Podcasts about mike thank

Hi. Welcome to, maybe, the oldest podcast in existence, Flowing With Famous - a Fresno culture thing. This month we sit on things like: Art Hop or First Thursday Block Party and all of that. Smoke Shop Fresno. Band of the Episode: Strange Vine. Recap of Porchfest. All kinds of other Fresno things. Download to your collection: FlowingMay25.mp3 (Warning of some cussing involved from that jerk, Mike) Thank you for listening.  Hosted by Joshua Tehee and Mike Seay. Flowing's Blogspot. Josh at the Fresno Bee. Josh's local music newsletter: Bandgeeeek.substack.com. Josh's bands: New Old Man, It'll Grow Back, Big Balls, and the Strikingly Originals.  Mike's newsletters: Fresno! Fresno! and Drinking & Thinking. Mike's blogs The Fresnan, The Tape Player, and Mikey Top Pour Plus the podcasts Get Off My Podcast, The Perfect Pour.

Paul Vs Tyson Recap | Jake Paul took it easy on Iron Mike thank God #miketyson #jakepaul #boxing --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mma-slam-podcast/support

Have you been wondering how AI could revolutionize dental practices and patient care? In this Monday Morning Episode, we chat with Mike Buckner from Pearl, an AI company dedicated to transforming the dentistry landscape with cutting-edge technology. I begin by asking for insights on integrating AI into dental practices, Mike emphasizes that, despite the confidence many experienced dentists have in their diagnostic skills, patients increasingly expect advanced technologies that offer precision and unparalleled care. He delves into how Pearl's AI assists by marking pathologies on dental x-rays, making dental issues more comprehensible to patients and boosting acceptance of recommended treatment plans.Mike shares compelling statistics from the CDC on undiagnosed conditions and highlights how AI offers a valuable second look, ensuring no critical details are overlooked. He discusses the reliability of AI, acknowledging its occasional false positives or negatives but likening it to a TSA scanner that identifies areas warranting closer dentist inspection. Throughout the conversation, he emphasizes that AI aids rather than replaces dentists, providing them with robust tools to enhance diagnostic accuracy. A deeply personal story about his wife's missed breast cancer diagnosis underscores the broad potential of AI to elevate diagnostic care across medical fields. As the episode wraps up, Mike encourages listeners to explore Pearl's offerings and consider a demo to experience AI's benefits firsthand.What You'll Learn in This Episode:How AI is transforming the field of dentistry and patient expectationsThe advantages of using AI for diagnosing dental issues through x-ray analysisKey statistics on undiagnosed conditions and the role of AI in mitigating theseThe limitations and reliability of AI in diagnostic proceduresPersonal anecdotes highlighting the broader significance of AI in healthcare diagnosticsDon't miss out on discovering how AI can elevate your dental practice and ensure the best patient care – tune in to this episode now!‍‍Pearl AI: The Future of Dentistry, Powered by AI: https://hellopearl.com/ (Don't forget to mention you heard about Pearl AI on the podcast!)‍You can reach out to Mike Buckner here:Website: https://hellopearl.com/Can You Beat AI? http://play.hellopearl.com/‍Mentions and Links: Podcast Episodes:402: DR. KYLE STANLEY | BEVERLY HILLS DENTIST – THE DENTAL MARKETER PODCAST‍Products/Brands:iPhone‍Sources for Referenced Stats: Development of a Deep Learning Algorithm for Periapical Disease Detection in Dental RadiographsDiagnosis of Occlusal Caries: Part I. Conventional MethodsProducts - Data Briefs - Number 307 - April 2018‍If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Episodes, ask me on these platforms:My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)‍Michael: Hey Mike. So talk to us. What's one piece of advice you can give us this Monday morning? Mike: A little background. I work at a, an AI company, right? Pearl. and so what we're doing is we're helping dentists see and analyze everything that's on the x rays that are taken.And oftentimes, you know, it's really interesting, but oftentimes talk to dentists who say, you know what, I've been looking at x rays. for the last 20, 30 years, I don't need help. I don't need technology to help me look at or diagnose or find things on x rays. I never miss anything on my x rays.And I guess a piece of advice that I would give is that it's not necessarily about. You know, that sounds really bad, but it's really about the patient and what the patient is expecting. oftentimes we get an influx of patients that reach out to us at Pearl are asking us, Hey, can you help us find a dentist in the area that we live in that utilizes artificial intelligence?because they've been burned before. They've had bad experiences before they needed to go and get a second opinion before. And so it's really about what the patient's expectations are. What is going to give your patients the peace of mind that they are going to a practice that leverages the latest and greatest in technology so that they are going to someone who's going to provide them with the best oral care available.Michael: And so you guys have been bumping into this a lot with regular population, general population asking. Mike: Yeah. So we, we get a lot of patients that,have an interest in what we're doing with artificial intelligence and highlighting all of the pathologies on the x rays because really what it does is it's giving the patients as a patient's in the chair.It gives them the opportunity really for the first time to kind of see what the clinician's seeing, to see what the doctor's seeing. The dentist can look at the x rays and he can see and analyze almost everything that's on there. But when he's pointing out the treatment to the patient, the patient's like, I'm sorry, everything looks Kind of gray or this dark color gray, because the doctor's like, do you see this area right here? That's a little darker and for them. They're not seeing it But when AI can come in and highlight all of those areas on the x ray it breaks it down for them It helps them see it and understand it and when they see it and they understand what's going on in the x rays it makes sense to them.It truly leads to an increase in case acceptance. Michael: Do you, Mike, by any chance have stats on how much missed things have happened you know what I mean? like my own self trust. I got this. Don't worry. I've been doing this for years. Compared to AI. Mike: I do. In fact, I'm glad you asked that. We did not rehearse this before, but I actually have some stats up that I wanted to share.this is right off of the CDC website. are some studies show that 43 percent of carries in x rays are undiagnosed. 20 percent of carries diagnosed in patients are not actually carries. here's the big one, 49%, almost right down the middle, almost a coin toss 49 percent of periapical radiolucency and x raysare undiagnosed.That's huge. Yeah. That's massive. And even if it's just one that's missed, now, unfortunately we're seeing it more than ever. We're seeing, law firms that are advertising to patients. saying, Hey, did your dentist miss this or miss that? Cause if so, click here and submit a claim and we're going to go after him and get you some money.It's, unfortunate, but that's really the way that things are going. So, This just allows that second set of eyes, that peace of mind, especially as you have associates, you've got other people working with you in the practice to make sure that everyone is seeing all of the detections.It's not diagnosing. But it's just helping highlight and find things earlier or sooner than human eye might be able to. Michael: the human eye can only see between 30 and 50 different shades and tones of gray, artificial intelligence, it has the ability to really pick up and highlight between 500 and 700 different shades and tones of gray, it really is able to catch things earlier than what a dentist might be confident in finding diagnosing. Gotcha. Okay. now this is a question I've seen floating around. Can AI make mistakes? Mike: Absolutely. In fact, what I would say is that when you do install or implement AI, there will be times that you'll look at it and it might be a false positive.It might be a false negative. And here's really kind of reasoning behind it. if you go onto your phone, your iPhone. And they have that search in your photos, you can go to your photos and you can search and type in something fairly generic into the search. You can type in like a dog or a cat and it's going to go in and it's going to give you all of the pictures, all categorized, all bunched together, all the pictures of dogs in your phone.But you might have a couple of those that are going to be cats or might be deer or might be something else, but it looks very similar to that. Now, this is where it's not a replacement for the doctor. It's not a replacement for the human eye, because if you look at that, you can easily see, Oh, you know what?It's actually a deer. It looks like a dog, but I can tell that it's a deer. The same thing applies with the x rays. Sometimes the x ray might be taken on a poor angulation or with a lot of overlap and it might pick something up. But looking at it, oftentimes the doctor will say well, yeah, I can see why it might be highlighting or showing that as carries.But I know that there's just massive area of overlap or something else that, they can easily see and pick up. Michael: So would you recommend if we're utilizing Pearl or AI, right? We use it Hey, this is our first round and then I will double check it as a doctor and make sure it looks good.Or the other way around,Mike: because it works instantaneously, I would almost suggest look at the areas that the AI is saying, Hey, there might be a curious lesion here. Very similar, Michael, when you go through like TSA at the airport, you walk through that scanner.And when you walk through, there's a little box that it shows kind of an outline of a person and it shows a little box to the TSA agent saying, Hey, you should probably check this area. And that's very similar to what the AI is doing. showing you the areas to the dentist that saying, Hey, you might want to check this area based upon the pixels on the x ray in this area.There's a high likelihood that there's, radiolucency that's found within this area. Michael: Gotcha. it's really good. To always keep that alert on this thing. And so with AI, you mentioned that patients reach out to you. Is there a specific thing that you guys do where you're like, Hey, there's doctors near you who have, you know,Mike: So we don't have anything that's programmed yet that we, have released, probably coming soon, kind of a little teaser there but, is something that AI is huge in medicine. we talked about this, right before this podcast where, it affected me as well. In fact, my wife's breast cancer was missed on a mammogram. And I started researching where is AI in mammography we're seeing more and more of it, but patients are aware of this.Patients know that AI is here to stay. It is really elevating the standard of care because humans are prone to mistake. Humans are prone to errors and missing things. And the AI is really kind of that, unbiased, able to just highlight all the data that's shown and let the clinicians, let the doctors make the final decision.Michael: Gotcha. Can I ask Mike, what made you, when it came to the breast cancer with your wife, get like a second opinion and not just depend on that one doctor and say, Hey, cool. Mike: Yeah. It's funny. there was a phrase that was shared with us when the oncologist, showed us the mammogram and then he said, we can do an ultrasound.We did the ultrasound. Same thing. It's not really typical to what we see with breast cancer. And then he said, we can watch it. you're young, I wouldn't worry about it. You can come back next year. We'll get another mammogram.We can see if it's changed in size or anything. I'm like, there's no way there's no way I'm watching it. Cause I know what that means. What are we going to watch it do? We're going to watch it get bigger. I don't want to play with that. that's really where I thought, you know what? kind of. wanted to research where is AI in mammography? Because this all happened while I'm working at Pearl, while I'm working at a company that is bringing artificial intelligence, aid or detections to x rays. those words, we can watch it. To me, it was like, okay, the doctor sees something there, but is not certain enough.To give a diagnosis. went ahead with the biopsy and the biopsy came back positive. She's doing well now, but the biopsy came back positive and I went home and I was like, Oh my gosh, of course. humans make mistakes.don't blame him because here's the thing that I don't know. Was that his first mammogram that he looked at on Monday, or was that his 500th mammogram that he looked at on Friday and where everything is kind of all blending together, can't blame him for that, humans just make mistakes, but that's really where after we got the results back from the biopsy, I went back and I started researching this.And, AI in medicine is making massive strides all across all the different fields in medicine. And it's exciting because I do think that it will improve the overall standard of care. Michael: That's interesting. Man, that you mentioned that because for a lot of patients. Dental or not, like this is their, visit, whether they're in the chair, right?And then they're getting checked up on and stuff like that, that could be their first most terrifying experience ever. But for the doctor, it's it's Friday, my last pay, I just want to get out of here kind of thing. Right. I have stuff to do. And so the doctor could be super experienced.But the time of day and how they're feeling and everything plays a huge factor, and that's what can miss it, right? And so I guess we're not really thinking of, oh, this is the patient's first and most terrifying experience ever here with us. And they're depending on me to get everything on point, but I'm like, I gotta get Mike: out of here Michael: kind of thing, right?Mike: Yeah. you look at those x rays, we've been looking at the same black and white and gray technology for a long time now oftentimes it is kind of on the fence, like, should we treat it? Should we not? We don't want to be too aggressive. But I remember I've been to the dentist before and the dentist has told me like, ah, there's something here, but might want to just keep an eye on it.And I'm like either there is, or there isn't. Can we stop it? Can we do something to remineralize whatever? But don't just let me walk out of here. If you see something there let's take care of it. I want to fix it. Michael: Yeah. A hundred percent, man. That's true. Awesome. Mike, thank you so much for your time.I appreciate it. But if anyone has further questions or concerns, where can they reach out to me? Mike: Actually you can go to our website. Hellopearl. com. If you go to our website, you can sign up for a demo of Pearl. see how the AI interfaces with your x rays.what it can do for your practice. So we really have designed different features and different tools for all areas of the practice, whether it's front office, whether you're a hygienist, you're a dentist. We really have, explored ways to leverage artificial intelligence to really increase overall efficiency and the standard of care in the practice.Michael: Awesome. So that's going to be in the show notes below. So you can reach out to Mike and get that free demo. Mike, thank you so much for being with us on this Monday morning episode. Mike: Thank you very much.‍

Rounding Up Season 2 | Episode 11 – Translanguaging Guest: Tatyana Kleyn Mike Wallus: Over the past two years, we've done several episodes on supporting multilingual learners in math classrooms. Today we're going back to this topic to talk about “translanguaging,” an asset-focused approach that invites students to bring their full language repertoire into the classroom. We'll talk with Tatyana Kleyn about what translanguaging looks like and how all teachers can integrate this practice into their classrooms.  Mike: Well, welcome to the podcast, Tatyana. We're excited to be talking with you today.  Tatyana Kleyn: Thank you. This is very exciting.  Mike: So, your background with the topic of multilingual learners and translanguaging, it's not only academic. It's also personal. I'm wondering if you might share a bit of your own background as a starting point for this conversation.  Tatyana: Yes, absolutely. I think for many of us in education, we don't randomly end up teaching in the areas that we're teaching in or doing the work that we're doing. So, I always like to share my story so people know why I'm doing this work and where I'm coming from. So, my personal story, I work a lot at the intersection of language migration and education, and those are all three aspects that have been critical in bringing me here. So, I was actually born in what was the Soviet Union many, many years ago, and my family immigrated to the United States as political refugees, and I was just 5½ years old. So, I actually never went to school in the Soviet Union. Russian was my home language, and I quickly started speaking English, but my literacy was not quick at all, and it was quite painful because I never learned to read in my home language. I never had that foundation.  Tatyana: So, when I was learning to read in English, it wasn't meaning making, it was just making sounds. It was kind of painful. I once heard somebody say, “For some people, reading is like this escape and this pure joy, and for other people it's like cleaning the toilet. You get in and you get out.” And I was like, “That's me. I'm the toilet cleaner.” ( laughs ) So, that was how reading was for me. I always left my home language at the door when I came into school, and I wanted it that way because I, as a young child, got this strong message that English was the language that mattered in this country. So, for example, instead of going by Tatyana, I went by Tanya. So, I always kind of kept this secret that I spoke this other language. I had this other culture, and it wasn't until sixth grade where my sixth-grade teacher, Ms. Chang, invited my mom to speak about our immigration history.  Tatyana: And I don't know why, but I thought that was so embarrassing. I think in middle school, it's not really cool to have your parents around. So, I was like, “Oh my God, this is going to be horrible.” But then I realized my peers were really interested—and in a good way—and I was like, “Wait, this is a good thing?” So, I started thinking, “OK, we should be proud of who we are and let just people be who they are.” And when you let people be who they are, they thrive in math, in science, in social studies, instead of trying so hard to be someone they're not, and then focusing on that instead of everything else that they should be focusing on as students.  Mike: So, there's a lot there. And I think I want to dig into what you talked about over the course of the interview. I want to zero in a little bit on translanguaging though, because for me, at least until quite recently, this idea of translanguaging was really a new concept, a new idea for me, and I'm going to guess that that's the case for a lot of the people who are listening to this as well. So, just to begin, would you talk briefly about what translanguaging is and your sense of the impact that it can have on learners?  Tatyana: Sure. Well, I'm so glad to be talking about translanguaging in this space specifically, because often when we talk about translanguaging, it's in bilingual education or English as a second language or is a new language, and it's important in those settings, right? But it's important in all settings. So, I think you're not the only one, especially if we're talking about math educators or general elementary educators, it's like, “Oh, translanguaging, I haven't heard of that,” right? So, it is not something brand new, but it is a concept that Ofelia García and some of her colleagues really brought forth to the field in the early 2000s … around 2009. And what it does is instead of saying English should be the center of everything, and everyone who doesn't just speak English is peripheral. It's saying, “Instead of putting English at the center, let's put our students' home language practices at the center. And what would that look like?” So, that wouldn't mean everything has to be in English. It wouldn't mean the teacher's language practices are front and center, and the students have to adapt to that. But it's about centering the students and then the teacher adapting to the languages and the language practices that the students bring. Teachers are there to have students use all the language at their resource—whatever language it is, whatever variety it is. And all those resources will help them learn. The more you can use, when we're talking about math, well, if we're teaching a concept and there are manipulatives there that will help students use them, why should we hide them? Why not bring them in and say, “OK, use this.” And once you have that concept, we can now scaffold and take things away little by little until you have it on your own. And the same thing with sometimes learning English.  Tatyana: We should allow students to learn English as a new language using their home language resources. But one thing I will say is we should never take away their home language practices from the classroom. Even when they're fully bilingual, fully biliterate, it's still about, “How can we use these resources? How can they use that in their classroom?” Because we know in the world, speaking English is not enough. We're becoming more globalized, so let's have our students grow their language practices. And then students are allowed and proud of the language practices they bring. They teach their language practices to their peers, to their teachers. So, it's really hard to say it all in a couple of minutes, but I think the essence of translanguaging is centering students' language practices and then using that as a resource for them to learn and to grow, to learn languages and to learn content as well.  Mike: How do you think that shifts the experience for a child?  Tatyana: Well, if I think about my own experiences, you don't have to leave who you are at the door. We are not saying, “Home language is here, school language is there, and neither shall the two meet.” We're saying, “Language, and in the sense that it's a verb.” And when you can be your whole self, it allows you to have a stronger sense of who you are in order to really grow and learn and be proud of who you are. And I think that's a big part of it. I think when kids are bashful about who they are, thinking who they are isn't good enough, that has ripple effects in so many ways for them. So, I think we have to bring a lens of critical consciousness into these kind of spaces and make sure that our immigrant-origin students, their language practices, are centered through a translanguaging lens.  Mike: It strikes me that it matters a lot how we as educators—internally, in the way that we think and externally, in the things that we do and the things that we say—how we position the child's home language, whether we think of it as an asset that is something to draw upon or a deficit or a barrier, that the way that we're thinking about it makes a really big difference in the child's experience.  Tatyana: Yes, absolutely. Ofelia García, Kate Seltzer and Susana Johnson talk about a translanguaging stance. So, translanguaging is not just a practice or a pedagogy like, “Oh, let me switch this up, or let me say this in this language.” Yes, that's helpful, but it's how you approach who students are and what they bring. So, if you don't come from a stance of valuing multilingualism, it's not really going to cut it, right? It's something, but it's really about the stance. So, something that's really important is to change the culture of classrooms. So, just because you tell somebody like, “Oh, you can say this in your home language, or you can read this book side by side in Spanish and in English if it'll help you understand it.” Some students may not want to because they will think their peers will look down on them for doing it, or they'll think it means they're not smart enough. So, it's really about centering multilingualism in your classroom and celebrating it. And then as that stance changes the culture of the classroom, I can see students just saying, “Ah, no, no, no, I'm good in English.” Even though they may not fully feel comfortable in English yet, but because of the perception of what it means to be bilinguals.  Mike: I'm thinking even about the example that you shared earlier where you said that an educator might say, “You can read this in Spanish side by side with English if you need to or if you want to.” But even that language of you can implies that, potentially, this is a remedy for a deficit as opposed to the ability to read in multiple languages as a huge asset. And it makes me think even our language choices sometimes will be a tell to kids about how we think about them as a learner and how we think about their language.  Tatyana: That's so true, and how do we reframe that? “Let's read this in two languages. Who wants to try a new language?” Making this something exciting as opposed to framing it in a deficit way. So that's something that's so important that you picked up on. Yeah.  Mike: Well, I think we're probably at the point in the conversation where there's a lot of folks who are monolingual who might be listening and they're thinking to themselves, “This stance that we're talking about is something that I want to step into.” And now they're wondering what might it actually look like to put this into practice? Can we talk about what it would look like, particularly for someone who might be monolingual to both step into the stance and then also step into the practice a bit?  Tatyana: Yes. I think the stance is really doing some internal reflection, questioning about what do I believe about multilingualism? What do I believe about people who come here, to come to the United States? In New York City, about half of our multilingual learners are U.S. born. So, it's not just immigrant students, but their parents, or they're often children of immigrants. So, really looking closely and saying, “How am I including respecting, valuing the languages of students regardless of where they come from?” And then, I think for the practice, it's about letting go of some control. As teachers, we are kind of control freaks. I can just speak for myself. ( laughs ) I like to know everything that's going on.  Mike: I will add myself to that list, Tatyana.  Tatyana: It's a long list. It's a long list. ( laughs ) But I think first of all, as educators, we have a sense when a kid is on task, and you can tell when a kid is not on task. You may not know exactly what they're saying. So, I think it's letting go of that control and letting the students, for example, when you are giving directions … I think one of the most dangerous things we do is we give directions in English when we have multilingual students in our classrooms, and we assume they understood it. If you don't understand the directions, the next 40 minutes will be a waste of time because you will have no idea what's happening. So, what does that mean? It means perhaps putting the directions into Google Translate and having it translate the different languages of your students. Will it be perfect? No. But will it be better than just being in English? A million times yes, right?  Tatyana: Sometimes it's about putting students in same-language groups. If there are enough—two or three or four students that speak the same home language—and having them discuss something in their home language or multilingually before actually starting to do the work to make sure they're all on the same page. Sometimes it can mean if asking students if they do come from other countries, sometimes I'm thinking of math, math is done differently in different countries. So, we teach one approach, but what is another approach? Let's share that. Instead of having kids think like, “Oh, I came here, now this is the bad way. Or when I go home and I ask my family to help me, they're telling me all wrong.” No, again, these are the strengths of the families, and let's put them side by side and see how they go together.  Tatyana: And I think what it's ultimately about is thinking about your classroom, not as a monolingual classroom, but as a multilingual classroom. And really taking stock of who are your students? Where are they and their families coming from, and what languages do they speak? And really centering that. Sometimes you may have students that may not tell you because they may feel like it's shameful to share that we speak a language that maybe other people haven't heard of. I'm thinking of indigenous languages from Honduras, like Garífuna, Miskito, right? Of course, Spanish, everyone knows that. But really excavating the languages of the students, the home language practices, and then thinking about giving them opportunities to translate if they need to translate. I'm not saying everything should be translated. I think word problems, having problems side by side, is really important. Because sometimes what students know is they know the math terms in English, but the other terms, they may not know those yet.  Tatyana: And I'll give you one really powerful example. This is a million years ago, but it stays with me from my dissertation. It was in a Haitian Creole bilingual classroom. They were taking a standardized test, and the word problem was where it was like three gumballs, two gumballs, this color, what are the probability of a blue gumball coming out of this gumball machine? And this student just got stuck on gumball machine because in Haiti people sell gum, not machines, and it was irrelevant to the whole problem. So, language matters, but culture matters, too, right? So, giving students the opportunity to see things side by side and thinking about, “Are there any things here that might trip them up that I could explain to them?” So, I think it's starting small. It's taking risks. It's letting go of control and centering the students.  Mike: So, from one recovering control freak to another, there are a couple of things that I'm thinking about. One is expanding a little bit on this idea of having two kids who might speak to one another in their home language, even if you are a monolingual speaker and you speak English and you don't necessarily have access to the language that they're using. Can you talk a little bit about that practice and how you see it and any guidance that you might offer around that?  Tatyana: Yeah, I mean, it may not work the first time or the second time because kids may feel a little bit shy to do that. So maybe it's, “I want to try out something new in our class. I really am trying to make this a multilingual class. Who speaks another language here? Let's try … I am going to put you in a group and you're going to talk about this, and let's come back. And how did you feel? How was it for you? Let me tell you how I felt about it.” And it may be trying over a couple times because kids have learned that in most school settings, English is a language you should be using. And to the extent that some have been told not to speak any other language, I think it's just about setting it up and, “Oh, you two spoke, which language? Wow, can you teach us how to say this math term in this language?”  Tatyana: “Oh, wow, isn't this interesting? This is a cognate, which means it sounds the same as the English word. And let's see if this language and this language, if the word means the same thing,” getting everyone involved in centering this multilingualism. And language is fun. We can play with language, we can put language side by side. So, then if you're labeling or if you have a math word wall, why not put key terms in all the languages that the students speak in the class and then they could teach each other those languages? So, I think you have to start little. You have to expect some resistance. But over time, if you keep pushing away at this, I think it will be good for not only your multilingual students, but all your students to say like, “Oh, wait a minute, there's all these languages in the world, but they're not just in the world. They're right here by my friend to the left and my friend to the right” and open up that space.  Mike: So, I want to ask another question. What I'm thinking about is participation. And we've done an episode in the past around not privileging verbal communication as the only way that kids can communicate their ideas. We were speaking to someone who, their focus really was elementary years mathematics, but specifically, with multilingual learners. And the point that they were making was, kids gestures, the way that they use their hands, the way that they move manipulatives, their drawings, all of those things are sources of communication that we don't have to only say, “Kids understand things if they can articulate it in a particular way.” That there are other things that they do that are legitimate forms of participation. The thing that was in my head was, it seems really reasonable to say that if you have kids who could share an explanation or a strategy that they've come up with or a solution to a problem in their home language in front of the group, that would be perfectly legitimate. Having them actually explain their thinking in their home language is accomplishing the goal that we're after, which is can you justify your mathematical thinking? I guess I just wanted to check in and say, “Does that actually seem like a reasonable logic to follow that that's actually a productive practice for a teacher, but also a productive practice for a kid to engage in?”  Tatyana: That makes a lot of sense. So, I would say for every lesson you, you may have a math objective, you may have a language objective, and you may have both. If your objective is to get kids to understand a concept in math or to explain something in math, who cares what language they do it in? It's about learning math. And if you're only allowing them to do it in a language that they are still developing in, they will always be about English and not about math. So, how do you take that away? You allow them to use all their linguistic resources. And we can have students explain something in their home language. There are now many apps where we could just record that, and it will translate it into English. If you are not a speaker of the language that the student speaks, you can have a peer then summarize what they said in English as well. So, there's different ways to do it. So yes, I think it's about thinking about the objectives or the objective of the lesson. And if you're really focusing on math, the language is really irrelevant. It's about explaining or showing what they know in math, and they can do that in any language. Or even without spoken language, but in written language artistically with symbols, et cetera.  Mike: Well, and what you made me think, too, is for that peer, it's actually a great opportunity for them to engage with the reasoning of someone else and try to make meaning of it. So, there's a double bonus in it for that practice.  Tatyana: Exactly. I think sometimes students don't really like listening to each other. They think they only need to listen to the teacher. So, I think this really has them listen to each other. And then sometimes summarizing or synthesizing is a really hard skill, and then doing it in another language is a whole other level. So, we're really pushing kids in those ways as well. So, there's many advantages to this approach.  Mike: Yeah, absolutely. We have talked a lot about the importance of having kids engage with the thinking of other children as opposed to having the teacher be positioned as the only source of mathematical knowledge. So, the more that we talk about it, the more that I can see there's a lot of value culturally for a mathematics classroom in terms of showing that kids thinking matters, but also supporting that language development as well.  Tatyana: Yes, and doing it is hard. As I said, none of this is easy, but it's so important. And I think when you start creating a multilingual classroom, it just has a different feel to it. And I think students can grow so much in their math, understanding it and in so many other ways.  Mike: Absolutely. Well, before we close the interview, I invite you to share resources that you would recommend for an educator who's listening who wants to step into the stance of translanguaging, the practice of translanguaging, anything that you would offer that could help people continue learning.  Tatyana: I have one hub of all things translanguaging, so this will make it easy for all the listeners. So, it is the CUNY New York State Initiative on Emergent Bilinguals. And let me just give you the website. It's C-U-N-Y [hyphen] N-Y-S-I-E-B.org. And I'll say that again. C-U-N-Y, N-Y-S-I-E-B.org, cuny-nysieb.org. That's the CUNY New York State Initiative on Emergent Bilinguals. And because it's such a mouthful, we just say “CUNY NYSIEB,” as you could tell by my own, trying to get it straight. You can find translanguaging resources such as guides. You can find webinars, you can find research, you can find books. Literally everything you would want around translanguaging is there in one website. Of course, there's more out there in the world. But I think that's a great starting point. There's so many great resources just to start with there. And then just start small. Small changes sometimes have big impacts on student learning and students' perceptions of how teachers view them and their families.  Mike: Thank you so much for joining us, Tatiana. It's really been a pleasure talking with you.  Tatyana: Yes, it's been wonderful. Thank you so much. And we will just all try to let go a little bit of our control little by little. Both: ( laugh)  Tatyana: Because at the end of the day, we really don't control very much at all. ( laughs )  Mike: Agreed. ( chuckles ) Thank you.  Tatyana: Thank you. Mike: This podcast is brought to you by The Math Learning Center and the Maier Math Foundation, dedicated to inspiring and enabling all individuals to discover and develop their mathematical confidence and ability. © 2024 The Math Learning Center | www.mathlearningcenter.org

If you missed the other episodes with thoughtbot Incubator Program partcipants and founders Mike Rosenthal and Chris Cerrito of Goodz, you can listen to the first episode (https://podcast.thoughtbot.com/s3e2incubatorgoodz) and the second episode (https://podcast.thoughtbot.com/s3e4incubatorgoodz), and the third episode (https://podcast.thoughtbot.com/s3e6incubatorgoodz) to catch up! Lindsey Christensen and Jordyn Bonds catch up with the co-founders of Goodz, Chris Cerrito and Mike Rosenthal, where they share insights from their journey during the Incubator program, including the usefulness of the application process in aligning their vision and the challenges and benefits of user interviews and the importance of not overreacting to single user feedback and finding a balance in responding to diverse opinions. They reveal the varied reactions of users to Goodz's product, highlighting the different market segments interested in it. As the Incubator program nears its end for Goodz, Chris and Mike reflect on their achievements and future plans. They've made significant progress, such as setting up an e-commerce site and conducting successful user interviews. The co-founders discuss their excitement about the potential of their product and the validation they received from users. Mike mentions the importance of focusing on B2B sales and the possibility of upcoming events like South by Southwest and Record Store Day. Transcript: LINDSEY: Thanks for being here. My name's Lindsey. I head up marketing at thoughtbot. If you haven't joined one of these before, we are checking in with two of the founders who are going through the thoughtbot Startup Incubator to learn how it's going, what's new, what challenges they're hitting, and what they're learning along the way. If you're not familiar with thoughtbot, we're a product design and development consultancy, and we hope your team and your product become a success. And one way we do that is through our startup incubator. So, today, we are joined by our co-founders, Mike Rosenthal and Chris Cerrito, Co-Founders of the startup Goodz. And we also have another special guest today, Danny Kim, from the thoughtbot side, Senior Product Manager at thoughtbot. So, I think, to start off, we'll head over to the new face, the new voice that we've got with us today. Danny, tell us a little bit about your role at thoughtbot and, specifically, the incubator. DANNY: Yeah, sure. First of all, thanks for having me on, and thanks for letting me join in on all the fun. I'm one of the product managers at thoughtbot. I typically work for the Lift-Off team. We usually work with companies that are looking to, like, go into market with their first version MVP. They might have a product that exists and that they're already kind of doing well with, and they kind of want to jump into a new segment. We'll typically work with companies like that to kind of get them kicked off the ground. But it's been really awesome being part of the incubator program. It's my first time in helping with the market validation side. Definitely also, like, learning a lot from this experience [laughs] for myself. Coming at it specifically from a PM perspective, there's, like, so much variation usually in product management across the industry, depending on, like, what stage of the product that you're working in. And so, I'm definitely feeling my fair share of impostor syndrome here. But it's been really fun to stretch my brand and, like, approach problems from, like, a completely different perspective and also using different tools. But, you know, working with Mike and Chris makes it so much easier because they really make it feel like you're part of their team, and so that definitely goes a long way. LINDSEY: It just goes to show everyone gets impostor syndrome sometimes [laughter], even senior product managers at thoughtbot [laughter]. Thanks for that intro. It's, you know, the thoughtbot team learns along the way, too, you know, especially if usually you're focused on a different stage of product development. Mike, it's been only three weeks or a very long three weeks since last we checked in with you, kind of forever in startup time. So, I think the last time, we were just getting to know you two. And you were walking us through the concept, this merging of the digital and physical world of music, and how we interact with music keepsakes or merchandise. How's my pitch? MIKE: Good. Great. You're killing it. [laughter] LINDSEY: And has anything major changed to that concept in the last three weeks? MIKE: No. I mean, I can't believe it's only been three weeks. It feels like it's been a long time since we last talked. It's been an intense three weeks, for sure. No, it's been going really well. I mean, we launched all sorts of stuff. I'm trying to think of anything that's sort of fundamentally changed in terms of the plan itself or kind of our, yeah, what we've been working on. And I think we've pretty much stayed the course to sort of get to where we are now. But it's been really intensive. I think also having sort of Thanksgiving in there, and we were kind of pushing to get something live right before the Thanksgiving break. And so, that week just felt, I mean, I was just dead by, you know, like, Thursday of Thanksgiving. I think we all were. So, it's been intense, I would say, is the short answer. And I'm happy, yeah, to get into kind of where things are at. But big picture, it's been an intense three weeks. LINDSEY: That's cool. And when we talked, you were, you know, definitely getting into research and user interviews. Have those influenced any, you know, changes along the way in the plan? MIKE: Yeah. They've been really helpful. You know, we'd never really done that before in any of the sort of past projects that we've worked on together. And so, I think just being able to, you know, read through some of those scripts and then sit through some of the interviews and just kind of hearing people's honest assessment of some things has been really interesting. I'm trying to think if it's materially affected anything. I guess, you know, at first, we were, like, we kind of had some assumptions around, okay, let's try to find, like...adult gift-givers sounds like the wrong thing, adults who give gifts as, like, a persona. The idea that, like, you know, maybe you gift your siblings gifts, and then maybe this could be a good gift idea. And I think, you know, we had a hard time kind of finding people to talk in an interesting way about that. And I think we've kind of realized it's kind of a hard persona to kind of chop up and talk about, right, Chris? I don't know [crosstalk 04:55] CHRIS: Well, it also seemed to, from my understanding of it, it seemed to, like, genuinely stress out the people who were being interviewed... MIKE: [laughs] CHRIS: Because it's kind of about a stressful topic [inaudible 05:03], you know, and, like, especially -- LINDSEY: Why? [laughs] CHRIS: Well, I think, I don't know, now I'm making assumptions. Maybe because we're close to the holiday season, and that's a topic in the back of everybody's mind. But yeah, Danny, would you disagree with that? Those folks, from what we heard, seemed like they were the most difficult to kind of extract answers from. But then, if the subject changed and we treated them as a different persona, several of those interviews proved to be quite fruitful. So, it's just really interesting. DANNY: Yeah. It really started, like, you kind of try to get some answers out of people, and there's, like, some level of people trying to please you to some extent. That's just, like, naturally, how it starts. And you just, like, keep trying to drill into the answers. And you just keep asking people like, "So, what kind of gifts do you give?" And they're just like, "Oh my goodness, like, I haven't thought about buying gifts for my sister in [laughs], like, you know, in forever. And now, like [laughs], I don't know where to go." And they get, like, pretty stressed out about it. But then we just kind of started shifting into like, "All right, cool, never mind about that. Like, do you like listening to music?" And they're like, "Yes." And then it just kind of explodes from there. And they're like, "This last concert that I went to..." and all of this stuff. And it was much more fruitful kind of leaning more towards that, actually, yeah. LINDSEY: That's fascinating. I guess that speaks to, especially at this stage and the speed and the amount of interviews you're doing, the need for being, like, really agile in those interviews, and then, like, really quickly applying what you're learning to making the next one even more valuable. MIKE: Yeah. And I think, you know, like, we launched just a little sort of website experiment or, like, an e-commerce experiment right before Thanksgiving. And I think now, you know, we're able to sort of take some of those learnings from those interviews and apply them to both sort of our ad copy itself but also just different landing pages in different language on the different kind of versions of the site and see if we can find some resonance with some of these audience groups. So, it's been interesting. LINDSEY: Are you still trying to figure out who that early adopter audience is, who that niche persona is? MIKE: I think we -- CHRIS: Yes, we are. I think we have a good idea of who it is. And I think right now we're just trying to figure out really how to reach those people. That, I think, is the biggest challenge right now for us. MIKE: Yeah. With the e-commerce experiment it was sort of a very specific niche thing that is a little bit adjacent to what I think we want to be doing longer term with Goodz. And so, it's weird. It's like, we're in a place we're like, oh, we really want to find the people that want this thing. But also, this thing isn't necessarily the thing that we think we're going to make longer term, so let's not worry too hard about finding them. You know what I mean? It's been an interesting sort of back and forth with that. CHRIS: From the interviews that we conducted, you know, we identified three key personas. Most of them have come up, but I'll just relist them. There's the sibling gift giver. There was the merch buyers; these are people who go to concerts and buy merchandise, you know, T-shirts, albums, records, things along those lines to support the artists that they love. And then the final one that was identified we gave the title of the 'Proud Playlister'. And these are people who are really into their digital media platforms, love making playlists, and love sharing those playlists with their friends. And that, I would say, the proud playlister is really the one that we have focused on in terms of the storefront that we launched, like, the product is pretty much specifically for them. But the lessons that we're learning while making this product and trying to get this into the hands of the proud playlisters will feed into kind of the merch buyers. MIKE: Yeah. And I think that, you know, it's funny, like, this week is kind of a poignant week for this, right? Because it's the week that Spotify Wrapped launched, right? So, it's like, in the course of any given year, it's probably, like, the one week of the year that lots and lots and lots of people are thinking about playlists all of a sudden, so trying a little bit to see if we can ride that wave or just kind of dovetail with that a bit, too. LINDSEY: Absolutely. And do you want to give just, like, the really quick reminder of what the product experience is like? MIKE: Oh yeah [laughs], good call. CHRIS: This is a prototype of it. It's called the Goodz Mixtape. Basically, the idea is that you purchase one of these from us. You give us a playlist URL. We program that URL onto the NFC chip that's embedded in the Good itself. And then when you scan this Good, that playlist will come up. So, it's a really great way of you make a playlist for somebody, and you want to gift it to them; this is a great way to do that. You have a special playlist, maybe between you and a friend or you and a partner. This is a good way to commemorate that playlist, turn it into a physical thing, give that digital file value and presence in the physical world. LINDSEY: Great. Okay, so you casually mentioned this launch of an e-commerce store that happened last week. MIKE: It didn't feel casual. LINDSEY: Yeah. Why [laughter]...[inaudible 09:45] real casual. Why did you launch it? How's it going? MIKE: I don't know. Why did we launch it? I mean, well, we wanted to be able to test some assumptions. I think, you know, we wanted to get the brand out there a little bit, get our website out there, kind of introduce the concept. You know, this is a very...not that we've invented this product category, but it is a pretty obscure product category, right? And so, there's a lot of sort of consumer education that I think that has to go on for people to wrap their heads around this and why they'd want this. So, I think we wanted to start that process a little bit correctly, sort of in advance of a larger launch next year, and see if we could find some early community around this. You know, if we can find those core people who just absolutely love this, and connect with it, and go wild around it, then those are the people that we're going to be able to get a ton of information from and build for that persona, right? It's like, cool, these are the people who love this. Let's build more for them and go find other people like this. So, I think, for us, it was that. And then, honestly, it was also just, you know, let's test our manufacturing and fulfillment and logistics capabilities, right? I mean, this is...as much as we are a B2B, you know, SaaS platform or that's what we envision the future of Goodz being, there is a physical component of this. And, you know, we do have that part basically done at this point. But we just, you know, what is it like to order 1,000 of these? What is it like to put these in the mail to people and, you know, actually take orders? And just some of that processing because we do envision a more wholesale future where we're doing, you know, thousands or tens of thousands of this at a time. And so, I think we just want to button up and do some dry runs before we get to those kinds of numbers. CHRIS: I think it also it's important to remember that we are talking in startup time. And while this last week seems like an eternity, it's been a week [laughs] that we've had this in place. So, we're just starting to learn these things, and we plan on continuing to do so. MIKE: Yeah. But I think we thought that getting a website up would be a good way to just start kind of testing everything more. LINDSEY: Great. Danny, what went into deciding what would be in this first version of the site and the e-commerce offering? DANNY: I mean, a lot of it was kind of mostly driven by Chris and Mike. They kind of had a vision and an idea of what they wanted to sell. Obviously, from the user interviews, we were starting to hone in a little bit more and, like, we had some assumptions going into it. I think we ultimately did kind of feel like, yeah, I think, like, the playlisters seem to be, like, the target market. But just hearing it more and hearing more excitement from them was definitely just kind of like, yeah, I think we can double down on this piece. But, ultimately, like, in terms of launching the e-commerce platform, and the storefront, and the website, like, just literally looking at the user journey and being like, how does a user get from getting onto a site, like, as soon as they land there to, like, finishing a purchase? And what points do they need? What are the key things that they need to think through and typically will run into? And a lot of it is just kind of reflecting on our own personal buyer behavior. And, also, as we were getting closer to the launch, starting to work through some of those assumptions about buyer behavior. As we got there, we obviously had some prototypes. We had some screenshots that we were already working with. Like, the design team was already starting to build out some of the site. And so, we would just kind of show it to them, show it to our users, and just be like, hey, like, how do you expect to purchase this? Like, what's the next step that you expect to take? And we'd just kind of, like, continue to iterate on that piece. And so... LINDSEY: Okay. So you were, before launching, even showing some of those mockups and starting to incorporate them in the user interviews. DANNY: Yeah, yeah. I mean, we tried to get it in there in front of them as early as possible, partially because, like, at some point in the user interviews, like, you're mostly just trying to first understand, like, who are our target customers? Who are these people? And we have an assumption of or an idea of who we think they are. But really, like, once you start talking to people, you kind of are, like, okay, like, this thing that I thought maybe it wasn't so accurate, or, like, the way that they're kind of talking about these products doesn't 100% match what I originally walked into this, you know, experiment with. And so, we, like, start to hone in on that. But after a certain point, you kind of get that idea and now you're just like, okay, you seem to be, like, the right person to talk to. And so, if I were to show you this thing, do you get it, right? Like, do you understand what's happening? Like, how to use this thing, what this product even does. And then also, like, does the checkout experience feel intuitive for you? Is it as simple as, like, I just want to buy a T-shirt? So, like, I'm just going to go by the T-shirt, pick a size, and, you know, move on with my life. Can we make it as seamless as that? LINDSEY: And so, you mentioned it's only been a week since it's been live. Have you been able to learn anything from it yet? And how are you trying to drive people to it today? MIKE: Yeah, I think we learned that sales is hard [laughs] and slow, and it takes some time. But it's good, and we're learning a lot. I mean, it's been a while since I've really dug deep in, like, the analytics and marketing kind of metrics. And so, we've got all the Google Tag Manager stuff, you know, hooked up and just, you know, connecting with just exploring, honestly, like the TikTok advertising platform, and the YouTube Pre-Rolls, and Shorts. And, like, a lot of stuff that I actually, since the last time I was heavily involved in this stuff, is just totally new and different. And so, it's been super interesting to see the funnel and sort of see where people are getting in the site, where people are dropping off. You know, we had an interesting conversation in our thoughtbot sync yesterday or the day before, where we were seeing how, you know, we're getting lots of people to the front page and, actually, a good number of people to the product page, and, actually, like, you know, not the worst number of people to the cart. But then you were seeing really high cart abandonment rates. And then, you know, when you start Googling, and you're like, oh, actually, everybody sees very high cart abandonment rates; that's just a thing. But we were seeing, like, the people were viewing their cart seven or eight times, and they were on there sort of five times as long as they were on any other page. And it's this problem that I think Danny is talking about where, you know, we need to actually get a playlist URL. This gets into the minutiae of what we're building, but basically like, we need to get them to give us a playlist URL in order to check out, right? And so, you sort of have to, like, put yourself back in the mind of someone who's scrolling on Instagram, and they see this as an ad, and they click it, and they're like, oh, that thing was cool. Sure, I will buy one of those. And then it's like, no, actually, you need to, you know, leave this, go into a different app, find a play...like, it suddenly just puts a lot of the mental strain. But it's a lot. It's a cognitive load, greater than, as you said, just buying a T-shirt and telling what size you want. So, thinking through ways to really trim that down, shore up the amount of time people are spending on a cart. All that stuff has been fascinating. And then just, like, the different demographic kind of work that we're using, all the social ads platforms to kind of identify has been really interesting. It's still early. But, actually, like, Chris and I were just noticing...we were just talking right before this call. Like, we're actually starting to get, just in the last 12 hours, a bunch more, a bunch, but more people signing up to our email newsletter, probably in the last 12 hours that we have in the whole of last week. Yeah, I don't know, just even that sort of learning, it's like, oh, do people just need time with a thing, or they come back and they think about it? CHRIS: Yeah. Could these people be working on their playlists? That's a question that I have. MIKE: [chuckles] Yeah, me too. CHRIS: It's like, you know, I'm making a playlist to drop into this product. It's really interesting. And I think it gives insight to kind of, you know, how personal this product could be, that this is something that takes effort on the part of the consumer because they're making something to give or to keep for themselves, which is, I think, really interesting but definitely hard, too. DANNY: Yeah. And I also want to also clarify, like, Chris just kind of said it, like, especially for viewers and listeners, like, that's something that we've been hearing a lot from user interviews, too, right? Like, the language that they're using is, like, this is a thing that I care about. Like it's a representation of who I am. It's a representation of, like, the relationship that I have with this person that I'm going to be giving, you know, this gift to or this playlist to, specifically, like, people who feel, like, really passionate about these things. And, I mean, like, I did, too. Like, when I was first trying to, like, date, my wife, like, I spent, like, hours, hours trying to pick the coolest songs that I thought, you know, were like, oh, like, she's going to think I'm so cool because, like, I listen to these, like, super low-key indie rock bands, and, like, you know, so many more hours than she probably spent listening to it. But that's [laughs] kind of, like, honestly, what we heard a lot in a lot of these interviews, so... LINDSEY: Yeah, same. No, totally resonates. And I also went to the site this week, and I was like, oh damn, this is cool. Like, and immediately it was like, oh, you know, I've got these three, you know, music friends that we go to shows together. I'm like, oh, this would be so cool to get them, you know, playlists of, like, music we've seen together. So, you might see me in the cart. I won't abandon it. MIKE: Please. I would love that. CHRIS: Don't think about it too long if you could -- [laughter]. LINDSEY: I won't. I won't. CHRIS: I mean, I would say I'm really excited about having the site not only as a vehicle for selling some of these things but also as a vehicle for just honing our message. It's like another tool that we have in our arsenal. During the user interviews themselves, we were talking in abstract terms, and now we have something concrete that we can bounce off people, which is, I think, going to be a huge boon to our toolset as we continue to refine and define this product. MIKE: Yeah, that's a good point. LINDSEY: Yeah. You mentioned that they're signing up for, like, email updates. Do you have something you're sending out? Or are you kind of just creating a list? Totally fine, just building a list. MIKE: [laughs] No. CHRIS: It's a picture of Mike and I giving a big thumbs up. That's, yeah. [laughter] MIKE: No. But maybe...that was the thing; I was like, oh great, they're signing up. And I was like, gosh, they're signing up. Okay [laughter], now we got to write something. But we will. LINDSEY: Tips to making your playlist [crosstalk 19:11] playing your playlist -- MIKE: Yeah [crosstalk 19:13]. CHRIS: Right. And then also...tips to making your playlists. Also, we're advancing on the collectible side of things, too. We are, hopefully, going to have two pilot programs in place, one with a major label and one with a major artist. And we're really excited about that. LINDSEY: Okay. That's cool. I assume you can't tell us very much. What can you tell us? MIKE: Yeah. We won't mention names [chuckles] in case it just goes away, as these things sometimes do. But yeah, there's a great band who's super excited about these, been around for a long time, some good name recognition, and a very loyal fan base. They want to do sort of a collection of these. I think maybe we showed the little...I can't remember if we showed the little crates that we make or not, but basically, [inaudible 19:52] LINDSEY: The last time, yeah. MIKE: So, they want to sell online a package that's, you know, five or six Goodz in a crate, which I think will be cool and a great sort of sales experiment. And then there's a couple of artists that we're going to do an experiment with that's through their label that's more about tour...basically, giving things away on tour. So, they're going to do some giveaway fan club street team-style experiments with some of these on the road. So, first, it's ideal, provided both those things happen, because we definitely want to be exploring on the road and online stuff. And so, this kind of lets us do both at once and get some real learnings as to kind of how people...because we still don't know. We haven't really put these in people's hands yet. And it's just, like, are people scanning these a lot? Are they not? Is this sort of an object that's sitting on their shelf? Is it...yeah, it's just, like, there's so much we're going to learn once we get these into people's hands. LINDSEY: Do you have the infrastructure to sort of see how many times the cards are scanned? CHRIS: Mm-hmm. Yep, we do. MIKE: Yeah. So, we can see how many times each one is scanned, where they're scanned, that sort of thing. CHRIS: Kind of our next step, and something we were just talking about today with the thoughtbot team, is building out kind of what the backend will be for this, both for users and also for labels and artists. That it will allow them to go in and post updates to the Goodz, to allow them to use these for promotion as people, you know, scan into them to give them links to other sites related to the artists that they might be interested in before they move on to the actual musical playlist. So, that's kind of the next step for us. And knowing how users use these collectibles, both the kind of consumer Good and the artist collectibles that we were just talking about, will help inform how we build that platform. LINDSEY: Very cool. And right now, the online store itself that's built in Shopify? MIKE: Yeah. The homepage is Webflow that Kevin from the thoughtbot team really spearheaded in building for us. And then, yeah, the e-commerce is Shopify. LINDSEY: Y'all have been busy. MIKE: [laughs] LINDSEY: Is there anything else maybe that I haven't asked about yet that we should touch on in terms of updates or things going on with the product? MIKE: I don't know. I don't think so. I think, like Chris said, I mean, we're just...like, now that the site has kind of stood up and we're really switched over to kind of marketing and advertising on that, definitely digging into the backend of this kind of SaaS platform that's going to probably be a big focus for the rest of the, you know, the program, to be honest. Yeah, just some other things we can do on the next front that could eventually build into the backend that I think can be interesting. No, I guess [laughs] the short answer is no, nothing, like, substantial. Those are the big [crosstalk 22:26] LINDSEY: Yeah. Well, that was my next question, too, which is kind of like, what's next, or what's the next chunk of work? So, it's obviously lots more optimization and learning on the e-commerce platform, and then this other mega area, which is, you know, what does this look like as a SaaS solution? What's the vision? But also, where do we start? Which I'm sure, Danny, is a lot of work that you specialize in as far as, like, scoping how to approach these kinds of projects. DANNY: Yeah. And it's interesting because, I mean, we were just talking about this today. Like, part of it is, like, we can, like, really dig into, like, the e-commerce site and, like, really nailing it down to get it to the place where it's like, we're driving tons more traffic and also getting as low of a, like, cart abandonment rate as possible, right? But also, considering the fact that this is in the future, like, large-scale vision. And there's, like, also, like, we're starting to, I think, now iron out a lot of those, like, milestones where we're kind of like, okay, like, we got, like, a short-term vision, which is, like, the e-commerce site. We got a mid-term vision and a potential long-term vision. How do we validate this long-term vision while also still like, keeping this short-term vision moving forward? And, like, this mid-term vision is also going to, like, help potentially, either, like, steer us towards that long-term or maybe even, like, pivot us, like, into a completely different direction. So, like, where do you put your card, right? Like, how much energy and time do we put into, like, each of these areas? And that's kind of, like, the interesting part of this is starting to talk through that, starting to kind of prioritize, like, how we can maximize on our effort, like, our development and design effort so that things just kind of line up more naturally and organically for our future visioning, so... MIKE: Yeah. A lot of different things to juggle. I saw there was a question. Somebody asked what the URL is, but I don't seem to be able to [crosstalk 24:10]. LINDSEY: The same question as me. We got to drop the link for this thing. MIKE: Yeah, getthegoodz.com. CHRIS: That's G-O-O-D-Z. LINDSEY: Get in there, folks MIKE: Yeah, get [crosstalk 24:23]. LINDSEY: And let us know how it goes. MIKE: Yeah, please [laughs]. Any bugs? Let us know. Yeah. I think that those...yeah, I mean, it's a good point, Danny, in terms of juggling kind of the near-term and longer-term stuff. You know, it's a good kind of reminder our big focus, you know, in the new year is going to be fundraising, right? We're already talking to some investors and things like that. So, it's like, okay, yes, as you said, we could tweak the cart. We could tweak the e-commerce. Or, like, can we paint the big picture of what the longer-term version of this company is going to be in a way that makes it compelling for investment to come in so that there can be a long-term version of this company? And then we can build those things. So yeah, it's definitely a balance between the two. LINDSEY: Oh, also, just casual fundraising as well. [crosstalk 25:06] MIKE: Yeah, yeah. LINDSEY: [laughs] MIKE: But it's hard. It's like, you wake up in the morning. It's like, do I want to, like, write cold emails to investors? Or do I want to, like, look at Google Analytics and, like, tweak ad copy? That's actually more fun. So, yes. LINDSEY: Yeah, life of the founder, for sure. All right. So, that's getthegoodz (Goodz with a z) .com. Check it out. We'll tune in and see what happens with the e-commerce site, what happens with the SaaS planning the next time that we check in. But Chris, Mike, Danny, thank you so much for joining today and sharing what's been going on over the last few weeks: the good, the bad, the challenge, the cart abandonment. And, you know, best of luck to you over the next few weeks, and we'll be sure to check in and see how it's going. AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at: tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions. Transcript:  LINDSEY: Thank you to our viewers and listeners. We are catching up once again with one of the startups going through the thoughtbot Incubator. My name is Lindsey Christensen. I'm joined today by Jordyn Bonds, who heads up the thoughtbot incubator, as well as our Co-Founders of Goodz, Chris Cerrito and Mike Rosenthal. Welcome, everybody. MIKE: Thanks, Lindsey. LINDSEY: Before we get started, before we put Chris and Mike back in the hot seat, at the top here, Jordyn, we have a special announcement for our viewers and listeners. JORDYN: Application window is open for session 1 of 2024, folks. You can go to thoughtbot.com/incubator and apply. And Chris and Mike can tell you how easy or hard applying was. MIKE: It was easy. It was totally easy. It's a very straightforward process. CHRIS: Yeah, it was way more straightforward than a lot of applications that we've dealt with in the past, for sure. JORDYN: Ha-ha. And if you've got a business idea that involves software but you haven't gotten anything out there yet, come talk to us. We will help you make sure that it's a good idea and that there are people who might buy it, and maybe get you even a little further than that. MIKE: We actually have a friend who's considering applying. I'll tell him applications are open. He's worried his idea is not big enough to actually be a business idea, so we'll see. CHRIS: Even the process of doing the application was really helpful for us because it helped us get aligned on exactly what we were doing, yeah. JORDYN: I love that. And I found that to be true when I was a founder applying to some of these things, in particular, applying for an SBIR grant was one of the most challenging things that we did, but it was so productive. I was so annoyed by it at the time, and then I cribbed from that thing. It actually sort of forced us to make a business plan [laughs], and then, basically, we ran it, and it was great [laughs]. CHRIS: Yeah. I think that was, for us, that was our point where we were like, "Is this idea fleshed out enough to move forward?" And we were like, "Yes, it is. Let's go. Let's do this." JORDYN: So, use the application as a forcing function, everybody. It will help you clarify your thinking. LINDSEY: Yeah. Jordyn, what would you say to Mike's friend who's questioning if their idea is big enough? How do you respond to that sentiment? JORDYN: That is a fascinating sentiment because I feel like so much more often, I am trying to help founders with the opposite problem where they think this thing is so big that they are not thinking about what step 1 is going to look like. They're just, like, in 10 years, we're going to be the next Amazon, and I'm like, "Maybe [laughter]. Let me help you figure out how to get to that giant vision." So, I don't come across the "Is this big enough to be a business?" question as often. And, I don't know, what would I say? I guess I need the details. LINDSEY: It could be a perfect fit MIKE: It could be. JORDYN: It could be a perfect fit. LINDSEY: In a way, that's what you're answering, right? MIKE: Right. LINDSEY: In some of this work. MIKE: That is true. So, yeah, you guys would certainly...just thinking through the process we've gone through the last two months, it would definitely help them flesh that out. LINDSEY: Which is a great segue. MIKE: Great segue. LINDSEY: Chris and Mike, we're actually coming up to the end of your incubator time. CHRIS: It's so sad. LINDSEY: Can you believe it? MIKE: It's gone by really fast. I mean, eight weeks is not a long time, but it has gone by very, very fast. CHRIS: It felt like a very long time in the middle of it. MIKE: [laughs] CHRIS: But now that it's over, it feels like a blink that it's coming to a close. MIKE: I don't know. It's funny. I think we had some note in our retro today that was like, maybe the very end of the year is not the best time to do an accelerator just because you have, like, the holidays kind of jumping in here in the end. So, that might have helped make it feel like a... I feel like the end of the year always feels like a rush anyway. So, I think just life gets a little bit busier this time of year, too, but yeah. CHRIS: Yeah, my gingerbread man decorating game is, like, really down this season because we've been so busy. Tragic. LINDSEY: Chris, can you remind our viewers and listeners who might not be familiar what was the idea that you and Mike have been exploring with the incubator or, like, what did you come in with? CHRIS: So, with Goodz, what we're trying to do is make little, physical collectibles objects that connect back to the digital content that a user loves. The idea being that today, we are awash in these digital files, links, so many things on our desktops, on our phones, on our devices, and it's really hard to tell which part of those are really, really important to us. So, by giving them a presence in the physical world, that denotes that's something that's really important, worth keeping, worth sharing, and showing off to your friends and family. And to start this off, mostly because Mike and I are both kind of music nerds, we're starting off with a music focus, but at some point, we're hoping to move into other realms, too. LINDSEY: And a lot of the incubator, as repeat listeners will know, is focused on really kind of evolving user interviews all the way through and narrowing in on, you know, a core audience, a core market. Mike, how has that evolution been? I think the last time we chatted was around three weeks ago. What has the latest iteration of user interviews looked like in terms of the people you're talking to and even what you're asking them? MIKE: It's been a really fascinating process. I mean, I'm trying to think of where we were exactly the last time we talked to you, but I think we'd probably just launched the e-commerce site that we had been experimenting with putting up. LINDSEY: Yeah, exactly. MIKE: And so, and we really then started cranking on user interviews kind of once that was live. And so, moving away from the conceptual and more into like, "Okay, share your screen. Here's the link. Like, tell me what you think is going on here," and really sort of getting users who had never, you know, never heard our pitch, never been involved with us to sort of try to wrap their heads around what we are and what we're doing just based on that website and trying to sort of make iterative changes based on that. You know, for me, because I had not done user interviews very much in the past, like, it's very tempting, like, you get sort of 1 note from 1 person in 1 interview, and you're like, oh, we need to change this word. That word didn't make any sense to them, or this thing needs to be blue instead of pink. I think, for me, it was like, all right, how do we kind of synthesize this data in a responsible way? And it emerged naturally, which, I mean, Jordyn and all thoughtbot folks said that it would, but you sort of started hearing the same things again and again. And we never really got to a place where, like, you heard the exact same things from everyone. But there were enough buckets, I feel like, where we're like, okay, like, this part really isn't making that much sense to people, or, like, we do really need to, you know, structure this differently to convey. So, it was a bunch of that kind of work over the last three weeks or so and sort of just getting a sense of like, are we conveying our message? It's hard. I mean, it's a new, like, we're not the only people making physical products with NFC chips in them, but it is not the most common, like, product. Like, it is kind of a new category out there. And so, really trying to understand just right off the bat, do people get it? And you get wildly different answers [laughs] as to whether they get it or they don't, which has been fascinating, too. JORDYN: Yeah. [crosstalk 7:12] LINDSEY: Chris or Jordyn, anything to add there? JORDYN: Yeah. You get the best, like, bootcamp in the don't overreact to a single user interview experience in some ways because we [laughs]...it would literally be like, interview in the morning someone says this thing. Interview in the afternoon, someone says the exact opposite thing [laughter]. And you're like, okay [laughs], like, which one of these things are we going to respond to, if either of them? CHRIS: Yeah. It's hard. As somebody with, like, a strong desire to please, it's hard to reign yourself in and want to change things immediately, but it definitely makes sense to do so in the long run. MIKE: But yeah, but, I mean, like I said, I do feel like it kind of came down to buckets. It's like, okay, you're that. I can, like, categorize you with all those other people and you with all those other people. And yeah, I hear you. I'm like, yeah, it's tempting to want to please them all. But I think with this one, we're fighting hard to be like...or we sort of have a philosophy that this product is emphatically not for everyone because, at the end of the day, you get a lot of people who are like, "Wait, you're just putting a link to a streaming playlist on a physical object? Why don't I just text someone the link?" And sometimes that breaks down by age group, like, 18-year-olds being like, "What are you talking about, old man? LINDSEY: [laughs] MIKE: Like, why the hell would I do that? It makes no sense." But it sort of skews all over the age ranges. But then there'll be other people who are 18 or 20 years old who are like, "Wow, I never had cassettes when I was growing up," or "I never got to make, you know, mixtapes or CD-Rs for people." And like, you know, so it's, yeah, it's about finding the people who are the early adopters. As Jordyn has said a lot, it's like, we need to find those early adopters and, like, make them love us, and then other people will come later. CHRIS: I mean, some of the most gratifying moments, I think, are there's been some interviews where people have been so excited that after the interview, they've gone and purchased our products, which is just, like, the coolest feeling ever. LINDSEY: Wow. MIKE: Yeah, it's pretty cool. LINDSEY: Are you open to sharing a little bit more about what those buckets or what those segments look like? CHRIS: I mean, I think there's folks who outright just get it almost immediately, and I think those people tend to be hardcore music collectors, hardcore music fans, Jordyn and Mike, please feel free to jump in if you disagree with any of this. They just get it right off the bat. Then I think there's, in my experience, there's another bucket of people who are a little more hesitant, and maybe they wouldn't buy it, but they seemed really excited about the idea of getting one as a gift, which is really interesting. They're like, "I don't know if I'd buy this, but I'd really like to have one." And then there is another segment, like, which Mike just mentioned, of folks who just don't see the value in this whatsoever, which is totally fair. MIKE: Yeah, totally. I think it's also...I see it almost as, like, a matrix. There's, like, desirability, and, like, technical understanding because people were like, "I technically understand what this is, and I do not want it in my life." Or like, "I get what this is and, oh my God, I have to have that," or like, "I don't really understand what you're talking about, but, man, I love physical stuff. Like, sure I want..." you know, it's like, it goes across those two planes, I think. JORDYN: I will say that it, I think you alluded to this before, Mike, but, like, we're going to run a whole analysis of...because we did a ton of interviews, and we haven't actually done that, like, sort of data-driven thing of like, are there trends in the demographics somewhere that we're not getting? Because the pattern has not been there. Like, someone will talk to an 18-year-old, you know, at 1:00 p.m. who is just, like, "Why on earth would I ever want this?" And then I, like, you know, will talk to a 21-year-old who is like, "I love this." And it's like, why? Like, this is the answer. The thing we're trying to get out now is, like, what is the difference between those two people? It's not a demographic thing that we can see from the outside, so what is it instead? But with consumer stuff like this, often, you don't necessarily...you don't need that in such great detail when you're starting. You just kind of, like, throw it out there and see who grabs it, and then you start to build sort of cohorts around that. And that is kind of what these interviews have shown us is that there are people who will grab it, and that was part of what we were trying to validate. Are there people who Mike and Chris do not know personally who will, like, get this and be psyched about it immediately? And that is, you know, check unequivocally true. Like Chris said, there are people that we were, you know, that we had recruited on this user interviews platform [chuckles] who then just turned around and bought the product because they were so psyched about it. One of the guys I interviewed was like, "Can I invest in your company right now?" Like, during the interview, and I was like, "Maybe?" [laughs] CHRIS: There was, like, another person who wanted to work for us immediately... JORDYN: Yes, great. CHRIS: Which was really interesting and kind of awesome. JORDYN: Yeah, they're like, "Are you hiring?" You're just like, okay. So, it's validating that there are people all over that spectrum. Like, where those trends lie, though, which is, I think, what you were asking, Lindsey, not as straightforward and in a fascinating way. So, we still have a little more, like, number crunching to do on that, and we may have an answer for you later. LINDSEY: That's exciting. Exactly. I'm curious: what are the connecting dots between the folks who are really into it, and how might that impact how you approach the business? MIKE: Yeah, it's hard. It's definitely going to be a niche to start. And so, we got to figure out kind of got to crack the code on how we find those people. LINDSEY: And, Mike, I think you had also mentioned last time that, you know, you or both of you have a network kind of in the music industry, and you've been floating the idea past some people there. Have you been having more of those conversations over the last few weeks, too? MIKE: We have, yeah. Well, so yeah, we've had a couple more just kind of straight-up pitch calls versus like, "Hey, there's this cool thing we're doing," and having those people be like, "Cool. Let's do a pilot." And so, they're ordering, you know, 500 or 1,000 units at a time, which is rad. LINDSEY: Whoa. MIKE: For the first...yeah. LINDSEY: Okay, very cool. MIKE: Yeah. The first two or three of those should happen in January or maybe early February, but yeah, those are done and in production and arriving soon. So, that's really exciting with some cool bands. We won't say the names in case it doesn't [laughs] work out, but it does look like it's going to work out. LINDSEY: And so, it's specific bands that are creating merch for their fans. MIKE: Yeah, yeah. So, we're working with one artist manager on a band that he manages, and then we're working with a record label. And they're going to try with a couple of smaller artists. And so, yeah, it's actually really good for us. One is going to be straight-up sales, most likely, and it's, like, selling these things. And the other ones will be given away as kind of promo items on tour artists, which is also a really interesting use case for us, too, that we're excited about and using them as a way to sort of get email addresses and, like, fans engaged and stuff, so... And then yeah, then I had another conversation, and they want to talk about doing some pilots. So far, like, that side of things is going great. We're sort of 3 for 4 in terms of initial calls leading to pilots right off the bat, which is kind of unheard of from [laughs] my experience. LINDSEY: Yeah, I'd say so. No, a lot of very good signals. MIKE: Really good signals. But then we were able to turn some of those into user interview conversations, actually, as well over the course of the last couple of weeks, which has been really helpful, like, talking to manager and label-type people about what they might want out of a software product that is associated with this because we're not just thinking about making physical products but sort of coupling that with an online toolset. And that part, we haven't gotten as far along as we did with the direct-to-consumer e-commerce, but it's been fascinating. LINDSEY: So, what has been happening with the online shop? As you noted the last time we talked, it was just a baby less than a week-old Shopify site getting, you know, some first hits of people going around maybe putting things in their basket. I'm sure a lot has happened over the last few weeks. What kind of work, what kind of insights have you seen around the site? CHRIS: We've been, I mean, we've been selling stuff at a slow but steady pace. It's been great because it's enough to, you know, because our product really straddles the line between physical and digital; there's a lot of physical aspects to this that we need to figure out and kind of the level of orders that we've been getting have been really...it's, like, the perfect number to think about fulfillment issues, things like what kind of package does this go in? How do we mail this out? Things along those lines, just very basic, practical questions that needed to be answered. But yeah, it's been great. We actually, I mean, we hit our goal for the amount of these that we wanted to get in people's hands before Christmas, which is pretty awesome. And we continue now with the lessons learned. I think our plan is to try and make a push for Valentine's Day because these seem like they would be a great Valentine's Day present: make a playlist; share it with your loved one; share it with a friend; share it with somebody you don't like at all. Who knows? LINDSEY: [laughs] CHRIS: But yeah, that's kind of our next sales push, we think. LINDSEY: The hate playlist. CHRIS: [inaudible 15:40] hate playlist. MIKE: Yeah, perfect. Real passive-aggressive. CHRIS: Just Blue Monday, like, by New Order, like, 14 times. LINDSEY: [laughs] Yeah, every song is just like a sub-tweet... MIKE: [laughs] LINDSEY: About something they've done and [inaudible 15:53] Have you updated the site? Like, how do you decide what gets updated on the site? [laughter] Everyone laughed. MIKE: It was a little haphazard, I would say, there for a minute. But -- CHRIS: We got the site up very, very quickly. And from my perspective, I've been dealing a lot with the physical side of things, just getting great product photos up there, which is, like, something that thoughtbot has actually been super helpful with. You know, everybody on the team is starting to submit photos of their Goodz in the real world and using their Goodz, which is great. And we continued to update the site with that but also making sure our text made sense, refining copy in response to things that people said during user interviews. The checkout process, the process of adding the URL that we point the Good to that, we did a bunch of experimentation there based on what people were saying during user interviews. So, it has been a little haphazard, but we have made a bunch of changes. LINDSEY: Jordyn, has there been any experiment, like, structured experimentation around the site or how you're getting people to the site? JORDYN: Mike actually did a little bit of ad funnel work that I don't think we've, like, even remotely scratched the surface of. So, I wish I could say that was conclusive, but I think we've found a little bit more...here are plenty of sales that are from people that nobody here knows. MIKE: True. JORDYN: So, people are finding out about this somehow [laughs]. But I think it's a little bit, like, word-of-mouth sort of chain of events is our sense so far. I wanted to say, though, about the site, we did get what Chris was saying about, like, this experiment was, in part, about fulfillment and figuring out how fulfillment would work and packaging, and not just messaging and not just closing the sale with consumers, but also, just, like, how do you fulfill these? But one of the really fun things we've managed to do in the last, since we talked last time, which I can't even believe...I feel like this wasn't even a gleam in our eyes for this project, but we managed to get out, like, stood up and out the door, and working in production in the last few weeks is a way for folks to actually assign the URL to their mixtape themselves. Previously, the plan had just been for Chris and Mike to do that, which is fine but a little bit unscalable, right? CHRIS: That was a huge dream or, like, that was high on our wish list. And we didn't think we'd get to it. And it's been pretty amazing that we have, yeah. JORDYN: Yeah, so that was one thing that is an update to the site. So, then we had to do a little bit of, like, micro iterating, on, like, the messaging around that. Like, how do you communicate to people? This is, like, a little bit of an abstract challenge, right? Like, here's this object. It's going to point to a digital thing. How do you tell the physical object which digital thing it's pointing to [laughs]? So, a lot of our recent interviewing has been to sort of get inside the mind of the consumer about how they're thinking about that and how we can best communicate that to them. So that's been a lot of the, like, recent iteration is getting that mechanism stood up and then the messaging around it. CHRIS: It's also really cool because it adds to the utility of the object itself in the sense that now our Goodz, when a user gets one, they can add a URL to their Good themselves, but they can also change that URL. So, it's much more malleable. JORDYN: Which is something that in one of our early user interviews was, like, a hot request [laughs], and we were like, "Someday, someday." And it's, you know, I should actually go back to her and be like, "Someday is today." [laughter] MIKE: Well, yeah, and just as Chris was saying, it just makes it so much easier to ship these out without having to manually load them, and you could sell them, and yeah, retail outlets, like, it just opens up a lot of opportunities for us for them. LINDSEY: And Mike mentioned that some of the, like, kind of future looking aspirations for the solution are, you know, how might you figure out the B2B, like, SaaS aspect of it? Jordyn, is that something that's been explored at all at this point, or is it early? JORDYN: That experiment I just described is actually sort of the link between the two projects. It sort of proves the concept and proves the value in some ways, and it has given us a little bit more visibility into sort of how we're going to execute some of this technical stuff. Like, how easy, how difficult is it going to be? These little experiments all build your confidence around your ability to do those things and what it's going to look like. And so, this experiment absolutely feeds into that question. But I would say it was really this week where we got to have a really fun brainstorming sort of blue sky conversation about that that I don't think would have been nearly as both creative and blue sky or rooted in reality as it was if we hadn't done these experiments and hadn't talked to so many...we had so much work...we could participate in a conversation like that so much more confidently and creatively because all of us had a lot more shared context. So, we really got to dream big, like, what is a SaaS platform built around these physical objects? And I don't want to, you know, I'm not going to give it away at this moment because we had a lot of, like, really cool ideas. It's one part talking to the B2B customer, which, you know, you mentioned earlier, getting what their pain points are, and what they're looking for, what they need, but then also dreaming big about now we understand the technology a little bit more and how it feels to use it. What does that unlock in our brains? The analogy I used in that conversation and that I use all the time is like, the users of Twitter invented hashtags, right? Twitter did not invent hashtags. And so, hey, everybody out there, newsflash: users invented hashtags, not Twitter or something else, if you didn't realize that Twitter was where those things kind of emerged. But there was just a user behavior that was happening in the wild, and Twitter was just very good at making that easier for them, looking at that and being like, "Oh, hey, is this a thing you all want to do? Here, we'll make that even more useful for you." And it was part of Twitter's early success that they were able to do that. And so, that was the kind of thinking we were trying to employ here is, like, now that we have these objects and we understand a little bit more how it feels to use them, you get these second order effects. What does that then make us think of? What is then possible to us that we wouldn't have been able to dream of previously because we didn't quite get it? So, that was really happening this week. LINDSEY: So, as the incubator time wraps up, what are the kind of final activities or deliverables, one, that Goodz wants and you know that they're going to get? What are the parting gifts as we send you out into the next phase? MIKE: Yeah, well, loads of stuff. I mean, we're getting all that code that [SP] Guillermo and the guys worked on to let people set their own playlist settings. And we've got that up in a GitHub repository now. And we've got a bunch of great design work that's all being handed over, like Chris was saying, product shots that a bunch of the team members were taking, synthesizing all the user interviews. We're actually sort of making some kind of final reports on those, so it's kind of more usable, actionable data for us. The whole website, you know, that didn't exist before. And that will sort of continue to grow as the entire website for Goodz moving forward. I don't know. That's a lot. What else was there, Chris? CHRIS: As a result of all that, I mean, one of the things I'm most excited about is now we have a small user base who actually has the physical products that, hopefully, we can get them to answer questions. That's huge for what's coming next. Starting the path towards the SaaS platform, too, it's really helped narrow our scope and think about, you know, how to make that successful or if it will be successful. LINDSEY: Yeah, that sounded like a big discussion this week that I know has been on your minds from the beginning. Wait, the last time, also, you said you were starting to get emails, too. Have you emailed anyone yet, or are you still holding on to them? MIKE: Oh. No, I still haven't sent a newsletter out [laughs], actually, but we have Mailchimp set up. Yeah, no, we've got a good kind of core of our, yeah, early folks on there. We'll start getting a newsletter out with some sort of regularity. We're building up the socials very slowly just focusing on Instagram mostly right now and trying to get back into that game. It's been a long time since I've had to do kind of social marketing stuff. And so, it's a lot of work, as it turns out, but we'll get all that cooking. I think this was just such a sprint, working with the thoughtbot folks and trying to get all this stuff done. Before the end of the year, now we can sort of take a breath and start engaging folks in the new year. LINDSEY: Yeah. Well, so, do you know what you want to do next or what the next phase looks like? Are you going to do fundraising? MIKE: We're certainly going to continue to have some fundraising conversations. We've had some conversations emerge over the last, you know, since we've been in thoughtbot, again, not the greatest time of year to try to be raising a round. But we're also not, like, desperately, urgently needing to do that right this second. I think, you know, part of it is the fundraising landscape, you know, doesn't look amazing. And we're still sort of building out a lot of traction, and sort of every week, there's some new, exciting thing, or we've got some new, big artists who wants to do something. So, I think, in some ways, to the extent that we can bootstrap for a little while, I think we will, yeah. So, we will focus on...I'd like to get back to focusing on, like, B2B sales. I'd like to hit the ground in January and just start talking to a bunch of music industry folks. And thinking ahead a little bit, sort of Q1 and Q2, like, what are the big tentpole events? You know, you got South by Southwest coming up in March. You got Record Store Day in April, or whenever it is. But, you know, there's, like, a bunch of those sorts of things that it's like, oh, let's not let those things suddenly be tomorrow. Like, right now, they're all still two or three/four months out. Like, let's make sure we're queued up for those things and see what happens. And Jordyn has been giving really good advice on the fundraising side where it's just like, just keep getting cool stuff like that and just do almost like little drip campaigns with funders who aren't maybe giving you the time of day or think it's too early, and just kind of keep going back to them. Like, the best excuse to go back to funders is like, "Hey, we just closed this new thing. We just launched this new thing. We just got this thing working. Hey, we're launching with this major band," Like, enough of those happen, and I think the fundraising will happen more organically. It's a strategy. CHRIS: I think we're really lucky in the fact that, you know, now, at this point, we're not talking about vapourware, you know, like, these are actual things that actually exist that, like, anybody could go onto our site right now and buy, which is awesome. And because of that, the product's going to continue to evolve, and, hopefully, our sales record will continue to evolve, too. LINDSEY: Amazing. Well, that feels like a good place to wrap up, maybe. Are you going to hang around in our incubator Slack, the thoughtbot incubator Slack for all our past founders? MIKE: Yes. Emphatically, yes. LINDSEY: Okay. We're holding you to it then [laughs]. CHRIS: I'm excited about that. We met with the other founders yesterday for the first time, and it was a really great and interesting conversation. It was cool seeing how diverse all these projects are and how folks are working on things that we had no idea about and how we're working on stuff that they have no idea about, and it was really great. It felt like a good cross-pollination. MIKE: Agreed. LINDSEY: That's awesome to hear. Jordyn, any final thoughts? JORDYN: [inaudible 26:58] out there listening and watching and want to join this community of founders [laughs], don't you want to have office hours with Chris and Mike? LINDSEY: All right, thoughtbot.com/incubator. You can apply for session 1 of the 2024 incubator program. And yeah, you two, if you have more recommendations, referrals, definitely send them our way. Chris, Mike, Jordyn, thank you so much once again for joining and catching us up on all the exciting developments for Goodz. MIKE: Thank you. LINDSEY: A lot of really cool milestones. JORDYN: I got to say, so much good stuff. And like, you know, just wrapping it all up almost diminishes the impact of any single one of those things that we just talked about, but it's, like, pretty amazing. People out there, apply to the incubator but also go buy yourself a Goodz mixtape. It's cool with playlists on it. MIKE: It's a good point. JORDYN: Give it to your BFF. Come on. LINDSEY: Getthegoodz.com. MIKE: Getthegoodz.com. Awesome. LINDSEY: All right. Thanks, Chris and Mike. AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at: tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions. Special Guests: Chris Cerrito, Jordyn Bonds, and Mike Rosenthal.

If you missed the first episode with thoughtbot Incubator Program partcipants and founders Mike Rosenthal and Chris Cerrito of Goodz, you can go here first (https://www.giantrobots.fm/s3e2incubatorgoodz) to catch up! Startup founders Mike Rosenthal and Chris Cerrito are participating in thoughtbot's eight-week incubator program. Mike, with a background in the music industry, and Chris, experienced in physical computing and exhibit development, are collaborating on a startup that creates physical objects linked to digital content, primarily in music. Their goal is to enhance the connection between tangible and digital experiences, starting with a product that resembles a mixtape, using NFC technology for easy access to digital playlists. This project is unique within the thoughtbot incubator as it's the first pure consumer product and involves both physical and digital elements. The team is engaged in user interviews and market validation, with the aim of launching a physical product with a digital backend. They are exploring various marketing strategies for the product and are in the process of building its technical backend. Transcript: LINDSEY: All right. I'm going to kick us off here. Thanks, everyone, for tuning in. We're doing our first update with two founders that are now going through the Startup incubator at thoughtbot. thoughtbot, if you're not familiar, product design and development consultancy. We'll help you on your product and make your team a success. One of the very fun ways we do that is through the startup thoughtbot incubator, which is an eight-week program. So, with us today, I myself am Lindsey Christensen, marketing for thoughtbot. We also have Jordyn Bonds, who is our Director of Product Strategy and runs the thoughtbot incubator. And then, as I mentioned, we've got two new founders who are going to tell us a little bit about themselves and what they're working on. Mike Rosenthal, let's kick off with you. Can you tell us a little bit about maybe your background and what brings you to present day? MIKE: Sure. First of, thanks for having us. It's been a lot of fun doing this over the last [inaudible 01:03]; it's only two weeks, two and a half weeks, something like that. It feels like a lot more. I come from a music industry background, so worked in sort of marketing and strategy for artists for a long time; worked with a band called OK Go back, sort of starting in 2009 or so. I did a lot of early kind of viral music video stuff. And we were sort of early to the idea of sort of leveraging fan engagement and revenue, honestly, kind of beyond sort of just selling their music and touring, so sort of exploring other ways that artists can make money and connect with their fans and was with those guys for five years. And then, I went on and worked at an artist management company in Brooklyn called Mick Management and ran the marketing department there, so doing similar type of work but for a roster of 2025 major label bands. And so, really got to see fan engagement on all different levels, from really large bands down to baby bands who were just getting started. And then, yeah, started my first startup in 2018, so doing sort of fan engagement work, and NFTs, and blockchain-type stuff working with bands, but then also sports and entertainment properties. Yeah, that kind of brings me here. So, always been sort of on the music side of things, which ties into a lot of what Chris and I are working on now, but more generally, sort of fan engagement and how to, you know, drive revenue and engagement for artists and deliver value for fans. LINDSEY: Very interesting. All right, Chris, going to head over to you. Chris Cerrito, can you tell us a bit about your background? And it sounds like yours and Mike's paths; this isn't the first time you've crossed. CHRIS: No. Mike and I have been working together since 2007, I believe. Yeah, that's a great place to start. I've always been kind of a maker and a tinkerer, always been interested in art materials, how things are put together. And that kind of culminated at grad school, where Mike and I met at NYU, where we both studied physical computing and human-computer interaction, making weird things that kind of changed the way that people interact and play with technology in their day-to-day lives. I think the first project he and I worked on together was a solar robotic band that we played with light in front of a bunch of people. It was very wonderful and confusing at the same time. After grad school, I was lucky enough to become a resident artist and then an exhibit developer at a museum in San Francisco called the Exploratorium, which is a museum of science, art, and human perception. I spent ten years there working on exhibits teaching people things ranging from, let's see, I built a dueling water fountain to teach visitors and users about the prisoner's dilemma. I built a photo booth that used computer vision to teach people about the microbiome that lives on their face, like, just all kinds of weird things like that that fuse the digital and the physical worlds. I loved my time there. And then kind of COVID hit and I realized that everything I had been working on for ten years was locked up in a museum that I no longer had access to. And it really gave me a desire to kind of bring my ideas into the physical world. I wanted to make things that people interact with and use in their lives on a day-to-day basis. And I would say that's really what brought me here to this point. LINDSEY: Very cool. Very interesting backgrounds, in my opinion. What is the new idea? What is the thing that you're bringing into the incubator? Mike, I'll start with you. Tell us a bit about what you're working on. MIKE: Chris and I are working on physical objects that connect to digital content is sort of the broadest way that I could describe it. I think, you know, as Chris kind of mentioned, you know, we've both been working on sort of physical things that have interactivity for a lot of our careers. I think we both come from an era of a lot more physical objects in your life, whether that's, you know, VHS cassettes at your parent's house growing up, or records and tape cassettes, and just sort of physical things that remind you of the things that you love. And I think that, you know, cell phones are great, and the sort of the smartphone era is amazing and having, you know, every single song, and movie, and television show and podcasts, et cetera, in a black box in my pocket is great. But I think we've sort of gotten to a point where it's more of an organizational problem now than anything else. And we sort of forget the actual things that we love in this world. And so, we're working on basically making physical objects to tie to digital content, and we're starting with music. And that's what we've been working on at thoughtbot is sort of how we can create physical things that basically you can tap, and that will take you to streaming content. One of the first things we're working on literally looks like sort of a little mixtape on a piece of wood, and you can just load that up with any sort of playlist that you might have on Spotify, or Apple Music, or YouTube, or whatever, and tap it, and it will take you there. And so, it's just sort of that idea of like, oh, we used to be able to sort of flip through a friend's music collection and judge them ruthlessly, or become even better friends with them based on kind of what you saw there. And we think that the time is ripe for, I don't know, a blend of that nostalgia with actual sort of, like, real-world utility that people could be into this right now. Chris, what am I missing there? CHRIS: I'd say just to expand on that a little bit, it's, you know, we spend so much time in the digital world, but we still exist in the physical. And a lot of the things, like, you might spend a really long time editing a photo for your parents or making a playlist for a friend, and there's, like, a value there that might not translate because it's digital. It's ephemeral. And I think tying these digital assets to a physical thing makes them special. It gives them, like, a permanent place in your life, something to respect, to hold on to, and maybe even pass down at some point. LINDSEY: Yeah, and I think before we logged on, we actually had Jordyn and Mike grabbing cassette tapes from the room there and to show us -- MIKE: [inaudible 06:49] LINDSEY: What [laughs] was some of their collection and to prove some of the power of these physical –- MIKE: Nothing, like, just old mixtapes. LINDSEY: Mementos. MIKE: Yeah. We were just talking about this on our sync with the thoughtbot crew. They're, like, there's sort of two levels of nostalgia. There's nostalgia for people like us who, yeah, [crosstalk 07:09] mixtapes, right? For people who actually grew up with this stuff and still have it lying around or don't but, like, look at something like that that gives you, like, instant flashbacks, right? You're like, oh my God, I remember scrolling on that little j-card or, like, getting a mixtape for my first, you know, boyfriend or girlfriend, and having it just mean everything. So, there's people for whom that was a thing. And there's, you know, generations of people for whom that is, like, their only connection to that is, you know, Stranger Things or, like, you know, the mixtape exists in pop culture as a reference. So, there's still, like, a very strong attachment there, but it's not a personal one, right? It's a cultural one. But I think everybody has that connection. So, that's kind of why we're starting with the mixtape, just because I think everyone can kind of relate to that in some way. LINDSEY: Yeah, no, yeah. When I hear mixtape, it goes immediately to crushes. You make a mixtape for your crush. CHRIS: Exactly. LINDSEY: It's a huge, powerful market, powerful. MIKE: Oh my God, so powerful. I mean, yeah, I don't know anybody -- LINDSEY: What's more motivating? MIKE: [laughs] Yeah, exactly. CHRIS: Or even just I have a really good friend who I don't get to see as often as I'd like. And he and I are constantly sending each other, you know, Spotify links and text messages. And it's great. I love that interaction. But at the same time, you know, I might forget to add that to a playlist, and then it's kind of lost. If I had taken the time to make something and send it to him physically or vice versa, it just becomes so much more special and so much more real. MIKE: Yeah. I mean, honestly, I first made these...I mean, we can go to this origin if we want. But, like, I literally just went on moo.com, right? The business card company. And they let you upload, you know, 50 different images, and they'll send you all of those as business cards. And so, I literally went on and just made business cards of all the album covers of, like, albums that I loved growing up, right? And their cheapest is this little piece of cardboard. But I had 50 of these, and I'd put them all out on my coffee table, just as something I wanted to have around. And people kept coming, you know, friends would come over, and you would just have these conversations that I haven't had in 10 or 15 years, right? Because no one's going to come to my house and pick up my phone and look at my Spotify collection. But if these things are all just sitting out, they're like, "Oh shit, you're into that? Like, I haven't thought about that album in 15 years." Or like, "Oh, I didn't know you were into that. I'm, like, a crazy super fan of that artist as well." And all of a sudden, we're having these conversations that we just weren't having. Yeah, there's something there where it's all been nostalgia coupled with the kind of prompting of conversation and connection that we've kind of lost, I think. CHRIS: And I think just to clarify a little bit on what Mike's saying, is, you know, this mixtape will be our first product launch, and then we're hoping to move into collectibles for artists and labels. So, shortly after we launch this tape, we're hoping to launch some kind of pilot with a label where you will be able to buy a version of this for your favorite music artist at a merch table in a concert, possibly online. Our dream is to have these sitting there on the table with T-shirts, and records, and other things that artists sell so you can express for the artists that you love. This is a way of expressing your fandom. LINDSEY: Jordyn, heading over to you, this feels like maybe the first consumer product that has gone through the incubator, would you say? Or how do you think about it? JORDYN: Yeah, if you're a consumer -- LINDSEY: Or is it different than other types of products? JORDYN: Yeah, the first incubator project we did with Senga was, I think, what you would call prosumer. So, it was sort of a consumer thing but directed at folks who had kind of freelancing in sort of a business context. It's got a lot of dynamics of the consumer. But this one, for sure, is the first pure consumer play. Though now that I'm thinking about it, you know, AvidFirst had some consumer elements to it, but it was, you know, it was, like, more complex tech [laughs] [inaudible 10:46] totally different thing -- LINDSEY: But definitely the first of the physical, physical [inaudible 10:52] JORDYN: Oh, sure, the first of the physical thing. Right. Absolutely. LINDSEY: Does that change any of, like, the approach of the programming, or it's kind of -- JORDYN: I mean, no, not fundamentally, though it does add this layer of operations that you don't have with a pure software play. So, we have to be, there is a thing that needs to get shipped to people in the world, and that takes timelines, and it takes -- LINDSEY: Supply chain. JORDYN: Yeah, exactly. And Chris is doing most of that stuff. I don't want to, you know, this is not, like, the main focus of our team necessarily, but it intersects, right? So, this isn't the first one of these types of products I've worked on personally in my career. But there's something, like, really, for me, very fulfilling about, like, there's software. There's a big component of software. There's also this physical object that needs to exist in the world. And partly, what's so compelling about Goodz is that it gives you the promise of a physical, like, the sort of good aspects of a physical product, a thing you can hold in your hand and look at and really connect with in that physical way. But it has this dynamic digital, like, essential quality as well. So, it's very compelling as a product because it sort of marries the things that we like about both the physical world and the digital world, which is partly why the team was really excited about working on it [laughs]. LINDSEY: Well, that was going to be my next question is, you know, what stood out to you about the Goodz application for the incubator and the interview process that made you and the team feel like this was going to be a great project to work on? JORDYN: Yeah. So, I think just the team really resonated with the sort of idea in general, and it seemed fun. There was, like, it's a very positive thing, right? It isn't so much about solving problems and pain points. And, sometimes the, you know, when you're very focused on solving problems, it can feel a little doomy because you actually have to, like, immerse yourself in the problems of the people that you're making software for. And sometimes, you start to feel like the world is just full of problems. What Goodz is doing is sort of it is solving a problem in a sense, but not in that kind of way. It's really, like, a fun upside kind of thing, which I think a lot of the folks on the team were very excited about. But, like, the software component, actually, is very interesting to us from a technological standpoint as well. There's a lot of opportunity here to do interesting things on the backend with an object that's essentially functioning as a bookmark out in the world. What all can you do with that? There's something super compelling and technically interesting about it. And I think, also, the team was just sort of excited by Chris and Mike, you know, the energy and the kind of background they were bringing to the table was also super interesting. And then, above all else, what I say every time you ask me this question, which is stage fit, y'all, good stage fit. They're right at the beginning. They haven't built the product yet [laughs]. Gotta say it. It's a good stage fit. They know who they're building for broadly but not super specifically. Got a good vision but, like, haven't made that first step with the software. Perfect stage fit for us [laughs]. LINDSEY: Great. So, Chris, we were talking a bit before about how you two have been collaborators in the past, worked on business ideas before. Why bring this idea into the thoughtbot incubator? What are you hoping to, you know, achieve? CHRIS: One of the main reasons why we wanted to bring this into the incubator was just for support, momentum, and then, also, I would say validation for our idea. I mean, we came to the incubator with a very, yeah, I would say it was a fairly developed idea that needed to be proved, and we, quite frankly, needed help with that. You know, Mike and I have our own expertises, but we don't know how to do everything. We're more than willing to jump in where we need to go. But having people with expertise to work with has proven to be incredibly helpful and just having kind of fresh faces to bat ideas around with after he and I have been staring at each other for months now on Zoom calls and meetings. And just, you know, being able to talk about these ideas with fresh faces and new people and get new perspectives has been so very, very helpful. I think something that's also great from the momentum standpoint is that because there's a time limit to this experience, we've got the time that we have with you guys, and we've been able to set goals that I think are very achievable for things we want to occur in the next couple of months, and it feels like we're going to get there. And I think by the end of this, I mean, our hope, and I think we're on track, is to have a functioning physical product that we're going to offer to consumers with a digital backend to support it, which is, in my mind, amazing. That'll totally validate this idea and prove if we have something or not. LINDSEY: I was going to ask if you're open to sharing what those goals specifically are. Is that it? Is it that by the end, you have -- MIKE: Is that it? Lindsey, that's a lot. [laughter] CHRIS: It's a lot. I mean, yeah. I mean, we're going to have a physical object in the world that you can buy via an e-commerce site -- JORDYN: Sounds like we need Lindsey on the team if Lindsey feels like this is so achievable. [laughter] CHRIS: Yeah, yeah. Lindsey...yeah. We're in the beginning [crosstalk 15:47] LINDSEY: I meant, is that the goal? CHRIS: That is the goal. LINDSEY: Is that all? CHRIS: I was going to –- LINDSEY: Is that all you got? CHRIS: Mike, do you agree? MIKE: Yeah. Is that the goal? Yes, that is the goal. I mean, you know, when we sat down with the thoughtbot team kind of week one, you know, they're sort of like, "All right, let's define kind of the experiment." So, we refer to them as experiments, which I think is helpful because, like, what are the experiments that we want to be doing during our time here? And, you know, we talked about it a lot. And yeah, I think it's, you know, having a physical product out in the world, having a website in which to sell it. But also, it's really, like Chris was saying, it's like, it's market validation, and just making sure we actually have something that people want. It's like, you know, running a startup takes so long and, like [laughs], you know, you'll do it for so many years. It's like bands when people say, like, "Oh, that's an overnight sensation." It's like, you know, that band has been slogging it out in tiny, little venues for four years before you ever heard of them. It's like, that's what so much of the startup world feels like to me, too. It's like, "Oh, you're just getting started as a startup?" It's like, "Well, we've been working on this forever." And I know how long this can take. And so, I think we want to learn as early as possible, like, is this something people actually want? Because if they don't, like, we'll just go do something else. I don't want to spend years making something that people don't want. So, I think the biggest goal, for me, is just validation, and then that is sort of how we get there is like, okay, how do we validate this? Cool. Let's identify some, you know, assumptions of personas that we think are people who do actually want this and then try to go sell it to them. And all the implications from that are, okay, well, you need a website where somebody can buy it. You need a physical product that somebody can actually buy. So, all those things sort of come out of that, but, for me, it's like, proving that assumption, is this thing real? Do people actually want this? And everything else is like, okay, how do we prove that? LINDSEY: Jordyn, what does that look like in these first few weeks here? User interviews, I assume, how are the user interviews going? JORDYN: Always. Always. So, you know, we kick it off by just, like, doing the exercise where we list everybody who might want this. And the team, you know, it's a fun product. Everybody brought their own assumptions and ideas to the table on that. You know, we had a lot of different scenarios we were imagining. It's super fun getting that stuff out of people's heads, just, like, what are we all thinking? And then, you know, we get to negotiate, like, okay...I always encourage everyone to think, like, if everyone else on the team was on the moon, you had to make a decision about a market segment to pick; which one would you pick? And then we kind of argue about it in a productive way. It really helps us get at, like, what are the dynamics that we think matter upfront? And then we pick one, or, in this case, we have a few. We have a handful. And we're running interview projects where we just recruit people to talk about people that meet this persona, talk about a specific problem. We're in the middle of that right now. And it's fun, fantastic. These conversations are super interesting. We're validating a lot of the things that Mike and Chris, you know, walked into this with, but we're learning a bunch of new things as well. And, like, really, part of the aim there is to validate that there's a hole in the market that we might fill but also to hear the language people are using to describe this stuff. So, when people talk about buying music, merch, you know, making playlists, et cetera, like, what language do they use to talk about that? So that we make sure we're speaking the language that our customer uses to describe this stuff. And we're, you know, we're right in the pocket of doing that, learning stuff all the time. And it helps us kind of hone the messaging. It helps us know where to go talk to people about it, how to talk about it, but it's, you know, it all kind of fits together. And it's just this, really...the early stages. It's just a bunch of us in a room, a virtual room, in this case, sort of, like, tossing ideas around. But out of it crystallizes this sense of alignment about who this is for, how to talk to them about it, and with a goal. And, you know, Mike and Chris walked in with the exact right mindset about this, which is, yes, it's experiments. We need to validate it. Let's make sure there's a there-there. If there's a there-there, let's figure out where it is [laughs], like, all those things. And we're running these experiments, and it was really [inaudible 19:36]. We got down to business quite quickly here. It was really great. LINDSEY: Like you said, it's not necessarily a problem or, you know, the typical framing of a problem. How do you start those user interview questions around this? Do you feel a gap between the physical and the digital sound? [laughter] JORDYN: No, no. LINDSEY: It's maybe not it [laughs]. JORDYN: Yeah, no. Well, I can tell you what our startup questions are. One of them is, tell me about the last time you bought music merch. Go for it, Lindsey. Tell us. LINDSEY: The last time I bought music merch I went to a Tegan and Sara concert a few weeks ago, and I bought a T-shirt. JORDYN: Tell me about buying that T-shirt. Why'd you buy it? LINDSEY: Because I wanted to remember the show and my time with my friends, and I wanted to support the artists. I know that buying merch is the best way to support your favorite touring artists. JORDYN: So, it's just, you know, we could spend the rest of this time talking [laughter] [crosstalk 20:34], and it would be awesome. So, it's really a lot of things like that. LINDSEY: Gotcha. JORDYN: You don't ask, "What problem are you trying to solve by buying this t-shirt?" Right? Like, that's not, you know, but we ask you to tell us a bunch of stories about when you did this recently. You know, and if you make playlists for friends, you know, that's a different persona. But we would have asked, you know, like, "Tell me about the last playlist you made. You know, who did you share it with? You know, what happened after that? What happened after that? What happened after that?" It's a lot of questions like that. And there's just nothing better. People love to tell you what's going on with them. And it's great [laughs]. LINDSEY: Yeah. As you all have been doing these interviews, Mike and Chris, have you been surprised by anything? Any interesting insights that you're seeing already? CHRIS: I mean, I haven't done really much in the way of user interviews in the past. This is a really new experience for me. And then we're, obviously, not on the calls because that would be weird and probably intimidating for people. But we're getting lots of highlights from folks who are doing them, you know, in our daily sync. And I'm surprised at how many, like, really intense, like, playlist nerds we have found even just in, like, the few people we've talked to, like, in the best possible way. Like, people who are like, "I make playlists all the time." Like, you're talking about, like, a vinyl fan or, like, a...Jordyn, what's the story? It's, like, the guy who there was so much out-of-print vinyl that he started a vinyl label just to get the albums in vinyl. [crosstalk 21:56] JORDYN: Yeah. There were a bunch of releases that he feels really passionately about that were never released on vinyl that he knew would never be released on vinyl. And so, he started a vinyl record label. And we just found this guy [laughter]. CHRIS: Is that indicative that that's, like, an entire persona we're going to, like, target? Absolutely not. But it's just, like, it's amazing that even just in the few user interviews we've done, that we've found so many very passionate people. And it's sent me down, like, a TikTok rabbit hole of, like, TikTok, like, music nerd influencer-type folks who are posting playlists. And they, like, hundreds of thousands of likes on these videos that are literally just, like, screen with text on it that you're supposed to, like, pause the video [laughs] and, like, look at, like, the songs that they're recommending. And it's like, who does that? And it was like, these people do that. And it's like, so there are...it's been very encouraging to me, actually. I was worried that we were going to find not as much passion as we had suspected, and I think the opposite has proven to be true. So, it's exciting. CHRIS: Yeah, I completely agree with Mike. It's been so encouraging. I think, for me, what we're doing is an idea that I'm very excited about and have been very excited about for a long time. But hearing the responses that we're getting makes me confident in the idea, too. That's great. I mean, I think that is everything that a founder needs, you know, is excitement and confidence. MIKE: Well, and just the whole user interview experience has, like, made a lot of my other conversations sort of I've tried to frame parts of them as user interviews because I'm talking to a lot of, like, label folks now, and artists, merch people. And, you know, I ended up just sort of, like, asking them, I mean, yes, trying to explain the product and work on kind of partnership stuff, but a lot of it is really just geeking out with them. And just, like, hearing their thoughts about, like, what they love about merch because these are people that clearly think about this stuff all the time. So, it's definitely kind of, like, tuned my other conversations into trying to get unbiased feedback. LINDSEY: Yeah. Everything is a little user interview now. MIKE: Yeah, exactly. LINDSEY: Get that angle in there. All right, so some early validation and excitement. That's really cool to hear. Any challenges or, you know, other kinds of learnings early on? Anything that's been invalidated? MIKE: I don't know that we're there yet. [inaudible 24:02] Chris, I don't know. I'm happy to find that some things are invalidated, but I don't really feel...you know, some of the personas that we decided or maybe just one of the personas we decided to pursue, I think we're having a hard time having those user interviews kind of really bear fruit, but that's helpful, too, actually. I mean, it's like, okay, well, maybe that's not a group that we target. JORDYN: Yeah. It's about, like [inaudible 24:24]. I encourage folks not to think about this like a 'no, not that,' and instead think of it as like a 'not yet.' And that's, I think, the dynamic here with a couple of the personas we were interested in. It's just been turned into kind of, like, a not yet for reasons that we very quickly figured out, but we'll get there. It's just a matter of figuring out we had some other personas take precedence because they're more sort of red, hot in a way, right? It's just easier to get in contact with these people, or it's, like, clear what they're going for or what they need from the market. So, you know, we have this whole list, and it was not clear at first who was going to kind of stand out. But we've kind of found some focus there, which means, invariably, that there's things that are falling out of the frame for now, and you're kind of de-prioritizing them. But it really is, like, a we'll get to that [laughs]. We'll eventually get to that. LINDSEY: Yeah. And part of the process, who's going to rise to the top right now? JORDYN: Yeah, exactly. LINDSEY: Do you have anything you can show and tell with us today or not yet? MIKE: So, Chris has been hard at work on all the physical side of this stuff and going back and forth with our manufacturing partner and all that good stuff. But we have a final version of the mixtape product. LINDSEY: For when this gets pulled into the podcast, Mike's showing us a physical card. CHRIS: It's a small card, and we call them Goodz. And it's printed on three-millimeter plywood using a UV printing process, super durable. And this is something you can put in your pocket. You're not going to wreck it. I think you could actually (Don't quote me on this.), but I think you can even, like, put it through a washing machine, and it would be fine. Embedded in this card is a chip that can be read by your phone, and that's pretty much what we're working with. MIKE: Yeah, so the idea is you just sort of tap this, and it'll take you to a streaming version of a playlist. And then Chris has also been making these adorable crates. And [crosstalk 26:10] LINDSEY: The little crates I love. MIKE: And we actually have some wooden ones, too, in the testing that's [crosstalk 26:15] LINDSEY: And then the mixtapes get stored in the little crates [crosstalk 26:19] MIKE: Yeah. So, you could have -- LINDSEY: Throw it on your desk. CHRIS: Each crate can hold about, I think, 15 of these things. What's really cool about this product on the physical side is we are using a tried-and-true technology, which is NFC chips. These are things that make Apple Pay work, make Google Pay work. They are in your E-ZPass when you drive through a toll booth. This is stuff that's been around for years. So, we're just kind of leveraging this technology that's been around for so long in a new way. MIKE: Yeah, I think it's similar to kind of the evolution of QR codes, right? It's like they were sort of around forever, and then it was, like, COVID and restaurant menus kind of kicked those into mainstream. Like, NFC has been around for a long time. It's very tried and true. It's affordable. But I want to say Apple only turned it on by default, like, the NFC reader in the iPhone in the last, like, 18 to 24 months, right? Like, it started...like, it's been around for a while, but they're sort of slowly kind of...and now you just sort of see it everywhere. People are using it on the subways in New York to scan for tickets or for accessing stuff. I was also just showing Chris has been prototyping with the ability to sort of keep these on a key ring. So, we have, like, a little chain hole on them. It is [inaudible 27:22] to sort of have this on your backpack or, you know, on a key ring, or something like that. And friends could kind of, like, come up to you and just, like, scan one that looks interesting. CHRIS: And yeah, something that's awesome about this is you don't need an app. You don't need to download anything. As long as your NFC reader is on when you scan this, it will bring you to the music that it's linked to, which I think is awesome. So, I mean, my dream is to have these, like, hanging off of people's backpacks so I can, like, scan them in the subway or, you know, it's such, like, an easy thing to do. And it requires so little technical time on the user's end to be able to do it. LINDSEY: Oh, we got a question here. "So, Moo used to offer NFC cards. What made you decide to do the thicker plywood model?" CHRIS: Durability is really what it comes down to. We wanted something that felt like an object that you can have and treasure. Like, these have weight, you know, these feel like something, not just a piece of paper. This is something that you can have and [inaudible 28:22] your desk, and it's not going to fade in the sunlight. It's not going to disintegrate over time. This is something that's going to last. MIKE: Yeah, the cards would definitely, like, as I would sort of carry them around and show them to people and stuff, the cards would start, you know, breaking. It's like having a business card in your pocket, right? Eventually, it's going to kind of wear out. And plus, we had, like, the stickers were visible on the back of them. And we were, like, having the sticker just completely disappear inside the wood it just feels a little bit more like magic. LINDSEY: Well, thanks for demoing there. I put you on the spot a little bit. But they are...I had seen them in the Slack, and they're very cool [laughs]. So, I had to ask if we could show them off a bit. MIKE: Of course. CHRIS: I think another thing to think about, too, is we've been talking a lot about the user experience. But if and when we get to the point of making these for artists, artists will be able to collect so much data off of the way that people buy and collect and use these things over time, which is something that we're really, really excited about. And also, you know, we're working on a way to make the link in the object updatable over time. So, artists will be able to change what a card points do to inform their users about the latest and greatest thing. LINDSEY: Very cool. Jordyn, what's next on the programming agenda for Chris and Mike? JORDYN: It's really sort of we're in this, like, iterative cycle. So, we're talking to folks. We're working on the website. The conversations we're having with people are informing how we're framing this first experiment with the mixtape, how we're marketing it, who we're marketing it to. I think next up is probably a Google Ad experiment to really see if we can piggyback on some stuff or at least figure out a new consumer product. It's so tough, right? It's also not a thing people are searching for. So, we have to come up with some experiments for how we get people to that website [laughs]. So, you know, Google Ads funnels is just something you kind of have to do because it's very interesting to figure out what people are responding to, what people are searching for. But we're going to have a bunch of other experiments as well and non-experiments. Outbound experiments: can we go to people? Can we get listed in a gift-buying guide for the holidays? Or, like, we don't know. There's a bunch of experiments we need to do around that, which is really just this iteration. We won't stop talking to users but, you know, everything we're hearing from them will inform where we go and how we talk to the folks in those places where we end up. And really, it's just about starting...once this is up and, you know, there's, like, an orderable thing, there's, like, a whole data cycle where we start to learn from the stuff we're testing; we actually have some real data for it, and we can start to tweak, iterate and change our strategy. But the bigger thing, also, is this bigger platform. So, the next thing really, the big next thing, is to sort of start to scope and create an architecture idea. What's it going to take to build the actual backend thing? And it's the thing that thoughtbot really [laughs] excels at, which is software. So, you know, that's the big next kind of project. Once the mixtape experiment is sort of out and in flight and we're getting data, we really need to turn our attention to the technical backend. LINDSEY: Exciting. Another comment/question from Jeff, who maybe needs a user interview. "Love the crate more than the actual albums. Maybe offer collections of artists." MIKE: Yeah, that's the plan. CHRIS: Yeah, definitely. It's a good idea. Yeah, it's, I mean, and labels get to, especially, like, small indie labels get really excited about doing, like, crates worth of collections of different artists or, like, you know, digging through their back catalog, their subscription services. There's a lot of different angles for sure about that idea. LINDSEY: [inaudible 31:55] Chris and Mike, going into this next section of the programming, for anyone watching right now, or watching the recording, or listening to the recording, any action items from them? You know, are you looking for any user interviews or have any survey or any destinations you'd like to send people yet? CHRIS: Not quite yet, but soon, I would say. Well -- MIKE: I mean, [inaudible 32:19] plug the website, I mean, you know, I think we've got, like, an email to sign up from there, right? The URL is getthegoodz.com and I [crosstalk 32:27] LINDSEY: Goodz with a Z. MIKE: Goodz with a Z. CHRIS: With Z. MIKE: So yeah, if you want to go there, you can sign up. I think there's an email signup on there to learn more. LINDSEY: Perfect. All right. getthegoodz.com email sign up. To stay up to date on Goodz and the incubator, you can follow along on the thoughtbot blog. You know, as always, send us any questions you might have, and we're happy to get to those. But otherwise, thanks for listening. And thank you all — Jordyn, Chris, and Mike. Thanks so much for joining today and sharing and being open about your stories so far. MIKE: Thank you. CHRIS: Yeah, thank you, Lindsey. AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at: tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions.

Mike Perham is the creator of Sidekiq, a background job processor for Ruby. He's also the creator of Faktory a similar product for multiple language environments. We talk about the RubyConf keynote and Ruby's limitations, supporting products as a solo developer, and some ideas for funding open source like a public utility. Recorded at RubyConf 2023 in San Diego. -- A few topics covered: Sidekiq (Ruby) vs Faktory (Polyglot) Why background job solutions are so common in Ruby Global Interpreter Lock (GIL) Ractors (Actor concurrency) Downsides of Multiprocess applications When to use other languages Getting people to pay for Sidekiq Keeping a solo business Being selective about customers Ways to keep support needs low Open source as a public utility Mike Mike's blog mastodon Sidekiq faktory From Employment to Independence Ruby Ractor The Practical Effects of the GVL on Scaling in Ruby Transcript You can help correct transcripts on GitHub. Introduction [00:00:00] Jeremy: I'm here at RubyConf San Diego with Mike Perham. He's the creator of Sidekiq and Faktory. [00:00:07] Mike: Thank you, Jeremy, for having me here. It's a pleasure. Sidekiq [00:00:11] Jeremy: So for people who aren't familiar with, I guess we'll start with Sidekiq because I think that's what you're most known for. If people don't know what it is, maybe you can give like a small little explanation. [00:00:22] Mike: Ruby apps generally have two major pieces of infrastructure powering them. You've got your app server, which serves your webpages and the browser. And then you generally have something off on the side that... It processes, you know, data for a million different reasons, and that's generally called a background job framework, and that's what Sidekiq is. [00:00:41] It, Rails is usually the thing that, that handles your web stuff, and then Sidekiq is the Sidekiq to Rails, so to speak. [00:00:50] Jeremy: And so this would fit the same role as, I think in Python, there's celery. and then in the Ruby world, I guess there is, uh, Resque is another kind of job. [00:01:02] Mike: Yeah, background job frameworks are quite prolific in Ruby. the Ruby community's kind of settled on that as the, the standard pattern for application development. So yeah, we've got, a half a dozen to a dozen different, different examples throughout history, but the major ones today are, Sidekiq, Resque, DelayedJob, GoodJob, and, and, and others down the line, yeah. Why background jobs are so common in Ruby [00:01:25] Jeremy: I think working in other languages, you mentioned how in Ruby, there's this very clear, preference to use these job scheduling systems, these job queuing systems, and I'm not. I'm not sure if that's as true in, say, if somebody's working in Java, or C sharp, or whatnot. And I wonder if there's something specific about Ruby that makes people kind of gravitate towards this as the default thing they would use. [00:01:52] Mike: That's a good question. What makes Ruby... The one that so needs a background job system. I think Ruby, has historically been very single threaded. And so, every Ruby process can only do so much work. And so Ruby oftentimes does, uh, spin up a lot of different processes, and so having processes that are more focused on one thing is, is, is more standard. [00:02:24] So you'll have your application server processes, which focus on just serving HTTP responses. And then you have some other sort of focused process and that just became background job processes. but yeah, I haven't really thought of it all that much. But, uh, you know, something like Java, for instance, heavily multi threaded. [00:02:45] And so, and extremely heavyweight in terms of memory and startup time. So it's much more frequent in Java that you just start up one process and that's it. Right, you just do everything in that one process. And so you may have dozens and dozens of threads, both serving HTTP and doing work on the side too. Um, whereas in Ruby that just kind of naturally, there was a natural split there. Global Interpreter Lock [00:03:10] Jeremy: So that's actually a really good insight, because... in the keynote at RubyConf, Mats, the creator of Ruby, you know, he mentioned the, how the fact that there is this global, interpreter lock, [00:03:23] or, or global VM lock in Ruby, and so you can't, really do multiple things in parallel and make use of all the different cores. And so it makes a lot of sense why you would say like, okay, I need to spin up separate processes so that I can actually take advantage of, of my, system. [00:03:43] Mike: Right. Yeah. And the, um, the GVL. is the acronym we use in the Ruby community, or GIL. Uh, that global lock really kind of is a forcing function for much of the application architecture in Ruby. Ruby, uh, applications because it does limit how much processing a single Ruby process can do. So, uh, even though Sidekiq is heavily multi threaded, you can only have so many threads executing. [00:04:14] Because they all have to share one core because of that global lock. So unfortunately, that's, that's been, um, one of the limiter, limiting factors to Sidekiq scalability is that, that lock and boy, I would pay a lot of money to just have that lock go away, but. You know, Python is going through a very long term experiment about trying to remove that lock and I'm very curious to see how well that goes because I would love to see Ruby do the same and we'll see what happens in the future, but, it's always frustrating when I come to another RubyConf and I hear another Matt's keynote where he's asked about the GIL and he continues to say, well, the GIL is going to be around, as long as I can tell. [00:04:57] so it's a little bit frustrating, but. It's, it's just what you have to deal with. Ractors [00:05:02] Jeremy: I'm not too familiar with them, but they, they did mention during the keynote I think there Ractors or something like that. There, there, there's some way of being able to get around the GIL but there are these constraints on them. And in the context of Sidekiq and, and maybe Ruby in general, how do you feel about those options or those solutions? [00:05:22] Mike: Yeah, so, I think it was Ruby 3. 2 that introduced this concept of what they call a Ractor, which is like a thread, except it does not have the global lock. It can run independent to the global lock. The problem is, is because it doesn't use the global lock, it has pretty severe constraints on what it can do. [00:05:47] And the, and more specifically, the data it can access. So, Ruby apps and Rails apps throughout history have traditionally accessed a lot of global data, a lot of class level data, and accessed all this data in a, in a read only fashion. so there's no race conditions because no one's changing any of it, but it's still, lots of threads all accessing the same variables. [00:06:19] Well, Ractors can't do that at all. The only data Ractors can access is data that they own. And so that is completely foreign to Ruby application, traditional Ruby applications. So essentially, Ractors aren't compatible with the vast majority of existing Ruby code. So I, I, I toyed with the idea of prototyping Sidekiq and Ractors, and within about a minute or two, I just ran into these, these, uh... [00:06:51] These very severe constraints, and so that's why you don't see a lot of people using Ractors, even still, even though they've been out for a year or two now, you just don't see a lot of people using them, because they're, they're really limited, limited in what they can do. But, on the other hand, they're unlimited in how well they can scale. [00:07:12] So, we'll see, we'll see. Hopefully in the future, they'll make a lot of improvements and, uh, maybe they'll become more usable over time. Downsides of multiprocess (Memory usage) [00:07:19] Jeremy: And with the existence of a job queue or job scheduler like Sidekiq, you're able to create additional processes to get around that global lock, I suppose. What are the... downsides of doing so versus another language like we mentioned Java earlier, which is capable of having true parallelism in the same process. [00:07:47] Mike: Yeah, so you can start up multiple Ruby processes to process things truly in parallel. The issue is that you do get some duplication in terms of memory. So your Ruby app maybe take a gigabyte per process. And, you can do copy on write forking. You can fork and get some memory sharing with copy on write semantics on Unix operating systems. [00:08:21] But you may only get, let's say, 30 percent memory savings. So, there's still a significant memory overhead to forking, you know, let's say, eight processes versus having eight threads. You know, you, you, you may have, uh, eight threads can operate in a gigabyte process, but if you want to have eight processes, that may take, let's say, four gigabytes of RAM. [00:08:48] So you, you still, it's not going to cost you eight gigabytes of RAM, you know, it's not like just one times eight, but, there's still a overhead of having those separate processes. [00:08:58] Jeremy: would you say it's more of a cost restriction, like it costs you more to run these applications, or are there actual problems that you can't solve because of this restriction. [00:09:13] Mike: Help me understand, what do you mean by restriction? Do you mean just the GVL in general, or the fact that forking processes still costs memory? [00:09:22] Jeremy: I think, well, it would be both, right? So you're, you have two restrictions right now. You have the, the GVL, which means you can't have parallelism within the same process. And then your other option is to spin up a bunch of processes, which you have said is the downside there is that you're using a lot more RAM. [00:09:43] I suppose my question is that Does that actually stop you from doing anything? Like, if you throw more money at the problem, you go like, we're going to have more instances, I'll pay for the RAM, it's fine, can that basically get you out of these situations or are these limitations actually stopping you from, from doing things you could do in other languages? [00:10:04] Mike: Well, you certainly have to manage the multiple processes, right? So you've gotta, you know, if one child process crashes, you've gotta have a parent or supervisor process watching all that and monitoring and restarting the process. I don't think it restricts you. Necessarily, it just, it adds complexity to your deployment. [00:10:24] and, and it's just a question of efficiency, right? Instead of being able to deploy on a, on a one gigabyte droplet, I've got to deploy to a four gigabyte droplet, right? Because I just, I need the RAM to run the eight processes. So it, it, it's more of just a purely a function of how much money am I going to have to throw at this problem. [00:10:45] And what's it going to cost me in operational costs to operate this application in production? When to use other languages? [00:10:53] Jeremy: So during the. Keynote, uh, Matz had mentioned that Rails, is really suitable as this one person framework, like you can have a very small team or maybe even yourself and, and build this product. And so I guess from... Your perspective, once you cross a certain threshold, is like, what Ruby and what Sidekiq provides not enough, and that's why you need to start looking into other languages? [00:11:24] Or like, where's the, turning point, or the, if you [00:11:29] Mike: Right, right. The, it's all about the problem you're trying to solve, right? At the end of the day, uh, the, the question is just what are we trying to solve and how are we trying to solve it? So at a higher level, you got to think about the architecture. if the problem you're trying to solve, if the service you're trying to build, if the app you're trying to operate. [00:11:51] If that doesn't really fall into the traditional Ruby application architecture, then you, you might look at it in another language or another ecosystem. something like Go, for instance, can compile down to a single binary, which makes deployment really easy. It makes shipping up a product. on to a user's machine, much simpler than deploying a Ruby application onto a user's desktop machine, for instance, right? [00:12:22] Um, Ruby does have this, this problem of how do you package everything together and deploy it somewhere? Whereas Go, when you can just compile to a single binary, now you've just got a single thing. And it's just... Drop it on the file system and execute it. It's easy. So, um, different, different ecosystems have different application architectures, which empower different ways of solving the same problems. [00:12:48] But, you know, Rails as a, as a one man framework, or sorry, one person framework, It, it, I don't, I don't necessarily, that's a, that's sort of a catchy marketing slogan, but I just think of Rails as the most productive framework you can use. So you, as a single person, you can maximize what you ship and the, the, the value that you can create because Rails is so productive. [00:13:13] Jeremy: So it, seems like it's maybe the, the domain or the type of application you're making. Like you mentioned the command line application, because you want to be able to deliver it to your user easily. Just give them a binary, something like Go or perhaps Rust makes a lot more sense. and then I could see people saying that if you're doing something with machine learning, like the community behind Python, it's, they're just, they're all there. [00:13:41] So Room for more domains in Ruby [00:13:41] Mike: That was exactly the example I was going to use also. Yeah, if you're doing something with data or AI, Python is going to be a more, a more traditional, natural choice. that doesn't mean Ruby can't do it. That doesn't mean, you wouldn't be able to solve the problem with Ruby. And, and there's, that just also means that there's more space for someone who wants to come in and make an impact in the Ruby community. [00:14:03] Find a problem that Ruby's not really well suited to solving right now and build the tooling out there to, to try and solve it. You know, I, I saw a talk, from the fellow who makes the Glimmer gem, which is a native UI toolkit. Uh, a gem for building native UIs in Ruby, which Ruby traditionally can't do, but he's, he's done an amazing job at sort of surfacing APIs to build these, um, these native, uh, native applications, which I think is great. [00:14:32] It's awesome. It's, it's so invigorating to see Ruby in a new space like that. Um, I talked to someone else who's doing the Polars gem, which is focused on data processing. So it kind of takes, um, Python and Pandas and brings that to Ruby, which is, is awesome because if you're a Ruby developer, now you've got all these additional tools which can allow you to solve new sets of problems out there. [00:14:57] So that's, that's kind of what's exciting in the Ruby community right now is just bring it into new spaces. Faktory [00:15:03] Jeremy: In addition to Sidekiq, you have, uh, another product called Faktory, I believe. And so does that serve a, a similar purpose? Is that another job scheduling, job queueing system? [00:15:16] Mike: It is, yes. And it's, it's, it's similar in a way to Sidekiq. It looks similar. It's got similar concepts at the core of it. At the end of the day, Sidekiq is limited to Ruby. Because Sidekiq executes in a Ruby VM, it executes the jobs, and the jobs are, have to be written in Ruby because you're running in the Ruby VM. [00:15:38] Faktory was my attempt to bring, Sidekiq functionality to every other language. I wanted, I wanted Sidekiq for JavaScript. I wanted Sidekiq for Go. I wanted Sidekiq for Python because A, a lot of these other languages also could use a system, a background job system. And the problem though is that. [00:16:04] As a single man, I can't port Sidekiq to every other language. I don't know all the languages, right? So, Faktory kind of changes the architecture and, um, allows you to execute jobs in any language. it, it replaces Redis and provides a server where you just fetch jobs, and you can use it from it. [00:16:26] You can use that protocol from any language to, to build your own worker processes that execute jobs in whatever language you want. [00:16:35] Jeremy: When you say it replaces Redis, so it doesn't use Redis, um, internally, it has its own. [00:16:41] Mike: It does use Redis under the covers. Yeah, it starts Redis as a child process and, connects to it over a Unix socket. And so it's really stable. It's really fast. from the outside, the, the worker processes, they just talk to Faktory. They don't know anything about Redis at all. [00:16:59] Jeremy: I see. And for someone who, like we mentioned earlier in the Python community, for example, there is, um, Celery. For someone who is using a task scheduler like that, what's the incentive to switch or use something different? [00:17:17] Mike: Well, I, I always say if you're using something right now, I'm not going to try and convince you to switch necessarily. It's when you have pain that you want to switch and move away. Maybe you have Maybe there's capabilities in the newer system that you really need that the old system doesn't provide, but Celery is such a widely known system that I'm not necessarily going to try and convince people to move away from it, but if people are looking for a new system, one of the things that Celery does that Faktory does not do is Celery provides like data adapters for using store, lots of different storage systems, right? [00:17:55] Faktory doesn't do that. Faktory is more, has more of the Rails mantra of, you know, Omakase where we choose, I choose to use Redis and that's it. You don't, you don't have a choice for what to use because who cares, you know, at the end of the day, let Faktory deal with it. it's, it's not something that, You should even necessarily be concerned about it. [00:18:17] Just, just try Faktory out and see how it works for you. Um, so I, I try to take those operational concerns off the table and just have the user focus on, you know, usability, performance, and that sort of thing. but it is, it's, it's another background job system out there for people to try out and see if they like that. [00:18:36] And, and if they want to, um, if they know Celery and they want to use Celery, more power to Faktory them. Sidekiq (Ruby) or Faktory (Polyglot) [00:18:43] Jeremy: And Sidekiq and Faktory, they serve a very similar purpose. For someone who they have a new project, they haven't chosen a job. scheduling system, if they were using Ruby, would it ever make sense for them to use Faktory versus use Sidekiq? [00:19:05] Mike: Uh Faktory is excellent in a polyglot situation. So if you're using multiple languages, if you're creating jobs in Ruby, but you're executing them in Python, for instance, um, you know, if you've, I have people who are, Creating jobs in PHP and executing them in Python, for instance. That kind of polyglot scenario, Sidekiq can't do that at all. [00:19:31] So, Faktory is useful there. In terms of Ruby, Ruby is just another language to Faktory. So, there is a Ruby API for using Faktory, and you can create and execute Ruby jobs with Faktory. But, you'll find that in the Ruby community, Sidekiq is much widely... much more widely used and understood and known. So if you're just using Ruby, I think, I think Sidekiq is the right choice. [00:19:59] I wouldn't look at Faktory. But if you do need, find yourself needing that polyglot tool, then Faktory is there. Temporal [00:20:07] Jeremy: And this is maybe one, maybe one layer of abstraction higher, but there's a product called Temporal that has some of this job scheduling, but also this workflow component. I wonder if you've tried that out and how you think about that product? [00:20:25] Mike: I've heard of them. I don't know a lot about the product. I do have a workflow API, the Sidekiq batches, which allow you to fan out jobs and then, and then execute callbacks when all the jobs in that, in that batch are done. But I don't, provide sort of a, a high level. Graphical Workflow Editor or anything like that. [00:20:50] Those to me are more marketing tools that you use to sell the tool for six figures. And I don't think they're usable. And I don't think they're actually used day to day. I provide an API for developers to use. And developers don't like moving blocks of code around in a GUI. They want to write code. And, um, so yeah, temporal, I, like I said, I don't know much about them. [00:21:19] I also, are they a venture capital backed startup? [00:21:22] Jeremy: They are, is my understanding, [00:21:24] Mike: Yeah, that, uh, any, any sort of venture capital backed startup, um, who's building technical infrastructure. I, I would look long and hard at, I'm, I think open source is the right core to build on. Of course I sell commercial software, but. I'm bootstrapped. I'm profitable. [00:21:46] I'm going to be around forever. A VC backed startup, they tend to go bankrupt, because they either get big or they go out of business. So that would be my only comment is, is, be a little bit leery about relying on commercial venture capital based infrastructure for, for companies, uh, long term. Getting people to pay for Sidekiq [00:22:05] Jeremy: So I think that's a really interesting part about your business is that I think a lot of open source maintainers have a really big challenge figuring out how to make it as a living. The, there are so many projects that they all have a very permissive license and you can use them freely one example I can think of is, I, I talked with, uh, David Kramer, who's the CTO at Sentry, and he, I don't think they use it anymore, but they, they were using Nginx, right? [00:22:39] And he's like, well, Nginx, they have a paid product, like Nginx. Plus that or something. I don't know what the name is, but he was like, but I'm not going to pay for it. Right. I'm just going to use the free one. Why would I, you know, pay for the, um, the paid thing? So I, I, I'm kind of curious from your perspective when you were coming up with Sidekiq both as an open source product, but also as a commercial one, how did you make that determination of like to make a product where it's going to be useful in its open source form? [00:23:15] I can still convince people to pay money for it. [00:23:19] Mike: Yeah, the, I was terrified, to be blunt, when I first started out. when I started the Sidekiq project, I knew it was going to take a lot of time. I knew if it was successful, I was going to be doing it for the next decade. Right? So I started in 2012, and here I am in 2023, over a decade, and I'm still doing it. [00:23:38] So my expectation was met in that regard. And I knew I was not going to be able to last that long. If I was making zero dollars, right? You just, you burn out. Nobody can last that long. Well, I guess there are a few exceptions to that rule, but yeah, money, I tend to think makes things a little more sustainable for sure. [00:23:58] Especially if you can turn it into a full time job solving and supporting a project that you, you love and, and is, is, you know, your, your, your baby, your child, so to speak, your software, uh, uh, creation that you've given to the world. but I was terrified. but one thing I did was at the time I was blogging a lot. [00:24:22] And so I was telling people about Sidekiq. I was telling people what was to come. I was talking about ideas and. The one thing that I blogged about was financial experiments. I said bluntly to the, to, to the Ruby community, I'm going to be experimenting with financial stability and sustainability with this project. [00:24:42] So not only did I create this open source project, but I was also publicly saying I I need to figure out how to make this work for the next decade. And so eventually that led to Sidekiq Pro. And I had to figure out how to build a closed source Ruby gem, which, uh, There's not a lot of, so I was kind of in the wild there. [00:25:11] But, you know, thankfully all the pieces came together and it was actually possible. I couldn't have done it if it wasn't possible. Like, we would not be talking if I couldn't make a private gem. So, um, but it happened to work out. Uh, and it allowed me to, to gate features behind a paywall effectively. And, and yeah, you're right. [00:25:33] It can be tough to make people pay for software. but I'm a developer who's selling to other developers, not, not just developers, open source developers, and they know that they have this financial problem, right? They know that there's this sustainability problem. And I was blunt in saying, this is my solution to my sustainability. [00:25:56] So, I charge what I think is a very fair price. It's only a thousand dollars a year to a hobbyist. That may seem like a lot of money to a business. It's a drop in the bucket. So it was easy for developers to say, Hey, listen, we want to buy this tool for a thousand bucks. It'll ensure our infrastructure is maintained for the next decade. [00:26:18] And it's, and it's. And it's relatively cheap. It's way less than, uh, you know, a salary or even a laptop. So, so that's, that's what I did. And, um, it's, it worked out great. People, people really understood. Even today, I talk to people and they say, we, we signed up for Sidekiq Pro to support you. So it's, it's, it's really, um, invigorating to hear people, uh, thank me and, and they're, they're actively happy that they're paying me and our customers. [00:26:49] Jeremy: it's sort of, uh, maybe a not super common story, right, in terms of what you went through. Because when I think of open core businesses, I think of companies like, uh, GitLab, which are venture funded, uh, very different scenario there. I wonder, like, in your case, so you started in 2012, and there were probably no venture backed competitors, right? [00:27:19] People saying that we're going to make this job scheduling system and some VC is going to give me five million dollars and build a team to work on this. It was probably at the time, maybe it was Rescue, which was... [00:27:35] Mike: There was a venture backed system called IronMQ, [00:27:40] Jeremy: Hmm. [00:27:41] Mike: And I'm not sure if they're still around or not, but they... They took, uh, one or more funding rounds. I'm not sure exactly, but they were VC backed. They were doing, background jobs, scheduled jobs, uh, you know, running container, running container jobs. They, they eventually, I think, wound up sort of settling on Docker containers. [00:28:06] They'll basically spin up a Docker container. And that container can do whatever it wants. It can execute for a second and then shut down, or it can run for, for however long, but they would, um, yeah, I, yeah, I'll, I'll stop there because I don't know the actual details of exactly their system, but I'm not sure if they're still around, but that's the only one that I remember offhand that was around, you know, years ago. [00:28:32] Yeah, it's, it's mostly, you know, low level open source infrastructure. And so, anytime you have funded startups, they're generally using that open source infrastructure to build their own SaaS. And so SaaS's are the vast majority of where you see sort of, uh, commercial software. [00:28:51] Jeremy: so I guess in that way it, it, it gave you this, this window or this area where you could come in and there wasn't, other than that iron, product, there wasn't this big money that you were fighting against. It was sort of, it was you telling people openly, I'm, I'm working on this thing. [00:29:11] I need to make money so that I can sustain it. And, if you, yeah. like the work I do, then, you know, basically support me. Right. And, and so I think that, I'm wondering how we can reproduce that more often because when you see new products, a lot of times it is VC backed, right? [00:29:35] Because people say, I need to work on this. I need to be paid. and I can't ask a team to do this. For nothing, right? So [00:29:44] Mike: Yeah. It's. It's a wicked problem. Uh, it's a really, really hard problem to solve if you take vc you there, that that really kind of means that you need to be making tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in sales. If you are building a small or relatively small. You know, put small in quotes there because I don't really know what that means, but if you have a small open source project, you can't charge huge amounts for it, right? [00:30:18] I mean, Sidekiq is a, I would call a medium sized open source project, and I'm charging a thousand bucks for it. So if you're building, you know, I don't know, I don't even want to necessarily give example, but if you're building some open source project, and It's one of 300 libraries that people's applications will depend on. [00:30:40] You can't necessarily charge a thousand dollars for that library. depending on the size and the capabilities, maybe you can, maybe you can't. But there's going to be a long tail of open source projects that just, they can't, they can't charge much, if anything, for them. So, unfortunately, we have, you know, these You kind of have two pathways. [00:31:07] Venture capital, where you've got to sell a ton, or free. And I've kind of walked that fine line where I'm a small business, I can charge a small amount because I'm bootstrapped. And, and I don't need huge amounts of money, and I, and I have a project that is of the right size to where I can charge a decent amount of money. [00:31:32] That means that I can survive with 500 or a thousand customers. I don't need to have a hundred million dollars worth of customers. Because I, you know, when I started the business, one of the constraints I said is I don't want to hire anybody. I'm just going to be solo. And part of the, part of my ability to keep a low price and, and keep running sustainably, even with just You know, only a few hundred customers is because I'm solo. [00:32:03] I don't have the overhead of investors. I don't have the overhead of other employees. I don't have an office space. You know, my overhead is very small. So that is, um, you know, I just kind of have a unique business in that way, I guess you might say. Keeping the business solo [00:32:21] Jeremy: I think that's that's interesting about your business as well But the fact that you've kept it you've kept it solo which I would imagine in most businesses, they need support people. they need, developers outside of maybe just one. Um, there's all sorts of other, I don't think overhead is the right word, but you just need more people, right? [00:32:45] And, and what do you think it is about Sidekiq that's made it possible for it to just be a one person operation? [00:32:52] Mike: There's so much administrative overhead in a business. I explicitly create business policies so that I can run solo. you know, my support policy is officially you get one email ticket or issue per quarter. And, and anything more than that, I can bounce back and say, well, you're, you're requiring too much support. [00:33:23] In reality, I don't enforce that at all. And people email me all the time, but, but things like. Things like dealing with accounting and bookkeeping and taxes and legal stuff, licensing, all that is, yeah, a little bit of overhead, but I've kept it as minimal as I can. And part of that is I don't want to hire another employee because then that increases the administrative overhead that I have. [00:33:53] And Sidekiq is so tied to me and my knowledge that if I hire somebody, they're probably not going to know Ruby and threading and all the intricate technical detail necessary to build and maintain and support the system. And so really you'll kind of regress a little bit. We won't be able to give as good support because I'm busy helping that other employee. Being selective about customers [00:34:23] Mike: So, yeah, it's, it's a tightrope act where you've got to really figure out how can I scale myself as far as possible without overwhelming myself. The, the overwhelming thing that I have that I've never been able to solve. It's just dealing with billing inquiries, customers, companies, emailing me saying, how do we buy this thing? [00:34:46] Can I get an invoice? Every company out there, it seems wants an invoice. And the problem with invoicing is it takes a lot more. manual labor and administrative overhead to issue that invoice to collect payment on the invoice. So that's one of the reasons why I have a very strict policy about credit card only for, for the vast majority of my customers. [00:35:11] And I demand that companies pay a lot more. You have to have a pretty big enterprise license if you want an invoice. And if the company, if the company comes back and complains and says, well, you know, that's ridiculous. We don't, we don't want to pay that much. We don't need it that much. Uh, you know, I, I say, okay, well then you have two, two things, two, uh, two things. [00:35:36] You can either pay with a credit card or you can not use Sidekiq. Like, that's, that's it. I'm, I don't need your money. I don't want the administrative overhead of dealing with your accounting department. I just want to support my, my customers and build my software. And, and so, yeah, I don't want to turn into a billing clerk. [00:35:55] So sometimes, sometimes the, the, the best thing in business that you can do is just say no. [00:36:01] Jeremy: That's very interesting because I think being a solo... Person is what probably makes that possible, right? Because if you had the additional staff, then you might say like, Well, I need to pay my staff, so we should be getting, you know, as much business as [00:36:19] Mike: Yeah. Chasing every customer you can, right. But yeah. [00:36:22] Every customer is different. I mean, I have some customers that just, they never contact me. They pay their bill really fast or right on time. And they're paying me, you know, five figures, 20, a year. And they just, it's a, God bless them because those are, are the. [00:36:40] Best customers to have and the worst customers are the ones who are paying 99 bucks a month and everything that they don't understand or whatever is a complaint. So sometimes, sometimes you, you want to, vet your customers from that perspective and say, which one of these customers are going to be good? [00:36:58] Which ones are going to be problematic? [00:37:01] Jeremy: And you're only only person... And I'm not sure how many customers you have, but [00:37:08] Mike: I have 2000 [00:37:09] Jeremy: 2000 customers. [00:37:10] Okay. [00:37:11] Mike: Yeah. [00:37:11] Jeremy: And has that been relatively stable or has there been growth [00:37:16] Mike: It's been relatively stable the last couple of years. Ruby has, has sort of plateaued. Um, it's, you don't see a lot of growth. I'm getting probably, um, 15, 20 percent growth maybe. Uh, so I'm not growing like a weed, like, you know, venture capital would want to see, but steady incremental growth is, is, uh, wonderful, especially since I do very little. [00:37:42] Sales and marketing. you know, I come to RubyConf I, I I tweet out, you know, or I, I toot out funny Mastodon Toots occasionally and, and, um, and, and put out new releases of the software. And, and that's, that's essentially my, my marketing. My marketing is just staying in front of developers and, and, and being a presence in the Ruby community. [00:38:06] But yeah, it, it's, uh. I, I, I see not a, not a huge amount of churn, but I see enough sales to, to, to stay up and keep my head above water and to keep growing, um, slowly but surely. Support needs haven't grown [00:38:20] Jeremy: And as you've had that steady growth, has the support burden not grown with it? [00:38:27] Mike: Not as much because once customers are on Sidekiq and they've got it working, then by and large, you don't hear from them all that much. There's always GitHub issues, you know, customers open GitHub issues. I love that. but yeah, by and large, the community finds bugs. and opens up issues. And so things remain relatively stable. [00:38:51] I don't get a lot of the complete newbie who has no idea what they're doing and wants me to, to tell them how to use Sidekiq that I just don't see much of that at all. Um, I have seen it before, but in that case, generally, I, I, I politely tell that person that, listen, I'm not here to educate you on the product. [00:39:14] It's there's documentation in the wiki. Uh, and there's tons of, of more Ruby, generic Ruby, uh, educational material out there. That's just not, not what I do. So, so yeah, by and large, the support burden is, is not too bad because once people are, are up and running, it's stable and, and they don't, they don't need to contact me. [00:39:36] Jeremy: I wonder too, if that's perhaps a function of the price, because if you're a. new developer or someone who's not too familiar with how to do job processing or what they want to do when you, there is the open source product, of course. but then the next step up, I believe is about a hundred dollars a month. [00:39:58] And if you're somebody who is kind of just getting started and learning how things work, you're probably not going to pay that, is my guess. And so you'll never hear from them. [00:40:11] Mike: Right, yeah, that's a good point too, is the open source version, which is what people inevitably are going to use and integrate into their app at first. Because it's open source, you're not going to email me directly, um, and when people do email me directly, Sidekiq support questions, I do, I reply literally, I'm sorry I don't respond to private email, unless you're a customer. [00:40:35] Please open a GitHub issue and, um, that I try to educate both my open source users and my commercial customers to try and stay in GitHub issues because private email is a silo, right? Private email doesn't help anybody else but them. If I can get people to go into GitHub issues, then that's a public record. [00:40:58] that people can search. Because if one person has that problem, there's probably a dozen other people that have that same problem. And then that other, those other 11 people can search and find the solution to their problem at four in the morning when I'm asleep. Right? So that's, that's what I'm trying to do is, is keep, uh, keep everything out in the open so that people can self service as much as possible. Sidekiq open source [00:41:24] Jeremy: And on the open source side, are you still primarily the main contributor? Or do you have other people that are [00:41:35] Mike: I mean, I'd say I do 90 percent of the work, which is why I don't feel guilty about keeping 100 percent of the money. A lot of open source projects, when they look for financial sustainability, they also look for how can we split this money amongst the team. And that's, that's a completely different topic that I've. [00:41:55] is another reason why I've stayed solo is if I hire an employee and I pay them 200, 000 a year as a developer, I'm meanwhile keeping all the rest of the profits of the company. And so that almost seems a little bit unfair. because we're both still working 40 hours a week, right? Why am I the one making the vast majority of the, of the profit and the money? [00:42:19] Um, so, uh, I've always, uh, that's another reason why I've stayed solo, but, but yeah, having a team of people working on something, I do get, regular commits, regular pull requests from people, fixing a bug that they found or just making a tweak that. that they saw, that they thought they could improve. [00:42:42] A little more rarely I get a significant improvement or feature, as a pull request. but Sidekiq is so stable these days that it really doesn't need a team of people maintaining it. The volume of changes necessary, I can easily keep up with that. So, I'm still doing 90 95 percent of the work. Are there other Sidekiq-like opportunities out there? [00:43:07] Jeremy: Yeah, so I think Sidekiq has sort of a unique positioning where it's the code base itself is small enough where you can maintain it yourself and you have some help, but primarily you're the main maintainer. And then you have enough customers who are willing to, to pay for the benefit it gives them on top of what the open source product provides. [00:43:36] cause it's, it's, you were talking about how. Every project people work on, they have, they could have hundreds of dependencies, right? And to ask somebody to, to pay for each of them is, is probably not ever going to happen. And so it's interesting to think about how you have things like, say, you know, OpenSSL, you know, it's a library that a whole bunch of people rely on, but nobody is going to pay a monthly fee to use it. [00:44:06] You have things like, uh, recently there was HashiCorp with Terraform, right? They, they decided to change their license because they, they wanted to get, you know, some of that value back, some of the money back, and the community basically revolted. Right? And did a fork. And so I'm kind of curious, like, yeah, where people can find these sweet spots like, like Sidekiq, where they can find this space where it's just small enough where you can work on it on your own and still get people to pay for it. [00:44:43] It's, I'm trying to picture, like, where are the spaces? Open source as a public utility [00:44:48] Mike: We need to look at other forms of financing beyond pure capitalism. If this is truly public infrastructure that needs to be maintained for the long term, then why are we, why is it that we depend on capitalism to do that? Our roads, our water, our sewer, those are not Capitalist, right? Those are utilities, that's public infrastructure that we maintain, that the government helps us maintain. [00:45:27] And in a sense, tech infrastructure is similar or could be thought of in a similar fashion. So things like Open Collective, things like, uh, there's a, there's a organization in Europe called NLNet, I think, out of the Netherlands. And they do a lot of grants to various open source projects to help them improve the state of digital infrastructure. [00:45:57] They support, for instance, Mastodon as a open source project that doesn't have any sort of corporate backing. They see that as necessary social media infrastructure, uh, for the long term. And, and I, and I think that's wonderful. I like to see those new directions being explored where you don't have to turn everything into a product, right? [00:46:27] And, and try and market and sale, um, and, and run ads and, and do all this stuff. If you can just make the case that, hey, this is, this is useful public infrastructure that so many different, um, Technical, uh, you know, applications and businesses could rely on, much like FedEx and DHL use our roads to the benefit of their own, their own corporate profits. [00:46:53] Um, why, why, why shouldn't we think of tech infrastructure sort of in a similar way? So, yeah, I would like to see us explore more. in that direction. I understand that in America that may not happen for quite a while because we are very, capitalist focused, but it's encouraging to see, um, places like Europe, uh, a little more open to, to trialing things like, cooperatives and, and grants and large long term grants to, to projects to see if they can, uh, provide sustainability in, in, you know, in a new way. [00:47:29] Jeremy: Yeah, that's a good point because I think right now, a lot of the open source infrastructure that we all rely on, either it's being paid for by large companies and at the whim of those large companies, if Google decides we don't want to pay for you to work on this project anymore, where does the money come from? [00:47:53] Right? And on the other hand, there's the thousands, tens of thousands of people who are doing it. just for free out of the, you know, the goodness of their, their heart. And that's where a lot of the burnout comes from. Right. So I think what you're saying is that perhaps a lot of these pieces that we all rely on, that our, our governments, you know, here in the United States, but also around the world should perhaps recognize as this is, like you said, this is infrastructure, and we should be. [00:48:29] Paying these people to keep the equivalent of the roads and, and, uh, all that working. [00:48:37] Mike: Yeah, I mean, I'm not, I'm not claiming that it's a perfect analogy. There's, there's, there's lots of questions that are unanswered in that, right? How do you, how do you ensure that a project is well maintained? What does that even look like? What does that mean? you know, you can look at a road and say, is it full of potholes or is it smooth as glass, right? [00:48:59] It's just perfectly obvious, but to a, to a digital project, it's, it's not as clear. So, yeah, but, but, but exploring those new ways because turning everybody into a businessman so that they can, they can keep their project going, it, it, it itself is not sustainable, right? so yeah, and that's why everything turns into a SaaS because a SaaS is easy to control. [00:49:24] It's easy to gatekeep behind a paywall and it's easy to charge for, whereas a library on GitHub. Yeah. You know, what do you do there? You know, obviously GitHub has sponsors, the sponsors feature. You've got Patreon, you've got Open Collective, you've got Tidelift. There's, there's other, you know, experiments that have been run, but nothing has risen to the top yet. [00:49:47] and it's still, it's still a bit of a grind. but yeah, we'll see, we'll see what happens, but hopefully people will keep experimenting and, and maybe, maybe governments will start. Thinking in the direction of, you know, what does it mean to have a budget for digital infrastructure maintenance? [00:50:04] Jeremy: Yeah, it's interesting because we, we started thinking about like, okay, where can we find spaces for other Sidekiqs? But it sounds like maybe, maybe that's just not realistic, right? Like maybe we need more of a... Yeah, a rethinking of, I guess the, the structure of how people get funded. Yeah. [00:50:23] Mike: Yeah, sometimes the best way to solve a problem is to think at a higher level. You know, we, the, the sustainability problem in American Silicon Valley based open source developers is naturally going to tend toward venture capital and, and capitalism. And I, you know, I think, I think that's, uh, extremely problematic on a, on a lot of different, in a lot of different ways. [00:50:47] And, and so sometimes you need to step back and say, well, maybe we're, maybe we just don't have the right tool set to solve this problem. But, you know, I, I. More than that, I'm not going to speculate on because it is a wicked problem to solve. [00:51:04] Jeremy: Is there anything else you wanted to, to mention or thought we should have talked about? [00:51:08] Mike: No, I, I, I loved the talk, of sustainability and, and open source. And I, it's, it's a, it's a topic really dear to my heart, obviously. So I, I am happy to talk about it at length with anybody, anytime. So thank you for having me. [00:51:25] Jeremy: All right. Thank you very much, Mike.

This episode introduces the second participants of the season's thoughtbot's Incubator Program, Mike Rosenthal and Chris Cerrito. Mike has a background in music industry marketing, and Chris is a maker and tinkerer with experience in exhibit development. They're developing a product combining physical objects with digital content, starting with music. Their concept involves creating physical items like wooden mixtapes with NFC chips linking to digital playlists. This blend of physical and digital aims to revive the tangible aspects of fan engagement in a digital era. Their project, named Goodz, is the first pure consumer product in the Incubator program, adding complexities like supply chain and manufacturing considerations. The team is conducting user interviews to validate market interest and refine their messaging. They aim to have a functioning physical product and a supporting digital backend by the end of the program. Challenges include defining the target market and understanding how to attract customers to a new product type. The thoughtbot team is excited about the project due to its fun nature and technical aspects, offering a fresh perspective compared to problem-focused startups. The conversation also explores the broader implications of bridging the digital and physical worlds in fan engagement, with the potential to collect valuable data for artists and create lasting, meaningful connections for fans. Follow Josh Herzig-Marx on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuaherzigmarx/) or X (https://twitter.com/herzigma). Visit his website at joshua.herzig-marx.com (https://joshua.herzig-marx.com/). Follow thoughtbot on X (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: LINDSEY: All right. I'm going to kick us off here. Thanks, everyone, for tuning in. We're doing our first update with two founders that are now going through the Startup incubator at thoughtbot. thoughtbot, if you're not familiar, product design and development consultancy. We'll help you on your product and make your team a success. One of the very fun ways we do that is through the startup thoughtbot incubator, which is an eight-week program. So, with us today, I myself am Lindsey Christensen, marketing for thoughtbot. We also have Jordyn Bonds, who is our Director of Product Strategy and runs the thoughtbot incubator. And then, as I mentioned, we've got two new founders who are going to tell us a little bit about themselves and what they're working on. Mike Rosenthal, let's kick off with you. Can you tell us a little bit about maybe your background and what brings you to present day? MIKE: Sure. First of, thanks for having us. It's been a lot of fun doing this over the last [inaudible 01:03]; it's only two weeks, two and a half weeks, something like that. It feels like a lot more. I come from a music industry background, so worked in sort of marketing and strategy for artists for a long time; worked with a band called OK Go back, sort of starting in 2009 or so. I did a lot of early kind of viral music video stuff. And we were sort of early to the idea of sort of leveraging fan engagement and revenue, honestly, kind of beyond sort of just selling their music and touring, so sort of exploring other ways that artists can make money and connect with their fans and was with those guys for five years. And then, I went on and worked at an artist management company in Brooklyn called Mick Management and ran the marketing department there, so doing similar type of work but for a roster of 2025 major label bands. And so, really got to see fan engagement on all different levels, from really large bands down to baby bands who were just getting started. And then, yeah, started my first startup in 2018, so doing sort of fan engagement work, and NFTs, and blockchain-type stuff working with bands, but then also sports and entertainment properties. Yeah, that kind of brings me here. So, always been sort of on the music side of things, which ties into a lot of what Chris and I are working on now, but more generally, sort of fan engagement and how to, you know, drive revenue and engagement for artists and deliver value for fans. LINDSEY: Very interesting. All right, Chris, going to head over to you. Chris Cerrito, can you tell us a bit about your background? And it sounds like yours and Mike's paths; this isn't the first time you've crossed. CHRIS: No. Mike and I have been working together since 2007, I believe. Yeah, that's a great place to start. I've always been kind of a maker and a tinkerer, always been interested in art materials, how things are put together. And that kind of culminated at grad school, where Mike and I met at NYU, where we both studied physical computing and human-computer interaction, making weird things that kind of changed the way that people interact and play with technology in their day-to-day lives. I think the first project he and I worked on together was a solar robotic band that we played with light in front of a bunch of people. It was very wonderful and confusing at the same time. After grad school, I was lucky enough to become a resident artist and then an exhibit developer at a museum in San Francisco called the Exploratorium, which is a museum of science, art, and human perception. I spent ten years there working on exhibits, teaching people things ranging from, let's see; I built a dueling water fountain to teach visitors and users about the prisoner's dilemma. I built a photo booth that used computer vision to teach people about the microbiome that lives on their face, like, just all kinds of weird things like that that fuse the digital and the physical worlds. I loved my time there. And then kind of COVID hit, and I realized that everything I had been working on for ten years was locked up in a museum that I no longer had access to. And it really gave me a desire to kind of bring my ideas into the physical world. I wanted to make things that people interact with and use in their lives on a day-to-day basis. And I would say that's really what brought me here to this point. LINDSEY: Very cool. Very interesting backgrounds, in my opinion. What is the new idea? What is the thing that you're bringing into the incubator? Mike, I'll start with you. Tell us a bit about what you're working on. MIKE: Chris and I are working on physical objects that connect to digital content is sort of the broadest way that I could describe it. I think, you know, as Chris kind of mentioned, you know, we've both been working on sort of physical things that have interactivity for a lot of our careers. I think we both come from an era of a lot more physical objects in your life, whether that's, you know, VHS cassettes at your parent's house growing up, or records and tape cassettes, and just sort of physical things that remind you of the things that you love. And I think that, you know, cell phones are great, and the sort of the smartphone era is amazing and having, you know, every single song, and movie, and television show and podcasts, et cetera, in a black box in my pocket is great. But I think we've sort of gotten to a point where it's more of an organizational problem now than anything else. And we sort of forget the actual things that we love in this world. And so, we're working on basically making physical objects to tie to digital content, and we're starting with music. And that's what we've been working on at thoughtbot is sort of how we can create physical things that basically you can tap, and that will take you to streaming content. One of the first things we're working on literally looks like sort of a little mixtape on a piece of wood, and you can just load that up with any sort of playlist that you might have on Spotify, or Apple Music, or YouTube, or whatever, and tap it, and it will take you there. And so, it's just sort of that idea of like, oh, we used to be able to sort of flip through a friend's music collection and judge them ruthlessly, or become even better friends with them based on kind of what you saw there. And we think that the time is ripe for, I don't know, a blend of that nostalgia with actual sort of, like, real-world utility that people could be into this right now. Chris, what am I missing there? CHRIS: I'd say just to expand on that a little bit, it's, you know, we spend so much time in the digital world, but we still exist in the physical. And a lot of the things, like, you might spend a really long time editing a photo for your parents or making a playlist for a friend, and there's, like, a value there that might not translate because it's digital. It's ephemeral. And I think tying these digital assets to a physical thing makes them special. It gives them, like, a permanent place in your life, something to respect, to hold on to, and maybe even pass down at some point. LINDSEY: Yeah, and I think before we logged on, we actually had Jordyn and Mike grabbing cassette tapes from the room there and to show us -- MIKE: [inaudible 06:49] LINDSEY: What [laughs] was some of their collection and to prove some of the power of these physical –- MIKE: Nothing, like, just old mixtapes. LINDSEY: Mementos. MIKE: Yeah. We were just talking about this on our sync with the thoughtbot crew. They're, like, there's sort of two levels of nostalgia. There's nostalgia for people like us who, yeah, [crosstalk 07:09] mixtapes, right? For people who actually grew up with this stuff and still have it lying around or don't but, like, look at something like that that gives you, like, instant flashbacks, right? You're like, oh my God, I remember scrolling on that little j-card or, like, getting a mixtape for my first, you know, boyfriend or girlfriend, and having it just mean everything. So, there's people for whom that was a thing. And there's, you know, generations of people for whom that is, like, their only connection to that is, you know, Stranger Things or, like, you know, the mixtape exists in pop culture as a reference. So, there's still, like, a very strong attachment there, but it's not a personal one, right? It's a cultural one. But I think everybody has that connection. So, that's kind of why we're starting with the mixtape, just because I think everyone can kind of relate to that in some way. LINDSEY: Yeah, no, yeah. When I hear mixtape, it goes immediately to crushes. You make a mixtape for your crush. CHRIS: Exactly. LINDSEY: It's a huge, powerful market, powerful. MIKE: Oh my God, so powerful. I mean, yeah, I don't know anybody -- LINDSEY: What's more motivating? MIKE: [laughs] Yeah, exactly. CHRIS: Or even just I have a really good friend who I don't get to see as often as I'd like. And he and I are constantly sending each other, you know, Spotify links and text messages. And it's great. I love that interaction. But at the same time, you know, I might forget to add that to a playlist, and then it's kind of lost. If I had taken the time to make something and send it to him physically or vice versa, it just becomes so much more special and so much more real. MIKE: Yeah. I mean, honestly, I first made these...I mean, we can go to this origin if we want. But, like, I literally just went on moo.com, right? The business card company. And they let you upload, you know, 50 different images, and they'll send you all of those as business cards. And so, I literally went on and just made business cards of all the album covers of, like, albums that I loved growing up, right? And their cheapest is this little piece of cardboard. But I had 50 of these, and I'd put them all out on my coffee table, just as something I wanted to have around. And people kept coming, you know, friends would come over, and you would just have these conversations that I haven't had in 10 or 15 years, right? Because no one's going to come to my house and pick up my phone and look at my Spotify collection. But if these things are all just sitting out, they're like, "Oh shit, you're into that? Like, I haven't thought about that album in 15 years." Or like, "Oh, I didn't know you were into that. I'm, like, a crazy super fan of that artist as well." And all of a sudden, we're having these conversations that we just weren't having. Yeah, there's something there where it's all been nostalgia coupled with the kind of prompting of conversation and connection that we've kind of lost, I think. CHRIS: And I think just to clarify a little bit on what Mike's saying, is, you know, this mixtape will be our first product launch, and then we're hoping to move into collectibles for artists and labels. So, shortly after we launch this tape, we're hoping to launch some kind of pilot with a label where you will be able to buy a version of this for your favorite music artist at a merch table in a concert, possibly online. Our dream is to have these sitting there on the table with T-shirts, and records, and other things that artists sell so you can express for the artists that you love. This is a way of expressing your fandom. LINDSEY: Jordyn, heading over to you, this feels like maybe the first consumer product that has gone through the incubator, would you say? Or how do you think about it? JORDYN: Yeah, if you're a consumer -- LINDSEY: Or is it different than other types of products? JORDYN: Yeah, the first incubator project we did with Senga was, I think, what you would call prosumer. So, it was sort of a consumer thing but directed at folks who had kind of freelancing in sort of a business context. It's got a lot of dynamics of the consumer. But this one, for sure, is the first pure consumer play. Though now that I'm thinking about it, you know, AvidFirst had some consumer elements to it, but it was, you know, it was, like, more complex tech [laughs] [inaudible 10:46] totally different thing -- LINDSEY: But definitely the first of the physical, physical [inaudible 10:52] JORDYN: Oh, sure, the first of the physical thing. Right. Absolutely. LINDSEY: Does that change any of, like, the approach of the programming, or it's kind of -- JORDYN: I mean, no, not fundamentally, though it does add this layer of operations that you don't have with a pure software play. So, we have to be, there is a thing that needs to get shipped to people in the world, and that takes timelines, and it takes -- LINDSEY: Supply chain. JORDYN: Yeah, exactly. And Chris is doing most of that stuff. I don't want to, you know, this is not, like, the main focus of our team necessarily, but it intersects, right? So, this isn't the first one of these types of products I've worked on personally in my career. But there's something, like, really, for me, very fulfilling about, like, there's software. There's a big component of software. There's also this physical object that needs to exist in the world. And partly, what's so compelling about Goodz is that it gives you the promise of a physical, like, the sort of good aspects of a physical product, a thing you can hold in your hand and look at and really connect with in that physical way. But it has this dynamic digital, like, essential quality as well. So, it's very compelling as a product because it sort of marries the things that we like about both the physical world and the digital world, which is partly why the team was really excited about working on it [laughs]. LINDSEY: Well, that was going to be my next question is, you know, what stood out to you about the Goodz application for the incubator and the interview process that made you and the team feel like this was going to be a great project to work on? JORDYN: Yeah. So, I think just the team really resonated with the sort of idea in general, and it seemed fun. There was, like, it's a very positive thing, right? It isn't so much about solving problems and pain points. And, sometimes the, you know, when you're very focused on solving problems, it can feel a little doomy because you actually have to, like, immerse yourself in the problems of the people that you're making software for. And sometimes, you start to feel like the world is just full of problems. What Goodz is doing is sort of it is solving a problem in a sense, but not in that kind of way. It's really, like, a fun upside kind of thing, which I think a lot of the folks on the team were very excited about. But, like, the software component, actually, is very interesting to us from a technological standpoint as well. There's a lot of opportunity here to do interesting things on the backend with an object that's essentially functioning as a bookmark out in the world. What all can you do with that? There's something super compelling and technically interesting about it. And I think, also, the team was just sort of excited by Chris and Mike, you know, the energy and the kind of background they were bringing to the table was also super interesting. And then, above all else, what I say every time you ask me this question, which is stage fit, y'all, good stage fit. They're right at the beginning. They haven't built the product yet [laughs]. Gotta say it. It's a good stage fit. They know who they're building for broadly but not super specifically. Got a good vision but, like, haven't made that first step with the software. Perfect stage fit for us [laughs]. LINDSEY: Great. So, Chris, we were talking a bit before about how you two have been collaborators in the past, worked on business ideas before. Why bring this idea into the thoughtbot incubator? What are you hoping to, you know, achieve? CHRIS: One of the main reasons why we wanted to bring this into the incubator was just for support, momentum, and then, also, I would say, validation for our idea. I mean, we came to the incubator with a very, yeah, I would say it was a fairly developed idea that needed to be proved, and we, quite frankly, needed help with that. You know, Mike and I have our own expertises, but we don't know how to do everything. We're more than willing to jump in where we need to go. But having people with expertise to work with has proven to be incredibly helpful, and just having kind of fresh faces to bat ideas around with after he and I have been staring at each other for months now on Zoom calls and meetings. And just, you know, being able to talk about these ideas with fresh faces and new people and get new perspectives has been so very, very helpful. I think something that's also great from the momentum standpoint is that because there's a time limit to this experience, we've got the time that we have with you guys, and we've been able to set goals that I think are very achievable for things we want to occur in the next couple of months, and it feels like we're going to get there. And I think by the end of this, I mean, our hope, and I think we're on track, is to have a functioning physical product that we're going to offer to consumers with a digital backend to support it, which is, in my mind, amazing. That'll totally validate this idea and prove if we have something or not. LINDSEY: I was going to ask if you're open to sharing what those goals specifically are. Is that it? Is it that by the end, you have -- MIKE: Is that it? Lindsey, that's a lot. [laughter] CHRIS: It's a lot. I mean, yeah. I mean, we're going to have a physical object in the world that you can buy via an e-commerce site -- JORDYN: Sounds like we need Lindsey on the team if Lindsey feels like this is so achievable. [laughter] CHRIS: Yeah, yeah. Lindsey...yeah. We're in the beginning [crosstalk 15:47] LINDSEY: I meant, is that the goal? CHRIS: That is the goal. LINDSEY: Is that all? CHRIS: I was going to –- LINDSEY: Is that all you got? CHRIS: Mike, do you agree? MIKE: Yeah. Is that the goal? Yes, that is the goal. I mean, you know, when we sat down with the thoughtbot team kind of week one, you know, they're sort of like, "All right, let's define kind of the experiment." So, we refer to them as experiments, which I think is helpful because, like, what are the experiments that we want to be doing during our time here? And, you know, we talked about it a lot. And yeah, I think it's, you know, having a physical product out in the world, having a website in which to sell it. But also, it's really like Chris was saying, it's like, it's market validation, and just making sure we actually have something that people want. It's like, you know, running a startup takes so long and, like [laughs], you know, you'll do it for so many years. It's like bands when people say, like, "Oh, that's an overnight sensation." It's like, you know, that band has been slogging it out in tiny, little venues for four years before you ever heard of them. It's like, that's what so much of the startup world feels like to me, too. It's like, "Oh, you're just getting started as a startup?" It's like, "Well, we've been working on this forever." And I know how long this can take. And so, I think we want to learn as early as possible, like, is this something people actually want? Because if they don't, like, we'll just go do something else. I don't want to spend years making something that people don't want. So, I think the biggest goal, for me, is just validation, and then that is sort of how we get there is like, okay, how do we validate this? Cool. Let's identify some, you know, assumptions of personas that we think are people who do actually want this and then try to go sell it to them. And all the implications from that are, okay, well, you need a website where somebody can buy it. You need a physical product that somebody can actually buy. So, all those things sort of come out of that, but, for me, it's like, proving that assumption, is this thing real? Do people actually want this? And everything else is like, okay, how do we prove that? LINDSEY: Jordyn, what does that look like in these first few weeks here? User interviews, I assume, how are the user interviews going? JORDYN: Always. Always. So, you know, we kick it off by just, like, doing the exercise where we list everybody who might want this. And the team, you know, it's a fun product. Everybody brought their own assumptions and ideas to the table on that. You know, we had a lot of different scenarios we were imagining. It's super fun getting that stuff out of people's heads, just, like, what are we all thinking? And then, you know, we get to negotiate, like, okay...I always encourage everyone to think, like, if everyone else on the team was on the moon, you had to make a decision about a market segment to pick; which one would you pick? And then we kind of argue about it in a productive way. It really helps us get at, like, what are the dynamics that we think matter upfront? And then we pick one, or, in this case, we have a few. We have a handful. And we're running interview projects where we just recruit people to talk about people that meet this persona, talk about a specific problem. We're in the middle of that right now. And it's fun, fantastic. These conversations are super interesting. We're validating a lot of the things that Mike and Chris, you know, walked into this with, but we're learning a bunch of new things as well. And, like, really, part of the aim there is to validate that there's a hole in the market that we might fill but also to hear the language people are using to describe this stuff. So, when people talk about buying music, merch, you know, making playlists, et cetera, like, what language do they use to talk about that? So that we make sure we're speaking the language that our customer uses to describe this stuff. And we're, you know, we're right in the pocket of doing that, learning stuff all the time. And it helps us kind of hone the messaging. It helps us know where to go talk to people about it, how to talk about it, but it's, you know, it all kind of fits together. And it's just this, really...the early stages. It's just a bunch of us in a room, a virtual room, in this case, sort of, like, tossing ideas around. But out of it crystallizes this sense of alignment about who this is for, how to talk to them about it, and with a goal. And, you know, Mike and Chris walked in with the exact right mindset about this, which is, yes, it's experiments. We need to validate it. Let's make sure there's a there-there. If there's a there-there, let's figure out where it is [laughs], like, all those things. And we're running these experiments, and it was really [inaudible 19:36]. We got down to business quite quickly here. It was really great. LINDSEY: Like you said, it's not necessarily a problem or, you know, the typical framing of a problem. How do you start those user interview questions around this? Do you feel a gap between the physical and the digital sound? [laughter] JORDYN: No, no. LINDSEY: It's maybe not it [laughs]. JORDYN: Yeah, no. Well, I can tell you what our startup questions are. One of them is, tell me about the last time you bought music merch. Go for it, Lindsey. Tell us. LINDSEY: The last time I bought music merch, I went to a Tegan and Sara concert a few weeks ago, and I bought a T-shirt. JORDYN: Tell me about buying that T-shirt. Why'd you buy it? LINDSEY: Because I wanted to remember the show and my time with my friends, and I wanted to support the artists. I know that buying merch is the best way to support your favorite touring artists. JORDYN: So, it's just, you know, we could spend the rest of this time talking [laughter] [crosstalk 20:34], and it would be awesome. So, it's really a lot of things like that. LINDSEY: Gotcha. JORDYN: You don't ask, "What problem are you trying to solve by buying this t-shirt?" Right? Like, that's not, you know, but we ask you to tell us a bunch of stories about when you did this recently. You know, and if you make playlists for friends, you know, that's a different persona. But we would have asked, you know, like, "Tell me about the last playlist you made. You know, who did you share it with? You know, what happened after that? What happened after that? What happened after that?" It's a lot of questions like that. And there's just nothing better. People love to tell you what's going on with them. And it's great [laughs]. LINDSEY: Yeah. As you all have been doing these interviews, Mike and Chris, have you been surprised by anything? Any interesting insights that you're seeing already? CHRIS: I mean, I haven't done really much in the way of user interviews in the past. This is a really new experience for me. And then we're, obviously, not on the calls because that would be weird and probably intimidating for people. But we're getting lots of highlights from folks who are doing them, you know, in our daily sync. And I'm surprised at how many, like, really intense, like, playlist nerds we have found even just in, like, the few people we've talked to, like, in the best possible way. Like, people who are like, "I make playlists all the time." Like, you're talking about, like, a vinyl fan or, like, a...Jordyn, what's the story? It's, like, the guy who there was so much out-of-print vinyl that he started a vinyl label just to get the albums in vinyl. [crosstalk 21:56] JORDYN: Yeah. There were a bunch of releases that he feels really passionately about that were never released on vinyl that he knew would never be released on vinyl. And so, he started a vinyl record label. And we just found this guy [laughter]. CHRIS: Is that indicative that that's, like, an entire persona we're going to, like, target? Absolutely not. But it's just, like, it's amazing that even just in the few user interviews we've done, that we've found so many very passionate people. And it's sent me down, like, a TikTok rabbit hole of, like, TikTok, like, music nerd influencer-type folks who are posting playlists. And they, like, hundreds of thousands of likes on these videos that are literally just, like, screen with text on it that you're supposed to, like, pause the video [laughs] and, like, look at, like, the songs that they're recommending. And it's like, who does that? And it was like, these people do that. And it's like, so there are...it's been very encouraging to me, actually. I was worried that we were going to find not as much passion as we had suspected, and I think the opposite has proven to be true. So, it's exciting. CHRIS: Yeah, I completely agree with Mike. It's been so encouraging. I think, for me, what we're doing is an idea that I'm very excited about and have been very excited about for a long time. But hearing the responses that we're getting makes me confident in the idea, too. That's great. I mean, I think that is everything that a founder needs, you know, is excitement and confidence. MIKE: Well, and just the whole user interview experience has, like, made a lot of my other conversations sort of I've tried to frame parts of them as user interviews because I'm talking to a lot of, like, label folks now, and artists, merch people. And, you know, I ended up just sort of, like, asking them, I mean, yes, trying to explain the product and work on kind of partnership stuff, but a lot of it is really just geeking out with them. And just, like, hearing their thoughts about, like, what they love about merch because these are people that clearly think about this stuff all the time. So, it's definitely kind of, like, tuned my other conversations into trying to get unbiased feedback. LINDSEY: Yeah. Everything is a little user interview now. MIKE: Yeah, exactly. LINDSEY: Get that angle in there. All right, so some early validation and excitement. That's really cool to hear. Any challenges or, you know, other kinds of learnings early on? Anything that's been invalidated? MIKE: I don't know that we're there yet. [inaudible 24:02] Chris, I don't know. I'm happy to find that some things are invalidated, but I don't really feel...you know, some of the personas that we decided or maybe just one of the personas we decided to pursue, I think we're having a hard time having those user interviews kind of really bear fruit, but that's helpful, too, actually. I mean, it's like, okay, well, maybe that's not a group that we target. JORDYN: Yeah. It's about, like, [inaudible 24:24]. I encourage folks not to think about this like a 'no, not that,' and instead think of it as like a 'not yet.' And that's, I think, the dynamic here with a couple of the personas we were interested in. It's just been turned into kind of, like, a not yet for reasons that we very quickly figured out, but we'll get there. It's just a matter of figuring out we had some other personas take precedence because they're more sort of red, hot in a way, right? It's just easier to get in contact with these people, or it's, like, clear what they're going for or what they need from the market. So, you know, we have this whole list, and it was not clear at first who was going to kind of stand out. But we've kind of found some focus there, which means, invariably, that there's things that are falling out of the frame for now, and you're kind of de-prioritizing them. But it really is, like, a we'll get to that [laughs]. We'll eventually get to that. LINDSEY: Yeah. And part of the process, who's going to rise to the top right now? JORDYN: Yeah, exactly. LINDSEY: Do you have anything you can show and tell with us today or not yet? MIKE: So, Chris has been hard at work on all the physical side of this stuff and going back and forth with our manufacturing partner and all that good stuff. But we have a final version of the mixtape product. LINDSEY: For when this gets pulled into the podcast, Mike's showing us a physical card. CHRIS: It's a small card, and we call them Goodz. And it's printed on three-millimeter plywood using a UV printing process, super durable. And this is something you can put in your pocket. You're not going to wreck it. I think you could actually (Don't quote me on this.), but I think you can even, like, put it through a washing machine, and it would be fine. Embedded in this card is a chip that can be read by your phone, and that's pretty much what we're working with. MIKE: Yeah, so the idea is you just sort of tap this, and it'll take you to a streaming version of a playlist. And then Chris has also been making these adorable crates. And [crosstalk 26:10] LINDSEY: The little crates I love. MIKE: And we actually have some wooden ones, too, in the testing that's [crosstalk 26:15] LINDSEY: And then the mixtapes get stored in the little crates [crosstalk 26:19] MIKE: Yeah. So, you could have -- LINDSEY: Throw it on your desk. CHRIS: Each crate can hold about, I think, 15 of these things. What's really cool about this product on the physical side is we are using a tried-and-true technology, which is NFC chips. These are things that make Apple Pay work, make Google Pay work. They are in your E-ZPass when you drive through a toll booth. This is stuff that's been around for years. So, we're just kind of leveraging this technology that's been around for so long in a new way. MIKE: Yeah, I think it's similar to kind of the evolution of QR codes, right? It's like they were sort of around forever, and then it was, like, COVID and restaurant menus kind of kicked those into mainstream. Like, NFC has been around for a long time. It's very tried and true. It's affordable. But I want to say Apple only turned it on by default, like, the NFC reader in the iPhone in the last, like, 18 to 24 months, right? Like, it started...like, it's been around for a while, but they're sort of slowly kind of...and now you just sort of see it everywhere. People are using it on the subways in New York to scan for tickets or for accessing stuff. I was also just showing Chris has been prototyping with the ability to sort of keep these on a key ring. So, we have, like, a little chain hole on them. It is [inaudible 27:22] to sort of have this on your backpack or, you know, on a key ring, or something like that. And friends could kind of, like, come up to you and just, like, scan one that looks interesting. CHRIS: And yeah, something that's awesome about this is you don't need an app. You don't need to download anything. As long as your NFC reader is on when you scan this, it will bring you to the music that it's linked to, which I think is awesome. So, I mean, my dream is to have these, like, hanging off of people's backpacks so I can, like, scan them in the subway or, you know, it's such, like, an easy thing to do. And it requires so little technical time on the user's end to be able to do it. LINDSEY: Oh, we got a question here. "So, Moo used to offer NFC cards. What made you decide to do the thicker plywood model?" CHRIS: Durability is really what it comes down to. We wanted something that felt like an object that you can have and treasure. Like, these have weight, you know, these feel like something, not just a piece of paper. This is something that you can have and [inaudible 28:22] your desk, and it's not going to fade in the sunlight. It's not going to disintegrate over time. This is something that's going to last. MIKE: Yeah, the cards would definitely, like, as I would sort of carry them around and show them to people and stuff, the cards would start, you know, breaking. It's like having a business card in your pocket, right? Eventually, it's going to kind of wear out. And plus, we had, like, the stickers were visible on the back of them. And we were, like, having the sticker just completely disappear inside the wood; it just feels a little bit more like magic. LINDSEY: Well, thanks for demoing there. I put you on the spot a little bit. But they are...I had seen them in the Slack, and they're very cool [laughs]. So, I had to ask if we could show them off a bit. MIKE: Of course. CHRIS: I think another thing to think about, too, is we've been talking a lot about the user experience. But if and when we get to the point of making these for artists, artists will be able to collect so much data off of the way that people buy and collect and use these things over time, which is something that we're really, really excited about. And also, you know, we're working on a way to make the link in the object updatable over time. So, artists will be able to change what a card points do to inform their users about the latest and greatest thing. LINDSEY: Very cool. Jordyn, what's next on the programming agenda for Chris and Mike? JORDYN: It's really sort of we're in this, like, iterative cycle. So, we're talking to folks. We're working on the website. The conversations we're having with people are informing how we're framing this first experiment with the mixtape, how we're marketing it, who we're marketing it to. I think next up is probably a Google Ad experiment to really see if we can piggyback on some stuff or at least figure out a new consumer product. It's so tough, right? It's also not a thing people are searching for. So, we have to come up with some experiments for how we get people to that website [laughs]. So, you know, Google Ads funnels is just something you kind of have to do because it's very interesting to figure out what people are responding to, what people are searching for. But we're going to have a bunch of other experiments as well and non-experiments. Outbound experiments: can we go to people? Can we get listed in a gift-buying guide for the holidays? Or, like, we don't know. There's a bunch of experiments we need to do around that, which is really just this iteration. We won't stop talking to users, but, you know, everything we're hearing from them will inform where we go and how we talk to the folks in those places where we end up. And really, it's just about starting...once this is up and, you know, there's, like, an orderable thing, there's, like, a whole data cycle where we start to learn from the stuff we're testing; we actually have some real data for it, and we can start to tweak, iterate and change our strategy. But the bigger thing, also, is this bigger platform. So, the next thing really, the big next thing, is to sort of start to scope and create an architecture idea. What's it going to take to build the actual backend thing? And it's the thing that thoughtbot really [laughs] excels at, which is software. So, you know, that's the big next kind of project. Once the mixtape experiment is sort of out and in flight and we're getting data, we really need to turn our attention to the technical backend. LINDSEY: Exciting. Another comment/question from Jeff, who maybe needs a user interview. "Love the crate more than the actual albums. Maybe offer collections of artists." MIKE: Yeah, that's the plan. CHRIS: Yeah, definitely. It's a good idea. Yeah, it's, I mean, and labels get to, especially, like, small indie labels get really excited about doing, like, crates worth of collections of different artists or, like, you know, digging through their back catalog, their subscription services. There's a lot of different angles for sure about that idea. LINDSEY: [inaudible 31:55] Chris and Mike, going into this next section of the programming, for anyone watching right now, or watching the recording, or listening to the recording, any action items from them? You know, are you looking for any user interviews or have any survey or any destinations you'd like to send people yet? CHRIS: Not quite yet, but soon, I would say. Well -- MIKE: I mean, [inaudible 32:19] plug the website, I mean, you know, I think we've got, like, an email to sign up from there, right? The URL is getthegoodz.com and I [crosstalk 32:27] LINDSEY: Goodz with a Z. MIKE: Goodz with a Z. CHRIS: With Z. MIKE: So yeah, if you want to go there, you can sign up. I think there's an email signup on there to learn more. LINDSEY: Perfect. All right. getthegoodz.com email sign up. To stay up to date on Goodz and the incubator, you can follow along on the thoughtbot blog. You know, as always, send us any questions you might have, and we're happy to get to those. But otherwise, thanks for listening. And thank you all — Jordyn, Chris, and Mike. Thanks so much for joining today and sharing and being open about your stories so far. MIKE: Thank you. CHRIS: Yeah, thank you, Lindsey. AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions. Special Guests: Chris Cerrito and Mike Rosenthal.

Mike Brevoort, Chief Product Officer at Gitpod, joins Corey on Screaming in the Cloud to discuss all the intricacies of remote development and how Gitpod is simplifying the process. Mike explains why he feels the infinite resources cloud provides can be overlooked when discussing remote versus local development environments, and how simplifying build abstractions is a fantastic goal, but that focusing on the tools you use in a build abstraction in the meantime can be valuable. Corey and Mike also dive into the security concerns that come with remote development, and Mike reveals the upcoming plans for Gitpod's local conference environment, CDE Universe. About MikeMike has a passion for empowering people to be creative and work together more effectively. He is the Chief Product Officer at Gitpod striving to remove the friction and drudgery from software development through Cloud Developer Environments. He spent the previous four years at Slack where he created Workflow Builder and “Platform 2.0” after his company Missions was acquired by Slack in 2018. Mike lives in Denver, Colorado and enjoys cycling, hiking and being outdoors.Links Referenced: Gitpod: https://www.gitpod.io/ CDE Universe: https://cdeuniverse.com/ TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: It's easy to **BEEP** up on AWS. Especially when you're managing your cloud environment on your own!Mission Cloud un **BEEP**s your apps and servers. Whatever you need in AWS, we can do it. Head to missioncloud.com for the AWS expertise you need. Corey: Have you listened to the new season of Traceroute yet? Traceroute is a tech podcast that peels back the layers of the stack to tell the real, human stories about how the inner workings of our digital world affect our lives in ways you may have never thought of before. Listen and follow Traceroute on your favorite platform, or learn more about Traceroute at origins.dev. My thanks to them for sponsoring this ridiculous podcast. Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud, I'm Corey Quinn. I have had loud, angry, and admittedly at times uninformed opinions about so many things over the past few years, but something that predates that a lot is my impression on the idea of using remote systems for development work as opposed to doing local dev, and that extends to build and the rest. And my guest today here to argue with me about some of it—or agree; we'll find out—is Mike Brevoort, Chief Product Officer at Gitpod, which I will henceforth be mispronouncing as JIT-pod because that is the type of jerk I am. Mike, thank you for joining me.Mike: Thank you for insulting my company. I appreciate it.Corey: No, by all means, it's what we do here.Mike: [laugh].Corey: So, you clearly have opinions on the idea of remote versus local development that—I am using the word remote development; I know you folks like to use the word cloud, in place of remote, but I'm curious to figure out is, is that just the zeitgeist that has shifted? Do you have a belief that it should be in particular places, done in certain ways, et cetera? Where do your opinion on this start and stop?Mike: I think that—I mean, remote is accurate, an accurate description. I don't like to emphasize the word remote because I don't think it's important that it's remote or local. I think that the term cloud connotes different values around the elasticity of environments and the resources that are more than what you might have on your local machine versus a remote machine. It's not so much whether the one machine is local or remote as much of it is that there are infinite numbers of resources that you can develop across in the cloud. That's why we tend to prefer our cloud development environments.Corey: From my perspective, I've been spending too many years now living in basically hotels and airports. And when I was doing that, for a long time, the only computer I bring with me has been my iPad Pro. That used to be a little bit on the challenging side and these days, that's gotten capable enough where it's no longer interesting in isolation. But there's no local development environment that is worth basically anything on that. So, I've been SSHing into things and using VI as my development environment for many years.When I started off as a grumpy Unix sysadmin, there was something reassuring about the latest state of whatever it is I'm working on lives in a data center somewhere rather than on a laptop, I'm about to leave behind a coffee shop because I'm careless. So, there's a definite value and sense that I am doing something virtuous, historically. But it didn't occur to me till I started talking to people about this, just how contentious the idea was. People would love to ask all kinds of fun objections to this where it was, “Oh, well, what about when you're on a plane and need to do work?” It's, well, I spend an awful lot of time on planes and that is not a limiting factor in me writing the terrible nonsense that I will charitably called code, in my case. I just don't find that that idea holds up anywhere. The world has become so increasingly interconnected that that seems unlikely. But I do live in San Francisco, so here, every internet is generally pretty decent; not every place is. What are your thoughts?Mike: I agree. I mean, I think one thing is, I would just like not to think about it, whether I can or can't develop because I'm connected or not. And I think that we tend to be in a world where that is moreso the case. And I think a lot of times when you're not connected, you become reconnected soon, like if your connection is not reliable or if you're going in and out of connectivity issues. And when you're trying to work on a local laptop and you're connecting and disconnecting, it's not like we develop these days, and everything is just isolated on our local laptop, especially we talk about cloud a lot on this podcast and a lot of apps now go way beyond just I'm running a process on my machine and I'm connecting to data on my machine.There are local emulators you could use for some of these services, but most of them are inferior. And if you're using SQS or using any other, like, cloud-based service, you're usually, as a developer, connecting to some version of that and if you're disconnected anyway, you're not productive either. And so, I find that it's just like an irrelevant conversation in this new world. And that the way we've developed traditionally has not followed along with this view of I need to pile everything in on my laptop, to be able to develop and be productive has not, like, followed along with the trend that moved into the cloud.Corey: Right. The big problem for a long time has been, how do I make this Mac or Windows laptop look a lot like Linux EC2 instance? And there have been a bunch of challenges and incompatibility issues and the rest, and from my perspective, I like to develop in an environment that at least vaguely resembles the production environment it's going to run in, which in AWS's case, of course, comes down to expensive. Bu-dum-tss.Mike: Yeah, it's a really big challenge. It's been a challenge, right? When you've worked with coworkers that were on a Windows machine and you were on a Mac machine, and you had the one person on their Linux machine forever, and we all struggled with trying to mimic these development environments that were representative, ultimately, of what we would run in production. And if you're counting costs, we can count the cost of those cloud resources, we can count the cost of those laptops, but we also need to count the cost of the people who are using those laptops and how inefficient and how much churn they have, and how… I don't know, there was for years of my career, someone would show up every morning to the stand-up meeting and say, it's like, “Well, I wasted all afternoon yesterday trying to work out my, you know, issues with my development environment.” And it's, like, “I hope I get that sorted out later today and I hope someone can help me.”And so, I think cost is one thing. I think that there's a lot of inconsistencies that lead to a lot of inefficiencies and churn. And I think that, regardless of where you're developing, the more that you can make your environments more consistent and sound, not for you, but for your own team and have those be more representative of what you are running in production, the better.Corey: We should disambiguate here because I fear this is one of the areas where my use case tends to veer off into the trees, which is I tend to operate largely in isolation, from a development point of view. I build small, micro things that wind up doing one thing, poorly. And that is, like, what I do is a proof of concept, or to be funny, or to kick the tires on a new technology. I'll also run a bunch of random things I find off of JIF-ub—yes, that's how I pronounce GitHub. And that's great, but it also feels like I'm learning as a result, every stack, and every language, in every various version that it has, and very few of the cloud development environments that I've seen, really seems to cater to the idea that simultaneously, I want to have certain affordances in my shell environment set up the way that I want them, tab complete this particular suite of tools generically across the board, but then reset to that baseline and go in a bunch of different directions of, today, it's Python in this version and tomorrow, it's Node in this other version, and three, what is a Typescript anyway, and so on and so forth.It feels like it's either, in most cases, you either get this generic, one-size-fits-everyone in this company, for this project, approach, or it's, here's a very baseline untuned thing that does not have any of your dependencies installed. Start from scratch every time. And it's like, feels like there are two paths, and they both suck. Where are you folks at these days on that spectrum?Mike: Yeah, I think that, you know, one, if you do all of that development across all these different libraries and technology stacks and you're downloading all these repos from JIF-hub—I say it right—and you're experimenting, you tend to have a lot of just collision of things. Like if you're using Python, it's, like, really a pain to maintain isolation across projects and not have—like, your environment is, like, one big bucket of things on your laptop and it's very easy to get that into a state where things aren't working, and then you're struggling. There's no big reset on your laptop. I mean, there is but it takes—it's a full reset of everything that you have.And I think the thing that's interesting to me about cloud development environments is I could spin one of these up, I could trash it to all hell and just throw it away and get another one. And I could get another one of those at a base of which has been tuned for whatever project or technology I'm working on. So, I could take—you know, do the effort to pre-setup environments, one that is set up with all of my, like, Python tooling, and another one that's set up with all my, like, Go or Rust tooling, or our front-end development, even as a base repo for what I tend to do or might tend to experiment with. What we find is that, whether you're working alone or you're working with coworkers, that setting up a project and all the resources and the modules and the libraries and the dependencies that you have, like, someone has to do that work to wire that up together and the fact that you could just get an environment and get another one and another one, we use this analogy of, like, tissue boxes where, like, you should just be able to pull a new dev environment out of a tissue box and use it and throw it away and pull as many tissues out of the box as you want. And they should be, like, cheap and ephemeral because—and they shouldn't be long-lived because they shouldn't be able to drift.And whether you're working alone or you're working in a team, it's the same value. The fact that, like, I could pull on these out, I have it. I'm confident in it of what I got. Like for example, ideally, you would just start a dev environment, it's available instantly, and you're ready to code. You're in this project with—and maybe it's a project you've never developed on. Maybe it's an open-source project.This is where I think it really improves the sort of equitability of being able to develop, whether it's in open-source, whether it's inner-source in companies, being able to approach any project with a click of a button and get the same environment that the tech lead on the project who started it five years ago has, and then I don't need to worry about that and I get the same environment. And I think that's the value. And so, whether you're individual or you're on a team, you want to be able to experiment and thrash and do things and be able to throw it away and start over again, and not have to—like for example, maybe you're doing that on your machine and you're working on this thing and then you actually have to do some real work, and then now that you've done something that conflicts with the thing that you're working on and you're just kind of caught in this tangled mess, where it's like, you should just be able to leave that experiment there and just go work on the thing you need to work on. And why can't you have multiples of these things at any given time?Corey: Right. One of the things I loved about EC2 dev environments has been that I can just spin stuff up and okay, great, it's time for a new project. Spin up another one and turn it off when I'm done using it—which is the lie we always tell ourselves in cloud and get charged for things we forget to turn off. But then, okay, I need an Intel box one day. Done. Great, awesome. I don't have any of those lying around here anymore but clickety, clickety, and now I do.It's nice being able to have that flexibility, but it's also sometimes disconcerting when I'm trying to figure out what machine I was on when I was building things and the rest, and having unified stories around this becomes super helpful. I'm also finding that my overpowered desktop is far more cost-efficient when I need to compile something challenging, as opposed to finding a big, beefy, EC2 box for that thing as well. So, much of the time, what my remote system is doing is sitting there bored. Even when I'm developing on it, it doesn't take a lot of modern computer resources to basically handle a text editor. Unless it's Emacs, in which case, that's neither here nor there.Mike: [laugh]. I think that the thing that becomes costly, especially when using cloud development environments, is when you have to continue to run them even when you're not using them for the sake of convenience because you're not done with it, you're in the middle of doing some work and it still has to run or you forget to shut it off. If you are going to just spin up a really beefy EC2 instance for an hour to do that big compile and it costs you 78 cents. That's one thing. I mean, I guess that adds up over time and yes, if you've already bought that Mac Studio that's sitting under your desk, humming, it's going to be more cost-efficient to use that thing.But there's, like, an element of convenience here that, like, what if I haven't bought the Mac Studio, but I still need to do that big beefy compilation? And maybe it's not on a project I work on every single day; maybe it's the one that I'm just trying to help out with or just starting to contribute to. And so, I think that we need to get better about, and something that we're very focused on at JIT-pod, is—Gitpod—is—Corey: [laugh]. I'm going to get you in trouble at this rate.Mike: —[laugh]—is really to optimize that underlying runtime environment so that we can optimize the resources that you're using only when you're using it, but also provide a great user experience. Which is, for me, as someone who's responsible for the product at Gitpod, the thing I want to get to is that you never have to think about a machine. You're not thinking about this dev environment as something that lives somewhere, that you're paying for, that there's a meter spinning that if you forget it, that you're like, ah, it's going to cost me a lot of money, that I have to worry about ever losing it. And really, I just want to be able to get a new environment, have one, use it, come back to it when I need it, have it not cost me a lot of money, and be able to have five or ten of those at a time because I'm not as worried about what it's going to cost me. And I'm sure it'll cost something, but the convenience factor of being able to get one instantly and have it and not have to worry about it ultimately saves me a lot of time and aggravation and improves my ability to focus and get work done.And right now, we're still in this mode where we're still thinking about, is it on my laptop? Is it remote? Is it on this EC2 instance or that EC2 instance? Or is this thing started or stopped? And I think we need to move beyond that and be able to just think of these things as development environments that I use and need and they're there when I want to, when I need to work on them, and I don't have to tend to them like cattle.Corey: Speaking of tending large things in herds—I guess that's sort of for the most tortured analogy slash segway I've come up with recently—you folks have a conference coming up soon in San Francisco. What's the deal with that? And I'll point out, it's all on-site, locally, not in the cloud. So, hmm…Mike: Yeah, so we have a local conference environment, a local conference that we're hosting in San Francisco called CDE Universe on June 1st and 2nd, and we are assembling all the thought leaders in the industry who want to get together and talk about where not just cloud development is going, but really where development is going. And so, there's us, there's a lot of companies that have done this themselves. Like, before I joined Gitpod, I was at Slack for four years and I got to see the transition of a, sort of, remote development hosted on EC2 instances transition and how that really empowered our team of hundreds of engineers to be able to contribute and like work together better, more efficiently, to run this giant app that you can't run just alone on your laptop. And so, Slack is going to be there, they're going to be talking about their transition to cloud development. The Uber team is going to be there, there's going to be some other companies.So, Nathan who's building Zed, he was the one that originally built Adam at GitHub is now building Zed, which is a new IDE, is going to be there. And I can't mention all the speakers, but there's going to be a lot of people that are really looking at how do we drive forward development and development environments. And that experience can get a lot better. So, if you're interested in that, if you're going to be in San Francisco on June 1st and 2nd and want to talk to these people, learn from them, and help us drive this vision forward for just a better development experience, come hang out with us.Corey: I'm a big fan of collaborating with folks and figuring out what tricks and tips they've picked up along the way. And this is coming from the perspective of someone who acts as a solo developer in many cases. But it always drove me a little nuts when you see people spending weeks of their lives configuring their text editor—VIM in my case because I'm no better than these people; I am one of them—and getting it all setup and dialed in. It's, how much productivity you gaining versus how much time are you spending getting there?And then when all was said and done a few years ago, I found myself switching to VS Code for most of what I do, and—because it's great—and suddenly the world's shifting on its axis again. At some point, you want to get away from focusing on productivity on an individualized basis. Now, the rules change when you're talking about large teams where everyone needs a copy of this running locally or in their dev environment, wherever happens to be, and you're right, often the first two weeks of a new software engineering job are, you're now responsible for updating the onboarding docs because it's been ten minutes since the last time someone went through it. And oh, the versions bumped again of what we would have [unintelligible 00:16:44] brew install on a Mac and suddenly everything's broken. Yay. I don't miss those days.Mike: Yeah, the new, like, ARM-based Macs came out and then you were—now all of a sudden, all your builds are broken. We hear that a lot.Corey: Oh, what I love now is that, in many cases, I'm still in a process of, okay, I'm developing locally on an ARM-based Mac and I'm deploying it to a Graviton2-based Lambda or instance, but the CI/CD builder is going to run on Intel, so it's one of those, what is going on here? Like, there's a toolchain lag of round embracing ARM as an architecture. That's mostly been taken care of as things have evolved, but it's gotten pretty amusing at some point, just as quickly that baseline architecture has shifted for some workloads. And for some companies.Mike: Yeah, and things just seem to be getting more [laugh] and more complicated not less complicated, and so I think the more that we can—Corey: Oh, you noticed?Mike: Try to simplify build abstractions [laugh], you know, the better. But I think in those cases where, I think it's actually good for people to struggle with setting up their environment sometime, with caring about the tools that they use and their experience developing. I think there has to be some ROI with that. If it's like a chronic thing that you have to continue to try to fix and make better, it's one thing, but if you spend a whole day improving the tools that you use to make you a better developer later, I think there's a ton of value in that. I think we should care a lot about the tools we use.However, that's not something we want to do every day. I mean, ultimately, I know I don't build software for the sake of building software. I want to create something. I want to create some value, some change in the world. There's some product ultimately that I'm trying to build.And, you know, early on, I've done a lot of work in my career on, like, workflow-type builders and visual builders and I had this incorrect assumption somewhere along the way—and this came around, like, sort of the maker movement, when everybody was talking about everybody should learn how to code, and I made this assumption that everybody really wants to create; everybody wants to be a creator, and if given the opportunity, they will. And I think what I finally learned is that, actually most people don't like to create. A lot of people just want to be served; like, they just want to consume and they don't want the hassle of it. Some people do, if they have the opportunity and the skillsets, too, but it's also similar to, like, if I'm a professional developer, I need to get my work done. I'm not measured on how well my local tooling is set up; I'm sort of measured on my output and the impact that I have in the organization.I tend to think about, like, chefs. If I'm a chef and I work 60 hours in a restaurant, 70 hours in a restaurant, the last thing I want to do is come home and cook myself a meal. And most of the chefs I know actually don't have really nice kitchens at home. They, like, tend to, they want other people to cook for them. And so, I think, like, there's a place in professional setting where you just need to get the work done and you don't want to worry about all the meta things and the time that you could waste on it.And so, I feel like there's a happy medium there. I think it's good for people to care about the tools that they use the environment that they develop in, to really care for that and to curate it and make it better, but there's got to be some ROI and it's got to have value to you. You have to enjoy that. Otherwise, you know, what's the point of it in the first place?Corey: One thing that I used to think about was that if you're working in regulated industries, as I tended to a fair bit, there's something very nice about not having any of the data or IP or anything like that locally. Your laptop effectively just becomes a thin client to something that's already controlled by the existing security and compliance apparatus. That's very nice, where suddenly it's all someone steals my iPad, or I drop it into the bay, it's locked, it's encrypted. Cool, I go to the store, get myself a new one, restore a backup from iCloud, and I'm up and running again in a very short period of time as if nothing had ever changed. Whereas when I was doing a lot of local development and had bad hard drive issues in the earlier part of my career, well, there goes that month.Mike: Yeah, it's a really good point. I think that we're all walking around with these laptops with really sensitive IP on it and that those are in bars and restaurants. And maybe your drives are encrypted, but there's a lot of additional risks, including, you know, everything that is going over the network, whether I'm on a local coffee shop, and you know, the latest vulnerability that, an update I have to do on my Mac if I'm behind. And there's actually a lot of risk and having all that just sort of thrown to the wind and spread across the world and there's a lot of value in having that in a very safe place. And what we've even found that, at Gitpod now, like, the latest product we're working on is one that we called Gitpod Dedicated, which gives you the ability to run inside your own cloud perimeter. And we're doing that on AWS first, and so we can set up and manage an installation of Gitpod inside your own AWS account.And the reason that became important to us is that a lot of companies, a lot of our customers, treat their source code as their most sensitive intellectual property. And they won't allow it to leave their perimeter, like, they may run in AWS, but they have this concept of, sort of like, our perimeter and you're either inside of that and outside of it. And I think this speaks a little bit to a blog post that you wrote a few months ago about the lagging adoption of remote development environments. I think one of those aspects is, sort of, convenience and the user experience, but the other is that you can't use them very well with your stack and all the tools and resources that you need to use if they're not running, sort of, close within your perimeter. And so, you know, we're finding that companies have this need to be able to have greater control, and now with the, sort of, trends around, like, coding assistance and generative AI and it's even the perfect storm of not only am I like sending my source code from my editor out into some [LM 00:22:36], but I also have the risk of an LM that might be compromised, that's injecting code and I'm committing on my behalf that may be introducing vulnerabilities. And so, I think, like, getting that off to a secure space that is consistent and sound and can be monitored, to be kept up-to-date, I think it has the ability to, sort of, greatly increase a customer's security posture.Corey: While we're here kicking the beehive, for lack of a better term, your support for multiple editors in Gitpod the product, I assumed that most people would go with VS Code because I tend to see it everywhere, and I couldn't help but notice that neither VI nor Emacs is one of the options, the last time I checked. What are you seeing as far as popularity contests go? And that might be a dangerous question because I'm not suggesting you alienate many of the other vendors who are available, but in the world I live in, it's pretty clear where the zeitgeist of my subculture is going.Mike: Yeah, I mean, VS Code is definitely the most popular IDE. The majority of people that use Gitpod—and especially we have a, like, a pretty heavy free usage tier—uses it in the browser, just for the convenience of having that in the browser and having many environments in the browser. We tend to find more professional developers use VS Code desktop or the JetBrains suite of IDEs.Corey: Yeah, JetBrains I'm seeing a fair bit of in a bunch of different ways and I think that's actually most of what your other options are. I feel like people have either gone down the JetBrains path or they haven't and it seems like it's very, people who are into it are really into it and people who are not are just, never touch it.Mike: Yeah, and we want to provide the options for people to use the tools that they want to use and feel comfortable on. And we also want to provide a platform for the next generation of IDEs to be able to build on and support and to be able to support this concept of cloud or remote development more natively. So, like I mentioned, Nathan Sobo at Zed, I met up with him last week—I'm in Denver; he's in Boulder—and we were talking about this and he's interested in Zed working in the browser, and he's talked about this publicly. And for us, it's really interesting because, like, IDEs working in the browser is, like, a really great convenience. It's not the perfect way to work, necessarily, in all circumstances.There's some challenges with, like, all this tab sprawl and stuff, but it gives us the opportunity, if we can make Zed work really well in for Gitpod—or anybody else building an IDE—for that to work in the browser. Ultimately what we want is that if you want to use a terminal, we want to create a great experience for you for that. And so, we're working on this ability in Gitpod to be able to effectively, like, bring your own IDE, if you're building on that, and to be able to offer it and distribute on Gitpod, to be able to create a new developer tool and make it so that anybody in their Gitpod workspace can launch that as part of their workspace, part of their tool. And we want to see developer tools and IDEs flourish on top of this platform that is cloud development because we want to give people choice. Like, at Gitpod, we're not building our own IDE anymore.The team started to. They created Theia, which was one of the original cloud, sort of, web-based IDEs that now has been handed over to the Eclipse Foundation. But we moved to VS Code because we found that that's where the ecosystem were. That's where our users were, and our customers, and what they wanted to use. But we want to expand beyond that and give people the ability to choose, not only the options that are available today but the options that should be available in the future. And we think that choice is really important.Corey: When you see people kicking the tires on Gitpod for the first time, where does the bulk of their hesitancy come from? Like, what is it where—people, in my experience, don't love to embrace change. So, it's always this thing, “This thing sucks,” is sort of the default response to anything that requires them to change their philosophy on something. So okay, great. That is a thing that happens. We'll see what people say or do. But are they basing it on anything beyond just familiarity and comfort with the old way of doing things or are there certain areas that you're finding the new customers are having a hard time wrapping their head around?Mike: There's a couple of things. I think one thing is just habit. People have habits and preferences, which are really valuable because it's the way that they've learned to be successful in their careers and the way that they expect things. Sometimes people have these preferences that are fairly well ingrained that maybe are irrational or rational. And so, one thing is just people's force of habit.And then getting used to this idea that if it's not on my laptop, it means—like what you mentioned before, it's always what-ifs of, like, “What if I'm on a plane?” Or like, “What if I'm at the airport in a hurricane?” “What if I'm on a train with a spotty internet connection?” And so, there's all these sort of what-if situations. And once people get past that and they start actually using Gitpod and trying to set their projects up, the other limiting factor we have is just connectivity.And that's, like, connectivity to the other resources that you use to develop. So, whether that's, you know, package or module repositories or that some internal services or a database that might be running behind a firewall, it's like getting connectivity to those things. And that's where the dedicated deployment model that I talked about, running inside of your perimeter on our network, they have control over, kind of helps, and that's why we're trying to overcome that. Or if you're using our SaaS product, using something like Tailscale or a more modern VPN that way. But those are the two main things.It's like familiarity, this comfort for how to work, sort of, in this new world and not having this level of comfort of, like, it's running on this thing I can hold, as well as connectivity. And then there is some cost associated with people now paying for this infrastructure they didn't have to pay for before. And I think it's a, you know, it's a mistake to say that we're going to offset the cost of laptops. Like, that shouldn't be how you justify a cloud development environment. Like—Corey: Yeah, I feel like people are not requesting under-specced laptops much these days anymore.Mike: It's just like, I want to use a good laptop; I want to use a really nice laptop with good hardware and that shouldn't be the cost. The proposition shouldn't be, it's like, “Save a thousand dollars on every developer's laptop by moving this off to the cloud.” It's really the time savings. It's the focus. It's the, you know, removing all of that drift and creating these consistent environments that are more secure, and effectively, like, automating your development environment that's the same for everybody.But that's the—I think habits are the big thing. And there is, you know, I talked about a little bit that element of, like, we still have this concept of, like, I have this environment and I start it and it's there, and I pay for it while it's there and I have to clean it up or I have to make sure it stopped. I think that still exists and it creates a lot of sort of cognitive overhead of things that I have to manage that I didn't have to manage before. And I think that we have to—Gitpod needs to be better there and so does everybody else in the industry—about removing that completely. Like, there's one of the things that I really love that I learned from, like, Stewart Butterfield when I was at Slack was, he always brought up this concept called the convenience threshold.And it was just the idea that when a certain threshold of convenience is met, people's behavior suddenly changes. And as we thought about products and, like, the availability of features, that it really drove how we thought about even how to think about you know, adoption or, like, what is the threshold, what would it take? And, like, a good example of this is even, like, the way we just use credit cards now or debit cards to pay for things all the time, where we're used to carry cash. And in the beginning, when it was kind of novel that you could use a credit card to pay for things, like even pay for gas, you always had to have cash because you didn't know if it'd be accepted. And so, you still had to have cash, you still had to have it on hand, you still had to get it from the ATM, you still have to worry about, like, what if I get there and they don't accept my cards and how much money is it going to be, so I need to make sure I have enough of it.But the convenience of having this card where I don't have to carry cash is I don't have to worry about that anymore, as long as they have money in my bank account. And it wasn't until those cards were accepted more broadly that I could actually rely on having that card and not having the cash. It's similar when it comes to cloud development environments. It needs to be more convenient than my local development environment. It needs to be—it's kind of like early—I remember when laptops became more common, I was used to developing on a desktop, and people were like, nobody's ever going to develop on a laptop, it's not powerful enough, the battery runs out, I have to you know, when I close the lid, when you open the lid, it used to take, like, five minutes before, like, it would resume an unhibernate and stuff, and it was amazing where you could just close it and open it and get back to where you were.But like, that's the case where, like, laptops weren't convenient as desktops were because they were always plugged in, powered on, you can leave them and you can effectively just come back and sit down and pick up where you left off. And so, I think that this is another moment where we need to make these cloud development environments more convenient to be able to use and ultimately better. And part of that convenience is to make it so that you don't have to think about all these parts of them of whether they're running, not running, how much they cost, whether you're going to be there [unintelligible 00:31:35] or lose their data. Like, that should be the value of it that I don't have to think about any of that stuff.Corey: So, my last question for you is, when you take a look at people who have migrated to using Gitpod, specifically from the corporate perspective, what are their realizations after the fact—I mean, assuming they still take your phone calls because that's sort of feedback of a different sort—but what have they realized has worked well? What keeps them happy and coming back and taking your calls?Mike: Yeah, our customers could focus on their business instead of focusing on all the issues that they have with configuring development environments, everything that could go wrong. And so, a good example of this is a customer they have, Quizlet, Quizlet saw a 45-point increase in developer satisfaction and a 60% reduction in incidents, and the time that it takes to onboard new engineers went down to ten minutes. So, we have some customers that we talk to that come to us and say, “It takes us 20 days to onboard an engineer because of all the access they need and everything you need to set up and credentials and things, and now we could boil that down to a button click.” And that's the thing that we tend to hear from people is that, like, they just don't have to worry about this anymore and they tend to be able to focus on their business and what the developers are actually trying to do, which is build their product.And in Quizlet's example, it was really cool to see them mention in one of the recent OpenAI announcements around GPT4 and plugins is they were one of the early customers that built GPT4 plugins, or ChatGPT, and they mentioned that they were sharing a lot of Gitpod URLs around when we reached out to congratulate them. And the thing that was great about that, for us is, like, they were talking about their business and what they were developing and how they were being successful. And we'd rather see Gitpod in your development environment just sort of disappear into the background. We'd actually like to not hear from customers because it's just working so well from them. So, that's what we found is that customers are just able to get to this point where they could just focus on their business and focus on what they're trying to develop and focus on making their customers successful and not have to worry about infrastructure for development.Corey: I think that really says it all. On some level, when you have customers who are happy with what's happening and how they're approaching this, that really is the best marketing story I can think of because you can say anything you want about it, but when customers will go out and say, “Yeah, this has made our lives better; please keep doing what you're doing,” it counts for a lot.Mike: Yeah, I agree. And that's what we're trying to do. You know, we're not trying to win, sort of, a tab versus spaces debate here around local or cloud or—I actually just want to enable customers to be able to do their work of their business and develop software better. We want to try to provide a method and a platform that's extensible and customizable and gives them all the power they need to be able to just be ready to code, to get to work as soon as they can.Corey: I really want to thank you for being so generous with your time. If people want to learn more, where's the best place for them to find you, other than at your conference in San Francisco in a few weeks?Mike: [laugh]. Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate the banter back and forth. And I hope to see you there at our conference. You should come. Consider this an invite for June 1st and 2nd in San Francisco at CDE Universe.Corey: Of course. And we will put links to this in the [show notes 00:34:53]. Thank you so much for being so generous with your time. I appreciate it.Mike: Thanks, Corey. That was really fun.Corey: Mike Brevoort, Chief Product Officer at Gitpod. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, along with an angry comment detailing exactly why cloud development is not the future, but then lose your content halfway through because your hard drive crashed.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.

Rounding Up Season 1 | Episode 14 – Enhanced Tasks for Multilingual Learners Guest: Dr. Zandra de Araujo Mike Wallace: How can educators take concrete steps to enhance tasks for multilingual learners? That's the subject of today's podcast. Today we'll talk with Dr. Zandra de Araujo, the chief equity officer at the University of Florida's Lastinger Center for Learning, about three ways to enhance tasks for multilingual learners and how to implement them in an elementary mathematics setting. We'll also discuss practical strategies and resources for supporting multilingual learners regardless of their age or grade.  Mike: Hey, Zandra. Welcome to the podcast. Zandra de Araujo: Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. Mike: I'm super excited to be talking to you. So, I'd love to just start with a quote you and your co-authors wrote. You say, ‘Rather than focus on language before mathematics, research shows that multilingual learners both can and should develop mathematical knowledge and language proficiency simultaneously.' Can you talk a little bit about that statement and share some of the research that informs it? Zandra: Sure. So, basically, if you think about learning a new language, you need to use it to get better at it. And so, in the past, people were more likely to put language first and to hold off on academics until students learned English. And what we've learned since then from brilliant scholars like Judy Moskowitz and others, is that we should simultaneously grow math alongside language development. And there's a couple of reasons for that. One, it helps improve your math learning, your language learning at the same time, which is great. It doesn't put you below grade level for your math learning because you're waiting to catch up with English first. And we know that that proficiency in your first language also will lead to better proficiency in your second language in math and other areas. So, there's only benefits really.  Zandra: And also, if you think about kids who are native English speakers, they're also learning how to talk about mathematics in school and how to use math language. And so, you might as well do it with the whole class and practice discourse and use good multimodal representations and communication skills to enhance everybody's language learning and math learning because you learn through and with language. And so, you can't really put language—or mathematics—on hold completely for kids. It's just not the right thing to do. Mike: I loved where you said you learn through and with language.  Zandra: Um-hm. Mike: Could you just expand upon that? Because it really feels like there's a lot of wisdom in that statement. Zandra: Yeah, I mean, the way that we learn is we listen, we participate, we talk, we discuss. We have to communicate ideas from one person to another. And it's this communication—and communication is not just in one language in one way. And language is more expansive than that. And we need to think about that. And the way you communicate what you've learned is through language. Or you show it visually. But usually as you're showing, you're gesturing and communicating in maybe non-verbal language communication. So, I think we forget that math is inherently language based as we communicate it in schools and as we typically experience it in schools. Mike: Thank you. I want to shift a little bit and talk about the three types of enhancements that you and your co-authors are talking about. So, using and connecting multiple representations, thinking through language obstacles, and contextualizing concepts and problem-solving activities. And what I'd like to do is take time to discuss each one of these. So, to begin, can you talk a little bit about what you mean by using and connecting multiple representations? Zandra: Sure. I tend to put things in my own frame of learning a second language. So, if you think about when you travel to a country that you don't speak the language in fluently, you probably do a lot of gesturing. You look for signs that don't have words in that language, necessarily, if you can't read it. You might draw something, you might do a lot of things. So, visuals and representations are very helpful when we're learning something new or trying to understand something that we already understand, we just can't communicate it. So, in mathematics, a lot of our representations are serving that purpose. They allow us to learn things in a more deep way.  Zandra: So, if you think about, I can show you something like the number five written out. I can show you five unifix cubes, I could show you five tally marks. Those are all different representations that very young children experience. And we're trying to communicate the same concept typically, of five; like the total set of five, the cardinality of five things, typically. And so, kids, when they experience all these different things in different ways, and we connect explicitly across them, it really helps them to understand something in a new or different way. But also, for students who are acquiring English, it allows them to connect the visual with their home language that they're thinking in their brain. And they probably have the words for it in their home language. They may just not understand just the spoken word. But when you see a representation, you have more ideas to anchor on. Mike: Yeah. As you described that, you can see how critically important that would be for multilingual learners and how much that would both support them and allow them to make the connections.  Zandra: Um-hm. And it's not just for multilingual students. I can't imagine the number of times I've been in a classroom and a teacher might model something with base ten blocks and maybe draw on representation of base ten blocks on the board and then never take the extra step to explicitly link it to the numerals that it … Mike: Um-hm. Zandra: … they're representing or the bundles and things like that. But those connections are what we're hoping kids will make. And so, explicitly linking those things and talking across them. And ‘How do you see five here? And how do you see five here?' is really important for all students. But it's especially beneficial if you're still acquiring the language of instruction. Mike: Absolutely. So, let's shift gears and talk a little bit about language obstacles. So, as a monolingual English speaker, this is an enhancement that I'd really like to understand in more depth. Zandra: ( laughs ) As a monolingual also, uh, English speaker that grew up in a Portuguese-speaking household and someone who is trained in mathematics teaching and learning and not in language teaching and learning specifically, this was very interesting to me, too. Essentially, it seems intuitive that you would take away language if that's an obstacle. And that is the main obstacle that students who are acquiring English in school are facing. It's not necessarily that they're below grade level in math. Sometimes they are. But many times they're not. They might be above grade level. But there are specific potential needs for support around English-language proficiency or acquisition. And so, when we think about language obstacles, it's those things that get in the way of learning the mathematics. And there's kind of two ways that you could address them: One is you remove them all, and then two is you scaffold up so that they can access it. Zandra: I'm more in favor of that approach where we scaffold and try to help further their language alongside their mathematics. Because that goes through the very first thing we talked about, is that you're enhancing and developing English alongside mathematics. But there are some times where there's just unnecessary obstacles that are really getting in the way of understanding what you're trying to do in mathematics. And that's kind of what we provided in the article is the list of some of these things. So, for example, a low-frequency term, and we give an example in the article, if you say ‘perusing a menu,' a lot of children do not use that in their day-to-day language, English language learners or otherwise. And so, we might just say, ‘looking at the menu.' It's conveying the same meaning, but it's a more common, frequently used term.  Zandra: So, more students will understand what that means. They're not getting hung up on this word. They're able to actually pursue the math task. Again, you could also say like, “perusing,” oh that's a new word. It means like ‘looking' or ‘reading,' you know, ‘looking over.' And that is certainly an option, but sometimes you just need the kids to understand the task that you're providing, and you don't want to do so much language development on things that are not really going to impact their math. So, as teachers, we make these decisions every day, and I think sometimes we can make these decisions just to eliminate some potential obstacles. There's a lot of other words. A lot of my colleagues and my co-authors have written about words with multiple meanings. Like ‘table.' If you're new to English and you hear table, you're probably going to think of the most commonly encountered table in your life, which is probably like a kitchen table or a table … Mike: Um-hm.  Zandra: … at school and not a mathematical table, which is different. And so, uncovering these things, thinking about them as somebody who's a monolingual English speaker is really important because it just passes by us because it's normal to us. But we need to put ourselves in the shoes of these children as well. Mike: Yeah. I think what it really made me think about is structurally there's lots of challenges if you're trying to make meaning of them for the first time. Like words that have multiple meanings jump out. I found that part of the article really helpful. It helped me see issues with the language structure that having just kind of learned it naturally, they're invisible, right? Zandra: Yeah. I had a colleague at Missouri that taught ESOL classes, and that was her area. And she said, “You say a big, red ball, but you don't say a red, big ball in English.' And I was like, ‘Oh yeah, it's like they're both adjectives,' but we do have patterns that I've never really thought about. But they are common, and you hear them in people that are acquiring the language that like, ‘Oh, it's not how I would say it.' ‘Why not?' And you don't know these rules if you weren't trained in this area. I also had a former graduate student who said—he was Korean—and when he came, he said it was confusing because ‘no, yeah' means ‘yeah.' But' yeah, no' means ‘no.' And it's similar type things that we say, and we don't understand. And ever since he told me that, I'm like, ‘Oh yeah, I totally get that.' And I say it all the time, and I just never noticed how confusing that definitely is. Mike: So, I'm really excited about this last bit, too. I really want to talk about the importance of context and talk a little bit about how context impacts learning, particularly for kids at the elementary level. If I'm an elementary educator using a curriculum, what's your sense of what I might do to build context into my students' mathematical experience? Zandra: So, context helps us make sense of things because we can relate it to our actual uses or things we're familiar with and use that as a sense making tool. So, it's kind of similar to representations in some ways. In elementary school, we're very fortunate that there's so many things that the kids come in contact with because we tend to teach all subject areas in our classrooms. In elementary, we do a lot of counting, for example. And there's so many things that we can count. Or we've been counting every day that we can tie into. That's why a lot of teachers like to use calendar math and things like that because it's interesting, it's something the kids are familiar with. And so that context allows them to think through how they do it in the real world and connect that thinking with the mathematical reasoning, which is really powerful. Zandra: It also is just more interesting to the kids. I think they like it when it's something … I mean, if you want to see a kid get [really] excited, figure out what their pet's name is and make a problem about their, their pet doing something. They get [really] excited because it's, like, personalized to them. And it's not a real deep, meaningful connection. It's not super culturally relevant necessarily, just putting a cat or dog's name in a task. But it's the idea that you're connecting to something that is interesting and matters to the kids, and that they can use that for reasoning and sense making. And that's what we ultimately want. Mike: I'm going to mine what you said for another nugget of wisdom. You said at the beginning, context is a reasoning tool. Did I capture that correctly?  Zandra: Um-hm. Yeah, absolutely. I think I can reason far better with something that I can actually play out and think through the process that I do. And I can connect it to the real world, and then I can think about, like, ‘Oh, what did I actually just do?' Because some things are pretty automatic that we do in every day, and we don't know that they're connected to math or could be. And when we reason through it, it really helps us to reason a little deeper. There's been a lot of math studies—most of them are older now—but about kids who did math in the real world as jobs. Maybe they were, like, working after school when we had real money, ( laughs ) physical money, more frequently, and they could do all these calculations very easily. But they struggled with school mathematics that was decontextualized. So then, as teachers learn how to bring in the context they're familiar with, they know how that works and then they can connect it, the representation to the symbol. So, it's all kind of connected, all three of these enhancements at the end of the day. Mike: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So, before we finish, Zandra, I'm wondering if you can point listeners to any kind of additional resources that you think would help them take the conversation that we're having and maybe add some depth to their understanding. Zandra: Sure. So, any three of my co-authors' work is great to find online. Fortunately, I think all three of them consult with the EL Success Forum. It's elsuccessforum.org, I believe. That is a group that has put together amazing banks of resources for teachers and people that work in schools around English language learners, in particular. So, that's a great one that I point a lot of people to. I have a Grassroots Workshop that I made that's on teaching mathematics with English learners that you could find online. And I think beyond that, there's a number of great resources through TODOS: Mathematics for ALL, which is a professional organization. They're an affiliate of NCTM, and they have some amazing resources as well. Mike: That is fabulous. Thank you so much for joining us, Sandra. It has really been a pleasure talking. Zandra: Yeah, likewise. Thanks for having me. I appreciate the opportunity to share about this. Something I'm super passionate about, and I'm always happy to talk about. Mike: This podcast is brought to you by The Math Learning Center and the Maier Math Foundation, dedicated to inspiring and enabling individuals to discover and develop their mathematical confidence and ability. © 2023 The Math Learning Center | www.mathlearningcenter.org

Rounding Up Season 1 | Episode 12 – Open Tasks Guest: Dr. Kim Markworth Mike Wallus: Lately, terms like ‘rich tasks,' ‘multiple entry points,' and ‘low floor,' ‘high ceiling' are being used so often in the world of mathematics education that many educators are confused about their meaning. Today we talk with Kim Markworth, director of content development at The Math Learning Center, about what these terms look like in practice and how they support student learning. Welcome to the podcast, Kim. It's great to have you. Kim Markworth: Thank you, Mike. I'm really honored and excited to be here. Mike: I would love to start this conversation by talking about what it means for a task to be open-ended and have a low floor and a high ceiling. So, is there a way that you think about these terms that might help educators clarify their meaning? Kim: That's a great question, Mike. In truth, when we think about these terms, they're really all interconnected. And I don't know that anyone has really settled on meanings. And lately there's been a bit of a transition from thinking about low floor and high ceiling to low floor and no ceiling at all. And so, when we think about the variations across continua, this really contributes to how we look at tasks and what we appreciate about tasks. And so, when I think about open-ended, this might correspond with high ceiling or no ceiling. We could keep going with the task. There's not really a defined ending point, uh, but instead many pathways where we could take this task further. And when I think about multiple entry points, this might correspond with low floor. And there [are] so many different ways to approach or enter a task. And rich task, probably my favorite term of them all, corresponds to what we've maybe called a problem historically, where we don't have an anticipated solution path or maybe we haven't solved something like this before. We might have multiple solutions to the task. We might have multiple solution paths or viable strategies. We could have opportunities for extension or generalization. And I love tasks that have an unexpected twist or a need to think about something in a unique way, like where your first inclination, your intuition, might be wrong. And all of a sudden you're like, ‘Ooh, this is really something that I wasn't expecting.' Mike: Can you share an example or a few examples with folks who are listening? There's so much that you said just there about the nature of these things. Are you OK telling us a little bit about one or two of them? Kim: Yeah. One task I'm really excited about is a new third grade task that we've been working into our new curriculum. And this task is positioned at the beginning of a unit on multiplication. And so, for third graders, this is really an introduction to multiplication task. And I'm going to apologize to the audience here because this really does require some mental visualization, but I'm going to describe this image that third graders look at, and it involves a pet store. And so, if you can imagine a pet store and going into a pet store, then we have a dog bone display, and these dog bones are hung on three hooks and Annie took, there are two packages—so that the back package isn't visible because it's behind the front package. So, three hooks, two packages per hook, and in each package there are eight dog bones. And those eight dog bones are arranged in a four-by-two array. Kim: And finally, one additional detail here. Each package is labeled $12. And this is a problem-posing situation for kids where we put this image in front of kids and ask them to think about the different mathematical questions that they might ask about this particular image. So ultimately, the question that we ask them to explore is ‘How many dog bones are on display?' Once you have that image in your head, I want you to be thinking about that final question. And the numbers right now are kind of irrelevant for this discussion, but it's highly unlikely that it's something that kids will already know.  Mike: Hmm.  Kim: So, this is a problem-posing situation for the third graders. It's asking them what mathematical questions could you ask about this particular display? And ultimately, we're going to direct them to how many dog bones are on display, but they could explore other questions with additional time. So, how much for all of these dog bones? How much per dog bone? If you had a given number of dogs, how many dog bones would each get? And so, this to me is a task that is open-ended. We could go multiple ways with this, although we are going to focus in the classroom on a particular question. But it's also rich in that kids are going to connect with it, especially if they've been into shops like this. It has multiple entry points. And so, in a lot of ways it really connects to these different terms that you've brought up earlier. Mike: It's interesting because as you describe it, particularly the fact that there's a visual component to this, it really comes clear how there are multiple ways that a child could think about the question or attack the question that you asked. Is there any role for number choice in thinking about how to design a rich task? Kim: Yeah, the numbers are really important. And it's fun to play with different numbers and see how they pan out. And so, in thinking about the dog bone task, we want to keep the numbers accessible. So, when I think about a single peg or a single hook for the dog bone packages, I can think about eight plus eight. And from where kids are coming from, eight plus eight should be accessible. When I think about what I'm seeing with the dog bones, I'm seeing two groups of four in each of the packages. And so, that's a nice way looking at doubles that students might find useful, but I'm also looking at three packages of eight. And so, I could add eight plus eight plus eight, which could bring the teacher very easily to a three times eight multiplication expression. One that is manageable and a great way to introduce multiplication, the times symbol where we're going with all this, but one that is also still accessible for kids to be thinking about as repeated addition. Kim: Ultimately, the numbers get to a final answer of 48 dog bones, and you could think about this in terms of six times eight. But kids aren't going to know six times eight, at least not very commonly in this point of an early introduction to multiplication. But there's various ways that they could get to the eight. We ultimately landed on these numbers: 2, 4, 8, 16, but also this additional number 3, which as a separate prime number really throws some additional mathematical thinking into the mix that elevates the task itself. There's things that are critical to be thinking about as you imagine this task and how it might play out instructionally. It's really important to think about how this stands in the curriculum sequence. So, it is introductory, it's using numbers that the kids are probably not going to know off the top of their heads—related multiplication fact and an answer—but the numbers themselves might elicit different strategies, and the visual might elicit different strategies. And all of this connects to the commutative and associated properties for multiplication and how they might play out with student thinking.  Kim: And so, it's all connected. All these pieces really fit together into what I think is a really interesting and engaging task for students. It's challenging enough, but it's also very accessible simply by counting, kids could count what they see. And the context is engaging for kids as well, because they might be thinking about displays that they've seen and how this corresponds to trips to the store that they've had. Mike: Part of what you've got me thinking, Kim, is there's the design of the task and then there's the element of how a teacher might go about facilitating it. And I think, I want to come back to that, too, because I heard you not only describe the task—the way that it was designed—but you also described some of the ways that a teacher might introduce it, some of the things that they might pose to kids. I wonder if you'd be willing to talk a little bit about facilitation and some of the things about facilitation that can bring a task to life? Kim: So, one of the things that I like to think about in implementing tasks, Mike, is the very intentional letting go, that kids need time to think. They need time to explore. I think all too often as teachers, we have this desire to go in and help and direct. And sometimes we just need to back off and let them think about the different ways that they might approach that, those different entry points, and let them explore and let them take the time to do that. And so, one of the things that I always used to describe to pre-service teachers was the walk away. That I would go up and talk to a group or talk to some partners working together and listen to what they were doing and maybe pose an additional question and then I'd walk away. I didn't want to hear their answer right away. I wanted them to talk about that amongst themselves. But if I stood there, they would start talking to me. And so, I would walk away, move on to a different group, come back later and hear what their thinking was. But it creates that space for letting kids explore, think about, and also not feel the pressure to be getting to a particular answer in a particular timeframe. And I think that's really important for kids to have that freedom. Mike: Yeah. It also strikes me that you're reframing your role for kids, too, in the sense that by walking away, you're sending the signal that ‘I actually have confidence that you and your partners can think about this and reason about this.' Kim: Absolutely. It is putting some power, some agency with the students themselves. ‘You are capable of doing this, you're capable of thinking about this. You do not need me here to be your sounding board or the mathematical authority.' Mike: Kim, can you talk a little bit about the idea of entry points? I'm wondering for teachers in the field, how would you actually define an entry point? What does that look like? Kim: I'm not sure I have a good definition for it, but I do have an analogy, and I would compare it to on-ramps for highways. And when I think about on-ramps, we can all get on the same highway, but we might do it at different places, and we might make choices for where we get on based on our current location or what we know about the on-ramp. But as long as I have a workable vehicle, I can do it. And maybe that's our prior knowledge. But unfortunately, often kids, they don't think that they have a workable vehicle or teachers might even underestimate the child's vehicle that they have. And so, I've probably gone far enough with this analogy, but kids come onto that mathematical highway at different places with particular problems. And I think making sure that we as teachers, as educators, as curriculum designers, that we're thinking about all those different possibilities for getting into a problem and knowing that we can all go to the same place regardless of where we've gotten on. Mike: That's really helpful. So, if I'm an educator and I'm designing a task, or even if I'm facilitating a task that comes with my curriculum, what guidance would you offer to folks to ensure that there are entry points for kids? Kim: I think it really depends on the mathematics and what you're trying to accomplish. And so, with this one in particular—the dog bones visual—I might be asking myself, ‘Can I do it without multiplication since this is an entry point for multiplication. Can I do it without that or could I do it with basic counting skills?' And so, are those viable entry paths open for kids if they don't have where we're going with the task already in their toolkit? When I think about ensuring that there's entry points, I like to think about stripping away the expectations for where you want to go with the task, really allowing kids to have that freedom for exploration. And it's the variety of entry points that leads to the multiple strategies. And when you have multiple strategies, you can make connections between and among those representations. And then you've got something really robust. Or I might go back to that term rich task. And so, it's about can they do it without where you're going, that mathematical goal, and however they encounter that or engage with it, does it still connect to other strategies that will bring them to your mathematical goal? Mike: That is really helpful. What that has me thinking is we have heard in the field about the idea of the five practices and anticipating. But this is a little bit of a twist on that in the sense that you're evaluating the task and saying, ‘What's possible for a kid to get into this task?' I love the example of multiplication. So, for example, if I only have partial or emergent understanding of multiplication, can I still work my way toward an answer to that? And if the answer is no, then what? Kim: Right? But you mentioned partial or emergent understanding, whereas I think this task, actually, you can get in with no understanding of multiplication. I can look at three sets of eight dog bones, add eight plus eight plus eight to get to 24, and then the teacher has that to latch onto to say, ‘We have another way of writing this. I can write three times eight to represent eight being added three times.' And so even that visual structure leads us to something that we can hook on to, to bring forth the connection to multiplication. Mike: I think that's helpful because it means that there's a value and there's a utility to having ways of doing this that you can ultimately connect to the place where you want to go, right? Kim: Yeah. And I think there's opportunities for that kind of reasoning or openness throughout math education; imagining what we can do with tasks to really not just ensure that there's entry points, but value those entry points as really important connections to all students' prior knowledge and where we're going mathematically. Mike: That totally makes sense. Kim: If we can't imagine that our kids are capable of problem-solving and engaging in challenging tasks, then they won't be able to imagine that themselves. And so, in a way, we have to pass along the agency by sometimes just believing ourselves that, ‘Yeah, maybe they can do this,' and giving them that time and seeing what happens. Mike: Before we close the conversation, I'm wondering if you have any resources that you think would help someone listening to this conversation deepen their understanding of designing or implementing rich tasks? Kim: I think the best way to really think about task design and build your own facility is to do some rich tasks and just engage with them as a learner. So, one of the resources that I frequently turn to is the NCTM journals, both old and new. They have really good problems in there. And you can sometimes take one of those and change it in a way that is making it more challenging or making it a more generalizable situation. There's various problem-solving publications. I could certainly plug my own books, ‘Problem Solving in All Seasons' (K–2, 3–5). Mike: I have read it, Kim. Kim: ( laughs ) Mike: I would absolutely recommend it. Kim: Another resource that I love is ‘NRICH.' It's a website NRICH, which is nrich.maths.org. Those are just incredible tasks that really get you thinking in various ways about, [some] good problem-solving experiences. So, what I would recommend for teachers or other people who are interested in this, is to really do that mathematics and then reflect on what made it interesting for you. What surprised you? Were there twists? Were there things, stuck points where you had to get past? And then also to extend the thinking by asking yourself something like, ‘So does this always work? Or when does this work?' And how could you apply the mathematics to more broad situations? And finally, I think it's really important for teachers to put themselves in the minds of their students and sense what might excite them or challenge them. Mike: Thank you so much for joining us, Kim. It's really been a pleasure talking to you. Kim: Thank you, Mike. Mike: This podcast is brought to you by The Math Learning Center and the Maier Math Foundation, dedicated to inspiring and enabling individuals to discover and develop their mathematical confidence and ability. © 2023 The Math Learning Center | www.mathlearningcenter.org

Rounding Up Season 1 | Episode 11 – Successful Curriculum Adoption Guest: Dana Nathanson Mike Wallus: Adopting a new curriculum is not for the faint of heart. What makes this challenging? Well, beyond the materials themselves, a curriculum adoption may represent many things: changes to longstanding practices, beliefs, and classroom culture. On today's podcast, we'll talk with Dana Nathanson, the elementary math coordinator in Leander, Texas, about how leaders can effectively design, manage and sustain a successful curriculum adoption. Welcome to the podcast, Dana. I'm thrilled to have you and be able to talk with you a little bit about the work that goes into adopting and supporting the implementation of a new curriculum.  Dana Nathanson: I'm excited to be here. Thank you for the opportunity.  Mike: Absolutely. So, in your case, we're talking about the work that you did in Leander, Texas, when you supported the adoption of Bridges in Mathematics. I'd love to start by talking about something that feels really critical when a school or a district adopts a new curriculum: the idea of buy-in. How did you think about building buy-in for teachers when you adopted Bridges in Mathematics in your district?  Dana: I think that's an interesting question, because we do hear a lot about, ‘How do you get people to buy in?' And in our district when we think about buy-in, I think about, ‘That's my idea. And so how am I going to get people on board with my idea?' And so, really, we want to kind of flip the script on that and think about ownership. And so, when we think about, ‘How do I get people to kind of own this idea with me?' Then that is really where we see true empowerment. And so, we really approach this with that kind of lens to be thinking about, ‘How do I get people to own this, um, process and own what good math instruction looks like with me?' So that when we do adopt that we are adopting something that aligns with our vision for mathematics and what we want to see students participating in and being a part of in the classroom.  Mike: That really feels different even just to hear you talk about it. Ownership kind of conveys this idea that there's a shared responsibility as opposed to buy-in, which is, can I convince you to do a thing?  Dana: Right, right. And so, to get that ownership, we were at a time in the state of Texas where we were adopting new standards. And so, it was kind of, like, the perfect timing to think about, ‘How are we going to really get a clear picture of what we want math instruction to look like?' So, we did a lot of work with our teachers up front prior to adoption on what are those standards going to look like and how are we … or what do we feel like is the best way to teach math, really, in the younger grades? And so, we did a lot of learning together, a lot of reading. We really grounded ourselves with some of the work of Cathy Seeley, who is a former NCTM (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics) president. She wrote a book, called ‘Faster Isn't Smarter.' And so, we kind of looked at that as a good starting point for, ‘We want all students to have opportunities to make sense of math, do the math and use the math.'  And that kind of became our foundation. It's not just about procedural fluency, but conceptual understanding and then ultimately, transfer. And so, we grounded our work in that and tried to bring people along as far as owning that vision. And then from there, we really looked at what teachers wanted from a resource. And thinking about the use of continuous improvement tools, we used feedback loops, consent-o-grams to—all along the way—so that we could really feel like everybody was owning. They wanted a parent component. They wanted more technology. They wanted practice opportunities through, through games. And so, when we established a rubric together with teachers and administrators, then that really helped us when we came to adoption because we were looking for something that checked all of these boxes.  Mike: Yeah. The story that I make up as I hear you talk about that, is that you had a level of consensus around what you were looking for, which made it a lot easier to make a decision that you felt good about, that you felt like people could own.  Dana: Right. Exactly.  Mike: So, I think anyone listening to this podcast knows that schools and districts have limited resources. So, the thing that I'm wondering about is, what were some of the supports that you prioritized during the first year of your implementation of Bridges?  Dana: So, I'm fortunate to work in a team of, there's three of us at the district level, to support all of our campuses. We have over, well, we have 28 elementaries and we're about to open 29; and so over a thousand elementary teachers that we support. But we knew that the three of us could not do it alone. And so, we are also fortunate that we have an instructional coach at each campus. Now this instructional coach is not specific to math. They support all content areas, but we had to bring them along. We had to get them to own it, and we had to have them feeling comfortable. And then we also created a teacher-leader system where we had a lead teacher from each campus. And we really focused on the instructional coach and the lead teacher as our early adopters or our campus champions to really help us rally—rally everyone around, um, owning this vision for mathematics and also the implementation of a new resource. And what a great opportunity along with the implementation of our new standards. And so, we did pay our teacher leads a stipend for that year. And having the instructional coaches in place was critical because it's those two groups that we would be able to lead and then they would take back to their campuses. Another thing that was also critical in that first year was administrator support. And I know that we're going to talk a little bit more about that, but I just want to highlight the fact that our campus principals were really great about giving teachers time in that first year of implementation to work as a professional learning community together, to have half days to plan and support the new adoption that we had.  Mike: There's a lot that you shared there … Dana: ( chuckles )  Mike: ( chuckles ) that I'd love to dig into a little bit. I think what strikes me about what you said though, particularly at the last part first, is the way that you worked with and supported administrators in really designing a year one where teachers had space and time to actually really devote mental space to thinking about a new curriculum: how it's designed, giving space to plan. That feels like it was an intentional priority that you worked with your administrative team to create.  Dana: Yes, that was very intentional. And it was evident when we began our first Getting Started trainings that summer. And we also trained our ICS (In-Class Support) and our lead teachers first, so that they could kind of get the buzz going for summer professional learning. And I thought it was also great that we were able to have the resources available. If you attended the training, you left with your resources. And teachers were so excited to get all of the great resources that are provided with Bridges. So, that was kind of a draw for them. But then once they had their resources and you start to dig through everything, there's another level of support that is needed. And so, we actually had what we called open houses prior to school starting so that teachers could go around to different teachers' classrooms in the district to see, ‘How did you set up your Number Corner? How did you provide space or how are you structuring space in your classroom for Work Places?' And so, we had a lot of teachers [who] would go around to other teachers' classrooms at other campuses and kind of explore to see and get ideas from each other, which was really powerful. And we created the space up front for that prior to the school year so that they would have that opportunity. And I also want to say at this time, seven years ago, we had a pretty good Twitter presence during this, so that we could also have people online. And I know Twitter's kind of blown up since then, but we were on Twitter a lot, and just being able to share that way, as well.  Mike: So, I love this idea of giving teachers space and time to get their materials and get set up. And the open house idea feels really supportive. One of the things that I sometimes think about is an adoption and an implementation might be a pedagogical shift. There might be a different understanding of the mathematics. But the truth is for a lot of people, the very first thing is, ‘How am I going to find a home for all of these things? What will my classroom look like?' You're kind of attending to that really important need that people have to have met even before they're trying to grapple with the curriculum itself.  Dana: Right. And so, to give that time for them up front to kind of get settled in—with what's this going to look like and how do I make it work—I think was key. And I talked a little bit earlier about the principals being able to provide some half-day plannings for teams throughout the year. But we also offered what we would term ‘power hours' after school. And we would host these in teachers' classrooms. And so, this month we're going to talk about the Work Places because we thought it was so critical that the teachers played all the Work Places so that they would know. And that's how you kind of get their ownership of that, too, as well. And so, we would have these power hours after school, where they would come and play the Work Places, or maybe the next month we're going to do a Math Forum together. That's coming up. And then the next month we're going to go through all of the Number Corner. Now you guys have all these great videos, but this was before you had those for Number Corner. And so, we were just really trying to get teachers in each other's classrooms sharing and making it easier. And we would all make the charts together so that they would have them ready for the next month. And we would see a lot of people on Twitter posting: ‘Here I am at my son's baseball game with my binder, learning.' ( laughs ) But I mean, that's just part of the process, too, right?  Mike: Well, you've really started to address the next thing that I wanted to bring up, which is, when I think about having been an elementary teacher for 17 years, what strikes me is that in education, we sometimes give ourselves really short windows of time to do a complete ‘implementation' quote- unquote. I can't tell you how many times I've heard this year is literacy. Next year is math. Dana: Right. Mike: I think what you're starting to address, but that I wanted to ask you directly is, as an instructional leader, how have you really tried to maintain the integrity of your implementation over time? Maybe just talk a little bit about how you've thought about that process of maintaining and sustaining.  Dana: So again, we leaned heavily, and we still continue to lean heavily, on our instructional coaches at campuses. So, each nine weeks, especially in the first three years of implementation—but even now— we'll dive into what does that curriculum look like for the upcoming nine weeks? And we'll give them ideas and point out specific things that are coming up so that they know how to share or how to kind of pull these things out when they're planning with the different grade levels. And so, we would continue to meet with them, but we always start with that unit introduction.  Mike: Hmm.  Dana: And if teachers can just take the time to read this, and this was another big sell from our department for Bridges, was the built in PD (professional development). If you read those introductions, just, like, how much learning that the teachers can have. So, those first years we really wrapped ourselves around those introductions and the learning together as teams. But we also took, at the time you guys had an Implementation Guide …  Mike: We still do.  Dana: Then I will plug the Implementation Guide. Now it's expanded a lot more. But we took that and we had teachers really pick what's a strength for you on here so that other teachers could come see that modeled for them. And then, what's your area of growth for this nine weeks or for this year? Are you going to focus just on Number Corner, but what parts of Number Corner? Or you want to work on the Work Places, but you're not really implementing the sentence frames correctly. So, whatever that goal is for you, and then the instructional coach and the campus administrator would know what that is, and they're able to support you or come give you feedback on that. And that has really helped us because that gave also administrators, kind of the look-fors that they should see when they walk into classrooms. And our department is fortunate to be able to walk with administrators and our instructional coaches so that we could all kind of participate in this coaching together around what we want it to look like, and then where it's going well. And we bring teachers across campuses and classrooms to see where it's going well, and really having them focus on some goals that they want to set to improve.  Mike: So, I suspect unless Leander is a magical school district that's different from everywhere else, you don't have exactly the same staff that you did … Dana: ( chuckles ) Mike: … seven years ago when you started your process. So, you probably know where I'm going, which is … Dana: Yes. Mike: … how do you account for the fact that teachers, like everyone else, have lives? And sometimes they move on from the grade level that they're teaching or their families move somewhere else. You have new administrators and educators coming in. How do you account for, kind of, that turnover that's just natural in education?  Dana: Right. So, we have the natural turnover. But also we are one of the fastest-growing school districts in Texas. And we continue to open about one school at least, sometimes two a year. So, we know that training and learning together is so important. And so, we have sent our curriculum specialists have participated in many of the Bridges trainers of trainers, trainers of leaders, and for Getting Started. And so, we still offer a two-day for that every summer and also in the fall. And we offer that special session for our new administrators, and we even have turnover in our cabinet. So, we offer that training, and I sit down with superintendents and our area superintendents, because we all have to own, own this. And so that is just a yearly thing that we do. But then also continuing to use our campus champions. We have continued that teacher-leader program. They support our new-to-district teachers as well, and then our instructional coaches. So, it is an ongoing cycle. And I will tell you, at first we kind of say, like, ‘If you can get Number Corner, your Problems & Investigations, and your Work Places down,' then we kind of introduced then the assessment piece the next year and then the intervention piece. So, we have layered it in that way so that it's not so overwhelming for our teachers. And then it just becomes part of your practice.  Mike: Thank you so much for that, Dana. The next piece that I wanted to go to, and you've alluded to it throughout this, is the role that instructional leaders—be they administrators or instructional coaches— play … I was reading a bit from The Wallace Foundation about how critically important principals are. Anthony Mohammad talks about how administrators are the ceiling on where a building can go. Can you talk in a little bit more detail about the kind of work that you did to bring your instructional leaders, particularly your principals, into the process of owning the adoption and the implementation?  Dana: This is still a journey. And so, I want to make sure that I plug that, that even though we are seven years into this adoption, we're still on a journey. Everybody's on a journey. We're not at the end of the race when we think about best practices and instruction in mathematics. But to bring our administrators along, we are fortunate to have instructional leadership meetings every month. And so, we really focus on curriculum with them. We focus on best practices and really, we bring learning to them. And we use a lot of the resources that The Math Learning Center provides. We will learn through some of the blog posts together, reading those together. But really what we wanted upfront before adoption and through the adoption process was for our principals to really own the fact that all students, each and every student, can learn math; and making that accessible to all of our learners. And so that is a mindset. We did a lot of work around the mindset work with Jo Boaler and Carol Dweck. And so, thinking about how then, we wanted—we're not a district that just throws out the direct instruction piece either. We still value that direct instruction. But we want to see that blended with investigating and exploration for our students. And then also having that small group time where they're able to reinforce through Work Places. And so, we really wanted our principals to be firm in the components so that they would know what to see in the classroom, but also firm in the fact that we want to see visual models. What do our standards say? What are the best practices for mathematics say? And the use of manipulatives. And that our Number Corner is meant to be a routine and why we value that for practice for pre-teaching and reinforcing. And what's the value of playing the games in Work Places? So that they would understand these components and really own that they want to see these in the classroom because that's what we know is best practices in mathematics.  Mike: When you think about Bridges, in particular, as a curriculum that you've adopted, were there features of the way Bridges is structured or organized that you really felt like it was important to help people understand going into it? And what I mean by that is, in some ways, Bridges is a departure from a traditional curriculum. And I'm wondering what were the things that you identified that's like, gosh, I've just got to make sure people understand this about how it's designed to work?  Dana: Again, it's kind of the three components that I already alluded to, but really that Number Corner piece. Really thinking about Number Corner as an opportunity for the whole class. And we even kind of connect it to a read-aloud. This is an opportunity for the whole class to come together and to, either it's going to pre-teach some things or it's going to reteach some things. And so how are you making sure that those routines are in place and making sure that we have secured small group time for the Work Places to happen? And that's what we call our small group time, is Work Place time. Because we're talking about how the teacher is floating about the Work Places and observing how they're communicating and playing the game and how they are talking about the math with each other. So, I would say, the Work Places and the Number Corner are really, kind of, the areas that were a little bit harder to bring people along.  Mike: What strikes me about what you said is that you describe the function of those two pieces of the curriculum, Number Corner as a tool to have consistent, long-term opportunities to either reengage with big ideas or pre-engage with big ideas that are coming up. And then the idea that Work Places are an opportunity to practice. But they're so much richer of an opportunity to practice than the worksheets that I remember as a kid, where there were 25 naked number problems and two story problems at the bottom ( chuckles ). They function in the same way in the sense that they're the opportunity for longterm practice. Dana: Right. Mike: And the added bonuses, as you said, when the teacher's moving about the classroom, they can formatively assess and listen to what kids are saying. But they can also jump in and do some miniconferring with children in the moment. Dana: Right. Mike: To help guide them or move them or advance their thinking.  Dana: Exactly. And just thinking about that Work Place time and when teachers are thinking about, ‘Oh, I have to plan something different for this small group.' Well, bring that group together to engage in the Work Place with them so that you are right there observing and having, like you said, that conferring time or that mini-lesson over the Work Place.  Mike: Well, before we close, one of the default questions that I ask anyone who's a guest is, if someone was listening to this podcast and they were charged with leading an adoption or an implementation of a curriculum, what are some of the resources you would recommend for someone who is looking for guidance on how to do this work?  Dana: Well, now I would definitely use the blue ( laughs ) ‘Principles to Actions' NCTM book, because I think this sets the great stage for, what are those teaching practices that we want? But also it talks about the elements. One of the essential elements is specific to curriculum. I didn't mention this earlier, but we also had parents give us feedback along the way. And I think that that is also critical, as well as students. Let your students have some hands-on experiences with the resources so that they're able to even advocate and say, ‘This is how we want to learn math.' There's no denying when you see that students are feeling successful, but also when they are loving what they're doing in the math classroom.  Mike: Well, I was just going to say, everything that you talked about today, I think that the word that comes to mind in addition to ownership is investment. As I've listened to you, I keep thinking, you invested time and energy to make the things that you were looking for come to fruition …  Dana: Uh-hm.  Mike: … to continue the journey, as you said. And without investing in those really important things, the outcome might look really different at this point in time. Dana: Right.  Mike: Well, thank you so much for joining us, Dana. I've learned a lot from the conversation. It's been a pleasure talking to you.  Dana: Thanks, Mike. I appreciate it.  Mike: This podcast is brought to you by The Math Learning Center and the Maier Math Foundation, dedicated to inspiring and enabling individuals to discover and develop their mathematical confidence and ability. © 2023 The Math Learning Center | www.mathlearningcenter.org

Rounding Up  Season 1 | Episode 9: Multilingual Learners  Guest: Jean Harvey, Shannon Lindstedt and Christa Beebe of TNTP (The New Teacher Project) Mike: As a young educator, I was often unsure how to support the multilingual learners in my classroom. And my well-intended attempts didn't always have the impact that I hoped they would. Today we're returning to a topic we've discussed before on the podcast: support for multilingual learners in the mathematics classroom. We'll talk about some of the myths surrounding multilingual learners and dig into specific strategies educators can use to leverage their assets and support meaningful understanding of mathematics. Today we're joined by Shannon Lindstedt, Jean Harvey and Christa Beebe from TNTP (The New Teacher Project). We're going to talk with them about a set of tools and practices they've developed to support educators who serve multilingual learners.  Mike: Welcome, Shannon, Jean and Christa. Great to have you with us today.  Jean: Thanks for having us.  Shannon: Yeah, happy to be here.  Mike: So, Jean, I'd like to start with a question for you. I'm wondering if you could talk a bit about the misconceptions that we have in the education community involving multilingual learners. What is it that we've misunderstood about multilingual learners and how to support them in a mathematics classroom?  Jean: So, one of the most prominent misconceptions is that multilingual learners—MLLs as we call them—cannot engage in grade-level math because they do not yet have the language to understand the task. In MLL Good to Great, we take teachers through a planning protocol that has them assess English-language demands in a task. They consider what mathematical academic language a student needs to know to answer a problem. We ask teachers to also analyze what language in a problem may be new to students, and then they think through what visuals and additional supports could help students to understand the language and the problem. We also think through what language students will need to use to express their understanding. This step is so important because it empowers MLLs to be part of the conversation, and they can grow their language at the same time. When teachers first implement the supports, they're always so delighted how well their MLLs were able to participate in class that day. When the language is supported and MLLs can fully engage in the task, teachers see how capable they are and how eager they are to dig into the rigorous learning.  Jean: The supports also help to dispel another common myth, which is that MLLs might lack the confidence or the ability to engage in class discussions. Sometimes teachers avoid calling on MLLs because they fear embarrassing students. However, when our teachers provide the language supports that help students to understand the task and to produce the language needed to express their understanding, they become part of the conversation. MLLs need that access to critical language, and they'll need some independent think time to craft a response. But they're fully capable of engaging in grade-level math and expressing their understanding. By offering both receptive and productive language supports, MLLs are able to unlock content and demonstrate their incredible learning. We know that actively engaging in class discussions is important for all students, but it's absolutely essential for MLLs. Mike: There was a particular piece that you mentioned. You talked about the need for individual think time. I'm wondering if you can just say a little bit more about that, particularly with respect to MLL students?  Jean: Absolutely. So, one thing that we learned early on was that it's not always instinctive to give kids the think time that they need to gather their thoughts because they're not just processing the math in a given problem, they're also assembling the language that they need to use. In many cases, they're translating from their native language into English and trying to create … figure out how they're going to express their understanding in English. So, giving them that independent think time is incredibly important for MLLs.  Mike: Well, I will say that is most certainly something that is a shift in practice for folks. That level of comfort with what feels like silence—but for the learner is actually think time. That makes a ton of sense to me. Jean, I'm wondering if you could talk in a little bit more depth about the work that you did around vocabulary. And particularly, like, I taught kindergarten and first grade for quite a long time, so this actually feels really relevant to some of the things that I remember thinking about when I had children who may not have been familiar with language, let alone not having the language we were working in be their first language. Can you just talk a little bit about what that process was like for educators as you took them through it?  Jean: We would ask teachers to first think about what's the mathematical academic language that students need to know to access this problem? And so, if it was a problem on ratios, we'd think of ‘What are the terms they might need to use to discuss this problem?' They might not be terms that are specifically listed in the problem, but it's the mathematical academic language that might come up. Then we look at the problem itself, and we wouldn't just focus on vocabulary. There might be phrases in there that are really unfamiliar. We were working with one problem that was about students running a ticket booth and what they were charging for different blocks of tickets. And just the phrase ‘running the ticket booth' was really different because running has multiple meanings. And students know what it means to run, um, you know, using their feet. But running the ticket booth was very different. And so, we supported that with some illustrations and put a sentence by it so that students could make that connection. Sometimes teachers will make some connection to native language supports as well. So, using Spanish or whatever the student's native languages is a bridge to accessing some of the new language and making sure they have that connection as well. And then finally, we'd think about what language the students are going to produce. So, what do they need to say to express their understanding and how can we support them informing the language to express that understanding?  Mike: That's fascinating. What strikes me is how often the work that you're describing stops with the mathematical vocabulary and doesn't actually do that next piece, which feels really important. Like this idea: What is it about the vocabulary that we're using that we assume people understand, but that, like, ‘running the booth,' that's ( chuckles ) as you say it, and actually think and contemplate it. That's confusing.  Jean: Yeah, it's very confusing. And once teachers realize that that's what it takes to support language, you don't have to have an advanced degree in linguistics. It doesn't have to be deeply complicated. You're just really planning for what students might need to know to understand the mathematics in that task.  Mike: What are some of the moves that educators can make when they discover this language that we take for granted as everyone understanding? Would you be willing to talk a little bit about, what are the adaptations or the steps that folks take to help unpack that for children?  Jean: Yeah, absolutely. I think once you've identified different terms within just that day's lesson versus your academic language, you're going to want to have some consistent supports in your classroom. So, a lot of teachers will create a word wall. But a word wall isn't really effective unless students are using it. So, terms, definitions, and I'd also say having an illustrated word wall can be a game changer for some of the common vocabulary you're going to see within a unit—having that up so students can continually reference it and understand what it means. When we looked at the vocabulary and the phrases within the problem, we also connected it to visuals so we can explain what it means. We can provide students a written definition, but when you're still learning a language, the visuals are so essential to actually understanding what the term means or understanding it in context.  Mike: So, one of the things I'm curious about is, what are some of the understandings, the ahas, and the practices that you saw emerging as teachers engaged in this cycle of PL (professional learning)?  Shannon: I can respond to this one. We work with teachers to implement specific instructional strategies during their math classes, such as those mathematical language routines or the five practices. So, by using the variety of language supports incorporated in the program, we have definitely seen teachers develop a more nuanced understanding of what makes an appropriate scaffold and how to differentiate support for students based on their levels of English proficiency. It's not uncommon for teachers and the program to voice concerns that the tasks that we're using or how we're asking students to participate is too hard. And we know that this is coming from a good place. Teachers want their students to feel supported and be successful. So, we talk a lot about productive struggle and the role that it plays in students' meaning making and development in math class, and how critical it is that multilingual learners also get those opportunities to grapple with deep math concepts.  Mike: I think you're hinting at my next question, too, which is: Can you talk a little bit about the impacts that you observed on student identity and their learning as a result of this work?  Christa: Yeah, I'll take this one. This is my most favorite thing to talk about, cause I think this is where we saw the biggest impact, um, in the work that we were doing. And when we think about student identities, we almost had to take a step back and think about teacher identities. Especially when we think about mathematics and the role that that plays. We know that there's been a big emphasis on mindset and, and how important it is when we're learning mathematics to have this growth mindset and recognize that mistakes are OK and good, and that's how we learn. But we also know that math classes historically haven't been set up that way, right? We focus on a right or a wrong answer. So, there's not a lot of opportunity for kids in a traditional math class setting to experience the joy of making a mistake and working through it.  Christa: The hard thing about that is, we want teachers to create that type of math class for kids, but they may not have experienced that type of math class as a learner. So, in Good to Great, we give teachers the opportunity to reflect on who they are as math learners, who they were as math learners, and what their experiences were. And it's not surprising that many of our stories were the same, right? Like, we didn't see ourselves as math people, math is not our favorite subject, you know, on and on. And when we started to reflect on, ‘Well, how does that come through in our teaching?' Some things kind of bubble to the surface. Some teachers would look at that and say, ‘Math is hard for me, so I want to make it easier for my kids.' They want to make this a more positive experience, trying to make it easier for them to, to solve the problem.  Christa: So inadvertently, they're kind of taking away that power, making that mistake, and learning through it. And so, teachers had the opportunity to pause and think about, ‘Who did I position as mathematically capable today?' Really what that means is, ‘Who did we give the opportunity to be seen as a mathematical thinker, who got to answer the questions, who got to share their thinking?' And when teachers were reflecting on that, some of them started to realize that ‘No, I may not be giving my multilingual learners the same opportunities as my native English speakers.' And once we had those discussions, we pulled in those tools that support that productive and receptive language, and we challenged teachers to call on their multilingual learners the next day. And let's see what happens. They did the supports in class, called on those kids, and what we noticed in those debriefs that came after that: The teachers were starting to share, ‘Once I gave them those tools, they ran with it.' We heard things like, ‘My kids enjoy math class, they, they want to participate. They're raising their hands.' All of this from providing the right supports, digging in deeper to some of these mindset issues that we may have ourselves as math learners. And then how do we shift that experience for students so that they can develop their mathematical identities in this?  Mike: The psychology of all of this is fascinating because you're making me think about the idea of intent versus impact, right? So, the intentions of an educator who might be making some of the choices that you're talking about are positive, right? Like they're genuinely in a spot where it's like, ‘I don't want to make a child feel embarrassed.' On the other hand, the child doesn't know that. They just know that they're not getting called on, and they're making up their own story about why that's true. And that's also true for all the other kids in the class who are noticing that as well. And I think the thing that I'm coming around to is, it really does come back to the practices. You all gave them a set of tools to allow them to feel comfortable calling on those kids because they felt they could support them in the moment, and that produced a massive shift.  Christa: Yeah, absolutely. Once, they had the tools, they were able to see what their kids had in them all along.  Mike: You know, one of the things that jumps out for me is, there are a lot of demands on teachers' time. But what you described, I can imagine this happening in a grade-level team. I can imagine it happening at a PLC, and really investing in the types of practices that you all just described feels like the payoff is pretty solid. So, I wanted to ask you all for educators or instructional leaders who are interested in learning more about the Good to Great professional learning that you all have built, designed, and implemented, where can they go to actually learn more?  Jean: Sure. Thanks for asking that. So, we recently published a free toolkit that contains many of our MLL Good to Great resources, including the planning and reflection tools that we've been talking about today, as well as videos and exemplars. So, if someone just wants to learn a little bit more, they can go to the toolkit and see what some of the tools look like. The toolkit is called ‘More Than Right Answers: Math Instruction for Multilingual Learners,' and it's available on tntp.org. So, the toolkit also includes links to contact us at TNTP with any additional questions. And anyone interested in learning more could also email me directly. It's jeanine.harvey@tntp.org.  Mike: Thank you all so much for this conversation. I've learned a lot, and it was a pleasure talking to y'all. Jean: Thank you so much for having us.  Shannon: Thanks, Mike. It was great to be here.  Mike: This podcast is brought to you by The Math Learning Center and the Maier Math Foundation, dedicated to inspiring and enabling individuals to discover and develop their mathematical confidence and ability.  © 2023 The Math Learning Center | www.mathlearningcenter.org

Rounding Up Season 1 | Episode 5 – Learning Targets Guest: Dr. Rachel Harrington Mike Wallus: As a 17-year-veteran classroom teacher, I can't even begin to count the number of learning targets that I've written over the years. Whether it's writing ‘I can' statements or developing success criteria, there's no denying that writing learning targets is an important part of teacher practice. That said, the thinking about what makes a strong learning target continues to evolve and the language that we select for those targets has implications for instructional practice. Today on the podcast, we're talking with Dr. Rachel Harrington from Western Oregon University about creating powerful and productive learning targets. Welcome to the podcast. Rachel Harrington: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. Mike: Sure. So I'd love to just start our conversation by having you talk a little bit about how the ideas around learning targets have evolved, even just in the course of your own teaching career. Rachel: I started out as a pre-service teacher in the late '90s and got a lot of practice in undergrad teacher education, thinking about writing those objectives. And we were always told to start with, ‘The student will be able to … ,' and then we needed to have some skill and then it needed to end with a percentage of performance. So we need percent of accuracy. And so I got a lot of practice writing things that way, and we always were very strategic with our percentages. We might say 80 percent because we planned to give them five questions at the end and we wanted four out of five to be correct. And then we could check the box that the students had done what we wanted. And I felt like it was really critical. We always were kind of drilled into us that it must be measurable. You have to be able to measure that objective. And so that percentage was really important. Rachel: In my experience though, as a teacher, that, that didn't feel as helpful. And it wasn't something that I did as a classroom teacher very often. As I transitioned into working in teacher preparation, now we have shifted the way we talk about things. Instead of saying a learning objective, we talk more about learning targets. And we talk about using active verbs that, when we phrase the learning target or the learning goal, it's using a verb that is more active and not so much ‘Student will be able to … .' And so we might use verbs like compare, explain, classify, analyze, thinking more about that. And then, rather than thinking about an assessment at the end, with five questions where they get four correct, we want to think about multiple times throughout the lesson where the teacher is assessing that learning goal and the progress towards that goal. Sometimes those assessments might be more classroom-based. Other times you might be looking more at an individual student and collecting data on their progress as well. But it's more progress towards a goal rather than something that's met at the end of the lesson with a certain percentage of accuracy. Mike: You named the thing that I think stood out for me, which is you're moving from a process where you're thinking about an outcome versus what's the action, be that cognitive or in the way that students are solving. The focus is really on what's happening and how it's happening as opposed to just an outcome. Rachel: Uh-hm. And I feel like when I started in teacher preparation, the standards were a little more siloed by grade level. It was sort of like, this is what we do in fourth grade and it starts and ends in fourth grade. Whereas with the Common Core State Standards, we see these learning progressions that stretch across the child's whole math experience. And so I think that's shifted a little bit the way we think about targets as well and learning goals and whatever title you've given them. Now, we don't think so much as, ‘What are you accomplishing at the end of today?' but sort of your progress across a learning progression and, and what progress are you making towards a longer-term goal? Mike: I think that's a really profound shift though. There are two things that come to mind: One is really thinking about how that impacts my practice as a teacher. If I'm just thinking about what happens at the end of today, in all of these little discreet iterations, versus what's the pathway that the child is on, right? I'm really interested in, how is their thinking shifting? And that the end of the day is not the end of that shift. It's really something that happens over time. Does that make sense to you? Rachel: Definitely. And I think it's really critical when we're teaching in a mixed-ability classroom, and we're thinking about children making progress at their own pace and not expecting every child to learn the same thing every single day, but we can have individual goals for our kids. We can have ideas about, as long as they are making progress in their math journey, then we're going to be OK with that. And we're helping them in that progress. And I think it's also more evidence as to why curriculum needs to cycle back to previously taught concepts because those concepts may or may not be mastered by all the children or understood by all the children at the end of the lesson. We're going to keep revisiting it. And children get multiple opportunities to think about this idea, and they will make progress on their own at their pace. Mike: Well, that's in stark contrast to my own childhood math experiences. You got through your unit on fractions in fourth grade, and… Rachel: Yep. Mike: ... if you didn't get it, well … Rachel: So sad. Mike: ... good, good luck in fifth grade! Rachel: ( laughs ) Mike: ( laughs ) Um, but it's really an entirely different way of thinking about the child's development of ideas.  Rachel: Yep. I remember teaching multiplication of fractions on a Monday followed by a division of fractions on a Tuesday. It was really just like, you know, when we moved past this idea that multiplication of fractions is a procedure that, that students will master. Then we need to start thinking about it as happening more than just on Monday. Mike: We've already started to address the second question I had, which is: What are some of the pitfalls that schools and teachers might fall into or might encounter when they're thinking about learning targets?  Rachel: I think some folks have put pressure on teachers to take the idea of a learning target and phrase it into an ‘I can' statement or a student-friendly language—which, I am not at all opposed to the idea of making things into student-friendly language. I think that's actually really critical in math class. Mike: Uh-hm. Rachel: But I think it can be problematic. When we start the lesson with an ‘I can' statement, are we giving away the ending of the lesson right at the beginning? Mike: Yeah. Rachel: Are we taking away their joy of that discovery and that excitement of finding out this, understanding this new concept? I don't want to remove that magic out of math class by just saying, ‘Hey, I'm going to tell you the ending right before we get started.' And I also worry a little bit that sometimes those ‘I can' statements and those things that we put up on the board at the beginning of class are done under the guise of ‘holding teachers accountable,' which I think is a phrase that is very ( chuckles ) problematic.  Rachel: I tend to err on the side of trusting teachers; that they can be trusted to know what they're doing in the classroom and that they have a goal in mind. And I assume that they are planning for teaching without telling me exactly and explicitly on the whiteboard that they are doing that. But I also recognize that the presence of that learning target or that ‘I can' statement on the board at the beginning is an easy thing to check off. All of the different things that are happening in math class are really complex and really hard to understand and notice. And it can take years and tons of experience before we're able to notice all the things that are happening. And so as an administrator that maybe has limited experience teaching mathematics, I could see where it would be difficult coming into the classroom and really being able to recognize what is happening. You might look around the room and be like, ‘Is this some kind of birthday party? What's going on? All these kids are cutting things out and gluing things. This doesn't look like math class.' Rachel: But if I can see that statement written up on the board, that's something that's kind of concrete and measurable. I also just think this idea of capturing learning as a daily objective can be problematic, especially when we're thinking about building really complex ideas in mathematics. You know, that's not going to happen in one lesson, in one session of curriculum. It might build over multiple days. It might cycle back into multiple units. And so we need to make sure that students are developing alongside their peers and, but maybe not out at the same pace. And I think that's OK. Mike: Yeah. You made me think about a couple different things, Rachel. One is the idea that the way that learning targets have been kind of introduced into classrooms really feels more like compliance as opposed to something that has value in terms of your instructional practice. And I, I've lived that world, too, as a classroom teacher. I think the other thing that really hits me from what you said is, I started thinking about whole-number multiplication, right? If I'm just thinking about the end product—meaning students being able to perform multiplication—there's so much richness that has been missed ( chuckles ) in that process. Rachel: ( chuckles )  Mike: I mean, we're trying to help children move from thinking additively to thinking multiplicatively. You're going to move along that kind of continuum of understanding over time. Honestly, I would say it shouldn't happen in one day. Rachel: Yeah. What can you really learn in just one lesson? And learn, not, I wouldn't say just perform a skill. Mike: Yeah. Rachel: I think skills, performing a skill and memorizing an algorithm, that is something that can be taught in a really concrete chunk of time, potentially. But the real conceptual understanding of what's happening with multiplication—how it's connected to addition, how it's connected to geometric concepts and things like that—that all comes and builds. And I feel like it also builds in fits and spurts. Some kids are going to make a big leap at one point and then make some smaller steps before they make another big leap. It's not a linear progression that … Mike: Right. Rachel: … they're going through. And so we have to allow that to happen and give room for that to happen. And if we say everyone in the class will do this by the end of the lesson with this amount of accuracy, we don't make room for that to happen. Mike: Yeah. I think what you're highlighting is the difference between what I would call like a learning goal and a performance goal. And I'm wondering if you could help unpack that. Because for me, when I started thinking about learning targets in that framework, it really opened my eyes to some of the places where I'd gotten it right in the classroom and some of the places where, boy, I wish I had a do-over. Rachel: Yeah. I think the language that the National Council of Teachers in Mathematics has brought to us, is this idea of contrasting performance goals with learning goals. And I find myself turning to the ‘Taking Action' series of books. Specifically, K–5 when we're thinking about elementary. There's a chapter of that book I have found to be really powerful. Sadly, I think it's one that we can sometimes gloss over a little bit in our reading. Because for some folks, they look at that and they say, ‘Well, I don't choose the learning goal. My curriculum chooses the learning goal or my school district tells me what the learning goal is.' But when you really look at what a learning goal is, as opposed to a performance goal, that's really not what's dictated by your curriculum or by your school district. And so in the 'Taking Action' book, I think they do a really nice job of contrasting the difference between a learning goal and a performance goal. And I would say a performance goal is sort of what I described earlier when I was talking about ‘The student will be able to … ' Mike: Uh-hm. Yeah. Rachel: … at a certain amount of accuracy. So, an example. If you do have access to the book, it talks about ‘Students will solve a variety of multiplication word problems and write the related multiplication equations.' And (given) that, I could see that as the type of thing I would've written maybe with a certain amount of accuracy ( laughs ) at the end of it. And I would've given them maybe five word problems and then assessed if they could get at least four out of the five correct equations. And so that's a really good example of a performance goal. And, and they talk about this idea of a performance is, what is the student doing? What's something that we can look and observe and measure and count.  Mike: That's so hard though! Because what's missing in that goal is ‘how'!  Rachel: Right.  Mike: You know ( laughs ), like …  Rachel: Or ‘why'! ( laughs )  Mike: ( laughs) Or ‘why'! Right?  Rachel: Yep, yep.  Mike: Like when you actually look at the student's work, what does that tell you about how they arrived there? And then what does that tell you about what that child needs to continue making sense of mathematics? You gave an example of a performance goal around multiplication and word problems. What might that sound like as a learning goal instead?  Rachel: So an example of that same—probably aligned to the exact same standard and the Common Core State Standards—would be that students will understand the structure of multiplication as comprising equal groups, within visual or physical representations, understand numbers and multiplication equations, and connect those representations to equations. So that learning goal really describes what you're hoping the students learn. Not just what they do, but what do they carry forward with them as they move into more and more complex mathematics? I think you'll also recognize the verbs in there are much more complex. In the previous performance goal, we talked about students solving and writing. They're solving, and they're writing. But in the learning goal, we're looking at understanding, connecting, and representing those different ways of thinking about it and bringing them together. Putting those pieces together. And again, that might be something that develops over a long period of time. They might be working on one piece of it, which is looking at an array and connecting that to an equation. But maybe later on, they're connecting the context of the task to the equation. Or they're taking a context and recognizing, ‘Wouldn't an array model be a great way to solve this? And wouldn't an equation model be a great way to solve this?'  Mike: Uh-hm.  Rachel: And that's really developing over time.  Mike: Yeah. I was just going to say, you mentioned ‘Taking Action.' The, the chapter on learning goals is actually my most dogeared, uh, chapter in the book. I want to read you something that I think is really powerful though. Very first chapter on learning goals, the way that they describe it is: ‘Identifying what students will come to understand about mathematics rather than focusing on what students will do.' I've read that, underlined it, highlighted it. And I've got a Post-It note on that page because I think it just fundamentally changes what I think my role is as a teacher in preparing and also in a moment with children.  Rachel: Yep. It's not so much about, they're going to be able to cut this out and do this thing and perform this action. But it's really, what's the purpose? Why are we doing this? Why would they cut that out? Why would they do this action? What is that contributing to their long-term understanding? I do appreciate NCTM's guidance on this. I think they're leading the pack. And this is really cutting-edge … Mike: Yeah. Rachel: … thinking about how we set goals for our classroom. It's not commonly held in the field or applied in the field yet. Mike: Uh-hm. Rachel: But I think folks are really starting to understand its importance. That if, as we change the way we teach mathematics and the outcomes we expect for students, we have to start thinking differently about how we set up learning goals. We can't keep having these performance goals and expecting what's happening in the classroom to change. If we're really going to go towards the type of instruction we want to see in a classroom, we've got to think about learning goals instead of focus so much on just performance. Mike: I actually had a chance to talk to DeAnn Huinker, who's one of the co-writers of ‘Taking Action,' and she used the phrase, ‘What are the mathematical conversations you want children to have?' And I was really struck by, like, that's a really interesting question for me to think about if I'm thinking about my learning goals. But even if I'm just thinking about planning and preparing for a lesson or a unit of study. Rachel: Definitely. I don't think that's something that's thought a lot about. I mean, I might see for my students and their lesson plan: ‘Turn and talk to your neighbor.' But if you don't really think carefully about what kind of conversation you want to happen during that turn and talk … . Or I'll see in their lesson plan that ‘We will have a discussion about students' various solutions.' And what does that mean? You know, what's going to happen in that time? What's the point … Mike: Uh-hm. Rachel: … of that time? I can't remember who, I think it was Elham Kazemi that said something once about, ‘In math class folks will present,' and it's like that old football cheer, you know, ‘stand up, sit down, clap, clap, clap.' That's what we do in math class. Mike: Yeah. Rachel: We have kids stand up, we sit down, we all politely listen, and then we clap. And that's it. We move on. But if you really focus on those conversations that you want kids to have, what are the interesting things that you want them to be thinking about? That's a complete shift in how we've taught math. Mike: Yeah, it really is. It makes me think about, on a practical level, if I'm a person who's listening to this podcast, what I might be starting to think about is, ‘How do I take action'—no pun intended—'on this idea of thinking deeply about learning goals, integrating them into my practice?' And, for me at least, the first place I went when I read this was to think about shifting what I did in my preparation and my planning. Rachel: Uh-hm. But I think when it comes to planning, we need to be thinking, first of all, kind of the three parts that ‘Taking Action' talks about, is setting a goal that's clear. It should be clear in your mind what the children are learning. And so that can take some reading, right? It can take reading through the session, reading through the overviews, thinking about the learning progressions, always keeping your eye on that mathematical horizon, making those learning goals clear. But then also thinking about the fact that I am situating those learning goals into a learning progression. And I'm thinking about what this lesson that I'm doing on Tuesday, where does it fit in the math journey? So that makes me think about two things. First, what is this lesson building on? What foundation do these students come with that I can build on? But then also, what is it leading toward? Rachel: Where are we going from here? And what is the important role that this idea we're looking at today plays in the whole mathematical journey? And then using that as your foundation for your instruction. So if you're finding that the activity that you had planned isn't meeting that learning goal. So it isn't helping you with this clear understanding of what you want them to know. If it isn't helping build toward something that you want them to be able to understand, then what are the changes you need to make? Mike: Uh-hm. Rachel: What are some things you want to adjust? Where do you want to spend more time? How do you add those conversations? Things like that. Mike: Uh-hm. I think you led back to the thing that I wanted to unpack, which is: I worried that at different points in this conversation, people might think, ‘Well, they're just suggesting that learning goals or learning targets don't really have a role.' We're not saying that. We're saying that they really stretch over time. And I think your description was really elegant in thinking about, what does this session contribute to that larger goal of understanding the meaning of multiplication? What is the intent of this session in helping that development proceed? Rachel: Yeah. What is the big idea? What is this leading towards? Because if you don't see it, then that's when you, as a teacher, need to make some decisions. Do I need to do more reading? Do I need to do more understanding about this particular content area? Do I need to adjust the lesson itself? Is there something that I need to change or add or incorporate so that it does play a stronger role? Plus, you know your students. So if we're thinking about this session being a part of a learning progression, and it's building on something they already have, if you feel like maybe they don't have what they need to engage with today's lesson—now I'm going to think about some ways to reengage them with this content. I think especially over the next few years, that's going to be critical. But yeah, I definitely agree with you, Mike. Cause I think NCTM, the authors would say the first thing about a learning target or a learning goal is that it has to be clear, and it has to guide and be the foundation for instruction. And so, they're really important. It's just maybe the way that we've talked about them in the past hasn't been helpful. Mike: Yeah. The other place you bring me to, Rachel, is the idea that if I'm really clear on my learning goal, what is it that children will come to understand? And where is this lesson situated in that journey? That actually has a lot of value because I can think about, ‘What are some of the questions that I want to ask to try to either assess where kids are at or advance their thinking?' Or when I think about what children might do, ‘Which kids do I want to strategically highlight at a closure?' So I think understanding that learning goal really does have value for folks. It's just a different way of constructing them. And then also thinking, what do you do next? Rachel: And I also think, again, I'll take this back to the idea of assessing those learning goals. 'Cause I do think assessment and goals cannot be separated. You're going to always be thinking about that, right? Why set a goal if you don't have any way of knowing whether students are making progress towards that goal? When you establish them in that way and you think about them as less of something that's going to be accomplished by the end of this session, we allow room for students to progress at different ways and learn different things in the class. And then that's when we can have those rich conversations at the end, when we're drawing things together. If every child's going to do everything the exact same way in my classroom, then there's no opportunity for interesting conversations. The interesting conversations happen when kids are doing things differently and making progress in different ways, and heading in different directions towards the same goal. Rachel: Then we start learning from each other. We can see what our partner is doing and try to understand what they're doing. That's when interesting math happens. And I want to encourage teachers to feel confident in thinking about these as the idea of a learning goal. And even starting to incorporate this into student-friendly language. You know, a learning goal doesn't have to be written as an ‘I can' statement for kids to be able to understand it. And I also want teachers to feel confident in their abilities for advocating. Um, when they see learning goals being used in a problematic way, when we see pitfalls and things that we talked about at the beginning happening in their classroom—be confident in your abilities and your knowledge and what you know is best for students. You know your students better than anyone else does. The teacher does. And you know how to think about those individual needs and the individual growth of each child in your classroom. Rachel: So rest assured in that confidence. But go to the resources that are available to you as well. When you're struggling with the idea of where these lessons or these concepts or these ideas you're teaching fit, go to the learning progressions, go to the ‘Taking Action' book, go to the NCTM resources. Um, read your session overviews in your curriculum. Have conversations with your colleagues. Have conversations with the colleagues that teach grades above you and grades below you. That's really critical if we're think about taking away this silo idea of teaching mathematics, we need to start thinking about have these conversations across grade levels. And, and knowing, you know, if you're struggling with where this idea is going, talk to the teacher who comes next. And even just ask them, ‘What reason do you think a child would need to learn this?' Mike: Yeah. Rachel: You know, and then they might be able to help you see where it fits in the progression. Mike: Well, and I was going to say, look at the scope and sequence and notice, where do the ideas come back? How are they coming back? How are they being developed? And then the icing on the cake would be to do what you said. Let's take a look at how this manifests itself in the next grade or perhaps in the grade prior. Rachel: I think that's also a role for math leaders in elementary and in the building instructional coaches, that's a vision that they can help teachers with 'cause they get the opportunity to be in multiple grades in multiple classrooms. And they also have more space to read through the progressions, and they might have more time for those sorts of things. And so I want to push math leaders to be doing that as well. Not just the classroom teachers, help your teachers to see where these ideas carry across into future grades and how they build on previous content and facilitate those conversations. Mike: Yeah. You know, I'm so glad that you brought that up. Because it makes me think about, there are some things about the way that we've organized education that just, are givens, right? We have primarily grade-level classrooms, right? And so, I taught first grade for eight years. I intimately knew my first-grade standards. I did not clearly have a vision of necessarily how that was going to play out in second grade and third grade and fourth grade and so on. And I think that's one of the inadvertent problems that we're stuck with is, if we don't have a vertical understanding of: How are these ideas going to support children over time? It might be easy to say, ‘Well, I just need them to be able to do X by the time they get out of third grade.' Not really understanding that, actually I need to have them understand X, so then they can, in fact, understand all these other concepts that are coming. Rachel: I've just seen this year, so much, what is happening in fifth grade is dictating how you understand algebra. You know, it's like … Mike: Yes! Rachel: … what we see in the fifth-grade standards. If you are not really understanding those concepts, you might be OK for a little while. And then once you're into your algebra classes, you're realizing that all of that foundational knowledge came from what you learned in fifth grade and what you understand about rational numbers. And so, I totally agree. I don't think we've done a good job in education in general of those cross grade-level conversations. But I think we're getting better with this idea of having instructional leaders, instructional coaches that are really there to support the instruction … Mike: Yeah. Rachel: … that's happening. So I know I work with math leaders and that's one of the things I really encourage them, is not only should they know the entire curriculum or continuum, but how are they helping their classroom teachers understand that? 'Cause I think there's a lot of power in having a teacher spend eight years in first grade and really knowing those standards intimately. But there's also some value in, in once you've taught third grade going back to first grade and realizing, ‘Wow, this is where it was all going.' Mike: Absolutely. Yeah. I had a role at one point where I was a K–12 curriculum director for math. Rachel: Oh, yeah. Mike: And it was the most eye-opening experience because, as you said, you recognize how, if kids walk out of elementary school without a deep foundational understanding—and if it's just really a surface set of performance skills ... wow—that catches up with kids when they get into sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. Rachel: Yep. For sure. And those concepts become more abstract when we start this idea of variables and thinking about things algebraically. That if you didn't have that foundation in the concrete, the abstract is too much. It's too much to ask of kids. And so then we find ourselves reteaching and wondering, ‘What happened?' And yeah, I just, I wish more conversations were happening across those grade levels.  Mike: Absolutely. Well, thank you again, Rachel.  Rachel: Yeah!  Mike: It was lovely to have you. I think a lot of folks are going to find this really helpful, and maybe validating in the experience they've had. And also a vision for what they might do in the future. And hopefully we'll have you back at some point.  Rachel: I'm always here for you. ( laughs )  Mike: Thank you so much. All right, bye bye.  Mike: This podcast is brought to you by The Math Learning Center and the Maier Math Foundation, dedicated to inspiring and enabling individuals to discover and develop their mathematical confidence and ability.  © 2022 The Math Learning Center | www.mathlearningcenter.org

About MikeBesides his duties as The Duckbill Group's CEO, Mike is the author of O'Reilly's Practical Monitoring, and previously wrote the Monitoring Weekly newsletter and hosted the Real World DevOps podcast. He was previously a DevOps Engineer for companies such as Taos Consulting, Peak Hosting, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and many more. Mike is originally from Knoxville, TN (Go Vols!) and currently resides in Portland, OR.Links Referenced: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Mike_Julian mikejulian.com: https://mikejulian.com TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: This episode is brought to us in part by our friends at Datadog. Datadog is a SaaS monitoring and security platform that enables full-stack observability for modern infrastructure and applications at every scale. Datadog enables teams to see everything: dashboarding, alerting, application performance monitoring, infrastructure monitoring, UX monitoring, security monitoring, dog logos, and log management, in one tightly integrated platform. With 600-plus out-of-the-box integrations with technologies including all major cloud providers, databases, and web servers, Datadog allows you to aggregate all your data into one platform for seamless correlation, allowing teams to troubleshoot and collaborate together in one place, preventing downtime and enhancing performance and reliability. Get started with a free 14-day trial by visiting datadoghq.com/screaminginthecloud, and get a free t-shirt after installing the agent.Corey: Forget everything you know about SSH and try Tailscale. 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Again, that's snark.cloud/tailscaleCorey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud, I'm Corey Quinn and I'm having something of a crisis of faith based upon a recent conversation I've had with my returning yet again guest, Mike Julian, my business partner and CEO of The Duckbill Group. Welcome back, Mike.Mike: Hi, everyone.Corey: So, the revelation that had surfaced unexpectedly was, based upon a repeated talking point where I am a terrible employee slash expensive to manage, et cetera, et cetera, and you pointed out that you've been managing me for four years or so now, at which point I did a spit take, made all the more impressive by the fact that I wasn't drinking anything at the time, and realized, “Oh, my God, you're right, but I haven't had any of the usual problems slash friction with you that I have with basically every boss I've ever had in my entire career.” So, I'm spiraling. Let's talk about that.Mike: My recollection of that conversation is slightly different than yours. Mine is that you called me and said, “Mike, I just realized that you're my boss.” And I'm like, “How do you feel about that?” He's like, “I'm not really sure.”Corey: And I'm still not entirely sure how I feel if I'm being fully honest with you. Just because it's such a weird thing to have to deal with. Because historically, I always view a managerial relationship as starting from a place of a power imbalance. And that is the one element that is missing from our relationship. We each own half the company, we can fire each other, but it takes the form of tearing the company apart, and that isn't something that we're really set up to entertain.Mike: And you know, I actually think it's deeper than that because you owning the other half of the company is not really… it's not really power in itself. Like, yeah, it is, but you could easily own half the company and have no power. Because, like, really when we talk about power, we're talking about political power, influence, and I think the reason that there is no power imbalance is because each of us does something in the company that is just as important as the other. And they're both equally valuable to the company and we both recognize the other's contributions, as that, as being equally valuable to the company. It's less to do about how much we own and more about the work that we do.Corey: Oh, of course. The ownership starts and stops entirely with the fact that neither one of us can force the other out. So it's, as opposed to well, I own 51% of the company, so when I'm tired of your bullshit, you're leaving. And that is a dynamic that's never entered into it. I'm also going to add one more thing onto what you just said, which is, both of us would sooner tear off our own skin than do the other's job.Mike: Yeah. God, I would hate to do your job, but I know you'd hate to do mine.Corey: You look at my calendar on a busy meeting day and you have a minor panic attack just looking at it where, “Oh, my God, talking to that many people.” And you are going away for a while and you come back with a whole analytical model where your first love language feels like it's spreadsheets on some days, and I look at this and it's like, “Yeah, I know what some of those numbers mean.” And it just drives me up a wall, the idea of building out a plan and an execution thing and then delegating a lot of it to other people, it does not work for my worldview in so many different ways. It's the reason I think that you and I get along. That and our shared values.Mike: I remember the first time that you and I did a consulting engagement together. We went on a multi-day trip. And at the end of, like, three days of nonstop conversations, you made a comment, it was like, “Cool. So, what are we going to do that again?” Like, you were excited by it. I can tell you're energized. And I was just thinking, “Please for love of God, I want to die right now.”Corey: One of the weirdest parts about all of it, though, is neither one of us is in a scenario where what we do for a living and how we go about it works without the other.Mike: Right. Yeah, like, this is one of the interesting things about the company we have built is that it would not work with just you or just me; it's us being co-founders is what makes it successful.Corey: The thing that I do not understand and I don't think I ever will is the idea of co-founder speed dating, where you basically go to some big networking mixer event, pick some rando off the street, and congratulations, that's your business partner. Have fun. It is not that much of an exaggeration to say that co-founding a company with someone else is like a marriage. You are creating a legal entity that without very specific controls and guidelines, you are opening yourself up to massive liability issues if the other person decides to screw you over. That is part of the reason that the values match was so important for us.Mike: Yeah, it is surprising to me how similar being co-founders and business partners is to being married. I did not expect how close those two things were. You and I spend an incredible amount of time just on the relationship for each of us, which I never expected, but makes sense in hindsight.Corey: That's I think part of it makes the whole you managing me type of relationship work is because not only can you not, “Fire me,” quote-unquote, but I can't quit without—Mike: [laugh].Corey: Leaving behind a giant pile of effort with nothing to show for it over the last four years. So, it's one of those conversation styles where we go into the conversation knowing, regardless of how heated it gets or how annoyed we are with each other, that we are not going to blow the company up because one of us is salty that week.Mike: Right. Yeah, I remember from the legal perspective, when we put together a partnership agreement, our attorneys were telling us that we really needed to have someone at the 51% owner, and we were both adamant that no, that doesn't work for us. And finally, the way that we handled it is if you and I could not handle a dispute, then the only remedy left was to shut the entire thing down. And that would be an automatic trigger. We've never ever, ever even got close to that point.But like, I like that's the structure because it really means that if you and I can't agree on something and it's a substantial thing, then there's no business, which really kind of sets the stage for how important the conversations that we have are. And of course, you and I, we're close, we have a great relationship, so that's never come up. But I do like that it's still there.Corey: I like the fact that there's always going to be an option to get out. It's not a suicide pact, for lack of a better term. But it's also something that neither one of us would ever entertain lightly. And credit where due, there have been countless conversations where you and I were diametrically opposed; we each talk through it, and one or the other of us will just do a complete one-eighty our position where, “Okay, you convinced me,” and that's it. What's so odd about that is because we don't have too many examples of that in public society, it just seems like there's now this entire focus on, “Oh, if you make an observation or a point, that's wrong, you've got to double down on it.” Why would you do that? That makes zero sense. When you've considered something of a different angle and change your mind, why waste more time on it?Mike: I think there's other interesting ones, too, where you and I have come at something from a different angle and one of us will realize that we just actually don't care as much as we thought we did. And we'll just back down because it's not the hill we want to die on.Corey: Which brings us to a good point. What hill do we want to die on?Mike: Hmm. I think we've only got a handful. I mean, as it should; like, there should not be there should not be many of them.Corey: No, no because most things can change, in the fullness of time. Just because it's not something we believe is right for the business right now does not mean it never will be.Mike: Yeah. I think all of them really come down to questions of values, which is why you and I worked so well together, in that we don't have a lot of common interests, we're at completely different stages in our lives, but we have very tightly aligned values. Which means that when we go into a discussion about something, we know where the other stands right away, like, we could generally make a pretty good guess about it. And there's often very little question about how some values discussion is going to go. Like, do we take on a certain client that is, I don't know, they build landmines? Is that a thing that we're going to do? Of course not. Like—Corey: I should clarify, we're talking here about physical landmines; not whatever disastrous failure mode your SaaS application has.Mike: [laugh]. Yeah.Corey: We know what those are.Mike: Yeah, and like, that sort of thing, you and I would never even pose the question to each other. We would just make the decision. And maybe we tell each other later because and, like, “Hey, haha, look what happened,” but there will never be a discussion around it because it just—our values are so tightly aligned that it wouldn't be necessary.Corey: Whenever we're talking to someone that's in a new sector or a company that has a different expression, we always like to throw it past each other just to double-check, you don't have a problem with—insert any random thing here; the breadth of our customer base just astounds me—and very rarely as either one of us thrown a flag on something just because we do have this affinity for saying[ yes and making money.Mike: Yeah. But you actually wanted to talk about the terribleness of managing you.Corey: Yeah. I am very curious as to what your experience has been.Mike: [laugh].Corey: And before we dive into it, I want to call out a couple of things that make me a little atypical for your typical problem employee. I am ADHD personified. My particular expression of that means that my energy level is very different at different times of day, there are times where I will get nothing done for a day or two, and then in four hours, get three weeks of work done. It is hard to predict and it's hard to schedule around and it's never clear exactly what that energy level is going to be at any given point in time. That's the starting point of this nonsense. Now, take it away.Mike: Yeah. What most people know about Corey is what everyone sees on Twitter, which is what I would call the high highs. Everyone sees you as your most energetic, or at least perceived as the most energetic. If they see you in person at a conference, it's the same sort of thing. What people don't see are your lows, which are really, really low lows.And it's not a matter of, like, you don't get anything done. Like, you know, we can handle that; it's that you disappear. And it may be for a couple hours, it may be for a couple of days, and we just don't really know what's going on. That's really hard. But then, in your high highs, they're really high, but they're also really unpredictable.So, what that means is that because you have ADHD, like, the way that your brain thinks, the way your brain works, is that you don't control what you're going to focus on, and you never know what you're going to focus on. It may be exactly what you should be focusing on, which is a huge win for everyone involved, but sometimes you focus on stuff that doesn't matter to anyone except you. Sometimes really interesting stuff comes out of that, but oftentimes it doesn't. So, helping build a structure to work around those sorts of things and to also support those sorts of things, has been one of the biggest challenges that I've had. And most of my job is really about building a support structure for you and enabling you to do your best work.So, that's been really interesting and really challenging because I do not think that way. Like, if I need to focus on something, I just say, “Great. I'm just going to focus on this thing,” and I'll focus on it until I'm done. But you don't work that way, and you couldn't conceivably work that way, ever. So, it's always been hard because I say things like, “Hey, Corey, I need you to go write this series of emails.” And you'll write them when your brain decides that wants to write them, which might be never.Corey: That's part of the problem. I've also found that if I have an idea floating around too long, it'll linger for years and I'll never write anything about it, whereas there are times when I have—the inspiration strikes, I write a one- to 2000-word blog post every week that goes out, and there are times it takes me hours and there are times I bust out the entire thing in first draft form in 20 minutes or less. Like, if it's Domino's, like, there's not going to be a refund on it. So, it's kind of wild and I wish I could harness that somehow I don't know how, but… that's one of the biggest challenges.Mike: I wish I could too, but it's one of the things that you learn to get used to. And with that, because we've worked together for so long, I've gotten to be able to tell in what state of mind you are. Like, are you in a state where if I put something in front of you, you're going to go after it hard, and like, great things are going to happen, or are you more likely to ignore that I said anything? And I can generally tell within the first sentence or so of bringing something up. But that also means that I have other—I have to be careful with how I structure requests that I have for you.In some cases, I come with a punch list of, like, here's six things I need to get through and I'm going to sit on this call while we go through them. In other cases, I have to drip them out one at a time over the span of a week just because that's how your mind is those days. That makes it really difficult because that's not how most people are managed and it's not how most people expect to manage. So, coming up with different ways to do that has been one of the trickiest things I've done.Corey: Let's move on a little bit other than managing my energy levels because that does not sound like a particularly difficult employee to manage. “Okay, great. We've got to build some buffer room into the schedule in case he winds up not delivering for a few days. Okay, we can live with that.” But oh, working with me gets so much worse.Mike: [laugh]. It absolutely does.Corey: This is my performance review. Please hit me with it.Mike: Yeah. The other major concern that has been challenging to work through that makes you really frustrating to work with, is you hate conflict. Actually, I don't actually—let me clarify that further. You avoid conflict, except your definition of conflict is more broad than most. Because when most people think of conflicts, like, “Oh, I have to go have this really hard conversation, it's going to be uncomfortable, and, like—”Corey: “Time to go fire Steven.”Mike: Right, or things like, “I have to have our performance conversation with someone.” Like, everyone hates those, but, like, there's good ways and bad ways to them, like, it's uncomfortable even at the best of times. But with you, it's more than that, it's much more broad. You avoid giving direction because you perceive giving direction as potential for conflict, and because you're so conflict-avoidant, you don't give direction to people.Which means that if someone does something you don't like, you don't say anything and then it leaves everyone on the team to say, like, “I really wish Corey would be more explicit about what he wants. I wish he was more vocal about the direction he wanted to go.” Like, “Please tell us something more.” But you're so conflict-avoidant that you don't, and no amount of begging or we're asking for it has really changed that, so we end up with these two things where you're doing most of the work yourself because you don't want to direct other people to do it.Corey: I will push back slightly on one element of that, which is when I have a strong opinion about something, I am not at all hesitant about articulating that. I mean, this is not—like, my Twitter is not performance art; it's very much what I believe. The challenge is that for so much of what we talk about internally on a day-to-day basis, I don't really have a strong opinion. And what I've always shied away from is the idea of telling people how to do their jobs. So, I want to be very clear that I'm not doing that, except when it's important.Because we've all been in environments in the corporate world where the president of the company wanders past or your grand-boss walks into the room and asks an idle question, or, “Maybe we should do this,” and it never feels like it's really just idle pondering. It's, “Welp, new strategic priority just dropped from on high.”Mike: Right.Corey: And every senior manager has a story about screwing that one up. And I have led us down that path once or twice previously. So—Mike: That's true.Corey: When I don't have a strong opinion, I think what I need to get better at is saying, “I don't give a shit,” but when I frame it like that it causes different problems.Mike: Yeah. Yeah, that's very true. I still don't completely agree with your disagreement there, but I understand your perspective. [laugh].Corey: Oh, he's not like you can fire me, so it doesn't really matter. I kid. I kid.Mike: Right. Yeah. So, I think those are the two major areas that make you a real challenge to manage and a challenge to direct. But one of the reasons why I think we've been successful at it, or at least I'll say I've been successful at managing you, is I do so with such a gentle touch that you don't realize that I'm doing anything, and I have all these different—Corey: Well, it did take me four years to realize what was going on.Mike: Yeah, like, I have all these different ways of getting you to do things, and you don't realize I'm doing them. And, like, I've shared many of them here for you for the first time. And that's really is what has worked out well. Like, a lot of the ways that I manage you, you don't realize are management.Corey: Managing shards. Maintenance windows. Overprovisioning. ElastiCache bills. I know, I know. It's a spooky season and you're already shaking. It's time for caching to be simpler. Momento Serverless Cache lets you forget the backend to focus on good code and great user experiences. With true autoscaling and a pay-per-use pricing model, it makes caching easy. No matter your cloud provider, get going for free at gomomento.co/screaming That's GO M-O-M-E-N-T-O dot co slash screamingCorey: What advice would you have for someone for whom a lot of these stories are resonating? Because, “Hey, I have a direct report is driving me to distraction and a lot sounds like what you're describing.” What do you wish you'd known sooner about how to coax performance out of me, for lack of a better phrasing?Mike: When we first started really working together, I knew what ADHD was, but I knew it from a high school paper that I did on ADHD, and it's um—oh, what was it—“The Overdiagnosis of ADHD,” which was a thing when you and I were at high school. That's all I knew is just that ADHD was suspected to be grossly overdiagnosed and that most people didn't have it. What I have learned is that yeah, that might have been true—maybe; I don't know—but for people that do have any ADHD, it's a real thing. Like, it does have some pretty substantial impact.And I wish I had known more about how that manifests, and particularly how it manifests in different people. And I wish I'd known more earlier on about the coping mechanisms that different people create for themselves and how they manage and how they—[sigh], I'm struggling to come up with the right word here, but many people who are neurodivergent in some way create coping mechanisms and ways to shift themselves to appear more neurotypical. And I wish I had understood that better. Particularly, I wish I had understood that better for you when we first started because I've kind of learned about it over time. And I spent so much time trying to get you to work the way that I work rather than understand that you work different. Had I spent more time to understand how you work and what your coping mechanisms were, the earlier years of Duckbill would have been so much smoother.Corey: And again, having this conversation has been extraordinarily helpful. On my side of it, one of the things that was absolutely transformative and caused a massive reduction in our interpersonal conflict was the very simple tool of, it's not necessarily a problem when I drop something on the floor and don't get to it, as long as I throw a hand up and say, “I'm dropping this thing,” and so someone else can catch it as we go. I don't know how much of this is ADHD speaking versus how much of it is just my own brokenness in some ways, but I feel like everyone has this neverending list of backlog tasks that they'll get to someday that generally doesn't ever seem to happen. More often than not, I wind up every few months, just looking at my ever-growing list, reset to zero and we'll start over. And every once in a while, I'll be really industrious and knock a thing or two off the list. But so many that don't necessarily matter or need to be me doing them, but it drives people to distraction when something hits my email inbox, it just dies there, for example.Mike: Yeah. One of the systems that we set up here is that if there's something that Corey does not immediately want to do, I have you send it to someone else. And generally it's to me and then I become a router for you. But making that more explicit and making that easier for you—I'm just like, “If this is not something that you're going to immediately take care of yourself, forward it to me.” And that was huge. But then other things, like when you take time off, no one knows you're taking time off. And it's an—the easiest thing is no one cares that you're taking time off; just, you know, tell us you're doing it.Corey: Yeah, there's a difference between, “I'm taking three days off,” and your case, the answer is generally, “Oh, thank God. He's finally using some of that vacation.”Mike: [laugh].Corey: The problem is there's a world of difference between, “Oh, I'm going to take these three days off,” and just not showing up that day. That tends to cause problems for people.Mike: Yeah. They're just waving a hand in the air and saying, “Hey, this is happening,” that's great. But not waving it, not saying anything at all, that's where the pain really comes from.Corey: When you take a look across your experience managing people, which to my understanding your first outing with it was at this company—Mike: Yeah.Corey: What about managing me is the least surprising and the most surprising that you've picked up during that pattern? Because again, the story has always been, “Oh, yeah, you're a terrible manager because you've never done it before,” but I look back and you're clearly the best manager I've ever had, if for no other reason than neither one of us can rage-quit. But there's a lot of artistry to how you've handled a lot of challenges that I present to you.Mike: I'm the best manager you've had because I haven't fired you. [laugh].Corey: And also, some of the best ones I have had fired me. That doesn't necessarily disqualify someone.Mike: Yeah. I want to say, I am by no means experienced as a manager. As you mentioned, this is my first outing into doing management. As my coach tells me, I'm getting better every day. I am not terrible [laugh].The—let's see—most surprising; least surprising. I don't think I have anything for least surprising. I think most surprising is how easy it is for you to accept feedback and how quickly you do something about it, how quickly you take action on that feedback. I did not expect that, given all your other proclivities for not liking managers, not liking to be managed, for someone to give feedback to you and you say, “Yep, that sounds good,” and then do it, like, that was incredibly surprising.Corey: It's one of those areas where if you're not embracing or at least paying significant attention to how you are being perceived, maybe that's a problem, maybe it's not, let's be very clear. However, there's also a lot of propensity there to just assume, “Oh, I'm right and screw everyone else.” You can do an awful lot of harm that way. And that is something I've had to become incredibly aware of, especially during the pandemic, as the size of my audience at this point more than quadrupled from the start of the pandemic. These are a bunch of people now who have never met me in person, they have no context on what I do.And I tend to view the world the way you might expect a dog to behave, who caught a car that he has absolutely no idea how to drive, and he's sort of winging it as he goes. Like, step one, let's not kill people. Step two, eh, we'll figure that out later. Like, step one is the most important.Mike: Mm-hm. Yeah.Corey: And feedback is hard to get, past a certain point. I often lament from time to time that it's become more challenging for me to weed out who the jerks are because when you're perceived to have a large platform and more or less have no problem calling large companies and powerful folk to account, everyone's nice to you. And well, “Really? He's terrible and shitty to women. That's odd. He's always been super nice to me.” Is not the glowing defense that so many people seem to think that it is. It's I have learned to listen a lot more clearly the more I speak.Mike: That's a challenge for me as well because, as we've mentioned, my first foray into management. As we've had more people in the company, that has gotten more of a challenge of I have to watch what I say because my word carries weight on its own, by virtue of my position. And you have the same problem, except yours is much more about your weight in public, rather than your weight internally.Corey: I see it as different sides of the same coin. I take it as a personal bit of a badge of honor that almost every person I meet, including the people who've worked here, have come away, very surprised by just how true to life my personality on Twitter is to how actually am when I interact with humans. You're right, they don't see the low sides, but I also try not to take that out on the staff either.Mike: [laugh]. Right.Corey: We do the best of what we have, I think, and it's gratifying to know that I can still learn new tricks.Mike: Yeah. And I'm not firing anytime soon.Corey: That's right. Thank you again for giving me the shotgun performance review. It's always appreciated. If people want to learn more, where can they find you, to get their own performance preview, perhaps?Mike: Yeah, you can find me on Twitter at @Mike_Julian. Or you can sign up for our newsletter, where I'm talking about my upcoming book on consulting at mikejulian.com.Corey: And we will put links to that into the show notes. Thanks again, sir.Mike: Thank you.Corey: Mike Julian, CEO of The Duckbill Group, my business partner, and apparently my boss. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice along with an angry comment that demonstrates the absolute worst way to respond to a negative performance evaluation.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

About MikeBeside his duties as The Duckbill Group's CEO, Mike is the author of O'Reilly's Practical Monitoring, and previously wrote the Monitoring Weekly newsletter and hosted the Real World DevOps podcast. He was previously a DevOps Engineer for companies such as Taos Consulting, Peak Hosting, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and many more. Mike is originally from Knoxville, TN (Go Vols!) and currently resides in Portland, OR.Links Referenced: @Mike_Julian: https://twitter.com/Mike_Julian mikejulian.com: https://mikejulian.com duckbillgroup.com: https://duckbillgroup.com TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at AWS AppConfig. Engineers love to solve, and occasionally create, problems. But not when it's an on-call fire-drill at 4 in the morning. Software problems should drive innovation and collaboration, NOT stress, and sleeplessness, and threats of violence. That's why so many developers are realizing the value of AWS AppConfig Feature Flags. Feature Flags let developers push code to production, but hide that that feature from customers so that the developers can release their feature when it's ready. This practice allows for safe, fast, and convenient software development. You can seamlessly incorporate AppConfig Feature Flags into your AWS or cloud environment and ship your Features with excitement, not trepidation and fear. To get started, go to snark.cloud/appconfig. That's snark.cloud/appconfig.Corey: Forget everything you know about SSH and try Tailscale. Imagine if you didn't need to manage PKI or rotate SSH keys every time someone leaves. That'd be pretty sweet, wouldn't it? With Tailscale SSH, you can do exactly that. Tailscale gives each server and user device a node key to connect to its VPN, and it uses the same node key to authorize and authenticate SSH.Basically you're SSHing the same way you manage access to your app. What's the benefit here? Built in key rotation, permissions is code, connectivity between any two devices, reduce latency and there's a lot more, but there's a time limit here. You can also ask users to reauthenticate for that extra bit of security. Sounds expensive?Nope, I wish it were. Tailscale is completely free for personal use on up to 20 devices. To learn more, visit snark.cloud/tailscale. Again, that's snark.cloud/tailscaleCorey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and my guest is a returning guest on this show, my business partner and CEO of The Duckbill Group, Mike Julian. Mike, thanks for making the time.Mike: Lucky number three, I believe?Corey: Something like that, but numbers are hard. I have databases for that of varying quality and appropriateness for the task, but it works out. Anything's a database. If you're brave enough.Mike: With you inviting me this many times, I'm starting to think you'd like me or something.Corey: I know, I know. So, let's talk about something that is going to put that rumor to rest.Mike: [laugh].Corey: Clearly, you have made some poor choices in the course of your career, like being my business partner being the obvious one. But what's really in a dead heat for which is the worst decision is you've written a book previously. And now you are starting the process of writing another book because, I don't know, we don't keep you busy enough or something. What are you doing?Mike: Making very bad decisions. When I finished writing Practical Monitoring—O'Reilly, and by the way, you should go buy a copy if interested in monitoring—I finished the book and said, “Wow, that was awful. I'm never doing it again.” And about a month later, I started thinking of new books to write. So, that was 2017, and Corey and I started Duckbill and kind of stopped thinking about writing books because small companies are basically small children. But now I'm going to write a book about consulting.Corey: Oh, thank God. I thought you're going to go down the observability path a second time.Mike: You know, I'm actually dreading the day that O'Reilly asks me to do a second edition because I don't really want to.Corey: Yeah. Effectively turn it into an entire story where the only monitoring tool you really need is the AWS bill. That'll go well.Mike: [laugh]. Yeah. So yeah, like, basically, I've been doing consulting for such a long time, and most of my career is consulting in some form or fashion, and I head up all the consulting at Duckbill. I've learned a lot about consulting. And I've found that people have a lot of questions about consulting, particularly at the higher-end levels. Once you start getting into advisory sort of stuff, there's not a lot of great information out there aimed at engineering.Corey: There's a bunch of different views on what consulting is. You have independent contractors billing by the hour as staff replacement who call what they do consulting; you have the big consultancies, like Bain or BCG; you've got what we do in an advisory sense, and of course, you have a bunch of MBA new grads going to a lot of the big consultancies who are going to see a book on consulting and think that it's potentially for them. I don't know that you necessarily have a lot of advice for the new grad type, so who is this for? What is your target customer for this book?Mike: If you're interested in joining McKinsey out of college, I don't have a lot to add; I don't have a lot to tell you. The reason for that is kind of twofold. One is that shops like McKinsey and Deloitte and Accenture and BCG and Bain, all those, are playing very different games than what most of us think about when we think consulting. Their entire model revolves around running a process. And it's the same process for every client they work with. But, like, you're buying them because of their process.And that process is nothing new or novel. You don't go to those firms because you want the best advice possible. You go to those firms because it's the most defensible advice. It's sort of those things like, “No one gets fired for buying Cisco,” no one got fired for buying IBM, like, that sort of thing, it's a very defensible choice. But you're not going to get great results from it.But because of that, their entire model revolves around throwing dozens, in some cases, hundreds of new grads at a problem and saying, “Run this process. Have fun. Let us know if you need help.” That's not consulting I have any experience with. It's honestly not consulting that most of us want to do.Most of that is staffed by MBAs and accountants. When I think consulting, I think about specialized advice and providing that specialized advice to people. And I wager that most of us think about that in the same way, too. In some cases, it might just be, “I'm going to write code for you as a freelancer,” or I'm just going to tell you like, “Hey, put the nail in here instead of over here because it's going to be better for you.” Like, paying for advice is good.But with that, I also have a… one of the first things I say in the beginning of the book, which [laugh] I've already started writing because I'm a glutton for punishment, is I don't think junior people should be consultants. I actually think it's really bad idea because to be a consultant, you have to have expertise in some area, and junior staff don't. They haven't been in their careers long enough to develop that yet. So, they're just going to flounder. So, my advice is generally aimed at people that have been in their careers for quite some time, generally, people that are 10, 15, 20 years into their career, looking to do something.Corey: One of the problems that we see when whenever we talk about these things on Twitter is that we get an awful lot of people telling us that we're wrong, that it can't be made to work, et cetera, et cetera. But following this model, I've been independent for—well, I was independent and then we became The Duckbill Group; add them together because figuring out exactly where that divide happened is always a mental leap for me, but it's been six years at this point. We've definitely proven our ability to not go out of business every month. It's kind of amazing. Without even an exception case of, “That one time.”Mike: [laugh]. Yeah, we are living proof that it does work, but you don't really have to take just our word for it because there are a lot of other firms that exist entirely on an advisory-only, high-expertise model. And it works out really well. We've worked with several of them, so it does work; it just isn't very common inside of tech and particularly inside of engineering.Corey: So, one of the things that I find is what differentiates an expert from an enthusiastic amateur is, among other things, the number of mistakes that they've made. So, I guess a different way of asking this is what qualifies you to write this book, but instead, I'm going to frame it in a very negative way. What have you screwed up on that puts you in a position of, “Ah, I'm going to write a book so that someone else can make better choices.”Mike: One of my favorite stories to tell—and Corey, I actually think you might not have heard this story before—Corey: That seems unlikely, but give it a shot.Mike: Yeah. So, early in my career, I was working for a consulting firm that did ERP implementations. We worked with mainly large, old-school manufacturing firms. So, my job there was to do the engineering side of the implementation. So, a lot of rack-and-stack, a lot of Windows Server configuration, a lot of pulling cables, that sort of thing. So, I thought I was pretty good at this. I quickly learned that I was actually not nearly as good as I thought I was.Corey: A common affliction among many different people.Mike: A common affliction. But I did not realize that until this one particular incident. So, me and my boss are both on site at this large manufacturing facility, and the CFO pulls my boss aside and I can hear them talking and, like, she's pretty upset. She points at me and says, “I never want this asshole in my office ever again.” So, he and I have a long drive back to our office, like an hour and a half.And we had a long chat about what that meant for me. I was not there for very long after that, as you might imagine, but the thing is, I still have no idea to this day what I did to upset her. I know that she was pissed and he knows that she was pissed. And he never told me exactly what it was, only that's you take care of your client. And the client believes that I screwed up so massively that she wanted me fired.Him not wanting to argue—he didn't; he just kind of went with it—and put me on other clients. But as a result of that, it really got me thinking that I screwed something up so badly to make this person hate me so much and I still have no idea what it was that I did. Which tells me that even at the time, I did not understand what was going on around me. I did not understand how to manage clients well, and to really take care of them. That was probably the first really massive mistake that I've made my career—or, like, the first time I came to the realization that there's a whole lot I don't know and it's really costing me.Corey: From where I sit, there have been a number of things that we have done as we've built our consultancy, and I'm curious—you know, let's get this even more personal—in the past, well, we'll call it four years that we have been The Duckbill Group—which I think is right—what have we gotten right and what have we gotten wrong? You are the expert; you're writing a book on this for God's sake.Mike: So, what I think we've gotten right is one of my core beliefs is never bill hourly. Shout out to Jonathan Stark. He wrote I really good book that is a much better explanation of that than I've ever been able to come up with. But I've always had the belief that billing hourly is just a bad idea, so we've never done that and that's worked out really well for us. We've turned down work because that's the model they wanted and it's like, “Sorry, that's not what we do. You're going to have to go work for someone else—or hire someone else.”Other things that I think we've gotten right is a focus on staying on the advisory side and not doing any implementation. That's allowed us to get really good at what we do very quickly because we don't get mired in long-term implementation detail-level projects. So, that's been great. Where we went a little wrong, I think—or what we have gotten wrong, lessons that we've learned. I had this idea that we could build out a junior and mid-level staff and have them overseen by very senior people.And, as it turns out, that didn't work for us, entirely because it didn't work for me. That was really my failure. I went from being an IC to being the leader of a company in one single step. I've never been a manager before Duckbill. So, that particular mistake was really about my lack of abilities in being a good manager and being a good leader.So, building that out, that did not work for us because it didn't work for me and I didn't know how to do it. So, I made way too many mistakes that were kind of amateur-level stuff in terms of management. So, that didn't work. And the other major mistake that I think we've made is not putting enough effort into marketing. So, we get most of our leads by inbound or referral, as is common with boutique consulting firms, but a lot of the income that we get comes through Last Week in AWS, which is really awesome.But we don't put a whole lot of effort into content or any marketing stuff related to the thing that we do, like cost management. I think a lot of that is just that we don't really know how, aside from just creating content and publishing it. We don't really understand how to market ourselves very well on that side of things. I think that's a mistake we've made.Corey: It's an effective strategy against what's a very complicated problem because unlike most things, if—let's go back to your old life—if we have an observability problem, we will talk about that very publicly on Twitter and people will come over and get—“Hey, hey, have you tried to buy my company's product?” Or they'll offer consulting services, or they'll point us in the right direction, all of which is sometimes appreciated. Whereas when you have a big AWS bill, you generally don't talk about it in public, especially if you're a serious company because that's going to, uh, I think the phrase is, “Shake investor confidence,” when you're actually live tweeting slash shitposting about your own AWS bill. And our initial thesis was therefore, since we can't wind up reaching out to these people when they're having the pain because there's no external indication of it, instead what we have to do is be loud enough and notable in this space, where they find us where it shouldn't take more than them asking one or two of their friends before they get pointed to us. What's always fun as the stories we hear is, “Okay, so I asked some other people because I wanted a second opinion, and they told us to go to you, too.” Word of mouth is where our customers come from. But how do you bootstrap that? I don't know. I'm lucky that I got it right the first time.Mike: Yeah, and as I mentioned a minute ago, that a lot of that really comes through your content, which is not really cost management-related. It's much more AWS broad. We don't put out a lot of cost management specific content. And honestly, I think that's to our detriment. We should and we absolutely can. We just haven't. I think that's one of the really big things that we've missed on doing.Corey: There's an argument that the people who come to us do not spend their entire day thinking about AWS bills. I mean, I can't imagine what that would be like, but they don't for whatever reason; they're trying to do something ridiculous, like you know, run a profitable company. So, getting in front of them when they're not thinking about the bills means, on some level, that they're going to reach out to us when the bill strikes. At least that's been my operating theory.Mike: Yeah, I mean, this really just comes down to content strategy and broader marketing strategy. Because one of the things you have to think about with marketing is how do you meet a customer at the time that they have the problem that you solve? And what most marketing people talk about here is what's called the triggering event. Something causes someone to take an action. What is that something? Who is that someone, and what is that action?And for us, one of the things that we thought early on is that well, the bill comes out the first week of the month, every month, so people are going to opened the bill freak out, and a big influx of leads are going to come our way and that's going to happen every single month. The reality is that never happened. That turns out was not a triggering event for anyone.Corey: And early on, when we didn't have that many leads coming in, it was a statistical aberration that I thought I saw, like, “Oh, out of the three leads this month, two of them showed up in the same day. Clearly, it's an AWS billing day thing.” No. It turns out that every company's internal cadence is radically different.Mike: Right. And I wish I could say that we have found what our triggering events are, but I actually don't think we have. We know who the people are and we know what they reach out for, but we haven't really uncovered that triggering event. And it could also be there, there isn't a one. Or at least, if there is one, it's not one that we could see externally, which is kind of fine.Corey: Well, for the half of our consulting that does contract negotiation for large-scale commitments with AWS, it comes up for renewal or the initial discount contract gets offered, those are very clear triggering events but the challenge is that we don't—Mike: You can't see them externally.Corey: —really see that from the outside. Yeah.Mike: Right. And this is one of those things where there are triggering events for basically everything and it's probably going to be pretty consistent once you get down to specific services. Like we provide cost optimization services and contract negotiation services. I'm willing to bet that I can predict exactly what the trigger events for both of those will be pretty well. The problem is, you can never see those externally, which is kind of fine.Ideally, you would be able to see it externally, but you can't, so we roll with it, which means our entire strategy has revolved around always being top-of-mind because at the time where it happens, we're already there. And that's a much more difficult strategy to employ, but it does work.Corey: All it takes is time and being really lucky and being really prolific, and, and, and. It's one of those things where if I were to set out to replicate it, I don't even know how I'd go about doing it.Mike: People have been asking me. They say, “I want to create The Duckbill Group for X. What do I do?” And I say, “First step, get yourself a Corey Quinn.” And they're like, “Well, I can't do that. There's only one.” I'm like, “Yep. Sucks to be you.” [laugh].Corey: Yeah, we called the Jerk Store. They're running out of him. Yeah, it's a problem. And I don't think the world needs a whole lot more of my type of humor, to be honest, because the failure mode that I have experienced brutally and firsthand is not that people don't find me funny; it's that it really hurts people's feelings. I have put significant effort into correcting those mistakes and not repeating them, but it sucks every time I get it wrong.Mike: Yeah.Corey: Another question I have for you around the book targeting, are you aiming this at individual independent consultants or are you looking to advise people who are building agencies?Mike: Explicitly not the latter. My framing around this is that there are a number of people who are doing consulting right now and they've kind of fell into it. Often, they'll leave one job and do a little consulting while they're waiting on their next thing. And in some cases, that might be a month or two. In some cases, it might go on years, but that whole time, they're just like, “Oh, yeah, I'm doing consulting in between things.”But at some point, some of those think, “You know what? I want this to be my thing. I don't want there to be a next thing. This is my thing. So therefore, how do I get serious about doing consulting? How do I get serious about being a consultant?”And that's where I think I can add a lot of value because casually consulting of, like, taking whatever work just kind of falls your way is interesting for a while, but once you get serious about it, and you have to start thinking, well, how do I actually deliver engagements? How do I do that consistently? How do I do it repeatedly? How to do it profitably? How do I price my stuff? How do I package it? How do I attract the leads that I want? How do I work with the customers I want?And turning that whole thing from a casual, “Yeah, whatever,” into, “This is my business,” is a very different way of thinking. And most people don't think that way because they didn't really set out to build a business. They set out to just pass time and earn a little bit of money before they went off to the next job. So, the framing that I have here is that I'm aiming to help people that are wanting to get serious about doing consulting. But they generally have experience doing it already.Corey: Managing shards. Maintenance windows. Overprovisioning. ElastiCache bills. I know, I know. It's a spooky season and you're already shaking. It's time for caching to be simpler. Momento Serverless Cache lets you forget the backend to focus on good code and great user experiences. With true autoscaling and a pay-per-use pricing model, it makes caching easy. No matter your cloud provider, get going for free at gomemento.co/screaming That's GO M-O-M-E-N-T-O dot co slash screamingCorey: We went from effectively being the two of us on the consulting delivery side, two scaling up to, I believe, at one point we were six of us, and now we have scaled back down to largely the two of us, aided by very specific external folk, when it makes sense.Mike: And don't forget April.Corey: And of course. I'm talking delivery.Mike: [laugh].Corey: There's a reason I—Mike: Delivery. Yes.Corey: —prefaced it that way. There's a lot of support structure here, let's not get ourselves, and they make this entire place work. But why did we scale up? And then why did we scale down? Because I don't believe we've ever really talked about that publicly.Mike: No, not publicly. In fact, most people probably don't even notice that it happened. We got pretty big for—I mean, not big. So, we hit, I think, six full-time people at one point. And that was quite a bit.Corey: On the delivery side. Let's be clear.Mike: Yeah. No, I think actually with support structure, too. Like, if you add in everyone that we had with the sales and marketing as well, we were like 11 people. And that was a pretty sizable company. But then in July this year, it kind of hit a point where I found that I just wasn't enjoying my job anymore.And I looked around and noticed that a lot of other people was kind of feeling the same way, is just things had gotten harder. And the business wasn't suffering at all, it was just everything felt more difficult. And I finally realized that, for me personally at least, I started Duckbill because I love working with clients, I love doing consulting. And what I have found is that as the company grew larger and larger, I spent most of my time keeping the trains running and taking care of the staff. Which is exactly what I should be doing when we're that size, like, that is my job at that size, but I didn't actually enjoy it.I went into management as, like, this job going from having never done it before. So, I didn't have anything to compare it to. I didn't know if I would like it or not. And once I got here, I realized I actually don't. And I spent a lot of efforts to get better at it and I think I did. I've been working with a leadership coach for years now.But it finally came to a point where I just realized that I wasn't actually enjoying it anymore. I wasn't enjoying the job that I had created. And I think that really panned out to you as well. So, we decided, we had kind of an opportune time where one of our team decided that they were also wanting to go back to do independent consulting. I'm like, “Well, this is actually pretty good time. Why don't we just start scaling things back?” And like, maybe we'll scale it up again in the future; maybe we won't. But like, let's just buy ourselves some breathing room.Corey: One of the things that I think we didn't spend quite enough time really asking ourselves was what kind of place do we want to work at. Because we've explicitly stated that you and I both view this as the last job either of us is ever going to have, which means that we're not trying to do the get big quickly to get acquired, or we want to raise a whole bunch of other people's money to scale massively. Those aren't things either of us enjoy. And it turns out that handling the challenges of a business with as many people working here as we had wasn't what either one of us really wanted to do.Mike: Yeah. You know what—[laugh] it's funny because a lot of our advisors kept asking the same thing. Like, “So, what kind of company do you want?” And like, we had some pretty good answers for that, in that we didn't want to build a VC-backed company, we didn't ever want to be hyperscale. But there's a wide gulf of things between two-person company and hyperscale and we didn't really think too much about that.In fact, being a ten-person company is very different than being a three-person company, and we didn't really think about that either. We should have really put a lot more thought into that of what does it mean to be a ten-person company, and is that what we want? Or is three, four, or five-person more our style? But then again, I don't know that we could have predicted that as a concern had we not tried it first.Corey: Yeah, that was very much something that, for better or worse, we pay advisors for their advice—that's kind of definitionally how it works—and then we ignored it, on some level, though we thought we were doing something different at the time because there's some lessons you've just got to learn by making the mistake yourself.Mike: Yeah, we definitely made a few of those. [laugh].Corey: And it's been an interesting ride and I've got zero problem with how things have shaken out. I like what we do quite a bit. And honestly, the biggest fear I've got going forward is that my jackass business partner is about to distract the hell out of himself by writing a book, which is never as easy as even the most pessimistic estimates would be. So, that's going to be awesome and fun.Mike: Yeah, just wait until you see the dedication page.Corey: Yeah, I wasn't mentioned at all in the last book that you wrote, which I found personally offensive. So, if I'm not mentioned this time, you're fired.Mike: Oh, no, you are. It's just I'm also adding an anti-dedication page, which just has a photo of you.Corey: Oh, wonderful, wonderful. This is going to be one of those stories of the good consultant and the bad consultant, and I'm going to be the Goofus to your Gallant, aren't I?Mike: [laugh]. Yes, yes. You are.Corey: “Goofus wants to bill by the hour.”Mike: It's going to have a page of, like, “Here's this [unintelligible 00:25:05] book is dedicated to. Here's my acknowledgments. And [BLEEP] this guy.”Corey: I love it. I absolutely love it. I think that there is definitely a bright future for telling other people how to consult properly. May just suggest as a subtitle for the book is Consulting—subtitle—You Have Problems and Money. We'll Take Both.Mike: [laugh]. Yeah. My working title for this is Practical Consulting, but only because my previous book was Practical Monitoring. Pretty sure O'Reilly would have a fit if I did that. I actually have no idea what I'm going to call the book, still.Corey: Naming things is super hard. I would suggest asking people at AWS who name services and then doing the exact opposite of whatever they suggest. Like, take their list of recommendations and sort by reverse order and that'll get you started.Mike: Yeah. [laugh].Corey: I want to thank you for giving us an update on what you're working on and why you have less hair every time I see you because you're mostly ripping it out due to self-inflicted pain. If people want to follow your adventures, where's the best place to keep updated on this ridiculous, ridiculous nonsense that I cannot talk you out of?Mike: Two places. You can follow me on Twitter, @Mike_Julian, or you can sign up for the newsletter on my site at mikejulian.com where I'll be posting all the updates.Corey: Excellent. And I look forward to skewering the living hell out of them.Mike: I look forward to ignoring them.Corey: Thank you, Mike. It is always a pleasure.Mike: Thank you, Corey.Corey: Mike Julian, CEO at The Duckbill Group, and my unwilling best friend. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice along with an angry, annoying comment in which you tell us exactly what our problem is, and then charge us a fixed fee to fix that problem.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

Rounding Up Season 1 | Episode 1 – Culturally Relevant Practices in the Elementary Math Classroom Guest: Dr. Corey Drake Mike Wallus: There's a persistent myth in the world of education, that mathematics is abstract and its teaching is not influenced by cultural contexts. This, despite the fact that research and scholarship indicate when students see how math applies to a world that they recognize, they perform better. Today on the podcast, we'll talk with Dr. Corey Drake, senior director of academic programs at The Math Learning Center, about what it means to provide a culturally inclusive and relevant mathematics experience in the elementary classroom. This is a topic on everybody's mind, and we're excited to address it head on.  Mike: All right. Hello, everybody. Welcome to the podcast. We are excited today to have Dr. Corey Drake with us. And the topic of the day is culturally relevant practices in an elementary classroom. So, Corey, welcome. It's great to have you on the podcast. Corey Drake: Thanks. Great to be here. Mike: Fantastic. So I want to start this conversation and zoom way out as a beginning place. So one of the things that I'm thinking about is that lately it seems like you hear terms—like equity, culturally inclusive, culturally relevant—and those are being used across the education space almost as like kind of a catchall, to the point where it seems like in some cases they've almost lost their meaning. So I'm wondering if to begin the conversation, and really give these ideas the depth of discussion that they deserve, If you'd be willing to unpack … When you think about culturally inclusive and culturally relevant practices, help paint a picture of that for someone who's a listener.  Corey: Yeah. I think those terms do get used all the time in all kinds of different ways. And so I've been trying to think a lot about sorting them out and trying to think about a framework that makes sense for me, recognizing though that actually whatever the term is, I think the goals are the same, right? And so the goals of whether it be culturally inclusive, culturally relevant, culturally sustaining education, or to provide better experiences and more access to all students to high-level mathematics. So that's the underlying goal. And so I don't want to get too lost in the terms.  Mike: Thank you.  Corey: Having said that though, I think there are some important differences. I think if we think about things like culturally inclusive, we think about context representations that include all students so that every student can see themselves in curriculum so that students aren't excluded by the examples and representations they see in curriculum.  Corey: So I would think about that as more along the lines of culturally inclusive. When we start to get to culturally relevant, and then culturally responsive, culturally sustaining work, now we're really starting to think about who our students are, what their experiences have been, what their interests are, the kinds of activities our families and communities participate in, and how all of that can provide access and bridges into mathematics. And then if we would get all the way, kind of on what I think of as the far end of the continuum, we really would get to terms like anti-racist education. We're really there. We're talking about systemic racism, systemic oppression and privilege, and ways in which mathematics can disrupt those systemic issues of, not only who has access, but the kinds of outcomes and opportunities that students have based on various characteristics.  Mike: So let's unpack these a little bit.  Corey: Yeah.  Mike: I think one of the things that's really interesting is this idea of relevance and responsiveness …  Corey: Uh-hm. Mike: … so, particularly because it made me think about the kids in my classroom when I was a classroom teacher, so it strikes me that a part of this work is like, as you said, like really getting to know your students. So paint a picture of what that might look like if I'm a classroom teacher, and I'm teaching fourth grade, what kind of process might I engage in? What does that look like as I'm getting ready to perhaps start a unit of study, or even as I'm just getting ready to start the year? Like, what might that actually look like for a person who's out in the field?  Corey: Yeah, that's a great question. And it brings up a really important point, which is that cultural responsiveness cannot sit just in a set of materials. And it can't sit just in the teacher's actions, right? Cultural responsiveness happens at that interaction of curriculum materials and the mathematics and the teacher and the students. And it's in those interactions that cultural responsiveness happens. And so for the teacher, what that means is really getting to know their students. But also—perhaps even more and importantly, and as a way to get to know their students—opening up those spaces for student voice in a classroom, right? Where do students have opportunities to share their ideas, to make sense of ideas, to bring in the connections that they're making? To the extent that it's all about the teacher, we're never going to get to that cultural responsiveness, where the students are allowed to bring themselves and bring their cultures into the classroom, and then be able to make sense of the math. With that in mind though, teachers can be thinking about looking at, say, a new unit of study or a task they're going to work on and think about, ‘How do I open up the space within this task, within this unit, for that student voice to come in, for students to be able to make those connections?' So the teacher is really opening the space versus making the connections, right? They're opening the space so that the students can be making those connections.  Mike: So I love this idea of opening space. And I think I want to unpack this idea and just try it on. Is it fair to say that opening space, to some degree, is about two things? Part one is: How do I allow space for my students' lived experiences and their cultural background, and those pieces to kind of come into the, the work? And then part two is: How do I open space in a task that may actually funnel student thinking or constrict the opportunity for kids to share their thinking? Am I thinking about that appropriately, Corey?  Corey: Yeah, I think that's right. I think you open space for student voice. But you open space in ways … a main way that you would open space is by not overly directing, not overly restricting what that space is. So if I'm going to pose a task, I'm going to look for opportunities to bring in student voice and opportunities for students sense-making throughout that task. So I'm going to launch that task by asking students, ‘What is this context about? What does this make you think about? Can you connect this to other things you know?' And then we're going to launch the task and we're going to get into the mathematics. And again, and I, as a teacher, am not going to be directing a particular way to solve a problem, a particular way to think about it. But again, opening up the space for students to make those connections, for students to make sense of the mathematics, and then providing opportunities for them to share and learn from each other. It's not a free for all though, right? It's not just bring in whatever you're thinking about, right? My goal as the teacher is to open that space and then facilitate those connections so that they really lead to the kind of sense-making that all students need.  Mike: Thanks for that. You know, I actually want to shift gears a little bit because it was interesting as you described the continuum … you also were kind of talking about the idea that we could consider, like, a series of steps that we deemed—or you deemed—anti-racist. And you talked about those in, in relation to, kind of, systems that exist. Can you say more about that? Just talk a little bit more about the types of systems that we might be talking about when we're talking about taking an anti-racist stance.  Corey: Yeah, absolutely. I think the two that come to mind right away are two that you mentioned, right? One is our around curriculum, and one is around assessment. And those are really tightly intertwined, right? So we have a curriculum that not only provides a set of standards, but provides a particular order and a particular path through which we think all students should reach the set of ideas that are represented in the standards. And in order to provide opportunities for all students, we need to think more broadly about that. We need to really think about, ‘What are the big ideas? What are those goals? And how do we provide opportunities for all students to reach those goals?' … recognizing that what we know about student progressions and the way students get there have mostly been built on the progressions, honestly, of white, middle-class children.  Mike: Hm. Corey: And so there's a lot we don't know, and it requires us to open up spaces. And I think assessment is probably the biggest.  Mike: Yeah. Talk about that please.  Corey: Yeah. So assessments are set up to label and categorize students, which is kind of inherently problematic. And I think even more problematic is that assessments and the assessment systems we have built tend to focus our attention on what students don't know, on what students can't do, right? So if we think about the various labels and categories we have for children, they're often around, ‘Well, they can't do this yet' or ‘They haven't learned that yet,' versus what is it that students can do? What do they understand? What are they bringing to the classroom? You know, I always tell pre-service teachers, like, something we know about learning is that new learning is connected to prior understandings. You don't learn new things in a vacuum. So if we don't know what students already understand, what they already can do, how are we going to help them learn new things? What are we going to connect it to? I can't connect new learning to the fact that you don't know X, Y, or Z. I can connect it to the idea that you do know this set of things, and I can help you build on that and learn the next set. And to me, that is a critical shift that we would need to make to really have a less racist, less oppressive education system.  Mike: Mm. Yeah. Can you just expand on that vision a little bit, Corey? I'm still really resonating with two things. One, we learn new things when we connect it to prior knowledge. And two, the whole design of the system—and really kind of the intent, for lack of a better word—this is really to kind of categorize what don't you know. And to label that very, very specifically.  Corey: Yeah.  Mike: As opposed to a different kind of intent, which is: What do you, in fact, understand?  Corey: Yes. And it starts with, we think about math tests we may have taken in the past, right? The focus was always on was the answer right or wrong? And when the answer was wrong, there was an assumption: ‘You don't know this. You don't understand this.' And that's how you got grouped or labeled or categorized. And we still do that to students. Versus looking at a piece of student work. You don't want to forget whether the answer in the end is quote, unquote ‘right' or ‘wrong.' But what I really want to look at is how is a student thinking about a problem? How is a student making sense of this problem? What are the ideas and understandings they're bringing to this work so that I know what to build on next.  Mike: Absolutely.  Corey: And so focusing much less on right or wrong. And here's where I think curriculum and assessment are intertwined. Because when we set things up as here's the endpoint, here's the standard we're trying to reach, right, that leads us to saying, ‘Yes, they got it' or ‘No, they did not.' Versus what's the path, what's the pathway they're taking? What are the understandings they're building along the way?  Mike: So I'm imagining either a single teacher looking at their students' work, or perhaps a team of teachers who are looking at it … it's an entirely different kind of conversation, right? Like it's almost an entirely different process of, I've got—I'm thinking old school—I've got students' paper work in front of me … Corey: Sure. Mike: … I'm looking at it. I'm almost kind of thinking to myself, ‘For someone who's new to this idea, what might that look like if you and I, and a couple colleagues were sitting together, looking at our students work?' What does that conversation sound like?  Corey: And how great would that be, right?  Mike: It'd be amazing.  Corey: We have these kind of data meetings and things like this in schools. But so often we're looking at printouts from standardized tests. Mike: Right. Corey: … that don't really to give us insight into the thing we would pay attention to if we sat around a table, looking at student work, is ‘What do you think this student was thinking about? Oh, and where did they get that 10 from? Oh, I see they broke this number up this way. So that shows me they understand some things about place value. They understand something about the structure of numbers. I can see that here, they had a really interesting strategy, but they just miscounted at the end.' So I'm thinking, ‘This show's really rich understanding.' And so we could have those kinds of conversations. Mike: And those things are actionable, too, right?  Corey: Absolutely.  Mike: I, I mean, that's the challenge of having sat in so many data meetings is, like, what's actionable about what you're looking at?  Corey: Exactly. Mike: It's really hard when you're actually trying to get into students' heads and think about their thinking. You, as a teacher, you have some agency, you can do something. So it's, it's like, wow, that's really powerful.  Corey: Yeah. It just lends itself to this next idea. OK, if I know that this is what this student is thinking about, and maybe this group of students is thinking about it this way, and this group is thinking that way, it supports also this idea of, like, teaching is inquiry, right? Because what we always want to do, we don't have the magic next step. But we could look at a piece of student work and say, ‘Huh, I wonder what would happen if I posed this problem next? Or what if I changed the numbers in this problem? Would I still see this kind of thinking?' And that's what we want teachers to be doing to support student learning. To say, ‘Here's what I see happening. Let me try this problem next and see what happens' And building that pathway for a student over time.  Mike: Which to me, actually, the connection I think I'm making is, that's actually almost like a generative path, right? In some ways that leads us right back to what you said at the beginning, which is, ‘What's the role of the teacher when they're trying to provide a culturally relevant experience?'  Corey: Absolutely.  Mike: It's like, this is the pathway to get there.  Corey: Yes.  Mike: Yeah. That makes a ton of sense. Um, well, before we leave things, Corey, I guess the last question I wanted to ask is: If I'm a teacher who's new to this conversation or new to thinking about these ideas, do you have any references that you might share with folks? Things that would help them kind of continue to think about this, continue to think about how it shows up in their classroom? Is there anything you'd recommend?  Corey: Yeah, absolutely. There are so many great resources out there right now. I think the main problem is making sure we have time and space to be able to, to learn from the great work that's happening out there. I would say a book that's been really influential for me recently is actually in English language arts. But it's by Gholdy E. Muhammad and is called ‘Cultivating Genius.' And she talks about what it would look like to build a historically and culturally relevant curriculum in ELA. And I think there are a lot of parallels with math. We've also been reading lately, ‘Choosing to See,' by, um, Pam Seda and Kyndall Brown. And I think that has very actionable steps. It's really written in a way that teachers, either on their own or in a small group, could take it up and really think about some of these ideas shifting. It's these small shifts in curriculum and assessment, and just our orientation to children, that really makes such a big difference for the experiences of students. Mike: Totally agreed. I read that and just felt like, ‘If I'm a teacher, I can do something with this tomorrow.'  Corey: Yes, yes, absolutely.  Mike: Absolutely. Definitely. The other one that jumps out for me, and I'm wondering if you add some commentary, is just, ‘Smarter Together,' which has been around for a while.  Corey: Yeah.  Mike: But has got some really powerful work inside it as well.  Corey: Absolutely. So ‘Smarter Together' really helps us think about—within groups of students— thinking about status and privilege and how teachers can really bring to the forefront and, and hold up the different ways in which students are smart in mathematics. And I think that's a really important shift, which is that all students are brilliant, right? And it's taking that as a fundamental tenant and saying, ‘The ways we've tended to think about what it means to be smart in math have been so narrow. They've been about being fast with your facts. Or being able to memorize things.' When really, the range of ways in which you can be and need to be smart in math are so much broader than that. And so, ‘Smarter Together' really helps us think about, ‘What are the range of skills and knowledge and interests that students would need to bring to really do well in mathematics?'  Mike: Sounds like we have another podcast on our hands.  Corey: Love it.  Mike: ( laughs ) Thanks so much, Corey.  Corey: Yep. Mike: It was great to have you on the podcast.  Corey: Thank you.  Mike: This podcast is brought to you by The Math Learning Center and the Maier Math Foundation dedicated to inspiring and enabling individuals to discover and develop their mathematical confidence and ability. © 2022 The Math Learning Center | www.mathlearningcenter.org

Welcome back to mental snacks with Claiborne Jackson. In honor of Fathers Day and Men's Health Month , I decided to do a series on men and celebrate my brothas that have played a huge part in my life. I asked them all the same questions but trust nobody has the same answer or experience.   On this episode I sat down with my Brotha Mike and we got it in. Lots of jokes but so many Mental Snacks were set out that you could make a full meal. Below are a few of the questions that were asked but to find out the answer you have to listen.    What does Father's Day mean to you    Before having a child what was your view on having children    What was your reaction when you found out you had one on the way   When did it fully sink in that you now were responsible for some one other than yourself   Do you remember how you felt the first time you child called you dad and how did you feel     Thank you for your support and Mike Thank you for being a guest. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/claiborne-jackson0/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/claiborne-jackson0/support

Mike Maciag, Chief Marketing Officer at Dynatrace joins Tech Transforms to talk about the power of observability. Careful monitoring is of paramount importance for any successful operation, and observability can take your agency to the next level. Listen in as Carolyn and Mark get some tips and tricks for improving cybersecurity posture with the most accurate technology. Episode Table of Contents[00:31] The Vital Role That Observability Plays in IT [10:40] Observability: When You're Asking the Systems to Share [22:48] The President's Memo on User Experience [34:01] Let Machines Do the Stuff That Doesn't Matter Episode Links and Resources The Vital Role That Observability Plays in ITCarolyn: Today, we get to welcome Mike Maciag, who is Chief Marketing Officer of Dynatrace. One of our own, one of the clan is here with us today. And as CMO, Mike is responsible for Dynatrace's global marketing organization. We're really excited to hear his expert opinion on observability and the vital role that it plays in IT, and especially the cloud. Mike: Thank you, Carolyn. Mark, nice to be with you both today. And I know this is a long time in coming, but I'm excited to be sitting down and talking to you today. Carolyn: We've been able to talk to a few of our guests a little bit about APM. And just recently we talked to a former CIO at VA. He is very bullish on APM, and he talked a lot about the advances that they were able to make in the VA with APM. Just that at least within the VA, APM moved from a nice to have to a must-have. And what I'd really like to hear you talk about, just to dive right in, Mike, is so there's the APM part. But then in my mind and I might be positioning this wrong. In my mind, I think that observability is like APM 2.0. But can you speak to that APM versus observability? What's the difference? Mike: As long as we're talking about terms, we might want to mix monitoring in there as well. All terms that are thrown around, is it monitoring, is it APM, is it observability? And it's changed, it's changed a lot. Let me start with the simplest definition, then maybe we can unpack it from there. Think of observability as the umbrella term, as the broadest umbrella term that goes above all of this. Monitoring, APM, ObservabilityMike: Observability fully includes APM, and observability also subsumes monitoring, both of the things that we've been doing. There are kind of two megatrends in the industry that have been driving this move towards observability. One is the move to the cloud.More and more systems are moving to cloud architectures, probably more important digitally native architectures. We're going from monolithic systems that we could understand, that we could see, that we could touch. We could understand what's happening with them into cloud increasingly complex, even multi-cloud architectures that are driven by microservices and the like. The reason for that movement is it has made digital transformation, application development faster and easier in that regard. Which is this digital transformation fundamentally looking at everything that I've been doing in every aspects of my business. Whether it be on the front end or in the services I provide. Whether it be on the front end or in the backend machine to machine conversations is happening in cloud architectures. And we're trying to figure out how we can automate more of it and things are happening that way. Does that make sense, just from a starting point, from observability's umbrella, fully subsumed monitoring, fully subsumed APM, kind of in that the drivers being cloud and digital transformation making that happen. And I can get into more details. Mark: That absolutely hits the mark. And we also say end-user performance or experience. Mike: That's right. Carolyn: Yes, that sets me straight. Because me saying that observability is APM 2.0 is wrong. APM, like you said, it's underneath observability. It might be, I guess, one way into...

The Guys are back after almost a year and a half break.  Friendly Frank comes through with a new post-Covid view of the planet.  And as always, the guys don't agree with each other while kind of agreeing with each other.   You never know what subject will come up, but you can guarantee a heated conversation will ensue.  Friendly Frank and Mike Thank you for listening.  Stay safe out there and be nice.

Ryukyu Gorilla Episode：IDENTITY FrankyとMikeが今回トークした内容は IDENTITY です！ 皆さんに報告があります！今回のトピックはMikeのSNSについてトークしてますよ！ 実はFrankyの相方Mikeのintsagramがハッキングされました！ サイバー犯罪ハッキングについRyukyu Gorillaがトークしてるので是非聴いて下さい！ そしてもしMikeのInstagramから迷惑メールが届いてたらゴメンなさい！ 今Mike一生懸命Instagramのアカウント取り戻そうとしてますよ！ Ryukyu Gorillaの公式Instagramは大丈夫ですよ！Frankyがしっかり守ってます！笑 今回いっぱいIDENTITYについてのメッセージThank you very much！しっかり皆さんのメッセージ読みました！ おっおぅ〜 Mike可哀想だなー　とほほほー ………………………………………………………………………………………………… Thank you for listening!　おっおぅ〜 メッセージリクエスト、リスナー応援メッセージなどryukyugorilla58@gmail.com で待ってまーす。 Instagram DMダイレクトメッセージもOKです！ ............................................................................................................. Follow Ryukyu Gorilla on Instagram　インスタグラムでフォローしてね。 https://www.instagram.com/ryukyugorilla (FRANKY) ……………………………………………………………………….. Ryukyu Gorilla Podcasts Listen & Smile On Spotify | Apple Podcasts Amazon Music | Google Podcasts ……………………………………………………………………………………..

Mike - Thank you for some advice you gave me back in August with keeping child to pay attention. & I wanted to talk about how we are all in need of constant conversion along with Russia. What are your thoughts?                    Rosa - I just went to church. I was last one in line to receive communion. I was denied communion because I tried to receive on my tongue. Is that right?    Anthony - Should we be praying the rosary during the Consecration today? 

HP Elite Dragonfly 頂級商務筆電，專業設計輕巧便利，不限時空，解放你的工作自由！3:2 螢幕比，享受 13.5吋的輕盈及更大的螢幕視野，工作更有效率！https://go.fstry.me/426a52W —— 以上為播客煮與 Firstory Podcast 廣告 —— 「你為什麼想來我們公司？」 英文怎麼說？ 之前有聽眾留言給我們，說想聽聽看面試的時候會用到的英文， 所以我們第六十集特輯，就來做面試英文特輯囉～～。（歡呼） 在這一集裡，Duncan 跟 Mike 角色扮演模擬面試， 聽聽看如果在面試的時候被面試主管問到 "你為什麼想來我們公司"、"你希望透過這份工作達到什麼樣的目標 " 可以怎麼用英文回答呢？ 這一集的文化閒聊，Duncan 跟我們說明了中文都翻譯成 "履歷" 的 CV 跟 Resume 有什麼不一樣？ 那 Cover letter 又是什麼呢？對面試過程來說很重要嗎？ 快來聽這一集內容，聽聽看面試常被問到的這些問題英文怎麼說。 歡迎點這個連結進 ivybar 網站看課，輸入優惠碼 ivybar500，買課程馬上省 500 塊！ https://pse.is/3qyavt 現在你可以按下面的連結留語音留言給我們： https://ivybar.firstory.io/voicemail/ckv5z2ush003d0918puekx0hu 跟我們說說你想聽什麼主題，期待你的留言喔。 快速幫你複習一下這集的主題句 ＆ 模擬面試對話： 你為什麼想來我們公司？ -Why do you want to work for our company? -Why do you want to work at this company? 情境對話 Mike（面試官 Interviewer ）：請你先介紹稍微一下自己。 First, please tell us a little bit about yourself. Duncan（面試者 interviewee）：自由發揮。 Mike（面試官）：你為什麼會想來我們公司？ Why do you want to work for our company? Duncan（面試者）：我一直有在關注你們公司的產品。 Well, I've been interested in your company for a while. 我覺得你們除了內容做得好之外， I think that besides creating good products, 也很在乎有沒有透過這些內容傳達正面的訊息給大家， You also deliver a positive message to everyone with your content. 這也是我很在乎的一件事， This is something I really care about. 所以希望可以成為你們團隊的一份子。 So, I'd like to became a part of your team. Mike：感謝你的回饋。 Thank you for your response. 我想再問一個問題，你希望透過這份工作達到什麼樣的目標？ I'd like to ask another question. What do you hope to achieve by working at this job? Duncan：短期內我希望可以很快熟悉整個工作流程，讓工作進行得很順暢。 In the short term, I want to get used to regular employment, so that I can work efficiently. 長期目標我希望可以寫出很棒的內容，帶給讀者正面的影響。 In the long term, I hope I can create excellent content that will positively influence readers. Mike：好的，謝謝，那我們今天的面試就先到這邊，我這幾天會再跟你聯絡。 OK, Thank you. We'll finish up the interview here, and we will contact you again in the next few days. 如果你想複習詳細版的主題句＆單字，歡迎來我們學英文吧的網站！（愛心） 學英文吧網站https://ivybar.com.tw/?c=3 或追蹤 iVY BAR 學英文吧的 IG，上面圖文版 podcast 複習也很棒喔！https://pse.is/39vede 現在我們也有影音版的 Podcast 實境秀喔https://pse.is/3ahupl 歡迎小額贊助支持這句英文怎麼說： https://pay.firstory.me/user/ivybar Powered by Firstory Hosting

Happy Halloween! We're joined by comics scribe Daniel "D.G." Chichester to talk about the history of horror comics, Marvel's return to the genre in the early 1990s, and the macabre anti-hero Terror (whom Chichester co-created).  ----more---- Issue 18 Transcript   Mike: [00:00:00] It's small, but feisty, Mike: Welcome to Tencent Takes, the podcast where we dig up comic book characters' graves and misappropriate the bodies, one issue at a time. My name is Mike Thompson, and I am joined by my cohost, the Titan of terror herself, Jessika Frazer. Jessika: It is I. Mike: Today, we are extremely fortunate to have comics writer, Daniel, DG Chichester. Dan: Nice to see you both. Mike: Thank you so much for taking the time. You're actually our first official guest on the podcast. Dan: Wow. Okay. I'm going to take that as a good thing. That's great. Mike: Yeah. Well, if you're new to the show, the purpose of our [00:01:00] podcast as always is to look at the weirdest, silliest, coolest moments of comic books, and talk about them in ways that are fun and informative. In this case, we looking at also the spookiest moments, and how they're woven into the larger fabric of pop culture and history. Today, we're going to be talking about horror comics. We're looking at their overall history as well as their resurrection at Marvel in the early 1990s, and how it helped give birth to one of my favorite comic characters, an undead anti-hero who went by the name of Terror. Dan, before we started going down this road, could you tell us a little bit about your history in the comic book industry, and also where people can find you if they want to learn more about you and your work? Dan: Absolutely. At this point, people may not even know I had a history in comic books, but that's not true. Uh, I began at Marvel as an assistant in the mid-eighties while I was still going to film school and, semi quickly kind of graduated up, to a more official, [00:02:00] assistant editor position. Worked my way up through editorial, and then, segued into freelance writing primarily for, but also for DC and Dark Horse and worked on a lot of, semi-permanent titles, Daredevil's probably the best known of them. But I think I was right in the thick of a lot of what you're going to be talking about today in terms of horror comics, especially at Marvel, where I was fiercely interested in kind of getting that going. And I think pushed for certain things, and certainly pushed to be involved in those such as the Hellraiser and Nightbreed Clive Barker projects and Night Stalkers and, uh, and Terror Incorporated, which we're going to talk about. And wherever else I could get some spooky stuff going. And I continued on in that, heavily until about 96 / 97, when the big crash kind of happened, continued on through about 99 and then have not really been that actively involved since then. But folks can find out what I'm doing now, if they go to story maze.substack.com, where I have a weekly newsletter, which features [00:03:00] new fiction and some things that I think are pretty cool that are going on in storytelling, and also a bit of a retrospective of looking back at a lot of the work that I did. Mike: Awesome. Before we actually get started talking about horror comics, normally we talk about one cool thing that we have read or watched recently, but because this episode is going to be dropping right before Halloween, what is your favorite Halloween movie or comic book? Dan: I mean, movies are just terrific. And there's so many when I saw that question, especially in terms of horror and a lot of things immediately jumped to mind. The movie It Follows, the recent It movie, The Mist, Reanimator, are all big favorites. I like horror movies that really kind of get under your skin and horrify you, not just rack up a body count. But what I finally settled on as a favorite is probably John Carpenter's the Thing, which I just think is one of the gruesomest what is going to happen next? What the fuck is going to happen next?[00:04:00] And just utter dread. I mean, there's just so many things that combined for me on that one. And I think in terms of comics, I've recently become just a huge fan of, and I'm probably going to slaughter the name, but Junji Ito's work, the Japanese manga artist. And, Uzumaki, which is this manga, which is about just the bizarreness of this town, overwhelmed with spirals of all things. And if you have not read that, it is, it is the trippiest most unsettling thing I've read in, in a great long time. So happy Halloween with that one. Mike: So that would be mango, right? Dan: Yeah. Yeah. So you'd make sure you read it in the right order, or otherwise it's very confusing, so. Mike: Yeah, we actually, haven't talked a lot about manga on this. We probably should do a deep dive on it at some point. But, Jessika, how about you? Jessika: Well, I'm going to bring it down a little bit more silly because I've always been a fan of horror and the macabre and supernatural. So always grew up seeking creepy media as [00:05:00] a rule, but I also loves me some silliness. So the last three or so years, I've had a tradition of watching Hocus Pocus with my friend, Rob around Halloween time. And it's silly and it's not very heavy on the actual horror aspect, but it's fun. And it holds up surprisingly well. Mike: Yeah, we have all the Funkos of the Sanderson sisters in our house. Jessika: It's amazing watching it in HD, their costumes are so intricate and that really doesn't come across on, you know, old VHS or watching it on television back in the day. And it's just, it's so fun. How much, just time and effort it looks like they put into it, even though some of those details really weren't going to translate. Dan: How very cool. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Yeah. So, but I also really like actual horror, so I'm also in the next couple of days is going to be a visiting the 1963 Haunting of Hill House because that's one of my favorites. Yeah. It's so good. And used to own the book that the movie was based on also. And seen all the [00:06:00] iterations and it's the same storyline the recent Haunting of Hill house is based on, which is great. That plot line has been reworked so many times, but it's such a great story, I'm just not shocked in the least that it would run through so many iterations and still be accepted by the public in each of its forms. Mike: Yeah. I really liked that Netflix interpretation of it, it was really good. Dan: They really creeped everything out. Mike: Yeah. There's a YouTuber called Lady Night, The Brave, and she does a really great summary breakdown explaining a lot of the themes and it's like almost two hours I think, of YouTube video, but she does these really lovely retrospectives. So, highly recommend you check that out. If you want to just think about that the Haunting of Hill House more. Jessika: Oh, I do. Yes. Mike: I'm going to split the difference between you two. When I was growing up, I was this very timid kid and the idea of horror just creeped me out. And so I avoided it like the plague. And then when I was in high [00:07:00] school, I had some friends show me some movies and I was like, these are great, why was I afraid of this stuff? And so I kind of dove all the way in. But my preferred genre is horror comedy. That is the one that you can always get me in on. And, I really love this movie from the mid-nineties called the Frighteners, which is a horror comedy starring Michael J. Fox, and it's directed by Peter Jackson. And it was written by Peter Jackson and his partner, Fran Walsh. And it was a few years before they, you know, went on to make a couple of movies based on this little known franchise called Lord of the Rings. But it's really wild. It's weird, and it's funny, and it has some genuine jump scare moments. And there's this really great ghost story at the core of it. And the special effects at the time were considered amazing and groundbreaking, but now they're kind of, you look at, and you're like, oh, that's, high-end CG, high-end in the mid-nineties. Okay. But [00:08:00] yeah, like I said, or comedies are my absolute favorite things to watch. That's why Cabin in the Woods always shows up in our horror rotation as well. Same with Tucker and Dale vs Evil. That's my bread and butter. With comic books, I go a little bit creepier. I think I talked about the Nice House on the Lake, that's the current series that I'm reading from DC that's genuinely creepy and really thoughtful and fun. And it's by James Tynion who also wrote Something That's Killing the Children. So those are excellent things to read if you're in the mood for a good horror comic. Dan: Great choice on the Frighteners. That's I think an unsung classic, that I'm going to think probably came out 10 years too early. Mike: Yeah. Dan: It's such a mashup of different, weird vibes, that it would probably do really, really well today. But at that point in time, it was just, what is this? You know? Cause it's, it's just cause the horrifying thing in it are really horrifying. And, uh, Gary Busey's son, right, plays the evil ghost and he is just trippy, off the wall, you know, horrifying. [00:09:00] Mike: Yeah. And it starts so silly, and then it kind of just continues to go creepier and creepier, and by the time that they do some of the twists revealing his, you know, his agent in the real world, it's a genuine twist. Like, I was really surprised the first time I saw it and I - Dan: Yeah. Mike: was so creeped out, but yeah. Dan: Plus it's got R. Lee Ermey as the army ghost, which is just incredible. So, Mike: Yeah. And, Chi McBride is in it, and, Jeffrey Combs. Dan: Oh, oh that's right, right. right. Mike: Yeah. So yeah, it's a lot of fun. Mike: All right. So, I suppose we should saunter into the graveyard, as it were, and start talking about the history of horror comics. So, Dan, obviously I know that you're familiar with horror comics, Dan: A little bit. Mike: Yeah. What about you, Jess? You familiar with horror comics other than what we've talked about in the show? Jessika: I started getting into it once you and I started, you know, talking more on the [00:10:00] show. And so I grabbed a few things. I haven't looked through all of them yet, but I picked up some older ones. I did just recently pick up, it'll be more of a, kind of a funny horror one, but they did a recent Elvira and Vincent Price. So, yeah, so I picked that up, but issue one of that. So it's sitting on my counter ready for me to read right now. Mike: Well, and that's funny, cause Elvira actually has a really long, storied history in comic books. Like she first appeared in kind of like the revival of House of Mystery that DC did. And then she had an eighties series that had over a hundred issues that had a bunch of now major names involved. And she's continued to have series like, you can go to our website and get autographed copies of her recent series from, I think Dynamite. Jessika: That's cool. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Nice. Mike: Speaking of horror comedy Elvira is great. Jessika: Yes. Mike: I recently showed Sarah the Elvira Mistress of the Dark movie and she was, I think really sad that I hadn't showed it to her sooner. Jessika: [00:11:00] That's another one I need to go watch this week. Wow. Don't- nobody call me. I'm just watching movies all week. Dan: Exactly. Mike: It's on a bunch of different streaming services, I think right now. Well it turns out that horror comics, have pretty much been a part of the industry since it really became a proven medium. You know, it wasn't long after comics became a legit medium in their own, right that horror elements started showing up in superhero books, which like, I mean, it isn't too surprising. Like the 1930's was when we got the Universal classic movie monsters, so it makes a lot of sense that those kinds of characters would start crossing over into comic books, just to take advantage of that popularity. Jerry Siegel and Joel Schuster, the guys who created Superman, actually created the supernatural investigator called Dr. Occult in New Fun Comics three years before they brought Superman to life. And Dr. Occult still shows up in DC books. Like, he was a major character in the Books of Magic with Neil Gaiman. I think he may show up in Sandman later on. I can't remember. Jessika: Oh, okay. Dan: I wouldn't be surprised. Neil would find ways to mine that. [00:12:00] Mike: Yeah. I mean, that was a lot of what the Sandman was about, was taking advantage of kind of long forgotten characters that DC had had and weaving them into his narratives. And, if you're interested in that, we talk about that in our book club episodes, which we're currently going through every other episode. So the next episode after this is going to be the third episode of our book club, where we cover volumes five and six. So, horror comics though really started to pick up in the 1940s. There's multiple comic historians who say that the first ongoing horror series was Prized Comics, New Adventures of Frankenstein, which featured this updated take on the original story by Mary Shelley. It took place in America. The monster was named Frankenstein. He was immediately a terror. It's not great, but it's acknowledged as being really kind of the first ongoing horror story. And it's really not even that much of a horror story other than it featured Frankenstein's monster. But after that, a number of publishers started to put out adaptations of classic horror stories for awhile. So you had [00:13:00] Avon Publications making it official in 1946 with the comic Erie, which is based on the first real dedicated horror comic. Yeah. This is the original cover to Erie Comics. Number one, if you could paint us a word picture. Dan: Wow. This is high end stuff as it's coming through. Well it looks a lot like a Zine or something, you know it's got a very, Mac paint logo from 1990, you know, it's, it's your, your typical sort of like, ooh, I'm shaky kind of logo. That's Eerie Comics. There's a Nosferatu looking character. Who's coming down some stairs with the pale moon behind him. It, he's got a knife in his hand, so, you know, he's up to no good. And there is a femme fatale at the base of the stairs. She may have moved off of some train tracks to get here. And, uh, she's got a, uh, a low, cut dress, a lot of leg and the arms and the wrists are bound, but all this for only 10. cents. So, I think there's a, there's a bargain there.[00:14:00] Mike: That is an excellent description. Thank you. So, what's funny is that Erie at the time was the first, you know, official horror comic, really, but it only had one issue that came out and then it sort of vanished from sight. It came back with a new series that started with a new number one in the 1950s, but this was the proverbial, the shot that started the war. You know, we started seeing a ton of anthology series focusing on horror, like Adventures into the Unknown, which ran into the 1960s and then Amazing Mysteries and Marvel Tales were repurposed series for Marvel that they basically changed the name of existing series into these. And they started doing kind of macabre, weird stories. And then, we hit the 1950s. And the early part of the 1950s was when horror comics really seemed to take off and experienced this insane success. We've talked about how in the post-WWII America, superhero comics were kind of declining in [00:15:00] popularity. By the mid 1950s, only three heroes actually had their own books and that was Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Which, I didn't realize that until I was doing research. I didn't, I just assumed that there were other superhero comics at the time. But we started seeing comics about horror and crime and romance really starting to get larger shares of the market. And then EC Comics was one of those doing gangbuster business during this whole era. Like, this was when we saw those iconic series, the Haunt of Fear, the Vault of Horror, the Crypt of Terror, which was eventually rebranded to Tales from the Crypt. Those all launched and they found major success. And then the bigger publishers were also getting in on this boom. During the first half of the 1950s Atlas, which eventually became Marvel, released almost 400 issues across 18 horror titles. And then American Comics Group released almost 125 issues between five different horror titles. Ace comics did almost a hundred issues between five titles. I'm curious. I'm gonna ask both of you, what [00:16:00] do you think the market share of horror comics was at the time? Dan: In terms of comics or in terms of just like newsstand, magazine, distribution. Mike: I'm going to say in terms of distribution. Dan: I mean, I know they were phenomenally successful. I would, be surprised if it was over 60%. Mike: Okay. How about. Jessika: Oh, goodness. Let's throw a number out. I'm going to say 65 just because I want to get close enough, but maybe bump it up just a little bit. This is a contest now. Dan: The precision now, like the 65. Jessika: Yes. Mike: Okay. Well, obviously we don't have like a hard definite number, but there was a 2009 article from reason magazine saying that horror books made up a quarter of all comics by 1953. So, so you guys were overestimating it, but it was still pretty substantial. At the same time, we were also seeing a surge in horror films. Like, the 1950s are known as the atomic age and media reflected [00:17:00] societal anxiety, at the possibility of nuclear war and to a lesser extent, white anxiety about societal changes. So this was the decade that gave us Invasion of the Body Snatchers The Thing from Another World, which led to John Carpenter's The Thing eventually. Um, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Hammer horror films also started to get really huge during this time. So we saw the beginning of stuff like Christopher Lee's, Dracula series of films. So the fifties were like a really good decade for horror, I feel. But at the same time, violent crime in America started to pick up around this period. And people really started focusing on juvenile criminals and what was driving them. So, there were a lot of theories about why this was going on and no one's ever really come up with a definite answer, but there was the psychiatrist named Frederick Wortham who Dan, I yeah. Dan: Oh yeah, psychiatrist in big air quotes, yeah. Mike: In quotes. Yeah. [00:18:00] Yeah. And he was convinced that the rise in crime was due to comics, and he spent years writing and speaking against them. He almost turned it into a cottage industry for himself. And this culminated in 1954, when he published a book called Seduction of the Innocent, that blamed comic books for the rise in juvenile delinquency, and his arguments are laughable. Like, I mean, there's just no way around it. Like you read this stuff and you can't help, but roll your eyes and chuckle. But, at the time comics were a relatively new medium, you know, and people really only associated them with kids. And his arguments were saying, oh, well, Wonder Woman was a lesbian because of her strength and independence, which these days, I feel like that actually has a little bit of credibility, but, like, I don't know. But I don't really feel like that's contributing to the delinquency of the youth. You know, and then he also said that Batman and Robin were in a homosexual relationship. And then my favorite was that Superman comics were [00:19:00] un-American and fascist. Dan: Well. Mike: All right. Dan: There's people who would argue that today. Mike: I mean, but yeah, and then he actually, he got attention because there were televised hearings with the Senate subcommittee on juvenile delinquency. I mean, honestly, every time I think about Seduction of the Innocent and how it led to the Comics Code Authority. I see the parallels with Tipper Gore's Parent Music Resource Center, and how they got the Parental Advisory sticker on certain music albums, or Joe Lieberman's hearings on video games in the 1990's and how that led to the Electronic Systems Reading Board system, you know, where you provide almost like movie ratings to video games. And Wortham also reminds me a lot of this guy named Jack Thompson, who was a lawyer in the nineties and aughts. And he was hell bent on proving a link between violent video games and school shootings. And he got a lot of media attention at the time until he was finally disbarred for his antics. But there was this [00:20:00] definite period where people were trying to link video games and violence. And, even though the statistics didn't back that up. And, I mean, I think about this a lot because I used to work in video games. I spent almost a decade working in the industry, but you know, it's that parallel of anytime there is a new form of media that is aimed at kids, it feels like there is a moral panic. Dan: Well, I think it goes back to what you were saying before about, you know, even as, as things change in society, you know, when people in society get at-risk, you know, you went to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Right. Which is classically thought to be a response to communism, you know, and the feelings of communist oppression and you know, the different, you know, the other, and it's the same thing. I think every single one of these is just a proof point of if you want to become, suddenly well-known like Lieberman or Wortham or anything, you know, pick the other that the older generation doesn't really understand, right? Maybe now there are more adults playing video games, but it's probably still perceived as a more juvenile [00:21:00] thing or comics or juvenile thing, or certain types of movies are a juvenile thing, you know, pick the other pick on it, hold it up as the weaponized, you know, piece, and suddenly you're popular. And you've got a great flashpoint that other people can rally around and blame, as if one single thing is almost ever the cause of everything. And I always think it's interesting, you know, the EC Comics, you know, issues in terms of, um, Wortham's witch hunt, you know, the interesting thing about those is yet they were gruesome and they are gruesome in there, but they're also by and large, I don't know the other ones as well, but I know the EC Comics by and large are basically morality plays, you know, they're straight up morality plays in the sense that the bad guys get it in the end, almost every time, like they do something, they do some horrific thing, but then the corpse comes back to life and gets them, you know, so there's, there's always a comeuppance where the scales balance. But that was of course never going to be [00:22:00] an argument when somebody can hold up a picture of, you know, a skull, you know, lurching around, you know, chewing on the end trails of something. And then that became all that was talked about. Mike: Yeah, exactly. Well, I mean, spring boarding off of that, you know, worth them and the subcommittee hearings and all that, they led to the comics magazine association of America creating the Comics Code Authority. And this was basically in order to avoid government regulation. They said, no, no, no, we'll police ourselves so that you don't have to worry about this stuff. Which, I mean, again, that's what we did with the SRB. It was a response to that. We could avoid government censorship. So the code had a ton of requirements that each book had to meet in order to receive the Comics Code Seal of Approval on the cover. And one of the things you couldn't do was have quote, scenes dealing with, or instruments associated with walking dead or torture, which I mean,[00:23:00] okay. So the latter half of the 1950's saw a lot of these dedicated horror series, you know, basically being shut down or they drastically changed. This is, you know, the major publishers really freaked out. So Marvel and DC rebranded their major horror titles. They were more focused on suspense or mystery or Sci-Fi or superheroes in a couple of cases, independent publishers, didn't really have to worry about the seal for different reasons. Like, some of them were able to rely on the rep for publishing wholesome stuff like Dell or Gold Key. I think Gold Key at the time was doing a lot of the Disney books. So they just, they were like, whatever. Dan: Right, then EC, but, but EC had to shut down the whole line and then just became mad. Right? I mean, that's that was the transition at which William, you know, Gains - Mike: Yeah. Dan: basically couldn't contest what was going on. Couldn't survive the spotlight. You know, he testified famously at that hearing. But had to give up all of [00:24:00] that work that was phenomenally profitable for them. And then had to fall back to Mad Magazine, which of course worked out pretty well. Mike: Yeah, exactly. By the end of the 1960s, though, publishers started to kind of gently push back a little bit like, Warren publishing, and Erie publications, like really, they didn't give a shit. Like Warren launched a number of horror titles in the sixties, including Vampirilla, which is like, kind of, I feel it's sort of extreme in terms of both sex and horror, because I mean, we, we all know what Vampirilla his costume is. It hasn't changed in the 50, approximately 50 years that it's been out like. Dan: It's like, what can you do with dental floss, Right. When you were a vampire? I mean, that's basically like, she doesn't wear much. Mike: No, I mean, she never has. And then by the end of the sixties, Marvel and DC started to like kind of steer some of their books back towards the horror genre. Like how some Mystery was one of them where it, I think with issue 1 75, that was when they [00:25:00] took away, took it away from John Jones and dial H for Hero. And they were like, no, no, no, no. We're going to, we're going to bring, Cain back as the host and start telling horror morality plays again, which is what they were always doing. And this meant that the Comics Code Authority needed to update their code. So in 1971, they revised it to be a little bit more horror friendly. Jessika: Scenes dealing with, or instruments associated with, walking dead or torture shall not be used. Vampires, ghouls and werewolves shall be permitted to be used when handled in the classic traditions, such as Frankenstein, Dracula, and other high caliber literary works written by Edgar Allen Poe, Saki, Conan Doyle, and other respected authors whose works are read in schools around the world. Mike: But at this point, Marvel and DC really jumped back into the horror genre. This was when we started getting books, like the tomb of Dracula, Ghost Rider, where will finite and son of Satan, and then DC had a [00:26:00] bunch of their series like they had, what was it? So it was originally The Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love, and then it eventually got retitled to Forbidden Tales of the Dark Mansion. Like, just chef's kiss on that title. Dan: You can take that old Erie comic and throw, you know, the Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love as the title on that. And it would work, you know. Mike: I know. Right. So Dan, I'm curious, what is your favorite horror comic or comic character from this era? Dan: I would say, it was son of Satan, because it felt so trippy and forbidden, and I think comics have always, especially mainstream comics you know, I've always responded also to what's out there. Right. I don't think it's just a loosening the restrictions at that point, but in that error, what's going on, you're getting a lot of, I think the films of Race with the Devil and you're getting the Exorcist and you're getting, uh, the Omen, you know, Rosemary's baby. right. Satanism, [00:27:00] the devil, right. It's, it's high in pop culture. So true to form. You know, I think Son of Satan is in some ways, like a response of Marvel, you know, to that saying, let's glom onto this. And for a kid brought up in the Catholic church, there was a certain eeriness to this, ooh, we're reading about this. It's like, is it really going to be Satanism? And cause I was very nervous that we were not allowed even watch the Exorcist in our home, ever. You know, I didn't see the Exorcist until I was like out of high school. And I think also the character as he looks is just this really trippy look, right. At that point, if you're not familiar with the character, he's this buff dude, his hair flares up into horns, he just wears a Cape and he carries a giant trident, he's got a massive pentacle, I think a flaming pentacle, you know, etched in his chest. Um, he's ready to do business, ya know, in some strange form there. So for me, he was the one I glommed on to the most. [00:28:00] Mike: Yeah. Well, I mean, it was that whole era, it was just, it was Gothic horror brought back and Satanism and witchcraft is definitely a part of that genre. Dan: Sure. Mike: So, that said, kind of like any trend horror comics, you know, they have their rise and then they started to kind of fall out of popularity by the end of the seventies or the early eighties. I feel like it was a definite end of the era when both House of Mystery and Ghost Writer ended in 1983. But you know, there were still some individual books that were having success, but it just, it doesn't feel like Marvel did a lot with horror comics during the eighties. DC definitely had some luck with Alan Moore's run of the Swamp Thing. And then there was stuff like Hellblazer and Sandman. Which, as I mentioned, we're doing our book club episodes for, but also gave rise to Vertigo Comics, you know, in the early nineties. Not to say that horror comics still weren't a thing during this time, but it seems like the majority of them were coming from indie publishers. Off the top of my head, one example I think of still is Dead World, which basically created a zombie apocalypse [00:29:00] universe. And it started with Aero comics. It was created in the late eighties, and it's still going today. I think it's coming out from IDW now. But at the same time, it's not like American stopped enjoying horror stuff. Like this was the decade where we got Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm street, Evil Dead, Hellraiser, Poltergeist, Child's Play, just to name a few of the franchises that we were introduced to. And, I mentioned Hellraiser. I love Hellraiser, and Dan, I know that you have a pretty special connection to that brand. Dan: I do. I put pins in my face every night just to kind of keep my complexion, you know? Mike: So, let's transition over to the nineties and Marvel and let's start that off with Epic Comics. Epic started in the eighties, and it was basically a label that would print, create our own comics. And they eventually started to use label to produce, you know, in quotes, mature comics. So Wikipedia says that this was your first editorial job at Marvel was with the [00:30:00] Epic Line. Is that correct? Dan: Well, I'll go back and maybe do just a little correction on Epic's mission if you don't mind. Mike: Yeah, yeah. Dan: You know, first, which is it was always creator owned, and it did start as crude. And, but I don't think that ever then transitioned into more mature comics, sometimes that just was what creator-owned comics were. Right. That was just part of the mission. And so as a creator-owned imprint, it could be anything, it could be the silliest thing, it could be the most mature thing. So it was always, you know, part of what it was doing, and part of the mission of doing creator-owned comics, and Archie Goodwin was the editor in chief of that line, was really to give creators and in to Marvel. If we gave them a nice place to play with their properties, maybe they would want to go play in the mainstream Marvel. So you might get a creator who would never want to work for Marvel, for whatever reason, they would have a great Epic experience doing a range of things, and then they would go into this. So there was always levels of maturity and we always looked at it as very eclectic and challenging, you know, sometimes in a good [00:31:00] way. So I'll have to go back to Wikipedia and maybe correct them. My first job was actually, I was on the Marvel side and it was as the assistant to the assistant, to the editor in chief. So I would do all of the grunt work and the running around that the assistant to the editor in chief didn't want to do. And she would turn to me and say, Dan, you're going to go run around the city and find this thing for Jim Shooter. Now, then I did that for about five or six months, I was still in film school, and then left, which everyone was aghast, you don't leave Marvel comics, by choice. And, but I had, I was still in school. I had a summer job already sort of set up, and I left to go take that exciting summer job. And then I was called over the summer because there was an opening in the Epic line. And they want to know if I'd be interested in taking on this assistant editor's job. And I said, it would have to be part-time cause I still had a semester to finish in school, but they were intrigued and I was figuring, oh, well this is just kind of guaranteed job. [00:32:00] Never knowing it was going to become career-like, and so that was then sort of my second job. Mike: Awesome. So this is going to bring us to the character of Terror. So he was introduced as a character in the Shadow Line Saga, which was one of those mature comics, it was like a mature superhero universe. That took place in a few different series under the Epic imprint. There was Dr. Zero, there was St. George, and then there was Power Line. Right. Dan: That's correct, yep. Mike: And so the Shadow Line Saga took his name from the idea that there were these beings called Shadows, they were basically super powered immortal beings. And then Terror himself first appeared as Shrek. He's this weird looking enforcer for a crime family in St. George. And he becomes kind of a recurring nemesis for the main character. He's kind of like the street-level boss while it's hinting that there's going to be a eventual confrontation between the main character of St. George and Dr. Zero, who is kind of [00:33:00] a Superman character, but it turns out he has been manipulating humanity for, you know, millennia at this point. Dan: I think you've encapsulated it quite well. Mike: Well, thank you. So the Shadow Line Saga, that only lasted for about what a year or two? Dan: Probably a couple of years, maybe a little over. There was about, I believe, eight to nine issues of each of the, the main comics, the ones you just cited. And then we segued those over to, sort of, uh, an omni series we call Critical Mass, which brought together all three characters or storylines. And then try to tell this, excuse the pun, epic, you know story, which will advance them all. And so wrapped up a lot of loose ends and, um, you know, became quite involved now. Mike: Okay. Dan: It ran about seven or eight issues. Mike: Okay. Now a couple of years after Terror was introduced under the Epic label, Marvel introduced a new Ghost Rider series in 1990 that hit that sweet spot of like nineties extreme with a capital X and, and, you know, [00:34:00] it also gave us a spooky anti heroes like that Venn diagram, where it was like spooky and extreme and rides a motorcycle and right in the middle, you had Ghost Rider, but from what I understand the series did really well, commercially for Marvel. Comichron, which is the, the comic sales tracking site, notes that early issues were often in the top 10 books sold each month for 91. Like there are eight issues of Ghost Rider, books that are in the top 100 books for that year. So it's not really surprising that Marvel decided to go in really hard with supernatural characters. And in 1992, we had this whole batch of horror hero books launch. We had Spirits of Vengeance, which was a spinoff from Ghost Rider, which saw a Ghost Rider teaming up with Johnny Blaze, and it was the original Ghost Writer. And he didn't have a hellfire motorcycle this time, but he had a shotgun that would fire hell fire, you know, and he had a ponytail, it was magnificent. And then there was also the Night Stalkers, [00:35:00] which was a trio of supernatural investigators. There was Hannibal King and Blade and oh, I'm blanking on the third one. Dan: Frank Drake. Mike: Yeah. And Frank Drake was a vampire, right? Dan: And he was a descendant of Dracula, but also was a vampire who had sort of been cured. Um, he didn't have a hunger for human blood, but he still had a necessity for some type of blood and possessed all the attributes, you know, of a vampire, you know, you could do all the powers, couldn't go out in the daylight, that sort of thing. So, the best and worst of both worlds. Mike: Right. And then on top of that, we had the Dark Hold, which it's kind of like the Marvel equivalent of the Necronomicon is the best way I can describe it. Dan: Absolutely. Yup. Mike: And that's showed up in Agents of Shield since then. And they just recently brought it into the MCU. That was a thing that showed up in Wanda Vision towards the end. So that's gonna clearly reappear. And then we also got Morbius who is the living vampire from [00:36:00] Spider-Man and it's great. He shows up in this series and he's got this very goth rock outfit, is just it's great. Dan: Which looked a lot like how Len Kaminsky dressed in those days in all honesty. Mike: Yeah, okay. Dan: So Len will now kill me for that, but. Mike: Oh, well, but yeah, so these guys were all introduced via a crossover event called Rise of the Midnight Sons, which saw all of these heroes, you know, getting their own books. And then they also teamed up with Dr. Strange to fight against Lilith the mother of demons. And she was basically trying to unleash her monstrous spawn across the world. And this was at the same time the Terror wound up invading the Marvel Universe. So if you were going to give an elevator pitch for Terror in the Marvel Universe, how would you describe him? Dan: I actually wrote one down, I'll read it to you, cause you, you know, you put that there and was like, oh gosh, I got to like now pitch this. A mythic manifestation of fear exists in our times, a top dollar mercenary for hire using a supernatural [00:37:00] ability to attach stolen body parts to himself in order to activate the inherit ability of the original owner. A locksmith's hand or a marksman, his eye or a kickboxer his legs, his gruesome talent gives him the edge to take on the jobs no one else can, he accomplishes with Savage, restyle, scorn, snark, and impeccable business acumen. So. Mike: That's so good. It's so good. I just, I have to tell you the twelve-year-old Mike is like giddy to be able to talk to you about this. Dan: I was pretty giddy when I was writing this stuff. So that's good. Mike: So how did Terror wind up crossing into the Marvel Universe? Like, because he just showed shows up in a couple of cameos in some Daredevil issues that you also wrote. I believe. Dan: Yeah, I don't know if he'd showed up before the book itself launched that might've, I mean, the timing was all around the same time. But everybody who was involved with Terror, love that Terror and Terror Incorporated, which was really actual title. Love the hell out of [00:38:00] the book, right. And myself, the editors, Carl Potts, who was the editor in chief, we all knew it was weird and unique. And, at one point when I, you know, said to Carl afterwards, well I'm just gonna take this whole concept and go somewhere else with it, he said, you can't, you made up something that, you know, can't really be replicated without people knowing exactly what you're doing. It's not just another guy with claws or a big muscle guy. How many people grab other people's body parts? So I said, you know, fie on me, but we all loved it. So when, the Shadowline stuff kind of went away, uh, and he was sort of kicking out there is still, uh, Carl came to me one day and, and said, listen, we love this character. We're thinking of doing something with horror in Marvel. This was before the Rise of the Midnight Sons. So it kind of came a little bit ahead of that. I think this eventually would become exactly the Rise of the Midnight Sons, but we want to bring together a lot of these unused horror characters, like Werewolf by Night, Man Thing, or whatever, but we want a central kind of [00:39:00] character who, navigates them or maybe introduces them. Wasn't quite clear what, and they thought Terror, or Shrek as he still was at that point, could be that character. He could almost be a Crypt Keeper, maybe, it wasn't quite fully baked. And, so we started to bounce this around a little bit, and then I got a call from Carl and said, yeah, that's off. We're going to do something else with these horror characters, which again would eventually become probably the Midnight Sons stuff. But he said, but we still want to do something with it. You know? So my disappointment went to, oh, what do you mean? How could we do anything? He said, what if you just bring him into the Marvel Universe? We won't say anything about what he did before, and just use him as a character and start over with him operating as this high-end mercenary, you know, what's he going to do? What is Terror Incorporated, and how does he do business within the Marvel world? And so I said, yes, of course, I'm not going to say that, you know, any quicker and just jumped into [00:40:00] it. And I didn't really worry about the transition, you know, I wasn't thinking too much about, okay. How does he get from Shadow Line world, to earth 616 or whatever, Marcus McLaurin, who was the editor. God bless him, for years would resist any discussion or no, no, it's not the same character. Marcus, it's the same character I'm using the same lines. I'm having him referenced the same fact that he's had different versions of the word terrors, his name at one point, he makes a joke about the Saint George complex. I mean, it's the same character. Mike: Yeah. Dan: But , you know, Marcus was a very good soldier to the Marvel hierarchy. So we just really brought him over and we just went all in on him in terms of, okay, what could a character like this play in the Marvel world? And he played really well in certain instances, but he certainly was very different than probably anything else that was going on at the time. Mike: Yeah. I mean, there certainly wasn't a character like him before. So all the Wikias, like [00:41:00] Wikipedia, all the Marvel fan sites, they all list Daredevil 305 as Terror's first official appearance in. Dan: Could be. Mike: Yeah, but I want to talk about that for a second, because that is, I think the greatest villain that I've ever seen in a Marvel comic, which was the Surgeon General, who is this woman who is commanding an army of like, I mean, basically it's like a full-scale operation of that urban myth of - Dan: Yeah. Mike: -the dude goes home with an attractive woman that he meets at the club. And then he wakes up in a bathtub full of ice and he's missing organs. Dan: Yeah. You know, sometimes, you know, that was certainly urban myth territory, and I was a big student of urban myths and that was the sort of thing that I think would show up in the headlines every three to six months, but always one of those probably friend of a friend stories that. Mike: Oh yeah. Dan: Like a razor an apple or something like that, that never actually sort of tracks back. Mike: Well, I mean, the thing now is it's all edibles in candy and they're like, all the news outlets are showing officially [00:42:00] branded edibles. Which, what daddy Warbucks mother fucker. Jessika: Mike knows my stand on this. Like, no, no, nobody is buying expensive edibles. And then putting them in your child's candy. Like, No, no, that's stupid. Dan: No, it's the, it's the, easier version of putting the LSD tab or wasting your pins on children in Snickers bars. Jessika: Right. Dan: Um, but but I think, that, that storyline is interesting, Mike, cause it's the, it's one of the few times I had a plotline utterly just completely rejected by an editor because I think I was doing so much horror stuff at the time. Cause I was also concurrently doing the Hellraiser work, the Night Breed work. It would have been the beginning of the Night Stalkers work, cause I was heavily involved with the whole Midnight Sons work. And I went so far on the first plot and it was so grizzly and so gruesome that, Ralph Macchio who was the editor, called me up and said, yeah, this title is Daredevil. It's not Hellraiser. So I had to kind of back off [00:43:00] and realize, uh, yeah, I put a little too much emphasis on the grisliness there. So. Mike: That's amazing. Dan: She was an interesting, exploration of a character type. Mike: I'm really sad that she hasn't showed back up, especially cause it feels like it'd be kind of relevant these days with, you know, how broken the medical system is here in America. Dan: Yeah. It's, it's funny. And I never played with her again, which is, I think one of my many Achilles heels, you know, as I would sometimes introduce characters and then I would just not go back to them for some reason, I was always trying to kind of go forward onto something new. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Is there anything about Terror's character that you related to at the time, or now even. Dan: Um, probably being very imperious, very complicated, having a thing for long coats. Uh, I think all of those probably, you know, work then and now, I've kind of become convinced weirdly enough over time, that Terror was a character who [00:44:00] and I, you know, I co-created him with Margaret Clark and, and Klaus Janson, but I probably did the most work with him over the years, you know? So I feel maybe a little bit more ownership, but I've sort of become convinced that he was just his own thing, and he just existed out there in the ether, and all I was ultimately was a conduit that I was, I was just channeling this thing into our existence because he came so fully formed and whenever I would write him, he would just kind of take over the page and take over the instance. That's always how I've viewed him, which is different than many of the other things that I've written. Mike: He's certainly a larger than life personality, and in every sense of that expression. Jessika: Yes. Mike: I'm sorry for the terrible pun. Okay. So we've actually talked a bit about Terror, but I [00:45:00] feel like we need to have Jessika provide us with an overall summary of his brief series. Jessika: So the series is based on the titular character, of course, Terror, who is unable to die and has the ability to replace body parts and gains the skill and memory of that limb. So he might use the eye of a sharpshooter to improve his aim or the arm of an artist for a correct rendering. And because of the inability for his body to die, the dude looks gnarly. His face is a sick green color. He has spike whiskers coming out of the sides of his face, and he mostly lacks lips, sometimes he has lips, but he mostly lacks lips. So we always has this grim smile to his face. And he also has a metal arm, which is awesome. I love that. And he interchanges all of the rest of his body parts constantly. So in one scene he'll have a female arm and in another one it'll sport, an other worldly tentacle. [00:46:00] He states that his business is fear, but he is basically a paid mercenary, very much a dirty deeds, although not dirt cheap; Terror charges, quite a hefty sum for his services, but he is willing to do almost anything to get the job done. His first job is ending someone who has likewise immortal, air quotes, which involves finding an activating a half demon in order to open a portal and then trick a demon daddy to hand over the contract of immortality, you know, casual. He also has run-ins with Wolverine, Dr. Strange Punisher, Silver Sable, and Luke Cage. It's action packed, and you legitimately have no idea what new body part he is going to lose or gain in the moment, or what memory is going to pop up for him from the donor. And it keeps the reader guessing because Terror has no limitations. Mike: Yeah. Dan: was, I was so looking forward to hearing what your recap was going to be. I love that, so I just [00:47:00] want to say that. Jessika: Thank you. I had a lot of fun reading this. Not only was the plot and just the narrative itself, just rolling, but the art was fantastic. I mean, the things you can do with a character like that, there truly aren't any limits. And so it was really interesting to see how everything fell together and what he was doing each moment to kind of get out of whatever wacky situation he was in at the time.So. And his, and his quips, I just, the quips were just, they give me life. Mike: They're so good. Like there was one moment where he was sitting there and playing with the Lament Configuration, and the first issue, which I, I never noticed that before, as long as we ready this time and I was like, oh, that's great. And then he also made a St. George reference towards the end of the series where he was talking about, oh, I knew another guy who had a St. George complex. Dan: Right, right. Right, Mike: Like I love those little Easter eggs. Speaking of Easter eggs, there are a lot of Clive Barker Easter eggs throughout that whole series. Dan: [00:48:00] Well, That's it. That was so parallel at the time, you know. Mike: So around that time was when you were editing and then writing for the HellRaiser series and the Night Breed series, right? Dan: Yes. Certainly writing for them. Yeah. I mean, I did some consulting editing on the HellRaiser and other Barker books, after our lift staff, but, primarily writing at that point. Mike: Okay. Cause I have Hellraiser number one, and I think you're listed as an editor on it. Dan: I was, I started the whole Hellraiser anthology with other folks, you know, but I was the main driver, and I think that was one of the early instigators of kind of the rebirth of horror at that time. And, you know, going back to something you said earlier, you know, for many years, I was always, pressing Archie Goodwin, who worked at Warren, and worked on Erie, and worked on all those titles. You know, why can't we do a new horror anthology and he was quite sage like and saying, yeah. It'd be great to do it, but it's not going to sell there's no hook, right? There's no connection, you know, just horror for her sake. And it was when Clive Barker [00:49:00] came into our offices, and so I want to do something with Archie Goodwin. And then the two of them said, Hellraiser can be the hook. Right. Hellraiser can be the way in to sort of create an anthology series, have an identifiable icon, and then we developed out from there with Clive, with a couple of other folks Erik Saltzgaber, Phil Nutman, myself, Archie Goodwin, like what would be the world? And then the Bible that would actually give you enough, breadth and width to play with these characters that wouldn't just always be puzzle box, pinhead, puzzle box, pinhead, you know? And so we developed a fairly large set of rules and mythologies allowed for that. Mike: That's so cool. I mean, there really wasn't anything at all, like Hellraiser when it came out. Like, and there's still not a lot like it, but I - Jessika: Yeah, I was going to say, wait, what else? Mike: I mean, I feel like I've read other books since then, where there's that blending of sexuality and [00:50:00] horror and morality, because at the, at the core of it, Hellraiser often feels like a larger morality play. Dan: Now, you know, I'm going to disagree with you on that one. I mean, I think sometimes we let it slip in a morality and we played that out. But I think Hellraiser is sort of find what you want out of it. Right. You go back to the first film and it's, you know, what's your pleasure, sir? You know, it was when the guy hands up the book and the Centobites, you know, or angels to some demons, to others. So I think the book was at its best and the movies are at their best when it's not so much about the comeuppance as it is about find your place in here. Right? And that can be that sort of weird exploration of many different things. Mike: That's cool. So going back to Terror. Because we've talked about like how much we enjoyed the character and everything, I want to take a moment to talk about each of our favorite Terror moments. Dan: Okay. Mike: So Dan, why don't you start? What was your favorite moment for Terror [00:51:00] to write or going back to read? Dan: It's a great question, one of the toughest, because again, I had such delight in the character and felt such a connection, you know, in sort of channeling him in a way I could probably find you five, ten moments per issue, but, I actually think it was the it's in the first issue. And was probably the first line that sort of came to me. And then I wrote backwards from it, which was this, got your nose bit. And you know, it's the old gag of like when a parent's playing with a child and, you know, grabs at the nose and uses the thumb to represent the nose and says, got your nose. And there's a moment in that issue where I think he's just plummeted out of a skyscraper. He's, you know, fallen down into a police car. He's basically shattered. And this cop or security guard is kind of coming over to him and, and he just reaches out and grabs the guy's nose, you know, rips his arm off or something or legs to start to replace himself and, and just says, got your nose, but it's, but it's all a [00:52:00] build from this inner monologue that he's been doing. And so he's not responding to anything. He's not doing a quip to anything. He's just basically telling us a story and ending it with this, you know, delivery that basically says the guy has a complete condescending attitude and just signals that we're in his space. Like he doesn't need to kind of like do an Arnold response to something it's just, he's in his own little world moments I always just kind of go back to that got your nose moment, which is just creepy and crazy and strange. Mike: As soon as you mentioned that I was thinking of the panel that that was from, because it was such a great moment. I think it was the mob enforcers that had shot him up and he had jumped out of the skyscraper four and then they came down to finish him off and he wound up just ripping them apart so that he could rebuild himself. All right, Jessika, how about you? Jessika: I really enjoyed the part where Terror fights with sharks in order to free Silver Sable and Luke Cage. [00:53:00] It was so cool. There was just absolutely no fear as he went at the first shark head-on and, and then there were like five huge bloodthirsty sharks in the small tank. And Terror's just like, what an inconvenience. Oh, well. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Like followed by a quippy remark, like in his head, of course. And I feel like he's such a solitary character that it makes sense that he would have such an active internal monologue. I find myself doing that. Like, you know, I mean, I have a dog, so he usually gets the brunt of it, but he, you know, it's, it is that you start to form like, sort of an internal conversation if you don't have that outside interaction. Dan: Right. Jessika: And I think a lot of us probably relate to that though this pandemic. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: But the one-liner thoughts, like, again, they make those scenes in my opinion, and it gave pause for levity. We don't have to be serious about this because really isn't life or death for Terror. We know that, and he just reminds us that constantly by just he's always so damn nonchalant. [00:54:00] Dan: Yeah. He does have a very, I'm not going to say suave, but it's, uh, you know, that sort of very, I've got this, you know, sort of attitude to it. Mike: I would, say that he's suave when he wants to be, I mean, like the last issue he's got his whiskers tied back and kind of a ponytail. Dan: Oh yeah. Jessika: Oh yeah. Dan: Richard Pace did a great job with that. Mike: Where he's dancing with his assistant in the restaurant and it's that final scene where he's got that really elegant tuxedo. Like. Dan: Yeah. It's very beautiful. Mike: I say that he can be suave and he wants to be. So I got to say like my favorite one, it was a visual gag that you guys did, and it's in issue six when he's fighting with the Punisher and he's got this, long guns sniper. And he shoots the Punisher point blank, and Terror's, like at this point he's lost his legs for like the sixth time. Like he seems to lose his legs, like once an issue where he's just a torso waddling around on his hands. And so he shoots him the force skids him back. [00:55:00] And I legit could not stop laughing for a good minute. Like I was just cackling when I read that. So I think all of us agree that it's those moments of weird levity that really made the series feel like something special. Dan: I'm not quite sure we're going to see that moment reenacted at the Disney Pavilion, you know, anytime soon. But, that would be pretty awesome if they ever went that route. Mike: Well, yeah, so, I mean, like, let's talk about that for a minute, because one of the main ways that I consume Marvel comics these days is through Marvel unlimited, and Terror is a pretty limited presence there. There's a few issues of various Deadpool series. There's the Marvel team up that I think Robert Kirkman did, where Terror shows up and he has some pretty cool moments in there. And then there's a couple of random issues of the 1990s Luke Cage series Cage, but like the core series, the Marvel max stuff, his appearance in books like Daredevil and Wolverine, they just don't seem to be available for consumption via the. App Like I had to go through my personal [00:56:00] collection to find all this stuff. And like, are the rights just more complicated because it was published under the Epic imprint and that was create her own stuff, like do you know? Dan: No, I mean, it wouldn't be it's choice, right. He's probably perceived as a, if people within the editorial group even know about him, right. I was reading something recently where some of the current editorial staff had to be schooled on who Jack Kirby was. So, I'm not sure how much exposure or, you know, interest there would be, you know, to that. I mean, I don't know why everything would be on Marvin unlimited. It doesn't seem like it requires anything except scanning the stuff and putting it up there. But there wouldn't be any rights issues. Marvel owned the Shadow Line, Marvel owns the Terror Incorporated title, it would have been there. So I'm not really sure why it wouldn't be. And maybe at some point it will, but, that's just an odd emission. I mean, for years, which I always felt like, well, what did I do wrong? I [00:57:00] mean, you can find very little of the Daredevil work I did, which was probably very well known and very well received in, in reprints. It would be like, there'd be reprints of almost every other storyline and then there'd be a gap around some of those things. And now they started to reappear as they've done these omnibus editions. Mike: Well, yeah, I mean, you know, and going back the awareness of the character, anytime I talk about Terror to people, it's probably a three out of four chance that they won't have heard of them before. I don't know if you're a part of the comic book historians group on Facebook? Dan: I'm not. No. Mike: So there's a lot of people who are really passionate about comic book history, and they talk about various things. And so when I was doing research for this episode originally, I was asking about kind of the revamp of supernatural heroes. And I said, you know, this was around the same time as Terror. And several people sat there and said, we haven't heard of Terror before. And I was like, he's great. He's amazing. You have to look them up. But yeah, it seems like, you know, to echo what you stated, it seems like there's just a lack of awareness about the character, which I feel is a genuine shame. And that's part of the [00:58:00] reason that I wanted to talk about him in this episode. Dan: Well, thank you. I mean, I love the spotlight and I think anytime I've talked to somebody about it who knew it, I've never heard somebody who read the book said, yeah, that sucks. Right. I've heard that about other things, but not about this one, invariably, if they read it, they loved it. And they were twisted and kind of got into it. But did have a limited run, right? It was only 13 issues. It didn't get the spotlight, it was sort of promised it kind of, it came out with a grouping of other mercenary titles at the time. There was a new Punisher title. There was a Silver Sable. There was a few other titles in this grouping. Everyone was promised a certain amount of additional PR, which they got; when it got to Terror. It didn't get that it like, they pulled the boost at the last minute that might not have made a difference. And I also think maybe it was a little bit ahead of its time in certain attitudes crossing the line between horror and [00:59:00] humor and overtness of certain things, at least for Marvel, like where do you fit this? I think the readers are fine. Readers are great about picking up on stuff and embracing things. For Marvel, it was kind of probably, and I'm not dissing them. I never got like any negative, you know, we're gonna launch this title, what we're going to dismiss it. But I just also think, unless it's somebody like me driving it or the editor driving it, or Carl Potts, who was the editor in chief of that division at that point, you know, unless they're pushing it, there's plenty of other characters Right. For, things to get behind. But I think again, anytime it kind of comes up, it is definitely the one that I hear about probably the most and the most passionately so that's cool in its own way. Mike: Yeah, I think I remember reading an interview that you did, where you were talking about how there was originally going to be like a gimmick cover or a trading card or something like that. Dan: Yeah. Mike: So what was the, what was the gimmick going to be for Terror number one? Dan: What was the gimmick going to be? I don't know, actually, I if I knew I [01:00:00] can't remember anymore. But it was going to be totally gimmicky, as all those titles and covers were at the time. So I hope not scratch and sniff like a, uh, rotting bodies odor, although that would have been kind of in-character and cool. Mike: I mean, this was the era of the gimmick cover. Dan: Oh, absolutely. Mike: Like,that was when that was when we had Bloodstrike come out and it was like the thermographic printing, so you could rub the blood and it would disappear. Force Works is my favorite one, you literally unfold the cover and it's like a pop-up book. Dan: Somebody actually keyed me in. There actually was like a Terror trading card at one point. Mike: Yeah. Dan: Like after the fact, which I was like, shocked. Mike: I have that, that's from Marvel Universe series four. Dan: Yeah. we did a pretty good job with it actually. And then even as we got to the end of the run, you know, we, and you can sort of see us where we're trying to shift certain aspects of the book, you know, more into the mainstream Marvel, because they said, well, we'll give you another seven issues or something, you know, to kind of get the numbers up. Mike: Right. Dan: And they pulled the plug, you know, even before that. So, uh, that's why [01:01:00] the end kind of comes a bit abruptly and we get that final coda scene, you know, that Richard Pace did such a nice job with. Mike: Yeah. I mean, it felt like it wrapped it up, you know, and they gave you that opportunity, which I was really kind of grateful for, to be honest. Dan: Yeah. and subsequently, I don't know what's going on. I know there was that David Lapham, you know, series, you did a couple of those, which I glanced at, I know I kind of got in the way of it a little bit too, not in the way, but I just said, remember to give us a little created by credits in that, but I didn't read those. And then, I know he was in the League of Losers at one point, which just didn't sound right to me. And, uh. Mike: It's actually. Okay. So I'm going to, I'm going to say this cause, it's basically a bunch of, kind of like the B to C listers for the most part. And. So they're called the Legal Losers. I think it's a really good story, and I actually really like what they do with Terror. He gets, she's now Spider Woman, I think it's, Anya Corazon, but it was her original incarnation of, Arana. And she's got that spider armor that like comes out of her arm. And so she [01:02:00] dies really on and he gets her arm. And then, Dan: That's cool. Mike: What happens is he makes a point of using the armor that she has. And so he becomes this weird amalgamation of Terror and Arana's armored form, which is great. Dan: Was that the Kirkman series? Is that the one that he did or. Mike: yeah. That was part of Marvel Team-Up. Dan: Okay. Mike: it was written by Robert Kirkman. Dan: Well, then I will, I will look it up. Mike: Yeah. And that one's on Marvel unlimited and genuinely a really fun story as I remembered. It's been a couple of years since I read it, but yeah. Dan: Very cool. Mike: So we've talked about this a little bit, but, so

The future of commerce is being built all around us, and while so much of the industry changes on a daily basis, there are still some fundamental truths that anchor brands and allow them to find success in the digital and retail worlds. On this roundtable episode of Up Next in Commerce, I got to dig into exactly what those foundational elements are with Mike Black, the CMO of Profitero, and Diana Haussling, the VP and General Manager of Digital Commerce at Colgate-Palmolive.This was such a great discussion that touched on so many different topics that brands big and small should be paying attention to. For example, what are the three key levers that influence ecommerce sales? How should you be developing KPIs that will actually mean something and lead to more profitability and growth? Why is omnichannel the way of the future and what channels should companies be investing in? Mike and Diana have the answers, which they have gathered through long and impressive histories in the ecommerce world — Mike worked at Staples and Nielsen, and Diana has held roles at places like Campbell's, General Mills, and Hersheys. These two really know their stuff and they were so much fun to talk to. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!  Main Takeaways:Pulling the Right Levers: There are three basic levers that influence ecommerce sales: availability, findability, and conversion tactics. If you can't ensure that you reliably have products to offer people, that those people have an easy way to find the products, and that they are given reasons to actually make a purchase, you won't be able to grow or increase profits. You Reap What You Sow: Being a first-mover on any platform is one of the investments that has the highest potential payoffs. Companies that took Amazon and Instacart seriously from the get-go have created a huge advantage for themselves in the ecommerce space. By having a head start in one place, you also free yourself up to explore elsewhere while your competition tries to keep up in the first spot you've already dominated.You Want Them to Want You: As a brand, you have to firmly establish a value proposition to present to customers, especially when you are trying to extract information or gather data about them. Give customers concrete reasons to want to engage with your brand and earn their trust so that they are more likely to keep coming back. Then use the data they give you to provide even better experiences and products over and over.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we're ready for what's next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Hello, everyone. And welcome back to Up Next in Commerce. I'm your host, Stephanie Postles, CEO at mission.org. Today, we are back with an awesome round table with some amazing folks. First up, we have Diana Haussling, who currently serves as the VP and General Manager of Digital Commerce at Colgate-Palmolive. Welcome.Diana:Thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited for this conversation.Stephanie:Me too. And next we have Mike Black, who's the CMO of Profitero. Mike, welcome to the show.Mike:Thank you very much. Also, very excited.Stephanie:Yeah. This is going to be a good one. I can just feel it. I can see the energy between you guys. I can see you got a lot to say. So, it's going to be a good one. So, I would love to start as I always do with a bit of background so people know who we're chatting with. So, Diana, maybe if you could start with… I see you have a long history in the world of CPG work for… I mean the most well-known brands that I can think of, and I was hoping if you can kind of go through that journey a bit?Diana:Yeah. So, I've been lucky enough to work at four major CPG organizations. I cut my teeth with Hershey in sales and really was able to understand, not only retail, but direct customer selling. Moved over to General Mills where I stiffed my toe in the water in marketing. Loved working on those brands and getting a taste of a larger organization. And then I shifted to Campbell's where I spent the bulk of my time. Campbell's will always have a special place in my heart.Diana:I spent a lot of times there, ping-pong back and forth between marketing and sales. I created a couple of roles for myself. One of which was the lead of e-commerce, where I established the e-commerce organization there before leaving and coming to my new love, Colgate-Palmolive. Super excited to be part of the Colgate family. I lead a digital commerce team called the Hive. It had that name before I got there. But I'm attributing it to the Beyonce now that I'm there.Stephanie:I love that.Diana:I'm so super excited to be at Colgate. There's just a ton of energy and growth around e-commerce and our primary focus is on digital transformation which is a perfect segue for this conversation.Stephanie:Yes. I can't wait to get into that. All right, Mike, a bit about you.Mike:Yeah. So, I started my career in retail. I started my first real job was at Staples, the office products company. And I was responsible for public relations there. Opening new stores in different markets, and really got a firsthand look at how retailers, traditional retailers were being disrupted by e-commerce. The time that I was at Staples was right at the time that Amazon started to make its ways. And I could see the impact of that just in the way that Staples was going to market, and they started to really dial up their own e-commerce efforts to combat.Mike:So, it was really interesting to see that pivotal moment inside from a retailer, classic brick and mortar retailer go through that transformation. So, I started my career there, then I started working in startups. And I eventually found my way to Nielsen. So, I worked in the part of Nielsen where we tested new product innovations for CPGs and worked in their measurement and analytics. And while I was at Nielsen, that's my first exposure to e-commerce and first exposure to this new emerging space of analytics.Mike:And I knew this was the place I wanted to be. It was in the e-commerce space, the intersection of e-commerce and data analytics, and that led me to Profitero where I am now. And we're getting to work with smart people like Diana who is someone I listen to her speak, and then I take notes. And then I sort of borrow some of her wisdom, and she's someone I'm always learning a lot from.Diana:Right back at you, Mike. And if you don't follow him on LinkedIn, you should, because he leads all social for Profitero, which isn't in his CMO title.Stephanie:Wow. I like this. Diana's like your hype woman. So, this is a good match we have here.Mike:The feeling is mutual.Stephanie:Yeah. That's awesome. So, Diana, I mean I'm thinking about you starting an e-commerce team at Campbell's. And then coming to Colgate where they already kind of have one set up, and I'd love to hear a bit about what is it like now versus then? Because I can just imagine you being like, “This is important everyone and I need some budget for it and this is going to be a thing.” Whereas now, it's like obvious. Like, “Yeah. Jump in. Let's go deep and spread the word.”Diana:Yeah. I think, and I'm sure this will ring true to a lot of my fellow CPGers and the struggle on the e-commerce business. If you're at an organization, and this is a completely new space, but you have leadership that definitely sees the potential and the opportunity, it really becomes on you to not only operationalize, but really help leaders understand how to translate e-commerce, how to translate digital to a P&L, to growth projectors, to a strat plan. All those things CPG people are really comfortable with.Diana:And then also to really think about not only what your org needs to be like to get things off the ground, but where it needs to go in the next three years. And typically, you're not in the position where the organization truly understands how to make that work. So, there is a kind of this hybrid role that digital commerce folks have to play in emerging organizations where they're really helping folks navigate, what IT support do I need? What supply chain support do I need? Where should everything sit?Diana:And you can do it on your own, but you can also partner. So, there's a number of groups you can partner with. I happen to know that Profitero has done a lot in this space, and they have, basically, a journey for organizations that you can leverage. But it really is like starting from scratch and building a case for growth. I think the biggest question that you get when it comes to just starting up in an organization is how is this incremental to the business?Diana:And my pushback to that always is, it's not about incrementality. Incrementality is a bonus. It really is all about protecting your base business, going where consumers are going, and ensuring that you future proof your organization for the reality of what our new world is, which is omni. It's slightly different when you come into an organization like Colgate who already has a established e-commerce team or Center of Excellence.Diana:I definitely feel like I came to the land of the willing. Everyone, from the top down, is really excited and energized by the space. And that it's energizing, but it also means you have to redirect all of those good intentions and positive energy to the right focus and the right goal. So, some of the work when you're in a more established organization is really, how do I harness all of those resources when they are abundant? And make sure they're spent in the right places and they deliver. Because there's going to come a time where leadership is going to look back on that cash that they threw in e-commerce, and they're going to say, "What did I get for it?" And you better have delivered on it.Diana:I think the other piece is making sure you understand how to integrate across the organization. It's important to have a strong center, but it's even more important to make sure everybody understands the role that they play in digital, in e-commerce regardless of if they're on the badass teams like the Hives of the world.Stephanie:Yeah. I mean the one thing I hear a lot of brands struggling with though are around metrics. I mean from working at bigger companies in the past, I've seen people kind of come up with KPIs in a way that, it's kind of made up. Stephanie:So, when thinking about big and small brands thinking through like KPIs and metrics, feels like kind of a messy world where when you get to the bigger organizations, some of them can start to feel like they're just kind of being forced. Like, "Oh, see, we have it. And if you look in three years, maybe it's like not even relevant. And then the smaller companies are like, "Well, how do we even start?"Stephanie:And so, I'm wondering, how do you go about even thinking about developing KPIs, thinking about brand building, thinking about conversions. Is there some kind of allocation you had going into it of like, "Here's what should be spent on just holding down the fort, and here's what should be spent on acquiring new customers and thinking through the LTV and everything."Diana:For me, that's a marriage between two points. It's the external data and viewpoint. So, where do you have an actual right to win? Where are the white space opportunities? And where are their growth that you're not getting your fair share of? Really understanding that industry landscape is really critical to forming your strategy.Diana:What you want to avoid is just forming a strategy that's based off of internal goals and objectives, because you may not be able to deliver against that. It's a marriage between the two. Then, it's getting really clear internally on what winning looks like. There is a high cost to acquisition, but there also is a huge penalty if you don't ride the momentum and the wave of growth while it's happening.Diana:I use Skype and Zoom during the pandemic as an example of that. Skype had a foothold on the industry. Zoom came in out of nowhere and won the pandemic. You don't want to be Skype. So, how do you ensure that you position yourself and your brands, so you not only understand what the CEO and the board wants you to deliver, but also you're pushing on what are the right levers in order to get there? Because your brick and mortar business is not going to mirror your e-commerce business. It's going to be slightly different.Diana:And then you have to understand those points where there's intersection. So, right now, we're seeing growth across all modalities or modes of shopping. So, there is this real digital impact on the physical brick and mortar footprint. And the onus is on the digital commerce team to make sure they understand what that impact can do, and they're not only influencing the KPIs that drive e-commerce, but they're helping the brick and mortar business understand the KPIs they need to maintain competitive edge. But also to hold their shelf space, their promo space, and their capacity within the total retailer environment.Mike:Yeah. Just to build on what Diana said. I've noticed a shift just in vocabulary and positioning in the last probably three months with e-commerce leaders. They used to really talk about e-commerce as e-commerce, and it was really about winning in that channel. And I've noticed this language shift towards now repositioning around this idea of digitally influenced sale, and taking credit for all the work that you do online that drive sales.Mike:And you think about it, most, and it's true. Most shopping experiences are happening much… Even if you go in a store, you're researching online, you're looking at content. You're doing a search to see if it's even available at your local Target. And what comes up in that digital experience is going to dictate whether you go to that store or not. So, it's just so much more impact that I think goes into your e-commerce that I don't think e-commerce leaders were really fairly taken credit for. But I noticed this, Diana, you probably… And it sounds like you're starting to speak this languages.Mike:It's like almost every sale is digitally influenced now. And so, that investment, I think it breaks down the barriers between the brick and mortar teams when they start to realize that their success isn't independent. It isn't just e-commerce and I don't have to care about it. Actually, will have a full cycle, and you see some retailers, really, I believe the sticking point comes when you have a retailer like Walmart who starts to say, "Hey, you have to talk to me in the language of omnichannel."Mike:And now, when they set that tone and being as influential as you are, I see them starting to drive this different consensus. So, I think the metrics have changed in some ways, the language has changed and I think we're starting to reframe that it isn't just e-commerce, but just commerce now. And I think that's going a long way.Stephanie:Yeah. That is why we label the podcast, Up Next in Commerce, because we knew, we saw the writing on the wall, so just several notes, we were first. So, how are you going about even thinking about that tracking? I mean if you're saying a sale is digitally influenced, in my head I'm like, "How? How would you even know that?" So, what are some ways, either Mike that you see brands kind of attacking that problem or Diana, how's Colgate thinking about that?Diana:Mike, you got this one. This is your [crosstalk].Mike:Yeah. I'd say like basically, I mean the way that we think about your metrics really goes down to the levers, right? The levers that influence your sales in e-commerce, really comes down to like three basics. And there's some, the one is the first lever. Most important is that you're available. So, that your product is even listed and it's not out of stock. That was a major issue last year, and a lot of brands are still feeling that repercussion, and that has a lot of impact.Mike:So, if you go to Amazon, and you're looking for a particular product, it's not there. You better believe consumers are going to switch, and we saw that switching, and that switching is very painful online, because the loyalty can go, and then you don't have that repeat. So, first and foremost you think about, "Okay, we got to be available." It's just like being in store. You got to have the product there on the shelf.Mike:Then, the next big lever is being findable. And that's what's really interesting, when you're in a traditional store, you walk into a store, you knew that your product, you sold it in at the beginning of the year, the planogram. That, yeah, your product was going to be on the shelf, and they're just going to replace it. But in the digital store that changes every day, and we've done like 24-hour video views of search results on Amazon, and the products are just changing constantly shifting.Mike:And so, findability is really being keen to what terms your customers going to search for, and then being there all the time in the top of the results, and we have seen that if you're not on page one, and sometimes not even in page, in the first five spots, you might as well not even be there, because you're not findable. So, that's like your second lever.Mike:And then your third is really about your conversion levers. Having that content and having those reviews, and that's probably one of the most transferable things between the online and the offline experience, because there's so much discovery and learning and research is being done, and that's one of the things that Amazon has done a great job and recognized, they've given consumers so much real estate, so much space. Places for videos, place for content.Mike:And I think most of us, if we're going to look for a new product, we're going to start on Amazon. We're going to soak in that information and make informed decisions. So, if you look at it, it's all right. Well, my end game has got to be available. I got to be findable, showing them a search. I have to have good content. And then if those things are true, you start to gather metrics, and that's actually what Profitero is doing is we're able to help brands understand across all the sites you're selling. Are they available? Are they findable? Are they converting? And ultimately what we know is if you pull those levers, and you optimize those levers, your sales are going to grow, and you're going to outpace the competition.Mike:And to Diana's point, the very, very important thing that grounds all this is having a sense of your competitive growth, because you need to be able to define, like Diana said, not define success in your own terms. But you have to be able to see how your competitors are growing in that category, and if you look at 2020, everybody grew, pat yourself on the back. But if you knew that your competitor grew at like 2x or 3x, that's a wake-up call, there's something you're not doing that they're doing. And so, it's really important that you balance those tactical levers of the shelf with just this overall having sales metrics and not just looking at your own. And these are all data points that are now available through technology and Diana can speak about how they're actioned.Diana:Yeah. I would say the digital commerce starter kit is definitely, first and foremost, digital shelf health and discipline. That's a game changer. If you're not winning there, and you're not going to win, we spend so much time as marketers really focusing on our packaging and understanding the importance and the value of packaging.Diana:Well, in this new world, the digital shelf is your new packaging. It's your new end cap. It's your new aisle. So, how do you think about digital shelf and the discipline there really is going to translate into your competitive set, because now consumers can define what that competitor set is. It's going to really define your conversion rates. Does your content help consumers really understand how to use your product?Diana:And it's also going to impact your ratings and reviews. Does your content enable your consumers to have the experience that they're expecting when they see you online? So, it really does fuel all of the potential for your growth. And I said once you have that starter kit up and running, then you really have to take a step back, and think about, what are the other KPIs? We tend to really focus on marketing and sales when it comes to digital commerce. But this game is won and lost with supply chain, IT, and finance.Diana:So, starting back with supply chain, IT, and finance and setting yourself up to be profitable, to be deliverable, and to be flexible is really how you can break away from the pack.Stephanie:Yeah. I love that. What are some surprises? And maybe Mike this is a question for you. What are some surprising platforms or channels when you're talking about, everyone did well, but some brands maybe did double or triple compared to other ones? What are some surprises there that you're seeing or things that are happening right now, you're like, "This platform's kind of popping up or people are pulling off of this one?"Mike:Yeah. Well, just specifically in terms of platforms, I think, well, in terms of like retail platforms, I think part of it is I think last year was really about the relevance of certain platforms jumped up. So, I think most brands that took e-commerce seriously, took Amazon very seriously from the get-go, I think last year Instacart became the platform that everyone's, especially in CPG space said, "Okay, this is serious now." People were going there first and foremost, it was a lifeline in terms of getting delivery.Mike:And suddenly now, what that creates is an opportunity to be first in market. And I think there's an advantage with any platform to be the first mover, and there's reasons why. Amazon's a good example of a platform that favors brands that have good sales history. So, if you excelled, really, if you were like the first let's say pet brand a couple years ago to rock Amazon, what happened is that you were excelling at all your execution, your sales are going up, and you start to organically just get higher placement, because Amazon favors brands that are relevant.Mike:And so, if you're really selling, they're going to give you that top space. And you see that same dynamic in Instacart, and in grocery too, because what happens is on a grocery site, people usually buy groceries off a list. And so, the first time they place orders on an Instacart or grocery, they're building their list. And then the next time it's a reordered list. So, there's a huge advantage to be a first mover on a platform and to build that purchase history, because it drives your repeat rates.Mike:And so, what we saw last year was just a lot of brands stepping up, and saying, "You know what? We're going to capitalize this. We're going to be early. We're going to invest in ads. You were going to get it, get that top of mind share." And I think they're going to reap the rewards now for the rest of year. So, you can look at it from a platform perspective, sometimes being first to market on these platforms, taking e-commerce seriously can give you a long-term sustainable advantage.Stephanie:I wonder if consumers are changing because of this past year or two, it seems like consumers are looking for the newer thing, the D2C company that's kind of like just saw it on Instagram. I feel like even myself, I go to Amazon, I see a lot of brands that I know. I'm kind of like, "Ah, keep scrolling." I've known of these brands for 10 years. Of course, they're number one. They've been around a long time. Let me find this deodorant that just popped up. Oh, cool. It's natural. It has all the things that I want, but it might be pretty far down or I'm even getting to a place where I'm kind of skeptical that Amazon might not even have it. And I might just need to go to the website or maybe go to, I don't know, Target and browse through and try and find it. What are you guys thinking around that?Diana:I love everything that you're saying there, but the insights background in me is super excited around the fact that we all went through a life change at the same time. So, if you think about that, typically, when you have a baby, your consideration set changes, your lifestyle changes, which are open too. New households with second babies tend to buy a washing machine within that first week that they bring that baby home, because they're like, "Crap, I'm not dealing with all this laundry on my own."Diana:But we all went through that change, collectively had a baby at once and changed how we operate, how we think, what we're open to, what our consideration set is. So, insights teams out there should be real hype right now, because it's an opportunity for them to really take a deep dive in and rethink brand positioning and audiences. So, exactly what you're talking about, people are more open or more exposed or they realize how connected they are to certain brands, and then they were willing to go direct to that brand to purchase those items to ensure that they were getting, and they're going to sign up for subscription because they're not going to be out of that brand like they were, toilet paper, those first few weeks of the pandemic.Diana:So, I think it's a huge opportunity for brands to really think through, really around who your audience is, your target audience is? Are you capturing them? So, this is your defense strategy. Am I getting them? They're switching from platform to platform. I was getting them when they were going in the brick and mortar store, am I getting them when they're going into Instacart? Is my item showing up? So, making sure you're getting that first basket because the first basket is everything.Diana:Then, there should be a real acquisition strategy. Who do I have the right to go after because now they're open to me, they're open to my brand or they're open to new things and ideas? And that's where brands can really leverage their suite of their portfolio to really drive that cross shop. So, I think this is a huge opportunity if brands jump on it to really connect with consumers. I never used to work out before the pandemic, but then when I was stuck at home, in the same room that I sleep in, and then working in. I was like, "Well, I need to do something."Diana:Peloton got me. I don't like working out. I like the community. I like the gamification. I want to pretend that I'm one of their instructors with the jewelry on and super cool. And I'm not, so they totally got me. And now I'm working out three days a week. That's a whole habit that I never had before, and so it's just ripe for opportunities for brands to not only grow within their traditional channels, but to acquire new consumers in new channels.Stephanie:Yeah.Mike:Yeah. Just to build on that. There's no single consumer anymore, and there's no single retailer. I think there's, me personally in my own house, takes… We shop at eight different retailers to stock our house now online. There's certain things that Target does well, there's certain things Amazon does well. There's certain missions, when I'm in discovery mode like you described, yeah. When I want to go find something and be inspired, I might look at Amazon.Mike:When I have a mission where I just need to stock up, I might go to Walmart. I might go to BJ's or Costco. So, what's really interesting and what's really challenging is you can't just… The brands that are going to win are the ones that can do this well at scale effectively. They recognize that their consumer is everywhere, that they're shopping for different, in different occasions. Convenience, different factors, and they realize like you have to be everywhere, you want to be available and you want to show up.Mike:And I think that's the next play, and that's what makes omnichannel really exciting is you have those brands that maybe nailed Amazon, and they're comfortable, but the next level of this game is, all right, now we have to operationalize this at scale across all our retailers teams, and those brands that are on top of that in making those driving that change, internally to be there everywhere. Those are going to be the ones are going to pick up that market share in the next year, and next two years.Stephanie:Yeah. I mean how do you think about for brands needing to be everywhere? I mean I'm thinking about like you said, the shopper, when I'm at Costco, I'm in a different mindset. And I might want to see a slightly different version of a product whereas when I'm on Amazon or when I'm in Target which feels higher end maybe than a Walmart. How would you think about a brand should handle that now that they have to be everywhere, but also have very different consumers everywhere in a different mindset depending on where they're shopping?Diana:I mean that's where portfolio roles and retailers segmentations really come into play. It's not the sexy work, but it's the work that has to be done. And it can't just be done at a very high level anymore, it really has to be done at the SKU level, because there are some multi-packs they're going to pop in certain modalities at certain retailers, there's some SKUs that just have a better fit. The brand teams that are able to really get that portfolio role and customer segmentation right are going to be able to invest to win, because as retail media costs grow, the cost of service grow, dollars, that bucket of dollars hasn't gotten any bigger. So, it's about being smarter about how and where you invest and really thinking thoroughly through how what you're expecting to get from that dollar.Diana:So, sometimes it's going to be a ROAS, sometimes it's going to be data, sometimes it's going to be something else. But really having clear business objectives for every dollar that's spent.Stephanie:Yeah. I love that. Mike, anything to add?Mike:Yeah. No. I think, Diana, like portfolio strategy is it's funny like there's been this like sea change I think when early stages of e-commerce or at least my observation, there's so much excitement that you get the marketing teams are just spending dollars, right? It's about growth. We're just going to buy some ads. And then all of a sudden, you see this diminishing returns. All of a sudden the things you were spending ads on, oh, they're always out of stock or they're getting de-listed.Mike:And that's a symptom and really it's like this idea, and you mentioned Diana, it's like marketing and supply chain are the best friends in the e-commerce. It's a weird thing because I'm a marketer, and you think, but it has to be because unless… You almost have to flip the funnel. And I thought it's like you got traffic, you get conversion. And then you get to like profitability. You have to flip it. And I think that's the flip now is thinking about your portfolio from consumer dimension, profitability dimension across your retailers. If you don't set those clear lines up, you don't set that definition up, this has a downstream effect.Mike:And you see this a lot on retailers where it's like, "Okay. Well, I have the same products everywhere, so what happens?" Well, if Walmart drops the price, Amazon drops prices and suddenly that thing that you're spending ad dollars on, you can't even, it's not even there. So, I think this is like the next generation is like almost like, "All right, let's break it back. Let's work backwards now. Let's start fresh, and let's build that from the portfolio."Mike:And then, once we make that clean, we're just going to see this uplift and our cost to serve, our cost of marketing is going to be super-efficient versus just throwing dollars at it without a strategy.Diana:That's not just for the manufacturers. I also feel really strongly that that benefits the retailers. They don't want to comp prices back and forth. They want a unique value proposition for their consumers. So, how can you help the retailers achieve their objectives? If Kroger's going after young households, and young families, what's your solution to help them go after them? If Target's going after the black consumer, how are you helping them capture as many black guests as possible? How are you really thinking about not only the strategy, so it benefits you, so it also really does align with your retailer strategy?Diana:That's how you create a win-win scenario, and you avoid the competitive pricing pressures that we're all experiencing right now.Stephanie:Yeah. How do you find a good partnership with these retailers? Because I'm sure when they have so many brands they're working with and everyone probably wants to talk with them a little bit differently, and they have different ways that they want to help them or work with them, how do you think a successful partnership looks like or what does that structure look like?Diana:I think this is why the digital commerce space has to exist in this kind of hybrid world, because I feel like marketers take a really consumer human first mindset. Sales people tend to be very like sales for sales focus. In the middle you have to be this hybrid. I do take a customer first approach to an extent because you have to understand your customer strategies. Target's earnings call just came out this week or last week, and they talked about how 90% of all their sale is digital or physical are coming from stores.Diana:That's an insight for me to strategy. So, if I want to win at Target, I've got to understand how they tick, how they operate, and how I can help support their strategies, and their executions. So, it's really that intersection between, what our brand teams are trying to accomplish? Our sales teams targets, and our retailer strategies, and where we can actually play.Diana:From a Colgate-Palmolive perspective, I'm not going to be able to help them win in every single element of their strategy. But there are areas that I am going to be able to help them lead or give them a perspective that can influence other sections. And I think the more and more we play those roles, the more valuable that you show up to a retailer, the more inclined they are to partner with you.Stephanie:Yeah. I mean I feel like that's a life principle. You just did your research on the brand, the company, you looked at their investor reports, you look into the background of the people, and instantly they're like, "Oh, you kind of already know that I don't have to bring you up to here, you're already here." So, now we can get going, which is awesome.Diana:Basically all can be boiled down to the same dynamics of the dating relationship. Sometimes you go to the sporting event because your significant other likes it, and then sometimes they go to the thing that you want because you like it. And then if you have a mixture of alcohol and sports, you got me. So, there you go.Stephanie:I love that. I love that. Cool. Well, the one thing I want to kind of touch on too is around the world of marketing right now. So, I've talked with some brands that have had to kind of always work in a scrappy mindset. One of them was Anheuser-Busch where they're like, "Yeah. We can't ever have this one-to-one relationship. We always have to do other things to be able to reach our customers because we actually can't directly talk to them."Stephanie:And it makes me think brands like that might be pretty far ahead with all these changes to ads and privacy and retargeting and all that. What are you guys thinking is kind of like what are brands missing right now? What should they be doing to continue to have a close relationship with their customers and not lose out when they lose access to a big ad pull that maybe they're not going to have anymore?Diana:For me, I think it's a balance. I think you have to think about your consumer touch points across the board. Everyone's talking about the cookieless environment that's looming. We're all hoarding data. But I don't know how actionable everyone's making it. So, I think it's really around taking a step back and what's your learning agenda.Diana:You want to connect with consumers, but what's the value proposition for them? What's the benefit? And I think brands really have to think about and understand, if I'm connecting with consumers, what value am I providing them? And why should they give me their information? Why should they want to connect and engage with me? And if you haven't established that, then you haven't earned the right to have their information or their contact, because it really is all around creating a delightful experience for them.Diana:I think understanding all of the data inputs that you have and really thinking hard around, how do you leverage them to feed strategies, not with just within the silos of the space? But how do you integrate them so you're feeding your traditional media strategy with your D2 insights? You're feeding your supply chain strategy with some of the ratings and reviews that you found, even your R&D innovation.Diana:So, it's really around being mindful and thoughtful about all the touch points that you have and being able to action against them. But I think for most retailers and manufacturers, if you don't have a strategy to think about how you're going to leverage your data, and you haven't, you're going to miss the boat, because everybody's gearing up, and it's what's happening now if you want to stay ahead going forward.Mike:Yeah. And just to build on that. I think totally it depends on the consumer and what's relevant. But I mean generally, I think what I'm seeing from some brands a little bit of higher level thinking in terms of how they're engaging with consumers, even on social media. I noticed there was a time period where I would go on Instagram and I saw these ads. They're very tactical. There's just like these product ads like, "Okay, buy this widget, buy this thing."Mike:And you still see these display ads, but then I've seen a lot more ads are just more, they're helpful, their content. I'm a pet owner and I wasn't going through my feed and I saw those, it was an ad, but it was from a pet company, and it was really supposed to be like how do you, what are the attributes of a healthy pet? It was kind of an interesting, intrigued me. I have an aging pet, so I just think there's a lot more creativity, you can't… I think it's easy in e-commerce to get very operational, but you can't underestimate the power of creative and how important creative is.Mike:And I think there's a lot of brands that I've seen challenger brands that are leveraging humorous videos. They're really doing things viral on YouTube, they're building a personality around their brand. They're getting up on TikTok. They're leveraging every touch point they can at the top of the funnel to build, to be creative, to stand out. And now what that's doing for them is now they're training consumers to go to Amazon and type their branded, not type a general category keyword.Mike:So, I think what's happening is the mediums are changing, maybe it's not television maybe it's not that, but there's so many more tools for marketers and very agile to still tell stories. And so, I think storytelling is going to be, has always been important. And I think that brands that are going to invest in that and make sure that they're using all these other new platforms these video platforms are going to really be well positioned for the long term.Diana:Yeah. And I think what I heard from you too is this authenticity. And what consumers are really looking for because I feel like now especially within Instagram, people want to be sold to, to an extent, but they want to be sold to for me. I want you to understand who I am, what I want to see and deliver it to me the way that I want to." But I think people are also really looking for real content. So, a lot of the slick and shiny campaigns that work on TV, are not going to work in social. So, really understanding who your consumer is and how to speak to them in an authentic way. But also be able to convert them in three seconds or less.Diana:So, how do you make that from something content, how do you really think about making it real? Especially if you're talking to Gen Z, how do you talk to them so it feels like they're talking to their peer group in a very authentic way? Is really critical. And then, how do you make it every single touch point the opportunity for consumers to buy? Because the funnel as we know it, has really collapsed in a lot of places and consumers are coming in and out as they choose, and if you're not able to make your social shoppable. Then, you're really going to miss a lot of opportunities to drive conversion and acquire new audiences.Stephanie:Yeah. And I love the idea around storytelling. I mean that's kind of what our whole company's been built around is like this is what humans look for. And I think there's this really big opportunity in companies that have been around for a long time, like Colgate-Palmolive. I think since 1806, the story behind that maybe has not really been around of like, how was it founded?Stephanie:I mean we had on UPS the other day, and we were kind of going through the history of UPS. I'm like, "Whoa. They need to talk about this more." I mean founded by like a 19-year-old guy, and here's how like it even started with this bike delivery. They were on their bikes delivering things, and what it is today and all the pivots they've had to go through. And I think kind of getting back to those storytelling routes, especially for the more historical brands not only will kind of… I mean people want to hear those stories. I just don't think big brands tell it enough in a way that connects with people now.Mike:Colgate was the original startup.Stephanie:See?Mike:Right?Stephanie:This is what I want. This is the connection I need.Mike:1800 startup brand, right? That's a challenging brand.Diana:Well, you talk about purpose driven brands. I do think a lot of these more established CPTs don't really know how to tell that story. I think there was a time period and several years ago when like it was just something you didn't do, and if I look back on all the organizations I worked at that do a lot of good for the communities in which they serve, that wasn't the story that you told. It wasn't like the thing. But now people are expecting brands to have a purpose, and they are using their dollars to determine if that purpose is worthy or not.Diana:So, if you're not talking about it, then you're not going to get those dollars. And Gen Z is not having it at all. They expect you to stand up and not just talk the talk, they want to see you walk the walk and they also want to see what your executive leadership team looks like.Diana:And I think consumers are also expecting the role of big corporations has shifted. How are you making this world better? How are you involved in social justice? What is your role? I'm super proud of Colgate for launching a recyclable toothpaste tube that then they gave the technology to everybody in the industry, so now everyone can do it. Those are the type of we're here for the good of the planet, we're here for the good of society, and we're going to be good corporate citizens and contribute to that. That's what the consumers want, and those are the stories that larger CPGs have to start telling.Stephanie:Yeah. I love that. So, when thinking about, earlier we're mentioning like you kind of have to be everywhere. And one thing that I also wanted to get into was all around agencies. We've had on amazing companies, one, was this company avocados from Mexico, and they talked about we've been like the number two or three commercial in the Super Bowl, and we have all these crazy things that we do that really drive, not only conversions, but awareness of our brand and they're selling avocados.Stephanie:They said our agencies are the ones that really, we vet them. They're amazing. They helped us get here, and I'd love to hear your take on, in a world where you have to be everywhere, how do you find agencies to work with that'll help get you there?Diana:For me, I've worked with so many great agencies along the way. And what I found is for me agencies are always an extension of my team. I'm expecting them to push us to make us better. I also really want to empower them to bring us awesome, creative, and make us feel really uncomfortable, because that's when you know you're onto something, especially when your boardroom feels really uncomfortable. That's when you know you're really onto something.Diana:But I think in this new digital commerce age, it's important to have an integrated agency model, because there are different agencies that are good and serve a purpose for different things. You do need those major creative campaigns, and yes, the Super Bowl is still important to some brands, but there's kind of the day-to-day operations, and also the ability to really think about digital commerce and the integration with shopper marketing and understanding how different retailer dynamics works, and how to leverage the data that's critical.Diana:So, agencies that not only know media, but know performance marketing but also understand retailers are really going to rise to the top right now, especially as more and more media dollars are shifting to retail media. Now those agencies that can work together, so from the big campaign to the Super Bowl ad and bring it all the way back to the Kroger, the Walmart, or the Target. Now that is just perfect.Mike:Yeah. I mean agencies from my point of view are, they are an extension and what they're often doing is they're acting on the data and insights that maybe a e-commerce team isn't equipped to act on yet. And so, I think the best agencies are the ones that make data their differentiation. So, for example, you could have a handful of agencies are all really good at spending your ad dollars. But there will be a select few agencies that know how to get that extra edge from some data, maybe it's incorporating some out of stock data or competitive search data, and you want to find those agencies are always pushing the boundary for you.Mike:They're not just managing on the basic models of ROAS, but they're actually looking at, what are these new things we could do? A test and learn, how do we advanced your ROI? Actually show that the ads are growing market share. How can they use data? And I think that's going to be a big differentiator, especially since digital shelf data, e-commerce data, it's still new for a lot. But I think you're going to see the separation where you find these agencies that are data-led, data centric, and I think there's a huge opportunity. To Diana's point, where first wave of digital agencies were very Amazon focused. There's such a huge gap in skill set right now in like the traditional shopper marketing for digital commerce that I think agency are perfect position to start becoming your extension of your Walmart, your Walmart digital operators, your Target.Mike:I think that's where you're going to see a lot of agencies flourish is where the maturity to actually pull those levers still isn't there. They can come in and be leaders. So, I look at agency on two dimensions who is really driving digital data driven decisions, who are ones that I can really scale with beyond just the Amazons but into that next tier flywheel that I want to go. Who's going to lead me there, lead my thinking, and help me be the market share leader on that next platform?Stephanie:Yeah. I love that. Are there any tests that you do when hiring agencies that you're like, "This will let me know if you're what I need, if you're well-rounded, if you can kind of plug in with other agencies and cover everything?"Mike:Well, we work with a lot of agencies. We don't hire them but we partner with them. So, one of the things that we do when we… We've tried to build an ecosystem at Profitero of like-minded agencies that are data-led. And one of the things that we're trying to do is make our data accessible to all these agencies to be able to do things. So, what I've seen is agencies that are really going to, that show the most promise is the ability to be willing to do some test and learn stuff, to pick up some data points from the digital shelf and say, "Hey, we're going to try this."Mike:We're going to say instead of just putting our ad dollars across every product spread it evenly on Amazon, we're going to actually shift and we're going to stop spending on the products that aren't converting well, and we're going to shift it to these products that are converting well. We're just going to shift it up and we're going to try to see what happens. So, for me, for my perspective the agencies that we've been vetting and really partnering with and saying that these are best of class are the ones that are showing that competency and that ability just to try some different things and experiment and find a model that they can repeat.Diana:Yeah. I would say when I think about it from a digital commerce perspective, especially from retail media. I'm really looking for an agency that not only understands media, but they also understand the impact on sales. So, if you think about Amazon and getting the flywheel going, if you're pushing ROAS, if you're pushing certain levers that impacts your profitability, it impacts a lot of your negotiation power with Amazon. So, you need to be able to keep your ROAS to where it needs to be in your other traditional media KPIs while keeping top line going, which can be expensive.Diana:So, that's very critical. So, having somebody that understands that. Also, someone that understands the nuances and the inner workings of Walmart from a media perspective but also that my sales team then needs to go to a buyer or a DMM and sell this program in, to not only get more, whether it's more displays or get them engaged and excited about it. But it's not just a pure media place. So, an agency that understands that from a digital commerce perspective is really critical.Diana:Then, when it comes to more of our traditional content and execution, I like to do what I call media to shelf. So, regardless of who the partner is and most agencies can do this. It's how you can integrate and work with other agencies. So, the idea can come from either side, either the traditional creative agency, the digital commerce agency, the shopper agency. But how do you take the lane that you play in and make the concept work across all? So, how do you take that idea and make it so much bigger? Because our funding models are not changing, our buckets are not getting any bigger. So, we have to make every dollar work harder.Diana:So, I need a traditional media plan that not only drives awareness, but also can pull through to the digital or physical shelf. And I would say a measure of good traditional agency, for me, it's make or break by the creative director. They really do enable the work to either deliver on the brief or exceed our expectations and deliver on our business objective.Stephanie:Yeah. Love that. All really good points. All right, with a couple minutes left, I want to shift over to the lightning round. The lightning round is brought to you by Salesforce commerce cloud. This is where I have a question, and you have one minute or less to answer. Are you ready? And I'll just kind of go back. Both have to answer the same question, so.Diana:Oh, boy.Stephanie:All right. Diana, you first. What's one thing you don't understand today that you wish you did?Diana:I don't understand why sales and marketing are so separate. I wish I could understand why each side didn't understand the other, but hopefully one day, we will be able to create, take the healthy tension and build a stronger digital commerce organization as a result.Stephanie:I love that. You and a lot of other companies, so. All right, Mike.Mike:Bitcoin.Stephanie:All right. You haven't even looked into it yet? I feel like now's the time to get in.Mike:I've tried and I get so confused, but I just have this fear. I have this waving fear of missing out, but then I realized that people are losing a lot of money too. I just don't understand how it works.Diana:I want to do over.Stephanie:I liked yours. What? You want to do over, Diana?Diana:I want a do over. You know what I don't understand? Why can't we have side parts anymore? I don't understand that. I like the side part. It fits my face frame. Why is that not cool anymore?Stephanie:Man, I feel like we can have more. Let's just stay on this question, so many things. All right. Next one. Something wise my elders taught me. Mike, you first.Mike:Something wise my elders taught me. Man, sorry. I totally blanked on that one. So, can you ask that question again?Stephanie:Yeah. Something wise my elders taught me.Mike:Yeah. I'd say that really it was hard work. That just sounds kind of lame. But I learned pretty early that no one's going to give you anything in this world, and you have to work really hard, and my dad was one of the hardest working people I know. He was an auto body worker and put in a lot of hours and really kind of like taught me this blue collar approach that I try to bring to my work. I love working. I've always learned to work hard and I try to always ground myself in that work ethic whatever I do. So, that's something that my elders taught me.Stephanie:I love that. All right. Diana, you're up.Diana:So, for me, I'm a black woman in America and a first generation from Caribbean parents, so it's really about using my voice and my power to have the courage to make space for people who look like me or people who don't have their voices heard. So, I'm really grateful for having parents, but also ancestors that taught me and showed me how to do that. YStephanie:Yeah. I love that. All right. If you were to have a podcast, what would it be about and who would your first guest be? Diana, you're up.Diana:Oh, shoes.Stephanie:A podcast on shoes?Diana:Yeah. My podcast would be on shoes and it would be Sarah Jessica Parker.Stephanie:My space right-Diana:It would really just be for me and a way to get new shoes.Stephanie:I'm so confused.Diana:Literally the whole angle of the podcast would be to get free shoes.Stephanie:Just need shoes. [crosstalk]. Okay. Who would your first guest be?Diana:Sarah Jessica Parker.Stephanie:Okay. I love it. All right. Mike, you can't top that one, but if you want to try, what would your podcast be about and who would your first guest be?Mike:Cannabis.Stephanie:Okay.Mike:And it would be probably, I don't know, Willie Nelson.Stephanie:What would you guys be talking about or would you [crosstalk]-Mike:I'm fascinated by the business of cannabis. So, it's something that I've studied for a while. I started to do a little bit of research on it back in Nielsen, and this was like way ahead. But I'm fascinated by how an industry can just go so mainstream. How can one part be so regulated, then all of a sudden go mainstream? And I'm fascinated by brand building in that space and how brands are building, and even like huge bevel companies are getting in this space now. So, we're like fascinated about the entrepreneurs in that space, the ecosystem of that space, and if I had a separate podcast that was totally unrelated to anything I did, it would be about that, because I think that's like, that and Bitcoin, those are two booming things right now.Stephanie:You could just blend them all together.Mike:Yeah. Right.Stephanie:I thought you would say you would be in it for the free weed. Yeah. Give me free weed.Mike:Samples, yeah.Stephanie:Diana's shoes.Diana:Yeah.Stephanie:Lobby sitting pretty.Mike:Right.Stephanie:So, I'll send you Bitcoin for the first time, and then you'll have to go deep into the wormhole.Mike:Yeah. I'm really opening my heart on this podcast.Stephanie:That is why you're here. That's why you're here. All right. And then, the last one. I want to know how you guys stay on top of your industry. So, maybe, Mike, you first. What are you reading? Newsletters? Is it books, podcasts? What do you do?Mike:LinkedIn. I basically follow a set of people. On LinkedIn there's a group of about 15 to 20 people that I just trust that curate. They curate on a regular basis all the breaking news that I could just go to LinkedIn and I know that at any given moment, I'm going to find something that's really interesting on a different perspective. Yeah. That's my go-to. I wake up in the morning and look at LinkedIn. And then I think about, "Okay, what could I do to add value to LinkedIn that day?"Mike:And LinkedIn has become one of these like platforms that I managed my life around. I never thought it would be like that. But it's become like a valuable news source for me.Stephanie:That's awesome. All right. Diana, how about you? How do you stay on top of everything?Diana:For me, I'm fueled by curiosity. So, similar to Mike, I'm on LinkedIn. He's in my top 20 list of people that I follow that I get content from. I listen to a ton of podcasts, this one also. I am an avid reader of papers and research. So, whether it's from Kantar, Profitero, [inaudible], Edge, you name it, you've got to stay on top of it.Diana:And then it's really about networking. So, I have this mantra like I'll say yes. So, if somebody invites me to a round table, I'm going to go. If it's a bad experience I don't go back. But like I found this small community of e-commerce and digital commerce folks that I can just call or text or get information from. And a really cool thing that a bunch of women in e-com started is basically women of e-commerce, and it's a group of 25 of us, and we connect on a regular basis. But we also bought, each brought in a mentee. So, it's just ripe for learning, and Sarah Hofstetter, the president of Profitero is one of the members as well. But it's just such a great place to feed my curiosity.Stephanie:I love that. I see only more of that happening, these micro groups popping up. I know that that was something that I started experiencing here which is like women all being part of like a group text, which I was like, "Is this going to be too much?" And now, I'm like, "This is the best text thread I've ever been in." And it probably wouldn't have happened prior to this past year or two. That's amazing.Stephanie:Well, Mike, Diana, this has been such a fun round table. We'll definitely have to have you back for round two, because I'm sure a lot will change quick in a matter of months. But where can people find out more about you? Mike, maybe let's start with you.Mike:LinkedIn.Stephanie:Of course. And then, you just go to Diana [crosstalk]Mike:Yes. If you want to find me, you want to talk to me, that's the place to go. I'll be pretty responsive.Stephanie:Yes. All right. Diana.Diana:You can find me on LinkedIn as well.Stephanie:Cool. All right. Well, thank you guys so much for joining. It's been a pleasure having you.Diana:Thank you so much for having me.Mike:Thank you.

Mike: No critical race theory isn't racism; though it's cute you think that. [Theme song] Nazi SS UFOsLizards wearing human clothesHinduism's secret codesThese are nazi lies Race and IQ are in genesWarfare keeps the nation cleanWhiteness is an AIDS vaccineThese are nazi lies Hollow earth, white genocideMuslim's rampant femicideShooting suspects named Sam HydeHiter lived and no Jews died Army, navy, and the copsSecret service, special opsThey protect us, not sweatshopsThese are nazi lies Mike: Thank you so much for joining us for our Juneteenth episode. I'm joined by two scholars today to talk about critical race theory in education. Marvin Lynn is the dean of the College of Education at Portland State University with his Ph.D. from UCLA in social sciences and education. Adrienne Dixson is a professor of education at the University of Illinois-Champaign with her Ph.D. in multicultural education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Together, they are the editors of The Handbook of Critical Race Theory in Education, an edited volume now in its second edition with contributors from many illustrious scholars in the field of critical race theory and critical race pedagogy. Thank you both for joining me on The Nazi Lies Podcast. Adrienne Dixson: Thank you. Mike: Okay. So, let's start out with the very basics: what is critical race theory and why is it here? Marvin Lynn: Well, I think about critical race theory as a subfield within the law that is very focused on how race and racism are represented within the legal structure but also within the application of law in the United States. And legal scholars have been very interested in kind of documenting that historically, but also looking at the ways in which the law is unfortunately limited when it comes to protecting particularly racially marginalized people such as African Americans and so there's lots of examples of that as well. So, that's how I would describe it. It's a body of scholarship that comes out of the law. Education scholars like myself and Adrienne have been drawing on this for many years, to try to think about how we talk about and theorize about schools and what happens in schools, particularly as it pertains to students of color and gaps in educational attainment and achievement for example. We look at classrooms; we look at curriculum; we look at policies both in higher education and in K-12 context, and we are trying to understand how race and racism are shaping all of those factors. There's a whole number of tenets that we could describe for you that sort of reflect the principles and the values of critical race theory. For example, this idea of the permanence of racism is an idea authored by Derrick Bell who many considered to be the father of critical race theory. And he argues that racism is a permanent feature of American society because of the way in which the society was structured and so on. I should say there is some disagreement about that within the field. There are other critical race theorists who are a little bit more hopeful than that. Another principle of critical race theory that you often hear about is intersectionality that comes out of Kimberlé Crenshaw's work, for example. And that's the idea that we have to understand the sort of unique ways in which folks of color are positioned within the racial hierarchy. So with black women, for example, are both gendered and raced, and those things cannot be separated as we consider their experiences with marginalization in our society. There are examples of court cases that have really gotten it wrong and have not been able to figure out how to really think about those things in tandem with each other, and Kimberlé Crenshaw writes about that problem. So, there are a number of other tenets that I could speak about, but those are two that I think probably people hear about the most. Mike: Dr. Dixson, do you have anything to add? Adrienne: I agree with what Marvin said for the most part, I think. I would want to kind of underscore in explaining what critical race theory is. For people who study discrimination or racism, it's an analytical or a theoretical frame. For most of us who identify as critical race theorists, it is more than a theoretical framework. It is a perspective on how race and racism, opportunity and inopportunity operate in the US that's grounded in a history of oppressing people of color. And that history is documented, so it's not theoretical; it's not something that is a figment of one's imagination; it is documented history. One of the things that we try to understand is that even in spite of interventions to address that history or redress that history, we still find ourselves with kind of chronic disparities that map onto race. And so what we endeavor to do is to try to understand, well, if the legal obstacles, the de jure obstacles to opportunity, to voting, to schooling, to buying homes, to employment, if the de jure obstacles are eradicated, what accounts for the underrepresentation or the lack of opportunity? And that's where, as critical race theorists, we look at kind of how these historical scripts that emanate from de jure discrimination, how the remnants of that have found their way into our modern day kind of policy making. So what are the kind of common sense, traditional, normal, if you will, rhetorics that we hold about people's ability and their capacity and their fit, their right, who deserves to be in, who deserves to be at an Ivy League, who deserves to be a dean, who deserves to be a professor, that kind of normality, if you will, or rhetorics about that are steeped in these histories of oppressing people of color, against white women, against people who have disabilities, against people who don't speak English as their first language, against people who identify differently from us, gender, sexuality, so we try to understand the persistence of oppressions and again, inequalities. Mike: Okay. So even though critical race theory hasn't had the public spotlight for very long, there's already quite a cornucopia of Nazi lies surrounding it. So browsing the neo-Nazi forum, Stormfront, yields reams of results. Apparently, the Nazis have folded the critical race theory into their whole cultural Marxism conspiracy theory. One poster on the forum describes critical race theory as, "Cultural Marxism applied to law to benefit blacks and browns," that's his exact quote, "while penalizing whites." The poster then goes on to lament that it is targeting white children and even white babies. (Not sure how.) I'm not interested in having you answer to that, but what I do want to talk about is why critical race theory belongs in the classroom. Adrienne: Yeah, well, again, I'll say it's a framing of trying to understand the persistence of inequalities. I don't know that– We've had colleagues who have tried to think and present multiple histories by centering kind of different experiences of people of color. So I think this kind of critical examination of race and racism in the US can be helpful. But I hasten to say that we're teaching critical race theory because it lends itself to this kind of hysteria, and I don't know that we've done enough thinking around what and if it's appropriate in a K-12 classroom. And by appropriate, I don't mean because kids can't handle it. I mean, how do we kind of structure curriculum in a way that maximizes the teaching and learning for kids through a critical race theory lens. So we haven't "tested" any of that, so I would say maybe it's an outlook on the US that one may be inclined to, but I don't know that it's in the classroom. And I'm not saying that it's not appropriate or it is appropriate, I just don't think we're there yet. Mike: Okay. Marvin, do you have anything to add? Marvin: Yeah, I would agree. I have been asked this question over and over and over again, particularly by conservative news outlets who want to claim that critical race theory is everywhere. And, you know, I watched a YouTube video today by Christopher Rufo, who really is the architect of this war against critical race theory. And it started with his friend Trump in the White House and in the executive ban last year, and it has continued with legislation all across the nation and kind of media attacks and school board wars and all kinds of things that are going on. And one of the things that he says is that critical race theory is synonymous with equity; it's synonymous with social justice; it's synonymous with a whole variety of terms and concepts and ideas that we've been using for a very long time in education that are not born of critical race theory. Teachers, for example, have been trying to do what James Banks refers to. James Banks is a multicultural education scholar. In fact, he's one of the progenitors of multicultural education, uses the term equity pedagogy. And when he talks about equity pedagogy, he talks about teachers attempting to draw on students' firsthand knowledge and experience, their culture, their language as a way in which to teach. That is not related to what Adrienne and I have been talking about, which is critical race theory. Which is again, it's grand theory that comes out of the law and that's been applied to education. No, I don't know that critical race theory could be taught in elementary schools. Can you teach children to critically interrogate issues of race and racism? Absolutely. And that is what multicultural education tries to do, is to get kids to think critically about race. Mike: And so before we go on to– Adrienne: And can I add though that what's getting promoted as critical race theory in the classroom is really just a presentation of the kind of multicultural history that we have. So what the white supremacists seem to be upset with is that we're talking about the multiple histories that make up the United States. People of color didn't just emerge in 2008 when Obama became president, right? People of color have been here. And by people of color, I mean, African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinx folks, Native Americans, American Indians, have been here. They've been here. And now we're talking about what does it mean for those groups that have been here, and what are their histories with the development of the United States, and the development of the United States has been contested. It hasn't been this great westward expansion and a celebration of the pioneers and people who have been here. Those histories have been again, complicated, contested, and if anything, that's what it seems to be, the pushback that people are wrongly attributing to critical race theory. Ron Takaki was talking about multiple histories decades ago. And he was not a critical race theorist. He was a historian. So again, the complication of American history is not the purview of critical race theory, and I think that's what people are misunderstanding. Marvin: Yeah. Anything that critiques inequality in America along any lines or perspective is now considered to be critical race theory. Mike: Yeah. So, I guess on that point, let's talk about some of the terms that are used in critical race theory. We've already covered intersectionality. Dr. Lynn, you described racial realism, which is the idea that racism is a permanent feature of the United States not an aberration from it. How about interest conversions? That was a big term that came up in your book a lot. Adrienne: Yeah. So that's a Derrick Bell term. And what he argued is that the interests of the elite when people who are disenfranchised, people of color who are disenfranchised, the poor, that our interests will never align with the interests of the elites. And so that interest convergence isn't a strategy. And so the Brown decision is an example of interest convergence, where there was a bigger interest by elites that in some ways seemed to align with the interests of people of color who wanted to eradicate de jure racial segregation. But the way that power works is that we won't see the kind of freedom and the relief that we hope for. And if we do, it'll be short term, and the Brown decision kind of encapsulates that. So interest convergence is an analytical frame. Again, it's a way of understanding why when an anti-discrimination or, we could say, anti-racist policy is introduced, why it doesn't do what we hope it will do. Because the kind of liberal wisdom is that if we align our interests or converge our interests with each other (we see this now with the Democrats and the Republicans) then we can somehow come up with a compromise. And what Derrick Bell was saying is that the interests of the elites are always incompatible with the needs of the disempowered, of the oppressed. And so it's not a viable strategy. It shouldn't be something that we argue for, and we will always be in the cycle of oppression and disadvantage if we try to align our interests in a way. Mike: Yeah. And just spell it out further, what were the interests that Bell specifically noted in the Brown vs. Board decision that the elite seemed to have? Adrienne: So in 1954, remember we were under the Red Scare, right? We were in a war for empire, right, who was going to be the superpower, was it going to be the US or was it going to be Russia? And was it going to be democracy or was it going to be communism? It was hard to sell democracy when you have consigned a whole group of people–and not just black people, Latinx people, Asian people, Native Americans–to second class citizenship. We're disenfranchised as a group, substandard everything from housing to schooling to unemployment. And so it was hard to sell democracy around the world when most of the world was black and brown. And so it was in our foreign interests to have something that– Bell would say that Brown was kind of performatory, it was political theater. So it appeared to the world that we had addressed our racial segregation issue when in fact we hadn't. Because the second Brown decision with all deliberate speed acquiesced to Southern whites who were incalcitrant. They were very clear about what they weren't going to do as related to racial segregation, and the court acquiesced to that. So that's the interest. There was the interest of black and brown people, because Latinx folks were a part of the suite of cases that made up the Brown decision, who wanted equal education. They didn't necessarily want to go to school with white people, but what they wanted was their fair share, what they put in by way of their taxes that they would get out. And in fact, what we found is that people of color were double taxed. They were not only paying their taxes, but they were paying more for less. So they were paying in what they were supposed to pay in terms of taxes, but they weren't getting it back, and it was being siphoned to support a dual system of education that advantaged whites. And so what black folks at least in the south won was their fair share. Give me what I put in. So I don't have to go to school with whites, when I put my money in, build schools for our kids. And that's what they sought. And Derrick Bell lamented his role in that. He has a piece called “Serving Two Masters.” And he wrote about how he and Marshall and the whole legal team were so wedded to undoing Jim Crow, which is a lofty idea. But it was on the backs of real people who were suffering in the South and suffering under a racial regime that was very violent. And so they knew the dangers of being forced to be around white folks. And they were under no illusions that just because the Supreme Court got rid of de jure racism they were somehow going to be safe. And we know that after the Brown decision, we entered an equally racially violent time for folks of color. And so they weren't agitating to be next to white folks, what they wanted was their fair share. And so he, Bell, talking about this serving two masters, was that he was on one hand trying to serve these lofty ideals and also thinking that he was serving the people and he wasn't. He was in fact ignoring the people and not serving them. And so his book Silent Covenants was his re-imagining of Brown. What would it have been like if he had actually listened to the people? That he was going to collect their testimony and add their names to the lawsuit so that the Brown decision could be the Brown decision. What if he had actually listened to them? And that the aim wasn't to eradicate racial segregation but to just beef up Plessy, to make it in fact separate and equal, what would we be like as a country if they had pursued that track? Mike: Yeah. So jumping back to racial realism, and for my anti-fascist listeners, it's racial realism not race realism, which is just another way of talking about biological determinism among fascists. We're talking about racial realism which is a CRT term. Can we explain that in terms of the Brown vs. Board decision? Because that was really well explained in the book. Marvin: Sure. I think it relates very well to what Adrienne was talking about in the sense that the structure of white supremacy is such that it doesn't really allow for anything that will work directly against it or break it down. And so these gains that Adrienne was talking about that communities of color can experience through policy and legislation and so on have to be sort of situated within the context of something that ultimately benefits whites. And that speaks to the sort of durability of the structure of white supremacy itself and the way in which it is maintained and its permanence. It makes allowances for shifts and changes, but as a structure, kind of always stays in place. So that's ultimately I think how I view it. Some people would talk about revolution. Bell doesn't talk explicitly about revolution in the way that Marxists talk about that, and so I think to equate critical race theory with Marxism is a misnomer. However, I do think that implicit in this idea of racial realism is the notion that if we are ever going to overcome it, or if it's ever going to change, that we do have to really look at the sort of political, social, economic deep structures of our society and really think about how folks are arrayed within that, and reconsider a whole range of institutional formations, as well as other types of structures that are designed to serve, uplift, and uphold in advance white supremacy, unfortunately to the detriment of folks of color. So again, implicit within the notion is the need for some kind of fundamental change or shift in the way our society is structured if we were going to move beyond racism as a structure. Adrienne: And I do want to say, Bell did have a critique of capitalism. Would he have called himself a neo-Marxist? I don't know, but he– CRT came, it was– CRT scholars initially conferenced with critical legal studies scholars because they were looking for a way of trying to again, understand how, in light of the anti-discrimination law, civil rights law, voting rights act, so on, we still had persistent inequality. And the critical legal studies was a neo-Marxist or Marxist group of scholars, and the class critique just wasn't enough. But Bell had a critique of capitalism, but I don't know that he necessarily would have called himself a Marxist per se, because they believe that there was a relationship between race and class, not just class only and not just race only. CRT has always been kind of interdisciplinary. And to Marvin's point about racial realism, I will say that I've heard people say that critical race theory doesn't have hope or that it's full of despair. And my reading of Bell is that it, this is the racial realism piece, that this is the history that we have in the US. We have a history of racism that remakes itself at every opportunity of great agitation by people of color. So with the reconstruction being one, the civil rights movement being another, I would say there are– Barack Obama's election, although I don't think he was revolutionary, was a major kind of point in our history, and here we are again in a moment of retrenchment and extreme racial hostility on the parts of whites in response to one event, and that was the election of Barack Obama. So again, so Bell would say, which is why he would argue for the permanence of racism, which I agree with, is that racism in the US is not going to go away. It'll show up in different forms. And so now it's showing up in restriction of voting rights, an attack on ideas, attack on teaching and learning. And so it remakes itself; it reforms itself, these formations that Marvin was talking about. Marvin: Yeah, I think I would say too that while critical race theorists, as Adrienne points out, have a critique of maybe what I would call like rampant or rabid capitalism, we are not Marxist because Marxists primarily believe that society is structured mainly according to class and that race for example is sort of, racism is an outcome of class warfare. I don't think most critical race theorists believe that. I think critical race theorists believe that racism is or white supremacy is what we would call the superstructure, so to speak if you want to speak in Marxist terms, and that everything else is connected to and related to that including class. Not to suggest that that capitalism isn't a powerful force and system in and of itself. It is. But that, I think we would argue that white supremacy is as powerful a force, which would be a big difference between critical race theorists and Marxists in terms of their thinking. And these forces reinforce each other, just like sexism and homophobia and Islamophobia, all of these -isms reinforce each other in different ways and support a system that is inherently unequal. Mike: Okay. So I guess more on the terminology, how about we talk about whiteness as property, and I guess first define what whiteness means in critical race theory, Marvin: People have described Cheryl Harris's work as being a critique of capitalism and may be in some ways because she is talking about the way in which white people shifted the notion of their relationship to property, that native people in this country had never viewed themselves as owners of the land, that the land is to be respected, the land is to be valued. They don't personally own it. So this idea of land ownership was a very sort of Western European idea. And unfortunately the way it was developed, the way it manifested itself, is that only a few people had ownership to land and had access to the power and the wealth that then came with land ownership. And those were essentially middle class white men. What Cheryl Harris is pointing out is that white people's skin color, their whiteness in and of itself, gave them access to capital, to land, to power. And so their white skin is valuable and is a form of property that could be valued. And George Lipsitz and other people talk about the same kind of concept of whiteness as something that is inherently valued by white people. E. B. Du Bois talks about whiteness or white skin as a psychological wage. He conducted research that sort of looked at the attitudes of white working class people and their racial attitudes in particular, and many would tell you that they would rather be a poor white person than to be a wealthy black person, because they understand inherently the value of white skin in a white supremacist racist society. So that is what in my view Cheryl Harris is talking about, is the assigned value to whiteness as a form of real property that if you compare the wealth of black people to white people, for example, you see significant difference. Melvin Oliver and [Thomas] Shapiro talked about that, and they've documented historically the wealth gaps between even black wealthy people and white wealthy people, for example. And so that's what she's talking about. It's not about trying to undermine capitalism per se, although yes, they use an inherit critique of the way in which capitalism has unfortunately further marginalized folks of color in this country through the assignment of property. Adrienne: Yeah. I would encourage people to read it because it's a really dope article, because one of the things that she talks about is that in the US property ownership was the way in which people were conferred the franchise. And your wealth was determined by how much property you owned, and that property were people literally and land, and that whiteness functions in that same way, that one can acquire wealth based on the value of their whiteness. And that there are rules with ownership of property. So you can trade it, I mean, you can give it to someone, you can withhold it. And so it was just really beautiful how she used the metaphor property ownership and the laws related to property ownership to talk about how whiteness functions as property in the US. So that was– Mike: Okay. Last one I want to talk about is counter storytelling. Adrienne: Yeah. So counter storytelling is speaking back to what we would say are kind of stock narratives or master narratives about a range of things. So just if we left it in education, kind of the stock narrative about– Mike: The achievement gap? Adrienne: –achievement, yes, is meritocracy. Or why education is so important in the US. Education is the great equalizer. And it's the great equalizer because everyone has the same opportunities. And if you work hard, you too will achieve academically, and then your life will change miraculously. You'll be wealthy, you'll be able to do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's the stock narrative about education, public education. And what we endeavor to do as critical race theorists is to kind of turn that stock narrative on its head and to show, because with that stock narrative the reason why then we have fewer students of color graduating from high school, or we have disparities in high school graduation rates, we have disparities in discipline rates, we have disparities in college acceptance, is because there's a problem with students of color, as opposed to questioning that stock narrative and speaking back to it with the experiences of students of color, where we know that there are problems with testing, with students being disciplined more harshly, with schools not offering certain courses, or with restrictions to access for certain courses. So those are examples of possible counter stories, that it's countering the master narrative about the status quo. Marvin: And you know, Michael, one of the things about racism and white supremacy is that it intentionally frames or I'd say misframes folks of color. Intentionally, it puts us in what Adrienne talked about, Ronald Takaki calls an iron cage. And so the view of us and our experience is limited. And you see that on television. Look at the very limited number of depictions of black people and how we're generally depicted. I don't think I've ever seen a black education dean depicted on TV, something I've done for the last 10 years. Because in most people's eyes, they don't exist. And it's because the frame is narrow and limited, and it's from someone else's perspective. And so what Adrienne was talking about is that counter story gives us the chance to tell our own story from our own perspective, using our own voice. And it opens up all kinds of possibilities for us to explore that are heretofore unseen, unheard, invisible. And so the counter story is very important. I do want to say that, I think about Richard Delgado's work as well as Derrick Bell's work. If you read Derrick Bell's early work, Faces At The Bottom Of The Well, for example, is all a counter story. It's a counter narrative, a conversation between two fictionalized characters about race in America. Now the characters are fictionalized, but the issues that they talk about, the laws that they put out, everything is factual that they're discussing. And they're citing chapter and verse from certain legal cases and debating back and forth about them. It gives the writer an opportunity to use maybe a fictionalized character or composite characters, that are a combination of different real characters, to tell stories that are actually based in fact and based in reality. A lot of scholars of color you see in the handbook and in other publications are using the counter story as a way to tell stories about their experiences of trying to get tenure and promotion in higher education and what happens in those meeting rooms when white tenured faculty are considering our cases and how they talk about our work and how they frame it. And so it gives the author the freedom to be able to tell what sometimes are very personal stories in a way that creates, I guess, a little bit of distance because the characters are fictionalized, and it appears like it's a made up story, but in fact, it's very real. It's just that as a way to protect the identity of the actual individuals, there's a fictionalized element to at least who the characters are. Mike: So in the book, critical race theory is described not only as a theory to be taught but also a praxis to be applied in education. Marvin, I believe you take credit for coining the phrase "critical race pedagogy". What does that mean and what does it look like? Marvin: For me at the time, this was 1999, and I was finishing my doctorate program at UCLA. I had done some research with teachers of color in New York City where I did my masters. And what I realized is that their understandings about teaching as a profession, what it meant to teach black and brown kids, what it meant to teach in an urban school, and how one goes about teaching those kids in a way that values who they are, values their living histories and so on, that that story was beginning to be told in brilliant ways by people like Gloria Ladson-Billings and Jackie Irvine and many, many others. They were focused mainly on issues of culture. And I found teachers who were very, very interested in talking in very explicit ways about race and race in the classroom and trying to draw on some principles of critical race theory as a way to help kids understand who they are as racialized individuals, but how racism is functioning in every aspect of their lives. I didn't find the literature to really support that kind of pedagogical work in the classroom and so I found a nice connection between what these teachers were trying to articulate and critical race theory, which is really about giving voice to folks of color, but also centralizing race and racism and how it operates in our very lives, but also taking a global perspective on that too and thinking about how it functions and how it situates us more broadly. That was really my effort, to try to think about and be explicit about how teachers talk about and deal with issues of race and racism that really move beyond but also incorporate issues of culture and language and so on. Mike: Adrienne, do you have anything to add on critical race pedagogy, critical race theory as praxis. Adrienne: Yeah. I would say critical race theory as praxis is I think what I endeavor to do as a scholar in my work is to move beyond an article, move beyond a conference paper, move beyond just sitting at my desk to operationalize it. That means connecting on the ground with folks who are organizing against educational racism through school closings or the proliferation of charter schools. That's the kind of critical race praxis pieces that kind of make the work live beyond the page and to be a part of the organizing and the movement-making that folks are engaged in. Mike: Okay. Well, Dr. Lynn, Dr. Dixson, thank you so much for coming on The Nazi Lies Podcast and giving the people an education in education. Again, the book is the Handbook of Critical Race Theory in Education out from Routledge, a very good book. I strongly recommend it. And thanks again for coming on the pod. Marvin: Thank you for having me. Adrienne: Thank you so much. Yeah, this was great. Thank you. [Theme song]

Mike C-Roc Ciorrocco is the CEO of People Building, Inc., and the powerhouse behind the "What Are You Made Of?" movement. He is a performance coach, author, dynamic public speaker, visionary, and thought leader. He has been featured by Yahoo! Finance as one of the Top Business Leaders to Follow in 2020 and is on a mission to build people. He is driven to inspire others and he measures his success on how he is able to help others achieve greatness. C-Roc had a fire lit in him at an early age. That fire has ignited him with a fierce desire to compel people to see the greatness inside themselves using past life events to fuel their fire. Past hardships can be a powerful gravitational force that keeps you down and forces you to think small. To get out of orbit you need Rocket Fuel. Mike "C-Roc" Ciorrocco shows you how to convert past adversity into ROCKET FUEL to break free from the negative pull of pain and despair. In his new book, C-Roc offers life-changing lessons in personal transformation by asking yourself What Are You Made Of? This powerful question will ignite within you a thrust to greatness! Learn how to overcome painful past obstacles and achieve a fulfilling life where you're in command of your future. If you're ready to shoot for the stars, C-Roc says, "Thrust is a must!" Strap in and get ready for the ride of your life. Mike's latest book: https://amzn.to/3wwkTX5 CEO - People Building, Inc. C-Roc's Website: https://www.mikecroc.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikeycroc/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mikeciorrocco YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGWHuKojqZfcXmvGCAi_t1Q LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-ciorrocco/ Email: info@peoplebuildinginc.com Podcast Music By: Andy Galore, Album: "Out and About", Song: "Chicken & Scotch" 2014 Andy's Links: http://andygalore.com/ https://www.facebook.com/andygalorebass If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. For show notes and past guests, please visit: https://joecostelloglobal.libsyn.com Subscribe, Rate & Review: I would love if you could subscribe to the podcast and leave an honest rating & review. This will encourage other people to listen and allow us to grow as a community. The bigger we get as a community, the bigger the impact we can have on the world. Sign up for Joe's email newsletter at: https://joecostelloglobal.com/#signup For transcripts of episodes, go to: https://joecostelloglobal.lybsyn.com Follow Joe: https://linktr.ee/joecostello Transcript Joe: Ok, welcome, everybody. Today, my guest is Mike "C-Roc" Ciorrocco. I'm really excited to have this talk with him and I know you're going to enjoy this. Mike, thanks so much for coming on. I appreciate it. Mike: Thank you, Joe. I'd like to start every interview that I go on with gratitude and just really express that to you for allowing me to come on and share with you. And thank you to your audience for listening and showing up. Joe: Absolutely, man, I love that gratitudes a huge thing in my life, so I'm right there with you. I appreciate it. I think it's important that everyone has their back story makes up sort of what they've become in life. You know, it doesn't define who they become. But there is something about what has happened throughout your life leading up to where you are now that has molded this person that you've become. And I Mike: Right. Joe: Am interested in that. And and I always start with this, just like you always start. What is it? What are you made of? Right. That's what you Mike: They Joe: Start Mike: Had to turn your head sideways, I love Joe: perfect! Mike: It, you know, now, you know, I came from a broken home. I don't remember my parents together, Joe. I grew up around a lot of broken people, alcoholics, drug addicts, people suffering from anxiety, depression. My grandmother committed suicide after taking too much anti anxiety or depression medication. You know, a lot of things I went through as a kid just watching just destruction. And, you know, I think that decisions we make and Focus's that we have either go towards living and surviving or destruction. And I was seeing the destruction part and I wasn't OK with that. And I didn't want to accept that. So I would always try to help people switch around even from a young age. I was just not OK with what I was seeing. And, you know, my mom when I was three or four years old, I just remember her always telling me that I inspired her and I was going to be a leader. And I think subconsciously, subconsciously, she was doing that because she knew what was going on in the family and knew that I was gonna have to deal with some things. And so I had that programmed into me. So I was always just looking for people to help, looking for people to show them a better way and not buying into what they were telling themselves. And so, you know, that's just something I experienced at a young age. And really when it came down, what lit my fire and what I made of, I would say, is rocket fuel. Because when I was eight, my mom was moving on to her third marriage and I wasn't really up for going into another man's house and learned another man's rules Joe: Hmm. Mike: And but decided to give my dad a try who was moving on to his second marriage. And at that time, you know. I broke my mom's heart by doing that. I didn't know that at the time, but she told me later on that, you know, she cried herself to sleep at night when I left and I was our first child, you know, and when I moved to my dad's, everything seemed fine at first. But after three years, you know, during that three years, there was a lot of conflict. You know, there's a when you had step parents into the mix, any time that stuff happens. The kid is the only link between the past relationship and so a lot gets taken out on the children and anybody that's been in a broken home that dealt with child support, custody battles every other weekend, things that parents jealous, things like just everybody that's been through that knows what I'm talking about. And so a lot of that time they're in from eight to 11 hours, experience a lot of emotional, psychological abuse threats, things like that that were really probably not directed towards me, but came my way. And at nine years old, I would sleep with my baseball bat a lot of nights Joe: Wow. Mike: Because I was scared. And no kid should have to go through that, through that, of course. But that's what went into making me look. I went through these things. I went through court, child psychologists, to see if I was mature enough that at a young age to figure out who I wanted to live with, like all that kind of stuff Joe: Make Mike: And. Joe: Your own decisions, all of that, that crazy. Mike: Yeah, Joe: Yeah, yeah, Mike: Yeah, Joe: Yeah, Mike: And seeing parents fight Joe: Yeah. Mike: And, you know, just just not not happy environment, and so that's what went into me. But the thing is, is that I was always on the right side of the track. Thank God. I was always looking at how can I be better not being accepting of it. Let me look at the bright side of things. Let me look at, OK, what is this doing and how can I take advantage of using this to a better life? So one weekend I was coming home from my mom's house Joe: And Mike: And Joe: So Mike: I Joe: I don't mean to interrupt. Was this Mike: Noticed Joe: All Mike: For. Joe: In Maryland or all back on the East Coast or. Mike: This is in Pennsylvania, outside of Philly. Joe: Ok, cool. Mike: Yeah, Joe: Ok. Mike: So so my mom was living in Maryland, and you know what, I got to about 10, some 10 years old, give or take. I was coming home from my mom's house one day, one weekend after being there and my stomach was in knots. I was anxious. I don't want to go back. And my mom was saying something was wrong. She questioned me and I told her, you know, when you go through abuse, anybody that's been through abuse, you can probably relate to this. That one you don't just like to share because you're afraid that people won't believe you, too. You kind of you're so accustomed to going through it, you're not sure how bad it really is. Somebody on the outside would be like, holy cow, you're dealing with that really. Joe: Yeah. Mike: But as you're going through it, you just think it's ordinary. Another thing, maybe you're embarrassed that you let it go on for that long. And then the weirdest thing is that you're actually concerned with your abuser. You're like, what will happen if I share this to them? Joe: At. Mike: You know, just a weird thing. So I finally came came to the realization that I need to share that my mom said, you know, I'm going to get you out of there. I'm going to file court papers. You don't need to be going through that. That's not ordinary. You need to, you know, in a better situation, she said. But if you do if I do this, you need to stick to your guns. You've got to be like really, really firm because they're going to try to talk you out of it. And in life, when you believe in something, you've got to stick to your guns, man, because people will have agendas and they're going to try to talk you out of it, move one way or the other. And at the end of the day. If you do that, you're not going to live the life you want to live, so she reminded me that, you know, 10 years old, you know, filling my head with great stuff, you know, and I went back home that day and waited and waited weeks went by and waited for those court papers to be delivered. You know, I just knew it was going to happen. And I didn't tell my dad about it, of course. And then finally, one day I come home from school and the tension in the house, you could feel it like it was something was up. And I knew what the deal Joe: Mm Mike: Was. Joe: Hmm. Mike: I had to feel the first. I thought I did something wrong. You know, I'm looking around like, what did I do today? He had his papers in his hand. My dad did. And I knew, like, oh, here we go. And he told me to go to my room. Now, my dad was my hero. He had a successful masonry business, very hard worker, big forearms, rough hands. Joe: Yeah. Mike: You know, you tell he's a hard worker and he always cared a wad of hundred dollar bills in his pocket. And I thought that was the coolest thing and had a rubber band around Joe: So Mike: It Joe: Did Mike: And. Joe: My partner, it's so buddy. Mike: Yeah, yeah, it must be the last thing Joe: Yeah, and. Mike: He would always show me the money, and I thought it was a cool hundred dollar bills, Joe: Yeah. Mike: You know, so he came back in front of me and I didn't get into the discussion with him because my mom said, stick to your guns. So he proceeded to tell me how my mom would have guys coming in and out. Why would you want to go there? You have it made here. You have everything you need. They're poor. They don't have anything. You know, my mom was I mean, we look at the houses. Twenty five, thirty thousand. Our house broken down cars in the driveway. You know, we went on vacation to the Jersey Shore. Joe: Yeah. Mike: But we stayed in a rundown motel, one room for kids, two adults, and we were I just remember just the other day, we were actually able to bring some friends with us sometimes, which just makes it like just I don't even remember how that worked. And we would take black trash bags as a suitcase. So, you know, share my story. By the way, back in the day, I was kind of embarrassed by that. I just didn't like to share that, you know. Joe: Yep. Mike: But I started to realize that the more you share your story, the more impact you can have and the more people that can relate to it and maybe change your life for two Joe: Yep, Mike: Or millions, Joe: Yep. Mike: You know. So I started sharing that. But just to wrap it up real quick, so when I did confirm that my dad took that wad of hundred dollar bills out of his pocket, peeled one off, crumpled it up and threw it at me and said, if that's the case and you want to move there, you're going to need this when you're living on the street with your mother one day. And I remember that 30 some years I lived off that spark that was lit right there because I'm stubborn, my shirt that I think is, say, Joe: And. Mike: Stubborn, perversely unyielding, it's a good thing when it's on the right thing. But, you know, I was like, I'm not going to let that happen. And so 30 some years, I was driving off that spark until two years ago. I really subconsciously I was doing that. I really realized two years ago, wait a minute here, there's something magical that's going on. My life keeps going on its upward trajectory. No matter what happens, no matter screw ups, let downs, disappointments, what is happening here and what I found, which I wrote in my book that's coming out Monday, May 3rd on Amazon Rocket Fuel, I was taken everything that would stop normal human beings or slow them down, store it in my fuel tank instead of my truck, would weigh you down and converted it into rocket fuel for my future to become unstoppable. And I found that and I realized, wait a minute, this is not just a concept. This is an this is a law. If you do this, you really are unstoppable to live in the life of your dreams until you're plucked from this planet. So that's why I decided to write this book that Grant Carter wrote the foreword because it was so powerful. I got to get this message out to people. So that's a little bit about the story. There's you know, that's the short version, actually. Joe: No, that's all good. That's exactly what I wanted, the only piece that I still need to figure out is what did you do? How did you figure out what you wanted to do in life in that middle section of where people go to college or they get a job? Or what Mike: Yeah. Joe: Did you do during that time? Mike: Well, I played football and I didn't drink any alcohol or party all through high school, I played football, baseball wrestled, but football was my love Joe: Mm hmm. Mike: And I just I always thought about I want to go to Ohio State, play football, because I just love their team. I watched them play Michigan all the time growing up. And I never grew tall enough, never grew fast enough Joe: I feel your pain. Mike: That. Yeah. So five, six and three quarters, you got to be really, really fast if you're five, six Joe: Yeah. Mike: And three quarters. So I decided to go to Division three. I played football in college study business. But when I got to college, Joe, I lost my focus and I started chasing girls and party in which I never did before. And it was like Disney World first, you Joe: Yeah, Mike: Know what I mean? Joe: Yeah. Mike: And I just lost, man, I four, five, six, seven years in that range. I was just it's all I cared about was parties where the girls at and I need to be around people. And so that's that's the lead up to that. And then eventually I met my wife, who just the commitment to my wife straighten me up. And I was off to the races. I think that my thing with my wife right now, I joke with her all the time, is I have to outsource. I have to earn her spending on Amazon and deliveries to the house. So it's constantly like this. The other day she's like, I look I go up in the kitchen and there's a piece of decking, like the composite decking. Joe: Oh, you know Mike: We Joe: That Mike: Have Joe: That's Mike: A wood Joe: Going Mike: Deck. Joe: To be redone. Mike: And I'm like, I already told you, oh, not right now. It seems like I already had somebody come over measured Joe: Oh, Mike: On my car and drive back down into the cave. Joe: That's Mike: I call this my studio, my cave. I got to go make some money now. Joe: That's so Mike: A Joe: Funny. Mike: Great motivator. Joe: That is awesome. All right. Well, that's where and was college. Mike: Salisbury University in Maryland. Joe: Ok, and then ever since you've stayed in Maryland, Mike: Yeah, Joe: But Mike: I Joe: Now Mike: Moved Joe: You're Mike: To Joe: In Mike: Connecticut Joe: Ocean City, Mike: For a period of time, Joe: Yep, Mike: But we moved to Ocean City Joe: Yep. Mike: Now. Yep. Joe: Which is beautiful. I love it there. OK, cool. Yeah. And I'm Mike: Thank Joe: On the East Mike: You. Joe: Coast. I'm originally from New Mike: A Joe: York. Mike: Cool, Joe: So. Mike: Cool. Joe: So this leads right into the question that since you're going to do the decking, are you still doing. Are you still in the mortgage business because that's your. Mike: Yeah, Joe: Yeah, Mike: Yeah, Joe: Ok. OK. Mike: Yeah, we have a have a division that I run with three best friends, they take care of the day to day operations Joe: Yep. Mike: And it's a large division under our nation's lending. And we run it like our own business. And it's great people, great culture. It's just phenomenal. Joe: And Mike: So. Joe: You've been doing that quite a long time, right? I've saw Mike: Yet. Joe: You've gotten rated as number number one in Yahoo! Finance are right. I mean, you have. Mike: Yeah, so 2006, I got into it and started as a loan officer and just went from two employees and started a branch and vision and two employees up to 40. Joe: Wow, that's incredible. OK, cool. So when did you make this shift of and you talk about this in one of your videos about sharing your story and you share. You also mentioned it when you were giving your story, how important that is. And when did you make this when did you allow yourself to say, OK, I have this business and I have great partners and people to run this business? When did you decide to at least start your company now with what you're doing with your podcast, in your book and everything? What was the trigger for that? Mike: Yes, so early, twenty, nineteen, my stepfather, George, she took over from my dad when I was 11. He was a great guy and he passed away in twenty eighteen and a heart attack suddenly. And I wrote about this in the book, the story about how he found out and everything. It's it's you know, but but at the end of the day, he had a passion when he was passionate about something like football, baseball, hunting, fishing. He would get up and just go nuts, like deep voice, like everybody couldn't, like, really understand him. He was like so passionate, like they would be taken aback by him. And when he passed away, you know, a couple of weeks after he passed away, I had this passion or energy, something spirit come inside of me. Like, I just felt different. And I realized that I wasn't playing a big enough game in life. You know, I was doing well in the business and the mortgages and all that. But it just that's not the game that I was designed for. I was playing small and I started to realize, wait a minute, I need to open myself up to other opportunities, because if I just focus here, this is where I'm going to stay. And I was having truths that I was telling myself and beliefs that I was telling myself is that this is it for me. This is I'm stuck, you know, Joe: Mm Mike: And Joe: Hmm. Mike: I don't necessarily love the mortgage business. It's great and all that. But the end of the day, I just had a bigger, bigger calling. And so I started trying to figure out, OK, how can I get known in this calling of building people? Because that's what I actually do at the mortgage business. It wasn't the mortgage business. It was I was building people. I was helping develop people. And so I said, how can I get known more in a bigger, bigger scale mystate instead of just my town? Then I was like, that's not big enough. I'll come up short. How about the country and then the globe? And then I was like, you know, what? If I start really expanding my mind, I'm like, if there's aliens, which I've never seen one, but if there is, let me see if I can get aliens to know who I am and really go for that and then come up a little short and I'll be all right. And that's the way I started thinking about things and started trying to impact and share my story with tens of millions of people, hundreds of millions of people. How can I do that? And I started to obsess about that. And that's when the podcast came. The book idea came and and I just started networking like an animal and going on. You know, I've done three hundred interviews in the last year. Joe: Oh, that's crazy. Mike: So just really lean into it and that's how it all started, and then now I'm into tech, into the tech world where I'm developing a tech product. I co-founded the company. And also we have other we're creating a tech portfolio of other co-founders, non tech entrepreneurs that have ideas that think that they can never do it. They usually go to the grave with those Joe: Mm Mike: Things. Joe: Hmm. Mike: We're bringing them into the world and giving them the resources they need to actually co-found their companies and creating unstoppable people. Because my mission, Joe, is all people are unstoppable to live in the life of their dreams. And so everything I do, I filter through that mission. Joe: It's so cool, man, and it's so funny because you hit it right on the head with with the same thing with me, it's like you don't have a successful business. But I know it's not my calling. It's not what I was put here to do. And and everything that I do should be so much more impactful and so much bigger. And I've had this I had the conversation with David Meltzer. And at the same Mike: Yeah. Joe: Time, he brings you back in focus and he's like, yeah, but you should know that you you have everything you need. You just got to get out of your own way. It's not a matter that you should focus on wanting more. You have it all. You're just Mike: Yep. Joe: You're literally getting in your own way of getting it done. Mike: Yeah, and that's the thing, it's the truths that we tell ourselves we're living an illusion, we let the illusions that we have based on our beliefs and past experiences, and we let that affect us and limit us and block us. And really, at the end of the day, you know, we'd rather explain our life instead of actually intervening in it. We'd like to explain with excuses, you know, and justify things and, you know, at the end of the day, man, we just tell ourselves what we can tell ourselves that helps us survive. And to me, that's not good enough, because you're going to always come up a little short, so why not thrive and really go after it? And, you know, there's not everybody that's going to be able to do what we do. So why don't we take it up a notch and get get really abundance, like go after abundance so that we can help other people and distribute this information to other people. So that's the kind of things that I started thinking. I started hanging around people that coach and mentor me the right way, thinking big, you know, also, you know, still like Dave Meltzer talks about, you've got to be happy now. It's not like later, Joe: Yeah, Mike: So. Joe: Yeah, so I don't want to go down the current path, I follow him, I love the stuff that he does. I know that it fits the mold for a lot of people that are in the real estate world. And but Mike: Yeah. Joe: I also know that he's doing a lot of other things. But how he wrote the foreword to your book, which is amazing, how how much did he influence you making this jump to doing what you're doing now? Mike: So when George died, my stepfather, my brother was read in the next room and he said, Mike, you've got to read this book, this guy sounds just like you. I'll take a look at it. I started I saw Grant before and like pictures, but I thought he was like a real estate. Joe: Yep, Mike: I thought he trained realtors, Joe: Yep, Mike: I wasn't even sure, Joe: Yep. Mike: Right, so I read the book and I'm like, holy cow, this guy speaking to me, he's going through similar situations that I've been Joe: Yeah. Mike: Through. Like, I can totally relate. And I but but the big thing was about it was I've always had this big think, but I got cocooned for a while by people that I surround myself with that were broken thinkers, broken mindset, people, people that didn't fit my culture, but they produce. So I kept them around and people that quit on me. And I let that affect me personally. And I got into this situation where I was invalidated, me myself. I felt invalidated on being the animal that I actually am. And so when I was reading that book, I'm like, wait a minute, this this shows me something. I'm not the crazy one. Those people are the crazy ones. I have an animal. So I did unleash it. So I was able to unleash the beast and that's what it did for me. And then I just immersed myself in this content, hung around with all these people, build relationships inside his company, because I just want to be around those types of people. Joe: Yep. Mike: Great, great friendships. Like I said, Jerry Glantz, a friend of mine, I just you know, I'm proud to have them in my in my circle. And so when when I wrote the book, the book actually came from an idea that I got while I was interviewing grad on my podcast about I asked him the question, what would it take to get into outer space? Not like literally, but figuratively speaking, getting away from all the gravity and negative suppressors of people and things that can mess with you. When can you get that amount of money or that amount of whatever it is? And he said people aren't ready for that discussion. He said that's just something the answer doesn't people don't like the answer to that question and I'm like, well, what would it take? You know? And I started thinking about rocket fuel. Rocket fuel is what it would take. Take it all that stuff, converting it and fuel your way up there. And then once you do that, you remove all that stuff out of your way. There's nothing to stop you and you become unstoppable and indestructible. And that's the thought that started going through my head and I started obsessing about it. I'm like, I got to write this. So when I did that, I'm like the only person that would make sense to be writing the forward for this book is Grant. I don't know if he does afterwards. I don't know if he charged me. I don't know anything. I'm going to make it happen, though. And that's what I started thinking all the time. I just dwelled on it, wrote it down and. Book is almost done, and I made a phone call and there are some details that went into doing that and I just got done and his name is on the cover of the book is for Written Joe: Yeah, Mike: By Grant. Joe: Yeah. Mike: So that adds to credibility that I may not have had before, but the content in the book is just so powerful, man. It's just I actually can be honest with you about something like like I'm always honest, but like just totally transparent. I read that book over and over again during the editing process. Right. And I got so sick of it and because I've read it so much, but then I haven't read it in a while and I went back and my team, we go through in the morning and we'll pick a passage to read out of it just to see what what we come upon. And I don't even remember writing some of the stuff. I'm just like, wow, this is like this is really good stuff. Joe: That's cool, Mike: So it's a weird Joe: Yeah. Mike: It's a weird mind game when you're writing a book and then to see the actual finished product. It's a good time. Joe: That's really cool, yeah, I look forward to reading it, I it's, you know, just talking with you, I can tell we're in sync on a lot of this stuff. You're ahead of me because you wrote a book and I haven't done it yet, but I know that it's a good process to go through. Where did you figure out where you wanted to start in the book in regards to your life? Mike: So, you know, I started share my story that I share with you and I have other parts of my life in there, too, that are just crazy, blew people's minds. But I really what I did was I started writing in my phone while I was on airplanes and I would just write ideas in my phone and and I would write stories that happen in my life. And then my podcast, we transcribe the podcast episodes, the first few that were a monologue style, and we just created a framework. And then it doesn't look anything like it started. That's how I got started with it and just started, you know, what kind of what went into me, what am I made of? And I just went into that and started sharing it. And then the lessons that broke off from each of those things, because, you know, a lot of people have been through there's people that have been through a lot more than I have. But my story is pretty crazy. Like there's some stuff that happened to me that nobody could imagine going through. But I'm still here, brother, and I'm still going hard. Joe: I hear you. I see that and you brought up a good point and one of the videos that I watch where you said people discount their story, right? They don't think, why would anybody care? It's not that Mike: Yeah. Joe: Special. Well, when were you able to actually take your own thoughts as part of your own story and make that switch where you said, wait a second, you know, what I've gone through is important. If it can help one person in the world, that's value enough. I mean, when did you or did you not ever doubt that your story was powerful? Mike: No, so I would I never shared it and I saw Pete Vargas share his story on the 10x growth conference stage in twenty nineteen, I'm sitting there watching and this is the first big stage, I think, that Pete was on. He was nervous and scared and his face, you could tell, is sweating and he would tell you this. I'm friends with Joe: Mm Mike: Him, so Joe: Hmm. Mike: It's not something I'm talking about. Joe: Yeah, no, no. Mike: But I thought to myself, I'm watching that. I don't know who he was at that time, but he was telling a story about his father and he was like really connecting with me and the relationship and how he grew up in a rough spot. And then they came back together and how it all worked out. And I'm like, wow, this is just like powerful. I felt like everybody else disappeared in the place and it was just him talking to me. And I'm like, I need to learn how to do that. And if he can do it, I know I could do it. That's what went through my head. And I told the guys I was with when we got in the car afterwards, I'm like, I'm going to be on that stage. I'm going to share my story one day and I know I can do it. And so then I started sharing the story of one person, two people, five people. And they were like, that's all. I really can relate to that. Then I said, Well, shit, I need to go to ten million people Joe: Mm hmm. Mike: If I could do it and how can I do that? And that's when I started obsessing about getting known and sharing that story. And, you know, I was able to talk to Pete after that and actually learn from him how to share your story. And but I shared that that that story about seeing him in the audience and how everybody just disappeared and how he connected with me. And so it's pretty powerful stuff, Joe: Yeah, Mike: Man. Joe: That's really powerful, but that's got to be a little eerie to just be sitting there Mike: The. Joe: And all of a sudden it's just like a movie where everything around you blurs out and it's just Mike: Yeah. Joe: The two of you. Yeah, Mike: Yeah. Joe: That's incredible. Something real light like question I have for you. The logo is it is a logo. And I'm going to take a guess and I'm probably going to be wrong. And you're going to say, well, nice try, Joe, but does it have anything to do with the Lynch? Mike: So the sirocco, the blue. Joe: Yeah. Mike: Yeah, so it's just upside down, see, and in two hours that are, you know, for Cerak and then it just has a little dude in there holding up the world, if you can see him. That's what it has now. It doesn't. I Joe: Ok, Mike: Didn't see that. So linchpin, Joe: Only because Mike: Huh? Joe: When I read some stuff from you talking about, you know, in some of the verbiage that I read about you and on your website, you mention Mike: Yeah. Joe: The word linchpin. I can't remember the context, but it was. Mike: Yeah, no, you know what, I. Joe: And then when I looked at a picture of a lynchpin, I was like, wait, it is Mike: I Joe: Round. Mike: Got to Joe: And Mike: See what a picture of a linchpin Joe: You Mike: Looks like Joe: See Mike: Because Joe: Now Mike: Because, Joe: I have Mike: You know, Joe: You thinking. Mike: Like that's. Yeah, I got to look at this because maybe maybe, yeah, maybe it does, Joe: The. Mike: So I didn't design the logo myself I had professionally done, and maybe he had that in mind as well. Joe: Only because it's mean you could kind of say it a little bit. I don't know. Mike: Yeah, yeah, I see what you're saying, Joe: Right, Mike: Yeah, Joe: It's Mike: No, Joe: Round Mike: I didn't Joe: With Mike: Have Joe: The Mike: That. Joe: With the thing through it, and I'm thinking, OK, well, maybe it's kind Mike: Yeah. Joe: Of hinting towards it and and I Mike: Now, Joe: Said, Mike: It was really just the sea Joe: Yeah. Mike: And the two hour and holding up the world and helping lift up the Joe: That's Mike: World, Joe: Cool, Mike: That's what Joe: That's even cooler, so you can Mike: The. Joe: Throw my idea right out the window, Mike: Now, Joe: But Mike: I Joe: I Mike: Like that, I like that. Joe: Do I do some upfront investigation of the person I'm talking to in the life and all of that stuff. And I saw that, you know, because you're doing your mortgages. And I saw that Jennifer is in real estate and I don't Mike: Yeah. Joe: Know if she still is, but. Mike: Yes, yes. Joe: So that's a really cool synergy between the two of you, first of all, I think that probably works really well. But just for the people in the audience who had a great relationship with their significant other, how important has that been in the balance of your life, especially what you went through as a young, you know, a young man being able to have that support in and you found the love of your life and it's you know, there's that whole synergy there between you. Mike: Yeah, I mean, it's it's everything, I mean, like I said, I made a joke about trying to earn her spending with that, but then on the day she does a great job, she did she was a stay at home mom for a while until our youngest was in school. And then I said, you know what? I'm going to try to you know, we've got to figure out something because I'm giving deals away Joe: Uh huh, Mike: To people. Joe: Yep. Mike: And, you know, it would be great if you get a license and she ended up doing it. And she's just the type that if she gets into something, she goes hard with it. And she did great the first two years, just fantastic. I didn't even realize how much money she made last year until I saw ten ninety nine. I'm like, wow, you did great. But she's just phenomenal and aligns well with our business. Obviously I don't do mortgages much anymore. Joe: Yeah. Mike: I don't do it all. I just I work on the business maybe an hour a day. My team runs the day to day. They do a fantastic job. And so but it aligns well, obviously in a lot of our people, their spouse got their real estate license, too, because it aligns so well. Joe: Mm hmm. Yeah. Mike: So, yeah, but but at the end of the day, we are you know, I'm very clear with what I'm trying to do, my dreams. And she is clear on the fact of her dreams and the fact that she's willing to support me and run through fire for me. And Joe: Yeah. Mike: It's just a great feeling because I can't do it without her, obviously. Joe: Yep, yep, I just wanted to sort of bring that up, because I think it's important I have the same sort of relationship with Joel Mike: And Joe: And Mike: It's Joe: My significant Mike: Awesome. Joe: Other. So it's Mike: Yeah. Joe: To me, it's super important. And with what happened with covid, you know, a lot of things just stopped. Right. And Mike: Mm hmm. Joe: Changes were made. And so she got furloughed from doing her day to day job and has not been brought back. But she's always had this dream of doing photography. And so now I basically have said to her, you are not going back and you are going to from this point forward until whenever the world ends for you, you're going to follow your dream. So I Mike: Awesome. Joe: Think it's important. Right. And to Mike: Yeah. Joe: Support each other and it's nice to see that you have that same relationship. Mike: Yeah, so, so, so important that it aligns I mean, so much conflict comes from just not being aligned with the mission, Joe: Yep, Mike: You know, Joe: Yep. Mike: And I think that people need to realize that their personal dream, their mission, I call it their purpose, their mission. It's it's more important than anything when it comes down to it really is. Joe: Yeah. Mike: And that's why it's so important to share that with your partner, to make sure that they're on the same page with you. Joe: So let's talk about that. I'm sure I'm probably older than you at this point, but we're Mike: Yeah, Joe: At Mike: Definitely, definitely. Now Joe: The. Mike: I'm 40, I'm 40 for some, I'm Joe: Oh, Mike: A Joe: My gosh, I'm so Mike: Young Joe: Old, Mike: Pup, Joe: I can't. Mike: But I am going on 18 years of marriage. This May so. Joe: Congratulations, that's awesome, yeah, Mike: Thank Joe: Joel Mike: You. Joe: And Mike: Thank Joe: I Mike: You. Joe: Are 20, I think, at this point. Mike: Ok, cool, congrats. Joe: Yeah, I turned fifty nine this past February, so, Mike: Oh, man, I Joe: You know. Mike: Can't tell. I really can't Joe: Yeah, Mike: Tell. Joe: Well thank Mike: Maybe Joe: You. Mike: That's why that's why you shave your head, because that way you can't see any Joe: That's Mike: Gray hairs. Joe: Exactly, exactly right. They got my eyebrows Mike: Hey, Joe: Are still dark, Mike: Look, I'm with you the way the. Joe: So do you ever look at where you are now and you look back and go? I mean, and I think we've talked about this with some of the great people, like, you know, we can bring up David Meltzer again because he's just he's like one of my mentors. I love the guy at the Mike: Is Joe: Death. Mike: Awesome. Joe: You know, what is what's the saying? Something like the the teacher. The teacher appears when the student is ready, Mike: Yeah. Joe: Right? Mike: Yeah, yeah, yeah, teachers. Joe: Yep. Mike: Yep, exactly. Joe: And it's the same thing with life. Like things come when the time is right. And some people would argue against that. Some people would say whatever. But you just started on this path now, right. Something flipped when you're 40, when your stepfather passed away, it said there's you know, and you might have felt that your whole life because you people like you and I always were pulled towards something. Right. We're entrepreneurs. We've always worked towards a greater goal of whatever. Do you ever look back and go, God, I wish I had started this sooner? Or is it like, no, it's this is the time. This is the right time. It's happening now. You know, I'm interested in what your thought process is on that. Mike: Well, I'm curious, asking the question, you must have felt some kind of feeling about that in the past, maybe. Joe: I constantly go like I had, I chased another dream up until this point, and that Mike: Yeah. Joe: Dream didn't happen for me and I openly admit all the time that I didn't put in the work to make that dream happen. I'm Mike: The. Joe: I'm a trained you know, I went to college for music. So my whole life has been surrounded by music. And one day I was going to tour the world and be this famous drummer for and I always use the example because I love his music. John Mayer. Mike: Yeah. Joe: That never happened for me because I know now I can look myself in the mirror and go, You didn't put in the work. You didn't put in the Mike: Yeah, Joe: Tent. Mike: The commitment, Joe: Yeah. You Mike: Yeah. Joe: Didn't do the ten thousand hours. You Mike: Yeah. Joe: You would rather had gone down to the college campus bar and had a bunch of beers and chicken wings with your buddies Mike: Yep. Joe: Instead of going back into the practice room and spending another four hours at night. So I am fine with I get it now, but now Mike: Yeah. Joe: I'm trying to take like the rest of my life and make it amazing and live much Mike: Yeah. Joe: Bigger. And so I am at the stage right now doing that change, shifting Mike: Mm hmm. Joe: My my frame of mind. I know the world is abundant. I know that everything you know, I just have to look towards the good of everything. And the more I focus on the good and the abundance and the gratitude, more of it just keeps coming in. In the last two months, it's been incredible for me. And so and it's I always was the oh, woe is me. Like I work my ass off. Why am I not getting that? Why am I not Mike: Yep, Joe: Doing that? So Mike: Yeah. Joe: That's why I asked you this question Mike: Yeah, Joe: When that, Mike: Yeah. Joe: You know, was the shift with your with Mike: Yeah. Joe: Your father, your stepfather passing away and you just saying when you said you felt it in your heart, you were like, I need to do something bigger. Was that the pivotal point for this? Mike: Yes, it was, and I did look back and be like, man, I cannot believe when I started finding out things and becoming aware of things, I cannot believe I didn't start this sooner. I didn't know that. Like, I just felt like I had wasted I went through a period of time where I felt like I wasted time and time is so valuable. And I said, you know what? I don't know how much longer I have on this planet, but you know what, at this point, the window keeps shrinking. I got to pick up my urgency. I got to move faster. I got to demand more and be louder and be more impactful and be just more intense than I would have had to if I started a long time ago, that's all. And so at first I did look back and with some regret. But then I quickly got out of that and said, OK, what have we got to do to get this done in the window that I do have left? So, yeah, I definitely and that was the pivotal, pivotal point, of course, working towards it my whole life, not knowing it. Joe: Yeah. Mike: You know, there's a story in the Bible and they made a movie about it with Steve Carell about Noah's Ark. You know, it was told over some years he took to build this big arc and he didn't really know why he was doing it, he was just being told to do it by God. If you believe in God, Joe: Hmm. Mike: Which I do, or if it's intuition or whatever. And he got these animals and people were laughing at him and discouraging them and he just kept doing it anyway and building a ship in a place where there's never rain. Joe: All right. Mike: And did it make sense, it didn't seem to make sense at the moment, but he kept doing it and he kept being committed and doing it and doing it and doing it before you know it. The rain came, washed everybody away, and he survived with all the animals that he had and his family. And so I look at that lesson and I started to see this now. I started to see that the things when I'm committed and obeyed to my purpose, my mission, and I filter things through that, whether it's the people I hang out with, my actions, my words, my thoughts, my environment, when I start to filter through that mission. I'm obeying what I'm supposed to be doing and things just magically work out and I start to see opportunities everywhere, but when I don't do that, they're missing. And so you don't need to know what the end game is necessarily. You should be shooting for something, but just be looking for the opportunities. As long as you're obeying your mission and filtering everything through your purpose or mission or whatever you want to call it. Joe: Yeah. All right, well, that makes me feel good that I'm not the only one that had some regrets, so thank Mike: The. Joe: You for being vulnerable and saying that because I definitely have gone through it and I have like I said, I'm older than you. So I think, you know, think, Mike: None of us are alone, Joe. None of us are, you Joe: Ok. Mike: Know, I've anything that you go through, there's somebody else out there experiencing it for sure. Joe: Right, and I think that's what you're a lot of what you talk about is it's so important to share your story because it literally could help one person, which would be a huge help. You never know where they are in their state of mind. And if it lifts them, that's awesome. But imagine being able to help tens of thousands of millions of billions of people. Right. So I understand that's what the goal is for people like us who want to do that. So I I wish you the best of luck in doing that. And and same Mike: Thanks. Joe: With myself. Mike: Yeah, Joe: They've Mike: You, Joe: Got Mike: Too. Joe: To get it done. Mike: That's right, Joe: Ok, Mike: That's right. Joe: So you said something earlier about the book, which is the name of the book is Rocket Fuel. And you said it's May, May 3rd. Mike: Yeah, May 3rd, Monday, May 3rd, it's coming out on Amazon, and, you know, it should be a best seller based on we have we presold it. So I'm thinking that it's not going to have a problem being a best seller, number one best seller. Joe: Yep. Mike: What we shall see. But I'm going to do a bunch of lives that day, Instagram and Facebook lives, and just have some fun with it Joe: Cool. Mike: And celebrate. Joe: Ok, cool, so let's talk about it a little bit. Mike: Sure. Joe: You said something earlier that I thought was really cool, which was taking you said something about taking whatever comes in and not putting in it in the trunk, but putting it in the fuel tank and making rocket fuel. So explain Mike: Yep, Joe: That again Mike: Very Joe: To me, because Mike: Good. Joe: I I loved Mike: Yeah. Joe: It when you said I was like and I didn't even write it down. Mike: Yeah. Joe: I was like, no, that's got to go up here in my brain. So I would love to Mike: Well, Joe: Hear that again. Mike: Well, when you want something in life and things come your way to stop it or slow you down, if you remove a one thing, obviously that's going to help. But removing is not good enough for me. So I take all that stuff. Haters, people that discourage me laughed at me. What I'm trying to do, screw ups of my own people trying to screw me, all that stuff I just stored in my fuel tank. And usually people put it in their trunk and that weighs them down. You know, most people quit on their dreams because other people are talking Joe: Mm hmm. Mike: About them and saying, no, you're not the same. Why are you doing that? In all kinds of different things? I take all that and say, you know what, like here's an example, by the way, I stored in my tank, my fuel tank, to convert it into rocket fuel rather than my trunk, where it weighs me down. And some of the people closest to me, you know, like some of my business partners and friends and they know who they are. I talk to them about it. And I said, you know what? You keep saying the stuff like, hey, why don't you go do your podcast? Hey, you know, just this stupid digs like that, right? At the end of the day, they're trying to get at me, but they're really just talking about themselves, reflecting upon themselves and the fact that they should be doing that and they're not. And so I know that. And I tell people, you know, you want to say that, great, you're not going to achieve what you think you're going to achieve because all you're doing is giving me more fuel and I'm going to push it even harder. So when somebody says that to me, I'll do it on purpose, where I'll push harder and then I'll show it up in their face a little bit more to about. They're seeing so many posts on Instagram, I'll make sure I send it to them in a direct message, because that way it shuts them Joe: Yeah, Mike: Up Joe: Yeah, Mike: For Joe: It's weird, I don't Mike: Not Joe: Understand, Mike: Being. Joe: I don't understand, like people want to bring you down to their level, right? We deal with that all the time. And and social media has done so much to expose those people. And I just don't understand why they can't be happy for you. But they. Mike: Well, they can't because so I've already realized this in my mind now I know this, it's not them personally, it's their mind. And what it's happening is they just the subconscious mind just justifies where you are. It's trying to justify the truths that you told yourself and when something comes in to threaten that. You have to basically there there things fire off to protect their subconscious beliefs, and so it's not really them personally that's doing it and that's why you can't take it personal. You need to understand it. And then when they're doing it, you need to lay it out to them and let them know, hey, listen, I know what's going on here. I get it. You're where you are and you're trying to justify where you are. And you're saying this stuff to me. I don't take it personal, by the way. I use it as fuel. So thank you. And if you want to say more, continue to give me fuel. Great. But I would rather be able to help you. On break the like, just open up your truths and change them, change your beliefs. And expand your mind and see what you can achieve instead of worrying about what I'm doing and that's the way I handle it, I don't really get fired up or angry or take it personal. It's just a situation where they're going through it. And I think we've all been through it Zoom. I think I'm more understanding of it, Joe: Yeah. Mike: But I will not. But if they don't listen to me when I talk about that, I will not spend time with them because I'm not going to spend time with people that don't align with the mission. Joe: Totally agree. So the book Rocket Fuel coming out May 3rd on Amazon, who is this book for? Mike: Specifically, this is for people that have gone through things in life. And they feel like they keep getting held back or slowed down by things are stopped and they're just they're just done with it. They're they're at the point right now where they've had enough. They're getting sick of where they are and they want to do something about it. And they are looking for that breakthrough that that that superpower, because really it is it's like John Maxwell, House leadership, because this thing is so powerful. And I validated it so, so thoroughly that it's a law, it's the Rockefeller law. And so it's for people that are just sick and tired of being where they are. And they want to advance. They want to have a better life, life of their dreams. And I believe, like I said, my mission is all people are unstoppable to live in a life of their dreams. And so that's what's for. Joe: Yeah, and I saw that it seems like part of the focus is about past pains and obstacles and how you you basically help with the book to to change, take people and turn it around and say, you know, like you're saying, use those things as rocket fuel to get you to the next level. So don't lean on them. Don't have them in the trunk, don't have them as baggage, but instead take what you've learned, take what has happened and convert it to rocket fuel by doing whatever you talk about in the book. Mike: Yeah, Joe: Right. Mike: Yeah, the magic, the magic, here's the magic, right? The magic is when you have something happen and you get that feeling in your chest, that's where it hits me, by the way, like something Joe: Hmm. Mike: Bad happens and like this speed to which you can recognize that and convert it and look for opportunity. That's when you master the Rockefeller law. That's what it's all about, the longer time it takes, the more doubt creeps in, Joe: Yeah. Mike: A more negative energy creeps in, the more victimhood creeps in. And the missed opportunities happened during that period. So you want to shrink that window to as little as short as possible because we all feel it. We're all going to still feel it when something bad happens at first, but recognize it as fast as possible and start to look for the opportunity, not play the victim role, take responsibility for everything. Joe: Yeah, that's great. OK, I want to honor the time we have that we so we're going to do an hour or so. I want to just go through this real quick. So you have your own podcast, which is what are you made of? Which is on the wall behind you, where you interview. I assume, you know, other entrepreneurs and people that have amazing stories to tell and share. You release one week, twice a week with a human. Mike: Well, it started out once a week and then I had so many that I was doing, I had to do two weeks. Right now we're on a two week schedule. Joe: Ok. Mike: So, yeah, I just load up. I go hard, man. Like, if I see somebody I want to show, I go after him like an animal. I get them on the show and I don't care how many I've already had in the can. I just still just keep loading them up Joe: That's awesome. Mike: And uh. Yeah. So. Joe: Ok, cool. Besides that, you are you do some performance coaching, correct? You do some coaching in general, you Mike: Yeah. Joe: Are doing some speaking. You're going to continue to to build that Mike: Yeah. Joe: That part of your career. You're going to be on stage with Grant one of these days. Mike: Well, yeah, but so the coaching part, I want to do, the coaching part of switching that into, you know, I still have a couple of clients, but really focusing on the tech side of things and developing these entrepreneurs and young entrepreneurs into this tech world and using my specialty performance and business coaching and what have you into that, not getting paid directly for it. But but from the companies that I'm developing, Joe: Yeah. Mike: I'm really focused on that. And then I was on a 10x growth stage this past March. Joe: Oh, congratulations. Mike: Let me tell you, it took me two years to step on that stage. Joe: Hey, Mike: Thank you. Joe: That's awesome. The tech thing is it is there more that you can tell us about it or a way that people can find out about it or a. Mike: Yes, so the best thing to do, really, I mean, if you if you message me and follow me on Instagram, you're going to see all kinds of stuff coming out here very shortly on it. But I have a tech product called Blueprinted. It's being printed. This is my the one I co-founded. And this product basically, I looked at digital training and video training and I saw, like, how ineffective Joe: Mm Mike: It was Joe: Hmm. Mike: And the fact that only 20 percent of people actually complete the courses. So that means the people that are marketing these courses that are good at marketing are making money without concern for the Joe: Correct, Mike: Success Joe: Yeah. Mike: Of their student, their clients. And I thought that was an ethical problem. And I looked at why people get bored. They don't finish it, they get distracted, they don't retain the information. Or when they get done, they're like, what's the next step? Like, what am I supposed to do? Where do I put that Joe: Mm Mike: And Joe: Hmm. Mike: Where where do I take that and how long do I do that? And so I thought to myself, what if there's a way to have a project management based software technology that has a marketplace where people that have had success can come in and algorithmically step by step, put the success steps to what they've done, whatever vertical, Joe: Mm Mike: And Joe: Hmm. Mike: Build that blueprint in our platform and then sell it on the marketplace to to people that want to know how to be successful in that area. So it could be anything from a business to a podcast to digital marketing agency, whatever it is. Because if you look if you're going to build a house, you wouldn't want to watch a YouTube video. And on building that house, Joe: All Mike: You'd want the blueprints. Joe: Right. Mike: So this is a market disrupter, industry disrupter. And I can also see another industry being created from this, like there's web designers when websites came out. Well, there's going to be a lot of people that don't want to build their own blueprints. They want to take the content and give it to somebody and have them do the blueprint for Joe: Mm Mike: Them. Joe: Hmm. Mike: So there's going to be a whole industry just on blueprints. And so, yeah, this is a phenomenal thing. And it's coming out hopefully in the next 60 days, give or take. And I'm just fired up to get it in people's hands, man. Joe: That's great, man. You got a lot of irons in the fire. I like Mike: Yeah, Joe: It. Mike: But Joe: That's Mike: Thank Joe: Awesome. Mike: You. Joe: All right. So I want everybody to go and check out your podcast. The book is released on May 3rd called Rocket Fuel. Get in touch with you on on any of the social media. What's the best way to get in touch with you Mike: Instagram, Joe: On. Mike: Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, either one, but Instagram, it's Michy Cerak. Joe: Like you see rock on Instagram. Mike: Yep. Joe: Perfect. All right, man, this is a pleasure for me. I love talking Mike: Metohija. Joe: To another person Mike: Yeah, buddy. Joe: And it was great. And I really wish you a ton of luck with the book. I'll make sure when this episode gets released, I'll have a cover of the book. This will also go like you do on your podcast, will go to the YouTube channel so people will Mike: Thank you Joe: Be able to Mike: To. Joe: See it. I'll put the link to the Amazon in there. Anything else I can do to help? Let me know. But it was a real pleasure to speak with you. I appreciate Mike: Well, Joe: Your time Mike: Thank Joe: And. Mike: You. Thank you, Joe, I appreciate it was a great interview. Great questions and I really enjoyed it. Joe: Thank you, ma'am. You take care. Good luck with the book. Good luck with the podcast. Good luck with the tech software and Mike: Thank Joe: Everything Mike: You. Joe: Else. And just have an amazing year. Mike: Thank you, you, too, bye. Joe: Thank you.

This week the coaches sit down with Mike Barroqueiro, UD Women's Soccer Head Coach, to talk about empathy, appreciation and why it is that coaches do what they do. 00:00 - 13:45 - Tournament recap, DE Union Diamonds Tryouts 13:46 - 1:05:41 - Why coaches coach  1:05:42 - 1:19:45 - Player of the Match, This Day in Soccer History, Fair Play Award  

This week the coaches sit down with Mike Barroqueiro, UD Women’s Soccer Head Coach, to talk about empathy, appreciation and why it is that coaches do what they do. 00:00 - 13:45 - Tournament recap, DE Union Diamonds Tryouts 13:46 - 1:05:41 - Why coaches coach  1:05:42 - 1:19:45 - Player of the Match, This Day in Soccer History, Fair Play Award  

Eighty-first Episode released on 11/20/2020. Happy Friday y'all. What's going on Ubiquitous Growth fam, hope y'all are doing well despite the bleak look on life with this pandemic. Where I live, we are on "freeze" or two week shutdown, trying to keep our spirits low, but we are all going to get through this. Stay positive and optimistic and fill the time with productivity. On this episode, I remind us to not only thank those who's been supporting us on our success journey during the big moments, but even the small minute or never thought of moments as well. These people are motivators and huge reasons why we make it so far in the first place. Thank them continuously along the way, it will boost your own spirits. Second, I just talk about the big question: What is the meaning of life? There are many answers to this. Find yours but don't make it complicated. Last, I give a story about my gma and it ties to us allowing others to label weaknesses on us. Never good. Let's not let others label what we are weak at. We need to be doing that. I hope y'all got something out of this one, it was a fun one to sit down and do, even though I'm still having issues uploading with my external hardrive (eye roll* time to get a new one Mike) Thank y'all for the continued support. Still thrilled to be bringing you more content and I appreciate any and all feedback. Continuing to use my voice to spread growth to the world in my own way. Today's episode touches on the following topics: 1. Thank our people on our success journey in all moments, not just the big ones 2. What is the meaning of life? Create your own answer but don't complicate it 3. Don't let people tell you what your weaknesses are. Tell yourself Rip Pops #1 in my heart #81 in the glory days #BlackLivesMatter Thank you and I'll catch you later. [Intro/Outro music credit: Instrumental produced by Hastro Beats] Follow me on Instagram @mannsmm to chat about life/growing --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/michael-manns/support

In honor of Veteran's Day we honor all Vets from Oregon and SW Washington!

Here is the dinner conversation. Mike: Miss, Excuse me, but my glass has a smudge on it. Server: I'm terribly sorry sir. I'll get you a clean one right away. Mike: Miss, I'm still waiting for a clean glass, and we still haven't received our salads. We've been waiting a long time for our food. Server: I am so sorry! We're a little busier than usual tonight, and we're short-staffed. I'll bring it immediately. I'll also bring more water. Server: Here you are, sir, and I've brought you another glass of wine, on the house. The manager would also like to give you a dessert of your choice, also compliments of the house. We're so sorry for the mix-up. Sorry you had to wait. Mike: Thank you very much. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/taylor1673/support

Tips on how to gain confidence in public speaking with Mike Acker When it comes to public speaking it's either confidence that's holding someone back or understanding that's holding someone back. Communication is currency. It's the currency we use in everything. Ultimately, anytime someone's giving a message, you are the message. A huge aspect of speaking. It's "Let me help you get what you want." _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ SHARE THIS EPISODE: HOW TO GAIN CONFIDENCE IN PUBLIC SPEAKING [just click to tweet] HOW TO GAIN CONFIDENCE IN PUBLIC SPEAKING When it comes to public speaking it's either confidence that's holding someone back or understanding that's holding someone back. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Doug: Well welcome back listeners to another episode of Real Marketing Real Fast. In-studio today, I've got joining me, Mike Acker. Now Mike is a speaker, a leadership coach, he is a best-selling author, he has over 19 years of experience in speaking in leadership development and organizational management. In our conversation today, he revealed what was shocking to me but maybe common knowledge to you is that confidence comes from your identity. And one of the biggest issues that speakers have is confidence. So Mike is known for his authenticity, his humor, and his engaging presence. He specializes in fostering personal and organizational awareness, allowing the audience to personalize his presentations. And I'm sure you'll get that as you listen in to our conversation. Doug: His expertise is in communications and leadership and he's drawn a wide range of engagements, including executive teams, emerging leaders, not for profits, churches and public schools. Well hey Mike, welcome to the Real Marketing Real Fast Podcast today. Mike: Thank you so much, Doug. Great being here with you. Doug: I'm super excited to talk to you. I've done some speaking. Not that it doesn't scare me every once in a while, but I still like to get out there and share my message. So you're the expert on this, so you do you want to give our audience just a little bit of background on what you do and how you help your clients? Mike: Yeah, absolutely. It started really with me being a speaker for many, many years. So after traveling around doing conferences, doing workshops, speaking at churches and all these different environments, I started leading. And as I started leading people, I had a lot of people come to me and say, "Mike, can you help me get better?" And so people were [inaudible 00:01:44] just to show up at the church that I was leading at the time. And I would train speakers up and help them out, give them some feedback and it was really from this faith perspective. Mike: Then as time passed, I started seeing that there was a need outside of the realm of the small world that I was living in. That people in all these different environments were needing help as communicators, as leaders, as CEOs, as executives. And I started developing little by little, just working with them on a speech here, speech there. But as people came, we started talking about, "How do I develop confidence? How do I do this? How do I do that?" They brought questions to me and I started writing that content. This turned into a book, so I wrote a book called Speak with No Fear. That's one of the biggest aspects that people would come to me, would be about, "How do I speak without feeling so anxious and nervous and I want to throw up. How do I get over that?" So I wrote a book about that. Extremely well received, picked up by Forbes. I wrote a second book on how to write a speech. So all this together created really this whole company that I developed on how can people take their potential and turn it into their actual? Mike: So I do that speech coaching, through programs, through books, through workshops. Helping people take their potential as a speaker, their potential as a communicator,

Mike: Welcome to the Agruss Law Firm video podcast. We are a different kind of law firm and that's on purpose. At Agruss Law Firm, we see you as a person and not just a client and that makes us better at what we do. We're not just lawyers and you're not just a client. We're friends, neighbors and family. This is a show about all things legalish that friends, neighbors and family want to know. This is season one episode two and today we're talking criminal law. Today's guest is Mark Galler, the owner of Mark Galler Law. Founded in November 2018, Mark focuses on criminal defense and civil litigation, primarily contract disputes and fraud. Mark, how are you?Mark Galler: Great, Mike. Thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate the invite here and this is a really wonderful setup you have.Mike: Yeah, thanks. Absolutely. I just started doing this video podcast and when I was thinking about doing it, I knew for sure, I would have someone on early on to talk criminal law. When I was in law school, I loved criminal law. I love criminal procedure. My wife and I are total junkies for Law and Order, Dateline. I love the documentary series, Making a Murderer and the Aaron Hernandez Show that also recently came out. Tell me a little bit about what you do at your firm.Mark Galler: Yeah, thank you Mike. My firm has been in existence since November 2018. I primarily practice and I'd say about 80% of my practice is criminal defense. I handle everything from simple traffic violations up into, including homicide and class acts offenses, everything in between. I'd say the real nuts and bolts of my practice would involve cases of possession of firearms, illegal possession of a firearm, drug cases and also, DUI practice as well.Mike: Okay, and I think you'd agree with me that I think criminal law and family law and I'm sure there's other areas of law that are sort of their own separate animal, right? Tell me the difference between a criminal case and a civil case, what's the difference?Mark Galler: That's a great question and a lot of times, I get that even from my clients or people that don't really understand how criminal law works. Criminal law is initiated by a victim of a criminal offense. Someone that they were either harmed by and they felt that they have been wronged so they go to the police, they file a report or complaints with their local police departments and then the police from there will initiate the proper procedure of filing a formal report. Maybe if it's a felony level, they'll reach out to the local states attorney's department.Mark Galler: They will look to see if the assistant states attorney, that's in charge of maybe felony review, thinks that there is enough evidence or proper procedure to bring in a case in front of either a grand jury or a preliminary hearing which is where the officers or other victims would come in to testify or witnesses would testify if there's enough probable cause to bring a case. It's really, where the government comes in and steps in to protect individuals who have been harmed and they try to set an example for anyone else looking to commit a crime and saying, "Hey, if you do this, these are going to be the repercussions and we're going to protect the citizens of our state or our government."Mike: Okay, and you just briefly touched on it as far as like the process from the time someone is arrested until trial. Walk me through all of the stages from what happens from day one until trial.Mark Galler: Exactly, so there's a couple of ways that the criminal case can be initiated. The crime could have already occurred and the individual might not have been caught yet, okay? What often happens is, if the victim has some idea of the identity of that individual or maybe there is a video recording at a store location or from someone's cellphone, they will then try to track that individual down. Try to look at the person's identity. If they can identify the person through visual quality or if they have a name and then they'll issue an arrest warrant and that is to bring in that individual to face the charges against them. If they were arrested on the spot of committing the crime, say, they were trying to break into a phone store and the police were nearby, somebody saw them breaking in and they arrested them on the spot, then formal charges would start at that point.Mark Galler: Now, the way that the next step works is once you're arrested, they have a certain amount of time to bring you in for a bond hearing. Typically, it's the next day. If it's in the morning hours, they'll bring you in, in the afternoon at the same day, where you'll go in front of a judge and try to get a bond set and hopefully be released from custody. Custody is where you remain in the protection of the police. That's the first step. The second step then is, they have to bring you in front of either a grand jury which is roughly 16 members of the community that'll hear evidence and testimony from witnesses from police officers who will basically explain to the jury, under oath, what they saw.Mark Galler: Try to prove that there is problem ... the government is trying to prove then through question that there's probably cause to bring a formal case against that individual.Mike: Let me jump in there because I've got a quick question about that. Is there always a grand jury depending on what type of charge, whether it's state or federal or if it's like a minor DUI or I don't know if you would consider that minor but is there always a grand jury?Mark Galler: Great question, no, it really only applies to felony level cases which is anything ... class four felony is the lowest level of felony in Illinois and that's because you can spend at least 366 days in jail or longer. What separates a misdemeanor from a felony is simply that. The highest level of misdemeanor is misdemeanor A and you could spend up to 365 days in jail there. What Cook County did specifically for the longest time was, they would go through a preliminary hearing, which affords criminal defense attorneys like myself the opportunity to go into court, with my client and then question the officer or witness, under oath.Mark Galler: Then ultimately be able to argue to the judge that there is no probable cause to bring the case and try to get it dismissed at that point but it's easier for the state now to just skip that step, bring the evidence and the officers into court and essentially, feed them the questions that they need without opposition from somebody like me and their chances of getting the grand jury to indict the individual is extremely high.Mike: When someone is indicted, what is the next step?Mark Galler: After they're indicted, then if the individuals are already in custody, then they have to go through an arraignment process and that's where they are brought into court. They're formally read the charges that are being brought against them. They're told the possible punishment and jail time that they could face and from there, after that arraignment takes place, now, you're in a full-fledged case.Mike: Got it, and during the full-fledged case, I know what it's like in a civil case when you go through the discovery process, you answer interrogatories or questions, you turn over documents, parties sit for depositions and I want to know what's the difference in that discovery phase in a criminal case, right, like are there depositions, do you answer written discovery? How does that work?Mark Galler: Yes, absolutely, the very first thing at least I do and most ... I would say most attorneys do in the criminal setting is they file right away a motion for discovery and it's a multi-paged document where you're seeking certain pieces of evidence and while it's the state's responsibility and the government's responsibility to prove their case, you want to try to collect all the evidence you can to maybe find pieces of evidence that are missing or that part of an investigation that wasn't done correctly and then you can use that in your defense and there are certain items that we wouldn't have to turn over, even with the state asking us for particular materials. We wouldn't have to turn over to them to use that at trial unless we were actually going to use that at trial.Mark Galler: There's a little bit of leverage that is provided to the defense side but yeah, immediately you file the motion for discovery and you start collecting evidence and I try to tell my clients, that could take a while, depending on the county you're in, especially, and the judge you're in front of. It might have certain deadlines and they set out a clear schedule for you right off the bat in terms of when production of discovery should be completed by and then from there, you're looking at what you have and what you can use and you potentially start doing motion practice and whether or not you need to bring in people for evidentiary depositions or you need to deal with experts.Mark Galler: It could open up the floodgates, depending on the type of case and the documents and evidence that are being produced.Mike: Got it. In a civil case, you can take a deposition of a witness. How does it work in the criminal case, if you have a witness and you want to get their testimony, what would be the next step?Mark Galler: Absolutely, so what you could do is there's several avenues. You can utilize services of a private investigator. If your client has the funds and the means to do that, it's not always necessary. In more egregious cases, when you start getting up to the higher level felony cases or cases where your client is being wrongfully accused and I would highly recommend that in certain circumstances, absolutely. That's one way where you can try to get witness statements and eventually maybe bring those in by way of an affidavit later on because an affidavit then is a sworn statement, that's notarized.Mark Galler: It becomes official or you could bring them in for evidentiary depositions which is where they would be giving testimony under oath which then you can use at trial, even if you bring them in as a witness to testify during a trial.Mike: Okay, and after that discovery process or phase is done and you approach trial, what happens or what are some things that go on typically before a trial and your trial date.Mark Galler: Excuse me, that's one thing to start moving pretty quickly. Once discovery is completed, and depending on whether or not you have motions to file and I keep saying motions for example, say, you have a gun case and by gun case, I mean, illegal possession of a firearm. Maybe they don't have their FOID card and they were walking around with a firearm and an officer spotted that and they weren't supposed to have this firearm on them. Depending on whether the officer conducted the stop properly, there could be motion to suppress evidence which is what's done most often in drug or gun cases to try to show that there maybe was probable cause or a reason for the officer to approach that individual.Mark Galler: If they hadn't approached that individual, they wouldn't have found the firearms so you're trying to remove that firearm as evidence from the case because then, if the government doesn't have that piece of evidence it makes it much more difficult, sometimes impossible to prove their case moving forward at trial.Mike: Okay, you bring up something interesting that I wanted to ask you. I look at part of this, we're going to talk criminal law, the procedure, how it all works and then I also am thinking of general questions that people always ask me, friends, family, neighbors, stuff like that and you just mentioned someone being stopped and they've got ... there's a search that police take over the gun and whether or not that can come in at trial. If a police officer stops you, should you talk to them?Mark Galler: I always like to say, no, don't talk to them. Are you being respectful? Absolutely, you acknowledge their presence. You could be cordial, like you and I talking right now and you can have a normal conversation with them, give them your name, the basic information but if they start getting into details about the case, sorry about what you're doing there, or why you're sitting in your parked car, you don't need to directly respond to that. It creates ... The more you speak to an officer, the more you give them, the more evidence that is supplied to them to use in the case, if it's brought against you.Mike: At what point during that conversation ... This is a twofold question, so what are your Miranda rights and at what point during that conversation, if you do decide to talk to the police, are the police required to read you your Miranda rights?Mark Galler: Absolutely. If I give an example, it might make it a little bit more clear for those that might not understand the procedure. Let's say, we're dealing with a driving under the influence, a DUI case, all right. Say, you're sitting in a parked car, you're in a Target parking lot, you're lawfully parked between the lines, your car is off and you're hanging out in your car, maybe you have a friend with you and you're just sitting there. An officer approaches your vehicle. At that point, in your mind, you've done nothing wrong, right? The officer says, "Hey, why are you sitting here, what are you doing?"Mark Galler: You're not doing anything illegal unless there's maybe a sign post that says you shouldn't be here past 10:00 but say, it's mid day on a Tuesday, when the stores are open, you're doing nothing wrong. You have to at least answer the officers but if they start saying, have you've been drinking, have you've been doing this or doing that, you respectfully decline to answer any questions because what happens at that point is you start opening the door or the window and they might start smelling an odor of alcohol and now, they're going to start using that information and then they're going to start using their standard language of, "He's got bloodshot, glassy eyes, an odor of alcohol upon his breath."Mark Galler: Now, next thing you know, you're going to admit to drinking a beer or two, while that isn't illegal, it's now providing more and more information to the officer that you were drinking. They're going to start asking if you've been driving, where you came from and you might out of instinct answer where you came from, right? Now, he's got you out of the car, asking to do field sobriety tests which are tests to determine for the officer just probable cause to arrest you for a driving under the influence charge. Now, to answer your question, it's a subjective ... it's an objective question really, whether a person in a similar situation and the officer in that situation would think that the person has either committed a crime or was about to commit a crime.Mark Galler: That's when they can arrest you, if that's the case. If those elements are met and you're arrested, any questioning after that, that isn't voluntarily, there should be Miranda rights read and the other part of your question was what are Miranda rights? The second part of that is, there's five Miranda rights that I'm sure everybody has heard, right? You have to an attorney. Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law. You have a right to a counsel with you. If you can't afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. At that point, if they're questioning you and you're under arrest, that becomes a constitutional issue, right?Mark Galler: If they haven't read you your Miranda rights and they start asking questions, that's where that issue comes into play.Mike: I was going to ask you this later on but you brought it up with the drinking, driving example. If you've been drinking and you think you're over the legal limit and you do get pulled over, what should you do?Mark Galler: Well, if you had one of my business cards, I actually have on the back your rights and again, it goes back to being respectful. Always be respectful to the police. They're doing their job. They're trying to ensure the safety of yourself and others and if you know you've been drinking, if you know you've had too many, and they're going to be asking you if you've been drinking and I can't tell you to lie but you don't want to answer those questions so you respectfully decline to answer the questions or if you had a business card similar to mine, you hand that to the officer and then, if you don't even speak then they can't start using some this evidence saying, "Oh, I smelled an odor of alcohol."Mark Galler: Well, they wouldn't be able to smell an odor of alcohol in your breath if you weren't actually talking to the officer, right? I mean, you presume unless somehow, you're opening up your mouth and the odor is actually coming out but you would respectfully decline field sobriety test. You respectfully decline all that and that's where it's going to get a little scary. They're going to arrest you, all right. They're going to take you into custody and they're going to take you to the station. You're going to be sitting at the police station for a while and they still might ask you to do certain things but if you don't give them the opportunity to collect that evidence, you're not obstructing justice if you're complying with them.Mark Galler: If you respectfully are placed in custody and taken to station, nothing is going to happen, except the case of driving under the influence but then they don't have any evidence against you besides maybe what your eyes look like. Maybe if you had a sway in your walk to the car, a little gait, something that might be off. That's all they have. They don't have the full proof evidence to try to bring a DUI case against you.Mike: I remember in law school, there was a difference between ... regarding Miranda rights, there was a difference in saying, I want to be silent and I want a lawyer. I don't know if that distinction still applies now or the case law applies but is it ... would it be ... sure in an ideal world, someone gets pulled over and they have your business card and they can pull it out without saying anything and show it to an officer, that would probably be your ideal situation. I would imagine that doesn't happen often. You get pulled over, you know you're drunk, can you simply say, I want my lawyer. I've heard that that's the four magic words you should say is I want my lawyer. Would you agree with that?Mark Galler: I wish it worked that simply but yes, I mean, then it invokes another constitutional right of yours, the right to an attorney but at that point, I mean, you're not under arrest. There isn't a criminal proceeding against you. Unless you're under arrest, then that invocation of your rights would come into play but at that certain moment, the officer is going to be like, "Okay, great but I'm still going to have to get you out of the car," and then they could still ask you ... because at that point if you're not under arrest, having an attorney present isn't going to do anything. You need to respectfully decline it, let them place you under arrest and then, that's when you say, I want to speak to my lawyer.Mike: You simply say, when they start asking you, have you've been drinking, you say ... what would you say?Mark Galler: I mean, me personally, I would say, I respectfully decline to answer any questions and you could just keep saying, I want my lawyer. Sometimes, I've heard with police officers that that might ... depending on how you say it can be respectful. It might smooth things over if you try to refrain from saying that without ... just don't simply answer the questions, you say I respectfully decline to answer the questions.Mike: Got it. Let's move on to searches and seizures. What's search and seizure? What's required? Do you always need a warrant? Let's talk a little bit about that.Mark Galler: Okay, perfect, perfect and we could tie that back into, let's say an unlawful possession of a firearm and you're in a newer vehicle that's involved in a traffic stop, that the officers engage in a traffic stop. You have a constitutional right to protection of illegal searches and seizures by persons of authority, right? Whether that's Cook County sheriff or a Chicago police officer or an officer in your area. You have a protection and security from just invasion of those rights. What that means is, the only time you could be ... there's really three ways that an officer has the right, constitutional right to search, let's say your vehicle.Mark Galler: Say, you're speeding down the road and they clock you going 85 and a 55. They pull you over for speeding and nothing else is going wrong. If they say, can I search your car and you say no, and they start searching your car, this is when these constitutional rights come to effect. There's two different ways that this could come into play. The first is called a terry stop. That's kind of the slang, legally sort of term that an officer has to see that, they reasonably thought a crime was being committed or that it had been committed. It's an investigatory stop where they're just trying to make sure that the person they're talking to is either an actual suspect of a crime committed or they've heard that this person was involved in a crime.Mark Galler: They're just trying to make sure that they arrest the right person. When you get into probable cause to do a more thorough search of a vehicle like the speeding car or the car that had sped and they're searching the car for a firearm, they would have to have some sort of reasonable article of suspicion that they either saw this firearm or somebody maybe called in a 911 report and said, "Hey, this guy is waiving a gun at me. Here's his license plate, here's his car." That would rise potentially to the level that the officers can now search your vehicle because they have this eye witness testimony or if they saw the gun in person, same situation, that'll give them enough probable cause to know that there's ... that there could be more in the vehicle that they can actually end up searching the entire vehicle.Mike: Okay, and while we're talking about searching cars, I remember from law school, I thought something that was interesting is searching apartments because you're oftentimes dealing with significant others, roommates, who has authority so who can give permission to search an apartment and in particular when you're dealing with multiple people living there. You could have a minor child, you could have a significant other, you could have a roommate so how does that work? The police shows up ... the police officer shows up and they want to search your apartment, who can consent to that?Mark Galler: That's a great question. A lot of times people do with ... live with other roommates, maybe one, two, three or four are their roommates or they have like you said, their significant other over. Obviously, if it's your apartment or if it's your house, you can certainly give permission to search but if you have roommates that have ... that are part of a lease and everybody is on the lease or maybe they're paying you for rent, you can allow the police to go in to search at least your room and then the common areas. If your roommate's door is locked and the officers has no reason to believe that a specific or that individual has done anything wrong or illegal, you can't give permission to the police to search anyone else's room.Mark Galler: There's a common mistake with the communication and maybe how much control they have over these different areas of the apartment if it's not your room. If it's your significant other for example and say, they're just visiting and you're in the back of a squad car and she's ... and then the officer says to he or she, yeah go ahead, I live here, go search the house, it's all yours. That's where a constitutional issue can come into play, whether or not that person actually had authority to do so. In that particular circumstance, that would not be the case.Mike: Okay, let's talk about I guess what I would consider some sort of just like general legal terms that people have maybe heard that they don't know about. What's a bench warrant?Mark Galler: A bench warrant is typically issued by a judge if an individual who maybe has a bond in place fails to show up to court and it's the way that a judge can control the individual by use of the county's sheriff's department to go out and say, this person is in direct violation of the court order. They're supposed to be in court today. They didn't show up. I'm issuing a bench warrant and let's say that's a $25,000 D amount. What that means is then that the sheriffs are going to go affect or take control of that warrant to go try to track down that individual and they can place him under arrest and now the only way they get out of custody typically is if they can pay 10% of that $25,000 so $2,500 or if they have an attorney or an excuse, maybe a medical emergency took place and an attorney came in and filed a motion to quash and recall that warrant, then they can avoid having to pay the 10% fee before getting out of custody.Mike: What's the difference between bail and bond?Mark Galler: Bail and bond are pretty synonymous. The difference would be bond is ... where maybe say you've got a bail bonds company that an individual can't afford to pay a bond or bail by themselves. They can go to a company that'll post that bond on their behalf and they would have to supply some sort of item of value, maybe it's a title to a vehicle. Something of actual value to ... that the title company can hold on to issue the bond. Really, it's the same thing. The amount that's set by a court, by a judge that is going to either ensure that ... that's going to ensure that you show up to court and it's kind of a security that'll keep you coming back.Mike: Got it, and if you don't come back, what happens to that money?Mark Galler: The money could be forfeited. There's times where clients just disappear and you don't hear from them again and you try to explain to the judge that you've reached out to the individual. They've come to court for year and a half and now, all of a sudden, you can't get a hold of them. Then, there's a ... the judge will give an opportunity to appear in court one more time. Say, it's two weeks out from the date that that warrant was issued, the bench warrant. You come to court in two weeks. Your client is still not there. Now, the judge is going to enter a judgment for bond forfeiture, which means then that ... there's that final date. If they don't show up on their final date, then your bond is forfeited and it goes to the county.Mike: I've seen in the news recently, there seems to be a lot of new stories in Illinois and particularly nationally dealing with cash bail and people who can't afford it, who are sitting in jail, waiting for their trial date, especially for non-violent acts. Tell me a little bit about what this reform is and what people are trying to do to change it. In other words, it seems like if you have money to post bail, you don't have to wait for your trial date in jail but if you don't, you sit there and wait and I've read articles, I couldn't give you any numbers or statistics right now but it seems like, there's a lot of people sitting in jail for non-violent offenses who simply can't post bail or get a bond to get out. What is ... and I don't know how new it is but what's this movement and why is it getting so much attention?Mark Galler: That's a really great question. Bond money was the way that a lot of attorneys would set up contractual agreements with their clients on how to get paid. It was a way for individuals who were able to post bond to then pay their attorneys maybe down the road or whatever that agreement might be. Those amounts used to be higher and the counties were trying to defendants to post the cash bonds and that was the only form of payment and so the way that it has been going now and the reason it's become such ... kind of a contentious issue and a topic is because you have some ... and I know we're talking about non-violent offenders.Mark Galler: We have some violent offenders that are getting lenient bonds now because the government has kind of shifted in policy in terms of making sure that it's not based on a monetary consideration for somebody to be able to post bond. They should look at the totality of the circumstances that maybe their education, if they're going to school, if they're working, if they have a family, who they have to really provide for. Now, you've got this mix of, is the bond appropriate for somebody in non-violent offense or if it is a violent offense and if they're able to get out but they're lowering the bond amounts and that's creating an issue because now you've got individuals who maybe are going out, and committing another offense.Mark Galler: Now, they're facing a violation of their first bail bond, maybe they had an I-bond. An I-bond is where you're release on your own recognizance. You don't have to pay to get out. You're just released right away after the arrest process is complete. Then, they go out and they pick up another case or two. The issue is, and a lot of maybe police departments argue that that shouldn't be the case, that the bond amounts need to be higher, they need to be more strict so that we can make sure that these repeat offenders aren't going out and committing more crimes so that's where the issue is.Mike: Right, and I think the main concern and what I keep reading in the news is that, these people are ... can't afford a bond and they're in jail on a non-violent charge. Do you think eventually cash bonds will go away for say first time offenders with non violent charges in Illinois. What do you think it'll look like in 10 years?Mark Galler: I think it's turning that way. I think you're exactly right, Mike and a lot of judges are really good at looking at that specific information, especially for non-violent offenders, they're going to give you a chance. You have to prove to them and especially if your attorney or public defender who is handling the case is adamant about explaining your background and why you should get an I-bond as a non-violent offender and a first time offender. I think your chances are very, very great where you won't have to post a monetary bond and I think that trend is going to continue and it will keep diminishing I believe.Mike: Okay, let's move on to expungement. What is it? How does someone expunge their criminal record? How does it work? Do you do it? Do you help clients do that?Mark Galler: I do. Yes. Yes. So, there's expungement and there's sealing. Expungement is the ultimate goal of individuals and typically ... there's numerous requirements but typically, if there's a conviction involved, you're not necessarily able to expunge your record. If you are able to expunge your record, say, it's for maybe a petty drug offense. In today's day and age with marijuana being legal in Illinois, there's numerous requirements for what and how your potential convictions or arrest and how they can be expunged but when you're successful in getting it expunged, the file is essentially deleted.Mark Galler: It's torn up, it's thrown away and you're not able to track it down. I've actually tried to do this for some clients that have had records expunged in the past and now, they're trying to get particular licenses and at least I have not been able to find, and I've talked to numerous agencies all the way up to high level FBI agencies seeing if we can track down this information. Whether or not they do keep this information, I have not found a single shred of successful expungement. So, if you can get that, that's wonderful. Sealing is also another great step. That's essentially where any ... most non-government entities cannot see that you've had a prior conviction, if you meet certain requirements for your case to be sealed.Mark Galler: You lawfully can say that you have not been convicted of a crime if you have that case sealed. The only way you can get that unsealed is by court order. You have to file a particular motion and the judge has to unseal that file of which then can be seen. That typically doesn't happen for individuals looking for employment, unless it's with a government agency or of course some sort of law enforcement.Mike: How does someone determine if they should try to get their record expunged or get something sealed? Can everyone do it or, how does that work?Mark Galler: Absolutely. Yeah, at least try to call your attorney. Call your local expungement attorney, criminal defense attorney, any attorney that handles those types of issues will be able to inform you in a matter of few minutes. If it's not clear, then that attorney or if you can provide them with the case information of the case you're trying to expunge or seal, they can look that up in the system, go to the courthouse and then get an answer for you with a few minutes. If you are trying to look for a job and you do have a felony conviction, numerous statutes or I should just say, cases that you might have a conviction for can be at least sealed and a lot of them can be expunged.Mark Galler: It's really worth looking into and especially with ... Now, with marijuana being legal in Illinois, there's been thousands of convictions for possession of marijuana back in the day. Now, with this case being in effect, you can get effectively and there are certain requirements, automatic expungements for at least the arrest, if it was under ... if you were under possession of 30 grams of marijuana and in case, at least a year old and you hadn't delivered the marijuana to people that were at least three years younger than you. The way that the government has set this up now, the state of Illinois still offer automatic expungements for those arrests but the rollout dates are quite far.Mark Galler: If you want to do it for free, that's one way to do it, if it's just for the arrest. It could take up to one to five years depending on how long ago your conviction was, for the government to actually start rolling out the expungements. If you were convicted of possession of marijuana and it was 30 grams or less and you meet the other requirements, now what happens is they have to go through the parole board. A petition has to be filed and then there has to be a pardon made by the governor and then the governor has to submit certain paperwork to the different entities and that could take even longer than what, the one to five time year frame could be.Mike: Okay, and I wanted to talk to you about this, about marijuana is now legal in Illinois, as of January 1st 2020. You had mentioned that you can possess, what was it, under ... well, tell me, how much can you possess as an individual person in Illinois, without getting in trouble?Mark Galler: Yeah, good question, good question. You can legally possess, under 30 grams of actual marijuana buds. I believe it's 500 milligrams if it's edibles and then even a smaller amount if it's a concentrate of THC and you can lawfully carry that in your house. You can't grow marijuana unless you have a medical marijuana license and this new law actually created an interesting issue too with Illinois, also allowing concealed carry license. If you have a concealed carry license or your FOID card, while the federal government hasn't recognized marijuana as a lawful drug, it's still illegal federally, so there's an interesting question now if these states are allowing the purchase in owning of marijuana, will that affect your FOID card or your concealed carry license and the technical answer is yes. I mean, technically, it can be revoked. That's something people need to really be careful about.Mark Galler: Obviously, if you carry the marijuana outside of your home, and you're driving around with it, it needs to be in a concealed compartment, somewhere that's not easily accessible. Anytime you're carrying an alcohol or now marijuana, you want to keep it in your trunk, keep it simple, just keep it as far away. You don't need to have it in your front seat. You don't need to have in your center console, there's no reason. Obviously, you can't smoke and drive and that's also going to create new complications with now lawful searches of cars, when the car can be searched if an officer smells marijuana. It's going to create a whole new string of case laws that will be coming down in the next couple of years.Mike: Yeah, and that was something else I was going to ask you, I think it's interesting if you've been drinking and you get pulled over, I think most people can smell alcohol from a mile away. Let's say at your house, you get high and then an hour later, you hop in your car and go pick up a pizza or whatever you're going to do, right? I sort of see the issues that officers may have in this situation where I leave work at the end of a long day. I've had my contacts in all day and someone might look at me and think like you're high based on glossy eyes and bloodshot and so on and so forth.Mike: How is that going to work with people who are pulled over and officers think that they are high but they don't smell anything, they don't see anything, there's nothing on them. I mean, have you run into this yet with your clients? To me, it seems like it's going to be a little bit like of a cluster.Mark Galler: Absolutely and it really is. It's much easier to look at somebody in a setting where they might be suspected of a DUI and do proper procedures for that because you are ... you do get that slurred speech or some individuals can develop slurred speech or they might wobble a little bit more when they walk or they're falling over. It's more unlikely for somebody, if they're high or under the influence of THC to exude the same sort of symptoms as somebody in the DUI. To answer your question, it's going to take some cutting edge technology at least in terms of if they can develop some sort of portable breath test like they do for detection of alcohol in someone's breath.Mark Galler: If they could do something like that in a portable setting without having to draw your blood to detect a THC level. Now, there is a certain limit that you can have in your system at the time you're driving, it depends on how many hours you smoke. It depends on body weight. I mean, you're getting to more into like a scientific level of what's appropriate in driving. It's much more rare for somebody to face a driving under the influence of a substance than it is for alcohol. It's really hard to prove and now, with it being pro se legal, meaning that just because you smell like weed, doesn't give an officer probable cause to just search your car.Mark Galler: Now, if they see that you're carrying weed and it's right on top of your dashboard, well, now, you're violating the statute and that you might be able to open the door for the officers to search the car so you want to try to avoid that obviously. Similar too with the new gun laws that came out not too long ago, right? Just because somebody might ... if an officer sees a firearm in your coach jacket, while that is lawfully being concealed and maybe the wind blew it open for a second, it's not pro se illegal to have a gun. Okay? That doesn't mean, the officer can just come to you and start searching and patting you down.Mark Galler: They would need to ask proper questions. Do you have a FOID card? Do you have a concealed carry and it doesn't just open the door for the officers to do anything they like and same thing with marijuana now.Mike: Got it. I think what's interesting about marijuana and maybe that's ... I find challenging is it's legal in certain states, like in Illinois but it's not federally legal. What type of situation could someone get in trouble possessing marijuana legally in the state of Illinois but because they maybe in a federal building or on federal grounds, for example, you can't show up to O'Hare with marijuana, right, because the airport is federal property. Can you explain this distinction and the difference between it being legal in a state and not being legal federally and where people could run into issues although they're still in Illinois?Mark Galler: That's a great question and it does apply to people visiting these types of states as well. Illinois is now the 11th state that has fully legalized marijuana. If you're visiting a state like Illinois, Colorado, California, your ability to purchase and maintain weed is different than the actual citizens of that state. The way you can get in trouble and to answer your question if I'm understanding correctly is obviously, you can't bring a little baggy of weed on a plane with you. Otherwise, now, you're violating state and federal law. You can't just smoke in public. There has to be certain areas that you can smoke.Mark Galler: Some dispensaries might allow you to maybe test their product or they might have a smoking lounge and if everything is licensed property, that's fine. You can't go into a place of amusement like a bar or a restaurant and smoke, even if they might sell it there, if it's at least a place for amusement like that, that's not allowed. You can't smoke in a park, you can only smoke in your own residence if you are renting and there's a landlord. You need permission from the landlord. That's something that you might not think about but that's very important and it might be kind of awkward to ask the landlord, "Hey, can I smoke in my own apartment?"Mark Galler: Those are things you aren't able to do. Once you start stepping into the federal grounds of an airport and you have, are in possession of what is legal in a state setting, that's where you're going to get in trouble because now you're kind of crossing state lines into a federal territory.Mike: Right, and so for example, could you walk into a post office, that's in Illinois carrying a legal amount of weed where if you were ... where it's legal to carry in the state of Illinois but now, you're in a post office which is a federal building and so, then does it become illegal in that building?Mark Galler: It does. It wouldn't become ... it wouldn't be crossing the lines of a federal offense. It's still would be a state offense but like a firearm, there are certain places and restrictions on where you can carry it. Same thing with alcohol, right, you can't just carry around open alcohol where you please. If you walk into a post office with a bottle of open alcohol, now, you've got problems. Same thing with marijuana. You got to keep it in a concealed compartment in your car or if you're going somewhere else, you need to plan the transportation for that accordingly.Mike: Okay, I want to switch gears and talk about when police can interview or question minors. We talked at the top of the podcast about Making a Murderer and we were talking actually about Brendan Dassey before we started rolling the cameras.Mark Galler: Yes, yes.Mike: How he was questioned and he was a minor and then, recently in Illinois, there's a new law that I want to talk to you about dealing with Corey Walgren and so, I think that's all ... it seems like this new law in Illinois now and the Making A Murderer, it seems like this idea of when police can question minors, who needs to be present? Do they need their rights read? Tell me what the law is and tell me why this is becoming such a hot topic and if you know about the Corey Walgren case, if you could talk a little bit about that. I find that super interesting after watching Making A Murderer and then things that have gone on recently in Illinois about when you can interrogate a minor, who needs to be present and what are the rules?Mark Galler: The answers can be quite convoluted. I'll try to keep it as simple as possible because it's a very tricky situation and most people think that you can't ... the police can engage in a conversation with a minor at all and that's simply not the case. Let's start with the Corey Walgren case, which effectively created some new laws. At least for the school settings, so if you're on school grounds and you're suspected of committing some sort of crime or violation of school code or something is going on but I think you've committed some sort of illegal activity, the officer, maybe if there's an officer with the school or they call in a police department, they cannot question you on school grounds without a parent being present.Mark Galler: That also leads to the next point, if you're not on school grounds and an officer wants to question you and you're underaged, it's under 16, 16 and younger, they would have to break it down, whether maybe it's a misdemeanor or a felony and that depends on the age range. If they are suspecting you of either of those and we can get into the age differences later, they at least need to make a reasonable attempt to contact either your guardian or your parents, so what's reasonable is always open for interpretation with most of these types of issues in law, whether there's probable cause, whether the officer had reasonable suspicion. That's where the factual issues come into play.Mark Galler: If you are suspected of committing a crime that I'm sure they'll ask you, "Hey, do you have mom or dad's number, maybe grandma, somebody? Can you give us their number and we can try to call them." They have to make a reasonable attempt and hopefully they log that properly. If not, that might create issues and whether or not the questioning was done in violation of the constitutional rights. The Walgren case though was quite sad, really a tragic case. The individual was suspected of possessing underaged child pornography which can happen even if you're underaged yourself and a lot of people don't know that.Mark Galler: You could be 15, you could be in possession of some provocative pictures of another underaged individual and you could be facing charges for underaged child pornography and that's what this is individual, Mr. Walgren was facing at that time. You're 16 years old. The schools officer is questioning him about it, saying, "We know you had these pictures, why do you have these pictures," and the student ended up running out of the building, slipped away and jumped off the parking space and killed himself. Then, obviously, the parents were shocked, the school officer or the principal, nobody tried to contact the parents at all, which is absolutely absurd.Mark Galler: They didn't even give a reasonable attempt. Now, you're on school grounds which should be a little bit ... even more protected because those individuals are there to ensure a safe ground for students to attend school at, right? They're the most vulnerable individuals typically other than obviously a certain specified classes of people but they're young, they don't know any better. This law effectively changed that by ... because these parents really pushed for change. They filed civil law suits. They really pushed for legislation change and that became effective and now, the children can't be questioned on school grounds without a parent present or guardian.Mike: What would you, if you had a teenage kid, what would you tell them? What would be your advice if you're stopped by the police, you're pulled over, you did something wrong at school and you're getting questioned, like we were talking about earlier, when the police pull you over and you've been drinking, what you're supposed to say, what would you advise a teenager to say in those situation? Should they say contact my parents, I don't want to talk to you? What would you say in that situation?Mark Galler: I would always ask to contact my parents and you tell, "Hey, I'm 16. I'm 15. I'm 17. Contact my parents," and if you are at that age, where you're 17, 18 years old, and you're going to want to try ... you could still ask for your parents but then at that point if you realized you have rights to have an attorney present, you want to try to kind of say what we talked about before or respectfully decline to answer the questions and then once you're arrested, then you get your right to contact an attorney but yeah, if you're underaged, you always contact and tell the official or school personnel, I want to talk to my parents or my legal guardian.Mike: Sounds good. The last topic, I want to talk about is DNA. I was watching a movie with my wife, recently. It's actually a docuseries and the name is slipping me but it dealt with whether or not people who are arrested are required to give their DNA and I think most people are used to when you get arrested, you go to the station, they take your fingerprints, that's put into a database. The show I was watching was now talking about, "Okay, can they DNA swab you?" I find that interesting because I think there's all sorts of privacy issues and they obviously use the DNA to run it through a bank to see what else ... what other crimes you're associated with.Mike: What's the current law on taking a DNA swab? Does it matter if someone is just arrested and not convicted? How does it work?Mark Galler: That's also a very heavy question too and I've been dealing with a lot of very contentious litigation through motion to suppress illegal blood draws that I'm arguing are unconstitutional and this deals around DUIs, where somebody is suspected of DUI and they weren't involved in an accident, no one was injured and the individual was found unresponsive in a vehicle and the next thing you know the officers have paramedics arrive and they take him to the hospital and they're drawing blood. By that point, the person was conscious, was able to communicate with the hospital personnel and there's absolutely no reason that the hospital should be taking the blood of the individual and then telling the officers this person has above the legal limit of alcohol in their system, even after the conversion.Mark Galler: Some of the case law is starting to change in that respect. To answer your question specifically abour DNA swabs, it depends on the type of charges against you and the severity. So, if it's like criminal, sexual assault or homicide, you can object to it if you're in custody and they say, "Hey we need to take your DNA." You could say no, I've had clients now starting to get punished within certain facilities but the proper procedures for the government to file a motion to ask the court, to allow a DNA collection of a sample from the accused, from the defendant. It's granted almost 100% at a time, unless there's certain issues or illegality of police conduct or something that maybe causes that separation of why the DNA should be taken.Mark Galler: If the charge is serious enough like criminal sexual assault then, it's pretty much like clockwork. You can get DNA swab for it because then they need to compare it from maybe some DNA samples that they've collected through evidence at the scene, on the suspected victim. Then, yeah, that'll stay in the system at least until the outcome of the case and that's where it could changed.Mike: Got it and I guess my question is this. So, the way I understand it, everyone is arrested and booked, they give their fingerprints, right?Mark Galler: Fingerprints. Yeah, absolutely.Mike: I think what's interesting about this is, is it now, everyone is arrested and booked? Is it fingerprints and the DNA swab or is it not that clear cut? In other words, if I went and vandalized the building and was arrested and brought to the station, they take my fingerprints, right?Mark Galler: Yes.Mike: Would they take my DNA?Mark Galler: Not at that time. Not legally at that time, no. You have to meet a certain requirement of the level of charges against you. Again, you'd have to be charged with something severe than just burglary or defacing a building, theft or DUI, for the most part, you have to meet a certain exceptions and ... that would rise the level of a higher charge against you, like a class acts or a class one if it's a sexual assault, something like that, then that's when they're able to start collecting your DNA but anything ... there's a long list. It's hard to list them all but for say simple battery, now, they can't just come in and take your DNA.Mike: Okay, I know I said, that was going to be the last topic but I've got one question in general that I think a lot of people would want to know and then we're going to move on to some other non-legal stuff. When does someone need a criminal defense lawyer? At what point, should someone say, I need a lawyer?Mark Galler: That's also a great question. I get that asked all the time and I think it's a matter of comfort. Okay? What an attorney is able to do in a criminal setting is essentially provide a shield between law enforcement and the government and the individual you're trying to protect, like the suspected defendant. My first question is when I ask clients this, if they're calling on behalf of somebody who is about to be questioned maybe they've heard rumors that the police are looking for this individual for whatever reason, I ask, "Well, would it make it you feel better to have an attorney there because if you were to retain me, what I offer is pre-retainer agreements," right?Mark Galler: What I do is I send a letter to the client. I set up a certain line of communication with them or if I know there's detectives involved, I contact them immediately. I'll go to the police station right away. I'll let them know, "Hey, this is my client. If you need to contact them, if you need to question them, please call me first. I'll be happy to work, to bring them in. We can sit down, do what needs to be done on your end but respectfully, we're not going to answer any questions." That's where I can come in because now that invokes going back to the constitutional rights of when you should ask for a lawyer, when do you ask for a lawyer?Mark Galler: Now, if you're being asked by detectives, I would always advise to try to have that lawyer retained. If you know that they're coming to question you or if you know that you might be arrested soon, at least for me, that would provide some comfort. Other people wouldn't maybe want to wait until they're already arraigned and the case has already started. It really depends on the individual.Mike: Got it. I guess, I watched these shows and like I said, I'm super interested in criminal law. The first job I had at a law school, there were two partners there, one partner did criminal defense and the other one did personal injury and the personal injury partner took me under his wings. I still did a little bit of criminal defense work there. I loved it. I would always talk about the cases with my girlfriend at the time, she's my wife now, about the criminal law cases and I remember her telling me, she's like, I don't ... she's like if you would gone into criminal defense, I don't know how that would have made me feel. Who knows what would have happened but I find it super interesting but, I find it interesting, I watched all these shows and I'm super paranoid.Mike: I always tell her ... to me, it seems like if you have the means to have a lawyer, you should always have a lawyer. I tell my wife like if anything would ever happen to me and I joke, like even if we have nothing to do with it, don't talk to anyone, right? In other words, is there ever anything good that could come out to talking to the police or talking to an investigator?Mark Galler: You think you're going to be able to handle the situation until you start saying something that starts ringing bells in the investigator's mind or the officer's mind, or the detective's mind and now, you've opened up the floodgates. Now, they might be smelling blood and maybe now, they know who else to go talk to based on something you said. Maybe, you didn't have anything to do with ... maybe anything you did but now, they know who to ask and now, maybe that person know. I always say, it's best to be respectful, to decline to answer any questions, even if you didn't do it, you have an attorney with you, all the time. Contact somebody you know just to have a card on you.Mark Galler: You might not have to pay that individual just to get a card but at least you have something on you, so that if something does happen, you know who to call and in most times, they'll be good. If I get a call late at night, I'll be at the jail immediately. I put on a suit and tie, if it's 10 at night, I'll head there and that's where we can afford that protection. Absolutely, 100%, like you're joking, and all these documentaries, it's always maybe the husband that murdered his wife or something and they're claiming he did but he actually didn't do it. The first person they're going to look at is always the spouse.Mark Galler: Whether it's husband and wife, wife and wife, whoever that happened to, they're always going to look at the spouse first and they're going to start asking questions and it's better to, I would say clam up and some people think well, isn't that going to make me look bad? Aren't they going to think, well, why would I ask for an attorney right away if I didn't do it? That's just being smart. That's just being smart because you don't want to talk to police and start answering questions that you might not know is actually digging you into a deeper hole, where an attorney might be able to catch that at least that they know you a little bit and they know a little bit of the facts, they're at least going to be able to prevent that from even happening.Mike: Right, and this is a good segue into letting all the viewers know how ... what's the best way to get in touch with you and we'll put all your information up at the bottom of the video but if someone wanted to get in touch with you, what's the best way to get in touch with you?Mark Galler: I appreciate it. Yeah, so I have a website, it's mark@mgallerlaw.com. My phone number is 708-406-9797. I answer text all hours of the day. If you would like to set up a phone call, in person meeting, my office is in Downtown Oak Park at 1010 Lake Street. It's floor ... unit number two but yeah, I answer text and calls all day, you can go to my website. Check out the information there. I've got different information on all various crimes and activities, what you should do in certain circumstances and there is actually an inquiry form you can fill out, which will lead right directly to either my computer or my phone and I can help answer any questions right away that you might have and I'd be happy to do so.Mike: Awesome. All right, before we finish, I'd like to do a couple of rapid fire questions here with you. Tell me what's your favorite animal?Mark Galler: Cheetah.Mike: Cheetah?Mark Galler: Yes.Mike: Okay. Cool. How about your favorite app?Mark Galler: Favorite app?Mike: Yeah.Mark Galler: That's a great question. I would have to say my favorite app ...Mike: What do you use the most?Mark Galler: Boy, I would like to say, I honestly use Facebook a lot for news purposes.Mike: Okay, sounds good. What's your perfect vacation?Mark Galler: Somewhere in Italy. I love Tuscany. Somewhere where I can drink some wine and eat some good food.Mike: What is your favorite food?Mark Galler: Favorite food is, I got to say pasta.Mike: Sounds good.Mark Galler: A meat pasta.Mike: Okay. How would you finish this sentence, weekends are for ...Mark Galler: Relaxing.Mike: Okay. I think that's what I have on my bio. Someone ... my other guest who is here, Melissa said ... when I said, tell me how to finish this sentence, weekends are for, and she said I'd have a different answer for you, if you ask a few years ago but she said now it's working. That's what weekends are for.Mark Galler: Yeah, sure. It's a good problem to have.Mike: Last one, if you weren't a lawyer, what would you be?Mark Galler: An astronaut. If I was smart enough to. That's also the problem.Mike: You realized you weren't smart enough and then went to law school, right?Mark Galler: I couldn't do math. I was terrible at all forms of math and yes, so then I went to law school.Mike: Perfect. Well, this has been great. Like I said, when I started doing these video podcast, I knew I have someone on to talk about criminal law early on. I find this super interesting. I think it's something that everyone should want to know about and so, I appreciate you coming on, answering all my questions. I think it's helpful for just everyone in general to know what criminal law is all about, so this has been great. I appreciate you coming on, giving your contact information out in case anyone wants to get in touch with you and stay tune for our next podcast.Mark Galler: Thank you so much Mike for having me on. I really appreciate your time. Thank you.Mike: Thank you. I appreciate it.

In today's part two of two Chuck is talking once again to Mike Nunez about his tips for being a successful buyer. We first heard about Mike's nine tips for a successful acquisition, and today he delves into the types of things he looks for in a business he is considering for purchase. We're also diving deep into one tip that Mike shared on part one of this two-part series. Finally, Mike also shares some great efficiency tools he's loving these days. Episode Highlights: What Mike looks for when buying a business. What he brings to the business with his own expertise. Examples of things that stand out to Mike in a listing. Advertising account criteria he checks for in a potential new business. Goals and intentions he has and the opportunities he looks for when on the hunt for a business. The importance of keeping criteria lists. Tips for content sites looking for affiliates. Certain synergies to look for in a search. Lessons Mike has learned through his acquisitions. Tools Mike is using and recommending these days. Transcription: Mark: Chuck in the last podcast episode that we had we had Mike Nuñez on. He offered nine very actionable tips on how to be a very good buyer; how to be a buyer that can win deals by having the right disposition. And I know you guys talked; you guys are friends, you live close to each other there in Florida and all that. So you guys are friends and naturally, your conversations are long but also Mike's got a ton of content to share with us and you guys got into a second episode. What can we expect from the second episode with Mike Nuñez? Chuck: Yeah, so let's start off by saying if you haven't watched the first one or listen to it make sure you do because it kind of leads into this. On this one, we talked about what are the types of things that he's looking for as a buyer and you should be able to get some stuff out of that to help you figure out maybe some ideas for the types of things you're looking for. We also talked about; there was like one tip that we gave that he gave us somebody at Rhodium conference a year or two ago and it gave that guy a 25% boost in his revenue like overnight. So that was a nice little take away there and then at the end of the call, one of the things I always like to do is just ask for any special tools or things that he uses so he gives us a list of additional tools he uses so a pretty little bonus at the end. Mark: Fantastic. Mike is a great guy. I'm super glad that he was able to come back on the podcast. Let's get right into it. Chuck: All right welcome back everybody this is Chuck Mullins here with Quiet Light Brokerage and this is part two of a two-part segment with Mike Nuñez. Welcome, Mike; welcome back. Mike: Thank you, Chuck. Thanks for being accepting of my long-windedness. Chuck: No, I think we had a lot of great stuff in the last one. If anybody didn't get a chance to watch it you might want to go back and watch that one first. What did we end up on; nine super-secret tips? Mike: They go to 9, yeah 9 super-secrets. Chuck: 8 or 9 super-secret tips of how to be a great buyer which Mike Nuñez is a great buyer. Now we wanted to segway in and Mike wanted to make sure that everybody know that he's not wearing, or he is wearing the same suit but only because we're recording these back to back because the last one went pretty long. So you still look great Mike. For anybody who didn't watch the last one, Mike purchased a custom-tailored suit business from us so this is probably why he's wearing the suit because I've never seen him wear a suit before he had purchased that business. So he's definitely stepped up his wardrobe game since then. So today we wanted to talk about what you're looking for when you buy a business and maybe some of the lessons you've learned along the way. So again maybe let's start off; before we jump into that just give a brief introduction for anybody who didn't watch the first part of the series about you. Mike: Well, so I think it's important if you're listening to this one you probably should listen to the first one first because it does set up a lot of the things that we're going to talk about here. But for those that just don't listen, I've been in internet marketing for about 20 years now. I spent most of it working for an agency or owning an agency. I worked for Google for four years in their paid, search division. And so today I own a company called AffiliateManager.com that manages affiliate programs as well as the performance company which manages paid search for companies as well. So that's the super brief synopsis. Chuck: Perfect. So let's jump into what is it that you look for when you're buying a business? Always people come to me and they; Chuck what kind of business should I buy? And I say okay well what are your interests, what are you good at? So I think you probably you're looking…well, let me just let you tell what are you looking for. Mike: Yeah, so I think it's important to say what I look for or what we look for; so I do have a pretty solid team around me but what we look for is going to be very different than what somebody else looks for. And so please take that with a grain of salt; everything that I'm going to say today and I think is important for everyone to just recognize, just be self-aware what is it that you are incredibly good at? If you're good at sales go find a company that has an incredible product and but they're bad at sales and you plug yourself in and you now have an incredible business overall. Or if you're fantastic at operations go find a company that's selling like crazy but their operations just can't keep up with all the offers and plug yourself in there and that's going to work. I like to say that real opportunity is at the intersection of two different expertise or two different types of expertise. So for me, it's online business and online marketing and I'm not so great at everything else. So I'm not an operations person, I'm not a finance person so I don't look for companies that are lacking in those areas. I look for companies that are strong in those areas and that are; I don't want to say lacking because I think that's potentially disrespectful to either the people that I purchased businesses from or will in the future but it's more where I see opportunity where they wouldn't know unless they worked at Google for several years or they wouldn't know unless they've been in online marketing for 20 years or they never had an affiliate program. They never thought about it and we're incredible at it. So plugging what we are really good at into things that maybe they've tried that they're above average at because you have to be above average if you're going to own an online business but they've spread themselves so thin that they couldn't be an expert at just one thing. Another nice side effect that I've seen with buying these businesses, some of the previous owners they just worked so long and hard in the business that when you're so down in the weeds like that it's hard to pull yourself out and kind of take a 40,000-foot view picture. When acquiring a company it's almost a natural thing that happens along the way and you start to say okay let me take a step back and look at this not so closely; so close I can't tell exactly what this is and what's going on. And then as you start to peel that back and say okay this is something that the previous owner did, is this something that I need to take over, do I bring the value? The previous owner either maybe they enjoyed it, maybe they liked it, or maybe they were really good at it but I'm not and so the answer there is who else within the company can take that over. And I got to say that's probably one of the biggest benefits of purchasing an online company not only for the buyer but for the seller that they're able to peel themselves out and all the while that's the transition of okay these are the daily duties that this person does and this is who can take that over. So the new buyer; so myself as an example can go focus on what we're good at. So with that caveat to what it is that you're asking some of the things that I look for and I think just another quick note on this; this is an ever-evolving list, just because I've written this today doesn't mean that there's not more to come. Every time we go through a business or every time actually we have a call we run into an issue with the current business. I say okay that sounds like an opportunity that when we purchase the next business that we need to look at and say can we help there. So some of these are super simple and most listeners might say oh well that that's kind of common sense. Well, it's not always common sense. Somebody on this call is going to really or somebody listening to this podcast is going to really benefit from it but I listed because it's things that I want to make sure that I go and check every time that we're looking at a business. So, for example, we are like I said really good at online marketing specifically affiliate marketing and paid search. So we'll go look do they have an affiliate program? Are they overpaying? Are they not paying out commission based off of the influence that each affiliate had on that actual transaction? It's actually super interesting to see how much people overpay for things. And even more interesting to see when they're underpaying affiliate. So for example affiliates, they are business just like you, just like me and they want to maximize their revenue for their inventory. A lot of people get stuck and they look oh my competitor pays 5% commission, that's what I'm going to go pay. But a really good affiliate is equivalent to an upper-funnel page search keyword. And if you're paying a two to one for an upper funnel page search keyword; let's use my custom suit business, if I'm willing to get a two to one for the keyword custom suits or men's custom suits, if I'm willing to take a two to one return on ad spend for that I should be willing to pay an affiliate who is upper funnel; who's educating customers about me, I should be willing to pay them a 50% commission because they're upper funnel. Chuck: Alright so that makes a lot of sense to use something that you do on a day to day basis with your main business to look to acquire a company. So can you give some examples of specifically what something you might look for is? Mike: Sure. I'll give two examples one of where we succeeded at this and one where we failed but then you use that failure to learn and regroup. So the first business that we acquired we identified that there was a significant amount of overspent. It wasn't the previous owner's fault. They had hired an agency who was just; they were doing good. I would give them a six out of 10. But within 20, 30 minutes we can evaluate a Google Ads account and say we can save this account 10, $15,000 a month. Chuck: And you were talking about like an Ad Words account as opposed to affiliate stuff? Mike: Correct. Yeah, a Google Ads account that maybe this ad, the Google Ads accounts is spending 50, 60, $70,000 a month and if we can look in there and say we can save 10, 15, 20,000 on this and still get the same level of sales based off of our expertise we're adding 1 to $200,000 straight to the bottom line; straight to EBITDA and we did exactly that. We actually just finished reviewing January through October and we actually generated more sales than the same period last year and we spent I think it was $160,000 less to do so in that period. Chuck: It kind of goes against the thought of ad expenses are going up, right? There's more and more competition every day for ads so people think that but yet you're able to cut ad spend and make more money with it. Mike: That's 100% correct. You have to know what you're doing. There are very, very few good paid search companies out there. And I know because I used to work with a lot of them when I was at Google. Kevin who's on our team; his job was to go out and train agencies on how to appropriately use Google Ad Words. Pat who's the mastermind on our team has been doing Google paid search since Yahoo or as Yahoo started before Google was in existence. So it's just such a level of expertise that we have on our team overall that we can go and then apply and get these level of savings overall. And again it's straight to the bottom line and we take that money; the first acquisition was partly done via an SBA loan and the savings that we've got doesn't quite cover the SBA loan but it's about 75% of it. It's almost like we acquired the company for the price of the down payment and a much smaller SBA loan so to speak. So that's got to be our number one criteria; same thing with an affiliate program again with the first acquisition they weren't doing attribution based commissioning. It was a smaller effect on the overall business. We probably saved somewhere between 30 and 40,000 for the entire year on that one. So it's again a much smaller effect but that's a part-time person. That's an initiative that we can go fund now because we're saving 30 to 40 grand that we wouldn't have to spend otherwise. Chuck: So let's call out specifically there what it is you're looking for. So Mike looks at a company, requests access to their ad account, and then Mike looks for what? Mike: So in their ad account I'm looking at are they using negative keywords appropriately, what bidding algorithm are they using on Google, what matching types are they using, are they using segmentation correctly. And this is all super 40,000-foot level things but as Pat, our behind the scenes masterminds like to say, a poorly run paid search program is typically death by a thousand paper cuts. It's not one of these things. It's a thousand of these things that we meticulously go and identify, find, correct, and improve. Chuck: Alright so you will go into an account, you see all these things and they're doing everything right does that mean okay it's a great company I'm not looking to buy this one; like are you specifically, if there's not something you can fix you're not going to acquire it? Mike: Yeah, that's a fun question. The good news is for me at least I've never seen one. That's good. And to be fair I've seen; when we are getting an RFPN for the agency business I've seen two or three that were so well run that we tell them we can't help, they're doing an amazing job. You're going to look to us for growth in three or four months and we're not going to deliver because your current company is doing fantastic so don't leave them. But when acquiring a business and the research that I do before making an offer I have not yet come across that. If that were the case yes it's not a kiss of death but it is a factor in whether or not we feel like we should purchase the business because we know that there's so many out there that do it so poorly. Investing; I know I'm not teaching anybody on the call anything new with this but investing is where's the next best place to spend your dollar? And if they're doing a bad job with paid search that's a good place for me to spend my dollar because I know we can fix that. If they're doing an incredible job well there's probably a better place for me to go spend my dollar. Chuck: Sure. And I don't think it's a negative thing for you to say nope I'm just going to move on to the next one they're doing everything right. Like you're looking for specific things in order to want to acquire and like you said you've only got so many dollars to spend. You need to place it where it's going to do the most good for you. And if somebody else is doing everything right like that's not your area of expertise to grow the business. Maybe again they're not doing sales well and that's not what you're specifically looking at so sales is where the person that is going to end up ultimately acquiring the business is good at. And there's also people who maybe they don't have necessarily an expertise at something and they're just looking for an overall good run business that can keep chugging away for the years to come. And that's not a negative like just because you don't have some really specialized thing that you're good it doesn't mean that buying a business would necessarily be a bad idea for you. Mike: Yeah it's one of those things begin with the end in mind, right? And if the if your end goal is that you want a super stable business but it's not going to grow because everything is so well optimized and you're willing to pay the same multiple for it and you just want to kind of run that business day to day as is without expectation of growth then that's it. And there are people that want that. I would even consider a business like that if it was strictly almost a lifestyle business. But the businesses that we're buying; our goal, our intention is to take this 15 million dollar company and turn it into a 25, 50, 100 million dollar company and so there has to be opportunity when we're purchasing and the bigger the opportunity that we identify that we can do so fairly quickly with what we have the more we're willing to pay for it and the more we're willing to compete for it overall. Chuck: So we were talking recently we had lunch and you said that you recently discovered something with one of your businesses that was something you know I'm going to start looking for that and it revolved around shipping. Do you remember what we were talking about? Mike: Oh yes I have it. It's on my list. And that's funny and that's yet another reason to have a list right, right? Chuck: Right. Mike: And so as we're talking like; I know I'm not alone in this, right? I know you're like this Chuck. I'm sure you, the person listening to this right now is the same way. And I'll wake up in the middle of night and I feel like sometimes not thinking about things or telling yourself think about this in the back of my mind and you'll solve problems; like I'll get things out there just to solve them. I'll wake up in the middle and be like that's the answer to this and literally I'll roll over, I'll pick up my phone, and I'll just type a note to myself and say this is the answer and I'll go back to sleep. And the one that you're talking about is we have a warehouse for both of the business but the one that we're talking about now has a warehouse, a large warehouse; tens of thousands of square feet, I'm not sure exactly how big it is but we were getting fined by the shipping company because the dimensions of our packaging was incorrect. And so as we printed out the shipping labels for it, it was off maybe by an inch or whatever it was. And so when we send it to FedEx who was our shipping carrier and they would measure it we would be off by however much and they would actually fine us and so it added to tens of thousands of dollars in fines that we are receiving; not shipping costs, fines because our dimensions were wrong. And so for less than $10,000, we purchased a dim scanner and basically eliminated that. That dim scanner pays itself in one to two months and then from that point forward we now recovered yet another 20, $30,000 back. So you see the recurring theme here; paid search, this is how much we can save by doing it better, affiliate, this is how much we can save by doing it better, shipping, this is how much we can save by doing it better and then here's the freaking key. Like this is the thing though; don't just sit on that. And again I guess this depends on your goal. If your goal is to just absolute squeeze every penny out of these companies that you want then go and do it. My goal is growth and to turn these companies into large companies so that one day I may list with Chuck and get a great multiple on these companies. But take those dollars that you're taking and now do all of the things on the list; in that plan and the things that the previous owner said I could never afford, I could never get to, I can never pay somebody to do it. Now you found the funds to go and actually do those things. Use that money to fund that growth. Again I'll refer to Pat who runs our paid search; he calls that feed the winners starve the losers, so just taking the wasted money and putting it back into reinvest on growth and winning. Chuck: So with the shipping fines that you discovered how long have you been running this business; it's been a year and a half? Mike: A year and a half, yeah. Chuck: And you just discovered it now. Is there something that you are having; we don't know what we don't know, right? So we don't know what to look for. Is this something that you could have identified on day one to have seen even more value? Mike: Yeah, thanks for pointing it out Chuck. It's always painful to look back and say oh we could have made an additional 30 to 50 grand in the last 12 months if we just would have found this. Chuck: And this is probably not a common problem, right? But it's something you're going to look for in the future. Where would they have identified that; what due diligence would you have done in order to have seen that? Mike: Yeah, looking at the shipping invoices and seeing exactly what those are. And there are some pretty cool companies out there that will A) look at that for you and B) they'll actually monitor your shipping and make sure that it arrives on time. There's one called Late Shipment it's I think the one that we use; LateShipment.com and if FedEx doesn't deliver within the agreed-upon time; the one to two days, they'll actually refund; we get a refund on that shipping cost. So that's another example if they're not using; if you send out a million dollars or if you pay a million dollars in shipping costs every year and I think I know ours is above a million but I'll just use that, so a million dollars, if you can recoup 2, 3, 4% that's 20, 30, $40,000 back in your pocket that just appeared out of nowhere. So that's another one on my list. So are they using a dim scanner? Are they getting fined for this? Are they using LateShipment.com and getting a refund on anything that's late? Again stacking up this $160,000 in savings in paid search, $40,000 in savings in affiliate, 30 to 50,000 in dim scanner, late shipment another 30 to $40,000 just stacking and stacking and stacking. Another one is credit card fees; are they using a good credit card process? Have they negotiated their rates since they grew from zero to 15 million dollars in sales? And if they haven't that's an opportunity like just a one or two; what do they call them? Bits I think is what they call it but it could mean a huge difference in your overall company. Just one or two bits is 15 to $30,000 on a 15 million dollar business. Chuck: And so in your defense, I think on the shipping thing the company that you purchased did have one of those companies in place that were looking at the delayed shipments but that company wasn't looking at the penalties you were receiving. Mike: That's right. Chuck: So even if somebody is using a company that is monitoring the late shipping and getting those refunds they may not be looking at the fees which is strange. You think they'd be doing it but they weren't. Something I've heard you say at conferences when looking at it from a different type of business, so right now we're kind of talking about e-commerce but you also work with people who are doing content sites and their affiliates with other people. So what's your number one tip if you purchased a content site that makes money off affiliates; what's your number one tip for those people? Mike: Go ask for a raise. Chuck: What does that mean? Mike: Go to the affiliate management; either the advertiser or the affiliate management company who's managing them and say I want to make more. And there's many ways that you can position that. One is if you're a content site just know that my affiliate company, AffiliateManager.com is always looking for more content sites. We want to bring that value to our clients and you are in a position; it's a content site's market, let me put it that way. We all want what you have and some make the mistake of because they've been beat down and offered 1, 2, 3, 5, 10% commissions in the past day they just turn away affiliate marketing. Don't do that. You're leaving money on the table. If you find a good advertiser or a good affiliate management company that knows what they're doing and they know that this content site is upper funnel and bringing incremental business to the table they're going to be willing to pay for that and they might pay 20%, 25%, 30%. One of our clients pays 100%. Another one pays up to $150 for an acquisition and they might make zero on it. So it's just one of those things where you have to go and be willing to ask for a raise. And again a good affiliate management company they're going to look at the incremental value, we; not to get too much into us because I know this is more about acquisition but we actually have an attribution tool that we built because it didn't exist that shows where in the clickstream each of these sites are. And if it's a content site going back to your point and we look at their overall numbers and 70% of the time they're the first touch for anybody who's making a purchase on your site, yes we want that incremental traffic and sales coming from that content site. So to you content sites out there you are in a position of desire. We all want to work with you more and go and ask for raises. Somebody who recognizes your value is going to very much be willing to pay it. And if they're not go find somebody else; they're going to be willing to pay it. You are valuable. Chuck: And just to give an example of something like that. I've got a number of content sites and one of them the affiliates that I was getting paid from is a Canadian company and they send me a Canadian check. So every time I cash the Canadian check I get hit with like a 10 or $20 cashing fee. And it's just like annoying and it's small amount of money but it's annoying so I emailed them and I said hey can you just like PayPal me the money or wire me the money or do something else because I want to get ahold of the $10 fee every time I cash your check and they go oh how about we just double what we pay you? Okay, that'll work. So they really are willing; if they see the value in what you're providing them they are willing to pay more, so just a nice little tip there from Mike Nuñez. Mike: Yeah. And there was a guy Greg; I won't say his last name at Rhodium one year and I said that at a table and one year later he came back and said by that one tip that you just said because he was a content site or is a content site, I have grown my revenue by 25%. All I did; I didn't do anything else but go back and ask for a raise and the revenue on my site grew 25%. Chuck: Amazing. Mike: Free, yeah. Chuck: Alright, so we've talked about shipping, we've talked about affiliate, we've talked about ads, is there anything else specifically that you're looking for when you're acquiring? Mike: Yeah if they're not on Amazon I think that's a pretty obvious one. If they are on Amazon and either doing a poor job or no job at Amazon ads; Amazon ads I probably the biggest opportunity right now for everyone that sells on Amazon. Chuck: And this is kind of new to you in the last couple of years, right? Mike: Yeah. Well, I mean it didn't really exist a couple of years ago or it was very nascent. So it's still one of those things like if you remember Google back in the day when clicks used to be available for a penny or five cents and such. Chuck: Yeah man they sent me a refrigerator. I had spent so much money I got a Google refrigerator. Mike: So I'm not saying that pen that clicks are available for a penny on Amazon but if you incorporate the right system and how to manage it you can gross it; like I'll give you physical numbers year over year in November even those Cyber Monday fell outside of November this year. We grew Amazon sales on that outdoor brand by 50% using Amazon ads. So it's another example of having expertise in this paid search world and finding opportunities within it. Amazon ads; I think maybe that's super-secret number 10. I think we've gotten away from the super secrets but maybe super-secret number 10 and it's probably one of the most powerful ones I see right now available for people. Chuck: So what else are you looking for? Mike: So besides being on Amazon and Amazon ads, me personally I'm looking for a strong operational foundation because I'm not an expert at that. I'm not good at that but thankfully the businesses that I purchase have that. I'm looking for a barrier to entry like how replicatable is this business and what is the barrier that people have to get through? And this is a little bit less quantifiable but this is just a general do I want to be involved in this business; how hard is it for somebody who's just as good at paid search as me or Amazon or whatever, if they just got a hold of my supplier could they replicate this and do I want that? And if the answer is it's too easy then I move on. Is it a learnable industry? One of the things I was worried about with the custom suit company was maybe before purchasing it I wasn't as sharp a dresser, Chuck. Maybe my wardrobe might have consisted of free conference t-shirts but I was worried about that and… Chuck: You're pulling it off still. Mike: Thank you. And once I got into it I learned no this is a learnable industry. I can do this and it's worked great since then. Is it Amazon resistant? And I know that's a little counter to saying are they on Amazon. Is Amazon going to move into that space? Are they going to want to replicate what it is that you're doing? And on the outdoor brand, it's more of we joined to them; we couldn't beat them so we joined them and a good 50, 60% of our sales are on Amazon on that brand. On the suit brand, we're looking to sell accessories; expand our brand awareness because you can't sell custom suits on Amazon and it's unlikely that Amazon is going to get into that realm. So we're thinking how can we use Amazon to expand our brand awareness, generate some confidence in the brand, and yet not have to; since we're not able to send custom suits and sell custom suits on Amazon directly so is Amazon a threat to the business is something that we look at overall. Inventory management optimization; so leveraging just in time inventory because anybody that's involved in an inventory-based business knows that a lot of times your profit can go straight back into purchasing additional inventory. And if you want to realize any profits before you sell the business you've got have inventory optimization. Is the current ownership leveraging that inventory optimization? Are there conversion rate optimization opportunities; have they ever even tried it before? I just had a call today for the suit company and this is going to be ultra-specific but it is an indicator of what we've done. We launched a new cart in early November and we just ran the numbers and today on desktop for new customers we have doubled our conversion rate which anybody knows that the lifeblood of a business is acquiring new customers. So to do that is pretty amazing. Now on mobile, it was pretty static but we've also generated significant amounts of more traffic on mobile to the suit company. So that's a little bit misleading to say that it's exactly the same. Well anybody who knows conversion rate optimization and knows how traffic works; if you increase traffic the quality is potentially a little bit lower and so the fact that we slightly beat our previous conversion rate on mobile is a huge win. So are there conversion rate optimization to opportunities in the acquisition? Here's one that you know is near and dear to my heart, Chuck. What is the current platform; are they on Net Suite, on Shopify, on Magento? Because the one thing I never ever recommend is changing platforms. So can you accomplish all of the things on your list that you want to do on the platform? We use Net Suite as one of them and it is extremely difficult to get changes done but we are not moving. So it's just something that I think everybody should really consider. Or are you on an archaic platform like at Yahoo stores; something that's not being updated anymore and there's seven people in the world that can code to Yahoo stores? Now you're beholden to them. You have to pay exorbitant rates for their development because they're the only one that knows it as opposed to a Shopify or a Magento that developers are plenty. Chuck: If you're on Yahoo shout out to Rob Snell, look him up if you need help with your Yahoo business. Mike: There you go. See I didn't even mean that. That helps. And I think the last thing; us particularly we enjoy custom products, so custom made suits is a really good example or even for the branded products; things that other people makes, turning them into custom products. We really think that that's a good market to be and again slightly more defensible against an Amazon. And then finally this is my last on my company acquisition algorithm that I'll share today just I know we're limited on time is what synergies can you participate in? So if you listen to the last call you heard me talking about a brand that we made an offer on that it was a full price offer, quick close, no due diligence because it was a trusted brand. And before Chuck chimes in, he recommends that you never do that but the reason why we wanted that brand is because it was geared towards outdoor enthusiasts and we have tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of outdoor enthusiasts that come to our website every day. So looking for synergistic brands that are out there to acquire and diversify the income and now not only sell other people's brands but also sell your own brand; white labeling things like that, finding things with opportunities like that, that's the last opportunity that we're looking for in our algorithm. Chuck: Awesome. Alright, so now let's maybe move into what some of the lessons you've learned from the various acquisitions you've done. And you had acquired some stuff before Quiet Light as well. Mike: Yeah. So I think a lot of them are listed on what I just said but I will say there's; because every time I learn a lesson to me it's an opportunity for the next acquisition. So again I will buy another business on Net Suite but I wouldn't have bought the first one knowing what I know now about Net Suite. But now that we've had to learn it, now that we've had to; our developer is familiar with it now and can make the changes that we need and want, now I'll buy another one. And so to me there's an opportunity there, right? It's harder for people to do that than it is for me. It's yet another level of expertise. So that's one thing is a lot of the lessons are kind of listed already in that but there's one I would say recently and again it's with the custom suit business, don't get so caught up in your own expertise. Again we are really, really good at paid search and one of the reasons why is because we're so return focused. A mistake that we made with the custom suit business is we went straight for a return. If a dollar didn't turn into five; I'll just use that as an example, we didn't spend it. And because of that, we saw sales drop. And I talked to the previous owner about it and said hey we're seeing this, why? And he's like well yes cross-device tracking is good however it doesn't capture everything. And mobile devices; think about who buys suits these days, and it's somebody with a mobile life. It's a lawyer that's always in the courtroom. It's a doctor that's always walking about. It's a financial person that's not necessarily sitting at their desk, they're going to meeting after meeting after meeting and where are they searching up for their next suit? Well, it's probably their mobile device. They find it and then they go on the desktop and they go on and they purchase it. And we had pulled back pretty significantly on the mobile spend because the conversion rate just wasn't as good. And so that's one example of us kind of getting in our own way. But to our credit, we were able to kind of step back and say okay we learned a lesson here, let's get better at it and change our approach. And since then that's when we now had some of our best days that we've ever had. So I like to think of it as a lot of these owners or the previous owners they had levels of expertise; they were doing something right and so it's our job as experts that are better at it to take the lessons that they've learned and apply our expertise to it to just throw some gasoline on it. Chuck: Alright Mike so one of the ways I like to usually end these things is just to ask if you have any kind of tools that you use on a regular basis; just some things that can either help with productivity, it could even be outside of work. One example the other day I was kind of upset about it because you ordered the chicken sandwich from Popeye's through Uber Eats so that you didn't have to wait in line and you didn't bother sending me one. That's a great little life hack. So what else do you have? Do you have any tools that you might recommend or any other little things? Mike: I did the same thing with Amazon two years ago when they were operating like the one-hour delivery and we had a hurricane coming to Florida and I just ordered all the bottled water and had it delivered while everybody else is fighting each other at the store. But now that secret's out. That's no longer an advantage but yeah some tools that I like that we use; so for Google Ads, I'll say if you're using things like maximize for clicks run we prefer an enhanced CPC bidding algorithm or a target CPA. We always test to see which one's better. Prioritization, I love Air Table. I got to give a shout out to my business partner Daniel for that. Air Table is a prioritization tool and basically, it can help identify what is the easiest to implement to get the most impactful change that you can make. And so it just really helps to prioritize what it is that you're doing and the changes that you're making to the company because obviously, we all want to make the biggest impact as quickly as possible. I love Grammarly for sending emails so that I don't sound silly. Chuck: That one saves me all the time. Mike: It's so good. I haven't used their pro version but even just the regular version is fantastic. For the affiliate management company, I got to give a shout out to Mail Shake. We love Mail Shake. We use that very often. It's a terrific tool. I love Moz. So the Moz toolbar is something that I use a lot. And then I think we use a lot of the things everybody else uses like the Evernotes and Google apps and things like that. So I think the first ones that were probably some of the others may not have heard them. Chuck: Awesome. Well, I think everybody who's been listening appreciates your time. I'd love to have you back at another time. We can talk about some more stuff once you've hit that next goal of purchase through us we'll talk about that one. But again thank you for the time today and we'll talk to you again soon. Mike: Thanks, Chuck. Links and Resources: Affiliate Manager

Some of the most popular episodes we've aired have been with guests who have experienced the buying or selling process firsthand. Today's guest has acquired several businesses and is genuinely good at the acquisition process. In part one of a two-part series, Chuck is talking to Mike Nunez about his various acquisitions and his 9 super secret to tips to being a great buyer. Mike has been in the online marketing space since 1999. After gaining experience in affiliate marketing, he launched Affiliate Manager with his brother while he continued to work full time for Google. More recently, Mike has purchased several e-commerce businesses from Quiet Light. We'll hear about how Mike is becoming one of our top buyers, how he's realizing his dreams, and that one last goal he may just reach. Episode Highlights: What it means to be a good buyer. What values the seller looks for aside from the monetary value. Ways to put the seller at ease by focusing on what is important to them. The importance of having a plan in your approach to the seller. How to accept and value of the previous owner's advice during the transition. Why you should avoid poor positioned questions when working with the seller. The buyer needs to find what he wants – the fit has to be right for the buyer too. Finding the component that will help make the business yours and not focus solely on the money piece. The relationship of trust in your broker is also a key factor in being a good buyer or seller. Transcription: Mark: Some of the most popular podcasts that we've put out here at Quiet Light Brokerage are the episodes where we get the chance to interview either a seller or a buyer on their background or their journey of going through a buying an online business. And Chuck I know you had a good friend of ours, a good friend of Quiet Light Brokerage's and a previous podcast guest as well, Mike Nuñez on because he's acquired a couple of businesses from us and more specifically from you in the recent months. How did that discussion go? Chuck: Yeah it went great. Mike is what I would consider probably one of our best buyers. The way he's able to get on a phone call and just talk to people, and sometimes I use the word tactics throughout the call. I don't feel like when he's doing it he's being tactical, I feel like he's just a very genuinely friendly guy who is just really good. His experience is that he's been in internet marketing for 20 years I've been in it for 24 so he's almost up there with me. Mark: He worked at Google so he's got that on you. Chuck: Yeah, he worked at Google for four years in the paid search department. So he talks a lot about on this one so I ended up having to split this up into two podcasts because it was just going so long. So the first one we talked about his nine super-secret tips to being a great buyer and there was a lot of really actionable stuff in there that I think everybody is going to be able to get a lot out of. Mark: Guys that's awesome and you talk about the difference between tactics and just being a good guy and look they can blend together, right? I mean Mike isn't the type of conniving guy saying here's what I'm going to do, I'm going to say this phrase and that phrase to make sure somebody absolutely loves me and then I'm going to be able to get an additional 20% off. That's not the way he works. He is just generally a good guy. He helps a lot. He's got that help first mentality. We preach this all the time and Joe is the one that coined a lot of these phrases which is nice buyers tend to do better. And it's just really, really true that sometimes we need tips on how to do it. This is why Dale Carnegie wrote the famous book How to Win Friends and Influence People just to give us some actionable tips to be like how do you actually encounter people in a business environment in a way that will benefit you. And if you read the book you find out that a lot of it is; well it starts with that right disposition and who you are. And Mike is a good person. I love that you broke this out into nine tips. Are you able to give me any preview of any of the nine tips or do you not remember them offhand? Chuck: Yeah. So one of the questions is around positioning the way you ask questions I think it's a really good tip. I won't get into all the details but you'll see it in the video. Mark: Okay, so not just going out there and hammering people with questions in a very kind of combatant way but I'm sure Mike has a very unique approach to that. Chuck: Well, Mark I just said I'm not going to get into the details. Don't try to pressure me. Mark: Alright. You know what I was talking to Joe the other day and he's like do you listen to the podcasts, Mark? And I said no, I don't because I hear enough of you Joe I don't want to hear more of you and he records all the episodes. So he said your intros are getting to be too long so let's cut it out. Let's get to it. Chuck: Hey everybody today on the call we have Mike Nuñez. Welcome, Mike. Mike: Thank you, Chuck, it's great to be here. Chuck: So people may have heard your name before because we mentioned you quite frequently on the podcast. And the reason we mentioned you so frequently is because you're what I would consider my number one buyer. I think probably one of Quiet Light's top buyers and not from a monetary perspective. You do purchase a lot of businesses, you purchase a lot of large businesses from us but more so just from your personality; the way you interact with clients on phone calls like whenever I'm telling somebody how to be a good buyer I'm always in my head thinking what does Mike do and then I'm telling them what Mike does in order to be a good buyer. Because we're friends and I know you outside of Quiet Light but like I really do mean that. Like you are really a great buyer and you're easy to talk to. And if anybody's watching the video today they're going to notice that you look somewhat like a sports commentator with that headset on and you've got a suit and tie and the suit and tie isn't the normal way I see Mike but one of the businesses he purchased was a custom-tailored suit business so I guess he's got to rep that brand now. Mike: That's right. Chuck: But maybe you could tell everybody a little bit about yourself. Mike: Oh great. I'm happy to. And first, let me say thank you. That was super just kind of you to say. I always whenever I have any of these phone calls I just take an approach of what I want to hear and recognizing that these business owners have been working on this; their babies, right? And you just have to be careful as you ask questions because we all want to know where the opportunity is and I'm sure we'll talk much more about that here but we want to know where the opportunity is and the way that you find that is by asking questions. But it's a very fine line between asking questions and becoming insulting and so you just have to walk that fine line. But there's absolutely a way to do it and there's a way to lead these sellers into that and realizing that you're both kind of on the same team. But again; well I think we're getting ahead of ourselves or at least I am so I'll tell you a little bit about me to start this off. I've been in online marketing since 1999, I was in college at the time and I know that dates myself a little bit. The first job was in lead generation, online marketing. I moved in to travel doing affiliate marketing and travel. I eventually launched my own affiliate marketing business along with my brother that's still going today so its AffiliateManager.com. Last year we merged with a company called Rhino Fish to create the performance company which is our page search division. Overall that marketing company is about 22 people. We have 3 former Googlers myself included on that staff. So we're quite good at both affiliate marketing and paid search. I like to say so. We also have two other businesses or I have two other businesses; one is an outdoor equipment seller that I purchased from Quiet Light, another is a custom made to measure suit company that I purchased from Quiet Light as well. So overall I'm about 20 years down it hurts to say experience in online marketing and business and online businesses in general and it's been a really fun journey. I always like to say Chuck my dream used to be I want to be able to work from anywhere and now I'm there. The new dream is that I want to not have to work. So someday I'll realize that second dream. Chuck: I don't like to hear that because I think the term not working would be not buying additional businesses and you're one short away from a special goal that I; I told him if you bought a certain number that I would buy him a specific thing. So he's just shy of that goal. Mike: Yeah it's just without getting into too many details like we're talking about less than what is it 4% on millions of dollars that I'm short. Chuck: But I set this goal early on, right? So it's your fault that you haven't reached it. If you have just paid a little bit more in that last acquisition you would have hit that goal. Mike: We need to round up Chuck. That's what I'm saying. We need to just round up and I should hit that threshold. Chuck: I'll remember that on the next acquisition. We'll just round up. Mike: Right. Yeah. Only when it's in my favor, please. Chuck: So part of the reason I wanted to have you on the call today was one just to talk about maybe some tips or just maybe even not tips but just discussing what it is to be a good buyer. But then also from your perspective what it is you're looking at when you're looking to buy businesses. I know you have a specific criteria that you're looking for and your criteria is different than other people's. And I wanted to also maybe talk about some lessons you've learned along the way. So I guess to kick it off maybe let's just dive in a little bit about being a good buyer. So I would start off just by saying that you know I talked to a lot of people; constantly I'm on the phone and people are always asking me what it is to be a good buyer? And some people I talked to think that in order to be a good buyer it's about being aggressive in trying to negotiate. And maybe they're not thinking that as being a good buyer but they want to try to get the best deal by doing that and they'll say negative things about people's businesses. And you take a very different approach than that. So I think you already addressed it a little bit but maybe you want to dive into maybe the approach you take to negotiating and to speaking with others. Mike: Sure. I think it's important context to say both of the businesses that I've purchased from you Chuck and Quiet Light had multiple offers, were very much generating a lot of interest and so there were multiple potential buyers. And I don't want to say we were the lowest offer. I don't think we were. I know in both cases we weren't the highest offer either. Chuck: Yeah just maybe to add a little context before you dive into further, one of the; I think actually both of them said I wanted to sell to Mike. So they're talking to multiple people and they said get Mike up to this number I want to sell to him. Even though that number was lower than what some of the other potential buyers were offering. Mike: Yeah. Chuck: So I think that speaks a lot to you. Mike: Thank you again, Chuck. But I would say that therein lies the quote-unquote the secret which is money is valuable, right? They want money. If you're nowhere near what they're asking or if you're nowhere near what their magic number is, the rest of this conversation goes away. Let's put that aside. I think Quiet Light does an incredible job overall of valuing companies fairly and appropriately. And you know that walking in. So if you know that walking in okay this is a fairly and appropriately valued business now it's a matter of percentage points maybe either way and in either direction of that. The purpose of the call, at least the initial call is to identify; one of the purposes of the call is to identify what value is this seller seeking beyond the dollars because the dollars are going to fall within a certain range. So a good example for the suit business is the seller really cared about his people. He really cared about his co-workers that he's had for the last however many years; almost 10 years that have put in their blood, their sweat, their tears into this. And he wanted to know that they were going to be okay. And I think actually in the ranking of why I won the business even though I had a lower offer than other people had, that's probably number one is just feeling comfortable about that the new owner is going to come in and take care of the people that were there. And I made no promises. Let me say that. I didn't say I promise I'm not going to let anybody go or I promise; I said no, I promise I'm going to be fair and appropriate with everybody and evaluate everybody based on performance. And he was confident knowing that he had hired stellar people. And it was part of what was so attractive about the business is he had incredible people that were already working there so it made it even more attractive for us. So I think that was number one for him. Second I think there was a sense of patriotism maybe. So this is a European company. It was based in Europe. It's in a European country. And this European country is kind of known for textiles and for creating things and such. And so I think one of the other buyers; and again there's multiple people in here that you're kind of competing against and so you got to think of like a pros and cons checklist and I'm being compared to each one of these other potential buyers in their pros and cons checklist. One of the other potential buyers wanted to move the production out of Europe and into China. There's nothing wrong with that if that's where their connections are if that's where their factories are and such; great. That's where they want to move their production, good for them. However this particular seller wanted to keep production because of his pride for his country, because of his desire to benefit his country, he wanted to keep production in his home country. I didn't have any alternative contacts in China or in any other potential production areas and so I felt like that was important to them and so I made it known. And I think a lot of, and I think it's the second thing is kind of just listening on the calls. Maybe that's super-secret number two is listening and hearing what's important to them and asking that question okay let's move money aside what's important to you in the future of this company? And another good example of that is potential branding or taking care of the customers. I know this may sound a little bit cliché but this is their baby, right? They've grown this baby. They've watched this baby grow. They've poured their love, their sweat, their tears, their hours. The seller of the custom suit company is an example. I remember him saying like I can't remember the last time I took a vacation. He just poured everything he possibly had into this company. And so when you're that invested overall they just kind of feel a comfort level that the new owner is going to come in and do right by what they've built. They just don't want to see it go away and it's they've already got their cash at that point and they still care. And I will say one positive side effect and please know that this is partly or mostly; not even partly, mostly because of the owner and this is one of the criteria; we can talk more about this later, but one of the criteria that I look at is an owner that cares and they're selling for potentially a different reason other than they don't care about the business anymore. I think those are the ones that kind of phone it in afterwards. The two owners of the businesses that I've purchased are still very much invested. One of them still works full time in the company and works as hard today as when he owned it. And I am very appreciative for that. Same thing for the custom suit company, he chimes in all the time. Like hey, this is how we did things, this is how we did it. It's so helpful in the transition of a company to have the context of somebody who built this business from the ground up. And I think the super-secret number three there is when somebody is on your side, let them be. Both of their intentions aren't to harm the business in any way. They want to see it grow. And even though in both instances there's been times where we didn't quite agree on how to take things to the next level, we absolutely welcomed their feedback and sometimes they were right. Sometimes we were right. Kind of checking your pride and moving it to the side for a second when you're good at something and allowing them to tell you, yes I know you're good at this, let me tell you how what you're doing applies specifically to the business that you're purchasing from me. It's a really important lesson in the growth of the business which might be a good segway Chuck if it's okay with you to start talking about the lessons learned for some of the businesses or did you want more on…? Chuck: Before we move on you mentioned that both of the owners of the businesses were kind of still somewhat involved in the company. Is that something you're specifically looking for or was that just a happenstance of you buying a good quality business that had an owner that actually cared about the business? Mike: So in neither instance was it a requirement beforehand that the owner would stay on with the business post-acquisition. The first acquisition, the owner requested it. They said hey I see the plan and I didn't intend to call out these super-secrets but let's call it the super-secret number four is have a plan. Don't just walk in and say hey I'd like to buy your business. In that instance, I just so happened to be in London and as I'm trying to buy this business the owner of the business lived in an island off of the coast of Morocco. I had a free weekend while I was in London and I flew over and met with him and his wonderful wife and they were gracious. They took me to dinner. I insisted but they wouldn't let me treat for dinner. I think they were just thankful that I flew to go visit them and talk about the business; so just again that personal connection there. So while it wasn't a requirement that they stay with the business post-acquisition I'm always open to it if they're open to it. And I started talking about the plan; having the plan and being able to approach them. In both instances they got excited. One of them and I'll try to talk vague because I don't want to say anything about either one of them that they wouldn't want me to share. But one of them said when I said why are you selling it they said well I'm almost running out of ideas. Like I don't know what the next thing to do is. I don't know where to take this next and how to make it grow. And so for me, it's a choice of whether we stay at the level that we are now and continue happily down that path. Or do I allow my baby to grow by giving it to somebody who's going to take it to that next level? And so to be able to show them okay not only can we take it to next level here's how; yes, you recognize we have the experience before this on how to get this to that next level but here let me lay out the plan in front of you. And all throughout the while of reviewing the business and going to the website I have a checklist and I'll go over some of the points with you later today, here's all the opportunities that we think that we can have. And based off of those opportunities that's how we create the plan. And then we plug that into our for lack of a better word, our company acquisition algorithm to say okay is this worthwhile? And based off of the competitive advantages that we have with this business can we offer a little more? Do we need to offer a little less? Like where do we think that we're going to fit into this overall picture? So I feel like I didn't fully answer your question. The answer is no we don't require the owners to stay on post-acquisition. We are completely open to it. We prefer it. In both instances, they're both quite engaged overall. And just to reiterate the point maybe super-secret number five is if somebody wants to be on your side let them be. And in this instance, both the previous owners want to be on our side. They want to give us the feedback. We 100% remain open to receiving that feedback even if it's counter to what we want to achieve we'll at least receive it. I have a philosophy that you're not entitled to have a point if you can't justify it. And so if they come to me and say hey I think you're doing this incorrectly or I don't think you're doing this right. I tell myself okay, here's an expert that's owned this business for a long time, they feel strongly enough to come to me and say I think you're doing this incorrectly. I feel strongly that I'm doing it this way. But feeling trolling isn't good enough. I need to go pull data, go look at numbers, go say why are we doing it this way. And then I go back to them and say okay here's the reason why we're doing this way and they can poke holes in it or say no you know what that looks good. I wish I would have known that when I had the business. So I think that answers your question, Chuck. Chuck: Yeah I think so. And maybe secret; what number are we on, number six? Mike: I think we're on number six now. Chuck: Okay, so I would say super-secret number six, what you kind of just alluded to and what you didn't is you know when in school like high school or whatever and the teacher is like oh there's no such thing as a dumb question. There 100% is such a thing as a dumb question when you're talking to a seller. I would say super-secret number six is be prepared when you get on a call, be dedicated to the call that you're on, don't be in a car with a lot of background noise. Be at a desk, be in one place, do some research, if there's an interview to watch, watch the interview with the seller, read the package, ask intelligent questions about the business. It's okay to ask something that's already been addressed in the package if you want some additional information but show that you've actually researched the business because constantly when I'm talking to my sellers and we get off a phone call they're like that guy is not serious, don't connect me with him again. They want to know that you're serious and a way to show that you're serious is to have done some research ahead of time and ask intelligent questions about the business. And that's something that you definitely do. Mike: Thanks, Chuck. And I think that goes with having a plan. Like I don't have the time, I know you don't have the time, I don't have the time, I'm sure the sellers don't have the time to just sit there and answer questions that for somebody who clearly isn't prepared for the call it's a horrible signal to the seller that you're not serious about this that even if you do have the cash, even if all other things fall into place you're not going to be an organized person handling their business moving forward. So it's just an awful signal to send upfront. And I think one of the other things that you said; I don't want to say that there's bad questions, there's unprepared questions. Chuck: There are bad questions. I've had them on my calls. Mike: Okay. Chuck: And I know you're; Mike again this gets back to Mike being a super nice guy and doesn't want to; there are dumb questions and I've had many of them on my calls. Mike: I'm still going to stay that there's poorly positioned questions. And one of them might be hey Chuck I feel like this is a really dumb question and so forgive me for asking what's going to seem like a dumb question but it's just weighing on me and I need to ask it. That's a well-positioned dumb question. Another really good example of that is starting a call. I have a big belief and maybe this might be in one of the other super- secrets but we'll call it super-secret number seven, are we on seven now? So super-secret number seven, figure out what they want and give it to them. And again part of that is money but that's the beauty of working with a broker especially Quiet Light, that part's already figured out. That's almost done. They've declared that this is the multiple that they want now it's up to you to figure out does that fit within your company acquisition algorithm. Can I afford this based off of all of these criteria? And again I'll go through some of those in a little bit. Move that aside and now figure out what do they want. Do they want to stay on with the business? Do they want to hand it over to somebody who's going to keep the work within their country or somebody who isn't going to start selling poorly made products to their customer base that they've built up over time? Figure out what they want and give it to them. It's the best negotiation technique. If you walk into a call or a negotiation and you're trying to think how can I squeeze every dime out of this person on the other side of this phone call; I mean good luck to you, you may win or you may not. I have the philosophy of; I took a course from the Wharton School of Business one time and we talked about negotiation and one of the things we talked about was the difference between an average hitter in baseball and a Hall of Fame hitter in baseball is one in nine hits. If you can get one more hit in nine at-bats, that's the difference between average and Hall of Fame. The same thing with negotiation, if you can get one more hit in nine at-bats it's potentially a huge difference in the overall success that you're going to have. So same thing here, and so I approach the call as hey let's figure this out together and I'm listening the entire time trying to figure out what's important to the person on the other side of the call. Also, another; super-secret number eight is going to be disarming the call. It doesn't have to be this contentious conversation where I'm battling you for information. That's not the case. I start out almost every call and you can attest to this Chuck, and by the way, I've purchased a couple. I've probably had maybe less than 10 but several phone calls with people. Some of them after the call I decide this is not the right fit for me. I can't give them what they want so I just walk away and I go on to the next business. Other ones I've made offers for and maybe somebody else was giving something that they wanted and I didn't get that. But the two that I've got I'm very happy with thus far. But when I start the call I say hey I need to ask some questions and some of these questions might come across the wrong way. They may seem offensive or it may seem like I'm trying to prod or I'm trying to poke, all I'm looking for is opportunity. What opportunity exists in your business? And I'm trying to use it to go justify pulling this money out of other places and spending it and handing it over to you. So I'm looking for your help in bridging that gap here. And so when you position it that way and say help me get there it's amazing how they almost start to fall over themselves to tell you all of the potential opportunities in the business beyond what they've already written into the marketing package. And I'll even call that out. I've read the marketing package. I see that you see that this is an opportunity, this is an opportunity, this is an opportunity, based off of some research that I've done I think that this might be an opportunity. Is there a reason why you haven't attacked that market? Is there a reason why you haven't advertised on this channel? Is there a reason why this or this or that? And after you've position that I'm looking for opportunity, I want to make this happen, help me get there, usually they're quite open and willing to volunteer that information. So I'll call that super-secret number eight. Chuck: Yup, number eight. I can see the headline of this interview now; eight super-secrets of Mike Nuñez. We've got to get it to like 9 or 10 maybe. So yeah I think that those are some really good tactics. And I hate to use the word tactic because I don't feel like it's a tactic. I guess it is but like that's just your normal personality and maybe some people don't have it. But I think one of the major takeaways there is don't be super aggressive with a seller. Like the businesses we sell at Quiet Light, they're generally speaking super high quality with owners that care. It's not we generally; like sometimes we do but often it's not people that are just starting a business to flip, to flip, to flip. These are people who started a business because it's something they're passionate about and they're ready to move on for one reason or another and they want to pass on the torch to somebody who cares. And when you come in aggressive and if you try to beat down their business or things like that, that doesn't work. Maybe if you're working on a 100 million dollar deal and you got to like get in there and be super aggressive like that doesn't work with what we're doing at all. Mike: I just have to add to that Chuck because I think it's like if it works you should be worried. If it works it's probably not the right business. Like that's not; feel free to take this out Chuck if I shouldn't or can't talk about this but in the last offer I made I did not get the business. I made an offer but in our call, I recognized that what they were looking for was a quick close and a short close. They wanted to make sure that it closed. They wanted to do it quickly. And that was beyond the dollars and it was very fairly priced already, beyond the dollars that's what was important to them. And so for the caller just to give you an example of how much I personally trust after physically spending millions of dollars with Quiet Light already I made an offer, all cash so that they knew that this was going to close. I offered close at your convenience. And third I offered no due diligence. Now I wouldn't recommend that for everybody and all things. Chuck: I don't recommend that either. Do not offer to close. This is a certain special deal with a person that is a known entity that was trusted. You should always do your due diligence. Don't listen to Mike. Don't rely on us to do due diligence. It is your job to do the due diligence. Mike: 100% that was my decision that I was aware of this company, the numbers were small enough where even if this was a complete disaster it wouldn't be a disaster for me. But it was a complete cash offer, it was a complete quick close and I offer that with the hope that that was the value that they were looking for that was not a cash value that would allow them to choose me because they had; I mean I don't even know how many Chuck. Chuck: There were nine offers on the deal and you were; because of that they wanted to sell that component to you but the other offer was just so much; it was more money, the guy was willing to do a quick close as well so it just beats you out. They wanted to sell it to you. The other guy was just; it was a better offer with the other person. Mike: Understood. And so I got close right with the untangible non-monetary aspects of the offer.; it got me super close, right? I almost got that extra hit and that nine tenth bat. So just a good example of listening to what they want, trying to give it to them, and it's going to save you dollars in the long run. And the fact that they were considering me sounds like even though my offer was lower; yet again that seems to be the MO here overall. And by the way, I made a full price offer so it wasn't even like I made an under offer. I made a full price offer but somebody beat the full price offer and I'm still under consideration. Chuck: And just to let maybe another super-secret number nine; this isn't Mike's this is mine so I think that's like two of the nine. Listen to the broker. If I'm telling you something there's a reason I'm telling you it. Like when I say this is going to sell for at or above asking, it's probably going to sell for at or above asking. I'm not just trying to increase the price, right? I do represent the seller and I'm trying to do my best to get as much value for the seller but I'm not going to do that by lying. I'm going, to be honest. There's things I can't say to you. If you say well what's the other asking price is or what's the other offers, I can't tell you that but I will try to lead you in the direction of making an offer that's going to be accepted. Don't think that we're just; if I tell you there's multiple offers, there are multiple offers. I'm not just B-S-ing you. And we get it all the time where I tell people there's multiple offers put your best highest final offer in and then yeah okay asking price and I'm like put your best offer like I'm just telling you and then it goes for above asking and then the person is mad oh why didn't you tell me? I would've put a higher offer. And it's like I did tell you; I told you to put your best offer in. Like I don't want you to stretch, I don't want you to put an offer that makes you uncomfortable but you need to put your best offer in if you want to win this business. Mike: So I just want to say to that people have been kind of beat down and trained to not be trusting especially to brokerages. And at the risk of sounding like a Quiet Light commercial, it's just not the case with Quiet Light. And is it okay with you if I tell the story of how I found Quiet Light and why I just trust you guys implicitly? Chuck: I'm not sure of the story but please do tell it. Mike: I've had the affiliate manager and the performance company; the affiliate managed business overall since 2002. I started it with my brother and we built up the business. And in 2015 my brother passed away. He passed away fairly unexpectedly. And I was working at Google at the time and I had a decision to make; do I leave Google and come back to Affiliate Manager or do I sell the company? And so through some mutual contacts, I was referred over to Mark and Joe. This was before Chuck was there so I totally would've went to Chuck. But I went to Mark and Joe and just talked about the business and they asked me just great questions and they asked me for the P&L and they asked me what does the growth rate look like over the last few years. And we had been growing at like a 50%; no I'm sorry 100% rate year over year. We had doubled every year for the previous three years from '13, '14, and ‘15. And this is in January 2016 that I'm talking to Mark and Joe. And they even though this would have been a multimillion-dollar deal to sell that company; and I'm sure they do many, many multimillion-dollar deals which makes it easier to; I don't want to say turn it away but to give this advice. Chuck: So I will stop you there before I was with Quiet Light which was I've been about three years they weren't doing a lot of multimillion-dollar deals. So at that time a million, two, or three million dollars was a lot. It's just been in the last few years that we've really got up to where we're selling some of these really large businesses. Mike: So that makes it even more impressive, right? And I just remember this phone call with Mark and Joe so clearly where they said Mike when you sell this we'd love to be the brokerage for you. This is the wrong decision to sell right now. If you keep growing at this rate you will get what you want. Because of that conversation; I talked to other brokers who are ready to list my business or promising me the world and because of that especially now knowing that it would have been a very high multimillion-dollar deal for them and that they weren't doing as many at that time, for them to turn away that commission just gave me a level of trust with them that this is the company that I'm going to do business with. I am not comparing myself to Warren Buffett, Chuck. Not in the least. But one thing that he does that I love is he makes things easy and he; I don't want to say he takes shortcuts but he has built-in shortcuts. He can go from looking at a potential deal to executing a deal very quickly. And I don't know how he does it but my interpretation of how he does it is he identifies businesses and companies that he feels confident and he trusts. And so to me the implicit trust that I get from working with Quiet Light is a shortcut. To me, it gets me from here to this point. My comfort level right off the bat knowing that Quiet Light is not going to take a company that's shady or take a company that doesn't have solid P&L numbers or things of that effect, it's just such a comfort level. And if my comfort level was at a 90 pre these two deals because of what Mark and Joe did when they told me go continue to grow your business. It's at 100 now that I've actually purchased two companies and both of them are better than what I had expected. Now granted I'll take some credit for that that I've done the due diligence on it; I hired Centurica actually for both due diligences. We did the due diligence and we got into the company. Both of them feel; were over a year in on the first one, we're almost a year on the second one and both are solid. Both are growing. We just ran the numbers and after a little bit of a rocky start with the suit one because of some of the changes that we were making and that's what happens but we are now; November is our biggest month and we were up 30%. If you shift to include cyber Monday because everybody is obviously one of our biggest days. Chuck: How long have you owned that company? Mike: Since April of this year. So to go from there we beat our biggest day previously in the company not once, not twice, but three times by over 25%. So to beat your previous biggest day which was Black Friday; I'm sorry Cyber Monday last year, we beat it Black Friday this year, we beat it the Sunday after Black Friday this year, and we beat it again on Cyber Monday this year. So we literally doubled Black Friday. So it's been amazing. And again if my comfort level was a 90, it's 100 because of that. Like I'm not walking into a business that's a money pit or that has craters I didn't expect or potholes that I didn't expect. So I think that's just super important overall. Chuck: Awesome. So we're running a little long on this call, we've got a ton to talk about. So would you be interested in having this become a two-part segment where we'll end it here and then we'll keep going but we'll put that as a part two, to be continued? Mike: Yeah. But in case people are watching this on video just know that we cut it into two parts. I didn't wear the same suit on two different days. Chuck: We'll make a quick wardrobe change. Mike: Okay, I'll go change my jacket. Chuck: No. Mike: But that's fine. Yes, I'm happy to do that. Chuck: Alright. So, everybody, Mike Nuñez thank you for the interview today. And for everybody watching stay tuned. Next, we will discuss some of the lessons you've learned and what you're looking for when you purchase a business. So, for now, bye everybody and thank you, Mike, for joining us. Mike: Thanks for having me. Links and Resources: Affiliate Manager

25 Questions You Are Afraid to Ask About Love, Sex and Intimacy (Part 1) - Juli Slattery25 Questions You Are Afraid to Ask About Love, Sex and Intimacy (Part 2) - Juli Slattery25 Questions You Are Afraid to Ask About Love, Sex and Intimacy (Part 3) - Juli SlatteryFamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript  References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. The Spiritual Component of Sexuality Guest:                         Juli Slattery               From the series:       25 Questions You Are Afraid to Ask (Day 3 of 3)  Bob: Dr. Juli Slattery had been married ten years before there was a breakthrough that occurred in her marriage in the area of marital intimacy. Juli: We had many years of boredom. You know, one of the first steps I took was I dedicated three months: “Lord, I'm going to pray about this area of my life. I'm going to learn to enjoy it, and I'm going to learn to pursue it.” I got serious about saying: “God, You're not okay with where we are. I'm not okay with where we are. I'm going to devote myself to helping change that.”  Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, October 26th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife®, Dennis Rainey. I'm Bob Lepine. Could it be that a season of prayer and study could actually bring about a breakthrough in your marital intimacy? We'll talk more about that with Dr. Juli Slattery today. Stay with us. 1:00   And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. I hope our listeners have been hanging with us here this week as we've been talking about a sensitive subject. I have to tell you—just in the conversation, there is such rightness in talking in a healthy— Dennis: Oh and it's healthy! Bob: —biblical way— Dennis: Yes! Bob: —about what God created. Dennis: If there's a radio program on—on all of radio—it ought to be a Christian radio program talking about sex from a biblical perspective. Dr. Juli Slattery has been with us this week. I just want to tell you: “You're doing a great job. Your book is excellent—25 Questions You're Afraid to Ask About Love, Sex and Intimacy.”  Juli—welcome back to the broadcast, first of all. I just want to ask you—you've been married since 1994 / you have three sons: “What is the most important lesson you personally have learned about love, sex, and intimacy?” Juli: That this is spiritual terrain.  2:00 It's not just a matter of good parenting or having a happy marriage—that sexuality represents a very intense spiritual battle. When I learned that, it was a total game changer in how I approached this in my marriage and parenting. Dennis: So, in essence, you're saying: “Who are you listening to? Juli: Yes; yes. Dennis: “Are you listening to the Bible and God's perspective of sex?”—because that's really the only place you're going to find it is in the Bible—or “Are you listening, watching, and feeding from what the world is?” Bob: Yes; when you're standing at the supermarket checkout line and Cosmo is there—what they're advertising on the front cover is not, “Here's how to think biblically about sexuality”; right? Juli: No; no. Bob: They're kind of compartmentalizing it to a purely biological activity that you can disassociate from every other aspect of your life. When people think that way, what happens to their sexuality? Juli: Well, and I think a lot of Christians do think that way—they think that sexuality is compartmentalized.  3:00 What happens is that you never realize that Jesus needs to be Lord of that area of your life too. In 1 Corinthians 6, it talks about the sexual, and spiritual, and the relational all being intertwined—that you can't make a sexual choice that isn't also spiritual. When you start to understand that—that this is a major battle; and if I'm not careful with even the little choices I make, I can be contributing to evil I hate.  Boy, when you get that, it changes—for example, we all hate sex trafficking and sexual exploitation. We hate it / we wish it would go away. But we don't realize that our choices—for example, to look at pornography feeds into sexual exploitation and trafficking—that we have a part to play in that. Even just a cavalier attitude about casual sex—and you can hook up with whomever you want—you're contributing to the enemy's design on tarnishing sexuality.  4:00 That's really convicting. It changes the way we pray, and it changes the way we act. Dennis: I want to take a step back and just address a couple, who are listening to our broadcast, where sex has become boring. The romance is kind of out the window—it's a routine, it's a duty, it has lost its zest, and—well, whether a man or a woman, it can just be something you just “have to do” or neglect to do. Bob: Yes. Let's say somebody comes to you and says, “Okay; here's our deal…”—a couple in their 30s / they've got three kids. Both of them have full-time jobs. They would say: “You know, I guess for the last year, maybe once or twice a month we'll have sex and it is okay; but it kind of feels more like a chore. I'm honestly—I'm really okay if we just kind of let it phase out of our marriage.” There are people thinking like that; aren't there? Juli: There are; absolutely!  5:00 I would say: “First of all, you're normal. Those are normal seasons of marriage. Second of all, you might be okay with letting it fade away; but God's not okay with letting it fade away. We know that because, in 1 Corinthians 7, one of the few very specific pieces of marriage advice that we get from the Bible is: “Don't neglect sexual intimacy except for mutual consent for a time of prayer,”—that's the only reason why you should be avoiding this. Now, of course, there are health issues and things like that you may need to work through; but the spirit of it is: “This is very important for you to pursue,”—that would be the challenge of: “God would say you need to keep working on this,”—but it is normal to struggle. Bob: Even if the husband and wife kind of mutually say, “We're okay with it sliding,” you're saying: “You may be, but God's not. You need to make this a more active discipline in your marriage”? Juli: Absolutely! And the biology actually supports that.  6:00 The biology shows—now that we understand more about the brain and sexual response—that if a couple is sexually intimate on a regular basis, the hormones that are produced in the brain bond that husband and wife together—actually, in some ways / in a very healthy way—make you addicted to your spouse, where you can't wait to see them / you can't wait to be with them. You get a hormone in your body called oxytocin that makes them more pleasurable to you / like less offensive. It's the same hormone that a new mom gets when they have a baby, because you need to love that baby no matter what happens. God has created sexual intimacy, when it occurs regularly in the confines of a relationship, to be glue that continually draws a couple together. To neglect that is, not only something that God says is a bad idea, it's what scientific research is saying is a bad idea.  Dennis: In your book, you talk about a couple that almost sounds like what Bob was describing—been married ten years, had three kids, and were going through a time of sexual struggle/boredom.  7:00 That couple was you and your husband. Juli: Yes. [Laughter]  We had many years of boredom. One of the first steps I took was—I dedicated three months: “Lord, I'm going to pray about this area of my life. I'm going to learn to enjoy it, and I'm going to learn to pursue it,”— which was just something that God gave me and challenged me with.  I'm a very goal-oriented person; and when I set my mind on doing something, I put energy into it—I save time for it; I think about it; I pray about it. That's what happened in this area of our marriage—is I got serious about saying: “God, You're not okay with where we are / I'm not okay with where we are. I'm going to devote myself to helping change that.” Dennis: Did you tell Mike you were going to do that? Juli: No; I didn't want the accountability! [Laughter] I told him after! [Laughter] Bob: So what happened in that three-month period? Juli: A lot happened! I think I could see definite changes— 8:00 Dennis: Is Mike where we can call him right now? [Laughter] Juli: He probably is. Dennis: Let's get him on the phone and find out what happened. Juli: Really? Dennis: Really! Juli: [Laughter] You are serious? Dennis: I'm serious. Juli: Okay. Bob: You good with this? Juli: Yes; sure!  Bob: Alright. Juli: I don't know if he will be, but— Bob: Well— Juli: —we'll see. Bob: —we'll find out. Juli: Ask him honestly. Bob: I think our engineer, Keith, is punching up the phone number right now. [Phone ringing] Mike: Hi; this is Mike speaking.  Bob: Mike Slattery. Mike: Yes.  Bob: It's Bob Lepine from FamilyLife Today. I'm here with Dennis Rainey and your wife, whom I—I heard her call you “Swoo”? Is that the—is that—  Mike: [Laughter] Bob: What does that stand for?—Swoo? Mike: I don't—there's not a real actual acronym or what not—it's just a song we made up, way back when, “Swee Swoo” and “Swoo” just kind of stuck after that. Bob: It just stuck—well that's nice! Dennis: So Mike, I just turned to Juli and I said, “So, you prayed about your intimacy with your husband for three months” and I asked her / I said, “So did you tell Mike?”  9:00 She said “No; I didn't want the accountability!” [Laughter] We were starting to ask her; and we thought, “No; let's just call Mike!”  What did you think about what was happening, Mike? Mike: I think anytime you go back to God for anything—be it a budget, be it parenting, be it physical intimacy—you're never going to go wrong. As Christians, that's what we subscribe to—God has all the answers, and any area of our life is open to prayer with that. I think the world kind of guides us away from that, but I think that's the best thing to do. Juli has been a great example of doing that—she lives what she says. If she doesn't, she prays about it. We're very open with that communication, which has been great.  Bob: When did it dawn on you this was an area that your wife was beginning to pray about this whole issue of intimacy in marriage and that God was at work? Juli: Well, if I could—maybe just tell a story to kind of prompt the memory of what was happening. This was probably a good ten years ago, before I started off thinking of Intimacy. I would have my quiet time in the evening.  10:00 As any young mom knows, the evening is your time—where you put the kids to bed; you don't want to be bothered; you have your tea; and your Bible, or books, or whatever. I would have my quiet time and just be asking God, “Would You show me how to draw closer to You and how to love You?”  During that period of time—of beginning to pray about this—the Lord would begin speaking to me, ”If you want to love Me, then go up and just initiate with your husband.” There were a few times—and it's become more frequent now— Mike: Exactly; yes. Juli: —where I'll be doing my quiet time, whether it's in the morning or the evening—and that's the word that the Lord will give me—is: “This is a way that you honor Me.” Mike: Yes; basically, I remember when there was one time where Jules was—in her routine, typically on Saturday—Juli would get up, she'll go down and do her quiet time—kind of her normal routine, Monday through Sunday—she'll do that.  11:00 If it's like on a weekend, when I'm not going to work or jumping to the gym, I'll kind of stay in bed and kind of let her do her—that's her time with God. I never want to encroach on that.  There was a time, where I was praying about it—and I just doing my quiet time, and she was doing her quiet time. We were both praying about the same thing. Then Juli came up, and we would kind of share that together—like: “Were you praying about this?” and “I was praying about this,” “I think God heard us.” [Laughter] So that was really—that was very special. Bob: You're a good sport, Mike. Thanks for letting us interrupt your day and just authenticate what your wife has been sharing with us here. Mike: I appreciate it. Thank you, guys, for getting the message out, because Juli's been doing this for the last several years. When she was at Focus—and initially, when God was pulling her away, we prayed about it. I said, “As long as you're sure this is what God wants you to do, I'm 100 percent behind you.” It's been a great journey. The main thing is we're all used by God.  Dennis: I appreciate your courage too. The easiest thing to do is nothing.  Mike: Sure. Dennis: The easiest thing to say, if you're a very private person, is nothing.  Mike: Yes. 12:00 Dennis: And in the process, there's a lot of folks, again, who have received some help and hope as a result of you guys being honest about your own marriage. Pray God's favor on you in your pursuit in your vocation but also in your family. Mike: Thank you so much. I truly appreciate it. God bless. God bless all of you. Bob: You want to say, “Goodbye,” to your husband? Juli: I love you Hon. Thanks for being a good sport. Mike: Okay; I love you Baby-doll. Look forward to seeing you tonight baby; alright.  Juli: Me too; bye. Mike: Bye-bye. Dennis: [Laughter] I wish they could see Juli's grin, Bob.  Bob: I think they could hear Juli's grin—[Laughter] —as she said, “Goodbye,” to her husband. You've been married how many years? Juli: Twenty-two years. Bob: And you're looking forward to seeing him tonight? Juli: Yes; of course, I am—he's my best friend.  Bob: If your marriage had been on the trajectory / if it had remained on the trajectory that it was on—if you hadn't, ten/twelve years ago, had this kind of three months before the Lord, where do you think you'd be today? 13:00 Juli: Not where we are; because I had all the education I needed, as a clinical psychologist. I worked with couples on marriage issues and sexual issues but never really understood the power of inviting God, and the power of bringing sexuality under His Lordship, because I'd never heard that before.  When you invite God into any sphere of your life, He's going to confront you on things that are difficult—yes—but He's / but He's going to provide hope and healing in ways that you didn't know you needed. Dennis: You're a clinical psychologist. I'd like you to give your best counsel to men about understanding their wives. Juli: I guess the analogy that I like to use regarding sexuality—and this is because I'm a mom of three boys—is I like to talk about Legos®. If you, on your honeymoon—you think you're going to open up this great gift that's going to be complete—you'll be really disappointed. And that's the truth with Legos.  14:00 If you go to the store and buy a package of Legos, and you see this beautiful thing on the outside—this cool Bat mobile or whatever it is—and you open it up, you're disappointed.  I would encourage men that God has given you a gift of building something together that, at first, isn't going to make any sense; but that's part of the design—that He's challenging you to learn to love, and to build, and to sacrifice. Your wife may take years/ I'm going to say your wife may take decades to really understand sexually, and emotionally, and spiritually. She does not understand herself. But God's challenge to you is to: “Continue to build; continue to pursue; ask God for wisdom—have a sensitive heart.”  This is the other thing I think we pass right over—in Ephesians, Chapter 5, Paul writes specifically to husbands. He says to “…love your wives as Christ loved the church and laid Himself down for her.” Then it says that “He washed the church with the word, presenting her as a spotless bride.”  15:00 Part of what Paul is saying to you, as a husband, is: “Are you protecting the purity of your wife so that you can present her as a spotless bride?” Don't bring anything into your mind or your bedroom that would defile your wife. Make that a safe place, emotionally and spiritually. Dennis: I would add one other thing too: “If you think you're going to trade in this box of Legos for a better box, that's all put together perfectly—it's a lie. Juli: Yes. Dennis: “It's a lie. The box God has given you is the one you need to keep your covenant with / keep building into and stay the course. Don't quit.”  Okay; Juli—now, I want you to take the women underneath your arm and just counsel them. What would you say to them about their relationship with their husband? Juli: Well, I would say, “Don't underestimate the power of sexuality,”—  16:00 —that so often we think of power as a bad thing—but I see that God has given a wife, naturally, tremendous power in marriage around the issue of her body and sexuality. Because we're not always open and honest about that being a powerful tool that God has given, we don't use that power well—we either neglect it; we don't prioritize it; or we use it in a manipulative way. If you can say: “Oh man, God has given me a place of power in my husband's life that I'm jealous of—I don't want any other woman on the planet to have this power with my husband. I want to learn to use it effectively to capture his heart / to share something with him that no one else gets to share with him.” That's going to take work to pursue; and I've shared in my own testimony how it has taken work, but it is so worth it.  Bob: I want to ask you about that power—because we've seen husbands and wives get pulled outside of the marriage covenant; because another woman uses that power with a married man, or because a married man pursues a married woman.  17:00 When a couple takes sexuality outside of their marriage—when they give up on what ought to be going on at home or when they just supplement it with an affair—what's really going on in the heart of the husband or the heart of the wife in pursuing that infidelity in the first place? Juli: There can be lots of things going on, but I think a profound thing is—they've never really understood, in the concept of covenant, that sexuality is all about covenant. The reason that God says it's reserved for marriage is because there's this lifelong promise or covenant. If you take it outside of that, you're destroying something so spiritual and special, that recovering from that is tremendously difficult.  First, there's that discounting of the covenant—but also, pretty much with every situation where there's an emotional or sexual affair, you can kind of do the forensic on that relationship. The couple can begin to tell you, “This is when we started drifting apart,”—  18:00 —whether it was when she got busy with the kids, or she put on weight and didn't feel sexy anymore, or he got so pulled into his career that he stopped spending time with her. I know you two work on marriages so much that you've seen this—that affairs don't begin with that relationship of being sexually unfaithful—they begin when you get seeds planted in your mind that: “Someone else can love me more than this person loves me.” Dennis: It's an emotional connection— Juli: Absolutely. Dennis: —not a physical connection—but it grows into that. Juli: Yes. Dennis: I think what / what our listeners need to know that: “If your relationship is teetering toward an emotional affair, the advice is: ‘You've got to extinguish the chemical reaction now. You've got to take the number out of your cell phone; you've got to completely sever the relationship—if it means changing places of work because of the temptation— 19:00 —you have to protect your marriage, and your family, your children, your legacy.' This is really, really important what we're talking about here.” I so agree with your advice: “Protect your covenant at all costs.”  Bob: I think you made a good point. You might just pull back and analyze, “What is it that I'm most attracted to here?” because that will help you identify what's been lacking—some longing that's an unmet longing—that was designed for marriage that may not be happening in marriage. Then sit down with your husband or your wife and say: “You know, there's an area in my heart that I've just felt lonely in,” or “…I felt lacking,” “….an area where we can—can we work on this together, and can we try to grow this together?”—rather than saying: “I'm just going to go find it somewhere else.” It is poisoned fruit outside the marriage covenant.  20:00 The other thing I encourage you to do is—just honestly ask the Lord—and even to share with a mentor and ask, “What lies am I believing?” because the enemy works in lies.  Dennis: That's right. Juli: He will convince you that you're going to be happier with someone else, or some other guy is going to understand you more than your husband does, or that God can't rekindle and restore your relationship with your husband or your wife. You need to confront those lies with truth. Dennis: You're not going to trade in this box of Legos and find another box that's perfectly put together, exactly the way you want it. You're still going to be dealing with your selfishness.  Juli: Yes. Dennis: You're going to be dealing with another person's selfishness; and then, you're going to be dealing with the debris of a broken marriage / a broken family. That's not a recipe for success in marriage, family, or in life.  Juli, I just want you to know I'm really proud of you for stepping out in faith and beginning this new ministry called Authentic Intimacy.  21:00 I know that you didn't have to go try this / go do this, but I think it's a much needed area in our country.  I hope that our listeners will get a copy of your book. I hope they'll use it to talk with their sons/their daughters—whether they are still yet at home or as adult children—about this important area and dimension of the marriage relationship.  Bob: Yes; some of them are going to want to subscribe to your podcast, and they can do that. In fact, we've got instructions on our website if you want to find out more about what Juli is doing with the Java with Juli podcast—you can download it. There's information available when you go to FamilyLifeToday.com. Dennis: And in case you didn't notice, it's the Java with Juli with a little mocha, a little chocolate, and a little whipped cream. [Laughter] There's some spice— Bob: Hazelnut—there's some hazelnut in there.  Dennis: We'll stop right there! [Laughter] Bob: Go to FamilyLifeToday.com and you can download the podcast. You can also order a copy of Juli's book, 25 Questions You're Afraid to Ask About Love, Sex and Intimacy.  22:00 Again, the website is FamilyLifeToday.com. Or you can order the book when you call us, toll free, at 1-800-FL-TODAY—1-800-358-6329. We mentioned this last week—we've had a lot of our listeners who have started using the ten family devotions that we've put together that are available on the FamilyLife app on your smartphone or your device. These devotions are designed to help us, as families, keep our hearts and minds focused on Christ in the middle of what can be unstable times. You can find the devotions if you have the FamilyLife app on your smartphone or device—just pull it up and click where it says, “Help and Hope.” Or you can download the devotions as a pdf document from our website at FamilyLifeToday.com. We hope you'll do that; and you'll find the devotions helpful as you shepherd your family and seek to keep your eyes fixed on the One, who is the author and finisher of our faith. 23:00 We've got a couple of couples who are celebrating anniversaries today. First, Ralph and Jean Carlson, who live in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, and who listen to KTIS—42 years of marriage today. Then in Columbus, Ohio, Brian and Michele Livingston—they listen to WRFD, and they've been married six years today.  We've been celebrating anniversaries all this year because 2016 is FamilyLife's 40th anniversary. We thought the best way to celebrate 40 years of ministry is to just reflect on all of the marriages that are still together, in part, because of how God has used FamilyLife in the lives of so many couples who listen to this program. If you can make a donation today, we'd love to say, “Thank you,” by sending you a banner that Barbara Rainey has created for the home that declares your home as an embassy of the kingdom of heaven.  24:00 It's our thank-you gift when you make a donation online at FamilyLifeToday.com; or you can request the banner when you call 1-800-FL-TODAY to donate or when you mail your donation to FamilyLife Today at PO Box 7111, Little Rock, AR; our zip code is 72223. Now, tomorrow, our friend, Steven Curtis Chapman's, going to stop by. We're going to visit with him. Hope you can be here for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We will see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.  FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.  We are so happy to provide these transcripts to you. However, there is a cost to produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs?   Copyright © 2016 FamilyLife. All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com    

It wasn’t long ago that the concept of having a personal relationship with computers was the stuff of science fiction — everything from HAL 9000 to V’Ger posited a far-out future when that would start to happen. Well, according to Mike Pell — author of THE AGE OF SMART INFORMATION — that time is now. Alan: Welcome to the XR for Business Podcast with your host, Alan Smithson. Today’s guest is somebody absolutely spectacular. Mr. Mike Powell, he is the head of the Microsoft Garage and the author of “Age of Smart Information,” a new book about how artificial intelligence and spatial computing will transform the way we communicate forever. Find the latest on Mike at futuristic.com and excerpts from his new book, at theageofsmartinformation.com. Mike, welcome to the show. Mike: Thank you, Alan. My pleasure to be here. Alan: It’s so exciting. I was gifted your book actually by a good friend of mine, John Bizzell. And we had lunch and he’s “Oh, you haven’t read this book.” And I guess he sent it to me on Amazon. I got it the next day, and I’ve been just voraciously reading this book since, I’m about halfway through. But man, your book has really opened my eyes to how everything around us will not only have the data available, but it’ll be in context to our personal needs. And it’s really incredible. So how did you– just kind of walk us through your journey of how you went from inventing PDFs, to writing books on smart information? Mike: It’s a long story, but I’ll try to keep it really short. You’re right, a lot of this did sort of form when I was back in the early 90s when I was working on Acrobat with some of my friends at Adobe. Back then, when we were working on the very first electronic documents for interchange, it was very apparent that people were not going to enjoy reading these things like sitting upright and being uncomfortable. You really needed some hardware and software that didn’t exist at that point to enjoy the information, right. To enjoy whether it was book or documents or reports, whatever it is you were reading. And so at that time, I started to think a lot about how the information itself — you know, the thing that we were reading — was so dead and lifeless. I guess it was amazing that you could now transfer to other places when people around the world could see exactly what you were trying to say. But the thoughts about how there was always more to it started to percolate back then. And over my career, I’ve always had the good fortune of working on the leading edge of technology. So I was very early into 3D and interactive graphics and visualization, and I started to do a lot of experiments with bringing information to life. I’ve always been fascinated with communications, helping people communicate as clearly as they can. And so that was really the start of a lot of this, was trying to see what we can do to help people be able to understand and communicate better by using the information, the things that we create every day, whether that’s tweets or emails or books or movies or music, doesn’t matter. Whatever the medium is that you’re communicating in, there’s always so much more that can be brought out that we as people understand inherently, but yet are never reflected in that final form, that piece of communication comes in. So that’s where we started. Alan: So let’s unpack that. So, you know, I’m reading a PDF, then you guys probably added the ability to have hyperlinks and then what else can you add. Now you’re looking at, “OK, what does the world look like when the computers are no longer bound by the 16 by 9 rectangular shape?”

It wasn’t long ago that the concept of having a personal relationship with computers was the stuff of science fiction — everything from HAL 9000 to V’Ger posited a far-out future when that would start to happen. Well, according to Mike Pell — author of THE AGE OF SMART INFORMATION — that time is now. Alan: Welcome to the XR for Business Podcast with your host, Alan Smithson. Today’s guest is somebody absolutely spectacular. Mr. Mike Powell, he is the head of the Microsoft Garage and the author of “Age of Smart Information,” a new book about how artificial intelligence and spatial computing will transform the way we communicate forever. Find the latest on Mike at futuristic.com and excerpts from his new book, at theageofsmartinformation.com. Mike, welcome to the show. Mike: Thank you, Alan. My pleasure to be here. Alan: It’s so exciting. I was gifted your book actually by a good friend of mine, John Bizzell. And we had lunch and he’s “Oh, you haven’t read this book.” And I guess he sent it to me on Amazon. I got it the next day, and I’ve been just voraciously reading this book since, I’m about halfway through. But man, your book has really opened my eyes to how everything around us will not only have the data available, but it’ll be in context to our personal needs. And it’s really incredible. So how did you– just kind of walk us through your journey of how you went from inventing PDFs, to writing books on smart information? Mike: It’s a long story, but I’ll try to keep it really short. You’re right, a lot of this did sort of form when I was back in the early 90s when I was working on Acrobat with some of my friends at Adobe. Back then, when we were working on the very first electronic documents for interchange, it was very apparent that people were not going to enjoy reading these things like sitting upright and being uncomfortable. You really needed some hardware and software that didn’t exist at that point to enjoy the information, right. To enjoy whether it was book or documents or reports, whatever it is you were reading. And so at that time, I started to think a lot about how the information itself — you know, the thing that we were reading — was so dead and lifeless. I guess it was amazing that you could now transfer to other places when people around the world could see exactly what you were trying to say. But the thoughts about how there was always more to it started to percolate back then. And over my career, I’ve always had the good fortune of working on the leading edge of technology. So I was very early into 3D and interactive graphics and visualization, and I started to do a lot of experiments with bringing information to life. I’ve always been fascinated with communications, helping people communicate as clearly as they can. And so that was really the start of a lot of this, was trying to see what we can do to help people be able to understand and communicate better by using the information, the things that we create every day, whether that’s tweets or emails or books or movies or music, doesn’t matter. Whatever the medium is that you’re communicating in, there’s always so much more that can be brought out that we as people understand inherently, but yet are never reflected in that final form, that piece of communication comes in. So that’s where we started. Alan: So let’s unpack that. So, you know, I’m reading a PDF, then you guys probably added the ability to have hyperlinks and then what else can you add. Now you’re looking at, “OK, what does the world look like when the computers are no longer bound by the 16 by 9 rectangular shape?”

Mike: Hi, I'm Mike Fuller. Kari: And I'm Kari Aguila. Mike: And we're actors on the improvised audio fiction podcast, “Broken, Alaska”. Broken is a tiny town. Kari: Only 71 people… Mike: It's small, but it's full of stories. The show revolves around the people who live in Broken, and the ways that they handle the stresses of living in such a secluded place. Kari: And just like in a real small town, there are people from all walks of life and all political ideologies, and a lot of the richness of the story we create comes from those differences. One of the greatest things about “Broken, Alaska” is that the neighbors often disagree, argue even, but they still have to really rely on each other. You can't unfriend anyone in Broken just because they drive you nuts – you'll still see them in the grocery store tomorrow. The characters really are like family. Mike: The good and the bad… Kari: Broken, Alaska began several years ago. We were all taking an improv class with Kay Lavergne Jaz, and one night at the end of a class Kay said, “Ok, pick the name of a town.” Somebody said, “Broken, Alaska.” Kay said, “Ok, one at a time go on stage, decide a name and a job for your character, and just run with whatever happens.” And one-by-one we all created the characters and the town of Broken. Mike: It was a really amazing scene. Kari: It was! It was one of those moments when you think, “This is good!” So, we wound up going back to Broken whenever we had a few extra minutes in class. Mike: Then about 2 years ago, a new radio station here in Seattle asked me to come up with some original programming. I'd worked in radio for a lot of years, and I thought, wouldn't it be great if we could do Broken as a radio drama? Kari: Everybody was on board. Mike: Yeah. And all those characters we'd been playing in class, pretty much became the characters you'll hear on the podcast now. Kari: Broken, Alaska is an improvised show, though I do write a basic story outline for each episode just to keep us on track, and to give us some landmarks to hit during each scene. For example, I'll write: Scene 1, setting, Produce Stand; Rose and Heather worry that George has been acting weird; by the end of the scene, they agree to talk to Burt about it. And that's really all the actors get. Every line of dialog you hear, is the cast just making it all up as they go along. Mike: Which makes it really weird sometimes. But also, really amazing. Kari: Definitely! We hope you'll agree that “Broken, Alaska” is a unique improvised podcast with a rich set of characters, and an endearing, and, sometimes sort of odd story. Try the first episode of Season 2*. It's called “The Munskie Library”. We think it introduces you to a lot of the characters in town, and it highlights the incredible improv skills of the actors on the show. Broken is a town full of heart, full of warmth and weirdness, and we hope you'll fall in love with “Broken, Alaska”. Mike: Thank you for listening. *Last minute change! The episode you'll hear is called “Doc Burgess”. It's the 2nd episode of Season 2, but it's still a great example of what we do in Broken. We started Season 2 on September 24, and the AVA Awards are for the period beginning October 1st, so we had to pick a different episode to submit for the Showcase. Enjoy! https://www.brokenalaskapodcast.com

Zach sits down with Guide co-founder Mike Yates to discuss the future of learning. Mike shares what he thinks are the top three things that are changing within the world of learning. He also lists a few ways he thinks organizations will need to adjust for future workforces.Connect with Guide! We've got their website and socials: Twitter, IG, FacebookTRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach, and you're listening to Living Corporate. And today we're talking about the workforce of the future, okay? So you've heard some conversations that we've had with Tim Salau a few times about the future of work, and, you know, it's just a really prominent topic because the workforce is changing, and the dynamics and the cultural makeup--not just from an ethnic perspective or sexual orientation, but from a generational perspective--is shifting, so we're really excited to talk about the future of learning with Mike Yates. Mike taught in a traditional school setting for five years before entering his current role, where he designs curriculum, plans projects, and motivates students to break all of the rules. His passion is in change and finding the next set of large innovations to the classroom through the use of adaptive learning technology and artificial intelligence. The world is rapidly changing and innovating, and it is his belief that schools must follow that trend. So with that being said, Mike, welcome to the show, man. How are you doing?Mike: Thank you so much. I'm really good. I'm excited to be here. I'm actually a pretty--I'm a regular listener, so I'm excited to be on this podcast.Zach: Stop playing. You listen to Living Corporate?Mike: Yeah. I'm a listener. I listen to it through Apple Podcasts, and I love the--I love the podcast. I actually saw stuff about Living Corporate via LinkedIn or Twitter. I cannot remember where I saw it first.Zach: Okay.Mike: Yeah, yeah, but I started listening a while ago. So, like, I've recently listened to the one--like, Ramadan at Work.Zach: Whaaat? Stop playing.Mike: Yeah, yeah. Respectability Politics, yeah.Zach: That's awesome. Okay, well, hey. First of all, we're already--we're honored, but definitely certainly flattered and happy about the fact that you enjoy the show. So look, we gave a little bit of an intro for you from the top. For those of us who don't know you, what would you mind telling us about yourself?Mike: Yeah, yeah. So one of the things--like, I just saw this meme on the internet that said, like, "I wish I loved somebody the way that people from Houston love being from Houston," and I'm one of the people that makes that true. I love being from Houston. That's where I'm from. So, you know, NBA Finals time I'm a little hurt, 'cause I thought the Rockets should have played better, but--Zach: Yeah, man. It was tough, right?Mike: Yeah, yeah. But I'm from Houston. I'm from a family of educators. My mom is a teacher. I basically grew up in school. I grew up in the classroom. I am married. I have four amazing children, an amazing wife.Zach: Oh, man. Congratulations to that.Mike: Thank you, yeah, yeah. Our house is nuts.Zach: I'll bet.Mike: Yeah. [laughs] It is. But that's one of my favorite parts about my life, the grind that I have for them. And so my passion is education. I have tried to avoid the career field for as long as I could, because when growing up I thought to myself "Oh, you know, educators don't make any money," but the gravitational pull of education was too strong for me. I became really curious about it after I graduated from college and I got into planning education programs for the United Way in-between Austin and San Antonio. Once I started doing that, I entered the classroom as a teacher and fell in love with the field. I'm also an educator that is convinced that everybody is lying when they tell you that you can't make money in education, things like that. "You can't be happy in education." "You can't have work-life balance in education." I am seeking to create trends within education that show you that all of those things are possible.Zach: Man, that's incredible. And, you know, I really respect--first of all, you know, there's articles--I feel like you see articles every other month about the importance of even having just black male teachers in the classroom, so shout-out to you, shout-out to educators. Shout-out to my wife who's an educator, as well as my--Mike: Your wife?Zach: Yeah, man. My wife is in education. She's been teaching for some years, and then my mother is a principal of an elementary school. She's been in education for 32 years.Mike: Wow, that's great. That's phenomenal.Zach: Yeah, man. And then, you know, my in-laws, they come from a--there's a deep family of educators there as well. So yeah, man, shout-out to educators. Shout-out to those who, like, reach back and are really trying to shape the future of the world. Like, it's so undervalued and just underappreciated. So yeah, definitely a shout-out to you, and a shout-out to your family, man. That's awesome. So look, let's talk about this. Let's talk a little bit about the future of learning. So in your profile, right, like, when people look you up, you know, you talk about the world changing and, by relation, learning methods along with it. So what would you say are the top three things changing within the world of learning?Mike: So that's a great question, and I think that the #1 thing is--the way I would describe it is the urgency. There is going to be a shift in the way that people attend school, and that's what I mean when I say urgency. Like, how you get information and how quickly it comes to you. So right now, especially through K-12 education and even into college, education is sit and get, right? It's like, you trust that this person has the content knowledge to teach you, and so you sit and listen to lectures and take notes, and hopefully you retain enough to prove that you should get a job later in the future. The future of learning is different. The future of learning is gonna be on-demand. Learning is going to come to the person. The execution that you can see today would be, like, a Western Governors University where all of their courses are online. You can take them at your own pace. You have one mentor that you interact with your entire time, whether you're in undergrad or grad school, and you can get your college degree that way. The second thing that I think is changing in the world of learning is quite honestly students. One of the saddest things to think about in education is the idea that, like, education is the last frontier in the United States of America that remains without innovation. You walk into any public school, you will see desks in rows, you will see--you might even see chalkboards that have been there since the '60s, '70s, '40s in some cases, right? It is a model that is antiquated and has not responded to the change in people, the change in interest, the change in, like, you cannot educate students the way that you used to, right? And then the last thing that I think is changing in the world of education is technology, technology in and outside of the field. You know, artificial intelligence, machine learning, like, we have figured out how to make machines and devices do more for us today than ever before. When we were in school--I don't know if you remember this, but my teacher used to always tell me, "Mike, you have to show your work when you're doing math, because you won't always have a calculator with you."Zach: Yes. [laughs] Wow, wait a minute. Pause right there. Yo, that was a lie. Like [inaudible]--Mike: Right?Zach: The teacher definitely said you're not always gonna have--they'd be like, "What are you gonna do if you don't have a calculator with you?" Like, there's nowhere--you always have a calculator with you now. You have a phone.Mike: Always, yeah. I have a calculator, a media company, a personal assistant. I have [inaudible].Zach: Everything, yes.Mike: Everything, right? And that's what's so beautiful about the future of learning, right? Because up until now teachers tried to prepare students for the existing work world, but now you have a movement of educators and a movement of schools that are trying to prepare students for jobs that don't exist yet, right? And the calculator--you know, the iPhone is the perfect example. Like, no teacher in 1995 would ever believe you if you would have told them there's gonna be a flat glass device that you're gonna touch, and you can call, it can talk to you, it can be a calculator, right? They would never believe that. So I am fortunate to have been raised by an educator, you know, being my mom, who would tell me, like, "We don't know what the world's gonna look like when you go to work, so you have to be in your head. You have to imagine. You have to always look forward." And my mother very much so made me a futurist, so all I do is think about "What's the world gonna be like 10, 15 years in the future?" And that's why I think technology is so exciting, and it's--you know, if I'm talking about, you know, the last major change, you know, adaptive learning technology is going to do more for students than the best teacher ever could, and I--you know, adaptive learning tech is--if you don't know, it's technology that--like, let's say I'm in a math application. If I'm in 6th grade, it will give me a set of questions that are at a 6th grade difficulty. If I do well on those questions and prove to the app that I know 6th grade content, it will automatically move me up to 7th grade math. If I don't know a 6th grade concept, it will move me down to 5th grade until I master that concept, it'd move me back up to 6th grade and let me keep mastering and moving up. That is so much more efficient than even your best math teacher that it will change--in the future, that will change the role of the adult in the room. All of a sudden, you no longer have to disseminate information, but you have to create projects to help students use that information. You have to create real world connections and learning experience. And honestly, it helps teachers get to the part of their job that they love and away from the part of their job that they hate, which is lesson planning and lectures.Zach: Yeah. Man, that's incredible. That's incredible, and it's just so interesting because--so my father also--he also taught math for a little while as well, and, you know, he was on Living Corporate last season, and he talked a lot about the various jobs that he had, and one of the jobs he had was actually--he was a teacher's assistant, and he also taught high school math, and he was talking--he's a bit of a futurist himself. He was talking about, like--this was back in, like, '90. Like, '89, '90, and he's talking to these kids, and he's like, "Y'all, one day you're gonna have machines that are gonna be doing--a lot of these manual processes that we're doing, one day machines are gonna be taking over. They're gonna do these things." And, like, at the time all of his students were like, "What are you talking about?" "No, that's, like, way, way later in the future." And he's like, "I'm telling y'all." And, like, he was just talking about it, but he was just kind of, like, waxing poetic. He wasn't, like, really trying to, like--you know, he was just talking, but he wholeheartedly meant it. You know, it's rare though to have folks who can see, right? So yeah, that's definitely a blessing to have, folks in your life who can talk to you about those things. You know, so what would you say your top three predictions are for how organizations will need to adapt to future workforces in light of--you know, in light of what you're sharing about the future of learning, what ways do you think that organizations, like, you know, professional organizations in any industry--in oil and gas, in technology, in healthcare--how do you feel like these organizations are gonna have to adjust for future workforces?Mike: Yeah. So I think that they're gonna have to be comfortable with remote workers. That's my first big prediction is, like, they're gonna have be comfortable with remote workers, because today's internet allows you to do so much more than ever before. You know, like, now you have IT companies that no longer have to be in the building with you and can take over your desktop or your laptop and y'all are not even on the same Wi-Fi network. Like, that's how advanced we are. So if that's possible, then, you know, oil and gas companies or software companies or even, like, the National Basketball Association, who could be playing a game in Toronto and reviewing replay footage in live-time in Secaucus, New Jersey, right? So I think that they're gonna have to be comfortable with remote. The next big prediction that I have, and this is a really, really big one, is that in the future of work, the college degree will lose value. And I don't mean it will be completely worthless, but I do think because we came up in this generation where everybody sort of forced us to go to college, and I do think that there's somewhat of an oversaturation of bachelor's degrees in the marketplace right now, but what I think is because of things like lambda school and because of things like University for the People, Western Governors, there will be a pressure on any university that is outside of the top 20. If you're not in the Ivy League or if you're not a top 20 school that produces the best doctors and lawyers, you know, all of those positions that require advanced college degrees, then you are going to struggle to get students to sign up for your school after the next economic collapse. Like, things have been going financially, economically in this country pretty well for the last nine years, and my big prediction is in the next five to ten years there will be--economic collapse is the wrong turn, but there will be an economic recession, and when that recession hits--like, my alma mater, Texas State University, I don't know if students will enroll there and take on debt when they could go to a lambda school for free, or they could go to University of the People and get a bachelor's degree for $2,000. Like, you know? So I think that the college degree requirements are gonna have to change, and my last big prediction about what the future needs to adapt to is--it's the scary one. It's not [inaudible]--Zach: [laughs] I hear you hesitating. Go ahead.Mike: Yeah, [laughs] it's robots. Like, it's--there is a robot that can open doors. Like, there are companies, like [Boston?] Dynamics, that are designing robots that can deliver packages, right? And so I think we're gonna have to get used to--and this may be, you know, 20 to 30 years down the line, but there may be a robot that walks up to you and greets you and drops a package off at your door, right? And I think that, you know, direct-to-consumer business is gonna change. I think, like, Amazon--we'll see Amazon finally have to compete with, like, Old Navy and other brands, because everybody's gonna be able to use drone delivery and robot delivery to drop packages off at your door within the hour. So I think that, you know, that big artificial intelligence in that sense, like robots, drones, those are gonna be really, really important in the future of work, and companies are gonna have to start bending and altering the way that they operate.Zach: So, you know, first of all, everything you're talking about--like, Mike--and I'm not trying to poo-poo you--I don't really hear anything crazy in your predictions. Like, I think they're all very realistic. Like, so first of all--especially when you start talking about schools, because we're already seeing that today, right? Like, we're already seeing it, like, in MBA programs. If it's not a top 20, top--lowkey top, like, five, ten to five, you're not gonna get--you know, 'cause some folks think that, you know, you get an MBA--and we talked about this, we talked about this--this was early in season 1. There's a misconception that if you go and you get a graduate degree, then that automatically lines you up for paper, and it's like, "Eh, not necessarily," and it's because--it's because of the economic demand. It's also because of perception, but, like, there's no reason to--there's no reason to not assume that the trend that we're seeing within grad schools, we won't just start seeing that in, like, universities, and we do see that in universities already, right? Like, we already know that there some undergraduate degrees that are worth more than others, right? Like, we know that already, but, like, it hasn't been, like, super stark yet, but it will be one day.Mike: Yeah, it will be. Absolutely.Zach: Man, that's incredible. So, you know, I think this really, like, leads well into your current role as the chief operating officer of Guide. So, like, what can you talk to us about when it comes to Guide? Like, what can you share?Mike: Man, Guide--Guide is amazing. So Guide came together because a couple of people online were all having the same conversation about education. I was--you know, about two months ago, I sort of--you know, this is my first year outside of the traditional school system. I work for--my day job is at a school called Alpha, which is a school that uses adaptive learning technology in place of direct instruction, so we don't have any lecture. There's no classrooms. Our school looks like an open co-working space. It looks a WeWork for kids, right? And once I got out of the traditional school system, I had this opportunity to pick my head up and sort of look around, and I saw, like, there was all this stuff that I was missing. I saw that I was misusing LinkedIn and that I didn't know how powerful it could be. I didn't really know how to build community. So two months ago I started doing that. I went hardcore on LinkedIn. I went all in on, you know, Twitter and community building, and Tim Salau and I sort of started crossing paths because we were both posting about the future of learning, the future of work, sort of interacting with each other on LinkedIn, until one day Tim reached out and was like, "Hey, man, we've got to talk about this thing I'm working on." So Tim, myself, and our third co-founder Taban got on a call and talked about what has now turned into Guide, and Guide is a social learning app that is tailored towards high school students specifically to teach them life skills. We're going to create a new media called Snapshots, which are 30-second courses where a creator, any content creator, can come to our platform and break down transferable life skills into 30-second segments so that students can digest them and so they can remember the steps, go back and rewatch, and start to learn skills that are gonna benefit them in the future of work. So LinkedIn Learning is sort of, like, the adult version of this, but, you know, to get a certificate in LinkedIn Learning you may have to spend 12-15 hours doing that. Students [inaudible]--yeah, students don't have the capacity to think that way.Zach: No, nah-uh. We don't have the capacity to think that way. [laughs]Mike: Right, yeah, so imagine being able to build a course where a student could spend 15 minutes and get the same amount of material, the same amount of value? And now you have high school students, community college students, early college students, that are starting to build up this connection between skill building and the future of work, because--so I think the official number is, like, 65% of all, like, elementary school kids are going to fill jobs that currently don't exist. With that being the future, you have to build up this sort of tool-belt of skills that you can use in multiple ways. Ones like public speaking, ones like community building, ones like adaptability, ones like creativity, that are not as easily taught in skills. So that's what we're doing with Guide, and my role specifically with Guide is obviously managing the personnel that we have. We're sort of--we're in startup mode, so we sort of do it all, but I specifically create teacher content. I manage all of the curriculum on the app. I do strategic partnerships. And so our founders team works really, really close together. You know, Tim is doing most of the UX and user experience design. Taban is our CTO, and he's actually code--like, hard-coding the app and everything like that, so we have a phenomenal team that's ready to do some phenomenal work. So I'm super excited about Guide, and I'm glad you asked me about it.Zach: Man, that's awesome. No, no, no. I'm glad that you guys are working on it, and I'm really excited for what it's gonna be. Where can people learn more about Guide today?Mike: So you can learn more about Guide at guideapp.co. That's our website right now. We have sort of, like, a "Coming Soon" page. Our website is currently under construction. Our communications lead and our content team is working really, really hard to get the website up in the next couple of weeks. You can also follow myself on LinkedIn. You can follow me on LinkedIn or Twitter. My Twitter handle is @justmikeyates, like j-u-s-t Mike Yates. You can also follow and connect with Tim. We are constantly posting about Guide. We're posting resources in the--for all the educators out there, in the coming weeks we will be posting some teacher toolkits and some quick-start guides so that you can use Guide and our Snapshots in your classroom, and we'll sort of, like, break down what a school day would look like with Guide to where you don't have to abandon all of your curriculums trying to teach life skills. You can do it within the course of your math class or your history class or your English class.Zach: Oh, I love this, man. It's so disruptive, but, like, for all the right reasons. It's not like guys from California trying to disrupt, like, your local bodega. This is, like, something that we need. This is awesome. Well, look, man, you know I could keep on going, but let's go ahead and wrap up, man. I want to give you a second though. Do you have any words, any shout-outs for us?Mike: Yeah. So one of the things that--sort of my goal in terms of online communication, the goal that I had set for myself for online communication has been to tell educators out there this very simple message, and that's that you need to be building a personal brand. You need to be on LinkedIn, active, and interacting with other business professionals and other fields as well as professionals in education, because #1 there's a larger conversation being had about disruptive education technology, about the future of learning and the way that that's gonna look. I want you to be a part of that. I want you to be a part of shaping what school looks like in this country forever. The other thing is that school districts all across the country quite frankly are running out of money and teachers are getting laid off. It doesn't pay enough for you to put all of the time and the passion and the heart that you do into your classroom on a day-to-day, so you should have a plan B, and that plan B can be your personal brand, because everybody's looking for expertise that comes from the classroom, it seems like at this point. So I want teachers to know that. And in terms of shout-outs, I want to shout-out my wife, Alex. She holds it down like no other. My wife a stay-at-home mom and we have four kids, so she is--she's working a lot harder than I am. So shout-outs to her and my kids and the whole Guide team. Shout-out to Tim, Taban, Monale, Jonathan. We are doing some phenomenal work.Zach: Man, that's awesome, man. Well, look, that's gonna do it for us, y'all. Thank you for joining us on the Living Corporate podcast. Make sure to follow us on Instagram @LivingCorporate, Twitter @LivingCorp_Pod, and subscribe to our newsletter through living-corporate.com. If you have a question you'd like for us to answer and read on the show, make sure you email us at livingcorporatepodcast@gmail.com. This has been Zach, and you've been listening to Mike Yates, learning futurist and COO of Guide. Peace.

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! 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In part two of the incredible exit of Mike Jackness's Colorit, we are hearing his first-hand perspective on what the process is like from the side of the seller. Mike honestly and openly goes through the process, from the letter of intent through due diligence, all the way to the handoff and transition. He reveals the humbling moments, the surprises, and things he would do differently. This episode is for anyone thinking about being on the seller or the buyer side of the acquisition process. Ending your involvement in a business can happen more easily and smoothly if you are in a good position and absolutely prepared no matter what. The takeaway to all business owners is put your business in that position from inception in case of an eventual sale. Episode Highlights: Mike's background and how he found himself in the coloríng business. How the due diligence process went and how in many ways it was harder work than running the actual business. The things that came up during the process that were surprising and how to approach number discrepancies in due diligence. The value of using a professional firm for due diligence. Why early preparation is critical. The creation and review of the asset purchase agreement and how it went for Mike. The small things he relayed to the buyer in order to make the transition smoother. Why in-person meetings are very important during the hand-off. The importance of doing everything you can to facilitate while still creating limits to your involvement in the process. What's next for Mike. Transcription:   Mark: Mike Nuñez. Yes, Mike if you're listening to this podcast congratulations for sending in the right answer to the movie quote. And which one was it; that was the Boiler Room, right? Joe: I think so. You expect me to remember. I don't know. We need Chris Moore our content director on here. Come on Chris. Mark: Hey Chris, we need your show notes for before we actually record these. But I do know that Mike you sent in a correct answer. Thank you for doing that. I don't know the prizes although the next time I see you I'll buy you a drink for sending that in and getting the right answer. Joe: For people that don't know, why don't we tell who Mike Nuñez is? Mark: Yeah, Mike Nuñez is an old friend of Quiet Light Brokerage. He is also a buyer with Quiet Light Brokerage and what are we getting out Joe what am I missing? Joe: Doesn't he run AffiliateManager.com? Mark: He does run AffiliateManager.com. Joe: He's huge in the affiliate space so if there's anybody out there with products that are looking for a great affiliate company to connect with look up Mike Nuñez on Linked In and connect with him. He's one of the nicest guys in the country and you'll love working with him and his company. Mark: You know what this movie quote is going to become, right? All of the show vendors, all of the other vendors out there that want us to make a pitch on the podcast are going to start sending in the right answers to us here on out. So those of you listening whatever the movie quote was send us an email and let us know what that's from. We'll give you a shout out on the podcast. But now let's talk a little bit about today's podcast episode. I'm excited about this. I love the actual stories of selling some of his business. Joe, you've been working with Mike Jackness is on ColorIt.com getting his business sold and today we're continuing the story. We already have one podcast on this where we talked about getting the offer, preparing the business for sale, going through all that, and now we're looking at the other side of it. And that is preparing for the close and doing that due diligence and some of that stuff that gets pretty difficult towards the end of a sale. Joe: Yeah the 1st podcast was right up until the letter of intent and now we're talking honestly and openly about the process that we had to go through; that Mike really had to go through with his team from the moment you're under a letter of intent all the way through the due diligence, that financial trusted exam if you will, negotiating the asset purchase agreement, meeting the buyers face to face, working with transitioning your virtual assistants over to them, closing, and training and transition after. We go through all of it. Nothing is left out. Mike is honest and humbled and surprised in some cases. I don't mean to plug people but Centurica did the due diligence and Mike—we'll let people listen to it but Mike made a promise to Bryan at Centurica and he said something about this process and his accounting and how it's going to work out and Bryan said yeah okay we'll see and Mike was a little humbled and surprised in the process. Mark: Well, that's great. Mike is a good guy. We plugged him before. He's been on the podcast now a few times. Let's get over to this because I think anyone that is thinking about selling or even if you're a buyer and you're going through this process, it's so useful to get that perspective of what it's like to go through this process as a seller. Because boy it can be frustrating sometimes, it can be stressful and just getting to the psyche of what's going on there I think is invaluable. Joe: And not to go on too long but one of the most important things you're going to hear is what Mark and I say all the time but you're not going to hear it from us, you're going to hear it from Mike. He's built, he's bought, he sold, and he's gone through this process most recently as a seller. And there are some things if he could turn back time that he would absolutely do and he would have made more money. But he was at a certain emotional state and life state where he wanted to sell and we made that happen. And we achieved his financial goals but if he could turn back time that would have changed things a little bit. So we're hoping that the lesson that you'll get out of this is planning; planning your exit eventually. If you may wake up one day and decide okay today's the day I need to reach out to Joe or Mark or anybody at Quiet Light and begin that process what will you plan well in advance for that? That's part of the mistake that we talked about with Mike. So that's it, let's go to the podcast. Joe: Hey folks it's Joe Valley with Quiet Light Brokerage and we have another great episode of the Quiet Light Podcast here with our good friend Michael Jackness. How are you today Mike? Mike: I'm doing good man. Joe: It's good to have you back. I know that we've been chatting a lot lately because we just closed a transaction together. Mike: We did. It's good to be on the other end of it now. Joe: It is and it's been a process. We're recording this folks on April 18th and we started in mid-December. And we ended up closing the transaction on April 5th. So giving you a little bit of a recap; this is Part 2 of the process of selling Mike's business Color It. Mike those that are just tuning in and didn't hear it the 1st time why don't you give a 60 second background on yourself so they know who you are. Mike: Yeah. So I always joke that this background story gets longer and longer as I get older but the short version is that I have a background in IT. I'm an entrepreneur by heart and was doing affiliate marketing. I quit my day job in 2004 and I've been out on my own doing various things since then. I got into e-commerce in 2012 when we bought Travelo.com and sold that—had an exit to that in 2015 in January. Four e-commerce brands one of which we just sold through you. And we've been blogging and podcasting about that journey since 2015 at EcomCrew. Joe: And you're being a little humble there because you really travel all over the world and speak now. Not just with EcomCrew but also on your email marketing campaigns that you do with Klaviyo. So I'm going to boost you up a little bit. Mike: Thank you. Joe: You're famous man, I'm humbled just having you on the podcast and to call you my friend I think. Mike: Inaudible[00:07:06.7] has this show notes that say famous on Amazon I had one that says famous in my own head. Joe: I'm famous in my house but the least famous according to my family. There you go. Alright, so just a quick recap; again we launched Color It for sale in mid-December against my better judgment but you're influential and you pushed me and we did it anyway. But we try normally to have three to five conference calls in the 1st 30 to 45 days and at least one acceptable offer. We had three or four. We can't remember. We talked about this the other day and I didn't bother looking it up. But we had enough so that we got two offers. We ended up under LOI on Feb 5th, intentionally chose not to close for 60 days so you could move three of the brands out of the seller account into other seller accounts and that was a fun process, right? Mike: Oh yeah. Lovely. Joe: And then we ended up closing on April 5th, roughly 60 days later after going under the LOI. So we talked about the process, getting to LOI in the previous recording. Let's talk about what happened afterwards and talk about due diligence. How was your experience in due diligence; how painful was it, how good was it, how easy, all that good stuff? Mike: It was a lot less enjoyable than receiving the wire. Joe: Is this a yes or a no that you really worked harder getting the business sold than you did actually operating the business? Mike: I'd say absolutely. It was a lot of work. It was stressful just because—I kind of strive for perfection and I wanted everything to be exactly what we had communicated in the preliminary process. But Centurica is really good and they found stuff that I didn't even know about my own business which was really frustrating for me. It was a little bit unnerving. I was worried about how that would be perceived if it would—how it would affect the deal. What I realized I guess eventually was that every one of these deals I think that goes through due diligence stuff comes off and we were kind of within that normal boundaries of acceptable tolerances I guess or whatever they would call it and I probably was making [inaudible 00:09:12.1] but for me at the moment that it was happening I was pretty upset. Joe: Yeah so we had two or three things that came up where the P&L wasn't exactly right; the discretionary earnings wasn't exactly right for the trailing 12 months. And it's funny I had a call this morning, I'm working on launching a listing tomorrow and the owner of that business said well what happens in due diligence if that happens? And he was worried that the whole deal would just fall apart and you start from scratch. That's not normally the case. Normally you just use logic and math and say okay if you're off by $1,000 and your multiple is a 3 time you take $3,000 off the contract price of the business. That's really important when you build that trust that you've built over the last two or three months with the buyers of your business Mike. But in your case we didn't make any adjustment at all even though your numbers were not exactly the same as in discretionary earnings, right? Mike: Yeah and I think a few things kind of happened and number one as we were going to do diligence and working towards closing our January numbers came out and our February numbers came out and eventually we kind of knew what March was looking like and we were up significantly year over year. So I mean it was getting to be to a point where in some respects I was kind of hoping the deal will fall apart just like be realistic for money. Joe: Yeah. Mike: Obviously, that wasn't what I wanted to happen because I didn't want it to go through [inaudible 00:10:37.3] but that certainly probably helps. And I think a little of the trust kind of was established like you said that they knew that there was nothing the fairest going on there or at least they hope that that's what they were thinking. I'm sure that's what they were thinking obviously. And I also think that just based on talking to Bryan over at Centurica like after the whole thing was done it was basically like when a report comes out it's always going to be—there's always something that's kind of found and I just—it's kind of like a home inspection. When you go buy a home there's going to be a home inspection and there's always going to be stuff that that guy finds. Some of the stuff you can try and negotiate for to lower the price of the home but a lot of it you just accept. It's just like there are things that you're going to just go okay well I didn't know that when I signed the agreement to buy this house and put it in Escrow but I want to buy the house nonetheless and here I am and I'm going to just go ahead and still do it. So I think all of those things combined and I just I mean legitimately was willing to walk away. I wasn't willing to sell it for less. Because I feel like the number that we picked in my mind was the least I was willing to sell the business for. I was willing—we had talked about willing to—because we had already started separating our companies and making things better that if we waited another year we would have gotten more money for it. But at the same time, I also had set my mind to sell it. So I mean there was a bunch of things going on there but luckily all kind of worked out in the end. Joe: Yeah, you were emotionally ready to sell. There's no question about it. I talked to you three times about waiting; separate them all out, wait another year or so, and you definitely were ready. Mike: It wasn't about the money. I mean it was just a lifestyle adjustment and realizing we had too much going on and leaving some money on the table for this transaction to almost certainly put us in a better situation moving forward. So all and I think we're going to do much better by selling one of these businesses. Joe: Yeah, and you're going to be able to narrow your focus with the sale. So with regards to Centurica; for those that are considering using them or are fearful that you're under LOI and your buyer is hiring Centurica. I've never had a deal go sideways with Centurica. What they do is they find out like Mike said what the issues are with the business and really what it is, it's a little scary but for the buyer of the business it's really things that can be fixed and it's a path towards future growth and making the business stronger. So I like it when somebody else steps in on a buyer's behalf and really digs into those numbers. It helps the process and instills confidence in everybody that it is a good investment and that nothing's going to come back to you Mike in this situation after the sale if you closed and the buyer found something after the fact. It's better that they find it during due diligence like we did here. Mike: I think the only reason you really need to be fearful is if you are hiding something and you know it. And these guys will find it. I promise you—I mean they're incredible. And if I ever go buy a business I will absolutely hire them. They are incredible. I almost want to hire them just to tell them to come do an audit on our existing businesses to make sure we'd get things fixed before we go sell it—another piece of it a year or two from now. They're really good. Joe: It's not a crazy idea preparing in advance for the sale of a business 12 to 18 months out. You know now that that is critical. We've talked about it recently. You got a good value for Color It but I think realistically if the brands had all been separated out and you had clean tax returns, a staff that was delegated just towards Color It, it's possible you would have gotten a higher multiple. And with your January, February growth numbers and December was just killer, there's no doubt that the buyer of your business is really excited and didn't even think about making an adjustment because some of the numbers were off by a little bit. Because the numbers were so high for January and February he knew that he was getting a great business. And he told me personally that he thought that this one is probably the best of the three Amazon FBA businesses that he's bought for me in the last eight months. So we got through due diligence, it was a little painful, a little tough. Centurica helped. We had some trust built early on so we didn't make any adjustments and mostly because of that trust and because of you keeping your foot on the gas in terms of the numbers and the growth of the business. The worst thing you can do folks is once you're under LOI have a bad month or two during due diligence. It scares the buyer. They're making a lifetime investment putting their life savings on the line and they want to see positive numbers, not negative numbers. So we got through it and the next phase sort of when we got most of the way through it was to end up drafting, editing, and signing a 30 to 45 page asset purchase agreement. And that can be kind of scary and overwhelming in itself but the situation was pretty smooth, don't you think Mike? Mike: Yeah. I mean it was incredible. I expected it to go one way. This is actually funny, I expected due diligence to go one way and it kind of went a different way because I was building to Centurica when I had did the kickoff call that this will be the most accurate—I forgot exactly how I said but I really hear myself on that [inaudible 00:15:57.3] accurate company that have ever gone through diligence with you, you're not going to find anything off here by a penny. He was like yeah we'll see about that. That went one way and then the legal actions in my career and the ones where the other party drops the agreements are usually just an awful experience of their lawyer is dropping the agreement on behalf of their clients and all the things that they would want in a perfect world for their client with complete disregard to what the other party would want to see in that agreement knowing exactly what they want. They already know what the 3rd party is going to want but they don't care about that. They hope that of a hundred things that are in there you only asked to change 50 or something and the other 50 stays in the other party's best interest. So what I got was an agreement and—so I'm not a lawyer and I've been through these a million times and I don't really get emotional about this. I just send it immediately off to my attorney I was like let me know and I was expecting pages of stuff that were going to be really difficult to go back and forth on. And I really hate this part of the negotiation process because you've already signed a deal and now you're negotiating over a bunch of other points that you weren't expecting to have to fight over and there was none of that. Like she just like make sure you fill in the blank for this number and they haven't created this LLC that they're talking about in the agreement and make sure that that's done so it's actually a legal entity before you sign. I mean there was little pebbly stuff like that, there was a couple of small things that had some substance but it made me so happy not to have to go through a tough process. It kept our legal fees down only spending 2,500 bucks reviewing and editing the APA which I was expecting 10 or 20k just from previous experience of having to go back and forth. And it was such a great experience. I actually emailed the buyer afterwards and I was like dude I just want to let you know that I really appreciate this because somebody along the way from your team said do not send an agreement off to Jackness and Terran that's just lopsided. Like, make this a middle of the road agreement from day one. Like that was clearly someone communicated that because otherwise, I think it would have been the other way. Joe: Yeah. This is the 4th transaction I've done with Matt and his attorneys; the 1st one years ago and the last three within the last eight months. And every one of those contracts had been fair and balanced and turned around very quickly. And we actually have an attorney referral list now where we just want people to have good attorneys because we've had situations where people have awful attorneys. So we started gathering a list and we put this firm Jones and [inaudible 00:18:35.7]. if anybody is working on an asset purchase agreement and doing it directly with another buyer or seller and you want a referral to an attorney, shoot me an email at joe@quietlightbrokerage and I'll be happy to send it off to you; I'm happy to do that. So that's good, we got through that APA and we actually signed it. It's interesting because we signed it on the 14th of March and normally when we sign it money goes into Escrow and then we're right off to closing. But in this case, we waited almost another three weeks. So it could have been even longer. Mike: It did [inaudible 00:19:16.7] Escrow. You might not recall but there was like a $25,000 deposit. Joe: Yeah because of the request—actually it was necessary because you moving things out of the seller account. It was a nonrefundable $25,000 earnest money that was put in Escrow after signing the asset purchase agreement. I think it was nonrefundable. But that went to the attorney Escrow agreement and then the balance was sent in just prior to closing. It all worked out very well. We ended up closing on March 5th. But prior to that, we had to have some calls and some meetings and doing some planning but there were times when you were a little nervous because there wasn't a whole lot of planning and a whole lot of conversations going on. Mike: Yeah, and it was from my point of view like I wasn't worried about me because like I knew the money was going to be there. But I'm the kind of guy as you know that I'm looking out for the other guy. They just spent a lot of money, I want to make sure it's a good experience for them. And I was just like guys you're buying this business in a couple of days and we haven't talked about changing passwords and billing and things are going to just start breaking if you aren't paying attention to them and the team needs kind of a handoff to know exactly where to look for things etcetera. So it was a little bit weird to me that it didn't seem to be—like they were the kind of guys like everything was like T's crossed I's dotted, really highly motivated and passionate about everything that they're doing but that didn't seem to be as big of a concern. And I think we were talking a little bit—I think it was a combination of they just purchased another business like right before that. Joe: Yeah. Mike: I was also coming to visit them for two days like a couple of days after closing to be with them two, four days in person which I think probably they were just mostly waiting for that to happen. And I think the last part is that they just basically trusted me by that point that I was a good guy and wasn't going to rake them over the coals. But there were definitely some moments where I just like I—if I wanted to like really screw these guys [inaudible 00:21:09.4] kind of I was like thinking that and more just from the perspective of I think they probably should just be more careful because not everyone is a good person and I've seen scribbly stuff happen. Joe: And remember you didn't read every line of the purchase agreement. I'm sure whatever the potential screwing was or could have been was covered there. Mike: There's probably, I did not read the agreement. My lawyer read it but yeah I'm sure there was some legal stuff on there that had I screwed them—I mean again that wasn't even like—I was [inaudible 00:21:39.9] that I was just more—I'm worried for them. Joe: Yeah. Mike: The biggest was that if a wire did come in and we still had that lump in the Amazon accounts and—who knows someone could just like catch a fly out of the country and really see it later and it was a little bit scary for me on their behalf. I just worry about stuff like that. Joe: Yeah. Well, I think that the last minute stuff was due to they had just closed one so they were busy with that and they also knew what was coming. And they are so busy they have so little capacity for anything about what's in front of them that they were like we'll get to that when it's necessary and it's necessary just after closing; after the money is wired. The other thing you mention was that you went to meet with them in person. You happened to be going on a road trip and going to be in their neighborhood just after closing. So that worked out perfectly. Mike: Yeah. Joe: I always recommend to people, to buyers in particular regardless of the size of the transaction that if you can; if there's any possible way, you get in a car, you get on a plane and you go visit your seller during due diligence. Once you're under a letter of intent get in front of them; have lunch with them, have dinner, get a tour. You don't want to let the staff know that the business is forsold, the large part until the APA is signed. But you could go in as a consultant or at the very least meet them so that you can gain that level of trust because it makes a huge difference. The worst situation I've ever had—I actually had a guy from San Diego where you're from. Early on when I 1st started back in 2012, he bought a business from me that was $35,000 and there was about $40,000 worth of inventory. He flew from San Diego in January to Minnesota and he didn't have a winter coat and I was trying to talk to him because I grew up in Min and I'm like you really—you don't know what 10 degrees is and with the wind chill factor of 20 below but it worked out. And he said to me later, he said look if I hadn't met them in person and learned everything I learned in due diligence I would have walked away because due diligence was tough when you've got a business that's $35,000 and there's $40,000 worth of inventory. But he met them in person and that made a difference. He still owns it today. I saw him at the Prosper Show a few years ago. So definitely in person meetings are really, really important. So let's talk now about those two days; in most transactions, there's a transition period, a training period that is part of the purchase price. The standard asset purchase agreement says up to 40 hours over the 1st 90 days after closing. I don't think you're going to use 40 hours or they're going to use 40 hours from you but you put in a couple of very long days right after closing, right? Mike: Yeah. I mean I don't know that it was required and I committed to be there whatever but I'm again that type of guy and I want to see them have success with this business; bottom line. And part of it is just treating others like I like to be treated. And I have been in transactions before when I bought Ice Wraps on the wire hit the guy ghosted me. It was like I literally never heard from him again. Joe: That's why we do hold backs people. Mike: Yeah but I mean it was a $50,000 purchase. It was actually the exact same situation as going—I went to Michigan, it was also in January. I also didn't have a winter coat. And I was also [inaudible 00:25:13.8] I thought you're talking about me for a second. But the employees did help me with the transition. The owner just was gone. And there were a couple of things that I could have used his help on that would have just taken him 30 seconds to answer. So again I just would never want to be that guy. And there is a lot—I mean a lot of things are going on in our business that I probably needed to hand off you realize it is all complicated; they are but it seems so easy to you because you learned them one day at a time. And when you're trying to take five years of something that you learned one day at a time that for me they're like sending orders into Amazon or you have something come from our 3PL or coming from China go to a 3PL and go to Amazon or deal with the customer service issue or do Facebook Ads, I mean all the different pieces of the business it all just seems so 2nd nature to me. It's no different than breathing. But when you try to start explaining to somebody you realize like just how much there is. And so I actually made a list of like 40 items as I just started thinking of them over and above what they were asking for or things that I thought that I needed to explain to them. And I just I wanted to feel like when I left there that I felt good about myself that they had everything from me to make sure that they were going to be successful. Now what they do with things from here on out isn't really—I look at that and that's not my problem. I mean I've done everything I can it's up to them now if they want to end to the ground there's nothing I can really do about that. I'd rather that they'll make a billion dollars with it. I'd be much happier with that result but I want to tell they felt good about me. Like I gave them every tool possible to be successful and I'm still there for them. They still have been in contact with me but they've been really good about it and respectful. And I've been spending 10 to 15 minutes a day maybe since I left there helping them which I think is completely reasonable. And I see the light at the end of the tunnel in that within two to three weeks I'll probably never hear from them again other than to say hi and maybe have a drink some day because they're really awesome guys. I really like them and I'd love to hang out with them just on a personal level next time we're in the same city. But they're obviously not going to take advantage. That's when I would get upset is like if the other parties are taking advantage and like asking you to continue to do stuff and spend eight hours a day helping them and just taking advantage. And they're not doing that and again I just want to make sure that I do the best that I could and I can feel good about myself with the hand off. And that's kind of how things transpired. Joe: Yeah. And that's why as far as the taking advantage that's why it's called transition and training. It's not operating the business. Mike: Yeah. Joe: So we've always got a certain period up to and over, the reality is that even after three months they may send you a note, a Skype message, a text, an email with a quick question that you're going to respond to. It happens. There's just no way that you can pack everything that's in your head inside of a two day training period. Because they're going to come up against something that may not happen for four months and it's new to them and it wasn't covered in training. It's just the nature of all of the pieces and parts. But at the same time, it's not overly complicated. These businesses are fairly easy to transfer and the training is fairly easy. It's just running on its own now and it's the key thing that I always tell people is especially people that are leaving the corporate world and are used to working 60 hours a week and they take over a business like yours that might take 15 hours a week on a high side that just put in 30 but 15 working in 15 observing and training and don't fix anything that's not broken. I see that happen too often. People come from the corporate world and they're just fixers; they want to fix things even if it's not broken so they do break it. So that's the big piece that I try to have them not do which is really important. Okay, so we're doing a video here. Most people listen to audio but you've got the EcomCrew shirt on so I want to talk about that a little bit. I want to know; we've closed, the money is in the bank, you've dropped one of four brands so you've got a little bit more free time. Not a lot, I know you're crazy busy but what's next for Mike Jackness? Mike: Well immediately following as just I have the EcomCrew shirt on is because we're doing an EcomCrew webinar right after this. That's what's immediately next but I think you're talking bigger picture. I'm trying to get—I have some life goals, I do a podcast every year about yearly goals and a couple of big themes are less is more. I think that would be just trying to do too much. We've been successful in spite of ourselves, in spite of running at full scene. I'm concerned about burning out because I've been there before and I can kind of feel that coming to [inaudible 00:30:01.6]. So before running off the rails and feeling like I'm completely burned out, I wanted to make some changes. And one of those things was selling one of those businesses to make sure that the burnout thing doesn't happen. And overall like the thing that I really enjoy doing is the teaching and education part with EcomCrew. It's just been awesome. I talk about how I feel like I have enough in life. I mean it's always nice to make more money. I'm not going to be one of those guys that's like I'm not going to take any money when I have enough to make money but there's different ways to make money. And one of the things that have been really cool is just to help others while doing that. It might be a situation where I might make 10,000 instead of $20,000 but somebody else might make $100,000 so it's like a net win for the role and it's still good for me and it's still in an environment where I get way more enjoyment out of it and it's a lot better than coming to the office every day and just kind of grinding which is not really for me. That was the reason why I left my day job in 2004. So those are kind of some big picture things that we're working on. I also want to get into an e-commerce business I have just a personal interest in. I think that that's really important after just being in e-commerce and business stuff over a long period of time. The things that you are personally interested and passionate about are just way easier. And Color It was an amazing business, amazing brand for a whole bunch of reasons that we don't time to get into here but it's just not something that I'm personally into. And the same thing with Ice Wraps and Tech Miner and Water Baby, those are just things that they make money. I'm an entrepreneur at heart, I think a really good business person at heart like I am very strappy. I will figure out a way to make money doing just about anything but it's not just about that. It's doing something that I actually have an interest in and enjoy which I think will be a lot better. So those are some big picture things for me. Joe: But I think a lot of that estranged and left comes with age and experience; hustled in the past and you did what you had to do and you got ahead and you're giving back. For those that have not listened to EcomCrew, the podcast, I highly advise it. We talk about it often here on the podcast for people that have just purchased businesses or even those that have them and are trying to expand their channels either to Amazon or email marketing or anything like that. You got to tune in and listen to Mike and Dave on EcomCrew. They've got a great series, Under the Hood, we're going to try to do something like that on valuations here at Quiet Light someday but Mike is one of those guys that has been there, done it, and now he's helping. He's not teaching because he had nothing else to do. He's teaching because he's been very, very successful in sharing his experience with others. So I appreciate that. Mike, any last thoughts, any last words in terms of what you'd say to people that are thinking about selling in the future and how to prepare? Mike: Specifically, on thinking about selling and how to prepare, the 1st thing I would say is that everything comes to an end at some point. So even if you're like I'm never going to sell my business that's complete B.S. because everything comes to an end. And what I've learned in life, entrepreneurial life is a lot of times it sneaks up on you. You think you're in a good spotting and you're happy with what you're doing but there's a lot of things that happen in business that are irritating and wear on you. And eventually one day you might just throw your hands up and you'll be like I've had enough of this. And if you're in a better spot to sell and you're prepared to sell all along the way that can happen a lot easier and smoother than if you haven't prepared. And you'll also get way more money for your business if you have prepared. So it's something that you should be thinking about at all times. It will probably make you a better business person and make your existing business better anyway because if you're always thinking about it from the perception of I might need to sell this business any time it will force you to have better procedures in place. It will force you to be looking at your accounting every month and scrutinizing all your expenses. Making sure that your net profit is always as high as possible. There's a lot of [inaudible 00:34:09.9] benefits having that thought process. And even if you “never do sell” it will probably put you in a better position no matter what. So if there are things that I wish I'd—if I could go—if you try and go back and change things and I was thinking a lot about this; our plan was to sell the whole thing as like a big conglomerate originally. But things changed and so I wasn't—I had been marching towards to sell everything as a conglomerate goal, everything was together and I thought one day e when I was done with e-commerce I would just be done with e-commerce. But that's not how it worked out. What ended up happening was we got too big for what I was comfortable with in terms of risk to reward and I want to take some money off the table and I still immensely love e-commerce and I want to be involved in e-commerce. So I could have better prepared ourselves for that by having multiple LLC's for each brand that maybe one LLC owned each one of those and it still would have been that conglomerate thing and structured in a better way. You can't foresee the future all the time but you can definitely plan—put yourself in a better position when the unexpected comes. Joe: I don't know if I could have said it any better than that so we're just going to wrap this up, Mike. Mike: [inaudible 00:35:20.4] Joe: It's about a complete pleasure working with you. I'm glad to have been your broker in helping you achieve these goals and maybe another year or two we'll do it with the next one. Mike: I'm looking forward to it. Joe: Alright, thanks, Mike.   Links and Resources: ColorIt.com MIke's Podcast Email Mike Centurica

In this episode, Stan and Mike talk with CCW Safe Accounts Manager, David Darter.  They talk about some of the most common questions from our members and prospective members, and some of the best practices for getting help with your account.   Full Transcription below! Speaker 1: Welcome to the Inside CCW Safe podcast with founders Stan Campbell and Mike Darter. If you're forced to fight the battle for your life, CCW Safe will fight the battle for your future. Mike: Okay. All right. Peter Gordon. Mike: Hi, welcome back to the Inside CCW Safe podcast. I'm Mike Darter with CCW Safe in Oklahoma City. Here, we're with Stan Campbell. Stan Campbell: Yeah, Stan Campbell holding down Los Angeles today. Mike: You're what? Stan Campbell: I said I'm holding down Los Angeles, sorry about that. Mike: Holding down Los Angeles. I hit my little mute button to turn off all ... I'm turning off all my phones and beeps and stuff, and I accidentally hit the mute button on my computer which muted you. Mike: So, Stan man, it's been freezing here. We've been like had two school days. Stan Campbell: You said two school days? Mike: Two no school days. Stan Campbell: Oh, two no school days. Yeah, you guys have ice storms out there, right? Mike: Yeah, it's been crazy. But I think today it's supposed to get up to like 40. So, it should be pretty good. What's LA like? Stan Campbell: LA is kinda overcast. It's not that pretty, but it's no ice. I haven't seen ice over there. No ice. Mike: Good deal. Anything else going on recently we need to know about? Stan Campbell: No. I mean, we're following the ... And we will get to talk about it at a later podcast, but we're following the constitutional carry that just got passed here in Oklahoma, and that's a good thing. Mike: Yeah. I think it goes in November? Stan Campbell: Yeah. November 1st is gonna be when it pushes through. So, that's a good thing. It's always good to hear some governors willing to stand up for those who support the Second Amendment and take care of concealed carriers and such. Mike: Yeah. I didn't know that was even going through until yesterday. I know it went through last year and then the governor didn't sign it. But, cool. Mike: Well, today we got on my brother. My real brother, not my first [inaudible 00:02:23]. Mike Darter: Not a brother from another mother. Stan Campbell: They're brothers from the same mother. Brothers from the same mothers. Mike: David Gardner, he's our account manager. David, thanks for coming on. David Darter: You bet. Mike: Thank you, Dave. David Darter: Good to see you around. Mike: Did you still end up in the city as well, fighting this ice? David Darter: Yeah, I already fell yesterday. I busted my butt. Stan Campbell: That's not good. Well, what, as long as it wasn't on CCW Safe property, I'm okay with it. So get back to work, Dave. Get back to work. David Darter: That's hilarious. Stan Campbell: For those who don't know, I mean, we always talk about our support staff. You guys heard about, we had just added Justin. The usual suspects, Don and Gary, but behind the scenes, who really keeps this thing moving and who coordinates all the efforts of customer service is David Darter. He is the star really of CCW Safe because if you're not involved in a critical incident and they need our support because of an arrest or use of force to defend your life, you're dealing with just simple issues of customer service and just simple questions that you just might have if you just chose to join us without really learning about us. And David is the one who really ... He holds down that position and he does an awesome job with our customers. Stan Campbell: I really love having him in that position and being over the specialist, just coordinating all the efforts and all the help with the members in our CCW Safe family. I just wanna let you guys know, David is a rockstar. David Darter: Thank you, Stan. I appreciate that. Stan Campbell: No, it's okay. David Gardner: We take a great pride in our customer service. Stan Campbell: Yeah. That's true. And what, David, I was really trying to invest. That was the opening for Michael to list. It's obvious that there's some big brother, little brother issues going on here, where he can't give you a simple account- Mike: This is what happened. I'd just plugged in my headphones at the time he said that 'cause I didn't know if my mic was picking up you coming over the deal. So, I was like, "Maybe I'll just talk to my headphones." I'm taking them off now because it's like watching a- Stan Campbell: A Chinese movie? Mike: ... a 1970s movie. So I didn't hear what you said. Stan Campbell: That's hilarious. Mike: There you are. Now you're talking in your mouth. Stan Campbell: Yeah, we're here Michael. Mike: So yeah, he is a rockstar. Stan Campbell: Yeah, he is. Mike: He does great with our customer service, and that's one of the things that ... It's hard when you're dealing with tens of thousands of members and trying to provide good customer service for a nationwide covering. It's very hard to do that. I know that some of our competitors have the same issues that we do, but I think we handle ours very well and I think that we have a very good handler of our customer support, and a lot of it is because of David. Stan Campbell: Absolutely. David, and David sorry, we're gonna talk about you first. So David, he is the accounts manager, and of course, like I said, he's over the CCW Safe specialists who get your non-emergency calls. If I had to really do an estimate, I'd say about 98% of the calls for service are non-emergency. The 2% would be emergency calls, talking about arrest and use of force issues. Stan Campbell: So it's a lot of work. What everybody needs to understand, and let's start out with backstage, stating that, we have a great system in place, and it's a layered system. Number I, we want everyone to know that if you have account issues, absolutely send them to David. Don't call the non-emergency number if it's an account issue because, by design, we don't have them ... The contracted organization who handles our non-emergency calls, we don't have them able to have access to your accounts. And that's just to protect you guys. It's all about protecting you all from police officers here. Everything that we do, even what we desire for customer service, is so to protect you, your credit card, access, and all that. Stan Campbell: So if you guys have any account issues, please send it to david@ccwsafe.com, or support@ccwsafe.com. That way, you don't waste any time, you don't get frustrated because the non-emergency agents you can't have access or can't access your account. So you don't want to put that information out there. Stan Campbell: The other thing that I want you guys to understand is that this is a very unique business and it's a very unique service. And when people call us to get answers, it's not usually a quick one-minute phone call. We spend a lot of time with our members on the phone. I wish we could do it a little bit faster but those who call can really, and please send emails supporting my statement right now for those who have enjoyed the time and effort that we have spent with you 30 minutes to an hour, to really give you an understanding of this service, your protection, because a lot of this stuff is built in legal leads. Stan Campbell: Although our agreement is pretty cut and dry, there's still some legal leads in there; it has to be because of contractual agreements. But people usually you don't understand a lot of this stuff without lawyers. So when they called David, or when I see there's an overflow and I jump on the phone, because I oversee all of it as well: If I see there's a pending call, I'll jump on it as well and take some calls. But when we spend that time with you, please understand if we don't get back with you, we have to put it in a priority and we're getting back to you as fast as we can. So, make sure that you guys just really be patient with us. Kudos to David for spending that amount of time and giving these people a real understanding of their coverage. Stan Campbell: But before we start with David, I wanna talk about a call that I just received, because Dave is going to go over today. Not the Top 10, nor the most significant, the calls that we get most often, the frequently asked questions that come across his computer most. But before he starts, I'm gonna jump ahead of him and talk about one that I received today. Stan Campbell: One of our members who has been with us for a long time, I'll just call him Jim S., it becomes [inaudible 00:10:07] listen to this, but Jim called me and he and I, we've been ... I've been trying to give him understanding and we finally kind of got through to him today 'cause I got on the phone. Sometimes it's best to get off the computer and get on the phone. Stan Campbell: I talked to Jim about his services that he's providing for his church with a volunteer security. Please understand that we absolutely support what you guys are doing when you, as concealed carriers, are getting together, teaming up with your churches, and trying to give them some extra support beyond who they hire for security, their armed security outside or if they don't have it. Putting teams together, training together, and doing all those things. That is a noble thing that you do will be a church and it's absolutely needed. Stan Campbell: Well, Jim and I discussed today because he has one of our older plans and he's moving toward the ultimate plan, which has a special coverage for volunteers security, for churches only. So, he and his wife are moving to the ultimate plan to have that coverage because I sent him some other alternatives. Because, for us, CCW Safe, what we try to do is really cover you and give you advice and recommendations that even protect you from yourself. Stan Campbell: What I mean by that is, I already stated, and you all will agree with me, it's a great thing to defend the church, and those that go there, but please understand, if you get into a use of force, you will absolutely be a hero that first day, second day, that first week. But if you overshoot and you make a mistake while all the members of the church are running around, and you accidentally shoot an innocent person, although they will thank you initially for defending their life, please understand they will be contacted by a lawyer and they will sue you and the church for damages. It's just going to happen. It's human nature, it's the process. It's unfair, but it's just what's gonna happen. Stan Campbell: And that's the reason why Mike and myself and Kyle, the partners, decided to protect you guys a little bit with the ultimate plan because it's a dedicated million dollar civil liability coverage that will cover you for that type of incident when you're in a legitimate shooting, and you're trying to protect others or yourself and you shoot an innocent bystander. It's needed. Stan Campbell: So, I went over those things with him. I made it known. He told me that he even got permission from his pastor, who created this volunteer group. But I told him. I said, "Please protect yourself and get that in writing, because at the end of the day, when the smoke clears and they start trying to sue the church, it's gonna be every man for himself regardless of how long you guys have known each other. I mean, it's every man for himself. So, we're trying to get you guys to protect yourselves. If you are in church security, please protect yourself no matter what you think and upgrade to the ultimate plan so that you can cover yourself, because at the end of the day, that's what it's all about and that's what we care about. Stan Campbell: On that same note, I'll give this one more little tidbit before we add David in. Sorry for taking up all this time, but it is very important. The reason why it's important to go beyond your homeowner's insurance and any other insurance entity, we hire civil attorneys for you, not for CCW Safe, to protect you and your actions with that as the agenda. Other entities, homeowner's insurance, they're gonna hire lawyers associated with that insurance company to protect that company first, and you second. That makes a big difference, and that's why we open this thing up for you. Stan Campbell: Guys, please research. Research your own ... I'm not gonna tell you that. Research your homeowner's policies, make sure that they say that they cover, and it has to in its verbiage, "We cover intentional acts because, although you didn't force a shooting, it is an intentional act." If it does not say that in your policy, you are not covered no matter what your broker may try to slide to you in between the smiles and laughing. Please protect yourself, and that's what I had to say on that. Mike I'll let you jump in. Mike: No, that's great points. And we do have a lot of that. So, what do we want to do? Let's get right into it. Just for time, do you have some questions that we were gonna go over today or did you- Stan Campbell: Well, what we did was we had David pick up some of his top questions and, as he's going forward, I'll add some more, ask some more- Mike: Yeah, we can jump in. Stan Campbell: Yeah, we'll jump in. Mike: Okay. What we figured was that we would kinda get a list of our top questions, because we do get these spurts of questions too, that we get one question that starts coming in and then we get a bunch of those questions coming in. I don't know where ... Mike: (silence) Mike: ... have some that are more common than others. So we figured we'd kind of go through that, and somebody maybe who listens to our podcast, who's not a member, might be able to get some insight. Or if you're a member, you might not have full understanding of everything that we do. So, let's just jump right in. Stan Campbell: Okay. Who'll be your first? David Darter: Okay. Let me start just real quick by kind of talking and following up on what you said, Stan. We try to do the best job we can. We take great pride in our customer service. We are in the midst of an upgrade to make the check out much easier right now. Stan Campbell: That's right. David Darter: And then within the next probably four to six months, we are going to be updating some of our phone systems and things like that. So, we constantly try to make it better and easier for new members to get ahold of us and we wanna answer your phone just as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, you can't have an infinite number of specialists. Stan Campbell: That's right. David Darter: So, sometimes it might take us a little bit, but we try to get used as quickly as we can, and we are doing a lot of updating that's going to make your whole experience I think much easier. So, I just wanted to throw that out there. So I think- Mike: And, on that too, there are other ways that people can can find out answers to their questions. We have a new chat that we kind of rolled out maybe six months ago. Some of that is automated; kind of takes you through. So if you ask a certain question, email support at ccwsafe.com is a good one. Sometimes, if you have a pretty simple question, if you email it, you might get an e-mail back before you would if you were to try to call in. So, we have different ways that people can get ahold of us. Stan Campbell: Absolutely. Mike: The chat, I think, has been a really get additional niche right on the website. If you go to ccwsafe.com, you'll see it pop up there. Stan Campbell: Yes. Just to piggyback what Mike's saying, hey guys, this works Central time because that's where our hub is located. We also have the West Coast times, but the West Coast Times but West Coast [inaudible 00:18:27]. So, if you do have issues that you need dealt with pretty quickly, you don't try to contact David between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. in Central Time. Stan Campbell: Once again, we're trying to get ahead of any frustrations you might have or delays. David also does not work on the weekends. So, be mindful of that. If you say, "Hey, I contacted David on Friday at 10:00 p.m., you're not gonna get a response from him until Monday morning. So, please be mindful of that as well. Stan Campbell: Also, Mike did mention some of the other ways that you can gather information. A lot of people don't know that you can go to the website and you can find our frequently asked questions. Locate the frequently asked questions. I mean, there's two pages of them. So, you can get ahead of it and really study what your policy is about. Look at our terms of service. Look at the terms of service and copy that now. I mean, it too is on the website. Make sure that you go to the terms of service and have an understanding of what you actually have as coverage. Stan Campbell: But those means there, and to go along with Michael, you did mentioned the Chat function as well. We have a live chat, but a lot of the questions that you guys have can be answered on the FAQs, either in the Chat function or automated function, also has FAQs that we've seen with the live agents there. You can go there, look at the frequently asked questions on chats, look at their frequently asked questions on the website, and you actually have your answers when you put it together before having to call us. If you don't have an understanding then .... Stan Campbell: And we actually designed the chat function. It is automated initially so that it can answer simple questions. But if you ask a question a second time, please understand that the automated function is gonna state, "I'm gonna send you to a live representative." Okay? Then it sends us a message and we pick up on it. All of that's by design, like real simple stuff that it won't take us a long time to deal with. We can deal with the medium level request, and also semi-emergencies and emergencies. Stan Campbell: We're doing all this to try to keep the machine moving because at the end of the day, it's all about the emergency calls and everything else, it's not really an emergency, we can help you through. It's a non-emergency or an elevated non-emergency where you have a credit card issues, please, by all means, call David to get it taken care of. Stan Campbell: I wanted to kinda jump in and let you guys know about that so that you know those are the working hours. Don't frustrate yourself. I'll also give you a little head's up. Thursdays is the day, for some reason, that we don't have a lot of calls and e-mails. So, if you have something that can wait to Thursday, call at us Thursday. But if you try to hit us on a Monday, we're catching up on weekend stuff, non-emergencies and David is swamped on Mondays. You're probably not gonna catch him as fast on a Monday as you would on a Tuesday, and then Wednesday and Thursday. And please be mindful of that. Stan Campbell: We're trying to really assist tens of thousands of people, and just to be honest, we're still talking about hundreds a day. Let's be honest. 50 to 100 contacts a day is what we're dealing with, and these people all expect 30 minutes to an hour and it's only an eight-hour day. So, if you guys do the math, I hope you understand that. You have to just be mindful of that. Stan Campbell: Anyway, sorry. I get to talk too much, but go ahead Michael. God bless. David Darter: So, I think one of the first things that is probably one of our most frequently asked questions now, and is probably due to the political climate, the things that have been happening in some of the states. Do we cover New York? Do we cover Washington? Both of those states now have passed legislation where some of the other companies can't service members in those states. We still do. And Stan, I don't know if you wanna kind of explain the [inaudible 00:22:49] of the business. Stan Campbell: Absolutely, I will. Stan Campbell: Hey, guys. Those who are already members, kudos to you because you chose the right company. Those who are not, research, make an independent decision, and be Michael especially if you're in some of these questionable anti-gun states. Stan Campbell: David brought up New York and Washington state. We know the issues with New York. About a year ago, their governor all out, assault on, one of our competitors and also anybody associated with the Second Amendment. The reason why I say kudos to those who are members and part of our family already is the fact that we saw this coming years ago. And in 2016, 'cause we talked about it in 2015, we saw the writing on the wall. That's the importance of having people that know what they're doing and experienced in the criminal justice system, and handing handling a serious civil litigation across the nation. That's what you have in CCW Safe, and we are also leaders in the industry and forward thinkers. So we tried to get ahead of the anti-gun campaigns, and one was New York. Stan Campbell: So we saw the fact that we should not follow everyone else and attach ourselves to a traditional insurance and broker for insurance coverage backed by a foreign entity in Europe. We knew not to do that because we knew that it left you open as vulnerable to that traditional insurance industry that is regulated, while our competitors, all of our main competitors did that. They went for about a year or so, doing a really, really good job and taking their members. Stan Campbell: What I mean my good job is taking in a lot of members, but then once they got attacked, the anti-gunners, they were smart enough to attack the brokers, not the actual company. So they attacked the brokers and stated technically, 'cause this is what it comes down to, technically they are engaged in selling their illegal insurance products by teaming up with this competitor of ours. And by doing that, because they're allowing them to sell products and they're outside of the traditional regulation, it makes it illegal in that state. That's why the government sued our competitor and they exited out of New York. There's another competitor that is still not selling any additional ones but allowing its members to stay on board until their memberships expire, and then they give them a letter to say, "Now you're no longer covered in the insurance, which is a different conversation. Stan Campbell: One thing that I'm gonna fall back on again is the way that we designed our model. Our model was designed so that CCW Safe is insured through our insurance company that we own, backed by reinsurance as well. So, we have a two-layered protection for CCW Safe to help us to deal with these catastrophic events and these critical incidents in support of our benefits for our packages. Stan Campbell: So CCW Safe is the insured, we are not an insurance company. Let me say that one more time. We are not an insurance company, and we do not sell insurance policies. Our competitors do that. We are a legal service subscription plan, and we facilitate finance and coordinate all the efforts and resources associated with defending your actions in the use of force that is critical. Therefore, we are allowed to stand strong in those states because we're not doing what these other companies are doing. We are not presenting ourselves as an insurance company, nor an associate with traditional insurance product. Therefore, we are the only one standing strong in Washington State and New York. There are no other products there, just us. Stan Campbell: And there are other there other states that are doing the same thing, like California and New Jersey. So please, if you live there, pay attention to what's going on there in your legislation because they're trying to put a stop to you guys being covered as well. And then once that happens again we're going to be the only one standing strong and only ones that's going to be able they truly state that we cover everyone in 50 states. No one else in the industry is gonna be able to state that, unless they follow suit and design themselves like CCW Safe, and it takes about a year to do that. So, in that time, in the next year, we're gonna be the only organization standing strong in certain states because of the way that we're designed. Stan Campbell: You got anything to add on that, Mike? I know I said a lot. Mike: No, no. That's good. Good point. Stan Campbell: Thank you. I did my job, thank you. Mike: You did your job, and you did it well. David Darter: You did. You did it. Stan Campbell: [inaudible 00:28:28] David Darter: No, I just wanted to bring it up. That has been a very popular question. David Darter: So, one of the other questions that we get a lot of is, what is the difference between civil defense versus civil liability? So, all of our basic packages cover unlimited civil and criminal defense stemming from a self-defense incident. That covers attorneys expert witnesses, private investigators, any fees that come along; deposition fees, filing fees, trial cost, court costs, mistrials or retrials appeals, anything that has to do with your actual defense is covered unlimited on what we pay. David Darter: Now, the civil liability is a little different animal, in that your civil defense is covered while the trial is going on. After a trial, if there was a civil monetary judgment brought against you, then that's what the civil liability covers, up to $1 million dollar civil liability. And that's after a civil trial. That comes after a civil trial, and so that's what the difference is to those two. While one covers defense costs, the other one covers after a trial for any liabilities that would be brought against you. Mike: Yeah. One good point I want to bring up is, it's a dedicated one. If you have a civil liability coverage, meaning that after the trial is over and the judge says, "Okay, you're found in judgment of $1 million, if you have the civil liability protection, then that is a dedicated $1 million. So it's not a wasting policy where, if the cost of the trial was $400,000, then you have $600,000 left over. That's a wasting policy. So that's taken out of that million. Ours is the dedicated millions. So if you have $400,000 trial costs, then you still have $1 million dedicated on that civil liability policy because it's a add-on separate policy or a separate membership. So, that's just one point I wanted to make. Stan Campbell: Absolutely. Just piggybacking both of your thoughts, I want to caution everyone who hasn't made a decision to get coverage thus far. I wanna caution you to truly be careful about how some of these companies market their product. And really, at the end of the day, anybody that's watched a used car dealerships commercial or you've been up at night and, you've got, while you are punch, drunk and tired, you end up buying something from a commercial when you know you went to purchase that thing in the morning. Be cautious of the tricks that are associated even in our industry. Because some of these companies, I mean, wow, they are masterful in their marketing attempts. Stan Campbell: Some these companies spend more money on marketing than they do on their members. No, we don't. But there's a reason for that. We keep all of our resources for you guys when you need it, and of our stuff is word of mouth as well, but I want you to be careful because they use a lot of scare tactics, videos, to scare you into submission, and buying their product so that you think that the civil liability is your first fight, and it is not. Stan Campbell: I mean, if you can do any research, because part of my job is to research the industry, and in doing so, I challenge anyone listening to my voice at this time, to locate three, more than three, incidents across the nation, in the past 20 years, in which a concealed carrier has used legitimate self-defense, and has won a criminal trial, but the system allow a civil proceeding to continue and a civil suit to go through, and in that they actually lose a civil suit because, Number I, you're not gonna find too many where someone that is not or that's acquitted of the criminal charges, are not protected by the state for the civil proceedings. But you're not going to find any, unless you find it in Philadelphia. I think I found one in Philadelphia. Philadelphia is the only place that you might find one or two, where someone has won a criminal case and they lost the civil ... The civil was allowed and they lost it, and they had damages. Stan Campbell: So, I'm saying all that to say, you being sued for your use of force, if you just hit the suspect ... If you just hit the suspect, it's so small of a chance. We only deal with, to be honest with our listeners, 0.1% of our members, there are tens of thousand of them, 0.1% get involved in the deadly use of force incident. 0.1%. Less than that, 0.1% of that, will be those involved in a civil proceeding. In the seven years that we've been doing business, and we serviced a lot of members in shooting cases, We've only had one that went to the beginnings of a civil proceeding before we were able to resource it out and to negotiate it out. We have not had anyone, and we have not had to pay out, on a civil lawsuit. Stan Campbell: And we and we do the most work out of everyone. We're the only ones with a documented use of force by one of our members that went from an allegation of murder and completed an entire murder trial with the Stephen Maddox case. We're actually sitting on two other deadly force cases that we cannot mention for confidentiality reasons. But I need you guys to know that. And challenge these companies. When they tell you, "Hey, we've got a gun for you." Or, "Hey, we've got this and that," or, "We'll give you extra two months on your service if you join us now," challenge them and say, "How much work have you done? Show me. How many members have you paid out on civil cases?" They're not gonna be able to produce anything because it just doesn't happen that often. Stan Campbell: So, you guys, be careful about that because it's really tricky in the way they bring you in. Just like Mike talked about the wasting policy. Nobody really knows what that is. They think with somebody tells them that you have $2 million of coverage, you go, "Well, my God, that's twice the amount of everybody else's coverage." Well, really it's not. They're saying, out of all of the things that you can do, all of the little elements that you can use them for and you can be resourced for, that it amounts to that. The problem is, it wastes and it takes away for every dollar that you use, and it starts off with $100,000 for a retainer if you take someone's life. That's where they turn you. Stan Campbell: You can do your own independent research on this, guys. Look at the industry, check with your local criminal defense attorneys, ask anyone that has tried cases for murder, how much do they require for a retainer. And the retainer just readily, it started working. That's not all that it cost. So, I want you guys just to be mindful of that because it's scary. Stan Campbell: This is why we're so upfront with you guys and we're so truthful. Number I, we all come from a background of servicing citizens, but we like to lead with honesty, integrity, and good character, and it stands by and it supports our core values as well. So, we give you information in support of our core values. Mike: Yes. Next up, David. David Darter: Okay. So, I think next we came out with some new plans here. It was late 2017, fourth quarter of 2017, and anybody that had plans, who'd had been a member with us longer than that, you were grandfathered in with what you had. And so, basically, pretty much what happened was they just renamed the plans and made a few changes like bond amount. David Gardner: So, if you had the military law enforcement plan, which was what it was called up until 2017, and you go to the site now, what you're gonna wanna look at is the protector plan. 'Cause the difference, one of the main differences between what you have and that protector plan is the amount of the bond. Unless you've upgraded to the $1 million bond on the old plans, you're covered for $250,000 bond and the new plans cover up to $500,000 bond on the basic plans. Mike: And David, before we go any ... Or I'm gonna let you wrap this up, then I'll talk about the bond. David Darter: Okay, all right. So, if you had the military law enforcement, you would basically wanna look at the protector plan, which is the renamed plan with some changes. If you had the annual single membership, you can look at the defender plan. And if you had the dual membership, it would be either one of the protector or defender with spouse. So, we get that a lot. You are grandfathered into those. You could keep those as long as you want. A lot of members do, but you do not have to update, upgrade, or switch to one of the new plans. Stan Campbell: Yeah, and then just to cut and jump in real quick David, hey guys, remember you're allowed the grandfather in as long as your automated payment does not stop. If you're automated payment because there's a guy that they'd have to e-mail you. But there's a guy that allowed his payment to lapse back in 2018, and back then he was on the 129 payment plan, which is our old basic. He wants to get the 129 plan again, and it's just we can't do that. I mean, if you allow your payment to continue on, then you can be grandfathered in. Stan Campbell: If it does cease and you stop it, and you try to come back later, we can't give you that. We're not selling that any longer. I mean, it doesn't even compute. We can only allow it to continue. Our computer doesn't allow us to go back to that price because it's not attached any longer. You cannot get the old plans. We know what the pricing in the old plans if you did not have it and it's not a continuous cycle. That's the point of being grandfathered in. Just to let you guys know, that that came from Mike Darter. Stan Campbell: Mike Darter wanted to take care of those who wanted to hold their pricing, but at the same time, when he explains the reason for us changing the standard, which he will do in a minute, there's a reason why we did what we did and moved away from those plans. We're trying to give you guys more protection. If you don't mind, I might just jump in real quick and handle that, and we will let David finish. Mike: Yeah. So there's two things that went into this decision. One was the Maddox trial, and one was the fact that his bail was set at $500,000 just based on the fact that there was a man that was killed and he was the shooter. Didn't really take anything into effect about the case, about that it was a self-defense case. I mean, that was just based on the fact that, "Your honor, we have one dead, we have one deceased, and this man shot him." Boom! $500,000. Mike: Again, there's another- Stan Campbell: Hey Mike, also I think that was because he lived in another county. So he lived outside that county as well, is reason why. They made that soft justification 'cause it is really weak what they used that one. Mike: All right. Yeah, it was weak. There's another article that came out on priceonomics.com, and I'll try to put this in a show notes but it was on America's peculiar bail system. It came out kind of talking about the Freddie Gray in Baltimore, and some of the other cases. And it was really a kind of a more liberal piece talking about, why is bail for murder cases so much higher than the other cases? Mike: In the bail system, you have bail starting at $1,000 or so going up to, I think it was around $55,000 for most cases, felony cases, and then, I think it went up to $250,000 for rape and sexual cases, and then murder cases, manslaughter cases, jumped to $500,000 to a million. It was basically saying that the bail system is unfair, but it's just another key piece that made us realize that if we have, in the case of Steven Maddox, he had coverage for up to a million dollars bail. If he would have got that bail set at $500,000 and would have had the standard $250,000, we might not have been able to get him out of jail. Stan Campbell: Yeah. And the reason why Mike says that is because, we would pay 10% or up to 10%, which would be 25,000, and Stephen would have had to pay 25,000, which he did not have. Mike: One of the whole things that we have to worry about, that we have to kinda moderate with our members is, keeping them in the best physical, mental, and emotional shape to prepare them for that trial. We can only do so much. If somebody is in jail and cannot get out of jail, and some people think, "Well, if I could get a bond out." Well, you might bond out. The judge may say he's not issuing any bail. And in the case of Stephen Maddox, it was 30 days later. He's gonna miss Thanksgiving with his family. Mike: We were able to get that within, I think, eight days or seven days, something. But, we have to make sure that our members stay healthy emotionally, mentally, physically to prepare them for this time. Stephen went to a two-year trial process before he even went to trial. You can see from some of the videos of Stephen, there are many days that he woke up and he didn't really want to even stick around. As far as, he just wanted to just give up. He would call our critical response coordinator, which was John Risenhoover at that time, which did a phenomenal job on that. Stan Campbell: He did. Mike: He had dietary guidelines and workout regimens for Steven. So that's why we said, "If there's a case of a self-defense case that is gonna be a murder 1 charge, a murder 2 , manslaughter, it's going to be most likely $500,000 or more. Stan Campbell: Sure. Mike: And if we can better cover our members, that's why we took our bail up to $500,000 'cause we didn't wanna have to have one of our members get stuck in a situation where, based on our terms of service, that we couldn't help them and get them out. That's another reason why, if you look at our website, our whole site ... We do three posts a week. Last week, we didn't do a podcast. We kinda took a week off because we've been re-strategizing some things. This week we're back on and every Wednesday we're gonna have a podcast, or try to I can't say that we will for sure have one, but we're gonna try to do this weekly. Mike: We've been doing weekly for the last three, four months. We also have posts every Friday from Shawn Vincent and Don Weston, in self-defense, which looks at high profile cases and what they did right, what they did wrong. We also have posts by either us, or Steve Moses, or Bob O'Connor on Mondays, and all those, if you look at our site, all those are trying to help people to avoid these situations. So, if we can help our members avoid these situations and give them examples of what should be done, and we're doing the best we can to help them mitigate the risk, that they're not gonna be in a situation that is not gonna be defendable as self-defense. So that's the whole reason why we took that. Mike: I'll put that link in the show notes, it's priceonomics.com. If you search America's peculiar bail system, you'll probably get it in a search and you can look at it. It has all the kinda statistics on that. Based on that and the fact that we had our own experience with Steven Maddox is why we took that up. Stan Campbell: That's right. I couldn't say anything better than that, Mike. That was awesome. What Mike is saying ... Like I said, we invite you guys to grandfather your plans, but our new standard, and we're trying to make this to the industry's. The standard is a $500,000 bail coverage. I think there's only one other company that has matched that standard, but that's where actually they tap out. We tap out at a million dollar bank coverage. Stan Campbell: But the reason why we do that, like Mike said, we really need you guys out of jail. It doesn't help us at all for you to stay in jail. If Steven Maddox would have, and I know you didn't hear the numbers from Michael, right? If he couldn't get out of jail, please understand that's two years in jail waiting for trial. That's not where you wanna be. And for $50 or more, and that's the reason why we made the increase to 170 now, for the defender plan, you get the $500,000 coverage. Stan Campbell: So, even all of you who are coming up on your renewal date, please do, do so thinking about how should I be covered? Or do I have? Or really, you don't have to upgrade because it's really not about the money for us. We're just trying to help you. Put $25,000 aside in a savings account so that you can match our $25,000 so we can get you out of jail. And if you don't have that, like most Americans, please allow us to take the financial burden off of you. That's it. David Darter: All right. Let's move on to the next one. On the dual plans, we have quite a few people. Lot of members getting the ultimate plan now where it automatically covers a spouse. And the question that always comes up is, where do I put my wife's name and why is she not showing up on the account? David Darter: Most likely, she's there. If you go to your ... If you log into your account, or if you're in your account, and you go to My Memberships, you'll the primary membership card, and then right next to it, you'll be able to sign a second card. Now, that second card is therefore your spouse only. That's not for a friend that lives in another town or anything like that, that's for your spouse. David Darter: So, if you go to that, you'll be able to enter your spouse information and then she will be listed right there next to you. And you can look at her membership card if you like, by, I think there's a view button, or you can click on her account number that's there. But that's where you'll enter your spouse's name, and that's what that second card is for. It is for a spouse for one of the dual memberships. We have a lot of people that think that that's, "Hey can I put somebody else in there? Can I put my neighbor in there?" Whatever. That's not the case for that. It is for spouse only. You can do that under the My Membership selection under My Account on the top menu bar. Stan Campbell: That's right. David Gardner: Just like- Mike: Ultimate plan has a lot of ... If you haven't looked at that, it has a civil liability. I mean, it's our top-tier plan. It has everything available. So, if you do have a spouse, whether they just wanna be covered in the home or if they do have a permit, that would be a great plan to look at. Stan Campbell: That's right. And then also, that plan still does cover you guys for your spouse if you wanna cover her for provisional terms. She'll be covered on the provisional terms as well, but she will not be covered for civil liability. Only the primary is. Because we get that question as well. Unless you add civil liability, that's an additional $220 a year, you make the decision whether or not it's worth it. Weigh out the options of your wife. If she carries, she doesn't have as much as you do in public while you guys are together, weigh out the options whether or not you wanna pay that. We don't push that upon you. We leave it up to the member whether or not they wanna just be primary covered or not. Stan Campbell: But please understand, she is not covered, or he ... Your spouse is not covered unless you have that additional civil liability coverage. And David Darter explained that yes they do get civil defense. And although David said unlimited, sort of you guys are gonna use our words against us, what that really means is that, your defense funds are not capped for everything needed to prepare you for, or to get through trial. Because something might say there is no such thing as unlimited. There is a limit. When the trial's over, then that's over. Stan Campbell: We don't have a cut-step plan. That's one of the reasons why our defender plan, we can match against ... And that's our standard plan. Our defender plan, we can match against most companies' higher plans because we created the ultimate plan through the brilliance of Mike Darter to be the best in the nation [inaudible 00:53:59], and the most amount of benefits for the most reasonable amount of cost. So, for 4.99, you get all of that, that we give you, and it covers a lot. Stan Campbell: And people that don't understand, even those companies that they say, "You have over $2 million of coverage," but look at the coverage you have for your defense. Because if you'd only have $500,000 of coverage or less, to $250,000 of coverage, say this is worse, for your defense, when that money runs out, where do you think it's coming from? They're not gonna just say, "Hey you, I owe you. It comes from the member." So, when they say, "This is all you need," or, "You only need 20% because we're a reimbursement plan," please don't fall for that. Use your good judgment, please understand what happens in these cases, and how much money you would need. If you run out of money, if your plan runs out of money with these other companies, you're gonna pay. That's it. Stan Campbell: Now David. David Darter: Okay. All right. Next one I just wanted to touch on was credit cards. With credit cards, we have a lot of people that will have a change of address. And they change their address in their mailing address, in their profile, but because billing addresses can be different than mailing addresses, if you change your address in your profile, you'll also need to go into your billing information, which is under My Subscriptions. You can go in there. There's a Change Payment Method, you can go in and change that, and make sure you get that changed there as well. Because if you change your profile address, it does not automatically change your billing address. Stan Campbell: That's correct. David Darter: Absolutely. Stan Campbell: Yeah. The reason why they've told you guys that is because your plan is gonna fail. It is gonna fall. You went in and changed your profile, but you didn't go in and change what you need. And he's giving you that information now that let's you know, go in there and edit your credit card. Don't get mad at us because you get a failure and it has a mismatch. It's just part of the system. You need to upgrade it, just like you would at your bank. All of these need to be upgraded. And it's the same thing for us, you gotta update that information so that it doesn't fail. David Darter: And the failure is the security. Stan Campbell: Yeah, is is. David Darter: It's therefore your security. So yeah, that's just something that we don't wanna change a lot for people because they don't realize that but they can do that right there on their own account. So, I think the last thing I wanted to just touch on was our membership cards. At the end of 2017, I did a digital membership card, which is a membership card that you can download to a phone, iPhone or Android, and have it with you always on your phone. It just gives you another place to have our emergency information. David Darter: The wallet card is is not automatically sent out any longer. However, if you have to have a wallet card, then you can always request that by just sending me an email at david@ccwsafe.com, and we will send you one. But it's not an automatic thing. The digital card is a card of choice, currently. Stan Campbell: That's correct. And then, in saying that too, David, guys please remember, 'cause I know that there's some folks that either don't have a ... There's a small number of you don't have a smartphone, or you're just old school, because this is what I say all time, "I'm old school. I need something in my pocket." Even if you request one from Dave and he sends it out to you, I just wanna caution you guys again. Although we used to back when we first started ... We used to say, "Show them your CCW Safe membership card and say that you're having a lawyer on the way, we no longer do that. I mean, we put that word out a couple of years ago, that we don't want to sway a decision of a responding officer, investigator, or anyone, that you planned for this to happen. So, we don't wanna give that to them. All we need you to do is say that, "Hey, I will give you the details of this incident in the presence of my attorney, and I've already called my attorney." Stan Campbell: So, to just add another quick one before Michael closes this down, but that's also why we want you guys, don't stay on the phone with 911. Do it long enough to give them your description, that you've been attacked and you had to defend your life. You need medical and police. Get off the phone and call us. Because we do that, we tell you that for a reason. We don't want you to have to say, "Here's my card." You don't have to try to make a phone call in a police car, in front of a police car, because of the videotapes, the car cams, and anything you say in the police department as well, you don't have any expectation of privacy initially. When you make a phone call there, everything's recorded. And they wanna take you to a recorded interview room for your statement. Stan Campbell: So, please know that if you want your phone call with the lawyers to be privilege, do it prior to the officers getting there, from a safe place. Make sure that you're not in high shot of the suspect, get behind cover, and make the call. Even if there's a car or something like that. Stan Campbell: I had to add that. Sorry Mike. Mike: No, you're good. You're good. It is going on rather than an hour, so we're gonna have to turn off. Shut it down. Mike: Do we have any other questions that we wanna address today? David Gardner: I don't have any. We are constantly trying to keep questions updated on our FAQ page. So, it's always good to go look there first. I think most of our main questions that we get asked over and over are on that Frequently Asked Questions page. Stan Campbell: Hey, Mike. Can I ask? I have one more and I'll get off of it. Mike: Yeah. Stan Campbell: Just because it comes up so much. This is for those guys who really concentrate on the forums and the information they're getting about zones that say no guns. I'm gonna talk about this real quick before I have to bring it back later, 'cause I'm gonna David back. Although Dave is saying he doesn't have anything, we doesn't have time for you, he went to come back and assess for Part II. But no gun zones, if it is a felony or a misdemeanor in itself to possess a firearm at a location like a federal building et cetera, you're not covered. You're outside the scope of coverage because it's illegal to do so. You know that. Stan Campbell: If you are in a state in which it is not a misdemeanor crime to walk on to private property of someone else's, and it only becomes a crime after they tell you to leave and you refuse to do so, the crime of trespassing, if you accept that charge of trespassing you refuse to leave, you're outside of the scope of your coverage. If you agree to leave, or if they don't know that you have it and you accidentally ... Stop trying to challenge these, don't use us to challenge people. If you accidentally walk on to property and you didn't see their sign, and something happens you defend others and then they come back with a charge, and they didn't tell you to leave, we will cover you. Stan Campbell: If you will on your way out after they tell you to leave, and Al-Qaeda or ISIS comes in the front door and you handle the threat, we will cover you. So, I just want you guys to know, this is not a game for us. This is really not a Second Amendment issue. This is about using deadly force, which is not a Second Amendment issue. We're trying to protect you from yourself as well. So, please, stop trying to challenge these things and know how you're covered. Stan Campbell: Go Michael. Mike: Well, I'm just gonna say, a lot of the examples we get from people, the only answer is, "Well, that would be a challenge case and that's not what we're here for." Like Stan said, that's why we put all these case studies and stuff online, so you can see what other people have done, and what life sentences other people have gotten for what they've done, and it's just not worth it. Mike: (silence) Mike: (music)  

In this episode of the Houston Home Talk, Mike Wall of Love Ohio Living and James talk about the detailed roadmap for changing business over to EXP, consistency, and branding.Quotes : " If we do get somebody to say yes, then we got a shot at a six-figure income."" You'll get what you want if you can help other people get what they want. "Mentions:Website: http://loveohioliving.comShownotes: 1:04: Response from other people to the interviews2:07 Mike started real state business04:45 Mike talking about consistency08:45 - Mike talks about branding 19:24 - Team Structure 20: 48 - Mike's favorite books and podcasts.Full Transcript:[00:03] INTRO: Welcome to Houston home talk featuring all things real estate in the Houston area. We'll interview real estate professionals, local business owners, and special guests from right here in the Houston community. This is where you get the inside scoop about what's new in real estate, new community openings and business openings and much more. The Houston Home Talk Show starts right now.[00:32] JAMES: All right guys welcome. What's up? This is James J. Welcome to Houston Home Talk. I am excited today to have my man Mike Wall from Dayton, Ohio. What's up Mike? How are you today?[00:43] MIKE: Yes sir. Baby, I'm so happy to be here, man. I'm so happy to help. We'll be able to drop some value on your audience today, brother.[00:50] JAMES: Yeah. Listen, I have been watching you now for several months as you have been doing a lot of interviews with a lot of the new people that have been moving over to EXP Realty. I want to say thank you because a lot of the content that you've been providing, I know I've used, I forwarded it to people and I know that the value that you're providing is helpful to a lot of people. You and I met in New Orleans last month. I've been watching you for several months. As soon as we met, there was several people that came up to you and said, hey, thanks Mike. I know you're reaching people. [01:21] MIKE: Yeah.[01:22] JAMES: You're helping people because a lot of people can't do what you're doing in the way that you do it so thank you for that. I wanted to ask you so I want to just start, so you've been doing a lot of these interviews, a lot of Facebook Live interviews. I want to get people introduced you. I want to ask you real quick, what's been the response from other people to the interviews that you've been doing with the new people that have joining EXP?[01:42] MIKE: Yeah. No, it's a great question man. It's really been overwhelming more than I even thought and really the whole reason if I back up and just telling you the reason why I started doing the podcast… [01:52] JAMES: Right.[01:53] MIKE:…is because I knew that we were building something special. I also knew that changes is big. Change is big for everybody involved and especially the for those people who are team leaders in running a business. I wanted to give those people a platform to be able to share their unique story with the world and in hopes that somebody out there might identify with them and be able to make an intelligent decision about where their business went and then also providing a detailed roadmap for change if they decided to move their business over to EXP. Then also kind of lastly is just to provide insight on people curious about learning more about EXP.[02:34] JAMES: Right? Yeah. Let's get to know a little bit about you because I know you have been in the business. You've been licensed for about 16 years or so. You started full time…was it 2014 when you were officially started full time? [02:45] MIKE: I did it. I got a unique story. I've had my license since 2002. I actually got into the business just as a buyer specialist for one of the top agents here in our marketplace. A guy named Phil Herman who worked for Remax is a big deal man. The guy was selling like 300 properties back like when nobody knew about teams. When I got into the business I just thought, man, I don't want to try to learn all this on my own. What I'll do is I'll take a little bit less of a commission split to go under somebody who actually has all the knowledge for what I want to do, right? I worked with Phil 2002 to 2009 and we all know what happened in 2008-2009. The market just completely crashed.I actually got out of real estate. I kept my license but I went to work back in corporate America and I did that for five years. I was working for a company that was based out of Blue Ash, which is a suburb of Cincinnati and I was selling copiers, man. It is a grind doing that. I did that for five years. I knew I wouldn't do that long term and I knew I would get into real estate. [03:43] JAMES: Right. [03:44] MIKE: In 2013 in about October, I started calling the expires in 2013. In 2014 May I had 44 listings and I went to my wife and I said, honey, it's costing me more to be at my corporate job than it is to be here in real estate. She said, you know what? She said, do your thing man. That first year went out and sold 57 houses. Second year in the business, sold 104 houses, third year sold 187 houses and then fourth year I sold 309 houses. I just haven't looked back, man. There's so much obviously that goes in between there because now you know, I'm operating as a team. I've got some great team members. I got a great business partner now. We've opened up a whole world with investing and so forth.[04:30] JAMES: Now let me touch on this because it seems pretty simple. One of the things that I love about you is the consistency. I know you've been doing a lot of live coaching calls. Obviously you've been doing this for several years, calling the expires. [04:41] MIKE: Yup.[04:43] JAMES: One of the things that I tell a lot of new agents is what you think, because everybody just assumes everybody's calling the expires. I've heard you mentioned this in the video, a lot of people will stop calling after the fourth time or even a third time in a lot of cases. Obviously you were consistent. What made you focus on the expires? Because as a new agent, that's one of the things that I always tell people to do. Focus on expires. You can get that information and just keep consistent, stay consistent with it. What made you start? What was the thing that kind of got you to focus on the expires when you first started?[05:17] MIKE: Yeah. No man. That's a legitimate question because if you think about it, I mean everybody's good at something, right? Everybody can always make up the excuse that I'm not good at something and typically it's because they either don't have the experience or they're just not willing to try. For me, when I moved here, I went to high school and was raised mostly in to Dallas, Fort Worth area. I moved to Ohio and went to college at Ohio State. Go Bucks. I met my wife there and my wife was from this small town, which is a Northern Cincinnati, Southern Dayton suburb called Springboro. I didn't have a personal network. I didn't have a lot of people that I could tap into. I just thought, well, what is the next best thing? I knew I could grind it out on the phones because I had done in B to B sales selling copiers, right?[06:03] JAMES: Right. [06:05] MIKE: There's no science behind it, man. I just did it. You talked about consistency and that's, that's really what it was. It's just doing it. It's repetitions in the gym, right? It's like every day you show up. You put in your reps. You work hard, and then the magic starts to happen, man.[06:20] JAMES: Right. Yeah. That consistency thing is very difficult, especially for us because there's no one to tell us to do anything.[06:27] MIKE: Right.[06:29] JAMES: Everyone wants to get in the business, but then lacking the discipline to do what you did for three years and still continue to do to this day with the Expires. It's something tells you is you have a schedule and you got to work. It's hard to do. It is hard because stuff comes up. It's hard to stay consistent. If you really want to make it and you're a prime example, everybody that's calling these Expires, they're not doing it consistently. They just don't. I know it. In Houston, it's the same thing. We've got 30,000 agents here. We've got a lot of expires but of that 30,000 there's only a handful of people that are actually consistent with it. As a matter of fact you knew that and you stuck with it and clearly it works.[07:09] MIKE: I want your audience to understand something too James is that the great thing about calling the Expires is not everyone's is going to say yes, right? We are fortunate enough to work in an industry where the margins, if you do get a yes, are very large, and I always tell my team this, right? We live in a market in southwest Ohio here where the average price point is not really high, right? Our team average sale price is $178,000. Our market. Average sale price is $130,000 but you can still make a six figure income here if you just get one yes, every week because our agents average commission check is 25.50 and if you take 25.50 and divide that out over 50 weeks, you've got a nice income, right?[07:48] JAMES: Absolutely, yeah.[07:50] MIKE: Really we just focus…we have our team focus on that one yes per week, right? We understand when we pick up the phone that the odds are against us, right? We understand that most people are not going to answer the phone and if they answer, most people are not going to set an appointment. We understand also that if we do get somebody to answer it, if we do get somebody to say yes, then we got a shot at a six figure income.[08:10] JAMES: Absolutely. Yeah, and you know there's a couple of books I've got but the go for no is one. Darren Hardy, I love Darren Hardy. December is going to be here tomorrow and I bring this up because his book talks about the format. There's this habit, habit, habit, habit and what he used to do when he was in real estate back in the day, he would just look for no's. The more no's you get, you're just closer to that yes. At some point somebody is going to say yes and I'm a huge Darren…the compound effect. That's what that's saying in the book, compound effect. I love that book. Usually we'll bring it up every single year around this time of year and I go through it and I'll operates during the year because it's a great book about the discipline of habits. In this business. it is key to everything is self-discipline to be able to, to continue to do that. Props to you on that. Now I wanted to ask you, so I heard in the interview that you had mentioned that you had back when you started full time back '04, 2014-2015. I guess a couple of years into it. You switch from the wall group over to love Ohio living, LOL team.[09:05] MIKE: I did. I did.[09:07] JAMES: Explain why did you did that? I think I know the answer. I wanted my audience to understand why did you do that? Why did you think that was important to get your name off the brand and brand it to level high live in which you did.[09:18] MIKE: Yeah. No, that's a great question. There's arguments for both sides.For me personally, I thought it was more sustainable to build a business that didn't have my name on it. I didn't think people would sustainably work to build my business. I thought that together, if we formed something that we could all believe in and all row the same direction, that didn't have my name on it. In another words, it's like a football team, right? If you think of the Dallas cowboys, right? Who did beat the Saints last night which…[09:50] JAMES: Yes, they did. Yeah.[09:51] MIKE: if you think of the Dallas Cowboys, they're not called the Jerry Jones, right? They're called the Dallas Cowboys. Jerry Jones owns the cowboys, but everybody has their respective position for the Dallas cowboys. When they come together, they make a team, right? I wanted to do is I wanted to take the level how living team and I wanted to galvanize everybody around that.What that stood for was elite level agents being able to plug their businesses in to our tool systems and resources to go out and sell as many houses as they want. Not, they plugged into Mike Wall and just took every, all my leftovers, right? Because there is a team model that works that way and I just don't believe it's sustainable. The statistics show, I mean, the shelf life on those type of a team, the shelf life of the agent is much lower, right? Because what happens is they come in, in most cases and they build them up and then those agents, they want to go do the same thing whereas now we have an agent on our team. It's like Natalie Rose, right? Is an agent on our team? It's Natalie Rose with the level higher living team at a power broker by EXP Realty, right? Her name goes on the sign. We just have our LOL logo. Frankly, it's not that I would ever sell my business, but if you think of it like this, James who's going to buy Mike Wall real estate without Mike Wall.[11:09] JAMES: Yeah. [11:10] MIKE: You know what I mean? [11:11] JAMES: Now you're, you're right on. That's a key when we talk about marketing branding because I f struggled with that as well earlier and having my name. I agree with you completely. I think the buy in from your team is much more when you have LOL Level Higher Living. I love that you did that. That's a key. That's a nugget for people to really look at that because like you say there's arguments both ways. I'm actually on board with you as far as the branding and not having your name attached to it for the long term, long term that's a great idea. Good information there. Let me ask you, so from all the interviews that you've been doing with a lot of the EXP Agents that have been mourning, it's been absolutely crazy the growth that we've had. You joined back, was it February of this year is when you guys moved over? [11:55] MIKE: Yes sir, it'd be a year. [11:58] JAMES: Montel Williams, you moved over. What's been the best or the most surprising thing, specifically from the people that you have interviewed? Because I don't know if you've got to off the top of your head how many people you've interviewed since you started the show.[12:10] MIKE: Probably around 20, 25 at this point.[12:13] JAMES: Okay. Okay. What's been maybe one of the biggest surprises or maybe common similarities? Because everybody's story's a little different. I probably have watched virtually every video interview that you've done. Everybody's story just a little bit different. What have you found that maybe something that's maybe been similar from a lot of the people that you've spoken to? [12:30] MIKE: Yeah. I have them. Something instantly pops to mind and because it really not only has it surprised me that this is what I've learned from them. It is something that we never expected when we came over. I'm learning now when I talked to people in those interviews is that it's the same thing for them, right? What I'm learning is that the community. It's the community that we've created. It's the people that now we're able to tap into, right? Because like Jay Kinder and Mike Reese, the NEA group, right? They used to run this mastermind that was like a $25,000 buy in, right? Now they're doing that mastermind for free. [13:09] JAMES: Yeah. [13:10] MIKE: Right? We're talking about Kinder was the number one, number two guy for COA banker in the world at one time, right? He's one of the smartest guys in real estate. When you're able to plug in to those guys like I could shoot him a text right now and get a response from him, right? The same thing with Kyle Whistle, the same thing with Dan Beer. I mean we're talking about some of the biggest real estate teams and smartest real estate minds in the business.For me that was the biggest surprise man, is the fact that now we've created this fantastic community of learning and sharing and just growth and excitement, man. That's an easy answer for me. [13:50] JAMES: Yeah, you and I, we've got a lot of similar circles as far as NEA. I've been with NEA probably since 2011. Actually, back then it was just Kinder-Reese. I've been following Jay for years. He's one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. Yes, I also coached with them him well. You're right. When now you've gotten to exponential growth summit back in the day. [14:06] MIKE: I never did go to that believe it or not. Yeah, I never went.[14:12] JAMES: Okay.[14:13] MIKE: I coached with NEA. I didn't exponential growth. [14:17] JAMES: Right. The funny thing now is that with EXP, with all these big name ages moving over, and you're right, the community and the collaboration. I know we keep using these words over. It's true. When you're in it and you and I were here where we both are at EXPN. We've been able to see it. The fact that you're right that I could call Jay right now. I've paid thousands and thousands of dollars to Jay to coach me. Now that same information, I could still get it and get access to him with literally just picking up the phone right now. That's been one of the biggest, pleasant things that I've seen as well. For a lot of people that are not, or maybe looking at the opportunity right now other than the collaboration, what else is maybe been one of the things that's been a plus for you? [15:03] MIKE: What I want to add to that real quick is that I don't want people to take that for granted because a lot of people I think represent EXP the wrong way. You're trying to get people, you're calling people that you don't know and you're trying to get them to move for revenue share or stock. That's not enough to get people to move. It's like you need to figure out what if we understand at the end of the day, right? That map is more valuable than the treasure. Then you understand that that knowledge that you can get through collaboration, that's where the treasure is, right?That's the map to the treasure. To be able to collaborate with those guys in a mastermind group. These guys are doing stuff at a level that we just haven't thought of or haven't gotten to in our businesses yet. For that person out there who's doing $10 million or $20 million a year that wants to get to 20 million or 40 million or a 100 million, right. The difference between them, where they're at right now and where they want to be is that roadmap, right? When you join EXP, you're able to tap into that right away, right, through the collaboration and relationships that you'll build here. I wanted to make sure that your audience was crystal clear on that because although revenue share is fantastic and the opportunity to be an owner through stock is fantastic. It's not the only reason you should join EXP, right?[16:28] JAMES: Yeah. No question about it. Yeah. I think the excitement around it is just because it hasn't been done this way before. [16:33] MIKE: Yeah. [16:37] JAMES: You start looking at the opportunity down the road. I could not agree with you more, Mike. That component of EXP has gotten a lot of publicity. I think as far as representing EXP, a lot of people would probably get a little turned off because everybody's talking about the revenue shift. You are right. That's not really for me the number one reason. It is the fact that you get to collaborate. You and I would not be talking right now. We aren't talking right now if it wasn’t for EXP. I wouldn't be able to call collar or anybody for that matter. It's genuine. When we went to the EXP con last month it's genuine. People are just really willing to help you with whatever because it does benefit us all when we all succeed. Where it used to be you have freinemies and you interviewed with Tammy yesterday?[17:25] MIKE: Tammy was day before. You're talking about Mary Simons Malone. I love them so much. Yes, she was frienemies with Kyle Whistle, right? They worked at competing brokerages in San Diego. She talked about that too with the collaboration now with Dan and Kyle who were formerly her biggest competition, right?[17:44] JAMES: Yeah, Yeah. Huge, huge, huge, huge. That's awesome. Couple more questions for you Mike, before I let you get on out of here. Again, you said the response from people because I saw people coming up to you and we're at the EXP last month which is pretty cool. As we were in the middle of talking,[17:59] MIKE: Let me one more thing James before because I know you asked me and I'll try not to be too long winded here. I want to make sure that people understand the value of what the model at EXP has to offer no matter where you're at in your business because you asked also what was another thing that I had learned or what was another reason that we moved and what we learned through our move, and I'm hearing back from obviously a lot of these team leaders in our interviews is the fact that I had a decision to make personally when I moved. We were opening up our own market center. We had approval through KWRI. We were opening. In fact, that market center has now opened without me. Right? [18:34] JAMES: Okay. [18:35] MIKE: Some other person or group came in and took my place. I was supposed to be an owner at that market center and EXP was put into my lap, right? We had a decision to make right away and that decision was, do I move forward with my plans with Keller Williams to open this market center, right? Or do I move my team to EXP? I'll tell you what it came down to. It came down to what was better for my team, right? Ultimately the reason why EXP want one out is because the move to Keller Williams would have been a lateral move. Actually it would have been a worst move for them because the CAP was going up at the new office. It would have only been a win for me, right? I could have been an owner at that office and that would have been great, right? Our Ego loves that, right? I'm an owner. Ultimately if I knew I wanted it to be successful through my team. That's what I want and ultimately to be able to provide them the best platform for success, right? I knew that I had to make the decision to move to EXP because now I can offer them things that I never could before. That is through revenue share and that is through who stocks, right? Now, they can become owners. They have a vested interest after three years. They have two exceptional wealth building tools that they never had access to before.[19:46] JAMES: Absolutely, yeah. That same message as I go around talking with agents in my market, same message. My team is definitely not structured because your team structure right now is, consists of what? How is your team set up right now?[19:57] MIKE: We serve two markets. We serve Dayton-Ohio market and also the Cincinnati-Ohio market. [20:02] JAMES: Okay. [20:03] MIKE: We have 25 agents. We also have a listing manager and a contract manager and then an office manager as well. [20:10] JAMES: Right. [20:11] MIKE: I have Director of operations/ co-owner and a guy named Jump Welski.[20:16] JAMES: Yeah. You've got a pretty big a machine going up there and a lot of people being affected by your decision, all tweets and make that move over to the EXP, which is not something to be taken lightly by any means. I've spoken to a lot of other agents. I don't know. I've watched a lot of your interviews with people. It's a tough decision because it's not just you that you're affecting here. It's a ton of people that are affected by your decision, good or bad one way or the other. I don't think there's really any downside to EXP. I'm going to be a little biased, but the other revenue models or other revenue streams that we have available is great. The fact that we can collaborate with people all over the country at this point and soon it'd be international, 2019-2020 which is a pretty exciting where the company's. I compare what we're doing now with EXP and how Glenn has set this up and the fact that you are not going to have a conversation. You and I could talk to each day. Three quick questions I want to ask you. First question is what are you reading right now? I know you're always seeking knowledge. I know. Are you reading anything right now that…[21:20] MIKE: Let me make it up for you man. I'll tell you right now. I usually have a couple of different books going on. I do love to read and I do love to listen to podcasts. I'm listening to… this is not a business book but its called sleep smart. I don't do fitness coaching, but I have a fitness coach too. He sends me books. I'm also listening to the Perfect Day Formula and that's by Craig Valentine. I'm listening to it another book called The Swerve. That's a good book. It's funny man, because if you do a lot of reading or if you listen to podcasts, you always get ideas about books from other people, right? It seems like one book leads to another write. One book mentions another and then you pop that in audible and you read that. I think one really good nugget and you and your audience should write this down if you haven't heard it already is listen to that recent, the most recent Maxout podcast with Ed Mylett, where he talks to you. UOP baseball team. That is so good, man. It is so powerful. I've shared that with my entire team. I listened to it probably every other morning because it just so resonates with me, especially as you transitioned into 2019. If you need something to get you up and light a fire under your butt and it is great, great material, man. [22:26] JAMES: Yeah, I have my last. He's awesome. He is awesome. That's the beauty of a podcast is or an audio book for that matter just to be able to listen to it at any point of your day, at any time. It really doesn't matter where you're at nowadays. You can just pop that in and listen to us. I have not heard that one. I will make sure that I listened to it. I'm actually post the links so people can get just click where and go right into it. [22:46] MIKE: Awesome. [22:47] JAMES: I'm an avid, avid reader as well. There's always something that I pick up. The knowledge that it's that compound effect. One compounds on top of you, the next thing. Another last, last two questions here. What's your favorite quote? Favorite quote.[23:02] MIKE: Man, that's a good one. I think it's probably changed throughout time. I think my favorite quote is probably really cliché at this point, but it just so resonates with me is the old Zig Ziglar quote is that "you'll get what you want. If you can help enough other people get what they want." That has not always been true for me. I've grown in my business, I've learned that my success will ultimately be a product of the success that I help others have.[23:28] JAMES: Yeah, no, that's awesome. Zig Ziglar Fan, goodness gracious as well. I one that was one of my favorite of course. The other one is then you're going to be a meaningful specific or a wandering generality. It's huge and especially for realtors because most realtors are not meaningful specifics.[23:45] MIKE: Right. Right. We know that.[23:46] JAMES: Great, great quote there. The last thing I want to ask you, so what's something that you want to do in 2019 that you've never done before? Whether it be business related obviously EXP is an explosion in growth mode right now. What's something that maybe you've got want to do a 2019 that you've never done before?[24:04] MIKE: That question comes at a really opportune time for me because we're actually in the middle of opening up our own mortgage company, the P and L model. I'm actually really excited to play around with that a little bit. I think there's a huge opportunity, not only to add more money to the bottom line but to also provide a level of service that most of the real estate agents can't provide because this is going to be set ups just so especially at first just so this person is servicing our team.[24:29] JAMES: That's great. I've had a sin as a, as a loan officer. There's no better mortgage advisor like yourself because you are on that side and you speak to what your clients are really wanting and really be able to direct if it's going to be your mortgage company or whoever you're working or partnering with on the mortgage side to really provide a really, really good value for people because I know you've experienced it. I've experienced it with a mortgage companies that it amazes me that some of these mortgage companies exist or lenders should I say. I've had people just completely disappear during the process. This is amazing to me. It's amazing. That's a great opportunity and I think with your background there's no way that you would not be successful with that or anything else that you do. [25:19] MIKE: Thank you sir.[25:20] JAMES: That'd be great. Again, I am a huge fan. I admire everything you've been doing. You're one of those people when you meet him, you just like of like literally I met you. We shook hands on. My God, I just liked this guy. [25:29] MIKE: Likewise my man, likewise.[25:34] JAMES: I've got to get up to and actually one more thing we got to talk about real quick, the most important thing will Ohio State be in the playoffs or not.[25:42] MIKE: Man, at this point, does it even matter? It's whoever's going to play Bama and lose, right?[25:45] JAMES: Right. Right. That’s true. [25:50] MIKE: I love my Buck guys I'm also a realist man. [25:52] JAMES: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's got to be quiet if you you say well. Anyway, when I appreciate your time, Mike. Thank you so much man. Thank you. Thank you. Keep doing what you're doing. I will continue to promote you as much as I can. If there's anything I can help you with, let me know and appreciate your time, man. You have a great one and we'll catch up. [26:07] MIKE: Likewise and if anybody's interested in that free coaching that you mentioned they could go to liverealestatecoaching.com and sign up there. I'd be happy to take on anybody for 30 to 40 minutes and just really dive deep into any area of your business you're looking to improve. [26:24] JAMES: I will post the link on the podcast. Actually let me put it on here so people can get that link and access what you're offering there. Yeah, can't go wrong. Free strategy call with Mike, reach out to them. He's an awesome agent, great example a lot of consistency and professionalism. I really appreciate what you do on Mike, We'll catch up soon brother. You take care.[26:43] MIKE: All right man. Thanks so much, James. I appreciate it. [26:46] JAMES: Okay. All right, bye-bye.[26:47] MIKE: Good luck.If you like this episode of the Houston Home Talk podcast, please don't forget to like, share, and comment! We appreciate your support and feedback! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Water-Cooled Volkswagen Club True love for Volkswagen's and Southern California are two things that have always just gone together.  And nobody truly 'gets' that like Ontario Volkswagen. For the past two years, Ontario VW has altered its entire business operation for what would otherwise be a very busy day.  And they've done that to morph their dealership in a venue for all types of Volkswagen fans to gather, show their cars, swap their car stories and share their passion for all things V-Dub. And note the 'all-types' indicated above. If you're already in the 'VW-know'  then you're aware of the difference between air-cooled and water-cooled.  You see, there's a division among VW enthusiasts.  A fun-loving division for sure but a partisan divide nonetheless.  So much so that there are entire car clubs dedicated to one and the other. In this iDriveSoCal Podcast, Ontario Volkswagen's 2nd Annual Oktober Fest Car Show, we talk to the leadership of one of the water-cooled Volkswagen clubs and learn more about their growth plans to share their brand of VW-Love. ***Transcription*** Recorded October 28, 2018, in Ontario, CA Water-Cooled VW Club @ Ontario Volkswagen Oktoberfest Mike: We try to do stuff our own, we try to have cars that are a little bit beyond the norm. They may never be perfect, they may never be done, but they are built by us in our garages. Jimmy's house always looks like Ontario Volkswagen. Tom: Welcome to iDriveSoCal, the podcast all about mobility from the automotive capital of the United Stated, Southern California. I'm Tom Smith, and as you can probably hear, I'm not inside in a studio. We're actually at Ontario Volkswagen in the Los Angeles suburb of Ontario, California, and we're outside at the Oktoberfest, 2nd annual Ontario Volkswagen Oktoberfest. We're podcasting outside. Ontario Volkswagen is just off the 15 and also right by Ontario Airport so just as we were doing that open, a jet was flying overhead. But joining me is Mike Pitman from ... Where are you from? Mike: Wildomar, California. Tom: From Wildomar California. And Mike is part of not only the Oktoberfest Auto Show, here at Ontario Volkswagen, but one of the clubs that's involved in this show and your club name is Scrappy Dubs? Mike: Yes sir. Tom: Mike, thank you for joining me for the iDriveSoCal podcast. Mike: Thank you for having me. Tom: Tell me, what... The Scrappy Dubs, I know Jimmy Willhide who's the service manager here, service director, service advisor, whatever his exact title is here at Ontario Volkswagen, I know that he's part of the Scrappy Dubs Car Club, but tell me a little about it. How'd you guys get started, and what do you do? Mike: You know- Tom: Other than participating at Oktoberfest here at Ontario Volkswagen. Friends w/ Shared Passion - Water-Cooled VW's Mike: Right, right. We've known each other for a long time. We've been friends, practically kind of grown into a family. Practically what we do, we're just a group of friends. We all have the same love, same enthusiasts for Volkswagen, for European cars, and we all got together and we help each other out. And we have different strengths and when somebody needs help with a car we get down to the garage. There are late nights and get some good music going and we put together our crazy ideas and we make the stuff happen, so that's how it became. And we try to stand out a little bit. We try to do stuff our own, we try to have cars that are a little bit beyond the norm and like I said, the cool thing about all of our cars is they may never be perfect.  They may never be done. But, they are built by us in our garages, and like I said we have a great time with doing it. I think that's what friendship's all about, growing up and growing older and constantly evolving, constantly changing stuff and doing stuff for the love of the cars that we love to drive. Tom: Did you guys go to...

Highlights - Draftees Ship Out Update on the Spring Offensive - Mike Shuster | @02:25 America Emerges: The Draftees Ship Out - Edward Lengel | @06:20 Don’t send the boys “Dainties” by parcel post! | @11:40 Remembering Veterans: The Women’s Overseas Service League - Cathleen Cordova | @16:45 Updates from the States: Idaho Commission - K.C.Piccard and Frank Krone | @21:55 Spotlight in the Media: Sgt. Stubby Premiere | @27:35 100C/100M: Glen Carbon IL - Linda Sinco | @32:45 100C/100M: Appleton, WI - Alexander Schultz | @38:35 Speaking WW1: Tommy | @44:45 WW1 War Tech: The Little Curie | @46:20 The Dispatch Newsletter | @48:05 The Buzz - The Centennial in Social Media - Katherine Akey | @49:25----more---- Opening Welcome to World War 1 centennial News - episode #65 - It’s about WW1 THEN - what was happening 100 years ago this week  - and it’s about WW1 NOW - news and updates about the centennial and the commemoration. Today is March 30th, 2018 and our guests for this week include: Mike Shuster, from the great war project checking in on the progress of the German Spring Offensive - Operation Michael Dr. Edward Lengel with a story of New York City’s Doughboys as they set sail for Europe Cathleen Cordova shares the history of the Women’s Overseas Service League K.C.Piccard and Frank Krone are here to tell us about the Idaho WW1 Centennial Commission Linda Sinco shares the 100 Cities/100 Memorials project at Glen Carbon, Illinois Alexander Schultz with the 100 Cities/100 memorials project in Appleton, Wisconsin Katherine Akey with the WW1 commemoration in social media   And that is our lineup of guest for WW1 Centennial News -- a weekly podcast brought to you by the U.S. World War I Centennial Commission, the Pritzker Military Museum and Library and the Starr foundation. I’m Theo Mayer - the Chief Technologist for the Commission and your host. Welcome to the show. [MUSIC] Preface 100 years ago this week, the fate and future, that would be determined by WWI hangs somewhat by a thread. In this episode, we want to give you a sense of what was happening on the ground in Europe, explore the push to get our troops across the Atlantic, and see how the war effort is affecting life and policy here stateside… A year after entering the fray - America is definitely in the thick of it! With that as a setup, let’s jump into our Centennial Time Machine and roll back 100 years to - to witness a crucial moment,  in the War that Changed the World! World War One THEN 100 Year Ago This Week Great War Project We are going to open our look back 100 years ago this week, with Mike Shuster former NPR correspondent and curator for the Great War project Blog…. Mike: Your post is a powerful update on the front line action, this last week of May, 1918. The Allies are trying desperately to cope with Germany’s “total commitment” onslaught - By the week’s-end it turns out that maybe the Kaiser’s claim of total victory, last week,  may have been a bit premature. It’s not over yet. Looking forward to your report, Mike… Thank you Theo - This week the headline read…. [MIKE POST] Mike Shuster from the Great War Project blog. LINK: http://greatwarproject.org/2018/03/25/in-german-spring-offensive-crisis-on-both-sides/ America Emerges: Military Stories from WW1 We are going to follow with America Emerges: Military Stories from WWI with Dr. Edward Lengel. Ed:  As Mike just told us… getting our boys shipped out and on the ground in France is crucial… and your story this week focused on what that was like state -side… Many troops and individual soldiers that would play important roles in the upcoming battles are heading “over there”. What’s the story Ed: [ED LENGEL] [MUSIC TRANSITION] Dr. Edward Lengel is an American military historian, author, and our segment host for America Emerges: Military Stories from WWI. There are links in the podcast notes to Ed’s post.   Links:http://www.edwardlengel.com/one-hundred-years-ago-new-york-city-bids-farewell-doughboys/ https://www.facebook.com/EdwardLengelAuthor/ http://www.edwardlengel.com/about/ On the Homefront [SOUND EFFECT] On the homefront, there are a number of articles this week reflecting our conversation from Last week, with the Smithsonian National Postal Museum’s Lynn Heidelbaugh, about the massive amount of mail going out to the troops - especially parcel post - so much so - that the War department begins the week by expressing concern, and ends the week by listing a whole stack of items banned from being sent to our boys “Over There”. [SOUND EFFECT] Dateline: Monday March 25, 1918 A Headline in the Official Bulletin Reads Parcel Post to France Being Crowded With the Dainties Purchasable There at Prices Lower Than the Cost Here And the story reads: What are you sending by parcel post to the boys in France? asks the department. If it is cookies, candies, or canned goods, bear in mind that the soldiers of the American Expeditionary Forces can purchase these things at the Y. M. C. A. recreation centers, or canteens in France, as cheaply as they can be had here. And the article goes on the make an economic argument not to send these items. Two days later [SOUND EFFECT] Dateline: Wednesday March 27, 1918 A Headline in the Official Bulletin Reads SHIPMENTS OF PARCELS TO SOLDIERS IN FRANCE TO BE LIMITED TO THOSE REQUESTED BY MEN The article goes on to explain: the postmasters throughout the country are instructed to receive no parcel-post shipments for delivery to members of the American Expeditionary Forces abroad unless the articles offered have been requested by the individual to whom they are to be shipped and approved by his regimental or higher commander. In the same issue another headline reads Prices at Which Our Soldiers in France May Purchase Those .Little Dainties You Are Sending Them by Mail And once again, the article details the price of razors, cigarettes, even malted milk balls. Although seemingly redundant - anyone interested in a great primary source on prices of basic item in 1918 - this article is a treaure trove of detail. You can access each issue of the Official Bulletin on the Commission’s website at ww1cc.org/bulletin - each issue is re-published on the centennial anniversary of its original publish date. This article is on Page 7 of the wednesday March 27th issue. The week continues with more cajoling about not sending our boys loving care packages from home, AND by the end of the week - the War Department gets unambiguous and definitive! Dateline: Saturday, March 30, 1918 A Headline in the Official Bulletin on Page 7 reads WAR DEPARTMENT STATEMENT ON SHIPMENT OF POST PARCELS TO U. S. SOLDIERS IN FRANCE The War Department has issued the following statement regarding the restrictions of the shipment of parcels to officers and soldiers in France. On account of the well-known shortage in shipping it is necessary' to limit shipments to France to things which are absolutely essential for the fighting efficiency of our forces in France. In other words, we must strip for action. It his been found that the shipments of parcels to individual officers and soldiers has assumed enormous proportions now averaging 250 tons a week, and by reason of their bulkiness displacing a great amount of important Army freight on commercial liners and transports. And that’s the end of Aunt Ethel's home-made cookies and Momma’s canned peaches for our doughboys in France 100 years ago this week in the war that changed the world! [SOUND EFFECT] The Great War Channel As we have mentioned before, we are very happy that you listen to our audio podcast, but If you’d like to see videos about WWI 100 years ago this week,  we suggest our friends at the Great War Channel on Youtube, Hosted by Indy Neidell. New videos this week include: Conscientious Objectors -- Water -- Wastage German WW1 Prototype Tanks of 1918 Backs to the Wall -- All Eyes on Amiens See their videos by searching for “the great war” on youtube or following the link in the podcast notes! Link:https://www.youtube.com/user/TheGreatWar World War One NOW It is time to fast forward into the present with WW1 Centennial News NOW - [SOUND EFFECT] This part of the podcast isn’t about the past - it is about NOW and how we are commemorating the centennial of WWI! Remembering Veterans Women's Overseas Service League This week for remembering veterans and for our last article focused on Women’s History Month we want to introduce you to the Women’s Overseas Service League.  As the name implies, the League was founded by American women who had served overseas during World War One. With us to help us understand the WOSL, their heritage, mission and constituency we are joined by Cathleen Cordova, the Past National President of the WOSL. Welcome Cathleen. [greetings] [Cathleen -- the Women’s Overseas Service League was formed in 1921, just after the war -- What prompted the formation? Who was it for?] [Would I consider the Women’s Overseas Service League a Veterans Service Organization? How does it differ?] [The league’s focus and mission has evolved over the years? What is the continuing legacy of WWI in within the League?] [Does the League have any specific WWI Centennial commemoration - or any heritage focused programs?] [goodbyes] Cathleen Cordova is the Past National President of the Women’s Overseas Service League. Learn more about the organization and their legacy of friendship and advocacy by following the links in the podcast notes. Link: http://wosl.org/history/ http://wosl.org/ Updates from the States Idaho Commission It’s time for our Updates from the States. This week we’re joined by K.C. Piccard, Commissioner for the Idaho World War 1 Centennial Commission, and Frank Krone, the commission’s co-founder. Welcome! [greetings] [Frank --  I don’t know very much about the Idaho Centennial Commission? Would you tell us about it - and how did it get started?] [K.C.--On the Podcast in February, we told our listeners quite a bit about the sinking of the Tuscania --  You and your Commission got deeply involved with a connected commemoration called Hands Across the Atlantic Project. Can you tell us about it? [Frank - any other plans or programs from Idaho you’d like to tell us about?] [goodbyes/thanks] K.C. Piccard and Franke Krone are with the Idaho World War 1 Centennial Commission. Learn more about the commission and their projects by visiting their website at the links in the podcast notes. links:http://idahoworldwar1centennial.org/ Spotlight in the Media Sgt Stubby Premiere: Follow up Earlier this week, here in Los Angeles, I had the pleasure of joining US WWI Centennial Commissioner Zoe Dunning, and the California WW1 Centennial commission Courtland Jindra and Bill Betten at the premiere of the Animated Feature film - Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero. I have been following the development of this movie for a long time, and of course we have had the film’s producer, writer, and director Richard Lanni and Associate producer Jordan Beck on the podcast over the past months, so I was really ready to see the actual the Sgt. Stubby movie. I loved it! And so did the 800 person audience at the premiere! Flat out - it’s a really good, class double A animated film that delivers a great movie experience for kids and grown up alike. You know, it’s really - I mean REALLY hard to create a sympathetic, animated animal character that is someone that you actually care about. Especially if that character has no voice. Everyone in the room fell in love with Stubby. I didn’t ask the grownups, but I did ask some of the 400 kids in the theater what they thought: [Kid’s comments] Sgt. Stubby - an American Hero - and a really great movie experience coming to a theater near you. Grab a friend, grab a kid, grab a grandparent and go see this really heartfelt and heartwarming movie. Oh yea - did I forget to mention - its based on a real story and its all about WWI. Sorry! Link: http://www.stubbymovie.com/ 100 Cities 100 Memorials Glen Carbon, IL Moving on to our 100 Cities / 100 Memorials segment about the $200,000 matching grant challenge to rescue and focus on our local WWI memorials. Next week, on Friday April 6th, we will be announcing the final 50 Awardees. Some very exciting memorials and project are among that group. Before that, this week, we are going to profile TWO projects from Round #1. They are very different and very much the same -  the first is a deeply meaningful but humble project about a WWI memorial restoration from the Village of Glen Carbon Illinois, where a doughboy statue stands guard over the graves of two local WW1 veterans.   With us tell us about the project is Linda Sinco, Museum Coordinator of the Glen Carbon Heritage Museum.                               Welcome Linda! [greetings] [Linda: Your project was designated as a WWI Centennial Memorial, in part because it represents memorials of it’s type all over the country. Can you tell us about it please?] [The doughboy isn’t a bronze - what is it made out of? What’s the status of the statue now?] [When you took on the project, you did research and got some great local newspaper coverage for the endeavor - what was the community involvement?] [How did you connect with the 100 Cities / 100 Memorials program?] [You rededicated your statue last year in September - Any commemoration plans for Memorial Day or Armistice day this year?] [Linda - thank you so much for looking after your doughboys!] [goodbyes/thanks] Linda Sinco is the Museum Coordinator for the Glen Carbon Heritage Museum.    Learn more about the 100 Cities/100 Memorials program and their doughboy statue restoration at the link in the podcast notes or by going to ww1cc.org/100Memorials Link: www.ww1cc.org/100cities https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKcETM-DQ-c https://www.glen-carbon.il.us/891/Heritage-Museum-and-Log-Cabin Appleton, WI Our second 100 Cities / 100 Memorials project profile this week is the Spirit of the American Doughboy project in Appleton, Wisconsin. This doughboy sculpture is from famed WWI memorial sculptor E. M. Visquesney and it has had one tough time of it,  since it was erected in 1934. With us tell us about the project, it’s checkered restoration history and its current rescue is Alexander Schultz, Executive Director of Sculpture Valley. Welcome Alex! [greetings] [Alex - This monument was originally put in place in 1934 for $700 - the equivalent of $13,000 today… and it has had a troubled history since. Can you tell us a bit about the maintenance woes of this doughboy?] [So in 2015 Sculpture Valley stepped in to fix the issues from the ground up - what IS Sculpture Valley?] [What kind of support did the project get from the community? ] [You did a rededication on Veterans Day last year - any plans for Armistice day this year?] [Alex: Thanks so much for being here!] [goodbyes/thanks] Alexander Schultz is the Executive Director of Sculpture Valley. Learn more about Sculpture Valley and the 100 Cities/100 Memorials program at the link in the podcast notes or by going to ww1cc.org/100Memorials Link: www.ww1cc.org/100cities https://www.sculpturevalley.com/ https://www.sculpturevalley.com/memorail-restoration-initiative/ [SOUND EFFECT] Speaking WW1 And now for our feature “Speaking World War 1” - Where we explore the words & phrases that are rooted in the war  --- By the time America joined the war, nicknames for the various forces involved in the conflict were already established. The French infantry were known as the Poilus, or the hairy ones -- the Australian and New Zealanders were collectively known as the ANZAC a simple contraction for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps - meanwhile the New Zealanders were also called Kiwis. The American were often referred to as Sammies but self branded as Doughboys. And the British common soldier? Well, That’s our Speaking WWI word for this week. The British soldier was known as the Tommy. The nickname appears to come from an individual, Tommy Atkins, a mythical, courageous British soldier who fought under the Duke of Wellington in 1794. Lore has it that In 1815, the British War Office asked the Duke for a name that could personify a strong British soldier, and he, apocryphally, replied “Tommy”. From a branding perspective, it sounds like a great choice to an old marketing guy like me…. it’s so aptly descriptive of a regular joe… resolute… a comrade… a good fellow and unlike a lot of the other names - Tommy seems human. The nickname was popular enough in the 19th century that Rudyard Kipling included a poem about a mistreated soldier named Tommy. Tommy didn’t get associated with the British army, until World War I, when the name Tommy Atkins was featured on a guidance sheet enclosed in every pocket ledger provided to every British soldier to inscribe their personal information. Tommy -- a valiant and humble soldier, and this week’s speaking WW1 word. Links:http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/The-British-Tommy-Tommy-Atkins/ http://www.firstworldwar.com/atoz/tommy.htm [SOUND EFFECT] WW1 War Tech Little Curie This week for WW1 War Tech -- we’re focusing on a medical device that saved countless lives -- and was invented by a woman. Almost immediately after the discovery of the X-ray in 1895, medical professionals began using it to locate foreign objects, that had become lodged in the body. - you know - like bullets. At the start of the war in 1914, the only X-Ray machines to be found where located in city hospitals, far away from the frontlines and only benefiting soldiers that could survive the long journe to get to them. The answer came from famed French scientist Madame Marie Curie, discoverer of radium ... polonium and twice-awarded the Nobel Prize. When the German army began marching toward Paris early in the war, Madame Curie shipped her supply of radium to a bank in Bordeaux and devoted her time to the war effort. Curie came up with the “radiological car” - a rig with an X-Ray machine, a photographic dark room, and an early electrical generator to produce the X-Rays. Using funding from the Union of Women of France and cars donated by wealthy Parisians, she trained some 150 women, including her daughter Irene, to operate these machines and move them around the front lines to where they were most needed. The “little curies” --as they were called-- debuted at the First Battle of the Marne. Over 1 million soldiers received Xray exams from the mobile units over the course of the war. The LIttle Curie-- a big idea from an awesome scientist, Madame Marie Curie, and this week’s WW1 War Tech. Learn more, and see images of the mobile machines, at the links in the notes. Link: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-marie-curie-brought-x-ray-machines-to-battlefield-180965240/ Articles and Posts For Articles and posts we want to re-introduce you to a fantastic WWI Centennial resource. It’s the Commission’s weekly Dispatch Newsletter. Every week, the Commission publishes all sorts of great information about WWI and the centennial commemoration. There are articles posted in the website’s news section, New Stories of Service that are submitted by you. Important commemoration events. Blog posts and postings from our state partners. And even the highlight listing from the WWI Centennial News podcast. Well - in the dispatch, the editor, Chris Christopher works diligently to keep it short and useful.  He provides a quick summary of each new post with links to read, listen or see more… It takes just a minute to subscribe, and only a couple of minute to scan each Dispatch issue when it comes in to your email on Tuesday mornings - It’s a great way to see if there is something you’d like to know more about. So sign up for the Weekly  Dispatch newsletter at ww1cc.org/subscribe and take a look at samples in the archive at ww1cc.org/dispatch or follow the link in the podcast notes. Link: http://www.worldwar1centennial.org/index.php/communicate/2015-12-28-18-26-00/subscribe.html http://ww1cc.org/dispatch The Buzz And that brings us to the buzz - the centennial of WW1 this week in social media with Katherine Akey - Katherine, what do you have for us this week? Adopt an Orphan! We shared a beautiful image this week on Facebook from the Marine Corps History Division. It’s a studio portrait of a little girl, Jeanne Louise Alphonsine Pascal. She’s maybe three or four years old, dressed in a dark frock with an enormous white bow atop her head. She is the Mascot of Company L, Thirteenth Regiment, U.S. Marines, A.E.F. Under the auspices of the American Red Cross, soldiers were able to adopt war orphans; it’s a very early example of a familiar charitable system. For four cents a month, per man, a unit of some 200 men could fully feed, clothe and house an orphan. Some estimated 200,000 children were orphaned in France and Belgium alone during the war. Grassroots orphans’ relief efforts appeared in France as early as 1914. Many editions of the Stars and Stripes-- the American Expeditionary Forces’ official newspaper-- discuss and promote The Red Cross’s orphan relief campaigns, including the issue from this week 100 years ago. These children, supported by the Allies and under the care of a variety of service organizations, were beneficial for the soldiers; they reminded the men of their children back home and the orphans received food and care from the Allied troops. By April 1918, Stars and Stripes reports that 38 children were adopted by various Infantry companies. You can read the article “Take as your mascot a French war orphan” in the Stars and Stripes, and see the image of little Jeanne Louise, by following the links in the podcast notes. That’s it for this week in the Buzz. Link:https://cdn.loc.gov/service/sgp/sgpbatches/batch_dlc_argonne_ver03/data/20001931/print/1918032901/0001.pdf https://www.facebook.com/36536773014https://cdn.loc.gov/service/sgp/sgpbatches/batch_dlc_argonne_ver03/data/20001931/print/1918032901/0001.pdf7282/photos/a.367850739898981.107284.365367730147282/1062367587113956/?type=3&theater https://rememberingwwi.villanova.edu/orphans/ Thank you Katherine - Outro And that is also it for this week’s episode of WW1 Centennial News. Thank you for listening. We also want to thank our guests... Mike Shuster, Curator for the great war project blog Dr. Edward Lengel, Military historian and author Cathleen Cordova the Past National President of the Women’s Overseas Service League KC Piccard, and and Frank Krone co-founders of the Idaho World War 1 Centennial Commission, Linda Sinco with the 100 Cities/100 Memorials project at Glen Carbon, Illinois Alexander Schultz with the 100 Cities/100 memorials project from Appleton, Wisconsin Katherine Akey, the commission’s social media director and line producer for the podcast A shout out to Eric Maar as well as our intern John Morreale for their great research assistance. And I am Theo Mayer - your host. The US World War One Centennial Commission was created by Congress to honor, commemorate and educate about WW1. Our programs are to-- inspire a national conversation and awareness about WW1; Including this podcast! We are bringing the lessons of the 100 years ago into today's classrooms; We are helping to restore WW1 memorials in communities of all sizes across our country; and of course we are building America’s National WW1 Memorial in Washington DC. We want to thank commission’s founding sponsor the Pritzker Military Museum and Library as well as the Starr foundation for their support. The podcast can be found on our website at ww1cc.org/cn   on  iTunes, Google Play, TuneIn, Podbean, Stitcher - Radio on Demand --- or using your smart speaker.. Just say “Play W W One Centennial News Podcast” and we are excited to announce - as of this week - you can listen to us on Spotify. Search ww1 Centennial News. Our twitter and instagram handles are both @ww1cc and we are on facebook @ww1centennial. Thank you for joining us. And don’t forget to share the stories you are hearing here today about the war that changed the world! [music] What did the American Captain shout to the British left-tennant as the German barrage rained down? [insert music clip Tommy] So long!

For the 81st episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Kira and Rob talk with copywriter and marketing specialist, Mike Saul, about copywriting, sales, marketing, and a lot more. Kira first met Mike at a lunch-time gathering of copywriters in New York City and after talking for a little while, realized Mike had a lot of great advice to share with our listeners. In this podcast we talked about: •  how a 13-year-old’s newspaper route led to a career in sales and copywriting •  the book that he used to help a client go from a $500K monthly loss in $1 million in monthly revenue •  how his sales experience informs what he does today •  what he learned from selling burglar alarms—price is not the most important thing •  the relationship between sales and marketing in what copywriters do •  how to write an “air tight” argument for your solution •  how to overcome objections on your sales page •  the checklist he uses when he writes sales pages for his clients •  why sales people in California have to leave the house after •  the list of people he has learned sales and copywriting skills from •  credibility versus believability and which one really matters Lots of good stuff in this episode. To hear it all, click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Staton Island Advance Mandolin Brothers NAM Show Todd Brown The Ultimate Sales Letter by Dan Kennedy Brian Tracy Zig Ziglar Gibson SG Fender Telecaster Glen Garry Glen Ross Chris Haddad Clayton Makepeace’s Checklist Joe Schriefer Bob Bly John Carlton Dr. Robert LaPenna Better Call Saul Email: tinymjs.gmail.com Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity   Full Transcript: Rob: What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That’s what Kira and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Kira: You’re invited to join the club for episode 81 as we talk with marketing strategist and copywriter Mike Saul about how a newspaper route launched his copywriting career, how preconceived notions affect your success, credibility vs. believability, what baby bottles, Santa Clause, and getting a first date have in common, and the learning resources he likes most. Kira: Hey Mike, welcome to the show! Rob: Mike, we’re glad to have you! Mike: Thank you for having me, guys. Kira: So, we want to start with your story, Mike. How did you end up in marketing and direct response copywriting? Mike: It probably goes back to when I was 12 or 13 years old. I grew up on Staten Island, which is one of the five boroughs of New York City, so about 13 I started playing guitar. And my parents decided that they weren’t going to buy me a really nice guitar so I had to get a job at thirteen and we perish the thought these days, with all these entitled children, including my three. So anyway, I started delivering the newspaper, The Staten Island Advance. And I actually split a route with two brothers. The two brothers each had a route each but they were too big, so the mother split each of their routes and made a third route. It was kind a rent deed route, it wasn’t officially recognized by the Staten Island Advance. So that route got cycled through the neighborhood kids; most of the kids couldn’t do it so I said alright, I’m going to give it a shot. I had twenty one stops on my route. And I started delivering the paper and anybody I wasn’t delivering to on my route, I would knock on the door, ask if they wanted it, and I started selling. So, I built the route up to 41 people from 21. Now, why 41? Because I was warned by my friend’s mom, that, if you add one more house, we’re going to split the route again, so I said okay, well, that’s great...

In this episode series, I interviewed Mike Ethridge. Mike Ethridge, attorney from Charleston, SC, champion of wellness for lawyers, begins our discussion on creating your own happiness and how to deal with unease/frustration in the workplace. Topics covered: How creating a sense of community within the workplace can both bolster personal happiness and create a better sense of communal well-being. Understanding the importance of "Grass-roots" movements and the need to start small.   Questions? Comments? Email Jeena! hello@jeenacho.com. You can also connect with Jeena on Twitter: @Jeena_Cho For more information, visit: jeenacho.com Order The Anxious Lawyer book — Available in hardcover, Kindle and Audible Find Your Ease: Retreat for Lawyers I'm creating a retreat that will provide a perfect gift of relaxation and rejuvenation with an intimate group of lawyers. Interested? Please complete this form: https://jeena3.typeform.com/to/VXfIXq MINDFUL PAUSE: Bite-Sized Practices for Cultivating More Joy and Focus 5-week program. Spend just 6 minutes everyday to practice mindfulness and meditation. Decrease stress/anxiety, increase focus and concentration. Interested? Please complete this form: https://jeena3.typeform.com/to/gLlo7b Sponsor: Spotlight Branding provides internet marketing services exclusively for solo & small law firms. Unlike most internet marketing firms, they do NOT focus on SEO. Instead, they specialize in branding their clients as trusted, credible experts, increasing referrals, and ultimately driving growth. For our listeners, Spotlight Branding is offering a complimentary website review. Go to: SpotlightBranding.com/trl Check out this episode! Transcript Jeena: This is the Resilient Lawyer Podcast, meaningful, in-depth conversations with lawyers, entrepreneurs, and agents of change. The Resilient Lawyer is inspired by those in the legal profession living with authenticity and courage. This podcast is about ordinary people making an extraordinary difference. I'm your host, Jeena Cho. On this week's show, we have Mike Ethridge back on the show. Mike, welcome back. Mike: Thanks, Jeena. It's good to be back. Jeena: Today we're going to talk about wellness in the workplace, specifically places where the lawyers work. I guess to start off, Mike, can you explain what do you mean when you say wellness? Does that mean running? Does that mean exercising? What does that mean? Mike: Well, it's an awfully big term and those of us that have been working with lawyers and in the legal arena around wellness or well-being, struggle with how big that umbrella is and everything that's underneath it. I think it's important for it to remain a pretty expansive concept force. Yes, it does involve exercise and nutrition and good sleep, physical well-being, but it also involves relationships and how we find meaning in our life, mindfulness work, things that enable us emotionally, psychologically, spiritually to be more present to our life and more present to our work. Those concepts, I think, are very much impartial of each other. I get a little frustrated when I hear people talk about wellness or well-being and they divide it into different categories as if physical well-being is something separate and distinct from mental or emotional well-being and I don't think that's true at all. When I talk about this, one of the things I will say is that you decide you're never going to eat chocolate cake again for the rest of your life and you're going to take the stairs wherever you go no matter how tall the building. But you can still find yourself waking up at 3 o'clock in the morning, worried about that answer that you might not have filed or those request to admit that might need to be responded to and trying to survive all for 4, 5 hours of sleep. Physically you are not well but that has a lot to do with your obsession with work and some issues going on with you emotionally. I think it's a mistake to try to separate them. When we talk about wellness or well-being… And I'm really starting to use the word well-being more because I feel like that's a better word for us. It's pretty expansive in scope. Jeena: Yeah. Mike: It needs to be, by necessity. Jeena: So we know it just mean sort of the absence of illness because that's the other thing I find with some lawyers. They'll say “Well, I'm healthy. I'm not sick, therefore, I'm well and I'm perfectly fine.” Well, we need something more comprehensive than that. Mike: That's exactly right. That's a great point. And I think that is a mistake. I think our culture is oriented so much toward treating illness that we define things like well-being in exactly the terms you just used which is absence -- absence of illness or infirmity when well-being is really something that's a bit different. It's the ability to thrive. Really be in your life and really thrive. And so, I think, that is a subtle but really important shift in terms of how we think about wellness. Jeena: Yeah. I think about it as all of the sets of practices that we do want an ongoing regular basis so that we can be our best selves. That's the other interesting thing is that some people think about wellness or well-being as something that they do on occasion. I go on vacation twice a year and that's how I'm caring for my wellness, well-being. Like, no, you have to do it on a regular ongoing basis. It's not so much about how hard you exercise or think it's really… It's like meditation. You could meditate once a month and it's probably not going to have that great of an impact. But if you meditate for even two or three minutes a day, you'll really start to see the benefits. Mike: Right. There's this group called The Energy Project. I don't know if you're familiar with that group or their work. But they talk about how to improve... basically engagement with employees and improve firm's function. They talk about it in the concept of energy and they really base it on what's the fundamental principle of the universe which is to really function at your best, you have to balance energy expenditure with energy renewal. That's so basic and so obvious and it's rather remarkable to me that we structure our firms and work life as if that fundamental law of the universe doesn't exist. Whereas if we're going to perform really at our best and bring our best to this work that we do, there has to be space in our life to be reenergized. We have to make space to exercise, to rest, to just push the pause button and that needs to be a constant fixture or constantly present in our work life daily. But that's not the work ethic or work dynamic of the traditional law firm in this country. You go there early, you try to stay later than everybody else, you work on the weekends, you're available by cell phone or whatever when you're not at work. There's not this institutional structuring of opportunities for you to rest and recharge and get that renewal of energy that's necessary for you to really be the lawyer that the firm and your clients need you to be. Jeena: Yeah. Maybe we can talk about this from a top-down approach and maybe we can talk about it from bottom up. I guess let's start here. What's the business case for why managing partners at a law firm should even care about wellness or well-being? Don't you just want your attorneys to maximize their billing and bill as many hours as possible? If you give them an hour off to go take a meditation class, or go to yoga, or have some sort of a social function where people are authentically connecting with each other, you're taking valuable, billable time away from the attorneys. Mike: Well, as you put your finger on… I think the crux of the issue as it relates to firm management and firm operation and what firm struggle with, one of the difficulties, I think, we have as a professional right now is that we define our productivity in terms of billable hours. The reasons why we need to do that… I understand that and I have a practice that is very much oriented toward the billable hours. It's not this demonic thing but it really does create a problem if that becomes truly the measure of productivity simply having hours that you spend on something. That is, I think, antithetical to what essentially we're about as a profession. Our most valuable commodity is not time but it's attention. I could spend four, five hours trying to write a brief and I'm having a hard time focusing because I'm tired or I'm worried about something else. What actually happens is I write two pages, or I sit down for 45 minutes and I'm really focused and I crank the whole thing out. Well, I'm able to bring all of my attention to the endeavor in that second event but, economically, I don't make nearly as much money for the firm as if I'm sitting around distracted for four hours. When you think about it that way, it's a really rather absurd way to think about servicing your clients. But we live in a billable hour world so we have to understand where we are. But, I think, we need to begin with understanding that what we're really about as lawyers is providing a certain level of service to our client which involves economy and efficiency and wisdom and for us to really value the skill and the preciseness of our craft much more than how long it takes us to do it and how much money you'd get from it. I think, again, shifting what we want to try to produce and what we want our result to be for our client away from X number of billable hours is the first step and that is a very high first step to take because, I think, so many law firms are built around this billable hour model and the billable hours are the widgets and we need to crank out a lot of widgets to create the revenue to pay the salaries and to give these folks jobs and to keep the machine running. Jeena: Yeah, and, of course, that's how lawyers are often measured is by their billable hour and that seems like that's probably the most important metrics in terms of when they're deciding who's going to get the bonuses or who's going to stay or go. Every single billable hour is created equal but it's not because sometimes, just like you're saying, you can spend 45 minutes and knock out this really great brief or come up with some brilliant idea to help your client and then it may only take you 10 minutes but somehow that 10-minute is valued equally as if you just spent 10 minutes halfway distracted and halfway focused. I think talking about our billable, or how we generate income, is a whole another conversation about alternative billings and all of that good stuff. Mike: Well, it is and we don't need to go down that road now but I do think we need… that is something that lawyers certainly need to explore for reasons we're talking about. The other part of the equation when you think about billable hours, that way of thinking that billable hours are our widgets, we need to generate as many billable hours as possible to increase our revenue and that becomes a primary measure of value for the lawyers that work in our firm. That is incredibly shortsighted. It may be true for some limited period of time but overall… I mean after awhile, a client is not going to stay with the law firm that churns the files or that prioritizes billing hours over getting results and early resolutions. Ultimately, you are going to be measured on how well you do your work for clients and the measure's going to be the book of business that you have and how many clients decide that they want you to be their lawyer because you're able to deliver the kind of results that they're looking for which frequently means moving a case quickly towards some kind of resolution. Jeena: Yeah. It's interesting because I recently met someone that works at Google and, of course, Google is radically different than big law firms in general. But they were talking about how… Not only are the productivity of every employee at Google closely monitor but also how happy they are. And there's a direct correlation between happiness and, I guess, tied to that well-being, and how productive people are. But in law firms, it almost feels like there's a sense that if you're a happy lawyer then you can't be the best lawyer possible. It's almost like the more miserable you are, the better attorney you're presumed to be. There's almost this natural culture where you sit around and talk about how hard you work, and how long you stayed at the office, and how many all-nighters you pulled. When you start to talk about, oh, there's actually a correlation between happiness and how good of an employee or partner you can be, lawyers frown upon that. Why do you think that is? Why are we so backward thinking despite all the science and all the evidence that's contrary? Mike: That's a great question. As you were asking that I was thinking “I'm going to ask Jeena why she thinks that Google is different from law firms.” What you're saying really is true. I can't tell you how many times I've been in the kitchen and you're standing around the coffee pot or the water cooler and everybody are engaging in this my-life-sucks-worse-than-yours kind of back and forth. That's really present in law firms. It's, I think, fascinating when we go outside the legal profession, we go to companies like Google and other companies too. Think about Google. They have all kinds of metrics that they will use to measure productivity. So metrics are not… that's not the cause of the problem. Businesses all over the world have metrics that use to measure how well the folks that are working there are doing. But they are businesses that even with those metrics, they have very happy employees really engaged in their work. I think the difference with law firms is that we quite really value and meaning with those metrics and with the productivity so that become, you know, you are how many hours you bill and how much money you make or able to make is directly related to that. That is a different way of thinking from an organization that says we are about something bigger than making money and something bigger than ourselves. We're about really being a meaningful organization in our community and in this world and for the people that work here. Now, to be what we want to be, we have to have a certain amount of fuel. We've got to make a certain amount of money because it takes a lot of fuel to build this thing and fly this plane. The revenue we generate is that… and we need to be good stewards of that and the way we do that is by measuring. So we're careful about how we measure and we're going to talk a lot about what that looks like. But this is not about how many hours we work and how many dollars we make, it's about really becoming the kind of organization, the kind of firm, the kind of business that we feel like this community and this planet needs. Jeena: Yeah. Mike: Law firms really never quite get there because they don't begin by asking itself that question which is what are our real values and what do we want to be, how do we see ourselves as a firm or as a business. If you don't have consensus on the answers to those questions by default, the value is going to be how much money you make. Jeena: For the law firms out there that kind of buy into this idea that the well-being and the happiness of the people that work within the organization is going to have a positive net benefit towards how well they'll be able to service their client, where do you start? Because it also feels kind of overwhelming because we started by talking about a definition of wellness and well-being and we specifically talked about that is all-encompassing. What are some suggestions you have for how to implement some type of wellness or well-being programs? Mike: Well, ideally it starts at the top. Ideally, you have firm management, the equity partners, the owners of the firm who really do buy into this idea that the well-being and the engagement of the lawyers and the people who work in the firm is really what it's all about and really will drive the productivity and the profit. That is a difficult thing to achieve because that, again, culturally is just not, I think, what we've been about as a profession. I think many of us grew up in a culture that was a lot different than that and thought about productivity more in terms of what we've been talking about which is billable hours. But, ideally, you have for managers that begin to think about the importance of engagement and well-being and the relationship between that and the productivity. Then they can, from there, explore what does that look like in terms of how we run this firm and what we offer to people and make available for the people that work here and partner with them to promote well-being? That I think, like I said, is rarely the case so more realistically there'll be somebody… It might be a staff person, it might be a young lawyer who says “There's something wrong with this culture and I want to do things differently.” The real challenge for them is how can they begin to introduce these ideas into the firm and begin to start creating a change in culture, maybe a little more underground than the partners they can get on. Jeena: Yeah. I'm friends with the guy that started the Intel Mindfulness Program and I thought that was really interesting because that was really one of those instances where the effort started from the bottom up so no one at top said “Oh, we need a mindfulness program at Intel.” Intel tends to also be a little bit about more traditional tech company and he is a meditator himself and this is something that he values in his life personally. He just decided “You know what, I am just going to reserve a conference room on every Wednesday from 12:00 to 12:30. I'm going to just send out an email to my little group of people that I work with and just invite people to come for a short guided meditation.” He said “At first one or two people showed up and then it continues to grow. And then the manager started to see the impact that that short practice was having.” So then the manager started to adopt the idea in the program and it spread to other departments. And then finally, the upper managers at Intel really saw the value of offering such a program and gave them budget to be able to really roll this program out and now it's a companywide program. I think it kind of actually happen both ways but what I think that's really important is for the attorneys to actually embrace these practices in their own lives because I think so often there's this feeling like “Do as I say, not as I do.” Like “I'm not going to go to the gym, I'm not going to go to yoga, I'm not going to meditate but I heard this is a good idea for everybody else. So I want everybody else to do this.” That really seems to work. I think that saying “Be the change you want to see in the world” is so true in this context. Mike: It's true. Jeena: Often I'll get these emails from young associates in these big law firms and they are just miserable. They'll tell me things like “I work with this partner and he's so not receptive to these type of ideas. I want the firm to change.” I'll say “Well, the only thing you can change is yourself. I think we also sort of underestimate the value of changing yourself and the ripple effect that that can have. Mike: You're absolutely right. And I think that the model that you talk about with your friend at Intel is precisely the model that I would hope lawyers and staff and law firms would start to embrace. It begins with, you just said, living these changes and living this way of prioritizing well-being. And deciding that you want to try to do that in some way, in the context of your work, not being attached to any idea that management is going to somehow buy into this or that you're going to one day maybe totally transform the culture. You might not. It doesn't matter. What really matters is this practice in a way of life that is meaningful to you and are there places and ways there in the office where you can begin to engage in that and share it with others and invite others to do it with you? I love this idea, reserving a conference room and having meditation. There are all kinds of things that you can do. You can organize just a walk to lunch one day a week. A lot of law firms, particularly in larger law firms, will have empty offices. You can approach the office manager and just ask for permission to transform one of these empty offices into a stress-free zone and bring and lamps and candles and just have it a place where people can go and relax. Create wellness challenges just inside your office, organize monthly get-togethers or something. All kinds of things. We could sit here and brainstorm about what's available. That really cost much of anything and one person could do it and get a handful of people there at the office and then see what happens. I think, inevitably, what happened at Intel does happen. I think that people began to see that there is value in this and there's a certain kind of enthusiasm and engagement by the people that are participating that's very helpful for the organization and then there's an openness to it. The other thing, I think, that happens is you can begin to create some of these practices in your office and then when the firm managers are out at conferences or conventions and they begin to hear other firms doing similar things, there's just an openness to it that started to develop because you're trying to do it at your office as well. That's how the change is going to happen, I think. It's going to be this grassroots. Jeena: How important do you think it is to measure the impact of this type of programs? Do you think it's a good idea to have a survey or questionnaire that people that are participating can fill out? Mike: That's a great question because I have… For a long time, I just thought it was not important that you measure that. That the measure is your experience of it and you're deciding that it's meaningful and people, they're deciding it's meaningful or not. But it was just to get bogged down and measuring something that really can't be measured. You can't measure thriving, you can't measure happiness. That, to me, seems to be a waste of time. However, I have changed is how I think about. And a lot of that had come from my meeting Anne Bradford who is doing a lot of work around… I think she has a book that's going to be published by the ABA called Rules of Engagement. She's done a lot of writing on this idea of how can firms create engagement in the workplace. What Anne -- she's a scientist. She's a lawyer who's going back to school. But she is all about measuring everything. The more that I talk to Anne about this, I began to understand it's so important that this… what we're talking about which is how can we begin to take better care of ourselves and thrive as a profession is too important for it to be something that just… We do it because we think it's a good idea. We really need to measure it so we can articulate its values to the profession. And lawyers, they're going to listen when it's evidence-based and fact-based. Now, I'm not a scientist. Anne is much better person to answer the question. I think about how you measure. But I think it's really important that be measured and that we be able to demonstrate that there are tangible things that happen to people and to firms who consciously choose to promote and prioritize well-being. Jeena: Yeah. And, I guess, this is also a sort of a personal decision but I tend to measure everything. So I have an app and I measure exactly how long I meditate for every single day. Then after I meditate, I will spend 30 seconds just jotting down what the experience was like. And it's interesting to have a little bit of data because then I can look back at the end of the year and say “Okay, like how many hours did I spend meditating?” And when I was able to meditate for, let's say, 30 days in a row, was there some measurable impact than if I didn't meditate regularly for 30 days. Think having a little bit of a metrics, not in, I think, your point about not getting bogged down by it is a good one and, of course, because we're lawyers, we could probably debate which metrics is the most appropriate one to use for 10 months and create sub-committees to decide on that. I think action over planning perhaps is too much planning. Mike: No. I think if there's real value in doing some of that measuring -- and I come from it very differently and from a very different place than you do and trying to measure it somehow diminish or cheapen the event. And I wanted it to be, I guess, pure. Meditation is a good example. But having said that, there's real truth to this notion that what we measure grows and increases. And I have this app, I think it's called Habit or something like that, where I have it on my phone and so everyday… I don't measure how long I meditate but the fact that I measure whether or not I meditate or workout or whether eat a low carb diet. It is remarkable how much more consistently I will do those things just because I'm going go on the phone and click whether I do it or not. It's just the act of measuring it has so much to do with my ability to come back to it day after day after day and keep the practice going. I think what you're talking about is important. Just, for a long time, I just never thought it was that important but we're going to understand it really is. We have all kinds of things with our phones and their… There are easy ways to measure a lot of the stuff just without any effort. Jeena: Also, lawyers are kind of good at doing homework. So having an app on your phone and it reminds you “Hey, remember, you're going to walk for 10 minutes today” or do whatever, little doses. Also, it's a good way to not cheat yourself. I think there's this tendency if you just say “Oh, well, I'll do it when I get around to doing it” then it's really easy to not do it because you already have 48 other things on your to-do list and exercise or well-being practices, well, typically end up on the bottom of the list. Maybe that's another question that we can chat about just very briefly is how do you prioritize these wellness or well-being practices when there's so many other things on your to-do list? How do you say this is more important than caring for others, or doing my work, or maybe not more important but as important? Mike: I think that question is going to be answered differently by different people. I can talk about what, for me, how I do that. We'll say that it is really hard and, in a lot of times, it feels almost next to impossible once my work day begins to hit a pause button and go do some self care. I just get thrown into, or jump into, dive into whatever my work may holds. And I'm on the phone, I'm on conference calls, I'm in depositions, or mediations, but I'm just kind of there and it's hard… I've tried, a lot of times, just step away for a couple of hours at lunch and come back and sometimes I'll do that. But, for me, the way I prioritize it is carving out a section of my day that I know is going to be committed to that kind of self care. For me, that's early morning. I get up about 5 o'clock and I'll go work out. I'll come back and I'll meditate. I'll have coffee, I'll have my breakfast. I'm conscious about how that morning is structured and how I move into my work. That works the best but there also seasons in my life where it might not be mornings, it might be in the evenings or something else. But the morning, carving it out in the morning, for me, is what is may the biggest difference in terms of having it available and being able to engage in it every day. We're so programmed in this culture that Monday morning, you go to work and you work all day long. If you stop during the middle of the day, then you're being lazy. We'll try to, on days where I'm not in deposition or hearing or something like that, but I have the ability to pause there… I will try to stop and intentionally set up a lunch with somebody and reconnect with somebody that I need to work with. When I was downtown I would stop and I'd walk over to the water or go to the art museum. Really just once or twice a week try to do something to just reenergize myself. But those are things that are pretty much inserted into my day on a week by week basis. It's hard to really create or structure a day around those kinds of events when you do what we do for a living. We don't always get to choose how our days unfold in the practice. Jeena: Yeah, definitely. We're at about a 35-minute mark. Is there anything else related to this topic you want to chat about? Mike: There's one other point that I was going to make in this…I think the need for law firms to address this issue with wellbeing is vital for us as a profession. There was a study that was done not too long ago… I think it might have been done by the ABA, I can't remember. Anne Bradford cites it in her work. But it identified an association in a private law firm is being the most miserable job in America. There's such dissatisfaction, particularly among young lawyers in our profession, the level of attrition that we're seeing with lawyers, the amount of distress -- and we've talked about that here. I know you've talked about it in another podcast, the level of distress that the lawyers experience. We need to begin to come to come to grips with how we prioritize taking care of ourselves. And if we're going to do that as a profession, I believe that has to begin to happen at the firm institutional level in addition to what we're doing individually. Jeena: Yeah, so true. Mike, thank you so much for joining me on another episode of the Resilient Lawyer Podcast. Mike: Thank you, Jeena.   Closing Thanks for joining us on the Resilient Lawyer Podcast. If you'd like to build a more profitable and purpose driven law practice, learn more about us at startherehq.com. If you've enjoyed the show, please tell a friend. It's really the best way to grow the show. To leave us a review on iTunes, search for the Resilient Lawyer and give us your honest feedback. It goes a long way to help with our visibility when you do that so we really appreciate it. As always, we'd love to hear from you and you can drop us an email anytime at hi@startherehq.com. Thanks and look forward to seeing you next week.

Mike North: @michaellnorth | mike.works Show Notes: 00:51 - Transitioning from CTO to Independent Trainer 03:37 - Customizing Content and Developing Curriculum 06:37 - Bringing a Developer Into the JavaScript Ecosystem 12:47 - Training Developers with Non-Traditional Backgrounds 16:56 - Keeping Up with “Fifth Gear” 19:27 - Developing Frontend Masters Courses 22:40 - “Progressive Web Apps” 34:37 - Web Security Resources: LinkedIn's REACH Program IndexedDB Transcript: CHARLES: Hello, everybody and welcome to The Frontside Podcast, Episode 79. My name is Charles Lowell, a developer at the Frontside and your podcast host-in-training. With me today is Elrick, also at the Frontside. Hello, Elrick. ELRICK: Hey, what's going on? CHARLES: Today, we are going to be talking with Mike North, who is doing all kinds of interesting stuff as per the usual so we'll jump right in. Hey, Mike. MIKE: How is it going? I'm glad to be here. CHARLES: Last time that I saw you, I think it was about a year ago at the Wicked Good Ember Conf and we were standing on the beach, drinking scotch and talking about Fastboot but you were doing something completely and totally different then than you are now so I was wondering, we were talking the conversation before we started rolling, that your role nowadays is independent consultant and personal dev trainer. I was wondering if you talk a little bit about that move from the CTO role that you're playing at your old company to kind of moving into that independent trainer, like why and how. MIKE: Yeah, I do remember talking about Fastboot at Wicked Good Ember. It feels like things have moved quite a bit since then. I have always loved teaching developers. When I've been a team lead, it's the favorite part of my job just because I get profound satisfaction out of helping people get over these hurdles that most of the time took me a much longer time with blog posts and podcasts and incomplete examples and libraries that were out of date and Stack Overflow with half answers. I've decided to dedicate myself to trying to make it easier for people in an increasingly complex web development world to wrap their head around everything. While I was a tech lead or a CTO, I always had to split my focus between helping developers grow and something else. Oftentimes, that something else was where the deadlines were and the time pressure was. It felt a little bit like I was driving a car that only had first and fifth gear where you're like on the bleeding edge of open source and what was the latest commit to master and [inaudible]. Then like, "Oh, let's be extremely patient with this person. They've never seen promises before because they came from another programming language. Let's help them digest this at their own pace." It's this slow and patient process of building up from the fundamentals and then the bleeding edge is like, "Let's use Babel Stage 0." It was very hard for those two aspects to exist at the same time in myself so I decided I'm just going for the training side. That's really all I do these days. CHARLES: It was so, but now would you qualify that as the first gear or the fifth gear? MIKE: That's the first gear. It gets you off the ground. It takes you from stop and gets you moving and then you have to develop your own expertise beyond that. But I like to think I'm developing a really, really excellent first gear. Today for example, I'm converting a bunch of Python developers at LinkedIn who are basically the ops team. I'm teaching them Ember and JavaScript at the same time through a series of about 20 exercises over three days. That process is many weeks long without assistance so this is like, "Let's get rolling much more efficiently and quickly," than via DIY approach. CHARLES: Now, do you find you have to custom-tailor for the environment or the developers moving from like someone coming from, say C# would have a different experience than someone coming from Python? MIKE: Absolutely. When I have my material, I have sections that I can drop. If you are a C# developer, I do not have to explain conceptually what 'async' and 'await' mean. You've been working with that for a while. I probably throw up a little example in C# and then the equivalent in JavaScript to sort of create a bridge from your existing expertise into the JavaScript world. Another one -- this is very true -- is teaching Ruby developers how to use Elixir. You don't have to say, "This is a router. We have controllers. There are actions and controllers." There are so many parallels that really it's more useful to help, rather than teach things from scratch to create connections back to the expertise they already have so they're not starting from zero and they can say like, "In the Ruby world, I would think of doing XYZ." Now, I have a map in between that and this new thing. CHARLES: Obviously, there's a lot, a lot, a lot of languages and environments that you could transition to, probably more than matches your own personal experience, in doing that frontline development. What kind of research do you have to do to develop a curriculum for, say someone coming from Clojure or someone coming from Scala or something like that? Maybe that never happens. MIKE: I have a pretty, pretty broad background. My entry into programming was a subset of C and then I graduated to C++ and Java and Ruby and I used to do ASP stuff. I've written iOS apps. I feel like I have enough of a foothold into various areas like I know one JVM language. That is usually enough. If you're running a lot of Clojure, I can at least speak Java to you because odds are, you're working with that and you're seeing that and you know it. Oftentimes, I have what I need. There are situations where I can borrow something in a very cursory level. Not to rip on Scala but I have not found it valuable to make connections to that particular language for clarity and [inaudible] but I have used Haskell before and I'm not a Haskell developer but it is a pure functional language. When trying to help people understand how is this different, then the JavaScript got them running where the Ruby ends up running. It's useful to use something like that. It's a very small language, very simple and you can wrap your head around the basics. ELRICK: What are some of the particular challenges that you face when bringing in a developer outside of the JavaScript ecosystem into JavaScript since JavaScript is kind of the Wild West that you can do everything in JavaScript? What are some of the challenges you face in bringing in a new developer from Python or C or whatever that may be? MIKE: You put it very well. It is definitely the Wild West. You can do anything if you have enough [inaudible] yourself and enough power to get serious stuff done. Really, it's like the explosion in number of choices and tools, the explosion of complexity. I learned JavaScript when it was something that you sprinkle on top of your Rails app for a little interactivity, a little animation on a screen or something like that. I was lucky to learn it at that point in time when that was the norm because I've been able to gradually accumulate for more than ten years now. The tooling like using Grunt, using Golf, using Brunch and then stepping up to other more sophisticated build tools. I learned those one by one in the context of real projects. Now, it's like the mountain is so high, people don't know where to start so that's a big challenge for developers. To throw them into a meaningful project like if you asked a mean JavaScript developer, not angry but the average JavaScript developer, they're like maybe -- CHARLES: I should dare to say that the average JavaScript developer is mean. MIKE: A little bit and probably maybe [inaudible] with me as well, depending on [inaudible]. But they're going to spin up some project with webpack and Babel and all of these tools. If that's your first exposure to the language and to working with the language, you're operating in an environment that you don't understand. Research shows that is the less effective option there to slowly building things up over time. I spend a lot of time going back to the basics and making sure we're not working with promises until we've explicitly focused on them, chained a couple together, managed errors and then now, we can work with Fetch. We're not going to jump into that and throw ourselves into this deep end of the pool. We want to incrementally build up skills. It takes a little bit longer but when you have that understanding as you're learning, you get a lot more out of it because anything that you can't get a grip on to as you learn it, it sort of just evaporates into thin air and don't retain that, even if you kind of fill in those holes later. CHARLES: Yeah, it could be so hard too. Actually, this has been an experience that I've been having, I would say almost for the past two years, as the tools advance, not only you are starting from a place of not understanding but the tools themselves do not teach you. I've had two moments where I got really mad. One actually was on an Ember project and one was a project using webpack but it was the same fundamental problem where in one I was actually working with someone who was very new to JavaScript and an error happens and the stack trace was some just big bundled garbage that gave no insight at all. MIKE: In vendor.js. CHARLES: Yes, in vendor.js or in bundle JS. It was like, "How is anyone supposed to learn?" The most fundamental thing about working with Ruby or working with Node or working with anything is you get a stack trace. MIKE: Debugging is really hard. I think it just takes a little time reaching out to people who are experiencing the Stockholm Syndrome like most of the time, JavaScript developer. We all are working with Ember CLI and webpack. I'm not ripping on these tools but we're used to that complexity in our lives. When we see that stack trace, we're like, "Oh, well. I probably need a source map. I'll make sure that that's there. It's natural that I'm debugging a file that the browser is not really seeing like it mapped back to my source code debugging." This is natural to us. But if you put that in front of a developer who hasn't been living under those circumstances, the number of times they raised their hand is like, "What the hell is this?" It is just amazing and it really helps. I've reset my expectations to what a normal programming experience should be and JavaScript does not provide that today. That is really challenging to keep someone in the midst of all that. CHARLES: I feel like it's hard and do you think we'll ever achieve that? Or is it just going to be a constant hamster wheel of progress versus the tooling to educate what progress has been made or to communicate what progress has been made? MIKE: I think the tooling is fine but it's just that we have a gap in terms of learning experience. We just need really -- I'm not voluntary here because I've got a ridiculous backlog -- a couple long tail horses working with vanilla JavaScript, rendering some stuff on the screen, maybe a course of React but no JSX yet, just create component. A couple of things to fill in a gap between where maybe code school leaves off and where you are expected to be by the time you start interviewing for a spot as frontend developer on a team but there's a huge chasm right now. There's the intro guides and then there's professional life and trying to bridge the gap between those is ridiculously a challenge right now due to the huge ramp up of complexity from like, "Let's do some stuff in the console," to, "Running transpile JSX code with async [inaudible]. We've got regenerator in there to polyfill generator functions." There's so much in your average JavaScript at these days. CHARLES: Your work that you're doing at LinkedIn, part of it is trying to bring and train developers who come from more nontraditional backgrounds, including a lot of things like boot camps. What is your experience of their experience coming in? Are boot camps doing the right thing? Are they teaching the right things? Are they trying to kind of parachute them on top of that mountain? Or do you find that they're just at the base camp, so to speak? Because it sounds like your approach is like you've got to really start from fundamentals so that you can understand the layers of complexity if you're going to, someday stand on them. MIKE: I think a lot of the boot camps are doing an excellent job. These days, the employees we have at LinkedIn who come from boot camps, I would bet on them against your average MIT grad every time, just because their education is so practical. It's amazing that in the world of computer science, the stuff that you're taught in school is a little bit farther removed than one would expect, compared to the stuff that we do every day in our jobs -- building real apps. I do not need to know in my day-to-day work at LinkedIn how an operating system works or how to build a device driver. This is a little bit too fundamental. It's the wrong abstraction for practical everyday work for most people. Where in these boot camps, they focus completely on the practical. In fact, I've been fortunate enough to get involved with the REACH program here at LinkedIn, where we hire explicitly people from nontraditional backgrounds like boot camps. They're not all from boot camps but many of them are. We just hired 30 of them in March. The pilot program, I think we've hired two or three in our New York office and it just went really well. It started like, "Let's double down and double down again and double that again." This time, we're doing 30 and I expect there will be a new round next year where we poll even more. The idea is we take these REACH candidates and pair them with a mentor engineer for six months. At the end of that six months, we had to make a decision as to like this person at the level we expect of an entry level software engineering hire. From what I've seen, we're doing really well at preparing these folks and they're unbelievably valuable to the teams that they've been placed in. ELRICK: That's amazing. That's very interesting. Is there a standardized curriculum thing that each mentor will follow to get this person after they entered his REACH program and then ramp them up or is it like each person just goes and looks at what the person knows and then ramps them up accordingly. MIKE: I'd say, it's a mix of both. We have a set of technical trainings for them or we'll have a testing expert from within the company and teach a little testing seminar to them. There's that standardized curriculum there. But the nature of being taught by boot camp or teaching yourself is that you're going to have holes in your knowledge and it's not often predictable where those holes will be. That's why we make sure we do this mentorship very explicitly and over a long period of time so that if it turns out that you never learned about how to work with tree-data structures. That was not part of the go-no/go decision that brought you on but we should probably, at least get you there. At least to the point where if you're traversing a down tree and you're like parent and child, what is this, what do you mean by leaf-level node. This is stuff that is actually meaningful for web developer in some cases. CHARLES: In the context of the work that you're doing with the REACH program but also touching on something that we talked about at the beginning about the first gear and the fifth gear, part of generating a curriculum is still being in contact with what's up in the fifth gear right because ultimately, what you're trying to do is you're working with people who are in first gear or looking to get a smooth transition in the first gear but at the same time, you want to set them up and you want to be in contact for what's in fifth gear now is going to be first gear in five years. How do you feed that in? MIKE: I'm fortunate to have a great team that I work with here. This group that I roll up to in LinkedIn, they're experts and you probably know of like Chris Epstein and Tom Dale and Steph Petter. A 15-minute coffee break with one of these people is enough to keep [inaudible]. Sometimes, it's a little bit like drinking from a fire hose because it's like I spend an hour with a student trying to help them understand like, "This is why a Promise is useful. Here is the callback equivalent," and then now, "Let's dive in to Glimmer. Why this track annotation is the right way to go for automatic updating." It sends me for little bit of a loop sometimes but it is definitely keeping me up to date. The other factor, of course is when you've been doing this for a while. History sort of repeats itself so a lot of the patterns that we're seeing today, I've seen somewhere else. I was working with code splitting when I was writing Dojo JavaScript code years and years ago. I was defining my module layers in a very explicit way. I had to do that. I didn't have done a webpack that would figure out, put these splits are. But I have that experience to look back to and for that reason, it is not often that an entirely new concept comes along. Oftentimes, they're like amazing refinements on things that how to smell like stuff that we've used before in the software engineering world. CHARLES: Yeah or here's something that has never been used, is very prevalent in these other context which we're going to apply here. MIKE: Exactly. CHARLES: And like, "Oh, my goodness. It's a perfect solution." In addition to the work that you're doing with LinkedIn and developing those training curricula and stuff, you're also doing some work for Frontend Masters in an area that's very exciting, I think to me. I'm sure it's exciting to you because you decided to throw a whole lot of time into developing a course for it. That's in the development of progressive web apps, which for me has been like this thing that I'm so curious about but I'm like a kitten playing with a little yarn ball. I want to dive in but I'm just going to tap it with my paws right now. MIKE: Yeah, it's a really interesting area and I think that even if you're not using progressive web technologies today, it's one of these things that sort of reinvigorates your energy for JavaScript's future and what may be possible soon. Steve and I have put together this amazing progressive web app course, which has I think like 18 short examples of iteratively building up a grocery shopping app. If you've used InstaCard or something like that, we start out with app already built and it's like a single-page app as doing everything that you would expect. After a few of the exercises, it works offline. After a few more, you can add stuff to the card and background sync, push it to the API when you come back online. We get deep, deep, deep into service workers. That's one of the areas that my work at LinkedIn and my teaching with Frontend Masters overlaps really well because I've been heavily involved in creating our service worker for LinkedIn.com. I may be able to take some of what we've learned here and disseminate it a little bit so that, hopefully fewer people have to learn the hard way. It's best to keep things simple at first and add on functionality. I'm about to cross like the [inaudible]. This is my favorite just because the example turned out to fit so well and in particular, on Frontend Masters, I think Steve and I have had contrasting teaching styles but they complement each other so well because I'm like the 'melt people's brains' instructor. I love to throw people exercises that are like 120% of what they can do and it's going to hurt, just like when you're lifting weights at the gym, like you're going to beg for mercy but we're going to make you strong. Then Steve, just listening to him, even with I am in the classroom and he is teaching me Electron. He's so energizing and he's really funny too but not in an overtly cracking jokes kind of way. He's just so fun when he teaches. I think it is a really good combination just because things lined up just by luck and through hard work and just the right way out of a couple of important areas. CHARLES: Now, just for people who might not be familiar with the term progressive web apps, what does it encompass? Do people actually call them PWAs? MIKE: No. I'm going to start, though. I like that. That carries very well over a video chat or something. Nobody knows how to spell that: P-U-A? P-W-U-A? It is a rejection of the old idea that in order to take advantage of some web technology, it has to be supported in all of the browsers that we need to support. The idea here is to hold as a core tenet of our design practices, the idea of progressive enhancement, meaning we serve up a basic experience and where we can take on these superhero features, like the ability to work offline, the ability to receive push notifications, we go ahead and do so. If your browser doesn't support this, that's unfortunate. No big deal. You still get a good experience. But if you're using a very recent version of Chrome or Safari or you have a new Android device, these browsers can take advantage of sophisticated metadata or sped up a background process that can serve up data to your app and your app doesn't even know that there's something between it and the API. That is the idea of progressive web apps -- apps that become superheroes where possible and they still work and provide a great basic experience for antiquated browsers like IE8 and Safari. CHARLES: The idea theoretically, you could work without any JavaScript or whatsoever. What's the ground floor there? MIKE: That is ideal. I think server-side rendering, which is what you're talking about there, even if JavaScript is not working, just HTML and CSS will provide a basic experience. That's great but that's not a modern browser technology thing. If you have JavaScript turned off in today's Chrome, like Chrome 60, versus IE9, both of them working with them without JavaScript. What we're really talking about here is app-like characteristics, where we are pushing web technology to the point where you will swear that this came from an App Store. It's on your home screen. It's running in the full screen. You're getting push notifications. It works offline and you can store a large amount of structured data locally on the device. All of the stuff sounds like the list of reasons to reach for native mobile technology because the mobile web is not good enough. But in fact, it has a feature set of this family of progressive web technologies. It's really like a web app that is so good and so modern that it feels and looks just like a native mobile app. CHARLES: That sounds so hard to do right. MIKE: Well, it is now, just because what we have to work with can be thought of it like a basket of ingredients, rather than a solution that we drop in. But over time, as more people start working with these ingredients, I think we're going to see a lot of consensus around the best patterns to use and boilerplate code will fall away as we can identify that the set is in fact commonly needed and not a beautiful and unique snowflake. CHARLES: Because it seems like the thing that I always struggle with is not wanting to put the critical eggs in the basket of a superhero feature or have you being able to provide an alternative if the superhero feature doesn't exist. Some features, if you just don't have it, that's fine. You can turn it on if the capabilities available but certain features are very critical to the functioning of your application. I'm casting about for an example and I'm not finding one immediately but -- MIKE: Offline is a great one. That fits pretty neatly. If you're using an older browser or if you're using Safari, which by the way, I should stop ripping on Safari. For the listeners out there, we saw a commit lend in webkit, where service for APIs are beginning to be stubbed out. No longer do we have to look at length. Service worker, enthusiasm and Safari has got it in the five-year plan. There was motion last week. We haven't seen motion in ages so thank you Safari Team. Thank you. Keep up the good work. CHARLES: Is there a discipline of Safari-ologists who monitor the movement of Safari to bring this news? MIKE: Of course, we monitor it because right now, Chrome and Firefox, they are pretty much hopeful in terms of supporting this modern stuff. Opera supports this modern stuff. Samsung's fork of Chromes support this modern stuff. Especially when we think about the mobile web, you got to worry about Android and you got to worry about iOS Safari and right now, like we've talked about these progressive web apps, you don't get that superhero experience on an iPhone or an iPad. Once we crossed that threshold, this is going to have a breakaway level of adoption because there are no more excuses. Essentially, for a mobile web experience, you can send push notifications to the user. That is huge. That is probably at the top of the list for why some people use native apps, instead of mobile web. The more we can do that, the more we can make it so that a great LinkedIn experience can be delivered to your phone without having to install a binary. I just have to update Facebook the other day and it was over 100 megabytes. Why do we need to do that? You should be able to make it work with less. I'm sure that there's some great stuff in there. Apparently, Snapchat filters are popular but I don't need this. Can we code split that away or something because I don't want to have to download that? I can't even download it on the cell network because it's over 100 megabytes. It's really exciting to see the web start to compete with this heavy mobile experience because now I think is ready. CHARLES: Now, when you talk about push notifications, you're talking about being able to send things to my lock screen. MIKE: To your lock screen while the browser is not on the foreground, while the app is not open. Essentially, you're installing a lightweight process that runs in the background. It receives events that originate from your server and the user can tap on them and then your little lightweight worker process in the background decides what to do when that tap happens, like open up the app, take them to this URL or something like that. That is a game changer. That's huge. Or background sync like the user added some items to their cart and then they lock their phone and now, their plane has landed. That's why they were offline and they get back on the internet and without them having to touch their phone, now we can push that data to the server and everything's in sync, rather than like, "Please revisit your app. We need to run some JavaScript code to flush IndexedDB or API." It still feels like a hack at that point. This is a fluid experience. ELRICK: Wow. This is exciting for me as I don't have any more space on my cellphone, thanks to all the apps that I have to install to do various things on the web. MIKE: You're not alone. CHARLES: Yeah, it's crazy and just the amount of code sharing that you can have, I guess that doesn't happen much these days on the web where you've got these popular libraries out on CDNs so that the chances are that you've got jQuery 1.2.1 on your cache, you've got 16 versions of jQuery so most of your web applications don't have to do that. I guess we kind of do the equivalent of statically linking everything. MIKE: There is a benefit near that where we have imperative code managing our cache, instead of just relying on the HTTP cache or app cache, if you have a vendor.js file that is not changing over six months, there is no reason you should be re-downloading that every time you deploy your app or letting the browser evict that, just because memory pressure is high from Google image search results or something like that. We really don't have much control over it. But with a service worker, we can say, "Hold on to this," or maybe like prefetch the next version of the app so that we're going to show you the old version now but the next time you refresh, here's the new version available instantly. It's downloaded in the background and it's like click to update your version, like it's already here waiting for you. That's huge. That's amazing. CHARLES: That is amazing. Although the complexity skeptic in me is thinking, "Oh, my goodness. Now, we've got all this state that we're storing on the server. We have to have data migrations." We need some sort of migration mechanism for our clients-side state and perhaps some transaction and rollback in case you're not able to successfully migrate your data. It sounds like a lot of fun but I'm just imagining we really are getting started here. Has there been any work on that aspect? MIKE: If you've ever worked with IndexedDB, it does have a concept of migrations. Basically, the data you store on a device has a version and when you read in what's called a file but it's a database, when you read that in, the first thing you do is you basically bring it up to date incrementally. You'll bring it in, you're looking for version nine like your code wants version nine. What you see is version two because your user hasn't been at your site for six months and you're going to take it from two to three to four to five to six. Each of those, essentially constitutes a migration. We just have to apply the same principles of forward-compatible changes. The escape hatch here is remember it's progressive enhancement so if we had to destroy everything, fall back to a basic experience and start from scratch, like discard all of our data, it's really being held there as an optimization. Some people use this immutable caching strategy or basically, like rolling out a new service worker version constitutes for the most part. Any data that wasn't created by a user you're going to discard that and you're going to fetch it new. You don't have to worry about like, "Crap. This six month-old thing is still plaguing half our users and we can't get rid of it," like you can have [inaudible]. But you should really check out this course. It is simpler than you think and what we demonstrate is not a trivial like hello service worker. It is taking in a classic single page app, making it completely offline, having it exist on the home screen and I think the service worker ends up being no more than 100 lines of code. It's not too bad. ELRICK: I'm definitely going to check that out because my progressive web app journey is still on just service workers. MIKE: That's very [inaudible], though. ELRICK: Yeah. I'm definitely checking it out. Sounds like a really fantastic course. MIKE: I've been focusing a lot on this area and another one is security. The reason I picked these two is because developers are not really going to learn about these on the critical path to [inaudible] plus they learn about them the wrong way. As the JavaScript world is becoming radically more complex with each passing year, I've tried to target some of my efforts towards areas where they are not getting as much attention as I'd like to see, just because we have to focus somewhere. Obviously, getting the app out and figuring out how to make the build tools work for us. Without that, we can't do anything at all. One of the courses that's coming in September for Frontend Masters is a one-day web security workshop or we'll do with like cross-site scripting, how to work with certificates because if you start playing with HTTP/2 -- the next generation of HTTP -- you will need to generate some certificates for development at least today you need to. I've seen some amazingly smart developers get this dangerously wrong to the point where they compromise their own machine and anything that's on that machine, just by trying to set up dev environment. Typically, I'm an optimist but when it comes to this PWA stuff and security, I am paranoid. I feel like, we as a community need to get together and have the discipline to brush up in these areas so that as we introduce all of this new stuff, we don't end up opening a bunch of holes. Nowhere near the same rigor as put into frontend compared to backend and now, the line is blurred. Right now, we're server-side rendering so our code is running on the backend somewhere so injecting something can really mess things up in a bigger way. ELRICK: Yeah, I think that's a fundamental characteristic of someone does going to be involved in security paranoia. You have to be paranoid about everything. MIKE: Yep. I don't trust anything. CHARLES: It's important to make those things easy because I'm definitely fall more into the hippie camp like, "Everything is going to be fine. Let's trust everybody," which is I know is totally unrealistic. But then you get into these secure technologies and you learned enough of it just to get the task that you're going to do and then you forget. SSL is a great example. Over the course of my career, I've learned how SSL certs have worked probably, at least 10 times. ELRICK: Right, [inaudible] you had to set it up in production. CHARLES: Yes, exactly and then I promptly forget about it, never worry about it again and then the next time I'm like, "How did that work? What's this trust chain? What?" ELRICK: Exactly. I read a study from Carnegie Mellon a couple of years ago that showed developers observe security best practices dramatically less than the general public and the general public is not good. Do you know what I'm talking about when I say a certificate warning and a browser, there's big scary red screen saying like something is wrong here? Before the Chrome team put some effort into improving that, 70% of people would click through those and proceed anyway. After their improvements, over a third of people still clicked through and that number when you just look at Canary versions of browsers, that number is actually considerably higher close to 50% of our developers. We're trained by every broken certificate system that exists on the internet like the legitimate ones or maybe some things just expired. They're training people to just click straight through these things and as a result, it is terrifyingly easy to mess with people. We have to remember as developers, our machines, those have the private deploy keys and those have the SSH keys to commit code to GitHub, we have to treat that like it's a private data. It's really, really important that we make it easy and that we make sure that that easy path is also very safe. CHARLES: Absolutely. All right. Well, thank you so much Mike for coming by and talking with us. We touched on a lot of subjects but I feel like I certainly learned a lot. MIKE: Yeah, thanks. It's been so much fun talking with you this morning. CHARLES: Anybody who wants to go and check out those courses, they're on Frontend Masters. Now correct me if I'm wrong, you've obviously got the one on progressive web apps or PWAs. If it doesn't work offline, it's faux-PWA. MIKE: Yes, I like that. That's going to become a t-shirt sometime soon. CHARLES: The fundamentals of progressive web app development, which is now released if I understand correctly. MIKE: Members have access to everything, you can watch the raw video now. The edited course will be available later this year. CHARLES: Okay, and that's with Steve Kenny. I am very much looking forward to looking at that and learning more about it. Then you've also got ones coming up in September on TypeScript web security in Visual Studio Code. MIKE: Yep and members can watch that as a live-streamed event. Frontend Masters even ask people to watch the comment stream so you'll have a proxy question asker or hand raiser in the room. It's really a great experience to be part of a live thing. CHARLES: Oh, man. That sounds awesome. Then if you are obviously doing your independent consulting and if people want to get in contact, how would they do that? MIKE: You can find me on Twitter, @MichaelLNorth or you can visit my website, Mike.Works and I have all of the courses I teach and outlines and I can just open up a little chat bubble on the lower right, ask me any questions that you have. I am really passionate about teaching people. If you like that's useful for your team, please reach out and I'd love to talk. CHARLES: Fantastic. Thanks, Mike and thanks everybody for listening to us. If you want to get in touch with us, you can always do that. We're on Twitter at @TheFrontside and email, Contact@Frontside.io. Thanks, Mike. Thanks, Elrick and I will see you all later. MIKE: Thank you so much. ELRICK: Bye.

Transcription: This is Hank Hoffmeier with a marketing and business tip. I am again joined by Mike Mabe from NSL coaching. Welcome back Mike. Mike: Thank you, Hank. What we want to talk to the folks about today is a worklife balance. Making sure that, I guess, you are happy in life and happy and […] The post Hank’s Marketing and Business Tip #71: Quiet Time appeared first on .

Adam Zickerman and Mike Rogers interview author, weight lifter, and personal trainer Bill DeSimone.  Bill penned the book Congruent Exercise: How To Make Weight Training Easier On Your Joints  Bill is well known for his approach to weight lifting which, focuses on correct biomechanics to build strength without undue collateral damage to connective tissue and the rest of the body.So, whether you are an aspiring trainer, serious weight lifter, or even an Inform Fitness client who invests just 20-30 minutes a week at one of their seven locations this episode is chock full of valuable information regarding safety in your high-intensity strength training.  A paramount platform of which the Power of Ten resides at all InForm Fitness locations across the country.To find an Inform Fitness location nearest you visit www.InformFitness.comIf you'd like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10. Send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com. Join Inform Nation and call the show with a comment or question.  The number is 888-983-5020, Ext. 3. To purchase Adam Zickerman's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution click this link to visit Amazon:http://bit.ly/ThePowerofTenTo purchase Bill DeSimone's book Congruent Exercise: How To Make Weight Training Easier On Your Joints click this link to visit Amazon:http://bit.ly/CongruentExerciseIf you would like to produce a podcast of your own just like The Inform Fitness Podcast, please email Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.comBelow is the transcription for Episode 20 - Author Bill DeSimone - Congruent Exercise20 Author Bill DeSimone - Congruent ExerciseAdam: So there's not a day that goes by that I don't think by the way that I don't think of something Bill has said to me when I'm training people. Bill is basically my reference guide, he's my Grey's Anatomy. When I try an exercise with somebody, I often find myself asking myself, what would Bill do and I take it from there. Without further ado, this is Bill, and we're going to talk about all good stuff. Joint friendly exercises, what Bill calls it now, you started out with congruent exercises, technical manual for joint friendly exercise, and now you're rephrasing it.Bill: Well actually the first thing I did was [Inaudible: 00:00:43] exercise, but the thing is I didn't write [Inaudible: 00:00:45] exercise with the idea that anybody other than me was going to read it. I was just getting my own ideas down, taking my own notes, and just to flesh it out and tie it up in a nice package, I actually wrote it and had it bound it up and sent it off to Greg Anderson and McGuff and a couple others, and it hit a wave of interest.Adam: A wave, they were probably blown away.Bill: Yeah well, a lot of those guys went out of their way to call me to say boy, a lot of what I suspected, you explained here. But when I read it now, it's pretty technical, it's a challenge.Mike: There's a lot of, I think, common sense with an experienced trainer when you think about levers in general, and I think what you did in that manual was make it very succinct and very clear. I think it's something that maybe we didn't have the full story on, but I think we had some — if you have some experience and you care about safety as a trainer, I think you are kind of looking at it and you saw it observationally, and then I think when we read this we were like ah, finally, this has crystalized what I think some of us were thinking.Adam: Exactly. You know what I just realized, let's explain, first and foremost. You wrote something called Moment Arm Exercise, so the name itself shows you have technical — that it probably is inside, right? So moment arm is a very technical term, a very specific term in physics, but now you're calling it joint friendly exercise, and you called it also congruent exercise at one point. All synonymous with each other, so please explain, what is joint friendly exercise or fitness?Bill: It's based more on anatomy and biomechanics than sports performance. So unlike a lot of the fitness fads that the attitude and the verbiage comes out of say football practice or a competitive sport, what I'm doing is I'm filtering all my exercise instruction through the anatomy and biomechanics books, to try to avoid the vulnerable — putting your joints in vulnerable positions, and that's so complicated which is why I struggled with so much to make it clearer. So I started with moment arm exercise, and then I wrote Congruent Exercise, which is a little broader but obviously the title still requires some explanation. And then — how it happened, as for my personal training in the studio, I would use all this stuff but I wouldn't explain it because I was only dealing with clients, I wasn't dealing with peers. Since it's a private studio and not a big gym, I don't have to explain the difference between what I'm doing and what somebody else is doing, but in effect, I've been doing this every day for fifteen years.Adam: I have to say, when you say that, that you didn't explain it to clients, I actually use this information as a selling point. I actually explain to my clients why we're doing it this way, as opposed to the conventional way, because this is joint friendly. I don't get too technical necessarily, but I let them know that there is a difference of why we're doing it this way, versus the conventional way. So they understand that we are actually a cut above everybody else in how we apply exercise, so they feel very secure in the fact that they're doing what they're supposed to be doing, but I digress.Bill: Generally what I do is any signage I have, a business card, website, Facebook presence, all lays out joint friendly and defines it and kind of explains itself. I would say most of the clients I have aren't coming from being heavily engaged in another form of fitness. They're people who start and drop out programs or they join a health club in January and drop out. It's not like I'm getting somebody who is really intensely into Crossfit, or intensely into Zumba or bodybuilding, and now they're banged up and need to do something different. The joint friendly phrasing is what connects me with people that need that, I just find that they don't need the technical explanation as to why we're not over stretching the joint capsule in the shoulder. Why we're not getting that extra range of motion on the bench press, because again, they haven't seen anybody doing otherwise, so I don't have to explain why I'm doing it this way.Adam: Yeah but they might have had experience doing it themselves. Let's take an overhead press for example, having your arms externally rotating and abducted, versus having them in front of you. There's an easy explanation to a client why we won't do one versus the other.Bill: But I have to say I do not get people who do not even know what a behind the neck press is. Now in Manhattan is a little bit different, more denser.Adam: So for this conversation, let's assume some people know, or understand in a way what the conventional is, but we can kind of get into it. What is conventional and what's not conventional. So it's joint friendly, how is it joint friendly, what are you actually doing to make it joint friendly?Bill: Well the short answer is that I use a lot less range of motion than we've got accustomed to, when we used to use an extreme range of motion. If bodybuilders in the 60s were doing pumping motions, and then you wanted to expand that range of motion, for good reason, and then that gets bastardized and we take more of a range of motion and turn it into an extreme range of motion — just because going from partial motions to a normal range of motion was good, doesn't make a normal range of motion to an extreme range of motion better. And in fact —Adam: What's wrong with extreme range of motion?Bill: Well because —Adam: Don't say that you want to improve flexibility.Bill: Well the HIIT guys who would say that you're going to improve flexibility by using —Adam: HIIT guys means the high intensity training sect of our business.Bill: So the line about, you're going to use the extreme range of motion with a weight training exercise to increase flexibility. First of all, either flexibility is important or it's not, and that's one of those things where HIIT has a little bit of an inconsistency, and they'll argue that it's not important, but then they'll say that you can get it with the weights. That's number one. Number two, a lot of the joint positions that machines and free weight exercises put us in, or can put us in, are very vulnerable to the joints, and if you go to an anatomy and biomechanics textbook, that is painfully obvious what those vulnerable positions are. Just because we walk into a gym or a studio and call it exercise instead of manual labor or instead of — instead of calling it submission wrestling and putting our joints or opponents' joints in an externally rotated abduct and extended position, we call it a pec fly, it's still the same shoulder. It's still a vulnerable position whether it's a pec fly stretching you back there, or a jiujitsu guy putting you in a paintbrush, but I don't know, for most of the pop fitness books though, if anybody else is really looking at this. Maybe not in pop fitness, maybe Tom Pervis —Adam: What's pop fitness?Bill: If you walk into a bookstore and look in the fitness section for instance, any of those types. No offense, but celebrity books, glossy celebrity fitness books, but I don't know that anybody — and the feedback that I've gotten from experienced guys like [Inaudible: 00:08:26] or the guys we know personally, is — even McGuff said yeah, I never associated the joint stuff with the exercise stuff.Adam: Let's talk about these vulnerabilities that you're talking about and extreme ranges of motion. So we have to understand a little bit about muscle anatomy to understand what we mean by the dangers of these extreme ranges of motion. So muscles are weaker in certain positions and they're stronger in other positions. Maybe talk about that, because that's where you start getting into why we do what we do, like understanding that muscles don't generate the same amount of force through a range of motion. They have different torque potentials.Mike: And is there a very clear and concise way of communicating that to a lay person too, like we have practice at it, but in here, we're over the radio or over the podcast, so it's like describing pictures with words.Bill: The easiest way to show it to a client who may not understand what muscle torque is, is to have them lock out in an exercise. Take a safe exercise, the barbell curl, where clearly if you allow your elbows to come forward and be vertically under the weight, at the top of the repetition, clearly all of a sudden the effort's gone. There's no resistance, but if you let your elbows drop back to rib height, if you pin your elbows to the sides through the whole curl, now all of a sudden your effort feels even. Instead of feeling like — instead of having effort and then a lockout, or having a sticky point and then a lockout, now it just feels like effort.Adam: Or a chest press where your elbows are straight and the weights are sitting on those elbows, you're not really working too hard there either.Bill: Same thing. If you have a lockout — what's easy to demonstrate is when the resistance torque that the machine or exercise provides doesn't match your muscle torque. So if your muscle torque pattern changes in the course of a movement, if you feel a lockout or a sticking point, then it's not a line. If all you feel is effort, now it matches pretty evenly. Now here's the thing, all that really means, and part of what I got away for a moment on — all that really means is that that set is going to be very efficient. Like for instance, the whole length of the reputation you're working. It's not like you work and lockout and rest, all that means is that it's going to be a very efficient set. You can't change a muscle torque curve, so if you were just to do some kind of weird angled exercise, you wouldn't get stronger in that angle. All you would do is use a relatively lower weight. Nobody does like a scott bench curl, nobody curls more than a standing curl. You can't change the muscle torque curve, you might change the angle, which means the amount of weight that your hand has change, to accommodate the different torque at that joint angle, but you're not changing where you're strongest. If you could, you would never know you had a bad [Inaudible: 00:11:36], because if the pattern — if the muscle torque pattern could change with a good [Inaudible: 00:11:44], it would also change with a bad [Inaudible: 00:11:47], and then you would never know. Take a dumbbell side raise, everybody on the planet knows it's hardest when your arms are horizontal. Your muscle torque curve can never change to accommodate what the resistance is asking. Now if you go from a machine side raise, which has more even — like where those two curves match, that set feels harder because you don't have to break. You do a set of side raises with dumbbells to failure, if it feels — if it's a difficulty level of ten, of force out of ten, and then you go to a machine side raise and go to failure, it's like a ten, because you didn't have that break built into the actual rep. So the moment arms, knowing how to match the resistance required by the exercise and the muscle torque expressed by your limbs, that makes for a more efficient exercise. In terms of safety, it's all about knowing what the vulnerable positions of the joints are and cutting the exercise short, so that you're not loading the joint into an impingement, or into like an overstretched position.Mike: How different are these…. like thinking about limitation and range of motion on them, we mentioned that before and I think it's kind of adjacent to what you're talking about is — we also want to help people understand that if they're on their own exercising or there are other trainers who want to help their clients, and for our trainers to help our clients… troubleshooting, we know generally how the joints work, where the strength curves exist, but how to discern where those limitations are. Like you said before, that one of the things you do is you limit range of motion and get much more stimulus and muscle.Bill: I'm saying limit range of motion because that might be the verbiage that we understand and maybe listeners would understand, but it's really a lot more complicated than just saying, use this range of motion. So for instance, in a lower back exercise, say a stiff leg or dead lift, which, when I used to misinterpret that by using a full range of motion, I'd be standing on a bench with a barbell, and the barbell would be at shoe level. My knees would be locked, my lower back would be rounded, my shoulders would be up my ears as I'm trying to get the bar off the ground, and so yes, I was using a full range of motion.Adam: That's for sure.Mike: That can be painted for that description.Bill: It's also pretty much a disaster on your lower back waiting to happen, at least on your lower back.Adam: I've got to go to a chiropractor just listening to that.Bill: Exactly, but you still see it all the time. You see it all the time on people using kettle bells, you see that exact posture. The kettle bell is between their legs, their knees are locked, their lower back is rounded, and now they're doing a speed lift. At least I was doing them slow, they're doing speed dead lifts, so if I was going to do an exercise like that, it wouldn't be an extreme range of motion, I'd be looking to use a correct range of motion. So for instance, I wouldn't lock the knees, and I would only lower the person's torso so that they could keep the curve in the lower back. Which might require a rep or two to see where that is, but once you see where that is, that's what I would limit them to.Mike: Do you do it at first with no weight with the client?Bill: That'd be one way of lining it up.Mike: Just sort of seeing what they can just do, make sure they understand the position and stuff.Bill: So for instance, the chest press machine I have in the studio is a Nitro —Adam: [Inaudible: 00:15:37] Nitro.Bill: And it doesn't — the seat doesn't adjust enough for my preference, so the person's elbows come too far back. So for instance, to get the first rep off the ground, the person's elbows have to come way behind the plane of their back, which —Adam: So you've come to weigh stack themBill: Weigh stack, right.Mike: It's like our pull over, you know how we had to pull it over at one point?Bill: So what I'll do is I'll help the person out of the first repetition, help them out of the bottom, and then I'll have my hand to the clipboard where I want their elbow to stop. So as soon as they touch my hand with their elbow, they start to go the other way.Adam: So they're not stretching their pecs too far.Bill: Well more specifically, they're not rotating their shoulder capsule. So that's another thing we tend to do, we tend to think of everything in terms of the big, superficial muscles — right, those are the ones that don't get hurt, it's the joints that [do]. That was one thing of all the stuff I read, whether it was CSCS or Darton's stuff or Jones' stuff, there was always a little murkiness between what was the joint and what was the muscle. That stuff was always written from the point of view of the muscle.Adam: What's a joint capsule, for those that don't know what a joint capsule is. A shoulder capsule.Bill: It's part of the structure of what holds your shoulder together, and so if the old [Inaudible: 00:17:06] machines, 1980 vintage, that bragged about getting such an extreme range of motion, some of them… it really took your shoulder to the limit of where it could go to start the exercise, and we were encouraged to go that far.Adam: And what would happen?Bill: Eventually it just adds to the wear and tear that you were going to have in your shoulder anyway. And that's if people stayed with it, I think a lot of people ended up dropping out.Mike: Often times exacerbating what was going on.Bill: You rarely see, it's occasional that we have that sort of catastrophic event in the gym, it's occasional —Mike: Almost never happens.Bill: A lot of the grief that I take for my material is well, that never happens, people do this exercise all the time, people never explode their spine. Well a) that's not true, they do, just not in that persons' awareness, and b) but the real problem is unnecessarily adding to life's wear and tear on your joints. So it's not just what we do in the gym that counts, if somebody plays tennis or somebody has a desk job or manual labor job — let's say a plumber or some other manual labor guy has to go over his head with his arms a lot, that wear and tear on his shoulder counts, and just because they walk into your gym, and you ask them about their health history, do you have any orthopedic problems and they say no, yes. I'm on the verge of an orthopedic problem that I don't know about, and I've worn this joint out because of work, but no I have no orthopedic problems at the moment. So my thing is, the exercise I'm prescribing isn't going to make that worse.Adam: Well you don't want to make it worse, and that's why you're limiting range of motion, that's why you're matching the strength curve of the muscle with the resistance curve of the tool you're using, whether it's free weight or machine or the cam.Bill: Yeah, we're supposed to be doing this for the benefits of exercise. I do not — I truly do not understand crippling yourself over the magical benefit of exercise. I mean there's no — in 2014, there was a lot of negative publicity with Crossfit, with some of the really catastrophic injuries coming about. There's no magic benefits just because you risk your life, you either benefit from exercise or you don't, but you don't get extra magic benefit because you pushed something to the brink of cracking your spine or tearing your shoulder apart.Adam: Well they talk about them being functional or natural movements, that they do encourage these full ranges of motion because that's what you do in life.Bill: Where? Mike: Well I mean like in sports for example, you're extending your body into a range of motion — and also there are things in life, like for example, like I was saying to Adam, for example, sometimes you have to lift something that's heavy and you have to reach over a boundary in front of you to do so.Bill: Like… putting in the trunk of a car, for example.Mike: Things like that, or even —Adam: So shouldn't you exercise that way if that's what you're doing in every day life?Mike: If your daily life does involve occasional extreme ranges of motion, which that's the reason why your joints of kind of wearing and tearing anyway, is there something you can do to assist in training that without hurting it? Or exacerbating it?Bill: You know it's interesting, 25 years ago, there was a movement in physical therapy and they would have back schools, and they would — it was sort of like an occupational oriented thing, where they would teach you how to lift, and at the time, I thought that was so frivolous. I just thought, get stronger, but lifting it right in the first place is really the first step to not getting injured. Mike: Don't life that into the trunk unless —Bill: Well unless you have to, right? For instance, practicing bad movements doesn't make you invulnerable to the bad movements, you're just wearing out your free passes. Now sport is a different animal, yes you're going to be — again, I don't think anyone is doing this, but there's enough wear and tear just in your sport, whether it's football, martial arts, running, why add more wear and tear from your workout that's there to support the sport. The original [Inaudible: 00:21:52] marketing pitch was look how efficient we made weight training, you can spend more time practicing. You don't have to spend four hours a day in the gym, you can spend a half hour twice a week or three times a week in the gym, and get back to practicing.Adam: I remember Greg [Inaudible: 22:06] said to a basketball coach that if his team is in his gym more than 20 minutes or so a week, that he's turning them into weight lifters and not basketball players.Bill: Well there you go. Now —Mike: The thing is the training and the performance goals in getting people stronger, faster, all that kind of stuff, is like unbelievable now a days, but I've never seen more injuries in sports in my entire life than right now.Bill: It's unbelievably bogus though is what it is. You see a lot of pec tears in NFL training rooms. Adam: So why aren't they learning? Why is it so hard to get across then?Bill: Well for starters, you're going to churn out — first of all you're dealing with twenty year olds. Adam: So what, what are you saying about twenty year olds?Bill: I was a lot more invincible at twenty than I am at sixty.Mike: Physically and psychologically.Bill: The other thing for instance. Let's say you've got a college level, this is not my experience, I'm repeating this, but if you have a weight room that's empty, or, and you're the strength and conditioning coach, because you're intensely working people out, briefly, every day. Versus the time they're idle, they're off doing their own thing. Or, every day the administrators and the coaches see people running hoops and doing drills, running parachutes and every day there is an activity going. What looks better? What is more job security for that strength and conditioning coach? Adam: Wait a second. What is Jim the strength training coach doing? He's working one day a week and what's he doing the rest of the week?Mike: And what's the team doing the rest of the week?Bill: But again, don't forget, if you're talking about twenty something year old athletes, who knows what that's going to bring on later.Adam: You are seeing more injuries though.Bill: Right. A couple of years ago, ESPN had a story on a guy. He had gotten injured doing a barbell step up, so a barbell step up, you put a barbell on your back, you step onto a bench, bring the other foot up. Step back off the bench, four repetitions. Classic sports conditioning exercise, in this guys case either he stepped back and twisted his ankle and fell with the bar on his back, or when he went to turn to put the bar back on the rack, when he turned, it spun on him and he damaged his back that way. Either way, he put his ability to walk at risk, so the ESPN story was, oh look how great that is he's back to playing. Yes, but he put his ability to walk at risk, to do an exercise that is really not significantly — it's more dangerous than other ways of working your legs, but it's not better.Adam: The coaches here, the physical trainers, they don't have evidence that doing step ups is any more effective in the performance of their sport, or even just pure strength gains. Then lets say doing a safe version of a leg press or even squats for that matter.Bill: And even if you wanted to go for a more endurance thing, running stadium steps was a classic exercise, but stadium steps are what, three or four inches, they made them very flat. Even that's safer because there's no bar on your back. So on the barbell step up, which I think is still currently in the NSCA textbooks, the bar is on your back. If the bench is too high, you have to bend over in order to get your center of gravity over the bench, otherwise you can't get off the floor. So now you're bent over with one foot in front of you, so now you don't even have two feet under you like in a barbell squat to be more stable. You have your feet in line, with the weight extending sideways, and now you do your twenty repetitions or whatever and you're on top of the bench, and your legs are burning and you're breathing heavy, and now you've got to get off. How do you get off that bench when your legs are gassed, you're going to break and lock your knee, and the floor is going to come up — nobody steps forward, they all step backwards where you can't see. Mike: Even after doing an exercise, let's say you did it okay or whatever and whether it was congruent or not congruent, sometimes, if it's a free weight type of thing, just getting the weight back on the floor or on the rack. After you've gone to muscle failure or close to muscle failure —Adam: So are these things common now, like still in the NFL they're doing these types of training techniques? Bill: I don't really know what's happening in the NFL or the college level, because frankly I stopped my NSCA membership because I couldn't use any material with my population anyway. So I don't really know what they are — I do know that that was a classic one, and as recently as 2014 — in fact one other athlete actually did lose his ability to walk getting injured in that exercise. Adam: It's cost benefit, like how much more benefit are you getting —Bill: It's cost. My point is that the benefit is — it's either or.Mike: That's the thing, people don't know it though, they think the benefit is there. That's the problem.Bill: They think that for double the risk, you're going to get quadruple the benefit. What, what benefit? What magic benefit comes out of putting your ability to walk at risk?Mike: One of my clients has a daughter who was recruited to row at Lehigh which is a really good school for that, and she, in the training program, she was recruited to go. She was a great student but she was recruited to row, and in the training program, she hurt her back in the weight room in the fall, and never, ever was with the team. This was a very, very good program — Bill: Very good program, so it's rowing, so a) it's rough on your lower back period, and b) I'm completely guessing here, but at one time they used to have their athletes doing [Inaudible: 00:28:22] and other things —Adam: Explain what a clean is —Bill: Barbells on the floor and you either pull it straight up and squat under the bar, which would be like an olympic clean, or you're a little more upright and you just sort of drag the bar up to your collarbones, and get your elbows underneath it. Either way it's hard on the back, but at one time, rowing conditioning featured a lot of exercises like that to get their back stronger, that they're already wearing out in the boat. They didn't ask me, but if I was coaching them, I would not train their lower backs in the off season. I would let the rowing take care of that, I would train everything around their back, and give their back a break, but they didn't ask.Adam: I don't know why they didn't ask you, didn't they know that you're a congruent exerciser?Bill: You've got to go to a receptive audience.Mike: I think because there are things we do in our lives that are outside, occasionally outside our range of motion or outside — that are just incongruent or not joint friendly, whether it's in sports or not. The thing is, I'm wondering are there exercises that go like — say for example you have to go — your sport asks for range of motion from one to ten, and you need to be prepared to do that, if you want to do that, the person desires to do that. Are there exercises where you go — can you be more prepared for that movement if you are doing it with a load or just a body weight load, whatever, up to say level four. Are there situations where it's okay to do that, where you're going a slight increase into that range where it's not comprising joint safety, and it's getting you a little bit more prepared to handle something that is going on.Adam: So for example, for a golf swing, when you do a golf swing, you're targeting the back probably more than you should in a safe range of motion in an exercise. I would never [Inaudible: 00:30:32] somebody's back in the exercise room to the level that you have to [Inaudible: 00:30:34] your back to play golf. So I guess what Mike is asking is is there an exercise that would be safe to [Inaudible: 00:30:41] the back, almost as much as you would have to in golf.Bill: I would say no. I would say, and golf is a good example. Now if you notice, nobody has their feet planted and tries to swing with their upper body.Mike: A lot of people do, that's how you hurt yourself.Bill: But any sport, tennis, throwing a baseball, throwing a punch. Get your hips into it, it's like standard coaching cliche, get your hips into it. What that does is it keeps you from twisting your back too much. In golf, even Tiger who was in shape for quite a while couldn't help but over twist and then he's out for quite a while with back problems.Mike: Yeah, his story is really interesting and complicated. He did get into kind of navy seal training and also you should see the ESPN article on that which really — after I read that I thought that was the big thing with his problems. Going with what you just said about putting your hips into it, I'm a golfer, I try to play golf, and I did the TPI certification. Are you familiar with that? I thought it was really wonderful, I thought I learned a lot. I wasn't like the gospel according to the world of biomechanics, but I felt like it was a big step in the right direction with helping with sports performance and understanding strength and mobility. One of the bases of, the foundation of it, they — the computer analysis over the body and the best golfers, the ones that do it very very efficiently, powerfully and consistently, and they showed what they called a [Inaudible: 00:32:38] sequence, and it's actually very similar, as you said, in all sports. Tennis, golf, throwing a punch, there's a sequence where they see that the people who do it really, really well, and in a panfry way, it goes hip first, then torso, then arm, then club. In a very measured sequence, despite a lot of people who have different looking golf swings, like Jim [Inaudible: 00:32:52], Tiger Woods, John Daley, completely different body types, completely different golf swings, but they all have the — if you look at them on the screen in slow motion with all the sensors all over their body, their [Inaudible: 00:33:04] sequence is identical. It leads to a very powerful and consistent and efficient swing, but if you say like if you have limitations in you mobility between your hips and your lumbar spine, or your lumbar spine and your torso, and it's all kind of going together. It throws timing off, and if you don't have those types of things, very slowly, or quickly, you're going to get to an injury, quicker than another person would get to an injury. The thing is, at the same time, you don't want to stop someone who really wants to be a good golfer. We have to give the information and this is a — people have to learn the biomechanics and the basic swing mechanics of a golf swing, and then there's a fitness element to it all. Are you strong enough, do you have the range of motion, is there a proper mobility between the segments of your body in order to do this without hurting yourself over time, and if there isn't, golf professionals and fitness professionals are struggling. How do I teach you how to do this, even though it's probably going to lead you to an injury down the line anyway. It's a puzzle but the final question is, what — I'm trying to safely help people who have goals with sports performance and without hurting them.Bill: First of all, any time you go from exercise in air quotes to sports, with sports, there's almost an assumption of risk. The person playing golf assumes they're going to hurt a rotator cuff or a back, or they at least know it's a possibility. It's just part of the game. Football player knows they could have a knee injury, maybe now they know they could have a concussion, but they just accept it by accepting it on the court or the turf. They walk into our studio, I don't think that expectation — they may expect it also, but I don't think it really belongs there. I don't think you're doing something to prepare for the risky thing. The thing you're doing to prepare for the risky thing shouldn't also be risky, and besides, let them get hurt on that guy's time, not on your time. I'm being a little facetious there, I don't buy the macho bullshit attitude that in order to challenge myself physically, I have to do something so reckless I could get hurt. That's just simply not necessary. If somebody says I want to be an Olympic weightlifter, I want to be a power lifter, just like if they want to be a mixed martial artist, well then you're accepting the fact that that activity is your priority. Not your joint health, not your safety. That activity is your priority, and again, nobody in professional sports is asking me, but I would so make the exercise as safe as possible. As safe as possible at first, then as vigorous as possible, and then let them take that conditioning and apply it to their sport.Adam: If a sport requires that scapulary traction at a certain time in a swing or whatever they're asking for, I don't really think that there's a way in the exercise room of working on just that. Scapular traction, and even if you can, it doesn't mean it's going to translate to the biomechanics and the neuro conditioning and the motor skill conditioning to put it all together. Bill: You can't think that much —Adam: I'm just thinking once and for all, if strong hips are what's important for this sport, a strong neck is what's important for this. If being able to rotate the spine is important and you need your rotation muscles for the spine, work your spine rotationally but in a very safe range of motion. Tax those muscles, let them recover and get strong so when you do go play your sport, lets say a golf swing, it's watching the videos and perfecting your biomechanics, but there's nothing I think you can do in the gym that is going to help you really coordinate all those skills, because you're trying to isolate the hip abductor or a shoulder retractor. Mike: Well I was going to say, I think isolating the muscles in the gym is fine, because it allows you to control what happens, you don't have too many moving parts, and this is kind of leading up to the conversational on functional training.Adam: Which is good even if you can do that. You might notice there's a weakness —Mike: Yeah but if you're going to punch, you don't think okay flex the shoulder, extend at the — Adam: There are a lot of boxers that didn't make it because they were called arm punchers. Bill: So at some point you can't train it. You need to realize gee that guy has good hip movement, let me direct him to this sport.Adam: So I think what Mike's asking is is there some kind of exercise you can do to turn an arm puncher, let's use this as an example, turn an arm puncher into a hip puncher? If you can maybe do something —Bill: I think it's practice though. Mike: I think there's a practice part of it. Going back to the golf swing, one of the things that they were making a big deal out of is, and it goes back to what we mentioned before, sitting at a desk and what's going on with our bodies. Our backs, our hips, our hamstrings. As a result of the amount of time that most of us in our lives have, and we're trainers, we're up on our feet all day, but a lot of people are in a seated position all the time. Adam: Hunched over, going forward.Mike: Their lower back is —Bill: Hamstrings are shortened, yeah.Mike: What is going on in the body if your body is — if you're under those conditions, eight to ten hours a day, five days a week. Not to mention every time you sit down in your car, on the train, have a meal, if you're in a fetal position. My point is, they made a big thing at TPI about how we spend 18-20 hours a day in hip flexion, and what's going on. How does that affect your gluten if you're in hip flexion 20 hours a day. They were discussing the term called reciprocal inhibition, which is — you know what I mean by that?Bill: The muscle that's contracting, the opposite muscle has to relax.Mike: Exactly, so if the hip is flexed, so as the antagonist muscle of the glue which is being shut off, and therefore —Bill: Then when you go to hip henge, your glutes aren't strong enough to do the hip henge so you're going to get into a bad thing.Mike: Exactly, and the thing as I said before —Adam: What are they recommending you do though?Mike: Well the thing is they're saying do several different exercises to activate the gluten specifically and —Adam: How is that different than just doing a leg press that will activate them?Mike: Adam, that's a good question and the thing is it comes back to some of the testimonials. When you deal with clients, often times if you put them on a leg press, they'll say I'm not feeling it in my glutes, I'm only feeling it in my quads, and other people will say, I'm feeling it a lot in my glutes and my hamstrings, and a little bit in my quads.Adam: But if they don't feel it in their glutes, it doesn't mean that their glutes aren't activated, for sure.Mike: Bill, what do you think about that?Bill: I think feel is very overrated in our line of work. I can get you to feel something but it's not — you can do a concentration curl, tricep kickback, or donkey kicks with a cuff, and you'll feel something because you're not — you're making the muscle about to cramp, but that's not necessarily a positive. As far as activating the glutes go, if they don't feel it on the leg press, I would go to the abductor machine. Mike: I mean okay, whether it's feel it's overrated, that's the thing that as a trainer, I really want the client to actually really make the connection with the muscle part.Bill: Well yeah, you have to steer it though. For instance, if you put somebody on the abductor machine and they feel the sides of their glutes burn, in that case, the feel matches what you're trying to do. If you have somebody doing these glute bridging exercises where their shoulders are on a chair and their hips are on the ground, knees are bent, and they're kind of just driving their hips up. You feel that but it's irrelevant, you're feeling it because you're trying to get the glutes to contract at the end of where — away from their strongest point. You're not taxing the glutes, you're getting a feeling, but it's not really challenging the strength of the glutes. So I think what happens with a lot of the approaches like you're describing, where they have half a dozen exercises to wake up the glutes, or engage them or whatever the phrase is.Mike: Activate, yeah.Bill:  There's kind of a continuity there, so it should be more of a progression rather than all of these exercises are valid. If you've got a hip abductor machine, the progression is there already.Mike: The thing is, it's also a big emphasis, it's going back to TPI and golf and stuff, is the mobility factor. So I think that's the — the strength is there often times, but there's a mobility issue every once in a while, and I think that is — if something is, like for example if you're very, very tight and if your glutes are supposed to go first, so says TPI through their [Inaudible: 00:42:57] sequence, but because you're so tight that it's going together, and therefore it's causing a whole mess of other things which might make your club hit the ground first, and then tension in the arms, tension in the back, and all sorts of things. I'm thinking maybe there are other points, maybe the mobility thing has to be addressed in relation to a golf swing, more so than are the glutes actually working or not.Bill: Well the answer is it all could be. So getting back to a broader point, the way we train people takes half an hour, twice a week maybe. That leaves plenty of time for this person to do mobility work or flexibility work, if they have a specific activity that they think they need the work in.Mike: Or golf practice.Bill:  Well that's what I'm saying, even if it's golf and even if — if you're training for strength once or twice a week, that leaves a lot of time that you can do some of these mobility things, if the person needs them. That type of program, NASM has a very elaborate personal trainer program, but they tend to equally weight every possible — some people work at a desk and they're not — their posture is fine. Maybe they just intuitively stretch during the day, so I think a lot of those programs try to give you a recipe for every possible eventuality, and then there's a continuum within that recipe. First we're going to do one leg bridges, then we're going to do two leg bridges, now we're going to do two leg bridges on a ball, now we're going to do leg bridges with an extra weight, now we're going to do two leg bridges with an elastic band. Some of those things are just progressions, there's no magic to any one of those exercises, but I think that's on a case by case basis. If the person says I'm having trouble doing the swing the way the instructor is teaching me, then you can pick it apart, but the answer is not necessarily weight training.Mike: The limitation could be weakness but it could be a mobility thing, it could be a whole bunch of things, it could be just that their mechanics are off.Bill: And it could just be that it's a bad sport for them. The other thing with postural issues, is if you get them when a person's young, you might be able to correct them. You get a person 60, 70, it may have settled into the actual joints. The joints have may have changed shape.Adam: We've got people with kyphosis all the time. We're going to not reverse that kyphosis. You have these women, I find it a lot with tall women. They grow up taller than everyone else in their class and they're shy so they end up being kyphotic because they're shy to stand up tall. You can prevent further degeneration and further kyphosis.Bill: Maybe at 20 or 25, if you catch that, maybe they can train out of it, but if you get it when it's already locked in, all you can do is not do more damage.Adam: So a lot of people feel and argue that machines are great if you want to just do really high intensity, get really deep and go to failure, but if you want to really learn how to use your body in  space, then free weights and body weight movements need to be incorporated, and both are important. Going to failure with machines in a safe manner, that might be cammed properly, but that in and of itself is not enough. That a lot of people for full fitness or conditioning if you will, you need to use free weights or body weight movements —Mike: Some people even think that machines are bad and only body weights should be done.Adam: Do you have an opinion about if one is better than the other, or they both serve different purposes and they're both important, or if you just use either one of them correctly, you're good.Bill: Let's talk about the idea that free weights are more functional than machines. I personally think it's what you do with your body that makes it functional or not, and by functional, that's —Adam: Let's talk about that, let's talk about functional training.Bill:  I'm half mocking that phrase.Adam: So before you even go into the question I just asked, maybe we can talk about this idea, because people are throwing around the expression functional training nowadays. So Crossfit is apparently functional training, so what exactly was functional training and what has it become?Bill: I don't know what they're talking about, because frankly if I've got to move a tire from point A to point B, I'm rolling it, I'm not flipping it. Adam: That would be more functional, wouldn't it.Bill: If I have to lift something, if I have a child or a bag of groceries that I have to lift, I'm not going to lift a kettle bell or dumbbell awkwardly to prepare for that awkward lift. In other words, I would rather train my muscles safely and then if I have to do something awkward, hopefully I'm strong enough to get through it, to withstand it. My thought was, when I started in 1982 or so, 84, 83, somewhere in the early 80s I started to train, most of us at the time were very influenced by the muscle magazines. So it was either muscle magazines, or the [Inaudible: 00:48:24] one set to failure type training, but the people that we were training in the early 80s, especially in Manhattan, they weren't body builders and they weren't necessarily athletes. So to train business people and celebrities and actors etc, like you would train an athlete seemed like a bad idea. Plus how many times did I hear, oh I don't want to get big, or I'm not going out for the Olympics. Okay fine, but then getting to what Mike said before, if someone has a hunched over shoulder or whatever, now you're tailoring the training to what the person is in front of you, to what is relevant to their life. 20 inch arms didn't fascinate them, why are you training them to get 20 inch arms? Maybe a trimmer waist was more their priority, so to my eye, functional training and personal training, back in the 80s, was synonymous. Somewhere since the 80s, functional training turned into this anti machine approach and functional training for sport was [Inaudible: 00:49:32] by a guy named Mike Boyle. His main point in there is, and I'm paraphrasing so if I get it wrong, don't blame him, but his point was as an athlete, you don't necessarily need to bench heavy or squat heavy or deadlift heavy, although it might be helpful, but you do need the muscles that hold your joints together to be in better shape. So all of his exercises were designed around rotator cuff, around the muscles around the spine, the muscles around the hips, the muscles around the ankles. So in his eye it was functional for sport, he was training people, doing exercises, so they would hold their posture together so that that wouldn't cause a problem on the field. That material was pretty good, went a little overboard I think in some ways, but generally it was pretty good, but then it kind of got bastardized as it got caught into the commercial fitness industry, and it just became an excuse for sequencing like a lunge with a curl with a row with a pushup, to another lunge, to a squat. It just became sort of a random collection of movements, justified as being functional, functional for what? At least Boyle was functional for sport, his point was to cut injuries down in sport. Where is the function in stringing together, again, a curl, to a press, to a pushup, to a squat, back to the curl, like one rep of each, those are more like stunts or feats of strength than they are, to me, exercise, Adam: So when you're talking about the muscles around the spine or the rotator cuffs, they're commonly known as stabilizer muscles, and when we talk about free weights versus machines, a lot of times we'll say something like, well if you want to work your stabilizer muscles, you need to use free weights, because that's how you work the stabilizer muscles. What would you say to that?Bill: I would say that if they're stabilizing while they're using the free weights, then they're using the stabilizer muscles, right?Adam: And if they're stabilizing while using a machine?Bill:  They're using their stabilizer muscles.Adam: Could you work out those stabilizer muscles of the shoulder on a machine chest press, the same way you can use strength in stabilizer muscles of the shoulder on a free weight bench press?Bill:  Yes, it's what your body is doing that counts, not the tool. So if someone is on a free weight…Mike: Is it the same though, is it doing it the same way? So you can do it both ways, but is it the same?Bill: If you want to — skill is very specific, so if you want to barbell bench press, you have to barbell bench press.Adam: Is there an advantage to your stabilizer muscles to do it with a free weight bench press, as opposed to a machine?Bill: I don't see it, other than to help the ability to free weight bench press, but if that's not why the person is training, if the person is just training for the health benefits of exercise to use it broadly, I don't think it matters — if you're on a machine chest press and you're keeping your shoulder blades down and back, and you're not buckling your elbows, you're voluntarily controlling the range of the motion. I don't see how that stabilization is different than if you're on a barbell bench press, and you have to do it the same way. Adam: You're balancing, because both arms have to work independently in a way.Bill:  To me that just makes it risky, that doesn't add a benefit.Mike: What about in contrast to lets say, a pushup. A bodyweight pushup, obviously there's a lot more going on because you're holding into a plank position which incorporates so many more muscles of your entire body, but like Adam and I were talking the other day about the feeling — if you're not used to doing pushups regularly, which Adam is all about machines and stuff like that, I do a little bit of everything, but slow protocol. It's different, one of our clients is unbelievably strong on all of the machines, we're talking like top 10% in weight on everything. Hip abduction, leg press, chest press, pull downs, everything, and this guy could barely do 8 limited range of motion squats with his body weight, and he struggles with slow pushups, like doing 5 or 6 pushups. 5 seconds down, 5 seconds up, to 90 degrees at the elbow, he's not even going past — my point is that he's working exponentially harder despite that he's only dealing with his body weight, then he is on the machines, in all categories.Bill:  So here's the thing though. Unless that's a thing with them, that I have to be able to do 100 pushups or whatever, what's the difference?Mike: The difference is —Adam: The question is why though. Why could he lift 400, 500 pounds on Medex chest press, he could hardly do a few pushups, and should he be doing pushups now because have we discovered some kind of weakness? That he needs to work on pushups?Bill: Yes, but it's not in his pecs and his shoulders.Mike: I'm going to agree, exactly.Bill:  The weakness is probably in his trunk, I don't know what the guy is built like. The weakness is in his trunk because in a pushup, you're suspending yourself between your toes and your arms.Adam: So somebody should probably be doing ab work and lower back extensions?Bill: No he should be doing pushups. He should be practicing pushups, but practicing them in a way that's right. Not doing the pushup and hyper extending his back, doing a pushup with his butt in the air. Do a perfect pushup and then if your form breaks, stop, recover. Do another perfect pushup, because we're getting back into things that are very, very specific. So for instance, if you tell me that he was strong on every machine, and he comes back every week and he's constantly pulling things in his back, then I would say yes, you have to address it.Mike: This is my observations that are more or less about — I think it's something to do with his coordination, and he's not comfortable in his own body. For example, his hips turn out significantly, like he can't put his feet parallel on the leg press for example. So if I ever have him do a limited range of motion lunge, his feet go into very awkward positions. I can tell he struggles with balance, he's an aspiring golfer as well. His coordination is — his swing is really, I hope he never listens to this, it's horrible. Adam: We're not giving his name out.Bill: Here's the thing now. You as a trainer have to decide, am I going to reconfigure what he's doing, at the risk of making him feel very incompetent and get him very discouraged, or do I just want to, instead of doing a machine chest press, say we'll work on pushups. Do you just want to introduce some of these new things that he's not good at, dribble it out to him a little bit at a time so it gives him like a new challenge for him, or is that going to demoralize him?Mike: He's not demoralized at all, that is not even on the table. I understand what you're saying, I think there are other people who would look at it that way. I think he looks at it as a new challenge, I think he knows — like we've discussed this very, very openly. He definitely — it feels like he doesn't have control over his body in a way. Despite his strength, I feel that — my instincts as a trainer, I want to see this guy be able to feel like he's strong doing something that is a little bit more — incorporates his body more in space than just being on a machine. If I'm measuring his strength based on what he can do by pressing forward or pulling back or squatting down, he's passed the test with As and great form. He does all the other exercises with pretty good form, but he's struggling with them. He has to work a lot harder in order to do it, and to be it's an interesting thing to see someone who lifts very heavy weights on the chest press and can barely do 4 slow pushups.Bill: Let's look at the pushups from a different angle. Take someone who could do pushups, who can do pushups adequately, strictly and all. Have another adult sit on their butt, all of a sudden those perfect pushups, even though probably raw strength could bench press an extra person, say, you can't do it, because someone who is thicker in the hips, has more weight around the hips, represented by the person sitting on their back, their dimensions are such that their hips are always going to be weighing them down. So that person's core — like a person with broader hips, in order to do a pushup, their core has to be much stronger than somebody with very narrow hips, because they have less weight in the middle of their body. So some of these things are a function of proportion.Adam: You can't train for it, in other words you can't improve it.Mike: Women in general have their center of gravity in their hips, and that's why pushups are very, very hard.Adam: I have an extremely strong individual, a perfect example of what you're talking about right now. I know people that are extremely, extremely strong, but some of these very, very strong individuals can do a lot of weight on a pullover machine, they can do a lot of weight on a pulldown machine, but as soon as you put them on the chin-up bar, they can't do it. Does that mean they're not strong, does that mean that they can't do chin-ups, that they should be working on chin-ups because we discovered a weakness? No, there's people for example who might have shitty tendon insertions, like you said about body weight and center of gravity, if they have really thick lower body. I notice that people who have really big, thick lower bodies, really strong people — or if they have really long arms, the leverage is different. So it begs the question, lets start doing chin-ups, yeah but you'll never proportionally get better at chin-ups, given your proportions, given your tendon insertions, given your length of your arms. So maybe Mike, this person is just not built to do push-ups and you're essentially just giving him another chest and body exercise that is not necessarily going to improve or help anything, because it's a proportional thing, it's a leverage thing. It's not a strength thing, especially if you're telling me he's so strong and everything else.Bill: The only way you'll know is to try.Mike: Well that's the thing, and that's what I've been doing. We just started it, maybe in the last month, and frankly both of us are excited by it. He's been here for a few years, and he is also I think starving to do something a little new. I think that's a piece of the puzzle as well, because even if you're coming once a week and you get results, it gets a little stale, and that's why I've tried to make an effort of making all the exercises we're doing congruent. Joint friendly, very limited range of motion, and the thing is, he's embracing the challenge, and he's feeling it too. I know the deal with soreness and stuff like that, new stimulus.Bill: In that case, the feeling counts, right? It doesn't always mean something good, it doesn't always mean something bad.Mike: Right, it is a little bit of a marketing thing. Adam: It's a motivator. It's nothing to be ashamed of for motivation. If pushups is motivating this guy, then do pushups, they're a great exercise regardless.Bill: Getting back to your general question about whether free weights lends itself to stabilizing the core better or not, if that's what the person is doing on the exercise, then it is. If the person is doing the pushup and is very tight, yes, he's exercising his core. If the person is doing the pushup and it's sloppy, one shoulder is rising up, one elbow to the side, it doesn't matter that it's a pushup —Adam: He's still not doing it right and he's still not working his core.Bill: Right, so it's really how the person is using their body that determines whether they're training their core appropriately, not the source of the resistance.Adam: I'm sorry, I've done compound rows with free weights in all kinds of ways over the years, and now I'm doing compound row with a retrofitted Medex machine, with a CAM that really represents pretty good CAM design and I challenge anyone to think that they're not working everything they need to work on that machine, because you've still got to keep your shoulders down. You've still got to keep your chest up, you still have to not hunch over your shoulders when you're lowering a weight. I mean there's a lot of things you've got to do right on a compound machine, just like if you're using free weights. I don't personally, I've never noticed that much of a benefit, and how do you measure that benefit anyway? How would you be able to prove that free weights is helping in one way that a machine is not, how do you actually prove something like that? I hear it all the time, you need to do it because you need to be able to —Mike: There's one measuring thing actually, but Bill —Bill: I was going to say, a lot of claims of exercise, a lot of the chain of thought goes like this. You make the claim, the result, and there's this big black box in the middle that — there's no  explanation of why doing this leads to this. Mike: If you made the claim and the result turns out, then yes it's correlated and therefore —Bill: I was going to say getting to Crossfit and bootcamp type things, and even following along with a DVD program, whatever brand name you choose. The problem I have with that from a joint friendly perspective is you have too many moving parts for you to be managing your posture and taking care of your joints. Especially if you're trying to keep up with the kettle bell class. I imagine it's possible that you can do certain kettle bell exercises to protect your lower back and protect your shoulders. It's possible, but what the user has to decide is how likely is it? So I know for me personally, I can be as meticulous as I want with a kettle bell or with a barbell deadlift, and at some point, I'm going to hurt myself. Not from being over ambitious, not from sloppy form, something is going to go wrong. Somebody else might look at those two exercises and say no, I'm very confident I can get this. You pay your money, you take your chance.Mike: As a measuring tool, sometimes you never know if one is better or worse but sometimes — every once in a while, even when we have clients come into our gym and you have been doing everything very carefully with them, very, very modest weight, and sometimes people say, you know Mike, I've never had any knee problems and my knees are bothering me a little bit. I think it's the leg press that's been doing it, ever since we started doing that, I'm feeling like a little bit of a tweak in my knee, I'm feeling it when I go up stairs. Something like that, and then one of the first things I'll do is like when did it start, interview them, try to draw some lines or some hypotheses as to what's going on. Obviously there might be some wear and tear in their life, almost definitely was, and maybe something about their alignment on the leg press is not right. Maybe they're right, maybe they're completely wrong, but one of the things I'll do first is say okay, we still want to work your legs. We still want to work your quads, your hamstrings, your glutes, let's try doing some limited range of motions squats against the wall or with the TRX or something like that, and then like hey, how are your knees feeling over the past couple weeks? Actually you know, much much better, ever since we stopped doing the leg press.Bill: Sometimes some movements just don't agree with some joints.Adam: There's a [Inaudible: 01:05:32] tricep machine that I used to use, and it was like kind of like —Bill: The one up here? Yeah.Adam: You karate chop right, and your elbows are stabilized on the pad, you karate chop down. It was an old, [Inaudible: 01:05:45] machine, and I got these sharp pains on my elbows. Nobody else that I trained on that machine ever had that sharp pain in their elbows, but it bothered the hell out of my elbows. So I would do other tricep extensions and they weren't ever a problem, so does that make that a bad exercise? For me it did.Bill: For you it did, but if you notice, certain machine designs have disappeared. There's a reason why those machine designs disappeared, so there's a reason why, I think in the Nitro line, I know what machine you're talking about. They used to call it multi tricep, right, okay, and your upper arms were held basically parallel, and you had to kind of karate chop down.Adam: It wasn't accounting for the carrying angle.Bill: I'll get to that. So your elbows were slightly above your shoulders, and you had to move your elbows into a parallel. Later designs, they moved it out here. They gave them independent axises, that's not an accident. A certain amount of ligament binding happens, and then —Adam: So my ligaments just were not coping with that very well.Bill: That's right. So for instance, exactly what joint angle your ligaments bind at is individual, but if you're going in this direction, there is a point where the shoulder ligaments bind and you have to do this. Well that machine forced us in the bound position, so when movement has to happen, it can't happen at the shoulder because you're pinned in the seat. It was happening in your elbow. It might not be the same with everybody, but that is how the model works.Adam: So getting back to your client on the leg press, like for instance — you can play with different positions too.Mike: Well the thing is, I'm trying to decipher some of — trying to find where the issues may be. A lot of times I think that the client probably just — maybe there's some alignment issues, IT bands are tight or something like that, or maybe there's a weak — there can be a lot of different little things, but the machines are perfect and symmetrical, but you aren't. You're trying to put your body that's not through a pattern, a movement pattern that has to be fixed in this plane, when your body kind of wants to go a little to the right, a little to the left, or something like that. It just wants to do that even though you're still extending and flexing. In my mind and

If You Are Ready To See Massive Results On LinkedIn, Then Listen To Expert Level Tips And Tricks On This Terrific Interview Between TWO LinkedIn Gurus.  Just A Few Short Minutes Into This Great Conversation About How To Use LinkedIn, You’ll Get: The Single Most Important Networking Philosophy To Use In Combination With LinkedIn The “Real” Way To Maximize Your LinkedIn Profile How To Protect Yourself While Using LinkedIn Which LinkedIn Connections To Have That Will Boost Your Network (Not Just Any LinkedIn Contact) Plus Much, Much More! In 2011, Mike began sharing his insights and perspectives on LinkedIn with audiences throughout Maryland. In 2015, He founded Mike Shelah Consulting to work directly with companies and sales professionals across the United States to find more customers and find them fast, leveraging the power of LinkedIn. Mike also uses his experience to evangelize the value of LinkedIn and assist those in the job market wanting to find their dream job and get to the front of the applicant list. A resident of Westminster Maryland since 2005, Mike is a dedicated: husband, father and community advocate. Covert Store Builder $47 (Automatically have an affiliate store on your site) What is LinkedIn? LinkedIn is a very powerful, crucial online tool for professionals. When used correctly, LinkedIn can help you build a great network, find and get introduced to your ideal prospects and showcase your true value and worth to them. All you need is basic networking skills to make it happen. If you have networking skills and understand the golden networking philosophy. It’s a philosophy best described as one where “You to give before you get”. That is you should give value and not just look for an immediate return. When you give true value to somebody, most of the time, they will try to give back to you. LinkedIn is a great place to apply this networking philosophy. How To Power-up Your LinkedIn Profile What Makes Mike Shella Unique and Successful? Mike is a well-known LinkedIn Expert, but thinks of himself not as an expert or guru but just a successful salesperson who’s figured out LinkedIn. He suggests, a lot of people think that including words like “expert”, “guru” or “ninja” will make their LinkedIn profile more attractive and will outshine others…but those people have got it all wrong. A LinkedIn profile doesn’t have to be extravagant and boastful. By making it realistic, a profile with value and strong content will easily give you an edge from other professionals in your industry. LinkedIn Guru With The Answers Mike started out in sales in 1995 and got into technology sales in 1999. He was one of those traditional sales people making calls and setting appointments. It was a repetitive job. Sadly, Mike noticed he was becoming less effective at it…that is, until a good friend sent him a connection request on LinkedIn. It was a request that started him down a new road in life. That new direction, led Mike from the telecom/communications industry, to starting a business teaching and consulting with professionals on how to properly leverage LinkedIn. Because of his one-on-one consulting, group presentations, and seminars, he was able to help many individuals take full advantage of LinkedIn. After listening to Mike, they were able to find customers, find a job, and succeed in their careers. How To Properly Leverage Your LinkedIn Profile LinkedIn was still fairly new during the time he accepted that friend’s request. He did not waste time exploring and experimenting the ins and outs of it. He found a lot of good and bad things with LinkedIn and both helped paved the way to his success. LinkedIn has an extremely valuable section called advice for contact. Most people use this option in the wrong way. Based on Mike’s experience, most of the people contacting him, will just write a long paragraph or even a short one saying “send me an email” without including so much as their email address or phone number. Simple Power Tips For All LinkedIn Users Sending Contact Requests: • Keep it simple, make it easy for people to contact you • Include a phone number • Include an email address • Utilize the summary section to include your contact details Most of us are not comfortable giving out personal information over the internet. Check Out Two Solid Tricks For Protecting Yourself While Building Your Network: • Have A Dedicated LinkedIn Email Address – Create an email address mainly to be used for LinkedIn. This will let you completely control your inbox. • Sign Up For A Google Voice Number – If you are not comfortable giving out your mobile or landline number, go to Google Voice and sign up for a free Google Voice number. You can then pair the Google Number to your mobile number without anyone seeing your “real” phone number. You then, don’t have to worry about people knowing your mobile number. You can also get an application that can be downloaded directly on your smartphone for this. Are You Committing The Single Biggest Pet Peeve On LinkedIn? How would you feel if somebody sent you a message or you sent someone a message and received a response with a huge delay (like a week or so later) – only to apologize for the late response. The most common excuse? People say they are not checking their LinkedIn mailbox regularly. Avoid this embarrassing and unprofessional situation, by using LinkedIn often and spend time checking the 3 most important sections regularly: 1) Inbox 2) Wall 3) Notifications. It will only take you around 5-10 minutes per day to check everything. LinkedIn is a great tool to engage others with, even more so, if you are using it for your business. Take the time to answer questions from your notifications, celebrate with your connections (who got a new job, who are celebrating their work anniversary, etc.) and go through your invitations on a regular basis. Building A Bigger, Stronger More Responsive List Of Subscribers Is The Fastest And Easiest Way To Add More Profits To Your Bottom Line.   3 “Expert Level” Ways To Spot A Good Connection on LinkedIn Since LinkedIn is open to networking, you will always get invitations from people you don’t know. Make sure to use this list when considering a new connection request: Always ask yourself the following before accepting an invite: Is this person a legitimate customer for me? Can I do business with this person if I accept his invitation? Is it a personalized invitation to connect? (Only few people personalize their request to connect with a personal message) Great example to filter your invitations: Try this one fantastic trick to filter invitations, especially from people you don’t or you’re not really connected with in any degree. Don’t ignore invites, but send them all of these “unknown” people an email with the same message -- “Hello Name, Thank you for reaching out to me, I don’t believe we have me. What are your thoughts about helping one another? I will wait 3 days for your response before I accept your connection request” By sending this response email, you’ll find that 90% of those people will not bother to respond. “Don’t bother sending out connection requests if you don’t know what you can do or if you’re not yet ready to start networking with the big boys” Mike Shelah The key is message customization and profile research. If you are trying to connect with somebody and looking at them as a prospective client, be prepared because you need to let them know your value and the level of engagement you can provide. Everyone needs to learn the fact that we have to reach out as a person and try to develop a personal connection because that can and will make a difference. 3 Tips using LinkedIn To Manage, Develop and Nurture Contacts Engaged – LinkedIn will always give you the opportunity to post an update (like Facebook). However, your update shouldn’t be like the regular Facebook posts about your breakfast, kid’s rehearsals, etc. but it should be on more of a business level. Post an update and invite people to engage and join the conversation. Join Groups – LinkedIn now allows you to join max of 100 groups. Joining groups will help increase your audience and engagement. Share your posts – LinkedIn has made it possible for you to share your posts with other social media channels like Twitter. How To Create Attention-Grabbing Professional-Looking Marketing, Explainer & Training Videos in Just Minutes! Explaindio $57 annual Connect With Mike And Get The Following Anybody that goes to Mike’s website will get: FREE 3 page personalized LinkedIn profile report He will also share with you his top 5 tips and tricks Recommendations based on what he sees on your LinkedIn profile After Reviewing his free report, if you have a specific goal you want to achieve, Mike will offer you one on one coaching! [content_toggle style="1" label="Click%20Here%20To%20View%20The%20Full%20Transcript%20Of%20The%20Show" hide_label="Hide"] Mike: Hi, this is Mike Shelah with the social media business hour with Nile Nickel and today we’re going to empower your Linked In profile. Woman: Are you in business or thinking about starting a new business and could do with a bit of help and guidance when it comes to social media? Then you’re in the right place. Social media can seem daunting and even frustrating but it doesn’t have to be. That is why we offer insights and experience from social media experts from around the world. Discover tips, tricks and information that will help you leverage the power of social media so you can start growing your business today. Welcome to social media business hour with your host Nile Nickel. Nile: Hey, welcome back to our first segment and you heard in the tease that tonight we’ve got Mike Shelah and Mike Shelah is a Linked In expert and I really like talking to Linked In experts. We’ve had probably -- what would you say Jordan? About a half dozen on the show? Jordan: Yeah, sounds about right. Nile: And I really like those experts. Don’t die on me Jordan. Don’t die on me. I really like the Linked In experts because that’s sort of what I do so we always have fun. We tend to learn a lot from each other and we all become better so just to give you some background on Mike. In 2011 Mike began sharing his insights and perspectives on Linked In with audiences throughout Maryland. In 2015 he founded Mike Shelah Coaching to work directly with companies and sales professionals across the United States to find more customers and find them fast leveraging the power of Linked In. mike also uses his experience to evangelize the value of Linked In and those in the job market wanting to find their dream job and get in front of the applicant list. And so Mike welcome to the show. Mike: Thank you Nile. Excited to be here today. Nile: Well, I’m excited. You wanted to -- you talked about helping people out with their profile and I look at profiles as where people really can shine and most of the time they don’t. They just fall flat on their face. In fact I do a product why your Linked In profile sucks and exactly what to do about it so I’m really interested in what you’ve got to talk about tonight. But if I look at all of the Linked In consultants that are out there and you and I both know there are thousands. In fact maybe even tens of thousands. What makes you unique out of all of us Linked In people out here? Mike: The first thing that makes me unique Nile -- and that’s a great question. I get asked it a lot. Is I don’t think of myself as an expert or a guru or a black belt or a ninja or any of those other foolish words that people like to put in their profiles because they think it’s going to somehow attract people to their profile. What I am is a successful salesperson. I started out in sales in 1995. I got into technology sales in 1999 and like many salespeople I come from that tradition of you get a list, you make a 100 phone calls, you set 10 appointments, you get three sales out of that, you move on to the next month. Then you repeat. And what I started to notice about eight years ago was that was becoming less and less effective and a good friend of mine sent me a connection request on Linked In and at that time Linked In was still fairly new. People had it but it certainly was not the platform that it is today and I began experimenting with it and I found lots of bad things to do that I stopped doing and I found a lot of good things to do that really helped me be successful as a salesperson and I’ve been able to modify that to also help people that are in the job hunting process because a lot of the skills that it takes to use Linked In for selling also apply to people that are in the job market looking to find a job. Nile: Sure, absolutely. Absolutely. Of all things that you found with Linked In what would you say is your biggest pet peeve on Linked In? Mike: There is an extremely valuable section to Linked In that says advice for contact and it amazes me how many people in that section don’t actually put a way for me to contact you. They’ll write a big long paragraph or they’ll say shoot me an email but I don’t have your email address. I say keep it simple. Put a phone number in there, put an email address in there and I recommend to people create an email address just for your Linked In account. With Yahoo and Gmail and all the other email platforms out there create an email. Keep it just for your profile and for the phone number -- some people are uncomfortable giving out their personal cellphone number which I can understand. Go to Google Voice, sign up for a free Google Voice number, put that in your profile and that way you can check any messages that come directly from Linked In and you’ll know because it’s a separate app on your smartphone that you just pair with the smartphone number and people never have to know your smartphone number. Nile: Both -- a couple of golden nuggets in there. One of the things that I always recommend is you make it easy for people to contact you and like you said there’s the advice for contact section, there’s information but I also even recommend putting it in the summary section. Make it super easy. And you’re right. So many people don’t do that and after all, if they find you on Linked In which is one of the goals that you likely have if you’re really optimizing your Linked In profile and you’re using it for business or to find a job, you want people to contact you. Mike: Absolutely. Let’s make this simple. Let’s take the confusion out of it. How do I get a hold of you? Nile: In fact, not only taking the confusion out of it. Make it super easy. Mike: Yeah. Nile: If they’re used to looking in a place where it’s not at make sure that it’s in the place that they’re going to look so I love it. I appreciate that advice. Of all the things that you’ve done and the people that you’ve worked with what would you say your favorite Linked In success story is? Mike: Probably my favorite one comes from about six years ago. I was actually at a networking event in Baltimore and I met a gentleman who was the owner of a small business and he was one of the distinguished guests at that event. It was very obvious he didn’t want to talk to any salespeople that day but he was nice enough to give me his business card and after the event I sent him a connection request on Linked In. simply Wayne, thank you for your time. It was a pleasure meeting you this evening. And then a couple of weeks later I see in the Baltimore Business Journal that he’s going to be a keynote speaker at an event. Send Wayne another quick message. Wayne, best of luck with the speaking event. I hope it’s a great success for you. Couple of weeks after that a friend of mine is looking for a job and he’s got a perfect background for this gentleman Wayne. I sent Wayne a message. Wayne, I’d love to introduce you to my friend Dereck. He just got back into the job market and I think he’d be an ideal candidate for your company. Wayne immediately calls me. We spent 15, 20 minutes talking about Dereck and at the end of the conversation Wayne says to me by the way Mike, what do you do? And within 10 minutes of that I’m talking to his office manager. Shortly after that Wayne becomes a customer. But even more important, three years later there was another article in the Baltimore Business Journal about a bank and how they’re going through this explosive growth and they’re interviewing the CEO of the bank. I look her up on Linked In and who does she know? My friend Wayne. Reach out to Wayne. Wayne, would you mind introducing me to Mary? And he says, I’m not going to introduce you to Mary. I’m going to introduce you to the person that I do all my work for her bank through. And within 60 days of that Linked In message I landed the largest account of my professional career and today they spend a quarter of a million dollars a year with my daytime job company. Nile: As you go through that story it reminds me of so many things. One of the things that I talk about and I’m really interested on your thoughts on this as well is Linked In is a tool and it’s a networking tool but it’s just that. It’s a tool. So, when you’ve got good, basic networking skills and networking skills is about give before you get, giving value, not always looking for a return. It’s sort of a natural thing that happens. When you give true value to somebody they look to give back. And so I take that networking philosophy that I have and I’ve shared and I just heard you describe that philosophy perfectly but you used Linked In to implement that strategy. You used the tool of Linked In. Mike: That is correct. And I think you alluded to this earlier. So many people really don’t take the time to develop their Linked In profile and most of the time when I meet someone at a networking event now and they say oh, what do you do? And I tell them I do Linked In consulting, I’m a sales strategist. They look down their feet as if they’re ashamed. As if they’re being addressed by their third grade teacher and the answer’s almost always the same. Well, I have a profile but I don’t really do anything with it and oh, please don’t look at mine because it needs to be updated. And my first thought is well, if you know that why haven’t you done it? Nile: Exactly how long does it take to do that? Mike: In my opinion it takes an hour of hard work to really set up a great profile and then depending on what you do for a living it’s 15 to 20 minutes of maintenance a day. Nile: Well, I’m going to give you my thought and it’s one of the things that I teach. In fact, I teach to really develop your profile and I go through -- there’s currently 13 sections and I talk about going through each of those sections in detail. Spend a week on it but spending a week, you’re probably going to spend anywhere between 15 to maybe 20 minutes a week. Not a day. A week. And then go back over each one of those 13 sections after you’ve went through it the first time which takes you about a quarter so first quarter just build your profile. Second quarter is you start to go back through each section just one section a week which will take you another quarter but that means that you’re touching your profile each and every week and you’re making sure that all of the sections are updated and most sections aren’t going to change that frequently. If at all. But the bottom line is you’ve at least looked at it and you could do that in five to 10, maybe 15 minutes a week. And so you could really have a top of the line profile with very, very little time invested. Mike: Agreed. Nile: Now I suspect that when you’re talking about maybe 15 minutes a day you’re doing the other maintenance things like people send you messages. It might be a good idea to answer those messages. People have connection requests and depending on what your personal policies are and I’d be interested in hearing you’re either going to accept or reject them, whatever. But the flipside is -- and there’s other minor maintenance things you do and then strategically how are you using it for your business. So, I know that I gave you a lot about what I’ve done but I’m interested; and I know you followed all of that too but I’m interested in what you think and what you recommend people to do through those processes as well. Mike: Yeah, you’re hitting a lot of similar ideas that I like to reinforce to people and I apologize. You asked me what my pet peeve earlier was and I think I gave you the wrong one because nothing drives me crazy more than when I send somebody a message on Linked In and then a week later they respond and they say sorry Mike. I don’t check Linked In very often. Again, take 15 minutes a day. You’ve got that little banner right on top of your profile. You’ve got an inbox that shows messages. You have the flag for to dos and then you have invitations. It’s really that simple. Those three things, that’s the 15 minutes I was referring to. You’re right. Those three things should not take you more than 15, 20 minutes a day. Answer the questions that come through, check out the notifications. Who wrote a good blog, who’s got a new job, who’s celebrating an anniversary? Engage on those things and then go through your invitations. And I am not _____30:58 Linked In open networker but I’m not a lock down Linked In user either. What I generally recommend to people is -- because you’re going to get recommendations from people that you don’t know. It always happens. My first thought is is this person a legitimate customer for me? Is this somebody that I could do business with and if so then I accept the connection request and I follow that up with hey, thanks for reaching out? How can I help you today? And I want to get the conversation going and I want to start it just as easy as what can I do to help you. Now, for people that don’t fall into that category -- maybe we don’t have a mutual contact, maybe they’re in Switzerland. The list could be extensive. My first thought is did they customize the Linked In introduction? Did they write something in there because if they wrote something in there there’s a very good chance they’ve described why they wanted to connect with me? Very few people do that. I would say one out of about a 100 invitations I get actually have a personalized introduction. So, I recommend to everybody that that’s what they do when they reach out to people. Particularly if you don’t know them. Linked In doesn’t like you doing that but if you’re going to take that risk, customize it and maximize your opportunity to get connected. When people don’t customize instead of ignoring or accepting I reply to the message and my message is consistent. I say to that person hi Nile. Thank you for reaching out to me. I don’t believe we have met. What are your thoughts on helping one another? I’ll wait three days for your response before I accept your connection request. And then I wait to see what happens because what I found is 90 percent of those people don’t bother to respond to my follow through and I think well, if you can't do that you’re probably not ready to start networking with the big boys. Nile: Yeah, that’s probably true. Well, listen, I know that I want to continue this but we’re going to take a short break. We’ll be right back after this message. Hey, welcome back. You’re listening to the social media business hour with Nile and Jordan and our special guest tonight Mike Shelah and we’re talking about Linked In. you know it’s one of my favorite subjects. And in the last segment we were talking about how people -- or better yet, how you personally respond to the connection requests you get in messages Mike and I liked what you were saying and one of the things that I think we agree on but I want you to continue with where you were but one of the things that we both agree on here is that you don’t want to just use the default messages because why do you just want to be run of the mill? Stand out and it doesn’t take long. In fact, I use a program -- I’m Mac based. It’s called text expander. On PC it’s called Brevity. But literally all it does is -- it’s a short key. I type in three keys and it fills in the message for me and I just fill in the blanks if there are any and it doesn’t take any length of time to sort of put my standard message out. Some people could just save it and cut and paste it but because I do different ones depending on the situation I like having that customization there. But you give a unique response and I liked where you were going in the last segment. So, let me hear more about how you respond to some of those requests that you get. Mike: Sure. The key is customization and even more important delivering some value. If you’re going -- if you’re trying to connect with somebody and they’re a prospective client let them know what was the level of engagement. One of my favorite things about Linked In is that you can research a person before you try to touch them. I went to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County also known as UMBC and in this part of the country UMBC is now very well renowned as a top technology school and if I see on somebody’s profile that they’re an UMBC graduate I’m writing go retrievers because that’s our mascot. Our mascot’s a Labrador retriever. Go retrievers. And because that’s something that’s going to really create that common bond. That’s going to -- it’s going to ground us. And for the sales audience listening today it enhances your prospecting tool. You come up with that target list of 20 accounts that you want to engage and you’re going to reach out to someone what better way than your mutual connections. The people that you know that they know. Looking through their mutual contacts. I got a call back from a client one day because the message I left on his voicemail was hey Bob. Calling you today. We’re both members of the Baltimore County Chamber. I saw that you are friends with George and with Brad. How do you know George and Brad? And he called me back and he said well Mike, how do you know George and Brad? And we got the conversation going. I didn’t say anything about my company or my product or any of that. I started as a person and I started deeply, personally and it just so happened the two names that I mentioned that we had as mutual contacts -- one was a business partner of his that he rents space from and the other one was his childhood best friend. Oh, and I could say that the one man was my former boss that I have a good relationship with and the other one’s my fraternity brother. He was more than happy to set a meeting and have a conversation with me because I wasn’t just another salesperson. I was a person. Nile: And he approached you on a completely different level and I always like to say people buy from people. They don’t buy from companies or businesses. Mike: Amen brother. Nile: And so the fact that you’re reaching out as a person and you’re developing the personal connection just makes all the difference in the world. Great golden nugget there. I’m curious, you’ve been using Linked In for a while. Have you ever used Linked In to find a job? Mike: I have actually and what normally happens is jobs normally find me and what I mean by that is because I’ve optimized my profile, because I’m engaging on a regular basis on there I have people reach out to me all the time saying they’re having trouble finding a job and I say well, I get contacted by one new recruiter on average once a week and they say well, how do you do that? I’m like my profile’s optimized for the industry that I’m in. they naturally find me. and I’ve been happy to say that I’ve been able to just reject most of those job opportunities because they weren’t better than the one I have and the company I’m with right now; I’m with them now because I saw an old friend of mine had gotten a new job there as a sales director so he was above a manager and I just reached out and I again, I had no attention -- I said Rob, congratulations on the new job. I wish you nothing but success. And Rob immediately pinged me back and said Mike I’m desperate for good sales people. Will you come and interview with us. And at the time I was open to hearing about new opportunities. I came in. I met with my now sales manager of three and a half years and I’ve had ridiculous success at that company. And that’s how you find the opportunities. By optimizing your profile and doing that daily engagement. I wasn’t looking for a job when I reached out to Rob to congratulate them. I genuinely wanted to say hey, best of luck with your new job. Nile: Again, it’s on a person basis. Not a company basis. Makes all the difference in the world. We’ve talked about some strategies and I’m curious and obviously want to relate this to Linked In but what do you think has made you successful with Linked In from a personal level? Mike: I think it starts with the personal component. I certainly do. When I think about my big wins, like my big successes that I’ve had as a salesperson almost every single one of them has started with a personal referral that I’d leveraged through Linked In to get the opportunity to speak to that client. Almost every single one. I have some close relationship to someone who knew to get me in the door and they got me in the right door and that person had to be ignoring me before and the plates just shifted into place. I had this one company, huge law firm in Baltimore and I had been calling on them and calling on them and calling on them and they never returned my phone calls. And a friend of mine went to work for that firm and I said Joe would you mind introducing me to Brent. I’ve been trying to get a hold of him. He has not been returning my calls. Joe sends one email to Brent introducing me. Brent gets -- sends me a follow up email and says I would be happy to work with you -- meet with you Mike but I don’t think there’s much you’re going to be able to help us with right now. That was the second largest sale of my professional career. It again happened in less than 60 days and I actually got the customer so excited about what I was offering that they broke their contract with their current vendor to come and work with my company. Nile: Wow. That’s actually saying something. Mike: And it really was leveraging that other relationship. He had no desire to talk to me but because I knew someone that he respected he said all right. I’ll hear what you have to say. Nile: Excellent strategy there and thanks for giving us insights into your success as well. One of the other things that I’d like to ask is that I know that you teach people, you have a strategy to average a new connection every day to get the right introductions. So, it’s not just the connection but it’s the connection to get the right introductions. How do you do that? Mike: It’s the value of the second degree connection. That’s what I try to impart on people. I connect with my clients all the time but I -- I say I connect with everyone. I connect with everyone that I meet. Great example, I was at a business expo last week in Baltimore and it’s a big semiannual event. They do one in the fall, they do one in the spring. There’s usually 60 vendors and about 500 people and typically when I go to an event like that I’m going to see 20 or 30 people I already know and I’m going to meet 15 to 20 people that I don’t know. And with each one of those people I follow up right after the event. Nile, great meeting you at the Bizz Expo this week. I hope we have the opportunity to work together very soon. And that’s all the introduction is. I’ll tell you, I have a coworker right now who is doing some great volunteer work with a nonprofit here in Baltimore and that nonprofit has got this big event coming up in June and they’re looking for ways to market and promote the event and so my coworker said well, you’ve got to talk to my friend Mike because he does all this stuff with Linked In and you’re just going to love him. And I have a phone call with my liaison there. Her name is Karin. And it turns out that Karin’s not connected to my friend on Linked In. now, I know that they know each other but neither one of them has taken that step and my first thought was why aren’t you taking that step? Because I found out that another friend of mine in the marketing company is also doing a project for them and in fact I’m helping her behind the scenes to prepare for that presentation. And I said to her why aren’t you connected to Karin? If you’re working with her why haven’t you taken that step? Why wouldn’t you? Because once you’ve done a good job, once you’ve delivered on what they’ve asked for I’m going to ask for a recommendation because I want that on my profile. I want people to see that I have customers that are happy, that love me and that I’ve done great work for. Nile: That makes absolute sense there and again, I think there’s a number of golden nuggets there. As we’re going through this and I’m listening to what you’re talking about there and the way that you’re talking about connecting people -- again, I’m back to old fashioned networking and it’s sometimes good to connect the virtual world to the real world and when we’ve got these real world connections it does amaze me as well how many people aren’t sharing those connections that they have. Not only -- I look at Linked In I guess and I’m going to take a sort of different angle here. I look at Linked In as my best resource for my online rolodex and if -- now, we’re talking rolodex so we’re dating ourselves a bit because most people today have no clue what that is if they’re new to the business world but it was basically on the corner of your desk and you kept notes on there about anniversaries and spouses and children and events and whatever it may be you kept on that little card. I like to keep all of those notes on those little cards in my Linked In section but -- Mike: Absolutely. Nile: But if I’m not connected to those folks I can't do that. And so I like the recommendation you just made. Why aren’t you and why wouldn’t you? Because I think sometimes we could help the folks that are in our community deal with the value that sometimes they overlook or quite frankly they don’t value. And I want to get into some other strategies as well as talking to about how people could find you and all of that but we’re going to do that in the next segment. So, we’re going to take just a short break and we’ll be right back after this message. Hey, welcome back to the social media business hour. We’re here talking to Mike Shelah and we’re talking about Linked In and Mike I personally think we’re into some advanced strategies but before we get into some -- Mike: Love it. Nile: Some of the other questions and all of that good stuff, one of the things that really strikes me in the face and I think of this the same way. I think anybody listening to this is going to say there’s nothing real detailed or real fancy. I could do all of this. Sounds pretty simple. And I would agree that they could. But they don’t do it. like you said, the most common thing that I hear people say is yeah, I’ve got a Linked In profile but I really haven’t touched it. It’s out of date. Don’t look at it. And we’re talking about some tremendous power they could get and it’s pretty simple if you just do a few simple things. Would you agree? Mike: I completely agree, yeah. And that’s why I use the word evangelize, I use the word catalyst because that really is my goal. I want to turn on as many people as I can to this platform. And not just make them aware because as you’ve stated plenty of people are aware of Linked In. they’re not aware of what it could do for them. And by me getting their awareness cranked up to 11 it’s just going to benefit me. I mean, ultimately it’s very selfish. The more people use Linked In, the better off I am. Nile: Well, and the more people you help you become valuable to those folks. They’re more interested in helping you at that point in time. Mike: Very true. Nile: So, do you have any tips on how you use Linked In to manage and develop and nurture contacts along the way? Now, I know you’ve shared a few things but I’m interested if you’ve got any more details there, any more nuggets? Mike: Yeah, I -- my favorite thing is the engagement piece and you may have seen -- you may have talked about this on previous podcasts but Linked In now has that social selling index tab. You can click on it and it will highlight your profile and put it into four buckets and show you where you need to do a better job and it gives you a ranked score of one out of 100. And the one thing that I think most people don’t really take advantage of is the engagement. You have an opportunity to post an update like you do on Facebook although we’re not talking about what you had for breakfast or your kid’s rehearsal or anything like that. We’re talking about things that matter to business. Do an update and invite conversation. A more detailed update, Linked In Pulse -- once a week put your thought together or for people that don’t like to write what I recommend is they take their daily updates from Monday through Friday and they lump those into a pulse blog post on Saturday. So, take the five articles or relevant stories that you connected throughout the week and just do a two, three sentence paragraph on each one and make that your pulse bog post for the week to increase engagement. And not only to increase engagement but to position yourself as a thought leader and an industry expert. That’s really what those two tools do for you. And then you can further leverage that blog post by engaging it in groups. Linked In now let’s you join up to 100 groups and those groups can be everything from your favorite football team to your college alumni to something based in your community. It can be faith based. It can -- the spectrum for groups that you can join is almost infinite. Get yourself north of 50 groups and then once you’ve written that blog post on Saturday the following Monday share it in five groups and it’s as simple as I wrote this blog post about -- what are some of the things you’ve done in this situation that have benefited you? And get the conversation going. And now you’re being positioned as a thought leader. You’re increasing your audience. You’re increasing engagement and that’s really how you get yourself to adding one new connection a day. By going through those steps. You start with the daily posts. You summarize them in a weekly pule blog and then you push them out to your groups to further engage your audience. Nile: Well, groups have changed dramatically just in the last six months on Linked In that for people that think they know about groups and maybe some of the things that they used to do that don’t work anymore -- it’s worthwhile taking a new look at groups and we don’t have that much time. We can't get into that much detail there but I agree with the group power. It’s just people leveraging that power. And developing that power. Having that said, what you just talked about was an excellent social media strategy and when you do those shares -- we haven’t talked about this but a lot of people don’t know this. I know you do. You’ve got this nice little box down in the bottom right hand corner of your post where you could share on Twitter. Mike: Oh, yes. One of my favorites. Nile: And most of those posts that you’re doing make sense to be shared on Twitter as well. People will engage with you on the platforms that are their platforms. It’s where they work and play. That may or may not be Linked In. may not include Linked In. so, if you’re doing something there why not leverage the power and be able to put it out to Twitter at the same time and if you happen to think about how you’re doing those things it works perfectly when you could do that and just check that little tiny box. Mike: Yeah, very -- and you make a good point that it doesn’t have to be automatic. When Linked In first rolled out Twitter there was a feature that you could select to make it automatic and I learned very quickly that was a bad idea because I was getting these random post updates on my Linked In profile for when I would tweet something. So, I quickly learned to make it a toggle that when I post something on linked it then pushes it over to Twitter and not the other way around. Nile: Yeah, absolutely. Because a lot of things that you put on Twitter may not work very well on Linked In. virtually everything you do on Linked In would work on Twitter so use it accordingly. Mike: Flip the phone. Absolutely. Nile: But I love the way that you talked about doing that because that same strategy works with a lot of the different social media platforms and engage with people where they are. They may or may not be on Linked In as I mentioned but certainly the fact that you could pick up one or two over the course of a year -- new contacts that are valuable contacts just by sharing out the same information may not sound like much but if you look at it 10 years later and it was only two per year that’s 20 good, solid contacts. That could make a business all by itself. Sometimes we -- Mike: That -- believed in -- yeah. They’ve believed in what you said and it resonated with them and they wanted to get engaged. Nile: Exactly. Sometimes we think about the big numbers and I’d rather have 10 followers that are actively engaged than a thousand that aren’t. And it’s just so important to make sure that we don’t get caught up in big numbers. We get caught up in good numbers. Mike: Quality. Nile: Quality over quantity so great stuff. Mike: Nothing wrong with quantity but quality and quantity, much nicer combination. Nile: A much nicer combination and sometimes you have to have quantity just to sort of validate that you’re in the game and you probably have some strategies related to that but we’re running close to being out of time. We’ve got about three or four minutes left and before we run out of time I want to ask about what you do with your clients and to the extent that we’ve got people that are interested in learning more and talking to you, how would they do that? So, let’s talk first about what you do for your clients. Mike: Sure. Three phases to that really. First is anybody that goes to my website can get a free three page report where I review their profile and I believe you said you have 13 points. I have 12 points and then my five tips and tricks. So, we’re basically talking about the same things. And I go through there, I make my recommendations based on what I see. Then the next phase is they’ve gone through that report, they’ve done the things I’ve suggested but they’re looking for more the strategic -- they have a specific goal that they want to attack; I’ll do one on one coaching. The nonprofit that I mentioned. I’m going to be doing that for them. I’m going to be working with them starting in December through June on a biweekly basis to promote this event that they have. It’s one of their biggest fundraisers of the year. That’s what I’m going to be doing with them. And then the last one is I do a 10 week program that is sale centric for the business owner that has a sales force of five or more people. I do a snapshot before this program begins where I do an overview of each participant and I present that to management. And then through the 10 week course we’re going through 30 minutes of Linked In and then 30 minutes of sales strategy. Once a week. At the end of the 10 weeks I do another snapshot for management and it generally falls into four categories. You’ve got your DIY people at the top mister manager. They’re doing great. They don’t need any more help. You’ve got your people that are picking it up. They probably could use some more help. You’ve got these people bellow. They really need a lot of help. And then you’ve got that unfortunate group at the bottom that I can hit them over the head with a hammer and they won't know that it hurts. Nile: Well, I just re-categorized your list there. I like it. The DIY, great. They’re ready to fly. Need some help. Needs a lot of help and helpless. Mike: It can't be helped. Yes. Nile: So, yeah. Beyond any help. So, that’s absolutely awesome. So, if people are interested in learning more, give us that information again. Mike: Certainly. I’m on Linked In. you can find me at www.mikeshelah.com. M-I-K-E-S-H-E-L-A-H. Nile: I was going to say make sure we spell Shelah because you know people will be getting that wrong. Mike: Yes, it is not like the girl’s name. Just pronounced that way. And I’m also on Twitter @mikeshelah. I have a Facebook page, Mike Shelah Consulting and I have an Instagram @mikeshelah. Nile: You just mentioned Instagram there. That’s powerful stuff but most people seem to ignore that. Mike: Great for pictures. Nile: Well, great. Great for a lot of things actually. We might talk about that in the future. Well, listen, we’re basically out of time. I want to thank you so much for joining us and us just having this great Linked In discussion. I always like it when I can have other Linked In -- I know you don’t like the term expert. You say you’re not but I like when other Linked In experts are out there and experts are the people that are sort of at the top of it, of the Linked In platform as you are that are really helping pull other people up to the top because it is a great platform. Most people just aren’t using it. So, Mike, thanks so much for joining us. Mike: Nile, this has been a blast. Thank you for your time. Nile: I appreciate it. And to our listeners, I want to thank you for joining us on the social media business hour. Hopefully you learned at least a few new ideas or concepts. Maybe you were just reminded of a few things that you already know but you haven’t been doing to improve or grow your life or business. Our desire is that you take just one of the things that you learned or were reminded of today and you apply it to your business or your life this week. I know that a small change will make a big difference and I’m committed to bringing you at least one new idea each week that you could implement. So, identify just one small change that you could make to your business or your life this week and see what a big difference it will make for you. So, until next week, this is Nile Nickel. Now, go make it happen. Woman: Thanks for listening. Social media business hour is sponsored by linkedinfocus.com. Be sure to get the latest social media business tips and tricks plus free tips on how you can use Linked In to help your business today. Visit socialmediabusinesshour.com. [/content_toggle] Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mikeshelahconsulting Twitter: @mikeshelah Website: www.mikeshelah.com