Right now, I'm actually, I just finished, I’m just finishing up Albert Einstein, which is one of my heroes. I had a dream when I was young. When I saw that E = mc² drawn on that board, I wanted to find out where that board was. I went to Princeton, and met with Freeman Dyson, who took over his position at Princeton in 1955. Spent part of the day with him and we're talking on cosmology. I wrote my formula on that same board, exactly the same place, because that was a dream that I had since I was probably 18, 19. Lisa: Wow, and you got to fulfill it and actually love it. Dr John: Yeah. Took me a bit of time. So what? But yeah, I love anybody who's done something extraordinary on the planet in any field. I love devouring their journey and their thinking. That's every Nobel Prize winner I've gone through and every great philosopher and thinker and business leader and financially or spiritually, to try to find out and distill out what is the very essence that drives human beings? And what is it that allows them to do extraordinary things? So I wanted to do that with my life. Most of the people I get in front of want to feel like they want to make a massive difference. They want to make a difference in the world. They want to do something that’s deeply meaningful, inspiring. And so yeah, we're not 'put your head in the product glue and let the glue stick' and then pass it on.  Lisa: Instead of having to reinvent the world, why not? So Dr John, can you give us a little bit of history though, because you're obviously an incredible scholar,have an incredible mind. But as a child, you struggled with learning and with reading and writing.Can you give us a little, how the heck did you go from being this kid that struggled with all of that to where you are today? One of the greatest minds out there.  Dr John:  Yeah, I definitely had some learning challenges. I had a speech challenge when I was a year and a half old to four, I had to wear buttons in my mouth and put strings in my mouth and practice using all kinds of muscles. Went to a speech pathologist. When I was in first grade. No matter what the teacher was trying to do, I just couldn't read. My teacher, and my parents would come to the school and said, 'You know, your son's not able to read. He's not going to be able to write effectively,' because I wrote kind of backwards. 'I don't think he's going to mountain and go very far in life, put him into sport.' Because I like to run. And I did sports there for a while. But then I went from baseball to surfing. I hitchhiked out to California and down Mexico and then made it over to Hawaii so I could ride big waves and I was doing big wave and stuff when I was a teenager. So I didn't have academics. I dropped out of school. I was a street kid from 13 to 18. But then right before 18 I nearly died. That's when I met Paul Bragg, who inspired me one night in a presentation. That night I got so inspired that I thought, 'Maybe I could overcome my learning problems by applying what this man just taught me. And maybe someday I could learn to read and write and speak properly.' That was such an inspiration, such a moment of inspiration that it changed the course of my life. I had to go back. And with the help of my mum, I went and got a dictionary out, started to read a dictionary and memorise 30 words a day until my vocabulary. I had to spell the word, pronounce the word, use it with a meaningful sentence, and develop a vocabulary. Eventually doing that 30 we would, we wouldn't go to bed. I didn't go to bed until I had 30 new words, really inculcated. My vocabulary grew. And I started to learn how to do the reading. It was not an easy project. But, man, once I got a hold of it, I never stopped. Lisa: And once you started to read, you didn’t stop. Dr John: I've never stopped. I've been a voluminous reader now. You know, 48 years. Lisa: That’s just incredible. Dr John: I can’t complain. Lisa: So was it a dyslexia or learning disability? I just asked because my mum was a teacher of children with dyslexia and things like that. Was there specific ways that you were able to overcome the disability so to speak? Dr John: Yeah, I just, sheer persistence and determination to want to read and learn. I remember, I took my first, I took a GED test, a general education high school equivalency test. And I guessed, literally guessed, I close my eyes. I said this little affirmation that Paul Bragg gave me that, 'I'm a genius, and I apply my wisdom.' And some miraculous thing made me pass that test. I didn't know how to read half the stuff that was on it. I just went with my intuition and guessed. And I tried to go to college, after taking that test and had the test. I failed. And I remember driving home crying because I had this idea that I was going to learn how to teach and become intelligent. Then when I got a 27, everybody else got 75 and above. I got a 27 and I thought, 'Well, there's no way it's going to work.' But then I sat there and I cried and my mum came home from shopping, and she saw me crying on the living room floor. She said, ‘Son, what happened? What's wrong?’ I said, ‘Mum, I failed the test. I guess I don't have what it takes.’ And I repeated what the first grade teacher said, 'I guess I'll never read or write or communicate effectively, or amount too much. I guess I'll go back to Hawaii and make surfboards and surf. Because I was pretty good at that.' And she said to me something that was a real mind bender. She put her hand on me and she said, ‘Son, whether you become a great teacher, philosopher and travel the world like your dream, whether return to Hawaii and ride giant waves like you've done, return to the streets and panhandle like you've done. I just want to let you know that your father and I are going to love you no matter what you do.’ Lisa: Wow, what a mum. Dr John: That was an amazing moment. When she said that, my hand went into a fist of determination. And I said to myself, ‘I'm gonna match this thing called reading and studying and learning. I'm gonna match this thing called teaching and philosophy. And I'm going to do whatever it takes, I'm going to travel whatever distance, I'm gonna pay whatever price, to give my source of love across this planet.’ I got up and I hugged her. And I said to myself, ‘I'm not gonna let any human being on the face of the earth stop me, not even myself.’ I got out of my room. And that's when I decided with her help to do the dictionary. That was an amazing turning point. Lisa: And I can feel it, the emotion and what a wonderful mum you had. I mean, what a perfect thing to say when someone's down. Dr John: It was the most. If she hadn't said that, I might’ve come back to surfing. I might  be a surfer today. Lisa: Which would have been a good thing as well, probably because surfing is great. Dr John: It didn’t make money in those days. I'm in the mid 60s and 70s, early 70s. But,, now, the guys I served with, Laird Hamilton and- Lisa: Wow. He's a hero is amazing.  Dr John: Both Ben Aipa, Gerry Lopez, and these guys, those are the guys I served with. And so those guys went on to be incredible. Lisa: I wasn't aware of that. Dr John: I lived at the same beach park in Haleiwa, where Ehukai Beach Park is, near Pipeline, between Rocky Point and Pipeline. Laird Hamilton was dropped off by his mother there and lived there on the beach. I lived up on where the park bench was. We lived right there and I saw him on the beach each morning. He was seven, I was 16. He was going on seven, I was almost 17. We live there at the same place and Bill Hamilton saw him out there and grabbed him and took him in and trained them on surfing and found his mum and then married the mum. That's how I became. I hung out with those characters. Lisa: Legends. You became a legend in this direction and they have become a legend in a different direction. Dr John: Well, there's a book out called The High Surf by Tim Baker. That’s from Australia. He wrote a book on people that rode big waves. And he said, 'I'd like to put you in there.' I said, 'Well, I didn't go on to be the superstar in that area like these other guys.' He said, 'But I want you in there because you became a legend. Lisa: Became a superstar. Dr John: Yeah Lisa: Do you think that there's, you know, I come from a surfing family. My brother's a big wave surfer in New Zealand. I've tried and failed miserably, stuck to running. I was better at it. But do you think there's a correlation between the mindset that you developed as a surfer? Because going in those big waves is scary. It's daunting. It's frightening. It's challenging. It's teaching you a lot. Is there a lot that you took from that for this journey that you've been on? Dr John: Yeah, I didn't surf anything more than 40-foot waves. So I think that was about as good as about as big as you get back in the 70s. At 70s is when I was- Lisa: Oh, just a mere 40, it’s okay. Dr John: Well, 40-foot waves was the biggest thing out in outer reef pipeline was the big thing. They hadn't had tow-in surfing yet. That was just, that wasn't begun yet. So there was that idea, we had to catch those waves. That was not easy because they're too big to catch. you got to have big long boards, and you got to really paddle to get into those waves, and it's usually too late. But I think some of those, I used to surf 11 hours a day sometimes. When you're really, really committed to doing something, that's... Einstein said perseverance is the key to making things happen and if you just stay with something. So, if you're not inspired to do something, enough to put in the hours and put in the effort, and you don't have somebody that you can bounce ideas off of, kind of mentoring you, you probably are not going to excel as much. But I did that. And then I just converted that over into breeding 18 to 20 hours a day, feeding once I learned to read, so I just and I still voluminously read I mean, I read every single day. Lisa: That is incredible. And so you've taken that big wave mindset a little bit over into something else. So obviously, everything you, do you do to the nth degree, we can probably agree on that one. Dr John: I'm surfing the cosmic waves now. And in surfing big cosmic waves, radio waves that are big waves. I move from water waves into electromagnetic waves. Lisa: Wow. Now, you run something called The Breakthrough Experience, which you've been doing now for 40 something years. This is a philosophy and a system and a program that really changes lives and has changed lives all over the planet. Can you tell us a little bit about what you've distilled from all this information that you have in your incredible mind? And what you teach in this course, and how this can actually help people? Today, right now listening to this? Dr John: Well, the breakthrough experiences, sort of my attempt to do with what that gentleman did to me when I was 17. I've done it 1121 times into that course. I keep records, and I'm a metric freak. Every human being lives by a set of priorities, a set of values, things that are most important. Lisa: Podcast life. Dr John: Welcome to it. I thought that was off, but I didn't quite get it off. But whatever is highest on the person's values, priorities, whatever is truly deeply meaningful to them, the thing that is spontaneously inspiring for them to that they can't wait to get up the morning and do.If they identify that and structure their life by priority, delegating the lower priority things and getting on with doing that, they will build momentum, incremental momentum and start to excel and build what we could say is a legacy in the world. And so, the breakthrough experience is about accessing that state, and breaking through the limitations that we make up in our mind,  transforming whatever experiences you have into 'on the way' not 'in the way.' So no matter what goes on in your life, you can use it to catalyse a transformation and movement towards what it is that you're committed to. And if you're not clear about it, we'll show you how to do it because many people subordinate to people around them. Cloud the clarity of what's really really inspiring from within them, and they let the herd instinct stop them from being heard.  I think that The Breakthrough Experiences is my attempt to do whatever I can, with all the tools that I've been blessed to gather to assist people in creating a life that is extraordinary, inspiring and amazing for them. And if I don't do whatever it takes in the program, I don't know when it's going to be. I've seen six year olds in there write books afterwards. I've seen nine year olds go on to get a deal with Disney for $2.2 million dollars. I've seen people in business break through plateaus. I’ve people have major issues with relationships break, too. I don't know what's gonna be. I've seen celebrities go to new levels. I've seen people that have health issues that heal. I mean, every imaginable thing, I’ve breaking through. I've seen it in that course. And it's the same principles applied now into different areas of life. In any other area of our life, if we don't empower, the world's going to overpower something. And I'm showing I want to show people how to not let anything on the outside world interfere with what's inside. Lisa: And you talk about, it's on the way, the challenges that we have to look at the challenges that we have and ask how is this going to actually help me get wherever I am. And this is something that I've managed to do a couple of times in my life really well, other times not so good. But where I've taken a really massive challenge, I had my own listeners, I had a mum who had a massive aneurysm five years ago, and we were told she would never have any quality of life again, massive brain damage. We know that's not happening on my watch. I'm going to, there is somebody in something in the world that can help with her. And this became my mantra that I was going to get back or die trying. That was that total dedication that I brought to her because of love. When you love someone, you're able to mobilise for the last resources that you have. And that nearly bloody killed me as far as the whole effort that went on to it, and the cost and the emotional costs, and the physical and the health and all the rest of it. It took me three years to get it back to health, full health. She's now got a full driver's license back and a full independent life back and as my wonderful mum again. And that was coming from a state of being in a vegetative state, not much over a vegetative state at least. Hardly any higher function, no speech, no move, be able to move anything. Dr John: That’s a book there. That's a book or a movie. Lisa: It's the book. Dr John: That's a book and a movie for sure. Lisa: Exactly. And this is very powerful. Because I saw this and when you're in the darkness, everybody is telling you there is no hope, there is no chance. And these are medical professionals who have been to medical school, who have a hell of a lot more authority than you. You just go, ‘No, I am not accepting it because that alternative means death, basically, decline and death in being in an institution. And that is not what I'm going to answer. I'm going to find somebody who can help me’ and I did. I found hundreds of people, actually, and this is what tipped me into doing what I'm doing now, is finding world leading experts to give me the next piece of the puzzle for her and for the people now that are following me so that I can help empower people, not to be limited by the people who tell us we can't do something. It's because that means basically they don't have the answer. Not that there is no answer, is my understanding. And they were right. It was the hardest thing I've ever done. But I did it and my mum is alive and she's well, and that book. I really want to empower people with a story. I see that same like they're obviously your passion. What you went through with your learning problems when you were young and your mum standing beside you has actually propelled you into this lifelong journey that I find absolutely fascinating because that passion, and I can see that passion in you, is still very much alive 48 years later because you're doing what your priority is. Dr John: I'm definitely doing what I love doing. It's interesting that your story reminded me of something that happened to me when I was 27. If you don't mind, I'd like to share this. So I graduated from my professional school. I had a bit of a reputation there of being kind of the taking the cream of the crop clients, patients that were turned down everywhere else. I just tackled it, see what we can do with it. And I got a family from Mexico, with a son that fell three stories off an apartment complex onto the ground on his head. He went into a coma, been in a coma for three and a half years. And the mother, they assumed he was dead a few times, but there was still a breath. There were still something. It wasn't a strong breath. You couldn't see it but you could put a mirror in front of you and get a little bit of breath out there. So he wasn't dead. And he had decerebrate rigidity. So his whole body was so rigid that when I saw him, you could lift up his feet and his whole body would rock. It was so stiff. His hands are like this. A classical decerebrate rigidity. And he had gone to, throughout different hospitals in Mexico, where he was from, and nobody checked them. They came to America, they went to the Medical Center in Houston, which is the largest Medical Center America. And they got rejected. No one would accept it. There's nothing we can do. They went out to the professional school that I'd gone to. And they said, ‘We can't do anything.’ But we know this interesting character. West Houston, if there's anybody that would try something this guy might try, who knows? And they sent him to my office. I remember when they came in, they carried him wrapped up in a white sheet, and laid him on the armrest of the chairs on my office. I looked out there and I saw this Mexican man and woman and seven or eight other kids in a family. I'm in this. At first, I didn't know what this was, this thing wrapped up in this sheet. They came down my hallway and I saw him going down the hallway. And like, ‘What on earth is this?’ Then they unveiled him in my exam room. And there was this 58 pound tube in his nose, coma case that was so stiff. It was ridiculous. I mean, he had gauze on his chin and his hand was rubbing on it and to protect the chin from having an ulcer. It had an odor to him in the head. It was just nothing. Just stare. He just sat there. But the mother and father said, ‘No, he's still alive. Please help.’ So I didn't really have much to do an exam with. So I got him, we took him in and did a film of his spine and his skull from the history. We found his foramen magnum, his skull was jammed down on a spinal cord and his spinal cord is up in his foramen magnum. This opening in the bottom of the skull. And I thought that night, when I was developing those films, and I looked at that I thought, 'I wonder what happened if I lifted that skull? If I've got that off? It could? Could something happen?' And I was scared because you just don't do that. He could die just instantly. I sent them over to this health food store to get him some liquid vitamins and minerals and amino acids to try to get nutrients in him because they're feeding him beans and rice with liquid. It was just crazy. So the next day came in. We had four doctors on a preceptorship visiting my office, one doctor that was working for me, one assistant, the seven or eight kids plus him and the mother and father in this little room. It was packed. And I said to him that I saw that on the film something that might have make him, help. I don't know, I can't guarantee it. But if we, if I did a particular manoeuvre, it might open up the brain function. And the little woman held on to her husband and she said, 'If he dies, he dies. If he lives, we rejoice. But please help us. We have nowhere else to go.' Lisa: Yeah. Wow. Dr John: She said that there was something that took over me, I can't describe it. It was like a very powerful feeling, like I had a power of a Mack truck in me. I don't know how to describe it. And I had this manoeuvre that we could do this, what they call the Chrane Condyle Lift, that can actually lift the skull up the spine. And I said to myself, if I'm not willing to have him die in my hands, I can't raise the dead with my hands as a little quote that I learned from an ancient healing philosopher. And I thought, 'Okay, we're, I'm going to take the risk, and just see what happens.' Because, I mean, I don't know what to do. I'm just gonna do it. Because I mean, they've got no place to go and I only took a rip. As I lifted that skull with this powerful movement. He came out of his coma. He came right out of the coma. He screamed, and this whining noise you couldn't. It was not coherent. It was just this whining sound. The whole family went on their knees, they were Catholic. They just went to their knees and prayed. I was blown away. I saw the four doctors one of them ran down the hallway and vomited, couldn't handle it. The other just stared. And here's this boy squirming on the table. I walked out to let the family be with the child for a minute and just sat with one of my doctors. We sat there and just cried. Because we knew that the spinal cord expressed life in the body. But we didn't know what would happen if we took the spinal cord, it just scanned off. Theoretically, it could kill you. But there was some still life in the spinal cord. Anyway, this boy went on to gain 20 pounds up to 78 pounds. We took him off the tube, we got him to move, we had everybody in the family take a joint in his body and move his joints to remobilise him. Sometimes I think we probably tore some ligaments doing it. But we got mobility. And this boy came out of it. And I have a picture here with me of the boy actually graduating from high school. Lisa: You’re kidding me? Why is this not an? What is not? Why have I never heard the story?  Dr John: I don’t get to share it too often. I didn't many years ago. I haven't practised in a long time. But all I know is that that was a moment that you just, it's probably like you had with your mum when you saw incremental progress. Lisa: Yeah. Just grind. Dr John: And I think that that's a metaphor. That's a metaphor. It doesn't matter where you've come from, doesn't matter what you're going through, doesn't matter what you've been through. What matters is you have something that you're striving for. And are you willing to do some incremental movement towards that? What else just said is, he's got a diagnosis. Diagnosis means through knowledge, supposedly, but it could also mean die to an agnosis. You don't know. Even the doctors don't know. But the reality is,  he came out of the coma. And I had over the next few months, I had some amazing cases of a boy that was blind and couldn't walk, and all of a sudden see and walked again. I had a boy that was paralysed quadriplegic, was able to walk. I mean, I had some amazing stuff happen. When you're willing to do what other people aren't willing to do, you're willing to experience when other people don't get to experience. Lisa: Yep, it is just so powerful. And I'm just absolutely blown away from that story. Because, I mean, I know with my mum who was only in a coma for three weeks, and had stroke and so on, and in the specificity and the things that I've had to deal with. The whole vestibular system being completely offline, she has like a rag doll, having to read, programming her from being a baby, basically, to being an adult, within that three year period with a body that is now like 79 years old. And the doctors going like, your brain can't change that much. And in just going, I'm going to keep going. I'm only listening to people who tell me I can do something, I'm not listening to anybody who tells me I can't do something. And this is something that I've really integrated into my entire life like as an athlete, doing stupidly long ultramarathon distances. I was always told you can't do this, and you can't do that. It's impossible. And I was like, 'We'll see.' I'm going to throw everything in it. And that was my passion at the time have now retired from doing the stupid distances because I've got other missions on in life. But whatever it is, is always the big mission. And then everybody comes up against people who tell you, you can't do it. This is one of the biggest limiting things that I see. Dr John: That's what Einstein said, greatness is automatically pounded by mediocre minds.  Lisa: Wow. Dr John: I had a boy, a boy attend my breakthrough experience, who had a surfing accident and became arms and legs not working, He could move his neck. He got a little bit of function slowly into the hand that was about it, just a tiny bit. And I remember a man wheeling him in and having them kind of strapped to a wheelchair. I knew the father and I knew his brother. There were doctors who were colleagues of mine. And they brought him, they flew him literally from Los Angeles over to Texas to come to the breakthrough experience. I remember him looking straight down really depressed, suicidal, because he was a surfer and he was on his way to being a great surfer. If he couldn't surf, he didn't want to live kind of. I remember getting on my knees and looking up at him at this chair, and I said, 'It all determines inside you what you decide. I don't know what the limit you have in your body. I don't know what you can repair. I don't know what you can do. I don't want to say you can't. But all I know is that if you're going to, you're going to have to put everything into it. You're gonna have to have no turning back kind of attitude. There's got to be a relentless pursuit of your master plan to serve.' His name is Jesse Billauer. He made a decision at the Breakthrough Experience that nothing was going to stop him from surfing again, nothing. He is really, in the room was absolutely applauding him. The before and after in that weekend was so astonishing that it was tear jerking. Well, about 17 years ago, 16 half years ago, I had the opportunity to get, I was living on the Gold Coast of Australia. I had many homes in New York and different places. But I had one in the Gold Coast of Australia in Aria, lived in the penthouse of Aria. And all of a sudden, I found in my entrance of my penthouse, which you only can get into with my key somebody from downstairs, put it in there like mail, a DVD video of a surfing movie, called Stepping Into Liquid. And when I pulled that up and put that in there, there was Jesse Billauer, surfing. He found a way of using his head muscles, and designing a special vehicle, a transport system, a surfboard. He had to have somebody take them out into the water and push him. But once he got on a wave his head movements were able to ride and he was riding like 12 foot waves, which is 20 foot face waves. He was doing that. And he was an inspiration. He became friends with Superman who had quadriplegia and they became friends and he created a foundation to do something but he taught people how to go surfing as a quadriplegic. So when the wise big enough to house take care of themselves, you've proven that in your book. What little I've done in my life compared to some of these kind of stories is just astonishing what I see sometimes people do. I mean, mind blowing stuff that people, that determination to overcome that are absolute inspirations. Inspiration is a byproduct of pursuing something that's deeply inspiring and deeply meaningful, through a challenge that people believe is not possible. That's inspiration. Lisa: That's how we grow as a human race. We have these amazing people that do incredible things. And these stories, I mean, these are stories that aren't even out there in the world, in a huge way. There are hundreds of these stories and thousands of these stories and miraculous stories. These are the things that we should be talking about. Because why are we not studying the outliers? Why are we not? When I look at my book, or my story, which I share publicly and not a single doctor that had anything to do with my mum ever asked me, 'Well, how did you do it?' Nobody is interested in why she has not taken the normal path as long gone. Nobody has asked me what did you do? People do. My audience want to know why. The people that follow me, etc. But nobody that was involved in that case. And I see that over and over again.  Dr John: It's forcing him to face their own, you might say, belief systems about what they've been taught. There's an educated awareness by the herd and then there's an innate yearning by the master. The master transcends the herd, if you will. You can be a sheep or a shepherd. The shepherd is the one that goes out and does things that the sheep are not willing to do. But then once they do it, they'll rally around it. They are there watching you to be the hero instead of becoming the hero. Lisa: Wow. And why is it in the medical fraternity that there seems to be a very big herd mentality, like no one is scared to step outside of their norms, and they get slammed. I see this in academia and in science as well, where people who have brilliant ideas and hypotheses and studies and so on, they just get slammed because it's outside of the current paradigm.  Dr John: William James, one of the founders of modern psychology, said 'To be great…' And Emerson followed in suit, 'To be greatest, to be misunderstood.’ William James basically said that the majority of people fear rejection from the multitudes because that was survival. People that are into survival follow the multitude. People that are in thrival create a new paradigm. At first they're going to be ridiculed. They're going to be violently opposed to Schopenhauer and Gandhi said, but eventually becomes self-evident. And you're either following a culture or building one. The people that do that build a new culture. They build a new culture of idea. Emerson said in his essays on circles, 'We rise up and we create a new circle of possibility. And then that becomes the new norm until somebody comes up and breaks through that concentric sphere with another circle.' It's like the four minute mile. I had a gentleman on my program the other day who is striving to be the fastest runner in the world. He's got bronze and silver medals, but he hadn't got the fastest running. And he's not stopping. He's working sometimes eight to 13 hours a day on this project. I believe that the way he's so determined to do it, and how he works on it, and he doesn't need a coach telling him what to do. He just does it. He's inspired to do it. He'll be the fastest runner, he won't stop till he's the fastest runner in the world. And that’s determination, that to be great at that one thing, find that one thing that you really target like a magnifying glass, on that you become the greatest at that thing.  Mine was human development, human behaviour. I want to have the broadest and greatest width of information about that. That's my one thing. But each individual has something that they can excel in, if they just define it, and give themselves permission at it, and say, thank you but no thank you to the opinions. The opinions are the cheapest commodities on Earth that would circulate the most as a use value. There’s ton of those. But those opinions aren’t what matter. It's not you comparing yourself to other people, it's you comparing your daily actions to what's deeply meaningful to you, and the highest priority actions daily, that’s what it is. Lisa: How do you, this is a problem that I face, get to a certain level of success and achievement, and then you start getting lots of offers and opportunities and so on, and you start to lose the focus. You get distracted from the things that are happening in this day and age where the internet and everything that ends up like I get the shiny object syndrome. And say, 'Oh, this is an extremely interesting area of study, and I should go down that path. And then I go down that path, and then I go down that path.' It is adding to the whole picture of a general education. as someone who studied as much as you have, you've obviously encompassed all of these areas. But I think what I'm asking is, how do you find out what your highest priority is? And how do you get a team around you, so that you're not limited? I think there's a lot of business people that are listening to this, me included in this, who has struggling to get past a certain ceiling because the area of genius is one thing that they love and excelling at, and you'd like to spend all of your time doing that. But you're stuck in the groundhog day of admin and technology in the stuff that you hate. And not busting through because financially, you can't delegate to people. You also got to find people that are a good fit for you who can do the jobs, and then also have the finances to be able to break through to that near next level. Can you talk to that about? Dr John: Yes, absolutely. When I was 27 years old, I was just starting my practice. I was doing a little of everything, anything and everything, just to get the thing cranking. I had one assistant that I hired. But I realised I was doing way too many trivial things. And that'll burn you out after a while if you're doing stuff that's not really what your specialty is. I went to the bookstore and I got a book by Alec McKinsey called The Time Trap. I read this book. As I read it, I underlined it and extracted notes like I do. I decided to put together a little sheet for it. I'll share that because it was a goldmine. I made a list of every single thing that I do in a day, over a three month period, because each day I had sometimes different things to do. But I wrote down everything I might be doing in those three months in a day. I just wrote them all down. And I don't mean broad generalities like marketing or this type of thing or radiographs or whatever. I mean, the actual actions. The actual moment by moment actions I do in those categories. I made a list of those and it was a big list. And I looked at it. Then right next that list, every single thing I did from the time I woke up to the time I went to bed, everything —  home, personal, professional. I wanted to know what my day looked. I want to be an honest, objective view of what am I actually doing with my day. Because if I want to create my life the way I want, I've got to take a look at what I'm actually doing because if I'm not doing things that give me the results, no wonder I'm not getting there.  I made that list, and right next to it, in column number two of six columns is how much does it produce per hour. Which is a measure of actually meeting somebody's need as a service and people willing to pay. How much is that produced per hour? And that was humbling because there are whole lot of stuff that I will do without pay. I was minoring in majors and majoring in minors. I was doing all kinds of stuff that was just cost, no return. I stopped and I looked at that, and that was humbling, and frustrating, and a bunch of stuff went through my mind. I mean, I just, but I had to be honest to myself, what does it actually produce? I extrapolate. If I spent two hours on it, what is it per hour? Cut it in half. If I spent 30 minutes, I’d double the number to get an idea what it is per hour. There's a lot of stuff that was not making anything and there was a few things that were making a lot.  The third column I wrote down, how much meaning does it have? How much is it that makes me inspired to get up and do it? I can't wait to do what people can't wait to get. Those are the things I want to target. So I looked at it on a one to ten scale, how much meaning it was. I made a list on a one to ten scale of every one of those items, how inspired am I to do that? And there's a lot of stuff on there that was not inspiring, that I didn't want to do. I thought, 'Hell. I went to ten years of college for this?' I made this list and I put this one to ten thing. And then I prioritised the tens down to the ones. I prioritise productivity down from the ones that made thousands of dollars an hour to nothing an hour. I just prioritise them. And then I looked. There were some that were overlapped, where the thing that was most meaningful and inspiring match where it’s most productive. I prioritise that based on the two together. And that was really eye opening. Then I went to the next one because I realised that if I don't delegate, I'm trapped. Then I put what does it cost? Every cost. Not just salary, but training costs, no hiring costs, parking costs, insurance costs, everything. What is the cost of somebody excelling at doing what it is I'm doing at a greater job than me? What would it cost? On every one of those items? The best I could do? I had to just guess on something, but I definitely did the best I could.  And then I prioritise that based on spread, how much it produced versus how much it cost. Then I put another column. How much time am I actually spending on average? The final column, I wrote down, what are my final priorities with all these variables? I did a very thorough prioritisation system there. I sliced those into ten layers. I put a job description, I put a job description on that bottom layer, and hired somebody to do that but bottom layer. It took me three people to get the right person because I had to learn about hiring. I didn't know how about, hiring. I finally got the first person there, and that was free. That allowed me to go up a notch. And then I hired the next layer. What I did is it allowed me to go and put more time into the thing to produce the most, which was actually sharing a message of what I was doing publicly, with speaking. Public speaking was my door opener. I just kept knocking out layers.In the next 18 months, my business tenfold in increase in income and business. I had 12 staff members and five doctors working for me in a 5000 square foot office from under 1000 square foot original office in 18 months. Because I said goodbye to anything that weighed me down. Anytime you do something that's lower on your values, and anytime something hone your value value yourself and the world values you when you value. It's waiting for you just to get authentic and live by the highest values, which is your ideological identity. The thing you really revolve around you. Mine was teaching, so I call myself a teacher, right? So whatever that highest value is, if you prioritise your day and fill your day with high priority actions that inspire you, it doesn't fill up with low party distractions that don't, because it's now you're allowing yourself to be authentic. And it doesn't cost to properly delegate if you get the right people, and you go on and do what produces more per hour, it doesn't cost it makes sense. Lisa: That's the hard part, isn't it? As is growing. Dr John: You do your responsibilities. Go do the thing that knocks down the doors and goes and does the deals and then go and let them do all the crazy work. Like when I was 27, that's the last time I ever wrote a check or did payroll or looked at bills. I never looked at that again. Because that's a $20 an hour job and I could make way more speaking and doing my doctrine. So I thought, 'I'm not doing anything that's going to devalue me ever again in my life.' I've never gone back. 38 years, I've never gone back. Lisa: So systematise. This is a thing here, where I have a bit of a problem, a bit of a chaos, right? Dr John: I'm an ignoramus when it comes to anything other than research, write, travel, and teach. I'm useless. I'm not. I do jokes and say when I'm having I want to make love with my girlfriend. I tell her. I put my arms around I said, 'If I was to organise and have Hugh Jackman or Brad Pitt take care of lovemaking for you on my behalf and things like that, would you still love me?' One time if she said, 'No, I will still love you more.' I'm joking. That’s a joke. But the point is that if you're not delegating lower priority things, you're trapped. Lisa: And this is the dilemma, I think, of small businesses is giving that mix right and not taking on people before you can go to that next level. Dr John: But you go. You go to the next level by taking them on if it's done properly. Lisa: If it's done properly, because I've- Dr John: You want to make sure. That's why I have a value determination process on my website to determine the values of people I hire because if they're not inspired to do what I need to delegate, that's not the right person.You gotta have the right people on the bus, this column says. I have to be clear about what I can produce if I go and do these other things. And me speaking it, and doing the doctoring on the highest priority patients was way more productive financially than me doing those other things. So once I got on to that, I put somebody in place just to book speeches, and just to make sure that I was scheduled and filled my day with schedules with patients, it was a updated day and night. I've never gone back to that. I only research, write, travel, teach. That's it. Lisa: That's my dream. I'm gonna get there. Dr John: I don't do it. What's interesting is I became financially independent doing that because of that. I learned that if I don't value myself, and I don't pay myself, other people aren't going to pay me. If they're waiting for you to value you add when you value you, the world values you. You pay yourself first, other people pay you first. It's a reflection, economically, there. And that's what allowed me to do it. Because financial independence isn't for debauchery and for the fun life, in my opinion. It's for making sure that you get to do what you love because you love it not because you have to do it. Lisa: And having an impact on the world. But if you're stuck doing the admin and the technical, logical stuff, and the crap that goes along with the business. You're not impacting the world like you want to be impacting. Dr John: Weel, the individual that does the administration is impacting the world through the ripple effect by giving you the freedom to do it. Lisa: Exactly. Dr John: If that's what they love doing. That’s not what I love doing. But there are people that love administration, they love that stuff and love behind the scenes, I love doing that. Finding those people. That's the key. Lisa: Finding those people. I's given me a bit of encouragement because I've been in that sort of groundhog days I had to get through the ceiling and get to the next level of reach. Dr John: I finally realised that the cost of hiring somebody is insignificant compared to the freedom that it provides if you do your priority. Lisa: If you get your stuff right, and know what you… Dr John: Because the energy, your energy goes up the second you're doing what you love doing. And that draws business to you. Lisa: Absolutely. I mean, like doing what we're doing. Now, this is my happy place.  Dr John: We’re both in our element. This is why we're probably going to slow down. The point is, when you're doing something you love to do, when you're on fire, with kind of an enthusiasm, people come around to watch you burn. They want to see you on fire.  Lisa: I mean, they do, they do. And I've seen that in times in my life where I've been preparing for a big race or something, and I need sponsors. I just go out there.  At the start, I didn't know how to do a sponsored proposal, I didn't know how to do any of that fancy stuff. I just went out there and told the story. And by sharing the story, people were like, 'I want to get on board with this. That's exciting.' People would come on in and and when you don't know, one of the things that I've found in life is the less you know, sometimes the more audacious you are. When you actually h

Episode 73 covers three time zones with Paul Anderson (NZski.com) in New Zealand and Claire Burnet (Chamonix) in France joining Iain in the UK. We discuss the coming season and the expected boom for NZ resorts from the Trans-Tasman bubble; the lifts turning again in Chamonix and the prospects for a ‘normal' summer season in France. We have a special feature on skiing in the UK in May – it's very rare, but we have reports from Wales, Scotland and the Lake District in England. Thanks as always to Switzerland Tourism for supporting The Ski Podcast. We are delighted to announce that this partnership has been extended to cover this summer and next winter. SHOW NOTES Mike Richards reported from Wales and previously appeared on the show discussing skiing in Wales in more depth in Episode 65 Follow Mike at mikethesnow on Instagram Greg Hilton was ski touring in Cairngorm with British Backcountry David Johnson visited Glencoe and the Nevis Range earlier in May You can check the Nevis Range webcam here We previously covered skiing options in Scotland in Episode 62 Simon Burgess visited Raise, organised by the Lake District Ski Club Check the live feed on Twitter here You can follow Simon's adventures on his website Katie Crowe is from Battleface Travel Insurance You can check current travel restrictions on the 'Sherpa' app on their website NZ.com includes Coronet Peak, The Remarkables and Mt Hutt and welcome 700,000 guests each winter, of which 30-40% are from Australia The resorts near Queenstown offer ‘remarkable' views with a season lasting from June to October A recent survey suggests pent-up demand for NZ skiing in Australia The lifts starting turning again in Chamonix on May 19 at 50% capacity as 'deconfinement' gets underway Last winter's 'saison blanche' saw peak season occupancy reduced to 30-50% of normal levels Mark Seaton talked to us about the ski touring options in Chamonix in Episode 62 Betony Garner reported on the rise of cross country skiing in France in Episode 65 The ‘Village Vacances Grandeur Nature' deal in Chamonix this summer means visitors can enjoy free activities on week days in July and August Iain is taking part in the UTMB trail running race Buy Me A Coffee Matt Hayes, Andrew Brannan, John M and Nick D have all very kindly bought me a cuppa since our last episode. Andrew: “You're doing such a professional job: it's a very enjoyable listen.” Nick: "Many thanks for the great work you do, putting out the best ski podcast going" John: “Thank you. You've kept my ski passion going thru this tough year” If you enjoy The Ski Podcast, you can buy me a coffee at www.buymeacoffee.com/theskipodcast Reviews Please do give us a review on iTunes/Apple Podcasts - we've had over 80 reviews now - and as you know how all those algorithms work, it genuinely does help people find us. Many thanks to 'SkiSkiSki' who reviewed us on iTunes: Don't forget if you'd like some TSP stickers for your helmet, skis or phone, then just email theskipodcast@gmail.com with your address and we'll post some out to you for free. Remember that you can still secure yourself a free ticket for the National Snow Show at the Birmingham NEC in October, using the code 'SnowSkiPodcast' Coming Up Don't forget if you haven't listened to it yet, our Pat Sharples Ski Podcast Special is now live. Do listen to this one - it's one of our best! You can follow Iain @skipedia and the show @theskipodcast on TwitterThanks as always to Switzerland Tourism

John Vuong started his Toronto-based agency, Local SEO Search, in 2013 with the goal of helping small- to medium-sized businesses in North America, UK, and Australia improve digital presence in their local communities.   John had ten years in advertising and sales for print media directories with their online performance-based networks and then worked for 5 years at Yellow Pages. Through this experience, he honed his understanding of how to dig out a business's gaps, opportunities and challenges, its potential customers, where those customers were located, what those customers wanted . . . and what businesses themselves were looking for in an agency. John explains that product characteristics, physical proximity, convenience, and/or services are only the beginning of the variables to consider in “positioning” a company. Whatever it is that a company's customers want needs to be prominent on its website. John says, “Make it easy for people to realize what you offer.” John believes “Google My Business” is “the biggest asset piece for the local space” – it is what sets local apart from traditional organic traffic. This link between Google search and maps is critical. Small business owners need to understand how people “shop, navigate, and search for information.” Websites at the local level need to be simple for Google to easily crawl and index user-relevant information.  Typical clients for this agency are professional service businesses (dentists, lawyers, physio/chiro, massage, and anything medical spa-ish), trades (e.g.; plumbers or roofers) and B2B businesses (e.g.; manufacturing, distribution, and e-com) – businesses that more competitive in nature, have higher revenue expectations, and have a higher lifetime customer value. John says the process of building a business takes time and work – that there are no shortcuts for things that are worthwhile. Local SEO Search has specialists that develop SEO strategy, build links, create content, and manage social media. The agency employs web developers and graphic designers. But even with that variety of services, the agency's focus is totally and simply on the attributes and signals Google uses to rank websites. John' strength is sales. Yellow Pages taught him a lot about business. He met business owners where the businesses had been in existence, not just for years, but for lifetimes. How? “They took care of their customers. They relied on word-of-mouth, referral business. They understood how to run a really good business – service, pricing, competitors, unique selling proposition, understanding all their products and services. Inside out, they knew how to run it.” John sees the internet as the “new Yellow Pages.” When he started his agency, John had to learn how to deliver, how to hire and manage people, how to provide customer service. “There's so much more to running a business than just sales,” he admits. John values honesty and hard work and admits that he “went door-knocking at the beginning to get clients, and it worked.” Today, he says, he's “just looking for good people to connect with. Good, honest, real businesses that not just need and acknowledge that they need help, but they're good people” who “have business experience and knowledge and insights on what real business ownership means.” Those are the people he feels he can best help. John can be reached on his agency's website at: www.localseosearch.ca.  Transcript Follows: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I am joined today by John Vuong, owner of Local SEO Search based in Toronto, Canada. Welcome to the podcast, John. JOHN: Thanks a lot for having me, Rob. I'm excited to be on your show today. ROB: Super exciting to have you here. Why don't you start off and tell us about Local SEO Search? I think we might know what your superpower is, but why don't you tell us about it?  JOHN: Yeah, definitely. I started this agency 8 years ago, back in 2013. My sole purpose is really to help the small to medium size businesses service their local community and really help them for their digital presence, so make them appear more visibly on search, in particular Google. ROB: Interesting. We've talked to some different SEO firms, but a lot of times they're more on that “trying to rank for a keyword,” that B2B software client. How does that work differently with local? How do the tactics and mindsets differ when you're trying to be the pizza place somebody finds when they look locally? JOHN: There's a lot of different nuances. In my background – and maybe I'll take a step back before I even start with starting the agency. I actually worked 10 years prior in advertising/sales, and I dabbled in traditional advertising/sales and print media directories, some online affiliate performance-based networks, and then I resided and worked for 5 years at Yellow Pages. For me, I really learned a lot about local businesses, understood what gaps, opportunities, and challenges they had, and what they wanted to look for or to in an agency, or someone that they wanted to build their trust and relationship with. When I started this company, it was all about understanding them, asking the right questions, and understanding what they really, really cared about in terms of staying connected and harvesting a good relationship long term. For me, that's all I needed to get into this agency world without knowing how to run an agency. Working at Yellow Pages is not your traditional digital agency. It was more traditional channel print media, telephone book. But I learned a lot from a big company, how to run a real company. In terms of local, the big thing for me was understanding who their customers were, understanding their challenges/problems, and ultimately the customers that were consuming their product or service. Fast forward to now Google and how local sets themselves apart from the traditional organic traffic, Google My Business is the biggest asset piece for the local space. How you understand and claim and verify and rank for a lot of terms to be on that prominent proximity or relevant map is so critical for a lot of these small business owners because that's how people shop, navigate, search for information. For you as a business owner, I feel you have to understand what your customers are looking for. The keyword gap analysis, great, but positioning so that you actually know exactly that pizza shop, what people are looking for, seeking out – is it the weekly specials? Is it the different toppings? The convenience factor, proximity, free pick-up, Uber, whatever? There's so many different variables. Understand that. Make it prominent on your website, and then make sure that Google recognizes that it's inside your schema markup, your sitemap. Make it easy for people to realize what you offer that's accessible and simple for your customers. ROB: Dig in a little bit just for a moment on schema markup. That's something I think some of the amateur SEOs like me out in the world might know less about. JOHN: Schema markup is just the way you sort your information on your website so that Google can index things. It's another way to add attributes within your website. The key about everything you do in terms of not just digital, but in your business, is to make it as efficient as possible for your customers. The more simplistic it is, easy it is – just like your sitemap on your website, making it so simple that Google can go in there and crawl it without trying to navigate five layers deep on the content piece that's relevant for the user. If you mark it up so it's simple, so that Google doesn't have a problem indexing your site, it allows you to then make it a clean transfer of information/content to the actual users and make it easy for Google to then crawl and index your site. ROB: Thank you for digging into that. It's an interesting through-line going back to your work with Yellow Pages. You've been helping businesses be found by people for longer than you've had a business. That's pretty fascinating. I wonder what a typical customer looks like for you. I might've pulled you down a path with that pizza restaurant example, but who are we talking about for your customers, usually? Are we talking about doctors or lawyers, home professionals, retail businesses? What's the meat and potatoes of who wants to be found locally and wants some help with that? JOHN: Our typical persona/avatar type of client is the professional service-based type of business, whether it be dentists, lawyers, physio/chiro, massage, anything medical spa-ish, as well as trades, which are the plumbers, roofers, etc. And of course, the B2B kind of businesses – manufacturing, distribution, e-com, etc. The reason for that is typically it's more competitive in nature, and in a local marketplace – I live in Toronto, Canada, and it's one of the larger metropolitan areas in all of Canada. There's more competition in dentists than there are barbershops. Therefore, if you are in business for a higher ticket service type sale of your client – and the lifetime value of a dentist is 7 years – so the value of acquiring a customer, you want the good type of avatar, a good ideal lead nurture of a client. Understanding that whole process, understanding who you want to cultivate, understanding how you want to portray your brand or yourself as a business cultivates the best lead source if you do SEO properly with the right company, yourself, or freelancer contractor. It doesn't matter. If you do it properly, you should have an inbound lead flow of quality clients begging for you, for your service. Those are typically my type of clients because of the price point, the value that they're looking for, and how difficult it is to get new customers in any other form of media channels, from social to paid ads to traditional, tradeshows, print media, radio, television. There are so many different media sources, but I feel SEO still cultivates the best lead source of your ideal type client. ROB: That makes sense. You started walking down a path I was interested to get into. Obviously, SEO is the name you hang on the front door of the business, but you mentioned other marketing channels. Have you engaged more deeply into paid and content and some other things? Or have you kept it pretty tight around SEO? JOHN: My agency focuses on SEO only, but there's pillars within SEO. We take care of the strategy; we have specialists. We also have link builders. We have content creators. We have web developers, graphic designers, social media management. But that is all attributes and signals of what Google is looking for to rank a website. Anything that is required to rank a website, that's what we touch. Anything outside that, which is usually paid – like if you're doing paid ads on social or Google Ads or behavioral networks, performance networks, email, that's different. We only focus on being a full-service SEO agency that's more of a boutique agency. ROB: You must've had clients, though, ask you to manage their paid budget. How have you looked at that temptation, potentially, and said no to it? JOHN: We have that daily, actually. A lot of clients know they need SEO, and I tell them there's a ton of agencies that offer full-service from paid ads to SEO to content, and they break it up, and that's fine, a la carte. I just want to be really good at one thing and do it right and be known for it. There's different strategies, different agencies out there. I just feel there's a big enough marketplace for being the best at one thing. If you're known for doing it really well, that's what people know you by, and that's enough business to be had. I could dabble into digital, like paid ads, and hire someone in-house and take it over, but I'm not a true believer in that. [laughs] I have to believe in it at a very high level to really be a big, strong proponent of selling it. ROB: Right. Super-duper interesting to keep that sort of focus. You mentioned your journey, you mentioned coming through that Yellow Pages background. It almost seems like there might've been a journey for you within that previous role before starting the company where you started to see something shift. What was your journey from “Hey, I'm working at Yellow Pages, I'm working with these businesses” to “I'm going to go start my own business”? Because it's a big difference between having someone who pays your bills and figuring out how to pay your own bills. JOHN: The journey definitely is something that I feel is a mindset journey for a lot of people. When I was at Yellow Pages, I was there for 5 years. I learned a ton about sales. I had the privilege to meet with thousands of business owners, and I was being mentored by them on what it takes to a business owner. And that's something that was invaluable at that time, for me to then pick their brain on what really mattered in not just business ownership, but in life. These people were so grateful to be ultra-curious about how they ran their business, what really made them happy, and what ultimately they wanted to do for their community, for their family, to have a good lifestyle. That's what resonated with me, along with, of course, selling ad space in a more dated format like the print directory, which allowed me to know that there was a gap in opportunity in the marketplace. People wanted to go with someone they trusted, or a company, but they didn't know how to do it and what was involved. So I wanted to be that transition piece. As you know, paid ads in the Yellow Pages was a diminishing return on investment. People were spending more than ever, getting fewer people transacting. The return on investment was lower, and people like myself were spending more time on Google to do search results. I knew there was an opportunity digitally. I didn't know anything about SEO at that time. I just knew there was a gap in the marketplace to add an idea, and I knew there were people willing to pay for someone or something to help them. That's all I really needed to get my foot in the door. But it was all timing as well. I did extremely well at Yellow Pages and ads, so I was doing well in sales. My wife gave me the go-ahead, because she had a stable job opportunity. For me, it was more, look, I can go get another job, maybe work at Google, work at another ad agency or whatever – or I can try something. Basically, she said, “Go for it.” The first couple years it was a struggle to learn how to run a business. [laughs] More so than the SEO thing at all. My strength was sales, so I was out there selling from Day 1. The first two months, I already had 10 clients. So, the sales aspect wasn't the challenge; it was more about now I had to figure out how to deliver and hire people and manage, customer service. I realized there's so much more to running a business than just sales. ROB: For sure, that is an interesting part of the journey. I wonder a little bit – I don't know if Yellow Pages ever tried this, but I know a lot of the TV and radio stations and the conglomerates around them that used to sell to local businesses tried to make this transition. They've been selling TV ads, radio ads, billboards to these local businesses for forever. A lot of them tried to make the jump into selling digital advertising and selling SEO, but it just doesn't seem like that transition worked for them. What is it that made it hard for those organizations to turn the corner where they already had the client relationship and build up that new line of business? JOHN: I think the biggest barrier for them was they were so comfortable with the margins they had. With a big company like Yellow Pages, they were so comfortable with a directory that they billed monthly for ads where they printed an ad, and the cost was less than one-quarter of a month. I knew the cost and the margin of retaining a customer and getting them to buy ads in their asset, which was the printed book. Now you go digital and the margins are a lot less; to get into that and then not know what expectations and profitability is, it's going to be bad on their shareholders because ultimately it's all about big business. For me, that's where this was a huge gap. I'm realizing, now that I've been doing this for 8 years, why do these business owners gravitate towards smaller boutique companies? Because the big guys will try to cut corners for cost – not deliver on the actual results. They're trying to do as little as possible and earn as much money as possible. ROB: And they're not used to doing the execution at all. You put something in a book and you're done versus managing a relationship, actually having to do execution, having to apologize. I'm sure something goes wrong sometimes in the Yellow Pages, but not the same way – I know of an ecommerce site that stood up their ecommerce site and WordPress had a setting that said “Don't Index Me.” That was kind of a problem for their SEO on a site migration. It doesn't usually happen that way in print. JOHN: Exactly. Again, digital is so multi-touchpoint and so many people need to be involved. With traditional media, like newspaper, flyer, tradeshow, radio, television, they already own their asset piece. It's a sunk cost. So, for them, it's all about ad spend and people. When you look at what is required for digital to perform, you invest a ton of money. For these companies that were so reluctant to spend and invest, and so comfortable with that profit margin, very difficult to get that mindset. Especially when they're older in terms of the older generation. They're okay with the status quo. They don't really forward-think like what we see today. As digital agencies, we have to look ahead. We have to stay ahead of the curve. ROB: You mentioned those first couple of years where you were learning a lot about running a business. You mentioned that you had some customers pretty early. Was there a point where it felt like you had turned a corner and you said, “Okay, we're not just trying this, we're doing this” and hit escape velocity where you'd built up a team now where you saw that ahead of you? JOHN: My goal to do this was either commit, do it properly, or not do it at all. For me, my intention was spend less time in the business eventually and learn as much as I can, early days. Because I did have a family but I didn't have children yet, I had time. I didn't have a lot of money because I bootstrapped everything. It was like, I've got to figure this out. I've got to make this happen. I've got to make this work. I didn't really have a digital background. No technical skills, no SEO skills. I had to learn it. I had to figure it out. My background was always just sales, but then I had to learn how to manage and operations and bookkeeping and all that other stuff that I needed to run a business. But that's the challenge of business ownership and entrepreneurship. You should always try to grow. You should always try to learn. And there are going to be tons of mistakes along the way. You have to acknowledge it, move ahead, and get better every single day, every hour. Challenge yourself. Figure out, what are the gaps? Where are the opportunities? Talk to people and get out there and learn. There's so much to it, and we only have a 30-minute podcast, so I don't even know where to start because there's so much I've learned over the last 8 years. ROB: It's such a big journey. I think you came into SEO at a pretty interesting time. SEO has an early baggage of being a gimmick business rather than a discipline business, or at least some people were very much in the gimmick business for a while. Were there any gimmicks or tactical short-term wins that you had to look at early on and either steer away from or get bit by once or twice to learn – I feel like what I would say is the best way to be found is to be worth finding, but it took us a while to get there in the SEO industry. JOHN: Yeah. There's so many hacks, fast ways. This is life in general, I feel. I was very fortunate working at Yellow Pages, where I met these business owners that were generationally in business – not just 5, 10, 20 years, but think about different lifetimes – 50, 100, 150 years. How did they survive without the internet? Internet's only been around for 15-20 years, right? Google has only really taken off in 10-15 years. It's transitioned and transformed the way we shop and our behaviors. Imagine these businesses. What did they do so well to keep them sustained? They took care of their customers. They relied on word-of-mouth, referral business. They understood how to run a really good business – service, pricing, competitors, unique selling proposition, understanding all their products and services. Inside out, they knew how to run it. If you take that foundation and you put it now digitally, people don't put that much effort in the foundation of a business online. They're looking for shortcuts. And in life, typically there's no shortcuts. Just like any profession – not just in business and entrepreneurship, but profession as in if you're a dentist or a lawyer or a doctor or a plumber, is there a shortcut to become one of them? Probably not. You probably have to go to school. You probably have to apprentice. You probably have to work as an associate. You've got to put your years in, training in, learning in. By the time you put in your 10, 15, 20 years, then maybe you have enough savings to start your own business. But now, with internet and with a lot of social media and videos and podcasts and everything, people find that it's easier for knowledge and information to be transferred. You can access information at your fingertips. There's so much information and intel at your disposal. However, there's not a lot of experience at your disposal. A lot of people think there's easier ways, faster ways to earn a living, and they get bitten by these videos or ways to do it. Just like a sports athlete, I'm all about mindset. I'm all about habits. If you look at one of the top basketball players – Michael Jordan, LeBron James – or Tiger Woods – how many years of training did they have to harvest? How many hours, how many years of dedication from help, practice, failures, to actually become that? People forget that in terms of business, and that's why in the first couple years of business ownership, a lot of people fail. They watch a video, they read a book, they listen to a podcast, and they purchase something on Wix or Squarespace or Shopify and build a site thinking, “Now I have a business.” But they don't have business experience and knowledge and insights on what real business ownership means. That's the gap that I'm saying. In terms of what I've seen over the years, I'm more a mature business now because I've learned from the type of clients I want to work with versus the type of clients that are not even real business owners yet because they're not profitable or they don't know how to run a business. I don't want to train someone how to run a business to be working with them, if that makes sense. People that are starting off or have an idea aren't my clients. ROB: Right. Those clients tend to go away. It's a great point about the athletes and about the experience. I think I heard you mention before “I didn't have kids yet,” which makes me suspect you may have them now?  JOHN: Yeah. ROB: So I think because you have experience, you don't have the time you used to have. Tiger Woods isn't as young as he used to be, and at one point he had to retool his entire swing to stay competitive, and there are still things he changes in his game now. Because he's not as young as he used to be, now he has to heal two broken legs, I think. That's what I think I saw, I don't know. But he's going to figure out and adapt, and experience is going to be the thing that gives him what maybe having raw energy and pure physical prowess gave him early on. We still have to work all those muscles. But it's a great point, a great analogy. JOHN: Yeah, ultimately it's mindset, right? What you feel will be what you want to do for a very long time. A lot of business owners are in it for the wrong reasons. They're chasing money or chasing fame and glory or trying to be the best, but they don't put in the work to become it. Business ownership is the same way. SEO is the same way. Digital ad agencies are the same way. I'm not selling a fake promise. I'm being authentic in terms of the journey. I want people to realize how long it takes, what's involved, and let them make an informed decision. The more you're up front with any transaction or interaction you have with your customers, the more likelihood they're going to stay with you for the long term. ROB: You're still doing it. You have more people, you have in some ways more opportunities, but also more problems. So, what is it at this point that makes it worth it to you? JOHN: I'm really just looking for good people to connect with. Good, honest, real businesses that not just need and acknowledge that they need help, but they're good people. The challenge with digital agencies – and again, I'm not your traditional agency coming from the ad world. I come from Yellow Pages, and that's all I built my business around. Long-term trust in clients that have a problem, fixing the problem and answering it. It's not rocket science, but it's very simple. People overcomplicate things with funnels and landing pages and different ways to try to cultivate new clients. I'm the type of guy that just went door-knocking at the beginning to get clients, and it worked. These things that really foundationally set these business owners apart when they first started still apply. People are always looking for shortcuts; there's no shortcuts. ROB: And it turns into – generically, not speaking specifically to the business – saying you're in the business of helping good people achieve what they want in their business in a way that you're skilled and enjoy. Isn't that what I think most people want from their work? JOHN: Not only will I give it all my best effort and my team will do what we possibly can for all clients, I'm trying to cultivate good, ideal customers that you want coming to you and positioning yourself as a thought leader. So, for me, I think a lot of business owners need to realize why they're in business, who they want to go after as their ideal type of client, and then focus heavily on that versus trying to take anything they can. Yes, maybe when they're first starting, you're doing that because it's like survival mode. But then you realize as you mature in your business what you really want to be known as. Who do you want to cultivate as an ideal customer? Just have fun. A lot of people forget about why they started the business in the first place. ROB: That's great advice, John. You've shared a lot of good lessons along your journey. Is there anything else you can think of – a key moment, a key decision you want a do-over on if you could? Obviously, we can only move forward, but if you could change something on the journey? JOHN: For me, I wouldn't, actually. Even though I made a ton of mistakes – I mean, I still make mistakes every day. I'm learning. I'm constantly eager and I'm hungry to want to be better. I don't have to be the best, and that's okay too. I'm always trying to get better. I know there's gaps in the agency. I know there's gaps in client expectations, and we can do more. I'm all about generating more value for my customers, taking care of my clients, taking care of my staff, and being a better human and living a better life of joy and happiness. If I'm enjoying that entire journey and process, that's what being a business owner should be about. ROB: That's fantastic, John. When people want to find you and Local SEO Search, where should they go to find you? JOHN: They can check out my website. It's www.localseosearch.ca. We're located in Toronto, Canada, but we service clients all across North America, UK, and Australia. For us, it's all about helping good people and informing them with decisions and letting them decide. I equip people with insight and knowledge, and they make their own decisions of who they want to work with and what they want to do. But just be informed. I think that's the biggest thing about SEO. Know what you want and go out there and be realistic, because there's experts or a lot of information out there; you just don't know who to trust and what that really means. ROB: When one goes to Google and types in “local SEO search,” I can affirm that you're proving your craft. You are the number one organic result for “local SEO search.” Not only that, there's like four or five ads above you, which means people really want that spot. It seems like there's some evidence here that you can do your job, John. JOHN: Thank you, Rob. ROB: It's pretty cool. And you're above people like BrightLocal and folks who would really like that slot. That's pretty impressive. JOHN: Yeah, Whitespark, BrightLocal. All of them have their own business. I feel just stay the course. It's a long game. Have fun, enjoy it. ROB: Sounds good, and we shall. John, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It's been great to hear your own journey and wisdom from it. JOHN: Thank you, Rob. ROB: Bye. Thank you for listening. The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast is presented by Converge. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting, email info@convergehq.com, or visit us on the web at convergehq.com.

John Limotte, Founder and CEO of Mustache Agency, started his career as a film producer making indie and arthouse films. When that business became more difficult (impacted by, among other things, the rise of the internet), John looked for a way to use his skills doing something that looked more like a real business. He saw potential in the field of marketing for “more cinematic . . . epic . . . more longform storytelling.” So, he started a very small video production agency and took jobs one by one to see where things would go. Ten years later, Mustache is a creative content agency with client services spread across three lines: integrated campaigns, video production and post-production, and social. The core of the agency's work is content and digital content, with a focus on storytelling and creating epic, engaging video content . . . doing high-quality, cost-effective work. Even from the early days, the agency produced hundreds of videos a month. The client “playlist” includes such “big names” as Facebook, Google, Netflix, Amazon, a lot of tech disruptors, Instacart, Grammarly, and YouTube. When Mustache works with Facebook and Instagram, the agency gets the “inside scoop” on their best practices, new products, what's working on the platform, and how to tailor content for the platform. John says the agency is learning from the platforms “how to hack them,” but then admits that the only real hack is creating “really good, sticky content.” Working on those platforms has increased the agency's effectiveness and provided the opportunity to work with the digital disruptor brands that heavily advertise on those platforms.  John says the key to his agency's success is “hiring good people who are passionate, have expertise, and know what they're doing; keeping the focus on high level storytelling; and demanding that whatever content goes out still moves the needle.” He says, “There is no hack. There is no foolproof system.”  You need to think about who your audience is, you need to think about who you are, and you have to think about what you want them to do and the best way to get them there, and you need to do that . . . through content and storytelling. You still need a hook. You still need to make people laugh. You still need to tell a story, have a journey. Even as the formats and the aspect ratios change, those things remain the same.  Mustache has never focused on a single vertical. John sees a lot of upside for his business across a wide variety of verticals. Why? John says industries today are evolving in the direction of increased video content . . . especially since COVID. He sees another upcycle and no end in the demand for and consumption of content.  John is best reached on his agency's website at: mustacheagency.com. ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I'm joined today by John Limotte, Founder and CEO of Mustache Agency based in Brooklyn, New York. Welcome to the podcast, John. JOHN: Thank you, Rob. Nice to be here. ROB: It's excellent to have you here. Would rather be up in New York, but we can talk about that. Why don't you start off by telling us about Mustache and where the firm excels? JOHN: Sure. Mustache is a creative content agency based in Brooklyn. We essentially offer three lines of services: integrated campaigns, video production and post-production, and social. Our clients are pretty evenly spread across those buckets. But at the core of everything we do is content, video content. We came up as a video production company focused on storytelling and creating epic, engaging video content. Eight or ten years later, depending on when you count the start date, our focus remains the same and it continues to be what we do best. ROB: It seems like you've really had the privilege to work with some clients that others would dream of. How do you make that jump from starting with – I don't know if it's you and a camera or what it looks like, but how do you start punching so heavyweight to work with some of these big names? You can run off whoever you're comfortable talking about. JOHN: Our first client was a plaintiff's law firm in the Bronx, and we were doing some pretty tactical digital marketing and $1,000 videos for him. We dubbed him “the King of the Bronx” and did a lot of man on the street videos of him because he was a true man of the people. From there, it's evolved greatly. These days we're working with everyone from Facebook, Google . . . Netflix is a big client of ours, Amazon, a lot of tech disruptors, Instacart, Grammarly . . . we do a lot of work with YouTube. How we got there is a great question. I wouldn't say that it was any sort of thought-out path. Some of it is just, I think, good fortune. But from the beginning we were focused on content and digital content, storytelling, video storytelling, and just doing that really, really well and cost effectively in a model that was outside the traditional agency model back in say 2012. With that focus, a lot of these companies just found us. We did some viral video campaigns, some YouTube campaign. We were doing some episodic web content that got some attention. In a lot of cases, being in the content business led to the work proliferating because we were creating, even from the early days, hundreds of videos a month. From there, word got out and eventually we found ourselves working with some of these bigger companies. I should say those are not retainer clients; we would be at an entirely different scale. These are all giant organizations that work with tons of companies in different niches and different capacities. So, it's the biggest companies in the world, but sometimes they're just small little campaigns that they hire us for, and we've been really fortunate that they do. One thing I'll add about that, too, is that for us it's created a kind of virtuous cycle. When we're working with Facebook and Instagram and we're talking about best practices, new products, what's working on the platform, and how to tailor content for the platform, we're learning from the platforms themselves how to hack them, really – although the truth is, there's not a lot of hacks except creating really good sticky content. But there are a lot of things you can do that we learn from them, and those make us more effective. I think that led to more work with the digital disruptor brands that are doing most of their advertising on those platforms. ROB: It's interesting because Instagram really has the visibility to look at every video that's made, just about, and decide who they want to work with. It's a pretty high compliment. One thing I want to pull on a little bit is that you mentioned even early on having hundreds of videos in flight at a time. That sounds overwhelming to me. I wonder how you're able to keep track of all of that. I know a bunch of people who have started video agencies, and not many of them that I know have crested that 10-20 person range. So, I wonder if there's some key in how you manage that scale and beyond that has helped you make it over the hump. JOHN: I will say that scaling great creative at good pricing is the bane of our existence. It's a challenge that you never win, in a way. It's never over. There's always the quest to do more and to do it better and to do it more cost effectively. I've never had that feeling of like “Oh, we cracked it. We're good.” It's just something that you have to continually be working at. We have a lot of smart people who spend a lot of time thinking on this problem and what kind of systems, what kind of processes. But again, one of my themes is that there's no hack. There's no foolproof system. There's not some proprietary technology that we've developed. At the end, at the core of it is hiring good people who are passionate and have expertise and know what they're doing, keeping the focus on high level storytelling, and demanding that whatever content goes out still moves the needle. People often ask me why we never focus on a particular vertical because we've always moved across verticals. I think for us, the question is easy because our focus has always been content, storytelling – just focused on that. We've built up a lot of expertise around that capability. At the same time, as I said, we're always working on the best workflow, the best system, the best structure. We've done a couple of reorgs over time as we gain new insight. We've also benefited from the fact that it's been organic. It's not like we started Day 1 making 100 videos per client per activation. I think much like the industry itself, it started with a TV 30 and then a couple of cutdowns, and the business has grown from there in terms of iteration and scale. We've had the good fortune of growing – from there it was 10 deliverables and then it was 100. Every client is different. Every circumstance is different. It's not like you need 100 videos or you need 10. But generally speaking, the numbers have gone up, and they've gone up steadily so that we've been able to adapt and adjust as the volume and the needs increase.  ROB: I think I have an idea, but for all of us, including me, what is a cutdown? JOHN: Basically just taking a 30-second spot or a 60-second spot, whatever the longer form of the content might be, and cutting it into smaller pieces – 15s, 6s, and so on. ROB: Got it. I think we've all seen that and now we know what to call it. It seems like one key may also be your involvement on the social side. With that as a line of service, it seems like that would give you insights into not just the overall raw performance of the content, but more specifically, you can get into the metrics and look at the performance of the content with the audience it was intended for as well as uncovering unexpected audiences. It seems like that would feed back into strategy. Are the platforms giving you the metrics you need to draw that sort of insight? JOHN: The clients are mostly pretty proprietary in terms of the platforms themselves, but you're able to track in social and digital performance yourself and see how things are working. When we're working with brand clients, often they'll share with us the data and the results, so we're also able to see from that. So yeah, it's been a tremendous feedback loop. In some ways we came into this with a very non-data, very intuitive approach, like “What is an insight that feels resonant? Let's tell a story about that in a way that to us feels compelling and impactful.” You never lose that eye towards the content, but then once you start working in social and you start getting more digital execution and getting that information about what's working and what isn't and you start being able to test different things and different hypotheses about content, then you're approaching it from both sides. You're using both your intuitive instincts around content and storytelling and you're able to look at the data. I think that's a pretty powerful one-two punch. ROB: For sure. John, if we rewind a little bit, go back in time even before that plaintiff attorney client, what was it that led you to take this jump and start the firm in the first place? Where did Mustache come from? JOHN: It was born somewhat of desperation, to be honest. I was a film producer back in another life and I was making indie films and arthouse films, the type of things that would go to Sundance and South by Southwest and hopefully find a distributor for it. I loved the business, but it was changing and becoming more difficult. Actually, with the rise of the web, that began to threaten that business in some respects, or at least in the form that I knew it. So, I started thinking about where else I could apply my skills. Is there something that more resembles an actual business? Film has this magical fantasy element to it where you're inspired by a story and you make it and hope that the world loves it. I was certainly drawn to the fact that there is a business that rewards creative and content and needs good stories. Especially at the time, in 2010, it felt like there was a real opportunity for more cinematic and epic storytelling, more longform storytelling. There was some minor identification of an opportunity and a shift. I think it was that combination of me looking for something new, seeing that there might be a place where this thinking might resonate, and then just starting in a very small and taking it job by job way and seeing where it went. ROB: It seems like very good timing. All of these video platforms emerged, and coming from a different perspective, you kind of got to take on being a video agency digital-first, where people probably had more TV experience. It's really interesting timing there, especially as all these video platforms have come around. I think we all know the key video platforms that we talked about and how Twitter has become, to an extent, a video platform, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc., and then TikTok is in that conversation as well. Is there anything emerging that maybe is not quite in the mainstream conversation that we need to think about? JOHN: I'll say this. As I think about where the business is going, I feel somewhat stunned by the level of change that I think is upon us and the level of acceleration in technology and platform adaption and adoption. Every industry is moving towards, and evolving very quickly, especially since COVID, in a way that supports and needs more video content. If you think about obviously e-comm and omnichannel thinking around e-comm, if you think about the medical business, healthcare, it's becoming online and more digital. Work from home, IoT, driverless cars are going to need content inside them. I don't have my eye on anything new so much as trends that we've been tracking for a while just exploding, an inflection point on those trends, and the need for content. I think a lot of people think content's had a great run. People have been saying content is king for 15 years now, it's a cliché. But the truth is, I feel like we're ready for another upcycle in the demand for and consumption of content. I just see no end there. So that's our focus. Does that answer the question? It's not exactly something new, but it's what I'm thinking about. ROB: I think so. One thing that strikes me as you get into it is the absolute explosion of different formats and lengths. When you talked about the cutdowns earlier, it used to be a 30-second ad was normal and you knew the aspect ratio. But now you have square, portrait, landscape. Do you want 5, 10, 30 seconds? Are you injecting this ad in the middle of somebody playing a game? Where is this thing going? It seems like that continues to shift. You don't have to worry about Quibi, but you might have had to on ads that had to be able to be rotated to different aspect ratios. JOHN: We had to. Quibi was a big client of ours. [laughs] So yeah, we were very much up in their business and we did social for them. We've been thinking about these things for a while, and I think you're right; it's sometimes overwhelming to think about the proliferation of formats and lengths. Two things I'll say about that. One is that the core of what we do remains unchanged. You need to think about who your audience is, you need to think about who you are, and you have to think about what you want them to do and the best way to get them there, and you need to do that, at least for us, through content and storytelling. You still need a hook. You still need to make people laugh. You still need to tell a story, have a journey. Even as the formats and the aspect ratios change, those things remain the same. At a certain point you realize that it's helpful in some ways because you're like, okay, it hasn't changed that much. We're still doing essentially the same thing; we just need to make sure we have the expertise we need across these platforms, whether it's Twitter or Amazon, so that we know how they speak on those platforms. It also brings me to one other thing I like to talk about. A lot of times you'll hear people say with the amount of content becoming so overwhelming, people's attention spans have shrunk and people don't have time or interest in anything longer form. What you used to have to tell in 60 seconds and then 30 and then 15 and then 6, now you have to tell in 3 or the blink of an eye. I don't think that's true. I think there is an element of having to use the right format and length, the right platform, but you just need to think harder about how to make your content break through, about a hook, about something to get people's attention. Sometimes and in some ways the answer might be longer form content. I certainly reject the notion of a race to the briefest, shortest form content possible. ROB: Certainly understood on that. I've heard some conversations on how quickly you have to hook someone. Maybe they'll stick around, but do you have to set the hook sooner to earn the rest of their attention? JOHN: Well, that's true. It's true because people's thumbs are moving. Attention spans have changed. I do think that notion is very true. You do have to hook them because otherwise you'll lose them. ROB: I appreciate that I think you're holding strong to the value of, as you mentioned, storytelling, of creativity. It reminds me a little bit of these rules in the world of standup comedy. I think you're supposed to make them laugh every 6 seconds, and if you don't, then they'll not like you, and if you do, then they probably will like you. But then you have Dave Chapelle. Dave Chapelle gets to be himself, and he's not going to make you laugh every 6 seconds, but he has his own style that is nonetheless extremely popular. JOHN: I think that's a great point. The rules may be true and relevant, but the real artists break free of them and are able to operate outside them. Some things can be true and not true at the same time, and I think it's true whether it's the comedy rules or the rules of advertising. ROB: Indeed. John, looking at your background, looking at how you built up on the film side, I think that's interesting. This is not your first rodeo, starting a business. JOHN: That's right. ROB: You did that, you started over with Mustache; if you're looking back at what you've done, what have you learned that you might do differently if you were starting clean? JOHN: It's a really interesting question. I often think about myself say 10 years ago, and I often come to the conclusion, “What a dumbass you were 10 years ago. You really didn't know anything. If I had just had all the knowledge and experience then that I have now, I could've done so much more.” I think that's true now, but at the same time, all the experiences, all the choices, they were all made in a way that I'm happy with the way they played out. So, there's no one thing that stands out. I will say, though, one thing does stand out and that's diversity and inclusion. I think we've all come to understand the importance of that, and it's something that's been on my radar from the beginning of Mustache, but I didn't give it the attention that I should have in the early days. What I would say is it was very existential. You're young and you're hungry and you're small and you're desperate for any work. If someone wants to work with you, you're like, “Yeah, that's great. Let's go.” So you're less discerning. I had less time to think about it and really plan and do the work. I feel like maybe that is one thing that if I could go back and talk to myself 10 years earlier, I would've given myself that one bit of advice. I've found once we've done that, as we've done that over the years and gotten better at it over the course of the last 10 years, how beneficial it's been for the work and for the clients and for the culture. So that's something. ROB: What did the steps look like to start to turn that corner? I think we all understand the tyranny of the urgent, the “I have to solve this problem now. I need to hire this creative by next week or next month” or whatever it is. What did you put in place to get more intentional there and maybe recruit some people you might've otherwise overlooked? JOHN: That's really interesting because it never ends, especially in our business, which tends to be really fast and furious. A good chunk of our business is project-based. So, in some ways it's the realization that the perfect moment never comes. People talk about wanting to have kids but they're too busy, and they keep telling themselves they're too busy. People will say to them, “It'll never be the right time if that's how you think about it.” That's how I think about this. There's never a moment where I'm like, “Okay, I've checked off everything on my list. I've got it completely under control. Now I can sit back and do it right.” It just doesn't happen. You have to prioritize things and move things around. You have to do the things that you have to do, that feel like imperatives. I think for me, that was the shift. It was like, we're never not facing a client rush/crisis/huge opportunity that I have to focus on because we need to get it. What I had to do was figure out within that context how to move forward anyway with the things that matter. I think once that switch flipped and we were like, we're going to start building that into every choice and everything we do, then we started getting the results that that kind of work suggests. ROB: When you're on that topic, it makes me think back – we had an agency we talked to on this podcast at South by Southwest a couple of years ago. They're a neighbor of yours, but that doesn't mean you've heard of them just because you're in New York. The Soze Agency. Are you familiar with them? JOHN: Yeah, yeah. Isn't it a freelance style, like a loose affiliation or collection of creators or something like that? ROB: I believe they call it a co-op. When I first heard it, it rang as a very Brooklyn thing to say that you were a collective and whatever else. JOHN: I love the Keyser Söze reference. ROB: They're super, super intentional in this area, and I really have appreciated following them since they were on the podcast. But they have an equity model that is interesting. I think they're going to opensource – I don't know if they will or not. I don't mean to speak for them. Everyone vests in ownership, but then they don't take it with them when they leave, so it goes back into the pool and everybody gets to share. JOHN: Yeah, it's very interesting. I've thought about that over the years and struggled with how to pair that with the imperatives of running a small business in an epically fast-changing landscape. But I think it's really interesting, and I've certainly spent time thinking about if it could work, how it could work, what the problems are. In some ways, Mustache was a dictatorship in the sense that if I saw an opportunity or wanted to make a change, I just did it, and there's nothing faster than one person deciding to do something. And that speed was critical at times. But on the other hand, there's things that might've been lost, good choices and good opportunities that might have been missed because we didn't have a more collective style. So, it's a real head-scratcher in some ways. I see the upside; I get stuck on some of the downside. But I think there's something there and I think there's a future there. I just don't think I've figured out how to crack it exactly. ROB: Someone's going to have to pay some lawyers some money to figure it out, and that's a trick too. I think what's interesting is I have been previously very much in tech startup land, and there's a model there that's predicated around growth and around increasing valuations and giving equity. It just doesn't apply in a services firm. You can't hire somebody and give them 1% and then have them walk out the door a few years later. Then your cap table is just a mess. You can't keep giving people this promise of the unlimited upside. When a company goes from a $10 million valuation to a $100 million valuation, they can get away with giving away smaller and smaller chunks in a way that would seem silly in a services firm. JOHN: It's interesting you say that, Rob, because as you were saying, it also occurred to me that the valuations matter. If you have a billion dollar pie, it's a lot easier to split up. The other thing has to do with margins. We're in content/creative. It tends to be a very low margin, tight business. If you're not in the tech valuations, you at least need to have a business model that's geared towards really high margins, really fat profits, because that gives you a little more leeway to do things. And maybe that's self-serving in some way, like if you implement the model, you'll move towards a space that is more profitable. But I think you need one or the other. Those valuations or you need to be in a business that's not razor-thin margins, I think, to make it work. ROB: It's good to have the conversation. I hear from some people who say a services firm, you want 20-30% margins. I don't know how that holds up, but I think what you're saying about setting the sights high – it just gives you more freedom to execute. I think that's what you're hinting it. We went all virtual, and if your margins are good, when you have people coming from six different cities, you can talk about flying somewhere and meeting up. JOHN: That's right. ROB: If you don't have good margins, then you say “We're all going to hide in our caves and never meet each other.” JOHN: [laughs] That's right. So true. My reality. ROB: [laughs] John, when people want to get in touch with you and with Mustache Agency, how should they connect with you? JOHN: Our website is the best place to start, mustacheagency.com. There's plenty of different ways you can contact us from there. ROB: And people should go to that website. It's very visually stimulating. I think it puts your work in a very good light. JOHN: Thank you. ROB: I'm glad the work has gone into the front door there as well. Sometimes it's hard to spend the energy on yourself. JOHN: So true. ROB: Thank you so much for coming on the podcast, John. I think it's been helpful to learn from your journey and helpful to think about the areas of business, the lines of business you've chosen and how they synthesize together and where all this video, and particularly advertising, is going in the digital land. I really appreciate it. JOHN: Yeah, thanks for having me. It was a lot of fun. ROB: All right. Be well, John. Bye.  Thank you for listening. The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast is presented by Converge. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting, email info@convergehq.com, or visit us on the web at convergehq.com.

01:49 - Kurt’s Superpower: Lifting Others Up: “A rising tide lifts all boats.” 07:00 - “Self-Taught” vs “Self-Guided” vs “Self-Motivated” Developers 11:32 - The Intersection of Incarceration and Technology * Destigmatizing Incarcerated Folx * Hiring the Formerly Incarcerated * Providing Stability to Folx Coming Out of Incarceration 22:15 - Having Privilege Working in DevRel to Raise These Issues * Bias and White Privilege 26:51 - Helping and Advocating For the Formerly Incarcerated 29:32 - The Interview Process as it Relates to the Formerly Incarcerated * Background Checks * Rolling Jobs 36:26 - Always Be Applying (ABA); Technical Interviews and Fabrication/Bending Truths * Voluntary Disclosure: I'm an Impostor - Incarceration and Living a Lie (https://theworst.dev/im-an-impostor) 45:29 - Problematic Binary Identities 47:07 - What can companies and hiring managers do? / Problems with Hiring in Tech and Tech Interviews * Make No Assumptions * Avoid Feigned Surprise * Don’t Treat People Differently * Don’t Take Advantage * Don’t Interrogate 01:05:19 - Contextualizing Advice Reflections: Kurt: Community is what you surround yourself with. Laurie: Having empathy and understanding as a hiring manager for people who have perceivably negative things in their background. Jacob: Polyglotism and not being so gatekeep-y. John: Being reminded of how terrible our carceral state is here in the U.S. 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: Whether you're working on a personal project or managing enterprise infrastructure, you deserve simple, affordable, and accessible cloud computing solutions that allow you to take your project to the next level. Simplify your cloud infrastructure with Linode's Linux virtual machines and develop, deploy, and scale your modern applications faster and easier. Get started on Linode today with $100 in free credit for listeners of Greater Than Code. You can find all the details at linode.com/greaterthancode. Linode has 11 global data centers and provides 24/7/365 human support with no tiers or hand-offs regardless of your plan size. In addition to shared and dedicated compute instances, you can use your $100 in credit on S3-compatible object storage, Managed Kubernetes, and more. Visit linode.com/greaterthancode and click on the "Create Free Account" button to get started. JACOB: Hello, everybody and welcome to Episode 226 of Greater Than Code. My name is Jacob Stoebel and I’m joined with my co-panelist, John Sawers. JOHN: Thank you, Jacob and I’m here with Laurie Barth. LAURIE: Thanks, John. I’m excited to introduce our guest today, Kurt Kemple. Kurt Kemple is a technical writer, speaker, and software developer living in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He’s very passionate about the intersection of technology and incarceration. Currently, he works for Apollo GraphQL, as a Developer Relations Manager and when not working he can be found by the ocean or relaxing with his family, which sounds really incredible. So Kurt, I'm going to have you start us off by answering the question we ask all of our guests, which is what is your developer superpower? KURT: Well, first thank you for that awesome introduction. It's a pleasure to be here. So diving into what is my superpower, I thought about this a lot and I'm not really someone who I feel has some innate skill or ability that really makes me stand out in any particular area. But I think one thing that I do really well is I care very much about lifting up the people around me. I work actively to generally help others more than I'm helping myself. I think the rising tide lifts all boats kind of mentality and I think that that is definitely something that sets me apart is I gauge my success by how successful folks around me are. JACOB: That sounds fantastic. Was that something you felt like you've always done, or was it something do you consciously develop, or did it just sort of come around? KURT: I think it evolved out of situations in my life. I've dealt with a lot of stressful situations and pretty tough upbringing and I think a lot of it is just finding opportunities to make sure people don't have to experience those things and not being so drastic that it's always in relation to something very life altering. But there's something about removing roadblocks for other folks that you have the ability to do that is very rewarding to me and I think I just started to realize that later in life that that's something I value greatly. LAURIE: That's really interesting to hear because I think in a lot of areas of technology and in the industry, we often hear people saying like, “I had to do it, so you have to do it, too.” I've heard that with sort of the toxic interview, it's almost like hazing mentality and the tools may be abstracted, but if you don't know the super, super low-level piece of it, then you're never going to understand it the way I do sort of mentality. A lot of this gatekeeping stuff comes from that. So it's really refreshing to hear that you feel sort of the opposite of that. KURT: Yeah. Like I remember very distinctly, many times starting out programming, like getting the response: RTFM. It's like, people, they don't want to help for whatever reason. They want you to – it's like almost like a badge of honor; forcing folks to figure things out for themselves. There's something to be said with taking on learning as your own responsibility, but part of learning is knowing how to get answers and ask for help when you aren't figuring it out and so, I definitely really cannot stand to see that kind of lift the ladder up behind me mentality, or pull yourself up by the bootstraps type mentality. JACOB: So who are those people around you in your role with Apollo? Who are the people that you would measure the success of? KURT: Yeah. So it's actually spread out across multiple things, but I'll start from Apollo. I'm a manager of the developer relations team so definitely my direct reports absolutely care about how well they are doing as well as the DX organization, it extends out to their world. We're all part of developer experience and we want to make sure that things we're doing is helping lifting up the education team and DX as a whole. And then of course, that spreads out into Apollo, which is just by helping developers be successful with Apollo, we're actually helping a policy succeed. But when we talk about developer relations, really that's just communities I'm involved with at all. So that could be anybody from the communities that I'm a part of, whether that's content creation, DevRel, things around GraphQL, or developments, it could be anything related to that. Pretty much any person that I have interaction with, I start to look at ways in which I can help them move forward. JOHN: It's funny the phrase “bootstrap” is so embedded in our culture because it's coming from – it’s technical terminology at this point, but it's so interesting and I think important to think back to the origin of that phrase, “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” was satirical because it's obviously, not possible to do that for you. You can't lift yourself by grabbing your boots and that's the whole point, but it's almost like turned over on itself and becoming oh, that's just what you do as economic policy or a social policy despite the fact that it was originally the complete opposite of that. KURT: Yeah. It's funny. I never really thought about that, but it's very true. They took something that was meant to be like satire, like, “Oh yeah, just pull yourself up by your bootstraps,” and then turned it into something serious. I still view it as satire. To me, it's the silliest phrase ever, but a lot of folks take that very seriously. JACOB: What else is satire or was originally satire was the word, “meritocracy”? KURT: Oh wow. JACOB: Yeah. It was basically like oh, the new aristocracy of people who think they're on top because of their merit; it's the meritocracy. It's something else I think about is the phrase self-taught; ex self-taught developer, self-taught engineer, or the million Medium posts of how I taught myself to code in 12 weeks. What does that mean, taught yourself? Do you have no interactions with any human? JOHN: You didn’t think a human produced? LAURIE: Yeah. The self-taught thing is actually really complicated and nuanced in my mind because a lot of people like to claim it and say, “Well, we're all self-taught because we all read blog posts and have to teach ourselves other things because as a developer, you're always learning new things and so, we can all claim that title.” And then there's the area of people who consider themselves self-taught, but they were working one-on-one through DMs with someone that is a working developer and they know really well. But then there's actually a last category of people, which is what I feel the label was sort of designed for, which is they never had any formal classroom experience that taught them like, the variable goes on the left side of the expression. So they had to learn just those super fundamental syntactical things through reading and through example videos and potentially sometimes asking questions, but it was a very async process. I think that's what self-taught is designed to imply that there wasn't a curriculum laid out in front of them and that they didn't have a helping hand along the way. I think there's something incredibly powerful about that and I hate the idea that it's been co-opted as well, everyone's self-taught, I'm like, “No, I got to sit in a computer science program and have teachers tell me what I needed to know in a certain order.” Was that necessarily the best way for me to learn? No. Did I have to go in and teach myself how to do things after that fact and for the rest of my career? Absolutely. But did I have some of those baseline foundational things conveyed to me based on someone who knew the order of operations of learning this topic? I did. So I am not self-taught in any sense of the word. KURT: Yeah. I think that's very interesting point and what I've been using. So I'm the other end of that spectrum. No official – that's actually not true, I took intro or intermediate web development course when I was incarcerated. But this was basically, here's a book on HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and good luck. But aside from that, I had no real formal education, but I've adopted the term self-guided, which I feel is a better descriptor of that. Because it's more about guiding yourself through a curriculum to learn programming and it's like, you're pulling bits and pieces from wherever. You can find it to create your own curriculum is essentially what you're doing. But I did learn from lots of other folks along that journey, both through asynchronous communication and DMs, watching videos, reading, blog posts and stuff. So it's not like I was in a room with no outside influence and had a computer and was like, “I will code.” But I think I really like that term, self-guided, because that's a better representation, I feel like of what actually happened. LAURIE: I love that and it reminds me of when I was in high school where you get to take independent study and it's sort of the same concept of you get to go in-depth on a topic, but you're determining what shape that takes and where you go and what you focus on. JACOB: What successful means. KURT: Yeah. JACOB: And then no one will probably care, to be truthful. No one will actually care if you don't do it. LAURIE: Yeah. Yeah, that's the other thing; self-motivated is a big part of that. Like, no one's grading papers or assignments. There's no papers in coding. [laughter] No one is grading assignments. You don't have deadlines that are imposed by other people. If you buy the course and you never watch a single video, the only one accountable for that is sunk cost fallacy of having wasted the money. There's nothing forcing you to power through and that's actually a great way to prepare yourself for coding on the job. Because it's like, technically, there's just this ticket and you need to be looking at it and feel the sense of oh no, I need to get this done because no one can actually force you to do it! [laughs] KURT: Yeah. That's very accurate. [chuckles] JOHN: Concurred. It sounds like from your bio there that the group of people that you consider yourself to be responsible for helping to lift up is beyond just the team that you're responsible for. So I’d love to hear more about the other groups that you're working with on that level. KURT: Yeah. So, I think it's interesting when we talk about community and groups and to me, community is not like a thing with guidelines and boundaries, community is whoever you surround yourself with and so, to me, there is no React community, or GraphQL community. There's just people in my community who happened to know React, or GraphQL and I think it's an interesting way to look at community because it breaks down a lot of barriers. But if we do talk about specific groups, I am very into the intersection of incarceration and technology and the reason why is because I myself am formerly incarcerated and getting into tech had such a drastic effect on my life. So it’s just naturally, I want to and again, a lot of this motivation for lifting others up stems from this. I feel like I am often sitting on a gold mine and I feel selfish when I know that there are people who were in a similar situation who are coming out of prison and don't have any idea that this industry exists, that they can have a future in it with some self-guided learning, some hard work, and a lot of perseverance. It's by no means easy, let's be real. Coding is a very difficult skill, but most folks can accomplish that goal of learning it and it just feels like if I'm not actively working to help expose people, who are coming out of incarceration, find this industry and see if it's a fit for them, then I feel like I'm just like holding something that I should be freely giving away. I think a lot of where it comes with lifting others up is that feeling of, I'm holding something that other people should have access to and that's education, information. When we talk about self-guided, it's actually one thing about picking your own curriculum that is anxiety inducing is, am I picking the right things to learn? The industry is huge and you could pick so many different things and I lucked out that I was introduced to something that was a good path into tech for me. I would like to provide folks coming out the information that the industry exists, but also a little bit of guidance around some of the different ways that you can go and break into it. So I'd say that is definitely a community, or a group of folks in my community that I care deeply about is those who are transitioning from incarceration back into society. LAURIE: I'm curious if – obviously, this is an experience and a community that a lot of us don't have a lot of insight into and it's great that you do and you have those connections. Can you talk to us a little bit about the kinds of things that we all can do to make that transition easier to support those groups of people, whether it's in an organization or outside of that? KURT: Yeah. I'll say there's really two avenues where you can do a lot of good. One is in de-stigmatization. So it's sharing information about incarceration, figuring out who these people in the community are, building relationships with them, checking at your companies, and seeing if they're adhering to the laws around hiring formerly incarcerated folks. A lot of times background checks will violate labor laws within states and companies don't check that. They say, “Give me the default. I want all the information.” It's up to the company to actually check and make sure that they have the proper configuration that they're not losing people based on laws. A good example of this is in California, they can only look 7 years back on your record for criminal activity, barring certain types of activity. But for most things, only 7 years. However, there's companies that will do background checks and pull stuff up from way back. I had this happen with a company and I was like, “Hey, just to let you know, you're not allowed to pull up information from when you did. You showing me that you found my background is actually admitting that you're violating the state laws.” Now here's where the problem lies. It takes people who are the ones, the vulnerable being affected by it to push this forward because our only recourse is to hire a lawyer and to fight it in court. I'm jobless, have just come out of prison; I don't have any money for a lawyer to fight some company, to do that and then do you want to go now work for a company that you had to fight for the job in court? So it takes people who are not in that situation asking their employer, “Hey, what is our policy on hiring formerly incarcerated? What programs do we have in place to make sure we're not dropping them out of the pipeline?” That's a huge one. And then the second one is most people don't really want to go back to prison. That's not always true. You have people who actually do want to go because it's a place where they can get more stability and safety and stuff than they can. That says a lot about the United States as a whole, but most people, they come into prison with high hopes. I wasn't the only one in that web programming class like, I wasn't the only one learning how to train dogs, learning welding, carpentry, plumbing; taking every course that was available to me. There's a lot of other folks, too. But what people don't have and why recidivism is so high is there's no stability. So we get these skills. We get out into the world. We have no income. We have no job history for years because of this. Companies that would hire folks for the skills that we have learned are doing background checks and turning us down because of them. So it's like yeah, we're learning skills, we're learning stuff, but none of it can actually be used until x amount of years after you get out and you're just kind of left floating there. So finding programs, local programs that are based in civil activities, providing housing, providing food, providing access to equipment and education, further education for folks coming out of incarceration. Those are the two best places that you can by far have a huge impact. $50 worth of food can be the difference between somebody going back to prison or not. Because if they don't have it, they're going to revert to what they know and what they know is crime often, and then boom, they go back. Of course, if we look at who's the most affected by this, it's marginalized communities. So focusing on those communities is especially going to be impactful. JOHN: Yeah. I would also imagine that the lack of a support system in the outside world is also a huge factor there. Like you were saying the $50, people that have a support system can probably make-do relying on other people that they know to help out, to get by through that part where they need that extra money for food. But if you don't have that, there aren't really any other options. KURT: Yeah. It took me almost 3 years to land my first job coding as a software developer and I can pinpoint multiple times during that 3 years where I came very close to committing a crime again and that's wild to think about now. Now, I would never in a million years do anything, but I also have stability. It’s just a living example, somebody directly in front of you just proving that the prison system, prison industrial complex is really just a money-making machine that is not incentivized in any way to help provide you with stability and keep you out of prison. Most of our prisons are actually owned by private businesses and private businesses need revenue and for a private prison, what do you think the revenue stream is? Prison labor, slave labor, me working for 14 cents an hour. That is how they make money. So what is the real incentivization, or real incentive, I guess, is the actual word to actually have programs to help people be stable when they get out? To provide learning and education around things they'll actually be able to get jobs for? To not have lobbyists literally fight to keep laws around hiring formerly incarcerated as strict and terrible as they are? So the prison industrial complex literally sends people to Congress and have them lobby against improving these systems and then they pay people at the state level and it's just like all the way down. They pay judges to make sure they send non-violent offenders into the prison system. It's a nightmare of a system, but to circle back to that, that $50 makes a huge difference and can really be the differentiator. LAURIE: For what it's worth, I appreciate you being so candid about all of this. I think it's a topic that some of us are tangentially aware of, but don't necessarily have the specifics. I remember some of this from my poly-sci degree and it was horrible then and it's worse now. KURT: Yeah. It's not fun or pleasant, but I am privileged enough to be in a position to candidly speak about it and so, again, if we use manager speak, [chuckles] circle back to lifting up others and feeling like I'm holding onto something. This stuff is really stressful. It's hard to talk about even with as much as I do, but I find that the DMs that I get from folks who are struggling and trying to get into tech. When they reach out to me and they're like, “I found your blog posts or this podcast or video and it gave me hope,” I'm going to keep trying that's that motivates the ever-living crap out of me and it far outweighs that pressure. But another thing, too is not everyone is in a position to be able to speak about this. It's just, I've developed enough of a brand and identity in the industry. I have enough of a work background. The incidents have happened so far in the past now that they can't really be held against me for finding future work. So not everyone has that situation. LAURIE: I'm curious if you feel like being in the developer relations space has impacted your ability to have those conversations and have those interactions and be more visible compared to some sort of a more IC coding role where you don't necessarily have the same kind of network effect based on the work that you're doing day-to-day. KURT: Yeah. Oh, that's a really interesting insight. I mean, yes, the faster the audience grows that I can reach, clearly, it’s the more people I can reach with this message. So I definitely think DevRel has put me into a situation where I can reach more people faster because my network is growing faster than it was as an individual contributor. So yeah, a 100%. I think it's also interesting to find the balance between like, we all know how tech folks feel about people being people and having lives outside of technology. So it's like finding that line of growing your audience while producing information about things or causes that you care about and stuff without causing a lot of churn in drop off is a feat in and of itself. Every time I tweet about prison or something like that, I watch my followers drop. It's just like you can set a clock to it. But it's an interesting balance to try to not overshare in that regard and just continue to lose audience because then that affects things like algorithms and how many people I reach and stuff. So it is interesting. I never really thought about that, though. JOHN: Yeah. I mean, it's interesting that like the way you talk about the work you're doing. At this point, you have the privilege to be able to talk about those things when so many people don't and that's certainly a powerful way to use that privilege that you currently have. What you're talking about there is losing follower count, which affects your job a little bit and trying to balance how you're talking about these things without cussing yourself too much. But it's interesting that those are the costs that you're weighing about speaking out and you know what those are and you also know that so many other people can't speak out because their consequences are going to be so much more drastic. KURT: Yeah, absolutely. When we start to look at this through the lens of bias in the industry. I am cis white dude; I have the benefit of like failing upwards. So it's like me going to prison, I get to spin it as this redemption story and I get to be the symbol of hope for prisoners coming out and breaking into tech. But it's not the same story for a lot of folks that I talk to who don't look like me or aren't basically white men. It gets really tough the further you get from that. So I also want to call out, too that a lot of times, the privilege to be able to speak is based on literal white privilege; I always get the benefit of the doubt. It's interesting, but yes, I get the benefit of doubt. I get to fail upwards. I'm formerly incarcerated, who's now the DevRel manager of Apollo. But I know so many other formerly incarcerated people who are way better at this stuff than I am and they still haven't found a work yet. So those disparities exist and when you compound other issues that the tech industry faces against that. Like, the hiring rate for formerly incarcerated Black women is like 4% or something ridiculous like that according to last statistics, from what I could find, which was about 2019. That's 4% compared to white males, which is about 43 or 44%. We have to take that into account, too. That privilege is steeped in white male privilege as well. JOHN: It's like the prison association just magnifies all of those existing inequities. KURT: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You're an ex-con, or a felon—I get to be formerly incarcerated, not a felon. JOHN: Yeah, the language matters a lot. KURT: Oh, yeah. JACOB: So what are some of the details of how you're helping folks? It looks like you have, it’s a Twitch stream? I just pulled up your Twitter account just a minute ago, but tell me details. KURT: Yeah. It's interesting. So when we think about helping people, I have stream, which I do a lot, a lot of blogging, involved in a lot of communities. Most of the work that I do. So if we're just talking about community in general, also the Apollo stream; I do a lot of streaming for them. My calendar is open; folks drop in there a lot. When it comes to helping formerly incarcerated, that's a lot more scaled down and on a one-on-one basis because every single person has a different situation. Also, a lot of them can't come forward and say that they're formerly incarcerated. There's an entire network of folks. Some of them can and they have, but there's an entire network of folks who I'm working with regularly and just, nobody knows because they can't really share or express that information. But I really focus on a couple of things, which is helping them figure out their path into tech, what it is that they'll like. So trying to get them guided on that, helping them build their network, teaching them about things like learning in public and how to do that. We work on freelance, because it's really hard for folks to get jobs, full-time employment so we focus on freelance work and how to look for red flags, clients, promote yourself, and stuff like that. It's generally different for each person because it all depends on where they are on the scale of their education into tech, how stable is their environment at home. It's just a lot of things that go into it. I am working on starting a nonprofit to formalize this training, but it's very slow going. I just really don't have the time that I would like to dedicate to it. Some other ways that I've been helping out is there's a really cool nonprofit project called The Marshall Project. They take a data-driven approach to exposing issues within the criminal justice system. I do a lot of stuff with that. I sponsor and support a lot of prison reform lawyers. They don't get paid a lot and stuff like that so monetary support for them, monetary support for the people who are coming out, who need that. There's really where I spend most of my focus, but if you ask anyone, I'm available. If somebody wants or needs something from me, I try to make myself available I talk to a wide range of people from all different communities about all sorts of different things. But I don't really have a centralized way, a singular path into helping folks out. It's pretty disparate, honestly. LAURIE: This is a slightly different topic, but it's something you touched on and what you just said. I'm wondering if we can talk about the interview process as it relates to being formerly incarcerated and revealing that information. Because I think one of the – I had an interaction with someone a couple of years back who said, “I got all the way through the process. I didn't tell them they offered me the job and now I have to tell them because it's about to come up on a background check,” which the efficacy of that we can discuss for a long time. “But it's about to come up on a background check, what do I do? How do I have this conversation?” I think we all know that especially for entry level positions, there's thousands of applicants and the minute you give them one red flag, they're like, “Oh, well, we have 500 other people to talk to.” So what has been your experience with talking to people going through this and how they can navigate what is already an incredibly stressful and difficult process, even not having some flags that unfortunately, don't get perceived the way that we wish they would? KURT: Yeah, this is a really great question. It’s the most – I won't say the most, it is an extremely stress and anxiety inducing situation. I've developed a system over the years from having dealt with this, but in the beginning, it was very chaotic. You would just get through the process; you don't say that you have a record, you don't come upfront and say it. You never do that. If they're going to do a background check, let them do it. I've had situations where companies have made me fill out paperwork for background check and then they never, I guess, submitted it because they never came and said anything about it, or maybe at that job, they were following their state's laws and it didn't come back. I would say it's a multi-step process. So first things first, never say that you have a background upfront. Second of all, is investigate the state laws around hiring the formerly incarcerated for that company for where they are located. Where is their business set up at? Understand those state laws? The next thing that's going to happen is if you get through the interview process and they're going to do a background check, so what they always do—this is the most annoying thing. Oftentimes, you will sign your offer letter. You will have a start date. You will do all this and in there, it says contingent upon a background check. This puts you in this situation where, especially if you're at an existing company, you want to give them time. Do you put in your leave and throw all of your eggs into this basket only to then come on and then they do the background check and then it comes back and they fire you? It puts you in this just purely stressful situation for about two weeks. But a couple of things that you can do to get ahead of it is I started doing things where I will message them and I get real creative and I'm like, “Look, I've had issues with discrepancies, with insurance and other things, not going through before I've signed my start date and then there were problems, disagreements. I need to know all the paperwork. I need to have that signed upfront and have everything taken care of before I will decide on a start date. I want to make sure I give ample time to leave.” So sometimes that will work and that will get you a lot closer. When that doesn't work, the other thing that I do is anytime they're going to do a background check, you have to consent to it and part of that consent is they'll tell you the company that they're going to use. If I've made it this far, I will then pay out of pocket and go get my own background check from this company. For most of them, you can do that. Now what it is that even if a company reaches out, I will put them off until I get the background check so I can see what has come back about my record so I can better prepare my statement for how I want to discuss this with them. If you make it through all of that and you get there, sometimes they just still are going to say no, or they'll just ghost you and I've had that happen to me, too. Just literally been ghosted and it's just hard, it's stressful. There's not a lot you can do with it. The best thing that you can do is understand the laws around the different 50 states, figure out which ones are the most forgiving towards you and your situation, apply for jobs—ideally, remotely—within that place. If you're in that position, a lot of people aren't in that position, but it's just stress-inducing nightmare. One thing that I did do is I always had backups. I would have offers from multiple jobs and accept multiple offers, which sucks. But then if I get one, I stay in and I don't, but I would stagger the start dates. LAURIE: Wow. KURT: Yeah. I learned that from my 3 years of trying to get my first job because even trying to work at Target, Walmart, all these places I check yes on that have you been convicted of a felony in the last 7 years and I'd never hear from them. So I just stopped checking it. I would get a job at Target. I would work there for three weeks and then they would be like, “Hey, background check came through. Wish you wouldn't have lied to us. You're one of our best workers, but now we have to let you go.” It's like, “Well, cool. You wouldn't have hired me anyway. I'll take my 3-week paycheck. I've already got a job lined up at McDonald's. So I'm going to go work there for three weeks now.” My first 2 years out of prison, I had like at least 10 W-4s, at least 10, probably closer to 20 my first year and then I got a little bit smarter about places that I was picking through the second year so I was able to stay places longer. But you just have to do whatever you have to do or you have to resort back to crime, really. That's always, my advice to folks is rolling jobs like, ABA. Always be Applying. Always be applying for jobs and lining them up so if they come at you, “We did your background check. We're going to let you go.” You can just go to the next place and you don't have to go so long without having income. LAURIE: That sounds like an incredibly stressful way to live. KURT: It is a very stressful way to live. Yeah, it absolutely is. And that kind of comes back to tech can change lives. Even my first job was a really crappy paying job doing pretty boring work, but I was so happy when I actually got my first job. It changed my whole life. Literally changed my life and then after learning about the industry, finally getting my job, talking to other industry professionals, I was able to realize how drastically underpaid and overworked I was. Slowly started to work my way out of that and up to a standard developer salary for this day and age. I make money today that I never dreamed in a world of possibility that I would ever make in my entire life ever. Never thought that this would be the life that I live today and it can really change folks' lives and that's why I'm so aggressively trying to help folks. LAURIE: It's interesting that you talk about Always be Applying. There was some Twitter threads stuff going around a couple of weeks back about that in relation to the tech industry and talking about you should always see what's out there and see if there's better possibilities. My first reaction was interviewing is the most stressful part of working in tech, who would voluntarily do that if they're not looking to leave a job? I suspect it is slightly less stressful in some ways, if you're applying to retail positions, but more stressful if you're dealing with something like a record. Just having to have that in the back of your mind and always trying to find a new job and that new security is – I mean, we talk about people in tech who do it every 1 to 3 years and that already seems like way too often. Every three weeks is just unfathomable to me. KURT: Yeah. It's like you said, it's a lot of stress. By the time you figure out who everyone is, you're onto the next place. You get so tired of hearing, “You're one of our best workers, but we have to let you go.” You can only hear that so many times in a year before you just never want to hear that phrase again. It's just very aggravating for sure. I will say that that was less stressful than tech interviews in my opinion. LAURIE: Oh, that's damning! JOHN: Yeah. KURT: Yeah, that was way less stressful. The anxiety of technical interviews, especially when they're asking me questions about my background, because I have to fabricate basically 10 years of my life and that was one of the hardest parts. So one of the hardest parts about having a record and not being able to share it, especially in an industry where everybody wants to know how you got there, it's very hard to build that lie around what you do and it starts to really weigh on you. I made me really depressed constantly having to lie. “Oh, how'd you learn how to code?” “Well, actually I was in prison and they had a course called Intermediate Web Page and I took it.” I can't say that. I can't say that. So I have to fabricate and then I just bend the truth, which it was true. Like, “Oh, a friend of mine was going to take this course, I decided to take it with them.” That was true. I just left out that that decision was made in prison. It's like, “Oh, I got my first taste of it and then I just started buying books to continue to learn and use any opportunity I could in front of a computer to continue programming.” Also true. Just didn’t mention that for the next about year and a half, I didn't have access to a computer and I picked that back up when I got out. Yeah. It's just about bending those truths and it's like, “Oh, well, where did you work?” Not a full lie, I'm like, “I did a lot of freelancing and consulting,” which I did. I did IT and website development and stuff, freelancing and consulting work, the little bits I could get. Doing a local plumber's website or something like that, helping somebody get all the viruses off their computer. Wonder how those got there. But it's stuff like that. So that's what I had to do. I had to fabricate this false history. Part of me coming out and talking about this was also selfish. It was just very depressing and I was tired of lying all the time. I was finally in a position where I felt that while coming forward about this part of my life could still have negative impacts that I have enough of a time distance and enough of an identity that I could probably still have a future in tech. That's what I did. I was at Major League Soccer and I let my team know and the people around me know and then I posted a blog post about it and that's really when everyone started to find out. This is only 2018, 2019. I got my first job in tech – or 2018. I got my first job in tech in 2013 so it was like 5 years, I went with only telling a couple people. LAURIE: I was about to ask if you still have to lie because I feel like the minute you Google you, that's one of the first thing that comes up, this really incredible post about your experience. It's like if someone didn't check your Twitter, I'm questioning the due diligence that they did and just relying on a background check seems a little odd if they haven't even looked up your social media. Your public technical, social media, not looking to see if you have a Facebook with lots of beer cans behind you sort of thing. KURT: Right. Yeah. No, absolutely. But you'd be amazed. I mean, people don't look at your social media first. It's interesting when we think about especially tech hiring; your resume in a pile and before you even get to that pile, you're just a resume that gets pumped through a system a lot of times. It's like until you build a network that is often yeah, you are a victim of that a lot of times. They're not going to know who you are personally before they see you on paper and that's very detrimental, but you would think they would do a little bit of research and look that up. It's actually funny, you brought up a good point, which is if you search, you'll bring it up. I worked so hard to actually get my actual prison from North Carolina thing pushed off the first page and build a public profile and now it's right back at the top, but because I put it there. So that is really funny. [chuckles] LAURIE: But that matters, right? KURT: It matters. LAURIE: It’s like voluntary disclosure versus something that you don't have control over, that is a huge, huge difference. I’m thinking of the Meghan Markle thing right now, where everyone's like, “She sued because they published a letter with her father, but now she's disclosing her pregnancy,” and I'm like, “Yeah, very different! One she chose to and the other one, she did not.” KURT: Exactly. Yeah, that's a huge difference. But it's just really interesting to think about that I'm back at the top of Google now for being formerly incarcerated. [laughter] But under much better terms and I get to tell my story and explain why. Not just be like a mugshot with some records. JACOB: If you had asked me before this episode, “Have you ever worked with an incarcerated person while you’re working in tech?” I privately would have told myself, no. I mean, I probably would have said, “I'm not sure,” but I think my implicit bias would have said no. KURT: Yeah. JACOB: And I think this is making me realize I probably have and I think probably a lot of our listeners have, too and it just either a, it didn't come up at all, or b, was handled in a way that it didn't get around to the rest of the workforce, which is probably the best thing. KURT: Yeah, there are some companies. I have found the companies that do you actually advocate for formerly incarcerated. They do it really well and only because I'm so vocal is why my team knows. Even at Apollo, they're very careful about it. We talked about my background actually coming up and then they were like, “Well, this wasn't supposed to show up, but even regardless, we're not going to hold this against you even if it was within the timeframe.” It was very nice and this is between us, it won't matter and I'm like, “Well, I've kind of let the cat out of the bag so it's not a big deal if it's between us,” but I loved seeing the approach that they took. You're right, you probably have worked with people who were incarcerated before. It's a large percentage of people who have been to prison in the US. A very large percentage, way more than it should be and so, it's really interesting to think about, but you're right. It hasn't come up. Most people who have been incarcerated aren't going to just leap out and be like, “Oh, that's an interesting thing. Let me tell you about the time I was locked up and how this was.” They're going to keep that to themselves because you never know how people are going to take it. You just don't know how people will react and some people, even if they are cool with it, will still look at you differently and I've had situations like that happen and it's tough to deal with, but it's a part of life. Again, I'm not trying to make this a sob story. I did things that put me in prison and I did my time and I I've paid my dues to society. Rightfully so. Well, there's a whole thing about the sentencing and what we should be doing in the US, but according to law, I paid my dues and I was released and really, the buck should stop there, but you don't stop doing time when you're released. You continue to do it pretty much forever because the US again, we have the stigma around prisons and why do we have that? Because the prison industrial complex is pushing this agenda that we have a lot of crime and we need a lot of cops and we need to lock people up and people who come out of prison are in prison or felons and bad people and deserve to be there. This is instilled into us from the time that we're kids and that's why I say the two most important things are providing stability for folks getting out and helping de-stigmatize having a record and helping break down the prison industrial complex. It's the only way we see a future where this is not an issue. LAURIE: This could probably be a whole other episode, but you saying that and talking about there are felons and they're bad people in there and it's instilled in us. It's the idea of a binary identity, which exists in so many different places in our society. There's good and bad, and there's right and wrong, and there's the reason that people hate using this term, because it's incredibly racist and problematic. It's black and it's white. All of these things are rooted in the same ideology, which is that to simplify the way that our brain experiences life, we can categorize things into one is good and one is bad. That's not the way the world works and that's not who people are. People take bad actions and they take good actions, but that doesn't make them bad people or good people. A lot of the reason we do that is because we like to tell ourselves we're good people. And I'm sure you've heard this phrase, I'm sure all of us have heard this phrase, but the phrase, “You didn't make good choices. You had good choices” is the same as the meritocracy argument, which is like, you had the ability to get somewhere because you started on third base, you had the ability to make all the right decisions and do all the things because you had stability and resources and comfort. Without those things, would you have made the same choices as the person that you're looking down on? Probably honestly, probably and you just have no idea what that's like. So I appreciate you pointing that out because I think we've had episodes in the past about binary identities and what problems that causes. JOHN: So Kurt, you called out something that's pretty interesting that was going by and what you were saying earlier about how Apollo treated you when they found out about your record and the way they went through that. So I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit more about if there's someone who's a hiring manager, maybe in a small company without a giant HR organization and strict policies around the hiring. What is a good way for that person to handle when they find out through the background check that the candidate that they really like has a record of some sort like, what's the good path there? KURT: Yeah. There's two things there. So I want to answer that question, but one thing I do want to actually circle back to very quickly, which is what you said about bigger companies with stricter policies. In my experience, it's actually the bigger companies that you have an easier chance of getting a job at. They have huge HR departments and law teams and want to protect themselves and we'll make sure that they're actually following the proper hiring laws and state regulations for wherever it is they are. I had no problem getting a job at AWS, but when you flip it in reverse to these startups and they outsource their HR to these other companies, that is actually where most of the trip-ups happen because they don't have – well, a lot of times it's ignorance of the situation. They're ignorant of the fact they're violating hiring and labor laws and they don't even know. So I just want to state that is something because that was something I learned, too that actually shifted my job search function was I would actually target more organized companies because I stood a better chance of knowing that if they did do a background check, it would actually follow the state guidelines. But to answer the question, that's a really good point and a really good question, I mean and a tough one to answer. I think just number one is making no assumptions. There's a couple things and this actually kind of relates to some other stuff. So there's going to be – you can't be defensive. I've discovered that a lot of times when people find out that you have a background, they feel somewhat lied to and it's like, “I didn't come up front about it up forward,” but it's kind of a bomb when it lands. Again, we have the stigma about people with records and then they see it, their first instinct is to be like, “Well, why don't you share this with me?” The obvious reason that it wasn't shared with you, but you might not be realizing it at the time, is because I don't know if it's going to matter getting this job. It's something that could hurt me and I don't want to reveal it until you've had a chance to get to know me. So just know that, the reason that they did not share it with you is because they wanted you to know them as a person and go through the interview process before you find out about something like this. They're just trying to get a little bit of empathy from you. The second thing is to avoid things like feigned surprise, like, “Oh my goodness, I can't believe you have a record,” or “I never would have guessed that you would have a background.” Things like that, they start to split somebody's identity and make them feel like again, we talk about this good and bad binary and that's going to really cause them a lot of stress and anxiety. You want to avoid things like that. And then the last thing to do is just to continue to treat them the exact same way that you did before you knew. If you can do those things, that person is going to feel safe and they're going to have a great experience working with you. JOHN: Great. That's super handy. I imagine that there's some people out there having that question like, “Oh I've never been in that situation, but what's the best way to handle that?” So it's definitely good to know. LAURIE: Totally outside the episode, but Mandy Moore just released a screenshot of a place that wanted to interview her about her entire career and she said she wouldn't talk about the abuse allegations against her ex-husband and they canceled the interview and they said it would be essential to the story. She said, “If you only want me for my trauma, when I have a 20-to-30-year long career, then I have no interest in having this conversation,” and how upsetting that was. It’s like one person is not their worst – I mean, not even a mistake. Like, one person is not their association with another person's bad actions. KURT: Yeah. That actually brings up a really interesting topic, too, which is people trying to take advantage. When you talk about lifting others up, I often find myself in situations where people are just blatantly trying to take advantage of me and my willingness to help folks. That happens all the time. JACOB: How so? KURT: Just a lot of things like, private companies will want me to do webinars or talks on things about breaking into tech and just different topics, or ask me for access to my network or do I know formerly incarcerated folks who might be interested in contract work? I can tell that they're asking because they feel like they could get them for a cheaper price. You know what I mean? They're not going to have to pay them as much and it's like a lot of shady business practices and stuff like that. I get that on the regular. It's pretty frustrating. LAURIE: Oh my gosh. It's Women in Tech in a different outfit. [chuckles] KURT: Yeah. LAURIE: It feels the same hearing you explain it. I'm like, yup, yup, yup, yup. KURT: Yeah. It's been an interesting side effect of this. JOHN: Yeah. That reminds me of we had Veni Kunche on the show a while back talking about the diversified tech system platform that she's built and how people paid to post jobs to her audience. But she does a lot of work to vet those companies to make sure that they're not going to just come in the door and be kicked out again in eight months because there's no support for actually having those sorts of people joining the team. So it's such an important trust relationship there with the community you represent, especially because most of them need to be somewhat on the DL as being part of that community. It's like, if you're a Black woman, it's no surprise that you're a part of that community, but it's still so important for you as someone, who's much more public and representing them, that you have to be so careful about who you're connecting to. KURT: This has been one of the biggest holdups for me starting this nonprofit and providing training is there's a lot of issues with exposing people through this. So it's like the end goal would be for them to leave and be able to seek training, or employment, but the real problem comes afterwards when you are trying to help them seek employment or freelance jobs. It's like you have to disassociate your network and attachment with them from that nonprofit. If a lot of people know that I'm doing that nonprofit, then they're going to automatically start to assume everyone who I provide through my network is going to be coming from this program. So there's just like a lot of things. I've been very much trying to figure out how do I prioritize these folks and vulnerable people, in general and I think a lot of that has to do with, I don't know, I'm like why I've been so hesitant to move forward with this? I don't want to start a nonprofit with the best of intentions, but that the impact of that nonprofit ends up being more harmful than good and it's like, who does that really benefit? That's why so far, I've been sticking with this more kind of like one-on-one. I know it doesn't scale well, but that's okay. If I help some people that's better than helping no one, first of all and second of all, helping a few people and having that be really beneficial to them, as opposed to helping a bunch of people and it might end up good for you, or it might end up bad for you and we don't really know, it seems very risky to me. So I think it's why I've been working very slowly at that and really trying to figure out what does that process look like once they're done training because there's still a lot of unknowns there. JOHN: Yeah. It's a conundrum that most training programs and diversity programs don't have to deal with because most of them, they want to highlight the intersections of the people that come through their program because that's part of what they're after and raising the profile there and you have the exact opposite situation, which is how do you smuggle them in before prejudges? KURT: Exactly and so, completely flips the game on its head. I think it was you Laurie, that tweeted if you had your salary, your developer salary and you could do anything, what would you do? I would actually become a prison reform lawyer. I think the real goal is to stop the flow of folks going in. The band-aid is helping folks come out. The real work is stopping folks from going in to begin with, but I can't go back to school for another 8 years to become a lawyer and then move forward with that direction. So that's what I want to talk about. I've been helping sponsor prison reform lawyers and look for ways to get involved with that. I've offered volunteer time to The Marshall Project to help with them and their data collection efforts and stuff like that. Again, taking myself out of the center, the nonprofit I'm very centered in that scenario and I feel like I can have a bigger impact in more areas by just contributing as opposed to being the creator of the thing. So right now, that's kind of where my mind is at while I feel out this nonprofit and see if I can develop something I'm comfortable with, from that. LAURIE: I was just going to say, I was doing that math and you just said 8 years. Does that mean you have your GED? This may not be a thing that I know. KURT: Yeah, I have my GED and no college education. I went to college for a little over a year for graphic design, but could not afford to go anymore, so stopped and then that's like my education. In order to get a law degree, I would first have to get a Bachelor's so I need 4 years of college—I don't know how many of my credits would be transferable from graphic design—and then I would have to go to law school afterwards and then still deal with certain states. If I can even take the test for the bar, or be on the bar being a convicted felon, which in most states you can, but there are still states where you cannot. LAURIE: So the reason I asked and it wasn't to do the math, but it was more, that is another community that you belong to that, I think perhaps in the past had a very different set of opportunities available to them in tech. And as tech has become higher paying and we've done a lot more recruiting from the Stanfords and the MITs and Harvard and Yale and all of those things, it used to be, you could break in – it goes back to the self-taught like, you could break in without any undergrad degree and now that's getting harder and harder and harder and harder. So I'm curious if—obviously, it's hard to decouple those based on your experience because you were formerly incarcerated and you didn't have that formal Bachelor's degree. But have you seen situations in which that has been a different community that you're a part of, or that has impacted the opportunities that you can pursue? KURT: Yeah. I wouldn't be able to separate maybe if I went back and thought about it, but in my mind, every time I've been ghosted has primarily been – well, it stopped me from not applying to a lot of places. That's for sure. It's blocked me from feeling confident enough to even apply and that was definitely in the beginning before I knew the industry and how bad most job application postings are and realize that the requirements they often ask for are way beyond what you actually need to do the job. But I didn't know that. So I would see like needs a Bachelor's degree and I'd be like, “Nope, not applying to that one.” So I guess, I did miss out on a lot of opportunities just from that. But most times, I feel like if it came down to decision and I went through the interview process and they did a background check—I just always assumed it was the background check that I got ghosted. JOHN: Yeah. Usually, if the degree is going to be a factor, it's right at the front of the process. KURT: Early on, yeah. But it could be a deciding factor, especially with entry-level folks. Two people made it through the interview process. They both did really well. It really comes down to what the person who makes that decision cares more about, do they care more about this on paper or some sort of like behavioral give that seems this person would be better to work with. It's like, what do they care about and so, it can definitely have huge effects. This gets into a whole another discussion, but that's just the tech industry and hiring in general is just terrible. LAURIE: Broken! KURT: Beyond broken. Yeah. It's just like you know? [chuckles] The fact that it can come down to whether or not you get a job based on the preference of the person who's looking at the things in front of you is just super problematic. But I definitely feel that I'm sure, there's a lot of cases where people would see one has a degree, the other does not and they're going to go, “Oh, taking the CS grad anytime, because we're about to go write all these algorithms.” LAURIE: Kurt, do you know my favorite story about ridiculous things that should not be a thing? KURT: Oh, I can't wait. LAURIE: So I was interviewed for a job, internal transfer. I got the job. They sent the paperwork to HR and HR said, “Sorry, you can't hire her because she has a Bachelor of Arts and Mathematics, not a Bachelor of Science and Mathematics.” Literally not even joking, this is a real thing that happened. I was halfway through a Master's of Science in Computer Science because I was annoyed by the fact that they cared that I had a Bachelor of Arts and they said, “So because she doesn't have the right degree, she needs to have the right amount of courses that would be equivalent to the degree.” In that case, that was 16 computer science or math specific hard science courses, which is more than the Bachelor's degree was required! So if I had that, I would have had a Bachelor's degree of Science and Computer Science or a Bachelor's degree of Arts and Computer Science, because I went to a liberal arts school and they are not accredited to give Bachelor's of Science regardless of what your major is. So on the scale of ridiculous things that happen in tech, just add that as a fun story to remember. KURT: It's like what goes through their heads? It's like, “Oh, well, we must adhere to this policy because clearly, the policy makes more sense than somebody who has worked here, has a proven track record of doing their job well, has already moved to the other team and everyone is cool with it, but wait a minute, you don't have enough credits.” LAURIE: I got blocked. I didn't get to move. To be fair, it was the federal government so that's sort of how the world works, but still. KURT: Yeah. Still, it shouldn't work like that and it's symptomatic of the ridiculous hiring process that we've developed as a tech industry. It just like, I don't know, I've worked in construction. I've worked in the restaurant industry. I've worked at a lot of other places and none of my interviews have ever felt really like somebody was trying to prove that they knew something I didn't, or like catch me in a gotcha. You know what I mean? This is what I mean by tech interviews are more stressful than even when I was interviewing at all those other jobs combined, because I never felt like I was being interrogated and that's the difference. Honestly, tech interviews feel a lot like when I was actually being interrogated. That should tell you something. It just feels like they're constantly trying to trip you up, trying to get you to say something that disagrees with what you said five minutes ago, prove they know something that you don't. Does all of this sound familiar? LAURIE: I mean, Kurt, if you're a personal brand is that you're kind and you help people and you were formerly incarcerated and you do cool things now, you know that mine is just railing against tech interviews, so. KURT: Yeah. [laughter] LAURIE: This is a known thing. KURT: Well, that's amazing. But it's a very aggressive interview process. It often pits folks against each other as opposed to working with each other. I just have never been a big fan of tech interviews. LAURIE: Terrible for anyone who has ever had anxiety in their life or deals with any kind of PTSD or trauma. Yup. No, it's really – My favorite tweet about this is that Tatiana explained that she felt it was equivalent to – it was an abusive relationship and that it's string you along for seven interviews and then they're like,” Oh, well you don't have the skill that we need,” except you would have known that I didn't have this skill because it was on my resume and it's been in every conversation, but you just put me through all of this just to say no, because you told yourself that it was better for me and you were giving me a chance and all of these things. A lot of people came back and they were like, “That's going to step too far,” and I was like, “You know what? I honestly don't think it is.” It really is that bad and that's horrifying and it's why so many people stay in toxic work environments because the idea of going through a toxic interview process doesn't feel like something they can possibly do. KURT: Yeah, and those folks who are saying it ain't that bad are probably the ones who are normally on the other side of that table, so. [chuckles] JOHN: Yeah. I always find I have to hold my tongue when people are in otherwise, decent situations or even when they're in bad situations, my automatic recommendation is, “Well, start looking for something else,” but I always have to back up from that and not say that because if there's any sort of difference in privilege between us, I can't give that advice because it's such so much more work for them than for me. So I have to be very careful. KURT: Yeah. That's another really awesome point and something that I have worked a lot on over the last 2 years in helping folks, which is contextualizing

03:31 - Uncovering Patterns * Making the Covert Overt * Reasons for Covertness 13:22 - Taking Care of People as Whole People * People Are Dynamic – Not Stagnant * Roles Are Constantly Changing * Iterating on Practices * William A. Kahn: Psychological Conditions of Personal Engagement and Disengagement at Work (https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/256287) * Financial Compensation * Metrics and Observability 28:43 - The Tech Industry: Now vs Then (aka we still have A LOT of work to do) * Gatekeeping * Accountability * Inclusivity * New Zealand Maori leader ejected from parliament for refusing to wear 'colonial noose' (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-newzealand-politics-necktie/new-zealand-maori-leader-ejected-from-parliament-for-refusing-to-wear-colonial-noose-idUSKBN2A9329) * Whitewashing 45:59 - The Messaging Around Diversity and Inclusion * Doing the Right Thing 51:26 - Changing Mindsets * Using Privilege to Speak to Power Reflections: Rein: Capitalism and White Supremacy are the same thing. The Invention of the White Race (https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Invention_of_the_White_Race_Racial_o/G4elgqb-MjwC?hl=en&gbpv=0). We have an obligation to not just make it possible for people to exist in the industry, but to also make it healthy. John: It’s always great to have these conversations as reminders. Tim: Figure out why something makes you uncomfortable. Look and uncover the pattern underneath that in yourself. Be comfortable with being uncomfortable. If you run away, you’re never going to grow and things are never going to get better. 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: Whether you're working on a personal project or managing enterprise infrastructure, you deserve simple, affordable, and accessible cloud computing solutions that allow you to take your project to the next level. Simplify your cloud infrastructure with Linode's Linux virtual machines and develop, deploy, and scale your modern applications faster and easier. Get started on Linode today with $100 in free credit for listeners of Greater Than Code. You can find all the details at linode.com/greaterthancode. Linode has 11 global data centers and provides 24/7/365 human support with no tiers or hand-offs regardless of your plan size. In addition to shared and dedicated compute instances, you can use your $100 in credit on S3-compatible object storage, Managed Kubernetes, and more. Visit linode.com/greaterthancode and click on the "Create Free Account" button to get started. JOHN: Hello, everybody. This is Greater Than Code, Episode 225. I’m John Sawers and I’m here with Rein Henrichs. REIN: And I’m here with our guest, my friend, and Dungeons & Dragons party member, Tim Banks. Tim Banks has a career spanning over 20 years through various sectors. Tim’s initial journey into tech started as a US Marine in avionics. Upon leaving the Marine Corps, he went on to work as a government contractor. He then went into the private sector, working both in large corporate environments and in small startups. While working in the private sector, he honed his skills in systems administration and operations for large Unix-based datastores. Today, Tim leverages his years in operations, DevOps, and Site Reliability Engineering to advise and consult with engineering groups in his current role as a Principal Solutions Architect at Equinix Metal. Tim is also a competitive Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner, having won American National and Pan American Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu championships in his division. Hi, Tim! TIM: Hi! Good to see everybody in here. REIN: Yeah, I did that on the first take and I'm very proud of myself. TIM: I am so, so proud of you. That was amazing. REIN: Tim, it's time for the question. TIM: Right. REIN: What is your superpower and how did you acquire it? TIM: So my superpower is using empathy to uncover patterns that people haven't seen in the past and I think that's a superpower because a lot of people can look at something, there's a lot of folks out there that can see a pattern just on the surface like this does that, this does that, this does that. But when you really talk to groups and you talk to people, you can see some common things that aren't necessarily things that are going to have an output or a metric, but you can see how people feel about a thing. And then when you get enough people who feel a certain way about a thing, that's not going to be a coincidence, it's going to be a pattern. So finding those patterns is my superpower. As far as how I acquired it, it's hard for me to say. The easy way to say is over time, but over time and myself being a person who necessarily wasn't listened to, or seen, or heard trying to explain how things are, why things are the way they are without having metrics. So having been on one side of that equation, I've been able to see people on the other side of it. REIN: So Tim, you said “to uncover patterns.” Can you say a bit more about the word uncover? Because I feel like that might've been a specific choice that you made to use. TIM: Yeah. There are typically, as we see with anything else, especially being tech or people that like to take things apart, I'm sure as we all did as kids, there are things that you see on the surface. There are things that you see, this pattern or this thing happening here, but you take the face plate off of something, or you delve down below the API, or you delve down below the operating system and there are so many other things that are happening beneath that. If you kick over amount of dirt and you see an ant hill, the ants have their own system, how they do things down there that you don't necessarily create, but you're just going to see it and you have to uncover a few things. You have to move things around. You have to look below the surface to see some of these patterns that happen just below the surface that bring the things at the surface to fruition. REIN: This reminds me a lot of I guess, it's a mantra that I learned from Virginia Satir, which drink if you're playing that game, make hidden things visible, make the covert overt and make the general specific and related to you, me, here, now, and the current situation. TIM: Yeah. I think that's actually a good – I had not heard of that one before, but I do like that a lot. REIN: So when you say uncover, that makes me think, make the covert over. TIM: Yeah, I think so. I like that. It's interesting because people sometimes think that things are covered up to make them hidden and it's not necessarily, they're hidden like someone has hidden them so you can't find them. A lot of times they're hidden in plain view. You don't find them because you're not looking for them and when you actually start to look for some of these things, some of the underlying causes, you'll be surprised what you find. It's like a lot of us here have done RCAs on things and oftentimes, if you do a good RCA, you're going to go through a few levels and different layers to find what the actual root cause. Like, most of the times the root of something is not at the surface, it's way down. So you actually have to go down and dig to uncover these things, to really find out what's at the base of something. REIN: So since this is the show where we talk about the social side of things, I want to ask you about these things that are covered that are maybe covered for a reason and maybe that the reason that they're covert is that people are trying to protect themselves and they don't feel safe to make them overt. So do you think about these situations and how do you go about making that safe to talk about? TIM: So I do think about these situations and there's a couple of reasons why. First, obviously, is in the professional world you can't always call people out immediately for things. Even if you know that there's something that's a lie or something that's not right, there are the political reasons why you have to be tactful or you have to be very deliberate and cautious about how you uncover these things because even if people aren't necessarily intentionally hiding things, or it is their mind that I must hide this as he'll feel safe, people's egos are the number one obstacle, I think to innovation. Someone has staked out a claim. Someone has a territory. Someone has some domain that they have, that they are a gatekeeper thereof and it is their ego that makes sure that you have to pay homage to them or to that ego in order to get anything done. So figuring out what they're protecting, whether they're protecting their job, whether they're protecting their ego, whether they're protecting levels of influence so that they can rise in their career. You have to figure out what that is, that what that thing is that is important to them so that way you can make sure that it's either protected, or you can make sure that there are more than one person that have access to that thing so you can make your way. At personal levels, there are things that people cover up because they don't feel safe and doing the work of trying to make them feel safe so you can talk about these things, I think that's the hardest thing that we do in the industry. Solving technical problems is easy compared to solving people problems, or cultural problems, or societal problems because those are the problems that we've had for millennia that we, collection of people in a common industry, are trying to figure out. Saying to somebody, “Hey, I see these patterns here of work, or absenteeism, or productivity, or whatever it is and I need to know what it is that's going on so that we can fix that,” and make them understand that you are there to help them and there to fix that problem, whatever it may be, that takes some work on the part of the person who's trying to uncover that pattern. It takes vulnerability and it takes confidentiality. It takes empathy. Especially if it's something that you've never dealt with before. Someone's going to tell you, “Hey, I have this problem,” and you're going to say, “All right, well, I know leadership or I know management or unknown this senior technical professional here, but I don't know the answer to this problem, but I can say that I will help you find it and then we can work together on it.” And a lot of people don't like to say, “I don't know the answer.” We see a lot of people that are very technically savvy and because they're very technically savvy, they are now considered to be experts in all kinds of domains. Nobody in particular—Elon Musk—but there are people that are looked to be some kind of great genius just because they happen to know how to code something, or architect something. I think when you display the vulnerability of saying, “I don't know.” Or you are upfront about your problems or upfront about your struggles, it makes people feel safer about being upfront about theirs and then you can go through the work of trying to solve those problems. Well, first of all, identifying if it's a pattern, and then solving the problem that's causing those patterns. JOHN: I like that you use the metaphor of anthill earlier on in this, because rather than when you describe something as pattern, it's very abstract and feels like an object. But when you talk about an anthill, it's individual entities working together in a system. It's something that exists on its own, made up of other individuals. It's not just some object that we can examine and I think that brings it into thinking about it in a different way and much like the way you've been describing how you talk about these things and how you work with people. Very humanizing and I like that. TIM: Yeah. I do think there's a lot of us when we're looking at an organization, whether we're looking at a society, or government, or whatever it is, a neighborhood even all of us have the role that we play whether we're aware of it or not. It's a role not necessarily either we're assigned, that we signed up for, or that we just have by nature of and by coincidence of our birth. But we all do something that contributes in some way to the organizations that we're in. When we look at that as that – okay, that role covers a lot of things. No one is just one thing; no one is just a software developer, or no one is just a cashier at a grocery store, or no one is just an artist. No person is monolithic. No one is defined by their job save except maybe the police and that's not a slam—they're always at work apparently. But there are all these things that we have that yes, as you look at an ant farm, this one ant does all these various things, but they have this contribution to the colony as a whole. And I do think that when we look at it as a pattern, if we look at one individual person and all the things that they do, it is important to see that they are more than just a worker. We are not ants. We're not that specialized. We have all kinds of things that we contribute to. So like the colony metaphor breaks down there just to understand that all of us have different things that we do outside of just what our role is to make money or to contribute. We all have dreams. We all have hopes. A lot of times, the fact that these dreams or hopes have been unrealized or worse yet, they have been forcefully deferred by the society as a whole affects that role that we have. It affects how we view ourselves. It affects how others view us. That's what we bring when we sit down at our desk every morning, that collection of all those things rides along with whatever your skills are, that is it's not compartmentalized. As much as people may want to say they can't compartmentalize these things, you can't. You can’t contain it forever. So when these things start to manifest themselves in different ways, we as people—whether we are neighbors, whether we are leaders in government, whether we are coworkers, whether we're management—need to do whatever we can to make sure that these people can become a whole and they can thrive. When people thrive on a personal level, they thrive on a professional level. Maybe not at the job that they're in, maybe not at the company that they're in, but wherever they end up, when they thrive as people, they are going to thrive as professionals. REIN: I also want to throw in another element of the ant colony metaphor, which is that ant colonies are dynamic. They're constantly changing. Tunnels are caving in, new ones are being constructed; the colony itself changes over time. You were talking about the complexity of a person in a given moment, but their roles within the company are also constantly shifting based on how they interact with other people. TIM: That's true; how they interact with other people and how the companies need change. I mean, no company is typically monolithic in and of themselves. They always have to be growing, they have to be thriving, and they have to be moving into different segments and as that happens, your roles change within that company. What's been being kicked around Twitter these past few weeks is people talking about like, “I don't understand why people leave jobs,” and I was like, “Well, yeah, they leave jobs because they want to go do other stuff.” People don't like to stagnate, typically and people who do like to stagnate, most companies don't want to keep them around. So stagnation is not really in human nature. As resistant as we are to change, we are all extremely adaptable. It's built into our damn DNA so we tend to do that well. I do like the fact that people are dynamic, or if you look at what maybe people had expectations of what 2021 was going to be in 2019, it's clear that a lot of things have changed due to the various circumstances around the world—pandemic, social uprising, Nazis, whatever it is. We've all had to make some big changes and even though it sucked and it has sucked, we're still here. We are in the new normal because we are adaptable and so are the dynamics of our existence lend ourselves to the fact that our roles are constantly changing. What does it look like when you were a working parent 2 years ago versus what does it look like you're a working parent now? What does it look like if you were a single person with a job 2 years ago versus if you're seeing a person with a job now? So many things have changed and it speaks to the fact that we are adaptable. That all said, if you're looking at how we can improve and make better for people, we can't look at the ideal state or the state we were in 2019 or whatever it was. We have to look at how things are now and then we had to look at what we have learned in the past year, year and a half will prepare us for what's yet to come because we know that shit is always going to roll downhill. So we have to figure out what have we learned here and what can we do next? I think a lot of the things that we still need to embrace is how to take care of our people as a whole people, and not just employees and not just take care of how they can contribute to us. How many commits can they do? How many tests can they write? Or anything like that. We need to take care of their needs as people and when we take care of their needs as people, they are more likely to be able to take care of us, our needs from them as companies and orgs. REIN: What Russell Ackoff always says when people talk to him about total quality management and all of these things about how to improve the quality of your business, what he always says is, “The quality that matters is quality of work life.” The quality of the lives of the people who are doing the work. TIM: That is absolutely true. It's absolutely true. Some of the worst cases of burnout that people ever have, some of the worst working environments, it's because they do not treat their people like people. They treat them like any other resource, like print, toner, cartridge, and the people personally as people cannot thrive and people burn out that way. People have a hard time setting and maintaining boundaries around their work life. Yay, capitalism. That's one of the things that we start from. It's like, if you want to get ahead, you’ve got to work real, real, real, real hard. Well, yes, to some extent, but the higher up you go, let's be honest that “hard work” looks way different. You're working hard on a yacht apparently, or you're working hard on a vacation to Paris apparently, but the people that are actually doing the labor to enrich the people higher up the chain, those basic human needs for rest, relaxation, recovery, they're oftentimes not being met and I think that's a fucking shame. REIN: Yeah, and if something is particularly incumbent upon leadership to show that by example and to encourage that behavior because I think lower down in the ranks, if they've probably been punished for any sort of thing like that, or they've seen people punished for that kind of thing, they're going to be highly resistant to doing that unless you can prove that it's safe for them to do so. TIM: Oh, absolutely. I think it's interesting when you talk about what it is for a person lower down in the rung and the common gatekeeping tactic you see is “Well, they've got to pay their dues.” They've got to suffer through this role so that way, they can make it for other people or they can be a better employee going forward. That is so horribly bassackwards. I mean, you really want to nurture junior folks. You want to nurture people coming into the industry. You want to nurture people who are just starting. You want to mentor them. You want to give them knowledge and guidance. You don't want to push their nose into the grindstone. I don't know what you're trying to accomplish there. That's fine if you're in the Marine Corps. That's fine if you're going into the military service. That's obviously, a consequence of the choice you made to join. But if you're not doing that, you don't need to punish people at the bottom ranks, really You should be, as a leader, like you said, modeling those behaviors, but you should also be making sure that they can thrive, whatever that looks like. Thriving for a junior person doesn't look like giving them a half hour lunch break and watching them clock in and clock out. It doesn't look like monitoring their bathroom breaks, or some of the stuff that I've seen the junior folks have to do. These people are whole people, they are not servers. They're not computers. They're not billed by the hour like that to perform X number of tasks. They really have to be nurtured and they have to be guided and mentored. The other thing we have to take into the fact is that not everybody learns the same. People are neurodivergent. So what productivity looks like for some persons, it’s going to look completely different for another person. For me, the worst thing I had as a senior person was to be expected to sit down and work 4 hours, take a half hour break, and then work another 4 hours straight. I have ADHD and anxiety and that is torturous for me. Now I did it and some people will turn around and say, “Well, I did it. So you can do it. too” like the motherfuckers that talk about student loans. But I would say, “I had to do it and it sucks. So I don't want anyone else to have to go through that.” That's what we should be doing. We should be iterating on our practices as an org, iterating our practices as a society to say that, “Oh, well, just because I had to suffer, that doesn't mean that you should have to as well. We should actually fix that so that you don't have to go through that.” Typically, in capitalism, that's how they say you're supposed to do. A 2021 Ferrari has more features than the Model T because you add features, and you add features, and you add features. So I don't see why we can't do that for the people that actually build these vehicles, or build anything else for that matter. REIN: There's a study that whenever this topic comes up, that I refer people to, because I think it's really, really good. It is from Kahn in 1990 and this is interesting because this is the study of the “Engagement of the Human Spirit at Work.” So even the idea that in a capitalist country, you could get a grant to study the engagement of the human spirit at work is amazing to me. But the idea is that there are three psychological conditions that relate to this. What I wanted to do was list them and then get your thoughts. TIM: Sure. REIN: Add them, change them, do they resonate with you? The conditions are meaningfulness. Do I find meaning in the work and my job title, my tasks, and so on? The second is psychological safety. And the third is the availability of emotional and psychological resources and this includes things like, am I emotionally drained at the end of the day? Do I wake up looking forward to going to work? Am I being supported by my manager or my supervisor? TIM: I like all of those. I think those are all really good, but I do think it overlooks the financial aspect and the reason why I say it overlooks the financial aspect is because those things are important for how you feel about your work. But if you are struggling financially, your ability to deal with the normal rigors of work are significantly decreased when you have to then go home and figure out how you're going to make the ends meet. Are you living paycheck to paycheck? Are you going to pay off debt? You're trying to figure out how to take care of your children. You're going to have to figure out how to do all these other things. Your overall capacity is reduced because you have these other concerns as well. So I think it cannot be overstated, the impact of making sure that people's needs outside of work are met to make sure they can also, you can also take care of the needs inside of work. But going back, I do think those are very, very important aspects of people feeling spiritual engagement at work. I think the meaningfulness and the psychological safety to me are the two most important. You can do meaningful work, but if you're getting harassed all the fucking time, it's not a great place. Or you can have a great loving and nurturing environment, but you're just toiling away in dumb anguish and it's like, “Oh, well, I don't know why I'm doing this job. Everyone's super happy and I'll stay here for a while because I really like everybody, but I don't really get any meaning out of what I do.” So I think I like that list. I would just add a fourth one talking about making sure people are financially compensated to make sure their needs are met plus, plus. REIN: And actually, the study doesn't consider that and I think you're right that that's a huge oversight. There's a second study that attempts to quantify these relationships to say how much each of these influence engagement and the result is that meaningfulness was the highest correlation, but the way they did this is interesting. They did a quantitative survey and the survey would include different sections with questions on for example, rewarding coworker relations with questions like, “I feel worthwhile when I am around my coworkers.” I think we should be asking questions like that more often. I think that the engagement surveys you get in the modern world are superficial. TIM: Oh, they absolutely are. They absolutely are. Well, I mean, it goes back to a lot of topics we have in observability. What are your metrics if whatever you measure is what you're going to do? I learned this lesson working in tech support call centers right out of the Marine Corps where if they're going to reward you for the number of calls or they're going to – the primary metric is the number of calls you took in a day. So people were going to do whatever they can do to take the most number of calls, then to like, “Oh, then we're going to do NPS scores after that.” But they set the NPS score pretty low and saying, “Well, we just need you to answer the calls. They don't have to be that good.” That's what you're going to get. If you were measuring things like, “Oh, did your manager make you feel good this month?” If you ask that and they answer honestly, maybe they made you feel good once a month or something like that since the last one, but primarily, they made you feel like crap. That's kind of what you need to ask. I do think the interpersonal relationship aspects, they're hard to quantify because it looks different for everybody and even the nature of the questions are different for everybody. What that question looks like to a cis, white, straight male is going to look way different to say, a queer Black woman. REIN: What if the question is: “I feel a real kinship with my coworkers and I'm like a little, eh about that one?” TIM: Yeah, that goes back to that we're a family thing and I don't necessarily like that at all because we aren't a family. You can't fire your family or lay your family off. REIN: But then there were questions like: “I believe that my coworkers appreciate who I am,” and I like that one a lot. TIM: That's a good one. The appreciates who I am, that speaks to being a whole person and the more that we can be whole people at our jobs, the better off we are going to be. If you have to bite your tongue, if you have to cover your tattoos, if you have to make sure your hair is undyed, or you have to wear clothes that you don't necessarily like because they’re considered “professional” whatever that means. That the more that a person has to distance themselves from who they are as a whole person, probably the less happy they're going to be in that environment. Less safe they're going to feel in that environment. JOHN: Yeah, I find that there is a gap between the rhetoric about bringing your whole self to work and the practice of building a space where it's safe to do that. Like I myself know some things that can lead us in that direction, but I don't feel like there's a great playbook on building that all out. TIM: There really isn't and part of the reason is that the tech industry started out, by and large, as an artifact of the US government, US military, which is never not really known for being very welcoming and safe for people outside of a certain demographic. You talk about what the industry looked like when I got in back in the late 90s, IBM had just stopped requiring people to wear suits to work and they were allowed to wear polo shirts and khakis. That look was what you had. It was the “business casual.” Couldn't have long hair, couldn't have accessed piercings, no visible tattoos; not unlike dress codes or appearance regs that you would see in the military. So you make everybody look like the stereotypical white guy, essentially, because this is what you have to wear because some old white guy said, “This is what people should look like.” Those things are hard to break because who still has power in those things and it's a self-perpetuating society. People that do not fit that mold do not last in that industry, or the people that do last in industry had to divorce themselves of who they are so much that it becomes hard to break that mold once you get into places of power, because you can very quickly be run out for rocking the boat too much and it was very, very self-standing. This is the one thing that I think came out of the .com bubble burst after Y2K and the early aughts was that it broke up a lot of these big companies, big old legacy companies and you saw a lot of smaller startups come out. A lot of these smaller startups that came out of it maybe had a different way of thinking because they weren't run by 70-year-old white guys who were defense contractors. But I do think, when we get into that, if you look at what a person in the tech industry looks like in 2021 versus what they look like in 2001 is dramatically different. I can have my hair long. I can expose my tattoos. I can have a beard. I can say, “I'm a queer, ADHD, Black-Mexican man,” whereas such a thing would be dangerous career-wise and maybe even personally, 20 years ago. I remember in the industry when the first person that I knew personally came out as being transgender and the harassment that she had to go through was horrifying, but it was considered perfectly normal in 2001. We have come a long way, but that just speaks to what a shitshow it was before. Not that we're doing great now, because we have so much farther to go and we are still here in 2021 seeing all white panels, all white male leadership, diversity being heralded when you bring a white woman onto a board or when you bring a gay white man onto a board. And that ain't it chief. That is not it. We have so much more to do and the hard part about that is convincing people that you can't rest on your laurels. Convincing people that you haven't done enough in the first place. Convincing people that there are still problems. That goes back to what you're saying about some of these questions, about some of these metrics that we have about people in the workplace. The questions that you have to ask on these to really get an idea of where you are, have to be uncomfortable. They have to be uncomfortable. They have to challenge people's safe spaces and not just a safe spaces of other people who are marginalized, but certainly, the safe space of the people who are overrepresented. It goes back to talking about, “Hey, do you realize that you have gotten where you are largely by privilege?” or that you've been able to fail up, or that doors have been opened to you that haven't been opened to others, or bars have been lowered for you that weren't as lower for others, or even at the bar wasn't lower, the bar was not raised for you like it was for others? People don't like to hear that. People get very upset when you challenge the notion that maybe they haven't had to work as hard as other people have to get where they have. If you tell somebody, “Well, you got here because you had a fair amount of pillars to help you along the way.” People don't like to hear that. Now I will very much, I've said in the past I may be Black and I may be queer but I'm still a man so I have some privilege that goes along with that that women and non-binary folks have not been able to enjoy. I typically don't have to go to a conference and worry about whether I'm going to be sexually assaulted. God help the person that tries at least with me. But that is a worry and a concern that people have to have going to a conference that's supposed to help their career and that's a big detractor. That is a big obstacle that people don't realize that they have and then worse. I mean, heaven forbid, we even talked about motherfuckers that actually do the harassing there that are still allowed to enjoy their place in the industry, that are still allowed to hold positions of power, positions of influence where they can continue to do this. Not even just keep their jobs, but they keep being by to back these places and they can continue to perpetuate that kind of harassment and making the industry hostile to brilliant people. But it's funny that I will say that here I am on a podcast and every podcast I've ever been on with the exception of one – well, no, all the podcasts I've ever been on hosted by all white people. Every last one. Some have had white women in them, but it's all white people. So when we talk about these subjects, it still comes from a certain perspective that white folks aren't going to have, or that men aren't going to have. It's good that we're talking about it, but we need to do something about it. We need to have more of these voices routinely, not just in our panels at tech conferences, but in our normal, everyday consumption and I think that's important. We talk about what do these things look like? What are the patterns we're seeing? If you look at a tech company, especially in Silicon Valley, tech companies look like the neighborhoods. It's not very diverse. People refer their friends, people refer their coworkers, or they have these things about what was that Google employee letter? “We only want people with Bachelor's from Stanford or Ph.Ds. from these places and no one else gets accepted.” Those places are already quite exclusionary in and of itself. They list no HBCUs on that piece of paper, because they don't value HBCUs. They don't value schools that allow people of lower economic or lower in the socioeconomic strata to attend. It's literally self-perpetuating, that kind of gatekeeping. These people who pass through these gates erect those exact same ones and only the people that fit that mold are going to go through it and you never fix the problem. We do not do enough to break those gates down. We don't do enough to model that kind of behavior that we should be expecting. It's good that we're talking about it, but we need to be more about doing it. REIN: Yeah, and our whole panel for this show is majority not white dude, but it might not surprise you that the people who most often have the spoons and the privilege to take time out of their workday to do this podcast are the white dudes. JOHN: Yeah. TIM: Yeah. But I think when we talk about going forward, it's one thing to see a pattern and I think people who, if they're looking, they can see what it is, but what do you do? Do you just throw up your hands, go, “We tried, it's hard to do, so we're not going to do”? “Ah, all right, we gave it a shot. We asked some folks, but they can’t do it.” Or what do you do? I've seen a couple of folks, to call out the good behavior when I see it, I know Ashley McNamara when she had said that she was going to step aside from doing conferences, she was like, “Don't talk to me about conferences. Go talk to underrepresented minorities about these roles. Don't talk to me. I'm not going to take it.” I've seen folks that will say, “I'm not going to speak at this thing if it's an all white panel or if it's all male panel.” “If you're not paying your speakers, especially of color, to come, I'm not going to do these things.” That's how we see it in action. Holding the people that build the platform accountable to make sure that everyone has access to it. I think the thing that the pandemic has taught me that I've seen, for the most part, is a lot of these conferences have become free or very, very low in price because there were virtual, a lot more people showed up. People that couldn't necessarily go before and sometimes, it was harder even for them like you mentioned before Rein, just to get off of work and now they can kind of manage to do it in between because they don't actually have to leave. So when we get to a point where we can have in-person conferences again, I think it behooves the organizer of these conferences that if they're really serious about doing something about being more inclusive about breaking these patterns, not to have them in Silicon Valley, in the most expensive real estate on earth. Have them someplace less expensive to lower the cost for people, if they charge it at all. If anything, you cannot tell me that AWS cannot put the cost of an entire – AWS, Microsoft, all these panels’ sponsors cannot put the cost such that you don't have to charge people for a standard price of admission. You can't tell me that they can't sponsor it to the level where you can pay your speakers, especially women, underrepresented minorities, people of color, like that to come in and appear and talk about these things. Especially if it's a topic on which they have to do the emotional labor for. That's what I want to see us do to break some of the patterns that we're seeing, to make things better for everyone else, and then once some start doing that, that is going to be it. Once you start modeling that behavior, you're going to see other conferences do the same, where these big trillion-dollar companies that are sponsoring these orgs or sponsoring these conferences can actually put some money into it so that more people can come. I don't really have a good understanding yet as of why that hasn't happened and I'm sure folks who organize conferences will probably have plethora of reasons. But I feel like the time has come to do these kinds of things and if it means we have fewer conferences, okay. Move them more virtual, it's fine. REIN: Yeah. I have liked that some conferences are starting to do two tier tickets where if the company's paying, you pay the higher price and if you're just an individual or whatever, then you're paying a much lower price, and then usually, there's also some sort of scholarship program again, to try and bring people in. But I think you're right. Especially if it's the much more company focused things like AWS re:Invent or whatever, why is there a cost to attend that? Even for the tickets, but on top of that, there's all the travel, there's taking time off work, there's childcare; there's so many other attendance costs to going to a conference at a place that even if the tickets were free, there's still a huge barrier there. TIM: You could even go as far as say some of these venue choices. You go to a place like D.C., or New York City, or someplace that have HBCUs, those HBCUs have [inaudible] and conference centers. You don't have to go to some Richie rich hotel. Why don’t you give Howard some money to use their facilities? Why don't you do it in the [inaudible] area? Why don't you give Home by the Sea Hampton University some money? Or Atlanta? Any of these places where you have – or some of these are just lower income schools that serve underprivileged communities, give them the money to host these conferences. Not some hotel. Have it catered by minority-owned businesses, have something, do some things to get more people in. Like, have scholarships for HBCUs CS students where if you're a student—junior, senior—looking for internships where they're like, “Hey man, you know what, come to this conference, we’re not going to charge you and we're actually going to give you a stipend for travel.” That's doing something and it is almost the peak of intellectual dishonesty for people to try and act like the money isn't there because it's there. We've seen time and time again, all these earnings calls coming out, all these market caps going up and up and up and up. The money is there; just people don't want to open up them purse strings, I guess. REIN: Before the moment passes, I do want to point out that you call this podcast out for not doing enough to schedule things so that all of the panel can attend. I gratefully appreciate the rebuke and we're going to go work on that. TIM: I appreciate that and I appreciate you for giving me a space that I feel safe to say that. That matters. Like, if you want to do something, give people space to talk about it and don't get butthurt when they say something. REIN: So when you were talking about white person dress codes and the need to assimilate into that, I was reminded of this thing that actually just was published by CNN about a Maori representative in New Zealand’s parliament who was objected for refusing to wear a tie. TIM: I think he called it a colonizer's noose? REIN: He did and when they changed the rule and he was allowed back in, I am still thinking about what he said, which is, “The noose has been taken off our necks and we are now able to sing our songs.” TIM: It's true and it's a big deal because I know for me as, especially as a young Black male, it is imperative for our survival to not be threatening and I'm not overstating that. It is imperative for our survival to not be deemed as threatening. If you go into a workplace and you don't have a comfortable appearance whether your hair's cut close, you can't have dreadlocks, you don't want to have anything that's let's say, too Black. You have to look a certain way. Your car has to look a certain way. You can't listen to certain music. Can't talk a certain way. Those are the guardrails which I had to perform under and I say perform early on when I was early in the industry, because that's what was expected. You would see when the few Black people in an org would get together and the white folks weren't around, we would relax and it looks a whole lot different. If you're a fly on that wall, you would look and sound a lot different because we could be who we were and the problem happened was that you would see, you'd have to go out there and you'd be like oh, man. “Hey, Tim you have a blah, blah. You don't really sound Black.” Hm, okay. REIN: You’re so articulate. TIM: Oh yeah, that's a good one. “You're so articulate,” “You know a lot of words,” and that kind of stuff. The problem with that is that in order to do that, in order to assimilate into that culture to make a living, you have to do that and then we have to go back to our communities and hear about it. Hear about selling out, hear about – and it's one thing to get a job. People like to see people succeed, but what they don't like people have to do is change who they are in order to succeed. But that's what was expected of us to fit into this predominantly white culture. White people didn't have to change. Not really. I can't recall how many dudes I saw walking around with mullets. Even to this day, you see guys walking around with khakis, the polo shirt tucked into the belt, the mullet, the wraparound sunglasses. That has been unchanged since like 1985. But Black people now are starting to be able to be our whole selves, but how many didn't last in the industry because they couldn't? There's a lot and that was just for being Black. Heaven forbid, people who are gay, people who are trans, people who were immigrants first generation, or immigrants that really had a hard time. It's not great. We have not done, this “progressive tech industry” has not done a lot. Did not do a lot early to be welcoming or to do anything, really towards inclusion. It had to be done kicking and screaming by people who have kicked down the doors and I think, honestly, we really need to be. I am grateful that you are kicking down the doors for me and I've done my best to kick down doors for people behind me, who've come after me. But we need to keep doing that and I don't think we acknowledge really, how bad it was because it's uncomfortable. Especially the folks who are still in the industry that were part of that. You catch a lot of these high-tech level CEOs, C-levels SVPs who say they've been in the industry 20 plus years. They were complicit. No one was talking about that. They want to talk about what they're doing now, but no one wants to come up front and be like, “Yeah, I actually participated in this. This is the things that I was doing back then.” Or “I didn't speak up for whoever, whoever.” I guarantee you, if people had an honest disclosure of all that, you're going to see that. It talks about what US history looks like if we don't whitewash it. If we're really honest about it. We can prevent making the same mistakes, hopefully because we don't have this narrative that we were great all the time. Companies are the same way, managers are the same way, people who are long in the tooth of this industry are the same way and I think it's important that we talk about that especially when we talk about even now. You take salespeople, that is a good foray into tech for people that don't have a technical background, especially people of color and women and they still have to look like they're fucking bankers to sell a SaaS to people who are wearing hoodies and boardshorts to work. That doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make a damn bit of sense. REIN: Can I share a hot take with you, Tim? TIM: The hottest of takes, please give me lava. REIN: I'm getting really frustrated with the messaging around diversity and inclusion that works and the fact that we have to use it, which is look how good this is for the business and I have a huge amount of respect for the people who do that work, sell that message. A lot of the people I've talked to who are doing this are Black women and they know how to get it done better than I do, but it must be grading to not be able to just say, “Look, we do this because it's right. We do it because it's just.” TIM: It's because the people that they have to placate in order to get this signed off on. Who are they? They are, by and large, white men and to try and give a message to them of doing it just because. People who are a hundred millionaires, billionaires sometimes, if you don't tell them it's going to be good for their bottom line, they're not going to do it. For the most part. Then there are some folks that I'm sure that wouldn't, but in the most part, you're talking about raging capitalists that will be glad to cut off. That would be the same people that didn't offer health insurance to their employees because they didn't have to. The same ones that give them shitty healthcare, but the executives get really, really nice healthcare. The stratification of the value that you hold to the companies is very apparent in the benefits package, pays, and other kinds of things they offer them. To expect them to do it for altruistic reasons is the peak of naivety. So yes, the people that can get those people to sign off on a diversity and inclusion program are fucking miracle workers. REIN: Yeah, and to be clear, I'm not mad at them for choosing that messaging. I have a huge amount of respect for their ability to be pragmatic and use the messaging that gets the job done. I mad that that's what they have to do because of how the system is. Because of how racism is. TIM: I wished we could live in a society where we can say, “This is the right thing to do so we're going to do it.” I've talked about this before, where you look at that AWS Leadership Principle of leaders are right. There's no impetus on doing the right thing. You can say, “Oh, I was right about this.” Well good, congrats on your fucking jeopardy win. But do you do the right thing? Doing the right thing is an ethical question. Do you do the right thing? Not for the business, right thing for the business. There's no parenthetical after that, there's no qualifying clause. If you are ethical, you will do the right thing and if that right thing isn't necessarily good for the business, okay. That's fine. All right. There's more money to be made and if your business cannot withstand you doing the right thing, then you're probably a shitty business in the first place. REIN: It’s not a means, it’s an end. TIM: Exactly. REIN: Okay. Well, there's my hot take for the episode. TIM: That was like medium hot. That was like jalapeno hot. JOHN: It's something we've all noticed, that language always comes up the moment you start talking about DE&I. TIM: What I think for me, the hurtful part is when I watch these things especially as you see these things like what you're seeing at Google because of fucking course, Google is that when people really start to move the needle, when people start to make a real impact, the powers that be get uncomfortable and then they start to let people go and they replace them with someone that they are more comfortable with. They don't realize that the discomfort that they feel is what's supposed to happen and you can make it very, very simple for them. If you were to talk about this as a digital transformation, as we say, it's like, “Oh, well, we're going to go from this monolithic gigantic system that we’re running on to microservices, cloud-based API, stuff like that,” and people say, “Well, these old school database administrators are very uncomfortable with it and they tell them.” It’s like, “Hey, well this is how it is now. You're going to have to deal with it, or you're going to probably have to find a different way to get the industry, because this is the way it's going and it's better for everyone involved.” They explain all these benefits and they tell people that discomfort is part of this journey. You're going to have to learn to swim in new waters and things are going to be different, but they're going to be better overall once you get on the other side of that, but they can't apply that to them fucking selves when it comes to about diversity and inclusion and I don't get it. JOHN: I mean, that's the privilege that they haven't had to be practiced at being uncomfortable in those situations, or even if it's a little bit of technical discomfort versus the much more impactful discomfort that comes when you start actually talking about race. TIM: Yeah, there's a level of introspection that they haven't had to do and they are seemingly unwilling to do. That's the part that's most frustrating; the people that have the least to lose in this are the most unwilling to change. REIN: Oh, do you think it's worthwhile if what we're talking about here is a change in mindset? It's a change in what these people strive for, what they want and I think that that change is incompatible with let’s call it, white supremacy and capitalism. So do you think that it's worthwhile to try to pursue that, or do you think we have to continue doing these pragmatic things? TIM: Well, first of all, I would say that white supremacy and capitalism are redundant, but I would say that we cannot change the minds of the people in power with anything other than pragmatic reasoning because if we could, they would have already. There has been more than enough reason, appeals to emotion, consequence, societal collapse, all these other things that we've seen, especially these past 18 months or so. A reasonable person would say like, “You know what,” or all the people who are reasonable about this and who are ethical about this have already changed their minds. At this point, anybody who doesn't see the need for it, the self-evident need for it without for the justification for business reasons, but the self-evident need for it will not be convinced. So you have to appeal to pragmatic reasons until they leave the industry. REIN: This is a Kuhnian paradigm shift: the people with the old views have to die or otherwise go away and be replaced. TIM: Essentially, that's it and so that's why it's so important for us to nurture the junior folks coming into the industry and the people who are mid-career to make sure that people who understand this, to make sure that the people who are underrepresented, and to make sure your LGBTQ, your people of color, any manner of folks that are not properly represented or that have been heretofore unsafe in this industry, stay in the industry by any means necessary. To make sure that the industry can change in the long run. It is incrementalism and as unpopular as it is in some circles to say, “Oh, we can't just change everything right now because we're inspired to do so.” I'm sorry, you don't steer a ship that quickly. This is a large thing we have to change. The industry is a lot of people and it's a lot of money. So you're going to have to change it a bit at a time and the only way to bring that change about is to bring and keep people in the industry that can affect that change. REIN: And for those of us who are more securely in the industry, whether it's because we're white dudes or we have experience, whatever it is, we have an obligation to do what it takes to keep them around you. TIM: You absolutely do and you also have an obligation to continue to push on the folks that don't see the value in keeping them around. Very openly. You have to use your privilege. You have to use your privilege to speak to power. You don't have to take anyone else's voices. You don't have to pick up someone else to sign a waiver on his own, certainly, but you have to keep them from being silenced and that is the important thing that we need to do. If you are a straight white male in this industry and you have seen the necessity of the industry being more inclusive, diverse, and to have a good sense of belonging, then what you have to do is you have to check your peers when people speak. REIN: And not just keep them around, but make it possible for them to thrive. TIM: Absolutely, absolutely. They have to have strong roots in the industry. They have to feel like they're safe here, that they can grow here, and that they belong here and then when they do that, that's when they can affect change. JOHN: Yeah. That is how you keep them around, either that, or you don't want to them to have to rely on just complete bloody mindedness to have the perseverance to go through all of the pain to stay in the industry. You want it to be them thriving in the industry. Like you said, they can be the tomorrow's leaders that can start that real change. TIM: The last thing I want to do is also say, I want to make sure that when we talk about doing that thriving, that again, we're talking about not just taking care of them in the workplace, but taking care of them as whole people. I will beat this drum every time I can get on, we cannot let, we cannot let women leave this industry. We cannot do it. We're losing too many women because they have to make the choice right now in 2021, in this pandemic, as to whether or not they have to be mothers or whether they have to be career professionals and it’s bullshit. It is bullshit and it goes two ways with that: we're not supporting mothers and we're not supporting our fathers. We can support our fathers, then they can play a more active role in raising their children and Mom doesn't have to take care of everything. Now obviously, work can't influence whether a father is a piece of shit father or not and there are a lot of them out there, I'm going to be honest about it, that won't change a diaper, that won't clean the house, shit like that. We can't do that, but we'll at least avail them the opportunity and not have them use work as an excuse. So we have to change the way we do business to make sure that working mothers can be whole people so they don't have to choose between raising their children and doing work. If we don't protect these women, and the reason I say that is because it is the women of color that are the most susceptible to having to make this choice, because they have fewer resources outside of that, typically. So we need to protect people. We need to protect these people so that they can stay in the industry and we need to do that now. Because we are bleeding off too many women as it is like way, way too much. And that goes beyond whether or not we're actually treating them as they should be treated like equals, like the brilliant engineers they are in the conference rooms. So that's a whole other problem. We need to tackle that too, but we need to at least keep them from saying, “Hey, I’ve got to leave the industry because I got to take care of my kids.” We should be fixing that and we should be fixing that yesterday. JOHN: Yeah, that’s part of bringing your whole self to work is the other selves that you're taking care of. Like, if you can't have that baby on your lap for the meeting, then you're not going be on the meeting and then it's snowballed from there. TIM: Absolutely. Absolutely. When we start coming back, whatever that looks like post-pandemic, think about what they did in World War II and beyond to keep women in working. They had daycares, like the companies had daycares. But why fuck can't we do that now? We have so much money. You mean to tell me Amazon can’t have a daycare at the facilities You mean to tell me that Microsoft can have a daycare facilities? You mean to tell me that fucking WeWork can't have WeWork fucking daycare that companies pay for? Like, there's no reason for it. People just don't want it and it comes down to greed and it’s bullshit. REIN: So maybe now is a good time for us to do reflections. I usually have two things, I guess, that's my pattern now. One is I wanted to point out that Tim said that capitalism and white supremacy are the same thing and I didn't want that one to go under the radar either. If you're a white person who doesn't know what Tim is talking about, I can recommend a book called The Invention of the White Race. Maybe Tim has some of his own recommendations. My reflection is that we have an obligation not just to make it possible for people to exist in the industry, but if we're dragging them through the barbed wire that is this toxic garbage industry, we're hurting them, too and so, our obligation is to make it healthy. JOHN: Yeah, I think that's really just been reinforcing a lot of my own thoughts on things like, I don't know if this is a reflection other than just it's always great to have these kinds of conversations as reminders. These are thoughts that happen, but sometimes they happen in the background or you're not quite sure to connect them to action and continuing to have these conversations to continually remind me what the priorities are and what the other perspectives are is incredibly useful to me. So Tim, if nothing else, I appreciate you spending the time talking with us, talking to me in specific about your perspective on this. So thank you. TIM: I want to take a moment again, to acknowledge and thank you all for giving me a space and a platform. I know it's difficult sometimes to hear criticism especially if you're doing what you think is right for someone to say, “Hey, well, you can do better.” It's hard, but I think it's important for us also acknowledge that growth is uncomfortable. Improvement is uncomfortable. One of the things that I learned in jujitsu, if it has taught me anything and it's something that I've reinforced in my life, is that adversity makes you thrive in some ways. Not adversity for adversity’s sake, but when you exercise harder, you get stronger. If you run faster, run harder to get faster. If you spend more time being crushed under a 300-pound man, you get better at jujitsu. In this context, the more time you spend listening to some of these things, the voice of the people that have been marginalized and it makes you uncomfortable, figure out why it makes you uncomfortable and don't figure out how to disqualify the person talking. Think about why you're uncomfortable, look and uncover the pattern underneath that in yourself and in your world and how you interact with it, and then once you find that pattern, fix the problem. Once you do that, you can then help others do it. But you have to at first be comfortable with being uncomfortable and to do, if there's maybe sound a little cliche, but it's true. If you just run away from that feeling, you're never going to grow, you're never going to improve, and things are never going to get better. JOHN: Thank you so much for coming on the show, Tim. TIM: I appreciate it, John. Thank you all for inviting me. I’m honored and humbled. Special Guest: Tim Banks.

The world received a gift three years ago, in the form of AR technology from the likes of Google and Apple - ARKit and ARCore. But most businesses had no one on-staff at-hand to take advantage of this gift without some extensive upskilling to do. John Martin shares how BundlAR makes AR easy for everyone, and what is needed for wider adoption. Alan: Hey, everyone, I'm Alan Smithson, and today we're speaking with John Martin, the CEO and co-founder of BUNDLR, an augmented reality platform company empowering training, learning, and development innovators with on-demand and mobile immersive experiences. John and I met at the VR/AR Association Chicago meetup, and would become amazing friends as we built the future of communications together. In this interview, we will discuss one of the largest barriers to the widespread adoption of AR and what organizations need to do in order to deploy AR experiences instantly and on a global scale. All that and more, coming up next on the XR for Business podcast. John, it has been a pleasure to get to know you over these years, and I'm super excited to have you on the show. Welcome to the show. John: Thank you, Alan. And I'm looking forward to a great conversation with you, as always. Alan: It's been a couple of years since we got to know each other. I stayed at your house in Chicago. That was very lovely of you, I got to meet your family. And I've watched your platform go from kind of the infancy stages to being a global phenomenon, now. Let's-- I want you to have the stage to really tell people what BUNDLAR is all about and what you guys are doing. John: Well, BUNDLAR, we had a pretty clear mission about a year and a half ago. We were very fortunate to be working with some of the world's great innovators on what I'd call augmented reality projects. It could have been a prospective student tour at Arizona State University. Google gave a grant to the DuSable Museum in Chicago, so they wanted to reboot the Mayor Harold Washington exhibit. Proctor & Gamble had projects at upcoming conventions and shows. Remember when we used to have those? And from all of these engagements-- Alan: In real shows, like IRL, in real life? Like in--? John: Yeah, like in person, back in the good old days. Oh, do I miss that! But at any rate, what we realized was when Google and Apple gave this gift of AR to the world just three summers ago, saying they were all-in with AR, meaning that the hardware was going to work, it was like, wow. Most corporate IT or marketing teams really didn't have anybody on board their staffs that could take advantage of this amazing capability of the mobile device. So at any rate, for us, there's was like, well, what if we could take all of these engagements that we had created, and put them into a repeatable self-serve augmented reality content management system and platform? So it was a very big idea, but we thought one that was worth the journey. So we started to build out a team of 12 really focused AR professionals on the development side to build out this platform. Alan: Well, I know your CTO, Matt [Wren]. I mean, his whole experience in life was creating content management systems for massive corporations, so-- John: Exactly. So it started with Matt and Gareth [Davies], who's on the product side, but really knows AR. We were so blessed to find literally the man that wrote the book on Unity [chuckles] Joe Hocking, to join the team. And Lewis Gardner on our CMS. So we were very fortunate to have a great team come together. And we shared a vision, which is, let's build out an augmented reality platform that would make it super easy and affordable for businesses and organizations to weave in augmented reality c

The world received a gift three years ago, in the form of AR technology from the likes of Google and Apple - ARKit and ARCore. But most businesses had no one on-staff at-hand to take advantage of this gift without some extensive upskilling to do. John Martin shares how BundlAR makes AR easy for everyone, and what is needed for wider adoption. Alan: Hey, everyone, I'm Alan Smithson, and today we're speaking with John Martin, the CEO and co-founder of BUNDLR, an augmented reality platform company empowering training, learning, and development innovators with on-demand and mobile immersive experiences. John and I met at the VR/AR Association Chicago meetup, and would become amazing friends as we built the future of communications together. In this interview, we will discuss one of the largest barriers to the widespread adoption of AR and what organizations need to do in order to deploy AR experiences instantly and on a global scale. All that and more, coming up next on the XR for Business podcast. John, it has been a pleasure to get to know you over these years, and I'm super excited to have you on the show. Welcome to the show. John: Thank you, Alan. And I'm looking forward to a great conversation with you, as always. Alan: It's been a couple of years since we got to know each other. I stayed at your house in Chicago. That was very lovely of you, I got to meet your family. And I've watched your platform go from kind of the infancy stages to being a global phenomenon, now. Let's-- I want you to have the stage to really tell people what BUNDLAR is all about and what you guys are doing. John: Well, BUNDLAR, we had a pretty clear mission about a year and a half ago. We were very fortunate to be working with some of the world's great innovators on what I'd call augmented reality projects. It could have been a prospective student tour at Arizona State University. Google gave a grant to the DuSable Museum in Chicago, so they wanted to reboot the Mayor Harold Washington exhibit. Proctor & Gamble had projects at upcoming conventions and shows. Remember when we used to have those? And from all of these engagements-- Alan: In real shows, like IRL, in real life? Like in--? John: Yeah, like in person, back in the good old days. Oh, do I miss that! But at any rate, what we realized was when Google and Apple gave this gift of AR to the world just three summers ago, saying they were all-in with AR, meaning that the hardware was going to work, it was like, wow. Most corporate IT or marketing teams really didn't have anybody on board their staffs that could take advantage of this amazing capability of the mobile device. So at any rate, for us, there's was like, well, what if we could take all of these engagements that we had created, and put them into a repeatable self-serve augmented reality content management system and platform? So it was a very big idea, but we thought one that was worth the journey. So we started to build out a team of 12 really focused AR professionals on the development side to build out this platform. Alan: Well, I know your CTO, Matt [Wren]. I mean, his whole experience in life was creating content management systems for massive corporations, so-- John: Exactly. So it started with Matt and Gareth [Davies], who's on the product side, but really knows AR. We were so blessed to find literally the man that wrote the book on Unity [chuckles] Joe Hocking, to join the team. And Lewis Gardner on our CMS. So we were very fortunate to have a great team come together. And we shared a vision, which is, let's build out an augmented reality platform that would make it super easy and affordable for businesses and organizations to weave in augmented reality c

In this episode of Small Business Snippets, I chat to John Tusa, author, journalist and one of the founding presenters of BBC’s Newsnight.  He shares his experiences of the boardroom and how risk analysis and cumbersome objectives can overshadow your organisation's core purpose.  You can also visit smallbusiness.co.uk for more on leadership and creativity in business. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case. Here's the transcript of John Tusa's podcast interview Hello and welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. I’m your host, Anna Jordan. Today we have John Tusa, author, journalist and one of the founding presenters of BBC’s Newsnight. He’s served on several boards including The British Museum, the Clore Leadership Programme and, since 2014, the European Union Youth Orchestra. On top of that, John was the managing director of the BBC World Service and London’s Barbican Centre. Today we’re going to be talking about the secrets of the boardroom, as outlined in his latest book, On Board: The Insider’s Guide to Surviving Life in the Boardroom. Anna: Hi John. John: Hi Anna. Anna: How are you doing? John: Pretty well, thank you. Looking forward to this, looking forward to talking to you. Great. So as mentioned in the intro, I’m going to start with your latest book, On Board: The Insider’s Guide to Surviving Life in the Boardroom. In the book, you talk about the importance of having a plurality of expertise, but at the same time make clear that artistic institutions and not-for-profits are very different from businesses. Are there any transferrable lessons from these types of boardroom to the business boardroom?   John: Well actually, my guru around governance, who was a major American businessman called Kenneth Dayton from Minneapolis, and he said that there is no difference between arts boards and cultural boards and corporate boards and, if anything, my British contacts said that cultural boards are much more complicated than business boards because they have so many different layers of accountability. There aren’t two worlds, there’s only one world and that is governance and the relationship between the supervisory board and the executive board. And, if anything, arts and culture boards are more complicated than the others. That’s not me saying it; that’s businesspeople saying it.   Ahh, that is interesting. I understand that, at times, the CEO of a company can also be the chairman [of the company board], but they can be very different roles. How do they differ, exactly? John: The CEO, managing director – call them what you want – are responsible for management, for actually running the place. And they are also responsible for devising the strategic direction of the organisation. The supervisory board are there to advise, help, encourage, monitor, warn and, if necessary, get rid of the chief executive. Again, my great American guru, Kenneth Dayton, said that governance is governance, that is, you look after the overall organisation, and management is management – and you mustn’t confuse them. And that is why anyone who thinks they can be a chairman and managing director, is riding readily, and speedily, for trouble. They’re separate functions. Somebody defined the role between the chairman and the chief executive as partnership, but separation. That is close partnership until the time that you have to sack them. That is an absolutely essential relationship – and a tension – but a constructive tension, at the heart of the governance management business. Right – so this is typically one of the most turbulent relationships you’d find in the boardroom? John: They can be. But on the other hand, I had at least two, maybe three, very good relationships with either the chairman when I was chief executive or the chief executive when I was chairman. And when you get it right, it is extremely productive, it’s very enjoyable and it’s very good for the organisation concerned. Let’s be quite clear – any organisation which has a bad relationship between the chair and the chief executive is in real trouble – and I saw several of those. You can’t take too much trouble over getting that relationship right and making sure the relationship is right. One of the key things about it is absolute openness and transparency. I said to my chief executive at the University of the Arts London, ‘You will always hear it from me first. You will never hear rumours and you will never hear gossip. If there’s anything to deal with, you and I will deal with it first – alone and properly.’ If you do it that way, you have trust, you have openness, you have transparency – and you can have a terrific and successful relationship. For a business owner or director who is fairly new, who isn’t used to the boardroom environment, perhaps is intimidated by it, what advice do you have for them in terms of survival? John: It shouldn’t be survival, in the sense that it is a key part of the relationship. If you are whatever size of enterprise and you have a supervisory board, the assumption is that it is a constructive partnership. But, as I mentioned before, the supervisory board mustn’t interfere in management. And also, a chief executive must make sure that the supervisory board doesn’t interfere in governance. It may be necessary sometimes to say ‘look, this is an executive decision’ or ‘this is part of management’ but it ought not to be a relationship of fear and, in any case, the chief executive should always have some idea of who the chair will be bringing on to the supervisory board. The really important thing is that the chair has to make sure that members of the trustee board are there to provide their individual skills, yes, but also to give good overall advice, but not to interfere. On that basis, it should be positive, harmonious, constructive and lead to the success of the organisation. How about managing tensions that come up between member of the board – what’s the best way to go about resolving those? John: It all depends what they are, but if there are tensions between individual members, you might have to decide that one of them is in due course invited to step down. Or it’s very important for the chair to make it clear if a member is overstepping their mark, being too intrusive, taking up too much time or being too unnecessarily dominant. The chair is responsible for the way the board works and they have to make it clear. I had one case at the University of the Arts London where I was chairman of the court of governors and one of the members of the court was the trade union representative and he refused to understand that he was there to look after the interests of the university as a whole and not just the trade union members. He would stand up and he would harangue the court as if we were a trade union meeting. I put up with this for two meetings and then I had a huge row with him and told him that this was not an acceptable way of behaving. It was a big public row, I didn’t enjoy it and in a way I regretted it but it made it clear to him and to everybody that that was not how the court was going to run and it worked very much better afterwards.    Anna: In the book you talk about managing egos. I suppose it’s just a case of reading the situation and on balance knowing how to deal with different types of personality in the boardroom. John: Yes, in general and overwhelmingly, the people I sat on boards with, who are people with real authority and substance and responsibility in the areas they came from, overwhelmingly understood that they were there to support the organisation. You are holding in trust for others. It’s not something where you play individual games with it. And overwhelmingly, the people I sat on boards with understood that very well and left their egos at the door. Absolutely. In the past I knew you’ve spoken about having ‘the wrong ambition’. Tell me a little more about what you mean by that and how it can affect your standing as a leader. John: I think that sometimes in life, and this is nothing to do directly with governance, that you may misjudge what your abilities are or what you might be doing. If you want this example, the worst one was when I decided to accept the offer to be head of a Cambridge college and I did that for all the wrong reasons. I did that because it seemed a posh thing to do, which it was. It seemed a good address, which it was. It was absolutely the wrong job for me. I shouldn’t have touched it and I lasted around six or seven months. There’s a sense of what can I do, what can I do well and when am I being prodded by a false ambition and false vanity? That’s an important part of self-preservation. There may also be some times when you shouldn’t accept a chairmanship. For a very short time, I had the post of chairman of the Victoria and Albert Museum and chairman of the University of the Arts London. That was, in retrospect, very unwise. Fortunately, the people at the University of the Arts London thought, ‘well, if he’s going to be chairman of the V&A as well, it’s obvious that that will be his first priority’ and at a very early stage said, ‘look, we’re worried about this, and we don’t think it will work. Would you like to think about it?’ And when I thought about it, I realised that they were absolutely right. It won’t work and once again, I’ve gone into that for the wrong kind of ambition. There will be a clash, and because I’d said yes to the University of the Arts London first, I stood down from the chair of the V&A. So that was the wrong kind of ambition and thank goodness, I was saved from getting into, what could have been, a very confused situation. Talking more about the board as a whole, in terms of chaos and crises, there’s possibly no bigger than what we’ve been experiencing over the past months. How do you manage difficulties in the boardroom when you’re going through something like a global pandemic?       John: With difficulty, and I think I’d try to go back to the basic principles of management and governance. Say, if I were chair of some organisation, I would expect the board of management to come up with a strategy – six months, one year, eighteen months, two years – first a strategy for survival, then a strategy for development then a longer term strategy. That would be put to the supervisory board, we would look at what the financial implications were, decide whether it was doable or not doable and then there would be a process of the supervisory board reviewing what management suggested, sometimes suggesting less, sometimes suggesting more, sometimes suggesting that they should be more ambitious in these times. You can’t, for example, because there’s a pandemic, just say ‘we’ll stop doing anything’ because actually, the implications are too great. So the times are tough but the way that people behave in them makes it even more important that they behave as a good board and executive together should behave. The behaviour shouldn’t change.    I’d like to go a little bit off-piste here. You’ve said that the BBC increasingly exercises ‘business dogma over creative values.’ What do you mean by that and how do you maintain creative values in a growing business? John: I come back without apology to ‘why are we here? Why are you here? Why is the organisation here? Why is the new organisation starting up?’ Because somebody wants to do something.   Business tools are just that: they’re a set of tools. If you are observing them and that’s all you’re doing, I don’t think that you’ll ever succeed. There are toolkits to help you succeed. What worries me about the BBC is to, too often, they go into forms of business behaviour which lose sight of the nature and the purposes of broadcasting and programmes and the needs of the audience. I’ll give you one example which I think may help. That is the whole business of risk analysis. Everyone says you need risk analysis and you’ve got to be very serious, you’ve got to know what’s coming over the hill. On one occasion we were looking at risk analysis for the university at the University of the Arts London. By the time the centre had listed its risks, every one of the six colleges had listed their risks and different faculties had listed their risks, it was about six or seven pages and, as I recall, about 130 risks. It’s ludicrous. And it was the chair of the audit committee, who’s an accountant, who said ‘I can’t deal with this, nobody can deal with this’. He said ‘let’s have eight, ten, a dozen, maybe – a dozen main strategic risks. He said let’s get rid of the rest. This becomes a separate activity in its own right, dreaming up risks. It’s ludicrous. And he also said, ‘if you’re going to have a risk register, why not have an opportunity register?’ He said that risk and opportunity are different sides of the same coin. Anna: Yeah, I understand. And I think it’s a good exercise for business owners to have this opportunity register. John: Can I also say about objectives? A good colleague of mine, actually he was the chair of the British Museum and he used to run Unilever. On one occasion, he was at the gathering of chairs of the major cultural institutions, had a meeting organised by the department of culture, media and sport. They were discussing – the chairs and the department, ministers and so on, the whole business of objectives. This man who used to chair Unilever said, ‘ you know, in my years of chairing Unilever, we would set about seven or eight objectives, and if I got most of the people, most of the time, to work to half a dozen of them, I thought we were doing very well.’ And he noticed that the secretary of state looked a little pale. Afterwards a senior civil servant came up to him and said, ‘you know when you said you could work to eight objectives and if six were observed, you were doing very well? He said that we in the department set 48 objectives this morning.’ That again is an example of a management tool becoming something completely useless. And by the by, the man who invented objectives said, ‘if an objective isn’t being met, you may have the wrong one. Ditch it, think of another one.’ That’s not a great use of your resources. I guess my final question is what advice do you have about setting objectives in the boardroom? John: I’ve always had a, what some would regard as an over-light view of objectives. I was managing director of the Barbican Centre for 12 years. In general, I say this without false modesty, it was a much better organisation at the end of 12 years than it was at the beginning. It wasn’t just me, of course, that was my team. And from time to time, people would say to me ‘did the corporation of London set you strict objectives, what you had to do? And I said no, they never said anything, but I knew that I worked to four objectives: 1) run a good arts centre 2) run it within the financial limits that you have 3) bring credit to the corporation of London so that everyone can say ‘isn’t the corporation of London wonderful? They fund the Barbican and 4) don’t insult the Lord Mayor. In 12 years, we didn’t need any other objectives. I would say strip yourself of these things and say,‘are they helping me do the things that I want to do, what the organisation needs done or are they a substitute for making sure the organisation works properly?’ And if you can shed all that and keep things clear, then the governance will work better and the management will certainly work better. What about critics that would say that you need SMART goals that are measurable and based on precise numbers? John: The answer to that is measures measure what measures measure. Measures hardly ever get to the heart of what an organisation is about. You look at the finances the whole time, of course you do. In the case of the BBC World Service, you looked at the audiences. You’re aware of numbers, you use them, but you don’t say that such and such a number is a success, and if we don’t it must be a failure. It’s much more complicated than that. They may be a guide, but they are not the most important thing which determines the success or failure of an organisation. Anna: Absolutely. I think in business today we do have a way of getting caught up in it and it causes a lot of tension and anxiety. Where, as you say, remembering what you’re doing, what people need and what keeps it going should be at the heart of it. Well, that seems like an ideal place to finish. Thanks ever so much for coming on the podcast, John. John: Thank you very much, Anna. Nice to talk to you. John’s latest book, On Board: The Insider’s Guide to Surviving Life in the Boardroom, has been published by Bloomsbury and is available now from Amazon and all other major book retailers. You can also visit smallbusiness.co.uk for more articles on leadership and creativity in business. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case. Until next time, thank you for listening. 

John: Hi this is Doctor John Dacey with my weekly podcast New Solutions to the Anxiety Epidemic. Last time, we were talking with Doctor Biz Bracher about college students and social anxieties. Today I’d like to ask her to continue this, and talk about the difference between seniors and freshmen. She teaches both groups and I think it’s going to be interesting to hear what she has to say about that. Good morning Biz. Biz: Hi. So the first-year students seemed to settle into distance learning and their new home situation over time. It certainly hasn’t been ideal. Any of us who have spent hours on Zoom and trying to teach a seminar on Zoom and have the same sort of energy and rapport in the classroom will know that this distance learning isn’t as easy as it might appear. But the first-year students have settled into it. John: By the way, how about for the teacher? Is there anxiety for the teacher also? Biz: Most absolutely. I think that for teaching a seminar course of 20 students when you’re looking at sort of what I call “the Brady Bunch” of squares across. I pride myself on my ability to draw students into the conversation. I notice their physical response to conversations and I can draw them in saying, “Suzzie, you look like you have something to say on this topic” or “John, what do you want to add to this conversation?” and it draws them in in a very comfortable way. It’s really hard to monitor that online. John: But you don’t do that at random? You’re saying you pick students on the basis of what they’re presenting as to whether or not they want to say something, right? Biz: Yeah absolutely. John: And that’s harder to do with the Zoom? Biz: It’s so much harder because first of all, my 50-year-old eyes can’t also see the detail on someone’s face but how do I know that their facial expressions are reacting to what I’m saying or are they watching something else online? Are they doing email? Are they really checked in or checked out of the conversation? There certainly have been many students who I don’t think were really giving me their full attention. And who can blame them? There are so many things happening around us that you don’t have them in a classroom so their attention is pulled away. Ultimately, I think the first-year students transitioned and the light at the end of the tunnel for this semester and going through exams and such, they still have three years of college left. While they’re sad about this semester ending, they’re hopeful that this is not the college of the future. Our seniors, they’re still not settled with it because — and this is my hypothesis of it — I often refer to our students or, as a parent, our children as the baby on board generation. They’re the playdate generation. College students these days and millennials, they were raised to have their days scheduled first by their parents. They came home from the hospital in cars that had a placard that said “baby on board” as if everyone else was going to drive around that car differently because there was a new life in that car, as if the other people driving around them didn’t matter. Why isn’t there a “70-year-old on board”? John: I never thought about that before but that’s a terrific insight. I like it very much. Biz: But why is there any more value? So there’s this idea of protecting them, right? And then push that out as they get older, having playdates. There’s lots of research and conversation about “free-range kids” and kids that are let out to go play and maneuver the streets of the suburbs by themselves. More than not, parents mitigate those situations so rather than just telling your kids to go outside and play and come back when the streetlights turn on, as you and I were told to do as kids, our kids are being scheduled. I was caught off guard when my oldest child turned to me once, he was three or four years old and he said, “Do you think Ben is available today?” as if Ben had a schedule and somebody organizing his time. John: Which was true, right? Biz: Absolutely. Which was true was that I had to call his mother and find some time and we arranged for a drop-off and then we played games with the kids. We didn’t just send them out into the yard, that was scary. Then they got into school age and in schools, everything is organized for them and they’re being taught to the test, very few schools allow for an open curriculum of bringing in new ideas and such. John: Excuse me for one second but what does “taught to the test” mean? Biz: To teach to the test meaning whether it’s the state regulations of exams to benchmark our students or if it’s in the high school AP exams or final exams, what students are going to be tested on in the end to show proficiency. Teachers are spending their time teaching to the test as opposed to just general learning and curiosity. Naturally, college graduates get out, and then, I’ve always noticed that while commencement day can be as much of a celebration, it’s sad for the student. My students start anticipating it months before saying, “don’t talk about commencement day. That’s going to be so sad.” I pushed them on that to think about the fact that by the time they graduate from college, sometime in May, they’ll be ready to leave. In most cases, they will feel like they did all they needed, all they wanted, and granted they will miss the proximity of their friends, but they don’t feel unprepared to go out into the world. They don’t need to take one more semester of classes or sit through one more set of exams they’re ready to move on. It’s not until September the next fall that their sadness really sets it because it will be the first time in their memory that they won’t be going back to school. For most people, some of them will be going to grad school but the vast majority of college students are going into jobs or volunteering situations and also in that, this will be the first time not all of their peers will be doing the same thing. Some will be going to grad school, but some will be in the world of work and some will be volunteering and some will be taking a year before they start grad school, and so there is no grand normal anymore. Everybody in their grade isn’t doing the same thing. And that to them is anxiety-provoking. There’s no clear road map. But what I noticed this year is that that process of not having a road map and not being together as a class happened, not only earlier but not on their own schedule, not in a predictable manner so this transition that was going to happen anyway in May has happened much earlier, almost like pulling the rug out from them. John: It was so abrupt, is that what you’re saying? Biz: It was so abrupt, unexpected, and uncontrolled. We were at a school where we just had spring break and so students left campus with all of their stuff. Many universities and colleges across the country told their students, go on spring break, take an extra week, and then come back and this will all be resolved. We know that that didn’t happen. Those students went on spring break, they then went home, their stuff was on campus. I know students who had to fly across the country to go get their stuff and come home or had to pay services to pack their dorm rooms up and send their stuff home. There was just this crazy amount of detail and orchestration and not knowing what it all meant. And then in the midst of it, the economy is bottoming out. Many students who have been promised jobs were told in the worst-case scenario the job no longer exists or in the best-case scenario we were gonna have you start in June but now you’re not gonna start until July or October which put a little more anxiety on students. And on top of it, many of them were going to urban or metropolitan areas they aren’t necessarily from so they’re supposed to be starting a job in July in New York City but they don’t have anywhere to live because they didn’t have time to get roommates and go to see apartments and find someplace to live so there’s still a lot hanging out there in the balance for the seniors. Whereas the freshmen, god willing and knock on wood, are going to be back on a campus next fall. And if they’re not on a campus, at least they’ll know that they’re going to be in online classes. Now I’m not saying there’s still not a lot of anxiety because parents have lost jobs and financial packages have changed and they need to decide whether or not they want to be in distance learning. Is that the kind of educational experience they want - no one wants it but are they willing to endure it and pay for it. So I’m not saying the freshmen are totally out of the woods but the stakes are a lot less extreme because seniors are now moving into the world of work and into the world of grad school. We have students who are applying to medical school who haven’t even sat for the MCAT yet, they have no idea what their scores are for their standardized testing. That’s provoking a lot of anxiety among premed students. There’s just a lot of unknown and this is a generation that has never had to deal with an incredible amount of unknown. Even within their unknowns, they had a cadence and a road map of sorts. John: By the way, it occurs to me that a lot of people who are premed students are beginning to think, “Boy if I become a doctor then I’m going to be really risking my life.” Do you find decrease in the number of people who want to be premed students? Biz: Well I don’t know nationally those numbers and I am a premed advisor at our university and in these last 8 weeks I’ve been meeting regularly online with seven med school candidates and actually I have found every single one of them have been more committed to their vocation of medicine and that has been really inspiring. Some of them were working in labs, they were already out of their undergrad studies and taking a year to work in labs and gain some experience and I have a couple students who have been redeployed to the front lines, two students who are working nights with COVID patients as nurses, aids and watching people die and they’re in the worst situation because there’s not much that medical doctors can do, it appears that there would be even less for a nurse’s assistant, someone who has no formal medical training yet and is just waiting to get into medical school but quite honestly in the midst of COVID and people dying without their families, they found that they have been incredibly important to their patients and their patients’ families as they assure and comfort families that they’re carrying for their loved ones as they’re dying. It’s been an incredible amount of anxiety on those students but I would say that every single last one of them whether they’ve been redeployed and working with COVID patients or they’re in labs or they’re still in undergrad waiting to finish undergraduate studies in order to apply to med school, every single one of them has been more committed than ever to be a part of the medical community. John: Biz, unfortunately, our time has run out again and I have to say I really would love to have you come back. I think a lot of my listeners, even if they don’t have college students right now, they can understand a lot more about anxiety by listening to what you have said so thank you very much and I will be inviting you back if you’re willing to do it. Biz: It’s always my pleasure to talk to you and your listeners. John: Thank you so much.

Billion dollar companies rely on competitive intelligence to stay ahead in their markets. What lessons can the rest of us take from how they use CI to make better decisions? This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, Cipher Systems VP of Marketing John Booth talks about what competitive intelligence is, and how companies can use it to inform decision making. Cipher's customers are some of the largest companies in the world, and they have highly specialized units dedicated exclusively to competitive intelligence. Not every company has the budget, or the team, to support that, so John explains what the rest of us should be looking at, and how we should use information about our competitors to develop marketing and business strategies. Highlights from my conversation with John include: Many marketers use the terms data, information and intelligence interchangeably, but they are very different things. Intelligence is the product of analyzing information and data, and it requires people to do it. There's also a lot of confusion around the difference between business intelligence, market intelligence and competitive intelligence. BI is the information you have within your own business, whereas MI is the information about what is happening in the market.  Competitive intelligence is information about your markets and also your competitors and how that influences your ability to sell within your markets or deliver the services that your business does. There are three kinds of software tools used in competitive intelligence: 1) Generic tools like Sharepoint or Google Alerts that can be used or many things: 2) Specific tools like Klue that are built to fulfill a very particular need, such as sales enablement; and 3) Purpose-built tools like Cipher's Knowledge360, which are built specifically for competitive intelligence professionals. Before any business engages in competitive intelligence, it should start by developing a deep understanding of its differentiators, strengths and weaknesses. Resources from this episode: Connect with John on LinkedIn Visit the Cipher Systems website Listen to the podcast to learn more about competitive intelligence and how businesses both large and small can use it to get an edge.   Transcript Kathleen Booth (Host): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I'm Kathleen Booth and I'm your host. This week, my guest is none other than my husband John Booth. Welcome John. John Booth (Guest): Well, I mean, it only took 150 some odd episodes for me to get an invitation. Kathleen: Saving the best for last. So I don't know if my listeners know this, but John and I, so John and I used to own a marketing agency together for 11 years and somehow miraculously, we're still married. And when people ask me what he does now, I always say he does the same thing I do just at a different company. He is also a vice president of marketing. He is VP of marketing for a company called Cipher Systems, which is in the competitive intelligence space. So John, for those who may not know you, who may not know Cipher, can you just tell my audience a little bit about yourself as well as about Cipher systems and what it does? About John Booth and Cipher Systems John: Sure. So as Kathleen said, I was a part of our digital agency for about a dozen years or so. And before that I held different sales positions started out in the staffing world and then held lots of different positions there. But since Quintain, I have joined Cipher systems and Cipher is a small, there's probably about 20 of us now, competitive intelligence firm. John: And we'll give to the definition of that because it's, I think it's very important. I see a lot of similarities in the competitive intelligence to what I saw in the content inbound marketing world maybe 10 years ago. So it's it's a, it's a developing industry and I think more and more people within the organizations, particularly certainly larger organizations are finding the need for, and using competitive intelligence today. But so we have a classic kind of services side of the business. And, and then in addition to that, we have a technology or a software side of the business where we have a software platform. It's a cloud based competitive intelligence platform that acts as a knowledge management system, as well as the competitive intelligence tools for all of your competitive Intel and dashboards and reports and newsletters and, and information like that. Kathleen: And what kinds of companies does Cipher work with? John: So Cipher works with large organizations. So our ideal buyer has more than a billion dollars in revenue. Typically at least 5,000 employees, they're headquartered in the United States and they operate in industries that have one or one of two key kind of characteristics. The first is they're either highly regulated. So think financial services, insurance, healthcare, or the industries are incredibly competitive. So think about things like technology government contractors those types of industries. So those are, those are kind of the, the ingredients that make for the need for competitive intelligence. Kathleen: So side note, I just think it's really funny this doing this interview because I am interviewing you like I don't know the answers to these questions already. But everyone listening doesn't so I still need to ask them. So one of the reasons I wanted you to talk about who you work for or with the kinds of companies you work for is that, it's the thing that I have found interesting, kind of watching as you've worked there is that prior to you working at Cipher, you know, I was familiar with the field of competitive intelligence, you know, roughly but there are such different levels of it, right? I mean, the stuff that you guys do, like you were saying, it's really big companies that have, you know, the stakes are high. They have a lot to lose. It's highly competitive or regulated or this or that. It's serious business. And they have teams of people whose jobs are just to do competitive intelligence. And then you have like the kind of competitive intelligence that, that smaller companies do where you're like, I've got a Google alert on my competitor, you know, that sort of thing. And so it's, it's very interesting to me the different shades of it. So segwaying from that, you mentioned defining competitive intelligence. So like how do you guys see it? What is it, how do you define it? What is competitive intelligence? John: So so there are a couple of key definitions, just so the audience and, and the two of us are on kind of the same page here. So the first one is the difference between let's define data, information and intelligence. So an example of data might be the number three. Okay. So that is data. Alright. Information is a series of data pieces. So an example, a pretty example of information is a streetlight. So a streetlight has three different colored lights, right? Red, yellow, and green. All right. And so when red is on, I stop when yellow is, I slowed down or hit the gas. And when green is, I continue on my way. So that is, so that is information. So there's several different data points there. There's the number of lights, what the, the, the meaning of those lights. Intelligence is the product of analysis. So intelligence requires people today. So so you might hear a lot of the impact of artificial intelligence on competitive intelligence and market intelligence and things like that. So today, intelligence requires a human being to perform some type of analysis and deliver some types of insights to the business that's intelligence. And that is that's what has value. So just simply gathering information, there's no value that's delivered to the organization. It's not until a person actually applies the filters and understandings and kind of teases out what this might mean that there is any value delivered, and that is intelligence. So then I'm going to define three other terms that are often kind of used interchangeably. And they shouldn't be much like a, when we had our agency often found that people would use marketing, advertising and PR interchangeably, when, as marketers, we all know that those are completely different you know, services and they mean different things, but to the lay person, they kind of get interchanged interchangeably. So competitive intelligence market intelligence and business intelligence are often interchanged kind of the same way. So let's use business intelligence. So business intelligence, we define that as the, the information that the business intelligence is based off of information on your business. So if you think about if all of the information that we have within our four walls of our business, that is our business intelligence. Okay. So if you manufacture something that might be how many widgets that you can manufacture in an hour and how many people you need and the profitability of those widgets, et cetera. So business intelligence really means focused on your business, right? No external sources or information, it's all internal data. Market intelligence is just that it is the market. It might be trends in the market. It, it might be consumer behavior and how consumers are responding to certain trends or, or things along those lines. And then competitive intelligence is information about your markets and also your competitors and how that influences your ability to sell within your markets or deliver the services that your business does. Kathleen: So earlier you mentioned that competitive intelligence requires people, but you guys sell competitive intelligence software. So like, how does that work? John: Because software, obviously it doesn't have people in it, but so think of it as think of it as this. What's a good analogy? So if I am a marketer and I have a tool like HubSpot, which we love, because it allows me to host my website, allows me to post and schedule my social. It allows me to have my content and edit it and do keyword work. All of that helps me with my marketing strategy and deliver a strategy. So you wouldn't buy HubSpot and say, Oh, well, HubSpot is going to do my marketing strategy. It's, you know, it's going to, you know, help me be a better marketer. Yes. But it still requires people to deliver that strategy. You know, you you're using a tool. Yes. but the tools can never, they, there are at least the tools today can not replace what an analyst, a researcher, a strategist, a person, a marketer, could be a product marketer. You know, what a person does. What kinds of tools are available to support competitive intelligence? Kathleen: And I feel like there's this vast array of tools out there for competitive intelligence. Like I mentioned earlier, it's everything from a simple Google or all the way up to a platform like you guys have that is used by huge corporations. So maybe you could speak to like, kind of what that landscape looks like. John: Right. So one of the one of the things that we're trying to educate people that are looking for tools are the different types of tools. We believe there are three different kinds of tools out there. There are what we call generic tools, and those are tools that are typically they've been built for a different purpose, but they're often adopted or adapted to a competitive intelligence use. And a good example of that is SharePoint. So SharePoint wasn't built for competitive intelligence, but SharePoint is, it can be an adequate kind of knowledge management source. It can, you know, you can have teams adding information to it and downloading information. You could even, you know, use some of the collaborative features there, et cetera. And so that's like the use of a generic tool. And then you have your your second type of CI tools, a tool that is built for a specific really for a specific person purpose. And, and an example of that is, so there's a company, one of our competitors, Klue. And they do a very good job of sales enablement. So if you have a large sales team and you want to empower your sales team to close more deals, and you want to give your sales team the resources that they need to have the right information at their fingertips, when they're on calls and and kind of, and, and sell against other competitors, they're a great tool for that. And then you have the third category, which is kind of that the tool that is built specifically for competitive intelligence and, and those are tools that do primarily three things. They gather information. So they're going to allow you to aggregate information and that information could come in from newsfeeds. It might come in from subscriptions to information, the research that you have it, it might be internal documents that you have kind of those business intelligence documents that we talked about. It might be information that your sales or marketing team uncovers maybe during the course of their day. So one of the things that, that we help companies with is most companies have just, just dozens, if not hundreds of nuggets of information within the organization, but they just don't have the ability to give it visibility. So, you know, it's, you know, the salesperson that knows what he's up against for a particular deal, because the prospect shared this with them and it's sitting within his inbox and he's the only person that has access to his inbox. So the product marketing team that is getting ready to do the roadmap for their product, can't see what the customer, the prospect is looking for because they don't have access to this information. So that third tool allows all of this information to go into it. And then with our tool, we use artificial intelligence and natural language processing to automatically tag this information. And we use semantic learning for it to identify things like location company and individuals by reading through and analyzing the, the, the content that you're adding to the system. So, there are those types of tools and, and it's interesting. We did some research a couple of years ago. The pharmaceutical industry is by far kind of the most advanced commercial, competitive intelligence kind of industry. Most other industries, they're still kind of developing CI practices and, and most outside of the pharmaceutical industry. And I kind of call that life sciences. So not strictly just pharmaceuticals. Most organizations have I think it's like 1.2 people working on their CI. So not big teams, not, not at all. How can marketers use competitive intelligence? Kathleen: Yeah. It's so interesting. It's such a specialized field. I feel like you know, now coming back to kind of, the focus of this podcast obviously is inbound marketing. So a lot of marketers are listening and this can seem very unapproachable because like, for example, if you guys, you work with really large companies and they have these dedicated people let's start with what, how are those companies using competitive intelligence and how is that helping them make better business decisions or get better results from their businesses. And then we can kind of bring it back down to, for smaller companies, what are ways they could begin to approach this? So let's begin some like actual examples of how this plays out. John: Okay. So so I think that that, that the marketers marketers today, this is, this is my own belief. I believe they're, they're waking up to this need for competitive intelligence because your inbound marketing is no longer delivering the results that you were seeing before. So for just about a decade or so, we have as marketers, we've been really focused on the content I'm creating and attract, creating content, solving problems, answering questions, et cetera. And we've been rewarded with that with prospects and customers and results, and kind of the, you know, Marcus shared approach. They have questions kind of, you know, answer their questions and, and, you know, you'll be rewarded well. In the beginning that was really, really successful because there were fewer people doing it and, and the people that were doing it for the most part were really doing it. You know, it's not until much later that you're downloading the ebook and it's actually just 18 PowerPoint slides with two bullets on each slide and has nothing to do with an actual book. So we have to, as marketers look for things that are going to give us results. And so, as we were focused kind of internally on what we're talking about, what our prospects and customers are talking about, we're really ignoring what was going on in our market and our competitors. And so we were ignoring these macro issues. And so competitive intelligence is kind of the other side of the equation. So you know, you've take your prospects and your customers, and that's one piece of success. And then, but, but you can't do that in a vacuum. Those that do SEO work understand that. So you find out what your teams are, you know, what you want to rank for and what your competitors are ranking for. And then you do SEO work to help change those rankings. Well, your competitors, don't just sit still. They're also looking at what's going on in the market and looking at the actions that you're doing. And so, you know, we found this need to to address, well, how do I understand what's going on in the marketplace and how do I position myself against my competitors or the other options that that my prospects and customers have. So that's a long roundabout way of explaining how companies are using competitive intelligence to better deploy their resources. And so when, when you're doing this before, you can get to actually doing competitive intelligence work, you have to have a really clear understanding of your differentiators and, and your vulnerabilities. So that's where, you know, somebody who wants to begin doing competitive intelligence work, I would challenge them to to, to sit down and do the, the work on how are you different from your competitors, you know, and, and where do you have overlap and where is that overlap? Where does that lead to, or where could you be vulnerable because of that overlap? What impact does competitive intelligence have on businesses? Kathleen: So the larger companies that you guys work with, obviously have that part figured out. They, you know, they have their teams in place, they understand their differentiators. So when they undertake competitive intelligence, how are they using it? Like in practical terms to get better business results? Do you have some case studies or some success stories or anything like that that you can share of how, like, how does competitive intelligence produce better outcomes for these companies? John: Yes. So this was this was a very kind of rude awakening coming from the marketing agency world where you know, you have clients and you're working with clients and you're doing great work for them. And you ask your clients, Hey, you know, would you mind providing a testimonial, a quote, being a part of a, you know, a white paper case study you know, sharing your experience and, and usually it's, Oh yeah. You know, they're very supportive of that when you are in the competitive intelligence world, nobody wants to talk about the tools that they're using, what you're doing for them, because by nature of it, you are, you know, you're giving away intelligence for your competitors to use against you. Kathleen: You know what other industry is like that? Cybersecurity. I know that, of which you speak. John: So let me, I can talk in some kind of in general terms. So we estimate and Cipher has been around for 20, 25 years. We estimate that most most people doing CI work spend about 70% of their time gathering and organizing information. If we go back to the definitions that we had of data, information, and intelligence, data and information add zero value to the business. So you're spending 70% of your time on things that have no value add to the business. Only 30% of your time is on the analysis, developing the insights, you know, all of that information that your CI consumers, whether it be your sales teams, your, your C suite, your product development team, your marketers, they all need this information, but the bulk of your time is spent gathering it and, and organizing it. And, that is because your business is complicated and information comes in lots of different forms, and some of it is structured. And some of it is unstructured. You know, you have information internal reports. You have, as I mentioned before, you have emails that are received from salespeople. You have teams that are out in the field and going to trade shows and seeing you know, what your competitors, their messages at their trade show boots, you have competitor websites that are changing and messaging. And so so what our tool does is it automates a lot of that. For example we have many customers before they started using our tool Knowledge360, that would have 18 number. And some of them would have more that would manually go out to competitors' websites and look at their websites and look for changes in their websites. And that could be pricing changes if you're in an industry or, or, you know, a market that is price sensitive, you want to know about those changes. And, you know, it could be messaging changes. So by using a tool like Knowledge360, we can automate that. And so the tool goes out, it gathers the information. It says, Hey, this page has changed. It highlights the, the, the new information, you know, and, and that's, that's there in one color, it highlights the information that has been changed or removed and another color. And now an analyst can take a look at that and say, Oh, this is really meaningful. You know, so that's, that's an example of how are a tool like ours or how anyone can use competitive intelligence. So, to monitor the messaging that your competitors are using, or if they have a pricing page, you know, you can, you can monitor that for changes in their pricing. How do companies use competitive intelligence? Kathleen: So it sounds like the tool itself can be used to save time to streamline the process, but like, what are these companies doing with this information? How, like, why are they spending all this money on competitive intelligence? What is it doing things successful? John: So if you think about this so it's helping them be successful by giving insights and providing this intelligence that your decision makers are looking for. And ultimately, hopefully you're, you're enabling them to make better informed decisions. So if you think about think about someone that has you know, you're wearing glasses, but they have blinders on, and you can only see right in front of you. And you're making your decisions based on your field of vision that is just in front of you. Now, you take those away and you have a wider field of vision, and you have more information. You may, you may make a different decision. Kathleen: What's an example of something, a marketing thing that I might do differently based on the information I would find? John: So here's, here's an example. So if I have a, let's say I'm a nationwide company and I compete with someone on the East coast. Okay. And they're a good competitor. I went against them. Sometimes they went against me sometimes. But I have offices on the East coast and also on the West coast. Well, if I had a CI department, one of the things they might be monitoring or looking for is job postings with my competitors. So if all of a sudden, one of my competitors is posting a sales manager position in the Seattle market, and they're not in the Seattle market. And one of my key customers is in the Seattle market. Oh, that's something that I want to know about because it looks like my competitor is coming into, if they're going to invest in building out a sales team, putting an office in Seattle. Now, all of a sudden, my sales people that have only had to deal with maybe the competitors that were in that local market without this East coast competitor, they now need to be aware of this new competitor coming into the market. And that may change how we position ourselves. It may change how we price things. It may change, you know, the terms of her contracts. It could have all types of different information, you know, of, of business decisions that we make. How Cipher uses competitive intelligence for itself Kathleen: So I'm assuming that you guys are, as I like to say, drinking your own champagne, because I don't like the phrase eating your own dog food. So how does Cipher use competitive intelligence? John: So so we use this fantastic tool called Knowledge360. It's very comprehensive. We have several dashboards that we use. And one in particular that is called our competition crusher. And so with our competition crusher dashboard, it's a feed of news announcements on it's a feed of social. It has intelligence that our salespeople gain talking to prospects and customers. Our marketing team will add information like messaging changes that we might see and all of this battle cards. So if we know we're going up against a particular competitor, we want to, you know, we want to draw attention to these benefits of using our product. And, and if we know that there are gaps, you know, we want to ask our prospects about, you know, the gaps that we know our competitors have. So, that's one example of how we're using it to kind of gather all of that information, organize it in a way, you know, and the beauty of using something you're using a tool that provides dashboards is the dashboards are updated in real time. So unlike, you know, most people, if they have any experience or exposure to CI work it's typically a part of the, you know, quarterly sales meeting. And there's somebody that comes up that says competitor ABC is doing this. And then, you know, they share the PowerPoint deck and, you know, a quarter later another report comes out, but there's a lot of time and a lot of change that goes on between, you know, the publishing of those two different reports. And, you know, you may make different decisions having a dashboard that's always on always available, always monitoring. You're always getting the most up to date information. And so we share that with our leadership team, our sales team, marketing team, customer, all of them add to, and, and consume information from those dashboards. Prediction markets and the future of competitive intelligence Kathleen: And then real quickly, because I feel like this could be an entirely other podcast episode. I feel like with competitive intelligence, you're looking at things that have already happened, right? You guys have something I find fascinating, which is this other side to your business where you can do much more predictive stuff. It's super cool. And you have something called predictive markets. So can you, somewhat quickly because we are coming up on our time, just give people a sense of what I mean, cause that's really like competitive intelligence looking into the future, if you will, or trying to figure out what's gonna happen in the future. So how does that work? John: So that is really cool stuff and it is relatively new. So Cipher systems and another company Consensus Point, we merged towards the end of last year. Consensus Point is a a research company. So as competitive intelligence professionals, they gather information and they do research. You have two primary types of research yet. Primary research and secondary research, secondary research being research that's available to anyone and those might be market reports or things that are publicly available and anyone has access to those or they're not restricted. Primary research is research that you do, you hire someone to do on your behalf and that's information that you have. And that if, if done correctly and on the appropriate things could be a competitive advantage having this primary information or more information about a particular topic. Well, what you're talking about is predictive markets research. So if you think about primary research, most people are familiar with polls and surveys. And so that is a traditional kind of primary research method that is it's, it's very effective for certain things. It's also riddled with problems for other things, for example human beings in general, we are very poor predictors of our own performance. So you know, just ask anyone with a child and ask them how bright their child is. Nobody is going to tell you that their child is below average average, you know, they're Oh, you know, top 1%, 10%, 5%. Well, that's not true because most of us are average. Kathleen: That's why it's the definition. 90% of us are not in the top 10%.  John: That's exactly right. So what a prediction market is, is it is think of a market, probably one of the most common is the stock market. So, you know, the stock market is a platform where people have are placing wagers on whether or not, you know, the value of a company is going to increase or decrease. So if you think about this, and this is a great book that I'll have to give you. It's by a poker player. I'll give it to you so you can add to the show notes, but basically if you ask somebody, you know, do you think Apple stock is going to be higher than it is the value of it is going to be higher in one month from today's point you know, you might say, yes. Okay, well, how much are you willing to bet it's up? So if you put real money, your hard earned money, like how many shares of Apple stock are you willing to purchase at today's price? Check out "Thinking In Bets" by Annie Duke John: You know, and it is, are your beliefs, do they change? So a prediction market is, you are using the social behavioral characteristics of individuals and their collective kind of wisdom of the crowd, thinking about whether or not the probability of something becoming true or taking place. And so that is a much more accurate indicator of actual events that happen than simply asking someone in a survey or a poll. So now, what we're so excited about is the two of those together. So now you know, our platform, not only do we help aggregate information that you're gathering and do that analysis on it, we are now adding this research component to the tool as well, so that you can do your research. You can, you know, you can store it within one central repository and you can make it available to the organization as it needs to be Kathleen: Cool. And I know you guys are using it for things like trying to predict what the world post COVID is going to look like and all kinds of other really interesting forward looking applications. So thank you for sharing that. Kathleen's two questions Kathleen: We are now coming towards the end of our time, so I wanna make sure I squeeze in my couple of questions that I ask everybody. The first is, of course we are all about inbound marketing on this podcast. So is there a particular company or individual that you think is really killing it with inbound marketing right now? John: Let's see, you know, I I just recently became aware of a tool MarketMuse. I think that they're doing a very good job with their messaging, kind of very classic, kind of inbound marketing freemium model, et cetera. So I would say that they're one company that does a really good job of inbound marketing. And I have to say then another one that comes to mind and you know, full disclosure here, I'm a customer and and a big fan of Databox. I think Databox, and Pete Caputa's doing a phenomenal job there. He cranks out more content and they use their chat panel to support customers and are really all about helping customers solve problems. And they're, they're doing a fantastic job. I think, of inbound marketing. Kathleen: Yeah, Pete's awesome. And fun fact, he was a very early guest of this podcast. So if you want to get some insight into how Pete does marketing, you can listen to that episode with him. And I will put that link in the show notes. Question number two. The biggest challenge I hear marketers share with me is that so much changes so quickly in the world of digital marketing. So how do you personally keep yourself educated and up to date on everything that's going on? John: I have a hugely unfair advantage being married to a fantastic marketer who is constantly scouring the interweb for the latest and greatest tool and slacking me at home because yes, we have our own personal Slack channel for our youngest son and Kathleen and myself. But, selfishly I rely heavily on what you share with me. Kathleen: Well, that's a valid answer and it's true. I mean, it's so funny. So we're sitting here, it's during the COVID pandemic and of course we're still working from home. So I am up in my office, which is on the second floor of our house. John is in his current office, which is smack dab in the middle of our kitchen. And we are Zooming with each other from two rooms away and yes, we Slack each other from two rooms away all week long. So we are the big old marketing nerds that do that. How to connect with John Kathleen: All right. If somebody wants to connect with you learn more about Knowledge360, ask you a question about competitive intelligence. What is the best way for them to connect with you online?  John: I would say the best way to connect with me is via LinkedIn. John Booth, like the guy that shot Lincoln, but not related. And if you want to learn more about Knowledge360, you can go out to Cipher-sys.com or TryK360.com and learn. You know what to do next... Kathleen: Awesome. I will share that in the show notes. Thank you for joining me, John. I know you have a busy day. We are recording on a Sunday and I'm pretty sure there's like some kind of house project that you want to be working on instead of recording a podcast with me. And if you're listening and you learn something new and you like what you heard, please, head to Apple podcasts, leave the podcast at five star review. That is how other people find us. And I would really appreciate it. But that is it for this week. Thank you, John. John: Thank you, Kathleen. Kathleen: And happy father's day. Because we are recording on father's day. You're the best for doing this for me. Thank you. Alright. That's it for this week. Thanks for listening everyone.

"I've read a lot into behavioral psychology, and one thing that is appreciated across the board regardless of the therapist or psychologist is that you change the environment, you change the behavior." John Fitch I'm Douglas Ferguson, and I'm on a mission to help people everywhere have better meetings. There's clear evidence that poorly run meetings not only waste time, but they also squander a lot of money. A recent report by Doodle found that $541 billion is lost globally every year on common meeting mistakes–and that's just the report from the County for Direct Labor Costs. This staggering amount translates into opportunity costs we incur from ineffective meetings. I'm excited to have John Fitch with me today! John is the CPO at Voltage Control and the author of Time Off. John is an author, business model generator, and prototype creator. He enjoys deep, intentional work that leads to the facilitation of new ideas and business models. John is a big fan of compartmentalization, especially with work colleagues, projects, and phases of projects. He stresses the importance of reflection and the design lens of conversation. John believes that compartmentalizing takes conversation design, "which I admit, I'm not a pro at, but I know that to compartmentalize we need to talk about it, have a language about it. I think it's fascinating," he says.  With COVID-19 and many of us working from home, John stresses the importance of having clearly compartmentalized spaces. "Now, if work is in your home and you haven't developed a rest ethic and have yours defined, and you're intentional about it, now that work is at home, it can be surrounding you at all times." Learning how to take time off can be an investment in many ways. It can help create new ideas and turn activities into meditation time, to name a few. Time off can also bring you awareness of what you do in a space of rest so that you can be intentional about how you spend time away from work. Find out why you should use breaks in your projects or meetings, how our days can be dictated by our emotional behaviors, and how you can have boot-up and boot-down time for your creative process.   Show Highlights [01:45] Time Off–the book and what it means to have a Rest Ethic. [02:22] Compartmentalizing work matters. [04:25] Doing specific tasks in your own space can help with compartmentalization. [07:29] Use your transition time commuting as a slow interstitial time-off switch. [08:05] Superhuman and it’s relevance to complexity theory. [08:54] Driving and music can be a form of meditation. [10:57] Incubation and the process of stepping away from the thing you are trying to achieve leads to more success.  [13:02] Use exercise to think through challenges–John’s interview with Terry Rudolph, a Quantum Physicist. [18:20] Build intentional time into your schedule for rest during meetings or projects. [21:31] Emotional triggers, both positive and negative, lead to a biased judgment of work. [26:15] Utilizing rest time requires a transition period and acclimation periods. [30:27] How John upgraded his business through time off and a real-life example from his book. [32:15] Intentionally plan time off and give others a heads up that you are planning to be disconnected. [34:17] When you lead a room, read others and be prepared to facilitate. [38:24] John’s recommendations to leaders for facilitating better meetings. [42:25] How you should reframe activities in your own mind. Links and Resources John Fitch Time Off  Time Off Podcast About the Guest John Fitch is a maker who loves tinkering and building prototypes of products and businesses. “When new ideas aren't successful, it’s usually because a team was overconfident about how well customers and users would understand the idea and how much they would perceive its value.” He specializes in enabling teams to receive customer and user reactions before making any expensive commitments. This process involves a lot of play, unlearning, and empathy. About Voltage Control Voltage Control is a facilitation agency that helps teams work better together with custom-designed meetings and workshops, both in-person and virtual. Our master facilitators offer trusted guidance and custom coaching to companies who want to transform ineffective meetings, reignite stalled projects, and cut through assumptions. Based in Austin, Voltage Control designs and leads public and private workshops that range from small meetings to large conference-style gatherings.  Share An Episode of Control The Room Apple Podcasts Spotify Android Stitcher Engage Control The Room Voltage Control on the Web Contact Voltage Control Intro: Welcome to the Control the Room Podcast, a series devoted to the exploration of meeting culture and uncovering cures for the common meeting. Some meetings have tight control, and others are loose. To control the room means achieving outcomes while striking a balance between imposing and removing structure, asserting and distributing power, leaning in and leaning out, all in the service of having a truly magical meeting. Douglas: I’m super excited to have John Fitch on the show this week. And John Fitch is the chief product officer at Voltage Control and the author of Time Off. Welcome to the show, John. John: Douglas, it's an honor to be on a podcast episode with you, deep in conversation. And it's also one of those classic funny lines where they're like, “Hey, it's been a while,” whereas right before recording this, you and I were prototyping some cool stuff. So it’s cool, then, to transition from the intensity, deep work of prototyping to a more casual conversation. Douglas: In a way, this casual conversation comes off as a bit of time off compared to the deep, intentional work that's required for facilitation. John: Well said. And you said a word there that is really important. You said intentional. And in the book Time Off and the whole point of view I have is we talk about it's important to have a work ethic, and we just proved that, prototyping some awesome software. We did it with an intentional work ethic. And having an intentional rest ethic is what the book Time Off is all about. So you’re right. And time off can be active, which is another, I think, eye opener for our readers. It doesn't just mean vegging out on the couch, which is totally fine, that's a form of time off, but sometimes stopping what you're doing and just having an awesome conversation with a colleague, a friend. In this case, you're both of those. So, yeah. Good point. Douglas: Excellent. And I want to get to your background a little bit. But before we do, I love this notion of being able to be friends and colleagues at the same time. And I think there is this notion of compartmentalization that's so important to be able to do those things. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this notion of compartmentalization. John: I think it’s fantastic to compartmentalize lots of things. And especially with those you work with, but it's important to compartmentalize the projects, and what phase is it in. I think we've talked many times before in our facilitation coaching that it's important to look at your meeting culture through seasons. That's a compartmentalization, right? You've decided, hey, right now we're in a season of production, or we're in a season of reflection or redesign or growth. And all of those have been intentionally compartmentalized. And so I think across relationships, that's really important. But also within your company culture, within yourself, you've got to compartmentalize parts of yourself. Like, I can't necessarily bring the version of me that's going out hunting and hiking to every prototyping session I have. And so I think that mindfulness and that internal check in, both for yourself but also across your team, is just, you know, that's the beauty of reflection and intention. So I think it's cool to just simply talk about it. And I know you've had Daniel Stillman on the podcast and so cool to just think about the design lens of conversation. And to your point, compartmentalizing things, I think takes a lot of amazing conversation design that I know I'm not a pro at. But I know that to compartmentalize, we've got to talk about it, we have to have a language about it. So I think it's fascinating. Douglas: You know, it's interesting you bring up this notion of hunting or fishing, and I think exercise can play a role there, these things that have a space associated with them. You go to do those things in that space tend to help with compartmentalization because you can think of that it serves a purpose. Right at the beginning of COVID, I read some really fascinating writings by psychologists that were saying to really think about how you redesign your space and the purpose each room has for you so that you can still compartmentalize your life, even though you're confined to a much smaller, let's say, footprint. John: Yeah. It’s fascinating. I've been thinking about now, since Time Off is out, you have friends and readers who reach out, and they’re like, “Hey, have you thought about what you're writing next?” And in regard to the whole Time Off sort of franchise, if I'm to use that word, I think a natural follow up would be time on and intentional time on. And then a book title that I'm the most excited about regarding what you just said would be a title something like Time Away. I, too, have read a lot into behavioral psychology, and one thing that is pretty much appreciated across the board, regardless of the therapist or psychologist, is you change the environment, you change the behavior. And that's so fascinating. And, yeah, right now we're all limited. You and I can't both just pack our bags and go to Ireland. Well, I mean, I guess we could, but probably not smart at the moment. But just by changing things up in your own house. I remember—remind me of Linda's last name, who spoke at Control the Room. Douglas: Linda Baker. John: Yeah. Linda Baker. She gave a presentation on feng shui, and I think that's under that lens of energy design, space design. And it is amazing if you just rearrange things. And I know I've been on so many Zoom calls with you. You’ve really transformed your office, I assume for the better. But all of those intentional environment changes have, I would assume, changed your behavior. Would you say so? Douglas: Absolutely. You know, I’ve created stations, if you will, within my house, so that each spot’s almost like traveling to a new—it's like a replica of what I had previously. I've got the space where I'm doing workshops. I got the space where I’m boxing and doing Pilates. I got the space where I'm eating. I got the space where I'm relaxing, and I got the place where I'm sleeping. I try to keep those responsibilities delineated and compartmentalized so I can be very intentional about what I'm going to do and how I spend that time. John: And that’s really important. I think that's one thing I've been thinking a lot about with the pandemic. In some ways, it was a big, forced time off for some people, depending on their context. But also, I didn't really think about this because it'd been so long since I had the lifestyle of, oh, I go to a workplace. I work. I leave. I go home. A lot of people that going home, that interstitial time, was sort of a slow time-off switch. Like, they were going home, and when they went home, they were able to leave work at the office and home is home, and that's a clear compartmentalization. Whereas now if work is in your home and you haven't developed, as we call it, a rest ethic and have yours defined and you're intentional about it, now that work’s at home, it could just be surrounding you at all times. Douglas: Yeah. It’s not only the compartmentalization you're describing, it's the transition. And, you know, in complexity theory, whenever we're talking about complexity theory, one of the examples I love to give is Superman. Superman doesn't turn from Clark Kent into Superman instantaneously. He goes into the phone booth and changes. And likewise, when we're moving from simple to complicated or complex, we can't just transition from those domains instantaneously. We have to go through some transformation and recall that disorder. And I know for a fact I used to—I live out in the country, and my drive home, I always planned it so that I would never be stuck, because I hate sitting still in traffic, but I love driving. And just the motion, my thoughts form and dissolve and reform. And it's a great way for me to, I think, it's almost like active meditation. We've talked about this before, John. John: I’m curious. Is there a particular playlist or something you would listen to in that transition time? Douglas: You know, it's interesting, John. You know I have very eclectic music tastes, and so I have about, gosh, I don’t even know what the total is. I think it’s somewhere in the realm of, like, 500,000 songs on a USB thumb drive. And it’s amazing because it used to be that back in the day, it was like a wall full of CDs. I still have a whole shelfful of albums, but now I have this thumb drive that's like the size of a—I mean, it's so tiny. It's maybe two centimeters or something. It’s the tiniest little thumb drive. And I just put it on random. And the nice thing about listening to a really eclectic database of music on random, I can always skip something if I'm not in the mood for it. But it's the weird serendipities of things that flow from one thing to another. And I might be on a thread of thought, and then it totally changes my gears because it intercepts where I'm at and re-shifts me. So I kind of like being taken on a journey that I'm not having to plan, that I'm not having to put thought into, and I just flow with it.   John: I like it. It’s like the audio version of Google's Feeling Lucky feature. I mean, that's a cool environment change. I mean, it's your audio’s mind space. You're just allowing serendipity. And I actually think that has a lot of beautiful correlation to our book Time Off, which a lot of times people who haven't talked to me or read the book when I just surface level tell them, “Yeah, I wrote this book,” they’re like, “Oh, that’s cool. You wrote a book on vacations,” and I’m like, “No, no, no, no. It’s our goal, my coauthor’s and I’s goal, is to really expand the connotation of time off, not just being vacation from work.” It’s micropractices. And why it’s important is we looked at the creative process, and there’s four phases of it. And one of the phases that’s absolutely essential is called incubation, and it’s when you’re not actively working on the thing you’re trying to achieve. It’s by stepping away from it, by doing something else. Again, that could be something very passive. It could be something very active, like an intense workout. The point is, is your subconscious and other parts of your brain are able to work in the background in those moments.   And so what I like about your random music selection is that is a form of incubation that—well, you’re driving, so you can’t really actively code or do  any of your workshop facilitation work, but you're able to be an open channel. And so those sounds come through, and who knows what memories that ignites, and one idea can flow into the next. And I know a type A personality like me really benefited from changing my perspective of time off of this, like, I'm not working to, like, no, it's actually a very productive practice for an investment in better ideas or an investment to an epiphany, perhaps. So I like that you’re just opening it up. You don't know what's going to come. Douglas: Yes. It's really fantastic. And one of my other favorite active-meditation techniques is actually just going to the gym and just having my sauna time, getting into a groove of—there’s a Pilates routine that I kind of developed out of my greatest hits, the things I really, really like. There’s a spine corrector and some different exercises on the Cadillac that I've done so many times that I don’t even have to think about what's next. I just go in there and I flow through it. I'll do that as a warmup, as a way of stretching and getting ready to do something more intense. And an hour will just evaporate. I'm not thinking about much of anything. And I found that time to be very valuable, and I miss it terribly because it's really hard to recreate that at home. John: It's really cool that you brought up exercise. That's one of the many deep dives in our book Time Off, and it reminds me of—we interviewed this quantum physicist named Terry Rudolph. And exercise is a really big part of his rest ethic, and he gave us—each person we interview, we ask them to give very practical advice for the reader to immediately try. And his was—and you could replace the word run with any kind of movement. But he essentially said, look, run hard to empty your mind, or jog slowly to think through a problem without distractions. And so he essentially told us, if you need to clear your mind, go really hard. So that could be your high-intensity workouts. And challenge yourself so that you're not able to think about anything, basically. And you just kind of get lost on focusing on not dying in that high-intensity activity. So it's, in a way, you’re unplugged for a while and getting back to the body. Or as, if you want to use a workout as productivity, you could set some clear intentions or questions to contemplate in advance, and then use that time off exercising to really give you a macro view. So that could be, like, as you've told me, in the sauna or in Pilates, where it is active, you're definitely working out, but there's enough space in there for you to dream up, have a macro view. And so I think that's a cool oscillation of intention. And also, that analogy could be made to a work project. There's times where, like today, actually, you and I were prototyping. You can only do that for so long, just like you can only sprint for so long on the Treadmill, or you can only stay in the really intense, infrared sauna for so long. And so it's just being aware of that oscillation and intentional about it to reap the benefits and not just choosing and obsessing over one. Douglas: That’s right. And I think that it's another thing to think about how you might hijack some of the systems to do things that you might need, because you, not to overuse the word hijacking, but imagine your emotions. Your brain chemistry is hijacking you at the moment. Well, then going for a really long run, in a way, you're kind of depriving yourself of oxygen, because everything's just devoted to surviving that intensity. Whatever weird conversation you just had with someone that didn't sit well, that's going to all be history. And so then you'll be in a much better headspace to analyze it, synthesize it, and address it. So that's interesting. Time off can be both micro and macro, I guess. John: I’m curious. That's a good point. So I'm just, in real time, I know you have a ton of experience in music and especially in synthesizers and other instruments. I mean, you've helped produce music. And if you think about it, time off is essential in music, too. Time off between certain notes gives you a rhythm. Time off from one section of the orchestra is important to evoke a certain emotion. I'm curious in, like, synthesizer space, is time off an important part of your whole setup? I’m just totally randomly curious about that. Douglas: Yeah. It's no different than other music, right? You’ve got micro timing, which, to bring it back to the micro and macro, you’ve got these moments with inside the melody itself, where literally—and if we want to really break it back down to the voltages, the voltage is either on or it's off. If the voltage was on the entire time, nothing would happen, because the system would just be totally primed. You'd imagine it would just be complete stress, right? So in order to have anything interesting happen, it needs to oscillate up and down. So the voltage goes positive and it goes negative. Or if it's d.c., it goes just positive and zero. And that's where you get these really cool modulations, where really stuff interesting happens. But I think if you were going to really bring it back to work and life and habits and how we keep our brains healthy, we also need to think about the frequency of isolation, because I would argue that even if you're having too much rest and the contact switch alone could be exhausting, just switching between turn it on and off. So I think that the frequency is important to having it too fast, the duration too short, and then switch is too fast, it's probably equally harmful. John: Hm. You and I have been conductors of a lot of rooms. It's been a great honor we’re able to learn so much when we do that. I'm curious before I go in, because I've contemplated it for a few years, putting the book together, but in your own master facilitation, whether it's a large-group gathering or a small team or a design sprint, Douglas, how have you used time off as a function as a facilitator? Anything come to mind? Douglas: Well, yeah. I mean, there's the cardinal rule of the 90-minute break. We don't want to go over 90 minutes before we have breaks, and making sure that that's written into the agenda and being very strict about seeing to that. Also, just time away from the material can be really powerful, whether that's by design—we build something into the agenda for us to kind of take a tour around through something different. It's exactly the reason why you might do improv games or icebreakers and these types of things, where we intentionally want to move the energy or the patterns through the room. And it's definitely an amazing tool when things get uncomfortable, and it's unproductively uncomfortable, and we can call a break. We can use that time to let people disperse and then come back together at a time. It's similar to going on that sprint, letting the emotions discharge so that we can come back together when people are a little less emotional or a little less spun up. John: Yeah. It reminds me when I was in film school, we took this class, and I was really focused on being a producer, which was kind of the business mind, the coordinator of the project. But in order to do that, you had to take editing, and you had to take directing. And I remember being really fascinated by, in our directing class, one of the biggest tips we heard from renowned filmmakers was if you're the director, I think on average, it was like two or three months was the minimum recommended from when your filming ended, so all of your production of the live action footage, etc. Two to three months between that and when you sat down the first time with your editor, because you needed to be detached from the material, because there may have been a particular shot, a particular line, a particular character, that in that time of production you were just really excited about personally and in detaching from a while allowed their advice. And I definitely, when I was producing documentaries, benefited from this advice, that by the time you had been so detached, you were able to really reflect and kind of come to the material new again and work with the editor from the perspective, more of a new viewer versus someone who's been deep in the weeds for a long time. Douglas: Yeah, that’s interesting. I feel like the weeds could cause a couple of problems. If I were to bring it back to design sprints, it's a reason that we encourage people not to do any synthesis at the end of day five. So if you've done interviews all day, you're going to be suffering from recency bias from the most recent interview. Just go clear your head over the weekend and come back. Take that time off to let it all just dissipate, disassociate from whatever happened. It was much more effective. And John, it makes me wonder. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this. Do you think there could be things around emotional triggers that are—I mean, maybe that scene was filmed on your birthday. People were giving you lots of Happy Birthdays and encouragement; maybe you got a cool gift from someone. Or maybe you found out your grandmother was sick the day this other scene was filmed. And so could you have these associations with them that are subconscious, where you might judge them in ways that aren’t accurate? John: Oh, that's certainly the reason you need a team, because of that complexity of influences. And I actually wish that I would have known how much that my film-school experience would have prepared me to work in software and design. I had no idea. I think I would have been much more intentional as a student because we had these—and I mean, you and I do them all the time, working together, and we help organizations get comfortable with doing them. We just have a different language for it—but in film school, we call them design crits, “crits” short for critique. And you would show up with your work in progress, a.k.a. a prototype; and you would sit there with about eight to nine others; show the 90 seconds, four-minute clip, whatever the professor allowed for. I mean, you had to get good at taking feedback, and through repetition, it was not easy first. But by the time I graduated, you look at feedback as this beautiful gift. And it's because of yes, there's certain things that I'm attached to. And how many John Fitch's are there in the world? I mean, I'm sure there's some people with a similar psychographic as me, but that's not going to get me an award-winning film. And so just exposing yourself to more and more feedback early on, I think, humbles you and gets you out of your own head with all of those influences, because someone will resonate with something that you might think is not that exciting. Whereas you can see a pattern of something your deep—like to your points earlier, something around, oh, my birthday happened, and I had a super-good day, and we shot that one scene, and that scene's got to be in the film. And unless I get checked by a team or early viewers, early testers, that could be a poor decision on the quality of the story. And so, we are in the art of helping people, I think, quickly adapt, thanks to the gift of feedback. Douglas: It's amazing, right? It’s interesting. Even if your time off isn't giving you the answers, like we can rely on the perception of others, the perspective of others. And I want to come back to this notion of, I feel like a lot of this is borne out of kind of tech burnout and getting in these situations where people are overworked and they need to kind of step away from things so they can do better work. It's almost like a rejuvenation and a recovery, to use the athlete metaphor. If you train all the time, you'll just wear yourself out. There has to be time for recovery. So that's why people do the sauna, the ice bath, the compression sleeves. Take a day off. Take a week off. Heal. And I've been thinking a bit lately about this notion of flipping the switch from active to inactive or time on to time off. And I've personally found it a bit difficult just to completely flip that switch into the other mode, and it’s because we kind of prime our nervous system and our mind and our habitual states, the things that we kind of get acclimated to, and how we spend our days are based off of behaviors. And as we were kind of going through this transition for moving more and more things, pretty much going to a 100 percent virtual facilitation company versus a 15, 20 percent virtual company, it required a lot of my work and attention, and I poured myself into it, partly to support the community, but also to make sure the company stay alive and survive this transition. And now that I've got a lot of things in place and I'm confident about where we are, I’ve started to pull back. And as I've done so, it's been great to have some of that time off and to be able to shut off and think about other things and come back to it. The other thing I've noticed is that it's a continuum. You know, if you look at a thermometer, if you put a thermometer into boiling water and you turn the stove off, it's going to take a while for that thermometer to get back down. You can't just go straight into the other mode. And so I'm just curious if you thought much about these, that it's around these kind of this rest time and even making use of it might require some transition. It's not just like, let's just go do it. Okay, I'm doing it. It's like I need to almost, like, train myself to be able to function in that mode properly. John: You threw the perfect slow-motion softball pitch to me right now. This is the whole thing that the backstory that led to Time Off. To answer this is, again, we put together these two words. I had not come across it before. Not going to be—I can't say I invented it. They're just two separate words that we put together. But rest ethic. So work ethic for me is like someone with a solid work ethic, they're not just carelessly driving themselves for no reason. They put high intention. They're good at prioritization, decision making, etc. They follow up with what they're going to do. Intentional work ethic, to your point, yes, to get the most out of rest, it's going to take some intention. And so those things you're feeling are real. And I learned, and I'm going to simplify it, and I think each person has to figure out their own transition art. But when I was at Animal Ventures, a firm that did prototyping with a lot of supply chain automation work, my two business partners were the ones that opened me up to this whole concept of time off. And our model of time on, time off by no means is copy, paste at other cultures. But based on how we worked and what we did, we were able to establish a model where everyone worked for three months. So think about a quarter. And then after that quarter, you had a month mini sabbatical, and we had to stagger those. And a lot of people hear that and they're like, “Oh, that sounds amazing.” Well, we had to really design that out and practice it. And before that month off, there was a lot of preparation, not just like, “Hey, I'm going to go away for a month.” You decentralized your functions as a person. Each person has responsibilities and things they handle, and those would be documented, and in a way, diversified across a few other people that would be still in their time-on mode. Or you would think about ways to automate it more. So we were all—again, it was this intentional thing you would do. It was like the time-off prep so that it wasn't like all of a sudden massive switch off and then shit falls through the cracks and things aren't operationalized. So a lot of intention. And then also—so then you’d go have your time off, and if you did that prep right—you really were off, and you didn't have to freak out during your time off because your functions were not only handed over, they were going to be upgraded because that was one of the points, is new people get a hold of those functions, and they're able to poke holes in it and be like, “Oh, that's not that efficient. We could do better.” Or a new technology comes out in your month that you're off, and the people upgrade the operations. And then, let's say I would come back from that that mini sabbatical. I had a re-acclimation period, sort of like altitude adjustment, where it wasn’t just like I came back on Monday, and it’s boom, full blow. The last one I had done at the firm when I was still there was a week-long acclimation period where I’m not necessarily back to work. I’m understanding what has changed. That was one category. The second of work was I was giving in sharing my epiphanies on how my position, my department, my product ownership, whatever it was, I mean, that time off gave me a lot of epiphanies. And so I would share, “Hey, here's how I think it could be better,” and we would workshop that. And then the people that handled my functions while I was gone would then report to me saying, “Hey, we ran your functions while you were away, and we upgraded it.” And so I had to now—I had literally an upgraded playbook for the position. And so all of us were upgrading the business-culture software through this time off. And so the ramp up and the ramp down is often never practiced. And that's important. And I think a beautiful analogy is you're an athlete and you warm up, then you do—well, in that case, the hardcore work, in this case, the hard core time off—and then you have a cool down, and you re-acclimate. And that's really important to do. One of the micro tips in the book that I'll give you an example of a mistake I made where I didn't take my own advice. We interviewed Tiffany Shlain. She came up with this concept called the Tech Shabbat, where, for a 24-hour period, you don't interact with any screens. And it's a really powerful exercise, especially given that we work in screens a lot. I find that it slows down time. In a way, I get bored on purpose, and it's just really fun what you end up filling that time with. And what's funny is the first time I did one, I did not take that advice of prep and then acclimate. And it was awesome. I was like, time slowed down. I’m enjoying no screen time for a weekend. And when I get back to my phone on Sunday, my iPad, and I open it up, I have, like, 25 missed calls and all these texts, and it was from my mom and her friends because my mom is so used to chatting with me on the weekends. She was like, “All his devices are off. All his phones off.” She thought I got kidnapped and was freaking out. And then that stressed me out. And so I could have easily prepped her. And that’s just a little micro example of, great, you have some intentional time off planned; make sure to prepare for it. And then, also, integrate yourself in a meaningful way back, because it is hard to go from a very rested rhythm and state and then suddenly just drop it in. It’s like you call it boot-up time in a lot of the meeting culture at work you do, Douglas. And I think there's boot-up time, but there's also—what would it be, boot down?— to also get prepared again to take time off. Douglas: Yeah. You had to open, explore, and close, right? John: Yeah. So that's something that can be applied on the micro and macro as well. And it's helpful, too, because in the time off, there's not only the gift of recharging and building your enthusiasm back up, but you're going to have—again, it's an important part of the creative process. It's called incubation. And then following incubation is illumination. That's the aha. That's the moment of clarity. That's like you've zoomed out peregrine-falcon-level view. You're looking at things differently because you're detached for once. And that's when we unlearn and rethink things. Douglas: Yeah, I love that. And it also reminds me of not only do we need to prepare ourselves, we also need to prepare others. So setting those expectations and making sure that others aren't going to be negatively impacted by—because if it's completely selfish, then it's not going to necessarily serve us when we go to do our deep work again, because we usually have to collaborate with others or others are going to be the benefactors of our work. And so I think it's really awesome that the book shows this path where people can be really, really intentional about their rest ethic, so how they help inform others, how they help prepare others. I think it's really wise. John: Yeah. And it's important, too, for leaders to—and I know you and I've talked about, especially in the art of facilitation, read the room and be aware. For I think leaders to feel more confident, I mean, just based on some of the early readers who’ve been reaching out to me that are in a position of leadership and influence, their biggest question after being won over on the importance of time off is, “Okay, now I need to work with my team to figure out what our more-detailed time-off strategies and operations are.” And that's awesome, and I'm glad that they're thinking about that, and they'll work through it, because until that intention and design is put forward, the time off and rest ethic in a business context is generally just a short little clause in vacation policy. Whereas it can be so much more manageable, I think, and smart, if it's a daily, a weekly, a monthly, it's not just this, like, “Oh, yeah, you decide when you take time off, and here's our policy.” To actually embrace it and to workshop it and to figure it out for the context of that business is something we hope leaders think about after they read it, because it expands that definition that time off is not just vacation and mai tais on a beach. I mean, our sub chapters are things like sleep, solitude, exercise, reflexion, play, which you and I talk a lot about. And then also our relationship to technology. And the last thing I'll say that I'd be curious to get your ping-pong, back and forth. I think the most mind-blowing thing that we uncovered in the opening section, which is called “Time Off Throughout History,” it’s like 100,000-foot view of humanity’s relationship to work and leisure, and we found we kind of knocked the dust off of this brilliant thought series from Aristotle, who talked about this concept of noble leisure. And actually, the word school, which goes back to, I think it was pronounced schola or scala, meant leisure. They looked at it as what we did in our leisure time, which nowadays we would call extracurricular or volunteer or play time or hobby time, that was the most respected thing humans did. It was noble because in those moments we would think to ourselves what’s possible, what’s a better society, we would share, we care about the environment. Literally, because of noble leisure, they invented mathematics and philosophy, these things that propel humanity forward. And why I got excited about that is he said that one day all of culture would have the opportunity to revisit noble leisure because we would eventually automate the mundane. And you and I think a lot about artificial intelligence and how that’s impacting the future of work. And we’re helping companies think about rescaling, retooling their teams to be more focused on these human skills, these soft skills, however you want to call them. But I just get excited because I agree that Aristotle, his advice of noble leisure, we're at a time in human history where that's not so much of a pipe dream anymore. You could argue that once, who knows, a decade, two decades from now, with automation—and you would know more than I on the accuracy—that real humanness, that noble leisure is kind of what’s left for us, the more that mundane is not only better suited for machines, but I think that helps humans get back to those quality moments. Douglas: So, John, when we’re thinking about how facilitators can make use of these concepts and maybe help teams perform better or work better together, what comes to mind? What recommendations do you have to have better meetings or to just be better facilitators, in light of what you've kind of uncovered in the book Time Off? John: So, I mentioned some of the sub chapters that are in there, of the components that make up a rest ethic, things like reflection, solitude, play. And I think that's really important to incorporate those types of practices into your workshop, your meeting, because in all of those activities that I just mentioned, you see people in a lot of joy. And for example, you and I have been in some workshops, and when I was working on the reflection chapter in the book, there was this question that is in there around, when was the last time you felt like a kid, or what activity do you do that you feel the most childlike while you're doing it? And when you ask that in a professional setting, people’s answers, they light up, and there’s that inner child that’s still in there. And that question—let’s say, we’re brought in. It’s a serious problem, and we've got to figure it out, and we're there to facilitate it and workshop it. And it's definitely serious, and we've got to do the work, and we're going to have an awesome workshop. We're going to produce a prototype. We're going to produce an artifact. We're going to drive outcomes. Pretty serious stuff. But if you sprinkle in these moments of what I'll call time off from the deep work, from the actual serious thing, it actually improves the overall process because, again, it goes down to that creative process. You're leaving some time for incubation and illumination, because then after that, you have verification, which is all about, okay, actually doing the work to see if that idea is worth a damn. And in the first one—I mentioned it was four phases—is preparation, which is also deep work as you prepare to do things again. And so if you implement time-off practices into any of your workshops, look at them as investments and illumination and incubation for your participants. And also, it helps them rebuild enthusiasm if you go for a walk or you just say, “Hey, we take breaks seriously,” because I've been around facilitators that I don't know what their reasons are, but they don't incorporate meaningful breaks and rest within the workshop. And you can tell when it's 3:00 p.m., 4:00 p.m., people are just like, they're done. They're checked out. It's like forcing someone to just continue hill sprints over and over. And so that would be the first thing is ask yourself what moments in our workshop could benefit from incubation and illumination? And have fun with it, and whatever vocabulary you choose to use, I think your participants are going to appreciate that time off, because I think when we think about workshops, meetings, seminars, conferences, the art of gathering, that can be tiring. And I think with facilitators that incorporate more rest, people can be less intimidated by it all. So that'd be the first thing, Douglas. The second thing is facilitators—and you and I are facilitators. We do a lot of facilitation, and we know people that do more facilitation than we do. It is hard, and it is a lot of energy that is used to hold space and pay attention and document and solve problems and deal with conflict. It is no joke. And you could look at time off as time management, but I've been thinking about it more and more as energy management. And so I think to do your best work as a facilitator, you also deserve those intentional moments of time off to not only make sure you don't get overworked and overwhelmed and burned out, but you'll benefit, too. Maybe by stepping away for once, you'll completely rethink one of your workshop modules; or you'll reflect on some feedback that someone gave you, and you'll level up, or you'll come up with an entirely new idea for a workshop or an activity. But I just wanted to make sure to say that, I mean, today you and I were wrapping up a design sprint and then doing prototyping, and there is definitely a part of me that's like, “Yeah, I still have a few more things to do. But my internal compass is also talking to me, saying ‘That was intense, and you can now go into the garden and cook a nice meal and rest and be back at it tomorrow.’” So those are two things I would think about, and try to reframe it in your mind from a place of starting to eliminate this idea that you're not effective if you're not working. I think that's something society is unlearning—I hope our book helps—is this whole concept of visible busyness. Just because you’re active doesn’t mean you’re effective. Whereas, I think a lot of people assume it’s true. And once you reframe and see rest as productive because it helps with recharge and illumination and incubation, you’ll start taking it as serious as your time on. Douglas: It's also, I believe, in the serendipity of if you can manage to do those things when you most need them, I think it'd be much more effective because it's timely. And it's sort of like eating before you. You're just ravenously hungry. And I found the co-facilitator has been an interesting way to have those micro moments where I can have some time off. I know how to be 100 percent on the entire workshop, and I found that to be, those workshops are much less draining. John: I’m so glad you remixed it to that. I've been thinking a lot about that lately, Douglas. You and I have co-facilitated a lot, and I think that’s a really important message for the future of work as facilitation becomes more and more relevant, especially now in virtual work, too. Just having multiple facilitators not only provides that time off but you have a skill set that gives you strengths in certain activities. Let's say there's a meeting narrative. Let's just go with the open, explore, close. There's parts of your personality where you're really great at the explore and the close, and maybe I'm just, like, a master of the open. And if we're aligned as a team of facilitators, each one of us can be in our zone of genius more. And not only does it allow us to have these interstitial moments of “in the zone” and then kind of backing off and relaxing, it allows us to just do our best work. And I know what’s been really cool when both of us are co-facilitating: in my time off from facilitating, I'm observing you, which I'm able to give you feedback that is through the lens of a facilitator. Likewise, you've done the same for me. And so if you’ve been going it alone as a facilitator, hey, hats off to you. Deep respect. But try out co-facilitating. Douglas: I think we’re at time, John, so I’m going to close it here and say thanks so much for being here today. It’s been so fantastic riffing with you. It's always fun chatting with you. And I think we should let the listeners know how they can find you and the facilitation work you do as well as where can they find the book? John: Totally. So if you want to talk about meeting culture and prototyping and the maker movement and all things running awesome meetings that are magical, voltagecontrol.com. You'll find me on there somewhere. And in terms of the book Time Off, if you just type it in Amazon or Google, I’m sure it’ll come up. Timeoffbook.com will send you to Amazon as well. And other than that, Douglas, it's been an honor to not only talk about this, but to stay in touch as friends and colleagues throughout many years now. So, I'm pumped you're doing a podcast, you ask really good questions, and I'm honored to be on the guest list. Douglas: Thanks for joining. And we'll definitely encourage everyone to get a copy of Time Off because it's really fantastic and it's super timely. John: Thank you. Outro: Thanks for joining me for another episode of Control the Room. Don't forget to subscribe to receive updates when new episodes are released. If you want more, head over to our blog, where I post weekly articles and resources about working better together, voltagecontrol.com.

John: Hi this is Doctor John Dacey with my weekly podcast New Solutions to the Anxiety Epidemic. Today, I have a friend of mine, Patrick, who is going to talk about his own anxiety and what he’s done about them. How are you doing, Patrick? Patrick: Very good, John. Great to be here. John: Well thank you for coming. I’m just going to name the 8 kinds of anxiety and let’s start off with you saying which one has affected you the most. Is that ok? Patrick: Absolutely. John: Thank you. Those are simple phobias, which we won’t talk about those since everyone has them, separation anxiety, social anxiety, generalized anxiety, those are the 4 sort of lower ones, more common. A little less common are the 4 more difficult ones: agoraphobia, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Do any of these ring a bell with you, Patrick? Patrick: For me, it’d be a panic disorder. Yes sir. John: So tell me, what does it feel like when you get a panic attack? Patrick: Sure. I think to get a better sense of how it happened to me, what it’s been like, I’ll talk a bit about my experiences in recent years and where it lead me and where I’ve come since then. John: That would be great Patrick. That’s just what we’re looking for. Patrick: A little bit about me: I’m a senior neuroscience major at Boston College, almost graduated now, from Massachusetts. I love playing golf, love my friends, love my family, especially my pug, Charlie. For me, I had a very happy upbringing, very happy childhood. John: Where did you grow up? Patrick: Attleborough, Massachusetts. So not too far from Boston. My brothers, best two friends. Very loving and supporting parents. Middle school, high school, college, it was all very good. I loved it. Things for me came to a standstill in the middle of my junior year. So this is end of 2018 to 2019. This is when I started my experience with panic. So I never experienced anything like that before. At the time, when it first started, I really had no idea what to do. Everything was so unfamiliar and so unexpected. I didn’t think that there was any way that whatever was happening could possibly happen to me. John: Can you describe it? What did it feel like? Patrick: So I’ve thought a lot about it and what it’s like when it happens. As much as I describe it in hindsight, it’s always very different when it’s happening in the moment. It’s a lot of confusion. I can really never quite understand what’s going on when it happens. It’s a lot of overwhelming sensations. I really just lose any sense of control over what’s going on at the current moment. John: Does it come on you all of a sudden? Patrick: Yep and a lot of times for me it happened in recurring places so if I had a tendency to have a panic attack in one certain type of location, then anything that was similar or the same type of location, then I would feel that sense of panic again when I would return. So for me, my solution, early, was avoidance. I went on a pretty crazy string of avoiding things that did or may cause panic. I mentioned this to some people where I had times where I couldn’t go to certain classrooms. I felt like I had a few panic attacks in those classes and I would do anything to get avoid those classes and those places and I hated that feeling. John: Who wouldn’t? It’s an awful thing. Patrick: Another one was cars. Here I am, I’m 21 at the time, I’m a college kid, I’ve been happy my entire life, I’ve got tons of great friends, I’m handsome, modest -that’s a joke, but things are getting out of control. I feel like I can’t even get into a car. That’s when I started to think, “that’s really no way for me to be living.” Mentally, emotionally, academically, it’s affecting all parts of my life and in the back of my mind, I knew that but still, I didn’t quite know what to do about it. It basically took me hitting rock bottom, for lack of a better term, to finally make a change. I mentioned this to you, I have this friend who has this quote that he always says to me: “You know what they say about rock bottom?” I know how it goes but I’ll tell him, “What do they say?”  and he says, “It makes a great foundation.” So he’s always telling me that after his favorite sports team loses or he loses a bet or something. I never really took this quote seriously, but rock bottom for me was about February 2019 so close to a year ago or so. Again, junior in college, I’m 21, supposedly the best years of my life right now but I walk out to the reservoir at Boston College. It’s February but it’s beautiful. It was one of those very lucky February days. It’s sunny, not a cloud in the sky. I sit on the bench and there’s kids laughing, there’s dogs going by, all these people. You really can’t picture a better day but I vividly remember myself sitting on a bench thinking, “I’m probably the only one thinking about God right now.” I’m sitting there, I’m born and raised Catholic - Catholic in elementary and high school, Jesuit college, mass on Sundays and that beautiful February day, I’ll never forget asking if anyone was listening up there. For me really, that was the first time I had had doubt about faith in my life, about spirituality. I learned much later that doubt is the very thing that makes faith just so beautiful. Eventually, I realized my friend was right, and rock bottom can make a great foundation, so right there, that was the perfect place to do something and make a change. That’s how basically anxiety lead me to rock bottom. Obviously now, I’m in one of the happiest places I’ve ever been. John: When you say “make a change,” what kind of change did you make? Patrick: It was a process of building a few habits, I think. After consulting with people, after telling other people about what was going on, and seeking help for myself, I had to build a few habits to get me back to where I am now. One of the first ones was I had to know that I was very far from alone in this process. Early, hearing other people’s stories, seeing other people who have gone on to live happy and successful lives, was such a great source of comfort and peace. I hope mine will maybe be one for someone too. The second was I really had to tell myself that there’s not a damn thing wrong with me. There’s really nothing more than that. One of the big faults, especially during times of panic, is thinking something’s wrong with you and thinking that you’re different or thinking that “I can’t do anything about this.” I keep telling myself that nothing’s wrong. The third habit was patience. I really wanted to rush things back to a normal version of life, if there ever was such a thing, but I had to be patient with myself. I had to let myself take little steps, whatever I could do each day, just get a little better. Things aren’t gonna go away immediately, but just be patient. It all came down to building a habit of learning. Learning to be grateful for every experience in the past and know that whatever happened in the past, I can use that for today, right now, for tomorrow, and for the future. John: Patrick, can you say a few words more about why you think this worked? First of all, do you have a theory about why you got this in the first place? Secondly, have you got a theory about why this solution worked for you? Patrick: I’ve thought about it quite a bit. I’ve mentioned this, I really thought this was something that would never happen to me. Basically, I’m stubborn as hell so, at the early on, I very much bought into the stigma of being a man in the sense of if you have a problem, I have to figure it out myself. I didn’t see other people around me who had this similar type of problem. I didn’t know that this was going on to other people. I thought if this is going on, I’ll just figure it out by myself. John: You must have felt kind of weird about the whole thing too, right? Patrick: Absolutely. That’s another big fault that I had was thinking that it was only me. I really don’t know where it came from. I never would’ve imagined it really. So it’s interesting. It’s interesting how things happen. That’s life, I guess. You never know where life is gonna take you. John: That’s for sure. I can tell you almost with complete certainty that it’s coming from a part of your brain called the amygdala. The amygdala sets off a lot of alarms for reasons we can’t really understand because the amygdala has no contact with logic or reason. When it gets fired off, we’re never really sure exactly what the cause of that is, but you can be somewhat aware that it’s coming if you’re on the lookout for it. It sounds to me like you began to realize when one was coming on sooner. Is that correct? Patrick: Oh absolutely. Over time, I’d realize that panic is really such an interesting experience. There’s a really unique paradox in the way that I’m understood to how to deal with it I believe that for me, panic, its biggest weakness is entirely disguised in what makes it seems so bad. It seems so bad because it makes you feel like you’re losing control. It’s completely taking over. In the way I feel has worked best for me to sort of deal with it is sort of let it run its course. I develop a mantra of not caring whether or not I have panic and whether or not I have anxiety in these certain situations. I say, “so what? I’ll be ok. I’ve been fine every single other time.” So I say, “who cares?” John: There’s an expert on this whole thing by the name of Claire Weekes and she calls this experience “floating.” You imagine yourself floating above yourself watching yourself and saying, “what a shame that that poor person is having this tough time.” But its not exactly you. You float above the whole thing. It sounds like that’s part of this also. Patrick: I absolutely get at the Dacey motto of not caring what other people think because they aren’t. I know nobody’s thinking about me if I’m sitting in a class and maybe I’m having a panic attack. I say, “who cares what they think of me anyway. See me in 20 minutes and I’ll be perfectly fine.” It’s worked. It really has. I give that anxiety no more power over me than it deserves and it’s worked really well. John: That’s wonderful, Pat. There are some other questions that I’d love to ask you but our time has run out on us here. Would you be willing to come back sometime and let me ask you some more questions? Patrick: I’d love to. Absolutely. John: That’s wonderful. Thank you so very much. Patrick: Thank you, John. I appreciate it.

John: A good friend of mine, Nancy Alloway, has been a teacher for all her career, and she’s going to be talking about her own and her fellow teachers’ anxieties. Let me start off by asking Nancy to give you just a thumbnail sketch of her career. Where did you teach? Nancy: So I taught for 35 years in public and private schools in the United States and I taught 1st through 5th grade. I enjoyed my teaching very much. John: Thank you. I wonder if you could tell me about the kinds of things teachers typically are concerned about these days. Make a distinction between reasonable worries like the school not having enough money to do what it wants to do and anxieties which are fears that are probably exaggerated or not entirely true. When you think about your fellow teachers, what are some of the major things that they’re concerned about that would probably count as anxieties? Nancy: I think most of the teachers that I have worked with would say that the emphasis on testing creates a lot of anxiety among the teachers, the students, and the administrators. I think that testing is one of the things that bring out maybe the worst in people because we’re all trying to do the best for our students but when that means testing, prep, and examining past years test scores and looking at improvements and so much emphasis on the data, I think that that’s a very big anxiety producer, especially among young teachers. John: I’m not surprised to hear that. I was reading in a report the other day that something like 150 teachers in a southern major city were fired because they were caught changing the responses on the test and the superintendent, as I was reading the article at least, had been the supervisor of the year nationally the year before and this year she’s going to jail because she helped the teachers change the results. What occurred to me is that if I were a 45-year-old teacher with a master’s degree and I’ve got one of those classes that just aren’t working very well and my students do very poorly on the state exams, I could be fired for that. I suddenly realized that if I were fired at 45 with a master’s degree in education, I not only probably wouldn’t get a white-collar job, but I couldn’t get a blue-collar job either. I probably would be unhirable. That’s a very scary kind of thing because suppose I have the standard two kids and a family. What do I do about it? So I could see why teachers would be worried about that. One of the things I want to talk to you about is that I volunteered at Nancy’s class for some lengthy time because I wanted to learn about 4th graders and what kinds of things made them nervous and what made them edgy. One of the first things I noticed in Nancy’s classroom is that the teacher’s chair was piled high with books and teaching materials and Nancy never sat down the whole time. Why is that Nancy? Nancy: Well I didn’t sit down because I was always interacting with students. I think any good teacher does that. In 4th grade, kids are moving around and I was moving around with them and I wasn’t the kind of teacher who ever sat at my desk. During independent reading, for example, I would go conference with individual kids and any other time that they were working independently I was interacting with a small group or someone so I sat at a table with students but I never sat at my desk when students were in a classroom. John: I want to go back to the new teachers’ anxiety for a moment. Can you think of other things that they were nervous about besides the testing? What other concerns would new teachers have? Nancy: I think in any high-pressure school system the concern with the way parents interact with the teachers and the pressure that parents put on teachers is pretty immense and until you learn how to listen and understand and take time to not be defensive and learn how to control that until you learn to get some of those skills under your belt, it’s very very intimidating for young teachers. John: You just said one of the words that certainly occurs to me and that’s defensiveness. When I was a kid if you came home and said, “the teacher hit me,” you’d probably get hit again because the teacher was God in the classroom and whatever the teacher said was the case, they believed. That’s not true anymore, is it? Nancy: No, I don’t think so. I think that parents have anxieties and that build up on wanting their kid to be the best and to do the right thing and to be the best student and that sometimes comes across as really pushing teachers to do things with the kids that they either aren’t ready for or is just not something that is done in the school. For example, in the high power system that I taught in, there were students who were really doing all kinds of math outside the school so when they came into 4th grade, they weren’t in a position to understand the way we were teaching math. Parents didn’t believe in it so there was a lot of pressure on teachers to instead of extend what they were learning but to add more to onto the students’ plate and I think i learned to handle that by talking and listening and trying to explain the philosophy and what we were doing and how I was extending creative ways of doing math with kids. But a new teacher has a lot of trouble making that statement because they don’t have a lot of experience working with that kind of parents that really are pushy. They always want the best for their kid and I can really understand that but as a teacher, you often sometimes see the child in a different light and sometimes that light is that there’s a lot of anxiety on some kids that are really pushed in any area. John: I know that the two major areas that students get tested in and therefore you get tested in, in a way, is language arts skills and what is now called STEM. One thing that I’ve heard about from a number of sources is the time you and your class started a pretzel manufacturing unit You researched how to make the pretzels, and you made the dough, you shaped them, you put salt on them, you baked them, you packaged them, and then you had them figure out who you were going to sell them to and how you were going to sell them. Then you had to give a report to the superintendent of schools. They don’t let you do that anymore, do they? Nancy: Well, I haven’t been teaching lately and I think the last 10 years - even 15 years ago they started the board of health idea that kids would make something in school, even though we were really really careful about cleanliness, I think there were probably reasons that’s true, but it was a fantastic learning experience and kids loved it. We sold stock in the company and I had kids come back and tell me 10 years later that they went into business because they really liked making money in the pretzel company. What we did was we earned the money but I said as the CEO that you had to figure out a way to give some of this money back. So we would come to the consensus where we would put this money for a good social action cause. And it was really kind of fun and kids learned a lot and they loved it and they loved school. We did a lot of it before school but some of it happened in school hours too. John: This sort of brings us over to the anxiety that the administrators feel because I couldn’t agree with you more, that sounds like such a wonderful idea but because they’re only testing in what we used to call English and Mathematics, those are the two big subjects for teaching - and science too, I suppose. Then the superintendents and principals are not going to want you to do such a broad-brushed activity because it’s not clear how that’s going to show up on the test and I think that’s too bad. Nancy: Yeah, I agree with you. John: Can you think of anything that you yourself had to deal with in terms of anxiety. Was there anything special that made you nervous in your years of teaching? Nancy: Well, I know that there are some teachers who can go home and stop thinking about students, and I really had a hard time doing that. If I had a child who had special needs or was really bright but wasn’t performing or I didn’t quite understand what was going on with them, sometimes those kids would really make me lose sleep because I would wake up thinking about them and then I couldn’t go back to sleep so I think that was an anxiety that was probably stronger when I was younger but definitely became something I would think about. And of course, if you had parents with situations that were difficult I think that sometimes caused anxiety just thinking about “what do I do?” and “how do I handle this situation?” I really do think I got better at that as I had more experience. John: Okay. Well, as I told you before we’re trying to keep these interviews between 10 and 15 minutes and we’re about at that point right now so I’m going to release you. So thank you so much for participating in this and I hope you come back and talk to us again sometime. Nancy: Of course, John. My pleasure.

God is Good (Part 1) - John & Donna BishopGod is Good (Part 2) - John & Donna BishopGod is Good (Part 3) - John & Donna BishopToday® Radio Transcript  References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. Making New Memories Guest:                        John and Donna BishopFrom the series:       God is So Good  Bob: The Bible teaches us a different way of thinking about trials, to count it all joy when we experience various trials.  That can be easy to read but very difficult to do.  Fifteen years ago, John Bishop lost his memory completely as a result of meningitis.  In the years that followed, there were many difficulties the Bishop family faced. John: That night I hurting so bad, and I'd listen to Psalm, and it said, "O taste and see that the Lord is good," Psalm 34a – "Blessed is the man trusteth in Him," and I said, "God, I going to believe you're good.  If I never get better I still going to believe you're good because that what Your Word says."  And I said, "Lord, this must be what faith means is believing You even when I don't feel like it."  So I'm going to believe God good whether I feel good or not.  I'm going to believe God good whether I get better or not just because the Bible say it. Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, August 6th.  Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.  No matter what happens in your life, can you say God is so good, and all His ways are good? And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Wednesday edition.  This past weekend we had a wedding.  My daughter, Katy, became Mrs. Katy Walker, and … Dennis: How did you do? Bob: I was fine.  I was thinking back to how all marriages start, and they all start with hopes and dreams and the expectation of a storybook romance and they all live happily ever after – that kind of a fairy tale scenario. Dennis: At least that's what we think is going to happen.  But when we start out a marriage relationship, we have no idea what God has in store for our spouse or for us, as a couple. Bob: Yes, and as we've been hearing this week, John and Donna Bishop experienced a unique circumstance in their marriage 13 years ago when he lost all memory, and the story had to begin again with a whole new set of circumstances; that the love story had to start up again from scratch.  And yet it's been remarkable to hear how God has sustained this couple and to hear them testify to His goodness in the midst of this kind of adversity. Dennis: And, you know, I want to turn to the listener at this point before you hear the rest of the story, and I want to encourage you to order a bunch of CDs and pass them out to your buddies. Bob: I've already done that.  I took … Dennis: I have, too, Bob, I'm telling you, I'm going to talk to the folks down at the warehouse, and I'm going to see if we can't make a deal so that you can order these – this story in quantity and pass it out at church, pass it out in your neighborhood.  This is going to be a story that I think is going to touch, literally, millions of people's lives around the nation. Bob: And as we hear part 3 of this story, we're beginning to get a picture of the tremendous impact John's illness had on a marriage and on a family.  I mean, here were John and Donna raising three sons. Donna:  It was hard on the boys.  I think it's probably hardest maybe on my youngest son, because he was 10 years old, and I remember one day Luke came to me, and he said, "Mom, it's not fair, because my brothers had a daddy that got to play ball with them and go hunting with them and do fun things with him," and he caught me on an up day there, so I said, "I know, but you know the Lord's going to let him be special in a different way than he was with your brothers."  And so I thank the Lord – my youngest son, he's a good boy, and I thank the Lord, and I think him and his dad are close. Bob: That had to break your heart, though, for your son to say, "It's not fair.  I want a daddy like my brothers had." Donna: I know.  It was – I struggle with the things – I was going to tell you that when – I remember one night John was laying on the couch there, and he said, "It's okay, God, that you let me be sick."  Well, when he said that, you know, I said, "Oh, no, it's not okay."  Because I just kept saying, "You know, Lord, you know, I married that other man back there, and I just would like to go back to that," and I struggled.  That was one of my struggles – the Lord just saying, "Okay, Lord, it's okay."  And it was easier for him to say it than for me to say it.  I just had a hard time. And so the Lord and I have had many discussions over this. Bob: Do you feel like you've had two husbands? Donna:  Yes, sir, I sure do. Dennis: What's the part of John before the illness that you miss the most? Donna: Probably the part just take the leadership and go on and just the energy just to go on and keep going into things. Dennis: So he was the leader, he was leading you and the family and the church and taking you in a direction. Donna: Yes, sir.  And he was, you know, just never stopped, just keep going. Dennis: What's the part of the new John that you like the best? Donna: I like the best part is he's very loving, very kind.  I guess the Lord slowed him down, and he slows down, and he appreciates things and is just – you know, when we slow down, it's amazing how many things we've learned to miss, you know, that we have missed along the way until we slow down. Dennis: John, as you hear your wife describe John prior to 1995, prior to the illness, as a man, and you are a man, I mean, you have to be like all the rest of us who want to say, "I want to be that man now." John: Mm-hm. Dennis: Do you feel that? John: Yes, I do, and yet they had some tapes of me preaching before my illness, but one day I listening one of my messages, and I was pretty harsh, and I was listening and "I don't like that guy," and I took tape out and threw it out window. [laughter]  And I like the new me better.  But, you know, my Donna puts it this way, said, before my illness I sort of knock them over the head but now I grab them by the heart.  But, you know, I think the Lord just decided if I going to use John, I going to break him all the way down and start over.  But what I know of me before, and what she telling me and so forth, I like the new me, and things don't bother me maybe like bother other people, because I've been through just so much, and not a whole lot more I could lose, you know?  So, okay, that part of it, let's go on, and I have a good time.  I tell people I'm a few fries short of a Happy Meal, but I'm happy. [laughter]  Bob: You know, in circumstances like this, it's not unusual for people to say "Lord, why me?  Why is this the path You put me on?"  And it's not just the person who goes through the meningitis who asks that, but it's the person who is caring for the person who goes through the meningitis.  How have you wrestled with the "Why me?" question, Donna? Donna: I have wrestled with it, that's, you know, why – you know, I kept telling the Lord, "Lord, we were fine," you know, "we were fine," but the Lord has just showed me, "Donna, I have something special for you," and I have learned so many things through this, and I thank the Lord that He's brought us through this because I love him more, and I love him in a different way, and it's closer, and God is able to use us.  And if we're just willing to say, "Okay, Lord, it's all right.  Whatever you bring to my life, I know it's for my good."   Every day when I surrender the new thing that, "Okay, Lord, you can have that," and I was just – struggled.  I hung onto the back things, I guess, because I could remember them.  I hung onto the things in my past, and so – but every time I'd surrender, it was just so much better, and the Lord just eased and gave me so much comfort in knowing that the Lord has a reason for it. Bob: This is almost an impossible question for you to answer, but if the Lord came to you today and said, "Okay, I'll give you the old John, and we'll start from here with things the way they were, and we'll take everything of the last 15 years." Dennis: That's a hard question. Bob: You can have your choice, what do you want?  If you could go back and undo the last 15 years and just kind of be on the path you were on, which is what you longed for at some point, would you pick that, do you think? Donna: No, sir.  I'd take what the Lord has given us, I really would. Bob: You'd say, "This path has been the right one for me." Donna: Yes, sir.  I think if you'd asked me that a few years ago, I'd probably have said no.  But I know that God – this is God's plan for my life, and it's okay. Dennis: It's back to what John said earlier – "God is good, and He's right." Donna: Yes, sir. Dennis: And … Bob: … blessed be the name of the Lord, right? Dennis: Yeah, even though it's not been easy, you've begun to experience some of the benefit of the pain that you've been through.  Can you share some of those benefits, what they would be? Donna: It's a closer relationship with the Lord.  Also faith – just knowing that God's going to take care of us, regardless of what we go through. Dennis: Give us an illustration of that.  How has He provided for you? Donna: Oh, He's taken care of everything.  I mean, we have more than we need.  As far as the physical things, God supplies everything.  Every time he goes to the hospital, I think, "Oh, here we go again," you know, but the Lord always takes care of everything, and everything always gets paid, we never late on bills.  God takes care of everything, and also our spiritual – God takes care of us spiritually, too, and gives us courage and strength and I think one thing that really touches my heart, too, is, you know, when John was in the hospital, you know, he'd just say the name of God, I knew he was praying to the Lord.  And, you know, God does – He never leaves us or forsakes us regardless. And so, you know, John might have forgot everything, and John with that hard – I couldn't go through those things at the time with him, but the Lord was with him all the way through it.  It doesn't matter how hard it gets, he's there.  And so how hard it gets on me or whoever, God is there, and we've just got to trust Him. Dennis: John, do you have anything to add to that? John: Well, the Lord gives us grace not just endure but enjoy, and, you know, he doesn't just say, "Okay, I'll give you enough grace endure this," there are times of endurance, but most time it's enjoyment.  And I get to travel, and I really cannot get to all the places people have invited me.  It's just incredible.  That's how I met one of your staff.  I took my first trip California by myself, and on airplane.  I told my Donna, "I can do it." Dennis: What's your vision?  What is it again? John: I'm blind, legally blind. Dennis: But it's 20 what? John: I don't know the number.  I can – one eye I can just make figures.  Like, I can tell you're there, but I wouldn't be able to recognize you.  Now, with these goggles that I have under here, I can read if I'm up close, and … Dennis: So how do you negotiate steps to get on a plane and to travel to California? John: You know, people are so nice to blind people.  If you've got that cane, they get out of your way. [laughter]  And I just able to make it through, and I called her, and I was there at the place, and I said, "Donna, nobody speaking English here, where am I?" [laughter]  Dennis: You were in California. [laughter]  John: She teasing – I was teasing her like I ended up another country or something.  But, you know, it's been fun.  One time I went and heard a speaker, she went with me, and this man said, "I know some of you out there got skeletons in your closet."  Well, I not been taught that yet, and I'm thinking real, and I'm sitting there thinking, "Oh, mercy, if I knew somebody like that, I'd tell on them," you know?  And who would do that?  You know, and what skeleton is it?  And I got home, and I said, "Donna, that man knew people there with skeletons, and he wouldn't tell on them."  And she then had to explain to me. So I am learning all those things, but I do have fun, I do, and the Lord has been – just give me joy as well through the trials and I'm not always laughing, but I love hearing you, because you all laugh a lot, and I love be around happy people.   Bob: John, when you started losing your eyesight eight months ago … John: Mm-hm, yes. Bob: You had to think, you know, "Lord, haven't I had enough?  I mean, couldn't we just keep the eyes?  That would sure be helpful."  John: Yes.  Oh, Bob, that was one of the biggest struggles.  I should have been able to ace that one after what I've been through, but, I tell you, I struggled.  At first I couldn't believe it happening.  I thought, "Surely not."  Then I thought, "Oh, this just be two or three week, and the Lord say, 'Okay, I just testing you.'"  But it went on and on and on.  I almost felt like when Abraham was asked to give his son, and I thought of my sight, oh, I remember, I'd tell God, "Okay, Lord, not my will, thine be done," and then I had to tell Him, "I sorry, Lord, I didn't mean it," like I needed to tell him, but, I mean, I knew I was just saying the words. Because my ministry been built around telling people that we can trust the Lord with anything, and we can go on.  He said, "Rejoice in the Lord always," and I'd lost my joy over this.  "Oh, God," I said, "I'm so sorry," and it was just like I raised the knife, and I believe Abraham, when God told him offer son, I think probably at the time God knew he really would do it.  He stopped him and said, "Okay," and I finally got a point, "Okay, God, if you want the eyes, too, that is okay.  I really do mean it."   But that really was a big struggle for me.  I should have been stronger, but I wasn't. Dennis: John, I was told when you were going to come down here that just from an illness standpoint and battling all that you're battling, you might not have the stamina.  You've done remarkable. John: Thank you. Dennis: I mean, you're hanging in there with Bob's tough questions, and … Bob: Any headaches?  You feeling okay? John: Yes, I do have headache, and my pain level each day, Bob, is around 5 or 6, between 1 and 10.  When it get to 7, I have to medicate it a little bit; 8 and 9 I can live with.  If it gets 10, I have to go emergency room.  I getting stronger, but I not quite able handle 10. Bob: So where are you today right now? John: I about a 7. Dennis: Wow, wow. Bob: I don't know many people with a 7 … Dennis: Who would be doing radio. Bob: Or smiling or laughing or talking about how good God is. Dennis: And I think what our listeners don't see is, really, the smile on both their faces. Donna: That's what I appreciate about him, is he can be hurting so bad, but he still keeps going, and he complains some, yes, but, no, not like I would.  I know why the Lord didn't give me the headaches. Dennis: Not like he could, because of what he's going through. Donna: No. John: I try to be good to her.  She's been so good to me, and I love her. Donna: He's very good. John: I want to make her happy.  There are two big goals in my life.  Number one, make the Lord happy, number two, make my wife happy, and I love to be able to do that and get her things.  When I learned I supposed to love her as much as Christ loved church and gave Himself for – I remember when I heard that, "Wow, that a lot of love.  I got to work a whole bunch on this."  There is nothing world I wouldn't do for her, and she wouldn't ask me to do something wrong or bad, but I think how good the Lord been to me.  He's given me so many things. Dennis: I know there is one other thing you love to do, too, though. John: What's that? Dennis: You love to introduce people to the King of the Universe. John: Mm-hm. Dennis: Undoubtedly, there have been those who have heard your story, who don't know Him and who need to.  Would you like to take their hand in yours and place it in God's hand, explain to them how they can come into relationship with Jesus Christ and with the Lord God Almighty?" John: Yes, yes, thank you so much.  The Bible says the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance, and if people could just stop, and even if they've been through hard times, difficult times, God in His goodness gave us Son, Jesus, for us, that we might be saved and forgiven and be with Him one day.  You see, when I die, all my suffering over.  I read in Book of Revelation where John said, "in that city no more pain."  And, boy, howdy, am I looking forward to that – no more pain. The God that wants to give us that place of no more pain is Jesus Christ.  He gave us life, He shed His blood.  It took a good God to give His Son.  It took a good Savior to give His life so that if a person realizes they're a sinner, puts their faith and trust in Jesus Christ, He'll save them the moment they turn to Him.  And that's a good God, and I just beg people not turning away.  I have had atheists saved, Dennis.  I had one atheist get saved, and he said to me, he said, "John, I couldn't argue with you.  You just kept saying God good, and he said I finally one day I realize why have I turned down such a good God all these years?" And he gave his life to Christ.  I would love to know somebody give their life to Christ.  He's a good God. Dennis: And I would say to that person right now who is listening, why don't you take the offer that God is making on behalf of you?  The good God we've talked about who gave His Son, Jesus Christ.  You don't have to get down on your knees.  You can do it right where you are, driving in a car, listening on an iPod or computer.  But if you want to, it would be a good idea to get down on your knees and just surrender your life to Christ.  It is the greatest decision you'll ever make. And, John, I just want to thank you and Donna for telling your story and for allowing us the privilege of – and, Bob, I know you and I have worked together long enough, I know you feel the same – it's just an honor to be in the studio with you.  Thank you. John: It's been an honor for us, too. Bob: We want to make sure that those listeners who are interested in establishing a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, and we want to invite you to get in touch with us.  There's a book we'd love to send you that's call "Pursuing God," that explains what it means to have a right relationship with God through Christ, and this book is available to you at no cost.  All you have to do is call 1-800-FLTODAY, and when someone answers the phone just say, I am interested in becoming a Christian, and I'd like a copy of that book, and it will be our privilege to send it out to you, and we trust God will use it to help you begin to establish an ongoing relationship with God through Christ. Again, the title of the book is "Pursuing God," and you can request it when you call 1-800-FLTODAY.  You can also request a copy of the CD of our conversation with John and Donna Bishop.  We have that in our FamilyLife Resource Center, and when you contact us, we'll let you know how you can receive that CD.  You can either order it online at FamilyLife.com, or you can call us at 1-800-FLTODAY, and we'll make arrangements to send a copy or to send multiple copies to you, if you'd like. Again, the details of how you can order the CD are found online at FamilyLife.com or simply call 1-800-358-6329.  That's 1-800-F-as-in-family, L-as-in-life, and then the word TODAY, and someone on our team will let you know how you can get the CD sent to you. I don't know how many times, Dennis, I have seen you turn in your Bible to Matthew 7 where Jesus concludes the Sermon on the Mount by talking about two different builders.  One builder who built his house on the rock and the other who built his house on the sand, and you have reminded us that when storms come in life, the kinds of storms like John and Donna Bishop have experienced, it's really a test of our foundation on what is our life and our marriage built? And each day we have an opportunity to strengthen the foundation of our marriage as we spend time with God together as a couple.  A few months ago, you and your wife Barbara wrote a book called "Moments With You," a daily devotional book for couples to encourage them to spend time praying together, looking at the Scriptures together and talking about their marriage relationship and about their family. And this week we are making that hardback book available to listeners who support the ministry of FamilyLife Today with a donation of any amount.  We are listener-supported, so your donations are critical, they're vital, to keeping us on the air in this city and in other cities all across the country, and when you make a donation either online or by phone this week, we want you to feel free to request a copy of the book, "Moments With You," as a way of saying thank you for your financial support of this ministry. If you're donating online, there will be a keycode box you'll come to on your donation form, and we just need you to type the word "You," y-o-u, in that keycode box, and we'll know to send a copy of the book, "Moments With You" out to you, or call 1-800-FLTODAY.  You can make a donation right over the phone and just mention that you'd like a copy of the daily devotional, "Moments With You."  Again, we're happy to send it out to you as our way of saying thanks for your financial support and for your partnership with us. Well, tomorrow we're going to meet another very remarkable couple.  A couple that has weathered a significant storm in their marriage.  We'll introduce you to Charlie and Lucy Wedemeyer tomorrow, and I hope you can be back with us for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team.  On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine.  We'll see you back tomorrow for another edition of FamilyLife Today.  FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas – help for today; hope for tomorrow.  _______________________________________________________________We are so happy to provide these transcripts for you. However, there is a cost to transcribe, create, and produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs?Copyright © FamilyLife. All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com                 

Welcome to Secrets of Organ Playing Podcast 549! Vidas: I'm so excited to be able to talk with John Higgins now from Australia, my old friend, and he's been on our show for maybe 3 times before so I'm really delighted we can connect because John has some news to share. Last time we talked it was a while ago and he's very busy with raising a family - he has 3 sons. And also he's been working in a church, playing church music and also doing all kinds of church music related things which we will talk about today. So thank you so much, John and welcome to the show! John: Thank you so much, Vidas and it's such an honor to be on this podcast and I'm so proud to be one of your students for over 8 years now. V: I remember you were in Vilnius and recently I was looking through all the photos from the past and found the one with you playing our church organ and you together with me and Ausra and we all spent some time together. Your flight was delayed, it was a big adventure. And after practicing for 7 years, you finally got to play a recital on the largest pipe organ in Lithuania. That was quite an adventure! J: Yes, it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life and such a wonderful opportunity. I can't thank you enough for this. I'll never forget it. I feel like the organ is part of me, and you and Ausra are such a huge part of my life as well. V: What happened afterwards, John, after you came back to Australia? I know you have very dangerous bushfires in your area and I hope firefighters will stop them and that you will get some rain soon. That's my hope for New Year. We're hoping for much milder climate. So could you share, John about your life after you came back to Australia? What have you been up to? Related link: Hidden Treasures, John Higgins' YouTube Channel: ​https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrikng_XqeuuLbV2mo3zfig

Don't Waste Your Life (Part 1) - John PiperDon't Waste Your Life (Part 2) - John PiperDon't Waste Your Life (Part 3) - John PiperFamilyLife Today® Radio TranscriptReferences to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. Don't Waste Your LifeDay 1 of 3 Guest:                           John Piper From the Series:         Following the Call of Christ ________________________________________________________________­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Bob:                So why are you here?  For that matter, why is anything here?  Well, here is an answer from Dr. John Piper. John:              We need to help people see why the universe was created, and it wasn't created for people to become famous and for people to become powerful, it was created to display the worth and excellencies and beauty and wonders of God.  And we are here to receive that excellency and reflect it out in our lives so that other people see it.  It's all about God – from Him, through Him, and to Him are all things to Him be glory forever and ever. Bob:                This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, July 26th.  Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.  Understanding why we're here is the first step in not wasting our lives.  Stay tuned.                         And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us.  I have a distinct memory of an event that took place when I was in high school.  I was in an English class, and we were in a unit study on the subject of existentialism – "Existentialism and Man" – we were reading Camus and Sartre and the guy who wrote the story about being a cockroach – Kafka, Franz Kafka. Dennis:          This was in high school?  Bob:               This was in high school, and Mrs. Venary [sp] was our English teacher, and Mrs. Venary said one day, she asked us, "What's most important in your life?"  And I remember, we were going around the room and answering that question, and we got to me, and I don't remember what I said.  If I had to guess today, I would probably have said, "One of the really important things in my life is music."  I was in a band, I played guitar, I really liked music.                           But by the time we got to one of my classmates who was about halfway through the group, she said, "Really, the most important thing in my life is my relationship with God."  And I remember thinking, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the right answer.  I need to remember that next time." And then it dawned on me that if I didn't have that as the right answer when the question came around, it probably wasn't really the most important thing in my life, you know? Dennis:          Yeah, and I was thinking how I would have answered it – I'm sorry that God would not have been my answer, either – athletics would have been.  And I think whether you're in high school and how you would have answered it then or where you are today, the question is still a good question, and we have someone today with us on FamilyLife Today who I think is going to help you – well, maybe either realign your spiritual tires or maybe answer the question in the right way for the first time.                           John Piper joins us on FamilyLife Today.  John, welcome to FamilyLife Today. John:              Thank you, I'm glad to be here. Dennis:          John is the pastor of preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church where he has served since 1980.  He and his wife, Noelle, have four sons and a daughter, live in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and he's a prolific writer.  And, you know, Bob, it's not often that books come to our attention here at FamilyLife Today through our wives, but this one did.  Back last Christmas Barbara came to me, and she said, "You know, there is one book I want to give our kids for Christmas."  I said, "Oh, really?  Who is it by?"  She said, "John Piper."  And I immediately thought of some of the books that I've had the privilege of reading, browsing my way through, "Desiring God," among others, and she said, "It's a new book called "Don't Waste Your Life."  And I thought, "Now, that's a good title."  Because we have a generation of people, I believe, who are really not getting around to the question you asked, Bob – what is most important in your life.                         John, you tell a story about a couple who had retired on the coast of Florida. John:              Yeah, I got the story from "Reader's Digest." Bob:                That's okay, Ronald Reagan got a lot of his stories from "Reader's Digest," too.  There's nothing wrong with that. John:              And it was written by them, so it's not told about them, and I won't give any names, but they were marveling that at, I think, age 51 and 52 or something like that, they were able to retire early, go to Florida, and the peak of their excitement about this stage in their life was that they could play softball and collect shells.  And I just read that and thought, "You've got to be kidding?" Dennis:          Now, we're talking about the ultimate experience in their lives? John:              Evidently.  I mean, I'm thinking in the last chapter of my life, I am mainly preparing to meet the judge of the universe and give an account with my little vaporous life on this earth.  He is not going to ask, "Can I see your shell collection?"   Bob:                Who won the softball game?  It's not going to matter, is it? John:              It's not.  And so it became a kind of paradigm story for me of the American way because tragically the AARP and most people giving counsel on what to do with your latter years are telling you to go play them away on a golf course somewhere or something, and I'm thinking, "That is not the way I want to spend my life at all let alone my last few years in the months just preceding seeing the king of the universe." Bob:                And I think that's important.  The message in this book, "Don't Waste Your Life," is not just about not squandering the latter years of your life, but it's about the whole of your life.  It's a stewardship that we've been entrusted with, right? John:              Right.  Young people are making incredibly important choices early on, especially right at the juncture of early college years and post college years of "What am I going to do with my life?"  And I think they're eager and ready to hear somebody to call them to a radical kind of life that has a significance about it that is eternal and deep.  So that's what I've tried to talk about. Dennis:          Going back to your shell collection, as I read that, I thought – and you asked the question in your book, you can't imagine someone appearing before the judgment seat and God asking to see our shell collection.  And I thought, "What other kind of collections do we have?"  It could be our golf scores, our trophies, our businesses, our portfolio of stocks, our home that we built, the car we drive, the wardrobe or jewelry.  It could be our family.  We could make the family the chief end of man.  Or it could be our bank account.  You know, man has been collecting stuff, John, from the beginning of time.  It may not be as silly as a shell collection, but we have the wrong object of worship going all the way back to the Garden.                         When you were a young lad growing up, in your home there was a – was it a plaque or what was it?  Was it in the kitchen, as I recall, is that right? John:              Right, it was in the kitchen and probably it had as much to do with the title of the book as anything.  It hung, I remember it hung up where a clock started to hang later, but I now have it in my living room at home, so it's been on the wall for 50 years of my life, at least.  It says, "Only one life, 'twil soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last."  And that was emblazoned on my mind as a child, that significance and lasting reality is going to come from connectedness with Jesus.  If something is done to display the worth of Jesus, then that something will have value and significance, and if it didn't, it won't last. Bob:                So you would say that from early on, you understood this idea of the stewardship of your life and that it needed to be focused and rightly directed.  It's not something that came to you later in life? John:              I would say in my high school years, as I reflected back on the kinds of things I was thinking, the kinds of things I was writing and reading – as I reviewed those, it was amazing to me how much I was thinking about it in those days.                         The other thing that probably affected the title of this book, "Don't Waste Your Life" is the story my dad, as an evangelist, would tell when he was doing evangelism.  He came home one time and, with tears in his eyes, he said, "A man came to Christ who must have been in his 70s, and he'd been a sinner in the community for years, and people had prayed for him, and he'd resisted the Gospel, and he walked to the front, and he sat down.  And after the service, as I sat beside him and counseled him, he just wept and wept, and when I asked why he was weeping he just repeated over and over, 'I've wasted it, I've wasted it.'"                         I'll tell you, as a teenager, that story from my dad landed on me with such power that I thought, "Never, ever, ever do I want to be able to say that – I've wasted it."  So from maybe age 16, 15 on, I had this impulse in me, don't waste it, don't waste it. Dennis:          I have, for some reason, been kind of chewing on Acts, chapter 13, verse 36, and it reads, "For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep, and he was buried."  And I thought, you know, if that could be said of my life at the end of it, that I fulfilled God's purpose for my generation, whether you're a mother, a father, a businessman, and businesswoman, a single person, to be smack-dab in the middle of walking with God and fulfilling what He has for you, that's what you're talking about in the book.  You're talking about people who have a confidence that they are fulfilling not only God's will for their lives but they're a part of a grand scheme, a bigger picture, of what God's accomplishing on this planet. John:              Right, we need to help people see why the universe was created, and it wasn't created for people to become famous and for people to become powerful, it was created to display the worth and excellencies and beauty and wonders of God.  And we are here to receive that excellency and reflect it out in our lives so that other people see it.  It's all about God – "from Him, through Him, and to Him are all things to Him be glory forever and ever" – Romans 11:36 says.  And so I think significance must be defined in terms of God – depending on Him, being guided by Him, giving Him all the praise and all the glory and all the honor and then finding lifestyles and ways of talking and thinking and feeling and acting that make God look really good to this culture. Dennis:          In the '60s, your passion intensified for finding God's purpose and making sure you were about what He was doing, and it was your encounter with two different people that ultimately changed the course of your life.  Why don't you share those two people that you encountered in college? John:              I have three in mind, so I'm not which two you have in mind.  I'll mention Dan Fuller as a living teacher who had a tremendous impact in the way I read the Bible, and then I mentioned the dead person, Jonathan Edwards, and I'll mention another dead person, died in '63, the same days as John Kennedy died – C.S. Lewis.  So that triumvirate in the years, say, '64, as I began college to '68 when I went away, and then in the years '68-'71 in seminary that's where Dan Fuller and Jonathan Edwards conspired, and the key of the living teacher and the dead teacher was to show me that there is no final conflict between God's passion to be glorified and my passion to be satisfied.  I had grown up, for whatever reason, I'm sure it wasn't my dad's fault or maybe even the preacher's fault, thinking you can't have both of those.  Either God is going to be glorified or I'm going to be happy, because I heard – maybe it wasn't said, but this is what I heard – people would say, "Well, you should stop doing your will and do God's will."  And I kind of wanted to say, "Isn't there a third alternative?"  Like, maybe I would want to do God's will?  Maybe I would enjoy doing God's will?  And what those men showed me is that God is most glorified in me when I am most satisfied in Him; that God's glory shines in my being happy in Him.                         And so there isn't this necessary conflict between my pursuit of pleasures and his pursuit of glory if, in fact, my pursuit of pleasure is pleasure in him – that insight from Jonathan Edwards mainly, mediated through Dan Fuller and C.S. Lewis in his one page in "The Weight of Glory," where he said, "The problem with the world is not that we are pursuing pleasure but that we are far too easily pleased.  We are like children fooling around with mudpies in the slums when we could have a holiday at the sea, and we can't imagine what it's like."                         And what he meant was, we're fooling around with that list you gave earlier, Dennis, about just money, even family and possessions and business.  If we could see what a holiday at the sea that is a relationship with God, a delight in His beauty and power and excellencies was, then we'd see the problem in the universe is not that people are pursuing pleasure, but that they are settling for the low, fleeting, wrong, suicidal pleasures.  And so that's what I learned from Lewis and Edwards and then Fuller between '68 and '71, and it changed everything. Bob:                You later expressed that or referred to that as "Christian hedonism." John:              Right. Bob:                Hedonism is the philosophy that says the highest goal is the pursuit of pleasure.  And you said if we understand the Scriptures right, that's true, but the only real pleasure we're going to find is not in what the culture tells us will bring us pleasure. John:              Right, and the reason that is not in conflict with saying the highest goal is the glory of God is because God is glorified precisely in my being satisfied in the end.  That was the insight that makes lights go on, I find, for a lot of people these days. Dennis:          I have to read a passage that I know you're passionate about – Psalm 16:11 – "Thou will make known to me the path of life.  In Thy presence is fullness of joy."  And we don't believe this last third of the verse here.  It says, "In Thy right hand there are pleasures forever."  Frankly, it's what you described that for a number of years kept me at a distance from Christianity.  I didn't believe I could have a good time; that I could truly experience pleasure and happiness and fulfillment and walk with Jesus Christ.  I thought becoming a Christian was having to put on something black, put on a sour look, and be unhappy for the rest of my life.                         Now, I don't know where I got that picture, because I really grew up in a good church.  But nonetheless I had a caricature of Christianity that I was rejecting, and it wasn't this.  It wasn't the idea of a glowing, vibrant life filled with smiles and laughter and, as this says, enjoyment and pleasure.   John:              Right, but I think there are a lot of people who have said something like that and given it a little bit of our own twist; that is, I think there have always been rah-rah evangelistic youth crusades where we feature the athlete and the smiling beauty queen who say, "You really can have a great and happy life if you'll be a Christian."  And the ordinary folks look at that and thought, "That's not quite what I'm thinking.  That's not going to work for me, because I've got pimples, and I'm not strong."                           The difference with my message, and it's where you were going, I think, is that what I want to hold up is a joy and is a God who, in Himself, when all the beauty goes and all the strength goes and all the popularity goes and all the parties go, He's enough, and He's thrilling.                          You know, my wife and I were married in December of 1968, and we chose Habakkuk 3, the last four verses, I believe, of the book to be read at our wedding.  I don't know it all by heart, but I can paraphrase it.  It goes something like this – though the olive fail, though there be no fruit on the vines, though there be no cattle in the stall, though there be no sheep in the fold; in other words, we're talking famine and devastation, and then he says, "Yet will I rejoice in the Lord my God."                         Psalm 63:3 says, "The steadfast love of the Lord is better than life."  Or Paul says, "To die is gain."  So my message is a little more radical than what I was hearing from the rah-rah evangelistic crusade, "Yes, we can all have a good time" message but rather you may have an absolutely horrible life and smile your way all the way to heaven.                           In fact, 1 Corinthians 6, verse 10, Paul uses this phrase that, for me, has really stamped the way I want to talk about joy.  He says, "Sorrowful yet always rejoicing."  So I want there to always be a kind of minor key playing in the background of my parties and my celebrations, because I know the world is absolutely filled with pain and filled with suffering, and when I am rejoicing with those who rejoice, there is somebody very close to me weeping with those who weep, and so I just want to present an authentic call to radical pleasure at God's right hand when you may be wracked with cancer, your wife may have left you, your kids may be prodigal, your business may be failing, and you can say, "The Lord gives, and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord."                          So there's a flavor, I think, to this hedonism that I have that I hope is really realistic. Dennis:          And the time to develop that kind of relationship with Jesus Christ is not when you go through the valley.  The time to develop it is now.  It's to become focused on Him as your absolute source of life, of pleasure, of joy, and begin the process of walking with Him moment by moment.                           You know, I couldn't help but think, John, as you were talking about how those of us here at FamilyLife watched Bill Bright die.  The last two and a half years of his life were marked by him only having about 40 percent lung capacity, and he was literally – his body was starving for oxygen, and yet every time I saw him, and everyone else, too, he was praising God; talking about Him being his strength, his joy, his portion.  He never complained.  And I contrasted his life with how I've watched others die, and I thought, you know what?  Bill Bright taught me how to live, and he also taught me how to die.                         And what I want to do with my life is I want to do the same thing.  I want my deathbed to be as vigorous in the enjoyment and the pursuit of God, even though there will undoubtedly be pain, it will not be easy, but I would like it to be the way Bill Bright demonstrated as a man, and we can do that if we get into the Scripture and we find out who God is, because it's only as we know Him as He is that you can relate to Him as the God of the Universe. Bob:                You talk about somebody who didn't waste his life, Dr. Bright is a great example of someone who had the right priority, the right focus; who understood the implications of the Christian faith, and it changed the direction of everything.  It shaped every decision he made.  And I want to encourage our listeners that's really what is at the heart of the book that you have written, John.  It's called "Don't Waste Your Life," and it's a book that we have in our FamilyLife Resource Center.  I think this book gives each of us a good opportunity to re-evaluate how we're doing spiritually; whether the direction of our life is rightly aimed or not, and I think your book is helpful in that evaluation process.                         Let me encourage our listeners – contact us to get a copy of John Piper's book, "Don't Waste Your Life."  You can go online at FamilyLife.com to request a copy of the book or you can call 1-800-FLTODAY.  If you go online, in the middle of the home page you'll see a red button that says "Go."  If you click on that red button, it will take you right to the page where you can get more information about the book "Don't Waste Your Life."  You can order online, if you'd like, or call 1-800-FLTODAY and request a copy of the book.  We can have it sent out to you.  If you're interested in a copy of our conversation this week with John Piper, you can order that on CD, or you can download it as an MP3 file from our website at FamilyLife.com.  If you'd like the CD either order that online or call 1-800-FLTODAY.                         Over the last several years, one of the places where you have spoken, John, is at the Passion Conferences, and I know Beth Moore has also spoken to young people there challenging them to a wholehearted commitment to Jesus Christ.  Not long ago we had Beth as a guest on FamilyLife Today, and we talked with her about her 25-year marriage to her husband Keith, about some of the ups downs.  She was very candid in that interview, and this month and next month, we wanted to say thank you to those of you who can help support the ministry of FamilyLife Today with a donation of any amount by sending you a copy of this CD that includes our conversation with Beth Moore.                         Simply go to our website, FamilyLife.com, and click on the button that says, "Make a Donation," or call 1-800-FLTODAY and make a donation over the phone.  When you do, mention that you'd like the CD with Beth Moore and someone on our team will make sure that gets sent to you.  Or if you're making your donation online, when you come to the keycode box just type in the word "free," and we'll know that you want the CD sent out to you.  Again, it's our way of saying thanks for your financial support of the ministry of FamilyLife Today, and we appreciate hearing from you.                         Well, tomorrow we're going to continue our conversation with Dr. John Piper.  We're going to talk about the call to a cross-centered life and why we need to make sure that we're not sugar-coating our presentation of the Gospel.  Some folks may respond better if we tell them the hard truth, and we'll talk more about that tomorrow.  I hope you can join us for that.                         I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team.  On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine.  We'll see you back tomorrow for another edition of FamilyLife Today.                          FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ.   We are so happy to provide these transcripts to you.  However, there is a cost to transcribe, create, and produce them for our website.  If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would   you consider donating today to help defray the costs?   Copyright © FamilyLife.  All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com      

Are you a property manager or owner who wants to recoup financial losses when stuck with a bad tenant who stops paying rent or needs to be evicted? Lower your risk? Trust somebody else to manage your properties? Protect all parties involved?  Today, I am talking to John Higgins, co-founder and CEO of Steady Marketplace, a leading technology platform for property owners and managers. Steady’s subsidiaries offer financial products, including rent default insurance.  You’ll Learn... [02:00] Background of Big Financial Numbers: Starting with event-driven, distressed, and activist hedge fund managers with billions in assets.  [06:37] Steady’s products protect property owners/managers from bad tenant outcomes.  [07:40] Rent Default Insurance: Protection against rental income loss due to tenant’s failure to pay.  [10:15] Rent Default Insurance is widely available and adopted around the world. About 70% are renters and 30% are owners. [12:38] Collaboration Over Competition: Don’t simply copy-and-paste products and policies; leads to lack of innovation. [13:55] Automate It All: Learn from online lending space using technology to streamline processes, operations, and pricing. [15:05] Perfect Businesses are Out of Business: Entrepreneurs think they've got something perfect, only to realize they need to make it better.  [16:15] By the Book: Take regulatory issues seriously, and make sure to do it right. [17:00] Adoption is #1 challenge with any solution, software, or service.  [17:55] Competitive Advantage: Education, awareness, and understanding of product.  [20:53] FAQs: How does it work? Why does this exist? What’s the catch?  [21:55] Renter’s Insurance vs. Rent Default Insurance: What’s the difference? Tweetables Every entrepreneur should make a difference. Otherwise, they're just causing problems. When there’s a loss of rental income due to tenant default, there is no protection. Automate everything: Go slow to go fast. That's how the process works. It's constant iteration to get better, and better, and better. Resources John Higgins’ Email Steady Marketplace Steady Marketplace FAQ John Higgins on LinkedIn SureVestor Rent Rescue National Association of Residential Property Managers (NARPM) DoorGrowClub Facebook Group DoorGrowLive DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrow Website Score Quiz Transcript Jason: Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the DoorGrow Show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing your 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. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management businesses and their owners, 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. Today, I am hanging out with John Higgins of Steady Marketplace. John, welcome to the DoorGrow Show. John: It's great to be here, Jason. Thanks for having me. Jason: John, you've got a really big bio and you're really impressive. Do you want me to read all of it? John: You can read whatever you want to read. I'm not that impressive. I'll say you're more impressive hosting this show and with your following in the space. I'm just a guy trying to make a difference. Jason: I appreciate it. That's what every good entrepreneur is trying to do is make a difference, at least I hope. Otherwise, they're just causing problems.  I'll read a little bit here. It says you are the co-founder and CEO of Steady Technologies Inc., a leading technology platform for property owners and property managers. Steady, through subsidiaries, offers financial products that benefit property owners and managers. Their first product is rent default insurance, offered in partnership with the top US insurance carrier that is a Fortune 100 company, rated A+ by AM Best, and S&P.  Prior to co-founding Steady, Mr. Higgins founded Nobadeer Advisors which provided business development and capital market expertise to technology-enabled lending platforms across the variety of consumers and business, lending verticals, and backed by top venture capital firms globally.  Prior to Nobadeer, Mr. Higgins spent 2.5 years at Prosper Marketplace, Inc. where he helped build the institutional loan program growing it from $0 to over $5 billion over his tenure and help scale Prosper's monthly origination volumes over 4000% during his time at the firm.  Mr. Higgins also previously served as a director at Topwater Capital, now owned by Leucadia, where he made investments between $5-$100 million to hedge fund managers across a variety of strategies via structured managed accounts.  Prior to Topwater, Mr. Higgins spent five years working for event-driven, distressed, and activist hedge fund managers with assets as large as $1.85 billion. There's a lot of big financial numbers here, John. A lot of big financial numbers. John: Want me to dive a bit deeper on it and summarize for you? Jason: Yeah. Let's dive into that and then tell us how you got into all of these. John: Sure. I can start from how I got into the hedge funds space which led me through here. I started and talk my way into an internship my junior college, totally unqualified, at the University of New Hampshire versus people that are top of their class from top business schools. Got a shot to join big hedge fund on my way up. I worked my tail off that summer and got a full time offer. I joined that firm full time after I graduated college. I was really lucky. I worked for the really brilliant entrepreneur there who would start this business with $500,000. Four years later, he grew it to almost $2 billion.  Then, left that company and went to Topwater where I was invested in hedge fund strategies via structured managed accounts, kind of cross the bench of the long, short, and distressed credit. That company was acquired by Leucadia which is now Jefferies Investment Bank; the two merged. Leucadia was at a big stake and Jefferies a long story anyway. As that transaction was transpiring, I was approached by the former management team across the marketplace who've I known from the hedge fund industry. They had great entrepreneurs that built and sold the company that served hedge funds called Merlin Securities. They're backed by Sequoia. Sold that business to Wells Fargo and decided they were going to take over Prosper.  They reached out and said, "We're looking for someone to help us build out this business as we take it over and turn it around." Really fortunate to work with tremendous entrepreneurs and the tremendous team there. During my time there, we went from about 50 employees up to about 600+ when I left. That was my first foray into more pure play technology.  We're a financial technology platform. We're offering unsecured personal loans online to end consumers. If you're thinking about going online, applying for a personal loan, no human interaction, [...] pricing, I can get you a loan in a matter of days as opposed to having to leave your house, go to a bank, et cetera, and fill up paper forms. After leaving Prosper, I was consulting for various lending platforms as you touched on in the intro. I got to work again with tremendous entrepreneurs across a bunch of different verticals. One of the people I've got to work with was doing some lending into the small landlord space. It's fix and flip lending and also rental lending. I started looking at the opportunities. I said, "This is really interesting. I know all of these products that helped multifamily owners protect them against bad tenant outcomes."  There's a lot of companies that pop up doing that, but no one's really going after single family. I started looking at the space and opportunity. As you and everyone else in the space realizes, it's actually bigger than the multifamily space. When you live in New York, everyone thinks rental properties are the big highrise. In fact, there's roughly more than 16 million single family rental units in the US, then another 8 million duplexes, triplex quads. All in all, you have about 20 million rental units in the US owned by individual investors that owned less than 10 units. These owners actually can't solve for this risk which is if the tenant goes bad. The smart owners are getting professional property managers or actually better at picking tenants at the established processes and procedures. They're getting bad tenants out. It can help manage those properties and have better outcomes. But still, when there’s a loss of rental income due to tenant default, there is no protection. In fact, my business partner and co-founder, Viken, had a property in New York City that he was renting. Person just skips town in the middle of the night. He was left with close to $20,000. It actually might have been north of $20,000 loss because the tenant just left the unit and didn't say anything. It took awhile to get it rerented. He had no coverage. If he had, it had no protection against that. If you had Steady or some of these other providers that are popping up, they could've indemnify themselves from that loss, and could've been made whole for a modest premium.  Long story short, there's a big need in the market to this type of product. What we're really excited about is working with all the property managers across the country to help ensure this is product underlying landlords and finding ways for everyone to win. Jason: Cool. Let's talk about the product specifically. Explain this to somebody that's never heard of this. They might even be an unseasoned property manager. Describe the problem that exists, that this solves for. John: Sure. When you look at it, if the tenant goes bad whether it's professionally managed or not—let’s suppose it’s some professionally managed properties; that's really who we're serving here in this podcast, and who we speak to—if their tenants goes bad, the owner's mad at them. They might've lose that door because guess what? They probably picked the tenant. They were entrusted by the landlord or the owner to find the tenant, to select the right tenant, and now the tenant's bad. So, the owner's mad, they might lose every relationship. The owner's also rental income. As a result, property managers also lost their property management fee income. Generally, they're charging based on the property management fee.  If you look globally, across Australia, New Zealand, and Europe, this type of insurance product, rent default insurance, is widely available and widely adopted. The reason is that, if you look in other jurisdictions, primarily Europe, it's flipped from the US. It's about 70% renter 30% owner. As we know, post financial crisis, more and more US consumers are now choosing to rent instead of own. So, the property management space is going to be larger and the rental property market is getting larger.  As this is occuring, we think that more and more people will be in need of this insurance because we have a growing market. The insurance itself indemnifies and there's different flavors. We'll speak generally about rent default insurance and what's out there as opposed to Steady, specifically. What we want to do is educate the market on the availability of these types of products.  Rent default insurance, generally speaking, indemnifies the owner against losses as a result of the bad tenant outcome. It could be eviction, tenant skips, et cetera; different programs to different coverages. What this does is it allows the owner who can't self-insure due to the diversification to recoup losses if they are unfortunately stuck with the bad tenant that stops paying rent or needs to get evicted.  Different people had different approaches to it. Us at Steady, we've taken a lot of the learnings from the online lending space using technology to streamline processes, operations, and try to deliver a great product that are at a reasonable price to the end market.  A lot of property managers are saying, "Hey, this is great. This is a huge concern that my underlying owners have. What happens if the tenant doesn't pay rent?" They see property management companies out there that have eviction protection plans or other plans. You've got the SureVestors, the Rent Rescues, and a bunch of other great companies out here, all serving for these types of risks and helping solve these pain points. The reason for that is this huge market is a huge concern. If you've got one property, say you own a home and you move for work across the country. You can't sell your home or whatever reason you have. You put it with the professional property manager. They're managing that, but you're relying on that cash flow for maintenance, upkeep, taxes, et cetera. In many cases, to pay the mortgage. If that tenant goes bad, all of a sudden, you're break even or your cash flowing property gone upside down and now you're coming out of pocket. You now have a liability that you have to come out of the pocket for every month. That's a big pain point, a big concern, and what these types of products do is solve for those types of risk, help landlords have peace of mind, and protect against bad tenant outcomes. Jason: You name dropped some of your own competitors, which is very generous of you. How does Steady standout or differ? How do you compare, standout, or differ in the space? John: We've taken a bit of a different approach on how we can structure our products and policy. A lot of other competitors, not just in space but in insurance generally, what they do is copy and paste what other products work on their markets or other products that other people have launched, and there's not a lot of innovation. As a result, we haven't seen a huge take rate for these types of product in the US.  What we found—you might feel differently—my business partner, Viken, grew up in Paris. What works in Europe doesn't necessarily work in the US. What works in Australia doesn't necessarily work for the US. What Viken and I did when we came together is we deconstructed how these programs work globally. We took a lot of the learning from online lending to build what we believe is a better program here in the US.  One differentiation is automation. Our entire process is fully automated. We just set an email prior to this event saying, "We are now in 20 states." We've got the ability to be in all 50 states. The reason we're not in all 50 states right now is because we want to automate everything. It is going slow to go fast. As we start to take it off here and ramp because the updates have been very strong, it's continuing to go stronger daily, everything will be automated. What that will result in is more efficient processes, procedures, and better pricing.  Jason: Explain what that means so everyone understands. You're saying that automation is a differentiator and that it's fully automated. What's automated? John: A property manager or a property owner can go online to the website, inquire about rent default insurance on their own, and complete the entire process in less than two minutes. There's no human interaction necessary and they could do everything themselves. Now, newer company, newer brand, we’re lucky to be aligned with the very strong brand in the insurance space, but nothing's perfect. As you know, as an entrepreneur, you think you've got something perfect and they realize you need to make it better. That's how the process works. It's constant iteration to get better, and better, and better. Jason: The perfect businesses are out of business. John: Right. We continue to constantly push new development releases and streamlining things. What we believe is that, if you can make the process as easy as buying, say for instance, travel insurance when you're buying a flight and make it that easy, that will be a great outcome for us and for this market. The way which you can do that is through API integrations, the right product structures, the right creativity, the right business development strategies, et cetera.  If you look at our product, where our technology is our technology, our product is our product, the two weren't built separately. They're built together. They work very closely together and in tandem. Because of that, it allows us to deliver a great customer experience, a frictionless process, high scalability, and keep headcount well. Right now, our biggest expenses have been legal and engineering, as you can imagine. It's a technology company, but legal because we invest heavily in making sure that we do everything right and by the book. Also, that our partners do things right by the book. As you know, the property management space has some instances where people have more of a cavalier or cowboy type approach that works until it doesn't. For us, we have ambitions to be a very large company and we operate in a highly regulated space. It's non negotiable for us to run into issues on the regulatory front or have our partners run into those issues. We take that very seriously and focus on in making sure everything is done the right way. Jason: That makes sense. The number one challenge when it comes to any solution or software or third party service is adoption. It's how easy is it for them to adopt this and use. If adoption is a challenge, then it's not going to work. It's not going to grow. People are not going to use it or it's going to be confusing or frustrating.  I'm a big Apple fan. Apple made adoption very easy. My AirPods, I just hold them out, open them up, my phone just show them on the screen, and they connect. It was magic, it's easy, I didn’t have to fill around weird Bluetooth settings or hold down buttons. What you're saying makes a lot of sense.  You've mentioned that it's easy for the consumer or for the property manager. One challenge that I see a lot of firms run into is when you're servicing an audience that's servicing that same audience. You almost can become competitors with them. How do you negotiate that? How does the property manager still have a competitive advantage against them just working with you directly? John: I guess, education, awareness, and understanding. People [...] this in massive market. People don't even know about this product. One parallel I draw frequently is pet insurance. I’ve got a pet, I’ve got a dog who's five now. I have pet insurance that I pay $70 or $80 a month. They haven’t got a good plan because the vet at the time said, "Hey, you should consider pet insurance if there's ever an issue." To me, the asset there is the pet. A little bit different than a rental property, maybe not as emotional as a rental property would be. They said, "Maybe you should look at this." It's a similar thing as what you're seeing happening in the property management space. Property managers are the fiduciary, the trusted advisor to the asset and the asset owner, which is the landlord or the small rental property owner who's contracted the property manager for their services. If they can be introduced to this product, it's for their benefit.  We don't have a big direct push. We're not looking to go after single family rental landlords directly. Our entire business model is predicated on partnerships. Based on our analysis, there's roughly eight million rental units in the US managed professionally. We've love to see that grow larger. Those are also, for us, we believe the best risk. As I touched on earlier, we believe strongly that property managers are better at picking tenants, have an established processes and procedures in getting bad tenants out, and they can get units rented more quickly. Jason: Which lowers your risk as an insurance provider. John: Correct, which results in better outcomes from the underwriting perspective.  Jason: Okay, makes sense. Your interests are aligned directly with property managers. They're your focus.  John: Yes. They are our focus. We just did a giveaway today to property management conference for people that could enter. We view property managers as our partners. Again, the reason I mentioned some of our competitors earlier because the rising tide lifts all boats. We want to see everyone do well, we want to see landlords have access to the solution so they get better outcomes, and we want to see property managers to be able to benefit from this as well.  Jason: Yeah, I love it. I believe that too. I have said before, rising tide raises all ships, but sometimes the bar is so low in property management in some areas and in some markets, that I don't think every ship's going to rise. Some have too many holes and are going to sink, but that's okay. John: That's right. That's Darwinism. Jason: Right, survival of the fittest. What are some of the most frequently asked questions or concerns that property managers are asking you or have been asking in sales conversations? So that we can make sure we address them here on this show. John: A lot of things that a lot of property managers ask is simply how it work. We have an FAQ section on our website and we can share the link on it. "How does it work?" "Why does this exist?" "How can no one else is doing is?" As I catch on, this is the third time I'll mention SureVestor, Rent Rescue, and others. The awareness is growing and that's what the biggest challenge is for all of us in this space is awareness that these types of solutions are available. This isn't like rental insurance or pet insurance. Pet insurance, I guess, is now becoming widely adopted, but people don't know about it and don't understand it. Most of the reactions we got is, "Wow, this exists? This is great. How does it work?" "Wow, that's inexpensive. This makes a lot of sense." It all depends on the property address, the rent amount, and the pricing. Jason: For anyone that's confused, let's just explain the difference between renter's insurance and rent default insurance. John: Renter's insurance covers the renter's possessions and liability to the landlord, generally speaking. It's paid for by the renter and they're doing it, so if there's a fire in the unit, they're not covered from the landlord's policy. Their possessions are gone. The landlord gets the unit rebuild, the house rebuilt, but they don’t receive anything. Now with renter's insurance, then we get some coverage for that.  From the landlord's perspective, if the renter has renter's insurance, they have a guest over, they slip and fall, and break their leg, it protects the liability to the landlord for them getting sued from that slip and fall. That's renter's insurance. Rent default insurance, it depends on the program. Different people, different features. Generally speaking, it covers loss of rent due to tenant skips, eviction, and tenant nonpayment for whatever reason. Jason: Sometimes, we have to make sure things are at an 8 year old level so that everybody gets it.  John: I generally need things at an 8 year old level to understand.  Jason: Right. Most entrepreneurs do because we're just so damn impatient at paying attention to things sometimes.  All right. We talked about how it works, why is anyone doing this. Any other frequently asked questions that people are concerned about? John: "What's the catch?" generally. Insurance companies, for better or for worse, generally don't always have the best reputation for making it easy to make claims, et cetera. That's another thing. Some people want to see the policies and see things in that nature.  Again, the big thing is people just don't understand these types of products exists. That's why we're out there educating the market and letting people know that there are these types of coverages available and you can get the coverage to these types of risks.  Jason: Let's touch on the benefits for a property management business in having this in their repertoire of services and how this can help them sell and close more deals, give them the competitive advantage, maybe. John: What do you see is property managers are now looking at this and some are saying, "I'm just going to include it in all my plans," and say, "This makes a lot of sense.” Now, we've got a differentiator. All of my property management packages include three months of rent default insurance if the tenant goes bad. They're out there marketing and saying that it includes it. Others are saying, "This is interesting. How can we offer this and earn some B revenue?" The only way it works, as I touched on earlier with compliance, is you can't get paid for the sales, solicitation, negotiation of insurance, unless you're an insurance producer. You can do other things such as marketing fees, et cetera, but you can't make conditions on the sale, solicitation, negotiation, and insurance. That's why we spend so much to make sure that anything we do, anything our partners do in partnership with us, is fully vetted and above board. We make sure everyone stays on the right side of the rules. Jason: Do they become somewhat of an insurance agent? Or you're just laying that all together? John: No. They do not become insurance agents in any way, shape, or form unless they've got an insurance agent license. Then, they could be an insurance agent, obviously.  Jason: Okay. John, it's great to see an entrepreneur doing something that's impacting the industry. I believe these products are going to have massive ripple effect in the industry. They're going to create a lot more safety and certainty in the property management space. It's going to lower the risk. It's going to lower the pain threshold for landlords to trust somebody else to manage their properties. It's going to protect all the parties involved and that means it's going to help the industry grow. If Australians, somebody said their markets are any indicator, it seems like these types of products help these markets grow significantly in a relatively short period of time, over a decade. They've grown phenomenally. I heard stats like Australia's grown through 25% in a decade. Largely, they claimed that it was connected to that. I don't know if that's accurately or true, but if that were true and the industry—single family residential—were maybe about 30% are professionally managed, that almost be our industry doubling here in the US. I don't know that there's enough companies here in the US right now to handle that level of growth. That would mean we need to double the amount of companies or we need to double the size of every company that exists. Something in between that. John: Or let's double the size of every company that exists. That'll be a good outcome for everyone. Jason: Yeah. Regardless, I want to make sure that we've got the best. Let's raise the tide. I appreciate that you're seeking to raise the tide. I think collaboration over competition is what builds market, it's what builds the category. It's always important to build the category before you try to build the individual brand. That's Marketing 101, everybody.  Property management is in the same boat. Property management has very low awareness, in general, here in the US and right now, we've got a lot of people going around something in their chest, trying to fill their individual brand. We need to build the category first. There's a lesson for the industry to take away from what you've mentioned and what's going on in what you're doing, so I appreciate that. John: NARPM’s done a good job trying to get the industry moving in the right direction. People like you and a lot of others that are trying to educate and build awareness are very helpful as well. It's great to see everyone working together in some way, shape, or form. Jason: There's no scarcity in property management. There just really isn't. There's 70% in single family residential that are self-managing right now. That does not indicate scarcity. In certain channels of marketing, there is a lot of scarcity because everybody's doing the same stuff, there is scarcity. John, I appreciate you coming in the show. How can people get in touch with Steady and learn more about this? John: They can go to the website www.steadymarketplace.com or shoot me an email john@steadymarketplace.com. Jason: Perfect. John, I appreciate you coming on the show, I appreciate what you're doing, and I wish Steady success. John: Thank you, Jason. Thanks for having me. Jason: Check them out at steadymarketplace.com. If you are, for some reason, not getting the growth that you want, you're growth is good, but you want to pour a little gasoline on that fire, if you find that you're getting a lot of your business lately from word of mouth, and from the trust that you built in the marketplace, I would love to pour gasoline on that fire. That's what DoorGrow specializes in, optimizing your warmly funnel and optimizing your business for more organic growth, which is a lot less expensive than showing up tens of thousands of dollars a year towards pay per click, SEO, and everything that everybody is competing and already doing.  Like I said, I don't believe there's scarcity in the industry, but I believe there's false scarcity that's been created by marketers, and you can avoid that. For those who can't see, I'm wearing my "SEO won't save you" shirt. A lot of people are relying on SEO to save you. Don't get me wrong, SEO is great. If you have the top spot in Google, that's great to have search engine optimization. But there are things that are better than having the top spot in Google like being the most trusted company in your market. Our whole system is focused on building trust for your brand, for your business, and helping you to go after that blue ocean where there's all that business available; that 70%. I appreciate John being on the show. Until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye, everyone.  

Bringing outside perspectives and experiences to our business and podcast episodes adds another perspective to our expertise. This episode brings in someone with a lot of experience in a particular niche, in this case, the exit strategy/buyout arena. Quiet Light's own Walker Diebel is here today talking to our guest all about exit planning. BEI Institute founder John Brown started working as a lawyer in estate planning in the late 70s. John walks us through his journey managing business owner's assets and becoming aware that no one was helping them plan successful exits from their companies when the time came. Without being educated, he asked himself how these business owners would plan a strategic exit from their businesses and move successfully into their post-business lives. John's company, BEI is now is the leader in the exit planning industry. Episode Highlights: John explains exit planning. The first thing that someone who potentially wants to sell their business should do. The value drivers that are important to pay attention when building your business. The role of the business owner in the process. Business risks that are not avoidable or hard to foresee. The biggest deal killers. John walks us through the four exit paths. The Karl case study – an exit strategy lesson. Transcription: Mark: Joe I don't know if you know this or not but one of the advisers here at Quiet Light Brokerage; Walker, he's kind of a big deal. Joe: He is kind of a big deal. Let's do this; let's make a pact. This is the last intro and the last time that we will say did you know Walker Deibel wrote a book and a best-selling book, Forbes and Amazon, all this other stuff because you know Chuck and I did talk about it the last episode as well. We need to stop making fun of Walker. The truth is he's brilliant and we're jealous. That's the bottom line. Mark: That is why we make fun of him, right? I mean we kind of wish that we had that book to our name and he is brilliant. And he's well for a reason. Joe: And he's being asked to be a featured speaker all over the country to entrepreneurial groups. And he just had somebody named John H. Brown, founder of BEI on the podcast. I'm looking down because I'm looking at the book here; a brilliant guy. The wisdom that John brought in terms of exit planning and what entrepreneurs should do in terms of goal setting and looking out to the future and how to adjust their business as necessary to achieve their financial goals and their personal goals; it was brilliant. A great deal of wisdom that John brought to this podcast that Walker hosted instead of you, right? Mark: That's right. You guys get a break from us this week which is fantastic for you. I love bringing in outside opinions. We've brought in some people in the past who are also in our industry that do things that are similar to what we do at Quiet Light Brokerage but they come with a different perspective than we do. I love doing this because I think sometimes with what we do we can kind of get set in our ways and our perspectives and bringing somebody else in who has a lot of experience in this space and seeing how they look at it, it tends to stretch you a little bit and structure your viewpoints a bit to maybe look at things that you haven't looked at before. So this is going to be a fascinating interview that Walker did with John to see what he has to say about exit planning. Joe: I agree. I've listened to it twice. Let's go to it for our studio audience. Walker: Hi everybody it's Walker Deibel with Quiet Light Brokerage. Today I have John Brown who is the CEO of Business Enterprise Institute; the oldest and largest provider of exit planning education in North America and the author of the best-selling exit planning book of all time. And most recently John wrote Exit Planning The Definitive Guide To Sell Your Business When You Want For The Money You Need To The Person You Choose. John, welcome to the podcast. John: Thank you, Walker. It's nice to be here. Walker: Now here at Quiet Light we have a tradition of having our guests introduce themselves because we believe that you're going to be able to do a better job than we ever could. And what I might do is throw a curveball at you and say… John: There was never a good curveball if you will know. Walker: Maybe if you can tell us about your journey of being an attorney and then how you evolved to ultimately start BEI and writing all these books on exit planning. John: Sure. So I was the son of two business owners in Michigan. So I've always had some I guess passion for business owners because they ended up selling their business and it didn't turn out well. It was an absolute bust. And this was when I was probably in law school at the University of Wisconsin. I wasn't in a position to do anything because I didn't know what to do. Walker: Well let me interject a question little fast, when you say an absolute bust selling a business what does that mean? John: Well they sold the business to the management team for a promissory note. They retired because they're from Michigan. They retired at Florida like all the people from Michigan and within a year the business had gone under. And they received very little of the proceeds from the sale of their business. So that was just a bust. It really affected their retirement dramatically. Walker: I got it. John: And at the time I was just a young and stupid law student. I really didn't know how I could have helped them. And it was long enough ago that the word; the term exit planning hadn't even been coined. I think we probably coined the term back in the 1980s. So that always stuck with me. So when I started to practice law in Denver I really had a desire to work with business owners. So the law firm developed along the lines of representing closely-held business owners. And we had about 20 attorneys and all we did was represent closely-held business owners. It was a different type of law firm back then at least. Walker: Were you a transaction attorney or no? John: Half the firm was transactional, an M&A firm buying and selling businesses. But the other half was a planning firm and I headed that side. It was then evolved into explaining; how to design and implement a plan to allow the owner to leave on his or her terms. And then often would end up being a third party sale and so the M&A firm was active in that. But even more frequently it ended up being transferred to family members or to management. And so we just developed an exit planning process about that in the law firm with hundreds of clients and then I'm never having a passion for being a lawyer. I transitioned out of that. I exited my law firm and started BEI. Walker: Are you still a recovering attorney or have you had a chance to move on from that? John: I think my former partners would say I had recovered from being an attorney while I was still at the law firm. Walker: John what is exit planning? I mean what is the goal of exit planning? What is it; I mean what is this thing? John: So every owner is going to leave the business at some point. I think we can agree on that. Walker: If they don't? John: They may die. They may go bankrupt. Or hopefully something in between where they develop value that's transferable to another owner and they create a plan as part of that to exit the business when they want; is it three years, five years to whenever for the money they want or need and to the person they choose; the person of their choice. That's, in essence, is exit planning and a raptor into that then is an exit planning process that owners can use and BEI does not represent business owners. We train lawyers and CPAs and financial planners and so on to actually do the exit planning for business owners. Walker: And brokers? John: And brokers; and the good brokers I should say, Walker. Only the good brokers. Walker: Only the good ones. John: Only the good ones. And so that's what BEI does today. We train and support other advisors throughout North America. Walker: So I have to ask you as coming from the buy-side of the deal hearing about something called exit planning it almost seems to me like the goal from a buyer perspective might be perceived as the goal being to maximize the value, potentially some end gaming going on, or for lack of better description is exit planning just kind of putting lipstick on a pig in preparation of taking it to market or it' more…? John: Putting lipstick on a pig is the broker's job. Walker: Packaging it up; I got it. John: We're trying to convert the pig into a beautiful stallion. Walker: Right. So in other words what you're trying to do is address the sort of levers that drive value and build a lot more muscle into a company for an exit. John: Exactly. A better term for us instead of exit planning would probably have been pre-exit planning because almost all the planning and implementation work must take place and be completed before you transfer the business to a third party, before you go to market, or before you substantially transfer ownership to the kids or to an insider. So that planning needs to be done now for most owners because 80% of all owners according to our last summer survey want to leave their business within 10 years. I was about to say 10 days and it's true for some but it's 10 years to be a little more accurate. Walker: Every month I have calls with both ends of that spectrum. John: Yeah. Walker: Okay, so how should a seller plan strategically about their exit? Like what are the things that they need? Or let's start at the beginning, what is the first thing that someone who potentially wants to sell their business should be doing or thinking about? John: The first thing that would be really the first phase of explaining which consists of understanding what they want growth both in money, when they want to leave the business, who they want to transfer to, do they want to maintain the culture or legacy of their company, do they want to benefit the employees, do they want to keep the business in the community. Those are all goals that owners need to think about and then they need to create with some specificity. A quick example is most owners would say if I ask them when do you want to leave, they would say oh I'd like to leave in five years. If I were to come back in a year and I'd say hey when do I leave, they'd say oh I want to leave in five years. Well, that lacks clarity and specificity. So we would say okay, you want to leave in five years; you want to leave on August 8, 2024. Now we can start to plan towards that. So that's the goal side and the other side is knowing what the resources are. So in third party sale in your world the potential clients you talk to have an idea of the value of their company and that value is always quite a bit higher. It's almost always quite a bit higher than reality. So they should be coming to the transaction advisors. And this is what BEI members do, they have transaction advisors they work with all the time and if a client says I'd like to leave my business in five years and I think it's worth 10 million dollars so I think we can get started. The first thing one of our trained advisors is going to do is to say okay let's go talk to an experienced M&A advisor; you, an investment banker, a cayenne business broker and let's have them tell or give us a range of likely sales value. Hey that comes back at four million dollars or maybe something in between. We don't know as exit planners what it's going to be worth but we can't do any planning that suggests owners can't do any planning if they don't know what the heck they have and what in the heck they want to do. And that's the first phase of exit planning. And then it determines; the final part of that is is there a gap between the resources they have today and the resources they're going to need? We've determined all that using financial planners, maybe business valuation people if it's going to be a transfer to management, or an M&A business broker, or an investment banker if it's a third-party sale. What we know is where the owner stands and so does the owner before they make decisions on what they're going to do. Usually that decision is going to be I've got to grow value in the company and it may take me years to do so but not always. Walker: So it sounds like number one is to set the goals; apply what is the number we're trying to hit and what is the timeline in which we're trying to hit it. John: Right. Walker: Number two seems to be working with someone like a broker to get a valuation on the business today so that you know where you are and where you're trying to build to. Is that accurate? John: Well yeah we would say the first step is goal setting, the second step is resource determination. But to do it accurately like you just said. And then the third step in our exit planning process is to grow value, grow cash flow, minimize; do some tax planning. There's not so much tax planning most owners can do that they don't; they're totally unaware of because their attorneys and their CPAs have never suggested tax planning to them. I mean there are ways where you can sell the stock of your corporation; a C Corporation and not pick up a gains tax if it's been structured properly from the inception. Walker: Amazing. John: And few owners know about that. Walker: When we talk to our potential sellers at Quiet Light I mean if we really were to boil it all down there's probably seven different things that I kind of look at. And this isn't about Quiet Light, it's about you and the process that you've built. My question to you is what are the levers that drive value in a business? John: So we have a whole part of explaining in this third step called value drivers. And so we look at what are the value drivers in most businesses. And how do we get this idea; the value driver concepts? It's not from being a lawyer. It's from talking to the M&A community. What do they look for especially private equity in acquiring businesses? And then those value drivers or levers work equally well in selling the business to insiders. So two things, one is we focus on creating what we call transferable value. For smaller businesses where the owner is in charge of almost everything, it may have a million dollars of EBIDTA a year but that's probably not transferable because the owner sells the business, the owner goes away, and maybe the customers go away, maybe the employees go away. So a buyer is not going to be interested in a company where the owner is too important in the operation of the business. So to us, transferable value means the owner could leave the business today with minimal interruption to the company's cash flow. So part one; does the company have that? If not we need to work on that. And the value drivers then are what we work on which is the second part. The three biggest value drivers we see today, and you can probably comment on this better than I can Walker, is one having a top-notch best in class management team. That's what most buyers like to look for because most buyers don't have that management team to put in place in the company they acquire. And it also means there can be transferable value because the management team can continue the business without the owner. The second thing is diversity of the customer base or maybe the vendor base to make sure that the company is not dependent on any small group of customers or clients because again those customers and clients might leave when the owner does because they're loyal to the owner. So that's a risk that buyers don't want to have. And the third thing I hear today that I didn't hear a few years ago is the quality of the operating systems within the company. I'm hearing from a lot of the PE firms hey we don't want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars if not more to go; to rip out the old operating system that's eight years old and put in a new operating [inaudible 00:16:50.8] operating system. They want to see that in the companies they're requiring; at least those worth millions of dollars. I mean a smaller company maybe they wouldn't expect that; I really don't know but maybe you want to comment on that. Walker: Hey, it's a really great point. I think that a lot of the sellers at Quiet Light Brokerage are online businesses, right? And as you know I've bought over half a dozen companies in my life and I sold a couple. And I've done everything from manufacturing and distribution to online. As a broker, I really only work in online businesses. But part of the reason for that is a lot of the reasons you're talking about because a management team is almost eliminated. I mean we can sell a company for five million dollars say and that's just one person and they've got a bunch of virtual assistants. So the most important person in the company might just be the hired gun that's running paid ads or something like that. So making sure that that management team can transfer is key. I want to come back to something you said around transferable value and I want to kind of dive into that just a little bit; a little surgical here and the question is it seems to me like what you're saying is that the owner can't be the craftsman in the business whether that be I'm out hustling doing one on one sales or I've got some key relationships or an industry of like in math analogy I'm the one making the pots. Is that accurate? I mean does that sort of core business need to be transferred to a different person that is going to transfer with the business even if it means a reduction in earnings because you're paying for a new person on staff? John: Yeah I think that for most buyers that would be critical. Now in the world you're in, the owner may not be that important. It might be the technology itself that's important then the owner is not; the owner maybe developed it and created it. Well he may no longer be important in the whole process. Walker: It does depend. But yes, go ahead. John: Yeah. So that would be in your world more than my world. In my world which isn't; I mean all worlds now have developed technology involved that seems like. Even farmers have a lot of technology. But that would be more towards an operating system. They're not developing the technology they're just using it. So I'm not sure I can answer your question I just don't have enough experience in that. But I would say if I were buying a company for its technology and it was created by the owner I would sure as heck want the owner to stay with the company because he or she probably has other ideas in their brain and I may want to capture some more of that. That might just be a situational issue more than anything else. Walker: You know I think it's one of these things where I was recently talking to; it was about…well, I shouldn't date it for confidentiality reasons. Months ago I was talking with a potential seller who wanted to exit and he owned a SaaS business; a Software As A Service business. And it turned out through the sort of valuation call I was having with him that he was the actual developer on the whole system which to me was like this is an unsellable business which is kind of what I'm getting at. So sometimes you get the; where the owner is the craftsman and that doesn't transfer and what we talk to our sellers about is the person who's likely to buy your business is an entrepreneur. It's a business person it's not a software developer it's not even necessarily a paid ads expert. So I'm glad to see that you agree with that transferability is all. I mean trying to outsource that craftsmanship and skill set to other team members makes the business sellable, to begin with. It sounds like that's really one of your first steps. John: That would be one of the things but then tied into that that's clearly the case is the owner before the sale. Let's say there are two craftsmen in the business that are really key to the growth and the continuation or stability of the business. We would want to tie those two key people, incent them to stay with the business through cash; maybe stock bonuses or stock options, have them really have a reason to continue on with new ownership because they're going to benefit from it themselves if they stay. If you don't do that in advance of making efforts to sell the business then the owner can be held hostage in effect by the craftsman because they can say you know owner if I leave your business sale is going to go out of the window and I know you've been talking about 10 million dollars and I think I'm probably responsible for at least 20% of that value so I need two million dollars. I've seen that happen not in high tech but I've seen it happen in traditional businesses all the time. Walker: Right. John: And so you've got to protect the trade secrets which is the value of the business. You've got to prevent somebody from going out and taking something. You've got to prevent your key people from going out and just joining a competitive firm. All that can be done in almost all states; California is an exception to this unless they have ownership which is something to look at. But you still can do some things and certainly motivate; incent them with deferred compensation, stock, stock bonus points. Those are all things your listeners should be aware of. They should be talking to attorneys and M&A advisers about how to protect themselves against that risk that is right there next door to them. Walker: John, I want to ask you this question is every business risk addressable? I mean in other words it sounds like a lot of what you talk about and help people navigate through is essentially eliminating the sort of risks that are going to; that a buyer is going to see when they come to the table to buy it, right? But is there anything that is just not addressable? John: Well I would say the thing that's not addressable is general business risk. Now let's say you guys one of your would-be buyers has just this great software for the quick print industry 10 years ago. Well that industry goes away. Now where does that work? So there's that element of business risk. Again you can take measures to try to be aware of that but some of this is hard to foresee. But most other things within the business you can do something about; maybe not everything you'd like to do at maybe a pure loss to the company. Walker: Yeah. And I just; where my brain is kind of going is more like in an offline business probably the number one problem that I see is maybe customer concentration issues, right? In the online world that usually is not a problem. Sometimes in SaaS businesses, you get one customer that's a bit of a behemoth but it tends to look more like supplier power if you will. Like maybe you've got one supplier that supplies all of your product and you're kind of a reseller for that. I mean I think that it's probably easier to address if it's supplier power because you can diversify your suppliers. I guess I'm just… John: That doesn't mean your owners are going to do that, right? Inaudible[00:24:25.6] has a good point. And you just have to figure out how can you mitigate your risk by diversifying it could be vendors, it could be suppliers, it could be customers; direct customers, it can be all kinds of different things. And advisers are not necessarily the best person or the best route to figure that out. Usually, the owner alone can figure that out through some good questioning by advisors. They may know what those business risks better than let's say a lawyer in your case you probably know all that because you're in this space yourself. So I think you would be a very valuable asset. Walker: John what are the biggest deal killers? John: The biggest deal killers; the first one is the owners doesn't understand if they sell the business what they're going to get and how they're going to get it. They go into the marketplace, they hire a transaction intermediary like yourself, they don't really know how much money they're going to need as a result of that sale. One if they want to retire after that, how much do they need for the rest of lives? Or secondly, if they're just going to flip companies, how much money do they really need to go to the next level and make sure that they have a reasonable chance of doing that before they even start the sales process. So we have investment bankers who are members of BEI and one of the main reasons they're members is that they've gone through that. They go to market, they get some good offers; lots of money, but the owner then looks at what he or she is living on now and the proceeds from that will not support that lifestyle even though it's a lot of money and they drop out of the market. They tainted the marketplace. It's difficult to reenter down the road and the broker and investment banker spend a lot of time and effort with nothing. Walker: Can you unpack that for me if you wouldn't mind? Can you kind of give me an example of what that might actually look like? John: An example would be a dealing with one of our members who is an investment banker in Texas and he had a client who went to market and a cash offer for 16 million dollars for his company. So the broker and the investment bank was pretty hands-on with that. It was at the top percentile of what he thought he could get when he sold the business. And at that time for the first time with a firm offer on the table the owner looks at how much money he needed; money after taxes, transaction fees, paying off debt, etcetera in order to support his lifestyle and it wasn't enough money. Walker: It was a surprise. John: It was a surprise and so he dropped out. So that's a real risk of doing it. And then along with that is another closely related risk; probably new world as well, is the owners have an overinflated concept or idea of what their business will sell for. And so again they either don't take steps to grow value, they don't take steps to protect the value and they just decide they're going to go to market. They talk to you and they learn that business is worth a third of what it really is and they've wasted years that they could have been working to put in the value drivers and other factors that would lead to greater value. Walker: There's a couple of times where I try to buy companies by going directly to the seller before the company was on the market so to speak and every single time they wanted 20 times EBIDTA. I mean just some [inaudible[00:28:05.1] with what the value of a company was. So I learned pretty quickly to find the sellers that are already working with advisers because they've already gone through the hard learning process of what the market actually is, right? You can want what you want but the market tells the truth. John: That's right. Working with an adviser there's going to be better information available as well. They're going to have a deal book. They're going to have vetted some of the owner's beliefs. Walker: Tell us about the four different exit paths and kind of like a brief synopsis on sort of the pluses and minuses of each. John: Gosh Walker you have read part of my books if you'd known about that. Walker: I take it pretty well. John: Did you just look at the chapters and figured out from there in the introduction? I get that; I mean I'm going to rip those Table of Contents off from now on. The four types of; the four exit paths starting with the least used to the most used. The least used is an ESOP, an Employee Stock Ownership Plan. It's a great concept. It's a great tool. About 1% of the exit plans or members do use that path. Walker: And this is where the buyer of the company is the employees of the business. John: Well the buyer of the company is a retirement plan; a trust in which all of the employees are beneficiaries. And there are some great tax advantages in doing that but they're relatively complicated. You need a business that has probably 5 million dollars of value or more in good cash flow and a strong management team to do that. That can be great especially for owners who might say well I really want to keep my business and my community or I want to benefit my employees; I want the legacy of my company continue. In ESOP it's good because it's going to be indirectly owned by the employees and so the legacy etcetera will continue. The next used is sort of a tie; it's between transferring the business to kids. About a quarter of all business; all exit plans are members prepared with an exit plan are transfers to family. About 29% are transfers to third parties. So those are the second and third least used. And then the exit path most commonly used is transfer to management; surprisingly transfer to management. And the reason for both the transfer to management and transfer with the kids is that with the planning they can do really through our BEI members they can start to transfer the business sooner rather than later. They keep control over the business however until they get all of the money and achieve all of the other objectives they want to achieve. So that might be a 3, 5, 8, 10-year process of transferring ownership, getting the excess cash flow, getting some money for the transfer of new ownership, and then having a liquidity event at the end in which the buyout occurs. So that's kind of the general design of both transfers to family members and transfers to management. A transfer to a third party is used about 30% of the time and that's your world. And for a lot of owners they would like to maximize the dollars they'd like to exit; if their business is prepared they'd like to exit sooner rather than later. They don't have family members involved. Their management doesn't want to buy the business. So a lot of reasons for an outside third party sale. And so from an exit planning standpoint; in our world, that's the owners choice. The owner tells us the path they want to go down and then we just talk about the pluses and minuses of everything. But then our goal is to make sure that that owner is able to use that exit path and achieve this financial time-driven goals. Walker: Well, just knowing that you have options and the fact that you can outline it so clearly is a great roadmap just to start with. So your parents selling their business and kind of getting it all screwed up is a perfect example of what happens when you don't do exit planning. John: Right. Walker: Do have a story from your past that you can share that kind of shows the benefit of exit planning for an entrepreneur wanting to exit their company? John: Yeah there's a story that we often use in our training; we call it the Carl story. So actually Karl was a real client of mine. I started working with Carl while I was still practicing law. He came to me. He wanted to sell his business sooner rather than later. He wanted roughly five million dollars for his business. He wanted the business to become a world-class company; that was a soft goal. So I looked to his business. His business was worth maybe a million dollars. Carl was the business. He didn't really have a management team. It was actually a manufacturing type of company; plastic injection molding type of company. So I said Carl that your biggest; if you want to grow the value you want to maybe leave five or six years and you realized you couldn't leave right away, you're going to have to develop a management team. That's the number one weakness in small businesses; they don't have a management team. And Carl said I get it. He's actually really a bright guy. I get it. I know just the person to hire. And I thought oh no this is going in the wrong direction now. It's probably his son who is a bicycle mechanic. He said there's this guy in the Netherlands who is the young executive of the world in my industry niche and I'm going to go and this; my client was like in the eastern plains of Colorado which was hundreds of miles away from civilization. He said that I'm going to go over to the Netherlands. He's in Amsterdam; a world-class company and I'm going to hire him. He's going to come over and grow my business. I said go for it but you're not going to be able to do that because you can't afford to give him enough money. So we talked about how the new guy coming in to buy part of the company from Carl. And so that's what happened. We designed an exit strategy to enable that to happen where the new guy coming in; call him Wilhelm, was able to buy a portion of the company every year if the company get performance standards which were tied into the cash flow. And we knew if we hit those standards in general over a six or seven-year period Carl could sell the balance of the business to a third party or to Wilhelm and he will have financial security. That's exactly what happened. Wilhelm came in; knocked the lights out. It's a fascinating story how we did that. We can talk about it another time but at the end of seven years the business sold for 38 million dollars cash. Walker: Oh my God. John: Yeah. So for a long time I thought well Carl was just lucky because he happened to hit upon this boom; this technology at a certain point but then I realized he was lucky, yes, but he never would have accomplished that if he hadn't gone out and sold 49% of the company over time to this person who did all of the growth and who by the way got half of the 38 million dollars. Walker: Amazing. That's amazing. John: So that can happen but it was in accordance with the plan that we developed. It just happened to work out extremely well. And I think it shows the value of world-class management even in a small company. Walker: John, I'm thrilled that you decided to spend time with us. Thank you so much. How can our listeners learn more about why they should be exit planning or how to do it? John: Well there's a number of ways; they can always go to our website ExitPlanning.com but we just released a new video podcast series called Why We Plan. It's on iTunes. It's on Spotify. Really we've just released it this week. It's that new. So I encourage people do that. The CEO of my company and myself have recorded 20 podcasts so far; mostly case studies like the Carl Case Study. What went right, what went wrong, what might you do as an advisor in that situation or as an owner in that situation. So I encourage them to listen to that. Walker: John, thanks so much. John: Thank you, Walker.   Links and Resources: John's Business Website John's Bestselling Book John's Latest Book Why We Plan Podcast

On today’s episode you will hear part 3 of 4 of Russell’s interview with Andrew Warner about the Clickfunnels start up story. Here are some of the awesome things you will hear in this part of the story: Hear how selling Clickfunnels at a Mike Filsaime event got Russell his first ever big table rush at the end of his presentation. Hear from both Dave and John about how they feel about Russell and what they do for the company. And find out how going to Dream Force this year, renewed Russell’s passion for growing his business. So listen here to find out more about the Clickfunnels start up story. ---Transcript--- Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. I hope you enjoyed episodes 1 and 2 of the interview with Andrew Warner at the Dry Bar Comedy Club where he was telling the Clickfunnels startup story. I hope you are enjoying this interview series so far, and I hope also this motivates you guys to go over to the mixergy podcast and subscribe to everything that Andrew does. Like I said, he is my favorite interviewer and I think that what he does is second to none. So I hope that you guys enjoy him as well, and go subscribe to the mixergy podcast. But with that said, I’m going to queue up the theme song, and when we come back we will start into part 3 of the Clickfunnels startup story interview. Andrew: I actually got, I did see, I don’t know, I didn’t see the video you mentioned, but I did see what it looked like. Here’s one of the first versions. He compared it to Clickfunnels, he said, I mean to Lead Pages. He said, “Look at how Lead Pages has their stuff all the way on the left, all the controls.” Oh you can’t see it. Oh, let me try it again, let me see if I can bring up the screen because this is just, it’s just too good. Hang on a second. I’m just constantly amazed how you’re able to draw people to you. So this is the article from Lead Pages, this is the first landing page from Clickfunnels, this is what he created before, this is what you guys did together. This is your editor and h e said, “Look, if you’re on Lead Pages, their controls, their editor is all the way on the left and it’s just moving the main content to the right, which is not looking right. And I prefer something that looks like this, with a hundred pixels on the left, a hundred pixels…” I go, who knows a hundred pixels, it’s like you, what is this? Russell: Dylan is obsessed with that type of stuff, it’s amazing. Andrew: Obsessed. And you draw people like that. You draw people like Dave, who is just phenomenal. Dave, the traffic and conversion event that he was just talking about, is that the one that you went to? Dave: The one after that. Andrew: The one after that. Okay, we’ll come back to that in a second then. So this became your next version, you brought on a new partner, and then you did a webinar with this guy. Who is this guy? Russell: It’s Mike Filsaime, one of my first friends online. It actually wasn’t a webinar, it was a live event. He was doing a live event in San Diego and he was like, “You have to come and sell Clickfunnels.” And I was like, “Nobody’s buying Clickfunnels.” We had a free trial and like, we couldn’t give it away. It was crazy. And he’s like, “Well, you’re on this website, you’re picture is there, you have to come and sell Clickfunnels, and I need you to sell it for at least $1000.” Because the way it works, if you speak at someone’s event, you sell something, you split the money 50/50. So he’s like, “It needs to be at least $1000.” And I was all bummed out. I didn’t want to do it. And the event actually started, but they were streaming it live online, so I was actually sitting at our office in Boise, watching it as I’m putting together my slides to create Clickfunnels, and then flew out to the event. And then we had a booth, and I don’t know if I told you this, we had a booth and Lead Pages had a booth right across the little hallway, skinny hallway. And Todd’s wife was manning our booth and then Lead Pages was right there, and it was so funny because she was not shy at all about talking about Lead Pages. She’s like, “Yeah, we’re like Lead Pages except for way better. We can do this and this.” And the other guy is sitting there like, right in front of her as she’s telling them everything. And it was..anyway, I digress. It was pretty funny. Andrew: By the way, she’s still at it. I saw a video that you guys created, you were talking to her and she goes, “I will be Clickfunnels.” I go wait a minute, you still had that fire, okay. So you were at that event. Russell: So we’re at the event and there’s probably, I can’t remember, 150-200 people maybe in the room. So I got the slides up and Dylan was there and he was like, when we got to the funnels he was going to demo the editor, so I did the whole thing, showed the presentation and we demo’d Clickfunnels and at the end of the thing I sold. And I’ve been good onstage, but by far, that was the first time in probably 8 years that I’d seen a table rush, where people are stepping over the things, jumping around, trying to get to the back to buy as fast as they could. Andrew: What did you say to get them to want to do that? Russell: We made a really, I mean we gave the presentation, and gave a really good offer at the end. They get a year of Clickfunnels for free, plus they get training, plus they were going to get all these other things for $1000. Andrew: It was $1000 training and a year of Clickfunnels for free, and then they become long term members. And it was also called, Funnel Hackers? Russell: Funnel Hacks, yeah. Andrew: Funnel Hacks. And that’s the thing that became like… Russell: The culture. Andrew: This culture, this tribe. It wasn’t just they were signing to learn from you, they were becoming funnel hackers. That’s it. Russell: I mean, that wasn’t planned though. It was like, I was trying to think about a sexy name for the presentation, so I’m like ah, Funnel Hacks. And somebody owned FunnelHacks.com, and I’m like, I’m still doing the presentation that way. And then later we made t-shirts that said, “Funnel Hackers” and then now we got 4 or 5 people have tattooed that to their bodies, it’s really weird. But anyway, that’s what happened. We did that and we sold it and I remember going to dinner that night with the guys who were there, and Todd and his wife and everything. And we were all excited because we made some money finally. But I was just like, “You guys don’t understand, like I’ve spoken on a lot of stages, and I haven’t seen a table rush like that.” And I remember back, there was a guy, he passed away a couple of years ago, his name was Fred Catona. And he was a radio guy. He was the guy who did the radio commercials for, do you guys remember, it’s got the guy from Star Trek, what’s his name? Audience member: Priceline. Russell: Priceline. He did the Priceline radio commercials and made that guy a billionaire. And he told me when we were doing the radio ads, “This is what’s going to happen. We’re going to test your ad and if it works, I’m going to call you on the phone and let you know you’re rich. Because if it works, it means you’re going to be rich.” So I remember going to dinner that night and I told the guys, “Just so you guys know, we’re rich.” And they’re like, “What do you mean? We made $150,000.” I’m like, “No, no, no. The way people responded to that, I’ve never seen that in my life. We’re rich.” The response rate from that, I’ve never seen. Andrew: And then you went to webinar after webinar after webinar. Russell: On the flight home that day I’m texting everybody I’ve ever met. “I got a hot offer, this webinar crushed it. We just closed whatever percent of the room at Filsaime’s event. Who wants to do it?” And we started filling up the calendar. Andrew: And the idea was, and you told me you did 2 to 3 some days. And the idea was, they would sell somebody on a course, and then their members would then hear how your software and your funnel hacking technique would help up what they just bought and then they would sign up. You’re still excited, I can see it in your face. And then this thing took off. And then you started doing an event for your culture, your community, and this guy spoke, Tony Robbins. Russell: Oh yeah, there’s Tony. Andrew: One of the first ones. Was he at the very first one? Russell: No, he came to the third one, was the first one we had him come to. Andrew: Yeah? Why do an event? Why do your own live event? Russell: So we’ve done events in the past. I know events are good, but I’d sworn off them because the last event we did, I think we sold 3 or 400 tickets and less than 100 people showed up and I was so embarrassed. I was like, “We’ll never do events again.” And as soon as this, as soon as Clickfunnels launched and it was growing, everyone’s like, “We want to do a meet up. We should do an event.” All the customers kept asking. And against my, I didn’t really want to do it, but at the same time I was launching my book, and I had won a Ferrari in this affiliate contest so I was like, “What if we did an event and we had the Ferrari there and we gave it away and then we’re…” we had other ideas for giving away other cars and it became this big, exciting thing that eventually turned into an event. And that was the first Funnel Hacking Live event in Vegas, and we had about 600 people at that one that showed up. And that’s where it all kind of, it all started. Andrew: And it built how much, how many people are you up to now? Russell: Last year we had 3500 people and we’re on track to have about 5000 at this year’s event. Andrew: 5000? Yeah. Russell: Those aren’t free tickets. Each ticket’s $1000, so it’s…. Andrew: So how much is that in total revenue? Russell: From the event? Andrew: Yeah. Russell: So ticket sales, last year was $3 ½ million, this year will be over $5. But at the event we sell coaching so last year we made $13 million in coaching sales at the event as well. Andrew: Wow, would you come up here for a second, Dave? Do you guys know Dave? Yeah, everyone knows Dave. You know what’s amazing… {Audience catcalls} Andrew: That’s amazing. Dave: I don’t know who that is. Andrew: A catcall. I saw a video, you guys have this vlog now, a beautifully show vlog. You guys went to sales force’s conference, you’re looking at the booths and in the video, do you remember what you did as you saw the different booths? Dave: I think that one I went and asked what the prices for each of the booths were. Andrew: Yes, and then you multiplied. And he’s like, you’re not enjoying the event, you’re calculating ahead, how much. “10,000 that’s 100,000….” It’s like wow, right. You do this all the time? Dave: Yeah. It’s a lot of money in an event like that. Andrew: And you think, and if this was not your event, you would be doing the same calculation trying to figure out how much they brought in today. Wowee. Alright when you went to sales force did you calculate how much money they probably did from their event? Dave: We were doing that the whole time, absolutely. Andrew: You saw the building, you had to know… Dave: Oh my gosh. 61 stories. Andrew: Why? Why do you guys want to know that? Why does, how does that… I want to understand your drive as a company and I feel like this is a part of it. Figuring out how much money other people are making, using that for fuel somehow. Tell me. Dave: I think it actually goes back to Russell and his wrestling days. We had the experience of going to Chicago right after that, and super just exhausted. And it was one of those things where he literally landed, we walked down and we’re underneath the tarmac and all the sudden Russell goes from just being totally exhausted to a massive state change. Where he’s literally right back where he was with his dad and he and his dad are walking that same path to go to, I think it was Nationals. And I saw Dan Usher, who was doing the filming, capturing that moment and it’s that type of a thing for Russell. Where all the sudden it’s the dream, where as soon as you see it, it can then happen. And Russell’s just been amazing at modeling, and again the whole idea as far as just going at a rapid, rapid speed. I mean it’s “Ready, fire, aim.” Andrew: It’s not you gawking at the sales force, what’s the sales force event called? Dave: Dream Force. Andrew: Dream force. It’s not you gawking at how well Sales Force’s event, Dream Force is doing, it’s not you having envy or just curiosity, it’s you saying, it’s possible. This is us. That’s it. Dave: It’s totally possible. Andrew: It’s totally possible. We could get there. And when you’re sizing up the building, you even found out how much the building cost. Who does that? Most people go, “Where’s the bathroom?” How much does the building cost? Dave: There’s a number. Andrew: It’s you saying, “We could maybe have that.” Dave: We can have that, yeah. Andrew: Got it. And so let’s go back a little bit. I asked you about Traffic and Conversion because the very first Traffic and Conversion conference you went to, you guys were nobodies. Nobody came and saw you. Dave: We were put out in North 40 pasture, way, way far away. Andrew: And some people would say, “One day I’ll get there.” you told Russell, “Today we’re going to get there.” Dave: Well Russell wanted, he was speaking and so whenever you’re speaking at an event, it’s important that you fill a room, like this. And there’s nothing worse than having an event and having no one show up. It’s just the worst feeling in the world. And so he’s like, “All we need, I gotta find some way of getting people into the event. I wish we had like some girls who could just hand out t-shirts or do something.” And I was like, we’re in San Diego, that’s like my home town. Russell: Dave’s like, “How many do you need?” That’s all he said. Dave: It’s just a number. It comes down to a number. How many do you want? So we ended up having, within an hour or so we had 5 girls there who were more than happy to dance around and give out t-shirts and fill the room. Andrew: and the room was full? Dave: Packed. Andrew: Packed. And why wouldn’t you say, “One day, the next time we come to Traffic and Conversion, the tenth time we’re going to do it.” Why did it have to be right there? Dave: It’s always now.   Andrew: It’s always now. Dave: It’s always now. Andrew: It’s always now. It’s never going to be the next funnel, it’s never going to be the next product launch. I’m going to do whatever we can right now, and the next one, and the next one. That’s it. That’s who you are. Dave: That’s how it works. Andrew: And now you’re a partner in the business. $83 million so far this year, you got a piece of that. Dave: Yes. Do i? Russell: Yeah. Dave: Just checking. Andrew: Do you get to take profits home now? Dave: We do. Andrew: You do, you personally do? Dave: Yes. Andrew: Are you a millionaire? Dave: Things are really good. Andrew: Millionaire good from Clickfunnels? Dave: yes. Andrew: Really? Dave: Yes. Andrew: Wow. And you’re another one. I was driving and I said, “What was it about Russell that made you work for him? What was it?” and you said, “I’ve never seen anyone implement like him.” Give me an example of early days, something that he implemented…you know what, forget that, let’s not go back to Russell. As a team, you guys have gotten really good at implementing. Give me an example of one thing that you’re just stunned by, we did it, it came out of nowhere, we could have been distracted by funnel software, we could have distracted by the next book, we did this thing, what is it? Dave: You’re here on this stage with JP, and this was what 6 weeks ago? Andrew: and this whole thing just came from an idea I heard. You use Voxer. Why do you use Voxer? Russell: I don’t know. Andrew: Because you like to talk into it. Russell: Yeah, and you can fast forward, you can listen at 4x speed, you can forward the messages to people really easily, it’s awesome. Andrew: and it’s just train of thought, boom, here’s what I think we’re going to…No, it’s not that. I heard it’s, “I have a secret project…” Russell: “I’ll tell you guys about it later.” And they all start freaking out. “Tell us now.” Andrew: “Secret project. I don’t know what it, it’s going to be exciting.” They don’t know what it is, going to be excited. Russell: Do you know how it started, this one? I was cleaning my wrestling room listening to you, and you were, I don’t know whose event it was, but you were at the campfire, it sounded like. And you were doing something like this and I was like, I want my own campfire chat to tell our story. And then I was like, “Dave, we should do it.” And now we’re here. So thanks for coming to our campfire…. Dave: That’s how it happens. Andrew: And that’s exciting to this day. Alright, thank you. Give him a big round, thank you so much. You know what, I didn’t mean for this to come onstage, but I’m glad that it is. This made you laugh when you accidentally saw it earlier too. Why is this making you laugh? What is it? Russell: So we’re not shy about our competitors, even when they’re our friends. So one of the companies we’re crossing out is his. That’s why it’s funny. Andrew: It’s one of my companies. That’s Bot Academy there. It’s also a company I invest in, that octopus is ManyChat, I’ve been a very big angel investor and supporter of theirs. I’m not at all insulted by that, I’m curious about it. You guys come across as such nice, happy-go-lucky guys. Dave asked me if I want water, I said “Dave I can’t have you give me any more things. I feel uncomfortable, I’m a New Yorker. Punch me, please.” So he goes, “Okay, one more thing. I’m going to give you socks.” So he gave me socks. Really, but still, you have murder in your eyes sometimes. You’re crossing out everybody. This is part of your culture, why? Russell: It comes back, for me its wrestling. When I was wrestling it was not, I don’t know, there’s different mentalities right. And I did a podcast on this one time and I think I offended some people, so I apologize in advance, but if you’re in a band and everyone gets together and you play together and you harmonize, it’s beautiful. When you’re a wrestler you don’t do that. You know, you walk in everyday and you’re like, those are the two guys I have to beat to be varsity. And then after you do that, you walk in and you’re like, “Okay who are the people I have to beat to be in the region champ, and then the state champ, and then the national champ?” So for me, my entire 15 years of my life, all my focus was like, who’s the next person on the rung that I have to beat? And it’s studying and learning about them and figuring their moves and figuring out what they’re good at, what they’re bad at so we can beat them. Then we beat them and go to the next thing, and next thing, and next thing. So it was never negative for me, it was competition. Half the guys were my friends and they were doing the same thing to me, we were doing the same thing to them. I come from a hyper competitive world where that’s everything we do. And I feel bad now, because in business, a lot of people we compete against aren’t competitive and I forget that sometimes, and some people don’t appreciate it. But that’s the drive. It’s just like, who do we, if I don’t have someone to, if there’s not someone we’re driving towards, there’s not a point for me. Andrew: And even if they’re, even if I was hurt, “I accept it, I’m sorry you’re hurt, Andrew. I still care and love you. We’re going to crush you.” That’s still there. Russell: And I had someone, so obviously InfusionSoft was one of our people we were targeting for a long, long time and I had a call with Clayton and someone on his team asked me, “Why do you hate Infusion Soft so much?” I was like, “I don’t, you don’t understand. I don’t hate, I love Infusion Soft. I’m grateful for it. I’m grateful for Lead Pages, I’m grateful for….” I told them, have you guys seen the Dark Knight, my favorite movie of all time? And it’s the part where Batman and the Joker are there and Batman is like, asks the Joker, “Why are you trying to kill me?” And the Joker starts laughing and he’s like, “I’m not trying to kill you. The reason I do this is because of you. If I didn’t have you, there’s no purpose behind it.” So for me it’s like, if I don’t have someone to compete against, why are we playing the game? So for me, that’s why we’re always looking… Andrew: It’s not enough to say, it’s not enough to just say “we’re playing the game because we want to help the next entrepreneur, or the next person who’s sick and needs to create…” no, it’s not. Russell: That’s a big part of it, but like, there’s something… Andrew: Yeah, but it’s not enough, it’s gotta be both. Russell: My whole life there’s, the competition is what drives me for sure. Andrew: And just like you’re wrestling with someone, trying to beat them, but you don’t hate them. You’re not going to their house and break it down… Russell: Everyone we wrestled, we were friends afterwards. We were on the same Freestyle and Greco teams later in the season, but during, when we’re competing, we’re competing and everyone’s going all at it. Andrew: Everyone’s going all at it. That’s an interesting way to end it. How much more time do we have? How much more time do we have? I’m going to keep going. Can I get you to come up here John, because I gotta get you to explain something to me? So I told you, I was online the other day, yeah give him a big round. I was online the other day, I don’t even know what I clicked, I clicked something and then I saw that Russell’s a great webinar person, everyone keeps telling me. Well, alright, I gotta find out how he does it. So I click over, “Alright, just give your email address and you can find out how..” Alright, I’ll give my email address to find out how he became such a great webinar presenter. “Just give a credit card. It’s only $4.95, so it comes in the mail.” It comes in the mail, that’s pretty cool. Nothing comes in the mail anymore. Here’s my credit card. It goes, “Alright, it’s going to mail it out. Would you also like to learn how to use these slides? $400.” I go, no! I’m done. Russell: Welcome to the funnel. Andrew: Welcome to the funnel. I’m done. But I’m going to put in Evernote a link to this page so I don’t lose it so I can come back. I swear. I did it. And this is my receipt for $4.95. Don’t you ever feel like, we’re beyond this? We’re in the software space now, we’re competing with Dropbox, we’re not competing with Joe Schmoe and his ebook. And you’re the guy who sold the, who bought the ad that got me. John: I know. Andrew: I asked you that. Do you ever feel a little embarrassed, “We’re still in the info market space.”? John: No, I think it’s the essence of what we do, of what Russell does. We love education. We love teaching people. I mean, the software is like the backend, but we’re not software people. I mean, we sell software, but we teach people. All these people here and all the people at all of our events, they just want to learn how to do it better. Andrew: I don’t believe it. John: Okay. Andrew: I believe in him. I don’t believe in you. I believe that for you it’s the numbers. Here’s why I don’t believe it. I’m looking in your eyes and you’re like, “I’m giving the script. I’m good, I’m doing the script.” I see it in your eyes, but when I was talking to you earlier, no offense. This is why he does what he does. When I was talking to you earlier, you told me about the numbers, the conversion, how we get you in the sales funnel, how we actually can then modify…That’s the exciting part. Don’t be insulted by the fact that I said it. Know that we have marketers here, they’re going to love you for being open about it. What’s going on here? What’s going on, keeping you in this space? John: Okay, from my perspective. Okay so, initially it was self liquidation on the front, which is what I was telling you. It was the fact that we were bootstrapped, we didn’t have money to just like throw out there. We had to make sure we were earning enough money to cover our ads. And Russell had all the trust in the world in me, I don’t know why he did, but he did. And he’s just like, “Spend money, and try to make it self-liquidate.” I’m like, “Okay.” So we just had to spend money and hope that we got enough back to keep spending money. Andrew: And self-liquidate means buy an ad today and make sure that we make money from that ad right away and then software. John: Yeah. Andrew: And then you told, and then software’s going to pay overtime, that’s our legacy, that’s our thing. And you told me software sucks for selling. Why? John: Software sucks, yeah. Andrew: Why? Everyone who’s in info, everyone’s who in education says, “I wish I was a software guy. Software is eating the world, they’re getting all the risk back.” I walked through San Francisco; they think anyone who doesn’t have software in their veins is a sucker. John: I asked the same thing to myself, you know. I was running ads, I’m like why can’t I just run ads straight to the offer? Why do I have go to these info products? I want to get on the soft…. And then I was like, I feel like it’s kind of like marriage. Like it’s a big thing to say like, “You probably already built websites, but come over, drop everything you’re doing and come over here and build websites over here on our thing.” And it’s like, that’s a hard pull. But “Hey, you want to build webinars? Here’s a little thing for $5 to build webinars.” Now you’re in our world, now we can talk to you, now you can trust us, now we can get you over there. Andrew: Got it. Okay, and if that’s what it takes to get people in your world, you’re going to accept it, you’re not going to feel too good for that, you’re just going to do it and grow it and grow it. John: Yeah. Andrew: What’s your ad budget now? See now you’re eyes are lighting up. Now I tapped into it. John: We spend about half a million a month. Andrew: half a million a month! John: Yeah. Don’t tell the accountant. Andrew: Do you guys pay with a credit card? Do you have a lot of miles? John: Yeah, we do. In fact…. Andrew: You do! How many miles? John: In fact, the accountant came into my office the other day and said, “Next time you buy a ticket, use the miles.” Andrew: Are they with Delta, because I think you guys flew me out with Delta. John: Yeah, American Express is where we’re spending all our money. Andrew: Wow. And you’re a partner too? John: Yeah. Andrew: Wow, congratulations. John: Thank you. Andrew: I don’t know you well enough to ask you if you’re a millionaire, I’m just going to say congratulations. Give him a big round. John: Thank you. Andrew: Wow, you know what, I actually was going to ask the videographers to come up here. I wrote their names down, I got the whole thing and I realized I shouldn’t interrupt them, because they’re shooting video. But I asked them, why are you, they had this career where they were flying all over the world shooting videos for their YouTube channel. I’m sorry, I forgot their name, and I don’t want to leave them out. Russell: Dan and Blake. Andrew: They were shooting YouTube videos, they were doing videos for other people. I said, “Why are you now giving it up and just working for Clickfunnels all the time? More importantly, why are you so excited about it?” And they said, “You know, it’s the way that we work with Russell.” And I said, do you remember the first time that you invited them out to shoot something? What was it? Russell: It was the very first Funnel Hacking Live we ever had, and probably 2 weeks prior to that, one of our friends had an event and Dan had captured the footage, and he showed me the videos. “Did you check out my Ven Video?” I’m like, “Oh my gosh, that was amazing.” And I said “Who did it?” and he told me. So I emailed Dan and I was like, “Hey, can you come do that for Funnel Hacking Live?” And he’s like, “What’s Funnel Hacking Live?” So I kind of told him, and he’s like, “Sure.” And it was like 2 weeks later and he’s like, “What’s the direction?” and I was like, “I don’t know, just bring the magic man. Whatever you did there, do that here.” And that’s kind of been his calling card since. He just comes and does stuff. Andrew: Bring the magic. He wants to have those words painted on the Toronto office you guys are starting. Literally, because he says you say that all the time. And the idea is, I want to understand how you hire. The idea is, “I’m going to find people who do good work, and I’m going to let them do it.” What happens if they wouldn’t have done it your way? What happens if it would have gone a different direction? Russell: I see your question, and I’m not perfect. So I’m going to caveat that by, some of the guys on my team know that I’m kind of, especially on the design and funnel stuff, I’m more picky on that, because I’m so into that and I love it. But what I’ve found is when you hire amazing people like Todd for example, doing Clickfunnels. The times I tried to do Clickfunnels prior, build it was like, me and I’m telling developers, “here’s what to do and how to do it.” And like there’s always some loss in communication. With Todd, he’s like, “I know exactly what I would build because I want this product too.” And then he just built it and he showed me stuff. And I’m like, “That’s a good idea.” And he’s like, “I did this too.” And I’m like, “That’s a good idea.” And it’s so much easier that way. So when you find the right people, it’s not you giving them ideas, it’s them coming to you with the ideas. And you’re like, “that is a good idea. Go do it.” And it just makes, takes all the pressure off your back. So for us, and it’s been fun because I look at, man, the last 15 years of all those different websites and the ups and the downs, the best people have always stuck. So we’ve got 15 years of getting the cream of the crop. It’s kind of like, I’m a super hero nerd, but it’s like the Avengers, at the end of, when Clickfunnels came about we had this Avenger team of people. And we’re like, now we’ve put in our dues, now it’s time to use all of our super powers to do this thing, and it all kind of came together. Andrew: Build it and build it up. And then as you were building it up, you then went to Sales Force. You guys invited me, you said, “Hey Andrew, we’re in San Francisco, you’re home town. Do you want to come out?” I said, “I’m going to be with the family.” And you said, “Good. Being with the family is better than hanging out with us.” But I still said, “What are you guys doing in San Francisco at Sales Force?” Because sales people don’t need landing pages, yet you guys will probably find a way for them to need it. Then I saw this, this is the last video that I’ve got. There’s no audio on it. I want you guys to look at their faces as they’re looking up at these buildings, walking through the Sales Force office. Look, they’re getting on the motorcycles in the lobby. They’re looking all around like, “Oh gee.” Counting the buildings that are Sales Force labeled. Look at that! What are they doing? Not believing that this is even possible. And then just stopping and going, this is dream force. This is your dream. What did you get out of going to sales Force’s event and seeing their office? Russell: Honestly, prior to Sales Force, I was kind of going through a weird funk in my business, because it was like, again there was the goals. So it was like, okay, we’re going to do a million bucks, and then we did that. And then it’s like, let’s make 10 million a year. And then 50, and then this year we’ll hit a hundred. And like, what’s the next goal?  A billion, because a hundred million, 2 hundred million is not that big of a difference. And it was just kind of like, what’s the point, what’s the purpose? We’ve grown as big as any company that I know. And then last year, Dave and Ryan had gone out there and they were telling me stories like, “There’s 170,000 businesses here.” And they were telling me all these things, and it sounded cool, but I didn’t, and they were going crazy. You have to see this so you can believe it. But there’s something about the energy about seeing something that makes it real. So this year I was like, I want to go and I want to see Benioff speak. I want to see the thing, the towers, I want to just understand it, because if I understand it, cool. Now we can reverse engineer and figure out how we can do it. So for me it was just like seeing it. I think in anything, any, as entrepreneurs too, if you’re people believe that you can do it, you’ll do it. If you believe you can lose weight, you’ll lose 3eight. If you believe you can grow a company, and I don’t feel like I believed that the next level was possible for us until I saw it. And then I was like, oh my gosh, this is not ridiculous. Benioff’s not, none of these guys are any smarter than any of us. It’s just like, they figured out the path. It was like, okay let’s look at the path. And then let’s look at it and now we can figure out our path. Andrew: And seeing it in person did that for you? Russell: Oh yeah. It makes it tangible, it makes it like, it’s like your physiology feels it, versus reading a book about it or hearing about it. It’s like you see it and you experience it, and it’s like it’s tangible. Andrew: I told you, I asked people before they came in here, “What are you looking for?” and a few of them frustrated me because they said, “I just wanted to see Russell. I just want to see the event.” I go, “Give me something I could ask a question about.” But I think they were looking for the same thing that you got out of there. And I know they got it. I’m going to ask them to come up here and ask some questions, and I want to know about the future of Clickfunnels, but first I’ve got to just acknowledge that, that we are here to just kind of pick up on that energy. That energy that got you to pick yourself back up when anyone else would have said, “I’m a failure of a husband, I can’t do this.” Go back. The tension that came from failing and almost going to jail as you said, from failing and succeeding, and failing again. And still, that is inspiring to see. I want to give the whole Clickfunnels family a big round of applause, please everybody.

I’m so delighted to be able to start our 377th episode of Secrets of Organ Playing Podcast. And, on the other end of the line is John Higgins, from Australia. He’s the organist of Morewell Presbyterian Church in Australia. And he visited Vilnius and our church some months ago, maybe last year in the Spring, I believe in April. And he played a wonderful organ recital in our church. I have to emphasize that John is one of the first online students, and has been with us since, I believe, the beginning of 2012. So thanks so much, John, and welcome to the show. John: Thank you so much, and thanks for your kind words of welcome. V: And today, I have to remind our listeners that John has been a guest on our podcast conversations a number of times, and today we’ll be talking about his newest release of a DVD. He recorded and released a DVD recording, which Ausra and I gladly saw last weekend, and it has been recorded in his church, in Morewell Presbyterian Church. Saint Andrews Church it’s called, right? So wonderful, I think it’s an achievement in itself to publish this DVD, so we’ll be talking a little bit more about your process, about your struggles. For more information about the DVD, please write to John: john.eliza.higgins@gmail.com

John began his career working in politics, including as a writer in the Clinton White House, Office of Presidential Letters and Messages. He was also a Speechwriter in the California Governor's Office during the Davis Administration, and later he became an Attorney. John gave up speechwriting and the law to become a blogger and podcaster! He helps business owners connect with anyone they want to connect with. And they find their businesses grow exponentially because of it. He also owns and operates a website and related Podcast called SmartBusinessRevolution.com where he shows entrepreneurs how to build and use relationships to build more value, revenues and profits in their businesses. John's take on the business: The number one, most important thing that will determine your level of success or failure in business is your relationships. In this Podcast episode John shares his insights on building stronger relationships, and connecting with people that can make a difference in your business. Episode Highlights: John's history as a white house intern, staff writer, attorney and entrepreneur Why “helping first” matters most. How to build relationships without being awkward. How to break the ice with a new group of people. Learn some basic mechanics of talking with people. Making connections brings more value. Why delivering value works best. How making introductions builds value for you. How does John make a living in “networking”. Events where “mixing” is required and new people are attending. How to monetize Podcasting Transcription: Mark: So I remember an event … I think it was three years ago, I was at Pubcon and I had hired a PR firm to be able to help with Quiet Light Brokerage and some things that we were trying … no was it four years ago we were trying to do and I had hired somebody to come with me from a PR firm and she was an awesome networker. I mean she was phenomenal at what she did. And she came out to me laughing at the networking event at Pubcon because she said this is so funny. She's like I'm so used to networking events where everybody's a professional networker and she said people here obviously are not because everyone was looking down at their phones and shuffling their feet and saying I don't really want to introduce myself to anybody so I'm going to pretend like I actually have something to do on my phone. And you know what that was also me. I'm a terrible networker. I'm not really good at it. I'm a natural introvert. Joe, I understand you had John Corcoran and he's a networker and you guys talked about networking. This is an area where I struggle so I'd love to learn a little bit more about what you guys discussed. Joe: You know one of the first things John said was don't fall asleep, don't tune out because it's networking. You can grow your business dramatically by meeting the right people and being introduced to the right people. You don't go at it with that approach ias John's thought it's more just building relationships and those relationships lead to additional connections and relationships that can help grow your business; double, triple the size of your business. It's helped us dramatically through what this podcast we've met so many people. It's broken down doors and they feel like they know us more because of it. The networking that John talks about is exactly the same. It's through all of the different events that we might attend to. And he kind of gives some tips on breaking the ice to make connections and really kind of the Golden Rule approach to networking. It's a fascinating story. John's actually a fascinating guy. He used to work as a speechwriter for … I think it's called presidential letters during the Clinton administration. He did not know Monica Lewinsky. For those listening, I did ask. It was pre-recording but he absolutely didn't know her. Yeah, everybody chuckles poor girl really, seriously. He went to law school after doing that and eventually became a lawyer, practicing attorney and replaced his income as a lawyer by podcasting and blogging and doing that through networking. Pretty impressive guy, great story and I think he can help a great deal with people that don't realize how important networking is in helping other people is to their business at the end of the day. Mark: Awesome let's go right on into it and learn a little bit more about networking. Joe: Hey folks it's Joe Valley from Quiet Light Brokerage and today I've got a very special guest. His name is John Corcoran and he has a ton of experience both as a writer for the White House, as an attorney, and as a networking specialist. John, welcome to the Quiet Light Podcast. John: Thanks to have had me, Joe. Joe: Quite heavy here man. We met at the Prosper Show you're doing that very thing, walking around with a camera and a microphone, networking, talking to people, helping James do a great job there which they always do and I think you've been a big part of that. But that's my intro right there. I need you to tell these folks that are listening all about your background, your experience, who you are, and what you're all about. John: Sure. Well hopefully, people didn't tune out when they heard oh networking I hate that stuff. That's a funny reaction that people have. It's kind of like sales right? We know it's important but we also kind of hate it. And oftentimes that's because we've had some kind of negative interaction or negative experience with it; some guy coming up and sticking you his business card in your hand, in your face trying to sell you on something at a networking event. I'm not an advocate of that. I think there's a lot smarter ways to do it, a lot of tools that we have available. My background you know when I was a kid I moved around a lot. My father lost a job three separate times and each time we had to move across the country 3,000 miles away; away from family and friends. That experience taught me the importance of building relationships in business and it's critically important. And as a result of that, I've had some amazing experiences in my career. As you mentioned right there in the White House, in the Clinton White House years, speechwriter with the Governor of California. I had my own legal practice for a number of years and now I've got a business called Rise25 and a blog and a podcast called Smart Business Revolution. That's really more of my focus now and we bring people together at live events and I really enjoy doing that. Joe: Tell us a little bit about your background in terms of … I'm looking at your bio here and it says you went from party school to the White House. Just for the sake of the people that are listening, how the hell did you make that transition from being at a party school to writing speeches for the president? John: It's strange I know. It's a strange trajectory. So yeah I mean basically I went from an English major, getting a BA in English at a party school to within a year of that I was a writer in presidential letters and messages in the Clinton White House. It's kind of like a second tier speechwriter. I'm kind of like a … you know as a speechwriter has pulled a hamstring then we would step in, that kind of thing. But it was an amazing experience. I had interned in the speechwriting office during college. It was an amazing experience and I went back to college. And networking lesson number one is keep in touch with the people in your network. And once you build a relationship with someone it's really important to keep in touch with them. And so I was back at college, I knew I'd love to get a job at the White House but not all former interns get that kind of gig and so I kept in touch. I would send things from time to time like speeches or articles or passages that I found that I would send to the speechwriters. Not as a way of saying like hey do you have a job for me? But they … it kept me top of mind and what do you know a month or a couple of months later, a year later something like that they reached back out and said hey we heard about this position for you and I ended up applying and getting it. So it was an amazing experience. Joe: Were you taught that or did you just intuitively share information, stayed in touch and tried to help with little bits and informa,tion that you found? John: Yeah looking back I think really it was part of how I grew up and having to be that kid who is new in the class. I remember what it's like to move in the middle of a school year into … I went from Southern California to Massachusetts which is a huge culture shock. From being a kid it was like out at the beach to like dock siders and button downs and stuff like that in Massachusetts. It's a very different kind of culture and showing up in the middle of the school year when everyone had been in the same group of kids for years and years. And so it taught me the importance of being able to go into a new community and be able to make friends essentially. And I did that a number of times growing up and so I just realize the importance of it. And also just with watching my dad struggle when he got laid off a couple of times, the importance of building a network before you need it. You need to have these things so that when the S-H-I-T hits the fan, which it does from time to time, the economy or your company going under or whatever you've got to have that network. You have to have built those relationships first so that you can use them when you need them. Joe: Yeah I think it's essential. There are several mentors in my life that have given imparted wisdom. One of them is along those lines and it kind of goes with what I've recently studied which is a DarrenDaily … they call them DarrenDaily it's a Darren Hardy program, you know essentially it sounds like what you do about speechwriters was you gave something to them first. You didn't expect anything in return. You were giving them something to help them. Hey here's an idea and you were on top of mind because of that. And then you kept giving throughout the year and eventually, you got something back. Maybe it wasn't your intention to get something back but you were there, you were front of mind and you were offering something to them. I find that the same thing applies to what I do. You talked about networking it'll gross folks, don't tune out because of that. Same thing with a broker man, I'm a “broker” right? I'm a business broker. People get sort of turned off by that if they go with the general label of business broker. But more than anything else we just simply try to help. We try to help people with whatever the issue is, with the experiences that we have, with the knowledge that we have, with the relationships that we have. I refer people out all the time helping them connect with bookkeepers, attorneys, whatever it might be expecting absolutely nothing in return. Eventually, we'll run into them at a conference and spend some time with them and build a relationship with them and then they may refer somebody to us or if when they decide to sell their business they'll think of us first. I don't like networking. I don't. I never have. I'm a bit of an introvert. I love doing the podcast because it's just you and me it's not a whole group of people here. I don't have to walk up in a crowded room. I'm a kind of a low talker so people can't hear me. I've got a big microphone now so that helps. How do you advise people to sort of break the ice with a new networking group or a mastermind group or if they're at an event like Rhodium Weekend like E-commerce Fuel like Smart Marketer, like Blue Ribbon Mastermind, and to just walk up to a group of people and start talking? How do you recommend they do that? Just say hey because obviously, they're strangers too? John: Yeah I mean there's a high level and then there's the mechanics of what you use in a physical … a face to face type of interaction like that which also applies to online. You know a lot of networking we do these days can be through tools like LinkedIn or Facebook or something like that where you can really leverage relationships. So I would say first you got to start with okay am I at the right event to begin with? And that requires some really deep soul searching. Are you going in the right direction with your career? And people do pivots all the time. They change, they just … they lose passion for something. So you have to be sure you're going in the right direction because you can't squeeze blood from a turnip. And if you're at the wrong event then you're not going to find the right people there who you're going to want to engage with or you're going to want to talk to. So start with that and then secondly I think you're right about the give approach. You've got to focus on okay I'm going to give, give, give as much as possible and then after that people are going to want to return the favor. And that doesn't mean you should be taken advantage of but it means you should try and deliver value to people first before you try and hit them with a sales pitch. We've all been hit with a sales pitch right off the bat where people tries to get something from us or tries to get us to buy from them and it just doesn't feel right. It sits in our stomachs. So don't be that kind of person. Be a giver first. And then [inaudible 00:11:08.3] talking to people face to face in an event or something like that. Usually, I think people struggle because they over think it and they think okay I want to come up with some brilliant thing that will be related to my vocation, that will get us in a big discussion around what it is I do so that I can sell them on something. Well, the truth is you should spend a lot more time on just more human conversation. It could about hey how about this crazy weather we've been having or when did you get in? If you're at a conference you know where are you from? Maybe it's something on their attire, maybe they have an interesting shirt on or something like that. A lot of times there are little tidbits that you can you can pick out of there and then that gets you into a conversation. And then people leave little breadcrumbs all the time they just require exploring. People will mention oh yeah I was a little delayed my daughter had a volleyball tournament and so I wasn't able to get here when I wanted to. Well, that's a huge opening right there explore that. Go a little bit further and say oh really where did she play volleyball, what was the tournament, what was … how is she doing, what position is she in? Just taking an interest in people will get you really really far. Joe: It almost goes back to our teenage days when our parents told us just to take an interest in the girls and ask questions and it would work out pretty well. John: I know. Joe: We were teenagers and we paid no attention and we got it all wrong. At least I did, I don't know about you though. John: Exactly. I don't even know if my parents gave me that amount of advice so [inaudible 00:12:37.8]. Joe: I'm trying to do with my kids and I know that you're doing something with your son. I saw it on LinkedIn. I love that you're helping him sell some- John: Yeah we're- Joe: It's … I almost said Girl Scout cookies. John: Yeah … oh no, it's Kab Scout. And it's funny he's like a natural born entrepreneur. He just turned eight and loves selling stuff, loves making money and so we're kind of using it as a teaching opportunity. But right there, there's a good example okay. You said I hate networking, a lot of people say that I hate networking but I love connecting with people. They'll follow it up with that and then I'll say okay well what do you think networking is really? I mean it's connecting with people. Maybe you hate being in a room full of strangers and not sure what to say, that's a given and that's fine. I totally get that. A lot of people get uncomfortable in that kind of situation. But me sharing my son's experience and experience we're going through with learning about setting up a website to sell Boy Scout popcorn as a fundraiser you know that's a way of remaining top of mind with people who are in your network on LinkedIn. And people see that and then it's also a way of teaching too because I'm also using it as a teaching opportunity as well. And it also personalizes me. I found … you probably found this too, when people they know more about you personally, a passion, or a hobby that you have or they know something about your kids or something they're a lot more connected to you. And I mean I discovered this a long time ago, long before I had kids. When I asked people about their children before I had kids I would ask too about their children because I notice they would light up. And it just breaks down these walls, breaks down these barriers, it allows you to really accelerate the connecting process so that you get to know that person a lot better and they're a lot more motivated to help you. They start to treat their interactions with you less transactionally and more like a true friend, a relationship; something that they actually are invested in helping. So that's why I do things like that is sharing a little piece … if you share a little piece about your life, it's not everything, but sharing a piece about your life it makes people more connected to me. It makes me top of mind and who knows where it might lead after that. Joe: Right, I couldn't agree more. I saw it and I felt it humanized you and I felt like I knew you a little bit better even though we've only met a couple of times. I was a guest on your podcast, you're a guest on ours, and we met at the Prosper Show. So I totally get it. By way of example a lot of people listening they're either buyers or sellers and they love to monetize things. They say well how can I monetize something? And I want to give an example, I got a text today about two hours before this recording where someone was at an event in Miami and I introduced him to somebody else. They connected and he said to me, he sent me a text and he's like thank you for introducing me to so and so. I feel like I got 1.5 million dollars' worth of value out of that lunch and I'm buying a business from him for much less than that so I feel like I've doubled my money. And they were able to meet face to face for the first time and just get that connection. And that particular individual is making a point of helping lots of different people. I can't give you his name but every time I speak with someone that has connected with him it's not about what they got from him it's what … which they did get it's what he did for them. And that comes back around and it gets monetized in a variety of different ways. Most people listening again are either buyers or sellers thinking how the heck is this going to help me? Back when I sold my business in 2010 there weren't really any Mastermind groups. There were certainly not any Facebook groups. There weren't any Smart Marketer events or Rhodium weekend, any of these things that we go to now and connect with people over and over and over again and it's eventually just a trip to hang out with our friends. Hanging out with those friends now and sharing that information without expectations or getting back anything else is what I think is the way to immaterially monetize it. You can monetize it but you have a hard time calculating it. Do you have any direct experiences or examples where you can say you know I introduced these two people … this person connected with so and so and their business took off because of it? John: Oh … I mean I couldn't narrow it down. I mean I have so many examples of that sort of thing and I do it more than most people. So I don't want to say that you need to spend all your time doing that. There are some connectors who spend too much time going out delivering value, connecting other people. But let me put it this way if you try the alternative … the opposite that certainly doesn't work. We know that doesn't work. If you just go out there and you don't try and deliver value and you just try and pitch people we all know that doesn't work very well right? So if you try the alternative, if you try the give first approach you will see dollars and cents to your bank account, others will see dollars and cents in their bank account. I can think of offhand two situations where I introduced two people to each other, kind of like you, you're just an introduction; no strings attached or anything like that. I just thought you two would get along and they started a business together. In one case those two individuals, they lived in the same state but opposite sides of the state. One ended up moving to the other part of the state so that they could work together and have a business together as a result of that one introduction. And you know those people will walk to the end of the earth for me after I've made that introduction. So it definitely turns into dollars and cents in terms of more clients, more referrals that sort of thing. Joe: But that wasn't your intention right? John: No … I mean it's not my intention but I will say this, look we're all in business, we're all motivated by making money, we want to keep the lights on, we want to keep food in the fridge right? So I don't say at all that you should go out there and you should just be randomly introducing everyone on the street or be doing it matchmaking or something like that. You should do it strategically. You should do it because it's good for your business. I'm not saying go on and do it because for charitable purposes although it is a great thing to do and it does great … it puts great good out into the world. I'm saying do it because it's good for your business. It's good for your career. And it has just been the experience that I've lived. There are great books out there by the way, Give and Take by Adam Grant, Dale Carnegie all the books that he's written. These books they give voluminous examples of people who have resulted in much value coming back to them as a result of the value that they put out in the world. Joe: And you got to a lot of events, a lot of networking events where you have got both business owners, employees, founders, and potential buyers attending them; are there any particular events that you love because specifically the way that it's organized for networking that you can … through off the top of your head, two or three of your favorite events? John: Is this cheating or can I say the ones that we do because they're- Joe: You know people are probably going what the hell does this guy do for a living? It's networking, how does he make money so … answer the question how do you make a living? John: Sure. Joe: You're a networking guy, how do you make a living? What do you do? John: Yeah. So … well, first of all, I was a practicing lawyer for many years. And even when I was a practicing lawyer I mean just introducing your clients is really valuable and giving … thinking about your clients because they will send more business back to you. Your referral partners would send more business back to you. So when I was actually full time practicing law I was practicing what I do today. Eventually, that pivoted into a blog and a podcast which replaced my income as a lawyer and I monetized both of those through a variety of digital courses and through affiliate promotions and that sort of thing. Today I run Rise25 with my business partner. We do live events. We go to conferences and we partner with conferences and hold on connection events like VIP receptions, like dinners, like all-day Masterminds at conferences. Again connecting people but we create the forum. We invite the people. We bring them in. Another thing we do also- Joe: Just to understand so you're not actually putting on the entire event, you're putting on a segment of it or a specific group of attendees. John: Right, and there's an important lesson in that because we've done our own standalone events but the reason that we do a lot of that now … an important lesson for others is it's a lot easier to go where the fish are already gathered to go fishing rather than try and pick some spot in the middle of the lake where there are no fish and attract them back to it. Go to the spot where all the fish are gathered which is what we do around conferences. The other thing we do is we do some Done-For-You lead generation as well. So we do Done-For-You lead gen so helping people with the process that we've used for years to generate leads for our self we help other businesses with that as well. Joe: What types of businesses? John: It's primarily professional services but e-commerce as well. So it's anyone who's … I mean who doesn't need leads right? Every business needs leads whether it's you're trying to connect with someone who might buy your business or whether you're trying to connect with new customers or clients or referral partners or strategic partners or whatever. You know there's a lot of different … the truth is everyone need … and like you're selling like a very inexpensive widget which is often the case with e-commerce there's often someone higher leverage who you are trying to connect with. So that might be other website owners or it might be other people who are selling on the same marketplace as you, or just other sellers that you want to connect with, or other professionals or something. It's a variety of different applications that we'd manage for people. But you asked … so you asked the question earlier was types of events that I'm preferable to. The type of event … and I want to answer that because that's an important question and it actually guides my decision making in what events I go to. I don't like going to events where the culture does not encourage people to mix with one another and what do I mean by that? Oftentimes you have events where at a local … this often happens on a local level like at a chamber of commerce or something like that where you have repeat people coming back month after month and they kind of know enough other people that there isn't enough mixing. I like events personally where I go to an event and I can just stick out my hand and talk to someone or someone else will stick out their hand and just talk to me where you feel free to meet other people. The other thing is I really like formats of events which breaks the mold. They're not just the boring, stuffy kind of reception type of format but I like the ones that are different. So actually just last night we had an event in Chicago which was a VIP food tour and we've done this a number of times, I did one in San Francisco a couple of weeks back and it's like a progressive dinner party meets a networking reception. We kind of combine the two and rather than keeping everyone in one room with watered down drinks and talking to each other all night or maybe being at a dinner table where you're stuck talking to the guy in the right of you and the guy in the left of you for the entire night, we take a group and we take them to multiple locations over the course of an evening. So you're up, you're down; you're sitting next to different people the entire time. You're walking or sitting on a bus next to different people. And we love doing that format because it gets people meeting more people which is really what we're about. So that's another piece of what we do. I realize [inaudible 00:23:45.3] to what we do but you asked the question what types of events so I really enjoy that format. Joe: All right. Tell us about Rise25 and the blog … the podcast and the blog. I want to know more about that. I have a feeling here John that people are going to want to listen to your podcast and learn more about what you do. John: Yeah. Joe: Just … let's hear it. John: Yeah so Smart Business Revolution I started it about eight or nine years ago now. It was a blog and a podcast, it still is. I continue to write there. I continue to publish podcasts. I started … this is an important lesson because now we do help clients with this as well so this is part of the lead generation piece is eight or nine years ago when I was a full time practicing law literally I had a client who came in and he hired me for a tiny little matter. It was $500 of writing a lease for him. I was reading about the guy and I was like wow this is a really interesting guy. He was an entrepreneur. He had started multiple companies one of which had gone public. So he's really successful. I was thinking how can I make … how can I turn this guy into like my best client? You know come back to me over and over again. Literally what I just did is I said hey do you have like 20 minutes I'd love to just like ask you some questions about your career and your businesses and everything. I'm going to record it and I'm going to publish it. I didn't even know how to do that. I didn't even know how to record or publish; podcasting wasn't even a thing back then. And so I ended up doing that, I asked him all these questions. What's amazing is you're publicizing that person. It's exactly what we're doing right now. But you're publicizing that person and you're also asking them questions about their challenges, their opportunities, you're figuring out are there other ways that you can help this person or deliver value to that person? And so what do you know he ended up turning into a great client. He ended up coming back to me and saying hey can you help me with this and this and this other thing too. And it's a strategy that I've used over and over again. I've done it probably three or 400 times with different people where you just simply take an interest in someone else. And you go the extra mile so you actually record it and you publish it and you give them a promotion, give them publicity, you send traffic, you send eyeballs to them. Again it's exactly what you're doing right now. You don't have to have a podcast to do it although podcasting is such an accepted and understood medium these days so that's really the best way to do it today. And I think everyone should have a podcast because it's so powerful. Joe: And you've figured out a way to monetize the podcast and the blog as well which is really weird if we think about the fact that you went to law school, quit to be a podcaster and a blogger and you replaced your income. How did you manage to do that? John: Well so, first of all, you can monetize a podcast … when people hear … I know I just wrote an article about this. I did a research study and I surveyed hundreds of podcasters and I asked them how they monetized their podcast. And so you can go to Smart Business Revolution and you can see the article now. It's at Rise25 also. And people generally thought … they thought of the traditional model, the old school media model. Like I'm just going to build up a big audience and then I'm going to sell ads or sponsorship. And that is only one of dozens of different ways of monetizing a podcast. It's actually probably the worst of all of them and yet everyone thinks that that's what you need to do. It's the most difficult to do. So I mean I've monetized my podcast in a variety of different ways including getting more clients, getting more referrals, filling live events, filling webinars, strategic partnerships; you name it. If you can connect what it is you do which is your business, your profession with the podcast which not everyone does a great job of connecting those two. Sometimes they are completely unrelated and if you have a hobby podcast that's fine that's not what we're talking about here. But if you connect those two and you use them to build more relationships with prospective clients, with referral partners, with strategic partners, you use that podcast in order to build more of those relationships and connect with SALT leaders and gurus and speakers and authors that you would never otherwise have a chance of connecting with then it's an amazing powerful tool. It's … I mean I've been able to have conversations with people who would never give me the time of the day you know what I mean? Like I can't email Gary Vaynerchuk and say hey man I would be in New York can you meet me at a Starbucks for 45 minutes? I want to pick your brain; I'm going to ask some questions about my business. Is that cool? [inaudible 00:28:00.1] like who are you I'm not going to do that but I had him on my podcast even though he's a busy guy because of the nature of the medium. So that's why I'm such a huge fan of the medium it's just … and it's a much better way to network. That's what we're talking about right? Connecting, building relationships, seeing how you can help each other, giving, all of those are encapsulated in the process of doing a podcast and everyone should do it. Joe: I agree 100%. It's what we do; it's why we do it. Because we're connecting with people like you that might be hard to connect to or with otherwise. John: Oh yeah absolutely, I wouldn't return your call if it weren't for that. Joe: I know you're never going to list it … and it personalizes things right? You can write an amazing article, give some amazing advice but without that personality behind it, it's just words on paper. We had people tell us that if they chose someone else to go with someone else it's because they felt like they knew them because they listened to their podcast. John: Yeah. Joe: So I think the personalization of it is important. I think that for those listening that maybe an expert on an advertising business, content, blog, or a SaaS business, or an e-commerce business and you're wondering how the heck do you benefit from this, how would you start a podcast and what … how is it going to work for you? You're going to connect with people that are going to be experts giving advice and you're going to benefit from it in your own business being able to apply some of that advice and being able to pick their brain as well. In addition to other people that have had great success that may come onto to the podcast and share their story and may want to do business with you as well. You just never know what's going to come of it if you just help others and give. And yes it is business we're all in this to put food on the table and hopefully put some money in retirement and stop doing this someday when were not capable anymore but it's fun and it's enjoyable. John: Yeah. Joe: And we get to make a living from it which is kind of nice too. John: Yeah and you know I say it's kind of personal and professional development that also doubles as marketing. Because you're enriching yourself, you're learning, you're asking questions, you're learning and you're also recording it and you're going to put it up on the internet and it's going to exist forever. So it's marketing that will be out there for you forever. And if you're asking well I sell a widget, it … I don't see how that's going to help me or maybe it's some other seller out there that you want to connect with or maybe it's potentially a buyer. I mean that's a great way to use that as a tool. It will help me with hiring, recruitment right? There's so many other ways that you can you can do it. I mean I'm sure Joe you've had this experience, I've had this experience when people come up to me and you have a conversation with them and they're just kind of like smiling as they listen to you talk because you know what's going on in their head they're thinking wow he sounds just like he does in the podcast. And people will say that, they'll be like man you just … you talk just like you do in the podcast. Well, guess what when I'm on the podcast that's me. I'm not putting out an act or anything like that I'm just actually being me you know. And we've had people that would go … a couple of people who came in to our event recently in San Francisco who had gotten to know me from the podcast and the funny thing is … and this takes a little getting used to, the funny thing is that they've been listening on their own time while I'm doing other things to episodes, past episodes, the whole back catalog and when they come up they feel like they've already built a relationship with you. That's wonderful because of the know like and trust process right? You are already that much further along so it then makes it just a lot easier to have a conversation with them around some kind of strategic partnership or a client … a relationship of some sort. It's just a lot easier. You'd move the ball a lot further down the field. Joe: 100%, I couldn't agree more and I would recommend that everybody does it. For those that are going to events and I've been to many of them and I have that stigma of being a broker. We don't pitch at Quiet Light, we're just here to help so we have to get around that stigma some way. But I was at an event last March I think it was and I've had a conversation with two or three other people and this guy walked up and he just stood there and he started to shake his head up and down and you know at the right moment he just stuck his hand out and introduced himself. And that I think taught me a lesson. It's the hardest thing to do when you go to some of these events like this, you see groups of people talking and you'd say damn they all know each other. I really don't know anyone. It's my first time here. The reality is that even though they're talking and having a good time and having a drink and laughing they may have just met. That was exactly the case that night. The three of us had just met and this person came into our conversation not knowing whether or not we really knew each other and he was welcomed into it and that's what these events are all about. You should never be shy about walking up to somebody and saying hello. You should never be shy about talking to someone like John, talking to someone like myself if we have something that we can help with that's our operation. That's exactly what we do. We're going to give you any and all advice we can. And if someone like John and myself try to get their hooks into you for a commission they're the wrong people to work with. Just walk away, get what you can, and move on. But don't be afraid to stick your hand out and shake your hand and just say hello. It starts a conversation. It's the hardest thing to do but it's also the best thing to do wouldn't you agree? John: I totally agree. Absolutely. Yeah. It's just funny as you're saying about having a stigma you know I think a lot of people feel that way. Especially when they're in business which most people are right? You're in business, you're at a networking event and you're thinking oh other people are thinking that I'm just going to try and sell them. I know this because people email me every day about this saying these things. And I think a lot of times we get stuck in our head a little bit and look I mean I totally get it. I worked for politicians. I've been a lawyer. I think I'm going to round up my career by working for the IRS or as a tax professional so just the most detested professions possible. So I'm used to being in that type of position. I totally get it but look if you approach not thinking about okay how am I going to get this person as a client as soon as possible and you approach thinking okay I'm just going to learn about this person. I'm going to learn what I can do if there's some recommendation I can provide. Maybe they're a huge fan of something else I'm a fan of and we can connect over that. That's it. That's all that matters. You're going to build up trust. You're going to get to know them. And then later there might be the possibility of doing business together but start with that first and that gives you a great foundation. Joe: I agree if you do that enough your pipeline of new business will eventually fill up and it will be continually flowing. John: Absolutely. Joe: John, how do people find out more about you and learn about your experience and get to listen to the podcast and things of that nature? John: Yeah, thank you sir. So Smart Business Revolution is the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, wherever you listen to podcasts. SmartBusinessRevolution.com is the website. Rise25 is the other website and yeah reach out, I love hearing from people who heard me on a podcast so I appreciate it. It's a pleasure being here. Joe: You're a good man John. Thanks for your time. John: Thank you.   Links: John's LinkedIn Profile Smart Business Revolution Blog & Podcast Rise25 Book recommendation: Give and Take by Adam Grant

Kimberly Cargill currently sits on Texas Death Row awaiting her execution date. Join me for this episode to find out what led Kimberly to murder an innocent and special needs woman by the name of Cherry Walker. This episode was written and researched by Suzanne St. John Thank you for listening, if you enjoyed this […]

Commercial software licenses are a total FRAUD! That's how our feedback starts this month. We get into the difficulties of installing Ubuntu on a dual-boot system with Win10, audio technical details, full-disk encryption, and much, much more. We even have a Gone Linux story. Episode 308 Time Stamps 00:00 Going Linux #308 · Listener Feedback 00:15 Introduction 00:52 Bill is off 01:13 Charlie: Commercial software licenses are a total FRAUD! 07:09 Scott: Network manager shows only strongest access points 11:25 Bob: Is full disk encryption really encrypting the whole disk in a dual-boot system? 19:50 Richard: Dual booting with Windows 10 is not always easy 22:40 Paul: Building a new computer and looking for a Linux MOBO 25:16 Göran: Writing bash scripts 26:38 Nancy: Audio is perfect now 27:27 John: Thank you! VNC to Ubuntu MATE with VPN 28:38 Bruce: More in-depth on audio 32:41 Dylan: Gone Linux 36:35 goinglinux.com, goinglinux@gmail.com, +1-904-468-7889, @goinglinux, feedback, listen, subscribe 37:59 End

Commercial software licenses are a total FRAUD! That's how our feedback starts this month. We get into the difficulties of installing Ubuntu on a dual-boot system with Win10, audio technical details, full-disk encryption, and much, much more. We even have a Gone Linux story. Episode 308 Time Stamps 00:00 Going Linux #308 · Listener Feedback 00:15 Introduction 00:52 Bill is off 01:13 Charlie: Commercial software licenses are a total FRAUD! 07:09 Scott: Network manager shows only strongest access points 11:25 Bob: Is full disk encryption really encrypting the whole disk in a dual-boot system? 19:50 Richard: Dual booting with Windows 10 is not always easy 22:40 Paul: Building a new computer and looking for a Linux MOBO 25:16 Göran: Writing bash scripts 26:38 Nancy: Audio is perfect now 27:27 John: Thank you! VNC to Ubuntu MATE with VPN 28:38 Bruce: More in-depth on audio 32:41 Dylan: Gone Linux 36:35 goinglinux.com, goinglinux@gmail.com, +1-904-468-7889, @goinglinux, feedback, listen, subscribe 37:59 End

If You Have Anxiety, Stop Believing This! If you have anxiety, the chances are very high that you have believed this. In this episode, John talks about what you need to stop believing and what you need to start doing. Anxiety is a horrible and debilitating illness and can make you a prisoner in your own mind. Living with anxiety is hard enough as it is, but if you believe this it will make your life much more lonely and miserable. What Do You Need To Stop Believing? Stop believing that you are worthless! Do you suffer from anxiety? Yes. Is it so hard to function during the day? Yes. Does your anxiety keep you from really enjoying life? Yes. But, your anxiety does not have to keep you a prisoner. I want you to try to start countering your negative thoughts about yourself, and start believing the truth - YOU are worthy. YOU are a good person. YOU have value.  When you start believing that you are a failure, unworthy, crazy, or not good enough, then you give in to your anxiety. And when you give in, you'll give up. And when you give up, you're trapped in a pit of despair. I want you to experience freedom. Freedom does not necessarily mean, anxiety free, but free from the negative thoughts. Find someone to talk with about your struggle and about your negative thoughts. A good friend that you trust, a caring parent, or better yet, a therapist.  You need to process your thoughts out loud with another human being. Please don't live in silence and alone.  Anxiety is treatable and you can start to live in freedom. But, it starts with choosing to believe the best in yourself instead of the worse. I believe in you, now it's time for YOU to believe in you! You CAN do this, John *** Thank you for listening to my show. It would mean a lot to me if you took a few seconds to leave a honest and kind review. This will help me be able to reach more people with my message.    Visit John's website: www.johncordray.com Subscribe to John's YouTube channel: www.johncordray.com/youtube  

In today's podcast we're going to talk about defining your target audience, so you can properly target your advertising, pricing and positioning your product. A lot people struggle to figure out pricing and product positioning when they first launch their business. We've found that a lot of the time it's because you haven't properly defined your target audience, and really found the right prospects to go after. In this conversation we help Karen and John really define exactly what they're selling and who they're selling it to, making a pivot from what they originally thought. [Tweet "Your product solves a problem.  It's your job to find the person with that problem."] You will learn How we leveraged SEO to build our audience. Why we would be buying ads from day 1. How to target a great audience on Facebook. How to set pricing for your product. Should you do memberships or one time payments? How to sell to school districts. (or any government entity) Links and resources mentioned in today's show Google Adwords Keyword Tool Jocelyn's website Elementary Librarian. Podcast on Paid Traffic Rick Mulready and Facebook Advertising Course Our Last Live Event Fresh Books Gravity Form Enjoy the podcast; we hope it inspires you to explore what's possible for your family! Click here to leave us an iTunes review and subscribe to the show! We may read yours on the air! You can connect with S&J on social media too!   Thanks again for listening to the show! If you liked it, make sure you share it with your friends and family! Our goal is to help as many families as possible change their lives through online business. Help us by sharing the show! If you have comments or questions, please be sure to leave them below in the comment section of this post. See y'all next week! Can't listen right now? Read the transcript below! JOCELYN: Hey y'all! On today's podcast, we're going to help Karen and John take their online business to the next level. Welcome to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast, where life always comes before work. We're your hosts, Shane and Jocelyn Sams. Join us, each week, as we teach you how to flip your lifestyle upside-down by selling stuff online. Are you ready for something different? All right, let's get started. SHANE: Hey y'all, welcome back to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast! We have got another flipped podcast for you today; that is where we bring in an audience member and we give them a free consulting call and help them take their online business to the next level. And we let you guys listen in so that everyone can learn from the information that we share. Today's guest is Karen Aachen [phonetic] and her brother, John Hodgeden, [phonetic] I hope I said that right. Karen, John, welcome to the show. KAREN: Thank you. JOHN: Thank you for inviting us to the show. SHANE: We have a brother and sister partners in crime here today, so let's keep the sibling rivalry down a little bit. First of all guys, tell us a little bit about your online business and what you are trying to do to make money online. KAREN: Okay, this started about ten years ago when I had come out of a position where I was teaching social skills for a year and then I went into teaching a regular classroom and realized that teachers really need to incorporate both social skills training in as many lessons in the classrooms so it's kinda seamless in the way they teach because it has really been my belief that ability may get them to the top, but it takes character to keep them there. So we wanted to train students in character development as well as self-managing skills. SHANE: And what level are you teaching at? KAREN: Well, actually my first year teaching, I was in the high school level which gave me the impression that really you need to prepare them in the elementary level, and that is where I am now. Most of what I do is laying that foundation in ele...

Xiaohua: A shopping mall in Northeast China's Dalian city has rolled out wider and bigger parking spaces for their female customers. The spaces, outlined in hot pink with a sign saying, "Women only," are located by the road and close to the mall's entrances. So do you think that is actually thoughtful or thoughtless to set up female-only parking? Heyang: Oh, I think no matter what it is, it is credibly sexist. John: Thank you for saying that. I am glad you said that. Heyang: It’s reinforcing that’s stereotypical view on women being very bad at driving, and may cause more accidents, which is completely false when we look at a few studies done before. John: It’s not completely false actually. So what we find in the US as well as in Europe, in Germany, what they found is that men are involved in more accidents total, total accidents. But what happens is that number one men are involved more in accidents with vitalities or causalities, so people die or they get injured. However, women are involved in more minor accidents, such as scrapes, bumps, slight dents and things like that. Heyang: So I think there could be an argument for in the parking lot when there seems be a place where is high risk for scrapes and accidently touching another car, that kind of thing. But I think this more or less seems like a marketing stunt, or this shopping mall is trying to send out the message that we are female friendly, but in fact I still think that it is just not sending out the right message. And I don’t think girls need this kind of extra treatment, so to speak, for, you know, getting parking a car correctly. Xiaohua: I think it’s really difficult for me to picking a side here. Because on the hand we do have studies showing that, as John says, also there is another study showing that many more accidents in parking lots caused by female drivers vs by male drivers. John: Why not making all the parking spaces larger? Heyang: We don’t have that much space. John: You build up, right? So we are talking about parking lots. What about parking garages? Come on, I think it is very sexist. Number one, we assume that all women are bad drivers, that they don’t know how to park their car. We have a similar case in Germany, where in one area, of one city, they had male-only parking spaces. It was only two, in one specific parking lot, but they said, they used the same argument that men are better parkers than women, which is not always the case. So I think number one, in general, it is important to recognize the strengths and the weaknesses of both sexes, and accept them for what they are. Look, we are all different. That’s just what it comes done to, and there are differences, there are general differences among the sexes. But I think that in terms of, we still need to treat people with the same opportunities, we still need to give them the same chances, and so you know what these spaces doing is automatically assuming that just because you are a woman that you are gonna hit another person’s car. And they are close to the exits. I mean come on, so what, women are not lazy? They shouldn’t have to move? Xiaohua: They have high heels. Heyang: That could be why. John: Take off your high heels, damn it. Heyang: Also I think what was kind of an argument for them, initially I had, was that I think actually the parking lot can be a very dangerous place because… well, the reason why women always carry pepper spray… John: Is it legal? In China? Heyang: Ok, in China maybe. And then so there are potential dangers in parking lot, but not really from parking. That was why I thought, oh, they want this thing. But in the end, it turned out it’s not. And it’s really just… John: No, I mean if you look at a German study from 2003, only one of one thousand crimes in parking garages was actually sexual in nature and they found that molestation and attacks on women occurred no more often in parking garages than any other places. So you know parking garage is the same as anywhere else. Xiaohua: So it’s a fake, sort of conception that parking lots are more dangerous. John: Right, they might seem more dangerous, because there is less people around. But bottom line, they just happen as much. I mean also you have to remember that a lot of crimes of molestation, of robbery, of theft in the road, these are almost always a crime of convenience. And if we’re talking about the six-floor parking garage, come on, who is gonna just wonder around the six-floor parking garage? Xiaohua: Back to, you know, the larger parking lot question. On the one hand, I am really angry because I think it’s sexist. And also, note that, I’m a very good driver (Heyang: Me too.) and I’m very good at parking. But on the other hand, I have seen numerous examples of horrible female drivers. Heyang: And horrible male drivers too. John: I think the thing is especially in China. I think there is a very, very strong conception that women are bad drivers. Because they are actually driving safer than most of the male drivers, which means that everyone thinks that everyone is an unsafe driver, so they act that way. And there is at least in Beijing a fairly low incidence of accidents, but then if you have someone who is driving safe in the area that anyone else is not driving safe, it actually make things more dangerous because our predictions are all messed up. Xiaohua: So instead of singling out the female, we should actually promote safer driving. John: Exactly, and better parking course for everyone.