Podcasts about mike thanks

In this episode of the Daily Mastermind, host George Wright III introduces CPA and host of the Small Business Tax Savings Podcast, Mike Jezichek. They delve into the intricacies of tax planning versus tax preparation. Mike shares insights from his extensive background in accounting and entrepreneurship, highlighting strategies for maximizing tax deductions and minimizing tax liabilities. He emphasizes the importance of proactive tax planning throughout the year and offers actionable tips for business owners. The discussion also touches on the benefits of having a tax planning mindset and the critical role of documentation. Listeners are encouraged to engage in tax planning to grow their wealth and are provided with resources to connect with Mike for further guidance. 00:43 Welcome to the Daily Mastermind00:59 Guest Introduction: Mike Jesowshek02:15 Mike's Journey into Tax Planning05:14 Understanding Tax Planning vs. Tax Preparation08:08 Maximizing Deductions: Strategies and Mindset14:47 Overcoming Audit Fears and Documentation18:52 Resources and Connecting with Mike Thanks for listening, and Please Share this Episode with someone. It would really help us to grow our show and share these valuable tips and strategies with others. Have a great day. George Wright III“It's Never Too Late to Start Living the Life You Were Meant to Live”FREE Daily Mastermind Resources:CONNECT with George & Access Tons of ResourcesGet access to Proven Strategies and Time-Test Principles for Success. Plus, download and access tons of FREE resources and online events by joining our Exclusive Community of Entrepreneurs, Business Owners, and High Achievers like YOU.Join FREE at www.JoinTheEvolution.comAbout GUEST:Mike Jesowshek, CPAMike is a true expert in making tax savings simple for small business owners. As an entrepreneur, speaker, author, and podcast host, he's all about breaking down the complex world of taxes into easy-to-understand strategies.Mike's main goal? To help you, the business owner, learn how to pay the least amount in taxes as legally possible.Having educated thousands of entrepreneurs nationwide, Mike's expertise makes navigating tax savings accessible, empowering business owners to take critical steps toward business growth and enhanced wealth.Guest Resources:Website: https://www.taxsavingspodcast.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/taxsavings/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/taxsavingsX: https://x.com/tax_podcast About George Wright III:George Wright III is a Proven, Successful Entrepreneur- and he knows how to inspire entrepreneurs, companies, and individuals to achieve Massive Results. With more than 20 years of Executive Management experience and 25 years of Direct Marketing and Sales experience, George is responsible for starting and building several successful multimillion-dollar companies. He started at a very young age to network and build his experience and knowledge of what it takes to become a driven and well-known entrepreneur. George built a multi-million-dollar seminar business, promoting some of the biggest stars and brands in the world. He has accelerated the success and cash flow in each of his ventures through his network of resources and results driven strategies. George is now dedicated to teaching and sharing his Prosperity Principles and Strategies to every Driven and Passionate Entrepreneur he meets. His mission is to Empower Entrepreneurs Globally to create Massive Change and LIVE their Ultimate Destiny.

In this episode of Building Texas Business, I chat with Mike Snavely, CEO of Phunware. Mike details Phunware's evolution from a mobile development agency into a thriving SaaS company delivering high-ROI apps to hotels and healthcare providers. Hear how shifting culture from rigid control to empowering autonomous teams with accountability revived success. Key strategic maneuvers included trimming the workforce judiciously and securing capital patiently. Timely decisions breathe new life into businesses' surfaces repeatedly. We delve into crafting a trusting, candid culture. Difficult conversations are promptly addressed and failures learned foster innovation and resilience. I share that I founded such an environment at a former startup. Mike's unique hobby of creatively mapping dream destinations blends work wisdom with life's pleasures, crafting an episode uplifting attendees' strategies and spirits. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Mike Snavely explains the evolution of Phunware from a mobile solution development agency to a SaaS company that specializes in customized mobile apps for hotels and healthcare institutions. We discuss the strategic decisions and cultural shifts necessary during the transition to new leadership at Phunware, including capital injection and reshaping the balance sheet for growth. Mike highlights the move from a command-and-control culture to one that champions autonomy and accountability, emphasizing the importance of empowering team leaders. We explore the significance of building a leadership team grounded in trust, accountability, autonomy, and candor, and how these principles contribute to a positive organizational culture. Mike shares his personal career journey, detailing his long-standing experience in mobile technology and his eventual rise to the CEO position at Phunware. We examine how Phunware fosters a culture of appreciation and collaboration through a Slack channel called Momentum, which recognizes and celebrates employee contributions. Mike talks about balancing professional obligations with personal passions, including the importance of prioritizing family and maintaining a positive trajectory in both areas. We discuss the importance of in-person engagement for building and maintaining key relationships with stakeholders, despite the trend toward virtual interactions. Mike reflects on past experiences and learnings, including the value of having prompt and honest conversations to avoid delays in decision-making and mitigate potential failures. We delve into Mike's hobby of pinning dream travel destinations on Google Maps and how this practice turns travel planning into an immersive and memorable adventure. LINKSShow Notes Previous Episodes About BoyarMiller About Phunware GUESTS Mike SnavelyAbout Mike TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Chris: In today's episode, you will meet Mike Snavely, ceo of Funware. In building and maintaining key relationships with your stakeholders, mike shares his opinions on why there is no substitute for being in person to engage on a human level. Mike, I want to welcome you to Building Texas Business and thank you for taking time to come on the show with me. Glad to be here. Thanks for the invitation. So, as the CEO of Funware, let's start by just orienting the listeners to what is Funware and tell us what the company's known for. Mike: Sure so. Funware is a 15-year-old publicly traded company based in Austin, Texas. We build mobile experiences that help hotels and healthcare institutions engage their guests and patients while they're on premises in ways that drive satisfaction and monetization. Chris: Very interesting. So you said the company started I guess in the early 2000s. Mike: Then it would have been in 2009. The company started. It was private for the first 11 or so years of its existence and then we went public via SPAC transaction in 2000. I believe it was 20. Chris: Okay, and it sounds like a fairly niched focus for the company. How did it come to be that the company, I guess, was so focused on kind of those two industries and providing that type of, I guess, service to those customers? Mike: Well, originally it wasn't. So over 15 years, you might imagine, there's been an evolution in the focus of the company, and so the company in 2009 was really more of a mobile solution development agency. So some of the biggest brands you know in the world really selected Funware back in the timeframe to build some of their first mobile apps in the app store. So companies like Fox, the NFL, the Sochi Olympics, wwe, a number of airports and so on were spending a lot of money to build their first mobile application and then to develop their first mobile audience. For lots of reasons and that was two years after the iPhone was introduced. It was actually before the iPad was introduced and so obviously there's a lot of evolution of consumer expectations when it comes to engaging on mobile, and those brands were spending a lot of money in the early comes to engaging on mobile, and those brands were spending a lot of money in the early days to build their first mobile presences. That's evolved over time, and so agencies are really not, they really don't drive the valuation that a SaaS company does, and so we've, over time, evolved into becoming a SaaS company. So we license our technologies. We'll essentially build an app, configuring it for the customer, launch it into the app store and then generate license fees off that app for as long as it exists and is available for download. That's a much better valuation model because typically when our customers get involved with us they stick around. Our retention rate is very high because we drive a positive ROI. So we've kind of followed the evolution of mobile from really high investment work for hire, boutique agency-like development all the way through today where we charge between 50 and $150,000 a year for a given property, whether it's a hotel or a hospital, to have their own mobile app in the app store, to have their own brand in front of their users or guests and then ultimately to develop that one-on-one relationship with that guest or patient in a way that drives repeat business and satisfaction and additional monetization. Chris: That's fascinating. Now you mentioned retention rate. What do you which obviously is very important for success of a company, especially like yours what do you attribute that successful retention rate to? Mike: Well, we do good work and I can make available to you a list and you could even put it in the podcast if you'd like of the apps that we build, or some of the apps that we build. They're beautiful apps. So, number one, we do really high-quality work that all of our customers are proud to have their name on. And then, number two, we drive ROI, plain and simple. For a dollar they put into our solutions, they get between $5 and $50 back, depending on who they are and the specifics of their business. And you know, if I could give you a machine that would, you put a dollar bill in, you get a five or a 50 back out. You would say how many dollar bills can I put in there? Chris: Yeah, no, no, kidding, right Well. I mean, but fundamentally, you mentioned at least you know two fundamental things that is key to customer retention. That's one provide good service. If you're in the service industry, it starts with providing good service and I think an outcome of that is your customer sees a valuable return on the investment for your service. Those are not unique to software but for any kind of service type business right, exactly, that's right. Let's talk a little bit about your. So you're the CEO. The company was founded by others than yourself. How did you come, I guess, to work at Funware and I know just a little bit that you've had this is like your second stint there but give us a little background on your connection to the company and how it was you became the CEO. Mike: Yeah, sure enough. So I've really made a career of pursuing technology trends. So I'm kind of an old guy so I've been in business for a long time. But I started off in offline marketing technologies, sending out snail mail and running telephone centers. Then I evolved into social marketing with a startup in Austin, texas. I then got into mobile and I've been in mobile really kind of on and off ever since. Mobile's a big deal because you've got a device that knows who you are and knows where you are, you tell it all your secrets. It really is an indispensable. It's become an indispensable tool. And so I've really made kind of a career over the last shoot 15 years at this point in mobile. And so I was originally with my first stint in mobile was with a little mobile application development boutique in Austin called Mutual Mobile. That was 2008, 9, 10, 11 timeframe Did something else and then I was recruited to come to Funware by somebody who had worked for me at Mutual Mobile and I said look, we're building out this platform company. We're very interested in having somebody who can really help to drive revenues. Would you be interested in joining? So that in 14, I joined Funware for the first time and I came to run the software business. So I was responsible for all revenues for the software business of Funware from 14 through 16 or so, got to know the company, got to really understand the technologies Actually, a number of the people who were there then are still with the company. Then I went off, worked at a Silicon Valley startup and did a couple of other things, couple of other things. And then, when the founding CEO left in 23, they hired a guy that I had worked with at Mutual Mobile back in the day as the new CEO and he said look, mike, I know that you're great at building businesses on the revenue side. Would you like to come and be my CRO, as I'm CEO of Funware? And he said I'll make it worth your while. So I said no a couple of times and then eventually I said yes. Well, this was September of last year that I rejoined the company and 30 days in the board said look, you know, what we really need is somebody with sales DNA at CEO. Let's try that again. Easy for me to say CEO role. So, mike, would you like to step in as CEO? So I actually I had a buddy who brought me back to be a CRO and then wound up taking this job. We're still friends, we still talk all the time and he was very supportive of that move. But a long story short, I think that the company for a time kind of lost its way in the simple fact of selling, servicing accounts and driving revenues, and that's something I've had the good fortune to develop pretty good skill at, and so now I'm the CEO and I'm going to tell you I think the E in CEO stands for extra. Everything about it is extra, but it really is the best job I've ever had and I'm really enjoying it. I still spend a lot of time working with customers, selling, identifying strategic partnerships and that kind of thing, because I enjoy it, I feel like I'm good at it and it's absolutely critical to positioning the company for growth and valuation, which is exactly my job. Chris: There you go, so let's talk a little bit about that. What are some of the things that you do to build and maintain relationships with those partners, customers, strategic relationships that you think someone listening might learn? Mike: from. Well, it's funny, there's been a real trend away from in-person, and so you and I are meeting today on Zoom. Our business, funware, is essentially 100% virtual at this point, and what I find is there's no substitute for hopping on a plane and going to see somebody, breaking bread with them, getting to know them as a person, understanding what it is they're trying to accomplish, what their hopes and dreams are, what their fears are. Once you get to that point and really just kind of understanding them as a person, and then exposing yourself as a person and say, look, you know, this is what I'm trying to accomplish, mr and Ms, partner or prospect, and really kind of, you know, engaging on a human level, which you know is a whole lot easier for sitting across the desk from somebody, and that's that to me, is is where I spend a lot of my time. I do invest a lot of time in in person, you know, spending time with customers, prospects, partners and the rest of it, and I really just don't think there's much of a substitute for that. Chris: Couldn't agree more. I think that's how, really, until the pandemic, it's how business got done in person. I don't think anything's changed here. I think, especially these days, I think it says so much more that you take the time to do that when you could otherwise, yeah, do a Teams or Zoom call or whatever, and just the human interaction I mean. As humans, I think we're meant to be together, right and interact, and I think that just fosters the relationship. So great advice there. Keeping on that kind of theme you've come back in not in an easy economic time, so let's talk a little bit about managing through kind of some economic uncertain, rising interest rates and all the stuff that's out there in the news. Let's talk about kind of what are some of the things you've done to stay focused and keep your people focused on driving the business forward? Mike: Sure enough. Well, there are some benefits and some drawbacks to being a public and trading company. Of course One is access to the capital markets. That's a benefit, and we certainly have the ability to draw capital out of the markets in ways that don't require us to be as susceptible to excuse me, the interest rate environment, but that doesn't mean that our customers aren't susceptible to that environment. And so we've had to do some things. Selling into hospitality and healthcare, I mean, we're typically selling into pretty big organizations and they have a little bit of a buffer, I suppose, from the ebbs and flows of the economy, particularly when you look at luxury hospitality. I mean, COVID aside, luxury hospitality has really been on a growth tear because of the generation of a lot of wealth on the part of a lot of people and they're wanting to spend it on high-quality experiences. But that doesn't mean that we don't have to be creative from time to time when it comes to pricing a deal or generating terms that are acceptable to the customer. They can digest, they can maybe capitalize the expense as opposed to turning into an OPEX expense and that kind of thing, and certainly we've had to be creative there. When I first took on the CEO role. The company was having a little bit of financial trouble and you could read in our public filings all about it. But, long story short, we were having problems with access to capital and I had to work with my CFO and others you know capital partners to really inject some capital into the company from the market in ways that allowed us, you know, the ability to move forward without paying a lot of interest, frankly. So we were able to kind of reshape the balance sheet in a way that puts us in a great spot for growth today Smaller companies I can only imagine what it must be like if you're dealing with debt financing, distinct from capital financing, and what some of the challenges there must be. We had to make some hard decisions in connection with the recapitalization of the company that had to do with people, in large part because that's our number one expense and those are hard things to do, and I spent many a sleepless night, you know, because I had to do some of those things. But the fact of the matter is that most companies don't cut fast enough and they don't cut deep enough because of those reasons, and it feels terrible, but preserving the company and giving ourselves the ability to go forward and thrive is really kind of the job for the shareholders. Chris: Yeah, and yeah, I agree. I think, regardless of the size of the company, making those people decisions are extremely difficult because, again, we went back to in person and it's human and these people have been with you typically and but it's what they say, right, it is when you have to make the hard cuts, you have to cut muscle and those can be challenging decisions. On the flip side of that, sure, as you come into the CEO role, you are either have or still in the process of building your team. What are some of the things that you do? Processes maybe you've created to help you identify the right people to surround yourself with to further the mission and strategies of the company. Mike: Well, there are two non-delegable duties that the CEO has, in my belief. Number one it's setting the strategy of the company. So we're going to be a SaaS company serving these markets, we're going to drive toward these margins, we're going to deliver in this way, and these are the things that are important for the strategy of the business. Number two is the culture of the business, and so I can't hire somebody to give me a culture. I've got to work with the company to create the culture that we want, and so I'll give you a little bit of a story there. So I have a lot of respect for the fellows who founded the company, a lot of respect for them, because they built something that I now have the good fortune to run and take to the next level. But there was a lot of. They were literally army guys, and there was a lot of army DNA in the company. Now that there's nothing wrong with that, there's nothing at all wrong with that, and the company was successful for a number of years, but and the culture that was built was one of command and control, because that's what the army is Right. Chris: Well, it's not. I'll just interrupt it. That's also not atypical of kind of startup mentality. Right, it's dominant kind of leadership. Got to get it done, got to get this off the ground. Mike: Yep, dominant leadership plus the military background equaled very much a command and control structure, a bit of a cult of personality around the founding CEO, and all of that, you know, paid great dividends. For a long time, I could not be any more different from the founding CEO. I'm not an army guy, you know. And so one of the first things I did when I took on the job is I said look, you know, you know if you're the vice president of sales or you're the vice president of, you know of product or delivery or deployments or whatever it is. You're the CEO of your own business and I'm not going to tell you what to do. I'm going to give you an objective and I'm going to give you the flexibility and the support to go and achieve that objective. You need people. You get people. You need investment. You get investment. But your accountability is to go and run your portion of the business as if you were the CEO. I'm not going to micromanage the decisions at all. I'm going to empower you to do the right thing number one for the customer, because then that ultimately becomes the right thing for the company over many observations and so that was a transition that some people are still working through. Frankly, in leadership roles within the company. It's sometimes people get comfortable being told what to do and we just we don't do that anymore. And you know a couple of people have left as a result of that. They did not have that comfort and that's okay because it's not the right job for them anymore. But most people have really embraced the opportunity of agency and empowerment and the ability to kind of run their own part of the business. ADVERT Hello friends, this is Chris Hanslick, your Building Texas business host. Did you know that Boyer Miller, the producer of this podcast, is a business law firm that works with entrepreneurs, corporations and business leaders? Our team of attorneys serve as strategic partners to businesses by providing legal guidance to organizations of all sizes. Get to know the firm at boyermillercom. And thanks for listening to the show. Chris: Yeah, I mean, there's a lot to unpack there, but clearly what you're talking about in my terms are giving people autonomy, but with accountability, which I think is the right way to go. However, organizations evolve over time, just like people. So I think we talk about command and control in the early days. That, for most companies, may make sense, but where this company is now and size and scale, you couldn't do that because there's too much going on and you have to then hire the right people, and the people that work for the company in the first few years may not work, you know, 10 years, 15 years later, because different skill sets needed, right, so it sounds like you've got your hands around that pretty well. Mike: Well, you know, it's always a work in progress, and so one of the one of the accelerants to adopting a new cultural tone is bringing in people, you know right. So I brought in a couple of guys and they are both guys, I'm afraid, who I had worked with a number of times in the past, who I knew kind of got the way that we wanted to run the railroad and who are are the kind of guys who just roll up their sleeves every day and make the most of the day. And, you know, those guys are not only in leadership roles within the company but they're also, you know, setting a tone for the others they work with most closely day to day, and I absolutely think it's working. Chris: That's great. So kind of sum that conversation up for us how would you define the culture of Funware today? Mike: I'd say that we're kind of a restart up, but with all the good elements of a startup, and what I mean by that is that we had a revenue profile that grew, grew and then it kind of dropped off. For some reason I wasn't here, and we're in the process of growing back up and we're getting in the right people who are interested in not only doing great work and serving the customers really well and building a terrific product, but also ones who are embracing the autonomy and the accountability that we're providing to them, and I couldn't be any more pleased with the reception that I'm getting. Chris: Anything special that you've kind of put in place to kind of help foster that type of culture so that you can perpetuate it and see it grow. Mike: Well, we tend to recognize the behaviors that we're looking for, and here's what I mean by that. So you know, somebody will just do a thing right and they'll do it. They'll achieve an accomplishment, whatever that accomplishment may be, and we'll talk. We've got a Slack channel. Slack is a tool we use all day long, every day, and we have a Slack channel called Momentum, and the Momentum channel is really about recognizing the contributions that a person makes, and the deal is that if you put something in Momentum, you've got to recognize somebody else. So you say, hey, a great thing happened, you got to recognize somebody else. So you say, hey, a great thing happened. And I want to thank Bob over here for his contribution to the thing, because Bob, you know, contributed in a way that if he hadn't done that, you know we might not have gotten the outcome that we're looking for. You know that that's something that you see traffic in every single day, that's great. Chris: We obviously I can relate to that we do something similar here at the firm Every single day. That's great, I can relate to that. We do something similar here at the firm, not necessarily on a specific channel, but it's kind of become part of our culture to. We call them core value kudos and it's about recognizing other people not yourself, obviously in efforts that they made and tying them to our mission and values, so that the behaviors and the values marry up right. And then people. It makes it tangible that I want to thank or, you know, congratulate someone for doing X, Y and Z which demonstrated this value in action. Mike: That's terrific. Yeah, I've been in companies that have done that. I think that's something that I may need to reincorporate into my bag of tricks there, for sure that have done that. I think that's something that I may need to reincorporate into my bag of tricks there for sure. Chris: So you know along those lines your software company. I always am interested to know what are you doing to kind of promote or foster creativity and innovation within the company? Mike: Well, some of the things that you know it's interesting, I'm going to I'll give you maybe a little bit longer answer you might be looking for, but there is, and it's really important to kind of separate the day-to-day from the long-term vision. And what I mean by that is that I'm, let's say, a developer and today I have to fix a bug, and I just have to fix the bug because the bug exists and it's in the way of something happening and it's not my favorite part of the job, I'm quite confident of that. Not my favorite part of the job, I'm quite confident of that. Not my favorite part of the job to fix a bug. But there is some long range stuff that I'm really excited about. A big part of what we do is indoor wayfinding and hyperlocal marketing offers, and there are lots and lots of innovations that we're looking at right now, and so we identify people who are interested in innovation. We put together both formal processes for them to say, okay, you're on the R&D team and you're going to be doing this work, but we also give them informal opportunities. Hey, look, I want you to go to Denver to our customer with Gaylord Rockies and I want you to actually go into the physical space that we're trying to map, and I want you to help me figure out a better way to do it. And so that's two things. It's number one, solving a strategic problem for the business, but it's also kind of getting them out of their, since we're all virtual, it's getting them out of their own office, sending them to Denver, take an extra day, engage the customer, do great work, but also enjoy yourself a little bit. So we try to give people an opportunity to get out of the context within which they're working sitting in my home office squashing bugs and get out into the real world where our solutions are deployed in ways that are not only sort of fun but also problem solving. Chris: So you've been in some leadership roles throughout your career, obviously CEO now. How would you describe your leadership style and how do you think it's evolved over the last few years? Mike: Well, I try to work with people. I try to work as best I can. You can't always do that right, but you can absolutely make the investment of time to get to know them, and so I walk into this job. I've got a CFO that I just met very recently, and I had a chief legal officer that I met just recently, and I had a chief operating officer that I had known actually for some time and one of those guys wound up leaving that I had known actually for some time and you know, one of those guys wound up leaving. But you know the other two guys that I had just met. I made it a real point of going to where they were, sitting down with them breaking bread, understanding who they are, what they were trying to accomplish, why they were at the company in the first place and all the rest of it, because it was important for me to understand whether I could trust and whether it was appropriate to invest in these guys. Right and absolutely it was. By the way, I had a couple of gaps in my leadership team and what I did was find people that I'd worked with in the past and I said, look, are you willing to come and work for me again, and the answer in every case was absolutely so, and that's not because I'm the greatest guy in the world or because I gave him a zillion dollars or anything like that. It's because we have, over the years, established a working cadence that's founded on this idea of trust and accountability, autonomy of action and really candor of discussion. There's nothing that the leadership team and I don't discuss in detail and with candor. We're not afraid to tell our truths to each other. We've created what I think is a safe space for us to really talk about what's on our mind and what concerns or challenges we have, or if somebody is all wet, you know, and and that kind of. That kind of culture. The executive table, I think, filters down to the rest of the business in ways that help support the culture we're trying to build. Chris: Yeah, and I was gonna say it sounds like it's a culture of safety to have the hard conversations, but that those conversations are done in a respectful way. Mike: Yeah. Chris: I don't know if there's no better way to do it Right, and it's okay to fail. Mike: And I got to tell you, I used to race, I used to race cars a long time ago and you know, if you don't crash, you're not driving fast enough and so it's okay. It's okay to crash every once in a while because that means you're pushing the envelope, You're trying to get, you know, you're trying to get to the edge of the performance envelope and that's positive. Chris: Yeah, no, let's talk about that, cause I I there. There's always learning, and so I think there's. You know, when you have setbacks or failures, you can learn from them and it can make you better. Don't let it define you. So can you give us an example of more than not the car racing, because crashing is easy to understand as a failure, but in the business world, as a leader something that you felt a failure of yours, a bad decision, a setback that you absolutely grew from, and it's made you better today. Mike: Yeah, sure enough, I think that my greatest learnings are not being decisive enough and not acting quickly enough. And so you know, let's say, for example, I'll give you the example of last company I worked for before. Well, yes, I'll give you that example. So I was working at an AI video startup in Madison, Wisconsin. It was essentially a unit of a publicly traded company that I won't name, but your viewers can certainly look it up. And, long story short, that company is now bankrupt and I don't fault any of the. I don't fault the CEO of that company, which was not me, by the way, in that, but I fault myself. Yeah, exactly, it wasn't me. I didn't bankrupt the company. This was a guy I had worked with before were pretty small, and so what I said was I need this much to make this happen. I was given about half that much and I didn't adequately reset the expectations on how long it was going to take to get that thing done, slash. I should have had probably more pointed discussion about is this worth doing at all, and I didn't do that. And the long story short is that company is now bankrupt for lots of reasons, but the thing that I that my not being as aggressive as I felt like I should have been was a contributor to that. I think it was a small contributor, but you know all that to say that it didn't help. Chris: And so I kind of trace it. I would say the learning for you is kind of having the hard conversations faster right and that's the kind of culture that's terrifically important for me. Mike: So that informs the culture I'm building at Funware, which is like, if this ain't going to work, I just need you to tell me, and I might disagree and I might argue with you, but I will absolutely hear you. I might argue with you, but I will absolutely hear you. It's going to be super important for us to just trust each other enough to be able to have the discussion about you know, without fear. I guess is where I'm coming from. Chris: I understand that, so let's talk a little bit about you know these are important jobs that you've held over the last few years, and as is the current one. I don't like using the term work-life balance, but how do you? Manage work and personal life to try to keep them both going in a positive direction. Mike: Well, I spend a lot of time with my kids. I really, yeah, my daughter. So I'm here in Ohio, I'm spending time with my father and mother, but my daughter came along, my older daughter came along, she's out of school already. I'm going to go next week pick up my younger daughter in boarding school in Colorado, drive her down to Big Bend, where she has never been, and then, you know, spend time with her over the summer. So I mean, it's really about being deliberate about that and working from anywhere, candidly, in my opinion, helps. There's no expectation. I'm going to the office, I'm going to be there during the business day on Monday through Friday, and what I kind of joke is that I mean, I work a lot, no question about it, but I work around my life as opposed to work, as opposed to planning my life around my work, to planning my life around my work. So I might work, you know, 60 hours a week, but that's not going to be five times 12. That's going to be, you know, kind of eight-ish times seven. I'll work every day a little bit, but I'm certainly going to put my kids first and that's just the way it is. Chris: Well, I can identify with that. I think everyone has to find their own way and each job and role requires different things. In different stages of life require different things. So I think that's what people you know should stay focused on, individually as well as the companies to try to make sure you have good people. You don't want to lose them for those types of reasons. People you don't want to lose them for those types of reasons. Yeah, so, mike, this has been a great conversation. Before we wrap up, I just want to kind of get a little bit more less or a little less serious about things. Tell us what was your first job as a kid? Mike: It'd be funny, you should ask. So I'm back in rural Ohio where I grew up. Right now, at my parents' house, as I mentioned earlier, my first job was was am I allowed to say shit on your podcast? Of course, the texas my first, my first job was shoveling hog shit. Chris: Shoveling hog shit for minimum wage and I was nothing that wants to make you go to college and get a degree than that right. Mike: well, the funny thing is that I wound up raising hogs to pay for college. So it was fine to shovel the hog shit, but I was like, if I was fine to shovel the hog shit, but I was like, if I'm going to shovel the hog shit, I'm going to do it for more than $3.35 an hour. I'm going to do it in exchange for a college education. So that's not exactly that way, but that's a big part of how I kind of got off the farm and moving ahead. Chris: I love that, okay, well, yeah, obviously, as we now know, you're from Ohio, but you spent enough time in Texas for me to ask you this question Do you prefer Tex-Mex or barbecue? Mike: I love Tex-Mex. I would eat Tex-Mex every day of the week All right. And sometimes I do. I do love barbecue, but the thing is that the best barbecue is something I don't want to wait in line for and I don't want to drive a long ways. If I happen to be by La Barbecue or Franklin's a little bit over their great barbecue a little bit overhyped, or if I want a great barbecue, I'll just treat it as a destination thing. I'll go down to Lockhart or something like that, but I can get absolutely terrific Tex-Mex around the corner from my house every day of the week. Chris: Yes, it was one good thing. You know, I think we living in Texas both are abundant right. Mike: But you're right. Chris: The marquee barbecue, you know, is tucked away in some places. All right, so my last thing is if you could do a 30 day sabbatical, where would you go? What would you do? Mike: Well, I got a bunch of customers who have really beautiful beach resorts so I might go to one of those. Chris: You might go break bread with them there. Mike: Break bread with the customers at the most beautiful resorts in the world. That would be one thing I might do. There are a lot of places around the world that I'd love to see, so I've got a Google Maps layer that has little flags. There are probably 800 flags on that map and I add some every week. Places that I like to go around the world. Sometimes they're restaurants that I read about. Sometimes they're beautiful. You know natural features, like you know mountain ranges, the Painted Mountains in the Andes, or you know beautiful lake I've never been to Crater Lake, things like that so what I'd probably do is find 30 days worth of those pins in an area that I can consume within that 30-day period and I'd just go knock it out. Chris: I love that. I like the concept of keeping track of the pins. Yep. Mike: And there's too many on the map that you know I'll be dead and gone before I get to see all of them. But you know, it is kind of a it's a memory bank for things that have caught my interest and that I do want to experience at some point, if I can pull it off. Chris: Love it. Love it Well, mike, thanks so much for taking the time to be a guest on the show. Really enjoyed hearing your story, and the things y'all are doing at Funware sound really fun, exciting and innovative. Mike: Thanks a lot. Special Guest: Mike Snavely.

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.

Rounding Up Season 2 | Episode 8 – It's a Story, Not a Checklist! Guest: Dr. John Staley Mike Wallus: There's something magical about getting lost in a great story. Whether you're reading a book, watching a movie, or listening to a friend, stories impart meaning, and they capture our imagination. Dr. John Staley thinks a lot about stories. On this episode of Rounding Up, we'll talk with John about the ways that he thinks that the concept of story can impact our approach to the content we teach and the practices we engage in to support our students.  Well, John, welcome to the podcast. We're really excited to talk with you today. John Staley: I'm glad to be here. Thank you for the invitation, and thank you for having me. Mike: So when we spoke earlier this year, you were sharing a story with me that I think really sets up the whole interview. And it was the story of how you and your kids had engaged with the themes and the ideas that lived in the Harry Potter universe. And I'm wondering if you could just start by sharing that story again, this time with the audience. John: OK. When I was preparing to present for a set of students over at Towson University and talking to them about the importance of teaching and it being a story. So the story of Harry Potter really began for me with our family—my wife, Karen, and our three children—back in '97 when the first book came out. Our son Jonathan was nine at that time and being a reader and us being a reading family, we came together. He would read some, myself and my wife would read some, and our daughter Alexis was five, our daughter Mariah was three. So we began reading Harry Potter. And so that really began our journey into Harry Potter. Then when the movies came out, of course we went to see the movies and watch some of those on TV, and then sometimes we listened to the audio books. And then as our children grew, because Harry Potter took, what, 10 years to develop the actual book series itself, he's 19 now, finally reading the final book. By then our three-year-old has picked them up and she's begun reading them and we're reading. So we're through the cycle of reading with them.  But what they actually did with Harry Potter, when you think about it, is really branch it out from just books to more than books. And that right there had me thinking. I was going in to talk to teachers about the importance of the story in the mathematics classroom and what you do there. So that's how Harry Potter came into the math world for me, [chuckles] I guess you can say. Mike: There's a ton about this that I think is going to become clear as we talk a little bit more.  One of the things that really struck me was how this experience shaped your thinking about the ways that educators can understand their role when it comes to math content and also instructional practice and then creating equitable systems and structures. I'm wondering if we can start with the way that you think this experience can inform an educator's understanding for content. So in this case, the concepts and ideas in mathematics. Can you talk about that, John? John: Yeah, let's really talk about the idea of what happens in a math classroom being a story. The teaching and learning of mathematics is a story that, what we want to do is connect lesson to lesson and chapter to chapter and year to year.  So when you think about students' stories, and let's start pre-K. When students start coming in pre-K and learning pre-K math, and they're engaging in the work they do in math with counting and cardinality initially, and as they grow across the years, especially in elementary, and they're getting the foundation, it's still about a story. And so how do we help the topics that we're taught, the grade level content become a story? And so that's the connection to Harry Potter for me, and that's what helped me elevate and think about Harry Potter because when you think about what Harry Potter and the whole series did, they've got the written books. So that's one mode of learning for people for engaging in Harry Potter.  Then they went from written books to audiobooks, and then they went from audiobooks to movies. And so some of them start to overlap, right? So you got written books, you got audiobooks, you got movies—three modes of input for a learner or for an audience or for me, the individual interested in Harry Potter, that could be interested in it. And then they went to additional podcasts, Harry Potter and the Sacred Text and things like that. And then they went to this one big place called Universal Studios where they have Harry Potter World. That's immersive. That I can step in; I can put on the robes; I can put the wand in my hand. I can ride on, I can taste, so my senses can really come to play because I'm interactive and engaged in this story. When you take that into the math classroom, how do we help that story come to life for our students? Let's talk one grade. So it feels like the content that I'm learning in a grade, especially around number, around algebraic thinking, around geometry, and around measurement and data. Those topics are connected within the grade, how they connect across the grade and how it grows. So the parallel to Harry Potter's story—there's, what, seven books there? And so you have seven books, and they start off with this little young guy called Harry, and he's age 11. By the time the story ends, he's seven years later, 18 years old. So just think about what he has learned across the years and how what they did there at Hogwarts and the educators and all that kind of stuff has some consistency to it. Common courses across grade levels, thinking, in my mind, common sets of core ideas in math: number, algebra, thinking, geometry, measurement of data. They grow across each year. We just keep adding on.  So think about number. You're thinking with base ten. You then think about how fractions show up as numbers, and you're thinking about operations with whole numbers, base ten, and fractions. You think about decimals and then in some cases going into, depending if you're K–8 or K–5, you might even think about how this plays into integers. But you think about how that's all connected going across and the idea of, “What's the story that I need to tell you so that you understand how math is a story that's connected?” It's not these individual little pieces that don't connect to each other, but they connect somehow in some manner and build off of each other. Mike: So there are a couple of things I want to pick up on here that are interesting. When you first started talking about this, one of the things that jumped out for me is this idea that there's a story, but we're not necessarily constrained to a particular medium. The story was first articulated via book, but there are all of these ways that you can engage with the story. And you talked about the immersive experience that led to a level of engagement. John: Mm-hmm. Mike: And I think that is helping me make sense of this analogy—that there's not necessarily one mode of building students' understanding. We actually need to think about multiple modes. Am I picking up on that right? John: That's exactly right. So what do I put in my tool kit as an educator that allows me to help tap into my students' strengths, to help them understand the content that they need to understand that I'm presenting that day, that week, that month, that I'm helping build their learning around? And in the sense of thinking about the different ways Harry Potter can come at you—with movies, with audio, with video—I think about that from the math perspective. What do I need to have in my tool kit when it comes to my instructional practices, the types of routines I establish in the classroom?  Just think about the idea of the mathematical tools you might use. How do the tools that you use play themselves out across the years? So students working with the different manipulatives that they might be using, the different mathematical tools, a tool that they use in first grade, where does that tool go in second grade, third grade, fourth grade, as they continue to work with whole numbers, especially with doing operations, with whatever the tool might be? Then what do you use with fractions? What tools do you use with decimals? We need to think about what we bring into the classroom to help our students understand the story of the mathematics that they're learning and see it as a story. Is my student in a more concrete stage? Do they need to touch it, feel it, move it around? Are they okay visually? They need to see it now, they're at that stage. They're more representational so they can work with it in a different manner or they're more abstract. Hmm. Oh, OK. And so how do we help put all of that into the setting? And how are we prepared as classroom teachers to have the instructional practices to meet a diverse set of students that are sitting in our classrooms? Mike: You know, the other thing you're making me think about, John, is this idea of concepts and content as a story. And what I'm struck by is how different that is than the way I was taught to think about what I was doing in my classroom, where it felt more like a checklist or a list of things that I was tracking. And oftentimes those things felt disconnected even within the span of a year.  But I have to admit, I didn't find myself thinking a lot about what was happening to grade levels beyond mine or really thinking about how what I was doing around building kindergartners' understanding of the structure of number or ten-ness. John: Mm-hmm. Mike: How that was going to play out in, say, fifth grade or high school or what have you. You're really causing me to think how different it is to think about this work we're doing as story rather than a discrete set of things that are kind of within a grade level. John: When you say that, it also gets me thinking of how we quite often see our content as being this mile-wide set of content that we have to teach for a grade level. And what I would offer in the space is that when you think about the big ideas of what you really need to teach this year, let's just work with number. Number base ten, or, if you're in the upper elementary, number base ten and fractions. If you think about the big ideas that you want students to walk away with that year, those big ideas continue to cycle around, and those are the ones that you're going to spend a chunk of your time on. Those are the ones you're going to keep bringing back. Those are the ones you're going to keep exposing students to in multiple ways to have them make sense of what they're doing. And the key part of all of that is the understanding, the importance of the vertical nature as to what is it I want all of my students sitting in my classroom to know and be able to do, have confidence in, have their sense of agency. Like, “Man, I can show you. I can do it, I can do it.” What do we want them to walk away with that year? So that idea of the vertical nature of it, and understanding your learning progressions, and understanding how number grows for students across the years is important. Why do I build student understanding with a number line early? So that when we get the fractions, they can see fractions as numbers. So later on when we get the decimals, they can see decimals as numbers, and I can work with it. So the vertical nature of where the math is going, the learning progression that sits behind it, helps us tell the story so that students, when they begin and you are thinking about their prior knowledge, activate that prior knowledge and build it, but build it as part of the story.  The story piece also helps us think about how we elevate and value our students in the classroom themselves. So that idea of seeing our students as little beings, little people, really, versus just us teaching content. When you think about the story of Harry Potter, I believe he survived across his time at Hogwarts because of relationships. Our students make it through the math journey from year to year to year to year because of relationships. And where they have strong relationships from year to year to year to year, their journey is a whole lot better. Mike: Let's make a small shift in our conversation and talk a little bit about this idea of instructional practice. John: OK.  Mike: I'm wondering how this lived experience with your family around the Harry Potter universe, how you think that would inform the way that an educator would think about their own practice? John: I think about it in this way. As I think about myself being in the classroom—and I taught middle school, then high school—I'm always thinking about what's in my tool kit. I think about the tools that I use and the various manipulatives, the various visual representations that I need to have at my fingertips. So part of what my question would be, and I think about it, is what are those instructional strategies that I will be using and how do I fine-tune those? What are my practices I'm using in my routines to help it feel like, “OK, I'm entering into a story”?  Harry Potter, when you look at those books, across the books, they had some instructional routines happening, some things that happen every single year. You knew there was going to be a quidditch match. You knew they were going to have some kind of holiday type of gathering or party or something like that. You knew there was going to be some kind of competition that happened within each book that really, that competition required them to apply the knowledge and skills from their various courses that they learned. They had a set of core courses that they took, and so it wasn't like in each individual course that they really got to apply. They did in some cases, they would try it out, they'd mess up and somebody's nose would get big, ears would get big, you know, change a different color. But really, when they went into some of those competitions, that's when the collection of what they were learning from their different courses, that's when the collection of the content. So how do we think about providing space for students to show what they know in new settings, new types of problems? Especially in elementary, maybe it's science application type problems, maybe they're doing something with their social studies and they're learning a little bit about that. As an educator, I'm also thinking about, “Where am I when it comes to my procedural, the conceptual development, and the ability to think through and apply the applications?” And so I say that part because I have to think about students coming in, and how do I really build this? How do I strike this balance of conceptual and procedural? When do I go conceptual? When do I go procedural? How do I value both of them? How do I elevate that? And how do I come to understand it myself? Because quite often the default becomes procedural when my confidence as a teacher is not real deep with building it conceptually. I'm not comfortable, maybe, or I don't have the set of questions that go around the lesson and everything. So I've got to really think through how I go about building that out. Mike: That is interesting, John, because I think you put your finger on something. I know there have been points in time during my career when I was teaching even young children where we'd get to a particular idea or concept, and my perception was, “Something's going on here and the kids aren't getting it.” But what you're causing me to think is often in those moments, the thing that had changed is that I didn't have a depth of understanding of what I was trying to do. Not to say that I didn't understand the concept myself or the mathematics, but I didn't have the right questions to draw out the big ideas, or I didn't have a sense of, “How might students initially think about this and how might their thinking progress over time?” So you're making me think about this idea that if I'm having that moment where I'm feeling frustrated, kids aren't understanding, it might be a point in time where I need to think to myself, “OK, where am I in this? How much of this is me wanting to think back and say, what are the big ideas that I'm trying to accomplish? What are the questions that I might need to ask?” And those might be things that I can discover through reflection or trying to make more sense of the mathematics or the concept. But it also might be an opportunity for me to say, “What do my colleagues know? Are there ways that my colleagues are thinking about this that I can draw on rather than feeling like I'm on an island by myself?” John: You just said the key point there. I would encourage you to get connected to someone somehow. As you go through this journey together, there are other teachers out there that are walking through what they're walking through, teaching the grade level content. And that's when you are able to talk deeply about math. Mike: The other thing you're making me think about is that you're suggesting that educators just step back from whether kids are succeeding or partially succeeding or struggling with a task and really step back and saying, like, “OK, what's the larger set of mathematics that we're trying to build here? What are the big ideas?” And then analyzing what's happening through that lens rather than trying to think about, “How do I get kids to success on this particular thing?” Does that make sense? Tell me more about what you're thinking. John: So when I think about that one little thing, I have to step back and ask myself the question, “How and where does that one thing fit in the whole story of the unit?" The whole story of the grade level. And when I say the grade level, I'm thinking about those big ideas that sit into the big content domains, the big idea number. How does this one thing fit into that content domain? Mike: That was lovely. And it really does help me have a clearer picture of the way in which concepts and ideas mirror the structures of stories in that, like, there are threads and connections that I can draw on from my previous experience to understand what's happening now. You're starting to go there.  So let's just talk about where you see parallels to equitable systems and structures in the experience that you had with Harry Potter when you were in that world with your family. John: First, let's think about this idea of grouping structures. And so when you think about the idea of groups and the way groups are used within the classroom, and you think about the equitable nature of homogeneous, heterogeneous, random groupings, truly really thinking about that collectively. And I say collectively in this sense, when you think about the parallel to the Harry Potter story, they had a grouping structure in place. They had a random sorting. Now who knows how random it was sometimes, right? But they had a random sorting the minute the students stepped into the school. And they got put into one of the four houses. But even though they had that random sorting then, and they had the houses structured, those groups, those students still had opportunities as they did a variety of things—other than the quidditch tournaments and some other tournaments—they had the opportunity where as a collection of students coming from the various houses, if they didn't come together, they might not have survived that challenge, that competition, whatever it was. So the idea of grouping and grouping structures and how we as educators need to think about, “What is it really doing for our students when we put them in fixed groups? And how is that not of a benefit to our students? And how can we really go about using the more random grouping?”  One of the books that I'm reading is Building Thinking Classrooms [in Mathematics: Grades K–12: 14 Teaching Practices for Enhancing Learning]. And so I'm reading Peter [Liljedahl]'s book and I'm thinking through it in the chapter when he talks about grouping. I think I read that chapter and highlighted and tapped every single page in it multiple times because it really made me think about what's really happening for our students when we think about grouping. So one structure and one part to think about is, “What's happening when we think we're doing our grouping that's not really getting students engaged in the lesson, keeping them engaged, and benefiting them from learning?” Another part, and I don't know if this is a part of equitable systems and structures or just when I think about equity work: One of the courses that they had to take at Hogwarts was about the history of wizarding. I bring that up in this space because they learned about the history of what went on with wizards and what went on with people. And to me, in my mindset, that's setting up and showing the importance of us sharing the history and bringing the history of our students—their culture, their backgrounds, in some cases their lived experiences—into the classroom. So that's us connecting with our students' culture and being culturally responsive and bringing that into the classroom. So as far as an equitable structure, the question I would ask you to think about is, “Do my students see themselves in my mathematics classroom?”  And I say it that way versus “in the mathematics,” because some people will look at the problems in the math book and say, “Oh, I don't see them there. I don't see, oh, their names, their culture, their type of foods.” Some of those things aren't in the written work in front of you. But what I would offer is the ability for me as the educator to use visuals in my classroom, the ability for me to connect with the families in my classroom and learn some of their stories, learn some of their backgrounds—not necessarily learn their stories, but learn about them and bring that in to the space—that's for me to do. I don't need a textbook series that will do that for me. And as a matter of fact, I'm not sure if a textbook series can do that for you, for all the students that you have in your classroom or for the variety of students that you have in your classroom, when we think about their backgrounds, their culture, where they might come from. So thinking about that idea of cultural responsiveness, and really, if you think about the parallel in the Harry Potter series, the history of wizarding and the interaction, when you think about the interaction piece between wizards and what they call Muggles, right? That's the interactions between our students, learning about other students, learning about other cultures, learning about diverse voices. That's teaching students how to engage with and understand others and learn about others and come to value that others have voice also. Mike: I was just thinking, John, if I were to critique Hogwarts, I do wonder about the houses. Because in my head, there is a single story that the reader comes to think about anyone who is in Harry's house versus, say, like Slytherin house. John: Yes. Mike: And it flattens anyone who's in Slytherin house into bad guys, right? John: Mm-hmm. Mike: And so it makes me think there's that element of grouping where as an educator, I might tell a single story about a particular group, especially if that group is fixed and it doesn't change. But there's also, like, what does that do internally to the student who's in that group? What does that signal to them about their own identity? Does that make sense? John: That does make sense. And so when you think about the idea of grouping there at Hogwarts, and you think about these four fixed groups, because they were living in these houses, and once you got in that house, I don't think anybody moved houses. Think about the impact on students. If you put them in a group and they stay in that group and they never change groups, you will have students who realize that the way you did your groups and the way you named your groups and the way they see others in other groups getting more, doing different, and things like that. That's a nice caution to say the labels we put on our groups. Our kids come to internalize them and they come to, in some cases, live up to the level of expectations that we set for “just that group.” So if you're using fixed groups or thinking about fixed groups, really I'd offer that you really get into some of the research around groups and think, “What does it do for students?” And not only what does it do for students in your grade, but how does that play out for students across grades? If that student was in the group that you identified as the “low group” in grade 2, [exhales] what group did they show up in grade 3? How did that play with their mindset? Because you might not have said those words in front of students, but our students pick up on being in a fixed group and watching and seeing what their peers can do and what their peers can't do, what their group members can do and what their group can't do. As our students grow from grades 2 to 3, 4, 5, that really has an impact. There's somewhere between grade 3 and 5 where students' confidence starts to really shake. And I wonder how much of it is because of the grouping and types of grouping that is being used in the classroom that has me in a group of, “Oh, I am a strong doer [of mathematics]” or, “Oh, I'm not a good doer of mathematics.” And that, how much of that just starts to resonate with students, and they start to pick that up and carry that with them, an unexpected consequence because we thought we were doing a good thing when we put 'em in this group. Because I can pull them together, small group them, this and that. I can target what I need to do with them in that moment. Yeah, target what you need to do in that moment, but mix them up in groups. Mike: Just to go back and touch on the point that you started with. Building Thinking Classrooms has a lot to say about that particular topic among others, and it's definitely a book that, for my money, has really caused me to think about a lot of the practices that I used to engage in because I believed that they were the right thing to do. It's a powerful read. For anyone who hasn't read that yet, I would absolutely recommend it. John: And one last structure that I think we can speak to. I've already spoken to supports for students, but the idea of a coherent curriculum is I think an equitable structure that systems put in place that we need to put in place that you need to have in place for your students. And when I say a coherent curriculum, I'm thinking not just your one grade, but how does that grow across the grades? It's something for me, the teacher, to say, “I need to do it my way, this way…”. But it's more to say, “Here's the role I play in their pre-K to 12 journey.” Here's the chapter I'm going to read to them this year to help them get their deep understanding of whichever chapter it was, whichever book it happened to be of.  In the case of the parallel of Harry Potter, here's the chapter I'm doing. I'm the third grade chapter, I'm the fourth grade chapter, I'm the fifth grade chapter. And the idea of that coherent curriculum allows the handoff to the next and the entry from the prior to be smoother. Many of the curriculums, when you look at them, a K–5 curriculum series will have those coherent pieces designed in it—similar types of tools, similar types of manipulatives, similar types of question prompts, similar types of routines—and that helps students build their confidence as they grow from year to year. And so to that point, it's about this idea of really thinking about how a coherent curriculum helps support equity because you know your students are getting the benefit of a teacher who is building from their prior knowledge because they've paid attention to what came before in this curriculum series and preparing them for where they're going. And that's quite often what the power of a coherent curriculum will do.  The parallel in the Harry Potter series, they had about five to seven core courses they had to take. I think about the development of those courses. Boom. If I think about those courses as a strand of becoming a wizard, [laughs] how did I grow from year to year to year to year in those strands that I was moving across? Mike: Okay, I have two thoughts. One, I fully expect that when this podcast comes out, there's going to be a large bump in whoever is tracking the sale of the Harry Potter series on Amazon or wherever it is.  John: [laughs] Mike: But the other question I wanted to ask you is what are some books outside of the Harry Potter universe that you feel like you'd recommend to an educator who's wanting to think about their practice in terms of content or instructional practices or the ways that they build equitable structure? John: When I think about the works around equitable structure, I think about The Impact of Identity and K–8 Mathematics: Rethinking Equity-Based Practices by Julia Aguirre, Karen Mayfield-Ingram, and Danny Martin as being one to help step back and think about how am I thinking about what I do and how it shows up in the classroom with my students.  Another book that I just finished reading: Humanizing Disability in Mathematics Education[: Forging New Paths]. And my reason for reading it was I continue to think about what else can we do to help our students who are identified, who receive special education services? Why do we see so many of our students who sit in an inclusive environment—they're in the classroom on a regular basis; they don't have an IEP that has a math disability listed or anything along those lines—but they significantly underperform or they don't perform as well as their peers that don't receive special education services. So that's a book that got me just thinking and reading in that space.  Another book that I'm reading now, or rereading, and I'll probably reread this one at least once a year, is Motivated[: Designing Mathematics Classrooms Where Students Want to Join In] by Ilana [Seidel] Horn. And the reason for this one is the book itself, when you read it, is written with middle schools' case stories. Part of what this book is tackling is what happens to students as they transition into middle school. And the reason why I mentioned this, especially if you're elementary, is somewhere between third grade and fifth grade, that process of students' self-confidence decreasing their beliefs in themselves as doers of math starts to fall apart. They start to take the chips in the armor. And so this book, Motivated itself, really does not speak to this idea of intrinsic motivation. “Oh, my students are motivated.” It speaks to this idea of by the time the students get to a certain age, that upper fifth grade, sixth grade timeframe, what shifts is their K, 1, 2, 3, “I'm doing everything to please my teacher.” By [grades] 4 or 5, I'm realizing, “I need to be able to show up for my peers. I need to be able to look like I can do for my peers.” And so if I can't, I'm backing out. I'm not sharing, I'm not volunteering, I'm not “engaging.”  So that's why I bring it into this elementary space because it talks about five pieces of a motivational framework that you can really push in on, and not that you push in on all five at one time. [chuckles] But you pick one, like meaningfulness, and you push in on that one, and you really go at, “How do I make the mathematics more meaningful for my students, and what does it look like? How do I create that safe space for them?” That's what you got to think about. Mike: Thanks. That's a great place to stop. John Staley, thank you so much for joining us. It's really been a pleasure. John: Thank you for having me. 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

！！！特別活動！！！ 即日起只要到學英文吧FB留言，就送你「這句英文怎麼說」的紀念明信片～ https://www.facebook.com/ivybar.com.tw 活動方式： 留下任何對 Mike 祝福的話，或是想說的話，並且留下你的電子信箱讓我們聯絡你 活動截止日期：9/22 快速幫你複習一下這集的主題句 ＆ 單字： 天下無不散的筵席 All good things come to an end. All good things must end. 補充學習 一切安好/ 順利 all is well “All is well that ends well.” 情境對話 Duncan：Mike，你怎麼在收拾東西？難不成你也… Mike, why are you packing up your things? It can't be that you're…. Mike：是啊！歡樂的時光總是過得特別快啊。我也要從這裡畢業了。 It's true! Time flies when you're having fun. It's time for me to move on. Duncan：哇！好捨不得啊。但畢竟天下無不散的筵席。祝你一切安好。 No…I don't want you to go. But anyways, all good things come to an end. I wish you all the best. Mike：謝謝。我會帶著大家的祝福繼續前進。 Thanks. I will remember everyone's well-wishes going forward. 小額贊助支持本節目： https://open.firstory.me/user/ckf6dwd77euw20897td87i5wj 留言告訴我你對這一集的想法： https://open.firstory.me/user/ckf6dwd77euw20897td87i5wj/comments Powered by Firstory Hosting

Naghmeh Abedini Panahi continues her story. After she went public with her husband's porn addiction, and physical, verbal, and emotional abuse, the Christian community blew up and turned against her. One nationally known leader of a large evangelical organization asked if she had been having an affair. Comments were made that Naghmeh had taken down the Christian community's "hero." Naghmeh's story reveals that some put celebrity status - looking good - over holiness and truth. This isn't far from our church of today that may look good on the outside yet ignores the sexual sin it's corrupt with. Episode Transcript SPONSOR: This program is sponsored by Blazing Grace Ministries. ANNOUNCER: This radio program is PG13. Parents strongly cautioned - some material may be inappropriate for children under the age of 13. Jesus's mission was to comfort those who mourn, bind up the broken-hearted, proclaim liberty to captives, and open prison doors for those who are bound. For those who want more than status quo Christianity has to offer, Blazing Grace Radio begins now. And here is your host, Mike Genung. MIKE GENUNG, HOST, BLAZING GRACE RADIO: Hey, Mike Genung here. Welcome back to Blazing Grace Radio. Thank you for joining us. This is our second week talking to Naghmeh Panahi. She made national news when she publicly advocated for the release of her then-husband, Saeed Abedini, who was in prison Iran for his Christian faith. And through Saeed's imprisonment, Naghmeh was able to bring worldwide attention to the plight of persecuted Christians. And she was able to proclaim the Gospel to millions across the globe by speaking at human rights groups, major news outlets, the United Nations at Geneva, European Parliament Congress, and she had personal meetings with both Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump. When it came to light in 2015 that Naghmeh had been abused throughout her marriage by her husband, the Christian community suddenly turned on her. And so we're picking up this conversation from last week. And Naghmeh, welcome back to the program. NAGHMEH ABEDINI PANAHI, GUEST: Thank you. MIKE: So let's pick your story up from where you left off. NAGHMEH: Yeah, so I... through my advocacy for my husband, God was setting me free. He was building my confidence. And Saeed had gotten a phone, from inside of the prison... and, about a year before he got out, and he was calling me names, I didn't know at that time why. Later I realized he'd seen my... that I was not the girl that I... that he had, I guess, was able to control. I was becoming more confident. I was becoming more outspoken. And he didn't like that. And so, he was calling me all sorts of names like Jezebel like, "You're not submitting to me fully anymore, you're a Jezebel who wants to have pull over men," and so... and I was very... and he would say that, because, you know how Israel, the Israelites disobeyed God, that was spiritual adultery, which was worse than human sexual adultery. He would say, "you are committing - because you're not fully submitting to me - you're committing spiritual adultery." So he would call me a whore and just all sorts of names. And I couldn't understand it why he was attacking me so much when I was trying so hard to get him out. So finally I broke down. I had a meltdown. I told... I was invited to get a mega church in North Carolina whose pastor was Pastor... Doctor David Chadwick, and after the Sunday service, and after we had a prayer meeting for the person in the church, after that I... we were out in a restaurant and I finally told this pastor and his wife everything, including Saeed's messages from prison. And this pastor looked at me and he said, "Naghmeh, you know that I'm not just a pastor. I have a doctorate degree in psychology," and I was shocked that God would have me confess all of this to a pastor who was an expert in this. Just God's perfect timing and provision. And so he said, from what I understand, he said, "I can't wrap my mind around it because Saeed is my hero." But he said, "you are an abused wife," And... the pastor was so confused. He just, he's like, "I got radio tomorrow. I got stuff tomorrow. I'm just going to drop you off at your hotel - we're going to drop you off at your hotel." And, you know, "I have an early radio program," and I had an early flight. So they dropped me off and I Googled abuse, and everything that Saeed had done with the isolation, with... even the silent treatment, with everything, the financial, the emotional, the physical, all of it. It was like someone had looked into my marriage and had written a book. So I was shocked that all the symptoms in my marriage, it was not just a hard marriage. It was actually... abuse. And that's when I realized, like, "This is not something... that this is like cancer, this can't be dressed with like Tylenol, this, this needs chemo. This is, like, serious stuff." And that's when I stopped all advocacy. I actually wrote a letter to a group of supporters about what was going on, and it got leaked to media. And by the time I actually landed in Boise, all the media wanted to talk to me because it was leaked that I had written to supporters that Saeed was an abusive husband, and including porn addiction, all of that. So yeah, it became very... a frenzy, media frenzy, and the Christian world went after me. They said I had done it for the fame and the money, which is interesting because when I advocated for Saeed, I had no idea it was going to become such a big story. And, of course, my one of my first phone calls was with Franklin Graham, who... he actually recently confirmed it in a Washington Post report that he, as soon as I picked up the phone, he called, he said, "Are you cheating on Saeed?" Because that's the only thing he could think of of why I was throwing Saeed under the bus. Although I didn't ever want it, want this information about Saeed to come out publicly. So, I just got attacked by everyone including big names, like Franklin Graham, calling me basically an adulterer and just questioning my motive of why I would even call Saeed an abuser. Because at that time Saeed has had become a Christian hero. So the trauma is just the trauma of having realized I had been in an 8 year abusive marriage and I'd known this man at that time for much longer than eight years. More than 10 years. And realizing that, in addition to the response of the Church of shutting me down, and all my followers, everyone, millions and millions of people who have supported me, either stayed silent, or they attacked me and called me all sorts of... questioned my motives of even advocating for Saeed or why I was coming out about the abuse. Basically saying I was cheating on my husband, that's why I was coming out about the abuse. So that was also pretty devastating. MIKE: And this all blew up a year before he was released? NAGHMEH: A few months. Which I didn't know when he would be released. So a lot of people think Saeed got out of prison and then I came out with the information, which would make sense, even though it was like people trying to make up the story of he came out and then I said the information because I was with someone. That's there in their mind, that's their story. But no, this information came out a few months before Saeed got out of prison, which I actually didn't expect Saeed to come out of prison a few months later. But I have - I had stopped playing the game where... I realized the phone that Saeed had had inside the prison was highly... like even though it was a smuggled phone, it had internet. Like, the Iranian government was using it to get me all riled up. And they would, like, beat up Saeed and I would go to the media, "he got beaten up." Because Saeed would then call me, "I do - I just came out of solitary consignment. They just hurt me," and then I would go to the media. And then, in a way, Iran was upping the price for the... for their hostages, including my husband. And, so, once I stopped playing that game, once I the abuse stuff came out, my really my connection with Saeed was completely cut, I was no longer going to media. I stopped all advocacy in the hopes that our family would come from that world of fame and we would just... hopefully, if we went back to normal. And it was, our family could heal, because a lot of Saeed's insanity had come from him thinking he was so famous, he'd gotten way worse in prison, and he was all about fame and money now. And, so, I stopped all advocacy and shut everything down. And at that time, Barack Obama was President, and I was promised by Trump and Ben Carson and every... pretty much every candidate that was running for the GOP, I was promised, "If we become president..." like Ted Cruz, all of them told me, like, "we'll get your husband out." So my thinking was end of 20- like end of 2016 - or actually 2017 - when the new president was sworn, it was when maybe Saeed would be released, because that had happened in the Iran hostage crisis in the 70s, is when a new President became... when there was a new President, that's when they released the American hostages. So I thought he would be released a year later, but he was released a couple months after the abuse stuff came out... like 3 months later, yeah. MIKE: So you had intense years, long sexual abuse and physical abuse with your husband, and then you had this incredible weight of what I'm going to define as "spiritual abuse" from the Church community. And how... how did all that affect you? NAGHMEH: I think it was like the Peter moment, like, "I'm done, but I can't be done with Christ, because I have nowhere else to go." I was saved out of Islam since I was 9 and even though God's word was so twisted, abused me, by both my husband, and, as you said, by the Christian leaders, I knew I had nowhere else to go by Jesus. And so I clung to God, His word and God gave me Josiah 2:14-16 says, where he talks about setting Israel free, and through His word I discovered that abuse was not okay with him. Submitting to abuse or corruption was not okay with him. That, the putting institution of marriage over the well-being of a person, was not okay with God. That... you know, the same way the religious leaders of Christ's time cared more about Sabbath than the person wasting away in Sabbath, the religious leaders of our time care more about keeping the marriage statistics thing. "We don't have as much divorce," than actually helping the woman and children that are wasting away. They'd rather not touch marriage where, or be part of having to fall away fall apart. So, either they stayed away from trying to help me, or they forced - like Franklin Graham - tried to force my reconciliation. And so I reading through God the world, I realized that's not who God is. God cares about my well-being. Not the physical, but when I was under so much abuse, like my mental, I was a dead person. I couldn't even think for myself. I was... my body was going through a lot of trauma. I developed an autoimmune disease. I just... all this stuff. And through His word I realized that's not who God is. What my husband has portrayed Him to be or what the church leaders have portrayed Him to be is not Christ himself, and actually my relationship with God grew closer and closer. MIKE: So it's your perspective that what happened was the Christian community made Saeed out to be a hero, and then he got knocked off of that pedestal when the truth came out, and then people were taking that out on you? NAGHMEH: Yeah, and you know, they still do that. I think... when, like, when I say about what Franklin Graham did to me, a lot of people get upset and the big thing is, well, "this person is a hero. This person has done so much good for the Kingdom of God." Well, people focus on the good and that they have done, but they don't actually realize that the Bible... God doesn't actually care about the great good we do. It's obedience to His word, which is how we love others. How we love him and how we love others. So someone can do amazing good work for Christ but abuse his flock or abuse his wife. That, for God, that's not the priority, is the great work. But, yeah. The Christian community just attacked me because Saeed had become a hero in their eyes. And, you know, and I was told by Franklin Graham that if if this stuff about my marriage came out, that cause of Christ would be damaged. And that's what everyone kept saying. If the secrets come out, then you're damaging the cause of Christ, you're embarrassing Christianity and all of that. So that's was... that, that was a way that I was... I guess people try to silence me, saying, "You're damaging the cause of Christ." MIKE: Well, what we see is that 70 to 80% of Christian men are viewing pornography and involved in other forms of sexual sin, and abuse is a part of a lot of those marriages. And 1/3 of women are falling into the trap of porn, too. And - NAGHMEH: Mhmm. MIKE: - unfortunately, a lot of churches dodge these issues, which is keeping people in bondage and keeping people in marriages that are being destroyed. And so this is... what you're talking about, is a wide-ranging problem. That we hide. We pretend that we got it all together, and we don't. NAGHMEH: Yeah, the Church is very sick. Because we've had a structure of celebrity pastors and preachers with little... shepherding of the flock. Because we've become so big, wolves come in. We've moved, the Church moved from the house church structure where everyone knew each other and you can catch someone's bad behavior, to big buildings where all sorts of people walk in and abuse the flock, and it's become an epidemic of abuse. It's like you said, it's not... it's not just clergy abusing the flock, sexually and other ways, but also majority of the Church having porn addictions. It's we're... we're at a church age where the Church is so sick, and so... I would say bedridden. We've lost our effectiveness in society. We're very sick. And that grieves my heart. That breaks my heart because I am - I have been and I still am - I still work with the underground church in Iran and Afghanistan and... and they are how - it's looking at that and how the Church in Iran is in one of the darkest places in the world. And then looking at that American Church, how we're strangled up with so much pornography and abuse and it... it really breaks my heart. And I think it's time for reformation, for change in the way we've been doing church. MIKE: Well, as you've been speaking, Ravi Zacharias comes to mind, where it came out right after his death, where he was manipulating women into giving him massages and even having sex with him. And this was really close to the time he died, this was going on. And then first people getting mad and saying, "why is this coming out now?" But then as more, as the evidence came out, I mean, the guy had more brain power on his pinky than most of us have in our whole body, but it is not about the theology or the doctrine. It's about, "where's your heart?" NAGHMEH: Exactly. I know I met Lori Ann Thompson, which was the first woman that came out actually, before Robbie died, and he shut her down. He had her sign an NDA. She became very suicidal, the way he shut her down, and tried to prevent her from speaking out, the way he went after her family. And then when he died, I guess some of these women watched his funeral, that he had been sexually abusing, and realized there was another woman named Lori Anne Thompson had come out about it, and they started coming out about it and they realized it was an epidemic. But when he was alive, Robbie was able to silence this victim, and the whole Christian community turned on her. And again, why? Because Robbie did some quote and unquote "amazing work for Christ". But he was abusing the flock. But, you know, that people don't care about that. I think our focus has been so much on you know, Robbie has done so much work for God, and Franklin Graham, and we focus on the great work which God is actually doesn't. In the last, these men will say to Jesus, like I did these miracles in your name, I did prophesize prophesied me in your name. I cast out demons like and Jesus says, "Get away from me. I never knew you." It's not about those great work that is, we're so focused on, it's about obedience to God's word. And as you said, it's how are we treating the flock? How are we loving each other? And if that's not there, then you don't... "Get away from me. If you you are abusing my sheep, I don't care how theologically amazing you are, and you're able to like, talk to Imola or whoever like that means nothing to me. You're abusing my sheep. You're using your position of power to abuse my sheep." And, so, but we - I think as the Church we're so used to celebrity pastors, and so used to focusing on great work that, you know, we attack the victim because we don't want the work to be... you know, damaged because the victims coming out. We were trying to protect an institution with... whether it was the Robbie Zacharias institution, whether it's the Billy Graham institution, whether it's the Church institution. We care more of - whether it's the marriage institution - we care more about saving the institution that seems to be doing some good than actually saving the person that's wasting away in it. MIKE: Well, in First Corinthians 5, first two verses, Paul basically rips the Corinthian church over the sexual sin of one man. And then he says the reason that you don't do this is because you're arrogant and you don't mourn. And I mean, do we really sob over sin anymore? But how can you sob over sin when you won't even touch it? NAGHMEH: Mmm. Exactly. I don't think we sob over sin anymore. We've minimized even porn addiction. Jesus said - I was reading in my devotional space - if your eyes cause sin, gouge it out. Like, God is very serious about even... like, pornography, watching something, and he says take drastic steps. But we don't really grieve over that. We don't grieve, because I think we've lost sight of the holiness of God. We're just living. We're playing Christianity without understanding what a mighty holy God we serve. MIKE: Well, and part of what WE do is we have a... as big as an emphasis on helping the wife heal as we do the husband recover. And the wives get left out of this equation a lot, even when the porn epidemic in the Church is mentioned. And the wife is, as you've experienced, her heart is shredded, torn apart, it's very traumatic. And then, I mean, for your husband - or ex-husband - to say it was Godly to watch porn, I mean that's... a combination of sexual and spiritual abuse right there. NAGHMEH: Mmm. MIKE: So speak to the wife who is hurting right now. NAGHMEH: [sighs] Yeah, for me, the healing came from... I think Josiah 2:14-16 was really big. Where God has, like, called you into the wilderness. There's a time where you're you set free from a bondage, whether you stay in the marriage or not, you're shattered. And the marriage, as you've known it, has been shattered. And you are walking into an unknown wilderness that you don't know where you're going to get your water, your food, your protection, anything from. But God is calling you to that wilderness, because he wants to be your everything. And for me, that's what it was. He became my husband, He became my provider. He became my everything, emotional provider, helping me raise the kids. But I clung to God and I just, my message is "God will not abandon you." God sees. He's on your side. And it might seem like the wilderness, but in the wilderness is when you're going to discover an intimacy with God that is going to carry you through to the Promised Land. So... just keep going. You're going to have to depend on Him for food, and water, and protection, and guidance, and fire, and cloud, and where to go, the next step, how long to stay, when to move. But He's - He wants you in that place where He is you're everything, and He's the one that's guiding your life. And He will make something beautiful out of it. Whether you stay in the marriage or not, that's, you know, God will guide you of steps that are - that you will take. But I think my message is this "cling to Jesus." He will get you through. He will bring you out whole. He is our healing. He is our law. And that was, that was my... that's what when I felt lost and my marriage was falling apart. The marriage, I tried so hard to please, I sought to get my husband out of prison, thinking it's going to heal our marriage, he's going to appreciate me. And when it fell to pieces and my husband divorced me and moved on with another woman, I was shattered, because... but through Christ, He's made me whole. He restored things in my life that I would have never imagined. MIKE: Naghmeh, I really appreciate your honesty and all that you've shared, and we got a minute left. Anything you want to say? NAGHMEH: I guess. How... I don't know. I don't think... I think the wilderness is just... and clinging to Jesus. We have Him, no one else does. I minister to Muslim women and they don't have that relationship. We have it, but sometimes we forget we have that relationship, and we don't go to God in prayer. We don't cling to His word. We don't cling to Him. And I just, my encouragement is we have that we have the King of Kings, President of all Presidents, that we can access anytime we want to. And my encouragement is to do that, for us to spend more time accessing, and just focusing on that relationship that is... that will restore. MIKE: Mmm. I want to thank you for coming on board with us and sharing your story. And I just want to encourage you to keep doing what you're doing, because the truth does need to come out. So... NAGHMEH: Amen! And thank you for what you're doing. God bless. MIKE: Thanks! And thank you for joining us. And we'll talk to you next time. ANNOUNCER: Blazing Grace is a nonprofit international ministry for the sexually broken and the spouse. Please visit us at blazinggrace.org for information on Mike Genung's books, groups, counseling, or to have Mike speak at your organization. You can e-mail us at email@blazinggrace.org or call our office in Chandler, AZ at (719) 888-5144. Again, visit us at blazinggrace.org, e-mail us at email@blazinggrace.org, or call the office at (719) 888-5144. SPONSOR: This program was sponsored by Blazing Grace Ministries.

Education content is boring, we all know it. But how can we use it to cultivate an audience and improve our brand image.ResourceMark's Website Real Estate Marketing DudeThe Listing Advocate (Earn more listings!)REMD on YouTubeREMD on InstagramTranscript:00:00:02:07 - 00:01:05:13UnknownTell the editor your name and the website that we're going to put in the show notes here. My name is Mark Sullivan and the website is Homeowner Dash Handbooks. Who are you ready to rock? Yes, to anyone.00:01:09:21 - 00:01:28:18UnknownSo how do you attract new business? You constantly don't have to chase it. Hi, I'm Mike Webmaster Real Estate Marketing Dave and this podcast is all about building a strong personal brand. People have come to know, like trust and most importantly, refer. But remember, it is not their job to remember what you do for a living. It's your job to remind them.00:01:28:23 - 00:01:37:23UnknownLet's get started.00:01:41:03 - 00:01:58:20UnknownWhat's up? Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the episode of the Real Estate Marketing Dude Podcast. Folks we're going to be chatting about today is and I'm basically going to dedicate the rest of this year to is being different, standing out, getting ahead, doing things differently. You're going to have to work a little bit harder in this type of marketplace.00:01:58:20 - 00:02:16:02UnknownAnd because of that, I mean, you're going to do things that you probably weren't used to doing. And when the market shifts, you have to shift with it. The ones who will stay and remain complacent are the ones who get their ass kicked in times like these. But on the flip side of that, I don't mean to be all doom and gloom because there's nothing but opportunity in shifts like this as well.00:02:16:02 - 00:02:32:21UnknownAt the same time. And it's only during a shift that you really build share market share, you build brand, you build huge opportunity because the shifts are when businesses are made really it's very hard to get ahead when everything is going well and everyone else is crushing it around you. But it's very easy to get ahead when nobody else is.00:02:33:02 - 00:02:50:19UnknownBut you need to know where that opportunity is going to be at so we're going to, you know, going forward, this is the second half of the year in 2014 and dedicate the rest of the year to sort of just standing out better serving. How do you become a better agent, a better lender? Why should people shoot, you know, choose, use what makes your shit not stink?00:02:51:12 - 00:03:10:20UnknownWhy are you the bottom? Why do people need to call you like that's a week? That's that. That's what we want to chat about. So I'm bringing on a past client friend, known him for a couple of years and he's a mortgage broker right now and you know, obviously mortgage brokerage business is down across the board. Right. So, however, he didn't stop.00:03:10:20 - 00:03:30:00UnknownHe kept working harder and harder. And I seen him working on this project that he's been building and whatnot, and I want him to come share his experience. But in short, what we're going to be chatting about today is how do you use education and how does that work within the buying cycle? A lot of times I see a lot of realtors try to create content and they try to create education, but it just falls on deaf ears.00:03:30:00 - 00:03:46:23UnknownIt never really works. They make a video or they make a post. They do it on Facebook and then it dies in the newsfeed and everyone forgot who the fuck they were or what the fuck they talked about. So how do you leverage education to convert, attract and get more business ultimately? So without further ado, let's go ahead and introduce our guest, Mr. Mark Sullivan.00:03:46:23 - 00:04:16:08UnknownWhat's up, Mark? Hey, what's going on? Mike Thanks for having me. Why don't you tell everybody a little bit about who the hell you are, where you at, and what are we going to be talking about today? Yeah, absolutely. My name is Mark Sullivan. I run a mortgage team out of Nashville, Tennessee, licensed in most of the Southeast and eight different states and built my business on the back of educating clients.00:04:16:08 - 00:04:43:23UnknownRight. Making sure that my clients, my clients stuck with me because of the education that I provide and the value that that I provide to my clients. So tell me about you. Obviously, you do a lot with real estate agents, I'm assuming. Right. So you work with a lot of real estate agents and I've never really it's crazy because we create a lot of videos, guys.00:04:43:23 - 00:05:00:16UnknownWe've done over 4000 videos like a scene every type of video could possibly create about real estate in space. And I can tell you that when you're creating videos on education, they're usually the least engaged pieces of content that you'll create, right? So if I create a video on the home buying process, I might get like ten views on that thing, right?00:05:00:22 - 00:05:22:04UnknownBut if I create a video about me dancing in a in an elf outfit at a listing, I'm going to get like 30 500,000 views on that video. But why is there a difference in content and it's not that one's bad or the other, it's just on you need to know. On how to use the content. Some of the most important content that you guys should have and everyone should have is education about why the fuck you're an expert?00:05:22:11 - 00:05:44:24UnknownLike Who the fuck are you and why should I let you tell me what to do on the largest investment of my house or in my lifetime in educational content is what we call core content. Core content is there. Everyone needs it. You have to have you imagine a hotel not having pictures of their pool and it's a resort online, right?00:05:45:00 - 00:06:05:16UnknownYeah, right. Exactly. No entities. That is their core content. Right. And you got to look at like from any other business, it's just go around other businesses just so you guys get in the right mindset because the question I'm going to ask yourself while I'm walking through these examples is if you visited your website, would you fucking hire you seriously, look at your own website and be like, Dude, would you would I hire myself?00:06:05:16 - 00:06:26:22UnknownLike, Seriously, what are my site actually tells people I'm an expert and why should they trust me? Because I'm a realtor. No one cares, right? That's where education comes in. So although it isn't like the most sexy type of content to create, it's the stuff you use over and over again with every single client. No one cares that your license, only one cares.00:06:26:22 - 00:06:46:24UnknownIs that your what you could do with the license? So how are you using education in your process? Like obviously you're more on the buy side, but talk to me about that. What do you do education wise? How do you leverage education to enhance the experience? But more importantly, make realtors look like freaking badasses because that's ultimately like your secret sauce, right?00:06:47:14 - 00:07:14:16UnknownRight. Right, exactly. And the difference I think the difference between the two videos, you know, the examples that you gave was the video's for entertainment purposes. Right. And the the education the education is more targeted. Right. You're shooting for a specific person that you're talking to and you're a specific audience that you're targeting things to. And so what we try to do is we find we find people where they're at in the process.00:07:14:16 - 00:07:36:22UnknownAnd when you have a whole when you have a whole learning center or a whole library of educate, then it doesn't matter where I find that person, I know where to place them. Right. If they if they're a renter, I know. I know to put education in front of them, that will make them a first time homebuyer if if their objection is that they have a low credit score.00:07:37:05 - 00:07:58:00UnknownI've got tons of credit score education material that I can put in front of these people. And, you know, they can consume at their own at their own pace and and start fixing their credit score. Right. If somebody comes up to me and says, you know, I get introduce somebody, hey, Mark's in the mortgage business. I'm like, Oh, yeah, I just bought a house for four months ago.00:07:58:00 - 00:08:17:01UnknownRight? That's that's like the ultimate thing for anybody to tell you, because they know that, you know, I'm not going to try to start selling them a mortgage or a real estate agent isn't going to start selling them a house because they just bought one. Right. That they're in the safe zone. But I go, okay, that's great. Hey, my clients, whenever my clients close, I always give them a gift.00:08:17:11 - 00:08:42:18UnknownAnd this gift is the homeowner handbook and it's a learning center. And half of it, not half of it, but a lot of it is based around being a great homeowner. I'd like to give this to you. Right. And that's that's usually where I leave it. But I hand that to them. I sign them up. They get a whole bunch of great value home maintenance videos about how to be an awesome homeowner and how to maintain their home.00:08:42:23 - 00:09:03:04UnknownAnd at least instead of saying, Oh, great, congratulations on closing your house four months ago, now I'm going to be in front of that person educating them on how to be a homeowner so that whenever I guess in the mortgage world, whenever the rates go down, they've already been been listening to me or whenever they're ready to buy a new house that they know that they need to come to me for a preapproval.00:09:04:15 - 00:09:25:12UnknownIt's a powerful thing because we all know that there's NAR stats out there that say that, you know, 87% of people say that they'll use their real estate agent again, but only 27% of them actually do the right thing. It's even less than that. Yeah. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy because there's no power. All right.00:09:25:12 - 00:09:49:03UnknownSo well, I think the main point that the main point that I try to drive home is that when you have a robust learning center or I have a library of education, that there's nobody that you can meet out there that you can't slide into your environment and start educating them. If it's not right now for the future, yes, love it.00:09:50:02 - 00:10:10:18UnknownHere's what happens realistically. Like no one hears from anyone after they close. And like, it's funny because, you know, when you especially on the buy side, like your work or the client, you almost become friends with them. Like you have intimate conversations in the car, you're laughing together and whatnot. They're emotional, especially when there's like a couple. I mean, I used to go out to dinner with all my clients.00:10:10:18 - 00:10:24:16UnknownI was like sort of my secret. I would get them drunk and I'm like, they're you can ever cheat on me with anyone else. They're going to close all up. They're going all the way to the closing table. But that was I built a relationship. We go out to dinner, I would invest 3 to $400 per client just through dinners and whatnot.00:10:24:23 - 00:10:43:17UnknownAnd I did that strategically because I wasn't in it for their direct business. I was in it for the referral business because every single person they know they can refer me to. And that client experience is like what we're sort of talking about here. But Mark's taking it to a new level. What he's saying is like, All right, great, let's not only use education within the client like service.00:10:43:17 - 00:11:09:22UnknownThat's how everybody uses it, right? But how do we stay in front of them and continue to add value without being a douchey real estate agent saying, Hey, do you got a referral for me? Hey, do you have a referral for me? Hey, do you have referrals from me? Oh, don't forget, I'm in real estate. Hey, by the way, you get the latest market update, real estate market news, you can't if you guys just talk about real estate and buying and selling and self-serving interest with your database, they're going to tune you out because no one wants to talk about real estate listing in the market to buy it.00:11:10:08 - 00:11:32:00UnknownSorry, HGTV does a good enough job for that, so they're going to watch that real estate content over yours any day. So don't try to compete, but doesn't mean you don't stay in touch. How are you doing that? And like, do you have like a frequencies or touch schedule? So if someone closes on a house, you give them your homeowner handbook, they take the homeowner handbook.00:11:32:00 - 00:11:51:13UnknownAnd that's basically like, okay, here's how you save money, I'm guessing on like solar or this, and here's how you do this and here's how you do that and so on and so on. Yeah, sure. So the people that are going into the closing table, it all depends on how they enter the handbook. So we have the the homeowner handbook is a learning center.00:11:51:13 - 00:12:12:12UnknownIt's a library of videos and it also comes with a CRM, right? So it depends on when they enter the handbook whether if they entered as a first time homebuyer, they're going to they're going to start a campaign. We're going to start a campaign for them. That's going to just talk about homebuying. It's going to talk about being prepared for financing.00:12:12:18 - 00:12:33:19UnknownIt's going to be talk about things you want to think about when when buying a home, you know, then it's going to talk and it's also going to talk about credit score and things like that. Things you need to do to get ready for us. But if you're if you've just closed, like, say you want to my clients and you know, and or say your, you know, say a friend of mine, you know, that everybody gets right.00:12:33:24 - 00:12:54:01UnknownI just you know, I just saw a Facebook, a friend of mine closed on their house and it didn't use me. Right. So, hey, you know, here's a gift, you know, happy closing day and they get the handbook and they're entering as a homeowner, right? So they're going to enter it as, hey, congratulations. They're not going to get homeownership videos because that doesn't apply to them.00:12:54:06 - 00:13:23:06UnknownBut they're going to get is they're going to get is hey, it's summer. Now here's your list of things you need to do to maintain your home for summer. Right? Here's here's a, you know, here's how to, you know, replace, you know, your your your filter in your dishwasher and things like that where honestly, a majority of the homebuyers, you know, first time homebuyers for sure, that are in their low thirties, most of them have no idea that their dishwasher, even has a has a filter in it.00:13:23:06 - 00:13:41:22UnknownRight. It's little things like that that we're educating them a little bit further. So they're Oh wow. I didn't even think about that before. Yeah, that's a value. It's a value added way to stay in touch. It isn't self-serving. This is how content works. You guys like we're talking about content, education, it's all content. Like we have to create something.00:13:41:22 - 00:13:56:16UnknownYou have to create something to stay in touch, to stay present. Because if you're not somebody else's, I mean, that's just how simple it is. That's that's why those stats go like 80% of people would love to work with you again, but they just forget who you exist, who the hell you are. I mean, that's just the reality of it.00:13:57:00 - 00:14:16:09UnknownYou can never build any type of brand without staying in touch with people, whether it's people you're just friends with their family that haven't transacted with you or the ones you have. It doesn't matter. You have to always be marketing wherever you're at. I like to say ABR always be reminding wherever you're at because you never know where the next deal is going to come from.00:14:18:00 - 00:14:44:10UnknownJust think about from this point of view. There's a reason and we're not telling you anything that no one knows. I'm trying to get out of your head is why aren't you doing this? Because there's not a business in the world that doesn't have an email list. Like I just signed up. I went to visit on a vacation last weekend to Huntington Beach with my family, and Hilton's already sent me like four freaking offers or hi, wherever the fuck I was out, they said I got like four vacation things.00:14:44:11 - 00:14:59:00UnknownI'm like, I'm like, close to pulling the trigger on another one. They're staying in touch with me. I could tell what they did at the hotel last week. I'm like, Oh, cool shit. I wish we had went there this weekend. None of it is self-serving. It's just sort of like value added, right? So and that happens with any business.00:14:59:00 - 00:15:19:21UnknownIf you go to Home Depot, they start sending you coupons because a retailer has a version of value to their customer base as a discount. It's all shit. So what's your value base? What are you going to do? What are you going to give as a real estate agent or a lender? Even when you give give them tips, that's your expertize that positions you as the expert.00:15:19:21 - 00:15:46:04UnknownWhat is it like? How often do people stay in touch? I have like I'm all about staying in touch with people. That's my whole thing. So what are you guys doing? What do you see works best of actual. I you know I think this day and age actual value right it's less about how often unless somebody raised their hand and said, hey, I want to buy right now and then, you know, then you kick it into high gear and trying to stay in touch with somebody.00:15:46:04 - 00:16:13:05UnknownBut I think it's less about how often and how much value you're delivering. Like there's there's only there's only so many checking cash story recipes or happy girl cheese day, you know, kind of emails that you can send out. Like they don't nobody cares about that. But when you send something of value that they've even if they only read it for 15 seconds, you know, they, they decided they stopped what they were doing in their day to read what, what you provided.00:16:13:07 - 00:16:44:05UnknownRight. And I think it's value whether it's whether, you know, twice a week, once a month, I think that matters less. And in the buying cycle, especially the first time homebuyer, you're buying cycles 12, 24 months. Right. It's just that most agents and loan officers don't realize that because we tend to enter the buying cycle on that last 10%, you know, when they're when they're one or two months away and they've been learning for for 12 to 16 months already.00:16:45:06 - 00:17:03:09UnknownSo it's something then that we don't really think about. And honestly, most people are only equipped to provide the value that, you know, that they're equipped of about it. So if I'm a loan officer, I've got financing videos, or if I'm a real estate agent, I've got, you know, things you can do to buy a home videos, right?00:17:03:09 - 00:17:24:07UnknownBut if you team up like we've done here with the handbook and have experts from every sector educating on it, then then you can focus on what you do best and let the other experts that you've partnered with focus on what they do best. And I think it's I think the answer is value for sure. Yeah. That the other option is entertainment.00:17:24:07 - 00:17:38:14UnknownIf you can make people laugh, but reality is most aren't that funny. So that's a that unless you're you know, you've got to have or entertaining content. That's where video comes in and then you've got to get editors and all that stuff. So you got to get one or get a couple other mortgage people all over the country.00:17:38:14 - 00:17:56:17UnknownAnd I can promise you most of us are funny. So there's different categories of content or call it learning centers. I'll give you guys another example. I remember my old website. I know what happened with it, but my server's down. But I had a concept. It was just nothing. But it was a homeowner handbook as a freaking encyclopedia, Chicago real estate.00:17:57:07 - 00:18:15:16UnknownAnd I would just blog and write and write, but I would always repurpose. So I had a page on the site How to sell your house without a realtor. And that whole page was like a course on how to sell your house without a real estate agent. I gave them the local Chicago Association realtor contracts. I gave them the disclosures, I gave them my inspector.00:18:16:12 - 00:18:35:04UnknownI gave them everything to do the job without them, even my photographer, my videographer. And I gave him my whole checklist of everything. We do it marketing wise. So the reason for that is that I'm not scared to share everything and anything. Like I'll share all content. That's my share. I'll give you everything because I know that you need me to fulfill some of it.00:18:35:04 - 00:18:50:17UnknownThat's always been my sales strategy. So when I have a for sale by owner, what would I do? Do you think they want to talk to a real estate agent? Mark No. Yeah, that's why they're for sale by owner, bro. They fucking hate you. They hate you guys. All right, so. But yeah, I would try for some of that.00:18:50:17 - 00:19:08:03UnknownOh, that's fantastic. You know what? I just put a I basically have a gun for sale by owner course on my website. I'm happy to share with you to give you the contracts and all this stuff. I'm going to send it to you and we hang up. And the only thing I want to ask is that if you do have to hire somebody, I would love, you know that to be me or at least give me a shot.00:19:08:03 - 00:19:23:01UnknownBut at the same time, if you're going to sell your house without a realtor, I'd love be the person to show you how. And boom, they're like, What the fuck you say? And then you just you completely mind fuck them because you got to go backwards with it, right? And then they're like, Whoa, so you're not trying to sell me?00:19:23:01 - 00:19:39:16UnknownYou're trying to help me. I can't tell you how many times that works because if you if you really break it down, everyone assumes I'm going to do this, but I do the opposite. And then, boom, I have them. That was my hooker, my attention getter. But I at least had an excuse to stay in touch. I used to argue that people like I'd never would go.00:19:39:18 - 00:20:07:02UnknownWhy would you go after for sale by owner for the listing instead? I'd go after them to buy their next house. And then you should. If you build a relationship that angle, get the listing in a much easier way because you're not coming at it as self-serving interest. So think outside the box you guys like. And the other thing too is that when people have a very good experience with you, they refer you and no differently than you refer restaurant.00:20:07:02 - 00:20:27:24UnknownYou beat that or whatever it is. If they have a shitty experience with you, they don't refer you. They detract business from you because they tell their friends about how bad you are. That happens all the time. What kind of categories of content or would you call it learning centers? Do you see you've named a couple first time homebuyer, so maybe you missed.00:20:28:01 - 00:20:52:02UnknownWe have we have homebuying. We have homebuying which which right now is financing and real estate side income is they work they work together so well that we had a hard time separating that. But we have credit score. We are, I think, most of the most popular part of credit score is we have a seven part video series on the seven misconceptions of credit.00:20:52:10 - 00:21:16:00UnknownRight and home maintenance is the is is in the top three right. And that's that's after you already own the home. These are things you need to know about, you know, yada, yada. We talk about home inspections. Home inspections is one of those things my brother and a co-founder of of the him but is a home inspector and one thing and my dad's a home inspector.00:21:16:00 - 00:21:36:13UnknownSo like like I know I know how important home inspections are. And I think that a lot of people go into the transaction not understanding, you know, anything at all about what that home inspection supposed to do other than they were told by their real estate agent, you need a home inspection, right? You need to get a homosexual.00:21:36:14 - 00:22:03:24UnknownThis kind of breaks down. These are things that you should expect from your home and home inspector. These are things you should expect. The day of this is how to read a report. Right. This is I think the most important thing is this is what you should take away from the report. Right. And these are you know, these are all things that I think if if your client was more educated about the home inspection process, I think it makes all I think it makes the whole process less stressful, right?00:22:03:24 - 00:22:26:22UnknownYeah. Because I mean, anything anything that you do, you're more you're more stressed about things you don't know that are approaching than things you are a little more educated on that are approaching. Right. I mean, if you take a if you take an hour drive to someplace, you've never been that out. That drive there seems like three times longer than that.00:22:26:22 - 00:22:49:02UnknownOur drive back, because you're you're going over a road that you've already traveled now and there's less of the in your mind going, okay, what's going to happen next? What, you know, where am I going? And unfortunately, that's where that's where a lot of home buyers and that's how a lot of homebuyers navigate the homebuying process. And they're like, where am I going?00:22:49:02 - 00:23:16:02UnknownYou know, we also have an insurance module where it just kind of breaks down. It kind of breaks down homeowner's insurance. We're going to expand that a little bit more. But obviously, that's what's important in the homebuying process. And and a refinance process or homeownership process. So just knowing honestly, I don't know a ton I didn't know a ton about my first homeowner's insurance policy.00:23:16:02 - 00:23:43:10UnknownRight. It just so much numbers your coverage you're covered for $500,000 of this, you know, $300,000 of this. But you don't know what any of that's going to. And this kind of helps break that down so that, you know, to go to your agent and ask the right questions that I think a lot of times during the process, people just go for the lowest quote always and then they find out like we had in Nashville, we had tornadoes come through.00:23:43:10 - 00:24:07:19UnknownThey had I don't know, is it five or six years ago? And it just leveled leveled sections of a town called Mount Juliet. And we had people I had a few clients that bought a house, had their house completely, completely leveled. Two different clients. One had the house completely rebuilt. That ended up being worth $150,000 more than the house that they bought.00:24:08:04 - 00:24:33:02UnknownAnd another one barely was able. They had to come out of pocket, and it was a struggle for them to even begin rebuilding that house. And there was it was the same storm, two different insurance companies and two different insurance policies. It has a completely different experience because one was prepared and one wasn't. Yeah. Yep. And so that's basically the gist.00:24:33:06 - 00:24:54:21UnknownWe have a title module as well. The title module is just mainly to say what is title insurance? Because I bet 80% of the people listening to your podcast right now, even though they're loan officers and real estate agents, really have no clue what title insurance is. So it goes through that, Hey, what's the role of the title company?00:24:54:21 - 00:25:13:08UnknownWhat are they going to do? What do you expect when you when you when you hear from them and and things like that? Some of these modules, people aren't even going to open, right. Unless they're really dedicated to knowing everything about the process. Right. But the fact that it's there is the important aspect of things in my opinion.00:25:13:18 - 00:25:31:23UnknownWell, yeah, it's most and no one will remember. Like even when they see it, they'll just remember that you have it. So it's like if you have two different people and you have one person who has all of this, like collateral call it, and one person that just shows up and they have like a their outfit on and a good smile and you walk away and they give it to Bolton.00:25:31:23 - 00:25:51:02UnknownIt's about making that impression. So, yes, 100%. It's about the and the consumer experience and then the educating them on the process. But the touch points along the way are what are very key because I'm I think the whole damn business is about experience, consumer experience, because those are all selling the same shit, like everyone has the same products and services.00:25:51:12 - 00:26:10:13UnknownThe only difference between all of us is, okay, how is that person delivering those products and services right now? That's why we have owner advocate, for example, we have multiple seller options where we're talking a lot on the buy side. But, you know, we have a process we call owner advocate and on the sell side of that, we give them six or seven different ways to sell their properties.00:26:10:24 - 00:26:29:23UnknownSo very same concept just through education and all that is how we're converting and attracting seller leads. So but here's the point, though. This is your opportune idea to do something different if you don't have your own. Like if you don't have content that shows people you're the expert, then are you really the expert? As my whole combatant?00:26:29:23 - 00:26:51:12UnknownAnd then why don't you have that content? We used to do these. We're not doing them anymore. But there's many people you could hire or services like Marks has a service can that you guys can utilize with the homeowner handbook. But there's no excuse to not have this shit. Like these are basic sales tools you're not having. Your education is like a restaurant, not having a recipe that they cook every single day.00:26:51:19 - 00:27:16:07UnknownSame damn thing. Mark, any closing thoughts on here? And we'll get this wrapped up. Yeah, a few one. I'll take a I guess I'll take a page out of your I'll take a page out of your handbook and you know, say that, you know, whenever you're talking about your sphere of influence and you're talking about like 10% of people that you know are going to move this year.00:27:16:14 - 00:27:42:22UnknownRight. And the important thing is 10% of the people that they know that your friends know are going to move this year. Right. So it's all about controlling that sphere of influence. Don't if you put yourself where you're just self-serving. Right. And you're just salesy, salesy sales that nobody wants to refer to that it. Right. Because when when it's when it's friend, a friend, they want to help, right?00:27:42:22 - 00:28:05:05UnknownThey want to lead with a helping hand. So friend a, you know, your friend Cody wants to help his friend John buy a house or wants to help, but he didn't. But Cody doesn't know anything about home buying, but he's. He's in the homeowner handbook, so you can say, Hey, let me share this with you and I'll give you a bunch of education that will help you at least, you know, start to navigate what you're looking for.00:28:05:07 - 00:28:26:19UnknownRight? That's something that a friend would love to share with another friend and help get you down that path we offer for those. There's a lot of people in our industry that are afraid of a video camera. I shouldn't say afraid. They just don't want to do it. That's not part of that's not they haven't they haven't devoted that part to their business plan.00:28:26:19 - 00:28:50:08UnknownThat's that's fine. We've got that solution for you where you can just leverage our videos. We also have a solution where you're creating your own content, you're putting your own content into your own learning center where you can take when you want. You can take control of that process, and instead of them listening to somebody else talk, they're listening to you talk and making you more of an authority.00:28:51:00 - 00:29:11:14UnknownBut again, if that's not that's not up your alley. If you're not comfortable on camera, use our videos. And then the CRM that's attached to the handbook. Let the CRM that CRM is coming from you. Right? Those emails are coming from you. Those texts are coming from you. And all of that value is going to have is going to have you branded on it.00:29:11:18 - 00:29:45:02UnknownYou're branded on the learning center. It'd be homeowner dash handbook you're slash you know dot com slash your name handbook and your picture on it so this is something for everybody and it's something to just to get education out there because the last thing you want your future prospect doing is being out there on Google Learning most mostly wrong information from sources that are going to take their information and sell them out.00:29:45:02 - 00:30:10:17UnknownBut why don't you tell them if you guys are interested in learning more about Homeowner Handbook, tell them what the website was just so they can find out. Yeah, for sure. We actually have a special site just for you. It's homeowner dash handbook dot com slash sweet assist where you go. If you go there if you go there the landing page, it'll tell you.00:30:10:17 - 00:30:30:16UnknownIt will remind you what the code is. But you get 50% off if you use the code suite, assist you fit yourself the starter package and you get 10% off the pro package. And if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out. Love it, folks. Take this opportunity to look in working on your business. What can you do to stand out?00:30:31:00 - 00:30:55:20UnknownOut compete up brand OutServe and just be different? That's what's going to work in this market. And although things might be a little bit slower now, things aren't dead and people are still going to move no matter what. So whenever things are moving again, then the last one standing are the ones who always reap the benefits. So I've seen this happen many, many times and I'm going to make a wild prediction and I'm going to say it's going to happen again.00:30:56:05 - 00:31:18:16UnknownSo appreciate you guys. Just another absolute reality marketing do podcast. We will see you guys next week and visit us at Sweet Assist with assist dot com. We'll see you guys by peace. Thank you for watching. Another episode of the Real Estate Marketing Do Podcast. If you need help with video or finding out what your brand is. Visit our website at WW W dot real estate marketing do dot com.00:31:18:19 - 00:31:48:03UnknownWe make branding and video content creation simple and do everything for you. So if you have any additional questions, visit the site, download the training and then schedule time to speak with the dude and get you rolling in your local marketplace. Thanks for watching another episode of the podcast. We'll see you next time.

[00:02:59] NEWS [00:03:15] House Committee Votes to Raise Pilot Retirement Age [00:19:38] US bound Air India 777 Diverts to Russia [00:27:54] 4 Indigenous Children Lost in jungle for 40 Days After Plane Crash are Found Alive in Colombia [00:36:43] Loss of Separation [00:48:08] Final Report - San Diego Accident - Dassault Falcon 900EX [01:02:22] FAA Requires Secondary Flight Deck Barrier [01:08:52] A Delta Crew Member was Hit by an Inflatable Slide Accidentally Deployed Inside the Plane [01:13:47] GETTING TO KNOW US [01:36:37] COFFEE FUND [01:40:20] PLANE TALES - The Risk Takers [02:03:54] FEEDBACK [02:04:03] Mike - Concorde Has a Wheelie! [02:07:20] Rob - AI Writes a PA in the Style of Shakespeare [02:13:50] JJ (Not Pittsburgh) - First Flying Gig! [02:15:33] Mike - Thanks! [02:22:19] Sam - RAF is Looking for Nick VIDEO Don't see the video? Click this to watch it on YouTube! ABOUT RADIO ROGER “Radio Roger” Stern has been a TV and Radio reporter since he was a teenager. He's won an Emmy award for his coverage in the New York City Market. Currently you can hear his reporting in New York on radio station 1010 WINS, the number one all-news station in the nation. Nationally you can hear him anchor newscasts on the Fox News Radio Network and on Fox's Headlines 24-7 service on Sirius XM Radio. In addition Roger is a proud member of and contributor to the APG community. Give us your review in iTunes! I'm "airlinepilotguy" on Facebook, and "airlinepilotguy" on Twitter. feedback@airlinepilotguy.com airlinepilotguy.com "Appify" the Airline Pilot Guy website (http://airlinepilotguy.com) on your phone or tablet! ATC audio from http://LiveATC.net Intro/outro Music, Coffee Fund theme music by Geoff Smith thegeoffsmith.com Dr. Steph's intro music by Nevil Bounds Capt Nick's intro music by Kevin from Norway (aka Kevski) Doh De Oh by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100255 Artist: http://incompetech.com/ Copyright © AirlinePilotGuy 2023, All Rights Reserved Airline Pilot Guy Show by Jeff Nielsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

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.

Growing up, Laura Graber's father was an alcoholic. He was also addicted to pornography and molested his daughters. There was constant tension and the fear of sexually inappropriate behavior of their father in their home, to the point that Laura was afraid of taking a shower. Laura grew up in an Amish family; while many have the perception that the Amish live pristine, peaceful lives, an undercurrent of unspoken sexual abuse is alive in their community. In this first of two interviews, Laura shares her story. Laura Graber on Sexual Abuse - Part 1 - Transcript ANNOUNCER: This radio program is PG-13. Parents strongly cautioned: some material may be inappropriate for children under the age of 13. Jesus's mission was to comfort those who mourn, bind up the brokenhearted, proclaim liberty to captives, and open prison doors for those who are bound for those who want more than status quo Christianity has to offer, Blazing Grace Radio begins now. And here is your host, Mike Genung: MIKE GENUNG, HOST, BLAZING GRACE RADIO: Hey, Mike Genung here, and welcome back to Blazing Grace Radio. Glad to have you along. It's a beautiful sunshiny day here in Phoenix, AZ. And before I introduce our guest, a couple of quick announcements. May 5th - 7th I'll be in Italy, the north side, leading a men's retreat there. May 13th I'll be in Vienna, Austria leading an all day conference. On that Saturday, May 20th, we'll be in Finland for several speaking engagements. And then, May 27th, I'll be back to the UK in Frimley Green, which is a little southeast of London, holding an all day conference on that Saturday. And then June 3rd holding another conference - all day conference - in North Wales. So for our listeners there in the UK and Europe, I'd love to see you. Go to the website at blazinggrace.org, there's an events calendar on the homepage. And so today I have back with me at the program, Mrs. Laura Graber from James Port, Missouri, Laura my friend and welcome back to the program. LAURA GRABER: Thanks for having me, Mike. It's an honor. MIKE: Thanks for coming on. And so, Laura's going to be with us the next two weeks, and today we'll be talking about some sexual abuse issues she encountered growing up in her family. And then next week, what she's been through with porn addiction in her marriage. And a common thread that can run through both of those scenarios, is anxiety and fears. So along the way, we'll be picking that conversation up and looking at what recovery looks like. So let's begin, Laura, and go and begin by sharing what you went through growing up. LAURA: Sure, absolutely. So I grew up in a in a Baptist Amish home. So, you know, a lot of people have their opinion of how they think the Amish are [laughs] who they are and how they live their lives. Granted, my home that I grew up in was was an exception. Thankfully there's not many of them in the culture, but my father was an alcoholic. And with that came lots of anger and rage, and, you know, all the aspects of that. And as I grew up there became more and more sexual impurities in his life, became more evident, until it got to the point where he definitely was sexually abusing us through a lot of different forms. For a long time in my life I was able to ignore it, and not, you know, call it for what it was because it didn't seem like that big of a deal. Which is, a lot of times, what sexual impurities and sexual sin... you can lie to yourself for a while, believing that it's not as bad as you perceive it to be. But... so, obviously, growing up with a father that you know was an alcoholic, and angry, there was lots of tension in our home. My parents would fight a lot, and argue a lot, and just always being tense, never knowing when something would tip them off. And he would spank you, per se, but it was much more than disciplining you. It was a way for him to unleash his anger, you know, using a whip or, you know, whatever he had close to his hands to use. So a large part of my childhood was spent, like, just living in constant fear. I remember bumping his chair one Sunday afternoon as a little kid, when he was taking a nap, and getting a beating because I bumped his chair. MIKE: Mmm. LAURA: You know, just instances that were completely crazy, you know? Yeah. Sometimes he would come to the table and I'd have to sit beside him and... because that's how we sat at the table, in that row. And he would be angry because he's looking for an excuse, you know? Someone to take his anger out on. And it was so nerve wracking trying to eat, you know, just fear, just complete fear. So obviously as I got older, you know, in the age of eight, nine, ten years old, I started becoming aware that... I can't necessarily pinpoint, like what happened, that I knew to never be alone with him. But I was always very aware at a young age, you know, if he was in the house and there's no one else in the house, like, don't be in the house with him. Yeah, I just... I spent a large part of my life just not being in the same place as him, alone. So by the age of 8-9 years old, he would make me uncomfortable with staring at me. And that led to, you know, occasionally he would, you know, try to touch me as I walk past him, or depending on where you sat or what you were wearing, he would be staring at you. He would write vulgar things on, you know, papers and leave them laying around where... you know, if I was, if he was out in the shop and I was out there too, he'd be sitting there, you know, looking at, like, magazines that were full of, you know, porn, literally. MIKE: Right in front of his daughter? LAURA: Yes, yes. MIKE: Mhmm. LAURA: I mean, he would sometimes try to hide the cover, but I knew they came in the mail. And, you know, we knew that's what he had in his hands. You know, we walked behind him, you'd see what he had. There was just like... slowly but surely it kept getting worse. And I was very naive, like no one... like, my mom would have never talked to me about sexual things, you know, growing up. So for me it was, it was all foreign. It was disturbing to me, like, disgusting to me. Like, I knew it wasn't right, and yet I had no one to explain to me, like, that this is wrong. So it's kind of, yeah, a lot of confusion mixed in with that. But it kept on going throughout my teenage years. You know, like, if in the morning, if he would hear that you're awake then he would all of a sudden, you know, open the bedroom door in hopes to catch us changing. Or if you were showering, the the lock on the door didn't work very well. Which I'd say it was probably done on purpose. And he would, you know, open the door and pretend he didn't know you were in there. It got to the point where us young little girls would, you know, if one of us were showering, the other one would be hanging around the bathroom door or be inside the bathroom just so he didn't try those things. He would, by the time I was like 13-14 years old, he would, like, in the living room evenings, he would sit on his recliner in front of everyone and be masturbating or something. You just... yeah, lots of very disturbing things. MIKE: In front of the whole family? LAURA: A lot of disturbing things. Yes. Yes. I mean, obviously I had older brothers, and if they were around he never acted out in front of them as much. He definitely hid it from them, because there was a time when some of us younger girls started speaking up a bit, and my brothers were just kind of like "What?", you know? Like they didn't know this stuff was happening. So I think he hid it more from them than what I realized, you know, at the time. But yeah, like, my mom would be sitting there sometimes, so us girls would just, I spent... I remember spending quite a bit of evenings in the bedroom until he went to bed. He'd go to bed fairly early. You know, 8:30, 8:00, something like that. And then coming out in the living room and hanging out with mom after he went to the bedroom. So yeah, that was just reality. And I somewhat knew that other dads maybe weren't like that, but it just felt too much for your brain to even process that, that this isn't completely normal. Because then I would have had to admit that this is wrong and there's something wrong. And that felt terrifying to me. Yeah. I would have much rather just had to live in an alternative reality and not face the actual effect that all of that was having on me at the time. MIKE: Mhmm. LAURA: So yeah, he was very... a vulgar person. I mean he would tell me that I was made to satisfy the other half of the population. Oh, that would that would make me very, very angry. [laughs] Obviously. Yeah. Those things kind of all continued until my parents separated when I was 16 years old. And yeah, so obviously that released me from having to live in the same house as him. The last year before they separated I would be home a lot alone with him and my mom. And that last year was... it was awful. It was completely awful. I know there was other people around on the weekends, a lot to distract him. And yeah, it was just a lot that happened that, sometimes I wonder if I even gathered, you know, mentally, today - years later - you know, what all took place. But yeah, so that obviously left me with a lot of, like, the mindset of, like, anything sexual is disturbing and disgusting. And even viewing men in general, in a very... ungodly way. Just, like, being disgusted by males in general, which in a sense, like, God used for good. Because I didn't have a lot of boy drama in my life [laughs] as a teenager. So that was... that was a little positive in the whole aspect. Yeah. Kind of a small glimpse of of my childhood growing up. MIKE: How many kids in your family? LAURA: There was nine of us, and I was the youngest. MIKE: How many boys? How many girls? LAURA: There was five boys and four girls. Actually, I said that exactly opposite, four girls... five girls and four boys. MIKE: And your brothers had no idea that a chunk of this was going on. LAURA: There was things that they did know. I mean, they were aware of, like the magazines he got in the mail. They were aware of different things because, you know, after he was done with the magazines, he would lay them in on my older brother's bed, you know, gave them to the boys. So he was very, like... entitled, you know, as a male. That was just what males did. This is who they were. So my brothers, you know, he... he tremendously impacted their purity at a young age. And they knew some of the things, but a lot of the things that he did toward us younger girls, we just didn't talk about, not even really that much to each other, nor to my mom. It was kind of something that you just didn't want to talk about because it was hard. And subjects like that in the Amish culture, you don't hear anyone talking about sexual things. They're just like a, yeah, a silent subject. Especially in the community that I grew up in that era... you didn't get taught any of that in school, you know, there was no sex ed classes in school. So there was just a lot of silence on the subject. So I remember, you know, several years after my parents had separated, I was talking to one of my brothers and sharing about the showering and he was just horrified. He was like, you know, he remembers me asking him if he could hang out in the hallway while I'm showering. And he remember just like being like, "Okay, what's wrong with her?" you know, "She's acting strange," you know? But he did and he would do that for me if I asked him. But I guess I always just assumed he knew why I was asking him, and he didn't. That's just how less we talked about it at the time. Now, today, and even, like, you know, by the time I was 17-18 years old, all of that stuff was definitely discussed and very openly talked about. At the time it was just a silent subject, yeah. MIKE: Well, a lot of people, myself included, have or had a perception of the Amish community, of being peaceful. They're living life the way it should be. There's wonderful families and communities. And so our listeners know, I've been to James Port where Laura lives, and you guys have kind of educated me that that's not quite the situation. So is there a lot of sexual abuse... immorality in the Amish community? LAURA: There is, there definitely is. And it greatly saddens me because of how that subject is not discussed. It's not taught. It's not addressed. There's, you know, a lot of young kids, you know, things happen between kids, and adults view it as, "Oh, it's just kids doing things." And that's not just kids doing things, you know? I don't know as far as, like the ratio of, you know, the difference between the Amish culture and the so-called English culture - [laughs] MIKE: [laughs] LAURA: - you know, that if you do statistically the difference between the two. But I would say in the Amish culture there is more, from my personal opinion. For the mere fact that A: it is hidden. Few people bring it to the light, talk about it, actually find healing. And it's, like... the Amish community is a really close knit community. So if one person finds it out, like everyone knows, a large part of the time. So it's something that a lot of shame and fear and just complete terror is associated with, so you don't want anyone to know about it. So it's better just stay silent and shove it to the back of your mind and forget that it exists. MIKE: Mmm. LAURA: So that's definitely, like, a lot of times when, like, instances do come up that you catch, you know, little snippets here or there, that you know something may not be quite right. Or something may have happened, but you never know, like, full details, or people don't just openly talk about it or share, you know, that "Hey, I was sexually abused, and this happened, and this is how I found healing." Those conversations would not be a part of the life and Amish community in James Port where I lived. It's more of a yeah, definitely a very shameful thing that hidden scraped under the rug, you know, covered it up. MIKE: Well, the official numbers are that one out of every four women have been abused or molested and one out of every six men have been abused. But those, those are the official numbers. That doesn't even include all those that had even reported it. So the real numbers are - LAURA: Exactly. MIKE: - probably much higher. So was your family going to church when all this was going on? LAURA: Oh yes, yes. We were in church every Sunday that there was church. My dad was actually looked up as a respected person of the community, at one point, a lot. I think as the years went by, more people... he might have happened to show his anger at the wrong time, and more people got to know that there was definitely, maybe some issues, you know, happening in the background. But there was... like, when we left, when my mom and dad separated, we actually - my dad left for work, and my mom and my brother, me and my sister, we just loaded up in the car and left and left him a note. That's how we separated because that's... we just left. And at that point, you know, I think a lot of people were shocked. And still today there's people in the community that they don't know the full story, you know, they don't know what all happened and they would still view us as being wrong. For having just left because my dad was, I mean, in public, he was a jolly person, he was funny, you know. Still today I hear a comment, you know, oh, you know, his laugh or they so enjoyed talking with my dad or something my dad said or, you know, whatever. And there's still a lot of people today that would not, yeah, would not know the real Jake as I knew him growing up. MIKE: And part of the reason on this program I have people who come on and share stories of being molested, like you've been willing to do, Laura, is because a lot of this gets repressed in the family system, and then people grow up thinking, "I'm the only one that's gone through this," and it's far from the truth. LAURA: Yeah. MIKE: So how did you unwind the idea that men are basically scumbag pervs? [laughs] LAURA: Umm... [laughs] That's a big question, Mike. Do you have a couple hours? [laughs] First of all, my brothers were pivotal in that. I mean, obviously God was in the background, you know, orchestrating all of this, but my brothers played a huge part because they treated me differently than from what my dad did. They cared about me. They were, you know, never sexually... toward me in any form. They advocated for me, did things for me, they loved me, they looked out for me. They, you know, were there. They were vibrant in my life and I could trust them completely. So that was huge. And, like, to hear they might be hanging out with guy friends or they might be hanging out with people. Like, if they were comfortable with them, I was comfortable with them a lot of times. Like, who they liked, I liked because I knew that they they had grown up with the same dad as I did. So that that was huge for me. Definitely my brother's impacting me. And also you know, as I became a Christian in later years, recognizing that there are a lot of men out there who have a heart for God. And, you know, as I started sharing my story, little bits here and there, you know, I barely wouldn't say much, you know, because I'd still be scared. But people's reaction, like men's reaction, the same like, "Wow!" like, "That is so wrong!" Or, you know, like, "That's awful!" And recognizing like, "Oh, they would think it's wrong to do this?" You know, "They wouldn't think that's okay?" You know, "That's not just how males are?" So those are probably the two biggest aspects of, yeah, my brothers, and then, like, hearing other males react to parts of my story - MIKE: Mmm. LAURA: - was huge. MIKE: So when I first met you was in 2018 when I led a wive's retreat in Colorado. So, you and seven or eight other women. So I'm wondering what was going through your mind when you're going to a wive's retreat that a man is leading [chuckles] with your background. LAURA: [laughs] Well, I definitely... I was... most of the reason why I went to the retreat was because I needed to get away from my husband. I was losing my mind, it felt like, and I was just desperate to get away. And my friend invited me and I was like, "Hey, let's go. Who cares?" But when I showed up there and I met you and I realized like, "Whoa, like I'm spending the weekend at a retreat that's being led by this male." And it was... yeah, there was thoughts in my mind, definitely, of like "Who are you?" Like, "Why would you do this?" You know, yeah. "What type of person are you?" And then that first evening we were broke up in groups to share a story, and you just happened to be in my group. And you shared your story, and that... yeah. That instantly, I... through hearing your perception and seeing your love for purity and calling things out for what they were to be wrong. You know, speaking the truth over subjects, not just brushing them under the rug, or making them sound better than what they were. Yeah, you gained a lot of respect for me that first evening and I continued to go on that. MIKE: Well, we've got several minutes left, and so I'm wondering what your healing journey... Can you give us a point or two on what that has looked like? Because that was a lot of damage to recover from. LAURA: That was a lot. In a lot of different areas, you know. A lot of small things that I even today, sometimes something strikes me and I'm like, "Wow," like, yeah, "I didn't recognize that until today." Probably the biggest, obviously the biggest thing was becoming a Christian and having God, like, the Holy Spirit, to walk me through those things. And I did a lot of counseling... have done a lot of counseling. And my siblings. My siblings have been pivotal in my life. And, like, we can sit together and we can talk openly and honestly about our childhood and connect and, like, just talk about the hard stuff. You know, the disturbing stuff that's really hard to talk to other people about openly. We do that with each other. We're not afraid to go there and to talk. We can talk about anything. And that has been majorly healing to have people who understand what it was like, and being able to just share and talk and not people freaking out about what all happened. Yeah. MIKE: And at what age did you become a believer? LAURA: I was 20 years old when I first... Yeah. I happened to go to church, which is kind of a crazy thing because I hadn't been in church for a long time, because all of this, really, I was really bitter toward God. MIKE: Mmm. LAURA: I was. I just had the mindset of "If there is a God and he would allow me to live like this, you know, for close to 17 years, then I don't want anything to do with him," you know. If he... yeah. MIKE: Hmm. LAURA: You know, people would tell me, you know, "God's good," or, you know, I would hear things like that and I'd be like,"Yeah, whatever." I would mock Christians and mock people who believed in Him because to me it was like, "How could he turn a blind eye while we suffered all those years?" I mean, just day after day of complete agony and darkness and just horribleness. I mean, just complete terror and fear, and... yeah. It was awful. MIKE: My friends [clears throat] we're going to continue this conversation with Laura next week, so I would encourage you to join us. And Laura, thank you so much for your honesty and transparency, and I look forward to seeing you next time. ANNOUNCER: Blazing Grace is a nonprofit international ministry for the sexually broken and the spouse. Please visit us at blazinggrace.org for information on Mike Genung's books, groups, counseling, or to have Mike speak at your organization. You can email us at e-mail@blazinggrace.org, or call our office in Chandler, AZ at (719) 888-5144. Again, visit us at blazinggrace.org, email us at email@blazinggrace.org or call the office at (719) 888-5144.

In this week's PODFLASH we have another installment of “Jimmy's Corner” with words of wisdom from Live and Learn and Pass it On by H. Jackson Brown Jr.  Make sure to hit “Subscribe” so you don't miss an episode!Give us a 5 star rating on Apple Podcasts and let us know what you think!Check out krisquade.com for all of your coaching needs!Follow us on Social Media:Facebook Group ~ The Positivity Project with Kris & MikeInstagram & Twitter ~ @positivityprojectpodUntil next time.....Choose Positivity My Friends!

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

Mike Simmons, a real estate investor, author of the book Level Jumping (linked below), has shared the stage with some of the greats like Gary V. Has made over $1 million in profits in 12 months!! He knew he wanted to invest in 2003, and bought his first flip in 2008....why did it take so long? Like a lot of people starting out Mike was afraid to tell his spouse because of the difficult conversation. It wasn't until he finally decided he was tired of allowing fear to be his excuse that he dove in. Today, Mike shares his inspiring story of how he left his job, entered the real estate world professionally to begin wholesaling and flipping houses. Episode Links: https://www.mikesimmons.com/ Level Jumping   --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today with me, I'm joined by Mike Simmons, author, CEO, business coach speaker, and we're gonna be talking about Mike's business, wholesaling and flipping houses, and what we should be aware of if you're going to get into either of those businesses. So let's get into it.   Mike Simmons, what's going on, man? Welcome to the real estate investor.   Mike: Thanks for having me, I appreciate it.   Michael: Oh, my gosh, no, the pleasure is all mine. Super excited to have you on and really excited for our conversation today. So Mike, I know a little bit about your background and a little bit about what you do but for all of our listeners who are not familiar with you, give us a quick and dirty who you are, where you come from, and what is it that you do in real estate today?   Mike: Yeah, no problem. So, you know, I always say that my background is probably the least remarkable. I didn't sell baseball cards, I didn't go around the neighborhood looking for lawns to mow or things to do. I was a normal kid, probably on the lazy side. You know, and my parents were, we're in the automotive industry, and we're very blue collar Michigan, right. So the life that was displayed before me through example, and through explicit, you know, direction from my parents, and the Blueprint was, you got you finish high school, you go to college, or just as maybe even more preferable, you get into a union factory type of environment and it's very secure and you work there for 30 to 35 years, and you retire and you hopefully save some money and you scrimp buy and that's how you that's how life goes. That's just life. That's what people do, that's normal. Yeah, there wasn't one single person in my family or anybody on the horizon that was doing anything remotely entrepreneurial. So I did that I went to school, I went, I finished high school, I got a job with UPS, Teamsters, my parents could not have been happier with me being in the Teamsters and I went down that path, and I got married young, and I was working at UPS and like, unfortunately, UPS is a great company.   But there are injuries that happen because people you know, lift wrong and all that and at 25 years old, 24 years old, actually, I couldn't get out of bed in the morning without going to the chiropractor three times a week as a 24 year old, otherwise healthy man, oh my gosh and I knew I couldn't retire from there, because I was already almost too hurt and crippled to do the job I had to do at that time and I was in my early 20s and so I got another job in the automotive industry. It was a desk job and I started working there and this was, we were the mid to late 90s at this point and the automotive industry, like most industries, were starting to decline starting to have some problems. We were heading toward 2000 where a lot of bad things happen and in, you know, people think about tech and what happened if tech the big boom that happened. But the same thing happened in the automotive industry, essentially, we went from, you know, booming industry to many, many suppliers, going out of business struggling, it was really bad for a while and so I had to look around and ask myself, and I'm one thing I'm good about one thing I one of my superpowers is I'm a very honest, and I can I can very objective about myself and part of that is because it can be a tough thing to do. It's most people I don't think are, are objective about themselves and I'm not saying this to brag, I'm gonna tell you why I'm objective, and it's gonna kind of be like a poor, poor guy. My dad was a Marine, and, and he made it real clear what our shortcomings were on a daily basis as kids and so I have no problem. being real, honest, in a way that say, these this is what I'm not good at.   This is what's not great about me, like I'm very aware, I'm very easy for me to for me to figure that stuff out and so I asked myself at this point in the automotive industry, and things were declining, I didn't have a college education. I would I hire me if I were without a job and I was in the position of HR and I was, you know, somebody like me was across the table. What is there anything about me, that makes me more hirable than the 1000s of people who've been laid off over the last few years and it was easy. There was nothing about me that was remarkable. I had no college experience and I had very little practical experience. So why hire me when there's so many really, really talented people that were being laid off because of the industry. So went back to college, got a degree and I was working I'm kind of fast forwarding a lot, but I got my degree and I doubled my income. Like the minute I retire, graduated, the minute I graduated, I got a job, which literally was twice the annual salary and I was like, here we go, baby. There's no stopping and so just to kind of illustrate how that went, so I went into a company, it was automotive and I was working there for about six, seven years and at one point, it's seven o'clock at night and it's everyone had gone except my team. Everyone had gone home for the night, obviously, it was a five o'clock, most people were gone. It was seven 30 and I'm in at work and there are our client is there too, because there was something going wrong with our program that we are working on and he's there and in we're discussing the problem, and the guy gets really agitated the client, I'm not going to say which automotive company I'm talking about, but it rhymes with board.   Break company, I have an F 150. But he gets in my face and basically start screaming at me like dressing me down, like very much, really like when I was a kid like my dad did write down. Yeah and he was and it was seven o'clock at night. We're all working overtime. We're all clearly busting our butts to solve the problem and he gets in my face. They're screaming at me and he's the client, right? He's a big client and I can't really say anything back, except I'm really sorry. We're working on it and after he walked away, I went to my manager who was there too and I said, what are we doing here? What is happening right now? Why are we here? I'm getting screamed at we're doing our best, like there are issues I get it but nobody, nobody was negligent. We just have we have things that have happened, and we're working through but why are we still here? We should be at home and he said to me, I'll never forget, you need to get your priorities straight and I thought you are correct. I absolutely do, I have young children at home, I have a wife at home. I've been working overtime all week on this project. I didn't say this but in my mind, I'm thinking, you are correct, my priorities are wrong and from that point, I decided to take my side hustle that I was doing, which was real estate, flipping houses not doing a particularly great job at it, but just kind of stumbling through it and I said that is going to become my career priority. My priorities need to get dialed back to my family and make sure I'm at home and I'm spending the evening with them. I'm eating dinner, putting my kids to bed but from a career standpoint, that now becomes my focus and I will get my priorities straight and so he essentially put me on the right track. Inadvertently, he obviously was referring to work priorities but it worked the other way and so I from that day, I started making my side hustle, my main focus and I will say I a year later quit my job and the first year that I was in business and real estate full time that listen to this, this is true and I did this math, the first year that I was in business full time for myself as a real estate investor, my company's gross profits were equal to the total sum of my salary for the previous 25 years that I was working for somebody else, year one, which was a million dollars, I made over a million dollars in my real estate and over the years, like I'm talking going back to 18. When I started working right, I was making very little money and in the middle, I wasn't making a ton toward the end, I was making more but if you just take the average, which is about $40,000 for me, and you times that by 25 and is $1 million. My company grows that in in one year.   Michael: That's crazy, Mike! So where did you take it from there? I mean, are you still flipping houses today where you focus exclusively on that? Give us give us the insider scoop?   Mike: Yep… Yeah, good question. So I was flipping houses. When I was working full time, my wife and I were flipping houses and like I said, we weren't doing a particularly great job of it because she worked full time as a teacher, I was working full time plus as an automotive person and we were getting flips done. But we weren't particularly profitable, like we should have been. We didn't have any processes in place. My wife is extremely risk averse and so I kept trying to do more and do it faster. And she was slowing like brakes, brakes, brakes, right because she was nervous that we were getting ahead of ourselves and she probably saved me from really screwing up bad in the beginning. But at some point, she said, You know what? This is great and you clearly love it. I don't love it as much as you do. In fact, this is making it hard for me to sleep and it's making me hard for me to focus on my day job with the kids and I'm a teacher and that's what I do and I love you, I love the I love real estate but it's the roller coaster, the mental roller coaster is too much and I really would rather you go on without me and let me pull back and I'll just cheer for you from the sidelines and I totally support you and this isn't a negative this is actually a positive I just trust you to do it better without me and I did in and that's when things started taking off because I started doing way more activity like before we would get a house under contract. We would get it quoted out, you know, we would renovate it, we would put up for sale, we'd go through the wholesale process closed, check in the bank, before we started looking for the next day and that's not really a that's not how you scale anything, right?   So when she backed out, I was like, okay and I started putting offers in on multiple houses a day, like I was putting offers on everything and I started getting multiple deals at one time and so I had to learn how to raise money and I had to learn how to manage groups and what a forced me to do was, it forced me to come up with a process in a system that was repeatable and could handle scale. Before that, nothing we did was scalable, is all very manual, we'd go to Home Depot, we'd pick new colors for the walls, we'd pick out different cabinets, different flooring, like everything was custom to the house that we were working on and what I realized was really, really good house flippers who do it at scale, okay, and I'm not talking boutique flippers, who go into a town and they buy a $3 million, you know, historical home, and they like, put it back together with love. It's I'm not talking about that I'm talking about the people that are flipping 20-30 at 100 200 deals, they are not falling in love with every single house and going in there and making it the route, right, it's turning burn a little bit and so I learned how to turn and burn a little bit more in my business and scale it in a in a way that had systems and processes. But I still hadn't hired anybody. It was still just me, what changed the game for me and that changed the game for me in terms of, you know, a racing analogy, but, and again, this is not like I said all this in front of my wife as early as like the last month I've said all of this and she 100% agrees but she was like the governor in a race car, right? They put the restrictor on there. So you can only go so fast. Once that got pulled off. I pushed the gas all the way down to the floor, and I never stopped like, and so things just go faster when you're doing that much volume and back then, you know, now we're talking about 2014 ish timeframe. It was easier to get deals, I'll be honest, like, as someone who coaches people in real estate, I'm not gonna lie. It's harder now than it was back in 2014.   Still possible now, but it was easy back then. So I was getting deals off the MLS and it was going pretty fast. Fast forward another year or so and it started to get harder to get deals off the MLS and I was struggling a little bit and so I had to do some research and figure out and I was I was going to all the meetup groups and I was asking all the other house flippers like, where are you guys finding deals like what's happening? Where are you guys getting your volume from and they were all like, man, it's hard, like we're not getting deals like we're struggling and I'm like, Well, where are you looking? Where are you trying to find deals and everybody said the MLS everybody. I only knew one wholesaler in my market and I reached out to him. I'm like, Dude, I know you're not buying off the MLS. So where are you finding deals? He's like direct mail, I'm going direct to sellers and I'm like, what do you mean, go direct to sellers? How do you do that and so I took him out to lunch. He gave me the down and dirty playbook for how to do direct mail is what I was doing at the time and I started doing that and the deal flow started happening again and I started building and what I realized was and there's a whole story behind it that we don't necessarily have to get into but I changed my model from house flipping to wholesaling and it wasn't because of that guy. To finish in a nutshell, I was overly dependent and this is a huge mistake that new investors make all the time. I was overly dependent on one contractor and one realtor, they were everything the realtors, he found all the deals for me and they ran the numbers and they told me what was a good deal and my contractor was my only contractor and he basically made her are broke my rehab and on the same project as chance would have it. The realtor missed the numbers pretty badly and my contractor started flaking.   Now if you flip houses or renovate houses, or you have rentals, and I say my contractor flake, you probably don't need more information than that you go I'm with you, my contractors flaked too, right. But essentially, he stopped showing up he started charging me for things that he wasn't doing. He started making up half truths about stuff that he did do and so I was forced it and by the way, I was getting deal flow because I was direct mail, right. I had to let both these individuals off my team, to say the least and I had no backup plan and so as these deals were coming in, I reached back out to my wholesaling friend, I'm like, What do I do? I don't know how to wholesale. Can you just tell me what that even means? Like, what do you guys do and he again, gave me the down and dirty playbook and I called a house flipper friend of mine who I had recently talked to and he's like, I can't find anything and I said, Hey, man, I got this deal under contract. Do you want it for 110,000 at the time, that was the price 110,000 he's like, let me take let me look at let me look at the numbers coming back in 10 minutes. He's like I'll take it, I got it under contract for 95,000. I made $15,000 in like 10 minutes and In Michigan at that time, a normal flip 15 to 20,000 is a good flip number. Right, profit. Yeah and I was like I made almost the entire profit with a phone call. That was cool and probably a lot easier sold.   So much easier to do. No, by the way, no contract, right? No realtors. So I got another deal under contract. Ironically, it was also a contract for $95,000 and it was in a similar neighborhood. I called the exact same guy and I told him the exact same thing. I've got a deal for 110,000 It's yours. He said, give me five minutes. Call me back, he said, I'll take it. This all happened within four weeks to deal. I was like, I felt literally talked about love at first sight. I was in love with the model of wholesaling and so I switched my model over to wholesaling and I started, I started scaling it up and what really changed everything for me though, because although I was scaling up and I was starting to have some success, I still wasn't really running it like a true business I was I was a little bit scattered, I was a little bit unfocused and I joined a mastermind, a friend of mine at the time who lived in California, he had a podcast, and I knew him just through podcasting, and I was listening to his podcast one day, and at the end, he signed off, thanked his guest signed off, and I was doing dishes actually, at the time in my house and I saw I let it go, it was it's just kept going because I wasn't able to turn it off. My hands were wet and if it was over, he goes, Hey, if you're still there, I want to let you know about this very exclusive opportunity. I am pulling together some of the best real estate investors from around the country. We're going to form a mastermind, we're going to share ideas, we're going to help each other it's going to be awesome. If you want to get involved, you know, send me an email, whatever.   So I did $25,000 mastermind. Well, I $25,000 bazillion dollars to me at the time, but I was I was doing wholesale deals, right and at the time $25 was like two wholesale deals because I was averaging around 12 $13,000 per deal and I thought, I mean, if I surround myself with these people, will I do two more deals as a result of the relationships and the knowledge that will be exchanged. It seemed reasonable that I would and so I joined and I met someone their mentor, more than one person, but one person in particular, who laid out his company, he just laid it out. This is how I run my company is exactly what I do is what I did right and wrong over the last decade and he had the company I wanted and I said to him, his name's Andy, I said, if I if I see what you did, and I see what you're telling me, I should do and I totally agree with you. But you took you 10 years if I knew everything that you know now, and I apply it proactively. Couldn't I condense that timeframe? Like could I do any year and he said, I don't see why not? That's exactly what I did and I sort of came up with this term that, that I didn't think about a much until I've said it on podcast, and people resonate with it but I think the most powerful thing you can do in business is to use other people who are successful use their hindsight, which is 2020, as they say, right, as your foresight and so I used Andy's hindsight, all the things he did right and wrong, as my foresight going forward and I was able, that's what I was telling you that first year that I was doing the full time because I applied all of Andy's principals and I went from doing a couple of deals here and there to 10 to 15 deals per month and scaled up to a million dollars in that first year.   Michael: That is amazing and so right now your business is focused exclusively on wholesales, are you still doing flips?   Mike: Historically, it's always been wholesales but recently, and I have a business partner to its which is a whole story in itself kind of interesting about hiring and identifying talent. But so my partner and I have started strategically buying properties outright and then doing in Michigan, what we call them land contract, or we basically play the bank, we own the property, and we sell it to them and we hold the note as a company. So we started doing a lot of that. So we do like 100 deals a year, but half of those or more, but at least half would make fantastic land contract deals for us and so, and because of you know, COVID kind of showed us this a little bit and over the last several years that we've been in business, every business has ups and downs every industry has, you know, markets go up and down, right. So revenue kind of fluctuates and we thought how do we level that out a little bit? How do we make the valleys much higher, you know, so they don't go down and so we're doing a lot of this land contract stuff because it's every it's like you know, monthly recurring revenue and so we make the valleys much shallower and the peaks are still there. So we're probably wholesaling half of our deals and the other half we're buying inland contracting out…   Michael: Okay, let's dig into land contracts live because it's just not something I know very much about and we always joke on the podcast that we get to ask self-serving questions of our guests... So walk our listeners through asking for a friend walk us through like how land contract works and why it's so wide, so interesting.   Mike: Yeah, it's pretty straightforward but the concept and I'll kind of give you a peek, like a little bit behind the curtain here, right? The real like mechanics or the real like logic behind it. Me and my partner both as of a year ago, I had about 25 rentals, okay, which I have sold recently and I did it for a couple of reasons. Now, because rentals aren't great, they're great and actually, the rents are higher now than even when I sold them. So rent rents are going up, which is awesome. But for me, I bought them really, and I bought them like 2015, most of them and so the equity in them was very tempting to tap into and I recently have started doing lending on a grander scale, like I've scaled up my lending company, and I wanted to put that equity, that money into my lending company, it's just more of my focus now. But so what we're doing with land contracts, and why one of the reasons why we love them is unlike a rental, we are not responsible for any maintenance, any vacancies like we are, what the bank is to your mortgage, we get the mortgage payment, regardless of whether or not they have a leaky roof or whatever has to happen, right, we don't have to deal with any of that stuff and what we're able to do at least in Michigan, this doesn't work necessarily everywhere, the same way, because the rents aren't high enough in the house prices aren't low enough for to work in a lot of areas.   But for us, if you take someone who's living in a neighborhood, and they're renting, and let's just say they're paying for the sake of round numbers, they're paying $1,000 in rent, okay and they're renting a certain level house in that neighborhood, I can buy a house in that neighborhood that maybe is a little bit in distress that I can go in and buy it inexpensively and put some work into it and if someone were to buy that house with a traditional mortgage, especially a year or two ago, when rates were like high twos, low threes, they could buy that house and their mortgage payment might be $600, right, right. But they can't get approved for a mortgage for whatever reason, right? They have bad credit, or whatever it is, right? But I can buy that house, I can renovate it, and I can sell it to someone and really the pitch to them is listen, you want to own a home, and you're not currently in a position to get approved for a mortgage through a traditional mortgage company. But what if you could have homeownership, and you would pay no more than you were paying when you were renting, right still give me $1,000 give or take. But you own the home and you can build equity and in three to five years you can refinance out at a lower rate and you can own the home and probably drop your payments a little bit. Is it important enough to a person to own the home? If they're if all things being equal rent 1000 I have to pay this company 1000 for the house, but I own the house. That's what we do we buy the houses now, the reality is the interest rates are a lot higher than what you might get at a mortgage company, right. But we're also taking a bit of a risk. These are folks that have defaulted on things in the past and their interest and their credit scores are not great, but they have homeownership at this point and if so they if they have a down payment, and they want to own a home, we can get them into a home for no more than they would pay to rent a home in that neighborhood and three to five years, the goal for them is to fix things in their life and be able to refinance out at a lower rate and move on forever and then. So we're typically an average deal for us might be, you know, we buy it for 50. The ARV is 100, we put 20 into it. So now we're into it for 70 and we sell it for 85, right, we're still a little undervalued. So they're getting some instant equity, they have home ownership but when they go to refi in three, five years, we're getting a $15,000 check or whatever it is at that point, right. So in there's no calls from tenants, and there's no vacancies and none of that stuff. So that that's the that's the allure for US interest…   Michael: Interesting, I mean, isn't that similar, like rent to own or is it different?   Mike: It's similar, but they're not renting, right? a rent to own it, depending on how it's structured. Obviously, you can have some portion of the rent go toward whatever, but you still own the house, right? You still own the house as the person who's having that rent down. We don't own the house, necessarily. We own it, just the way the bank owns your house when you have a mortgage, right. But we're never getting calls from the city for law for Tallgrass. We're not getting calls about the maintenance issues or whatever. We don't have to worry that they didn't, you know, they left and they didn't finish their contract like it's a mortgage and if they if they don't pay their if they don't pay their mortgage, then we will foreclose we can foreclose on them.   Michael: Yep, interesting and so that like when you place these tenants into the home, there's a recorded sale that happens and so you're literally just playing bank, interesting…   Mike: Yep, just playing bank. Yeah, because we both had rentals, both of us and like I said, rental they're awesome but there's just a different level of responsibility for us playing the bank than then playing landlord and that's just what we're choosing to do. We both of us have rentals and it's, it's awesome. I rentals have been fantastic for me. It's just, it's not what we're doing now and we were just like, gonna get rid of the rentals and just wholesale. That's it but then this model presented itself, somebody we mutually knew in the industry is kind of like, hey, I'm doing this and they're doing it in Texas and it works down there too. I don't know that it would work in Los Angeles or San Diego or I don't know that it would probably not as well because the house prices but if you have house prices that you can get a house in a nice in these are like safe blue county collar neighborhoods, we're not talking about like war zones, but by any means I wouldn't buy a house there but in a nice blue collar brick ranch neighborhood, if you can get a house between 50 and 150,000. It could work when they start getting up to a half a quarter of a million, it just doesn't work as well anymore. You can't, the numbers don't work out.   Michael: Okay, okay. Good to know and just out of curiosity, I mean, how many folks end up refinancing out of your mortgage and then truly then own the house versus how many what percentage defaults or you have to go through that?   Mike: Really good question. We started doing this, like, eight months ago. So okay, I don't know, we don't have a loop. Yeah, but the friend of ours who kind of introduced this concept to us. He said about half of them refi out. Very few defaults, very few defaults because it's home, you know, people it's their home, right? They don't default, like they do necessarily on a lease, because it's not as transient. So according to him very few defaults. But we also screen people pretty well to like you would with a rental, like we're not just letting anybody in there, right? If they clearly have a pattern of defaulting on everything they've ever done, we could expect to default to we're not special but people have certain circumstances where their credit cut takes a pretty good hit but it's you know, it's something that is understandable, or it has a you know, story behind it. That makes sense. So I'm not expecting a lot of defaults, how many people will refi out? You know, our plan is to be a little bit more proactive with helping them with credit repair right now, we're not really getting involved in that but I suspect as we do get more involved with helping with that, that the number of people who actually refi out will probably go up, you know, so I don't really know right now how that's gonna go down. We'll see, we'll see how that goes. I don't know. Sure…   Michael: Okay, we'll have to have you back in 24 months to see. See what that looks like…   Mike: For sure, for sure.   Michael: Awesome. Well, Mike, let's shift gears here just for a moment and talk about wholesaling because, I mean, like you were mentioning a bit ago, it's no surprise that deals are a bit tougher to come by today. I think in the industry as a whole it's probably no surprise that wholesalers don't have the best reputation out there. Yeah, so I mean, I have I'm going to share kind of my thoughts on I think what makes you different but curious to get your thoughts and share with our listeners, me what makes you different as a wholesaling company and then what are some things that people can do to protect themselves from the not so great actors out there who are wholesalers?   Mike: The problem with wholesaling and the reason why it can get a bad name Is it is it is advertised and when I say advertised, I mean if you go out on the internet and say how do you become a wholesaler? Should I be a wholesaler? It's billed to people as this no money, no experience and that's how you get started in the industry…   Michael: And no risk…   Mike: Yeah, no risk. You get this, like, this mentality of this person who thinks they're just gonna roll out of bed open up their eyes, and money's gonna pour through the windows of their house if they're a wholesaler and it's not true, obviously. So you asked me what I do that makes me different. Here's what anyone can do to make their business different, but it doesn't it's not, you know, just for wholesaling but you have to run it like a business and a lot of wholesalers are very transactional in their thinking. They only care about the cheque they're getting next they don't care about future checks. They don't care about consistency, or predictability of their of their business and so they treat wholesaling, like this little dirty act they have to do before the real serious business comes along and in the reason why a lot of wholesalers get this bad reputation also is because there's something called daisy chaining in real estate, and most real, most wholesalers I'm doing air quotes if you guys aren't watching.   The reason most wholesalers or a lot of wholesalers have this reputation is they're not really wholesalers as much as they are what's called daisy chains and a daisy chain er is okay I'm a wholesaler I market to sellers I go into a seller's home. I create rapport and trust and in understanding of what's happening. I get a purchase agreement with them and I take that purchase agreement and I market it out to the other real estate investors in my community and some person who sees this takes the pictures, they take the text, and they mark up the price and then they send it out to a bunch of people, a lot of times a lot of the same people at a higher price and it's like called them and so you call them and you say, hey, I'll take it because you didn't see my marketing, you saw their marketing for whatever reason, you say, I'll take it. They don't even know me and I don't know them. But they're representing that they have this this deal under contract and meanwhile, I'm working with my buyers and I come to an agreement with a buyer and then this person calls me who's was also marketing up my contract and says, hey, I want to buy that house and I go, I've already sold it. Well, he's already told his buyer that they can have it for that price. But I already sold it because I have it under contract. Now he has to go back to the buyer and say, sorry, we have to back out of this deal, right and so it looks like a wholesaler is a really bad business person, bad guy, dishonest, whatever, misrepresenting himself, but he never had the deal and so that happens that's runs rampant. That's a real epidemic in the wholesaling world. So you also asked me, How do you tell the difference or how do you how do you avoid the bad ones?   The first question is that because I get people who send me deals, and frankly, I'll look at them if some other wholesaler finds a deal, and they were they offer it out at a price that my company might be able to land contract that house and we want to buy it, we'll do it. So the first question I asked them is, do you have this under contract yourself or are you representing somebody else and a lot of times they do and sometimes they don't? Sometimes they say they do and I say good. Then before I would buy this, I would need to see the agreement between you and the seller, your company in the seller, what's the name of your company, and I verify this stuff because if they don't have it under contract, I don't even care if they say, yeah, it's not me. But the guy who has under contracts a good friend of mine, and he gave me exclusive rights. I want to talk to who has entered a contract always deal with the person who has an order contract with the seller, with the seller, right? All right, that's, that's key. That's huge and we don't, we don't allow daisy chaining, we don't ever allow people to market out our deals, we only market them out and so all of our buyers know, we've told them several times, if someone if we're marketing a house and you see the same house being marketed by someone else, believe me when I tell you, they're not authorized to do that, they will never be able to sell it to you. So and as a wholesaler, I always make sure that I'm dealing with the end buyer, not a middle person, right? So if someone comes to us, though, and says, hey, I've got a buyer, and they're gonna, they'll pay you this much money and it makes sense for us. We'll give them a check like, well, we'll compensate them for bringing that buyer. But we're not going to we're not going to be what's going to be all transparent, we're going to let everyone know what's happening and so transparency in the wholesale process is important between us as the wholesalers and the buyers total transparency. Now, I'll say something that your audience may not love. There is not total transparency between us and the seller and does that mean that we're lying to them? No, it's not it doesn't. But here's what I always tell people to illustrate my point. Nobody loves or trusts me more than my mother, nobody.   My mom has heard me explain what I do as a wholesaler 1000 times and she has been all ears like she's could not be more dialed in to hurts her baby boy and what he does, and she's so proud and so happy and she's listening intently. But if you call my mom and put her on the air right now and said, Could you please explain to me what your son does? How he does it? She wouldn't know she might even tell you. I'm a realtor. She just doesn't know. It doesn't make sense to her. It's just it's too obscure. Right? So when we're in a seller's home, we don't say to them, Mr. Mrs. Seller, I know you're under a lot of duress. You have to move maybe there was a death or divorce or whatever there was right? Something happened in your life is spiraling. Here's the deal. I want to sign a contract, saying that I'm gonna buy your house, but I'm not buying it. I don't even know who's gonna buy it. I don't know where the money is coming from. I don't know who's gonna show up at closing. I'm not even sure if I'm gonna be able to close. Can we sign the deal now? It nobody would say yes. Okay and that's an a character characterization of what a wholesaler does. But on some level, it's facetious, but it's sort of true, right? I'm signing a contract. I don't exactly know who's going to buy it. In my case as a wholesaler and what I think makes what I do ethical is I have the financial backing to buy any house that I put under contract. If worst comes to worst, I can buy it right and that's not that doesn't come in the beginning. new investors don't always have that luxury. But what you can do as an investor and where you can be transparent and you should be transparent is do not sign a contract and imply or explicitly state that you will for sure be closing on the house without exception, you can't say that in most cases.   So what I say is some version of this, Mister seller, when I came here I was prepared to offer you $100,000 for your house, that was the highest number that I was authorized to offer you, you cannot go below 110,000 That is your lowest, that's the number. That's the gap, right… You want 110 minimum, and I was maximum allowed to offer you 100 but here's what I would like to suggest. Let's sign the contract for 110. Okay, I'm gonna go back to my investors and people who make decisions and help me buy these houses and I am going to see if there is interest at that price, I anticipate that there is not going to be but there very well could be but at the very least, if you can give me two weeks to talk to my investors and go to bat for you, and try to make them understand now that I'm here, I see this house is very nice. I didn't know is this nice but it is a very nice house. I think I can get this done but give me two weeks and I will come back to you in two weeks or less by the way and I'll tell you one of two things either, we can't pay 110 and so we need to rip this contract up and just part as friends, because we all knew that that was a possibility or we're going to move forward at this price and everything is good and I guarantee you will close. Okay, can if you couldn't give me two weeks. Now, if you don't want to do that, I totally get it. If you go to a realtor, they're going to want you to sign it like a three month contract where they get three months to market your house. I just want two weeks and if it takes me two days, I'll come back in two days. Either way, I'll be totally honest with you and it will be up to you what we do from that point we rip up the contract or not. It's totally up to you. Is that? Is that something that you can live with just for a week or two and nine times out of 10? They say yes. Now, when I when I go out now I am going out to my buyers and I'm saying hey, I got this this opportunity who's interested, right? If I get crickets and it's like, nope, nope, nope.   Then usually we'll try to figure out what our buyers would pay, right? That's the next question. Okay, you don't want it? It's fine. But what would you pay for this and we start getting that feedback and so we can go back to the seller and say, listen, I was right. 100,000 is the best we can do but I'm totally willing to rip up this contract because you want 110 or we can talk about a reduction or, or the or we get buyers that are like, yeah, I'll do it for that price. That's great, right and it's a little better than we thought and we go back and tell the seller, hey, if we go out to our buyers, and we find out that 110 is a really good price for us still, we'll still make the money we thought we were going to make we always go back and say we'll honor the 110 because I think that's the question I would be thinking in my mind if I'm listening to this interview? Well, what happens if they get really great offers? Do they still always go back and try to get that lower number? No, we don't. If we can make what we thought we would make or pretty close to it, we'll pay a higher price, right? We're, my goal here is to get to heaven not to make an extra $5,000, right. So I'm not trying to be a bad guy. But the key is the ethical wholesalers versus not the ethical ones, prepare the seller for the potential for a renegotiate or a cancellation up front and so when we go back, how often are they irate because we come back and say, hey, we can't do the 110. Almost never, because we very thoroughly explain what we're doing and we prepare them that we may have to come back and discuss the reduction or cancellation. The people honestly, they just want clarity.   They just want to know what's going to happen. What people get mad about are surprises. So when you say oh, great 110 done deal. I can't wait to close with you in a few weeks. This is so exciting and then you come back in three days and say we have to cancel the contract. They're mad 100% of the time, because they weren't you're not clear on what was happening. You surprise them with bad news and nobody likes being surprised with bad news but when you come back and say, hey, remember when we talked a week ago and I said this? Well, we can't do the 110. You know, we tried nine times out of 10 they're totally fine and honestly, seven times out of 10. They say well, what can you do and then we have that discussion. So, man, it's all about setting expectations.   Michael: Yes, 1000 times yes, as funny as you were going through kind of your pitch. I was like, Oh yeah, like that makes sense. That's such a different, like feeling that I got as you were giving as you were giving that Spiel than what I was expecting or than what I've experienced with wholesaler. So I mean, kudos to you and your team. It's clearly it's clearly working for you, so keep up keep up the great work.   Mike: Well, honestly, we have gotten deals, where and I know that sounds cliche, but I swear to you, this happens all the time and it we only know that when people tell us right so my guess is it happens more than we even know but we get deals where they got a higher offer from another wholesaler. But because we come in and we are professional, and we do address their concerns, but we wholesaling is not really about buying houses. It's about solving problems and again, sounds cliche, totally true. You can figure out what their pain point is and you can focus on that the sale of the house is secondary and I know that because we've had sellers tell us listen, we had somebody come along and offer us more than you guys, but we're not going to sell to them, we're going to sell to you because we believe you, we believe what you're saying and we like working with you. So professionalism matters and just to illustrate that point, underline it real quickly, one of our reps went into a house one time, and he was talking to a seller and they were going through the whole thing, it was like halfway through the meeting, and then knock on the door, and the seller says, oh, I forgot.   There's another investor or another, whatever. They call them coming in another person who wants to look at my house and my rep was like, oh, okay, and he kind of stood aside and a guy came in, my rep looked outside, and he saw the guy was driving a Mercedes, nothing wrong with that Mercedes fine but he left it running. He was wearing a suit, he came into the house, briefly said hello, and started walking around, pointing out all the flaws in the house, this is all this has to be replaced. That's no good. Nobody wants that and he shot a number at her with what he would pay and said, think about it and he got in his car and left. Like, everything that guy said, that wasn't verbal screamed, you are not that important to me. I'm way too big of a deal for you and I don't even have time to turn my car off. That's how little I think about what is your situation. I'm just telling you what I need and what I want and what I'll give you and I'm out of here, right and understandably, the seller was floored. She's like, that was the rudest thing I've ever seen, like, that was awful. I feel so like, offended by that. Yeah and of course, my rep was like, yeah, I would be offended too, right. Like, I agree with you. They're horrible. We're great. Let's get back to talking about how great we are. So it matters, like paying attention to their pain points, and not being all about the number. If you start talking about price right off the bat, you can almost guarantee you're not gonna buy the house. Yeah, if you start by listening, and addressing their problems, and let the sale be last. It'll work out for you much, much better.   Michael: I love it, I love it, I love it. Mike, we could go on, I think probably for days talking about this stuff but I want to be very respectful of your time and get you out here. For anyone that wants to learn more about you, your processes your business, where's the best place for them to do that?   Mike: Yeah, thank you for that by the way, I appreciate it. The best place to get a hold of me would be at my on my website, https://www.mikesimmons.com/ . If you go on mikesimmons.com, you can find anything about me and also my podcasts. I have a podcast called just out real estate. You can find the link to that on my on my website as well.   Michael: Right on…   Mike: Which you were on right, you were my guest.   Michael: We had a lot of fun.   Mike: Yeah, we did.   Michael: Well, Mike, thank you again for coming on and sharing so much wisdom with our listeners really appreciate it and I'm sure we'll chat soon, man. I look forward to it.   Mike: Absolutely. Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure.   Michael: Likewise, talk soon.   All right, everyone. That was our show a big thank you to Mike for coming on. Super, super insightful stuff. I learned a ton about the wholesaling business and wholesalers in general, and some really great questions that we as investors can be asking wholesalers to protect ourselves from the downside. So as always, if you liked the episode, feel free to leave us a rating or review wherever it is you get your episodes, and we look forward to seeing the next one. Happy investing…

Podcast: Emerson Automation ExpertsEpisode: Growing Cybersecurity Threats and Mitigation Approaches PodcastPub date: 2022-06-15Cybersecurity was a big topic at the 2022 ARC Industry Forum in Orlando, Florida. While there, I had the opportunity to sit down and catch up with Emerson's Director of Cybersecurity, Mike Lester. We discussed many of the issues and growing threats companies face, as they try to maintain strong cybersecurity postures. Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet to becoming cyber-secure and maintaining strong defenses. Mike offers guidance on ways to develop a strong culture and address these challenges over time. Visit the Cybersecurity section on Emerson.com and subscribe to our continuing series of Emerson Automation Experts podcasts. Transcript Jim: Hi, everyone. This is Jim Cahill with another “Emerson Automation Experts” podcast. Today, I’m here at the 2022 ARC Forum in Orlando, and joined by Emerson’s director of cybersecurity, Mike Lester, to discuss some of the latest happenings in cybersecurity. Welcome, Mike. Mike: Thanks, Jim. Jim: Well, let’s get everyone grounded with a little bit of your background, and path to your current role here at Emerson. Mike: Sure, Jim. So, I’ll start way back in the Air Force, I was an aircraft mechanic back from 1985. so I did that for 12 years and then moved into communications, which was networking, data center operations, cybersecurity, you name it, and we did it from a technology perspective. And then after doing that for 10 years, I moved into Emerson as the operations manager for IT in the Rosemount twin cities factories, and helped, you know, maintain the factories, and networks, and systems there. Then moving into information security role for the then Process group. And then in 2017, moving into the current role for product security in the technology arm of the organization today, where I get to interact with customers, and all the business units around cybersecurity strategy, as well as technologies and governance. Jim: Well, that sounds like a really strong background, and I know cybersecurity is one of the key topic areas here at the conference this week. So why does cybersecurity remain such a large concern in the critical infrastructure space? Mike: Jim, there’s some obvious reasons and responses here, like, ever-increasing threats and successful attacks against critical infrastructure targets. Cybersecurity remains a large concern because there’s been a clear shift from gang-related cyberattacks seeking financial gain, to cyber as a fifth element of war with all nature of attacks between different threat actors, nation-states to nation-state saboteurs, to nation-state to private industry and in critical infrastructure sectors. A good example of this dynamic is Russia launching cyberattacks against Ukraine, days before the kinetic attacks began. Followed by that, was a global community of independent volunteer hackers that attacked and provided intelligence to the world about where oligarchs were docking their yachts, and much more direct, defensive, and offensive. Essentially crowdsourcing cyber warfare without anybody asking them to do it. Likewise, there’d been malicious threat actors like Anonymous, since most people are familiar with them, who chose sides in the cyber warfare effort. The threats are real, and we need to begin putting them into context in order to analyze risk with trained professionals in this space as opposed to some historically dismissive behavior or thinking that it can never happen. Jim: Yeah. It sounds like the degree of difficulty for companies to deal with it has gone way up, so there’s more that needs to be done. So I guess, given the strategic importance of critical infrastructure like manufacturing, what are the key areas of concern? Mike: Safety is always at the top of the list for concerns, but I would also couple this with the additional consequences of operational disruptions, leading to loss of revenue, supply chain disruption, all the way through to potential extreme or extended social and national capability disruptions, from lack of resiliency in cybersecurity and operations. Look, we depend on a Jenga stack of people, processes, and technology to live our daily lives with electronic everything. This includes our homes, our work, grocery stores, fuel, our national security, our entire way of life is really dependent on the continued and successful operation of critical infrastructure. And if I extend that Jenga analogy, you know, if you take the wrong block out, the entire structure can fail. And we’ve seen this, some blocks have been taken out or partial collapses in many places. But when we look at the cases like Venezuela and Haiti, where power outages lasted for extended periods of time, there were significant disruptions across the spectrum of what we would consider normal society and livelihood capabilities. We need to be cognizant of the possible, and engineer capabilities in critical infrastructure to match the risk. This may seem a bit doom and gloom but, you know, in reality, they are possible in civilization. We need to manage the risk appropriately in a way that equals a holistic capability. We need to work collaboratively and recognize the role that we have. Jim: I think that Jenga analogy is a real good one and gives people a picture of the challenges that we face in that. So what are some of the root causes of these points of concern? Mike: You know, it might be a little unexpected, but, you know, and I’m not gonna go point to a particular control or get dived down into the real technical details, recognizing that in reality, we have imperfect systems, and devices operated by imperfect processes, and often undertrained, imperfect people, we must look across the spectrum to determine how we can prioritize efforts in the right place. I believe this confusion or varying opinions to achieve better levels of cybersecurity, coupled with an extreme shortage in appropriate talent in the workforce, have led the industry to focus on a silver bullet approach primarily with technology solutions, and a market that fuels this approach. And we are misaligned through focus on discrete objectives, rather than industry, regional, national, company-strategic objectives that achieve outcome-based risk management, as opposed to compliance-oriented risk management that’s failed us for decades. A good example of this is antivirus or anti-malware, everybody’s familiar with that, being a mandatory compliance requirement for audits. When in reality, when it finds malware, it’s already in your environment, and likely active. Anti-malware is known as a reactive tool in the cybersecurity professional space, and what we should be focusing on is preventing that malware from getting into our environments in a proactive manner. Jim: Well, I guess we all wish there was a silver bullet to handle it, but much like other things, safety, there is no single thing that just makes everything perfect for you. So what can be done to mitigate these cybersecurity risks and threats? Mike: There’s a spectrum of thing, but it really equals work. Lots of work, with appropriate investment strategies, and dedicated budgeting. Threats can really only be addressed by more cyber-resilient and capable products, systems, services, supply chains, and operations. This requires cybersecurity skill and expertise across all business functional areas, similar to finance, or legal. Everyone in the company has a fiduciary expectation and responsibilities that they must meet. They don’t need to be a finance major, or certified public accountant, or a CFO. More directly, I always like to start with an assessment for your operations to determine gaps and create a plan to remediate those in a prioritized manner. We need to expand this thought process to all aspects of our business and across all functions if we’re gonna get beyond compliance to higher levels of maturity and capability. It’s not gonna be easy, and it’ll likely stretch, or break most paradigms of how to approach holistic cybersecurity that can achieve cyber and operational resiliency to the levels needed in our industries, and for future opportunities in automation and control. Jim: Well, yeah. It does sound like when you’re trying to tackle a very difficult problem, starting with the assessment and really prioritizing the things that need to be done, so it just doesn’t feel overwhelming. It seems like that’s a very logical approach to attack this very difficult problem. So what are your top recommendations to manufacturers and producers to strengthen their cyber defenses? Mike: Often we’re gonna be looking for…customers may be looking for, or other business folks may be looking for a list, “Here’s my checklist of things to do.” But really what it comes down to is, work with industry experts and cybersecurity partners, get an outside perspective, or a gap analysis. Cybersecurity in general from a people, process, and technology perspective, has very fast-paced rate of change across a full landscape. So it’s likely what was known about your operations last year, or when it was implemented, they’re stale data points. You know, looking to…or working with partners to build cybersecurity and operation resiliency in business investments, processes, implementations, etc., you know, with a prioritized business risk-based approach, is a really good start. Often, conversations around achieving cybersecurity devolve into technology and leverage, versus how to accomplish the right proactive or active defense against threats from the nation-state actors I spoke about earlier on, you know, an active cyber warfare landscape. I’m not saying this really to, you know, instill fear, uncertainty, or doubt, or what we commonly hear as FUD, but to really speak truth about what we face as an industry and as a society. Technology changes to improve cybersecurity capabilities will always be slow to implement and embed into systems and devices that control safety, operations, and the critical infrastructure segments. We’ve gotta understand the spectrum of cybersecurity architecture’s capabilities and operations that can enable resilient operations and fast recovery from what seems to be an inevitable incident that impacts manufacturers and producers. Jim: Well, I think that’s some good guidance of how to think about it and approach it. So where can our listeners go to learn more about ways to build their cybersecurity posture and culture? Mike: There’s a lot of good resources. I like to point folks, if they wanna be vendor-agnostic or they don’t…maybe they’re looking at vendors and asking whether we’re gonna sell them the silver bullet approach, you know, we can use resources like the national government’s U.S. Department of Homeland Security in the U.S., the Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), or the UK’s National Cybersecurity Centre, and others, you know. Most recently, Emerson’s partner Dragos, launched a program called OT-CERT. That provides free resources for companies who may not have the expertise available to help them understand the complex space of cybersecurity, and how to mature their programs, or even initialize their programs. Emerson also has a portfolio of cybersecurity capabilities like assessments, products, and services that focus on enabling secure customer operations. The bottom line is we really like to work with our customers and achieve their cybersecurity, and ultimately their business objectives. Jim: Well, that’s a great summary of places to go for more information, and I’ll add a link to the cybersecurity section on emerson.com for more on the tools and solutions to help our listeners in their cybersecurity efforts. Well, Mike, I wanna thank you for joining us today. I hope our listeners got as much out of this as I did. Mike: Thanks, Jim. Appreciate you having me.The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Emerson Team, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.

Mike Maynard, Managing Director and CEO, Napier Group (Chichester, England) Mike Maynard is Managing Director and CEO at Napier Group, an agency focused on marketing technical products to technical audiences. Clients include major companies selling semiconductors, industrial automation systems, cellular communications infrastructure, complex software, and even a baggage-handling system manufacturer. The customer “audience” for these products is “super-targeted, super technical, and . . . demanding.” A disillusioned engineer who loved talking tech, Mike stopped designing products and re-engineered himself as a tech salesman. In 2008, he bought out the tech-focused marketing agency his company had been using – two weeks before the dot com crash. With ALL of his money invested in the agency, Mike had no choice but to make the venture succeed. Today, the agency is a mix of geeks – engineers or technical journalists who understand the technology – and marketing experts. Based in Chichester, England, the agency works with a good number of American companies to target their American customers . . . and is in the process of adding a U.S. office. Some of Napier's clients have products with fairly quick purchase/sales cycles. Others, such as the airport baggage handling system manufacturer, may have cycles ranging from seven to twenty years. When the sales cycle is long, a client is not “trying to think about closing a sale all the time.” Multi-year sales cycles require marketing to build relationships and rapport. The objective is to keep the product long-term on the minds of “future” customers by helping them stay apprised of industry trends and leading-edge developments. Mike explains that, when a product is technical, “people shortlist a very small number of suppliers.” While the customer journey for a consumer product is usually short and straightforward, marketing technical products takes a “very long time,” “involves different stages of research,” and “requires “very different information.” Mike says you have to understand your customers, what they need, and the information they need; “take this really complicated thing and then narrow it down to clear reasons why somebody should consider the product;” “keep talking to the client over a long period of time because of the long sales cycle”; and make their decision and customer journey as easy as possible. In this interview, Mike discusses TURTL, an in-Beta, analytics-rich, flipbook style content platform that tracks audience engagement – whether a document is opened, how long a reader looks at it, and how far through the information the reader gets – which allows document owners to optimize their content, enrich relevant and eliminate irrelevant information, and customize the material to the needs of individual prospects.  Instead of following “vanity metrics” (click-through rates, numbers of clicks), TURTL helps answer the questions, “What does your audience care about? What do you need to give them more of? What do you need to stop talking about? How can you optimize your campaigns?” Mike says, “It's a phenomenal superpower,” being able to “learn from the behavior of your audience” particularly when you've got the long, complex documents typical in tech industries. Mike can be reached at his agency's website: napierb2b.com, on LinkedIn (Mike Maynard at Napier), or by email at: mike@napierb2b.com. ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I am joined today by Mike Maynard, Managing Director and CEO at Napier Group based in Chichester, England. Welcome to the podcast, Mike. MIKE: Thanks for having me on the podcast, Rob. Appreciate it. ROB: Excellent to have you here. Why don't you start us off with an introduction to Napier Group? What is the firm's expertise? MIKE: Basically, what the firm does is we get geeks and techies excited. Our business is helping people market in the B2B technology space. It's all about selling technical products to a technical audience that's making a technical decision. ROB: Got it. How technical are we talking here? Is it gadgets, is it software, or is it heavy-duty engineer cloud platform kind of software developer stuff? MIKE: It's pretty geeky stuff, Rob. To give you an idea of some of our clients, we work with one of the leading semiconductor companies in the world. We work with companies that sell industrial automation systems. We work with people selling cellular communications infrastructure. We even work with the world's largest manufacturer of baggage handling systems. ROB: It sounds like these are not Super Bowl ads, right? This sounds like pretty targeted audiences. MIKE: These are super-targeted, super technical, and generally speaking pretty demanding audiences, yeah. It's definitely not Super Bowl ads. ROB: It seems like whether you're talking about semiconductors, whether you're talking about communications, this is pretty technical stuff. I'm imagining you're largely a firm of marketers; how do you equip your team to be prepared to speak this language? Are they reformed geeks, or what is the secret here? MIKE: I'm not sure I'm reformed, but I certainly am a geek. I started my career as an electronics engineer and spent years in design and then in technical support for semiconductor companies. So I'm certainly very technical. And actually, just over half the agency is very technical, typically coming from either an engineering or a technical journalism background. So how do we equip people? The answer is we mix together people who understand the technology with people who are really good at marketing, and that's how we get the results. ROB: Got it. I am also a computer engineer by education, but now wear all the hats, much as you do in some seasons, I am sure. How, then, do you think about how to reach the audience, where to reach the audience? How do you find these very specific buyers? And these also sound like probably longer purchase cycles while we're at it. MIKE: Yeah, two very insightful questions, Rob. Talking about the purchase cycles, we do have a range of purchase cycles. With some of our clients' products, we can actually get fairly quick turnarounds, and indeed, a couple of our clients actually sell online, so they will be able to sell particularly things like development kits (the things to start a development process going) online fairly quickly, although there'll then be a development cycle involved for the engineers. But if you look at, for example, selling a baggage handling system into an airport, if you want to sell a baggage handling system, someone's really got to be building an airport terminal to buy a baggage handling system. They need somewhere to put it. Actually, you look at those sales cycles, the fastest turnaround they can get is typically about 7 years, and the sales cycle goes up to 20 years for these systems. It really is a case of not trying to think about closing a sale all the time. With a multi-year sales cycle, that's ridiculous. It's about building that relationship, that rapport through marketing, and basically staying top-of-mind, staying the product that the customers want to choose. ROB: How do you stay top-of-mind for seven years? MIKE: The answer is you have to do interesting stuff. It's really simple. In all our industries, if you look at it, there are people buying who are making very technical decisions over a long sales cycle. What these guys and girls want to do is understand what's going on in the market, because they may go for a long period of time without making any specific purchasing decision. If you could be helping them, educating them, telling them about the trends, and hopefully introducing developments that actually are leading the industry, then you're going to get them engaged. It's about presenting that kind of information in a compelling way that really gets the techies excited. It's about helping them as well as marketing to them. ROB: I'd imagine at least you have plenty of time to pull together a case study. It's not a quick turnaround, necessarily. MIKE: The problem is everybody wants case studies, and case studies are notoriously difficult to get done. We're forever trying to get case studies. Actually, the case studies are one of the fastest things that happen because typically they happen once a sale is completed and you've had a product, for example, go into production. Then you can turn around the case study really quickly. So you wait for it for a really long time – it's like being a kid waiting for Christmas. You think it's forever till it's going to happen. You know that the client's got this amazing project they're working on, and then finally you get the opportunity, and suddenly Christmas is there and it's amazing, and you get a fantastic case study. ROB: Yeah, that sounds like Christmas all over again. If we rewind the clock a little bit, what led you into this business? How did this whole thing get started? MIKE: It's a very unplanned story. I used to be an engineer, and I was designing electronic systems. I designed everything from systems that could engrave printing rollers using big industrial lasers through to recording for music studios. Then I decided I wasn't very good at the engineering part. I actually quite liked talking about the technology, so I went into technical sales. In the UK at the time, you used to get a company car, a car provided by the company, if you were in marketing. I kind of liked the idea of moving into marketing because my car was getting old, so I moved into marketing because of that and spent a few years in marketing, running European marketing for a semiconductor company. Then I went on a course. It was a residential management course, and there were a few glasses of wine on the last night, and we got into talking about what people's ambitions were. Someone said to me, “You should run your own business, Mike.” I think they were really polite and they were saying, “Oh, my God, I would hate to be your manager, Mike,” but they presented it in this lovely way of . . . “You should run your own business.” About two months later, my main contact at the agency I was using said, “The two founders are looking to retire and sell the business, and I think you should buy it.” I thought, how hard can it be to run an agency? I've done marketing. An agency's got to be basically the same as being on the client side. Let's just try it. And then I learnt. ROB: Purchasing a business can take on a few different forms. What did the purchase process and structure look like for you? I imagine there's enough distance between here and there that you can probably talk a little bit about it. MIKE: The approach actually was really simple. There were some technical issues; obviously, companies structure very differently. In the UK, you can have a partnership or you can have a limited liability company or you can have a listed company. At the time, the current company was a partnership. I basically bought the assets, put it into a limited liability company because I had no money, and certainly after the purchase, I had no money. I never really added up how much debt I'd run up because I think I would've never done it if I'd realized that. But it was a relatively straightforward process. Frankly, buying businesses is nowhere near as difficult as it sounds. But I do have one great bit of advice for buying businesses. If you're going to buy an agency that is 100% focused on technology clients, buying that agency about two weeks before the dot-com crash is a really, really bad idea. That's my advice to anyone: get your timing right. That's probably a bigger challenge than actually the whole process of buying a business. ROB: Yes, timing would seem to matter a great deal there. But perhaps then also part of going through that season has probably helped along the way. How did you make it through the downturn, the dot-com crash? That's certainly a baptism by fire, if you will, into the privileges of business ownership. MIKE: That's a great question. I think making it through was not really the problem, because I'd taken all the money I had, I put it into the business – there was no option. I had to make it succeed. I think a lot of agency owners will relate to this with COVID and typically having to leave the office, work from home – you get through that. I think the biggest problem is how that impacts you in the longer term. For me, after buying the agency, it really made me overly cautious. We were always wanting to have cash in the bank. We always wanted to be safe. We wanted to have runway. We didn't go out and invest as much as we should. We didn't actually take advantage of the cycles when there were upcycles. It really had a long-term impact on me. Agency owners who've been through COVID, a lot of agency owners have really struggled; the one thing I'd say is these exceptional situations are exceptional. And yes, there'll be problems. There'll be bumps on the road. It won't be an easy route. But I think as we come out of this horrible pandemic, we've got to look back to building our confidence as agency owners and being prepared to go back to taking the risks you were taking before the pandemic. ROB: How did that experience, and maybe the learning from that dot-com crash, affect your reaction to however much 2008 impacted you, and then what sort of footing were you on heading into COVID? You saw it. You clearly saw, “Here we go again”; how did your mind and your attitude react differently in that case? MIKE: That's a great question because I think the two are very different. 2008 obviously had a big impact on us, again, being a technology agency with a big tech downturn. But we were still running the business very conservatively. We were still, in my opinion, being a little bit overly cautious. We had cash, we were safe, we got through the downturn, and it was okay. By the time we get to the pandemic and COVID, we changed our philosophy. We were investing more. We're still running the business with cash in the bank rather than running it on an overdraft, so to some extent keeping safe. But honestly, for us – and we were lucky in the business we're in. There are other agencies that have been hit far harder. For us, we came through COVID and it was like, actually, the impact to the business was pretty small. I mean, yes, we had to move everybody, make them remote, we had to do that in virtually no time, we had to deal with communications issues. We had all these problems. But basically, the money kept coming in, and that was great. Some of the clients cut back, but nobody really pulled out. It was actually so much easier having been through financially what were far worse downturns. ROB: Yeah. Some of these products you're talking about – I think any marketer, any client, any seller, any buyer is expecting the entire conversation to last longer than any downturn, so I can see how that makes sense. I am curious as I think about it – most of what you're talking about, these things sound like they are more sold than bought, if you will. They're things where, as a marketer, you're not just trying to get somebody to check out and buy a bunch of things to outfit all their cellphone towers for their entire country network buildout. In some ways you're equipping and supporting a salesforce, I would imagine. So. what are the channels that you're reaching, and how do you come alongside when the actual purchase is probably with a human and maybe an RFP and a whole bunch of other things? MIKE: That's a great question. If you look at the research with these highly involved decisions – and I know LinkedIn has published something recently about financial purchases – actually, people shortlist a very small number of suppliers. Typically a couple of suppliers. What you have to do is really understand the customer journey. People talk about the customer journey, and you can look at a customer journey for a consumer product; it's very short, and it's probably not that involved. A customer journey for the kind of products we're taking, it takes a very long time. It involves different stages of research. They need very different content, very different information. It's about really getting into the head of those customers, understanding what they're doing, understanding what they're going through, what they need, and then delivering the right information. I can't change our clients' products, and I can't make our client always have the best product in the world. But what I can do is present the product in the best light, and I can make it as easy as possible for the customer to choose our client's product. A lot of it is about removing these roadblocks that make it difficult to choose and just making that journey as smooth as possible. ROB: It's such an interesting journey along that way. You did mention, as we were getting you lined up to be on the podcast, you're going to be at the B2B Expo in Los Angeles at the start of April. How does that fit into your mix of operating the firm? And that's a little bit of a journey for you. MIKE: Because we're in technology, most of our clients are American, or certainly most of our revenue comes from clients that are ultimately headquartered in the States. Silicon Valley is a big area for us, but also we have some industrial technology companies we work with who are based in the States. So, we've always got a lot of our business from the States. At the moment, we're looking for creative things to do. We've recently signed a partnership with a content platform called TURTL. We're looking to promote that as well, both in Europe and in the U.S. And then lastly – and this is news that very few people know outside of the company – we actually have someone who's moving out to the States in the next week or two to begin opening a presence in the U.S. We're already working for American companies to target some of their American customers, and now we're building that out. That's the next stage. All of these things came together, along, frankly, with a 50% grant from the UK government to go to the show. So it made a lot of sense to go and see if it works. It's very much an experiment for us. It could be a complete disaster, but I think like every marketing tactic, if you don't try it, how do you know whether it works? ROB: Sure. That's actually a topic that's been very near and dear to us as well. When you talk about these conferences, the decision of how much to experiment versus how much to commit – when you come to thinking about going to a conference like that, how do you think about what an experiment looks like versus a strong conviction that it's the right place? What do those different investments look like? MIKE: That's a great question. I think you look firstly at the cost in terms of money, and then secondly at the cost in terms of time. For us, we've got a number of clients in the States, and I can combine a meeting with probably three of those clients as well as the event. I can actually get these client meetings that I'd probably want to fly to the States for anyway included. That makes it very much more compelling. There's not much for time cost involved. As I say, we've signed this new technology partnership; we really want to promote that. We think there's a lot of opportunity. The company is UK-based. It's just launching and trying to build in the States. Again, it's perfect timing. You look at everything and you go, “Does my gut feel that the amount I'm investing is a small amount compared to the potential return? Yeah, I need one client from this show and I'm gold.” That's a relatively small investment. If I don't get anybody, it's not the end of the world. I've had some great client meetings, I've learnt a lot about the market, I've been able to go to the States in front of some American clients and some prospects. It almost feels like it's a “can't-lose,” even though we're doing the tradeshow route – which, particularly after COVID, feels a little bit risky. ROB: Right, it's a little bit of an experiment for everyone, but it's definitely a good perspective to think about needing one good client to rationalize the entire endeavor. It sounds like TURTL is strategic to you. Tell a little bit more about what that does. What does it do, how does it work, how does it help you? MIKE: We've recently signed up with the guys. They have a technology to present information in somewhat like a flipbook style. You go online, you read the information, and you can delve down into the topics that interest you. On the face of it, that's kind of like a number of other technologies, but what TURTL does is provides phenomenal analytics to the marketers. Typically, in our world, it's all PDF. All the datasheets, manuals, instructions, brochures, everything is PDF. You send someone a PDF. Did they open it? I don't know. Did they read the first page? I don't know. Did they get to the end? I don't know. With a TURTL document, you get information on which pages they looked at, how long they looked at it, where they delved down for deeper information. Hopefully the TURTL guys won't mind me saying this – the technology for presentation is good, it's really good, but it's not world-changing. The technology behind the analytics, though, for my clients is amazing because they're producing massive books of information, and they have no idea whether anybody reads some of those pages. Now they know, and that's so powerful. They can optimize the content. And of course, within TURTL, like many of these other platforms, you can customize the content as well. You can work on the pages that people, your audience, care about, and you can also make sure you filter out the ones that are irrelevant to each prospect. To me – and maybe this is more of a trend than just about TURTL – we've gone away from analytics being, “What's your click-through rate? How many clicks did you get?” Everyone has realized that's kind of vanity metrics, and now I think analytics are “What does your audience care about? What do you need to give them more of? What do you need to stop talking about? How can you optimize your campaigns?” That's something that, to me, TURTL will give our clients, and it's a phenomenal superpower. ROB: It reminds me a little bit of DocSend, but for a different industry. Do you know DocSend? MIKE: Yeah, DocSend. ROB: I googled them again just to make sure I wasn't crazy, and they're all about investors and investing and those pitch decks that you send to investors. But it's the same need and the same problem. It helps me picture – the displaying of the document, that's table stakes. It's necessary. It's what the product has to do. You can't do anything if you don't do that. But it's the insights it can give you that really – you know where you're wasting your time, where you're not. There's a lot going on there, what content is communicating and maybe what isn't. Or even with client needs, right? MIKE: Absolutely. It lets you really understand what matters to the audience. You could do that on an individual level and that's kind of cool, but it's that aggregate level. We produced a general TURTL document from one of our previous PDFs, did a little bit of promotion over email, and 70% of people flipped all the way to the end. We were like, 70% going to the end? I wouldn't have bet that on PDF. And okay, some of it is a new format, some of it is exciting. Then we look at it and it's like, page seven – nobody liked that. Why do we talk about this stuff? Nobody cares. The next thing we're going to do is take out page seven, and suddenly that document becomes even more engaging to the audience. So, you can really learn from the behavior of your audience, and that to me is really powerful, particularly when you've got long and complex documents, which a lot of our clients have. ROB: Mike, we talked a little bit about the past of the firm, but as you reflect – we've already shared some lessons, but what are some of the key lessons you feel like you have learned in building and operating the business and things you might suggest to yourself to do a little bit differently if you had the chance to go back and tell yourself? MIKE: Wow, that's a great question. I think looking back – I actually talked with one of my other directors, who has been with me for the whole journey, from buying the agency all the way through to today, and we said we lacked confidence. Quite often, if you don't come from an agency background, you're not used to what agencies do at different sizes. You think big agencies are some sort of unbelievable, amazing organization that you can't touch. To me, we lacked confidence to go pitch for some of the big businesses. When we look at where we do our best job, where we deliver the best value, actually a lot of the time that's with our biggest clients. Not with the small companies, but with the really biggest clients. So, I think it's about being confident in your offering and what you're doing and really being prepared to put yourself out there. ROB: I can almost see once you have that confidence, you think about “who is not your customer” more clearly, but also probably it creates an interesting perspective on what industries you see emerging and who would be a good customer. What have you seen coming to market that you would not have predicted, but you look at it and say “Hey, that's actually a great prospect for us”? What types of things have surprised you? MIKE: That's really interesting. I think certainly the comment about being prepared to be clear about who's not your customer is really important. We've turned down quite a few clients – probably more clients than we've actually pitched, over the last six months. In terms of the markets that are interesting, I think actually if you look at your business, what you need to do as an agency owner is see what you're good at and then see what's one step away. As you want to grow and expand out, you need to look at where you are one step away. A lot of what we do is around quite complex software, so we're really good at helping software companies sell a complex product. There are lots of areas in business where software is really taking over, whether that be in terms of advertising technology or whether it's in terms of purchasing or whether it's in terms of understanding maintenance in a plant. All of those are a slightly step away from what we were doing originally, but actually we're really good at that stuff because we understand how to take this really complicated thing and then narrow it down to clear reasons why somebody should consider the product, and then keep talking to that person over a long period of time, because there's a long sales cycle. ROB: In software, do you end up with anything that's a much shorter purchase cycle maybe than some of the complex hardware? Or do you find software with longer implementation cycles, more considered purchases, is a better fit? MIKE: If I'm to be honest – and this comes back to the fact that as you grow your agency, you've got to be confident about where it's not a good fit – if it's more of an impulse buy, it's a very short sales cycle, why do you need us? We're really good at taking this technical information and communicating it over a long period of time. That's what works really well. Why would you get us if it's a software where you just need to run Google Ads and people buy it? So, I think it's probably not the right fit for us. It's not somewhere we'd go, and it's certainly not somewhere we're chasing. We're definitely chasing the complex enterprise kind of software businesses because that's where we're successful. That's where we add value. ROB: There's certainly a buzz phrase circling in the software world of product-led growth. Everybody talks about PLG this and PLG that. Is that not at all relevant to some of these more enterprise solutions? Or are there ways it's creeping its way in that are worth discussing? MIKE: I think in terms of product-led growth, it's difficult. The enterprise software companies are trying to be more agile. They're trying to look more like almost the prosumer-type companies. But it is a different sale, because what you're doing is selling something that's going to handle a very large proportion of activities. It's a very complex project. It's got a lot of different processes inside it. If I'm the enterprise buying that, I kind of want to know that if it works today, it's going to work tomorrow and it's going to keep going. Stability is actually a real benefit. So, I think we are going to see the software engineering market fragment, and there's definitely the less involved purchases in software that are fantastic. You look at it in marketing, it could be anything from tools to create banner ads to some of the tools to view websites on different platforms. They're actually quite low engagement processes, and there's relatively low switching costs. They don't matter. I think there'll always be software like that, and that's great because you get very fast innovation. You get new players in the market. At the other end, you've got something like a marketing automation platform, and there, it's not the platform that's complicated; it's the data and getting your CRM data, getting things synced up, getting history, being able to get things to work based upon behavior. And honestly, if you buy a marketing automation system and it looks completely different in a year's time, that's a huge risk for anybody. So, I think different things need different approaches, and we're definitely into the complex product where a certain degree of stability is absolutely important. It's vital for the customer. ROB: Certainly makes sense. Mike, when people want to find and connect with you and Napier Group, where should they go to find you? MIKE: We've obviously got a website, napierb2b.com. People can go there. People can go on LinkedIn and find me; I'm Mike Maynard at Napier. I'm the only Mike Maynard at Napier, so that should be fairly easy. But frankly, I just love talking to people, so if anyone wants to email me, I think most agency owners will work out my email address; it's mike@napierb2b.com. Just send me an email. I'd love to hear from you. ROB: That is excellent. Mike, thank you so much for coming on, for sharing your expertise and your experience. We are all better for it, and I wish you the best. MIKE: No problem. Thanks for having me on the podcast, Rob. ROB: Thank you very much. Take care. Thank you for listening. The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast is presented by Converge. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting, email info@convergehq.com, or visit us on the web at convergehq.com.

Mike Isaacson: Race horses don't even live in a society! [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: Thanks for joining us for another episode of The Nazi Lies Podcast. You can get merch and access to early episodes by subscribing to our Patreon. Throw us a donation on our PayPal or CashApp, and we'll toss you some merch as well. Today, we're trashing race realism–the idea that race is biologically real and bears upon behavior and intelligence. With me is Dr. Robert Anemone, who has his PhD from the University of Washington and is professor of biological anthropology and paleoanthropology at UNC Greensboro. His book, Race and Human Diversity: A Biocultural Approach, explores the intersections of race and biology, surveying anthropological and biological knowledge across history up to the present day. Thanks for joining us Dr. Anemone. Robert Anemone: You're very welcome, Mike. Looking forward to it. Mike: So one thing I liked about your book is that at the end of every chapter it has helpful discussion questions to explore the concepts further. So I decided that it wouldn't make much sense for me to write my own questions when yours are right there. Is it okay if I ask you some questions from the book? Robert: Sounds great. Mike: Okay great! So the first one relates to the subtitle of your book. What do anthropologists mean when they talk about using a biocultural approach to some questions like the meaning of race? Robert: Sure. Well, I've found in the literature on race in anthropology, sociology, that a lot of people approach it from one or the other of these sort of paradigms. And yet I really think that to understand race, you have to understand and look at the interaction between these two different paradigms; the biological, evolutionary, and the cultural or social. The biological or the evolutionary perspective recognises that human variation is a result of evolution, you know, that natural selection and the other forces of evolution like mutation and genetic drift have played a role in creating the diversity we see in Homo sapiens. However, that's not the whole story, because the cultural approach is really necessary. We recognise that racial classifications vary over time and space. Societies or cultures create the meanings and stereotypes that they associate with racial groups. So in my book, I really tried to do two things. I explore the biological nature of human diversity from an explicitly evolutionary perspective. For example I try to talk about things like why tropical populations tend to be darker skin than those living in the temperate zones. Or why genetic diseases like, for example, sickle cell anaemia are more common among some human populations than others. But in addition to that sort of biological approach, I examine the historical, the economic, and the political ways in which societies sort of decide that, for example, differences in skin colour reflect deeper, innate inequalities between human populations or individuals. So for me and for many anthropologists, really being able to bring together biological and social or cultural approaches is a more complete way to look at this very complex phenomenon that we call race or racial variation today. Mike: This next one is a good one. In what ways does arbitrariness creep into any attempted racial classification, and how does this help clarify the difficulty that anthropologists have had in answering the question: How many races exist? Robert: Well, it's very interesting that anthropology, which is a field that began in the 19th century with the stated goal of understanding human race and human variation, has never agreed-- We've never agreed on a simple question, how many races exist? Why is that sort of weird? Well, I think the reason is that it's basically impossible to create an objective and scientific classification of human races that everyone will agree on, because there's some really significant arbitrariness that creeps in at several different levels of the analysis. The first place that arbitrary decisions come in is when we decide which trait we're going to base our racial classification on. I mean, skin colour is the obvious one, many people use that. But there are other ways to do it too. There's other variable traits, like, for example, another one that's been used a lot is, you know, blood group genetics. Some people use a combination of skin colour, hair colour, eye colour, body build.... There's all these different traits to choose, and there's no real rules for which one you should use. So people just sort of arbitrarily choose one and ignore the others. Importantly, these different variables are not concordant. They don't evolve similarly. For example, Australian Aboriginals and African populations resemble each other in skin colour, but they're completely different with blood types. So, since the different traits that one might choose are discordant, any classification based on a different trait will end up looking very different. So that's the first level, deciding which trait to base your classification on. The second level where arbitrariness rears its ugly head is that when we realise that most of these traits we're looking at are continuously variable. They vary along a normal distribution or bell curve. And we should know, if we know the most basic statistics, that you cannot really divide a continuously variable trade into a finite group of categories or groups. You can do it, but you can do it in any number of ways. You can do it arbitrarily. For example, skin colour varies continuously across different populations and within populations. Sicilians tend to be darker skin than Irish. But are they different enough to call them a different race or not? Well, it's kind of a judgement call, you know? It's arbitrary. I use the analogy a lot in the book between skin colour and stature to show how impossible it is to really reach objective answers to a question like this, how many races are there? The basic skin colour classifications try to divide the world into light and dark skinned populations. Similar problems though, if you wanted to divide the world into tall and short races. How do you do that? I mean, height is continuously variable, where do you draw the distinctions? You know, how tall is tall? How tall do you have to be to be in this race or that race? In the book, I use the example; being tall is very different in the NBA than it is in the race track. Right? A tall jockey might be 5'7", and 5'7" in the NBA would be quite short. All these things are completely arbitrary. The simple answer is that when you have a continuously variable trait like skin colour, or gene frequencies or stature, you cannot objectively really divide that variation into finite groups in any one way. You can do it in a million different ways, but they're all equally arbitrary. Hence, I think, the 150 years of disagreement among anthropologists in deciding how many human races there are, it's just the wrong question to ask. It can't really be answered based on the continuously varied in nature the traits we're looking at. Mike: I think your book asks a lot of the right questions, right? I guess this next one a lot of Nazis love to misunderstand. Which is, what does it mean to say that race in America is a social construction? Robert: Yeah. I mean, it's a simple fact or statement that basically race means different things at different times in different places. And that the meanings that we associate with race are determined by social groups, typically by those in power, you know? So if we compare the contemporary United States and contemporary Brazil, completely different racial classifications, different terminology, different number of groups, very, very different. Or if we compare race in the United States of 1850 and the United States today. If race was some objective thing, you wouldn't expect it to vary over time and space. But in fact, it completely varies over time and space. In each of these places or times, there live different experiences of people are very different. Right? The ideas that people carry around in their heads with them about what, for example, black people or Latin people are like, are different. The very names we use in classifying different races are different in all these settings. So we're just saying that basically, what we think about race is sort of decided by groups in power in different societies. Now, this doesn't mean that race is not real, or that there are no biological differences between individuals, between groups, or that race is not important. It really just means that we, society's cultures, create the meanings associated with race. And again, I find a useful analogy here between race and kinship. What does it mean to be a brother or a cousin or an uncle? And this varies in different societies, both race and kinship are based on biological differences and similarities, right? And kinship is sort of based on the percentage of genes you share with people, right? A cousin shares a certain amount of genes with an individual. But the meanings that we associate with a cousin or an uncle, how you relate to a cousin or an uncle, can be very different in different societies. You know, my students always groan when I tell them that Charles Darwin married his first cousin, Emma Wedgwood, but I then tell them that first cousins were considered ideal marriage partners for upper class Victorian Englishmen. Not so much for contemporary Americans. So, kinship in the sense of who we marry and in general, how we relate to and behave towards our relatives, is also a cultural construction. Very similar to race, I think. There's some biology there, but then there's a lot of cultural notions, cultural ideas, stereotypes that go along with it, that sort of structure our behaviour and what we think about these people. Mike: This next one you kind of alluded to earlier, and this is when I have difficulty explaining to people when I argue that race isn't biology. Describe the clinal variation seen in the skin colour in the old world, and discuss how vitamin D skin cancer rickets and foley play a role in explaining this cline. Robert: This is really one of the classic and one of the best documented stories of how natural selection has shaped human evolution. We've known really since 1960s that if we look at the map of sort of where Aboriginal traditional living peoples have lived in the old world, we see this gradual geographic variation in skin colour that when you're at the Equator or close to the equator, people who've lived there traditionally tend to be very dark skin, lots of melanin, right? That's the pigment in our skin, in our eyes, and our hair. And as you move closer to the poles, skin colour tends to lighten up. People have known this for a long time. And the traditional idea has always been that well, melanin protects against the harmful effects of, of solar radiation, protects against like skin cancer, and things of that sort. So therefore, it's adaptive to have dark skin in the tropics because there's so much ultraviolet radiation. But when overall populations spread from the tropics to the temperate zones–of course, we evolved in the tropics with almost certainly evolved with dark skin colour, the first humans certainly had dark skin colour–but when their descendants moved to Northern and Southern climes away from the from the tropics and the equator, all of a sudden, the lower levels of ultraviolet radiation led to lightning and skin colour because they do have to worry about skin cancer and things of that sort. But if you had really dark skin and you live in like Scotland, it's hard to create enough vitamin D in your skin to avoid rickets and sort of soft bones, you know? Because the calcified tissues, you know, the bones and teeth require vitamin D. And we only really get vitamin D through solar radiation in our skin. There are very few things that humans eat other than oily fish that have too much vitamin D in them. Mike: And you mentioned the exception, generally, with Inuit peoples and the skin colour changes. Robert: Yeah. It's not a perfect thing, and people have moved around the world quite a bit. You know the Inuit are darker, but It's not a perfect correlation. I'm not sure if there's a great answer for some particular populations. But there's been a recent sort of addition to this whole thing, because the weak point in this whole theory was that; well, skin cancer tends to kill you when you're old, long after you've been able to reproduce. Natural selection doesn't work very well with things that kill you in your 50s or 60s or 70s, right? But my colleague, Nina Jablonski, some years ago, looked at another piece of this puzzle and it's fully one of the B vitamins which is in our bloodstream. And it turns out that foley is damaged by high ultraviolet radiation in light skin. So, dark skin protects against skin cancer but also protects against the destruction of folate. And we also know now that low levels of folate in pregnant women lead to increased incidents of neural tube defects like spina bifida. And natural selection would work brilliantly against this. So if you have really light skin colour and you're living in the tropics, you would be at a serious disadvantage because you would have low levels of folate and your offspring would tend to be born at high frequencies with these very serious problems. So natural selection seems to have really, you know, been the cause of the variation that we see in skin colour. And it's again, final variation just means it's variation over geographic space. So it gradually lightens as you move away from the equators towards the poles. It's kind of an interesting combination of things like vitamin D and its effect on bone growth and bone calcification, skin cancer, folate, and all these things leading to this variation of skin colour. Which then sort of becomes the basis of racial classifications. But the interesting story about skin colour, of course, is not whether people with dark skin or light skin are superior, but how each of these two skin colours have kind of evolved in particular environments. And it's really a great example, one of our best examples, of how natural selection has shaped some of the variation that we see in modern humans. It's an evolutionary story, right? The cultural stuff sort of comes in later but originally, skin colour variation is all about natural selection. It's all about biological variation and how natural selection sort of shapes that in different environments. Mike: Right. Going back to the classification question, one of the conceits of race realists and racists in general, is taken for granted that race is natural. But race has a history. So again, another question from the book. When, where, and under what circumstances did the concept of human races first appear in the Western world? Robert: Race definitely has a history, and it is a relatively brief one at that. Historians have demonstrated that the notion of deep innate significant differences between human populations was not something that was present in the ancient world, say the Greeks and Romans. Certainly, they had slavery, but skin colour played no role in determining who was slave and who was master. Right?Slaves were not considered deeply inferior by nature. Slaves could purchase their freedom, they could be freed, and they could become Roman citizens. Slavery was typically the fate of those defeated in warfare. It wasn't until really the Age of Discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries in Europe, that the notion of deep and innate inequalities between global populations was created, followed quickly by the notion of chattel slavery-- lifetime slavery in which people were not even considered humans based simply on skin colour. At the time, the Europeans were heavily influenced by the Judeo-Christian notion that's called the Great chain of being. This idea that God's creation ranges from the simplest living things to the most complex, sort of on a chain, or a scale or a ladder. And then at the top, of course of the angels and God up above at the top. So the notion of hierarchy was really built into the European worldview at the time. And when Europeans met for the first time, the new African, Asian, Pacific Islander, American populations, they immediately try to fit them into their notion of the great chain of being Where did these new populations fit? Where did the dark skinned people fit in the great chain? And, you know, anthropologists talk a lot about ethnocentrism, this notion that, you know, one's own culture is somehow superior to others. It was clearly ethnocentrism that led European Caucasians to put themselves at the top of the great chain just below the angels, and put these new dark skinned populations lower closer to the apes-- lower on the great chain and therefore less than deserving of fully human or even humane treatment. So we see that colonialism and imperialism are really closely tied to the origins of their racial worldview as they still are today. It's a definite history. It's a recent history, it's not something that's been with us forever, and it doesn't have to be with us forever. We can change these things, these ideas are, are not written in stone. They can be changed. Mike: Yeah, that notion of the great chain of being. It still has echoes in fascist thought, too. It reflects not just a theory of kind of biological variation among different species, and races by extension, according to these people, but also between various classes of people. I mean, it kind of explains the the class structure of society or intends to Robert: Sure. I think the common idea here is hierarchy. Certain classes, certain races, certain genders are higher, better, more worthwhile than others. Absolutely similar. Mike: Okay, here's a thorny one to wrap up with. Why are many anthropologists skeptical of the proposition that IQ scores provide a reasonable measure of the innate intelligence of individuals and populations? Robert: This is a very thorny issue, isn't it? It's probably one that is highly influenced by the political leanings of individuals who talk about it. But it certainly is true that anthropologists are skeptical of what IQ tests can tell us about innate differences in human intelligence. And I think there are many reasons for this, some historical. I mean, if we started historically, if we look at the history of IQ testing, we see that the early IQ tests that were developed in the first half of the 20th century, in the First World War and the Second, they were seriously flawed. Stephen Jay Gould has really best documented the cultural biases and the methodological problems in much of this research. So while I'm no expert in intelligence testing, I'm certain that modern tests are not crudely biassed against minorities like these early ones were. But I still remain a skeptic of whether a single test can array individuals along the linear dimension of intelligence. The idea that an IQ score, a simple number, can be independent of their background, their privilege, and their schooling is is tough for me to swallow. Any psychologist today following Howard Gardner advocate the notion of multiple intelligences that a single IQ score doesn't tell us much. We can learn much more by studying people's spatial intelligence, their mathematical intelligence, their social intelligence, kinesthetic, spatial... all these multiple intelligences. So I think intelligence is a very complex thing. It's tough to reduce it to a single number on a single scale. And finally, there's a sort of a methodological reason that, or maybe a philosophical reason that many anthropologists are skeptical of this notion. And that is that most anthropologists probably consider themselves to be interactionists. We are opposed to pure genetic determinism and opposed to pure environmental determinism, right? So when we consider the development of complex human traits like intelligence, it makes great sense to us that both genes and environment play a serious role. I mean, there's much evidence that environment does play an enormous role on adult intelligence. And while genetics certainly plays some role also, I think many anthropologists are convinced that the best interpretation is that adult intelligence is a multifaceted thing that is probably not reducible to a single IQ score, and that it is strongly influenced by both genetics and environment. And intelligence itself, I mean, finally, a very difficult thing to define and a very difficult thing to measure. So I think the story is complex, the simple idea that everybody's intelligence is simply encoded in our genes is almost certainly incorrect. No one has found a gene for intelligence. Clearly, you can mess with genes and lead to mental problems. So genes play a role. But there's no simple story that there's a gene for intelligence and some populations have more copies of the good gene than others. Mike: Yeah. The claims of eugenicists, ultimately, is that these genes are concordant with race, right? That somehow there is a co-determination genetically between race and IQ. And we don't have evidence for a genetic causation, well, a direct genetic traceable causation for either one, much less a co-determination. Right? Robert: Yeah, absolutely not. Those eugenic notions come from a really outdated, sort of very simplistic Mendelian model–that there's a gene for skin colour, and there's a gene for intelligence. We know intelligence as a very complex genetic thing or probably hundreds of genes that influence one's adult intelligence, one's ability to learn... It's clearly not a simple Mendelian thing like, you know, pea plants with either the gene for tall plants or short plants. Those kinds of notions are just genetically very naive and really outdated. Mike: All right. Well, Dr. Anemone, thank you so much for coming on The Nazi Lies Podcast and helping me trash race realism. Again, the book is Race and Human Diversity out from Routledge. You could follow Dr. Anemone on Twitter @paleobob. Thanks again. Robert: Thank you very much, Mike. It was fun. Mike: If you enjoyed this episode of The Nazi Lies Podcast, consider becoming a Patreon subscriber. Patrons get exclusive access to early episodes and a shipment of stickers and even zines depending on how much you give. Don't want to commit to monthly donations? No problem. Make a one-time donation to our CashApp or PayPal with your name and address, and I'll send you some merch. [Theme song]

Today we're checking out a couple of Jessika's latest estate sale finds: Superboy 109 & 110. Are these swingin' sixties stories about the Boy of Steel any good? Well, no. Not really. But they certainly gave us something to talk about! ----more---- Episode 13 Transcript Jessika: [00:00:00] Dude. It's always fucking Florida, Mike: I can't think of anything that comes out of Florida that's good. Jessika: Hello. Welcome to Ten Cent Takes, the podcast where we traverse tumultuous time continuities, one issue at a time. My name is Jessika Frazier and I am joined by my cohost, the dastardly dog dad, Mike Thompson.  Mike: That's a fair description.  Jessika: That was a segue. We need to talk about your newest acquisition.  Mike: What, Mo?  Jessika: No. We've talked about Mo. What was your newest acquisition in relation to the squad?  Mike: Oh, right. We bought a dog wagon over the weekend.  Jessika: Yeah, you did! Mike: And then, uh, already busted it out and taking them all over the neighborhood [00:01:00] and to the beach. I think it was proven to be a wise investment when this neighbor who we'd never seen before stopped his car in the middle of the road and yelled at us about how cute he thought it was. He was like, “that's the cutest thing I've ever seen!” He was this big old dude. I'm like, alright, I'm on board with this. All right. Success.  Jessika: Amazing.  Mike: It was very wholesome.  Jessika: Well, I think Mike'll have to post at least one or two pictures of the dogs  in this week's transcript. Mike: Yeah, no, we  can absolutely post photos of the dogs in this episode's transcript.  Jessika: Yes. Mike: Yeah.  Jessika: Well, the purpose of this podcast is to study comic books in ways that are both fun and informative. We want to look at their coolest, weirdest and silliest moments, as well as examine how they're woven into the larger fabric of pop culture and history. Today we'll be discussing the boy of steel, Superboy. While there are many variations of this character, we are going to be focusing on the OG [00:02:00] comics from 1944 to 69 as the ones that we talk about, but we will also just briefly touch upon the other comics, TV shows, and movies sporting the same character, as well as touch upon the absolute nightmare that is the timeline continuity, or lack thereof, that is Superman's life story. But before we do that, what is one cool thing that you've read or watched lately?  Mike: Sarah and I have been watching a show called Motherland: Fort Salem. Have you heard of this?  Jessika: I have, I was interested. Should I start it?  Mike: Yeah, we really dig it. It's on FreeForm, but it's streaming on Hulu. It takes place in this world where the United States stopped hunting witches 300 years ago and there was something called the Salem Accords signed. So now we have a world that's dominated by the USA and witches make up, as far as I can tell, the entirety of its armed forces. Jessika: [00:03:00] Oh, snap.  Mike: It's really cool. And the whole thing is magic is based on sound and resonance. And it's really a unique spin on things, but the show follows these three young witches who are recruited into the army and then start navigating their way through it. And the larger society, that's a part of the military and it's very comic book-y in terms of its plotting and character development and then the meta narrative as well. It's really cool. And it's really diverse in terms of casting. The storylines are really thoughtful in a lot of ways, and it's very queer. Like, extremely queer.  Jessika: Yes.  Mike: And the shows in the middle of its second season. And it's gotten much better. Like, I mean, it was already, it was already very good, but it feels like the second season, they really got the kick things up and they've really upped the creep factor. There's a whole thing about witch hunters re-emerging in kind of striking back at witches and riling up public sentiment. It feels very topical. [00:04:00] And then the whole thing is that because which is get their powers from the sound of their voice, what these witch hunters are doing is they're actually like cutting out witches' voice boxes and then weaponizing them. It's really cool and really creepy. And I really like it. Jessika: Oh, damn. That is like horrific. And like wow, that's an interesting concept.  Mike: Yeah. Sarah and I have been really, really enjoying it. And it's definitely something that we put on when the kids aren't around obviously, but,  Jessika: Oh, yeah.  Mike: but it's really solid. So yeah, not a comic book this time. But certainly something that I think a lot of comic book fans would enjoy.  How about you? Jessika: Well, once again, Lauren from Outer Planes in Santa Rosa comes through on the recommendations. Because she suggested the Image series, Man Eaters: The Cursed.  Mike: Hm.  Jessika: It's so fun. It starts off with 15 year old Maude being forced to go to summer camps. So her parents can go on this romantic vacation by themselves without her.  Mike: [00:05:00] Relatable.  Relatable, mom and dad.  Jessika: Absolutely. Well, and it's so funny because they put these fun little, like. It's almost like little artifacts in there , for you. So they have the registration card where they're registering her. And so it's like, will you be on vacation while your child is at camp? And it's like, YES. Like it literally asked that as a question like it's expected.  Mike: Good.  Jessika: It's pretty funny. Another thing I found that's really funny is they have the campers have these buttons. They're like warning buttons for insurance purposes. And they say things like sleepwalker or lice, or like Gemini. Which like big Gemini myself, like absolutely issue some warnings.  Mike: I love it. Jessika: And I love that there is one male character so far in this, and he's the least prepared for everything and Maude totally [00:06:00] roasts him a couple of times.  Mike: Again, relatable. Because the one who does all the home repairs around here, it ain't me. Jessika: Oh my gosh. So yeah, no, I added that to my pull list.  Mike: Yeah, that sounds great. Jessika: All right. Well, welcome to another episode of Jessika's estate sale fines. This week we'll be looking at Superboy, the comics, and I'm going to run us through the timeline of the comics as they came out, along with the TV shows and movies that were associated with those. So a lot of this is going to be like informational about when the comic came about and the character, Superboy  as Kal-El Mike: I'm super excited.  Jessika: there was a lot to it. And actually there was a  lot of different weirded consistencies that we're definitely gonna get into. As I've already hinted at that, I think you'll find very [00:07:00] funny,  Mike: I'm so excited.  Jessika: Okay. before I get too deep into this topic, I want to give a shout out to the resources that I use to compile my information today: An article from DC on DC comics.com fan news blog by Megan Downey, titled “Reign of the Superboys: The strange history of the Boy of Steel,” the Wikipedia article on Superboy, a blog post on captaincomics.ning.com in a forum called the comics round table by username commander Benson titled “deck log entry, number 176 Superboy: the time of his life,” and IMDB. for those of you who are. For those of you who are somehow unfamiliar with the basic storyline of Superboy's origins. not to be confused with Superman's origins, which he swoops in a little bit differently initially in the comics than this. but Kal-El in this instance was sent to earth by his parents before their home planet of Krypton [00:08:00] was destroyed. He was discovered in the crater left by his arrival by locals Martha and Jonathan Kent, who adopted him, raising him as their own son and naming him Clark. At age eight, Clark is told how he was found and finds out more about his origins from Krypton. Martha makes him an indestructible suit out of a blanket that he was found with one that came from Krypton and is imbued with the same powers that he himself holds. And it's basically just like Superman fucking around and not being in school.  Mike: Yeah, it almost entirely takes place in Smallville, which… it's kind of like the DC universe version of Cabbot Cove from Murder, She Wrote, where you're just like, how many fucking people die in this town? You know, in Smallville, it's, it's more along the lines of how many fucking supervillains hang out in this town in the middle of nowhere, Kansas,  Jessika: That's just it. What is it? A convention?  Mike: I guess. Jessika: Oh, so Superboy as a character was created by Joe Schuster and [00:09:00] Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel in 1938, but was rejected twice by Detective Comics before the growing popularity of the comic Robin, the Boy Wonder, finally convinced them to change their stance and they then decided to use it to try to relate to a younger readership with a younger character, which makes sense. Thus, Superboy made his comic debut in 1945, but just as a feature in the anthology, More Fun Comics issue 101. Now, of course, it wouldn't be comics without a little bit of drama. Schuster had assistance from Don Cameron instead of Siegel, as Siegel was serving in World War II and stationed in Hawaii. And he actually had to hear about Superboy's and inaugural publication through a letter from Schuster. DC didn't send them any notification nor was he able to actively participate in the trajectory of the plot line  since he was serving. It [00:10:00] was kind of a fuck you.  Mike: considering how heavily Superman was a part of propaganda. There is literally a cover of Superman running a printing press that says, I think it says, like, “help slap a Jap.” Jessika: Oh, that hurt me.  Mike: Yeah. Like, I mean, Superman was very much part of World War II propaganda, and that's insane that they wouldn't let one of his creators participate in the storylines because he was serving in the, uh, okay. Whatever. Jessika: Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty, it's pretty rough. So apparently there was already a rift in Siegel and Schuster's relationship. And so this just increased that strain. After that first issue, Superboy appeared in More Fun Comics, bimonthly issues through number [00:11:00] 107, but was picked up by Adventure Comics debuting in April of 1946. So he was bouncing around, that was issue number 103. And he was the lead feature for the anthology on this one Mike: Hm  Jessika: and remained the headlining feature for over 200 issues and continued being featured in Adventure Comics until 1969.  Mike: That's such a huge, just, that's an incredible run. Jessika: Yeah. It's a ton of time. And especially considering like he had, this was just like a side gig for Superboy. Really. He had other stuff going that he was doing.  Mike: Yeah, I do know that at one point in the sixties, Superboy was I believe the number two comic in America and the only one that was doing more than that was Superman. Jessika: It's like you were reading ahead. No, seriously. That's in my notes.  Mike: Oh, really? Okay, cool.  Jessika: Yeah, Yeah, yeah, no. And actually was frequently number two. We'll just  get to it now. It was frequently number two for a lot of it's run.[00:12:00]  So notable storylines that we got from Adventure Comics were intro to Krypto, the super dog, the origin story of his rivalry with Lex Luther, which that continues pretty far. So it's interesting that they, like, created the origin story.  Mike: Yeah. They had like teenage Lex Luther show up in Smallville, right?  Jessika: Yeah, yes, yes. Correct.  Mike: I think he had hair  Jessika: Back when he had hair, yeah.  Mike: Yeah. And that's something that's continued up until modern times as well. Mark Waid's Birthright, I know, did that… where it basically revealed that Clark Kent had been for a short time friends with Lex.  Jessika: Oh, wow. Of course. They had to be friends before they were enemies. Frenemies. There was also the the debut of the 30th century superhero team, the Legion of superheroes.  As Superboy, continue to frequent the pages of anthology comics in April of 1949, he became the sixth superhero to get his own comic book. and was the first new superhero [00:13:00] title to succeed after World War II. Mike: Oh, wow. That's crazy.  Jessika: Right?  Mike: I had no idea that there were only six superhero comics back then. Jessika: Yeah. Not with our own titles.  Mike: I mean, that's wild.  Jessika: Totally. I didn't realize that either.  Mike: yeah Jessika: notable storylines from this namesake comic were intro to Ilana Lang and Pete Ross, the storyline of the first Bizarro and first appearances of Legion of superheroes characters, Mon-El and Ultra Boy.  He also appeared in Legion of superheroes volume. One, which was printed as an anthology. Superboy itself continued until 1976 when the comic was renamed Superboy and the Legion of superheroes. Superboy was involved in the storyline until issue number 2 59. When he leaves after learning new information regarding the death of his parents.[00:14:00]  Dramatics. Mike: Yeah, I haven't read a lot of those, but the idea is that he's displaced through time and he winds up hanging out with the Legion for a while. And then if I remember right, Supergirl winds up joining the Legion after a while, too. Basically, so they can have kind of a headliner. Jessika: I smell them trying to fix a time continuum. But that's maybe I'm biased. Based on the research I've been doing,     The series was then retitled Legion of superheroes volume two, and ended with issue number 354 and 1979. There was also a three-part mini series called Secrets of the Legion of Superheroes that was published in 1981. And despite the general decline of superhero readership, Superboys' popularity continued to grow and adventure comics and Superboy frequently sold over a million copies combined.  Mike: That's an insane amount of comics these days. You know, back then that [00:15:00] was wild. Jessika: I mean, it definitely groundbreaking for its time. I would say it was, it sounded like it was huge. The popularity may also have been due to the fact that Superboy was found on more than just comic book stands. He was also on the TV and in the movies, he appeared in a 26 minute movie called the Adventures of Superboy and multiple six-minute episodes airing with the New Adventures of Superman, which aired for 1966 to 70, the Superman Aquaman Hour of Adventure from 67 to 68 and the Batman Superman Hour 68 to 69. All of which were just continuations are within that same world as the initial comic book.  Mike: Right. And those were all animated series too, I think, right?  Jessika: they were. They were. And here's something fun for you to watch if you wanted to click on that link.  Mike: Okay.  [Superboy INTRO AUDIO PLAYS] I love the image of like infant CBRE, boy, just lifting a piano. All right.  Jessika: Very patriotic.  Mike: Yeah. I love the fact that they have Krypto in there. Like I've always had a soft spot for Krypto. I am a little offended that his cowlick isn't in the shape of an S though. Come on guys. You know, this is an amateur hour.  Jessika: Missed opportunity. Mike: Right. But yeah, that was super cute.  Jessika: Wasn't that fun? Yeah. So I can,  I could see kids get getting really excited about seeing that. And then they walk by the newsstand and they go, I just saw that on TV.  Mike: yeah, exactly.  Jessika: [00:17:00] So I think they had a good thing going with that at that point. Mike: Oh, a hundred percent. So that was in the sixties, you said, right?  Jessika: Yes.  Mike: So that was right when television was becoming the dominant form of entertainment in the United States. I think by 1959 or 1960, it was something like 90% of households in America had televisions. And Saturday morning cartoons were starting to become a thing, which by the way, you guys should go back and listen to that episode about Saturday morning cartoons. It's our first episode. And we talk all about the evolution of that and how it connected with Comics. Jessika: It was a fun one. So pretty much right after the Legion of Superheroes volume two ended, the New Adventures of Superboy was published in 1984. That had 54 published issues,  Mike: Okay. That's a respectable run.  Jessika: Yeah. It's not anything too wild. Yeah. In 1985, DC tried to tie up some of those pesky plot holes that we're going to discuss later [00:18:00] on, for sure, by creating a comic that told the story of Clark Kent's transitional years in college at Metropolis University, going from Superboy effectively to Superman. And while this was supposed to last for 12 installments, they only ended up publishing six, mostly due to the fact that Crisis on Infinite Earths was published  Mike: I was about to ask. Yeah.  Jessika: Yep. That actually featured the eraser of Superboy  and yet another attempt to correct a timeline.  Mike: Well, Crisis on Infinite Earths was the first real attempt by DC to sit there and stream everything into a coherent timeline. And at the same time they had John Byrne's The Man of Steel, which came out I think right after. Crisis on infinite earths. And that also streamlined Superman's very convoluted history. The problem is is that by that point in time, you had almost 50 years of continuity, which made no fucking [00:19:00] sense. Jessika: And we'll discuss it later, but there wasn't necessarily a need for continuity back in the day. I mean, they didn't have to have it. They were just there for like, we're doing this adventure. This is fun. They're going to enjoy it. And there wasn't a feeling that you had to necessarily link it with what came before it or what was going, coming after it in the same way that we want now as readers and as fans, we want everything to make sense because we want more of the story in that  way. Mike: We want that overarching meta plot. Jessika: Exactly. Exactly. So despite DC's attempt to write Superboy out of the universe completely, he appeared once again in Legion of Superheroes Volume Three, which ran from 86, 87 and while Crisis on Infinite Earths had erased Superboy. To some extent in other time, continuations, they now needed to recreate him in order to have a cohesive storyline for [00:20:00] Legion of Superheroes. Mike: God. Jessika: So they were like, what are we going to do? Oh, I know pocket universe.  Mike: Why not?  Jessika: Why not? So in this version, it's set in a pocket universe created by the villain Time Trapper.  Mike: I think the Time Trapper… so the Time Trapper is like a villain who has had multiple identities. It's the same villain ultimately, but it's different people wind up becoming the Time Trapper. And I think, Superboy became the time trapper point.  Jessika: This doesn't surprise me at all. What the hell?  Mike: Yeah, don't, don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure that it happened, uh, during one of their big, crossovers,  Jessika: Oh, no, Mike: Comic books are dumb and I love them.  Jessika: I do, too. This is actually part of the  reason I really do like them. Because I like seeing all of these little differences. It doesn't make me mad. I just find it very funny.  Mike: Yeah. so the Time Trapper created a pocket [00:21:00] universe and then they used him to bring Superboy back.  Jessika: Yeah, exactly. And so he, but here's the funny part. He was really just like a sideline character in this. He came in and issued 24 and he was killed off in 38. Mike: Superboy was going. Okay. I'm not going to ask question.  Jessika: Yeah. Cause he had to like sacrifice himself to save the world. I mean,  that's, you know, common trend in these, right.  Mike: Of course.  Jessika: Yeah.  It was convenient. If not obvious.  Mike: Okay.  Jessika: Superboy apparently would not, could not be stopped. As was apparent in 1988 with not only a comic publication, but also a TV appearance. Once again, this time live action.  Mike: I remember that show.  Jessika: Yeah, it was here and that was gone.  Mike: It lasted for a couple of seasons, but I think they had a couple of different actors play Superboy. Jessika: They did. Yeah. So it was four seasons and it started out starring John Hames Newton for season one [00:22:00] and then recast replaced for the remainder of the four seasons. So the rest of the three by Gerard Christopher.  Mike: Oops.  Jessika: So that was a 22 minute runtime, pretty normal for that time. but there again, it went along with the same year that the Superboy volume two hit shelves. You know, they did another one of those timing things thinking, Hey, it worked what? 30 years ago.  Let's do it again.  Mike: Yeah. It's that whole transmedia thing. Jessika: Yeah, exactly. the show ultimately lasted until 1992, the same year a one-shot comic called the last Superboy was published. But that seemed to be the last dying ember from the fire that is Superboy, as we've talked about up until this point, except one thing. And I know that we want to talk about it a little bit, which is Smallville. And I know we've mentioned it, but I didn't watch that. Did you watch that show?  Mike: Oh, yeah. Are you kidding me? I, I was all over that show for the first few seasons. Jessika: Okay. I [00:23:00] just really, it was just cause I had a crush on Kristin Kruek, but unfortunately she got involved with that horrific NXIVM cult.  Mike: I thought It wasn't her. It  was the… Jessika: It was Alison Mack, but  like, but  she was involved for a few years,  unfortunately. Big. Yikes.  Mike: I don't know too much about it. I just know that Alison Mack was one of the big ringleaders for it and it was wild. Jessika: She was, yeah.  Mike: Like she, I think she left Smallville to like devote herself full-time to that cult.  Jessika: That sounds right. Yeah, she was, she was definitely a big part of it. yeah, it was rough. I've been following it.  Mike: I really liked Smallville when it first came out. I remember getting so excited when they had a little teaser ad for it where I think it's Krystin Kreuk is wandering through the darkness and she hears something and turns and then you see Tom Welling step out of the shadows and he says something along the lines “Oh, Hey, it's just me. It's it's Clark.” and then it just says Smallville, and I was like, oh mother fucker. That's amazing. [00:24:00] And yeah, it was, it was fine. It was very teen angsty, but they had a lot of deep cuts for comic fans. And, I think I stopped watching around season four  because it just started to, it felt like it really sort of jumped the shark,  Jessika: Oh, okay. Yeah. I was going to, ask if it's  something I should rewatch. I don't know. Stuff from that. Timeframe is so cringey these days.  Mike: A lot of it's cringey. I remember a whole thing with his heat vision was tied to like him being horny.  Jessika: No. Why do you have to do that?  It's so unnecessary.  Mike: But you know, what's funny is they actually brought Tom Welling back in the whole DC Arrowverse recently where they have a version of Lex Luther. Who's traveling the multi-verse and he shows up at, he shows up at the Kent farm and Tom welling is there. I thought it was just, it was great. It was, it was just, it was a really cute little nod. Jessika: That is pretty cute. I do like that.  Mike: And then he got all mad because he was trying to suck Superman's powers [00:25:00] away. And then it turns out Superman gave up his power so that he can have a family and a normal life. And then the now powerless Superman pops him in the nose. It was kind of good.  Jessika: That is cute.  Mike: I was fine with this. It was very, it was very wholesome. Jessika: So there are other iterations of Superboy, but they're not necessarily Clark Kent and some of them are, but they kind of stray off into different timeline. And I could have gone down that rabbit hole, but Mike: Yeah.  Jessika: you know, I didn't. Here we are.  Mike: that's fine.  Jessika: So I also know that I, more than hinted, we've talked about a little bit, uh, the continuity troubles that plagued Superboy.  Mike: Right,  Jessika: I, I gotta say some of these transgressions are just capital B A D bad. But they get a bit of a pass again, you know, like I said, because Comics at that point [00:26:00] really didn't hinge on a time continuum.  Mike: Right. That wasn't a thing.  Jessika: No, it wasn't. So, we got to give them a little bit of credit except when they actually started figuring it out and they still did absolutely nothing about it, which is what we're going to talk about. Mike: Okay.  Jessika: Because after Superman, they kind of figured out, oh, people are wanting more of a storyline and we've already given Superman kind of a timeframe. And now this has to be Superboy. So it needs to be earlier. So they were like, Okay. Superboy is from the 30s.  Mike: Right.  Jessika: But Superman at that time, I think was supposed to be set in the 60s or the 50s. And the math did not add  Mike: Right.  Jessika: at all to get to that point. So right off the bat. You've just you're wrong about the dates. what's even more funny to me is that in the first iterations of the Superman comic, the origin story is always [00:27:00] that the first time he came to earth was when he came to metropolis, like as a full ass adult.  Mike: Right.  Jessika: So what's, what's up, you know, so that's where it's like, all Right. this is already… Mike: This is convoluted. Yeah. Jessika: exactly. So you and I read a couple of comics from the time period of those original comics, and we read them from specifically from 1963. What I love about these is you could actually, at that, I don't, maybe they still do this. I haven't seen it yet in my Comics. You could write in and they would publish the comments and the editor … Mike: they still do this.  Jessika: Okay, cool. So the editor writes a comment back,  Mike: Yeah.  Jessika: So we have a few of these.  Mike: Okay.  Jessika: And I would love for you to read them for us.  Mike: Okay. So we have a few of these here. the first one says dear editor, since Superman was a Superboy before World War II and television sets, weren't perfected and [00:28:00] sold to the public until after World War II. How come you show TV roof antennas, and Superboy stories. Kevin Herron, Tiffin, Ohio. And the editor responded with you're right, Kevin, we're wrong. We made a booboo. Editor. Jessika: Okay. Mike: The next one is dear editor. How come in Superboy comics. You illustrate such modern inventions as a bombs, atomic subs, jet planes, television, et cetera, all devices, which weren't invented until 1945 for later. And which certainly weren't around when Superman was born, Ken parent Wheaton, Illinois. The response is historians refer to such inconsistency as anachronisms. They are a necessary form of literary license required to achieve dramatic effects. Movies exercise this option very often. For example, the first umbrella was invented in 1740 yet numerous period films devoted to the life in the middle ages have shown heroines protecting themselves from the sun with a parasol. Editor Jessika: I love how he's getting like a little salt here with his answers.  Mike: Just a little bit. [00:29:00]  Jessika: He's like, but Webster's dictionary says…  Mike: God. Yeah. I don't miss those days. These days. Usually when you see the letters section of a comic, it's usually people talking about how much something meant to them, or at least in the ones that I read it. It's always really nice. So.  Jessika: That's sweet.  Mike: All right. So the last one: dear editor in the recent story, the amazing bizarro you had Superboy dropping an atomic bomb on bizarro. How is this possible, as Superboys adventures. They're supposed to have happened before 1945 and scientists had not perfected the H-bomb until  1945. Steve Spangler, Sonoma, California,  Jessika: Boom representation. That's right down the road from us.  Mike: the response is “we goofed! From now on no more a bombs in Superboy. Editor.”  Jessika: Well, that's easy.  Mike: Oh, that's great. At some point it's like, come on guys, it's a comic book.  Jessika: Yeah,  Mike: I think it's, are you [00:30:00] really expecting the science fiction comic, starring an alien who just happens to look exactly like a human, but has more super powers than God is going to be historically and scientifically accurate all the time. Okay. Whatever. I don't…  Jessika: I know. I know. I know. I hear you. I do well. And what's funny too, is at one point, Lana Lang is in a beauty competition and it says 1952.  Mike: Well, it's reassuring to know that nerds were always this nitpicky. Jessika: Absolutely. That really is.  Mike: Yeah. Jessika: So the time in consistencies didn't end there. As I mentioned, there have been multiple timelines that have been created and destroyed to ensure some kind of consistency in the Superman universe. But whether or not that was actually a success is really anybody's opinion. It's up to the listener. [00:31:00] But if you're interested in finding out more about this travesty of a timeline, go check out that blog post I mentioned at the top of the episode, I'm on Captain Comics Presents, it's got a lot more examples of the inconsistencies from those OG comics. Mike: Yeah. Well, okay. One thing I will note is that DC kind of figured this out recently where they, ran a series called doomsday clock, and it's Dr. Manhattan from the Watchman universe with Superman. And the very end of it is revealing that there is now a “metaverse” in DC. Where it's like, oh yeah. So Superman arrived in the 30s and started being a superhero, you know? And then also he also arrived in the 60s and then he also arrived in the 80s and so on and so forth. And so it,  it sort of makes sense of that for those people who care. Jessika: Well, and it's like the same kind of Marvel multi-verse that we have going on with that, with the  Spider-Man is pointing to each other.  Mike: Yeah. It [00:32:00] basically, it takes the concept of a multi-verse and then it adds another layer and it does it in a way that feels, hm, I'm not going to say plausible, but it just, it kind of works and, you know, I actually liked it, but that's just me. Jessika: Yeah. you know what, and what's funny about Superman is I don't like Superman, so it's funny that we're doing this whole episode. I just thought it, was interesting. These Superboy comics when I saw them, well and I picked them up because like, honestly, like the titles were horrific and I will have some very liberal things to say about them, but yes, I, you know, but honestly, what's very funny, even though I hate Superman, I don't know what it was about the Superman symbol that I used to love.  And I didn't read the comics. I'd watch the show from the eighties. And I'd seen the Christopher Reeves movies. We loved those. But other than that, I wasn't like huge in the Superman, but if I had gotten a tattoo, when I was 18 years old, it would have been a Superman symbol. So I'm very glad my mom never, she never [00:33:00] listens to this. So she will never know that I'm confessing that, she talked me out of making a very bad tattoo decision because she doesn't need any more gloating rights,  Mike: Yeah. I don't know. I kind of viewed him like Captain America, where I thought he was really boring. And then I realized that if you find the right writer, Superman really, really works. I've come to really enjoy a lot of Superman stories, but you know, it depends.  Jessika: And I think you're right. That I, I probably just haven't found the right writer or the right style. And I did recently start do I start birthright? I started something recently.    Mike: I think it was  Birthright, based on our conversations. Jessika: yeah. So I will get back into that at some point in time. I just have such a stack now will obsessed. Oh no. Mike: Oh no,  Jessika: Oh, no. more Comics. So Mike, you and I read a couple of these issues that I found at that estate sale. That was Superboy boys. Numbers, 109 [00:34:00] and 110. So do you want to recap 109 us?  Mike: Yeah. Okay. You've mentioned that these are anthology comics and so Superboy at this point in time, apparently was having two or three storylines per issue. based on the two that we read, each one had two different stories in it.  Superboy 109 has the first story is the Super Youth of Brozz. The title story about the rival super dogs doesn't show up until later, which that always surprises me, when the cover action isn't the first story and everything else is in a backup, but whatever.  Jessika: It's a little confusing.  Mike: the Super Youth of Brozz is about how a young Clark Kent winds up sort of becoming friends with another teenage orphan in Smallville named Fred who's, quote, timid that's his like defining character trait. That's all that anybody used to describe him. And he gets picked on by the towns in crowd of teenagers. It's revealed that he lives in the [00:35:00] Smallville orphanage, which okay. He literally walks back to the orphanage and then Superboys spies on him and he's crying because he overheard people talking about how they didn't want to adopt him  because he was too much of a wimp I'm just like, oh, okay.  Jessika: Thanks for being super toxic Superboy. That's so great.  Mike: Superboy winds up deciding to give him confidence. And so he takes him to a planet called Brozz where Fred gains super powers from the atmosphere. And then Superboy actually loses his overtime for reasons that are not really well explained because you know, Superboy, he gets his powers from the yellow sun. And then later on, he gets his powers back sort of from the little spacecraft that they brought Fred over in, because it had some remnants of Earth's atmosphere, which that's not how science works. I was a history major and even I can tell you that. Superboy has this whole convoluted plot about how if he can get Fred to have super power's he'll gain confidence, which Fred sort of does. He eventually saves Superboy's life and then decides to stay on the planet and be a superhero. And he gets offered to be adopted, but he declines the offer for some bizarre reason, something about like, you know, basically he doesn't want to put his, foster parents at risk. And Superboy heads home to earth and has a final thought about how he wouldn't be the person he was, if it hadn't been for the Kents. The end. Jessika: Yeah. Yup.  Mike: Yep. But the title story, which is the Super Dog That Replaced Krypto is basically at some point, Superboy rescues a dog named Swifty, which looks like a Greyhound. Swifty winds up months later, tracking down Superboy in Smallville, which means that Superboy didn't [00:37:00] even drop this dog off at a shelter. Apparently he just got him out of harm's way and then just left him. So strike one, Supes.  Jessika: Yeah. It's not.  Mike: Then Superboy winds up temporarily granting Swifty the same powers that Krypto has. And then it seems like he's testing them out, but it doesn't quite work out that way. Swifty loses his powers and then he's, again, I guess, left alone. He's just as far as I can tell, he's a homeless dog in Smallville. Jessika: Yeah. There's  a lot of orphans in the story.  Mike: after his powers fade some villains who were trapped in the Phantom zone, but crossover and are sort of the Phantom zone wind up trying to take mental control of Superboy and Krypto, they don't have any luck. They are able to influence Swifty. And then they guide him through a process that grants him super powers. And then I think it also makes them evil, but it's not really well explained.  Jessika: Oh, it's because the Phantoms were  influencing him. [00:38:00]  And so their intentions were like his intention. So  because they had negative vibes against Superboy. That's what I got out of it, but it's, it's really vague.  Mike: Super vague.  Superboy decides to randomly hold a series of tests for Swifty and Krypto to be the new super dog. And like, he does this as opposed to like, just like letting  them both help him out. Jessika: that's what I'm saying. Like, it wasn't even to like, be the next super dog. It was like to  go be the ambassador on this trip  Mike: Oh, is that it? Okay.  Jessika: yeah. And then , why wouldn't  you want like an entourage of fucking, like super dogs with you? Why would you two super dogs is way better than one super dog. Like, I don't know what the fuck his problem  was Mike: 100%. So anyway, the Phantom zone criminals helps Swifty, win the contest, Swifty becomes the super [00:39:00] dog for at least this instance. And then he leads both Krypto and Superboy into a kryptonite death trap. Like there's literally a spring that like hurls kryptonite at them. And then at the last second Krypto manages to blast Swifty with the duplicate Ray, which creates a bizarro Swifty, who's good as opposed to the original version. Superboy comes up with a potion or, sorry, the Bizarro Swifty saves them. And then Superboy comes up with a potion that strip Swifty's powers and restores his good nature. And then he creates a collar that repels the Phantom zone ghosts so they can't control the dog again. And that's it like, Swifty's apparently the sad homeless dog in Smallville who just gets sad every time that he sees Superboy and Krypto fly by. And he thinks about how he wants to be Superboys' dog again. Jessika: It's really depressing. And I would never do that to Carl for the record. I would never. Okay.  Mike: I mean, [00:40:00] yeah, this, this issue definitely rubbed me the wrong way. Just for that, where I'm like, God, Superboy. it couldn't even find a home for the dog who tracked you down across the country and just wanted to be your friend. Jessika: You're fucking Superboy have two fucking dogs. Like, I don't know how difficult this is. Like, well, where Martha. Martha is like, no, we've already gotten one super dog in the house.  Mike: Yeah, right.  Jessika: No, this one's just normal, now! I swear. Mike: between the two of us, we have four dogs. So, I  mean, we're definitely the wrong audience for this, Jessika: for sure. And I bought this comic for the fact that there were like super dogs on there. I got very excited.  Mike: yeah. And the thing is, is that there's a whole menagerie, a super pets like you eventually get like Comet the super horse. Like it's no, there, there was a monkey. There was, I think, I think it was Streaky the super cat too.  Jessika: Oh, no.  Mike: It's not like, you know, [00:41:00] there wasn't a whole collection of super pets. But whatever.    Jessika: Yeah. What did you think of this since you haven't told, since you haven't started telling me already. Mike: It reminded me that Superman and Superboy stories from this era just a lot of times don't make any sense.  I have a collection from the late eighties called the Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told, and It's got stories from the forties to the eighties and even those early great stories, in quotes, they're pretty out there. And neither of these stories are anywhere close to what's contained in that book. I don't know. My biggest complaint is how Superboys' logic is always terrible. Like why does Fred need to be made into another version of the Superboy in order to gain confidence? Why not just help them with the core issue, which is that nobody wants to adopt them  from the Smallville orphanage, which again, lawl. Jessika: Yeah. Like what does it have two orphans in there?  Mike: It just, it seems like helping them find a [00:42:00] family would do a lot more good. And likewise, why not just adopt Swifty too? Like  it's shitty and it's dumb, but all of this reminded me of the site called Super Dickery, which I showed you.  Jessika: Yes.  Mike: It was the site that's originally focused on the absolute insanity of Superman comic covers. So many of these comics would feature things like Superman, just fucking over his friends. That was a repeated theme for years. There's one where he has Lois lane strapped to the grill of a truck and he's flying out after he drove it off a cliff. And just saying something to the effect “I'll see you later, Lois.” Jessika: Holy shit.  Mike: And there's another one where Aquaman, Jimmy Olsen are dying of thirst in the desert and Superman's just lording over them with this pitcher of water. the site was around at least in 2005, which is when I first came across it. It's kind of defunct. Now. I don't think has been updated for a couple of years, but you can go back on archive.org and just scroll through all these things. The [00:43:00] tagline was Superman's a Dick and here's the evidence and it's great. Like that is a way to kill an afternoon. Let me tell ya. Jessika: Oh, I definitely checked out a few of those today and I was  rolling. Rolling. He definitely came off  as an asshole in this comic. Like, no question, no question.  You know, what makes me the most mad is that he has the ability to give Swifty super powers. He has the ability to make both dogs talk.  Mike: Oh my God. Yeah. Jessika: What the fuck are you doing?  Mike: there was a cover on Super Dickery where it's young Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne, and they've created a computer that lets them see the future and like, Hey, we're going to grow up to be crime fighters and superheroes. So we're going to be best friends. It's like cool. You know, what also would be useful? I don't know. Maybe telling Bruce Wayne that his parents are going to get murdered and it can be avoided.  Jessika: Seriously. Holy shit. Oh my God. Yeah. But then he wouldn't have his [00:44:00] homie. Superboy's  just all in it for himself.  Mike: Yeah.  Jessika: And like, why does he just have something lying around the  has fandoms as I can get out? Why does he have that? Doesn't make any sense. Mike: We don't have another two hours to discuss the Phantom Zone. Jessika: Kal-El you silly boy. So let's, let's move on to the other comic we read, which, uh, we're just be just as angry about, by the way. Spoiler case you were wondering. So what happened in issue? Number 110? Cause I did get sequential ones, which is great, kind of.  Mike: Right. Okay. So again, we have two stores. We have the Surrender of Superboy and the runt of steel, the surrender of supervise story is the one that we actually get on the cover. It's Superboy in Krypto losing a tug of war match to some old man. And we're basically told, well, you won't believe who the old man is. In the Surrender of Superboy, Clark [00:45:00] Kent, and Lana Lang traveled to South America to accompany her, I guess he's a college professor, dad on an archeological dig. One of the flowers recovered is this legendary hate flower, which causes any living, being that smells it to hate the first human they see after smelling it. They're like very specific that it's, you will hate the first human. Jessika: Yeah.  Mike: When they get back to Smallville, Lana smells the hate flower by accident. She sees Superboy flying outside and then dun, dun dunnnn winds up developing an intense hatred for the boy of steel. She grabs. I think it's like, it's… do we ever get a name for this thing? It's like a devil's mask? Jessika: I think she just calls it devil's mask. Cause it's a devil's witch mask or something like that on the wall. It's very vague again.  Mike: So she's in this museum, she grabs this thing off the wall because there's no fucking security anywhere. And it specifically says what it does, where it's says the person who wears this can summon souls , or spirits from the past and have them obey them for an hour. And then she [00:46:00] starts using it to cause trouble. Sir Lancelot and then George Washington are her first minions, but they refuse to help because they claim that they've heard about Superboy's heroic  deeds and even in the past, which Jessika: No, no, no, It's not a thing. No.  Mike: I just, I can't, man, it's so dumb. Jessika: When I read that, I was like, what, what is actually going on right now? I literally stopped reading for a few minutes.  Mike: Everything about the story it feels like monkeys at a typewriter.  Jessika: Yes,  Mike: So then she summons Merlin to humiliate Superboy at this super strength exhibition that he's doing in order to benefit the old folks home and Merlin, it turns out is the old man who beats him in the tug of war on the cover. Which by the way, this is like three panels in the comic. And it's not that big a deal.  Jessika: it's really not.  Mike: yeah, after that she summons Edgar Allen Poe and [00:47:00] Sherlock Holmes. She says they're the two greatest detective minds of the past. So they help her solve a jewel highs that Superboy can't and then she framed Superboy by having Hercules, Samson, and Atlas tear apart the Smallville Scientific Institute. Um, let's see, she summons Venus, Helen of Troy, and Juliet to basically seduce Superboy. And then she spurns him at a dance. And also I'm sorry, but really? JULIET? Like, come on. Jessika: Juliet was a child who fell into a situation and was a tragic  figure.  Mike: Juliet was a stupid teenager. Like, I can't, I can't even,  I'm sorry.  Jessika: She probably had acne and Superboy definitely had that hair where it was brushed forward and then spiked up in the front. Mike: Yep.  Jessika: Absolutely. Yep.  Mike: Yeah.  Jessika: Fuckin' assholes. All of them, Mike: So she [00:48:00] spurns them at this dance and her dad gets mad at her. He's like, I heard you were very rude to Superboy.  Jessika: Which by the way, the fact that he wears that fucking suit to every occasion, like,  come on, dude.  Mike: I just love that idea. Jessika: Can you have like a literal suit, like, a super suit. That actually looks nice?  Mike: Just get something, like, get a nice Navy blue, kind of slim fitting suits have an Ascot popping out with your Superman logo.   All the girls would be all over you. It'd be great. Jessika: Oh, my gosh. Can you imagine the Kent's first trip to a fancy restaurant where they have to like, get the borrow jacket, like the  loaner jacket from the restaurant, because he's wearing his stupid ass suit and they're  like, Oh, Sir, excuse me.  Mike: He's just walking around with his Cape, sticking out from under the jacket. I would read that  comic.  Jessika: I would too. [00:49:00]  Mike: Anyway. So finally Lana decides to pull Jor-El, Superboy's dad from the past, in order to help her discover Superboys' secret identity. Instead of, I don't know, reuniting Jor-El with his son who he never got to see, but whatever. Okay. Jor-El gives you this device that's supposed to detect Kryptonians. It leads her to a closet where Krypto the Superdawg is Krypto shakes himself, and basically gives off a bunch of dust. Actually counteracts the flowers' hate pollen. And it turns out that Superboy and Lana's dad switched the mask with a dummy, once they realized what was going on and then her dad disguised himself as GRL and then everything just  goes back to normal and nothing matters. Jessika: Yeah, we're again, they have access to these devices that are like powerful and they like have instructions on the wall, but don't use them. Like he literally says to his daughter at one point like, oh, well stay away from the superstition side of things. It's quite dangerous. And she's like, oh, what's that?[00:50:00]  Let me check out this mask. So fricking ridiculous.  Mike: So then we get the second story, which is the Super Runt of Steel, which is about a criminal named Peewee Reagan, who we don't know who this dude is, but he shows up at this dilapidated house, he pays some amoral super scientist to grant him super powers. Peewee goes on a crime spree that even Superboy can't stop because Superboys' powers are weirdly fading for no real reason. Peewee flies away to a distant planet because he spotted treasure inside it. He gets to the planet, he wrecks a bunch of the alien robots that are there and then goes inside this vault that's full of space gems and minerals, and he winds up screaming in pain. Superboy finds out the scientist it turns out leached his powers and transfer them over to Peewee. And he's able to track the criminal to the aforementioned planet. And it turns out Peewee died because the vault also contained kryptonite and then Superboy [00:51:00] buries Peewee and flies away the end. Jessika: Because he somehow gets his powers back by just being around him. It was weird.  Mike: Everything about this issue just made me roll my eyes. And a lot of the stories from this era, if you go back and read a lot of these things, they had those kinds of surprise endings. That just feel so dumb these days. Like it was that weird, ironic twist. They're not really ironic because they don't really make a lot of sense.  Jessika: Yeah, they're just kind of like a left field thought.  Mike: Yeah, there's a lot that just doesn't work. And it's like if you go down this very specific logic train that these writers force you along, it's like, you know, the whole thing. Having Lana's dad disguise himself as Jor-El, like Superboy, just, knew that this was going to be the next step. You're like, all right. Well, I don't know, and then also, I'm sorry. But she's supposed to be calling all of these characters from history, all these spirits or people from history and then it's gods and fictitious characters like [00:52:00] Lancelot and Juliet and uh, whatever. Jessika: No, they were really contrived figures. I mean, even when they had real people in there, they weren't used to their purpose.  Mike: No, and it's one of those things where you read it and you're like, this is just, this is so dumb. Oh, it's Samson and Hercules. Okay. Whatever, why not? Random characters from the Bible and Greek mythology. Why not? Jessika: Dude, where do I even start on this issue though?  They had so many problems. The beginning, when the scientists negate the word of the locals as superstition, even though it actually did have dangerous poisonous properties to it. They're like, oh, it's just a myth.  Mike: Because there's a whole thing where one of the boroughs winds up attacking a guide and then when they sit there and say, oh, it must have like gotten near the hade flower and they're like, oh no, it just got bit by a fly. All right.  Jessika: Yeah. And the scientists are like, I mean, gosh, darn. How big of a [00:53:00] supremacist asshole do you have to be to not trust the people who live there to know anything about the plants that they have been living with their whole lives. I truly don't understand that.  Mike: Yeah.  Jessika: Then the scientists were like, oh, woopsie, Daisy. I guess they were right. Chuckle, chuckle. Mike: This was also still a period in time where anyone who was not white, especially native populations were viewed with a healthy degree of just kind of, well, like you said, it like supremacy. Like if you go back and read those old Tintin books, woof.  Jessika: Oh,  yeah. I've read someof those in the original French and they're... Yeah.  Mike: Yeah. And if you go back and read those and then like up until really, I want to say the 70s or 80s was one thing started to get a little bit better, but even mainstream in the 60s were still pretty awful when it came to depicting people who weren't [00:54:00] white. Jessika: Yeah. There was that whole segregation thing. You know, just that.  Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Yeah, I, it was really gross when the quote unquote historical women came to give her beauty advice so that she could do seduce Superboy, like that was so contrived and odd and sexist and strange,  Mike: Yeah.  Jessika: Or the part where Superboy is not only supposed to be earning money for an old person's home. He's also making agist jokes about the quote unquote old man that ends up beating him. Both him and his dog, a tug of war.  Mike: Yeah.  Jessika: But  then the comic itself is so obviously like they so obviously made it agistly clear that this man only be Superboy because he was Merlin, the wizard, which yikes guys,  I know people way older than me that could kick my ass at most anything. So that's pretty [00:55:00] ridiculous.  Mike: yeah.  Jessika: Oh. Or the fact that the little guys or men that are like smaller and stature or timid, they are constantly the ones that need quote, unquote saving by Superboy in these really odd, like vague ways. Like they need to get physical strength to be appreciated.  And it's super toxic.  Mike: Yeah. And I mean, that kind of hinges on the old ideas of masculinity as well. Jessika: Oh, and I'm sorry, why Lana's dad keeping again, keeping legit magic items where people can access them. It just, I can not get past that because they just have all this shit sitting around where people are like, oh, let me touch it. Mike: look, here's the thing, like gun control, wasn't a thing back then you think they're going to seriously guard supernatural weapons of destruction. Jessika: that is a valid point. That is so valid.  at least he wasn't mistreating his dog in this issue, I guess.  Mike: I guess. I don't know. He locked him in the closet for a few hours.  Jessika: Shit. That's right. [00:56:00] Nevermind. Fuck. So that wraps up our Superboy conversation.  Let's move on to our brain wrinkles. And this is the one thing comics are comics adjacent that's just been rattling around in your brain. Since the last time we talked.  Mike: Yeah. So I was going to talk about free comic book day and how I was originally pretty excited about it. But now, we're recording this a couple of weeks before free comic book day is going to happen. And we are still in the middle of a pandemic when we record this, the Delta strain has started to rear its ugly head and lead to cases spiking all over the place, including here in the Bay Area. So, As someone who has immunocompromised kids who are too young to get the vaccine still, we're not going to be able to participate. Um, so yeah, I don't know. I think I'm instead going to talk about The Suicide Squad and actually how I'm really [00:57:00] excited about that movie. And it's getting rave reviews and it's opening this week on HBO max and in theaters. And then, because people can't leave shit well, enough alone, David Ayer, the director of the original Suicide Squad movie talked about how this one is great, but then he proceeded to shit all over Warner Brothers and talked about how the version of just Suicide Squad that got released back in 2016, was not his version of the film and how it's terrible. And he wants, vindication now. And I just, I can't go through another Snyder Cut. I just, I don't  have… Jessika: Alright like, you know, at least, okay. At least it's not the Justice League.  At least it's Suicide Squad,  Mike: But like the Snyder Cut almost broke me. Jessika: No, I hear you. I already don't like, I already wasn't like on board and I had to watch like so much Justice League that weekend.  Mike: I remember.  Jessika: Then I had prequel films I had to [00:58:00] watch. No, I don't want to do this again. I don't. Mike: I can't.  I am happy to talk about Suicide Squad. And I'm pretty sure there'll be jazzed up to talk about it after this movie. But I just, I can't bring myself to care about these auteur directors who are just… when I was working in the video games industry, we had this term that we used for certain people who were on the development side, who were all about their vision and how, they wouldn't compromise anything. And we, we just refer to them as the genius babies, because they would have these ungodly meltdowns. I can't bring myself to just, I can't bring myself to care about another genius baby throwing a temper tantrum. Jessika: I don't want it.  Mike: How about you?  What is, uh, what is sitting in your head these days? Jessika: I've been thinking a lot about representation in the media, including comic books. [00:59:00] And that's partially because we've been reading all these old comics where we don't see a lot of different representation. Versus the comics that I'm drawn to, which are full of representation, because that's what I prefer to read. I want to see everyone and it's been really nice to read destiny, New York and some of these other recent comics that actually show different types of bodies, different skin tones, different sexualities and genders. But I think there's so much more that we need to do, and that can be done to add and continue to build upon that representation. Like just in general, it's 2021. And we're still shaming people for being a certain size and, you know, airbrushing people who are already considered to be the epitome of beauty in our society. Like what is it going to take for us to allow people to just exist as we are. I mean, you know, besides the whole capitalist bullshit [01:00:00] game, telling women, they need more and more products to achieve beauty. But aside from that, but it's giving me, it's definitely making me feel better to see all of the representation, but there, again, it just reminds me that we need more. Mike: I was gonna say, it's that reminder of we've come a long way, but we need to go further. Jessika: Yep. It is. It is. You had mentioned, your inability to go to free comics day. and I feel like there are probably a lot of people who had a really difficult time getting anywhere. To go to something like that, you know? And so thinking about accessibility in that way of, what about those readers? Like what are we doing about them? So you know, it's just something I think about I've worked at social services too. I mean, I'm just, I'm a bleeding heart, but we need people like me or else, I don't know, get rid of that. We don't need people like me. So that's, that's, what's been rattling for me. [01:01:00] It's just more of a continuous disappointed buzz in my brain that we don't respect all people.  Mike: Yeah. Well, we do on this podcast.  Jessika: So on that uplifting note, that's it for today, but stay tuned for another episode in two weeks and until then we'll see it in the stacks.  Mike: Thanks for listening to Ten Cent Takes. Accessibility is important to us. So text transcriptions of each of our published episodes can be found on our website. Jessika: This episode was hosted by Jessika Frazier and Mike Thompson, written by Jessika Frazier and edited by Mike Thompson. Our intro theme was written and performed by Jared Emerson Johnson of Bay Area Sound, our credits and transition music is Pursuit of Life by Evan McDonald and was purchased with a standard license from premium beat. Our banner graphics were designed by Sarah Frank, who goes by. Look, mom draws on Instagram.[01:02:00]  Mike: If you'd like to get in touch with us, ask us questions or tell us about how we got something wrong. Please head over to Tencent takes.com or shoot an email to Tencent akes@gmail.com. You can also find us on Twitter. The official podcast account is Tencenttakes. Jessika is Jessika with us, and Jessika is spelled with a K and I am Vansau: V A N S A U Jessika: If you'd like to support us, be sure to download, rate and review wherever you listen.  Mike: Stay safe out there.  Jessika: And support your local comic shop  . 

Mike Isaacson: I'm sorry, but there's really no comparison between Irish indentured servitude and African chattel slavery. [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: Thanks for joining us for episode six of The Nazi Lies Podcast. We've talked about Hitler survival rumors, neo-Nazis denialism, the Jewish Talmud, critical race theory and even lizard people. Today we are going to tackle the myth of Irish slavery. We are joined by Miki Garcia, author of The Caribbean Irish: How the Slave Myth Was Made. Garcia is a 20-year veteran in the media and consulting industry. She has a master's in journalism from the City University of London and is currently working on her PhD at the University of Westminster. Thanks for joining us, Miki. Miki: Thank you for having me. Mike: Before we get into the Irish slavery myth, I want to talk to you about how you came to this research. What sparked your interest in the transatlantic trade of Irish indentured servants? Miki: When I was a student in the 1990s, I did some volunteer work for street workers in the Kings Cross area. It was a rundown area of London in those days and all the people sleeping rough in the 1990s in this specific area were Irish. It was the time when the IRA were bombing across England and the British media was very biased and had a hostile attitude towards Irish people. We didn't have a St. Patrick's Day festival in London. It's hard to believe, but Irish history is not in the school curriculum in England or continental European countries either. So, I asked around, but no one knew what was going on. To clear so many why, I immersed myself in Irish history and language and I play the Irish music instruments as well, and turned out those homeless people were the 1950s immigrant workers. So the decade was the height of Irish immigration. During the post war years, Britain used a substantial number of immigrant workers and many of them were youngsters, teenagers, and I got to know them personally. It was heartbreaking. When Irish people left home, they took a boat and they arrived at Holyhead which is in Wales and they took the train to come to London and the last stop in London was called Euston. And Kings Cross and Euston are basically side by side so there were so many Irish people there newly arrived and settled and so many Irish businesses like Irish pubs, restaurants, hostels, Catholic funeral parlors, barbers and so on. It was a very, very Irish area. I'm basically interested in the Irish diaspora, how the Irish people were influenced by the British policies. There are quite a few people who are interested in their status within the British system. For example, Marx and Engels, German immigrants in England, they were very interested in the Irish people as workers, and they wrote a lot about them. Irish history is most part a history of struggle against England and British imperialism since 1169, the Anglo-Norman invasion. So it's been going on for such a long time, more than 800 years. 852 years. The Irish in the Caribbean have been at the back of my mind for a while and this topic contains so many issues and it's also contentious. I wanted to write about them, but I didn't know where to start. It was the Black Lives Matter movement a few years ago. I saw many discussions on the internet, and there are so many innocent questions like, were Irish people slaves or Black? Or to more aggressive ones like “get over it” and so on. I've written some books on the Irish diaspora before so I wanted to write something very easy, simple, and informative. I think a myth is created because quite often people don't know the facts or the truth, so this is how it started. Mike: Let's start by discussing what Irish indentured servitude was not namely chattel slavery. What were the major differences in how Irish indentured servants and enslaved Africans were treated and dealt with? Miki: By definition, slaves are for life, so they were basically property, and they were owned, no human rights or civil rights. But indentured servants, they work for a time for a few years and they will be free, so they had human rights and civil rights in theory. But the Irish people were not homogenous. The majority of them who went to the Caribbean were forced, but many were born into service. Some of them were colonizers. They were colonial officers, administrators, traders, merchants, skilled workers, soldiers, sailors, and so on. But during the 17th century, forced people didn't exchange a legal contract. There are many types of indentured servants as well, and many wanted to go there. At the end of the servitude, they received land or sugar or whatever raw materials. They bought property, land and they settled just like mainland America, Virginia, Georgia, and so on. So that was their purpose. In the Caribbean, quite a few Irish people went there to have a better life. But it was after Cromwell's invasion, England captured too many people so they didn't know what to do with them, the local prisons were packed so that's why a large-scale systematic transportation policy was set. This produced many forced indentured servants. They were basically so-called political prisoners and criminals, wandering women, spirited children, and orphans, and so on. But within the context of the Caribbean, they were independent Irish settlers. For example, St. Christopher (St. Kitts) became the first English colony in the Caribbean in 1623 and then Barbados, Nevis, Montserrat, Antigua, and Jamaica and so on. So, African people and Irish people are very, very different, legally different as well. Mike: I want to get into the Cromwell stuff. Cromwell, basically, effectively made it illegal to be Irish in the UK. Am I correct in saying that? That's what I got from reading the book. Miki: Yeah. Because basically what England wanted to do is to wipe out the whole population. They wanted to control the whole island. So yeah, that's what's been happening all those years, centuries. Mike: Yeah, because thinking about reading the book, one of the things that you mentioned was that there were technically people that went voluntarily into indentured servitude, but it seemed like their choices were basically either go into indentured servitude to avoid being arrested for vagrancy or get arrested for vagrancy and go into indentured servitude anyway. Miki: Right after Cromwell's invasion, there were a lot of people who were shipped basically, transported. They had no choice. But at the same time, they are always volunteer settlers as well because they had no choice, you know? England sent a lot of soldiers, so they didn't have a life. They wanted to have a better life in general. But majority of them right after Cromwell's invasion, they were basically transported. They didn't have a choice. Mike: Okay. So, now getting back to the neo-Nazis, particularly those of Irish descent, they've drawn parallels between Irish indentured servitude and African slavery usually to downplay the latter while bemoaning the former. You'd think it would be to motivate them, to show solidarity with people of African descent, but they're Nazis, so.. Every myth starts off as a misinterpreted fact as you kind of said, and there were parallels between these two instances of forced labor mainly because they were both industrial processes of the British Empire. What were the similarities between Irish indentured servitude and African slavery? Miki: Irish people were basically the major workforce before Africans were transported. So at the beginning, they were growing tobacco, indigo, cotton and provisions and these can be grown in a relatively small space and sugarcane. The sugarcane production was extremely labor and capital intensive, so it needed unskilled workers. This speeded up with the arrival of Africans. But it's not very simple to pinpoint servants working and living conditions as each locality or planter was different. Some planters were very nice, sympathetic, but some were not so. But generally speaking, Irish servants received better foods and clothing and better living and working conditions than African workers. But in some plantations, because they worked only for a few years, they were treated like temporary slaves, in some cases worse than the slave workers. One of the unique aspects is that some forced indentured servants in the Caribbean, they did very well later in life. Irish workers finished their indenture and left the region or stayed as wage workers, became overseers, foremen, plantation slave owners, traders and so on. Basically, they moved up the social ladder. I saw many documents at the local archives. It is hard to find the information when they arrived, but their wills and inventory of death are easier to find. So this indicates that they have become wealthy plantation owners and more British by the time they died. But this was the purpose of the English. They wanted to make them English. And servants and slaves, they didn't mingle too much when they worked together in the same plantation because they had different tasks and responsibilities, but they cooperated on many occasions. For example, servants joined with slaves in plots of revolts and sea escapes. And these are very well documented in Barbados. When they were caught, slaves got heavier punishment and often tortured and executed. But servants, they were typically sent to other places, for example, from Barbados to Jamaica. Jamaica is huge, so it needed to be settled. And another example is in Jamaica, runaway slaves and servants went to the mountains and they formed independent communities on the mountains and they were called the Maroons. In the early 19th century, the movement for Catholic emancipation in Ireland and Britain and African slave emancipation developed at the same time. In the 1960s, it was the decade of the civil rights movement. There is the similarity of the civil rights struggle in Northern Ireland and with the struggle of the African-American civil rights movement. In the modern-day context, the status of Irish and African people as a major labor force at the bottom of the hierarchy is so visible because they belong to the most powerful nations, Britain and the US. So there are some similarities because they're both a part of American and British imperialism. Mike: Right. And one thing that you didn't mention just now was also the mortality rate, it seemed like there was a pretty high mortality rate not only in the trip over to the Caribbean but also during one's time as an indentured servant. Miki: Yes, because Irish people were not used to the climate, hot and humid climate, so it took time for them to get used to that climate. And also, they were not immune to tropical diseases. There were so many insects because of the climate. But African people were quicker to adjust with the local climate. That's why the Irish people the scorching sun burned their legs so they were called redlegs, and so they really struggled with the climate and tropical diseases as well. And also some early planters were very brutal as well, and they really couldn't survive. Mike: Okay. Now in the book, you talk a bit about the various attitudes and actions that the Caribbean Irish and Irish people in general took towards enslavement of the Africans and those of African descent. Can you talk a bit about that? Miki: The relationship between the colonizer and the colonized can be viewed a bit as like between the superior and inferior group. Thel colonizers, all colonizers, British or European colonizers, they typically felt superior to the colonized. So within the context of the British Empire in the Caribbean, I think Irish and African because they both belong to the working class at the bottom of the hierarchy. So basically, they were treated as second class citizens. And so, Ireland is basically England's oldest colony, the last colony, the southern part is independent, but the north eastern part is not. This means Britain have not been trading Irish people with respect for such a long time. And I think discrimination, prejudice, or stereotypes don't go away immediately because it's in their culture, language, and society, everyday life accumulated over the years, centuries in fact, and I think Irish and British children they know these facts long before they start reading history books. There was a survey in early 1980s in Nottingham, England, primary school children were asked which group was least favorable, Irish, Germans, West Indians, and Asians. Asians means Commonwealth immigrants from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh. They answered Irish. I don't know which area of Nottingham the survey was conducted, but they probably have never really interacted or talked to new immigrants. But the issue is quite deep rooted because they didn't probably know what to think of new immigrants. And Irish children also they know what England did to their country and to them long before they start going to school. So the issue is quite deep rooted. For example, in England, our grandfathers' and fathers' generation fought against the Germans, so they still have bitter feelings so you've got to be careful when you mention the G-word. But the children and grandchildren, they are not angry at the Germans because this was a one-time event in history. So Irish and Africans, they have been within the British or American system for such a long time, so the issue is so deep rooted. What I think is that the things we do, say or feel every day are habitual, so our habitual thinking patterns are passed down through generations. I think you've got to be aware of your stereotypical views or negative thinking patterns too and reframe them with historical facts or healthier views on a conscious level, otherwise it's hard to break the cycle. But I think younger generations, especially the generation Y and Z, because of the internet they are more global and borderless, and they're more relaxed and less competitive. Yeah, I think they are more educated. I think. I don't know, but that's the impression I've got. Mike: One of the things that I was thinking about was towards the end of the book you talk about the Irish that got involved in the abolition movement. Could you talk a bit about that? Miki: There are a lot of people who are against the slavery, but before Atlantic slavery trade started, Irish people have been really oppressed by England. Daniel O'Connell and all the rest, there are quite a few people who are against the oppressive regime, England or wherever. These two, Catholic emancipation and African slave emancipation, they went hand in hand. The argument they were making were basically the same. It started at the end of the 18th century and at the beginning of 19th century. They acquired Catholic emancipation first and then African slave emancipation, but England couldn't really give up the Atlantic slave trade because it was just too lucrative. And so they created this new system called apprentice system. It didn't end immediately but gradually, it wasn't very lucrative anymore because it was highly dangerous and morally wrong as well. So yeah, gradually, things developed and ended. Mike: Could you talk a bit about the apprentice system real quick? Miki: Apprentice system, it was basically English people trying to justify themselves. African slave workers, they are not used to being independent because when they were working, religion was banned, religion was highly dangerous. That's what they thought. Education, religion, and none of those empowering activities were possible, so they believed that African people need to go through stages to be independent. So basically, it's more like indentured servitude. They sort of changed the title apprentice, but what they did exactly was exactly the same. They just changed the title. But it was a gradual development. Mike: And there were Irish people at the time that came out against the apprentice system too, right? Miki: Some people, yeah, but not all of them. As I said earlier, Irish people are not homogenous. And a lot of people who are still in the Caribbean in the late 17th and early 18th century,and became quite wealthy as well. Yeah, a lot of people were against. But in reality, it was very difficult to have an opposing opinion because it was also very dangerous because a lot of people are very, very directly, indirectly involved with the business. It was all over, not just the Caribbean. They were in America as well that they are established trades, you know? There were so many people benefiting from the trade in not just the Caribbean but in mainland America and British Isles as well. So a lot of people were pretty much part of the British Empire in those days. Mike: Okay. So next, I want to talk about sources, which is my favorite thing to talk about with historians and journalists. What sources were you using to tell the story of the Caribbean Irish and how did you navigate the bias of these authors? Miki: I think there are quite a few history books out there and probably more academic than general books. This is another reason why I wanted to write something broad and sort of an overview of the Irish people who went there. I've read a lot, but I've visited local archives throughout the Caribbean and London of course and the Netherlands and Portugal as well. I used primary sources, witness accounts and diaries when I could to navigate the biases, especially when you are writing something Irish history, Irish affairs, I think you need to read widely from different sources, writers. Catholic and Protestant writers, for example, have their own perspective to explain the same historical events. The books written by revisionists, historians and third-party writers are also very important to us. So just read as much as I can and that's what I do so that you can form your own opinion writing voice, I think. Mike: Yeah, your use of sources really comes through in the book. Just the amount of names that you have in the book to start with. It's incredible how many people's stories you're able to tell. Miki: Yeah, it's interesting, you know? The local archives were absolutely brilliant because imagine it's so humid and hot, and you get to see century old documents, papers. It's just amazing. A lot of them are so unreadable, and paper changes color but still, it's just so amazing they still survive those heat and humidity. Yeah, I was amazed. Mike: It's my firm conviction that the purpose of studying history is to provide instructive lessons for the present. What historical lessons does the story of the Caribbean Irish have to teach us? Miki: Some people think this event occurred in a faraway land many, many years ago, but I think we are all connected. I'm not going into an esoteric spiritual argument here, but we can learn a lot from the Irish diaspora because the Irish diaspora is so unique because it was not a one-time event in history, but it occurred across centuries and continents involving diverse individuals, so that's why it's used as a screening device or a massive database. You can integrate a wide range of subjects such as race, ethnicity, class, gender, and social inequality and all the rest of it. For example, I visited Bucharest, the capital of Romania, and Sofia, Bulgaria a few years ago. These countries are the weakest economies within the EU, and what I noticed first was that these countries have few youngsters as many of them are gone to Germany or France, the UK where they can make more money, so it's kind of normal. But at the same time, I spotted cracks on the streets, derelict buildings in the city centers and graffiti on the wall, but no workers are left in the countries to fix those infrastructure and buildings, and the crime rate is getting higher. My initial thought was that this was a bit like Dublin in the 1950s when the Irish government wants to build their country and infrastructure. All their capable workers were in England. In the late 1950s, the Irish government had to ask the workers to come home, officially ask them to come home. They said that the economy is better. It was getting better, but not significantly. It was more like a gradual improvement. But anyway, the EU definitely needs to reform. They were talking about it because of Brexit but the COVID pandemic disrupted. So anyway, as long as these European countries belong to bigger and powerful economies, there'll be not only economic but also cultural and social consequences as well. There is a case study. We can learn a lot from the Irish experience. Mike: So, you're currently enrolled in a PhD program. What research are you working on now? Miki: I'm looking at the Irish diaspora newspaper, Irish immigrant newspaper in London that functioned as the voice of the working-class movement in England during the mid-20th century. The purpose of this newspaper was to unite two Irelands and protect Irish people's rights in Britain. What they did was they tried to bring the Irish question and working-class people together. The working-class movement means they operated with the general left wing and anti-fascist movement, Rhodes' base. They worked with left wing organs, trade unions, communist parties, labor parties, mainly with the London headquarters but in the three jurisdictions, London, Belfast, and Dublin. So this newspaper was basically a political campaign tool. This newspaper's office was also in the Kings Cross area. Right after the war, first war years, this was the only support system for Irish people in England so they helped a lot of Irish immigrants as well. Yeah, so it's a very exciting project. Mike: Miki Garcia, thank you so much for coming on The Nazi Lies Podcast to talk about the Irish slavery myth. The book again is The Caribbean Irish: How the Slavery Myth Was Made out from Chronos Books, which provides a great introductory account of Irish indentured servitude. She also has two other books on the Irish diaspora, Rebuilding London Irish migrants in Post-War Britain and The Irish Diaspora in a Nutshell both out from The History Press. You can follow Miki Garcia on twitter @mikigarcia. Thanks once again for coming on the podcast. Miki: Thank you! Mike: If you enjoyed what you heard and want to support The Nazi Lies Podcast, consider subscribing to our Patreon or making a one-time donation via Cash App or PayPal, both username Nazi Lies. [Theme song]

Mike Isaacson: Is Barack Obama a lizard? [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: Thanks for joining us for what will probably be the weirdest episode of The Nazi Lies Podcast so far. As we all know, nazis lie about a lot of things. A lot of things. Plenty of these things are obvious: the biology of race, the history of civilization, the gravity of the Holocaust. But LIZARDS? Lizards. Today we are joined by evolutionary herpetologist Laurie Vitt to talk about lizards and why it's extremely unlikely that humanity is ruled by a race of reptilian aliens. Dr. Vitt has his PhD from Arizona State University and is the George Lynn Cross Research Professor Emeritus at the University of Oklahoma. With Eric Pianka, he is the coauthor of Lizards: Windows to the Evolution of Diversity. Thanks for joining us, Dr. Vitt. Laurie Vitt: You're welcome. Mike: Okay. So before we get into the Nazi lies, I wanna talk about you and your research. How did you get into herpetology, and what has studying reptiles taught you about life on Earth? Laurie: Well, I spent the first 11 years of my life in Billings, Montana, of all places. It's kind of a neat area in that it has a set of cliffs that go along the kind of the north side of the Yellowstone River valley, and the cliffs have lots of rocks and so on. It also has lots of rattlesnakes, bullsnakes, a few lizards, a few other things. And when I was a little kid, I grew up out in the country. And I spent my time hiking around turning rocks over and seeing what I could find, and I was bringing home snakes, frogs, turtles, scorpions, centipedes and almost anything you can imagine. And I even caught my first prairie rattlesnake when I was nine years old, and I kept it for more than a year. So I was fascinated by virtually every animal I came in contact with, and I wanted to know everything I could about them. And unfortunately, most animal species have never really been thoroughly studied. When I discovered that, I thought, "Gee, this is something that might be pretty fun to do." Since I was interested in reptiles, mostly lizards and snakes, it turns out lizards are really good models for doing any kinds of biological studies. And the reasons for that include the following: they're usually common; it's relatively easy to get permits to work with them; they do almost anything that any other organism does; they're often easy to capture; they're easy to measure; it's easy to take a blood sample to get gene sequences from, and so on. And so the kind of key thing that studying lizards taught me is that ecological traits of individual species can only be understood in the evolutionary perspective. Now we know a lot about the evolutionary history and evolutionary relationships of lizards, so they're really good models for anything that one wants to do and put in an evolutionary framework. Put a lot more simply, why do animals do what they do? Mike: So do you have a favorite reptile? [Laurie laughs] Laurie: That's an interesting question. I like all of them. And just to give you an idea of how many all of them is, there are now 6,972 lizard species that have been described, and there are 3,879 snake species, and there are 201 species of things called amphisbaenians. All of these form one evolutionary group. When we think about lizards, most people think the lizard, and they have no idea what the diversity is like. The neat thing is that when you look at an evolutionary tree of lizards, snakes, and amphisbaenians, these other two groups actually radiate from within the group of things that we typically call lizard. In other words, snakes and amphisbaenians really are lizards. So that's kind of a neat little lizard fact. So I don't have a favorite reptile, I like almost all of them. Mike: Yeah. When I was reading your book, I came across in the beginning it seemed like there's a little bit of a rivalry between those who study snakes and those who study lizards. Laurie: Yeah, there is a little bit. But we're all good friends. [Laurie and Mike laugh] And so the rivalry really has more to do with just trying to do different kinds of studies with either snakes or lizards. I suspect that's where the kind of rivalry sort of comes from. But, yeah, there is a little bit. But we're all really good friends. [Mike laughs] And that's true throughout the world, by the way. Mike: Okay. So now let's get into the Nazi lies. This one is popularized by former soccer player David Icke. According to Icke, the world is governed by a race of shape-shifting lizard aliens who feed off human fear and confusion. He claims that all world religions misidentified these technologically advanced creatures as gods and that insight into the lizard alien conspiracy can be gleaned from ancient religious texts. He also interprets the movie The Matrix as a factual account of how human energy from fear and confusion is harvested by these lizard people for sustenance. So let's start small. Lizards are ectothermic or cold-blooded and can't produce their own body heat. How do lizards navigate this biological fact and why might that make maintaining a human facade difficult?  Laurie: Lizards on this planet are either active during the day or active at night depending on which group of lizards. For example, the family Gekkonidae, which is most of the geckos, most gecko species are nocturnal. Not all of them, but most of them are. And lizards that are active during the day gain heat by basking either in direct sunlight or by pressing their body against something warm like a rock. The pet trade even sells what they call hot rocks which are fake rocks with a plug-in heating element. And these allow people to keep diurnal lizards in captivity. Some lizards like geckos are nocturnal, and they're limited in distribution to warm deserts in the tropics. If a human were not able to produce their own heat, they did have to bask in the morning to get warm enough to operate during the day or they'd have to live in tropics or warm deserts and be active at night. The other thing is while inactive, whether it's a diurnal lizard at night or a nocturnal lizard in the daytime, they would be vulnerable. These creatures would be vulnerable just like inactive lizards are. Moreover, we'd be able to spot them really easily in cold days because they'd be out basking and trying to get warm. Mike: Okay. So as far as I'm aware, I've never heard of or seen Barack Obama basking. I guess maybe when he goes to his vacation home in Hawaii but not so much when he's in, say, Moscow. Okay. So Icke also makes the claims these lizard creatures are super intelligent from a human perspective. What do we know about lizard cognitions that might make this claim unlikely? Laurie: Well, we actually know quite a bit about lizard cognition. And there are no lizards that are anywhere near as intelligent as humans. And I'm going to come back to the word intelligence in a minute because it's a human-made word, but I don't know why anyone would ever expect that a hybrid of a lizard and human would be more intelligent than human. That makes no sense. So you have humans, and then you have something that's much less intelligent, and you supposedly cross them and you end up with a new thing that's more intelligent? That doesn't make any sense. Lizards are capable of learning simple things like where food is and what they might have to do to get the food. To give you an example, half an hour ago I was sitting out on my deck with a straw and some mealworms. And I was shooting mealworms to some whiptail lizards that live in my yard, and they learned pretty quickly that the food is coming from me. And so they approached closer and closer, but these are basic survival kinds of things. And these are things that all organisms do. And they have nothing to do with understanding, for example, mathematical proofs or playing a musical instrument or creating art. Only humans do these things. But there are some things that lizards do that are really astounding, and they have nothing to do with intelligence as we know it. For example, many lizards can lose and regenerate tails. We can't even regenerate more than fingertips. Many lizards have highly developed chemosensory systems involving the tongue and specialized neurosensory organs in the mouth. They use chemical cues to discriminate prey, identify their own species, and determine whether another individual is of them sex and even sexually receptive, all based on chemical cues alone. So intelligence is something we define in the context of our own behaviors. And consequently, it doesn't apply very well when talking about any animal species. Could a dog, a lizard, a frog, a snake, a cow score well in an IQ test or even take one for that matter? So this whole notion, it's so absurd that all I can do is laugh. It's just completely out in space. Mike: Out in space. [laughs] What's the smartest thing that you've seen a lizard do? Laurie: I haven't seen this, but a friend of mine trained lizards to turn his lights on in his bedroom. And he did it using food and some other sorts of things, but he was able to teach it a real simple task. The most that I've been able to do is I've got one lizard out in the yard here that the other day he came out. I blew him a mealworm, and he ate it. And then I blew him another mealworm, and he ate it. This is a lizard that I hadn't seen since last year. And he was about 25 feet from me. And then all of a sudden, he looked at me. I was sitting in a chair, and he looked at me. And then he ran right up to me, ran up my pantleg and stopped right up on my thigh, which is where I was holding a container full of mealworms, and so I just tipped the container a little bit, and he chowed down on a bunch of the mealworms. So lizards do have memories for some things and particularly food, of course. But that's true of a lot of reptiles. Turtles, for example, seem to have really good memories. I've had turtles in a pond that I had in Oklahoma that would recognize me after every winter. And so I'd go out in the yard. I fed them to start with. Then I'd go out in the yard, and they'd all migrate right to where I was on the shoreline. And they would do that first day they came out after spending the winter in the mud, and that went on for several years. Turtles learn that kind of stuff, but that's about it. The other thing about it is if you think about most of the things that humans do, the reason we can do most of these things is because we have opposable thumbs and we can hold on to things. A vast majority of lizards can't hold on to anything with their feet. And so even when a male mates with a female, they have no real way to hold on. And so what they do is they bite the skin of the female while they're copulating with it. Hands alone really have given humans the ability to do a lot of stuff that most animals would never be able to do. Mike: Speaking of biting, have you ever been bitten by a lizard? [Laurie laughs] Laurie: I've been bitten by so many lizards, you wouldn't believe it. [Mike laughs] I've been bitten by a lot of them. I've never been bitten by Gila monsters which are venomous or some of these big varanid lizards that also seem to have sort of a venom. But I've been bitten by a lot of lizards. I've had some break the skin. I've had worse bites from turtles. Lizard bites usually aren't too bad, but some of them are fairly painful. And if they're really big lizards, they could do damage with a bite. And with big lizards I've always been really careful so that I don't get bitten. And I'm the same way with snakes. I've been collecting venomous snakes in the field since I was nine years old, and I've never been bitten by one. But I've been bitten by hundreds of non venomous snakes because I'm not as careful with non venomous snakes because I know they aren't going to do anything. Mike: At least not do anything yet deadly. [Laurie laughs] Laurie: Right. [laughs] Mike: Okay. The last point I wanted to discuss is the issue of breeding. Icke claims that thousands of years ago these lizard aliens bred with humans to create a race of lizard alien demigods. Is this genetically and physiologically possible? Laurie: In a word, no. And I'll tell you why. Genetics, first of all, mammals and lizards, we're mammals. Mammals and lizards have been separated for at least 200 million years. Lizard chromosomes vary between 20 and 40. Human chromosomes, we have 46 chromosomes. There are some other animals that have 46. There's a thing called a nilgai which is an African deer-like animal. It has 46. There's a Hawaiian amphipod. It's a little thing like a shrimp that also has 46. And chromosome number really doesn't tell us much about intelligence, but they do tell us a lot about whether animals can interbreed or not. There are other organisms that have more chromosomes than we do. Tobacco has 48, potatoes have 48, water buffaloes have 48, orangutans have 48, gorillas have 48. This is why we can't interbreed with orangutans or gorillas. Striped skunks have 50. A platypus has 52, sheep have 54, red king crab has 208. So chromosomes don't tell us anything about intelligence. And so how could a lizard with at most 40 chromosomes possibly breed with a human with 46? The reason this is so ridiculous is because you can't get paired chromosomes during meiosis, which is the process by which we go from a diploid to a haploid cell for sperm and eggs. And you would end up with a haploid at 23 in a human, and you'd end up with a haploid of 48 in something with 48 or 24 in something with 48 chromosomes. So that just plain wouldn't work. You could not get the base pairs on a chromosome strand to line up during fertilization. And then the other point, mammals and lizards had been separated for so long, but his argument rests on lizard aliens arriving here from somewhere else. If the lizard aliens arrived and did this, we would have to make the ridiculous assumptions that first, lizards as we know them, had evolved somewhere else which we know is not true. And two, that these aliens could get here. Now, how could an alien lizard that has feet like lizards and no opposable thumb construct some sort of a rocket ship to get here? A third reason is that they had to have only arrived about 300,000 years ago or less because that's how long humans have been here, at least Homo sapiens. And unlike other organisms, what are the remnants of their arrival? Where are the spaceships? And if you think about chromosome numbers, going back to that, why not sheep-human hybrids? At least they have the same number of chromosomes. That would be more likely than a human-lizard chromosome. I suspect that he would argue because lizard aliens were not real lizards they could do anything. Well, I can make up anything I want to make up, but that doesn't mean it's true. And this is typical of conspiracy theorists. They make up any set of facts that fit their theory because they fabricate stories to falsify and connect known facts. Mike: Okay. And what about the physiology of reproduction? Laurie: As you said earlier, mammals are warm blooded. We call this homeothermy, and we also call it endothermy. And endothermy means that we produce our own body heat which requires most of the energy that we actually take in. And the advantage to that for mammals is that we can operate at a peak level 24 hours a day because our body temperature's really high. Well, with lizards with ectothermy, that is receiving their heat from the external environment, when it gets cold, they can barely move. And one of the things I often do in the winter is I go out and I route through things, and I find lizards and snakes that are so cold they can't move, and then I bring them in and warm them up and photograph them. And a lot of times I'll bring reptiles in and put them in the fridge to cool them down so that I can get them to sit still. So temperature is really a huge issue for these, and that's probably the biggest kind of physiological trait. But some other things that kind of don't make sense, how did these lizard aliens survive such a long trip without food necessary to operate? Eating enough food to actually maintain operative temperatures? How did they respond to millions of bacteria, viruses, and other parasites for which they have no evolutionary history? If you think about some of the things that happened with Native Americans and have happened with native cultures in other parts of the world, modern man goes in and they bring with them diseases that those groups have never experienced. And so everybody gets sick, and a lot of people die. Well, if something came to this planet from somewhere else and it had any semblance of a physiology like us or like lizards, the first thing that'd happen is bacteria, viruses, and other parasites would invade them like crazy. And they wouldn't have defenses because they didn't share an evolutionary history with all of those things. And so that whole notion, it's so ridiculous. [laughs] I can't stop from laughing. It's just really hard to believe that anybody could even say something like this. And I often wonder if these people really do believe what they rant or if they're just trying to get attention. Mike: Yeah, I don't know. He's been at it for a long time. Laurie: Yeah. Well, it's amazing the things that are carried through history for a long time that can never be verified. Think of all the religions throughout the world. None of them can verify that their so-called god exists yet people follow these groups for thousands of years. Mike: Okay. Well, Dr. Vitt, thank you so much for entertaining the absurd line of questioning that I've presented today and teaching us about lizards. You can read more about lizards and their incredible diversity in his book Lizards: Windows to the Evolution of Diversity co-authored with Eric Pianka out of University of California Press. Thank you again for coming on The Nazi Lies Podcast. Laurie: You're welcome. [Theme song]

In the final episode of the Hogsmen Podcast El Numero Uno is closing things out running solo as NPA has some shit going on. -Mikes Review of the Tomorrow War(Potential Spoilers) -Mike talks about turning 39 and the difference in turning 40 now and a while back -Talks about the show he was on July 5th -Mike talks about the last year and a half of the podcast and all the things that happened, including going back to episode 1 for using his phone to record -Mike Thanks everyone who was a part of the show (Guests, producers, listeners Etc.) -Mike previews some upcoming shows Thank you to everyone who listened. ....ADIOS

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: Software Engineering Daily podcast: https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/category/all-episodes/exclusive-content/Podcast/ 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 Thinkst. This is going to take a minute to explain, so bear with me. I linked against an early version of their tool, canarytokens.org in the very early days of my newsletter, and what it does is relatively simple and straightforward. It winds up embedding credentials, files, that sort of thing in various parts of your environment, wherever you want to; it gives you fake AWS API credentials, for example. And the only thing that these things do is alert you whenever someone attempts to use those things. It's an awesome approach. I've used something similar for years. Check them out. But wait, there's more. They also have an enterprise option that you should be very much aware of canary.tools. You can take a look at this, but what it does is it provides an enterprise approach to drive these things throughout your entire environment. You can get a physical device that hangs out on your network and impersonates whatever you want to. When it gets Nmap scanned, or someone attempts to log into it, or access files on it, you get instant alerts. It's awesome. If you don't do something like this, you're likely to find out that you've gotten breached, the hard way. Take a look at this. It's one of those few things that I look at and say, “Wow, that is an amazing idea. I love it.” That's canarytokens.org and canary.tools. The first one is free. The second one is enterprise-y. Take a look. I'm a big fan of this. More from them in the coming weeks.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at Lumigo. If you've built anything from serverless, you know that if there's one thing that can be said universally about these applications, it's that it turns every outage into a murder mystery. Lumigo helps make sense of all of the various functions that wind up tying together to build applications. It offers one-click distributed tracing so you can effortlessly find and fix issues in your serverless and microservices environment. You've created more problems for yourself; make one of them go away. To learn more, visit lumigo.io.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by ChaosSearch. As basically everyone knows, trying to do log analytics at scale with an ELK stack is expensive, unstable, time-sucking, demeaning, and just basically all-around horrible. So why are you still doing it—or even thinking about it—when there's ChaosSearch? ChaosSearch is a fully managed scalable log analysis service that lets you add new workloads in minutes, and easily retain weeks, months, or years of data. With ChaosSearch you store, connect, and analyze and you're done. The data lives and stays within your S3 buckets, which means no managing servers, no data movement, and you can save up to 80 percent versus running an ELK stack the old-fashioned way. It's why companies like Equifax, HubSpot, Klarna, Alert Logic, and many more have all turned to ChaosSearch. So if you're tired of your ELK stacks falling over before it suffers, or of having your log analytics data retention squeezed by the cost, then try ChaosSearch today and tell them I sent you. To learn more, visit chaossearch.io.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. I spent the past week guest hosting the Software Engineering Daily podcast, taking listeners over there on a tour of the clouds. Each day, I picked a different cloud and had a guest talk to me about their experiences with that cloud.Now, there was one that we didn't talk about, and we're finishing up that tour here today on Screaming in the Cloud. That cloud is the obvious one, and that is your own crappy data center. And my guest is Duckbill Group's CEO and my business partner, Mike Julian. Mike, thanks for joining me.Mike: Hi, Corey. Thanks for having me back.Corey: So, I frequently say that I started my career as a grumpy Unix sysadmin. Because it isn't like there's a second kind of Unix sysadmin you're going to see. And you were in that same boat. You and I both have extensive experience working in data centers. And it's easy sitting here on the tech coast of the United States—we're each in tech hubs cities—and we look around and yeah, the customers we talked to have massive cloud presences; everything we do is in cloud, it's easy to fall into the trap of believing that data centers are a thing of yesteryear. Are they?Mike: [laugh]. Absolutely not. I mean, our own customers have tons of stuff in data centers. There are still companies out there like Equinix, and CoreSite, and DRC—is that them? I forget the name of them.Corey: DRT. Digital Realty [unintelligible 00:01:54].Mike: Digital Realty. Yeah. These are companies still making money hand over fist. People are still putting new workloads into data centers, so yeah, we're kind of stuck with him for a while.Corey: What's fun is when I talked to my friends over in the data center sales part of the world, I have to admit, I went into those conversations early on with more than my own fair share of arrogance. And it was, “[laugh]. So, who are you selling to these days?” And the answer was, “Everyone, fool.” Because they are.People at large companies with existing data center footprints are not generally doing fire sales of their data centers, and one thing that we learned about cloud bills here at The Duckbill Group is that they only ever tend to go up with time. That's going to be the case when we start talking about data centers as well. The difference there is that it's not just an API call away to lease more space, put in some racks, buy some servers, get them racked. So, my question for you is, if we sit here and do the Hacker News—also known as the worst website on the internet—and take their first principles approach to everything, does that mean the people who are building out data centers are somehow doing it wrong? Did they miss a transformation somewhere?Mike: No, I don't think they're doing it wrong. I think there's still a lot of value in having data centers and having that sort of skill set. I do think the future is in cloud infrastructure, though. And whether that's a public cloud, or private cloud, or something like that, I think we're getting increasingly away from building on top of bare metal, just because it's so inefficient to do. So yeah, I think at some point—and I feel like we've been saying this for years that, “Oh, no, everyone's missed the boat,” and here we are saying it yet again, like, “Oh, no. Everyone's missing the boat.” You know, at some point, the boat's going to frickin' leave.Corey: From my perspective, there are advantages to data centers. And we can go through those to some degree, but let's start at the beginning. Origin stories are always useful. What's your experience working in data centers?Mike: [laugh]. Oh, boy. Most of my career has been in data centers. And in fact, one interesting tidbit is that, despite running a company that is built on AWS consulting, I didn't start using AWS myself until 2015. So, as of this recording, it's 2021 now, so that means six years ago is when I first started AWS.And before that, it was all in data centers. So, some of my most interesting stuff in the data center world was from Oak Ridge National Lab where we had hundreds of thousands of square feet of data center floor space across, like, three floors. And it was insane, just the amount of data center stuff going on there. A whole bunch of HPC, a whole bunch of just random racks of bullshit. So, it's pretty interesting stuff.I think probably the most really interesting bit I've worked on was when I was at a now-defunct company, Peak Hosting, where we had to figure out how to spin up a data center without having anyone at the data center, as in, there was no one there to do the spin up. And that led into interesting problems, like you have multiple racks of equipment, like, thousands of servers just showed up on the loading dock. Someone's got to rack them, but from that point, it all has to be automatic. So, how do you bootstrap entire racks of systems from nothing with no one physically there to start a bootstrap process? And that led us to build some just truly horrific stuff. And thank God that's someone else's problem, now. [laugh].Corey: It makes you wonder if under the hood at all these cloud providers if they have something that's a lot cleaner, and more efficient, and perfect, or if it's a whole bunch of Perl tied together with bash and hope, like we always built.Mike: You know what? I have to imagine that even at AWS at a—I know if this is true at Facebook, where they have a massive data center footprint as well—there is a lot of work that goes into the bootstrap process, and a lot of these companies are building their own hardware to facilitate making that bootstrap process easier. When you're trying to bootstrap, say, like, Dell or HP servers, the management cards only take you so far. And a lot of the stuff that we had to do was working around bugs in the HP management cards, or the Dell DRACs.Corey: Or you can wind up going with some budget whitebox service. I mean, Supermicro is popular, not that they're ultra-low budget. But yeah, you can effectively build your own. And that leads down interesting paths, too. I feel like there's a sweet spot where working on a data center and doing a build-out makes sense for certain companies.If you're trying to build out some proof of concept, yeah, do it in the cloud; you don't have to wait eight weeks and spend thousands of dollars; you can prove it out right now and spend a total of something like 17 cents to figure out if it's going to work or not. And if it does, then proceed from there, if not shut it down, and here's a quarter; keep the change. With data centers, a lot more planning winds up being involved. And is there a cutover at which point it makes sense to evacuate from a public cloud into a physical data center?Mike: You know, I don't really think so. This came up on a recent Twitter Spaces that you and I did around, at what point does it really make sense to be hybrid, or to be all-in on data center? I made the argument that a large-scale HPC does not fit cloud workloads, and someone made a comment that, like, “What is large-scale?” And to me, large-scale was always, like—so Oak Ridge was—or is famous—for having supercomputing, and they have largely been in the top five supercomputers in the world for quite some time. A supercomputer of that size is tens of thousands of cores. And they're running pretty much constant because of how expensive that stuff is to get time on. And that sort of thing would be just astronomically expensive in a cloud. But how many of those are there really?Corey: Yeah, if you're an AWS account manager listening to this and reaching out with, “No, that's not true. After committed spend, we'll wind up giving you significant discounts, and a whole bunch of credits, and jump through all these hoops.” And, yeah, I know, you'll give me a bunch of short-term contractual stuff that's bounded for a number of years, but there's no guarantee that stuff gets renewed at that rate. And let's face it. If you're running those kinds of workloads today, and already have the staff and tooling and processes that embrace that, maybe ripping all that out in a cloud migration where there's no clear business value derived isn't the best plan.Mike: Right. So, while there is a lot of large-scale HPC infrastructure that I don't think particularly fits well on the cloud, there's not a lot of that. There's just not that many massive HPC deployments out there. Which means that pretty much everything below that threshold could be a candidate for cloud workloads, and probably would be much better. One of the things that I noticed at Oak Ridge was that we had a whole bunch of SGI HPC systems laying around, and 90% of the time they were idle.And those things were not cheap when they were bought, and at the time, they're basically worth nothing. But they were idle most of the time, but when they were needed, they're there, and they do a great job of it. With AWS and GCP and Azure HPC offerings, that's a pretty good fit. Just migrate that whole thing over because it'll cost you less than buying a new one. But if I'm going to migrate Titan or Gaia from Oak Ridge over to there, yeah, some AWS rep is about to have a very nice field day. That'd just be too much money.Corey: Well, I'd be remiss as a cloud economist if I didn't point out that you can do this stuff super efficiently in someone else's AWS account.Mike: [laugh]. Yes.Corey: There's also the staffing question where if you're a large blue-chip company, you've been around for enough decades that you tend to have some revenue to risk, where you have existing processes and everything is existing in an on-prem environment, as much as we love to tell stories about the cloud being awesome, and the capability increase and the rest, yadda, yadda, yadda, there has to be a business case behind moving to the cloud, and it will knock some nebulous percentage off of your TCO—because lies, damned lies, and TCO analyses are sort of the way of the world—great. That's not exciting to most strategic-level execs. At least as I see the world. Given you are one of those strategic level execs, do you agree? Am I lacking nuance here?Mike: No, I pretty much agree. Doing a data center migration, you got to have a reason to do it. We have a lot of clients that are still running in data centers as well, and they don't move because the math doesn't make sense. And even when you start factoring in all the gains from productivity that they might get—and I stress the word might here—even when you factor those in, even when you factor in all the support and credits that Amazon might give them, it still doesn't make enough sense. So, they're still in data centers because that's where they should be for the time because that's what the finances say. And I'm kind of hard-pressed to disagree with them.Corey: While we're here playing ‘ask an exec,' I'm going to go for another one here. It's my belief that any cloud provider that charges a penny for professional services, or managed services, or any form of migration tooling or offering at all to their customers is missing the plot. Clearly, since they all tend to do this, I'm wrong somewhere. But I don't see how am I wrong or are they?Mike: Yeah, I don't know. I'd have to think about that one some more.Corey: It's an interesting point because it's—Mike: It is.Corey: —it's easy to think of this as, “Oh, yeah. You should absolutely pay people to migrate in because the whole point of cloud is that it's kind of sticky.” The biggest indicator of a big cloud bill this month is a slightly smaller one last month. And once people wind up migrating into a cloud, they tend not to leave despite all of their protestations to the contrary about multi-cloud, hybrid, et cetera, et cetera. And that becomes an interesting problem.It becomes an area—there's a whole bunch of vendors that are very deeply niched into that. It's clear that the industry as a whole thinks that migrating from data centers to cloud is going to be a boom industry for the next three decades. I don't think they're wrong.Mike: Yeah, I don't think they're wrong either. I think there's a very long tail of companies with massive footprint staying in a data center that at some point is going to get out of a data center.Corey: For those listeners who are fortunate enough not to have to come up the way that we did. Can you describe what a data center is like inside?Mike: Oh, God.Corey: What is a data center? People have these mythic ideas from television and movies, and I don't know, maybe some Backstreet Boys music video; I don't know where it all comes from. What is a data center like? What does it do?Mike: I've been in many of these over my life, and I think they really fall into two groups. One is the one managed by a professional data center manager. And those tend to be sterile environments. Like, that's the best way to describe it. They are white, filled with black racks. Everything is absolutely immaculate. There is no trash or other debris on the floor. Everything is just perfect. And it is freezingly cold.Corey: Oh, yeah. So, you're in a data center for any length of time, bring a jacket. And the soulless part of it, too, is that it's well-lit with fluorescent lights everywhere—Mike: Oh yeah.Corey: —and it's never blinking, never changing. There are no windows. Time loses all meaning. And it's strange to think about this because you don't walk in and think, “What is that racket?” But there's 10,000, 100,000 however many fans spinning all the time. It is super loud. It can clear 120 decibels in there, but it's a white noise so you don't necessarily hear it. Hearing protection is important there.Mike: When I was at Oak Ridge, we had—all of our data centers, we had a professional data center manager, so everything was absolutely pristine. And to get into any of the data centers, you had to go through a training; it was very simple training, but just, like, “These are things you do and don't do in the data center.” And when you walked in, you had to put in earplugs immediately before you walked in the door. And it's so loud just because of that, and you don't really notice it because you can walk in without earplugs and, like, “Oh, it's loud, but it's fine.” And then you leave a couple hours later and your ears are ringing. So, it's a weird experience.Corey: It's awful. I started wearing earplugs every time I went in, just because it's not just the pain because hearing loss doesn't always manifest that way. It's, I would get tired much more quickly.Mike: Oh, yeah.Corey: I would not be as sharp. It was, “What is this? Why am I so fatigued?” It's noise.Mike: Yeah. And having to remember to grab your jacket when you head down to the data center, even though it's 95 degrees outside.Corey: At some point, if you're there enough—which you probably shouldn't be—you start looking at ways to wind up storing one locally. I feel like there could be some company that makes an absolute killing by renting out parkas at data centers.Mike: Yeah, totally. The other group of data center stuff that I generally run into is the exact opposite of that. And it's basically someone has shoved a couple racks in somewhere and they just kind of hope for the best.Corey: The basement. The closet. The hold of a boat, with one particular client we work with.Mike: Yeah. That was an interesting one. So, we had a—Corey and I had a client where they had all their infrastructure in the basement of a boat. And we're [laugh] not even kidding. It's literally in the basement of a boat.Corey: Below the waterline.Mike: Yeah below the waterline. So, there was a lot of planning around, like, what if the hold gets breached? And like, who has to plan for that sort of thing? [laugh]. It was a weird experience.Corey: It turns out that was—was hilarious about that was while they were doing their cloud migration into AWS, their account manager wasn't the most senior account manager because, at that point, it was a small account, but they still stuck to their standard talking points about TCO, and better durability, and the rest, and it didn't really occur to them to come back with a, what if the boat sinks? Which is the obvious reason to move out of that quote-unquote, “data center?”Mike: Yeah. It was a wild experience. So, that latter group of just everything's an absolute wreck, like, everything—it's just so much of a pain to work with, and you find yourself wanting to clean it up. Like, install new racks, do new cabling, put in a totally new floor so you're not standing on concrete. You want to do all this work to it, and then you realize that you're just putting lipstick on a pig; it's still going to be a dirty old data center at the end of the day, no matter how much work you do to it. And you're still running on the same crappy hardware you had, you're still running on the same frustrating deployment process you've been working on, and everything still sucks, despite it looking good.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by ChaosSearch. As basically everyone knows, trying to do log analytics at scale with an ELK stack is expensive, unstable, time-sucking, demeaning, and just basically all-around horrible. So why are you still doing it—or even thinking about it—when there's ChaosSearch? ChaosSearch is a fully managed scalable log analysis service that lets you add new workloads in minutes, and easily retain weeks, months, or years of data. With ChaosSearch you store, connect, and analyze and you're done. The data lives and stays within your S3 buckets, which means no managing servers, no data movement, and you can save up to 80 percent versus running an ELK stack the old-fashioned way. It's why companies like Equifax, HubSpot, Klarna, Alert Logic, and many more have all turned to ChaosSearch. So if you're tired of your ELK stacks falling over before it suffers, or of having your log analytics data retention squeezed by the cost, then try ChaosSearch today and tell them I sent you. To learn more, visit chaossearch.io.Corey: The worst part is playing the ‘what is different here?' Game. You rack twelve servers: eleven come up fine and the twelfth doesn't.Mike: [laugh].Corey: It sounds like, okay, how hard could it be? Days. It can take days. In a cloud environment, you have one weird instance. Cool, you terminate it and start a new one and life goes on whereas, in a data center, you generally can't send back a $5,000 piece of hardware willy nilly, and you certainly can't do it same-day, so let's figure out what the problem is.Is that some sub-component in the system? Is it a dodgy cable? Is it, potentially, a dodgy switch port? Is there something going on with that node? Was there something weird about the way the install was done if you reimage the thing? Et cetera, et cetera. And it leads down rabbit holes super quickly.Mike: People that grew up in the era of computing that Corey and I did, you start learning tips and tricks, and they sound kind of silly these days, but things like, you never create your own cables. Even though both of us still remember how to wire a Cat 5 cable, we don't.Corey: My fingers started throbbing when you said that because some memories never fade.Mike: Right. You don't. Like, if you're working in a data center, you're buying premade cables because they've been tested professionally by high-end machines.Corey: And you still don't trust it. You have a relatively inexpensive cable tester in the data center, and when—I learned this when I was racking stuff the second time, it adds a bit of time, but every cable that we took out of the packaging before we plugged it in, and we tested on the cable tester just to remove that problem. And it still doesn't catch everything because, welcome to the world of intermittent cables that are marginal that, when you bend a certain way, stop working, and then when you look at them, start working again properly. Yes, it's as maddening as it sounds.Mike: Yeah. And then things like rack nuts. My fingers hurt just thinking about it.Corey: Think of them as nuts that bolts wind up screwing into but they're square and they have clips on them so they clip into the standard rack cabinets, so you can screw equipment into them. There are different sizes of them, and of course, they're not compatible with one another. And you have—they always pinch your finger and make you bleed because they're incredibly annoying to put in and out. Some vendors have quick rails, which are way nicer, but networking equipment is still stuck in the ‘90s in that context, and there's always something that winds up causing problems.Mike: If you were particularly lucky, the rack nuts that you had were pliable enough that you could pinch them and pull them out with your fingers, and hopefully didn't do too much damage. If you were particularly unlucky, you had to reach for a screwdriver to try to pry it out, and inevitably stab yourself.Corey: Or sometimes pulling it out with your fingers, it'll—like, those edges are sharp. It's not the most high-quality steel in some cases, and it's just you wind up having these problems. Oh, one other thing you learn super quickly, is first, always have a set of tools there because the one you need is the one you don't have, and the most valuable tool you'll have is a pair of wire cutters. And what you do when you find a bad cable is you cut it before throwing it away.Mike: Yep.Corey: Because otherwise someone who is very well-meaning but you will think of them as the freaking devil, will, “Oh, there's a perfectly good cable sitting here in the trash. I'll put it back with the spares.” So you think you have a failed cable you grab another one from the pile of spares—remember, this is two in the morning, invariably, and you're not thinking on all cylinders—and the problem is still there. Cut the cable when you throw it away.Mike: So, there are entire books that were written about these sorts of tips and tricks that everyone working [with 00:19:34] data center just remembers. They learned it all. And most of the stuff is completely moot now. Like, no one really thinks about it anymore. Some people are brought up in computing in such a way that they never even learned these things, which I think it's fantastic.Corey: Oh, I don't wish this on anyone. This used to be a prerequisite skill for anyone who called themselves a systems administrator, but I am astonished when I talk to my AWS friends, the remarkably senior engineers I talk to who have never been inside of an AWS data center.Mike: Yeah, absolutely.Corey: That's really cool. It also means you're completely divorced from the thing you're doing with code and the rest, and the thing that winds up keeping the hardware going. It also leads to a bit of a dichotomy where the people racking the hardware, in many cases, don't understand the workloads that are on there because if you have the programming insight, and ability, and can make those applications work effectively, you're probably going to go find a role that compensates far better than working in the data center.Mike: I [laugh] want to talk about supply chains. So, when you build a data center, you start planning about—let's say, I'm not Amazon. I'm just, like, any random company—and I want to put my stuff into a data center. If I'm going to lease someone else's data center—which you absolutely should—we're looking at about a 180-day lead time. And it's like, why? Like, that's a long time. What's—Corey: It takes that long to sign a real estate lease?Mike: Yeah.Corey: No. It takes that long to sign a real estate lease, wind up talking to your upstream provider, getting them to go ahead and run the thing—effectively—getting the hardware ordered and shipped in the right time window, doing the actual build-out once everything is in place, and I'm sure a few other things I'm missing.Mike: Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, you have all these things that have to happen, and all of them pay for-freaking-ever. Getting Windstream on the phone to begin with, to even take your call, can often take weeks at a time. And then to get them to actually put an order for you, and then do the turnup. The turnup alone might be 90 days, where I'm just, “Hey, I've bought bandwidth from you, and I just need you to come out and connect the [BLEEP] cables,” might be 90 days for them to do it.And that's ridiculous. But then you also have the hardware vendors. If you're ordering hardware from Dell, and you're like, “Hey, I need a couple servers.” Like, “Great. They'll be there next week.” Instead, if you're saying, “Hey, I need 500 servers,” they're like, “Ooh, uh, next year, maybe.” And this is even pre-pandemic sort of thing because they don't have all these sitting around.So, for you to get a large number of servers quickly, it's just not a thing that's possible. So, a lot of companies would have to buy well ahead of what they thought their needs would be, so they'd have massive amounts of unused capacity. Just racks upon racks of systems sitting there turned off, waiting for when they're needed, just because of the ordering lead time.Corey: That's what auto-scaling looks like in those environments because you need to have that stuff ready to go. If you have a sudden inrush of demand, you have to be able to scale up with things that are already racked, provisioned, and good to go. Sometimes you can have them halfway provisioned because you don't know what kind of system they're going to need to be in many cases, but that's some up-the-stack level thinking. And again, finding failed hard drives and swapping those out, make sure you pull the right or you just destroyed an array. And all these things that I just make Amazon's problem.It's kind of fun to look back at this and realize that we would get annoyed then with support tickets that took three weeks to get resolved in hardware, whereas now three hours in you and I are complaining about the slow responsiveness of the cloud vendor.Mike: Yeah, the amount of quick turnaround that we can have these days on cloud infrastructure that was just unthinkable, running in data centers. We don't run out of bandwidth now. Like, that's just not a concern that anyone has. But when you're running in a data center, and, “Oh, yeah. I've got an OC-3 line connected here. That's only going to get me”—Corey: Which is something like—what is an OC-3? That's something like, what, 20 gigabit, or—Mike: Yeah, something like that. It's—Corey: Don't quote me on that.Mike: Yeah. So, we're going to have to look that up. So, it's equivalent to a T-3, so I think that's a 45 megabit?Corey: Yeah, that sounds about reasonable, yeah.Mike: So, you've got a T-3 line sitting here in your data center. Like that's not terrible. And if you start maxing that out, well, you're maxed out. You need more? Again, we're back to the 90 to 180 day lead time to get new bandwidth.So, sucks to be you, which means you'd have to start planning your bandwidth ahead of time. And this is why we had issues like companies getting Slashdotted back in the day because when you capped the bandwidth out, well, you're capped out. That's it. That's the game.Corey: Now, you've made the front page of Slashdot, a bunch of people visited your site, and the site fell over. That was sort of the way of the world. CDNs weren't really a thing. Cloud wasn't a thing. And that was just, okay, you'd bookmark the thing and try and remember to check it later.We talked about bandwidth constraints. One thing that I think the cloud providers do—at least the tier ones—that are just basically magic is full line rate between any two instances almost always. Well, remember, you have a bunch of different racks, and at the top of every rack, there's usually a switch called—because we're bad at naming things—top-of-rack switches. And just because everything that you have plugged in can get one gigabit to that switch—or 10 gigabit or whatever it happens to be—there is a constraint in that top-of-rack switch. So yeah, one server can talk to another one in a different rack at one gigabit, but then you have 20 different servers in each rack all trying to do something like that and you start hitting constraints.You do not see that in the public cloud environments; it is subsumed away, you don't have to think about that level of nonsense. You just complain about what feels like the egregious data transfer charge.Mike: Right. Yeah. It was always frustrating when you had to order nice high-end switching gear from Cisco, or Arista, or take your pick of provider, and you got 48 ports in the top-of-rack, you got 48 servers all wired up to them—or 24 because we want redundancy on that—and that should be a gigabit for each connection, except when you start maxing it out, no, it's nowhere even near that because the switch can't handle it. And it's absolutely magical, that the cloud provider's like, “Oh, yeah. Of course, we handle that.”Corey: And you don't have to think about it at all. One other use case that I did want to hit because I know we'll get letters if we don't, where it does make sense to build out a data center, even today, is if you have regulatory requirements around data residency. And there's no cloud vendor in an area that suits. This generally does not apply to the United States, but there are a lot of countries that have data residency laws that do not yet have a cloud provider of their choice region, located in-country.Mike: Yeah, I'll agree with that, but I think that's a short-lived problem.Corey: In the fullness of time, there'll be regions everywhere. Every build—a chicken in every pot and an AWS availability zone on every corner.Mike: [laugh]. Yeah, I think it's going to be a fairly short-lived problem, which actually reminds me of even our clients that have data centers are often treating the data center as a cloud. So, a lot of them are using your favorite technology, Corey, Kubernetes, and they're treating Kubernetes as a cloud, running Kube in AWS, as well, and moving workloads between the two Kube clusters. And to them, a data center is actually not really data center; it's just a private cloud. I think that pattern works really well if you have a need to have a physical data center.Corey: And then they start doing a hybrid environment where they start expanding to a public cloud, but then they treat that cloud like just a place to run a bunch of VMs, which is expensive, and it solves a whole host of problems that we've already talked about. Like, we're bad at replacing hard drives, or our data center is located on a corner where people love to get drunk on the weekends and smash into the power pole and take out half of the racks here. Things like that great, yeah, cloud can solve that, but cloud could do a lot more. You're effectively worsening your cloud experience to improve your data center experience.Mike: Right. So, even when you have that approach, the piece of feedback that we give the client was, you have built such a thing where you have to cater to the lowest common denominator, which is the constraints that you have in the data center, which means you're not able to use AWS the way that you should be able to use it so it's just as expensive to run as a data center was. If they were to get rid of the data center, then the cloud would actually become cheaper for them and they would get more benefits from using it. So, that's kind of a business decision for how they've structured it, and I can't really fault them for it, but there are definitely some downsides to the approach.Corey: Mike, thank you so much for joining me here. If people want to learn more about what you're up to, where can they find you?Mike: You know, you can find me at duckbillgroup.com, and actually, you can also find Corey at duckbillgroup.com. We help companies lower their AWS bills. So, if you have a horrifying bill, you should chat.Corey: Mike, thank you so much for taking the time to join me here.Mike: Thanks for having me.Corey: Mike Julian, CEO of The Duckbill Group and my business partner. 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 and then challenge me to a cable-making competition.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.

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.

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

"March" Movie Madness part 3 (of 3)! For our final Justice League movie discussion, we go outside the DCEU and discuss two movies dealing with Wonder Woman's origins in very different ways.  Professor Marston and the Wonder Women tells the story of Wonder Woman's creation and also looks at the unconventional lives of her creators. Meanwhile, the 2009 animated film provides a more modern take with an all-star vocal cast.  Join us as we go down the rabbit hole that is Wonder Woman's history and discuss kink, polyamory, and BDSM. And -per usual- we swear a lot, too. Have questions/comments/concerns? Hit us up: tencenttakes@gmail.com ----more----   Jessika: I hope you realize what extremely heavy California accents we have. I hope you understand when the feedback comes in, that will be part of it! Hello and welcome to Ten Cent Takes, the podcast where we correct your comic misconceptions. One issue at a time. My name is Jessika Frazier and I am joined by my cohost, the royal robot, Mike Thompson. Mike: That's right. All my circuits are platinum or I don't know. Gold, gold plated, something. Jessika: Oh, gold plated. You've got like diamond and crusted things. They also serve a purpose being one of the sharpest items or Mike: Yeah I it. Thank you for that intro. Jessika: Of course. Well, the purpose of this podcast is to study comic books in ways that are both fun and informative. We want to look at their coolest, weirdest and silliest moments, as well as examine how they're woven into the larger fabric of pop culture and history. Now, today we're discussing the final installment of our "March" movie madness. Now I'm throwing heavy quotes around March movie madness because it is actually April. Mike: It's almost tax day at this point. Jessika: It's almost tax day. So we bled out a little bit, but we're trying to do these bi-weekly we got a little ahead of ourselves because we got so excited just to be talking about these things that we did a few more than we really anticipated in March, I would say to our listeners benefit. Mike: Yeah, sure. I concur. Jessika: So we are doing a deep dive into Wonder Woman's origins today. Now I'm not just talking about the origins of the character, but also of their creator and the reasons and motivations that drove this comic into existence. I'm excited about this. Mike: I am too. These movies were really pleasant surprises for different reasons. Jessika: I will agree with that wholeheartedly. Now, before we get into that, though. We love to do that whole one cool thing you've read or watched lately. And Mike, let's go ahead and start with you. Mike: Yeah. So I've been consuming a lot of Star Trek lately. I really enjoy the franchise in general, but I have this deep abiding passion for Deep Space Nine because my great uncle who was essentially my grandfather when I was growing up , we used to watch the show together every Sunday when we would go over to their house for dinner. So like, that was just this wonderful bonding activity with this guy who used to be a dive bomber in World War II and his very nerdy little 11-year-old nephew. I have these very treasured memories and I have the entire series on DVD of Deep Space Nine, which I will be buried with by the way. But both the entire series and the recent documentary about the show is on Amazon Prime. So I've been rewatching all of that, and I've been actually rereading some of the comics and then last week Star Trek Legends came out on a Apple Arcade and... it's fine. It's nothing special, but it's a fun distraction if you're a Trekkie who wants to just mash it up all the various characters from the different series together. So I currently have a away team with characters from the Next Generation and then Discovery and then the original series all together. And it's dumb, but it's fun. But this has led me down this rabbit hole, and I think that we should probably wind up doing an episode on Star Trek history in comics and how it actually helped shape the MCU as we know it. Jessika: I would love that. That sounds like so much fun. And I love Star Trek as well. I used to watch Star Trek with my dad. We were a Next Gen family. So I, you know, next gen and Riker jumping over chairs is like near and dear to my heart. Mike: I'm really bummed that that is not an animation and Star Trek Legends. It really makes me so grumpy. Jessika: What a miss. Such a missed opportunity Mike: What about you? What have you been reading or watching lately? Jessika: So I've been casually reading through a reprint of Giant-Size X-Men from 1975, and I say casually just kind of every once in a while I'll pick it up and I'll read through a few pages and be like, "Oh that was fun." And kind of put it back down again between whatever I'm doing. So of course you know they're they're retro comics and you know things are going to... it's me: Things are going to rub me the wrong way about some of the retro comics. Mike: A comic that's almost 40 years old possibly having some problematic elements to it? Go on. Jessika: Yeah no I try to set aside a lot of that but it is quite difficult with my very outspoken mind of mine. But one scene that really bothered me was from Storm's introduction. Professor X seeks out Storm in her native Kenya where she's legitimately saving the countryside by using her weather powers to get rid of drought. Mike: Right Jessika: But Professor X has the audacity to show up and say, "nah listen: Like I know you're helping quote unquote helping people here but I also need your help. And I'm much more important, let's be real. It's just a whole bag of yikes. Mike: Yeah I mean what year did giant size X-Men come out? Was that 75? Jessika: It was 75. Mhm. Mike: Yeah... That was the same year that we got Lois Lane turning black for a literal white savior piece of journalism. Racial sensitivity was not really a thing back then Jessika: Yeah, absolutely. And I and I do try to put myself into that mindset It's just so cringey though in this day and age to see things like that Mike: Yeah. Jessika: What I do like about it that everybody is so salty to one another. Like so salty. They're so sassy to one another. Every other page has just a roast battle between the members of the X-Men where they're like "yeah, One Eye" like Mike: I think I read a reprint of that when I was like 12 or 13 but I haven't re-read it at all recently. So I'll have to go back and check that out Jessika: I'll throw it your way. You can borrow it. It's fun. Well let's get into the meat of our episode and this was definitely a meaty topic. And I know I told you a little bit earlier I love me a good rabbit hole. Love jumping just right into them right off the top I read –more like I listened to but I mean it was a lot of time spent– three different audio books on the topic. Mike: Yeah no that's awesome I'm so excited to hear about all of Jessika: this. And the hard part then was whittling down what information I really wanted to give you. I highly recommend all of these resources and I really want to just throw them out at the top We will also throw them into the show notes. But I highly recommend -if you're interested in this topic- go read more about this because I'm not even touching the surface of these books. They are amazing. So the first one that I read was it was actually an article from smithsonian.com titled "the surprising origin story of Wonder Woman" by Jill LePore which led me to Jill LePore's larger book or I would say more extended book called The Secret History of Wonder Woman. It was also read by the author, so if you're a book on tape person, highly recommend listening to it. She's one of those people who really keeps your attention and she doesn't have that kind of drowsy lilt that some people do while they're reading, So I definitely I was able to stay really focused on it. And the last one was Wonder Woman Psychology by Trina Robbins and that had a couple of different narrators but that one was also very interesting and talked about all of the different aspects of the time and the different parts of psychology and gets more into because you know spoiler alert the author was a psychologist It does get deeper into that whole aspect of the reasons behind the comic in that way. Mike: That's a really cool and I'm really excited to hear everything that you learned because this is a topic that I had a vague awareness of but I have tried to stay as in the dark as possible for this episode because I'm really excited to learn from you about this Jessika: Let's all go on a learning journey together, Folks. What do you say. Mike: Yeah. Hop on the magic school bus kids. Jessika: Here we go. Mike: We're going to hang out with Goth Miss Frizzle. Jessika: Oh my gosh I know I'm wearing all black today and I have high bun. Very McGonigal right now. Mr Porter Um so Diana Prince is the secret identity of Wonder Woman but did you know that the creator of Wonder Woman had a secret identity himself? Well, today we're going to be discussing the creator of Wonder Woman, Charles Milton... or should I say William Moulton Marston. Marston's name, like his stories, were an amalgamation of fact and fiction his middle name mixed with that If max gains one of the co-founders of All-Star Comics and later DC, which stands for Detective Comics -fun fact: I didn't know that- where Wonder Woman made her debut. But Marston was hiding more than just a name. He had an entire life that he kept hidden from the world. William Moulton Marston was born in Massachusetts in May of 1893 to Frederick William Marston and Annie Marston. They bestowed upon him his mother's maiden name molten as a middle name, and as I've mentioned the last name he later uses as his nom du plume. By all accounts he seemed to have a easy childhood though I did hear reports that he was in the military for a stint I should say acting as a psychologist... I believe that was after his Harvard education, though He was accepted to Harvard for his advanced education and he eventually graduated and became a professor of psychology. While attending Harvard, Marston had many interests. One of them being the intelligent and motivated Elizabeth Holloway, whom he would later marry and who had been taking courses in one of the lesser quote unquote lesser universities that you know allowed women at that time. Mike: That was pretty standard at the time, right? Higher education for women was a new thing that was very looked down upon? Jessika: Oh it was incredibly new. This was the early 1900s. We're talking before 1910. That area. Women didn't have the right to vote yet which we definitely will get into. Didn't have the right to vote until 1920. That was a good few years before that point So the schools had the male schools would have a sister school basically or a lesser school . And for Harvard that was Radcliffe, which is where Holloway went And this was considered again the sister school But of course didn't have the same name and you didn't get the same degree .You still graduated from Radcliffe and women really didn't have the option to go down that actual Harvard route, which of course didn't give them an edge at all No edge Thanks a lot. Mike: Yeah what did you use a degree for back then? Jessika: I mean, nothing. What are you going to do with this degree in your home, in the kitchen? The oven doesn't need you to have a degree. It's just so gross. Mike: It's not a masters in baking roasts, Linda Jessika: And how they wished it were. You would think. Harvard acted like that. It was rough. She did however finish her education and become an lawyer with her degree being issued from Radcliffe despite petitioning multiple times to get a Harvard degree, since she was taking the same classes, they were the same classes. Mike: With the same professors, too, right? Jessika: Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. The class just had women in it instead of men That was the only difference. During college she and Marston were inseparable. One of the biographies I read stated that there was this rule that a woman could not walk or ride unaccompanied with a man However Holloway thought that was a completely stupid rule and just didn't follow it, which I love. She's like, "fuck that." Mike: That's so good. Jessika: And everything else I read about her said "fuck the rules, I do what I want." Which is so amazing for a woman in the early 1900s. I mean it's kind of an interesting concept right now let alone the 1900s. Mike: Yeah... we still have all of these societal norms that women are not supposed to go against. Jessika: Yeah. So Marston varied interests also included a search for "the truth." Quote unquote the truth. This was partially inspire Now part of what he invented I should say was inspired by an observation by Holloway that when she got mad or excited her blood pressure seemed to climb. And from that Marston created the earliest version of what we now know as the lie detector test or polygraph. The test is we know it now measures more than just blood pressure which was really the only thing he was checking on. Blood pressure in and of itself isn't going to tell you everything that you quote unquote need to know for a lie detector to be effective. That being said it's also mostly an admissible as we know it now in the US court of laws depending on the place and both parties have to agree to have it be accepted into the court case which I found I didn't know that. Yeah! Mike: I knew that growing up lie detector tests were considered to be kind of this infallible thing. And then it was like well you know you can sort of get around it by all these old wives tales of like you know you put a tack in your shoe and you press your toe against it and the pain messes up the results. And then later on I found out that they're not really great, they're not really admissible anymore but I didn't know that because I know that a lot of law enforcement still loves to rely on it. Jessika: Yeah and I think about the if you think about when you're nervous you can have a lot of different reasons for being nervous. Not because you're lying, necessarily. You could be a bad test taker and then you suddenly look like a guilty party It could be as that. Mike: I'm just thinking about all the times that I had to give public speeches. Either class presentations or later on when I was a journalist and I was moderating panels. Every time my pulse would be through the roof. Jessika: Same. Now can you imagine being somebody who is of an oppressed or a minority population who's being put into a situation where they have people of power who have them in a room and they have control and that is a really scary thing. Mike: Yeah, that sounds like a nightmare scenario. Jessika: I can imagine my heart rate going up in that situation, so having that be the measure doesn't seem like the best of ideas In my opinion. That being said, it does seem to be admissible in the court of Steve Wilkos and other daytime television shows. Mike, tell me the truth: Do you or have you ever watched those daytime shows like Maury or Jerry Springer or Steve Wilkos? Mike: Yeah, so... Not only did I watch Maury during the daytime when I was just working on stuff at school and I wanted something on in the background, but I was a staff photographer for a newspaper during a celebrity golf tournament and Maury Povich was one of the celebrity golfers. He was really nice I wound up chatting with him for a minute while he was waiting for his turn at golf. I really feel like I missed an opportunity to have him record saying that I was not the father because that was the big thing that he was doing back then was all those paternity tests. Jessika: You say that like he's not still doing that. Mike: I don't know, does he still have show? I don't have TV anymore Jessika: I think so. You know, I really just catch clips. What I'll do is if I'm working and I have to be paying attention to my work -or if I if it's not something mindless like entering data or something- I like to listen to podcasts if I can actually pay attention but if I can't I'll just put on -and I don't watch it but I'll just- put on rotating clips through Facebook or something just go through Facebook watch and just whatever comes up next comes up. And every once in a while we'll get one of those Steve Wilkos and I hear "STEEEEVE" and I'm like, "Oh here we go." And it's always it's always a lie detector test, still to this day. Mike: Was Steve the guy who got his own show sprung off of like spun off of Jerry Springer? Jessika: "sprung off Springer." Correct. Yes. Mike: My roommate and I in college loved to watch Jerry Springer at night because it was the trashiest shit and we not stop. It was like a train wreck, you couldn't look away. Which I think was generally the appeal of Jerry Springer. But it's hard to resolve that because every interview I've seen with the guy he seems like a really pleasant down to earth human being. And then I'm like but you put the trashiest shit on television and it is demonstrable the effect that you had on daytime talk shows for a long time and still to this day in certain ways but for a while everybody was aping that. Anyway, this was a tangent. Jessika: That's okay It was exactly the tangent I wanted. Mike: Maury seemed like a lovely person for all two minutes that I interacted with him, and I hope that Jerry Springer is the person that he seems to be during interviews. Jessika: Same. Well, speaking of life drama, Marston had plenty. Mike: Oh, do tell. Jessika: Yeah. He was already married to his wife the aforementioned Elizabeth -who for consistency I'm going to continue calling Holloway though she did take his name when they got married. Marston, working as a professor at Tufts which is another university, fell in love with one of his students, Olive Byrne, in 1925 and advised his wife that Byrne could either move in or Marston was leaving. Mike: Oh. Jessika: Yeah. That was what the history said So we'll talk through the movie later Mike: Yeah, 'cuz my only familiarity with this so far is what I saw in the movie. *uggggh* Jessika: That was my reaction I now I did my research prior to watching the movie for this exact reason. So I watched the movie last night. It's super fresh. Mike: Yeah I watched it yesterday afternoon and then I watched the other one which we'll get into so it was the origins of Wonder Woman and then Wonder Woman a little bit more modern incarnation. Jessika: Perfect. Yeah. Byrne interestingly enough was the niece of Margaret Sanger. Have you heard that name before Mike: Yeah. She was like one of the early women's rights crusaders. Jessika: Yeah Yup Yup She was a renowned women's rights and birth control activist along with her sister Ethel Byrne opened the first birth control clinic in the United States which is so cool Mike: Yeah, that's awesome. Jessika: Both however were arrested for the illegal distribution of contraception and Ethel Byrne almost died during a hunger strike while she was in jail. Mike: I remember reading about that like in one of my one of my history classes. I mean, that checks out. Jessika: It was bad news bears. So I didn't write this down but I'm just remembering but I did read or listened to sources that said that multiple women were arrested and went on hunger strike and they were forced feeding them It was just it was bad news. The whole thing was just bad. So this obviously was during a time when women were still fighting for the right to vote as I'd mentioned earlier. And the idea of feminism was just a twinkle of a notion. So Byrne Holloway and Marston all three lived together for years as a throuple. Super interestingly they made up a backstory for all of as a widowed relative and both Holloway and Byrne were raising Marston's children. Byrne's Children were always told that their father had passed away and did not find out about the truth of their father's identity until after his death. Mike: Wow. So he fathered children with both women, correct? Jessika: He did. Yeah He fathered I believe two with Byrne and three with Holloway. They all live together in a house and again they managed to keep it secret enough that even their children didn't know. In the same house It's so wild to me Like how you and Mike: Insane to me. Jessika: You fathered children with this woman and they didn't know. No one knew. I can't fathom that honestly. Especially in a time when everybody was up at everybody else's business. Mike: Oh yeah. It's not like we had Netflix. You needed to do invent your own drama. Jessika: You look out Mike: the window. Before Marston died because he died fairly young as I remember it. So that was the whole thing in the movie is that they got out as being in a throuple to their neighbors. Nothing? Jessika: Never happened. They didn't get in trouble at the school. They didn't get in trouble with the neighbors. None of that. It was seamless. Mike: That actually makes me really happy. Jessika: Me too Mike: I love the idea of it sounds like a relatively healthy family. Jessika: I Mike: don't know. Maybe? Jessika: Y'know from what I was hearing because we're still in 1910 we're still in the 1920s I guess at this point it's still is like Marston is Papa Marston he's still man of the house. So I don't know especially when you're looking at this whole -how it was phrased and this is just a couple of sources- but just as far as how it's phrased in this I don't know that Holloway really had a choice other than "well I could be stuck here with" I don't know if she had children at that point "I could maybe be stuck as a single mother in the 1920s or I could allow this other woman to come into my house" but what's great about that is Byrne was able to just stay home and raise the kids. So Holloway was still able to go out and have a career. Yeah She still went out and had a career And so that's where it's I have a hard time saying definitively black and white Marston was a feminist as we would call him now. Probably not. But he definitely had the leanings of that. And he definitely was far advanced for his time Mike: sure I can only imagine. Was he still teaching during this time or was he doing something else? Jessika: He did so many things. He did so many things and I'll actually get into that a little bit further. But it was such a it did seem like a good situation for everyone. Marston had multiple professional interests And Marston believed not only in equality for women, but even further he believed that society should be matriarchal... which is where he goes a little bit more like a Ooh he just kind of swings off you know Cause he's like, "no no no no we should go in the exact 180. There's no middle ground here Women should rule society." Sure right now we live with men. Let's flip it over on its head and see how it goes I guess? But would settle for equality. Mike: Speaking as a mediocre white dude I'm totally fine with this plan. Jessika: Great Let's put it into effect. Who could I call? Papa Joe? I'll bring Mike: it up at the next meeting at the next mediocre white dude club meeting Jessika: I knew you guys had meetings. The gays definitely have meetings Well yeah You know you know you know I'm like well like I'm excluding you from the LGBT community That's rude of me and my Mike: apologies. The rest of them already do already. It's fine. Jessika: To Touché. We did have that conversation earlier. Biphobia. It's a real problem Mike: Yeah It's fun. Jessika: Yeah we were talking about Marston and his wild matriarchal ideas. And his idea was that women were more thoughtful empathetic and level headed when making decisions and would be better suited to positions of leadership. And Marston is quoted as saying -and if you want us to read this quote for me: Mike: okay! " Frankly Wonder Woman is a psychological propaganda for the new type of woman who, I believe, should rule the world." Jessika: So you can kind of see where he was going with that. Obviously she's powerful, she's more powerful than most of the men that she comes across. And he really was trying to flip that on its head with this character. Mike: Yeah. There was nothing like her before that Jessika: No. Absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing. However Marston's entry into the entertainment business didn't start with feminine power of Wonder Woman but instead with the film industry and again this is early film we're talking. He was in the silent film era and then moved talkies. Mike: Golden Age. Jessika: The Golden Age. And there he wrote screenplays and later acted as the consulting psychologist for universal pictures which I didn't even know That was a thing Having a consulting psychologist makes a lot of sense Mike: Yeah it does I just had no idea that was even a role that existed back then. Jessika: Yeah I know. And back then even I know. And at this point he'd already been published, having written dozens of magazine articles and a novel about his opinions Let's just call them or his findings about psychology at the time. And it is called a novel So just keep that in mind. It's called "Emotions of People" I believe. And they do mention it briefly in the film I didn't read it. I'm sure I could jump around and do I just didn't want to get into 1920s garbage which to He was then asked in 1941 to be the consulting psychologist for DC by Maxwell Charles Gaines who was more or less the creator of comics as we know them. At the time Gaines was under fire for content that folks deemed at the time to be risque. So he hired Marston to take off some of the heat by approving the content that was going out. With Marston on the team the largest complaints that they received was the aggressive masculinity that seemed to be the theme of all of the comic books. Yeah I know. You would think that we live in this society that values men so much you would think that we'd be able to just carry on with that you one form. Mike: Yeah Especially during that era which was right when we were getting into World War II and we were going hard for those traditional masculine values Jessika: Yup we want strong men who can go out there and die, I mean fight, for us. Yes. Marston suggested that the best way to counter that idea with the critics was to create a female superhero. Now Gaines accepted the idea but told Marston he had to write the strip himself. So he did. And with the help of illustrator Harry G Peter, Wonder Woman was in essence born. She was fierce, she was strong, she had a lasso that was that made others obey. It wasn't a truth thing that we now know it as the lasso of truth It was an obedient situation. Everybody who was lassoed had to obey her. So it was more of a dominance situation, which we will absolutely get to. And it makes a little bit more sense. Although there again with his lie detector the truth also makes sense. Either way, it tracks but it was obedience. Mike: Yeah you don't say. Jessika: One of her most important qualities was that she didn't kill. That was her empathy. That was that piece of her that was more feminine than some of those other comic book characters, those typical comic book characters Mike: Yeah. Even in the early days I know Batman killed people originally. He was like a goon and I think Superman did too in his early run. I think, can't remember for sure. Jessika: I believe so And then they when they got the comics code? When it was stricter with the comics code that's when they kind of moved into less actual killing from what I was reading I believe. Mike: You know I don't know for certain but it may have been before that because they were just they're such popular characters for kids. But I'm not entirely certain but I know that the early appearances are pretty brutal. I remember Batman hanging a dude from his plane. Jessika: Well I mean Superman came out in 1939 so yeah it's early. I'm going to send you a picture Mike: Okay. Jessika: And so this is the first introduction to Wonder Woman which was seen on the cover of sensation comics Will you please describe the cover? Mike: Yeah .So it is Sensation Comics Number One, the best of the DC magazines. You see Wonder Woman I'm not sure if the sun is really enlarged or if she is just jumping in front of something that's yellow to kind of add a little color to it but she is being shot at by a bunch of what appear to be mobsters somewhere in Washington DC because the capital is there and... is that is that the Lincoln Memorial? I can't tell what other building is that has the flag. Jessika: Apparently they're right across the street from each other. Not real life. This is scale. Mike: It looks like a vaguely government building I can't tell. Jessika: Yeah supposed to be something like that Mike: But it says "featuring the sensational new adventure strip character Wonder Woman!" You got to get that exclamation point in. She's kind of jacked like even back then which I kind of love. She is wearing a truly unflattering pair of boots that are only going up to mid calf as opposed to what we know now where they're just above the knee and armored and bad-ass. But it's the outfit that actually she's still sort of rocking the day where she's got the kind of red bustier with the gold eagle on it and then she's got the bulletproof bracelets and then she's got what I can only describe it as the bottom part of a sun dress kind of skirt where it's like very flowy? As opposed to that that gladiatorial skirt that she has now. But it's very identifiably Wonder Woman. Jessika: Yeah. And it goes back and forth between this was her first debut but it wasn't her first issue. first issue she was wearing more of what people were calling underpants of this same pattern. And that's what more used to. Yeah We're used to those like little booty shorts that she's rocking. So, right off the bat: Mike if you were a critic, in 1942 what would your main complaint about this be? Just based on the cover? Mike: I don't know. They were really concerned about the violence that was being marketed towards kids so probably the gunfire. Probably the fact that she was showing too much skin. Jessika: it. She wasn't clothed enough .Oh, they didn't care about the gunfire. That was not what was that was not the problem. Gasp. The drama was that Wonder Woman was wearing far too few clothes for Puritan America. Mike: Jesus Christ. And that's actually super tame Jessika: It's really tame. When you think about other superheroes that we have nowadays especially: You've got these massive boobs that are up to her neck and this little waist and like wearing a thong. But this is so covered Mike: Yeah. A lot of modern comics have these very almost suggestive poses. Do you remember when the Avengers came out and and all of the dudes had very action-oriented poses and then Black Widow was turned so that we could see her butt? She had Jessika: her like her arm up so that you could see her boob line. Mike: Yeah. And it's a really action oriented pose and it's very matter of fact there is nothing sexualized about that, kinda love. Jessika: Marston made it a point for her to be doing action and for her to be doing sports and for her to be doing things that were very active because women weren't given that as a role. So he really wanted to present that as another facet of, "Hey, this can also be feminine. Yeah I thought so, too. And while a slight costume adjustment seemed easy enough to deal with some critics also had qualms with other aspects of the comic. Namely, the depiction of women especially our heroine being tied or chained up or left in other positions of containment. Now, Marston's intention behind this seemed to be twofold in my opinion. Part one feminism and part two I also think he was just in kinky motherfucker. Which is great. Like, that's fine no kink shame. But we're going to briefly discuss both. So part one feminism. Marston was a supporter of women's rights, as we said. He was a supporter of the right to vote and the ability to have access to contraceptives. He'd been a supporter of these movements in his own right and was particularly struck by the female suffragettes who would chain themselves to a location in protest. Chains seem to him to be the very image brought to life of how society chains down and stifles women from succeeding. Either chaining them to their family before they're wed, chaining them to their new husband, or chaining them to pregnancies that they either cannot afford or don't want. In each of these portrayals of Wonder Woman being tied down there is always the moment that she's able to break free from her restraints in triumph which is just a perfect metaphor for the modern woman being able to break free from the societal chains that still bind her. And this hope that women will be able to eventually free themselves for good. In everything I've read, you had women suffragettes chaining themselves to places in protest. Same thing with the contraceptive movement. That was a huge metaphor for both of those movements, so it would make sense that if you are portraying a feminist during that era that that might be a theme. And I think people who maybe didn't support or were unfamiliar with the movements might have something to say negatively against the imagery, especially if they didn't understand Mike: We had a lot of people back then who were really pushing for propriety and basically you can't let immoral elements affect the children. They always fucking latch on to like "think of the children. Protect the children." Fuck off. Jessika: We still do that shit. This is just like pizza gate all over again. Mike: Yeah Jessika: Pizza gate before pizza gate. Little did they know. But part two: the kink factor. Marston had a whole dominance theory that I think tells a lot more about him than it does to the human experience In general I'm not going to get deep into the theory because we both have lives but it pertains to dominance and submission at the very minimum. Mike: You don't say. Jessika: Yo I know right. Mike: What. Shock. Jessika: At this point it's pretty well established that individuals have different drives and things that excite them. But I think that Marston was looking at the world from a place of, oh I like this So everybody is like this." Which just isn't the case for everybody. Mike: Right. But that's also like a very stereotypical kind of dude attitude. Jessika: Yeah. This is my worldview and so it must be everybody's. Absolutely. Again, he's some Harvard bro. Mike: Yeah. Yeah. Jessika: You're able to just go to Harvard in 1925 like Mike: NBD. I'm Jessika: gonna Mike: to be living near there soon. Oh God. I'm going to Jessika: be visiting you soon. I've got the people there. You're fine. We'll get you there. We'll get you there. But my impression is that he assumed that everyone else was a little kinky like him. Also it needs to be stated that again in interviewing Marson's children they never saw toys, ropes, anything that he had mentioned in the comics or that were the things that were being taken as this great offense, they didn't see any of those things. So it was this was also a complete surprise to them nothing related to bondage. Mike: Yeah that's wild man. I just I think about the fact that my partner has stories about how when everyone was out of the house she would just snoop around when she was growing up. And I remember doing that too And kids get into shit. Jessika: We also grew up in the age in the era of the latchkey child, though. My parents would just and not for long periods of time it's not like they would go out of town or something. But they'd leave us and say "don't answer the door. You're not home. Don't answer the phone. We'll call and ring twice and then hang up and then call back If we want to talk to you know whatever there was a code. But there again we lived in a different time even this many years I mean it just we sound like old people every time we have this conversation. Mike: You know someone pointed out that if Back To The Future was taking place today Marty McFly would be going back to like 91. Jessika: Don't do this to me. Mike: We're old, Jess. Jessika: We're Mike: practically Jessika: this Okay Mike. This is going to seem like such a non-sequitur But have you ever had to do a DISC personality assessment for any of your offices jobs? Mike: I don't think so. The name isn't familiar but describe this to me. Jessika: Basically it's like any of those other stupid employee personality tests where they try to like "what part of the team are you? How can we use your strengths?" I'm a supervisor so I've had to go through all this crap. And it's cool. It's a cool concept but it's also like mind numbing if it's not your wheelhouse. Mike: No. So I've never taken anything like this no. Jessika: Okay So yeah you basically answered a bunch of questions about what you would do in a situation. And it's kind of one of those no wrong answers kind of tests. And then they put you into one of four different categories. So I have had to do this before and and other ones like it but I honestly can't remember what I scored and I'm not going to get into a long-winded lecture on the topic either but suffice it to say that part of that is dominance That's the D and part of it is compliance which is the C. Mike: So was this something Marston came up with? Jessika: Yeah. Marston came up with and it's we still use version of this today which is so interesting. So far he's got lie detector, check. We still kind of use it today. Steve Wilkos does. And then now he's got the DISC which I definitely have taken. Now, it doesn't look the same. The categories are not the same as when he first created them. So less kink forward I would say. But you still have those two that are vibing you know. And for those of you are you unfamiliar with the kink scene: Power dynamics in play can sometimes come in the form of having one dominant and one submissive partner. But again not everybody functions in that way. Ultimately, wonder Woman was allowed to continue as she was. Delighting readers even to this day though of course the writing has changed hands multiple times meaning that her true meaning was sometimes lost to those who were in charge of telling her story. For example once Wonder Woman entered the Justice League she was immediately made to be the secretary. And there were many times that she was relegated to staying behind because she just had so much to take care of and "oh little old me couldn't get involved in having lifting" bullshit. God damn. She's so fucking strong. She has powers and Batman doesn't. Why the fuck does he get to go on missions? Why the fuck Isn't Batman the secretary? That's my question. Oh he has money my own his Mike: power that he's rich. Jessika: God damn. Yeah. Thanks for that Ben Affleck. We know. Still like him as Batman. Mike: Yeah. I'll die on that hill he was good. Jessika: Yeah Yeah He was good There was also a point where she lost her powers completely though did gain them back, those were times that Wonder Woman didn't necessarily feel like the fierce warrior she truly is. Mike: Yeah, actually, Brian's comics -our local comic shop- the first time I went in there they had the all-new Wonder Woman issue where it's like this iconic cover where it's her tearing up I think the original version of her and it's like get ready for the all new Wonder Woman I think that's when they de-powered her. I think. I'm not certain I'm really bummed that I didn't pick that up when it was there. Jessika: The idea behind that apparently was supposed to be that would make her more human and relatable but that's not you're just taking away the things that make her a stronger character for people that look up to her. Mike: Yeah I'm sorry. Did you were you able to hear my eyes rolling out of their Jessika: I did actually Yeah no that was a really palpable eye-roll. well Marston passed away at the age of 53 of cancer So very young like you were saying. Yeah. Holloway and Byrne continue living together until they both went into the hospital around the same time in 1990. When Byrne passed away, in a different room in the same hospital at the age of 86. Mike: I Jessika: got teary writing this so I'm probably going to get teary reading it. Upon hearing the news of burns passing Holloway sang a poem by Tennyson in her hospital room. So everything I've read alludes to the idea that Holloway and Byrne were also in a relationship with each other not just the man with all of them that they did have there were women who were kind of rotating in the house. It wasn't just these two there were other women who at different periods of time lived in the house undetected by the way can we just give it up for the Marston Family. Mike: Like. How? Jessika: That's what I'm saying. I don't know, money? And the dude had his little hands in everything so he probably just knew a bunch of people I don't know How do you get away with things as a guy I literally can't even imagine. Mike: This is my friend who's coming over to assist with this thing? The question is were they just coming into visit or were they living there for periods of Jessika: time? They were living there for a parts. Yes I know me too. I know. Okay let's run through: You have a widowed relative. You could be bringing in a nanny. You could be bringing in another person who works in the house et cetera et cetera. You could be bringing in a cousin or another type of relative. I'm sure you could excuse up the yin yang. Mike: Yeah I mean you can come up with excuses but if they're like living with you for any amount of time there are those moments of small intimacies that other people will pick up on. I don't know I mean were the kids just dumb? I don't know like how that requires some serious commitment to acting I feel. Jessika: Yeah. Oh yeah. Mike: So much fucking effort. Jessika: I was just going to say that. Can you imagine? I can't. Mike: No. Jessika: The mental strain alone. Mike: Like I have one partner, I have step-kids, and I have pets and that's like that's kind of the extent of my bandwidth. Jessika: Oh okay So I am non-monogamous or Poly, polyamorous. So I do have multiple partners although I they're what I would consider like secondary partners or partners that I don't I don't live with them, I don't necessarily see them on a super regular basis but I still maintain a relationship with them. And I still consider them partners. To whatever you know effect that is. But it is a lot of work and it's so much communication and you can just tell that Marston had to have been really communicative and that whole family had to have been really communicative. Mike: They must have been. Jessika: Or else how. Mike: At the same time like that era men weren't necessarily expected to be super communicative or show a lot of emotion or be the one to provide nurturing experiences with the kids. So maybe they just didn't get a lot of exposure to the kids and were really just exposed to their mothers and the motherly figures. I mean, this is all completely uninformed speculation so don't take anything that I'm saying with even a grain of salt like this. Jessika: Oh no. Absolutely at any rate Holloway passed away in 1993 at the ripe age of 100. Mike: Oh wow. So there was a little bit Jessika: of an age difference. Around Yeah there was there was yeah. Sounds like about a little bit less than 20 years. About 14 years. But if you think about it she was in college. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: He was her teacher and they were already married. He went to I want to say that he started college like prior to 1910. And they met and she moved into the house in 1925. So that's a good 15. Mike: He would have been about he would have been about 17 and 1910 right? Based on it like he was 1893 he said? Jessika: Yes yes. Yeah. And it sounds like Holloway was born the same year. Mike: Yeah and I got to say the love story between Holloway and Byrne sounds like something straight out of a movie. Which we're about to get into. But we all want to have that partner who is with us till the bitter end and then they sing a poem in our memory. Like goddamn. Jessika: It's just so beautiful. Yeah. They had it when they live together in the house, they had adjoining rooms and this is where it's like how did your kids not know because Marston would sleep in both. How did he like literally how did they not know? No it's wild to me. And then when they were older, byrne and Holloway lived in a little two bedroom place in Tampa together. This cute place apparently. So let's talk about our reactions here. We did also watch Professor Marston and the Wonder Women which I think it's worth a watch in my just off the bat. Mike: Yeah. I really liked it a lot and it was a movie that totally flew under the radar for me when it came out. I was vaguely aware of it but I really did not know much about it before we talked about what movies we wanted to do and March being women's month it seemed like a natural conclusion after the DCEU. Jessika: Yeah. Absolutely. That train wreck. I'm sorry. Mike: I was Jessika: of We did. We did enjoy one of the movies and we enjoyed aspects of of them. I trailed off my brain wouldn't let me do it It's like no that sentence Mike: I mean we kind of enjoyed parts of the Snyder cut Jessika: We did We liked it better Mike: than I don't like we're still Jessika: bitching about the Snyder Cut Mike: Look at Jessika: this Mike: back Jessika: Goddammit. We've literally can't get away from it Zach Snyder, hit us up.. No don't. You're not going to like what you hear I'm going to get to eat It adds Zach Snyder is going to be like Mike: I want the Snyder cut of Professor Marston in the Women which will be just scenes of Luke Evans with the Women in the background and don't do anything else. Jessika: And there's no dialogue in this one at all. It's just it's just heavy looks. Mike: It's just all the scenes from that sorority scene just over and just dark, scenes. Jessika: Definitely talk about that. Oh. What did you think about the film overall. Mike: Like I said, I overall really enjoyed it. I had heard about this movie a little bit. I remember my weightlifting partner at the time was telling me about how she and her wife had gone and enjoyed it and she thought that I would really like it. And I was like, "yeah okay cool." And then it just I didn't get around to seeing it while it was out in it's very limited run in theaters. And then I don't think it ever came to any streaming platform when I was aware of it. I was really surprised by actually how much I did enjoy it. I thought it was a shockingly sweet love story and I was expecting something much more judgmental or scandalous I was really expecting a much more judgy story about the Marstons and Byrne raising an entire family as a throuple. Jessika: was too. Mike: I was wondering if the relationship was ever outed and if they ever did break up like they did in the movie because that felt kind of forced and it felt very Hollywood and I was like "all right, whatever. This is dumb." At the end where they're on their knees submitting to Byrne." Jessika: Spot on That was made up There was none of that. Mike: I still think the most offensive thing about that movie was that they tried to make me think that someone who looked like Luke Evans was responsible for Wonder Woman's creation. I love Luke Evans I think he's really a fun actor and I was really glad to see him in a real role as opposed to I saw Dracula untold in theaters. I saw I'm Oh man I I didn't see Beauty and The Beast in theaters but I've since seen it. He's one of those actors where I feel like he just needs to be given good roles. He's like Kiana Reeves where I feel like he's often typecast and just thrust into stuff that aren't really any good but he was really good in this. That said: I've seen that man shirtless so many times and I don't know a single comic creator with abs like that. On the flip side, I went into this trying to keep myself as unaware a lot of the history of Marston but I do know what he looked like in his forties and that was like a dude in his seventies. Jessika: Did you watch all at the end of the film they had all the pictures. Yeah And you're just like, "oh. Oh." Like because Byrne and Holloway also not looking like who they cast. Not even a little bit, not even at all. Mike: Okay this is mean. But I'm like yes you look like the type of people who would be in a throuple. Jessika: No. Okay, fair enough And especially here's you know what it reminded me of it reminded me of those pictures that I used to see from that era where the Women especially with those two they looked like the type who would dress up as men and go to the clubs. Mike: Absolutely Jessika: I get that. It's just a vibe I get and maybe it's just my gaydar Like my pansexual gaydar is Mike: going But I mean that's the ongoing lie that Hollywood loves to tell us is that truly sexy people are in throuples all the time. No they're fucking not. I'm bI And I was dating here in the Bay area and I would occasionally get hit on by people looking for a third and they never looked like that. Jessika: And in my experience and opinion if you go at it with the wrong attitude you're not necessarily going to get what you want out of it. And it's not going to be a genuine feeling relationship. Mike: Which I mean like that's relationships in general. Like Yeah I feel like a huge thing of any successful relationship is communications. Stay tuned listeners for our next podcast about relationships and relationship advice And I don't know I don't know where I was going with that. Jessika: Oh I was like we have a new podcast. We're four episodes into this podcast and Mike's like folks we have a new podcast. You know what I like I like your gusto. I like a motivated you Mike: I did have two quibbles about the movie. Getting back on topic. First we earlier mentioned there was no acknowledgement about the problematic nature of how Marston and Byrne's relationship began. Where he was her professor and she was his student. The movie was very fuzzy with time it was very fluid that way. So it wasn't really explained if she was still his student when the relationship began or if she was his research assistant but there was that power imbalance and their dynamic and that was deeply uncomfortable for me because it wasn't addressed. They just kinda hand waved it away. Fine. Whatever. For the movie, fine. Jessika: same way about that. Yeah It just it's gross and to your point there is a power dynamic that I was thinking about. If you are trying to please somebody who has some sort of control over you, whatever that looks like, if it's somebody who has your grades or your future career or your education or even your job... you know this could be at a job setting. If that person has power over you you're less inclined to say "no" to them. And that automatically puts you at a disadvantage. Mike: It was something that I noticed and I was a little frustrated that it wasn't addressed better. The second was that it didn't feel like we actually got enough time with Wonder Woman. The comics and the character felt more like a framing device but a framing device that we didn't really get a lot of payoff on, considering the title of the movie. I thought the scenes where he was actually in the comic office and there was a bit where they're like "Oh well, they're upset about the bondage. And they're like I feel like there's twice as much. And then he just is like I put in three times as much and he keeps walking. And and Oliver Platt was so great and I wanted more of him. For a movie that has Wonder Woman or Wonder Women in the title I just I wanted a little bit more time and acknowledgement. It felt like much more attention was paid just to their relationship with like the first two thirds of the movie. And then he goes with hat in hand to Oliver Platt's character at... was it all-star Comics? Was Jessika: that it? Mike: Yeah. I mix up all the publishers because they've all merged and come together at various. So yeah he It just it it was And especially cause you were like no he got hired to like do this to get them out of hot water now I'm like that makes much more sense. Jessika: Yeah He Mike: Considering the importance that we're led to believe that Wonder Woman will be to his story, I mean she's there. Like they do a number of things where they keep teasing us with Wonder Woman but we never really get that payoff. What about you like Jessika: I did my research on the topic prior to watching the film. So this will be mostly on what the film did or didn't do correctly kind of history with my own opinion of course sprinkled in as you'd expect from So to your point most of the drama seems to have been fabricated There's no indication that any issues with Radcliffe, like trying to boot him for indecency or with the neighbors regarding their relationship, and again even their children didn't know until after Marston's passing about their relationship. And I didn't read anything about them having split up at any point. And again I think that was just added for a forceful Hollywood dramatics play, since we're on the topic of dominance. And there again Marston was already working for Gaines when he created the idea of Wonder Woman and it was in direct relation to the voice of the critics. So he was answering the critics here. So it didn't necessarily seem like as big of a you did this thing and now we're going to make you pay. It was like well okay Right. The sections with Connie Britton -love her by the way, want more in my life just in general- and their back and forth minus all the people drama was actually pretty accurate as far as capturing the concerns of the day and what was being argued in the lobby against Wonder Woman. And then also pretty accurate in what his counterpoints were in relation to the to the comic itself. Mike: Yeah And I thought that was a smart choice to kind of make her the voice of the critics. Jessika: Yeah. That being said his relationship didn't come up at any point in this again because nobody knew about it until after the fact. So it's not like she would have been like what about those things you were indecent. Well, no that that didn't happen. That was all for dramatics. Overall I really liked it. So, again, me as a pansexual: love a good queer film and also being polyamorous or non-monogamous it was so nice seeing that to your point represented so positively, and without judgment. That was so surprising to me I really thought that there was going to be some sort of aspect from the point of view of the viewer to not want them to succeed. But the whole time you really do you're rooting for them. Mike: If you're a fan of history in comic books I think this is a great movie to go check out. My final thought is that reminded me a lot of Kinsey. Did you ever see that? It had Liam Neeson and Laura Linney in it and it's all about Kinsey, the guy created the Kinsey scale of sexuality. Jessika: Oh okay I'll have to check it out Mike: It's great. This kind of reminded me the same way where it's mostly true. It's not quite all there because they have to tszuj it up for the audiences. Jessika: Yeah, yeah. Well, let's move on to our other film that we watched which was Wonder Woman from 2009. And that was the animated origin story of Wonder Woman Do you want to give an overview of the film for us? Mike: Yeah, sure. This is one of the original DC Universe Animated Original Movies which were at the time this came out in 2009 they were still in their infancy. They'd only done three before. This one is loosely based on George Perez's acclaimed 1980s storyline called "Gods and Monsters" and it's written by Gail Simone and Michael Jelenic. Gail Simone has gotten her own amount of acclaim for writing Wonder Woman as well. The film introduces us to the Amazons who win a war against Ares and then they're granted the Island of Themiscyra and immortality in exchange for acting as Ares' jailer by the gods. Diana is later sculpted from clay and given life by the gods. This is kind of in direct opposition to the current mythos of Zeus being her deadbeat dad and then Diana lives on the Island for thousands of years until pretty much the modern day when two key events happen. Steve Trevor crashes on the Island by happenstance and then Ares stages of jailbreak. And Diana has to take Steve back to the United States and he helps her and request to stop the god of war. Jessika: And actually pretty similar to where they tried to go with the original Wonder Woman. So this was absolutely not a cartoon for children. Mike: Nooooo. Jessika: blood spattered backgrounds, fairly graphic death scenes, and three beheadings three beheadings. We're talking the head flying off and falling dramatically at someone's feet kind of beheading. And that being said I didn't particularly mind the violent nature of the animation as a movie for adults as I feel that it was done in a way that felt true to the battle and the struggle of what was happening in the storyline and it didn't feel overly gross in its depictions or its animations like just enough to give the definite impression that violence was occurring. That makes sense Ares is a super violent guy and he affects everyone around him into violence themself so that it did make sense in that way. So things I liked is that it it seemed to me like a fairly good representation of Wonder Woman's origin story as it was originally told by Marston based on what I was reading. Mike: Yeah it it felt like a very classic take on Wonder Woman's origin. And it was very familiar to someone who grew up nominally aware of her origins and reading her mini comics with her action figure and stuff like that. Jessika: One main difference was that the movie was set in seemingly present day America. Since at one point Wonder Woman ends up fighting in a mall, the fighter planes that Steve and company were flying looked modern for 2009. Marston's Wonder Woman was originally set in World War Two of course whereas the 2018 live action film with Gal Gadot was set in World War One. So we've just jumped around. Again DC is definitely not consistent. Mike: It's comic books. And DC's own in- comics timeline has been drastically reworked several times just in our lifetime. Jessika: Yeah. Yeah. And this time period change it definitely affects the vibe and political climate of American society at that time in the cartoon we're not presented with a particular war or a reason for fighting we're evidently just supposed to understand that the world of men is in constant battle every moment. Whereas in the original comic and Wonder Woman film Both took place during large global wars where it wouldn't be a far leap to present the god of war as the cause of those events. Mike: Yeah, absolutely. Jessika: Now things I didn't like cause apparently I veered into not liking and then we're continuing down that road. For someone that wasn't raised in a patriarchal society, Diana's internalized misogyny is staggering. At one point she says to Steve, "you're starting to sound like a woman" when he's discussing having feelings for her and later says to Ares, "how can you expect to beat Zeus If you can't even beat a girl." The fuck that? Mike: Which kind of goes against everything else that she does in the movie. Jessika: Yeah it directly against it. Yeah, so that was irritating. And then not only that, the president, because apparently they're in Washington DC, the president is told that they were saved by a group of armored supermodels. Which I had to rewind it and write that line down grossed. Out It's such a condescending and reductive statement to make about individuals that just saved your lives while you apparently slept through the whole situation, Mr President. And it drives home the point that even in heroism, women's worth is still viewed only in her attractiveness. Mike: Yeah there was a lot of that. Jessika: Yeah. Yeah. They also have Diana do quite a bit of killing with absolutely no thought whatsoever which is not in the original character at all. That doesn't feel very Diana. Mike: I mean, no. But at the same time I don't particularly have a problem with it but yeah Jessika: Yeah. So that was me. What about you? Were you at with that? Mike: I think I had a slightly more positive take on the movie. I mean it sounds like you still enjoyed it, right? Jessika: Oh, I liked it. I still liked it. Yeah. Mike: Part of it is just I viewed it at the time when it first came out and this was one of the first animated original movies. And it was the first one that I remember enjoying. So I think that it's definitely tinted my perspective a little bit. Jessika: You had a nostalgia factor that I didn't I hadn't seen it prior. Mike: I remember seeing the reviews for it and I was like, "Oh this looks really cool. The others that were released before that they were all, well two of the three were just straight adaptations of other you know quote unquote iconic stories So there is Superman: Doomsday which was the death and life of Superman and I did not give a shit about that movie. It was really I felt flat. Then there was Justice League: The New Frontier which is based on a really acclaimed mini series. And then there was Batman Gotham Knight which was -if I remember right- it was several different animated shorts and different animated styles. And none of them really did it for me. But the DC Animated Universe, which was helmed by Bruce Timm, so that's like the original Batman animated series from the nineties as well as the Superman series and then Justice League and then Batman Beyond or vice versa and then Justice League Unlimited, those were all incredible. And I knew that eventually we would get to the same point with the animated movies and Wonder Woman felt like that home run that I knew they'd eventually hit. So I really enjoyed the film overall and even watching it yesterday afternoon I had a blast, you know, even a decade later. I think its strongest element is that the movie clearly has zero fucks to give. That battle between the Amazons and Ares is incredibly violent and it's obvious from the first 30 seconds in that this is going to be a RIDE. And it doesn't shy away from some really tough narrative elements like where Hippolyta actually in that battle It's revealed that she kills Thrax, the son of Ares. Thrax is her child who is very heavily implied the product of rape by Jessika: Ares. Mike: Also the vocal cast is just incredible. This was 2009 Keri Russell, Nathan Fillion, Virginia Madsen, Rosario Dawson, Alfred Molina, and then Oliver Platt. They were really well-regarded actors at the time and they're still pretty big and side note Oliver Platt was in both of the movies that we watched for this Jessika: episode. I literally thought of that when you said that. Mike: he fucking steals every scene he's in. He was just this delightful villainous Hades and he's kinda gross but he's also just wonderfully sinister. I really dug that and I also really dug how it felt like a pretty faithful adaptation of the origin while still feeling fresh and fast. Like this movie is not long. That kind of leads into something that I didn't like was that It's a very short movie. It's barely over an hour long. I feel like we needed a director's cut or something because of the lines could have been fleshed out a little bit more like this is something Look Jessika: who wants director's cut now. Mike: Release the Simone cut or something, I don't know. I feel like there were a couple of sub plot lines that were kind of just glossed over. Like I mentioned Thrax is actually Diana's half-brother. I feel like maybe there might've been something more there. Maybe there wasn't, who knows. But it just it felt like something that I would have liked a little more room to breathe. And that's said, it was pretty solid. That said there were some problematic elements. Like Steve was so gross and so cringy Jessika: He kept calling her Angel and I just wanted to punch him in the jaw. Mike: Which, I mean, so that's like a thing from the comics and his other earlier incarnations but this time around it just felt gross. It felt like "babe" and you know blech. Jessika: Yeah. Yeah. He just he rolled in and was like "Oh naked ladies I'm in right place for me." Mike: And the problem is that Nathan Fillion was just too good at making him a sleazebag. Jessika: Which, love Nathan Fillion. Mike: I do too. Like, okay dude, we get it. He's kind of a gross misogynist. We don't need him to hit on Diana for the fifth time in as many minutes. Etta Candy viewing Diana as competition was also dumb. Candy's always been one of her best friends and I still think that her incarnation in the original movie was pitch perfect. And then her being this skinny little supermodel who's trying to flirt with Steve was dumb. You mentioned the other problematic misogynistic elements that I noted. the only other thing, and this wasn't an actual problem, was that I didn't realize how much better Wonder woman's costume is these days rather than the super swimsuit that we had for so long. It's funny because growing up with it, I never thought about it. And then really only in the last five years or so we've gotten a much more a

Support the show (https://www.paypal.me/plasticmodelmojo)Dave and Mike are joined by friend and guest Jim Bates, of Tacoma, Washington. We get a third perspective as we discuss the fears and other things that slow us down at the bench, with Jim throwing in his 2 cents (Canadian... which is about 1.53 cents US after conversion).Jim's Stuff:AScaleCanadianTVIPMS CanadaThe Museum of Flight (Seattle, WA)Countdown to Vegas: 2021 IPMS USA National Convention Web Site 2021 IPMS USA National Convention Trophy SponsorshipsOther Mentions:WrightConPlastic Posse Podcast Rye Field T-34/85 Group Build - Check it out and join it.Wallet Breakers:NEATFI - Mike's new task lamp for the Mojo DojoARMA Hobby - It's hurricane season in Washington state, Jim gets a big box of Polish goodness in 1/72nd scaleHannant's - Dave drops dollars at this first rate vendor in the UK.Rye Field Models - Mike also adds a new T-34 kit to the stashShout-Out Links:Skyway Model Shop, (Jim) - All plastic and among the last of the "old school" hobby shopsModel Paint Solutions, (Jim) - John Miller, an excellent airbrush resource Model Monkey, (Mike) - An interesting source for scale model ship upgradesPMM Show Supporters, (Mike)- Thanks to those who have offered their support for PMMHannant's, (Dave) - A highly recommended online retailerMore Podcast Goodness to get you through the week!Finally, please have a listen and subscribe to our fellow podcasts in the scale model space. We all have our own take on the hobby and enjoy cooperating with each other for our mutual success. Collectively, we are bringing you about 12 hours of content a month.On the BenchWeb: https://otbmodellerspodcast.libsyn.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/On-the-Bench-817919571710526/Scale Model PodcastWeb: https://scalemodelpodcast.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ScaleModelPodcast/Plastic Posse PodcastWeb: Plastic Posse PodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/PlasticPosse/Support the show (https://www.paypal.me/plasticmodelmojo)

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Mike: So Dusty, you told me that you tend to grow your own kind of plants and things, and you're into kind of greenery and into kind of like ecology.Dusty: Yeah.Mike: You grow your own plants on your balcony, is that right?Dusty: Right, yeah. Well, you know, I live in Tokyo, and the balcony gets a lot of sunlight. It was actually a pretty good growing season, so we grow a lot of herbs on our balcony, like basil, thyme, mint, or lemongrass. They grow quite well. Even coriander, we have growing right now.Mike: Wow.Dusty: It's just going well.Mike: So you use that stuff for your own cooking and everything, right?Dusty: Yeah. You can really see the difference, especially when you're making sauces and things. It just has a lot more flavor to it. We've also started growing some vegetables, so we've got carrots going, and we've got lettuce. We're going to start doing grapes in about a month or so.Mike: Wow! You must have a huge balcony.Dusty: We are lucky. We got a pretty big balcony, but it doesn't take much room. And even some things you would never expect, like goya or grapes, grow well on the balcony.Mike: Really?Dusty: Yeah.Mike: Wow!Dusty: And it's like good-Mike: I always thought goya was like a tropical kind of vegetable.Dusty: It will do okay in Tokyo.Mike: Really?Dusty: Yeah. And then the grapes, you know, the grape quality isn't very good.Mike: Okay.Dusty: But during the summer, they have leaves, and so it kind of cools down your balcony. In then in the winter, the leaves drop away, so you still get a lot of sunlight. It's kind of a very eco-friendly way of cooling your house.Mike: So what advice would you give to somebody if they wanted to, let's say, grow their own vegetables or herbs, or whatever, on their balcony?Dusty: Well for one thing, don't be scared to stack things.Mike: Okay.Dusty: Yeah. If you don't have much room, it's okay to kind of build a little shelf above one. Herbs don't need a ton of sunlight.Mike: Oh, really? Okay. Wow, I didn't know that.Dusty: So you'll be fine with that. And then also, grow things you're actually going to use. Like last year, we grew jalapeno peppers, and we grew habaneros.Mike: Wow!Dusty: Yeah. Habaneros are great. We've got tons of them, but we just couldn't eat them. It was so spicy.Mike: Oh, really?Dusty: Yeah. In the end, we eventually deep fried some of them and had like cheese poppers.Mike: You mean, you eat them like deep-fried, all straight habanero peppers?Dusty: Deep fried with cheese inside. But yeah, that was about the only way we could do it. And even just handling them, like your eyes would hurt afterwards.The other thing is be ready for bugs. Even if you're up like eight stories or nine stories, you'll be amazed how many - you'll wake up one morning and just find your plants covered in caterpillars.Mike: Really?Dusty: Yeah.Mike: Wow! I guess so. I mean, in fact, that makes sense. Insects fly, so they would eventually get themselves up there.Dusty: Yeah.Mike: Thanks a lot, Dusty. That's really interesting - fascinating stuff.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Mike: So Dusty, you told me that you tend to grow your own kind of plants and things, and you're into kind of greenery and into kind of like ecology.Dusty: Yeah.Mike: You grow your own plants on your balcony, is that right?Dusty: Right, yeah. Well, you know, I live in Tokyo, and the balcony gets a lot of sunlight. It was actually a pretty good growing season, so we grow a lot of herbs on our balcony, like basil, thyme, mint, or lemongrass. They grow quite well. Even coriander, we have growing right now.Mike: Wow.Dusty: It's just going well.Mike: So you use that stuff for your own cooking and everything, right?Dusty: Yeah. You can really see the difference, especially when you're making sauces and things. It just has a lot more flavor to it. We've also started growing some vegetables, so we've got carrots going, and we've got lettuce. We're going to start doing grapes in about a month or so.Mike: Wow! You must have a huge balcony.Dusty: We are lucky. We got a pretty big balcony, but it doesn't take much room. And even some things you would never expect, like goya or grapes, grow well on the balcony.Mike: Really?Dusty: Yeah.Mike: Wow!Dusty: And it's like good-Mike: I always thought goya was like a tropical kind of vegetable.Dusty: It will do okay in Tokyo.Mike: Really?Dusty: Yeah. And then the grapes, you know, the grape quality isn't very good.Mike: Okay.Dusty: But during the summer, they have leaves, and so it kind of cools down your balcony. In then in the winter, the leaves drop away, so you still get a lot of sunlight. It's kind of a very eco-friendly way of cooling your house.Mike: So what advice would you give to somebody if they wanted to, let's say, grow their own vegetables or herbs, or whatever, on their balcony?Dusty: Well for one thing, don't be scared to stack things.Mike: Okay.Dusty: Yeah. If you don't have much room, it's okay to kind of build a little shelf above one. Herbs don't need a ton of sunlight.Mike: Oh, really? Okay. Wow, I didn't know that.Dusty: So you'll be fine with that. And then also, grow things you're actually going to use. Like last year, we grew jalapeno peppers, and we grew habaneros.Mike: Wow!Dusty: Yeah. Habaneros are great. We've got tons of them, but we just couldn't eat them. It was so spicy.Mike: Oh, really?Dusty: Yeah. In the end, we eventually deep fried some of them and had like cheese poppers.Mike: You mean, you eat them like deep-fried, all straight habanero peppers?Dusty: Deep fried with cheese inside. But yeah, that was about the only way we could do it. And even just handling them, like your eyes would hurt afterwards.The other thing is be ready for bugs. Even if you're up like eight stories or nine stories, you'll be amazed how many - you'll wake up one morning and just find your plants covered in caterpillars.Mike: Really?Dusty: Yeah.Mike: Wow! I guess so. I mean, in fact, that makes sense. Insects fly, so they would eventually get themselves up there.Dusty: Yeah.Mike: Thanks a lot, Dusty. That's really interesting - fascinating stuff.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Mike: So Dusty, you told me that you tend to grow your own kind of plants and things, and you're into kind of greenery and into kind of like ecology.Dusty: Yeah.Mike: You grow your own plants on your balcony, is that right?Dusty: Right, yeah. Well, you know, I live in Tokyo, and the balcony gets a lot of sunlight. It was actually a pretty good growing season, so we grow a lot of herbs on our balcony, like basil, thyme, mint, or lemongrass. They grow quite well. Even coriander, we have growing right now.Mike: Wow.Dusty: It's just going well.Mike: So you use that stuff for your own cooking and everything, right?Dusty: Yeah. You can really see the difference, especially when you're making sauces and things. It just has a lot more flavor to it. We've also started growing some vegetables, so we've got carrots going, and we've got lettuce. We're going to start doing grapes in about a month or so.Mike: Wow! You must have a huge balcony.Dusty: We are lucky. We got a pretty big balcony, but it doesn't take much room. And even some things you would never expect, like goya or grapes, grow well on the balcony.Mike: Really?Dusty: Yeah.Mike: Wow!Dusty: And it's like good-Mike: I always thought goya was like a tropical kind of vegetable.Dusty: It will do okay in Tokyo.Mike: Really?Dusty: Yeah. And then the grapes, you know, the grape quality isn't very good.Mike: Okay.Dusty: But during the summer, they have leaves, and so it kind of cools down your balcony. In then in the winter, the leaves drop away, so you still get a lot of sunlight. It's kind of a very eco-friendly way of cooling your house.Mike: So what advice would you give to somebody if they wanted to, let's say, grow their own vegetables or herbs, or whatever, on their balcony?Dusty: Well for one thing, don't be scared to stack things.Mike: Okay.Dusty: Yeah. If you don't have much room, it's okay to kind of build a little shelf above one. Herbs don't need a ton of sunlight.Mike: Oh, really? Okay. Wow, I didn't know that.Dusty: So you'll be fine with that. And then also, grow things you're actually going to use. Like last year, we grew jalapeno peppers, and we grew habaneros.Mike: Wow!Dusty: Yeah. Habaneros are great. We've got tons of them, but we just couldn't eat them. It was so spicy.Mike: Oh, really?Dusty: Yeah. In the end, we eventually deep fried some of them and had like cheese poppers.Mike: You mean, you eat them like deep-fried, all straight habanero peppers?Dusty: Deep fried with cheese inside. But yeah, that was about the only way we could do it. And even just handling them, like your eyes would hurt afterwards.The other thing is be ready for bugs. Even if you're up like eight stories or nine stories, you'll be amazed how many - you'll wake up one morning and just find your plants covered in caterpillars.Mike: Really?Dusty: Yeah.Mike: Wow! I guess so. I mean, in fact, that makes sense. Insects fly, so they would eventually get themselves up there.Dusty: Yeah.Mike: Thanks a lot, Dusty. That's really interesting - fascinating stuff.

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

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In the second installment of our Incredible Exits series, we welcome Mike Jackness back to the podcast. Mike, one of our favorite guests, is here discussing the recent sale of his online business, ColorIt. Mike is a lifelong entrepreneur and hosts a podcast with a 30k listener following. On his show, he talks all things about e-commerce, email marketing, and Amazon. Mike's decision to sell this particular business was based not on struggling to grow it, but simply on the the need to offload something from his plate. He was well aware of what he'd done to grow it, and the potential for its future growth, he simply knew it was time to hand over the reins. We wanted to have Mike on to tell us firsthand how that process went, the challenges he faced, and how he eventually reached multiple offers. He shares some of the key things he did to get the business sold at 96% of the list price. We discuss how some acquisitions don't go as smoothly as others, even for someone who seems to have a great grip on how to grow and eventually sell an online business. Ths episode chronicles the sale and buying process: what Mike has done right and what he would change if he could. Episode Highlights: We hear about Mike's journey as an entrepreneur and what led him to start the Ecomcrew podcast. The factors that led him to sell one of his e-commerce businesses. Mike talks us through the 10 risk factors to take into account for e-commerce success. How Amazon can be the judge and jury when it comes to keeping your e-commerce business alive. The one thing he would go back and do differently in the transaction. The importance of planning in advance for an easier buyer transition. Why some entrepreneurs get caught up in the squirrel syndrome and often find that as they take on too much they run into trouble. Mike takes us through the launch process and how we got to the multiple with the right buyer. The importance of instilling confidence in the buyer. The inventory issue specific to this brand and how that affected the sale. Why one can't plan the perfect inventory in e-commerce business. How to find middle ground on the inventory excess in the sale and acquiescing when necessary. Why the seller makes all the difference in the sellability of the business. The way a seller should act under any circumstances.   Transcription: Mark: Joe you got to have one of our favorite podcast guests on; Mike Jackness. And Mike actually retained you or hired you to help sell one of his properties. And we get to do another episode … is this part of our Amazing Acquisitions? I don't know … our Amazing Exits I'm sorry. Joe: Incredible Exits, come on Mark get it right. Mark: My goodness, I made it up. It's a good— Joe: I don't even know what it's called. Somebody's going to tell me there's a certain term for things that flow off the tongue very well … incredible. Mark: It's almost as if I'm not paying attention to what you're doing at all. You got to have him on the podcast about selling his business. Joe: Indeed. Mark: I'd like to know about it. Joe: You know he's just an awesome human being and that made selling his business and the person buying it that more excited about it. Look, Mike is an influencer. He has a podcast where he's got 30,000 people listening to him every month and he talks about e-commerce and email marketing and Amazon. We had challenges because people are like well if Mike Jackness isn't killing it with this I don't know if I can do any better. But the reality was Mike was just simply chasing too many rabbits as he says. He had four brands inside of one seller account. He has the podcast and he has other projects going on. So he wasn't giving his full attention to this. So really the reason I wanted to have him on was to have people hear from him some of his … well-known and an influencer much larger audience in his podcast than we have what he was doing wrong. If he could go back and do it all over again how he would have changed things so that it would have been an easier process for him and we would have had … we had multiple offers but would have had a much easier process in reaching those multiple offers. And some of the key differences that he did to seal the deal. He didn't do it to seal the deal, he was just doing it anyway and it is what sealed the deal and got us under LOI at 96% of the list price. Mark: Yeah you know one of the most popular articles that I wrote on our blog back when I was doing all the blogging on Quiet Light Brokerage was the story of my own process of buying a business and in my own estimation failing at it. And frankly, as the founder of Quiet Light, it's kind of humbling to go out there and say yup I made an acquisition I completely failed but here is why. And I got so much good feedback from that saying this is great thank you for sharing these details because it really helps. So hearing from someone like Mike Jackness and his episode that you did with him is probably my favorite episode that we have that I've listened to. I don't listen to my own episodes which is why they aren't like [inaudible 00:03:51.2]. That episode from Mike Jackness in all seriousness he talks about email marketing and how he does email marketing. That's fantastic so if you haven't listened to it, go back and listen to it. It would be interesting to hear what he had as far as his own self-assessment when it comes to selling his business and some of the struggles that he had as well. And I think it might be encouraging for those of us that are out there like how are these guys doing all of it because we only hear about the successes, right? Joe: Yeah. There are challenges in here and I was … my initial plan was to do a two part series but we managed to get it all in. It's a little long folks. It's about 45 minutes or so and then the plan is to do a follow up episode about due diligence, closing, transition, and training. We may even have the buyer on and have all three of us on the podcast. Mark: It's 45 minutes? Joe: Yes. Mark: Well, I should shut up. We should get to it. Joe: Let's go to it. Joe: Hey, folks Joe Valley here from Quiet Light Brokerage and today I've got somebody that's been on before; Michael Jackness from EcomCrew. Welcome to the Quiet Light Podcast. Mike: Welcome back. Joe: Welcome back is right. You actually inspired this type of episode as I said before we recorded. Folks Mike has … when he was on before he shared his expertise on email marketing and the use of Klaviyo. Today he's actually going to be our first exit entrepreneur or Incredible Exits guest. Mike decided to list his business for sale last December. We talked about it. We got it listed. And now we're under Letter Of Intent. We're recording this on February 12th and we wanted to share Mike's direct experience so that you hear it … hear about the process, and what you should do right, what you've done right and what you do wrong, and hear from somebody other than me. Mike has been through it. He's got an audience of 30,000 that listens on a monthly basis at EcomCrew. If you're not listening to EcomCrew … I know I'm promoting another podcast but it's one of the absolute best out there. Go to EcomCrew.com they're always helping entrepreneurs in the e-commerce space. So Michael Jackness, 30 seconds just tell some folks who you are again for those that didn't listen to the first episode that we did together. Mike: I'm basically a serial entrepreneur. I started my first business when I was a kid. I did have a stint for seven years in corporate life. One of my clients did hire me but for the last 15 years, I've been doing my own thing either in affiliate marketing or e-commerce lest the 5 plus years. And when I got on e-commerce I realized that we were coming at things a little bit differently. We kind of got at it as a tech company rather than a product company. And we realized we had a lot to share. So the entire process pretty much; as you mentioned EcomCrew, even blogging, and podcasting, and telling the world about what we've been doing. But one of the things that make us unique is we also talk about all the negatives not just the positive sunshine blue smoke up your ass crap. In fact we go out of our way to talk about some of the hardships of running a business and specifically e-commerce. So yeah that's a 10,000 foot view. Joe: And in just about 30 seconds; so thanks. Yeah, I get it, I can't emphasize enough. If you are a current e-commerce owner you should listen EcomCrew as well especially the Under the Hood series that I enjoy so much and inspired the Incredible Exit series here at Quiet Light. All right Mike at one point, you came to me. You reached out I think probably around Thanksgiving or so and said you wanted to exit. Did you plan that well in advance or did you just find yourself tired and ready to move on? Mike: Yeah, there were a ton of factors that went into that initial conversation. We had a different plan. I can tell you what. We'll talk a little bit about that but the plan was to do this a little bit longer. But I actually just did a podcast about risk factors in e-commerce and we don't have 30 minutes to go over the entire episode but there were 10 risk factors that I called out. Which basically were like the amount of inventory that you have, tariffs, taxes … just kind of like a risk to reward type of thing, competition, Amazon getting involved in brands, Amazon shutting your account down, getting unbalanced to be more Amazon than not off Amazon things of this nature. And for me what I realized … I started waking up one day realizing that for us this stuff they've kind of gone a little bit out of balance. We're at a point right now as we're doing this podcast because I haven't quite done the exit yet where we have $1.3 million in inventory total company wide as we've been growing. As you know in e-commerce it's hard to get any money out of your business because we are growing it 100% per year and it's a situation where money just keeps on piling back in the business. You have a tax bill every year and without the money to even pay for that because you're plowing everything back in the inventory for growth. And we have been running at that speed for almost four years. And because of some of those other risk factors, the kind of leverage is changing a little bit. I felt like it was time that we needed to take some chips off the table. And combining that with just honestly being a little burned out; running at that speed is definitely exhausting. I found myself either dreaming about Amazon shutting my account down or waking up every morning first thing and checking my inbox and seeing if they had been shut down. Not because we do anything black hat at all but because I see things that happen out there because of EcomCrew and also [inaudible 00:09:05.1]. You hear stories of people that legitimately didn't do anything wrong but it doesn't matter because Amazon can be the judge and jury and executioner all in one. And factoring all these different things in it just … it felt like it was time. And we didn't know it when I had that initial conversation with you. I didn't know exactly what that was going to look like. At one time we had talked about selling everything. I was kind of like just in a bit of bad mood that day and then we kind of start walking through some more realistic and better options to kind of end up [inaudible 00:09:35.9]. Joe: Yeah, let's talk about that the realistic option of selling everything I have things or setup because I really want people to learn from this process and what your goals were and the challenges that we've had and some of the amazing things that you have done throughout the process as well. So the first thing we looked at was selling all four of the brands that you have. You have it under one LLC and two of the brands are doing very, very well. And two of the brands are start up brands where they're really working at a loss because you have a tendency to just focus on organic traffic and brand recognition for a series of months to a year and don't mind operating at a lost. First and foremost Mark had a podcast with somebody from a PE firm that painted this picture. He said the thing about private equity investors is … well, think about it when you were a kid. And he says you get a bag of marbles from and you try to negotiate a deal with your buddy for the bag of marbles. The first thing you want to do is reach into that bag of marbles and take out all the chipped ones. You don't want to buy the chipped marbles. And then you want to focus on the best marbles. And so when looking at your four brands, two of them were really operating at a loss so my advice right away was let's take those out of the picture. Because when you're selling a business let's say at a three time multiple and you have two brands in the bag and they're both operating at let's say negative $10,000 in discretionary earnings; that's $20,000 times three that's $60,000 off the list price of your business if you go with the multiple of discretionary earnings valuation model which is what we do in marketplace valuations. So we had to pull those two out. And then we looked at what at the time was one of the larger brands of the two. We've got ColorIt that we've talked about. We've talked about it openly and you've done presentations all over the world on your email marketing campaigns with Klaviyo and ColorIt. But the other one, different space, and we had a challenge. See one of the things that we talk about all the time are the 4 pillars of sellable businesses; age, documentation, growth, transferability. And the big thing that we had a problem there was the transferability of that particular brand. Two of the SKUs that you had which were not the largest used by any stretch, you were reselling those, right? And you reached out to your vendor to confirm that you could transfer those and what did they say? Mike: They said no. Joe: Simple as that. So that takes away one of the pillars. It makes it more complicated. But again as you said you were in a bad mood that day that we talked. A lot of emotions in selling your business and as you say in the introduction that we did for ColorIt, you've been chasing too many rabbits. When you're doing that you're getting tired, exhausted, and pulled into many different directions and often going nowhere. So we ended up setting that one aside as well and focused only on ColorIt and went with that to launch. Before we get into the initial launch multiple and things that we found that were really amazing about it we found one more challenge or maybe two. You have one LLC with all four brands under one LLC and all four brands in one seller account. What have you done since our initial conversations back in late November early December to rectify that? Mike: Let me kind of set the stage just real quick of why we got there as well because it's interesting in business. There's two phenomena that is existing, first of all, I've been in business for 15 years so I kind of knew some of the hiccups and roadblocks we might get into down the road. But I had run multiple businesses in the past. So whenever you do something and you don't like it you tend to correct for that in another way in a future endeavor whether it's a business or in personal life. And the thought of like having … we actually have more than four things going through this LLC, there are other non e-commerce stuff and some other things as well. And the thought of having six or seven different tax returns and credit cards for each business and trying to figure out how we're going to separate employees or like the lease or back in software like Skubana or you know a UPS count; all these different things like having to have them all segmented out just was not appealing to me in any way shape or form. And I was more concerned about today than tomorrow as far as operating the business. And I also had this thought process of when I'm ready to get out of e-commerce I'm going to get rid of all of it once. I'm a pretty binary kind of guy like I'm either all in or not doing it. And I thought the day that … when it came that we would get out of e-commerce we would just sell that conglomerate. But life happens and business happens and like I said some of these risk factors changed and the reality was that we wanted to pivot and change our philosophy and our business plan pretty quickly. I equate this also to like when you want to pay taxes you want to have your business show the lowest amount of money. You're trying to figure out any expense you can have. That's really good for a tax but when you go to apply for a loan it better be showing lots of income. So it's like … it's a similar kind of phenomenon where like in one part it makes sense to do one thing but in another … on the other side, it makes sense to do another. So we were kind of at that spot where it was obvious that this was going to be a problem because the things that came up in the calls over and over again were really two things. Number one shared resources of employees or other resources which I understand the challenge there. And also the fact that everything's in this one Amazon account. And let me tell you man if there was anything I can go back and do differently it would be having multiple Amazon accounts at a much earlier stage. The challenge is Amazon doesn't make this easy. They won't allow you to just create multiple accounts first of all without getting permission. And in order to get permission, you have to have a separate company. You have to have a separate … either separate ownership structure, separate EIN, separate checking account, separate credit card. All this stuff has to be 100% separated out in order for them to grant you permission to create another Amazon account. So we are going through that now and I mean what a disaster. Like we're having to … we're trying to close within about six weeks of recording this. And to hand over the account at closing we have to have just Brand A which is going to be ColorIt and the Amazon account and Brand C or B, C, D have to be out of the Amazon account and in a new account and it has to happen as seamlessly as possible which is impossible because we're … we only have inventory in Amazon. All of our inventory is on Amazon. So we're having to recall some of it and relabel it, get it into the other account. And we keep a relatively [inaudible 00:16:34.1] amount of stuff in Amazon so it's not … looking on a SKU by SKU basis it isn't that big of a deal but because we're a high seven figure seller total we're recalling truckloads with the goods from Amazon. It's not going to be cheap and when you recall stuff it gets damaged a lot of times. The stuff shows up and looks used by the time that … you're shipping it in and it's getting … someone's handling it and putting it on the shelf and they got to go take it off the shelf put it in another box and crate and when you recall stuff it doesn't come back in the best of shape. So yeah I mean it's kind of a disaster all around but this is what we've had to do to get to where we are. And moving forward they all are all going to be in separate companies. So at any point when the time comes to put Business B up for sale, we'll have it all in one clear concise company; one account and we'll just pull the trigger and be done. Joe: You know I think you had said at one point you knew what to do and you had one plan and it was to sell the entity and all the brands within it at one time. And then we found three stumbling blocks. Two of them were operating at a loss because you are focused on organic traffic and brand building. And one where two of the vendors said: “yeah no, we like you, Mike, we don't know anybody else we're not going to do this deal with anyone else”. So you ran into challenges there. And you also said if you have to make those changes someday you'll do that. And all of a sudden you woke up and someday was here and we had an action that we wanted to take right away whereas the idea of I always say don't decide to sell which is eventually you do decide to sell but plan to sell. So my little slogan there doesn't actually work all that well. But seriously though I think the thing to do is to plan it out in advance as much as possible to make it strangely enough as easy and seamless as possible for the buyer. For that person that is going to put a million dollars of their life savings on the line or two or three or 100,000. The amount doesn't matter. It's a lot of money for the person that stroking the check or sending the wire. So that's the key thing. Mike: Can I just … I want to mention one other thing if you don't mind? [inaudible 00:18:48.4] this thing. Joe: Yeah. Mike: You're asking just kind of like some of the other things that kind went wrong and we could've done better. This is stuff that's often not talked about again in entrepreneurship but the reality is is that it would have been better just to have one brand and focus on it or maybe two rather than trying to do too many things at once which is a trap that a lot of entrepreneurs get caught in. Something I tell myself all the time, I even had it in writing on a blog post like eight years ago like I won't do that again; get into too many things. Entrepreneurs are different … there are different classes of entrepreneurs but the kind of entrepreneur that I am it's the squirrel syndrome. It's always exciting to do something new rather than what you're working on. I get bored really easily. To me, the business aspects are way less about the money than the personal enjoyment and excitement part of it. And oftentimes you end up with this … you chase rabbits both will get away saying that I use all the time. But I give that advice and don't follow it as well as I should. So that's another thing that you could really take away from this if your … the existing business you have is probably the best one that you have, the same type of thing with a car like the cheapest car that you'll ever have is the one that you own right now. You are then going on and buying a new one. Or any of these types of things can be applied to other aspects of your life as well. But if you are focused on one company like you typically have all your T's crossed and I's dotted and that's how I like to run my companies because I am a bit of a perfectionist. But as you spread your resources across multiple businesses things like to fall through the cracks that make things less attractive to a buyer. And the reality is is it's not as easy as it should be to just cookie cutter your business into another one. We had a really great podcast about this a year and a half ago. It was actually something we recorded live at E-commerce Fuel Live last year back in Gohana. So I just want to throw those things out as well as just other things that to be thinking about. As you're planning your exit you should be a lot of times it's … well, I want to get in this other thing or as you're growing it's really exciting and it's infectious and you want to keep on that path because it's fun to tell everybody how fast you're growing. And everyone pats you in the back and society makes things even worse because they're always like yeah man good job and everybody is like oh good job you only grew by 5% last year because that's just how we're all wired. Which the reality is that as Dave my partner always says is that revenues are vanity and profits are sanity. Joe: Yeah. Now I love that again this is … I want people to hear from you more than me. I say his stuff all the time and you're someone that's going through it right now and coaches thousands of people on a regular basis to improve their businesses and Dave as well. The other thing that is separating out the brands and separating out the LLC does for you the seller and the potential buyer is it casts a broader net of potential buyers. And the broader the net the more interest level there is going to be in the business. And the more interest level the more likely you're going to get an offer at or close to list price. And in this case we did not say SBA prequalified, technically you can take a business like yours and go through the process and have your accountant separate all those things out and certify it. It's not a full audit and you could try to go through the process and make it SBA prequalified. But in the time frame that you and I were trying to do this, you wanted to be under Letter Of Intent by January 31st. It didn't happen. We came close but we couldn't have gone through that process because that process would have taken six to eight weeks for your attorney to do it. And given the time of year, it might have taken longer because he's in full on tax preparation now. So that's the other thing that separating out your LLC's by brand will do for you is that when you wake up one day and you want to exit it's clean, it's simple and you can do that with a lot less work. And that work Mike we … it was a lot of work in preparing the listing for sale. In the Profit & Loss statements and then in that client interview everybody's heard about it … I told my wife when I sold my business I felt like I was working harder preparing the business for sale and going through the process of getting it sold than I was actually running it. And when I was running my own I was working about 20 hours a week running the business so that tells you what that workload is like. In terms of what we did, I want to talk a little bit about the launch process and talk about the multiples and some of the things we did but you did it just absolutely right spot on. We did go out a little early the right? We talked in late November early, early December and you had a goal and I wanted to help you achieve that goal. I'm human and I think that what I probably should have done in hindsight is said no, this is probably not the best approach. We went out in I think around the 10th of December, listed the business at a pretty strong multiple. It was at a four time multiple. And went out and said Look December is going to be great. Trust us these numbers will drop to a 3.5 once the December numbers are read. And the ultimate answer we got was cool, I think I'll just wait to see if that's true. So we've got a … I think we had a phone call, maybe we had one buyer seller conference call in the month of December and then you're a man of your word and you like to under promise and over deliver. And when December numbers came in they were up 80% year over year. Mike: Yeah. Joe: I've used this analogy with a lot of folks before and they've heard me say this again you can list something at a four time multiple and if it's growing 25% year over year consistently the buyer earns their money back in 2.7 years. I did not do the math on 80% and I won't but that really got people off the fence a little bit. We updated the P&L's, got the December P&L's and then we're relaunching I think on January 8th, 9th, or 10th, in and around there. And we actually dropped the price by $75,000 too. So the multiple didn't drop to just a 3.5 it dropped to a 3.2 multiple and we relaunched. And I think we had three or four phone calls out of the gate. The goal is to have three to five in the first 30 to 45 days and one acceptable offer. We did have just two offers in this case and one was just not there. We had two or three phone calls with them. One was interesting, right? I was traveling to Dallas so I'm on a conference call with Mike and the buyer and I'm actually going through TSA security on the conference call. And thankfully Mike can talk folks. So he was talking as I put my headset down and went through security. I picked it up on the other end and you were still talking. And you had a terrible cold. Mike: Yeah, that was a pretty embarrassing call. Joe: It was great though and the thing that you do so incredibly well is you instill confidence in the buyers. You're honest. People trust you. And it made them … anybody that had the opportunity to talk with you I think wanted to make an offer if they could pull it together. But we couldn't do an SBA buyer because of that commingling issue so we were focused primarily on cash buyers. Keep in mind though that not all SBA buyers don't have the cash. Many of them do they just prefer to make their money go further with an SBA loan. So I think we were both at ECF, that's E-commerce Fuel, at the event down in New Orleans and I drove you nuts a few times saying I think I may have an offer right? Did I—? Mike: It was so funny, you texted me at the opening party I think I have an offer and then you went to bed. I think like you didn't actually have the offer yet I just think I read the text a little long but … so I was like walking around the entire thing looking like anybody know where Joe Valley is? Like I want to know where Joe Valley is. Joe: Yeah, I think I heard somebody say Joe likes to go to bed early. He doesn't stay up late at these events. He's probably in bed. And that … I felt a little embarrassed there. I'm like okay I'm getting a reputation for going bed by nine. But we ended up not going under LOI— Mike: [inaudible 00:27:07.7] morning than I did. Joe: I think I probably did. I was really hopeful that we could go under LOI while at E-commerce Fuel because that would be a great feather in your cap and mine. We would be able to have a drink there and celebrate. But it didn't quite work. It took an extra … probably four or five days. But we had some challenges with the business. We ended up getting fairly close and I'll do the math as you answer this next question in terms of that asking price; that 3.2 multiple. But we had some challenges and the big challenge was something you talked about earlier. One of these big issues that you've got is you're taking all the profits from the business and putting it back into inventory. And when you have a business that's growing at the rate that yours was that's a lot of inventory. Can you talk about that a little bit in terms of the challenges that we had there? Mike: With inventory specifically in terms with ColorIt? Joe: Yes. Mike: Yeah. And this is something that we have worked really hard on in our business and we're very [inaudible 00:28:06.7] which is that you basically want as little inventory as humanly possible at all times. I mean you don't … there's a lot of reasons for this. If you have too much inventory when something goes wrong like you're stuck with a hot potato. That always sucks but probably more importantly especially when you're in this growth phase is cash flow is the most important thing. There's this saying that's been around forever which is cash is king and there's a reason for this; for every dollar that you have an excess inventory that's a dollar that you don't have in some new product … some new product launch or some other thing that can make you more money. And every inventory business is going to go through this. There is no inventory business I think on earth that … especially when it's newer and growing at this speed that can plan inventory perfectly all the time. Either you're going to err on the side of caution of not having too much inventory and be willing to run out of SKUs because of that. Or you're going to err on the side of caution of having too much inventory and err on the side of caution of never running out of a SKU. And for me, we went with the latter because in the early days of selling on Amazon we realize that when you run out of stuff it can be really detrimental. We had one SKU that we still are trying to recover from. It's a part of this issue here with this business sale we're now we have too much inventory because we could never get it to recover back to the point where it was before. So we try to in our inventory business turn our inventory three to four times a year which means that you should have no more than three to four months of inventory at any one time. And with ColorIt that was definitely not the case. So it was not the case. I mean there's a bunch of different exceptions that put things way further out than that but there was an old legacy book manufacturer that we work with that had very high MOQ's. So if we wanted to even sell the item we had to order a year worth of it at one time. And that was a decision that we made in Q2. We had a newer product that we just started selling and it was selling really well so we've ordered more of it and again at their MOQ so we have more than 4 months of inventory there. And so the bottom line was that of the 300 … actually it was $400,000 in total inventory that we have for ColorIt both from stuff that's in stock and things that we had already placed orders for that haven't shown up yet. There was about 100 … I don't have the numbers in front of me but $100,000-ish I think of inventory that that would take longer than 12 months to sell. And so for me because I've been on both sides of the fence as both a buyer and seller of businesses and I really believe living life like don't ask others or don't do what you want to do yourself, I realize that before we even start talking to the buyer that we probably have to make some sort of concession on the inventory. It just would be unrealistic to just be like no you're going to the inventory and too bad because I wouldn't feel comfortable doing that myself. The other thing that I don't like doing is like having someone pay me with my money. So that one thing I was steadfast about was that we're not going to take financing or delay the purchase price. I want an all cash offer for the for the purchase price but the inventory component I thought the right thing to do was to pretty quickly acquiesce and come into a middle ground with a buyer. So what we had agreed to do was, first of all, there was one SKU that I admit that just doesn't sell well. It was a bad buy on us. We just rid it off 100%. It's about $8,000 dollars. They can either … they were in a trash can if they want to transfer or they can keep it and do whatever they want with. There were a couple of SKUs that I kind of conceded to that were slower movers that I felt like was going to be kind of detrimental to their business to buy at with 24 months with the inventory at face value. So what we agreed to was we'll sell you anything that we think is going take longer than 12 months within that inventory at a 50% haircut. We'll just write off half of it and you can buy it for 50% off. So now you … yes, you carrying more inventory but you're buying it at a price that makes sense to carry it. And then the third group of SKUs were things that were basically like in this 12 to 18 month window, they weren't really that low for stock, and the biggest culprit of that was this new item that we're trending higher on. So I think ultimately and I convinced the buyer ultimately especially once the Christmas season comes they aren't going to have … they aren't going to actually have more than 12 months with the inventory. So we agreed that even though our forecast shows it's going to take more than 12 months to sell it's because we were using like a January sales number for that we weren't including sales growth in that forecast and we also weren't including what I believe that was going to happen in December which is December is about 3X any other month in our business. So ultimately we wrote off $40,000 with the inventory and agree to give them 12 months financing on the inventory at 5% interest which basically I think helps normalize that situation for them. And it's also something that I can tolerate as well. Joe: Yeah, and it happened and then we succeeded with it A. because of you; the likability and trust factor. But you have something that I preach again and that's when you've got an inventory based business you should have inventory aging reports. Sophisticated buyers are going to ask for them and they're going to want to see the inventory by SKU when you bought the inventory and how old it is, how many months you've got. As Mike said you want to turn your inventory every three to four months if you can but in his situation, it was 9, 12, 18 months in some rare instances. And so on that inventory report one of the key things that your buyer Matt said that made a difference for him in sealing the steel and getting it done was the inventory aging report and the notes that you put by each SKU and right there in one of them you said this is all inventory and it's not going to sell so we'll write this off. You just acquiesced on that 8,000. He didn't ask for it. You just put it in there because you knew it was the right thing to do. And then you went line by line on every other SKU and justified the 100% value or where you needed to discount. And let me just say for everybody listening, it is rare to need to take a note on inventory. It's rare to have to discount it. But when you've got that much you've got to do the right thing. What I don't want to happen here is for buyers to go “oh well hey Jackness took a note, I'm always going to ask for a note” because that's really, really the exception rather— Mike: Like I wouldn't do that with IceWraps for instance because there's … if we were to sell that we have four months with inventory. It's really clean and smooth. It's a more established business with fewer SKUs. It doesn't have a lot of the other things that cause us to have extra inventory. And like you said I mean just doing the right thing and being realistic of both sides. I mean this is what happens … like a lot of people when they're sellers they want to be way up here when they're buyers they want to be way now here and they're just like … they have this gap in which I think that just makes them not the best of human beings right? I mean you've got to be like more in the middle and realize the person that's buying and what they're thinking and what their [inaudible 00:35:24.6] is. And conversely when you're in the sell side be thinking about as well. It's not always just about you. There is another side of the coin. And I wish our politicians are covering this a little bit as well but it's just good business it's being a good human being. It's what makes deals get done. It's just doing the right thing and being fair about it; being equitable about it. I could … I just … I would feel like a dirty shyster if I have that guy by that one SKU that I know … like he doesn't know the business as well as I do. I know that one SKU [inaudible 00:36:00.9] it's been around here for two years. No matter how hard we try to sell it, we threw it at a 50% off sale or we even did a 75% off sale around Christmas to try to get rid of some of them. People just don't like that title. It was the one title that we made out of 25, it's a pretty good track record but one title out of 25 that was just this complete failure. I'm like how could you have someone take that? That's just basically like I'm stealing from them or trying to pull the rug over their head. And you know when they discover that later which they probably will in due diligence they're not going to trust you. Joe: Yeah, exactly I was just going to say that. They are going to discover in due diligence. And I'll tell you what for folks listening, we're going to run a little bit long on this episode. I'm going to lock this all up in one episode instead of doing two series here. The due diligence process would reveal anything like that so you need to get ahead of it. You have to be a good human being. This is a transaction that has to end with two satisfied individuals or entities at the closing table; that's the buyer and the seller. It's not winner takes all because the buyer is putting their life savings on the line again and they can walk away at any time. If you fake it, lie, cheat, or steal, it is going to be discovered in due diligence. More and more folks are hiring Centurica, your buyer is. That's Chris Yates' team. Chris owns the company called Centurica. C-E-N-T-U-R-I-C-A, they do due diligence for buyers. And honestly, as a broker, I love it when they join the team because they're working for the buyer. And I have yet to see a deal go sideways on any of the listings that we've put out. What they do more than anything else is they reinstill confidence that the numbers are right, that the seller presented information, and they create a roadmap to growth. They can point out certain things where there are flaws and sometimes it's a little scary but the buyer goes oh okay that's a flaw, I can fix that. I can make this better. And it's a path growth that we aren't able to do on the client interview which is great. One other thing I just want to say that we won't get into in great detail but without a question when you plan to sell instead of decide to sell, one of the things that you should always do, your partner Dave did it, is to take a look at your cost of goods sold. And if there's a possibility that you can renegotiate your cost of goods sold 12 months out in advance and reduce that cost of goods sold, for every $10,000.00 you save you're going to wind up with at least 2 ½ to 3 ½ times that depending upon your business and the trends and whatnot. Mike, you did it but you were able to renegotiate the cost of goods sold on just one of your SKU's and you placed an order for it so was locked in and loaded and the future sales would all be locked in at that lower cost of goods sold. And you sold through all of the other stuff at a higher price. So we were able to increase your seller's discretionary earnings by a total of $43,000 on that overall. And it was just because of that one SKU where you were able to renegotiate the cost of goods sold. In hindsight Mike do you wish you had done it on all of the other SKUs as well? Mike: Yeah I mean I don't think this is necessarily a selling your business thing more than this is just good business at that time. Joe: Yeah. Mike: What I've realized again after four plus years of importing stuff from China is that I wasn't as good of a negotiator as I thought I was. And I've always thought of myself as a really good negotiator in all aspects of anything that I do in business. And we had negotiated down from the original price they gave us but it still wasn't like the Chinese price. And when you get like a really good sourcing agent or you have someone that's more in tune with the local business and customs there they'll probably get a better price. And that's what happened for us. We met somebody … and these contacts are hard to find in business. We were out there doing it all ourselves like going to the Canton Fair, walking the floor finding manufacturers, and we did that because we're never really able to really find a good sourcing agent and didn't really know any other way to go about it. But because … mostly because of EcomCrew which is one of these things where the more you get back in life a lot of times the more you get rewarded. A lot of things we do in EcomCrew we don't get anything direct for our time for what we do. Like most of the stuff is just giving people free information and giving back to the community but what I found that happens in these types of situations is that makes relationships with people and the people you meet they know people that makes relationships with other people and eventually that path led to us finding this amazing sourcing agent that not only is he helping with ColorIt but everything else that we're doing now. And he was in our office here one day and we were actually sourcing something else for our tactical brand. I wasn't even looking to resource price I was looking to source new stuff. We were just chit chatting and we have this display up on our wall of all of our products and he is like what if I try to go source this for you? What do you pay for it if I can do better when you buy it from me? And I was like well man I'm also like not just about money. I'm really about relationships. I really like the factory I work with. We've been working with them for a while. It had to be like one hell of a cost savings for me. Like if it was I'm going to save you know a couple $1,000 here and there it's not worth it for me to blow that up. But he came back and was able to reduce the price of that particular thing from … well, he reduced it by 16% is what it was; which is massive. It's like this ridiculous cost savings. And at the same time the other factory as much as I … it's so funny like I'm really big on relationships and I was really concerned about them they actually copied our product during this process and even used our [inaudible 00:41:30.2] that we had paid for and everything and released our product to someone else. Sold our product to someone else. Which we then have to go spend money on a lawsuit to fight them which we got them to stop but … so between those two things we switched. Now the switch engine is going out and repricing our stuff and that's going to end up benefiting the buyer way more than it is for us on ColorIt which is fine. But I guess the end result is you should always be looking at price. Even when you think you have the best price you probably don't. There was a great … a presentation at ECF about this as well when it came to shipping rates. I don't know if you saw Craig Gentry's presentation on FedEx and UPS when he was just like if you think you have great rates you don't. Like there's … you can still do better because there's still another … they make you feel like you're getting the best deal ever because they're really good at negotiating. And it was similar with our products and we realize that we could be saving quite a bit. I mean 16% percent is a huge difference on COGS … I mean it ends up in your net profit. It's way more than 16% percent increase rate because it's going to be SKUed. It makes you … you could just throw money around the bottom line. So yeah I mean it was massive and the timing was great because we did get some benefit. But yes I wish that we had time to go through and renegotiate all those SKUs for sure. Joe: Yeah and I think you said it best. It's just good business. It makes smart business sense. Not necessarily sorry for the exit planning and the eventual exit and sale of your business. Can you say one more time what Dave always says it's not profit it's—? Mike: Yes. Revenues are vanity and profits are sanity. Joe: Perfect. Mike: I'm sorry I'm going to go off on a tangent; another tangent. [Inaudible 00:43:05.7] I got you and just like people are like counting their chest. Like I'm a seven figure seller and well I'm an eight figure seller and I sold this stuff … no one ever goes around saying well I sold 10 million dollars of stuff last year but I actually lost money. I mean there are plenty of businesses out there that are like that. It's very easy to get in that trap because it's actually pretty easy to sell stuff online. You can just spend way too much money on advertising and you can sell stuff but the profit is what really actually matters. Joe: Absolutely and that's where these marketplace valuations are. It's on the profits so discretionary earnings. All right so look I want to read one more thing and I'm going to wrap it up. I've said that you the seller, in this case, you Mike makes a huge difference in the saleability if that's a word, of your business. How you act prior to selling the business, how you manage your business, and how you represent yourself all throughout makes an enormous difference. And the way that you handled yourself on the client interview, on the recorded interview that we did as part of the package, on the conference calls with buyers, in the inventory challenges that we had, in writing those notes there, and just acquiescing on that $8,000 of inventory that you knew was no good; it all made the difference and it's why we're under Letter Of Intent. I did the math. We're actually under Letter Of Intent at 96% of the list price of the business. Again the inventory we're doing on a note which we don't love but sometimes you have to do that. I want to just read an e-mail that you sent to Matt, your buyer within a couple of hours of when we were under Letter Of Intent to just reemphasize what's important and the way that a buyer should treat their sellers … or seller should treat their buyer. So here we go. I feel like I'm in second grade standing up and reading this— Mike: I was not planning on this being read but it's okay read it. Go on. Joe: It says, Matt … his first name is Matt we're not going to say what his last name is. I just received the signed LOI from you and wanted to take a minute to thank you for putting your faith in me and my love child ColorIt. It's been one heck of a ride but I'm ready to pass off the baton and experience a year or two of not having too much on my plate. Of course, I realize there is still a lot to accomplish to get to the finish line but I wanted to say cheers. With the growth rate of ColorIt along with some of the other fundamentals, I'm convinced this will be your best purchase to date. My goal is to make sure that it becomes a reality for you as we progress through the transition. I look forward to working with you in that regard over the next few months. Mike. Guys, that is the way to transact business. It's just the right thing to do and it feels good. And I can tell you [inaudible 00:45:45.4] 80% year over year growth in December and didn't even mention it 74% year over year growth in January. It made a huge difference and Matt making an offer at 96% of the list price. But this kind of thing, the way Mike handled himself as a professional, as a good human being in this entire process sealed the deal ultimately. So Mike, thank you. I appreciate the way that it's gone so far. I think what we'll do is have a follow up episode to talk about due diligence and the training and transition and how the transaction wound up at the end of the process with this closing that we've got if you wanted to come back on. Mike: Yeah. Can I say one thing about the letter that I wrote? Joe: Of course. Mike: Since you took the time to read it I just … I got to preach because I've been on both sides of these deals. There have been times where I've been the buyer and at that moment that you sign the LOI there's always this anxiety, right? Where you like man I'm about to jump into this thing and you don't necessarily know what you're getting … everything that you're getting yourself into. And I just wanted to let the guy know that first of all I appreciate him again like it was sincere like I appreciate him … this was like now the sales person parts over like I'm not trying to sell him anything. It's always awkward when you're saying stuff in the call part of it. It almost sounds manufactured even though I don't do that but I'm sure to them it comes off as like this guy is probably just saying this to get me to write a check. But it's done. The finish line is there from that perspective I just … and I do want it to be a success story. I want the guy to buy it and look back at these years later and feel like he made the right decision. And yeah that was really all; just kind of being sincere about it. And I think all too often again people are more way about themselves they'd be all high fiving everybody and saying that we got an LOI and celebrating their success more than thinking about what this guy's about to endeavor in. And I think that's important. Joe: I appreciate that and the last thing I'll say is what I said to everyone which is we're under Letter Of Intent. There's no guarantee. Mike: You're right; the money is not in the bank yet for sure. Joe: It's not on the bank yet. So let's have another killer month in February. We'll get through all of this. Due diligence is very detailed but again they've got Centurica doing it for them. We've got to do a lot of work but we know it would be done right. And that emotion will be left out of it as much as possible and it'd be math and logic and we'll get through it. And then we'll have you back on the podcast to maybe high five. And maybe we'll get the buyer Matt on it as well. Mike: Yeah, I think it'll be cool to have him and come join us and talk about both sides. Joe: Alright, I'm looking forward to it Mike. You're a good man I'm glad to do business with you. I look forward to hearing you back on the podcast. Mike: Thanks, Joe.   Links and Resources: ColorIt.com Mike's Podcast Email Mike Call Mike 703-216-3225      

Mike: Welcome back, server nation, to Process Server Daily, the number-one podcast for legal support professionals. I am your host, Mighty Mike, the podcast server. I'm excited about today's episode, and I look forward to knocking your socks off. Let's get right to it. Mike: Welcome back to the show, server nation. We are joined by the owner of Alaska Investigation Agency, located in Palmer, Alaska. He started out his career in the Army Reserves and transitioned into private investigation in 2001. Since then, he has owned and operated numerous investigative agencies across the country. Luke Smith, welcome to the show. Luke: Thank you, Michael. Glad to be here. Mike: Thanks. So Luke, tell us a little bit about how you got started in the industry. Luke: About 15 years ago, 16, 17 years ago, a friend of mine was a police officer in Mississippi. He invited me to go do some surveillance with him on some private cases that he was doing, and I fell in love with it. The investigations morphed into process serving, and so now I do both. Mike: That's excellent. Do you remember your first job, your first investigation job? Luke: My first investigation job, I remember it very well. It was a cheating spouse, and I lost the husband in, like, the first block of trying to follow him. Mike: But you've learned a lot since then, right? Luke: I have learned so much since then. I haven't been burned in quite a while. Knock on wood. And I like to think that I'm pretty good at what I do now. Mike: That's awesome. So we don't like to focus on the negative stuff. As humans, we get a lot out of the negative and rising out of the negative and going into the positive, like finding your path in life. And so my first question always starts out with, tell us about your worst experience working in the field. Luke: My absolute worst experience, I was working a child custody case one time, and I was part of the team that located a mother, and I helped the troopers physically take the child away from the mom. Although it was what was best for the child, it absolutely broke my heart, and I realized then that child custody was not for me. Mike: How do you deal with that, Luke? Luke: You go home, and you hug your kids a little bit tighter and a little bit longer, and you move forward. I know it was what was best for the child, but it still was just heartbreaking, and I even tear up now sometimes when I think back to that child screaming and yelling and wanting his mommy. Mike: Yeah, as a parent we always relate it to our own relationships, and you want to be able to help them. But like you said, it was probably what was best. If the mom spends a few weeks without her kid, a few months without her kid, she might turn things around. You know? Luke: Absolutely. Mike: Luke, what do you want server nation to take from your story? Luke: What I want server nation to take from that particular story is just do right by your kids. Yeah, just be good parents. Mike: That's awesome. Yeah, being good parents is a great thing, and so you can ... Being in this job, one of the beautiful things about this job is you get to see the worst of the worst and you know where things could go. I don't know. In some respects, it makes you happier. You know? Luke: It does. Mike: Let's go to the positive now, Luke. Tell me about your greatest experience working in the field. Luke: I tell you what. I did a job a couple of weeks ago, and I followed a gentleman to a restaurant, and I sat down at the bar two people away from him, and I videoed him eating lunch. And then I followed him to his hotel. Six hours later, I followed him to another restaurant, where I sat right next to him at the bar, and we had dinner together. Mike: Wow. Luke: And then I followed him back to the hotel, and I rode up the elevator with him to find out which room he was in in the hotel. In that particular job, I think I pushed it to the limits just to see how far I could go, and it was such a satisfying feeling because he never had a clue I was even there watching him. Mike: So I'm going to sound like a total new, but did you feel like a CIA agent or something? Luke: Every day. Mike: Oh, that's awesome. Luke: No, I feel that way every day. Mike: What I take most from your story is enjoy what you're doing and go after it. What do you want server nation to take from your greatest experience? Luke: Take a few risks, ask that person that you're following to hold the elevator for you, and if you're trying to find someone and serve someone, ask questions. People love to talk, and they will give you just about all the information you need if you sound like you are supposed to have that information. Mike: Interesting. So I've heard it said before that you ask a question, not a direct question, but a related question that some stranger might actually ask. Luke: Absolutely. Mike: That's a pretty cool ... Do you guys still call that sub rosa? Luke: Yes. Mike: Okay, cool. Look at me knowing all the terms. Okay. So Luke, tell me what you're working on right now that you're most excited about. Luke: I guess probably one thing that I love that I have coming up is I'm adding a canine unit to my business. Mike: That's definitely something worth being excited about. Are you getting German shepherds or ... Luke: I'm getting Belgian Malinois. And actually, I have the opportunity to hire a handler that already has two Mals that are already trained. Mike: Wow. Luke: So I'm super excited about that. Mike: So Luke, tell me, why would you need a canine unit? And I think I know the answer, but could you just tell the audience, as a private investigator, what would you use a canine unit for? Luke: There's so many different uses for a canine. Here recently, Alaska has become one of the states that marijuana is now legal. However, you have a lot of corporations up here that it's still against company policy. So we can run the dogs through the companies to ensure that the employees are not breaking policy. There's no law enforcement side to it, but we are not law enforcement officers, so that's okay. The other area is we found that there are a lot of real estate agents that will have us run the dog through a house to make sure that there's no drugs in the house or there was no meth lab in the house or anything like that, just to limit their liability. Mike: Oh, I never thought about that perspective. Just the civil service. Luke: Sure, yeah, absolutely. So we're really excited to get that up and running. We've already nailed down a few contracts, and so we're really excited about that being a part of our business. Mike: Well, that's definitely worth being excited about. I am excited to hear about how you go and serve people on a snowmobile. How does that happen? Luke: Yeah. So Alaska offers unique challenges to the lower 48. Where are you from, Michael? Mike: I'm from New Mexico, but I'm based in Chico right now, in Chico, California. Luke: We're the largest ... obviously, the largest state in the United States. Here's a good comparison. Denver, Colorado, has one and a half million people. Alaska, there's 700,000 people. So we're the largest state in America, but we have the fewest people per acre or per square mile even of any other state. And so of course, if you call me and say, "Hey, what counties do you serve?" we don't have counties. We have boroughs. And we're statewide, but let's say, for instance, I serve the Matanuska-Susitna Borough. The Matanuska-Susitna Borough is the size of West Virginia, so we have maybe 300,000 people that live in the borough. And so if you could imagine West Virginia and 300,000 people, they're pretty spread out. Mike: Wow. Luke: So there are tons, I mean, hundreds of villages across Alaska that are only accessible in the summertime via plane or boat or a four-wheeler. In the wintertime, you either take a plane or a dog sled or a snow machine. I mean, that's just part of what we do, and we have planes and snow machines and four-wheelers all at our disposal for serving papers and working cases. Mike: That's why you feel like a CIA agent when you're out there because you're in planes and ... You ever jump out of a plane to go serve someone? Luke: No. Mike: Come on! Luke: No. I did jump off of a four-wheeler once. Mike: Wow! And then I heard something about a moose chasing you. Luke: We have wildlife scattered across Alaska. And inside the city of Anchorage, there's a very large population of moose. I've been chased by moose. I've turned corners and been staring a moose face to face, and you just slowly back away. You don't need that 1,800-pound animal trying to trample you. We have bears that you have to deal with sometimes. Luke: So obviously, everywhere we go, we're armed to the teeth, ready for really the wildlife, not the people. But yeah, I've been chased by moose. I've never been chased by wolves, but I've felt them kind of breathing down my neck, if you will. That one was interesting, a little bit scary. The moose aren't really scary. You just know what to expect from them, and you respect them. This was their land first, so we're just visitors on their land anyway, and they believe that. Mike: It's the truth. Luke: Yes. I have video of moose walking down the street in Anchorage in the middle of traffic, and they just do not care. Mike: That is awesome. Server nation, Luke has been dropping some major value bombs on us today, telling us all about Alaska and the crazy private investigation stuff that he's got going on, from the canines to the planes and the quads, you name it. But prepare yourself, because we're headed into the rapid-fire round right after a word from our sponsors. Recording: Server nation, I know you're with the times, and you want to do whatever you can to have all of the resources for your client. That is why I created 123efile.com. As a process server, attorney, or even an [inaudible 00:10:59], you can visit the website and file your documents in any of the Tyler courts in California. With its easy-to-use, one-page operation, you can have your e-filing done in a matter of minutes and get back to what really matters. If your time is important to you, visit 123efile.com. Mike: Okay. Welcome back to the show. Luke, are you ready for the rapid-fire round? Luke: I am, Michael. Mike: What is your favorite skip-trace tactic? I imagine it's got to be a little bit different in Alaska. Luke: My favorite skip-trace tactic is going and asking the wildlife if they've seen my skip. Mike: You said asking the wildlife? I had to think about that for a minute. I was like, did you just say ask the wildlife? Luke: All right. You know, my favorite skip-trace tactic, I think, pretending to be a guide because there's so many fishing and hunting guides in Alaska that you can call just about anyone up and say, "Hey, I'm a guide, and I'm looking for this person. They booked a thing with me, and I'm just trying to confirm," and they will tell you where they're at, where their mom and dad are at, how to get in touch with them, what they drive, when they come home. They'll give you everything because, up here, hunting and fishing is a big business, and it's a big deal. Mike: So who do you call for that? Luke: The skip that I'm looking for. Mike: Oh, you call the person. Oh, wow! Luke: Or their family members. Mike: Oh, wow! So they're like, "Yeah. Oh, you're a guide. Yeah, let me get him over here." What's the incentive for them to help you, though? They're like ... because it's their friend or family, and they want to connect them to the guide? Luke: So many people up here need to hunt and fish just to feed their family. It's the sustenance thing. So maybe this isn't the best wording, but I prey on that a little bit, if you will. Mike: No, yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, we manipulate things all the time. People say, "Hey, what are you doing stalking that girl?" I go, "Oh, that's my job. That's what I do." What is your favorite tool for defense? I know you said you're armed to the teeth. What does that entail? Luke: You know, my favorite tool for defense depends really on where I'm going and what I'm doing. I always carry a firearm everywhere I go. I am a certified firearms instructor. But if I'm going out to some of the remote locations, I'll carry a shotgun along with my sidearm. I do carry concealed when I'm in most areas because I don't want to approach people looking like law enforcement. Mike: Yeah. Luke: And in Alaska, everybody carries a gun. It's legal to carry a gun here concealed or otherwise, and so everybody has one. So even people walking around showing their sidearms, it's not really that big of a deal. My personal preference is to keep it concealed, though. But if I'm going, like I say, out to remote locations, I'll carry a shotgun mainly for bear protection. Mike: Well, that's awesome. That's some cool defense. What kind of pistol do you carry? Luke: I carry a Glock 19-9 millimeter. Mike: Luke, what book would you recommend? Luke: What book would I recommend? Mike: From guns to books. Luke: I know a couple of different people that have written books, and one is a skip-trace queen. Her name is Valerie. She wrote a book, "Skip Trace Secrets." That's a very, very good book. And then also another friend of mine, Kimberly, wrote a book about process serving and mayhem, and she's got tons of funny stories in those. I can't remember the exact name of that book, though. Mike: That's okay. I'll look them up, and I'll link them in the show notes. Anybody who's interested can go to processserverdaily.com/Luke, and they'll see all the show notes word for word and the links and everything. Luke: Perfect. Mike: Luke, what is the greatest advice you've ever received? Luke: I think the greatest advice that I ever received was be professional, be respectful, and be ready to take care of business regardless of what that is. Mike: To close this awesome episode, can you tell me what parting piece of advice would you give the servers out there that are ... Maybe they're struggling. Maybe they're new. Maybe their business is circling the drain, and they don't know what they're doing wrong. What advice would you give them? Luke: My advice to all the servers out there across the board is be professional, do not be judgmental. We don't know what people's stories are. Do what you say you're going to do in a timely fashion, and hang in there and just keep pounding the pavement. Mike: That's awesome. So if you had to start your business over again, Luke, how would you ... What would be the first thing you would do? Luke: I would go get a job somewhere. Mike: So you would work for another company? Luke: If I had to start my business all over again, I think I would probably have made a lot of contacts prior to opening my business because, in this business, that's what is very, very important, is your contacts. Mike: That's perfect. They say your net worth is your network. Build your network, and you'll grow your business. Luke: Absolutely. Mike: Luke, what is the best way that we can connect with you? And then we can say good-bye. Luke: You can connect with me through Facebook or my website, alaskaaia.com. Mike: So Luke, I want to personally thank you for coming on this show, man. This has been really cool. I'm excited to share it with the world. Luke: Thanks for having me, Michael. Mike: Well, I'm going to have to come visit one day. Luke: You do that, buddy. Mike: All right, partner. Well, until next time, server nation, you've been served up some awesomeness by Alaska Luke and Mighty Mike, the podcast server. Server nation, I want to personally thank you for listening to today's episode and ask you a question. Do you or your staff need additional training? Can you handle more clients, but you're not sure where to get them? I've developed a solution. Psduniversity.com offers a step-by-step online training by the top legal support professionals in the industry. Visit psduniversity.com.

The Everyday Sniper Episode 44 Weekly Recap with Mike & Frank  Mike and Frank are back together after a brief hiatus.  Mike did a great job with Adam, and now we are talking about the week in review. Seekins Precision Morgan's Ranch Tripods  Positions Wind Reading in the Mountains  Thanks for listening, thanks for sharing and please spread the word !  I thank you, Mike Thanks you and the snake says, SSSsssss 

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.

with Mike Manewitz and Boris Wright - Music festival preview. The Fyre Festival disaster. Sharing the festival experience. Bringing kids. Non-music related activities. Drugs and alcohol. Festival stats and trivia.   "[When it comes to putting on a festival] Dealing with a city, dealing with a site, dealing with 10,000 fans, bands, and everything else, it's a process…" - Boris "I like seeing big headliners, because it lets the band get a little bit bigger than they normally are." - Mike Thanks for our sponsors:   http://empireatx.com/shows/ (Heard Entertainment) - use promo code FDBK for 10% off show tickets   http://realdopebbq.com/ (Slab BBQ & Beer) - mention The FeedBak at checkout for 10% off your meal. 2 locations in Austin: Burnet/183 and Oak Hill.

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

This week on an all new 10-minute podcast on Things That Matter With Mike And Nev:---Mike and Nev discuss how only in America can there be a holiday based around stabbing people in the back.---Mike and Nev give thanks.Mike: Thanks.Nev: Thanks.---And since Thanksgiving is all about food, Mike and Nev talk about how this is the perfect holiday for Jews.It's stupid.It's pointless.It's irrelevant.It's Things That Matter With Mike And Nev.------------------------------------------Listen to the episode here: Download the episode by right-clicking here: The Things That Matter With Mike And Nev: Episode 79

IBFB52 - Mighty Mikey Mike Thanks You For Listening And Talks About Spare Change

IBFB52 - Mighty Mikey Mike Thanks You For Listening And Talks About Spare Change