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Kyle and Shaun wanted to keep the good Statham vibes flowing so they discuss the first Transporter flick. (*Note from Kyle: There is a totally awesome fight scene in an oil slick in this movie and Jason Statham wears bicycle … Continue reading →

Join us in exploring the inspiring journey of Kyle Slaymaker, an entrepreneur, and speaker, as he shares valuable insights on authenticity and vulnerability. Learn about his background, including his service in the Navy, and how he founded Slaymaker Method, a company focused on ethical selling strategies.Kyle reveals how he conquered public speaking fears, embraced authenticity on social media, and built a local brand for his ethical business. He shares his catalyst for vulnerability, stressing the power of honesty in building community connections, and reflects on entrepreneurship's highs and lows.Don't miss Kyle Slaymaker's inspiring story on how he changed his perspective on sales and life. Learn his guidelines on pricing, which prioritizes helping people rather than just making money. Kyle also shares valuable advice on being true to yourself, accepting your faults, and celebrating your strengths. Tune in for an authentic and insightful conversation.KEY HIGHLIGHTS[01:04] Kyle's background and personal info[01:40] The Slaymaker Method: ethical sales approach in businesses[02:20] Overcoming fear of public speaking by realizing his purpose[08:34] Building a local brand and network for community impact[11:50] Vulnerability on social media for human connection[18:52] Catalyst to openness and vulnerability[20:45] Honesty in entrepreneurship and being true to oneself[25:18] Going above and beyond for a widow while selling a car[34:12] Strict pricing guidelines to help people[40:49] Kyle's one message to share for the rest of his life[44:05] How to connect with KyleNOTABLE QUOTES“If something scares me and something's really big, I just automatically go for it.” – Kyle“There is no true failure. You either win or you learn.” – Kyle“I'll take 5,000 haters on one post if I get one comment or one message that says, ‘Hey, thank you for posting that. I need that.'” – Kyle“That's why I'm an open book. Because I wanna impact people. Because if one person is impacted by my struggle, then I'm fine talking about it.” – Kyle“Entrepreneurs are some of the most popular, lonely people you'll meet.” – Kyle“Being honest, especially in social media… that is how we connect. Because that what makes you humans.” – Philip“No matter what's their purchasing, it doesn't matter. Everybody's buying for an emotional need, an emotional connection.” – Kyle“Don't let one bad situation make you think differently of somebody, or even yourself.” – Philip"Accept your faults and celebrate your strengths." – KyleRESOURCESKyle SlaymakerInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/slaymakermethod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theslaymakermethodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/kyle.slaymaker.54Website: https://www.theslaymakermethod.comCall/Text: (717) 823-9029Philip SessionsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamphilipsessions/?hl=enTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@philipsessionsLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-sessions-b2986563/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/there Support the Show.

Welcome Passive Traders to another special edition of the Option Genius Podcast. Today I have something a little bit different for you. I was interviewed on another show called "2 Bulls in A China Shop" by a company called Financial Ineptitude. That's actually their name,Financial Ineptitud. Basically, it's two guys. You know, there are really cool guys named Kyle and Dan, and they've been talking about trading for a little bit. They've been trying to learn how to trade and so they made this podcast to basically help them get their thoughts out, and to record all of their lessons. Their website is really cool. Their podcast is two bulls in a china shop and I'm going to include the interview that they had here as an episode because I thought it was really good. It was a lot of fun. And hopefully you guys will get something out of it and learn from it as well. So again, that's "2 Bulls in A China Shop" by Kyle and Dan. Enjoy the episode. We're so glad you've joined us today, folks, today is a very special day, we've got a fantastic guest with us. We're gonna be joined here by Allen Sama, Head Trader and owner of Option Genius. He is an Amazon bestseller author of the book Passive Trading: How to Generate Consistent Monthly Income from the Stock Market in Just Minutes a Day. And we're going to let you know more about that. But first, Allen, how are you doing today? Allen: I'm doing very well. Thank you very much. Kyle: Thanks for coming on. I know we had to work a little bit to get this. This recordin going. Allen: Yeah, better make it good. Allen: I'll do my best. Kyle: The more you work for it the sweeter to be right? Yeah, Dan: Yeah. No pain, no gain, Allen: The more you value it, right. Dan: Oh, right. So so tell us a little bit about your journey to becoming the Option Genius.  Allen: So I was born as a trust fund baby and I started with $20 million. Kyle: End of story. Allen: Exactly, then I made a course. And then I made a course and I started selling it. Dan: Make more money selling. Allen: Yeah. So I have a similar story to you guys. You know, I got laid off from basically the only job I ever had. And it was really about, hey, do I go back to finding another job than job market? Or do I try my hand at trading, which I had been starting to learn while I was working because I was working remotely. So it was a great job learned a lot. But it just came to an end. The business went under in the financial crisis. And so, you know, we were actually teaching mortgage brokers how to be mortgage brokers, mortgage brokers, they owe it away. So it's like they didn't need me anymore. And so I said, Alright, cool. Let me you know, try my hand at trading. And I took some of my wife's money, and I lost most of it roughly, for like 40- 43,000. Plus, very quickly. Dan: Oh you're kidding. Allen: And, you know, like you guys said, you know, you learn very quickly, what doesn't work and most of it doesn't work. Yeah, at least for me. Dan: I get to strangled to work one day. Allen: Yeah. And so really, the, the best thing for me was that, you know, she had, she had faith in me, and she, she's like, you know, you need to make this work. And so I went back, and that kind of really put a fire under my ass. And then I looked at all my records, because I keep paper records of all my trades, write down everything. And so I found that, you know, I was doing day trading, and I was doing this and I was doing that buying and selling and value and I was trying everything, you know, there was one time where I was long, the inverse ETFs you know, SDS and SSO. So SSO is the two 2X S&P Going up, and SDS is 2X going down. So I was long on both of them. I was like, I can't lose. Right? Yeah, it's like the only trade that I can't lose on but guess what I did, I ended up losing money on that trade. Dan: You're telling my story, Allen. You're telling my story. Kyle: This all sounds so familiar. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel that it sounds like you.. Allen: Because the only thing that worked for me was selling options. And I had done at least one trade where, you know, I put it on, didn't really know what I was doing. But I followed it. And I put it on and I forgot about it. And then it it was in my paper records, but it wasn't in my account. And I'm like, where to go. My broker scamming me, you know, that should be here, you know, I put the trade on, where's my trick, and I kept researching, and then I realized that that trade had expired, worthless, and it just had gone away. So it doesn't show up on the screen anymore. And there's no exit record. And so I was like, Well, this is cool. You know, this is something that I didn't pay any attention to. And I made, you know, a good decent amount on it. And I didn't like it was easy. So I'm like, What is this thing? So I learned more and I dug deep into it. And we went into covered calls and naked puts and spreads and iron condors and, and all these different ones. And eventually I found that, um, you know, these type of trades are a lot more forgiving. So if you're not the most savvy, technical analysis like me, and if you're always buying at the wrong time and selling at the wrong time, getting all emotional like me, then this really was something that was much easier to do and, you know, you probably hear it If you talk about it, but it's like you put the odds in your favor. So it's a little bit, I think it's more conservative. But it's a lot more passive in the sense where I don't have to be in front of the screen all the time, I'll put a trade on, and then just check it and make sure it's okay. And that Theta decay just works in my favor. So the time decay, meaning the options go down in value, you know, every day as they should. And then eventually they expire. And when they expire, then the trade is over. Kyle: So what kind of time frame are usually looking at when you're selling your contracts? Allen: Well, I'm in different strategies now. But usually, I'm going around 45 days to about 25 days. Kyle: You basically just rolling monthly, the monthly. Allen: Yep. So I'll stay in two months. And then if I get out, then I'll be like, okay, good down. Let me look at next month, sometimes I get out early, and I'll take, you know, take a week or two off, I'm not doing anything. And then, but most of the time, yeah, it's you know, you're getting out of one and then you're getting into the next one. Kyle: Are you just doing these cover calls? Are you doing spreads? Or what are you doing to cap your, your, your losses, because we selling options? Contracts can be really dangerous.. Allen: Mm hmm. So we do a little bit of all of them. You know, I've been doing it now for 15 years. So I started with the iron condor, because that that, Oh, my God, this is awesome. You know, you can make money on both sides, and the stock doesn't move too much. And it's a trade that can't lose. Obviously, I found out that yeah, you can lose. But I mean, it's probably the most complicated trade you can start with. And that's the one I did and then I got, you know, I got good at it. And then I did look at covered calls, we did that for a while still do them now in my. So let me break it down, in my retirement accounts, I do covered calls, naked puts, and some spreads. And the spreads are really there to just goose the returns. Because in those I'm looking for about 10% a month, the covered calls naked puts, I'm looking for one to 3% in the retirement accounts. And then in my trading account, I do spreads iron condors. And then I also do a little bit of futures options. So those are a bit more, they got a lot more oomph to them, because there's more leverage involved. And so they're faster. They're very, they're much faster trade. So I'm in and out, usually around two weeks, about 14 trading days. Kyle: Before we get too deep into here, maybe we should kind of talk, can you explain, let's start with an iron condor. And maybe just real quick recap of what a spread is. Allen: Sure. So a spread and the way I trade them is I want to be selling the spread. And so it is something that where you take an option that is far out of the money, you sell that one, and then you buy another one a little bit further out of the money to hedge yourself. So it's a risk defined trade, meaning you know, exactly "Okay, I'm gonna put in, you know, $500 into this trade, or 1000, or 5000", or whatever you put, that's the most you can lose. And then you get a credit for doing it, meaning you get paid when you put the trade on. That credit is the most you can make. So now on the spreads that I do. So for example, let's say we have a stock that just going up and up and up and up. Right now, I like to play the trend, I like to play momentum. And so if it's going up and up and up, I'm going to sell calls. So I'll sell a call spread, I'll get paid for that. As long as the stock doesn't go below my calls, my trade makes money. And on those types of trades, I'm looking for about 10%, like I said, on a monthly basis. My iron condor would be doing that trade with puts and calls on the same stock at the same time. So you want, in that situation, you kind of want something that's going sideways, you want a stock or an index or something that's, you know, it's not moving too much. It's kind of lazy moving sideways, and so you sell some puts below it, and some calls above it. And so that way, you get paid for both you get paid for the calls, and you get paid for the puts. But you don't have to, you're not risking both sides, because you can only lose on one side. You know, so you have the same amount of risk as if you just did a one sided spread, but you get double the credit so you make twice as much money. Kyle: Right. Oh, I was found that the more complicated things get the worse I do at them. We'll have some links in the episode description explaining those a little bit better to anybody.  Dan: Yeah, I'll need to follow those. Yeah. Kyle: So you're looking to generate about 10%. 10% A month or return on your investment then? Allen: Yep, that's it. Yep, that's it go. I mean, you don't always get there, right? You're going to have months where you make less, there's going to be months when you lose money. So if I aim for 10, you know, I can think hey, you know, if I get five for the month, I'm happy. You know, that's 60% a year. That's that's pretty good. Yeah. So I cannot complain. There have been there have been years when I've done over 100% And then there'll be two years when I've lost money. So, but overall for the past 15 years. It's been working really, really well for me, so you know. Kyle: Yeah, it sounds like you're Your path kind of took the same path that mine actually took, like, that was what led me to quit my job is thinking like, I could sell contracts because you know, 80% of them or whatever, expire worthless, rather be on the side that has the math with it. And I'll just, I'll just basically trade the wheel and sell puts, you know, until I get the stock and then calls against it until they get taken away. Success has been mixed so far, but still not working. So. Oh, really? Well, we could talk about that. Well, it sounds like I need to read your book is what it really sounds like. Allen: Yeah, I mean, you know, right now, we're in a bull market. And so the puts that we've been doing the selling the puts, I mean, it's been, it's been working phenomenally, um, covered calls are doing well, as well, because we go pretty far out of the money. So like, you know, it's not always 80%, sometimes I'll go 85, 90 95%, depending on what I want to do. So in my retirement accounts, I don't want to lose my stock. And so I'll sell pretty far out of the money. So I'm not making as much on those. But I don't want to lose my stock. And I'm just looking for a little bit, you know, I'm looking for, you know, 1%, one and a half percent, maybe a month, and I'm happy with that. And so the naked eye, you know, it's also stock selection. And I think that's one of the issues that a lot of people get mistaken. People say that, "Oh, when you're selling options, you should be looking at the ones that are the most volatile names, because they have the most premium, and you get paid the most". To me, I think that's like a suicide mission. And, and I just want to be the, I just want to save ones that are boring, that are you know, everybody ignores them. You know, I like the small, the large, very large companies, they pay dividends, they don't move very much. Those are the ones I just want to cash flow, you know, I just want to be selling naked puts on them, they're not gonna drop 10%. If they do, it's like, it's like the, oh, my God, this thing dropped 10%. You know, that's good news. So I want to sell those, and I want to keep them and collect the dividends and then just get my cost basis down as far as I can get. Dan: Do you have a favorite company then that you find yourself going back to more than others? Allen: I like stuff like McDonald's, Walmart, Starbucks, you know, big names. Everybody's known them there around the world, they have dividends so you know, that they're if they're paying the dividend, they're still profitable. They're making money. You know, Apple is kind of joining that list, although Apple is still a little bit more volatile than the others. But yeah, stuff like that, you know, basic big name, dao components, most of them, one of them that I really liked, that hasn't has been doing really well over the past few years is Intuitive Surgical. It's is ISRG so it doesn't pay dividends. And it's not good. It doesn't have a lot of option volume, but for credit for covered calls, and naked puts it's good enough. And that stock has been doing really, really well for me for the last few years. So that's a particular name. Kyle: So yeah, some of these are pretty expensive, though. I mean, yeah, you gotta be real careful, you don't get stuck with a couple 100 shares, if you don't have the account to cover that. Allen: Yeah. So in that case, you know, what we can also do is you can always roll them. So if I get into a position where I'm sold a naked put and it goes into the money like I've done this with right now, my kid loves Roblox. I don't know if you have kids, but my kids are always on that game. And I was when it came out. I was like, Oh, this is cool, you know. So I sold some naked puts on it. And now they're in the money, and they've been in the money for like three months. So what I do is I just roll them to the next month. So about maybe a week or so before expiration, I will buy back the put the naked put and then sell it again for the next month, collect a little bit more premium, and then the trade just continues. Kyle: Hmm, that's interesting. Yeah. Wow, I didn't even think about doing that. That's awesome. Okay, so roll it over. I'm making notes for myself.  Allen: Now, these are on stocks that you actually think are eventually going to go back up, you know, if it's still going down, down, down, then you're like, No, you need to bail out and be like, yeah. But if it's a decent company with decent, you know, fundamentals, and you know, they're making money and all that stuff, then yeah, Kyle: I've always gravitated towards the cheaper stocks when trying to sell contracts, just because at least if I'm selling, and they could put on something that's only valued at like, $15, then I know I can't lose more than $15 a share. Allen: Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, like, my thinking is that I want to be in a company that I know is not going to zero, so I don't have to worry about it. Kyle: I mean, Ford for a while is trading around 15. It's at 18. Now, but yeah, I know for some solid companies that are in that range, right? There's a lot of other ones that aren't though. Allen: Like if it was a $200 stock, and now it's at 15 There's another issue going on there. Dan: Hertz is coming back. Good PR story. Damn it. Kyle: I'm gonna go back to losing $40,000 of your wife's money. So what were you doing that got you like we tried to day trade options were you.. Allen: I was doing a little bit everything I was day trading stocks, I was buying options. I was buying and selling like I was doing some value investing for a little bit. I'll be watching Kramer every night and looking at what's Kramer telling me to do. Okay, I'm gonna do this and that I would watch fast money every day and look for any anything that sold this is going up okay, hey, copper is going up. Let me buy some you know, SPX. Let me buy some of this. So trying to play the trend is trying to play all that stuff. I looked at futures, you know, trading futures a little bit, but that's,  that takes a lot of money. Kyle: There's no it actually takes less than you think. Really? $4,000 you can fund and account. Allen: Yeah, but then I mean, like you got Japanese. Japanese yen that takes that's a lot of money for a contracts. Dan: Okay, Yen is in micros now. Allen: Yeah, at that time, they didn't. They didn't I don't think they had those. Kyle: Probably. Yeah, I think minis were kind of new thing. Yeah. Allen: But yes, I was trying a little bit everything, whatever I could, whatever book I could find whatever video I could find. Just trying a little bit everything in nothing, nothing really worked for me. Kyle: So what was it that actually got you out of that? That, I guess Funk You can call it. Allen: So until for several months, my wife did not know that I was losing all the money. You know, she'd come home. And she actually, I mean bless her heart, she took a second job. So she's working two jobs while I'm at home trading. And, and we didn't have any kids at the time. So that was good. But you know, she she'd come home tired, and she wouldn't really want to talk about it. Because sometimes I'd be happy sometimes I'd be sad. She really couldn't tell what was going on. And then one day, she checked the mail and the account statement had come in the mail. And she's like, where's all the money?    Dan: Oh, no.    Allen: And I was like, Yeah, we need to talk about that. And then I feel, you know, I could tell that, you know, the marriage was on the ropes because we were newly married, and she had saved up for years working to save up this money. And so it was really a matter of, you know, I promise you that I will give me three months. That's what it boiled down to. So give me three months, I promise you, I will at least get back to breakeven or like, you know, not lose money every month, and then I'll start making it back. And if I don't, I'll get a job. So that was it. That was my ultimatum, I had three months to turn it around, or go back to, you know, the 9 to 5 grind.   Kyle: So I gotta ask you, one of the things that took us a while to learn was basically the number one job of being a trader is risk management. So what point during that journey did that finally kick it in your head? Risk is the most important thing. So you don't end up blowing up an account like that. Allen: It didn't really hit me for a long time, even after I started getting a little bit consistent. Really? Yeah. Kyle: That's interesting. Allen: You know, I kept going gung ho blazes forward until maybe like a year, year and a half. of really, you know, trading full time. The one thing the benefits of the selling options is that they're not that many losses, you know, you don't lose on too many trades, because it's set up to to help you win. And so that kind of helped me, but I would, I would have these huge losses, like if I'm making 10% on a trade, the idea was not to lose more than 25 to 30%. But I would be losing, you know, 40% 50% 60%. And I just couldn't get out of that hole. And I'll tell you, I'll tell you the secret. What turned it around. It was my wife, yeah. So she's like, cuz I was talking to her at this point. I'm like, Hey, this is working. This is not working. I'm doing this. I'm doing that. She goes, You know, it seems like you have everything you need. You're just not sticking to your own trading plan. Right? Yeah. Cuz I get emotional. You know, I think he's gonna turn around. I think he's gonna do this. But then, you know, CNBC said this, and then fox said this, and so she's like, oh, let's do this. She goes, I'm gonna come and check on you every day at a certain time and we're gonna go through each trade. And I'm gonna ask you questions, and then you have to answer. I'm like, Okay, let's do it. So she would come up, you know, she'd come upstairs to the office. And she'd be like, Alright, show me your trade. Alright, what's the goal? How much are you trying to make? Alright, where's it now? What's the trading plan? What happens if it goes down? You know, when are you going to adjust it? Or when are you going to get out? And then if I haven't gotten out yet, or if I haven't adjusted, then I have to answer why. Why? Yeah. And if I don't have a good answer, get out now. Allen: That's, that's really awesome, actually. So you just delegated your risk manager hat to your wife. Allen: Pretty much. And then, you know, there were times where I didn't want to have her breathing down my neck anymore. And so that's when I got better at it myself. And then, you know, after a while, she was like, Hey, I think you got it. You don't need me anymore.   Kyle: I know you say that you think that you're blessed to be to be able to do a dream job of earning money in the stock market and working in your PJs, but I think you I think you hit the lottery twice. It sounds like you really married a great woman. Allen: Oh, yes, I did. I did. And she hates me. He's telling this story about how I lost her money, she hates. She's like, you sound like such an idiot like a dumbass.  Allen: Yep. I think we all go through it. We all do it. Dan: Nobody just started out and just like, oh, every trade I've made. It's been great. What's your problem? Kyle: No, most people will blow up an account too. And that's why the things that we've been learning is, Dan and I are both trying to learn futures. So we're going through some courses with the trade pro Academy. I think we're I think Dan just flipped the live today, in week four now. But one of the main things with that is like, Okay, we fund the minimum amount we need in that account in case something goes wrong. You know, the most we can lose is whatever's in that account. Yeah, we're not going to fund it with you know, the life savings and then give ourselves you know a hundred thousand dollars  a full wrap with,   Allen: Yeah but the cool thing is, you know, you guys have each other to bounce ideas off to talk to, you know, a lot of people try to do it on their own. And they're just like, I did you know, I was lonely. I was doing, I couldn't figure out what was wrong. It didn't have anybody to talk to. Because I mean, you tried to talk to your neighbor, or your friends or your family like, oh, yeah, hey, I sold a, you know, a call spread. And they're like, "What? What the hell are you talking about?" I couldn't talk to anybody, so it's awesome that you guys have somebody. Kyle: Well, actually, I think the podcast for us is actually but what's taking the role of the wife explaining the moves? I mean, at the end of every episode, we do a good, bad and ugly segment where we talk about something that worked something that didn't work and something that was really bad. Allen: Yeah that's accountability. Right there. You got to tell the world. Kyle: So now, yeah, when you're getting ready to do something stupid, you're like, how do I really want to talk about this on Saturday? Okay, I'm looking at their your, your, your sheet here that you said this. And one of the things that I see on here that's really interesting is that you made a small investment for your four year old. Yep. What's the deal with that? Allen: Alright, so the biggest thing that I've been learning by talking to people and everything is that people are not people don't have enough saved for retirement. You know, that's like the one biggest thing and people come to us, and they're like, Hey, I, you know, I'm in my 50s, I just got laid off, you know, what am I gonna do? I don't know what to do. I got to figure out how to trade. I'm like, well, you're under a lot of pressure. I don't know if this is the right time, right. And so I didn't want my kids stuff to go through that. So currently, my wife has another business. Mm hmm. And so what we did was, we have three kids, we got a 10 year old nine year old and now she's five. So the little one is five. At that time, she was four, when we started this actually know when she was born is when we started this. So we took the kids, and we found a way for them to earn some money. And basically, we did it as we were their models. So they model and we take pictures of them for advertising, for our website, the brochures for my wife's business. And so the kids get paid for it. And that money then goes into their Roth IRA. Okay, so that they have no, there's no taxes, there's no income taxes on that money that they that they make, right? Because they're minors, and there's a certain limit, so I'm not an accountant. So don't, you know, none of us are, I don't think but when we started, you know, the rule was you can make up to 12,000 As a child, and it would not be taxed. And then you know, who knows what if that's going to change anytime soon, but we could pay them take that money, put 6000 into the Roth IRA. Now, you know, She's five years old. So we've been doing that for a few years. And currently, she has about $50,000 in her account. Now, you, you can look at, you know, you can do the math on any investment calculator. She's five years old, she's gonna retire in 60 years. So you take that 50,000 invested in let's say, an index fund, and you make 8% a year. Right? Compounded for 60 years. How much is she going to have at the end of that? 60 years? It's going to be well over $2 million. Right? That's if I don't put any more money into it. Yep. If she never touches it, she doesn't put anything else. You know, she's gonna have a $2 million retirements on when she when she's done. And, and that's without me doing any of my options stuff or, you know, doing anything.  Dan: There I say better than a college account fund. Allen: Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I mean, part of it is, you know, the money, she's gonna when she takes it out, she, when she retires, she won't have to pay any taxes on it. So we made the money, we didn't pay any taxes on it, she's gonna grow the money and not have to pay any taxes on and then she takes it out and there's so there's like no tax at all. It's like the only loophole I've seen like this.   Kyle: We might need to bleep some of that out just in case. That's interesting. We saw a story not too long ago about a senator proposing a bill to like, and I don't think there's any traction on the actual bill. But what was interesting was the math behind it. He said that I think it was about $2,200 for every newborn, put into an account for him, like that will basically make them retire as millionaires.  Allen: Yeah. I mean, if you start early enough, and you put it away, and you don't touch it, it just compounds and it works. And hopefully, it'll be at the same, you know, average at least 7 - 8% a year that the stock markets been doing historically. So you know, of course, things change in the future. We don't know. But I'm trying to just set these kids up in a way that can help them succeed, you know, and if you if you think about it, like if she doesn't have to worry about saving for retirement, then whatever she makes, she could like, enjoy it. She could give back to our community. She can you know, spend it do it everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. Dan: Take care of you hopefully.. Kyle: That's smart. Allen: Yeah, that's the plan. Yes, that's my retirement. Kyle: Tell us a little bit about your company Option Genius. What do you guys do over there? Allen: So it started off as so when you sell options, you know, it's kind of boring. It's very, like I said, it's passive. It takes just a few minutes to put on a few trades, and then just watch him watch and watch. And so when I started doing it, I got bored. And so I would go and I would bother my wife. Hey, what you doing? What do you do? Oh, you're cooking that again? Oh, no. She's like, can you just get out of my hair? And I'm like, Well, no, cuz I don't have anything else to do. She goes, Why don't you like, teach other people how to do what you're doing? Oh, that's a good idea. So I started a website. And the idea was, you know, I'm gonna have one website, and I'll just do my trades, and I'll share them with other people. It'll be a membership site, they'll pay me for it. If they want to do the trades, great. If they want to learn, that's great, whatever. And, you know, hands off kind of thing that started doing really well it started growing and people start asking questions. How do you do this? How do you do? What about this strategy? What about this strategy, and it just grew from one website to many of them three. Now we have three different memberships, we got like three different courses and coaching programs, we got a couple of books out there to spread the word. And eventually, I got to the point where you know what, the emails that we would get from people would be so heartbreaking, that it's like, there's this better way that I think are found, and people don't know about it. Let me, let me expose let me share the message. And so that's really behind what Option Genius is. I mean, you know, not to brag, but you know, I'm trading a seven figure account. And so if I can make, you know, two or 3% on that in a month, I'm living a really, really nice lifestyle. You know, I don't, I don't have a private plane, I don't have a Lambo. I don't need any of that stuff. So we're really doing well. And so this is like, if it works great. If we can help other people great. If not, I can walk away. I don't need it. But we've we've been doing it for a while. And we've really, it's heart warming. When somebody comes in, oh, man, I just did my first trade. And I made 10% Oh, man. And we have we have our own podcast. And I've started to interview our students. And so they come on board. And they're like, you know, I had a small account, but we got one guy. He, we gave him a scholarship. Like every year, we have a scholarship to one of our courses. So he actually won the scholarship. And he's like, you know, I have a small account. It's like $4,000. And he's a teacher. And he does now what you were talking about the wheel. So he learned that from us, and he's doing it. And he's like, hey, you know, I made 30% this year from my wheel. So that goes awesome. Yeah. There's other guys. They're making, like 7, 8% 10%. We had one guy who came in, he lost his job. And then he's like, Hey, I'm in your program. What do I do? I'm like, do the follow up program. You paid for it. He started doing it, you know? And seven months later, he's like, Yeah, dude, I'm making 10 grand a month. I'm like, That's freaking awesome. And he goes, You know what he told me? He goes, I'm going back to work. I'm like, what? He goes, because it doesn't take any time. And I want to go back to work. Whatever floats your boat. Kyle: Learn a different skill. I mean, I guess that's what you want to do. I guess. It's funny though. The more people that we talk to, especially the ones that are really successful, that seems like they all want to give back somehow to the community. Allen: Mm hmm. Kyle: That seems to be a common theme and I don't really think see that in a lot of other industries. Allen: No. I mean, there's only so much money you can make, and it doesn't really make you that much happier anymore. But when you can like to have, you know, the Maslow's hierarchy with a triangle going up to be like self actualized you gotta have significance you got to give back. Mm, Dan: Yeah that's awesome. Oh, boy. Awesome. Okay. Allen: But I mean, you guys are doing that, you know, the podcast, and you guys are helping  Dan: We hope Kyle: Mostly they're learning what not to do. Allen: There's value in that as well. Kyle: Yeah, I think that was our tagline once "Let us lose the money for you". Dan: Oh, yeah, yeah, I've proven myself capable of that time and time again. Mm Kyle: hmm. All right, what else we got on here? And Dan got any other questions here? Dan: Yeah, so when you're starting out some people I mean, I know you mentioned you get somebody started as low as four grand Do you do you give people like a target, like try and get this much money together to start the ball rolling, or you just.. Allen: Um, you know, we say, we say, if you're going to do what we call passive trading, they can start with anything. But if you're going to go into something like just spreads or like futures options, and we say, start with about 10,000. But even then, you want to start off with paper trading, especially if you've never traded options before, because you need to, you need to know what buttons to push and you know, you don't want to hit the wrong button. Instead of the sale, you hit the buy. And it goes backwards. And you got to know what you're doing on the platform, the software, the broker software, before you start putting real money at risk. Dan: Yeah. Kyle: Is there a specific broker that you prefer? Allen: I have most of my money at Thinkorswim and tasty, but it doesn't really matter. Kyle: We've been getting more into Thinkorswim too. Yeah like their their bracket order than other options bracket. It took us a year to figure out the Active Trader even know it existed. But man that made a huge difference. Huge. Oh, you can just drag your stops. Dan: But that's more day trading options. Well, yeah. Well, we talked a little bit real quick, do you ever use the the ThinkOrSwim probabilities when you're looking at selling your options? Allen: Um, so we have a couple of different ways. I use the the desktop Thinkorswim Yeah. And so like, uh, you know, if you're looking at an option, right, you look at the option chain, and it tells you what the delta is, you can pretty quickly find out what is the probability of that option. So if it's delta 20, that means okay, this still this option has an 80% chance of probability of expiring worthless. If it's delta 10. It's got a 90% probability of expiring worthless. So that's kind of like rule of thumb, really quick table math, you know, where you could be like, Okay, I want to do this, or I'll look at the Analyze tab. You know, if it's a more complicated trade, then I'll look at the Analyze tab, and I'll use the numbers that they give me there. Dan: Okay. Okay. I remember that for a little bit with straddles and strangles. But I didn't have much success. Kyle: I think I heard that before with the Delta, but I never I pay attention to it more, because that's tell you how much the underlying will move, right? Like for every dollar that the  underlying moves, then you should see a 30 cent change if it's a 30 Delta, or 20 cent if it's 20. Allen: Yep. But I mean, I don't know how accurate that is, because it always changes all the time. So.. Kyle: Yes, that's true. Allen: It's like I thought it was gonna move 30 cents. Well, your Vega did this and the gamma did that. So. Okay, great. Thanks. Kyle: Plus, now the delta is different. Yeah. We started talking a little bit about crypto. Dan, should we move into move into that? Dan: I would love to talk about it, especially coming from somebody who educated their way into Options success. Do you have anything going with crypto? Allen: So I have been taking advantage of a couple times. We could talk about that. So I'm learning about currently a friend of mine introduced me to I guess they're called alt coins. You know, so I do have some of the big ones, you know, the Bitcoin, the Etherium whatnot. And those I've just holding on to so and then I just started because I have a lot of it. I have it at Coinbase. And so I've put up my Etherium for it was called staking or stocking. Kyle: Staking Allen: Oh, yes. Staking. Yeah, so they hold it on, they hold it for you and they pay you four and a half percent a year. So I'm like, Okay, I'm not gonna sell anyway, I might as well make some most of it. And I think, you know, it's been going up and up. So hopefully by the time I actually want to take it out, it's appreciated. And I will It'll made that four and a half percent, which is pretty good. And so I'm doing that. And then I'm starting to get into these alt coins and trying to figure out which ones are actually going to make it big. And which ones are scams and about, I guess 99% of them are scams. And like so my friends been showing me like, hey, you know, you can tell how much money was used to create this coin, and then are they allowed, are you allowed to sell coins? Or you're not allowed to sell coins? Or you know, what are the different little red flags that go hey, this coin is a scam this coin is a scam this coin maybe not be a scam. You know? And so you know, you put your money in and then if it goes up a little bit, you take your money out, and then you'll play with the house money and then you let it right kind of thing. Kyle: Yeah. So which coins have you found that piqued your interest then? Allen: So the one that I'm getting into right now, I haven't got like I'm pretty new at this. So I'm still learning and looking around. The one that I have found that has a good chance of success right now is called Floki. Kyle: Floki. Like the Norse god. Allen: Uh huh. Yeah Kyle: The trickster god. Allen: Yeah. Floki dot INU Floki.INU. And so his symbol is a dog with the viking helmet.  Okay. So it's it's one of the meme coins, but they're doing a ton of advertising. They're coming out with some actual use for the coin soon. You know, so that one has already gone up in value a lot. And there's probably a lot more to go in my opinion. So that's one that I'm going into. Kyle: What's one that you're that you found some red flags on them? Allen: There's been a bunch. The names I don't know off the top my head but there was one. Oh, it's like world peace earth or something like that. You know, there's like, so there's so many of them. There's like, they call them weird names. Whatever's trending at the moment like just endgame coin and Avengers coin. Dan: Oh, I just read a story that the squid game coin is apparently the creators fleeced everybody. What? Kyle: What, what's your thoughts on hamster coins? Jack Dorsey's favorite. He thinks that's gonna overtake Etherium. Allen: Oh, really? I haven't heard of that one. Dan: Nobody has. Kyle: Nobody has, I know. Dan: Don't listen to Jack Dorsey. That's all I have to say. Allen: I mean, you know, it's so it's, it's like the Wild West is full of gambling. And you know, the guy that teached me about it. He's like, Yeah, you know, we probably have maybe another year or two years before this all this stuff gets regulated. And all these alt coins are just gone.  Kyle: It's kind of started already to Yeah, Mm hmm. I think didn't I see something about the SEC getting authority over was stable coins, stable coins just issued today. Allen: Oh, that's today. Okay. Dan: Biden said if you don't do it, we'll issue an executive order to make it happen? So it's on the way? Yeah, it's happening. They're there. They're the beginnings of regulation. Or I should say not like, we won't get there for a bit.  Allen: So because I mean, we think that, you know, the people behind these coins are like, really sophisticated and smart developers, and they spent all this time and effort, you know, creating a coin. It costs like $1 to make a coin. Kyle: Yeah. Dan and I were actually looking at making our own. Yeah, the two bowls going. Allen: You know, so it's like, yeah, it doesn't take a lot. And it's pretty simple. And people, they're, like, new coins come out every like five minutes. There's a new board. And so it's like, geez, yeah, you're Kyle: Constantly fighting that delusion.  Allen: Mm hmm. So it's interesting. It's something that is, you know, I'm playing with it. But it's money that I can afford to lose. And the bread and butter is still, you know, stock market options trading. Kyle: That's why I was gonna ask you what I mean, because now that you have a real risk manager side to you, like, what's your, how do you limit your risk then onto that? I'm assuming you do it based on like, a small percentage of your portfolio or like this is probably just play around money, right, especially when you're learning? Allen: Yeah. Yeah. So um, you know, I bought 30 grand of Ethereum. And that's is what I'm about to put at risk and all this stuff. So, but some of these coins like they're brand new, right? So they're little, and they can go up 500, 800, 10000% and then they will back down. Yeah. You can have a really big move. And some of the people that I know, they've this year, this past year, and this is why I got into it, because they took like really small amounts, and they've made you know, they have a million dollars or $5 million, or $3 million worth of cryptocurrencies. And I was like, why aren't you selling, you know, yeah. And then they go off and they're like, Well, you know, it's gonna go up more and you know, I gotta pay taxes. I don't want to pay 50 2% taxes or more moved to Puerto Rico and so they have all their reasons for.. Dan: Transfer for a more stable one. Allen: Mm hmm. Kyle: Dan just had this same conversation with a couple of his friends. Dan: Yeah, yeah, mate. Yeah. Kyle: 50% on the latest dip on Bitcoin and then refuses to sell any Kyle: It's 10% Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. That's like like you're saying like, take your money out. Let let it be house money. Yeah, exactly. Not getting risk on anything come on.  Kyle: And then you got money to reload because it drops again. Yes, I want to have some ammo laying around the to jump into something when the opportunity strikes Allen: Yep. Now I think you guys are you guys are traders you know you guys are watching the markets, you guys are there in the front of the screen, I'm not that much into it, you know, I'll keep my screen open but I'm not checking all the time. And so for me that's a little bit harder. And so, you know, I for my bitcoin and Etherium or whatever I'm not, I'm not selling, you know, even if it dips or goes up, I'm not selling I know I'm gonna hold it for another maybe 10-15 years. So hopefully it keeps going up, but we'll see how it goes. But for now the idea was, hey, just buy it, hold it. And if it keeps going up maybe you add a little bit here and there. So I've been doing that.  Dan: No,but yeah, that's your plan. It's a long term plan. You're not trying to strike it rich the people that are buying into these things trying to strike it rich and then refusing to ever sell. Allen: Oh, that's silly. Yeah Dan: Yes. Like you gotta get paid some point Allen: There was one guy on the had an article where he became a Dodge coin millionaire and he's like, I'm not selling like.. Dan: Oh, no, not a millionaire anymore. Allen: What's the point? Dan: You never were a millionaire, coz you never sold. Kyle: Exactly. Have you come across anything? I guess staking is kind of similar to derivatives. But like, If there comes a time where you can sell calls on your Bitcoin you can do something like that.  Allen: So yeah, so they just came out with, is it bati? I forget the name of it.  Dang it. The the first ETF Bitcoin ETF just came out. Dan: That's Yes, that's right. Um, that was a futures based one too, though, isn't it? Allen: Bitl. There we go. So, that's tradable. And that that has options. So, you know, right now it's at $39. I don't know if that's cheap enough for your wheel. But.. Dan: I think what cuz that's if that's based around a futures contract, it's going to be constantly losing money too overtime, right? Allen: Probably. Dan: Won't you get like double decay if you. So decay of the futures contract. And every time, Allen: Yeah every time they roll it forward a month they lose, right? Because I have all the fees and stuff to pay. So that is something.. Dan: That might be a really good one to sell Options. Allen: Yep. So I mean, I, you know, I've sold some calls on it, because I was like, Okay, if bitcoin goes up, and they're saying, you know, bitcoins gonna be 100,000 by the end of the year, I was like, Okay, I'll sell some calls on it. And or no, sorry, I'll buy some calls. I bought some calls. This is one of the few ones where I'm actually buying calls. Now that trade is still negative. But you know, it's a bet, you know, it's a bet. If it goes up, great. Dan: Yeah, just manage that risk. Allen: Mm hmm. Dan: So let's wrap things up with I want to ask you some questions about just some of the most common mistakes that you see from your students, or just the biggest struggles that they have and how they had to overcome those. Okay, yeah. So if you're going to give us like, just the top couple pitches, see? Allen: Okay, so first off, I would say is that they try to do too much too soon. And so one of the things that I always stress is, Hey, pick one strategy that fits who you are. And just focus on that one strategy, get really good at it, hammer it, do back testing, or get some back testing software, pay for it if you have to, and just do trade after trade after trade after trade until you understand it, until it's like, you know, second nature to you and you're consistently profitable. Only at that time, should you then venture off and say okay, let me add another strategy. Right. So that's the that's the first thing that I tell everybody a second thing is not all strategies are for every person. Mm hmm. Like for me if you told me Hey, you know, I'm gonna put a gun to your head and you have to be be profitable at futures trading, or be like well, you know, goodbye Allen: You know, tell my wife I love here. you know, telling her that life insurance is very well Allen: So it's not for me, you know, my temperament my style, the way I I am the risk temper the the risk appetite that I have is different than everybody else. And so you got to figure out what strategy and there's 1000 strategies and there's every every strategy out there you can make money there are people out there making money with futures day trading and, and Options on futures and, you know, pairs trading and whatever you can think of people are doing it, some of them making money, most are not, but if you find the thing that fits you and you're like, you know what, this this really, really makes sense to me, I really get this, then that's the one that you should focus on. Most people are just like, Oh, hey, you know, I found my friend is doing this or I can make a lot of money doing this or I saw an advertisement, I saw an email, and then they run into it, and then they get blown out of the water. Dan: We actually just had a discussion on that not too long ago, Dan, about, you know, when you try to copy somebody else's strategy, it's not your own, you don't have time and effort that you've got put into learning it, you're not passionate about it. So what you're saying makes a whole lot of sense. Like, yeah, you need to find the thing that speaks to you.  Allen: Mm hmm. And I guess, if I give you one more, it'll be that time goes by a lot faster than we realize, hmm. And so if there are people out there that have already paved the way, and you know, for a fact that they're doing well, then just do what they're doing, you know, or at least learn from them. Yeah, learn from, you know, if you can hire them, hire them, and just see what they're doing, learn, watch their strategies, and just do what they're doing. And hopefully it should work, right. And then you can tweak it once you do what they're doing. And once you're getting good results, then you can start tweaking it and be like, okay, you know, I'm gonna make it a little bit more conservative, a little more aggressive, a little bit this little bit that, but follow the plan first, you know, make it work, and then you add your own twist to it. We have so many people that come in, they're like, you know, I've been following you or I've been listening to you for two years. Okay, how many trades have you done? Well, not really. You know, I've been trying to do it on my own and watching free YouTube videos, like, Okay, well, you only get so far watching free Youtube videos, because you don't number one, you don't know how legit they're right? That's one thing. Anybody can like I say that, you know, any idiot can make a YouTube video. Allen: It used to be hard to write a book, you know, you have to go to a publisher get published and have references and all that stuff nowadays. Man, you put up a PDF on Amazon, it takes like a weekend. So don't be like, Oh, I'm an author. Okay, great. You know, everybody's an author. No. So it's really you got to be really careful of what you listen to. Kyle: Speaking of which, where can they find your book? PassiveTrading.com. Yeah, that's PassiveTrading.com. It's a free book, you know, just pay for the shipping, and we'll ship you out a printed copy of it. Dan: So PassiveTrading.com, we'll link in the description for that. Yeah. Is there anything else that you want to share with the listeners before we sign off here? Allen: No. I mean, it's been a lot of fun. You know, you guys, you guys are awesome. And I love it that you guys are honest. And you share the wins and the losses. Most of the time, you only see oh, I made 1,000,000% Oh, I made 20%. You don't see the losses, you don't see the the nitty gritty behind the scenes stuff. And you guys are showing that. So that's I love that part.  Dan: Well it's the same thing with gamblers too, right? You talk to a guy who goes to the casino and says, Oh, I won $300 last night. Oh, how much did you lose the night before? Yeah. Allen: Um, but yeah, I mean, if people are interested in Options, it's a great, it's a great way to add some passive money, you know? And if that's, if that fits, you know, it doesn't fit for everybody. Like some people, they come in and, and they're like, Yeah, I'm trying to do this, but I'm, I'm doing this and do that. I'm like, Dude, you're too aggressive. You know, if you want to be trading every day or every other day, then this is not for you. You know, find something you can do this part time, and then do with the rest of your time. Play something that fits your style more, but that's really important. You know, find your style, and then it'll just it just a whole lot easier. It's just which is way easier. Dan: What else can they, so we find your OptionGenius.com. You've also got your podcast. Allen: Yep. It's called the Option Genius Podcast. Kyle: Oh, hey. Allen: Yeah, we got really creative with our very own brains. Dan: All right, perfect. Yeah, we'll make sure we link all that stuff. Right. So if anybody wants to find out more they can check it out the description. Kyle: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for joining us Allen, this has been a great conversation all of your your knowledge and experience has been a good time to listen to. We really appreciate you coming by the shop and talking with us today. Dan: Yeah, the hardships too, because I feel like you learn more from those sometimes.  Allen: Mm, yeah. They hit on the head. You know, sometimes you got to do it over and over again. Eventually, they eventually they sink in. Kyle: Alright, well there you have it, folks. We'll have all of that fun stuff in the episode description all those links for you. Any parting word, Allen? Allen: Just you know, I I tell everybody you know, trade with the odds in your favor.  Dan: The odds be ever in your favor. Kyle: It's like in the movie? Kyle: All right. Well, I guess it's time to kick everybody out. You don't got to go home but you can't stay here. Until next time. Happy trades. Allen: Bye, guys.   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.

In today’s Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle sit down and discuss some very scientific (read: hard to understand) articles. First, they talk about one on Salvinorin A and its interactions with a different receptor than other psychedelics (kappa opioid receptors) and what that could mean, and a related article from Wired- a first-hand account of taking salvia as part of a brain-imaging study at Johns Hopkins University. The biggest takeaway from these can be summed up in researcher Manoj Doss's closing quote: "Not only does this tell me how little we understand psychedelics, it also tells me how little we understand how to study them.” They then review a recent double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study on LSD, which showed results we expect to see, but the full details haven't been released yet. This leads to a discussion about intergenerational trauma and researchers finding that children of Holocaust survivors often display more trauma-related behavior than their parents, commonality between people of Irish and German decent (due to shared traumatic histories), the idea of "group soul," how the lymphatic system works within the brain to remove toxins and how this and the blood-brain barrier can be affected by a concussion, and the effects caesarian sections have both on an individual person as well as in higher concentrations of people per country. Do countries with more C-sections produce more traumatized people? Lastly, they talk about how psychedelics opening up people's brains and thought processes could possibly lead toward more conspiratorial thinking, which leads to discussion about QAnon, Alan Moore, a crazy story about 9/11 from Kyle, and the very idea of truth: what is your personal criteria for something being true? What do any of us really know? And one last reminder- October 28th is the premiere of the new 15-week online course offering called An Introduction to Philosophy and Psychedelics with Lenny Gibson, so if you're considering taking it, now is the time to sign up! Notable Quotes “Do we always need to seek ego death to have profound healing in psychedelic experiences? Could it be more gentle at times?” -Kyle “There seems to be this trend in the scientific world to say, ‘ok cool, our data suggests that this model of the world and how things are working is true, therefore this model is true’ and kind of sticking to your guns on that, and I think because we finally have our tools back where we can examine the psyche after decades of prohibition, that maybe let’s not rush- like, let’s keep them hypotheses, and perhaps we can be more fluid when new hypotheses come out about the world and the mind and the brain and these things. Perhaps that’ll help us not necessarily have to live in a certain paradigm for a super long time and we can be a little bit more paradigm-fluid maybe, or model-agnostic, and just kind of shift around as new data comes to light.” -Joe “What’s truth and how do you know what is true? ….How can you validate that that is true? And what do you know to be true in your world? It’s a hard thing to really understand. When I think about it, I think the only true thing that I know is this present moment.” -Kyle “It’s interesting. How do we know more? How does knowledge work? Epistemology, metaphysics-  these are massive questions, and as much as I appreciate science, I feel like science could benefit a lot from being philosophy-aware. Like, what are we really doing? What kind of metaphysics and epistemology underlies our go-forward here? Is there data to suggest that mind and brain aren’t the same thing? Yes, there is, including [from] top neurologists like Karl Pribram and others. Mind does not equal brain. And how do we transcend that and go forward? I know this is not what the establishment wants us to be saying, if we want to talk about conspiracies. Just look at scientism vs. philosophy and the humanist traditions- really, quite a battle that’s been going on for a long time, probably since the time of Newton or before.” -Joe  Links The Physicist and the Philosopher: Einstein, Bergson, and the Debate that Changed Our Understanding of Time, by Jimena Canales Wired.com: This Is My Brain on Salvia Nature.com: The Acute Effects of the Atypical Dissociative Hallucinogen Salvinorin A on Functional Connectivity in the Human Brain Psychedelics Today: Does Salvia Divinorum Have Therapeutic Potential? By Michelle Janikian Nature.com: Acute dose-dependent effects of lysergic acid diethylamide in a double-blind placebo-controlled study in healthy subjects Psychedelicreview.com: Ketanserin info Statista.com: Cesarean sections - Statistics & Facts Different Doorway: Adventures of a Caesarean Born, by Jane B. English The Concussion Repair Manual : A Practical Guide to Recovering from Traumatic Brain Injuries, by Dan Engle Nih.gov: Brain cleaning system uses lymphatic vessels Resonancescience.org (Resonance Science Foundation) Nytimes.com: Cleve Backster: He talked to plants. And they talked back. Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In today’s Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle sit down and dissect 3 recent items in the news. First, they discuss a 2-year study on 18 older long-term AIDS survivors (OLTAS) with a high degree of demoralization and trauma, in which participants underwent 3 hours of individual psychotherapy, one 8 hour psilocybin session, and 12-15 hours of group therapy. While the study predictably showed improvement in demoralization after a 3-month follow-up, the bigger takeaway is the effectiveness of group therapy and the ability to replace hours of individual therapy, (in this case) cutting therapist time almost in half. With many people struggling to connect with facilitators but finding connection in groups, could group therapy work better to help with healing while also cutting costs? This brings up the concept of AI therapy and what improvements we could see by adding technology to this fairly established clinical model, both in cost and effectiveness. They next talk about Decriminalize Nature Oregon groups urging voters to vote "no" on the upcoming Oregon Psilocybin Service Measure 109 due to them finding the measure to be highly restrictive and essentially putting these plant medicines behind a paywall, making it even more difficult for those with race and income-based trauma to gain access. They wonder why DN is so opposed to what they see as progress- why not come at the problem from all angles and embrace legality alongside other initiatives, especially in a time when we are likely to see huge spikes in pandemic-related PTSD? This leads to a discussion of David Bronner of Dr. Bronner pulling funding from DN at a national level (but still supporting local initiatives) and the in-fighting that's seeming to happen everywhere with this battle. And that leads to money and the very common feeling that large donations usually come with ulterior motives. And how do you make sure they don't? Does taking money from someone to further your cause automatically make you a sell out? Or is there only a conflict if you have the contingency of the donor needing some sort of return on investment that affects the end goal? Notable Quotes “Let’s just keep experimenting and understanding what we lose when we get a little bit more technical, and perhaps also what we might gain. What would happen if you had your clients wearing a wearable, so you could review how their week actually was in data terms vs. self-reporting? That would be an interesting adjunct. And what happens when you do a full system thing with apps and the wearable being tied to that, to say, 'Alright, hey, you should go meditate for a little bit, [and] right now, because you are spiking' or 'Go do this bio-feedback thing for 5-10 and re-regulate and then go back to your day'?” -Joe “I think a lot of people that are just starting off, that are looking for some sort of mental health treatment- they’re probably going to want this medical model. Going to a group setting scares the shit out of them. They might not want to go to ayahuasca ceremonies or these spiritually-oriented, self-development groups with people. They might want that one-on-one, individual session, maybe to start off with, until they can build up a little bit of expertise and understand their own inner psyche, where they say, ‘Huh, maybe I can explore different models and different uses of context now.’ But I think that is something that is important to try to explore too- what do the people want that are outside of these inner circles that are more seasoned psychonauts- people that are trying to push for some of these changes and trying to say, ‘Hey, this is the model that we want’? Well, does everyone want that? Is that going to work for everybody?” -Kyle “There’s no real reason to think that laws stay forever. Laws are flexible. Laws are a pain in the butt. Laws are also amazing sometimes. So consider flexibility when thinking about laws and that citizens can change things. Perhaps we don’t get it right [on the] first try, but let’s get it right iteratively. This is the direction of right, in my mind- what OPS [Oregon Psilocybin Society] is doing.” -Joe Links Thelancet.com: Psilocybin-assisted group therapy for demoralized older long-term AIDS survivor men: An open-label safety and feasibility pilot study Decriminalize Nature's facebook post/press release on Oregon Psilocybin Service Measure 109 Ballotpedia.org: More info on Measure 109 Drbronner.com: Clarifying Our Support of the Decriminalize Nature Movement and Challenges With Its National Leadership Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics  

Do you ever wonder what happens when the police leave? Crime scene cleaners are private companies that handle to clean up after the police are gone. Spaulding Decon is one of the nation's largest cleanup companies handling the aftermath of homicides, suicides, decompositions, hoarding, and much more. These are our stories. So I'm getting ready to go in for the initial shock. I can smell biohazard pet waste and I can smell the ammonia from the cats. The walls are yellowing from the smoke- from smoking inside the building. This is a- this is just- there's a cat that just ran back that way. This is a huge case of depression. This isn't the worst. We've seen far worse. I don't have any gloves on right now, so I'm just trying to kick the doors open. There's animal waste everywhere. Everywhere, I'm not going to venture any further in right now cause I am not fully dressed up for this but I just kind of wanted to see what we were working with. I feel like I wish you guys had smell-o-vision so you could actually smell what we're smelling right now. It's actually burning my nose. I feel like my nose hairs are sizzling from the ammonia. We are at a hoarder's home here. We are starting in the garage and we have our big dumpster. I'm suited up because we are going to be going inside and its got a lot of animal waste and its probably knee-high with trash and stuff. So I've got this on here. I'll probably wear a respirator since the ammonia levels are decently high.She has 2 cats but she has 2 dogs as well, and they've never been let out. It's just really 8 years of accumulation. It breaks my heart because I have 2 dogs- 2 teacup Yorkies- and Laura said that the dogs that are here are identical to mine and mine are spoiled rotten. It's heartbreaking. We're an animal-loving company we all have animals it's gut-wrenching to me.Kyle: Just knowing like my dogs are inside Laura: YeahKyle: Fucking kills me Laura: But the hardest part is knowing she didn't do this on purpose Kyle: No, no this is a clear case of depressionLaura: It's hard. It's hard.Kyle: What?... That fucking thing was heavy Laura: Yeah fucking speed it up. Knees to the chest! Kyle: Knees to chest, bitch.Kyle and Laura: Knees to the chest! Laura: Let's do this!Kyle: Go ahead. Can you? 1..2..3Juan: This job is a little nasty but it's not so hard. It's an easy job. To do a hoarding... that's easy.Ben: You could tell she was really depressed. You could tell she was going through something.Kyle: I love total cleanouts because it makes life so much simpler not having to pick and choose. We only have a tiny list.Laura: Right, but also it like a huge transformation and biohazard remediation. I love the before and after Kyle: oh 100%. Instant satisfaction.Laura and Kyle: ♪ we are family leave♪ Kyle: No we're not. Don't even try.Kyle: There are 2 that are seen. I am waiting for the 3rd. I will cry if it's up my leg.Laura: Where did they go? Kyle: I don't know which is why I'm freaking out Laura: Oh, I thought you guys put them outside or somethingBen: No, they started going up the wall so I left them alone. Kyle: I swear to god. It's not a spider though I couldn't tell that from far away. Laura: What are these poor cats eating? Kyle: Leftovers on the floor. You have to look at the expiration on it. 2008?!? No!Kyle: They'll die. They're better off eating roaches. I want to give you an update on the hoarding situation here in Pasco County, Florida. We are probably 6 1/2 hours into the cleanup. There are 5 of us here. We have already dumped one large trailer of this size and now we almost have the second one completely full here. So this is 24 cubic yards of biohazard waste. It holds up to 2 1/2 to 3 tons right there. But we started off with the garage and we are using it as a staging area for very few keep items that she wanted to keep which was really just jewelry, purses, and pictures. So this room was pretty bad here. It was probably knee-high maybe a little higher. The kitchen had a ton of spiders and roaches. So it was challenging to get them all in garbage bags. So follow me. We found food from 2008 and I mean it was really old stuff you can see on the floor finally. There are still tons of spiders and tons of fast food and food packages. We're really going to end up throwing 99% of all her house away and she's gonna start fresh so this was probably stacked I would say about 4 ft high. Then this room, we're working on this now we couldn't even walk in here so at least now you can see some carpet and then we have all of this debris here so you know she's only keeping like this TVand stuff but take a look at the ceiling fan that is years of accumulation. You have tons of feces back here to the bed so it looks like they were using this room for their bathroom. You know, animals want to be clean but when you leave them alternatives, they don't really have anywhere else to go so. Now in this room you can see tons and tons of bags of cat food and we have a couple more hours here this project will take us probably two days to do a clean-out of five people and then two days to really deep clean it and get it you know we're all these spiderwebs and everything or on the ground, we're gonna pull this carpet up we're gonna pull the padding up and she is going to start fresh which is fantastic because she's gonna get a brand new beginning andI'm happy to give it to her. Ben: Monday if she's having flooring guy comment I'm just gonna also have a painter commend she doesn't need to replace any of their fixtures because we were able to clean them in salvaged out bathroom we've all used it at least twice today bedroom cobwebs are actually on the outside everything on the inside is clean we remove the floors wipe everything down since she's painting and redoing the floors we left them aside for her be easier for her new crew to come in and see carousel hallway. Again the closet the limits this is the worst room in the whole actually with the equal matter you see here it's actually gonna have a hard laminate or tile pudding so she's having all the tax dripping ripped up because we weren't able to actually clean it. We could have done that pushing things in you a-hole reader. I think we do provide hope and I think we provide a new beginning a new lease on life a new start and this house is the perfect scenario she lost her entire family eight years ago she's in a deep depression and she's living in filth because this is the way that she feels inside and just from the first time meeting her she's so embarrassed and she's so sad and I just wanted to help her and I want to transform this house to where when she comes home. She's actually happy to be home and she's not living in spiders and roaches and milk from 2017 and you know the stench in here is just for it the cat's the dogs there are feces everywhere, so no one should have to live like that and it's just super sad that someone can get that depressed that they want their environment to match how they feel on the inside. It's just super sad and you know I think the biggest misconception that I see from our followers and viewers is they think the hoarders are lazy and that honestly could not be further from the truth. They're not lazy, they are debilitated by depression and I know everyone has had a bad day and they've been depressed or sad at some point in their life where you just want to lay on the couch all day well that day that you're laying on the couch you're probably not putting your trash in a bag and taking it out imagine that every single day for years and that's what's causing these people to do this. They are not lazy at all they're just debilitated by depression and a tragic event that happened in their life.

After 16 consecutive match wins in a row at Grand Slam tennis tournaments, we are starting to wonder how it is even possible to beat Naomi Osaka at a major event. The Japanese player has been in trouble a number of times, but against Victoria Azarenka she extricated herself again, and is looking more of a threat as she goes along.What is her secret? How much longer can she keep this up? And why does she fail to perform well until she is nearly down and out? The Tennis Podcast team of Catherine Whitaker, Matt Roberts and Simon Briggs from the Telegraph assemble to talk it through. Elsewhere, Kyle Edmund lost limply, complaining of a knee injury as he retired set 3 against Pablo Cuevas. What’s going on with Kyle?There was also a big win for Amanda Anisimova, scrapes for Dominic Thiem, Belinda Bencic and Simona Halep, and comfortable passages for Serena Williams, Novak Djokovic and Alexander Zverev.And, with the subject of long bathroom breaks coming up after an 11-minuter at the end of set 2 between Osaka and Azarenka, Catherine and Simon discuss the subject of menstruation, and whether it’s time for allowances to be made within the rule, and also consideration given to it as a possibility for for commentators to mention.The Tennis Podcast will be daily throughout the French Open, the Fever-Tree Championships at Queen’s, and Wimbledon.It is produced in association with Telegraph Sport.The Rafael Nadal Story - A Tennis Podcast SpecialListen - http://po.st/Nadal_Story Download - http://po.st/Nadal_Download iTunes - http://po.st/Nadal_Apple Spotify - http://po.st/Nadal_Spotify The Tennis Podcast LinksInstagram - http://po.st/TTP_InstagramTwitter - http://po.st/TTP_TwitterFacebook - http://po.st/TTP_FacebookWebsite - https://www.thetennispodcast.net/Shop - http://po.st/TTP_ShopNewsletter Sign Up - http://po.st/TTP_Newsletter See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Do you struggle setting up efficient systems so you can get things done? Do you have a hard time establishing and building a culture in your office or within yourself? Are you uncertain on how you best function in the workforce? Then you probably want to listen to today's interview with Kyle Dobbs, who owns Compound Performance in Saint Louis, Missouri and this is his thing. Aside from being an awesome coach, he focuses with personal trainers, coaches, physical therapists, as well as gyms on building exactly what I just said: establishing the culture, making sure that leaders are in place in managing people effectively, making systems efficient so we can maximize revenue streams and results. And he talks a lot about personality archetyping as well in this very long but very awesome interview. I hope that you like it, I hope you get as much out of it as I did. And without further ado, let's give Kyle Dobbs a shot. For more information on Kyle, he can be found Instagram: @compoundperformance_ Facebook: kyledobbs4 and Compound Performance Website: compoundperformance.com Here are the links mentioned in the show: Inside Tracker Lucy Hendricks DISC Personality test Google Drive Bill Hartman Google Forms Evernote How to Configure Your iPhone to Work for You, Not Against You Ben House Human Matrix Enjoy the video and modified transcript Modified Transcript Zac: You have an incredibly unique skill set that you are offering to folks like us in the industry in regards to setting up system building, organization, creating a healthy culture within companies and businesses, and I think that that's something that is vastly underappreciated within our field. You can have a wonderful idea, but if your execution is lackluster, whether its business in-person or online, you're likely going to fail. And I think a lot of people fail because they just don't have those systems in place. So that's why I wanted to bring you into this show. Tell me though, how the heck did you get into this? How does Kyle Dobbs, a yoked bro with a better beard and better hair than I, get into building systems, building culture, with people? What's your story? Kyle Dobbs: I started as a trainer, just like a lot of other people out there. And as I grew with that, I got really passionate into development. Mostly from the training and physiological side of things. That development and education did eventually lead me into leadership and management and with that I started building a lot of the organizational skills and general communication skills that I try to use now. As I got into upper management, and managing managers and directing departments and things of that nature, I got into a position in my last job where I was consulting with not only trainers and fitness facilities, but high-level executive teams within the finance community, which within large real estate companies and the New York market. I was working with a behavioral psychologist at the time on interoffice relationships and communication to decrease, essentially, autonomic stress. So locating environmental coherence within both the office space and their home lives and trying to also integrate an intelligence training into that. We took a ninety day blood work with people, looking at stress markers, looking at endogenous sex hormones, micronutrient deficiencies, whatever, all that good stuff. And then we were also measuring HRV on a daily basis, so looking at autonomic hyperactivity and HPA access hyperactivity, within the client base themselves. Those were  the diagnostics we were testing from a physiological standpoint. At the same time, we were running personality archetypes on them and seeing what their actual environmental and communication preferences were. And with that, developing the tools and awareness within the individuals themselves first; understanding how they prefer to be communicated with and how they perceive other archetypes. [caption id="attachment_9609" align="aligncenter" width="810"] I like to perceive my archetypes bold...and highlighted[/caption] A lot of this stuff is very subconsciously driven. It's very subcortical. You're not necessarily aware of what those preferences are. We find that people, instead of working within environments that they're more acclimated to. Instead, they acclimate and adapt to work environments and work demands that drive money. And finance, and all those things that we want from a social construct stand point. And that's fine, humans are the great improvisers. We adapt better than anything else, ever. Even though we have the ability to adapt and to do so very well, we were finding that those adaptations still drove high levels of autonomic stress and sympathetic tone. So, people are running around all day -- and night, if they're not regulating at home -- with higher blood pressure, higher heart rate, higher core body temperature. And then looking at higher cortisol levels, higher adrenaline levels, lower testosterone levels, especially in men, and also decreased cognitive function. There were overly sympathetic. From a work productivity standpoint, that was also suffering. So that's how we got the buy-in from the corporate institutions themselves. First, bringing out the self-awareness and then working with them in groups as teams on building out communication strategies with one another, peer to peer, and then with management to employee. Finding out how to actually speak to one another in a way that was both efficient and effective given their archetype and also setting an environment that is conducive to those archetypes working well together with one another. And then also leveraging people's unique skill sets based on those archetypes for the success of the whole, giving them more purpose within the team but doing so in a way that really leveraged their individual strengths rather than maybe what their job demands might have been. So  doing a little bit of reorganization from that standpoint as well. And for me that was incredibly intriguing and satisfying. When I left that company and did my journey back to the midwest, I essentially started a consulting company. I work now with the strength and conditioning facilities, personal training facilities, and then individuals within the mentorship program where I use a lot of the same tools to help them with their teams and their client basis on a smaller scale which is great for me because it blends fitness with the actual leadership and community building of what I was doing before. Zac: I like that you were very scientific about making the changes with your previous job. With your clients  now, are you still tracking some of those variables? Are you having them measure HRV? Kyle: If they want to, I make that an optional thing. What I work with the most, with the people I work with now, is just looking at work performance. Especially being in fitness, a lot of them are tracking autonomics somehow anyway. It's something that more so where they're actually doing the tracking because they're excited about it. I offer the blood work as a third party option, I work with Inside Tracker based out of Austin, so I offer that as a third party at cost for them. Just to look at beginning, middle, and end numbers and I look for improvements over time there. But it is a pretty hefty expense and not everybody takes advantage of it. The majority of them do measure their own HRV or at the very least measure morning heart rate and look for changes off of baseline. They know that if they're plus ten to fifteen beats per minute, for a week, that they're probably going under some  systemic stress. So we look for just trends going lower with that. Same thing with HRV, we don't look at it that acutely, it's always looking at trends and looking at maybe environmental changes we can make prior to changes in the way they're training because all these individuals are also knowingly and willingly, , proactively accruing stress on a daily basis as well. So you have to differentiate at that point the physical and mechanical stress of training to the psychological and cognitive stress of incoherence from a lifestyle standpoint. There's a lot of reading data and then asking a lot of questions, looking at what their lifestyle is going through at that point rather than looking at maybe increase training demands or things of that nature acute-ly. Zac: As long you track some type of key performance indicator (KPI), in this case, work performance, everything else is gravy. Kyle: That's what it all boils down to. , HRV and the physiological metrics with people that are in fitness are so multifactorial. That, one, I don't want to get a false positive, but I also don't want to get a false negative based on some of those other things. At the end of the day, they're coming to me for work performance, not for improved HRV. So that's what I'm going to be looking at and we do that through a series of objective key results (OKRs) and some other principles that we'll talk about in a little bit but that's really what I'm looking at. Why personality testing? Zac: In terms of you getting into change or establishing these archetypes within the people you worked with in the past and having that be the intervention that you did at work, what led you to thinking that that was the big change that needed to be made in order to positively impact both work performance and these variables? For example, did you notice a difference in terms of the HRV measures when they were at the office or at work days versus just days they had off if it was the weekends or vacation? And if so, how did that lead you to going with communication as your primary intervention? Kyle: It was a little bit of both.  we definitely saw that over weekends, systemic stress really wasn't going down. A lot of it was because these people also had terrible lifestyle habits and they also, especially being in New York, they didn't leave work at work. Their weekends were still stress filled, they're still answering emails, they're still thinking about work all the time. A lot of them actually dreaded weekends because of the work they might lose once we started actually talking about that process. But we did notice when people weren't on vacations we'd see a little change early on but the longer the vacation went on, the more it would go back to normal because they'd start getting stressed about missing work. Their lives were being determined and dictated by their work rather than the other way around. From a communication standpoint, a lot of that information came from the behavioral psychologist I was working with. She'd been doing a little bit of work on this prior to working with me, she was already consulting with a few other companies and really taught me a lot about that process. As I was learning it, it was also really becoming applicable to the training that I was seeing from managing trainers and managing managers and looking at what makes a trainer successful from a professional basis. A lot of it, that I notice throughout the years, had more to do with how they interacted with their clients, how they engaged with them, and how they set that environment, rather than the amount of technical expertise they actually possessed. This is something that's always frustrating to trainers that always value education, and we have a bias towards education because that's our interest. This is something that's always frustrated people and, to be truthful, frustrated me in the past as a trainer. , I'm a very introverted individual, and communication has been something that I always had to really work at as far as being able to speak to different people. Especially to different people of different personality types and interest than that of myself. A lot of trainers are so highly focused on the aspect of training and not the aspect of the other 165 hours a week that their clients go through that they speak to them as if they might be trainers themselves. Trainers that maybe were missing or lacking of education that maybe were extrovert in personality, I noticed were talking to these clients about their lives. , about their communities, about their relationships, things that we might think are trivial from a training perspective, but are actually really important in setting the tone for lifestyle coherence and recovery and just purposefulness. We're having all this success in setting the environment for training. They're making it an anticipatory event rather than an obligation for the clients. It was something they were looking for and coming to. And it was all based on the relationship they were forming. As I was learning more about the archetypes, more about environmental coherence, it really started a lightbulb that  went off in my head that these principles are the same thing. Whether you're in an office building or whether you're an executive or whether you're a trainer is really irrelevant when you start talking about relationships. It's still people to people. Social norms play a role. At the end of the day, people want to be communicated with in a language and on terms that they understand. If you can get people to do that, and make them aware of that process and educate them on strategies to do so, they're going to be more successful in any endeavor they're in. The process for myself has made me a better husband and father, has made me a better friend, which for me is way more tactful than being a better trainer or manager in a sense. But it all crosses over, its principle-based so it applies to everything. Zac: Yeah, and I think one thing that most everyone is lacking in some degree is connection and I think especially to with technology and how we're always glued to phones. No one's ever taught the soft skills of how to have a conversation or how to build connection or rapport or anything. I mean, you've trained countless people, Kyle, and it eventually comes to the point where you're doing the same shit but the reason why they're with you is because they think you're a good person and that is their one time they get to hang out with someone that they enjoy. [caption id="attachment_9610" align="alignnone" width="810"] Or as I prefer, a "bruh"[/caption] Kyle: Yeah, I mean, what's adherence? From a contextual standpoint, the vast majority of the clients I've trained over the years have no knowledge of program design, or periodization, or anatomy and physiology but they do know what a good experience looks like. They do know what engagement looks like, they do know what communication looks like, and they know if they're enjoying themselves or not. That's what gets people coming back and if the trainer can combine technical expertise with those soft skills, they're going to crush it. That's what it comes out to be and the downside of that is I've seen way more people become successful with soft skills and little to none technical expertise than I have the other way around. We really might be fooling ourselves with what's actually the most important for the client. We feed that bias of educational law and we justify a lot of our actions by it. I've invested a lot of money in education and I value education, I've been an educator, but you also have to think outside the box and how you approach a demographic that is not fitness based. If they were fitness based, they wouldn't need you. If they understood anatomy and physiology and training and periodization and the required ownership to get to their goals from a physical standpoint, they wouldn't be paying you to train them. And I think that's something that trainers have to understand, that training is a choice for their client base. And they have to enjoy the experience. You're not necessarily educating them on how to become a trainer, you're not teaching them Latin with all the anatomy and physiology that you may know, you're providing them a path to fitness that they actually enjoy so you can build habit change within their lives and they're no longer intimidated or scared by fitness or physical activity, but they actually look forward to it and start integrating it into the other parts of their lives as well. Zac: Yeah, I can't agree more, and hearing that as a trainer should excite you because I think we do spend so much time, effort, energy, learning the training side of things to the nth degree of depth. No one gives a shit about that if they don't like you, so that's why I think what you offer is so essential in that regard. I think that the personality tests that you utilize is probably an easy barrier to entry for someone who wants to expand on their communication skills with others. The DISC Personality Test So why don't you talk to us a little bit about the DISC. I know that's one of your initial intake things that you utilize. Tell me a little bit about what the letters are about, how you use that to inform your decision making in terms of what people need to speed up their systems and how that's useful to help someone from a communication standpoint. Kyle: Yeah, in a broad sense the DISC is definitely my weapon of choice and most people, once they get their report back, are extremely surprised at just how accurate it is. There are four archetypes: D: Dominance I: Influence S: Steadiness C: Conscientiousness The D and the I are more extroverted archetypes and the S and the C are more introverted. The D and the C are more analytical archetypes and the I and the S are more novelty-based. Based off of those two things, I actually don't dive super deep into it with trainers because a lot of them aren't going to be running the DISC itself on their client bases. It's more so, if we can get even a fairly superficial view of what the archetypes prefer from a communication and environmental standpoint, and how to identify them and the people just through how they interact with their own environments. They're going to have enough strategies at that point to have a more efficient and effective conversation. I don't think everyone who takes this needs to become a psychologist. I'm definitely not one but I do think it's very similar to a movement assessment. We go to a movement assessment and we start analyzing gait and then we're walking down the street and everybody in front of us, everybody we see, has a hip shift or internal rotation or their pronating, There's a winged scap here, an elevated shoulder blade here and we're just picking all these things out and we really can't turn it off. With that, there's going to be a lot of different interventions that we might be able to use. The DISC is very similar. You can go into a room and see where people are positioned within that room and how their interacting with the other people in that room and have a pretty good idea of what archetype they are. From there you can start building out communication strategies if that is somebody that you want to communicate with. [caption id="attachment_9611" align="alignnone" width="810"] Tell me again about that time you couldn't bench press the bar.[/caption] “D” archetypes are usually found in leadership positions because they're naturally drawn to leadership and not everybody is. They are very analytical, but they're also fairly dopaminergic in the fact that they want challenge and they want to win a lot of the time. They sometimes push and rush through things in order to get to the end of the project. You can find them in a room fairly easy because they're extroverted and they'll usually be in the middle of the room, dominating conversation. They like to challenge ideas but they are people that you really have to provide evidence to if you've got ideas or something to bring up. They are people that like to win more than be right a lot of the times, so arguing with them is typically not something that is going to yield return for any of the other archetypes. “I” archetypes are very novelty-based, they're very extroverted. They're usually the life of the party. They like to be the center of attention and they like to be entertained and they like to entertain, in that respect. And if you're training an I, a linear program where they're isolated in a corner of a room, using maybe one modality for an extended period of time, is not going to be something that works well for them. They're going to get bored very quickly so you can set up your programming and your periodization around that archetype and that personality type to keep them engaged with the program. They're a little harder to train because you have to look at their needs based on the assessment and look at their goals. You have to implement enough exercise selection variation while still trying to accommodate the same outcomes throughout their programming to keep them entertained and keep them happy, which is not always an easy task to do because we're trainers. , reps are everything. If you want to get good at something, you have to practice, you have to repeat it, you have to be able to scale it with progressions and regressions while you got somebody who gets really bored really easily, you might never get to all the reps needed to actually see the outcomes you want because they're off doing boutique fitness or spin class. The way you also approach the different archetypes with praise and feedback is very important because everybody likes feedback but not everybody likes public praise. Some people get very embarrassed by it so you also want to make sure that people are very comfortable with how you're communicating with them from that respect. An “I” wants you to throw a parade for them every time they accomplish a new metric or hit a new goal of some sort. They want everybody in the room to know it and that's great. An “S”, the next one down the line, they just want a fist bump and to move on. They're more novelty-based, but they're also more introverted so they want to be engaged, they want a little bit of structure, little bit of uniformity, but they also want room to work within that structure, a little bit of autonomy. Again, you're going to program an “S” different, you're going to manage them differently from a management leadership standpoint because they love feedback but they have a hard time asking for it. If they feel like they are appreciated within a company or within a client-trainer relationship, they're going to work as hard as they can to make everybody happy. They're very much pleasers, they're people that usually work in service. A lot of trainers are “S's” and if they didn't love fitness, they would probably be teachers or nurses or something of that nature because that's what their archetype is typically drawn to outside of fitness. If they're not getting the feedback and the appreciation, they really withdraw within a company. They're not going to cause conflict or friction within a company, they're just going to become disengaged and apathetic which is just as bad. I think we've all seen that happen in clients before, if they're not getting the feedback and they just become disengaged and apathetic to not only the program but maybe the trainer. They move on, they're either moving on to a new trainer or maybe they're just out of fitness. They had a bad experience and now they're intimidated by it and they're done with it. Then you've got your “C's”. “C's” are very analytical. They're the people that come to every conversation or every Facebook thread with five Pubmed articles ready to cut and paste into a conversation and link to. , they're the science-based. They want everything backed up, but the problem is sometimes they don't get anything done because they're too busy researching. There's never enough information, so they end up paralysis by analysis. They're also a very introverted and analytical archetype, and when you're talking about training them, that's where a linear program works really well. They have the patience to look at change over time and they don't want to skew the variables. They think novelty is distracting and chaotic and frustrating. So they're the people that, yeah, we're going to do barbell workouts for the next eight weeks and we're going to look at your percentage maxes, and we're going to look at bar speed. You can bring data and analytics anywhere into a session, they're the people that are actually going to be interested in it. There's definitely different communication strategies and different ways that you can implement environment and communication into training when you're working with those people as well. From a manager perspective it's all about utilizing their strengths and putting them in positions to succeed and then offering support in the way that they actually want support. Because what might feel like a nice structured environment for a “C” or an “S” is going to feel like micromanaging to an “I.” So  when to push the gas and pull the brakes a little bit for a lot of these people. And then how to get the feedback that's actually going to promote progress rather than maybe too much reflection and frustration. It's definitely something that I use a lot and that I think the people that I work with find very applicable to the demographics that they work either as a manager with their employees or a trainer with their client base. Using Personality Testing to Build Systems Zac: It sounds like the DISC allows you to stratify how you want to interact and manage specific people, and just the little bit that I have learned from yourself and just some of the stuff that Lucy has told me has been very informative about just why people are the way they are, and it is pretty crazy how accurate it is. Let's say that we have the fam. The fam is listening, they fill out the DISC, and they find out which archetype they are or the mix of these specific archetypes. If they're looking at maximizing communication with others, but also they want to make themselves more organized and efficient, where do you see common pitfalls in system building? Let's say you are the one who's guiding them into becoming organized AF, where would you start with each of these people in terms of designing a system for them? Kyle: From a system perspective and from an organizational standpoint, obviously they all approach that a little differently and they all have unique pitfalls. With your “D's”, they typically are so hard-charging that they don't weigh all their options ahead of time, they don't look at return, and they don't look at cost as much as maybe they should. They have a little bit of the shiny object syndrome that you also see with “I's”, but they will drive harder for it and they will be more focused on it. They'll leave everything else on the back burner, they're very prone to specificity and thought. A lot of that with them is making sure from an organizational standpoint that they dedicate enough times to the other things to keep them on track and don't just let those things fall behind. None of us live in a specific environment where, from a demand standpoint, we can chase one thing over all others without incurring a cost of some sort. [caption id="attachment_9612" align="alignnone" width="810"] Put that shit on front burner, fam[/caption] From a systems perspective, we do a lot of OKRs with everybody, but how they interpret those strategies are going to be different given calendar work, making things automated, which works well for “D's”. Automation is a good way to make sure that things get sent out, whether it's newsletters or whether it's reminders, calendar events, things of that nature. Those are going to be very effective for programs potentially for their clients from a trainer perspective. Those are going to be good ways to keep them on track without having to always lose their focus as well. The positive aspects of a “D” are that they are so hyper-focused. If something is important, they'll get it done and they'll work really hard towards that. You also don't want to take away that driver, you want to find ways to accommodate it and support it with other means so automation works really well for them. Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) Zac: Quick question, you mentioned OKR, I don't think we defined what that is. What is an OKR? Kyle: Objectives and key results. Simultaneously, we're learning about the DISC when we're working with people. They're also filling out OKRs, which I usually keep it to three objectives. I tend to find that if there's more than three, they're not necessarily big rocks anymore. So people will have two to three main primary objectives that they want to work on either from a professional or from an individual lifestyle standpoint. People I work with will put things that relate to obviously their business, and their finances, and their professional accomplishment but they'll also put how to free up more time for their families. They'll put fitness goals on there and that's fine. I'm not judging what your objectives are, I just want to make sure that we actually set up an intelligent strategy or system to get there. So we identify the objectives and then we identify three key results from each of those objectives. The key results are the outcomes and how I work with outcomes of people is identifying what their definition of success for those objectives actually is on an individual standpoint. So we look at it, if it's quantitative, we look at metrics. If it's qualitative, we look at it emotionally. How do you want to feel, ? What's this going to lead to? What's this going to free time up for? From a quantitative standpoint, it could be anything. It could be money, it could be weight, pounds lost, it could be whatever. Metrics are super easy to work with, qualitative aspects are a little harder. So we have to be really honest and dig deep into those. Within these, most people will fill them out and they'll inherently be very vague or very general about their key results so I always have the question that just get as detailed as possible. Like, we'll talk about them and people will break into more detail and conversation. One of my big cues for people is to literally talk it out and then write down what you say. Speak it because you're inherently going to tell a story rather than having to write something down, and you're going to have more detail in the way you explain it than how you write it typically. That's usually how I get people to dig deeper and actually define success in a way that we might be able to measure. Then we set up strategies for all of those key results. The strategies are going to match the archetypes in a way because there's probably going to be things that those people naturally tend to lack. From a system standpoint, it's great because I usually don't have to identify systems for people, they can really look at what they're doing and what they're not doing and they identify them themselves which tends to lead to much more adherence than me telling them what to do. From another standpoint, it's a lot of me helping them understand and come to that realization themselves. “Oh, maybe I should start automating things or putting more things into my calendar, setting up backend sales leads or formals or whatever, building up more spreadsheets for tracking and automating my payroll!” There's a lot of things that as we're going through this and they're looking at strategies, like, “Oh yeah, I'm not sure why I ever thought about that,” but it is. Think about it because, from a coherent standpoint, they're usually looking in the other direction. There's a lot of realization typically with that and then we try to map it out, we look at it what actions they can take from a weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual standpoint to get these things done and how the best way to track them is. Whether it's through channels regarding organization or structuring within their company or business if they're trainers. Zac: If someone comes to the conclusion themselves, they're more likely to execute it as opposed to being told what to do. Can you just give me an example of a typical objective and then the key results you might get from someone, from one of your clients. And let's keep it from an organizational standpoint. Kyle: If I'm looking at trainers, it's increasing their client base, say getting two new clients. From a key results standpoint, that's going to lead to X amount more money. That's maybe even going to lead to upping your price and dropping a lower paying client in some cases. That's going to lead to some financial goal of moving —  for people, the key results will differ a lot — that might lead to being able to live in a different apartment if you're in New York city or living in a different neighborhood where you no longer have to commute thirty or forty-five minutes into the city. [caption id="attachment_9613" align="alignnone" width="810"] While cool to visit, these problems are another reason I'm thankful I didn't move to the city.[/caption] The key results are very individualistic. If you want to make more money, how much more money? We're going to identify what clients are going to bring in. Maybe, fifteen hundred dollars a month? That's how we're going to track it so if we're going to look at strategies, what's the timeline we're going to put on this? Two new clients by when? Two months, so we're looking at a client a month. What steps are we going to take from a marketing perspective, are we going to look at referrals? Are we going to look at communicating with other scopes of practice for referrals? You can look at client streams and you can look at, maybe  a physical therapy team in the city that you can go and talk to and look at as being their third-party outlet for training after someone is done rehabbing. Maybe you can talk to a massage therapist and look at them or a nutritionist, same thing, and build an actual team of practitioners that you might be able to be a part of where you can share clients and build referral networks and things of that nature. There's a lot of different avenues from a strategy perspective that we can start looking at. Maybe you're going to email all of your old clients that you've lost or call them. Depending on the trainer there's going to be different avenues there. Another thing that I get with a lot of people is building up additional streams of revenue. Not everybody wants to take on more clients because that's more time training, you want something that might be more passive, so we work on building up their remote business or we work on building semi-private training channels where they can train more people with one hour and work more efficiently. Then we set up the strategies to utilize that to lower price points. So who can we reach out to that maybe fell off one on one training because they either moved or the price point was no longer agreeable with their budget? Are there options for them? Can we start reaching out to those people? How do you market yourself? Are you looking through social media? Are you building up newsletters? There's a lot of different options from that perspective but we start looking at things that would actually fit their skill set and options they may have. Then we start setting timelines and scheduling out those things from an organizational standpoint. Zac: Essentially what you're doing is you use the objectives and key results as your skeleton, and then you are helping your clients build the rest of that out by having them figure out what type of systems need to be employed, and then taking into account their personality in terms of potential pitfalls they may have in building the system so they ultimately get the outcome that they want. Kyle: Yeah. If you look at OKRs, it's very conceptual and then the individual looks at it very contextual from a key result standpoint. Then strategies are going to be all your applications, so it really goes conceptually, contextually, and then applicably down the line. The objectives are usually pretty broad and then the key results we try to individualize as much as possible like I said, either qualitatively or quantitatively, depending on what that objective is. Then from a strategy standpoint, then it's all application based on their environment, their past, their unique circumstance, and their archetype, how can we build out strategies that are going to be beneficial for you and not have a high cost but a high return instead. Zac: Sounds very systematic, Kyle. Kyle: That's the idea. The pitfalls of personality types Zac: Let's go back to the four personality types and pitfalls. We went through “D,” which is dominant. The big thing they probably need to focus on is automation as well as looking at problems more in-depth so they don't do something with a huge cost. I got like a little hint of “D,” and the automation thing has been huge for me. I mean I automate just about everything from a blog perspective, emails, everything because it takes too much time if you don't do that. But what about, say, someone who's an “I” and then “S” and “C?” Let's go into the pitfalls of those three would have. Kyle: An “I” is usually the archetype that has the most trouble with any organization at all. They're sometimes described as chaotic in nature, where they thrive in environment with a lot of novelties. So because of that, familiarity becomes boring and organization is a way to increase familiarity with your environment. An “I” is typically are a little organizationally adverse. I work with them on minimal effective dose. How can we implement just enough organization within your life that you're able to get things done when you need to get them done but not overwhelm you into an adaptive quality. We don't want to turn you into a “C.” Automation also works really well with them, but it's also prioritizing what they actually need to organize. For them, developing hierarchies within their lives is very important. Like what are we going to prioritize based on your needs and wants from a lifestyle professional standpoint. A lot of it with them is laying out an awareness perspective: What is going to have the highest return? What is the most important? And what to focus on because focus is limited, it's a limited individual quality for them. Then we're going to automate the rest as much as possible. We're going to set alerts on everything that's important from a calendar standpoint, or a note standpoint, whatever. We're going to set deadlines for people, as they don't do well without a structured deadline. They won't create a deadline for themselves usually. They're people that need more ownership and accountability within their own personal frames. As I'm looking in OKRs and strategies, the way it works out on the form that I use is you essentially have three objectives and within each objective you have three key results potentially. Within each key result, you have three unique strategies that you might be able to employ. So you got an option of 27 different strategies at the end of this thing. I may be going to be doing one or two of those at any given time effectively. So it's looking at which strategies can we even implement that are going to have the biggest bang for buck. Can we find strategies that are going to positively affect any of the other outcomes that we're looking at? It's either, you're looking at low hanging fruit things that are easy depending on the person's lifestyle or you're looking at more of a bang for buck strategy that might positively impact additional strategies. The reason is especially we're looking at objectives and some of those key results for just a little bit of crossover within the process for people. Zac: Setting up a lot of the exact systems that you're talking about has been essential for myself as an “I”. So then, what about the “S” and the “C” in terms of their common pitfalls and where you work with those types of people? Kyle: “C's” need a lot of structure. They're pleasers by nature and they tend to put their own needs behind the needs of others, and they'll let a lot of their own personal growth go to the wayside a lot of the times and be over accommodating to the people they're working with or to the clients they're working with. It's, again, a lot of structure. They do well typically with full calendar setups with task lists, things of that nature, but you also want to give them a little bit autonomy, so there has to be some flexibility in there as well. So doing a very good job of balancing the needs and the wants works very well for them. [caption id="attachment_9614" align="alignnone" width="810"] Such a delicate balance indeed.[/caption] With them from an objective standpoint, I always try to have at least one lifestyle objective that  coheres with their professional objectives as well and making sure that those things both professionally and lifestyle wise, respectively, have a lot of coherence and alignment. If they're not aligned, neither one of them is going to get done and that's going to lead to a lot of frustration and withdrawal within the systems. From a communication standpoint as well, because they're so accommodating, try to also, again, prioritize their personal needs and make sure that they feel heard throughout the process and throughout whatever environment they're in relationship wise either with clients or their employers or employees or peers. , working on getting them a voice within that community as well in an outlet of sorts. Zac: It seems like the common trend is you're still getting all of them, and we haven't even talked about “S” yet so maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like the trend with all these is you're still getting them to a similar point of having a goal in mind or an outcome they desire and then setting up systems whether its automated or whether it's a calendar of some sort to help them keep them on task essentially. Kyle: What you find is “D's” and “I's” have no problem outlining outcomes and key results but they typically try to go into action without setting strategies. And then you've got “C's” and “S's” will typically strategize quite a bit but it's hard to push them into actual action. So you prioritize those things differently depending on what side of the line they are from an archetype standpoint. Zac: Gotcha. So ”D's” and “I's” are great at figuring out what the outcome is, but take a terrible, inefficient path to get there. Kyle: Sometimes, yeah. Zac: Yeah, “S's” and “C's” take a beautiful path but to where? Who knows. Kyle: Yeah, they might just be spinning in circles. Zac: Tell me about the “S” then. What are some of the pitfalls that they have in terms of building out those systems? Kyle: ”C's” and “S's” are very similar in the fact that they have no problem building out strategies and building out systems. I'm the one who's the “CS” hybrid, so speaking about myself is a good example. I have excel sheets that I've created that I'll never use like it's a hobby of mine to build out systems that aren't really needed in any way. It's sometimes as a distraction of actually going to work and doing things, of being in action. From a strategy standpoint, a lot of “C's” and “S's” lump together, and “S's” especially must cut down on the strategies and figuring out which ones are going to be the most important for them because rather than getting distracted by all the potential outcomes, they're getting distracted by the strategies themselves. That's where that whole analysis by paralysis comes about with is. They're just going to keep doing research, keep building out models, and some of these things but they never actually take action. So they must set timelines. Once a system with an objective is built, let's put a timeline on it. How do we keep you accountable to a timeline? Because otherwise they will stall themselves by doing more research or building out more spreadsheets so it's when can we take action? It's then more of a time push than anything else. How to navigate going off task Zac: Then as you progress and work with these people, because it seems like you have to instill new habits with everyone and, as we all know, old habits die hard, sometimes we falter back into our own, I don't want to say bad habits but maybe, habits that aren't going to push you towards your goals. How do you instill coming back to these when someone does falter? So me for example, I'm pretty good at staying on task for most things but I definitely do find myself sometimes procrastinating or doing something that's going to be more ineffective towards me getting my stuff completed, so what things do you use to cue them back into getting back into the system when they do fall off the wagon? Kyle: Well the good thing is as we go through the DISC itself, is it's usually creates enough self-awareness that they know when they're fallen off the wagon. They're very aware of that fact. With both the consulting I do and the mentorship that I do, I'm on the phone or I'm on a Zoom video with them every week so we're always rehashing what their weaknesses would look like, what their OKR and development progress looks like. We also build out models, like actual business and training models, how that's going? I share everything through Google Drive so I can see live what's being worked on, when it's being worked on. If I see that their OKRs haven't been touched in two weeks or three weeks, we're going to go back and ask why. That's the good thing about some of those shared documents, is there's built in accountability within that. They know what I'm going to ask when we're on the phone. They know the structure of the conversation is going to be. We spend a lot of time talking about the DISC upfront then we eventually move into OKRs and auto-development and anything else that might've pop up within their lives or work environment that they want to talk about. I don't necessarily have to pull them back on track because within the first few weeks, they have enough self-awareness within their archetype, within their organizational needs and structural needs that they know if they fall off track and they'll usually actually bring that up before I get a chance to. Then we just talk about why. And the biggest thing that I work with all of the archetypes, regardless of who they are, is letting know that that's okay. At the end of the day, these are all tools that are going to be used to help them and we're all going to go about it in different ways. Whether we're talking about weekly progress or monthly progress, it's still progress. They're still doing things much differently than they would've done in the past and they're having good positive outcomes based on that. Some of the archetypes like a little more accountability from me. Particularly usually the “D's” and the “C's” prefer that I hold them a little more accountable. Whereas the “I's” and the “S's”, I need to handle a little differently with my communication and make sure that they understand that I'm empathic to what's going on within their lives and within their work environments. From a time perspective, they might not have gotten it done, so we decide to set up ways that we can work through the next week a little more efficiently. We look at what those pitfalls were in the prior week and we try to find out ways to work around them in the week upcoming. Were those pitfalls novel and acute? Was something where you got sick or you had to take your dog to the vet or your kid had multiple school events or sports events? Or was it something that's going to be more global that's going to be happening every single week that we really have to be adjusting for within our strategy? Identifying whether or not it was a one off thing or whether it's going to be continuous is also a big part of that conversation. Zac: Essentially what you're acting as when you're setting this up is some form of social support. Kyle:There's a lot of that. [caption id="attachment_9615" align="alignnone" width="810"] Team work makes the dream work.[/caption] Zac: You're lauded if you are someone who is considered self-made and really, no one is self-made. I mean, people think that I'm doing fairly good things, but we wouldn't even be having this conversation, Kyle, if it weren't for someone like Bill Hartman in my life or other people in my life who have pushed me into such a high esteem and high level and high drive. I think that even someone maybe on the “D” and “I” side of things, they tend to think of pushing others by the wayside because sometimes I do that. I think that having someone not necessarily to hold you accountable but just to be there with you as you're going through the process and keep you on track is just absolutely critical. And I think it's awesome that you're doing that. Kyle: Yeah, there's definitely a lot of that, and the good thing about my career path with a lot of the people I work with is, I've been in a role that they're in or a very similar to for most of them as far as being a trainer, being a manager, being a multi-location manager to being a department head to being in a national level position. There's a lot of things that I've done in that respect where I can sympathize and empathize a lot with the needs that they're seeing and give them some usually pretty good real world advice with that as well, especially from a management leadership perspective if they're a gym owner. I haven't owned my own gym but I do know the things that go into running a space and managing a team and handling the daily operations. From a trainer, same thing, I've done two hundred sessions a month as a trainer. I've lived that seven-day-a-week life and the three thirty alarm going off in the morning and working till eight pm at night. I've lived a lot of the struggles that they're going through. And can look back on it  with a hindsight eye of understanding the things that might help them that I never had access to when I was in those roles and work with them from both from an archetype standpoint but also from an experiential standpoint. Organizational tools Zac: Now, we've discussed overarching principles on how you build out these systems, you have your OKRs, and building their systems in such a manner that you can get the outcomes that they want. Let's get into some specifics, what type of things and I mean we can get into software, we can talk if you're using paper, what type of things have you found most successful? It can be apps, it can be anything from organizational standpoint that you tried to employ with the people that you work with? Do you use google calendar, do you use iPhone calendar? What we got? Kyle: With a lot of my clients, I try not to task them with a lot of apps. I try to keep everything as a one stop shop, so I just use Google Drive for the majority of them. For one, it's a free service and that's something that I think is important for a lot of my clients. A lot of them don't actually understand all the functions that Drive has. Like, if you have the Gmail, you have a calendar, you have spreadsheets, you have Word Docs, you have Google Forms, you have things that you can set up and send to clients. You've got Keynote and some of those other aspects as far as setting presentations. You've got a lot of tools that you would need already at your fingertips, you just haven't started using them yet. What I usually work with them on is first making sure their calendar is always up to date, that they have as many things recurring as possible within that calendar. They have alerts set if needed. They're added the event participants respective to the event. From there they can identify what might be flexible and what might be inflexible from an event perspective. What can I move and how can I move it? Then we can also add all of the one-off things that go throughout the continuous events. If you've got new clients coming in, if you've got different meeting being set up you could start identifying where you can put those within your calendar as it stands on a weekly basis. Then from a Drive perspective, it's all about building out folders, it might be built around your objectives or it might be built around other things, but you're segmenting your business through revenue streams or departments, whatever it may be. And making sure that you have all the materials needed set up within those folders and you have the ability to share them with employees or with clients. If you're a trainer, it might be all your training templates. It might be all the data that you record from a biometric standpoint. Your folders might all just be your client names, you've got your templates, you've got your materials in there. I use the google forms a lot, my intake forms are all on them as well because I can send them via email so that's another thing from an intake perspective. You can build out PAR-Q's and intake forms on there to send to your clients ahead of time. You can build out feedback forms and daily questionnaires for clients. If I'm doing consulting within a staff, I can also look at analytics based on the questions that I'm asking. Within those forms, I use a lot of numbered rating systems so I can actually look at analytics based on a number scale or numerical scale as well over an entire staff. If we're talking about culture or leadership or things of that nature. A lot of what I use with people is Google. Instead of Survey Chimp, I use Google Forms. They'll have some app within their system that somehow matches the needs of whoever I'm working with and it does it for free. It does it all in one spot. If you have the Google Suite, it's even that much easier to utilize. From an app perspective, that's how I set up all my materials. I build out the majority of my own and it's all just shareable at that point so I can copy and share and create for all the people I'm working with. Zac: In terms of automation on Google, say you have client so and so, can you automate it in a manner that all your intakes and all of that will automatically go to a folder on Google? Specifically to that person or do they have to fill out the form and you're transposing it into that? Kyle: You can do it one of two ways, you can automate towards where the forms actually will go into that client's folder or you can keep all the forms together in one spot to look at analytics. So you can do it a couple different ways and that's different people are going to have different preferences and different purposes regarding that. When I look at my intake form, I will basically have just an original copy that I'll copy and create another one for the individual themselves that will live inside their folder once I send it and they fill it out. For a lot of my consulting and feedback forms, I'll keep them all together as one form where I can keep multiple responses at once and then look at analytics based on answers. So depending on the purpose, you can do either one of them. Zac: I'm transitioning over to Google because I've had too many steps with transmitting information from one place to the next. I'll give you an example of my current set up. Someone sends a Google Form to me and they want to work with me. They will go into the form and it's just the whole analytical side of things where you can compare answers and whatnot, I'll have my virtual assistant send that person an inquiry via email but it's the answer via email as opposed to a Google Form. Then what I have to do is take those answers, because I can't read it on Excel, because Excel is just atrocious for that. I have to put it in Evernote, read it on Evernote, and then I will summarize within the Excel. It's just too many steps but it sounds as though, if you keep things in one place, you can keep things automated as much as possible and under one platform, it just tends to make life that much simpler. Kyle: Yeah, it's just less tabs. It's less copy and pasting, it's less transfiguring and reconfiguring from a data standpoint. And you've got everything in one hand especially when you look at different archetypes. The more you can keep things together and the less different avenues they have to continuously click on, the better off they're going to be from a distraction standpoint. It also keeps everything on top aligned, to keep it all together in that manner. Zac: Yeah, that's really cool. I think you've officially sold me. I'm making the transition to the Google so thank you. Kyle: They're going to send me some money when they see this. It's going to be great. Zac: Yeah, they already put it into our brains somehow that we were going to transfer all things. Kyle: You're going to see a bunch of Facebook ads for Google and all kinds of things. [caption id="attachment_9616" align="alignnone" width="810"] Once Google changes their name to Skynet that's when you'll know.[/caption] Zac: Google and Compound Performance that's all it's going to be. Interesting side note, did you know on your phone there's an option that they will mark advertising for you automatically, and you can eliminate that. Yeah, I'll link this in the show notes too but I don't know if you went to check out that whole set up your phone for success thing. Kyle: No, I haven't read it yet. It is sitting in my inbox though. Zac: Man, life changing. Kyle: I'm on your newsletter, believe me. Zac: I know, I know you are, Kyle. But I'll link that. But there is an option somewhere in the settings in the iPhone where it says, “Yes, you can advertise to..” or “I can take your data and advertise it to whatever sites.” So you have to wonder, why is it that I look up leg lamps to buy someone for Christmas and all of a sudden I see leg lamps all over Facebook and Google and everything? And that's why. Kyle: Well, my wife and I will have conversations about something verbally. Like we might start talking about rugs, something like super boring in that regard, and I'll start looking on my Facebook and Instagram. I'll literally get rug adverts after advert for the next two weeks. It's like this is insane. Especially if you talk about that brand, that brand is going to be there. You don't even have to type it or look it up, you can just talk about it. That microphone is always on. You need a tin foil hat. Zac: A tin foil hat and move out into the wilderness. That's the only way you can circumvent Facebook and Google and all of them. Kyle: Live that Ben House lifestyle, except cut off the phone too. Build your model Zac: Are there any other systems or nitty gritty tech that you like to use before I go into another follow up question? Kyle: Yeah, the thing that I think I actually like a lot more and has been more meaningful for a lot of my clients is developing a model that's based more so on experience, both the client and the trainers rather than methodologies. Especially for a training perspective is identifying what you want that client to feel and experience through each part of your training or their training life, their training program rather than just identifying how you're going to train them. Methodologies are going to change. We're all doing X now, but we were all doing something differently two or three years ago. It's pretty naive to think that we're still going to be doing the same thing we're doing now in the next six months even. The industry and the information changes so quickly. When I'm working with trainers, a lot of them tend to be very biased to one methodology or ideology over another and they like to talk in those terms. They have a hard time relating things to terms that clients will understand but they also have a hard time understand what that client preference might be and what they want their experience to be during session. I look at everything from a consult intake to the actual training session itself, movement prep, neural prep, strength training, accessory training, to aerobics and cool down to the macro-cycling of anaerobic and aerobic training and then to their lifestyle coherence and communication. What do you want that client to feel from an emotional perspective? What's your outcome for each of those things and then what are the outcomes that you're looking for as a trainer? Can we get alignment between those two things? If we can get alignment between those two things, you're going to have a client that's pretty happy. Or a client base or demographic that's pretty happy. That's the other big thing, the other big rock, that starts people off once we start getting comfortable with the OKRs, we start talking about the actual model itself and it can be easily modified into a company thing. What is your business model? How do you want your entire demographic to look like from a training perspective? To a personal training model and looking at the individual experience for clients as well. That's also the big thing that I think has been eye opening to a lot of the people that I'm working with, is not deciding how you're going to train people but also identifying how you're going to treat people and how you want them to perceive what that training actually is. What's that outcome? Not just talking about increasing internal rotation to a femur, we're talking about their actual enjoyment of the process itself. Zac: Just me setting up Human Matrix has given me an idea in terms of setting up models. I think in some of that other areas that you've mentioned in terms of creating a good experience or just giving a business model. Those are areas that I haven't done but I think would be incredibly impactful. When you're having people set up these models, is there a preference? Or are you using this in organization in anyway of using the good old paper? Kyle: Well, I've got a template that I created that I help people set up. I've got, again, a base skeleton of the things I consider important but they have the option as well of adding additional columns or rows off of that template based on things that might apply to them individually and their businesses individually. I've got a base template that they all have their own copies, we share and we look at it. They can also modify it or I can modify it for them based on any changes or things that they want to prioritize within their own business. In addition, my columns are methodology kind experience and trainer outcomes. Different people are going to add an additional column or add additional rows based on how they communicate with people whether it's both in person and you're looking at actual like how are you communication, how are you greeting people, how are you greeting them at the door, how are you communicating with them, how are you cueing them, internal and external cues, hands-on and hands-off cuing, and then how are you communicating with them from a newsletter standpoint, from an educational standpoint, and then from an email, texting standpoint, calling standpoint, feedback forms, whatever. There're also ways that we can start including those within that process as well from an experiential standpoint. Zac: Essentially automating everything within the model just like you did with making processes. Kyle: Yeah, and identifying what that actually means. If you're sending feedback forms, what do you want that client to think? What's the reaction that you want them to have? Are they going to just discard it? Or are they going to feel like you're trusting them and valuing their opinion to improve the actual culture of the company? So what actual emotional outcome are you looking for and how can we generate that outcome through the process? Or through the environment itself as a whole? The To-do list Zac: To-do lists. Yay or nay? Kyle: It depends, as everything does. Zac: Always a default answer. Kyle: I think they can become very valuable but I think they can also become very encapsulating. In that sense, if you're a “C” that already lives on to-do lists, you probably don't need to make anymore. You probably just need to prioritize and act on the top two or three things on that list. If you're an “I” and there's really not a lot of rhyme or reason to what you're doing and then you're just chasing novelty all day long then the to do list is going to be very important for you. That might help you obtain a singular focus on the things that you actually need to be doing on a daily basis or weekly basis. Depending on who the person is, I think those are going to be great. If somebody is already super analytical, you're just getting one more thing to feed on that's going to delay the actual action and outcome that they're seeking. So it might be a deterrent at that point, depending on who they are. Zac: I think one thing I found for myself for the to do list is if you don't prioritize the right things and there's no temporal component, it's pretty much a useless piece of... [caption id="attachment_9617" align="alignnone" width="810"] I'm biased, but I loathe these things.[/caption] Kyle: You'll get this inception moment where you've got to-do lists on top of other to-do lists. That's like what a “C” would do and it's sometimes even a “D.” You've got a to-do list that lists out doing another to do list. It's like the guy looking at himself in the mi

    Have you ever wanted to make a significant investment or a big move in your life- and you come to find out that your partner isn't on board? Have you ever wondered what the best way was to navigate this intimate situation? Today, I invite you and your partner to cozy up, grab a pen and some paper- and dive in to this life-changing conversation together. Psychotherapist and Therapeutic Relationship Coach, Rachel Wright, is recognized as one of the freshest voices on modern and millennial relationships. She is the co-founder of Wright Wellness Center where, together with her husband and team, she is on a mission to help people have better sex, relationships, and mental health, through a growing catalog of masterclasses, online programs, resources, and a supportive online community. Kyle Wright's calling is to change the way we view masculinity and how we talk and teach about mental health, relationships, and sex. He coaches men 1:1 to help them navigate their Modern Masculinity™, works with couples enrolled in Revive Your Relationship™, and teaches monthly masterclasses on topics related to mental health, relationships, and sex education. Kyle & Rachel break some assumptions about their relationship like never fighting, how much intimacy is healthy, and how to communicate openly with your partner. Vulnerability + transparency are a gift they love giving, and I can't wait for them to share it with you. In This Episode: Kyle & Rachel did not like each other at first [ 9:00 ] Couples work should be preventative [ 15:40 ] When one partner wants to invest & the other does not [ 23:40 ] “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” are divorce predictors [ 34:15 ] The most difficult time in Kyle's life [ 39:45 ] The life you want to have is possible [ 45:00 ] A victim mentality is a normal trap [ 50:45 ] Kyle trusted Rachel to follow her intuition about their next step [ 54:20 ] What men want during sex [ 63:50 ] Appreciation, compliments, and support [ 67:20 ] Soul Shifting Quotes: “People get really worried and scared when they think about doing couples work because they think they have failed.” -Kyle “If you're working on past stuff, that's therapy. Coaching is like here and forward.” -Rachel “A lot of times it has nothing to do with the money and everything to do with being terrified your partner is going to change without you.” -Rachel “Women don't want to be pigeonholed as the mom figure when they're in their twenties.” -Kyle “The biggest piece for Kyle and his growth was having the courage to say I feel massively uncomfortable and unhappy.” -Rachel “Guys are taught not to really think too far ahead or to be aggressive with a new idea.” -Kyle “We are all capable of getting the relationship that we want. The only way you can get it is by being super vulnerable.” -Kyle “There is no need to shame yourself for any mistakes made in the past or things you wish could be different. Everything is possible for you.” -Rachel Links Mentioned: Grab your FREE training, How to Call in Your Tribe + Create Content that Converts Listen to my episode with the incredible Kate Crocco Learn more about John M. Gottman here Purchase your ticket to the Ignite Your Soul Summit Learn more about Kyle + Rachel's work at www.wrightwellnesscenter.com and be sure to follow them on Instagram: @wrightwellnesscenter Tag me in your big shifts + takeaways: @amberlilyestrom Did you hear something you loved here today?! Leave a Review + Subscribe via iTunes Listen on Spotify  

Summary: Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, speaks with Kyle Kemper, Author. The two discuss crypto and the future of blockchain.Show Notes:● :30— Introduction of Kyle Kemper, Author, thought leader, and consultant in the Crypto space● 1:30— Kyle’s bitcoin awakening and what he has done since then to progress blockchain● 2:36— What is possible when we have a single place to store our digital assets● 3:33— Through our phones, we can capture a lot of different things - gps, data, locations. There is a big opportunity to also store our digital unified wallets.● 6:19— How Kyle got to do a two hour demo of crypto purchasing for Canadian CEOs and Mayors● 10:00— We operate in a society with a lot of technology welfare--facebook is free, Google is free● 11:00— How aspiration and reality can skew data● 12:30— Unlocking the Golden Age with a unified wallet● 13:40—The unified wallet can be used for health applications, voting applications, implications around security and redundancy, and access rights.● 14:50— It is important that we have stewardship of this crypto technology and pioneer it in a responsible way.● 16:21— Data rights are some of the most contentious rights right now and how blockchain will change or hinder the space.● 17:30— Why compliance tends to be another important issue for blockchain.● 18:00— How are financial incumbents dealing with the arrival of blockchain startups.● 19:53— It is really hard for large incumbents to be on the forefront of this area.● 22:50—Why banks make things difficult not to further blockchain but instead to create an obstacle for the area’s growth.● 24:00— How the big six banks could be hurting the crypto space.● 26:00— Why now is a good time to start getting into the crypto space● 28:20—Insidious agents are a huge obstacle for the blockchain space right now. Deceit and dishonesty associated with some scam wallets are causing mistrust to flourish.● 29:14—There are people exploiting the super insecure nature of the wallets right now. Be wary.● 30:14—The blockchain space is going to free a lot of people from tedious monotonous processes.● 32:14—There is the opportunity to move past a labor based society--based on hours and minutes.3 Key Points:1. There is a lot of potential for blockchain to make a lot of tedious processes obsolete.2. For this technology to be universal, we need it to be open sourced. For this, we need adigital unified wallet.3. This solution needs to be pioneered without deceit. Blockchain can be a solution or the problem if it isn't done right.Tweetable Quotes:- ̈Bitcoin solved how do we have digital cash. Blockchain technology will solve how do Icreate secure digital cards” –Kyle- “Where is all of this going to lie? There is a need for an open digital wallet” – Kyle- “There are other considerations, like what do we do with children? They have birthcertificates and data.” –Kyle- “To make this universal, it has to be open sourced.” –JasonResources Mentioned:● The Fintech Impact● Itunes to access the podcast● Refer to Jason Pereira ́s Linkedin for Information about the Fintech events● Kyle Kemper● Book: Unified Wallet: Unlocking● Woodgate Financial See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Kyle Simpson: @getify | Blog | GitHub | getify@gmail.com Show Notes: 04:19 - Styles for Learning as a Newcomer 08:41 - The Structure of the Journey “If you're waiting until you're already an expert on a thing to share it with somebody else, you've waited far too long because we missed out on the most important part which was the journey.” 12:52 - Understanding a Problem vs Solving One "I want to inspire people to be uncommonly curious." 29:02 - How do you know when to stop? 35:02 - Knowing Math and Learning Programming 43:40 - The Importance of Mentorship Resources: LABjs The JavaScript Austin Meetup Pedagogy Saron Yitbarek (CodeNewbie): I don't belong in tech: Trying to find my place in the place I love, and constantly failing Dr. Seuss' The Sneetches (Star-Bellies Reference) Big O Notation You Don't Know JS: A Book Series Functional Light JavaScript Kyle's Frontend Masters Training Videos Transcript: CHARLES: Hey, everybody and welcome to the Frontside Podcast episode 50. I'm your host, Charles Lowell. With me, also from the Frontside, is Stephanie Riera. And with us today is a very special guest, Kyle Simpson, a fellow Austinite. We're going to talk about education and teaching JavaScript. You hear this name everywhere you go. I remember when I first moved to Austin, back in 2009, I moved back to Austin, I went to my very first JavaScript Meetup and there was this guy sitting there doing some live coding on this crazy thing called LABjs which was just like mind-blowing stuff that was going on that was doing crazy on-the-fly modules floating. And this was like back in 2008/2009, so awhile back. And that was my first experience. And then just moving inside tech circles, he just like popped again and again and that's just like the story. It seems like Kyle is like ubiquitous. I was at Clojure Conf last weekend and one of the speakers actually gave a shout-out to Kyle Simpson. So, I don't know Kyle if you do much Clojure, but you definitely have an impact, an outsized impact in the JavaScript community and outside the JavaScript community at large, all throughout tech. It's really a pleasure to get to have you on the show. So, welcome Kyle. KYLE: Thank you so much. It's a huge honor to be here. I'm glad to be doing this in our home city of Austin. It's fun to actually get a chance to pull again with the Austin community because a lot of my work takes me on the road. I sometimes joke that I know more about JavaScript communities in other cities than in my own since when I'm home, I'm usually with the family. And when I go to meetups, it's usually in other cities. But it's fun to be here. It's interesting you bring up that JavaScript Meetup, the original Austin JavaScript Meetup. It started in January of 2009. Actually Joe McCann, most people will know that name. He's kind of a rockstar in the Node community and one of the founders of NodeSource. I think he's up in New York City now. But he started the Austin JavaScript Meetup in January. February, I started kind of came on and we ended up kind of tag teaming running that meetup for the next couple of years. In the early days of that, you're talking about LABjs, I remember that was summer of 2009. The early days of starting up a meetup when you have 5 or 6 attendees on a really good night, mostly consists of about a week before the meetup, "Oh, we don't have a speaker. One of the two of us has to figure out something to speak about." So, I would often kind of take on that task and I would say, "Okay, what's something I'm interested in," or, "What's a library I could write that I could talk about something when I was coding?" CHARLES: So that actually born out of the need to actually present something at the Austin JavaScript Meetup? KYLE: Yes, actually LABjs, it was something at work at that time that I was trying to solve but I wasn't really making a library out of it. It was just some code that I was toodling around with. I was like, "Wow, crap! It's 3 days before the meetup. I better come up with something to talk about." So I wrote the very first version of LABjs to present at that meetup and I got a bunch of good feedback from people that were looking at it and saying, "Oh, that's cool." So I kind of ran with it. That's literally my first kind of major open source project. Most people probably originally heard of me if they've been around the tech world for a while, they originally heard of me because of that one. CHARLES: Wow! I had no idea I was there. KYLE: You were there for the origination. I was the unveiling to the world of LABjs. CHARLES: It's like the Woodstock of JavaScript. KYLE: Those were some early days of meetup stuff. You're like pick up a pizza and a couple of beers from the store on the way to the meetup and there wasn't a lot of organization but we had a lot of fun. Now, the Austin JavaScript Meetup 6 or 7 years later is, it rocks! There's 50 or 60 people every single month that attend. There's been several change-overs of leadership over that couple of years but it's still fun to think about kind of helping Joe get that off the ground way back in 2009. CHARLES: Yeah, that was fantastic. You've been in it a long time and that actually kind of brings me to one of the things that I'm curious about is you've been doing this for a long time. You've been writing JavaScript for a long time and yet you're very much connected to the Day 1 learners and the people who were coming in just kind of from at the very bottom floor. And one of the things that I find in my interactions with the people who are starting out or people who are beginning is that it can be very difficult to know what's appropriate to teach a style that's effective or teaching them because you don't have that empathy of you're so far removed from the experience, that struggle and that challenge of really clawing your way into programming. And yet that doesn't seem to be an issue for you or maybe it is. I'm just curious, one, do you perceive that as something that you have to deal with and how do you do it? KYLE: I would say that part of the way that I'm able to keep a pulse or a finger on what it's like to first start learning something comes from my own learning style which is that I, to learn a thing, I can't follow tutorials. As a matter of fact, every time somebody comes up with a new major awesome tool or framework and they put out this great tutorial and everybody raves about it, I secretly have that huge flare up of impostor syndrome because I know that I will feel really dumb if I try to go through a tutorial and learn it in that fashion. That's just not how I learn stuff. The way I learn stuff is very, very slow and methodical. It generally is taking a thing apart and trying to figure out what each of the different pieces is doing, understanding at that deeper level, and then reassembling the pieces. The reason I mentioned that is because I like to describe my process of teaching and I really think this generalizes to people beyond me that it's my process. I think that my process for teaching is just to have a narrative journey and that it's all about a process. It's not about a single event because I don't think that learning is transactional or I don't think it should be. I think learning should be a process. And so, for me, that process starts with an initial thing that I'm looking at. I get an idea of what it's about, the problem domain that it's in. I probably develop an instant sense of 'ooh, I don't really like that' or 'ooh, that's kind of interesting'. But if I'm going to learn a thing, it's not going to come through a tutorial. It's not going to come through reading a Read Me and being like, "Okay, I'm good to go," and I can sort of copy and pasting. For me, it's going to take, in some cases, reinventing parts of it as I put those pieces back together so I can really understand the choices that were made. I do a lot of reading of somebody else's source code. As an example of this ongoing journey that I'm learning, I was recently at a conference and I heard a discussion of Redux. And of course, Redux is something that tens of millions of people, I mean everybody seems to be an expert on this stuff and I don't know Redux. I don't know React. I don't spend a lot of time at that layer of the stack. But I was listening to a talk and I was thinking, "Well, that sounds interestingly similar to the stuff that I was playing around with back in 2010." It's kind of event oriented and single source of truth for the model and stuff like that. "That's cool. I should go and learn that more." So, that's on my pretty near future to-do list to kind of learn stuff. And there's a really good chance that that process, that journey that I go on to learn about Redux is going to spin off at least some sort of code that I play around with, whether that's using Redux or writing something kind of like Redux to show off how I've been thinking about the idea. And then I'll probably write about it. I know for sure that I'm going to be mentioning it in one of the chapters of my current book on functional programming. So, I'll be talking about it, at least a little blurb about how it fits into the overall scheme of things. And then probably eventually once my journey has gone a little bit further, eventually there'll be some kind of class that I spin up in a module or in one of my classes that I talk about Redux and where that comes from. And that's not because I've been on the high training. As a matter of fact, it's the opposite. I'm the latest adaptor for most of these things but that is a very long slow methodical process for me to learn something and then turn around and try to teach it to other people. CHARLES: Is the idea then that you want to kind of share that journey that you've taken or try to encourage the next learner to take a similar or different journey? How do you structure that learning once you do decide to package it up? KYLE: The structure of the journey -- I think that's an interesting way of articulating the question. What is the structure of the journey? And I would say that the structure of the journey generally, from my perspective, starts from understanding a concept, the why behind the concept, what is the problem I need to solve, and what is motivating solving the problem. And then it moves into the how are we going to do it, what are the possible ways to do that, and that really is the part of that process that you spend most of your time digging into and understanding the deeper level of the thing. So, not just using the library but understanding really how it does it and the choices that it made. And then it moves to the what. And that is inverted from the way most people's learning seems to go about because people learn most typically by, "I find the cool thing because it was in some newsletter that I read about. It seems like it would help on my job project, so I dropped the thing in, put in a couple of the snippets from the Read Me and it's working great, and maybe someday later, I'm going to go back and dig into it a little bit." I'm completely reversed. So, that's my structure for learning and I recommend that people, at least from time to time, take a similar path. It doesn't have to be exactly that way, but take a similar path to breaking down the learning. I'm sure as we go along in this discussion, I'll be able to elaborate on that more. I don't want to just churn on and on forever. But I really do think it's important for people to dig in deeper. So my process is that and the way that I teach is to take people on that journey with me. The way that I teach is to say, "This is the journey that I'm going through. This is the stuff that I understand." For the listeners that aren't teachers, there's some interesting -- I don't want to get too much into the weeds about teaching -- but there's something interesting about teaching. There's this fancy word called Pedagogy which is not the thing that you're teaching but the strategy that you want to use to teach it, the narrative that you want to take a person through. And I spend an awful lot, probably more of my time thinking about that than about the topic itself. So, my practice is to use a lot of silly metaphors. Like I'm teaching promises and I talk about future cheeseburgers and stuff for those that have read or heard from me before, they'll know the future cheeseburger. I use silly stuff like that because this stuff can be really dry and difficulty and I want it to stick in your head. I want the how to stick in your head. So, I invite other people. That doesn't mean that you have to take the entire journey that I did to learn a thing, but I really want to inspire people to learn at that level to be uncommonly curious. And I hope that when they see that I've done it and that I'm transparent about how my process works, I hope it inspires other people. CHARLES: Yeah, and I think wrapped-up in that is tied back to my usual question is because you yourself are in fact you're going through this process, it's very easy then to empathize people who are going through the same process. I really like that. KYLE: And I think everybody should look at the process of getting up to speed on the thing as an opportunity to go on that journey and to document and share that journey with others. You don't have to have the word 'teacher' in your job title to be a teacher. I think all engineers should be seeking to go outside of themselves and to explain things, if for no other reason than the purely selfish reason which is you learn it better by re-explaining it to somebody else, but all boats will rise with the tide. And so, I have taken, for years now, the perspective every time I learn a thing, I'm going to turn around and share it with somebody else. It's exactly the same thing that's interesting and almost ironic that we started our discussion today about that meetup and about LABjs. I was learning a thing and figuring out a thing and I turned around and shared it with other people and it turned out to make an impact. But the impact isn't the important part. The important part was the journey, it's not the end goals. I was always tell people, "If you're waiting until you're already an expert on a thing to share it with somebody else, you've waited far too long because we missed out on the most important part which was the journey." STEPHANIE: Kyle, you touched on something that I wanted to ask you about. You talked about the first phase being understanding a problem, and then the second one being how do we fix this. And last week, I believe, CodeNewbie has her own podcast. And she released a post on Medium and it's called 'I Don't Belong in Tech'. And she talks about how her instinct is to understand the problem versus solving it. It seemed like she feels she is an outcast in the tech community because most people are really excited about solving problems and she doesn't feel like she is solution-oriented. And I kind of wanted to ask you, is that the case? Do you think the people that excel in programming are people that are just naturally excited about solving problems? And if that's not the case, then what do you recommend for people that may not think in that fashion, they don't intuitively feel like solving problems and they feel like they approach it in a different manner? It seems like people have different learning styles. KYLE: I agree completely that people have different learning styles. And that question you just asked is so rich with so many things to mind. So, I'm excited to dig into that a little bit. I 100% agree that people have different learning styles and I think that it is why it is important for there to be people in the community who are spending their time and attention thinking about teaching and about improving educational processes. I do not think that curriculum teaches itself. And I'm somewhat suspect of the movement that we have as an industry towards almost praising or taking it as a badge of honor the label of self-taught. It's almost become its own cult that you're a self-taught person versus somebody who came through it from a more traditional path where a person was carefully thinking about how to present to you and how to teach you whether that was at a university or a tech school or mentorship or any of the others. People that are self-taught often wear that as a badge of honor. It's almost a rite of passage that you got to a level of understanding and experience and expertise because you boot strapped yourself up as opposed to the more top-down approach. And I am suspect of whether or not that's healthy for us to suggest to people that there are these two factions. It's kind of like the old Dr. Seuss book of the star bellies and the non-star bellies. I have the star belly because I got my Computer Science degree. And if you know that book and if you don't know the book, you should go look it up. But what happens in the book is at some point, there's a flip and now the people with stars are the excluded ones and the people without aren't. So I don't think it's healthy for us to promote the idea that we need two entirely different approaches that there's a person who can only be a self-taught and that's a thing, and then there's a person who gets more formal education. I really think it's important for people to spend time thinking about how stuff should be presented and not just throwing information out there for people to learn themselves. This is kind of a crazy metaphor. But if you had a one or two year old kid and you wanted them to learn to swim, the developer mindset often says, "Well, just throw them in the deep end and they'll figure it out." But that isn't how we actually would teach them to swim. We would be very, very patient, very, very cautious with them. We'll start with the shallow end, there being an adult there and they would guide them through that. And I think there's virtue in having some of your learning even if you're one of those listening that does value the whole self-taught thing or that has worked for you in the past. I think there's also value in people going through a more formalized process. Like I said, there's lots of different channels for that modality. But I think the formalized modality has value to it. And of course, that's what I spend my time thinking about. I put out a lot of information - my books and my training videos. There's a lot of that material available for people to self-teach but I really hope that what that does is not encourage people to stay disconnected but rather, to attract people to create relationships around learning because I think relationship-based learning is the most effective modality for leaning. And we've proven that for thousands of years in lots of other parts of society, but we haven't really taken that to heart in the developer world, and I think we need to more. You're right, going back to the original question that there are lots of different ways that people learn. I know CodeNewbie. What's interesting about that premise, I share a similar perspective on those that want to learn to solve a problem versus those that want to learn to figure out how to solve problems. I have a statement that I make which I will preface with I understand that sometimes it can be a little bit off but I hope that listeners will take this from the spirit that I'm trying to give it in. I think that one of the things we can do is begin to think a little bit more about what we're doing even though all of the other structure and process scaffolding around us incentivizes and encourages the opposite. I think what we see is that the developer-oriented mindset typically is more interested in first solving a problem and maybe later understanding it. Whereas I think the engineering mindset -- for lack of a better label, I'll call it the engineering mindset. That's my bias because I came up through a more traditional engineering CS degree. But I think the engineering mindset, the one that most people would say is heavily focused on problem solving and that kind of thing. I think the engineering mindset seeks first to understand the problem and maybe later solve it. If you have developer mindset that wants to solve a problem without really fully understanding it, I think one of the outcroppings of that is the churn that we see in the development community. We see people constantly every two or three years trying to go recreate a whole new stack of things because we're saying, "We need to do this thing differently." And I have seen that cycle four or five times in my career. And so, I can say with pretty strong certainty right now that somewhere in the world, there is a guy or a girl that is a 16 year old that is working on what is going to eventually replace React. I don't know what it is, I don't know who the person is, but I'm pretty sure that we're at some point going to say, "Wow!" And when that shift happens, we're going to come back and think to ourselves, "How could we have ever thought that React was the most amazing thing in the world," and we very quickly forget. So, one of the outcroppings is that continuing cycle because people are seeking to fix problems as quickly as possible and not everybody takes the time to really think about it. The authors of those tools, they think really deeply about these problems. They think so deeply about them. I am amazed the kinds of thought that goes into creating one of those frameworks or libraries. And I have a lot of deep respect to the Ember community, the React community, the Angular community. Those people spend a lot of time thinking about those problems. But the people that use them, use them as tools to get their job done honestly and earnestly so. But they very rightly focus on what can I get done with React rather than 'can I understand what React is really trying to do and use it to its best ability'. And we incentivize that. We incentivize that by saying that the people that advance at work, the people that become the senior developers at work are more likely the people that shipped more code. They're more likely the people that closed more bugs. And one path to getting there is you're just a really quick coder or you're one of those mythical unicorn 10x developers. But a lot of people aren't. I'm certainly not. I am not a fast developer. I'm one of the slower developers. I am very, very careful about what I write. So, I can't survive in that environment where I have to advance because I can write code quickly. Rather for me to survive in those environments, I advance or up my stature, if you will, because I understand the thing deeper than anybody else. And I think there's places in the workplace for both, so I'm not disparaging those that write a lot of code quickly. But one of the outcroppings of writing code quickly if jumping as quickly as you can to solving a problem, is that you often times find a local maximum. A mathematic theory about -- just visualize a curve kind of like the landscape of hills. If you're climbing a hill as quickly as possible and you get to the very top of the hill, it might not have been the tallest hill that you could have climbed. But you got to the top of the hill really quickly and you got the next promotion, you went on to the next thing. So, I think those value. Sometimes in your career and some people in the community who want to take a step back and understand a thing deeper, dig into a thing deeper, and I encourage people to have that as part of their toolset, that they would be that uncommon level of curiosity. Take a moment and by a moment I mean a couple of months, maybe a cycle at most of six months, take a step back from the just everyday churn of shipping a feature and fixing a bug and making the button blue, take a step back and say, "What are some of the things that I have been touching or I have been hearing people talk about," and dig into that thing and learn it. And learn it really deeply and really understand it, and maybe reinvent it if you need to. But really deeply get it. And then kind of resurface and look around and say, "All right, let me find the next thing." And so, I think those cycles are healthy for people. And I think the engineering mindset should be something that each of us strives to adopt at least some in the workplace as opposed to being almost drunk on the idea that the best developers among us are the ones that ship code the quickest. CHARLES: I think also too there is like if you do take the time and you then make that investment upfront, it engenders a lasting speed. In the same way that if you look at a child taking its first steps which is kind of the initial solution of a problem, it takes intense concentration. And it takes all the muscles or trembling and stuff just to coordinate the balance to take those first steps. But then once the child kind of understands the process fully -- like none of us, at this point in our lives, think about walking. It's just something that we do naturally. But because the human brain is wired at that point to take whether it's walking or any other kind of motor skills to really understand the motion and rewire the brain optimized for that motion so that it becomes second nature, so that you benefit from that again and again and again. And I feel having spent a long time in the industry seeing the speedups that can actually be gained by doing it slow. In other words, you expand that understanding to fill the room and then the door is only a few millimeters away, if that makes any sense. KYLE: I think it does. And I think for those that are listening just to address what questions may be popping up in people's heads because as a teacher, you learn to anticipate questions ahead of time. So I can see, even from our discussion so far, that somebody may be asking, "Okay, you're talking about some really nice theory here, but what about the practicality of it? What are the benefits of the thing? I don't have time to go learn React but I can get my job done by applying React to my business process." So, I think there are some practical things that we can point to that that come from being that uncommon level of curious, that deeper and slower and more methodical learning. One of those, I'd like to say -- and people always kind of smirk at me when I say this -- I call them getify's laws. They're just statements that I make. They're statements of my opinion and really the only thing that I'm an expert on is my own opinions and I'm never at a lack for those. It's just an opinion but I believe that you can't hope to solve a problem if you don't first understand it. Or to put another way the getify's law - if you don't understand why a piece of code works, you have no hope of understanding why it broke and how to fix it. So we do a lot of code that works and we don't know why. I would say probably the majority of code that gets shipped were just sort of only kind of tenuously understand it. And sometimes it's really tenuous. Sometimes it's house of cards development where you build a thing and you're not really quite sure why it works but you put a comment there that says 'don't touch this' and 'don't break it' or whatever. And then we back away and hold our breath and hope that it stays in place. That is a way to ship code quickly. The agile mindset has permeated so deep down that on every line of code we're thinking [inaudible], we're thinking, "Just get the thing working and get the test passing and then we'll worry about whether it's the appropriate way to solve the problem. We'll worry about that later." Many times we don't get a chance to worry about it later until there's a fire, until something's broken. And that fire could be that bug or that brokenness could be it's not doing what it's supposed to do or more often, that fire is it's doing it but it's impossibly slow, it's impractically slow. And now, we have to go back and think, "We thought we only had five pieces of data to ever work with, but now we have 50,000 and the algorithm completely falls apart. We can't do an [inaudible] scan anymore," or whatever. So that very narrow myopic short term mentality can be effective for people to get stuff shipped and to advance in their jobs, but it falls apart when things start breaking. If you're talking about a car and you said, "I don't need to know how a car works, so I can just drive a car." And that's entirely true. But if we took that to its logical extreme, you could say, "I don't even need to know that my vehicle runs of gasoline or electricity," or whatever. "I don't even need to know anything about the liquids that go in that make my car work. I just sit down behind the driver wheel and drive and it works." And that will work until your gas tank runs empty. And then at that point, you have no idea how to fix your problem. So you're going to have do some reading and worse, you're going to be at the mercy of somebody else. Having an instinct, having a clue about something about what's going on into the hood is pretty important when we go off the happy path and start trying to fix problems, whether that is fixing bugs or improving performance. Those are, I think, some very important practical takeaways that come from some people some of the time being the uncommonly deep learner. Just for fun, for my son in his school, I've been working on building a game that he's doing as part of his school through this Mathematics competition, I've been building a computerized version of this game. And those that have been following my Twitter have seen some interesting tweets about that. But I've been building an AI, a strategy turn based AI so that you can play against the computer for this thing. Tackling that requires you to kind of really understand or at least be able to fiddle your way through some deeper "CSC" kind of topics. But I got it working and it was too slow. You have to wait for the computer for 20 or 30 seconds for it to figure out its next move and that's slow. So then I started thinking about how I'm going to optimize this. Do I need an object pulled to pull stuff in and be able to reuse arrays or something? I was at a loss as to how to do that efficiently. I was completely lost. And so, I had to learn that thing. I had to think very carefully methodically. If I had let some sort of artificial deadline and say, "No, you just got to ship the game," it would have worked but it would have been impractical. And so, taking that time to think about it -- actually, I finally did. It took me days but I finally arrived at a solution for managing, sharing references that actually works from a performance perspective. It is practical now. I think there are practical takeaways. It's not just all the theory behind being a deeper learner. CHARLES: I've been thinking like where do you know where the stopping point is? Because the world is just packed with knowledge. When I was starting out as a programmer, there were people who just code assembly for fun and assemble their own microprocessors and stuff because that's what they did when they were coming up. But all of that stuff exists like we're standing on it. We've kind of lived on the level of the city street but beneath that is the subway and beneath that is the power grid and the gas pipes and the hog water pipes and all that stuff. Who knows how much more layers of urban development lie beneath some of these cities that are certainly way more rich than Austin. None of that stuff is present here. KYLE: I was going to say I didn't know there was a subway. I wish there was. CHARLES: Once I realized what the analogy was, I was standing in the Austin streets, I kind of transitioned to New York without telling anybody. My point is that in the computer world -- let's just keep it there -- let's say you're working with JavaScript and you're running on top of the browser. Most of modern browsers are written in C that are also using C libraries that are written on native platform tool kits whether it's OSX or Linux or Windows which then are written on top of these operating systems which then are written on top of these compiled assembly language that run on these microprocessors. It's a deep, deep ocean, so to speak. And we spend most of our time skimming around on the surface in our boats. And so, I guess the question is how do you know when to stop and how do you know when enough is enough? Ultimately, there is a tension between a deadline and the amount of time that you're going to invest in learning. And I think that there are definitely -- I feel very strongly that it's skewed way towards the deadline and that we need to kind of pull that tug of war back in the other direction. So the question is then how far is far enough? Or is it just really until you feel comfortable? KYLE: I see the world of what we do in computers and in software development as layers of a cake if you want to mix in a whole bunch of different metaphors here. There's lots of layers of abstraction that we create to utilize technology more effectively in our lives. And in a sense, the technological revolution from the 1940's onward has really been a story of adding layer upon layer upon layer upon layer just like a big tall cake of different abstraction because lots of different people need to eat at different layers. They need to get their jobs done, if you will, at different layers. There are people who need to get their job done the assembly language, the deep guts of your computer talking to the 1's and 0's kind of thing. And then there are people that need to work in the C libraries. And then there are people that need to work in the operating system tool kits. And then there are people that need to work in the browser. And then there are people that need to work in JavaScript. And then there are people that need to work on frameworks. And then there are people that need to work on transpilers that build the frameworks that then get compiled down. So we just keep adding more and more layers because there's more and more people that were opening up the world to, to participate. And not everybody is going to play on the same level. If your choice is to be a JavaScript developer, if your choice is to be a React developer, if your choice is to be somebody who builds those almost meta tools like the transpilers that go from one language to another, if you're a ClojureScript developer or whatever, my recommendation is that whatever layer of cake you eat out, whatever layer you've chosen to make your primary focus, I think you should be striving to become an absolute expert at that layer. And that is not a transactional thing when you just go watch the right video or read the right book and then you check it off. That will be, in most respects, a lifelong process. But I think you should strive to be as much of an expert at that layer as you can. But to become an expert at that layer, one of the most important things is to begin to have an understanding, a level of competency at the layer below it. So if you're a React developer, having a layer of JavaScript below it means that you want to have some pretty good core competency in the JavaScript language. In a sense, that's what my job is dedicated to doing is assisting people at playing at these higher levels at the frameworks and tools levels by understanding JavaScript more deeply. But if you're a core JavaScript developer and that's all you do, you should have some competency at the layer below that which we might say would be the browser API level or maybe the C level and understanding something about how memory is going to get managed to let you have some intuition about that. And so, the further you go down in the stack, you start to see that diminish but it never gets to zero. I don't think there should be any engineer out there that aspires to have absolutely no knowledge whatsoever of what a processor is or what 1's and 0's are or any of that. But that might not be your everyday task. If that's 4 layers removed and you have a lot less understanding of that layer, to be effective in your job, you should be an expert at your layer and be seeking to have a core competency level of understanding at the layer below that. I think that's how you start to answer, Charles, your question of how do you figure out where to stop is at this point in your career -- because many people will dance around and eat at different layers of the cake as they go. But whatever point you are at in your career now, be looking to understand how to eat all that layer of cake and then understand the one below it. I would say that would be the most effective strategy that I've come up with. CHARLES: I like that. I like that a lot. STEPHANIE: I want to become an expert in JavaScript. But sometimes I have doubts in my ability to "become a programmer" or think like a programmer. I feel like the people that excel in programming, and you could tell me if I'm wrong, I don't know if you've noticed this as well or haven't. But it seems like the people that excel at programming are the people that are naturally good at math. It's like they think in terms of math. I don't know if they're seeing algorithms in their brain or what it is. And I don't know if other people relate to this as well. But I'm a natural problem solver. I like problem solving but I don't think in terms of math. And I've taken a lot of math courses for my undergrad degree. I took Calculus for Biosciences like two and a half times, and so I beat my brain enough to understand those concepts. But I don't know if you have also seen that, if that is the case. And if it is the case, is there any advice for the hopeless programmers like myself that are not naturally good at math. But I am interested and I do want to be good at this. KYLE: There's hope, Stephanie. There's definitely hope. STEPHANIE: [Laughs] KYLE: Again, lots to unpack here and I thank you for asking that question because I actually do have a particular sensitivity to the mindset that seems to come around between people - again, the haves and have-nots. There are people that naturally gravitate to or understand math and there are people for whom math has always been an opaque topic that they keep running into over and over and they haven't been able to really fully engross themselves in or wrap themselves in. They haven't been able to get it, if you will. And as an educator, I don't teach math for a living. But as an educator, it deeply troubles me. As a parent, my son, Ethan, is about to turn six. He's in Kindergarten for the first time, so it is right on the front of my radar screen to think about how we teach these things. And I want for everybody to be able to grasp important concepts like obviously reading is important, but Math is one of those core concepts that I think is important for people to not be intimidated by. And I think we do ourselves a really big disservice and have for many, many years by approaching the teaching of that topic as there's one right way to know how to do math. In a sense, I think, we're seeing a shift to know there's lots of ways to learn and we should embrace that. Just like we said there's lots of different ways that people learn. There's lots of different ways to approach. There's lots of different pedagogy, if you will, around approaching math and I embrace that idea that we should be doing that. I think we should be starting that with our Kindergarteners and working all the way up. And I'm glad that there are educators that are thinking about that because my generation was taught that either you get it this way or you're just "not a math person". And I sat and sat alongside in my Science and English classes all the way through schooling even at University, I sat along people that were math people and on the other side of me were people that were "not math people". It's sad and it sucks that we would divide people that way or that people would choose to divide themselves that way because they struggle with math. My sphere of influence right now is my two kids - my son, Ethan, and my daughter, Emily. I really want for both of them, whether they become math nerds or nor, whether they have a minor in math like I do or it's just a thing that they learn, I want them to not be intimated by that. I want them to understand it. And I hope that I will be able to, in the sense, partner with the educational system. Our kids are in Austin IST Public Schools and they will be for their whole lives, as our plan, but I hope to, in a sense, be augmenting that by saying, "I understand that this is struggling for you, but let me help to at least not be intimidating, at least be a thing that you can grab on to and understand even if it's not interesting to you, it won't be scary to you," because I have family members and I see it personally that have self-labeled and self-[inaudible] themselves as "not math people" and they struggle their entire lives as a result. And I don't want that to happen. So, I'm glad I got at least a little chance to have some advocacy there to say I hope that people aren't being that way and aren't promoting patterns that treat people as either you know math or you don't. I was one of those people that gravitated towards math. But I can tell you for a fact that I do not use most of my math background on a regular basis as a programmer, and even if I try. As you're asking the question, I was doing some self-assessment here. What are the things that I know from math? Like I understand for example that a function is putting in an X value and getting out a Y value and when we plot that, we see a parabola on the graph. I get that concept. So, there's a tie in between the visual and the actual written out math for me. And I understand in calculus when we have the integral. I understand that's the area underneath the curve. So, I get those concepts. But does any of that stuff actually play into my day-to-day work? Not really. Maybe a little bit about functions since I'm starting to be a bit more attuned to the functional programming these days, but it really doesn't play into my job. But there is a part of math that really does play in almost daily, and that's what we call discrete math. That's more of the computer science-y take on math. And discrete math is things like understanding number systems, things like understanding the difference between representing something as a binary or representing it in base 10 or hexadecimal. There are certain concepts that we talk about like Big O Notation - that's one of those computer science-y concepts. When I was writing this game AI, I had an intuition about a loop inside of a loop is going to perform worse than just a single level of loop. But I didn't spend any time whatsoever actually calculating the Big O complexity of my algorithm. I just had some intuition about it. And the reason I have this intuition about it is because I took a discrete math class. So, if I could say anything to the people listening, for those that aren't math people or for some reason or another didn't really gravitate towards it, to be better at programming, I would encourage you to at least think about discrete math as an area to study to get some better understanding around, because I do think those things help. But I don't think that most of math, the stuff that most people struggle with, like algebra and matrices -- I was terrible at matrices. I hated them for some reason. I don't think most of that ever comes in. I learned what an icon vector was but I've never once coded it. So I don't think that you have to feel intimated coming at programming if you weren't one of those "math people" but there are some parts of math that do end up playing quite a bit into the programmers' everyday life. CHARLES: I think for me certainly whenever you have a particular problem, then that's an opportunity to actually explore the math behind it. I think a lot of times we put -- there's this kind of inverse relationship -- we put the cart before the horse. It's like you got to learn math and then you learn the programming. But it's almost like the equation ought to be reversed in the sense that it's like trying to -- let me just cast about for a random analogy here -- it's like learning the theory of fishing without actually living on the coast and going out on a boat every day. You can certainly study it and it can be interesting. Yes, we tie the line to the pole and we put it in the water but unless you actually have that problem of like, "Now, I'm trying to catch fish," you actually are connected to it in a way that's going to help you understand what solutions work and which ones don't. I often feel like we frontload way too much on the theory. I feel it has to be connected to practice, I guess is what I'm saying. Because certainly my experience, I come from a CS background, but I didn't switch to CS until my junior year of college. And that after I'd basically dropped out of school for two years to work at a startup. And I remember it made a lot more sense because I had this prior programming experience. It's like, "Oh…" Whereas, I think a lot of my classmates, they were kind of dumbfounded by, "What does this even mean? I don't understand. I don't understand how this connects to anything." But if you have that kind of experience, then the learning can come in hand with it but it has to be more of an organic process as opposed to one coming before the other. That's my experience. KYLE: I love what you're saying there and I want to build off of that to unpack some of my most recent passion and focus in the area of education and with developers because I really think what you're saying is the foundation is the same belief I have. So, I'm right there with you. If you look at humans and the way humans have passed along information and skill to the next generation, if you look at that over the course of history, we have mountains of precedent around the idea that skills are passed along through the mentorship model. Some like to call it the master apprentice model. It's the more classical way to think about it. But just the more modern way is to call it mentorship. For example, chefs. You would never suggest that the best chef at the best restaurant in town and the way that that chef got there, the way that that chef got to be the best chef in town and have the best restaurant was that they sat in a classroom and learned all the theory about how to bake a chicken. First, before going and baking the chicken, there's lots of ways that they could have gotten to be better but probably the least effective way would have been for them to learn all the theory upfront and then just go work in a kitchen for year after year after year after year and almost accidentally -- we call it the School of Hard Knocks -- accidentally learn all those experiences. That's how a lot of people define experience is experience these mistakes over time getting practice making perfect. That does work and lots of people have done that. And I certainly would say a lot of my story is that way, but I wish that I'd had a mentor. I wish that I'd had somebody like what happens with chefs to sit there and say, "I'm not just going to let you figure it out on your own and screw up a bunch of chickens. What I'm going to do is give you a little bit of information about cooking a chicken. Like for example, what the temperature of the oven needs to be, how to tell what the temperature of the chicken is to know that it's fully cooked, what materials you need and what utensils. But we're going to spend 10 minutes in the classroom talking about it and then we're going to go sit in a kitchen and you're going to watch me bake a chicken. And you're going to watch very carefully. And I want you to ask a lot of questions about what I'm doing and I'm going to talk to you about it every single step and the decisions that I'm making. And then I'm going to do that again and again and again and again. And over time, you're going to start to pick up on and glean some of my experience from observation. And then eventually, once you are starting to feel more confident about it, we're going to flip the tables and now, you're going to start baking the chicken but you're going to do it step by step methodically and I'm going to watch you and be very closely paying attention. And I'm going to ask you questions and I'm going to say 'why did you squirt that there and why did you do this and why did you turn on the oven right now'. And I'm going to ask you about that stuff and challenge you to make sure that you really got all the different pieces of what it takes to master this skill. And then I'm going to do that again and again and again. And after we feel pretty good about chickens, we'll go back to the classroom and we'll talk about cooking steak and then we're going to repeat this process over and over." That is much more the picture of how that mastery of that skill is replicated in another person is that mentorship model. And we've seen that with stone masons and carpenters and plumbers and chefs and caterers. And on down the line through most of human history, we can see that that is how skills are passed along. What I think we're missing is that there's a lot of value to be gained by applying those models to software development. As a matter of fact, I think if you ask most developers, regardless of the skill level even if they were a senior developer -- although certainly the intermediate and junior developers are more willing to admit it. But I think if you really ask in their heart of hearts, almost all the developers would say, "Oh, I'd love to have a mentor to help me get better but I don't know how or I can't afford it or there aren't any available or I don't know what to do," because we haven't prioritized as our part of the industry making education more effective. And so, when you talk about 'I need to practice a thing, not just know the theory', you're absolutely right. You're absolutely right that sitting in a classroom and learning a bunch of stuff which ironically that's what I do. I teach corporate training classes, I threw out a bunch of information then I know as I'm throwing out that information, the vast majority of it isn't going to be retained because the only stuff that will be retained is the stuff that somebody gets a chance to practice pretty quickly. And by pretty quickly, I think probably that horizon level is about three days beyond when you've learned it. If you don't get a chance to really practice, and I don't mean just the artificial stuff that we teachers come up with like a silly little toy examples and the foobar kind of stuff, I mean really practice in a context of something that matters and that you're thinking about it and you need to solve it. If you don't get a chance to practice some of that theory within about three or four days, you're going to lose it. So, I present to you a set of information in a week-long training course that you really ought to actually learn. And by learn, I mean more than just hear the theory but also practice it. You really should learn that over 12 to 24 months. But I give it to you in 40 hours because that's, again, the industry incentivizes how quickly can I check off the check box then my developers learn how to become React developers or that we learned about JavaScript. Instead of focusing on how do I really get them to know it. And the only way to really get somebody to know it is to have somebody watching over them as they practice what was taught. You teach a little bit and you have a bunch of practice. And that practice can't be just the developer has to figure it out on their own and make their own mistakes and figure it out through Stack Overflow, it has to be monitored, it has to be proactively mentored. And they have to take a little bit of learning, a lot of guided practice. Pipeline that across, that's how we make this educational process for developers become much more efficient, much more effective. And so in a sense, what I'm trying to do is disrupt my own educational model and try to [inaudible] myself as a business by saying, "I teach it in the classroom but every time I walk out of that classroom, I feel empty inside," because I feel not just tired physically because it is exhausting, but I also feel empty inside because I know that what's really missing is that I just contributed to yet another transactional learning experience. But what really is important is for people to know that learning that is most effective is learning that's relational. Learning has to be paired with people because at its heart, what we do as developers is a people game. It's not an 'instruct the computer' game. The 'instruct the computer' is a side effect of what we do in connecting with people and passing along information and skill and knowledge. We've got to do that because we are throwing all kinds of money and time and effort at figuring out how to make people learn better through books and videos and conferences and tech schools and the list just goes on and on and on. And it's good that there's a wide buffet for people to pick from, there's no question. But most of that stuff isn't as effective as it ought to be, and that is why people have to keep doing it over and over and over again. They have to try all these different things because they don't get satiated by picking the one right thing that they ought to have fixed. I happen to be obviously very bias, but I happen to believe that a lot of the problems that developers face, a lot of the overhead of code maintenance and all of that stuff, it could be solved if people were trying to implement mentorship for developer education. And that's what I'm trying to do. My recent efforts are around upending or reimagining the normal corporate developer training. Of course I still offer that. And if anybody wants me to come teach, I can still do that. But what I'm moving towards and building a startup to offer mentoring at scale because I believe that's where we move it from transactional relationship. We make it about people and then we get a chance to really practice what we're learning. That's how you take a person, and get them from being junior to being intermediate or from intermediate to senior is that they have to have practice. Would you rather them figure it out on their own and make lots and lots of mistakes or would you rather them be guided and monitored as they go through that process of practice? I think the latter would be a lot more effective. CHARLES: For people who are excited about this, who want to figure out ways in which to engage in this relational learning, this can be a very expensive proposition especially for smaller companies. But even for larger companies, one of the things you're hoping to address is a way to make this when you say 'do it at scale, make it more accessible' in terms of those time and resources. KYLE: In a sense I would be failed at the start if I didn't feel like I had a model for scaling mentorship. If I was just on here and [inaudible] saying, "Hey, everybody. You should go mentor," and I had no way of doing that, then everybody will say, "Okay, that's all well and great. Thanks." And as soon as this podcast ended, they'd just go on back to their normal day jobs and fix anything. I really do believe that there are ways to scale out and to make it effective. That doesn't necessarily mean that the price tag is cheap because time is expensive. And what we're saying is you need expert time paired with your people to get them to where you need them to go. But I want to push back on the notion that expense makes things inaccessible, because I want to point out -- this is almost like I'm doing a customer pitch. But I just want to point out that there's an awful lot of things that we spend money on as managers of software development teams. For example, I've talked to managers of software development teams and they've said, "We probably spend 70% to 80% of our time maintaining our existing code and fixing bugs, and only maybe 20% of our time implementing new stuff." Some people listening would say, "Good lord, I'd love to have 20%. We probably spend 5% of our time on that and 95% on maintenance." So those numbers differ. But there's a lot of overhead associated with running a software development team. And one of my theories which I believe we will prove out as we scale this out, one of my theories is that if you want people to avoid having to come back and return on something. One of the ways to do that is to empower them with better education before they write that line of code. I think even though yes it will be more expensive to get your developers mentored, you will actually not spend more as a company, you will spend much less because you'll be investing that money much more effectively in the things that actually make them retain and get a chance to practice that. It also means that hiring will be cheaper because you'll know much more deeply what your company wants and needs and that will make it a lot easier to identify the right candidates. It means that the total cost of ownership of yourself will be vastly less. So there's lots of dollars here that I think we can pull that we are, in a sense, wasting or misappropriating to make it more effective to invest in mentorship. I think what we need is a process and a model instead of tools to do that, and that's my mission. That's my goal. CHARLES: I am very, very excited to see that, because I know that that is something that one, holds the value. Here at the Frontside, we see as one of our core beliefs and one of our core aspects or mission is to level people up and make sure that they can improve themselves as a developer and improve the quality of the products that they develop. But it's definitely something that we've struggled with. So, I'm really curious and excited to see the outcome of this. So, we'll be on the lookout for it. Is it still under the radar? KYLE: There's no company name to announce yet. There's no website or Twitter account. But I can say that it's been under active development now for four to six months. I have a team of founders with me and we are formalizing our process in trying to get funded for that. I hope within the next few months that there'll be a much bigger announcement about where we're headed with it because I'm all in on believing that it's not just good enough for me to keep churning. I get emails and tweets weekly. I get a couple to maybe five or ten sometimes in a week of people saying, "Hey, I read your book," or, "I watched your Frontend Master's training video," or whatever, "And that's awesome. I'd love it if you could help me with something. Could you spend some time? How much would I need to pay you to get a few hours of your time to sit here and talk with me?" And it pains me to get these kinds of requests. And the reason it pains me is because I would absolutely love to spend that kind of time with people, but that kind of time is so valuable right now. Time is so valuable because the process of mentoring currently is incredibly time intensive. It's very, very expensive to do this. And that's why I think it's not done very widespread is because people haven't figured out how to make it effective, from time and money perspective. And I know that pain personally. I have to turn people down and say, "I'd love to but I'm too busy because…" and then fill in the blank with a thousand things. I'd love to have that time. What I really want is I really want to be able to do this effectively and to scale it, because people are hungry. They want to learn. I believe that what we need to do is unlock that hunger, not necessarily inspire people. I think we need to unlock and empower that hunger that people naturally tend to have to want to get better at what they do. And I think this is one of the ways that we can help people get better. STEPHANIE: I also wanted to point out that for companies that are interested in doing this, not only do junior or apprentices benefit from this model but the senior developers also benefit from this. I have personally seen someone on my team, Alex, from all the times that we've been pairing and talking about JavaScript concepts, I have seen an exponential growth in just the way that he explains things. And they do say the one that does the teaching does the learning. And I have seen that in him and I think it's something that every team could benefit from. KYLE: I 100% agree. And to build on that, I would say what we're really doing with that is we're helping people find more purpose for what they do. And who doesn't want to have more purpose and more meaning? We're giving people a way to -- as I said, all boats rise with the tide. We're giving people a way to help other people around them. And it doesn't have to be like some macro scale thing where you become an international conference speaker. You don't even have to speak at your local city meetup. You can just pair with the person next to you and help them learn the thing that you're learning, and then learn from them. And you've made the world better, you've made the workplace better, you've made yourself better. It goes back to what I said before - I think we have to get better. The biggest thing that's lacking from us developers right now, in my opinion, the emotional muscle that we need to work on the most is recognizing empathy for our fellow human beings for the people around us because I really deeply in my core believe and my DNA I believe that what we're about is people and not about the code that gets written as a result of this connections. If we can focus on building the relationships around this. You don't have to go pay for the service of the startup that I'm building. You can implement this just like what Stephanie just said, by looking for opportunities whether it's coding, whether it's code review used as a way to learn, whether it's doing a brown back lunch, you can look for ways to build the culture of learning into the workplace around you and people will benefit from that. You will inspire people to get bigger and better as a result of providing that environment. CHARLES: Fantastic! If people need to get hold of you, Kyle, what is the best way to reach out to get in touch? KYLE: The best way to get in touch with me is to find getify. That's how people know me online. That's my Twitter handle, that's my GitHub handle, it's also my Gmail address. So, getify@gmail.com. Reach out to me in any one of those channels, probably through Gmail is best. If you'd like to talk more about education, if you'd like me to come and help your team, I would love to come and do a workshop and then build a relationship with you or we can begin this mentoring process as I spin that up. If you're interested in that, if you're hoping to learn from some of my resources, you can check out my book series. I have the You Don't Know JS books that I wrote that many people know about. That's up on my GitHub. I'm almost done with my next book which is Functional Light JavaScript, you can check that out on GitHub. All that stuff you can read for free. You can also buy it if you'd like to -- and I always appreciate people if they want to support me. But check out my books. I have training videos available on FrontendMasters.com. I think I have nine courses and we've already scheduled a few more that I'm going to be teaching later in the Spring. That's a fantastic platform. There's 50 or 60 really incredibly well-versed experts that are teaching on that platform. So, check out Frontend Masters. Some of those videos are also out on Pluralsight. You can check them out as well. Check out books, check out the training videos, get in contact with me if I can help you in some way with training at your company. But I would love it that even if that isn't the channel, if you take nothing else away from the podcast, go talk about learning stuff deeper within the workplace. That will be the best takeaway that we can get from this podcast. CHARLES: Yeah, definitely. I think the things that we talked about here really apply far beyond JavaScript and even really far beyond the technical trade of programming. All right, that's a wrap. Bye everybody!