Podcast appearances and mentions of matt inman

Support the podcast on Patreon: www.patreon.com/consciousenneagram In today's episode with sit down with psychotherapist and Enneagram Type 9, Matt Inman to discuss his experience of spirituality. You don't want to miss it! Connect with Matt here: www.inmanpsychotherapy.com Find out more about how you can work with Abi here: www.consciousenneagram.com  

Listen back to interviews from the 2022 National Association of Farm Broadcasting convention in Kansas City. Here, Richard Ristvedt talks with Matt Inman from BASF.

Where we start with one weed is too many and go from there, according to BASF's Matt Inman and you have to hear what other tips he offers to Bob and Andy. PLUS Jamey Kohake's expert market analysis AND Tim Meyer's weekly land and equipment values update from The Steffes Group.

In today's episode of Weekend Ag Matters Mark runs down the headlines, Riley speaks with Matt Inman, Technical Marketing Manager with BASF, Dustin visits with Iowa Ag Secretary Mike Naig and Russ provides his faith based segment.

Nora chats with Elan Lee, game designer and the co-founder and CEO of Exploding Kittens, a card game that became the #1 most-backed project in Kickstarter history and has sold over 11 million games. Elan talks about creating the game with co-founder Matt Inman, creator of The Oatmeal, and how they turned a single piece of intellectual property -- a game about cats exploding -- into a multi-platform entertainment brand. For more info on our presenting sponsor, check out realvision.com/businesscasual.  Host: Nora Ali Producers: Bella Hutchins, Olivia Meade    Video Editor: Sebastian Vega Production, Mixing & Sound Design: Daniel Markus Music: Daniel Markus & Breakmaster Cylinder Fact Checker: Kate Brandt  Senior Producer: Katherine Milsop VP, Head of Multimedia: Sarah Singer  Full transcripts for all Business Casual episodes available at https://businesscasual.fm

In today's episode, we're joined by special guest, Matt Inman! Matt has previously appeared on Mark's YouTube channel but got back in touch for some assistance moving from Windows/Android to macOS/iPhone. Clearly, there are only two men capable of offering the robust, entirely unbiased buying guidance Matt needed... Raycast Launcher: https://www.raycast.com Alfred Launcher: https://www.alfredapp.com TouchRetouch app: https://apps.apple.com/app/touchretouch/id373311252 Pixel 6 TMNT skin using dbrand configurator: https://imgur.com/a/gRqb7OV AutoHotKey http://autohotkey.com 5 vital tools for working from home | with Matt Inman | Mark Ellis Reviews https://youtu.be/aIVGhsv2ho8 If you'd like to get in touch with Rob and Mark, you can email them at contact@eightorsixteen.com. Eight or Sixteen is a Mark Ellis Reviews production: https://markellisreviews.com 

Matt Inman reflects on how disorientation invites us to create space to honor both our hardship and a deepening gratitude and love.  Erin Inman and Jason Ikpatt also share reflections from their own experiences [Mark 8:29-33].   Reflection What experiences do you find most difficult to validate or legitimize?  Where were you most surprised by where love or connection showed up for you this past week?

As we're still waiting on events, we went into FightPass and checked out the last two Cage Warriors of 2020 Cage Warriors 118 had some good fights, I was really impressed with Matt Inman's performance. He moved up a weight class, hadn't fought in 3 years. And even though he lost to Matthew Bonner, he dominated that last round! In the Co-main, Leonardo Damiani made his promotional debut, on short notice and still had an impressive performance. BUT, in the Main, Jamie Richardson went up against Nathias Frederick for the middleweight belt. Richardson looked good, until Frederick went full beast mode and turned out the lights! Then the next day at Cage Warriors 119, Ian Garry impressed, but it was all about the title fights. The Co-main saw Agy Sardari go up against Jack Grant for the Lightweight strap and Sardari really turned it on in those championship rounds to become, 'And New'. Then in the Main event Morgan Charriere and Perry Goodwin tussled for the Featherweight Championship. And Charriere had movement like classic Anderson Silva. He's either gonna hold that belt for a long time, or be in the UFC real soon There's also the NFL Wildcard recaps in today's (ep 134) @ChinCheckPod breaks it all down, so let's get with it! - Cage Warriors 118: The Trilogy Strikes Back 2 - Cage Warriors 119: The Trilogy Strikes Back 3 - NFL: Wild Card Games *(Music) 'Sweet Child O' Mine' Guns N' Roses - 1987

As we continue in the Advent season, Matt Inman reflects on the Christmas story from the perspective of Mary and how we are invited to be grounded and not overlook the divine in our lives [Luke 1:26-38].   Reflection Where in your life does love tend to get overlooked in your life? What memory of Christmas sticks out to you as loving and intimate? How did love grow in your life to help make such a beautiful moment come into being?   Practice Where do you find yourself managing acceptance and reflection in your life right now? Notice what stories and emotions come up for you. Pick an aspect of life you struggle accepting and work through Tolle's suggestion of doing on oof the three actions: 1. Remove it (let it go)  2. Change it  3. Fully embrace it (accept it)

On this episode I was joined by Coach, Professional Fighter and BJJ Black Belt, Matt Inman After his 3 year lay off from competition Matt fought on the recent Cage Warriors Trilogy Strikes Back event and put on a emphatic performance. We spoke about a number of things form, ring rust, coaching ethos, overcoming plateau and much more! Social Media: Facebook: Matt Inman - Fisticuffs_Podcast Instagram: MattInman_86 - Fisticuffs_podcast Twitter: Fisticuffs_Pod Youtube: Fisticuffs Our Sponsors: The English Hypnotist www.theenglishhypnotist.com Rieco Clothing Riecoclothing.com POD10 for 10% off on all products The Peoples IT linktr.ee/the_peoples_it

Mike Gaston is the President of Stage TEN Studios, and a creative and social provocateur known for "programming between the lines". We discuss launching a profitable poetry press and soon after declaring personal banktuptcy, selling his first music video to MTV, founding viral digital studio Cut.com, and how he'll shape the future of livestream media. Subscribe to our newsletter. We explore the intersection of media, technology, and commerce: sign-up linkLearn more about our market research and executive advisory: RockWater websiteFollow The Come Up on Twitter: @TCUpodEmail us: tcupod@wearerockwater.com--EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:Chris Erwin:Hi, I'm Chris Erwin. Welcome to The Come Up, a podcast that interviews entrepreneurs and leaders. Mike Gaston:This is going to sound insane. And I'm going to share this, but my thought was, is it possible to rob a bank and not go to jail? I'm like 19. Now when I'm thinking this way. And then I thought, yeah, I'll just take out a bunch of money on credit cards and then claim bankruptcy. And so like I took on all these credit cards and then I've just started traveling the world in a way that was just absurd. Chris Erwin:This week's episode features Mike Gaston, the President of Stage Ten Studios. Mike is a creative savant, who's known for programming between the lines. He had breakout success when he founded a viral digital studio, cut.com whose first video was about Grandmas Smoking Weed. You see, Mike is the ultimate provocateur, and he's been conducting social experiments since an early age. Like when just 20 years old, Mike launched a profitable poetry mag while apprenticing for an Irish poet. And then intentionally went into personal bankruptcy. Or when he created a music video for a friend's band, just for fun and ended up selling it to MTV. In Mike's current role at Stage Ten, he'll shape the future of live stream media. He talks about his recent work as well as some of his creative side projects at the end of our chat. All right, let's get into it. Mike, thank you for being on The Come Up podcast. So let's talk about where you grew up. What was your household like? What was your parental situation? Tell me. Mike Gaston:I grew up in West Seattle and my mom is an immigrant. She's from the Philippines. She didn't become a citizen until two years after I was born. And my whole family actually immigrated from the Philippines. So all my aunts, my uncles, my grandparents, my cousins, they're all here. And so had that very large Filipino side of the family around me. And then my dad, he's a white dude and he had a very small family that the only people I really got to know were my grandparents and then his brother and my cousin. But we weren't terribly close to them. And so the family was interesting. I had a bunch of essentially under five foot tall Filipinos about. So culturally, everything that I perceive was very much from a Filipino-American experience and not from the experience that my dad had. There wasn't a very strong kind of like a family philosophy or perspective from their side. But from my mom's side, my Filipino side, it was very strong. It pretty much informs everything that I think about today. Chris Erwin:When you mentioned that there was these the strong Filipino identity and cultural values, what were some of those that you remember growing up. Mike Gaston:Family is primary. It's also a very... It's a matriarchal culture. It's funny to say that because you look at authoritarians like Duterte, who actually is leading the country right now. And you're like, Oh, that seems very macho. And that's true. But it's really the women that do things like handle the finances. Chris Erwin:Interesting. Mike Gaston:And are really leading the family. And it's very common to never move out of the house, to live there forever and then your parents die and then you just take over the home. And so it's a very tight knit family structure, that's one. And then the second thing, which kind of I experienced growing up and then moved out of was this sort of mystical form of Catholicism. In Filipino culture, I felt like my grandmother practiced a magical form of Catholicism where it was like, everything was steeped in sort of miracles and possibility, right? I mean, this is a country where they crucify people, literally crucify people as part of holiday rituals in certain parts of the country. And so it's this sort of magical realism idea when it comes to religion. And that informed a lot of my early childhood. Chris Erwin:And when you say it informed a lot of your early childhood, because I'm also thinking to where you are today, which we'll get into, this like visionary in the media space and a point of view of the responsibility of creators. But what seeds was that planting in you at an early age? Mike Gaston:Honestly story. So I was fascinated by the stories that my grandparents would tell me and my mother would tell me. It was interesting because my dad converted to Catholicism as part of his wooing of my courtship of my mother. And he was never, I would call him a believer. I kind of think most Catholics are, it's very much like a more bureaucratic than it is like a belief to him. Whereas the Filipinos and my family is very strong believers in that kind of thing. And I remember as I was growing up, we would go to church every Sunday. And then right after church, we would go to the movies. And at some point, I want to say, when I was around eight or nine, I somehow convinced my parents that we should stop going to church and only go to the movies, which is probably why I make videos now. And I'm not a priest. Mike Gaston:But it's just something, there's some weird connection that was happening there between this religious communal experience that I was having in church. And then the kind that you have in a dark theater, staring at a screen with a bunch of people experiencing different states of emotional catharsis, right? Somehow I attached a more profound meaning to my experience with movies than I did with my experience in the church. Chris Erwin:And as you matured, maybe your sense of, Oh, I have to go to church to have the theater experience. And then you realize, and I think there's some parts of this story that will come out even more later, I don't need the church. I can just go right to the theater. And I think that comes up about you thinking about some of your coursework in school and saying, "Well, some of this coursework is great and some of it is not, I don't need it." Mike Gaston:Yeah. That just general sort of obnoxiousness definitely found its way into my schoolwork too. Chris Erwin:And so thinking also about your character as you kind of grew up and as a teenager and going to high school before you went off to college, reading some of your blog posts, you described yourself as a scared of everything extrovert. Tell me a little bit more about that. Mike Gaston:I've pretty much always been comfortable in social situations. I don't mind meeting new people, although it does have a tendency to impact me energy-wise. But any new scenario that I was in would instantly hit me with a kind of anxiety. There's just sort of a discomfort that comes with suddenly being presented into a new situation. Anytime I had to meet new people, initially, I would be kind of really timid about it. I was sort of in a corner, kind of a bit of a wallflower until I got acclimated to the temperature of the room. And then suddenly I was in the center in some way. And maybe it was certain aspects of my family life or in the early days we moved a bit around. There was so much attention from my mother's side of the family that I felt always like there's a spotlight on me. Mike Gaston:And so that made me kind of shrink into myself. So I would be freaked out a lot about different scenarios that I would be put into. But at the same time, once I got again, acclimated to the temperature, it wouldn't be tough for me to perform suddenly. But yeah, initially I would be freaked out by a lot of things, pretty often actually. Chris Erwin:Did you feel that people sought your attention or sought to interact with you? Because I look at you now and people seek you out for, they want to hear your point of view. They want to hear you speak, at conferences, at summits and for you to attend their events, but you don't always immediately engage. And so curious, going back, did you feel that social groups were like, "Hey, this is an interesting guy. We want to interact with him." Or did that attention not exist? Mike Gaston:So this is strange given it feels like a backdoor brag, but it's not intentional. I was friends growing up, I could be friends with literally anybody, with all the different kids. But I was popular among the popular kids, but I wasn't necessarily a popular kid because I didn't behave like a popular kid. I didn't behave in a way where I was seeing differentiation between me and other kids. So I was friends with a lot of kids. And then for some reason I would end up popular among the popular kids. I think maybe it's, I just knew from very early age, I would ask myself what I wanted. And then I would only just do the things that I wanted. And I think that that creates a gravity that people are attracted to because I think a lot of people don't ask themselves what they want or are uncertain about going after the things that they want. And so it's attractive when you see it in other people. Chris Erwin:So what did you want back then? Like in your teenage years. Mike Gaston:I wanted you to know why, why we did any of the things that we had to do. So I want to say when I was about 12, I became friends with this kid named Jorge Morales he was a really smart dude. The things that he would read was far beyond what everybody else was reading. He was a multi instrument kind of like musician. And he was unpretentious about all the things that he was really interested in, but he seemed so brilliant. And he was the one who introduced me to philosophical thinking in different types of philosophies. And so as a result of that, I instantly became, over the course of that year of seventh grade, I would say, I became really introspective, really reflective. And then what happens as a result of that is I was just suddenly in a question state where I was just trying to understand what are the things that I wanted? Mike Gaston:And I was trying to understand the why's behind the decisions that people were making, especially when you're a child, right? When you're a child, you're subject to what other people want of you, right. You have very little agency over the things that you want. Chris Erwin:Yes. Mike Gaston:And when you become a teenager is when most of that conflict starts to kind of arise. And it's because you're starting to feel your own agency, it's in a conflict with your parents' and their expectations. Well, that happened way earlier for me, that happened before high school. And that's largely because I was asking those questions all the time of what do I want, why do I need to do any of these things? And that became a lot more a macro sort of philosophical point of view for me going on. Before that, before I had discovered philosophy is more tactical, things would come to me and then I would just question it. I had a natural sort of questioning sort of personality. And again, I think there's a thing that happens with kids where you're told so often, your life is so prescribed to you that you're kind of go on a track. You do the things and you don't even know why you're doing any of the things. You're just doing it because that's the expectation. And I was never like that. I was always asking questions my whole life. Chris Erwin:This manifests in a story about your coursework in high school, you rejected one of your courses, tell me about that. Mike Gaston:Yeah. This was actually happened in seventh grade. This is actually before high school. But as I was asking those questions, I started thinking about... My mother again is Filipino and there's that cliché, the Asian tiger mom is not a cliche. That's just real to me. So she was very aggressive with my education, well, before I even got into kindergarten. So I was reading at three and I was writing full on essays before I got into kindergarten. And so by the time I was in kindergarten, everything was slow. Everything was crazy slow to me. Because for her, she was always trying to get me ahead. She wanted me to go to the best high schools, go to the best college, have the best job. And I remember around some of, when I was starting to have like a larger sense of myself and a larger sense of applying this questioning sort of personality but to my entire life. Mike Gaston:I started asking why I had to do any of these things, why do I have to get A's in all these classes? And so then I just started reshaping my world with experiments. And so I was like, "Okay, well, what if I just got A's in everything except this class that I don't really like." And that class was a religion class. Because I was going to private school. And I was like, I've been studying religion for eight years now. I'm in seventh grade. I had gone to Sunday school before I was even in kindergarten. This all feels really repetitive to me. How about this? I'm just going to do the tests. I got a D in that class. I do great on the test. And then I would just not do any work. Chris Erwin:How did that feel to get a D because you probably had excelled in school? Mike Gaston:Satisfying. Chris Erwin:Satisfying, okay. Mike Gaston:It felt liberating to get a D. Chris Erwin:Which probably frustrated your parents who were like, "Oh, you should be disappointed." And they're seeing you elated. Mike Gaston:Oh, yeah. My mom was very unhappy because she was like, "This is easy. Why are you going to getting a D?" This is the class that everyone gets an A in, why are you getting a D in this class? And I was like, "Well, if everyone gets an A and it's clear that I can get A's, why do I need to do that for this class? Well, what is the purpose of this?" And then she would say things like, "You're jeopardizing your chance again to a good high school." And I was like, "Well, then what happens after that?" If I get into a good high school, then it's about a good college and it's about a good job and then I die. I was literally, I would just go to the end of everything. What is the end effect of literally everything that is to that moment. Mike Gaston:And then I was like, "This doesn't seem like a track I want to be on." And my dad, again, because he was more transactional about his relationship with religion. I remember driving with him in the car and he was like, "Yeah. So you got a D." And I go, "Yeah." He's like... He just turned to me, he's like, "Whatever." He's like, "It's not a big deal." And I'm like, "Exactly." It was this moment where I was like, "It isn't a big deal." And so it became a thing where I had started to seek out moments of failure because I wanted to experience it. I wanted to experience what it was like to not meet my own expectations or meet my parents or meet anybody else's. But the way I started to approach it was different. In that instance, it was me not doing things that I knew I had to do in order to achieve something. Mike Gaston:And what it became was I started to seek out failure by doing things that were much harder and it felt impossible. And it was like, well, I'm just going to do this thing and then try and then get comfortable with that feeling. Chris Erwin:Yeah. It feels like you're a provocateur where there's the societal and cultural foundations. And you're like, if I poke at this crack, does that destabilize anything? And if so, does it actually change my life in a meaningful way or not, or change the end state in a meaningful way. And I think it's a very fast way to learn to provoke. Mike Gaston:It absolutely is. It was one of those things where I was just trying to find the boundaries to, everyone has a shape to their life. And it's one that they construct for themselves because we're all kind of editing our lives on our own. And I was like, what is the boundaries to this thing? What could it actually look like? What if I just started doing these things and stopped doing these things, or I start doing these things and stop doing these. Do any of these things matter? We invest meaning in so many, of the things that we're doing. And I was kind of in a constant state of questioning that. And just asking why. Chris Erwin:From there, there is a traditional path that does take place in the beginning of your career. You go to the University of Washington, and then from there, you end up at Boeing, a big company. So I'm curious to hear, just touching on University of Washington. What were the intentions there? Mike Gaston:Actually, out of high school, I didn't want to go to college at all. My plan was to go on a walkabout, but my mom was so disappointed with the idea that she had invested so much of her personal identity into my future success as an academic that I had to go to college, that I actually went to Seattle University for a year. And while I was at Seattle University, my grandfather, my white grandfather, my dad's father, he was in the midst of dying from diabetes and they had no help. So after school and before school, I would go to his house and I would help him. I would help my grandmother, I would help take him to the bathroom. I would help shower him, wipe his ass. He was literally... He couldn't walk, he couldn't... He was blind, had no feeling in the left side of his body. Mike Gaston:And he was literally falling apart. And I was the most depressed I'd ever been just like sort of a witnessing this and being a part of it. And I told him one day, I was like, "I got to leave, man. I can't be... I'm not happy in school. Because I don't want to be in school right now. And I can't do this." And he's like, "Yes, you need to leave." And I was like, "I'm just going to leave." So then I just started leaving the country and then I left the country for awhile and I didn't return for a couple of years. And then when I finally returned, that's when I went to UDaB. Chris Erwin:So when you were leaving the country, were you enrolled in any academic programs or no? Mike Gaston:No. I just left. So I would travel around Europe and I would meet up with friends in Mexico, in different countries. And then I found a mentor and apprenticed with him in Ireland, lived on his farm on the Southwest Peninsula and just study poetry. So I actually met him when I did a study abroad in Ireland. It was like a two week study abroad program. And he was a professor on that program and he was an Irish poet who had been born in Boston. So he had like dual citizenship. And then he would occasionally go and teach at Wesleyan University. And when I was traveling around, I ended up on his doorstep and I was like, "Hey, is it cool if I hang out here for a bit?" And then a bit turned into well over a year. Chris Erwin:So you lived on the farm? Mike Gaston:I lived on the farm and I was so broke. I would have to fish for food every day on the beach. And he was broke as hell too. Because he was... I mean, he's a poet. There's this thing about John? His name was John O'Leary. He was so broke. I remember when creditors would call him and they would demand he pay for bills. One of the last times I was there, he goes, his response to them was, "Now here's the thing. I'm going to tell you what I tell every creditor, I have a fishbowl and in the fishbowl are all my bills. Every month I put them in there. And then once a month I dip my hand into the fishbowl, I twirled it around and I pull out a bill and that is the bill that I pay for. Now, if you keep calling me, I'm going to put you out of the game." And then he just would hang up on them. He was a total character. He was a total character. Mike Gaston:He was such a wonderful weirdo. He looked a little bit like Walt Whitman's corpse on acid, incredibly skinny with crazy wild hair and that kind of thing. And and he was brilliant. He was the type of guy you could start reading from The Unabridged Shakespeare. And then he could just pick up without looking at it. Chris Erwin:It must have been, despite living in near poverty, having to fish for food every day, a very special experience, because I believe that you try to start your own poetry, newsletter or business, knowing you having experience of how difficult the business model is. And you did end up in bankruptcy, but you did it anyway. Because you're like this felt right. Mike Gaston:I don't know what happened like it. Part of my leaving the country a lot, initially when I was leaving the country a lot, I would do it in that sort of romantic nomadic kind of way that everyone who reads Jack Kerouac on the road kind of does where they go out and they're like, "Okay, I'm going to sleep with homeless people in the Gare de Lyon, and I'm going to eat nothing, but like baguettes because it's cheap and really cheap wine or whatever. And I'm going to try like hop on trades and then get off before anyone tries to get me to buy anything." And that gets real old, real fast. After the first many months of doing that, I kind of cracked, so this is getting to the bankruptcy, but what happened was I had a thought to myself and this is going to sound insane. Mike Gaston:And that I'm going to share this, but my thought was, is it possible to rob a bank and not go to jail? So this is, I'm like 19 now when I'm thinking this way. And then I thought, yeah, I'll just take out a bunch of money on credit cards and then claim bankruptcy. And so what I did, that's literally what I did. I took... Chris Erwin:Legal robbing, yes. Mike Gaston:That was legal robbing. And it was one of those things where I was just like, why not? And so I took out all these credit cards and then I just started traveling the world in a way that was just absurd. I didn't have luggage with me. I just had a Jansport backpack. And then if I needed clothes, I would buy it. I would stay at really nice hotels instead of the hostels that I was sort of surviving in. And then when people asked what I did, I would say things like, have you ever seen Doogie Howser? And they go, "Yeah." And I'm like, "I'm not saying the show is about me." And then I would just let it hang. And then I got to a point where I was broke and that's when I was living with the poet. And I was like, now I have to survive by fishing for food. And I had a little bit left over towards the end of my journey there with John. Mike Gaston:I was like, "I'm going to start a poetry press." And that's what I did. And I started this poetry press. And at first, it actually made money. It actually made money. And it's because I would find people like John who actually had a really great following and sell the books at these readings and I would set up tours. And I actually created kind of an independent bookstore distribution. Chris Erwin:Is this in the United States or is this in Europe? Mike Gaston:Both. Where I would do things in the United States and Europe. Chris Erwin:Wow. Mike Gaston:So the books would be in Shakespeare and Company in Paris and they would be in City Lights bookstores in San Francisco. And I would get it in all these places. Chris Erwin:How old were you? Mike Gaston:I was 20. It was kind of crazy because the more I would do things, the more people would buy into it. And so it came to a point where I had professors in all these different institutions hitting me up to publish their work because I was publishing really legit poetry by people that I had met in Europe and different things. And so suddenly they were like, "Well, this guy he's publishing stuff." And so it was very easy for me to find people whose work was actually meaningful within these circles. And I'm 20 and I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I'm just sort of doing it. And then I started going a little bit too crazy and started publishing people who literally didn't have any audience, but I just really appreciated their work. I want to say the first two books were profitable. The next two books broke even, last four books, it was negative dollars in a big way. And that's when I claimed bankruptcy. Chris Erwin:Thinking back to your earlier childhood stories where you wanted to poke the foundation and see what happens when things fail, did you are pushing this business, like how hard can I push this? Mike Gaston:Definitely moments where I was like, "Where are the boundaries again in this scenario? Can I continue to publish books and make money here?" So there was some of that, but largely the desire was I just really respected those writers. And I wanted to see that work get created. Even if I knew that the likelihood of making money was low. Chris Erwin:Another parallel from your early years is rejecting the certain institutions or coursework, but then going to university and then you start to go in different paths and try different things out and travel and go live on a farm and write poetry and start a poetry business. And then you go to Boeing, more like a traditional path again. So how did you end up there? Mike Gaston:Okay. So I claimed bankruptcy and then I decided to go to University of Washington and finish up school. It was one of those instances where I no longer felt like I had to go to school. It was this choice I was making and it was okay. As long as it was a choice I was making. And once I graduated from there, I got into grad school. I was going to go study Shakespeare at St. Andrews in Scotland. My wife now, who was my girlfriend then, got into Cambridge to get her Master's in Philosophy and History. And I was dead broke. I mean, I had claimed bankruptcy a few years before then. I had been paying my way through college. I had taken on two jobs at one point. I would go to UPS very early in the morning, take classes, then work at a sub shop late at night to pay for everything. Mike Gaston:And so I was totally broke and she goes, "One of us should probably have a job." Right. And I go, "Well, you got into the better school. You go to Cambridge and then I'll go get a job." And I applied to Boeing as a joke. Both my parents were working at Boeing at the time. And I had told myself my entire life, I would never work there. But they were hiring. And so I showed up and I was the only one, I remember that it was like this mass sort of they were doing tons of interviews and it's because for years, Boeing had been doing layoffs. And so there's this giant gap between where they had a bunch of people who are about to retire and they had no middle career people because they had laid them all off. And so then they were trying to like backfill with a bunch of young people. And I was the only one who kind of didn't want a job there. And the only one not dressed like they were applying to be on the apprentice. And then I got hired. Chris Erwin:It's like office space, like the less interested you are, the more appealing of a candidate you become. Mike Gaston:So one thing I'll say, here's a little bit of a story when I was offered the job, I was so stunned that they offered me the job because I'm an English major, right. And at the time, I have been told over and over again was that business people get business degrees. And so I didn't think this was going to be a thing. And I remember they called me and they go, "We'd like to hire you for this position. This is their HR department." It was like $42,500 a year to start or something. And this was back in 2004, I think. And that's a lot of money to a person who's been broke, literally his entire life. And so, but my instinct in that moment was to push it and kind of fuck with it. And I go, "Well, that's great. I really appreciate the offer. But I'll be honest with you. When I took the interview, I had a different number in mind." Mike Gaston:I'm literally making all this up off the top of my head because I was just stunned they even called me and they're like, "What are you thinking?" I was like, "Well, I was thinking more like 50,000." And then they came back at like 45 or something like that. And I was like, "Okay." And then I took the job, but it was one of those things where I was just sort of making it up as I went along. And then when I met with my boss for the first time I asked him, I was like, "Why did you hire me?" And he goes, "Your poetry press." I was like, "Really? You mean the thing that utterly failed?" And he goes, "Yeah, absolutely." And I go, "Why?" Mike Gaston:And he goes, "You actually understand something about business that the majority of your colleagues who are new here don't because you actually ran a business where you actually had to create contracts, negotiate that with artists. And also with universities, you had to create a distribution system for your books. You had to literally create tours for your authors. You created a budget for yourself." It was one of those things where it was a... And I was like, "Dang, you're right." I actually did learn a lot just doing that. Chris Erwin:You're at Boeing, but then fast forward, because I want to start setting up the story about you founding Cut and your entertainment drift. You do pull the rip cord at Boeing in a pretty interesting way, that includes pushing the quote unquote red button. Tell us about quitting day and pushing the red button. Mike Gaston:So I was at Boeing for a few years and it became a thing where I was just generally unhappy. There was enough novel problems at Boeing that I'd be interested for awhile. But what made me unhappy was that, this leads to me quitting was that I remember my boss came to me one day and he goes, "Mike, we're having some serious problems with this specific type of part that I was responsible for." Right? I was responsible for a contract that was worth millions of dollars. And there was a specific part that was constantly getting damaged in the factory. And that was impacting everything. And I was like, "Well, let me go investigate that." And I didn't know what I was doing. So my instinct was to then go and essentially create, what I learned later was a lean initiative where I would bring in all these different people who were a part of this whole flow, this process flow in the factory and to understand what was happening. Mike Gaston:And during that, we discovered that where the damage was occurring, why it was happening and how to fix it. And then we created a proposal for fixing it. I got promoted. I was saving the company lots of money. Fantastic. Three months later, my boss came to me and he's like, "Mike, we have this problem that's happening in the factory." And I was like, "Oh, really weird. So let me go investigate." I went investigated it. And I told him, I go, "Glenn, I literally solved this several months ago." Oh you did? I'm like, "Yeah, dude, you promoted me." And I go, "Here's the proposal." He's like, "Oh, fantastic. This is great." And then he left, I would continue to do different work. And then several months later he came to me. He was like, "Mike, we're having this thing. That's happening in the factory." Mike Gaston:I was like, "What is going..." And then when I research, I go, "Glenn, several times now I've solved this. This happened probably four times. And I've felt like I was going insane." Finally, my counterpart on the vendor side of it and I were talking and he had originally been at Boeing and now he was working at this supplier and he's been in this industry for like 30 years. And he goes, "Mike, Mike, Mike, here's the thing, buddy. This is a problem within this airplane since it's been created. And it's over a decade now that they've had this problem. And the thing that you came up with is exactly the solution that a handful of us came up with almost a decade ago." I'm like, "Why am I still solving it?" And he was like, "It's the machine. This is like the inertia of a large machine, like a company like this, where people are changing." Mike Gaston:There's a lot of heuristic stuff in a company like this. And it's very easy for things to kind of fall through and for stuff to get ignored and he was like what happens is, "Every now and then there'll be a new young guy like you who comes in, who discovers the problem, will fix the problem. And then it doesn't get fixed or it'll be fixed for a little period of time, then it'll get broken again." And that was so insane to me that I had been spending a good, over a year now solving the same problem over and over again and it not being fixed. That was like, I have to get out of here. Chris Erwin:Yeah. Mike Gaston:I have to. I feel like I'm in a time loop and I need to leave, but I felt bad. I felt bad because my whole life I've been told that I'm like a quixotic temperamental creative. And that part of me getting a job at Boeing was also sort of like a proof point to Jenny, who's my wife's now family that I wasn't just a crazy romantic artist. I could hold down an actual job that people have. And so I was like, is there a way to get fired? That would be interesting. So I actually tried to get fired, but I made rules for myself for getting fired. I was like one, I have to continue to do my work and I have to do it well, that's one. But two, I can't do anything that would be obvious to get fired. I'm not going to do drugs at work, I'm not going to bring a gun to work. I'm not suddenly going to become like abusive towards people and those types of things. Is it possible to get fired just through non-sequitors? Mike Gaston:Just by being strange. So I would do things, I remember again, the vast majority of the workers at the time were these older white men. And I would do this because I would enter into the restroom. I would apply lipstick on my lips just to see how they would respond. I would busk in the hallways, like with a guitar, I would stand on my desk and rock out to Andrew W.K. Don't Stop Living In The Red. Now, mind you, I'm doing my work at the time. I'm still doing it and I'm doing it well. I'm just being strange. I would do things like I would go to different offices and sit in conference rooms and wait. And then people would show up and then I would run the meeting without telling anyone who I was. Mike Gaston:So I'd be like, "Okay, let's begin the meeting." And I would go, "Let's go around the room. Everyone tell me who you are, how long you've been at Boeing, what your position is." And then I'd point to people. And then they would tell me, and then I'd write notes and I had to assign action items and then I had to leave and I never see them again. Chris Erwin:It seems that you wanted immediate reaction. Because everything you had done in your prior life that you talked about was you do something and there's an immediate result. Mike Gaston:Yeah. Chris Erwin:You hire writers that are not popular. And then you start bankrupting the company, right. You reject coursework, you get a reaction from your mother. So at Boeing is you solve this problem. You're expecting them to be like, "Okay, great recognition." But more of, okay, things are now going to change. That's not happening. So you're like, okay, at this culture, you have to find ways to actually provoke and get reaction. So did you get the reaction that you wanted? Mike Gaston:No, the thing is there would be no reaction. I would do these things and I would get weird stares or things like that. But mostly people were afraid of me or it felt like that. It felt like there was a weird intimidation. And I think part of it is that when you're working in a company like Boeing also, there's a lot of rules. There's rules for literally everything. There's a million rules in they're called PROS, PROS. And there is a PRO for literally every decision that you have to make. And it became a thing where I would say I wanted to get something done and someone would say a PRO about why it couldn't be done. And I became so frustrated by that because I wanted to see things get fixed and changed and I want to see things improve that I just started making a PROS. Mike Gaston:So I would say something in a meeting, I'm like, "This is something that we have to do." And then someone goes, "Well, according to PRO5236, we can't do that for these reasons. I'm like, "Well, actually PRO2348 supersedes PRO5236 because it says that we have to do that. And the thing is no one reads the PROS, man. So I could say these things and then people will be like, "Oh, I guess we have to do it." And then I would get shit done. And it was one of those things where I was like, I have to kind of work outside the system to get things done. The way I quit ultimately was where I was like, "Gosh, I seem to keep doing well at my job and I'm not happy here. I'm just going to leave." Mike Gaston:And at Boeing, their internal intranet and it's called... I think it's called toll access. I can't remember. But there was a big red button on the intranet and it was a self terminate button where you press that button, you were self terminating. And I wrote one day I just press the button. And then I instantly got a call and it was from HR and they go, "Is this Michael Gaston?" Yes, this is. Okay. Well this is Boeing's HR. And we noticed that, did you press the self terminate button? I go, yep. Oh, do you want to self terminate? And I'm like, "That's why I pressed the button." And then they go, "You do realize that once this goes through, it's very hard to turn this around." And I go, "I don't want to turn around. I want to self terminate." Mike Gaston:And then they try to make an argument for why you should stick around. And I just told them that I wasn't interested and this went on for a very long time. And then eventually they got the hand and that's how I fired myself. I literally pressed the eject. Yeah. Right after... So I got married about a year or two years and still working at Boeing. And I was hanging out with a friend of mine who was at my wedding and he used to be in a band called Minus the Bear. And I told him one day I was like, "I got an idea for a music video." And he goes, "Great, but you've never made a music video." And I go, "Well, I'm going to make a music video anyways. And I'm just going to make it. And if you like it, great. And if not, no biggie." Mike Gaston:They were touring at the time. So it didn't matter. And then I went, I created a treatment for it and I hooked up with a friend of mine who was in the New York film industry, but then had moved to Seattle. And then he hooked me up with a really great director of photography. And I brought him over and we made this music video and then I gave it to the band and they all dug it and the label dug it and they showed it to MTV and MTV loved it. And they were like, "Yeah." Chris Erwin:Was the band in the video? Or was it just the- Mike Gaston:No. Chris Erwin:-Music and... Okay. Mike Gaston:Yeah, no, it was for a song called Throwin' Shapes. And it actually starred my wife and one of my good friends and they play these two kind of opposing basketball players who aren't actually playing basketball. They're fake playing basketball on the street. And then they battle. And then the label like, "Yeah, we want to buy this." And so I sold it to them and then it was on MTV. And I was like, why don't I just do this? Why don't I just make videos? Because the first thing I made went on MTV. Chris Erwin:And you had never created any videos prior to this? Mike Gaston:No, I'd love movies. I'd love videos. I grew up in a time where it seemed impossible because equipment is expensive and I didn't go to film school and it felt like outside my reach. But in that instant, I was just like, well, whatever, I'm just going to go make one. And I remember talking to my friend who was in the New York film industry and he would tell me all the things I couldn't do. And I was like, "Well, I'm just going to do them anyways." Right. And then we got it done. And he was like, "How did you do that? How did you..." And I was like, "Well, nothing's really impossible, right? You can pretty much do anything." The hardest thing to do is to decide that you're going to do it. And then you just do it. Chris Erwin:You just fast forward to an end state that you want. And you don't worry about, what are all the different structures or the normal ways for how people would achieve this. You're like, "I'm going to find a way, I'm creative and I'm going to talk to people and I'm going to get it done." And you did. So this starts what I described as you hit the red exit button and you start the entertainment drift. And you're at a few different companies for pretty short stints of time, like one to three years, CBS, Rogue Scholar, Stripes39 and then SFST. And I think some of these companies are related. So during this period tell me... It seems that you're seeking something out or wanting to learn something. What was going on during those years? Mike Gaston:Once I made the decision that I was going to leave Boeing and do videos, the next thing that occurred to me was that I don't know how to do videos, right? I had made a thing and I had sold it, but that... I wasn't suddenly invested with a ton of confidence and about how to do any of these things. And when I was discovering at that moment was actually what my voice was. I'd always wanted to be a writer and tell stories, but I was circling in on the types of stories I wanted to tell and the reasons behind it. But what was still kind of opaque to me was the hows, how to actually get it done. So then my instinct was to just do as many things as possible. I started working for free on a ton of different projects, just to understand how other people ran sets and shoots and then taking jobs at different places. Mike Gaston:It was part of that same kind of instinct. I read every book, I would take jobs, I was taking in inputs to synthesize my own kind of perspective on how I wanted to make anything. Right. Chris Erwin:You always had an output focused mind. So at these companies were you also having an impact? Mike Gaston:To some degree, the thing is part of the reason why I would leave was because I wasn't satisfied necessarily with the impact that I was making. I was having an impact, but it always felt too slow to me in some of these places where... Like CBS, one of the places I worked at was at CBS Radio Seattle, where I worked for a show called the Bob Rivers Show, which was a National talk show. And my job as the video production manager. And there was only so much that you can get done as a video guy at a radio show. And so even though I was having an impact, it wasn't super satisfying. And so then once Bob was moving on from his contract with CBS Radio Seattle, it was clear to me that I had to move on too. And that's when I went and started a nonprofit focused on the digital humanities called Rogue Scholar. Mike Gaston:And I did that and much like my poetry press, that was a no-profit company, made a significantly negative profit. And after doing that for a little over a year, I needed to make money. Again, and I took a job at Stripes39. And this one was interesting because Stripes39 was a startup in internet marketing. And it was the first place that I worked at where suddenly people would listen to me. The CEO would listen to what I was saying. And it was jarring. It was jarring because I had been so used to being kind of like feeling frustrated because I would point out all the things that need to be fixed and how I would fix it. And no one would listen. And finally, there was a guy who I remember telling him, this isn't how I would run a creative side of your company at all. Mike Gaston:And then he was like, "Really?" I go, "Yeah." And then he took me into a room and then spent three hours whiteboarding with me about how I would do it. And then he basically was like, "Go and do that." I was stunned. I was suddenly in an environment where people would listen to me and that changed everything. Number one, it made me a lot more circumspect about the things that I was saying. Suddenly when people are paying attention, you can't get away with the feeling like, "Oh man, I have all these great ideas and no one's listening." Suddenly you have to really examine are these ideas great at all? Because they are listening. Chris Erwin:It's like, crutch to ready yourself for dismissal saying, "Oh, I can say all these big ideas, but no one's going to listen to me. So I'll just... Too bad for them. I'm just going to go on to the next thing and throw out some big ideas." And then all of a sudden they're saying, "No, Mike, this is great. Now do it." And so now this is a new muscle of execution responsibility. And you're getting what you wanted, be careful what you wish for. Mike Gaston:Absolutely, Boeing was formative because I learned a lot about how to create processes in a place and also to work within a large organization. And as much as I was a total brat, when it comes to things I was trying to get away with, I was still doing my job. I was still doing work. And I learned a lot there about project management and about moving things through something really bureaucratic. When I go to Stripes39, it's the exact opposite of Boeing, right? Boeing makes products that last for 40 plus years and that are heavily regulated. So they have nothing but red tape. Then you go to the internet and you're doing internet marketing. And these are for products that lasts for about 30 seconds, right. And then you have to make an entirely new thing. And then you're doing it in a startup where there's literally no process. Mike Gaston:And so one can be paralyzing because of the weight of the amount of buy in that you have to have. And the other one can be paralyzing because all there is, is opportunity with no checks and balances. Chris Erwin:It's chaos. Mike Gaston:And so it's like... It's chaos. And so there was an instance where I was like, "Whoa, people are paying attention." And then what happens is you level up way faster in a world like that because you have to. You suddenly have to be like, "Okay, the things I do have a real impact. So how do I make sure that I'm doing things that have a real impact and not just be the guy who's readying himself for, you said for dismissal, but the guy who knows, well, they're going to hold me to these things." So I actually have to execute on it. Chris Erwin:So you start executing against his vision and what happens? Mike Gaston:So the company ended up turning into a startup studio and they would incubate different business models and then invest in them and Salil, the president of the company early on, knew that he wanted to invest in video. And we got to talking and that's kind of where SFST came out of. He knew that you wanted to invest in video, but we didn't have a business model that we were committed to. So SFST was kind of essentially a creative studio. We were doing for other companies, what we had been doing up to that point for Stripes39, which is create content that would help those companies get to number one on Google. My task at the time was to create viral content for brands like InsuranceQuotes.org and Medical Billing and CodingCertification.net, which is like pushups. If you can make something go viral for a company like that, you can pretty much make it for anything. Chris Erwin:Say if the product or the company wasn't super appealing to you, did you enjoy the challenge of like, "I'm going to make you a really cool video." Mike Gaston:Always. To me, they were just interesting problems to solve. And again, this goes back to this belief that nothing is impossible. So it was fun. It was fun to think of these as exercises. Like, okay, well, how do I get this thing to go viral? How do I make this thing? And then every time we would make something, it would appear on like Gizmodo or some other large site. I feel like I'd won something. Chris Erwin:Yeah. But then it seems that you want to solve more things, but you need more time, more resources and focus to do that, which then seems to be a precursor to the co-founding of Cut.com. Tell me about that transition. Mike Gaston:So Cut was interesting. Because after a year of doing this sort of like creative work for other companies and in that first year we were profitable, but I was not happy. I wasn't happy having to do service work for other companies that I didn't feel really got it. And Salil wasn't happy because he wasn't interested in investing in a production or creative agency. When you're a startup studio, you're investing in products that you're hoping is going to scale to such a degree, that's going to become a billion dollar company. We were at an impasse about what we wanted to make. And I remember having a very specific conversation with him. He was friends with a guy named Matt Inman who created the Oatmeal. And then he created Exploding Kittens and has had massive success in translating his IP into actual products that people want to buy. Mike Gaston:And he would talk about Matt all the time. And I told Salil, I was like, "Listen, you would never invest in Matt, in reality. Matt could never do what he is doing now in your system because you have a very rigid perspective on how things get done." Salil is I think he's a very smart person. I think he's one of the most logical rational people that I met in this industry. And he has like a very specific framework for getting things done that make it difficult for, I think, outliers to exist in his world, which is funny for a guy who essentially creates companies that deal in vitality, right. Chris Erwin:Yeah. Mike Gaston:And I told him, you would never invest in a Matt, and I think that was a dare to him. Because he was like, "Well, what do you want to make?" I was like, "I think if we want to make a company that's focused on media, then it should be about making things that are premium because ultimately what's the point of doing videos, if you don't want them to be premium and actually have an impact on people." The way everyone is doing videos right now, does it make sense to me? And so I told him, I was like, "If you want predictable sources of revenue, don't make videos. Go be a plumber, go buy a bunch of funeral homes because people are always going to die." But for you doing videos, it doesn't make sense to try to eke out money for views through advertising. It's all diminishing returns. Mike Gaston:I'm like, "What you have to do is create content of such supreme intrinsic value to the audience that they end up paying for it or things related to it because it's part of their universe." And he was like, "Okay, go do that." You know, Salil he's a very much a prove it guy. So he was like, "Okay, prove it. I'll give you six months of runway." And at that time I was just like, I doubled down on that. I go, "If I can't make something that's going to go viral, that's going to speak to this editorial vision that I claim to have in a month, I don't need six months. I need a month to do it." Right. And he's like, "Okay." And then within a couple of weeks I made a video called Grandmas Smoking Weed for the first time. And then it seemed like every week after that, me and my co-founders Jason Hakala and Blaine Ludy, we would just keep making formats that would somehow hit the zeitgeists. Mike Gaston:And very quickly after that, we got a lot of interest from a bunch of different companies to invest in us or buy us. And then after that Salil largely trusted my vision for what I wanted to create and then gave me the runway for the rest of the year before I went out to go raise money from Comcast Ventures and Compounder and Sky. Chris Erwin:How did you feel with this success? Was it validating, was it exciting or was it also in a way, could it be interpreted as frustrating where it's like, Oh, maybe I didn't provoke or think bigger and maybe I got to change that. What was going through your head? Mike Gaston:It was validating, I had spent so much time sort of arguing for these things and then as we were doing it, it was like we were proving out exactly what I was saying. And then the attention was validating, but honestly, I wasn't worried about whether or not the vision was big enough. I was more concerned about how were we going to continue to keep executing against it. Right. I had created a model that was completely dependent on the idea that we could always create outliers. Chris Erwin:Yeah. Mike Gaston:And we were doing it and it was just a matter of like, okay, now how do I get to the next level? How do we scale this in some way? Another part of the model was this idea of use the internet as a place to kind of rapidly prototype formats, see if there's an audience and then find ways of leveraging that in some way. And that second part, the leveraging it, was a much harder thing to figure out than the first thing. I was kind of blown away at how our instinct for creating things that would spread was kind of on point, just about everything we were making was killing it. And then it was a question of like, Oh, shit, how do we actually exploit any of these things? Because everything that we're making is doing well, how do you prioritize how you want to then turn that into a revenue stream. Chris Erwin:Yeah. Mike Gaston:And that took a couple more years. Chris Erwin:And did you enjoy thinking through how do we scale this up and spending more time on that part of the business? Mike Gaston:At first, at first, yeah, because it's novel problems. The thing is it's really difficult to get bored in a startup because things are changing so fast, things are moving so quickly. And so every new thing was delightful until it stopped being delightful. When it stopped was when I took a step back and I started examining the things I was focused on and it occurred to me that for a couple of years now, I had stopped asking myself what I actually wanted. My whole life, I had been asking, what do I want, why am I doing this? Why is any of these things happening? I become a lot less reflective on that. And I, instead it was more like I was just solving problems. A problem would introduce itself to me and then I would figure it out and it would be novel and interesting. And then a new one would show up and then I would approach it like that. Mike Gaston:But then when I kind of like woke up for a minute and I looked at what I was doing and I thought is this even what I want anymore? And then I realized that it wasn't. And then I had been sort of distracting myself with the momentum that comes with a startup. Chris Erwin:A startup is all consuming. And then I think with the responsibilities of, I have a team, people that rely on me for employment, investors that are looking to me for return and premium of the capital they've given me, that responsibility you get lost in it. But it is clear that you have this ingrained code in you that is always asking what else or how can this be different? It's interesting to hear that you felt that, Hey, something's missing here. And it's the fact that you're not able to ask yourself these reflective questions. And I think it was when I first met you, I was reaching out to you on behalf of a client we were working with, I got to know you. I saw you at the YouTube summit. You came to some of our events. Chris Erwin:And I remember you said, "Chris, my role is changing. I was just a creative and now it's management and fundraising and I'm on this speaking tour." And I sensed that there was this inner turmoil where you weren't sure, you were like, "I guess this is like the path, I'm doing these new things because there's success here. But is this the success that I want? I'm not sure if this is for me." Mike Gaston:You're literally articulating exactly what was going on in my head, in terms of suddenly I had found myself on a track. Like the person that I thought I was, the person who was sort of like avoiding tracks, suddenly found himself on one. Chris Erwin:Yeah. Mike Gaston:And I'm like looking around being like, "Is this even what I want?" Everyone's telling me, this is what I should want. The company is successful. It's making money, it's profitable. We have all this traction. It seems like opportunity is everywhere. And at the same time, I'm like, "But is this even what I want?" And then I was like, "No, this isn't what I want. There's all these things that I don't like about this. And I don't want to perform this role anymore." It felt like I had solved something and it was no longer interesting to me to continue down the path because I could see where the end point was. There was like real existential crisis happening for more than a year before I eventually left the company. Mike Gaston:And people think all the time, they were like, "Well, you're the CEO of a company that you founded, shouldn't you be able to do whatever you want." I'm like, "No, that's not true. That's not true." When you're really the leader of a company, you're actually beholden to a whole lot of people. You're beholden to all the people that work for you, all the people that invest in you. And then all those tangential people who are around you also, who are kind of invested in your success. And so up to this point, my mom didn't know what I did, right. She did not understand anything. But she understands that there's a name of the company that I founded on a building. She understands that there's a lot of people who work there now for me, she understands that everything that I'm making is appearing on the news and various other things. Mike Gaston:And so it becomes a thing where everyone's so invested in this idea of success that you're creating. And you're like, "Ah, it's my job to prop this up. It's my job to continue to kind of keep this thing moving." And it felt like a trap. Chris Erwin:So I think I got a sense that you did start to act out a bit. Similarly to when you were at Boeing, I remember, I think I may have first met you in person at the YouTube summit in Venice and immediately thought you were a very smart guy, unique point of view, but you felt introverted. And I knew you were about to speak on stage. Wasn't sure if that energy was going to translate, but it definitely did. Mike Gaston:Thank you. Chris Erwin:And I think I remember you speaking, you approached the topic with a really unique point of view and everyone at the summit was talking about your talk after the fact. And then I think there was another talk that you gave at VidCon. I was not there for that. And I think you had been tasked with just talking about building a content business in the new digital economy. And I think the expectation was just talking about me, and I'm making it very tactical, but you commandeered the reins and you went in a very different direction talking about creator responsibility to the audience, to viewership. Mike Gaston:Yeah. Chris Erwin:And so it seems like, from these experiences that this inner turmoil was starting to come out of you, is that right? Do you agree with that? Mike Gaston:No. That's kind of right. I mean, I think there's a... I can't help it, honestly, I can't help. But yeah. I was telling this to Melinda Lee, who I work with at Stage TEN and I go, the difference between how she operates and how I operate is little, is different and neither is good nor bad. Although, maybe you could say that mine is flawed. Companies can be complicated, incredibly complicated and there could be tons of entanglements that make it difficult to get anything done. She is so effective because she knows how to create a path around and through entanglements to get to the thing that she is trying to get done. And I can do that. I can totally do it and I have done that, but I'm kind of like... It almost feels like a mental health issue. Mike Gaston:I can do that for a time, but when I hit a certain entanglement, my instinct isn't to try to find a way around it. My instinct is to literally untie the knots. It's to literally make them untangled. And that is, can be self-defeating, right. Because that's philosophical and foundational and is trying to really get everyone aligned in one way. And so when I would go and have these talks, I wasn't interested in doing the things that I knew, what are the best practices for a talk, right. Okay, I got to speak this quickly and I have to move around the stage and I have to you know, Gary V it up in some way, and I got to put it in very simple terms for people and it's got to be incredibly tactical and practical. And instead when I wanted to do was be more introspective and reflective around the why's and the wants that we all have when we're creating any of the things that we're creating. Mike Gaston:And try to give people some kind of framework for developing their own principles around it. That's really all... I was like, "I'm more interested in that." I'm not interested in optimizing this talk in a way that somehow gives me more credibility with this audience. All I'm interested in now is just articulating for them how I perceive things. And then maybe it strikes, or maybe it doesn't. I don't know. Chris Erwin:If you want to build a sustainable business model, instead of telling people, "Spend this much money on production, put out these types of videos that are optimized for X, that you can get programmatic and direct sales and also build out some DTC channels." What you're saying is that's just a bunch of tactical knots. And the way that we can really untangle this from the top is, here's how to have a creative vision. Here's the creativity that the world needs today. And if you focus on that, you will find success for yourself, for your team and for your audiences. So start bigger. Mike Gaston:Yeah. I literally walked them through the questions that I asked in order to then set out, making a company. Because the point is that if you give people a hundred best practices to deploy, then you actually haven't set them up for success. Because if everyone does those things, then all they're doing is competing with each other, which doesn't give you the traction you think it does, right? Like early days at Cut, I remember Salil who's the president Startup Studio. He wanted me to copy what Buzzfeed and Upworthy was doing. And I remember asking him why. And he goes, "Well, they have all the money. If they have all the money, that means they're hiring the data scientists and the technologists who are essentially creating the tools to help them to predict virality online. Our job is just to draft off their success because you're small and you can do that really quickly." Mike Gaston:And I said, "I don't know, in the history of anything where a smaller force has somehow defeated a larger force by copying the strategies and tactics of the larger force." It doesn't make any sense to do that. My point in some of those talks that I gave was to give people a path where they weren't actually competing with each other, they were competing to create relevance for the audience. Because that's the only thing that matters. Chris Erwin:I liked that because there's also a sentiment that all of you are special. All of you are very capable. Now find your own way and we can all win. Mike Gaston:No, it's absolutely is. I mean, again, this goes back to even raising money. I remember talking to Sam landman at Comcast Ventures. And initially he was like, "Mike, we're not investing in advertising plays." And I go, "This is great because why in God's name would I make a company that orbits something nobody likes." And he's like, "Well, I don't understand what are you making then." I go, "I'm going to make something of such intrinsic value that people are going to pay for it or things related to it." And I go, "I don't need to be Mark Zuckerberg. I don't need to consume the internet in a world where there are billions of people watching videos online every day, I need a million people giving me 10 bucks a month. Can I do that?" Mike Gaston:And that's the truth. If you're creating a media company, you don't need billions of views. You only need that, if you're making like 0.001 cent on every view. What you need is a cross section of people who are invested in your success because you are creating something of value for them. And so they were paying for it. Chris Erwin:You fire yourself, you write a blog post about it. And I want you to give us the summary. And then we're going to talk about what you're doing at Stage TEN. And we'll close with some rapid fire. Mike Gaston:At the end of last year, I became probably the most frustrated with my position. And there had been tension between the things I wanted to do and my board and mind you, my board is actually very... They're probably most flexible and adaptable board you can possibly think of. It's just the things I want to do were not the same as what they wanted. And so it came to a head where I was like, "Yeah, these are things that I need to happen or else maybe I should go." And then out of that, they're like, "Well, what if we did things like this? And could it look like that?" And I'm like, "Nah, I really can't. I got to go." And that was really tough

The Fight Library is back in action with another banger of an episode. Our list today is Matthew Bonner, Quentin Henry and Dave Baker! We talk some Bare Knuckle FC 15, Cage Warriors 118, and UFC Vegas 15. Get ready to go! First up, we get into the weeds with Matthew Bonner before his fight at Cage Warriors 118. He talks the fight, training under strict COVID rules in the UK and more. He takes on Matt Inman at Cage Warriors 118, The Trilogy Strikes Back. Matthew Bonner is a 7-6-1 middleweight and looks to get his second straight win at Cage Warriors 118. Next up is the man himself, Quentin Henry. He takes on Jason Fans on December 11th at Bare Knuckle FC 15. We talk about Quentin Henry and his new full time career as a martial artist, the upcoming Bare Knuckle FC 15 fight and his year long layoff from fighting. You don't wanna miss this. Finally, Dave Baker comes on the show and talks UFC Vegas 15 with me. We go in on Blaydes vs. Lewis to see what possible outcomes the card could have. In addition to UFC Vegas 15, Dave breaks my heart about Khabib. You'll see. It's a surprise. Don't forget to check out the website: Fight-Library.com Follow me on Twitter: @BlaineHenryTFL --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/fightlibrary/support

Matt Inman invites us to reflect on where God’s love is working within our story during this season [Matthew 13:33].   Reflection How has love matured you in the last 5 years? Where do you sense love wanting to work in your life in this season?   Spiritual Practice Meditation. Consider where Love became active in your life. Spend time meditating in that mental and emotional space of love and enough-ness. Journaling. Journal through what facets of your life you struggle accepting or receiving in this current season. If you were to receive in Love into that internal space, what experiences might open up to you? (Rest? Repentance? Celebration? Good Trouble?)   Resources Framework: Johari Window     MWG Discussion Questions When was the kingdom/love first activated in your life? Matt asked, “the kingdom is not coming TO us, but INTO us. Not affecting us, but infecting us.”  What does this call your attention to today? How does the Johari window help us conceptualize the kingdom working through all of our self/all of our present moment? Where might Love be speaking care and confrontation to our default settings?

Gideon Tsang reflects on the paradox of rebirth on this Easter Sunday.  Matt Inman, Gena Minnix and Virginia Cumberbatch also share their reflections on this text [Matthew 28:1-10].   Reflection What have you experienced during this gestation period before an eventual rebirth? How can you hold the paradox of fear and joy this week?   Spiritual Practice Create a tomb in your home to place the sources and feelings associated with loss that you have experienced. Leave yourself a reminder to “embrace the suck” during this challenging season.   Resources Video: Vox Online Liturgy Replay      

As we continue in the season of Lent, Matt Inman reflects on how our faith intersects with our belonging [Romans 4:13-17].   Reflection What parts of your story might need to be honored more for you to feel a greater sense of belonging? What kinds of new conversations do you long for?  Who in your life do you trust enough to allow them to interrupt you?   Spiritual Practice Journal through these three questions.  Where have you felt loving connection with your parents/guardians?  Where might your parents have struggled to know how to love you? Imagine what acceptance and belonging might have looked like in those spaces. Conversation.  Have a conversation with a friend or a colleague about where fear of punishment finds its way into your faith, thoughts, relationships and dreams.   Resources Film: Billy Elliot

In episode 4 I speak to former MMA fighter & current SBG Manchester Head Coach Matt Inman.Matt was one of the most talented and feared fighters in Europe and has climbed up the ranks of the world renowned SBG organisation.We cover everything from the mindset needed in order to succeed at the highest level of MMA, the origins of the world famous SBG Gym, overcoming personal tragedy and much more.Bruce lee used the mantra "Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless and add what is specifically your own." Matt has used this principle in all areas of his life and is one of the most mentally tough human beings you will ever come across, his mindset and dedication to his craft is something we all can learn from.

Adding Value to Our Time How a double lung transplant makes you rethink life. On this episode, Matt sits down with the resilient Rueben Samuels to talk about life with a chronic illness (Cystic Fibrosis), adding value to our time and life after a double lung transplant. This is a conversation about life and death and how to make room and meaning for both. instagram: @reubenshighlights

Matt Inman reflects on how we can grow in our freedom and what freedom means in community [Galatians 6:1-4]. Reflection Do you believe that God is for your freedom? If so, what does that freedom look like? How might freedom grow for us as a community at Vox? Resources Model: Stages of Change Poem: How to Be a Poet (Wendell Berry) Spiritual Practice Journal. Where does criticism run wild in your mind? Who might you be able to join in a more loving way if you quieted that critical voice? Reflect. Explore what is “ours” and who is “we”? How have you narrowed that in at times and what might it look like to start widening it back out? Write a reminder to yourself.  Base this reminder on your own personality, story and what your work requires of you.  

Virginia Cumberbatch is Director at Community Engagement Center & Social Justice Institute at The University of Texas at Austin. She works within the city of Austin to help make UT a community anchor opposed to an ivory tower. She sat down with us to talk about the importance of not only cultural identity but also the importance of place and it’s history. We use Austin as an example that can better help you think more critically and lovingly about your own life and city. twitter: @vacumberbatchinsta: @vacumberbatch

Austin Psychotherapist Jeremy Ezell sits down with Inefficiency host Matt Inman to talk about how emotional intelligence plays into the quality of our relationships.

As we enter Lent, Matt Inman explores the temptations of Jesus and what that means for how we engage our own temptations and vulnerability this season [Luke 4:1-13]. Reflection What role does shame play in your current temptation? Where might your vulnerability in life right now lead you to acts of courage and love? Resources Podcast: Inefficiency Video: SNL - Devil Can’t Write No Love Song MWG: Discussion Guide Spiritual Practice Jump into Barton Springs. Pick a temptation or fantasy and extend it out from the point it usually ends. What comes of it? Journal about a relationship where you get stuck consistently testing the other person. Find solitude and reconnect with the part of you that feels threatened.

Sorry, I ghosted you. On this shorter episode, Matt talks about ghosting the podcast for way too long in order to create the first issue of Inefficiency Magazine. We all are trying to juggle life and sometimes we drop certain aspects. But there is something we gain in the dropping and picking back up that is helpful for us in the long run.

As we continue the Advent season, Matt Inman reflects on how the love of God brings us the peace of God [Philippians 4:4-9]. Reflection Who has loved you really well and helped you appreciate your real self? Who in your life is out beyond their comfort zone right now and needs gentleness and love? Resources Video: Humans of New York     Spiritual Practice When you feel like yourself or a family member is close to their edge, introduce a gentle mercy into the dynamic. Take the emotions and thoughts you had during today’s clip and bring that into your prayers this week.  Where might the love and acceptance of God bring a greater sense of peace? Where do you feel the peace of God in your life? Write out a list of who and what helps you turn your focus back on what is good and true.  

Steve introduces a new podcast series in which he explores how companies implement their customer experience programs. Matt Inman and Matt Sharp join Steve to discuss the CX program at Johnson Controls and how to ensure various regional and product programs remain cohesive within a global company.

Encore Episode!    On this week’s episode Matt Inman and I sit down to talk about how to live life with more inefficiency, in a good way.  We cover everything from career choices to family stuff and take a nice dive into the Enneagram for good measure.  Matt Inman lives in Austin, Texas and loves his family, tacos, coffee, beer, working out and evidently, dehydration. He is a psychotherapist with a private practice and has long been the host of Inefficiency Podcast. His show carves out the time and space necessary to live out relationships, convictions and spirituality well. Recently, Matt became Editor-In-Chief of Inefficiency Magazine. This publication is a beautiful, thoughtful and therapeutic magazine that promotes emotional and relational health and will be in counseling rooms all over the country. While Matt and his family call Austin home, part of his heart is in Kansas City, MO and several pieces are scattered up and down the California coastline. Check out Matt here: www.inmanpsychotherapy.com www.inefficiencymagazine.com If you want to learn more about me and what I do, check out my website here: www.abirobinsyoga.com And look! You can support me on Patreon! www.patreon.com/consciousconstruction If you want to learn more about me and what I do, check out my website here: www.abirobinsyoga.com And if you want to be the first to know what's up with me and when new episodes drop, sign up for my email list here: https://www.abirobinsyoga.com/email-signup Connect with me on social media! Facebook Instagram Twitter  

Matt Inman reflects on the love we have been given and are called to live from [Ephesians 4:1-16].   Reflection What barriers to love exist in your life currently? Who in your life is helping you grow in love? Resources Video: Missouri vs Kansas Football Video: TED Talk - Play is Fundamental (Stuart Brown) Spiritual Practice Does gentleness, humility or patience most resonate with you right now? Practice living one out this week, and when you fail, double down on living it out for yourself all the more. Consider who your rivals are and what is so threatening about them to you. How does this kind of hate create a barrier to allowing love to come in and go out in you life? Consider what growth and maturity look like to you. Does it make space for you to play?  Is there one way you carry yourself physically that is too rigid, too serious or closed off that doesn’t accurately communicate the love you have for others?

Friends and fellow psychotherapists Matt Inman and Jeremy Ezell sit down to have a conversation about wisdom and faithfulness. Jeremy was asked to write a letter to his 14 year old nephew on the two topics and rather than writing a letter decided it would be better to talk it out.

Matt Inman reflects on the ways and approaches that we use in dealing with pain in our lives  [Lamentation 3:22-33].   Reflection Are you currently working through pain in your life? What does that process look like for you? When you believe your pain or patterns are too much for God, what does that do to your sense of belonging?   Resources Podcast: You Made it Weird (Mark Paul Gossilaar)       Spiritual Practice Try curious listening this week. Listen with the intent to learn something new from others, scripture and your surroundings. As we struggle, look for an activity that will either help you start the work or help you take a break in order to sustain your work.  Activities include solitude, silence, prayer, writing exercises, laughter, etc. Spend some time with a friend or community that has shown you faithfulness, as you are. Then spend time afterward taking an inventory on your thoughts and feelings. Acknowledging that moment as an example or version of God’s loyal love.

https://www.amazon.com/Mapping-Terrain-Heart-Capacities-Journey/dp/0201608650

Jim Sheppard in Conversation with Matt Inman, SBG Black Belt Under Karl Tanswell. Career MMA Fighter, Matt Inman, shifts his focus from professionally taking care of business in the ring as one of the UK's top fighters to shaping the lives of SBG Manchester and SBG Trafford students as head coach of both gyms. For more informations about Matt Inman and SBG Manchester/SBG Trafford please visit: www.sbgmanchester.com www.sbgtrafford.com Information about Jim Sheppard and SBG Buford: www.sbgbuford.com Coming soon: Tribute to one of the world's greatest MMA coach, Karl Tanswell.

Jim Sheppard in Conversation with Matt Inman, SBG Black Belt Under Karl Tanswell. Career MMA Fighter, Matt Inman, shifts his focus from professionally taking care of business in the ring as one of the UK's top fighters to shaping the lives of SBG Manchester and SBG Trafford students as head coach of both gyms. For more informations about Matt Inman and SBG Manchester/SBG Trafford please visit: www.sbgmanchester.com www.sbgtrafford.com Information about Jim Sheppard and SBG Buford: www.sbgbuford.com Coming soon: Tribute to one of the world's greatest MMA coach, Karl Tanswell.

Craig White will face Neil Magny at UFC Fight Night Liverpool. Craig came on to discuss the surroundings the short notice call up to face Neil Magny, the feedback from people, his bout with Matt Inman, his coaching influence in David Matthews and much more. Please feel free to LIKE, SHARE or COMMENT below. MMA Huddle is a podcast which is looking to spread the word of MMA to everyone and share in our passion of the sport while also maybe learning along the way. We encourage fans old and new to join in with questions and opinions on what we discuss. To subscribe to our channel please click below https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbsxsvYQa4rZUSOC5Etp73g?view_as=subscriber We are also on iTunes so jump on and listen on the go via: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/mmahuddle/id1281364404?mt=2 Fancy listening to the audio and downloading then follow us via Soundcloud and click the link below https://soundcloud.com/mmahuddle We are also on Facebook and Twitter all the links are below, come interact with us: https://www.facebook.com/mmahuddle/ https://twitter.com/MMAhuddle?lang=en

yoga + therapy Abi Robins brings talks about being present in our bodies long enough to work through pain and get down to the root issues.

On this week’s episode Matt Inman and I sit down to talk about how to live life with more inefficiency, in a good way.  We cover everything from career choices to family stuff and take a nice dive into the Enneagram for good measure.  Matt Inman lives in Austin, Texas and loves his family, tacos, coffee, beer, working out and evidently, dehydration. He is a psychotherapist with a private practice and has long been the host of Inefficiency Podcast. His show carves out the time and space necessary to live out relationships, convictions and spirituality well. Recently, Matt became Editor-In-Chief of Inefficiency Magazine. This publication is a beautiful, thoughtful and therapeutic magazine that promotes emotional and relational health and will be in counseling rooms all over the country. While Matt and his family call Austin home, part of his heart is in Kansas City, MO and several pieces are scattered up and down the California coastline. Check out Matt here: www.inmanpsychotherapy.com www.inefficiencymagazine.com If you want to learn more about me and what I do, check out my website here: www.abirobinsyoga.com And if you want to be the first to know what's up with me and when new episodes drop, sign up for my email list here: https://www.abirobinsyoga.com/email-signup

Matt explores his process of expanding Inefficiency with conversations from friends and family. Inefficiency Magazine is a quarterly publication tailored for the therapeutic space made by helpers and artists. If you have listened to Inefficiency for awhile or are trying to hold the tensions of caring for your career convictions and also caring for your family, you will want to check this episode out.

Micah Bournes is a spoken word poet, rapper and blues musician. Born and raised in Long Beach, California, Micah grew up heavily influenced by hip hop. He is a brave artist who wrestles with important topics such as racism, sexism and faith. His courage extends to the modes of art itself, unafraid to try new paths in the hopes of finding something new and beautiful.He sat down to talk with Matt about the massive influence the book Art and Fear has had on his life. Micah talks about how quantity is better than quality in some aspects and the necessity of making bad art. Enjoy!http://micahbournes.com @micahbournes

Huberta Jackson-Lowman is a psychologist and psychology professor at Florida A&M University. She has degrees from Wichita State University and the University of Pittsburgh. She is currently the President of the Association of Black Psychologists (ABPsi). As she works alongside clients and students, she also forms groups called Emotional Emancipation Circles, groups that exist to help "black people, work together to overcome, heal from, and overturn lies of white superiority and black inferiority: the root cause of devaluing black lives." She joins a rich line of ABPsi presidents and has a great deal of insight and wisdom in a world overwhelmed with noise.

Joe Pug is originally from Maryland and came to Austin, Texas years ago to be in and around the storied Texas songwriting tradition. He has two studio EP’s, most notable being Nation of Heat in 2009. He also has three albums, Messenger in 2010, The Great Despiser in 2012 and Windfall in 2015. Paste Magazine said this of Pug, "In lesser hands, songs of this nature could take on the tone of self-help books, maxims of dubious value. But Pug's honesty and wordplay combine to levitate the songs over those empty, cliched realms."He credits not only musicians like Dillon, Beck and M. Ward as his influences but also literary giants like Fredrick Beekner and Walt Whitman.

For the 3rd in a row, Inefficiency is providing a set of thoughtful questions to help you look back at the previous year. But for the rest of us, setting aside some inefficient time to be thoughtful can really give some clarity and motivation for your coming year. Enjoy! 

Nikki McClure is an artist who specializes in paper cutting. Her art has a simple but very challenging frame, to sketch an image on a black piece of paper, cut it with an X-Acto knife and make sure it all connects. Each image you see of her work is one single pice of paper! Her artwork invites us to feel something personal and communal. She makes a yearly calendar and children's books. She resides with her family in Olympia, Washington. www.nikkimcclure.com

On this episode, Matt talks about contentment as he travels back to Kansas City, Mo to see family. This shortened episode has a bit of everything, from ideas around contentment to mama guilt to good jokes and even better karaoke. Matt Inman is the host of the Inefficiency Podcast and a psychotherapist in private practice. He and his family reside in Austin, Texas.

Andre Henry is a musician, theologian and activist who has pursued music and education in New York City and Los Angeles. His music is electronic anthems with reggae and rock influences and have the overarching message "it doesn't have to be this way."Andre moved into activism after feeling moved by the many police shootings, wanting to get his body more into the struggle against racism. His own deep conviction is to be be a part of some type of truth and reconciliation commission in America so that we can be entirely done with our traditions of racial injustice and live into the beauty and equality of this experiment of a society.

James Alison (b. 1959) is a Catholic theologian, priest and author. He has studied, lived and worked all over the world.In addition to being known for bringing Rene Girard's work to the wider public, he is also known for his firm but patient insistence on truthfulness in matters gay as an ordinary part of basic Christianity, and for his pastoral outreach in the same sphere.He has authored many books including Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay, The Joy of Being Wrong, Undergoing God and Jesus the Forgiving Victim. He resides currently in Madrid, Spain and has a speaking schedule that has him in many different corners of the world.

Una Mulale is a pediatric doctor in Botswana, working in life and death scenarios each day. She was formerly the Director of Pediatric Critical Care at Woodhull Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York. She recently completed a fellowship at Harvard Medical School in Pediatric Global Health. She is the co-founder of Barona, an organization promoting the value of all human beings and aims to create Botswana’s first Children’s Hospital. Twitter: @unamulale

John Richmond and Victor Boutros are co-founding directors of The Human Trafficking Institute, an organization set on decimating slavery worldwide by getting at the root, traffickers. Both are former prosecutors of the U.S. Department of Justice Human Trafficking Unit. Their impressive pedigree is only outmatched by their massive hearts, friendship and desire for justice as a means to peace. www.traffickinginstitute.orgtwitter: @JohnRichmond1 @boutrosvictor   

Sleeping At Last is the moniker of Chicago-based singer-songwriter, producer and composer, Ryan O’Neal.You may know Sleeping At Last from various Films and TV Shows such as The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn- Part 1, The Fault in Our Stars, Grey's Anatomy, So You Think You Can Dance, Criminal Minds, Bones, Believe, Vampire Diaries and many more. He has collaborated or sang with many artists including Jon Foreman, Billy Corgan, Van Dyke Parks, Paul Von Merens, John Goodmanson, Alanis Morissette and many more. Ryan recently scored the upcoming feature documentary film, “Many Beautiful Things” which will release in 2015, along with an official motion picture soundtrack.Web: www.sleepingatlast.com Twitter: @sleepingatlast Instagram: sleepingatlast

Doug Pagitt is the pastor of a faith community in Minneapolis, MN called Solomon's Porch. He is also an author of several books, most recently Flipped, The Provocative Truth That Changes Everything We Know About God. He is also the host of the podcast, Tick, Talk, Take. He is a novice ultra-runner and lives in Edina, MN with his wife. He has 4 young adult children and one grandchild. Twitter: @Pagitt Instagram: @DougPagitt Website: www.dougpagitt.com

Two first generation Americans from vastly different backgrounds found love and have done (and are doing) the difficult work of allowing their love to change each other and now, us. Sharifa Stevens is a communicator (writer, speaker and singer) and emphasizes the intersection of culture and theology. Jonathan started a coffee business off of a Ural Motorcycle with a built in espresso machine. He is a natural connector, teacher and builder. Together the two live in Dallas, Texas with their two children.

Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian. A former college English teacher and pastor, he is a passionate advocate for "a new kind of Christianity" - just, generous, and working with people of all faiths for the common good. Brian has served on a number of boards, including Emergent Villiage, Sojourners, International Teams and, The Seattle School, and his a founding member of Red Letter Christians. He has appeared on All Things Considered, Larry King Live, Nightline and On Being. Brian's work has been covered by other news outlets such as Time, The Washington Post, Huffington Post and Christianity Today.Brian resides in Florida with his wife Grace. He has four grown children and five grandchildren.

The Incarnation is the ultimate act of empathy