Podcasts about keith you

How can community transform your life and success? Discover the profound impact of building meaningful connections in this quick-hit episode of the Overlap Podcast. Hosts Sid and Keith dive into the intersections of work, fitness, faith, and leadership, exploring how community fuels personal growth and enriches every aspect of life. From shared suffering to diverse friend groups, learn why prioritizing community is a game-changer for your happiness and success. What You Will Learn Why community is a critical driver of personal and professional success How shared experiences accelerate friendships and growth Practical ways to find and build diverse communities that enrich your life Key Topics Discussed The role of community in overcoming isolation and fostering joy How shared suffering, like jiu-jitsu or business peer groups, builds deep bonds The value of diverse friend groups, including faith-based and professional communities Why prioritizing community over screen time can transform your life Show Resources and Links Overlap Podcast Website: https://overlaplife.com/ Roadmap for Growth Course: https://treebusiness.com/ Check out the Overlap Podcast sponsors for services to elevate your business and life: https://overlaplife.com/sponsors/ Sponsor Spotlight C2 Wealth Strategies: Wes Cody and his team at C2 Wealth Strategies provide personalized financial planning to help you achieve financial freedom. https://c2wealth.com/ Barranco and Associates: Johnny Barranco offers holistic accounting and financial consulting to align your finances with your long-term goals. https://barrancoandassociates.com/ Content Fresh: Content Fresh transforms your social media presence with strategies that drive massive growth and engagement. https://contentfresh.com/ Roadmap for Growth: Chris Francis and Rick Miller's online course helps small service businesses scale, build teams, and create lasting systems. https://treebusiness.com/ Quotes “Community is the best thing in my life. It's what gives me the most joy.” – Keith “You become what you hang around.” – Keith “Shared suffering is especially for men, I think, the critical driver [of friendship].” – Sid In this quick-hit episode, Sid and Keith unpack the transformative power of community, revealing how meaningful connections can enrich every facet of your life. From jiu-jitsu mats to business peer groups, they share insights on building diverse communities that foster growth, joy, and resilience. Take the challenge to prioritize community over scrolling—your life will be better for it. Share this episode with someone who needs a nudge to find their tribe.   

1) Today we take a look at Ex Machina. 2) We're joined by our good friend, Keith. 3) And this episode is (99%) UNEDITED. Triple win. "This Turing test, turs the tables! ARE WE ROBITS!?!?!" - Keith "You know, I'm something of an AI myself." - Matt "Where was I? Oh that's right, Matt was stealing my moment.” - Annabelle PS.. post credits

With Keith Fishman, Therapy Dog Program Coordinator at Henry Ford West Bloomfield   Did you know that sometimes the very best medicine for a hospital patient is a visit from a therapy dog? Whether you're a patient or a visitor, the sights and sounds of medical emergencies along with overwrought individuals can create a very stressful environment. Sometimes even a routine doctor's visit can be nerve-wracking, so the thought of checking into a hospital may be an alarming prospect for many. That's why the Sally and Bob Goldman Therapy Dog Program at Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital is such a wonderful benefit for patients and hardworking staff. The calming presence of a trained therapy dog can work wonders in terms of reducing stress by providing a pleasant distraction from overwhelming fear and anxiety. Unlike service dogs that wear vests cautioning strangers not to pet or approach them while working, Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital therapy dogs wear vests that say, “PLEASE PET ME”! And the dog's entire day is focused upon encouraging contact and earning smiles from anxious or stressed-out individuals. If a chance meeting with one of the trained therapy dogs can put a smile on someone's face, even just for a moment, and distract them from their pain or anxiety, that dog has done its job.   My guest today, Keith Fishman, is the Therapy Dog Program Coordinator at Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital. He's here to tell us about these amazing dogs and how they benefit everyone they come in contact with at the hospital.   What You'll Hear on This Episode: How did Keith first get involved in training therapy dogs? What was Keith's previous career? What kind of dogs does Keith have at home? When did Keith realize he had a talent for training dogs? Does the hospital own the dogs or are they owner-handled? How often and how long do the dogs work? What's the difference between a therapy dog and a service dog? How long has Henry Ford West Bloomfield had the therapy dog program? Some examples of when a therapy dog has helped patients. When dogs weren't allowed during COVID-19, how was the program able to support the hospital staff? Where are dogs allowed in the hospital now? How long is the training for therapy dogs? How you can donate to the program.   Today's Takeaway: We tend to think of our beloved pet dogs as members of the family, but we might not think about all the different ways therapy dogs can provide help and healing. Having specifically trained therapy dogs present during a stressful situation has proven very effective in a variety of ways. The unconditional love and affection of a dog have been shown to benefit trauma victims who testify in court, help students heal in the aftermath of school shootings, and even calm autistic children. My dog calms me all of the time! So it makes sense to have therapy dogs in hospitals where they can support both patients and staff. Research shows therapy dogs can help lower blood pressure, reduce feelings of loneliness, and minimize stress. The Sally and Bob Goldman Therapy Dog Program relies 100% on public donations to cover the costs of training and operation. If you want to learn how your donation, no matter how big or small, can support the program, visit their website, call the Development Office at (313) 876-1031, or email Developmenthf@hfhs.org. Remember that today is a gift and you make it what it is! I'm Florine Mark and that's “Today's Takeaway.”   Quotes: “Most dogs really are quite easily trained; it's just a matter of knowing how to work with them.” — Keith “The dog's life is a great life; they love doing the therapy work which is really important.” — Keith “You see a child who hasn't smiled all day because they're sick that suddenly lights up because a dog walks into his room.” — Keith Brought to You By: Gardner White Furniture   Mentioned in This Episode: Sally and Bob Goldman Therapy Dog Program Click here to donate to the Sally and Bob Goldman Therapy Dog Program Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital

On today's episode of the Accel Defi Podcast, we interview a member of the Accel Defi Team, Keith (known in the community as Wolfgang Regem), as we discuss Keith's cryptocurrency journey, involvement with Accel Defi, and how he overcame his fears of investing in crypto.For more information on Accel Defi, please visit www.acceldefi.com or our Link Tree:https://linktr.ee/AccelDefiFor educational resources related to Accel Defi and Crypto in general, subscribe to Accel Defi University on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJDNIqPTp9kjsMPmPo119Zg  -------------------------------------------[Scott] On today's episode of the ACCEL Podcast, we interview a member of the ACCEL team, Keith, as we discuss Keith's cryptocurrency journey, involvement with ACCEL and how he overcame the fears of investing in crypto. As always, my name is Scott and Hi, I'm Eric. I'm Alex. You're listening to the ACCEL Podcast,  Accelerating Your Crypto Investments, one podcast at a time.[Alex] Welcome, everyone. Today we have a really special guest for you, one of my favorite team members. Everyone, please welcome Keith, aka Wolfgang. [Keith] Hi, Alex. Thank you for having me. [Alex] Thank you for coming on. Can you introduce yourself to listeners? Tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us about your biggest accomplishments in your career thus far. [Keith] Well, let's see. Probably 60 years old, which basically means we've made it through life pretty well and have been working in crypto since 2017. Been involved with this project since the start. I'm an avid researcher. I'm an avid writer. I'm a film buff… golfer. Those are some of the fun things. And as far as accomplishments go, right now, I only deal in the present, and it's the fact that I've even gotten active in crypto at my age. [Alex] Tell us a little bit of how you got involved with cryptocurrency. [Keith] 2010, one of my friends called up and said there was this coin and started talking about digital currency called Bitcoin. And I ignored the heck out of them. And then in 2017, after things started picking up a little bit, it was actually Christmas of 2016. I bought into three or four different cryptos and then did the smartest thing I'd ever thought about, which was forgot them. Fast forward 2000 and $2400 turned into a little over $50,000. And I thought, wait a minute, I need to learn something here. [Alex] That's awesome. So we all start off very Rocky. What's one thing that you wish you would have known starting out in crypto?[Keith] Don't day trade. Very simply, that three year period, three, four year period that while it was out there, I didn't look at it. I didn't pay attention to it. It did its own thing. Then when I started trying to trade it, I almost gave everything I had made back. So DYOR, do your own research and don't day trade. [Scott] I think that's a big thing that you see nowadays in crypto is a lot of people try to come in and they think that first move should be to try to day trade. And a lot of people come in and like you said, they don't do their research, and it makes it hard on them because then you're kind of just closing your eyes and shooting at a target, and it makes it tough. Crypto is one of those spaces where just like anywhere else, when it's innovative and booming, you have to make sure that you're doing your research or you're going to be one of those guys that get left in the dirt. I think that's a big part of it and I think a lot of people miss that. They just want to hop in and not do their due diligence and think they're going to make a ton of money. So a question for you, Keith, is being in the space, being a little older, what kind of drew you towards ACCEL and what exactly do you do? I know you're kind of a Jack of all trades, working in a whole bunch of different departments for us.[Keith] It's also awkward. Guys, if you want to refer to me as Wolfgang or Wolf or Wolfie because that's, hey, it's Crypto. Everybody has an alternate name and it's actually interesting with ACCEL. Just what I know about the project and the people involved in the project. I don't feel like I need to hide behind an alt name anymore. I'm kind of proud to be able to come out go, hey, look, this is who I am and who I work with and what we do. As far as getting involved with ACCEL, I was really lucky. A few of the team members were already involved with the project and I approached them because I didn't see them where we were before. Just said, hey, Where'd you guys go? You disappeared. And after a little bit of prying because they didn't want to recruit not just me, but anybody from other projects did a little bit of digging, a little bit of prying, saw what it was. And everybody that I liked and got along with was in this project. So I figured I'd jump in. [Eric] Wolf that's dynamite, I'm glad to hear that you were in the project early on. One of the other things in the crypto space, we know there's a lot of common myths and misconceptions and they can all very easily be debunked for you. What do you think the biggest one was? [Keith] Well, two things actually. I mean, in crypto, what you don't know is going to cost you money. And I'm older and being a little bit on the older side, you're hesitant to learn new things, to step into new spaces. And when it involves your money, it really ups the pressure, it amps the pressure like 100 times because you're thinking, oh my God, I'm literally putting my money into outer space or the crypto space or whatever you want to call it. And then overcoming that was just not having a fear of the unknown. And actually I got thinking about stock certificates. Strangely enough, when I was talking to some of my friends, my peer group has a big just hesitancy to get involved. And I asked them about their stockholders. They said, well, that's not throwing your money out to nowhere like you are. We have stock certificates. I said, no, you actually hold them. Well, no, the broker does. Well, to me it's the same thing. They're out there somewhere. You just don't know where it is. [Alex] So touching on what you had just mentioned. How is ACCEL removing some of those barriers for your peer group? [Keith] Without a doubt, Alex, the educational process, that's part of what drew me to this project. Anybody that gets involved in crypto at the very beginning, if you don't do your homework and do your own research, you're going to end up getting rugged in something. And one of the things I admire about ACCEL is that this whole project is about taking away the mystery, so to speak, removing the illusion and actually educating people as to what they need to be doing and what they need to be learning. I remember when I first bought back in 2017 into crypto, the whole process was so confusing. I had to have a flow chart. And that's what I love about this is we literally have how to videos everywhere. So I'm loving the fact that ACCEL is removing those barriers. [Scott] So, Keith, I know we just got to talk about some of the positives of ACCEL DeFi University and how it just kind of creates that environment to allow you to grow as an individual. What are some of the other resources and advice you can kind of give to someone that are looking to join the ACCEL community to really help grow their knowledge and experiences in the space? [Keith] I love that you're the person asking that question. Moon, you're one of my resources and it's really been funny. At 60, you expect to be the elder mentor and you step back and you lecture all the young people on your life lessons. And here you have to kind of put those things aside because you guys are just light years ahead as far as the knowledge base goes. But what's really great is that you guys share this freely. I mean, all you have to do coming on here is asking for help. I mentioned the videos and things before, but the main resource for me has been the people. I mean, you look at Mad or Jovan, you read these guys their CVs and see what they've done and what they do. And you think, okay, I'm not going to ask questions because this is going to be like a foreign language and they're not like that. They simplify it. And I think that's been for me, it's been a great thing because I've been able to come in and just say, hey, I don't understand this part. Can you explain it to me? And they talk. So far, everybody I've interacted with in the community talks to you, not at you. And it's made things so much simpler as far as learning. And if there happens to be something that we haven't covered at the University, then everybody's always quick. They have a resource ready to go. Okay, we'll take a look at this area. Take a look in this area. And I'm cracking up now because you guys talk really fast and I'm trying to talk fast to keep up. [Eric] Wolf, that's all great stuff as you speak about the space and how you've connected to it. And I know as we speak specific about ACCEL. So now that you're on the inside and you have a position within the company and you kind of see the inner workings from your perspective, from your standpoint of all the products and all the utilities and everything that going on that happened in ACCEL to you. And you probably can't just give one specific. But what are the things that excite you most just knowing from your position, from where you stand in your vantage point, what ACCEL can do? [Keith] You know, Eric, it's funny, but my situation there is purely from a selfish aspect. And it's just getting a chance to work and learn with the people that I have a chance to interact with, not only on the team but in the community as well. I think when you get a little bit older, in my case, I was furloughed without pay. They hired somebody else. And this has given me a place to belong and to continue growing. Now the products, of course, my first thing is going to be the education, the University. I just think that is reaching out and giving something back. I'm excited about the UnRekt platform. I'm excited about launchpad. There's so many things. But to me, it all comes back to the education. That's something I hope to work with because I know what I'm experiencing with my friends and my peer group that I don't want to do that. I don't want to try this. I don't want to learn this. I'm afraid I'll lose my money. And it's kind of become a calling for me to say, wait a minute, there's no reason for you to miss out on this. There's no reason for you to step back and oh my God, I can't do this. You can do anything. You set your mind too, especially with the education. And yes, it takes me back to the University. [Alex] Hey, Keith, I just want to take a minute here and switch gears for you, ask you a couple of questions where it's not so much question and answer type interview. One of the things for me was earlier you covered that you had forgot that you had purchased cryptocurrency. You open up your wallet, you opened it up and you had $50,000 from your original investment. What was the first thought that went through your mind there? [Keith] My first thought was, okay, this is a mistake. Because what had happened is I had like a trillion of this token called ETH Lend. And all of a sudden I only had like 50 tokens of something called Ave. And I thought, well, they ripped me off. They took all my tokens. So that's where my research started. I had to go online and track back and find out what had happened, which was in stock terms it was reverse buyback. The company took them over and then did a reverse buyback. And in this, it was just they consolidated the tokens to get the value of. And I think I paid like two cent a token. And at that time they were trading at $400. [Scott] I think there's always that crazy kind of entry point. Everyone kind of comes in at a different time. There are coins like that. A lot of people that came in on SHIBA, it's such a different experience. But I think one thing that me and you have talked about this before is I really do think that 2022 is going to be the year of the utilities. And I think it's something that we're going to see make a move. But being someone that's been around a little bit longer, what do you kind of think? What was your outtake on? We'll go a bit in the past and then talk about the main coins. What was your kind of thought on that? Did you get involved in those? Was it something that you kind of wrote off? I know I was a big Meme coin hater for a long time. [Keith] I was lucky. I had actually stepped into a chance to moderate and become a part of YouTubers community. And he was very good at expressing, look, this doesn't have any application to it. This is just a picture. And people are buying this because it's a cute picture. And I was also lucky enough because I remember being exposed to DOGE way back when. Sounds so funny to say that about 2016, 2017 and remembering the guy that came out that said, hey, we invented this as a joke, but now that it's got something, let's get people to use this. And DOGE was a big education for me because everybody now if you go by what DOGE people talk about it's HODL. And the guy that was the co founder of DOGE in 2016 changed the number of coins from a specified number to unlimited because he hated the fact that people were HODLing this coin. He wanted them to use it and spend it. [Eric] So that's funny that you touch upon that and you use the examples of DOJ in these coins and what started out as Meme coins. So I always try to correlate not so much the age disparity of what goes on now in the crypto space because we know the guys that are on his podcast, they're the younger cats. And then we bring in a guy like you who's a seasoned veteran. For me, Could you explain to me, because I know my steps into the crypto were a little meandered at the beginning and I basically took a beating, unlike you, who went in on the leap of faith and then just didn't look at it and came back and was absolutely startled that 400 times could grow at that tremendous rate. To your peer group, what would be your way to explain to them, hey guys if you're not in this you are absolutely missing out on something that is going to be the future of the way currencies economics money is moved.[Keith] Back to education. When we fear something we don't know or we don't understand it so we fear it. And educating yourself and finding out this is going to be interesting to try to draw a correlation here but people my age tend to feel safer with their money in a bank and they don't realize that the banks are now utilizing the same technology that we are but they just happen to have a physical location that everybody feels secure in. So when I talk with my friends about it it's hilarious to me because they think I've become some kind of genius. It's like no you do your research and you learn and the things that you have questions about or the easy way that I didn't have available to me at the time is to get involved with someone like us at ACCEL because you're actually getting that chance to come in and say, okay, hey I don't know squat, what do I need to do? I was seeing this morning one of the team members spent like 2 hours on a phone working with someone helping them go from I don't know any of this to setting up their wallet to Loading their wallet to purchasing it's just the support that's here but get the education that'll take away the fear. [Eric] So for all our listeners out there as you see and you hear what Wolf tells you speaking about ACCEL you can always go to our YouTube channel or you can follow along at any of our socials. [Alex] Wolf, Thank you so much for providing such great feedback. We appreciate your time everyone. Please feel free to check the show notes for our link tree and as always sit back and ACCEL.-------------------------------------------NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE– The Information presented in this podcast is provided for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only, and without any express or implied warranty of any kind, including warranties of accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose.The Information contained in or provided from or through this podcast is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, investment advice, trading advice, or any other advice.The Information provided from or through this podcast is general in nature and is not specific to you, the user or anyone else. You should not make any decision, financial, investment, trading or otherwise, based on any of the information presented without undertaking independent due diligence and consultation with a professional broker or financial advisor.You understand that you are using any and all information from this podcast at your own risk.

Check out our episode with Keith Roberts, Entrepreneur | Author & Keynote Speaker | Creator of the Oak Journal.   We chat about creativity, mentorship, entrepreneurship and so much more/----more---- Katty: I'm so excited to interview a good friend, Keith Roberts, an incredible creative and the creator of The Oak Journal, for this session of the Artisan Podcast. Hello, Keith, welcome. Keith: It's an honor to be here, thanks for having me. Katty: I'd love to start the conversation, Keith about you as a creative and how you got your start and then we'll make that move into where you are today with The Oak Journal. Keith: Great. So my start, I actually went to Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, California, where I got a degree in Industrial Scientific Photography with a minor in Undersea Photography, so really applicable to the real world….sarcasm there!   I think one of the many gifts that I took away that was a life changer for me with Brooks was the level of presentation and professionalism that was required. It was easy to get into Brooks Institute of Photography, it was incredibly hard to graduate. There were 58 students in my class and 12 graduated. If you got to C you failed, you had to retake the class. A second C you were expelled.  So they were really about making exceptional artists and not about just making money, which I really appreciate, and being somebody that's owned an agency for 25 years and seeing what a lot of the schools turn out now that are based on profit versus not, really instilling what the students need to have a successful career as a creative. That was enormous for me. The other thing that I took away from that was, you know, a very special relationship with the founder of the school, Ernest Brooks. I minored in Undersea Photography and I got to spend several months living on a boat diving every day with a gentleman who has, you know, an exhibit in the Smithsonian Institute for his underwater photography. We had Jean-Michel Cousteau, Jacques Cousteau's son, dove with us for several expeditions. So the taste for once-in-a-lifetime experiences, I got at a very early age. Katty: Oh my gosh I got goosebumps. That's incredible to have that opportunity at such a young age, that just opened up the whole world for you to be able to look at everything through their eyes too. Keith: Yeah, and I would say it also set an expectation that I did not want to have an ordinary life. I remember to this day at my grandmother's trailer in rural Indiana she had a poster of the poem, The Road Less Traveled. And I always remember that last verse “Two roads diverged in a road and I took the road less traveled by and that has made all the difference” and that was an early opportunity to see when everybody else is sitting in a classroom or working on being an engineer, which was the safe job in the 90s you know, and my dad was an engineer, and that was the safe route to go..what was possible if you really followed your passion. Katty: Beautiful. And I know that, unfortunately, Ernest Brooks passed away recently. And you wrote a beautiful tribute about him. Can you talk a little bit about mentorship and just kind of what that meant for you to be under the tutelage of this incredible person? Keith: Absolutely, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to continue to honor Ernie. He was one of the many mentors that I've continued to work with. It was a gift and I think, realizing as a Buddhist, I believe that there is no such thing as a coincidence, but when the student is ready to teach her presents itself and I think there are so many lost opportunities when people don't realize that there's this synchronicity happening all around them.  And so, with Ernie Brooks, I remember something specifically said that the boat we lived on was “Just Love.” and he said, “The time we spend upon just love is not deducted from our lives.” And it still chokes me up to this day, and I think that's why he lived to be as long as he did is because he spent so much time on that gorgeous boat.  But mentorship is essential and it's not something that ends with the first. Ernie sent me on a path, but at Brooks, I met Lapsom, who was somebody that worked with the Dalai Lama, and he put me on a path from being a devout atheist to finding Buddhism and changing the entire path of my life. Even though Lapsom was very briefly, in my life. And then there was a gentleman, Dave Larsen. I assisted a couple photographers Vic Huber and Bob Carey, those were also mentors that helped me continue to push what I wanted to be as a professional, but when I broke out and started working as a photographer, stock photography was really decimating the market and a lot of established photographers were closing and so I spent a year as a starving artist, and then had to get a real job. And that's how I got into doing design, where I met my next mentor, a gentleman named Dave Larsen. He saw me as a designer that, head down when things weren't going to get accomplished by my peers, I would jump in and make sure that we hit our deadlines, and he was the one that actually gave me the opportunity to move to Denver, he promoted me within that organization that was acquired by Equifax. And then the next step was EO and the mentors like Warren Rustand and having those people that continue to inspire you to tears. Katty: Well said. EO for the audience is the Entrepreneurs Organization, a network of about 16,000 members entrepreneurs across the globe, and that's how Keith and I know each other. We're both members of EO, and have a lot of people, a lot of mentors in common. Warren Rustand is the gentleman that Keith just talked about. So, obviously, the influence of all of these incredible people has created an indelible impact on you, one that you carry with you still today. When and who kind of lit that spark of entrepreneurship for you?  Keith: That's a really good question. I don't know. Actually, I do. I remember in seventh grade. The funny thing is it wasn't really inspirational, it was my accounting teacher or some class that I had and I remember he explained a definition of an entrepreneur, and it was horrible. It was somebody that was going to have many failures before they have a success, probably have, you know, one or multiple bankruptcies. I mean he really described an entrepreneur as an atrocious choice to make in your life, and I remember sitting in that class and being like, “Huh, I think that's me”. Going against the grain, not following the rules, and facing insurmountable odds with optimism. So it was sort of an adverse inspiration. Katty: I love that. I absolutely love that. You can see this on my wall, it says “dwell in possibilities.” It's my absolute favorite quote, and that's what entrepreneurship is all about. There is a possibility out there so let's go and do it. Katty: I love that. At what point in your career after you were working and obviously studying photography, making the move to design and working for Dave Larsen. At what point did you say okay now I'm ready to start my own agency? Keith: It was actually serendipity, so I had been doing some stuff as Zenman, as a freelancer, while I was working at Equifax, which is where I worked for Dave Larsen. And then they had moved me from California to Denver when the merger happened. Like with most acquisitions they within six months realize the redundancies that they'd acquired and they'd also moved us out here. So, I always had the goal that before I was 30 I wanted to be my own boss, to have my own business, to be an entrepreneur. And I actually was given a freeroll, I had a six-month runway, it was pre-September 11, the economy was great. Based on my management level, I had a half-year runway. I looked at that opportunity like once in a lifetime, I'm never going to be given this gift again. I took my severance package I tore up my resume, never to be edited or used again, and formed Zenman as official business. Katty: It's one thing though to go from being a solopreneur, and to running and creating one. Having employees, having that responsibility for other people, beyond just yourself. When did you make that transition? Keith: That was a couple of years later. So for the first three years, it was just me, it was called Zenman because I was the Buddhist creative guy I was the Zenman. But then as we started adding employees and scaling, you're absolutely right, two things happened; my stress level increased exponentially and my personal income decreased catastrophically. And it probably took five years to get back to where I was after adding that overhead and that did not alleviate the peaks and valleys that came with a service-based industry.  We weren't doing a lot of recurring revenue at the time, so each month it was eat what you kill, and it was feast or famine, many times. And I would even say past that, so that was eight years into the business. It was another five years before I joined EO, that I really learned how to be an entrepreneur. The first decade was stubbornness, willingness to work 100 plus hours a week, which led to, you know, illness and all sorts of issues. But it was actually learning how to run a business, learning how to be a leader, even learning what EBITA meant, which I didn't know the first 10 years. These things are essential, but we don't know them all right out of the bat. We weren't taught those and you know photography school or, you know, wherever we go.  Katty: I think you bring up a really good point, in terms of kind of what, what has been taught currently in art schools. For artists and creatives, as a whole really putting their practice and their expertise in the various programs that they use, you know, whether it be Adobe Creative Cloud or Figma or whatever it may be, but not to forget the business side of them because so many of them are solopreneurs and are running their own freelance business; to really have a good understanding of what the accounting side of it needs to be. Either to outsource it to an accountant and or do it themselves, whichever they want, but to really look at that business as a business. I think it's really important to be able to have that full-scale picture of it. Keith: It's a really good point Katty because I learned the presentation skills and that's one of the things I learned at Brooks was a well-put-together portfolio that's perfectly mounted and everything is top-notch is going to get more jobs and better photography with a sloppy presentation. The one thing we didn't learn was the business part of running a studio, photography business, freelance business.  So for the first 15 years of my company or longer. I saw the business's checking account like Monopoly money, it wasn't real money to me until it came to me. I mean millions of dollars were wasted by not having that clarity and understanding and business education, which is essential. And I think you know the tables have turned, and now the most secure opportunity is to be your own boss to be an entrepreneur versus trusting your career into some other company hitching your wagon to that star and hoping that they not only are successful but that they continue to value your contribution and reciprocate that with job security. Katty: Very very true and very well said thank you for that. Now you've recently transitioned out of your business. Is that correct? Am I saying that correctly?  Keith: No, that's correct. Yes, I sold Zenman to a SaaS company called Mblue in Latin America. It has been an amazing transition. I was really nervous. I know so many people sell their business and they lose their identity. They make a bunch of money and then they become miserable. I feel very very fortunate that it's been a serendipitous partnership that maintains a legacy in the business and I'm helping them grow and accomplish their goals. I think the mindset of win-win, it wasn't I'm tapping out the last day, it's that I'm committed to it and that the people on the other side have the trust and respect to let us continue to run our practice as we do. Katty: Fantastic. And obviously, I know this from having known you the past few years, you've embarked on this passion that is now your sole focus in your business, which is an incredibly beautiful journal that you've created for others to use, and I can see the experience for having put a great presentation together that you learned so many years ago, really manifests itself in the Oak Journal, it's absolutely beautiful. Can you talk about what that spark was and why did you decide to go into this business? Keith: Yes, it is a combination of two things, it is my Ikigai but I didn't know it when I started down that journey. Ikigai is a Japanese term that means life's purpose. But one of the things that I really wanted to do was stop trading my time for money. I realized when I had kids that time was the one finite resource we had. As an agency owner and a top paid creative, I make a lot of money per hour and it's still not a good exchange. So, my goal was to come up with a product-based business that would fulfill my needs of financial independence without trading my time for money, and in finding the right product that's how I came up with the Oak Journal. I wanted something that I could use my knowledge to create and do a better job than anybody that was currently doing this with the skills I built over the two decades of running Zenman. So being able to design something-- I've designed many many books over the years, but being able to take the life experience, skills, you know even Warren Rustand's 10 10 10 and weave that into a paint by numbers roadmap that anybody can use to live their best life has been transformational and it really made me want, with intention, transition out of the Zenman which was 100% my identity, it's my nickname, it's what people call me, to helping others and being a bodhisattva. Katty: Fantastic. So, as a practice as a mindfulness practice and gratitude practice. Is that something that you were doing anyway before you put the journal together? Keith: Yes, I've been meditating for 20 plus years and about 10 years ago I started practicing Transcendental Meditation, and it has had as big of an impact on me as the Entrepreneurs Organization has. Meditation is a superpower. If somebody doesn't think that they have enough time in their day to meditate, you need meditation, more than anyone, and you will find if you start a simple practice, it gives you time in the day because you're more productive, you're more clear, you're more creative, you're more focused. I wish people would look at meditation like a free pill that would give them superpowers like that movie with Bradley Cooper, Limitless, you know, it's not quite that but it's pretty amazing how much, just having a 10-minute meditation can change your day. Katty: I love that. Can you talk about that and creativity and where you see the through-line between the two because we talked about being quiet for a few minutes, that's what we're talking about here. Keith: Yeah I mean that's a really good question Katty thanks for asking. I mean the most amazing ideas if you look at, you know songwriters or inventors they happen in the shower or while they're driving down the highway and the reason that is they're not thinking about other thoughts, they're not thinking about their problems, their mortgage their issues with their partner, they're just washing their hair and at peace with their mind, their mind itself and so we're able to come up with those really, really creative ideas. So I am intentional with creating those moments from meditation, to start my day to even having core hours where I turn off all devices not just my email, my phone is in airplane mode there's no you know Twitter open. I don't do that ever anyways, but you know there's all distractions are turned off so you can focus on writing your book, working on that creative project, or whatever it is that needs to be accomplished. You can really get into those that state of theta brainwaves with intention. Willie Nelson actually does it by just driving his truck; he writes his best songs when he's driving down the highway. So once he figured that out when he wants to be creative, gets in his truck and he starts driving. So there are all different ways you can get into that state. Katty: Yeah it's interesting because creativity doesn't necessarily happen nine to five staring at a screen. It happens when you're out in nature and happens when you're just, you allow your mind to get creative. To go inward I think it's just so important to be able to do that. Keith: 100% I agree. Katty: I've done meditation for years. I only can do it if it's a guided meditation. I have not gotten to a place where I can do it on my own. But even in the guided practice, I find that so impactful and so helpful to be able to do that. Keith: Yeah, I agree. Try TM it's just a mantra I think that one will--And there's nothing wrong with guided meditations. I still do those as well and I practice those with my boys, but I have struggled with contemplated meditations that weren't guided until I found TM. Katty: Okay, I will look into it. There's also a couple of other friends who embark upon TM. You're the third person I'm hearing this from, so I think maybe the universe is talking. So you've started your boys on meditation? Keith: Yes, now we make that part of their day. In fact, when they were very very young, we had them in three different preschools before we found a school called Morningstar that was a yoga and meditation-based preschool. So the boys started every day with yoga, they did guided meditations. It was a very Eastern hippy Boulder-esque type of preschool, but it really resonated with our boys. Now, they don't embrace it with the same joy that I do, but they understand the value of it. It's almost like a joke in our house that we'll all talk about the benefits of meditation and be like “I know Dad, you talk about this dad, I know that you wrote an article about this, dad.” So I'm hoping one day, they'll listen with the same attentiveness that somebody to keynote does. Katty: Fantastic. I know that the Oak Journal you just came out with a new version of it, can you talk a little bit about the differences between this and what you were doing? In addition to the different sizes, but what's that creative process for you, because clearly you're still a very creative person and you've just channeled that creativity into this. Keith: Yeah, I love making things. So the main changes that we made, the biggest one is we move production to the US, and now it is being produced with environmentally friendly materials. The factory that we were using in China, didn't have the same standards and so that was the biggest one to us to have something that was made with our core value of environmentally friendly alignment, and also, it helped with just production delays and shipping and everything we're dealing with right now around the world.  The other piece is, each week has a positive psychology exercise, and we had people that have been doing it for over a year and so they were repeating the same, let's create our bucket list every nine weeks and so they were getting diminishing returns. So the next version is to 2.0, we're going to make four versions total so that you can have 48 different positive psychology exercises. I'm sorry, 54 different exercises that you would do in a year in two weeks, and then you could repeat it. We're also working on two other products. One is called the Sequoia, so that's your 10-year journal you set your BHAG and your moonshot. And then you're incrementally working towards that. With the series of 120 Oak Journals and then our passion project right now is the Acorn. So this is for children, and this is actually something that we're intending just to give away. We'll definitely print it and have them for sale. But anybody that wants an Acorn Journal anywhere on the planet will have a free. Katty: How beautiful and I love all the tree references and all the nature references. Keith: Thank you. Going back to our roots, beautiful. And thank you for connecting me to your resources for my journal too. You've been so gracious, I have to say that Keith, talking about mentorship, early on. You've just been so gracious with sharing your knowledge and all the trials and tribulations of bringing this journal to market and sharing that with me and with others who are interested in that. So definitely a mentor, so thank you for that. Keith: Thank you very much Katty, I appreciate it. I truly believe all ships rise with the tide. And, the more we can help each other, it just benefits everyone. And I know more people having your book and your journal is going to help them. I think one of the things I'm blessed with here in Colorado is the creative community was very symbiotic. We do compete with people but at the same time, my competitors would reach out to me and say hey there's jobs out of our league, this is more in your wheelhouse, could you take it. I think when you have that mindset of collaboration, then it's reciprocated. Katty: And it's beautifully said because so many freelancers are so siloed and the importance of community can't be overemphasized, to be part of that community, whether it's Creative Mornings or AIGA or whatever it may be, but to find a community of other creatives to be able to collaborate with is so critical. Keith: Yeah, you said it perfectly, not being on an island, not being in a silo. You know just leaning on somebody, I mean, EO was great during COVID. I don't know how many people in our chapter wouldn't have gotten their PPP, if it hadn't been for other members that say hey I have this connection at a community branch we can help you, don't worry about going through the big bank you've had for 20 years, you need to call Mary at Mbank and she'll submit your proposal at three in the morning to get you taken care of. Mentorship, and also the peers that you just have, in a connected, trusting, and vulnerable way when people don't have their guards up when they're honest with what's going on. It's amazing how we come to each other's aid. When we just raise our hand and say hey I need help.  Katty: Yeah, very very true. It's been an interesting year for sure. And we're still in it, by all means, it's not a done deal. What would you say is one of the biggest lessons that you've learned for yourself during this pandemic year and a half? Keith: The importance of community and connection. You know I've seen other people that don't have the network, that really struggled that sort of went inside and dealt with everything personally, versus just like we mentioned having that community that you can reach out to. I mean one of the blessings of EO is that it's a global community. So, I took it as an opportunity because I could go have a coffee with a friend in Denver every day, to have a zoom call with a friend in Melbourne or you know just other ways to connect with people around the planet. I actually feel like, for me, it broadened my global connections, even though I wasn't able to travel and I am chomping at the bit to go travel to meet these friends. Katty: Yeah I agree 100% We did that on the family side. And I don't know if I told you this when we saw each other last week, but since March 20th we started a family zoom, and we've had one every single Sunday since then. So March 20th of 2020, and my family is all over the world, nobody lives here in Los Angeles, so to be able to have this very intentional focused one-hour zoom call with one another. This is with grandparents and grandkids and aunts and uncles and the brothers and the sisters, that I think the max point we had 18 people on our zoom. And it still happens today, every Sunday at 10am. It's the Douraghy family zoom call, and it's similar to a forum exercise. So everything starts with an icebreaker: everybody talks about a win, everyone does a one-word open, and it's been transformational because we're actually learning things about each other that we wouldn't otherwise because we're not asking these very intentional questions of each other when we're physically together. So it's been phenomenal in terms of how close we've become as a family. Keith: That is really cool, that's such a cool gift. I think it's also a perspective, right? I mean you could look at it that “hey I haven't been able to be in the same room with these people.” But the flip side of that coin is you just created a tradition that hopefully will go on for generations. And we were blessed to have the technology to be able to do that, I mean even 10 years ago it would have been a different world we were in and I think so much more challenging to face this isolation. Katty: Oh, I agree 100% 100% agree, and look, the future of work has changed. And without the technology that we have today wouldn't have been possible to continue. Katty: What is getting you excited and inspired these days? Keith: You know what gets me excited is actually, I think, something that's really messed up right now. And that's the changes that I think are inevitable with social media. You know what's coming out about algorithms intentionally presenting inflammatory content. I'm actually excited that there will be action taken to hold these people accountable. It's going to turn the world on its head as far as advertising, e-commerce. But that's already happening with iOS changes and privacy, which is not a bad thing. Personally, I am quite happy having the exact product that I want presented to me in a way that makes it easy to purchase it. But I am excited about the change that's going to help remove the wedge that's dividing this country apart because the truth of the matter is on 95% of the issues were exactly the same. And I think there are some toxic influences that are exasperating our divide, and I am for the first time in years, optimistic that we're going to start taking that wedge out and coming back together. Keith: Whatever we can do to make that happen. Katty: Yes. And one final question for you, something to leave behind for our audience, especially those who are embarking on their creative career, and/or because of COVID have had to pivot their freelance business or if they've lost their jobs. What are some lessons learned that you want to leave them with in terms of determination to just continue, continue the task? Keith: Two tools that I will leave one; I'm a big fan of Dr. Joe Dispenza, and he has a tool on manifesting what you want. So if you're struggling right now, maybe you lost your job during COVID or your business failed or something. Set your intentions with a tool he created where you take a piece of paper out, you write emotions on one side and intentions on the other. So if your goal is a new job, what is the intention? I get to travel three months out of the year and see the world. I'm making enough money that I'm financially independent. What are all the intentions that you have? And then on the other side under the emotions, what are the feelings that you have? Actually, try to feel those emotions so you can manifest it. And that is a great tool. I love that tool but it is the first step.  The second step is doing the work. The thing that I hate about the book The Secret is it's all about having the right mindset and everything's just gonna appear in your life. The mindset is critical. It's essential, but it's the first step, you've got to make continuous daily progress, you can't just wish upon a star, that you're going to have your dream job. What did you do today to actually accomplish that goal? What incremental progress, even if it was just five new connections on LinkedIn that you sent out. What was the incremental progress you made today towards living your best life? Katty: Beautiful. Thank you, Keith, thank you for joining us here. Where can people find you and where can they find that your beautiful journal? Keith: Oakjournal.com you can connect with me on social. Look for Zenman, you will find me or anything Oak Journal related, you will definitely find me and you can direct message me, you can even email me at keith@oakjournal.com if you have any questions. Katty: Thank you. Before I let you go, I forgot to ask this, you also do a lot of sessions where you teach people how to journal and meditate and so forth. Correct? Keith: Absolutely. Yep. I do it, I literally just got off one right before we started. I was doing one for EO Cape Town, but I also do them for individual forums, for companies and I have a masterclass that's a six-week class people can do, it's an Oak masterclass. Keith: oakmasterclass.com or Oak Journal. They all are pretty good at all the SEO interlinking web thing having owned an agency. So if you get to one of my properties you can find everything that you need and will guide you through that journey.  The master class is a six-week intensive that we work on in small groups and then individually. And it's a requirement I do a little bit of coaching but I'm really really particular with working with people that have the growth mindset that you know are going to be a good fit. So everybody has to do the masterclass first to make sure we're both on the same path. Katty: Got it.  I'll put all the links in the show notes so that everybody knows how to find you and where to find you.   Thank you for listening to the artisan podcast, brought to you by Artisan Creative.  

Caleb Auman is the Owner of the Auman Landscape LLC which is based in Carroll, Ohio and they serve the Fairfield County region, Lancaster, and selected Columbus clients. From crashing his old business he survived and managed to get up again when he met his wife  Brittany Auman who has been supportive to him until now. Brittany manages and signs all of his paychecks and he is very proud to say that. They pick up all the pieces together to create and establish their landscaping business. And now, they not only do landscape but also other types of construction services such as Commercial Stormwater service. Caleb is not only a businessman but is also an awesome mentor and you can see him mostly on his Social Media channels on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Check him out you will learn a lot from this awesome man.  “A company is a blank book that you can write, finish to the beginning and so you say I want to end up here. I don't want to have those incredible burdens like running a big company. You can run a company with two or three guys and yourself, it's your book, write it how you want it.”   - Caleb Auman      Today's Topic we discuss:  4:19 - Stage three is where Caleb's business is right now, where they go out in the field and they have employees to do the job, his wife, and him doing the sales, marketing, and running the business. They also open up another division of their business called Auman Environmental.  Awesome, right?  13:18 - Fear and Confidence Issue gets in the way for you to raise up your price. But you need to realize what is your worth and you got to know how to get to that too. Don't let fear and confidence issues prevent you from getting what you deserve.  18:59 - The tax issue is a common problem in a start-up business, especially if you don't have a bookkeeper to manage your finances. This might lead to business failure if not managed pretty well. 20:30 - It's not easy to manage your finances if you will do it just yourself. The biggest benefit you'll get from hiring an accountant is, you will have someone to look into your records and tell you where your money is going. They could give you any advice about your tax issues too.  25:09 - Building a company is not as easy as you think. The difficult part of it is if you mismanaged your business because you don't have the goal of building something in your life.   28:45 - Mentors, you got to have one. If you can't pay one find a legend who you could look up to, know their history. If you can't follow their footsteps because we all have our own strategies and ways. Learn from their mistakes, and take only those that could help you. Caleb shared some of their names, looked them up, and researched them.  30:48 - Listen to this, guys. Caleb's advice to guys out there who feel that they are trapped in a deep abyss of business failure.  Helpful resources for you:    CALEB'S LINKS:  Instagram:  Auman Landscape LLC   Website:   https://www.aumanlandscape.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/AumanLandscape KEITH'S LINKS:  My Blog:  https://keith-kalfas.mykajabi.com/blog/ My Podcast: https://www.keithkalfas.com/podcast Get a Trial of QuickBooks Here: https://quickbooks.grsm.io/keithkalfa... Get your FREE Trial of JOBBER here.  https://jobber.grsm.io/keithkalfas8521 DISCLAIMER: This description contains affiliate links. If you buy something, I earn a small percentage.... Get a FREE Trial of JOBBER Software & save 20% for the first 6 months. https://jobber.grsm.io/keithkalfas8521 Key Takeaways   “And just even if it's a confidence issue just start slow, raising your rates, slowly, anything, you got anything you got to do to get to that light, you got to do it. And it's tough, man, I've been there. And it's tough, but you got to get there because you got to build a company that you can survive on that you'd be proud of.”  - Caleb Auman   “One of the hard things to get over is the fear and the shame of actually having somebody look at your business and how good you're not really doing and like and so because you're afraid they're gonna go, "What, what the hell are you doing?"  - Keith Kalfas   “Get someone, it's gonna cost a lot of money but it's worth it. And you'll end up making you money and it'll save you a ton of heartache down the road. So get a bookkeeper, you know, we were so adamant generally about hiring a professional to do something right like how you hire a guy to build your website. Why not hire somebody for your books?”  - Caleb Auman   “Seek your accountant's advice on that. Absolutely. Depending on how you file your taxes and everything but we pay yourself a reasonable salary, but basically by the time the winter comes, when I finally said, Oh my God if I wanted to, I could literally just sit around on my ass and watch Netflix all winter and do nothing. Until springtime, because I have enough money budgeted out to pay all the bills for Christmas forever. And obviously you like you wouldn't do that. But I think when you get like to that level, once you start having some money where you can go on a vacation or two, and you can experience the freedom of the business and you get over that first or second hump, you start to reap the benefits.” - Keith Kalfas The Transcript  (Note: This transcript was created using Otter, an AI transcription software.  Please forgive any transcription or grammatical errors.  We probably sounded better in real life.) Intro  Welcome to the untrapped podcast where we're motivated and inspired about success, small business, and personal development. And now Keith Kalfas. Keith Kalfas  0:14   Three.. Two... One. What's up guys, this Keith Kalfas with the untrapped podcast coming at you from Mendota Heights, Minnesota. We are in Stanley dirt, monkey genetics, living room right now, hanging out. We'll talk about that later. You can check that on my YouTube channel, but I'm next to sitting down across from Caleb Auman from Auman Landscape. Caleb and his wife run a breaching on a million-dollar landscaping business in Columbus, Ohio. And Caleb is an awesome mentor and he's rising up as a leader in the green industry. And I was on Instagram like two days ago, and he's live. He's sitting in a truck waiting for some concrete or something to be delivered on an actual job site. He's got crew out working, a project manager, and all this stuff going on.  1:04  And he's talking about efficiently running a landscaping business and people are flowing in the comments asking all these really good intelligent questions about like hiring, project management, measuring, bidding, all these questions that you would ask when you were in the first few years of your landscape business and you're reaching out for some mentorship and Caleb is just literally spitting out golden nuggets left and right. I stopped everything that I was doing. And I tuned in and I just and I was learning all these things. I was like, “Oh my god, this is really, really good.” And he doesn't let his ego get in the way. And he just flows value because he's been through pain and suffering. He's had a business failure and now he's back climbing back top of his business and he's crushing it and now inspiring others to do the same. So what's up Caleb?   Caleb Auman  1:49   Hey, Keith, man, it's awesome to be here and thanks for the kind words and as I was saying earlier I followed you for a long time. So to hear like a dude I've like followed admired for such a long time to say that stuff is like really flattering. It's cool. So thanks, man. Thanks for having me.   Keith Kalfas  2:01   You're welcome, man. And thank you, just talking to you for five minutes. It just became very apparent to me. And that's what we're going to talk about today. We're gonna dive right in and talk about hiring people hiring the right people, project management, taking your hands off your business a little bit. So you're not stressed out trying to do 100 things at once to the point of breakdown, and how do you do that? And how do you get to the point where you can afford to do that? And I really like the saying what got you here won't get you there. So let's dive right in. So you guys did what 6 or 700,000 last year you said? Caleb Auman  2:30   Yeah, last year, our sales were right at about 700 I think we had 690 or 710, something like that. And we did that with four guys in the field Brittany and I in the office. She and I did a little bit of work. I think she and I did maybe about 100 grand worth of work ourselves.   Keith Kalfas  2:4   Brittany, is your wife? Caleb Auman  2:45   Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, Brittany is my wife. She's on the company for 10 years, she signs my paychecks and essentially started a new company after I crashed my old one. There's a whole long story there of me doing stupid with a capitalist for about 10 years prior to that.   Keith Kalfas  2:59   How old are you now?   Caleb Auman  3:01   37, I think about that for a second. haha   Keith Kalfas  3:02   You guys are married and have three kids? Caleb Auman  3:04   Yeah, married with three kids. And we've, our sole income is the company and we wouldn't have any other crazy lifestyle but we wouldn't have any other way.   Keith Kalfas  3:12   Awesome and I saw you guys on Instagram you're about to hit 20,000 subscribers and followers on Instagram.   Caleb Auman  3:17   Yeah, Instagram's my jam. I just love Instagram and I've learned so much from other contractors that I admire on Instagram.   Keith Kalfas  3:24   What's your tag so people can check you out?   Caleb Auman  3:26   It's Auman, it's @aumanlandscapellc is our environment. My foreman has one it's out on the landscape but he doesn't put much on there.   Keith Kalfas  3:33   So,  a-u-m-a-n?   Caleb Auman  3:34   Correct. Yeah, the Spelling's crazy. Yeah, Auman. A-u-m-a-n. Yes, Sir.   Keith Kalfas  3:38   Alright, sweet. So, all right. So stage one business, the guys running around by him by himself in a pickup truck, like a chicken with his head cut off trying to do it all. He's getting home at dark then trying to do paperwork. His books are a mess. He doesn't even know what his numbers are because he doesn't have time to do them. And the profit margins are to the point where he can hire stage two. It's maybe you've got a couple of guys working and you can leave the job site for a few hours to go sell. You're doing marketing. You've got some guys on payroll, stage three is where you're out of the field. And you've got guys now working and you're doing sales, marketing, running the business and making sure that calendar stays full. Where are you at?   Stage three is where Caleb's business is right now, where they go out in the field and they have employees to do the job, his wife, and him doing the sales, marketing, and running the business. They also open up another division of their business called Auman Environmental.  Awesome, right?  Caleb Auman  4:19   We're, I guess we're stage three at the moment. So yeah, I'm, we do. Brittany and I will go out and do a little bit of like, almost like emergencies. We started another division or a company called Auman Environmental and so it handles like stormwater management type work. So you'll see like retention ponds at like grocery stores and stuff like outflows. So we've been cleaning, we clean those out or we put new big rip rap in there or fix broken pipes or the drains in parking lots we go fix those. So a store will notice a sinkhole and like they need a pretty quick turnaround on that sinkhole repair and so her and I usually jump in a truck grab an excavator and run and take care of that. So that's kind of like her nice like emergency response kind of deal otherwise, our other project manager john handles that stuff. It's if it's a little more scheduled out so that's what she and I do, but primarily we're kind of I think vision casting is what I call it earlier and I think it's a maybe that's common, I don't know. But she and I are trying to just keep the direction of the company right away keep our four guys that are in the field because they consume a lot of work and a lot of materials and so we've got to be more than ever diligent with like working, you know, working on the business and not in you know..   Keith Kalfas  5:18   These guys out here. They're cutting lawns and edging and?   Caleb Auman  5:21   We don't, we got out of lawncare about six years ago, I think.   Keith Kalfas  5:26   And you're doing hardscapes and patios and construction?   Caleb Auman  5:29   Yeah, that's the primary portion of our business at the moment is hardscape construction, landscape design, so paver patios, retaining walls, and then horticultural work planting trees and shrubs and doing landscape install stuff like that. And then the other division of the company is more construction based. And we're working on getting that off the ground with our project manager there and that's, that's exciting. You know, sometimes that's fresh. Sometimes like a breath of fresh air starting something new or new venture is like is really exciting, and it's cool because it's also diversifying us because it's deemed essential work too. So, with this new quote, new normal unquote, you know, that we're going into, I think that kind of work is going to be, we just want to diversify that way long story short, we want to kind of like target was able to stay open during this whole pandemic thing because they carried some groceries, how fortunate   6:16 I bet you they'll take a loss on that division of their company for the rest of time, just to be able to stay open during a pandemic or something should these shutdowns which are going probably going to be the new normal which I hate to say so diversity is diversification of work and work styles is like pretty important to me but trying and the same time and not to get caught up in that trap of like doing every style work there because I used to do that too. I wouldn't turn anything down I know to a freakin thing man we'd be, I'd be up in a tree that I should not be in on a ladder cut and topping out a tree to bring it down. Dude, I've done so much crazy dumb stuff in contracting and not at all the hard way and not make money and all that stuff. So, you know, it's maybe more typical than that is but I like I'm not afraid to share because I don't want guys to go down that same road that I did or hopefully they don't, or at least, you know, they don't get hurt as hard as I did by losing their company, their first company or whatever. So that's why I try to be as open as I can be. Here we are.   Keith Kalfas  7:09   Thank you so much. So I'm trying to do a million things at once we do that because you know, I go deep in @PaulJamison was making fun of me about this the other day, I mean, all the civil I love Paul man he..   Caleb Auman  7:21   He is a genuine Heart of Gold dude.   Keith Kalfas  7:23   So, what's up, Paul, so, but your sympathetic nervous system takes over it's a fight or flight response is the part of your brain that makes you survive, you know, then just strictly the mammalian part of the brain. So you can't access the structure and strategy and actually calm the fuck down for a few minutes and then take a look at what are we going to do to strategize for this thing long term? What are the right decisions to make? What is my f**** man-hour rate? What are my numbers? I wonder my books like? And when people say things like that to me, like "What do you mean you don't have QuickBooks and you're not tracking every penny?"  like, and it would be like almost like, take on all this shame when they would say that. And it's because Dude, I wasn't even charging enough to even afford the time to do that I was just trying to get the lights on and keep the bills paid. So can you talk about the transition from going to that? How do you get out of that and get to the next step where you start putting some structure and systems in your business? Caleb Auman  8:19   Sure. A huge part of it for me early in business and even I still even struggle with it to some extent now, but like, I heard you say, your awesome presentation at Entrepreneur last summer, last winter? Or was it still 2020 that went on or is that 2019? Anyways? Yeah, 19 duh. But you say you know, you got to know your worth and I was way underselling our skills, way underselling our ethics because we were at what I mean by that is we were an ethical company, we were good and like honest, and we didn't put a dollar value on that of like selling what we were worth and so as the part, it was like a self-respect issue possibly of like, not just not selling our company in our services for what it's worth. And so you then get it. That issue of you start to get behind an eight ball, you get behind the eight balls of like. It starts to become tough to get ahead of like taking the time to run your numbers and figure out and I would run numbers sometimes back in my first company and it'd be ugly of like oh god we hit $25 of man-hour there. That's not good and I would kind of like always kick can down the road. Okay, next month is going to be better we'll price our work for what I know this job is going to take I'm going to put that number on it because I know that's what it's gonna take to hit $60 of man-hour, whatever. And it just didn't materialize for so long.   Keith Kalfas  9:32   Why not?   Caleb Auman  9:33   Fear and honestly like I probably you know, really cuz I guess we're just gonna be really I'll be really open here like, I just don't know if I it's weird cuz I didn't see it like this at the time but like thinking, hey, that customer will never pay that for further work and not I just really didn't even realize but it didn't respect my own time enough to like charge enough to run a business off of it. Greg Wittstock so said something. He's like   Keith Kalfas  9:55   The pond guy.   Caleb Auman  9:56   Oh, gosh, man. He's driven, Dude. Yeah, he is. And he's built a huge, huge, amazing company. And one of the greatest things I heard him say, was like, "Never place your value of $1 against your client's value of $1 or the value of a project" just because this patty, I can build this patty, I can build a patio, and like I would never pay $10,000 for a patio. But that's because I'm looking at from a standpoint like I can build this myself. Like I can do it way cheaper because I know how to do it, I've got the stuff. And so I'm putting my value of a project on against the homeowner's value project. Well, the homeowner, like with a website, like I'm willing to pay someone a lot of money to build a website because the value to me is there because I don't know how to Freakin' do it. And hopefully, that web person respects their time because, their own time, because I respect their time enough to be willing to pay a premium for it. But I fell in this trap of not respecting my own time enough and there's a lot of things to like early on in my company like we weren't efficient enough. You know, we didn't like for a long time we didn't own any skid steer so we were renting one and that whole debacle of going to get a machine doing it. Try to get done in the allotted amount of time return it, then, oh crap, we really need it tomorrow.   11:04 But we don't have the budget forward just so we're up to 85 wheelbarrows and make it, I'm exaggerating, but and so you. So the big thing is like you've got to know your numbers with your company and know what you need to survive dollar-wise, first off, and then be able to pass on jobs that aren't going to, aren't going to get you there. You got to have the skill level of course. But the thing is most guys have the skill level. It's the business acumen they lack. And you got to put so much effort into really knowing how to run a proper company, a proper business and it's something I knew a lot of stuff because I used to study like Charles Vander Kooi, who was a huge like, multiple overhead recovery system gurus, you know, he always he signed a book I bought from such a dork. I mean, I understood all the things in your heart of hearts. I knew my first company was failing, like, I knew what was wrong, but I just, you just get so busy and just again, that 10 million things to do. It just becomes hard to write the shift eventually. And so you got to recognize if that's what's going on in your company, you got to recognize it and figure out a way to push pause or scale back a little bit and just try to get your head above water. 12:08 And just even if it's a confidence issue just start slow, raising your rates, slowly, anything, you got anything you got to do to get to that light, you got to do it. And it's tough, man, I've been there. And it's tough, but you got to get there because you got to build a company that you can survive on that you'd be proud of. And that was, I said this the other day, so I feel like I'm the reason I say I feel like just I repeat myself too much sometimes. But like, when I was younger, especially and this is one of my things when I was 24 and even 20 a lot of guys I knew that age or you know, they had lawn care businesses, and they would have you know like they would end up having kids or get somebody pregnant or whatever, like well, I got rid of my lawncare company cuz I need to get a real business need to get a real job, need to go get a real job, and I always heard that and just curled my skin and like curled my blood, so just like, but this isn't a real job. And I just it just lit a fire in me to like I swear I'm going to have a real company someday that I can draw a salary off support a family and do some of the nice things in life with that. And it took me way too long to get there, Keith. But we finally got to where we're drawing a decent salary and can do some stuff but it took me learning the hard way a long time. So I don't know I think I rambled on there for a little bit sorry, man, but it's just for me, it was a confidence issue. Fear and Confidence Issue gets in the way for you to raise up your price. But you need to realize what is your worth and you got to know how to get to that too. Don't let fear and confidence issues prevent you from getting what you deserve.    13:18 I think a lot of like, just knowing my worth, like you preach a lot. And you gotta, you got to come to that realization of what's your worth and you got to know how to get to that too. You got to know and it's really not that hard is the crazy thing you've really figured out, you know, how many man-hours a year you're going to work and generally, for the seasonal business, you know, if we're not planting everything, 1500, 2000 hours if you're really going nuts, and then you divide your overhead into that, you know what I mean? All your bills, I'll help you give an hourly rate. Let's just keep the math simple. Like you're if you're gonna work 1000 hours this year, and you need to make at least $35,000 a year. Okay, right. There are 35 bucks an hour on your charge. You've got to have 35 an hour in there just to make your own salary, and then truck payment and your truck or whatever or even if you don't have truck payments, you need to be banking up that cash. To buy things is the revolving door of purchasing, updating your asset. And so like you take your phone bill and divided in at 30,000 hours and you know your internet and you've all these fixed overhead costs. And so it's not super hard, it can be intimidating, but just you know, just start taking a stab, there's software out there that can help you do this. There are people out there who can help you do this, you know, invest 500 or 1000 bucks and somebody can help you figure these things out and you'll be all the better off for it. Keith Kalfas  14:18   One of the hard things to get over is the fear and the shame of actually having somebody look at your business and how good you're not really doing and like and so because you're afraid they're gonna go, "What, what the hell are you doing?" Caleb Auman  13:18   I know, dude, I did a job for an accountant one time and I know he knows I did the job to cheap and he's like, "Caleb, I'd love to help you with your business someday. And like, you know, I'd love to all look at your books, no charge. I'd love to help you just see if I can help you in any way." And I say one of the things like I think he wanted to mentor me but I was young and dumb, and I knew everything and, and I  knew again in my heart hearts like I would embarrass myself because I knew in my heart hearts, I was not charging enough and I wouldn't make any money. And I didn't let him do it. And it's one of those things like I believe things have got to take their course. And I wouldn't change my history or trajectory in any way because it put me right here on this couch right now, I believe. So it's like, you have to go back and change some things. Everything I've learned up till now is like, got me where I'm at. I wouldn't change anything. But it same time. It's like, gosh, man, what would the trick what would look different? If I would have been open enough? Be like, "Yes, God, let's do it. Yeah. Okay, let's do this." And like, what would that have done? You know, or what? Or what I've, you know, so it's just you look back and you can't dwell on stuff too much. But you know, if somebody is willing to help you consider it, I guess is what I'm getting at.   Keith Kalfas  15:42   My good friend Joshua Latimer says that he has a PhD in pain and suffering.   Caleb Auman  15:48   Yeah. He says he has a PhD in d u MB. Yeah, d-u-m-b.  Dave Ramsey.   Break  16:00   More of today's edition of the Untrapped Podcast continues right after this.   Keith Kalfas  16:06   Guys if you need help, being more organized, and being perceived as a professional to your clients and prospective customers, then you get to check out Jobber. Jobber is an awesome software that you can run your entire service business. You can create invoices, quotes, estimates, work orders, it integrates with your calendar, you can collect money, you can run your whole business on jobber and grow with it as well. Get your 14 days free trial of Jobber at keithkalfas.com/jobber. I use Jobber in my business and it's awesome.   Break  16:44   The Untrapped Podcast continues. here's your host, Keith Kalfas.   Keith Kalfas  16:49   So, but when the students ready the teacher will appear. You know that you know when like you know, Okay, I'm ready like you just know that you're there now for instance when I hired a bookkeeper to manage all my books. I started looking at what it was gonna cost. And I was like, "I don't know if I'm ready for that." And I was like, You know what? I asked myself because I don't like to point the finger at anybody else. But I say "Who the f*** am I becoming?" Do I want to be like, the people that I aspire to be like, because if they're not doing their books or having someone in house and they have a bookkeeper, right? So, when I finally hired a bookkeeper, and now I would, I would never go back. Right?  And because you look at when you finally get started getting P&L statements, and you know what's going on in the business and you're looking at the numbers, you go, "Oh, my God, it's all becoming clear." So that just made your money right there because you have a sense of clarity. If you don't know where you're at. That's the first and most important thing I think is seeing with the brutal reality of where you're at. How did you start to see, where you were in order to start making the changes? Oh, geez.   Caleb Auman  17:58   Uhm. Well, it's kind of cool. I don't know. I've never been asked that question that way so that's interesting. I was thinking about that a little bit and I would love to know Britt, my wife's perspective on that because her and I kind of, I, get off really. Oh boy, Keith You know, it was one of the things. I was getting tired sick and tired of being sick and tired. Like I was just like, so fed up with being broke all the time. But I'll tell you the one thing man that really likes really began to get me like oh, it's real now because for like for a long time my company was like 1st four or five years from like, when I was a kid, 16 to like 22 probably? We're getting by the as okay kid, money, all that kind of stuff you know like I get by. But then after that where I started trying to be like big-time Joe big-time contractor is what I call myself and like trying to take on projects we didn't own the right machinery for and all this stuff like that's in having guys on payroll and trying to hold payroll taxes myself, guess where that because I didn't hire a bookkeeper and things got nasty fat and so like I ended up long story short, getting behind super behind in payroll taxes and sales tax and all this junk eventually got to a point where I was trying to run my problem.   The tax issue is a common problem in a start-up business, especially if you don't have a bookkeeper to manage your finances. This might lead to business failure if not managed pretty well    18:59  I go into winter time go work down on my cousin's ranch in Oklahoma and I got a letter one time my sister would get my mail for me and all that stuff back home and she would go through it and she's like "Caleb there's a letter from the IRS" and long story short was like they're gonna say they say they're gonna start coming to get stuff if you don't contact them so I just totally wrote them off forever and you know A that's the symptoms like run trying to run from your problems for too long because they'll get you eventually they'll catch up with you. And so that was kind of like actually like the great moment of reckoning of like, Oh my gosh, like it's, it's finally it's caught up with me now like, you know, these chickens have come home to roost and the taxman says "Guess what? Pay up or we're coming to take stuff" and a time I really have anything to take but it was still like from the IRS. That's scary. Do you know what I mean? Like it was the first of many of those letters I learned how to begin to like navigate those waters cuz I was in a terrible mess. And like that was the beginning of the awakening, let's say of like, dude, life is real. Now. I can't run from this and I got to figure something out. And so, fortunately, Britt and I started dating right about that time and the hierarchy or not hierarchy this Keith Kalfas  20:05   Hey, wait. One more thing, you say a key indicator. It's real now and I can't run from this   Caleb Auman  20:11   Anymore yeah,   Keith Kalfas  20:12   Yeah, it's sometimes we do that I had an old friend that said I don't like to make tough decisions so I wait for somebody to make the decision for me or just or things get so bad or in a predicament where I'm forced to make the decision. And he was so honest about that. I was like, wow!   It's not easy to manage your finances if you will do it just yourself. The biggest benefit you'll get from hiring an accountant is, you will have someone to look into your records and tell you where your money is going. They could give you any advice about your tax issues too.    Caleb Auman  20:30   That's open Yeah. Yeah, that's boy, that's crazy. And that's kind of guess where I was like I got it to where a decision was made for me and then it forced me to buck up and take care of it and even you know, and boy, that was a long road and I'm still paying off my state taxes and I'm behind on I got six more months and payments on state taxes and federal stuff. We're still ironing out but it's mostly done. And Dude, that's 10 years later, by the way, and so that's why the reason I share this stuff is like if you're behind in taxes, or you have issues, do the smart thing like Keith did and get someone, it's gonna cost a lot of money but it's worth it. And you'll end up making you money and it'll save you a ton of heartache down the road. So get a bookkeeper, you know, we were so adamant generally about hiring a professional to do something right like how you hire a guy to build your website. Why not hire somebody for your books? Keith Kalfas  21:13   Wait a second, now you're talking about hiring people and I just want to say to keep going. Because I want.. I'm always I used to be the guy who said yeah, but I would get angry when I'm here at guys like you successful guys like you. And I would say what the fuck you're telling me to just go hire somebody. I'm sitting here trying to just go hire somebody. Right? And I would hear things like that and I would go insane. And then I would go work like eight days in a row to like till 10 o'clock at night come home to my wife screaming at me threatening to divorce me. And I would go like frantic crazy because I didn't have any control I can access. So it's interesting how like, you have to have a place to live. So you have to pay rent, you have to have gas, phone, electricity, you got to have good internet to run your business and you have to have a good cell phone with a good cell phone plan so you can run your business. You have to have a good running truck with oil changes. You have to have insurance you have to have this you have to and I go through this whole damn thing. I'm like, Oh my God, this cost so much money like in the beginning, and I'm not saying everybody here listening to this in the beginning, but it seems so freaking expensive.   And if you have dependents you can feel like you're being squeezed through the cracks where you have no freedom. And then you just look in your eyes every day. And you're like, you have deep bags under your eyes. And you're, you become a shell of your former self and you become the person you always feared you'd become, which is a guy who, who's painted himself into a corner who's just and then people say, "Well, you're spending too much money you need to live. You're living beyond your means." Like "What? what do you mean? I go out to eat once a month?"  And they're like, "No, look at those shoes you're wearing." Then they'll cut you down like some Dave Ramsey shit-talking about? Well, you need to go to work four jobs and live a cardboard box for three days. And like that shit pissed me off so bad that I just started like savagely pulling that work the harder lever and raise the price. lever yeah taking chances because but I had to be backed into a corner. I felt I had no choice. What about you?   Caleb Auman  23:06   I guess that's probably when the Taxman came that's pretty much where I was. That was, again that the hard iceberg of reality that finally was like, I can't run from this anymore. I need to figure out how to fix it.   Keith Kalfas  23:17   But you had all the self-limiting beliefs back then too, right?   Caleb Auman  23:20   Yeah, yeah. Still Yeah, like we weren't charging enough for our work. And Keith Kalfas  23:24   So did you just work yourself to death?   Caleb Auman  23:26   Yeah, more or less. Yeah, just worked like crazy and I still have like a good like mid I still have like a good 20-year-old lifestyle, let's say of like, I still travel a little bit with my buddies on a shoestring budget, you know, I'd get paid from a job and take some of that money and go on a trip. We didn't plan for a while and, you know, do all that dumb stuff, but same time, like I'm probably behind in my insurance, and you know, live living that dumb, mid-20-year-old lifestyle with no kids and you know, like, and that's another thing to have. Like as you get older, you start to like, and I need to get some things together to get things together for the future, right?   Keith Kalfas  23:58   Have you ever had those thoughts, but I don't want to get my life together while I'm out here with the sun beating on me working in the dirt every day?   Caleb Auman  24:04   Dude, I deal with that still like it's so, so one of the things about when Brittany and I get called into the field to go to a service job or something or the company if we're like we spent some time on some jobs we're working on a job for two weeks and dude the company I say this because it feels like it's not really but dude the company falls apart when we're out in the field because like it's not it's it reminds me so much it harkens back to the days where how I got in trouble the first place like oh my god, you know, I left the house at six this morning, we're pulling in at six again, I do not feel like returning the seven voicemails I've got waiting on me or like dealing with an upset, you know, client and it's like, I see how it keeps me grounded to remember like what it's like to be at that level of the grind, you know? And so, yeah, it's so tough to be an owner-operator. And so it reminds me of that, I forget, I guess whereas even going with this, but I know I totally relate to like, yeah, it just it's so hard to be the producer and facilitate all the stuff that's involved to take the run the company and I guess that's where you got to decide where you're going to go as a company, are you going to be a guy that just works like that? Are you going to set a goal of building something in your life? Building a company is not as easy as you think. The difficult part of it is if you mismanaged your business because you don't have the goal of building something in your life.   25:09 And it's going to take like, crazy discipline, which is something I didn't have a lot of when I'm in my mid-20s. And I eat we always did good work, quality work. We were a good contracting business. We weren't a good business, you know what I mean? And I was just young and I but you know, I know guys that were like just had a different mentality of me that were my age and they built some incredible companies that were profitable and it just the way my stubborn had had to be, I guess it's just my, my temperament was just how I had to be and how my whole life has worked out the way it has just because it's how it had to be for me, I guess, but it still didn't change the fact that ultimately, eventually, like, I made the decision of like, I'm not going back to that lifestyle, trying to figure out how I'm going to pay, you know, bills that month and also to I was just so in love with the industry. 25:57  I'd put off paying a phone bill to buy a new string trimmer or like a new concrete saw or something like that just go so in love with the business or you know the actual like work as in love with the work and maybe not so much the business and so, you know, I finally really came to a point where it's like I want to build you know I'm going to build I've always had that mentality like I'm going to build a company and we finally got there I believe but they're just been with a lot of hard times and I but I bit of self-inflicted hard times because I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I wasn't like dirt level poverty either. And I had a good upbringing I'm very blessed for that night count those blessings constantly. But you know, at the same time, I managed to screw up what blessings I did have and drive them into the ground because just mismanagement and all that stuff and I had to work ethic to overcome the shortsightedness of not no financial management so that when all that was like a long-winded route there but yeah, Keith so that's, you know, I've been all through all that stuff.   26:54 So I get them and like you said of like, it's easy for me to sit here now and say, yeah, just go hire someone because I get that like, I know the times when you don't have someone you know the money to just go hire someone you've just got to find it yourself to figure out how you're going to make that happen if you want to get ahead in life and it's just that it's that complicated and it's that simple just all you've got to figure out a way to make it happen and that's just it.   Keith Kalfas  27:18   No, like you. You really know how to dial in the way you talk about what it's like to be a contractor. You talk the language bro. Doesn't he, Brian? Brian Fullerton here. He said, yes.   Caleb Auman  27:34   Well, I've done stupid been stupid and I'm not much removed from it now but because I talked to guys going through this crap and even at Brian's event, like, Dude came up to me so sharing stuff about my tax issue and he came up to me like, and this is what makes it all worth it. You know, you go out and you tell her to tell a crowd of 500 people I've been bankrupt. That s** you know, who would want to go say that right? Like, Hey, I'm so dumb. You know, I've been I went broke. I crashed a company, but like this dude came up, he's like, Hey, man, I got some taxes. You know how to get them handled. It's like, so cool. It makes it all worth it. Like it's critical to open yourself up like it, you know, makes it all worth it.   Keith Kalfas  28:10   Do you have mentors in your life or people around you your Fab Five?   Caleb Auman  28:14   Yeah, totally. And, and I've always been blessed with the man one of my biggest blessings in life is to be surrounded by people that were like, passionate about what they did, regardless of what it was and good about what it was and I was always still studying and reading like Charles Vander Kooi,  Marty Grunder, and Frank Mariani and Dick Hensley. I could throw names forever of guys that like a lot of my never even met and they're mentors of mine they don't even know if you know, kind of deal and but I still especially in the construction and building realm I always was talking to guys about learning to build I love building like it just building is in my blood.   Mentors you got to have one. If you can't pay one find a legend who you could look up to, know their history. If you can't follow their footsteps because we all have our own strategies and ways. Learn from their mistakes, and take only those that could help you. Caleb shared some of their names, looked them up, and researched them.  Keith Kalfas  28:45   Say those guys' names again.   Caleb Auman  28:46   This is something I want to do someday with a series of like to introduce the Social Media generation to the I would say like almost the founding fathers of the landscape industry and it's Frank Mariani Mardi Grunder, Frank J. Schmidt. Charles Vander Kooi.   Keith Kalfas  29:01   We got to go hunt these guys down.   Caleb Auman  29:04   There are so many dudes out there that like had a big influence in my life and in my college instructors at my community college I went to Dick Hensley, Steven Neil, and Fred Howard. Those dudes were just passionate professionals about what they did and a lot of positive average attributes to them I guess like emulating what they did with their companies when they built companies and sold them or did whatever but you've got to find guys that are where you want to be and just do your best with prudence you know, figure out what they're doing like you're saying early and emulate that and I do that now with guys of like, where I want to be and I see what they're doing and I asked him I try to be open and ask and fortunately, a lot of guys share their experiences and it's good, it's good. So you gotta be willing to be open and open yourself up to like, Look, I'm screwing this up real bad. Can you help me and it stops some guys say no, and other guys will and, you know, just take that advice with a grain of salt. And you know, dude, darndest to get ahead for your sake, and your posterity's sake.   Keith Kalfas  30:01   I got one last question for you. It's, have you ever got those thoughts? Or what would you say for the guys that think, but I don't want to be the guy who owns a landscaping business. And I've built this whole thing like imagine if they see where they're at right now. And they're in a place of working their tail off. And they think of owning some business that's four or five times the size, like five nooses around their neck, rather, they have no freedom in their life, even if they did make more money doing it. How? Do you experience any freedom from your business where they can visualize themselves in a place where like, oh, that would actually be awesome, right? If they're seeing that in a negative light, and they feel like they're just building a big trap? Listen to this, guys. This is Caleb's advice to guys out there who feel that they are trapped in a deep abyss of business failure.    Caleb Auman  30:48   Right. A company is a blank book that you can write, finish to the beginning and so you say I want to end up here. I don't want to have those incredible burdens of like running a big company. You can run a company with two or three guys and yourself, it's your book, write it how you want it. And if you don't want that, and that's not your drive in life, you don't have to scale to $2 million, or even a million dollars that matter, you can be plenty profitable, like Steve was talking earlier today, like, you can be plenty profitable at three or $400,000 make a good living. And if you're smart with it, and set it aside and invest and do stuff like it, you'll set yourself up so fantastically. It'll make your head spin. So it's all about you've got to write those chapters in that book the way you want it to be and you have that freedom, fortunately, it might how you get there might be challenging and the toughest thing you've ever done in your life, but it's totally possible don't feel that's a trap that I fell into of thinking with my first company like I have to scale I have to hit XYZ sales, you know, dollar, you know, sales or whatever you don't have to you can be very profitable at $300,000 in sales or whatever, or even just a solo guy out mowing grass for you know, and you're bringing in $100,000 a year and you're netting 50 off that like it's totally it's your book and you write it how you want and don't let him tell you what your business should be. It's all it's entirely up to you. I mean, it's you've got to know your why. So why are you in business? Is it to work yourself to death? Or is it to work yourself to death for a little while because that's what it takes. And then you build this, this machine that takes you where you want to go.   Keith Kalfas  32:12   You know, is one of the biggest blessings? I used to plow snow for years, but I do different stuff now with the internet business. I am full heavy on into landscaping. We do a lot of landscaping. We're booked out for nine weeks right now. But it was going from barely being able to afford to pay my bills and hating my landscaping business to, I opened up a savings account and it's called winter savings account, right? And we're on the payroll, but I also take draws from the business to just balance that out and talk to my accountant. Seek your accountant's advice on that. Absolutely. Depending on how you file your taxes and everything but we pay yourself a reasonable salary, but basically by the time the winter comes, when I finally said, Oh my God if I wanted to, I could literally just sit around on my ass and watch Netflix all winter and do nothing. Until springtime, because I have enough money budgeted out to pay all the bills for Christmas forever. And obviously you like you wouldn't do that. But I think when you get like to that level, once you start having some money where you can go on a vacation or two, and you can experience the freedom of the business and you get over that first or second hump, you start to reap the benefits.  And have you been able to reap those benefits? Caleb Auman  33:21   We have Yeah, we have and we've, you know, from 10 years ago, we were always super fruit, like, we got kind of funny, you mentioned Dave Ramsey thing, but like we got super into the Dave Ramsey thing and we ate slept and breathed it from cleaning up my old mess. And like Britt came into the picture like right, pretty much when the Taxman started coming after me. And it's this archetype and I heard it so well from Jordan Peterson, the guy just love what he has to say about anything. But he was a lot of Disney movies follow these archetypes of like the script of the plot. And so Beauty and the Beast, right, a beautiful young woman comes and rescues this monster and turns them into a gentleman, right? And so like Britt's kind of like this archetype. Over his overall archetype of generally like a woman will come into your life and straighten you out. Thank God. Like that's what happened to me. And like Britt helped me get my shit together ultimately and like without her I don't who knows I may be back to a second crash company at this point Who knows?   Keith Kalfas  34:14  That's my wife too   Caleb Auman  34:16   I heard. I understand that and it's it follows those archetypes, right? You know, so I just thought that was just an interesting correlation. Like you know, the reason people like those movies because they follow these themes that are so prevalent we don't even know it. You know?   Keith Kalfas  34:27   My wife has this keen ability to spot out any little unconscious thing I have that I'm not aware of some even down to a nervous tick, she can pull it out and show it to me and I'll try to stick my head in the sand on it and shoulders hold it there until I till I see the light and I've become so much better for it and bro, I'd love to have you back on the show sometime   Caleb Auman  34:50   I'd be flattered.   Keith Kalfas  34:50   As soon as I can work get my way into Ohio which should be pretty soon here. We're going to show up to the company that should have logged and had you on the channel. How can people check you out?   Caleb Auman  34:59   All our Social Media handles everything is @AumanLandscape twitter Instagram, Snapchat TikTok. You name it.   Keith Kalfas  35:06   Bro, You are a gem. Thanks for being on The Untrapped Podcast. Go to keithkalfas.com/podcast you can find us on any major platform we just hit one top 100 in entrepreneurship on Apple. If you like the show, go there and show it by leaving us a good word positive Five Star Review. It really helps the show out it'll take you 90 seconds go to Apple podcasts and leave us a well worded positive five-star review and I'll see you on the next show. Right now we're releasing shows every Monday. We're gonna pump it up to two times a week soon. See you later, guys.

About Keith:Keith Perhac is the founder of SegMetrics.io, a Saas company helping course authors, product creators, and self-funded businesses increase their revenue from their existing traffic.Unlike most marketers, Keith is also a developer, which facilitated his transition from DevelopYourMarketing.com to “the dark side” (AKA SaaS). This gives him an innate understanding of two key things: the marketing strategies required to grow, and how to implement said strategies for your business.Currently, his online software helps marketers and agency owners get 100% clarity on where their leads come from, how they act, and how much their marketing is really worth.In his spare time, you can find Keith buried in Dungeons & Dragons.SegMetrics.io and How it StartedLike all good software solutions, it was born from an itch that needed scratching.Keith started out as an agency owner, and had been doing funnel optimization and campaign optimization for a number of digital marketers. As his client base grew, so did the time spent on pulling the required numbers for the reporting process.“Pulling numbers is not what I got into marketing for… Understanding what to do with those numbers is why I got into marketing.”Numbers are vitally important to any business, particularly marketing, yet Keith and his colleagues were finding it to be a “huge time suck.” Being developers by nature, they committed to finding a more functional way forward.So, they built the first version internally, based on the premise of “Hey, can we drop these numbers into adatabase and then calculate them automatically?” As it turns out, you can! The Importance of Client Communication and ReportingThink about it… a client comes to work with you because they need guidance in a certain area. The more communication you have with a client, the more you can alleviate any lurking fears regarding your expertise in your field.“The number one thing I've found working with agencies, and things that we did internally, was to create a process. The stronger the communication process, the more confidence a client has in your agency.”Conversely, it's worth bearing in mind that over-communication can have the opposite effect. It indicates a lack of structure and a certain malleability. When a client feels they should take control of a project, you're in danger of losing your cache – that being your expertise.There are other pitfalls leading from that. For example, you could find yourself dealing with items that aren't in the project scope; fixing up “little things” that need tweaking, and – as Keith attests – “suddenly, you're a development shop instead of a marketing agency.”So, a set process is key to working well with clients from the offset. You can start this by ensuring…Every step is documented for both partiesEach step is part of a set process, showcasing how things are progressing/improvingEvery step then has a subsequent actionThis way, the client never feels in the dark, constantly wondering ‘What's going on next?!' Value Communication During COVID-19Right now, it's more critical than ever to be communicating value to clients. It can actually be bad for your clients to cut you right now if you're driving results for them, particularly online.“If you can keep revenue the same, or keep it from tanking, that's your agency fee paid for right there. That's the value you need to show and that's what we try to do with our funnel optimizations.”You need to show them you're not a cost, but an investment and a value-add, and you do that through your concise communication and reporting process.“Look, here's what we did this last month, here's where you would have been without us, and here's where you are with us. We're only taking 5% of all the improvements we've made; so we're definitely worth keeping on.”Set processes creates clarity, continuously reinforcing the value the client is getting. This, in turn, creates client confidence that you're producing results. Streamlining Your Client Communication ProcessKeeping that pertinent word in mind (value), how should agencies think about setting up a process for communicating with clients that's going to be efficient, streamlined and not take up a ton of their time?Depending on how much the client is paying you, create a cadence of a weekly call and/or email that updates them on where the stats are.When Keith signed a new client via his first company, he would follow a set schedule – core for clients that turned out to be a good fit.“They got a packet, a list saying, ‘go do this now. Go do this, go do this. This is going to give us all the information for our kickoff call…' Then, give them a list of everything you're going to do in that first six weeks – because it's a process, right?!”A simple example of such a process should go a little something like this…Schedule weekly calls to review results, plus the next steps requiredHost meetings every six weeks to discuss strategy, and roadmap for the subsequent six weeksEnsure there's a meeting two weeks before the renewal of the contractNever underestimate the importance of inserting yourself into the strategic decision-making process Automating Streamlined ReportingWhen should you consider automating the processes that feel like they might be quite tricky to streamline? According to Keith, there is one golden rule:“Never try to use software to automate the first time around, it is such a bad idea.”Instead, implement the below process before attempting to automate:Start with a paper and/or checklist of the Standard Operating ProceduresGive that SOP to someone who preferably hasn't undertaken this process before; their different POV should be able to highlight any holes and redundancies (plus it means you're delegating and possibly putting your time towards something more valuable!)Once that SOP is solid and proven, then you can work on automating parts that are consistently the same Your Take-Away…By way of summary, find ways of building more value into your relationships with your clients during COVID-19. Now is as good a time as any, according to Keith…“You are going to see a decline in revenue, that's a given; don't panic, take that extra time to make your business stronger… Now is the time.”So, take the imminent lull in customer interaction to refine your processes and, in turn, improve your value to both your existing and future clients.Go plug those holes! That way, you'll be better prepared for whatever lies ahead… Want to see more of Keith? Follow him @…Twitter @harisenbon79LinkedIn – Keith's personal pageLinkedIn – SegMetrics company pageSegMetrics.io Did you learn anything new from this episode? If so, let us know in the comments below – we value your feedback! Our next instalment of #APP, on June 10th, will see us chat with John Doherty. To view our previous blog with Alex Glenn, make your way here… Agency Profitability Tool KitIf you're looking for more resources to help you improve your agency's profitability, then check out the Agency Profitability Tool Kit – it's full of the same templates and checklists we've used with consulting clients to help them improve their profitability by over 100% in under 60 days.Download the Agency Profitability Toolkit!Get the same templates & guides we use with consulting clients to get them results fast.DOWNLOAD FREE   

People literally ask me this one question ALL THE TIME… “Allen, how did come up with such a lucrative, safe, and easy way to trade?” I explain it all in my new book Passive Trading, get your free book here  https://www.passivetrading.com/free-book! Option Genius was built with you...the individual trader, the breadwinner, the dreamer, the rock your family depends on ...in mind. Because we know what it takes to become a successful and profitable trader. And that’s exactly what we help you do best. Get your $1 trial of Simon Says Options, our most conservative and profitable trading service here https://simonsaysoptions.com/stockslist-ss-trial-offer.  -- This is a special episode because it is a recording of a one on one coaching call with a student. The questions he asked are probably the same questions you have about trading options. How much can I really make? How do I get started? What do I need? We cover a lot in this call. So listen and learn. And if you think you need a trading coach to help you become a better trader, then email us at help@optiongenius.com     Allen: Okay, all right, so Keith, how you doing? Keith: I'm well, thank you. Thank you very much for talking. Allen: Good, no, no, no, thank you. What I wanted to do is if you could tell me a little bit about your background, tell me a little bit about yourself, and then after that, then we can go ahead and jump into your questions. Keith: Okay, I'll try and be quick. Allen: Just so I get a little bit of a feel, so where you're coming from. Keith: Okay, I could ... I'm the one who'd probably sit there and tell you, 35-40 minutes, my background, but I'm not going to do that. I'm going to try to be really concise and get to the point. I have a full-time ... I have a wife and four kids, teenagers, a full-time job. It happens to be very luckily a good job. A really good job with a fine schedule. I say that for a reason because I've been training for years, like over a decade with no progress. Maybe because I don't need it. It's not like I'm hungry. I don't need it like I want to get out of my job or anything like that. I've just delved into it for years thinking some day I'll get it. Some day I'll figure out the niche I want and someday I'll ... too much time has gone by. I like spending time learning but I feel like now I'm wasting time. I need to actually do something productive. I'm 48 and I'm thinking I want to take my retirement account that's being managed by a firm in New York who's not really doing the job. They have been up until like I said recently. Just like everyone else. They're doing well I think with their niche, but I can look at the numbers and say okay, this isn't gonna do it. This isn't gonna be my retirement. It's not gonna happen. I've got to do something more active myself. That's why I'm thinking, okay I've got to either stop or get moving. I've had some bad losses in the past. I don't really need to go into those. It's just one of those things that a lot of traders have gone through. I don't need to bore you or want to get into that. Enough where I'm like okay, I've had enough. I've got to do something. Like I said, I'm 48. I'm looking into what's the future gonna hold. What am I gonna do when I retire? What's my next leg gonna be like? There's education, kids education kind of a little bit of a factor. My brothers, we talk to each other a lot about things we use to practice together, but I moved away and I still talk to them a lot. We talk about ideas a lot. They're getting into some things business wise after their dental career to account for what are they gonna do in retirement. I look at what they're doing as pretty cool. I know this trading thing will work and can work. I know it can. I just haven't gotten it off the ground. Now I feel more like I have the need to. I don't again, think I've gone into as much detail as I wanted, but I don't want to take all this time just to tell you my background meaning to take up your time. A typical story. I'm not really unique. As far as trading goes, basically why I haven't been successful number one is rules. I know the rules and I don't follow them. I follow the rules in my business. I'm very disciplined in my business with overhead and all that stuff. For some reason trading, I did at the casino. If I ever go to a casino, which is rare, I'm pretty disciplined. I don't have a gambling problem. But with trading, for some reason that's different. I don't follow the rules. I don't do what I'm supposed to do and I've been trying to figure myself out. I think that part of this too is I've got these kids that I'm busy with. I sit at the computer for a while and I like doing it. I feel like I got to figure out a niche that doesn't involve me at the computer a lot so I can hang out with them and do my thing with them and then when they're gone, maybe learn more. Along the way I want to keep learning. Basically, where's my niche? I'm going from one method to another without fulling trying it out. I'm floundering. I finally settled on I want to day trade. I love that. I can't do that. I've got a job and other things to do. Anyway, hopefully I've kept that as concise as possible because it's a lot to that. I've got to the conclusion where okay, it just seems to me like the iron condor/oil trading is what I want to do. Again, I'm trying to keep this- Allen: Don't worry about it. Just let it out. Keith: ... concise for you. Allen: I'm trying to figure out what your goals are. I'm trying to figure out what is the mental blockage here. Why haven't you done it before? The more you tell me, the more it'll help. So don't worry about it. Keith: I've just done all sorts of trading. I've tried all sorts of things, but I don't stick with it. I see another method comes through, I'm like oh let's try this. I see something else come through, oh let's try this. In doing that, I guess I wanted to try out a lot. I took a lot of webinars. I actually probably know a decent amount. If you show me a chart and say tell me what you see, I actually know. I think I know a lot . I can't really put it to work. I thought of you recently because finally I think I know what appeals to me. I know what I want my niche to be. That doesn't mean I can't switch it. At least if I land on something that appeals to me that will work, then I think if I want to delve into something, that's fine. At least don't do that until you've gotten off the ground there. Traders that are making money and traders that are losing money. Simple as that. I'm not on the one side. As soon as I get on the one side, even if it's a little bit with some form of consistency, then oh okay I can branch from there. What appealed to me was and basically it's this whole building an account thing. All these investment opportunities out there that people are getting into that I hear about that I'm thinking, wait a minute. Trading, it just seems like trading is a lot simpler way to build an account than starting some business. It takes some discipline in that. I just think from what I hear about you and other people on the up and up as far as options trading, that it's very doable. I thought about you because what appeals to me is iron condor trading on the indexes in oil trading. It's almost like right now I don't want to do any stocks. I just want to keep it very streamlined. Basically I'm here to ask you. I've got some ideas, but I wanted to find out from you if they would work or if that's how you'd do it. Basically like I said, I've done scans for stocks. I've done all sorts of things. They just seem to make me be stretched to thinly with my whole life. I thought, if I could just streamline this to what I think will work, I can still definitely be ... it's not like I don't want to learn. I want to learn, but I think I want to learn and learn my method and get really good at that and not try to just learn about other things before I've landed on this. Again, what appealed to me is I've been on and off oil. Do I do it? Do I not? Do I do it? Do I not? Finally I thought, you know what? Yeah. I want to tackle the oil thing. I think I want to tackle the iron condor on the indexes thing. My question to you was, what would you, as far as let's take the iron condor thing. I like the monthly butterflies, the monthly calendar, the monthly double diagonals, I've learned those from another source. They're the monthly workforce trade that you just kind of rinse and repeat. You're a big iron condor guy. I guess in order to find out what I would like to do works, would work, if you took ... that's why I'm gonna ask a pointed question. If you took an iron account, let's just call it a hundred thousand dollars because that's just a round number. You just traded iron condors off the XPS and the [rustle 00:09:21], they might be long balled, they might be shorter ones. If you just said, okay I'm dedicating this account to iron condors where I'm not white knuckling anything and just following the rules, what could you do a year percentage wise? You Alan. Allen: Is that your question? Keith: Well, that's one of them. What am I gonna do with my chunk of money that I just transferred to an IRA? That's one of them. Iron condors and oil but I just have some ideas on how I would do it. You might say, no, no, no. That's not how- Allen: Let me come back to that. I'll get you the answer, but let me come back to that. Before we go any further, I have to tell you and everybody listening, first of all, thank you for letting this be recorded. I wanted to record this because like you said, you said you're not unique. I believe that you are unique. Everybody's situation is a bit different. The boat that you're in, the situation that you're in, there are a lot of people that are in a very similar situation. The questions that you had asked me in the email originally I thought of that. I was like wow, there are so many people that are thinking the same exact thing. If we can get this as a two way conversation. You having questions, I'm sharing my experiences and trying to lead you in certain directions. I think it would be beneficial for everybody that's listening. Then I have to preface it and say that I'm not a licensed financial planner. I can not give you specific financial individual advice. It's about telling you hey do this or buy this or securities or what not. I can get in trouble if I do any of that. We are going to basically give you some advice in a sense of what I would do if I was in your situation. What I do because I am in a similar situation to you as well. Maybe I'm a little bit further down the line. I have my answers or what I want to do. What we need to figure out is exactly what you want to do. Then get you on the right path so that you can learn exactly what you need to do so that you can get it done. That being said, I do have some questions for you. The four teenagers that you have, are they going to be going to college any time soon? How old are they? Keith, you there? Keith: Yeah. Yep. Can you hear me? Allen: Yes. I can hear you. Keith: Somehow I got dropped. Allen: My question to you is I want to start off with talking about ... not talking about. Just I want to get a bit more details. How old are your kids? Keith: Senior, freshman, freshman, seventh grade. Allen: College is taken care of or you're still gonna be paying for that or they're doing scholarships and doing their own or how's that gonna work? Keith: I'm not worried about college right now. I've got college taken care of without trading, without trading. I brought that up because it's just something I'm obviously involved in right now and dealing with. Mainly I'm thinking about a future as in retirement during retirement. Allen: Are any of those kids financially minded? Would they be interested in trading? Keith: Yeah, I think so. That brings up a good point and I'll be quick about it. Part of the reason why I want to learn this too is because I want to pass it onto them to some extent. I just feel like it's a great opportunity. If I don't learn it, I feel like I'm doing them a disservice because I know a decent amount about it and if I don't actually land myself somewhere, I feel like I won't be able to teach them what I think I should or lead them where I should. So yeah, I think they do. Some of them, yeah. Allen: Cool. Because you told me that the following of the rules is an issue for you. That's really a mental thing. I think in the past it's because you didn't really take it that seriously. It wasn't that important. It was great, hey this is cool and all, but you lose interest very quickly. I think we really need to dial down on the goal or the why. Why are you doing it? If you really need to figure that out, what is the actual goal that you have? Is it to retire from your job? Is it to have a certain [inaudible 00:14:58]? Is it to buy a house? Whatever it is, we need to make that more concrete. Once it is more concrete and you review that every day before you go into your trades or before you go to work or while you're brushing your teeth, you look at that goal, that is gonna solidify that in your brain this is important. I need to pay attention to this. That's one of the tricks you can use to help you start following the rules. The other one that you can do is, and I talk about this in one of our training camps program. You can get somebody to trade with you. If it's a child or a spouse that's interested, that's great. They don't have to be completely interested, but they have to have ... how do I say that? They have to have authority over you in a sense where you give them some basic information about what you're doing. They don't have to know intricate details. If you're trading iron condors, they don't need to know what are your strikes every day and what is a deuton and all this stuff. But they need to have a sheet where they come in every day at a specific time or they text or whatever and they ask you specific questions. What is your [inaudible 00:16:26] short strike? It could just be them just reading off a sheet. When are you gonna adjust? Are you close to being ... what is your rule for this? What happens if the market goes up one standard deviation? What happens if the market goes down? Then you have to answer them. To them it doesn't matter what the answer is. They're only job is to make you go through that process every single day that you're in the trade so that you follow the rules. After you supplement trade or after you lose on a trade, then they're gonna come back with a separate sheet and say, why did you lose? Give me a specific reason. Then you have to come up with that reason. Then eventually they'll see a pattern. If you keep losing trade after trade for the same reason, they're gonna be like hey dad what's going on. You have to answer to them so you can't just blow them off and say, hey son I'm not answering you today. I didn't focus on my trade, well I'm not answering you. No. That's part of the discipline you have to instill in yourself if you want to do this seriously. When I did it, I was just like you. I didn't check in on my trades. A lot of times if there's not much going on, the markets are not moving much, I don't check in on my trades very much. Then I have somebody else that asks me. It's like, hey what happened? How is this trade doing? How is this trade doing? How is this trade doing? I have to actually go in, log into my computer, log into my broker's account, check everything, and then make those answers. For me, it's a livelihood thing. It's not just for fun. If I mess up, that's money that's not gonna come into the household for that month. I had to figure out a way that okay, I know that this is a problem for me. I lose interest just like you do. These trades are boring because there's not so much excitement every day that's up and down, up and down, getting in and out. There's no dopamine hit every single day. You see it, oh okay. It's moving. Oh yeah, hey market's up ten points. Oh market's down 20 points. Okay my trade is fine. I don't have to do anything. Day after day after that, you forget about it because it's not a routine. You really need to build a habit. If you can build a habit of checking your trades every day, then that's great. If not, you need to use a hack like getting somebody else to come in and ask you these questions. Does that make sense? Keith: Yes. Allen: Cool. If you can find somebody like that, that'd be great. Somebody that's already trading. Somebody that's a spouse or a child that is interested or not even interested but they'll be like, yeah I'm gonna hold your feet to the fire and I'm gonna ask you these questions every day at a certain time frame so that you have that reliability. Even if you forget, even if you fall down on the job, they come in and they're like okay. What are the answers? You just answer them and that's it. It takes roughly two or three minutes of your time every day to just go through them and say, this is what's going on. If you need to do something, then you do it. Most of the time we don't follow our rules is because we don't make the adjustments that we need to. If it's in black and white and the person is standing right there, you're like according to my rules, I need to adjust. Okay well then go ahead and do it. That is something that I would look into as well. You are from what I checked in our records, you have both of our iron condor course and you have the blank check, which is the oil options course. Correct? Keith: Yes. Yes. Allen: Yes, okay. Have you been through both of those? Keith: Yes. Allen: You face another problem that's very common where people get sidetracked. Once you get on one email list about options, somehow you get on a hundred different lists about options and trading and this and that. A lot of these other companies, they'll sell your information and they'll sell their list to other people. You're just bombarded every single day. Bombarded. That's their job. That's the company's whole main goal is to get you to buy more, and more, and more stuff. You got to clean the clutter and you got to get off all these email lists. A lot of them, most of them. If it's not providing you value, if it's just sending you offers to buy stuff every day, then you need to get out of it. One of the things that we focus on is what is the one thing or the one strategy that makes the most sense to you? If you told me I'm looking at oil and I'm looking at condors so I'm gonna take a step back and say, no. Right now you're not allowed to do that. You're allowed to pick one. Whether it's a simple credit spread and not even the condor, or if it's a condor, or if it's the oil, but you can pick one. If you need to go even simpler than that, then let's go simpler than that. Let's just do a covered call. Let's get consistent in that so that you build up your confidence and you build up the account. Say, okay I'm doing this right. In the beginning, I don't know how much cash you have available, but until you are consistent for at least three or four months, I would even say you do this and you do paper trading. You don't put your real money in because as you mentioned, you're doing different things. You're not focused. I don't want you risking your money until you do have that focus, until you have figured out what is my goal. Why am I doing this? You make it a must. This is not a I'm just dabbling kind of thing. It's like, okay you had a realization. You woke up to the fact that hey I'm 48. Time is running out and I'm not gonna have the money that I need, that I want to retire so how do I do it? Well you have all the tools. You have all the courses. You have access to everything that you need. You've already paid for it so you don't need to buy anything else. You just need to find the one strategy that makes the most sense to you and then just plug in and just single minded focus. Put the blinders on. Just go at this and forget everything else. Do not worry about anything else. Do not read all this other crap, all the emails that come in and all the financial media ads and all that stuff. Just focus on one thing that makes the most sense that you think that you can learn or get good at consistent the fastest. Once you have that one and then you put real money at it, you'll start seeing it and you'll start feeling good. Then and only then would you want to break out and say okay, now I'm gonna add strategy number two because I want to diversify or what not. Some of these you don't really need to. In both of these, iron condors on indexes and the oil trade, we have people that are trading these with hundreds of thousands of dollars and that's the only thing they do. I got a friend who lives on Lake Tahoe. He does one- Keith: I know who you're talking about, yeah. Allen: He does one massive iron condor trade every month. Now, it doesn't stay as a familiar iron condor with four legs. He's always adding lines and subtracting and adding contracts and subtracting contracts. He's more into it. He's looking at the Greek. He's managing by what the Greeks are telling him. It changes, it morphs. It starts off as an iron condor and he does just one trade every month. That's how he has his lifestyle living in Lake Tahoe, which is pretty expensive. Then we have plenty of our students in the blank check course, which are only doing oil and are making a living doing that. It's definitely doable, it's possible. I don't think your there yet. You told me that you've been doing this for ten years. You know enough about it. We have this thing called the option continuum which is from option zero to option ten where option zero is you don't know anything about options. Option ten is you're a professional money manager managing money for other people using options. I think you're somewhere in level six or level seven where you know enough to be dangerous. I think that's level five, but you've been studying this so that you don't need a lot of hand holding. You can figure it out. You know the lingo. You know the jargon. You put on trades, you have experience. What we need now is just a little bit of discipline and just picking on one. Just focusing on one and the discipline to stay in that one thing until you go further. Does that make sense? Keith: Yes. Mm-hmm (affirmative)- Allen: The other thing that you had asked me in the email was how I manage my stuff. Up til maybe two or three years ago, I was doing everything. I was doing oil. I was doing more and more oil. I was doing the condors that do all the option genius stuff. Simon puts on his trades for our Simon Says Advisory. I do all those as well. Then we also do the weekly trades. Then I have my own retirement accounts that I manage in which I own stocks in those. Then I do cover calls on those, I do naked puts on those, and then credit spreads on the stocks that I own. I was all over the place doing lots of different things. I got to the point where I hit ... I'm 42 now. This was roughly when I was hitting 40 or a little bit after 40. It was like, okay what do I want to do with my life? I'm spending time trading all this stuff. What comes after you have all the money? With your job, you have enough money coming in so you're not worried about it. What comes after that? What's the next step. For me, I decided the next step was gonna be to help other people and tell more people about options. Also, I wanted to create a way where I could still have the income from the options but not spend so much time on it. And not have the big risk. We don't talk about this much in options, especially if you're an iron condor trader. The biggest risk is a big bear market or a flash crash market. When the market is down 20, 30% in a month, that's gonna kill your iron condor unless you're very quick to the trigger and you're really good at it where you're buying ports and hedging all your positions and what not. As an option seller, we make money in calm markets. If the market is going up, we're fine. If the market is going down, we're fine. Markets going sideways is fine. When we get hurt the most is when the market changes direction very quickly. If it's been going up and up, and up and then boom one week is just down 10%, that's gonna kill a lot of our positions. Or just the opposite. It's going down and then it just V shapes recovery back up. That's gonna kill a lot of positions. How do you remove that type of risk without letting go of the gains or the benefits of options? That's when I came up with something that I call passive trading. I've been working on that, moving over my retirement accounts and transitioning that into my other stuff. We're working on a course. We have a course right now that we've created based on these strategies. We're working with a bunch of people that are in the course right now and trying to get them results as soon as possible. We haven't released it yet but basically the idea of that is we want a foundation. This really depends on how much money you have. If you had 500, 600 thousand dollars or more, that would be your end goal. This is how much money I have, I need to have enough money out of this so that I can live comfortably, retire early, whatever the goal is. If you had this larger amount of money, the foundation would be in dividend paying stocks. Good, high quality dames, dividend paying stocks. Then we would trade around those positions. Meaning we would do iron con ... not iron condors. We would do cover calls and we would do naked puts and we would do credit stripes on those stocks. It's a matter of picking a handful of names. Four, five names that we want to own, getting good dividends from those, reinvesting our dividends into the same stock, and then using options to boost our return on those. If we're getting a seven, 8% return from the stock, we're getting 3% from the dividend, so that would be like maybe 10%. We're adding another 10% a year from our options. We're getting not 10% but we're getting 20%. We're doubling what we could make if we were just in the stock itself. That literally takes maybe ten minutes a month. You're breaking it down and you're making it just cookie cutter. These are the stocks I own. These are the only ones I'm watching. These are the only ones I'm gonna be trading. This is the trade I'm doing, so all I need to do is just if I'm doing covered calls, all I need to do is either roll a call or let my current call expire and sell another one. If you're doing puts, it's the same thing. Either do another one or just roll it. Do another one or just roll it. That to me, is the easiest way for anybody to get started with options and to really ramp up their money. If you don't have that money in the beginning, you don't have four or five hundred thousand dollars to put in the stocks, then we also talk about you can do what's called the poor man's covered call, which is you're using long options or I'm sorry. Leap. Leap options and then selling covered calls on those. Or you just do credit spreads on the same stocks that you want to buy until you have enough where you can actually start buying those and investing in those. What I found, especially in, what was it? This past November when the market ... or was it December? I forgot when it was. November, December time frame, market dropped like 20%. I wasn't really worried because my stocks are losing, yes, but my options that I'm selling on these stocks are all expiring. We've had a good bull run for the last several years. Starting in January, I remember I was selling calls on all of these stocks. They're all going up, up, up. I'm still selling calls, again so I'm enrolling them higher, and higher, and higher, and higher, and higher. Then they all went down and then finally all those options expired. I had this big really nice windfall and then now that their stocks are going back up, then I'm repeating the same process. Does that make sense? Keith: Mm-hmm (affirmative)- Allen: That is something you can do as well. That is what I'm focusing more and more on. I'm still gonna be doing oil because I love it. I'm still gonna be doing iron condors. More and more my money is going to the sense because I'm looking at the future. I'm looking like when I stop doing option genius, what do I want to do? What do I want to do with my life? I want to be in a position where I have the money coming in. I don't want to give it to a money manager and make four or 5% after all their fees and what not in a good year. I want to still be able to manage it, own good quality stuff, have good income, at least 20% a year. But I want to spend ten minutes a month. This is what I found looking at a thousand different things. This would be the simplest way for me to get the result that I wanted without putting up a lot of time. I think that was one of the things you asked for. How do you trade without spending a lot of time on it? If you don't have the time because oil is very fast moving and you got to watch it daily. Iron condors can be laid back. It's like playing poker. Somebody told me this about poker. They're like, poker is hours and hours of boredom and then 30 seconds of super much excitement where you have to be on the edge of your seat. That's what an iron condor is. Most of the time it's gonna be very slow, very methodical, very easy to do. Then when the volatility spikes, you have to be ready to change your mentality as well. That's when a lot of people get lulled into a sense of security where they don't move fast enough when the volatility strikes. That's when they get hurt with iron condors. That's the biggest drawback to the condor is that it puts you to sleep. Then when it's time to wake up, you're groggy and you're not moving fast enough. Based on that, I would say you have already two things that you have an interest in. I showed you a third one just now if that's the way you're going. Really what I would like you to do is just pick one of those, focus on it, spend some time on it, spend two, three, four months putting on these trades. Just really getting that experience and just doing it over and over, and over again so that it's second nature. Not paying attention to anything else. Does that make sense? Keith: Yeah. Mm-hmm (affirmative)- Allen: Because even if you were to ... I would even say go as far as not even paying attention to the news. If you're doing the iron condors on the indexes, forget the news. Don't even watch CNBC or Bloomberg or whatever. Just watch the charts. Watch the volatility and trade based on your trading plan accordingly. You'll do probably better that way in the beginning without all these other instances coming in. A lot of times we don't adjust properly is because oh hey, there's a meeting coming out from the fed in two days. Even though I need to adjust right now, I'm gonna wait for that fed meeting. By then it might be too late for your trade. Forget the news, forget all these other advertisements and stuff. Pick one thing, focus on it for three or four months. If you have to get help, get somebody to help you out and come and ask questions for three or four minutes a day just so that you have to go through the mental process of looking at every single one of your trades every single day. I know you have the time. You said that, right? You have the time, so it's not like you can do it during the day. You don't have to do it at night after the market closes. That's a benefit. If you could do that, if you could do those three or four things that are laid out, I think within six months you'll have a much better idea of how much and how much you can actually do from this. Your question earlier was, if I was only trading credit spreads on indexes, what is a normal return that you could get? I think it really depends on each individual and it depends on the trading plan that you use. Now for option genius, my trading plan is a little bit more conservative and more hands off because we go out a little bit further in time and further away from the money. You can also come in closer to the money with less time, get a much higher premium, get much more greater percentage and then be out of the trade faster. That model, you have to watch it more and you have to be able to adjust faster. It really depends on how much time you can put into it and what your temperament is. If you're willing to take the risk a little bit for a bigger gain, then you might want to go for a shorter time frame. If you want to be more conservative and just be more hands off and just look at it once in a while, then the further away from the money is better. Now I know I've been throwing a lot of stuff at you. What are you thinking? Keith: A lot of what you say makes sense. I understand it. What you said real quickly about the news, it's funny how you listen to the dudes and listen to these events and then later on you look at the charts. It doesn't seem ... the charts still generally speaking seem to do what they were gonna do. It's odd how the news definitely can effect the movement, but overall it seems like you can't look at a chart and look back and go, where was the news? It's just like the chart is gonna do what it's gonna do. I've heard that from somebody else. They go, I don't care what synopsis for the day, I don't watch that. They end up being fine because they end up almost being influenced by pre announcements instead of just going with their plan. That was interesting that you said that too. Allen: That applies only to the indexes. That applies to the indexes. That applies to all the financial news about, oh the chair wars we got going on and the wall stuff and everything else. That stuff is just secondary noise. If you're watching a stock, if you're trading a stock, then you have to know when earnings is gonna be. Keith: Yeah, that is a definite. You're right. I was just thinking about the XPS or the [rustle 00:39:02] when you said that. Just non stock, just indexes. I think that sounds good. I had some more targeted questions about the condors and the oil. I can ask you those later too if you like as it relates to a plan that I was thinking about. I'm not sure how you want to- Allen: Yeah, that'd be fine. Are you in the Facebook group for the oil? Keith: Yeah. yeah. Allen: If you want to put them up there, that's fine. If not, we'll have a group coaching call coming up this month. Towards the end of the month you can come on there and as there. That'll be fine. If you want to send them to me in advance, and then we can do that on the group coaching call. That'll be fine. Keith: Okay that sounds fine. Can I ask you some after we're done with this? Or do you want me to ... Allen: Yeah. If they're specifically, then I would rather do it there. If you have anything about which one should you pick or how much can you make or any of those type of general questions, then we can do it now. Keith: I'll ask you those now then. Here was what I'm thinking before I called you. First of all, for oil, it seems like you're going off a ten thousand dollar account on Facebook when you're putting your trades on. Your two calls or your one put. Generally speaking, what are you looking to do per year when you trade the blank check plan? What's the general idea? Allen: I go into each month and it doesn't matter the account size. I only use that as an example. I had separate accounts that are much larger. For this reason I want to have ... I do this with option genius as well. I'll have a separate account for that with ten thousand dollars so that I can tell people how many contracts I'm actually doing. I always get that question like, how much do I allocate? Do I allocate the whole ... if I have ten thousand, do I put all ten thousand into this first? No. I have ten thousand as well, I'm doing two contracts. That's what you should do. Obviously there's a lot more money sitting in the account. We're gonna save that for adjustments or other trade. That's why. If somebody has 20 thousand, then they can do double what I'm doing if they want to follow along in that way. That's the only reason. I go into each month with blank check looking for or trying to get, or wanting to get 10% and that's 10% on the entire account, whatever is in that account. If it's ten thousand, I want to make a thousand bucks every month from that account. We don't get it all the time. There are months that we're gonna make less. There are months that we're gonna lose money. Overall, if I can get 5% I'm very happy. I feel that it's a wasted month if I lose money. Unless it's something that came out of the blue that I couldn't ... because oil it moves much faster. It can move to the point where we really couldn't do anything even though we followed all the rules. We took a small loss and we got out and we're done for the month. We'll make it up next month because it doesn't stay volatile very long. It doesn't stay volatile forever. We can easily make that up in the next month. In that sense, it's very important that we don't try to, how do you say this? We don't try to win on every single trade because sometimes you don't want to be in it because it's just too volatile. You have to be aware of that as well. Keith: That's good to know. Allen: It's in the rules as well. Part of the rules we talk about, these are the adjustments that we make. If we're doing an adjustment, that's fine. If you're forced to do another adjustment, then you're on the wrong side. We did something wrong either the market changed and it went against us, or we didn't read the chart properly and we're on the wrong side. That's it. If this second adjustment doesn't work, we're done for the month. That's how you limit your losses. Keith: That helps because it helps me look at opportunities. Let's say you've got a hundred thousand dollars. Do I give it to a private lender? Do I invest in this realty or this? A lot of colleagues and friends or doing that with some success. I look at that like for instance at the blank check trader [inaudible 00:44:00]. If I could learn to do even 3% a month, that's 36% a year. That's double what anyone else is doing. That leads me to believe, like jeez, I need to learn how to do this because it's very streamlined as opposed to running a business or doing a new business venture. That's why I was trying to get out of what you're looking to get per month. If I even lowered it to 3%, you probably would say, that's a brief. I don't know. If I say your goal is 3% a month, if that's the case, that makes me feel like yeah, I do need to tackle this because that might be the low end. That's still better than anything else you're gonna do by giving your money to somebody else. The other question I had about iron condors was I always wanted to do a situation where ... Like where's the sweet spot? It seems like it's a 45 day ish pen delta iron condor. That seemed like it reoccurred in some other people's teaching methods also. Let's just say that's the case and I'll ask you if that's true or not in a minute. You take a 45 day iron condor, pen delta and you've got a hundred thousand dollars, I'm using a round number. Say well I'm only gonna put a third of my ... let's say you're doing 50% of your money is in the market out of this hundred thousand dollars because you need to save some for adjustments. I don't know if that's a good rule too. I just talk to myself. 50 is half, half. Then you do a third of your position, meaning I'm gonna put on iron condor today and then ten days I'm gonna put on a second one. Then another ten days, they're all gonna be 45 days out. Then another ten days I'm gonna put on another. I'm basically putting on three a month and then every ten days let's just say they went to [inaudible 00:45:55]. Every ten days I'd be taking one off. I stagger them. Then with watching your iron condors from hell video, I thought to myself well jeez. Or even two a month, I forget how I did the math. Let's say you did two a month so you had to split your position. You're actually doing ... you're staggering. You're having a same day expiration but you're putting, you're staggering them two weeks apart. I thought if you could win on one, your goal and you could scratch on the other and not really lose, on that money you'd be making 10%. You notice you'd be making 10% a month on half of your accounts because half of it is sitting on the sidelines. That would be 60% a year on your account because 10% a month times 12 is 120. You're only doing it on half of your account. Does that seem reasonable or is that way up in the clouds? A 60% number sounds high, but then when you break it down and say I'm gonna win on a one and scratch on the other every month. Even if I don't have an iron condor from hell video, it seems like that iron condor method might fly. Yes or no I guess. Allen: It's more tricky when we're talking about iron condors because there are so many different ways to do it. I would say that if you take a look at it, because we like to think of okay, what can I get in a month? What can I get in a year? You're like, if I can get 5%, then that's 60%. Okay, that's great. Are you gonna do 60% every single year, or does the market change? Obviously I think the market changes. There are going to be some months or some years, if we take a little bit longer time frame. If we go after ten years or 12 years, or 15 years, there will be some years where you're doing iron condors and you're going to make over 100% a year. Then they're are gonna be some years where you're actually gonna lose money. You're looking at a month to month picture. Year by year it's the same thing. There are gonna be some times where you're just gonna hit it out of the park. Then there are gonna be some times where you're actually gonna be negative for the year because of market volatility and it just unexpected stuff going on in the market. Two thousand whatever, a little financial crisis. That was a horrible time for iron condor people because it just kept bouncing up and down and up and down with no rhyme or reason. At that time it was a great time to be out of the market and just be like, okay I'm gonna stay on the sideline until the fix comes down to something a little bit more manageable for my iron condors. What could you normally expect? It depends on the trading plan and what it is. Then the other thing is you mentioned the 4510 delta. That is very common. That is a lot of people talk about that. Putting on the trade, I think that one is pretty conservative. You have a very good chance of making a good amount of money with that. Then also in that iron condor course, I talk about it where putting on the trade is super simple. You go to XBS, 45 days of expiration look for ten delta, boom sell it, done. Anybody can do that. The point of what separates the winners from the losers is how you adjust and what is your methodology for adjustment. I had a friend, he's in real estate. One of his real estate buddies was like, oh man I just got to tell you about this iron condor thing. It's so awesome. He knew that I was trading options. He learned a little bit from the guy and then he learned the strategy and then he came and asked me about it. Basically it's the same thing. It's you do an iron condor XPS, 45 expiration. I think it was 40 days or something. Ten delta, you put it on, and then you just don't do anything. It's either gonna win or it's gonna lose. I told my friend. I said I think that doesn't make a lot of sense because you're losing control of the trade. The reason that we're managing our own money is because we control it and we can use our brains. If you're just putting on a trade and then not doing anything, even if you can tell, look this trade is gonna be 100% loser, then it doesn't make a lot of sense because in the iron condor it's very, very, very, very crucial that you don't have those 100% losers. Because they're very hard to recover from. One of those is gonna mess up your whole year. We use the adjustments so that we can keep our losses smaller and get out at a quicker basis. His whole thing was, that was a strategy. Just put it on and he got it from these famous guys on ... they were with Think or Swim. Now they have their own brokerage. That was what they used to preach. That you put this on and you just don't let the percentages work in your favor and don't worry about it. My friend, he did it for a few months. He was like, this is working great but he's very analytical. He goes, you know what? I want to test if this actually works over the long term. He found somebody. He hired them and they went back in time I think about 15 years. They put the trade on every single month on XPS and rut. The did both. XPS and rut for like 15 years. Can you take a guess of what the results were? If you did that without touching it on both of those for 15 years, what do you think their results were? Keith: I got to believe they're gonna be ... I'm about to be safe. Maybe break even at best just because I've gone to max and lost on a couple. I know that, that blows out. That takes nine trades or ten or 11 winners out of your way. I know that, that ... I don't know. Break even or losing money? Allen: They broke even. It pretty much broke even. After all the fees and everything, they lost money. Yeah, you're right. After doing that for years, he's like, what the hell? He's like this iron condor stuff doesn't work. I'm like, well yeah do it that way it doesn't work. You do it my way, it's a little bit more work, but yeah you can actually do something with it. To me that was eye opening. I was like, this is really cool. This is real legitimate data. What he did to do that was he back tested. That is something that I would advise you to do as well. If you have the time and if you don't want to wait, get a back testing software and go back the last ten years, 20 years, whatever, take your trading plan, your iron condor trading plan and just trade it month after month, after month on the software day, by day, by day and see how you would do. The one I use is called option net explore. I think it's 600 or 700 dollars a year for it. You can buy a shorter time from if you want. The thing is that you can actually trade one month of iron condor in five minutes or less. Keith: That's cool. Allen: Because you go to a specific date and it looks just like your broker software. You type in I want to sell two of these, buy two of these, sell two of these, buy two of these. Commit the trade and then you just walk through it day by day and it shows you the charts. It shows you the deltas of your options, the prices, everything. It tells you. You can even look at the chart before you put on a trade. Say okay, I think it's [inaudible 00:54:08] whatever. This is how I want to do it. Then you just walk through it day by day, by day. Then when your trade gets to an adjustment point, then you can just adjust it. Of course, it's not real time pricing but it's close enough. You adjust it and you commit it. Then you keep going through it. You do that for five or six years and you'll realize this particular trading plan either works or it doesn't. Most of the time you'll find out that the trading plan works. Some of the times you'll find out that you take the same trading plan and you start doing it for real in real money and you start losing money. You're like, what the heck happened? That happened to me a lot too. It was working on the back testing. Why is it not working now? There's a couple reasons. Number on, maybe it's a different market. Most likely it's because you are doing it differently. When you're doing the back testing, you're not looking at the news. You don't know what's going on. You're just looking at the chart. You're just hitting the button. What happened the next day? What happened the other day? You show me the price, you show me the price, you show me the price. That's how you're trading. You're not looking at anything going on around you. Your focused on the trade. It's not like a day goes by where you're not looking at the trade because you're just pushing the button day by day, by day. You're examining the trade every single day. You're completely focused on it. You're not watching the news and you're completely focused. You're just gonna trade better naturally because of that. That goes back to the stuff that we were talking about originally. Keith: That's interesting. Allen: Having the discipline. Keith: That's interesting actually. That goes back to are you gonna be consistent and do it how you're supposed to do it every time? Period. Just rain or shine are you gonna do your consistent rules. Is there iron condors that you can still lose on? I watched your video on iron condors from hell. It almost seemed like you could almost trade your way out of any one of them. At least for extremely small loss or scratch. That way you let all your winners run and you pretty much lose on little or none. Is that not true? How does that work? I saw you winning on ... coming up even at least on all three of those. I thought, well jeez. If he can come even on those, you can probably scratch trade at least every iron condor. Allen: The point of that video was I took three of the worst ones over the years of us doing option genius. I wanted to walk through them. Actually I used this specific software that I just mentioned, option net where I go through it day by day. I wanted to show and expose what is going through my mind. Which adjustments do I use, why do I do it, and I wanted to verbally just go through it day by day so you guys would have a feeling and understanding of what is he thinking while he's making adjustments. Why is he choosing that adjustment over something else? Sometimes I looked at two or three different adjustments. I can do this, I can do this. Which one am I gonna do? Okay I'm gonna do this one. Why? Because of this, this, this. You have a better ... like as if you were sitting right next to me every day. I don't want you to feel that you can't lose. I lose on iron condors. It's part of the game. You're gonna lose. It might be something that you don't control. It might be a different circumstance. For example, it was recently on one of our trades for option genius. We had an XPS condor and it was doing fine the whole month. The whole time it was doing great. Everything is fine. Two weeks before expiration, XPS starts to move in one direction. That put my calls, I think it was my calls at risk. All right, what do I do? I only got two weeks left. Not a lot of time. I can either adjust it to the next month, which is a possibility or I could just get out of it now. At that point, I got out of it now which was a 5% gain or something and I didn't want to take the risk. If you had not done that, because it was not at an adjustment point. If I'm just following my trading plan without thinking about it, I would've just sat there and said oh hey I don't have to adjust yet because it's not at a whatever, 20 delta, 25 delta, whatever the plan was. If that thing kept moving up, and up, and up, and it got to that 25 delta, now my trade is sitting at a loss and I got three days left until expiration. Great. What do I do now? Then it's the only option. Keith: Okay, it's not automatic then. Allen: No. Then the only option is okay I got to take it to the next month. Buy me some more time, which is something I didn't want to do. In those cases I'd be like, okay do I take it to the next month or do I not want to trade it at all because something has shifted in the marketplace? Let me just take a small loss here and get out of it. Then I will wait until things calm down to get back in. Keith: That's a good point because I didn't know whether you would say, no, no you got to live and die by the rules. Because if you do that, you're gonna start cutting your wins. I guess you really do have to be judicious because you don't want to cut your win. You want to let them run, but you definitely want to do what you just did. The question is, how do you know when to do that? Maybe that just goes back to, hey it's got an automatic gain. You've got to have experience and just make some good judgment calls. Make sure they're conservative I guess. Allen: When you're trading with a different account and different trades, you also have to look at say how do I do the rest of the on everything else. In that particular account, I had already done two trades that had already made me 10% each. Here's the thing. I have two trades done that made 10% each. Now I have this one trade that's up 5%. I can either take my 5% and have a very nice month and I'll be done. Or I could roll the dice and try to make another five, 6%. If I lose on that, then I'm gonna wash everything I already made. What's the risk reward in that scenario? Sure, I'll take the burn on the hand in that sense instead of I can make another 5% on this trade, which to my overall account might make an extra 1%. If I lose on this trade, I could lose 20% on this trade. That means for the overall month I break even. That really sucks. Keith: That goes back to the philosophy that I learned. Allen: Burn on the hand is better. What really hurts people is when they have a thinking where they're going into a trade and they're saying, you know what? On this particular iron condor I can make 12% but I'm gonna get out when I'm up 6%. I've seen a lot of people teach this particular strategy and it hurts because your purposely limiting yourself in how much you can make. You're gonna have months where the month is awesome. XPS behaves beautifully. You don't have to touch it, you don't have to do anything. Those are the months where you have to take the maximum. You got to get 10%, 12%, whatever you can make. Then there are the other months where it's a wild child and it's like, bouncing up and down. You're like, man if I could just get out of this with a break even, I'd be super happy. Or even losing 5%. Those are the months both of those are on the different ends of the extreme. If you're going into the thing and saying that I'm only gonna take 6%, even though I could get more because it's so calm, I'm gonna get more. If you only take 6%, then when you lose 20%, then it's just too hard to overcome the math. Keith: That makes sense too. Yeah, I can see that side also. I guess it just takes ... that's a big question that you answered today. It's like, can I do this and just follow the rules and make a little less? I guess if you truly follow the rules to the T too much without using any judgment, then that's disadvantageous too. I can see how you're saying, all right that's another reason for just concentrating on one strategy because then you really become good at it. Instead of being decent at two or three strategies, being really good at one. You might be doing better financially and with less stress. That supports that point very well I think. Allen: Exactly. Another thing is we're not algorithms. We're not computers. You have the ability to not just focus on that. You can use your own methodology. You can use your own brain. That's why I've never seen a bot or a trading software that does iron condors or credit spreads that has actually worked over the long term. You have to use your common sense sometimes. Then the other sense was if you're picking one. If you're picking XPS to trade or rut to trade condors on, or if you're picking oil on, those are very specifically chosen where it's only one thing. Even when I told you about my past trading thing, I didn't tell you that I'm in 25 different stocks. No, I was like I've narrowed it down to a very short list of things that I want to own so that I don't have to watch everything. I don't have to focus on everything. Even if you're only trading oil, that's one thing that you watch. Everything else it doesn't matter what's going on in the world. It doesn't really matter. I'm just watching my oil. That's what I'm trading and that's what's gonna work for me. Or if I'm only trading XPS. That's why I don't like doing condors on stocks because they move around too much and the news effects them. Indexes, ETFs, if you don't have the money, those are the best for trading condors. Even then, if you want to focus on one, XPS or rut, or if you want to diversify, then you can do both. Then add the other indexes. Even though all three of them, they trade pretty much close together. A little bit here and there. They normally trade pretty close together. Even if you just do one of those, you should be fine. Keith: Do you also do oil directionally on your own, on the side? Or do you on your accounts just trade larger, but the same philosophy as a blank check? Allen: Very rarely will I play it directionally. Very, very rarely. Keith: That's good to know too because there's times where I want to but I can see how it works sometimes. It'll burn you sometimes. I'm trying to figure that out too. That helps. I'll have to let the dust settle in my brain and take in everything you're saying and develop a plan based on all that, which I think I can do. The only thing I might do is trade on contract. If I'm doing instead of paper trading, at least have some skin in the game by even doing a contract in the spies on our entire condor. At least the max losses are still small. I'll never get there, but at least doing something. [crosstalk 01:06:46] Allen: Then you got to watch it. Then you have to have the discipline to stick with it, follow the rules, and watch it. That's the habit I want you to develop. The simplest way to do that is to [crosstalk 01:06:57] Keith: I think I will if I have money to gain. I think if I have money in the game, the skin in the game, I'll do that more. Allen: That's what I used to say. I found out that wasn't always the case. Keith: Really? Allen: Yeah. You get bored. Even if it's a hundred bucks. All right, got a hundred bucks. Big deal. We spend more. You're going to dinner, you pay more than that. It's like, it's not enough. You have to know yourself. I can't tell you yes or no. Keith: You're right. Allen: You think you can do it? Go for it. I would prefer you focus on one in the beginning because your goal here, it doesn't ... I don't care if you're trading oil or condors or what-you-ma-call-it. It doesn't matter. You're only goal is to be consistent. To be profitable on a monthly basis and to be consistent. If out of 12 months, you're positive eight months out of the year and you lose four, but you come out way ahead, that's great. If you're losing one month and then making money and then losing money and then making money and then losing money, that's not what we want. That means you're out of control. You don't know what you're doing. The odds, putting them in your favor, trading high probability. You're gonna win a certain amount of time anyway, even if you have no clue what the hell you're doing. If you're not consistent month after month, profitable or at least break even, that means you're doing something wrong. That is what I would want all of my students to get to. That level of consistency with one strategy. Then once you get there, okay fine. Now I want to branch out into something else. Go for it. Keith: That makes sense too. It's also a little bit liberating to know that I'm gonna let go of everything else and just focus on one thing. It really is. The streamlining, at least to me, is liberating. I don't like to have all those balls up in the air. Especially when I don't know where they are. Allen: It's so much less stress and so much easier just to manage. It's really, it is. Like you said, it's liberating. We got some people that trade, 30, 40 trades a month selling options. I don't know how you do it. I can't do more than ten, 12 trades at a time. I can't follow all of them. Keith: I've done that before. You lose track of some. I wasn't even watching this and it's down. I totally see that. You really have to narrow it down and if you want to eventually branch out, fine. It's got be gradual. I can see how just throwing yourself in the lines and went too early. That's good advice. Thank you. Allen: Cool. Anything else? Keith: Gives me good perspective. No. Like I said, I'm all over. I may have a question here or there later. I at least want to take in all you're saying and develop a plan. Try it for a few months and then call you with questions once I've actually done something and had a track record with something. Allen: If you're really cool, we could do a follow up and maybe four or five, six months from now. We'll do a follow up. Say, okay where were you Keith? Now what'd you do? Where are you now and what's going forward? Keith: That would hold me accountable. That's good. That really is good. That's good. Allen: Awesome. Keith: Well we'll keep in touch. I really appreciate, yeah. This is very helpful. Very helpful. Allen: Awesome. Great. Again, thank you for letting it be recorded. I think we touched on a lot of different things here. I would expect you to even listen to it a few more times. Anybody else that is in a similar boat as Keith, go through this one again and again. There might be a sentence or two that I just mention and I just glanced over. There was a lot of depth for somebody who actually knows what they're looking for in this particular interview. Keith, this was fun. Thank you so much. Keith: Thank you. Talk to you soon. I will correspond soon. Thank you. Allen: Okay. Great. Keith: Bye. -- LOVE ALLEN SAMA - OPTION GENIUS AND WANT TO LEARN MORE TRADING TIPS  AND TRICKS? HERE ARE SOME NEXT STEPS... SUBSCRIBE TO OUR PODCAST FREE 9 LESSON COURSE: https://optiongenius.com/ WATCH THIS FREE TRAINING: https://passivetrading.com JOIN OUR PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP:  https://optiongenius.com/alliance Like our show? Please leave us a review here - even one sentence helps. 

GUEST BIO: Keith is currently a member of the Platform Team at Okta working on Identity and Authentication APIs. Previously he was an early Developer Evangelist at Twilio and before that he worked on the Ultimate Geek Question at the Library of Congress.  Keith’s underlying goal is to get good technology into the hands of good people to do great things. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Phil’s guest on today’s show is Keith Casey. For nearly two decades, he has been working in the IT industry.  During that time, he has worked as a systems developer, IT architect, technology officer, principal advisor and senior developer evangelist. He is now working for Okta as a member of their Platform Team, specifically on Identity and Authentication APIs. Keith is also a well-known public speaker. KEY TAKEAWAYS: (00.57) – So Keith, can you expand on that brief introduction and tell us a little bit more about yourself? Keith explains that his first job, after leaving college, was working at the Library of Congress, helping them to digitize everything. The lengths they go to capture every element of a piece of information is amazing. So, when people ask him how much data is held in the Library of Congress, he finds it impossible to give an accurate answer. Naturally, at this point, Phil asks him for the figure. Keith’s response is to explain, that when he got started there were no blogs, iTunes or any of the platforms that churn out a huge amount of information every day. Yet, it was estimated that the librarians would have had to catalog around 200 terabytes a day to have been able to keep pace with what was being produced, even back then. (2.28) – Can you please share a unique career tip with the I.T. career audience? Keith’s top tip is to treat your career as an investment. Think about the long term, in the same way you would if you were investing in shares. So, when deciding if it is worth learning how to use a tool, think about how it will help you in both the short and the long term. By all means learn the tools you need to be able to do the job you are doing right now. But, make sure that you also pick up skills that you will be able to use for the next 5 to 10 years. (3.23) Phil agrees. He thinks there is too much short-termism, especially when it comes to learning programming languages. People tend to just learn what they need to get by on their current projects. But, fail to learn and understand the underlying principles.  (3.59) – Can you tell us about your worst career moment? And what you learned from that experience. For Keith that was when he accidentally corrupted a huge news article database while working on an App for Associated Press, about 15 years ago. Fortunately, there was a backup. Unfortunately, it was 8 hours old. News happens continuously. So, even after the restoration, there were around 64,000 updates still missing. This was a tough way to learn not to do development work in production. (5.50) – What was your best career moment? For Keith that happened when he was working as a developer evangelist at Twilio developing the SMS API. As an evangelist, one of his key roles was to get out there and show that their stuff worked. Whenever possible, Keith and his colleagues would do a 5-minute demo in front of an audience. They would open an empty Vim file and build an application right there and then. Then use it to allow the people in the room to send them a text straight away. This demonstrated that their stuff really worked and was super quick and easy to use. For Keith these presentations gave him a huge lift. Seeing so many people’s eyes light up was amazing.  (7.38) – Can you tell us what excites you about the future of the IT industry and careers? The pervasiveness of today’s tech is something that Keith finds exciting. It is everywhere and touches every aspect of our lives. No matter what your passion is, you can get involved in tech. For example, if you are interested in farming, there are self-driving tractors, data analysis, drones and all kinds of other things. Working in tech no longer means sitting behind a screen most of the time. You can go out and touch the real world and see how what you are doing affects everyone.  (8.39) – What drew you to a career in IT? For Keith it was the fact that it is a great way to pay the bills. Interestingly, his desire to succeed in tech was also partly driven by the fact that he is a theatre geek. He really enjoyed the fact that IT opened up new ways for him to get things done in the theatre. (9.01) – Can you give us an example of how you used your IT skills in the theatre? Keith explained that using basic trigonometry they were able to set up microphone arrays along the edge of the stage. This enabled them to get the lighting rig to figure out where an actor was on stage and automatically follow them with a spotlight. (9.29) – What is the best career advice you have ever received? Keith says that has to be – “Help good people around you.” Do it without expecting anything back. Just help them because they are fantastic. Doing that has led to some really great things for Keith. Through this habit, he has developed several important personal and business relationships.  (10.02) – If you were to begin your IT career again, right now, what would you do? Keith says that he would probably go deeper into security, especially now that IoT is so big. For this to succeed, better security is essential. (10.32) – What are you currently focusing on in your career? Actually, that is connected to what he was saying earlier about building up people around you.  He is currently working with an international startup accelerator program called TechStars. (11.00) – So, what sort of projects are involved in that? Keith explains it could be anything. But, he particularly likes getting involved with the ones that are for industries where the use of tech is still a fairly new thing. His focus tends to be on product market fit, especially for more technical products. (11.51) – What is the number one non-technical skill that has helped you the most in your IT career? Being able to get up on stage and explain a concept from beginning to end has proved to be very useful. If you can do that, you will win 80% of all conversations, simply because most other people cannot explain in such an effective way. Plus the fact that you are a public speaker means that you automatically get a certain level of respect. Interestingly, Keith learned his presentation skills largely as a result of being a theatre geek. (12.25) – Is that a skill that has evolved and developed over time? Keith explains that he still actively works at it. In particular, he studies the old school comics like Richard Pryor and Steve Martin. They do the same thing again and again, yet still manage to keep their audiences engaged. (13.09) – Phil asks Keith to share a final piece of career advice with the audience. Keith’s advice is not to be afraid to experiment. You do not necessarily have to restrict yourself to only learning things for which there is a pressing need.  Also, Keith says it is a good idea to learn through other people’s experience. BEST MOMENTS: (2.43) KEITH - "Treat your career as an investment." (3.25) PHIL –“I think there can be too much short-termism in terms of what people look out." (8.26) KEITH - "You don't have to just be behind a screen 24 seven, figuring how to build things.” (9.37) KEITH – “Help good people around you. You'll cross paths with fantastic people.” (13.33) KEITH - "Just go and learn things you will never be hurt by knowing more.” CONTACT KEITH: Twitter: https://twitter.com/caseysoftware LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseysoftware/

What are the rules of wanderlust? Keith Jennings, VP of Community Impact at Jackson Healthcare, speaker, and all-around delightful person spends his downtime hunting high and low for gems in used book stores. While Keith didn’t think there were rules to his hobby, Kerry and Katie quickly discovered that there are guidelines so when the prize is found, the reward is much sweeter. In this episode we learned: Keith is after the two “Os” - out of print and "outlier" books There are rules to the hunt that you must follow His favorite genre is the Harlem renaissance/beat generation The “Total Film Maker” by Jerry Lewis is his “white whale” find, he’s still on the hunt! Want to know more about Keith? You can find him at: https://keithjennings.com/ | @keithjennings | https://www.linkedin.com/in/keithjennings/ This episode of the Punch Out With Katie and Kerry is sponsored by Trust Insights. Are you feeling less than confident in your marketing metrics, looking for some help automating your tasks, or wondering what topics are most important to your audience? Using machine learning and artificial intelligence, Trust Insights will help you light up your dark data. Visit trustinsights.ai/punchingout for more information. Punch Out With Katie and Kerry (#PunchOut) is the show that dives deeper into topics you care about. We don't ask the questions everyone else does. We get to the real insights (and the weird hobbies, the guilty pleasures, the secret side hustles...the good stuff)! We find out what really makes your favorite people tick. Punch out with Katie and Kerry! Have a cool hobby or side interest you want to talk about on the show? Let us know: Web: www.punchoutwithus.comEmail: punchoutwithus@gmail.com Hosts: Kerry O’Shea Gorgone (@KerryGorgone) & Katie Robbert (@katierobbert)

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Todd: OK, Keith, we're back here in the city. I'm going to ask you some questions about where you live. First, is there a library by your house?Keith: No, no libraries near me.Todd: No, that's too bad. Do you like to read?Keith: Sure, I love to read.Todd: OK. Where do you get your books?Keith: Well, I usually buy them at Tower Records or I order them through Amazon.comTodd: OK. Note: this is not an advertisement. OK. Next one, is there a park by your house.Keith: Park, yeah, there's actually two small ones.Todd: Do you go there very often?Keith: No, not to often, because usually, I don't get home from work until pretty late. Not a lot of part-time in my schedule.Todd: OK. So hang on. We've got to let the car go by here. Actually, lots of cars here. Lots of traffic. Is there a lot of traffic where you live?Keith: Oh, yeah, in the daytime cause there's a lot of shops around my apartment, or near my apartment. But at night time it's pretty quiet.Todd: OK. Great. Thanks, Keith.Keith: You're welcome.

We are excited to have Ryan Cox, Principal at Founders Grove Capital, a real estate investment and advisory firm dedicated to helping clients select and manage real estate investments that work for them. Ryan is responsible for helping clients select and manage real estate investments so they can build a more secure financial portfolio. Ryan hosts The Real Estate Innovators Podcast and he is a real faculty for drawing out some of the inside baseball elements of the real estate tech world. When he is not hosting his podcast, he is the CEO of Founders Grove Capital! Tune in as we talk about... Multifamily Real Estate Investor Real Estate Technology or PropTech Design in Commercial Real Estate Block Chain Platform and much more! Learn more about Ryan Cox on The Real Estate Innovators Podcast and Founders Grove Capital VO: You’re listening to Raising Your Antenna, with host Keith Zakheim. Keith: Welcome to Raising Your Antenna. And I’m your host, Keith Zakheim. Today, we have a guest, Ryan Cox that wears many hats. Being that this is a podcast, and many of you, like me are podcast addicts, let me give you Ryan’s podcast bona fides first. Ryan hosts a real estate innovators podcast, in which he interviews some of the bigger founders and influencers in the real estate tech/proptech market. I guess Ryan, one of the things we can kinda talk about is what we call this industry because I’m hearing a lot of names for it: proptech, real estate tech, other things. But anyway, Ryan’s podcast is a great listen. And he’s a real faculty for drawing out some of the inside baseball elements of the real estate tech world. That I think is great gold or father for investors and professionals in the real estate and the real estate technology space. So anyway, definitely give a listen. But, when he’s not hosting his podcast, Ryan is a CEO of Founders Grove Capital, where he himself is a super successful investor and advisor to investors. So Ryan, before we get going and kinda get into the nitty gritty of our conversation today, maybe give my audience some of your background, professional background. And also specifically, you know, why you do the podcast. You know, is that kind of a personal passion. And also, how it helps your business from a marketing perspective. So anyway, welcome aboard and, yeah, it’s to you. Ryan: Well, Keith. Thanks so much for having me on the show. Excited to talk about a little commercial real estate tech, a little about my business. So, my background is, you know, I really, primarily, my primary business is to focus on multi-family value-added opportunities. So, my core business is as real estate investor and working with investors to buy multi-family assets here in the state of Texas. The podcast, as you said, is developed, I guess, primarily, out of a passion and some curiosity. So, I found it to be, you know as an investor, a really great avenue on a weekly basis to really dig in to all of the, you know commercial real estate tech that is developing around us. And the podcast has given me an opportunity, you know, really, a calling card to knock on any door and talk to founders about their background and unique insight that they had in their background to lead them to found a commercial real estate tech company. And on the podcast, I’m really just able to, you know, dig in what their background is, what unique insight, talk about the solution, how it benefits and impacts their users. And then try to suss out, really, just their insights from their work, about how they see the overall real estate market and that changing, and the impact of commercial real estate tech. I think the big driver for before the podcast is, you know, number one is I’m an advocate for my investors. So, I feel like it’s a priority for me to really be able to have a broad view of all of the technology that is, really, just starting to make an impact. But, I believe in the next three to five years, would dramatically shift the way that a lot of business in real estate gets done. So, I wanna make sure that I’m not flat-footed and that I’m being an advocate for my investors and paying attention to all the real estate tech that is transforming how we do business. I think.. Keith: You know, I, you’ve, again, being a listener to I think your last two episodes. I think you do a great job of listening that kind of feedback, and getting really down to the founder’s course to both your entrepreneurial side as well as your passion. Specifically, of this CRE-tech space. So anyway, I enjoy and I encourage my listeners to download it, become a subscriber, and listen cause it’s really, it’s a great listen. So, let’s dive in and my first question Ryan is that you know, where in, when I say we, I mean you and me from the marketing side are in the super-exciting space of what we call CRE-tech/prop tech. But, there are tons of applications found in the market. So, if that big data applications and, or you know spaces service as a business, virtual marketplaces and leasing tenant focus platforms, private management, augmented reality, and others. Clearly, some are getting more ink than others in space as a service comes to mind. But, as an investor and an advisor, I’m curious in your perspective. What are the exciting areas, that maybe somewhat under the radar right now. So you know, trying to bring somebody into a no-tell where we work. Okay, no big deal. Lots of money’s going there. That’s just aping what everybody else is doing. But, what are the areas, you know, applications that you think have the potential for real disruption, will attract early adopters, and in the next few years, where should the savvy investor who really wants to be part of the space looking to allocate money? Ryan: Well, first of all, I think that there are a ton of really interesting across, you know, like you said teantt project management. There’s a really, really quite a few interesting, you know spaces to play in CRE-tech. I think, as I think about the next two or three is we’re just so early. Especially regards to adoptions, it seems to me like the folks that are focused on data and that could be a cross-spaces as service, virtual marketplaces, leasing tenant project management and that stuff. The folks that are taken a data first enabled to monetize that early, enabled to give users actual data to make decision for that real estate investors, for lets space users, you know building owners. It seems to me like those folks are probably to the best start because there’s a value they can charge users afforded data. But, the collection of that data also gives them flexibility as they grow out, you know, the solutions that are provided to end-users. Keith: Yeah, we see for example both in CRE and also this residential real estate is, you know, a lot of these companies are multi-generational families that abound, you know, especially in the big cities, right. So, they own a lot of the office space, they own a lot of residential real estate, and they’ve been making money in this space for a long time. And as a result, the little more buttoned-up conservative, unless, willing to be early adopters. And we found with our clients, is that the case to be made at least initially, is surely an economic play, right. So, this is how you gonna be more efficient and save money. But, you know, how, what do you see is being the most partner-compelling arguments to, you know, CRE-tech as CRE-owners in order to get them to kinda take that first leap of faith into some of these, you know, applications and areas. And it could be, you know, big data which is maybe, there is some would have, you know, an easier, a leap of faith from data, the argument for efficiency and economic savings probably easier than making, also, I realized much more quickly. But, how do you advise your clients, or what do you see your founders in terms of being able to, you know, circumvent or achieve some of those obstacles? Ryan:Well, I think that from a founder’s perspective, you know, I think the venture community has great channels into, you know, big, you know, big brokerage. I would just definitely in avenue to get widespread adoption across a numbered users and geographies. I think that a lot of the bug development companies have their own adventure arm that you know, co-investing with the venture firms or looking to, you know, incubate and grow their own, you know, own kind of tech. So i do think that there are great opportunities with the right venture partner or being able to sit with the right investment or development company to help kinda scale the platform out. So. Keith: So, how are you looking for money for for example. It's not just about the money, but the strategic value that these investors can bring in terms of opening up new channels and helping with initial adaption? Rayna: Absolutely, the faster to market in adaption. I think is what you see in the re-work examples. They are just trying to raise the biggest, the best and have amass the monopoly. I think that the fastest routes to market, the more channels that you have to be able to deploy the product, the better your chances for success. Keith: Yeah that’s a great segue to the next topic I want to discuss, which is basis of service. And companies like re-work, and notel raising money on previously unthinkable valuations. I have a 2-part question. So, clearly, there is some type of bubble forming, and this not the first tech-vertical or general investment vertical to experience a bubble and there’s a lot of money-chasing deals and we work in (notel) just based on evaluations are clearly benefiting from all that money that’s on the sidelines looking to invest in this space. So, it’s 2 questions. You know, it’s not new what we work in (notel) are dealing, right. So, we just been around for a long time. Yet, we are left behind in the dust. These newer companies are gobbling up market share and their valuations are significantly higher. So, what’s been the drivers of their growth versus what we’ve seen in the past? And the 2nd question, Ryan, which I know comes up everywhere. Which is, you know, we work in (notel) have experienced, any other companies by the way just keep referring to these two, but they’ve experienced this growth in a real estate environment in which the market is just fantastic and also experiencing above all, right. What’s that gonna look like when there is an inevitable downturn. That’s what real estate is historically, so it’s not gonna continue and values are not gonna continue to appreciate and as I understand their business model which is, you know, leasing up a lot of space and being able to upsell that to tenants. What happens when, you know, values go down and their existing tenants can go lock in space for much cheaper prices. So, 2-part question: drivers of growth versus the history of the space as well as what it’s all gonna look like during an inevitable downturn? Ryan: Yeah, those are good questions. I don’t think anybody can accurately predict. But just some thoughts. I think, you know, running we were.. Keith: The beauty of being a podcast, of being a prognosticator, is that they only remember when you’re right and when you’re wrong, no one cares. So, that’s, you know, we can say whatever we want. Be Nostradamus, right? Ryan: Right. Well, if we were on video, everybody would be able to see me in my wizard hat. Keith: (Laughs). Exactly. Ryan: My answer here. I mean, (Ryan), we were cause undertaking the company’s taken a name as an approach to spending, investing heavily on growth, in hopes that profits will follow. I think, in the most likely scenario, is that, the thing that’s been driving growth in valuations for these companies will ultimately will come to roost. You know, right now, we’re in a growth at all cost negative gross margins. I think that we workers gotten so big that we’re seeing a lot more access to their data and, you know, right now, their focused on growth in a winner take all mode similar to some other tech companies we’ve seen at Silicon Valley. You know something , the ultimate challenge, so that goal is that if you can grow to a large size and create a market monopoly. Then, over time, you’re able to, you know, raise prices because you’ve got some sort of walk-in with those customers. I think the challenge right now in the current environment is that there’s so much private capital out there and so many entrepreneurs willing to take on big dogs. It would be a re-work at this case but people with. I think you need value proposition in a co-working space. So, on a venture capital people chasing, I don’t see right now that there is a monopoly in place. And then those companies are public, so you know valuations that can be tricky. Just a tricky area when we talk about private money. So, the question will be if there is a downturn and we’re not in a profitable place and that money dries up. How do you sustain growth or shift on a dime with your users to a profitable model. Keith: Yeah, for sure. I do, you know, so you mention Amazon and Amazon first of the 15-year run and they probably are the exception to the rule in terms of being able to early on stake-out they wouldn’t call a monopolistic position but certainly, 800-pound gorilla type of corporation. But, if you look at ride-sharing. So, a company like Uber tried to do that but the market was so large. The problems of executions are great and the amount of so much money on the sidelines willing to go into that space. Left has been able to significantly cut into their business over last few years with no one inside there. It seems to me also, the spaces service industry. The various entry are really just raising the capital. I mean, I don’t know there’s much secret sauce in doing that except for being able to sustain the losses initially and go gobble up property. So, it’ll be interesting to see how that shakes out and what it all looks like in a number of years but I know everybody in our industry is watching that closely and that will be interesting as we go forward. Ryan: Yeah, totally great I think. I definitely think the spaces services creating a value for large enterprise and small businesses alike. It’ll be up to those organizations to find a profitable, sustainable, long-term business model, which is yet to be proven. So, I think that there will be some, I think that there’ll be winners, I think that there’ll be losers. I think that there’ll probable even a few that rise to the top and are able to sustain there long-term. Keith: Alright. Moving on. Entrepreneurs and startups and certainly marketing agencies, we love the buzzwords. Alright, so, you can raise money and you can throw out terms like artificial intelligence or augmented reality or blockchain or cryptocurrency and figure out how to present your business plan and I think companies or startups are hoping that investors will follow that with investment. So, blockchain is a bit, is a buzzword that is being thrown around, our industry, the CRE-tech industry. We do a lot of work and energy and I thought blockchain is a fantastic application of blockchain platforms with application in the energy markets because energy in general’s becoming a lot more distributed and decentralized and blockchain is a fantastic application for industries that are going in that direction. We’ve seen a number of companies over the last 6 to 12 months that come to us and claim to have some type of blockchain application real estate whether that’s for raising money, whether that’s because it can cut out some of the soft-cost involved in transactions, whether it’s because of blockchain application will make shrink the timeline for these transactions. There’s a number of reasons why blockchain could be a good application in the real estate industry. Curious what your thoughts are as to what those applications are? Are you seeings things that right now are more substance and hype? Do you think at this point just more hype and people throwing around the word? What’s your take on all that? Ryan: I think there’s a lot of hype, I mean, blockchain is really just a lot of copies of a gigantic cell spreadsheet. So, I think that there’s some interesting possibilities for blockchain. Clearly, to the number of hands that have touched a transaction to potentially cut out intermediaries. I think that there are some regulatory things that need to happen as those boundaries get pushed. I think that it’s a move in the right direction but whether it’s blockchain, artificial intelligence, a machine learning, there’s a lot of entrepreneurs that are tackling that technology and trying to integrate it into their business and or their philosophy. When you talk to the technologist about where we are with those technologies and what they’re capable of doing, there’s somewhat of a sentiment that, yeah, the baseline is there but today they don’t function as they’re being promised or advertised as. So, I think that is commercial real estate technology is playing catch up to a lot of technology innovations from, maybe the past 15-20 years and that started to really grow inside of commercial real estate maybe in the past 5-6 years. I think that this group of entrepreneurs is in the right place and on pace or the slightly behind fintech or other spaces where they’re trying to develop the technology to truly make an impact. Keith: Yeah, we’ve spoken with a few companies recently who feel that blockchain and cryptocurrency solution will enable owners and CRE owners to have opportunities for liquidity and to bring in partners or investors in a way that they can’t with the current financial and legal infrastructure in real estate. So, that’s what, from what I understand from these companies, they think they can be deploying those solutions relatively quickly. It’s a proof in a pudding. Ryan: Yeah, I mean. Title company, all kinds of things, potentially make an impact or just we’re not there today. I think, we’ve got smart entrepreneurs that are working on solutions and are really trying to develop that technology to make it viable. And, where we are today versus where we’ll be in 5 years, is one of the reasons I have a podcast or I’m on this show, talking to you about it because I’m very interested in watching those developments and understanding how people are leveraging the technology and using that technology to change the way we work, live, play.. Keith: Yeah, so let’s talk about play. Another great segue, is Ryan, you’re a great host. So, when you’re the guest, you can do my work for me. That’s perfect. I wanna talk about apps and platforms and features that companies now are offering to enhance the tenant experience. It seems like a very millennial thing. So, in my company, we’re always kind of our executive team is always discussing. Alright, so, how do we make millennials happy, keep them productive, make sure that we’re able to retain them? And, I started my business 15 years ago, I wasn’t really having that conversation. It was more around, let’s just create professional development opportunities, make sure paying them fairly, and treating them with respect. But now, they want things that are gonna enhance their social experience, logistical experience. Work is now just not about work but it’s responsibility of companies and now it seems like maybe a building owner’s as well to provide a home-like experience or social experience, cultural experiences within the 4 walls of the workplace. Companies like Comfy, I've seen HQO, Office App, Equium. Again, they’re going out there and trying to convince owners and landowners that their responsibilities transcend just a physically-built environment. What’s been your experience in speaking either with your clients or with founders about the receptivity towards this? Who’re gonna be the early adapters? Is this just kind of like a fad right now but, we’re gonna eventually go back into haywork is work? What do you think on that? Ryan: I think that broader society is just moving towards more experiences whether that’s the bloomers who are moving out of houses then looking for less kind of ownership responsibilities to give them opportunities to travel, to go and do, to hop on an RV and go across America. Keith: I’ve got a 19-year old so we’re having these discussions which give me a little me more grey hair than I had prior. Ryan: (Laughs) And you know the 19-year olds in the same boat. How do I create more experiences, driven by a very different and very visual world with Instagram, Facebook, Social. It’s a ‘hey, what experiences are you having?’ And I think cause it’s less driven by the material. When I think about the specific applications that are going after a different experience in a work environment. I again think it comes back down to the channel. I think that the broad offering, well I guess, the appeal to many users will be more applicable if it serves out more as an amenity that people are able to choose from a la carte or a part of a package. Kinda like a TV dinner. Say ‘Hey, wanna be able to have access to all of these different applications to be able to create this experience in our work environment.’ I think that somebody’s applications are very niche. And so, if they’re not paying attention to the channel or how they’re partnering with other applications to create that experience could potentially be an uphill battle. But, yeah, I mean I think that experience-driven is what is driving re-work or notel or the other kind of space as a service. I think that when IBM is taking re-work space, it’s a very clear communication to the market that experience is valued and IBM’s one of all those technology companies out there so, it’s not just the startups, the millennials that are focused on creating that experience for their employees. Keith: Yeah, that’s a really good point. So, a lot of our listeners are themselves founders and entrepreneurs. I thought maybe, we’d just end, Ryan, with just your observations of the common denominators between the companies and founders that succeed, those that don’t. That really can be anything from leadership skills to how to manage money, to operations, to figuring out audience, marketing. Whatever the case, but I got a thought that your advice would be compelling to the people listening. Ryan: Yeah, I think that those with a good product and user experience. I think about some fintech apps, like Robinhood. When Robinhood comes to mind, it’s like very easy to use, it’s very visually appealing. So, I think that applications that are focused on great user-experience. I think that have some sort of data or value that they’re able to charge customers from Day 1 increase sustainable profitability. And I think that just have really low overhead, low volume kinda revenue targets to keep them accountable to grow. I think that they’re gonna have, those that start with that business model will have early adapters that are potentially more forgiving of the product, that are able to receive feedback, to really shape the product, to listen to customers’ demands and pay attention to their roadmap in a unique way that keeps them from over-building or steering the roadmap in a direction that is actually not a demand or want on their customer base. Which is, back to my earlier talk, was those that are due to a really good job of aggregating and creating actionable data, will be able to build off that data in a meaningful way, and create a roadmap that is really impactful for their users. Keith: That makes sense and I think for every founder and businessman and entrepreneur, what Churchill always said to his people, ‘Keep buggering on KBO.’ Just gotta stick with it, right? And, there’s gonna be lots of ups and downs and challenges. But, if you believe in your vision and you believe in your product and believe in your ability to execute, then you gotta keep going. Certainly, until the bank account says zero. So, with that Ryan, I think we’ll end there. Was there anything else that you wanted to add or tell our listeners? Ryan: I guess the one thing I would add is I am co-hosting a commercial real estate tech event in Austin on October 25th. We’ve got a great panel of tech founders that includes Michael Mandel with ComStak, Arie with WiredScore, Ryan Turner with Refinery, and Doug Shenkman with Tenax. As well as a panel of venture capitalists from Fifth Wall, Navitas, and Metaprop. So, it would be a great event downtown Austin with food and drinks and some great founders and venture capitalists to give you much of the same conversation about the state of the world of CRE Tech and the state of the market, and what’s coming up. Keith: And I will be there. So, if that’s, if you wanna scream that from the rooftops as well, enables you to add one more person to the event, feel free. Maybe, if you tell enough people, my mom will come as well, if I’m gonna be there. But, Ryan: We’d love to have your mom. Keith: It’s an exciting event, I will be there. I’m gonna be travelling from New York to Austin for it. And, goodluck with that. I guess, I’ll see you there, Ryan. So, thank you for being our guest today. And just again, for our listeners, Raising Your Antenna is a podcast dedicated to bringing on venture capitalists and founders who are transforming B2B technology spaces including today’s CRE (Commercial Real Estate) technology. Antenna Group which is the primary sponsor of Raising Your Antenna, is a digital marketing and public relations firm which services companies from startups all the way to Fortune 100 companies that are in the B2B technology space. So Ryan, thanks again and look forward to seeing you in Austin. Ryan: We all look forward to it. Thanks, Keith! Keith: And another episode of Raising Your Antenna is in the books. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode and look forward to connecting again next week. Raising Your Antenna is a weekly podcast hosted by yours truly, Keith Zakheim, that features the movers and shakers, and key influencers of the B2B technology industry. Our guests are leading revolutions and disruptions in the mobility, clean energy, healthcare, and real estate technology industries. Raising Your Antenna’s brought to you by Antenna Group, a full-service digital marketing and public relations agency that focuses on the B2B technology industry. Please be in touch with me on Twitter (@czakheim) with any feedback about this podcast. And check out Antenna Group at www.antennagroup.com if your organization is looking for really smart and good-looking marketing and public relations partner.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Todd: Hello, Keith.Keith: Hello, Todd.Todd: Hey, Keith, what is your favorite food?Keith: My favorite food? Well in Japan it's probably sushi.Todd: OK, how often do you have sushi?Keith: Wow, probably at least two times a week.Todd: OK. What is your favorite drink?Keith: My favorite drink. Well, coca-cola usually.Todd: Do you have coke every day?Keith: No because if I drink too much I gain weight.Todd: Oh, yeah, yeah. I got the same problem. -- OK, how about desserts. What's your favorite dessert?Keith: My favorite dessert? My favorite dessert is probably Tiramisu.Todd: Tiramisu?Keith: Yeah.Todd: Ok, alright, thanks a lot.Keith: You're welcome.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Todd: Hey, Keith. I heard you just got married.Keith: Oh, yeah.Todd: Nice. So, how long ago did you get married?Keith: Oh, I got married last November.Todd: Really, well congratulations.Keith: Thanks a lot.Todd: So, what's married life like?Keith: Oh, it's great. I love married life.Todd: How is being married different than being a bachelor?Keith: You get less dates.Todd: Yeah. That's for sure. That's for sure. So at home, do you share with like the cooking and the cleaning and stuff like that?Keith: Oh, yeah, sure. That's the only way to do it really.Todd: Yeah. Do you cook for your wife?Keith: Oh, yeah.Todd: OK. What do you cook for her?Keith: It depends on what she wants but usually I do the easy stuff like pasta and salads and that kind of stuff.Todd: Oh, that's nice. That's nice, Ok, thanks a lot, Keith.Keith: You're welcome.

'Hear English' is a blog that provides podcasts and transcripts to help people learn English, find us at http://hearenglishhere.blogspot.com/.Free image courtesy of 'stockfreeimages.com'The Water Cooler (Slow)Too slow? Try the faster version in the next post. They may look like busy professionals, but the staff at Colourful Solutions Ltd (Colsol), aren’t always as serious or hardworking as they appear, and we find out what mischief they’ve been up to as they talk around the water cooler.Click above to listen.  You can get the mp3. here.Episode 5 - Root Vegetable Crisps (Slow) Too slow? Try the faster version in the next post. Featuring the vocal talents of Sophie Iafrate (Susan).  (Free sound effects courtesy of 'Soundjay.com'), Susan: Hey Keith, could you do me a favour?  I’ve got to photocopy this handout for a presentation with a potential client and they’re going to be here in five minutes and I’ve not arranged the meeting room.   Could you set up the projector and arrange some sandwiches nicely on plates, make sure there’s a jug of something to drink and stick the crisps in a bowl?Keith: No problem Susan, you know I’m always happy to help!  Which meeting room is it?Susan: Meeting room 2, you know, the one with the strange smell.  Great, thanks a bunch Keith, I owe you one.… later …Susan: They’re here!  Thanks so much for sorting out the room Keith.Keith (with mouth full): Glad I could be of assistance.Susan: And I suppose you earned the crisps you’re eating … wait a second … You greedy thing, you’ve eaten all the crisps in the bowl. Keith (still with mouth full): Sorry, but they’re my favourite flavour.  I couldn’t resist.Susan: You aren’t half annoying sometimes Keith.Keith: I said I’m sorry, but it’s your own fault really, if you got flavours I didn’t like then I wouldn’t be tempted.Susan: Next time, that’s exactly what I’ll do.  You don’t like those root vegetable crisps do you?Keith: Oh, with beetroot and carrot?  No, that stuff’s not for me, I like my crisps to be made of potato.Susan: Then from now on, I’ll get them instead.… later …Keith: Hi Janet, how did Susan’s presentation go?Janet: It went really well, they liked what she showed them and they’ve just emailed to say they want to commission us for the job. Keith: Fantastic, so they weren’t put off by the strange smell?Janet: Nope … but they were impressed with how well arranged everything was, and Susan tells me that you set up the meeting room, so thank you for that.  In fact, there’s another meeting to finalise a few details at 5.  Would you be able to set the room up again?Keith: Yeah, of course.… later …Susan: Thanks Keith, the room looks great!Keith: You’re welcome.Susan: Right Janet, I think we’re ready.Janet: Not quite, I filled up the bowl in the middle of the table, but for some reason it’s empty again.Susan: Oh Keith, I can’t believe you ate the root-vegetable crisps…you don’t even like them.Janet: You mean…you ate everything in that bowl?Keith: Err, yeah, I’m sorry, it was a bad joke.  I’ll get some more root-vegetable crisps from the canteen for you right away.Janet: Keith, to refill the bowl, you don’t need to go to the kitchen, you need to go to the stock cupboard, and then maybe you should go home early via the doctors.  The bowl wasn’t full of root-vegetable crisps.  Because of the strange smell, I had filled it with pot-pourri.

'Hear English' is a blog that provides podcasts and transcripts to help people learn English, find us at http://hearenglishhere.blogspot.com/.Free image courtesy of 'stockfreeimages.com'The Water Cooler (Fast)Too fast? Try the slower version in the previous post. They may look like busy professionals, but the staff at Colourful Solutions Ltd (Colsol), aren’t always as serious or hardworking as they appear, and we find out what mischief they’ve been up to as they talk around the water cooler.Click above to listen.  You can get the mp3. here. Episode 5 - Root Vegetable Crisps (Fast) Too fast? Try the slower version in the previous post. Featuring the vocal talents of Sophie Iafrate (Susan).  (Free sound effects courtesy of 'Soundjay.com'),  Susan: Hey Keith, could you do me a favour?  I’ve got to photocopy this handout for a presentation with a potential client and they’re going to be here in five minutes and I’ve not arranged the meeting room.   Could you set up the projector and arrange some sandwiches nicely on plates, make sure there’s a jug of something to drink and stick the crisps in a bowl? Keith: No problem Susan, you know I’m always happy to help!  Which meeting room is it?Susan: Meeting room 2, you know, the one with the strange smell.  Great, thanks a bunch Keith, I owe you one.… later …Susan: They’re here!  Thanks so much for sorting out the room Keith.Keith (with mouth full): Glad I could be of assistance.Susan: And I suppose you earned the crisps you’re eating … wait a second … You greedy thing, you’ve eaten all the crisps in the bowl.  Keith (still with mouth full): Sorry, but they’re my favourite flavour.  I couldn’t resist.Susan: You aren’t half annoying sometimes Keith.Keith: I said I’m sorry, but it’s your own fault really, if you got flavours I didn’t like then I wouldn’t be tempted. Susan: Next time, that’s exactly what I’ll do.  You don’t like those root vegetable crisps do you?Keith: Oh, with beetroot and carrot?  No, that stuff’s not for me, I like my crisps to be made of potato.Susan: Then from now on, I’ll get them instead.… later …Keith: Hi Janet, how did Susan’s presentation go?Janet: It went really well, they liked what she showed them and they’ve just emailed to say they want to commission us for the job.  Keith: Fantastic, so they weren’t put off by the strange smell?Janet: Nope … but they were impressed with how well arranged everything was, and Susan tells me that you set up the meeting room, so thank you for that.  In fact, there’s another meeting to finalise a few details at 5.  Would you be able to set the room up again?Keith: Yeah, of course.… later …Susan: Thanks Keith, the room looks great! Keith: You’re welcome.Susan: Right Janet, I think we’re ready.Janet: Not quite, I filled up the bowl in the middle of the table, but for some reason it’s empty again.Susan: Oh Keith, I can’t believe you ate the root-vegetable crisps…you don’t even like them.Janet: You mean…you ate everything in that bowl?Keith: Err, yeah, I’m sorry, it was a bad joke.  I’ll get some more root-vegetable crisps from the canteen for you right away.Janet: Keith, to refill the bowl, you don’t need to go to the kitchen, you need to go to the stock cupboard, and then maybe you should go home early via the doctors.  The bowl wasn’t full of root-vegetable crisps.  Because of the strange smell, I had filled it with pot-pourri.