Podcasts about josh there

Josh Herzig-Marx, founder of Knect, discusses the latest developments in his startup journey since his last appearance on the show. He emphasizes the program's value in helping founders like himself refine ideas and strategies. He particularly notes the program's effectiveness in addressing challenges unique to startups, such as managing professional networks and dealing with the rapid growth of online presence. The conversation also delves into AI's technical aspects and potential applications and the practicalities and ethical considerations of using it in professional networking. Josh and Jordyn explore various AI use cases, distinguishing between beneficial applications and those they deem undesirable. Transcript: LINDSEY: We are back for our Incubator update with Josh Herzig-Marx and his startup, Knect. I'm Lindsey Christensen. I do marketing things at thoughtbot. We are also joined by Jordyn Bonds, who runs our incubator and does product strategy for thoughtbot. And today, we're going to be catching up with Josh and learn what's new since last we checked in. But before we get to that, we have an exciting incubator update: our application window has just reopened. JORDYN: Yes. LINDSEY: You could be the next Josh. JORDYN: You could. JOSH: Don't be me. You should join the incubator. [laughter] JORDYN: Go to thoughtbot.com/incubator and apply. It's just that easy. The application doesn't take long, even though it's in Typeform, and we have gotten some feedback, including from Josh, that it's challenging to plan your application efforts because, as you all probably know, Typeform just gives you one question at a time. So, sorry, maybe we'll update that. But it won't take you very long. It's a pretty brief application. And we are looking for pre-product folks, so you don't have to have a lot. Don't worry about what you do or don't have. Just apply. LINDSEY: Pre-product founder trying to figure out, is this problem worth solving? Who is it for? Jordyn and the team can help you out. thoughtbot.com/incubator. JOSH: And me. LINDSEY: And Josh. JOSH: And if, for some reason, you want to ask somebody about the program who isn't directly affiliated with thoughtbot, you should reach out to me. I'd be happy to talk about my experience. LINDSEY: You should. JOSH: I'd be happy to tell you what I think would be some reasons to join and some reasons that it might not be a good fit for you. And I'd be happy to chat about any of those things. It'd be my pleasure, in fact. LINDSEY: That is a great offer. JORDYN: It is a great offer. You all should take Josh up on that offer. He is an excellent sounding board and mentor. And additionally, if you get into the incubator, you'll just be in a Slack channel with Josh for the rest of time, inside of thoughtbot's Slack. So, that's another [crosstalk 02:05] JOSH: Statistically, there's a good chance you already are. [laughter] JORDYN: You mean in a slack with you. That's true. Josh is in a lot of Slacks, not [crosstalk 02:14]. LINDSEY: Yeah. Once you go through the incubator, you're family for life. JORDYN: You're family. You're here. You're with us. You can't get rid of us. LINDSEY: And you're able to hit us up with the questions, talk to the other founders, so that's another great benefit of participating. All right, but topic of the hour, Josh, hey, how are you? How you doing? JOSH: Lindsey, I am floating right now. We had our end of incubator session last official meeting. And we reviewed how we started, what we hope to accomplish, what we actually did accomplish, and next steps, and it feels really awesome. LINDSEY: It does. That's so great to hear. And can you, at the top here, maybe remind folks who haven't listened before, you know, what was that beginning point that you came in the incubator or the problem that you were looking to solve? JOSH: So, I had this Josh problem, which is that I am overwhelmed by the number of places that I am online and by the rapid increase in my professional network, professional social network, I guess you could say, but in my professional network, you know, see that comment a few minutes ago about how we're probably already in multiple Slacks together, whoever you happen to be online. Plus, if you're on LinkedIn, we're probably at least secondary connections on LinkedIn. Like, there's an awful lot of people, and it's growing really, really fast. And as somebody with a whopping case of ADD, which just feels like making an excuse, as somebody in, like, this modern world, I was feeling overwhelmed, and I felt like I was dropping the ball. And my problem was somebody must have a solution to this. I cannot be the only one. I could not find a solution myself. And I thought, well, maybe if there is no existing solution, maybe we should just go ahead and build it. And that was the genesis of my application to the thoughtbot incubator, which was that even though I've done this once before, I had never done this alone. I don't want to do this alone. And I thought that, you know, because of my experience with thoughtbot in the past and my understanding of, like, thoughtbot's unique organizational skills and capacities, this would be a particularly good fit for the thing that I wanted to figure out. And when I say figure it out, there was really four things I was hoping to get from this program. Let's see if I can remember them all in order. Number one, is this a Josh problem, or is this a broader problem affecting more people? Number two, this is, like, a ladder of problems, right? Like a cascading set. Number two thing I was trying to figure out: if this isn't just a Josh problem, is there at least one identifiable and addressable set of people who think about this problem in a similar way with whom I could engage? Number three, if there is such a group, are they willing, ready, and able to, like, spend money on solving this problem? And then number four, which I guess is kind of orthogonal to the other ones, it's kind of alongside, is this thing to solve even technically feasible, right? Because you can have this, like, amazing opportunity, but you just can't build it. And, you know, is this a thing that we could build or that I could get built within the resources that I might have? And I came in with some hypotheses, with some ideas. It's not like I had never done any research in this at all. But coming out of it, we have four pretty good answers. And I would not have been able to reach those answers with the same level of confidence, certainly not within eight weeks, if I hadn't gone through the incubator, and it's a really nice way to end the year. LINDSEY: With a bow on it. The last time we talked, you had narrowed in, I think, on your starting target market. And you had also recently introduced a prototype into the mix. How has the prototype evolved? JOSH: It's...and this is going to be no surprise to either of you or anybody who's listening. But, like, the difference between, like, talking about something in the abstract and actually having, like, a thing in your hand is night and day. So, the prototype actually evolved pretty rapidly. You know, it allowed us to try using it, like, to put on our own empathetic user analog hats and try it ourselves and be like, "Well, this doesn't quite make sense." This doesn't actually flow right. And it allowed us to show it to a lot of people. I'll say, we are, by far, our own strongest critics, which is good. Mostly, when we showed it to people, people are like, "This is amazing." And they would ask us, like, really specific, weird questions like, "Where's, you know, your about page? Could I see your privacy policy?" which is, like, a really, really good thing to hear. Because if the only thing...one way to interpret that is the only thing keeping them from maybe, like, diving in and using it right now, besides it doesn't actually exist as a product, is, like, some questions around privacy because it seems maybe too good to be true. Like, that's a pretty good buy sign. You know, we were expecting, like, "The screen makes no sense. Why are we swiping here? Where does this data come from? Is this really complete?" They're like, "No, I'm pretty much ready to go." So, that was good, helpful feedback, though we evolved it ourselves a lot internally. It's really nice having a thing. Do we use the term Pinocchio prototype or Pinocchio test [crosstalk 06:58]? LINDSEY: Yes, I did hear that. JOSH: Yeah, I like that. If this was like, you know, this wooden toy wanted to be a real boy, like, two weeks ago, it really, really wants...I don't know, Lindsey, we should, you know, get you in front of it. You're going to be like, "Why can't I use this today?" [laughter] JORDYN: That's definitely what we're hearing from people. JOSH: And my answer would be, "Well, you can't, but maybe in a couple of weeks." [laughs] JORDYN: Yeah, exactly. I will say I want to say for anyone listening in, though, that that was not, getting to what Josh just described where folks weren't really...they didn't have any hang-ups about the functionality or the value prop. They were basically just like, "What's your privacy policy? And when is it going to be ready for me to use?" It's not like the first draft of this prototype that was what we jumped to. I want to be clear. The first time we showed someone, there was this interesting problem, which is that we were still talking to the wrong people, somewhat. And the prototype hadn't evolved to be the slam dunk that it is now. So, at first, it was like, we'd have these kinds of muddled conversations where people were like, "Well, I don't really understand what this is supposed to be, and I'm not sure about that. And this seems interesting," but then their interpretation of what that thing was would be, like, wildly off from what it was intended to be. I just want to make it clear: this was work and effort. And the team did a really great job of iterating quickly based on, like, every time we talked to someone and showed it to them, we'd come back and say, "Here's what I heard." And it really pushed our thinking forward. Like Josh said, like, we are our toughest critics, so, like, every new version unlocked some new insights in ourselves about what it was we were actually driving toward. Really, just there's nothing like having a thing to look at and bang on to, like, clarify your thinking. LINDSEY: There's nothing like having a thing. Jordyn, you touched on you were talking to the wrong people, maybe. How has that exploration of the core market evolved? Is it still the startup enthusiasts? Are you even more narrow in that? What are the updates there as our chief market focus get everyone thinking about this all the time, officer? JORDYN: Yes. So, you know, startup enthusiasts is still the umbrella. What you're looking for with this is that you can guarantee pretty much every time you talk to someone in a segment or a sub-segment you will know how the conversation is going to go. And we've gotten there with two sub-segments of startup enthusiasts, which is repeat founders, key, key kind of nuance there. Founders, sure, but repeat founders really have this problem, for reasons we could talk about, and then chiefs of staff at startups, which is a relatively new role that's sort of emerged over the last sort of several years. But those folks are really the people that you ask them about this pain point, and they immediately are, like, yes. They use the same words to talk about the pain point. That's another really strong signal. When folks are using the same vocabulary, and they say the same sentences in the same order, and you start to feel a little bit creeped out, like, you're like, "Did you see these questions before I...? What? Did someone pay you to say that?" is, like, how you start to feel [laughs] [crosstalk 09:59] LINDSEY: Also, a marketer's dream. Oh my gosh, here comes the messaging, right? JORDYN: Exactly. LINDSEY: [inaudible 10:04] JORDYN: It feels like a cheat code because you just get to reflect their language back to them. You don't have to write copy. They wrote the copy. You just show them it, and they're like, yes. And everyone's like, "Yes," and it works. LINDSEY: Any thoughts to add to that, Josh? JOSH: It's really good. I would say the bummer or the good thing about this point is we're getting diminishing returns from testing everything other than the actual product, which is good that we got there in eight weeks. But we're not going to learn, you know, keep on adjusting the prototype and making little tweaks and more user research. But the truth is, we're not going to get anything substantial until we get this into some users' hands. JORDYN: Like you say, this is sort of bad news, but it's good news. JOSH: Right. JORDYN: It's how you know, right? When you get to the point where the thing is so clear, and the way to talk about it with folks is so clear that you're not learning as much anymore, diminishing returns is the right way to frame it. You really just need people to get in there and use it. That's the only way you're going to keep learning. That's the moment to build. Hey, everyone out there, don't build before that. That's when you build. And then you really build the smallest thing you can conceive of building, and then whatever that thing is that you've conceived of building that's very small, scope it back by 50% [laughs]. Do it. JOSH: And it's a little humbling as someone who considers himself a founder but who had reasonable success as a founder and who has had pretty good success as, like a very, very early-stage, you know, zero to one and 1 to 10 product leader, has done this a bunch of times and actually coaches people in doing this, and came in with, I'm not going to lie, a pretty good vision in my head for how this stuff was supposed to work together. And it's so much better now. Going through a process actually makes things better. This wasn't just, like, wasting time. Like, going through a process, a thoughtful process actually makes us much better. Like, the thing we're talking about building is much more likely to be successful than the thing I was originally thinking about building, right, Jordyn? JORDYN: Yes. I guess it bears sort of diving into that a little bit, which is, you know, for all the founders out there or folks with a product idea kicking around your head, you're apt to have a little bit of everything we've talked about already. You have an idea of the solution you want to build. You have an idea of who it's for. You have an idea of what their pain points are. And you might be sitting there thinking to yourself, I don't need to do eight weeks of discovery. I already know the answers to all of these questions. And it's possible Josh felt that way coming into the incubator, but doing the work, gathering the data, talking to a ton of people, what you can't understand before doing that is how much more confident and at ease you will feel once you have done it and how much clarity you'll have about what it is you need to build first because likely, you're sitting there with a vision in your head for this product that is fully featured, fully formed. It is the 18th month. We just went into a hidey hole and built a really complex thing, thing. Cool, don't throw that out. But you got to begin somewhere, and you got to begin somewhere meaningful and valuable. And it's really hard to know where to begin without this discovery, without focusing on a specific person, talking to as many of those folks as you can. And really, it sort of writes itself. It does feel easy. But you've got to set aside the time and the effort to do the research, market research, whatever we call this, customer discovery. And it thrills me to no end, Josh, to hear that that is how it felt for you, that you probably felt like you already knew the answer. But it just feels different, having talked to, I mean, how many people, 100-plus people? We were looking at the stats. JOSH: Well over 100. LINDSEY: Josh was talking to a bunch of people before he came to the incubator, and all the founders that we accept have been doing that. Like, we want to know that you've been doing that research. But then, I guess, coming into the incubator, you're continuing that process and maybe in a more structured or a differently structured way where the thoughtbot team is helping you, maybe zero in far deeper on the segment. Is that accurate to say? Just kind of the difference between, like, maybe some of the pre-research and then the thoughtbot-specific user interviews that happen. JOSH: Yeah. I think they were more focused. They're both more focused from the audience, but also more focused from if it's not just you doing it; it forces you to have a more clear, here's the questions we're asking, and here's what we're trying to learn, all these conversations. It's also really nice to have some diversity in who's asking the questions. As good or bad as I am at user research and user discovery, I am only one person. And having people with different backgrounds professionally, who live in different countries, who have different feelings about social media, basically, who are not me in a variety of really interesting ways, I think, made the entire process more interesting. Caro, who is our lead designer on the project, handed off basically the summary document of, like, everything we learned, and she pulled out, like, little snippets from the interviews. First of all, that is not something I would have done had it been just me, like, let's be very, very clear. This is an incredibly valuable document, particularly as we consider adding additional people onto this project to be able to, like, translate insights. But also, like, this is, like, summarized in a way that, like, takes some real expertise. And I would have walked away with vibes, and instead, we walked away with like, structured learning. LINDSEY: Awesome. So, the last time we checked in, also, you were very excited because you had just maybe started a technical spike and were starting to dig into the, okay, like, how technically feasible is this product? And I think, at that point, you all were looking at circling around this target market. Here are the main tools they use to communicate. What does it even look like to connect with those APIs? How possible is it? Can you give us an update on some of that work? JOSH: The way that I framed the question in the very beginning was, is this a science project, or is this going to be engineering? And, for the most part, the answer is, it's going to be engineering, right? Some are a little bit easier; some are a little bit harder. But it isn't, like, reinventing new stuff, with one exception, and that is connecting up with iMessages, which has been in the news a little bit. And I honestly just hope the ghost of Steve Jobs comes back and haunts, you know, the Apple headquarters at Cupertino because, come on, guys, interoperability is sort of the future, and you're ruining it for everybody. But other than that, I think we have a pretty clear path. I'd like to test out some of these. Like, you don't really know until you do it. I think that's kind of the next step of what we're doing is to, like, demonstrate that it is possible for a person to connect up a couple of different accounts. It is possible for us to extract data and turn that into information and insights in the kinds of ways we thought we could and then present that back in a meaningful way. I think that would be the next step for us to do. Mostly, everything seems feasible, except for iMessages. LINDSEY: I've also, I think, heard some whispers of artificial intelligence for Knect. Is that true? Have you all looked at, you know, what AI's role could be in the solution? And how does that research look? JORDYN: We assume it will be part of the mix. That said, I don't know how to frame it exactly. It's not like it's not an essential ingredient. I think the work with large language models and the democratization of that work recently is absolutely going to make this product way better than it would have otherwise been. But there are a lot of heuristics we've, like, been able to, you know, draw out and come up with that are, frankly, algorithmic, and they're not AI necessarily. Now, the line between big data plus an algorithm and AI in the popular lexicon, like, there's a big difference between those two things. But, like, as people talk about it, yeah, where does one end and the other begin? But we definitely will be making use of a lot of the newest technologies, and we've dabbled in them. I've dabbled in them. I know, Josh, you've been playing around with some of them, too, to the point where we're like, okay, yeah, we can make use of this stuff. It will be a valuable kind of tool in our toolkit, but it will not be the sole basis of value. I guess that's the sort of nuanced answer. But maybe Josh has a more bite-sized hype machine answer to this. Yeah, AI to the moon, right? JOSH: Um, no. My only answer would be more cynical. Would anybody rightfully start a company in 2023 without having AI in there someplace? Maybe I'll say something different. One of the things that we've wondered is, there's more than a handful of companies that are adjacent to what we're doing that are definitely looking at similar kinds of problems and that aren't building the solution that, clearly, some market is, like, desperate for. And these are not, like, wildly successful companies that have grown astronomically and changed the market. And, like, trying to figure out, like, why is that? And one of the reasons is...I sound like a tech bro, right? There has been a paradigm shift in the technology world, but there really has been. What do, you know, publicly available LLMs like, you know, OpenAI's ChatGPT, like, what have they done? They have taken a whole set of problems that were once really, really complicated and allowed you to do a reasonable job of solving them much more easily than you ever could before. And it takes some amount of imagination, to realize that, to realize that these things are more than just, I mean, every product I have on my computer has some kind of OpenAI ChatGPT-style thing in there, right? It's, like, 16 different variations on give me a prompt, and I'll write your essay for you, and they all kind of suck. But those aren't the really exciting uses that I've seen. It's the more subtle things. There's a company called Booklet, which tries to replace, like, noisy email lists or noisy communities to something more calm. And one of its features is it'll send you a summary of what's been going on in the community since, like, the last time you checked in. And it gives you, like, two paragraphs to read, and they're really chill and really informative, and they don't make you feel FOMO. They don't make you feel stressed up. Like, okay, stuff's happened in the community. This is really neat. And it's all powered by OpenAI's APIs. And it's really kind of magical. And, like, you have to have a slightly different perspective to imagine these kinds of magical moments. So, that's what I'm excited about. There's a set of things that we would have had to do with, like, terrible, complicated queries and, like, pattern matching, and freaking grep, or whatever old-school tools we would have had, you know, for doing things in the past. And now you just get to, like, shove text in one end, and say how you want the results structured and get the results back in the other end. And it doesn't have to be perfect, but that's okay. Like, we're talking about human relationships, which are inherently imperfect. So, I'm fine with this. And it's kind of exciting. But we'll see in, you know, if we end up continuing going down this path. Like, that's the goal of the next stage is to be, like, okay, what are the easy things which we can generate out of this? Is there an intersection between, like, easy and meaningful? And if there is, this is pretty exciting. JORDYN: Can I add something to that? Which is that the problem Knect is trying to solve and the way that we're trying to solve it, the way we've thought of solving it that's differentiated, lends itself really well to the current landscape of AI tools in that, and you were kind of getting at this, Josh, but I feel like it bears drilling into a little bit, in that what we are proposing here is not a set of deterministic things. We're not going to give you a to-do list. It's not, like, a linear...deterministic is really the right word. Like, there's a to-do list. There are things that make the cut. You got to go address them, et cetera. We're way more trying to approximate the way a slightly more put-together person with more time would approach nurturing their relationships, which is just to remember more of it more of the time. It doesn't mean we need to remember all of it every time. That's not the kind of task this is, which makes it a really good task for the place that AI is at right now. And I think where folks have failed in the past is that they've either tried to turn it into a deterministic set of tasks, which then just feels like another to-do list, another inbox in a series of to-do lists and inboxes that you have in your life that just make you feel guilty and inadequate. That doesn't seem fun to us. We don't think you need another one of those. Or other places we've seen this fall down, which is that it takes the current sort of state of AI and tries to actually do the deterministic thing for you, but it doesn't do a good enough job right now. But where we've kind of landed in the middle is that, again, what we're trying to solve for is solvable in a way more probabilistic way. Like, can we get more of this accomplished more easily for you? It's never going to, like, completely, you know, do the task in this perfect deterministic way. But it is going to make you feel more confident and more relaxed à la Booklet, it sounds like, how to do that for this particular problem, which is a different bar and one we think we can clear. And that really does provide value. People are really longing for this. LINDSEY: Jordyn and Josh, building on those descriptions of, like, kind of maybe bad AI use case, good AI use case, could you give some specific examples of, like, what that might look like for Knect, like, how AI could be used in a good way or maybe what you're trying to avoid, more specifically? JOSH: Yeah. First, I'm going to start with what I want to avoid, which is, there are tools out there, and these may be interesting to some people listening, and if so, go find them. Good luck. But there are tools out there that say things like, "Keep in touch with your network at scale." And will use AI to write a message which you can send out to people without you ever having to, like, review it. That seems like creepy, futuristic sort of, you know, there's, like, a Black Mirror episode about that. Like, the whole point of having, like, a professional network of people who you care about is actually interacting with them. And having some service, like, write some prompt, maybe in its own voice, maybe if it's really good in your voice to, like, let them know that you care about them, let them know that you're thinking about them is, like, that's just bad. I think that's bad. And we don't have any plans to do that kind of thing, even though most uses for AI in the products that I use are writing three or four paragraphs in response to, like, a prompt. So, certainly, that's the common use case. It's not very appealing to us, and, frankly, in the people we were talking to, that wasn't one of the things that anybody ever suggested. It's obvious, but as far as we can tell, uninteresting, right? Just because it's obvious and just because it's straightforward doesn't mean it's interesting. The things we're imagining, for example, is, talk about Jordyn. Jordyn and I have known each other since 2020, I think. And we have, like, a whole history of text messages going back and forth, which, by the way, we actually could integrate because we both have Android phones, you know, shout-out for Open Internet. It might be interesting to, you know, summarize some of that, like, I know Jordyn pretty well, but other people who I might have not talked with in a while, sure, you could present me with a whole timeline of our communication. But that isn't necessarily useful. I'll have to read every bit of it. Why not, like, take all that and summarize, here's things you guys talk about. Here's things that, like, prompted your past few conversations: job change, got laid off, started a company, got a cat. Whatever those topics happen to be like, share some of those things. Bring me up to speed a little bit faster without having to literally review every word that could have been going back multiple years. That's a pretty good use of it. If you think about the way that messages work, right? Like, my kids are now at the age where they have phones, and I can now text my kids during the day. I will just tell you, like, this is, like, an incredibly joyful thing for me to be able to send, like, stupid memes to my kids or, like, what's exactly the right emoji to, like, send to them or for them to send to me. If every one of these things were, like, pushed to some kind of timeline, and I'm like, "What's going on with my kids?" Like, that's just, like, going back and reading through, like, your WhatsApp thread, which is something that isn't interesting necessarily, at least not from, like, a professional perspective. And there's, like, thousands of these things. Like, why do I want, like, a record in my, like, database of people who I talk to that says, "OMG," or "K," or "lol," or those sorts of things? Like, that's, like, a phrase. It isn't a conversation. And we could use an LLM to go summarize what the conversation was all about, which is, by the way, a way more interesting thing to persist over time than, like, my daughter typing "JK, JK, JK," which I think is 15-year-old for laughing at me, but I'm not entirely sure. LINDSEY: [laughs] Okay, so as you are...you mentioned wrapping up, and you did your last meeting, and you've got your kind of takeaway docs. You know, one, I'm curious, like, if there's, for your last, you know, days, hours of the program, if there's any final morsels you're trying to get out of it, and then how that kind of leads you into, like, what's next. What are you planning? JOSH: Let's do another one of these things in two weeks. [laughter] LINDSEY: Oh, okay. JOSH: Yeah. I'm inviting myself back on your show. We have one more day of school then, like so many folks, we get in a plane or get in a car and go do some travel and try to disconnect a little bit from our professional networks. So, I'm consciously not trying to say what's going to happen next. I would love to have this conversation again, maybe in two weeks, in the new year, about what comes next. I don't know that I could have a meaningful one right now. JORDYN: I will say what we are trying to send Josh off with into his R&R is what's it going to take to get to a viable MVP, not merely viable, but actually viable? Given what we know, given all this, you know, work that we've done in the last eight weeks, we now have, you know, the ability to envision what version one of something might be. And so, making that kind of argument: here's why it is what we're imagining it to be; here's what it is; here's what it would take to build that thing, gives Josh a lot of stuff to think about in the meantime in terms of how to accomplish that. And the thing that will happen in two weeks is understanding a little bit more about, like, the actual, okay, here's the actual plan. But the ingredients are there, which is super valuable and is a thing we have done every time at the end of every incubator we've done. It's essentially a...it is that what's next plan and why, why that thing. What's the ultimate upside of pursuing this product, and what's the near-term upside? And what's it going to take to get there? Because that's often a thing that founders, especially for some founders, which Josh is not, but what they often can't get their heads around is there's this little feeling if you've got this big vision over here, and you've got, like, the set of things you could do tomorrow, really tasky things really, like, operational things, oh, I need to, like, set up a C Corp, but I need to...whatever those things are, right? What's in between? What's that near-term path that's going to directionally head in the direction of that big vision? It's, so far, always, what we have sent founders off with. LINDSEY: So, if you weren't here at the very beginning of our session, we mentioned that the applications are now open for session 1 of 2024. I'm curious, Josh, what kind of founders would you recommend for the thoughtbot incubator? What's the profile of someone you might send our way? JOSH: I'm going to say something, and I don't think I match that profile, which is interesting, and folks should think about that, what that means. But I would say that if I had to, like, pick a profile, having gone through this, I would say somebody with an idea, of course; ideally, it's one that they have some connection to. They have some personal passion for but, not just because it's an abstract idea but a personal passion that comes from their own experience. And it's really great for somebody who hasn't been inside of a tech company before, at least on the tech, half the business. Tech companies have three halves: one half is, you know, the product building side of bit of it or the tech half, which is engineers, and product designers, and product managers. And the other half of that is the go-to-market side, like sales, and marketing, and customer success. And the third half would be, like, operations like HR and finance. So, if you have experience in, like, the sales, or the marketing, or the customer success side, or the HR, or the finance, or corporate operations or that part of it, and, you know, you're familiar with tech coming from that perspective but maybe haven't been on the actually building stuff side of them before, this is a really, really good process. Because what does thoughtbot do? It does the building in tech side of things: designers, product managers, and especially engineers. And it has this, like, legacy and this history and expertise, therefore, with, like, the journeyman program where they help, like, level people up in those areas and now are applying this to founders. Because as the founder, you do need to develop some ability to converse around engineering and technical stuff. And you really, really, really, really need to get good at the discovery side, especially of, like, product design and product management. And those are the things you're going to get to do and you're going to get to do with people who are themselves really, really good at it. And that's awesome. The flip side is if you're, you know, a founder who is super attached to every bit of your vision, and you think you have the strategy all laid out and you're just looking for, like, warm bodies to build it, I mean, is it the insight team? What's the right level at thoughtbot? I forget the names of things, but, like, thoughtbot has, like, a startup program where you can give thoughtbot money, and they will build things for you. And they're also really, really good at that, but that's not the incubator program. The incubator program is probably a step earlier. So, I think it is worth thinking, are you at the I'm so confident of my vision; I'm so confident in my strategy that I just want to get this thing built, then maybe don't sign up for the Incubator. But if you're at the stage of I think this is a problem; I'm pretty sure this is a problem; I really want it to get solved; I have some vision, but I know it's going to change, then I think the incubator is really ideal, especially if you're looking to upskill yourself, too, because you're going to walk away with the ability to be conversant around the technology stuff. And you're going to walk away with a crap ton of experience with the discovery, qualitative discovery, like user interviews, quantitative discovery, like, you know, running ads, and landing pages, and all that stuff. Like, you're going to be really solid with that stuff after eight weeks because you will have done it. LINDSEY: Jordyn, any thoughts? JORDYN: I love all that. I think it's accurate. I would only say to those of you sitting out there who are thinking, I'm in that other camp; I'm very confident about what it is I want to build; I would ask you to do a little soul-searching as to whether that's actually true. Like, what evidence do you have? If you needed to stand up in court and defend your conclusions and your vision, could you? And I say that as the person who, as a first-time founder, was deluded in that way. I thought I knew exactly what I was doing and for whom and why. And, boy, howdy, could I have used a program like this to actually get me to sit down and, like, talk to people, listen to them, figure out what was valuable and what wasn't, what a valuable, you know, initial market offering was going to be like. Ah, I wish really, really badly that I'd had something like this because I was pretty deluded. I don't even know, like, what the right word is. I just didn't know what I didn't know. So, like the way you described it, Josh, I know Jordyn of 2017 would have been like, "That's me. I know this thing that I need to do. LINDSEY: [laughs] JORDYN: So, I don't need to apply to this program because I don't need to do any of that discovery work." But I was wrong [laughs]. I was absolutely wrong. I was wrong to the tune of, you know, two years and $150,000 of angel investment. So, consider, it is not idly that I say this to you, person sitting out there who feels very confident in your vision right now. Perhaps you have done all those things already; in that case, [inaudible 33:43] you don't need this. And you just need to [inaudible 33:46] with the thing you already know to be true. But ask yourself, how do you know what you know? LINDSEY: Yeah, even if you...we can help you build the thing. But we're probably, also, still going to push you on [laughs] some of those things we [crosstalk 34:01]. JORDYN: Yeah, we're still going to ask. We're going to ask to see the receipts. LINDSEY: Yeah [laughs]. JORDYN: And maybe you have the receipts, which is great, but we're still going to ask you for them, I guess, is my point. Every team at thoughtbot will ask you for the receipts, by the way, not just mine [laughs]. LINDSEY: The other interesting thing you touched on, Josh, was, I think, where we kind of started the incubator was with that target profile that you just described, which is, like, the less technical founder, and maybe even, like, a first-time founder. And then over time and seeing, like, applications, we broadened that as we saw, like, oh, you know, actually, also, technical founders and repeat founders do still need, like, help with this and can use guidance. So, we've expanded a bit, and maybe that is still, like, the person who gets the most value at the end of the day is the non-technical who hasn't really done this before. But yeah, we've kind of expanded to those other profiles as well. JOSH: There's a reason that repeat founders are no more successful on average than first-time founders, and it's something really important that Jordyn said, which is, you may think you've done all this, but we're going to ask you for the receipts. Just because you've done this before doesn't mean you're going to be good at it. Chances are, if you've done this before, it's mostly because you got really, really lucky; ask me how I know. So, it's nice to have. I mean, I described a profile, and I said that wasn't me. But I'll just tell you, as somebody who, like, spent his entire career, almost his entire career, in the tech side of tech companies, and I think I'm pretty good at it, I'm certainly not the worst at it, thinks I'm pretty good at it, it's still really nice to have a team backing you up in this early moment. It's really nice to have a team. JORDYN: Yeah, I will say another thing that we've heard from every founder we've worked with is just how much more real and actionable their idea feels when they have a team sitting there with them taking them seriously, which is another thing, you know, I really would have benefited from is, like, suddenly, when you've got three or more industry professionals sitting there in a Zoom call with you, like, okay, what are we doing? Why are we doing this? How do we know? The feeling of being taken seriously in that way and then having a bunch of people working full-time with you for eight weeks, they're in it with you; they're asking the questions; they're talking to people; they're coming back and saying, "I just had the most amazing conversation with someone. Here's what I learned," it just takes your project to a different level of reality. Like, we're humans. We're social beings. We create reality together. And when you're working alone, you know, through force of will, you can do a lot, but with a group, it really feels like you're creating something together. And, like Josh said, having those other brains with other experiences in other contexts percolating on your idea it's like bringing a team to bear on something. There's just nothing quite like it, and it's a huge value of the program. Like, we can give you the programming and, in fact, you can go run the programming. It is published in our handbook. The things that we do together you can go do, but it is a whole other matter to do them with a team. It just feels different. LINDSEY: Great. Well, I think that's where we're going to end today. I mean, Josh is leaving us hanging a little bit. So, we might need to...we're going to figure out a way to get your final thoughts, conclusions in a few weeks because I know everyone would love to hear what the plan is for Knect. Josh and Jordyn, as always, thank you so much. Any final thoughts or farewells from you today? JOSH: I've really enjoyed it. I'm going to miss these folks. Though, apparently, I get to hang out in a special Slack channel forever. LINDSEY: Yeah, you get to hang out. JOSH: Which is nice. LINDSEY: Exactly. You can't get rid of us just yet. JOSH: Good. I wouldn't want to. LINDSEY: All right. Thanks, y'all. And thanks, everyone, for tuning in. Special Guest: Josh Herzig-Marx .

If you missed the first and second episodes with thoughtbot Incubator Program partcipant and founder Josh Herzig-Marks of Knect, you can listen to Josh's first episode (https://www.giantrobots.fm/incubators3e1josh) and his second (https://www.giantrobots.fm/s3e3incubatorjosh) to catch up. In the third interview with Josh, Lindsey Christensen, head of Marketing at thoughtbot, and Jordyn Bonds, head of the Incubator Program at thoughtbot, discuss the progress of Knect in the thoughtbot Incubator Program. Most of the conversation involves identifying and focusing on the right target audience. Initially, they considered startup enthusiasts, but after exploring other segments like journalists, they returned to startup enthusiasts with a more refined focus. Josh also talks about developing a prototype and its usefulness in getting feedback and refining the product concept. The technical feasibility of integrating various communication platforms into their solution is a significant focus. They examined different platforms like email, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Telegram, and SMS to determine which integrations were essential for the minimum viable product. Looking forward, Josh outlines the next steps for the program, which include finalizing high-quality prototypes and making strategic decisions about the scale and funding of the project. Transcript: LINDSEY: Hi, everyone. JORDYN: Hi. LINDSEY: Thanks for tuning in and joining. We're going to be checking in on one of our incubator program participants today. If you haven't joined us before, thoughtbot runs a startup incubator, about an eight-week program for the early, early, early-stage company, idea, founder project to validate that business, find the market, and start thinking about how you build that thing. So my name is Lindsey Christensen. I head up Marketing here at thoughtbot. And today, I am joined by Jordyn Bonds, who heads up the incubator program at thoughtbot. And our guest of honor checking in once again, Josh Herzig-Marks, Founder of Knect, the company going through the program. Thanks for joining. JOSH: Super excited. I'm always excited. LINDSEY: How's it going? How is your founder sentiment this week? JOSH: This -- LINDSEY: Are you on a high? Are you on a low? JOSH: I don't think I'm on a typically high-high. I'm a pretty even-keeled, chill founder. I think it's appropriately enthusiastic but not excessively so, and definitely not at a low trough. LINDSEY: All right, even-keeled. We love to [crosstalk 01:19]. JOSH: Appropriately enthusiastic because we're doing really cool stuff. And this is a lot of fun. LINDSEY: Well, that's great. So, I mean, [inaudible 01:25] that you're working on and especially the last time I checked in with you in the really early stages, trying to find that target niche audience or invalidate, like, the problem with them. How is that going? How's that search for the people with the problem going? JOSH: Yeah. So just to, like, rewind the clock for the folks who maybe haven't seen every one of these, you know, there's a few things that I was trying to figure out to validate whether this problem that I saw was an opportunity for business. And, Jordyn, help me out if I forget some of these. So, number one, is this a Josh problem, or is this problem more broad? Question number two is, could we find an audience of people who are reachable, who share the problem, and who'd be willing to actually pay for this thing? And those little asterisks after pay, right? People pay for things with money but also with time or with reputation. Generally, we're thinking about money here, ultimately. But do they pay for this thing even in time? Would they be able to do that? And the reason we're looking for that kind of a more narrow audience is because you got to build for somebody in the very beginning. This isn't, like, we're limiting ourselves to a narrow audience forever, but we wanted a set of people who we could design this thing for, have prototypes, share it, and hopefully get some consistent feedback so we can build a thing which they would find useful and use that from there. That was two things. And the third thing: is this actually technically feasible? You know, the first time I was a founder, incidental to building our business, we built the world's fastest online transaction processing database that was processing, like, billions and billions of retail records in, like, the time it takes you to, like, click and drag and change the query that we're doing, which is really cool to say out loud, and it demoed really, really well. But that isn't actually a business. And what I wanted is part of validating if this idea, if this problem was an opportunity or something that wasn't a science experiment. And I'd love to talk a little bit more about what we've been doing over the past week, maybe a little later on in this. Because I think it's been a big week for the science experiment or not validation stage of this thing. So, two things we've also done over the past week and a half, two weeks since the last time we chatted, we have a prototype, which looks pretty good, which we can now use to show to people who we think are our core starting audience, our core starting market, and we actually have a core starting market. Both of these things are pretty exciting. I mean, I'm always excited. But we're doing it, like, we're doing the thing that we're supposed to be doing, and I like that. LINDSEY: That's really exciting. So, core starting market is happening. Do you want to talk about maybe how you got there? JOSH: One of the reasons why I was excited about doing this program is Jordyn, and I share the understanding of its importance. But when you're, like, actually the founder, it's really hard to see this, right? Jordyn is like the...I don't know quite how to describe it, but Jordyn is the person who, like, made sure we stayed focused on this part of the effort. And, like, it's a really key part of the thoughtbot incubator. And it's one of the reasons why I'm really appreciative of having gone through the program. JORDYN: So, Josh walked into the program with a problem that he had, which is frequently how products get made and companies get founded. Like, that's fine. It's a great starting place. And as he listed, his question was, is this a Josh problem, or is this a problem for more than just Josh? Because Josh isn't a market segment. Josh is an individual human [laughs]. And a lot of us have product ideas that we would love to have exist so that we can use them, but that doesn't make them good market opportunities. I may or may not be speaking from experience in that regard, ahem. Anyway, so part of the programming here was to figure this out. And it's great to start with, like, okay, well, if Josh is our primary user, who is Josh? Is there a market of Joshs, right? So, we actually started off talking to those folks. And, you know, we're human beings, and we tend to hang out with people like ourselves. And so, Josh knew a lot of people like Josh. One of those people that he knew was me. I am like Josh in regard to this pain point. I also had it. And then I was connected to a bunch of people who had this pain point. So, we broadly spoke to a lot of those folks at first. I don't know that we really had a persona name for this. I don't know, how would you frame this? JOSH: As you know, I only have poor pejorative names for people like us. JORDYN: [laughs] Pejorative? JOSH: There's, you know, a class of people who are at tech companies and startups, and sometimes they start their own companies, and sometimes they work at companies. And sometimes they do coaching. And sometimes they do a little bit of an investment. And sometimes they're on advisory boards. And, you know, when you kind of smoothly move from one thing to the next, sort of often doing several of these things all at the same time. And there's not a really good name for them, but they're kind of people, like I might go so far to say the three of us, and maybe a lot of people who work at thoughtbot and a lot of people we've all worked with in the past and, hopefully, a lot of the people who are listening to this conversation because they, too, could slip into the founding a company stage of this business. JORDYN: So, we've kind of loosely called those people, most recently, startup enthusiasts is our nickname, and there are a lot of folks under that umbrella. But as we talked to those people at this kind of high level, it was very broad. That maybe sounds fairly specific to some of you out there listening, but it's not specific, nearly specific enough to address with a product. So, we were talking. We were listening, getting people to talk to us, "Hey, tell us about how you keep in touch with folks. How does that go? What do you do? Have you ever built your own spreadsheet to keep track of people you know? Tell us about that." Broad questions. And we were learning things and hearing about trends. It wasn't coming into focus. We weren't hearing enough repeatable things. And we certainly weren't hearing about red, hot pain points. It was like a, "Yeah, this is kind of a problem sometimes, but not all the time. My system works more or less [inaudible 07:11]. Then we kind of found this range of personas. Some folks were just like, "I'm awesome at this. It's not a problem. I don't know what to tell you." Okay, well, clearly, that person doesn't need a product because they're feeling good. Great. At the other end of the spectrum, you have people who are just like, "I don't even know what you're talking about [laughs]. Like, this isn't [laughs]..." There were people who were like, "I know what you're talking about, but I'm good at it." There were people who were like, "I don't know what you're talking about. I don't care to ever do this." And then, there was this broad set of people in the middle who were like, "Yeah, I have a problem with this." But we were hearing a lot of different things. In the course of that, Rami, one of the folks on the team, ended up talking to a journalist. And that conversation was very interesting because it did seem like way more of a red, hot pain point with, like, something on the line. And we were like, oh, maybe we've been barking up the entire wrong tree and, like, startup enthusiasts aren't our people; journalists are our people. So, then we did a whole sprint with journalists and realized that journalists is a very broad umbrella [laughs]. There's a lot of different kinds of journalists in a lot of different kinds of contexts. And they have widely varying pain points, habits, needs, wants. We were like, okay, we're hearing some really interesting things in here, but they don't seem like early adopters because they are not the kind of people that just try an app who are just like, "Sure, new app, cool. I'll try that." Startup enthusiasts are people who just, like, try stuff. They're, like, on Product Hunt. They're friends with a bunch of founders, and those founders are, like, "Try this." And then they're like, "Sure, okay. Sure, I'll try it. I'll login." Login to anything once, right? Is kind of the attitude of this group of people, journalists not so much. And so, it felt like it was going to be a really hard thing to address those folks. But we learned a ton. And we really ended up mapping the emotional train in a lot of detail. And as a group, like, we came to a lot of alignment. There was a lot of, like, really good understanding, deeper understanding having gone on that journey. But where we ended up back was like, okay, startup enthusiasts really actually seem like [laughs] a place to start. And it feels like there's enough of them that they could create some kind of early adopter market. But now, with the information that we had, the new information we had, we were like, let us sub-segment this group of people. It's not everybody in that umbrella. Doing that whole journey enabled us to kind of come back to the question with renewed focus, but, like, conviction about how valuable it was going to be to do that, right? And sometimes that's what it takes. You kind of have to do the wrong thing for a second to appreciate doing the right thing, and that's totally fine. The fact that we were able to do that in, what, five weeks is, like, fine. JOSH: And I think the way that we found the sub-segment that made sense was actually pretty simple, right? Once we understood what are the dimensions that are actually important, we did a quick brainstorming session. This wasn't actually a very long process at the end of it, a quick brainstorming session. What are the different kinds of people who fall into this segment? And we just scored them on all the easy things you'd expect to score people on, namely: are they easy to find and easy for us to reach? Do they advertise this quality of theirs someplace publicly, like, perhaps on LinkedIn? And are they easy to find? Like, do we have enough of them inside of our network so we could, like, search for these kinds of folks? And as it turns out, we've already spoken to a lot of these kinds of folks as well. And primarily, we're talking to repeat founders and/or chiefs of staff at startups. JORDYN: If you are one of those people, please reach out to us. We'd like to talk to you. JOSH: We would love it. LINDSEY: Call to action. So, Josh, you mentioned one of the benefits of the program has been Jordyn's ability to kind of laser-focus on finding the target market. Jordyn, how do you do that? How do you keep the team coming back to that? Especially as sometimes it maybe doesn't take that long—sometimes it might feel like you're kind of circling around and around and still aren't finding anyone—and keeping folks motivated to do that or understanding, you know, when are we going to say, "This is it, you know, we're not finding someone"? JORDYN: I'll talk about how it worked in this case. And every team is different and is motivated by different things. And this process is a little different every time, so it's hard to make generalizations. But in this case, what was interesting is that after we did our journalist sprint and we were like, we do want to refocus on startup enthusiasts, but we need to understand a little bit better what we're doing, we actually prototyped a little bit given what we knew, which seems like a bad idea [laughs] on the face of it. It seems premature. The purpose of doing that, then, was to really take a different path to drawing out of each of us what was in our lines. That's, like, so much of the work of a team at this stage is, like, making sure that we're externalizing the things that we're thinking and the assumptions that we have. And it's strange. You would think you would just be like, "Hey, tell me what's in your mind?" But minds don't work that way. You can't just be like, "Hey, mind, what's up?" And then articulate it perfectly in a way that everybody in this group is going to know what you mean. So, prototyping actually drew a bunch of that stuff out. It really...I think that was the moment...I don't know, Josh, how you feel about it. We had been kind of in the doldrums because we did get to the end of that journalists' sprint. And we were like, what are we doing? What have we learned? And prototyping at that moment enabled us to...it was a different way of understanding what we had learned and what we were all now thinking. And it really drew a bunch of dynamics out that it was super helpful. JOSH: It brought some real sharpness to what we thought we'd be able to...the kind of value we thought we could deliver in the early versions of this thing, right? Fast forward two years, who knows? But it brought some sharpness to the kinds of problems that we thought we'd be able to fix and the kinds of problems we thought we couldn't solve. And that also clarified for us, certainly for me, why, oh, here's why this isn't really landing with the journalists, right? And here's why this isn't really landing with some other kinds of folks we were talking to. And -- JORDYN: Biz dev folks. We talked to a bunch of biz dev folks. It wasn't going to land with them, but yeah -- JOSH: They weren't at all excited about it, and then we can kind of understand why. One of the ways that I think about a prototype and I talk about this a lot, and I love doing this. Somebody called this a Pinocchio prototype, the wooden child who wants to be a real boy. Once we had a prototype, we could actually put it onto our actual phones. And I'm not sure how many other people did this on the team besides me but, like, I would carry my phone around with a prototype on it. And every time I thought I might use it, I would pull the damn thing out of my pocket and, like, tap away on the phone. It gave me, again, a very clear sense of the kinds of things I thought we were moving towards solving and the kinds of things that we weren't really solving. LINDSEY: Yeah, Josh, you mentioned there were some exciting developments in the past week. Is that around the prototype? JOSH: This is one. Having the prototype on there was good. It's also really nice to have this be part of a larger team. I was having a hard time. I had been playing with, like, our design team's paper prototype. I was having a hard time communicating what I was trying to do inside of my head. So, I built my own parallel prototype in Google Slides, which was exactly as awesome looking and as functional as everybody listening is imagining it must have been. If you would like your own copy of my Google Slides app development template, please reach out. I will share it [laughs]. But it let me think a little bit, again, the same thing, like, here's how these things fit together. And then it started moving really, really fast. Once we were all putting things down in a way that we could play with, and touch, and talk about in a concrete way, it felt like that part of things started to move really fast. And the quality of our conversations improved with people we were talking to as well. I would say that's half of the things that are really exciting. LINDSEY: Just to continue on the prototype for a second, Jordyn mentioned a major outcome of starting to use the prototype; well, I guess [inaudible 14:37] that you all as a team got better aligned around what you were envisioning for the solution. And then, it also helped you, again, kind of identify the true target market. Are there other things you're already learning from using the prototype and getting it in front of people? JOSH: Yeah, I think there are. By the way, this shouldn't be surprising. This is, like, the classic diverge-converge model that I know thoughtbot uses all the time with not just startup clients when you're building something new. One of the things which, you know, rewind the clock six and a half weeks ago to when we started this thing. I didn't realize how much intelligence would be required behind the scenes to make this thing actually sensible to the final users. And the more we show it to people, the more we realize that, like, intelligence to make things look simple is going to equal people actually using the damn thing. I think we started to see that ourselves in playing with it. But it's really important to have that be validated by actual potential users who aren't, like, in this shit themselves. JORDYN: I mean, immediately, you know, we were able to start showing the prototype to the folks that we were having interviews with, and there's just nothing better than that because they're not going to pull their punches with you. And we got a lot of great immediate sort of spicy feedback [laughs] from people, especially if you're showing them to people who are, like, startup people [laughs], they're just not going to be nice. And so, there was a lot of [crosstalk 15:59]. JOSH: They're like, "Have you considered making this suck less?" JORDYN: Yeah, exactly. "I wouldn't use this at all [laughs]." You're just like, "Okay, thanks." Tell me how you really feel [laughs]. But it's great. I mean, like, there's nothing better than that. Like, I would way rather that than a bunch of people trying to be polite. JOSH: And it also prompts feedback that we wouldn't necessarily have thought of, which is the idea of this. We [inaudible 16:20] thought of this on our own. Like the idea that sometimes you might want to not take an action when you don't really care about a person. But sometimes you really, like, dislike a person so much who you've been talking to you want to never see them again, right? Never show me this person again. It's a thing that we never would have come to, I think, if we hadn't, like, actually been showing the prototype to end users. LINDSEY: Okay, what is the second half of the exciting thing that happened in the past week? JOSH: This is very much a thoughtbot thing. thoughtbot is full of really talented engineers. And over the past couple of days, we've been able to bring a lot of those folks to bear on the question of like, is this thing technically feasible or not? Which was one of my big concerns. And it turns out, that was probably too large a question for the team that we started with. And to be able to, like, do this, like, little discovery spike with, you know, going beyond the three-and-a-half thoughtboter team that we had to some of your most talented, most experienced engineering leads, not forever, but just for, like, a short moment is kind of, for me, at least, like, a real taste of, like, the thoughtbot value is, you know, Jordyn gets to put out a call for assistance, you know, across the company, and people raise their hands and put real-time in. And, you know, we're able to do something in a couple of days that we probably couldn't have done because we have enough people. And, you know, all those, like, network effects of people coming together that could have taken us, you know, weeks or longer just kind of toiling on our own. LINDSEY: For those technical challenges, maybe you don't want to get into specifics, but in broad strokes, can you talk about what some of those considerations are? And maybe at this point, maybe it makes sense to also talk a little bit about, like, how the solution, how you're thinking about the evolution of what the solution is and provides. JOSH: I have an Android phone. I live in the world as a green bubble in a world of blue bubbles. My partner and I are in an interfaith relationship. She has an iPhone. I have an Android phone. And forever, people are accidentally trying to hit up my, like, iMessage account tied to my email address, and the things don't come through. And, all of a sudden, this company someplace in the U.S. figured out some way to, like, reverse engineer the Apple messages iMessages protocol, so I can put iMessages onto my Android phone. They built this thing. It's been, like, all over the tech news recently. This is the problem, if you're trying to bring together all of somebody's social network, is that there is no, like, handy-dandy API for iMessages. There is no handy-dandy API for regular SMS or RCS or any of those other variations of that. There is no handy-dandy API for WhatsApp, for Telegram, sort of ish, kind of maybe for Slack, not really for Discord. It remains to be seen how mature it is for LinkedIn. By the way, email works great, right? If we just build our entire lives off of email, we'd have none of these problems, but we can't. And we had some hypotheses about ways that we could make connecting these other accounts easier. And we just took, like, an awful lot of hands, right? More than two hands. It took more than two hands to figure out if these things were possibilities if those things turn out to be true. And the answer is if they are true, which we're still working to figure out, though it's looking better and better, this isn't a science experiment, right? And if it's not true, then step one is an awful lot of engineer hours to go do what those Beeper Mini folks did and reverse engineer a whole bunch of protocols and systems that were never intended to be open in the first place. JORDYN: I would like to say -- JOSH: Which is why we should all donate to EFF and promote an open internet so that startups like mine don't need to exist. JORDYN: To loop back to your earlier question, Lindsey, about how to keep the team focused on who something is for, this conversation seems like it's not about that. But, to me, this conversation is also about that because we have a long list of messaging platforms that we have heard from folks, like from interviewing them would be useful to have brought into a single place. This was one of the key pain points that Josh has that we heard from other people, which is, like, you connect with people across platforms, right? You might be connected to some on LinkedIn, but you're also emailing with them. Your email history with them is not a complete history of your life with them. None of your online stuff is going to be a complete history because sometimes you actually interact with people [laughs] in reality, which is still, at this moment, not being recorded all the time, but probably not for long. JOSH: As little as possible. JORDYN: [laughs] But still, even within the online world, you're communicating with people across platforms. Maybe you text with someone, maybe you message on LinkedIn, whatever. And having complete context for your relationship with them in a way that makes it really easy to kind of, like, boot up that context in order to reach out to them for some reason, like, maybe you haven't talked in six months, and you just want to remember, where did I leave this relationship? What's going on with this person, right? You're like, where was I talking to them? Oh, I was talking to them in these four places that don't have very good protocols for being brought into the same interface, right? So, like, the stuff is, like, all connected. But to get back to the who question, we have this list of places we'd heard from people, like, in the early interviews and places that Josh was trying to do this connect with people, et cetera. So, it's, like, Slack DMs, and it's email, and it's LinkedIn, whatever. But we also heard Telegram, and we also heard other things. If we don't sufficiently focus on a narrow enough group of people, we risk making the MVP way too big because it needs to connect with every one of these things. And we can't go to market with something that doesn't connect with 12 platforms or something, right? But because we're sufficiently focused, we could actually do the thing where we're like, okay, well, out of this list of platforms, what are, like, the top five? Where is the line? Where's the minimum viability here with what we can connect with that will actually bring value? And I also am an Android user living in an iPhone world. And Josh and I at least have enough awareness to be like, you know what? Maybe Android isn't necessary, even though we would love [laughs] for it to be there. Nine times out of 10, the people that look like us are using iPhones, right? So great, cool. Let's just do the thing. JOSH: Obligatory iPhone test device. JORDYN: Right. I have one, too, but I don't know where it is. So, like, the question of who really matters. Who, like, really helps you focus? If your answer to "Who?" is anybody with a smartphone, well, like, it's going to be really tough to build an actual MVP that's buildable. So, this question that Josh brought in to us, which is, like, "What's technically feasible here?" really intersects very directly with this question of who are we building for? Because you really want to be able to start somewhere. And, you know, if you have a sufficiently red, hot need and it's not, like, to time travel or something that is, like, probably impossible given the laws of our universe, you can find a way, right? And so, the question was, like, why don't we find that so that we can focus on whether it's worth finding a way? And then that intersection of who it's for, what their pain points are, and what's possible with what amount of effort. It all fits together. No single one of those pieces is sufficient for figuring out a path forward. LINDSEY: And are you taking the, you know, okay, we've gotten really good sight on these startup enthusiasts, and these are their top four communication methods; let's try to solve them? Is that the approach? JORDYN: More or less, yeah. Yes. It's like, can we interface with those top...I think for us, it's like a top five, maybe six. JOSH: Five or six. JORDYN: But, like, the first one on there is email, and that's not a problem. Like, we don't...that's fine. LinkedIn is also not a problem; one and two are email, and LinkedIn: good. We're cool with that. That's okay. JOSH: Because every individual has their own thing. So, you know, you may be talking about long tail services, you know, but for the person who uses Telegram as their, like, daily driver, which isn't most people in the U.S., but there's a lot of people abroad, not having Telegram means it isn't useful. And I think that's one of the things hard about this, right? This is a hard business potentially, or it's really easy. We have no idea yet. And that's part of what I find exciting about this is because over the next, you know, week or so, we'll find out how hard a business this is actually, or at least where are the technically difficult parts? LINDSEY: Great segue. What does the next week look like as we've got market niche, prototype, technical feasibility intersectioning, figuring those things out? What exciting things are on the horizon? What's next? JOSH: So, we have about two weeks left, and at the end of two weeks, we're going to end up with a set of high-quality prototypes, which, you know, are easy for any of us to have on our phones, and to flash around to rando strangers we meet at the grocery store because there's no better way to make friends than product testing. And we'll have a good sense of how big and complicated, and complicated in what ways might it be to build this thing. And then, it's time for Josh to make some decisions around, you know, the whole goal of this was to figure out, like, how big of an opportunity is this just to go and do that? What could growth look like? What could pricing look like? Where might the costs be? What would the cost be to build this? Is this, like, a side gig scale thing? Is it a small, you know, angel-funded startup thing? Is this, like, a VC-size thing? I really hope it's not a VC-size thing. And then to think about, you know, what are the resources that would be required to build it, and where might those resources come from? So, at the end of this, two weeks out from now, I think we'll have all the information, you know, that we need. And then, I know a whole bunch of people inside of thoughtbot who are in a great place to provide their own thoughts and advice and experience and feedback on this. And I'll take this to my personal board of directors, including my family, but also, you know, other experienced entrepreneurs and investors I know, and we'll talk through this. And we'll have to go make some decisions, which is a little scary and a little bit fun, but a nice way to kick off 2024. JORDYN: And a lot easier to do after this program. JOSH: We'll have some real information, right? [laughs] JORDYN: Yes. LINDSEY: That's the goal, right? JOSH: Yeah. LINDSEY: Of the incubator to get you in that spot where you can make educated decisions and get others up to speed really quickly with all that research. JOSH: That's right. LINDSEY: That's great. All right. So, you had a call to action earlier. What was that? Oh, if startup enthusiasts are listening, we want to chat with them and talk to them about the solution. JOSH: If you're a founder, if you're a multi-time founder and either done it a couple of times in the past or you're still doing it, reach out. If you are a startup chief of staff and you can define that role for yourself, please reach out. We'd love to talk to you there as well. If you would like a copy of Josh's free wireframing template for mobile apps, please reach out, and I will be happy to provide you that as well. LINDSEY: Amazing. Thank you once again, Josh and Jordyn, for joining and catching us up. It definitely was an exciting update. I can't wait to hear what happens in the final stretch. JOSH: Me too. AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at: tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions. Special Guests: Jordyn Bonds and Josh Herzig-Marx .

Welcome to Episode 41 of the Profitable Web Designer Podcast, where we're committed to helping web designers to stop undercharging, overdelivering, overworking, overworking and create profitable, sustainable web design businesses. I'm Shannon Mattern, your host and founder of the Web Designer Academy where we teach the business side of running a web design business, and if you wanna make a consistent, full-time income as a web designer but you're struggling with things like pricing, boundaries, mindset and marketing and you're EXHAUSTED from going it alone… well, my friend, you're in the right place.  Love the show? Tap here to leave us a rating and review! This week I'm chatting with Josh Hall about the challenges businesses are facing right now and how to navigate them! Like me, Josh is also a Web Design Coach. He started web design as a freelancing side hustle, and over the years has managed to grow it to a six-figure business today. And, funnily enough, we are actually both based at Columbus, Ohio! He's also the host of the Web Design Business Podcast. 3 key points from my talk with Josh: There are always going to be periods of ups and downs in business. You need to be proactive and learn to problem solve based on the data in order to adapt to challenges. Trying to go it alone can cause you to make mistakes that perpetuate the problem - having a coach or mentor to help you get to the root of that problem will help you see the reality. Never turn off your sales strategy, even if you need to lessen it during your busier seasons. By always carving out time for your most effective marketing and sales activities, you'll build a pipeline for when you come out of your booked out season. We also talk about: Trends in the challenges our clients are facing and how we're seeing that what used to be easy might now take a bit longer. The difference between leads and clients and how you should pay attention to feedback from the people who are paying you, not just talking to you during a consultation. Tactics to get you through the down times in business and how it takes courage to push through these times. Connect with Josh: Website: joshhall.co/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/joshhallco/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/joshhallco/ YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/JoshHallco Podcast: https://joshhall.co/podcast/ PS - Grab my brand new training that breaks down the exact pricing strategy that the high-earning web designers inside our Web Designer Academy used to confidently charge five times more without having to work more or offer more services at https://webdesigneracademy.com/pricing.

For this episode of the eCom Logistics Podcast, we welcome Josh Jewett, Operating Partner at NewRoad Capital Partners. Today, he shares his time and experience in working with enterprises and exploring opportunities in supply chain and operations using the technological advancements of today. He also shares his thoughts on professional services and how they interact with logistics overall. ABOUT JOSHJosh Jewett is an operating partner at NewRoad Capital Partners, a private equity firm investing in opportunities in Supply Chain, Logistics, Retail, and Consumer Packaged Goods sectors in the lower middle market. He leverages his executive experience driving value for two large retail enterprises to improve the performance of his firm's portfolio companies and the return for his firm's investors. Before his current roles, Josh was CIO at Dollar Tree, Inc. and its subsidiary, Family Dollar, Inc., from 2002 to 2020. Following the close of the $11B acquisition of Family Dollar in 2015, Josh led the effort to create IT as a shared service for all Dollar Tree banners.  In his role at Dollar Tree, Josh also partnered with fellow senior executives to drive several major corporate initiatives in supply chain and logistics, customer engagement, human capital management, and back office operations by leveraging a variety of advanced technological solutions to capitalize on the scale of the new $24B retail organization. Josh's leadership and expertise has been recognized by multiple regional and national industry organizations. Most notably, he was named CIO of the Year, “Strategic Impact” by RIS News in 2013. He was also chosen as CIO of the Year later that same year by the Charlotte Business Journal.  HIGHLIGHTS01:01 What brought Josh into the private equity world and taking a mentorship role05:51 Understanding a company as an enterprise-class buyer09:17 Is there ever a world where professional services and logistics do not exist13:03 Buy vs build from the technology standpoint16:22 Generative AI and the impact of similar technology QUOTES 06:40 It can be natural to become an enterprise-class buyer - Josh: "There's much more to it than just a great product. You have to have a great team, you have to have momentum in the marketplace, you have to have added competition and all that. But invariably that's the first thing I look at is what's the business problem it's trying to solve and do I believe that this is a good way to solve that problem"   10:15 Few organizations have the bench strength to implement a new product - Josh: "There's always a burn-in and optimization phase with a new platform. If you don't have skills or the resources to do that, there's no way to get around professional services supplementing your activity." Find out more about Josh in the links below:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshjewett-cio/Website: https://newroadcp.com/

We're Live. Guys start a very interesting debate on how to make youtube channels work. This si something that can be confusing sometimes, one of the first topics is content and as it turns out it is not the main factor.   Competition in the platform is over the top, finding an unique style is one of the most important things you can do for your youtube channel to work.   Thought of the week    Josh - “There's just so many guys that say practically nothing and it works”  

Silver Underworld's Scary Stories - EP 1 Scary Shorts Welcome to Silver Underworld's Scary Stories! Our host Mr. Underworld brings your scary stories back from the dead. EP 1 we bring together some Scary Shorts to give you all a preview of whats to come! Short Stories provided by... Momma_Rose95 @Twitch & Instagram - Nightmare at Waffle House. AwsomePanda: fesapandafresita_143 @Instagram - I babysat a kid from a witch family. AvatarKora - I saw evil in the closet. Antonymous - My house scared all the nannies away Antonymous - I saw the Devil. Josh - There's a spirit in my closet. DragonFire1249 - I see him every night. Mario Vecino - Crying Woman. Kiezl - Evil Spirit attached to me. Kaniinvore - My evil fake sister. "Farwell, Be safe and don't get lost in the dark" - Silver Underworld Want to share your 100% true scary story? All stories that are picked will be written for all to see on our scary scroll featured on our website. Story givers can also have a chance to come onto the show! Just go to the link below! Link: https://www.attackfrommarrsgames.com/silverunderworldsscarystories Email: silversscarystories@gmail.com Silver Underworld's Scary Stories is part of the AFMG Podcast Network. Like what you hear? show support at https://www.patreon.com/AFMG_Podcast --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/afmgpodcast/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/afmgpodcast/support

See if your question got answered live! Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up everyone. This is Russell. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. I'm back with Josh today. And do I tell them what today's episode is, this is a really fun one? Josh Forti: Yeah. Today guys, we're doing rapid fire. We went to the community. We asked a bunch of different questions and by the way, we have like so many more to go over. So like, hey, just keep coming in, which is awesome. But it's a rapid fire Q and A with Russell to kind of bring out a side of Russell that maybe, maybe we don't get to see as much by asking just a bunch of rapid fire questions. Russell: There's some cool questions there. I think you guys going to enjoy. I think there's something for everybody. So listen, take notes. And next time we ask you for some questions, make sure you submit them maybe you'll get answered live. Josh: And called out. We called out some people. Russell: It's true. Maybe you got called out. You should pay attention. Anyway, thanks Josh. This was a fun episode, with that said, let's queue up the theme song and we'll get right back with some Q and As. Josh: All right. So this one I want to do a little bit different, kind of phase three here as we go through this is I went and ask community bunch of different questions and there's so many different ones. I've got screenshots on screenshots on screenshots of, on Facebook, on Instagram and kind of things like that. And so I thought it would be cool to go through and do a rapid fire style where we hit you with a bunch of different questions. And there's a lot of similarities, like underlying actual questions at what it is. But a lot of it is people they want to understand your thought process. They want to understand how you run certain things or how you do certain things or whatever. And so what I thought would be cool is I have enough questions to where we could literally do one a minute for the next couple hours. So take as much time as you want or need to go through this. But I think if we just went through and did like a rapid fire of like, all right, start here and then go through and do this, I think that'd be super beneficial. And I think it'd be a unique creative thing that we could try and see how people like it, sound good? Russell: That'd be fun. Let's do it. Josh: All right. So the first question is, and I think this kind of... It's interesting, I think this ties into both of our previous topics that we covered and talked about, whether it be podcasting and finding your voice there or funnels and figuring that all out is like... The question got asked probably three or four different times, some variation of like, what do you do when you don't know what you want to do yet, like when you haven't found that voice? And you're like, because I think... For me, it's interesting. I actually found my voice before I found my product, right? And I think a lot of people figure out what they are going to sell before they find their voice. And so for me it was a little bit easier because I had all these followers before I was ever selling anything and I was super broke and then I found dotcom secrets and it was like, "Oh my gosh, this is amazing." I literally went from making like $25,000 a year to like $250,000 a year and like one year. It was amazing because I just added it too. But a lot of people, they really struggle with like, "Okay, cool, I get all these things conceptually. I know I need a funnel and I know I need a value ad. I know I need a community and a following and raving fans. And I get all the things, but I don't know mine yet. I don't know the thing. And so when you're doing that, like what's the thing that you do or what advice would you give people to fix that problem of, or what things should they be focused on when they haven't found their voice yet? Russell: I'd say there's two directions on this, and both of them are correct. It's just depends on who you are. Number one, if you are a visionary, if you do the DISC profile, and you're a high I, you want to be the person that's there; the biggest key is not to wait. If I would've waited four click funnels and funnels, I never would've got here. I just started creating stuff that was bad like potato guns, zip brander, or forum fortunes. All these things that didn't work or I made very little money. No one's ever heard of, but I did 150 funnels before I was ever like, "I'm the funnel guy. I'm going to fun... I go on teach..." I started getting into funnels and then we built funnel software, but it was man 14 years and 150 funnels before I figure that out. But if I wouldn't have been in motion, I never would've found that. So if you are a creator and you know that's your calling, just start moving forward and find out what you're passionate about. If I was starting today, I would be into bio hacking, I'd be into nutrition. I'd be into those are the things I'm really geeking out about now in my life. So I'd be running that direction. I don't know what the opportunity's going to be, but I'm going to do something or I'm going to nothing… And then eventually I feel like God, as we start moving in a direction, like conscious I'm moving this direction, trying to figure this out; He will give us little ideas. He'll give us impressions and ideas. And He's trying to see like, "If I give Russell's idea, is he going to be good steward to this idea or not? And if I take it and I implement it, He's like, oh, he's a good steward of little thing, let me give him some more. Let me give him some more." And then 14 years later, He is like, "Okay, now I know he's worthy of this. Let me give him the big idea." But He's checking it. And if you get the idea, you're like, "Oh, I'm scared. I get fearful, whatever." And you don't do it, He's not going to give you the next one. He's like, "Oh, he's not a good steward of ideas." And He gives idea to somebody else. It's why, how many times you are like, "I had an idea for that, but so, and so did this." Because you weren't a good steward of the idea when it showed up. So that's the one thing it's like moving forward. The second thing is that some of you guys, you're not the visionary person and that's okay. There's 450 people who work at ClickFunnels who aren't the visionary person. And if it wasn't for all of them, I'd be screwed. There are people that are my number twos that are my psychics that are helping me support it and they can buy into my vision. In fact, I remember Leon who designs all my slides for me. He's one of the most amazing people in the world. And he was out here in Boise one day and he's a quiet guy, just more reserved and he's got to leave for the airport. And he pulled me aside, he said, "I want to talk to you real quick." And I was like, "Yeah, what's going on?" And he said, he's like, "I've decided that my mission in life is to help you to get your word out to the world." I got chills and I was like, "Oh my gosh. Thank you." It was such a cool thing. And I was like... And I got it. He's got this skillset. He's not going to be on stage doing the things and doing podcasts and stuff, man, without him, I couldn't do what I'm doing. So being a supporting role is huge. So find a vision you do believe in. If you're like... I think Dave Asprey in the bio... and the bulletproof movement is the thing, go get a job from them, go work for them, go work for free, whatever. It's like, go figure out how you can be close to that person and help bolster. It's like, I'm hoping that everyone believes in something. Figure out something you believe in, you're passionate about and go be a supporter of that. Your vision is not to be something you created. It's just something you're supporting and you're helping to move forward. And so that'd be my two advice, depending on which side you fall on. If you're not sure, just start running. Josh: Love it. Russell: See what happens. Josh: Love it. That's awesome. And I think that's really, really cool. My current assistant, I've cycled through a couple of assistants now and I finally have one and she's amazing. And she's just like, "I came into your company thinking that this is what you needed." And I was like, "Yeah, because that's what I told you I needed. But I had no idea what I needed." And she's like, "What you actually needed is this." And I'm like- Russell: "I need you to tell me what I need." Josh: ... right. I was like, "Are you going to leave me now?" She's like, "No, I believe in you. And I believe in your vision. I know what you're trying to accomplish. You didn't realize this is what you needed but I believe in you." And I'm like, "Huh, that is a relief." If you can find that person, that's lucky. Next thing kind of goes along with this another rapid fire one is, as you're going through and you are figuring out all these different things and testing through your things, how do you make it to where you're not confusing your audience and to where they don't feel you're just a mess, that's everything is everywhere? You're trying all these different things. You're throwing things at the wall. Is that just something that people are just going to leave and just be upset just because, or is that like, is there ways to minimize that and communicate to your community that you don't know what you're doing, but that this is the vision. This is what we're going. I'm just trying a bunch of different things. Is there a way to do that well? Russell: Yeah. I think a couple things, number one is understanding that until you really dial that in, it's going to be hard to get a huge following anyway. Like the other day I was searching my name with someone else's name that I did a deal with 20 years ago and it pulled up the Google results and there was like, "Oh, I was so embarrassed." Anyway, it was bad. But guess what? Those people are all gone now. They left. They're are not even aware what happened. They don't know who I am. Most people are like, "Russell I've been following you since the beginning. Ever since you guys launched Funnel Hacking Live." I was like, "Oh, I was in business 15 years before the first Funnel Hacking Live." "I followed you all the way back from Micro Continuity." I was like, "That was a long time ago, I was in business nine years before Micro Continuity." Most people... Just understanding the people are going to be... When you figure out the thing, it's going to be a whole new group of people. And so it's not stressing too much about that, but at the same time, it's like, it's helping people understand like, I'm experimenting. I call it marketing experiments or like I used to call mine dotcom secrets labs before I wrote the book and anything it's like, I'm practicing these principles. So I would like study SEO and talk about like, "Oh." And I'd sell SEO courses for other people because I'm learning from this person to understand SEO. I'm over here and I'm in a laboratory testing these things out. This is what I'm actually doing. And there's a lot of value in that because you're becoming in proxy the person and sometimes you can cut through stuff that's working and not working, you can get direct access to people that they can. So just helping them understand like, my end goal is I want to be... Again, if I was going to bio hacking world right now, my end goal is I want to be healthier. So for example, this is my live mushroom GTS root beer. It's literally my favorite thing. I get twice a day. It's from Whole Foods. It's got Reishi, Chaga, and Turkey Tail. The actual fruiting bodies of the mushrooms in here blended into this root beer. It tastes like root beer my grandma used to make, I love it. I'm obsessed with it. So I could be like, "This thing's amazing. I'm excited about it. And this is why, and this is why I did the study and this is why I'm doing it." I could probably sell a crap ton of these right now. And then I could find out something else like Anthony DiClementi, he's got this thing. And I'm like, "I can be excited. I'm testing it. I bought his newsletter. I bought his membership site." And so it's just like you as the, I'm like a reporter, who's testing these things out in the beginning until you figure out what your thing is and you can really dial it. Maybe I become the mushroom dude who sells mushroom root beer. I don't know, but anyway. Josh: Please stick with funnels. We need you in that lane more. Is it good? All right. Cool. Next question we got here is, do you ever struggle with scarcity and being in scarcity mode even after you've made... Had all the success and as much money as you you've made, do you still struggle with being in scarcity mode or have you evolved past that? Russell: I don't struggle with scarcity. I have a lot of my own issues for sure. And it's funny because every time someone launches the next click funnels killer, it annoys me. But then I'm like, "You know what? First off they're not going to... I'm willing to outwork all of them and so I'm not worried that way." Number two, competition drives me, which is really, really good. And number three, actually, Annie Grace messaged me this a little while ago. She was talking about her business and all these people who were competing and she felt they were leading her people astray. And I was like, "I get that." And I said, "The thing that's most comforting to me is actually a Bible scripture where Jesus Christ said, my sheep will hear my voice and they'll follow me." That's not direct translation, but basically that's just like, my sheep will hear my voice. And I believe that's something that was true for him. But I think it's true for all of us. It's a universal principle. And so what I understand is like, I'm going to go out there. I'm going to be Russell. The best Russell I can be. And a lot of people are not going to follow me. They're going to understand that person better or whatever. Like some other product better, but my sheep are going to hear my voice and they're going to follow me. I'm going to attract the right people and they're going to come to Funnel Hacking Live, and they're going to use my platform. They're going to be exciting. And those are the people I've been called to serve. I am not called to serve the people who are going to go and go somewhere else. Or they don't resonate my message or with me or whatever. And I got to be okay with that because my sheep will hear my voice. And that's my belief that helps me to not be scared of scarcity, because I don't want those people anyway. I want my sheep to follow me and I'm going to help them. I'm going to serve them. Because that's what I've been called to serve. Josh: That's awesome. That's super cool. All right, next one here is actually from Parker Woodward, shout out Parker. Russell: Yeah, Parker. Josh: He says, "How do you know what positions to put members of your team in so they personally thrive?" Russell: Man, I cannot tell you, just you know Parker, this is a constant thing. So if you read the book Good To Great, one thing he talks about is like finding the right people and then putting them on the right seats on the bus. And those are two different activities. And sometimes you nail it. You're like, "Got the right person. They're on the right seat on the bus. And it's awesome." So many times in my company, I find someone who's amazing and we put them in a thing and it's like, "Oh, they don't fit there." And you move around four or five times like, "This person sucks at their job. They're horrible." And it's not actually true. It's horrible. The problem is you have the right person in the wrong seat on the bus. You get them the right seat and then they thrive. And so it's understanding that and really defining it of like, "What are the seats initially?" Because I think that's... You had this with your system. I don't really know what the seat is. I just know I need help. And I'm drowning, what that is, right? Josh: Yeah. Russell: You or someone around you understands like, this is where I'm hurting, this is what I'm struggling and they can define the seat, then it's easy to find the right person, or you find somebody like knows the right person. And then having them like working with them, being okay like, "We may have to try a couple seats so we figure out, I know you're the right cultural fit. I know you're the right person, the right work ethic." But I don't know what the skillset is yet. Maybe they don't know yet either. And as soon as you're able to figure out what their unique ability is, then you put in the right spot and then they can thrive. And so it's a two step process. Josh: Interesting. All right. This one's from Braden. He says, "What are the biggest beliefs fundamentally that you had to shift early on in your life or career that you believe are required to get to $100 million and beyond?" Russell: It's funny you think it's like belief that some marketing principles. So I found out every tier, so me to get to a million dollars, I was trying to get a million dollars in the calendar year. It took me three years in row. I missed it by like 20 grand, three years in a row, I couldn't do it. And it was totally like a mental block. I didn't believe that I could do it for some reason. And after I did the first time it was like, "Oh." Then it was easy. And then 10 million was my next mental block. I missed it first year, second year we got, and then... So it's there's these mental blocks where I don't know if it's we don't believe in ourselves. We don't believe in, that we're worth. I don't know if it's, we don't believe worthy of it or we have the abilities of it, whatever. But the first thing is you got to believe in yourself. And that just comes with a lot of you doing things. Again, it comes back... We talked about earlier, like God gives you an idea. You're going to be a good steward of this idea. And the more often you take an idea and you run with it. Even if you fail, the more times you do that, the more you start trusting yourself. And that's a big part of it. Right now I can walk into a room where there's like, things are on fire and there's pure chaos, I have no idea what I'm going to go into it. I walk in knowing that the right idea's going to show up and I need it because I've done it so many times over and over and over and over and over again. I just know that it's going to happen. And I have belief in myself. That's the first thing. I honestly believe that the second thing, this comes back to the spiritual side of things, is that there's a purpose behind it. I struggled growing ClickFunnels because I thought that it was for Russell and Todd and our friends to make money. I thought that's what the business was, for probably the first three or four years. And it wasn't until I hired this coach who helped me see the connection between things. And she's just... Because I was always like, there's business and there's spiritual things. And God doesn't care right with my business because whatever. And she helped me bridge the gap. Like, "Do you see what's actually happening because this business..." She see people's lives are changed. All these kind of things. And she was the first person who said, "This is literally a calling that God gave you to do this." And as soon as I heard that and I felt it and I believed it, it changed everything for me. I was like, "This isn't just something Russell does as a hobby on the side to keep me busy till I die, this is what I was made for." I was made to do this, to inspire entrepreneurs, to change the world because each entrepreneur can do that. And when I heard that and I believed it, then it changed everything. It gave me permission like, "Okay, well then it's all my donkey Kong. I'm going to publish. I'm going to create, I'm going to write books. I'm going to do software. I'm going to do things." Because it wasn't just like money for money's sake. It was because this is the mission. This is the calling. I need to do it. And so it changed everything for me. So I think for you guys, that'd be the next thing is like, you got to be connected. Is this actually what God wants me doing? And if you believe that, you believe it's not just some side hobby, man it gives you the feel you need to grow row because now it's bigger than just you making money. Making money is so uninspiring. Changing the world because you were called to, at least, for me changed everything. Josh: That's super, super interesting. And so obviously, I've worked with Katie Richardson and tremendous mindset shifting things in there. And one of the things that I've learned just about mindset, what you said there is your brain, by default just runs. And so it will run with whatever program... Like 90% of your life is basically autopilot. You don't even realize that you're making the decision that you're making. So it's like, whatever program is there, that's how your life operates. And how you change that is not by changing this or all these different things, it's by literally reprogramming is changing belief. And so if you could actually just shift the belief, that's actually shifting the program. And so I think, for me, when I first got started in entrepreneurship, it was how do I hustle my way to success? It was freaking. I was at Gary Vaynerchuk working 18 hours a day. Let's go. And so I was like, "That's what I'm going to do." And it was like, Katie came in and was like, "Cool. That's the belief that you have and it's only going to get you so far." And then once you can replace that belief, that it's like, "Oh, you don't have to do that anymore, this is the way to do it." It was a real identity crisis. It was like, "But wait, no, I'm a hustler. I'm up to 4:00 in the morning, every single morning. You can't take that away from me." But then once the belief shifted, then it was like, "Oh, everything else in life shifted." It was like, "Okay, cool. Now I operate this way." And so that's super, super interesting that you say that because I feel like- Russell: If you look at like what I believe my only role is inside of ClickFunnels literally is for me to stand on stage, to write books, do podcasts, everything so I can get our customers to believe this will work for them. That's it. I know it works for them. But if I get them the tool and they don't believe this is going to work for them, it will not work for them. I get them to believe this works. I'm the head belief, cheerleader. That's all I'm actually doing is trying to take my... Whoever has the most certainty, any circumstance, any situation always wins. So when I come into something, I've got to come with more certainty than them and I've got to prove them I believe it can work and it can work for them. And if I can get them to believe it, then it'll happen. But that's the hardest thing is just the mental thing inside people's head. As soon as they believe it, you see it, because it's like, "Oh, they're struggling, struggling." And all of a sudden something happens, and I believe it'll work for them and holy cow, next thing they know they're Two Comma Club. It's weird. Because it makes sense. You're like, "No, it's just a process." Like, "No, it's a process, but your belief is your fuel and how you attack this thing one way or the other, 100% depends on if you believe is going to work." If I believe that if I write a book, a million people are going to buy it, I can go write a book. If I'm like, "I don't think anyone's going to buy it. What if they don't like it? What if..." I'll spend 25 years writing this book, it's never going to get done. The belief is everything. Josh: ... yeah. Garrett White talks about that with Warrior Way. He's like, "We tell people this isn't the only way, this is A way." And I was talking with my students the other day, I was like, "Hey guys, how many different ways are there to grow your business?" And they're like, "I don't know, thousands of them." I'm like, "Sweet, what's the way you grow their business?" And they're like, "Funnels." Like without even thinking about it. And it was like, "See what Russell did there." He convinced me… Russell: And that took me seven years of preaching consistently to get the market and get people to believe that. But it wasn't that… yeah. It's interesting. Josh: All right. The next question here, and this comes up... I mean this probably came up probably more than anything outside of funnels was how do you manage the relationship with your family and the balance between work and family? Because this is something I think a lot of people struggle with. I didn't even realize that this was a thing until I got married and then I got married and I was like, "Oh, I'm experiencing a little bit of this." And I'm like, I can't imagine like then kids and then being around. So how do you balance your work and your family and overwhelm and burn out and like... I mean there's limited amounts and it seems you can do everything Russell, like cause you're everything over there. So how do you balance that with your family and the work life balance of that? Russell: That's a great question. I get asked that a lot, which is interesting. I think a lot of people... Well I think the big problem is most people who are doing what I do, they have... The area of life they're the entrepreneur, they're killing it, and then the rest of their life's a wreck. Or they just don't talk about the rest of life. No one knows. And so anyway, a couple things is number one, Charfen had us do like a time study before. You ever heard of that before? Josh: Yeah. They were the worst. I hate them so much. Russell: So annoying. Yeah I did it for like three minutes, I was like, "I want to die." But you basically sit down and you start every 15 minutes, you're like, write down what you're doing during the day and really quick you realize, "Oh I'm only actually working two hours a day." And I think the average employee, I think is in two hours and eight hour days is actual productive work, the rest is… Josh: Yeah, something like that. It's super low. Russell: So the first thing is just by default, this is comes from me being a wrestler, right? As a wrestler, we have two hour practice. We got the limited time and I wanted to be the best. So I had to cram as much actual stuff in those small windows as humanly possible. And you know when you're an entrepreneur, you're going on a trip and it's like, "My plane leaves at 2:00, but I got an hour and a half to work." In the hour and a half, you'll get more done than an entire day typically. And so I trick my mind that all the time. So if you look at like a typical eight hour day, like I'm coming in from usually from 9:30, till 5:00, it's like my window that I'm here at the office. When I'm here, I'm super present. But what I do in that window of time is what most people do in a week. Because I don't... People always ask me, "Hey Russell, can I take you to lunch?" I'm like, "You have the luxury of lunch. I've not eaten lunch in, I don't know, decade and a half, I'm working. I quit Uber eats. I keep working. It shows up, I'm eating it. And I keep going." I don't waste time for that crap. I'm in the zone and I'm working and I'm not doodling and texting in a million different things. When I'm doing something, I'm doing the thing. I was up this morning from 5:30, till 7:00, I was writing copy for the new offer. And like, that's what I did by myself. Cranked it out. Seven o'clock, boom, I hear Nora talking, hear the kids getting up. And then I break my presence at the thing and I leave and from 7:00 to like 8:30 ish, I'm a dad. And so I take high school kids in school. I come back and I pick up Nora and I play with her a little bit. And then I get her fed and then Collette's getting her dressed and stuff and I go wake up Aiden and then me and Aiden are hanging out. We're talking about the day. And then Collette takes Ellie to school. Aiden's there. I get in the shower. I get dressed. And by nine o'clock I'm ready to go. And I jump in my car. I come here and then boom, I'm in Russell, like I'm entrepreneur mode and from 9:30 ish till 5;00 I'm here. I'm cranking. My days blocked out. I know everything I got to do during the day. I got a to-do list. I got schedule. Everything's blocked out. I knew from 9:00 to 10:30, me and you were here and I'm present. I'm not looking at 1000... We're here doing the thing, it's going to be done. And then at 10:30, I know exactly what I'm doing. As soon as we're done, I'm not sitting around for 30 minutes, like what should I do next. I know what's going to be happening and I'm going, I'm doing the thing. And so my days are like that. So boom, boom, boom, by the time I get to the end of the day, it's like, "Oh, I got a lot of done today. This is amazing." And then I go home. And when I walk through the door from my car in the garage to the door, I send... Before I walk to the door I stop. And I'm like, "Okay, I got to literally stop for a second." I'm like, I'm getting dad mode. I'm getting husband mode. And I get done and I walk through the door and I'm now a dad and husband. I'm not an entrepreneur. And I go, literally go to every one of my kids in the house. My love language is physical touch. I go give each a hug. I go give my wife a hug. And then I'm there. And from that time I'm dad till 9:00 and then from 9:00 to 11:00 I'm husband and 11 o'clock I'm in bed waiting for the next day. And so it's just, I'm really good at chunking time. And I'm not perfect. Some days I'll get depressed or I'll get tired or burned out or whatever, and I don't hit it. But for the most part, I would say I'm pretty consistent in getting a lot of stuff done in the windows that I got. Josh: That's super, super interesting. Being present and being present at work, being present at home, that balance that once again, something Katie talked about a lot is just like, be fully present with where you are and then set boundaries. Having those clear for that Russell: You ask my wife too, I'm not perfect at it, but I try to let things bleed from thing to thing. I try that when I walk through the garage door at night that I'm done with work and I'm home and then, you know what I mean? Josh: Yeah. Russell: And I think that's what most people don't do is like, it all just mushes together where they're doing everything. So everything becomes done inefficiently. I was listening to Dan Kennedy actually yesterday. He's like, "Would you hire a doctor who is going to do surgery on you, and while he's doing surgery, he's watching YouTube video and he's eating something on the side?" He's like, "No, you want presence if you're going to hire someone." Same thing, if you want to build a funnel, you need your designer and everyone who's doing this to have laser focus. You don't want them doing these other things because you need their full attention and presence. Josh: That's awesome. This one's from Paul Vanblum He says, and I'm going to paraphrase this here because... But how do you modify your behavior? Which is, like maybe you've got this thing that you... I don't know, scroll Facebook too much and you just can't seem to quit. I'm sure that's not a problem for you, but how do you go through it actually change or modify behavior? Because it sounds like a lot of your life is routine. Is that true? You figure out the process that works and then you go until it needs to change. And then it's just you pick the next process. So how do you go through and modify behavior that you want to be able to change? Russell: That's a big section of the new book that's coming out someday in the future. So this is a reality is that the shorter versions if we're running close on time is understanding that we do things that meet our needs. And so we had to figure out, how are our needs being met? Talked about this at Funnel Hacking Live a little bit with Tony Robbins, Six Human Needs, right? Like if any... I wish I could geek out on this for like two hours. Maybe this would be the first topic for next time we do this. Josh: Yeah. I was going to say maybe we do that. Russell: That'd be fun. But there's six human needs and there's four needs of the body. And anytime three of the four needs of the body are met, it creates a physical addiction inside you. So if you're scrolling Facebook all day long, it's because it's meeting a need. Like you're getting certainty from it. You're getting significance from it. And you're probably getting love and connection from it. So three of your four needs are being met... And variety, all four of your needs are being met by scrolling Facebook. So it's creating a physical addiction. So for you to break that physical addiction, it's not going to be easy unless you replace it with another physical addiction that you enjoy more. So it's like I have to replacing that. I can't just just willpower it out and got this thing out and be gone. It's like, I'm trying to get my needs met somewhere. And so they're getting met there, I'm good. So I need to get met somewhere else to replace it. It's a lot of people get their needs met by eating. And so they keep eating, eating, and they want to lose weight and they can't lose weight because all their needs are met there. And so until they replace those needs somewhere else, they're going to keep defaulting to that. Again, we can geek on that for a long time, but that's the core root of it. Is it fulfills your need until you get those needs met somewhere else you're going to keep falling back to it over and over and over again. Josh: All right. Last two, super rapid fire questions. Number one. What is the top, the number one or... I'll give you top three, because number one's impossible. Top three books outside of your own that someone must read? Outside of your own because duh obviously is DotcomSecrets, Expert Secrets, and Traffic Secrets. Thinking bio... Russell: Oh, depends on which area of your life looking at. I just bought... I spent a... not a small, a pretty big fortune buying the Napoleon Hill thing. So I'm in the middle of this Napoleon Hill like Deep Dive. Can I give you my three best Napoleon Hill books because that's all I got right now. Josh: There you go. All right, modify the question, three best Napoleon Hill books? Russell: Everything else seems like a distraction. So for me Outwitting the Devil is the best thing he's ever written. It is insanely good and very, very practical. Think and Grow Rich, I've been revisiting and like, oh, it's so good. And then the Laws of Success is not a book. It's a book series, which I now own. Oh my gosh. I don't know if I've even told you this yet. I think I showed you a quick picture, but- Josh: You showed me a video, yeah. Russell: ... The Laws of Success was published in 1928. I have his version that he wrote in 1925 before he sent it to the editors or publishers, first edition signed that he printed at a schoolhouse here in my possession. It's insane. Josh: I can't wait to visit your library bro. Oh my gosh. It's crazy. Russell: But those are the three. I would start with Outwitting the Devil because I'll make you fall in love with Napoleon Hill, then go Think and Grow Rich. And if you love that, then go into Laws of Success' it's like a longer form version of stuff, but it's... Ah, he's my favorite right now. Josh: All right, last question for you. And we all know the answer to this, but I thought it was a great last question to end on just to make sure in business, in marketing, in success for all of success, what's the number one skillset that someone must learn? Russell: Oh, persuasion. Josh: Persuasion. Russell: It's learning how to tell a story in a way that gets people to move. Because everything else, like I can outsource all the rest of it. But like I said, we're talking about creating the offer for the Magnetic Marketing. It's the story, the persuasion, the thing that's going to get people to move. And that... Because that weaves into your funnel, weaves into your email, like weaves into how you get your team to move. How you get your community. All the stuff comes down to that skillset of learning how to persuade people. Josh: Awesome. Well, Russell, I think that wraps it up. We'll see what the audience says. But that is a fun run. Russell: That was really fun, man. I appreciate that. This has been a good day. I woke up this morning working, have a ton of energy. This has been a lot of fun energy. I appreciate you appreciate it. And if you guys like these episodes like this, let us know and we'll do it again. This was kind of a test drive to see if you enjoyed it. Josh: Yeah, you got to let us know guys. Russell: And I had a lot of fun. So hopefully you did too. Josh: Was this was super fun. Yeah, man, for sure. It was good chatting with you and everybody go buy Russell stuff and ClickFunnels and all the things because it'll make you tons and tons of money and that's it. That's just the end of it. Russell: That's the real reason we did this… I wanted you to pitch the stuff so I didn't have to awkwardly tell people to buy it. Thank you so much. Josh: Okay. Everybody go buy stuff right now. It is amazing. That's my pitch. The first thing you're going to get is you're going to get a change of belief. The second thing you're going to get is you're going to get, I don't know what it is, a step by step process of the marketing bible. The third thing you're going to get is increase the status because Russell will like you. Boom there's my pitch. Russell: Boom. What more do you want in life? Come on now. Josh: Yeah, you can't imagine. All right, Russell. Thank you so much, man. I appreciate your time and we'll talk to you soon. Russell: Awesome. Thank you too.

Show notes:Links:Bold Badgers NFTMantis scooterRidwellWrite for HoneybadgerTranscript:*note - this is an unedited automatically generated transcript with about 80% accuracy*Josh: So we really are we doing this, uh, super quick. Do we need to like speed up our voices? ArtificiallyBen: The chipmonk episode.Starr: There you go. No, we should just, we should slow them down. So it'll um, we can just record  a  minute episode and then we'll take  minutes to listen to it.Josh: Yeah, yeah. That's right. That's what we've been doing all along. That's our life hack is it takes us  minutes to record these episodes and you listened to them in  minutes.Starr: Yeah. So that's the, um, so I'll fill in our listeners. We, um, we miss our normal recording day on Friday, and so we're making it up on a Monday, which means like we're jam packed in with a bunch of other stuff. Um, so this may be a little  shorter than usual and I'm sorry. I know you just have to have all of us all the time and we're just giving it all we can right now.Josh: Yeah, it'll be just as off topic though. So, um,Starr: I would thank God.Ben: Yeah. Speaking, speaking of off topic, I have, I have a public service announcement to make. As, as you know, I've been getting more into the electric vehicles scene, uh, personal mobility, micro mobility, all that kind of fun stuff. And I, you know, a few months ago bought an electric scooter.  It's a mantis for those who are curious, who are in the know, uh, and I've been really enjoying that, like riding back and forth to work and goofing off and that sort of thing. But the thing that's, the public service announcement is, uh, wear a helmet. If you're going to ride one of these pillars. I just, this past week saw two different people riding on scooters, similar to mine, like higher powered scooters, mixing it up with traffic, like on  mile per hour roads and not wearing a helmet. And I just thought that is insane.  Like, I don't know. Maybe, maybe, yeah, you should definitely wear a helmet if you're going to ride electric scooter at  miles an hour, just saying that's my PSA.Josh: I did go for, I went for a, my first ride on an EBI bike, um, last week and I must confess I did not wear a helmet. And, uh, I have to say it was, you know, it was kind of fun. Like, you know, little dangerous,  there was no traffic. Like there was very little traffic, so in my defense.Ben: Okay. That's a plus. Do you remember what kind of bike your Rover's like a super ? Like one of those modelsJosh: I have, I have a very bad memory for names of things and I was told, but, uh, no, I don't know, but actually I was, it was with, uh, it was the bike of, uh, Mike Perrin, who is a friend of the show and creator of sidekick. So I'm  sure he will, uh, hopefully listen to this and, and let us know. And then we can fill everyone in the next week. MaybeBen: I think, I think he has a super . It's a, and that's a pretty sweet,Josh: It's like the super it's like one of the fastest ones on the market, he said, yeah, cool. Or something like that.Ben: I'm going to have to get down to Mike's house and borrow some of his bikes. AndJosh: It was a lot of fun. I'd never, I'd never done that before. And I, I get the appeal now.Ben: Yeah. So when, when I got my scooter, Mike was like, I don't  know, scooters. They're kind of, uh, I don't exactly what he tweeted, but he's like, yeah, they're kind of sketchy because they're not very stable and stuff and he's right. They are integrated stable compared to the bikes, but it's still a lot of fun. So I just wear a full face helmet to counteract the wobbliness. Yeah.Starr: Did y'all know I have a, an electric bike? No, it's called a Peloton.Josh: You were so smug with that one.Starr: It's the perfect bike for me because it doesn't move. Um, it's like all the, got all the nice things about the bike, like the workout, but you don't go anywhere. You don't have to Dodge any traffic. Uh, don't have to wear a helmet screen.Josh: Yeah. Those sound, those do sound seriously though. Those, those, uh, look pretty, pretty nice.Ben: Yeah. I have, I have a low-tech Peloton. It's just a trainer. I brought my bike on.Josh: Is your bike on it? Yeah. Yeah. But I like, I don't know the what, from what I've heard of the Peloton  , uh, those they've got all the bells and whistles right star.Starr: Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, really it's um, it's not so much about the actual bike for me. It is, as it is about having some like super enthusiastic person, like, um, playing really good music and just being like, you've got this, you were born for greatness and just like saying stuff like that at me. Um, while I'm like trying to, you know, read them a little bit,Josh: You say that, but like, you know, like I, I try to, you know, give that experience  to Katelyn, for instance, my wife and she just like, she hates like, she's like get, get out of here.Starr: I think, I think it's easier. I think it's a little easier when there's not like an actual person there, you know, Just hire a social exerciseBen: That started out live, get, you know, the, uh, the motivational speaker guy lives in a, down by the river. I'm just, I'm just thinking about Chris Farley,  like standing by your exercise bike. You can do it. You've got this.Josh: If we could get a, yeah. If we could get that, um, on the Peloton, I would subscribe like if he was one of the trainers, I mean, like, you know,Ben: So just bring him back from the dead, have him record some such the Peloton and then, yeah, that'd be awesome. I miss Chris Farley.Starr: So Ida likes to ride the Peloton too, that she's not big enough for it. Um, but she  is a, her, her feet can touch the pedals. Um, but they can't reach all the way down. So she's kinda like kicks the pedal down and then catches it on the way back up. And so she asked me to put on a little video so she can do it to the music too. Yeah. Oh, I need to give an update about my, um, about the printing press. I know everybody's like waited, waiting the press breath about thatJosh: Date. I thought, yeah. I didn't know. There was news so, well, IStarr: Mean, the news  is I have given up on it. I went down to Tacoma. I went down to see it and it worked and everything, and I just really got a sense for like how big and heavy it was going to be. And, um, then I started, I measured it and I started actually trying to figure out how I would get it into my building. Um, because like, it's just, my, my office is  in the backyard. It's, uh, it's, we're having our backyard redone soon, but right now it's just all bumpy and lumpy. And so it's like trying to like roll this thing. I would have to construct like a, a path out of plywood. I'd have to build a ramp up to my, um, the doorway, um, then to actually get it into the location where it's going to be. I would have to completely like dismantle all my shelving and, um, then like re assemble it once I had put the thing in place.  And so if I ever wanted to move it again, I'd have to like completely take down all my shelving. I was just like, this is too much. Like, this is, um, like I can't, I can't justify this on it. Like I'm, I'm waking up early in the morning and not being able to get back to sleep. Cause I'm like, how the hell am I going to like move this thing? It's like, no, that's not a good hobby for me right now.Ben: That's too bad. Have you looked into typewriters?Starr: I mean, quite the same thingJosh: I would get into typewriters  though. Just like aside,Starr: I am looking into smaller, into a smaller press. They have smaller like desktop ones that are a couple of hundred pounds. Um, not, not like a thousand and looking into that sad,Ben: sad to hear it didn't work out, but I let's get pictures of that in any one. If you get a small one, that'd be kind of fun.Starr: Yeah. I just have to, I, uh, I almost saw him this weekend, but somebody swooped in before me. And so now I'm just going to have to wait like six  months until another one pops up. Cause like it's, they're not very, there's not a very liquid market. It's not like in a, I guess, I guess there is a liquid market, I guess, I guess they just kind of get snapped, snatched up and then like, there's just not any of them. Yeah.Josh: Do you still get to like, do you have to do like type setting and stuff?Starr: Yeah. You do like, um, there's a couple ways to do it. Like you can do it the old school way where you have like the lead type and you like, um, you know, put it letter by letter and do like a composing  stick and do all that. Um, I probably wouldn't do that just because I'm not sure I have the time and patience. Um, so there's a, an updated way to do it where, um, you can, um, you know, send a PDF off and they'll make a, uh, a plate for you and it's plastic and then you just use that. So, um, yeah. And you can make them yourself too. It's just, you know, takes more equipment and more, you know, you know how I'm work and stuff.Josh: Maybe you could get like a specialized, d printer to like printer plates for you.Starr: Cool. Do you use like, uh, um, people to use like a, a Glowforge like a laser cutter cool. Or laser engraver?Josh: That's a, that's a fun hobby. That sounds, that sounds like fun.Starr: Oh yeah. Oh, I went down the rabbit hole of reading all about laser engravers too. Like there's like this cheap one from China that you can get for like  bucks. And then like,  it's apparently got good internals, but like, you really have to soup it up. And so like that's some people's whole personality is they just do that.Josh: Nice before we get off the topic of a paper and things that interface with paper. Um, I like ordered something off of Amazon that I was like, I don't know why I was like this excited about it arriving. Like maybe I'm just like extreme, like my, you know, I'm extremely  bored and needed something to look forward to. But like Amazon basics, paper, shreds, shredder, sharpening, and lubricate, lubricant sheets. And I get all, I'm not going to say that again. I hope you like got that. Um, I did not know that this existed though. Cause like I have like a paper shredder. It's like a cheap, you know, a cheap one, but like I never, like, I never oil it cause don't like just, I don't know how, okay. Like just the thought of like getting a, like a bottle  of oil or something and like trying to like dump it.Josh: Like I just, I don't know. So I like was like trying to figure out like, how do you oil these things? And it turns out they make sheets of paper that had the oil like in them and you just run them through the shredder. I didn't know. Like maybe everyone knows this. I did not know this was a thing. And uh, I mean it's like the perfect, it's like the perfect, uh, lubricant solution for your shredder because, um, you just, you know, it's like shredding a piece of paper, which is fun in and of itself.  Like who doesn't like shredding paper. So pro tip, you don't needStarr: Waiting. How do they work? Um,Josh: My shredder might be too far gone from the lack of oiling, but I'm going to like, wait and see. Oh no, we'll wait and see. Luckily I did get the cheap one. So now that I'm like an expert on shredder maintenance, um, my next shredder maybe I'll even upgrade or something.Starr: I actually, um, I bought an Amazon basic shredder. That  is, uh, it's a, it's a fairly big one, um, for home use, but it's, it's uh, Amazon basics and it's actually really good.Ben: That is a cross cut. Cause that's the key feature right there.Starr: I, I think the cross cuts. Yeah. SeeBen: Mine. Mine's a cheapo one that just does stripsJosh: And that's, I mean that's the strips. Yeah.Ben: Gotta have the crossover.Starr: Yeah. They can always go in the strips back together.Josh: Yeah.Ben: I was a little disturbed to find out  though. My, my local trash and recycling facility, uh, our city requests that you not put shredded paper in the recycle, uh, I don't know why they can't handle the recycle shredded paper, but yeah. So if, if all the stuff that I shred, it has to go in the trash, which seems kind of wrong, you know, it's like it's paper cause then recycle. Right. ButJosh: That's because I'm pretty sure recycling is a big scam and none of it actually works. Like you think it does because like Kaylin, like  Katelyn knows all about recycling and I am constantly trying to like be a good person and recycle things and she's like, no, that's not recyclable. Like you can't like, that's going to actually like, that's going to like make the recycling people mad because like they have to sort through this and like, you know, take it out before they can actually like repurpose. So yeah, it seems like there's very, uh, relatively little that is actually recyclable. At least in my experience. So farStarr: We subscribed to an additional recycling service,  um, read well. And uh, yeah. So they like, you can't recycle, um, just a normal city was like, when you can't put like plastic bags or any sort of like plastic film stuff. Right. So like they take that and um, like they'll take, uh, like fabric stuff, like clothes, um, and like batteries and light. And then they have like a rotating category where um, like once every three months or whatever, it's like, you can put your old  electronic devices in there and they'll like, you know, have those recycled and whatever. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty nice.Josh: Yeah. Cause I'm everything I hear lately about like just normal recycling, just as depressing. Like it's like, I don't know. I hear like, you know, half the recycling isn't even like being taken care of taken,Starr: You know, like they're like shippingJosh: It to other countries or burying it in landfills anyways. It just it's like, yeah, it's kind of sad. It doesn't make me want to recycle.Ben: Cool.  Let's see. Maybe, maybe my municipality then is forward-looking because they know there's going to put in the landfill. So there's just saving a step, right? Yeah. Just put it in the trash. Cause we're going to put out the trash anyway. Right?Josh: Yeah. And thenBen: They actually did that for a styrofoam. We used to have a regular styrofoam collection event. Like every month you could go down to city hall and you could dump your old styrofoam and they would take care of it. And then like, you know what, we just can't even cost effectively handle styrofoam anymore. So don't even, it's not even worth driving down to the city  hall to drop it off. Just put it in your trash. It's like, oh, that's so sad.Starr: Well, the, the rebel also does styrofoam. Like it's um, that's cool. It's it's not included in the base like price, but they give you a big bag and they're like, okay, whenever you're done with filling up this giant bag, like it'll cost, I don't know, five or $ to recycle it.Josh: Okay. Well we got to remember put it in the show notes cause I'm going to look at it too. Okay. Sure. I mean, it does seem like I'd rather the city, like if the city like  legitimately can't handle it and they're just like secretly like just trashing it anyway. It's like, it's better just to acknowledge the problem so that a real solution, hopefully it can, you know, like maybe like something like this, like people can start to, you know, pay extra for it or, or whatever. But like, it just seems like ignore, like just pretending, like just, just so everyone can feel good. Like, you know, just keep the people, you know, let them feel like they're recycling when they're not, does  not seem like a solution that's going to like solve any problems.Ben: But you know, what's, what's free to recycle the bits that you send to Honeybadger. We recycle those things all day long. You send us those, those API bits and they get efficiently recycled right away.Starr: I thought y'all were going to recycle those into NFTs.Josh: Oh yes. We don't. Don't uh, can'tBen: Spill the beans yet. Yeah. LikeJosh: Tell everyone our new business strategy. I think already I put that on Twitter already that we're pivoting into crypto and Airtraq and it's going to be a side business. Yes.Starr: It might confuse people. There's already like a Honeybadger coin or something out there.Josh: Yeah. And there's also like multiple Badger NFTs by the way. SoBen: Yeah, just a little delight.Josh: That was like a brave badgers. Brave badgers on Salada. I think there's one.Ben: Yeah. Put that in the show notes. Make sure people check it out.  Not officially endorsed by Honeybadger, but still cool. IStarr: Think we should put out our own line of pugs.Josh: Yes. Yeah. I mean like I'm surprised pugs. Aren't like, so someone's rolling an NFT for pugs, to be honest.Starr: I wasn't making it come back. I hear.Ben: Yeah. If we're going to, if we're going to go retro, like let's go all the way. Retro let's skip the whole collectible cards and stuff and go straight to playing cards. Right. I'll play for the two cards with  different batteries on them. Yeah.Starr: I thought you were going to say to me,  light bulbs or something.Josh: Absolutely. I've been, I'm curious. Have you learned anything about, uh, crypto or NFTs lately?Ben: You know, no, I haven't really, I I've been, I've been watching people in my Twitter feed and it's, it's funny, there's this, there's this arc that I see, like their first tweet is like, what is this crypto stuff? And then their next tweet is like, this crypto stuff is crazy. And then a little bit later, there's another tweet. It's like, I'm going to look into this crypto set because I want to understand it. And then a little bit later there's like,  Hey, check out this NFC I just bought. And then a little bit later, their final tweet is like, here, come join this, this core community and get into my mint.Josh: And, and they have a new Twitter avatar that has like laser eyes.Ben: Yeah. It's kinda, it's crazy. So, so I've like, I've seen this again and again and again, I'm like, okay, I'm not, I'm afraid. I don't wanna investigate the Nazis becauseStarr: So R oh, I'm going to get, I'm going to get, I'm going to get so much hate over this, but our, um, our  NFTs just like, um, MLM for like tech rose.Ben: Yes, totally. They areJosh: Essentially,Starr: That's like, I've got, I've like, I'll just tell my I'm essentially. I've got my sensory over here. My essential oils.Josh: Yeah. Well spring as well. I mean like, technically I think you probably could code a MLM on Ethereum, so I'm sure it's already been done, but maybe that, you know, maybe, maybe we should just go for it. Just go full a  full billing. There you go.Starr: That's it. Everybody you heard it. We're going full villain now.Josh: Crypto villain. Yeah. I I've checked it out as well. A little bit. Um, I bought a, uh, an FTE on Solano just to see. And, um, actually I did not follow the pattern that you, uh, that you described Ben:, but I also did not let myself do this publicly, which I think is a big key. Like you people know,  like you can create anonymous identities on the internet. Um, it's still possible. And then you can go explore, you know, like NFTs or whatever, and you don't have to like have laser eyes on your main Twitter profile. Um, but you know, I went and looked at it and uh, I'm still, I'm like still learning. I'm like, you know, I'm trying to update my, you have the whole crypto scene is a little bit, you know, a little bit dated. Like I  checked it out, like after Bitcoin got, you know, it was starting to get popular and stuff, read some white papers, but I think it's, I mean, it's, you know, it's not going away regardless, so it's good to keep your view current at least. But, um, I am not, uh, you know, bought into, I have an eight in as the kids say,Ben: Well, I mean, back to the two lips, I think I'll just wait until the crash happens. Right. And then I'll have a bias of nice to have thoseJosh: Do that. Yeah. That's the, that's the cycle. I mean, you know, it's going to happen. That happens like in every, every, it seems like every new application of blockchain that, you know, comes out that goes through the same, like boom and bust cycle, um, and then levels out to, uh, you know, fairly regular boom and bust cycle.Ben: I mean, you know, confessional here, but I'm actually a laggard when it comes to tech stuff.  Like I'm pretty late on the adoption curve for a lot of things. Like, you know, my car is pretty old, my TV's kind of old, you know, I'm not really sure. Yeah. Yeah. That's just kinda, it's kinda weird. I'm in the tech world, but like, I don't really jump in on things like that. I'll just wait,Starr: That's pretty normal. Right. There's like, um, I don't know. There's I saw some, I forget where I saw somebody say it was like, there's two types of tech people. One has the newest of everything all the time. And the other one is like still working on like a,  a   PC.Josh: Yeah. Whatever.Starr: Yeah. I don't know about y'all, but like, I don't really know a lot of like tech people who have like, um, like voice assistance in their home.Josh: Yeah. I like that as much as like the consumer more than just regular consumers. Yeah.Ben: That's because we know it's like I write software. I know how bad it is.Josh: Yeah.  Yeah. That's why I don't like having them. So I don't trust, I don't trust software, but I don't know, like the block, the whole blockchain thing. Like, I, I, you know, I kind of get the, like the future application argument, like there's something here. Like I think it is like that idea of having like very easy, like making contracts easier, for instance, or giving software,  the ability, like making it easier to write applications that are built on like contracts or, or even like financial applications. Like the whole idea of like, like code being able to hold its own its own actual currency or money. Um, because it's like, you know, it's just bits. Like that is interesting. Like, I don't know, you know, I'm not enough of a futurist to be able to like see the future where, you know, that's like ubiquitous, but like it is, I can see that aspect of it. It's interesting. But like the whole, like, yeah.  I'm not like collecting a bunch of, uh, NFTs in the meantime.Ben: Yeah. I think smart contracts. The idea is interesting. I think, you know, the stuff that's being loosely called web three, I think that's kind of stuff is interesting, but the, but the whole I'm going to buy a smart contract thing that represents a JPEG and then I'm gonna hold on to it and it's going to be worth a million bucks. That part of it doesn't really appeal to me. Like, yeah, I guess I'm just not yet.Josh: Well, you're also not  an art. You're not like an art collector either. I would assume that's true. I don't think you have a house full of priceless art. I would, that would be my guess. I mean, I don't want to like, yeah, like over assume, but I mean, like, I think that's the kind of person that this would, this definitely like appeals more to like the collector and, uh, I'm, I'm also not a collector. So, um,Ben: Um, I do have one, I do have one piece of art in my house, so I'm not a complete,  you know, Rube, but, uh, but yeah, I am not, I'm not a collector. Yeah.Starr: I think the big, um, like, like I'm thinking about how like Bitcoin and stuff has been around and, you know, blockchain has been around for over a decade at this point. Right. Um, and like still now, like, you know, it looks a lot, I don't know, to me, just from the outside, it looks very similar to what it did back then.  It's like, it's like, um, a bunch of people, very excited about it and what it means, and this kind of like vague way, um, that like seems like, you know, it'll pan out in the future, but we're not quite sure how yet. And like, I'm wondering if the big, um, I'm wondering if the thing that like blockchain is actually successful at is in, um, being very like evocative to  a certain type of person, um, making a certain type of, you know, developer or a tech person, like feel a certain way. Like I wonder if that's the main success of blockchain, because that seems to be like, mostly what I'm seeing is like a bunch of people, you know, excited a bunch of people. Um, I don't know, like, like wanting to discuss the future of things and you know, being smart about it. And it's like, I wonder if that, um, that process is the whole reason that it stuck around. I don't  know.Ben: It's good, good point.Josh: There's definitely some interesting stuff out there. Um, and some very, I mean, like, I think it's undeniable that there are some very people that have thought all this stuff up, like yeah. But yeah, I don't know. You're right. It's, it's been around a lot. Like the, it seems like the adoption curve as much longer on this one. If, if it is going to be the, you know, the next big thing, I don't know. It does. I don't know. It'll be interesting.  But I figured in the meantime, like keeping, keeping an eye on, let's just try to learn more about it. But, um, I'm not really the, I try to avoid situations where I just like dive in and become a like true believer. So I'm, I'm learning from afar.Ben: I'll just go buy some GME. That'll go to fix.Starr: I dunno. I'm just going to go for  AMC, myself. Like the movies, like the movies have been around forever.Ben: Well, confession time I actually bought some AMC. Oh yeah. When the whole GME thing was going crazy and AMC got part of it. I went and bought some AMC. Cause I'm like, you know what, thinking about it. It's like, I wasn't really interested in the main stock thing, but I was thinking, okay, pandemics going to go away some point, right. People are gonna get back out and they're going to go to movies again. Right. It's going to be, and I'm actually, I think I'm doing pretty good on the whole AMC purchase.  We'll see how it goes. Pandemic didn't end yet, but I can still close the fingers.Josh: I mean, as a futurist, I do expect more things to become MIMA fide. So if you can like predict those trends, then go, you know, get in early because, uh, everything's going to be a meme on the blockchain. Eventually.Ben: That's a good thing. Our business is based on a meme now. We're, we're, we're totally with it.Josh: Yeah. All right. We're finally with it on the whole meme thing.Starr: Well, as the present test, I think you should just enjoy it while you can.Josh: You mean all the mains or I don'tStarr: Really know. I just want to get, it seemed like a pithy thing to sayBen: It's apropos. Yeah. Yeah.Josh: Well, we discussed like, no, like I think we, I think we actually discussed like nothing  related to the business this time and that is, you know, that's moving forward.Ben: This is our Seinfeld episode, the episode aboutJosh: Speed. Oh, speaking of Seinfeld, we finished the last, the final episode of Seinfeld, um, that like a couple nights ago. And it like, cause we've been like Kayla and I have been like going through it, like for like years at this point, like just slowly, like, cause it's not every night you want to watch Seinfeld.  Like it's, it's gotta be like a Seinfeld night. So we finally, like, we didn't realize we were like at the end. Um, and it was kind of a, it was a little bittersweet moment kind of likeStarr: At the end of real Seinfeld when it aired. So, and you just heard that green day song starts swelling. It's something I'm predictive of your life. I know. So enjoy it while you can enjoy it while you can.Starr: You've been listening to founder quest. If you want to give us a review, go to wherever you do that and do that. I don't know. I've never been given a podcast or review, to be honest. I don't know how you do it. Um, so I may just be sending you out to nowhere. Um, and yeah, if you're interested in writing for us, we are usually looking for authors and stuff for a blog. Um, check out  honeybadger.io forward slash blog and look for the right press link and learn all about, you know, all about that. And we will see you next week. See ya. See ya. Bye.

Show Notes:Links:MicromortNoblesse obligeJosh's dotfilesGitHub Code SpacesFull Transcript:Ben:Yeah. I've been holding out for the new MacBook Pros. The M1 is pretty tempting, but I want whatever comes next. I want the 16-inch new hotness that's apparently supposed to be launching in November, but I've been waiting for it so patiently for so long now.Josh:Will they have the M2?Ben:Yeah, either or that or M1X. People are kind of unsure what the odds are.Starr:Why do they do that? Why did they make an M1 if they can't make an M2? Why do they have to keep... You just started, people. You can just have a normal naming scheme that just increments. Why not?Josh:M1.1?Ben:That would be awesome.Starr:Oh, Lord.Josh:Yeah, it would.Ben:M1A, Beachfront Avenue.Starr:So last week we did an Ask Me Anything on Indie Hackers, and that was a lot of fun.Josh:It was a lot of fun.Starr:I don't know. One of the most interesting questions on there was some guy was just like, "Are you rich?" I started thinking about it. I was like, "I literally have no idea." It reminded me of when I used to live in New York briefly in the '90s or, no, the early '00s. There was a Village Voice article in which they found... They started out with somebody not making very much money, and they're like, "Hey, what is rich to you?" Then that person described that. Then they went and found a person who had that level of income and stuff and they asked them, and it just kept going up long past the point where... Basically, nobody ever was like, "Yeah, I'm rich."Josh:Yeah. At the end, they're like, "Jeff Bezos, what is rich? What is rich to you?"Starr:Yeah.Josh:He's like, "Own your own star system."Starr:So, yeah, I don't know. I feel like I'm doing pretty good for myself because I went to fill up my car with gas the other day and I just didn't even look at the price. The other day, I wanted to snack, so I just got a whole bag of cashews, and I was just chowing down on those. I didn't need to save that. I could always get another bag of cashews.Ben:Cashews are my arch nemesis, man. I can't pass up the cashews. As far as the nut kingdom, man, they are my weakness.Starr:I know. It's the subtle sweetness.Ben:It's so good. The buttery goodness.Starr:Yeah, the smoothness of the texture, the subtle sweetness, it's all there.Ben:That and pistachios. I could die eating cashews and pistachios.Josh:There you go. I like pistachios.Ben:Speaking of being rich, did you see Patrick McKenzie's tweet about noblesse oblige?Josh:No. Tell me.Ben:Yeah, we'll have to link it up in the show notes. But, basically, the idea is when you reach a certain level of richness, I guess, when you feel kind of rich, you should be super generous, right? So noblesse oblige is the notion that nobility should act nobly. If you have been entrusted with this respect of the community and you're a noble, then you ought to act a certain way. You got to act like a noble, right? You should be respectful and et cetera. So Patio was applying this to modern day, and he's like, "Well, we should bring this back," like if you're a well-paid software developer living in the United States of America, you go and you purchase something, let's say a coffee, that has basically zero impact on your budget, right? You don't notice that $10 or whatever that you're spending. Then just normalize giving a 100% tip because you will hardly feel it, but the person you're giving it to, that'll just make their day, right? So doing things like that. I was like, "Oh, that's"-Josh:Being generous.Ben:Yeah, it's being generous. Yeah. So I like that idea.Josh:That's cool.Ben:So-Starr:So it's okay to be rich as long as you're not a rich asshole.Ben:Exactly. Exactly. That's a good way to bring it forward there, Starr.Starr:There you go. I don't know. Yeah. I think there's some historical... I don't know. The phrase noblesse oblige kind of grates at me a little bit in a way that I can't quite articulate in this moment, but I'll think about that, and I will get back with you.Josh:Wait. Are you saying you don't identify as part of the nobility?Starr:No.Ben:I mean, I think there's a lot of things from the regency period that we should bring back, like governesses, because who wants to send your child to school in the middle of a COVID pandemic? So just bring the teacher home, right?Starr:Yeah. That's pretty sexist. Why does it have to be gendered? Anyway.Ben:Okay, it could be a governor, but you might get a little misunderstanding. All of a sudden, you've got Jay Inslee showing up on your doorstep, "I heard you wanted me to come teach your kids."Josh:I don't know. I'll just take an algorithm in the home to teach my kids, just entrust them to it.Starr:Yeah. Oh, speaking of bringing things back, I told y'all, but I'll tell our podcast listeners. On Sunday, I'm driving to Tacoma to go to somebody's basement and look at a 100-year old printing press to possibly transport to Seattle and put in my office for no good reason that I can think of. It just seems to be something that I'm doing.Josh:Do you like that none of us actually asked you what you were intending to do with it? I was like, "Yeah, just let me know when you need to move it. I'm there." I just assumed you were going to do something cool with it, but ... Yeah.Starr:I appreciate that. I appreciate the support. I'm going to make little zines or something. I don't know.Josh:Yeah. If I get a lifetime subscription to your zine-Starr:Okay, awesome.Josh:... that would be payment.Starr:Done. Done.Josh:Cool.Ben:Yeah, sign me up, too. I'll be there.Starr:Well, I appreciate that.Ben:I mean, who could resist that invitation, right, because you get to... If you get to help with moving that thing, you get to see it, you get to touch it and play with it, but you don't have to keep it. It's somebody else's problem when you're done with the day, so sounds great to me.Starr:There you go. Well, I mean, if you read the forums about these things, this is one of the smaller ones, so people are just like, "Ah, no big deal. No big deal. It's okay." But I was happy to hear that there's no stairs involved.Ben:That is the deal-breaker. Yeah.Josh:Yeah. But it-Ben:If you ever get the friend helping you to move their piano, you always ask, "Okay, how many flights of steps," right?Starr:Yeah. Oh, I just thought of something I could do with it. I could make us all nice business card to hand out to nobody.Ben:Because we're not going anywhere.Josh:I just think of my last six attempts at having business cards. They're all still sitting in my closet, all six boxes of-Starr:I know. People look at you like, "What, really, a business card? What?"Josh:Yeah, like all six generations.Starr:Yeah.Ben:I hand out one or two per year. Yeah, just random people and like, "Hey, here's my phone number." It's an easy way to give it to somebody.Josh:Just people on the street?Ben:Exactly. Like a decent fellow, "Here you go." Thank you.Josh:Yeah.Starr:It's like, "I've got 1000 of these. I got to justify the cost somehow."Josh:We got to move these.Starr:We could start invoicing our customers by snail mail. I could print a really nice letterhead.Ben:I think we have a few customers who would be delighted to receive a paper invoice from us because then they would have an excuse to not pay us for 90 days.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Isn't owning a printing press like owning a truck, though? Once people know you have it, everyone wants to borrow it.Starr:It's going to be pretty hard to borrow for a 1000-pound piece of iron.Josh:Well, they're going to want to come over and hang out in your basement and do their printing. This is the Pacific Northwest, like-Starr:It's their manifestos.Josh:Yeah. They got to print their manifestos, lists of demands.Starr:They don't want the establishment at Kinko's to be able to see.Josh:Right.Ben:I don't know. It's got to put you on a special kind of watch list, though, if you have a printing press in your home, right? All of a sudden, some people are really interested in what you're up to.Josh:It's like a legacy watch list.Ben:I'm just flashing back to, yeah, in the 1800s when cities, towns would get all-Starr:There you go.Josh:Well, yeah, because they're like-Ben:The mob would come out and burn down the printing press building and stuff.Josh:If you wanted to be a propagandist back then, you had to buy a printing press and then you get put on a watch list. That just never went away. They're still looking for those people. They just don't find as many of them these days.Starr:Yeah. It's so inefficient. It's not the super efficient way of getting the word out, though, I hear, unless you want to be one of those people handing out leaflets on the side of the road.Josh:Well, you could paper windshields in parking lots.Starr:Oh, there you go. Yeah.Josh:Yeah, that's how they used to do it.Starr:No, look at my beautifully hand-crafted leaflet that you're going to throw in the gutter.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:I think you just settled on what your next adventure's going to be after Honeybadger. You're ready to put this business aside and focus on printing up flyers for your local missing cat.Starr:There you go. There you go. Band flyers, that's big business.Josh:But you could get into fancy paper. That's a whole thing up here. It's pretty cool, actually.Starr:Yeah. I don't know. Really, I was like, "Oh, it'd be cool to have a big thing to tinker with." I'm learning about myself that I like having just a big physical project going on, and I'm pretty... Like, I built this backyard office, and that took up two years of my time. Ever since then, I don't have a big physical thing to work on, so I'm thinking this might fill that niche, that niche, sorry. I read a thing that's like don't say niche, Americans. Niche.Ben:I don't know, Starr. Maybe you should think of the children and then think about 50 years from now when you're dead and Ida's cleaning out the house and she's all like, "Why is there this printing press?"Starr:Oh, there you go.Josh:Have to move it.Starr:They'll just sell it with the house.Ben:There you go.Starr:Yeah. I mean, the funny thing is, is that it is wider than the doorway, so I would either have to dissemble it partially or take out the door. I put the door in, so I know how to take it out, so there is a good chance the door's coming out because I have less chance of messing something up if I do that one. But we'll see.Ben:Echo that.Starr:Well, thank you.Josh:You should've put one of those roll-up doors in there.Starr:I should've, yeah.Josh:Those are cool.Starr:What was I thinking?Josh:You really did not plan ahead for this.Starr:Yeah. I mean, walls are really only a couple of thin pieces of plywood, and you can just saw through it.Josh:Just a small refactor.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Starr:And that would-Josh:Did y'all see that someone listened to every episode of this podcast in a row?Starr:I know. I feel so bad. I feel so bad for them.Josh:Speaking of-Starr:We're sorry. We're so sorry.Ben:I was feeling admiration. I'm like, "Wow, that's impressive," like the endurance of it.Starr:I just think we would've made different decisions.Ben:I don't know. But not-Josh:Maybe it's pretty good. I haven't gone back and gone through it all and never will, but-Ben:Well, I mean, not only did they say they listened to every episode, but then they were eager for more. They were like, "When are you getting done with your break?" So I guess-Starr:There you go.Ben:... that net it was positive, but-Josh:We must not be too repetitive.Ben:Must not.Starr:Stockholm syndrome.Josh:We're sorry.Ben:Well...Starr:I'm sorry. I don't have anything informative to add, so I'm just going to be shit-posting this whole episode.Ben:Well, I've had an amazing week since we last chatted. I kept reflecting on how I couldn't remember anything that I did over the past whatever months. Well, this past week, I can remember a whole bunch of things that I did. I've been crazy busy and getting a bunch of little things knocked out. But today, today was the capstone of the week because I rolled over our main Redis cluster that we use for all of our jobs, all of the incoming notices and whatevers. Yeah, rolled over to a new Redis cluster with zero downtime, no dropped data, nobody even noticed. It was just smooth as-Starr:Oh my God.Josh:I saw that.Starr:Awesome.Ben:It's going pretty good.Starr:Just like butter?Ben:Just like butter.Starr:They slid right out of that old Redis instance and just into this new... Is it an AWS-managed type thing?Ben:Yeah, both of them were. They all went on the new one, but... Yeah.Josh:It's, what, ElastiCache?Ben:Yep. Smooth like a new jar of Skippy.Josh:I saw that you put that in our ops channel or something.Ben:Yeah. Yeah, that's the topic in our ops channel.Josh:So it's the subject or the topic, yeah. We're making ops run, yeah, like a jar of Skippy.Starr:Why isn't that our tagline for our whole business?Ben:I mean, we can change it.Starr:I don't know why that's making me crack up so much, but it is.Josh:Skippy's good stuff.Starr:Oh my gosh.Josh:Although we-Ben:Actually-Josh:... usually go for the Costco natural brand these days.Ben:Well, we go for the Trader Joe's all-natural brand that you have to actually mix every time you use it. I prefer crunchy over creamy, so, actually, my peanut butter's not that smooth, but... You know.Josh:Yeah.Ben:It's okay. But, yeah, I love our natural peanut butter, except for the whole churning thing, but you can live with that.Starr:We're more of a Nutella family.Ben:Ooh, I do love a Nutella.Josh:Ooh, Nutella.Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative), that's good stuff.Josh:We made pancakes the other day, and I was putting Nutella on pancakes. I did this thing, like I made this... We have one of those griddles, like an electric griddle, and so I made this super long rectangular pancake, and then I spread Nutella on the entire thing, and then I rolled it so that you have this-Starr:You know what it's called, Josh.Josh:What is it called?Starr:That's called a crepe.Josh:So it's a crepe, but it's made out of a pancake.Starr:It's a Texas crepe.Ben:Texas crepe.Josh:Yeah, a Texas-Starr:A Texas crepe.Ben:Yes.Josh:Is it really a Texas crepe because that's... Yeah, so, I-Starr:Oh, no, I just made that up.Ben:That sounds perfect, yeah.Josh:Well, it is now.Ben:Yeah, it is now.Josh:It is now, and I highly recommend it. It's pretty amazing.Ben:Throw some Skippy on there and, man, now it's a... That's awesome.Josh:Peanut butter's also good on pancakes.Starr:That's why people listen to us, for our insights about business.Ben:Yeah, there was this one time, speaking of pancakes and peanut butter...Josh:How did we get on pancakes? Like, oh, yeah, ops.Ben:This one time, I went over to dinner at some person's house, and I didn't know what dinner was going to be, but we got there and it was breakfast for dinner, which I personally love. That's one of my favorites.Starr:I knew that about you.Ben:So they're like, "Oh, I'm sorry. Hope you don't think it's weird, but we're having breakfast for dinner." I'm like, "No, no, I love it." So eggs and bacon and waffles, and so I'm getting my waffle and I'm like, "Do you have some peanut butter," and they're like, "Oh my goodness, we thought you would think that was way too weird, and so we didn't have the peanut butter." They whipped it out from in the counter. It's like, "Oh, shew, now we can have our peanut butter, too." I'm like, "Oh, yeah, peanut butter on waffles, yeah."Josh:Everyone had their hidden peanut butter.Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:Yeah.Starr:And that's how you level up a friendship.Ben:There you go. So, yeah, the week was good. The week was good. Bugs got fixed, things got deployed, and, yeah, just a whole-Josh:Yeah, you had a bunch of PRs and stuff for little things, too, which-Ben:Yeah. And got some practice with the whole delegating thing, got Shava doing some stuff, too. So, yeah, just all-around super productive week.Josh:Nice. I got Java to run in a Docker container, so my week's going pretty good.Ben:And that took you all week?Starr:What do those words mean? I don't...Josh:Yeah.Starr:Was your audio cutting out? I don't know. I just heard a bunch of things I don't understand.Josh:Well, for your own sake, don't ask me to explain it.Starr:Yeah, it's like better not looked at.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Why would you subject yourself to that sort of torture, Josh?Josh:Oh, well, because running Java on an M1 Mac is even worse.Starr:Oh my Lord.Josh:Well, actually, running it, period. But, yeah, like just our Java package. I mean, I've spent half this podcast ranting about our packaging, so I don't need to get too deep into it. But every time I release this thing, it's like it just doesn't work because I've forgotten my... I've changed my system, and Java and Maven package repository are just like that. So I figure if I can make some sort of reproduceable development environment using Docker, then in two years everything will just be smooth as a jar of Skippy.Ben:Skippy. Yeah, yeah.Starr:Well, I had a chance to-Josh:I reckon.Starr:I had a chance to dig into some numbers, which is one of my favorite things to do, and so... I don't know. There was this question that was just bothering me, which was... Well, let me just back up. So we've had some success, as you guys know, in the past year. We've almost doubled our rate of new user sign-ups, not new user sign-ups, like conversion to paid users. We've doubled our paid user conversion numbers, rate, whatever you call it. And so, obviously, revenue from users has gone up as well, but since we are a... Our plans are basically broken down by error rates, right? So what happens when people upgrade is they get too many errors for their plan. It says, "Hey, you should upgrade if you want to keep sending us errors," and they do.Starr:I had this weird situation where it's like I wasn't sure... In our system, revenue from users was coming just from whatever plan they picked when they signed up, and so I was wondering, "Well, what if they sign up, and then a week later they upgrade? That's going to be counted under upgrade revenue instead of new user revenue," which, really, it really kind of should be. So I got to digging, and I found that it doesn't really make that big of a difference. Some people do upgrade pretty quickly after converting, but they don't... It's not really enough to really change things.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Then, also, just sort of offhand, I took a little sneak peek. I've been running this experiment to see if lowering our error quota for our basic, our free plan, it would increase conversions. So I took a little sneak peek at the data. It's too soon to know for sure, but so far the conversion rate, I think, is going to end up being higher, which is what I would expect, so that's good, and-Josh:Nice.Starr:Yeah. And when we're done, I'm going to look at sign-ups just to make sure that they are still in line.Ben:Yeah. Anecdotally, I've seen a smaller window from trial to paid conversion. Well, not trial, but freemium to paid conversion. I've seen people who are signing up, getting on the basic plan, and then within some short time period they're actually going to a team plan.Josh:Oh, that's good to know.Ben:That's happening more often than it was, so... Yeah. So that's-Josh:Cool.Ben:I'm just saying the same thing Starr said but without real data.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah, we need a little bit more time to see how things pan out, too, because it's... One thing I figured out that I will share with our readers, our readers, I'm used to doing the blog posts, I'll share with our listeners that I figured out that you really have to pay attention to, on free plans especially, is comparing conversion rates between time periods. So if you make a change and then you wait for a month of data to come in and you're like, "Okay, let's look at the conversion rate for the past month after the change with the conversion rate for the time period before the change," that is really an apples to oranges comparison because on the one hand you've had people who have maybe had a year to upgrade versus people who've had a month to upgrade. So you have to be really careful to make it apples to apples, right, where you only compare... If you have a month worth of users on one side, you compare it to a month worth of users on the other side, and you only count the conversions that happened in that time period.Josh:Makes sense.Starr:Yeah. So, anyway, that's just my little freebie data analysis thing for our listeners.Josh:We should have Starr's weekly data science tip.Starr:Starr's data corner.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Love it.Josh:Yeah. We could move the podcast to segments. We've never done segments. We could introduce segments if we need to spice things up on FounderQuest.Ben:Yeah. Totally. Well, speaking of spicing things up, I had a brilliant idea this morning.Starr:Oh, I want to hear it.Ben:Yeah. So one of the things that I keep an eye on is how much we spend on hosting because that's a good chunk of our expenses. We always want to make more money, and one way to make more money is to have fewer expenses. So I had this brilliant idea on how to cut expenses. We can chop our AWS bill in half by just not running everything redundant.Starr:There you go.Josh:Brilliant.Starr:Would you say the AWS is the sixth Honeybadger employee?Ben:Yeah, pretty much.Josh:Yes. That's a good way to put it, actually.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Well, in the early days, before we were paying ourselves a full salary, I remember we budgeted 25% for Starr, 25% for Ben, 25% for Josh, and 25% for hosting.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah, I don't think we ever exceeded the 25%, which is good. That would be a bit high. So, yeah, AWS is like our sixth employee.Starr:Yeah, it's funny because do we even have other expenses?Josh:No.Ben:I mean, salaries is definitely the biggest one, and our health insurance is not cheap either.Starr:Yeah.Ben:Advertising.Starr:I was thinking like marketing, advertising. Yeah.Ben:Yeah. Advertising and marketing, that's the next one.Starr:That's the next 25%.Josh:Can we make AWS our seventh and eighth employee, too?Ben:Eventually may. Yeah, I did some... Oh. Oh. So I told you my great success that I had this morning. Well, your comment just now about AWS made me think about the one failure, just amazingly huge failure that I had also this week, migrating a bunch of data from Redis to DynomoDB. So we have this situation where it's one of those seemed like a good idea at the time kind of thing where we're doing a bunch of counting of people and individuals that hit errors, and we're counting that in Redis. I'm like, "Okay, great," because Redis has this INCRBY and it's easy and it's atomic and, boom, you're done, and I just never paid much attention to it until a few weeks ago, and I was like, "Yo, you know what? That's actually a lot of data in there, and we're keeping that forever, and so it's probably better to put it someplace that's not Redis." So I'm like, "Ah, I know. I'll do DynamoDB because it has an increment thing and...Josh:Yeah.Ben:So I put a table together, and I wrote a migration script, and I migrated a bunch of data. It took two days. It's great. Everything is beautiful. Had buckets of data inside DynomiteDB, and then I went to go query it, and I'm like, "Oh, I can't query it that way because I don't have the right index." Well, that sucks. All right. So you can't create a local index on DynomiteDB without recreating the table. I'm like, "Okay, well, that sucks. I just lost two days worth of data migration but oh well." So dump the table, recreated it with the index, and started redoing the data migration, and I'm like, "Yeah, it might take two days, no problem." So I check on it every half-day or so, and it's not going to be getting done after two days. Three days go by, and I'm checking the work backlog, and I was like, "It's just flat."Ben:Turns out because of that local index, now Dynamo can't really write fast enough because the way they do the partition throttling and stuff because we have some customers who have huge chunks of data. So their partitions are too big for Dynamo to write very quickly. Hot partition keys is the problem. So I just gave up. I'm like, "All right, fine." Drop the table again, recreated it, and now we're just double writing so that, eventually, given six months from now or so, it'll be there and I can replace that thing in Redis.Josh:Nice.Ben:So this is my life, the ups and the downs. So, yeah.Josh:And just waiting six months.Ben:And just waiting six months.Josh:Yeah. That's funny, but that is kind of a pattern in the business. In some cases, we need to just wait for the data to populate itself, and we just have to basically wait our retention period because data tends to turnover and then we can drop the old database or whatever.Ben:Yeah. Yep. But, luckily, nobody noticed my big fail, so it's all good. It didn't impact the customers.Josh:I didn't notice.Ben:So, yeah, busy weekend.Starr:I noticed, but I didn't say anything because I wanted to be nice.Ben:Thank you, Starr. Appreciate that.Starr:Yeah, I [inaudible].Josh:Starr was over there just quietly shaking her head.Ben:Just judging. Just judge-Starr:No, sorry.Ben:So, Josh, I'm going to get back to this Java thing because I'm curious. I remember, I don't know, a year ago or something, we're kind of like, "Maybe we should just not when it comes to Java anymore." So I'm curious what prompted this renewed activity to do a new release.Josh:Well, I don't know. I figured... I don't know. Didn't we say we were just not going to do any releases?Ben:Yeah, it just-Josh:It's not high on my list of development. We're not spending a bunch adding stuff to it, but there are dependency updates that have been getting merged in. I merged the Dependabot PRs and stuff. There's something else. There might be some small PR or something that someone submitted that was sitting there on release, and I just can't handle just unreleased code sitting on the pane. So it's just one of those things that's been sitting on my backlog halfway down the list just gnawing at me every week, so I figured I'd dive in and at least get some sort of quick release, relatively quick release process down so we can just continue to release dependency updates and stuff, like if there's a security update or something, so...Ben:Yeah.Josh:Some people still do use it, so I want to make sure they're secure.Ben:Make sure they're happy. Yeah.Josh:Yeah. But, yeah, that's a good point. We are not treating all platforms as equal because we just don't have the resource, so we need to focus on the stuff that actually is making us money.Ben:Yeah. Yeah, it's tough when very few of our customers are actually using that for it to get a whole lot of priority.Josh:That said, we have already put a lot into it, so as far as I know, it works well for the people that have used it.Starr:So are y'all encouraging our customers to do more Java?Josh:Yes, switch to Java. Then switch to SentryBen:Ride a wave.Josh:... or something.Ben:So I've been contemplating this new laptop showing up, right, whenever Apple finally releases it and I get to get my hot little hands on it. I've been thinking, well, the one big downside to getting a new laptop is getting back to a place where you can actually work again, right, getting all your things set up. Some people are smart, like Josh, that have this DOT file, this repo, on GitHub, and they can just clone that, and they're off to the races. I'm not that smart. I always have to hand-craft my config every time I get a new machine. But I'm thinking-Josh:Oh. Take the time.Ben:So, yeah, I'm not looking forward to that part, but GitHub has released Codespaces, and so now I'm thinking, "Ooh, I wonder if I could get all our repos updated so that I could just work totally in the cloud and just not even have a development set-up on my machine." Probably not, but it's a fun little fantasy.Josh:Well, then you could have any little... You could work on your iPad.Ben:Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah, I don't even need a laptop. Then I could save the company money. That's brilliant, Josh.Josh:Yeah. You could work at the library.Starr:Yeah. It's like, "So your main ops guy, I see he's primarily working from a five-year-old iPad."Ben:At a library.Starr:In a library.Josh:An iMac.Starr:When he gets paged, he has to run to the nearest Starbucks and get that wifi.Josh:Yeah. I got to say, having your DOT files all ready to go and all that is pretty good. Also, I've got my Brewfile, too, so all of my Homebrew stuff is automated in that.Ben:Well, that's clever. I never even thought of that.Josh:It does make it very quick to bootstrap a new machine.Ben:Yeah. Maybe I should take this as initiative to actually put my stuff into DOT files repo and get to that point.Josh:Careful, though, because you might... I've had four computers between your current one and now, so you might end up switching more often because it's easier to do it.Ben:Appreciate that warning. That's good.Josh:Yeah. Speaking of the M1s, I love the M1 MacBook Air that I have. But the battery has been... I don't know what happened, but the battery was fantastic, I don't know, first few months. Ever since then, it's been kind of like it hasn't been lasting. I've been surprised at how fast it's draining, and I go and look at, whatever, the battery health stuff, and it says that health is down to 86% and the condition says it's fair, which does not make me feel warm and fuzzy.Josh:It has 50 cycles, so I think it might be defective, and that sucks because otherwise this machine is maybe one of the best Macs I've had. I guess... Yeah. I've had a few compatibility issues with the architecture, but it's not too bad. I mean, I'm not a Java developer at least, so...Ben:Yeah, I think you need to take that in for a service because that is way soon for that kind of degradation.Josh:Yeah. I might need to do something.Ben:That's a bummer.Josh:Yeah. I don't know. I might have to ship it in because I think our local Portland Apple Store is shuttered currently.Ben:All those protests?Josh:Yeah. It's got eight fences around it and stuff. Downtown Portland's a little rough these days.Starr:Yeah.Ben:Well, I mean, you can always take the trip out to Seattle.Josh:Yeah. Oh, yeah. Or there's other... I forget. There's an Apple Store that's not too far outside of Portland. It's where I bought this, so I could take it down there.Starr:Yeah. I'm sad now because I bought my second MacBook from that store in Portland.Josh:Yeah? It's a good store.Ben:Speaking of you coming out to Seattle, I was thinking the other day that maybe we should do a company-wide get-together sometime soon. Be fun to see everybody again in-person.Josh:It would be. Now that we're all vaxxed, we're all super vaxxed. I don't know that Starr is even down for that, though. I'm just looking at Starr.Starr:I don't know. Like, I-Josh:You don't look like you're too stoked on that idea.Starr:I don't know. I'm just-Josh:What with Delta lurking.Starr:The problem is, Josh, is that you have not been reading nursing Twitter.Josh:Uh-huh (affirmative).Starr:So I don't know. Yeah, it's doable. Currently, I think the CDC just released a thing that said vaccine efficiency of preventing COVID infections... It's very good still at preventing bad, I don't know, disease, health problems, whatever, keeping people out of the hospital. It's very good at that. With Delta, it's about 65% effective at preventing infections, and so if you get infected, you can transmit it to other people.Josh:Right.Starr:Yeah. So it's not impossible. It's just like we're just back to this fricking calculus where every possible social interaction you just have to run it through your spreadsheet and your risk analysis and... Ugh.Josh:Yeah.Ben:It's like, "Are you worthy of the hassle? No. Sorry, can't make it."Starr:Yeah. Yeah. It's like, "Okay, so what's the probability that meeting with you is going to send my child to the hospital? Okay, that's low enough. Sure."Josh:Yeah.Starr:It's just such a weird world.Josh:Wouldn't it be funny if when you get into your car in the morning, it reads out the probability of you dying in a car accident?Starr:Oh, yeah. Do you know about millimorts?Josh:No.Starr:Oh, you should go Google millimorts. A millimort is a one in a million chance that you will die, and so there's tables and stuff that you can find online that have different activities and what the number of millimorts is about them. So you can compare, and you can be like, "Okay, so going skydiving has this many millimorts as driving so many miles in a motorcycle."Josh:That's awesome. Okay, we have to link this in the show notes because I want to remember to look this up-Starr:Okay. I'll go find it.Josh:... so that I can depress people.Starr:I think there was a New York Times article, too.Ben:Yeah, I totally have to see this because I just signed up for a motorcycle training course and I'm going to get my endorsements so that I know exactly what kind of risks... Though that's probably part of the course, where they try to scare you out of actually getting your endorsement. They probably...Josh:By the way, I'm really glad my morbid humor or my morbid joke landed because for a minute there-Starr:Oh, I'm sorry, it's a micromort.Josh:Oh, a micromort. Okay.Starr:I was like, "Isn't milli 1000?"Josh:Minimort, like-Starr:Milli is 1000.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah, that grated at me. I know. My old chemistry teachers are just giving me an F right now.Ben:Yeah, I got to see that.Josh:Well, I'm sure you'll be all right, Ben. I mean, the risk of a motorcycle is much higher than a car, but you just can't think about that all the time because the fun... I'm sure the fun is much...Ben:[inaudible].Josh:It's worth it.Ben:It's worth every hazard. Yeah.Josh:Yeah. The risk is worth the reward.Ben:Yesterday, I just hit 250 miles on the odometer on my scooter, so loving that. It's a lot of fun.Josh:That's cool.Starr:That's a lot of miles for a scooter.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Starr:I guess you just love to scoot.Ben:I love to scoot. Well, there you go, Starr. There's our happy ending after that slight dip there.Starr:That slight delay into reality.Josh:I like the dark humor. I don't know. It's always a gamble, though, with depending on... Yeah. But I think, Starr, you're always down to get dark.Starr:Oh, yeah. I'm down with the darkness. All right. Well, should we wrap it up?Ben:Let's wrap it.Starr:Okay. This has been a very witchy episode of FounderQuest, so if you liked it, go give us a review and... Yeah, if not, just keep listening to us. Make it a hate listen. You got to have a couple of those in your line-up. 

Show notes:Links:Mike MondragonCRDTShip of TheseusExceptional CreaturesShiba Inu Full Transcript:Ben:I'm just gonna dive on in there. I'm so eager. I'm so excited. It's actually weird because Starr is the one that typically starts us off. Josh:Yeah. I thought we were just going to start with our just general banter, and then not introduce the guest until 30 minutes later.Ben:By the way.Josh:It is also our tradition.Ben:Yeah. Well we're getting better at this thing.Josh:Where we say, "Oh, by the way, if Starr doesn't sound like Starr..."Ben:Right, yes. Today Starr doesn't sound like Starr because today's star is Mike Mondragon instead. Welcome Mike.Josh:Hey Mike.Mike:Hey.Ben:Mike is a long time friend of the show, and friend of the founders. Actually, Mike, how long have we known each other? It's been at least 10, maybe 15 years?Mike:Probably 2007 Seattle RB.Ben:Okay.Josh:Yeah. I was going to say you two have known each other much longer than I've even known Ben.Ben:Yeah.Josh:So you go back.Ben:Way back.Mike:Yep.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah.Josh:Because I think Ben and I met in 2009.Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:Or something.Mike:Okay.Ben:Yeah, Mike and I have been hanging out for a long time.Mike:Yeah.Ben:We've known each other through many, many different jobs, and contracts, and so on. It's been awesome.Josh:Yeah, Mike, I feel like I've heard your name since... Yeah, for the last, at least, 10 years just working with Ben. You've always been in the background. And we've realized this is the first time we've actually met face to face, which is crazy. But it's great to... Yeah.Mike:Yeah.Josh:... have a face to put with the little... What is it, a cat avatar? Is a cat in your avatar? You've had that avatar for a really long time I feel like.Mike:Yeah, that's Wallace.Josh:Okay.Mike:So I'm Mond on GitHub and Twitter, and that cat avatar is our tuxedo cat, Wallace. And he is geriatric now. Hopefully he'll live another year. And if you remember in that era of Ruby, all of the Japanese Rubyists had cat icons. And so that was... I don't know. That's why Wallace is my icon.Josh:Yeah. Nice.Ben:So, so do Wallace and Goripav know each other?Mike:No, no, they don't. They're like best friends, right? They had to have met at Seattle RB.Ben:Yeah. Internet friends.Mike:Internet friends, yeah.Ben:Yeah. So, Mike is old school Ruby, way back, way back, yeah. But the other funny thing about the old Rubyists, all those Japanese Rubyists, I remember from RubyConf Denver... Was that 2007? Somewhere around there. I remember going to that and there were mats and a bunch of friends were sitting up at the front, and they all had these miniature laptops. I've never seen laptops so small. I don't know what they were, nine inch screens or something crazy.Mike:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:I was like, "How do you even type on that thing?" But it's a thing. So I guess... I don't know. I haven't been to Japan.Mike:There are laptops that you could only get in Japan and they flash them with some sort of Linux probably.Ben:Yeah. Yeah.Mike:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:Okay. I wonder how long it took them to compile C on there.Mike:Yeah. So, about the orbit with the founders. So, I think I'd put it in my notes that I... And I consider myself a sliver of a Honeybadger in that I did have a conversation with Ben about joining the company. And then in 2017, I did do a little contracting with you guys, which is ironic in that... So we're probably going to talk about cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin. So the Bitcoin protocol is, essentially, on a four-year timer. And in 2017 was the last time that we were building up to, I guess, an explosive end to that cycle. And I had just been working at Salesforce at Desk.com, And I left because of Bitcoin. And then this year, four years later, I, again, just left Salesforce, but I just left from Heroku. And I didn't leave so much because of Bitcoin, I just got a better opportunity, and I'm a principal engineer at Okta, and I'm in the developer experience working on SDKs, primarily, the Golang SDK.Mike:So I think one of the things that they were happy about was that I had experience carrying the pager, and knowing what that's like, and they wanted to have an experienced engineer that would have empathy for the engineers to main the SDK. So I'm really excited to be here, because I'm not going to be carrying the pager, and it is the fun programming. What I imagine, listening to the founders, about the kind of fun programming that you guys get to do, working with different languages and whatnot. So, obviously right now, I'm starting out with Golang. We don't have a Ruby SDK, because OmniAuth provider is the thing that most people use. But, there's also PHP, and some Java, so I'm just looking forward to being able to do a bunch of different languages.Josh:Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. We don't know anything about SDK teams, Honeybadger. But yeah, it sounds like we have very similar jobs at the moment. So that's cool. We'll have to trade tips at some point. Yeah.Ben:Yeah, I'm excited that you're there, because I'm definitely going to hit you up on the SAML stuff, because SAML's a pain in the tuchus yeah, I'm sure you'll have some insights from your time there.Mike:Well, that was how I was even open-minded to talking to Okta, was the recruiter had contacted me and I think actually it was the recruiter... I don't know the structure of how this works, but a lot of companies have a prospecting recruiter. And I think that a veteran oriented prospecting recruiter contacted me. And so being a veteran, I'll usually entertain those cold calls. And so then when I was at Desk, I wrote... So Desk was a big Rails monolith. I wrote a microservice to break some of the SSO off of the monolith itself. And in writing the API documentation that was on desk.com, I actually used Okta as one of the examples as a SSO identity provider using SAML. So yeah, I have had a little bit of experience from the outside of Okta with SAML. And so maybe I'll have more experience here to answer your questions.Ben:Yeah. We'll have to have you back and we can just do a whole hour on that. It's a fun world.Josh:After we do an hour on SDKs.Ben:Yeah, and your code that you wrote for us still lives on in Honeybadger.Josh:Yeah. Was it the webpack? That was some of the work, right?Ben:Some of it, yeah.Mike:Yep.Josh:Yeah.Ben:And some GitHub integration work.Josh:And the integrations, yeah.Mike:Yeah, well if I remember correctly with the GitHub integration, I did do some GitHub integration, and it tickled your enthusiasm, Ben, and then I think you went in and like refactored that a little bit.Ben:Well, if you have a monolith like Redo that's been around for as long as ours has, things don't... It's like, what was that Theseus' ship, it's goes around the world but you replace things as it goes, and it's never the same app, right?Mike:Yeah, that's the thing, we had discussed this in the prelude around just software engineering in general and how hard it is to maintain a monolith, especially as a company grows and as developers come rolling into a project, you get all of these... Over time you get engineers with different goals, different techniques, different styles of touching your code base, to the point that it becomes very hard to maintain a project. And I think, I don't know if we're going to talk about Heroku at all, but I think that Heroku suffers from a little bit of that, where there's very few original Heroku that are involved in the runtime at least. And I just came from being on the runtime in the control plane. And, definitely, the code base there is... There's maybe one or two people that are still around that have touched that code base from the beginning.Ben:Yeah, let's dive into that, because that's fascinating to me. I know that there's been chatter on Twitter recently that people feel that Heroku is stagnated. That they haven't really brought a lot of innovative stuff to market recently. I remember, actually a funny story, I'm going to tell it myself. I can't remember what year this was, it were way... I don't know, I don't know, early 2000s. I was sitting as part of a focus group, and I can't reveal a lot of information because secrecy and stuff. But anyway, I was part of this focus group and I was asked as part of this group, what as a developer working on Ruby applications and Rails applications, what I thought about this new thing called Heroku. And had it explained to me, "Oh, you just get push", and "Blah, blah, blah", and I poo-pooed the idea. I was like, "Nah, I'm not interested", because I already know how to deploy stuff. I've got Mongrel, I got a DVS.Josh:Say Mongrel.Ben:I know how to use SEP, why do I need this? Like Math, never going to catch on. And so don't follow me for investing advice.Mike:Yeah, totally.Josh:I got my Linodes.Mike:Yeah. Or even back then, I wrote all of my own chef, so I got my own recipes I can-Ben:Right, exactly.Mike:... bare metal at will.Ben:Exactly. So, what do you think, you've been at Heroku, you've seen this process of people having to maintain this code base over a long period of time. What are some tips for people who might be a little earlier on the process? Looking down the road, what do you suggest people think about for having a more maintainable application?Mike:That's interesting. I really think that there is not one size fits all, and actually some of the things that are specific to Heroku, and actually to desk.com when I was there previously, that some of the issues actually stem from Salesforce culture and the way that Salesforce manages its businesses. And so, I guess the thing that I've always liked about Rails, specifically, is that the conventions that are used in Rails, you can drop an experienced Rails developer pretty much into any Rails app and they're going to know the basic conventions. And that saves you so much time to ramping up and bringing your experience into a project. Whereas when you get into bespoke software, then you run into well what were the architectural design patterns 10 years ago compared to now? How much drift has there been in libraries and the language, depending.Mike:And so that is... I don't... That's a very hard question to nail down in a specific way. I would just say in spit balling this, conventions are very important, I would say. So as long as you have a conventions using a framework, then I think that you'll get to go a long ways. However, if you start to use a framework, then you get the everything is a nail and I'm going to use my hammer framework on that. Which is its own thing that I've seen in Ruby, where if you start a project with Rails, I don't think everybody realizes this, but you are essentially going to be doing a type of software development that is in the mindset of Basecamp, right? And if you have an app that is not quite like Basecamp, and then you start to try to extending Rails to do something different, then you're going to start running into issues. And I think that... It makes me sad when I hear people talk poorly about Rails, because oftentimes people are just pushing it into a direction that it's not built to do. Whether they're, like in the old days, like monkey-patching libraries, or whatnot.Ben:Yeah, I think we saw that with the rise of Elixir and Phoenix, right? José just got frustrated with wanting to do some real time stuff. And that really wasn't the wheelhouse for Rails, right? And so he went and built Elixir and Phoenix, and built on top of that. And that became a better hammer for that particular nail than Rails, right? So now if you come into a new project and you're like, "Well, I'm going to do a lot of highly concurrent stuff", well, okay, maybe Rails isn't the best solution. Maybe you should go look at Elixir and Phoenix instead.Mike:Yeah. Yeah. So, with Heroku, I just want to say that it was so awesome to work at Heroku, and the day that I got a job offer to work there, it was like... I still, if I'm having a bad day, I still think about that, and the... I've never used hard drugs, but I would think that somebody that was cocaine high, that's probably what I was feeling when I got the offer from Heroku. I started using Heroku in 2009, and it has a story within our community, it's highly respected. And so I just want to say that I still think very highly of Heroku, and if I was to be doing just a throwaway project, and I just want to write some code and do git push main, or git push Heroku main, then I would definitely do that.Mike:And we were... And I'm not very experienced with the other kinds of competitors right now. I think, like you pointed him out, is it Vercel and Render?Ben:Render. Mm-hmm (affirmative).Mike:Yeah. So I can't really speak to them. I can really just speak to Heroku and some of the very specific things that go on there. I think one of the issues that Heroku suffers from is not the technology itself, but just the Salesforce environment. Because at Salesforce, everything eventually has to be blue, right? And so, Heroku, I don't think they ever could really figure out the right thing to do with Heroku. As well as, the other thing about enterprise software is that if I'm selling Salesforce service cloud or whatever, I'm selling, essentially, I'm selling seats of software licenses. And there's no big margin in selling Compute, because if I'm buying Compute, I expect to be using that.Mike:And so, as a salesperson, I'm not incented to sell Heroku that much because there's just not margins for me in the incentive structure that they have at sales within Salesforce. So I think that's the biggest thing that Heroku has going against it, is that it's living in a Salesforce environment. And as, I guess, a owner of Salesforce being that I have Salesforce stock, I would hope that they would maximize their profits and actually sell Heroku. Who knows, maybe a bunch of developers get together and actually buy the brand and spin that off. That would be the best thing, because I think that Salesforce would probably realize a lot more value out of Heroku just by doing that, even if there's some sort of profit sharing, and then not have to deal with all the other things.Ben:Yeah, that's really interesting. Yeah. The thing about billing, and then selling per user, versus the compute- That's definitely a different world. It's a totally different mindset. And I think Josh that we have now been given a directive step. We should acquire Heroku as part of Honeybadger.Josh:I was going to say, maybe we can acquire it with all of our Doge profits in five or 10 years from now.Mike:Well, yeah. Somebody spin a Heroku coin, a ERC20 token on Ethereum and get everybody to dump their Ethereum into this token.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Mike:Get that pot of money together. And then that is the Heroku Foundation. Yeah, exactly.Josh:Okay, yeah.Mike:The Heroku Foundation that buys the Heroku brand. I know that we're laughing about it, but actually this is what is possible today. And, I was telling Ben... Well, let me just say a couple of things about the FounderQuest and how it relates to me, is I've been listening to FounderQuest from the first episode, and I'm an only child, and I like to listen to podcasts. So I'll be on my afternoon walk, and I'll be hearing you guys talk, and I'm having this conversation along with you guys listening to the podcasts.Mike:And so, I think, in January, you guys were talking about, or maybe Ben was talking about, $30,000 Bitcoin, and you guys just had your yucks and laughs about it. And it actually made me think critically about this, because I've been involved with Bitcoin since about 2012, and it's like, "Do I have a tinfoil hat on?" Or what do I think? And so, I'm not joking about this, listening to you guys actually has helped me concretely come up with how I feel about this. And first off, I think, I'm bullish on technology. And this is the first epiphany that I had, is all of us have had a career close to Linux, close to Ruby, building backend services, close to virtualization and orchestration. Fortunately, that's been my interest, and fortunately that's been where our industry has gone. And so, when Bitcoin came out, as technologists, all you ever hear, if you don't know anything about Bitcoin, you just hear currency. And you're thinking internet money, you're not thinking about this as a technologist.Mike:And so that was the thing. I wish that Bitcoin had been talked about as a platform, or a framework.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Mike:And not even called it coin. Because that confuses the issue-Josh:The whole coin thing, just... Yeah.Mike:Yeah, totally. And mining the metaphors-Josh:That alone.Mike:... just totally throws everything off. Because we are talking, we're laughing about it, but this is really possible today. We could come up with a Foundation to buy Heroku with a cryptocurrency, and it would... Yeah. So that's one thing that Ben helped me realize in my thinking around Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. And I think I'm just bullish on technology. And so to me, again, across our career, there's been so much change. And why would we look at Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies any differently than any other kind of technology? Even a hundred dollar bill with all the holograms on it, that is a kind of financial technology. And so we're just talking about a digital technology, we're not talking about coins I guess.Josh:That's the appeal, a lot of the Altcoins, right? They give everyone a way to invest in those companies, whereas before you would have to... Whatever, be an accredited investor or something to be able to get involved. Is that part of the appeal? I'm probably showing what I know about crypto, which is very little, but I'm excited to... Yeah, maybe you can...Mike:Yeah. Yeah, so I feel like these projects are... I'm not a VC, and I'm not an insider, but from what I can see from afar, in Silicon Valley there's a close group of people that have access to all of these ideas. And there's Angel clubs, and VC clubs, and whatnot, that are funding these startups. And to me, I feel like these crypto projects are the same kind of thing, except for they're just available to the public. And so, I think if I was speaking to another technologist that was interested in cryptocurrencies, is you probably need to get your hands on some of the technology in order to get experience with it.Mike:And so if that means you figure out how to maybe mine some coin on your laptop, or whatever, or you actually pay for it, you should at least have some in your possession, and at least learn about the custodial part of it. Also, there's different software libraries now to actually do programming against it, and platforms, I believe. So that'd be another way to at least tickle your curiosity, is by actually touching the technology and not thinking about the value. So yeah.Ben:Yeah. That, to me, that's one of the most interesting things about the whole coin thing. My younger son is really interested in the crypto space, in the coin and in the other parts of a distributed ledger, and what does that mean, and how does that work? And before I heard about NFTs, he was talking about NFTs. And so it's really interesting to me to see this coming from him. Just yesterday, we had a conversation about CRDTs, right? Because we're talking about how do you merge transactions that are happening in distributed fashion? Right? I was like, "Oh yeah", and it's so weird to have my teenage sons' world colliding with my world in this way.Josh:Yeah.Ben:But it's a lot of fun. And I've got to say, Mike, I got to give you back some credit, talking about the whole coin thing. As you've heard, we're pretty coin skeptical here at Honeybadger, the Founders, but you made a comment in our pre-show conversation. And maybe you didn't make this explicitly, but maybe it's just a way that I heard it. But I think... Well what I heard was, and maybe you actually said this, was basically think about this like an index fund, right? You put dollar cost to averaging, right? You put some money into coin, you put a little bit, it's not going to be your whole portfolio, right? But you don't treat it like a gamble, and you just treat it like an investment, like you would other things that may appreciate in value. And of course you may not.Ben:And so, as a result, I decided, "Okay, I can do that. I can put a little bit of my portfolio into coins". So just this week, and this is the funny part, just this week-Josh:I'm just finding this out now, by the way.Ben:Yeah, yeah. Josh is like... I told my wife about this last night and she was like, "What's Josh going to say?" "Like, I don't know". So anyway, just this week I put a little bit of money into Bitcoin and Ethereum. And that was... When did Elon do his thing about Bitcoin? Was that Thursday morning?Josh:Oh yeah.Ben:I bought, two hours before Elon did his thing, and Bitcoin lost 15% of its value.Mike:That's awesome.Ben:I'm like, "It's okay. It's okay, I'm just putting-Josh:Yeah, you don't sell, it doesn't matter.Mike:What was your emotion? What was your emotion?Ben:Yeah, totally. Yeah. In fact, my first buy, I used Coinbase. And Coinbase was like, "Oh, do you want to do this periodically?" I'm like, "Yes, I do. Every month". Boom.Mike:Oh.Ben:I went ahead and set that up like so, yeah.Mike:Oh, I did not know you could do that.Ben:I'm in it to win it, man.Mike:You should get a hardware wallet. That's the next thing, is you need to learn how to handle your own custody, so-Josh:Right, yeah. You got to... Yeah.Mike:Not leave it on the exchange. Interesting.Josh:Get those hard drives.Mike:Yeah.Josh:Yeah. Ben's a veteran indexer though. So you can handle some dips. Some volatility.Ben:Yeah. Yeah.Josh:I actually, I did make some money off of Bitcoin back in the day, and probably if I would've just held onto it, I would've made a lot more, of course.Mike:Same.Josh:So I accidentally... Back, I don't know when this was, it was maybe five years ago or something, when Bitcoin was going through one of its first early hype cycles, and I was like, "I'll check it". I was learning about it, of course. And so I went and bought some and I think I ran a blockchain Elixir app that someone made, to see how the transactions work and stuff. Read some books on Bitcoin. But I bought some Bitcoin, I can't remember how much, but just left it. I think this was after Coinbase had launched, I'm pretty sure I bought it through Coinbase. But yeah, I just left it, and then that was when it was in the first huge push of Bitcoin where it went up to 20,000 or something. And I remembered that I had it, and I went and looked and oh yeah, I made five grand or something. I put hardly anything into it initially. So I forget what I actually bought with that money. I just sold it and it's like cool, free money.Mike:So you just sold it this year? Or you sold it...Josh:No, I sold it back-Mike:In 17?Josh:I think I sold it at 20... Yeah, this would have been at 17 that I actually sold it, probably.Mike:Did you report it on your taxes, your capital gains?Josh:I did, yes. Yeah, I did.Ben:That's the benefit of having an accountant, because your accountant reminds you, "You know what? You did have some Bitcoin transactions, you should probably look at those".Josh:Can I say on here that I actually put some of it through a Bitcoin tumbler though, just to see how those work?Mike:Yeah, I mean...Josh:And that was a very small amount of money, but I didn't actually report that on my taxes. Because I think I actually forgot where it was or something.Ben:You'll have to explain what a Bitcoin tumbler is.Josh:So a Bitcoin tumbler... Well, I'll try, and then maybe Mike might explain it better, but a Bitcoin tumbler is basically how you anonymize your Bitcoin transaction. If you have some Bitcoin and you want to buy some drugs on the dark web or something, you go and you send your Bitcoin to this tumbler, and then it distributes it to a bunch of random Bitcoin addresses that it gives you. And then you have those addresses, and they're anonymized, because they've been sent through a bunch of peoples' wallets, or something like that.Mike:Yep. That's basically it.Ben:So it's basically money laundering.Josh:Yeah, it's laundering.Mike:Yeah. But if your privacy... I mean, okay-Josh:Yeah, no, I get it. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Because part of the appeal of Bitcoin is some people are just like, "Oh yeah, good money, credit card transactions are so... The governments are recording them and stuff, the NSA probably has a database of them". So Bitcoin is anonymous, but it's not. It's not anonymous. And yeah. So that's why people do this, right?Mike:Yeah. Well that, to me, that's if you want to... So the value of Bitcoin, if you want to get bullish on the value of Bitcoin, the traditional outlook is yeah, the silk road was going on and there's all this illegal stuff going on. Therefore it must be bad. But actually, to me, that's the thing, you know it's good if there's illicit stuff going on, because what's the number one currency that's used right now for illicit transactions? It's dirty US dollar bills. And if you're a drug dealer in central South America, you are collecting, dollar bills United States. You're paying some sort of transport probably at 10, 15% cost to get those dollars back to wherever you're going to hold them. And so, if you're using Bitcoin, you're probably not going to pay that fee. So, to me, it's like okay, that actually proves, at least in my mind, that there is value. That it's being used, right?Josh:Yeah. And you also, you don't want to see... Some people are fanatics about cash going away, even just because as more people move to digital transactions, whether it's just through, whatever, traditional networks, or through crypto. People are using less and less cash. And I feel like, whatever... Like Richard Stallman, he pays for everything in cash though, because he thinks that cash is going to go away someday. And that's a problem for privacy, because you do want a way to pay for things in private in some cases.Mike:Yep. I agree.Josh:Yeah.Ben:My only real beef with Bitcoin, well, aside from the whole requiring power plants just to do a transaction, is that there is Badger coin. This company that is named Honeybadger, it's all about Bitcoin. And they have these ATM's in Canada, and we constantly get support requests from people.Mike:Oh really?Josh:Is this the reason that we've been so down on cryptocurrencies in the past?Ben:I think so.Josh:Because ever since the beginning, since people started making coins, Badger coin came out and then it's been our primary exposure to be honest.Ben:It has been, yeah.Josh:Throughout the past... I don't know how many years it's been. Has it been six-Ben:Yeah, six-Josh:... to eight years?Ben:Yeah, something like that. It's been nuts.Josh:I'd say.Mike:You should send them an invoice, and they actually-Ben:Yeah, so what happens is they had these kiosks where you can buy Bitcoin, right? You put your real money in, and you get your fake money out, right? And the name on the top of the kiosk is Honeybadger. So, someone puts in some money, real money, and they don't get their fake money, then all of a sudden they're upset, right?Mike:Yeah.Ben:And so they... For whatever reason, it doesn't go through, right, I don't know how this works, I've never bought Bitcoin at a kiosk. But so, they're like, "Okay, Honeybadger". And so they Google Honeybadger, and the first result for Honeybadger is us. And so they're like, "Oh, here's a phone number I can call". And they call us. And they're like, "Where's my Bitcoin?" That's like, "Uh, I really can't help you with that".Josh:They do.Ben:"You stole my Bitcoin". It's like, "No, that's not us".Josh:Something just occurred to me. I wonder how many of them are just confused over the fact that Bitcoin transactions can take a while to arrive now, right? It's not always instantaneous, where it used to be a lot faster, but now I know that it can take a while to clear. So I wonder how many of those people are emailing us in the span... Maybe that's why they eventually always go away and we don't hear from them again. Maybe it's not that they're getting help, but it's just that their Bitcoins are arriving. Yeah. I have a feeling that there's some sort of... I'm guessing these are mostly regular normies using, and interacting with this very highly technical product and experience, and even if you're walking up to a kiosk, but there's still a highly technical aspect of it that, like you said Mike, people are thinking coin, they're thinking... The way this maps to their brain is it's like dollar bills. So they're looking at it like an ATM. Yep.Mike:Yeah. When it comes to cryptocurrency and the technology, I don't want to have to think about custody, or any of that other kinds of stuff. It'll be successful when it just is happening, I'm not thinking about it. They're already... In some... I don't know all of the different mobile devices, but I do carry out an iPhone. And so, the wallet on iPhone is pretty seamless now, right? And so I'm not thinking about how that technology is working. I had to associate an Amex with it originally, right? But once I've done that, then all I do is click my button to pay. And there you go. And so I do think that the cryptocurrency technology has a long way to go towards that, because if normal people, the non nerds, have to think about it, then it's not going to be useful. Because in the end-Josh:Yeah.Mike:... humans use tools, right? And so, whatever the tool is, they're going to use it especially if it's easy and it makes their life easier.Ben:So what I really want to know, Mike, is what are your feelings about Dogecoin? Are you bullish on Doge?Mike:Well, I'll answer that, but I wanted to come back to the bit about the NFT, and just talking about the possibilities with technology. And I think that you guys could profit from this.Ben:I like where it's going.Mike:You'll have to do some more research. But I think what you could do... See, I love the origin story of Honeybadger. And maybe not everybody knows about the Honeybadger meme from what is... When was this, two thousand...Ben:2012? 2011?Mike:Yeah, okay. So not everybody... Yeah, bot everybody knows about the meme. I guess, just go Google-Ben:I can link it in the show notes.Josh:It's long dead. This meme is long dead.Mike:Is it? Well it's still awesome. I still love it.Josh:It is.Mike:So, there's so many facets of this that I love. The first one is that... Can I name names on competitors-Ben:Of course.Mike:... in the origins? Okay. So the first one was is that Airbrake, an exception reporting service, was doing a poor job with their customer service. And you guys were like, "We're working on this project, we need exception reporting. It's not working". It's like, "Well, can we just take their library, and build our own backend?" Right? And to me, that is beautiful. And in thinking about this episode, in Heroku, the same opportunity lies for an aspiring developer out there where you could just take the Heroku CLI and point it at your own false backend until you figure out all of the API calls that happen. And I don't know, you have that backed by Kubernetes, or whatever orchestration framework is...Mike:There is the possibility that you could do the same Honeybadger story with Airbrake SDK, as there is with the Heroku CLI. So that's the first thing I love about the Honeybadger story, and the fact the name goes along with the fact that Airbrake had poor customer support, and you guys just were like, "F it, we're going to build our own exception reporting service". Now, in the modern context with NFTs is... I have old man experience with the NFTs in that GIFs, or GIFs, and JPEGs, this is BS that people are gouging for profit. However, the technology of the NFT... This is the thing that I think is beautiful, is that... And I'm not sure which of the NFTs does this, but there is the possibility that you could be the originator of a digital object, and then you sell that digital object. And then as that digital object is traded, then you, as the, I guess, the original creator, you can get a percentage of the sales for the lifetime of that digital asset.Ben:Yeah.Mike:And, I'm not sure which of the NFTs allows that, but that is one of the things, that's one of the value propositions in NFT. So what I was thinking is if you guys did an NFT on the shaw of the original Honeybadger Ruby SDK check-in, that this could be the thing that you guys have an experiment with, is you have real skin in the game, you're playing with the technology and see if that works. And, let me know if you do that, because I might try to buy it. So, we'll see.Josh:Well, we've already got a buyer, why wouldn't we?Mike:Yeah, so..Ben:Indeed, yeah.Josh:See I was thinking maybe you could own various errors or something in Honeybadger.Mike:Yeah, I mean... Whatever digital signature you want to... Whatever you want to sign, and then assign value to.Josh:Yeah, we could NFT our Exceptional Creatures.Mike:Yeah.Josh:Have you seen that, Mike? Have you seen that project?Mike:Yep, yep.Josh:Okay.Mike:I'm well aware of that. Yep.Ben:Yeah. I'm thinking what about open source maintainers, right? Let's say you have this project and someone really wants a particular feature, right? Or they're really happy about a particular feature that you've already done, right? You can sell them that shaw, that commit, that put it into name, right?Mike:Yeah, totally.Ben:You are the proud owner of this feature. Thank you.Mike:Yeah, totally. Yeah, I was hoping that I would come with some ideas. I hope someday in the future that I run into somebody and it's like, "Oh, we heard that podcasts were where ideas were free ideas that were worth a lot of money were thrown about. And I did this project, and now I'm retired. Thank you, Mike". Honeybadgers.Josh:Wait, so Ben are you saying that, so as a committer, so say I commit something to Rails, submit a PR, so then I own that PR once it's merged and it would be like I could sell that then to someone? Is that along the lines of what you're saying?Ben:No, I'm thinking the owner of the project. So, if you commit something to Rails, and you're really excited about it, and you for some reason want to have a trophy of that commit-Josh:Right.Ben:... on a plaque on the wall, right? Then the Rails core group could sell you that token.Josh:Okay. Gotcha.Ben:That trophy, that certificate, like, "Yep. This is your thing. Commissioned by..." It's like naming a star, right?Josh:Yeah.Ben:You buy the rights to a star, and it's fake stuff, right? We're naming stars. But that's the same idea.Josh:Yeah. So you could use that same idea to incentivize open-source contribution. So if you make the PR to Rails and it gets merged, you get this NFT for the PR merge, which you could then actually profit for if it was... Say it was, I don't know, turbo links or something, whatever. Years later, when it's a huge thing and everyone in Rails is using it, maybe Mike's going to come along and be like, "Hey, I'll buy... I want to own the PR for turbo links".Ben:Right.Josh:Yeah. And of course then, you, as the owner, would also profit from any sale between parties later on too. You'd get that little percentage.Mike:Yeah. Well, so when somebody comes up with committer coin, just remember me, I want to airdrop of some committer coin.Josh:We have a name. We've got a name for it. Commit coin.Ben:I've got a new weekend project ahead of me.Mike:Yeah.Josh:Cool. Well, that helps me understand NFTs.Ben:Yeah, I really like the idea of being able to sell ownership rights to a digital asset. That I think a good idea. I don't know that the current implementation that we see on the news is a great implementation of that idea. Buying the rights for a copy of a JPEG, it feels kind of sketchy to me. But maybe there's some sort of, I don't know, PDF document that has some sort of value for some reason. And you can give that, sell that to someone. And to me, it's not so much about the profit, or the transaction, it's the ownership. You can say I am the owner of this thing. Yeah, there can be copies all over the place, but I'm the person that has the ownership, quote unquote, of this thing.Josh:Yeah, yeah. But then you've got to define value Ben. What is value? Okay, so, what makes a PDF more valuable than a JPEG?Mike:Yeah. Yeah. Bring this back to Dogecoin, and value propositions, and whatnot. What is valuable? When you're talking about the value of a JPEG, this reminded me of a conversation I was having with my son. He's 10 years old and he wanted some money to buy, I don't know what it was, and old man voice came out of me and it's like, "That's BS. I don't think that's valuable". And he looked at me and he was like, "It's valuable to me". And it's like, "Oh, you just put a dagger in my heart. I'm killing your dream". And one person's value may not be another person's value. So, on the Dogecoin, that's interesting. Dogecoin is very interesting to me, because I feel like I'm in a quantum state with a Dogecoin where it is a joke, but at the same time it apparently it has value.Mike:And I don't know where I stand on that threshold. I know how to trade Dogecoin. And I know the behavior of Dogecoin, and the behaviors, from a trading standpoint, has changed substantially in the last six months. Before it was a pump and dump kind of thing. Well, actually, you know what? When Dogecoin was first created, its purpose was highlighted by the community. People in podcast land don't realize this, but I'm wearing a 2017 Dogecoin shirt from when the Dogecoin community sponsored the number 98 NASCAR. And the thing of the community was like, "Oh, we have all this money, and we're just being altruistic and we're giving it away". And so they were exercising their belief with this currency, right?Mike:And from then, till now, there was a bit of a cycle to Dogecoin where you could, if you acquired Dogecoin for say under a hundred Satoshis, this is the Dogecoin BTC pair, that was actually a good buy. Just wait for the next pump when somebody does something, and Dogecoin goes over 200, or 300 Satoshis, and then you dump it. And that's basically what I did on this in the last six months. I had a small bag of Dogecoin waiting for the next pump and dump. And I actually did that, but it kept on getting pumped, and then it would stabilize. And then now we're at the point where apparently Elon Musk and Mark Cuban are saying that there's value to it.Mike:And to me, I actually put a lot of credence to that, because these are two public persons that they cannot... If they're pumping things in the public domain, then they have risk, right? And so you can't be those two people, and be pumping, and not run the risk of the FTC of the United States government coming in and saying, "Hey, why were you doing this?" So there's the, I guess for me, a small bit of a guarantee that maybe there is something to Dogecoin.Josh:Yeah. See, the way I think, when you first started you were saying it is a joke, but you're in this dual state, and my initial or immediate thought was it is a joke, but this is the internet, and the internet loves to make silly things real.Mike:Yeah, yeah.Josh:Especially these days.Ben:Yeah. It's pretty funny for all those people that made a bunch of money on GameStop, right? Yeah.Mike:Yeah. Well that's the thing, is in Dogecoin, Doge is, of itself, from a meme from the same time period as Honeybadger, right? The Iba Shinu doggie, right? So, the other thing I don't understand, or the thing that I understand but I don't know how to quantify it for myself, is that, to me... So there's no pre-mine on Dogecoin. There's no one person that owns a lot of Dogecoin from the beginning. Whereas if we're talking about Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, the founder, or one of the founders of Ethereum, they pre-mined Ethereum, and there's a ton of Ethereum that's owned by the founders. Whereas you compare that to, say, Litecoin, Charlie Lee cloned Bitcoin and created Litecoin. He sold all of his Litecoin. I believed in him when he said he's sold it all. He's a software engineer, just like us. He was Director of Engineering at Coinbase.Mike:He doesn't seem like he's wearing tinfoil hat out there, doing conspiracies. So when he says that he sold his coin in 2017, all of his Litecoin, I totally believe that. Yet today, he is the chairperson of the Litecoin foundation. And so, to me... I actually do have, I placed some value in the benevolence of Litecoin and Dogecoin, because there's not any one person that actually controls it. I guess Charlie Lee, he probably has a stronger voice than most. But he doesn't control the levers.Josh:Not financially.Mike:Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Mike:Yeah. And so then with Dogecoin... So Dogecoin, it'll be awesome if it gets above a dollar, but the structure of Dogecoin will be such as they cannot maintain that.Josh:Right.Mike:Because it's an inflation-Josh:There's no cap, right?Mike:Right.Josh:Yeah.Mike:It's inflation. And so, I don't know the number, I think it's a million Dogecoin are minted every day. So, 10 years from now, if Dogecoin is worth a dollar still, then that means Bitcoin will be worth a lot more than that. So I guess that'd be awesome if Dogecoin stays a dollar. However, the point I'm trying to make is actually there is value in having an inflationary currency, especially if we're talking about living in the structure of our current financial... The way that our current financial markets work, where there is an inflation.Mike:And so if I want to be transacting with a digital currency, I don't want to have to be, say, like having an Argentina kind of moment where my one Dogecoin is worth $5 American today, and then maybe only $3 American a week from now. So to me, I think there is value in Dogecoin in that it's inflationary, and that it will not be as susceptible to speculation bubbles as other currencies. And so, I don't know if that answers your questions on the value of Dogecoin, but those are a couple of reasons why I think that Dogecoin is valuable. Now, am I going to be holding a big bag of Dogecoin in 2022? Probably not. Just to be honest.Ben:We're all about honesty at Honeybadger. I love the episodes where we have to have a disclaimer, this is not financial advice. Please consult competent professionals before investing, et cetera, et cetera. Mike, it has been a delight to have you with us. We appreciate your counterbalance to our coin pessimism that we have amongst the Honeybadger fan base.Josh:Yeah, I think we needed this.Ben:Yeah.Josh:We really needed this.Ben:We really did.Josh:So thank you.Ben:It's been good.Mike:Yeah. Oh, I got one more idea out there. Hopefully, somebody can run with this, is I've been trying to get motivated to do some experimentation with the Bitcoin lightning network. We didn't really talk about these a layer two solutions for scaling, but I think that there is a lot of potential in coming up with an interesting project that lays within the Litecoin* network, it has its value in and of itself, but there's a secondary value of being a note on the Litecoin* network where if there's transactions going through your node, let's say, I don't know how you'd instrument this, but let's say that Honeybadger actually was... That you guys were taking your payments across your own lightning node, then all of the transactions that are going across the lightning network, you're getting a small fee, right? So I think that there's the possibility of a micropayments kind of play there, like for instance, paying by the exception. I mean, literally-*Editor's note from Mike - "in my excitement talking about the Lighting Network I slipped and said Litecoin a couple of times between Lightning Network. Lightning Network is a layer 2 protocol that is primarily intended for scaling Bitcoin and that was what I meant. However, Lightning can be implemented to run on top of Litecoin and Ethereum."Josh:That has come up that has come up in the past, I think at one point.Mike:You can't do micro payments on a credit card.Josh:Yeah.Mike:Right? But you can do micropayments on lightening network. And I'm not selling you guys on this, but I'm saying that there's going to be some nerd out there that it's like, "Oh my God micropayments are here, I can do micropayments on lighting network". And then they're going to do well on that product, but then they're also going to do well on the commission that they're earning on payments going through their node.Josh:This could be used for usage base software as a service billing model.Ben:Totally. And then you get the skim off the top, just like a good affiliate does.Mike:Yes.Ben:I love it.Mike:Yes.Ben:I love it. All right. All right, Mike, we're going to have to do some scheming together. Well, any final words, any parting words besides go by all the Dogecoin that you can?Mike:Yeah. Don't put all your money into the cryptocurrencies. Yeah.Josh:Seems like good advice.Ben:Be smart

Here is the exciting final part of this special three episode series! On this episode, Russell and Josh talk quite a bit about the new book Russell is currently working on! The new book will be the first (of possibly many) personal development book that Russell has written. We also get to hear why Russell loves to write books and why he thinks everyone should write one. So listen in to the final part of Russell and Josh’s “Outwitting The Devil” interview. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up everybody. This Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the third and final episode from the Outwitting The Devil interview with Josh Forti. Hopefully you enjoyed the first two episodes. If you missed any of them, go back and listen to episode one, two and this is part three of three. In this one, Josh started asking me questions about my new books. Why I was so excited about Outwitting The Devil, by how I'm using this? Why I'm writing my fourth book and a bunch of other really cool things. So I hope you enjoy it. And you've enjoyed this interview series, please let me know, let Josh know. The best way to do that is take a picture of any of these on your phone, post them on your social media and tag me and him and let us know what you thought about the episodes. Thanks again, you guys. I appreciate you all for listening with that said, let's queue up the exciting conclusion of the Josh Forti, Russell Brunson Outwitting The Devil Podcast interview. Josh Forti: Okay. I want to do this because we're talking about all these amazing books and I don't know, this is probably like two, three weeks ago. Maybe it's a little bit longer that. You start hinting on Instagram about this book. And I'm like, "Oh my gosh. There's another book? What could it possibly be?" And then last week I'm out here and you started telling me about it and what it is. Russell: Showing you the deal. Josh: It's not a marketing book. It's the next piece and it's your first ever... And I don't want to spoil it for them. I'm going to say it's like your first ever take at personal development. Talk to us about this book. When's it coming out? How did this come about and the details of that, because I'm super, super excited for it. Russell: I think it was my only, hopefully. But I said that about Dot Com Secrets too. Josh: I don't believe that at all. There's going to be a trilogy for... Russell you're going to be writing books till you die dude. Russell: I don't know. Writing is so painful but this one, again, it's me coming back. We launched Traffic Secrets. The world goes chaotic and I have more time and I'm trying to just occupy my mind. Josh: Which by the way, how perfect time. My heart was completely broken when you had to cancel the Traffic Secrets event because I was supposed to speak to there. I was like, "No." But how perfect of a timing was Traffic Secrets when- Russell: There are pros and cons of it. It was really good from a selling book standpoint. It was really hard for making New York times bestseller list, which we actually hit, which I'm still freaked out about. It was tough because Amazon wasn't shipping books. Things weren't shipped, all sorts of chaos. They said books weren't essential and so like it was hard to hit lists because you'd sell 10,000 copies of books in a week but Amazon was waiting two, three, four weeks to ship them because it wasn't... The way that the lists work is, how many did you sell in retail outlets? How many do you sell on USA today? All the things. And so when you have the big push, but then some books aren't being counted four or five weeks later because Amazon doesn't consider them essential. They're not sure when they can glut. Normally it takes 10,000 books or something to hit a bestseller list. We hit over 100,000 to be able to do it. It was way harder, way more stressful, but we got it. But it was easier to sell because I had more time. Anyway, a lot of pros with that. Plus it was crazy because in the beginning of the book I talked about there's a storm coming and then literally it was like, we're in the middle it. You should give this book right now... Josh: Literally right now. Russell: I think I'm similar to you. I think a lot of people in our community where it's just like, my mind is always spinning. I can't stop. Josh: I cannot shut it off ever. Russell: It's like there's got to be something I got to be thinking about. And again, it was harder me to find stuff for me to geek out on inside of marketing and business. It was just hard to find the next... I don't know. Every level you get to, it's harder to find the next level. I'm sure there's time where Michael Jordan's like, "I can't find people to push me anymore." Where do you go? And it's just like- Josh: Yeah. Like Tom Brady in the NFL just completely dominating every team that's out there. Yeah. That's right. Russell: Anyway. So not that I'm that level or anything. Josh: Right. Right. Right. Russell: For me it gets harder and harder- Josh: Likewise. Russell: To find things. I have to dig so hard to find the gold. And so I started just looking again at some of these things. And that's when I stumble on this book and just like, every page is gold and it's like I'm lit up again. I'm on fire. Again, I talked about earlier, for me one of my highest values is ROI. What's my return on my investment. So I'm learning these things. I'm growing myself personally, but I'm feeling empty because I'm not sharing them. So it's like, "What's the platform?" That's why I'm like, "Everyone go read this." I need to have this conversation with somebody. So having Dave reading it, everybody can get to read it I'm trying to read so I can get this conversations. Then when you're like, "Hey, do you want to talk about a podcast?" I said, "Yes." You forged some of this stuff because it's in me and if I can't contribute, it seems like I'm wasting it. And so there was this, there was other things. And I started looking more and more. Right now I've got five kids. Three of my kids are teenagers now and teenagers have been way harder than I ever thought or expected. It's weird. Kids are really fulfilling, but man teenagers have been just... It's different for me. I'm feeling like I have to grow to understand myself, but to also understand them. And what I envisioned my kids as teenagers are going to be what it is, has been so much different. I think for me, at times it got me depression, sadness and these things. And I was like, "I shouldn't be depressed this time in my kid's life. This is the greatest time I could be with them but I got to shift my mind." So it was me trying to do some work on myself, to fix myself. Not fix myself, but to get myself in a spot where I could enjoy the season. And then number two is how do I serve them now at this point? Because I envisioned the way I was going to serve my kids was when my dad did. Where I was like, he drove me to wrestling practice and we traveled the world, we worked out super hard because that's what I needed and I assumed that that's what my kids are going to need and it's not. That's not what they want. They want almost the opposite of those things. I'm like, "But I have these gifts. These skills I can give you." They are like, "I don't want them." I'm like, "I can help you start a business." Like, "We don't care." I get them value money because they've always had it. It's like all these things. Every gift that I have, it's like all my unique abilities I want to give my kids, they don't want it. So I'm learning this thing of well, instead of me trying to give my kids these things that I think that were so valuable to me. It's like, I have to sit back and understand what's actually valuable to them, which is so much harder and I'm learning this process. And so as I'm going through this lens of trying to learn these things, understand them, trying to figure them out for myself and I'm stumbling upon things like this and other things. It just got to a point where I was like, "I need to write this book first off for myself." If anyone who's done it, there's this weird thing as you start reading, you start seeing connections. You don't see any other spot. I feel like God opens up insights to you. They're just magical. Like I remember- Josh: When you start writing. Russell: Yeah. Josh: Yeah 100%. Russell: You have to get deep in a topic, you have studied all these things to figure things out. And I remember the first time I really understood this is, after I finished Traffic Secrets, I wanted to reedit DotCom and an Expert Secrets to publish the trilogy. So I went back. I remember reading those books and I was like, "Where did this stuff come from?" I was like, "This is good crap. I don't remember saying this or thinking that." I couldn't remember and- Josh: Interesting. Russell: It's the weirdest thing going back and fighting things. Somehow that was given to me because that was not something that I just intuitively knew. And I feel like for me, I wanted to start the book journey because I'm searching for these answers. The premise of the book is not, "I have all the answers, let me give them to you." I'm in the season where I'm going through it again and let me share through I'm learning on this journey because I'm learning some amazing things. And as I'm sharing as I'm writing them, again these insights keep popping in and it's fascinating. So I'll be doing something, I'll be doing something and I have a doodle. I'm like, "Oh my gosh." I run to Dave I'm like, "Look at this." He's like, "What am I explaining?" He's like, "I never saw it before." New to that. It showed up when I'm in this intense time. And so it's been fun as I'm writing it because these insights are coming at a speed that they don't normally come in. Josh: And I think also- Russell: It's really funny. Josh: I think... Hold that train of thought. I want you to keep going on that. But I've noticed that as well, when it comes to reading books. Reading a book and then applying the book, those are two very different things. I have read Expert Secrets, Dotcom Secrets, Traffic Secrets. And I'm going through, I've not read the hardcover of Expert Secrets. I've only read the soft cover. So right now I'm going through and yes, two nights ago I started it and it's- Russell: You started the hardcover? Josh: Yeah. I'm going through, I'm listening to it and I'm reading it and I'm taking notes- Russell: Get the hardcovers. They're way better than softcovers. Josh: So I'm going through all this stuff. For the last four or five, six months, all I've been doing, I have no front end products of my own. I'm not building anything. All I'm doing is working with big campaigns on the backend. It's like full out stuff. We're doing stuff with cash phones. All these stuff is up and I'm going through and actually inboxed you. I was like, "Dude. People say they've read this book but they haven't." They've read the words, but it's totally different when you actually experience it. And you're watching where it all fits in and you start to see how it all clicks together. So that broke from the reverse angle of when you're writing it and trying to put it on in together is what you're talking about here. Russell: Yes. It's super fascinating. So it's been fun. I'm excited. So my goal, I'm trying to get it done by summer for it to be a launch in March. So if you published traditionally, this publishing schedule is really, really long. So if you are going to read it in March, I'd have to have it done by June. Josh: If we want to read in March of next year, you have to have it done by June this year. Russell: Yeah. Josh: Dang. Russell: So that's where I'm at. So I'm also with the first section of the book and there's four sections. Back then this month I spent the section number one and then that's where I'm at. Josh: Do we get to know what it's called? Do you have a title yet? Russell: I do. I don't want to show a title yet because I don't want someone going and- Josh: Oh, that's true. Russell: "You guys all suck." And buys those domains up and they start like SEOing me and beating me and all that stuff. But it's going to be cool. It's a study of two things. So I'll give you this part. This is the subtitle. So subtitle, something Tony Robbins talks a lot about, but it's the science of achievement and the art of fulfillment. These two things. How do achievers achieve? And then how do you actually get fulfilled? Because it's fascinating. I think- Josh: Interesting. Russell: I see my own life. I achieve something thinking that, "When I achieve this thing, I'm going to be fulfilled and happy and everything." And you achieve the thing and you're like, "I'm not happy." And you figure that achievement and fulfillment, they don't work hand in hand. It's a science of achievement, which that's why science achieves more scrutiny. It's like, "Here's a step-by-step process to get this result." I want to be state champion wrestler here's a step by step process. Boom, got it. I want to be a known American step-by-step process. Got it. I want to start a business, step-by-step. Science. It's not thinking, you just follow a process and you get it. So for me, achievements always come easy. Anything I ever want in my life I've achieved it because there's a science. I figured out. Fulfillment's art, it's different. It's not follow these steps and you become fulfilled. The yin yang of these two things. And it's so fascinating. I've been going deeper into it and seeing the pattern appear over and over and over again, all these different things. And how do you apply it to your life? And there's so many cool things in this book that don't necessarily talk about science of achievement and fulfillment but they're all in here. The patterns in here over and over and over again. So it's pulling it from all these sources and showing it to everybody, that's what the book's going to do and then how to weave it all into aspects of your life anyway. So that's- Josh: One of the things and I'm sure you'll talk about it, but will be the balance of those two things. Because it's early on in my very young career of being 27 years old, but it was all about achieve, achieve, achieve, achieve. And there's always my mom's voice in the back of my head, it's like, "Things won't make you happy." "I know mom." Russell: Yes they will. Josh: Yeah. Yes they will. And then you get there. There have been moments in my life where right now in this moment I am completely fulfilled or I'm completely content and it's just like, I don't know what could make my life better. And it's not when I achieved anything, it's not when I did anything. But in that moment, whenever I take a step back and think about that moment, I have very little drive to go achieve anything more. And there's that balance of how do I stay fulfilled and content while also being driven to go achieve. Because for me and this is something I'd wrestled with and talked to Katie about it. And I'm like, "It's either one or the other. I can't be..." And she's like, "There's always another option. There's never black and white." And so balancing the two of those and understanding that. Like you said, they don't go hand in hand. They're separate things, I think it's really important and something that I'm trying to figure out and learn. Russell: So I got frustrated about all the times I achieve something and I'm so frustrated, why do I not feel how I thought I was going to feel and leads to depression or frustration or whatever. But when you start separating these are two different things I can achieve and I want to achieve, but how do I get fulfilled in the journey or separately from it and you start anyway. It's been fascinating and learning so many cool things and it's going to be fun to start sharing with everybody. I'm going to probably start in my podcasts, start dropping more and more things then getting deeper and deeper. More of the thoughts are going be flushed out. That's the weird thing about writing a book too, is initially I'm like, "Here's what I'm going to write." I write an outline of what the book is going to be and I write chapter number one. I was like, "Now this outline makes sense. You write that one" Chapter two. And so it's like, it's this rebuild, rebuild, rebuild. And by the time it's done, hopefully we'll find out. It'll be the perfect thing that's like, here's the frameworks you need. And for example, this whole concept here, there's a chapter that's going to be taking the frameworks from this book and this is going to be the chapter walking people through this concept of faith and fear. This doodle is a rough draft. I just tell you I sent this to you today. I'm like, "This is not the perfect doodle. I saw it. I'm not going to post it down below yet because this is partially done." It's going to be perfect by the time the book's done. I'm still thinking through and trying to get it right. And making it a simple form where I can understand it and hopefully it makes it easy for people to apply. But anyway, it's pretty cool. I think everyone should read a book. I think everybody listening should set that as a goal because when you do, just the act of writing the book will change your board. And I think anyone will understand. And when somebody asks, "What are you doing?" You're like, "I'm writing a book." Josh: That sounds very cool. Russell: There's no much cooler than that. Josh: Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Okay. I know you have a hard cutoff, so I want to be respectful of that here. So I want to end with one question here and that is specifically about reading books. It's interesting. I'm pretty involved in the ClickFunnels world. Those are my people as well too. And so those are the people that follow me and that I interact with and I talk to a lot and it's always interesting when I talk to people about reading versus action. And some people have this... I feel like there's weird thought that if you're a reader, you're not an action taker, which I'm like, "That's not true. That's not how that works." But anyway, for you, if you are early on in your career, early on in you journey of building your business and your funnels and putting everything together. Do you recommend? Going back and thinking of your life, were you a big reader early on? Did you do a lot of reading or were you more action taking and looking back, would you recommend people read more, take more action? What's that balance? Because it's very easy. I know for me, I'm making time to read and then that's all I want to do. I'm like, "This is amazing." And then I'll take action. And so what's that Balance there? And what do you recommend as far as reading versus action? Russell: It's tough because some people read just because you get fulfillment or like there's- Josh: There's a good feeling that comes with reading. Russell: Comes with reading. Josh: For sure. Russell: So- Josh: It's a fake sense of accomplishment. Russell: Yes. So this is my belief. I remember when I first got started, I was reading a lot, I was listening, I was going to seminars. I remember at first it always frustrated because I was learning all this stuff and I was getting it but I had nowhere to use it and I was trying to use it all. That's why I think I launched... I can't remember. A couple of funnels by measure. It was like a 106, 116 or something funnels I launched before ClickFunnels. And that's because every idea that came to me, I was like, "I have to create something." I create this and I create this. I was creating funnel and funnel and coaching program. I joined Dan Kennedy's mastermind and they talked about, "You should have mastermind groups." So at the event I launched a mastermind group. I'm like, "You should have phone sales." We started phone sales and "You should be doing seminars." We launched a seminar. Every idea that came, I launched it. But man, I got a point where I was drowning. Because we had 8,000 things we're doing and nothing really worked. And I remember always feeling guilty because these ideas are coming to me. I'm thinking, "These are gifts from God. These are inspiration. I need to have these things." And it wasn't until... I don't remember when. But somewhere down the line, I realized that, "I don't actually have to take all these different things and do them, but I can understand them." Because I enjoy learning, understanding. So I would take them into my mind and literally put them on a shelf. I remember there's this Dan Kennedy on how to do high ticket, air exclusive program. So when we were listening to it, there's talking about franchise and this. All of a sudden, this is amazing. So I was taking it because I enjoyed the learning of it. And then I was like, "I'm not doing this right now." I'm so stretched thin, but I enjoyed the learning. So I'm flying an airplane, listening to this audio book or whatever. If I'm going to put it over here, I'm just categorizing and I put it over here in my brain. Like, "Hey. If I ever wanted to go back and do that, I know where it's at or at least put over here." So I started learning because I enjoyed learning but I didn't have to implement everything. And I've put things in these different spots. At the same time I had a very clear vision. This is definitive purpose. I had a vision. So I'm trying to execute on something I'm trying to do. So as I'm learning, when something came that crossed my mind I was like, "That's the next step. I could grab it and plug it in and I could use it." If it didn't. I'm like, "That's awesome. Put it right here. Someday I'm going to use that in future." And I talked to… James Friel and I talked about because he has a Trello board. He calls his shiny penny Trello board where anytime you have a great idea- Josh: Yeah. I have one of those. Russell: Instead of trying to implement, he puts it on his Trello boards. Keeps your ideas. I think for most entrepreneurs, every idea is like your baby, like "This is the greatest idea of all time." Josh: Yeah. I have a Trello board called Josh's brain. Russell: Oh awesome. This pre Trello because I remember getting a note card. I had three by five note cards and when I had the ideas, I put them in there, I put them there. And somebody I'm going to come back to this and I get ideas and put them there. I kept putting them there either in a note card or somewhere else. And it's crazy. And I fast forward. Man, I think it's 19 or 20 years, I'm doing this now. So whatever it is. Almost two decades. And it's really cool because when I coach people now and this is my inner circle so I have people in here I'm coaching and someone would appear on stage and they're stuck with a problem and they're frustrated. They're like, "I don't want to do this thing." And all of a sudden out of the back of my mind pops up this thing and it comes into my- Josh: Exactly. Russell: I have this thing. I'm like, "Oh my gosh. Where did that come from?" It's because I learned it. Because I read this book here, I saw this thing over here and all these things. And so I think a lot of times we have to understand that learning is fun. So enjoy it. Don't be like, "I'm not going to read because..." Reading is awesome. Read, learn, do those things, but also understand, what is your mission? Stephen Larson talked about this two funnel hiking lives ago. He called it just-in-time learning. It seems like if you are going to read the book you need... I agree with that except for this is a better pastime than watching movies. So let's read, let's study. But having your path, this is my goal, this is where I'm going to go. If you join my coaching program, we're going to talk about what's the first funnel. That's what we focus on. Don't do anything else, just focus on that. You can learn other things, but categorize them or wait until you're ready. And then as you get pieces right. I need that, I need that and figure out the next steps. I think that's how I would do the yin yang of both of those. Because I'm the same way. I'm learning so many things or study things or I find things are awesome that I'm not going to use but someday there'll be someone I come upon that that nugget is going to be the thing that unlocks something for them and they're going to super grateful. So, anyway. Josh: All right. Well man, thank you. I really appreciate you taking the time to do this. This is so much fun. We could talk for hours, but we do have to wrap it up there. We've got a little something to get to, so thank you man. I appreciate it. Russell: No worries. And hopefully all you guys, two things I want to say. Number one, I'd highly recommend reading this book and read through the lens of this. The first time I didn't know where I was going. So I was all over the place and just freaking out. But look at the lens of Faith and Fear of, I don't want to be a drifter. I want to be somebody spiritually, mentally, and physically free. Look at that and start looking at everything he talks about from this lens and just look at it as protections of you that will be there to get to the spot where you're learn 2% or how to keep yourself from becoming a drifter or if you are drifter shift yourself back. And looking at this, because it's this guide book of all the ways that the devil uses to shift you around. And when you're aware of it, man, it makes it so much more powerful. Josh: And- Russell: This is huge. Josh: The thing that I would say we didn't have time to get to it, but I would say too is understand that it's not... If you're religious, understand that there's probably going to be some things that the devil is like, "You don't need God, you don't need me." Some of the things that are going to be in there, like Russell said, 97% is good, 3% is bad. Don't let that prevent you from understanding the value and the power that's in this book because there is so much good stuff in this. And any single time that I've ever had success at anything when I look back, it follows very closely to the principles that were taught here, so anyway. Russell: That's awesome. And then wait until next March to buy my book. Josh: And I will be the number one affiliate. So hopefully you all can be number two, three, four. That's cool. That's going to be super, super cool. So Russell, thank you so much, man. I appreciate it. Love to do it again for The Book of Mormon or something like that and all right. All right guys, that's it. Russell: Thanks everyone. Josh: As always, hustle, hustle. God bless. Don't be afraid to think different because those of us who think different are going to be the ones who change the world. I love you all. See you soon. Russell: Bye everybody. Josh: See you.

Welcome to the first part of a special three episode series! On this episode, Russell and Josh start talking about the book “Outwitting The Devil” by Napoleon Hill. They discuss some of the background of how this book was published, and then go into detail about the premise and the lessons that it teaches. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. So I told you guys a couple episodes ago, I told you about one of my new favorite books, which is Outwitting the Devil by Napoleon Hill. I told you a little bit about the book and why you should read it. I told you I was doing a podcast interview with Josh Forti where he was going to ask me a bunch of questions about the book. We did that and it was really, really fun, and so I'm going to actually... I want to stream that interview to you guys over the next three episodes here on the podcast, and it's fun. The interview went way different than I thought it was going to go, and so I think you're going to enjoy it. The first part we talked about the book and the story behind it, and the breaking down the doodle and explanation, and the difference between faith and fear, some of the basic stuff. The second episode, we start talking about my biggest takeaways from the book and why personal development is important, and then Josh start asking questions about a time in my life when I used faith over fear and stuff like that. The story that came out, most people probably haven't heard this about ClickFunnels crashing and a bunch of other stuff, and so that episode two is going to be really fun for you guys. I'm excited, and episode number three is about my next book, so that was what the interview was about. It was really fun. It was a little over an hour long, and so we decided to break it up into three episodes for you guys, and so that's the game plan. So this is episode one of The Outwitting the Devil interview with Josh Forti, one of three. So when the theme song comes back, we'll cue that up. You'll have a chance to listen to the first one. Make sure you listen to all three episodes over the next week or so because I think you're going to enjoy it. The first one is really cool because you understanding why I'm so excited about this book, the biggest takeaways, but then some practical application, episode two and then episode three, we'll talk about the new book, why, what we're talking about, and a bunch of other cool stuff. So I'm excited. With that said, we’ll queue up the theme song. When we come back we'll jump into the first part of my interview with Josh Forti. Josh Forti: What's up, everybody! Russell: We're back. We're back. Josh: We are back. Russell: Four months, we're back. Josh: We're back. We're back guys. What is up? Welcome back to another episode of Think Different Theory, I'm going to claim this one, episode of Think Different Theory. Russell: And I'll probably also use it on the Marketing Secrets podcast; we'll use it for both. Josh: That's perfect, a dual episode. Guys. We are back. We were supposed to do this last week, but Russell's- Russell: Circumstances didn't allow it. Josh: Yeah. Russell was in a bad mood. So we have to do this, but guys, welcome back today. I'm really, really excited because we are discussing- Russell: One of my new favorite books. Josh: One of your new favorite books, Outwitting the Devil, which you recommended to everybody, the whole world, what? Like three months ago, four months ago. Something like that. Russell: Yeah. I'm shocked when people read it. If you haven't yet, go buy it on Amazon. There's two versions. I got to share this real quick. He'll share that while I'll tell you guys about this. Josh: Perfect. Russell: There's two versions of it. This one's got Sharon Lechter's notes, one doesn't. I'd get the one with Sharon Lechter's notes and oh, I talk to the camera here. Hey, what's up camera. And also you get the audio book. It's awesome. Because in an audio book, you can actually hear the two voices and one voice is the devil. One's Napoleon Hill. And it's amazing. Should I tell the story about the books? Josh: Okay. So actually I want to do that. I actually want to do this because how I want to open this up is, I want to take it back. Kind of take a step back because you've built Clickfunnels and now I feel like you've gone into kind of this new stage. You start reading a bunch of books and then you like geek out on Atlas Shrugged, and then you geek out on the next thing now we're at this book. So back us up, how did you find this book? Where did it come about? And then let's dive into it because I feel like context is important. Russell: Yeah. So, man, a lot of things. So obviously those who've read any of my books. I feel like I'm done. I wrote all the marketing books, I'm out of secrets. That's it. Trilogy is done. Work is finished. It's over. Josh: Guys, we're done with Russell forever. Russell: But then for me it's like, I don't know. I think in any area of life there's a point where you get mastery and it gets harder and harder to find new things. So there's all these incremental things, but there's not a whole bunch of new stuff I can discover, like oh my gosh, ah, freak out. Josh: Right, something about marketing you've never seen before. Russell: Yeah, so it's harder. And so for me, I'm a learner. I'm always pursuing education ideas and things. And so I started just kind of re geeking out on personal development stuff just because I miss it. I'm trying to think about things in my life. And so I was going through a bunch of different things and rereading a bunch of books I read back a decade ago, like Think and Grow Rich. Which by the way, that's kind of ... This Is the first edition printed Think and Grow Rich. Russell: Josh knows I'm kind of a geek with old books. You guys will see why more in about 18 months from now. We're doing some cool things, but this is first edition Think and Grow Rich. Think and Grow Rich was written by Napoleon Hill in 1937. It's the most, outside of the Bible, it's the highest personal development book ever sold. And it's really, really good. And so I was reading that again and then people kept tell me about this other book. And there's a lot of books. Right here, this is Think and Grow Rich, this is the Laws of Success. I'm trying to acquire a first edition Laws of Success, which is, I was telling you it's insane, expensive. Josh: It's crazy expensive. But Russell's over here, geeking out on all the books. Russell: I love old books. Josh: Actually a side note on that guys, the very first time ... So this is back at, I think it was the first or second offer. I can't remember mind lab mind, the big one. Offer mind you spoke at it and you were coming off stage. And I walked out and it was you and Dave and I like ran up to you as you were getting on the elevator. Do you remember this? Russell: Yes I do. Josh: And remember I was like Russell. And I didn't know you hardly at all this time. We kind of knew, basically, we had had some interactions. I was like, I'm trying to dream 100 you, what's a good gift? And you're like old books. Ding, the elevator door shuts. You're on the elevator, I'm off the elevator. And I was like, all right, that's all I have to go on. Russell: And you sent me some amazing old books. Josh: Yeah. Russell: So, very very cool. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Yeah. And so I just, again, I'm kind of going back through and I'm relearning from Tony again and from other people and stuff like that. But then this book keeps coming up and for some reason the title didn't grab me. I was like, Outwitting the Devil, it sounds stupid. I didn't want to read it. It never even crossed my mind as a book I was going to read. It's not something that I would really care about. And then one day I downloaded it on Audible. I download almost all the books I buy physical copies of- Josh: A hundred percent. Russell: I do it Audible too just in case. And I'm one of those kind of people that when I'm in a mood for something, that's why when I travel, it drives my wife crazy. I'll bring a backpack with like 40 books. I don't know what mood I'm going to be in. Russell: And she's like, why don't you bring a Kindle? I'm like, because like paper and I wanted to be able to hold it and see where the bookmarks at. Josh: Yeah, yeah. Russell: And the same thing is true with Audible. So I just download all the Audible just in case. And so one day I was working out, I was trying, anyway. This is a longer story, but I was trying to buy success.com at the time, it ended up falling through. I didn't get it. But Napoleon Hill was actually one of the original, he wrote for success in 1980. In fact, hold, this is kind of cool. This is Napoleon Hill's, he started a magazine. He actually talks about it in Outwitting The Devil. So he started a magazine called Hill's Golden Rule. This is one of the original, this one is from 1919. But anyway, he was also an author in the original Success Magazines back in 1800, I have a whole bunch of copies, actually 1800's and Napoleon Hill's articles in Success Magazine. Josh: Dang, that's so cool. Oh my gosh. Russell: So I had just gotten some of these things. And then one morning I was working out and I was looking at my playlist and Outwitting the Devil popped up. And for some reason I was like, all right. So I clicked it and it start talking about this magazine, talked about Hills Golden Rule, talked about Success Magazine, which I was trying to acquire the time and all these things. I was just like, oh my gosh. And so the very beginning he tells the story, he's kind of telling the story, I don't really know what I was going to go. He's telling this story about his life. And then all of a sudden transitions to this conversation is happening with the devil. Russell: And as you know, you've read it. Josh: It's so good. Russell: It's just like, I started getting like, oh my gosh. Why did nobody tell me about this before this is ... Let me put in perspective, I've read a lot of personal development books. I love Think and Grow Rich. This is so much better than Think and Grow Rich. Josh: It is, I agree with that. Russell: And, do you want me to tell the story behind or do you want to tell? What's the... Josh: Full behind... Russell: Just what the book is, where it came from. This is an amazing story. Josh: I just want to pass it over to you because I have questions about it. So I want to kind of hear things from your perspective here on this thing. I think a lot of people do as well. It's funny though, because when you put this on, gosh, I kind of picked up reading halfway through last year. I made a public declaration when I graduated from high school, I literally, I bought a pickup truck. Russell: I don't read anymore. Josh: And I put down the tailgate, I got up there, I stood up, I held my arms there and I literally yelled audibly out loud. I will never read another book ever again, outside of the Bible. Literally I was so done with reading my mom made us do all this reading in high school. Right. I was like, I'm so done. And thankfully that's not the case. Russell: Do you know what that reminds me of? I got done wrestling my senior year in college and after my last match. I've publicly said I will never run again. And then I gained 60 pounds, now I run. Josh: And now you run. Yeah. Russell: We had a similar experience. We were like- Josh: We'll never do that again. But six months into last year I started picking up reading more or whatever. And actually I've been averaging three books a month this year, which is freaking awesome. But, I'm halfway through. I can't remember what book it was. I see on your Instagram story. And you're like, everybody read this book. Russell: Every chapter, it was like, oh my gosh. Josh: Right. So I immediately go and buy it. And as soon as I finished the next book, I read the whole thing. And I think I read it in two sittings, right? Like the whole day I was like, oh my gosh, this is so good. So I do. I want you to kind of break it down for those people out there that don't know what it is. It is a story of Napoleon Hill interviewing the devil essentially. So I have a lot of questions just after you kind of explain the context of it all, but why don't you just kind of give people some context around what that is. Russell: By the way I spent last little while trying to take the entire book and put it into a framework like I do. So that's what this is back here, we'll talk about this. And some of the things… Josh: We have this here too. Russell: That hopefully serve as a framework for you guys. If you decided to read, here's some stuff to help. But, okay. Russell: So there's the story. So Think and Grow Rich was published in 1937, the next year. And if you've read Think and Grow Rich, there's times in here where he's like having conversations, people would pass away. People died, he's thinking about them and having these, in his head, these conversations that they come into the book. So it's pretty cool. So in 1937, 1938 he writes the manuscript for Outwitting the Devil. Josh: Yep. Russell: And so it's a year later. And the premise of this is literally, he talks about, I don't know if this is a little interview or if this was a physical, just something in my head, but this is the conversation I had with the devil. Josh: Yeah. Russell: And it's less of just an interview, but more like he's putting the devil on trial. He's on trial and he's like, you have to answer my questions. These are my questions. Josh: And the during this time, the devil, I can't remember how he explained it in the book, but the devil is forced to have to tell the truth 100% of the time. So any question that he asked him, he cannot lie. He has to be able to tell the truth. And that's one of the questions in there is he even says, it doesn't matter if you're religious or not. It doesn't matter whether you think it's a metaphor or whether you think he actually sat down and interviewed the devil. No matter what it was, the principles still reign true. Which is why I love the book. And you basically take that element out of it. Don't let that belief get in your way, still read the book. So, yeah. And 1938 is when he wrote the book, but didn't get published in 1938. Russell: Yeah. So imagine, this is one of the coolest stories ever. So 1938, he writes the book and in the book, he actually talks about the devil's like, if you ever publish this, it'll destroy your life, it will destroy your family it will destroy everything, because all the people fighting against this are going to destroy you. And so he finishes this book a year after Think and Grow Rich, has the manuscript. And he's so scared. He never actually publishes it. So he ends up dying. I think in '78, I believe. He passes away. His wife, second person gets the manuscript. She reads it. And she's like, I'm not publishing this. Josh: Yeah. Russell: She refuses to publish it. Later, she passes away. Napoleon Hill foundation gets the book. It gets to them, they read it and they're like, oh my gosh, this is probably the best thing he's ever written. Russell: And then they actually contacted, this is cool. I talked to Sharon Lechter last week. So I called Sharon Lechter. She's right here. Says- Josh: No way. That's awesome. Russell: Right here. Sharon Lechter. So she was probably the fourth person to ever read the manuscript. They sent it to her, what do you think we should do with this. So she says she got it. She sat down and she was reading it. And she's like, this is one of the greatest things ever published. If you don't know Sharon Lechter. She was the one who helped with all of the Rich Dad, Poor Dad books. She was the CEO of the company for a long time. She helped build the biggest financial education company on the planet. And now she's coming over here to this mission and she takes his book and she's the one who takes it, gets the manuscript ready for print. Inside of here's got her notes, which is kind of cool. Her notes taking it from, it was published back in, the last big crash what were the two- Josh: Eight, yeah. Russell: 2008. So she's sharing things in here and how they relate back then, which is kind of cool. But anyway, so she published it. Josh: And it's in the audio book as well, she kind of goes through and comments. Russell: She jumps in. Josh: There's a devil's voice. And then there's Napoleon Hill's voice. And then there's her kind of commenting, which is actually kind of cool through the thing. Russell: Yeah. Josh: Yeah. Russell: It is kind of cool to make it natural or make it kind of tied to the time. But I think even nowadays, a decade later, whatever, it's even more- Josh: Well. Russell: Applicable. Josh: And that's, what's crazy is you read the book and if you didn't know that it was written back in 1938, you'd be like, oh, he's totally talking about right now. Russell: Yeah. Josh: You have no clue he's talking about- Russell: Because some of the references he's talking about Hitler and Mussolini. All of these people and we're like, okay, well, the dictators nowadays are different, but that was who- Josh: Right. Russell: The things that were happening. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Right then in time. Josh: Yeah. Yeah. And just the craziness of fear and economic turmoil and depression. I'm like, huh. Sounds like where we're at now. So anyway. Russell: So that's, the cool story about it. It's just this book that this manuscript has been lost for generations from literally the best personal development author of our time. Josh: Yeah. Russell: And to bring it back. I was just visualizing myself as Sharon Lechter reading that original. Can you imagine just reading the manuscript and be- Josh: Being the first part of the third or fourth person to ever read it? Russell: So insanely cool. So anyway, that's kind of the backstory and then you get into it and it's fascinating. So that's the story behind the book. Josh: That's why you guys have to read it, how cool is that? Yeah, it's super, super cool. And kind of what I'd love to do, I want you to go through, because I think this is important. For the sake of time, I mean, we could probably talk for four or five or six hours on this book. But for the sake of time, the time constraints, I think this summarizes the book super well. Josh: And so I'd love to go through the book. I'd love to see your interpretation of the framework and kind of explain it. And then, it's funny because whenever I go through personal development books, you see everything through the world of funnels and marketing and things like that. I cannot read a personal development book without looking at whether or not the fundamental principles of it are true or what they align with. Right. So they align with Christianity or Atheism or whatnot. So I have questions about, because I'm a huge fan of the book. You're a huge fan of the book. Right. But there's some certain things in here that he talks about that I have questions that I'd love to know your opinion on. So I think if we go through and kind of talk through the overall context of the book here and then kind of pivot towards that towards the end, I think that would be awesome. Russell: Well, one thing to just kind of address that before we get too deep into it. Because I know a lot of people have this fear of reading, anything of what if I don't believe it. Well, I'm not this belief therefore, I can't. And I'm such a big believer in there's truth in most things, I think there's truth in all things. And I can read something and be like, oh my gosh, 97% of this, I believe spot on. 3% I don't really agree with, but I can still appreciate the 97% and love it and enjoy it and be grateful for it. In fact, I do the same thing in my personal relationships, I can talk to somebody I don't agree 100% with. And I still like them afterwards, which is something I think our world needs to learn how to do better. But. Josh: Yeah, even if you lose Bitcoin bets. Russell: Hey, now. Let’s talk about frameworks… That's 3% of him I can’t stand right now. Anyway, okay. So the way my mind works, when I read it ... So I read the book first time and I was just in this whirlwind of, oh my gosh, there's so many things. And I was re listening today as I was working out, trying to ... This is a framework, but there's so many levels and layers and things go deeper and deeper and deeper. So the first time I listened to it, I was just kind of overwhelmed because there's so much good stuff. Russell: And the second time I was going through it, I was like, okay, if I was trying to doodle this to explain to somebody what's the overarching- Josh: Yeah, what's the promise of the book? Russell: The framework. Josh: Yeah. Russell: That's just kind of the way if you've read any of my books, that's how my brain works. I read like 30 books and from there I'm like, okay, this is what I think they're saying. So this is kind of the premise. I'll walk up to the board and kind of show you guys this. But the basic concept is all of us, me, you, anybody. Right. We have a decision comes to us and we've got two choices every single time. And that's kind of where this whole thing starts from. So should I go over there? Josh: Yeah. Yeah. You take my mic too. Russell: Okay, I'm taking mic. So I know you guys can't see this perfectly and this is going to be the words they're all small, so I'll kind of talk through it and hopefully that'll work. So here's me or you. And this is us and we have decisions come to us. They come to us. Am I audio right here? Can you hear it? Cool. So we have decisions all the time. So the biggest thing is, if something comes to us, we can make decisions based on one or two things. Right. We're either making decision based on faith or based on fear. That's it, those are the two things. And obviously, especially in the last year, we've noticed, I think that this has been amplified. Where do most of us make our decisions? I think the way you'll find is that people traditionally make their decisions one way or the other. Russell: Either they make all their decisions towards fear, or all of them towards faith. And so that's something start thinking about personally yourself, as I start thinking about when I'm making decisions, am I doing them through fear or through faith? And I feel like people, not a hundred percent, I think you tend to favor one of these. And it's important because when you start understanding Satan, how the devil is using these as tools, it starts helping you think, I got to start making my decisions differently or else I'm doing what he wants. So I'm going to start on the fear side. So his initial goal is to get people to make decisions based on fear. If he can get that, you become what he calls the drifter. So drift or somebody who's drifting through life- Josh: I'm going to stop you really quick. Russell: Yeah. Josh: Really quick. I'm just going to take my mic back really quick. I think one of the things I want to just cover here really quick, is kind of the premise of how this, even before we dive into this, how this came about. Because in the book, basically Napoleon Hill asks the devil. He's like, Hey, listen, I want to understand what you, as the devil are doing to try to control people. Because in the book, one of the things that he claims, and I guess you have it up here, the 98%. Is that the devil controls 98% of people on the earth by getting them to do drifting, which we'll talk about here in a second. Right? And so the whole premise of this book is basically Napoleon Hill is interviewing the devil and getting the devil to explain how the laws of the universe work and basically how the devil is using those laws of the universe to pull people towards him. And then he also draws contrast of that, of how God uses them to draw people towards God. And so it's basically understanding the laws of success, the laws of the universe, how they work and it's, what is it? The secrets of freedom and success. So if you understand he's asking questions with the specific intention of trying to figure out how the world works, how the devil is using those, and then how we can use those things to ultimately have success if we can figure out how they work. Is that? Russell: Perfect. Josh: Good. Yeah. Russell: Cool. Thank you for adding that. That was awesome pre-frame and I think that ... Hope that works. When you understand that it's like, that is this that's the war we're in every single day, right? I mean, it's every movie. Right and wrong, good and evil. Right? That's the fight. Right? And so the devil here is showing, this is my playbook. This is how I get people to come to my side. And so his side, he calls them drifters. Drifters, people who are drifting through life. They're not ambitious, not doing anything. There's kind of there. And when you're a drifter, he controls you. And he said, 98% of the population he controls by getting them to drift. The first thing does that by initially, decision comes, you act in faith or act in fear. If you act in fear, you are moving down towards being a drifter, okay. Now he starts going through what are the most effective ... Ugh, so good. So many good things. But so he said, how does he get people to act towards fear? So he's like, these are my six tools. I have six tools. Off camera: Are we good on volume? Russell: Is the volume good? Do I need to yell louder? Okay. These are the six tools, the most effective tools I use. I have to get people to act towards. So the first one is poverty. If you can get them to fear poverty, oh, if I do the thing I might could be poor. Then I'm going to be fearful instead of having faith. And, I don't care if I'm poor, I'm going to go for it. Right. So he gets people to fear through poverty. Through criticism. How many of you guys have had a decision to make, and you have fear. Oh, what if people criticize me? That's one of his tools, right? Health. Ah, I don't know if I can do that. Because I'm not healthy enough. Loss of love, old age and death. So those are the six most effective fears that the devil uses that get you to take fear over faith. And he said of those six, the two most powerful are poverty and death. He can get you to be scared of, I'm going to lose all my money. I'm going to be broke. Or, oh, if I do that, I might die. Or, I might not... Those things. Those are the two most powerful tools. So that was really fascinating for me. I look to that because I have so many times in my life when I have decisions, I am scared of criticism or I'm scared of loss of love or whatever those things might be, right. Entrepreneurship. How many times you trying to gamble everything. If you're scared of poverty, right? Then it's like, ah. In fact, I have entrepreneurs all the time. This is a conversation I have way more often than you would think where they're coming to me. And they built the business to a certain point and they're stuck and they're so scared. And the thing that I always had to come back to them, what's the worst case scenario? Because there's a spot where they're so fearful. They can't act and they can't make decisions. They can't do anything. And they just are frozen and they start shrinking right there. You see them going from people who have the presence to be able to take action. Do things. These people are stuck and frozen. And I literally, my conversation I have over and over and over again, it's like, well, what's the worst case scenario. Because if you're not okay with the worst case scenario with poverty, with death, these things. If you're not okay with those, there's no way you're going to have faith to move forward. You have to break yourself of the worst case scenario. And so I see this in my own life. I see it in so many entrepreneurs, coach, I see this as the cycle for them getting to fear. So everyone take a personal reflection. Which one are the ones that you're most afraid of, is it poverty, criticism, ill health, loss of love, old age or death. Josh: And I'm actually just going to stand up here. Because I think it'll be easier. And one of the things that... So what he's trying to do is he's trying to use one of these six things to get you to become a drifter. Ooh, we just moved the screen. That's the key thing. And I'm looking at this camera here. Okay. That's the key thing that he's trying to get you to do is the devil wants you to become a drifter because if the opposite of being drifting is, and it's the characteristics of a non drifter over here, is you have definitive purpose. You have mastery over self, you have a learning from adversity, controlling environmental influence, time, positive thoughts over time. And then thinking through plans before you act on them. So if you have those things, that's the opposite of being a drifter. If he can get you to drift, then you don't have definitive purpose, then you're not actually going after anything. Then you're not going to be able to have control over it. And then he has control over you. And that's the comparison that he keeps drawing in the book, right? If he can get you to drift, then he has control over you. But if you're not a drifter, then guess what? Then he doesn't have power over you. And then you're ultimately going to have success and freedom in life. And so, these are the things that he lays out in the book and it's like, okay, look, if you choose to be a free thinker, if you choose to be someone who is like, this is what we're all about. Has control of your mind. You're going to come into this spiritual, mental, and physical freedom category versus the drifter category. Russell: Yeah. It's amazing. And yeah, I think what... In fact, I almost called this column here, definitive purpose. Because it's so in fact if you read Think and Grow Rich, he talks to the whole chapter about definitive purpose. People who say, this is the thing I want going to go through it. I'm at a definitive purpose. No matter what happens, no matter what obstacles, trials I'm going to go get the thing that's definitive purpose, right? Again, that's the big premise of Think and Grow Rich. And here he comes back to it. Again, I almost made the title of this, but it's not- Josh: I think it fits better. Russell: It does. But it's not an opposite, where this is freedom versus drifting is the opposites. And this is what it actually says in the book. Josh: If we just summarized it as one word drifters versus freedom. Russell: Yeah, yeah. Spiritual and physical freedom. Yeah, because freedom of mind, this whole thing is he trying to control the mind if you control your mind, you win. Josh: Yeah. Russell: And so, yeah. The definitive purpose, that's the number one characteristic of a non drifter is definitive purpose. Right? So, you're coming here. I'm an act. And you're like, oh, I got fear. I got fear. What if, what if, what if they criticize me? And you don't act. Where here you're like I've got definitive purpose. This is my mission. This is the goal. I don't care what happens. I'm going to go for it and you just go for it. And that's where you're acting in faith. I don't know the path. I don't know where I'm going, but I believe in my skillset, I believe in my mission. I believe in my calling. I'm going to go and you start moving and eventually you show up and you end up over here. Josh: Yeah. Russell: So anyway, and then these other ones are all amazing. We can go deeper, but. Josh: Yeah, we can go deeper. And I think we can hold this. This is the same thing. Right? Russell: Okay. Josh: So we can hold up there? Russell: All right. Josh: And that way we can get kind of back to poor Brandon's over there. Brandon's over there like, yeah. Russell: You're ruining my mic. Josh: Yeah. So one of the things I want to dive deep down in on this is specifically on here, you have this thing called hypnotic rhythm. And if I were to do this, as an overview, it's basically, there's a human and then there's the devil. And then there's God, this is basically how he describes it in the book. Right. There's the devil and there's God. And there's the human and the human is going through life and there's the devil pulling for him and there's God pulling for him. Right. And then that person has the choice. Russell: It's like two angels, devil on your shoulder Josh: Yeah, pretty much. Right. And then you have the choice to either choose faith or choose fear, which is why, one of the things that I've been so adamantly kind of fighting right now is, don't live in fear. Why is anybody fearful of anything? And I know that's easy for me to say, because I'm not afraid of death. Right. And that's literally one of the top things that he uses to control the mind. Right. And you look around the world today and everyone's so afraid of dying or it's like, who cares? Whatever. I know where I'm going when I die. But, that's one of the things that I've been fighting so strongly. So, I have a fear and I become a drifter or I have faith and I become someone with definitive purpose and I have freedom ultimately in my life. But there's this thing underneath that is kind of the core crux of what ultimately keeps us there. And it's, I actually have notes on it, but it's this thing called hypnotic rhythm. Russell: It was interesting because he talks about hypnotic rhythm after he talks about drifters. And he's like my goal is to get them into hypnotic rhythm. He says that if you go from routines to habits you have, it's going to be habitual. And they're habitual, they become hypnotic rhythm where you're stuck in this cycle. And he says is that how you control the drifters. That's how the universe controls everything. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Positive and negative. That's why, if you look at the bottom here, it's got the little whirlpool at the bottom for hypnotic rhythm. It's the same thing. So if you have good habits and you're doing things, do you get a spot where eventually it's a pattern that you're just stuck in. It's easier to stay in the 2%. If you're in the 98%, it's easier to stay there too. Hypnotic rhythm serves all things. Josh: And that's the thing I think is so interesting about it is the way that he explains it is hypnotic rhythm is the thing that keeps the world in harmony. Right? And one of the quotes out of the book that I wrote down is nature, which in this particular case he's talking about nature in the form of hypnotic rhythm. "Nature is not interested in morals, as such she is not interested in right or wrong. She is not interested in justice or injustice. She's interested only in forcing everything to express action according to its nature." Right? So when you go into hypnotic rhythm, either positively or negatively, you get into the rhythm of nature, right. And nature is interested. And if you look at it purely from an objective standpoint, he's saying that nature is only interested in making the thing, the object, in this case you do what has been designed to do. So if you're choosing to be in hypnotic rhythm in the spiritual freedom side of things, nature is going to keep you in that. And that's why, it's almost rewiring your whole brain and your whole life for success. It's why successful people continue to have success. And it's why non-successful people do not have success. And I think understanding that and understanding that hypnotic rhythm is, I almost like to think of it as the subconscious mind. Right? Once your subconscious mind goes into the hypnotic rhythm to just do the same thing over and over and over again, it's very, very difficult to escape that. Russell: Yeah. And you see it happen in your life all the time. There's times in my life, when I was wrestling where I had so many routines, so many things where that structure in my life was just, it happens on autopilot because that was what I did. Right. And so it was perfect. I didn't have to everyday figure out, how am I going to be successful? How am I going to have definitive purpose? It become part of me. Right. Josh: Yeah. Russell: It’s something in business, or other parts. I think that it's true. We get these patterns, these ruts, these things, wherever it is. Either positively or negatively, but that's the hypnotic rhythm where that's the goal is to get in those. But in the positive side, not negative side. Because you see it's a downward spiral. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Right. Upward spiral positively or downward spiral negatively. But if you get into hypnotic rhythm, that's the thing that keeps you in that spot. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Does that make sense? Josh: Yeah.

Josh Ruben is an award-winning actor, writer, and director whose feature film SCARE ME - which he wrote, produced, directed & starred alongside Aya Cash and Chris Redd - debuted at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. -- You Made it Weird #210 with Josh Ruben - https://archive.nerdist.com/you-made-it-weird-210-josh-ruben/ -- To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST -- TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: When I need to laugh until it hurts. Like, keep over laugh, my go to source is this one episode of a podcast I like called, You Made it Weird. JOSH RUBEN ON YOU MADE IT WEIRD: Well, the thing about life is one day you'll be dead. I don't know why it's an elephant at the end of everything I say... ZAK: The guy doing the Robin Williams impression is Josh Ruben. And the guy laughing so much is the host of the show, Pete Holmes. JOSH RUBEN ON YOU MADE IT WEIRD: Pete, come downstairs, it's bit time! That was Mrs. Doubtfire... ZAK: You can even hear the engineer in the studio laughing. *Laughs.* ZAK: This is me listening at home. *Laughs.* ZAK: The interview is well over 90-minutes and a huge portion is just like this, Josh riffing on a bunch of impressions. JOSH RUBEN ON YOU MADE IT WEIRD: My name is Leonard Lowe. PETE HOLMES ON YOUR MADE IT WEIRD: Is that the character from Awakenings? How did you pull that? ZAK: We're gonna get to the advice, but first this is my favorite of Josh's impressions. JOSH RUBEN ON YOU MADE IT WEIRD: Yeah, buddy. I'm pretty into photography, actually as an actor... ZAK: Josh, the master impressionist, was kind enough to meet me on Zoom and give me some advice about how to do a good impression. JOSH: The more specific the better. Broad ones stink. Look for that. The weird tongue, lip-smack, shifting of the weight, you know? ZAK: And what do you think makes Jeff Bridges such a fun one to do? JOSH: I think it's the musicality of his voice. Friendly, dopey golden retriever kind of quality about him. And from there, the fact that you can just say anything. Yeah, I hit another man with my car...man. It's just fun to do. Who doesn't love Jeff? ZAK: Yeah, he's such a lovable guy. Buddy. Buddy. JOSH: There ya go. Yeah. Buddy! If you catapult your underbite, you know, your lower mandible on the D, I think that's how to do it. Give it a try. ZAK: Buddy. Buddy! JOSH: Yeah. Buddy! It's almost like you're barfing out the D. ZAK: Buddy! JOSH: Yeah, there ya go. Yeah. ZAK: He's just being nice. I've got a lot of work to do. Josh Ruben is an amazing impressionist. He's also the writer, director and star of the new terrifying and funny movie, Scare Me, is available on demand. And you might know Jeff Bridges was recently diagnosed with lymphoma. I'm sending lots of love his way today. Buddy. Buddy. I love you, buddy. Buddy. Buddy. As always, I want to hear your advice. Give me a call on the hotline at 844-935-BEST.

Welcome to the final segment of this special interview! In this episode you get to hear Russell answer all these interesting questions: Who do you look up to? What is Tony Robbins like? How do you “deal” when things get heavy? What do you sacrifice for success? Is there closure as an entrepreneur? What do you want to be known or remembered for? Russell and Josh chat about all this and much more in the exciting conclusion to this “Atlas Shrugged” interview series. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson, and I want to welcome you, first off, to the Marketing Secrets podcast; and, second off, to the last part of our five-part Atlas Shrugged interview series. The exciting conclusion. At this time, we'd been going for three-plus hours. I was really, really tired. If I sound like I am kind of out of it, it's because I was probably a little bit out of it. We started the interview at 8:00 or 9:00 at night, so this is probably midnight or so. The night before, I had slept three hours. Or, two nights before, it was three-and-a-half... Three hours and 12 minutes. I remember. I wear an aura ring, so I track my sleep cycle. So, the night before, I slept three hours and 12 minutes. The night before this was, like, five hours. So I was tired. I was worn out. But I still had a lot of fun with it. I think Josh is a great interviewer. And I think that we had a lot of fun talking about all this stuff. So, with that said, you guys, hope you enjoyed this interview series. And, when we come back from the theme song, you have a chance to jump right into the exciting conclusion. Part five of the Atlas Shrugged interview. Josh Forti: So, one of the things you talk about in... Well, actually, expert secrets. But I think they mention it... She kind of mentions it in this book, too... is creating belief by looking up to somebody. And, if you can't see it, if nobody else has done it, then it's hard for people to kind of imagine it and ingrain it. Like, for me, I look up at... I'm like, "Who do I want to be like? What business do I want?" I'm like, "Okay, cool." Like you and your books, I want to be like that type of bit here. And then Katie Richards is another one. Being a powerful person, just in general. Okay, like, these are the people that I look up to, and I'm like, "Okay. That's what I'm going towards." So, for you, who are those people? Like, in your life. That you look up to, and you're like, "Okay, that's it." Because I feel like, the higher you get... And, I mean, you're not all the way up the ladder, right? There's still plenty more. But you're way above where the average person is going to get to. The average person has a lot of people they can look up to. You, there's a lot less options, I feel like. Who are those people that you look up to and go, "Okay, that's who I'm trying to be more like," or, "That's where I learned my lessons from." Russell Brunson: Yeah. There's different parts of my life for different people, too. You know? Josh: Yeah. Russell: I look at the business side, I know the companies I aspire to be like. Salesforce, Shopify, HubSpot. Those are companies that are just like the next tier, but from where we are. That they've crossed the chasm, where we're still trying to figure out how to... That next tier. Right? Josh: Yeah. Russell: I think watching them has been... That's when we said we'd go to DreamForce two years in a row, just because I wanted to... And I talked about it, actually, on my podcast. Because when I was out there, it was like... And you need to see it to understand it. Because I remember, when I was wrestling, my dad, my freshman year, took us to the... I had just started wrestling. He took us to the state tournament. I saw this guy on my team win state. And I was like, "That's what I want." Exactly what it was. That'd be my goal. And you see it to do it. So I think for me, those are kind of the businesses that I look up to. People, I mean, Tony... From an influence... Like, people speaking, Tony still, to me, is like... Who's bigger than him, right? Josh: Right, right. Russell: Or better. And the fact I've had a chance to build a friendship with him is really cool, because it's been interesting to see him not on stage. You know what I mean? Like, everyone has a chance to see him on stage, and he's the best in the world on there. But then you see him offstage, and see who he really is. And it's just cool to see that, I don't know, someone who's been doing this for that long, consistently, who still cares, who's still doing this. He doesn't need money, but he still is doing events almost every day of the year, because he wants that. So I think that- Josh: He can stop. Russell: Yeah. And I get it. I have so much respect for that. So I think that's a big thing. Yeah. Just, different areas of life, there's different people. But- Josh: What's it like- Russell: I've tried harder and harder to get closer and closer to him, because I like seeing... I like understanding them, not just from the outside, but understanding from inside. Because it's just a different perspective that you don't get. You know what I mean? Josh: Yeah. What is it it like? What is Tony like? Russell: Honestly, he's like a little kid. We went to his house, and... I can't talk with details, but he had a slide in his house, and he went down the slide with us, and it just... It was really cool. And we had a chance to go with him and do the meditation thing. And the way he served us, when we were with him at his house, you can tell it's how he wishes he could serve everybody. You know? And that just is hard. Like, you saw him... He's in this room serving us, and he's crying, and you see this emotion. And you're just like, "Oh my gosh," like, "he would do this for everyone if he could." But he can't. So that's why you do these big scale things. But it's the best way he can do that. But I think, if he could, he would do that for every single human being he could. It's just really... I don't know. It's cool. There's been a lot of situations, when I've been around him, where he could have not... He could have easily, like, turned it off. You know, but it's sincere. He doesn't turn it off. You know what I mean? And I try to be that way as much as I can. And hopefully you've seen, now with me and my kids? Josh: Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Russell: I try to. And obviously, there's Russell, who's a more introverted, more reserved, and then there’s Russell who’s gonna be like, "Ahh!" But it's still the same... Hopefully. I want to be growing like that. Like, I'd respect him, because he's... In every situation I've seen him, he's always been sincere. Which is not... I can't say that about most people in our industry, and our world. Josh: Yeah. For sure. Russell: Which is unfortunate, because it's just like, "You are..." I remember one time I was in an event, and I heard this guy speak. He was awesome. And he just breaks down crying in the middle of this event, in the middle of the speech. And I was like, "This guy is great." And he got offstage. And he looks at me, and he's like... He said something like, "I pulled out the fake tears again." And I was like, "What?" I remember just feeling like... Ugh. I just felt so sick. How does someone do that and not... He was all proud of it. Like, "Ha," like, "I got them with my..." I just remember feeling so... Just dirty. And I just didn't like that. I was like, "I don't want to be that way. I want to be..." I don't want people saying, like, "Oh, yeah, Russell's different here than here." I don't want people saying that. Josh: Yeah. Like, one consistent person. The same person on and off stage. Russell: Yeah. Josh: There's certain people that... You just know. You meet them, and they're just genuine all the way through. Right? Russell: Mm-hmm Josh: I'm trying to think... Like Catherine Jones, right? For example. She's awesome, right? We had dinner. I had dinner with her, and... Well, God. I had dinner with her, and some friends... Russell: "What am I allowed to say in the podcast?" Josh: Yeah. No, her and some friends, when I was in Utah last. And I've had her as a client. I've watched her speak on stage, in front of... Live. I've had dinner with her. And it's like, it is the same person. Right? Russell: So cool. Josh: And there are people like that. And they're rare. I really do think- Russell: That's what people say. Like, "You never want to meet your mentors, because they're going to disappoint you." Josh: Yeah. Russell: Because of that. Because it's like, "Oh, you put them on this pedestal, and you see them in real life, and you're like... 'Huh. Well. That's disappointing.'" And then it negates all the stuff... That's my biggest thing, is that I don't want somebody who... I gave them something, to help them, and they see me in real life, and it's like, "Oh." It negates- Josh: Yeah! Russell: All you just gave them. Which it does, right? Josh: It really does. Because it takes away the trust factor. Russell: Yeah. And so it's just like... I don't know. Because I think I was nervous meeting Tony the first time. I was like, "What if..." Josh: Yeah, no kidding. Russell: You know? And you see him multiple times, over and over and over, and you're just like, "Cool." It's just neat to see that. Josh: So, what's interesting is, one of my biggest reservations about Tony before... You, and Funnel Hacking Live, was actually the thing that warmed me up to Tony. Because I didn't really know a whole lot... I'd never experienced Tony like I have at Funnel Hacking Live, or anything like that. It's so crazy. You walk into the room when he's talking, and it's like you feel the energy shift. Russell: Nobody on earth has presence like that. Josh: It is insane. Like, everyone tells you about it, but then you don't really believe it until you experience it. And I remember, actually, it was in Orlando. The first time, when he was down there or whatever. And I remember, he came... He was in the room... I was in the room when he entered. And energy, obviously, just like when anybody walks on stage, was quite ramped up. But then he just went into his normal talking. And I remember leaving the room. And, most people, you walk in and you feel it? And I remember opening that door, and shutting it, and like... My whole body shifted. Out of this high energy state, into the low energy state. And I felt like, if I was in that room, I could literally go forever. Right? It was just this nonstop source of energy. But what was interesting about Tony is, Tony doesn't really talk about God. Which is super interesting. Like, I don't know what faith Tony is. And maybe he's talked about it in something about that. And so, for me, one of the biggest struggles that I had... Because, well, growing up, and when I first the house, and when I first got into the entrepreneurship, I, like, really wrestled with God. Right? Especially, you know, going through the death of my brother was actually, ironically, the thing that brought me back to God. But I really, really wrestled with that. And so, for Tony, it was like, he's got all this energy, and he's connecting to this higher source, and he's talking about all these things, but he never... He never ties it to anything. He never gives credit to... Well, in this story I'm telling myself at the time, he's never giving credit to this higher... thing. Like, where does that all come from? And then, the more I got to know Tony... Not personally, but through his work, and through watching his videos, and seeing him at Funnel Hacking Live... I'm like, "I don't know what it is that he believes." I've never sat down... And if I ever get to interview him, I'm absolutely asking him that question. But, whatever that is, I don't think it's possible to be incongruent. Because it's... I don't know! It's not of Earth, almost. It's like you're tapping into something that isn't... In in order to operate at that level, you can't be selfish. Like, you know what I mean? Do you sense that with him at all? Like- Russell: Yeah. And he is, I think... And I'm sure you've seen it before. You talk political, and your audience is cut in half, right? Josh Forti: Yeah. Russell: I think for him, he's traveling such a world-global thing. I mean, Tony is Christian. But it's tough because half the world he speaks to are not Christians. Josh: Right. Russell: And so he... He draws that line, because he doesn't want to alienate people. Because he's like, "I'm here to serve God, and..." Josh: Right. Russell: “God didn’t send me to serve a certain group, it’s to serve everybody.” I think... That's my guess, as to why he doesn't anchor that in as a hard thing. Because his audience is so massive. But he definitely, if you ask him, he definitely knows where it's coming from. You know what I mean? Because, wherever he talks about it, he's... You know, the first time he told me, he's like... It's funny, because I'd experienced this myself, and didn't have words to put to it. Because I come on stage, I have a plan, everything's there. I start talking, and all of the sudden, like, something comes through me? And he's like, "It never comes out the way that I plan, but it always comes out perfect." And he's like, "As long as I follow that, it always just works out perfect." Josh: Yeah. Russell: And I've had so many times where I... Again, I start talking about something, I don't know where I'm going. I'm like, "Why am I talking about this?" And then all of the sudden, it's like, "Oh, wow." And there's somebody... Like, that was the thing that- Josh: Connected it. Russell: Shifted it for them. You know what I mean? And I think the more that you tap into that, the more... Again, it comes back to what I talked about before, like, where you do that... God's giving you this thing, and if you have stewardship over it, and you use it, he'll give it to you more and more. And Tony, now, who's been doing it for 40 years... Josh: It's actually super interesting you say that. So, literally, every Tuesday, I meet with Katie. Right? And we have our one-on-one call, and we talk for an hour. And one of the topics of conversation was, I was like, "Katie..." We were actually talking about getting ready for this interview. I was like, "I don't feel nervous. At all." Right? And I'm like, "And I'm getting so many texts and DMS or whatever, like, 'Oh my gosh, are you nervous? What if you mess up?'” And, so many… So many different things, right? And I'm like, "I don't feel any of that. I feel like this is just like, 'All right, cool. I'm flying out to Russell. We're gonna hang out. It's gonna be great. We're gonna go.'" And I'm like, "So, why is everybody else telling me I should be nervous? Right? Like, why is that a thing?" One of the things that she said was like, "Being who you are, being your person, knowing yourself, and, like, doing this..." But one of the things that we talked about was some of the things that you have to accept by faith. And I was really wrestling with this idea of, like, "Am I supposed to be prepared?" Am I? Russell voxed me and was like, "This is the first interview he's ever prepared for." I'm like, "I just read the book. I don't have any notes prepared for him! I'm just gonna show up and talk, right? That's what I do." And she's like, "But that's your superpower. That-" And sometimes you have to just have faith. And she's like, "You prepare 80% of the way, and leave the 20% up to God." And she's like, "And most people are not going to understand that. And, for a lot of people, that's going to freak it out." But she's like, "How many times have you prepared something 100%, you knew every word you were going to say?" And I'm like, "Very little." She's like, "Well, think back to one of the times that you did." I'm like, "Okay," and she's like, "How'd it go? I was like, "Well, terrible! Literally. It was some of my worst presentations. The most prepared I come, the biggest it'll flop." Right? And she's like, "And the least you prepare sometimes, you just walk in confidently and you do your best, turns out amazing." Yeah. Because that's what Tony's talking about, like, "It just comes over you." It's like, if you have faith that, when you show up and become... You are the best version of yourself. You show up the most prepared you can be. And you just fully embrace that, and have faith in the rest? God, the universe, whatever you want to call it, I feel like it just works the rest of it out. You know what I mean? Russell: Understood. Yeah. That's why, before I do anything, I pray before. I prayed before this call. Or, what's it called? Before this interview, before I step on stage every single time. Because a big part of it's like... Without that, what good are your words? You know what I mean? If you're doing it with the Spirit, with God... Whatever you want to call it, you know? For me, it's the Spirit. If you're with the Spirit, then it'll touch people, in a way that you can't just by your words alone. And so I always ask that, and I look for help. And I remember, I think Steven Larson, the first time he was working for me, we did our first event in the room over here. And I remember, before I would do the events myself, he started working for me. And I was in the back here. And I was saying a prayer, and he walked in. He's like, "Oh, sorry!" He's like, "That's cool." I'm like, "What?" He's like, "You pray before you go out there." I was like, "Oh, yeah. I'm not going out there by myself!" Like, you know? I'm not that good. So, I need help, and it shows up when you... pray. Josh: All right, I have two questions that I want to ask you, before we kind of go to rapid-fire, to kind of bring this to a close. I don't know. We could probably go all night, but... Russell: You just want us to keep going all night? Or you want us to go to bed? Josh: How much longer do we go for? Are you guys liking this? Comment down below. Let us know. Give some feedback. Do you like it? Do you not like it? What are your thoughts? We've been going for about three hours. And I figured, at least, it was going to go at least this long. Russell: I guarantee there's going to be some of you guys who are like, "I agree with everything," to be like, "I agree with half," or to be like, "I don't understand what they're saying. I agree with nothing." So- That's okay. There's nothing... Again, our goal was not to motivate, was not to try to convince you guys of anything. That's not my goal. Our goal was to flesh out these ideas, and hopefully you guys come on the journey, and get some cool ideas from it, and see how perceive life. I think what's fascinating is everybody has such a different perspective on life. And so many times, when we hear somebody else's perspective, we get offended. And it's like, "What if you didn't get offended, and just listened to their perspective?" And maybe you don't listen to everything, but you're like, "Oh. I'm going to take that, and that. Those are two things that were really cool for me." Just don't pay attention to the rest of it. Right? Because I'm sure, if you paid attention to everything that we both said, you probably got offended at least 12 times. But if you're just like, "I'm just going to take the gold that's good for me, and then leave everything else on the side," you got a dozen amazing things that you can use, hopefully. So. Josh: All right. And so my next question is, who are you voting for? No, I'm just kidding. Russell: Ugh. Actually, last year, I don't... Four years ago... So, I'm a big Jack Bauer fan, and I bought "Jack Bauer for president" shirts. And then, that whole day, I was Instagramming and Facebooking, "I'm writing in Jack Bauer! I'm writing in Jack Bauer!" And I would have if he was a real human. But, anyway. Josh: That's funny. Who was I just... Oh, Leah, I was talking to her on the way, as we were driving to the airport. We were talking about Joe Rogan. And, because Joe Rogan is... It's so funny, because people... Like, Trump retweeted one of his tweets. And Joe Rogan's a big liberal, right? Like, he even said he was going to vote for Bernie, before Biden became the nominee. And so I feel like a lot of Trump supporters, are like, "Yeah, Joe Rogan's a Trump fan!" Like, Joe Rogan is not a Trump fan. That's not at all what it is. And so we were like, "Well, who do you think he's going to vote for?" And I was like, "If I was a betting man, I would bet that he votes for Kanye. That he wrote him in." Because he does this three-hour interview. And Kanye answers... If you watch the interview... I mean, I know it's three hours of your time, and you'll probably never get to it. But it is a fascinating interview. And he asked... Because he keeps trying to bring Kanye back to like, "If you were president, what would you do?" Because Kanye is like, "I'm going to be president. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when," right? Like, "If I don't win this year, I'm going to for sure win in 2024." Kanye, I love your confidence. But anyway, so, Kanye answers these questions completely differently. And so, anyway. I don't want to run with that. But, my real question for you... So, you can go long on these, or we can go rapid-fire questions on them. Either way. Atlas Shrugged. Got the world on his shoulders. You feel that. How do you deal with that responsibility? Because I'm sure there's been times, I know in my own life, with my three to five little people that I'm managing, and some contractors, I'm like, "Oh my gosh! If I have to take one more thing, I'm just going to explode!" Right? Like, if we don't... So how do you, how do you deal with that pressure, and not... One of the things that I've had to learn how to do is, I don't know if anger is the right word, but deal with not taking out my frustration on somebody else. Right? Like, God bless Leah. She knows me super, super well. And like she knows the moods where it's like, "Don't ask him a question." Like, "Avoid it, and let him cool off," because if you say the wrong thing right now, I'm just going to inadvertently take it out on her. And I've had to learn how to balance that and communicate that. How do you deal with all that pressure, and still... You've got 400 people looking up to you. I know you don't talk to them everyday, but that's a lot. Russell: Yeah. That's just employees. And you have the community, and... Josh: Right. Russell: Yeah, it gets heavy. A lot. And I think it's funny, because, as you read the book, you know, Atlas Shrugged and walked away from the thing... Josh: Right. Russell: And I think for me, I don't want to walk away. You know what I mean? I don't think... That's a big thing. And I think, because the first part is, I was thinking about it, that... Because I'm a big believer that this, for me, is a calling. It's a mantle. This is what I've been called to do at this time in my life. And since, as heavy as it gets... Like, man, think about other people in a different time who had to carry a burden they didn't want to lift, right? There's tons of them. So I think about that a lot. I reached out to other people who were producers, who I know have heavy... You can ask Garrett White. Every time I'm stressing out to the max, I text Garrett, and I'm like, "Hey, man. Life's heavy. Just thinking about you." And he always sends back something about, like, "Dude, do you realize how you've changed my..." just things like that, that just... It's just like, "Okay, it's worth it. Thank you." And then, in Voxer, whenever someone voxes me something, it's like, this success story of, like, "Dude, just so you know, blah, blah, blah." And on Voxer, you can star things. So I have a whole starred menu of all the people that have told me how the fact that I'm carrying this has changed their life. So I'll listen to those, and I'll listen to four or five or six of them. And eventually, when I hear those things, it gets lighter. And so that's a big thing, for me, is just that... Dave, one of my... I'm not sure if Dave's still here or not. But Dave's one of my best friends. Josh: Is he still here? Russell: No. Josh: Dave. Russell: One of my favorite humans. Yeah. And now he's... Anyway. You know, he's carrying a lot of pressure, now, too. Dave... I don't know if you knew this... Dave is the CEO now of ClickFunnels. He's taking over a huge part of my responsibility. And he's carrying out- Josh: Oh, he's into the CEO role? Russell: Yeah. Josh: Or, is he? Or he's moving into it? Russell: He is. Officially, now, yeah. Internally. And he's... Josh: Congratulations, Dave. Russell: And, looking back now, something I should have done five years ago. He's so much better than me at... Than I am. But I see him, I see Todd, I see that people on our team who are carrying weight. And having other people that you're doing this with, besides yourself, helps a lot. So I think that's a big part of it, too, is just... I don't know. If it was just me, like that, eventually I think I'd shrug and walk away. But I know that there's a dozen other people all holding that up as well, and that helps a lot as well, because you know you're not in it alone. I always tell Dave, I'm like, "Man, if I was going to war, I would bring you. Just because I want you in the trenches with me. You know what I mean?" And knowing that I'm not in it alone helps a lot. So I think a lot of times, it's those things. When you're where, when you're doing it by yourself, that's when it gets hard. I try to not... And I think our default human thing is to isolate, and take the pressure and pain. And just for me, as an introvert, I'd rather isolate. But I try, specifically when it gets heavy, just to, like, "Okay, I can't isolate, or I'm going to just get crushed." Josh: Yeah. Russell: And I reach out, and that helps me a lot to be able to sustain stuff. Josh: Next rapid-fire question, if you will. Success takes sacrifice. So, in managing ClickFunnels, obviously you love it. But what things are you not able to do, or do you wish you were able to do more of, that you are not able to because of the role that you play in ClickFunnels? Russell: Yeah. Stuff like this. I feel bad. There's so many people who ask for podcast interviews and things like that. People that I would love to do it with, but just there's not enough time. I miss... When we were first growing ClickFunnels, and starting it, I just remember coming in in the mornings, and being like, "What should we do today?" And thinking about it, and brainstorming. I miss that part. Now you come in, and it's like, "All right, there's 8,000 things you got to do." And it's like, "Okay," and I miss those parts of it. I don't know, I miss... Not being able to turn it off, but I think... I don't know, it would be nice... I think it's Alex Charfen, I'm thinking about. Like, "You don't want to run off into the white wood." There's times where... And this is dorky. This is the cheesiest thing. Remember watching the last... Endgame? Avengers Endgame. Josh: Oh, yeah. Russell: And, at the end, when Iron Man dies, and... What's her name? Pepper Potts. When she's like, "You can rest now." I remember hearing that, and I was just like... I actually started crying. I was just like, "I feel like I want to rest sometime. I don't know how, or when, or-" I desire that. I don't know how, because there's so much stuff and so many things. And I think, I don't know, I long for that moment. Where it's just like, whatever the... Like at the end of the Bootstrap book. I don't know where or when that happens, but- Josh: Right, yeah. Russell: If there's ever a time where it's just like, "Oh. We did it." Like, it's weird, because in wrestling, there was a thing where you get your hand raised, and then you get to rest. Business, I haven't found that. Like, it's just this constant thing. Where you have victories and stuff, but you never... Again, wrestling is like, you'd cut weight a week, you'd train, you'd practice, and you'd go out there, head-to-head. You wrestle. You get a hand-raise, you go out to eat, and you relax. You sleep that weekend. Monday, you get back to work. I don't feel like, in business, there's ever been that. Like, "Ah." Josh: Do you think it exists? Russell: I don't know. I assume when people sell a business there's some of that, but most people I know that have sold a business... It's harder. Because it's like someone else is taking your thing that your identity is tied to. So that scares me too. And so I don't know. That's something, I don't know if it's like... Is it when I die that I'm like, "Ah." Like Iron Man? I don't know... I don't know. Some day. I desire that. I don't know how to get it, but that's something I'm looking at. How do you get that? How do you get that release you get, where you're just like, "Ah, I did a good job." I think Funnel Hacking Live is probably the closest to that? Josh: Yeah. That's what I was thinking. Russell: Right after it ends? But then also, sometimes... Like two years ago, and it's semi-controversial, and I got blown up for, like, three or four days. And I remember I was like, "This sucks!" Like, "I just killed myself, and now I'm defending myself for three days because of some other speaker who said something that I wish they wouldn't have, but they did, and..." And, yeah. Some of the things like that are hard, but, huh. Anyway. Josh: Are we having Funnel Hacking Live this year? Or, next year, I guess? Russell: Some version of it, yeah. We're in a contract battle with Nashville, where we've done it the last two years. I was just to go there again this year. It typically takes us nine months, for Funnel Hacking Live. Obviously, because of everything, we haven't. We're three months out from when it was supposed to be, and there's no way I can fill it in time. Plus, I don't think we were going to come do there. And so we're trying to push that contract for another year, and then doing a hybrid, something in between. So far, we haven't even got the contract, which is... Anyway. So, something will happen. And I'm dying to not announce it yet, because I don't have finality yet. But some version of Funnel Hacking Live- Josh: What? You mean you can't break something right here, live, at- Russell: I've tried my best! To- Josh: 1:00 in the morning, Eastern time? Russell: We'd love to do some kind of hybrid... Something. Essentially, because I spoke at Tony's thing, where he had the big internet… Josh: Yeah. How was that? Russell: It was really cool. And hard. Because, at first, you come out, and you're in this room, and there's faces everywhere, like, "Ah! That's amazing!" But you're speaking at an event. You shift, and you're looking at different people, which is fun. Here, if you look at people, it looks like you're talking like this. So you have to look at the camera. So, you have a million faces everywhere, and you have to look right here? And you can't- Josh: Oh my God! Russell: And everyone's doing weird things, and so it's kind of hard. Because you're like, I have to look here, or else it looks like I'm not connected to you. But there's so much happening that I want to... It was- Josh: Oh. That's crazy. Russell: It was almost... I don't know if "Dizzy" is the right word, but something that we were just like... It was different. It was hard to get used to. But, anyway, he's building a new place that's three times as big. We're just going to have a hybrid, where half is at... half's the stadium. He said something interesting. He's like, "This year is the year of virtual. Next year is the year of hybrid." So I'm trying to figure out our version of that. And I don't know what that is yet. Josh: Hybrid being part live, part... Russell: Yeah. Yeah. Because I never wanted to make Funnel Hacking Live virtual, ever. Because… it’s this thing. But I also want to make it... Yeah, anyway. So, I'm hoping. I'm hoping the next couple weeks have some finality on that contract, so we can start the next... Whatever the process looks like. So it'll be some version of 2021, for sure. Josh: Cool. Russell: Where people who want to travel will be able to travel. Josh: All right. Awesome. Two more questions. Russell: Okay. Josh: One: what is one thing that people don't know about you? What's a Russell Brunson thing that is a pretty defined part of who you are that people don't really know? Russell: I'm public about everything... Josh: Are you, though? Russell: I don't know. That's a good question. Have you learned anything by me since you've been here in our... Josh: Yeah, a couple of things. Russell: Really? Josh: Yeah. A couple of things. Yeah. More from your wife, though. Yeah. She's told... Russell: She's telling you all the good stuff. Josh: Also, your kids are fascinating. Russell: Yeah. Josh: Yeah. I talked to them for probably 10, 15 minutes. Russell: My kids are the coolest. I think my biggest fear in life is that I am not going to be the dad that they need. You know what I mean? I don't know. He's going to be like... I don't know. Being a parent's way harder than I thought I was going to be. I thought I was going to be amazing at it. I'm like, "I can influence thousands of people at once," but the person you care about and love the most? And same to my wife. I think those are my biggest fears. I don't want to mess up the family. And it's weird because, again, it's like all my super powers are like my kryptonite in a family. You know what I mean? Josh: Yeah. Russell: And so I think I struggle with that a lot of times, where it's just like, "Nah, I'm such a good communicator." I think. Communicating messages. And I struggle communicating with people I love the most. So I think that's it, I think. I am scared to death of cats and dogs. I will not touch them. Josh: Really? Russell: Yeah. I won't touch any animal. They're disgusting to me. And I'm allergic to cats, but the way it came about is, when I was in high school, the girl I was dating, she had a cat, and they went out of town. She's like, "You can watch my cat." And I was like, "Okay." So I came in, and the cat's rubbing against me, so I was petting it, because I'm like... I'd never had an animal before, right? And I'm petting it. And my eyes swole shut. For three days. Three days later, they finally opened again, and the white part was all blood-red. And I don't trust animals since then. You can watch me. My in-laws have cats. I walk in the house, and I stand there. I won't sit on the couches, because I'm like... Because I break out an allergies. If like a dog runs up to me, everyone... You'll see I've kind of turned my... Like, "Don't touch me." Anyway, I don't like animals. Unless you can eat them. So there's something people probably don't know about me. Josh: There you go! Who would've guessed, who would've guessed. All right. Last question. Final question. And I asked this to you... I think I have asked this to you before, but now we're here. We're in person. And we're going to talk. I want you to fast-forward to the end of your life, when you are on your deathbed, and I want you to... All your money, and success, and fame, and influence it's all gone. But you've influenced a lot of people. And you get to leave them with a final message that kind of defines... not what you took away from life, but like the message that you feel like you should put on to some... Pass on, for generations to come. What would you want to be defined by? What would you want that message to be, for people to remember you by? Russell: Cool... And I'm hoping... Honestly, my biggest hope. I'm hoping that when we die, we go to our maker. I'm hoping that we get a glimpse of what our life actually did. You know, like the ripple effect? Josh: Fascinating. Russell: You know It's A Wonderful Life? Josh: Yeah. Russell: When he sees what it was like, before and after? I'm hoping all of us get that experience. Because you have no idea what you're actually doing with it. But I'm sure what we're all doing is... Anyway, I'm praying that we get that moment, because that would be... Anyway. I think my message that I- Josh: That would be so cool. Russell: Yeah. Can you imagine that? Josh: Yeah. That'd be wild. Russell: Yeah. Josh: We need to do a podcast just about our faith. That'd be cool. That'll be our next one. Russell: Okay. That'd be fun. Josh: Next one, I'll fly out here for, and we'll just do it, just about- Russell: That'd be fun. Josh: Just about God, and faith. All right. Russell: That'd be fun. But I think for my message, I would leave it as, I think that... Again, just to tie back to what we talked about initially, I think a lot of us start these businesses, or start whatever we're trying to do, whatever we're called to do, you start initially out of greed, right? It's natural, man. We have these desires that make us want to do stuff, right? And I think for me, when I first got started in this business, I just thought it was to make money, and all these kind of things. And I saw, even when it started having an impact, I mean, "This is cool, this is cool." But it wasn't until... I had a coach a few years ago. She's amazing. And I remember she asked me about what I think God thinks about my business. I'm like, "Why would He care about this?" He cares about how I'm living my life, and I'm keeping to the Commandments and stuff, but why would He care about this?" She's like, "Don't you see it?" And I'm like, "See what?" She's like, "You don't see what He's... Who you've become? His hand in your life?" And it never had crossed my mind. And she started helping me understand, like, "This thing that you're doing is not just to make money. This is a calling. This is literal... This is a calling. You were called of God to do this thing, and the ripple effect, and people's lives you're changing... Even though you're helping people to start businesses, build funnels, it seems like it doesn't matter, but it does. Because it frees people, and then they can change people's lives. And the ripple effect is huge." And she helped me understand that day, in such a profound way, that just these things that we're doing, it's a literal calling from God. I think if I was on my deathbed, I would want people to know, like, when you feel that tug, or that nudge, that thing that starts you on this journey, that's not just like, "Oh, it'll be fun. Oh, I'll make some money," or whatever. It's literally God giving you something. This is your stewardship. Do something with it. See what it is. I think, if you realize that... Since I've realized that, it's been different. Now that I know that, it's like, "Okay, I'm going to run as hard as I can. Because this is not just an idea I had. This is a gift." And it's like these tests, like, "What am I going to do with this?" And then when you look at it from that lens, it's like, man, you can do and create... You have more faith in yourself, because it's not yourself, right? I get scared every time I get on stage. I got nervous before this. Like I get... "You're probably confident, because you're on the stage in front of 35,000 people." No! I freak out in front of, like, 20 people! I get so nervous. But I'm like, "I know that I can do it, because this is a calling that was given. And He's not going to give me something that I can't do." And so I think that, if I could help people understand that... I don't know the right way to articulate it, but I think if everybody understood that, how real that actually is, it'd make you run harder, make you work harder, and make you braver, and make you have more courage, more... All the things you need to get that message out. Because you were called. It is a literal calling. And you're probably not worthy of it yet? Like, when you get it, you're not worthy. Like they say, "He qualifies, so he calls," right? You're not qualified right now, but the act of you moving forward is what qualifies you, and what prepares you for the calling. And I think that, if people understood that, man, people would focus so much less on themselves and on their situation and just, like, "All right. Here's the baton. Run." Right? Josh: Yeah. Russell: You're now gonna start running. And you would do it with perfect faith, because you know it's from somebody beside yourself. And I think if people understood that and believed, it would change everything. Josh: Russell. Thank you so much, man. Russell: Yeah, man. Josh: This was so much fun. Russell: It is fun. Josh: I'm so glad we were able to make this happen. Russell: How long do we have to do... Where are we at? Josh: We're at three hours and 18 minutes. Russell: Dang. And we're still here? Josh: Three hours 20 minutes. Yeah. Russell: Dang, a lot of people still here. Josh: Yeah. I've got... Yeah. Quite a bit. Russell: Thanks for having me, man. Thanks for coming all the way out here for this. It was cool. Josh: Yeah. Of course. Yeah. And- Russell: Oh, and we have the comments now. Josh: What do you guys think of the interview? Yes? Good, bad? Thumbs up? Rate it! On a scale from 1 to 10. On a scale from 1 to 10, give us a rating. 1 to 10. Russell: "I used to think Russell was cool, but now I think he's crazy," or, "I used to think Russell was crazy, now I think he's cool." I'm good with all those things. I'm just curious. Josh: Russell, God bless you. God bless your wisdom and mission. Look at this. Thank you so much. This is amazing. Russell: Smileys are here. What's up, Smileys? Josh: Let's go, let's go. What's up, James Smiley? Great stuff. Awesome. I love it, I love it. I could do... A 1000. We got a 1000 out of 10. Russell: Dang! Josh: That's pretty darn good. Russell: It is really good. Josh: 12? 12 out of 10. Russell: Oh, so fun. Josh: Brent? what's up, man? All right, we're going to have to do this again. Sometime when we can sit down and talk about God. That one, we're really gonna have to get prepped for it. Oh, do you know Nick Robbins? Russell: Not off the top of my head. Josh: All right. He's kind of in the ClickFunnels world? He ran an agency, sold it, but still remained a partner, and then got bored, and then came back into it? Anyway. So he and I had, I think, a three-and-a-half-hour conversation about God. So, it's interesting, because he and I actually have a lot of similar beliefs, but he doesn't believe in God. So he's like, "Yeah, I think there's something out there, and it's something intelligent," or whatever. And so we had a... He uses language. And I don't, typically. And so we had all this big, long, huge debate. So, and we've gone there and said that. Russell: That's fun. Josh: Yeah. So. Russell: I think one of the most fascinating conversations I ever had was with Howard Berg, the world's fastest reader? That guy's, like, 30,000... Josh: Yeah. Oh, that's right! He came here, didn't he? Russell: Yeah. A couple of times, since we've hung out. He's read 30,000 books. I was like, "I can ask this guy any question I want." And so I asked him. I was like, "What's your opinion on God?" And I remember he told me, he said... Because, again, religion usually causes fights. Because, like, "Well, I believe-" you know, and it's so cool, because he's like, "Well, most people read one book, and then they base their belief in God on this one book." He's like, "I've read..." I can't remember what it was... "Like, 1,200 books on God, from every perspective." And he's like, "Based on that, this is what I believe." It was just so cool to see that, I think. And I feel like all of us, instead of us being like, "This is my way, this is my way." It's like, just hear... Even if you completely... I completely disagree with so many people's opinion, but I still hear it. Because, again, why do they believe that? There's something. There's a reason why they believe that. I want to understand that. And, anyway. And it's just so interesting. Josh: That's my big thing. My big thing is like... And that's one of the hardest things, for mem is figuring out... My beliefs are always changing. That's probably reason I started the podcast. I just wanted to talk to people. Right? Like, if I'm wrong... I'm so excited whenever someone comes in and is like, "You're wrong, and here's why!" And I'm like- Russell: "Sweet!" Josh: "Oh my gosh! Thank you so much! I know what I'm onto next! Yes!" Right? Where everybody else is like, "I don't want to be wrong. What are they-" I'm like, "If somebody comes in and proves my idea wrong..." Like, my ideas are pretty thought-through. And I'm a really thought-through person. I know why I believe what I believe, not just what I believe. Right? So if somebody can come along and challenge that? That's one of the things that is so attractive to me about Leah. Leah was smart. She challenged even beliefs that she maybe even agreed with. She'd play the devil's advocate, and change, and challenge it. And I'm like, "that's what I like. I want to grow and expand like that." So, anyway. Russell: Yeah. That's awesome. Josh: We'll have to come back and do that, so. All right. Russell. Thank you so much, man. Super, super appreciate it. Guys, as always. Hustle, hustle. God bless. Don't be afraid to think different. And who knows? You might just end up in a chair next to Russell Brunson. So, that'd be awesome. Guys, as always, hustle, hustle. God bless. Don't be afraid to think different. Those of us that think different are going to change the world. By using funnels! And other stuff. Russell: Yeah! Josh: I love you all. And I will see you on the next live stream episode. Take it easy, man. Russell: Bye everybody. Josh: Peace!

Welcome back to the 4th part of this interview series. We are getting near the end and the topics keep getting more interesting. In this episode you hear them talk about the influence their parents had on their lives in business. If they feel misunderstood as entrepreneurs and how their ability to communicate might be able to change that. Russell explains how he realizes that Clickfunnels is a team effort and that’s what help him stay so grounded. Then they discuss what each liked most about the Atlas Shrugged book and what character they each associate with most. So tune into part 4 of this exciting interview! Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- What's up everybody, this is Russell. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. All right. I hope you guys have enjoyed the first three. We are moving into the fourth episode of our interview. My interview with Josh Forti talking about Atlas Shrugged. Again, during this series, we've been talking about religion and politics and all the things you're not supposed to talk about, but we've done it all through the lens of Atlas Shrugged, which I hope you've enjoyed and had a lot of fun with it. Hopefully it's made you want to go and actually read the Atlas Shrugged book, which I think would be really, really cool. With that said, I’m going to queue up the theme song. When we come back, you have a chance to start listening to part four of my interview with Josh Forti. Josh Forti: So, what did your parents do right for you? One of the things that I try to say, I try to say it a lot but I don't even say it enough. My parents have played a absolutely tremendous... I owe so much of who I am today to my parents indirectly in a lot of ways. My parents didn't teach me about money or things like that. That wasn't their gift, but the principles of hard work and family values, biting your tongue, even though it doesn't seem like I bite my tongue. Oh my gosh. Every day, right? Russell Brunson: It could be worse guys. Josh: Right. It could be way worse. Some people would love that, but you know, deescalating situations and having those... I owe so much of who I am to those. Yeah, they messed up in a lot of ways like you said, but what were some of the things that your parents did right? What are the things that you remember from your parents? Russell: Yeah. I love my parents. I was very blessed with my parents, for sure. I don't think my dad was super engaged when we were younger just because he was in the phase where, like trying to figure things out and make money. It was different back then. Josh: Is he an entrepreneur? Russell: Yeah. He also had a job, but he did side business so he was always trying to figure things out. I saw him doing these things. I saw the job he didn't love and then I saw him doing stuff he did love and I watched him work really hard. Then when I started wrestling, I saw my dad... That became the thing that me and him connected with which meant the world to me and it was so important to him. What's cool was that my dad showed up to every wrestling practice. He came to every single match. His day job was State Farm insurance, he built up his book of business where by the time I was wrestling, he was able to take off as much as he wanted. It ran itself and he was making money and had residual income. I remember my dad was the only one, as soon as wrestling practice got done, my dad would walk in and we would do practice afterwards. Never missed a match. He was always there. I remember just thinking, I want to make sure I have a business or something like my dad was for me. That was so important to me. Like I said, he wasn't super around when we were younger and I think he struggled because of the younger kids, which I understand. That phase in my life, he was there and my best friend and it was just, it was awesome. I love that and I've been trying to have my kids now. Especially at times where maybe I wasn't as good of a dad, I was too busy. I'm trying to connect more. That was my dad for sure. Then my mom, for me she was just... I wouldn't say I'm a people pleaser but I'm very much an achiever. I think when I started wrestling and I saw my dad got closer to me and then I got a win and I saw him get excited, I wanted to win because I wanted to impress my dad. To this day, I think I still have that. Part of the reason I'm in this business and I'm doing stuff is I love when my dad sees it. There's something, I love impressing him. To this day I love that win. With my mom, she loved me even when I didn't win. that was something that was so foreign to me. I remember I'd be cutting away for wrestling, I hadn't eaten for three days. I'd be so tired, so miserable. She'd come down and sneak in my room, bringing me food. I'm like, "Mom, I can't eat. I'm not going to make weight." She's like, "Why don't you just quit then? You don't need to do this." She was the opposite of my dad. She loved me no matter what and didn't care that I was trying to win or succeed. Couldn't care less. She loved me just because I was me. That was weird but so cool as well. It's both those principles, it's something I've tried to weave in. I've got two different sides I'm trying to weave that into my kids. Again, so far from perfect, but I think those are the two things that meant the world to me, that I'm super grateful for them those things for me because I still remember those things now. Josh: So there is... Which by the way, that's awesome. There's a lot of people in this world that are growing up without a dad, without a mom. It's interesting because I think a lot of my social media posts, I kind of come across sometimes like the heartless a-hole, you know what I mean? A little bit, they're like, "Josh!" You know what I mean? You talk about, take personal responsibility for your life, everybody can do anything. If you're broke it's your fault, that's one of my favorite sayings. If you're broke in America it's your fault, right? They're like, "Josh, you don't understand. You grew up and your parents are still married. Not only do you have parents, they're still together and they still actually love each other." It's not even necessarily they're still together. You're like a percentage of the percentage of the percentage in a lot of ways. I don't even know what question I'm asking you, but what would you do? Where could somebody find that? What can we do as a society or just as entrepreneurs, as producers to help those people? I feel like that's a really big need. Russell: For sure. Josh: One of my big struggles with this is I always want to point it back to the church. I had a really awakening, come-to-Jesus moment back when I posted, this is probably a month ago or so. I posted it on Instagram actually. I think you liked it, actually, so I know you saw it. I said, "Defund the media, defund fear, defund career politicians. Fund orphanages, churches and schools." I posted it on Facebook and I posted it on Instagram, and I was shocked at how many people were like, "Dude. Fund the churches? They're a bunch of pedophile people there too." So many people had such this negative view of the church. I grew up in the church, that's what I knew. How I knew how family works is because I saw our own family and then I saw the church family and I saw the community and how the church was involved in the community. The church that I went to, after I moved out Grable, Indiana, I worked three doors down from it and that's where people went to vote was in their gym. And the fair, that's where people parked. The church was such an integral part... that word, a part of the community. So when I saw all these people that had this negative view of the church, that broke my heart because that was my solution. There are so many things. Like, if you don't have a dad, you can go to the church. If you don't have this, you can go to the church. Said, "What?" If that's your answer, that's cool, but how can we as producers of society and the people that are going out there and making the money, how can we help those that don't have what you and I had? Russell: It's interesting. What Mormons believe is the family is the central everything. That's God's plan. Husband and wife starts a family. That's an eternal principle, right? If you look at the adversary, Satan, whatever you want to call him, his job, if he can destroy the family, everything falls apart. That's the war we're in right now. We think we're in a lot of different wars. The war we are in is, Satan is attacking families. That's it. Josh: Okay. I want you to finish this, I have to say this though. Guys, and this is not Russell saying this, this is me. This is why I hate the Black Lives Matter organization. Not movement, the organization so much. Because, their whole principle is bragging about the traditional family values. Anyway, I'm not speaking for Russell. Russell: Yeah, if you Google "The Family: A Proclamation to the World," you'll see my beliefs on family. We have it printed out eight foot on my wall in my house. That's my belief. Family is central, everything. So, Satan, the way he destroys societies and nations and this world is, destroy the family. So when you see families are broken, they're single mothers and single fathers, it's heartbreaking. I think it's the saddest thing in the world. I don't know the right way to solve it. I do know that it's vitally important. I remember first time I met Tony Robbins and started learning from him, one of the principles he talked about in relationships is masculine, feminine energy. The masculine and feminine is key to a relationship. I could go on for four hours just on masculine and feminine. Oh, that's the most fascinating topic in the world. If you ever see how Tony fixes relationships, you look at the traditional view of traditional counseling, there's a problem. They're like, "What's the symptom of the problem?" They try to solve the symptom of the problem and counseling takes years because it's a symptom of the problem. All the issues, they're all symptoms of problems. The real problem is when there's a masculine and a feminine, and it doesn't matter. Again, this is true with gay, straight, doesn't matter. Feminine, masculine energy. You take a masculine and a feminine and that polar opposite, that magnetism, magnetize together, right? That's what creates attraction, passion, everything. What happens is you have a masculine and feminine, they're attracted together. That's how you start. That's how any relationship starts. Right? Then you look at people getting married. It was interesting because what Tony talked about, he said you look at typically in a relationship, there's what they call the seven-year itch, and why is that? He talks about the way the feminine causes change is... Some day I want to write a book on this. I don't know perfectly enough to- Josh: Russell needs to become a writer. My word… Russell: Yeah, I've got a lot of books to write. But, this is how it works in traditional marriage. Masculine and feminine. What happens is one of the ways that feminine causes change is they criticize, right? I see this with my wife, with friends, with girls. If they want their friend to change their hair they don't say, "Hey, you should get a haircut." They'll criticize to try to cause change. Right? What happens is that a feminine- Josh: Yo, wow. That's so true. Interesting stuff. Russell: Yeah. That's just one example of- Josh: Dave! Russell: Feminine… Josh: Right, right. Russell: So, feminine and masculine come together. This is just an example. They'll start criticizing the man, but a masculine man doesn't care, it bounces off him. Like, "Okay. Okay." Right? What happens after seven years of that happening? Eventually instead of it balancing off of you, which is the masculine response, you start taking it personally. Like, "Oh." As soon as you take it personally, guess what happens? You are shifting physically from your masculine into a feminine. You start shifting and what happens is you shift from masculine to feminine and boom, the attraction breaks, and it starts falling apart. And then all the other problems start happening. The problem isn't solving the fact that you leave the toilet seat up or that you don't communicate well. The problem is that the masculine-feminine attraction is broken. If you fix the masculine and feminine, you can make men become men and women become women. Attraction comes back, all the other symptoms disappear. It's fascinating. That's from a marriage, family, relationship standpoint. Josh: Okay. I want to- Russell: I'm telling this because I want to talk about this from the family with kids in a minute, but yes. Josh: Okay. But I want you to now give me another example that Tony Robbins has said, because what you made it sound like there is that the way the woman does something is the thing that's causing the bond. I know that's not what you meant. Russell: Oh, it could be, yeah. That's- Josh: I just wanted to do that clarification. Russell: It's the same thing with the men where the men are responding over and over, where women now become defensive and they become more masculine and it's the other way. Yeah. Sorry. That's not the only example. I was just- Josh: Right. Russell: The one- Josh: I just wanted to make sure we clarify that because I know thing's have been taken out of context before. Russell: Somebody is going to be angry at me. I apologize. I'm stupid. I get it. But conceptually, does that make sense? It's the break of the masculine and feminine that causes the split, which causes the disharmony. And if you bring the masculine and feminine together, I think that's what causes attraction and causes passion and causes all these things. I look at my life when we were struggling in our marriage, it's because I'm showing up feminine. When I show masculine, everything's great. Where my wife comes in masculine and I'm masculine, we butt heads, it's fascinating. Anyway, I don't want to get deep into this because there's so much stuff. There's another show on this, because you look at this thing. You've got a family and the mother and father split and then there's kids who go with either the mother or the father, and now what they have is they've got either a very masculine person they're learning from or feminine, but they don't see both. And so it shifts them and it shifts their relationship. So many problems. I think the way we help the most, or can help the most is... Hormozi does this. Alex Hormozi does this. He donates his money to... Do you remember the name of the charity? He got our first Two Heart award. It's afterschool kids. These kids, like men who... There's these kids trying to play basketball or lift weights or whatever, who don't have masculine energy in their life. They come and they donate their time and they help the kids to brig masculinity. All of us, we need male and female perspectives. Josh: Right. Russell: It's designed to have those things together. When you lose one of them, it's a tragedy. I think the way we can start helping is, how do we bring programs where they can see masculine energy and see the way to make it a positive and not a negative thing? A lot of times, all they know is masculine energy left and oftentimes there's a lot of anger between the people. They hear talking trash about the spouse and talking trash about these traits which are traits that are essential for them to develop. I don't know. I don't know if that's the right answer or not, but I feel like that's how we could help those things. Help them understand, like the kids who don't have a father or a mother. They need that energy in their life to understand it, to be able to... I don't know. Josh: Okay. This is seemingly unrelated to this, but I think that I can tie it back in because it's a question that I think fits in here. I'm going to start with a super-basic question, which I think the answer is obvious, but we'll go down this road. Do you feel misunderstood as an entrepreneur? Russell: I did early on, less so now. Josh: Why is that? Russell: When I was got started... Entrepreneurship has become more of a cool thing in the last decades. Since Shark Tank and stuff. Back when I first started it wasn't. Everyone was confused. Like, "Why would you do that?" It is cooler. Also, I think the more you talk, the more you either alienate people or you attract people, and I think a lot of the people who I have alienated have been alienated and I think they are attracted by attractive. So my bubble of people around me are people who understand this lingo, who relate to it. So it's less hard now than it was initially. Josh: I believe that one of my superpower... Your superpower, your art, your format is marketing and funnels, funnels specifically. That's what you do. I feel you could just sit there for hours and hours and days and forever for the rest of, all of time. Russell: Yes. I love it. Josh: My superpower thing that I like to do is this. Communication. I love constructing words in a way that people can understand. I'm sure not, but the Kanye West interview that Joe Rogan just did three days ago. Russell: I've heard about him… Josh: This has been a long awaited episode. No one thought it was ever going to happen because it was teased and it wasn't, didn't happen. Finally happens. So I see this, I had no idea what's coming. It drops and I'm a huge fan of Joe Rogan and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this is amazing!" I sit down and I look online and all these people are like, "Terrible interview. Not worth your time. Couldn't get past the first 20 minutes." Anything like that. I'm like, what? So I go and the first 20 minutes are kind of like, eh whatever. I get done with this three-hour interview. It was like, top three interviews of all time. What's interesting is... Do you know Kanye? Like, how Kanye communicates at all?   Russell: No.   Josh: Okay, there's so many references that I want to use that you won't get. Kanye sees the world fundamentally differently and how Joe describes it in there and the way that I described it is... You wouldn't know this, like I said, because it's psychedelic, it's like a drug or whatever. But imagine being on a psychedelic drug in a small format at all times. That's how his mind works. He sees everything, it's like expanded. So even Kanye said, "The reason I have such a hard time communicating sometimes is because I see things in three-dimensional and then I have to put them into a two-dimensional conversation." I'm not trying to compare myself the way I think to the way that Kanye thinks, ubt this concept of people think he's beating around the bush when really he's just trying to explain something. One of the things I love doing is taking a concept that and figuring out how to describe it in a way that the average person can understand. I live in a different world, just like you live in a different world than the average person does. I live in a different world and that is by choice. I do not see the world the way that most people do. I intentionally do not want to see the world the way that other people do. Everything that I do, I will intentionally engineer where my life is different than the average person because I want to see the world differently, but I want to be able to communicate that in a way that they can understand. My question is, do you think that there's a lot of great ideas stuck inside of producer's heads that if more people understood them and thought like that, we could change the world for the better? But because they're stuck in their head and that person doesn't know how to communicate it well, or is not focused on that, that that effect never happens. Russell: Gotcha. Yes. That's why I think for me the study, this art of funnels and copywriting and story does, is so fascinating. That's what it is, right? I always pitch, like when we have an idea, in my head it's like this big granite block, right? It's like, this is the idea and give it to somebody, like, "This is the idea." You're like, "I don't get it." Right? Josh: Right. Russell: Then you start thinking about, who is it? Start chiseling away at the stone. You start chiseling, chiseling, and eventually you have this amazing statue. This thing that people can see and they can understand and they gravitate towards. I feel it's the same thing with communication or with any kind of idea you're trying to sell. The funnel is one thing. Right now, like, "Hey, you should buy my coaching programs." Why? Like, "Ah, it's too big." I need to take them to a path, simplify that. So there's a step-by-step process which is like chiseling away. Then inside each step of the process, there's the words and the stories, the things you communicate to simplify it to get more and more fine tuned. That's why for me, when we create a funnel and we launch it, it's like taking this big granite block and chiseling it down to now something that somebody can come in on the side of it go through a process. By the time they're done at the end, they're going to get some money, they're going to get a product and something's going to change for them. I think that's what marketing is. it's that process of trying to simplify the message. I think a hundred percent, that's why most ideas don't get out. I don't know, how many times have you had... This kind of comes back to talking about, who knows, an hour or two ago too, but four or five people get the same idea, but then one person executes on it. It's like the person who understands the communication the best is the one typically who gets it out, right? How much of your life or my life has been focused on the communication? I don't necessarily like that part as much. It's not my favorite part, but it's such an essential tool. I remember when I got in this game and I was trying to sell my very first product, Zip Brander. I put it up, I had a picture of it, Buy Now button and tried to send traffic, and nobody bought it. Someone's like, "Well, you need a headline," so I'm like, okay. So I put a headline. "Tell us what this does." So I found some sites that kind of modeled what they did and the people started buying it. It was learning that process of, how do you communicate? I remember thinking, I never want to learn how to write copy. That's what we all thought back then. "I don't want to write copy, I don't want to do that. That sounds horrible." I wanted to hire someone, but the people I tried to hire was expensive, it was 10 to $20,000 for a sales letter. I couldn't afford it, so I'm like, I have to learn this art and how to communicate. I'm so grateful because that's how everything we built has been, off the communication of an idea, and doing it in a way that gets people to move. Josh: How do you decide what you're going to communicate? You have a lot of ideas in your head and you have a lot of different thoughts on everything and you choose to share funnels and marketing primarily. Then you have some religion in there, which I would say probably is number two, maybe ish, of what you communicate. But that's it. How do you decide... Russell: The battles I want to choose? Josh: Yeah. Russell: What battles? That's a good question. I think part of what's interesting, like why did I want to do this interview? I read the book, it was fascinating. I don't know the answers and I thought this would be a fun way to talk it out loud. This is fascinating. Funnels are fascinating to me because I can apply it to so many things. You know when I talk a lot about wrestling, but not the community you bump into but for wrestling, I talk about that. I think it's just the ideas that fascinate me that I feel have the most fluidity and can do the most. Again, as an introverted person, I'll typically go out and have conversations with people as much as I can, but when I find something that does cause and effect, that's why I practice telling my story so many times and I'll do a podcast. I know now when I'm on stage in front of 9,000 people, the stories can get people to move because I practice it. So I think it's putting a lot of things out in the water and then seeing what things people relate to, and then I go deeper on the ones that are like, "Okay, this one had an impact." There's a lot of stuff. I remember in first version Dotcom Secrets, there were seven or eight chapters more that never got published. I was going to publish… Josh: Do you have copies of this? Russell: Yeah. It was like, all my best stuff at the time that I knew that I was going to publish it and it was all in the book. I remember I heard an interview with Tim Ferriss and Ryan Holiday... Ryan Holiday at the time and they were both talking... Anyway, they were talking about their books. Both of them said that when they write a typical book... You know, Tim Ferris's books are like this fat… My first draft was like, twice as big. It's like, to make your book go from good to great, it's not adding more. It's cutting. Like, I cut two thirds of my book to give you this one. I think it was Ryan said the same thing. The first draft is usually twice as big as the final one. Then the next section, it's cut, cut, cut, cut. I remember going back to Dotcom Secrets that night and I was like, "Okay, based on that, what would I cut and how would that do?" I cut seven chapters out and after I was done, I was so scared because I love these things, but those things aren't that important to get people what they need to actually be successful. Some of those things ended up being in Dotcom Secrets and Expert Secrets, and different places, but yeah. I wonder how that first version- Josh: I was going to say, I wonder if she just published the first day or if she had a 2,700 page book and cut something out of it. That's crazy. Okay. Back to the question in the car, and I want to tie this back to the book. How has growing a multi-hundred million dollar, making hundreds of millions of dollars having a roughly billion-dollar company, being the CEO of 400 employees, how has that changed your perspective of the world? Russell: So many things I could respond. I think there was a season of my life where I thought that if I was going to create something, if I was going to do something, the way I was going to do it, by me. Does that makes sense? Josh: Yeah. Russell: In fact, if you look at my history, the first decade of business, the businesses were about me. They were me. I was the sole owner, the sole person. On this journey, when we started, it was so different. It was like, what's the team look like? Todd was my first time I had a partner. That was so scary for me. Then it's been the greatest thing I possibly could have done. Right? Then we brought in other partners and then employees and stuff. I don't know. It's been fascinating just realizing that to build this, it wasn't about me. It was about... I don't know, just that whole thing. I think anything great, a lot of times there's a person that gets credit for it. Like, Elon Musk gets credit because whatever or Bill Gates or whoever the people are, they get the credit for it. You start really seeing how many people are involved to make something amazing. You know what I mean? I think that's the biggest thing for me as I started growing it. It's frustrating. Not frustrating for me. I enjoy it. People are always asking, "Russell invented ClickFunnels." I literally don't know how to code anything. There's not one dot of code in that word. Maybe once I leaned over Todd's shoulder, put a button in that and he had to delete it. I think it's cool that you see how many... Before Funnel Hacking Live, every time we start we bring our whole team together. I'm the one who's on stage, but I am fully aware that it is not me. This is us. If it wasn't for this team and these people, all you guys, all your contribution, this was impossible. I want to always ground that because I think sometimes the leader or whoever gets a big head where they think it's them. I see that with a lot of people who are on big stages where they still drink their own Kool-Aid so they think it's them. That's my shift in the world, just understanding the great things, the things that we remember. The things that are legacies that go on and on and on. There may be a head or a person that the branding tied too, but there's this group of people that created something amazing. That's… know what I mean? Josh: How do you stay grounded? I am a huge fan of Russell because for me, you're the person I look up to as not just, hey, you taught me how to make a lot of money, but I want to have the character that you have. I don't want to have... I look at Grant Cardone. You don't have to talk smack about Grant Cardone, but I can. Grant Cardone is really, really full of himself. Don't get me wrong. I learned a lot from Graham Cardone, especially about money. He's changed my perspective about a lot of things. I'm eternally grateful for that, but if I grew up to be Grant Cardone, where that was the focus.., I mean, I watched him, I was there at the stadium down in Miami or whatever. It was all about him. I think he even got up on stage and was like, "Oh yeah, everybody says Russell is the greatest salesman, but I'm the one that packed the house." I'm like, dude! You know what I'm saying? Why? Why is that necessary? How do you stay grounded? It's so fascinating to me to watch different types of people. I know Tai Lopez for example, for awhile there, it was all about Tai and now he's gone more behind the scenes, but each person that I watch whether it's Tai or Gary or Grant, they all have a different way about them. You have your way about them. The one that I see as the most grounded, humble... There's nobody that's looking at you. You get up on a stage and you're like, "Oh yeah, I'm Russell!" You know what I mean? Russell: Everyone awkwardly, like, "Yay." Josh: Right. Then you walk up and Grant's like... But you, it's just yeah, it's that awkward, "Hey, I'm just over here." How are you grounded in that? How do you not let it get to your head? Because it would be so easy for you to get wrapped up in your own head. Russell: Someone told me it's because of my wife. They said, "If you'd married anybody else, your head would be so big." Josh: I met your wife for the first time today. I mean, we had crossed paths, but I said when you were getting your haircut, "So what's it like being married to Russell?" She goes, "Hes just the sixth child of mine." I was like, oh boy. The big kid. Russell: That's awesome. I think I would say it's two things. We kind of talked about this earlier, but I'll tie back to it. The first one is that I am fully aware that these ideas are not mine. I didn't invent the funnel. I didn't invent any of this stuff. All I know is that I was on a path, in a journey. I was given the thing and the next thing, and I was freaking out and I was putting them together. That's part of it. This stuff's not mine. It's stuff that was given to me and tested and so I'm so grateful for that. It's never me like, "Oh, look what I invented." That's so annoying because it's not. Again, come back to these ideas, these thoughts, these desires and things that were given to us. I think that's the first part. The second part of it is, and I see this a lot in people in my world who, they had some success and then they're like, "This is my person. I made them a bajillion..." I hate that too. Like, you helped them in a piece but they did the work. I'm very careful to always when I'm talking about any of our success stories, I didn't make that person. We had this super-cool opportunity to be a piece to their journey. Right? We helped them give them some ideas and a tool, but they're the ones that killed. I don't know what it takes to build what they're building. I didn't do that. They did that. I'm grateful that they did and I'm even more grateful that I got to be a little piece of that. I got to be part of that journey. I got to see that and just have the impact of, oh my gosh. Because I killed myself and wrote those books and because Todd killed himself and wrote software and I was able to communicate it, they're able to do this thing and it's not all me. I'm fully aware it's not all me. I know what every entrepreneur has to go through to be successful and it's not a mentor who gives you everything. It's just a lot of people who are a piece. I've had mentors who gave me a piece that I'm so grateful for, but then they try to take all the credit, like, "Oh, this is when..." I hate that too. So I think those two sides. Number one is again, I don't think these ideas are something that I came up with. They were given to me and I was a good steward of them because I was able to aggregate and there's the thing. The number two is just my belief that I didn't help anyone. Even when you said, "You and Katie," I felt awkward. I didn't do anything. Josh: Right. Russell: Luckily some of the stuff resonated with you and it was a little piece of your journey. I'm so grateful for that. The fact, to see you do stuff now, it's so much fun for me to watch you. Just knowing, "Man, because he bumped into me, maybe something happened and now he's doing this stuff and this work and it's so cool seeing how you're impacting people." I think those are the reasons why I don’t think my head gets big, because I don't think it's me. I'm grateful that I get to be a piece of it, of the journey, but I'm not the creator of it. Josh: All right. I want to loop back to the book. Russell: Go ahead. Can we just read it? You guys want us to read it to you? Josh: Yeah. What was the thing that fascinated you about it though? When you've asked me, you were like, "Dude, I read it and I'm geeking out about it, I just want to geek out about it." What about it had you so fascinated? What did you want to geek out about it? I have a question that I want to ask later on about it, but what was the thing that just made you geek? Russell: There are a lot of things. I think the biggest thing that I was really excited, we talked about earlier was just… The biggest thing earlier was just this cons-... Again, for those of you who are tuning in late in here, there's the whole, it talks about greed. Right? And that concept of greed versus charity. Again, the book very much is like, greed is good, it's the thing that causes production and you should care about yourself and then good things will happen, it will create jobs and everything else will take care of as long as you're caring most about yourself. Which I thought was kind of cool but then also I had the other side with my beliefs in Christ and Christianity and all these things like that, where it's just like, how does that reconcile with faith, hope, charity and love, and serving everybody else? That's probably the thing that got me the most. I think about that a lot, especially in politics. Again, I'm not deep into politics, I'm not going to talk about who I'm voting for, not voting for, it doesn't matter. But I see that on both sides. I feel like on the Republican side you see a lot of this stuff, like this. Then on the Democrat side, you see a lot of the charity stuff. Again, in my notes I wrote this actually initially, because I wanted to talk about this. I'm a big believer that there's not a right and wrong. There's good in both sides. Josh: There's not a right or wrong side. Russell: Yeah. Things are messed up on both sides. It's how the world works. Satan, there's this eternal struggle between God and Satan and Christ, this is always happening. So there's two sides and there's God-like principles and things on the right that are amazing and then there's Satan that's twisting things and jacking them up. Same thing on both sides. I see everyone fighting tooth and nail and I bet you, if we all sat down, the majority of all issues we'd all agree on. But then it's these fringe things that causes so much hatred and fighting and just drives me crazy. I think that this book is the perfect example of what I believe so much in some of these principles, but there's also the opposite principles that I also believe in and they're both right. If you missed the beginning part of the interview, we talked more about that but the greed, the growth and contribution, that transition is the key that just fascinates me. Josh: Yeah. What parts of the book contradicted the most with your faith? What part of the books did you have the hardest time with because of your faith? Russell: Yeah. The producers in the book, the minds, the people that I connect with, because I self-identify as a producer, someone who's obsessed with production and creating. That’s why I relate with Hank Rearden, Dagny, all these people are cut from my same cloth. It's as they're growing this stuff that they didn't give back, that they didn't... That's the thing. I felt like they weren't rounded out characters and that's the biggest thing for me. The first half of the book, I want to be Hank Rearden. He's fricking the man. Like yes, that's all I want to be. I wanted to see him have that change of heart where he's Christ-like and he gives of his own free will. Not because the government came with the gun and told him he's got to pay taxes. I wanted to see his character develop and realize that, "Oh my gosh, I should be serving people because I love them. Not because of the government's force." That's the piece that I wish. Josh: It never took that turn. The book, you almost expected it and then it didn't happen. Russell: It got worse and worse and worse and then they waited until just everything... People were dying, everything collapses and then the lights in the yurt go out, wooh, and they're like, "Okay, now we can come back and build." Josh: Now we can go back and build, but even when they come back and build, it was built by our new law of basically... Actually, one of the things that's fascinating about that was... Gosh, it was towards the end. Was it Galt? I think it was Galt. Yeah, I think it was during his speech when he was like, "The minds society, we gave all this stuff to you guys basically." Trying to be like God there, but every day, we created all this stuff, we created these jobs, we created these resources. We gave it to you and all we wanted from you guys was for you to let us be in our own head. Let us, our minds be free and not be controlled by anything else. You took all that and not only did you take it all, then you said, "No, you're bad and we're going to take that away too. So we're all going on strike because of that." You relate to that so much and then it's like, yes! Then they explained how they live and it's like, you expect them to have that change of heart rather, but no. It's because we are amazing and because we are the great minds and we must live by this code. It has nothing to do with actually giving back or actually contributing to society. It was like they didn't care about contributing to society. It just happened to happen. Russell: Yeah. Which is cool, which is why again, governments should let producers produce because the byproduct is really good. Josh: Right. Russell: For everybody. So that part is so much I relate to. Part of this is probably because Ayn Rand didn't believe in God. You know what I mean? That wasn't part of her values and so it's tough because she weaved that... I just wish at the end of the book, it would have been like, and then Hank Rearden realized that he could help all these people himself and so he built orphanages and changed all these kids' lives. Like, yes! That would have been amazing. He found about OUR and he went and donated money to save all these children. Josh: Right. Russell: But he did it of his own free will because he had that change of heart. I don't want to die at the end of my days and... I produced some great jobs, but I didn't care about people. I feel like that missed the mark. Josh: Hank Rearden you say is the person you related to really most in the book? Russell: Yeah, I think so. I wanted to be Francisco though, he was pretty sweet. Josh: Who do you think I related to most in the book? Russell: Oh. Who was it? Josh: It was a relatively main one. You were close. Russell: Oh, was it Francisco? Josh: Yeah. Yeah. For sure. For sure. Yeah. Russell: He was cool. Josh: Right from the beginning he fascinated me. I knew right when, the plot twist of where he ran off and became the playboy or picture, he was obviously a playboy or whatever. I knew right then and there. I don't know what the plot, I don't know what the connection is but I know this is going to come back around and it's not going to be how it seems. The mind doesn't shift and then he stays in the scene or whatever. He fascinated me because, or he strikes me as someone... Hank Rearden didn't care about the crowds. He did not at all. He hated going to the wedding. It was by force that his wife drug him out there that one time. It was always, "I just want to work in my office." I'm actually not like that. I am actually much more the... I do like the crowds, but I don't like the crowds because I need praise. Don't get me wrong, I like being on stage and doing this type of stuff or whatever, but for me, I like the crowds because I love people. It's funny because I actually don't get along with a lot of people in real life. Whenever I go to the airport, I'm like, I will pay whatever it takes. Put me on a plane first, the least amount of people I have to deal with, whatever. I don't want to have to interact with people that I don't want to interact with. But I love studying and understanding people's minds. For me, one of the reasons I am so fascinated by Donald Trump is because of how he can control the crowds. You look at his rallies. Dude, you can't ignore them. They're just huge. My fiance's parents, or her mom and Kirby went yesterday, I think it was last night, to Omaha. 29,000 people showed up in the bitter cold of Omaha, a last-minute notice. That type of control or not even control, but that type of influence to be able to go through, what is it that makes people go and do that? So Francisco in the book, he was the partier guy and he went and he was with the crowds and he was very good with words and articulated, but he sold me at that wedding. I'm telling you. Russell: That was good. Josh: To me, there's more than two ways, but super simplified down, there's two ways to influence people. There's one, which is the indirect, which is build a software company, it's build a product, it's build an iPhone. You're not directly influencing them with your words or whatever, but it's influencing their behavior by creating a product, by creating a service that's going to go out and change the world. Then the other way is to actually go out there and change them with your words. That's why Jesus, for example, Jesus didn't build the product. He did it through His words kind of, sort of, but to me that's so fascinating. If I can figure out how to do that, that's how I can affect real change in the world. And it's funny because you've had had such a massive influence on my life, but probably a year and a half maybe ish into me knowing ClickFunnels, I was like, "Man, Russell's doing it all wrong." I had this thing of, if Russell would communicate more about stuff besides funnels, he would have a bigger impact. I had this limited belief of, this is the only way you can influence and impact people, is by going out there and actually speaking to them. But that's my superpower and my gift. In the book, Francisco was the one I think that best represents my style of trying to go out and do things. I find it interesting by Hank Rearden with you… Russell: I'm the same way. I would rather be in here building funnels, doing some stuff. There's scenes of Hank in the book where he's sitting there looking out over the factories at night and he sees, he watches the steel being poured, it's glowing. He's enjoying that. For me, it's similar where I do the stage thing and things like that. I get less value… interactions are hard, but I spend a lot of time on social media at night, just looking at the people that I know are in our world and watching what they're doing because that's me watching the steel. My mission is not to go teach people how to do what you do. I'm giving you a blow horn so you can go do it. That's more fascinating to me to sit back and explain to my wife. Events drive her crazy because then it'll happen and it'll get done and then I scurry off and I don't want to talk to anybody. I sit in the room and I just watch what people takeaways and then who they're talking to. I spend a lot of time just watching. That's for me like looking over the steel and being like, I gave them a trumpet or I gave them a blow horn and now their messages are going out there and I can just watch it. So for me, I don't want to teach personal development and this and that, but I want to empower or give tools or whatever tools there are so that you can and whoever all the other influencers are to be able to do those things. Does that makes sense? I'm an amplifier. I'm an amplifier of other people's messages and my message just happens to be, "Here's the amplification that you need to amplify your message," and then letting everybody else go and do it.

All Things Franchising With Lance Graulich Josh: Let's talk about all things franchising. You might have a cool idea, a booming business or want to get into one and I want you all to listen up. We've got Lance Graulich here and he is the expert in franchising around the world, the top 1%. So I'm going to ask you here, Lance, tell me, how do you know if you have an idea that's franchisable? Get more tips about franchising at dorksdelivered.com.au Lance: Well, Josh, first of all, thank you for having me from around the world here in Las Vegas. So look, I always talk to people when it comes to franchising, what is your secret sauce? What do you have? What do you have that other people don't? More importantly, what do your customers tell you that you have? Why are you good? And I always call it the secret sauce. Every business has it. Is it your people? You know, I was in a conversation the other day about Starbucks. Starbucks, the founder and CEO Howard Schultz will certainly tell you, it's not about coffee, it's about people. He'll tell you his culture that he built is the secret sauce to why Starbucks is so successful. So that's the short answer to start off. Josh: Cool. So everyone needs to find their secret sauce, I guess is what it comes down to. And that sounds on paper easy enough. But I understand that like, obviously, you have the likes of McDonald's and these huge franchises. Is McDonald's the biggest franchise at the moment? Lance: Well, McDonald's, Subway, those are two of the top right there in units. I mean, Subway has 15,000 just in the United States alone probably now. Josh: Yeah, Subway recently has had a bit of a an upset with their direction. Is that fair to say? Lance: You hit on something very important, because one of the biggest things that I talked to people about when they are looking into a franchise is you have to really like the leadership of the brand that you're looking to get involved with. Because, you know, this is a long term relationship. A typical franchise agreement is 10 years. And it's like dating, you know, you have that first conversation and you decide, is there going to be a second date? So you talk about Subway. Yeah, there have been hiccups along the way. And that typically stems from leadership. As brands are growing, and in some cases, are not growing, all of a sudden, they have a period of time where they go negative. And, you know, the future is not looking so bright. Well, change of leadership means change of strategy. And the new strategy doesn't necessarily always take off as quickly as everybody hopes. And the franchisees isn’t in some cases, the ones that are high performing and doing very well typically are not going to be affected. It's the franchisees that aren't doing as well that, you know, could have the most to lose, I guess you could say at that point. Josh: That makes sense. I guess it's just for lack of a better term, removing the dead wood or clipping the bush. Lance: Trimming the bush Josh: Trimming the bush, that's right. So finding your secret sauce, like, I would say that I've got a team of unicorns that work for me, they're fantastic, and they are the lifeblood of our company. I can say that when I started the business 13 years ago, and it was all me as a single one-man band in my parent's garage as it would be that expanded out. And one of the things I noticed with expanding my business was, I had a process in the way that I did things. And when I brought staff on, they would have a process and the way that they did things all that would be looking to a process and amid the training and that upscaling was quite a long process to get there. One of the things that I've seen with franchising is documentation is paramount and procedural documentation so that you can stir and repeat and have your empire run by 14-year olds is a big key to success. If you don't have documentation, or if you're running a business that is heavily reliant on the professional services industries, where you need upskilled, university degrees and so forth, is there any reason that that should create more friction or less friction towards setting up and selling a franchise? Lance: You know, since technology has become a thing, I think it was 2000 or so that Google really came out strong, might have been about 20 years or so. But as technology has come about, the franchise world has really gotten even stronger in my opinion. Technology is a major advantage to being part of a franchise organisation. You remember the old Yellow Pages, I mean, in the US? You know, you wanted to if you wanted to find any kind of business, you would either call directory assistance, or you would, you know, open up the Yellow Pages and look for an ad on movers or whatever you're doing, you'd find the Yellow Pages. Well, now everything's on Google. So what do all the big companies do? It's all about SEO, Search Engine Optimisation. And the biggest companies is spending their most money there or so, you know, all the franchise brands will show up in the top 10 searches. If you're a lowly little mom and pop, good luck getting discovered when all the franchise brands are spending the money. So look, I mean, the idea of a franchise is that anybody can jump into a franchise. What brands are typically looking for is they're looking for smart people. They don't care if they have any experience in the industry. Let me give you a story. I got a guy. He has 19 franchise hair salons. He was a banker. He didn't even have a retail establishment. He did nothing about retail and hiring employees at all. He was a banker. Had some money. And he's a good friend of mine now, but I met him after he made this deal with another friend of mine who's a franchise consultant like myself. And what we do as franchise consultants, is we listen to what people want in a brand. They don't necessarily have any emotion attached to what the brand is because they don't know what the brand is, but they know what lifestyle they want to have. Are they going to operate it? Are they going to be a semi absentee owner and hire somebody? Are they looking to have a lifestyle where they don't work nights, they don't work weekends, etc.? What's their investment level going to be? So in this particular example, this gentleman has 19 franchised hair salons and guess what, he has no hair, he’s cutting the hair of a customer. And on top of that he doesn't even know how to cut hair. Nor is it a passion or interest of his. So he followed this particular system, an amazing franchised hair salon brand. He nets, nets a million and a half US dollars a year from his hair salons and probably only works about five, six hours a week. Josh: And he's not spending that money on cutting hair obviously, because he doesn’t have any. Lance: He's saving his money on his haircuts. Absolutely. Josh: That's great. So I guess there's two parts to it. So we got the franchise's for go getter investors really it's not about what the product is. It's about go getter investors and making sensible financial decisions, as opposed to buying a pie shop because you really love pies. Somebody went to McDonald's is looking at the numbers, not looking at how the burgers cooks so to speak. Lance: Yeah, I mean, look, anybody can start their own business, you don't need to be in a franchise model. However, to do every single thing yourself, create a logo and trademark it and figure out what the prototype is. What size is just right for this particular business? Is it home based? You know, how do we do it? How do we get the name out there? How much marketing dollar in marketing dollars do we need to spend to get any traction that gets us any attention. There are a million different pieces. Now besides myself owning quite a few franchises and being very successful. I've created some of my own brands and been very successful and sold several of them. So I am a consummate entrepreneur, but I'm also lucky. I was brought up in a very entrepreneurial type family. My dad realised at a young age, my young age at the time, he said, you know, I'm pretty sure you're unemployable like your grandfather's, you better go figure out how to be an entrepreneur. You know, so you can start your own business. But if you can start with a franchise. You know, what I educate a lot of people on Josh is, you can basically get into a franchise as your first venture. And getting into any good franchise will teach you everything you need to know about business in general. And I see a lot of people do that, do really well. And then start to create their own concepts that they have a burning desire to bring to market. Because look, if you have a burning desire to do something, the first step is to look at all the franchise brands and compare and contrast is there's something out there that’s similar to what I already want to do. Do that competitive analysis. And if there truly is nothing and you still think it's a great idea, then go for it. Josh: There was a company just on comparing and contrasting. There's a company called Pita Pit. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Pita Pit. Lance: Oh absolutely. I know the founder of Pita Pit. Josh: Oh cool. We did a lot of their IT support work throughout southeast Queensland and I had a look at Pita Pit versus Subway in Australia. And I personally liked Pita Pit more than Subway. Fresher ingredients, slightly more exotic ingredients. You had more options with the way it was cooked. It became instead of just a sandwich or a raffle stuffing, an experience. Let's use that term. Lance: More creative. Absolutely. Josh: Absolutely. And then all the Pita Pits locally around here we had like eight and we're down to one now and it's ages away. And I had to look at why is that? Now I don't know if Subways done this everywhere. But Subway now started using similar ingredients, similar reps and they sort of looked at it, okay, this is what our competitors doing, wipe them out. The reason I'm saying that when it comes to franchising, is it good to come through with a slightly different idea. I'm not going to say Burger King and McDonald's are the same company pretty much but they are, aren’t they? They really are. And you know who came first. But Burger King or Hungry Jack's, as it is in Australia is still doing fine. They're still doing very well. Is there any problem being, for lack of a better term again, a copycat type business in a franchise or do you have to completely reinvent the wheel? Or what would you say? Getting back to that secret sauce. What's the secret sauce that the Hungry Jack's or Burger King has that McDonald's doesn't or how do they differentiate from an investor's standpoint? And from the end consumers? Lance: It's certainly a great, great question. You know, there was a book many years ago called Raving Fans. And I still think, you know, when I'm looking at franchise brands, I'm looking for who that customer base is, why our customers, use the example of Hungry Jack's or Burger King, why are some customers coming to Burger King versus McDonald's? Is it the product? Is it the convenience? Some brands are definitively a destination. Starbucks in the early days was absolutely destination, they made a conscious decision that they were now going to be a convenience, and they started putting in Drive Thru’s. So all of those things, you know, part of my expertise in franchising also happens to be the restaurant space. So with this question, I would want more of a point of differentiation. I don't want to be another me too look alike type brand. Now to your story on Pita Pit. I don't know the history in Australia and what might have happened. But sometimes you have operators that maybe don't perform for whatever reason, maybe there was a partnership breakup. And it was easier to not pursue Pita Pit, and there was nobody else interested in the market at the time. I could tell you there's a brand right now a friend of mine owns in the US, where he has quite a few of these restaurants. And he's incredibly successful by all standards with these restaurants that he operates. And I think he has eight right now, makes a lot of money. And he's very happy. He's got a great team. Interestingly, this brand has opened about 150 restaurants successfully, but they've closed 52 at this point. Those aren't exactly good numbers, would you say? I mean, definitely not. Josh: One in three is not ideal, no. Lance: But they're still able to sell franchises at a good pace. You know, the most difficult thing is getting to a new market, and really expanding in a new market and doing it effectively. So your customers can actually hear you through all the noise. And it's what I call competitive noise. You know, Starbucks, when they opened in Las Vegas, where I am, Las Vegas isn't that big of a place, about 2 million people and Starbucks literally open eight locations back to back to back to back in no time. Why? Because they wanted to build brand awareness quickly and get out and you know, have enough advertising dollars to share and spend for the entire market. So there are different strategies. But the bottom line is, for me, it always comes back to you know, does your family like the food, because if you like the food, and you can be a customer, there's a chance that this brand can do really well. If your entire family doesn't like the food and nobody knows is going to be a customer. Probably a brand I'm going to try to stay away from. Fair to say? Josh: Yeah, absolutely. One of the things on liking the foods that I found that just recently so only in the last 15 months or so Hungry Jack's and Burger King, before McDonald's released the Beyond Meat patties, the vegan options that then put them as a differentiator in the marketplace. Now I thought cool, okay. And that sort of made me think why hasn't McDonald's done this? And what is their connection to the meat production industry to have not done this? I thought cool, they've done this and then that instantly made it you if you're ordering Uber Eats or something like that. If you're ordering for a few people and there's a vegetarian or a vegan or something like that instantly, you know exactly the place you're going to be going because they’ve made that differentiator. On that, when it comes down to things like Uber Eats, so I understand there's a lot of different ways that franchises can be modeled now Uber Eats isn't a franchise, but you still have solo operators that are going around getting a slice of the pie so to speak, whether or not an employee they're contracted to a larger business. Would you call Uber Eats and Lyft and Uber a franchise in a sense, or what would you say differentiates their model to a franchise model? Lance: They're not a franchise at all. A franchise system one of the biggest keys so let's talk about its use McDonald's as an example. If you're going to become a McDonald's franchisee, McDonald's corporate, which is the franchizor, ZOR. The ZOR versus the ZEE, the franchizor has to exercise quite a bit of control over their franchisees to have a successful franchise model. And the documents you know, franchising is regulated in the US regulated by the Federal Government, the Federal Trade Commission, and there are specific documents you have to create in order to be a franchise in the US. And for that matter anywhere in the world, there are different laws depending on the country you're in, they might vary. But the bottom line is this, you have to exercise a reasonable amount of control. So if you are a franchisee of McDonald's, you can't decide to purchase things from different vendors. You can't choose to have your employees wearing a different uniform, you certainly can't choose to buy certain, you know, menu boards or lighting or tables and chairs, you have to use only approved vendors. Now, if you can consider franchising the most rigorous control type environment, you know, you have licensing, which can be kind of loosey goosey, where, you know, you can license a certain product or recipe or name, but they can't control whether or not you serve hot dogs, for example, or change the uniforms. And some of the companies you're talking about, you know, Uber Eats or what have you or Uber. I mean, they are major corporations that, you know, choose to run markets in a different fashion than a franchise would entirely. They're not following the same rule book or operations manual necessarily, the control is on a corporate level, but it's completely different from a legal setup. Josh: Okay. If you've got an awesome idea that's scalable, and you're not looking to buy into, obviously a franchise, you're looking to franchise at your business. How do you go about picking your market? So just recently, we've got Taco Bell, and Carl's Jr. to Australia. And people are loving it. And it's going great. If you've got a product, how do you go about picking your market share? Where do you go about finding where you should be running a franchise? Because I'd imagine it's not always going to be best just to run from home base. Lance: No, you know, the first step is always where have you founded the company? All great franchises, at least start a franchise brand, starts with one location. A lot of people have seen the movie The founder with Ray, you know, Ray Kroc, and the story of McDonald's, it's pretty true. As far as I can tell, I've read all the various books on it as well. But it all starts with one location. In their case they started in Southern California. Where did the first franchise take place? Well, Southern California, that's where they were. And they started expanding throughout California. So it's all about proximity and franchising to start, although with technology, you can be worldwide in no time, it purely depends on the brand and how much support is required. So I would say if you have a business in Australia, and as I mentioned in the pre show, you know, I have actually talked to Australian brands quite recently that want to come to the United States. If you have a brand that's already successful, even if it's a single unit, by all means you could be ready to start a franchise. And that starts with a free call with myself to explore those options. We get on a Zoom call like this, and have that conversation. So anybody, it doesn't, you know, some people say, Oh, you need five locations, ten locations. Look, if you have a brand that's successful period, doesn't matter how big you are, let's have a conversation. If you're looking to grow, that's an option, because to grow on your own, the way Uber has chosen to do, they raise money in the public markets, they went public, they raised funds. And it's not a question of better or worse, it's a question of the desire of the owners. I can tell you in the United States, there's a lot to be said about private equity. Private equity is a huge topic. Private Equity groups control the money in the United States these days. And then the private equity groups love to gobble up franchise brands, because they're successful. That's why I do what I do. And by the way, Joshua, keep in mind, there are so many franchises because so many people do think of restaurants as being the preeminent franchises. And while I represent almost 190 restaurant franchises, I represent about 400 non restaurant franchises in every category. Josh: If you are looking to dip your toes into business, as you said, this is an easy entry point jumping into a franchise is you've got a rulebook there, you've got sales guidelines, you've got call to actions ready to go, you've got logos, you've got websites, you've got all this information that I know after being in business for 13 years, takes a long time to get sorted and get set right. If you wanted to dip your toe in and go okay, let's see if buying a franchise is right for me and you're interested in taking a little bit of money out of the mortgage or saving up a bit of coin, what’s the palatable entry price that you could expect to dip your toe in again. Okay, this is for me. Now let's go the full hog and dive right in. Lance: In US dollars, about $150,000 or less. I have quite a few franchises around the 100,000-dollar mark, home based brands that are phenomenal. And in some cases, it might be $100,000. Get a little bit of little office somewhere, a lot of great brands. So that's the answer. $100,00 and $150,000. And I have quite a few brands that are branching out. I mean, look, most US brands go to Canada first and then they look to eventually get to Europe, Asia, and eventually they'll get to Australia of course, like McDonald's for example. Taco Bell, as you mentioned, just got there, because they're pretty much full of the US at this point. Josh: In the land down under it takes us a while to catch up, I think. Lance: Running for the border. Josh: If you're buying into a franchise, let's say buying into a taco bell or a home based business, you say you should have a backing of about 150,000 or be able to gain a position the bank is going to give you that that kind of money. Is that fair? Lance: Yeah. I mean, look, there are opportunities throughout the United States, the Small Business Administration, which is of course, backed by the government, it's essentially a government backed loan will lend to everybody on franchises. I mean, if they're a good franchise, they'll lend typically 75%, 80% of the money that you need with a minimal credit score, it's not even a fantastic credit score. It's in the US, it's just a 680 credit score. So Australia is going to have similar programs to simulate business and the Australian economy. You know, the challenge just becomes, you know, what are those brands that if somebody wanted to bring it to Australia, what are they? Because Taco Bell is not an inexpensive franchise, Taco Bell is not sizable investment, so is Carl's Jr, as you mentioned. Again, as I mentioned earlier, because of technology today, it's quite a few, very inexpensive high performing franchise brands that are easily duplicatable or replicable in Australia. And those brands, if they're not in Australia, now they're coming. Josh: That's a pretty easy entry point really. Like if you had to look at the return on investment of buying a house with a 20% loan or 80% Elvia, and then you had to look at buying a franchise where you're getting the same amount of money sort of borrowed from the bank or whatnot. And it's sitting at 30 grand or something like that US obviously, as we're saying, but 30 grand, what would you say you see, and obviously, this is such a difficult question to ask, but what are the returns? So a house, you might get 5%, 7% every year if you’re doing well, 2% in worst areas, 0.5 in the middle of the cities. Lance: This is one of my favorite questions, because I've actually gotten in arguments with accountants and attorneys over this, because sometimes they miss this. When you buy a franchise, you know, just like you're describing a house. So you make a big investment like a house. Obviously in the US, you certainly have write offs, mortgage interest, you get to deduct, there are various things that advantages to owning a house in the first place. And then you also have the equity that you build over time in owning a house. Well, a business is no different. First of all, you have a tremendous amount of write offs when you own a business, and a lot of people forget that. Secondly, you do have the obvious equity that you have, when you own a business. When you sell a business in the US, especially a franchise, there's a secondary market for franchises, there are brokers set up all throughout the US, if franchisees want to sell, you know, you could sell for four times your cash flow. This is substantial upside. So if you got into a franchise that only cost you $100,000, and you create a substantial cash flow, which you can, I'll give you a perfect example, I have a franchise that cost $62,000 US home based. There's a gentleman that just sold his franchise that he purchased it for $62,000, seven and a half years later, he just sold it for $1.7 million US, he also made a nice income, about $500,000 to $800,000 a year while he operated. Josh: So that's a perfect segue into what I was just about to ask. How do you make sure or how do you make sure you're buying a job or some franchise, you're buying a job, some of you buying an investment, some of you buying a spot to work with a known brand where you're doing something you love, so you might be a plumber, and you go, I'm going to operate underneath this brand, because I know that this is a going to bring leads to the door, I'm not going to have to do any of the other business stuffing around or the footer, I'm just going to be able to do the voodoo that I do. In the franchise world, is there an easy way to differentiate between buying that investment, which is probably going to have a lower return, but you're forking out the money but you're doing nothing. You’re just sitting there set and forget the like, like stocks and shares or something like that. Versus buying a job, which is still a fine enough thing to do, because you're buying that brand recognition, you're getting your foot in the door very easily to get to do exactly what you want to do with a known brand with leads coming through. Is there a way to differentiate between those if you're going through some franchise broker or someone was to contact you? And I said, Look, I want to buy an investment. I don't want to buy a job. How do I work that up. Lance: That's why people use me, I'm free. My advice is free. I get paid by the brands. So there's a lot to unpack in what you said. So let's take it in two parts. There's a validation stage. So once I introduce you to various brands, and Joshua says, Lance, I'm interested in this brand and this brand, set me up with a phone call. I introduce you, you have your first call, your second call and you go to especially these days, it might be a virtual type discovery day where you meet the team, tour their corporate office, even virtually if that’s the case usually has been done face to face, they've changed things up a little bit these days for expediency. But there's a validation process, as you get to the end. Where if they really love you, and you love them and you want to do a deal, they say, well wait a second, Joshua, we would like you, here's a list of all of our franchisees, I would like you to call at least five of them at random, whoever you want to call. And I want you to ask him any question you want to ask him. Things like, you know, would you do it again? Are you happy? Do you make money? Do you have the appropriate support, marketing, etc., etc. And you could either see yourself in those people or you don't, and decide to move forward. So in the due diligence process, I asked you or my candidates questions like, again, what kind of lifestyle are you interested in having? Are you going to be the owner operator? Because let me tell you, if you want to be a semi absentee owner, and absentee owner, I have brands like that. I have brands where you can be a complete absentee owner, and not do anything, it's a strategic move by the franchizor. They have technology and systems in place where you can do that successfully. Now, there are quite a few of prospective franchisees in the US as an expression called the pipe dream that doesn't necessarily exist. And they think they're going to get wealthy from owning one little restaurant. That's not how it goes. Sometimes you have the individual franchisees that jump into one restaurant, and they might be successful, but it's a grind, and it's a JOB. It's not the dream that they wanted. So what I tell people is, if you only have money to get into one restaurant, you really want to do the restaurant business, go right ahead. But keep in mind, you got to get ready to get a second one, and a third one. Wealth is easily built in the restaurant business when you have multiples. You start to get five restaurants, you can net $80,000 a location, $400,000 US from five restaurants, that's substantial income. I's hard to do that when you're working for someone else. And now you get to write your own schedule. In my case, I work seven days a week in my restaurants, because it was working for myself. You know, what’s the old expression, you rather work 80 hours a week for yourself than 40 hours a week for someone else. Josh: Yep, it becomes something you're interested in doing, especially if you're buying into something that you believe in and you're passionate about. So I understand you've got an assessment tool at ionfranchising.com that people can jump on to. Tell us a bit more about that tool. Lance: Yeah. So, at my website, ionfranchising.com, there is a free assessment. If you scroll down a little bit, and it's quite scientific, it'll take you 10, 15 minutes to do. And it'll determine not only your current mindset based on your past skills, and your risk tolerance, comfort zone, and it kind of whips it all together and determines compatibility with what brands you're most compatible with is the best way to say it. Then it'll give you a detailed report. It'll give me a detailed report, and I'll be able to guide you better. I'm still going to ask about 30, 40 other questions to roll it all together, because that's the way I'm going to help you best. So it's a great tool. It's free. It's right on my website. Now one of the big pieces I tell people a lot, Joshua, is my goal is to get people really clear, to give them the clarity to understand what their goals are. As much as I'm a franchise consultant, I'm really a franchise strategist. I help people develop their life plan and how they can most effectively be an entrepreneur. And my favorite expression as a result of that is clarity is currency. So clarity is currency is my general theme. Getting people clear so I can get to you know finding them brand that is absolutely perfect for them. Josh: It sounds like there's nothing to lose only things to gain. More clarity for them, more clarity for everyone and definitely give me more clarity on how franchises work and the direction that things can go. And if anyone out there is keen we're going to be jumping in and organising to have another podcast on how to set yourself up and price your first franchise. Otherwise, did you have any other questions, Lance, or things that you'd like to go through before we head off? Lance: No, Tony Robbins once said model success and that is what franchising is. So that's my final word of the day and you have been amazing and I look forward to round two. Josh: I've loved doing it Lance. And if anyone out there has any feedback and comments, jump across the iTunes, give us some love. Leave us some feedback and stay good.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Shirley: Josh, I'm really hungry now. Do you know a good restaurant we could go to?Josh: Yes, there's a really great chicken restaurant near my house.Shirley: Chicken?Josh: Yeah, they have lots of different types of chicken. They have fried chicken, baked chicken, broiled chicken, and so on.Shirley: Hmm, chicken. You know, I don't really like chicken that much. Do you know about somewhere else, somewhere that doesn't have chicken or beef?Josh: Yes, there's a vegetarian restaurant near my house, too. But it's in the opposite direction.Shirley: Great. Okay, what kind of food do they have?Josh: They have lots of salads, fresh salads. And they also have some stirfry.Shirley: Okay, and what's the restaurant like?Josh: The restaurant is really nice. It's pretty small, and there's not a lot people usually.Shirley: Okay. Is it light or dark inside the restaurant?Josh: It's a little bit dark but the food is really good.Shirley: Okay. What about the tables? Do they have tablecloths or do they not have tablecloths?Josh: There's no tablecloths and the tables are a little bit low.Shirley: What about the price of the food? Is it expensive or is it cheap?Josh: It's very cheap.Shirley: Hmm, that's good.Josh: Yeah. For example, you can buy a salad for only 5 dollars.Shirley: Wow. That is cheap.Josh: It is.Shirley: Okay. What about a soup?Josh: A soup is usually 6 dollars but they're really good.Shirley: Okay. Well, I have my car today, so is there parking at the restaurant?Josh: There's some parking but there's actually a lot nearby.Shirley: Okay, so no problem to park my car.Josh: It's no problem.Shirley: Great. Then, let's go for a vegetarian.Josh: Okay, sounds great.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Shirley: Josh, I'm really hungry now. Do you know a good restaurant we could go to?Josh: Yes, there's a really great chicken restaurant near my house.Shirley: Chicken?Josh: Yeah, they have lots of different types of chicken. They have fried chicken, baked chicken, broiled chicken, and so on.Shirley: Hmm, chicken. You know, I don't really like chicken that much. Do you know about somewhere else, somewhere that doesn't have chicken or beef?Josh: Yes, there's a vegetarian restaurant near my house, too. But it's in the opposite direction.Shirley: Great. Okay, what kind of food do they have?Josh: They have lots of salads, fresh salads. And they also have some stirfry.Shirley: Okay, and what's the restaurant like?Josh: The restaurant is really nice. It's pretty small, and there's not a lot people usually.Shirley: Okay. Is it light or dark inside the restaurant?Josh: It's a little bit dark but the food is really good.Shirley: Okay. What about the tables? Do they have tablecloths or do they not have tablecloths?Josh: There's no tablecloths and the tables are a little bit low.Shirley: What about the price of the food? Is it expensive or is it cheap?Josh: It's very cheap.Shirley: Hmm, that's good.Josh: Yeah. For example, you can buy a salad for only 5 dollars.Shirley: Wow. That is cheap.Josh: It is.Shirley: Okay. What about a soup?Josh: A soup is usually 6 dollars but they're really good.Shirley: Okay. Well, I have my car today, so is there parking at the restaurant?Josh: There's some parking but there's actually a lot nearby.Shirley: Okay, so no problem to park my car.Josh: It's no problem.Shirley: Great. Then, let's go for a vegetarian.Josh: Okay, sounds great.

What To Do In a Financial Downturn With Justine Lalla Josh: G’day everyone out there in podcast land! We've got a fantastic guest for you. We've got Justine from JPL FM, which is JPL Financial Management. They do some pretty cool stuff with books around the place here. And we're going to be talking about what to do with financial management in a downturn. So we're all experiencing a bit of stress, regardless of what industry you're in. There's only a few at the moment that are really thriving, and I have strong feelings that they may be seeing the downturn in the future a little bit further on. Justine, tell me what would be the one thing that you need to keep in mind when facing a downturn? Get more tips to overcome financial downturn at dorksdelivered.com Justine: I think you need to keep in mind your cash flow and your budgeting. During a financial downturn, you should always have a budget that's always a good idea and during a financial downturn. You should have some sort of contingency plan or contingency budget. Josh: That's very good advice. I know that we had a bit of a talk offline before we jumped into the episode. Without pointing fingers and saying names, you did say that some people need to have the fingers shaking at them saying what are you doing and get your books in order. That's a huge thing. We've got so many different opportunities are in a fantastic country here, where there's opportunities everywhere. And there's probably stacks of businesses that are not able to get them or they're definitely putting you under the pump because they don't have their bookkeeping in order. Justine: Yes, yes. So due to COVID-19 and all the grants that been offered by the government, the cash flow boost, and Job Keeper, we're finding a lot of small business coming to us trying to get the books in order now because they haven't done so in the past, which is quite surprising. Obviously, in order to manage a business well, you need good information. So you need the records in order. And the only way you can plan for financial downturn or any sort of planning is good information, good bookkeeping, information that you can rely on and make good decisions in the future. Josh: Yep. Well, I think it's all data in, data out. How far behind was the worst? And then how far behind is the average? Justine: I've seen some go as far as a year behind. I know there are more than that behind. Thankfully, they haven’t for me. But yeah, it could go to a year behind. Thankfully, none of our clients are in that situation. They're all up to date. So, everyone was able to benefit from all of the subsidies and grants. Josh: Cool. That's good news. Because Yeah, it's a this is it. There's a new one every week. There's one that just came out the other day for another $10,000 Justine: Yes, the Queensland Government grant. Josh: Yeah, that's right. And far out. I thought the wave was over. I thought everyone had caught the wave or not. Justine: Yeah, it's really good that there's so many out there. Obviously, you need to have everything in order. And you need to know what is out there. So you can benefit from all these things. So it's good to talk to a professional that can advise you what you can actually apply for because you don't want to miss out. Josh: Not at all. Exactly. And we just say the more waves coming in as time goes on. Justine: I would say with those grants, utilise it efficiently, you know, make the most out of it in your business. Josh: So, obviously, talking about financial management a downturn with these grants that come through there, what do you think their mindset should be like? For instance, some people will be like, okay, like, let's just use these grants. And this this will allow us to just ride the wave through and then everything will work but we don't know what's on the other side. Versus other people which will be like reduce everyone's hours, stand people down, remove any excessive expenses or expenses that we can absolutely that are not must have parts that absolutely run the business and then still get the grants so that you can ride the wave a little bit longer, even though it might have crippled your business for a longer period of time. What do you think is the best way to approach that? Justine: Yeah, good question. So in terms of these grants and these cash flow boosts and everything that you can get at the moment, I think that should be tied to your contingency budget or plan. And you should factor that in as to how you're going to boost your cash flow. How are you going to get your business back on track once everything starts opening, and how you can then put your stuff on to increase hours until your business is running back to normal and your sales are hitting the usual numbers that it should be. So those grants and subsidies should be factored into that contingency plan. You shouldn’t just get it and then squandered all in one go. Josh: Okay. That's good advice. I'd say like you said that a lot of it comes down to your team and the management of where your goals are with where you're going. We faced the problem internally, I can't say that we got away scot-free, we've had a downturn. And that's because the businesses we rely upon had a downturn, and sadly, two of them that were running 40, 50 people businesses, one of them the other ones 50, 60 people businesses went down to three and five and then another one that was also quite large went down to nothing. They've gone bankrupt officially now out of business, very happy to say that our team has stuck with us. And we've held together like a tight family. I've had even some of the staff say, look, although I know you're saying we should be at 80% they still have to work the full hundred. One staff member said, Look, what can we do here and he said, happy for you to not pay me for the next two months and we can just work something out after that. And the environment and the way that you bring up your team and you talk to your team will definitely help with the situation. Once you've got the grants, would you be saying hold on to them, hold on to the money or pivot your business or think about that idea or accelerate at some bit? Some people have been spending heaps of money on marketing to use it now to be able to put their business forward. Some people have been pulling back completely and saying, let's just remove every overhead and just sit here until something happens. Justine: Look, it's gonna be a little bit different for every business. And depending on where they are with sales, I know a lot of businesses have started doing a little bit of sales, which is good. A lot of people have this stuff only on job keeper, some of them have staff working a few days a week. So it really all depends on what your expenses are like, and what sort of revenue you are expecting. I think those are the factors that you should look at first before determining what you could potentially do with that extra boost of cash. It's great to be able to use that to increase your cash flow so that when something arises, you are able to pay for that. If a business is going to benefit more from increasing staff hours, like you said marketing that all comes down to the business and what kind of business that is Josh: Like it's just shifting risk really just working out what is the best thing that you can do with the money that's come in. Justine: Yes. And it's really important to utilise those funds efficiently. And during an economic downturn, you want to make sure you're using it in an area where you're going to see some sort of benefits, you know, it's gonna make a difference in your business. Josh: For us internally, we decided you know, everyone has those products and those things, they go, oh, that's nice. And you buy into it, and then God, we don't really need that. And so, we've trimmed the hedge, so to speak, we're now in main machine and although some of those things, that's a really nice report that we're getting once a month, and we went, is it worth $600 a month for that report? No. Get rid of that. Justine: Yeah. I think during this sort of time, you should look at your nice to have things or must have things and wait. Josh: Yes, absolutely and, and start cross checking everything. And this isn't just for business. This is in your own personal life. I looked across the properties that I have, all of the insurances, I looked across the insurances for the cars and made sure that I wasn't paying too much. And just making a few phone calls, I think was an hour total time on the phone. I saved $1,000 a year. And I thought that's pretty good. Justine: Yeah, that’s awesome, that's excellent. Even your electricity bill means companies that call and seek out the best rates. There's so many areas that you can decrease costs, if you spend some time analysing your numbers. Josh: Yeah. And if and as I said, it doesn't take that long to do like a some of the data center and expenses that we had, we rang them up and we went from, for one of them is $600 a month, which dropped down to $400 a month. Another one was 1400 dollars a month that was dropped down to $800 a month. Yeah, I thought, well, this is great. And it doesn't take long. And we've had customers come to us, and ask us and say, hey, look up, we're not doing not doing well, because of this situation, what can we do? And everyone's in the same boat. And we're all here to help, really. That's one of the great things about this, this beautiful country we're in. We're not full of arseholes. There's a few of them. But generally speaking, we're here to help everyone and we want only what's best for everyone. Justine: Yes, definitely the same with us. I mean, we've offered our clients some discounts to get through these tougher months because obviously, the flow on effect to everyone so when we can help with definitely trying to do that. Josh: You're in a fantastic position, I guess in where if they want help with some of these different grants, they get money. If they get money, you can get paid. So everyone wins. If they don't get it, it's kind of a free money you're getting paid for on the results really. You have a bit of a different way of billing people as well, which I very much like. Would you like to tell everyone about that? Justine: Yes. So we tend to charge our clients a fixed weekly or monthly rate, which entails a variety of services that they require for their business. So you can choose whether you want to pay for that weekly or monthly. And with that, there's no additional cause for any phone calls or emails or any questions that you may have. I don't think you generally contact your accountant if they are charging you per minute. We like our clients to, you know, ask questions, know their numbers, learn more, because if they don't learn any more, and ask the right questions, they're not going to do any better. So we want them to succeed, which is why we like them to ask questions. And most of our customers love that model, because they know there's no surprises in the cost, they can budget for it effectively. And there's nothing additional to that. Josh: I love it. And a model that we went to for it for the exact same reason you've just said that actually. So in 2011, we noticed a bit of a problem. So 2007 the business started out. 2010, we’re still charging people per hour. And then we noticed that as we were getting problems fixed faster and faster, and using better technology, we're getting paid less and less, and the business was less profitable, the more experienced the staff were. And I thought this doesn't make any sense. So there's these cowboys out there charging the same price. And in one instance, there's a job we got finished in 45 minutes that had someone else already work on it for 10 hours. And I thought, how didn’t they do this in 10 hours, it was a simple problem. And then I thought, we've got to change the model. It's the best thing we ever did, because it gives us a reliable income. And it makes sure that our customers have a known expense, as you said, and it means that when the receptionist calls up and says, hey, we've got a problem, this isn't happening. It gets looked at with the same level of detail than any of the C level people. Well, before the C level people call up and they don't have time to get that problem fixed with a receptionist even though it might be costing them a couple of hours a day or something because things are loading slowly or things aren't working as efficiently as they could. And that ultimately is costing the business heaps. If you're in this financial downturn, and you're looking at a way to change around how your business is working, this would be a great time to sort of brainstorm around that. You're there as a soundboard for different things like this, is that right? Justine: Yes, yes, definitely. We work on a range of things for our clients. And it all depends on the services you require. Our key focus is, you know, management of your business. So cash flow, budgeting, making sure you have good reports at the end of the month. So wherever they are variances from your actuals to your budget, you know, we sit down with the owners, and we go through, you know, the reasons why this may be occurring. And then we look at ways you know, like you said, where you can call up a few places like your insurance and reduce things. These are areas that we advise our clients on. Josh: There’s something I’d love to see and maybe you guys do this is if you have multiple people that are in the same industry and then you went, hmm why is Dorks Delivered spending, I don't know 30% of their income on marketing where other IT companies are only spending 10%. And why is Doc's delivered revenue X and Y when they've got this many customers? That'd be great. Justine: So we use a benchmarking for our clients. So our budgets are looked at against that benchmark. And then, at the end of every month, when we do your monthly reports, we look at your profit and loss against those benchmarks and try to work out why is there such a variance. So there definitely are benchmarks that you can use and use that for your budgeting so that you know what other businesses in your industry are doing in terms of their percentage for wages against sales, cost of goods, for example. So it's very, very good and efficient to use benchmarks, I think in your business. Josh: I don't know what other people are spending I don't know for 20 percent’s right or 50% is right or whatever else. Justine: Yeah, you need the industry benchmarks. Josh: I know that it's working. Justine: I think you get an idea of what the benchmark is around those spin. Just to give you an idea. Josh: Yeah, that'd be good. You have to send me across something for IT, and we'll see where we're at. So fixed fee for accounting. Did you start the business doing that? Or is that something that came about afterwards? Justine: We started the business doing that, because I know that's a little bit different from what other people are doing. And whenever I have worked before, prior to me joining the company, an accounting firm would have done the work. And when I saw the bills that these companies were receiving from these firms, it was quite shocking. So I thought that I'd like to do something different and my target market is small to medium sized businesses. And I think this is a much more affordable way for them to use our services. And every business needs to have good financial management. And so, this is an area that we love helping them in. And I think the fixed fees works well with small to medium businesses. Josh: I completely agree. If you know that you can ask the question whenever, you don't feel as uncomfortable about asking it. My first accountant, sorry for listening, Mr. First Accountant. I knew when I walked in, the clock was ticking. As soon as I went grab that mentos off his desk and we're talking, the clock is ticking. Justine: Don’t you feel stressed when you know that clock is ticking? Josh: When he's like, Josh, what do you do in your spare time? Justine: Oh, does it matter right now? Josh: I’m like nothing I do Nothing. I do absolutely nothing. I have the most boring life ever. Let's just talk about what I'm here for. Cos he’d be like oh, yeah. So how's the family? I got this new car. And I'm going I don't care so much. It stress me, because then I wasn't asking the right questions. I wasn't saying I should my business structure be like this, I would say, what is the fastest way that I can get away from you and stop talking to you. I didn't build a great relationship. I noticed that when I was talking to customers, and I talked to them and computers load, things load, things take time to download or whatever, and you're talking to them. And you can see them looking at their clock looking at the computer looking at the clock, and I'm going, ah, this isn't good. This isn't making them feel happy. And then that's when I'd say something, look why we're waiting for this. I'm not charging, I feel more comfortable. That's not a very good way to run a business, is it? Changing across to we call them continuity plans, because we want to keep their business continuity. And so a lot of people call a managed IT service plans. We thought what does that even mean? Continuity agreements where you guarantee their uptime, it's simple, you continue, you have a business continuity, and you guarantee that in your plan. The only problem that I found in changing to the model, two problems. The first one, if you ever see any of your clients at a pub, they're going to buy your beer, because you have built that fantastic relationship up. So that's a good problem to have. So I don't see any problem with that at all. The only other thing I would say, and this comes down to again, the position of where I was at in life, and how about outgoing I was at that stage. When things are working, customers would be like, what are we paying you for? And when things are broken, they ask what are we paying you for? And so that came down to making sure that you had the right reporting in place, and you had the right metrics, KPIs to make sure that everything was pulling everything in the same direction. But overall, as long as you've done that, it's a very, very good way to make sure that in a situation like now, if you are running a per hour ad hoc type business, you very well could be getting no hours and that could very well be giving you no money and that's a big problem to be in. Well, I've really enjoyed speaking with you. And is there anything else that you'd like to go through for any of our listeners that are out there to, in regards to JPL financial management? Justine: Oh, well, I think the piece of advice I could give businesses out there is to manage your cash flows, manage your budget, make sure you have numbers in place, you know, plan for this period of downtime. Make sure you know what your numbers are, you know what your expenses are, cut costs where you can. Talk to a professional, get the most out of your government grants and everything that the government's offering at the moment. So utilise that efficiently. And yeah, hopefully we'll all be back in business full swing pretty soon. Josh: I completely agree. And anyone out there that is listening and wants to have more advice, or wants to have Justine go through your numbers in your books, jump across the JPLFM.net or JPL financial management, we'll put a link in here so you can see where to go from there. And yeah, everyone just stay healthy. Stay on top of your books. Don't let things go behind. And I think, pay yourself don't not pay yourself and then not be able to get some of these grants and make sure you're talking to someone that can give you the right advice and set the right wind in your sails to guide you to where you want to be. If you have enjoyed this episode, make sure to jump across to iTunes, leave us some love. Give us some feedback. And yeah, stay healthy.

Running the Numbers With Drue from 4Front Josh: Good day everyone out there in podcast world. We've got a special guest here, Drue, and he does some pretty cool stuff. And actually, you know what? I'm going to get you to tell me what you do, the voodoo that you do, and how that's impacting businesses around Southeast Queensland? Get more tips from Drue Schofield at dorksdelivered.com.au Drue: Yeah, thanks Josh. Nice intro. I don't know that we're that exciting. Josh: Aww, come on. Drue: But that was a very exciting introduction. We're accountants. Look, no, all jokes aside, we think we're quite personable people. Yeah, we're accountants. We're a full-service accounting and advisory taxation business or service. We deal mainly in the small to medium business space. We do self-managed super fund administration and advisory with our SMSF clients, whether they are still working, building businesses, contributing to super or they're self-funded retirees, and we also do quite a bit of work with property investors and developers, making sure they're structured well and giving them advice along the way, whilst being in a position to help our clients leverage our network. I spend a lot of time, personally, networking with allied professionals and pretty much anyone. I just like to be a conduit for business and people that are doing things and have ambition, and if I can connect you, or one of my clients, or someone with someone else that they need to talk to, to solve their problem, then that makes me really happy. Josh: Cool. Okay. So I guess you covered a couple of things there that spiked my interest. One of them was the podcast worldwide audience, in Australia, we call a small to medium business, I would have said, five to 200 employees. Yeah? Would you agree? About that? Drue: Yeah, about that. Yeah. Josh: Yeah. Where in America, anything less than 200 is small, it's backyard mom and dad shop, isn't it? Drue: Yeah, they seem to have a different view on business over there. Unless you're over 250 employees or whatever, they don't really even count. Josh: A blimp. Nothing. Drue: To a degree. I mean, I had some association with businesses and professionals over there when clients needed to utilise services in the U.S. and Europe as well. But yeah, certainly, everything's bigger and better in America. Sometimes. Josh: So one of the things that I've noticed when I've been talking with you versus other accountants, in bits and pieces that we've spoken with is, you seem down to earth, to the point, and humanable. Drue: Oh, thanks. Josh: If that makes sense. Drue: Yeah, yeah. Josh: Less robotic. Drue: Yeah, yeah. Look, accountants have a bad stereotype. Look, I like to think I'm the new wave or part of the new wave or the new age of accountants. Josh: I'm not helping the IT look! Drue: No, you look very trendy, except for the glasses that have no lenses by the way, for people out there. But no, they look really good. I was offered to wear some, but I chose not to. I'm a contact lens wearer, anyway. Drue: Look, we are. We're approachable. I don't know if fun loving is the right word, but we enjoy what we do. That said, we're serious. We give serious advice and sophisticated advice to people when they need it. We're succinct, we're to the point, we remove jargon. If a client doesn't understand what we're doing, we just go over it again and again until they do. Hopefully, not too many times, and usually not too many times. We usually get it on the first or second go, but we're not here to preach to people, we're not here to talk down to people, we're here to educate people. And if clients don't understand what they're doing and getting themselves into, you can bet your bottom dollar, that's where there's going to be problems, so we want to avoid that at all costs. We have those full and frank conversations without fear or favour. The clients know what they're doing, why they want to do it. We get a good understanding of that, and then we give the advice tailored to that particular situation. Josh: I think you listed four F's then. And I guess if everything's going right, you don't hear a fifth one. Drue: No, that's right. We won't talk about the fifth one. There's enough doom and gloom out there today and we don't need to feed any more panic or doom and gloom, I don't think. Josh: Not at all. So I can see a lot of similarities in what you guys do and what we do. We try to simplify technical problems. We try to make sure that people are able to understand and assimilate with what their end goal is. And we use technology as the fulcrum to achieve that. And in a non technical, gobbledygook, terahertz and gigaflops type words, we try and make sure it's all human understandable, readable stuff. It doesn't matter if you're a mechanic or a doctor or whatever it is, or anything in between, you're able to work out. You know there's a problem, we can see that there's a solution, and we use, as I said, technology for that. Josh: So one of the things, I know, when I first started out in business, was I was scared shitless about doing the accounting thing and doing it wrong. So I went and bought a bunch of a bunch of books and got any of the different government books that I could get on GST, and I don't know if you've ever had the opportunity to read those, their ... Drue: I've read them all. Josh: They're exciting, aren't they? Drue: No, they're not. Josh: No they're not. So I'm reading all this stuff, and at that stage I was at uni reading all these books on GST and BAS, and everything else, when I'm on the train to uni. It wasn't fun and it didn't make me feel any better off, because I guess it's kind of like me trying to pretend I'm a doctor or pretend I'm a mechanic, when I'm not. Drue: Sometimes it's good to just eat the sausage, Josh, and not know what gone into it. Josh: Exactly. I agree. Drue: If you use that as an analogy. Not that we don't explain what goes into it. Josh: I like that. That's good. I've always said, "You can teach a man to fish and he'll have food for life, but some people just don't like fishing." Drue: That's right. Josh: They just don't. Drue: Some people don't like fish either. Josh: Exactly. So that's getting a professional to do the voodoo that they do, is better than you trying to do everything and wear another hat. Drue: Yeah, it's crucial. I can't underline, underscore, bold, italic, asterisk enough that it's crucial to get really good advice. Whether you're just starting out in business, or starting out doing a development, or considering setting up a self-managed super fund, or whatever the case may be. Or you've been in business for two, three years and things are going well, or you're an established business, I can't stress enough how important it is to get accurate, timely advice, from someone that wants to be a key partner in your business. I mean that's our tagline. "Your key partner in business," that's who we aim to be. I believe we achieve that all the time with all of our clients. We want to see businesses survive and thrive, and grow and flourish, and do really well. And if we can be a part of that journey and connect them to good people and give good advice, then again, as I said before, that makes us really happy. Josh: Cool, cool, cool. And I think that's important there. Key. Good advice. And knowing what's out there, one of the things that I found out about years into business, was the R&D grants in bits and pieces. Drue: Yeah, sure. Josh: Do you guys work with those? Drue: We do a little bit in that space. Those things become more technical and more specialised. What I'd rather do more so than try to do it, is we've got people we work with, people we will then refer our clients to that are specialists in that area. And then I guess that's another thing that is a benefit of myself and 4Front Accountants. If we don't know something, we're not afraid to put our hand up and say, "Hey, we've got a rough idea about this, we know enough to be dangerous, but it's now time to go and talk to a professional." Josh: Yep. Drue: And the other thing we'll do there in that situation, is rather than just push the boat out and say, "See you later, hopefully, you hit land," we'll make the connection with that person, and if needs be, we'll attend the meeting and facilitate the process. So again, we want to be your key partner, our client's key partner in business. We'll really hold their hand through that process. Drue: And R&D is a really good example. Whilst we know enough about it, again, to be dangerous and how it all comes together, there's specialists that we work with and that's all they do. R&D in grant work. So R&D is research and development. Sorry, I'm using an acronym and I should explain it. Josh: I should have as well. Drue: That's all right. Not a problem. It's easy when you're a professional and you're working with ABCs and one, two, threes, and EFDs, and ATOs, and ELDs, to just rattle things off. But yeah, R&D, research and development. And whilst I'm there, a little plug for the current government and preceding governments, that someone had the foresight to bring that sort of thing in, because that's helped a lot of our clients tremendously. And I'm not even joking, millions of dollars. Josh: Absolutely. It was a game changer for us. Drue: In real cash. Josh: We've already been developing products, already been developing integrations into LinkedIn that can speed up the process to find new clients. We've developed these different processes within businesses to be able to integrate phones in bits and pieces, and we were already doing all this stuff, and then someone told me about it and I went, "Oh shit, this exists? This is a thing? Why isn't this spoken about more?" Drue: It's an often overlooked or ill-considered thing, it feels like the ATO and the government's always here to do things to you, but when you're a small business person, within reason, it does do things for you as well. I mean, we'll probably touch on it later, but the government's just neutered some stimulus package that's aimed mainly at business and it's actually really good, and it should get things going and hopefully quell some of the fear and panic out there that business owners have. God, I've had three phone calls today and two emails last night about it already. So we're actually sending out a communication and a newsletter form that summaries things clearly, succinctly, no jargon, so that clients have one source. So 4Front Accountants clients have one source to go to, look at, and say, "Okay, great, now I understand it." And we'll get more phone calls and that's fine, we'll explain it. Drue: But going back to what I was talking about, things like the R&D concessions and grants, and those sorts of things, governments are there to do things for business, not always to business. Josh: Yeah. And that's something that I was a big mindset shift that I had around 2016, 2015, 2016, when I started going for the R&D concession. I didn't know it existed, already been in business at that stage since 2007, so I'd been around for long enough that I should have heard something out there, but I hadn't. That was kind of a, "Oh I mean all this wasted money," but I went, "Well, I'm not going out of business." All this potential. And it's only one of the things that I've seen out there. Like there's advantages to employing, there's digital business grants and bits and pieces out there. There's a whole bunch of different things where the government is giving out a whole bunch of money. Josh: There was a programe which I was involved with a little while ago that would subsidise the hourly rates of IT staff, and all sorts of things like that. And I just went, "Wow, this is this cool stuff. How didn't I know about this?" And it's just everyone has that predefined thought, belief system that they're out there to take and not give. Drue: Look, it's a symptom that we see with clients all the time. They're too busy doing it, doing it, doing it. They're stuck working in their business and not on it. And that's the sort of focus that we try to shift, and a mindset we try to change with clients that, "Hey, you need to work on your business and not in it." We've got the tools, the expertise, and the advice and products to actually help clients work more on their business and not in it. And things like that come up all the time. Drue: Now it's quite possible that your accountant that you're working with at the time knew about it and didn't tell you or may not have known about it at all. But I can assure people listening that at 4Front Accountants, there are the sorts of things that we've got a finger on the pulse with. Again, we're not experts, we don't understand those things, but we're certainly aware of them. We find out enough about it. I certainly do read about it, and I know my people at 4Front Accountants do as well. We read about it enough and know enough about it to be dangerous, and then to know who to hand that on to, so that we can explain that situation to that particular expert, and then guide our client in the right path, with the right person, so that they get the result that they want. Josh: And that's what you want to get with anyone in the professional services industry. You don't necessarily want them to be the one stop shop. You want to them to know the shops you can go to Drue: You can't be all things to all people. And when you do, you will fail, immediately. Josh: Yep. Drue: And you shouldn't be. I mean, there's specialists in every field. I mean if you've got a problem with your knee, you might start at the GP, but you'll soon be referred to, potentially, an orthopedic surgeon. The GP isn't going to be there, but he's developed a relationship with that person to know that's the best orthopedic surgeon for your particular problem. I mean, we're the same. We're not solicitors, we're not finance brokers, we're not financial advisors yet. We're not R&D grant specialists or whatever the case might be, but we've got a really good network and we spend a lot of time building relationships with the people that will help our clients, so that we can continually prove our mantra or our motto, tagline, that we are your key partner in business. Josh: That's really important. Just knowing that you've got that one point of contact and that- Drue: It's terrific when people come to you and they say, "Drue, I need this," or my business partner, Carmine Decorso, they might go to Carmine and say, "Hey Carmine, we need this," and we'd say, "Yep, sure. We know someone. We'll give them a call now. We'll connect you. If you want us to come to the meeting, we can do that as well." Josh: Yep. So where would you say you sit with businesses? Do you start at anything from bookkeepers and all the way up, like a CFO type level? Drue: Yeah, we do a lot, I mean I guess our core competency is compliance work. When people think of accountants, they think of people that will do financial statements and tax returns to a solid, accurate level. They'll complete those income tax returns to a point where they're not paying a dollar more or less tax than they should. And if they're lucky, they might get a little bit of business advice. Drue: Now, we kind of turn that on its head a little bit, insofar that we recognise and realise the compliance is important, and certainly we feel our clients don't pay a dollar more or less tax than they should. And we work really hard to make sure that things are done properly, correctly, and legally. You certainly don't want to do anything that's illegal, nor do we. Where our point difference is, we do sort of act in that external CFO type arrangement, where we like to work with our clients more often than once or twice a year. We do that through something we've termed our Board of Advice programe, where we sit down with our clients quarterly, and I like to call them 90 day success cycles, which I believe is a McKinsey & Co term, the management consultants. So again, shows you the literature that people at 4Front Accountants are reading. We're not just reading the boring textbooks. Whilst they are important, they're not terribly exciting, but we've got to go through them. I'm more interested in things that are going to help our business clients survive, grow, and thrive. But yeah, we run our Board of Advice program with most of our business clients or as many as we can. They see a lot of value in that. Drue: So what is the Board of Advice program? As I alluded to, we work in quarterly cycles with our clients. We run to an agenda. We focus on the financial performance of the business and we do some business analysis around that on quarterly numbers, usually comparing the current quarter to the same quarter this time last year. And then the December quarter that we've just finished with our Board of Advice clients now, it's really interesting, because you've got six months of data this year, and you've got six months of data from the previous year, so you can really have a really good snapshot of where the business is at. Sometimes just comparing this quarter this year to this quarter last year isn't enough. Likewise, comparing the 2019 year, we've just finished it, to the 2018 year, doesn't really tell you a lot. It's a little bit too far in the past. I always tease clients that we're not here to write history with them, we're here to make history, and that's what we really try to do. Josh: I guess one of the things that I've always thought is, "Man, okay, you'll have a good quarter, you have an awesome quarter, and then you'll have a bad quarter." And when you've been in business long enough, they can't all be home runs, can they? Drue: Sadly, not. Josh: No. Well I think you can't enjoy the good without the bad, so it really lets you appreciate the good. Drue: Your sweet and savoury. Josh: Yeah, that's right. So I think and I see a lot of people around the place that are, "Oh my goodness, you wouldn't believe what happened, the line was so long at the shops." Well, there's kids starving in Africa and you're worried about the line at the shops. Drue: They're probably buying toilet paper. Josh: That's exactly right. So you have a look at these things and you think, "Okay, you need to get a bit of reality check." And I think the best thing to do is to have the bad times so that you can appreciate the good times. And not necessarily, I'm not wishing anything upon anyone that complains about mundane and first world problems, but yeah, you definitely need to have the bad ones. But if you have a bad one, sometimes that could be something that's spread further than just your business, and a lot of people are worried about a recession and things. Nevertheless, the data that you have, that you can help businesses out with, you mentioned forecasting. Are you able to see trends across the businesses that you work with? Drue: Absolutely. We see stuff all the time. Josh: So if someone said, "Oh, I've had a bad quarter," and you go, "Look, I understand. We've got five other businesses that are in the same sector as you that are also feeling the pressure." Is that something- Drue: Yeah, it is. I mean, we're growing, we're growing all the time. And we want to keep growing. We've got fairly big aspirations as to where 4Front Accountants will land in my lifetime as a business, so the more clients we have, the more data we have. Now, obviously everything's confidential so we don't share other people's information, but we can talk about things generally. Drue: So we're seeing that with particular trade's clients, or we're seeing that with medical professional clients, or we're seeing that with Josh: Retails. Drue: Clients in, yeah, retail, whatever the case may be. You get a general feel, you work with enough clients, you just end up with, as an accounting firm, you end up with a natural cluster, because if you've got an accounting business like we do, you're dealing with a lot of different businesses all the time, and we're almost solely business these days, which is the path we want to keep going on. So you see little clusters. Drue: It's really important, though, to not have a five week view of things. You need to have a quarterly, that 90 day success cycle view of things, or that six monthly, one year, three years, five years. Now, the further you stretch out, the harder it is to plan. Josh: Otherwise, it gets a bit wonky, but at least you're walking it. Drue: You can, but you've got to have a plan. You've got to have a plan. So one of the things that's really important, I think, for clients is to do some forecasting, and then you give yourself some measurements or some numbers to measure your current performance against. Like you said, Josh, you're going to have bad quarters, and that's just how things are. It might be because of seasonality, it might be because there's a hereto incurable virus sweeping across the world, who knows? But it's important to take a longer term view of things and look at your business and say, "Okay, is there anything that's fundamentally wrong with the business now?" Most business people will have a gut feeling, that's why they are entrepreneurs and that's why they are business people, they tend to go with their gut. Perhaps more. It's sort of an intuitive thing, but I think probably harking right back to the advice piece I was talking about before, you can't underestimate the power and the value of good, succinct, solid, financial advice, sitting down with your accountant or your advisor. We're becoming more advisors than accountants these days because of the number of clients that are starting to take up our Board of Advice program. Drue: And if you do it in a logical, methodical way, with some structure, I mean all our Board of Advice program meetings that we have each quarter run to an agenda. We talk about the financial analysis of the business, sure, but there are other things that come up as well. They become a bit open slather, we like to look at whatever clients are comfortable talking about, and that sway into personal issues as well, which means you've got to have a whole subset of other networks available to you. That might be psychologists and psychiatrists or other healthcare professional people. Josh: You're offering counselling, nearly. Drue: Well not quite. Josh: You're not wanting to but Drue: Well, look, unless you're in business, you really don't understand and appreciate how much it really becomes part of your psyche, and it becomes your identity. Josh: Absolutely. Drue: And we've had clients, unfortunately, that have had businesses go under, where we haven't been appointed as advisors quick enough, and we haven't been able to make changes early enough. And it's really sad. And sometimes these aren't young people, sometimes these are well established people in their 30's or 40's or 50's where industries have changed and they've been left behind. And that's really, really sad. Drue: Now in some instances, there's probably not much you can do, but I think if you had the chance to get to them early, maybe run this Board of Advice program that's quite structured, which is almost like a mini board of directors, the way we run it, given its got an agenda, and it really does add a bit of corporate governance and accountability, which is important. It's something that I think is lacking more generally in the small business world. People sort of get their hammer and level, and off they go, and they're a builder, or they take their- Josh: All the cowboys out there. They try their best- Drue: Yeah, they are. I guess there are Cowboys out there and they do try their best, but they may not have appreciated the advice that they could get off a good accountant and business advisor. And I like to think that if our clients, and future clients, start to work with us closer with this Board of Advice program, the amount of accountability adds is tremendous. And it's going to get good results, because we're spending that time to sit with our clients and we're their professional sounding board. They can throw anything they like at us. We'll have our own insights and our own observations, which we can give advice around and make changes. And I've done that with clients recently. Drue: I had a plumbing client recently that is new to the firm, and he reported a $20,000 loss last year, and he couldn't work out why. I sat down with- Josh: I bet he pulled that coin from out of his house or something like that, or a personal asset, or that's, I guess, advice that you'd be giving. Drue: Yeah, so I've sat down with him, looked at the numbers, and he said, "Okay, well there's a $20,000 loss here." Yeah. And the businesses is now in lost territory again for the last two quarters. On a quick analysis, I've worked out that his GP, his gross profit line is wrong. So he didn't have the right numbers in there. Once I put the right numbers in there, whilst it was still bad, it made the data more realistic, and it told a better story. Josh: So gutter in, gutter out. Drue: That's right. So the issue in this particular, and this is a real life example here, in this particular client situation, he was having an over reliance on subcontractors and labour hire, and we feel he wasn't marking up the materials he was buying enough. So we did just a quick little "for example" calculation of if he replaced this person with this person and this with that and perhaps got rid of some of the labour hire and some of subcontractor at work, and replace that with a more permanent workforce, and then changed the markup he was putting on the cost of sales, we were able to turn it into an $86,000 profit. Josh: Yep. Huge. Drue: Massive turnaround. That's a $106,000 turn around. Now it's easy to say, "Oh yeah, that's great, Drue, but that's all theory. You may not get that immediately." But if you change your mindset, and you're working with your advisor or your accountant each quarter, and you're looking at those things and making that the most important thing, I always say that which is measured is that which is achieved, you're going to get somewhere near it. You might not get to the $86,000 profit the first year, but gosh, you might get $20,000 profit or $30,000. Going to be better than a $20,000 loss, surely. Josh: You can't turn a ship on a dime. Drue: No. Josh: It takes time. Drue: It takes time. And I guess the Board of Advice programe we're running, it's really helping clients to see the power of accountability and meeting and taking advice and acting on it. Josh: I agree. It's something that people need to have. And this is something ... I was talking to someone else earlier on today- Drue: And if you haven't worked out, I'm pretty passionate about it. Josh: I've noticed. Yeah, yeah. Drue: Well, I want to see people do well. I mean my parents were small business owners and- Josh: Yeah, what did they do? Drue: Builder. Dad's a builder. Had some really good success over the years, but I think he could have done better if he'd had, perhaps better advice, more frequently. And I really think any business, whether you're really successful or you're moderately successful or you're doing okay, will benefit from better quality advice more frequently. Josh: Well, I found, when I first started out in business, my uncle at a company that he was running for many years, and engineers or teachers is pretty much everyone else. So I always thought you can do anything you put your mind to, but that was misinterpreted as you do everything that you can and you put your mind to. And so that then meant when I became a business, started, I'll put in my prepubescent voice, "Let's start a business. I'm really excited to see where this goes." And then I went, "Shit, there's a lot to do." And so I had to become the marketer, the salesperson, the manager, the entrepreneur. Drue: Chief cook and bottle washer. Josh: Exactly. Exactly. All and everything of the above. So I slowly, slowly worked out that this isn't for me. And then went, "Let's stop this and start employing the right people and having the right people do what they enjoy doing," and do what brings you the money in. So that was a great shift and I've never looked back. Having the right people there to give you the advice though, and make sure you are making the right decisions is important. Drue: I think it's critical. It's critical to the success of success or failure of a particular business or enterprise. It just really is. Josh: It doesn't matter the size of your business either. I think it's critical straightaway. We go into people's networks a lot and we see problems and problems and we go, "Oh, why is it set up like that?" Or, "Why is it done like that?" And it's just because the advice that they were given was they thought they know, liked, and trusted that person, trusted the advice, and it was just poor advice. And so for all of our clients that we work with, we say, "Look, we want you, every six months or however often you feel necessary, get another IT company in here and see if we're doing the best job for you." And that gives them the full input and knowledge that we're fully transparent, we're very confident in what we're doing, and we know we're doing right for businesses. Drue: The fact that you're prepared to frank your ability with that, I'd imagine no clients do that, because they know that you back yourself. Josh: Very few. And one of them said, "Oh, who would you suggest?" And I said, "That kind of takes away from the point of it, doesn't it?" Drue: Yeah, that's not independent. If you're suggesting someone, it's not really independent. Josh: Any professional services that they have that they're employing in their business, whether it be financial advisors, accountants, solicitors, IT people, anyone that is doing something that you can't touch and feel and know that the product is good and the outcome is good. Drue: Intangible. Josh: Yeah, intangible products or intangible services, you need to be able to have someone go in there and make sure that Oz behind the curtain is pulling the right strings and doing the right thing for you. Josh: So we had someone come to us about a month ago and they were asking us if we could help them out with some of their LinkedIn marketing stuff. And I said, "Yeah, we can definitely do that. We can go through the process and do the voodoo that we do." And I bought the pricing, he goes, "Oh. Okay, we'll have a think about it." And I thought, "Oh, 'have a think about it' means you're probably going to check out someone else. That doesn't matter. Josh: Anyway, he called us back a month later. So just the Monday just gone. And said, "Josh, I need you to review what's going on with my LinkedIn." I had a look and he went with this company to go through and market him on LinkedIn. And I thought, "All right." And I had a look and they were doing nothing. They bought a $50 product. They took his scripts, and they were using this $50 product to automate the messages that were being sent out, and then charging them $1,500 a month to try and make new connections on LinkedIn. And I said, "You are absolutely been being taken for a run mate." I said, "This is terrible." I said, "The product they're using is this ... " and pointed it out here. And I said, "This is what they're using. It's $50." And that's $50 U.S. I said, "But that's $50. And then you've shown me what you've given me and all of this information, they've just entered that, copied it out of your document into these fields. Then they've just set the days of when they're going to send these messages to people." I said, This is terrible. You're really spending $1,500?" He goes, "I feel sick." I said, "Maybe $500 if they're managing everything and they're doing a phone call." For what they're doing, I said, "They're on selling a product with 30 times mark up, 3000% mark up." I'm like, "That's ridiculous." Drue: Vaporware. Josh: Yeah. And anyway, what I'm getting at is it's always important to have someone there check out what's going on. I myself have had only a couple of bookkeepers over the 13 years we've been in business, and when I got the second bookkeeper, she went, "Oh man, look what the first bookkeeper's been doing," and I thought, "Oh, well that's probably what you're going to say anyway," but it's good just to have people double check, just to make sure that your work is aligned. Drue: Yeah. It can't hurt. Josh: Right. What's the hurt in it? Nothing, yeah. Drue: Look, very rarely do we have clients do that, because they're confident in what we do and how we do it. Now, I will say often I have meetings with prospective clients. It probably starts out as a second opinion meeting, but once I start talking about what we're going to do and demonstrate that, it soon becomes a first opinion meeting, because they've become clients, which is nice. Josh: Yeah. But that's what you want. Drue: Absolutely. Josh: And that just shows when you think, obviously without knowing the relationship- Drue: And it doesn't mean their advisors aren't good, it just means they're not as good as us. Josh: Yeah. Not on the ball enough or not keeping in contact enough. And that's imperative, like relationships. We're all about automation and everything that we produce is all around automation and uptime for businesses, but we'd never suggest to automate the human touch. Now we're sitting here having a podcast together, doing an interview together. Drue: In the same room. Josh: In the same room. Drue: As humans. Josh: We can high five. Drue: Yep. Josh: That was terrible, let's try one that makes a noise. There we go. And when you look at, we could have done this over Zoom, we could have used technology, we could have done all these other different things, but that's a start and end, and then there's nothing there. And I think the world is becoming too digitised in ways that they should be humanised. Drue: Yeah. It's not as organic. Our Board of Advice meetings, we have a handful, occasionally, that are done on a Zoom or a Skype call, but for the most part, I like to do them face to face, either in our office or in our boardroom, which is all kitted out and nice and comfortable and easy to have the meetings there, or at the client's premises, more than happy to do that. But I prefer and okay, yeah, it would be quicker, it would save me half an hour, 45 minutes each way in a car. It would save the client half an hour, 45 minutes each way in the car. So okay, you'd pick up an hour, an hour and a half. Big deal. In the overall scheme of things, more than happy to go to a client's premises and meet with them or their home, if that's where they're comfortable doing it. I don't mind. Drue: But the important thing is they're in the flesh, eyeballing each other. It's seeing body language, seeing expression. Josh: You can feel the emotion. Drue: And they can see, I hope, sometimes our passion or my passion for what I'm trying to do and where I'm trying to help them get with their business. And I can see their passion or their frustration or their concern or fear or panic or jubilation that they've .... We've had an action list that we set last time and they've done it all and they'll say, "See Drue, I did it all. You didn't think I would, did you?" I'm like, "No, no, I never said that." Or where the labour a point, they look at something and they say, "Well look, we didn't get this action point and here's why." And we can sit there and we can talk about it. I don't think we will ever, ever technologize, digitise, or supersede, the human to human interaction. Drue: No. Josh: If we did, the UN would be done completely via video link, and there would be no need for everyone to fly into Brussels or wherever they do, and have a face to face meeting. Drue: No G20s, none of that stuff. Josh: It'll be all gone. Drue: If you think about bigger businesses with business deals, they still fly to Japan or to China or to the U.S. or to London, wherever it is, and they sit down. They might break bread and have a meal together, but they sit in the room and they sign the papers. And there's no need to do that usually, but there's a real human need or craving to be in the company of other human beings. Josh: There's something there that you can't feel otherwise. Drue: Yeah. Josh: When you do it over the phone, you can hear tonalities in voices, but you can't really feel the impact of that person being there. It generally doesn't go longer than the, "Okay. We've started, we've had a small amount of banter. We've spoken about it. We've concluded. We've said bye." There's not that, let's get to know the real you moments that you get when you talk and catch up with people. Drue: It's like a 5D factor, I think, I call it. So not 3D because 3D's easy on the video, and we all know about 4D now, but 5D's you're in their presence, without trying to get too spiritual, you can feel their being. And it's really good. And that's what we want with our clients. We want them to see our passion and feel our passion, and we like to see theirs and feel their passion for their business as well, because that's their livelihood, that's their thing. And as I said, toward the start, that's their identity sometimes. So they're really proud of that and we want to bask in that pride as well. Josh: Well, I guess we've been going through a few bits and pieces here, and I'd like to finish up and ask how would people go about contacting you and make sure that their business is going in the right direction and they're not freaking out, their numbers are doing things wrong. How can they get that second opinion that might turn into the first opinion? Drue: Look, the best way is to send me an email or give me a call. If you go to 4Front.net dot.as, or to Drue, and that's D-R-U-E.schofield@4front.net.au, or find me on LinkedIn. More than happy to have a conversation, cost and obligation free. We can sit down, we can talk about what you're doing, how you're doing it, what your expectations are, where you think there might be some potential gaps in the advice you're getting now, and we can give you the cut of edge, and then you can see whether you think that's something that appeals to you and that you might see value in. So yeah. Josh: A yachting term, I love that. I love that. I'm a bit of a keen yachtie myself. Is there any questions that you'd like me to ask or that you'd like to ask of me? Drue: No, I think we've covered some great ground there. Don't ask me to repeat all that, because I don't necessarily know what I said, but I just hope that people listening can get a good feel and a good sense for the passion that we have. Yes, we're accountants, and we've got a bad stereotype of being boring and maybe a bit mundane, but I hope, Josh can attest to me not being like that. Josh: Absolutely. No, no, no, not at all. I'd say you'd go and have a beer with me if I offered it after the podcast. Drue: Absolutely. Or two. Josh: Perfect, it's done. Or two. Drue: But yeah, just to finish up, we are passionate about being your key partner in business. Josh: That definitely sounds like you're on a really good business and its got legs and it's going places. I'd like to ask anyone out there, if you have enjoyed this episode, to make sure to jump across to iTunes, leave us a review, give us some love, and make sure to stay good. Drue: Thanks Josh.  

Happy April everyone! With all the things swirling both physically and mentally around COVID-19 we all could use a few IDEAS on just how to better thrive as a community during this time, which is our April theme! Be encouraged and inspired by our special guest by community activist, teacher and non profit leader Josh Nadzam. Josh Nadzam is the co-founder and director of On The Move Art Studio and an instructor at the UK College of Social Work. He escaped a tragic childhood and went on to run Track and Field at the University of Kentucky and ultimately earned a master's degree in social work. Since then, he has been involved in and led many community initiatives around social justice and community building. Recent honors include: 2016 Lexington Leadership Foundation Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award, 2017 880 Cities Emerging Cities Champion and 2019 Lauren K. Weinberg Humanitarian of the Year Award. Welcome to the show Josh! Show Notes: “How can we reach communities with social distancing?” - Josh “Don’t replace one thing with another thing, take a pause.” - Josh “We’re all essentially a product of our environment.” - Josh “I get today.” - Josh Two common responses from leaving a rough environment: Empathy or Resentment. -Josh Sit outside and meditate. “Our brains have to have moments when we’re bored.” - Josh “Leap and the net will appear but don’t be reckless.” - Josh “There’s no way to actually fail.” - Josh “Communication is a continuum.” - Josh --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/mtg-more-than-graphics/support

Welcome Joshua from the Our Foundations podcasthttps://ourfoundations.podbean.com/ is where you can get more of Josh There is a lot of speculation as to what the future state of humanity is during a time of global uncertainty so today Joshua and I discuss liberty and technocracy in the world of tomorrow. I just want to be able to travel again! Check out http://inspiredbyfire.org/For reading list Shoot me an e-mail at inspiredbyfirepodcast@gmail.com

Stewart Fleming Interview Josh: All right. Everyone out there in podcast world I've got a very special guest for you today, I've got Stewart. He is from Logan, and actually know what, I'm going to let you tell me about what it is that you do in the voodoo that you do. Learn more about the interview with Stewart Fleming at dorksdelivered.com.au Stewart: What do I do in Logan? I do a lot of stuff. I'm involved in about four or five different, organisations as a volunteer. I run multiple businesses. I'm on the board of a number of different organisations in the city and currently running for mayor. So I keep myself pretty busy, man. Josh: Do you have time to sleep? Stewart: I get probably three to four hours sleep a night. Now, I'm pretty controlled to be very consistent about making sure I get at least five hours when, when possible. but look, you know, you do what you can with the time that you got. Josh: I know I've gone through periods of time where I'm going, okay, I'm going to get something down and just working. And you, you're getting no sleep, no sleep, no. So you can get used to having no sleep, and then you have that one opportunity to have an eight hour night. And you feel like you've slipped the four days. Sometimes you have to be in the candle at both ends. Stewart: I think there's also that, if you are used to running at that speed, sometimes if you have too much sleep, you get crazy tired at that point. It's like, well, you've had that now I want that four days in a row. Like, yeah, I dunno. Let's just keep running. Josh: The way the body works. So, we've been talking a lot of different business owners through this channel and, which is something that's on people's minds, whether they're saying it or not. And that is around the recession is the recession coming isn't coming. And we want to talk about how to recession-proof your business. Today we're going to be talking a bit about specifically keeping things local. So I've been running a business for 13 years throughout Logan and been in business in one way or another for, for around 20 in Logan. I've only more recently found out about a whole bunch of advantages to making sure that you are staying local, running your business within the local area that you are running a business. So what have you seen out and about around the traps in regards to a business, the overall health of the economy. What are your thoughts on that? Stewart: Logan is uniquely positioned at the moment to grow. So obviously, we're halfway between Brisbane Gold Coast. We have a very large amount of land available to us. We've got some very good infrastructure. The M1, as much as we hate being stuck in the traffic, it brings millions of cars passed. We've got train lines coming through, and access to some pretty good infrastructure at the moment. Yeah, sure. Absolutely. Can get better for sure. But from a business point of view where uniquely positioned, Brisbane and Gold Coast have come from our sort of higher socioeconomic background and are starting to shrink in, as you say, this recession, the economy is shrinking and I think it's changing. And we had someone talking to the most recent chamber of commerce about going from a materialism environment to a postmaterialism environment. And what he was talking about was the idea that we start to share resources. So rather than own a thousand shirts, you might only own 30 shirts and you switch them around more rather than own a car you use over rather than own a holiday house, use Airbnb. And I know those are two right there. Two very specific examples. But the examples sit behind our mindset and the mindset is that we don't need to own everything anymore. What you're talking about doing business locally is one of the things that we were talking about at a fairly high economic level. When I started to put my hand up to run for mayor, I wanted to reach out to those that had some fairly significant influence in the economy of Logan. So some of the more significant business owners, some of the more significant landowners, some of the property developers now. Yeah, property developers. Ooh, terrible. You can't take money from them. You shouldn't be listening to them because what they understand is some really cool stuff about how things are developing now and the changing way that we're looking at. We should be looking at economies. Sure. We should be making sure we get great roads, but if we had fantastic internet, I'm not talking good internet. I'm talking fantastic internet. Would you need to leave your house to run a business? Do you need to go to an office? If you are fully automated running from home, what does that do? Can you spend more time with your kids? Can you spend more times in the local parks? This is the kind of economy that we're moving towards and Logan is set to take advantage of that because we haven't overcapitalised yet on the infrastructure that Brisbane and Gold Coast have. We're still growing. And so the reason I put my hand up from there is because, the opportunity for a there I saw for Logan needed someone that had some innovation ideas in their head. I'm on the board of Innovate Logan. It's a little group that represents manufacturers, state government, local government, chambers of commerce, and it looks at how do we get more innovation happening in the city. There's some very, very cool stuff going on, but I think the idea of more people working locally we'll reduce the load, and it also helps us start to recession-proof our businesses. Josh: Well, I couldn't agree more. You said it perfectly at the start. From a geography standpoint, we've got the Gold Coast, they've got the beaches and bits and pieces. You've got Brisbane. It's, it's, I guess the, the original, Mecca hub for working Logan is positioned in a perfect environment where it's growing from either edges. You've got all of the manufacturing and an industry coming up from the gold coast, edging into Logan, and then you've got a lot of the other industry coming from Eight Mile Plains and so on and so forth. Building up as it's coming more and more within Logan and from an investment standpoint, it's the best place, in my opinion, to buy any, house, anything like that. Because if you do have a business that is shrinking because of the recession and you need to be tighter with your dollars. The dollars go further in Logan, the dollars allow for you to achieve more things in a localised area. With investment properties, there's a hell of a lot of people that are moving to Logan because instead of buying a place in Brisbane that's gonna set you up for $1 million or more, and then you have to, you have to walk around with traffic everywhere. In Logan, you still have beautiful parks. You can still get something that's more than living on top of each other. It's at an affordable price with, as you said, that the end one there where, and at an intersection as well, where you're able to go out to Ipswich if you need to go and go wherever you need to. It's perfect, from a location and drivability standpoint. I think innovate is fantastic. Some of the other cool stuff that I've seen around the place, Substation 33, that's something that they're using to, I haven't seen anywhere else where they're up-cycling old laptops, old gear. You think you're going to throw at that record player because no one's going to use it. There is someone down there, brainy ethics going to turn that into something cool and then they're going to upcycle and start utilising that to bring more money to Logan. You probably know more about it., some of the signs that they've made out of old, old gear and they look professional, schmick as for looking at the water levels and turning on flood signs along with, they made a bucket for giving power to third world countries. These are super innovative things. I've only just started to dip my toe into some of the cool stuff that's happening around Logan that I wasn't even aware it was happening. I've been recruiting people. Okay. So I've got a friend that was in Tenerife and I was talking to him about some of the cool stuff. Substation was doing, Substation 33. And he thought, oh, that sounds really awesome. Let me check that out. And came down and was talking to them about making PCBs and all this other electronic stuff that he's building together with them. He was so interested, he moved two streets away from them so he could be spending more time building stuff. So you've got your coffee shops in bits and pieces, in Tenerife. And he's like, no let's go to something that's making a difference and actually changing around the way people's minds are working. Stephen: Yeah, we have this, and you're,100% right. Things are changing here in Logan, and I think we're on the, on the tipping edge of an absolute explosion in business in Logan. Now, we've already been growing in incredible, rate, without population, but the business opportunities that we have here, you know, in real estate, you say, buy the worst house and the best street. Well, we're on the best street. And realistically, Logan is probably the worst house in the best street. If you look at Brisbane, Gold Coast, Logan. Josh: On a 10 year plan, If you look at where Logan was 10 years ago versus where it is now versus where it was 10 years prior to that versus where it is going to be in 10 years it's all on the up and up. The worst house in the best street, so to speak. You can find a lot of bad houses and you could find a lot more before, but so many people are moving in. There's young blood moving in and it's similar to a lot of areas, I guess that did have a bit of a stigma or had had a couple of things that happen. Like we had that fence fight thing that happened years ago that was just a small thing that got blown out of proportion and overall bad things happen everywhere. One of the things that I always say, and I stand up for Logan pretty heavily off of friends who, hell, why do you live in Logan? I said, well, because if I lived in a nice house down, in the areas that you're living in, two, $3 million houses, it'd be too, too much of a reason for people to come in and break in and steal all my stuff. No one's going to come up here to do that. Obviously being facetious, but the reason why I love Logan is it takes good people in bad areas to make a change and to make an area, a good area. And you can have good people in good areas and they do nothing. But if you had these, these people that are actually the movers and the shakers, the people like Tony from Substation 33, and that the systems like Innovate where they are helping businesses locally and they are giving people the step up it really makes a difference. And, that is what it's all about. Just putting your name out there, listening to what, to what is available to help you out if you are struggling. Stewart: Yeah. We also have here one of the most giving communities I'm sure in Australia, the amount of volunteers, people that volunteer to help other people in this city is higher than anywhere else. We've got the social enterprise global forum coming to Logan. Why? Because this is where people give. It's such a given community. It's such a sense of that there is this sense of community here, but it's not integrated. And one of the things that I have done as part of this campaign is going out and talking to these various groups, finding out what their problems are. Because as a coach, that's what you do. What do you want? What do you want? What do you want as the constant question. Okay. Finding out what they want, and then talking to the next group and realising that all of these groups and whether it's a seniors group, whether it's mental health, whether it's a domestic violence, whether it's the homeless people working with the homeless, they are all working towards the same thing. Most of them have the same problems. They're not working together to solve those problems. And I think this is sort of the cornerstone of what I want to do as mayor of Logan is to create these, groups that champion and bring together the group guys that are already doing it. Like we should not be putting our hand up and saying, we're going to try and solve mental health as a council. What are we doing? What we can connect the groups that are already doing it. There are at least 13 different groups in the city, work with men's health, but then don't talk to each other. Hmm. Now if we counseled and put someone on as a men's health coordinator, and it doesn't have to be, you know, there aren't any jobs but someone has to do the administration. Because if one group tries to do that, it falls over. And this is actually what Logan together is based on, is a model called Collective Impact. 3.0 came out of California. And it talks about how you heard the cats, all of the organisations are doing fantastic things. But if you asked any one of them to coordinate with the others, it's too much. The straw has broken the camel's back. But if you have a central backbone organisation called like Logan Together, they can coordinate. They can actually do the coordination, but also they can collect the statistics. The moment we don't know how many homeless that are on the city. Now, if I talk to every organisation, I might be able to get some idea, but even then there's going to be crossovers, so we don't know how big the problem is. And as you know, you can't solve the problem unless you actually know how big it. Josh: Data in or data out If you don't have any data to work on, you can't really make a decision. Stewart: If you think the problem is 100,000 people that are homeless, you apply a solution for that amount of people. When the problem was a hundred people, if you think it's a hundred. And it was actually a thousand you've applied the wrong solution, and you're never going to get anywhere, and then you'll say, we shouldn't have even tried. You've got to find out what the size of the problem is, whether it's seniors, whether it's the sporting clubs. We don't have a peak sporting body for Logan. It’s not a hard thing to organise. Council could do that very simply because they're great organisers. The sporting club then gets representation as a peak body. I've spoken to a bunch of these sports, whether it's squash or rugby or soccer about this idea, and they're like, yeah, yeah, that'd be fantastic. We could say, would you be part of it all? We can see how it would work. Yes. The seniors groups, national centers are structuring, how do we do this? Now I've moved away from business, but the business side of it is the same sort of thing. If you've got some vertical businesses that are doing business automation or they're looking after finance for foreign companies. I know we spoke before we went on air talking about the multicultural aspect of Logan. We have access to get into 200 and over 217 different cultures. I'm pretty sure if we've got some really good to sell, we have it really big market to sell. This is the strength, man. This is, this is where I get really excited because we're doing some stuff in the schools at the moment. Mosman High has piloted a program where they're recycling all of their waste. Okay. So there was a $7,000 a month bill, now, they're making either a zero or making a small profit, or sometimes they pay $100 for it. So to outsource to ups to send that, that amount of waste to landfill 100 bucks, or they make a small profit because they're recycling the green waste, they're recycling, all the plastics are recycling the white paper. Josh: That's not just beer money we're talking about that's some serious money. Stewart: There are 17 high schools. It's now been gonna push into Mabel park. They're looking to roll it. It won't be rolling out into every school. I think, and I honestly believe this hand on heart, we could be zero waste for all our schools now. That's pretty exciting in and of itself. We're saving the planet a little bit. Yeah, but hang on, it gets cooler. The kids coming out of high school have a cert three. We could upgrade that to a cert four so they're coming out as recognized recycle experts, right. We have 217 nationalities, and I'm pretty sure that the nationalities, they are the cultures that represent all have a problem with recycling and green waste and all that sort of stuff. If we can teach our kids to do it. Then we can teach other countries kids to do it. We could be exporting recyclers. You're talking about what are the jobs are going to be, Oh no, I'm going to go big on you, man. I'm going to go big, go big or go home. If we're exporting recyclers, we are the center of recycling. If I can get the schools to be zero waste, guess what business is next. Yeah. If you get the kids that end currently in school to be lifelong recyclers, assuming they're going to live for another 60 probably 60 years, once they leave school. There are 55,000 kids in school in Logan at the moment. It works out to be about 3.3 million years worth of recycling. It's huge. 3.3 million years. If I only got the kids that are in school right now, I'm not, the ones coming in next year are the ones that left last year. Just the ones that are in there. 3.3 million years of recycling. Someone said to me, how are you going to change global warming and the certificate four at a time and seriously, no, no, and the guy that was moderating said he's running for mayor. He can't do that. I'm like, let me try. Maybe try. I honestly believe we can be the center for recycling. But that's just one of the innovations we've got in the city. As you mentioned, some safe station 33 and the upcycling and stuff that's going on there. Josh: They're replacing back to the TVs to create filaments to 3D print stuff. How sick is that? Stewart: Cool. You know there's a manufacturer in Logan that creates the nuts for nuclear reactors. If you want to build a nuclear reactor anywhere in the world, you will buy the nuts. For those nuclear reactors from Logan, how cool that is, and that is something that should Josh: There's been over the years, obviously some, some stigma around Logan and some of the different names that happen to rhyme with the word Logan. Stewart: It should be a new slogan for Logan. Is that what you're trying to say? Josh: Sounds much better Stewart: Anew slogan for Logan. Josh: I did exactly that. That is where we have these cool stories, like these nuclear nuts and the flow hive. It's been a huge, huge success or being manufactured within the Logan and that, that's something that was developed within Australia. That's been a fantastic new way of harvesting honey. There are all these really, really cool bits and things that people are doing that needs to be really pulled together to have people go, Oh wow, this is what they're doing. And we sang on recycling 200, so 217 different pods, Watts of life's ways, backgrounds and belief systems that have all been bought together underneath one roof. The spans, I don't know what the radius is of Logan off the top of my head. But it spans the theory that Logan does and, and all these different people will be eating different things and have a different idea on the foods that they're buying and the different plastics, and they're all be able to take that back to their Homeland to talk to them about how they would be able to do this. Maybe there's a, a certain enzyme within Rogan Josh, for instance, that gets broken down differently to what it would if you'd be having a kebob. And so that is what is awesome. Being able to have those many minds work to that. And that's an advantage that you, you don't have it anywhere else in Australia. We are the most multicultural area within Australia. Stewart: I don't think we've taken advantage of it though. And look, there's some, some things that I've done. I'm a businessman, but on the community focus, business matters. How are we going to do five different things? But one of the things I looked at was one of the questions I got asked was, where is the CBD? Where's the CBD? Logan, what's the center? Josh: If I had to pick a spot, it wouldn't be the bit that I would say would really represent Logan as much as I'd wanted to, but I guess it'd just be with it. The council building is, I guess. Stewart: Logan central. Yep. Okay. Right. What about Springwood? What about Beenleigh? What about Jimboomba? We have opportunities. We are, uniquely placed to have three, possibly four, possibly five different hubs within our city. Now you've got Chermside for Brisbane, which is sort of the Northern hub, and you've got Mount Gravatt, sort of the Southern hub. We had the opportunity to do the same sort of thing, and so what I did was I actually went and found a guy that's created. I managed to meet Joe Versey who set up a park road, several fair, the coffee culture. He created the coffee culture for Brisbane. Late-night coffee was not a thing until Joe came along and created it. Now Joe drives Ferrari's and he still does that sort of stuff. He was instrumental in getting James straight off the ground. He has bar spritz on Kangaroo Point cliffs and was talking recently to council about putting a zip line between the top of Kangaroo Point cliffs and the botanical gardens because he is a visionary that sees things before they exist. Yeah. I brought him down and drove him around Logan Central. We went to Springwood, Logan Central and Beenleigh and I've got his take on what do you do to create a scene? Yeah. What do you do to create a precinct and it was interesting because I've taken the ideas that he gave me and then I've taken them to the businesses in those areas and the property guys that own the land in those areas and the residents around those areas to see does this actually make any sense to you guys in front of Springwood? The Springwood hotel. The very large copper, which you can see from the highway. Yup. If there was a function there every Friday night with a live band and laser lights and spotlights and food, you've got to have food. You've got to have beverage. We would get people coming off M1 on a Friday night. I may meet my mates at the Gold Coast or Brisbane, let's meet in the middle. Let's meet at Springwood. Make it easy to get off, easy to get back on, great food, great entertainment and know it's there. Yup. You've now got a precinct. Now that precinct will grow because corporations will want to have their office workers where they can let off steam on a Friday, Saturday night if it's open longer. There's an opportunity being lean, different perspective. Logan central. The global food market at Logan central should be the entire area of Logan central. But what it was saying was you don't let just any old person come in and start stumping up. You have to foster culture. You have to get, if you want to have a food present, you get a restaurant that's already really good somewhere else. They know how to run a business and know how to market. They, they've got that bit sorted. Bring them in. Entice them in, bring a few in, and then make the local businesses come in around them and learn from them. Yep. So you're fostering local business based on the models that actually currently work. People will come for the big, big ones, and then they will also visit one of the local ones. And so what you do is you start to build this presenter and everyone wins. Everybody wins. Logan is so uniquely placed to do this sort of thing. But you've got to have someone with a vision that can drive that vision forward, and that's why I ran for mayor, not for one of the divisional seats, because the mayor is the person that sets that big vision and then brings everyone along for the ride. For the last eight years, I've been doing executive coaching, working with the leaders of TAFE or Queensland government or Domino's. Big organizations to work out how they fix their culture, and that's what I teach them how to do the culture in the council. It needs some work, right? So again, applying my skills to my schools then better serve me. Representing the people as a divisional counselor, what do my skills better serve me at the top? Trying to set the culture from the top down. Because when you try and set the culture from a mid-level, it really is hard if you've got toxic people at the top. Then what tends to happen is that they learn really good lessons about managing up, but there's a struggle and you're never going to get there until you've got the right person at the top. Josh: Richard Branson and the more close to home Dick Smith. Had the idea of the culture of a business and how it should run and that that is. Dick Smith said one day, a month, no matter what level of business you're in, you need to be in one of the stores looking and servicing the people to make sure you're making the right decisions for the right people and see the impacts and the effects of a decision that you've made. You know, just pushing paper and ticking boxes. You're actually able to see the flow-on effects and how that has affected that business with the council and with the people that, that sits within that council. There is a, I don't know if the right terms or hierarchy, but there is definitely, if you've got a, a toxic environment that will flow down and if you have a great environment, the people within the environment will promote and back up that that council or business or boss or whatever the case till the cows come home. And that's where there definitely needs to be a bit of a shift in the mindset of, of the people that are making these big decisions that are impacting the smaller guys. And definitely the smaller guys will, we'll carry that through and have a lot more respect for the location that they're in. And as I said, I love Logan. I see no issues with Logan. I'd love to see more people have the same approach and the same thought on it. And anyone that has lived in Logan, they got, you know, it's not that bad. It was Stewart: It’s not bad, it's awesome. One of the things I think we're missing though, and I'll finish up here, is that the Logan has to be the easiest place to do business. We want our economy to grow. We've got to be the easiest place to do business at the moment. Brisbane is giving a wave waivers to business. They are waiving application fees. They're doing all sorts of stuff to attract more business. We're not. Yeah. We have to not only match them, we have to get smarter at that than them. Then we have to use things like your business automation skills and get that. How do we get that into 100,000 businesses? We've got 15,000 businesses in the city, but let's say I went big, well, let's say there's 15,000 businesses. How do we get 15,000 businesses? And this is one of the things that I've learned very early on work the solution to the size of the problems we spoke before. If the solution is 15,000 businesses, and you said, I'm gonna run a workshop and you can put 15 people in it. Yeah. You've completely messed them up. What are you doing? You know, you've turned on the light. I want you to get hit the sun. How do we do that sort of stuff. And I think that's the big vision thing that I'm trying to bring into council. The guys that I'm running at currently they're all set in the past. They're talking about the 80s. They're talking about the 90s that they're, they don't realize things like, Josh: I'm investing in the yellow pages. Stewart: Drone buses are coming, you know, two years away. We'll be able to get in a little pod, a drone. We'll pick it up and we'll take you somewhere. So, uh, we were doing, uh, measuring distances. It's so crazy. Yeah. You're planning by big league, big arose and the, the. Academia will tell you that smarter roads, if you manage the roads with a different way, like you think about how to make the roads, who's carrying what lanes they're in, all this sort of stuff, you get a 30% return on your investment versus a 3% return building a bigger road. Josh: Yup. Man of my own heart. I was going to say, you've touched on a topic that, I think if we actually had smarter control of the way that the lighting for traffic flats worked without, throughout the area, along with not throughout the area being pretty, well, Queensland, probably Australia, but then also took advantage of paint. It sounds like such a weird thing to do, but that made the lanes a little bit narrow, except for, as you're saying like a heavy haul vehicles that might need the left lane. It's a wider lane. If we did things like that, you'd be able to squeeze, if you look at the road from here to Brisbane and extra lane, the entire distance along. Now, I think if you look and you said 15,000 businesses throughout Logan, if you are running events fantastic, absolutely jaw, jaw-dropping, amazing business in Logan. People would come from Brisbane to Logan, and the beautiful thing is they'd be coming to work at a time. You'd be burning those greenhouse gases. You wouldn't be burning the brakes. You wouldn't be burning in either of the, the other resources around your car and run consumables there. You'd be running a more efficient lifestyle and be able to spend more time with your family and friends. So that's, that's, that's my sort of 2 cents on that. Stewart: Look, I think if we can, if, if we can hit the goal of making Logan the easiest place to do business, the economy will look after itself and we've got to set those big priorities zero way schools. Let's try and do that. The upside is all acute, or a lot of our kids will come out with some, a little bit of an extra certificate and maybe we can export that. Like it's big, I get, it's a big dream. Josh: It carries onto their mentality and mindset at home. And that then carries through the parents and see what their children like doing and why they like doing it. And that then affects the whole community. The home is located close enough to the school. So you know that. The impact of changing around the, their mindset within the schooling system will change around the mindsets within the homes, which are change around the amount of landfill that's going to change around the amount of rubbish, It's just a carry on effect, butterfly effect, domino effect. Stewart: If we do it really, really well. We become the center that others copy. I don't want to do this just for Logan. If we do this really, really well, we can show Townsville how to do it with all your schools. We can be the template for how, who changed the planet. There's this idea of life one recycling. You're absolutely right, the parents start picking it up. But we're also starting to talk to the schools about how to get more entrepreneurship into the schools. So we've got Logan cha junior chamber of commerce kicking off. So it's how to get the kids, and not only just get them to think about it now, but provide a pathway for them to move into the adult world of business. Josh: That's perfect. And that, that's going to get it, set them up for success. As someone who went to school in Logan. Stewart: What school did you go to? Josh: I went to winder high school. While I was there, I had my ups and downs, but overall it's set me up with information, technology, and it put me into an environment or I started doing the IT work for the school. I was very, very happy to be able to automate and better a lot of the processes there and have people come underneath me and learn, learn what I had to do and, and what I was doing. And it's, it's something that is a great opportunity. Things, as I said again, that are just there that you, your kids can start doing now. It was much better for mum and dad, to be honest. I was doing the training ship instead of a friend's going off to McDonald's and having to do the backwards and forwards driving. Then you get traineeships, upskill them and all the good stuff. Is there anything else, any finishing notes, final thoughts? Stewart: No. Look lower than amazing. I really hope that whoever wins. Hopefully, it's me, but whoever went actually has the vision and that brings innovation in. If we can bet the innovation and tie that to the multicultural tie, that's the precincts, tie that to the schools. It's kind of the same thing. It's not like I'm not trying to invent seven different things just to solve seven different problems. It's the same sort of problem. Staring at the same, yeah. Rinse and repeat. Let's keep going here. I think in, you know, in three to four years, Logan will be. The place that people travel to for work. Logan will be the place that, sorry, you should've invested four years ago. We're not the worst house in the best street anymore. We're not a drive through. We're a destination. Josh: I could not have said it better. Well, it has been great talking with you and I'm really happy to have had you here. Anyone else that's listening, if you'd like this, jump across to iTunes. Leave us some love. Give us some feedback. Leave us a review. Let us know what your thoughts are. Other than that, Stay good.

How to Recession-Proof Your Mindset Special episode featuring business coach Tyson Sharpe. Check out Tyson's Facebook group Connect, Contribute, Collaborate: https://www.facebook.com/groups/connectcontributecollaborate/ Learn more on how to recession-proof your mindset at dorksdelivered.com.au Josh: Good morning everyone, and welcome to this podcast. Today we've got a fantastic guest with us. We've got Tyson Sharpe and it's going to be a doozy of an episode. We're going to be talking about recession proofing, your mindset. Tyson tell me a bit about what you do. Tyson: Yeah, sure. Well, thanks for having me. I always love doing these interviews and love sharing this type of stuff. But basically what I described as what I do is I help business owners and CEOs basically understand what's happening in their unconscious mind when they see these patterns of fears, doubts and frustrations arise. And so, we can have a different relationship with them. So, not only can we start to resolve those internal conflicts, but we can start having more success in business or in whatever ventures we're in, just as a byproduct of who it been. So, that's really where my work and my expertise lies. Josh: Sweet. Well, I know that it's, everything comes down to mindset. I started today with the eight suspicious transactions on my credit card and I thought no, so here we go. How's this week going to be? And I thought, you know what? I could smile off or cry. A rang through to the bank, got the transactions, looked at, had the credit card pause and then laugh. Tyson: You've got to stop sharing your details on the podcast. Josh: That's probably a good hint and tip there for anyone out there and security learn. So, if you had to go through different situations that you've seen and I think it's an imminent to the situation we're in in Australia with the recession, and that can bring about nasty thought, patterns and am I going to be successful or why are people disappearing? Why are they leaving and things like that. And it's a lot of the time not due to your own doing. How do you make sure that you have... what hints and tips would you give to make sure that you do continue on a positive train of thought in making sure that you're aware of your emotions and you keep up with your emotional fitness. Tyson: Yeah, sure. So, one piece of the awareness I would give people, and people can find this in themselves as well, is that when you have something like some uncertainties in your environment or you have some uncertainties in the future around finances or what's going to happen, whatever it may be, if you feel triggered by that, if you feel the scarcity, if you feel lack, if you feel overwhelmed uncertainty, what you have to understand is those patterns were already in you, right? So, if the recession comes or the recession's on its way or it's sort of slowly moving its way in, and that trigger you, what you have to know is that pattern was already in you. So, your external environments just triggered what was already in you. Right? So, what a lot of people will do is they'll try to solve their internal, how they feel and the uncertainty with the external results, right? So, they're like, "Oh, I just got to make more money or I just got to save this or whatever." And that's where I sort of find with a lot of business owners is they try to resolve the internal conflict with something externally. Or another way to put that as you're trying to achieve something external by filling a void within yourself. Right? Josh: Yeah. Tyson: So, if you're looking to achieve, if you're looking to get more money, more success, more fame or whatever it may be, what I find is a lot of people are doing that through an unconscious pattern of trying to solve an internal conflict, right? An internal void within themselves that they can't solve any other way because they didn't have the heightened awareness yet. And so, I like to raise that awareness so that people can actually start seeing what's going on within them and actually what's driving them, right? So a lot of people are trying to achieve success and they're thinking, yeah, I just want the best life possible. But what they don't understand is what unconsciously what's happening is they're trying to achieve at a different level because it's some level within themselves they're trying to feel enough or they're trying to feel worthy. And that's why I find a lot of people are trying to build a business based on fear, based on scarcity and based on lack, which obviously is not sustainable. Josh: So, I guess in that situation you'd be saying that maybe the measuring stick that they're using and what successes should be changed? Tyson: Totally. So, in terms of, it's not only the measuring stick, but it's also what's driving you. It's also what's giving you the fuel? Is it a push or is it a pull? Is it something that you feel like you have to do in order to be enough? Right? Josh: Mm-hmm Tyson: Or is it a pull, is it like a calling to you? Is it like when, so for example, if your internal and external world was exactly the way you wanted it, would you still have a calling to do the exact same thing right? Josh: Right. Do you wake up to do it or is it a job or is it a lifestyle I guess, is this something you would do if you were retired and you had all the time, money in the world or you found out you had a terminal illness or something like that? Tyson: Yeah, exactly. So, that's where I find a lot of people are trying to achieve because they're trying to feel that void within themselves. And that's why when they run into all the fears, doubts and frustrations, they're not too sure what to do and all of a sudden they think they need to change their external circumstances in order to feel a certain way. And obviously if you're trying to achieve something externally to feel a certain way, a lot of that can be outside your control. That's what sort of like drives people crazy, right? Trying to change things outside of their control and thinking that that impedes on how they feel on a day to day basis. So, that's the sort of awareness that I like to sort of raise with people. Josh: So, bringing awareness to the problem I think is very important. I know that I went through a darkest portion in my life, if I could call it that. And I wrote down a list of all the things that make me happy. All the things that make me sad. And one of the things was things outside of my control. And I was becoming aware of that, it allowed me to think, okay, now that I'm aware that that's outside of my control, I now know that something that makes me upset. But you can then change your emotions and change your relationship with that situation once you become aware of it. Would you say that's an approach that you would take, yeah? Tyson: Totally. So, that's the sort of what I call the first step. Josh: Correct. Tyson: So, in the business. So, everyone loves personal development, right? So, we love improving ourselves and so we love being able to reframe our thoughts and shift our state and learn how to feel better. Right? I call that's sort of first step. That's the pillar because that it's a good first step because it shows you that you are in control of your emotions and that it's actually your thoughts that lead to any emotions, not the circumstance themselves. So, that's a really, really good platform and it really sets the stage for personal development and for you to become the director of your own life. What I find what other people like my clients and my community is doing is just going that layer deeper. So, in terms of when they already know that, okay, my feelings and everything in my internal world is being driven by my thoughts and my internal pattern's not the circumstance themselves. One thing that you can start doing is when you do have emotions like fear, like doubt, like worry, scarcity, overwhelmed. When those feelings start to come up, instead of changing your emotion straight away, what you can actually start doing is starting to have a very, very different relationship with those patterns. Because what I found in my work coaching hundreds of business owners in the last couple of years is that, when these patterns arise, say a pattern of fear, so you've got the recession, you got external circumstances that are outside your control and you have this fear come up. What a lot of people do is, they avoid that feeling or they resist that feeling so they can avoid it by, like I said, by shifting your state and avoiding that feeling all by trying to change your external circumstances so that you don't feel that feeling right? Avoiding the circumstance, avoiding a situation that would make that feeling arise or they resist it. They resist it by not allowing it. So, they resist it by making it wrong. They resist it by thinking it shouldn't be there. They resist it by trying to fix it. Right? And so, what happens is when you have any emotion that arises, like fear and you avoid or resist it, it actually grows unconsciously. You're actually pushing down a side of you unconsciously. And that takes a lot of unconscious energy, but also allows that pattern to grow. So, it's almost like, if you were to have a five year old come to you, and they're running chaos, right? So, they're a bit scared. They're worried, they're fearful, and for a bit of peace, what you do is, you go and you place that five-year-old in a different room in the house. And so, you place the five-year-old in a different room, you come back to the room you're in and it feels more peaceful. Right? It feels more peaceful. But- Josh: It's not. Tyson: ... that five-year-old's still running chaos in the other room. Right? And they're probably doing it a different level, and in a different manner, because they're in a different room just running chaos. And that's what I find that a lot of business owners do, when these patterns arise is they avoid them. Right? Or they resist them. And so I find when people shift out of those patterns quickly, and they try to fix them, or they think something's wrong, they grow unconsciously. So, you can feel better on the surface with some personal development, and you're shifting your thoughts and reframing and all those really, really good tools. But unless you resolve that conflict, it's always going to grow unconsciously. Josh: Okay. And so, what would you say is the first step? Well, yeah, I guess we were talking about writing them down and becoming aware of them, but how do you know some people have had these ingrained in their life for so long that they're not even aware that there was some something like, I guess the old Hollywood scenario of you go and see a psychologist and they say all the problems stem back to your mother? Tyson: No. What should? Josh: And then how do you become aware that that's an issue? Tyson: Well, you can only become aware of what's in your conscious mind, right? So, what's coming up consciously that you can recognise are your emotions. We're genuinely pretty aware when we're fearful, when we do have this emotion of worry or stress, right? We totally do have those emotions and we're generally pretty aware of them. And so, I find it is true. A lot of your emotional patterns do come back to your childhood, right? Because we have conditioned in our lives, we have conditioned patterns that say who do I need to be and what needs to happen in order for me to be enough? Because if I'm enough, therefore I'll be loved and unconsciously love is linked to survival. So, that's why when we have an obstacle in our way between us and success, it can often feel like life and death because at some level it is to our unconscious mind. But you can definitely be aware of the emotions you're feeling and you don't actually need to know where it's coming from. It can help. You don't actually need to know where it's coming from to resolve the internal conflict, to resolve that pattern. What you actually need to do is feel it, is to feel that pattern without any resistance, without any judgement . And if you allow it to be there and not need it to leave, that's when the pattern starts to resolve. Josh: Okay. So, I guess, where do you start? I guess I know you've got a Facebook group. What are the other tools that you use or that you have to help people out with this? Tyson: Yeah, sure. I have, yeah, so many things. I've got the Facebook group and the YouTube channel and all those different things. The type of exercises or content or whatever it may be that helps people most, is helping them become aware that, so, to feel these patterns, so to feel when these emotions arise and to feel them fully. The way I sort of explain it, we'll stick to the five year old analogy. So, it's like when this patterns arising, let's say fear for example, if fear is arising within you, it's almost like an internal five of year old that's scared, right? So, for the recession, for example, recession's happening a lot of uncertainty, you're not too sure about your financial future. And all of a sudden you have fear. Now, what's actually happening is you have a pattern within you that was, I call it your five year old self, right? You have a pattern that was generally conditioned in your childhood that says, and that this pattern and his five year old within you believes that you need to have finances in order to feel enough or you need to have finances in order to be okay, in order to be safe, in order to be secure. Josh: Okay. And that could be depending on how your parents brought you up or the lifestyle that they had or other aspects like that. Tyson: There's so many factors. So, that's why I find it can help to identify the story, but it's not necessary. It's not an absolute puzzle piece to figuring out all of this, but it can help to understand that there is a five year old within you, a five-year-old pattern that does believe that something, that your financial future needs to be secure in order for you to be secure. Or you need money in order to feel enough and worthy, right? Or in order to feel safe. So, this five-year-olds freaking out. And what's emerging in the form of fear. It's almost like your internal five-year-old freaking out saying external circumstances aren't the way we think they should be. And so, the reason why this five-year-old's emerging, is so it can be seen, is so it can be heard, so it can be understood and loved. So, it's almost like that five-year-old coming up to you, right when you're in your house or whatever it may be. And this five year old is trying to be seen, trying to be heard. And that's why when a lot of people try to avoid them, or resist them, using the analogy of putting them in the other room. That's why that pattern grows unconsciously because it's not seen, and all fear will continue the more you don't want it to be there, and the more it's not seen. But fear will resolve and you can almost feel it start to dissolve within you. The moments that it's seen, the moment that it's understood and the moment that it's loved unconditionally. Another way of putting that is, fear will always resolve when you don't need it to leave. When you don't need it to leave and you just sit there and you feel it fully and you love that pattern and you listen to it, and you allow it to be there. That's when the pattern starts resolving. That's when it's [crosstalk 00:18:40]- Josh: There was just exactly what you're talking about. I might be misquoting this a bit, but are you familiar with the story of the turtle and the hungry fox about- Tyson: I'm not. Josh: It is a story told by Buddha and sorry for anyone that's listening as I'm terribly, it's terribly reiterating this wrong, but the fox sees this turtle and gets something to eat this turtle. This is going to be amazing and runs over to the turtle. The turtle pulls itself into the shell, instead of running away knowing that it won't ever be able to run away from something, the turtle in the situation would be fear as for the fox in the situation would be fear. The turtle pulls itself into the shell, not to necessarily protect itself, but to look within its own mind is the metaphor there to find and be within its own mind to be able to look outwards once the fear is gone. But battling the fee and not running away from it, was the sort of the analogy there. So, that'd be similar- Tyson: Yeah, exactly. Josh: I guess to sort of what you're sort of describing there. And it's definitely something that everyone needs to do. There's a lot of people that suffer from anxiety and I think anxiety is just, and this is again as a generalisation, it is a disease, but it's when we're not put in a situation where we're asked to grow beyond our comfort circle. You build up more and more of a problem and that's where you need to sometimes just battle up and jump straight forward through it. And that's stress. I guess another immersion, if you have stress a lot of the time it's because it's something that's important to you. You have anxiety because it's important to you. And so you need to know how to deal with that and be able to jump through those hoops so that you can overcome some of those five year old child, five year old self problems that you might have that have been ingrained into your belief systems. Tyson: Totally. I love that story. And it's true, if you are trying to solve something by running away from it, it's never going to work out. It's always going to be a downward spiral. But the moments you evolve are the moments when you know you need to look in. All the answers you have are within. And that's what a huge shift in my life has been, is when I have all this fear, doubt and frustration, and I realise that everything I want to achieve externally is internal. Every answer is found internally. And I am the answer that I'm looking for. And so, when I go in and meditate, for example, or I look in and resolve these internal conflicts, the external success is just the byproduct, all right? The excellent success in terms of the wherever it may be, the clients, the income, the Facebook group, whatever it may be. All of that is just growing just as a byproduct of the resolving these internal conflicts, because you can't help it evolve, you can't help, you're like a helium balloon that always just wants to expand and rise up. [crosstalk 00:21:54] A lot of us have the patterns that keep pushing the balloon down. So, once you resolve these internal conflicts, you naturally just float up. You naturally just move into a higher level of consciousness and a higher level of success, high level of contribution because that's naturally where we move, that's naturally where we go when we start resolving these patterns. Josh: Well, I couldn't agree more and having the best mindset and I've got a podcast and a YouTube video on mirror mindset. And looking within, because it is ultimately, it's where everything sits. The six inches between your ears is the most important six inches you have in your body. That's right. It's funny. So, yeah. Meditation doesn't have to be difficult to either. I know that you are a king spear who's meditates for a couple of hours a day, is that right? Tyson: Correct. Yeah. So I meditate. I've gone past a hundred days of meditating, two hours a day. And a lot of people freak out when they think of themselves doing the same, like how do you have the time? How the hell do you run a business and do all of this when you're meditating two hours a day. And I just find that when I wake up, I can feel when I'm in my head I'm like, I need to have this to do list. Right? Josh: Yes. Tyson: And my mind has a story of what I think I need to do in order to be okay. In order to be successful, in order to feel enough, in order to feel worthy. And then when I sit down and meditate for an hour, and I do at least an hour in the morning before I do anything, before I check my phone or emails, whatever it may be, social media. And so, when I do that, I come out of meditation knowing I don't have to do any of that. And in fact that was just a story I was telling myself. And then the actions taken moving forward, I'd just from such a guided place, it's from such a resourceful place. It's from a space of creativity and flow and that's why the success is the byproduct. When you're in flow, like you're unstoppable, right? When you're in flow and you've resolved some of your patterns and your internal conflicts and you start to love these five year olds so they can transcend, you just naturally fit into a flow and into a creativity. And you can start to feel when things feel heavy, when things feel a lot. And you can just stop moving from a place that's a higher guidance system. And that's what I find is, that's the flip that where everything sort of changes, and everyone sort of starts to notice that the answers are within them and they can just move from that place and they can be guided from that place and then they start to realise the success that they find is a byproduct. It's really just it's your own natural, it's the internal work that matters most and the external that is just the secondary gain. Josh: I would absolutely agree. I would say the best way to describe it in my opinion is everyone has experienced that writer's block is experience where you're there in front of the computer or pen on paper and you are like, honey just got to get this thing done and it might be a school assignment, might be an assessment, it might be something that's due the next day at work or, and you're just going through. I can't get it, and nothing is working. Nothing is working. A lot of the time, the amount of time that you sit there pestering your brain with negative thoughts saying, I can't get it, it's not working, I can't think of it. This is just crap, but I'm writing. Your conscious mind is passing all that to your unconscious mind and you're in 100% belief that you cannot do it, and you won't be able to do it. And then, as soon as you hit that point, which is the normally hours before it's due, or the night before, and then you have these cram sessions or this epiphany where this writer's blocks removed and you just have this huge amount of work that just comes out of you. And you think, "Wow, where did that all come from?" And as you said, it's always been within you and it's that you had this shift at a time where you went, "Okay, the negative of me not doing this work is now worse if I don't get it in because then I might not get the university degree or I might not get that promotion or whatever is at the end.” And so, the two balances of evil weigh each other out until you finally get it done. But if you meditate and if you, instead of procrastinating and having those negative thoughts, if you're, instead of spending the same time meditating, you'd find most people would have an easily an hour a day where they would be just procrastinating that they could easily be spending on meditation and positive thought training rather than sitting there not working, but waiting to work sort to speak. Tyson: Yeah, and I did this for like when I just started to, okay, I'm going to look internal. I'm going to resolve whatever patterns are emerging. I'm going to start to see, I'm just going to experiment. I actually did six hours in one day, just meditating and just in silence, complete silence, just sitting there. And that's scary to a lot of people, right? Very, very scary to a lot of people, and it was scary for me as well. And that's the exact reason why I thought I needed to do this. We live in a world where we are scared of what's emerging within us. We're scared of our thoughts, we're scared of our emotions. We're scared of just sitting there in silence. That's alarming to me, and my thought was how the hell is building a business or living the life you want, in terms of what you want to feel, and the relationships you want to have, and the contribution you want to make? How the hell is all that going to happen? How the hell is that sustainable? If I'm not okay with what's emerging within me, right? This doesn't make sense. It does not make sense if you're scared of the thoughts that are coming up or if you're scared of the emotions, like wouldn't that be something that needs to be addressed? Like wouldn't that be something? And so, when I sat down, I'm like I'm going to meditate for six hours, and I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know what's going to come out of it, but all I know is I'm going to find out who I am. And so, for hours I just had all these patterns and all of these stories of like, oh my God, you're irresponsible, you should be doing income generating activities, right? I felt guilty, so much guilt come up, all these thoughts around why, I shouldn't do it. And as I just sat there, I allowed it. I realised these were just five year old patterns that needed love, needed to be seen. And one by one, all those patterns just started falling away. All those stories, all of those patterns just melted away. And then I just sat there and I just kept feeling what was coming up. And I was just a space that all this was emerging in. And then, that's when I started having the biggest levels of creativity and flow and alignment. And yet a lot of patterns came up. There was a lot of sadness, right? I opened up a safe enough space for more and more five year olds to come to be seen. And I had sadness around past relationships. I had so much uncertainty around money come up, uncertainty about business, and finance, and clients I had, and all these different things. I just allowed it to be there, I just welcomed it, I loved all of it. I just sat there and just paid attention to what these patterns are saying. And one by one I just resolved them and then they transcended, and then more came up and that transcended and what was left. It was just this infinite flow like you described, if you're, would you rather be in? Would you rather be in a situation where you're like, I have to write this blog or I have to finish piece of work. And we're there when we're grinding an hour, we're trying to finish this blog. But then there's moments when the blog writes, you sit there and you're like, "Oh my God, I have to get this down." And you're just in flow and it's like everything else doesn't matter, and time stands still and you just, you're flowing with this blog and it's riding you. And that's what I find is possible. That's what I find, if you build a business based on that energy, based on that pattern where it's just emerging and flowing out of you, then that's it. Then that's a pattern that's sustainable, that's a business that's sustainable, that's a business that will be focused on growth, focused on vulnerability, focused on love, contribution, all those things that you know you are, instead of the fear, lack and worry and fear that we sort of explained before. Josh: And you're not pushing against yourself, which is really important. Tyson: Exactly. Josh: You're working with yourself, with your own goals and your own mindset. And I would like in this, obviously as with a computer background, I would like in a meditation to defragging your brain. As you said, you've got all these distractions all the time. You've got more than 350, 400 pieces of advertisement that's sent to you every day in one form or another to try and promote someone's product and do something here and something there. You've got people talking to you about is this thing done? Is the timeline done? Do you have this other thing done? Is this thing paid? All these things are going through your mind all the time, and you don't give yourself a moment to just breathe. And defragging your brain is putting everything in order, putting things in the right place, finding those priorities, finding the things that are important and letting your brain do the walking for you. Letting your brain do the calculations for you as opposed to you trying to dictate what's meant to be happening. There's 86,400 seconds in the day and people don't give enough time to themselves. People give themselves heaps of time to their clients, their family, their friends, their social posts. Their liking, whatever they're doing at the time, but they don't give that moment to themselves where they're not off when they're asleep and on when they're awake. They need to have that moment of reflection for themselves. And what you were saying, again on the 86,400 seconds in a day, during the day, some are like, "Aw man, you're a dickhead." And they say something about it and you go, "Oh man, I'm so offended when they said that, I had so much respect for them. Why would they say that?" And then you're there pondering over that one small comment and it might've just been like an off the cuff thing that you misunderstood the tonality in their voice. Like "Oh man, how are you even dickhead?" And you go, "Ah, okay." And then you're overthinking that problem. I don't know. I'm guilty of that. I've had situations where I've thought of something that someone has said even years later when I saw them again, I'm thinking, Oh, you said that to me. And they probably thought about it, said it as a funny joke and they continued on. And meanwhile, your brain is sitting there stewing over this one thing that they've said that's changed around the relationship with that person. It changed around your and mindset and burnt away a lot more time than the 86,000 and then the 10 seconds that might've been that they said it. And it's eaten into the 86,400 seconds in the rest of your day or even onwards. So, meditation is in very, very needed in the society, and it doesn't need to be hard. I started off looking at a candle and breathing deeply, holding my breath for a second and then breathing out and doing that 10 times or looking at a candle in a dark room with no distractions. And that is, in my opinion, one of the easiest forms of meditation to just start. What would you say? Where would you start? Where would you go from, some of these? Tyson: I mean, I meditate a lot, but I'm not the meditation expert. I've really done to teach on it or anything like that. But I think meditation is a tool just for you to connect with yourself at a different level. So, that's the way I describe it. I call it the may-first meditation, where that's when I meditate, before I do anything else in the day, I'll just sit, I'll just wake up, go to the bathroom, get a drink of water, and then just sit down in silence for an hour. But I say meditation as the opportunity for you to hold the space, to allow what's emerging to emerged. So, if you just sit there in silence and you'll start noticing all these thoughts, you may notice some emotions. That's just the space. Because what you're feeling emotionally, you're feeling it. It's coming up so that it can be transcended. It's coming up so that it can be released. That's what I know a lot of people understand. If you have fear, doubt, why are you scarcity that's coming up because it's ready to be emerged. Like the five year old sees you as safe enough to approach you, right? The five year olds approaching you because he wants to be seen, heard, understood and loved. And the five year old feels safe enough to come to you, right to be seen. And that's what's happening when these emotions arise? And so, instead of seeing the patterns and allowing them to transcend, we're neglecting them, or resisting them, right? It's almost like going exactly going out to that five year old and saying, it's wrong you're feeling this way or go away until you feel better or you need to be fixed on how much is the five year old going to feel seen. Of course not. And so, I find in meditation, it's giving you the space for you to feel and for you to notice what's happening internally and transcend these patterns that are ready to be released. Transcending these patterns that are going to give you the deeper connection with yourself. Because what's trying to emerge is not you. Right? Another analogy is that everything that's emerging is trying to die. It's trying to die. It's trying to move on because it's showing you what you're not. You're not these emotions, you're not these patterns. You are not your thoughts, right? You're the space at all of that exists in. And so, when you can start to tap into meditation, you can start to sit down and start to, whether you are looking at a candle, whether you are in nature, whether you are just sitting there in your room and just paying attention internally. It gives you that space for you to start loving those patterns. Start seeing, start noticing, start to hear those patterns and allow them to transcend and feel them fully so that they can transcend. And so, I find meditation for me is more of a self-connection than anything. And so, there's many, many ways you can do it. But that's just the way I view it. Josh: Cool. Right. I'd agree it's all about becoming connected in your special way that allows for you to do that. So, I guess for anyone that is listening, that is worried about the recession or doesn't feel aligned or doesn't feel enough, I know that you've got the Facebook group, you've also got a course that people can look to. Is that right? Tyson: Yeah, totally. So, the Facebook group is Connect, Contribute, Collaborate. So, that's the group where there's a lot of online business owners there, that are looking to do this in a work, but then they're also looking to connect with one another and they're connecting to form collaborations, joint ventures, all those really cool business things. And they know that that group is a group of heart-centred business owners who are looking to transcend these patterns who are looking to use that excess creativity and flow to add more value to their marketplace. So, there's a lot of value in that group and it's a really cool group. It's so engaging, everyone's looking to find ways to do joint ventures and collaborations. And then another aspect we're doing is we're actually going to combine our resources, combine our business brains, our expertise, and we're actually going to start donating some time towards charity and some non for profit organisations and helping them build their businesses as well. So, it's a really, really cool group that's actually making a difference. And so, that's what makes me super excited about it and super excited about the people that are in it as well. Josh: Cool. Well, I'm definitely keen to see what comes with it and if anyone wants to reach out and see what some of the awesome work that Tyson does, definitely jump across that Facebook group, would be a good entry point to start on your new journey of making sure that you have a recession proof mindset, and you're emotionally attached to your goals, I guess. Well, is there anything else you'd like to cover off on Tyson before we cruise off? Tyson: Oh man, there's so many different things that I could talk about. But the main takeaway is to just notice when you're resisting, and notice when you're avoiding those emotional patterns and your life will take a complete flip in the moments when you actually start to drop the resistance to those patterns. Right? Every emotion is never the problem. It's always a resistance to it. And so if you want to really start shifting, then dropping that resistance, dropping the judgement of what you're feeling and actually stop feeling without resistance is where I would say the biggest takeaway is. So, if people wanting to do that work, then that's where I'm always looking to support and I think it's going to be a complete game changer for so many business owners, and that's just what I'm passionate about. So, that's what I would leave you with. Josh: Cool. I guess engaging and embracing. Tyson: Mm-hmm. Josh: Well, it's been lovely having you on the show Tyson and I look forward to some of the new cool stuff that will come through over the next few months. I've been checking out some of the bits and pieces on your YouTube channel and I'm sure we'll have some of our listeners do the same. So, if anyone has enjoyed this episode, make sure to jump across the iTunes and leave us your reviews, some loving the comments and any questions you might have to Tyson. Thank you very much. Tyson: Awesome, thanks so much. Thanks so much for having me Josh.  

Episode 191 “Your Kinda Like A Pimp” 0:15 We’re Live! Chuck give an introduction to the podcast directory for DevChat TV. Chuck talks about how the directory works for sponsorship slot purchases.  Chuck talks about talking to people at Libsyn about the directory.  3:50 Chuck talks about the inner workings of the directory and things that need to be fixed or refined. Chuck talks about speaking with React Native Radio to get a set schedule. Also, some talk about the new workflow for the whole podcast production process.  8:00 Chuck talks about selling service to use this service for a monthly fee. Chuck talks about the fees and costs to run the new service.  John mentions to not expanded this out until it is running great for his podcast production.  13:00 The EntreProgrammers talk about the process of sponsors for the top 10 shows. Chuck talks about giving credit to the loss of traffic to sponsors. Josh suggests this can go to used space or sponsor slots. John talks about automating the system in the future.  20:00 Chuck talks about how this project with bringing back former sponsors and get some firm commits to the new system.  25:00 Josh critiques Chuck ad copy. Josh mentions he like that story but says that he was teaching to much. Josh talks about maybe doing some affiliate marketing.  Josh mentions testing about doing launches.  29:00 Josh gives some details on warming up the audience and getting backing to sales. John talks about doing some live video recordings as a kind of marketing strategy. Also, build some new courses and build up membership.  33:00 John talks about doing “shirts off” video broadcast. John says this is a huge lift on the viewership on YouTube.  John talks about the watch time and the traffic to the live videos once they are posted.  38:00 John show his new t-shirt “Video Begins at 0:00,” which is available in the Simple Programmer store 41:00 John talks about calling out people base on their Intent, rather than some sort of ignorance. John and Josh talk about the topic of Corn Pops, and the issues this raises when people take this in the wrong context.  48:00 John talks about getting some mouth hardware, didn’t even notice. John talks about using Invisalign. Josh, talks about the rising cost of healthcare.  53:00 John and Josh talk about Healthcare and the non-sense high cost of useless coverage. Josh talks about how private insurance works which does not fully compile with Obamacare.  Look up private insurance for the self-employed.  59:00 Josh explains how the penalty works for the self-employed, and how the government collects that fine. John explains that health insurance is a kind of hedge. Chuck talks about his health care situation, especially being diabetic.  1:05:00 John and Chuck talk about pulling together an association to get health care across state lines.  John talks about the level of income of those at 100k to the millions, have no troubles with paying health care. But those at least making 100k can barely handle the hits of the rising costs.  Thoughts for the Weeks John - Out earn it!  Chuck - Put it in my control!   Josh - There are no limits to the number of doors.

Hey, friends! It's a new month, which means it's time for a new title for Josh and Scott to revisit on an episode of Mousterpiece Cinema. This month, Josh is looking back at a film he first discussed in Episode 17, the Brad Bird film Ratatouille. Now celebrating its 10th anniversary, Ratatouille is widely seen as one of Pixar's masterpieces, but does Josh still think that's true? And more importantly, does Scott feel that way? Or could this be one of the first times since he joined the podcast that Scott disagrees with Josh? There might be a drag-down brawl impending on the podcast! (Or just a polite but firm disagreement. ONE OF THOSE.) You'll have to listen to find out the details!

So long 20-Sucks-Teen, and helloooOOOoOoOoOOOO 20-Heaven-Teen! What better way to start the new year than by listening to the best bits of your favourite podcast, presented by your three favourite former teens, Bryony, Cal and Josh? There literally isn't one (so stop Googling it). So sit back, relax, and enjoy this super amazing and hilarious clip show! Remember to follow us on Twitter / Facebook @weusedtobeteens, give us a cheeky subscribe, rating or review wherever you can, and tell all your friends about us. Hey, we'd do it for you. xoxo

Episode 145 “ Leotard and Cape” 0:15 John says he just completed his new book on air. John says the entire book took 6 months to write.  John says he can now remove the Trello card to write his book in the morning. John tries an on air test with Alexa. Not working so great now. Chuck mentions having similar issues with playing Christmas songs. 7:00 EntreProgrammers discuss ways they use Echo, time out timers and playing music. Josh say he is fed up with Siri as well. 12:30  Chuck talks about trying to find a CRM, but he does not want to pay for duplicate services. Josh asks why Drip was not providing everything he needed. Josh mentions he liked SalesForce.  Josh talks about Active Campaign and their small issues. 18:00 Chuck and Josh talk about the cost of the features for a CRM and the tools for email marketing. Chuck also talks about creating a standard operating system for his business. 21:00 Chuck talks about possibly hiring another good contractor, but only locally. He asks if he should put it on Craigslist. Josh thinks that on Craigslist, he will be flying blind. Chuck talks about his plan and criteria for hiring his next person. Josh suggests a COLBY assessment before hiring. 28:00 Josh talks about working with Dan on the Sublime project and audience.  Josh shares a story with Dan’s project. Josh shares some information on his training material. 33:00 John talks about how Simple Programmer can scale with different ways to help other businesses to monetize and gain an audience. John says he can give all the secrets, but will they implement it? Josh talks about what the project manager will be doing. 39:00 John talks about running a full marathon distance, 26 miles total. Chuck say he needs to get back into shape to run "one miles." John says he was running at a slower pace the whole time. 44:00 John says he stop wearing his Apple watch because the battery is not performing well. Chuck asks for advice on things to listen to while running. John says Chuck should run in a leotard and cape. John shows off his new customs build laptop. 50:00 Josh talks about how hot his ThinkPad  laptop use to get. John talks about how great the system runs so far. Josh also sports the new Simple Programmer t shirt design. 55:00 Chuck says he is now looking into Origin PCs. He may ditch his Mac soon. 57:00 John says its almost about time for the spin off groups to start recording their episodes. John says that they need to start looking for sponsorship for the podcast. Is Digital Ocean still onboard?  Thoughts for the Week  John - You can always do more than you think you can. Josh - There is so much opportunity, that is yours for the taking.. Chuck - Having a process and automating the process..