Podcasts about matt thanks

Podcast 417 Bullying Featuring Manuel Sierra, MD (pictured above) Today, we welcome an old friend, Manuel Sierra, MD, who practices pediatric psychiatry in Idaho, and Dr. Matt May, a familiar and beloved colleague, to discuss bullying. Below you'll find a great list of questions Dr. Matt May submitted just prior to today's podcast, along with some links you may wish to explore for more information. We addressed some of the questions, but certainly not all, during the podcast! Manuel described bullying, and said the ¼ of children and adults have experienced bullying. The consequences can be severe, including suicidal urges or completed suicides, along with shame and a severe loss of self-esteem, and more. He pointed out that bullies are good at zeroing in on aspects of ourselves that we feel insecure about, including how we look, our ethnicity, our aptitudes, and more. He provided links to resources on bullying. The bully picks on someone who is weak, so there is a power imbalance, and does the bullying to gain popularity and power, at the expense of the victim. David and Manuel emphasized that the bullying per se cannot cause the depression, shame, and so forth, but rather the victim must buy into the bully's mean-spirited statements, like “you're weak,” or “you have an ugly zit on your nose,” “your mother is a dirty whore,” and more. Then, the inner dialogue of the victim often goes like this: I must be a terrible and horrible person to get bullied like this. I'm worthless. All the kids are looking down on me. Everybody hates me! Everyone is laughing at me. I'm just a loser. And that, of course, is the voice of the “inner bully” who does all the emotional damage. Manuel and David both emphasized that the goal of treatment is to help the victim see that the “badness” is not with them, but rather with the kid (or adult) who's doing the bullying. Because the victims nearly always feel ashamed, they will often suffer in silence, keeping the bullying a secret. David described what he calls the “abuse contract” that many, and perhaps most, humans buy into when being hurt or exploited. It's really a contract between the abuser and the abused, and there are there parts to the agreement. I get to hurt you for my own pleasure. This might include sexual, physical, financial, or psychological torture or abuse. You, the victim are entirely to blame for this. You are the bad one. I am superior and totally innocent. You deserve what's happening to you. We have to keep this a secret, even from ourselves. You cannot even hint that I am doing something wrong. If you try that, I will REALLY hurt you. David emphasized that the tendency to “accept” this type of horrible contract is not limited to children, but includes adults as well. He emphasized that sometimes the child who is being bullied will tell parents, who then tell the teacher or school officials, who will tell the bully to stop. This is rarely effective, and often makes the situation worse, since the bully tells the victim that they are a snitch and now they will REALLY get what  they “deserve.” Matt described many types of bullying, including physical, psychological, and cyber bullying. Manuel described some of the signs to look for if you suspect a problem with your child, including: Not wanting to go to school. Saying things like “everyone thinks I'm terrible.” Changes in sleep, eating habits, and energy. Somatic symptoms such as stomach aches and headaches. Manuel emphasized that the goal is not to eliminate negative feelings entirely, but rather to reduce the time you spend feeling anxious, humiliated and upset after being bullied. He also emphasized that ongoing practice talking back to your own negative thoughts is an important key to change, in exactly the same way that athletes must commit to ongoing daily practice to boost their physical skills and stamina. Manuel emphasized the importance of empathy and support, as well as asking victims if they'd want some help combatting their automatic negative thoughts and feelings. He shared that he endured considerable bullying as a kid, and was bullied because he was poor, of Mexican heritage, short, wearing glasses (“four eyes”), and young, and sometimes called “a fag” and other hurtful things. He said that reattribution is one useful strategy, among many, for combatting automatic thoughts and negative feelings. Instead of automatically blaming yourself for the bullying, you can ask questions like this: “What is it in their life that makes them want to do things like this.?” And “They are trying to hurt and embarrass me. Why are they doing that.” The goal is to help the victim see that the “badness” and shame really reside within the bully, and not with them. The bully is trying to tear you down. Ask yourself why? The bully thinks that this is the best way for them to gain popularity, power, and importance. Toward the end of the podcast, I, David, again emphasized that the Outer Bully can hurt us physically, by hitting for example, but only the Inner Bully can make us suffer emotionally. And if you've used the Externalization of Voices to crush the inner bully, and you no longer feel intimidated or ashamed when some tries to bully you, it becomes infinitely easier to respond effectively to the Outer Bully, using the Five Secrets, including Disarming and Stroking, as well as humor. To demonstrate this, I invited the other guests to try to bully me as an old person (I'm about to turn 82), and urged them to say the cruelest things they could think of. This is called the Feared Fantasy Technique. I was surprised and pleased at how incredibly easy it was to get “the edge on them. “ I hope you enjoy that aspect of the podcast. We will likely approach this topic again, with a focus on cyber bullying, and will restrict our focus to children and teens. How to Help! Matt once worked with a child who encountered their own 'inner bully' in the form of negative thoughts that would occur when they were unable to assemble LEGO's. The child could express certain thoughts, but was too young to write, so Matt wrote these down: I'll never be able to do it It's impossible I'm not good at anything There is something wrong with me Matt asked the child if they would like to learn a trick for how to feel better and the child agreed. Matt wrote down some new thoughts for the child to choose from to describe the situation that was upsetting to them. Multiple Choice Positive Thoughts: I really, really want to do this! It's ok if I can't do it, yet Some things take lots and lots of practice I may be able to do it later I can do lots of things really well already I can probably get better with practice People love me and like to help Nobody's good at everything all the time Everybody messes up sometimes It might help to take a break   I can always choose to like myself The child said they really liked #11 and felt better right away and during future 'relapses'! Thanks, Matt Thanks for listening today. Below you'll find the email Matt sent prior to the show. Manuel, Rhonda, Matt, and David Matt wrote: Just to stir up trouble and make you all sweat, I'm sending a few questions we might address: What is bullying? How are we defining this term? Is it Liberal Propaganda? How dare I say that? What's the difference between bullying and micro-aggressions / gaslighting? Am I crazy, if I think I'm being gaslighted? If I avoid bullying, in-person, including physical, emotional and verbal abuse...am I safe, on the Internet, at least? Is there such a thing as 'Safety'? Isn't that the thing we need, the most? Whose job is it, to make me feel safe? Why do some people think that safety doesn't exist? What is the significance of bullying? Does it matter or have any tangible effects on individuals or society? Link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK390414/ What are some common misconceptions when it comes to bullying? Here are some that Matt has seen on DML's: It was all my fault / I deserved it / This happened because I am (insert label: bad/weak/defective, etc.) Bullying is normal, nothing can be done about it. Everyone gets bullied. It builds character. I should just get over it. I shouldn't *still* feel upset. That was a long time ago and I've done a lot of therapy. I can't speak up or talk about it, it's just too disturbing and upsetting. People would judge me and reject me, if they knew what happened to me All conflict is dangerous and must be avoided, at all costs I'm just a loser, a born victim, worthless in every way. This will always happen to me and people who believe #2 are correct I should be more accepting of bullies, they're people, too. Bullies shouldn't be bullies and should be hunted to the ends of the earth, and destroyed. What is the *cause* of bullying behaviors? Why would anyone choose to be cruel, manipulative and selfish? What is the 'Dark Triad'? Which feature of the 'Dark Triad' is most closely associated with bullying? Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullying What can be done about bullying? How can TEAM therapy help someone who is being bullied? Can TEAM therapy help a bully? What can parents do, if their child is being bullied? Can TEAM help? What can parents do, if their child is bullying? Can TEAM help? What can society do? Other Questions: What is the “Internal Bully”? How does the “Internal Bully” relate to depression? What is the greatest predictor of bullying behavior and thinking? Who's to blame, anyway, here?

Episode 0x7D It's just a dream... There's a lot going on as we head into summer here in the northern hemisphere. I think it's pretty cool but also worry a little bit that we're staying too focused on the wrong things. You ever have the feeling that you've bought into the wrong game? Upcoming this week... Lots of News Breaches SCADA / Cyber, cyber... etc. finishing it off with DERPs/Mailbag (or Deep Dive) And there are weekly Briefs - no arguing or discussion allowed And if you've got commentary, please sent it to mailbag@liquidmatrix.org for us to check out. DISCLAIMER: It's not that explicit, but you may want to use headphones if you're at work. ADDITIONAL DISCLAIMER: In case it is unclear, this is the story of (approximately) 5 opinionated infosec pros who have sufficient opinions of their own they don't need to speak for anyone except themselves. Ok? Good. In this episode: News and Commentary AT&T Breach and Continuing Snowflake Saga  Nearly all AT&T cell customers call and text records breached The Dark Web - See your The Dark Web footprint for free! US sanctions alleged Russian hackers who claimed attacks on US water facilities Breaches Hollywood Fears of a Major Hack Are Growing  Hackers Claim to Have Leaked 1.1 TB of Disney Slack Messages DERP Chromium browser? Google knows more about you than you want. Briefly -- NO ARGUING OR DISCUSSION ALLOWED How to tell if you've been hacked - Great techcrunch article Meshtastic - distributed comms for when the centralized system goes down CloudFlare State of AppSec - 22 min from PoC to exploit. 7% of all traffic is DDoS. 1/3 of all Internet traffic is bots. North Korean Hackers Update BeaverTail Malware to Target MacOS Users Upcoming Appearances:  -- more gratuitous self-promotion Dave: - Summer camp, this fall: Singpore, Ireland, Portugal Jamie: - (insert Griswoldian music here) Matt: - Thanks for everyone who came to SnooSec. Summer Camp! Advertising - pay the bills... Vulnerable U - The other place you can learn from Matt Closing Thoughts Seacrest Says: These kids - they keep growing up damn them. Also, get off my lawn!! Creative Commons license: BY-NC-SA

Ask David Unfairness Worthwhileness Erasing Depression with Lasers TEAM in the UK What's the Most Powerful Technique? We have lots of great questions today. The answers in the show notes were written prior to the podcast, and the answers in the live podcast as we discussed these questions may differ somewhat or amplify the written materials in these show notes. We love your questions. Remember to send them to David@feelinggood.com. Special Announcement Attend the Legendary Summer Intensive Featuring Drs. David Burns and Jill Levitt August 8 - 11. 2024 Learn Advanced TEAM-CBT skills Heal yourself, heal your patients First Intensive in 5 years! It will knock your socks off! Limited Seating--Act Fast Click for registration / more information! Sadly, this workshop is a training program which will be limited to therapists and mental health professionals and graduate students in a mental health field  Apologies, but therapists have complained when non-therapists have attended our continuing education training programs. This is partly because of the intimate nature of the small group exercises and the personal work the therapists may do during the workshop. Certified coaches and counselors are welcome to attend. But there's some good news, too! The Feeling Great App is now available in both app stores (IOS and Android) and is for therapists and the general public, and you can take a ride for free! Check it out! Today's Questions Kiernan asks about “unfairness” and the connection between worthwhileness and achievement. Brittany asks: Can you “erase” feelings of sadness and depression by shining lasers in the patient's eyes? James asks about the use of TEAM methods in the NHS in the UK Brian asks: Is positive reframing the most successful technique you have used with your patients? 1. Kieran asks (slightly edited for clarity): How would you talk back to negative thoughts like this one: “It's not fair that I can't afford quality food when there are millionaires that will have access to better food and a healthier lifestyle which has an effect on overall health and longevity'”? Or what if you feel like it's unfair that you should have to pay a lot of money for an expensive dental treatment that you can't afford? Kieran also asks (slightly edited by david): What if worthwhileness is not based on achievement but there are still things you would like to have and enjoy? They would buy and own things that they happen to like and not to impress others. Hi David and Ronda, and if Matt is on I have been listening to your wonderful podcast for about the last 3 years as I drive to work. It has really opened my eyes about how your thoughts create your interpersonal reality. Loved the podcasts on jealousy addiction, perfectionism, achievement addiction and many more. My questions would be: What about if someone wants to achieve more but it isn't based on worthwhileness? They would buy and own things that they happen to like and not to impress others. Let's say they wanted to be able to afford a nice house, healthier higher quality food and water. As the quality does have an effect on health especially in the US as the regulations are not the greatest. However, the fact that they couldn't afford to buy these upsets them? Thoughts: 'It's not fair that I can't afford quality food but there are millionaires that will have access to better food, lifestyle which has an effect on overall health and longevity' Or if someone has to pay for unexpected expensive dental treatment. Thoughts: 'It's not fair that I have to pay £14,000 for this treatment'. 'It should be more affordable to lower income households, as it is essential to have functional teeth' I hope I have explained this well, I would love to hear your thoughts. Keep doing what you are doing and all the best. Kieran   David's response Sure Kieran, if you like I will make this an Ask David question for a podcast. LMK if that's okay, and if it is okay to use your first name. Great question, and has to do with the theme of acceptance: should I or shouldn't I? Here are the quick versions, but we can discuss in more detail on the live podcast. First, I do not find it useful to base my worthwhileness on my achievements or on my failures. I do work hard and like creating things that are helpful to people, and I enjoy earning money to support my family. I can be motivated to work hard to get things we want or need, but I don't base anyone's worthwhileness on how much money they have, or anything, to be honest. In fact, I could also easily accept wanting to buy something really cool, not just because I like it, but because it might impress others, or because they might find it fascinating, too! I don't try to regulate my life with a lot of shoulds and shouldn'ts, and find that I am happier and more peaceful without lots of shoulds. In the Feeling Great App I have created a class called “Your PhD in Shoulds.” You might enjoy it! Second, you can say that it is unfair that some people have more money and resources than other people if you like. And you have every right to feel angry if that's what you want, as well. Acceptance is more of a decision than a technique. Take the fact that lions kill deer when they are hungry. You can say, “they should not do that. It's unfair!” But that won't stop a hungry lion. You don't have to LIKE seeing a lion kill an innocent deer, but you can accept it. Again, that's a choice. The behavior of a lion is dominated by millions of years of evolution. Humans are no different. One thing that sometimes helps is to make a list all the REALLY GOOD reasons NOT to accept the “unfairness” in the world. I'll bet you could come up with at least ten to fifteen strong reasons. Then you can ask yourself, “Given all those good reason NOT to accept the fact that some people have more and some people have fewer resources, maybe I should just stay good and angry! Why in the world would I want to change?” Also, when you find an injustice, you can use your energy being good and angry, and complain about it, or you can use your energy to do something about it. Or, you can also work to change yourself, instead of complaining about the world. I also have a new class on acceptance. It's called, “Accept this shit? Hell NO!” You might like it as well. I am babbling so will stop. Warmly, david   2. Brittany asks: Can you “erase” feelings of sadness and depression by shining lasers in the patient's eyes? Hi David, My husband's boss was telling him she's going to be doing some laser therapy to “cure” her depression. She had to undergo 9 hours of testing to see if she'd be a candidate. Apparently, they plan to shine lasers in her eyes to “erase” her sadness. Obviously, I assume this is a load of garbage. But have you ever heard of such a thing? Is this just hypnosis? Best, Brittany David's Reply Hi Brittany, Probably. As they say, follow the money! There is a placebo effect if you believe something will help, so tons of garbage gets served up as costly gourmet food. You can read up on this on the internet I suspect. Let me know what you learn! Best, david Brittany responds to David Love your answer! I was looking into it and read they use a cold laser in the eyes which allegedly releases endorphins. I already know from you that just like with exercise and that study about the endorphin blockers, it made no difference. People just feel better because they think they are doing something good for their body by exercising. They also allege that the lasers aid damaged neurological tissue. They claim it has helped many patients but there is no data backing it up that I see. They really lost me when I read that lack of activity, stress, and maternal deprivation cause depression in the first place. Thanks! Brittany David adds As it turns out, I know two laser experts who are regulars on my Sunday hikes. Dr. Alexander Makowski is a brilliant scientist who is involved in the research and development of lasers and their marketing. Here is his email, along with some terrific links to articles about the hype of “low light lasers.” Hope you enjoy the email and links from Alex: Hi David, I'll chime in too! From a different angle. Zak knows some great doctors who are doing real work, but the general field of low-level laser/ light therapy (LLLT) for medical issues has been fraught with charlatans for some years. (David note: Zak is a laser expert at the Stanford Medical School and is currently preparing a blog on the topic of LLLT. I will include a link to her blog when it is published, likely in a couple weeks. She is awesome and also often joins our Sunday hikes!) Dr, Alex Makowsy continues Good work by Tiina Kaaru (https://www.spiedigitallibrary.org/profile/Tiina.Karu-8010) and Juanita Anders (https://www.usuhs.edu/profile/juanita-anders-ms-phd) on mechanisms behind using light to stimulate our mitochondria or deactivate infectious bacteria are well documents However, the good work done by the few was overshadowed and worse, was perverted for many years into crackpot devices using bad stats and poorly designed studies. Or sometimes just straight preying on vulnerable people. It is the great shame of the laser industry. Worse yet, some of these devices were actual lasers that led to people getting hurt. I can't recommend in good conscience that lasers be shone into eyes at any time other than diagnostic devices meant to diagnose the eye itself. It may be that some day soon a good scientific body of evidence changes my stance but not yet... The story starts in the origin of my journey into light and lasers. I got involved in this field in 2005 while taking an elective class on optics and lasers when I got a call from my mom that she was seeking a laser therapy for her fibromyalgia. My mother's desire to get her fibromyalgia treated with a "cold laser" pulled me into this field since I was taking a class with a professor who later became my doctoral mentor. A full semester of my free time disappeared as I tried to source out of print articles and do a deep dive on whether this was real or garbage. A research term paper and a conference visit later I could finally see the same trends you saw with medication. I talked her out of the potentially dangerous unproven device usage. [As you may have suspected, In fact my mom was having significant issues in her marriage and life and a very good doctor set her straight. My mom divorced and is now happily remarried, about 95 pounds lighter, no fibromyalgia or serious insomnia. If only we had known you back then she would have recovered in a session or two rather than 3 years] However, in the process, I dug into some of the real research that small doses of light can affect our bodies in ways we don't understand fully due to lack of research. Fast forward several decades and some of the best researchers survived the public scandal of LLLT and found a scientific mechanism (cytochrome c oxidase activation) to explain observed changes in mitochondrial activity. However, the scientists don't claim to cure everything or anything. Then they published this mitochondrial activation and suddenly: This, of course, proves that blogablum does in fact exist and now the truth about the panacea is available for all!! David note: “blogablum” is a fake nonsense word I made up that refers to nothing meaningful. Now continuing with the Alex email: This is a good review of the history and current evidence about it : https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/medical-critical-thinking/hype-around-photobiomodulation But if you want the real goods, the hard truth about cold lasers has been out there for over 15 years: Introducing the New Low Level Laser Treatment! youtu.be The following search on YouTube will reveal the secrets of the universe: "cold laser before:2009" Warmly, Alexander J Makowski, Ph.D. Dr. Matt May's reply Hi David, Thank you for forwarding this question to me.  I am very concerned and wonder if this may fall under the category of 'malpractice'. For one, I am unaware of any FDA approved treatment for depression that involves shining lasers into people's eyes to erase their sad memories.  For a list of FDA approved treatments for depression, you could refer to: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK559078/ It's possible that there is new evidence I'm not aware of, but I searched online for studies of light in treatment of depression and was unable to find any placebo-controlled trials.  This is a problem because placebo responses can be so high in the case of depression and anxiety.  There were some studies on light therapy, but nothing fitting the description of 'shining lasers into eyes to erase sad memories'. Other concerns I have relate to the high cost of such an extensive “evaluation”, as well as possible risk of shining lasers into someone's eyes.  In the absence of evidence supporting the treatment, it seems like a high cost, and potential risk, to the patient, hence my concern for malpractice. It's pretty common for people with depression to feel a sense of desperation, especially after many failed efforts to address their symptoms.  This group of individuals are likely to be extremely susceptible to scams and purveyors of 'snake oil' (sham treatments). It's also concerning to me because the theory behind the idea of shining light into people's eyes to erase sadness doesn't make logical sense to me.  It's a potentially-testable hypothesis, but it's such an absurd hypothesis that I don't see it as worth testing or entertaining. If we are defining depression as some combination of worthless, hopeless, ashamed and guilty feelings, then the hypothesis that such feelings could be meaningfully addressed by such a crude instrument as a laser or a pill or an electrical impulse is absurd. This is because our feelings arise from our thoughts/perceptions.  I've never met a single person or patient who was suffering from depression but had healthy positive thoughts about themselves.  I've also never met someone who had patterns of negative thinking, but felt fine, up-beat and positive. The idea that a pill, a laser, a magnetic pulsation or electrical current could selectively alter the specific thoughts that cause depression doesn't make sense with what we know about the brain and thoughts and feelings.  How could a pill, for example, which crosses the blood-brain barrier and impacts every neuron in the brain, selectively target only the neurons that give rise to depressed thinking?  It's like imagining that we could carpet-bomb a city but only kill the murderers and rapists. I'd encourage all potential clients who are receiving treatment for depression or other conditions to ask their providers for literature that documents the effectiveness of the treatment and to get a second opinion if they are unsure. These are my 2-cents on the topic and I could be completely wrong about it all.  Hoping to hear from others what they think. Also, David, I saw several other people included in the invitation to respond to this question but I didn't see them cc'd.  Perhaps they were bcc'd? Wishing you the best, fondly, Matt David's reply to Matt Thanks, yes, I have a fantastic response already in the show notes from Dr. Alex Makowski who does research and development of lasers with valid medical applications. His thrust is similar to yours. Our field is littered with junk “scientism” intended to fool and exploit people, similar to the snake oil salespeople who use to go from town to town in America selling magical “elixirs” that “cured” just about everything! But people are endlessly gullible, and con artists are still in endless abundance these days, it seems! Best, david Will add your kind and thoughtful comment to the show notes!   3. James asks about the use of TEAM methods in the NHS in the UK. Hi Rhonda, I hope you are well. I had a couple of questions for an 'ask David' on the podcast if that's okay. A bit of background.... I am Level 1 Team and have attended David's training in Atlanta. I live in the UK and have recently changed career to work in the NHS delivering CBT interventions for patients because David's work inspired me so much. The NHS uses specific interventions for particular diagnoses and because I am in training I have to try and stick to this. I do use the TEAM materials and approach when I can and have already seen some great results. The NHS uses 'Behavioural Activation' for certain patients with Depression and I just wondered what David thought about the effectiveness of this (perhaps compared to Cognitive Restructuring). I believe Beck introduced this into the CBT model as he thought it was useful. Another question was regarding treatment of GAD and whether dividing worries between hypothetical and practical, and then using a certain time to actually worry rather than letting the worries dominate throughout the day was something he thought was useful or had heard about. Thanks so much for all the great work you are all doing and inspiring people all over the world! Kind Regards James Bibby. David's response Hi James, Thanks for the great questions. In today's recording of an upcoming Ask David podcast, we can address: The history of “Behavioral Activation,” including the pros and cons of this approach. The history and pros and cons of “Worry Breaks.” The idea of matching a “technique” to a “diagnosis,” as opposed to learning to treat the whole patient with TEAM. The results of our latest research with the Feeling Great App, and whether it might have some value for patients struggling with depression and anxiety disorders in the UK. Best, David Matt's Thots: Great question! I'm looking forward to discussing. There are certainly some techniques that are more effective, than others, for addressing specific negative thoughts. Meanwhile there are a number of problems that come up when we are, as clinicians, throwing solutions at diagnoses, rather than treating the human being who is suffering. Studies on the treatment of PTSD at the VA, for example, showed veterans often got worse after this approach, in which their diagnosis was matched with a method, ‘prolonged exposure', without any agenda-setting. This just retraumatized lots of veteran! Similarly, if someone is secretly blaming, and haven't experienced the ‘death of the blaming self', they might be assigned ‘communication skills training', only to see this backfire, because their intent is still to try to change someone, rather than accept them. You might tell a patient with depression that they should go exercise, only to cause them to resist you, ‘you don't understand, I can't even get out of bed!'. In short, most therapy fails or even makes patients worse because it doesn't consider the good reasons to continue to blame, give up, criticize ourselves, etc. 4. Brian asks: Is positive reframing the most successful technique you have used with your patients? I can see how it would cure someone in 2 hours! Feel free to use my question and do and use my name if you wish. I'd be honored. Best, Brian David's reply Hi Brian, Thanks. Great question! It's one of the latest powerful techniques, but Ext of Voices might still be the “champion.” Using them in the T, E, A, M sequence is especially powerful. Positive Reframing often gets them closer, but not quite all the way to enlightenment. Externalization of voices (EOV) often gets them over the finish line, especially if you know how to use it skillfully, incorporating Self-Defense with the Acceptance Paradox and Counter-Attack Technique! In fact, you can incorporate many of my > 100 techniques when using EOV, such as Be Specific, Semantic Technique, Examine the Evidence, and a host of other. Best, david Matt's comments I agree, Positive Reframing and Externalization of Voices are incredibly powerful and it's often what we're doing when we see recoveries. What works for a given individual, however, is quite hard to predict, in advance and there's a ‘process' to therapy, such that we can't really skip steps, except in some unusual circumstances. Some other super-powerful methods include Externalization of Resistance, Double Standard, Flooding, Feared Fantasy, and the Hidden Emotion Technique. I'm probably forgetting some. Thanks for listening today! Matt, Rhonda and David

Send me a text at 208-213-8809 with the word "email" for a free letter you can send to your clients explaining why their rates are doing what they are doing. Check out my master program Agency Launch.

In this episode, Brian is joined by Matt Greene, Executive Vice President of Luxury and Lifestyle Residences for Highgate hotels. With over 87,500 hotel rooms under management, Highgate operates a geographically diverse portfolio that spans across the US, Europe and the Caribbean and Latin America. The collection represents a dynamic array of urban assets, independent lifestyle and luxury properties, resorts, as well as full and select service and extended stay hotels. Tune in to hear who Matt Thanks for helping him along the way.

FreeBSD 13.2 Release, Using DTrace to find block sizes of ZFS, NFS, and iSCSI, Midnight BSD 3.0.1, Closing a stale SSH connection, How to automatically add identity to the SSH authentication agent, Pros and Cons of FreeBSD for virtual Servers, and more NOTES This episode of BSDNow is brought to you by Tarsnap (https://www.tarsnap.com/bsdnow) and the BSDNow Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/bsdnow) Headlines FreeBSD 13.2 Release Announcement (https://www.freebsd.org/releases/13.2R/announce/) Using DTrace to find block sizes of ZFS, NFS, and iSCSI (https://axcient.com/blog/using-dtrace-to-find-block-sizes-of-zfs-nfs-and-iscsi/) News Roundup Midnight BSD 3.0.1 (https://www.phoronix.com/news/MidnightBSD-3.0.1) Closing a stale SSH connection (https://davidisaksson.dev/posts/closing-stale-ssh-connections/) How to automatically add identity to the SSH authentication agent (https://sleeplessbeastie.eu/2023/04/10/how-to-automatically-add-identity-to-the-ssh-authentication-agent/) Tarsnap This weeks episode of BSDNow was sponsored by our friends at Tarsnap, the only secure online backup you can trust your data to. Even paranoids need backups. Feedback/Questions Dan - ZFS question (https://github.com/BSDNow/bsdnow.tv/blob/master/episodes/504/feedback/Dan%20-%20ZFS%20question.md) Matt - Thanks (https://github.com/BSDNow/bsdnow.tv/blob/master/episodes/504/feedback/Matt%20-%20Thanks.md) Send questions, comments, show ideas/topics, or stories you want mentioned on the show to feedback@bsdnow.tv (mailto:feedback@bsdnow.tv) ***

Allen Welcome passive traders to another episode. Today, I have a big announcement. And I have a first for the podcast, which is really interesting. I'm going to tell you the first before we get into the announcement. The first is that for the first time we are having a husband and wife, team, actually, we're going to find out if they're a team or not. But they're both traders. And they're both doing well. And they've been doing it for a while. So I wanted to get their opinion on how trading works in a family how trading works in a relationship, how to not get on each other's toes. So I have today, Mr. And Mrs. Matt and Margaret Ambrosi. Welcome, guys, thank you for doing this. Matt Thanks. Thanks. Thanks for having us. Allen Now, the big announcement, we probably should have done it better and differently. But Matt is now full time as an option genius coach. So we are very happy to have Matt on board. And he's already made a big difference in several people's lives. He's getting more, more happy comments, or, you know, people coming together to have a wonderful he's doing he's getting more than I am. So I think I got the right person for the job. And if you if you see Matt, or you hear the voice, and it's kind of familiar, we did do an interview with Matt back in episode 110. So 110, and that he actually gave us a story of how he got started what he was doing. And at that point, his job, his role, or his, his goal of trading was mainly to replace his current income through trading options. So I think he's, he's come a long way since then, as a trader, and just emotionally and as a person. So, guys, welcome. And Matt, thank you again, for coming on board the team, it's been really awesome to work with you and to see you take the reins, and you know, it's only made the company stronger and better, and our customers are loving it. So they're really excited. Matt I really appreciate that Alan, you know, I couldn't be more excited. I mean, I have a real passion for this. And it's a real dream to, to do a job and and really fulfill that passion. So thank you. Allen Yep, yeah, I mean, you know, one of my mentors had told me he's like, you know, in your programs, you should have a lot more interaction with the, with the students. And I'm like, I don't have time for that. He goes, well, then you need to get a coach, we need to get some other coaches on board. And I'm like, Okay, where do I find these people? They're like, don't you have students? I'm like, yeah. You know, but they're all trying to retire. Like, they'll try to quit their jobs. He goes, No, I bet you there's some that are really good at teaching. They're really love people. And they would be happy to do this on a full time basis, or even like a part time basis, and just help other people. And I was like, huh, and I thought about that about and Matt was like almost one of the first people I thought of and I'm like, Hey, let me give him a call. And I'm sure he came out of the blue for you. And you were shocked. Matt So I mean, I really enjoy, I really enjoy helping people at the core of my being. And, you know, I just love seeing the light go off in people's minds when they see a trade and they see it work out and they see that everything's a possibility, just like it was for me. So I'm really excited to be part of it. Cool. And then Margaret a this question is for you. So he comes, he comes to you and says, Hey, you know, I've been working at Costco for I don't know, what, 1415 years or something. Yeah. And he's like, he's like, I just got this other job offer. I'm gonna What do you think? Yeah. Margaret There's a whole story. There's a whole nother story. When he got that call, because I mean, we were definitely both shocked. But I think what you just said reminded me of what a good coach Matt was before he even worked at Option Genius. Because when we we started at let's say, when we got married seven years ago, we we were both on the same page about being financially free. And what what does that look like? Matt was definitely more of a researcher in terms of he would read a book, he would, he would give it to me. And so I think we were on, we've been on board on the same page, what to do. And then when we found you, and started learning your methods, we both latched on to it. So when you caught him, I think I was just excited because I knew it was something he really wanted to do. I had already seen him in a coaching role with me and his mom and his sister of trying to like the backend stuff, right? The things that are the charts, the systems, getting your platform set up. Those are things that are challenging and takes a lot of time. And so I was like, I think I was super excited. I knew he could do it. I knew it'd be great at it. And so I just thank you for giving him the opportunity because it's really been wonderful for him to do this thing that he loves anyway. I mean, he was already before he worked for you, in the mornings before he would go to work. Its full time job was studying and learning. And so, yeah, it just was really exciting. Thank you for that. I guess we had the trust, right. The trust was already there. So. Allen Okay. Yeah, now he's doing wonderful. And, you know, he's gonna be trading at the hedge fund as well when that happened. So that's going to be exciting. So a whole new level. So awesome. Cool. All right. So let's get into you guys. All right, so the trading couple and it's not just I know for Matt, you know, he's not just a trading couple. He's got the whole trading family going on there. He told me that he and his wife and his mom and his sister all get together and have trade night. What is that? Matt So it just kind of started, you know, my, my parents live in South Carolina, we're in Georgia, and my sister is up in Massachusetts. And it was a good way. They were always interested in what I was doing. And they always wanted to learn what I was doing. So it just became natural that I would say, hey, let's just have a call. And we'll talk about it. And then I showed them how to, you know, do the platform, and you know, they had all their feelings about whether they're going to do it correctly. And all the all the fears, just like I had when I started, and I was like, Okay, well, we just started going through it. And we started meeting kind of regularly on Fridays. And it was usually Friday, like, nine 930 in the morning. And we'd meet for about an hour and we talk about it. And then it just kind of progressed and was like okay, let's do this next Friday, okay, let's do the next Friday, let's do the next Friday, next Friday, and then just became we'd call it trade top Fridays. And you know, and then started being like, if we miss one, you know, let's say my sister couldn't make it. She'd be upset, like, Oh, I gotta I gotta make it or my mother missed it, she would be upset. So we, we were there every day, you know, and then Margaret would come in here and there and it just kind of evolved. So it was really a really great experience. And then it kept us really connected. I mean, in ways that I wouldn't think you know.. Margaret And you get to learn other parts of your family members and their personalities that you didn't know before. Allen Mm hmm. I can imagine. Yeah. I mean, people's personality comes out when they're like, frustrated, or when they're Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You were saying that a little bit earlier that your mom kind of surprised you, you know, going all aggressive on you. Matt She still does. I mean, there's like, I'm just like, you know, she'll tell us like, Oh, she did something. And then she'll like, say to my sister, oh, I got out of this trade. She's like you did? What? How do you get out of that trade? You didn't tell me about it? And it's like, yeah, they're like, they go back and forth. But it's all in solid, good. You know? Margaret Yeah, once she has the parameters, then she, she'll get a little bit more risky that she said, a differentiated, she told us it's like she's at a different age where she feels like she can take a little different risk than we can. Yeah. So it makes it makes a difference. Matt That's interesting. It also goes back and forth. I mean, my sister, she put on a trade, she was getting into a new trade that we're doing. And then my mother was like, kind of hesitant about getting into it. And my sister just went ahead and did it. And then my mother's like, Oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, like hours later, she she's like, I'm like, what happened? She's like, Oh, I put a trade on. Like, because my sister went ahead and did it. So they kind of play off each other. So Allen that's cool. Because normally, it's the opposite. You know, it's like, the older you get, the more conservative is like, oh, no, I don't want to lose that or lose. The younger people take more risk, but over here are flipped. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. But that I love it, how you're using something to bond, you know. And it's so rare nowadays, especially everybody's spread out across the country. It's like, oh, yeah, we get together on Thanksgiving. Yeah. Okay. Great. You guys get together every week. That's I love it. That's, that's wonderful. Yeah. I think more families need to find something in common like that. And like trading? Yeah. I mean, because the way we do it, everybody can find their own little niche, you know, yeah. Everybody can be conservative or aggressive or whatever. And yeah, I love it. Cool. So, um, how did you guys get into trading? Matt Oh, well, I mean, it was always long term for me. So I was learning about long term investing through reading and then while we actually, Margaret yeah, since you were 29, he started investing. And then we went to one seminar together. And there was a man who was sitting next to us, and he said, uh, you could self manage your portfolio. And we looked at each other and we're like, never worry, That's too scary. It's too risky. We gotta leave that to the professionals. There's reason that people get paid money to do that. And he made it seem like it was no big deal at all. And I think he was he, yeah, that was a pivotal point. And then after that, We went to a couple other seminars together. And then I think the the really the one that we learned about options was three years ago. And at that one, we I had never even heard the term option. I didn't know what an option was. We went to go find out about long term investing and how to value stocks in order to know if it's a good purchase or not. And then at that seminar, we just sat back and because they showed us how to do an option, and and then after that we met found you and he because he was looking for people who did a similar strategy. And then it after we Yeah, so that's how we got into it. Matt Right. And they, they basically started this seminar off with an option. And we're like, Oh, I thought we were coming here to long term invest. And I didn't, you know, we didn't know anything, how options work. We're trying to figure out how it did right there. And then this guy's like, Oh, I just made $7,000. And you're like, show me how you're just like, whatever you just did, like you have my attention. How did you do that? And I was like, on a, I was possessed to figure it out. I mean, Margaret, she's smarter than I am. In some ways, yes, definitely. She was like, this is a funnel, like, marketing, marketing funnel and Margaret figure it all out. And thanks for just calm down. Matt It's just she sat back, I'll relax. And I was like, I'm trying to figure it out. And but we progressed. And, you know, it really opened the whole a whole new world, really. And then, you know, we met you. Margaret And it's just a progression to back up to because that's where we started trading with our family with his mom and sister. So after we learned that strategy, and we were all trading together, that's where the, the trade top Fridays came from. So that was kind of a cool thing that came from that. Allen Okay, so from the beginning, you guys were like, Okay, we're doing this together. It's not like, you know, because Margaret, you have your own company. And if anybody wants to know, she does great videography, and photos for real estate agents, and you guys are located where? Margaret Just north of Atlanta. Allen Just north of Atlanta. So if any realtors are out there. Margaret And I'm glad you mentioned that, because honestly, the reason I want to trade is because I am getting older. I've been a creative for 20 years, and the old body isn't getting any younger. So at some point, I will not be able to schlep video gear and photography gear around, and I want to have some home, what gives me the security and knowing that I can bring in my paycheck that I'm accustomed to it on my own. But we definitely talk about our strategies together. Allen Right, exactly. So, okay, so But you said like, okay, so he's working full time you have your business, but you guys still decided, hey, we're gonna go this road together, we're gonna learn together, we're gonna go the seminars together, we're gonna talk about it. And then do you guys trade in the same account together? Or is it separate? How does that work? Matt We kind of did in the beginning. And then we realized that it was best to have separate accounts, we do everything we talk about everything together. It's just I think that's really smart. Everyone's different. But I think for us, it works that we have separate accounts, because it kind of gives you the flexibility for the trading the fit your personality, and everyone's personalitie's different, you know, even though we're married, we're different personalities. So that reflects in that account, I think. Margaret And the cool part is, we both fund each other's accounts. So when there's money that we have to put into the account to get it started, we weren't going at an equal pace, if that makes sense. Matt Right. So like, for example, I would get a bonus from Costco, I'd split that bonus, put it into our account separately, she would get a bonus, she would put that money into our accounts, and then we're trading the strategies under those two accounts. Allen Okay, so do you have any joint money like a joint account? Margaret Not for not in a brokerage account? No. I mean, we're, we're each other's beneficiaries. But yeah, right. And I think part of that, too, Alan comes from me at I was not married for 36 years, and I am very customed to taking care of myself and producing my own income, and having my own money, you know, just to be quite frank about it. I want to make sure that I can take care of myself if anything ever happened to Matt, but we definitely we know what each other's logins are. We know what the money's in there. So that part's very open. It's not like they don't share the information. But I think that's a good point about having a different trading style because I am a little more aggressive than Matt is, and we learned that we didn't know that going in, but I will jump into things a little quicker than he does and he wants to be Yeah, wants to have all the information. Matt Those are things we learned about it To think that I was not as conservative as I am. But I realized that I'm a very conservative trader. I like to know everything about everything before I jump in, and sometimes that can hinder you, Margaret, she's like, let's get to it. Let's figure it out. And she jumps in. And I'm really admire that part of her. I really do. Margaret And as long as it works out, Matt she's I say she's measured, you know, she doesn't just jump into things. She's measured about it. Allen Yeah. But like, Margaret, what you said about the, you know, having, I guess, I don't know, for for a lot of women, it's a it's a fear. But it's also about a sense of security. And a lot of our customers are, you know, are the customers that come to us, and they come in, they're like, you know, my spouse doesn't want me trading, or when my spouse would rather have me working, because that paycheck comes in regular. I remember when I first started, even, even though I was, in the beginning, I was horrible. I lost a lot of my wife's money. But after I got good at it, she still was not comfortable with the trading, because she would be like, Okay, I don't know, if you're going to make money every month, you know? Because that's just the way it is. And so she's like, Can you do something pleased to have something regular come in? And that's probably the biggest motivation behind the company option genius. Was that, hey, even if I have a little bit, you know, obviously, I'm supposed to be a small little one person company. And is like, even if I have a little bit like, like a, you know, like, five $6,000 coming in a month. Okay, cool. She'll know that, you know, because she still wanted to work. So she knows something's coming in. But that's, that's just, I think it's ingrained in a lot of spouses that are not generating an income on their own that, hey, I need some consistency. So that's been a big for a lot of people. That's a big, you know, switch. Like to go from Yeah, my wife my husband makes or my wife makes x dollars per month to Yeah, I don't know, if he's gonna make any money. Margaret Yeah, I can see how that would be difficult. Because I mean, we're still both bringing in incomes and trading at the same time. Yeah. Matt Yeah, it's a big shift, a mindset shift. But I think the thing about trading is that, you know, when you're working a static job, you have that income, like you said, it's coming in monthly, you can rely on it. But the real benefit of trading, I think, is that you don't see used to see money as you exchange your paycheck for time. And in trading. You can just, you can just make money, and you don't have to sit there for that time. No, it's, you look as money is finite, in your mind, okay? When you look at trading, you work with trading, it's like, it just opens up to you. Margaret It's more of an energy like it goes out comes and goes out. Exactly. Yeah. Matt So I'm trying to say, Allen interesting. That's a good way to look at it. Yeah. So then have this written down? Okay, I'm gonna ask it or I don't know if which one of you is a better trader? Margaret So how do you define better? Allen I guess, who makes the most money? Matt I will say that I wrote this in a lot of books. And I believe that to be true as a women's are much better emotionally, as traders, I believe that I really do because guys are gonna over are like our macho, we just gotta just get in there and do it. And, you know, but in general, I think women are much, much better emotional trading style. Margaret I will just say last year, Matt made more money than I did. But this year, I've made more money than Matt did. So there you go.. Matt But I'm built for the long. Nothing short term with me. We actually nickname each other Margaret's short term, and I'm on long term, Margaret Yeah, I like short term, you know, I'm an entrepreneur. So I like to see things happen in a timely fashion. I live and breathe it, you know. And so I had do struggle with the long term stuff. One day, I would be curious to see what it would like be like to do long term put that. We'll see about that, you know, I like I like the shorter term gains. Matt But yeah, I mean, that's all part of your personality. So we I think we play off each other very well, you know? Yeah. Allen Yeah. It seems like you guys have a good balance. So then, like, if there's a disagreement, then how do you guys handle that? Or is it just, you know, you do whatever you want your account? I'll do whatever I want to my account. Margaret Yeah, well, we talk about what strike prices we're going to be at, and where, you know, kind of idea of what we both want to do. And then we may be a couple points different from each other. Matt Yeah, but we stay within the rules. And I think you know, the great thing about the strategies that you teach and that we've learned is that there's some flexibility in that, okay, as you get better as a trader, it's just not the rules, right? You know, it's just not like, Oh, get out here. And that's it, there's a little bit of flexibility, I think as you get better as a trader, you get more experienced behind you, you're able to kind of fudge the lines a little bit, if you will, not in a bad way, but be like, okay, you know, I know this, I have a little more experience, I can become a better trader. So it's like, that's the whole flexibility part. Margaret Right. And I think, too, just just thinking about how sometimes Matt will stay in a trade longer than me, and I'll get out quicker. Here's a good example. So this month, in our oil trading, I have tripled up, I've gotten in and gotten out three times, and he stayed in the whole time. You know, and I know, during the classes, there's a couple of other people in our class, when we're on the queue that do the same thing. And then some people will sit and so I think it just depends, and I don't know that it would work as well. For us, if we had one account, I just love having our separate accounts, where we get to talk about what we're gonna do and then have the freedom to.. Matt I think the key is that we talk about it. Yeah, I mean, if you don't talk about things between each other, it's just not gonna work. Yeah. So you're like, Okay, you're gonna go that at least I know about it, right. And then you can see how it works out, right. And then at least you know, what, what's going on, you know, it's different, if you just have a count, and you're just doing your own thing, and you're not talking about it. Margaret The, the emotions part is very real. And I don't think you can really understand that until you start to become a trader, and you see where the trade is. And you get to know yourself better, where in the beginning, we were a lot quicker to get out of a trade if it went a certain way. And now we've learned a little bit more of the rhythms, we know each other's rhythms. And so we don't we don't freak out either way, quite as much. Matt: But you got to look at it. Like in totality. I mean, nothing's the end of the world. Right? And with trading, you may lose money, and you probably will, okay, everybody's lost money. And experience is not cheap. Right? With that happening. It's, it's okay, you know, if nothing is, you treat money as, okay, you can be lost, and it can be one. And the whole idea of trading is getting consistent as a whole thing. And it's like, as you get better and better as a trader, I really believe in my core, you try everyone's trying to build that consistency. Okay, and you have to match your personality to that consistency Margaret: Do you also mean make money? Because that's my goal. Matt: Yes, consistently, or us to make money. But you need to be consistent to do that. Allen: So yeah. Well, like I say, In the beginning, it's not about making money. In the beginning, it's just about not losing money. So knowing what you do properly. And like, even if you don't make any money, that's okay. But you don't lose it month after month after month. Okay, I know, it's annoying, but that's a good thing. And then, you know, we could just do a little tweak here and there, and then then the the profits start taking off. So I totally agree with that. And see, because a lot of people that sell options, they'll tell you, Oh, yeah, you know, I have great months, and then I have a big loss. And then I have good months and have nobody wants to be on that roller coaster. Because eventually you're like, man, what am I doing? Matt: I mean, do you want to go make money in the beginning of the year, at the end of the year, you've lost money or just break even? It's, that's frustrating, you know? So the whole goal is to, you know, especially what you said in the beginning, it's very true. Yeah. Allen: So now you guys said that communication was key. So do you have any rules around that? Do you have like, do you like get together and say, okay, besides the trade trade talk, you know, when you have that, do you actually sit down and be like, alright, half an hour debrief, what do we do this week? How are we going to improve? Or is it just, Matt: I think I know what you're gonna go to. I think, I think, for us, and this is just for us, but a big part. And a lot of people think it's a dirty word. But a budget, we always had a budget always kept us in line, you know, and it's like, whenever we've kind of rapidly spending, you know, and aren't talking about trading, we're just talking about life and your budget, it always get us back on the road, so to speak. So that was a big piece of our communication. So it's just knowing that we're kind of on the road. So I think that flows into your trading and it flows into your communication. So I think that's a really big piece. Margaret: Yeah. And I would say like specific rules about communicating around trading, we've never said anything. It's just kind of happened organically. And we will, you know, there's there certain parameters that you teach in your class and we get in at a certain time and when we do that, we will talk to each other that day, and then we check it both together, generally in the morning, and we'll just kind of go Oh, or Yeah, and commit Write together or celebrate together. And then that I think, I guess that's the organic piece. We just check in with each other in the morning. Matt: Be like, Fine, quick text during the day, you know? Yeah. Margaret: Yeah. Because Matt is watching it for his day job. And he'll text me if something, you know, hey, keep your as open. This is happening or, but yeah, so I guess that's it like we wake up in the morning. We look at it, we chat about it, and then throughout the day, he'll text me. Or maybe if I'm doing something, I'll text him and say, Hey, have you seen? And he always says yes. But yeah, that's it. Okay, Allen: Cool. So what happens when one of you wins and the other loses? Matt: That's a good question. Well, yeah, I've lost before I've lost my I lost. I lost before. And oh, yeah. Oh. Yeah Margaret: Jog my memory. Okay. So I'm going to just tell myself here in the beginning, before we found your class, and I'm not just saying this, because this is true. So it's just true. We cannot say how much of course we lost $5,000. So $5,000 is, is a lot of work for me. And I, I am the one who had funded it that month, to the account, and Matt lost it. And we we realized then, that that was really tough. That was tough on me, it was tougher on me than it was him. And actually, our trade talk Fridays, were really good, because they had also lost the money. And I had lost a little bit, but not as much. We were all just really disheartened and frustrated. And I think I think I was a little mean was a little mean, Matt: Slightly slightly. Are you sure you can do this? Well, yeah, feel the weight of that. Right. Yeah. I mean, if you're not, your wife's out there, she's, she's busting her butt to bring in money, and then you just lose it. It's a lot of you feel the way that, you know, you gotta really dig deep and be like, okay, emotionally and you know, everything about to have the confidence to keep going, right? And you got to search and really believe in yourself that you can, you know, like I said, it's not the end of the world, but you have to get through there gonna be times like that. That happened. Margaret: It made me quit trading for a couple months. Yeah, I got really nervous. And then I said, okay, and then actually, that's is that that's about the time we found oil, wasn't it? Like we found oil sometime after that? It seemed to be a little exactly what you're talking about earlier, it wasn't as much of a roller coaster. And that has changed it for me. Allen: Okay, so was there anything else besides finding that strategy that was able to get you through it? Because like, I mean, emotionally, that's a it's a big hit. Right? And did anything change between the way you guys communicated the way you guys traded? Matt: No, I think Margaret took a little hiatus. I'm the type that I never, I never give up on thanks, I will just take it to the death, you know. I'm like, I just keep going no matter what, just get out of my way. No matter how many hits I take, I just keep going. And I leave it all on the table. So I just I knew I was going to keep going. But again, the key and I don't be, Margaret: but you. You did try it a little more conservatively? Didn't you? Matt: Sure. Yeah. I mean, you learn your lessons, you get burned out a little bit, you start to kind of, you know, you remember and you're like, Okay, I don't want to have those same feelings. But let me cautiously kind of figure it, learn from your mistakes, if you will, you know, and treat a little bit more conservative pay a little more attention. What can I learn from that experience? And I think that changes everything. Of course, you know, the strategies that we do, are a lot better, like I'm able to manage our trades so much better. I think that's important. Margaret: I think that's key. And I think that's key for me, knowing interesting that we have better management strategy now makes me feel a lot more secure, and a lot less emotional, and more. What's the word? I'm looking for sure. That Matt and I can both do the trades and not lose that $1,000 chunks anymore. Matt: More confident? Yeah. And I think I've read this before, and I really believe it is that you are your first really job is to become your risk assessor. And then you're a trader. Yeah. So it's like it's really important that you this all we do is assess risk all the time. So I think it's really important to, to focus on that. And once you get better at assessing risk and managing, just become a better trader, but you just kind of have to go through those things. I mean, when I first started trading, they're like, Okay, your first loss is your best loss. And I was like, what does that mean? They don't want to lose you. And like, they said it all the time, like, Oh, your first last year about like, Who is this person? Like, why did he say that to me? I don't want to lose. But it is true. Like, it teaches you things that you just, you think, you know, you like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna get out of that trade, I know what I'm doing. And then you get burned. Everyone's got to touch the stove, apparently, at some point, you know, it's like, Oh, don't touch the stove. It's hot. But of course, we gotta go touch it. But that's just life. I mean, and it's how you react to those situations, I think. And you don't you don't tell yourself that you're not? How are you going to respond to that? Is very important. You know, in all aspects of life as a trader anything. Allen: I mean, a lot of people, you could say that, but it's not as easy when you're going through it. You know, the first time Oh, first time you do it, it's like, ah, people behave in all crazy different ways. Matt: Yeah. Yeah, it's just, you're gonna have to, I guess this, the best way is to do the best you can to bring people through that experience. All right, you can tell them that it's it probably will happen. But how you react to that situation? It's good to kind of tell your future. Margaret: We're model citizens is that? Allen: Well, I mean, they say that, you know, most divorces are caused because of money issues and problems. Yeah. You know, and a lot of people do not see eye to eye on money. And they don't talk about it before they get married. They don't talk about their goals, visions, whatever, or even how to balance it, you know, like, oh, yeah, one is a budget person. One is a non budget, I'm going to spend whatever I can, but it's like, a lot of people have these issues. And it's, it's great to see that you guys are same page, you know, same goal, same like, okay, hey, you guys talked about it ahead of time. Yeah, like, this is our vision. This is the goal. How do we get there, we'll change you know, like, we'll go on a different path. And we'll try and we'll try this. And like, you guys first started with the passive trading course. Right? It puts in the calls and, and then you say, Okay, let's graduate to something else. So then you guys added the oil program. And then you guys have been doing that. So you just added to something. Now you guys have even you know, got you got your own Airbnb now. So congratulations on that. Margaret: Thank you. Allen: So you're diversifying? So yeah, you're trying different things. And nobody says that you can't right. So you should you should work and in us every strategy available to get to whatever your your dream is. So in that sense, you guys have done a bunch of different things. How do you handle it when you disagree? Margaret: Like disagree on? Allen: On the path, disagree on maybe a tray disagree on let's say, you guys did the Airbnb? Maybe Matt would be like, yeah, no, I don't want to do that. And I want to put more money into trading account. Because we already know we're doing well here. Matt: I hate to disappoint. But I don't think we disagree on too much. If we do, it's like, you know, we do. I'm not saying it's easy enough. I mean, marriage is not easy. But we have their situations, I think it's important to you just you take a pause. You kind of realize how you're dealing with it personally, how you're, what you're thinking, what you're you're feeling, and then you come back to that person and you talk about it. Margaret: I think to just thinking about our investments so far, we do things that we are confident in our knowledge base around so I've had a real estate license for five years. And I shoot real estate and I understand real estate. So when I said Hey, Matt, let's buy this, Airbnb. He was like, Okay, sounds like a good investment. You've done the numbers. I trust you. Matt: Yeah, I do. I trust that she's, I've seen it, she's she's in that field, she does the work. She's always trying to figure it out. And I, their word really is trust. I trust her that she's going to do the best she can with it. Margaret: And I think it's about Yeah, I think it's likewise to you, because I trust that he's, he's read. If you could say our library of books, it's literally every book I've ever heard of on finance and investing. And multiple copies probably down. And so I think, I think it all comes back down to we, we because we both feel like we have studied different things. You know, and now Matt learns more about real estate and I, I give him all the credit because I always was interested in retirement and investing but I didn't know where to get started. And so because he had a knowledge base, he kind of brought me up a little bit faster than if I had then what I was able to do on my own right. So that's powerful. And then because I already trusted him so much and then we got to go to all the seminars together. It just build that built that foundation and so now we really don't disagree on Matt: I think part of also is like, I never wanted to push that on Margaret. Yeah, like my interest, right? I have interest in finance. I never wanted to push that it's an interest of mine. Real estates and interests of her. She doesn't push that on me. I don't push that on her. So it was, it becomes organic when you are you, you're interested in yourself, right? You're like, okay, you know, Matt's doing something. I'm interested in that I want to see a little bit more, but it comes from her. It doesn't come from me telling her Oh, you got to check this out. You should check this out. Yeah, that's important. But ultimately, it's gonna be her decision. Right? Yeah, Margaret: You start to for me, I started doing the numbers. Whoa, you can make this on a trade in two minutes. And I make this on how many? How many hours? Does it take me? Yeah, that's a no brainer. Allen: Cool. Okay, so now, so a lot of our customers they've been through. And unfortunately, like, they've gone on a path similar to yours. But I would say that you guys, you know, if you've, if you only started trading, like three years ago, you guys have taken a shorter route than a lot of our customers. Really? Yeah. So they've been trading for multiple years, still trying to figure out like, Hey, how can I make this work? How can I become consistent, profitable, I've tried, you know, XYZ strategy, and this and this, and this, and they've bought cores, and they've been videos and seminars, and, and they still are looking for that something, to get them over the hump, to get them to be like, Oh, finally, I'm actually making some money. Finally, like you said, they're confident that they can, you know, the month is going to start, I have a strategy that works. I'm confident I'll probably make money this month. But they're still not there yet. And because of that, because of them, you know, trying and investing in course, investing in Seminar investing in another doohickey. You know, they have all the things you can buy, like, Oh, hey, you know, that you can buy this indicator, and the indicator will tell you exactly when to buy and when to sell is only $3,000. You know, they're like, Okay, I'm gonna get that, you know, they get it and then they don't doesn't work. And then the wife or the other or the husband, either way, the spouse is like, I can't believe you're wasting all this time, all this energy, all this money on this trading stuff when he doesn't frickin work. You know, you've been trying for years, and it's just not working. It's all a big scam. Right? And that's the big girl. Yeah, it's a big scam that nobody can do this. So what advice or tips or anything? Would you suggest for a trader in that position where their spouse is maybe not very receptive to them continuing to trade? Where the spouse is like, you know, can you just give this up? You know, just spend time with me? Just, you know, Matt: Yeah. I'm gonna let you go first. And I'll go after. Margaret: Okay? Because we, we were not in that specific scenario, I just keep going back to it has to be the trust. So how are you going to build trust with your partner, not when they don't know what you're going through? And then I would say you would have to have some sort of mentor, and to be honest, that is you that that is you for us. Right? So we I remember, when I got the calculator that you sent out of this is where if you this is what you need in order to make the monthly income that you want on the percentage of money, and this is how much money you need in your account. And you've done it, like you've gone before us, we know it can be possible. So we're trusting that what you say is true. And we've seen it and especially now that that works for you. So I think finding somebody that you can put that trust into and having if your partner is not going to be in that with you, at least show them who that is that you're learning from or what they've done. And if if it's if it's not Alan Sama, then make sure that they've got a good record of what they've done. So that, that your partner can have trust in that you're learning from somebody that is credible. You know, the first thing we learned from had learned down the road from somebody who had learned from Warren Buffett, and so, you know, I don't really care about names of people, that doesn't impress me, but when you actually know something that impresses me, and that gives me the assurance to bet on myself. And that's what I would say, would be my advice. Matt: Yeah, I mean, I always went into investing, especially as I, you know, started to learn about options. I was like, I don't want to hear about oh, you can make all this money. You can do all this and everything's going great. I wanted to go and be like, show me how to do it. Right. And then once you show me how to do it, I believe you. And that's just who I am. And I think most people maybe are like that they want proof and they but more importantly they want to be be able to do it themselves, some people don't. But if you're into this and you want to learn, and you have to go into mindset be like, show me how to do it. And then you get the confidence that you can do it yourself, and then you can be able to teach other people. Allen: Okay, nice. Next question I have here is that you guys have been doing this for a little bit together? Are there anything thinking back that you would do differently? So basically, the question is, like, you know, are there any tips that you would give to a couple starting out? Or lesson or something that you felt? You know what, we didn't do that? Right? Maybe we should have done it differently? Margaret: I would. I know that $10,000 was a lot for us, when we bought into your class. It was 100% worth it. And I wish that we would have done that first. Matt: Yes, I think in this world, you know, you don't want to believe it, but you really pay for what you get. You know, it's a hard truth. Lots of people want to be like, oh, I want this for, you know, low money, or I want this, but you got to really look at is it? What's the worth of it? Right? Is it going to be? Margaret: And are you willing to do the work? Matt: Are you willing to do the work? That's a lot of people like, I think the advice I give people is like the least tell yourself before you think something is not worthy, or it doesn't go up to your expectations, at least go through and do the work of what has been laid before you. Okay, so you have all these lessons, and you have all everything, but you have to can you really tell yourself that you put on all the work, when you haven't gone through the class, when you haven't gone through all the, you know, really dug deep to get everything out of it, then you can say whether you want to continue or not, whether it was a failure, whether it was not at least do that. And I think it's important for people that start out, set aside a small amount of money, right? And maybe agree that, okay, if you lose this small amount of money, it's a good idea. Fine, it didn't work out. But at least you agreed on that. And then give it a shot. Yeah. Right. And then maybe if it didn't work out, and you want to go further, we examined it at that point. That way, you know, it's not like a, I lost everything. And it's the end of the world type scenario. At least I gave it a try. You know, I followed my dreams to figure out this on my own. And if you at least put in the effort, you can tell yourself, Margaret: I would like to give your wife major kudos. Since you said you lost a lot of money in the beginning. That's a good woman to keep if she kept supporting you to go forward. Allen: Yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm very blessed. I am amazingly blessed. So I just give you a short version of the story. I had just been laid off. And so the question was, and we had just been married recently. And so the idea was, Okay, do I go and get another job? Or do I try something else? And, you know, I had been dabbling with trading. But I was like, maybe I could do this full time. So she's like, Okay, if you think you can do it, go for it. And, of course, I did not have any money. She had money from that she had saved up from working for several years before we got married. So she's like, you know, I have all this in savings. You know, try it. And so then she got a second job to support us. So because I wasn't making anything, so she got the second job. And she's working. She was a nurse. So she was working like three days a week at the at the hospitals, 12 hour shifts. And then on the other day, she would be, they have this thing called home health, where the nurse actually shows up to your house. So she would be driving around town, going from place to place to place, you know, giving injections and IVs and medicines and all that stuff. So very draining, especially with all the traffic and everything. And yeah, and I proceeded to try everything like day trading and futures and forex and commodity options and everything is like nothing was working. And I was down over 40 grand. When I finally actually, I think what turned it around was that she found out because I was hiding it from her. Like I wasn't telling ya that she came on to check the mail. She checked the statement. She's like, where's all the money? Oh, like, oh, yeah, about that. So it was either Yeah, you know, it's like, okay, either go to go get a job right away. Turn this around. Or, you know, if you don't do one of those things, we're probably getting split, right. So I was planning like, I was getting my resume ordered together. And then I found selling options. Like I discovered that Hey, there, there was a trade I did that was actually it worked. And I'm like, Well, what is this? Let me follow up more and then I got into it and I showed her how to do it. She was like, Okay, you have something here. So you'd like you said I did Didn't I put like all the money aside? You know, I stopped playing with all the money. And I took a small amount. And I'm like, Okay, let me see if I could just do something with this, instead of the big amount. And that gave her pause, like, okay, fine, you know, he's not gonna lose all the money. And if I lost that money, then yeah, go get another job. And that's it, end of story. But luckily, I showed her she understood it, it started working. And then you know, then the rest is history from there. Margaret: I can imagine there's some pretty real feelings going on around that. That's Allen: Very stressful. Yeah, very, very stressful. Because she wanted to know what I was doing. But she didn't have any background in finance. You know, her family never talked about investing or anything. So she didn't really know anything about it. Slowly, slowly, I started telling her. And then the funny part is, she would come home, like, and she'd be like, Oh, hey, she got interested, right? And she would come home and she goes, Hey, I checked the news and the markets up today. And I'm like, Yeah, but I'm, you know, I'm in. I'm in calls today. Oh, there she goes, Oh, no, oh, that's too bad. You know? And then two days later, she'd be like, Oh, look, I checked in the markets down today. I'm like, No. I mean, Puts today. She would like she did, she wouldn't know if I'm gonna be happy or sad. But she was nuts. But yeah, so and then after a while, then it got good. And like I said, you know, she wanted that stability. She didn't want that up and down. She's like, I need something stable income, so I can quit the second job, take okay. And then she was able to quit the first job. And then so it worked out. But yeah, it was a long, hard road. And I did not have the mentor that you mentioned, you know, so that was one of the probably the biggest things that if I could have found somebody that could have just pulled my hand be like, here, this works, just follow this plan. Margaret: You know, that's why we got to shortcut it. Yeah. Allen: But.. Matt: I think that is a hard thing. Because you're always trying to search for, you know, they're always there numerous or many mentors out in the world, it's like, is trying to find who's true, right? That's it's very difficult. And you you have a guard up, everyone's got their guard up. And they're always kind of like, is this person trying to take me or, you know, I don't feel right about this person, I maybe feel right about this person. I mean, just look at FTX. I mean, that guy that was like darling, and crypto. And then they find out he's, he's, you know, a Bernie Madoff. So it's like, it happens over and over again. So that's kind of how I got into trading. I was like, show me how to do it, and see if it worked, right. And you're not only a mentor, but you show people how to do it. And then you can build trust in yourself, rather than, you know, of course, a mentor is wonderful. And it will shortcut that process. But you can learn about this stuff. And then you, you make yourself your own mentor in a way, you know, it's like you just kind of be like, Okay, I have the confidence now. And then you can go on. Allen: Yeah, I think it all comes down to confidence too. Because like, if I look at it, you know, we have several students that in any strategy that you pick one strategy, and then there's somebody there that's been like, Oh, hey, I did you know this much percent? And I'm like, wow, that's better than me. And there's another strategy. Oh, I did this much. And I'm like that better than me. And I know that, like, what everybody's doing better than me what's going on? You know, but I think that's part of it is the confidence. There's like, and this will tell you something about me, like, you know, I came up with the rules, right? So I came up with the test and testing it and failing, and I forgot what they call it. But it's like, you know, you, you try something and then you fail, and you try and you're failing, you chaired it. So in my mind, you know, all these rules are made by me. Right? So I was like, I don't know how much I can, you know, like, really? I'm gonna trust myself. I don't know. It's scary. But then somebody else comes and goes, Oh, Allen, you know, he's the man. He knows what he's doing. I'm just gonna go 100%. And they do. They do better than me. And I'm like, I don't get it. Matt: redo my rules. Allen: I just need to, I just, like, forget it. I just give you guys my money's like here. Matt: But I mean, in all seriousness, as well, I mean, people, they come in these programs, and everyone has so much to add. I mean, that's how you get better. I mean, there's people that are just like, oh, yeah, I did this way. And you're like, Oh, I didn't think about that. And it's like, if you're open to that, and you receive that, then it makes everything better for everybody. And I've seen that over and over again, where somebody will just say, Oh, I found this way to do this easier. It's like it's constant learning. All of us are constantly learning constantly getting better constantly trying to achieve and go go better. And that's a wonderful thing. Allen: Yep. Yeah, we had an hour. Just recently, we in our passive trading group, somebody had put like, Hey, I don't know how to do this. And I'm pretty sure it's in it's in the core somewhere. But then another student was like, oh, here, let me make you a video. And he just made a video. Yeah, this is how I did it. It's like, Oh, wow. And they asked another Oh, how about this, he made another video. It's just, you know, everybody's helping each other because we all have the same goal. And it's like, Let's just all work together. And, you know, we're all on the same path. Matt: Yeah, it's like, it's always true, you surround yourself with the right people, and good things will happen. I mean, it's just just got to be able to do that, Allen: you know, it's like, amazing, we had some really cool students, helpful, you know, just to go out of the way for each other. It's really, really nice. So then, okay, so my last question for you guys. And I don't know, maybe you guys like, maybe this is a problem that we've seen people have, but I don't know if you guys are gonna be able to answer it. But how can a trader have their spouse support them in their trading? So like, you know, if, you know, one of you is the trader, or you want to do something, how can you get your spouse to have that confidence in you? That you can do it? Does that make sense? Yeah. Because like, I know, with my wife, in the beginning, she didn't have any confidence. And then later on, you know, the numbers kind of spoke for themselves. But one of the things I did was when the back testing software came out that we that we use a lot, I showed it to her. And she was like, Oh, cool. I want to learn this, too. So we would sit there, and I gave her the rules. I think we were talking about credit spreads at the time. It's like, okay, so this is kind of how we find a trade. And I didn't have like, first set out rules yet. It was just, you know, ideas. I try, sometimes they do this way, that way. And so then I had her and I told her what it was. And we would look at a chart and be like, okay, hey, what do you what's the trade? And so she would pick her trade? And then, you know, we would we would go through it. And then I had already done it my way, you know, and it would always come out where she was actually more profitable than me. Same trade, same stock, same timeframe, if we had done it her way, we would have made more money. That's the thing about the confidence. He knows, like, when you see your wife who doesn't know anything, she just numbers, you know, she doesn't matter. It's like, I don't know, maybe I'm not cut out for this. But then, but then later on, there was a time where I got into like, a, like a rut, you know, so I wasn't I wasn't following the rules, the discipline became a problem. Because our trading doesn't take a lot of time. And so when you're just, you know, stuck, you don't have anything else to do, you kind of start over trading, and you're messing around with stuff. And so I had her, and she came, she's the one that came up with this. She's like, you know what, every single trade, you're going to write it down. And you're going to tell me, and I'm going to come upstairs at one o'clock every day, I'm going to ask you questions about every single trade, you know, and I forget exactly what they were. But it's in one of our products. It's like, you know, what's the goal? What's the plan? You're going to adjust it or you're going to get out when you're going to do it? Where's it now? And why haven't you done what you're supposed to do? You know, and so because of that, because I knew she was going to come? Right? I would have everything ready before she came in. So if I had to get out of a trade because it was down or I needed to do an adjustment, it will already be done by the time she got in. And so that degree of holding me accountable. It really I mean the results just went skyrocketing higher. That's really smart. So that was.. Margaret: something that you said yesterday on our call on our oil call really has stuck with me about every day that you wake up you have a decision to stay in that trade or get out so that's the day that you're making a decision. And it's not Yeah, so that it just hit me this morning because we had the the market was down a little bit this morning. And we talked about it like what what are we going to do so I like that idea of having an accountable Matt: Well, it's important because you're you yourself are going to be emotionally different each day for whatever reason, just as you as an individual that but now you have your wife or someone who was account recording accountable is going to come in and keep you straight. I think what every what everybody needs Allen: Yep. Either either spouse or buddy or accountability partner or something like that, that you can trade with. Trading buddy, I like that. Cool. Okay. Is there anything else that you guys wanted to share with our audience? Margaret: Hmm, you can do it. You can absolutely do it. I think if I could have told myself which I had zero knowledge background in how what what was a brokerage? Let's just start with the simple step. I did not even know the difference between brokerages I did not understand what a brokerage account was. So if I could Tell Margaret, even just five years ago, what I will be doing today, I would not have believed it. And that once you start looking at your money, you know, everybody always says nobody cares about your money more than you do. I think our age group needs this knowledge. Because with the advent of you having to figure out your own retirement and not having pensions, it is extremely important for us to know that and we didn't have any knowledge that is out there. You know, we didn't we weren't 20 and Tiktok. And Instagram rails were out there where you could learn some of this stuff. You know, we're where we're younger people already know so much more than I knew when I'm in my 20s. I think there's a group of us that needs the hope that comes from knowing that you can manage your own money, and you can make money and you can help your retirement, it doesn't matter if you're in your 40s. Matt: No matter really what age you are, I mean, my mother's 80, right. And if she was, you know, I used to stay at Costco all the time. And I said this many times where they're, they're older people that give out samples or they're in the job. And there, you can see that they're in pain. They're standing all day long, and they're like 70, and 80 years old. And if they just knew if they knew how to do a simple strategy, or trade or just learn it, in which they totally can, yeah, or be shown that and, you know, they can believe in it, that would change their life. And they change their comfort, not later on and be right now. Yeah. Which is so powerful. So it's really it goes to, that's what I love about trading, it can help all age groups. Yeah. Right. And you're right. No one cares about your money more than you do. And I look at like, life's risky. Everything's at risk. So you owe it to yourself. You think trading is risky. Give it a shot. Everything's risky. Yeah. Right. So you got to overcome your fears. See how things work? Believe in yourself. And just go for it. Yeah, because we're only on here one turn, you know, Margaret: Why not? Give it a shot? Allen: Well said Well said, you guys, I really thank you for this. This has been a pleasure. And I really appreciate your time and spending some time and sharing intimate details about your lives and your relationship with us. It's it's been a blessing. Thank you so much. Margaret: Thank you for asking us. Yeah.

In 2020, we saw a lot of employers permanently switching to work remotely. While some have slowly brought their workers back into the office, Goldman Sachs's CEO, David Solomon, has been labeled as anti-remote. However, this wasn't always the case – in fact, he once argued that having employees working from home was "the new norm". On this episode, Nasir and Matt take a look back at how Goldman Sachs's response to the pandemic has changed throughout the years. Full Podcast TranscriptNASIR: Yes, we're talking about Goldman Sachs – the return to office for them. Why Goldman Sachs? Well, they are a huge company. We wanted to talk about tracking them through the COVID response going back all the way to 2020. MATT: You'll give up the ending to this podcast already, but… NASIR: Well, yes, that's true. This is Legally Sound Smart Business where your hosts – Nasir Pasha and Matt Staub – cover business in the news and add their awesome legal twist. Legally Sound Smart Business is a podcast brought to you by Pasha Law PC – a law firm representing your business in California, Illinois, New York, and Texas. Here are your hosts, Nasir Pasha and Matt Staub. NASIR: Welcome to Legally Sound Smart Business! Our episode locally here in Houston. Matt has joined me to talk about Goldman Sachs, right? Welcome to Houston! MATT: Thanks! It's good to be here. I always like these in person. NASIR: I feel like I caught you off-guard. MATT: That's fine. NASIR: Let's start the podcast, by the way. We're talking about Goldman Sachs – the return to office for them. Why Goldman Sachs? Well, they are a huge company. They have basically 40,000 employees worldwide. We wanted to talk about tracking them through the COVID response going back all the way to 2020 – February to March of that year – they started locking down through today where now they have more than 65 percent of their workforce back in the office. MATT: You'll give up the ending to this podcast already, but… NASIR: That's true. Well, we're done, right? MATT: Yes. The big reason is their CEO – David Solomon – was pretty well-documented and took a big stance in getting people back in the office quicker than most companies out there, particularly on Wall Street. NASIR: Yes. In fact, depending upon who you ask, some would say he was actually leading that charge and a visionary in that respect. Others would say that he was being too aggressive. Another interesting thing about Goldman Sachs is that, on one hand, they have been on lists of some of the best places to work. One of the reasons is they have huge high-compensation packages for a lot of their employees. On the other hand, they are also criticized for being unethical. You have people complaining about 100-hour workweeks and things like that. Goldman Sachs in its nature is in the forefront of a lot of different issues – employment issues, especially, but also regulatory and these kinds of things as well. MATT: It's not surprising that their CEO took this bold stance in getting people to go back to work quicker than some companies that haven't come back to work – a good amount of them. NASIR: Yes, and everyone has heard in the news. We're talking about companies like Google and Facebook or Meta. I don't think Meta are coming back. MATT: A permanent option. NASIR: There have been others like Spotify and so forth. Especially a lot of the tech companies, they have made a permanent shift. That is something that Goldman Sachs has definitely not done. Frankly, depending upon the company, the industry, what states you are in. I know we have talked plenty of times about when we are dealing with clients in California versus Texas. It's just such a different paradigm. That's really shone itself during COVID because the conversations that you and I were having with California clients about the workforce and COVID was like, “What are some of the things that we can do to make it more comfortable for them to go home to work?...

Matt Danna is the Co-Founder and CEO of Boulevard, which powers next-gen salons and spas. Its mission is to modernize the technology while improving the daily lives of professionals and the clients they serve. Chad talks with Matt about discovering a problem and then making the jump to working on it, overcoming hurdles in terms of continued growth, and deciding to invest in building their own hardware by creating Boulevard Duo: a point of sale credit card reader. Boulevard (https://www.joinblvd.com/) Boulevard Duo (https://shop.joinblvd.com/products/duo) Follow Boulevard on Twitter (https://twitter.com/joinblvd), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/joinblvd/), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/joinblvd/), LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/boulevard/), or YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo9FyMtvqrDGHFl797iOhww). Follow Matt on Twitter (https://twitter.com/mattdanna) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattdanna/). Follow thoughtbot on Twitter (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: CHAD: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Chad Pytel. And with me today is Matt Danna, the Co-Founder and CEO of Boulevard, which powers next-gen salons and spas. Matt, thank you so much for joining me. MATT: Thanks so much for having me, Chad. Great to be here. CHAD: One of the things that I was interested in learning about Boulevard is it's a large product that does a lot for salons and spas. And so, I'm interested in talking with you about the process of getting to where you are today. But why don't we get started by giving folks an overview of everything that Boulevard does for salons and spas? MATT: Yeah, absolutely. So Boulevard offers what we think is the first and really only business management platform that's really focused around the client experience. We work with businesses that help all of us look and feel our best. And it's a really special industry to be powering where there's a really close sense of that human touch and that human element. We try to use technology to help automate and relieve the day-to-day operations as much as we can for these businesses so that they can focus on providing that world-class client experience and deepening relationships with their clients. CHAD: And tactically, that's online booking, scheduling, payments, schedule management, all that kind of stuff that goes into running. MATT: Yeah, absolutely. So it goes all the way from, like you said, scheduling to we are a fully integrated payments solution to even have time clock kind of commission reporting. And so it really goes from managing everything front of house all the way through back of house. And happy to share more about how we ended up building such a wide and deep product because it's definitely an interesting story. CHAD: So you were not in the salon industry prior to Boulevard, is that right? MATT: That's correct. CHAD: So, how did you end up getting brought into this industry? MATT: So the founding story...so my background is in software engineering, but I ended up turning much more into a designer over time. So I've been naturally drawn to building technology for creative individuals. And so, at my last startup, which was called Fullscreen, it was a startup here in LA. We were helping YouTube creators make better content online, helping them monetize on YouTube, understand their audience. And this was in the days where YouTubers couldn't monetize directly. They needed to go through a network. And so, we created this proprietary technology offering that really helped them understand how to build their audience and further monetize. So the original founding story was that I met my co-founder of Boulevard at Fullscreen. His name is Sean Stavropoulos. And I was the VP of Product. He was the VP of Engineering. And the kind of inception moment was that there was this week where Sean's hair was a complete disaster. CHAD: [chuckles] MATT: And as a great colleague, I was making fun of him [laughs] and telling him like, "Dude, you need to go get a haircut." And he said to me that he kept forgetting to call his salon during the day to make an appointment, and at night when he remembered to do those types of things, the salon is obviously closed. And we were just thinking how much friction there was as a client of these businesses in the booking process and that we didn't understand why you had to do basically so much work in order to be a client. It just was incongruent with what was going on in other industries and kind of restaurants and everything going through this digital transformation. Our hypothesis was that they must still be on pen and paper; they haven't adopted technology yet, and that's why you need to call to make an appointment. And we started thinking a lot about this problem and started obsessing over it. [laughs] And there was a weekend that we were hanging out, and we ended up walking into a few different salons and spas in a neighborhood that we were hanging out. And we did a bunch of research and asked them a lot of questions. We said we were UCLA students working on a research project. CHAD: [laughs] MATT: Which was a pretty smart move because everyone loves talking to students, and we weren't trying to sell them anything. We were trying to learn more. And so, a good research tip is just to state you're always a student. And we ended up learning. And we were super surprised that they were all using technology. All the technology that these businesses were using were also capable of online booking. And so we were like, "Okay, none of this makes sense. Like, you're making your customers call you, but you have these capabilities." We were like, "Do you need help embedding it into your website? Like, why don't you use online booking" And their answer would be, "We absolutely cannot use online booking, no way," which made us even more curious. And so what we ended up learning was that self-care businesses, you know, salons, spas, nail salons, you name it, they're generally running on pretty thin profit margins like in the 5% to 10% neighborhood because their labor costs are so high relative to their sales. And the other important piece that we learned was that the front desk has outsized control over the revenue that the business makes simply by how they place appointments on the calendar. And so when you call to make an appointment, they're looking up to see if you have a client file, to see if you've been there before, what services did you get? Who were they with? How long exactly did they take? They're also looking to see when they could fit you in. And they're doing double booking, triple booking whenever possible so that staff can be with multiple clients at once and double up. And then they're also making sure there are no gaps between appointments. And so they're doing basically this yield optimization, schedule optimization on the fly. And none of that was taken into account if customers self-booked using any of the solutions available on the market. And so we thought that seems like a straight-up technology problem to solve that these businesses needed an online booking solution so customers can have that convenience and self-booking whenever they want. But it also needs to take into account some of that business logic that the front desk follows so that they don't get gaps in the day and have a really sub-optimal and inefficient calendar. And so that's where we thought we could provide some particular value that would be unique in the industry. And that was what we focused our MVP on, was that very thing, having an intelligent scheduling solution. CHAD: It seems like it's a pretty big leap for the director of product and director of engineering at a startup to discover a problem like this and then actually make the jump to working on it [laughs] and making it real. Was there something in particular that happened? Why did you do that? [laughs] MATT: Yeah, I mean, we had a, you know, being executives at the startup and really loving the team, loving what we were doing, our mission. But I think one of the motivators and catalysts was when we were doing this field research. And we ended up going out to a couple of hundred businesses over the course of several weekends to learn even more about this problem area. But one of the things that was so evident and clear was that all of the technology in the market that these customers, these businesses were using, they were negative NPS scores. They were like, "Oh, we use, you know, X, Y, or Z solution, and we really don't like it. It's so hard to use." You would see the red in their eyes when they would talk about this technology." And we're like, "There's something very powerful here." And we weren't exactly sure at the time was it legacy technology not keeping up with modern needs of these businesses and the growing expectations from end consumers, or was it user error problems? And we had come to the conclusion that it was really a lack of innovation in the market from existing vendors. And that got us particularly excited, and we formed a lot of conviction, so much conviction that we made the leap to start working on this. So we transitioned out of our full-time executive day jobs, and we ended up doing a little bit of consulting work while we were doing a lot of product discovery. So for about six months, we were doing three days a week on Boulevard and a couple of days a week on consulting. So it was a nice little part-time way to keep paying the bills but also then be able to spend a significant amount of our brain space thinking about this opportunity and what problems we wanted to solve. CHAD: So maybe I'm just off base here. And I'm not trying to get you to say that something was wrong at Fullscreen. But it strikes me there needed to be something going on, in my mind, maybe I'm off base, for you to even before deciding to make that leap, though, to spend your weekends going to salons and doing interviews. MATT: Yeah, I think this is how most companies are started is by founders who are trying to solve a problem that they're exposed to. So everyone is always trying to build companies that are solutions for problems that they have. And we just, I think, got excited by this problem. And my background being in building technology for the creative individuals, like, I got really, really excited. And Sean took some convincing that this was worth it and that this could be a thing. CHAD: Was it an aspiration for you to find something that you could use to found your own company? MATT: No, no. CHAD: And then why were you doing it? [laughs] MATT: I think it felt like the right thing to do. I never considered myself an entrepreneur, and I really still don't. I think of myself as a builder, and I love building things. And this was in a way for us to think about, like, oh, let's build a company and turn this into a massive business. We saw that there was a particular pain point that was experienced from both consumers and businesses and that we could provide something special. It felt like it was something that only we saw, which I think made it feel even more compelling to work on. And so we didn't know if we were crazy at first. We always had this question of like, why hasn't anyone figured this out? This seems so obvious. I still don't know why we're the only ones that have any type of kind of logic on top of the schedule in that sense. But we saw it as a unique opportunity to build something really special and provide a lot of value to consumers and businesses. CHAD: Well, that's super interesting. So once you decided and you started working on Boulevard, how did you decide what to focus on first? And how did you set your market for what the first version was going to be or a target for what the first version was going to be? MATT: So, we focused on the businesses that had a front desk. So those are generally the ones that really struggled with getting the most out of every minute possible in the day. And so we focused on what were typically mid to upper market single locations to start, and we got introduced to a salon owner through a mutual friend. They were based in New York, and it was just a two-person salon. And so, we built our MVP to be able to support their day-to-day functions. And they were using some other system, so we kind of had to get to a place where there was general feature parity to support them. So we built up the features that we needed, and then we launched them, transitioned them off their previous solution. And then we did all this in person and then hung out with them for about a week or two after to babysit the system, make sure there weren't problems. We were iterating in real-time. Sean and I were releasing code. And from there, we got an intro to our second customer through another mutual friend. CHAD: How long did it take you from when you started to when it was live in that first salon? MATT: It took about nine months. CHAD: And were you self-funding that based on the consulting that you mentioned? MATT: Yeah, self-funding. And then, after we launched with the first business, Sean and I actually both liquidated our 401Ks. And we didn't have the time to continue to consult. So we bootstrapped the company and put our life savings into it once we had traction from our first couple of customers. And that's when we started to hire our first employees to help us continue to accelerate development and that kind of thing. CHAD: So again, liquidating your 401k is a pretty big step. MATT: Yep. CHAD: Did you try to do external fundraising before doing that? MATT: No. At that point, not yet. We wanted to really validate the concept on our own dime. And then, when we had paying customers and a decent customer base, we did a friends and family round. And then, once we achieved a certain milestone, we joined an accelerator, which is based in Los Angeles called Luma Launch. And we were part of that accelerator for about six months. And then we raised our series seed following that. We went from liquidating our savings, living like college students, ramen noodle budget-type to once we felt good about the value we were providing, had the case studies and the customer feedback, and had a pretty awesome MVP to show to investors; that's when we decided to fundraise. CHAD: How nervous were the two of you? MATT: Very nervous. [laughter] I mean, it's one of those both of us come from really, really humble families, and there was no safety net. And so we were all in. And I think often from when there's a lot of constraints; you have to find creativity. We were all in. We were working all the time on this, really gave it everything we had. And in hindsight, it was a good decision. But it could have easily been a terrible decision. [laughs] CHAD: I mean, this is one of the things with founding stories is we talk to the people who are successful. [laughs] So, would you recommend this path to other people? MATT: I think if it's something where you could see providing unique value to the world and that you have lots of validation from real people, not just your friends but from prospective customers...it was when we were talking to real businesses where they would say, "This is something we would use and pay for." And so, after hearing that dozens and dozens of times, that matched with the negative NPS scores with their current solutions. That's where we were like, "This can be something pretty special." So I wouldn't recommend building in isolation and making that leap of faith without really doing your diligence on the opportunity. But yeah, I think everyone, at some point, if they have an idea or a problem they want to solve, should give it a go. Mid-Roll Ad: I wanted to tell you all about something I've been working on quietly for the past year or so, and that's AgencyU. AgencyU is a membership-based program where I work one-on-one with a small group of agency founders and leaders toward their business goals. We do one-on-one coaching sessions and also monthly group meetings. We start with goal setting, advice, and problem-solving based on my experiences over the last 18 years of running thoughtbot. As we progress as a group, we all get to know each other more. And many of the AgencyU members are now working on client projects together and even referring work to each other. Whether you're struggling to grow an agency, taking it to the next level and having growing pains, or a solo founder who just needs someone to talk to, in my 18 years of leading and growing thoughtbot, I've seen and learned from a lot of different situations, and I'd be happy to work with you. Learn more and sign up today at thoughtbot/agencyu. That's A-G-E-N-C-Y, the letter U. CHAD: That first customer that you were building the replacement for, were you charging them? MATT: No, we were not. CHAD: Are they paying now? MATT: They are, they are, very little. CHAD: Okay. [chuckles] MATT: They're a small business and have been staying super successful. And so, in the earliest days, the learnings and feedback matter a lot more than revenue, and so you optimize for that as opposed to the economics. And so for us going and working on location at these businesses and they're paying us essentially in the learnings and teachings of helping us understand and absorb ourselves in this industry, and working as front desk and doing the jobs that all these professionals have to do. And so that's where we were able to build and get to a place where our product is really, really authentic. And it was from that first direct observation. CHAD: I've worked on products before where they're currently being done by people. They might have technology solutions in place, and they feel like there's no technology that will do this; we need to have a person being the one to do it. Because like you said, there's something special about a person doing it. And so sometimes those businesses, when they have a solution, even if they've properly solved it, there's a lot of resistance from customers who are very skeptical that the technology is going to be able to do it the right way. Have you encountered that? MATT: Absolutely. CHAD: How do you combat that? MATT: We iterated on, essentially, the objections. So the first objection was that "People can't book online because it's going to mess up my day." And so we created this what we call precision scheduling, where it does the optimization on the calendar. And then the next issue was that we started seeing some no-shows coming because I think there's this mental analog of if you miss an OpenTable reservation not as big of a deal. But in our industry that we're serving, if you miss a two-hour appointment, that professional is out a significant amount of their income for the week. And so that's where we actually started dipping our toes in payments, and we started requiring a credit card at the time of booking just to authorize the card and to hold the appointment. And so that objection of no shows we solved there. There was a lot of concern of like, "Hey, our customers are not going to know the right thing to book." And we have learned that customers actually are very savvy and that the clients deserve more credit than the professionals are giving them that if a woman gets a balayage, she knows it's a balayage. And so, usually, the way that we overcame that objection was we'd work with them and have best practices on menu design. But that they also then, when they're giving a service that they discuss what they actually did in that service so that the customer knows what to book next time if they want the same thing. And so that was kind of the pattern is like, build something, learn, iterate, and do it on location with these businesses so that we could see it firsthand in an unbiased way. And so that's really how we were able to build such a product with this amount of scale and overcome some of those initial objections. CHAD: Is it easier now that you have 2000-plus customers, some social capital out there? They can ask other people, "Is this working for you?" Is that easier now? MATT: Absolutely. Absolutely. One of the ways...we didn't have a sales team for a long time in our company, and we were actually under the radar. We were stealth, didn't announce anything about ourselves for the first three or four years. And so we were just very much focused on product development and building something that was incredible. And then we were really fed off of referrals and that word of mouth. So it's I think when you get a product that people love, they're going to tell their friends about it. And for us, that really helped accelerate our growth. CHAD: So yeah, so this was all taking place in what year? MATT: So we transitioned out of our last company and started doing part-time work in summer of 2015. And then, we officially launched our first customer in spring of 2016. CHAD: Cool. And I think that that is, you know, you didn't get to 2,000 customers overnight, right? You've been at this for a while. MATT: Yeah, the barrier to entry is very high in the market, and VCs called our type of opportunity a brownfield opportunity where there are a lot of legacy solutions in the market. And we compete with some companies that were actually started before I was born. CHAD: [chuckles] MATT: And so they've had many decades to build functionality into their platform that we need to get to some level of feature parity with in order to seamlessly transition them off of their previous solution to our platform. And it did take a significant upfront investment with product in order to get to be able to pay the price of admission and to be able to actually compete in the market. CHAD: So one of the things I'm curious about is, do you have a sense of what does the overall market looks like? I feel like there are probably lots of salons, spas, haircutting places. There are a lot of them all over the world. MATT: There are, yeah. So we believe that there are about 500,000 self-care businesses in the United States. CHAD: Just in the United States. MATT: Yeah, just in the United States. And the employee base in the labor market is about two to two and a half million professionals across all those businesses. CHAD: So, where do you think the hurdles in terms of continued growth are for you? MATT: So one of the areas that we focus on is...so all of these self-care businesses are about 90% similar in how they operate. And so we started in the hair salon vertical and then have expanded into many adjacent verticals over the course of the past few years. We really tried to make sure that we had really, really strong product-market fit in the hair salons, which is the biggest self-care market, and before we expanded into, say, nail salons. When expanding into adjacent verticals, there's some functionality that is unique to those verticals. And so, for example, one of our recent verticals that we expanded into is med spas. And the way that med spas charge for their services is generally based on the products that are used, and so if you buy 100 units of Botox, they charge a per-unit fee. And so that was something that was pretty unique to the medspa market that doesn't exist in other self-care markets. And so vertical expansion is a vector of growth for us and then segment expansion. So we started with the single location, very small businesses. And then we have worked our way up to enterprise where we're powering chains and franchises of hundreds of locations. And then the other aspects kind of the third vector of growth is the different product sets and functionality that we are releasing to our customers. So continuing to develop the platform but also look at different opportunities where we can provide outsized value by developing it ourselves. CHAD: So we could literally talk all day, and I could talk to you about scaling and product and everything. But one thing I'm interested in before we wrap up is I think it's really special to found a company with a designer, a product person, and an engineer. And I can tell even just by looking at the site and the product that you very highly value design and creating a product that people love to use. MATT: Absolutely. CHAD: How does that lead you to creating Duo, which is a point of sale card reader? MATT: One of the things that we saw in the market was this real importance in service design so what information is showing when to the users of our technology. So there's that aspect of what's the overall experience? Then there's the product design; how easy is it to use? And how quickly can new employees, new front desk staff, how quickly can they get ramped up and start using the system? Do they need two weeks of training? And for us, we try to make it as intuitive and as familiar as possible. And then we look to see how else can we extend design? And one of the complaints that we always received from customers was that hardware options were always pretty ugly, that all of them look dated like the kind of hardware that you use at a supermarket. And they wanted something that was more sleek and that they weren't ashamed to have on their countertop for checkout. And so that's where we decided to invest in building our own hardware. And that was particularly exciting for us. So it's been really, really well-received from our customers. And it was a really fun project to work on. Getting into the hardware space is always challenging. But as a designer, it was super cool to build something that became physical for the first time in my life. CHAD: Does the logic that led to you creating Duo eventually lead you to creating an entire hardware point of sale system? MATT: We're assessing all opportunities. There's this interesting moment happening in the payments space where like Apple, you know, announced that I think they're piloting now that you won't need hardware in order to accept credit card payments on the iPhone. CHAD: You'll just be able to do it right against an iPad. MATT: Exactly. So I think there's a real question as to what is the...and I'm sure this is something that folks like Square are thinking about, that have really best in class hardware is like what does the future of hardware look for fintech companies? And is it just going to fold into the actual devices, or will you continue to need standalone readers? That's something that we're constantly thinking about and keeping smart on the latest developments in that. But our expertise and what we love is building incredible software. Hardware was that area that we saw that we could provide unique value, but our goal is to always be a software company. You generally don't make much money off of the hardware piece in this business. CHAD: Now, how personally involved were you in the hardware project? MATT: I was very involved, potentially too involved. [laughs] CHAD: As a founder, when new projects come up like this that maybe you're interested in, how do you either hold yourself back or not hold yourself back from being involved in them? MATT: I think when the company is venturing into new territory, entirely new like uncharted waters, that's when it's valuable for me or any founder to get really, really smart on what's the opportunity, what's the risks, all that kind of stuff. In this case, my experience working at our initial customers for the first couple of years of our business was really, really impactful. And so our Duo captures...and the reason why it's called Duo is because it's a countertop, but also you can take the top off, and you can do an in chair checkout. So you could bring it over to the customer, and they can check out right while they're in the chair as an express checkout. And so those types of things I learned while being on location working at these businesses. And so I was providing a lot of the guidance and conceptualizing how we could think about what the hardware offering would be that would be unique to us, and collaborated with our head of design and then an industrial designer to get the proof of concept there. CHAD: And you said, "Potentially too involved," so why did you say that? [laughs] MATT: I think as a founder, you are always trying to figure out what altitude are you flying at. And there are some things that you will need to dive in and be very hands-on. And then there are other times just to guide and support and coach. And I think for this because it was a new project, I was particularly excited to be able to get into hardware because that was a first for me that I was involved in all aspects of it. But it was a lot of fun. CHAD: Awesome. Well, Matt, thank you so much for stopping by and sharing with us. I really appreciate it. I'm sure the listeners do too. If folks want to find out more about Boulevard, about joining the team, about becoming a customer, or just to get in touch with you, where are all the different places that they can do that? MATT: Yeah, absolutely. I think the best place is just on our website. We are hiring across all levels and all functions, especially on the product design and engineering side. And so our website is joinblvd.com, J-O-I-N-B-L-V-D.com. There's the about page, and it links out to my LinkedIn. So if anyone wants to connect and get acquainted, that's probably the easiest way to do it. CHAD: Awesome. Well, thanks again for joining me. I really appreciate it. MATT: Yeah, thanks so much. This was a pleasure. CHAD: You can subscribe to the show and find notes along with links for everything that Matt just mentioned and including a complete transcript of the episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you can find me on Twitter at @cpytel. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time. ANNOUNCER: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success. Special Guest: Matt Danna.

Social penetration was theorized in the seventies by two sociologists trying to figure out how people become friends and attempting to categorize different kinds of classifications of friends. We break down five stages of friendship today to better understand our relationships. #ErwinAltman, #universityofUtah, #DolmasTaylor, #universityofDelaware, #socialpenetrationtheory, #sociology, #orientationphase, #affectversuseffect, #deepfriendships, #relationships, #stablestage, #de-penetrationstage, #conceptofself, #society, #friendship, #spiritualconnection, #socialmedia, #zoom, #exploratoryaffective, #socialexchangetheory, #successproposition, #costsandrewardsofrelationships, #Aristotle'sNicomacheanethics, #cottoncandyfriends Transcript [00:00:00] Fawn: Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Hi everybody. Welcome back. Hello. Welcome to our friendly world. Have a beautiful every day. Are you having a beautiful day, a beautiful evening. Beautiful afternoon. Um, do it. Hi everyone. So Matt, Matt's going to kick it off today with a horrible, horrible, nasty title. [00:00:26] Matt: Thanks for that [00:00:27] Fawn: I mean, you didn't make it up, but go figure the patriarchy did, right? From the what? 1950s, seventies, 1970s. Same difference. [00:00:37] Matt: Seventies was a very different time than the fifties. [00:00:39] Fawn: So who are these guys? Erwin Altman of the university of Utah. And Dolmas Taylor of the university of Delaware. We have no idea how these guys knew each other. Were they friends? I don't know. Do you know? Absolutely. [00:00:53] Matt: But they were researchers. Yes. [00:00:56] Fawn: Sociologists. So check it out, guys. Take it away. Matt, [00:00:59] Matt: social penetration theory. [00:01:02] Fawn: ewe. [00:01:03] Matt: Yeah, exactly.

What you'll learn in this episode: How we can examine almost any political topic through the lens of jewelry  Why it's important that jewelry be embraced by academia, and how every jewelry enthusiast can help make that happen (even if they're not in academia themselves) Why a piece of jewelry isn't finished when it leaves the hands of its maker How Matt works with collaborators for their column, “Settings and Findings,” in Lost in Jewelry Magazine How jewelry has tied people together throughout time and space About Matt Lambert Matt Lambert is a non-binary, trans, multidisciplinary collaborator and co-conspirator working towards equity, inclusion, and reparation. They are a founder and facilitator of The Fulcrum Project and currently are a PhD student between Konstfack and University of Gothenburg in Sweden. They hold a MA in Critical Craft Studies from Warren Wilson College and an MFA in Metalsmithing from Cranbrook Academy of Art.  Lambert currently is based in Stockholm Sweden and was born in Detroit MI, US where they still maintain a studio. They have exhibited work nationally and internationally including at: Turner Contemporary, Margate, Uk, ArkDes, and Sven-Harrys Konstmuseum, Stockholm, Sweden, Museo de la Ciudad, Valencia , Spain and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, US. Lambert represented the U.S in Triple Parade at HOW Museum, Shanghai, China, represented the best of craft in Norway during Salon del Mobile, Milan, Italy and was the invited feature at the Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece during Athens Jewelry Week. Lambert has actively contributed writing to Art Jewelry Forum, Garland, Metalsmith Magazine, Klimt02, Norwegian Craft and the Athens Jewelry Week catalogues and maintains a running column titled “Settings and Findings” in Lost in Jewelry Magazine. Additional Resources: Matt's Website Matt's Instagram Transcript:  Matt Lambert doesn't just want us to wear jewelry—they want us to question it. As a maker, writer, and Ph.D. student, Matt spends much of their time thinking about why we wear jewelry, who makes it, and what happens to jewelry as it's passed from person to person. They joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about the inspirations behind their work, why jewelry carries layers of meaning, and why wearing jewelry (or not wearing it) is always a political act. Read the episode transcript here.    Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is a two-part Jewelry Journey Podcast. Please make sure you subscribe so you can hear part two as soon as it comes out later this week. Today, my guest is Matt Lambert, who is joining us from Stockholm. Matt is a maker, writer and performer currently pursuing a Ph.D.    Matt's jewelry journey has taken them from country to country. What sticks in my mind is one of my first encounters with them on an Art Jewelry Forum trip. I saw them in a hotel lobby in Sweden wearing one of their iconic creations, a laser-cut leather neckpiece I flipped over. We'll hear all about their amazing jewelry journey today. Matt, thanks so much for being here.   Matt: Thanks so much for having me, Sharon. It's a pleasure.   Sharon: Your jewelry journey has taken you all over the world. I'm always amazed when I hear how you hop from country to country. So, tell us about it. How did you get into it?   Matt: Originally I was trained as a psychologist.   Sharon: Wow!   Matt: It's kind of strange, but it makes perfect sense for what I do now in human sexuality and gender. I was researching body politics and what it means to be a person and be represented through media or in other cultures. I started off in that community, and I took a metalsmithing course on a whim. There was a woman in one of my classes who was taking it as her art elective. I thought we were going to be making something completely different by forging silver. I was like, “Wait, what? You can do that?” I really fell into it.   I was a researcher for the APA doing government research—   Sharon: APA being the American Psychological—   Matt: The American Psychological Association. After community college, I went on to Wayne State and studied under F.M. Larson for metalsmithing. At the very end, Lauren Kalman joined. She is tenured and was well-known at Wayne State University in Detroit.    The work I was doing was very rigorous. I worked in a rape and trauma research lab with no windows in a basement, and I wasn't finding a way to talk about people and bodies and those things in the ways I had hoped. It was fulfilling me, but not in every aspect of my life.  So, I kept pouring myself into this strange thing of contemporary jewelry.    I never thought I would go to grad school. I wound up going to Cranbrook Academy of Art, which is just 40 minutes down the road from Wayne State. Even then, I thought I was going to go across the country for art school. I fell in love with the program at Cranbrook. Iris Eichenberg, who teaches there, told me, “You have to fail really bad in order to learn what's good and what's good for your practice.” It was so liberating that I could apply all the research I learned and used and still use it today, but to put it and manifest it in jewelry. That opened Pandora's box.    Sharon: How did you decide to go from studying psychology and being at Wayne State to go to such a renowned art school that you don't know? It's for art jewelers, basically.   Matt: Yeah, it's renowned. I think it shares the number one space for metalsmithing and jewelry, and it's renowned also for hollowware and gate making. It has a long history of Americana metalsmithing. With Iris being there for contemporary jewelry, it sounds a little bit pretentious.    The relationship I was in wanted me to stay local. It was like, “You should apply.” I really thought through everything weird and wonderful that I wanted to be doing, and I was like, “If I'm going to stay, then you have to take this all on.” Iris was like, “O.K., let's do it.” Even if didn't work out, it was like, “I can just go back to psychology if this doesn't work.”   Cranbrook has an international reputation which also meant traveling a lot. In between semesters, I was the assistant for Christoph Zellweger, who's based out of Zurich, Switzerland. I don't know if they're still there now, but at the time, I was their assistant in Switzerland during my years there. My partner was Monica Gaspar, so I got a theorist who I also got to work with. Then I kind of traveled everywhere. Before I started at Cranbrook, the first time I was in Europe, we had to go to KORU7, which is the jewelry triennial in Finland. They also do seminars. So, for me, it became a very global, European to North American perspective.   Sharon: I'm always amazed at your country hopping. Was this something you were considered a natural at? Were you finger painting at age five and your parents were saying, “Oh, they're going to be an artist”?   Matt: I do have a background in wildlife illustration. I was homeschooled until sixth grade, but I was put in a lot of enrichment programs, so I did have ceramics; I had languages; I had all sorts of courses and electives. Growing up I trained in something called monart, which is not taught in public school; it's only for private training. It's a way of drawing where you draw from negative space, which I think contributes to my work, as I think through negative space. I was doing a lot of wildlife illustrations. I have quite a few childhood publications, like realistic waterfowl and birds of prey. I dabbled a little bit with Sidney Shelby. The Shelby has an art program for auto illustration, too.   So, there is some of that. I thought I was going to go into drawing and painting before I went into psychology, but I had an evaluation at community college when I started and they kind of broke my dreams. They said I was terrible and said, “You shouldn't be an artist.” I would always say, “If you're told you shouldn't be an artist, you probably should be.” So, I went into psychology as a shelter to do that.    I'm a big advocate for trade schools and community colleges as places to find yourself. I fell in love with metalsmithing there, and I knew I would never leave it. My mother's cousin was actually a former a Tiffany's jeweler, so there is a little bit in the family. She was a cheerleader for me. She was like, “You're doing what? Oh, have you found a hammer and silver? Great.” She trained under Phil Fike, who was at Wayne State University when she was there. It's always interesting what she thinks I do because I'm not a very technical, proper silversmith like she was. When I finally went to school and said I was going to do this officially, she gave me her studio.   Sharon: Wow! You have two master's degrees and now you're working on a Ph.D. Can you tell us about that? One is critical art, or critical—   Matt: Yeah, critical craft theory. I graduated Cranbrook in 2014 from metalsmithing and jewelry, and I had electives in sculpture and textile. At the same time, I should say, I had also apprenticed as a leatherworker doing car interiors, like 1920s period Rolls-Royces, so I had a leather background I was able to bring to Cranbrook. A lot of my work was varied, but there was a lot of leather involved. After that, I had a partial apprenticeship in semi-antique rug restoration. There's a lot of training in leather-working material.   So, I graduated, and I met Sophia. We had met a few times, and then she ended up being the evaluator/respondent for our graduation show. So, she saw my work as I wished it to be, and she offered me a solo show. She said, “An agent is coming to see the gallery. Come help out. Come see this world,” which is how we met.   Sharon: And her gallery is in Sweden, right?   Matt: Her gallery is in Stockholm, yes, in Sweden. I had a show, and that was amazing. There's a government program called IASPIS, which is an invite-only program that the Swedish government runs. It's the international arts organization. I was invited there because they were looking for—they added applied arts, and I was the first jeweler and metalsmith to be there. That's a three-month program where you're invited to live and work, and that gives you great networking opportunities not only with Sweden, but also with Scandinavia at large for museums and shows. I was the first foreigner at Tobias Alm, who was a Swedish jeweler and the first Swedish artist in jewelry to be there. That just upped and changed my life. I got into museum shows and met people and had a career for about four or five years and loved it; it was amazing and I wanted more.    I love theory. I am a theory addict, so I was like, “A Ph.D. is the next logical thing.” I was applying and making finals, but jewelry is a hard sell, if you will, in academia. Warren Wilson College is in North Carolina in the States. There is a think tank out of the Center for Craft, which is located in Asheville, North Carolina, and they deal with all kinds of craft. They're a great epicenter and source of knowledge for American craft discourses. Out of this came this development of this program. They partnered with Warren Wilson College to create a master's, which is a two-year program at Warren Wilson College, which is just 20 minutes away from Ashville.    It's low residency, so there's two weeks per term you'd be in person and the rest you could live anywhere, which was perfect for me because I was traveling so much. So, you do two weeks on campus in the summer and live in the dorm, and then you do two weeks—when I did it, at least, it was with the Center for Craft. We had a classroom there. Namita Wiggers is the founding director, and we got to work with amazing theorists: Linda Sandino, Ben Lignel, who's a former editor for Art Jewelry Forum, Glenn Adamson, the craft theorist, Jenni Sorkin, who lives in California teaching, Judith Lieman—this is an amazing powerhouse. There's Kevin Murray from Australia, who runs the World Crafts Organization. I was a bit part in it. He also edits Garland, which is an Australia-based publication for craft. It was an amazing pulling together of craft theory. At this time, I also thought I was dyslexic, so I was trying to find a new way to write being neurodivergent. Writing has now become—   Sharon: You do a lot of it. When I was looking last night, I could see you've done a lot of writing. My question is, why did you not stop and say, “O.K., I'm going to make things I like”? What was it that attracted you to theory? Maybe it's too deep for me.    Matt: I think we've positioned the Ph.D. to be the next step always, but I don't think academia is for everybody. A master's even, I always questioned, do we as makers always need to be in academia? For me, though, my drive is that I think jewelry is in one of the best theoretical positions to talk about a lot of very difficult contemporary issues. Craft in general, but I think jewelry because it's so tied to the body. It's so blurry because it's design; it's fashion; it's craft; it's art; it's a consumable good; it can be worn. It challenges how we exhibit it. If you need to wear it to experience it, how does a museum show it?    For me, it's this little terror or antagonizer that I think theoretically, from my background, is a great place to stay with, and I think that it's been neglected in certain spaces. It's the only field to not be in the Whitney Biennial. It ties perfectly with certain forms of feminism and queerness, which is the theoretical basis I come to it from, to talk about these things. It can't be always defined, and that's what I love about jewelry. People find it surprising when I'm like, “I love talking about commercial jewelry or production jewelry,” because if that's what turns your gears, what you love to wear or buy or make, I want to know why. I want to see jewelry expand and envelope all of this, so that we can be at the Whitney Biennial. We also could be everywhere else.   Sharon: Can't you do that without the Ph.D.? I'm not trying to knock it. I'm just playing devil's advocate.   Matt: Yeah, I think someone else can do that as well. For me, though, I truly love theory. I love the academics. For me, that is an actual passion. It's what drives me. It's not necessarily the physical making; it's the theory behind why. I'm actually questioning my practice. Should I be making physical objects now, or should I just be celebrating people that make physical objects? My making practice is almost entirely collaborative now, working with other jewelers or performers or choreographers or educators and using jewelry as a way of introducing or as producing an output.    How does jewelry fit into research? I think research output is an interesting thing for me. I can go on about this all day. So, for me, I want to make an academic foothold for jewelry. I want to do that work. I see that as my facet. I don't think everybody needs to go and do that. I want to see everybody find the thing they love as much as I love academia and theory. I want to push on so we can expand the field together.   Sharon: I think that's great. It's great to hear, because it's a strong voice giving credibility to the field, as opposed to, “Oh, you must be interested in big diamonds if you're talking about jewelry.” You're talking about it on a much deeper level. It's hard to explain to people why you like jewelry or jewelry history, so it's good to hear.    Last night—I say last night because I was refreshing my memory—I was looking at one of your articles about the “we” in jewelry. Can you tell us about that?   Matt: Absolutely. I write for multiple publications: Metalsmith Magazine, which is in the U.S. and is part of SNAG, the Society for North American Goldsmiths; Norwegian Craft; Art Jewelry Forum. I run a column called Settings and Findings out of Lost in Jewelry Magazine, which is based in Rome. I also write for Athens Jewelry Week catalogues, which has gotten me into writing a series for Klimt, which is a platform for makers, collectors, wearers, and appreciators based out of Barcelona. They invited me to write a five-part series after they had republished an essay I wrote for Athens Jewelry Week. Those people gave me an amazing platform to write, and then Klimt was like, “What do you want to do?” and I was like, “Five essays about what we do with jewelry.”    One of them is the “we” article. That came from being in lockdown and the theorist Jean-Luc Nancy, who wrote about something called “singular plural.” It's just saying that we don't ever do anything alone, and I think jewelry is a beautiful illustration of that. I moved during the pandemic to do the Ph.D., and I found myself wearing jewelry to do my laundry because I got to do it with a friend. It's so sappy in way, but it's true. It's a way to carry someone else with you, and jewelry is not an act done alone. I mean, we're trained as jewelers. We're trained by someone, so we carry that knowledge with us. We are transmitters as makers, but then we have collectors and wearers and museums and other things, and they need to be worn. It needs to be seen in some fashion or valued or held.    My personal stance is that jewelry, once it leaves my hands as a maker, isn't done. I'm interested as a researcher, as a Ph.D., in how we talk about that space in between. If you wear one of my pieces, and someone listening wears one of my pieces, and that same piece is in a museum, how we understand that is completely different. Jewelry creates this amazing space to complexify, and that's when you talk about bodies and equity and race, sex, gender, size, age. All the important things that are in the political ethos can be discussed through jewelry, and that's the “we” of jewelry.    We have this controversy about the death of the author and authorship doesn't matter, but speaking through craft, we are never alone. To me, it's like I make through the people I've learned through. I am a transmitter to the people that I teach and to me, that's what craft is. Also, craft is a way of looking at the world, at systems, and who we learn from and how we learn. I think jewelry is one of the most obvious “we's.”   Sharon: This is a question that maybe there's no answer to, but is jewelry separate from craft? There's always the question of what craft is. Is craft art? Is it jewelry?    Matt: That depends on whom you ask. I personally do not believe in the art versus craft debate. I am not in that pool. I believe craft is a way of looking at anything in the world. I think craft is learned through material specificity. I usually enjoy metalsmithing. It's through copper or silver, but it's really spending time with something singular to explore its possibility. It's a way of learning how things start, how things are produced, how labor works, where there are bodies and processes, so you can pick up anything in the world and look at anything and see people and humanity. Even through digital technology, someone has to write a program. It gives you a skillset to look at the world, and that's how I approach craft.    You're going to find so many different definitions, but coming from that perspective, that is what I believe, and that's why I think craft is so valuable. To answer if jewelry is craft, yes and no. You can talk about jewelry through craft, but you could talk about jewelry through fashion. You can talk about jewelry through product design. Again, I think that's why jewelry is beautiful and problematic, because it can be so many things at the same time.    Sharon: I'm intrigued by the fact that you're interested in all kinds of jewelry, whether it's art jewelry or contemporary jewelry. When you're in the mall and you see Zales and look in the window, would you say it all falls under that, with everything you're talking about? Does it transmit the same thing?   Matt: Through a craft lens, you can look at any of that. You can go to Zales and the labor is wiped out. You're no longer going to your local jewelry shop. The person is making your custom ring, but when you look at that ring, you have an ability to go, “Someone had to facet the stone and cut it, a lapidary. Someone had to make the bands. Someone had to mine the stone. Someone had to find this material.” It allows you to unpack where objects are coming from and potentially where they're going.    You can understand studio practices because you're relating more directly to a maker, who has more knowledge of where their materials come from, rather than the sales associate at the Zales counter. It's a simpler model, but it is the same thing to me. The way I look at it, that is craft's value to my practice. I'm very careful to say it's my practice because there are so many definitions, but that's what I think is sustainable in this training. You can be trained as a jeweler and not make jewelry, but it's still valuable in your life because you can apply it to anything.   Sharon: I was also intrigued by the title of an article you wrote, “Who Needs Jewelry, Anyway?” So, who does need jewelry?   Matt: Yeah, that's one that kicked it up to the next level. There are moments in my career where I can feel the level upward, like I enter a space that's different. That was an essay that was written for Athens Jewelry Week. That was the first essay I wrote before I had the feature at the Benaki Museum. At Athens Jewelry Week, those women worked their tails off to make that event happen.    I wrote that when I was at the tail end of my second master's, and I was frustrated. I think we see that students are frustrated and people are questioning, especially during Covid, especially during Black Lives Matter, especially during the fight for indigenous rights, do we need jewelry? What does this mean? It's a commodity. It can be frivolous. It's a bauble. It can be decorative. Like, what are we doing? I think that is something we should always question, and the answer for that can be expressed in many ways. It can be expressed from what you make, but also what you do with what you make. How do you live the rest of your life?    There isn't a one-lane answer for that, but that's what that essay was about. We don't need jewelry, but we really do. The first half of the essay is saying what the problem is, but the problem is also where the solutions sit. It's all about how you want to approach it. That is what that essay was saying. You can consume this and wear it; it is what it is, and that's fine. You can participate in systems and learn and discover and know who you are wearing and support them. Wearing jewelry is a political act no matter what jewelry you're wearing. Where you consume is a political act. Political neutrality is still a political statement. That article specifically was for art jewelry, and it was saying, hey, when you participate, when you buy, when you wear, when you make, it means something. You're bringing people with you; what people are you choosing to bring? It was stirring the pot, and it was very intentional to do that.   Sharon: I couldn't answer the question about who needs jewelry. You're asking me, but certainly I can think of people who say, “I don't need it,” who have no interest or wouldn't see the continuum behind a ring or a piece of jewelry.    This is a two-part Jewelry Journey Podcast. Please make sure you subscribe so you can hear part two as soon as it comes out later this week. 

Good morning everybody!  I was on WGAN this morning with Matt Gagnon. I talked about the Suez Canal blockage by the M/V Ever Given and what really runs the Suez Canal.  Then we got into Scams that people fall for and the conviction of the Celebrity Twitter Hacker.  Then we talked about Bitcoin and its meteoric rise in price and who now will take Bitcoin as payment in a commercial transaction. Here we go with Matt. And more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com. --- Automated Machine Generated Transcript: Craig Peterson: [00:00:00] Fun with Mr. Matt Gagnon this morning is we talked a little bit about Tesla. Again. I had to bring up this whole thing with the Suez canal and of course, wedging that cargo ship. We also talked a little bit about this teen who hacked some blue check Twitter accounts and is now serving time. So here we go.  Matt Gagnon: [00:00:24] We are back again, at seven 36 on Wednesday morning, which is a great time to talk to Craig Peterson, our tech guru. He joins us at this time every week, Craig, how are you?  Good morning, sir.  Craig Peterson: [00:00:34] It is a great time. I'm doing well.  Matt Gagnon: [00:00:37] Well, Craig, let's be honest. Is it ever a bad time to talk to Craig Peterson? Craig Peterson: [00:00:43] Probably not. You know, I have three kids in the maritime industry and you probably heard about the Suez cargo ship and what is going on.  Matt Gagnon: [00:00:52] I don't know. I must've missed it. Didn't I don't know. I do know that I ordered something from Amazon, which was delayed and I'm guessing maybe it was on the boat. Craig Peterson: [00:01:00] Maybe it's fascinating too, to talk to my kids about this because one of my daughters was in fact, commanding a ship going through the Suez canal five years ago on the very day that ship managed to get stuck. Interesting conversations with her not just about the whole idea of saving all of that money from fuel. The way it works is they charge a million-plus bucks to go through a canal, either the one here in America or the one over there. It costs more than that in fuel to go around the Horn or the Cape, depending on which you're in. These ships go through and just like any Harbor in the world, they have pilots.  These pilots are well-trained. We got a lot of them, Mariners, here in Maine, listening to the show. I got an email from one this week.  In fact, my daughter and I were talking, to her and her friends and they were saying, I'm not sure that any of these pilots that run the ships through the Suez canal could actually get a Maine boating license.   It doesn't matter what you're hauling. There's two things you have to haul on your ship if you want to make it through the Suez canal. And that is cartons of Marlboro Reds and bags of M&Ms because you have to bribe these guys in order to take you through the canal.  I was not surprised. When I saw this massive ship having run aground right there in the canal.  Matt Gagnon: [00:02:29] See, I was making lots of jokes about teenagers, parallel parking. To me, that's what it kind of looked like, right? Like, Oh no, I gotta get outta here. Oh no, now I'm stuck right here.  Craig Peterson: [00:02:38] Exactly.  Matt Gagnon: [00:02:40] Well, Craig Peterson can be heard on this very station on Saturdays at one o'clock. If you want to hear any of this stuff in more depth and detail, and we have a few things to get to Craig, so let's move on. Look. Not that this was ever something that I thought was a good idea, but I think we now have ample evidence that hacking into famous people's Twitter accounts is probably not going to give you a good time, right?  Some prison for the hackers that got into a couple of really prominent accounts. Tell me about the story.  Craig Peterson: [00:03:05] Yeah, this was a big deal. What happened is this guy managed to get into president Obama's account, Elon Musk's account, Joe Biden's account back when, and he said that he listened to everybody we're just so excited about everything and how well things are going. If you send me Bitcoin, I'll send you back triple. What it is that you sent me.  So send me 10 Bitcoin. I'll send you back 300. Amazingly, this guy collected more than a hundred grand worth of Bitcoin. People were sending him fractional Bitcoin too. Turns out it was a teenager. The kid was about 17 years old. He hacked these accounts using the good old-fashioned way. In other words, they had terrible passwords.  Matt Gagnon: [00:03:57] Yeah.  Craig Peterson: [00:03:57] He got into these things and was able to just con people out of money. It's totally amazing. We still apparently fall for this Nigerian scam. It basically what it is. Who is going to do that Matt? Matt Gagnon: [00:04:12] Don't know, but people clearly do because this is continually a problem and so they definitely do.  Craig Peterson: [00:04:18] Yeah, it is.  Now we've got a new version that they've started up. You were talking about what happened a year ago. We only have them lockdown for about two weeks. So the rest of this is just all our imagination. But because of that all of this personal protective equipment and stuff, there were scams going on, hospitals, the federal government buying hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of personal protective equipment. That was completely not up to spec. It was trash. California spent millions of dollars on stuff that wasn't even delivered.  Scammers are out there. Everybody we've got to be careful and they're going after us to another way. That is many of us are lonely. So we're looking for friends online. We're finding friends online and they're scamming us another way by saying, Oh my, you know, my mother she's been really ill, of course, they build-up to this right over the course of weeks.  So you say, Oh, how is she? It's not really a joke, but says, okay, well she needs this surgery and it's going to cost $5,000. They con people now particularly our more seasoned citizens into sending them money.  The FBI has been warning about that one again, too. So we've gotta be really careful. Look at everything. Inspect that email pay close attention to them. Phishing training needs to happen for employees because of business email compromises. But this kid is going to serve time as a juvenile. Cause he was 17 at the time he reached a plea deal and there was a minimum 10-year mandatory sentence for what he did. Apparently, he's going to serve about three years in the juvenile facility.  Matt Gagnon: [00:06:05] Craig Peterson joins us at this time every Wednesday to go over what's happening in the world to technology. You mentioned Bitcoin, quite a bit in that little story you just told me here. I can't resist asking about Elon Musk. And the fact that they're going to be apparently accepting Bitcoin and he's not going to convert it. He's going to keep the Bitcoin itself. Is he's going to use it as currency more than just an investment?  I had a really interesting conversation with somebody about this recently about whether or not someday in the future, there might be a possibility that a Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency type of thing could actually serve as true currency and not just an investment.  Which a lot of people are doing it right now. This is, to me, this is the thing that's required for that to work, right? Is that people are using it as a mechanism of trade on its own,  as its own thing, rather than using it as a sort of an intermediary. What do you think about this decision by Musk?  Craig Peterson: [00:06:56] Currency our government issues only has value because you can spend it places like you were saying. Right? Correct. Where can you spend Bitcoin? Well, the number one thing Bitcoin has been spent on is paying ransoms. Elon Musk recently bought a billion and a half dollars worth of Bitcoin, but that's not uncommon. We're finding more and more companies, particularly over the last year where ransomware payments have tripled in 2020, companies are buying Bitcoin as insurance in case they get ransomware.  So rather than cleaning up their technical act. Yes. Let's just get some money to set aside for paying a ransom when that time comes because we're incompetent. I don't know it's part of their planning, right? So he bought some. Hard to say why Bitcoin and a lot of people are saying it's going to go much higher than it is. Other people are saying it's going to fall. I'm certainly not an investment advisor.  By having Musk now say we will accept Bitcoin as a means of trade as you said, I think it gets it a lot closer. You know, we started out, with the pizza story. You might remember the Bitcoin's very first purchase, 10,000 Bitcoins for two Papa John's pizzas. Now it's one Bitcoin for an electric car from Elon Musk. We've got this whole new genre of people buying digital artwork for millions of dollars that can be replicated duplicated like that perfectly. It's not like the Mona Lisa. This whole world's going crazy.  Governments are very big into trying to come up with a cryptocurrency. The part I don't like is that it obviously all trade, if it was forced onto one of these cryptocurrencies is more readily tracked, which is what the government's after. So that they can tax it and they can track transactions. They can track everything, including what might be an illegal transaction for drugs or things. Although, drugs are getting more and more legal every time you turned around. We'll see what happens. Governments really want this, but they haven't figured out how to master yet.  Elon obviously thinks it's worthwhile to take Bitcoin. Maybe he figures a Bitcoin at 50,000 today is going to be a hundred thousand next year and it's a great investment for Tesla. It's hard to say he hasn't announced it.  Matt Gagnon: [00:09:27] Indeed. All right. Well, Craig Peterson joins us on Wednesdays to talk about all these ends. So many more stories, Craig, good luck on Saturday talking about these very things. We'll talk to you again next week. Craig Peterson: [00:09:38] Take care, Matt Thanks a lot.  The drama continues. I, and Karen worked all day, Monday, Tuesday to do what we thought would just take an hour or two in getting everything ready for this course, the final stuff, getting it up in a membership site, and everything.  It is now 99% ready. I have a couple more things to do. You'll be getting emails about the Improving Windows Security course.  I'm going to throw in a couple more bonuses, we will schedule a couple of phone calls, to answer any questions you guys might have, or maybe webinars, probably the better way to do it so I can show you stuff if we need to.  We're thinking we might want to include a couple more little things too. So we'll see how that all goes. You might actually get the email about the course before you listen to this podcast if everything goes okay. Take care, everybody. We'll be back this weekend.  Bye-bye. Oh, and I should probably tell you, in case you're just a podcast listener and you're not on my email list. It's Craig peterson.com/subscribe. ---  More stories and tech updates at: www.craigpeterson.com Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating: www.craigpeterson.com/itunes Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at: www.twitter.com/craigpeterson For questions, call or text: 855-385-5553

Hablamos de lo que TODOS están hablando y discutimos el arroz con pollo que es The Bachelor ahora mismo. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/gossipinspanish/message

This week we introduce Mr James Dando, the man, the myth known throughout Bath. James kicks off our Season 2 guest list with an engaging conversation, in which we discuss his early days playing rugby and later completing no fewer that 5 Ironman. James shares his philosophy on ethical farming and nutrition, there is a surprising revelation about tap dancing and we hear about James' heartfelt passion for the cycling industry. Instagram account: @homemeadfarm We hope all of you in the Bath fitness family are keep safe and well. See you soon CWH & Matt Thanks to Rob Hicks for title music http://www.rhicksmusic.com/ (www.rhicksmusic.com) rob.hicks@rhicksmusic.com Twitter: @RHicksMusic Instagram: rhicksmusic Facebook: @RobertHicksMediaComposer Thanks to Kevin Cook for interlude music  https://www.facebook.com/kebmuzic/ (https://www.facebook.com/kebmuzic/) https://www.residentadvisor.net/dj/kevincook (https://www.residentadvisor.net/dj/kevincook) Kevincookmusic@gmail.com kevin.ibizaunderground@gmail.com Instagram: kevincook_ibizaunderground Thanks to Pahrnia Parsons for logo design  Instagram: life_of_parn

My guest today is Matt Nish-Lapidus. Matt is an artist, musician, researcher, designer, and educator based in Toronto. Besides creating art and music, and doing design work, Matt also teaches at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design. In this conversation, we discuss the role of art in our evolving technological and cultural environments. Listen to the full conversation   Show notes Matt Nish-Lapidus (emenel.com) Matt on Instagram Matt on Twitter University of Toronto New media art SFMoMA MoMA (New York) Tate Modern Nam June Paik Theodore Adorno The Anthropocene New Materialism Jane Bennett The Walt Disney Company Marvel Impressionism CARFAC David Rokeby Pietà by Michelangelo Buonarroti Jenny Holzer New Tendencies Soft Thoughts må Some show notes may include Amazon affiliate links. I get a small commission for purchases made through these links. Read the full transcript Jorge: So, Matt, welcome to the show. Matt: Thanks. Happy to be here.  Jorge: For folks who might not know you, can you please tell us about yourself? Matt: Yeah. I sometimes these days refer to myself as a recovering designer. My original background, educationally, was in fine arts and specifically in new media art. And then, over the arc of my career, I found myself working in interaction design and very interested in the intersection between humanity and various types of complex technology, as in networks and computational technology. And I did that for about 15 years. And towards the end of that period, I found myself more interested in the types of questions that felt like they were better answered through my art practice than they were through my design practice, and the kinds of questions that also didn't seem to be that interesting to other designers or to our clients or to potential employers or partners. So about five years ago now, I left my job and decided to focus more on my artistic practice, which includes music and sound art as well as technology-based arts of different types. And in September of last year, I actually started my MFA, which is a Master of Fine Arts, in Studio Practice at the University of Toronto, which I'm currently pursuing on top of other things that I continue to do, like playing music and work with other organizations. Media Art Jorge: Folks listening to the show might not be familiar with the term “media art.” How do you define that? Matt: So the most basic way to understand it – in the highest level, probably – is that unlike painting or traditional photography or other types of sculpture – you know, other types of traditional arts – media art and new media art were emergent practices that specifically dealt with new types of mass media originally. So, it was artists working with televisions, with video, with different kinds of sound and broadcast technologies. And then over the course of the last couple of decades, became artists that work with the internet or with computation, and different kinds of network technologies, and think about them from an artistic perspective, which is usually a critical perspective or thinking about the impact that they have on people or the way that people relate to them and the new types of relationships and new types of affects that they create. Jorge: So, it's art that uses technologies, especially like communications technologies, as its medium? Is that the idea? Matt: Yeah, as its medium and often as its topic. So, we make art about the technology is sometimes using the same ones. And the practice goes back to the late fifties, but really in some ways is now the dominant practice in contemporary art. Jorge: Can you name some examples of how you would experience new media art? Matt: Yeah. I mean, if you've ever been to a contemporary art gallery or museum of modern art, whether it's the SF MoMA or the MoMA in New York, or the Tate Modern in London, a lot of what you're seeing would be in this category. Artists who work with light, who work with sound, work with video projections, interaction in different ways… You know, a famous example from the early days of media artist Nam June Paik, who worked a lot with televisions and his work was both about television as a cultural object, but also as a medium and as a material. The Role of Art Jorge: We're recording this in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic in the spring of 2020. And I have to mention that the context that we're, that we're speaking in, because we are accelerating our move to interacting through technology. And you and I are talking right now through Zoom and I can see you. So we're having a conversation, and it's perhaps too soon to know, but I'm wondering what role does art play – especially, you know, this new media art that you're talking about – in a world in which we're increasingly interacting through technology. Perhaps the question is more broadly, it's like, what is the role of art? Matt: Yeah. So, it's an interesting question and it's one that's been asked by artists and philosophers for many, many years. And I've been thinking about this lately. In the fifties – it might have even been in the sixties, don't quote me on the date – a German philosopher and media theoretician, Theodore Adorno, wrote an essay in which he asked, how do you make art after Auschwitz? Like, what is the role of art in a world where something as horrible as the Holocaust could happen? And how do you as an artist deal with that, and still see beauty and joy and the sublime and all these different things, when our understanding of what's possible in the world is so fundamentally changed and so terrifying. And I think there are a number of similar questions that we can be asking ourselves right now. Before this outbreak, the big question on a lot of people's minds was a similar one, which is how do you make art in the Anthropocene? If we're witnessing a period of, like massive global scale change and devastation this like slow train wreck, what is the role of art and how do you continue to make art in the face of such a massive and often depressing and serious thing. And I think like the pandemic that we're currently trying to figure out raises a similar kind of question again, just like what is the point of art and how do you make it and what do you make it about when our understanding of what's possible in the world has fundamentally changed. When there's a new thing, a new object that exists that didn't really exist before. There's a school of philosophy called New Materialism and a kind of well-known New Materialist, Jane Bennett, talks about these things as what she calls assemblages. And an assemblage is like a network of heterogeneous actors that all have different kinds of agency. And, looking at the pandemic through the lens of Bennett's idea of an assemblage, you can start to see the agency of the virus as a political actor, as an economic actor, as a social and cultural actor. And for me anyway, that's where as an artist, my interest in it lies, and where I think I can kind of grapple with our current situation is not saying, “okay, well what do we do when we're all locked in our homes,” but saying, “what are the fundamental changes in the world that we can observe? What are the things we want to try to say or express about them or understand through making things?” And then, “what kinds of things can I make that help with that understanding or are cathartic or express an affect or give people something that I think they want or need given the kind of drastic changes that this is affecting on all of our systems?” High Art and Popular Art Jorge: When you say that, do you make a distinction between… I don't know if the appropriate terms are like “high art” and “popular art”? Matt: Like in terms of, like a museum and gallery art versus like television shows and movies and things like that? Jorge: Yes. Matt: Yeah. I mean, I don't see a huge distinction in a formal way. I think good media, like a really well-made television show, for instance, that deals with these topics in a critical and thoughtful way, that's based on research and, you know, does things like… explores the ideas through the medium that they're working with. I don't see that as being massively different than, you know, a piece of art that you might see in a art gallery, or in a museum.  Jorge: I would also expect that the reach would be different as well, right? Matt: Yeah. Probably considerably different… Jorge: Yeah, it'd have a greater influence on the culture if it's a movie put out by the Walt Disney Company, as opposed to something exhibited in an art gallery, no? Matt: Yeah. I mean, the reach would be massively different. I think though even in those media that, for the reach to be at the scale of like a Disney or, you know, Marvel kind of thing, you're having to make stories that connect with people in a certain way, which, I feel like often precludes you from doing the deep and difficult work of truly critically reflecting on a situation and expressing something about it. And when you see TV shows or movies that do that, they often don't have those kinds of audiences. Jorge: Yeah. The intent is different, right? Like one is a purely or mostly commercial product, whereas the other, like you're saying, is more of an exploration of a way of being, an ideal? Matt: A way of being, a way of thinking, a way of seeing and understanding things. I think when art is really amazing, for me anyway, it's when something changes, like a piece of art can change the way that I see the world. It can change the way that I understand myself and see myself. It can reflect back to me a feeling or an idea that I've had but couldn't express or didn't have words for. And I think great art from every era, especially the modern era – which is, you know, loosely from like Impressionism on up – a lot of it is really about creating that kind of critical and reflective mirror and reflecting not just to the individual viewer, but reflecting on culture and on society and on the place and time where it comes from and reacting to things that are happening in the world. So, like, I'm excited actually to see how artists react to what's happening now because in a way, that's what art does. The Market for Art Jorge: One thing that I was wondering about is how does the market value art? I mean, we were talking about Disney, and we know what that market looks like, but I was just wondering someone who makes art for a living, how do you make a living? Matt: It's different in different countries, which is interesting. I mean, there's a combination of things depending on the kind of work that you make. Some artists make work that you can sell, that people can buy and there's an open market and you make a name for yourself, and the work goes up and down and value based on how collectible your work is or what museums want to acquire it or, or other things like that and that works for, I guess more and more kinds of media these days. Like it used to be that if you made installation or you made sound art or video, it was hard to sell that on like the art market. That's becoming more of a thing. People will buy that stuff. In a lot of countries, other than the US… So, in Canada and the UK and a lot of Europe, there's a big public funding infrastructure for arts. So, in Canada we have arts councils at the municipal, provincial, and national level that provide funding for artists and artists' projects in different ways. There's also regionally determined fee structures for exhibitions. So, if you get a piece of work into an exhibition and the gallery has funding, they will usually pay based on the agreed-upon fee schedule. It's kind of like the actors' unions? It's not an official union in Canada, it's called CARFAC. It's the Canadian Artists…. some, I don't remember what it stands for. But they set a kind of standardized fee schedule. And so often when you submit a piece of work to a gallery or to an exhibition or to a curator, it'll say on the submission, like we pay, you know, CARFAC's scheduled fees, which are basically based on like how much experience you have and they have standardized fee structures. Those are the main ways. The other one is commissions. So, a museum or a festival or a curator may really love your work and want you to make something new for their exhibition, in which case they'll have a production budget and they will offer you some sort of project budget to make the work. And then at the end of that, either they own it, or you own it, depending on the stipulations of the contract. Time and Place  Jorge: One of the interesting aspects of what's happening right now is that time feels greatly accelerated. I saw a tweet just yesterday that said something like, “the last couple of weeks have been a really long year,” or… Matt: Yeah. Jorge: It feels like time has greatly accelerated right now and, conversely, it feels like place has become blurred. You are… I believe you're in Toronto right now, right? Matt: Yup. Jorge: And, like I said, we're talking over Zoom and, earlier this morning I was in a meeting with colleagues who are here in the Bay Area, but I experienced the interaction in exactly the same plane that I'm interacting with you now. So, you could be here for all I know, right? So, place has become erased somehow. And I'm wondering about time and place and new media and how new media, I mean, it has it in the name, right? “New” Media? Matt: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because when that term originally was coined, it was in -response to existing media. So, it was trying to say, we're not print newspapers, photography, like we're not talking about those things. We're talking about these new media, which are video and television. Originally it was those things, and then, computation. And I think time and place and the kind of collapsing of time in place has been a big part of the work of new media and media artists since probably the mid- eighties. You know, there's a piece I remember seeing by David Rokeby who's a new media artist that's been working since the early eighties with computer vision and computational space in different ways, where he set up a room with quadraphonic sound – so four big speakers – and then had a gallery – this was in Toronto – and had a gallery in Amsterdam, set up the same thing in their room. And then using very rudimentary digital video cameras from – this was probably in the late eighties, early nineties – movement in one space was translated to low frequency sound and the other space basically creating like airwaves. So, if two people were moving simultaneously in both spaces, they would actually feel the impact of the other person's body as air pressure through sound? So already in those kinds of early pieces, they were thinking a lot about like, what does it mean to collapse space? How do we be physically present in different spaces? I feel like we take a lot of this for granted these days. And it's interesting because like this phenomenon we're experiencing right now is really unique in a number of ways. But one of the most interesting to me is that it is global, like actually global. Everyone around the world is impacted by this in some way, and very similar ways in terms of like, isolation or lockdown or social distancing or these, you know, words that we didn't even have in our vocabulary a week ago. And now, like, literally every human being on earth is impacted by this. And I can't think of another phenomenon that crosses those boundaries in the same way. But in my own practice and then thinking about, you know, art and the things that I'd be excited to see is in a time where the world feels like it's been collapsed in on itself, and we're experiencing this unifying, like, single event as a species, it would be really interesting to think about what the local differences actually are. Like, what does it mean to be in isolation in different parts of the world or in different cultures, or you know, in Italy, people were singing to each other from their balconies? I can't imagine that happening in London. So, even though we're experiencing this unifying effect, there's still going to be those like local cultural differences and uniquenesses that I think are so important to thinking about artwork and the way that art reflects culture, and is often so specific and so unique to certain places in certain times in the way that it responds aesthetically to localized events. Experiencing Art Online Jorge: You reminded me of something that I've noticed over the past few weeks, which is cultural institutions like museums announcing to the world that, “Hey, you know, that you can view our collection online!” Now, especially with so many people at home, who are looking for new things to do with themselves while there, they only have this little window on their computer to the world, right? Matt: Yeah. Yeah! It's an interesting thing to see since so many museums are so woefully behind in terms of digitizing collections and thinking about alternative ways of exhibiting work. Our experience of art and the way that we think about art, especially at the institutional level is so grounded in this physical experience of like, being in a place with a thing, or in a place for a performance or these very spatio-temporal experiences. So, yeah, it's fascinating to see what some museums are doing. In some ways it reminds me of the mid-nineties, late nineties, again when there was an explosion of like “net art” and artists working specifically with the internet as their medium. And so, like those works existed natively online and museums and galleries at the time were struggling to figure out how to present them in physical space. Like, how do we take a work by a net artist and put it in an exhibition at the MoMA? We didn't know how, and they still don't really know how. And now we're faced with the exact opposite problem, where they're like, how do we get all of our paintings and sculptures and objects available to people somehow through the internet or through virtual tours or whatever it is that they're doing? Jorge: And these new technologies change our understanding of the work itself, right? When you said experiencing the work in a physical space, I remember the experience of seeing in person the statue Pietà, by Michelangelo. And that's an artifact that when you're standing in front of it, it has a certain volume because of the materials it's made from, you know that it has a certain weight and you can touch it. But you can feel that, being in this space with it, and it's very different to see it in photographs, which I had seen many photographs before I saw the real thing, but it's a different experience. And I don't know too much about new media art, but I remember in university looking at the work of Jenny Holzer. Matt: Yep. Jorge: And, for folks who are listening who might not know Jenny Holzer, she worked a lot with words, right? Like she had these slogans that she presented in various ways. And after Twitter, I have never been able to look at her work the same way. Matt: Yeah. It's so interesting. Being Relevant vs. Remaining Relevant Jorge: You know? And I'm wondering, with technologies that are changing so fast, as someone who is working with art, how do you balance expressing the needs and perhaps if we can use this phrase, the “spirit of the time” with making the work stand up over time and have some kind of longevity? Matt: Yeah, that is a very hard question. And it often comes down to the work having some sort of value beyond its technology. So, like with Jenny Holzer for instance, the words are an important part of her work, obviously, but so is the way that it's presented. So, you know, she made these big LED signs with scrolling text in different directions and sculptures out of them. She did a series of giant texts that was projected on buildings. So, like the context of presentation and the way that the words were made into an object really changes the work. But then the words themselves, you know, for some of the pieces are maybe good enough words that they stand up on their own. And so like, would Jenny Holzer's words work as a series of tweets, would they have the same impact? Maybe, maybe some of them would, maybe some of them wouldn't. And the ones that wouldn't, probably wouldn't because they rely on the context and materiality of the way that she presented them to create the meaning, of the overall piece. You know, one of the things that I love about, being an artist and, and working on artworks, especially like contemporary artwork, it's rarely a single thing. What we often are working with, especially what I'm working with is these like assemblages of things. And it's in the relationships between the things that the meaning emerges, rather than in the individual components themselves. So, I also work a lot with texts, and I've been working a lot with texts over the last year or so, and the texts themselves, most of them I don't think would hold up just as text or as poetry or as whatever. I think they need the rest of the things that go around them – the other objects or the aesthetic treatments or the context of presentation – in order to become meaningful. And one of the things that's interesting about this move to online that we're being forced through due to the closure of institutions and isolation, is that, well, the museums struggled to figure out how to present work online that was never meant to be seen that way, and to change its context, which changes its meaning. I think there's massive opportunity in starting to think about how to make work targeted at this new context like that exists natively in this kind of distributed way, which is not a new thing. People have been doing that. There's, like I said before, net artists and, lots of people who make art that's targeted at the internet or targeted at different media platforms. But this feels like an opportunity for more people or more of us to start thinking in that way and start to really like push at the boundaries and kind of assumptions baked into the networks that we exist within. So that's actually something that I find kind of exciting, and I'm starting to think about and work on. Closing Jorge: Well, that's a fantastic place to wrap up our conversation, because my next question to you is, “and where can folks follow up with you to find out what you're up to and is your art online in ways that folks could experience it?” Matt: A little bit of it is. You know, having learned how to make websites in the mid-nineties at the birth of the internet, I've never actually had a website of my own, because I've never happy with them and I never finished them, or like I'll finish part of it and then not put any content up. So, I am working actively right now and taking advantage of this time to make a website for myself. So, you can find my nascent website with very little content, but I'm going to be adding more every day at emenel.ca. Emenel, which are my initials spelled out phonetically, is also where you can find me on just about everything. I'm probably most active on Instagram these days, and I do post pictures of my work and work in progress on Instagram. And yeah, emenel.ca is my, it will be my website. It's there now, but there's not a lot of new content on it yet. I'm working on documenting some work and writing some stuff to put up there. Jorge: And I want to make a plug for your music as well. Matt: Oh yeah. Thanks! On my website there are links to my music projects. But I have, I have kind of three active projects right now. One is called New Tendencies, which is actually named after an Eastern European art movement from the sixties to the late seventies that was one of the first kind of computational art groups. So yeah, New Tendencies is kind of my more experimental music. I have a group called Soft Thoughts, which is kind of an ambient, soundscape kind of thing with two other musicians. And then I just started doing something I haven't done in a long time, but I started making, kind of like old school, minimal techno again, under the name Ma, M-A, and that's also on Bandcamp. But there's links to all these things on my website, or you can find them on Bandcamp, some of it's on Spotify, et cetera, but a lot of it's not. A lot of it's just on Bandcamp. Jorge: Well. Fantastic. I will include all of those in the show notes. It was such a pleasure having you on, Matt. Matt: Oh, I always love our conversations and I'm happy to talk anytime.

Good morning everybody! I was on with Matt this morning and we had a good discussion about how big tech is trying to provide a technology standard for tracking pandemics using our smartphones and what this will mean to our privacy.  Let's get into my conversation with Matt on WGAN. These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com --- Automated Machine Generated Transcript: Craig There's a lot of people who are concerned about this so-called Patriot Act response to the COVID-19. We have Apple and Google working together to come up with a standard to use on our smartphone. Are you worried about whether or not the government's going to not only track you as part of this whole COVID-19 response but also do kind of a patriot act thing? Or they might try and force not us, our smartphone carriers to track us? Hi, this is Craig Peterson. Let's get into my conversation with Matt on WGAN. Matt It is 738, which means that it is time to talk to our tech guru Craig Peterson. He joins us every Wednesday at this time to go over what's happening in the world of technology. Craig Peterson. How are you this morning, sir? Craig Hey, good morning. I'm doing well. Matt Did you hear about this alleged hack of The WHO, the Gates Foundation, and the Wuhan Institute of Virology?. Craig I did, and I was going to ask you about it. Matt Well, what did you find out? Well, I mean, I, frankly, I just saw the headline. I didn't read anything about it. But I did notice that there was compromised information, a bunch of emails, I believe, and some data taken. But outside of that, I didn't read much about it. Craig Yeah, we've not verified it at this point. Some anonymous activists have posted about 25,000 email addresses and passwords that they're claiming belong to the National Institutes of Health, the World Health Organization, and the Gates Foundation. These are all different groups working to battle this Coronavirus pandemic that's been happening, and they've posted them out on some of these sites, you know, not quite dark web but like 4chan and, and a few others. We'll see what ends up happening, and it could be kind of enlightening to see some of the statistics, some of the numbers, some of the emails. It reminds me of the global warming hack that happened where it turned out all of these global warming scientists had been conspiring to present false information. I wonder what's going to happen here? Matt It's an excellent question, and perhaps we'll get an answer to it as time goes by. I've got some questions for you here, Mr. Peterson. My first one and this is significant to me because I've been watching this one. I've been waiting for this story to percolate it's way out because it was inevitable, frankly, but the Coronavirus has inspired a lot of people to want to know where people are and to track who's sick and where they're going. I've seen several stories over the last couple weeks of you know about Apple and the iPhone, and the devices we have in our hands turned into potentially tracking tools that would help surveil the American public as we fight the virus and whatnot. What what you know what truce is there to that? I mean, is there is that something that's happening now going to happen? Are we being surveilled? Are we going to be surveilled? What do you think, Craig? Craig Well, there's a lot of truth to that, because we are being surveilled to various degrees right now when it comes to the Coronavirus tracking. We've got Google, which has a tracker online. It's using information, like it does every year, for the spread of the flu based on the searches people are doing and collects data on people's searches. How do I solve this? What do I do to get over this particular illness? There's a lot of people who are concerned about a Patriot Act type response to the COVID-19. We have Apple and Google. They are working together to come up with a standard for use on our smartphones. Our smartphones all have Bluetooth in the middle. There's a unique software if you will, that runs On those little Bluetooth chips that can help to determine how far your device is from the other Bluetooth device. And the software that Apple and Google have come up with allows you to track whether or not you have been within six feet of someone else. So the worries are that the federal government is going to force this to be on our phones. Will they require us to run an app that allows them to trackback. Let's say you show up at the hospital, and you have the symptoms of COVID-19. And they want to find out who you have spoken to, you know, what have you done in the last two weeks? And right now, they have to sit there, and they go through your memory and saying who did you see? Where were you? With who did you have close contact? But what this will do is it'll allow them to look at your phone and find out everybody that you being within six feet of potentially contacts them, test them and quarantine them. And that's where the significant concerns are coming in. Matt We're talking to Craig Peterson, our tech guru. He joins us on Wednesdays at this time to go over what's happening in the world of technology. I mean, is this thing though, Craig. I mean, the requirement from the government. It is not the only thing that I'm afraid of, and I'm also scared these companies will just voluntarily start doing it. I mean, we're so integrated with Google and Facebook and everything else that we use in our lives technologically related that you know, they can, you know, without government requirements, just say, yeah, we're going to cooperate with the government here. We're going to track all of our people and do all these things kind of on our own. And it seems like they are almost ready to do that kind of stuff already. Craig Well, they already are Matt, and they're providing the information in an anonymized fashion. Now, you and I both know that the data had might have been anonymized, but it's quite, quite easy to D anonymize that data. Find out who everybody was. But what the concern here is with COVID-19 is whether or not you were within six or 10 feet from someone else. And the type of resolution most of our phones have won't tell them that because they can use the GPS, they can use the Wi-Fi signals to try to figure out where you are, and they can kind of get close. But do they know you're within six feet of someone at the grocery store? And the answer's no, or at the office or wherever you might have gone. It kind of rolls on here and we got warnings about next winters potentially bringing this back in a big way again, that's where I started getting concerned because these apps, First of all, I have not been well accepted they have been available in some Asian countries. At most, one-third of all people have used them, which makes it basically in the fact of, but secondly, if you know they decide, hey, this is something You have to have, are they going to be able to force it on us? I don't know. Are they going to be able to surveil us like they did, apparently about the whole Trump Organization, which has come out this week? That was their goal. I just don't know Matt. The technology exists to do it, and they are already doing it to some degree. Matt Indeed. All right. Well, Craig Peterson, our tech guru, joins us at this time every Wednesday to go over what's happening in the world of technology. Craig, thank you, as always, and we'll talk again next week. Craig Take care, Matt, Bye-bye. Matt Thanks a lot. Appreciate it. So coming up... Craig Hey, everybody, if you need a little bit of help in this COVID-19 time, we're giving away a little bit of free time, free consulting, I've set aside some 15-minute blocks where we can chat and help you out with your home computer, whatever it might be. And if you more extensive help, we also have some paid plans. It is free. Just go to Craig Peterson dot com and fill the contact form at the bottom of my home page. Craig Peterson dot com. We'll be glad to help you out. Everybody have a great weekend. We'll be back this weekend with more. Bye-bye Transcribed by https://otter.ai --- More stories and tech updates at: www.craigpeterson.com Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating: www.craigpeterson.com/itunes Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at: www.twitter.com/craigpeterson For questions, call or text: 855-385-5553

How much do artists promote and get paid for their music? How does Elton John write a song? Matt talks about the music industry from a creative’s POV.Visit www.creativeouthouse.com/podcast for complete shownotes and transcripts of every episode.Hey everyone, this is Rudy Fernandez from Creative Outhouse. And this episode I spoke with Matt Still, a Grammy Award winning engineer and music producer. Matt has worked with people like Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Santana. He's worked with OutKast, Lady Gaga, and the list goes on and on - from legends to new artists. Matt and I have known each other for a long time, and I always enjoy talking with him. We talked about how he got started. We talked about the changes in music and the rights of artists, because Matt also advocates for the rights of performers and artists, which I admire. So I think people who make music have these magic powers that create this miraculous thing that profoundly affects us emotionally, makes us think and affects our lives. We talked about that too. Check it out. Welcome to Marketing Upheaval.TranscriptRudy: Welcome to Marketing Upheaval. My guest is Matt Still, Matt is a Grammy Award winning music producer and engineer. He's a national trustee for the Recording Academy and an artist in residence at Kennesaw State University. In his 25 plus years in the music industry, he's seen a lot of things change, and he's managed to change with them. So we're going to talk about that. Thanks for joining me, Matt.Matt: Thanks for having me.Rudy: So, I'm going to just for the listeners, start with shameless name dropping, if that's okay, because you're pretty modest guy, but I don't think you ought to be. You work with Elton John. Yes, you've worked with OutKast, Fallout Boy, Lady Gaga, Rod Stewart, Santana, Allison In Chains, BB King, Arrested Development, TLC. You've worked with Stevie Wonder and Patty LaBelle. Then it goes on and on and on. So how does a kid who grew up in Georgia and loved music grow up and become a guy who works with all these legends.Matt: Well, I've been in music my entire life. I started playing the piano and taking classical piano lessons at the age of four. So music was always a part of everything I did. And I never really thought about doing anything other than music. Yeah, you know, really, and I wanted to be I wanted to be the performer. I wanted to be the next Elton John. My mom bought me an Elton John songbook, but when I was a teenager. I think it's kind of ironic that I'm actually been working with him for over 26 years now. But I wanted to be the performer. And I remember when I was in bands in high school and in college, and we go into recording studios, and the recordings never came out sounding the way I wanted. Check out the complete transcript and shownotes at https://creativeouthouse.com/2019/11/06/matt-still-grammy-winning-audio-engineer-and-producer/Support the show (http://www.creativeouthouse.com/our-work)

6D.ai CEO Matt Miesnieks has been in the AR game since the beginning, and he says the best in the industry have always known the best, native use cases for the technology; the problem was for the technology to catch up to the use cases. Listen as Matt and Alan discuss how the tech and the vision are starting to line up today, with the help of groundbreaking cloud mapping technology. Alan: Today’s guest is Matt Miesnieks, the CEO at 6D.ai. Matt is renowned as one of the world’s AR industry leaders, and through his influential blog posts and persona around the world. He’s also the co-founder and CEO of 6D.ai, the leading AR cloud platform, which is his third AR startup. He also helped form Super Ventures, which is a platform and V.C. firm investing in AR solutions. He’s built AR system prototypes for Samsung, and had long executive and technical careers in mobile software infrastructure before jumping into AR back in 2009. In his career, he’s been the director of product development of Samsung for VR and AR research and development, co-founder and CEO of Dekko, that created the first mobile holographic and mixed reality platform for iOS, 3D computer vision, and slam tracking. And Layar, he was the worldwide head of customer development; Layar sold to Blippar back in the day. And I want to invite Matt to the show. Thank you so much for joining me on the show. Matt: Thanks for having me. Alan: Thanks Matt. This is really an honor to meet you, and you have so much experience in this industry that we can all learn from. You’ve been doing this, it seems like, since the beginning. So why don’t we start with what you’ve seen as the progression of augmented reality over the last decade that you’ve been involved? Matt: Using words like “decade” brings it home. I mean, I got into AR from working for the company called Openwave that invented the mobile phone browser, and seeing that phones were being connected to the Internet, and started to think about what was next. And realized that interfaces were getting more natural, and we were going to end up connecting our senses to the Internet. You can connect a sense of sight — our dominant sense — that was going to be a really big deal. And I learned that was called augmented reality; that ability to sort of blend digital information and the real world into what you see. I kind of jumped in expecting it to be happening pretty soon. And at the time, there was nobody. At the first AWE conference back then, I think there was 300 people in total. And that was the entire professional AR industry. That included a bunch of researchers, a bunch of, like, science fiction authors, just a bunch of weirdos and a handful of people with some sort of commercial expertise. I think the interesting thing is that, even back then, the use cases and the kind of interactions and those sorts ideas around, these are the things that AR is going to be good for in the earliest days is still the same ones. It wasn’t like anything’s changed; they’ve stayed the same. What’s gotten better is the user experience around those use cases. The technology is improved. There’s like 100x or 50x more processing capacity in our hands. The algorithms have gotten better. And the same use cases that we knew were good ideas back then are now like, oh, these are starting to work now. Enterprises and consumers are starting to get some value out of it. Alan: So let me interject quickly, for the people listening who are not familiar with this industry: what are these use cases? What are the use cases that have stood the test of time? I know one of them that keeps coming up on almost every podcast that we do is remote assistance. The ability to have other people see what you’re se

6D.ai CEO Matt Miesnieks has been in the AR game since the beginning, and he says the best in the industry have always known the best, native use cases for the technology; the problem was for the technology to catch up to the use cases. Listen as Matt and Alan discuss how the tech and the vision are starting to line up today, with the help of groundbreaking cloud mapping technology. Alan: Today’s guest is Matt Miesnieks, the CEO at 6D.ai. Matt is renowned as one of the world’s AR industry leaders, and through his influential blog posts and persona around the world. He’s also the co-founder and CEO of 6D.ai, the leading AR cloud platform, which is his third AR startup. He also helped form Super Ventures, which is a platform and V.C. firm investing in AR solutions. He’s built AR system prototypes for Samsung, and had long executive and technical careers in mobile software infrastructure before jumping into AR back in 2009. In his career, he’s been the director of product development of Samsung for VR and AR research and development, co-founder and CEO of Dekko, that created the first mobile holographic and mixed reality platform for iOS, 3D computer vision, and slam tracking. And Layar, he was the worldwide head of customer development; Layar sold to Blippar back in the day. And I want to invite Matt to the show. Thank you so much for joining me on the show. Matt: Thanks for having me. Alan: Thanks Matt. This is really an honor to meet you, and you have so much experience in this industry that we can all learn from. You’ve been doing this, it seems like, since the beginning. So why don’t we start with what you’ve seen as the progression of augmented reality over the last decade that you’ve been involved? Matt: Using words like “decade” brings it home. I mean, I got into AR from working for the company called Openwave that invented the mobile phone browser, and seeing that phones were being connected to the Internet, and started to think about what was next. And realized that interfaces were getting more natural, and we were going to end up connecting our senses to the Internet. You can connect a sense of sight — our dominant sense — that was going to be a really big deal. And I learned that was called augmented reality; that ability to sort of blend digital information and the real world into what you see. I kind of jumped in expecting it to be happening pretty soon. And at the time, there was nobody. At the first AWE conference back then, I think there was 300 people in total. And that was the entire professional AR industry. That included a bunch of researchers, a bunch of, like, science fiction authors, just a bunch of weirdos and a handful of people with some sort of commercial expertise. I think the interesting thing is that, even back then, the use cases and the kind of interactions and those sorts ideas around, these are the things that AR is going to be good for in the earliest days is still the same ones. It wasn’t like anything’s changed; they’ve stayed the same. What’s gotten better is the user experience around those use cases. The technology is improved. There’s like 100x or 50x more processing capacity in our hands. The algorithms have gotten better. And the same use cases that we knew were good ideas back then are now like, oh, these are starting to work now. Enterprises and consumers are starting to get some value out of it. Alan: So let me interject quickly, for the people listening who are not familiar with this industry: what are these use cases? What are the use cases that have stood the test of time? I know one of them that keeps coming up on almost every podcast that we do is remote assistance. The ability to have other people see what you’re se

We discuss different models of asking questions to students, typical mistakes trainers make in asking questions and the most powerful questions we can ask ourselves to reflect.Ross Thorburn: Hello, everybody. Welcome to our podcast. Today, we've got two guests. Matt, our regular guest...Matt Courtois: Hey, how's it going?Tracy: Hey, Matt! And we have Karin.Karin Xie: Hello.Tracy: Karin Xie!Ross Thorburn: What do you do, Karin? What's your job now? It's changed since last time.Karin: Yeah. I am now the Academic Manager for Trinity China. My job is helping teachers preparing their students for Trinity GESE exams, and also expanding Trinity TESOL courses to teachers in Mainland China.Tracy: Great, OK. Welcome.Ross: Today, I thought we could talk about questions. I thought it would be interesting today to look at different aspects of questions, or different ways that we can look at questions using Bloom's taxonomy, open and closed, and a whole lot of other things.Tracy: We've got three questions about questions. The first one is questions teachers can ask, and the second?Matt: The second one is questions trainers ask.Tracy: And the third one?Karin: The questions we can ask ourselves to reflect.Questions teachers askTracy: You know, we all are teachers, we were teachers, and we've trained teachers. What do you think teachers really feel struggle with asking questions in the classroom?Karin: I got curious in that question. That's why I used it as my section one for my DipTESOL portfolio topic. We ask so many questions, but we are not necessarily always aware of why we ask the questions we ask, and what we were trying to get from the students.Matt: Did you find anything in your research?Karin: Yeah, the main thing was teachers rarely paid attention to the proportion of display questions and referential questions they ask.Ross: Before we jump into what kind of things teachers ask, what are some different types of questions or ways of categorizing teacher questions?Karin: The simple way of categorizing questions like open‑ended questions, and yes/no questions, and there's also, display questions, and referential questions.Ross: I think most people can get closed and open questions, but what's a referential question or a display question?Karin: A display question is when the person or the teacher knows the answer, or the other people also know the answer to the question. For example, when you hold a pen, so everybody can see the pen, and you ask, "What color is this pen?"The referential question, on the other hand, would be when you invite opinions, or ask questions that there's no definite answer to.Tracy: I think the display question is quite similar to experience questions, because everybody can see it, can feel it.Ross: I suppose that's good for checking some kind of meaning. You can be sure that however the students answer it, they've either got the concept or not.Tracy: For example, can you find a microphone in this room?[laughter]Ross: I can imagine that must be a problem. If teachers ask too many display questions, there's no real genuine or natural communication. You would never normally ask someone, "What color is this pen?" because you can see the color of the pen by looking at it.Tracy: Yeah, there's no need to ask a question.Matt: It's OK to ask questions about the function of language sometimes, like what it means. I guess we're talking about vocabulary here, but with grammar as well, asking questions, comparing two different grammar structures. It's not necessarily something you would do in day‑to‑day conversation, but I think it's the kind of question that's really essential in the classroom.Karin: It's almost like a concept‑checking question you're talking about.Matt: I think a well‑formed concept checking question can drive a student's understanding of this grammar point or vocabulary point forward. It's not just, "What do you know about it already?"You can ask, for example, after reading an article. I think it's really useful to ask, "Why did the author choose to say it this way? What other ways could he have said it? What other grammar could he have used? How does that change the meaning?"These can not just display that you understand what the grammar is, but it can actually push forward your understanding of grammar.Tracy: It seems like you give the students an opportunity to go further and to make connections between the language, and also how the language can be applied in real communication. For example, where can you use it, and why people use it, instead of using that.Karin: Or getting students to analyze and evaluate the language that they've heard, or they just used.Ross: Sounds like now we're heading on to Bloom's taxonomy as a way of looking at questions.The lowest levels of Bloom's taxonomy might be "What's this?" or "What did you read?" or "What did this person do in this passage?" whereas, higher up, it would be, "Why did they behave this way? Why did they make this decision?" Then maybe at the top it might be, "Can you rewrite the ending to this story?"Tracy: Did you read something recently, Ross, about reading comprehension questions?Ross: I have here a couple of other models for reading comprehension questions. One is by Diane Freeman. She splits reading comprehensions into three different areas. One is questions about the content, like what happened in the text or why did this person do this.Then, you get questions about the language. Maybe those are ones like Matt mentioned earlier. What tense did the person use here? Why did they use that? What does that show?The final one, as she calls them, affect questions. It's like a personal response. What do you think of this character? Why do you think they did this thing? Or, evaluation, like what did the author mean by this?Matt: Or what stance does the author take? How does it represent the values of society? Where is the author's place in this?Karin: One thing that I didn't know or wasn't aware of before I did my research, but I did come to realize, was that the follow‑up questions really made a difference. For example, the first few kinds of questions that you mentioned, most teachers would ask them, but what really made a difference was the later ones, because not many teachers ask them.[crosstalk]Ross: I always thought forward these things, like going to those higher levels of Bloom's taxonomy, it's nice to have, but maybe it's not really helping people learn language.The more I've read about this recently, the more I'm beginning to believe, or understand, that the deeper you get students to process and think about it, the more they're able to remember and recall ideas later on. Really pushing people to think about things in a much deeper way actually helps them with language acquisition.Tracy: Recently, I read Edward de Bono's book, "Teach Your Child to Think." What he mentioned is about there are a different type of practice and you can help the children to improve their thinking skills.There are four different types of item, and they are fun items, which means the questions should be imaginative, and they can be a little bit crazy.What would happen if we all had a third arm? They have a remote item beyond their experience and means. For example, what factors would you consider when you're choosing a place to set up a new restaurant? For children, probably, they've seen restaurants, but they don't know what is the process to set up the restaurant.The third one is called backyard item. For example, what do you think your school policy is. Do you agree with it or you disagree with it? It relates this to their life.The last one is called highway item. It's serious and directly relevant to their life like how can you make more friends in your neighborhood?These questions, of course, not always, were used in a classroom. Also, I think teacher and parents should help their children to be able to improve their thinking skills.Questions trainers askRoss: Let's talk a bit about questions that trainers ask them. I know Karin, you and I and Matt, we talked before about almost this danger of trainers asking questions to trainees and doing that classic thing of, "Hey, I'm trying to elicit an idea. Do you know what it is?"Matt: Years ago when I was a teacher, I had a trainer who was talking about board work and she asked us something about, let's say, word stress. She was saying, "What's a way we can symbolize word stress on the board?"Somebody was like, "You could draw a circle over the stress syllable." The trainer went, "Yeah, I guess we could."[laughter]Matt: She kept going at it and somebody else was like, "You could underline the stress syllable." "Yeah, yeah, yeah."[laughter]Matt: Finally, we got to the point of just saying, "What is it?" and she was like, "Guys, we have different colored markers on the board." Then we're like, "Oh, OK. I get it," and she's like, "So, what can you do?"[laughter]Karin: It's almost like reading my mind or guess what I'm thinking, rather than what we can do, or different options.Ross: At least in that example, none of those other options were any less valid than the other one. I think the thing is that people will be more likely to use their idea than something that someone else spoon‑feeds you.Matt: Ross, when you observed my training before, or maybe when you observed my lessons at the very beginning, the first question you asked was what kind of feedback do you want. Do you want to do a coaching reflection thing? Do you want to just give you a few points to work on?I thought that was pretty cool. I think we ended up doing a reflection thing. Then we finished that and I said, "OK, what's your advice?"Karin: That's because maybe you both preferred that coaching style. We were so used to a certain way of doing things in training and feedback. We just assumed that people would prefer similar ways. We are just how we trained.Tracy: Like Matt mentioned, it's great if the trainer can give the options to the trainee on what type of feedback you prefer. It also doesn't mean that's always true. If I say I prefer direct feedback, it doesn't mean this person can really accept and then to be reflective on those direct feedback, or take actions. I think there is always a balance.Ross: I don't think I do that anymore. I don't think I give people that choice because what I found was that people just say, "Yeah, just tell me what you think." That's like the default setting.I often find that after you tell someone, "These are the three things I would change," they're like, "Well, that was a bit direct."[laughter]Ross: It's like that's what you thought you wanted but maybe that's not what you actually wanted. In that situation, now, I usually go, "What do you want to talk about, about the lesson or about the training?" Tell me about it.Usually, you find that the thing the person first starts speaking about is the thing they're most interested in. Then you can start exploring that area.Tracy: I think it's also a good opportunity if they felt that they did something really well and we can still explore. Why do you think it went really well?Matt: When we were talking last night, you drew a distinction between two kinds of questions. You're saying that's eliciting, it's not really...what was it?Ross: Right, I think, Karin, your example.Karin: Self‑discovery.Ross: Yeah, your example was...I ask these questions so people can self‑discover. I think there's a difference between self‑discovery and eliciting. If you ask a lot of questions to elicit, that's like, "I have an idea and I want to 'coach you' to get to this idea that I'm already thinking of."That's the thing people find annoying. Whereas self‑discovery is different, because that's, for me at least, you're discovering your own answer to the question. I don't really care if the answer that you get is the same answer as I've thought of or not.Matt: So often I think what every trainee hates is when the trainer is eliciting from them and they try to disguise it as self‑discovery.Questions we ask ourselves to reflectRoss: We talked about teachers asking questions and trainers asking questions. I think that probably all of us have found, when you get to a certain point in your career, there isn't anyone asking you questions and coaching you. It comes down to yourself, to be in charge of your own professional development. What questions do you guys ask yourselves to help yourselves improve?Tracy: I always try to ask myself...I read something or I heard something or just to find out a new concept and how can I make it relevant to my working context.Karin: Remember, Tracy, I was showing you the Chinese quote from my friend. The three questions. She said, whenever you talk to people, ask yourself, one, would people be able to understand what you say?Two, the things that people and the things that you mention, would people know about them? The third would be, would people be interested in what you're talking about, and why? I think those were three really lovely questions for us to ask ourselves.Ross: The other useful question that I find I ask myself is ‑‑ this is not so much as a trainer but as a manager ‑‑ when things go wrong and you often think, "Wow, it's because this person messed this thing up." So often that is the case.The most powerful thing that I find for helping me learn is stepping back and thinking, I can't change how my boss behaves or I can't change how this person in the sale department behaves. Those things were out of my control.Even though this was 99 percent this other person's fault, what's the thing that I could have done differently in this situation? I find that's a really useful thing. Also, for people who work for you, going, "This wasn't your fault."But, what's the thing that you could have done differently to prevent that from happening? Then all of those annoying situations, all of those problems when they arise, you can still turn them into some opportunity to learn something.Ross: Matt and Karin, thanks very much for coming in again.Matt: Thanks for having me, Ross.Ross: You're very welcome, Matt.Ross: Bye, everyone.Karin: Bye.Tracy: Bye.

DEEP DIVES & tiny curations Podcast Episodes Available Today: http://tinycurations.com Listen NOW on Pandora: https://www.pandora.com/search/tiny%20curations/ Hear the playlist on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/user/n9g9p0bspz4axwozqtyy8dzgd/playlist/1vCtfz7PDTW4Gu41PRVSAv?si=FNJfcwy5SlGUfxfn1CLxPg 01 - Enrique Iglesias - Escape 02 - The Police - Every Breath You Take 03 - Audioslave - Like A Stone 04 - The Proclaimers - I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) 05 - The Human League - Don't You Want Me 06 - Blondie - One Way or Another 07 - Dave Matthews Band - Crush 08 - Garbage - #1 Crush 09 - Rhett Akins - That Ain't My Truck 10 - The Cure - A Night Like This 11 - Frankie Valli - My Eyes Adored You 12 - Lionel Ritchie - Hello 13 - Rockwell - Somebody's Watching Me Valentine's Day love songs that you didn't know were actually stalker and creeper songs: MATT: Hi! I'm Matt Comer, and I'm here with Antonio Banda. ANTONIO: Hey there, and happy Valentine's Day! MATT: Yes, and speaking of Valentine's Day, we're here to bring you [20] love songs you didn't know are actually stalker and creeper songs. ANTONIO: That's right. We asked a Facebook online dating group, and our friends, what their favorite mislabeled love songs are, and we curated their suggestions into this creepy, yet romantic, playlist. MATT: So, cuddle up with your favorite creeper …er… I mean, valentine, and enjoy. MATT: This is Matt. ANTONIO: And this is Antonio. MATT: And you're listening to [20] love songs you didn't know are actually stalker and creeper songs. MATT: Thanks for joining us for [20] love songs you didn't know are actually stalker and creeper songs. Have thoughts about this playlist? ANTONIO: Or maybe we missed a song that you think should be on here? MATT: Whatever the case, post your feedback and suggestions in the [insert slack channel name] slack channel. We'd love to hear from you. ANTONIO: Except no stalking, please…unless it's in song form. MATT: Fair enough. Thanks, again, for listening, and have a happy Valentine's Day! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/tiny-curations-deep-dives/message

Guest:  Matt Smith Title: Crypto Prediction Markets: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly Record Date: 1/9/2019 Air Date: 1/31/2019 Topic: Crypto Predictions Markets Matt Smith joins us today to talk about how crypto prediction markets work, how blockchain technology is being used to modernize online gambling, which essentially allows people to speculate on the outcome of all kinds of future events. We discuss some of the common applications of these prediction markets and their pros and cons. And we dive into some of the deep implications of the more controversial betting markets on these platforms, such as assassination markets and mass casualties in future unknown terrorist attacks. It’s a fascinating discussion. Join us!   Topics Covered in this Episode:   – Sports gambling is very much in the news – Brief history of sports gambling laws in the United States – 2018 Supreme Court decision giving power to states on sports gambling – Will online sports gambling be next step of legalizing gambling? – How traditional prediction markets work – Prediction markets and how they utilize the “wisdom of crowds” – Different formulations of prediction markets – Crypto prediction market as a new twist on an age-old idea – Benefits of decentralized prediction markets – better security and censorship resistance, global pool of liquidity – Could shape future of online sports gambling – Core innovation – gambling good way to bootstrap new crypto networks, uncover information otherwise hidden, inject data verifiably into the blockchain ecosystem – NJ Refund of bets example – How these platforms actually work? How do you place bets and create markets? – How censorship resistant decentralized betting platforms such as Augur work, interacting directly with the markets, using the blockchain – On killing the kill switch of this network and what that means – On assassination markets and the potential implications of that – On political bad actors and how they could manipulate assassination markets – Where all this is heading, maybe to the courts – How dispute resolution works on these platforms – Some recent disputes such as the recent US midterm elections and baseball and how they are being resolved – Closing thoughts Links and Resources: Betting on the national anthem: An American tradition Biggest Super Bowl LIII bets 2019 Super Bowl Betting Odds: Spread, Total & Prop Betting Action Update Supreme Court Ruling Favors Sports Betting MURPHY, GOVERNOR OF NEW JERSEY, ET AL. v.NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. ET AL. US Betting Sites Sports Betting May Soon Be Legal in New York, but Only 4 Casinos Upstate Would Offer It Will Sports Betting Transform How Games Are Watched, and Even Played? Prediction Markets Four Prediction Market Platforms Compared The Weirdest Prediction Markets on Augur Right Now Crypto Prediction Market Augur Is Gearing Up for Its First Major Upgrade The First Augur Assassination Markets Have Arrived The Weirdest Prediction Markets on Augur Right Now - Yahoo Finance What are Blockchain Prediction Markets? Decentralized Prediction Markets: the Opportunities, the Threats, and Prediction markets are hot AF right now. – Hacker As Crypto Meets Prediction Markets, Regulators Take Notice Decentralized Prediction Markets: How Blockchain Crypto Betting Works? Why You Should Try Decentralized Prediction Markets Right Now If the "Which party will control the House after 2018 U.S. Midterm Election?" resolves to anything but 'Democrats' I'm never using Augur again Augur Betting, Over 2 Million for the US Election N.J. sports book refunds bets from Saints game after blown call Questions and Comments? podcast@gem.co Transcript Chitra: Welcome to the show, Matt. It's great to have you.   Matt: Thanks, Chitra. It's always good to be at Gem.   Chitra: Wonderful. Before we go into what crypto-based prediction markets are, let's talk a little bit about what are prediction markets and how do they work?   Matt: Yeah sure. So a prediction market is a market like any other. It's a place where commerce happens, where things are bought and sold. The name can be a little misleading because you're not buying predictions. What you're buying are stake, you're buying a stake, like a position, in the outcome of some event. The thing that's unique about a prediction market is that you can bet on the outcome of any event. So say I care a lot about sports and I want to put money on my position that the Yankees are absolutely gonna beat the Red Sox, obviously, and maybe that's illegal where I do it, but I'll go to my bookie and I'll say hey I think the Red Sox are gonna win, I've looked at the stats, they're gonna win so I'm gonna put this much money on it, give me some odds. Then whenever that event resolves, I get money back if I'm right and then I lose my money if I'm wrong.   Chitra: Okay. So there's a lot of science and math behind this because it essentially goes to the notion of the wisdom of crowds. That an individual's intelligence gathering is a lot less powerful than that of a number of people. So it's essentially aggregating of information.   Matt: Yeah. It's not necessarily just that like you get 100 people in a room and those people are gonna make a better decision than one person in isolation. What these markets really do, if they are liquid and highly available, if you have access to a large number of people, there's gonna be people in that crowd that have some insight. That maybe have inside information or have studied the mechanics of whatever is gonna drive the outcome of the result. A prediction market can enable those people to monetize that knowledge, that insight. So people that don't know really any information about the Red Sox or the Yankees, they're not gonna bet on it because they don't know who's gonna win, it would be a very risky proposition for them, but someone that has inside information like their best hitter got injured but they haven't announced it yet, he's got a real strong incentive to go and make a big bet on the Yankees.   Chitra: Right. So there's a lot of value to this.   Matt: Yeah. So you can absolutely uncover information that would otherwise remain hidden. That's why we call it a prediction market because the market as a whole for the outcome of some event predicts what the outcome will be.   Chitra: These are binary decision making right on sort of discrete events?   Matt: There are actually a bunch of different formulations, different constructions you can do for models. Binary is probably the most common, easiest to understand. Like this is gonna happen or this is gonna happen. One of these two things is gonna happen. That's available on most of the prediction markets we're gonna talk about today. You can also do categories, like multiple choice A, B, C or D. Or you can do like a scale or range, a numerical range. Like it's gonna be somewhere between this value... You can have a curve where the payout is proportional to where it falls on this graph. Those are a little bit more complicated so maybe it's easier to talk about the binary option. Binary options are fairly interesting because binary option is an existing financial instrument, and prediction markets as a class sort of mimic their pay where there's a threshold, and one thing happens or the other thing happens and then you pay out accordingly.   Chitra: So now let's talk about crypto-based prediction markets. Now, prediction markets are very old. They go back to like 1884 or something like that. So are crypto prediction markets basically a new twist on a very old idea?   Matt: That feels like a leading question, Chitra. Totally - they are. We've seen political election markets way, way back, people do things like buy votes because there's a financial incentive to make their party win because they had bet a lot of money on this one candidate winning. So, yeah, people definitely do this and that's why we see regulations emerge around what you can bet on, what you can't bet on. Crypto prediction markets are interesting because we get a lot of the, after what you see in blockchain and decentralized applications that are well suited to the form, which means that they eliminate counterparty risk.   Chitra: What does that mean?   Matt: So when I go to bet on the Red Sox or the Yankees and say it's illegal. I think there are regulatory changes in the US where maybe sports betting is okay now, but until very recently at least it was illegal to bet on sports in most jurisdictions. So if I'm gonna go and place that bet, I'm gonna be going to a bookie who's breaking the law. Because this is like a shady area, there's a chance that when I give him my money and tell him to give me more money back if I'm right, there's a chance that he just doesn't do that. I'm still right, but he just goes away. My risk is that my counterparty, the person I'm interacting with, this guy, is going to abscond.   This risk exists in most centralized systems, not just in these fringe ones or these illegal markets where it's definitely much more risky because there isn't regulatory oversight, but even if you're trading on a normal financial exchange, foreign exchange or something. There's still a risk that your counterparty person that you're trading directly with through this intermediary won't be able to satisfy the order and you'll be left out in the cold.   Matt: So there's a counterparty risk, and we can eliminate this, we do this in decentralized exchange protocols, like the 0x protocol and Ether Delta and these other applications. The other thing that we get by using a blockchain is we get this censorship resistance. So like I said, it's illegal on these jurisdictions to gamble on a lot of things like political elections, it's illegal almost everywhere to gamble on them because it sort of undermines the integrity of the election. So you can't really do that. But in a decentralized prediction market, it's really hard to enforce those rules. You can't really say no you can do you can do this but not this. You sort of do whatever you want. Maybe that's a good thing because there are some jurisdictions where your access to financial markets in general is restricted.   This is a mechanism that maybe some corrupt governments might use to keep certain segments of the population from accessing the broader financial markets. Like we can look at the currency controls in China. They have limited access to international markets. Prediction markets are cool because you can use them to emulate almost any financial instrument. I can make a prediction market for what will the price of the British pound versus the US dollar be on such and such a date? Then I can basically create this synthetic forex market out of this decentralized platform. So they're very versatile. And because they're censorship resistant, they're also international. I can reach across borders. I've got this huge global pool of liquidity. Everyone in the world that wants to bet on the Red Sox versus the Yankees can do it in this one place.   Chitra: So someone in China could make a prediction on who's gonna win the World Cup or something like that.   Matt: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. That's a cool thing because normally these sort of markets, especially when they're illegal, are localized. They're focused on a small local area. Or they're run by a centralized online exchange, and those we saw with the dark web Silk Road markets and those kind of things, those are very vulnerable to people absconding with money because that's what you've ascended to. So the conflicts of those three factors are what make these really uniquely valuable in terms of a betting market or trading exchange kind of thing.   Chitra: So what's the core innovation here? What's the true value of these decentralized platforms do you think? If you were to sum it up.   Matt: Gambling is a good way to get network, bootstrap network. Because everyone likes to gamble. We've been doing this forever. Dice is a really old kind of game people bet on. It's something people want to do and it's something that governments tend to restrict people's access to. So we can get a lot of people on this platform to start using it. But the results of using these markets is we get two really cool things out of these prediction markets.   The first thing is that we can uncover information the world has at large but isn't able to voice about what's going to happen to the world. We were talking about earlier, maybe it's something trivial like the Red Sox versus the Yankees, or maybe it's something much more meaningful, and I struggle to find a good example because I didn't prepare well enough, but we can sort of see, maybe we're talking about an election or something, and maybe there was some key insight about what's gonna happen in this local election that a few people have. So we might be able to give them a financial incentive to reveal that information monetarily, and potentially anonymously if you're very careful, so they get rewarded for telling the world that they feel very strong, they feel this many dollars strongly that this is gonna happen. So we get this information service.   The other thing that we get out of these platforms is specifically in the blockchain space is that we get this information from the outside world, like Yankees versus Red Sox or who won the election, and we are able to inject it in a trusted verifiable way into a blockchain ecosystem. This maybe will get a little technical, but the way smart contracts on most blockchain platforms work is that they're what's called deterministic. There's no opportunity for them to have any sort of randomness. They just sort of are a pure result of whatever the inputs to the function of this smart contract program is. That's cool, but what it restricts you to is that you can't get any non-deterministic sources. So you can't reach out to the normal Internet. You can't go to like Weather.com and then figure out what is the weather today?   So there's no really great way for you to write programs that run in a decentralized application that act on these external real-world events. You can do it with what's called an oracle. There are a few sites and services that will do this, where you say like take the information that's published on this webpage and then insert it into the blockchain. That is one way to address a problem. The problem with it is that you have to trust the service that's doing that. One person is publishing a transaction that says the weather is 95 degrees today. The cool thing about these prediction markets when they run on this blockchain is that there are financial incentives to make sure that everyone that's participating agrees this is actually what happens. It was actually 95 degrees that day. Trump actually won the election.   Chitra: So basically you're putting money behind it so it makes a difference.   Matt: Right. You're putting an incentive for everyone that knows that this thing happened to say this is the thing that happened and they will lose that money if they lie. This is really powerful because other smart contracts can leverage these platforms. They can point at these prediction market contracts and say okay I'm interested in the outcome of this result, I want to know what happens. I want my contract to do something in case Trump wins, in case Hillary wins or whatever. Which is something you couldn't really very verifiably or trustlessly do before these sort of decentralized oracles existed. That I think is really powerful and it amps up what we can do with these decentralized applications.   Chitra: Let's talk about how these markets actually work. There are a handful of these crypto prediction markets, Augur being one of them. How do they actually work? How do you make a bet? If I were a betting person.   Matt: Yeah if you were a betting person, Chitra. It's not too dissimilar from how you would log into a normal betting website I guess. It's not very much like a casino where you go play online poker. I have not used that many actual gambling applications, so I don't know what the UI looks like. But basically what you're gonna do is you're gonna go to some website that is gonna be running a server with a connection to the blockchain. Or you're gonna download an application that connects to the blockchain. Maybe there's some sync time. People are familiar when you download the Bitcoin wallet, the main bitcoin log, it takes ages to sync and stuff. You might run into that depending on how you access it, but there are ways around that.   So you get to basically just a web page. It's gonna have a list of all these markets that exist, maybe they'll be categorized. They'll say like these are the sports betting markets, these are the political markets, these are financial markets and stuff. You can go and you can see which markets have been created. Anyone can go and create a market. Anyone can be like I want to create a market for this thing that I want to know about, and that I think I have insight on and I'm gonna bet on myself. So you look at all these and you say okay Yankees, Red Sox, I'm interested in this. So you click on the thing and then you can see that there's a price. So Yankees v. Red Sox, Yankees, Red Sox. There are gonna be two outcomes and you'll see shares for each of these outcomes. So there are yes shares, there are Red Sox shares and there are Yankees shares.   So you can buy either of those and each of those will have a price in Ether. Eventually when we have more stable coin support, you'll be able to buy it in a USD token. But it'll be a cryptocurrency. It will also run on that same blockchain network. So you'll have a blockchain wallet, Metamask, or the Edge Wallet, something like that. Then you're going to say I want to buy such and such Boston shares, Red Sox shares. They'll have some price in Ether and then you go and you buy it.   Another thing that you can do is you can take one Ether and then you can deposit it into the market in some models, and then you'll get equal, you'll get one of both shares, and then you can sell the share that you think's not gonna happen. So there are a couple different mechanisms for that. Basically you're buying shares in the outcome of this market.   Chitra: And using crypto to do that.   Matt: And you're using crypto to do that.   Chitra: Okay.   Matt: So then what's gonna happen is there's gonna be a time when it's set to resolve, like whoever created the market is gonna say this is happening on such and such date. And when that time comes, he or somebody is gonna put in an initial report on what the outcome was, and there's a dispute phase where we sort of... The blockchain comes to an agreement, we come to a consensus on what the outcome of the market was. Once it's decided, everyone with the Boston shares, those Boston shares are now worth 100 percent of the total Ether put into the market, and all the Yankee shares are worth nothing. So if you are stuck holding a bunch of Yankee shares you're like oh that's great. This is blockchain evidence that I made a bad bet. Then the other people get their money.   Chitra: If you didn't already know that you made a bad bet, you have…   Matt: Yeah now you have verifiable evidence.   Chitra: Your empty wallet being an example of having made a bad bet.   Matt: Exactly. But the winners will get that money back into the wallet they used to interact with the protocol. It's pretty straight forward as a trader. The ones that are live, Augur is maybe the biggest one that people talk about right now because it's live and you can actually use it. So their UI is fairly straightforward to use if you're just betting on things. You just see graphs, you see yes no, you see percentages, how many of these token exists and how many you can buy in the network and stuff. So it looks a lot like if you go to a normal exchange where there are a bunch of little mini exchanges.   Chitra: Okay. So we've talked about some of the more straightforward applications, sports, politics, weather. But some of these prediction markets have also some pretty weird and controversial use cases. You've heard about these assassination markets on Augur where people are prediction on celebrity killings, of politicians and other famous people. You've got, what are some of these examples and how did that come about? You've got terrorist attacks, predicting how many mass casualties will happen as a result of an attack.   Matt: Yeah. So like we said, it's a censorship-resistant platform, like Augur we'll take as an example. The software is built by a company called the Forecast Foundation, and they just deployed these smart contracts on the network. They created this token REP, which stands for reputation. There's a fixed supply of those. Those are the people that get to report on outcomes of events. So that's all they really... They put the contracts out there and they created software where you can use this platform to create your own prediction markets. But they didn't create any, they don't control, they don't run like a centralized server where you can go and interact. It's like you download the app and you interact directly with the blockchain protocol.   So they're sort of hands off. You can do whatever. They did for a short period of time have a killswitch when they were first pulling the network to make sure everything went okay. But they burned that killswitch. It's done now. Nobody can turn this off. It's just there. Unless somebody hacks it, and that happens. But so what that means is nobody really has any control over which markets can be created. Anyone can create whatever market they want. There's a small fee to create a market or whatever and if you're willing to stake that, create a market for it. Then anybody that sees that market can go and bet on it. So that's cool because it gives a lot of people access to instruments they wouldn't otherwise be able to get exposure to, and it lets us bet on things that maybe we should be allowed to but for whatever regulatory reasons we can't.   But it also means that we can bet on things that for good reasons we aren't really supposed to. So the assassination markets are a really good example. Basically people create a market that says will such and such political figure die by the end of such and such time frame? The problem with that is it's not just an event that's out of everyone's hands that will sort of occur, this is true with sports betting too which is one of the reasons sports betting is illegal in a lot of jurisdictions. Having a market where you can go bet on one of those outcomes, political figure A will die, creates an incentive for anyone to go and affect that outcome. So I would go and bet yes, I would not, a person might go and bet yes and then go actually commit that murder. Then he would have a big financial incentive.   So that's why we call them assassination markets rather than just a normal prediction market on what's gonna happen. Will he die of natural causes or whatever? It creates this incentive to do this. This is actually really kinda scary. These existed on Augur, but it's not really a big deal because no one's betting on them. So no one's gonna interact with a market if the liquidity is really low because the potential reward is very low, correspondingly low. Most of these markets on the Augur platform which is the only one that I think that is live, are below a thousand dollars total stake opened in these markets. That's a fact because there are a bunch of them. Anyone can create one so you have a bunch so there's this big overload of all these markets you can bet on.   So it hasn't been a problem yet. But if I say I'm a very well funded political actor. Like I'm a state actor or I'm a political opponent, and I have access to a lot of funds, what I can do is I can create that market and then put a lot of money on the opposite side. So will my opponent die? And then I bet no. I put millions of dollars on no. That is effectively a million dollars bounty on that head that anyone can go and fill. All they need to do is buy a bunch of yes shares and then go pull the trigger.   So this is really bad if you think about cyber warfare. You think about well-funded nation states. We've seen a lot of news being reported of questionable veracity about North Korean and Russian hackers using cryptocurrency in some of their schemes. So they maybe have access, they have a deep understanding of how these networks well. They have the ability to do this kind of thing, and it allows you to basically put an open bounty, a public open bounty, on someone's head from overseas and anonymously. It's really scary that you can do that.   Chitra: Isn't someone gonna do something about this? Do you foresee any kind of legal or regulatory issues, liability issues?   Matt: Yeah definitely. It's really hard to say how it's gonna happen because you can't shut it down. The network runs the way it does, the smart contracts are deployed. There's no killswitch on this, so you can't shut it down. It's just there so you can use it. What you can do is go after the people that interact with it. We might see governments outlawing Augur specifically and that's kind of hard to regulate because it's just transactions on a blockchain platform. But again, blockchain records are immutable so I have a disincentive to do anything if I think it can be associated with my identity. There's a very high bar to interacting with most of these public blockchain networks, truly and honestly.   So it's dangerous and there's a disincentive there. But the other thing that we can see regulators do is go after the people that create these systems, which in Augur's case wouldn't really help the problem. Augur's still gonna be there even if you go after the founders or the Forecast Foundation or whatever. But we did see something like that happen with a centralized exchange called Ether Delta. We saw the SEC, I believe the SEC sued the creator of Ether Delta, this decentralized exchange, just because he created the software and was responsible for running a web UI, a server that just served the UI for interacting with these smart contracts, which you didn't have to use but you could. He settled out of court. But this kind of weird pseudo precedent where regulatory bodies can go after developers even that just create this software, create the facility for people to go and create markets that create this opportunity for malfeasance and for dangerous actions.   I think we will definitely see this getting negotiated in court and in the court of public opinion.   Chitra: Yeah. A lot of legal funds will be spent even though the underlying problem can't go away because you can't get rid of the system.   Matt: Yeah. Lawyers will make money for sure. It's really a big question mark and that's one of the things that's probably depressing engagement with Augur. Like Augur does get used but it's not, and I think maybe right now there's maybe a couple million dollars of open stake across all the markets. So that's one of the big question marks.   Chitra: And it's just one of the platforms. There are other platforms.   Matt: Other platforms.   Chitra: You're gonna see a lot of these similar problems and challenges confronting…   Matt: Yeah. And if we see regulators move quickly then that can stifle those other creators. The other platforms that are coming out, there's one called Gnosis which I'm actually a big fan of that team. They've produced a lot of really high quality software. But Augur was the first in the market. It might be more difficult for new competitors to enter the space if they're afraid that they're gonna be liable just by the fact of creating a software that could be used for good things, but could also be used for bad things.   Chitra: Let's talk a little bit about dispute resolution because the immutability of a decentralized platform like this is its strength. But when it comes to dispute resolution it also raises questions of how do you resolve disputes when there's a bet? And how does it affect the core value proposition of a blockchain based platform.   Matt: Yeah. So that's a great question because what we really are trying to do with these platforms is inject truth into the immutable blockchain record. We want to figure out what actually happened for all these things people cared enough to bet on. We can't just say that whoever creates the market imports the outcome because he probably has an incentive, one way or the other. We have to know what actually happened. So the way that most of these systems work is that there is a dispute resolution process. That's why we need this REP token in Augur's case. We need this token that represents financial investment in the network as a whole at its market perception. If people consider Augur to be good and useful and valuable, then that token will go up in value.   So they acquire these tokens and then if you hold some amount of REP and you see a market get resolved with an incorrect decision, a decision you believe to be not what actually happened, you can open a dispute by staking, you take your 100 REP and you say no the Red Sox didn't win, it was the Yankees that won. If you get to a certain threshold, this will kick off this dispute resolution process. Basically it's this incrementing scale, in Augur's case specifically. The amount of REP that has to be staked to dispute even a dispute... We have the initial report, someone disputes it and says no it's Red Sox, Yankees, I say no, Red Sox. Then if somebody else is like no it was the Yankees, this guy is messing with us. He just put up 100 REP, he's just messing with the system, he has to get 200 REP from him and all the other people that are watching the network to say no it was the Yankees. This can go back and forth for a long time.   Chitra: There's some real examples of this, one with the recent elections and one with the Yankees, I guess.   Matt: Yeah. This came up because one of the most high profile markets last year on Augur, it launched last year, the US midterm elections. There was a market created for who will control the House of Representatives after the 2018 midterm election. This got at least a million, maybe two million dollars, of open bets placed on this outcome, which right now it's worth maybe a little bit under a hundred million dollars after depreciation. But a lot of people bet on this. I was watching the election, I was watching the platform. I didn't interact with it but I knew a guy that was like yeah it looks like the Democrats are gonna take the house. Democrats are gonna take the house.   So everybody's betting on this. Democrats have a strong advantage because we knew fairly early in the polls it was likely they were gonna take a bunch of House seats. Everyone's watching 538.com and the other CNN.com, and as each state goes in, right up until the end, people are still trading on this market. It was set to resolve on December 10th, so the resolution date was... This is enough time for all the House races to get resolved because some of them would drag on for weeks. So we finally get, Republican shares were worth like one percent of the value and 99 percent of the value is Democrat shares. By the end of the night, Democrats had taken the House.   So everybody's getting chill. It sort of settles down. Everybody's just waiting for December 10th so they can get their money. Then like December 7th or something, a couple days before the resolution date, the guy who created this market, he's the creator, and the creator gets a small fee of whatever share of the market, he posts on Reddit and the tagline is I think it just says ‘I am sorry.’ He explains that the goal of this market was always to reflect who will control the House of Representatives immediately after the midterm elections, not who will control the House on January 1st when the newly elected House of Representatives takes office. So it was the only option, according to the way it's worded, I have to report Republicans because they still currently as of today, as of December 10th, still control the House of Representatives. I think the top comment was something like you just want to watch the world burn don't you? Because that's ludicrous. It was very misleadingly worded market question. So this has a lot of implications.   This of course got disputed but you have to think about it for a second. What actually did happen? If you look at the exact wording, yeah the Republicans controlled the House on December 10th. But that was obviously not the intent of the market, not what everyone understood it to be. So what is the right result? So this guy reports Republicans. And then we go into dispute. Somebody puts up a dispute bond for it was the Democrats. I think we're in the fourth dispute, this still isn't resolved. We're in the fourth dispute round, maybe like I think 700 or 1,000 REP has been staked on aggregate outcomes, and we could see this drag on for a long time.   Chitra: So timing I guess is everything when it comes to some of these things. It's how you word the language, what time zone these things are in, how people interpret it and then you dispute it I guess if you don't agree.   Matt: Yeah but it's also, it's not clear what the right answer is. It's sort of like you're dealing with this adversarial malicious genie that will grant your wish but in a way that kills you. You have to, I'm very concerned about this when I saw this happen. It was kind of morbidly funny, but at the same time it was concerning because this is gonna make a lot of people very, very afraid to interact with this platform if they don't trust that somebody's trying to trip them up with careful wording. So this is a dangerous platform to interact with. So that's sort of a gray area. But what we're gonna likely see based on the chit chat and stuff that we're seeing online is that a lot of people are committed to making sure that the Democratic outcome wins because that's what people understood it to be.   There's also another option. There's an option that can be marked invalid. People can say this is an invalid market because the wording was vague or there was no chance, one of the options was never gonna happen. That is built into the platform, and different prediction market protocols have different ways of dealing with this. But we'll probably see a fair resolution out of this. But if we don't, if we see the Republican outcome win because of this literal wording, then the market creator probably bought a lot of those Republican shares real cheap and is gonna make a bunch of money. So good for him, but bad for the entire network because it's gonna really affect the perspective on Augur.   Chitra: Well, lots to talk about. Fascinating conversation. Do you have any closing thoughts? Where can people learn more about you and the work that you're doing?   Matt: Sure. In closing I would encourage everyone to check out the Augur.net and just see what kind of markets are being discussed there. Because there's another thing that you can do. You can just report. You don't have to bet. You can just report on what happens and there's an opportunity while liquidity is low to make money that way. You just make money from reports saying yeah this is what happened, this is what happened, this is what happened. It's a really easy way to interact with the crypto ecosystem and add value to a network and make sure that we have this really robust powerful accurate way of figuring out what happens, which we know is important in this age of questionable facts and false truths. So this maybe is a way to address that, which we probably should talk about more but... I work at Spring Labs, SpringLabs.com. We're not really consumer facing, but if people want to see stuff about identity verification and credit reporting with blockchain stuff, that's what I do.   Chitra: Great. And how can people reach you if they want to talk to you more?   Matt: My name's Matt Smith. I used to not like that name but now I do because it makes it a little bit harder to Google me.   Chitra: Thanks so much. Great having you.   Matt: I appreciate it, Chitra.  

Wow, episode 20 already...! And on this episode, we talk about How to build a freelancing business with Matt Inglot. Matt helps freelancers to get paid quickly and more, so they can focus on growing their freelancing business! So here it is, the Podcast with Matt Inglot Daniel: Today, I have a very special guest. I am really excited to have him here with us, I am here with Matt Inglot, the owner, and operator of freelancetransformation.com. Freelance Transformation helps and teaches freelancers to get higher paying clients and projects to work less and get rid of the stress. Sounds good, right? So let's continue talking with Matt about Freelance Transformation, and how you can use a freelancing business to create freedom in your life so you can live a lifestyle with more flexibility and income as well. Matt, welcome to the show! Matt: Thanks so much for having me, Daniel. Daniel: Very happy to have you, Matt. I'm excited of course, we were talking before the interview, and you're right now in Alberta Canada. So, Matt, would you please take a few minutes and tell us a little bit more about you and share a little bit of your story if you could? Matt: Yeah, absolutely. Since university, I have been a web developer, I have been running my own web agency, and it's something that I started because I was originally working for a start-up and that startup went bankrupt. I found myself suddenly needing work, needing to support myself, and I started building websites. And it went for me building websites on my own to me eventually hiring a team, and then me deciding to get an office, and then realizing that I had actually really created a job for myself, of really kind of a 9-5 prison, instead of 9-5, it was more like 99.  And then in 2011, I rebuilt that completely, and I transitioned the business and made it in a way where I still have the agency but now it's remote, I'm able to live where I want. I don't have to work crazy hours, I mean, it's more of like a 20, maybe a 30-hour a week position now. And it allows me to have the free hand to be able to shape my way, to shape my life the way that I want to shape it. Daniel: Very nice, Matt. Tell me a little bit about what is the part of your freelancing business that you enjoy the most? Matt: That's a great question. I think the thing that I enjoy most is that everything I do has a positive impact on someone's life. I've got my agency, and there we've helped a lot of our clients really grow their businesses, and to actually make a meaningful contribution there, and then get compensated accordingly, which is nice as well. And then with Freelance Transformation, it's the same thing, we've been able to help people get started with freelancing, we've been able to help people become better freelancers, higher-earning freelancers, less stressed out freelancers, so being able to do that kind of work and being able to wake up every day knowing that you are actually having some kind of impact, and that you're not just getting up and sitting down in front of a computer and punching keys on a keyboard because your employer tells you to - that's incredibly rewarding. Daniel: Yes, definitely, it gives a little bit more meaning to your freelancing business for sure and in your life of course. Matt, how or where did this idea for Freelance Transformation came from? Matt: I started Freelance Transformation back in 2015, and I had been thinking about it longer. It basically came from my own story and from everything that I saw with the mistakes that I had made, and then talking to other freelancers I realized that a lot of them were making the same mistakes, and going down the same path and having the same sorts of problems such as suddenly finding themselves working 60 or 80 hours a week, and having the types of clients that they don't want to have, and not really earning the kind of income that they wanted to be earning. Freelancing comes with a lot of promise of freedom and flexibil...