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There can be only one, but Highlander's had a surprising number of media adaptations and spin-offs over the years. We take a look at all of them and even get some behind-the-scenes gossip about the infamous comic book tie-in: Highlander 3030. ----more---- Episode Transcript   Episode 05 [00:00:00] Mike: It's fine. It's fine. I'm not bitter. Mike: Welcome to Tencent Takes, the podcast where we make comics trivia rain like dollar bills on Magic Mike night. My name is Mike Thompson and I am joined by my cohost, the mistress of mayhem herself, Jessika Frazer. Jessika: Muahahaha! It is I hello, Mike. Mike: Hello. If you're new to the podcast, we like to look at comic books in ways that are both fun and informative. We want to check out their coolest, weirdest and silliest moments, as well as examine how they've been woven into the larger fabric of pop culture and history. Today, we are traveling through time and talking about the 35 year legacy of one of the strongest cult franchises around, Highlander. But [00:01:00] before we do that, Jessika, what is one cool thing that you've watched or read lately? Jessika: My brother has some copies of classic Peanuts Comics, and it's so much fun. It's good, wholesome, fun. And Snoopy- related media always makes me nostalgic. And Mike you've mentioned before that we're in California in the San Francisco Bay area, but fun fact, I live right near Santa Rosa, which is the home of the Peanuts creator Charles Schultz when he was alive. So there's a museum there and an ice skating rink. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Which is super awesome And Snoopy on ice was huge when I was a kid. And that is definitely the place I also learned to ice skate. By the way, they throw a mean birthday party, just saying, not right this second. Not this second. [00:02:00] We should do it is what I'm saying. Mike: We should do it for ourselves. Jessika: No, that's what I'm saying. Oh, I don't have children. Mike: But we do. Jessika: Yes, they can come with us, like they're invited. Mike: I mean, are they? Jessika: Look at you hesitating. Mike: We took the kids to the Peanuts museum right before the lockdowns happened. that really Jessika: That's really lovely that's nice got to do that. Mike: There’s a lot of cool stuff to do. It's really interactive. It's also just a really fascinating experience because there's so much about the Peanuts during their, what 50 year run give or take. It may not have been that long. It may have been 30 or 40, but it was a long time, and I really dug it, like there was a lot of cool stuff, so yeah . And also the cool thing about Santa Rosa is they've also got all those Snoopy statues all over town too. Jessika: They do. Yeah. All the [00:03:00] Peanuts characters actually. Cause they, the Charlie Browns and the Lucy's now and the Woodstocks. Yeah they're all over the place. But that used to be something fun we could do as a scavenger hunt, and actually that's something you guys could still do even with the lockdown. Cause most of them are outside is just find that list of where all the Snoopy's or whatever character is and go find them all. Cause we did that at one point, like as an adult, obviously. Well, what about you, Mike? Mike: The complete opposite of something wholesome. Jessika: Perfect. Mike: We didn't actually have the kids for a few days. They were with their dad and we couldn't find anything new to watch. So, we wound up bingeing the entire series of Harley Quinn on HBO Max. Jessika: Oh, you’re ahead of me then. Damn you. Mike: This is my third time going through the series. We've just gotten to the point where we turned it on when we want to watch something that's kind of soothing in a way, even though it is not a soothing TV show. But I still am [00:04:00] having these full on belly laughs where I'm breathless at the end and it's just, it's so smart and funny and absolutely filthy with the violence. And then there are these moments of sweetness or genuine reflection, and it's just so damn refreshing. I was never much of a Harley fan, but this show and then the Birds of Prey movie really made me fall in love with that character. Also side note, Michael Ironside who played General Katana and Highlander II. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: He shows up in Harley Quinn doing the voice of Darkseid, which is a character he's been voicing since the nineties when he first started doing it for the Superman animated series. Jessika: Oh, damn. Mike: So, just a little bit of symmetry there. Mike: All right. So before we begin, I have to say that this episode wound up being a rabbit hole full of other rabbit holes that I kept going down. So, I want to give a little credit where it's due for a ton of my research. I really wound up leaning on two books: John Mosby's Fearful Symmetry [00:05:00]; and A Kind of Magic: The Making of Highlander by Jonathan Melville. Likewise, there's a YouTube series called Highlander heart hosted by Grant Kempster and Joe Dilworthand, and an associated Facebook community with the same name that were just invaluable for my crash course. And finally, I want to give special, thanks to Clinton Rawls, who runs Comics Royale, and Matt Kelly for taking the time to chat with me because they didn't have to, and they provided me with some really useful information for this episode. Jessika: Yeah, I'm super excited about what lies in store. What's really funny is I've actually, I feel like a kid before it test. Mike: Right? Jessika: like I'm a little nervous because I've been cramming so hard for this Mike: We both have. Jessika: No, you, especially you, especially like you should be much more nervous than me, Mike. No, I’m just kidding, please don't take that on. Oh, but yeah, no I'm super excited and really ready to talk about all of this stuff and learn more because I've just been consuming the media and the [00:06:00] comic books. But, you’re going to give me some back knowledge that's gonna blow my brain and I'm excited. Mike: Oh, well, I'll try to live up to that high expectation. Let's assume that you didn't know what the topic of this episode was. And if someone asked you what cult property from the 1980s. Spawned five movies, two TV series, a Saturday morning cartoon, an anime film, several video games, multiple tabletop games, audio plays, roughly a dozen novels, and four okay, technically six different comic books. What would your first answer be? Jessika: Oh, goodness. What's funny is probably not Highlander. I'd probably I would say like Batman, honestly, Mike: Yeah I would've gone with something along the lines of G.I. Joe. Jessika: Oh, yeah. Mike: Or some weird Saturday morning cartoon, something like that. I never would have guessed Highlander. I never would have assumed that. but it's just, it's really surprising to see how [00:07:00] much has been generated out of this initial movie. Were you fan of the movies or the show before we started bingeing everything for this episode? Jessika: So I was actually a fan of the show via my dad who had it on hadn't watched the films before, because I was born in 1986 fun fact. Mike: Right. Jessika: I was born when this thing was sent into the world. We both were at the same time, apparently. I didn't have that exact experience of growing up watching it, but he definitely had the TV show on in the nineties Mike: Okay. Jessika: So that was what I was familiar with and I loved it and I would run around chopping things; I'd be at work, I was actually like when I got older I'd be like, there can only be one, and I’d like have to like swipe at someone. Mike: It’s such an iconic line. Jessika: iIt is! it transcends. Absolutely. Mike: Yeah. I was pretty young when the movie came out and the show was how I became aware of it. And then when the show was airing, I was in high school. And then I became [00:08:00] aware that there was a movie that had inspired it. And so I was able to rent that when I was old enough to be trusted, to go rent movies on my own by my parents. Back when we couldn’t stream everything. Jessika: Oh my gosh. Mike: And there were rewind fees, Jessika: Oh, my gosh. Be kind rewind. Mike: Speaking of things from the eighties: it’s funny we'll talk about it later on, but the show really brought in, I think a lot of people that otherwise wouldn't have been fans. Before we start talking about the comic books, I really want to take a few minutes to talk about all the media and content that spun out of Highlander because it's a lot. And it was honestly in a couple of cases, really surprising. I didn't know about half of this stuff before I began researching for the episode, and then. Like I said, it was just constant rabbit holes that kept on leading me down more and more research paths. And it was really fun. But I want to talk about all this now. Jessika: Perfect. This is exactly what we're here for, and I think that people want to hear it too. [00:09:00] Mike: I hope so. Okay. So why don't you summarize Highlander? If you had to give an elevator pitch, Jessika: The film follows the past and present of Connor MacLeod, an immortal who is just one of many vying to be the sole victor in an age old battle, where in the end, there can only be one. Like very simply a lot more to it, but like how much of an elevator pitch. Mike: I think that's pretty simple. It's about an immortal who basically keeps on fighting his way through history and there's these really wonderful catch phrases that get us hooked. The movies got actually a really interesting origin story of its own. It was written by this guy named Gregory Widen when he was in his early twenties. That was when he wrote the initial screenplay. But he had already had a really interesting life up until then. He was one of the youngest paramedics in Laguna Beach at that point in [00:10:00] time. And then he went on to become a firefighter while he was still a teenager. By 1981, he'd also worked as a DJ and a broadcast engineer. And then he signed up for a screenwriting course at UCLA and he wrote this feature length script called Shadow Clan. And it would go through a number of changes before it became Highlander. But the core theme of an immortal warrior named Connor MacLeod wandering across the centuries is there. He wound up getting introduced to producers Bill Panzer, and Peter Davis who decided to option the film. And then they hired the screenwriters, Larry Ferguson and Peter Bellwood to rework the script into what we eventually had wind up in theaters. And once the movie was green-lit, they brought in Russell Mulcahey to direct it. And I vaguely knew that Mulcahey had been doing music videos before this, for the most part, he had one other cult movie ahead of time. It was a horror movie, I think, called Razorback. But I didn't realize which music videos he'd been making until I started doing all [00:11:00] this research. So I'm going to give you a small sampling and you're going to tell me if you've heard of these. Jessika: Okay. Sure sure sure. Mike: Okay. The Vapors “Turning Japanese”. Jessika: Uh, yeah. Mike: Yeah, okay. The Buggles “Video Killed the Radio Star”. Jessika: Wow. Yes. Mike: Duran Duran Duran’s “Rio”. Jessika: Wow. Mike: And Elton John's “I'm Still Standing”. Jessika: Yeahwow. That's actually a variety of characters. Mike: Right? But also those all really iconic music videos. Like not only songs, but music, videos cause those were all in the very early days. And the dude's entire portfolio is just iconic. If you think about the music videos that really defined the genre Jessika: Yeah, sometimes you just got it, I guess. Huh? Mike: He has a lot of those music video elements. A lot of times in the movie, it feels like a music video, like when Brenda's being chased down the hall by the Kurgan and it's got all that dramatic lighting, or that opening shot where they're in the [00:12:00] wrestling match and you see the camera flying through everything. Jessika: Yes! Mike: That was wild. That was really unusual to see camera work like that back then. The movie was distributed by 20th century Fox. And I think at this point, We'd be more surprised of 20th century Fox did a good job of marketing weird and cool, because they really botched it. They wound up forcing cuts to the movie that created really weird plot holes because they didn't feel that audiences needed it or what would understand it, and they wanted to make it simpler, but it really made things more confusing. European audiences on the other hand, really embraced the film because they got a much better version. So case in point, I'm going to show you the two main posters for it. This is the American poster for the movie. Jessika: Mmhmm. Oh, wow, he’s scary. Wow wow wow, okay. Before I even say any of the words, what you first see is Connor [00:13:00] MacLeod, but it's this awful grainy picture of him. He looks like there's something wrong with his face, which he shouldn't necessarily. And he looks like he's about to murder someone. He's like glaring off into the distance. And at the top it says, Oh, it's in black and white, by the way. at the top it says, He fought his first battle on the Scottish Highlands in 1536, he will fight his greatest battle on the streets of New York city in 1986. His name is Connor MacLeod. He is immortal Highlander! Credits at the bottom, rated R, absolutely rated R. Mike: Also, I feel like featuring original songs by Queen does not get the billing that it should. Jessika: I agree. I jammed my way through that film and this just the whole series, [00:14:00] actually the whole franchise I jammed my way through. Mike: Yeah. And if you listen to the kind of Magic album that is basically the unofficial soundtrack to the movie, and it's so good I don't know how they got those perpetual rights to Princes of the Universe, did. Every time I hear that song, I get a little thrill up my spine. All right. So here's the poster though for the European release. Jessika: All right. So, Ooh, this is totally different. This is Whoa. This is way more exciting. Okay. First of all, it's full Color, my friends, right in the middle in red it says Highlander right under it “There can only be one” in yellow. Oh it's amazing. There's a little sticker at the bottom that says featuring original songs by queen. Look it, trying to sell it, I love it. And then there's Connor MacLeod in the center of the screen [00:15:00] dramatically head back eyes closed screaming his sword thrusts forward and behind him is the Kurgan, oh my gosh so good. It's so - Oh, and a backdrop of New York city. All in lights. It's beautiful. Mike: Yeah. It’s one of those things where basically, that documentary that we watched seduced by Argentina, they talk about that where they're just like 20th century Fox fucked us. Jessika: And I didn't realize how much until, because I did watch that as well. And I'm like how bad could it be? But I that's pretty bad. It's a pretty big difference. It's like watching, that'd be like going, expecting to see like psycho or something. Mike: Honestly, I keep on thinking of Firefly and Fox and how they just totally botched the marketing for that show and then the release, and issues with Joss Wheden aside. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: It’s one of those [00:16:00] things where again, it's a really beloved cult property with a really devoted fan base, even, 5 years after it was released, shit, almost 20. Jessika: And I do love Firefly, again, Whedon aside. Mike: I do too. Jessika: And it makes me a little sad think about it because it had so much potential. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Oh, it's so rough. It's rough to see. Mike: Yeah. What were your overall thoughts on the movie now that you've seen it because you hadn't seen it before this, correct? Jessika: No. I had only seen the TV show and probably rightfully so, because that was much less violent. I mean, much less graphically violent. They were still beheading motherfucker every episode, but, versus the film, which is like blood and like half a head and wow, there, it goes the head. But I actually really liked the movie. It was adventurous, it was thrilling and told a fairly cohesive and interesting storyline which unfortunately had an ending. But it still took us on an emotional journey. [00:17:00] Mike: Yeah, and I feel the same way. Jessika:: And how all the camp that I love from the 1980s and the special effects are just chefs, kiss love it. Mike: There is something so wonderful about the special effects from the 1980s, because they're so earnest all the time. And at the same time they look so cheesy by comparison now. Jessika: But you can tell they were trying so hard. It's almost like a little kid who's just learning to finger paint and they walk up and they're like, I did this thing. It's so good. You're like, it is really good. It's really good for where you're at. Mike: Yeah, exactly. Highlander is very much a quintessential eighties film to me, and there's both that nostalgia factor, but also it's a pretty tight little film. It doesn't really try to do anything too grandiose or too world-building because I don't think they expected to really make the sequels that they wound up doing. Which speaking of which we should discuss the sequels. [00:18:00] Mike: Like, I feel like you can’t discussion without talking about the sequels. And honestly the first time I ever heard of Highlander as a brand really was when I was visiting family in Texas And we were watching a Siskel & Ebert episode where they were thrashing Highlander II. Jessika: Dude, Siskel and Ebert I'm sure hated this. This does not surprise me in the least. Mike: I don't remember much about it, I just remember being like, oh Sean Connery's in a movie, well that's cool. Because my parents had raised me on all of the Sean Connery James Bond movies. Jessika: Yeah casting, come on. Why? Why? They had a French dude playing a Scottish guy and a Scottish guy playing a Spanish Egyptian guy. It's. Mike: I believe label was a Hispaniola Egyptian. They kinda darkened up Sean Connery a little bit too. I'm not sure. Jessika: It felt that way. I was just hoping he had just been under the tanning beds, but no, I think you're right. [00:19:00] Mike: Highlander II was definitely the most infamous of the sequels. And I mean a huge part of that is because it had such a batshit production and there’d been so many different versions of it. It was so bad that Russell Mulcahey reportedly walked out of the film premiere after only 15 minutes. There's this great documentary that you and I both watched on YouTube, it's split up into a bunch parts, but it was a documentary they made for the special edition of Highlander II. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: It was the third release of the movie that they put out because the first one was basically the bonding company for the films. Investors took over the production and assembly of the movie due to the fact that Argentina, where they were filming. And they had gone to Argentina because a, it was gorgeous, but B because it was supposedly going to be a third of the cost Jessika: Yeah. Mike: To make a movie there than it would elsewhere. Argentina’s economy collapsed and went through hyperinflation. And as a result, everything just went haywire. But they went back years later and they not only recut the [00:20:00] movie, but they refilled or added in certain scenes I think four or five years later. And then on top of that, they did the special edition a few years after that, where they redid the special effects. And I don't know it's kind of funny because it's not a bad movie now. It's not terrible. I feel it's an enjoyable film in its own way. But it's also funny where you watch that documentary and they're talking about the stuff that they're so proud of. Russell Mulcahey was talking about how proud he was of that love scene. I'm using this in quotes, love scene between Virginia Madsen and and Christopher Lambert where they just decided to do it up against the wall of an alley? Jessika: That’s always an interesting choice to me. Like you really cannot wait. Mike: Yeah. And then he was like, I thought that was a really hot scene. And I got to sit there and I'm like, I don't, I can't view this through the lens of, a 20 something guy in the 1990s. I don't know what my interpretation of it would have been then, [00:21:00] but watching it now watching it for the first time when I was in my twenties and the, in the early aughts, I just was like, this is weird and sorta dumb. And also they don't really have a lot of chemistry, but okay. Jessika: Yeah, it just kind of happens. They're just like, Oh, here you are. Mike: Yeah Right I don't know. At the same time it was cool to see they did all those really practical, special effects where they actually had them whipping around on the wires on like the weird flying skateboards and stuff. I thought that was cool. Jessika: I thought that was neat too. And how he was like, yeah, I actually got on top of the elevator and he was excited. Now he got on top of the elevator. Mike: And then they basically just dropped it down, like that's wild. So how about Highlander three? Jessika: Ahhh… Mike: Yeah, that’s kinda where I am Jessika: It’s very forgettable in my book. Mike: I feel like you could wipe it from the timeline and no one would care. Really, it felt like a retread of the first movie, but with the shittier villain in a way less interesting love story. honestly, it was a bummer because Mario [00:22:00] Van Peebles, the guy who plays that the illusionist I can't even remember his name. It was that forgettable. Jessika: Yeah, no, I can't either. Mike: Mario van Peebles is a really good actor and he's done a lot of really cool stuff. And it just, it felt like he was the NutraSweet version of the Kurgan Jessika: I like that. Yes. Yes. Mike: All of the mustache twirling, none of the substance. Jessika: It leaves a little bit of a weird taste in your mouth. Mike: Right. Splenda Kurgan! Moving on Highlander, Endgame. Jessika: What I do like about this film is that in both the TV series, as well as the film, there is the actual crossover. Connor shows up in Duncan's world and Duncan shows up in Connor's world and there is that continuity, which is good. And I do appreciate that because, before I got into this, I assumed that the character was interchangeable and we were just seeing different actors James [00:23:00] Bond situation. And when I went back and realized like, Oh no, he's his own character, they're blah, you know. Mike: I dunno I saw this in theaters I love the show and I appreciated that it felt like an attempt to merge the movies in the series and of the movies, I feel like this actually has the strongest action scenes. There's that bit where Adrian Paul faces off against Donnie Yen. And I was like, that's gotta be really cool to be able to sit there and show your kids much later in life: hey, I got to do a martial arts scene with Donnie Yen and he didn't kill me in the movie. that's pretty dope. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: Again, it felt underwhelming. It just wasn't all that interesting. And also I spent years being mad at that movie because the trailer brought me into the theater expecting something way different than what we were going to get Jessika: Okay. And I don't know that I saw the trailer. Mike: It has, it has a bunch of scenes with Magic where Connor and Duncan jumped through a portal [00:24:00]. Jessika: What? Mike: And a sword gets thrown at Jacob Kell and he catches it midair. And then he does something else where he's holding a sphere where you see Connor's face screaming and then it shatters. Jessika: What’s with all this weird, extra scene stuff in these trailers. I don't understand. Mike: Yeah, it turns out that this hasn't, this has never really been officially confirmed, but reading between the lines yeah, it’s been confirmed. They basically filmed extra scenes just to make it more appealing for people. So they would show up to the theaters. Like they filmed scenes, effectively they filmed scenes just for the trailer the director when he was asked about it in Fearful Symmetry. He basically said, yeah, I know there was some stuff that they filmed for marketing afterwards, and I wasn't involved with that. And then I think it was Peter Davis that was asked about this for the book. And he basically said, Oh, this is a really standard practice. People, or accompanies [00:25:00] film stuff for for marketing purposes all the time. And that's where he left it. Jessika: Oh, okay. to know. Mike: I was really grumpy about that, but that said I've softened a little since then. Do we even want to talk about the Source? Cause I feel like that's something that we shouldn't talk about in polite company. Jessika: No pass. Mike: Okay. Jessika: It happened? Mike: It happened, it was a thing that happened that was going to be a trilogy. They were planning to make that into a trilogy of movies. Jessika: Ohh rough times. Mike: Oh it's real bad. I don't think you were able to watch this, but Highlander, the search for vengeance. It's the anime. Jessika: No, I couldn't find it. Mike: Yeah. It's not available for streaming and it really it's really a bummer because it's actually pretty good. I'm not quite sure how to qualify it because it's not a live action movie and it doesn't star Duncan or Connor, but it's a full length anime. It's a full length movie in its own right. It focuses on Colin MacLeod who he’s [00:26:00] an immortal, who's technically part of the MacLeod clan. He's born as a Roman Britain and then he's adopted into the MacLeod clan after he fights alongside them later on. They keep on doing this. They keep on going back to dystopian SciFutures, which I kinda like, Jessika: I love, bless their little hearts. Mike: Yeah. A lot of the story actually takes place in this post-apocalyptic 22nd century, New York. And I haven't seen this in about a decade because it's not available on streaming. I don't have the DVD anymore. I really should pick it up before it goes out of print. But the movie fucking slaps. It was directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri, he was really big in the nineties. He did Ninja Scroll and Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust. He's known for really cool looking movies that are also really violent at the same time. Like you look at his characters and you're like, Oh yeah, no, they all look interchangeable because they're also similar one movie to another, Jessika: Oh, I see. Mike: But they're really cool. And the movie was written by David Abramowitz, who was the head writer [00:27:00] for the TV show. So it felt like a pretty legit Highlander story. Honestly, if we had to talk about this and ask which of these movies or the sequels were our favorites, I would probably say the Search for Vengeance. Because I loved it so much, but since that wasn't a theatrical release, we'll exclude that and you didn't get to watch it. Of the sequels, which did you enjoy most? Jessika: Mike, why don’t you go first. Mike: Okay. I'm a little torn, I guess I enjoyed Endgame mainly because it feels like part of he in quotes, real Highlander story, I guess it's the least terrible of the sequels. And it brought in my favorite characters. The final version of Highlander II, is I don't know. I don't hate it. It honestly feels like a cool dystopian cyberpunk story with some bizarre Highlander lore shoehorned in, but at the same time, it's not the worst thing I've ever watched. How about you? Jessika: Funny [00:28:00] enough, I was going to say Highlander II, but maybe just a bit more so if it were its own standalone movie and not try to be a part of the Highlander franchise. The idea of the shield is super interesting and I think they could have elaborated more on the lead-up and the resolution of that issue rather than having to also make it about the Immortals in their forever game. Mike: Yeah, I agree. How do you feel about moving onto the TV series? Jessika: Oh, I am pro. Mike: Okay. I personally feel like this is the property that sucks all the air out of the room when you're talking about Highlander. Jessika: Oh no. Mike: Yeah, I mentioned that this is how I really got introduced to the brand. I started watching it in high school, around season three, which was when it was really starting to get good. The first two seasons I feel were kind of when they were ironing out all the rough spots. But I wound up watching it through the end. So if you're listening to this podcast and you have never seen the [00:29:00] show Highlander, the series ran for six seasons, which is a good length of time for any TV show. And it followed the adventures of Duncan, who was another member of the MacLeod clan. He was a distant cousin of Connor. And the show bounced between Seacouver, which is a fictionalized version of Vancouver in Paris. And it basically retcon things so that the original movie didn't end with The Quickening, but that the battle between the Kurgan and Connor was it's implied, it was the start of The Gathering. That's my interpretation of it. Jessika: That was what I got too. Mike: Yeah. And Christopher Lambert, he shows up in the pilot to help set things up and get them moving. But I think that's the only time we ever really seen him on the show. Jessika: Correct. He's really just an intro. He's in that first episode only. Mike: You have rewatched it as a have I . We haven't watched the entire series all the way through, but we've watched a lot of episodes. Jessika: Correct. Mike: How do you feel [00:30:00] it measures up today? compared to that nostalgic view that we had before, Jessika: I had a lot of fun watching it, actually. definitely super cheesy. I don't love all of the characters I watched a lot of the first season, then I bounced around I think I did the top, like 25 on a list that you sent me. But Duncan’s just so codependent sometimes with his characters and it's like the one time the Tessa goes on a hike by herself, she gets kidnapped by an, a mortal and it’s like, oh my God, she can't even go on a fucking hike, are you joking me? And the one time he goes to the store by himself, he gets kidnapped and it's like, oh, come the fuck on you guys. Mike: Yeah, I feel like it generally holds up pretty well. It's a little uneven, but when it hits , it really hits. And it's a lot of fun. And considering that it was a relatively low budget show on basic cable in the early to mid-nineties, there's a lot of stuff that has aged way worse. [00:31:00] Jessika:: Absolutely. It exceeded my expectations on the rewatch, for sure. Mike: Yeah, and I have to say that one really cool thing about Highlander is it's got a really large female fan base. And I suspect that the show is really responsible for that. Jessika: I would agree. There's a few reasons. Mike: Are six of those reasons. Duncan's abs? Jessika: Like 10 of those reasons are all the times he gets surprised in a bathtub. I know I messaged you while I was watching them, because I was like Duncan got surprised in a bathtub again. Mike: I don't remember which episode it was, but there's one where he is surprised while he's in a bathrobe and he's got, it's not even tighty whities, it’s like a bikini brief, and watching that, I was just sitting there going, thank you for this gift. Thank you. Thank you for this visual treat that you have given us in the middle of my very boring work day. Jessika: It’s [00:32:00] also that there are such a wide variety of female characters. I would say, Iit’s not just the other female person he seeing or whatever, the love interest, there are other female Immortals and they a lot more frequently than they do in the films. I can't recall if they have any female immortals in the films. Mike: They do in Endgame. Jessika: Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I thought there was, there were some in there, but that’s tailing into, I mean yeah. Mike: Yeah. And the Source had them too, but meh. Jessika: Oh yeah. Mike: I will say that the show was pretty good about writing pretty strong female characters, I felt. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: And we'll talk about Amanda in a little bit, but I have to say that I really liked how she was written and how Elizabeth Grayson played her through the original series and then her own afterwards. I dunno. I, what do you think is the sexiest thing about Duncan MacLeod? I'm curious. Jessika: He seems [00:33:00] really like trustworthy, but like and sexy trustworthy. It's like, he'd be the dude. I called if some guys were fucking with me. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: I kept on thinking about how there's this Tumblr post that's been going around the internet, regularly, and it's this discussion about which Disney men women find the sexiest guys always thinks it's Gaston. Jessika: Oh lord, why? Mike: It’s that male power fantasy thing where they're just like, oh no, like he's like really charming. And he's really muscly. And the counterargument from women is usually A no Gaston sucks and B we all like Roger from 101 Dalmatians. Jessika: Oh yeah. Roger. Mike: Which, Roger is very much my personal role model. The dude's a talented musician, he loves animals and he's got that great, a snark where he literally is trolling the villain when she comes to his house with a motherfucking trombone from upstairs [00:34:00]. And I think Duncan's a little like that. Like he's cultured and he's worldly and he's got this wicked sense of humor. And he's also the type of dude who has no problem reciting poetry in public or making his partner breakfast in bed. Jessika: Yeah, absolutely. Mike: So it just it was something that came to mind while I was rewatching all this stuff. Jessika: Yeah. just as like a wholesome guy. Mike: Right? Jessika: He always has good intentions. So that's actually what it feels like. He's always coming at things with good intentions. Mike: Yeah, and he's not perfect, but he's always trying to do the right thing, which I really appreciate. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: What was your favorite episode? Jessika: I went back and forth. I really like the Homeland episode, and like I said, I've really only watched a good chunk of most of season what I would say, and then so kind of bounced around, but season four, episode one. It was really sweet to see [00:35:00] Duncan take the obligatory trip back to his Homeland to pay respects. And it also had a good lesson in not judging a book by its cover as the main character assumes that Duncan is just an ancestry tourist, which was super interesting. She was super hating on it but I was like this is interesting instead of visiting what once was literally his home during formative years. So it was just such a wild thing to see her be like, what are you doing near those graves? And he can't really be like, they were my parents because you cannot even read them. They are so old. Mike: The funny thing is I didn't rewatch that episode during our refresher, but I remember watching that episode when I was about 15 or so. Because it's stuck out to me. Jessika: It’s really good. And of course, Duncan, he always has a good intention. The whole reason he went back was because he figured out that somebody had been [00:36:00] pilfering graves Mike: Yeah. Jessika: And he had to return what was in this grave. Mike: I know he's making the rest of us look bad. So mine is, it's unusual suspects. It's from season six, which I feel is actually pretty weak season overall. And it's this really silly one-off episode, starring Roger Daltry of the Who fame. He plays Hugh Fitzcairn, which is a character that he shows up in plays a couple of times throughout the series. And at this point in time in the story, he was dead, but it's a flashback to the 19 teens or 1920s. 1920s, because it ends with the stock market crash, but it's a take on the British country, house murder, mystery genre, and it's really fun. And it was just this really refreshing moment of levity after what I felt our run of really heavy, and in my opinion, not very good episodes. The end of season five and the beginning of season [00:37:00] six are all about Duncan confronting this demon named Aramon and it's weird and it's not very good. And I really don't enjoy it. This is all my opinion. I'm sure that I'm insulting some Highlander fan who absolutely loves this, but it's a fun episode in its own. And then it's a good moment after one that I didn't really enjoy. And so it's got that extra refreshing bonus. I just, I want to note, it's really funny to me how intertwined Highlander has always been with rock and roll and music in general, because they had Mulcahey who do it, doing all these music videos and stuff. And then they kept on having musicians show up as guest stars. I think it was there's a character named Xavier St. Cloud, I think who was played by one of the guys from, again, I think, Fine Young Cannibals? Jessika: Yeah, I think I actually watched that episode. Mike: I think he was using nerve gas to kill people. Jessika: Yes I did watch that episode. That was a wild one. Yeah. Mike: Yeah, and I think he shows up later on too. [00:38:00] I can't remember but anyway, I really appreciate that they gave Roger Daltry of all people, this character, and he just really had fun with it and they kept bringing him back. Jessika: Yeah. He was a good character every episode he was in my other favorites was the one where they had Mary Shelley and he was in that one too. I believe. Mike: I think so. Yeah. No, it was, the series was really fun, and I liked that we can sit there and pull all these episodes just from memory that we really liked. Jessika: Absolutely. Mike: So season six , they were trying to find a new actress who could carry her own Highlander show. And so they tested out a bunch of different actresses in season six and gave them either really strong guest appearances, or they were basically the main character for episodes. But they wound up not going with any of them. They went with Elizabeth Grayson and gave her the Raven where she reprised her roles Amanda. Did you watch any of that? Did you get a chance to? Jessika: I watched the [00:39:00] first and the last episode of season one, I can only find the first season. Is there only one? Mike: There’s only one season, it didn’t get picked up again. Jessika: Oh then there you go. Then I could have only, I know I was scratching my head. Worried about where else do I find this? Mike: Well, and it ends on a cliff-hanger. Jessika: Yeah, exactly. That's where I was like, let's go. Mike: It ends with Nick becoming immortal. Jessika: Oh, see, I didn't quite finish it. Cause I was hurriedly setting it up in the background. Mike: Yeah it was fine. I thought Elizabeth Grayson is really charming in that role, but at the same time, there wasn't a lot of chemistry initially between Amanda and Nick, I felt at the very beginning. Jessika: I agree, not in the first episode. Mike: By the end of the season, it was there, and I think they were also, as is the case with most shows first seasons, they were trying really hard to figure out what they wanted to do. And so originally it was a cop show with an immortal, which there are certainly worse pitches that I've heard. Jessika: Yeah. No, I agree. Mike: But yeah. sad that it didn't get to go further [00:40:00] Jessika: I'm tempted to go back and watch all of these things. I may have to do a pallet cleanse of something different. I may have to go back to my Marvel watching. Mike: On top of this, there was a Saturday morning cartoon called Highlander, the series or Highlander, the animated series, and it was set in the future. It's in a weird alternate timeline. It stars another MacLeod. It's fine It's a Saturday morning cartoon. I didn't even care enough to really go back and watch it because being that great. They did some interesting stuff. Like they brought Ramirez back if I remember, right. And then they also had a thing where instead of beheading other Immortals, the main character had an ability where he could be voluntarily given their power. Jessika: Oh. Mike: So he had all of their knowledge and power. And again, it’s again in a dystopian future where another immortal has taken over the world. Jessika: Wow. They just love their dystopian future. Mike: They really do. But yeah, it's fine. I think it's streaming on Amazon prime. I was just so focused on everything else that I didn't get a chance to go and [00:41:00] rewatch it. Jessika: Huh, good to know. Mike: We're going to go over all the other various pieces of media real quick. and then we've got one side tangent and then we're going to go through comic books, but. Jessika: I'm so excited. Mike: Books, Highlander wound up having a pretty substantial literary footprint. The original movie had the official novelization. There wasn't really anything after that until the show came out and then the show had 10 novels and an anthology and an official behind the scenes kind of book called the Watchers Guide and it's full of essays and interviews and photos. And since then, there've been a couple of non-fiction books, like Fearful Symmetry, which is about everything Highlander related. And it's almost like a textbook, but it's pretty good. And then there's also A Kind of Magic, which is more focused on making of the original movie. And those are both actually really good. I liked them a lot. They were really easy to read. [00:42:00] There were audio plays, which I keep on forgetting audio plays are a thing at this point, but it's by this company called Big Finish in the UK. They do tie-in audio dramas for television properties. Most famously they do Dr Who. They wound up doing two seasons of audio plays. The first had Adrian Paul reprise his role as Duncan and they take place after the series ended. And then also after the events of Endgame, you can't really find them anymore. Because they just, the license expired so they aren't selling them as far as I'm aware. Jessika: That's super interesting though. Dang. Mike: Yeah. And then the second season focuses on the four horsemen Immortals, remember Jessika: Okay. Mike: Do you remember them? Jessika: I sure do. Mike: Because we were talking about this a little bit, but it was all about Methos and the other guys that he hung out with when he was effectively, a comic book villain who would've if he’d had a mustache to twirl, he would have done it. Jessika: So quickly. Yes. Mike: I thought that was really interesting. There were a couple of people in the Highlander Heart [00:43:00] group who talked about it and they seem to really like them. I can't comment, but it was really neat. Games, this is the one that's really interesting. Highlander actually has been turned into a number of games over the years. There's a couple of tabletop games we're going to breeze through. So there was two different card games in a board game. One of the card games was released back in the nineties, it was a collectible card game. And this was right when Magic: The Gathering was really hot and everybody was trying to get in on that action. And then recently there's a new one called Highlander: The Duel. And it's a deck-building game where you play as Connor or the Kurgan going up against each other. And just a couple of years ago, there was a board game that got kick-started, it was in 2018 and it's this fast paced game for two to six players. The reviews across the web were pretty positive. And again, it's one of those things where it's Immortals battling for that mysterious prize. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: But it's cool. Jessika: Nice. Mike: I’m actually pretty surprised [00:44:00] we never got like a tabletop RPG because they are not precious about applying the license for Highlander to stuff. I'm amazed that nobody went to them and said, Hey, we can make this cool historical RPG where we sorta start having players wake up and then they have flashbacks or whatever. And Jessika: Yeah Oh that would have been cool Yeah Mike: Right? But yeah we never got anything like that which I was really I actually that was the one thing I expected and was surprised to see that we never got. Okay. So we're going to go into mini tangent with video games even though they aren't technically related to comics. The first game for Highlander was a 1986 tie-in release for home computers. It was a really simple fighting title. It wasn't well received. It was apparently pretty bad. So after that the animated series had a tie in called Highlander: Last of the MacLeods. It was released on the Atari Jaguar CD console. If you remember that. Do you remember the Atari Jaguar? Jessika: Oh my god, no. I don't. [00:45:00] Mike: It kinda got lost in the shuffle in the early to mid nineties of all the different consoles that were coming out. But you can find footage of this on YouTube and it's one of those early 3d games. And so it got a lot of praise for his exploration elements and animated video sequences, but it also got a lot of criticism for its controls in combat. After that there was actually going to be an MMO called Highlander, The Gathering. And it was in development by a French studio called Kalisto entertainment, which was honestly weird because Kalisto's catalog up until now were mostly middling single-player games. They'd gotten famous for a series called Nightmare Creatures, but they also did a Fifth Element racing game on PS2 that I had and was actually pretty fun. Anyway, Kalisto went bankrupt before the MMO could come out. Jessika: Oh! Mike: And none of the folks who, yeah, that's video games. Jessika: Fair enough. Mike: So they went bankrupt. The MMO hadn't come out yet. And the folks who wound up with the rights afterwards just decided to kill the project. There's [00:46:00] one other game. That's become the source of a lot of speculation. And it's only known as Highlander: The Game it basically came about because Davis Panzer productions that's, the guys who own the rights to Highlander, and SCI, which was this holding company that owned a bunch of video game groups. They decided to ink a deal, to make a Highlander game. They announced that they basically had done a partnership back in like 2004, 2005. And at the time SCI owned Eidos who was the publisher that gave us Tomb Raider. So they were a pretty big name. The game itself was formally announced by Eidos in 2008 and the development was being handled by another French developer called Widescreen Games. It was going to be an action role-playing game. It would star a new Immortal named Owen MacLeod. The story was going to be written again by David Abramowitz and that added some [00:47:00] serious legitimacy to the project for fans. Actually, why don’t you read the summary. Jessika: Would love to my pleasure. Summary: Owen is captured and enslaved by Romans who force him to compete as a gladiator. During this time, Owen dies only to come back to life. Methos, the oldest living immortal approaches Owen to be his mentor. He teaches Owen about the game and how he and other Immortals can only be slain by beheading. As with other immortal MacLeods Owen is pursued throughout his life by a nemesis. This enemy proves to be extremely powerful. One that Owen is unable to defeat Owen learns of a magical stone, fragments of which are scattered all over the world. Throughout the game, Owen embarks upon a quest to recover these fragments and restore the stone in an attempt to gain the power to overcome his foe. [00:48:00] So dramatic. I love it. Mike: What's Highlander without any drama? But that sounds rad right? Jessika: Oh, it sounds amazing. Mike: The game was announced with a trailer in 2008 that really only showed some of the environments from different eras and then it ended with an image of Owen, but it looked promising. And then there wasn't much else after a couple of years of pretty much nothing but radio silence, Eidos wound up canceling the game and that's where a lot of the speculation has started. There's not a lot of information on Highlander: The Game. I keep waiting for one of those gaming history YouTubers to get ahold of an old dev kit and then do a video with a build, but that hasn't happened yet. So really it's all kind of speculation and wishful thinking about what could have been. And it also seems like some of the details are getting muddied as time goes on. Like Fearful Symmetry talks about the game of it but they [00:49:00] have the segment. And again I want you to read this. Jessika: Sure sure. The gam was so far along in its development stages that segments including backdrops and some of the gameplay options were presented at a Highlander Worldwide event in Los Angeles 2006 and got a very positive reaction. The beautifully rendered backdrops were almost movie quality and included the likes of Pompei, a dark forest in the Highlands, New York, and Japan as gameplay locations and introduced us to another MacLeod, Owen, the same surname but a much earlier vintage. Mike: Yeah, so, I think Mosby is a little overly enthusiastic about all of this, and this is because I think Mosby doesn't have much familiarity with how game development works. It sounds like they had concept art on display and were discussing gameplay [00:50:00] rather than showcasing a build of the game. Concept art and design discussions are things that happen very early in game development. But if you're an outsider, looking in this stuff could easily be interpreted as things being much further along than they were. Jessika: Ah. Mike: Yeah. Now that said, I did work in video games for almost a decade, and a few of my coworkers were actually involved with Highlander the game. Jessika: What? Mike: Every one of them over the years has told me the cancellation was a mercy killing. And again, this is from multiple sources, so I'm not going to name or identify because, I don't want to make things awkward for them. But basically the game was garbage . It's not really surprising to hear cause widescreen never really made a good game, the best reception that any of their titles got was just kinda mixed. But earlier this week, I actually called one of my friends. Who'd been [00:51:00] attached to the project because I wanted to get more information about this game before we recorded. Jessika: We need to get you a new shovel, you dug so deep for this. Mike: With both hands. But, they confirmed what I've been hearing from other people the gameplay itself wasn't just bad. It was boring. The biggest problem was it didn't know what kind of a game it wanted to be. Basically, it was trying to do everything all at once. There were a bunch of traversal elements, which didn't really make a lot of sense. Like why would you climb a Manhattan skyscraper when you're a roided out dude with a sword? Couldn't you just take the elevator? Or I don't know the stairs? There was going to be a bunch of Magic elements in the gameplay, which, isn't really, that's not really a thing in Highlander. There's that fantasy element because we're talking about Immortals who can't die unless you cut off their heads, but generally Magic isn't a part of the accepted Canon. And then the combat, what they were aiming to do something like [00:52:00] God of war, which was really big at the time. But, it wasn't great. My friend also pointed out that Owen looked like a bodybuilder, but his fashion sense was from that industrial metal scene of the late nineties, which neither of those things really fits with the Highlander aesthetic because Adrian Paul was arguably the most in shape of the Highlander actors. But even that was, he was a dude who was like, yeah, I could achieve that if I was really good about my diet and then just worked out aggressively but not like Hugh Jackman does for his Wolverine roles. Jessika: Yeah, yeah. Mike: So I'm going to send you a screenshot of what Owen looked like in the key art the initial title it does. Jessika: What? It looks like Criss Angel. Mike: Right. And they're trying to recreate that iconic pose of The Quickening from the first movie that Connor does at the very end where he's getting raised up and, by the rails of Lightning, or the wires [00:53:00] of lightning. Jessika: Yeah, I get what they were trying to do. Mike: Yeah,I wanna know, what the fuck is up with those weird straps with rings that are going down his legs. Jessika: I don't really know, I was trying to figure that out myself. So just so that everyone can really get the picture that we're getting here and you'll, you might understand why it's taken me so long to describe it. I had to take it all in first. Mike: Yeah, it’s a ride. Jessika: It’s all very monochromatic. And the background is of course, a cut of the statue of Liberty, the backdrop of parts of New York that I'm sure aren't even next to each other, which is always funny. And then what is this? Is this the new guy, or is this supposed to be Duncan? Mike: Yeah, this is the new guy, Jessika: It’s Owen. Mike: Yeah. It's Owen. And then Connor and Duncan were supposed to appear, supposedly. I know Peter Wingfield was recording his lines for Methos. Jessika: Well, if they haven't killed off Methos that makes sense. And I don't know in the series if they have, and maybe Duncan makes [00:54:00] sense if he hasn't died yet, but. Mike: Yeah they can't kill off Methos, Methos was my first gay crush. Jessika: Yeah. He's. Slightly problematic in a couple episodes, but he's a great character overall. But he's very Chriss Angel, he's wearing like a trench coat and that has to be some sort of a lace undershirt or something. Mike: lAnd he’s got like a weird really, like baggy leather pants. Jessika: Yes. Which cannot be comfortable. It's doing this weird pooching thing in the front. Mike: Yeah, and then I think I saw another screenshot where it looks like he's wearing skater shoes tennis shoes as well. Jessika: Oh, Vans Off the Wall, man. Mike: Just once I want to see a MacLeod in the movies with a good fashion sense. Jessika: Yeah, I mentioned that I wanted to cosplay as Duncan, which overall would be a great idea. But then I was looking through his outfits and I'm like, what do I wear? Do I wear this weird white tank top with these like acid wash jeans [00:55:00] and a belt? Or is this the one where I'm wearing like five shirts and a long jacket? Is it that day? Mike: You know who he looks like that guy, Canus. Jessika: Yes! Yes, does. He has the lace shirt and everything. Mike: And the dog collar. Jessika: Oh my god, it was so funny. I told you, I think it was trying to be edgy. Mike: Yeah, and instead it comes off as really queer-coded. Jessika: It really does though. I know, my little queer brain was like bling. Mike: Yeah, It feels like they weren't really getting the essence of what Highlander actually was and who these guys were, because usually the Highlander characters are a little bit more believable and ordinary because that's the whole idea is that they're walking among us and we have no idea unless they tell us. Okay. On top of all this. So remember how I mentioned that trailer was just showcasing environments for the [00:56:00] game. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: There was a reason for that. The reason was that they couldn’t get the character models to work. Jessika: Oh! Mike: So the shot of Owen at the end it's actually just animated key art it's the same it's the same art that you just saw. It's that image. It was just slightly animated. And then they released a couple of screenshots for the game, but apparently they were really heavily photo-shopped well, beyond industry standards. So, it was one of those things where, this was a turd and it needed to be flushed. And it finally did. But Widescreen went under about a year after the game was formally announced. They were working on another big project and apparently that got taken away, and as a result, it just caused the studio to implode. By this point in time Square Enix the guys do all the final fantasy games had bought Eidos and they formally canceled it. We're not sure why exactly, my guess is that it was probably, they just looked at cost it would take to finish this game and then the [00:57:00] amount that it would need to sell in order to be profitable or to meet their sales expectations for it and they just thought it wasn't worth it. But yeah, my friend actually said they were embarrassed to work on it and they would have been fine even if it had been an average game, but it was just bad. Even one of those kind of middling average games, I think that would have been fine, that would have lived up to the Highlander bar. Finally, there's that Highlander game that spark unlimited was working on. I never even heard a whisper about this until. We watched that episode of Highlander Heart focusing on video games, and they brought Craig Allen on to talk about the project. Based on what we know now, I think this might be why Square Enix was holding onto the rights for another year after they shut down Highlander, the game, just because they had this other title, theoretically in development or very early development. Based on the footage that they have, it looks like they had at least done enough development work to put together a vertical slice that they could show for pitch [00:58:00] purposes and at conventions. But I thought it was really promising looking overall. What did you think? Jessika: I thought it did look really interesting the game play itself I did like the idea of having a female Highlander. That being said, they had this whole concept about what Craig Allen was calling beautiful damage. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: And it was this whole thing about, oh it was the first female Highlander and her looks go when she gets damaged, and that's her whole motivation is to stay pretty. And I just, that gave me a huge headache, and it of course was super male-gazey I mean, the game itself seemed that way. Mike: It was weird because I would love to see women and Highlander being built a little bit more like warriors, like a little bit more muscly, which would be in keeping with people who battle across the centuries. [00:59:00] They don't need to be super jacked like the Amazons in Wonder Woman, but making them look like stick thin suicide girl, punk rock chick from the late aughts. Didn't quite gel with me. I understood what he was talking about though, because that was the thing where they were starting to do permanent cosmetic damage in video games. That was something that was really big in the Batman Arkham games. Every time that you got knocked out, you'd come back and you'd have a little bit more of your outfit chipped apart. So, after a while Batman's looking pretty ragged and you realize maybe I'm not as good at this game as I think I am. Jessika: Yeah And the concept itself is really interesting It just I guess was the way it was phrased by this person. And it very much was he was so proud of the fact that it was the first Highlander female in a video game. And then everything was just like so incredibly sexist. I was excited that I wasn't Mike: We're also viewing it, with the lens of 2021 at this point. At that time, [01:00:00] that was before they had relaunched Tomb Raider, in 2013, 2014, where they made her much more realistic. She was still very fit, but she wasn't the Lara Croft that had generated a lot of criticism. I think possibly, I don't know, but I hope that it would have been marketed a bit differently if it had been done today. That said we also don't know exactly what it would look like as a final product. Jessika: Oh absolutely, yeah. Mike: It’s, I agree. It's a little bit problematic viewed through the current lens. At the same time, like a lot of the Highlander properties when it was being done, I think it was kind of just par for the course. Jessika: Yeah, fair enough. But, I did like the idea of having a female Highlander and having her have a whole story regardless of whether it's the first one to be completely [01:01:00] tragedy laden which was the other comment like her experience a ton of loss because she's female and experiences empathy unlike the male characters. Mike: I really didn't like that. Actually. I thought that was. I mean the, the whole thing where they were saying we wanted to focus on lifetimes of tragedy as opposed to enjoying multiple lives. And I'm like, that's the whole purpose of Highlander. That's what I really like is when you sit there and you watch them having fun and doing all this interesting stuff. Jessika: Women aren't allowed to have fun, Mike. Mike: Apparently. Jessika: We just have to have lives full of tragedy and pining for people that we've lost in our lives. Mike: Well, yeah. And we all know that the dudes don't have feelings, so we just, you know, go on and enjoy things. Jessika: That does suck that Hugh they don't give men the ability to have that capacity or give them the the credit to have that capacity. Mike: I will say, I am sorry that this one didn't get further along the development [01:02:00] stages, because it certainly seemed like it had a lot more promise than the title that was canceled right before it. Jessika: Yes, the gameplay itself looked more interesting, it looks more complex, it easier to navigate. What they were showing us was really intense. Mike: I really liked that whole idea of being able to view the environments in two different eras. It reminded me a lot of another Eidos game called legacy of Cain soul river, where there was a spiritual world and then a physical world. And you could flip back and forth between them, which was kind of cool. Jessika: Oh, that’s neat Mike: Yeah. I dug that. I liked the idea of exploring the same environment in two different areas. I thought that was really neat. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: Let's move on to Comics. Jessika: Sounds great. Mike: Okay, so, I’m curious. When do you think that Highlander got big enough to get a comic book? Jessika: I don't know maybe late nineties Mike: 2006. Jessika: Wow [01:03:00] That's later than I had expected. Mike: Yeah. There wasn't a comic adaptation of the movie when it came out, which is weird, there wasn't one here in the States. Highlander Heart, in their YouTube podcast, noted there was a series of five newspaper comic strips that were published as part marketing promotion. The hosts weren't entirely certain if they're exclusive to Europe or not. I don't know. I haven't been able to really find much reference to it. After the movie came out, though there was a two-part comic adaptation in Argentina. It was published through El Tony Todo Color and El Tony Supercolor they were sibling comic anthology magazines, and here's the weird twist. It looks like this was an unlicensed adaptation. Jessika: Mmhm, interesting. Mike: So now we're going to take another side tangent. The important thing that you need to know is that Argentina had just come out of a brutal military dictatorship that came about as part of Operation Condor, which is this horrific program the United States was involved in. And it isn't really taught about in high school history, at least it [01:04:00] wasn't when I was going through high school and I went to a pretty good one. did you ever learn about that? I'm curious. Jessika: No, I did not. Mike: Okay I'm giving you an extremely TLDR read of this, but basically this was a program in the seventies and eighties when the US backed military dictatorships across South America. So our country helped these groups, kidnap, torture, rape murder, thousands of political opponents, like Argentina was especially brutal. There were literally death squads, hunting down political distance across the country. It was a really horrific time. I want you to read this summary of what was going on during that time, actually. Jessika: Give me the really fun stuff I see. Mike: Sorry. Jessika: No you're good. It is estimated that between - 9,000 and 30,000 that's a huge span. Mike: I know, it’s such a margin of error I don't understand. Jessika: Lack of record taking will get you there quick, I think. I'm going to start over, but we’ll leave that in. It is estimated that between [01:05:00] 9,000 and 30,000 people were killed or disappeared, many of whom were impossible to formally report due to the nature of state terrorism. The primary target, like in many other South American countries participating in Operation Condor, were communist guerrillas and sympathizers, but the target of Operation Condor also included students, militants trade, unionists, writers, journalists, I don't love this, artists, and any other citizens suspected of being left-wing activists - well take me the goddamn way away. Mike: Right. Jessika: Including Peronist guerillas. I don't love that. Mike: No it's really awful. And based on that list of targets, it's not surprising that there was a lot of media suppression during this time. Democracy returned to the country in ’83, and there was this explosion of art across the mediums. Argentine Comics [01:06:00] saw this Renaissance period. A lot of them though, weren't really licensed and let's be honest. It's not like there's an internet where IP owners could monitor stuff like this and shut it down when they learned about it. There was also this drastic comics increase in the area due to create or publishing Zines because the eighties was the decade where personal computers suddenly became commonplace and all of a sudden pe

Donnie: Alright was this is going to be an amazing episodes we are going to sit down with mike Michalowicz, We didn’t spend whole lot of time on a back story, we just started jumping in a lot of the philosophy of business, entrepreneurism and there wasn’t any flop, it was a pretty cool conversation, I really enjoyed and I know a lot of you guys asked for me to get him on the show you could more of an intimate conversation with him so I think you are really going to enjoy this one. And this show has been for a quite few episodes now, is brought you by point blank safety services, so Stacy and Mike are doing awesome and amazing things for the freeways and highways and everything they do by protecting the constructions workers, drivers and just keeping everybody safe while helping police officers that we know aren’t just paid enough to do what they do and put their lives on the line every day for us, so they are really helping this police officers not only protecting us in the afterhours but protect their families financially by giving them additional jobs and work they can do on a regular basis, these guys are doing just tremendous work. And I love that they have taken their business success and turned it out over to the nonprofit they started which is called … family fund you know that organization is giving scholarships and is helping out the families of fallen officers, you know it’s really cool to see a company remember really where they came from and really giving back to the community as a whole, so do me a favor guys, go follow them on Facebook, go them out on Instagram, check out their website, send them messages and let them know Donnie sent you , you can find almost everything that they are at either at … family fund or point safety in almost all platforms, say hi to them, I couldn’t do this show without them. So I know a lot of you guys have been harassing me about get mike on the show, so I’m bringing on Mike Michalowicz and this going to be a lot of fun, we already smoke and joke about two Polish guys on a podcast, what could be wrong? But this is going to be interesting, I’m Donnie Boivin this is Donnie’s success champions, mike tell us your story brother, welcome to the show! Mike: Donnie thank you for having me, I’m an author, I’m excited to be here and I’m on a missing to eradicated entrepreneur poverty, there are so many elements I struggle with entrepreneurship and some many fellow entrepreneurs struggle with and my goal is to fix that for all of us. Donnie: I love the whole phrase, entrepreneur poverty, because that was my business for a long time you know. Mike: Well you know what it is, Donnie when you started your business I suspect is the same as I started mine and everyone listening, you star your business and his friends who never own a business, they look at you and they who “oh you started a business, you are millionaire and you sit in the beach and all you do is sit and all you do is drink margaritas” There is this perception as that if you are business owner, you are wealthy and you got all the time in the world, the reality is the opposite, so we have no time, we work our ass off, we sacrifice family, we don’t go on vacations anymore and we make no money! As the general population we are struggling financially, so there is this gap and I called entrepreneurial poverty and so my mission is to resolve that, to make us what we are envisioned to be and when you have wealth and you have time you can be of impact you can serve others, I mean we need to do this. Donnie: No I love this, because Ii think there is one more twist on that whole entrepreneurial jump, because if they don’t think are automatically super wealthy the other questions is, what the hell do you actually do for a living? Laugh Donnie: So you are not only battling how much money you are supposedly making and all this freedom that you have, you know my wife, people still ask her, what does Donnie do? And she’s like, he kind of does this podcast, speaking, I don’t know what he does. Mike: Is fine, so when I sold my first company I go proud, I came home to my dad and said “Dad I sold my business” and told them what happened, and he goes “congratulations, so you are gonna have a really job now” and I’m like what? And he’s “yeah because your security and all that” And I love my parents, they have been extraordinary to me, they love me, both of them tho are in trap in their perception of what success is, get a job, stick to a job for entirety of your life, and I think we are surrounded by that perception, spouse, have other perceptions, as entrepreneur the rule is to break the rules, to challenge industries, to bring in our concepts, is new to everyone, Everyone’s is like “what the F are you doing?” is not comprehensible. Donnie: You know is all interesting, I don’t about you, but when I launched my business, it took me a long time to realize that I spent so long as an employed so when I launched a business I kept constantly trying to almost create a job for myself vs a company and I get lost in the business because it was so hard to make that shift, that is why I tell people that entrepreneurs a made not born because you get punched in the face a lot by life to start figuring things out, was that kind of the same thing to you or you just stepped in gold and riches fell from the sky? Laugh Mike: Oh of course that was exactly my journey! I started the business and people where throwing money at me like what= Is this real? NO! No of course, my first business was in computers system, I was a computer guy and I open the door. Donnie: Where’s your pocket protector I don’t see it? Mike: Yeah well yeah, actually Donnie that’s what happens , I made a few phone calls and said I started a business and the money will flow in, I called a few people and they were “Oh congratulations, but I’m already taking care of” I said what? You know! I’m your friend! “No, I’m taking care of” and at the end of the day of and they didn’t mean, the holy crap moment kicked in, I think, in the beginning stages, and actual motivators for us entrepreneurs is fear, the first few years of my business I was terrified and what that terror does is kept me awake, I would wake up at 4 in the morning and get to work whatever it takes and I worked until midnight and repeat the process all over again because I was scared I was desperate as parent, the challenge tho is that fear in certain point becomes detrimental it gives you energy but it also gives you stress and start breaking you down, so illness kicks in or exhaustion so of course is a flip side, you don’t want to live in fear for the entirety of your life, use it as a spark and the over time you need to convert that idea was to confidence and when I started to get a bit of a routine I started to see some results, I said ok I’m gonna trying and repeat on that and I started to focus on what was working and doing more of what was working. Mike: But of course for none of us, you don’t start a business and the money falls in your laps and if it does, you are lottery winner but is actually a curse because then you believe that you don’t need and effort to make this money and so I think when you see on the cover of Ink Magazine “Oh started a business when she was 23 years old and by 24 is a billionaire” In many cases that becomes detrimental because they don’t understand the real journey of an entrepreneur, which is the struggle on the valley to get to the peaks. Donnie: Yeah Jim Ron when back to as far as motivational speakers go, he’s got a great phrase, he said, the first thing you done when you are handed a million dollars is you mentally have become a millionaire because most people will go through that ride and journey to whatever success they get through and is all those lessons that mold and prepared them for that success and I looked on people that entrepreneur is the new multilevel marketing thing because people go into multilevel marketing or neuro marketing and they are like “Oh Imma be a millionaire tomorrow you know, this I the greatest thing, I can sleep whenever I want t and do all that” so they launch businesses thinking along the same lines and I was just guilty of it, when I launched my business I thought the heaven was going to open up and everybody was going to be “Finally Donnie show up, let’s make a lot of money together” not knowing that you have to learn to run a business before you can try to find any sort of success but is a really interesting twist that how much you have to personally evolve along that journey to become a better version for yourself Mike: Holy F and true, and I love it you called the multilevel marketing but I sort of had a sentiment of it about a year ago kicked in, everything I talked about is entrepreneur and entrepreneurship and all the books I write, everything’s is of the entrepreneur, I’m sort started to becoming convinced that the word entrepreneur I a dastardly term now, I think is actually hurting us because entrepreneur has been equated to hustle and grind and I hate those terms, I hate them, so I understand the sentiment tho, I understand hustle and grind means you gotta make effort, like when I started my businesses fear was my motivator, I had to hustle and grind, here is the problem I think people are interpreting that entrepreneurship is perpetual hustle and grind and ten years into you belter be grinding out, in twenty years you better be grinding harder, you gotta carry this business on your back and this is the antithesis of what entrepreneurship is, the true definition is identifying n opportunity, taking a risk to make it happen and the choreographing all these resources, people, technology and even your clients to make that vision a reality, is not doing the work is the choreographing of other resources. I tell people, I was speaking yesterdays at an event and I’m on a room as an entrepreneur and I say yeah I got a challenge for you, when you are at a dinner party and someone ask you got you do, what do you say? And often is “I’m an entrepreneurs that does X” What about we don’t use the word entrepreneur anymore, and not even business owner because is the same thing, what if you call yourself a shareholder in a business, just by changing that label people are “what the what? Donnie: If somebody hit’s me that I would be like “what?” Mike: You know many people are shareholders, I own some stock, I’m in mutual funds, I’m a shareholder, no do I go to these companies and hustle to make successful? No, Do I do anything in the business? No! I do row when it comes to share holder boats and stuff, I do give I some directions as shareholder but I’m not actively participating in it, when we use the label entrepreneur we are saying that we actively work our asses of inside the business and I think we use the term shareholder is shocks ourselves back to reality, that our mission is to vote maybe through some action but. Donnie: Wait you should make a book out of this. Mike: How should I call it? Donnie: I don’t but something along the lines of start calling yourself a shareholder I think because is a cool philosophy. Mike: Is funny, so I may have a title now called “entrepewhore”. Laugh Mike: My publisher I told him and probably nah I don’t think so but maybe, because I think we bastardize ourselves so much we got to change our label if we change our label we change our behavior, is hard to change our behavior first still holding all labels Donnie: I agree with that, I got a funny book too, it’s called, “that’s not how you journal jackass”, so I got one of those too, is an eBook is free. Here is what I do, when I launched my business I had no idea how to call myself, I really didn’t think I was an entrepreneur because I think in true to my opinion, are the craziest sons of a bitch on the face of the earth because you got to be jut that shit crazy nuts to go launch a business, so I was warping my head around that I more this business owner that wanted to create this one business, this one company , this model and take it through, wasn’t it really worried about even a legacy type thing, I just wanted to get to that freedom state and I never been hung up on titles and such and people keep asking me, what do you put on a business card, my name? I didn’t know what to actually put in there, but it evolved, now is says business owner, I think I out CEO in one point but I’m like, Am I a CEO? I got virtual assistants but I don’t really have employees so am I a really a CEO? You know, but you dance with all this thought processes and I really love this whole idea of your shareholder because it really makes you shock your own system to reinvent how you position yourself in the market place. Mike: You know this plays out to employees too, my company is tiny we have 13 employees, I am number 14, we were a micro business and I used to give my colleagues big titles, so I bring someone on and maybe call them the CFO or the office manager and what I found is this that they just like me started believing the title as like who they are, so I had a person who has not even a degree in accounting, she was part time, but she was handling our number so instead of calling her the internal booking person I said we are going to call you the CFO, she went online and found that instead of paying $30.000 that’s what we were paying for that a typical CFO makes a $125.000 so she came back to me literally and said Mike I’m being so freaking underpay I’m being a CFO for this organization I’m not on 125.000 you are ripping me off, and I’m look whoa is just a title and she is no all CFO’s make that and my response was, you can’t got to Ford or GE and say I want to be your CFO and 125, is just a title , didn’t matter she quit, she couldn’t comprehend that, what I realize is that once we star owning a title that becomes who we are, is not just true for us the entrepreneurs, it’s true for all the humanity, if we call ourselves stupid then you become stupid if you say I’m lazy you will become lazy, if you say I’m driven you will become driven, but you have to keep on repeating enough times until you actually believe it to comply with that title otherwise we can’t own that title. So be very judicious in how you use titles is kind of the lesson here. Donnie: Yeah I love it, so Kevin is known to build all the automation to backing up my stuff, he put under the title of my first email campaign “founding badass of success champions “ and I’m like ok I take that, so if you are going yourself a tittle that you want to step into , you know that you want to own, like “founding badass” or something else along those lines, but is interesting I can see that, going through my career there was part that wanted to be a sales manager and I got sales manager and I’m said “fuck, I don’t want to be a sales manager” so there is a lot to be said in those roles, in corporate America structure formality, there’s a lot of responsibility in owning certain titles. Mike: Totally is, I think as a small business owner I aspired, not anymore, I aspired to be the big company, I wanted to have a billion dollar corporation, I wanted to be the CEO of Amazon after Jeff retire I wanted to take over, so I wanted to make my own version so I said if I want be that I have to act as if, that’s a popular term, act as if, so I’m gonna start using those tittle right now, but in the outside world that’s kinda of a shame, if I call myself the CEO and I walk in with my little company, people are like, who many people report to you? But none is only a couple of virtual people, are you really a CEO? O are you an entrepreneur that’s is starting in bootstrapping, so there is a risk there too, theirs is this disconnect and if we package ourselves in the wrong way is dangerous in fact our business … no titles whatsoever, because I do know that I go into a sales situation, sometimes it helps to say that I’m the owner and sometimes it helps to say that I’m the sales guy and being the owner is actually a detriment so I think a title is just a thing of conversation in what e aspire to have but also have to see the outside perception around titles. Donnie: I got other question because I know my followers have been counting on me and I got a lot of people that followed your book First, it was the first book that I read of yours and horrible book by the way. Laugh Mike: Worst book of all the time, hey at least I got a ranking somehow. Donnie: Hey you put profit in there; at least it has to sell one book. Mike: Right! I should have put an F bomb because that seems to be the popular books now, the subtle art of F’ing and I should put like F profit or something. Donnie: You know I’ve been getting a lot of the guys out of the UK right no on the podcast because they are really trying to make a push, they are calling it “the UK invasion” where a lot of the UK speakers are trying to come to the US and is so funny when they come to the podcast because I cursed a lot but those dudes say cursing to a whole other level. Mike: The brits do? Donnie: Oh my god yeah! And I have to forward warning because there a couple words they throw around like candy and I’m like, ok look, this is a US based primary show, I mean it plays in almost a 100 countries now but you got to be careful with the certain couple of words, the F bomb fine, but there are some other words they can’t just bring to the table! But profit first, that and pumpkin plan I think two of the two books of yours that get thrown around the most, at least on my circles, is profit first the first book out of the collection. Mike: So I’ve written 5 books, technically 6 as profit first has been re-released as revising expanded so that counts too, so I wrote this book of toilet paper entrepreneur. Donnie: Oh I remember that! Mike: Kind of a spit on the face of traditional authorship and it was my angry teenage years but it worked, it worked to put me on the map, at least with the publisher and it built a small … The pumpkin plan was my first kind of mainstream book and profit first was the break through. Donnie: That’s the one that really put you on the map, I’m in forward Texas, you know my hometown and I know there is a little workshop group to get together and discussed that book- Mike: Oh that’s awesome I love to hear- Donnie: And the content and everything is out of that, but I’m curious, when you wrote that book was that philosophy for your business? Or something you were attempting to do and you thought it would be the breakthrough for other people if you took on the same thing. Mike: No, it was purely for me, here’s interesting when you hear the resume of an entrepreneur like me I share the highlights, got a company, sold it, the thick of the story for most entrepreneurs is the struggle, the entrepreneur poverty and I have evaporated all the wealth I’d accumulated in some priors businesses that were dealing with debt, I was able to sell them pay off the debt and make money and never really understood profit, I started this 3rd business that … my resume I evaporated everything I had, lost my house over it, lost possessions, did not loss my family, that’s one thing, they stood by me, went through depression for a couple years, from 2008 to 2010, the highest level was called functional depression, you are a drinker and stuff and during that phase I realized that I fundamentally didn’t know the most basic elements of entrepreneurship, profits is one, I realized all the things I was doing was misunderstood, and profit what I realized is that we have been told profit is the bottom line or were you rent, every book I read is profit comes last, and I realized omg I’ve been putting profit last, I didn’t consider it until once a year I looked at profit and I’m like “Dammit, maybe next year”. Donnie: Wait so your business is supposed to profit? I’m confused by that. Laugh Mike: That’s what my old accountant said,” you don’t want to profit, hey congratulations you got nothing left” And I’m like “what?” Donnie: Hey that’s the whole reason I’m in business. Mike: And that made no sense, and entrepreneurship is not a parent child relationship, I call it BS on that, we often say hey I started a business I gave life to it is my child and one day I will nurture it and it will come back and feed me, no, is more of conjoint twins, as the business goes we go and as we go the business goes so if I’m struggling at home my business is going to struggle and if I’m going struggling on business my home is going to struggle, especially the finances, pour finances are in so last step, so I say I really gotta resolve this and I realize that is human nature when something comes last is insignificant , so profit can’t be last, profit has to be first, and the exclusion of course says, make profit to have it, every time you sell take a predetermined percentage of that money, is profit, hide it away in your business, repeat day in and day out and you will assure profitability. Donnie: Is awesome, is one of those book, at least it was for me when I read through it, it just made sense, because same thing, school hard … somebody could tell me the stove is hot three times and still touch twice to just to make sure. Laugh Donnie: But it’s one of those book that when you read you are like “ok that make sense to me why I don’t do it”? So I started to employing some of the principals of the company and the being typical growing up financially foolish, “oh we are hitting a down turn, let’s just pull form the profit pile we have already put into the business” and you are like ok that’s not the whole principles of the book but it was a fun read, what did the success of that book do for your business, you company, what evolved or changed for you? Mike: That’s an interesting question, there’s a couple of realizations, when the book hit, so it came out 4 years ago and 2 years ago I did the re-release and it hit right away, is funny how ego is, I got like omg all this main stages, Seth Golden move here comes Mike “Polish” Michalowicz. Donnie: Because you got that name that belongs in light. Mike: Right, exactly, when you hit the movie theatre and my name is two lines.. Donnie: Or is turned down on the edged Mike: I think the better one is a limp penis of an A, So first my ego is move over Seth Golden, here comes the new main stager and it was like deadly silence, I’m like for how long? The book is so popular and went on for a year like this and my agent who I spoke to me was “get ready for the pumped up fees” nothing, and so I was like I guess it takes more than just a popular book, and yea about a year ago also did … is not move over Seth Golden but is oh you are speaking Seth Godin is coming after you. So that happened, so I realize is when a book hits it takes time for it to start playing out in other facets which is speaking but I think that satisfies my ego and I love public speaking and is a joy. Donnie: Look, nobody writes a book without waiting a little bit of that ego. Mike: I call it C list celebrity. Donnie: So if there’s another alphabet out there I am in that I alphabet. Mike: I put myself in position C , what’s funny that means that if I walk through an airport none knows who I am, except one person every like 3 or 4 airport checks will say “AAAAA” and you get one fan that comes and say “ARE YOU MIE MICHALOWICZ?” actually one person came up and said “ARE YOU TONY HAWK?” And I’m like fuck no, but somebody will say that, and I’ll be like who is this guy, is very weird. Donnie: You next book you just gotta put your picture on the cover that is all. Mike: I will put a Tony Hawk picture, be my strange brother tony hawk. Is this kind of weirs moments when none knows who I am but one person who just happens and lose their shit but everyone else is confused by and everyone’s like why? Who’s this guy? Is he a doctor? Did he save your life? But the bigger thing is I’m on my mission to eradicated entrepreneurial poverty now we get the metrics in place, and I get emails actually I can see we get two since we started the interview, I get emails in 3-4 5-6 hour now of people saying, because I actually ask people to email me on the book, I say emails if you commit to this and they are coming constantly now and I can see I can measure the changes having in business and that is the greatest joy of my life, If I am ever down, for me is just log in the email now and sit there for an hour and everything is ok Mike, you are not looser. Donnie: I wanted people to hear that last phrase you said, everybody’s chasing something you know and I had a lot of coming even this morning with the couple guys I was talking to, they were liken men I could just have this happen to my life, life would be X, and I keep telling life is never X, life is right now, is that time you need to embrace you don’t need some sort of trigger mechanism to be catapulted to the next version of your life and I love the fact that you were humble enough to say that there are days like, this day sucks, this day is horrible and you gotta go look in the email to make sure life is on the same path and track, because is good for people who aren’t even in the first level on the alphabet list, you know you got the C list rockstar status to hear those kind of things because they are a lot of people, I know fans of the show I know were like “holy cow is Mike Michalowicz, he’s got “Profit First” and this and the other and they put you into rockstar status and often times when people put people on that rockstar status they gave them like the super power feed of strength and everything else, like nothing ever happens to them they are always killing it and crushing it and I really appreciate that humility you speak through. Mike: I want to speak that because I think is so important, I believe when we see someone as in a better position we put them on a pedestal, we look up to them, really that is a form of envy and I think is really damaging to ourselves, if you say “oh this guy is better than me, I wish I liked him” but in the same we are saying “I’m less than” and when we see ourselves as less then we want to disassociate, we actually one to pull someone down, as human nature say, well that person is not observing, Michalowicz they guy that probably got myself in driving, you pull in down, pity is just as damaging, pity is where you see yourself here and then there’s this homeless person in the street and “Thank god is not me” that causes a voidance when we move around them, both are form of dissociation an so I think they are very damaging. I don’t think we should ever use the term look up towards someone or look down to someone, I think we should always say look over, as cheesy as it is I’m big on like totems and this things you can see as the infinity circle and is my reminder that all of us are on the exact same path, no one is front or behind each other, we are on different positions of the path and we have just much to learn from someone who’s in the deepest struggles as someone that we perceived is having the greatest successes, all of them are learning experiences and we can call from each other but if we look up or look down we disassociate, I think we need to say Donnie I look over to you I want to learn from you, tell me your secrets, Mike I look over to you, so I say never look up, never look down. Donnie: I love that, I never heard it put in that perspective but you know Richard Branson when he takes people out to his private island , one of the first things he asked to everybody out there is, teach me something and I’ve always been fascinated by it because you got Richard Branson, one of the wealthiest man in the world , one of the most cool CEO, at least that is the brand he puts in the market place, a whole part of that is true but the fact that everybody comes back from me to the island going “Richard Branson asked me to teach him something” and I’m always curious to say, what could you teach as Richard Branson and I think a lot of those pull some random shit out their ass but “I taught Richard Branson” Really? Really!? Mike: I never heard that story I love it and I think it speaks therefore to great intelligence because I bet you, we all got something to teach as much as he teaches us, I don’t think he is more successful than a brand new startup entrepreneur, by certain definitions, the wealthy accumulated, the exposure he’s gotten, I don’t know and this is no judgment, I don’t know what his family is like , I don’t know what is balance is like, I don’t know his contribution to society is like, I don’t know, I also think that we hold people to a higher celebrity ship when they have broader impact as oppose to deep impact and I think most of us are designed for deep impact, Let me use doctor Oz because that example come to mine, Initially he was a cardiovascular surgeon with very deep impact, he saved some people’s life forever, he gave people not 6 more hours of life but 60 more year of life because of his work, he then made a choice to go broad meaning he went on Oprah he started to talking about health and then the guys is Impacting many people, the difference is , Doctor Oz now has a very broad impact but is very shallow you see him on tv shows and eat your vegetables is the lessons, when we worked as a cardiovascular surgeon, now he’s got a very deep impact, I think is a choice and I don’t think is one is better than the other, the shame is we hold up to celebrity ship people with only broad impact, it’s the famous football player, the famous movie start or the famous author like Malcom Gladwell, someone I exalt but never met Malcom Gladwell he just had an impact in some many people and is a name other people recognize I think is equal regardless of what we do of significance and people that are going for deep impact, I guess the lesson here is don’t aspire to be broad, aspire to be who you are call to be, if it’s deep go deep, if it’s broad is broad if it’s something else do it, just speak truly to yourself, they are all significant. Donnie: Man I love that, is such a powerful message because most people in my belief that have hit a celebrity status they are really good at one thing. It comes down to … marketing, I tell people all the time Tony Robbins, one of the biggest motivational speaker of the world and I ask people all the time and they are like omg is Tony Robins, Tony Robins, he’s done amazing things I’m not knocking down for anything but I ask people all the time, What’s Tony’s job? “Oh he is the CEO of the company blah blah blah” and I mean no he is not, and they look at me like “ what do you mean?” He is the face of the company, Garyvee, he is the face of the company and even Mike Michalowicz a C list celebrity is the face of the company, now all that to say is not meaning they are not making decisions, they are not having vision but they are the PR machine their job is to build brand new awareness for the company is the broad stroke. Mike: Is like a band, the front man is the one who everyone knows and is constantly with the groupies but the drummer and the bassist and the keyboardist who’s behind the curtains sometimes they are the ones collectively that need to make the music and I think that is what this organizations have, I think we can positon ourselves as the spokesperson and we will get all the accolades, I think the day I sort believe in that, over. Donnie: Have you seen bohemian rhapsody yet? The movie? Mike: Yeah. Donnie: I love the whole scene where the lead singer of Queen, can’t remember his name. Mike: Freddie Mercury. Donnie: Yes Freddie Mercury, thank you, that he hits all the fame and he goes out of his own and launches his own band and he’s trying to create the music and it all fails and he goes back to his guys and he goes “they did everything I told them to do” and I’m like that’s it! And he goes “They weren’t pushing back they did everything and the problem is I don’t know how to do all the stuff that you are great that” Mike: I think a great leader recognizes that , as a spokes persons you gotta be careful about being inauthentically humble, I see that too, and is like “oh is not me is not me” and declining as is actually discrediting the people who are fans of you, you can’t do that, the same thing you can’t say “this is all me” because you discrediting the people collectively making the product or the service that you do, so is a fine balance, I also think for the rest of the band, like Freddie mercury was the recognize brand and you have Brian May and then two guys like what was their names? That’s an ego check for them too but they are just as important. Donnie: Even if Freddie would have made it in a solo type carrier thing, even then he still has a band behind him. Mike: Even that is true. Donnie: The craziest thing about this whole ride and journey, I know the good things I’m good at, I’m really good on podcast, really good on interviews, well talking on stages but here is the thing I suck at the accounting side of things, I should read you book again “profit first” maybe probably help me out a little bit, but it’s a lot for entrepreneurs, business owners, whatever screwing tittle you want to give yourself, founding badass, is knowing your lane and knowing what you are good at and finding the right people that geek out on the stuff you suck at, is like I’ve got people that do some video editing for me, they freaking love that stuff, I’ve got people that do automated email for me, the gal who does some of the writing for me I call her a magician every Tim, I don’t know how she takes all the crap I put together spins it up and turns it into a master piece, she’s just got gift and a talent for it, but a lot of that is a humbleness for an individual to go “ok this is my lane, this is what I’m good at, how do I get other people to come along for that ride to pick up the slacks for me”. Mike: There is this thing I call the super hero syndrome when we first start a business we have to do everything, you have to do the accounting, you have to do marketing, there is no one else there, you have to, and we start believing wow I can do anything and then we start superheroing in swiping in when there’s problem oh I will fix this I will fix that, and the trap is, when we bring on employees we actually interning with their progress, they start doing something and we swop in we fix it we resolve, disabling them from doing the work themselves, plus we leave often awaken destruction behind us, entrepreneur like myself are known to fix the 5% of the problem, the big part that is noticeable and 95% like we can skip that and there is this shattered destruction behind us that needs to be swooped and cleaned up, I found that I can’t change my ego, I can’t tell “I’m just going to be mister Mike humble and everything is fine” what I did find is that I can rechannel my ego, I used to be very proud of being the superhero, the savior of my business, and now I use the term supervisionary and what that means to me is that I’m clear of where I want to take this organization but I am also as importantly clear about where my individual colleagues want to go with their lives and then my job is ok “how can I help Amy and Mike and Ron and Kelsey to achieve what their vision is personally and have that aligned the business” and I put more significance on that than being a super hero, now my ego is being filled, hey! I’m doing what I meant to do and the interesting is what I revert to being a super hero because I revert to that often and I say oh I fix this and I swipe in again, I realize that is a step down in where I see myself and put negative context around and I’m less likely to do it, before I thought if I had to remove myself form the business and no longer be the super hero I saw that as a step down so when I reverted back to this super hero role I was stepping up and therefore be stuck in it, so the goal is to put more significant to something else and it will naturally pull us put of doing the stuff that is actually not helping our business. Donnie: Yeah that’s a really interesting thought, I don’t have kids but I will say the next statement with that in front me, but often times, people that went through a rougher childhood, maybe didn’t have all the things they wanted as a kid and by the time they have kids they spoil they hell out of them because then have become success and the kids don’t learn the grind and drive that they learned to get and find the success, they hit the workplace and everything else and they will be a bit lost, entrepreneurs do the same thing with the employees, when you are taking care of the problem you are taking out he learning they need to evolve, I ran into this all the time in the creative side of things and Think this is probably the biggest screw that entrepreneur s have is they have a creative vision of their brand, their image, their everything else and when they try to explain to somebody else that other person doesn’t grasp their visions of what those color schemes or whatever else side of the businesses so they are like “Oh I screw up I will do this myself” Mike: I was talking to this guy Scott Alfred, I actually put him in one of my books, he said an entrepreneur would tell to an employee “hey we need to cook food here, get something that will cook food here” and they come back with sticks and rocks to spark a f ire and we are pissed of Like” Don’t you understand? I wanted a Viking?” and the employee is like “Oh I’m so sorry” but the reality is that we didn’t communicate what we wanted, they did the job, In other times they want the Viking and we just wanted sticks and rocks. So I think first of empowering them to make decision but also giving them the freedom that if they don’t comply to our vision to realize that maybe is not their fault, maybe we didn’t communicated well or maybe their vision for that thing is actually better than ours, maybe sticks and rocks is better, is this clinginess we have to what we have a personal vision or mission, how we see things in our mind and we can get upset when people don’t see what we see but we are often to communicating well at all. Donnie: Well and I would also add in there that I think, I want to speak for myself, there were a lot of times along this journey so far that I wanted somebody to swop in and take care of that problem for me, If this was an issue or problem and I wanted to go like “hey this is now yours” and take it completely of my plate and when it comes back and not what I had in vision and I am like “What the hell -” Mike: “ - Are you an idiot” Donnie: Right! Mike: That is called abdication; so many people think you are doing delegation when they are doing abdication. Donnie: Thank you I just added a whole new word today. Mike: Big word, I wanted to drop it, sort of finding where to use it. Laugh Donnie: You have been waiting the whole episode just to use that one. Mike: So I just thought of blurring it out if you didn’t have a question, but abdication is simply point someone and say you take care of this and that is the entire instruction said, and entrepreneurs are notorious for to scenarios, either micromanagement where is total control, here’s step 1, step 1.a - 1.b, or abdication which is the polar opposite and both of them are extremely ineffective, both of them prohibit growth to the organization. Donnie: So how does an individual doesn’t go to the extreme of both of those and actually find that happy medium combination because I’m guilty of both, Because sometimes I’m like “ok I have to tell them what to do or they are not going to figure it out so let’s roll out the power point and walk you through the 500 steps because I need it to get done” but other times I’m just off it, so how do I find the happy medium between those two? Mike: Is simply, you ask the employee, you say listen I want you to achieve certain results in the organization, I know you want to achieve these results, I will give you information, I need to know form you exactly what is enough information to give you direction or when am I going to the field that is too much, where’s actually hurting your creativity, I need the reverse too, if I’m giving just giving you way too little and you can’t achieve the visions that Ii have I need to know them too, is communication, is asking, shockingly we don’t do that often, is that you sit down the first day of the job and say “your job is to tell me when I’m not telling you what you need to know about me” that doesn’t make sense, is constant communication. Our little company we are going to a company retreat to Nashville Tennessee, literally next week and the whole thing is about communication, we are just going to sit there, have a talk, build a report, we have half day to set and learn from each other’s stories, because I know to grease the wheels of this organization is the communication and trust among each other is the ability of my colleague who I write her paycheck out to come back at me and say Mike you’re being an ass about so and so and not feeling threaten or in risk, that will only happen if we have a true connection beyond functional connection, if we have a human connection, I think there is where the answer comes. Donnie: And I love that, I think some people when they go into business they are looking for the pedestal, they are looking for people to look up to them and be that guy and I think that was a hard lessons for me because I know that was a part of my struggle as well is that I wanted people to seem me in a certain way which put me in this weird situation on how I was dealing with vendors and stuff until one of my mentors and coaches said dude, knock it off, but the whole thing is realizing that you are not superman, you are not creating something that hasn’t been created before, you are just repackaging somebody else’s shit up into a better more usable consumable product and format Donnie: I love the fact you are taking your employees in things like retreats and stuff, is that something you did out of the gate with your company or is that something you evolved into. Mike: Well we got it out the gate but is also something you have evolved into, well we had it out the gate but we’ve also evolved into, like going into Nashville is because we’ve had quarter after quarter of profitability that’s grown and we actually set an account called the retreat account so the firs retreat we went to Starbucks because we couldn’t afford lunch, me and my partner we jut said hey let’s just hang out before we get back to go back to work is something evolves, but what I did, recently I did the 4 week vacation, is something I wrote about in one of my book, so if you are going extract yourself from your business for 4 weeks, full disconnect and the business can grow or operate in your absence, you’ve proven the business can likely run into perpetuity in your absence. Donnie: I think that across the world every entrepreneur that just go and take this big gasp because they know way their business functions if they are gone. Mike: Which is a major problem, if you’re carrying the business on your back, and everyone will take the 4 week vacation or over, when get sick or die, so it’s going to happen, we are going to make it delivered so we are prepared for. The funny thing is that I’ve been presenting this concept around the world, when I was in Europe talking about this, we did this, literally yesterday, I flew back form BMW as there yesterday, all august, Germany shuts down and BMW ain’t going out of business, we need to do this for small businesses and so I went for 4 week vacation last year and when I did is not that business was perfect, I put a lot of structure in place to make it happen but there were some problems, one of the problems I realized is internal communication, I’ve become this choke point, when people have questions they come to me a group of come to me to see what’s Mike’s decision but they weren’t making laterally and internally, well I’m absence they were forced to, but there were some uncomfortable things like this person doesn’t really know the other person should approach them? Even if they went only 14 people, so that’s why we are doing this retreat, is all about just building report, we are going to do some cooking sessions together, we are going to have some wine together, we are just going to talk about our lives together, we are going to talk about our struggles and challenges, just to have that human connection, I really believe it greases the wheels. Donnie: Love it, I don’t why this popped to my head but I have strange question for you, what is your actual business? Mike: I don’t freaking know, laugh, I am a full time author, I write books, that’s what I do, so people think you can’t make any money out it, which is total bull, you can become very wealthy as an author if you do it right, the lessons here is I interviewed Tim Ferris on how to be an author a long time ago, he isn’t talking to me now, and he said of course you can make money, before that I was talking to people about being an author, and they said you make no money is horrible, and I said what has been your experience? I’ve never written a book, I don’t know, don’t trust people that haven’t done it, trust people who’ve done it, people that have failed learn why the fail and then learn and then I have talked to people who have been successful and find out the difference and go for the ones who are successful, I have a license: profit first, the pumpkin plan, clockwork, I have a new book coming out, to other companies and they pay me override of revenue so I have a constant revenue stream from all these different companies. Donnie: What do you mean by license, like program? Mike: Yes the program is called run like clockwork that teaches the clockwork system, they pay me a license in fee in front and 15% override … processionals for accountants. Donnie: You have accountants around the world. Mike: Yes over 350 and now and I license this organization but also in the case In that case I took an equity interest but the other two companies I don’t have any equity just the license in fee they pay me. So one of those things as people run their journey, one of the things I had to do was to turn to the people that has done it before , and realize somebody else had cut the trail, go learn from them and get advice from them along the way. Donnie: I gotta tell you man, this has been one hell of a ride I had no Idea about what you and I we were going to get into tonight and actually it has been kind of fun. Mike: Yeah on the recap my head says oh we talk about entreprewhore, you learned a new word abdicated. Donnie: Dude, don’t do the spelling bee on me, if you ask me to spell abdicate. Mike: I don’t know how to spell it I think it starts with an A Donnie: We talked about C level celebrities in there somewhere I am sure. Laugh Donnie: So that’s awesome, but dude I really appreciate the job done here, here’s how I like to wrap up every show and I do stump some people over this so get ready… Mike: 17 INCHES. Laugh Mike: Take it right? What’s the question? Laugh Donnie: I don’t want ask what 17 inches is! Now if you were going to leave the champions who listen to this show, people from all over the world, business owners, entrepreneurs, people who are trying to make the next movement in their life, if you were going to leave them with a quote a phrase a mantra or a saying, something they can take with them on their journey, especially when they are stack up against it and goring through what would be that quote or phrase you would say? Mike: So, I have it above my desk, Oscar Wilde says: Be yourself, everybody else is already taken. Donnie: Oh I love it is one of my favorite quotes from all time, didn’t know it came from Oscar Wilde, I saw it on a meme on Instagram and I thought “Oooh is brilliant”. Mike: Actually I went to Ireland, not specifically for this, but visited statue from him, visited his own home. Donnie: Where ahead in Ireland? because we were just there last year. Mike: Outside Dublin Donnie: Oh no kidding, Dublin was my least favorite city. Mike: Did you see the “Stiletto in the ghetto” the big spike in the middle of the city? Donnie: No we didn’t see that. Mike: I would say it was my least favorite too because is like any other metropolis. Donnie: That’s what my wife and I kept saying, is that if you go to Ireland go to Dublin and I would not knock in Ireland would no knock in Dublin by any means. Mike: No Omg. Donnie: Is like any other big city. Mike: The people in Ireland I would argue are the nicest people, India is number 2 but Ireland is number 1. Donnie: Did you do the breakfast thing? Mike: Yeah! Donnie: Dude I wanna tell you the nicest people, they were so genuine, and the breakfasts were insane. Mike: Insane, blood pudding. Donnie: And the two different styles and all that, so awesome, but look man I really appreciate what you doing, thanks for joining out and looking forward to many big things coming. Mike: Thank you! END OF INTERVIEW Donnie: Wow, what a fun episode, got to tell you, when you see one of these guys and hit some of the celebrity status and maintain this cool level of humility like Mike did all the way through this is just a fun thing to see is a great conversation you are part of. If you like those rise together authentic style conversations o a regular basis you really need to come and hang out with us in our Facebook group “success champions”, daily we are putting cool inspirational stuff or having awesome stories and we helping other rose and go together, so come hang out with us, just go to Facebook type In “success champions” look forward in groups join up and come tell us hi, we will be glad to have you there, if you got any value of this show whatsoever do me a favor, rate it, review it, share it with at least one fiend that would get value out of it, it would mean everything to me to get more people sharing and listening to these stories and ratings and reviews mean everything, so wherever you are listening this podcast, leave a rating leave a review, share it with a friend I really appreciate you guys, thank you for being a champion, thank you listening this show, keep on rolling shit up and keep going baby! 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Donnie: Alright was this is going to be an amazing episodes we are going to sit down with mike Michalowicz, We didn’t spend whole lot of time on a back story, we just started jumping in a lot of the philosophy of business, entrepreneurism and there wasn’t any flop, it was a pretty cool conversation, I really enjoyed and I know a lot of you guys asked for me to get him on the show you could more of an intimate conversation with him so I think you are really going to enjoy this one. And this show has been for a quite few episodes now, is brought you by point blank safety services, so Stacy and Mike are doing awesome and amazing things for the freeways and highways and everything they do by protecting the constructions workers, drivers and just keeping everybody safe while helping police officers that we know aren’t just paid enough to do what they do and put their lives on the line every day for us, so they are really helping this police officers not only protecting us in the afterhours but protect their families financially by giving them additional jobs and work they can do on a regular basis, these guys are doing just tremendous work. And I love that they have taken their business success and turned it out over to the nonprofit they started which is called … family fund you know that organization is giving scholarships and is helping out the families of fallen officers, you know it’s really cool to see a company remember really where they came from and really giving back to the community as a whole, so do me a favor guys, go follow them on Facebook, go them out on Instagram, check out their website, send them messages and let them know Donnie sent you , you can find almost everything that they are at either at … family fund or point safety in almost all platforms, say hi to them, I couldn’t do this show without them. So I know a lot of you guys have been harassing me about get mike on the show, so I’m bringing on Mike Michalowicz and this going to be a lot of fun, we already smoke and joke about two Polish guys on a podcast, what could be wrong? But this is going to be interesting, I’m Donnie Boivin this is Donnie’s success champions, mike tell us your story brother, welcome to the show! Mike: Donnie thank you for having me, I’m an author, I’m excited to be here and I’m on a missing to eradicated entrepreneur poverty, there are so many elements I struggle with entrepreneurship and some many fellow entrepreneurs struggle with and my goal is to fix that for all of us. Donnie: I love the whole phrase, entrepreneur poverty, because that was my business for a long time you know. Mike: Well you know what it is, Donnie when you started your business I suspect is the same as I started mine and everyone listening, you star your business and his friends who never own a business, they look at you and they who “oh you started a business, you are millionaire and you sit in the beach and all you do is sit and all you do is drink margaritas” There is this perception as that if you are business owner, you are wealthy and you got all the time in the world, the reality is the opposite, so we have no time, we work our ass off, we sacrifice family, we don’t go on vacations anymore and we make no money! As the general population we are struggling financially, so there is this gap and I called entrepreneurial poverty and so my mission is to resolve that, to make us what we are envisioned to be and when you have wealth and you have time you can be of impact you can serve others, I mean we need to do this. Donnie: No I love this, because Ii think there is one more twist on that whole entrepreneurial jump, because if they don’t think are automatically super wealthy the other questions is, what the hell do you actually do for a living? Laugh Donnie: So you are not only battling how much money you are supposedly making and all this freedom that you have, you know my wife, people still ask her, what does Donnie do? And she’s like, he kind of does this podcast, speaking, I don’t know what he does. Mike: Is fine, so when I sold my first company I go proud, I came home to my dad and said “Dad I sold my business” and told them what happened, and he goes “congratulations, so you are gonna have a really job now” and I’m like what? And he’s “yeah because your security and all that” And I love my parents, they have been extraordinary to me, they love me, both of them tho are in trap in their perception of what success is, get a job, stick to a job for entirety of your life, and I think we are surrounded by that perception, spouse, have other perceptions, as entrepreneur the rule is to break the rules, to challenge industries, to bring in our concepts, is new to everyone, Everyone’s is like “what the F are you doing?” is not comprehensible. Donnie: You know is all interesting, I don’t about you, but when I launched my business, it took me a long time to realize that I spent so long as an employed so when I launched a business I kept constantly trying to almost create a job for myself vs a company and I get lost in the business because it was so hard to make that shift, that is why I tell people that entrepreneurs a made not born because you get punched in the face a lot by life to start figuring things out, was that kind of the same thing to you or you just stepped in gold and riches fell from the sky? Laugh Mike: Oh of course that was exactly my journey! I started the business and people where throwing money at me like what= Is this real? NO! No of course, my first business was in computers system, I was a computer guy and I open the door. Donnie: Where’s your pocket protector I don’t see it? Mike: Yeah well yeah, actually Donnie that’s what happens , I made a few phone calls and said I started a business and the money will flow in, I called a few people and they were “Oh congratulations, but I’m already taking care of” I said what? You know! I’m your friend! “No, I’m taking care of” and at the end of the day of and they didn’t mean, the holy crap moment kicked in, I think, in the beginning stages, and actual motivators for us entrepreneurs is fear, the first few years of my business I was terrified and what that terror does is kept me awake, I would wake up at 4 in the morning and get to work whatever it takes and I worked until midnight and repeat the process all over again because I was scared I was desperate as parent, the challenge tho is that fear in certain point becomes detrimental it gives you energy but it also gives you stress and start breaking you down, so illness kicks in or exhaustion so of course is a flip side, you don’t want to live in fear for the entirety of your life, use it as a spark and the over time you need to convert that idea was to confidence and when I started to get a bit of a routine I started to see some results, I said ok I’m gonna trying and repeat on that and I started to focus on what was working and doing more of what was working. Mike: But of course for none of us, you don’t start a business and the money falls in your laps and if it does, you are lottery winner but is actually a curse because then you believe that you don’t need and effort to make this money and so I think when you see on the cover of Ink Magazine “Oh started a business when she was 23 years old and by 24 is a billionaire” In many cases that becomes detrimental because they don’t understand the real journey of an entrepreneur, which is the struggle on the valley to get to the peaks. Donnie: Yeah Jim Ron when back to as far as motivational speakers go, he’s got a great phrase, he said, the first thing you done when you are handed a million dollars is you mentally have become a millionaire because most people will go through that ride and journey to whatever success they get through and is all those lessons that mold and prepared them for that success and I looked on people that entrepreneur is the new multilevel marketing thing because people go into multilevel marketing or neuro marketing and they are like “Oh Imma be a millionaire tomorrow you know, this I the greatest thing, I can sleep whenever I want t and do all that” so they launch businesses thinking along the same lines and I was just guilty of it, when I launched my business I thought the heaven was going to open up and everybody was going to be “Finally Donnie show up, let’s make a lot of money together” not knowing that you have to learn to run a business before you can try to find any sort of success but is a really interesting twist that how much you have to personally evolve along that journey to become a better version for yourself Mike: Holy F and true, and I love it you called the multilevel marketing but I sort of had a sentiment of it about a year ago kicked in, everything I talked about is entrepreneur and entrepreneurship and all the books I write, everything’s is of the entrepreneur, I’m sort started to becoming convinced that the word entrepreneur I a dastardly term now, I think is actually hurting us because entrepreneur has been equated to hustle and grind and I hate those terms, I hate them, so I understand the sentiment tho, I understand hustle and grind means you gotta make effort, like when I started my businesses fear was my motivator, I had to hustle and grind, here is the problem I think people are interpreting that entrepreneurship is perpetual hustle and grind and ten years into you belter be grinding out, in twenty years you better be grinding harder, you gotta carry this business on your back and this is the antithesis of what entrepreneurship is, the true definition is identifying n opportunity, taking a risk to make it happen and the choreographing all these resources, people, technology and even your clients to make that vision a reality, is not doing the work is the choreographing of other resources. I tell people, I was speaking yesterdays at an event and I’m on a room as an entrepreneur and I say yeah I got a challenge for you, when you are at a dinner party and someone ask you got you do, what do you say? And often is “I’m an entrepreneurs that does X” What about we don’t use the word entrepreneur anymore, and not even business owner because is the same thing, what if you call yourself a shareholder in a business, just by changing that label people are “what the what? Donnie: If somebody hit’s me that I would be like “what?” Mike: You know many people are shareholders, I own some stock, I’m in mutual funds, I’m a shareholder, no do I go to these companies and hustle to make successful? No, Do I do anything in the business? No! I do row when it comes to share holder boats and stuff, I do give I some directions as shareholder but I’m not actively participating in it, when we use the label entrepreneur we are saying that we actively work our asses of inside the business and I think we use the term shareholder is shocks ourselves back to reality, that our mission is to vote maybe through some action but. Donnie: Wait you should make a book out of this. Mike: How should I call it? Donnie: I don’t but something along the lines of start calling yourself a shareholder I think because is a cool philosophy. Mike: Is funny, so I may have a title now called “entrepewhore”. Laugh Mike: My publisher I told him and probably nah I don’t think so but maybe, because I think we bastardize ourselves so much we got to change our label if we change our label we change our behavior, is hard to change our behavior first still holding all labels Donnie: I agree with that, I got a funny book too, it’s called, “that’s not how you journal jackass”, so I got one of those too, is an eBook is free. Here is what I do, when I launched my business I had no idea how to call myself, I really didn’t think I was an entrepreneur because I think in true to my opinion, are the craziest sons of a bitch on the face of the earth because you got to be jut that shit crazy nuts to go launch a business, so I was warping my head around that I more this business owner that wanted to create this one business, this one company , this model and take it through, wasn’t it really worried about even a legacy type thing, I just wanted to get to that freedom state and I never been hung up on titles and such and people keep asking me, what do you put on a business card, my name? I didn’t know what to actually put in there, but it evolved, now is says business owner, I think I out CEO in one point but I’m like, Am I a CEO? I got virtual assistants but I don’t really have employees so am I a really a CEO? You know, but you dance with all this thought processes and I really love this whole idea of your shareholder because it really makes you shock your own system to reinvent how you position yourself in the market place. Mike: You know this plays out to employees too, my company is tiny we have 13 employees, I am number 14, we were a micro business and I used to give my colleagues big titles, so I bring someone on and maybe call them the CFO or the office manager and what I found is this that they just like me started believing the title as like who they are, so I had a person who has not even a degree in accounting, she was part time, but she was handling our number so instead of calling her the internal booking person I said we are going to call you the CFO, she went online and found that instead of paying $30.000 that’s what we were paying for that a typical CFO makes a $125.000 so she came back to me literally and said Mike I’m being so freaking underpay I’m being a CFO for this organization I’m not on 125.000 you are ripping me off, and I’m look whoa is just a title and she is no all CFO’s make that and my response was, you can’t got to Ford or GE and say I want to be your CFO and 125, is just a title , didn’t matter she quit, she couldn’t comprehend that, what I realize is that once we star owning a title that becomes who we are, is not just true for us the entrepreneurs, it’s true for all the humanity, if we call ourselves stupid then you become stupid if you say I’m lazy you will become lazy, if you say I’m driven you will become driven, but you have to keep on repeating enough times until you actually believe it to comply with that title otherwise we can’t own that title. So be very judicious in how you use titles is kind of the lesson here. Donnie: Yeah I love it, so Kevin is known to build all the automation to backing up my stuff, he put under the title of my first email campaign “founding badass of success champions “ and I’m like ok I take that, so if you are going yourself a tittle that you want to step into , you know that you want to own, like “founding badass” or something else along those lines, but is interesting I can see that, going through my career there was part that wanted to be a sales manager and I got sales manager and I’m said “fuck, I don’t want to be a sales manager” so there is a lot to be said in those roles, in corporate America structure formality, there’s a lot of responsibility in owning certain titles. Mike: Totally is, I think as a small business owner I aspired, not anymore, I aspired to be the big company, I wanted to have a billion dollar corporation, I wanted to be the CEO of Amazon after Jeff retire I wanted to take over, so I wanted to make my own version so I said if I want be that I have to act as if, that’s a popular term, act as if, so I’m gonna start using those tittle right now, but in the outside world that’s kinda of a shame, if I call myself the CEO and I walk in with my little company, people are like, who many people report to you? But none is only a couple of virtual people, are you really a CEO? O are you an entrepreneur that’s is starting in bootstrapping, so there is a risk there too, theirs is this disconnect and if we package ourselves in the wrong way is dangerous in fact our business … no titles whatsoever, because I do know that I go into a sales situation, sometimes it helps to say that I’m the owner and sometimes it helps to say that I’m the sales guy and being the owner is actually a detriment so I think a title is just a thing of conversation in what e aspire to have but also have to see the outside perception around titles. Donnie: I got other question because I know my followers have been counting on me and I got a lot of people that followed your book First, it was the first book that I read of yours and horrible book by the way. Laugh Mike: Worst book of all the time, hey at least I got a ranking somehow. Donnie: Hey you put profit in there; at least it has to sell one book. Mike: Right! I should have put an F bomb because that seems to be the popular books now, the subtle art of F’ing and I should put like F profit or something. Donnie: You know I’ve been getting a lot of the guys out of the UK right no on the podcast because they are really trying to make a push, they are calling it “the UK invasion” where a lot of the UK speakers are trying to come to the US and is so funny when they come to the podcast because I cursed a lot but those dudes say cursing to a whole other level. Mike: The brits do? Donnie: Oh my god yeah! And I have to forward warning because there a couple words they throw around like candy and I’m like, ok look, this is a US based primary show, I mean it plays in almost a 100 countries now but you got to be careful with the certain couple of words, the F bomb fine, but there are some other words they can’t just bring to the table! But profit first, that and pumpkin plan I think two of the two books of yours that get thrown around the most, at least on my circles, is profit first the first book out of the collection. Mike: So I’ve written 5 books, technically 6 as profit first has been re-released as revising expanded so that counts too, so I wrote this book of toilet paper entrepreneur. Donnie: Oh I remember that! Mike: Kind of a spit on the face of traditional authorship and it was my angry teenage years but it worked, it worked to put me on the map, at least with the publisher and it built a small … The pumpkin plan was my first kind of mainstream book and profit first was the break through. Donnie: That’s the one that really put you on the map, I’m in forward Texas, you know my hometown and I know there is a little workshop group to get together and discussed that book- Mike: Oh that’s awesome I love to hear- Donnie: And the content and everything is out of that, but I’m curious, when you wrote that book was that philosophy for your business? Or something you were attempting to do and you thought it would be the breakthrough for other people if you took on the same thing. Mike: No, it was purely for me, here’s interesting when you hear the resume of an entrepreneur like me I share the highlights, got a company, sold it, the thick of the story for most entrepreneurs is the struggle, the entrepreneur poverty and I have evaporated all the wealth I’d accumulated in some priors businesses that were dealing with debt, I was able to sell them pay off the debt and make money and never really understood profit, I started this 3rd business that … my resume I evaporated everything I had, lost my house over it, lost possessions, did not loss my family, that’s one thing, they stood by me, went through depression for a couple years, from 2008 to 2010, the highest level was called functional depression, you are a drinker and stuff and during that phase I realized that I fundamentally didn’t know the most basic elements of entrepreneurship, profits is one, I realized all the things I was doing was misunderstood, and profit what I realized is that we have been told profit is the bottom line or were you rent, every book I read is profit comes last, and I realized omg I’ve been putting profit last, I didn’t consider it until once a year I looked at profit and I’m like “Dammit, maybe next year”. Donnie: Wait so your business is supposed to profit? I’m confused by that. Laugh Mike: That’s what my old accountant said,” you don’t want to profit, hey congratulations you got nothing left” And I’m like “what?” Donnie: Hey that’s the whole reason I’m in business. Mike: And that made no sense, and entrepreneurship is not a parent child relationship, I call it BS on that, we often say hey I started a business I gave life to it is my child and one day I will nurture it and it will come back and feed me, no, is more of conjoint twins, as the business goes we go and as we go the business goes so if I’m struggling at home my business is going to struggle and if I’m going struggling on business my home is going to struggle, especially the finances, pour finances are in so last step, so I say I really gotta resolve this and I realize that is human nature when something comes last is insignificant , so profit can’t be last, profit has to be first, and the exclusion of course says, make profit to have it, every time you sell take a predetermined percentage of that money, is profit, hide it away in your business, repeat day in and day out and you will assure profitability. Donnie: Is awesome, is one of those book, at least it was for me when I read through it, it just made sense, because same thing, school hard … somebody could tell me the stove is hot three times and still touch twice to just to make sure. Laugh Donnie: But it’s one of those book that when you read you are like “ok that make sense to me why I don’t do it”? So I started to employing some of the principals of the company and the being typical growing up financially foolish, “oh we are hitting a down turn, let’s just pull form the profit pile we have already put into the business” and you are like ok that’s not the whole principles of the book but it was a fun read, what did the success of that book do for your business, you company, what evolved or changed for you? Mike: That’s an interesting question, there’s a couple of realizations, when the book hit, so it came out 4 years ago and 2 years ago I did the re-release and it hit right away, is funny how ego is, I got like omg all this main stages, Seth Golden move here comes Mike “Polish” Michalowicz. Donnie: Because you got that name that belongs in light. Mike: Right, exactly, when you hit the movie theatre and my name is two lines.. Donnie: Or is turned down on the edged Mike: I think the better one is a limp penis of an A, So first my ego is move over Seth Golden, here comes the new main stager and it was like deadly silence, I’m like for how long? The book is so popular and went on for a year like this and my agent who I spoke to me was “get ready for the pumped up fees” nothing, and so I was like I guess it takes more than just a popular book, and yea about a year ago also did … is not move over Seth Golden but is oh you are speaking Seth Godin is coming after you. So that happened, so I realize is when a book hits it takes time for it to start playing out in other facets which is speaking but I think that satisfies my ego and I love public speaking and is a joy. Donnie: Look, nobody writes a book without waiting a little bit of that ego. Mike: I call it C list celebrity. Donnie: So if there’s another alphabet out there I am in that I alphabet. Mike: I put myself in position C , what’s funny that means that if I walk through an airport none knows who I am, except one person every like 3 or 4 airport checks will say “AAAAA” and you get one fan that comes and say “ARE YOU MIE MICHALOWICZ?” actually one person came up and said “ARE YOU TONY HAWK?” And I’m like fuck no, but somebody will say that, and I’ll be like who is this guy, is very weird. Donnie: You next book you just gotta put your picture on the cover that is all. Mike: I will put a Tony Hawk picture, be my strange brother tony hawk. Is this kind of weirs moments when none knows who I am but one person who just happens and lose their shit but everyone else is confused by and everyone’s like why? Who’s this guy? Is he a doctor? Did he save your life? But the bigger thing is I’m on my mission to eradicated entrepreneurial poverty now we get the metrics in place, and I get emails actually I can see we get two since we started the interview, I get emails in 3-4 5-6 hour now of people saying, because I actually ask people to email me on the book, I say emails if you commit to this and they are coming constantly now and I can see I can measure the changes having in business and that is the greatest joy of my life, If I am ever down, for me is just log in the email now and sit there for an hour and everything is ok Mike, you are not looser. Donnie: I wanted people to hear that last phrase you said, everybody’s chasing something you know and I had a lot of coming even this morning with the couple guys I was talking to, they were liken men I could just have this happen to my life, life would be X, and I keep telling life is never X, life is right now, is that time you need to embrace you don’t need some sort of trigger mechanism to be catapulted to the next version of your life and I love the fact that you were humble enough to say that there are days like, this day sucks, this day is horrible and you gotta go look in the email to make sure life is on the same path and track, because is good for people who aren’t even in the first level on the alphabet list, you know you got the C list rockstar status to hear those kind of things because they are a lot of people, I know fans of the show I know were like “holy cow is Mike Michalowicz, he’s got “Profit First” and this and the other and they put you into rockstar status and often times when people put people on that rockstar status they gave them like the super power feed of strength and everything else, like nothing ever happens to them they are always killing it and crushing it and I really appreciate that humility you speak through. Mike: I want to speak that because I think is so important, I believe when we see someone as in a better position we put them on a pedestal, we look up to them, really that is a form of envy and I think is really damaging to ourselves, if you say “oh this guy is better than me, I wish I liked him” but in the same we are saying “I’m less than” and when we see ourselves as less then we want to disassociate, we actually one to pull someone down, as human nature say, well that person is not observing, Michalowicz they guy that probably got myself in driving, you pull in down, pity is just as damaging, pity is where you see yourself here and then there’s this homeless person in the street and “Thank god is not me” that causes a voidance when we move around them, both are form of dissociation an so I think they are very damaging. I don’t think we should ever use the term look up towards someone or look down to someone, I think we should always say look over, as cheesy as it is I’m big on like totems and this things you can see as the infinity circle and is my reminder that all of us are on the exact same path, no one is front or behind each other, we are on different positions of the path and we have just much to learn from someone who’s in the deepest struggles as someone that we perceived is having the greatest successes, all of them are learning experiences and we can call from each other but if we look up or look down we disassociate, I think we need to say Donnie I look over to you I want to learn from you, tell me your secrets, Mike I look over to you, so I say never look up, never look down. Donnie: I love that, I never heard it put in that perspective but you know Richard Branson when he takes people out to his private island , one of the first things he asked to everybody out there is, teach me something and I’ve always been fascinated by it because you got Richard Branson, one of the wealthiest man in the world , one of the most cool CEO, at least that is the brand he puts in the market place, a whole part of that is true but the fact that everybody comes back from me to the island going “Richard Branson asked me to teach him something” and I’m always curious to say, what could you teach as Richard Branson and I think a lot of those pull some random shit out their ass but “I taught Richard Branson” Really? Really!? Mike: I never heard that story I love it and I think it speaks therefore to great intelligence because I bet you, we all got something to teach as much as he teaches us, I don’t think he is more successful than a brand new startup entrepreneur, by certain definitions, the wealthy accumulated, the exposure he’s gotten, I don’t know and this is no judgment, I don’t know what his family is like , I don’t know what is balance is like, I don’t know his contribution to society is like, I don’t know, I also think that we hold people to a higher celebrity ship when they have broader impact as oppose to deep impact and I think most of us are designed for deep impact, Let me use doctor Oz because that example come to mine, Initially he was a cardiovascular surgeon with very deep impact, he saved some people’s life forever, he gave people not 6 more hours of life but 60 more year of life because of his work, he then made a choice to go broad meaning he went on Oprah he started to talking about health and then the guys is Impacting many people, the difference is , Doctor Oz now has a very broad impact but is very shallow you see him on tv shows and eat your vegetables is the lessons, when we worked as a cardiovascular surgeon, now he’s got a very deep impact, I think is a choice and I don’t think is one is better than the other, the shame is we hold up to celebrity ship people with only broad impact, it’s the famous football player, the famous movie start or the famous author like Malcom Gladwell, someone I exalt but never met Malcom Gladwell he just had an impact in some many people and is a name other people recognize I think is equal regardless of what we do of significance and people that are going for deep impact, I guess the lesson here is don’t aspire to be broad, aspire to be who you are call to be, if it’s deep go deep, if it’s broad is broad if it’s something else do it, just speak truly to yourself, they are all significant. Donnie: Man I love that, is such a powerful message because most people in my belief that have hit a celebrity status they are really good at one thing. It comes down to … marketing, I tell people all the time Tony Robbins, one of the biggest motivational speaker of the world and I ask people all the time and they are like omg is Tony Robins, Tony Robins, he’s done amazing things I’m not knocking down for anything but I ask people all the time, What’s Tony’s job? “Oh he is the CEO of the company blah blah blah” and I mean no he is not, and they look at me like “ what do you mean?” He is the face of the company, Garyvee, he is the face of the company and even Mike Michalowicz a C list celebrity is the face of the company, now all that to say is not meaning they are not making decisions, they are not having vision but they are the PR machine their job is to build brand new awareness for the company is the broad stroke. Mike: Is like a band, the front man is the one who everyone knows and is constantly with the groupies but the drummer and the bassist and the keyboardist who’s behind the curtains sometimes they are the ones collectively that need to make the music and I think that is what this organizations have, I think we can positon ourselves as the spokesperson and we will get all the accolades, I think the day I sort believe in that, over. Donnie: Have you seen bohemian rhapsody yet? The movie? Mike: Yeah. Donnie: I love the whole scene where the lead singer of Queen, can’t remember his name. Mike: Freddie Mercury. Donnie: Yes Freddie Mercury, thank you, that he hits all the fame and he goes out of his own and launches his own band and he’s trying to create the music and it all fails and he goes back to his guys and he goes “they did everything I told them to do” and I’m like that’s it! And he goes “They weren’t pushing back they did everything and the problem is I don’t know how to do all the stuff that you are great that” Mike: I think a great leader recognizes that , as a spokes persons you gotta be careful about being inauthentically humble, I see that too, and is like “oh is not me is not me” and declining as is actually discrediting the people who are fans of you, you can’t do that, the same thing you can’t say “this is all me” because you discrediting the people collectively making the product or the service that you do, so is a fine balance, I also think for the rest of the band, like Freddie mercury was the recognize brand and you have Brian May and then two guys like what was their names? That’s an ego check for them too but they are just as important. Donnie: Even if Freddie would have made it in a solo type carrier thing, even then he still has a band behind him. Mike: Even that is true. Donnie: The craziest thing about this whole ride and journey, I know the good things I’m good at, I’m really good on podcast, really good on interviews, well talking on stages but here is the thing I suck at the accounting side of things, I should read you book again “profit first” maybe probably help me out a little bit, but it’s a lot for entrepreneurs, business owners, whatever screwing tittle you want to give yourself, founding badass, is knowing your lane and knowing what you are good at and finding the right people that geek out on the stuff you suck at, is like I’ve got people that do some video editing for me, they freaking love that stuff, I’ve got people that do automated email for me, the gal who does some of the writing for me I call her a magician every Tim, I don’t know how she takes all the crap I put together spins it up and turns it into a master piece, she’s just got gift and a talent for it, but a lot of that is a humbleness for an individual to go “ok this is my lane, this is what I’m good at, how do I get other people to come along for that ride to pick up the slacks for me”. Mike: There is this thing I call the super hero syndrome when we first start a business we have to do everything, you have to do the accounting, you have to do marketing, there is no one else there, you have to, and we start believing wow I can do anything and then we start superheroing in swiping in when there’s problem oh I will fix this I will fix that, and the trap is, when we bring on employees we actually interning with their progress, they start doing something and we swop in we fix it we resolve, disabling them from doing the work themselves, plus we leave often awaken destruction behind us, entrepreneur like myself are known to fix the 5% of the problem, the big part that is noticeable and 95% like we can skip that and there is this shattered destruction behind us that needs to be swooped and cleaned up, I found that I can’t change my ego, I can’t tell “I’m just going to be mister Mike humble and everything is fine” what I did find is that I can rechannel my ego, I used to be very proud of being the superhero, the savior of my business, and now I use the term supervisionary and what that means to me is that I’m clear of where I want to take this organization but I am also as importantly clear about where my individual colleagues want to go with their lives and then my job is ok “how can I help Amy and Mike and Ron and Kelsey to achieve what their vision is personally and have that aligned the business” and I put more significance on that than being a super hero, now my ego is being filled, hey! I’m doing what I meant to do and the interesting is what I revert to being a super hero because I revert to that often and I say oh I fix this and I swipe in again, I realize that is a step down in where I see myself and put negative context around and I’m less likely to do it, before I thought if I had to remove myself form the business and no longer be the super hero I saw that as a step down so when I reverted back to this super hero role I was stepping up and therefore be stuck in it, so the goal is to put more significant to something else and it will naturally pull us put of doing the stuff that is actually not helping our business. Donnie: Yeah that’s a really interesting thought, I don’t have kids but I will say the next statement with that in front me, but often times, people that went through a rougher childhood, maybe didn’t have all the things they wanted as a kid and by the time they have kids they spoil they hell out of them because then have become success and the kids don’t learn the grind and drive that they learned to get and find the success, they hit the workplace and everything else and they will be a bit lost, entrepreneurs do the same thing with the employees, when you are taking care of the problem you are taking out he learning they need to evolve, I ran into this all the time in the creative side of things and Think this is probably the biggest screw that entrepreneur s have is they have a creative vision of their brand, their image, their everything else and when they try to explain to somebody else that other person doesn’t grasp their visions of what those color schemes or whatever else side of the businesses so they are like “Oh I screw up I will do this myself” Mike: I was talking to this guy Scott Alfred, I actually put him in one of my books, he said an entrepreneur would tell to an employee “hey we need to cook food here, get something that will cook food here” and they come back with sticks and rocks to spark a f ire and we are pissed of Like” Don’t you understand? I wanted a Viking?” and the employee is like “Oh I’m so sorry” but the reality is that we didn’t communicate what we wanted, they did the job, In other times they want the Viking and we just wanted sticks and rocks. So I think first of empowering them to make decision but also giving them the freedom that if they don’t comply to our vision to realize that maybe is not their fault, maybe we didn’t communicated well or maybe their vision for that thing is actually better than ours, maybe sticks and rocks is better, is this clinginess we have to what we have a personal vision or mission, how we see things in our mind and we can get upset when people don’t see what we see but we are often to communicating well at all. Donnie: Well and I would also add in there that I think, I want to speak for myself, there were a lot of times along this journey so far that I wanted somebody to swop in and take care of that problem for me, If this was an issue or problem and I wanted to go like “hey this is now yours” and take it completely of my plate and when it comes back and not what I had in vision and I am like “What the hell -” Mike: “ - Are you an idiot” Donnie: Right! Mike: That is called abdication; so many people think you are doing delegation when they are doing abdication. Donnie: Thank you I just added a whole new word today. Mike: Big word, I wanted to drop it, sort of finding where to use it. Laugh Donnie: You have been waiting the whole episode just to use that one. Mike: So I just thought of blurring it out if you didn’t have a question, but abdication is simply point someone and say you take care of this and that is the entire instruction said, and entrepreneurs are notorious for to scenarios, either micromanagement where is total control, here’s step 1, step 1.a - 1.b, or abdication which is the polar opposite and both of them are extremely ineffective, both of them prohibit growth to the organization. Donnie: So how does an individual doesn’t go to the extreme of both of those and actually find that happy medium combination because I’m guilty of both, Because sometimes I’m like “ok I have to tell them what to do or they are not going to figure it out so let’s roll out the power point and walk you through the 500 steps because I need it to get done” but other times I’m just off it, so how do I find the happy medium between those two? Mike: Is simply, you ask the employee, you say listen I want you to achieve certain results in the organization, I know you want to achieve these results, I will give you information, I need to know form you exactly what is enough information to give you direction or when am I going to the field that is too much, where’s actually hurting your creativity, I need the reverse too, if I’m giving just giving you way too little and you can’t achieve the visions that Ii have I need to know them too, is communication, is asking, shockingly we don’t do that often, is that you sit down the first day of the job and say “your job is to tell me when I’m not telling you what you need to know about me” that doesn’t make sense, is constant communication. Our little company we are going to a company retreat to Nashville Tennessee, literally next week and the whole thing is about communication, we are just going to sit there, have a talk, build a report, we have half day to set and learn from each other’s stories, because I know to grease the wheels of this organization is the communication and trust among each other is the ability of my colleague who I write her paycheck out to come back at me and say Mike you’re being an ass about so and so and not feeling threaten or in risk, that will only happen if we have a true connection beyond functional connection, if we have a human connection, I think there is where the answer comes. Donnie: And I love that, I think some people when they go into business they are looking for the pedestal, they are looking for people to look up to them and be that guy and I think that was a hard lessons for me because I know that was a part of my struggle as well is that I wanted people to seem me in a certain way which put me in this weird situation on how I was dealing with vendors and stuff until one of my mentors and coaches said dude, knock it off, but the whole thing is realizing that you are not superman, you are not creating something that hasn’t been created before, you are just repackaging somebody else’s shit up into a better more usable consumable product and format Donnie: I love the fact you are taking your employees in things like retreats and stuff, is that something you did out of the gate with your company or is that something you evolved into. Mike: Well we got it out the gate but is also something you have evolved into, well we had it out the gate but we’ve also evolved into, like going into Nashville is because we’ve had quarter after quarter of profitability that’s grown and we actually set an account called the retreat account so the firs retreat we went to Starbucks because we couldn’t afford lunch, me and my partner we jut said hey let’s just hang out before we get back to go back to work is something evolves, but what I did, recently I did the 4 week vacation, is something I wrote about in one of my book, so if you are going extract yourself from your business for 4 weeks, full disconnect and the business can grow or operate in your absence, you’ve proven the business can likely run into perpetuity in your absence. Donnie: I think that across the world every entrepreneur that just go and take this big gasp because they know way their business functions if they are gone. Mike: Which is a major problem, if you’re carrying the business on your back, and everyone will take the 4 week vacation or over, when get sick or die, so it’s going to happen, we are going to make it delivered so we are prepared for. The funny thing is that I’ve been presenting this concept around the world, when I was in Europe talking about this, we did this, literally yesterday, I flew back form BMW as there yesterday, all august, Germany shuts down and BMW ain’t going out of business, we need to do this for small businesses and so I went for 4 week vacation last year and when I did is not that business was perfect, I put a lot of structure in place to make it happen but there were some problems, one of the problems I realized is internal communication, I’ve become this choke point, when people have questions they come to me a group of come to me to see what’s Mike’s decision but they weren’t making laterally and internally, well I’m absence they were forced to, but there were some uncomfortable things like this person doesn’t really know the other person should approach them? Even if they went only 14 people, so that’s why we are doing this retreat, is all about just building report, we are going to do some cooking sessions together, we are going to have some wine together, we are just going to talk about our lives together, we are going to talk about our struggles and challenges, just to have that human connection, I really believe it greases the wheels. Donnie: Love it, I don’t why this popped to my head but I have strange question for you, what is your actual business? Mike: I don’t freaking know, laugh, I am a full time author, I write books, that’s what I do, so people think you can’t make any money out it, which is total bull, you can become very wealthy as an author if you do it right, the lessons here is I interviewed Tim Ferris on how to be an author a long time ago, he isn’t talking to me now, and he said of course you can make money, before that I was talking to people about being an author, and they said you make no money is horrible, and I said what has been your experience? I’ve never written a book, I don’t know, don’t trust people that haven’t done it, trust people who’ve done it, people that have failed learn why the fail and then learn and then I have talked to people who have been successful and find out the difference and go for the ones who are successful, I have a license: profit first, the pumpkin plan, clockwork, I have a new book coming out, to other companies and they pay me override of revenue so I have a constant revenue stream from all these different companies. Donnie: What do you mean by license, like program? Mike: Yes the program is called run like clockwork that teaches the clockwork system, they pay me a license in fee in front and 15% override … processionals for accountants. Donnie: You have accountants around the world. Mike: Yes over 350 and now and I license this organization but also in the case In that case I took an equity interest but the other two companies I don’t have any equity just the license in fee they pay me. So one of those things as people run their journey, one of the things I had to do was to turn to the people that has done it before , and realize somebody else had cut the trail, go learn from them and get advice from them along the way. Donnie: I gotta tell you man, this has been one hell of a ride I had no Idea about what you and I we were going to get into tonight and actually it has been kind of fun. Mike: Yeah on the recap my head says oh we talk about entreprewhore, you learned a new word abdicated. Donnie: Dude, don’t do the spelling bee on me, if you ask me to spell abdicate. Mike: I don’t know how to spell it I think it starts with an A Donnie: We talked about C level celebrities in there somewhere I am sure. Laugh Donnie: So that’s awesome, but dude I really appreciate the job done here, here’s how I like to wrap up every show and I do stump some people over this so get ready… Mike: 17 INCHES. Laugh Mike: Take it right? What’s the question? Laugh Donnie: I don’t want ask what 17 inches is! Now if you were going to leave the champions who listen to this show, people from all over the world, business owners, entrepreneurs, people who are trying to make the next movement in their life, if you were going to leave them with a quote a phrase a mantra or a saying, something they can take with them on their journey, especially when they are stack up against it and goring through what would be that quote or phrase you would say? Mike: So, I have it above my desk, Oscar Wilde says: Be yourself, everybody else is already taken. Donnie: Oh I love it is one of my favorite quotes from all time, didn’t know it came from Oscar Wilde, I saw it on a meme on Instagram and I thought “Oooh is brilliant”. Mike: Actually I went to Ireland, not specifically for this, but visited statue from him, visited his own home. Donnie: Where ahead in Ireland? because we were just there last year. Mike: Outside Dublin Donnie: Oh no kidding, Dublin was my least favorite city. Mike: Did you see the “Stiletto in the ghetto” the big spike in the middle of the city? Donnie: No we didn’t see that. Mike: I would say it was my least favorite too because is like any other metropolis. Donnie: That’s what my wife and I kept saying, is that if you go to Ireland go to Dublin and I would not knock in Ireland would no knock in Dublin by any means. Mike: No Omg. Donnie: Is like any other big city. Mike: The people in Ireland I would argue are the nicest people, India is number 2 but Ireland is number 1. Donnie: Did you do the breakfast thing? Mike: Yeah! Donnie: Dude I wanna tell you the nicest people, they were so genuine, and the breakfasts were insane. Mike: Insane, blood pudding. Donnie: And the two different styles and all that, so awesome, but look man I really appreciate what you doing, thanks for joining out and looking forward to many big things coming. Mike: Thank you! END OF INTERVIEW Donnie: Wow, what a fun episode, got to tell you, when you see one of these guys and hit some of the celebrity status and maintain this cool level of humility like Mike did all the way through this is just a fun thing to see is a great conversation you are part of. If you like those rise together authentic style conversations o a regular basis you really need to come and hang out with us in our Facebook group “success champions”, daily we are putting cool inspirational stuff or having awesome stories and we helping other rose and go together, so come hang out with us, just go to Facebook type In “success champions” look forward in groups join up and come tell us hi, we will be glad to have you there, if you got any value of this show whatsoever do me a favor, rate it, review it, share it with at least one fiend that would get value out of it, it would mean everything to me to get more people sharing and listening to these stories and ratings and reviews mean everything, so wherever you are listening this podcast, leave a rating leave a review, share it with a friend I really appreciate you guys, thank you for being a champion, thank you listening this show, keep on rolling shit up and keep going baby! Facebook https://www.facebook.com/MikeMichalowiczFanPage/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/mikemichalowicz/ Twitter https://twitter.com/MikeMichalowicz Success Champions https://www.facebook.com/groups/SuccessChampion Music by Freddy Fri To book Freddy Fri or for more information -- freddyfrimotivation@gmail.com Follow Freddy Fri Motivation for WEEKLY MOTIVATIONAL VIDEOS and other content: Website -- http://www.freddyfri.com Twitter -- https://twitter.com/realplayya1000 Facebook -- https://www.facebook.com/FredWins/ Instagram -- http://instagram.com/freddyfrimotivation LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/freddyfri/

Masters Champ Mike Weir @mweirsy joins us this week on the Coach Glass Podcast. We recorded this epic episode live from Mike’s home in Utah during a mini training camp. We discuss the techniques we have been using over the past 8 months to help Mike prepare for the upcoming Canadian Open @rbccanadainopen and the US Open at Pebble Beach @usopengolf. Weirsy shares the secrets that got him on tour and how the methodology has changed over the years. Mike shares stories about the dark years that followed winning the @TheMasters and what motivated him to make his comeback this year. Everyone has been asking Mike “Are you training for the seniors tour?” and you won’t believe his reaction. We also discuss his other passions including the Mike Weir Foundation which you can get more info or donate at http://mikeweir.com Lets cheer Mike on this summer and send love his way @mweirsy on Instagram and Twitter. As a gift to all of you for your support I want to give you access to the same Gym Warm Up that Mike uses to prepare himself on game day and before off day workouts along with a complete transcript of this interview for those of you who like the written version. Simply click this button below and you get access to both. http://jasonglassperformancelab.com/weir

  We're back!?! What a great Super Bowl !!! Global Warming is the cause of everything. Another Dan story. (Valentine's Day gift shopping at Walmart.) Fact or Crap: One a piece this week. Mail Bag: One from Mike: Are we the ones aging? Three from Peter: 1) ESPN's Jemele Hill doubles down on anti-Trump rhetoric. 2) Spirit Airlines employee told student to flush emotional support hamster. 3) Minnesota school district drops literary classics over use of the “n-word”. One from Joe: Oregon hospital denies illegal immigrant a liver because of her status. The Rest of the Show: All email show this week.    

So what's the deal, Mike? Are you really sick or are you avoiding Andrea who was nice enough to bring you a care package?

Layered security refers to the practice of combining various security defenses to protect the entire system against threats. The idea is that if one layer fails, there are other functioning security components that are still in place to thwart threats. In this episode of the Inside Out Security Show, we discuss the various security layers. Human Physical Endpoint Network Application Data Cindy: Hi and welcome to another edition of The Inside Out Security Show. I’m Cindy Ng, a writer for Varonis’ Inside Out Security Blog, and as always, I’m joined by security experts, Mike Buckbee and Kilian Englert. Hi, Kilian. Kilian. Hi, Cindy. Cindy: Hey, Mike. Mike: Hey, Cindy. You call us security experts. I’m actually, where I don’t know if you can see it, “I have a fake internet job”…because I still haven’t been able to explain my job to my mom and dad. “He does something.” Human Cindy: We’ll see who’s most fake at the end, okay? So recently, Rob wrote a layered security guide and I thought it would be interesting for us to go through each of the layers and share stories that we’ve read or heard as it relates to each of the layers. The idea with layered security is that you want to make sure that you have many different layers of defense that will protect you. If there are any holes, just in case something gets in, you might have a security layer that serves as a backup that will catch it. So the first layer to start is the human layer. So that layer is all about educating people to spot scams and be cautious about the passwords that they give out, their social security numbers that they give out, their credit card information. This layer, Kilian, you talk about this a lot. I feel like, increasingly, criminals are using and exploiting services that we rely on and turning it into like an attack vector, like there is an article recently about people texting you pretending to be Google and saying, “Hey, there was this suspicious attempt to get it in.” And we talked about passwords and alternatives and using two factor and it’s kind of like, “Oh man, I have to check my text messages and make sure I’m not scammed again,” like another thing to worry about. Kilian: Oh, yeah. People, by nature, want to be trusting of other people. We kind of have been trained since day one to feel kind of bad about being suspicious … The bad guys out there know this and they exploit it. It’s so much easier to go after a person and just kind of play off of emotions because they’re far more malleable than a system, and people often are not trained or educated around security practices. And even if they are, they’re kind of trained into a certain mindset. So if they see something that looks semi-legitimate like, “Hey, a text from Google. Oh, they’re protecting me. They have my login name or my IP address or something, NIC address,” because most people are not going to investigate that closely, it’s going to look fairly legitimate like, “Oh, hey, Google’s looking out for me. This is great.” It’s very easy to, just with a little bit of a legitimacy, to get people to kind of go along with it and it’s…the con of that sort is as old as time basically and it’s only getting easier any more, too. Mike: I’ll go with something that you said Kilian, which is that it’s really about our mindset. And I think from a security practitioners’ standpoint, we’re typically very focused on exploited time and this and do this things and so we forget a lot about on the human layer which is education and like how to educate your users and to help make them part of your line of defense. I think a fun activity for that is actually to do phishing, and there is a couple of companies that do this, that do like fake phishing attacks, and then basically, so I go, “You clicked on this so we are reporting you to IT.” And it’s kind of almost like in hospitals where they like shame the doctors into making sure they wash their hands all the time. You’re kind of like trying to enforce this IT hygiene aspects on all of your users, and either hire a company or you have some free time, you can just try to phish your users individually to mess with them. Kilian: Sure. Physical Cindy: Our next layer is the physical layer , and you know, I would be like the worst security person to hire because I wanted to skip talking about this layer. There are so many layers and Mike’s like, “Why aren’t we talking about it? It’s the most important one.” And Kilian is like, “It’s often overlooked.” And I said, “It’s just the physical layer, like everybody gets that.” Tell us a little bit more about the physical layer. Kilian: I guess I’ll jump in. It is so often overlooked. We worry about firewalling the data off to protect from external attacks and stuffs that come in over the wire. But how many times in businesses do people check badges? You can walk into a corporation. If the guy sitting at the desk is distracted for a minute, and then you’re inside and nobody looks twice at you. If the doors aren’t locked in the server room, you walk in, plug in a USB device. Basically, once you have physical access to something, it’s game over. There’s no other layer of security that they probably can’t get around at that point. And we rely so much on just kind of observing people and we put a lot of faith in locks, too, like physical key locks. They’re such a terrible false layer of security. Most front door locks or bike locks or anything else are easily defeated within seconds. The physical layer is often overlooked but it’s such a false layer of security, too, that we know we have somebody watching the door. Because again, we are relying on people and people want to be trusting. Mike: What I was going to mention with respect of the physical layer was I think a lot of things are changing. So businesses are much more just personnel, lots more different, just physical branches, places, people working from all sorts of different remote situations, as well as it used to be everything was hard wired, and now, most every place has WiFi. And so you have this very different situation of like everyone in the office walking in with the WiFi radio that’s connected to the internet. But we don’t think about that. We just like, oh, we are on our cellphones, but if there’s malware on there that potentially perform an attack or some form of disruption. There are some real interesting exploit tools that basically do things like DHCP exhaustion on a network and so you have to do things like MAC filtering. I worked on a high security environment on the military. They have things like if you unplug a computer from the wall from the CAT5 and plug it back in, it won’t let it back on the network as it lost the MAC connection. You can’t just bring a laptop in and plug it into the Ethernet port in the waiting room. Things like that, like very good sensible suggestions. Cindy: I just had a paranoid thought that when I go home, I want to like install 10 locks, put on a password, and I need somehow to after-authenticate myself to get in. So in terms of a business security, like can you go overboard in terms of putting like a trillion locks on something? And then what’s kind of a good balance for an extreme paranoia or paranoid person like me? Kilian: I’ll get dogs with bees in their mouth so when they bark, they shoot bees at you. Mike: From a business standpoint, I think the biggest thing is actually more procedures, procedures around access to servers, access to changes, that kind of thing. And then from there, the procedures are implemented that helps with the recognition of what’s a threat and what isn’t. On a personal level, something that I’ve been seeing a lot more in terms of physical stuff is skimmers on ATMs. That’s probably like we were talking like a personal sort of physical attack. That’s probably the big one, that every ATM you go to, you sort of want to tap at the card holder to see if it falls off because it’s so easy to put a skimmer on. Kilian: That kind of distilled… it’s situational awareness, kind of being observant of the people and things around you, what you’re interacting with. Endpoint Cindy: Another thing we need to be alert and aware of are endpoints –  protecting devices, PCs, laptops, mobile devices, from malicious softwares. People really like using endpoint protections to guard against a ransomware, and people’s found out it’s not really effective. But if it’s not ransomware, malware can really sit on your system for like six months before it’s even identified. But people also really want to protect their endpoints. What are your response and thoughts on this? Mike: I’ll go. I guess my first thought is we’re talking about layered security, and so no solution is going to be a homerun 100% of the time. And so what we are really trying to work on is percentages, reducing the surface area we can be attacked on, reducing the opportunities for an exploit. An endpoint security can certainly be part of that but it’s not a complete solution. But by limiting the types of apps that can be run, the type of traffic that can come in, it’s a way of helping to manage that risk. And that’s what we’re talking about with all layers, is how can we manage risk at all this different layers? And hopefully by doing that simultaneously at all the layers, we really improve our security much more than if we thought, “Okay, it’s just endpoint security or it’s just doing training of the users.” Kilian: The way I would think about it, too, is if you ever see the machines for like looking for gold or sifting rocks, like you have the different size of screens. Endpoint protection antivirus, I would think, is like the biggest size of screen. It’s gonna get like the bigger rocks out, so the kind of most obvious, most basic vulnerabilities. And kind of, as you go through and sift out the different pieces, that’s exactly what it is. You can just, multiple layers, sift out different things that one might not catch until you get it. And then just good patch management, too, on endpoints and servers, things like that. If you leave vulnerabilities that have been patched for 10 years on your system, that’s kind of inviting trouble in a lot of ways. But then people often overlook it. Mike: Those are the big holes in your screens as your trying to through all the data and everything is falling through these unpatched systems. Cindy: But there are a whole bunch of alerts. People get thousands of them, like daily and weekly. That’s another annoyance. You can’t actually check thousands of alerts every day. Mike: And for all this sort of systems that monitor the things, all the vendors, us included, are trying to…people talk about alert fatigue. If you get an alert every 10 minutes, like, “Oh, something’s happening, something’s happening,” like you just cease to care about. It’s not something that actually needs responded to or thought about. So there’s a lot of work with like machine learning, better filtering, and better tracking on how to handle that to reduce that amount of alert fatigue. But you’re absolutely right, Cindy. Cindy: And also make alerts that are really worth alerting on so that you’re not like, “Oh my God, my blood pressure is increasing,” and then you end up in the hospital or something. Mike: What kinds of alerts are you getting? Network Cindy: No, listen, it’s not me. I’m just hearing all these stories when I go to conferences and I go, “If I had that many alerts, I will just be like…ahhhhh! Watch out for the crazy woman.” So another layer we should talk about is network security. I’m thinking firewalls, intrusion prevention, detection system, VPNs. And I was kind of tricked to read an article that says “Utility board hears about network security.” And I was like, “Oh, they’re really serious about network security.” Like, “What about the other stuff?” So I went through and I read it. I clicked on it and I read it and they take security seriously. Like in the article, the IT director talked about network security. He made references to all those different layers that we’re talking about so far. And he made the analogy of a Swiss cheese as security and you put layers upon layers of them and said, “That even then with all the layers of cheese, a small hole, so a small hole in your security can be catastrophic.” And I thought it was just really great that they’re talking about it. And further on in that article, it mentioned that a board member requested that presentation because he had heard about a utility at a utilities conference that there was a hacking of an electrical system in Colorado. So we hear a lot about things that go wrong in companies and they’re not doing anything about it. But I really liked that they’re saying, “Hey, I’m protecting our utilities network.” And it’s a great way to get more of like security funding, too, because security systems are expensive, like whether it’s network. Even if it’s like a $200 thing, you still have to be like, why do you need this, and explain. So back to network security, the talk that they had, presentation they had, it’s a great way to just get money like, say, there is an article in Rob’s layered security guide about “ What’s the difference between a $1000 one and a $200 one?” Mike: For a firewall, you’re talking about? Cindy: For a fire…yeah. I went on a tangent. I think someone… Kilian: I mean, you brought up an interesting point. That article, I thought, was really kind of fascinating because the one thing that kind of really, if I can pick one thing a security thing that scare me on a daily basis, it’s a lot of this, like command and control type, or not command and control but the SCADA systems or the industrial control systems that run a lot of our infrastructure. And back to the unpatched systems, these things are from the whatever, ’80s, ’90s, that they said, “Oh, well, hey, we can monitor whatever, our damn controls online, stick it on a network with an IP address,” and then it controls kind of a vital piece of infrastructure, like something in the physical world that can cause a lot of damage. Or the controls at the electrical system, you can wipe out power and that will cause a lot of problems in the physical world. Network security is, again, one of the critical layers. Again, if you have to connect it to a network, at least run it through something. You still need the defense and depth across the whole board, but that’s kind of the first line of defense for a kind of network connected systems. Mike: The only other thing I was going to mention is that I think a lot of times, people think of network, especially with from a lot of employees, it’s like, “We need VPNs for very everyone. We have VPNs for everyone. We’ll be protected.” But you have to remember that also, it’s sort of like punching a hole in your firewall because VPN, it’s like making a home computer as if it was on your network, and all the ensuing issues that that can cause. Kilian: And then we can tie it right back to physical security then. On your VPN at Starbucks, you walk away for a few minutes, someone walks up, plugs something in, or you don’t lock your laptop, then the internal network’s compromised. Mike: I know for sure there has been multiple reports on people getting ransomware on their networks from, like someone at home and they get like an infection, they bring it to the IT group. Like, “Oh, Bill in IT, he’ll help me out. He’s always such a nice guy.” They bring it in. Like, “You look at this real quick? It’s real weird.” “All right, let’s plug it in the network.” And, boom, the network is now infected with ransomware. Good intentions gone awry. Application Cindy: Oh my God, I’m so scared that whenever you guys just share stories and I get like extra, extra scared. Okay, the next two on application security , that, there’s a lot to talk about in that one. I wrote a blog post about it, that our IT people won’t let me install anything on my computer. When we talk about application security, it refers to the testing and doing the work to make sure apps work as they should. But there are some drawbacks to that, which is why IT won’t let me install anything, and I have to get permission. I have to tell them why. That, I understand it’s a dangerous world out there. What are some things about application security that we need to be worried about or concerned about? Mike: Most companies, they have a mix of things. They have a mix of applications they built in-house, third party systems that they bought off-commercial, off-the-shelves of, or cut software, and then now, sort of cloud systems. We joke about cloud doesn’t exist, It’s just other people’s computers. It’s just other people…our software are running other people’s computers or software as a service type application. There’s different considerations for each of those. I think, across the board, one of the things to really think about for all of this is single sign-on, that the procedures for provisioning access to this and then removing it as people’s role change or as they come into or leave the company is incredibly important. And if it is one place where that’s most often missed, it’s in those kind of things where…I use to work at a company. I won’t say the name of it. But there phone system was separate from everything else and so that a salesperson that left, removed all their computer access, left them with their phone access, and they changed their outgoing voicemail, which for months, was just a harangue against the company, and like what blood-sucking horrible people they were and how unprofessional and incompetent. And it stayed that way for months as people called in to talk to this salesperson he was known over there. But that can happen anywhere, with timesheets software, that can happen with reporting software, the project management software. All of these things can exist somewhere on the spectrum. And without that single sign-on and really strict procedures, it’s very difficult to control. Kilian: Just kind of a little bit of side, too, as we’re developing more software and it gets more complex and we expect more out of it, that just increases the chance that there’s going to be a bug and it’s a guarantee that every piece of software you run is going to have some type of issue or bug in it. Again, especially as the citizens gets more complex and more interconnected. So it’s being cognizant of that and, again, we’ll go back to a couple of topics ago, is good patch management, making sure that the bugs are reported and then the software vendors you deal with take it seriously and patch it eventually, or soon rather than eventually. Data Cindy: And the next layer on the data layer , we talk about that a lot. I think it’s the crown jewels. We want to make sure that our health data isn’t stolen, our PCI data isn’t stolen. People are really…you hear it often in every kind of podcast or show that you hear. You kind of expect data breaches to happen. People are really hurt that that’s happening. “Oh, they’re not doing enough.” But the reality is data security is tough. What are your thoughts about this layer? Mike: We, at Varonis, we deal with structured data. Structured data, for the most part, falls under application security, so that structured data is anything that’s in the database, typically in the accesses, typically mitigated and arranged and managed through an application. I just want to make sure there isn’t direct database access somehow through the network where I exploit tools. But for the most part, that’s fairly sane. Our niche is the unstructured world which is the files and where typically, what we see is the end results of all the structured data. So the structured data is the giant Oracle database that says like, “Yes, we should actually acquire this company,” and then the unstructured is the Powerpoint that says, “We’ll do this next Monday.” And that got out, has huge implications for stock price, and Sarbanes-Oxley, and reporting, and governance, and all these things. So there’s different risks involved with those. Kilian: The thing about the unstructured data is that, there’s so much of it and it just grows so constantly. Every second of every day, at every business, somebody is putting some type of information out, sending an email, writing a document, editing a Powerpoint, any of this stuff. It’s just constant and that’s how businesses evolve and get better because they share information. They just keep producing and producing and producing it and it never seems to go anywhere. It’s like the internet never forgets.  Well, your data center never forgets either. The project might be forgotten but it’s still out there somewhere, the Sharepoint site. All this team collaboration is over but it’s still up there and contains a lot of information. There’s some life cycle information on that. But things like social security numbers, those never change. There might be or there is an age on credit card information, but it’s still fairly long, several years, depending on how long it’s out there. The life cycle of this data is often overlooked and you expose yourself to a lot of risk because it ends up…again, it’s created for some legitimate reason and it’s out there for some legitimate reason, but it’s forgotten about or it’s not dealt with or disposed or even secured properly. Cindy: So to kind of wrap up, you both shared stories that I’m just like, “Oh, it’s nerve-racking,” but the overall goal is security. So we make sure we educate the people. We make sure that they don’t have access to stuff that they don’t need. We make sure they don’t get in. We make sure we protect ourselves from malware, make sure we protect our data, make sure that apps are working properly. What are some kind of wrap-up conclusions or things that I’ve missed that you want to share your thoughts on? Mike: I think we should go back to your Swiss cheese sandwich metaphor because honestly, I think it’s actually viable because the big challenge of all this is communicating this to people who are not in our business, it’s communicating it to the executives and to the users that we need to deal with. And so we say exactly that, but it’s like stacking a lot of pieces of Swiss cheese, and the more layers we have, the fewer holes there are, the less vulnerable we are. It’s a very easy to understand metaphor. Hopefully, they are lactose intolerant. But I think that is really the case. The more layers we have and the more all these things work together, the safer we are. That’s like an old powerful thing. Cindy : Kilian, do you have any last thoughts? Kilian: No, I like the metaphor. I think it’s great. I have other metaphors I use for thinking about security, but the Swiss cheese one, I think, is very visually pleasing. I guess it’s something people can recognize. Cindy: That is from the IT director in Nebraska. Like maybe he’ll listen to our podcast or join our show. Mike: I thought we decided we’re just going to start sending packets of sliced Swiss cheese to all our customers… “Stack this together until you’re secured.” Cindy: Make sure your bad guys don’t go in. Our Parting Gift Cindy: So to wrap up, our parting gift, what are some things people should check out? For me, I’m pivoting to something else. Back to our show last week, we talked about the EU’s general data protection regulation. We just published on our blog an infographic. So if you do not want to read long texts, Andy and I, we created a really informative infographic describing consumer rights, as well as obligations companies have to the consumers. So head over to our blog and check it out. Mike, do you have any parting gifts for our listeners and viewers? Mike: I was going to recommend; I was going to say I just looked at the infographics you’re talking about. It’s at blog.varonis.com, and I think it really is great. And we’re talking about educating other people, it is the perfect thing, that if you are an IT, to send to an executive or to send to some stakeholder on your company to try to get help get their minds in the right place for dealing with the new regulations. My suggestion for a parting gift was going to be a game, actually. It’s called Hack Net. It’s probably one of the few games you could get expense by your company. It looks so much like one of those, like in the movies when they’re like hacking into a system and it has everything scrolling and doing stuff. So it’s the simulation of that but it covers actual exploits, the concepts of how they are exploited, what is done. So it’s very educational but super fun to run through and has a little scenario and you actually hack into all these different systems. It’s called Hack Net. And right now, it’s $10. But I mentioned it last week, during this…summer sale, I think we’re going $5. But it’s very cool and interesting. And if you’re interested in this as a general topic, I know we have a lot of people on the IT side and not necessarily like security pentesting side, it’s a great way to really like deeply understand all those concepts. So, cool, check it out. Cindy: Cool, thanks. Kilian, do you have a parting gift? Kilian: Actually, what Mike was saying just reminded me of something. The other week, I was in Uber. I was taking a ride to the airport or train station or somewhere, and on the screen, they popped up a little thing like, “Hey, code while you go,” or something like that. And they gave you like little snippets of code and they wanted you to find the error in the code. And I thought it was a really, you know, crowdsourcing something, information, maybe for a potential job offer. But I just thought it was really interesting they were kind of doing this little application security type of initiative within the app itself like while you’re on the trip. I don’t know if the pops are for everybody but I saw it. I thought it was interesting to look at while I was on my ride. Mike: Are you saying you got a job offer from Uber? You’re leaving Varonis? You figured it out? Kilian: The next time you’ll see me with my dash cam and my car driving around. Mike: Oh, man… Cindy: Kilian might be doing both. He might be driving and working at Varonis. You never know because you know he’s fake. Thanks so much, Mike and Kilian, and all our listeners and viewers for joining us today. If you want to follow us on twitter and see what we’re doing or tell us who’s most fake on the show, you can find us @varonis, V-A-R-O-N-I-S. And if you want to subscribe to this podcast, you can go to iTunes and search for The Inside Out Security Show. There is a video version of this on Youtube that you can subscribe to on the Varonis channel. So thanks, and we’ll see you again next week. Mike: Thanks, Cindy. Kilian: Thanks, Cindy. Cindy: Thanks, Mike. Thanks, Kilian. Subscribe Now Join us Thursdays at 1:30ET for the Live show on Youtube, or use one of the links below to add us to your favorite podcasting app. iTunes Android RSS The post Layered Security – IOSS 14 appeared first on Varonis Blog.

Intro: The world has changed significantly since the Internet was first created. IPv6 gives over 4.3x1020 unique addresses for every square inch on the planet, and is going to allow us to do things we've only dreamed of in the past. In this podcast we give an overview of IPv6. Mike: Gordon, before we get into the technology, can you give us an update on IPv6 history in the United States? Sure Mike, this comes from a 1-minute history of the Internet by Federal Computer week at FCW.COM Mike: So, the federal government has ordered its agencies to become IPv6- capable by June of 2008 and this is going to happen in June on our federal government networks - how about businesses? It's  happening with business too Mike.  Let's take Verizon as an example as quoted in a Light Reading post from last September. Verizon Business, which began its first phase of deploying IPv6 on the public IP network in 2004, will complete the North America region in 2008 and move into the Asia-Pacific and European regions from late 2008 to 2009. The company will operate both IPv6 and IPv4, in what is known as a "dual stack" arrangement, on its multi protocol label switching (MPLS) network core. The company also has deployed IPv6 throughout its network access points (peering facilities) where Internet service providers exchange traffic. Mike: So, what's the problem with IPv4? It's a combination of a lot of things - Microsoft has a nice set of resources on IPv4 and IPv6 - let's use that as a guide: The current version of IP (known as Version 4 or IPv4) has not been substantially changed since RFC 791 was published in 1981. IPv4 has proven to be robust, easily implemented and interoperable, and has stood the test of scaling an internetwork to a global utility the size of today’s Internet. This is a tribute to its initial design. However, the initial design did not anticipate the following: The recent exponential growth of the Internet and the impending exhaustion of the IPv4 address space. IPv4 addresses have become relatively scarce, forcing some organizations to use a Network Address Translator (NAT) to map multiple private addresses to a single public IP address. While NATs promote reuse of the private address space, they do not support standards-based network layer security or the correct mapping of all higher layer protocols and can create problems when connecting two organizations that use the private address space. Additionally, the rising prominence of Internet-connected devices and appliances ensures that the public IPv4 address space will eventually be depleted. The growth of the Internet and the ability of Internet backbone routers to maintain large routing tables. Because of the way that IPv4 network IDs have been and are currently allocated, there are routinely over 85,000 routes in the routing tables of Internet backbone routers. The current IPv4 Internet routing infrastructure is a combination of both flat and hierarchical routing. The need for simpler configuration. Most current IPv4 implementations must be either manually configured or use a stateful address configuration protocol such as Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). With more computers and devices using IP, there is a need for a simpler and more automatic configuration of addresses and other configuration settings that do not rely on the administration of a DHCP infrastructure. The requirement for security at the IP level. Private communication over a public medium like the Internet requires encryption services that protect the data being sent from being viewed or modified in transit. Although a standard now exists for providing security for IPv4 packets (known as Internet Protocol security or IPSec), this standard is optional and proprietary solutions are prevalent. The need for better support for real-time delivery of data—also called quality of service (QoS). While standards for QoS exist for IPv4, real-time traffic support relies on the IPv4 Type of Service (TOS) field and the identification of the payload, typically using a UDP or TCP port. Unfortunately, the IPv4 TOS field has limited functionality and over time there were various local interpretations. In addition, payload identification using a TCP and UDP port is not possible when the IPv4 packet payload is encrypted. To address these and other concerns, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has developed a suite of protocols and standards known as IP version 6 (IPv6). This new version, previously called IP-The Next Generation (IPng), incorporates the concepts of many proposed methods for updating the IPv4 protocol. The design of IPv6 is intentionally targeted for minimal impact on upper and lower layer protocols by avoiding the random addition of new features. Mike: OK - can you list the primary features of IPv6? What makes it different? Sure Mike - this list also comes from Microsoft's website. The following are the features of the IPv6 protocol: New header format Large address space Efficient and hierarchical addressing and routing infrastructure Stateless and stateful address configuration Built-in security Better support for QoS New protocol for neighboring node interaction Extensibility Mike: Let's go through the list with a brief summary of each. Your first item on the list was the new header format. What's different? Mike: How about number 2, large address space?Mike: Number 3 was efficient and hierarchical addressing and routing infrastructure - can you describe?Mike: How about number 4, stateless and stateful address configuration?Mike: Number 5 was built-in security.Mike: How about number 6, better support for QoS? Mike: And number 7, new protocol for neighboring node interaction? Mike: And finally, number 8,  extensibility.Mike: Are there any other things you want to add to the list?Mike: Are we ready?I always look at the end devices (even though there is so much more) and, if we just look at desktops, you have to look at Microsoft.Microsoft started with the following implementations of IPv6, all subsequent versions/products continue to support IPv6:The IPv6 protocol for the Windows Server 2003 and later families.The IPv6 protocol for Windows XP (Service Pack 1 [SP1] and later).The IPv6 protocol for Windows CE .NET version 4.1 and laterThe capture and parsing of IPv6 traffic is supported by Microsoft Network Monitor, supplied with Microsoft Server 2003 and later products. Mike: This is a good overview - next week we'll get into some details on the IPv6 protocol!

Title: Sept 16, 2007 - Micro-bloggingIntro: You may be thinking about starting a blog but feel you don't have the time or maybe won't know what to write about. You may already have a blog and are looking for ways to provide interesting content in real time. Micro-blogging may be a great solution. In this session we discuss micro-blogging and take a look at a few of the many free micro-blogging applications.Mike: Gordon, I know you've really got into micro-blogging recently - could you describe what it is?Wikipedia defines micro-blogging as:"a form of blogging that allows users to write brief text updates (usually less than 200 characters) and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, MP3 or the web."Gordon: I think we've both developed a recent addiction to micro-blogging. Your recently wrote a blog describing Twitter, Jaiku and Pownce. Many are calling these social networks, or micro-blogs. Can you describe what this means?In Twitter and Jaiku you provide information about your thoughts, activities and/or whereabouts. Some users update so often, that it's almost like real-time updates. Pownce works similarly, but allows users to easily share links, files and events. Twitter is still the most popular of the three, but Pownce - by invitation only - seems to be gaining quickly. I'm not sure I understand the attraction of these sites - maybe it's generational, but they're very popular and seem to be addictive.Gordon: You wrote about a real-world use of Twitter by the Los Angeles Fire Department. Can you tell us about that?Members of the fire department provide real-time updates (known as tweets) of LAFD activities and operations. Anyone interested can subscribe or follow this Twitter. Imagine the uses at a college or university - we could provide updates on availability of writing or math labs or even our testing center. We could also provide registration information in real-time, such as number of seats, new sections, cancellations etc. To think of it, you could also use these tools to manage your office hours - in real-time!Mike: You've been tweeting on Twitter frequently. What kind of content are you posting?I find myself doing a lot of web surfing and I like to tweet the links I'm reading for future reference. I had been tagging using digg (I still do) but have found Twitter to be a little easier to use. I've also got my Twitter micro-blog displayed on my full blog page. I like tagging using Twitter because my tags are easier for others to find. If you watch what I tag - I'm frequently tagging something one day and then writing a full blog on it the next. I find this a very easy method.Mike: How are you posting to twitter? Are you using any browser plugins or add-ons?I've been using a Firefox add-on called Twitterbar. It's linked on the mozilla site - here's the download link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4664 It's from Tony Farndon (tones) at http://spatialviews.comFrom mozilla: The twitterbar extension allows you to post to twitter from the firefox addressbar. A small unobtrusive grey icon sits to the right of your addressbar, clicking on it will post your tweet, mouseover will tell you how many characters you have left. You can also post by typing ' --post' or hit the grey arrow when visiting a webpage to carry out a URL tweet (i.e it adds 'Currently Browsing: ' in front of the url). Options for the extension include safe/secure mode, open twitter in new tab after posting and the ability to change the URL tweet 'Currently browsing' text.There are a number of other plugins/add-ons. Mashable.com has a great post titled 8 Awesome Firefox Plugins for TwitterMike: Have you started posting using your cell phone yet? Not yet. You can receive updates from those you're following (or just some people) on your phone and you can send updates using text messaging. Twitter doesn't charge anything for this, but you want to make sure you have a text messaging plan with your cellular carrier. You can shut text messages from Twitter off at anytime by replying with "off" (and back on by sending "on"). And you can even specify that it turn off automatically at night.In addition you can tweet from you instant messenger client. Right now Twitter supports AIM, GTalk, Jabber, .Mac and LiveJournal.Gordon: Mike - how about some of the others. You sent me an invite for Pownce which I signed up for but have not spent a lot of time with. How does that work?Pownce was co-founded by Kevin Rose - the 30-year old brains behind hugely successful news/social networking site digg.com. Digg allows user to post links to interesting news or websites and other users to either "digg" or "bury" the article. Stories with the most diggs rise to the top, while others disappear - it's a great way to let the community filter news.From NY Times article linkd in my blog: With Pownce You can send text messages to individual friends or groups of friends on Pownce as well as post microblogs, or short announcements, to the larger Pownce community. This function is very similar to messaging services like Twitter or Jaiku, and is found on social networks like Facebook and MySpace (although Pownce’s messages cannot, at least for now, be sent to mobile phones). You can also send your friends links, invitations to events, or files like photos, music or videos. Of course, you can already do that on a multitude of file-sharing Web sites. It is the combination of private messaging and file-sharing that makes Pownce so novel.Gordon: Jaiku - can you tell us about that?From Wikipedia: Jaiku.com is a social networking and micro-blogging service comparable to Twitter[1]. Jaiku was founded in July, 2006 by Jyri Engeström and Petteri Koponen from Finland.Mike: Are there any others?Sure. Read/WriteWeb.com recently published a piece called 10 Micro-Blogging Tools ComparedLet's run down the list as quoted in the Read/WriteWeb piece.****Tumblr is a very clean, slick micro-blogging platform. Its focus is on simplicity and elegance. Similar to Pownce, users can share a variety of things, including text, photos, quotes, links, chats, or even videos.MySay is what it says. Instead of text updates, users call MySay and say how they are doing today. Then, friends or family can listen via phone, e-mail, or the web.Hictu is a service for video microbloggers. A webcam and a mouse-click are all that is needed to create a videopost. This streamlined solution saves time and effort for traditional vloggers.Moodmill is a way to express your mood or current state of being. A sliding scale facilitates this process, while a quick text update completes the personalized service.Frazr is also very similar to Twitter. The main difference is one of language. Frazr is focused primarily on the French and German markets.IRateMyDay allows you the ability to (yes, you guessed it) rate your day on a scale of 'Worst' to 'Great'. Users can also provide a short text update to accompany the rating. Emotionr is a way to gauge your happiness on a scale of 1-10 (decimals included). As the name touts, it is a way to express and share your emotions and feelings with those around you.****Completely off topic - rumor has it Google Presently will be coming out this week!Also discuss the gPhone and Robert Cringley's blog on Google.

Intro: You may think Google and Yahoo have a lock on search but it may be time to starting thinking a little differently. In this podcast we take a look at some niche search sites. Mike: Gordon, we love Google products and services - is there a the problem? It may be Google does too good of a job! Have you ever tried Google searching on a persons name? A simple Google search on my first and last name gives over 1.9 million results! Today, three companies control almost 90% of online search: - over 50% of all searches are done using Google - over 25% on Yahoo - and over 13% using Microsoft There are some problems though – these search engines primarily give results based on the number of sites linking to a page and the prominence of search terms on a page. Because they work this way there is room for niche. Mike: With this kind of lock on search it would be almost impossible for a startup to launch a successful general search product - right? Yes - it would be almost impossible but we are seeing some acrivirt in the niche areas. Areas like travel and finance are niches that have already been filled but today there seems to be some room in the people search area. Mike: Are there companies in this market we should be looking at? One of the startups to watch is Spock at www.spock.com. Spock is scheduled for their public launch the first week of August. Among other places on the web, Spock scans social networking websites like Facebook and LinkedIn. Search results give summary information (age, address, etc) about the person along with a list of website links that refer to the person. According to Spock 30% of the 7 billion searches done on the web every month are related to individuals. Spock says about half of those searches concern celebrities with the other half including business and personal lookups. According to Spock, a common problem that we face is that there are many people with the same name. Given that, how do we distinguish a document about Michael Jackson the singer from Michael Jackson the football player? With billions of documents and people on the web, we need to identify and cluster web documents accurately to the people they are related to. Mapping these named entities from documents to the correct person is what Spock is all about and they’re coming at the problem in an interesting way. Mike: I've looked at Spock - what is the Spock Challenge? They’ve launched what they call the Spock Challenge – more formally referred to as the SPOCK Entity Resolution Problem linked here: http://challenge.spock.com/pages/learn_more If you go to the site you can download a couple of data sets – one called a training set (approx 25,000 documents) and the other called a test set (approx 75,000 documents). Along with the document sets they include a set of target names. You assume that each document contains only one of the target names (even though most documents contain many names). The challenge is to partition all the documents relevant to a target name by their referent. Mike: When does the contest begin and end? It has already begun on 4/16/07. It will end on 11/16/07. On 11/16/07, Spock will run the final round of the competition and announce the winner.Here are the dates off the website: 4/16 Registration started 5/1- 8/15 Proposal submissions accepted 7/1 Leader board live 11/1 Finalists announced 11/16 Final round at Spock, winner announced Mike: What languages and tools be used?You can use any language and any non-commercial libraries, tools and data to develop the solution. There is one catch - the winner grants Spock non-exclusive right to use the software and data. As an FYI, much of Google is actualy written in Python with the Search Engine Core written in C++. Python provied scripting support for the search engine. and some apps like google code are done in pythonMike: Can you give us and example of how this works?From their website: Consider the following two documents with the target name "Michael Jackson": Michael Jackson - The King of Pop or Wacko Jacko? Michael Jackson statistics - pro-football-reference.com The referents of these articles are the pop star and football player, respectively. They’ve also included the ground truth for the training set so you have something to compare against. Once you're done training, you can run your algorithm on the test set and submit your results on this site. Spock will provide instant feedback in the form of a percentage rank score. This way you can see how you stack up against the other teams. So they provide you with a lot of well constructed data, and the ground truth about that data. “Ground truth? data is real results and you use this information to validate your search algorithm results. This data is documents about people, and the challenge is to determine all the unique people described in the data set. This data can be your training set. Once you have got your basic algorithm working against the training set, they let you further tune your code by running it against a second test data set and give you instant accuracy feedback in the form of a score. The score depends on how many correct unique people you can identify in the data. This way you can continue to refine your work, and see how you are doing, and how well others are doing. This looks like a great academic challenge. At the end of the contest time, you submit your code, a 3 page description of your approach, pre-built binary executables that can run in isolation on Spock servers, and your results (the “Software Entry?). Spock will select the finalists based upon submissions, and fly the finalists to visit the judges. The winner will win $50,000, 2nd place wins $5000 and 3rd place wins $2000. Mike: How doe people enter?You may enter the Contest by registering online at www.spock.com/contestregistration . You may register as an individual or as a team. During the registration process, you must provide your name, your age, your email address, and the country you are from. If you are entering on behalf of an organization, a school or a company, you must identify its name. If you are registering as a team, you must provide the same information for each member of your team as well as the identity of a team leader. You will also provide a name for your team or for yourself by which you or your team will be known to other participants in the Contest. Spock may change the name if it feels the name you select is not appropriate for any reason. Mike: What are the differences between the Spock Challenge and the Netflix Challenge? From Netflix website: The Netflix Prize (http://www.netflixprize.com ) seeks to substantially improve the accuracy of predictions about how much someone is going to love a movie based on their movie preferences. Improve it enough and you win one (or more) Prizes. Winning the Netflix Prize improves Netflix ability to connect people to the movies they love. Netflix provides you with a lot of anonymous rating data, and a prediction accuracy bar that is 10% better than what Cinematch can do on the same training data set. (Accuracy is a measurement of how closely predicted ratings of movies match subsequent actual ratings.) If you develop a system that Netflix judges  beats that bar on the qualifying test set they provide, you get serious money and the bragging rights. But (and you knew there would be a catch, right?) only if you share your method with Netflix and describe to the world how you did it and why it works. In addition to the Grand Prize, we’re also offering a $50,000 Progress Prize each year the contest runs. It goes to the team whose system we judge shows the most improvement over the previous year’s best accuracy bar on the same qualifying test set. No improvement, no prize. And like the Grand Prize, to win you’ll need to share your method with us and describe it for the world. The Netflix contest started October 2, 2006 and continues through at least October 2, 2011.So..... back to your question - The Netflix Challenge will run another 4 years; Spock Challenge has every intention to give out the grand prize to a team with a reasonable solution at the end of the 6 months. Netflix Chellenge sets an absolute standard for winning the grand prize; Spock Challenge intends to award to the best reasonable solution. Mike: How about some other companies? Wink – www.wink.com Similar to Spock – launched a few months ago. Claim that Wink People Search now searches over two hundred million people profiles. Searches people across numerous social networks including MySpace, LinkedIn, Friendster, Bebo, Live Spaces, Yahoo!360, Xanga, Twitter and more. Also included in the results are Web sources such as Wikipedia and IMDB with more coming all the time. Zoominfo – www.zoominfo.com Specializes in executive searches. Claim 37,131,140 People and 3,518,329 Companies indexed. You can currently search on three categories – people, jobs and companies. Searchwikia - http://search.wikia.com Jimmy Wales and his open-source search protocol and human collaboration project. From Press release: "Last week Wikia acquired Grub, the original visionary distributed search project, from LookSmart and released it under an open source license for the first time in four years. Grub operates under a model of users donating their personal computing resources towards a common goal, and is available today for download and testing at: http://www.grub.org/ . Grub, now open source, is designed with modularity so that developers can quickly and easily extend and add functionality, improving the quality and performance of the entire system. By combining Grub, which is building a massive, distributed user-contributed processing network, with the power of a wiki to form social consensus, the open source Search Wikia project has taken the next major step towards a future where search is open and transparent".