Podcasts about nathan it

How do you figure out the most accurate market prices for rents on your properties?  In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth expert Jason Hull sits down with Nathan Jackson from RentFinder.ai to talk about how you can level up your listing game. You'll Learn [01:24] The creation of RentFinder.ai [05:06] An AI tool for finding rent prices [09:17] Making the switch from one tool to another [13:00] Customizability and integration Tweetables “You come up with something cool and you show it to your friends, then other people are going to want it.” “You can either have it done accurate,  cheap, fast, but you can't have all three.” “I think early adopters to it are going to reap a lot of rewards and a lot of benefits financially and otherwise.” “Once the entire world catches up, you know, and adopts these things, then it can be a bit more competitive, a bit more of a challenge.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: I think early adopters to it are going to reap a lot of rewards and a lot of benefits financially and otherwise. Once the entire world catches up, you know, and adopts these things, then it can be a bit more competitive, a bit more of a challenge.  [00:00:14] Welcome DoorGrow property managers to the DoorGrow Show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow property manager. [00:00:32] DoorGrow Property Managers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not. Because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host, property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. [00:01:14] Now let's get into the show. So today I'm hanging out with Nathan Jackson. Welcome Nathan.  [00:01:22] Nathan: Hey, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.  [00:01:24] Jason: So Nathan, is with RentFinder.ai and so Nathan, before we get into talking about RentFinder, which I think is a super cool tool. I've gotten to take a look at it, play with it a bit. [00:01:36] I want to get into the audience hearing a little bit about your background. How did you get into playing around with property management related stuff. What's your history here.  [00:01:47] Nathan: Yeah. so my background is really you know, kind of growing up as a kid, technology was kind of my life, the most important thing to me. [00:01:52] But as I got towards that age for college, I was more interested in the finance side of things. So I went to school to get a degree in finance and investments. I lived in Manhattan for a little while, and then I also ended up starting my workout for a property management firm doing data analytics. [00:02:07] That was kind of the first thing I started doing. And when I got in the door, it was one of those things where I just slowly started gravitating more towards the data analytics and technology at the same time. And as the company I was with called ONEprop got acquired ultimately by a company that rolled up into HRG, I kept being more on that analyst side role, but then also doing more with automation technology. [00:02:28] And that entire side of the business you know, obviously the space, even five, six years ago was very immature from a tech side. And so I saw all sorts of opportunities to kind of get into that space. And then after being with the company that was acquired by HRG I came over to a company called Specialized Property Management and that's where I've been for about five years. [00:02:47] And then I've been leading all of our technology efforts here at Specialized Property Management. So even with the background in finance, I kind of gravitated back towards my roots, which is tech and all that space. So that's what I've been doing here. We've been building software internally, building sort of, integration type stuff and all sorts of cool tools here at Specialized. [00:03:04] And then RentFinder was born out of Specialized. So it's kind of where we are today.  [00:03:08] Jason: Got it. And so I know Chuck Thompson and he's, is he CEO of Specialized or? Yes. Yeah. He's CEO. Yeah. So He used to be part of the RPM franchise and he was a client of mine and helped him with websites and, you know, some other things early on. [00:03:28] And he's got some other like former RPM people that are part of his his organization as well. And that are connected to this like Rod Schifferdecker past client as well. So, I mean, it's really cool to see, like, I've got clients creating stuff now that can benefit my clients. Like, that's really awesome.  [00:03:45] Nathan: It's great, great circle of life there. Yeah.  [00:03:47] Jason: Yeah, it's really cool. So, RentFinder.ai was developed to solve what problem? What was the problem that Specialized was having with all the other rental tools? Because there's a bunch of them out there.  [00:03:59] Nathan: Yeah, so fundamentally that's a great question. [00:04:01] We built this solely as an internal tool to begin with. We had no intention of launching this as a product whatsoever. We were just going to all the different sort of rental evaluation tools that were out there, whether it was a Zillow, whether it was a Rentometer, whether it was a RentRange, a RentFax, there was just fundamental problems with every one of them. [00:04:18] And with a lot of my work that I've been working on with Specialized, we got really heavy into the, you know, AI statistical modeling and deeper science behind how to do some stuff with data. And I said, Hey, I think I can build a better tool, build a better mousetrap to do this. And it was one of those things where just kind of organically, we started building out internal models to price out for our own agents. [00:04:37] We started sharing it with some key clients and one day we had a key client say, Hey, you know what? I would love to share this with my investment partner. Can we go ahead and get an account for them set up? And all of a sudden we went from checking five, 10 a day to, you know, within a few months of just building internally, running hundreds and hundreds. [00:04:53] And it's just sort of been off to the race ever since then scaling the same space. So.  [00:04:57] Jason: I mean, you come up with something cool and you show it to your friends, then other people are going to want it. Yeah, that's true. And so you guys have built the better mousetrap. You guys have built this cool tool. [00:05:06] So tell everybody, like, what is RentFinder.ai. Let's start there.  [00:05:10] Nathan: So fundamentally, if you know those tools like RentRange or rentometer we're fundamentally providing a very similar service. The key differentiators of what we do specifically versus them is that we are taking in just say a monstrous amount of data, the price out of home. [00:05:23] You know, we're not looking at just like the recent comp, plus the beds, bathroom square footage. We're looking at hundreds of data points per property, all the little things that you don't necessarily think about on any sort of listing that you see, we're looking at photos of the property. We're doing an analysis of what exactly the inside of the home looks like if we have them as well as a virtual tour scan. [00:05:41] We're basically trying to look at the nitty gritty about what really makes a home rentable. And when you find what makes a home rentable. You can really hone in on that price because it's pretty easy to look at two homes on paper, a 3, 000 square foot, three, two next to a 3, 000 square foot, three, two and say, Oh, they're the same. [00:05:56] But we all know that's not the case when you walk in the door, right? One home is a lot prettier and a lot better than the other. And fundamentally that was the aspect that's been missing. So we've added that into our analysis. And we've been able to really hone in on very, you know, precision rents by going that route and just going way beyond the limited amounts of data the other tools use. [00:06:14] Jason: So you said there's like hundreds of different data points. Can you give us an example of what maybe some of the other tools might not be looking at?  [00:06:22] Nathan: Sure, like, we'll be looking at like, how recently were the new wood floors installed in the kitchen, right? What color are the wood floors? How are the wood floor colors in this area of the neighborhood renting compared to this over here? [00:06:32] Because we're looking at all the other homes, like little tiny details like that. We're looking at, you know, do you have a pool? If you have a condo, are you facing the north or the south side of the building? Just all the How are you getting all  [00:06:41] Jason: this data though? Where does all this data come from? [00:06:44] Nathan: So generally, I joke with my team that we're kind of like a data vacuum. We get data from anywhere and everywhere that we can. We buy data from sources. We find data online in publicly available places. And if we can't find it or buy it, we generate it. We do things where we're taking data sources like photos, for example. [00:06:59] Photos are a very rich source of information. They're just not really normally easily extractable, right? But if you look at photos and analyze them in a smart way, you can get data out of those photos to be able to do an analysis from there. That's kind of what we're doing.  [00:07:12] Jason: And you're leveraging the AI to do this? [00:07:14] Like AI is looking at photos and going, "Oh, they have hardwood floors."  [00:07:18] Nathan: Yes. Yeah. We have some trained AI models that we've done. You can do visual analysis on the photos and it'll basically take a look at a photo and say, you know, here's the types of floors. Here's what's going on in the kitchen. Here's what we think it was most recently updated. [00:07:30] How up to spec is it? How is it spec wise compared to the rest of the neighborhood? Things like that.  [00:07:34] Jason: Okay, that's pretty cool. So I know when I was using the tool, I tried it on my property. And so I was curious and then what's cool about your tool is you can chat with the tool, so then I can ask it, like I'm talking to the AI, I can ask it to make some changes. [00:07:52] Like I told it, I said, "well, some of these in the comps that you've got listed below are don't have a golf course view of the backyard like my property." So I was like, "can you only show ones that have a golf course view," and then it adjusted it, right? And so yeah, so if somebody's like my property special because of whatever or this property special they can ask the ai to just show the properties that like where that criteria fits And then it was like, yeah, no problem. [00:08:19] I'll do this and then it changed it. [00:08:20] Nathan: Yeah, I know that's one of the features that we've been baiting right now that we've had a lot of great feedback from our customers is that ability to kind of give the really holistic analysis that we provide to the client, but then give them the interactive ability, whether they want to be changing something on the analysis or asking the question about it, you know, being able to take that data. [00:08:36] It just makes it much more personal, more real experience to understand how we got to that number. It's not just a black box that you can only see. Here's the number, take it or leave it. You can give your input. You can say, hey, a lot of customers like to say we're going to add in a new bedroom to this home, or we're going to convert the garage, or we're going to change the kitchen over to fully update it. [00:08:53] How much do you think that'll impact the rents based on everything else in the area? So you can use it as kind of an analysis and evaluation tool to understand, you know, what really is worth doing or not. So we've had a lot of customers that have really enjoyed doing that. Got it.  [00:09:05] Jason: So they can sit there and play around with it and try and figure out, oh, how do we get the most rent? [00:09:10] Would it make sense to convert the office into a room or like, yeah. Okay. Got it. That's very cool. So, everybody listening they might already be comfortable cause they've been using some sort of tool like the several that you mentioned they're already using, they're like, it's all, it's already doing an okay job what would you say to them? [00:09:30] I think the things they would be like concerned about would be price, one of the things that I notice is your tool seems to be a lot more affordable to do a lot more reports than the others, probably because the leverage of AI. [00:09:42] Nathan: So when we launched the tool, my idea behind it was I wanted to be the best, I wanted to be the most accurate, I wanted to be the cheapest, and I wanted to be the most user friendly. I said, I want to give no one any reason to stick around to the older tools to make it to where it's very easy to switch. [00:09:55] So from a price perspective, you know, even if you're getting a really sweetheart deal with some of the biggest competitors on the market, we're almost always going to be way cheaper, right? We can get down to, you know, about a dollar per report, depending on the volume that you're doing. And we have packages that kind of range anywhere the highest price you can possibly pay for a report is 3. 50 per report. And that is still way below, you know, like the rent range, for example but they market as well for their advertised price. Okay. And then also the biggest thing that matters most is accuracy. That is why you come to us first and foremost, is that when you look at a large section of a portfolio, when you look at what this home actually rented for, you look at a rent range report, you look at a RentFinder report, you look at a rent fax report and a rentometer. [00:10:31] We're going to be the closest every single time. We have a lot of data sets to validate this. We work with very large firms that have done large analyses on thousands of properties to say, Hey, you know, definitively RentFinder is the best rental tool for pricing on the market. And so if you want accuracy, that's why people come to us. [00:10:47] Jason: You know, they usually say it's kind of a joke. You can either have it done accurate, cheap, fast, but you can't have all three or, you know, stuff like this. And you're like, yeah, but we figured it out.  [00:11:00] Nathan: You know what? It's funny you mentioned that. I've said that a few times myself. That's, that was one of our goals. [00:11:03] I wanted to make it that easy and that quick and it makes it a no brainer, right? When it does meet all those goals, it makes it easy to switch. So you're exactly right.  [00:11:10] Jason: And you know, it's really AI that's kind of allowed all that to happen. Right? Like AI, we're in the middle of this AI revolution right now. [00:11:17] And I think early adopters to it are going to reap a lot of rewards and a lot of benefits financially and otherwise. Once the entire world catches up, you know, and adopts these things, then it can be a bit more competitive, a bit more of a challenge. But property managers right now that adopt some of these AI tools, like we've had some really cool new tools that are coming to the market like, Vendoroo. [00:11:40] Which is one of our podcast sponsors. They're doing the maintenance coordination, AI maintenance coordinator, which is just super cool. We've got tools like RentFinder.ai. There's all these different AI tools that are coming out right now. There's Super hiresuper. com I think is the website that does like an AI inbox for property managers. [00:11:59] Like there's all these tools right now that where there's this innovation that's being able to happen that just. Wasn't possible earlier, and it really cuts the cost down for property managers. And so if you're able to decrease costs and increase output and do things faster and better, then that gives property managers more margin. [00:12:20] Nathan: Yeah, absolutely. Right. I definitely agree with you. I think the landscape of the AI tools, especially is fascinating. You're able to see a lot of new things come to market that really were not possible before, right? Like you said earlier, you know, we're gonna find, we're gonna find there's only possible because of the AI set of things, right? [00:12:34] You know, what we would do today. Would not have been possible whatsoever, you know, 10 years ago, by any means. And so I really do think it's interesting when you can get these tools off the ground and into people's hands sooner, it allows PMs to be able to move a lot more quickly. And as I mentioned before, you know, we started, I still am a PM myself, right? [00:12:50] So I understand the industry very well. And I always, I'm looking for new tools to be able to bring into that side of the business as well. And it's a very interesting landscape right. [00:12:58] Jason: Now. What else should people know about RentFinder.ai?  [00:13:04] Nathan: So the big thing is that what we do fundamentally is provide that price but we provide you that price in however many ways you need it, right? [00:13:10] We can connect to you through Zapier. We've got a fully built out rest API for companies that are needing large amounts of reports and have their own technical integrations. We've got systems built out to allow you to do bulk uploads of reports and things from like default Appfolio and property reports. [00:13:24] We made it very simple. So whatever your workflow, you can fall into what we do for you. You know, we have full white labeling as well. We love people to put their brand and logo and colors on that report. And then also share that really nice interactive report with their end user, whoever that client may be, just to make it to where it's very easy to switch. [00:13:39] And there is no barrier from going from like a rent range or rentometer and making it to where you can immediately start day one using our tool and integrating it into your current workflow. And a lot of people also love the. Biz dev integration. We've got like the, you know, get my free rental analysis widget that you plug into your website and you can take those leads and pump them right into lead simple right into HubSpot and have them just go directly to your email. [00:14:01] And then your client can get that nice report while you also get that this dev side of the things as well. So all of our clients that have integrated that have had very great success and it's something that people really like.  [00:14:11] Jason: Yeah, I like the rent analysis website, which that's cool. So, you mentioned api for those that are not as nerdy as maybe you and they can't figure out what to do with an API, but they like things connecting. [00:14:26] Do you guys have in the works, is that Zapier connection or make or anything like this?  [00:14:31] Nathan: Yep. We do have a Zapier connections invite only right now, but if anyone is interested if you sign ,up we can invite you to be able to start using it. Make you something as well that we're also in the works with. [00:14:40] I've been working with them pretty closely to get that online. And then if you don't have any one of those that you want to go down, Our API is very simple. We try to make it to where it's very plug and play to where you can just start up with, you get your API key and you can just submit just the single line address and we'll do everything in the background. [00:14:56] You don't need to give us 12 other data points to determine what property your property is. You can just very quickly, one button, one address, and then it'll work via the API. So very quick and easy.  [00:15:06] Jason: That, yeah, that is really cool. This is largely for long term. Could this also apply to short term? [00:15:12] Nathan: Right now, we don't do short term. We focus solely on long term SFR as well as basically we don't price apartment homes, right? We don't price large. 400 unit apartments. We'll price condos, townhomes, mobile homes, basically needs to be SFR of some sort. And you're like, even like a 10 or 20 spot apartment complex will price, but there be honest with you that there are better tools in the market for the large apartment pricing, that's just not what we do. [00:15:34] So yeah, we're SFR focused. Got it. All right, that's largely our target audience that of this podcast.  [00:15:42] Jason: So very cool. Well, I thought the tool was really cool. I love that. It's cheap and that it shows you all the properties that are connected to that particular report. I mean, it makes it really easy to show to your potential client or your existing client. [00:15:59] Hey, this is what your property probably could easily or should rent for and with some serious accuracy and at a level that the other tools just wouldn't be able to do. Yeah, so very cool. How can people, Nathan, get in touch with or find RentFinder and what's the best way?  [00:16:19] Nathan: Yeah, sure. [00:16:20] So if you go on Google and search RentFinder.ai, you can type that in and you'll see, we'll be the first result on Google, or you can visit us at home. RentFinder.ai directly and just click the login or sign up button. And if you click that, you'll get free reports just to start out and play with the tool. [00:16:34] You know, I like to put my money where my mouth is. You don't have to give us a credit card or anything just to start trying it. You can go in right now. Start running reports for free to see how you like us compared to what you're doing today. And so you can do that and just see how you like it. And then from when you're in there, you can hit the contact us button and reach out to me, or you can email me directly by you'll see my contact information on our page as well. [00:16:53] Reach out there. But most of it's all very self service. You should be able to just get using it today right away. And we've worked out a deal with you and your team for those who want a discount, if you use the code DOORGROW15, DoorGrow one five, you can get 15 percent discount off the publish rates. [00:17:09] Jason: So, yeah. So check that out. Really excited about this. So Nathan, appreciate you coming and hanging out here on the DoorGrow show. And I hope you guys have a lot of success with this.  [00:17:21] Nathan: I really appreciate it. No, thanks for having me. It's been a great time talking to you. All right. Awesome. We'll let you go. [00:17:26] Jason: All right. So if you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, you're struggling, you're finding things difficult or maybe you're just struggling with the operational side. You're like, I can add doors, but adding more doors is not making my life better anymore right now. It's making my life more stressed. [00:17:42] Then you need a really good operating system in your business and that's something DoorGrow can help you with as well to make your business what I call infinitely scalable. You just need to get that Super S ystem of systems in place. And so reach out to us at DoorGrow. We would love to help your bdms scale and grow your business. We would love to help you as a business owner function like a bdm and scale and grow your business. And we would love to help you be able to you Have the ops and the backend and the support that you need in order to comfortably scale your business without it making your life worse. [00:18:13] So reach out to us, check us out at doorgrow.Com and you can learn more about us there, or make sure if you're a fan of the podcast, you're enjoying this, join our free community for the podcast, which is our Facebook group, the DoorGrow club. It is the best property management Facebook group, hands down. [00:18:32] We reject 60 to 70 percent of the people that apply to join this group. We only let in property management business owners. Check out this group. It's an awesome group. Great resource. If you are wanting to be around others that are growth minded, that are crushing it and be more connected to DoorGrow, go to DoorGrow club. com and until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone. [00:18:55] you just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!  [00:19:22] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

On today's podcast: 1) New York City and Boston are straddling the line between what could be a snowy weekend or just a lot of rainhttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-04/us-east-coast-braces-for-weekend-snow-or-rain-weather-watch from a system sweeping up the US East Coast this weekend. 2) A monthly US jobs report due Friday will probably show many industries refrained from hiring as employment gains increasingly concentrated in a handful of sectors, according to Bloomberg Economics. 3) The options market for US Treasuries was abuzz Thursday following the emergence of a large bearish wager that Friday's jobs report will trigger the biggest backup in benchmark yields in more than nine months. 4) Secretary of State Antony Blinken left for his fourth trip to the Middle East since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, as part of US efforts to counter growing risks of a broader regional conflict. Full Transcript:  Good morning. I'm Nathan Hager and I'm Karen Moscow. Here are the stories we're following today. We begin with the first major winter storm to hit the East Coast so far this season. Let's get the very latest on that with Bloomberg meteorologist Rob Carol and Rob Nathan. The weekend storm is going to be worse to the north and west of the district in Baltimore, and also north and west of New York City and north and west of Boston. The major cities are going to see some mixing with rain that that's going to hold down the accumulations. But it's the areas to the north and west that are going to do quite well where it stays all snow. Three to five inches possible north and west of the district in Baltimore, while north and west of New York City as much as five to eight inches will fall. We could see as much as five to ten inches of snow north and west of Boston during the storm. Okay, Rob, So when do you expect this wintry weather is going to end. Storm's going to wind down during the evening and overnight hours in the district in Baltimore. In New York city. It comes to an end Sunday afternoon the Boston area. I will see it ending late Sunday night early Monday morning, and we should see quite a bit of an improvement weatherwise into Monday of next week. Okay, Rob, Carolyn, thanks for that. We'll be checking back with you for more on this East coast winter storm throughout the day. Mowe now turned to the crucial jobs are poored for the month of December. Nathan It's forecast a show one hundred and seventy five thousand jobs were added a last month, and we get more from Bloomberg's Michael McKee. Wall Street goes into today's jobs report expecting strength in hiring and wages. That was not what the Fed was expecting a few months ago. The central bankers want job growth of about one hundred thousand a month and unemployment in the fours to signal an easing of labor market inflation pressures. Instead, they're likely to get a continuing conundrum, a strong labor market but falling inflation, making it hard to know the best path for interest rates. They will probably focus on the composition of jobs. Some analysts say job growth should be concentrated in low wage sectors like healthcare, assistants and restaurants, and that will be the sign the Fed wants that the economy is slowing. McKee, Bloomberg Radio. All right, Mike, thanks for the options market. It's been a buzz ahead of the jobs report. There is a large parish wager underway on yields rising to four point one five percent by the end of the day. That would mark the biggest one day rise in tenure yields since late March. It would be a further retrenchment for treasuries following last year's furious two month rally. In checking the tenure right now, it is at four point zero three percent. Well, Nathan. Rates are also in focus overseas. Traders are pairing bets on cuts from the European Central Bank. Let's go to London and get the latest from Bloomberg's Ewen pots Hore Youwen, Karen, and Nathan. It's the first time since mid December that traders are betting on fewer than six quarter point rate reductions from the ECB. At the end of last year, the market was pricing as much as one hundred and seventy four basis points of cuts. That number has now slipped blow one hundred and fifty basis points and key data this morning, shining more lights on the inflation pitcher. You're area CPI coming in at two point nine percent in the year to December. That's a higher number than the previous month as energy subsidies expire in a number of countries. In London, you and pot Splomberg Radio, all right, you and thank you. Now we turned to the latest developments in the Middle East. Secretary of State Antony Blincoln is returning to the region, his fourth trip since the October seventh attack on Israel. Bloomberg Zamie Morris reports from Washington, there is a risk the war between Israel and Hamas can spread into a broader regional conflict. This trip is part of US efforts to prevent that. Secretary Blincoln will travel to Turkey, Jordan, Cotter, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Israel. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller says they don't expect some of these conversations to be easy. We want to prevent the conflict from spreading, but part of that means that people need to stop taking strikes against our soldiers, and if they take strikes against our soldiers, we're going to do what we need to protect ourselves. Groups backed by Iran have escalated attacks across Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen and armed forces in a rocker also warning of a quote dangerous escalation after a US right killed a senior commander in an Iran backed militia in Washington, Amy Morris, Bloomberg Radio, all right, Amy, thanks. Meanwhile, the Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the two explosions that killed almost one hundred people in Iran. The attacks risked inflaming tensions further in the Middle East, with Iran saying it had been targeted because of its stands on Israel. Bloomberg Henry Meyer looks at the impact of the Islamic State taking responsibility for the attacks. It's significant in the sense that it reduces the risks of a more confrontation between Israel and Iran. Iran had said that the bloss with the work of people who were trying to punish it for its stance on the Israeli offensive in Gaza. And you know, obviously any suspicion of Israeli involvement could have proved extremely explosive, and Bloomberg Henry Meyer notes US officials said from the start the attacks had the hallmark of a group such as Islamic State. Back here in the US, Karen, there's more fallout over the resignation of former Harvard president Claudine Gay. The Reverend Al sharped and led a protest at Bill Ackman's Manhattan offices yesterday. The civil rights activist says the billionaire investors campaign against Gay is a blow to the diversity, equity and inclusion movement. Gay stepped down as Harvard's first black president this week in a backlash over her handling of campus antisemitism and accusations of plagiarism. Meantime, Nathan Business Insider is reporting Bill Lackman's wife, Nary Auxman, plagiarized multiple sections of her doctoral dissertation at MIT. Acman responded to the report in a post on X, writing, you know you struck a chord when they go after your wife. Time now for a look at some of the other stories making news around the world. For that, we're joined by Bloomberg's Amy Morris. Amy, Good morning, Good morning, Karen. Residents in the small town of Perry, Iowa, held a vigil last night, hours after a gunman opened fire at the local high school, killing a sixth grader and wounding four other students in the school's principal, Andrea Meyer, is a two thousand and four alumna at the school, and she spoke at last night's vigil green rally around our survivors, our community, our teachers, our first responders, and we're going to show them what we've shown them every day for as long as I have known that we appreciate them, enjoy them, respect them, and dare I say love them. The suspect, identified as seventeen year old Dylan Butler, a student at Perry High School, also died of an apparent self inflicted gunshot wound. Classes are canceled throughout the school district for today. Florida Governor Ronda Santis and former UN Ambassador Nicky Haley held back to back CNN town halls in Iowa last night as they fight to be primary GOP presidential challenger to Donald Trump, who already has a huge lead in the polls. DeSantis called Haley a phony who is quote playing for voters who are not even core Republicans. I'm the only one that has a chance to beat Trump and win the general election. Nicki Haley can't get conservative voters. She's the darling of the never trumpers. While in New Hampshire, Nikki Haley said of the primary process, quote, Iowa starts at New Hampshire corrects it. So she responded to criticism about that comment during CNN's town hall in Iowa. We're going to continue to be here. I mean, I've told people get used to this face, and I've been here over and over again. But if I didn't love Iowa, I wouldn't keep coming to Iowa. While they did take jabs at each other, Haley and Desantas also focused their attacks on front runner Donald Trump, and next week will be a busy one for Trump. Bloomberg's Nancy Lyons reports Donald Trump has two major court hearings next week. One of them is in Washington on his claim of immunity from charges he overturned the twenty twenty election that's set for January ninth, Then two days later, planning to attend the closing arguments in Manhattan that's for the New York civil trial against him and his sprawling real estate company. Days after that, the nominating process begins with the January fifteenth Iowa CAUCUSUS. Then a day after that, a civil defamation case against Trump begins in New York in which Ejing Carroll is seeking to million dollars in damages. It's unknown if Trump will be attending that trial in Washington. Nancy lyons Bloomberg Radio Global News twenty four hours a day and whenever you want it with Bloomberg News Now. I'm Amy Morris, and this is Bloomberg Karen. All right, Amy, thanks soby to bring in news throughout the day right here on Bloomberg Radio. But now, as Amy said, you can get the latest news on demand whenever you want it. Subscribe to Bloomberg News Now. You can get the latest headlines right at the click of a button. Get informed on your schedule. You can listen and subscribe to Bloomberg News Now on the Bloomberg Business app Bloomberg dot Com, but also apples, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Time now for the Bloomberg Sports update. Here's John stash Hour John Karn. What a game in San Francisco, battle of the last two NBA champions. The Warriors had an eighteen point lead on the fourth quarter on the Nuggets, and then Denver closed the game on a twenty five to four run and he won at one thirty to one twenty seven thanks to Kolo Jokins thirty four points, ten assists, nine rebounds. He hit the game tying shot and then after a Steph Curry turnover, he hit the game winner, a forty footer that he banked in at the buzzer. Milwaukee won at San Antonio won twenty five to one twenty one. This was the first time that Jannis, sent to the Compo won against the guy that many field plays like, Giannis Victor Wembinama. Yanna scored forty four points. Wem bin Yama scored twenty seven. Ricky Rubio, retiring at age thirty three, twelve years and the NBA, played for four teams, most recently Cleveland, who bought out his contract. He was a professional player in Spain at the age of fourteen. Bruins lost at home to Pittsburgh six to five. Sydney Crosby wont it for the Penguin the power play goal in the third period. The Red Sox traded Chris Sale to Atlanta. He just got a two year extension with the Braves for thirty eight million dollars, despite all the injuries he's had in recent years. Week eighteen in the NFL starts tomorrow. Nine teams have Clint playoff spots. Five spots still up for drafts. Buffalo, Jacksonville, Tampa Bay, and Green Bay are in with Week eighteen victories. The winner tomorrow night, patried Houston, and Indianapolis is in the playoffs. Pittsburgh tomorrow needs a win and then a Buffalo loss on Sunday night. John Stashwer Bloomberg Sports from coast to coast, from New York to San Francisco, Boston to Washington, DC, nationwide on Syrias Exam, the Bloomberg Business app, and Bloomberg dot Com. This is Bloomberg Daybreak. Good morning, I'm Nathan Hager. Well. The first weekend of twenty twenty four is going to bring the East Coast the first major winter storm we've seen in quite a while, actually, so let's bring in Bloomberg beedrologist Rob Carolyn to help us get set for what's coming. What you're looking at, Rob, the first accumulating snow of the season for lots of us. It's taken a time for winter to get going, but it's going to get going now with Gangbusters Nathan storm coming out of the lower Mississippi River Valley is going to come up the along the East coast during the weekend, and it's going to bring us eisenble snowfall to many of the suburban locations around the major cities in the mid Atlantic and Northeast. This isn't a huge snowstorm for the District of Baltimore, for New York City or Boston because the ocean is still fairly warm water temperatures than in the forties. That influence is going to mean that we see Boston and New York City, and especially Washington and Baltimore mixing with and changing the rain at times. But once you get inland away from that influence to the ocean, there's going to be some sizeable snowfalls from say Frederick, Maryland, all the way on up through the suburbs north and west of New York City, and then well north and west of Boston. There could be some spots to get over ten inches of snow from this storm, no kidding. So, like you said, it's been a while since we've had a major winter storm along the East coast. I mean, or are we ready for this? I think we're ready. I mean we've had a lot of practice. Anybody over the age of fifteen has seen, you know, a number of snowstorms in their lifetime. But yeah, last winter, I think the deepest snow we saw in the Boston area was like three and a half inches in February. So I think the big problem is going to be pe will not used to driving in it because it's been over a year. The good news is it's falling on a Saturday night and a Sunday in many areas, so their traffic won't be as bad. We don't have school in session, so that'll be helpful. But people are definitely going to have to take some time, particularly in those areas where there's going to be that transition from a mixture of rain and snow to snow, because that snow will be heavier and wetter. Therefore it's more slippery, it's greasy. So those areas just north and west of Boston, New York City, Washington, and Baltimore really need to be careful when the precipitation's falling during Saturday afternoon through Sunday. Well, a lot of people who live along the Interstate ninety five quarriter know that that freeway is often right along the boundary between where rain and snow happens. I mean, if this system sticks around for a little bit longer than expected, could we be in for a pretty dicey Monday morning commute. I think Monday morning is going to be okay, particularly in the district in Baltimore, because it dries out Sunday afternoon, So I think the roadways are going to be okay. York City Boston different story. Those areas where they don't get a chance to clean up the slush along the I ninety five corridor. Temperatures are going to be going down Sunday night, and that's going to have the tendency allow those surfaces to refree. So it could be a little bit more dicey New York City on up in the Boston Monday than it is around the district in Baltimore since it is on the weekend. We think in good skiing, well, you know, the ski areas in northern New England and northern New York State really aren't going to see much from this storm. At all too far out to see. It'll be cold enough so they can make some snow. Where this is going to help out is the resorts in West Virginia and on up into Pennsylvania. They'll do fairly well. The Poconos are going to do great. This is going to be their best snowfall in a while, and they'll have real good conditions come Monday and Tuesday in the Poconos. But for northern New England northern New York State, I think the snowfall amounts are probably going to be under two inches. Well anyway, I guess this couldn't have come in a better time, happening on the weekend. But thanks for this, Rob. Again, that was Bloomberg meteorologist Rob Carolyn getting us ready for the first winter storm for the East Coast of twenty twenty four. Well, let's move on from watching the weather to watching the data. Investors have their eyes out for the last look at the US labor market in twenty twenty three with the December non farm payrolls report. Do out an eight thirty am Wall Street time here to get a set for those numbers. Simon French, chief economist at panmir Gordon Simon. Great to speak with you this morning. Now, the consensus on the Bloomberg terminal, it calls for more moderation, one hundred and seventy five thousand new jobs expected, a tick up for the unemployment rate to three point eight percent. What's your expectation, I think a little bit stronger. Good morning, Nathan. I think the big question for me is US labor market participation appeared to peak during the summer and come back down, but there's conflicting data points as to whether that labor supply pictures is true. And if we start a season more people coming back into the labor market, I think there's potential to still add more jobs than than that estimate. Yes, I think the big influence though for futures on interest rate expectations will be the unemployment rate rather than the number of jobs added, and that I think when you're looking at the kind of rules of thumb we sort of saw the Federal Reserve and moved to in their recent minutes, anything three point eight three point nine will start to firm expectations of the rate cutting cycle this side of the mid year. There's been a lot of talk about four percent potentially being the trigger point for the Federal Reserve to think about cutting interest rates further. Could we see an upside surprise? What's the potential for that? Well, I think four percent is being focused in on by a lot of analysts because of the Palm rule. This is the if you like, the equivalent in the labor market for what we know in the bondom market from a Yeald curb and version is a decent signal of a recession. The Psalm rule looking at er point five five percent increase on the twelve month low point for unemployment, and that would something like four percent would take you there, But you have to get there on a three month average, and we're not going to get that even if we get that print today. But what it would do is it would suggest that by February, the time of the February report, you potentially hit that farm or threshold, which could prepare the ground for rate cutting cycling Q two. So that is why I think analysts are focusing on four percent. Of course, we're going to be keeping an eye out for average hourly earnings as well. Labor force participation feeds into that as well. Where do you see wages going If we find evidence that companies are holding on to employees, or perhaps more people are coming off the sidelines. Yeah, so I think there's I think one of the failures actually of the economics profession in the last couple of years, it's been an inability to recognize that nominal pay awards take their queue from overall price inflation, and therefore I think the helpful price dynamics from gasoline prices, from overall prices coming down in the US economy or the rate of increase coming down, should ever a spillover effect into nominal wage awards. I think there's an over focus, perhaps two model driven from the way central banks model this stuff to look purely at participation in capacity rather than the signals coming from the overall price level. So I actually expect a continued moderation in nominal pay awards with the quits rate and job openings falling as well. What does that tell us, Simon about the state of the US economy. Are you still thinking that we could be in for a soft landing given where labor dynamics are right now? Nathan, I think you know I'm not a fan particularly of the soft landing hard landing descriptor, mainly because lists. Economists, they tend to define it that they see fits reverse fit their narrative. But if you're looking at a moderation of those jolt data points on quits on hires from some very very extreme levels and a moderation without overshooting, then actually that's the message we got from the Joltz data I felt, which is you are starting to hone in on more normalized levels of labor market churn, and that has to be a positive thing, whether it's a soft landing or hard landing in terms of the hard data of economic activity pass but on those metrics, it's quite encouraging. From the Federal Reserve, they've been able to engineer this. We've seen a lot of activity in the options market ahead of this report, a pretty big bet that we could see ten year yields rise more than ten basis points by the end of the day. What kind of volatility are you expecting off the back of this jobs report in the bond mar So, I think that's that would be my whether it's an hourly end of day expectation, some more medium term view from my perspective is the bomb mark has got over excited by the pace of potential rate cups. In my view, I think pricing in five to six for the year when it's unlikely the first pirmacy you're going to have enough data to start cutting before the middle towards the back end of Q two, that becomes a really difficult thing to do with only four better reserve meetings in the second half of the year. So I think that expectation that you allude to of slightly firming yield is consistent with perhaps a reassessment of quite how aggressive the FED can be in the data have in front of them. Got about a minute left here, Simon. Not only is the FED going to be focused on the labor market, but we've got inflation data, more inflation data coming out next week as well. Well. What's your expectation on where we could see consumer prices headed. Well, a lot of the base effects that have been driving US inflation lower over the last twelve months, and this is simply some very exceptional numbers leaving leaving the annual comparison. That does mean we're in for a period where the data is going to bounce around in a sort of stubborn stubborn range around three percent. And the question, I guess the Federal Reserve need to ask themselves not all just based on the data, but their understanding of how price setting is going on at district level as well. Is the degree to which that can over an eighteen month two year of you moderate back towards two percent of their central forecast suggest But actually the real economy is not necessarily showing those signs. So I think we're in for a period where month to month will dot around very uncomfortably higher levels than the two percent targets, and is consistently all be seeing in terms of commodity imple prices shipping rates providing less of a down with base effect push than the single last one month. This is Bloomberg day Break Today, your morning brief on the stories making news from Wall Street to Washington and beyond. Look for us on your podcast feed at six am Eastern each morning, on Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts. You can also listen live each morning starting at five am Wall Street time on Bloomberg eleven three to zero in New York, Bloomberg ninety nine to one in Washington, Bloomberg one oh six to one in Boston, and Bloomberg ninety sixty in San Francisco. Our flagship New York station is also available on your Amazon Alexa devices. Just say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty plus. Listen coast to coast on the Bloomberg Business app, SERIUSXM, the iHeartRadio app, and on Bloomberg dot Com. I'm Nathan Hager and I'm Karen Moscow. Join us again tomorrow morning for all the news you need to start your day right here on Bloomberg DaybreakSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Paul Farber:You are listening to Monument Lab Future Memory where we discuss the future of monuments and the state of public memory in the US and across the globe. You can support the work of Monument Lab by visiting monumentlab.com, following us on social @Monument_Lab, or subscribing to this podcast anywhere you listen to podcasts. Li Sumpter:Our guest today on Future Memory is artist, scholar, and composer, Nathan Young. Young is a member of the Delaware Tribe of Indians and a direct descendant of the Pawnee Nation and Kiowa Tribe, currently living in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. His work incorporates sound, video, documentary, animation, installation, socially-engaged art, and experimental and improvised music. Young is also a founding member of the artist collective, Postcommodity. He holds an MFA in Music/Sound from Bard College's Milton Avery School of the Arts and is currently pursuing a PhD in the University of Oklahoma's innovative Native American art history doctoral program. His scholarship focuses on Indigenous Sonic Agency. Today we discuss his art and practice and a recently opened public art project at Historic site Pennsbury Manor entitled nkwiluntàmën, funded by the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage and curated by Ryan Strand Greenberg and Theo Loftis. Let's listen.Welcome to another episode of Future Memory. I'm your co-host, Li Sumpter. Today my guest is Nathan Young. Welcome, Nathan.Nathan Young:Hello. Thank you. It's nice to be here with you today. Li:Future Memory is the name of Monument Lab's podcast. In the context of your own work, when you hear the words "future memory," what does that mean to you? Do any images or sounds come to mind? Nathan:They really do. There's one. It was a website of a sound artist, a writer, an educator, Jace Clayton, DJ/Rupture, had a mixed CD called "Gold Teeth Thief". I remember it was kind of a game changer in the late '90s. I got that mixed CD from a website called History of the Future. Li:That's very close. It was very close.Nathan:It's always stuck with me. I'm fortunate enough to be able to grapple with a lot of these kind of ideas. I'm not really quite sure how I feel about some of the history of the future because in some ways I work within many different archives so I am dealing with people's future or thinking about or reimagining or just imagining their future.But future monuments are something that I grapple with and deeply consider in my artwork. I think it's one of the more challenging subjects today in art. I think we see that with the taking down of monuments that were so controversial or are so controversial. But I find it fascinating the idea of finding new forms to make monuments to remember and the idea of working with different communities of memory. It's key to my work. It's just a lot of listening and a lot of pondering. Actually, it's a very productive space for me because it's a place to think about form. Also, it opens doors for me just to think about the future. I will say this, that one problem that often arises as a Lenape Delaware Pawnee Kiowa person is we're often talking about the past, and I really like to talk about the future and to work with organizations that are thinking about the future. Li:I can relate to that. Nathan:I think it's a misunderstanding. We always really are talking about the future. I've had the great fortune to be around some people. Actually, I grew up in the capital of the Cherokee Nation, Oklahoma. A lot of people know that Oklahoma is the home to 39 federally recognized tribes. I was fortunate enough to grow up in Tahlequah, which is the capital of the Cherokee Nation, and was able to be around a well-known and respected medicine man named Crosslin Smith, also an author. I remember being a part of an interview with Crosslin. I grew up, he was a family friend.He said, "I'm often asked about the old or ancient ways and the new ways." What Crosland said was, and I'll try my best to articulate this idea, is that there is no difference between the ancient ways and today. These things still exist. It might be an illusion or we might not be able to comprehend or understand it, but there is no difference between the ancient, when we're thinking of things in the sense of the sublime, I think. There is no understanding the ancient and what is contemporary. That was really an important moment for me as an adult. To hear him articulate that was really important. So I think about that. I'm not really sure about a lot of things, but I really like to think about that when I'm working. Li:It kind of runs through your mind as you're working and creating. It's a deep thought, that's for sure, connecting those things. Even thinking back on your own personal history with sound, when did you first connect your relationship to place and homeland to sound and music? Nathan:Well, my earliest remembrances of music, honestly, are my dad driving me around in his truck, picking me up after school, and singing peyote songs, Native American Church songs, peyote songs. The members of the Native American Church call that medicine. My father was an active member of a chapter of the Native American Church at that time. I was fortunate enough to receive my Lenape Delaware name in a peyote meeting. But the first things I remember are the music he played in the car, but really the singing in the car, the singing in the truck that he would do of those peyote songs. Even after he quit going to meetings or he wasn't active in the Native American Church anymore, he still would sing these peyote songs, and I would ask him about the peyote songs, because they're different for every tribe. The forms, they still have their kind of conventions, but they're very tribally specific.Everything in what we call legally Indian Country here in the United States is super hyper local. So just down the road, that's really the beautiful thing about living in Oklahoma, is you have people whose ancestors are from northeast, southeast, southwest. There's only one tribe here from California. So it's a really rich place for sound and song. Both of my parents are Indigenous American Indian. My mother is Pawnee and Kiowa. My father is Lenape Delaware. I also grew up around the Big Drum, what we call the Big Drum at powwows. I never became a powwow singer or anything like that. Never learned anything around the Big Drum. But I did eventually learn Pawnee songs, Native American Church Pawnee songs.But really, I was just a kid in a small town in Oklahoma. When skateboarding hit and you become kind of an adolescent, you start to discover punk rock and things like that. Those to me were the way that the culture was imported to me. I didn't realize that I was already surrounded by all this beautiful culture, all of the tribes and my parents' tribes and my grandparents'. But then it was like a transmitter. Even these tapes were just transmitters to me. So those were really important also. I have a lot of thoughts about sound. Other thing I remember is my father often would get onto us or make fun of us for being so loud and saying we would be horrible scouts or hunters.Li:Making too much noise. Nathan:The Native Americans, yeah, yeah. We weren't stealth. You'd hear us coming a mile away. So he would always say, "You wouldn't be a very good one," just to try to get us quiet down.Li:No one wants to be a bad hunter, right? Can you break down the concept of Indigenous Sonic Agency? is this based on ancestral traditions, your artistic practice, academic scholarship, or a bit of all the above? Nathan:Well, Indigenous Sonic Agency is really one piece of a larger subject sonic agency, which I encountered in a book titled Sonic Agency by Brandon LaBelle. I was a former member of this collective, Postcommodity, and I'm reading this book. When we were first starting the collective, we had the opportunity to work with this Czech poet named Magor, Ivan Jirous Magor. It means blockhead, I believe. It's a nickname. He was kind of described as the Andy Warhol of the Plastic People of the Universe. He was an art historian. He spent most of his life in prison just for being an artist, an art historian. He was an actual musician. He didn't play with the Plastic People of the Universe, to my knowledge, but he did to write the lyrics, to my knowledge. We had the opportunity to record with Magor. So I'm reading this book about sonic agency, and here I find somebody that I'd actually had an experience with sonic agency with in my early days and as a young man and an artist.But ultimately Indigenous Sonic Agency is, in some sense, similar but different to tribal sovereignty. So when you think of agency or sovereignty, it's something that they sometimes get mixed up. I'm really trying to parse the differences between this, what we understand so well as political sovereignty as federally recognized tribes and what agency means, say, as an artist. But in my research, in the subject of sonic agency and Indigenous Sonic Agency, it encompasses pretty much everything. That's what I love about sound. Everything has a sound, whether we can hear it or not. Everything is in vibration. There are sounds that are inaudible to us, that are too high or too low. Then there's what we hear in the world and the importance of silence with John Cage. I think that they're just super productive.I was introduced really to sound studies through this book called Sonic Warfare by Steve Goodman. It was really about how the study of sound was, in a sense, still emerging because it had mostly been used for military purposes and for proprietary purposes such as commercials and things like that. As I stated earlier, I felt like music was my connection to a larger world that I couldn't access living in a small town. So even everything that came with it, the album covers, all that, they really made an impression on me as a young person, and it continues to this day, and I've been focusing deeply on it.My studies in sonic agency -- Indigenous Sonic Agency -- encompass everything from social song, sacred song, voice, just political speech and language, political language. There's so much work to be done in the emerging sound studies field. I felt that Indigenous Sonic Agency, there was a gap there in writing and knowledge on it. Now though, I acknowledge that there has been great study on the subject such as Dylan Robinson's book, Hungry Listening. I am fortunate enough to be around a lot of other Indigenous experimental artists who work in all the sonic fields. So it's an all-encompassing thing. I think about the sacred, I think about the political, I think about the nature of how we use it to organize things and how language works. Silence is a part of it. Also, listening is very important. It's something that I was taught at a very young age. You always have to continue to hone that practice to become a better and better listener. Li:That's the truth. Nathan:My grandmother was very quiet, but whenever she did talk, everybody loved it. Li:That's right. That's right. Let's talk about the Pennsbury Manor project. Can you share how you, Ryan Strand Greenberg, and Theo Loftis met and how nkwiluntàmën came to be? Nathan:Well, to my recollection, I try to keep busy around here, and oftentimes it means traveling to some of the other towns in the area such as Pawnee or Bartlesville or Dewey or Tahlequah. I wasn't able to do a studio visit with Ryan, but I wanted to see his artist talk that he was giving at the Tulsa Artist Fellowship, which I was a fellow at at that time. I remember seeing these large public art projects that were being imagined by Ryan. We had worked on some other projects that, for one reason or another, we weren't unable to get off the ground. Eventually, Pennsbury Manor was willing to be this space where we could all work together. I remember rushing back and being able to catch Ryan's artist talk. Then right before he left town, we had a studio visit and found out how much we had in common concerning the legacy of the Lenape in the Philadelphia area, what we used to call Lenapehoking. So it was a really a moment of good fortune, I believe. Li:Monument Lab defines monument as a statement of power and presence in public. The nkwiluntàmën project guide describes Pennsbury Manor as a space to attune public memory. It goes on to say that sites like these are not endpoints in history, but touchstones between generations. I really love that statement. Do you think Pennsbury Manor and the land it stands on, do you consider it a monument in your eyes? Why or, maybe even, why not? Nathan:Well, yeah, I would definitely consider Pennsbury Manor, in a sense, a monument. I think that we could make an argument for that. If we were talking about the nature of it being William Penn's home and it being reconstructed in the 20th century, you could make a very strong argument that it is a monument to William Penn and also as William Penn as this ideal friend to the Indian. Some people don't like that word. Here in Oklahoma, some of us use it. Technically, it was Indian Country legally. But I use all terms: Native American, Indigenous, Indian. But I'd mostly like to just be called a Lenape Delaware Pawnee Kiowa.I definitely would say that you could make an argument that is a monument to William Penn especially as part of that, as this ideal colonist who could be set as a standard as for how he worked with the Lenape and then other tribes in the area at the time. I think that's kind of the narrative that I run into mostly in my research, literally. However, I would not say that it was established or had been any type of monument to my Lenape legacy. I did not feel that... I mean, there was always mention of that. It was, like I said, as this ideal figure of how to cooperate with the tribes in the area. But I would definitely say it's not a monument to the Lenape or the Delaware or Munsee.Li:Can you share a bit more about the project itself in terms of nkwiluntàmën and what exactly you did there at Pennsbury Manor to shift and really inform that history from a different perspective? Nathan:Well, first of all, at Pennsbury Manor, I was given a lot of agency. I was given a lot of freedom to what I needed to as an artist. I was really fortunate to be able to work with Doug and Ryan and Theo in that manner where I could really think about these things and think deeply about them. I started to consider these living history sites. My understanding is that they're anachronisms. There's a lot of labor put into creating a kind of façade or an appearance of the past, and specifically this time, this four years that William Penn was on this continent. So this idea that nothing is here that is not supposed to be here became really important to me. What I mean by that is, say, if you threw in a television set, it kind of throws everything off. Everybody's walking around in clothing that reflects that era and that time. If you throw some strange electronics in the space, it kind of is disruptive. I didn't feel the need to do anything like that.I felt that one of the great things about working in sound and one of the most powerful things about sound is that sound can also be stealth. You can't see sound. We can sonify things or we can visualize it or quantify it in different ways. But to me, this challenge of letting the place be, but using sound as this kind of stealth element where I could express this very, very difficult subject and something that really nobody has any answers to or is sure about... I was trained as an art historian, and I know that we're only making guesses and approximations just like any doctors. We are just trying to do these things.But sound gave me the ability at Pennsbury Manor and nkwiluntàmën to work stealthy and quiet, to not disturb the space too much because there's important work that's done there, and I want to respect people's labor. As a member of the Delaware tribe of Indians of Lenape, I felt that it was a great opportunity to be the person who's able to talk about this very difficult subject, and that is not lost on me. That's a very, very heavy, very serious task. Li:Yeah, big responsibility. Nathan:Yes. It is not lost on me at all how serious it is, and I feel very fortunate. I think without such a great support system in place, it wouldn't have been possible. nkwiluntàmën means lonesome, such as the sound of a drum. We have a thing called the Lenape Talking Dictionary,  Li:I've seen it. I've seen it. Nathan:I'm often listening. I'm listening to Nora Dean Thompson who gave me my Delaware name, my Lenape name, Unami Lenape name in a peyote ceremony. So I often go there to access Delaware thought and ideas and to hear Delaware voices and Delaware language being spoken. I know that some people have different views on it, but let's say, I think artists and people have used the Unami Lenape before and art exhibitions as a lost or an endangered languages. I know that in the entire state that I live in, and in most of Indian country, there's a great language revitalization movement that I was fortunate to be a part of and contribute to.Really, that's where I discovered that that's really where through language, there's nothing more Lenape, there's nothing more Delaware, Unami Lenape than to be able to talk and express yourself in that manner or, say, as a Pawnee or a Kiowa to be able to talk and express. Embedded in those words are much more than just how we think of language. They're really the key to our worldviews. Our languages are the keys to our worldview and really our thought patterns and how we see the world and how we should treat each other or how we choose to live in the world or our ancestors did. So I'm fascinated by the language. I was fortunate enough to be around many, many different native languages growing up. But ours was one because of the nature of us being a northeastern tribe that was very much in danger of being lost. Some would say that at one point it was a very, very, very endangered language to the point to where nobody was being born in what we call a first language household, where everybody could speak conversationally in Unami Lenape.So these things, we all think about this, by the way, all of my community, the Delaware Tribe of Indians. I was fortunate enough to serve on the Tribal Council as an elected member for four years. We think about these things definitely all the time, and people do hard work to try to revitalize the language. I know at this time that the Delaware Tribe of Indians is actively working to revitalize our language. Li:That's a part of that preservation and remembrance because your work, really does explore this idea of ancestral remembrance and is rooted in that. Then again, you're also engaging with these historic sites, like Pennsbury Manor, that tap into public memory. So in your thoughts, how are ancestral remembrance and public memory connected? Are there any similar ways that they resonate? Nathan:Well, I think of different communities of remembrance. Within this idea of memory there are just different communities. I don't want to want to create a dichotomy, but it's easily understood by those who focus on the legacy of William Penn and those who focus on the legacy of the Lenape or the Pawnee. But ancestral memory is key to my culture, I believe, and I really don't know any way to express it other than explaining it in a contemporary sense. If you're deeply involved in your tribal nation, one of the one things that people will ask you is they'll say, "Who are your folks?" Literally, people will say, "Who are your folks?" Li:Who are your peoples? Nathan:"What family do you come from?" I didn't start to realize this until I was an adult, of course. It's not something you think you would ever think of as a child or anything. It started to become really apparent to me that we're families that make up communities that have stayed together in our case for hundreds of years across thousands of miles. It's a point to where we got down to very small numbers. We still stuck together. Then there was also a diaspora of Lenape that went to Canada, the Munsee and the Stockbridge. There was the Delaware Nation who has actually lived more near the Kiowa. My grandmother was Kiowa. But we still had the same family names. For instance, there are people and members of the Delaware Nation that are actually blood related to the Delaware Tribe. So that is really our connection to each other is our ancestors. That's purely what binds us to together is that our ancestors were together, and we just continue that bond. Li:Thank you. A part of Monument Lab's mission is to illuminate how symbols are connected to systems of power and public memory. What are the recurring or even the most vital symbols illuminated in your work? Nathan:Oh, that's a really tough question because my work is all over the place. I work across a lot of different mediums, although I've trained as an art historian, so I came into this as a visual artist. I just happened to be a musician and then discovered installation art and how sound works in art. But for me, the story I feel that I'm trying to tell cannot be held by any number of symbols or signs. I want to give myself the freedom and agency to use whatever is needed, actually, whatever is needed to get across the idea that is important to me. So going back to nkwiluntàmën, lonesome, such as the sounds, these colors, we use these white post-Colonial benches, and there's four large ones, placed across the grounds of Pennsbury Manor. You'll see that, if one were to visit, they would see a black bench, a yellow bench, a white bench, and a red bench. Nathan:If you're from my community, a Delaware Tribe of Indian member and you know that you're a Lenape, you understand that those colors have meaning to our tribe, and you'll know that those colors have sacred meaning. So in some sense, I will use whatever I think is the most appropriate way to use it also. I want to give myself the freedom to use any type of symbolism. I loved growing up with my mother and my grandmother being able to go to powwows. My mom would say, "Well, here comes the Shawnee women. Here comes the Delaware women. They dress like this. Here comes..." Li:You can recognize from their dress. Nathan:My mother and my grandmother taught me that iconography of our clothing, what we now call regalia. Li:I was curious if perhaps the drum or even the idea of homeland show up in your work? Nathan:Oh, they definitely show up in my work when appropriate. But rather than a drum, I would say sound or song or music. We do have these iconographies and symbols that are deeply meaningful to us, and I often use those in my artwork. But really the question for me is how to use them appropriately and, also at the same time, expand the use of these things appropriately. It's just being accountable to your legacy and your community in a sense and not crossing these boundaries, but still at the same time pushing form, pushing the edge.I'm a contemporary person. We're all contemporary people. We want to add something. We want to contribute. We want to be useful. So I'm searching for symbols and forms all the time, different ones. Whether it be a mound, whether it'd be a swimming pool inside an art gallery or a singing park bench or a post-Colonial bench in Pennsbury Manor, in some ways you could say I would be indigenizing and musicalizing those benches. But I consciously work to have a very broad palette. I want my work to be expansive and be able to encompass any subject or idea, because that's why I got into art is because you can talk about anything.Li:Yeah, it's boundless. It's boundless. Then also thinking about the connections and the symbols that you mentioned, the colors that you mentioned, the iconography, what systems of power might they be connected to? Nathan:Well, ultimately, I think that most of the power that is embedded in these symbols comes from the sublime, that come from the sacred. It's complicated. The sacred means to not be touched. That's my understanding, it's to not be touched. However, it's been the source of inspiration for artists of any continent of any time is, if you want to call it, a spiritual, sublime, religious connection, inspiration, whatever, but ultimately, that is my understanding. From my research, even as a young person studying Pawnee mythologies at the University of Oklahoma and special collection and learning stories, our origin stories and what color meant and how the world was seen by my ancestors from other tribes as well as Lenape stories, it's something that's hard to grasp and to hold onto, but that's how we've come to identify each other. It's as simple as we have car tags here that represent our tribes. We have a compact with the state. So everybody's looking around at all these different car tags.Li:Wow. Nathan:You see a regular Oklahoma one, and then you'll see... A very common one is a Cherokee because they're one of the biggest tribes. You'll see a blue one, it's Pawnee. Now you'll see a red one, and it's Delaware or Lenape. It says Unami Lenape on it, and it has our seal. So we play this kind of game all of us. I mean, it's not a game, but we're always looking at license plates to see... It might be your mom's car you're driving that has, say, a Kickapoo license plate or something, and it's a Cherokee driving it or a non-Indian or something, a relative, say. It's not for me to say where these came from. It's something that I actually just really explore and that fascinates me. It's very rich growing up and being a member of my tribal communities. I learn something new almost daily. Li:I can imagine like you said, the learning experience that you have as a child growing up in your community. You mentioned mythologies earlier. I study mythology. One of the purposes I've come to understand is education, educating through these stories. I recently interviewed Jesse Hagopian from the Zinn Education Project and the movement for anti-racist education. The struggles for education reform and reckoning with Eurocentric understandings of history seem to be deeply connected efforts. So on nkwiluntàmën, I understand an educational curriculum has been developed for younger audiences. What do you hope that people take away from this project that they might not find in a textbook or a classroom? Nathan:Well, I would hope that when people visit the large-scale sound installation and visual elements of it that they would understand... my greatest hope that people would learn what I learned while creating the work was that I really don't know what it felt like. I just came across, I was looking for the words in the Delaware Talking Dictionary for feelings, and I found a sentence or a way of saying feeling that said, "It did not penetrate me. I did not feel it." It made me realize that I don't know. I've never had this happen to me. The history of the Delaware Lenape is of constant removal, of constant pushing. Most people know the Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears. Actually, there were many movements of the Cherokee. It's very complex. All tribes are very complex. You always have to qualify. But the Trail of Tears is what most people know about. It was this very long, two-year complex journey. It was fraught. Li:That's one of the stories that we learned in school, if at all. Nathan:So our story is of nine of those and, to my understanding and research, was about once every 30 years. So it seemed to me that most Lenape, who came to be known as the Delaware Tribe, who I grew up with as, had ancestors that had experienced a removal. It's something that we still live and deal with today. We came to Oklahoma from what is now Lawrence, Kansas, when this was called Indian Territory. We had been living before that north of Kansas and had adapted our way of life as we changed across this territory and through time to survive.So as we moved into the Plains, we started to hunt buffalo, and then we get kind of crosswise with some other tribes. I think when the federal government was constituting Indian Country, they were concerned with the relationships between other tribes and how they felt. My understanding is we had upset some... By Buffalo hunting and adopting that way of survival and life, there was some trepidation about us. They wanted our reservation. The railroad wanted our reservation, and Lawrence, Kansas, to run directly through our reservation. They were forcing us to move off that reservation, and they couldn't find a place. That was kind of my understanding of the situation. So we ended up in the northernmost part of the Cherokee Nation. This made us a landless tribe for a very, very long time. Technically, we didn't have a reservation. We were living in the Cherokee's reservation because we had this very ancient but kind of tangential connection to the Cherokees. So that's a very long and complicated story as well. Li:That's actually a beautiful setup for one of my last questions actually. This idea of documentation and stewardship are key for Indigenous communities, as you just mentioned, that continue to contend with stolen land, forest displacements, cultural erasure, and lost languages. Monument Lab thinks a lot about the future archives that can hold the dynamic nature of public memory in all its forms. What would a future archive of ancestral memory look, feel, or even sound like for you? Nathan Young:I love that question because we do work with future archives of our ancestors, all of us do today. So I think it's really a question of form. I've encountered this in my studies of Sonic Agency and Indigenous Sonic Agency. The invention of the phonograph and the wax cylinder are very important. It didn't look like anything. It looked like sound or that archive. I think that unknowingly, we're all living in an archive. We're archiving moments now as things speed up constantly. Paul Virilio, the theorist, was very, very important to my thinking because he theorized about speed and the speed of, say, how a camera shutter and a gun are very similar in their repeatingness. I think about repetition a lot. But today, we live in this hyper surveillance society that any moment could be archived, any moment could be filmed, and also these things will be lost. So that is a fascinating thought to think about what may survive and become the archive and what may not, even with all of this effort to constantly surveil and document everything.But it's my hope that archives are important just because they give us a deeper understanding of a connection to something we will never be able to experience. So I think that a future archive is something that we cannot imagine. We don't know what it's going to look like, and it's up to us to find out and to explore form and explore possibilities so that we're not stuck in this mindset that has to be in steel and monumentalized as a figure or a person or something like that. So in my mind, it's just to be revealed to us. We'll know later, but I would hope that were to make...I know this is what people still do today that make monuments. They want to make something beautiful, but that means something different to Lenape or a Pawnee or Kiowa, so that seems very different to us. And so we do that. We do memorialize things in different ways. But I think that we think of them as more ethereal, whether we think of them as things that we know that aren't going to really last forever. I feel that way, at least. I don't speak for all of my culture. But I know that some of us are trying to find new forms to really memorialize our past and unite our community of memory and our tribes, our experiences.Li:Like you said, time, everything's moving so fast and everything's evolving. Everything's constantly changing. So who knows what the forms will take. This has been such a wonderful conversation. I really appreciate your time. I just wanted to see if you had any final words or even gems of ancestral wisdom you might want to leave with us before we finish. Nathan:No, I can't share any ancestral wisdom, not knowingly or very well. I just appreciate the opportunity to create the piece. I appreciate the opportunity to expand upon the piece by talking with you about this because I'm just trying to figure this out. I don't have all the answers. Li:Right, that is part of  being a life learner and walking this path. Everyone's on their journey. We are constantly learning at every turn. I'm with you, Nathan. I often admit that I do not have all the answers. That is for sure. I really enjoyed learning about your work and your practice. I definitely plan on getting down to Pennsbury Manor and look forward to the curriculum for the youth when it comes out. Nathan:Well, thank you. I hope you enjoy it. I hope that it's a meaningful experience for you. I'm a very fortunate person to be able to work on such a project and very grateful to the entire team and everybody that supported the process. Li:Thank you, and thank you again to Ryan Strand Greenberg, who is also the producer of this podcast and worked with you on the project for nkwiluntàmën. Thank you to Nathan Young, our guest today on Future Memory. This is another one for the Future Memory archives.Monument Lab Future Memory is produced by Monument Lab Studio, Paul Farber, Li Sumpter, Ryan Strand Greenberg, Aubree Penney, and Nico Rodriguez. Our producing partner for Future Memory is RADIOKISMET, with special thanks to Justin Berger and the Christopher Plant. This season was supported with generous funding by the Stuart Weitzman School of Design and the University of Pennsylvania.

SATURDAY OF THE FOURTH WEEK OF ADVENT Mass in the Morning: A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke Zechariah his father, filled with the Holy Spirit, prophesied, saying: “You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way, to give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins. In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.” Continuing where yesterday's Gospel reading left off, Zechariah prophesies John's role in preparing the way for the Lord. Repentance is key in giving knowledge to people of the forgiveness of their sins. Zechariah recognizes that through God's mercy in sending his Son, God will “break upon” sin, darkness, and death and guide us toward him into the way of peace. This is the same God who speaks to David through the prophet Nathan: “It was I who took you from the pasture and from the care of the flock to be commander of my people Israel. I have been with you wherever you went, and I have destroyed all your enemies before you.” God himself breaks through to rescue us from whatever hinders the path to him so that, as Zechariah prophesies, we are “free to worship him without fear . . . all the days of our life.” Incredible as it may seem, God, you enter human history through Emmanuel to ransom us from sin and death. One to one, person to person, you call each of us by name to worship you. Help me understand what the limits of my knowledge and contemporary skepticism obscure. I want to put that aside and ponder the words of the Gloria: “For you alone are the Holy One, You alone are the Lord, You alone are the Most High, Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father.” For the sake of your glory, Lord, help my unbelief. From the time the angel Gabriel announced to Zechariah that he would have a son, Zechariah's disbelief left him mute. Here today, filled with the Holy Spirit, he prophesies that his son will prepare the way of the Lord. Holy Spirit, fill me today with whatever leads me to God's tender compassion that Zechariah speaks of; be the dawn from on high to break upon me with your light. From the Gospel acclamation: O Radiant Dawn, splendor of eternal light, sun of justice: come and shine on those who dwell in darkness and in the shadow of death. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lectiodiv/videos Web: https://lectiodiv.wordpress.com/ --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lectio-divina-daily/support

Sherrell Dorsey is the founder and CEO of The Plug, a publication and community for news, insights and analysis on trends in Black innovation. The Plug features stories that show the substantive ways Black people engage with the innovation economy, including analyses of modern technologies.On today's show, Sherrell shares about building an audience and growing The Plug. We talk about sponsorships, The Plug's revenue model, and her background in journalism and how she brings that into her current work. We also talk about choosing a niche, staying consistent, and much more.Sherrell has worked in marketing and consulting for companies such as Uber, Tresata, MarketSource, and Build The Good. Sherrell has also worked as a correspondent for Fast Company, Essence, Next City, and Black Enterprise. She earned her master's degree in data journalism from Columbia University.In this episode, you'll learn: How to grow your subscribers when first starting out Different strategies for monetizing your newsletter The right way to include advertising in your newsletter Tradeoffs between having a team and working as a solopreneur Links & Resources Clay Hebert Monica Melton Farnam Street Shane Parrish Ryan Holiday Daily Stoic James clear Uber Google Fiber Microsoft Fast Company The Root Black Enterprise GoDaddy theSkimm Signal Bloomberg Terminal Business Insider The Moguldom Nation Sherrell Dorsey's Links Follow Sherrell on Twitter The Plug The Plug newsletter HBCU newsletter TPinsights.com Episode Transcript00:00:00 Sherrell:I think that we've gotten into this very fast pace, and this idea of constant information and voices in your head. I don't know that more information is making us a better society. I think that this idea of community and grappling with ideas, calling things out or bringing things to attention, but having something meaningful to say really outweighs just being visible all of the time. 00:00:31 Nathan:My guest today is Sherrell Dorsey. Sherrell is the founder of The Plug, which is a newsletter, and really a publication at this point, about the black tech ecosystems and all the interesting things that black and brown founders are doing in technology and business. She started in 2016, and she's built it up to have a full-time team of five people now.I'm so impressed with what she's built. We get into talking about sponsorships, the revenue model, how she built the audience, her background in journalism, and how she brings that into what she's doing now. I actually grew up in tech and some of the ecosystems that she was a part of that inspired her.We talk about choosing a niche and staying focussed there. We talk about consistency. There's really a lot of things in this episode. I love what she's doing and how she's built this niche business into something that now employs full-time journalists. At a time when a lot of other publications are dwindling, she's growing.So, let's dive into the episode.Sherrell, welcome to the show.00:01:35 Sherrell:Thank you so much for having me.00:01:37 Nathan:I actually want to start talking about experimentation. We're going to jump around a little bit. You like to run a lot of experiments, and you've taken an approach on experimentation where you're doing it at a stage in the business where you have a lot going on. A lot is working. This is a point where I see a lot of content creators freak out and stop experimenting because they're like, “This is what my audience likes. I have to show up in exactly this way.”So, they don't experiment. Even at this level of success, you're like, “No, experimentation is a core part of what we're doing.”Could you talk about that, and some of the experiments that you run, and then your mindset around it?00:02:12 Sherrell:We're constantly challenging ourselves as a team, and trying not to get bored. Part of our experimentation may have more to do with the attention deficit issues that we have as a team, as a collective. Maybe not as much as our audience, but we also assume that they also have attention issues.Let's be honest, there's so much competing for our audience's attention, right? I mean, outside of the inbox, theres social media, there's the day-to-day of all the crazy, all the push notifications. So, for us, experimentation really is at the core of challenging ourselves to face something new and interesting, and really tapping into what.The sort of timeliness of news, and really finding a way to put it into our voice and share some of our opinions as well. Even with running The Plug's weekly briefing experimentation is really even just how I got started. The Plug for me was an experiment. I was getting up at 5:00 AM, pulling together a newsletter, wanting to cover diverse voices in tech.Doing it just as this labor of love, and also nerdiness and curiosity, and it started to grow. Then I said, well, maybe I can do this every single day. Then I did it every day. Then at some point we realized, hmm, are people having inbox fatigue? What if we slow things down and really make people cherish every single sentence that we're writing in our newsletters, and giving them a long and deep side of slow conversations on Monday mornings as they're starting their day.We've seen those questions that we're asking kind of manifest in this idea of experimenting with just our curiosity. We've seen that well, I mean, honestly, Nathan, we're getting 45% to 48% open rates on every single newsletter, and it has been pretty consistent.When we were in the daily phase, we were starting to see those open rates go down. People just didn't even have enough time to read. So, again, we start with the question, “Well, what if, or how do we personally sort of engage with our news and with our information, and how do we create a moment of almost intimacy with our audience and our subscribers?” Where instead of just having the breadth, we can actually have the depth.00:04:40 Nathan:Yeah. I want to talk about the consistency and the schedule later in the episode, but let's go there right now because I think a lot of people, when they're writing their newsletter, they struggle with how often to send. And, you know, if you look at someone like Seth Godin who publishes every day and has done it for, I don't know, decades at this point, it's like, oh, I should be like Seth Goden and publish every single day or send out, you know, a newsletter five days a week.But one that's incredibly hard to maintain. And then two, I think you'll see exactly what you're talking about. The engagement and interest drops off, too much of a good thing is still too much. What do you think about that?00:05:18 Sherrell:I think that we've gotten into this very fast paced. I mean, I, you know, Twitter became a thing when I was like exiting undergrad and this idea of just constant information and voices in your head. Was kind of standard and status quo. And I feel as though now we really wanted to hyper focus on how do we get people to sit with ideas and thoughts before we kind of bombard them with just more information.And I don't know that more information is making us a better society. I think that this idea of community and grappling with ideas, you know, calling things out or bringing things to attention, but having something meaningful to say really outweighs, just being visible all of the time. I think especially with the newsletter, with the newsletter, you're telling stories, you are bringing ideas to the forefront, you're surfacing news and information for people to kind of ruminate on.And then we can kind of hit people later on in the week, which we do with here's opportunities to engage further. Or did you check out this data set that we've pulled together that will allow you to look at. How HBCs are graduating, like the top black engineers in the country. And so for us, it's about what is the value that we're providing to our audience?Why, why would they want to continue to open the email instead of just, let's be there for the sake of being there, you know? And it's like, it's like small talk at networking events where like people are pushing their business card on you. And you're like, I don't ever want to 00:06:50 Nathan:Okay 00:06:50 Sherrell:You ever again in life.And we definitely did not want to be that like pushy networker. We just wanted people to be able to sit with us, have a cup of coffee, have a tea, and just, you know, Really, really, connect with us and our work. And so, thus far, you know, like I said, we really saw our open rates increased drastically going from the daily into that weekly and it being meaningful.And our managing editor, Monica Melton, who was our first employee at The Plug has really, really ramped up subject lines and experimenting, in AB testing that has been so beneficial in terms of how the newsletter is being received.00:07:36 Nathan:Well, that's something that you just can't do when you're on a daily deadline. I'm trying to rush out on that scale, or you have to have a much larger staff to be able to bring that level of thoughtfulness and testing to each piece of content.00:07:50 Sherrell:So true. So very true. I mean, you know, we've always sort of operated and I think most startups, you kind of have to do more with less. And I think from the standpoint of delivering higher value really wanted our team to be able to think through, well, what should that Monday newsletter say? What are the opportunities that we can really present to our audience that are thoughtful?Even during our editor, our weekly editorial call, like we, we, we really deep dive into what are some of the top issues? What do we think about it? We really get to massage it out and be thoughtful. And I don't know, even if we had a larger team, maybe we would do more, maybe, maybe less. General newsletter, maybe more profiles would be really nice.And we've recently launched a new newsletter as well. it's kind of the niche of the niche. our incredible HBCU innovation reporter recently launched an executive newsletter for those who are recruiters, HR professionals who are really trying to understand how do historically black colleges and universities play a role in the future of work and just breaking down stats, breaking down the kinds of patents that are being developed, breaking down the kind of research coming out of these institutions ways in which to engage with faculty, new entrepreneurship centers, all of these like really incredible stats that you don't really hear on a daily basis.So that now that is a subset where now we have increased the cadence of our newsletters, but we've created that for a very specific niche within the niche of audience that we serve.00:09:26 Nathan:You said something about it's almost the environment that your newsletter is received into of your app. Like telling someone slow down, this is be thoughtful. This is a thoughtful part of your morning. Like have your cup of coffee, have your tea. And I'm realizing that as a newsletter creator myself, I often don't think about like, I'm not asking.The reader to get in a state of mind to engage with my content or get in a physical space. And so this is it's interesting, I haven't thought about before and it would change the approach to the content and it would for sure change the approach to the writing because instead of going okay, punchy headlines quick, this is for the busy professional, reading it on the subway, you know, like that's one style and it sounds like you're hitting in a completely different style, I guess.Tell me more about that. And then the other aspect of it is what are the ways that you reinforce that message to your readers? Cause it's one thing, if you think in your editorial room and conversations, but that you have to actually translate that to the reader so that they feel it as well.00:10:31 Sherrell:Yeah, we just didn't want to be forced to speed up. honestlyit was who I always liked this idea of, of slower journalism. I grew up such a reader like my mom and I get up on Saturday mornings and go to Barnes and noble when like bonds. And like when we actually went into bookstores, right.She would like leave me in the kids' section. And I would just like, get a mountain of books and just sit and read. And I always think about that opportunity of like just saying. And reading and in sitting and like digesting ideas and information. And when I think about some of my favorite newsletters, I think about, the, the Farnam street blog and, and Shane Parrish, Paul Jarvis used to write an incredible newsletter.There's just so many incredible writers and thinkers that create these kinds of long form pieces. I think, right in holiday and the daily, it does a really interesting sort of long form, you know, he does, he definitely does like the, the Daily of course, cause it's the daily. but these kinds of newsletters that really made you think about the world around us and sort of the new ideas that are emerging and.I felt as though, as we were starting to deep dive into this Nisha space, of course we cover black and brown innovators, future of work, future of business, inclusive business ideas that are highly data-driven. You have to really sit and think about what this data means when it means within your work. And it's not just like a flash in the pan, series or subsets of ideas.It really is how do I take this and apply it to my work and everyday capacity. So we didn't want to just give like bullet points of actions. It was more of, you have to apply this in your world in your way. And so I wanted to kind of recreate that to an extent. and as I mentioned before, you know, experimenting with.Subject lines and titles and flow. And I mean, even just organization of information, you know, there's always sort of the backend analytics that you can take a look at. What are people actually clicking on? What kind of things do they care about? serving our audience, a great deal to understand what they want to hear more about.I know that there are a lot of investors who subscribed to us who are always looking at our startups to watch section, and just the fact that people are able to kind of read this very long email and find a section that resonates with them and decide to take an action from that. That for us really demonstrates kind of a metric that we did not even anticipate going into this.And that really has to do with listening to our audience, quite frankly.00:13:11 Nathan:Yeah, that's good. I have more people will take that approach. cause I think. Now you say that and noticing that trend in a lot of these newsletters, like Shane Parrish, or like James clear, some of these others that have been going for a long time and built these substantial audiences is there's a level of intentionality that really makes it unique in that way.Let's go back. And, now that we've gotten into some of the tactics and the high-level things, let's talk about, you know, actually starting The Plug. So you started in 2016, is that00:13:39 Sherrell:I did. I started at 2016 as a labor of love. I had been writing freelance. I was working in tech, so I am an alum of Uber, as well as Google fiber, Microsoft and high school. I like worked, as an intern and like tech was always just such a big part of my life. And I grew up in Seattle. So it's like, go figure of course, like the girl that like grew up in Seattle is like a tech person.So, so it was always a huge part of my life. And what was really cool about my experience in Seattle is that I was trained in coding and network administration and all these really cool programming language and languages from a woman who was a retired software engineer from Microsoft, who like converted a storefront.And she was like, I want to teach inner city kids like about technology because. I'm female, I'm brown, I'm gay. Like there's not many folks like me in this space. And like, I want to create back in this space. And so my experience was just so unique. And when I got into the workforce and the conversations that were happening in media did not include voices from folks like myself or from Trish who started the center that I went to.And the folks who kind of raised me while I was at Microsoft, who were from all kinds of backgrounds and all kinds of experiences and like would burn me like, remember back in the day when you were burning, This amazing mentor who like she was like, burn me, like all of the Mo like the brand new heavies, most Def like all of these, like really amazing like albums.And, you know, at the same time, like teach me about like walking through this space of tech in a very male dominated field. And so when it come to the workforce and the media was kind of always a grandizing like all of these men and their ideas about the future, I was like, well, I've met some really like dope, you know, women engineers, or really dope, like black software developers and test engineers.And, I shared, you know, office spaces with, you know, incredible like female engineers from India. And I just did not see that like thought leadership component coming from these different facets of society. And I was like, well, you know, I want to start covering communities outside of these kinds of normal technical.Right. And I also was just walking through the world in living in places like New York city, living in Charlotte, North Carolina, even Bridgeport, Connecticut random. And just really finding these genius ideas and people in business leaders who were kind of unsung to a degree, but were working on really hard challenges and finding some success.So I had been kind of freelancing and, and writing for fast company, the route black enterprise and sharing these things. And I started to kind of become known as like, oh, like she's like the black girl Tector list. Who's like trying to cover everyone. and so at some point, you know, I got to a point where like, I really want my own column.I really want my own column. And you know, I think editors thought like, okay, your writing is okay, but it's not like, great.And like, this space is kind of cool, but like, that's just not what we do. And so, you know, I was like, okay, I'm going to spend my $10. I go daddy and buy my domain name. And I'm, you know, people were already calling me like The Plug, like, you know, where everything is, whoever went is, you know, what's happening, what's going around.And so I just started like this newsletter, I just went for broke and it was like, I'm going to create this daily newsletter. I'm going to get up at 5:00 AM every day and let's see what happens. It wasn't a business yet. Nathan. It was just an idea. Like, let's see if I can kind of create an environment where we are covering, you know, innovation from the perspective of communities of color, startup leaders, VCs, and grappling with like really interesting ideas and trends.And then also sourcing storylines from around the web. So that went on for about a year and a half. but about six months in is when I got like, we got our first corporate deal and I was like, oh, you want to give me money for this? Hm. I wonder what I can do with this. and, and that really enabled me to really get started and bring on some freelancers to help support the production of the every day.And at some point we decided, you know, following grad school, like let's, let's go for the school throttle and see if we can really build a substantive business here.00:18:15 Nathan:So, what did it look like that first year to grow subscribers? Right? Because going from maybe let's just talk the first three months going from buying a domain on GoDaddy to the first hundred, the first 500 subscribers. Like what was that process?00:18:31 Sherrell:Yeah. Well, first I like spammed, my friends and family was like, you better subscribe. so that was,00:18:36 Nathan:Which I highly endorsed as a strategy, like legitimately, because going from zero to a hundred is so hard. If you're like, no, I will only do it. people who come in through major publication or like, I dunno, what 00:18:48 Sherrell:Yeah00:18:50 Nathan:Your friends.00:18:50 Sherrell:You've got to like breakThe rules and you just have to like go literally go for broke, you know? And so that first hundred, you know, it was really looking at the audience. I had sort of built through my reputation of covering this beat. Over the last few years, like a few years prior. And so, you know, those were people who were immediately bought in, friends and family.I asked people to push up a newsletter very frequently. I was like, shamelessly plugging The Plug and like, Hey, you know, if you like this, like share it with your friends, share it with your colleagues. it definitely was not easy. It was a, it was a kind of one by one getting people bought in. And of course I had the power of social media, you know, on my side.Whereas had I started this like years prior, like in, in, in college before Twitter became a thing or Instagram or Facebook, perhaps I wouldn't have had as much visibility. some things that also helped to supercharge quite honestly, was like sharing across LinkedIn, just from a professional capacity standpoint.I was still freelance writing as well. So it allowed me to share, you know, Sherrell is like the creator of The Plug and you can sign up here at the bottom.00:20:02 Nathan:It changes your byline.00:20:04 Sherrell:I was able to, yeah. I was able to really leverage my, my byline. but it was a lot of pushing. It was a lot of, it was a lot of like asking people to share and to subscribe all the time.00:20:15 Nathan:Yeah. I was talking to someone, a friend who has a book coming out right now. And I asked him like, how's it going? He was like, oh, it's a lot of work. I'm doing a lot of begging right now. You know? And I was like, yep. That's Write of like, Hey, will you share this? Will you, do you know anyone who could subscribe?Will you subscribe? and a lot of the people who end up like getting traction and making something are the people that are willing to do that. And then the people who are like, you know, I tried this new venture, I put it out in the world and it just didn't resonate. And so I shut it down and moved on after three months or whatever.It's like, you dig into their stories and they're the ones who weren't willing to, you know, as long text all their friends. And so it just takes that level.00:20:55 Sherrell:Absolutely. I mean, three months is hardly enough time. I mean, you almost need like a solid two to three years to really, really like solidify yourself. The right conversation, get in the right rooms, build it, that level of credibility. I know some people who are able to do it very quickly. I think you're, you know, you're leveraging relationships, you're leveraging interviews and it's nonstop.You're nonstop promoting yourself. And you know, I'll be honest, Nathan, there's a bit of discomfort, in promoting yourself constantly. I think also like as a woman, I had to get very, very comfortable. I think that's something I had to learn in tech of, you know, watching like my male counterparts, like constantly talk about how great they were.And like, I was always so uncomfortable the exact same demeanor. but I had to find my own way to talk about the work that I was doing and what I found interesting. And the more that I did that, I found that again, you know, folks were just subscribing because I asked they actually cared about what I was doing.And even to this day, We are full fledged, you know, running media company. And we have people who were literally those early subscribers who have been with us since the jump. So when we have typos or when we've had titles in the past, or we've had a glitch or an email accidentally without, I mean, these folks didn't berate us or like drag us online, they were just like, Hey, just want you to know this link doesn't work.And I hope you're well, like I've been following you for years. Like I get those emails like every single week. And it is so incredible to really know that like, people have been rocking with you from your early days when you were less sophisticated, less refined, you know, and, but still they, they understand the intent.And they've seen that throughout the process of you growing your, your business, that you have been intentional. And I think that that's the value that they find.00:23:00 Nathan:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. what about, well, was there a point in there either three months in or two years in or something where you were wondering, is this working like, should I keep going on it or was it just steady progress without any self doubt?00:23:17 Sherrell:Wish that I was the most confident person ever. I mean, fine. Find me someone who was just like, yes. I mean, you know, maybe Elon Musk, talking that he knows that everything he does is going to turn to gold. I definitely am not one of those, those individuals. I definitely, would have moments of discouragement, you know, you know, we talked about open rates, right.And I think, you know, sort of like as you're ramping. Your open rates look really good because your list is, is smaller. And then as your list grows, your open rates change and fluctuate. And, and if you're not familiar with, with that, it's really rough. You know, especially when you're still just learning the tools, you're still learning the techniques of AB testing or you're learning the tools of how to really create a captivating subject line or a captivating headline overall.And so, you know, when, as we continue to grow or you see the unsubscribes, right, like unsubscribes are still deflating. Even now years later, Maven is like, oh my gosh, like, why would you leave me? You know, it's like a breakup, you know, you're like, why would you ever leave me? And honestly, most people just get overwhelmed.And we, what we saw was transitioning to that. Weekly versus the daily. We've seen significant drops in unsubscribes. You know, folks, folks have time to actually read us. They don't feel overwhelmed with seeing our name in their inbox every single day. but there are, there are challenges for sure. You know, I think that, you know, I think that when you start to kind of compare yourself against sort of others emails or their newsletters or seeing their growth and the tactics that they're using, and also knowing sometimes you don't have the resources, you know, we didn't put money into Facebook ads or any other kind of platform.Everything for us had to be organic and it had to be intentional. And without having a huge marketing budget to try to get across certain milestones. And sometimes that can be discouraging if you're like, oh wait, like they're lists maybe twice the size of mine and they've not been doing this as long.And they've been able to put in the resources to kind of move the needle, or, you know, even in wanting to kind of stay intentional and practice this idea of slow journalism and slow information. When you see others who are like quick flash in the pan and, and they've grown exponentially, but it's also like, okay, we have some of the most engaged readers ever.You know, again, people who will show up will continue to show up to our events when we do something in person, or kind of contribute and show up to our virtual launches and things like that. And so I had to always kind of refocus on who my audience is and who has really stayed and stuck with us and the value that we deliver because the outside comparison will definitely.Kill any kind of confidence that you may have and, I think overall we had to get out of the game of becoming like the wonder kid company that sells to some major entity 12 months in, I think there was just this huge rush, especially with media newsletters of like, oh, you build this up, you work, work really hard.And then, you know, the New York times comes and purchases you, right? And like it's kind of far and few between. And if we're playing that race, you know, if we're playing that kind of game, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's not necessarily the right north star and being rushed into this idea of what success looks like.We have to really redefine for ourselves and what, like our core values have been. And we have to revisit that time and time again, and really just focus on delivering the best value that we can deliver.00:27:04 Nathan:Yeah, it sounds like you have a long time horizon, which I think is really, really important because so many people are. They're focused on like, okay, this has to work in the next month, the next three months, the next two years. And you just, you burn yourself out. Like I I've been working, in six weeks.It will be the new year. And I will have been working on convert kit for nine years and like, realizing that I was like, oh, this takes a long time. And you get those best compound results over. It's just a lot of time.00:27:33 Sherrell:It takes a while. Good things. Take time. And it's really hard. you know, I'm a millennial and everything where we want it to have everything like yesterdayandwant it tolikeRight. I mean, yes, of course, absolutely. Like, that's why I don't cook. Right. Like Uber eats me please. So, it humbles you to really understand.I always, I always say, you know, like we're understanding our own minds right now. we had to kind of go through our mature, our maturation phase of who are we? What is our content and our work stand for who is our audience? You know, having to kind of make those shifts and adjustments as we grew, the newsletter that we started is not the newsletter that we have today.We. We are going to have this highly kind of consumer driven newsletter. And as we started to look back at emails and names and titles, we kind of quickly realized, yes, our folks are kind of on the, on the periphery of like being consumer based. But these are people who hold really interesting titles at top tech companies, or they are, you know, coming from vaping companies.And so it really allowed us to see and understand, well, our content is helping to inform and give intelligence to these people who are going into work everyday, making decisions. It's not just information for information sake. We have to fundamentally cater to a very different audience than, than how we started.And I'm honestly very proud of that evolution. And I'm also proud of the time that it's taken, even for me to evolve as a. I mean, I went from me and my laptop and wifi to now having four full-time employees and 10 contractors that help us to build this thing, like every single day. And so that's fundamentally over this time, horizon has been a transition and an evolution across the board, and I'm sure who you were and where you started nine years ago is fundamentally different than what you have built as a company today.But you need each of those steps, right? It's that kind of crawl to walk, to run, to fly sort of phase. And I think we're just working on practicing more intentionality. And now I have more brains. I have more, more hands, more ideas in this that makes it better every single day. And I, and I just try my best to like, honor that.00:30:03 Nathan:I love that. Yeah. It's exactly what I think of it as what's a journey that I can go on that will make me a different person. By the time I get there, like what's the, not the easy path, but what's the thing that I can undertake where it's like, I, the only way to accomplish that is by becoming like leveling up and becoming a different person.And, and it sounds like you're on a similar journey.00:30:27 Sherrell:Absolutely. I mean, I don't know how you do this and you, and you don't change or transition. And I mean sure. Would it have been nice to get that early win, whatever that looks like, and then kind of had the clout to say, oh yeah, I sold my first company and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, yeah, sure, man.But that would have come with its own, you know, challenges. I mean, I, you know, went to grad school during the process and, you know, had to hire a managing editor to help the flow. So it was like getting up super, super early to go to class and like run the newsletter and deal with clients like in between class transitions and homework.And, you know, deliverables was not an easy feat, but I needed that time to help me become the leader that I am today and the journalist than I am today. And also to build the kind of network and relationships that would help us continue to grow into thrive. And I think more so now, and I, and I'm not sure if this is true for you as well, Nathan, you know, it's less about just general execution and more about.What room. So I need to be in where I can learn and kind of see my business differently and see the opportunities in a way that are effective. I mean, we've always run a remote company and I've always wanted to run a remote company. And now that we're remote and I have. Folks across time zones, you know, it is how do we continue to produce at an excellent level, but then also like be, you know, be sensitive to different time zones.And when we move an all hands meeting, how that kind of affects the workflow for the week, or, you know, some of my team members are juggling full families. And, told you earlier, you know, that we are our two-year-old director of mayhem with like, he has like three teeth. He's like, you know, one of our favorite employees, sometimes like, you know, he calls it like 7:00 AM and just wants to chat and you have to be available for those conversations.And so, you know, again, you know, I think, I think this whole entire process is a growth journey and sometimes your north star does change. You know, I think that when I first started out, it was like, yeah, like we want to be just as great as this. You know, we want to be just as great as kind of these superstars that, you know, had access to a great deal of funding.Well, here was the thing they think when I was in grad school, I went to school for computational journalism. I went to journalism school at a time that there was a 40% reduction in staff of actual journalists. Like the industry itself was like, we're dying, come on a Janice. Right. And watching these major publications that were like dominant leaders, completely lose their valuations and have to sell for pennies on the dollar compared to what they raised in venture capital.And so the other component to Nathan was that I realized I can't compete on resources cause I hadn't raised any money. Then we were doing strictly revenue. Advertising and sponsorship checks, and then eventually reintroduced subscriptions and subscriptions giving access to more premium content and developing an entire sort of newsletter experience and product experience that would cater to the subset of folks who wanted more and shared with us that they wanted more.And so I think the slowing down also enabled us to listen a lot more to our audience about who they were, what they were looking for, what they wanted. And it put us into a great place, even though it kind of felt like, okay, folks where they knew about us, but, you know, once the pandemic kind of shot off and our work was just out there and everyone's online, they're like, oh wait, like The Plug like has been doing this work for a very long time.Like their stuff is really dope, like that really catapulted us. And so I'm lab that we had built up such a body of work and reputation. So that once we started to kind of get this influx of subscribers and this influx of folks paying for the premium membership, we were ready. We already had things that they could tap into that were of excellence.And so, it is, it's definitely a journey all the way.00:34:46 Nathan:So on that journey, well, so you have tens of thousands of subscribers now for The Plug. What were some of the inflection points in growing that audience? Was it perfectly linear or were there some things, you know, certain stories that took off where you added hundreds of thousands of subscribers in one go.00:35:03 Sherrell:Yeah. I mean, doing our work in public has been such a great benefit to us. I think before we were kind of in this closed community space, we just want to talk to our audience in there. well, we had to create greater opportunities and we learned this through a survey to our, to our subscribers. And they said, listen, like we love this work.And folks would email me or email our managing editor and have conversation, but they're like, we want more conversation like amongst each other. we want to know who else is subscribed here. And so we had to do a lot more of our work in public, really engaging people across social media, because that really is just where people are, you know, whether it's frequently or infrequent.That was kind of where audience, also wanted to engage either with myself or with our team members. And so pushing out our articles, creating, very engaging data visualizations to really show the prowess of our work and our reporting. a lot of our work has gone viral. A lot of our data, our data sets and visualizations have gone viral.It gives, it's given us an opportunity to, again, like teach and allow people to grapple with information and sort of how that information plays a role in sort of some of the challenges people of color in tech have faced and also the opportunities and trends, that are on the horizon as there's more distribution of access to capital and access to.And so doing that work in public and having clear stances and, continuing to host conversations, bold conversations, courageous conversations in public have really drawn more attention back to our original work back to our original newsletter. And so, and so again, experimentation, right?I mean, I would love to say we have this grand strategy. Most of it was listen, we're doing really dope things. We need everyone to see what we're doing. And so we've just, we've just refined it. you know, a lot more, we've ensured that our team has access to the tools to build out charts and graphs and things like that.00:37:09 Nathan:Yeah, that's good. So a lot of content creators, you know, come into it from some other path, like I'm a designer turned blogger, right. but you really came to it from, I mean, you're a journalist, you went to school for journalism and you have this tech and data background. And so I'm curious as you work, you know, these really data-driven stories and you bring like true journalism.Each of the stories, what's something, well, I want to go two different directions, which always makes for a terrible question. one is, I, I'm curious for more of your process, like, you know, are you finding the data and then uncovering the story within it? or does it, you know, you hear a great story and that leads you into the data or does it, is it both directions?00:37:53 Sherrell:It's definitely both directions. I mean, sometimes just being out and about whatever that looks like these days, you come across really interesting stories. we're always engaging on social media and listening in to conversations and sometimes like that sparks, like. But mostly we are driven by a question and just the curiosity of, Hey, I wonder what's going on with this, or I saw this opportunity, but what does this actually mean?And then it kind of finding the dataset and end, or having to build out our own datasets and then being able to tell a story from that. And the cool thing is that, you know, numbers can tell one side of a story, or, or they can tell multiple stories. And so the great thing is that it's a constant feedback loop that's going on in the way in which we identify, find or even presented.A lot of our readers are really, really great at even just sharing like, Hey, you know, I live in Oakland and like, this is what's happening here with this particular company or organization, or, you know, I stumbled across this thread and just wanted to get your thoughts. And then we're like, oh, Hey, you know, maybe we should, maybe we should kind of think through this and, and what data exists, where can we kind of go and find more insights?And then also, you know, on the weekends, I like long walks on the beach and reading a lot of research papers.And so,so like sometimesit helps to spark ideas and I'm sure that, you know, as someone like yourself, who's also a creator and, you know, someone who loves to read really great work, having a multifaceted array of content around you all the time, whether you're listening to it, reading it, watching it, it also helps to spark new ideas on how to, as we say, as journalists, like how to enter a story from like the back door, right.Not everything on its surface is what it is, but when you have an eclectic mix of content and, like I subscribe, you know, to, to things that are kind of way outside of my purview from tacking day, And that helps me to kind of think about other spaces and industries. I had a great conversation with a founder a few weeks ago, who was talking about these like warehouses.She has a data software company that like maps, supply chain and food and food ingredients as well. And she was just talking about how, like, there's so many entrepreneurs, like in the state of Georgia who owned these like warehouses and manufacturing facilities and how like, you know, no one's talking about these hundred million dollar plus companies that employ a hundred plus people.And they're doing really well because everyone kind of wants to be on social media, like selling their product. And they're the ones that like, ensure that products actually get made. And I just thought like, that is so fascinating. Like I wonder, you know, regionally, like where are the manufacturing plants in a, in a country that has shipped so much of its, you know, manufacturing overseas.And so just the curiosity of it. All right. It's just the curiosity of, interesting conversations that we try to bring to the forefront.00:40:58 Nathan:That makes sense. Is there a story that you've worked on that. Or that you've worked on a published, broken in some way that has changed the conversation. Like one of these that's gone viral. and I'm sure there's plenty, but a favorite that you'd want to share.00:41:11 Sherrell:Yeah, I actually, this was a surprise, piece that went viral. this was, following the murder of George Floyd, last year. And I happen to be, on Twitter as I started to see a lot of tech CEOs, speak out and really address this issue on police brutality, and justice. And, you know, I had mentioned, you know, I'd been working in tech for a few years and you know, it's not like this was an anomaly, right?We we've seen this happen in play out, unfortunately, in so many different ways, but I had never really seen corporate leadership or, even just tech leadership really speak out. And so I started documenting the public statements that were coming across my timeline and really scraping Twitter to kind of see which brands which companies were making these states.And also kind of comparing that across the board of what their diversity equity inclusion results were saying about their commitments to, black and brown workers who was actually in leadership roles, who was actually on the board and really getting a sense of our companies kind of here for the moment.Or are they actually kind of living what it is they say their, their actual core values are.And again, this was kind of a, project that I just want it to be able to have ready and to have something to say for the following week and decided with my team, well, we're going to need some additional help so that we don't miss out on any conversations that.May have happened. And so I allowed the database to kind of be open for people to contribute to. And I started creating a visualization, really creating a timestamp of when companies were speaking out against, sort of against just the general timeline as like the country sort of erupted in protests on a national level.It went viral immediately. and again, without intent, I was really trying to do some research and also just kind of share, like, here are some of the companies that have made statements and here's the timelines. it went viral and it was overwhelming. I started getting messages across the board from CEOs, from recruiters.I even had. Folks who I'd worked with in previous years, reach out to me like they were like in Amsterdam, they're like, you know, your, database your visualization, like we're, it's at our all hands. And like we're talking through, 00:43:44 Nathan:Sorry 00:43:44 Sherrell:Our statement will be. I started getting signal messages and for those who are unfamiliar signal is like the private messaging app and encrypted and all of that.And I mean, people are sending me company emails and I mean, it was a great time be a journalist in that moment. And to really like, experience the wave of like what journalism should be in terms of, public service. It was also a very hard time, as you can imagine. as, as it was the middle of a pandemic, I'm at home by myself, with my plants in my wifi feeling somewhat powerless and just feeling like this is how I can contribute to the conversation into the movement and what really spurred out of that.And this idea of transparency as well as accountability. And, a year later we were able to work in partnership. The Plug was able to work in partnership with fast company to do an evaluation out of all of the commitments that had been made and all of the sort of, public statements and kind of PR moments where have companies now come when it relates to inclusion and diversity justice.And so it appears now. And so there's much more, practice around evaluating those commitments, and asking companies to be much more transparent. And I think some policy as well, that is, that is kind of getting started in DC around how reporting on equity and inclusion should be commonplace for all employers And so, so that I feel very proud of, from our work, in terms of helping to spark that movement. And there were other folks who started building very similar databases in their specific industries. So from beauty to music to gaming, just across the board. and again, that was unexpected. I felt like there are stories that I like thought were going to go viral.Cause they, I thought they were really dope to me and people enjoy them, but this one definitely took off. And, I'm very proud of, of the work that we did. And I'm proud of the, the interns that we also had to, who, who stayed up with me for 36 hours to kind of get as thorough who could,00:46:00 Nathan:Yeah.00:46:00 Sherrell:As well.00:46:02 Nathan:Yeah. When you're leading with data, that way the data has to be correct. It has to be accurate. that often is hard to do on a tight time on like that.Let's talk about the business model for The Plugin. so you mentioned, you know, paid memberships as well as sponsorships. if you're sharing it, what's kind of the split maybe percentage wise between, you know, revenue from sponsorships or memberships and then any other 00:46:24 Sherrell:Yeah, I guess so. So memberships or subscriptions really make up about 25% of our total revenue. That's something that we're looking to actually increase. Our biggest goal was not to be wholly dependent on advertising response.00:46:37 Nathan:Yeah.00:46:38 Sherrell:But advertising sponsorships still does very well for us. And the great thing is that because we have a very specific audience, we are really able to capture advertisers and sponsors that are, you know, providing products, tools, and solutions to that audience in a meaningful way.And so those relationships have been really, really strong for us. and then we also have, licensing. So, we do original reporting, you know, as, as, as mentioned. And, we syndicate on the Bloomberg terminal, and that parts came about in April. and so all of the Bloomberg terminal subscribers folks across financial industry also receive our work and, you know, Bloomberg pays us annually, you know, for that particular access.We've also had prior relationships with folks. Business insider and mobile dumb. that's a very small percentage of our total revenue, maybe about 10%, you know, advertising and sponsorships really make up the core. and then also, I mean, this isn't necessarily like earned revenue, but, grants have been really, really critical to part of our growth is.I think, especially we haven't taken on a lot of venture capital. you know, we've, we've raised a pre-seed round last year, which allowed us to bring on some employees. And so we've wanted to be very intentional with the way in which we took on capital, in order to grow. And, fortunately we've been able to participate in really great, journalism based accelerators, which have provided really cool grants and have allowed us to do things like spend on advertising, do website redesigned and audits and bring in, you know, a chief marketing officer.And so, so I'm, I'm still very proud of that because even though grants aren't necessarily considered revenue, like there's still work involved to apply to.00:48:36 Nathan:Yes.00:48:37 Sherrell:So the ROI is really strong. and it also means that I give up less of the equity in my business, and we're able to use those dollars, effectively.So that's the breakdown.00:48:47 Nathan:Yeah. like working with sponsors, what's something. You know that, you know, and understand now that like you wish you knew two or three years ago where you're like, 00:48:56 Sherrell:My God. 00:48:57 Nathan:Pull aside server out to use it it's three years ago and be like, let me give you a little advice. What would you say?00:49:02 Sherrell:It's just so many things. My gosh, I just wish we had like a full day, day, maybe like a nice hearty drink. you know, honestly, just did not know what I was doing in the beginning. kind of took whatever. I think because we never tried to compete on numbers, we tried to compete on value, demonstrating that.And, and being able to articulate that to sponsors, is always kind of an ongoing challenge. you know, and, and knowing the leads the lead times as well. We're very fortunate in that. So much of our revenue from advertising is typically inbound. So we haven't had to do a lot of like chasing. and, and as you know, like just pitching, it just takes a while.And if you don't have the team, the staff to kind of manage that process, it can get a little crazy. but one thing I will say is really identifying, the assets early on and sort of being clear about the metrics that you can deliver. I think a lot of times, you know, we're kind of only measuring, like click through rates or things like that.We did a lot of like virtual events before that became commonplace in the world. we really should have, created full packages that helped us to both expand our brand, and also really highlight, the core product of our partner.But I think we could have been a bit more judicious in terms of who we partnered with and why, and sort of how that was going to be a best fit. And then also, the retention as well, selling not just for that time, but really looking across the spectrum of opportunities to continue that relationship and continue that inflow of cash, every quarter or, you know, every year.Again, we, I think we got some really good lucky breaks, but I think overall we've had to be a bit smarter about overall inventory, and ensuring that, that, you know, we're, we're keeping more than we're having to go out and pay.00:51:05 Nathan:Yeah. So when you're talking about packages, is that like saying, Hey, you're sponsored the newsletter for three months and these events that we're doing, and like, you'll be a title sponsor across all of this, rather than saying, you know, we chart our CPM on the newsletters, this, and so a single slot00:51:21 Sherrell:Yeah, absolutely. I think that, we've had to measure against like, what is the actual work involved in integrating a particular advertiser into our emails? you know, a, a CPM kind of works well when you have a significant subscriber list. Right? And so I think that that kind of delivers tremendous value, but for us, because our newsletter, you know, isn't the tens of thousands versus hundreds of thousands.You know, we've had to really charge based on value and engage with. And sort of caliber of our audience, and really also tie that into how do we reinforce messages so that your ad or your promotion or your call to action is not lost in the sauce? right. So whether it be through like dedicated emails, a, an IgG live or a LinkedIn live conversation, the biggest thing for us is really being able to deliver value to our audience at the end of the day.And not just like, oh, like here's like a random sort of like product, we should buy it more. So, you know, how do you, like we, we've had some financial institutions that have, advertised with us and their goal has been to recruit. More companies into their accelerator programs or things like that.So there's really a strong use case that you can easily sell to advertisers at this level where they're really looking for much more than just like the banner ad. they're also looking for engagement. so how do we create engagement opportunities that fit our brand and also give, an opportunity for that engagement piece amongst our readers, who also want to kind of get to know each other.And so creating those kinds of moments, we're able to sell those as packages versus kind of that one-off like here's a banner ad go a God, give us a report later. so, so, so a little bit more00:53:21 Nathan:Yes.00:53:21 Sherrell:But you, you kind of build for longevity.00:53:24 Nathan:Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. I want to talk about the, the team side of things. Cause a lot of people start, you know, it's relatively easy to start a newsletter these days and it's just them for a period of time. And then it gets to the point where you realize, okay, I've built something bigger than myself.And sometimes people scale up really fast and then they find that that's really challenging and really unsustainable, you know, if you have a down couple months with, sponsorships or whatever your revenue stream is. so it's just hard. So when did you really think about bringing on your first team member and how did you go about like methodically scaling up the team, to what happen.00:54:02 Sherrell:I could say like the first nervous breakdown.00:54:08 Nathan:I should, I should lead with that question going forward. When was your first nervous breakdown? As a creative,00:54:14 Sherrell:Right?00:54:15 Nathan:Will have a story.00:54:16 Sherrell:Absolutely.No. It really, I really looked at, where I was feeling too exhausted to do the kind of work that I wanted to do, because I was kind of in the weeds of the newsletter also feeling like, okay, what's going to make people stay subscribed. What's going to make them feel like The Plug continues to be interesting on the nose and giving me something that no one else is going to give me.And that's hard to do consistently when you're by yourself, because you have great days. You have not so great days. You have, sometimes you get sick. Sometimes you need to fly to back home for a friend's wedding. And it's like, your level of concentration has to really, really scale through other people who are talented, if not more talented, to really bring you to the next level of your work.And so. Once we sort of were able to take on a little bit of capital from an angel investor. I brought on our managing editor, to really take over that process of the newsletter and to really help ideate with me where the newsletter was, where it should go. we really benefited from being in different sorts of, journalism accelerators, as I mentioned earlier, because we also got to learn from other news teams and newsrooms about the anatomy of a strong newsletter and sort of thinking through the entire process from start to finish of how we build out our newsletter.And then of course getting feedback and doing more surveys and collecting the data from our audience on what they were looking for. So again, constant experimentation, but also being open to, to realizing like, okay, this is good, but how do we go from good. And just even now, as we've had one of our reporters launch the HBCU newsletter, you know, we kind of talk through the shifts of that as well.And sort of know this is a completely different newsletter compared to our weekly briefing. and so it takes on a different tone. It takes on a different feel. It has a different kind of, objectivity that we kind of want to ensure, continues to serve in, in feed our audiences. So, everyone on our team is in some way connected to building the newsletter.We have a section in our slack, called editorial and everyone just tosses, really interesting articles they bred or tweets, or just Abe. I found really interesting into that and it helps us to really like brainstorm like what the newsletter should be. And the cool thing is that it really has. Gives you an insight into the minds of your team members to see like, well, what are they reading, right?What are they subscribed to? it that they find interesting? So we're all contributors, you know, at the end of the day, and it's helped so much because it's not just all on you as a leader, right? Like we have to continue to grow the business. We have to hire more people, make sure that money comes in so that everyone can like, you know, get paid and by crispy cream or whatever it is, they buy with their money and, and continue to, to find ways, to grow even just the subscriber list, which has its own kind of marketing needs.But yeah, it really came from that breakdown of like, I'm getting sick of this and I want this to be great, but I've reached my capacity on the day-to-day basis and I need other people to help chime in to make this great.00:57:43 Nathan:Yeah. I like that. Working with the team. It's just remarkable and wonderful. I know a lot of people who like their whole dream is to be a solo entrepreneur and they set up, you know, they're publishing and everything they do so they can run it just themselves. And it's a highly profitable business and I have a ton of respect for them, and that's just not at all what I want.Cause I want a team exactly what you're talking about to produce a newsletter and to put all of this content together. And you can just do so much more with the team. So anyway, I'm preaching to the choir here.00:58:13 Sherrell:Well, I get it. Like, I was such a huge fan of like Paul Jarvis has company of one. And I think initially that's kind of the direction I was going in. but I realized like I didn't want to just do this. I wanted to produce really strong visualization. I wanted to produce really strong, original content and also do, you know, live conversations and host events and, and, and just really like create.Opportunities for touch points and the ways in which people learn and engage, which isn't always like through reading. Right? Some, some of it is audio. Some of it is, is visual. So, totally hear you. I mean, I think that we all would like some kind of like automated system that works like kind of perfectly.But I find that I also learned so much from having a team and people who think vastly different than I do. And, and, and people who are bringing new ideas every week, it keeps, it keeps the work exciting.00:59:10 Nathan:Yeah. And I think that, what I love about Paul's work is that he's pulled together all these examples to say, Hey, if you want it, this is something that's available to you. You can, you know, and then people could look at it. So yes, that's what I want. Or they can, you know, like so many people, you know, in your early career where that mentor for you or something else.We can have those examples, as well.I want to wrap up with that, related to goals for the next year. My friend Clay Hebert likes to ask this question of, “If we were to meet a year from now with a bottle of champagne, what would we be celebrating?” What's the thing that you're working towards that you hope to accomplish in the next year, that we'd sit down and celebrate?00:59:54 Sherrell:That's such a great question. I really love champagne, so I want to get this right, so that this happens.I think for us, it is launching at least two additional newsletter verticals. One hyper-focused on climate and green tech, led by innovators of color.Secondly, sort of a more essay exposé from thought leaders in this space, that becomes a regular cadence for us.That's kind of one of my major goals. I think also, secondarily, that we really have a full fledged functioning team, growing by maybe four additional team members, which would include researchers as well as additional journalists. Again, we're fully remote, but we are producing great work at a very, very high level.We're also seeing that reflected in the kind of partnerships and advertising that we have. That, for me, as a leader I have effectively curated an incredible team, and we're doing the work that we said we wanted to do, and it's having impact and it's setting a standard, and we're in all the rooms that we want to be in.Those were lots of things, Nathan.So, a year from now I expect champagne.01:01:15 Nathan:Sounds good. We'll make it happen.Well, where should people go to subscribe to The Plug and follow everything that you're doing?01:01:21 Sherrell:Absolutely. Head over to TPinsights.com. We're also TPinsights across the web, and you can always come hang out with me as well on Twitter, because that is where my life starts and ends every day.01:01:37 Nathan:Sounds good.Well, thanks for coming on, and we'll have to make a plan for that bottle of champagne.01:01:42 Sherrell:Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me, Nathan.

Matthew Kepnes runs the popular travel blog, Nomadic Matt, and also writes a successful newsletter. In fact, Matt's newsletter is one of the biggest I've had on the show. His book, How to Travel the World on $50, is a New York Times Best Seller.After a 2005 trip to Thailand, Matt decided to leave his job, finish his MBA, and travel the world. Since then, he's been to nearly 100 countries, and hasn't looked back. Besides being a New York Times best-selling author, Matt's writings have been featured in countless publications. He's a regular speaker at travel trade shows, and is the founder of FLYTE, a non-profit organization that sends students overseas to bring their classroom experience to life.I talk with Matt about his unique approach to running his business. While others are building online courses, Matt has shifted to doing more in-person meetups and events. We talk about his newsletter, and we also talk about growing your Instagram follower count, scaling a business as a solopreneur, and much more.In this episode, you'll learn: When & why you need to start outsourcing day-to-day tasks Matt's email opt-in strategies and tips to get more subscribers The most important metric about your email list How to quickly get more followers on Instagram Links & Resources Blue Ocean Strategy Matador Lonely Planet Blue Ocean Strategy book Pat Flynn Women In Travel Summit Traverse Cheryl Strayed ConvertKit TravelCon FinCon Podcast Movement World Domination Summit Hootsuite Tim Ferriss Seth Godin OptinMonster Seth Godin: This is Marketing Rick Steves Nathan Barry Show on Spotify Nathan Barry Show on Apple Podcasts Matthew Kepnes' Links Matt's website Follow Matt on Twitter Matt's Instagram The Nomadic Network Nomadic Matt Plus Episode Transcript[00:00:00] Matthew:When I started these courses back in 2013, there wasn't a lot of folks. Now you have so many people with courses, so many Instagrammers and TikTokers selling their stuff. It's sort of like, is this worth the time to really invest in it when my heart really isn't in it? How can I maintain 400K in revenue a year? Is that the best use of our resources? The answer is, not really.[00:00:33] Nathan:In this episode, I talk to my long time friend, Matt Kepnes, from Nomadic Matt.Matt's got a travel blog that's wildly popular, and he gets into that—shares all the numbers. He's probably one of the biggest newsletters that I've had on the show, so far.What I love about him, in particular, is how thoughtful he is about his business model.Most people are just adding more courses and figuring out how to grow revenue; honestly, what's now fairly traditional ways, and it's quite effective. Matt takes another approach. He gets into in-person events and meetups. We get to talk about why in a busy, crowded online world, he's actually going offline.I think that Blue Ocean Strategy he references, the popular book by the same title, I think it's interesting, and it's something worth considering when some of the online strategies don't work. We also get into a bunch of other things like growing his newsletter. Like I said, it's quite large.Then, also growing an Instagram following. Instagram is not something that I'm going to actively pursue, but it's interesting hearing his approach of what you do if you're at 5,000 followers on Instagram, and want to grow to 50,000 or more.So, anyway, enjoy the episode.If you could do me a favor and go subscribe on Spotify or iTunes, or wherever you listen if you aren't subscribed already, and then write a review.I check out all the reviews. Really appreciate it. It helps in the rankings, and I'm just looking to grow the show.So, anyway, thanks for tuning in today. Let's go talk to Matt.Matt, welcome to the show.[00:02:06] Matthew:Thanks for having me, Nathan. I've been trying to get on this podcast for ages.[00:02:10] Nathan:Well, don't say that, that'll make people think they can get on just by asking. Really, you came to my house and stayed in my cottage on the farm, and then you're like, “Yo, have me on the podcast!” And that's when I was like, “Absolutely.” But if anyone just asked, that would not be a thing.[00:02:26] Matthew:No, I just mean I finally—I'm excited that I'm worthy enough in my blogging career to be on.[00:02:33] Nathan:Oh, yes.[00:02:35] Matthew:I've made it.[00:02:36] Nathan:Yeah. It's only taken you, what, a decade and a half?[00:02:39] Matthew:13 and a half years. Slow and steady wins the race.[00:02:43] Nathan:That's right.I actually want to start talking about that side of it, because I've been in the blogging world for 11 years now. But even I feel like things changed so much in the first couple of years, even before I entered into the world. So, I'm curious, going back to the early days, what were the prompts for you to come into the blogging world and say, “Hey, I'm going to start publishing online”?[00:03:10] Matthew:Yeah. You know, it was a very haphazard, there was no grand plan. Like I had Zanger when people had Zeno's, which is, you know, a personal blog, way back, you know, 2003, whatever. And so what, I went on my trip around the world in 2006, I just kept updating this Zynga. You know, it was called, Matt goes the world and it was just like, here I am friends here I am.And then, you know, everyone was really excited in the beginning. And then after a while I got sick in my update because the know their back of their office job. So I kinda just forgot about it until I came home and January, 2008 and I need money. And so I started a temp job, and I had a lot of free time and I really just hated being back in the, the office with the walls and everything.And so I was like, I need to earn money to keep traveling. And so I started the website really as with the goal of it being an online resume, you know, it was very bare bones. I used to share a travel news, have an update, like tips and stories from my trip. And then there was a section where we're like, hire me and it had my features and, you know, the guest blogs I did, I used to write for Matador travel.So just as a way to sort of build up, a portfolio of like, Hey, Yeah, freelance writing because I'm wanting to read guidebooks, you know, I wanted to write for lonely planet. That was a dream, right. The guidebooks. And so just the blog was a way to hone my skills and just get in front of editors to be like, Hey look, I do right.You know, here's where I've been, you know, and, and sort of build that base. And eventually that became a thing where I didn't need to freelance. Right.[00:05:03] Nathan:Was it called nomadic Matt from the beginning.[00:05:06] Matthew:He was, yeah. I B two names, nomadic Matt. And that does the world. Right. Because I like the double entendre of it. Right. Even though, but just cause I have a weird sense of humor and all my friends were like, you can't do that one. You gotta do nomadic Matt. It was really good because it's much better brand name, you know, in the long run.But again, I wasn't thinking about that. Right. I wasn't thinking like, oh, I'm going to start this brand. You know, I gotta think of a clever name that people can remember. It was like,Oh a place where people can see my work.[00:05:39] Nathan:Right. Okay. So now 13 and a half years later, what's the, what's the, the blog and newsletter look like. and I want to dive into the business side of it because I think a lot of people build successful newsletters, audience-based businesses, but don't make the leap to like something bigger than themselves.And so I want to dive into all those aspects of it.[00:06:01] Matthew:13 years later, it's seven people. We just hired a new events coordinator to help. my director of events, Erica, coordinate all these virtual in person events that we're going to kick off again. I have a full-time tech guy, a full-time director of content. We changed his title, but like three research assistants, because.I picked a niche that like is always changing. Right. You know, you have a fitness website, how to do a pull up. It's just, that's it,[00:06:37] Nathan:You ranked for that keyword. You're good to go.[00:06:40] Matthew:Yeah. Like how to do a pull up, doesn't change what to do in Paris or the best hospitals in Paris, constantly changing, you know? so it takes three resources, distance.Plus my content guy, me that basically keep up the content and then I have a part-time, graphic designer and part-time social coordinator.[00:07:00] Nathan:Nice. And how many subscribers do you have in the list now?[00:07:03] Matthew:We just called it, so it's a two 50 because we just, cause I haven't shaved it off in like five years or so. So we basically everybody that hasn't opened the email in one year where we're like, you want to be on.And like 2% of them click that button. And then we just got rid of the other 90%. It was like 60,000 names.[00:07:30] Nathan:Yeah. So for everyone listening, two 50 in this case means 250,000.[00:07:35] Matthew:Yeah.[00:07:36] Nathan:Just to clarify, I 7% businesses off of 250 subscribers would be remarkable. That would be just as impressive, but that's not what we're talking about here. going into, so a lot of people, talk about or worry about, should I prune my list or that kind of thing?What were the things that went into that for you? That's a big decision to, to prune 60,000 people off a list.[00:08:00] Matthew:I think it was probably more, maybe I want to say six 60 to 80 I somewhere around there. we were pushing up against our account before I went to the next billing step.So that's always a good impetus to prune the list, but you know, I I've been thinking about it for a while because. You know, I I really want to see what my true open rate.Is You know, like, okay, I have all these people and we were sending it this, I have multiple lists, but the main weekly list was like, 310,000-315,000 but it's been so long since we called and we have so many emails there and I just really wanted to get a true sense of like, what's our active audience.And so between, between that and, pushing up against the next tier price tier. Yeah. it yeah. It's cool to say like, oh, we have 300,000 300, you know, rather than 250,000 Right. But who cares? Right. I mean, at the end of the day, it's just a vanity metric, right? Yeah. It sounds cool. I get a million emails. Right. But if you only have a 10% open rate, You really only have 100,000.[00:09:20] Nathan:Right. I think that the times that it matters is maybe when you're selling a book to a publisher and that might be the only time that you like that dead weight and your email us actually helps you.[00:09:33] Matthew:Yeah. Like if you're, or you have a course, you know, are you trying to promote your numbers, but people would probably lie about that stuff too. yeah, so like, it really doesn't matter because all that matters is like, what's your true audience? Like who Who are the people that are really opening your stuff?[00:09:50] Nathan:Yeah. So let's dive into the, well, I guess really quick, I should say I am a hundred percent in the camp of, like delete subscribers, like do that once a year, that kind of thing. Clean up the list, go for the highest number of engaged subscribers, rather than the highest number of subscribers. It's just[00:10:06] Matthew:Right.[00:10:07] Nathan:To track.[00:10:08] Matthew:And, and I think you would know better than me, but isn't this a good. Like signal to Gmail. And you know, when you, you don't have a lot of dead emails, just go into a blank account. It's never getting opened or marked as spam or whatever.[00:10:24] Nathan:Yeah, for sure. Cause a lot of these times, there's a couple of things that happen. One is emails get converted to spam traps. And so it's like say someone's signed up for your email list six years ago And, they haven't logged into that email account for a long time.Google and others will take it and convert it to a spam trap and say, Hey, this email hasn't been logged into in six years.And so anyone sending to it, it's probably not doing legit things now you're over here. Like, no that person signed up for my list, but they're basically like you should have cleaned them off your list years ago. And then if that person were to ever come back and log into that Gmail account, do you remember like, oh, just kidding here, have the, have the email account back, but they're basically using that.And so you can follow all the. Best practices as far as how people join your list. But if you're not cleaning it, then you will still end up getting these like spam hits and, and other things. So you absolutely clean your list. Let's talk the business side, on revenue, I don't know what you want to share on the, on revenue numbers, but I'd love to hear any numbers you're willing to share.And then the breakdown of where that comes from, whether it's membership, courses, conferences, that sort of thing.[00:11:35] Matthew:Yeah.So there's like the pre COVID world and the post COVID world. Right. You know, like,[00:11:40] Nathan:Yes.[00:11:41] Matthew:Cause I work in travel, so like, you know, pre COVID we did over a million and like I was probably gearing up to like in 2020, like one, five, I think I were going to get a little over one five. and again, you know, this is, I work in the budget travel side of things, right.So like it's going to sell a lot of $10 eBooks to get up to seven figures. salary books are 10 bucks. and so. Postcode during COVID week, I think in 2020 made like half a million. and this year we'll probably get up to three quarters,[00:12:23] Nathan:Okay.[00:12:24] Matthew:K.[00:12:25] Nathan:He was coming back,[00:12:26] Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. and I think next year we'll, we'll get back over seven and then basically like how to go from there.You know, so maybe 20, 23, I might get to that one, five that was going to get to in 2020. most of the revenue now comes from ads, and then affiliates. we did, we did do a lot on courses, but then I, one of the things that, you know, a big pandemic that stops your business, allows you to do is really look at the things you're doing because every.Zero. So it's like when we start back up, is this worth investing time in? And so the answer is no. So we dropped down from, I think, peak of doing like $400,000 a year and horses, and this year we'll do maybe 40. and that's mostly because we just leave it up as like, you can buy this, we update it every six months.If it needs, it's basically like a high that blog course get all my numbers and tactics and strategies in there. but we don't offer any support for it. Right. It's just, you're buying information. and so it's very passive in that sense, but it's not like a core business where we're really moving and we were doing this pre COVID is moving into events and membership programs.So like we have pneumatic map plus, which gets you like all our guides, monthly calls and sort of like a Patriot on kind of thing, but like free.[00:14:03] Nathan:That cost.[00:14:04] Matthew:Five to 75 bucks a month, depending on what you want. So it's 5 25, 75. Most people opt for the five, of course. And it's really geared to like, get the five.But you know, that brings now, I think like three or four K a month. and then we have the events, which is donation based, but there's just like another two K a month. And so this is like, since COVID right. So like, that's say call it 50 K a year of, of revenue that we've added in. They didn't exist before.And now I know you're, you can compare that against the loss of the courses, but we had been phasing those out for years. and so that's really where we want to grow is bringing in more, you know, monthly revenue for that. Right. You know, Once we started, it's easy and we're gonna start doing tours again and, you know, so more high value things that don't take as much time.[00:15:08] Nathan:Right. So on the core side, I think a lot of people listening, maybe they have an email list of five, 10, 15,000 subscribers, and they're like, Hey, the next thing is to launch a course. And they're hearing that's where a bunch of the revenue is. And so it's interesting you moving away from that. So let's dive in more.What, what made you look at the core side of your business and say, I don't want to like restart that in a post COVID world.[00:15:33] Matthew:Yeah, there's just, there's a lot of competition, right? So like, I think it was like a blue ocean, red ocean strategy, you know, to think of that book of, you know, Blue Ocean Strategy. Right? One of the reasons we went into events is because a lot of our traffic comes from Google. And so it's a constant battle of always trying to be one or, you know, in the first couple of spots.Right with every blogger in every company with SEO budget, but there's not a lot of people doing in-person events or building sort of a community in the travel space. So I looked at that of being like, okay, there are a lot of people doing courses and they love doing courses and they're great teachers, you know, they're, you know, you get folks who know like path when, you know, low, like everyone, all these teachable folks, you know, they, they love that stuff.That's not where my heart really was. And so thinking of like, this is a red ocean now, because you have, when I started this, these courses back in 2013, there wasn't a lot of folks. Right. But now you have so many people with courses, so many Instagrammers and tic talkers selling their stuff. It's sort of like, is this worth the time.To like really invest in it when my heart really isn't right. Like how can I maintain your 400 K in revenue a year?[00:17:02] Nathan:Right.[00:17:03] Matthew:What's it going to take, you know, is that the best use of our resources? And the answer is not really, you know, let other people do that. Who love it. I mean, you want to buy my information.It's it's solid stuff. Right. Everyone loves the advice, but to really create like a cohort, like your class, which is sort of like the new version of courses, you know, like, whether it's a month or three months, it's sort of like, you go with this like cohort, right. My heart really wasn't into it because we can invest more in doing events and conferences and really in-person stuff.Especially now that everyone's really excited to do stuff in person again, with a lot less competition. It's easy. It's easy to start a course, but there's a lot of capital investment in doing events that we have the resource to do that, you know, somebody with a 10,000 email list might not.[00:18:03] Nathan:I think I see a lot of people going into courses in, particularly as you alluded to cohort based courses where they're doing it, like, Hey, this is a whole class that you're doing, you know, you're doing the fall semester for the month of October or whatever it is, I'm doing it, doing it the first time and really enjoying it because it's a new challenge they're showing up for their audience.It's just, it's super fun on that, doing it for the second time and going, huh? Okay. That was way easier and way less. And then the third time they go, I don't think I want to do this anymore. Like if the money is good and I just don't enjoy showing up at a set time for a zoom call or whatever else. So it's interesting of watching people jump on a bandwagon and some people it works for really well, and that is their strength and they love it.And then other people that I'm going to like, look, the money's good. And this is this just, isn't what I want to spend my time on.[00:19:02] Matthew:Yeah. You know, I've been doing it for, you know, seven, eight years now and I just sort of lost the passion for, you know, I think it's, I like when people take the information, they succeed with it. But I think after a while you start to realize, you know, it's sort of a 90 10 rule, right? You, 90% of your students, aren't really going to do anything with it.And it's not your fault. It's just because they become unmotivated or, you know, so we tried to switch to the cohort based to be like, okay, this is the class weekly, weekly calls.You know, come on, come together and you still get this drop off rate. That's, you know, sort, it gets this hard and you're like, all right, I've been doing this for eight years, you know, like moving on.But I mean, if you have the love for like pat loves it, you know, like you've got a whole team about it, he's got all these cohorts stuff that speaks to him where I think I'd rather do stuff in person that[00:20:01] Nathan:Right.Well, let's talk about the in-person side. Cause you did something that most people think is really cool and almost no one realizes how hard it is. I think I know how hard it is because I've attempted the same thing and that starting at a conference where everyone's like, you have this big online following, like what you just need to, you know, you have hundreds of thousands of people you just need, I don't know, 500 or a thousand of them to show up in a suit, that's gotta be easy.Right. And so they go and sort of conference, it's wildly difficult. And so.[00:20:33] Matthew:Difficult.[00:20:34] Nathan:I'd love to hear what made you want to start the conference and then yeah, how's it. How's it gone so far?[00:20:40] Matthew:Made me want to start the conference was I really don't think there's a good conference in the chapel space. Yeah. And there are good conferences in the travel space that are very niche and narrow. you know, like there's a woman in travel summit.That's really great. There's one in Europe culture verse, which I liked, but that's like a couple of hundred people there. Wasn't like a, something to scale, right. With wits, which is women to travel is like 300 people. There was, this is no thousand person, 2000 parts. And like mega travel conference for media that has done like, you know, the conferences we go to where it's like high level, you know, people coming outside of your immediate niche to talk about business skills.You know, there's, you know, In the conferences, there are, there's always the same travel, like it's me and like these other big names, travel bloggers over and over and over again. I want to take what I've seen and, you know, from social media world to, trafficking conversion, to mastermind talks, you know, to take all these things that I had gone to, we were like, let's bring it together for travel.Let's create a high level, not a cheap, like hundred dollar events, like, you know, with major keynotes who get paid to speak, because you know, in a lot of travel conferences, you don't get paid to speak, right? So you're high. You're going to get, you know, Cheryl strayed that come to your event for free.That's not waking up to do that. You know, I, you know, and while I can get nice deals from my friends, you still got to pay people right. For their time. And, and so that allows us to have a larger pool of people to create the event that I want to do. Because we will also get into the point where why should somebody who's been blogging for five or six years, go to travel blogging conference app when nobody is at a more advanced stage of blogging than you are, you know, nobody understands SEO better than you do, right?So like after a while you get into this, just drop off of people being like, do I want to fly around the world and hang out with my friends? So I wanted to also create an event where that I could go to and learn something is that I knew that would attract some of the other OJI, travel bloggers.[00:23:06] Nathan:Yeah. So how the, how the first one go, like what was easier than you expected and what was much harder than you.[00:23:14] Matthew:The first one went really well. We had 650 people, and you know, the next one we had 800. But now we're closed because of Kobe, but we're going to do one in 20, 22. And hopefully we get 800 again, things that shocked me, people buy tickets and don't show up. Right. That's weird. Right. Cause I was like, okay, we have 700, you know, I expected maybe like a 5% attrition rate, you know?So like I sold my 750 tickets, but then like six 50, those 600 showed up because the other 50 of those speakers, right. I was like, wow, that's a lot of no-shows for not achieving conference, you know? And so we plan, you know, a 10% attrition rate now.[00:24:04] Nathan:And you just mean someone who doesn't even pick up their badge? Not even, they didn't come to share us rates keynote, but just like they didn't show up to anything at the conference.[00:24:13] Matthew:Yeah, they just did not show up to the conference at all, you know? And. So that was a shock me. I mean, I know I work in travel and, you know, people get last minute of press trips or they, you know, they buy their ticket and they can't come cause, or they got stuck in the Seychelles or whatever, but I did not expect such a high level of no-shows. Because the food here's another thing, food costs a lot of money. Right.You know, I, I fully understand why the airlines took one olive out of your salad. Right. Because it's one olive, but times a million people every day it's actually adds up. Right. So like you think, oh, well it drinks five bucks.That's cool. We'll do a happy hour. Okay. Now times that by a thousand drinks Write, you know, times two, because everyone's drinking two or three, at least two. Right. So then you're like, okay, that's a $15,000 bill that you ended up with. you know, when everyone is all set up. Tax and tip hotel.It's crazy. It's like, okay, these fees, you're like, oh, I got to spend this like, yeah. Okay. Here is your lunch bill 50 grand.But then there's this fee that fee, this fee, this fee like Jake had like 65. You're like, all right. I guess I got a budget for that too. So that was, that was really weird. Like high is the lunch cost, $40,000, you know, and actually hotels, overcharge, and they add a bunch of fees and yeah, you can get them pretty quick.[00:25:46] Nathan:So if you were, if I was starting to conference. They have 50,000 people on a email list or a hundred thousand. And I'm like, Matt, I heard you started a conference. I'm going to do it too. What advice do you have for me? Like what are the first things that you'd call out?[00:26:03] Matthew:It's going to cost like three times more than you think. pricing. Where I went wrong in the second year. Right. So like we've lost money the first two years doing it, but I expected to lose money. It wasn't because I was investing in this long-term thing. Right. But we're at where I lost more money on the second year is that I really factor in flights as well as I did, like I kind of low balled it.And so I always think he should. Oh. And I also invited, I kept inviting people without really seeing, like, where was I? on my like speaker fees. Right. So like really creating a budget and then sticking to it. And even if that means not getting some of your dream folks, to a later year, but working up the food and beverage costs first, because you know, you go to the hotel and they're going to say your F and B, you know, is $90,000.And if they never going to hit that, no, you're going to go way. You're going to blow cause you got to get them to say, what are all the fees? You know, like, okay. You know, if I have a 300 person conference and I want to do two lunches, what does that look like?Plus all the taxes and fees,[00:27:23] Nathan:Okay, well, you, the launch price and you'll, you'll pencil that into your spreadsheet and they'll fail to mention that there's mandatory gratuity on top of that and taxes and whatever[00:27:33] Matthew:Yeah,And whatever, you know, plate fee there is. Right. So you gotta factor all that in and then look at what you got left.[00:27:40] Nathan:It's like when you're buying a car and you have to talk in terms of the out the door price in[00:27:45] Matthew:Yeah.[00:27:46] Nathan:The sticker price,[00:27:47] Matthew:Yeah. I made that mistake when I bought my car last year, I was like, oh 17. And I was like, wait, how did 17 go from 17,000 to 22? And like, well,[00:27:56] Nathan:Right.[00:27:57] Matthew:Thing that I was like, ah, okay,[00:28:00] Nathan:Yeah. Do you think w what are some of the opportunities that have come out from running the conference and has it had the effects of your community that you've hoped? It would,[00:28:10] Matthew:You know, this is a very, blogger faced event, you know, more than just travel consumers. but it's definitely allowed me to, you know, meet folks like Cheryl Austrade, you know, great way to meet your heroes. Is there pay them to come speak at a conference? so, you know, I, I know Cheryl, like, that's cool.The becoming more ingrained in sort of the, the PR side and with the demos and the brands, because, you know, on the website, I destination marketing organization.[00:28:44] Nathan:Okay.[00:28:45] Matthew:So they're like, you know, visit, you know, Boise visit Idaho, we call them a DMO. And so like since I don't really do press trips on the website, I don't know a lot of them really well.And so this has been a way to be, become more ingrained on that sort of industry side of events and not live in my own. and that's helpful because now I know all these folks, when we want to have meetups that might be sponsored when I do a consumer event, which is next up. So get these folks to come for that.So it's just really been good, just professionally to meet a lot of people that I would normally just not meet simply because I go to events and they were like, Hey, come to our destination, we'll give you a free trip. And like, you have a policy. And so I don't get invited to as many things as you would think.[00:29:37] Nathan:Yeah. Why, why do you have that policy? What do you like? What's behind it. And why is that different from other travel bloggers?[00:29:45] Matthew:Hi, it mostly stems from my hatred of reciprocity. You know, like if you, if I go on a free trip and it sucks, like I then create, it's awkward. If I have to go like hot, like, Hey, you suck. And I have to write this online. Then it creates a lot of bad blood that gets talked about, you know, it's a very small industry.People move around a lot, so you get less opportunities or I can just go, Hey, I'm not going to write that. And then they feel bad. Cause like, you know, like you're a nice person just doing their job, you know, like it's not your fault. I had a bad time. you know, I did this once with a friend and she gave me a couple of places to stay, at a hotel in San Jose, Costa Rica and chill out and sort of tell was really far out of town.And th the amount it took me to take a taxi back and forth. Like, I could've just got a place right. In the center of San Jose, you know? And so I was like, I really, I just don't think it's a good fit for my Anya. And she was very unhappy about it. I was like, I mean, I could write in, but I have to say that.Right. Yeah. And so I just never wanted to put myself in those situations again. I also think that taking a lot of free travel, like I do budget travel. So you given me a resort like that. Doesn't how does that help my audience? So if I start living this awesome life and getting free stuff, that's great for me, but it's not good for my audience.And so I don't mind taking free tours. Like, let's say I'm going to go to Scotland. Right? I did. This actually was real life example. I wanted to access cause I wanted to write about scotch. So I was like, Hey, I don't want to do like the public tour. you know, that 20 bucks, you know, it's like 10 minutes and you get the, I like, I want to talk to people because I want quotes for articles.I'm going to do like history stuff. So I contacted the Scottish tourism board and they got, got me visited. I that's where I went to. I just love P scotch. and so they got me like private tours. So I can like take notes in such. and they gave me a free accommodation that I was like, I want to be really clear about this.I'm not mentioning this place. And they're like, just, just take it. And so, and I didn't mention it and I didn't mention that, you know, I got access to these, you know, distillers to ask some questions, but it was more about building this article as a journalist than,Hey, I want like free tours, you know, like, I mean, I saved 20 bucks. Right. But the point was, I wanted to learn about the process to write about this story beam. And then they offered me free flights and stuff. It was like, now I just, I just want the tourist, please. Thanks.[00:32:44] Nathan:Yeah, it's interesting of the, what a lot of people would view as the perks to get into travel blogging. Right. I want to get into it because then I'd have these free chips or I can have these offs or whatever else, I guess the right apps you get, no matter what, but, You know that that's the other side of like, everything comes with a cost.And I think it's important to realize what you're doing because you want to versus what you're doing, because now you feel obligated because someone gave you something for free.[00:33:12] Matthew:Yeah. The most thing is I tend to accept our city tourism part, which gets you like free access to museums and stuff. I was like, okay, that's cool.But beyond that, I just, you know, I don't want to get into, like, you want to give me a museum pass. I'm going to see these museums anyway. Sure. I'll save some money and I'll, I'll make a wheel note, but I'm going to no obligation to write about which museum, because I write about the ones I like anyway.So,[00:33:39] Nathan:Right.[00:33:40] Matthew:You know, that's not to me like free travel. That's not what people think of Like the perks of. the job are.[00:33:46] Nathan:I, that was funny. When I learned about the, like the welcome packet that cities will, will give, like the first time I saw it in action was. I went to Chris, Guillebeau's like end of the world party in Norway. and I was hanging out with Benny Lewis there who runs, you know, fluent in three months, a mutual friend of both of ours.You've known him longer than I have, but like, we're both at our check into the hotel and he's got like this whole thing of all these museum passes he's got, and he's just like, yeah, I just emailed the tourism board and said, I was going to say, and they're like, oh, blogger. And they gave him like, you know, access to everything and you only ended up using half of it because we weren't there for that long, but,[00:34:28] Matthew:Yeah. That's great. You should always get these discount cards, like the comparison museum pass or the New York mic go card that will save you a lot of money if you're doing lots of heavy sites in.[00:34:39] Nathan:Yeah. Yeah, for sure. okay. So how does actually let's dive into the COVID side, right? Cause COVID took a hit huge hit on the entire traveling. we saw that just in the like running ConvertKit where, you know, having bloggers in so many different areas, we had a lot of growth because lots of people were stuck at home and start like, I'm going to start a new blog.I'm going to have time to, to work on this or whatever. And it was a lot of cancellations, mostly from the travel industry. If people like, look now that what this 50,000 person list, that was a huge asset is now just a giant liability. because no one's planning trips. How did you navigate that time? And what, like, what's the journey been?You know, the last 18 months, two years,[00:35:28] Matthew:Well first I would say that's really shortsighted of someone canceling their 50,000 person list like[00:35:34] Nathan:I think they were like exporting sitting on it and they're going to come back. But, but I agree. It was very shortsighted.[00:35:39] Matthew:Yeah. Like just like throw it away. 50,000 emails, right. I mean, it was tough in the beginning. You know, we went from like January and February were like best months ever, you know? And like, I mean, even, and then all of a sudden like, like March 13th is like that Friday, you know, it's like everything crashes, like again, like we were on our way to have a banner year, like, like, like hand over fist money, you know?And, and then to being like, how am I going to pay the bills? You know? and so, cause you know, we, haven't sort of the, the overhang from Java con, right. You know, like we didn't make money on the first two years. And year three was the, the breakeven year and travel con was in, Right in the world ended in March.Right. And so I had laid out all, like, you're so close to the event, that's you? That's when you start paying your bills. Right. And the world hits and all the sponsors who, you know, have their money, you know, in the accounting department are like, oh, we're not paying this now. And so you're like, well, I've just paid $80,000 in deposits and all that money that was going to offset.It has gone. and then you have people canceling. A lot of people were really mean about it. They're like, oh, I'm, I'm back now. And we're going to do charge backs, that, you know, you have that overhang and just, you know, fall in revenue it's it was really tough. thank God for government loans, to be quite honest, like I, I went to native through if it wasn't for, all that, because a lot of my.My money was tied up in non-liquid assets. So it wasn't like I could just like sell some socks though, you know, pay the bills. but things have come back a lot. I mean, there's a lot of paint up the man, for travel, I view it like this way, right? You got kids, right. You know, they get in trouble, you take away their toy and then you give them back.Right. Where do they want to do now? They just want to play with that toy even more because it's like, no, it's mine. No one else can have it. And like where you want to do this other toy. No. And so now that the toy of travel is being given back to people like people are like, never again, am I going to miss out on this opportunity to travel on my dream trips?Let's make it happen. So we had a really good summer. I spoke to mediocre fall and winter just as the kids are back in school, people are traveling less, you know, but as more in the world, that? will be good. but again, as I said, at the beginning of this, it's going to take awhile for us to get, to get back to where we were, but there's definitely demand there,[00:38:36] Nathan:When's the next conference when the travel con happening again.[00:38:39] Matthew:April 29th,[00:38:41] Nathan:Okay.[00:38:41] Matthew:22,[00:38:42] Nathan:So what's the how of ticket sales benefit for that? Is there like that pent-up demand showing up and people booking conference tickets or are they kind of like, wait and see, you know, you're not going to cancel this one too kind of thing.[00:38:55] Matthew:Yeah, I mean, we're definitely not canceling it. I mean, the world would have to really end for it. We just launched, this week. So, early October, we just announced our first round of speakers. and we sold like 10 or 15 tickets. I don't expect a lot of people, to buy until the new year I saw this.And the old event, right? Because in the old event we were had in May, 2019. Right. And we announced in the fall, but it wasn't until like, you know, a few months prior that people started buy their ticket. Right. Because they don't know where they're going to be. You know, where are they flying from? What were the COVID rules going to be like, the demand is there.But I, I know people are probably just waiting and seats for their own schedule too, you know? So, but you were against so 800 tickets and honestly, from what I've heard from other events, you know, people are selling out, you know, because there was such demand, like it's not a problem of selling the tickets, so I'm not sure.[00:40:01] Nathan:Yeah, one thing, this is just a question that I'm curious for myself. since I also run a conference, what do you think about conferences that rotate cities or like Mo you know, move from city to city, which we've been to a lot of them that do it. You know, the fin con podcast movement areTwo longer running ones that you and I have both been to. obviously that's what you're doing. The travel column. well, domination summit, which we've both been to a lot, you know, it was like very much it's Portland. It's always Portland. We'll never be anywhere anywhere else. What do you think, why did you chose? Why did you choose the approach that you did in what you think the pros and cons are?[00:40:39] Matthew:Yeah, for, for me it was, you know, we're in travel. I wanted to travel. Right. And plus, you know, I mean, you get up, we get a host, right? So like Memphis is our sponsor. Right. It's in Memphis. Yeah, it was supposed to be in new Orleans. New Orleans was our host sponsor. Right. So moving it from city to city allows us to get, you know, a new host sponsor every year is going to pony up a bunch of money.Right. I don't know how Podcast move into it, but I think if I wasn't in travel and it was more something like traffic and conversion, or maybe we'll domination summit, I would probably do it in the same place over and over again because you get better consistency. you know, one of the things I hate about events is that they move dates and move locations.Right. And, and so it's a little hard to in travel cause you know, COVID really screwed us. Right. But we're moving to being, you know, in the same timeframe, right. We're always going to be in early May. That's where I want to fall into like early may travel car, change the city, but you got the same two-week window, because it's hard to plan, right?So like if you're changing dates in cities, you're, you're just off of a year. So I wanted some consistency, make it easier for people to know, like in their calendar, Java con early Mac, Java con, early Mac, you[00:42:17] Nathan:Yep.[00:42:18] Matthew:It doesn't really work out cause of COVID, but post COVID we're we're moving to that, that, early may[00:42:24] Nathan:Yeah. Okay. So let's talk more about sort of scaling different between different levels of the business. So there's a lot of people who say, all right, 10, 20, 50,000 subscribers, somewhere in there. And it's very much the solopreneur of like, this is, I'm a writer. I just do this myself. Or maybe they, you know, contract out graphic design or a little bit more than that.What were some of the hardest things for you and why and what worked and what didn't when you made the switch from it being nomadic, Matt being just Matt to Matt plus a team.[00:43:00] Matthew:Yeah, it It's definitely hard to give up that control, right. Because you always think no one can do your business better than you can. And I mean, even to this day, I still have issues doing, you know, giving up control. Right.[00:43:14] Nathan:What's something that you don't want to, that you're like still holding onto that, you know, you need to let go of[00:43:19] Matthew:Probably just little things like checking in on people and, you know, Content probably like Content. I'm very specific about my voice, the voice we have. So. But I should let my content, people make the content that I know is fine. but I definitely, probably overly check on my teams to be like, what'd you do today?You know, you know, that kind of stuff. but I did take a vacation recently and I went offline for a week and they didn't run the thing down. So I was like, oh right. That was my like, okay, I can, I can let go. And it's going to be okay. But, so getting comfortable with that much earlier on, I would probably save you a lot of stress and anxiety.I definitely think you should move to at least having somebody, you know, a part-time VA, if you're making over six figures, hire somebody because you know, how are you are not going to go from a 100k to 500k really by yourself? Unless, you know, you just have some crazy funnel that you do, but even the people I know who are solopreneurs, they still have two or three people helping them a little bit part, even if it's just part-time because the more money you make, the more time you have to spend keeping that income up.And so your goal as the creator in the owner should be, how can I grow? How can I make more money? It should not be setting up your WordPress blog. You know, It should not be answering joke emails It should not be, you know, scheduling your social media on Hootsuite, that kind of low level stuff can be done by, you know, a part-time VA And maybe that part-time VA becomes a full-time VA as you scale up more. But you know, if you, you have to free up your time and you're never going to free up your time, if you're spending a lot of that time, scheduling. So you mean that the people I know who have half a million dollar businesses, selling courses, you know, and they're really just a solopreneur.They have somebody do that grunt work, right. Plus if you're making that much money, is that the best use of your time now? Really? Right. So getting somebody to do sort of the admin front work, as soon as you can, even if it's on a part-time basis will allow you to focus on growth marketing, and monetization, which is where you should be like Podcast.This week. I have like four or five podcasts I'm doing, right. You know, that is a good chunk of my week. If I have to spend that time scheduling on social media, you know, or setting up blog posts, like I can do that. And this is where the growth in the audience comes in.[00:46:12] Nathan:Okay. So since we're talking about growth, what are the things that you can tie to the effort that you put in that drives growth? Are there direct things or is it a very indirect unattributable[00:46:27] Matthew:Yeah, I think there's some direct things like, you know, before, you know, asking 10 years ago, I would say guest posting on websites. Right. You write a guest post on like Confederacy's site and boom, tons of traffic. Right. that doesn't exist anymore. I mean, yeah. You can get a lot of traffic, but it's not like the huge windfall it used to be, but it's still good for brand awareness.SEO. Great for links. Right. I would say things today that I can tie directly to stuff Podcast and, Instagram. So doing, like, doing a joint Instagram live with another creator. Right. You know, like me and, you know, it's I know pat. because someone with a big following there, we do, we do a talk, you know, 30 minutes, you know, I can see in my analytics, like a huge spike in my following right after that.And so that's a great way to sort of grow your audience is to do Instagram collabs in just like 30 minutes tops and[00:47:32] Nathan:Podcasts[00:47:33] Matthew:I get a lot of people will be like, I saw you on this podcast. I was like, wow, cool.[00:47:37] Nathan:I always struggle with that of like, of all the activities that you can do. Cause you get to a point where there's just so many opportunities open to you and it's like, which are the best use of time. What should you say yes to, what should you say no to, and I don't know. Do you have a filter along those or do you just, is it just kind of gut-feel[00:47:53] Matthew:I will say yes to any text-based interview, normally it is the same questions over and over again. So I sort of have a lot of canned responses that I can just kind of paste. and tweak But those are links, so I'm like, sure. Yeah. Send your questions over. Cut paste, tweak, you know, you know,[00:48:12] Nathan:Customize[00:48:13] Matthew:Customize a little bit, but you know, how many times do I need to rewrite from scratch?How'd you get into blogging, you know, what's your favorite country, Podcasts I definitely have a bigger filter on like you, I don't do new podcasts.[00:48:27] Nathan:Okay.[00:48:27] Matthew:I know that's like bad. because you know, this new podcast could become the next big thing, but come back to me when you have some following.[00:48:36] Nathan:I like Seth, Godin's rule I'm not on south Dakotan's level by any means, but he says like, come back to me. When you have 100 episodes, I will happily be your 100th interview on your podcast or something[00:48:47] Matthew:Yeah.[00:48:48] Nathan:And he's just like, look, Put in your time and then we'll talk.[00:48:51] Matthew:Yeah, so I like, I don't look for just following, but like again, you know, knowing that people give up on blogs, people give up Podcast too. So. You know, you have to have been doing it for like six months a year, like week a weekly, you know? So I know like this something you care about. and I like to listen because you know, you get a lot of new people and they're not really great.You know, they asked us like a lot of canned questions and you're like, listen, you're taking, you know, an hour, hour and a half of my time. You gotta make it interesting for me.Well, yeah, Podcast. And then for Instagram stories you gotta have, or Instagram lives, either a brand new audience, or if you're in travel, at least 75,000.Cause I have like a one 30, so I want to keep it in the same in a level.[00:49:43] Nathan:Yeah.I know nothing about Instagram and promotions on Instagram and all of that is there. If someone were to, like, in my case, if I came to you and say, Hey, I want to grow my Instagram following. I've got 3000 people or 5,000 people or something like that. And I want to be have 50,000 a year from now.Where would you point me?[00:50:05] Matthew:I would say, do you join Instagram lives with people like once a week, you know, and just, or maybe once a week for you and then go to somebody else on their side once a week. So, and just kind of work your way up, like find people in your, your sort of follower count level, you know? So in this case, I'd probably do, you know, you know, 1000 to 5,000, I would look for in your niche and like get online for 30 minutes and talk about whatever it is you want to talk about and and then go to someone else's channel and do that, and then keep doing that because you'll just see giant spikes and then you can move up the the ladder.Then you have 10,000 followers and someone with 25,000 followers might give you the time of day. And then you talk about that, you know, and you just sort of build awareness because you're always there. You're always around.[00:51:03] Nathan:It's a really good point about the figuring out what those rough bands are and reaching out within those. Because I think a lot of people are like, I'm going to go pitch whoever on doing Instagram live together. And it's like, you have 5,000 and they have 150,000. And like the content might be a perfect fit, but they're most likely going to say no, because you're not[00:51:24] Matthew:Yeah.[00:51:24] Nathan:Driving that much value for, or that many subscribers for their audience.[00:51:29] Matthew:Yeah. You know, and so you, maybe I would, you know, someone was like a finance blogger, and they had like 40,000, 30, 40,000. I'd probably.We do it because people who like to say money, like say money on travel. So it'd be like, there's probably a good fit. And you know, 30,000 people, they might not know me or they have like, like you said, 3000, come back to me, you know, when there's another zero,[00:51:57] Nathan:Right. Well, and then the other thing that's going to be true is if I'm bringing you to, to my audience to share and teach something, if you're using this strategy, like go do another 20 of these or 50 of these, and your pitch will be better. And the way that you teach finance to travel bloggers or whatever else it is, is going to get so much better.[00:52:17] Matthew:Yeah,[00:52:18] Nathan:It's like, I kind of don't want to be your Guinea pig. You know, I don't want my audience to be your Guinea[00:52:23] Matthew:Yeah,[00:52:24] Nathan:Pig for your content. And so just get more experienced and come back.[00:52:28] Matthew:Yeah. And you know, you also gotta think about, you know, people are so time-starved right. You know, when I started blogging, I could. There was no Instagram. There was no Snapchat. There was no Tech-Talk, you know, Twitter was barely a thing. So I didn't have to split my focus on so many different platforms and channels.Right. I can just, alright, I can be on this one blog, but now when people are like, whoa, sorry, I have to like manage all these different social channels and all of these comments in the blog and everything. They not don't have like an hour to give, you know, to just anybody way do you could have before,[00:53:12] Nathan:Yeah. Yeah. That's so true. Okay. So on the email side, specifically, if someone came to you with say 1,000 newsletter subscribers today, and they're like, I want to grow, I mean, you're looking to grow to 5,000. This might be so far removed from where you're at that you're like, I don't even know if that was, you know, a decade ago that I was in that position, but what are you seeing that's working?Where would you point them?[00:53:33] Matthew:What works for us right now? one having email forms everywhere on your site, sidebar, footer, we have one below the content below the content forms, and popups, popups, the work they're really great. we find for really long posts, having a form in the middle of the post converts better than, at the end of the post, because know a A lot of people don't read to the end, but when they get to in the middle you're still there.You know, if you look at heat maps are really long websites, right? You just see that drop-off right. So if all your forms are at the bottom of the page, they're just not getting the visibility, that you need. so middle of the page,[00:54:19] Nathan:Do you play with a lot of different incentives of like, you know, Opt-in for this fee guide, you know, or are you customizing it to something for a particular country or there, the content that they're reading[00:54:30] Matthew:Yeah, so we use OptinMonster for that. and so we have, like, if If you go to our pages that are tagged Europe, you get a whole different set of options. than if you go to Australia, like, and like the incentives are like, you know, best hostels in Europe, you know, best hostels in Australia, right? Like little checklist guides.And I tweak what the copy for that, you know, just to see what wording, will lift up a better conversion rate. But yeah, we definitely, because, you know, we cover so many geographic areas. The needs of someone going to Europe are a little different than somebody going to New Zealand. So we, we definitely customize that kind of messaging. And I think that helps a lot, you know, and definitely customizing messaging as much as possible. Um know, but in terms of just, you know, we can talk about, you know, the market, like how do you word things, but middle pop-ups and mil of blog posts definitely converts the best. And so like that's where we see a lot of growth, as well as, just on Instagram telling people to sign up for my newsletter or Twitter or Facebook, but don't let the algorithm, you know, keep you from your travel tips, sign up now and people do.[00:55:58] Nathan:Okay. And is that like swipe up on stories that you're doing[00:56:02] Matthew:Yeah.[00:56:03] Nathan:You know, on an Instagram live or all the above?[00:56:06] Matthew:All the above.[00:56:07] Nathan:Yeah.[00:56:07] Matthew:You just constantly reminding people to sign up for the list, you know, and. One of the failings of so many important for influencers today is, you know,They always regret everyone as everyone does. They always regret not starting to list, you know? And so, you know, you just got to hammer into people, sign up for the list, sign up for the list, sign up for the list.Yeah. And a lot of the copy is, do you see all my updates? No. Would you like to sign up for this newsletter?[00:56:39] Nathan:Yeah, because everyone knows. I mean, I come across people all the time. It's like, I used to follow them on Instagram. I haven't seen, oh no, I do still follow them on Instagram. Instagram just decided that I apparently didn't engage with their content enough or something.[00:56:53] Matthew:Yeah,[00:56:54] Nathan:So now I no longer see their posts,[00:56:56] Matthew:Yeah. You like, I go, I always go to my like 50 least interacted profiles. Right. And, you know, there are some people that aren't there. I interact with this guy all the time. How is this the least attractive? But that that's Instagram and saying, here are the people we don't show you in your feet.[00:57:13] Nathan:W where do you see that? Is that[00:57:16] Matthew:If you go to your, who you're following, it's it should be up on the top.[00:57:20] Nathan:Hmm. All right. I'll have to look at that.[00:57:22] Matthew:Yeah. I'll send you a screenshot. and so like, that's the algorithm be like, here are the people who you interact with the least, but it's like, no, I, I love their stuff. why why do it take them from me? So,[00:57:36] Nathan:Zuckerberg is like, do you really love their stuff? I just not feeling it.[00:57:40] Matthew:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, yeah, it's just, you know, the algorithms are terrible and what I hate and I learned this last year, and this was sort of a unsurprising, but surprising thing is that stories, which used to be like the latest first.[00:57:59] Nathan:Yeah.[00:57:59] Matthew:That is, they have an algorithm for that now, too. And I was like, I, I shouldn't be surprised, but I am surprised.And I'm annoyed by that because like, I liked it when it was just the newest first, but Nope, now that is based on, you know, sort of like Tik TOK thing of like, oh, this story is getting really a lot of interactions. We'll bring it up the front of people's queue or, you know, so it's not just like your first, because you had one, one second ago, you know, like it could, it's based on an algorithm[00:58:35] Nathan:Yeah.And that's how it's all going to go. Facebook did that a lot, you know, with Facebook fan pages back in the day where it used to be fantastic for engagement. And then they were like, yeah, it's fantastic. If you pay us[00:58:46] Matthew:Yeah. And even then it's like, I would pay to boost posts. I was like, great. You saw, I lectured five people. What? I just gave you a hundred bucks and that was. And there was some guy you remember him commenting last year. He was like, whatever happened to this page? I was like, I'm still here. He's like, no, no, no, no.And this isn't a common thread in Facebook. He's like your pages to get a lot more engagement. What happened? I was like, oh, Facebook algorithm. I was like, people just don't see it. Let me tell you where all my analytics side it's like this page. So I have 2000 people. You're like great. 1%, woo[00:59:23] Nathan:Do you do paid advertising? I'd like to get email subscribers.[00:59:28] Matthew:We used to, but, the CPMs went up so much that it wasn't worth the effort. You know, like paying a dollar 52 bucks for an email subscriber, is just a lot of money for, for, for things. We don't mind ties directly. Like we're not taking people through finals buy a course, right? Like just to get rot email, I'm not paying two bucks for.Yeah. And, and so I just, we stopped paying, like during the pandemic, like, June, June of last year, we were like, oh, we're going to take a break. And then we paid somebody to help us for it to make kind of reset it up. But I just had to spend down so much. I was like, you know what, I'm going to turn off for a bit.And yeah, that's been like,[01:00:17] Nathan:Didn't really miss it.[01:00:18] Matthew:Yeah, I looked at the numbers recently cause I was thinking, should we do it? And it's not that big of a difference of just doing it organically on like Instagram stories or just on the page. Right. And I also don't really like giving money to the Zuckerberg empire of VO. I just not a fan of that business.And so like, I know my ad spend is low, but I can't say just. On a rod number. Like it wasn't that big of a deal. Like, you know, like, cause the CPMs were so high, we were having to pay a lot of money. So like we put in like two grand a month and we weren't getting thousands. We getting hundreds of people, you know, I want four for two grand.I want thousands of people.[01:01:06] Nathan:Yeah. For my local newsletter, we're doing paid advertising on Facebook and Instagram and averaging about $2 per subscriber. And that I think now that's considered pretty good. You'd like a lot of, with a broader audience, you'd be at $3 or more per subscriber and it gets expensive pretty fast.[01:01:23] Matthew:Yeah. I mean, but I think at some point you'll just see such diminishing returns that, you know, I mean, how many people are in Boise, can you hit, you know, over and over again?Right.[01:01:35] Nathan:Yep.[01:01:36] Matthew:I, I was just reading Seth Godin's book. This is Marketing. And he said, you know, they talked about ads.You turned off ads when the Content says turn ‘em off. And my Content, I was like, you know, they're not really paying for themselves.[01:01:50] Nathan:Yeah. Let's see. Yeah. You turn that off. Looking forward, maybe like two or three years is that I think your business has fascinating of the approach that you have of taking an online audience, building a real team around it, and then building it into the in-person community. what do you think the business is going to look like in two, three years?Where, where is revenue coming from? What's your vision for the events and meetups and what are the things that like over that time period, they get really excited.[01:02:19] Matthew:Yeah. Two, three years. So we're talking, you know, 20 by 20, 23, most of our revenue coming from stuff in person, you know, having chapters around the world, people pay to go to them. So, you know, it it's like 10 bucks and you can bring your friends for free, right. So it's like five bucks versus. Just for the cost of like hosting events.Right. doing lots of that, doing tours, we're bringing back. and they won't be just with me cause they're community events. Right. So we'll have guides, right. So it's not just, you're coming to travel with me, sort of what Rick, Steve does. Right. You go on and Rick Steves tour, it's his itinerary, but he's not on the tour.Right. He shows up to a couple of them throughout the season when it's not like you don't expect him to be your guide at the time. So moving to that, having a consumer event for like, like a, like a world domination summit, you know, a weekend somewhere just for travel consumers, having an app for both having an app for that company. then online just being a lot of and affiliates and you know, even me. Just even taking away just having this like passive income course, just because, you know, one less thing to worry about. Right.And then travel con, so being around, but actually making money this time.[01:03:47] Nathan:Do you think travel con is going to turn into, I mean, obviously it's a significant amount of revenue, but the expenses are so high. Do you think it will turn into a profitable business[01:03:56] Matthew:Oh yeah. Yeah. Like, I mean, a lot of the unprofitability is just comes from the fact that I had no idea where that was doing.[01:04:02] Nathan:Yeah, I know that firsthand from my own conference, so yeah.[01:04:07] Matthew:It was, I didn't realize how quickly expenses gets that. Right. You know, being like, oh, okay. Like my food and beverage budget is 120,000 writing that in there. And then getting $145,000 bill because, oh yeah, it's 120,000 food, but then there's tax fees, which we, you know, all this stuff and like, Okay, well, that's $25,000 off the profit.Right. and so with a better handle of expenses, like we were definitely like this year, we were gonna like reg even, you know, at the very minimum, we'll pre COVID and this year we'll also break break event. Um it's and just keeping a handle on, you know, like, well, how will I don't invite a hundred speakers, you know?And, and be like, oh, I had planned to only budget, you know, 50,000 speaker fees, but now I'm at 80. Okay. Like, handling the cost better. We're good. Now I have a professional events team that kind of slaps me around and it's like, can't spend that money.[01:05:06] Nathan:I know how it is, where I'm like, Hey, what if, and then just like, now[01:05:10] Matthew:Yeah,[01:05:10] Nathan:Love it, but no,[01:05:12] Matthew:Yeah,[01:05:12] Nathan:Don't like, you don't have the budget for it.[01:05:15] Matthew:Yeah. But no, I mean, you know, we used to have a party. And we're getting rid of the second night party because people don't want to go. Like we didn't have a lot of people show up cause like they're out and about on town. So it's like, wow, I just spent, you know, $40,000 for like a third of the conference to come, you know, why not take that money and use it to something that's more valuable for everybody that has more like impact for dollar spent and still not like go over budget.You know, same thing with lunches. We got, we were getting rid of, we're doing one lunch now.You know, cause people don't really care that much, you know, about in[01:06:01] Nathan:Yeah, it's super interesting.Well, I love the vision of where the conference is going, and particularly just the way that the whole community interplays. I think it's been fun watching you figure out what you want your business model to be, because obviously, with a large audience, your business model can be any one of a hundred different variations.I like that you keep iterating on it, and figuring out the community.[01:06:26] Matthew:Yeah, we're definitely going

Andrew Warner has been part of the internet startup scene since 1997. Andrew and his brother built a $30 million per year online business, which they later sold. After taking an extended vacation and doing some traveling, Andrew started Mixergy. Mixergy helps ambitious upstarts learn from some of the most successful people in business.Andrew and I talk about his new book, Stop Asking Questions. It's a great read on leading dynamic interviews, and learning anything from anyone. We also talk about longevity and burnout as an entrepreneur. Andrew gives me feedback about my interviewing style, the direction I should take the podcast, and much more.In this episode, you'll learn: Why you need to understand and communicate your mission How to get your guest excited about being interviewed What to do instead of asking questions How to hook your audience and keep them engaged Links & Resources ConvertKit Gregg Spiridellis JibJab Ali Abdaal The Web App Challenge: From Zero to $5,000/month In 6 Months Groove Zendesk Help Scout Jordan Harbinger Noah Kagan Bob Hiler Seth Godin Morning Brew Alex Lieberman Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) Notion Sahil Bloom Ryan Holiday Brent Underwood Ghost Town Living Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator Damn Gravity Paul Graham Y Combinator Nathan Barry: Authority Ira Glass NPR This American Life Barbara Walters Richard Nixon interview Oprah interview with Lance Armstrong Matt Mullenweg Chris Pearson Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue Peter Thiel Gawker Nick Denton The Wall Street Journal Rohit Sharma SanDisk Jason Calacanis Dickie Bush Sean McCabe Daily Content Machine Jordan Peterson Tribes Warren Buffet Sam Walton Ted Turner GothamChess LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com) Inc.com: Selling Your Company When You're Running on Fumes Chess.com Mark Cuban James Altucher Rod Drury Andrew Warner's Links Andrew Warner Stop Asking Questions Mixergy Episode Transcript[00:00:00] Andrew:The top 10 interviews of all time are news-based interviews. We, as podcasters, keep thinking, “How do I get enough in the can, so if I die tomorrow, there's enough interviews to last for a month, so I can be consistent, and the audience loves me.”That's great, but I think we should also be open to what's going on in the world today. Let's go talk to that person today. If there's an artist who's suddenly done something, we should go ask to do an interview with them.[00:00:32] Nathan:In this episode, I talk to my friend, Andrew Warner, who I've known for a long time. He actually played a really crucial role in the ConvertKit story in the early days, and provided some great encouragement along the way to help me continue the company, and get through some tough spots.We actually don't get into that in this episode, but it takes an interesting turn because we just dive right in.Andrew's got a book on interviewing. He runs Mixergy. He's been, running Mixergy for a long time. We talk about longevity and burnout, and a bunch of other things. He dives in and challenges me, and gives me feedback on my interviewing style. Where I should take the Podcast, and a bunch of other stuff. It's more of a casual conversation than the back-and-forth interview of how he grew his business. But I think you'll like it. It's a lot of what I'm going for on the show.So anyway, enjoy the episode.Andrew, welcome to the show.[00:01:25] Andrew:Thanks for having me on.[00:01:26] Nathan:There's all kinds of things we can talk about today, but I want to start with the new book that you got coming out.This is actually slightly intimidating; I am interviewing someone who has a book coming out about how to be good at interviewing. Where do we even go from here? You were saying that you have thoughts?[00:01:47] Andrew:I have feedback for you. I have a thoughts on your program.[00:01:51] Nathan:I'm now even more nervous.[00:01:52] Andrew:I've been listening, and I've been following, and I've been looking for questioning styles. Is there feedback I could give him? I mean, I've wrote a whole book on it. I should have tons of ideas on that.I don't. Here's the thing that stood out for me watching you. There's an ease and a comfort with these guests, but I'm trying to figure out what you're trying to do with the Podcast. What is connecting them? Are you trying to bring me, the listener, in and teach me how to become a better creator who's going to grow an audience and make a career out of it? Or are you trying to learn for yourself what to do?How to become closer to what Ali Abdaal doing, for example, or Sahil Bloom? Are you trying to do what they did, and grow your audience? Or is it a combination of the two?I think the lack of that focus makes me feel a little untethered, and I know that being untethered and going raw, and letting it go anywhere is fine, but I think it would be helpful if you gave me a mission.What's the mission that Nathan Barry's on with the Podcast. Why is he doing these interviews?[00:02:56] Nathan:Oh, that's interesting. Because it's probably different: my mission, versus the audience members' mission.[00:03:05] Andrew:I think you should have a boat together and, but go ahead.[00:03:08] Nathan:I was going to say mine is to meet interesting people. Like that's the thing I found that, podcasts are the pressure from two sides, one as a creator, as an individual online, like I'm not going to set aside the time to be like, you know what, I'm going to meet one interesting person a week and we're just going to have a conversation riff on something like that.Doesn't happen the times that, you know, the years that I didn't do this show, I didn't set aside like deliberate time to do that. And then the other thing is if I were to set aside that time and send out that email, I think a lot of people would be like, I kind of had to have a busy week. I don't know that I've, you know, like yeah, sure.Nathan, whoever you are. I did a Google search. You seem moderately interesting. I'm not sure that I want to get on that.Like a, get to know[00:03:58] Andrew:They wouldn't and it would be awkward. And you're right. The Podcast gives you an excuse. I think you should go higher level with it though. I think you should go deep to the point where you feel vulnerable. I think what you should do is say something like this, isn't it. You have to go into your own into your own mission and say, this is what it is.And just, so let me set the context for why this matters. I think it helps the audience know, but it also helps you get better guests to give better of themselves. I talk in the book about how I was interviewing Greg spirit, Dallas, the guy who created jib, jab, you know, those old viral video, it was a fire video factory that also created apps that allowed you to turn your yourself into like a viral meme that you could then send to your friends.Anyway, he didn't know me. He was incredibly successful. He was, I think, person of the year, a company of the year named by time. He was on the tonight show because he created these videos that had gone viral. And yes. He said yes, because a friend of a friend invited him, but I could see that he was just kind of slouching.He was wearing a baseball cap. It wasn't a good position. And then he said, why are we doing this? And I said, I want to do a story. That's so important. That tells the story of how you built your business. Yes. For my audience. So they see how new businesses are being built online, but let's make it so clear about what you did, that your great grandkids can listen to this.And then they will know how to great grandfather do this and put us in this situation. And that's what I wanted. I wanted for him to create that. And he told me that afterwards, if he had known that that was a mission, he wouldn't have put his hat on. He said that after that, he started thinking about the business in a more in depth way, visualizing his great grandchild.And then later on, he asked me for that recording so that he could have it in his family collection. So the reason I say that is I want us to have a mission. That's that important that yes. You could get somebody to sit in front of the camera because you're telling me you're doing a podcast, frankly.Right. You're with ConvertKit they're going to say yes, but how do you bring the best out of them? And that's it. And so that's why I'm doing this. And so one suggestion for you is to say something like.I'm Nathan, I've been a creator my whole life, but I'm starting from scratch right now with YouTube.I've got 435 people watching YouTube. It's not terrible, but it's clearly not where I want to end up. And so what I've decided to do is instead of saying, I've created the book authority, I wrote it. I'm the one who created software that all these creators are using a ConvertKit. Instead of, instead of allowing myself to have the comfort of all my past successes, I'm going to have the discomfort of saying, I don't know what it's like.And so I'm going to bring on all these people who, because maybe I've got credibility from ConvertKit are going to do interviews with me. And they're going to teach me like Alia doll and others are going to teach me how they became better creators, better business people. I'm going to use it to inform my, my, growth on YouTube.And by the way, You'll all get to follow along. And if you want to follow along and build along with me, this is going to come from an earnest place. Now I've obviously gone. Long-winded cause I'm kind of riffing here, but that's a mission. And now we're watching as you go from four to 500, now we care about your growth.Now there's someone giving you feedback and more importantly, there's someone who then can go back years later and see the breadcrumbs. Even if the whole thing fails and say, you know what?Nathan made it in virtual reality videos. And he's amazing. But look at what he did when YouTube was there. He clearly didn't do it, but he aspired right. I could aspire to, if I don't do it, I'll do it in the next level. That's that's what I'm going for with it. I talk too much sometimes and give people too much, too much feedback. How does that sit with you?[00:07:14] Nathan:I like the idea. I particularly love anytime a creator's going on a journey and inviting people along for it, right. When you're sitting there and giving advice or whatever else, it's just not that compelling to follow it unless there's a destination in mind. So I did that with ConvertKit in the early days of, I said, like I called it the web app challenge said, I'm trying to grow it from zero to 5,000 a month in recurring revenue.Within six months, I'm going to like live blog, the whole thing. people love that another example would be also in the SAS space, but, the company grew, they did a customer support software and they, I think. They were going from 25,000 a month to 500,000 a month was their goal. and they even have like, in their opt-in form, as they blogged and shared all the lessons, it had like a progress bar.You'd see, like MRR was at 40,000,[00:08:08] Andrew:Every time you read a blog post, you see the MRR and the reason that you don't remember what the number was is I believe that they changed it, you know, as they achieve the goal, they, they changed it to show the next goal on their list. And yeah, and you've got to follow along now. Why do I care? The groove, HQ or groove is, is growing a competitor to Zendesk and help scout.But now that I'm following along, I'm kind of invested now that I see how they're writing about their progress. I really do care. And by the way, what is this groove and why is it better than help scout and the others? Yeah. I agree with you. I think that makes a lot of sense. I think in conversations also, it makes a lot of sense.I think a lot of people will come to me and say, Andrew, can I just ask you for some feedback? I'm a student. Can I ask you for support? It's helpful for them to ask, but if they could ground me in the purpose, if you could say to somebody I'm coming to you with these questions, because this is where I'm trying to go, it changes the way that they react.It makes them also feel more on onboard with the mission. I have a sense that there is one, I'm just saying nail it, you know, who does it really good? who does a great job with it is a Jordan harbinger. He starts out his each episode is almost if you're a fan of his, it's almost like enough already. I get that.You're going to do an opt-in in the beginning of the Podcast. I get that. What you're trying to do is show us how to whatever network now and become better people. But it's fine. I'd much rather people say, I know too much about what this mission is. Then I don't.[00:09:26] Nathan:Do you who's afraid anyone else tuning in? What, what is Jordan's mission? What would he say is the mission that[00:09:32] Andrew:It's about, see, that's the other thing I can't actually, even though I've heard it a billion times, he's adjusted it. It's about, self-improvement making me a better person better, man. And so the earnestness of that makes me accept when he brings somebody on who's a little bit too academic who's, Jordan's interested in it or a little bit too practical to the point where it feels like I'm just getting too many tips on how to network and I don't need it, but I've got his sensibility.He's trying to make me a better person. And so I think with interviews, if you, if you give people the, the mission, they'll forgive more, they'll accommodate the largest and it does allow you to have a broader, a broader set of topics.[00:10:14] Nathan:Yeah. I'm thinking about the mission side of it. Like all of that resonates. and I love when an interview is questions are Like are the questions that they specifically want to know? It's not like I went through my list and this seems like a good question to ask instead. It's like, no, no, no, Andrew specifically, I want to know what should I do about, this?And I'll even call that out in a show and be like, look, I don't even care if there's an audience right now. Like this is my list, you know?[00:10:41] Andrew:Yes.[00:10:41] Nathan:But the, like if we dive into the mission, the one that you outlined doesn't quite resonate. And I think the reason. I think about, creators who have already made it in some way.And it starts to lose that earnestness. Like, honestly, I'm not that interested in, in growing a YouTube[00:11:00] Andrew:I don't think that that's I don't think that that's it for you. It's true. That's a little bit too. I don't know. It's it's a little, it's a little too early in the career. There is something there. I don't know what it is and it can't be enough. It can't be enough to say I need to meet interesting people because that's very youth centric and I'm not on a mission to watch you, unless you're really going to go for like the super right.And we're constantly aspiring, inspiring. the other thing it could be as you're running a company, you're trying to understand what's going on. No Kagan did that really well. I actually have the reason that I know this stuff is in order to write the book. I said, I have all my transcripts. I can study all the ways that I've questioned, but I also want to see what other people have done.And so Noah Kagan did this interview with an NPR producer. I had that transcribed to understand what he did and what he learned. One of the things that he did in that, that made that such a compelling interview is. He was a podcaster who wanted to improve his podcasting. And he, I think he even paid the producer to do an interview with him on his podcast so that he could learn from him.Right. And in the process, he's asking serious questions that he's really wondering. He's trying to figure out how to make a show more interesting for himself. Now. Clearly someone like me, who wants to make my Podcast more interesting. I'm like mentally scribbling notes as I'm running, listening to the podcasting.Oh yeah. The rule of three, like what are the three things you're going to show me?Well, yeah, at the end he did summarize it and he did edit. I don't like the edits at all because the edits take away some of the rawness of it and the discomfort which I personally enjoy, but I see now how he's editing it out.And it's, it's interesting to watch that progress.[00:12:32] Nathan:Yeah, I'm thinking through. The different angles that I could take with this. cause I like it and I feel like there's a, a thread that's not quite there. And I felt that on the show. Right. Cause people ask, oh, why are you having this guest on versus that guest? and it is that like, I, I find them interesting.There's also another angle of like probably half the guests maybe are on ConvertKit already. And so I want to highlight that. And then the other half of the guests aren't and I want them on ConvertKit and so that's an, you know, an incredibly easy, I can send you a cold email and be like, Andrew switched to ConvertKit.Right. Or I could be like, Hey, you know, have you on the show, we could talk. and we've gotten great people like in the music space and other areas from just having them on the show and then[00:13:18] Andrew:Can I give you, by the way, I know it's a sidetrack and I give you a great story of someone who did that. Okay. it's not someone that, you know, it's a guy who for years had helped me out. His name is Bob Highler every week he would get on a call with me and give me advice on how to improve the business.And then at one point he said, you know what? I need new clients. I want to start going after people who are, I want to start going after lawyers, helping them with their online ads, because lawyers aren't, aren't doing well enough.He started doing all these marketing campaigns because he's a marketer. And so one of the things he did was he got these cards printed up.He said, they look just like wedding invitations, beautiful. He, he mailed them out to lawyers. He got one, two responses. Like nobody would pay attention to a stranger, even if they were earnest and sending those out. And he goes, you know, and then he gets on a call. He doesn't even know what to say to people.If he just cold calling goes, I'm going to try to do that. And Andrew, I'm going to do an interview show for lawyers. He picked bankruptcy lawyers. He started asking them for interviews. They were all flattered because they also want another good Google hit. Right. And so they said yes to him and he asked them questions.Then I started learning the language. I forget all the different terms that he learned about how, about how they operate. But he said, inevitably at the end, they'll go after it was done. And say, by the way, what are you. And then he'd have a chance to tell them. And because he's built up this rapport and they trust him, they were much more likely to sign them.He signed up his customers, just like that, just like that. It's a, I think it's an, it's an unexplored way of doing it, of, of growing a business, taking an interest in someone, shining a light on them, helping them get that Google hit and helping them tell their story. And then by the way, will you pay attention to the fact that I've got a thing that if you like me, you might like also,[00:14:50] Nathan:So a few years ago, I was in New York and Seth Goden had come out to speak at our conference and he'd ever said, Hey, if you're in New York and want to make the pilgrimage up to Hastings on Hudson, you know, of outside the city, like come up and visit. And so I did that and it's so funny, cause it is like this pilgrimage to you, you like take the train up along the river. You know, I don't know what it is an hour and a half outside of the city. and I was asking Seth advice at his office, about like how to reach more authors. I think that was the question I asked him specifically and he just, he was like, well, what do authors want? And I was like, ah, I, some more books I guess.And he's like, yeah know. And so like we went through a series of questions, but he's basically what he came to was, find a way to get them attention so that they can grow their audience to sell more books. And he was suggesting a podcast is the way to do that. What's interesting is that's the side, like that's the other half of it, right.I want to meet interesting people. I want to, Like get more of those people that I find really interesting on ConvertKit pushed the limits of like, our customer base in, in those areas. And then the third thing is I want to do it in a way that's high leverage in my time. Write of, I want to do it.That creates something, for people watching and listening along so they can follow the journey. But I still don't see,I would say two thirds of that is about me, right?[00:16:18] Andrew:It's not only that, but all these things are byproducts more than they are the clear goal. You're going to get that. No matter what, if you just talk all day about what? No, not talk all day. If you do, what was it? I'm the founder of morning brew does nothing, but like a 15 minute, if that sometimes five minutes.[00:16:37] Nathan:Alex Lieberman.[00:16:38] Andrew:Yeah, just what, what goes on in his life now it's changed over the years or so that he's done it, but it's just, here's what we were thinking about today. Here's how I'm deciding to hire somebody BA done. He's just doing that. That's enough to get attention enough to also broaden his audience enough to bring us in and then so on.So I think if you just did nothing, but get on camera and talk for a bit, you'll get that. But I think a higher leverage thing is to tap into that personal mission and let all the others come through along the way and all the other benefits, meaning that you will get to meet people and change the way you think you will get to get people to switch to convert kit.And so on, by the way, that's such a, like an impressive thing for you to admit, to say, I want to have these guests on because I want to assign them up. I think a lot of people would have those ulterior motives and[00:17:23] Nathan:Oh, no, you got to just talk about, I mean, that's something you and I, for as long as we've known each other have been very, very transparent in both of our separate businesses and our conversations and it's just, everyone wants that. Right? Cause they're like, I think I know why Nathan is doing this, but he wants.And that would be weird, but if we go to the mission side of it, there's mission of like this, I'm going to improve the world side of mission, which definitely exists that can protect you. And I got my little plaque behind me. It says we exist to help creators are living. And so we can take that angle of it, thinking of like the, the goal journey side of things, since we're just riffing on ideas.One way that might be interesting is to make like a top 100 list of the top 100 creators we want on ConvertKit. And the whole podcast is about interviewing those people and reaching them. And, and so it could be like, this is what I'm trying to accomplish. And you're going to learn a whole bunch along the way as a listener, but you, you know, we check in on that.And then another angle that we could take that would be different is the, like we're going together. We're going to help the creator make the best version of their business. And so you make it more of a.We're both peers diving in on your business, riffing on it, you know, how would we improve it? that kind of thing.[00:18:43] Andrew:I think helping creators create a business, seems like something others have done, but not quite your approach, your style, the way that you will go and carve something is this is the thing that's over your head that says create. Is that something you carved in your wood shop? Then I saw on Instagram.Yeah, right. The sensibility of I've got to create it my way. Instead of that's a pain in the ass, I got a business to run who like, right. You're not going to see, for example, infusion soft, go, we need a plaque. Let's go to the wood shop. No, you're not. It's just not their sensibility. Right. Coming from a sensibility of someone who cares about the details, who every button matters in the software, everything behind your shoulder matters to you for yourself, even the stuff I imagine.If you look forward would have a meaning there, it wouldn't be random chaos. Is it random chaos in front of, on the[00:19:32] Nathan:The desk is random chaos, but there's a sign that says the future belongs to creators up there. And[00:19:38] Andrew:Okay. I think I might've even seen that online somewhere. So I think that coming, coming from the business point of view, With a sense of creator's taste, I think is something that would appeal to a lot of people. For whom seeing, for example, my take on business would be completely abhorring. All I care about is where the numbers are and what it's like.Right. Well, even allium doll's take on, it would not be, would not be right, because he's much more about every movement needs to matter. He can't just have a checkbox in notion it Ellis has to fire off five different other things that notion because otherwise you're wasting time. Why type five things when you could type one, right.It's a different sensibility. And I think you've always done really well drawing in that audience. I remember talking to a competitor of yours who started around the same time, also done really well about why you were, you were really growing tremendously faster. and they said he nailed it. He nailed who his audience is.It's the bloggers. It's these early creators who, who didn't have. Who didn't have anyone speaking for them. And you did that. And I think maybe that's an approach to saying, look, we are creators. And the business of creation is, or the business of being a creator is evolving and we want to learn about every part of it.And then it's interesting to hear how somebody growing their audience in an interesting way. How is somebody thinking about writing? I love that you asked Sahil bloom about how long it took him to write. I know he talks about it a bunch, but it's, it's interesting to hear him go with you about how it is like a five hour, seven hour writing job for him, right.To write fricking tweets. He's writing tweets, right? You've got people just firing off the tweet. He's spending five, seven hours on it. And, and he's also not a guy who's just like, right. It would be something if he was still in school playing baseball, and this is his intellectual, whatever. No, he's now running in investments.He's making decisions. He's helping promote his, his portfolio companies and he's spending five hours writing and he's doing it like one a week instead of one an hour. Right. It's all very interesting. And that approach, I think, ties completely well with ConvertKit.[00:21:41] Nathan:Okay. So where does that take us on like the mission or the hook for the show? Cause we're.[00:21:48] Andrew:Okay. Here's what I would do. I would, I would just keep riffing go. My name is Nathan Barry. You probably know me from convert kit. I'm doing this podcast because I like to meet interesting people. And here's the thing I'm trying to do or I'm I I'm doing it because I'm compelled to talk to these people who I admire.And I also want to learn from them about how they create and just riff on it. Like every week, even have every interview have a different one, until you feel like, oh, that's the one that feels just right. But if we just here, I want to have this person on, because I'm trying to learn this thing. I want to have this on because secretly I'm trying to see if I can get him to be at, see if I can get Ryan holiday to actually be on convert kit.Right. Boom. Now, now we're kind of following along as you're figuring it out. And that's also[00:22:29] Nathan:Yeah.[00:22:29] Andrew:The way, is Ryan holiday going to be on here or what?[00:22:31] Nathan:On the show,[00:22:33] Andrew:Yeah.[00:22:34] Nathan:Probably we were just talking the other day. We have a shared investment in a ghost town, So we, we often talk about that,[00:22:40] Andrew:Oh yeah. I've[00:22:42] Nathan:Other thing[00:22:43] Andrew:That ghost town. Oh, that's a whole other thing I've been watching that[00:22:45] Nathan:I need to have speaking of the ghost town, I didn't have Brent Underwood on because that Is an insane story of everything going on with town, but it's just been building this massive audience.[00:22:58] Andrew:Who's doing YouTube videos from there? He[00:23:00] Nathan:Yeah. And he's now got 1.2[00:23:01] Andrew:Yeah,[00:23:02] Nathan:Subscribers on YouTube, like 2 million on[00:23:04] Andrew:I had no idea. I watched him in the early days of the pandemic go into this place by himself. Almost get trapped, driving his car to get there. Right. I go, this is fun content. And usually when you watch someone like that and good morning, America go, and I'm going to jump out of this thing.And I've never jumped before, maybe whatever. I don't know.Yo, the producer's not going to let you die. It's fine. Here you go, dude. Who's just trying to get attention for this thing. Cause he has some investors who he wants to make sure get what they want. Yeah, you could die. What the hell is you doing?What? Like I'm going to, I'm going to go down this hole and see if there's anything over you yet. Dude, you could[00:23:41] Nathan:Yeah. It's, it's pretty wild. I actually, some of the weeks that he don't, he, that he didn't post the videos. I'd like, texted him, be like, Brett, you're still alive because you know, the video was the way that we knew every Friday, like, okay, Good Brent. Still alive, everything. Everything's good. Anyway, I got to have him[00:23:58] Andrew:All right. If you do talk to, if you talk to Ryan holiday, I feel like you totally nailed his writing style, where you, you said in one of your past episodes that he can take a whole historical story, sum it up in two sentences to help clarify the moment that he's writing about. And it's like a toss away thing, right? Just toss it away and then move on and go, dude. That's a whole freaking book. In fact, just turning the whole thing into just two sentences to fit in there would take silo, bloom five hours. You put it in a book with other, like there a bunch of other sentences. So that's good. But here's what I think you should talk to him about.Or here's my, my one suggestion. He has not talked about Marketing since he created, trust me. I'm a lot. Trust me. I'm lying, which was a phenomenal book that then I feel like he distanced himself from when he became more stoic and more intellectual. Fine. He is still a great, great marketer along your style, your tasty.And in fact, he's becoming the people who I can think of that are very, ConvertKit like philosophy in their creation plus promotion. He nails it, right? Art that takes so much pain that you've mentioned, and we've all seen it. He has boxes of index cards to create these sentences that most people would just throw away, not pay attention to, but are super meaningful.And at the same time, he knows how to promote. He knows how to get his ideas out there. He knows how to sell a coin that says you're going to die in Latin, that people put in their pockets that are more than just selling a coin. It's selling this transferable viral, real life thing. Right. So anyway. And is he should be on a ConvertKit too.[00:25:29] Nathan:He is, he is[00:25:30] Andrew:Okay. Good.[00:25:31] Nathan:Half of his list started in Berkeley. The other half are in the process of switching over. So, you know,[00:25:36] Andrew:Okay. Yeah, that's the hard part, dude. I I'm with infusion soft. I can't stand them. If you understand how much I do not like them. I do I ever talk negatively about anyone. No. Bring up politics, Joe Biden, Donald Trump. I got no strong opinion about anything you talked to me about, about infusions. Ah, but the problem is it's so hard to wean yourself off of these things because once you're in a system, that's it[00:25:56] Nathan:Well we'll make it happen. W w we'll figure out a way, but the new book landing page for it, I went on there and inspected element. It's definitely a ConvertKit for them. I was pretty happy about it.[00:26:06] Andrew:Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So truthfully it was, I said, I'm not going to school around here. It would have probably been easier for me to go with, with infusion soft because then we all we'd have to do with tag people who were interested. And then I could, I don't want that. I don't want that nonsense because it comes with overhead.That becomes an obstacle to me, communicating with my audience by, by overhead. I mean, they've got historic legacy. Requirement's that mean I can't do anything right. You I'm on my iPad. I could just go in and send a message out. Or actually I haven't sent a message out. Someone else has sent a message out.Our publisher sent a message then from damn, ah, damn gravity. But I, but if someone says there's a problem, I can go in and see it.[00:26:44] Nathan:Right.[00:26:44] Andrew:And make adjustments. The whole thing just fricking works. Right?[00:26:47] Nathan:So I want to talk about the book more. Let's talk[00:26:49] Andrew:Sure.[00:26:50] Nathan:And now I have you here.[00:26:52] Andrew:Ben needs, us to talk about the book. He's the publisher.[00:26:54] Nathan:We'll get to that, then don't worry. Ben, we've got it covered. so you were giving unsolicited feedback, which by the way is my favorite kind of feedback. Okay.So as you've been listening to the show, what are some other things that maybe you recommended the book, maybe like as you set people up for interview questions, any of that advice that you would give beyond?We started with the men.[00:27:15] Andrew:I'm going to suggest that people who listen to you do pay attention to this. One thing that they should, I I'm interrupting you in a roadway now there's some good interruption that I write about in the book and I can tell you how to do it. Right. And I also have to say that there's some new Yorker that's built in, even though I've left New York a long time ago, that I, I always interrupt when we need to get into the bottom line.Okay. Here's one thing that I think people should pay attention with you. You don't just ask questions. You will, at times interject your own story, your own, take your own experience. And I find that a lot of times people either do it in a heavy handed way. It's like, look at me, I'm equal to you. I deserve to be in this conversation too.And that doesn't just happen on Mike. It happens at dinner parties or it's more like I have to be reverential. So I'm asking questions and it's me asking about them. And one of the things that I learned over the years, Getting to know someone interviewing someone, whether it's like you and I are doing in our podcasts and shows or doing it, in a, in a dinner conversation, it's not asking questions.It's not about saying here's my next thing. Here's my next question. It's overwhelming and draining to do that. You do need to say, well, here's me. You do need to sometimes just guide the person to say, now tell me how you wrote the book. Now tell me how long it takes to, to write a tweet, right? Whatever it is, you need to sometimes direct the person.And so I call the book, stop asking questions because that counter intuitive piece of knowledge is something that took me a fricking interview coach to help me accept that. It's true, but it helps. And you do it really well. And here's why you do it. Well, you interject something personal. Somehow you do it succinctly.You don't get rambling off. Maybe you edit that.No, no, because the videos are there. Yeah. It's, it's not edited. It's just you saying here's, here's my experience with this. And then when you come back and you ask something. It informs the guest about where you are and what they could contribute to that. It lets them also feel like this is a dialogue instead of them being pounded with demands of, in the forms of question.[00:29:15] Nathan:Yeah. Yeah. I think that for anyone listening and thinking about starting a podcast, it's really like, what's the kind of thing that you want to listen to. And I like it where the host is like a character in the, in the Podcast, in the episode where they're contributing content and it's not just like, oh, if I listened to Andrew on these 10 shows, I'm just going to get Andrew.Like, I want it where it's like, no, I'm getting the blend between these two people. And the unique things that come from that intersection rather than, you know, I've heard this[00:29:46] Andrew:Yes.[00:29:47] Nathan:I've heard about it.[00:29:48] Andrew:I think also it took me a long time years of, so I started doing this in 2007, give or take a year and I think. No one needs to talk about, I don't need to talk about myself. They don't care about me. They care about, you know, Paul Graham, who I'm interviewing about how he found a Y Combinator, someone.And I would get tons of emails from people saying, tell us who you are. Tell us a little bit about yourself. And I would argue with them and say, no, but I understand now on the outside, when I listen, I don't know who you are. And it feels very awkward to hear it. It feels very much like, I don't know why, where you're coming from.And so I don't know why I should listen. It's kinda, it's it's counterintuitive.[00:30:29] Nathan:Yeah. I think it just comes with comfort over time. Like, I, I don't know this for sure. If I bet if I listen back to my first podcast episodes, the ones that I did in like 2015. I have a different style because I bet I'm less comfortable or more worried about like, make sure that I shut up quickly so that the guests can talk more because people came here for the guest and then over time you just get more comfortable.[00:30:53] Andrew:So you wrote authority and I remember you, I remember buying it and I remember you bundled it with a bunch of stuff, right. And oh, by the way, it's so cool. I was listening to it on a run and I heard you mention my name in the, in the book I go, this is great and I'm running. but I remember you did interviews there.I don't remember whether the style matches up to today or what, but you did interviews in it. Right.[00:31:15] Nathan:I did.[00:31:16] Andrew:And what you had there that I think is always important to have with all, all interviews is you had a sense of like, well, the sense of mission, I knew what you were going for, because you were trying to say, here is this book that I've written on this topic.I'm want to bring these people in to bring their, their take on it. We were all kind of working together. And I feel like, when I look at my earlier interviews, I listened to them. The Mike sucks so badly. I was too ponderous. Cause I wanted to be like, IRA glass from, from NPR, from this American life.And you could hear the same rhythm, the same cadence, like I'm copying him. Like I'm his little brother trying to learn how to be like a real boy. but I had this real need. I was trying to figure out how these people were building companies that work to understand what holes I had in my understanding to see what was working for them that I didn't know before.And you could see that and it, it helps. It helped me continue. Even when I was nervous with the guest, it helped the guests know where to go. Even when I wasn't doing good job, guiding them and help the audience keep listening in, even when the audio stopped, because there's this thing that Andrew is trying to understand.And you almost feel like you're the sense of vulnerability. If it doesn't scare you away, then it makes you want to root.[00:32:40] Nathan:Yeah. And I personally love that style because I want to follow someone going on a journey and, and trying to accomplish something specific. But let's talk about the not just the book, but asking questions or in this case, stopping it, stop asking questions. What are the things that not even just specific to this job, what are the things that you listened to interview shows?And you're like, okay, here are the three things that I want to change or that I want to coach you on in the same way that I was coached on.[00:33:10] Andrew:Okay. So what I started to do is I go through my own transcripts. I mean, I had years of transcripts to see what worked and what didn't I already done that. So I said, I need to now add to it. And so I went back and looked at historical interviews, like when Barbara Walters interviewed Richard Nixon and got him so frustrated that he didn't want to ever talk to her again.Or when Oprah finally got to sit with Lance Armstrong, how did she do that? I think. You know, you know, let me pause on, on Oprah and Lance Armstrong. She got to interview him after he, he was basically caught cheating and he was about to come out and do it. Great. Get, I think the fact that she interviewed him, there's a lesson there for, for all of us who are interviewing, interviewing the top 10 interviews, I think of all time.And you go back to Wikipedia and look it up. You see art or interview podcast or interview, sorry, our news-based interviews. We as podcasters, keep thinking, how do I get enough in the can so that if I die tomorrow, there's enough interviews to last for a month or whatever, so that I can be consistent in the audience loved me.That's great. But I think we should also be open to what's going on in the world today. Let's go talk to that person today. If there's an artist who suddenly done something, we should go and ask to do an interview with them. If there's a creator, if there's someone. So for me, one of the top interviews that people still it's been years, people still come back and talk to me about is when Matt Mullenweg decided that he was gonna pull out Chris[00:34:35] Nathan:Pearson.[00:34:35] Andrew:Per Pearson.Pearson's, themes from WordPress. And I got to talk to both of them at the same time and I published it and it went all over the internet with all over the WordPress internet. So hundreds of different blog posts about it, eventually all the people in the WordPress world write a lot of blogs, but also it became news.And so we don't do enough of that.[00:34:57] Nathan:I remember that interview because I was in the WordPress community at that time. And I remember you saying like, wait, I'm in Skype and I have both of you in two different things and you pull it together and not to pull Ryan holiday into this too much, but that's where he ended up writing the book.Was it, he realized he was one of the only people who was talking to like both Peter teal and, who's the Gawker guy.Yeah. Anyway, people know, but, but being in the intersection of that, so you're saying find something that's relevant on the news[00:35:33] Andrew:Yeah. Nick Denton was the founder of Gawker. Yes. Find the things that are relevant right now. And when people are hot right now, and they know you and you have credibility in this space, they trust you more than they trust. Say the wall street journal, even right, where they don't know where's this going.I think that's, that's one thing. The other thing is I think we don't have enough of a story within interviews. If we're doing S if we're doing at Mixergy, my podcast and interview where we're telling someone's story, we want them to be somewhere where the audience is at the beginning and then to have done something or had something happen to them that sets them on their own little journey.And then we make this whole interview into this. Into this a hero's journey approach. So I think better when I have an actual company in mind, so, or a person in mind. So last week I was interviewing this guy, Rohit Rowan was a person who was working at SanDisk, had everything going right for him. His boss comes to him and says it, you're now a director, continue your work.But now more responsibilities he's elated. He goes back, home, comes back into the office. Things are good, does work. And then a couple of days later he's told, you know, we mean temporarily, right? And he goes, what do you mean? I thought I got, I got a promotion. No, this is temporary. While our director's out you're director of this department.And then you go back, he says, the very next day, he couldn't go back into the office. He sat in his car, just, he couldn't do it anymore. And so he decided at that point, he'd heard enough about entrepreneurship heard enough ideas. He had to go off on and do it himself. And so we did. And then through the successes and failures, we now have a story about someone who's doing something that we can relate to, that we aspire to be more.[00:37:13] Nathan:So, how do you, you, your researchers, how do you find that moment before you have someone on? Because so many people will be like, yes, let me tell you about my business today. And oh, you want to know about that? How'd, you know, you know, like, as you,[00:37:27] Andrew:Yeah,[00:37:28] Nathan:That hook in that moment? That actually is a catalyst in their own dream.[00:37:33] Andrew:It's tough. It's it takes hours of talking to the guest of, of looking online of hunting for that moment. And it takes a lot of acceptance when it doesn't happen. One of my interview coaches said, Andrew, be careful of not looking for the Batman moment. And I said, what do you mean? He goes, you're always looking for the one moment that changed everything in people's lives.Like when Batman's parents got shot. And from there, he went from being a regular boy to being a superhero. Who's going to cry, fight crime everywhere. His life doesn't really work that way. There aren't these one moments, usually the change, everything. So I try not to. Put too much pressure on any one moment, but there are these little moments that indicate a bigger thing that happened to us.And I look for those and I allow people to tell that without having it be the one and only thing that happened. So if Pharaoh, it, it wasn't that moment. It could've just been, you know what, every day I go into the office and things are boring. And I think I have to stop. What I look for is give me an example of a boring.Now he can tell me about a day, a day, where he's sitting at his desk and all he's doing is looking at his watch, looking at his watch and he has to take his watch, put it in his drawer so that he doesn't get too distracted by looking at his watch all day. Cause he hates it. Now was that the one moment that changed everything?It was one of many moments. It might've happened a year before he quit, but it's an indication. So when we're telling stories, we don't have to shove too much pressure into one moment, but I do think it helps to find that one moment that encapsulates their, why, why did they go on this journey? Why does someone who's in SanDisk decide he's going to be an entrepreneur?Why did someone who was a baseball player decide that he had to go and write a blog post? Why is it? What's the thing that then sends them off on this journey? It helps. And I would even say, if you can get that moment, it just helps to get the thing that they were doing before that we can relate to. So what's the thing that they did before.So anyway, we have two different types of interviews. One is the story-based interview where we tell a story of how someone achieved something great. And so that hero's journey is and approach. The other one is someone just wants to teach them. All you want to do is just pound into them for an hour. Give me another tip another tip another tip of how to do this.Like pound, pound, pound, pound pound. If you want the audience to listen. I think for there, it helps to have what I call the cult hook because I said, how do I, how do cults get people to listen to, to these people who are clearly whack jobs sometimes. And so studying one called I saw that what they did was they'd have a person up on stage who talked about how, you know, I used to really be a Boozer.If you came into my house, you would see that there'd be these empty six packs. I was so proud of leaving the empty six packs everywhere to show myself how much alcohol I can drink. My wife left me. And when she left me, she just told me that I hadn't amounted to anything in my life. And I was going nowhere.And I just said, get I here. Instead of appreciating that this was just like terrible. And I ran out of toilet paper and don't even get me started with what, what I did for that. And so you see someone who's worry worse off than you are on this path of life. And then something has. They discover whoever it is.That's the cult leader. And they say, now I've got this real estate firm I encouraged by, oh, by the way, all of you to come over and take a look at that at this, I couldn't believe it. My whole life. I wanted to buy a Tesla. I now have the Tesla S it's amazing. It's just so great. And I did it all because I changed the way I thought once I came in and I found this one book and the book told me, I mean, anyways, so what we try to do is we say, if you're going to have somebody come on to teach how they became a better blogger, let's not have them start over elevated where everything they do is so great that we can't relate, have them start off either relatable or worse.I couldn't write here's my grammar, mistakes. My teacher told. Right. And now what's the thing that they did. They pick them from where they were to where they are today. it's this real set of realizations. Now I want to go into that.Let's pound into them and see how many of those tips we can get. Let's learn that I want to go from where he was to where he is.[00:41:28] Nathan:Yeah, I liked that a lot. Cause my inclination would be like, okay, we're we're doing the, educational, tactical conversation. I'm going to facilitate it. Let's dive right in and let's get to the actionable stuff right away. So I like what you're saying of like, no, no, no. We need to, even though this is going to be 90% packed, full of actionable material, we need to dive in and set the stage first with the story and making it relatable.And I like it.[00:41:55] Andrew:Yeah,[00:41:55] Nathan:Oh, yeah. I was just, just in my own head for a second. Cause I say, ah, that makes sense a lot, so much so that I've had three different guests or listeners email me and say like, just don't say that makes sense as much would, now that I'm saying it on the show, I'll probably get more emails every time that I say it.Cause that's like my processing, like, oh, oh, that makes sense. As I'm thinking of the next question and all that, so[00:42:22] Andrew:I do something like that too. For me. It's IC,[00:42:25] Nathan:Everyone has to have something.[00:42:26] Andrew:I can't get rid of that and yeah.[00:42:28] Nathan:So what systems have you put in place on the research side so that you're getting this, are you doing pre-interviews forever? Yes. Are you having your[00:42:38] Andrew:Almost every single one, some of the best people in some of the best entrepreneurs on the planet, I'm surprised that they will spend an hour or do a pre-interview. And sometimes I'm too sheepish to say, I need an hour of your time and I need you to do a pre-interview. So instead of saying, I need you to do a pre-interview.I say, here's why people have done it. And I've paid for somebody to help make my guests better storytellers of their own stories. And truthfully people will go through that. Pre-interview even if they don't want to do an interview, they just need to get better at telling their story for their teams, their employees, their everyone.Right. and so I say that, and then they will take me up on the pre-interview and say, yes, I do want to do the pre-interview. and so what I try to do is I try to outline the story. Ahead of time in a set of questions. And then what we do is we scramble them up a little bit based on what we think people will tell us first and what will make them feel a little more comfortable.And then throughout the interview, I'll adjust it. So for example, no, one's going to care about the guest unless they have a challenge. No guest wants to come on and say, I'm going to tell you about what's what I really suck at or where I've really been challenged. If they do, they're going to give you a fake made up thing that they've told a million times to make themselves seem humble.So we don't ask that in the beginning. We don't even ask it in the middle. We save it till the very end. Now they've gotten some time with us. They've gotten some rapport, they trust us. Then we go into tell me about the challenges, what hasn't worked out for you. And we really let them know why tell people the higher purpose you want the audience to relate.You want them to believe you. You want them to see themselves in you, and to learn from you. We need. They tell us, and then I have it in my notes as the last section, but I use it throughout the interview. I sprinkle it. So the goal is to get the pieces that we want and in whatever order makes the most sense and then reshape it for the interview Day.[00:44:33] Nathan:So on the interview itself, you would, you would flip that and you know, okay, this is what I want to start with and, and dive in right[00:44:41] Andrew:Yup. Yup.[00:44:43] Nathan:Lose. They already told you about that. And so now, you[00:44:46] Andrew:Right,[00:44:46] Nathan:In and start with.[00:44:47] Andrew:Right. That helps. Now, if there's something I want to ask someone about that they're not comfortable with. One thing that I do is I, I tip them off. So Jason Calacanis invited me to go do, interviews with, with investors at one of his conferences. It was just a bunch of, investors. And I looked at this one guy, Jonathan tryst, and he looked really great.But he, what am I supposed to do? Ask him about what startups should do to run their businesses. He's never run a startup. His, he hadn't at that time had a successful exit. As far as I knew, like mega successful exit. He's just a really nice guy. You can tell he was going places, but that's it. And the money that he was investing came from his parents.So what is this rich parents giving their kids some money. Now he's going to tell everyone in the VC, in the startup and VC audience, how to live their lives. So I said, I'm either not going to address it, which I think most people are, or I have to find a way to address it where I'm not going to piss them off and have them just clam up on me and then go to Jason and go.This guy just is a terrible interviewer, which is not true. So what I decided to do was tip him off. I said, look, Jonathan, before we do this, before we start talking to the audience, I have to tell you, I saw it, that you don't have much of a track record as an investor. Your money came from your parents and you're not like a tech startup, like people here.If we don't talk about it, people who know it are going to think, oh, this guy, Jonathan, look, who's trying to pass him soft self off. I don't have to force it in here, but if you allow me to, I'd like to bring it up and let's talk about, and it goes, yeah, absolutely. If it's out there, I want to make sure that we address it and sure enough, we talked about it and he had a great answer.He said, no, this came from my parents. It's not my own money. I don't have as much experience as other people, but I took my parents' money. I invested it, fat parents and family and so on. We've had a good track record with it. And now have raised the second Fallon fund from outsiders who saw what I was able to do with the first one.And by the way, I may not have this mega exit as a startup investor, as a startup entrepreneur. But I did have this company that did okay. Not great. Here's what it did Here's what I learned And that's all informing me. And that's where I come from now. You've got someone talking about the, the, the thing that matters without pissing them off so much that they don't say anything else.And you feel like you feel superior as an interviewer. I got them. But in reality, you got nothing[00:46:57] Nathan:Right.[00:46:57] Andrew:Cares.[00:46:58] Nathan:I think that's a really hard line of talking about the things that are difficult and like the actual, maybe things that someone did wrong or lessons that they learned without just like barely dipping into it for a second. And I liked the format of tipping them off in like full transparency.So on this show, I had someone on who I really, really respect his name's Dickie Bush. He's one of the earlier episodes in this series and in it, he, okay. Yeah. So in that interview, one thing that I knew is that his, the first version of his course plagiarized text from another friend, Sean McCabe, actually Shaun's company edits is Podcast and all that.And I've known both of them for, for quite a while. I've known Sean for like, I dunno, six, seven years or something. And I was like, struggling with how to bring that up. And I wanted from the like founder, transparent journey, that sort of thing I wanted it brought up because I, I actually like, I'm happy to talk about like some pretty major things that I've screwed up and what I've learned from it.And I just think it makes a better conversation. And then from the interview side, I don't feel good, like doing an interview and not touching on that, but I didn't tip Dickey off to it. And I, that was one of the things that I've regretted that he gave a great answer. He talked about the lessons that he learned from it.It was really, really good, but I felt bad that I didn't set him up for the most success in like in setting up. And part of that, part of it is because even at the start of the interview, I was still wrestling with now, I'm not going to bring that up that, ah, maybe I should, it wouldn't be an authentic interview if I didn't like wrestling with that, I hadn't figured out my own, like made my own decision until we were in the middle of it.And so I didn't, I didn't set anybody up for success. And so it's an interesting line.[00:48:52] Andrew:It happens. And it seems like I'm now in the point of your transcript, where you, where you ask him, it's a 31 minutes into the interview. I think his response is great. He came in and he took responsibility for it. He says, yeah, that, that, that was a dramatic mistake, or a drastic mistake on my side and caught up in it.He wasn't the most articulate here and he'd repeated words. Like I, I, a couple of times, so I could see that he probably was uncomfortable with it. but I think his answer was great. I think, I believe that we all are broadcasting out, whether we know it or not, our intentions and where we're coming from, as some people are really good at faking it.And so I'm not going to talk about the outliers and some people are so uncomfortable that they're messing up the transmission, but for the most part almost. broadcasting our intentions. If you walk into that, Nathan, with the, I got to get him because he, he got one of my friends and I need him to finally get his comeuppance.He's going to pick up on that. And truthfully, it's such a small thing for a person like you who's, who's already a likable person. You have a lot to offer people, right? As far as like promotion and everything else, it will be forgiven, but it'll be picked up on, it's also something that people could pick up on, which is Nathan really want to know this thing.It's been bothering him for a while. And if you could, just, before you asked the question, say, where am I coming from with this? And know that the audience will mostly pick up on it. And obviously people are gonna like read in whatever they feel like, but trust that the vast majority of us understand, I think it'll work[00:50:21] Nathan:Yeah,[00:50:22] Andrew:You don't have to even tip. You don't have to tip off, but it does help. It, it definitely helps.[00:50:26] Nathan:It's interesting. I was watching an interview with, Jordan Peterson who wrote 12 rules for life. He's like a very controversial figure. And I was just often these controversies pass by, on Twitter and other places. And I realized like, oh, I don't understand them. And rather than jumping on one side or the other, at least try to like dive in a little bit and understand it.So watching this interview, and I can't remember, I think it was some major Canadian TV show or something, and that you would tell the interview was just trying to nail him it every possible chance, like whatever he said, just like dive in. And, so I think you're right, that you see the intention, like in that case, you would see the, the interview, his intention was specifically to try to trip him up in his words.And then in other cases where it's like, This is something that, you know, if you take the other approach, this is something that's been bothering me, or I want to talk about it. Like I genuinely want, you know, to ask or learn from this. It's a very different thing.[00:51:20] Andrew:I think people pick up on it. I remember you, you mentioned Seth Godin. I remember interviewing him when he wrote the book tribes back before people had online communities. And I didn't just say, okay. All our heroes, all the best entrepreneurs just run their businesses. Then don't run a tribe. I brought out books.I said, here's a book about Warren buffet. Here's the book by Sam Walton. The Walmart here's a book by Ted Turner became a multi-billionaire to creating all these, these media empires didn't have communities. They don't have tribes. And now you're telling me that in addition to my job, I also have to go and build out a tribe.It feels like, you know, an extra job. That just seems right for the social first. This just sounds right on social media and you could actually see. He's watching me as I'm saying it, and he's smiling, he's watching it because he's trying to read me, is this like what I get wrapped up? Is this going to be some kind of thing where some guy's going to try to be in the next Gawker media?Or is, is this a safe place? We're all doing that constantly. And then he also saw, okay, this is someone who really wants to understand this. And he's challenging me. I like a challenge. And you could see him smile with like, this is what I'm here for. And so I think when you come at it from a good point of view, people can see it and then you can go there and you can go there and you can go there and it will be shocking to you and them and the audience, how far you go. But when you're coming from that genuine place, they get, they get it.They want it.[00:52:44] Nathan:Yeah, that's good.I want to talk about longevity in like the online world. I think that so many people that I started following in say 2007, 2008, nine, and then I didn't start creating myself until 2011. most of them aren't around anymore. Like a lot of the big blogs, Yeah, just so many that I can think of.They're not around anymore. They're not doing this. You're at a point where like you started messaging in some form in what? 20, sorry, 2004 to somewhere in there and then interviews.[00:53:17] Andrew:Yeah, I keep saying 16. It's like, yeah. 2004 is when I started the interview started 2007 ish somewhere there. Give or take a year. yeah, long. I, I will say that there are parts of my work that I am burned out on right now. This year has been that, but I'm not on the interview. And the reason I'm not is because I do enjoy conversations.I hated them for a long time in my life because I just didn't know how to have them, how to have it make sense. I also didn't give myself permission to take the conversation where I wanted it to go. And it helps now to say, I can talk to anyone about anything. That's an opportunity that, that feels fun because I know how to do it.It's an opportunity to, it feels like, like, you know how everyone's so happy. You can go to YouTube and you could get the answer to anything. Well, I could go to anybody and I could get the answer to anything and talk about how they didn't have a customized to me, YouTube, not customized thing to me, I'm watching Gotham chess on YouTube.He's teaching me how to play chess, but he will not customize to the fact that every time I get into a car con defense, all the pieces like bunched over to my side. But if he and I did an interview, or if I do an interview with an tomorrow's entrepreneur, it's going to be about, here's the thing I'm trying to deal with.How did you get past that? Talk to me about what you're up to there.[00:54:31] Nathan:Yeah, that's definitely energizing. Okay. But what are the things that you're burnt out on? Because I think a lot of people are seeing that burnout. And so I guess first, what are you burned out on? And then second, we can go from there into like, what are you changing and how are you managing.[00:54:46] Andrew:I'm burned out on parts of the business behind, behind Mixergy I'm burned out on. I was aspiring to like unbelievable greatness with the, with the course part of it, with the courses, it didn't get there and I'm tired of trying to make it into this thing. That's going to be super big. I'm tired of that.[00:55:10] Nathan:His greatness there, like linda.com? Like what, what was that?[00:55:15] Andrew:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Yeah. She was one of my first interviewees and, and so yeah, I saw the model there and I am frustrated that I didn't get to that and I, I don't have a beat myself up type a perso

Kimberly Brooks is a contemporary American artist and author. Kimberly integrates landscape, figuration and abstraction to address subjects of history, memory and identity. Her work has been exhibited and featured internationality.Kimberly received her bachelor's degree in literature from U.C. Berkeley, and was Valedictorian. She has taught art as a lecturer and adjunct faculty instructor, and was a featured speaker at TEDx Fullerton.In this episode, I talk with Kimberly about her work as an artist, author, and editor. We talk about how she uses ConvertKit to reach and grow her audience. We talk about what people can learn from fine art, and apply it to their newsletters. We also cover the path to becoming a successful creator, and much more.In this episode, you'll learn: The secret to achieving your breakthrough moment A job most creators should charge for, but rarely do What you should be doing instead of blogging Should you be posting on Instagram? Links & Resources Huffington Post ConvertKit Craft and Commerce Steve Jobs John Baldessari Adobe Photoshop Adobe Leonard Shlain Milton Glaser Macworld Walt Disney's Imagineering Warner Music Group Seth Godin Leonardo da Vinci Arianna Huffington Huffington Post: Fine Art Later Anderson Ranch Arts Center Otis College of Art and Design Kimberly Brooks's Links Find Kimberly on Instagram Kimberly's website Kimberly's Ted Talk Huffington Post article, “The Gap Logo, New Coke and the Legendary Walter Landor” Kimberly's book, The New Oil Painting Episode Transcript[00:00:00] Kimberly:The fundamental way to learn is, you imitate, assimilate, and then you can improvise with anything. You're going to be thwarted in the beginning many times, and you can't give up. You have to say, “Okay, well, I don't care if it sucks. I don't care if I'm going to fail. If I'm gonna fail, I'm gonna fail big. Let's just go on.”[00:00:29] Nathan:In this episode I talk to Kimberly Brooks. She is a fine artist. So, painting, she has all of her art in galleries, that whole world, which is super fascinating to me. She also plays in the creative world. Newsletters, podcasts, and interviews.She built the whole art editorial section of the Huffington Post. She built that to millions of readers. She's done all kinds of things in the design community from the early days. So, we riff on that; Mad Men-style ad agencies in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Some great stuff.Then she brings it all the way through to talking about what she does with ConvertKit. How she sets up her sequences, and everything else, and things that people can learn from fine art, and apply to their email newsletters and sequences.So, it's a fun episode. We have to do a part two, because we filled up all the time we had, and I think I only got through half my questions.So, anyway, I'm going to get out of the way and dive in. So, here we go.Kimberly, welcome to the show.[00:01:37] Kimberly:Thank you for having me, Nathan.[00:01:39] Nathan:There's so many things I to talk about, because you come to the creator world from a different perspective than I do, though we both share a love for Photoshop.[00:01:50] Kimberly:Oh, yeah.[00:01:51] Nathan:We'll start with where we met. It was at Craft and Commerce, some number of years ago.I can't even think. Three years ago? Four?[00:02:01] Kimberly:I think it was three years ago, and it was such a random whim. I don't even know how I ended up finding it. I fell in rabbit hole. And then I came upon ConvertKit.I was actively looking for a better way to send art show announcements. Because I'm a painter, I'm an artist.I just felt after my previous experiences, I knew how important having a subscriber-based service was. I don't want to get too nerdy, but I didn't really like the competitor who shall remain unnamed. But, I found you guys, and I started getting the advertisement for the conference, and it was in Boise, Idaho.And so I thought, I'll just go. It was like a Ted conference for really creative nerdy people like me, but it was exactly what I was wanting. It was about marketing, which is really such a weird word because it's really about sharing, and I loved the title.I loved everything about it. I met some of the people that I'm really, really close with now. Then the next year it was canceled because of the pandemic, but it was amazing, and I met you, actually.[00:03:28] Nathan:And, and we had a really fun conversation. one thing that I want to talk about, for you is the intersection between fine art, right. And painting and that world. And then now you're also in this world of being a writer and a creator in the sense, right. You you've been a writer and creative for a long time, but, but it's, it's like a different world of the selling things to your audience.And. Earning money directly in that way. And so I want, like, I want to hear that as you like weave in and out of these two worlds and then just your experience there.[00:04:02] Kimberly:Yeah, it's interesting. I, when I was in elementary school, we had a really competitive game of tetherball constantly going on on the playground. And it was just sort of that pole with a ball attached to a rope we would, people would line up and we would get it, and it was, see how many times, and it was just sort of like, it was very intense and I always felt like being an artist.Being an art to me was it was the pole, you know? So like my pole is art is making art and everything about what I do. I write about it. I interview people about it. I interview other artists about their work. I make paintings 90% of the time in my studio. Like, it's all about art, you know? So that's like the beginning.So I do see myself sashaying between different worlds. And I think everybody kind of does that. And then as the bicycle of technology was being built to use kind of like a vague reference to like Steve jobs is, you know, what happens if you put a man on a bicycle and you know, like how fast can he, as the bicycle was kind of entering our world, I thought, what if you kind of mixed art with the bicycle?You know, what, what happens if you, you know, Make an artist's website. So I was like one of the first people I knew that made an artist's website. And I remember, it was, I had, was having lunch with my mentor. Who's, the late John Baldessari. He was a great, great, great artist. And, he's famous for, you know, he burned all this stuff and graduate school and then became a conceptual painter, you know, very, you know, Howard work in, you know, conceptual anyway.So I brought my laptop to this Mexican restaurant in Venice, and I said, I wanted to show you something. I made a website and our studios were really near each other. And he said, Oh, I, I don't know if I would do that. If I were you, I was like, why not? He said, because you're, you'll piss off the dealers, the galleries, the galleries, you shouldn't be selling directly.It's going to take away from what their job is. You know, when you hang a show and you have art in the gallery, the gallery is selling the artist and it's their job, you know, and artists are supposed to be kind of this, you know, semi mute, black turtleneck wearing, you know, mysterious, mystical ShawMan goddess.I call it goddess on the hill. Like you're not supposed to really get in the way of what your artists about. And so I thought, oh gosh, you know, this is, and I had put the paintings for a show was about to have. And so I started making, so my postcard for that show had the name of the show and it had the name of the website, cause no galleries had website.Then this is in like the two thousands, you know, this is a long time ago. And I remember meeting people when I handed them a postcard. If like I felt comfortable with them, I would like secretly write a password so that they could see the website,[00:07:20] Nathan:Oh was you were, you had the website, but it was[00:07:24] Kimberly:Yeah. So I password protected it. I password protected it because John Baldessari told me that it's probably not a good idea to have a website.This is again, no artists ad website.[00:07:35] Nathan:How did the galleries and the community[00:07:37] Kimberly:The galleries didn't have websites either. And the galleries, I remember. They started it. Like some of them had websites, but it was super janky. It was like sometimes most of the time they did an, and it was just sort of this mysterious world that 99.9, nine, 9% of the public didn't understand.Doesn't understand it's better now. And you'd have to be walking down the street or you'd have to know somebody who knows somebody, you know, it's, it was just a different world then.[00:08:08] Nathan:But did any of those negative things come about? Like, did anyone look down on you on it for having a website and for[00:08:14] Kimberly:No, no, no. Eventually I just said, screw it. And I took the password off.And, interestingly, I don't want to date myself, but I think I already have, but the at the time flash was very. sexy. And it was like, and so artists would have, if they did have website, firstly, they would be horribly designed and they would have like a flash animation of a curtain opening and a door.And it was very like CD rom mentality. Like, you know, it was pre-internet thinking, you know, anyway, like I said, the big nerd here.[00:08:48] Nathan:Flash was big until 2000, like the iPhone 2007.[00:08:52] Kimberly:Until Steve jobs killed it, just took a knife. He took a sword and he just, during a keynote, just, you know,[00:09:01] Nathan:Yeah. Oh, and the two biggest reasons were, that the bandwidth of the phones couldn't handle it. And then also the battery life on the phones couldn't handle it.[00:09:10] Kimberly:Wasn't there another reason there was another technical reason that had to do with plays well with others. I can't remember exactly what it was,[00:09:20] Nathan:Yeah. I mean, it was a restricted technology. Like it was owned Macromedia. And so probably that apple was trying to do to get to play. And Adobe was playing hardball and apple was probably like, okay,[00:09:31] Kimberly:Yeah,[00:09:32] Nathan:You know, we'll play this[00:09:33] Kimberly:Yeah. It was, was, it was, it was just the evolution of, you know, of Photoshop and Adobe products. And so I grew up with Adobe. I learned I was an early adopter, always, you know, I just sort of like analogy. Yeah.[00:09:49] Nathan:I want to dive into all kinds of things. I want to talk about, more in the financial world and the business of that and everything else. But back and maybe start earlier in your career.[00:10:01] Kimberly:Than elementary school.[00:10:04] Nathan:I guess we didn't go to elementary school a little bit after elementary school. What what did the early days of your career look like[00:10:12] Kimberly:I was a, you know, I'm a first, or I guess I'm a second generation American, so, and I'm Jewish. So of course I was supposed to be a doctor. So my, we used to get, you can be anything you want just as long as you're a surgeon first. So I got the makings of a woman's surgeon and, you know, it was just like, as a book that was a book that I received many times in my middle school years.And then, you know, it was like, that's great, you're so talented. But you know, you really, you know, after you get out of medical school, you can, it was just sort of what you did in my family. And, and my father he was a well-known surgeon and he became an, I don't want to say artist. He became a writer, so he's a well-known writer.And he started writing. So he kind of became an artist before my eyes, you know, so as I was getting out, as I was graduating college, he published his first bestselling. That was just, and I would like sit at the book, you know, when he gave a lecture at an art gallery, because it was called art and physics.His name is Leonard Shlain so I would like sell, watch him, sell the books, you know, like give a lecture and then I would check out and I would get, take people's cash and then give them a book, you know, at the end of the lecture. And he used to tell me, he used to say, honey, you have to be shameless.You have to be willing to just talk in front of four people. It doesn't matter. You just need to do it. If it's just, it was just a big, it did. It made an imprint on me because I was watching him grow out of his own discomfort zone, which I still struggle with of talking to people like instead of through your paintings or, you know, talking to an audience saying being on video, it took me six months to figure out how to be on video, but I'm getting ahead of it.So you asked me like my CR about my career. So I was an English major. I went to an English, major architecture, minor at UC Berkeley. And at the time that I was graduating, painting was considered dead. And I know that that for artists today, they don't quite appreciate that. But after abstract expressionism, there was sort of this mood in the art world that everything had been done and like, forget about figuration was the last thing people wanted to see, you know, and I wanted to paint people.So I just figured, okay, I'm going to just do that on my own, but I'm going to, I love reading. I love writing. So I became an English major and I was valedictorian of, of the UC Berkeley English department. And so my first job, I wanted to combine my love for art and literature. So my first job was.Design. So my, so I, was mentored by a gentleman named Walter Lander, who is the founder of landlord associates. And he was sort of the west coast, Milton Glaser, Milton Glaser from a design point of view, like he was, he just recently passed in the last five or so years, but he like did the, I love New York, you know, like he's this famous, famous graphic designer because the field of graphic design is, is relatively new.It's relatively, it's like a century old, you know, like th the serious field of it. And Walter was a pioneer in it. And he did, you know, my first job was like working cause I, cause I minored in architecture was, helping design the shell oil, gas station, you know,So I was doing like architecture design, and then he asked me to write speeches.And so they had, their company was kind of designed like a brain. So they had like a language division and they had like the design division, like they did the loose soon milk and they were so famous then such leaders. They had 1800 people in offices all over the world and it was like a big deal. And they had an office on a ferry boat.So that was my first job out of college. I was a speech writer for Walter and I was in the, I was in the word department. Like I think I designed, I helped name, a cigarette, you know, like was just a weird, but it was fascinating, you know? And it was meeting fascinating people. The grateful dead would like come over on the boat after it was, it was, it was a wild time at, in San Francisco in the late eighties, early nineties.Totally wild. So, So I was like, so all the designers are starting to learn Photoshop. So there was this thing called Photoshop because they were doing everything by hand, you know? And then I was like, oh, so I got Photoshop 1.0, you know, and then I had th there was no layers. So you had to do everything in alpha channels.And it's interesting just to be a big nerd. Cause you're a designer too, right? I mean that's yeah. Yeah. So if you can try to imagine there was Photoshop without layers, it meant that you had to do everything inside the masking tool that's built in that nobody really uses or knows about now called alpha channels.So I had to create everything using masks, but it was very oddly more similar to what you did with your Exacto knife and ruler, know, I still think one of the biggest, the saddest things about Photoshop. I mean, I think everybody should know it, but it has some feature bloat, but I think it kind of buries the power of alpha channels.And I think that if people knew how to use it, it would like, it's like a little thing to know that would hugely leap them out of the more artificial aspects of doing those filters on things.[00:16:00] Nathan:Right.[00:16:01] Kimberly:Anyway, like I you have to be careful with me because I can go into real. I can crawl real deep into these nerdy things.But anyway,[00:16:08] Nathan:Are there other things from those early days of, of the graphic design art agency, like that kind of world, that you still take with you today[00:16:19] Kimberly:Thousands of Gillian percent. One of them is the four DS that every project is discover, design develop, deploy. And I know I lost that. I also saw that, like, if you could name it, you could charge it.[00:16:32] Nathan:Is there a story behind that? If you could name it, you could charge for it.[00:16:35] Kimberly:You know, you'd see these hundreds of thousands of million dollar contracts going out to these major people. And I used to have to help write the proposals and I would see how they would divide they'd phase out, like a lot of designers. Again, I don't, I hope we're so not too off topic, but a lot of designers will not charge for discovery.You know what I mean? Because they haven't named it. They didn't name it They'd Just be like, oh, let me Research all about your company. And then you're going to pay me to give you some designs, and then I'll give you the designs and then hopefully they're smarter. Anyway, like I said, big, big topic.[00:17:10] Nathan:Yeah. But think there are a lot of people listening who are in the either freelance or agency space and they, provide services to newsletters or creators or they're growing their own on the side. And I think it's a really important point that, if you're if you're structuring your proposals and all your interactions with clients around the deliverable, then you're failing to talk about a substantial portion of the work And probably the part of the work that differentiates you from the other freelancers who are just like, oh, you need a logo. And they dive like right into Photoshop or whatever tool. Whereas if you're good at what you do, you're probably taking a step back and looking at the whole landscape and spending probably more than half of your time in that Research discovery and learning stage rather than the deliverable stage.[00:17:56] Kimberly:It's actually the most important time intensive stage of any project. And so not just design. I mean, I think you saw my Ted talk, the creative process in eight stages. And I think I talked about how as an artist, I don't want to give anybody whiplash, but like you, as an artist, you have, a period of time where it's like a rest in music where you don't, you're not making work.It doesn't look like you're doing anything on the outside, but that's the most important part. And it's when. Gathering, but you're doing it in a subconscious, like in many different ways when I'm, when I'm making a painting, I'm having to listen a lot, you know, you have to listen and look and just inhale before you can exhale.So anyway, that, but I mean, we could, I think, I think we could do a whole hour on Landour. Cause that was just a, such an interesting, you know? And, and I was actually, I was actually there, I dunno. Well, you're, you probably weren't born, but there was a, Coke released a new design and they, they, and Landour was the leader of this new design.And I was like in the boardroom, in my. In pantyhose. Cause that's what we that's what, like you had aware that it was very far, it was like mad men. It was like mad men where like everybody smoked and the women were gorgeous and the men would like have these glass offices on the side of the boat. And they would like go in and light up a cigarette and call London, you know, like they were like, or Japan and, and they had, it was just extreme, chic, crazy environment, very male dominated.And I was like, I'll often the lone woman in a room, you know, but anyway, that's a separate side conversation and they were introducing the new Coke and it was a flop. It was like, it was like, there was a backlash against the new design because it had like big fat. It was like, whereas the old Coke kind of has that Victorian, which they still use now that, that very Sarah fee or Nate almost like your create above your head, but more, you know, whereas.Where the new version they were doing was super kind of chunky. It was like new Coke, you know, anyway. But, it was a wild experience. I wrote an essay about it and I'll, I'll give it to you if you, if[00:20:35] Nathan:Yeah, we'll put it the Shona[00:20:36] Kimberly:Yeah,[00:20:38] Nathan:On time on that.[00:20:39] Kimberly:Yeah, no, the whole, here's the thing. I wanted to be an artist, and a lot of times I believe a lot of, and I believe there's a lot of people who have an artist inside them and a lot of times they will, work in a field that brings them near art decisions to make themselves feel better.That they're not being an actual artist. And I was one of those people.[00:21:08] Nathan:Okay. So how did that play out for you of your you're close to the design and that sort of[00:21:14] Kimberly:I was like, yeah, it was, I couldn't be closer. I was like, I was like in, I was behind the curtain of Oz doing the, with the, with the best people and everything. Again, this is so long ago, but, but I felt like technology at the time, again, Photoshop was just starting. There was no whatever. I was like, you know, I needed, I need a break.I need to like push the table over. So I quit. I moved to Paris to paint for a year. I played piano in bars at night. That was like a whole other wild. We could do a whole show on that, but, you know, then I was like, well, I can't, I'm not going to be able to make a living doing this. Like I was painting, I was sitting at the sore bone and I was like, I had this little gig in this bar, but it was a couple of Franks and I wasn't legal in Paris.And I just had this big because of my literature background I have does such a, you know, I love you. I was so somewhat of afraid.[00:22:11] Nathan:So how old were you when you[00:22:14] Kimberly:I was in my early twenties.[00:22:16] Nathan:Okay. When you, quit and said it's time to do painting.[00:22:20] Kimberly:Yeah. I was like, it wasn't a straight line. And that's another thing. Like most artists don't like some artists grow up and everybody goes, oh, you're so talented.Which by the way, like hate that expression. I must like tell people, like don't ever tell people they're talented. Say you have great raw material, you know, just say, you know, just like great mom material, but like, you have to like do it for eight hours a day in order to like express something. Great. And then, then we'll talk about talent, but in any case, so some people have parents that say, you're honey, you're so talented.I want to send you to art school. I want to spend a couple hundred grand and I'm going to send you to art school. Undergrad, let's say a good, let's say a typical artist, a college education is this amount. And then I want you to get an MFA from Yale or the best school and have that checked off. And then I want you to go get in galleries and be an artist there's 0.01% of artists have that route.They have parents that say, we support this. This is good. This is a good plan. I would say that's like a very rarefied small group. Cause you have to have, well, there's so many things that need to happen in order to have that setup. Most people, most artists, even artists that I know, like one of my good friends Enrique he was a PA getting his PhD in physics read my dad's book, art and physics and decided he wanted to be a painter[00:23:49] Nathan:Okay,[00:23:50] Kimberly:So like, there's a whole bunch of artists that were doctors that were lawyer, you know, that, that, that they, they were catching the train of you know, the I'm a good student, I'm a diligent worker and they, they, you get routed onto a track and then you're on that track. And then suddenly you wake up at at 30 or whatever, and you say, you know, I'm here and I'm super successful, but this isn't necessarily really how I want to be spending my time.You know? I mean, th this is the conversation, right? You know, how do you, how do you decide and what you can want changes in your life? You know, but if you know what you're pull, the tether poll is like, if you know what, your deep inner core desires. are And, you know, and you, you have, you're remotely in touch with that and you, you need to go, you need to go towards that light.You need to go towards that center then everything will radiate out from you afterwards.[00:24:58] Nathan:Was there a catalyst that pushed you, you know, you were thinking about it, you're feeling this, but what was the thing that made you go like, all right, I'm[00:25:06] Kimberly:Well, okay. Like I said, we don't have enough time to get into all of this, but there were, I made three huge dramatic, you know what? I don't know. Maybe it's a Monty Python movie, I don't know. But like when you push the table over and you throw all the plates and you break everything, like you just come, it's not a reboot, it's way more violent than that.Just kind of like you take the tablecloth out and you just say I'm out of here. You know, I think I did that three times before I got closer to. You know what it is. And one of them was moving to LA after moving to Paris, I moved to New York and then, then I moved to LA and I was like, okay, this time is going to be it I'm being artist.Like, and you know, it's a couple of years later, it's after Paris. Like, you know, cause you have to get, you have to, I had to make money. You know, I had to make a, I had to have a job. And so I had to kind of like do, do design work and stuff like that. So when I moved to LA, my first, I went to a Mac conference, like it was like 60 booths.It was so small, like Mac was seen a teeny little thing and, and Microsoft was the big thing windows and,[00:26:18] Nathan:Yeah.[00:26:19] Kimberly:And I made a business cards and I said, it said artist. And then when I, I walked, went to this conference and I was practically like often the only woman, you know, and I would say, yeah, I'm an artist.And I know. And so the first job I got was making the first CD rom for apple computer that they said distributed to every single apple. So they distributed over 2 million copies worldwide, and my name was on it. And that kind of, that was a huge breakthrough because suddenly I was being offered insane jobs.And next thing you know, I was anyway, like, I don't want to dwell on this because we haven't talked about newsletters yet.[00:27:01] Nathan:That is okay. that is okay. So you just made a leap from, I went to this conference to,[00:27:08] Kimberly:Yeah, by the way speaking, we started with going to a conference.Yeah.[00:27:12] Nathan:A big deal. We are we talking about that as well, but this leap from going to the conference to your work, being on the CD,[00:27:19] Kimberly:Well, so they were, it was like, again, I was on the bleeding edge. I could not explain to my father Who would come down and visit me. In the warehouse. I, it was, it was an artist and a coder who, but they had both met in art school and they brought me on to be the creative director.And it was like, it was almost no money at first. And then it became like a bigger thing and apple, the more that apple saw it, the more they were like, wow, this is really good. so then the next conference I went to was in San Francisco was Macworld and my art was everywhere, everywhere, and I got job offers from Imagineering. They wanted me to design why the Disney, they wanted to be the head. Of Warner music was doing a new interactive division and digital don't digital.I can't remember the names, but it was very, it was a very heady time. It was very, it was very fun. I felt like, wow, I found this place that has it's the intersection of art design, narrative and technology. And it was exactly where I want it to be. And that was just, that was sort of, and I set up an easel in my office, I had a lot of people working for me and it was just, it got very, it got very fancy, you know, and I, and I took a lot of, I took a lot of like what I knew at Landour to attach in this before email this before the internet.[00:28:45] Nathan:You're talking early nineties at this point,[00:28:48] Kimberly:Yeah. Like you no, like a mid yeah. Mid nineties, you know, 96, maybe. So, yeah. So I took a lot of my, knowledge that I gleaned from working at land or like the discover design develop, deploy to whip these engineers and designers into shape, you know? And anyway, I was still stalking what I really wanted to do, you know?[00:29:10] Nathan:Okay. So tell me more about the difference between what you wanted to do and what you were doing, because you just described your art being on everything.[00:29:17] Kimberly:No, no, no, actually, honestly, honestly like I would listen to like Liz fairs, exile in Guyville, as I drove downtown by the toy factory in downtown Los Angeles back and forth, like every day, like at these, I was a big album listener.And when I was designing, I would listen to full albums and I was just like, wow, this is it. I am so excited and energized and everything. then I started studying painting again. So I started so like I had taken a hiatus. And then I got into the, Otis, which is the art school here, You know, when you get professional, when you become a professional in anything, even being an artist, there's a, single-minded rigor focus and clarity. one brings their whole self to what they're doing, you know? And if you know that if If you've been successful in anything else or anything like that, you can, if you bring that to your art, there's literally nothing that can stop.You. You become a wire cutter. It's like, you're going to munch through like, I, you know, really understanding, painting in the deepest way possible. Like I was thinking if I can understand alpha channels, I can figure out how to tone a canvas. You know, just like I just, because painting is a technology, honestly.I took everything in my being to it. And that was like a third moment. Like that was like another moment I skipped some moments, but there was like where I was knocking at the door, knocking at the door. And then I knew that in my art would become the, that I had when I started painting in full force.Like not just having it in my office, but saying this is what I'm going to do. And I'm going to do it as so ferociously, like stand back, everybody, nothing is going to get in my way.[00:31:13] Nathan:So you were painting, I mean, you had is this like painting a few hours a week, a few hours a day, and then you dove into doing that, just like.[00:31:22] Kimberly:This is like 40 hours. I mean, I basically gave myself an assignment and my assignment was I was going to paint a hundred new. Because that's the hardest thing to do as a body. Cause you have to deal with the translucency of skin. And I could literally talk about painting all day, but you have to deal with light form and shadow and thinking in three dimensions and it creates it's.I don't want to knock marketing and technology and the stuff that you do, but painting is that most people do, but painting is a true, like you have to really, it's a very intellectual as well as mindful and spiritual, but it's a very, it's a very deep, deep, deep way to approach the world. And when you become a painter or you actually like listen to the little voice inside you that says that they want to learn this.It's a skill, it's a skill. And when you do that, your brain expands and your world expands and you see things differently. So it's a very transformative thing and it takes years. It takes years and years. So my assignment was I'm going to paint a hundred nudes and, and if I have like 10 good ones, I can have a show.[00:32:41] Nathan:So I want to tie that to maybe the experience that other creators listening would have, or anyone who's on the fence about getting started. Right. It might not be painting that they're trying to do, but they've had these fits and starts of like, I'm going to, learn to code, start a podcast, start a newsletter, any of these things, you know, learning to play an instrument, whatever it is.And then like start and it goes, maybe it goes well for a week or a month, or like what, what advice would you[00:33:11] Kimberly:Isn't there, isn't there like a guru isn't there like a guru in the subject that calls it, the. Who's that guy. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Somebody told me that, cause I was saying this to somebody and they were like, oh yeah, that's somebody's Seth, Godin's the dip. But yes. You know, when I was younger and all through all through my, you know, middle school and high school and college, I played piano quite seriously.I was a classical pianist and whenever I would learn a difficult piece, I would play it over and over and over again. And I would have to, like, I would start to suck. I would get better, but then I would start to suck and I'd have to walk away and then come back at it the next day before I would be able to play it perfectly.Like, I mean, you know,[00:34:01] Nathan:Yeah.[00:34:04] Kimberly:Learning an instrument actually teaches you this better than anything, because if you make a painting at first and it sucks, you can be easily thwarted, like a, you know, a drawing or whatever. But, but in order to like worry the bone of like how to get that legato, right. And that Greek piano concerto or something like you got to just sort of do it again and again, and again and again, you know, like it's, the fundamental way to learn is you, you imitate, assimilate, and then you can improvise.So you have to like, you play these pieces. And so with anything, you're going to be thwarted in the beginning many times and you can't give up, you have to say, okay, well, I don't care if it even sucks. I don't care if I'm going to fail. If I'm gonna fail, I'm gonna fail big. Like I'm[00:34:52] Nathan:Right[00:34:52] Kimberly:Go all out.Let's just go on.[00:34:54] Nathan:But that specific assignment that you gave yourself of painting 100 nudes, do you think that an assignment like that is a good way to go as a creator of saying this is the commitment that I'm going to make, I'm going to get to a hundred podcast episodes or I'm going to, I don't know, write a hundred blog posts, and then I can decide if this is something I actually want to pursue.[00:35:13] Kimberly:Absolutely. I think that when you make a commitment like that, to devote your energy into building a body of work of any kind in any media, you, your life will change everything. You are going to gain skills that involve every facet of that media. So like, if you're a podcaster and let's say you record in iMovie you're going to learn iMovie or whatever they, whatever they edit podcasts.In And, and I think if, you know, if Leonardo DaVinci were alive today, trusts me. He would know Photoshop He would know he would be all over this stuff, you know, he would love, he would love it in this nether world space, because there's, I'm, I'm going off topic a little bit because there's a little bit of a prejudice in the art world where people were thinking they were resisting the newer technological versions of artwork.But back to process, what you were saying is that if you do something in a committed way and you basically measure it and say, I'm going to do it until I get to this point, I think a hundred might be excessive, but you're going to get the hang of it.[00:36:28] Nathan:Yeah[00:36:28] Kimberly:I mean, I haven't mixed feelings though, about blogging cause I started a blog again, when I was, really getting into.Consuming. I mean, consuming isn't the right word. When I was throwing my entire body into the art world, one of the things that I did to expand my own knowledge was to write about other artists. And I think that's also something that's super unspoken, especially in the art world, because a lot of artists are just saying Me me me I want attention.I want to get people to focus on my show and my work, and I want a gallery and I want this and that. And I think one of the most important, aspects of breaking through to any next level of anything is generosity. Generosity of your attention to other people who are doing the same thing. And that for me, that general, I mean, I didn't think of this.This is red, this is a in retrospect, but at the time when I look back on it, I was airlifting artists that nobody had heard of and writing about them along with other big art, you know? And so I had a successful weekly column where I was keeping a blog again, this was before social media and that's how, and then the Huffington post came along and then I started publishing it, the, having a post.And that's how I said, I was asked by Arianna Huffington to be the, to found an art section. And so I was like, I was perfectly positioned because I was, I was a big nerd. I had had these other experiences. I was a full-on painter. I was having shows galleries the whole thing. And then she was building this incredible Site to celebrate bloggers. And I was one of the bloggers So I had to build an audience from zero to 10 million people within two years. I didn't have to that's what happened.[00:38:26] Nathan:Right.I have so many things that I want to ask about in this, one thing that I want to highlight that you talked about is as you're doing the painting, there's the side of it, of, Research where you're researching other painters, learning from them and all that. Most people keep that Research to themselves, right?That is not a public thing that happens. And I think a lot of the most successful creators that I see are the ones who do that recent. And, and share their notes and share that and work in public and do the interviews and all of that that you were doing. because it does a couple things. One people follow you, not only for your own work, but then also for your notes on other people.And then too, it's incredible for meeting people. Like when you do a profile, either if they're a, say an upcoming artist or someone who's established either way, they're going to be like, when you, you know, when you send them an email, they'll like respond and be interested and engaged. And, you know, I mean, that's a reason that I do this podcast is so that I can meet and hang out with people that I want to more aboutIt's amazing for network.[00:39:30] Kimberly:Yes. I think you're exactly spot on. This is no different than what I did with artists, this, except for I wasn't involving video, I was writing about it and interviewing them. You're right. You're absolutely right. I also think that you can get too carried away with that though. Like you have to be careful, you have to make sure that you're, you know, I can become easily like Clydesdale the horse.I'm like, well, that's another month and I have to do another,[00:39:57] Nathan:It becomes more important than the art, which was the[00:40:00] Kimberly:Well, yeah,[00:40:01] Nathan:It feels more time than[00:40:02] Kimberly:Yeah, yeah. Like, so eventually I had to leave, because it was just sort of eclipsing. It became so much bigger than everything else I was doing that I had to like go, okay, this isn't, you know, I've got a show coming up. I can't devote all this time and energy. And then of course, social media kind of made it all really different.[00:40:24] Nathan:Like in what way?[00:40:25] Kimberly:Well, because not only we could, you know, writing a really thoughtful piece about an artist and looking at their work and, you know, relating it with art history. And I also found that if I could relate it to like a contemporary event, like there was this one painter who painted battle scenes and we were just going to war with Iraq, I think, anyway, we were going to war somewhere.You know, it was a horrible time, but like, I would talk about going, you know, this contemporary news event. And I would link it with the artist who was painting these battle scenes. And then seeing that it went, go.[00:41:04] Nathan:Right.[00:41:04] Kimberly:Was another, that was another big learning lesson is like, if you put a number in a headline, like 10 things, you, you should tell, you know, 10 rules for your kids and screens, you know, then people would read that more.So I could see the analytics of what people clicked on. You know, that was like a interesting learning experience. But when social media happened, then suddenly you also had to tweet it. You had to post it on Facebook and then you had to tweet about it and then it just got to be social media. here's my take, if I could just say one thing, because I want to get it out there.I think social media is great for first impressions so that when people see you for the first time they're going to go that person's like a real artist or they're a real whatever, and they're legit. And they don't just have like three things that they've said about the subject. They've actually like, I trust that they've done some deep things.Like me painting a hundred nudes, you know, like this person knows how to paint.So I think social media, it's just so easy to get carried away. I hope one day it goes away. Is that terrible to say? I think emails should be everything. It should just go away.[00:42:14] Nathan:I don't think it's terrible to say at all. You have something in your Ted talk. you talked about like the compulsion to paint being taken away by your smartphone and these distractions, And I'd love for you to talk about that because I think there's so many things of like, if I'm on Twitter or checking my email, or even interacting with the ConvertKit team 2,700 times a day, you know, it makes it so much harder as a creator.And so I like, I just want to hear more of your experience there.[00:42:45] Kimberly:Well, I mean, in order to even get into my zone mentally to paint, I have to like have at least 90 minutes where I haven't spoken with anybody. Like I just need to kind of like clear it. Like I need to, I mean, I can be in it and I've got all these, you know, because people everybody's different. Some people like beginnings, some people like middles, other people's like ends.So you have to get in touch with which person you are, you know? So I, I love middles and beginning. I actually like all of them, but like, I'm better at certain things. So whenever I go into the studio, I have to start in paintings that are in the middle, that many going on at once. so you have to get in touch with like what time of day you're best at.And I always begin things at the end of the day when I'm already like nice and a well-oiled machine, well-oiled creating Machine.I never begin things in the morning. I always begin. at the end of the day, I never begin paintings in the morning. I was beginning, you know, I mean, I, I'm not, I know I'm not answering your question.Your question is, compartmentalizing your time to protect it away from social media. I teach a master class and I teach a Masterclass with artists who are building their first body of work, or they, they want to build a body of work in the masterclass.I make them take an oath an Instagram oath Instagram is it's so draining psychologically, emotionally, mentally, and the effort that you put into it that you really have to like commit and, and, and artists feel pressure to post their progress and post once a day and stuff like that.And the truth is, that algorithm, the algorithm is so fraught right now because you really only see the last 20 people that you liked more often than not. And you're not, it it's just, it's not healthy. It's not healthy for a visual artist Because you'll be on it. You check it like a diabetic checking their insulin level.It's just like, oh, did it get enough? Likes all that. It's like, Ugh. So I use, later to post once a week because I don't really want to deal with it. So I'll do like four months at a time. But if like I have a museum show opening up on Saturday, so I have to make a post this week. And so that that's like in my brain, oh God, I got to make a post this week.And when my book was coming out, like that's a whole other topic about promote, you know, how to tell people and that a book is coming out. yeah. So I just kind of look at it like, you know, kind of like a creative sinkhole,[00:45:15] Nathan:Yeah. And so it[00:45:15] Kimberly:So it[00:45:15] Nathan:Makes sense to avoid it. I think we hear that advice from a lot of talented creators and it's easy to be like, yeah. Yeah. But I can, I'm the person who can sit down and write with a moment's notice, you know? And then you you get totally stuck on writer's block or whatever thing, because you're like, you actually didn't create that space.And, like you talked about in the Ted talk of that time to like daydream and to actually be there, present with yourself and your thoughts.[00:45:42] Kimberly:Yeah, it's true. I mean, there's this thing in neuroscience called empathetic mirroring. Do you know about[00:45:48] Nathan:I don't know.[00:45:49] Kimberly:It's this, it's like when you see somebody, for example, write on a chalkboard, the neurons in your brain, I'm not going to say this. Right? So if a neuroscientist says I'm like slightly wrong, but like, it, it, it has this effect where you feel like you're doing it, you know, like, and it's, that's why people love to watch people write things.That's why a chalkboard is an excellent device for, I actually have a chalkboard in my office because I started to. Take videos of me make with my talking points of me writing it on a chalkboard, because even though it's considered like, you know, yesteryear technology, it actually helps people receive the information better to see it written[00:46:34] Nathan:Rather than being next[00:46:36] Kimberly:Rather than just show a PowerPoint slide.Yeah. And so this, the act of seeing it rhythm, but so if, if you think about the power of empathetic mirroring, that's going on in your brain, when you look at something happening, think about how much it can pollute your brain. If you're watching a stream of all these things happening in your Instagram feed or your Facebook feed, it's like dangerous.Like you have to be protective of what is going inside your mind. It's that they say like garbage in, garbage out, you know,[00:47:04] Nathan:I want to hear about you getting into the world of, of like teaching classes and that side of it, and then you have a book as well. There's a lot.[00:47:12] Kimberly:Oh yes. So I have this book,[00:47:15] Nathan:There[00:47:15] Kimberly:So, you know, around a decade into, you know, being a serious painter, I started to feel bad from the fumes because painting isn't really taught the way other things are taught. Painting is sort of like, there's, there's been this somewhat mystical, you know, here's a bunch of art supplies go to the art store and then let's see what you come up with.And then the, the, the classes tend to be more about critiques, about what you've done versus about,[00:47:45] Nathan:How do something.[00:47:46] Kimberly:About the, the true, true granular house, you know, the, how, like the basics, like things that you should know. And, so I started to get sick and I happened to be the arts editor at the time of the Huffington post.And I reached out to, and blogging was a very interesting, it was around 2004 or five, I think. Maybe, maybe it was a little bit later, but it was an interesting time because other people were thinking what I was thinking and I could see it in search for it. Whereas I couldn't, I couldn't have done that a decade earlier.And so I would reach out to leaders in the field, scientists, whatnot, to write about this topic of safety, you know, like that. And, but then when I read and I had, by the way, been consuming, Disneyland books, everything about painting, and I just saw this huge gaping hole of knowledge of how. Communicated. So I started writing this book all about painting and the book that I ended up publishing with Chronicle books is just one small piece of it because it was kind of too big.It was like James Joyce's Ulysses, you know, it was like a tone. It was like a Magnum Opus. and it's one of the key things that people don't realize is that you don't need to use solvent's P many people believe that you need to have like an open can of turpentine or some kind of solvent to dip your brush and defend the oil paint.So it's like super basic and most people when they go to the art store, and this is just my short, my short, skinny on the book. As most people, when they go to the art store, it would be like only buying canned or prepackaged. They don't know what's in it, you know, they don't know like that you don't need all those things.Like, but if you were like learning how to cook, you would know the difference between a garlic and a shallot and when to use canola oil or olive oil extra-virgin, you know, so I wanted to create, to start a book called the Y that was like Strunk and White's elements of style, but for oil paintings. So that's like the famous book that most writers use and just sort of shows you.And it's funny, actually, it's like a great book. So I wrote that book and that's called the new oil painting and it's published by Chronicle and it came out in June and it's like staying at the top, like five books of oil painting, which is great, you know? So I'm very excited about that. But in any way, in that journey of writing the book, the book, the book deal I got was two years ago.It was like a while ago. And so Susan. Did that I thought, you know, I would be a fool to not have a class that went with the book. So to the summer of 2019, I had, I had like four solo exhibitions in a row and I thought, okay, I'm going to devote six months and I'm going to record videos and I'm going to do that.You know? So I created this class that I wish that I had, and it was way bigger than the book. It was like everything I've ever thought about oil painting and that's called oil painting, fluency and flow. And, so yeah, so I launched a class, so the classes are out there[00:50:52] Nathan:Are the classes something that, you know, you're teaching in an online course? Are you there in person or through a partnership with.[00:50:58] Kimberly:So once I, once I learned about. That you can oil paint anywhere like you, Nathan tomorrow could decide, you know what? I w I've got an artist in me. I want to, I want to learn how to paint and you could set it up next year, you know, like in a little side table next to your computer, and there would be no fumes, no nothing.And it's much better for the environment it's not made out of plastic. It's like, you know, you could do it. So I wanted to get the word out. And, so my first class is, and so I was started teaching at major institutions. So the Anderson ranch in Colorado and the Otis where I actually took lessons, I taught there.And then, I just thought to myself, you know, this is highly inefficient because I have to like schlep over there and go there for, you know, hours at a time. And I could reach so many more people if I recorded. Instruction. And so I made these recordings, that's a hybrid of recordings and live sessions and critiques.And I have, you know, I have about 78 students right now. They're from all over the world and it's like the boast enriching wonderful, fabulous thing I've ever done[00:52:08] Nathan:Yeah.[00:52:09] Kimberly:To being an artist, you know,[00:52:11] Nathan:And so how does that interact with the newsletter that you have?[00:52:14] Kimberly:Well, I mean, so all of my experience, just as an artist has taught me that you, your value that you bring to any situation is the people that you can tell about what you do. It's like a tree falls in the forest. Nobody knows you're having a show. You know, you can't just rely on your art dealer.And the The dynamic has changed where. People don't have one, rarely do people have one gallery that represents them. And then they've got a bunch of satellite galleries. So you kind of have to be a little bit more entrepreneurial as an artist. And so you need to gather an email list. And so I stopped blogging and instead I have a newsletter because I want, you know, and I I have a narrative of stories that I tell about creativity about, about like I'll crawl deeply inside the making of a single painting of mine, or maybe another one.And I, and each email I send out, I spend a lot of time on, and it's like a work of art by itself because it's, again, it may be a different thing. a newsletter may be slightly different than a blog, but it's still words and image and it's just how. It's like another work of art, it's another work of art.And I love, using ConvertKit. I mean, I really, really do I tell people about it. I tell people about it all the time, because I think it's, it's the first software I've encountered that, allows you to very easily create a sequence. And, you know, you can I tell people, I say like, if you want to think about it, you could unspool Tolstoy's war and peace.If you wanted, like you could, every week you could give like a little section and you can start at the beginning and it takes the pressure off needing to constantly have every email be a first impression. So you can really get, let people to get, to know you in a much deeper, more personal way, because you create a sequence of letters to them that[00:54:23] Nathan:Right[00:54:24] Kimberly:Over time.[00:54:24] Nathan:Well, I think that's a really important point about starting at the beginning, because when you're sending these one-off emails to your newsletter, you don't know where people are joining. Some people for years and other people that is the very first thing. And so every time I find myself adding these caveats are like, Hey, if you're new here, you know, any of those things and with a, an email sequence, you know, the automated series, it starts at the beginning every time and it works people through it.And so I've had that. I've had so much fun creating those because you can chip away at them. Like I have one that I'm kind of writing now on, I guess it's on personal finance, you know? And it's just things that I wish that I had known as like, Moderately successful creator. Like, Hey, you're now earning a full-time living, what what's next?And so I can just write about that when I feel like it and add to this, that's now like 10 or 12 emails long.[00:55:20] Kimberly:And what's your frequent.[00:55:22] Nathan:That one I said to every week, but if I don't write for it, everyone just kind of pulls up at the end and weights, you know, for the next email. So it's 10 emails And then I add to it. And so like last week I didn't add a new one. And so now there's like a hundred people that are all the way at the end and they didn't get an email last week,[00:55:41] Kimberly:Yeah, no, I have that situation. I have a two year sequence[00:55:45] Nathan:Oh, wow.[00:55:45] Kimberly:I mean, I know like I sound, I probably seem super extroverted and voluble and everything like that, but like, I, I, it's very difficult for me to sell. It's very, it's very not. It's not cool for an artist to be. So like, I mean, it's just hard.It's also just hard for me. It's my personality. Like I even posting on Instagram is like a stressful thing for me. It's like, did I get everything that, you know, like I just, it's just not, I'm not one of those people that just casually throw stuff out there. I just, I'm very thoughtful and I want it, you know, it to be meaningful.And, but anyway, I was having trouble announcing that a workshop was over. Like serious trouble. Like I would put it off and I'd say, I can't do it. I can't press the send button. Like I just, even though you have the schedule feature on the broadcast, I was like, I can't do it. I can't do it. And you know, I, I can't remember the name of the marketing guru who was, have the five day sequence or, you know, basically a launch sequence is a series of emails where you first email is all about it.The second email might address one's reservations about it. The third Emile email might be testimonials. And then the fourth and fifth email are like last chance to get it. Like that to me is like, I would rather have needle eyes surgery than do that, you know, so I built it in, so I basically have the sequence where every quarter there's a launch sequence.Is that crazy[00:57:13] Nathan:No, it's fantastic[00:57:14] Kimberly:Because then, so, so that way, like I can just set it and forget it, like back to the Crock-Pot thinking like, you know, like, you know, just set it and forget it. You're going to sign up. You're going to get an announcement for a walk shop, a workshop a couple months after you've gotten to know me.[00:57:30] Nathan:Do you think that, well actually I guess really quick, the thing that I love about that is you can be completely immersed in your painting, right? And there you are selling a workshop and you're like, you don't, you have to think about it or know about it. Cause you did that work once and now you've finished a whole day of, of painting.Start something new at the end of the day. Cause that's the way that you roll. And then also you can say like finish up and check those sales and check that engagement. See, oh, people.[00:57:58] Kimberly:Yyeah, yeah. I mean, it's, it's just, it's I think people before they're going to buy anything, need to feel. Most people need to feel, you know, a level of comfort about what that person is about. so, you know, I haven't touched you tube. I haven't really, I honestly, I haven't made, I haven't made a huge effort because I've had the book coming out and I F I ha I had a big exhibition in June because, I designed a series of, excuse me.I designed, I painted a series of abstract paintings, for the cover of the book, because I wanted the cover, the book to be stellar and represent like a specified stroke, like hanging in air, like, to just convey the idea of painting and not be like a landscape, because for some crazy reason, if you, if you look up oil, painting, all the books, About oil painting are so poorly designed.It's like, it's strange because you would think people who are artists would care about design, but it's like pink pallet, Tino, bold 14 point font over like a green sunset. it's[00:59:07] Nathan:Yeah, well, design and painting are not necessarily the same thing you happen to come from a world where you have a lot of this. Even those two worlds have intertwined for you a lot over your career. So it makes sense to[00:59:18] Kimberly:Yes, but, but when, when, but if you get, but the painting books, like if you see a PA a painting book that has like a landscape on it, what if you don't like the landscape or they all have a landscape, or it has like the, the, you know, a face that's loosely drawn with, you know, painted with turbine, you know, Alla prima anyway.I've had so many exhibitions and like, I have a, I have a show coming up on Saturday and I've got to tell people about it. So like, I have to be, I'm already out there as an artist. So I have two different sequences and newsletters. I've got like a workshops for people who express interest in a workshop within the main newsletter.Like if, if, like, I'll say like I have this one great newsletter where the subject line is, who is this gorgeous woman? And then I show a picture cause they used to paint these beautiful renditions of the faces of the Egyptian mummies inside the sarcophagus, like beyond gorgeous. Like if you looked it up, you'd say, oh my God, this most beautiful painting I've ever seen.And it looks a lot like Francesco Clemente, which is an artist that like paint uses the same aspect ratio. It's like, you sort of go, oh, that's where that guy got that idea, you know? But. I'll talk about the pigments and that they used to, like, they used to burn mummies and then take the ashes and make a pigment called mummy brown.I know that sounds really kind of gross, but like, but, but they that's what they did. And I I'll say like, if this interests you, you might be interested in like a workshop. then if they say yes, then they'll go into my workshop sequence and they'll get notified when I open them.[01:01:00] Nathan:Are there other things that you do with email and with your newsletter[01:01:04] Kimberly:Yeah. Like I, like, I really want, I really want people to easily update their preferences. So I created a jot form like that simple select, you know, check box check if you're no longer interested in, workshops. No problem. Let me know. And I don't get enough work. Ominous, but hopefully, hopefully you'll put that feature in soon.[01:01:30] Nathan:We're actually working on building that feature now. So,[01:01:33] Kimberly:Are you kidding? When does it come out[01:01:34] Nathan:It's one of those asking where the paintings are done. It'll be done when it's done.[01:01:40] Kimberly:The other thing that I do is I really think gifts are important. And I think the marketer, the marketing community is really cheesy about it. Like they always do like outtakes from friends for reaction shots.And it's just so horrible, but I mean, it's just corny and you know who I'm talking about, but, you know, anyway, a gift is a beautiful thing because it's a movie that plays automatically and it doesn't have sound and. it can be so beautiful and subtle, you know, so every time I make a news that I usually have like an, it's like a work of art to me, you know?And sometimes if I want to emphasize a word, I'll paint a picture of that word and I'll integrate it in it. So like I really spend, I really love making them special. Yeah. I have one about the creative process and about not, not the Ted talk that you saw, but like I have one that's on the lead up to talking about the masterclass.Where it's called the curse of perfection. And I show, I talk about how, when I was a kid, my mother used to always like, she would sometimes wear like super smudge makeup and it was psych, it was called the smoky eye. I mean, they still do it now, but now the beauty people make it super specific, but then it was not that it was a little bit more like, woo.And I found a beautiful GIF of like a smokey eye, like slowly opening and closing. And I then go off on this whole subject about how, you know, it's as a painter, you have to let go of that, of the chains of perfection. You have to let it go in order to.[01:03:22] Nathan:Yeah. Well, I love that you're taking a medium that you know, of email or gifts or any of these things that a lot of people use in one way. And you're bringing those styles in that like class and sophistication and really just the level of effort. I think a lot of people are like hearing. Oh, I'm supposed to have, images or gifts.I'm supposed to be funny. And so they just look for something and slap it in there. And there's a level of effort that's not happening there, but because you're doing these automated sequences and you know that if you put this effort into it, it will last and work for you for years, then it's worth it.You can do a custom painted, you know, word or something like that to illustrate a point.[01:04:04] Kimberly:I mean, I have the luxury of having hundreds of paintings, and pieces of paintings, and video of—there's nothing sexier and more beautiful than watching somebody mix paint. There's literally nothing more gorgeous than that—So, I'm lucky.And I understand that other creators have to find other things, but there's a way to do things that have like a metaphorical—I here's what I would say. I would recommend that people seek to enhance their ability to think in metaphor when they write.So if they're gonna talk about a subject, and they're talking about a roadblock, instead of drawing a boulder on a road, find some other image or GIF. I use a lot of GIFs from ballet. You can find beautiful GIFs just by searching “Swan Lake” GIF, and it implies a physical movement.It goes back into that empathetic mirroring, where you feel that your own body is doing these movements that are surrounding this idea. It's not directly about what you're talking about, but it's like a little bit to the left, or it's just kind of a metaphorical version of it. It creates the space in between what you're literally saying, and what you're actually seeing that ignites the imagination and the view.[01:05:35] Nathan:Yeah. I love that. Just putting that extra bit of effort into defining the thing that's adjacent, rather than blatantly the first thing that came to mind. I think that makes a huge difference.[01:05:46] Kimberly:Yeah,[01:05:46] Nathan:We need to do a part two, because I have like 25 more questions to ask you, and we're out of time.[01:05:52] Kimberly:I'm in. I'm in.[01:05:54] Nathan:This has been amazing. Where should people go to subscribe to the newsletter?[01:05:58] Kimberly:They should go to KimberlyBrooks.com. The newsletter's right there in the footer and on the top. I really love communicating this way, and it's been an honor to be on this podcast, because I really love the product you've created. I really couldn't do it without you—without ConvertKit.So, I just, I'm such a fan, and I'm an evangelist, so kudos to you.[01:06:19] Nathan:Wow, thank you.Well, we're exci

Nathan Shedroff is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, and a colleague at the California College of the Arts, where we both teach in the graduate interaction design program. Nathan has worked for a long time on driving innovation and sustainability through design. This conversation focuses on his latest project: Foodicons, which is creating a shared, open-source, and royalty-free iconographic language of food. Show notes Nathan Shedroff @nathanshedroff on Twitter California College of the Arts MDES Design is the Problem: The Future of Design Must be Sustainable by Nathan Shedroff Foodicons Green Brown Blue The Lexicon The Noun Project Foodicons collection Evapotranspiration Information Architects by Richard Saul Wurman Multimedia Demystified Some show notes may include Amazon affiliate links. I get a small commission for purchases made through these links. Read the transcript Jorge: Nathan, welcome to the show. Nathan: Hi! Thanks for having me, Jorge. Jorge: Well, I'm very excited to have you here. For folks who might not know you, would you mind, please, introducing yourself? About Nathan Nathan: Sure. I'm Nathan Shedroff, and I've been a designer all my life in various forms. These days, I teach full-time at California College of the Arts, in the Masters of Dxesign and Interaction Design program. But I've been teaching there for 21 years now, I think, in a variety of capacities from starting out in Industrial Design, which my undergrad degree is in — I'm actually a car designer by training — in sustainable design and interaction design, and experience design. I've also started the design MBA program — the business program at CCA — I've been at that for ten years and then transferred to this program. So, I have a long-ranging design background in my career, as well as teaching. I consult a lot. I've had several companies. I've been part of several companies, and I've written a bunch of books and do a lot of speaking when conferences happen. Jorge: Several of those books have… well, I have pretty much all of them on my bookshelf, and several have been influential to me. One of them that I'm going to call out is called Design Is The Problem, which you alluded to: sustainable design. And that one is centered on that. I've been wanting to talk with you for a long time and wanted an excuse to get you on the show. I'm curious about a project that you've been working on recently about food icons, and I'm hoping you'll tell us about that. The Foodicons project Nathan: Sure. The Foodicons project sort of fell in my lap about two years ago. A friend that I knew brought it to me and said, "Hey, I see this need." He was running a bunch of food innovation accelerators, and one of the things that he found continuously in dealing with so many people throughout the food system globally is that they didn't really share a language. And I don't just mean that they didn't speak the same human language, but they had terms that they use that other people didn't. There was so much misunderstanding across the silos in the food system that he saw a need and an opportunity through these accelerators to build something that might bridge that. So this is Douglas Gayeton from the Green Brown Blue accelerators, and he has a website called The Lexicon. And he's been working in the food system, documenting them. And in fact, if you go to his website, there are these beautiful information art pieces that he does with photography, trying to explain important concepts in the food system. So he brought this to me, and I thought it was... It certainly looked really interesting. Little did I know it would take over my life, which is how a lot of these pet projects run! And so, we brought it into the food lab accelerators for six months, and I worked with a bunch of food experts across the spectrum of the food systems. And We started really configuring how we would build a global visual language for food if we had the opportunity to do this. So, it was always conceived as an iconographic language. And, of course, there was no budget for any of this. And if you were to go hire designers out in the world to build a language of, you know, 800 plus icons, that's a lot of money. And so, the only way that we could see that this was ever going to get done was to crowdsource it internationally. So after we graduated out of the accelerator and became our own 501c3, that's exactly what we did. We set up a series of challenges. We're now at the start or in the midst of the fourth challenge, where we ask designers all over the world if they want to volunteer and help design some of these icons. And they go through a design process with three rounds with a sketch round, and then they get a critique from both design experts as well as food experts, specifically in those categories of the food system, and then they respond to that hopefully and go through a design round and then get more critique, and then go through a refinement round. And what ends up is a set of icons for us to approve or choose between to go into the final category and into the final collection. And so, we've done this three times already. It's been really successful and really interesting and fun, and a lot of work as well. And, the results of those challenges are about 400 icons so far. And they're showing up on the foodicons.org website now, and there's a library there. And they're showing up on The Noun Project, which of course, many of your listeners know is like the biggest repository of icons in the world as well. They're completely free to use by anyone. The challenge here was how do we get so many independent people all over the world who have different backgrounds to design within a system so that what comes out of them looks like they're part of a family. And the major thanks to this goes to the designers at Adobe Systems in the Adobe design group, because they took it on as their yearly challenge this year to do this project with us. And so Nayane, Isabelle, and Sonja developed the design system for these icons in the beginning. They developed some of the original icons. We actually — funny enough — ran a prototype of this at CCA with one of the classes to sort of vet out what the issues were going to be. But then Adobe came in and designed a system for us that we've then made available to any other designers that want to participate. And there's an icon template in Illustrator and a little bit of an icon library with components. And some really, I think, fairly clear instructions. And we've watched designers all over the world respond to these and make these beautiful, clear, communicating icons. You know, it's probably one of the biggest design projects in the world, just because it's involved so many people and it's been distributed in this open-source kind of way. We've essentially... I'm sorry, crowdsource is a better word for this. Jorge: Yeah. I was reading a press release about the project, and I don't think you've mentioned AIGA but, is AIGA one of the partners as well? Nathan: They were initially, and this is one of the weirdnesses in... as you know, you're in the design industry. There are a lot of controversies in the design industry these days, and they had to bow out because of one of the controversies. Jorge: Oh, that's unfortunate. The reason I bring it up is that there was a quote from the executive director at AIGA, who said that this was the largest collaborative design project in history. Nathan: I think that might be right, yeah. The food system Jorge: That's astonishing. But to take a step back, when you say "the food system," what does that entail? Because I expect that food is a subject that we all... obviously we all have to deal with food, right? But where are the boundaries of this domain that this set of icons is looking to describe? Nathan: That's a great question. I'm not sure I can answer it fully, but it certainly encompasses everyone that has a hand in getting food from where it's grown and created to where it's consumed. And that is a lot of people. I believe it's probably the biggest industry globally in the world because, you know, we all eat every day, hopefully. We have a video on our website that one of our designers, Laurent in Belgium, I believe, says one of the things that he was so excited about being a part of this project is because it touches so many people. And everyone eats every day, hopefully, right? Those are his words. And they're true. So, it's something everyone can relate to. Many of us don't really know the intricacies of the global food system, but obviously, there are people who grow food on farms or raise animals for food. But there are also the people that focus on the soil and the water and the climate and the conditions that affect that growing. And then once that food is grown, there are so many things that happen to it before it gets to our mouths — even to our homes: there are distributors and retailers and wholesalers and preparers and manufacturers, there are restauranteurs and cooks and chefs and a million kinds of farmers and butchers, and you can imagine all the systems that are involved with just getting food from where it's grown, to us. And then there's ourselves — where we buy food in stores and packaging and eating and cooking. Cooking and recipes are a huge part of our experience with food, right? It really is something that touches everyone, and it is incredibly far-ranging. And so, we've tried to pick and prioritize the terms that will cover as much of that as possible with an understanding that there's a lot of new techniques and concepts coming around food that are going to be important. So we have specifically focused the challenges around things like regenerative agriculture, climate change, agrobiodiversity, food loss and waste, aquaculture, as well as some of the other issues that maybe aren't always top of mind in people's minds about food, but equity and governance... the money part of the food system, the social benefits, et cetera. We have curated these lists with the help of a bunch of food experts from all over the world, from all over these systems. We have a list of a little over 800 terms that we are halfway through, and hopefully, by the end of the year, we'll have the other half, and we'll have this set of icons that anyone can use to help describe what they're doing in their part of the food system and what's important to them. Jorge: Is that list of terms browsable? I would imagine that you all have made it public, for the purpose of the competition? Or... Nathan: Well, it certainly will be once this last challenge is over. As I said, we're slowly putting up all these icons. We can only work so quickly, even on our own site. But we have hundreds of icons sitting already submitted at the Noun Project, waiting for their approval. So, once they're up, then obviously, you can see what those terms are. We have not published the list of terms before the challenge. I think just because it never occurred to us to. Not to mention we... you know, like any design project at the last minute, you reshuffle things, and you change some of the details, and you modify things because of different opportunities or different decisions about priorities. So, I'm not sure that it would have helped anyone to have that list published beforehand, but the list will certainly be available once all the icons are up there. Jorge: The reason why I was asking is that this strikes me as such an enormous challenge, where you are opening up to literally anyone in the world to contribute to this visual vocabulary. I would imagine that there are... I'm going to describe them as rails in place to ensure that you don't get an overwhelming number of submissions for the same term and then very few submissions for something more obscure. Something like that, right? The structure of the challenge Nathan: Well, so the way that we've structured this challenge... first of all, the entire thing is built in Google Drive, using, for the most part, Google Slide decks. So when designers have signed up, they've automatically been given a set of anywhere from five to 10 terms — concepts — in their particular personal google Slide Deck, which is a workbook basically. And so, the work that they do gets transferred into corresponding judging workbooks so that our food experts and design experts can make commentary and critique on them. All that gets transferred back into each designer's personal deck, and we do that three times. So, as a designer signing up, you just get handed a set of terms, and you react to the ones that you think you have ideas for. And most of the designers have submitted ideas for all of the terms in their decks. Sometimes some of the more difficult ones, or the obscure ones, don't get coverage. And so, there are many designers in each category working on the same set of terms. So, we see different kinds of ideas coming from different people. And some of the critiques we do is if we absolutely see that, of these five designers working on the same terms, this icon by this designer is clearly going to be more successful than the rest, then part of the critique we give people is to either refocus them on other icons, on other terms that they're working on, because we don't want them to waste their time, of course. Or, focus them on other ideas for that same icon that seemed just as strong. We have had some instances with some of the words like spicy, frozen, hot, cold, et cetera, where you get a bunch of icons that look identical because everyone has the same idea. Fine. But we have other icons and terms where... you know, evapotranspiration, which is a process that plants go through to release oxygen. You know, maybe only of the five designers that are in that category — or the three, or the 15, or whatever — maybe really only one of them has a good... what we think is a good visualization of that, that we think it'll end up being successful because we have not just design experts looking at it and judging it from a design standpoint. But we have food experts judging it too, and are basically saying, "yeah, that's not really communicating that," and, "that's not really how that works," right? So we will... like I said, sort of refocus some of the designers elsewhere on the rest of the terms in their deck if their idea isn't going to be fruitful in the end. Jorge: What was the term again? I think that Zoom cut it out a little bit. Nathan: Oh, it's evapotranspiration. And in fact, there's this really good grouping. Having got 400 icons now, we see patterns that are really interesting and probably worth talking about. And we see examples that really talk about what happens when you create a global language. And so, photorespiration, evapotranspiration, and photosynthesis is this nice set of three icons that all sound similar, that all relate to how plants use carbon dioxide, create oxygen, use moisture in the air. And so, they become this really interesting case study in three icons about the differences between these processes when all three are essentially scientific terms. Jorge: What other patterns have become manifest as the language has developed? The emergence of a language Nathan: Yeah, one of the most interesting is that when I say language, we are absolutely creating a visual language here because what has emerged from the visual work and the designs are visual elements — design elements — that are clearly standing in for words, terms, and languages. So, we've seen a bunch of these things. We originally, in the library, had a hand that sort of... inside view of a hand sort of holding nothing in the middle of the icon, but just sort of a side view of a hand. And that has come to mean in this visual language either care, or management, or friendly, so that what has emerged is that if you put a flame over that hand, it becomes fire management, as in fire management procedures, in a park, or in a farm, or in an area. If you put a bird over that hand, it becomes a sign of bird-friendly, so farms that are doing what they can to make sure the birds can healthily co-exist in their farm. And so, all these things that come into play in front of that hand have had a similar meaning because they have a similar design element. Another one is two hands of appropriate size, next to each other... and of equal size, I should say. And so, if you put those in the icon and then put the same thing in each hand, that has come to mean equity. So, if you put something like an apple in each, that's about food equity. If you put money in each, that's about wage equity. And so we've found these visual signifiers of concepts that are being now used as a language would and recombined in different ways within the iconographic language. Jorge: What I hear there — and I just want to reflect it off to you — is that when we traditionally think of icons, we think of them for their semiotic value, right? I'm thinking of when you're driving down the road, and you see a sign that says that the road might be slippery. And that communicates like a single idea. But what you're hinting at here is that the vocabulary has evolved in such a way that you're able to express more complex ideas that are like composites. Some are like little sentences. Nathan: Yeah, just like you would imagine any language being, right? Jorge: Yeah. These are pictographs that are able to express more complex thoughts. Nathan: Well and the design system that Adobe created is really more edging towards what I would call symbols than maybe on the other side of the equation would be icons. They really look more like the kinds of symbols you would find in an industrial symbol system. But it's proven very facile in its ability to be applied to so many topics and so many elements and come out as an interesting language. And by all means, the designers worldwide who have produced these icons deserve the majority of the credit here in taking these simple elements and making what are sometimes incredibly complex concepts clear with just a few elements. Jorge: The first time that I became aware of your work was through Richard Saul Wurman's book_ Information Architects_, which is a book that was foundational to me, to my work. And you are one of the featured people in that book. That book is like a monograph of different folks who are doing work that Mr. Wurman, I guess, thought exemplified this field that he was trying to describe in this book. And I was revisiting that book yesterday in preparation for our conversation today. And one of your projects that is highlighted there was a book for Apple called Multimedia Demystified. And I noticed that that book had a kind of system of icons that were used to guide the reader or to help develop an understanding of what the reader was looking at. And, I just wanted to mention that because it felt to me like related to this work. And the reason I'm mentioning that is I'd love to know how you expect that these food icons can be used by folks to improve the way that they talk about and collaborate on food-related issues. Nathan: Yeah. So, it's funny you should bring up these books. You know, Demystified Multimedia, in fact, was this... you know, it was this great project that we did back in, you know, '93, maybe '94? And here we were talking about interactive media at kind of the dawn of interactive media. We were calling it "multi media" at the time. And we were wrestling with and learning about what was so different about these media, you know, to earn the title, "new media" from other media. And so, in figuring that out — and I still teach that to this day; in three weeks, I have a course at CCA starting up called foundations of essentially interactive media — so we're still wrestling with this idea of what the hell is interactivity anyway? And what is different between it and "old" media. And that book was a fun exploration of taking a lot of the ideas in interactive media and pulling them back into, in this case, print book publishing — because there are lots of things that you can do in a book to make them just a little bit interactive, not truly interactive, but to give them more varied uses for different kinds of purposes, so that different people could more easily navigate and find the things that were appropriate to them then they would in, you know, a book that was arranged and organized in a standard way. As far as the foodicons, we're talking about much rawer material, I think. These are icons that need to stand alone. They work as a collection, but there's no use for them all in one collection unless you're doing a library or a retrospective. You know, you would never see — God forbid — 800 of them together in one use. But we do expect them to be used together for different kinds of purposes, and one of the things that many people often miss about this project is that, you know, we all eat. We're all consumers of food at some point, so the first uses we think of are sort of consumer-uses, eater-uses. So, showing up on menus and indicating a special diet like vegan or Ayurveda, showing up on packaging to talk about ingredients, et cetera, which we all hope happens. And are part of this... the use of these icons, once people start using them. But really. The intent of this project has always really focused on the industry using it. Not consumers, but professionals throughout that huge food system that we described, using it to better communicate amongst themselves. And hopefully, that leads to better collaboration. So that's been a bunch of the focus of this. Lessons from the project Jorge: That's great. I have one final question for you. Given your trajectory in doing this type of work — and you've, you've hinted at the fact that you've been doing this type of work for a long time if your work was being published in the mid-nineties, right? — I'm wondering what, if anything, you feel like you've learned as a result of working on this foodicons project? Nathan: Wow, that's a great question. I don't think I... I probably don't have a great answer. I know that it's been personally gratifying to have my hands back in design in such a concrete way. You know, I deal a lot with consulting and strategy, and I don't do a lot of screen design these days. When I have to, I do, but I don't have my hands in the artifacts of design very often. And yet, for the last year, year and a half, my hands have been in the icon-making world in a really visceral way. So that's been incredibly satisfying. At a larger level, though, I think that one of the things that have been gratifying, or appears to me, is that there is so much capability out there that is probably somewhat unsung. And that these designers that have contributed their time and energy to this project have done such great work that it's not just a testament to each of them individually and their skills, but it's sort of a testament to design. Like, what can the industry of design do when they pull together on a large project? I think there were probably low expectations that you could even do something like this. That you could pull off an icon set of 800 different icons of really complex concepts, in some cases, by designers who have never worked on these before, never worked together, never talked to each other, right? And some of them had never been icon designers before. So, in some ways, I think maybe that's the biggest triumph. It shows that designers are dedicated enough and malleable enough, and gracious enough, and up for a good challenge, and when you put that thinking process and those skills, even to something you've never done before, there's still a clear path that leads to something successful. Jorge: It sounds like the biggest takeaway here is the ability for us to tap into the sort of collective intelligence that we usually read about the internet enabling, but from a design perspective, or using design practices. Nathan: It is not a surprise that you've figured out how to say what I said way more eloquently than me. Closing Jorge: Thank you. This all sounds so great, Nathan. Where can folks follow up to find out more about either the project or about yourself? Nathan: Yeah! So for Foodicons, you can go to foodicons.org, which is just spelled food icons dot org. And there's information about the challenges and what most people will probably be there for is the library as we keep posting these, which will hopefully be 800 icons by maybe the end of October. That's probably the most expedient place to go look for them. You'll also be able to find them at The Noun Project. And in both places, you can download them and freely use them for whatever you want. One thing I should probably say is that one of the controversies around this is whether it's okay for designers to volunteer their time. And one of the things that we made sure of to both honor the designers and the aim of the project is that every designer around the world that built these owns their work. They own the legal rights to their work, except that they have also granted — on the side of that — free use license in perpetuity for anyone in the world to use them for any use except commercial use. Meaning, selling the icon, right? So if someone down started downloading these and made hats and shirts out of them — that wasn't the designer and sold those — that's a no-no. Designers keep their rights for that. But there's no problem with anyone anywhere in the food system, including a restaurant, from going to the Noun Project or our site and downloading one of these icons for their use. And so, we are really happy about balancing the needs and rights of people in order to make this as viable a project as possible. I guess that's sort of the business-y, nitty-gritty background of many design projects is it's not just about the design. It's about the system that makes it possible. Jorge: That's great. Thank you for being here with us today and for sharing this fantastic project with us. Nathan: It's my pleasure. Thank you for even being interested in it, Jorge.

Dave Pell has been writing online for almost as long as the internet has existed. His popular newsletter, NextDraft, has over 140,000 subscribers. NextDraft covers the day's ten most fascinating news stories, delivered with a fast and pithy wit.Dave has been a syndicated writer on NPR, Gizmodo, Forbes, and Huffington Post. He earned his bachelor's degree in English from U.C. Berkeley, and his master's in education from Harvard.Besides being a prolific writer, Dave is also the Managing Partner at Arba, LLC. For more than a decade, Arba has been angel investing in companies like Open Table, GrubHub, Marin Software, Hotel Tonight, Joyus, and Liftopia.In this episode, you'll learn: How Dave merged his two writing passions into a successful product The key to building a strong relationship with your audience How Dave dramatically increased signups to NextDraft Links & Resources Flicker Unsplash Fareed Zakaria Jim Rome The Skimm Morning Brew The Hustle Spark Loop Sam Spratt Dave Pell's Links Dave Pell on Twitter NextDraft newsletter Dave's new book: Please Scream Inside Your Heart NextDraft app PleaseScream.com Episode Transcript[00:00:00] Dave:If you have something to say in one way or another, the internet is a great place for people to figure out a way to receive it. So, that's pretty powerful and still excites me. I still press publish with the same enthusiasm now than I did when the internet first launched.[00:00:23] Nathan:In this episode I talk to Dave Pell, who has been writing for basically as long as the internet has been around. He's been an investor since the early days. He's been writing since the.com bust, and even before then. He writes his popular newsletter with 140,000 subscribers called Next Draft.We have this really fun conversation about writing. His writing process. How he grew the newsletter. Bunch of other things that he cares about. Even a few things that I was interested in, like he doesn't have his face in photos on the internet very much. He has his avatar instead. So, just getting into why that is.He also has a book coming out soon. It's called Scream Inside Your Heart, which is a fun reference to some memes from 2020. So, enjoy the episode. There's a lot in there.Dave. Welcome to the show.[00:01:12] Dave:Thanks a lot for having me on.[00:01:14] Nathan:Okay. So you've been doing this for a long time. You've been writing on the internet since the .com era. So, I'm curious maybe just to kick things off, what have you seen—I realize this is a giant question.What have you seen change? What are some of those trends that you've seen, that you either really miss from the early days, or some of those things that you've held onto from the early days of the internet, that you're really still enjoying?[00:01:46] Dave:Yeah, that is a pretty huge question, but I'll give it a shot. The thing I miss from the early days of the internet is that our democracy was not being destroyed by the internet in the early days of the internet. So, everything we thought we were building, basically it turned out to be the opposite of what actually happened.The part about the internet that I still feel is there, although a little bit less so because of the big companies have sort of taken over all the platforms and stuff, is just the idea that someone can have a passion or a creative output that they want to share with the world, and they can mold internet tools to fit their skills, and then use the internet to broadcast that out, and still become sort of pretty popular withour the “OK” of some gatekeeper at a publication, or at a television studio, or whatever.The indie spirit of the internet still lives on. It ebbs and flows, and has a lot of different iterations. But that was the thing that excited me the most when I first played with the internet. And that's the thing that continues to excite me the most now.[00:02:57] Nathan:I always think of the newsletter, and your newsletter in particular, is that indie spirit. Is that what you see most commonly in newsletters? Or are you seeing it in other places as well?[00:03:10] Dave:I see it in podcasts. I see it in newsletters. I see it in people sharing their art, sharing their photography on Flicker, and up through the more modern tools. I go to a site called Unsplash all the time to look at images, and it's just basically regular people sharing their images.Some of them are professional photographers, some aren't, and they're getting their work out there, and then some of them probably get jobs out of it and stuff like that. So, just the idea that you can have some kind of creative output and have a place to share it. And try to get an audience for that is really inspiring.It's a lot harder than it used to be because there's a few billion more people trying to get attention also, and because there are more gatekeepers now. So, you have to, hope that your app meets Apple's guidelines, or that different products you might want to share on the internet have to meet certain classifications now, whereas they might not have in the very early days of the internet. But in general, if you have something to say in one way or another, the internet is a great place for people to figure out a way to receive it.So, that's pretty powerful, and, still excites me. I still press published with the same enthusiasm now that I did when the internet first launched.[00:04:32] Nathan:Yeah. So let's talk about the main project that you have right now, which is Next Draft. Give listeners the 30-second pitch on Next Draft, of what it is.[00:04:46] Dave:Sure. Basically I call myself the managing editor of the internet. What I basically do is a personality-driven news newsletter where I cover the day's most fascinating news. I cover 10 stories. A lot of times in each section there's more than one link. I give my take on the day's news, each individual story, and then I link off to the source for the full story.When I first launched it, I called it Dinner Party Prep. I provided enough information for you to sort of get the gist of the story. And if there's topics you want to dig deeper, you just click and, you know, go get the story yourself. So that's sort of the overview of it.[00:05:27] Nathan:Nice. And you said that you're obsessed with the news maybe in a somewhat, even unhealthy way. why, where did that come from?[00:05:36] Dave:Yeah. Well, nothing, nothing about my relationship with the internet is only somewhat unhealthy. it's all extremely unhealthy, but, both my parents are Holocaust survivors and, when I was growing up, news was just a very big part of our daily lives, especially when my three older sisters moved out and it was just the three of us, that was sort of our mode of communication.We talked about the news. We watched the news together. Fareed Zakaria is basically the sun my parents always wanted. but so I got really into the news and being able to connect the news to, our everyday lives, which of course my parents had experienced as children and teens and Europe during world war II.And also reading between the lines about why certain politicians might be saying something, why stories are getting published a certain way. So I just got really into that and I've always been into a and college, you know, I, I majored in English, but if we had minors at Berkeley, I would have minored in journalism.I took a bunch of journalism courses. I've always been really into the media, but not so much as quite an insider where I go to work for a newspaper, but more observing, the news and providing sort of a lit review of what's happening and what has momentum in the news. So I sorta got addicted to it and, Also as a writer.My favorite thing to do is counter punch. I like to have somebody give me a topic and then I like to be able to quickly share my take, or make a joke or create a funny headline about that content. So I sorta took those two passions of the way I like to write. I like to write on deadline. I like to write fast and I like to counter punch and the content that I like, which is news, and I sort of merged those two things and created a product, and a pretty cool suite of internet tools to support that.[00:07:35] Nathan:Yeah. So that makes sense that you've identified the constraints that match your style and made something exactly that fits it. the deadline, like having, he, you know, coming out with something on a daily basis, is more than a lot of creators want to do. so what's your process there?[00:07:55] Dave:Yeah. I mean, I should emphasize that I do it every day. Not because I think it's some incredible draw for readers to get Daily Content. I do it every day because I'm addicted to it. If my newsletter had five stories in it, instead of 10, it would do better. If my newsletter came out three days a week instead of five days a week, I'm sure it would do better.If it came out once a week, it would do even better then you know, also if I had a more marketable or not marketable, but a more, business-oriented topic that was more narrow, it would do better. I used to write a newsletter that was just on tech and it was. Really popular in the internet professional community back in the first boom, I had about 50,000 subscribers and there were probably about 52,000 internet professionals.So I just like writing about what I want to write about and I'm addicted to pressing the publish button and I'm just addicted to the process. So I do it because of that. I'm not sure that would be my general advice to somebody trying to market or promote a newsletter.[00:09:01] Nathan:Yep. Are there other iterations, either ever before or things that you tried that you realized like, oh, that's not a fit for your personality, your writing style?[00:09:09] Dave:Yeah. When I first started it, I actually, I'm an angel investor also and have been since, probably right after Google and Yahoo launched. so a while, and I used to, my passion has always been writing, so I wanted to mix writing into that, process. So I would send out 10. Daily stories, but they were all tech news related to the CEOs of the companies I worked with and a few of their employees, so that they wouldn't have to spend their time reading the news or worrying about competitors or worry about what the latest trends in tech, where I would give it to them.And they could focus on doing their jobs and that sorta got shared and got out. so I did that for a few years. really, that was my iteration. I should've kept the brand. It was called David Netflix. not that it was a great name, but I've shifted brands about 40 times in my life. Cause I love branding and naming.I that's another, maybe this is more of a cautionary tale than a lesson and newsletter marketing. I would stick with a brand if anybody has the possibility of doing that, that was a big mistake I've made over the years is having multiple brands. But when the bus came, the first internet bust, I basically was writing an obituary column every day and about companies that had failed.So I just decided, I wanted to expand it and I knew I was interested in much broader topics than just tech news. So I expanded it to all news, a critical point that, really changed Next Draft and got it to catch on and become more popular was when I decided to focus on making it more personality driven and less, less overwhelmingly, providing an overwhelming level of coverage.I used to think that I had to provide all the news in the day because people would sort of, depend on me to provide their news. I was sort of selling myself as your trusted news source. So I would include a lot of stories that I didn't have anything to say about because they were huge news, you know, an embassy closed in Iran or whatever.That was huge international news, but I didn't necessarily have anything to say about that that day. So after a while I decided, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to limit it to 10 items. And I'm going to focus that on what I think is the most fascinating and think of it less like a curation tool and more like, a, modern day column.I think if the column newspaper column were invented today, it would look a lot like Next Draft people would sort of share their takes and then provide links off for more information. once I did that, it was a big change. People started signing up much more readily and, once I stopped trying to be exhaustive.[00:11:56] Nathan:That makes a lot of sense to me. I think that that's something you see from a lot of creators is that they're, they're trying to find some model. That's like, this is my idea of what people should want, you know, rather than what they end up doing, eventually it's coming to, it's like, okay, forget all of that.This is what I want. And I'm going to make that. And then people like me can find and follow it. And people who don't can, you know, do their thing. Can you go find one of the other million sources on the internet?[00:12:21] Dave:Yeah. When I think of the people that I like to follow or have followed forever on the internet, all of them are that ladder. They just do it their way. They have a design, they want, they stick to their guns. They say what they feel like saying. they decide. what the personality of the product is.And, they move within that. I always find that to be the most interesting thing, especially when it comes to something like newsletters. I really think newsletters are more like a radio talk shows than they are like other internet content, podcasts to a certain degree as well. But I always feel like I listened to are used to listen a lot to this radio, sports caster named Jim Rome.And whenever he would have a new city that he was launching and he would always give the same speech on the Monday that they launched saying, just give me a week. You might not.Get the vibe of what we're doing today. You might think it's okay, but not great, but just give it a week and listen, and then decide if you like it or not.And I sort of feel like that's how newsletters are your relationship with your readers sort of creates this, sort of insider-y voice and communication that, you, it takes a little while to get into the rhythm of getting it. But once you do, then it's like this familiar voice or this familiar friend that you feel like, even if you didn't read it for a few weeks, you can start a conversation with that person right away easily.That's how I think the voice of a newsletter is most effective. So that's why I've always thought of it. More of what I do is sort of a textual talk radio, more so than a blog or some other format[00:14:01] Nathan:What do you think, or what would you say to someone who maybe had 10 or 20,000 subscribers and felt like their newsletter had gone a bit stale and maybe their relationship to it had gotten a bit stale or they're in this, this position of writing things that no longer have their voice, how would you coach them through like bringing their voice and personality back into it?[00:14:22] Dave:I mean, it's definitely hard. it's hard doing something that you do alone and, something that is often hard to really get off the ground or get to grow, especially when you're on a platform like the internet, where every day, somebody does something and 10 seconds later, they're like internet famous and you're trying day after day.So, I mean, the first thing. Is that you really have to be interested in what you you're passionate about. and focus in on that, because that will alleviate a lot of that stress. Like, do I feel like sending it today? I'm a too burnt out. What's the point? I mean, not that those feelings don't happen. I had those feelings as recently as an hour ago, when I press publish, I have those feelings and disappointments constantly, you know, that's part of being a creator of any kind.Maybe that word is sort of, sort of goofy, but anybody who's putting themselves out there and putting content out, you know, you have that feeling all the time. If you're an indie, and you're doing it all day in front of the computer by yourself, then that's even more powerful because, you know, if you work at a big company or everybody's working on the same goal, or even in a small group, you can sort of support each other and, maybe even bullshit each other at some cases where, oh, no, this really matters.You know, where, if you're by yourself, that has to be pretty self-sustaining or self-sustaining. I do have a friend or two that I always share blurbs with who, one of my friends Rob's, he proves almost all of my blurbs, so it's nice to have that virtual office mate. He's not really officially part of Next Draft, but you know, I don't think I would do it as easily or as, for as long if it weren't for him because he's like my virtual friend on the internet that says, oh, come on, let's get it out today or whatever.So I think that's helpful to have a support team or a couple people you can count on to sort of give you a boost when you need it. But the key really is, is that it's gotta be something that you are passionate about, both in terms of the product and in terms of what you're focusing on, because if you feel strongly about it, then it really.I don't want to say it doesn't matter if people enjoy it, you should take cues from your readers. What are they clicking on? What are they reading? What are they responding to? But at the core, it's gotta be you because that's what gets you through those down points? you know, I had a weird thing because I write about news.The general news, world basically benefited dramatically from the Trump era because everybody was habitually turning on their news, 24, 7, and refreshing and Whitey and Washington post and checking Twitter every two seconds to see what crazy thing happened next. And we're all poor sorta,[00:17:01] Nathan:Wreck to watch.[00:17:02] Dave:So everybody was really into it and it created.Unbelievable platform for people to become media stars. You know, Trump was bad for democracy, but he was great for media. Great for creating new voices out there. whether we like it or not. for me, it was different because I wrote about all news. I wouldn't say I was apolitical, but I wasn't heavily political.The Next Draft had plenty of readers from both sides of the aisle. when Trump came around, it was like one story every day, basically. So it really limited. I would get emails from longtime readers all the time that said, Hey, can't you cover something other than Trump every day?And I say, Hey, if you can find the story for me, I'll cover it. This is what every journalist is on. Now, the people who used to cover the secret service around Trump, the people who used to cover sports are not talking about Trump because of a pandemic relation ship to it. The people who aren't entertainment are talking about Trump because they can't believe that anybody voted for him, whatever the issue was, every dinner party was about Trump.So it was really a bummer for my brand and my product. Actually, it became boring in some ways to me to have the same story every day. And it became, I think frustrating to my readers.But during that era, when it was happening, I had to make a decision. Do I become more political and go full on with this?Or do I sort of try to. Do what I would call a falsely unbiased view or a, you know, false equivalence view that we saw in the media where there's both sides to every story. And you have to pretend they're both accurate, including one guy saying to put disinfectant into your veins. And the other person's saying to wear a mask and take a vaccine, but those things get treated as equal somehow because the president said it.And I really decided, you know, more important than keeping readers is that I'm true to my own sort of ethical standards. In a moment that called for it, at least for me. So I became more political. went into it and I said, what I believe and still believe is the truth, you know, about what was happening with Trump and Trumpism and our slide towards authoritarianism.And I know that this is a podcast more about newsletterish than it is about politics or news, but I'm just sharing that because that's the kind of thing that kept me going. and the people who really cared about what I was writing, appreciated it and would email me and say they got something out of that.And most importantly, my mom would say, yeah, you made the right call. Or my dad would say, yeah, you got that. Right. And ultimately, When it became a sort of a bummer period for me, which I would say 2020 was because of all the horrible news. And, I was writing a book about the year. So I was like living, July of 20, 20, well writing about March of 2020, which I don't recommend for anybody's emotional health.And I just had to think like, what's really important to me. Yes. I want to be funny, which I try to be in my newsletter every day. I want to be read my narcissism is as strong as ever, but ultimately I want to be able to look myself in the reflection of the, darken screen on the rare times that it is dark and say like, yeah, you told the truth and that kept me going there.So I think whatever your brand is, you know, it can be a newsletter about guitars, but if you have that sort of passion, And you have something you want to say, and you think is important to say it sort of gets you through those levels and your motivation. And if it's not getting you through the lows and the motivation, there's nothing wrong with saying, Hey man, this is not worth it.I'm going to go try to make something else. You know, it doesn't have to be, you don't have to beat a dead horse.[00:20:51] Nathan:On the political side. Are there specific things that you felt like it costs you opportunities that it lost you? Because I think a lot of creators, whether they talk about, you know, finance or photography or whatever, I'll see these things. And they're like this either directly relates to me and my audience and I feel like I should take a stand on it.Or it's like a broader macro issue that I feel like we should talk about. And when you do, then there's immediately, you know, somewhere between three and 300 responses of like, we didn't follow you for the politics, you know, or like something like that. And your Instagram, DMS, or newsletter replies or whatever.[00:21:24] Dave:Yeah. it costs me a lot. Definitely it costs me readers or subscribers. It costs me, psychic pain because I was locked into a story that was just overwhelmingly, emotionally painful, really, and shocking and difficult to understand all the things that cause you sort of emotional exhaustion. We're in the Trump story, especially in 2020, when it became a story about our own health and our kids' health.And the frustration level just went through the roof. for me, professionalizing that content actually helps create a bit of a barrier to the feelings about it. Some of my good friends were probably more bummed during 2020 than I was because when the latest crazy story or depressing story would happen, I felt I had to. Ingest that content and then come up with, something cogent to say about it. And maybe hopefully funny to make it a little bit of sugar to take the medicine and then get it out to people. So I've always felt that being able to do that, sorta created a barrier between myself and actually feeling something.So that's another thing I like about the newsletter probably at least unconsciously. but yeah, there was a lot of costs in terms of readers, for sure. Hate mail. but there always is, you know, Today. I would say I get much more hate mail from the far left. If that's what you want to call them. People who feel like every joke is like an incredible triggering a front to their existence or any hint that you mentioned somebody as attractive.I've gotten hate mail because I implied that Beyonce is appearance was part of her brand. I mean, it's totally crazy, but, It's those extremes. You have to be able to turn off. You know, a friend of mine used to work at a major, be the editor of a major American newspaper. And he said every Friday they would get together and they would play the craziest, calls to the editor.They had a call line. In addition to, you could send a letter or you could call, leave a voicemail about something you were upset about in the coverage. And they would just gather around and have drinks on Friday. Listen to this because of course the people who are calling this line are almost self-selecting themselves as a little bit wacko and their takes were usually pretty extreme.The internet, Twitter, social media, Provides, greases the wheels for those people to be more prevalent in our lives. But I think it's really important to know that that's a real minority of people, somebody who sent you a hate mail, that your joke was so offensive, or they can't believe you mentioned that people ever watch pornography on the internet or any of these other things, it's this tiny minority of people.And then it's one step crazier that they felt like they had to contact you. So that's a really hard thing. I think about being split, particularly the newsletter game, because anybody can hit reply and you're going to get many more replies from people with crazy complaints, than you are from people with really thoughtful responses.Not that those don't come and those are valuable and I love getting those, but you get many more from people that just have really bizarre. I mean I could list probably for hours to crazy things that people send me that they're mad about, you know,[00:24:50] Nathan:Is there something specific that you do? Like one thing when I get those replies, if they're just like completely off the wall or abusive or something like that, I just scroll down and then click their unsubscribe link because, you know, they're never going to know, and then I just have to show up in their inbox[00:25:07] Dave:Right.[00:25:08] Nathan:There's something that you do.[00:25:09] Dave:That's not a bad strategy. I like that. I do do that occasionally for sure. occasionally I'll just go to Gmail and just, create a filter for that email to automatically go to my trash. if it's like a hardcore right-winger, that's telling me how stupid I am about ivermectin and that, you know, people should be taking horse dewormer and I'm just not getting the truth.And that Trump is awesome and that, Whatever. I usually just delete, honestly, because I don't see a big benefit to replying to somebody, especially if it's like a rabbit email, you know, they're looking for a reply, they want the conflict. A lot of people sleep easy with conflict. That's one of the lessons of the internet that I learned when I was first starting on the internet, you know, David edix sort sorta became popular because somebody that had a blog with a similar name, that I hadn't heard of, complained that I sort of stole his name because his name was also Dave.And I had got like, probably about three or 400 emails saying, you know, with expletive saying what a horrible person I was. And I also got about 3000 subscribers and at the time I had about 30, so. I didn't know how to respond. I felt like, wow. Number one, I didn't know that guys had the product with the same name.Number two. My name was different enough. Number two or three were both named Dave. I mean, who cares? You know, and plus I don't want to be attacked by anybody. So your first reaction is to respond and a slightly older, although not noticeably these days with my gray beard, slightly older friend of mine who had been in tech a little longer, said, don't respond.This guy lives for conflict. You guys are going to fight. There's going to be this public thing. You're going to be up all night and he's going to never sleep so easy. So, I took that to heart and didn't respond. And I, I think about that a lot when I get rabid emails from people, Mike exception, actually probably my weak point really is from, more my side of the political spectrum, where people who are generally liberal, but are just so extreme for me.In terms of being triggered or having a joke, be every joke, be inappropriate. That those people, I actually do feel like I want to respond to because, I, I don't think I can really motivate or move, somebody who was on the opposite end of the spectrum and is sending me hate aggressive, hate mail, but maybe I can move somebody who's just a little bit different than me, or a little bit more extreme.I will respond to those, although I'm usually sorry. The one other thing I always respond to is if people have been reading, they say, oh, I've been reading you for years. And, I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about this book that you wrote before ordering it. And I'm like, just order the damn book. that's probably my most common email to people these days. It's actually remarkable how many people says, wow, I I've been reading you for years. I share you with all my friends. something, when my sons come home from college where it's always talking about, Dave said this, Dave said that, before I buy your book, I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions to make sure it's going to be for me.I'm like I worked on something for an hour and it's like, your family is talking about it. What, just by the thing I worked on for a year, you know? So those kind of things, personal frustration, I respond.[00:28:37] Nathan:Yeah, that makes sense. okay. I'd love to talk about the book some more, but before we get into that, there's two things I want to talk about. The first one is like, how do you measure success for the newsletter? What's the thing that you'd like to, cause I don't think it's, you're pursuing the monetary side for this.It sounds like the monetary side comes from investing and, and then what's success for the newsletter.[00:28:59] Dave:I mean, I have had right now, I I'm just marketing my, my own stuff. And during the pandemic I marketed non-profits, but, that had to do with either the pandemic or, the democracy issues that we were facing. but I have made decent money from selling straight sponsorships. Year-long sponsorships to people, which I highly recommend.I think some of the ads that people put into his letters that go by clicks or whatever, unless you have a massive audience, it's hard to make much money, but if you pitch to some company that is a like-minded brand, Hey, you're going to be my only brand for a year. And anytime you have special events, I'm going to mention it.Then you can say, okay, you have like, you know, 20,000 readers or a hundred thousand readers that can make a difference to a brand to say, yeah, it's like a rounding air show. We'll give you 20 grand or a hundred grand or wherever it comes in there that you can actually make a decent. Living in terms of writing.So that always worked better for me, but no, my, my internet life is really all about narcissism and, clicks, you know, the dopamine, I just want reads. I'd rather you subscribe to my newsletter than pitch me your startup company. I just, that's what I want the most. So more numbers, more opens, more reads, more subscribers.And unfortunately that's probably the hardest thing to get also, especially in a product that is sort of viral. I think newsletters are sort of viral, but it's better if you have a team and some tools to really get it going. That's, you know, sites like the Skimm morning brew and the hustle. They have teams that are really growth hacking and focusing on that and having rewards programs and ambassador programs.The reason you see that is because.Newsletters themselves are not really inherently that viral. Yes. Somebody can forward it to one person or whatever, but it's not as viral as a lot of other forms of content where you can click a button and share it with all of your followers, like a Facebook post or a tweet.So yeah, the thing that matters to me most is probably the hardest to get in the newsletter game, but that's the truth[00:31:10] Nathan:Yeah. Well, I think the, the point on like newsletters don't have a distribution engine. There's no Facebook newsfeed, YouTube algorithm equivalent for newsletters. And so it really relies on either you posting your content somewhere else, whether it's Twitter or YouTube or medium or something that has an algorithm or your readers saying like, oh, I read Next Draft.You should too. There's not really something else in there. Have you looked at, or I guess if you have thoughts on that, you comments on it, but then also have you looked at launching an ambassador program or, or an actual referral program?[00:31:44] Dave:Yeah, I've thought about him. And now over the last year, there's been a few tools that have come out a few. I think X people from sites like morning view Ru, and some other sites that have sort of perfected some of these marketing programs have, sort of come out with these tools. I've messed around with them a little bit.Some of them still require I find, some technical ones. so I, I have like an engineer who works with me on Next Draft, like as a freelance basis every now and then, but it's not always easy for me to launch stuff that requires a lot of a moment to moment technical support, and management, because it's just me using a lot of, they're customized, but they're over the counter tools.So I've thought about a lot of them, but I really haven't tried it that much.I want to though I do want to do that. I would like to do one of those programs, especially where you get credit for referrals. I think that's the best kind of model. So there's one called spark loop.[00:32:51] Nathan:Yeah, we actually, I invested in spark loops, so we[00:32:54] Dave:Okay.[00:32:55] Nathan:Decent portion of that business, so good.[00:32:58] Dave:Oh, nice. Yeah. That one, if it was just slightly easier, I know that it's probably difficult to make it easier because, there's so many pieces. They have to have your subscribers. I have to have my subscribers, but that is, does seem like a good product. And especially if they can, I think expand into like letting a person sell a product or whatever, get credited for sharing products that can be even bigger.But yeah, that kind of stuff is really powerful for sure. And I, I do want to get into that. it's more just inertia that I it's just a matter of sitting there for the, an amount of hours that it requires to get it going.But I do think that's a great thing for newsletter writers to do, and I'm pretty surprised that more newsletter platforms don't build it right in.I think that'll probably change over time too. Maybe you guys will get acquired by.[00:33:48] Nathan:Yep. No, that makes sense. I know for convert kit, we wanted to build it in, it looks at the amount of time that it would take and then said like let's invest in a , you know, and then roll it into our offering.[00:33:59] Dave:Yeah, it's hard. It's hard not to take that stuff personally, too, you know, for people that do newsletters, you think you're going to put a thing on there and say, Hey, you know, it's just me here and you always read my newsletter and click. I know you love me so much. Can you just do this to get a free whatever?And it's, you know, sometimes not that many people click, you know, or other times like they click just as long as there's the free item. So there's a lot of ways to get depressed. Like I had things where I say, Hey, the first a hundred people who do this, get a free t-shirt or whatever next strap t-shirt.And those hundred people will literally do what I asked them to do in like 34 seconds, you know? And then it like stops after that. The next time you ask them, if there's not a t-shirt. But it's not you, you know, if you go to a baseball game or a lawyer game or whatever, you know, people sit there, they don't even cheer as much for the team as they cheer when the guy comes out with the t-shirt gun.So it's like, people love t-shirts more than they're ever going to love you. And you have to go into these things with that in mind. there's no way, even if it's, even if you're XX large and the t-shirt is, you know, petite, it's still worth more than you are. And the average mind of the average person.So you have to go into all of these things thinking, I hope this works like crazy, but if it doesn't tomorrow, I open up the browser and start writing.[00:35:19] Nathan:Yeah. That's very true. I want to talk about the growth of the newsletter. I was reading something, which I realized later was back in 2014, that you were at around 160,000 subscribers. I imagine it's quite a bit larger than that now. And then I'd love to hear some of the inflection points of growth.[00:35:35] Dave:Yeah, I'm not, I'm not sure. I might've, I don't know if I lied in 2014, but now I have about,[00:35:41] Nathan:Quoted it wrong.[00:35:42] Dave:No, you might've got it right. I might've exaggerated. Maybe that was a including app downloads and a few other things. Yeah. I have about 140,000 or so now, so that would be making that a pretty horrible seven years now.You're depressing me.Your listeners should just stop, stop writing newsletters. It's not worth the depression[00:36:02] Nathan:Just give up now[00:36:03] Dave:Yeah. And by all means if Nathan goals do not pick up. no, yeah, I probably have it 140,000 on newsletter. Made my newsletter. It's hard to believe in this era of newsletters actually, but when I first launched Next Draft, I noticed that even people who would send in testimonials or that I would ask for testimonials would say, basically something to the extent that even though email is horrible, this is the one newsletter I I'd sign up for whatever.And I kept thinking, man, that's a bummer that I'm starting out at this deficit, that people have a negative feeling about the medium. So I, since then I've always made it my goal to. Have the content available wherever people are. So the newsletter is certainly the main way that people get next job, but there's an app for the iPhone and the iPad there.That's the first thing I launched because I wanted to have an alternative for people who just hate email too much. So now you go to the landing page, it's like, Hey, if you don't like email, here's another version. I have a blog version. I have an apple news version. I have an RSS version. I'm lucky enough to have a really good, WordPress custom WordPress install that I just push one button and it pushes it out to all of those things.But I am, I'm a big proponent of just meeting people where they are. even, as an example, I recently launched a sort of a substance. Version of my newsletter under the radar. but when I redo my site, I'm going to make that more clear because if people already subscribed to like 10 sub stacks and they're using their aggregator and they already have their email saved and they can just click a button, it's like, I don't care.You know, it takes me five extra minutes to paste my content into sub stack. So I just want the reads. I don't really care about how they read it or whether they read it.[00:37:55] Nathan:Yeah. That's fascinating. So then let's shift gears a little bit. I want to hear about the book. first I wanna hear about the title. Would you have it on your shirt?[00:38:03] Dave:Yeah. That's pretty embarrassing. I swear. I didn't know it was video today, but I do have a shirt[00:38:06] Nathan:You're good.[00:38:07] Dave:Otherwise I wouldn't have worn. This would have worn my Nathan Barry's shirt.[00:38:12] Nathan:That's right. It's in the mail actually. It's[00:38:15] Dave:Oh, good, good.[00:38:16] Nathan:Big photo of my face.[00:38:17] Dave:Yeah. Convert kit. My wife converted to Judaism before we got married. So I have my own convert kit.[00:38:23] Nathan:There you go. Exactly. so I want to hear like what the book is about and then particularly where the title came from,[00:38:30] Dave:Sure.[00:38:31] Nathan:It made me laugh a lot when I heard it.[00:38:33] Dave:Oh, cool. That's good. That's a good start then. yeah, the title comes from, in July of the, of 2020 when the pandemic was really setting in and becoming a reality for everybody. this amusement park outside of Tokyo in the shadow of Mount Fuji called the Fuji queue. amusement park reopened.And they found that even though everybody w everybody was wearing masks, people were screaming so much on some of the rides, especially the Fujiyama roller coaster, which was their scariest ride, that they were worried about germs spread. So they sort of put signs around the amusement park saying, no screaming, you can come, you can ride and have fun, but keep your mask on adults scream.And it sort of became a little minor social media thing in Japan, where people were sort of making fun of them like, oh, they're telling us not to scream. How can anybody not scream on the Fujiyama roller coaster? So in response, the, park management had to have their executives with perfectly quaffed hair and tie and colored shirts and masks on ride the roller coaster with a webcam facing them the whole time without moving a muscle.Cracking a smile or grimacing or screaming. And then at the end of the ride, when the rollercoaster stops, it says, please Scream Inside Your Heart.And that was always my favorite meme of, 2020. It went really viral. There was like t-shirts. aside from mine, there were posters memes. It sort of went crazy for about a week or two, which by 2020 standards is a pretty long time for a meme to last.And I just thought that made sense as a title for the book, because that's sort of how we felt, all year that I dunno if we were screaming in our heart, but we were certainly screaming into a void. Like no matter what we sat or yelled on social media or complained to our family members or friends, it just kept getting worse.The year just kept getting worse. And, so the idea is that this book sort of, now you're free to sort of let out the scream. And the book is it's about 2020, certainly, but it's really about the issues that led us to 2020. There's a ton about our relationship to media and including my own relationship to media and how that got us into trouble.Some of the stuff we're talking about today, how, technology has impacted our lives stuff. I've been sort of thinking about it, writing about for the last few decades, and a lot of the political hate that emerged. and, but it's all within this time capsule of the craziest year.[00:41:12] Nathan:Yeah. Yeah. And so that's coming out early in November, November 2nd. so you're, it looks like you're just starting the, you know, mentioning the promotion tour and all of that. is there a big, big push that comes with it or are you kind of, I, I'm always curious with people's book launches, what strategy they take.[00:41:30] Dave:Yeah. I mean, I'm a newbie, so it's, the whole process has been interesting to me working with a publisher, working with others, is not my forte. so I got used to that or I'm getting used to that and they're probably getting used to it also because working with grouchy 50 something in these is probably not ideal, but, yeah, I've just been promoting it so far in Next Draft, but I've been doing, I have a PR company that's helping me and I've been doing a ton of podcasts and I'm marketing it to my own readers.And then as it gets a little bit closer to the November 2nd date, I have a lot more stuff planned rut, a lot of influencers have early copies of the book, and hopefully they'll promote it. And, I'll call out a few favors from bloggers and hopefully newsletter writers. I feel like that should be my in theory.That should be my secret weapon because, in addition to being fun and creative, nothing moves traffic, except maybe Facebook, nothing moves traffic more than newsletters. I know a lot of people who run e-commerce companies and newsletters are always second, if not first, in terms of traffic drivers.So, I really think that, if some of my friends out there at morning brew in the hustle and the scam and all these other sites that sort of, have surpassed my size by quite a bit, put the word out that, one of their fellow warriors is, has a book out. That'll probably move the needle even more. The media, I'm hoping to get stuff like that, but I really don't know. I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much because, unlike a newsletter, it's not just one day's work, you know, you like worry about one word or one sentence in a book for like three weeks and then you put it out there and people are like, oh yeah, I'll check it out sometime.Thanks. So, you know, that's, you know, whatever that's life as a, you put yourself out there, that's how it goes. So I'm hoping it sells well. And, the more people that get it, I think some people, their first reaction is, oh my God, 2020. I don't want to relive that again. But, hopefully people who know my brand and those that they share it with, know that it's, you know, there's a lot of humor and there's, it's probably 30 pages before we even get into the first event of 2020.So it's, there's a lot more to it and it's sort of fun and crazy and tries to have the pace of a roller coaster. that was the other thing I took from the Fujiyama roller coaster.[00:43:59] Nathan:Yeah. So one thing that I'm always curious about with people who have like a prolific newsletter, you know, in your case of writing every day, and then like, for a lot of people, that would be a lot to handle of staying on top of a daily newsletter. And then you're writing a book on top of that. How did you schedule your time?Were you blocking off like, oh, these afternoons are specifically for book, book writing. Cause you turned it around relatively fast.[00:44:24] Dave:Yeah. the newsletter is sort of like a full-time job. People always ask me, you know, when do you work on, or how many hours do you spend on it? I mean, I'm, I'm always looking for news, whether it's on Twitter or friends, emailing me stuff or texting me stories, or just in conversations with people to see what they're into or what stories are interesting them or what I'm missing.In terms of actual time spent like where I'm dedicating time. I probably do like about an hour every night, because the story has changed so quick. So I'll do an hour of looking for stories every night. And then the next day I sort of lock in from about nine to one, usually, or nine to 12, where I'm finding stories, saving those stories, choosing what stories I want to go with and then actually writing the newsletter.All of that takes about anywhere from like two and a half to four hours, depending on the day I go pretty fast. When it came to the book, that was tricky. It was actually more emotionally tricky because like I said before, I was like, had to go back and write about, you know, Briana Taylor while I'm living another horrible act, you know, or even more so the Trump, you know, one crazy Trump thing and another crazy Trump thing and seeing the pandemic getting worse and worse.So that was stressful. But I found at the beginning I would try to write a lot at night and that was okay. But I found actually if I just kept going, in the day when I was already rolling and had written the newsletter and I was already in the group just to add on an hour or two to that was actually easier and more effective for me than trying to get going.But that's just me. I mean, I just go by my it's almost like my circadian rhythm or something like that, I almost never eat or consume anything before I'm done with next job except for coffee. I would keep that going, you know, once I would like, sort of have a sandwich or whatever, then it's like, oh, let me just take a quick nap and then whatever.So, yeah, I tried to just keep it going. I always find the more consistently busy I am, the less I procrastinate. And if I take a day off or I take a few hours off, even then, between writing, it just, it takes me longer to get going.[00:46:37] Nathan:Yep. That makes sense. The habit that I'm in right now is starting the day with 45 minutes to an hour of writing and that's working much better for me than like slotting it in somewhere else. So I think like w what I hear you saying is like, experiment and find the thing that works well for you.[00:46:54] Dave:Yeah. I mean, if you're going to start experimenting almost every writer, I know not like newsletter writers, but just general writers, all do what you just described. They sort of pick a time in the morning and they get their output done. then the rest of the day, if ideas come to them or whatever, they jot it down, but they're sort of powering in that morning hours.[00:47:13] Nathan:Yeah.[00:47:14] Dave:That's probably a good one to try. Although, you know, some people just do it better at different hours. I'm sure.[00:47:19] Nathan:Yeah. another thing I realized, I've always you for years, and until we got on this video call, I had no idea what you looked like. and which is kind of an interesting,[00:47:28] Dave:Well, I'm sorry.It's by design. I have a face for Panda.[00:47:32] Nathan:Tell me more about, well, I guess two sides, one, has there ever been an interesting interaction? You know, because you're like, Hey, I'm, I'm Dave and people are like, I wouldn't have ever recognized you. Or has there been any other benefits and thought behind, you know, why it have an avatar?[00:47:49] Dave:If by interesting you mean horrible? Yes. There's been many interesting interactions with people. I mean, before, before I had my current, avatar, which is, pretty awesome, actually, a guy named Brian Molko designed it. I had this incredible drawing of a character that looked like me that, had sort of ether net, Machinery and cord going into his head and it was like me, but my head was actually lifted.The top of my head was lifted off and you could see all this machinery and it was an incredible graphic, by this guy named Sam Spratt. Who's now done, album covers and book covers. He's like a super talent. If you want to follow somebody fun on Instagram, he's just incredible. And it was a drawing, even though it looked photo realistic.And I used that for a while and then I would go places and people would be like, you are so much fatter and grayer than I imagined. And so instead of having Sam sort of ruin his artwork, I went back with the more, cartoonish or animated, avatar. So since then I don't get too much of that, but, that was a good move.Although that's the best thing about avatars and the internet is that your avatar never ages. It always looks the same. It stays the same weight. My avatar never overeats he exercises right here. Angie really gets along well with others and doesn't have any kind of social anxiety either. So he's pretty cool.Yeah, it goes a little downhill with me in person. So[00:49:21] Nathan:Yeah. So is it, that's something that like, it gives you some distance between you and readers, or it gives you some anonymity that, you know, you don't want to be recognized in the streets?[00:49:32] Dave:No, no, it's, it's, basically just what I described. It's like, I literally prefer the, the attractiveness of my avatar versus me, but also actually my avatar is really awesome. my logo, so it's also iconic and scalable. so it looks awesome on t-shirts even people who don't know what Next Draft is when they see, by son wearing his t-shirt, whatever, it just looks awesome.So that that's that's as much of it as anything. I thought your response was going to be mad. You seem perfectly attractive to me. I don't know what the issue is, but no, you went with, am I doing that for some other reason? Yeah. So, I get this all the time.Cause my wife is a very attractive person also. So when people meet me, they're always like, whoa, we were once a very famous celebrity came up to me and I said, oh, I'm Gina's husband. And she was like, wow, you did well. Oh, you know? So I'm like, thanks a lot. That helps. So just gave her a picture of my, my icon and walked away.[00:50:31] Nathan:Then that worked. I'm sure that she has it framed in her office, from now on. it's just interesting to me. You're you're sort of at this intersection between personal brand and, like media brand. And I think the avatar helps push you over into the media brand side. and I don't have any real commentary on it other than I find it interesting.[00:50:53] Dave:Yeah, no, I think there probably is some of that. I I've never really been a fan of using my actual face, or my actual person as a logo. I love the process of designing or working with people to design logos and taglines and all that. But yeah, probably at some point there was a, a goal with Next Draft to make it seem bigger than it is.I know a lot of people that are solo operators. They regularly say we, when they're talking about their brand to make it seem bigger, I actually think that's sort of been flipped on its head though. in the last few years where so many people are coming into the space, it's very clear that what they're doing is leaving a big brand, leaving a we and going to an eye.And I think it's actually a selling point in a lot of ways. So, I mean, I, I still get a lot of emails that say, I don't know if anybody at Next Draft is going to read this email, you know, or if you do, can you get this message to Dave? He's an asshole or whatever. And it's like, I'm the only one here, you know, or the other one I always get is when I email back to people that go, oh, I can't believe you actually emailed back.I didn't think this would get to anybody. It's like, you hit reply. And it had my email, like where else would it go? Exactly. You know? But I think actually having people thinking of you as a person, instead of a brand, Is a benefit today. Whereas if you would ask me when I was younger, I probably would have said, make it seem like you have a big company behind you.[00:52:24] Nathan:Yeah. And I think that that indie shift overall, like people are looking for that.[00:52:29] Dave:Yeah,[00:52:29] Nathan:Want to ask about the intersection between your investing and the newsletter. like, are you still actively investing today and doing author.[00:52:38] Dave:Yeah, yeah, no, I, I still invest a ton. I usually follow along with people who are a little more in tune with today's companies than I am. I don't really go out there and brand myself as an investor much, but I've been really lucky. I have very little intersection actually, if any, with my newsletter and my investing and I definitely want people to. To think of me as a writer first, for sure. Not as an investor who has this hobby, because that's definitely not in terms of time or passion, the reality. but I've been really lucky over the years that, I've invested with people or co-invested with them that were cool with me. branding myself as a writer first, but still looking at deals that came through their brands because they were branded as BCS or investors or angels.That's probably a bigger deal now than when I first started. There were like five angel investors, basically. Nobody really did small, early stage seed deals. you know, I mean, we all knew each other that did it and now there's like thousands of them. So you really have to be either a really pretty well-known entrepreneur or you have to. Sort of attach yourself to our organization or two who are really branding themselves well, getting out there and building a stable of companies,[00:53:58] Nathan:Yeah.[00:53:59] Dave:It's pretty different, more, much more has changed about that than the newsletter game, actually, which is pretty much the same as it was the day I started actually.[00:54:07] Nathan:Are there a few of those I'm curious who are a few of those, people that you would tag along with, you know, when they're investing where like, oh, this person puts money into something I'd like to be right there with them.[00:54:19] Dave:I mean, I have some people that are like entrepreneurs and former entrepreneurs that do it, and if they like it I'll do it. but generally I co-invest with, at any given time, a different group of people, used to be a larger group. When I first started out, my whole investing career, I've co-invested with this guy named Bob zip who's much smarter and much wiser than I am about all things business and.Startup world. So that was really great. And he used to work at a company called venture law group in the first boom, and they represented Google, Hotmail. eGroups all the big, huge, early internet companies, and so he really knew the space well. And when he became, I used to get deals from him.That's how you used to get deals actually was by a couple of law firms that focused on startups. I've been co-investing with him all along and he's been generous enough to, he left the law firm a long, long time ago and became an investor primarily. And he had a fund and was well-known guy and well-respected guy.So I got to sit in when he would hear pitches. and we sort of, we weren't investing together out of the same fund, but we would sort of make our decisions together. And we still do that a lot. these days, I almost always follow along with a guy named run-on barn Cohen and a really good friend of mine.He was for many years at WordPress, basically, most of the things that make money at WordPress, he did. and now he's a investor at a VC called resolute. If anybody's looking for a good VC, he's like incredible, like Bob zip much, much smarter than I am about this stuff. Unbelievably ethical, great business sense.Great technical sense. so I mostly just follow him. So if he does something that's usually good enough for me. And if I see something that I think it's good, I'll pass it along to him, but it's mostly that, but I've been really fortunate. I can't express that enough, that I've been able to invest in companies without having to spend all of my time, branding myself as an investor.That's just been unbelievably lucky. So, I've been able to focus a ton of my energy on my six.[00:56:31] Nathan:That's right. I'm writing a newsletter about the news. I guess, as you're looking to grow and continue on, right? Like the next phase of readers and, and all of that, since we can just say directly that we're all narcissists and we do this for the attention. what's what's sort of that next thing that you're looking for, it's going from 140,000 subscribers to say 200,000 and beyond.[00:56:54] Dave:Yeah, well, I'm, I'm hoping that, I'm not just trying to sell my book here. I'm hoping that the book and the newsletter will sort of have, a coexistence with them because the new the book is really an extension of the brand and the brand is that icon to Next Draft. So I'm hoping that the tricky part about writing about marketing a newsletter, like we discussed earlier, there's not really a natural virality to them.So. You Have this piecemeal growth from people telling each other or their friends or forwarding it to somebody or maybe occasionally tweeting or sharing a Facebook link. Oh, you should check this out. But it's all sort of small little blips. If you get a news story or a big blog story about it, or another newsletter recommending you, that's probably the fastest way people grow these days is by, co-sponsoring each other's newsletters or co-promoting them.Those big hits are more rare and they usually require like, I've had a ton of stories written about Next Draft, but most of them a long time ago, because it's basically a similar product to what it was when they wrote about it the first time. So they're like, Hey, I'd love to write about it, but what's the hook.What's the new thing, you know? so I'm hoping that the book provides that emphasis. It's like, we're doing now a ton of people who may by either been on a podcast in the past, or they've wanted to do a podcast with me say, okay, now's a great time. I'd probably want to move your book and, we can set something up.So it's sort of as an impetus. So I'm hoping that that will be the next big newsletter thing that most, most people who write about the book will also write about the newsletter and the two things can sort of grow together.[00:58:35] Nathan:I think that's spot on.[00:58:36] Dave:That's in terms of, you know, marketing and promotion, otherwise, I do want to try, one of these referral programs because people definitely do like products.And, I am lucky that my icon looks really good on shirts so that people actually really want them. And I have a great designer named Brian Bell who makes all of my shirts.[00:58:58] Nathan:There's something like when creators thinking about products, often if you spread yourself too thin, you're like into the newsletter, the book, the podcast, and like the 14 other things that you could make all at once you sort of hinder the growth of each thing, but then if you really build one of them up to a significant level, then at that point it can start to stall out and by shifting to another medium or have it like launching another product in this case, the newsletter to a book, then that book can have a bunch more momentum that feeds back into it.And so there's just sort of this interesting balance of like, no, When to like, keep pushing on the thing that you have versus when to add the next thing that like, then they feed off of each other and go from there. So I think you're doing it with good timing.[00:59:45] Dave:Hopefully it'll work. All that kind of stuff is the tricky part of doing this stuff. Especially stuff like podcasts and newsletters that are—it's really a ton of word of mouth, unless you get lucky and get some press, and word of mouth is just slow.There's some point where you're going to hit a tipping point where you're going to go from five or 10,000 to like 50,000 much quicker, more quickly because instead of three people going home and saying, “Hey, did you ever hear of this newsletter?” there's like 30 people going home and saying that. But, even with that they hit a plateau, and then you figure out what's the next thing. That's why doing something you're into is so important.And I don't think it's bad to try those other mediums or stretch yourself out, because you never know you might've been writing a newsletter three years, and then you do a podcast and it catches on. For some reason, you're like awesome. Less typing, more talking, let's go. So, but it's tricky. I wish I was better and had better advice for people on promotion and marketing.I'm not awesome at it, and it's not in my nature. So, begging for favors or telling people, even in my own newsletter, to buy my own book is very painful for me. I'm very sensitive to criticism about it. So, if people just all bought it and then made everybody else buy it, that would be a huge relief for me.[01:01:13] Nathan:That would be great. Well, along those lines, where should people go to subscribe to the newsletter, and then follow you on your preferred channel, and then ultimately buy the book?[01:01:24] Dave:I don't want like two or 300,000 people taking my site down. So let's go with if your last name starts between A and M you can start by going to NextDraft.com and sign up for the newsletter there. Or, you can also just go to the App Store and search for Next Draft. If you're N through Z, you can start with the book, and that's at: PleaseScream.com.It has links to all the various audio, and Kindle, and hardcover versions.[01:01:50] Nathan:That's good. I liked how you split the traffic, that way there's no hug of death, and we'll do well there.[01:01:57] Dave:I don't want to get fireballed.[01:01:58] Nathan:That's right.Dave. Thanks for coming on. This was really fun.[01:02:01] Dave:Yeah, thanks a lot for having me.

Ali Abdaal is a Doctor, writer, podcaster, entrepreneur, and YouTube sensation. Ali has grown his YouTube subscriber base to over 2 million, and writes a weekly newsletter titled Sunday Snippets. Sunday Snippets covers productivity tips, practical life advice, and the best insights from across the web.Ali studied medicine at Cambridge University. He worked as a Doctor in the United Kingdom before taking time off to explore his other interests. His YouTube channel covers medicine, tech, lifestyle, and productivity. Ali also co-hosts a weekly podcast with his brother, called Not Overthinking.After learning to code at age 12, Ali started doing freelance web design and development. He enjoys playing piano, guitar, and singing covers of mainstream pop songs. You can find occasional videos of Ali's music prowess on his Instagram page.In this episode, you'll learn: Ali's savvy insights for growing your YouTube subscriber base A proven formula for writing content titles that get clicks Ali's playbook for taking your podcast to a whole new level Links & Resources The Nathan Barry Show on Apple Podcasts The Nathan Barry Show on Spotify Sean McCabe Pat Flynn ConvertKit Ibz Mo Casey Neistat Sara Dietschy Chris Guillebeau Tim Ferriss Derek Sivers School of Greatness podcast Lewis Howes Dave Ramsey Michael Hyatt Cal Newport Crash Course John Green Hank Green Daily Content Machine Andrew D. Huberman Reboot Dan Putt Tiago Forte David Perell Jim Collins The Flywheel Effect Impact Theory podcast The Tim Ferriss show Seth Godin Scrivener James Clear Ali Abdaal's Links Follow Ali on Twitter Watch Ali on YouTube Check out Ali on Instagram Ali's newsletter Ali's website Episode Transcript[00:00:00] Ali:YouTube can change your life, but you have to put out a video every single week for the next two years. If you do that, I guarantee you it'll change your life. I can't put any numbers on it. I can't tell you how many subscribers you'll have, or how much revenue you have, like a hundred percent guarantee.You will change your life at the very least in terms of skills or connections or friends, or opportunities that will come your way as a result of posting consistently.[00:00:30] Nathan:In this episode, I talk to Ali Abdaal. Over the last four and a half years he's built his YouTube channel from zero to 2 million subscribers.He's who all of my friends who are into YouTube turn to for advice. He's got a paid course. He's got a substantial email newsletter. He started out as a doctor and then has made the switch into a full-time YouTuber. So anyway, I'll get out of the way, but, before we dive into the show, if you could do me a favor after the show: if you could go and subscribe on Spotify, iTunes, wherever you listen.That helps with downloads. If you could also write a review, I really appreciate it.Now it's on to the show, with Ali.Ali, welcome to the show.[00:01:17] Ali:Thanks for having me. This is really cool. I've been following you on the internet in a non-weird way since 2016. I remember once in, I think it was 2018, I discovered your 2015 podcast series all about launching an ebook, and pricing plans, and all this stuff.It was so good. Now we're looking to do eBooks and things like that. Thank you for all the inspiration on that front.[00:01:46] Nathan:Yeah, for sure. Well, it's fun to have you on, it's been fun to watch you grow. I was actually on a hike with our mutual friend, Sean McCabe after he moved to Boise, my hometown. He was talking about you, and I hadn't come across your stuff yet. And I was like, oh, I gotta check it out.And now I'm watching a whole bunch of videos. And then of course we've been internet friends for, for awhile now.[00:02:08] Ali:I'm now a customer of ConvertKit as well, for the last few months.[00:02:11] Nathan:Yeah. Let's see. Okay. So I want to dive into your story and get some context because you have an interesting path of finishing school, like a substantial amount of schooling, and then diving into the world of being a doctor, and then transitioning out of it.What was the plan? Let's start.[00:02:36] Ali:Yeah. for a bit of context, I spent six years in medical school, and then two years working full-time as a doctor in the UK national health service before deciding to take a break. In that break I intended to travel the world, but then the pandemic happened and I ended up becoming a full-time creator on the internet by virtue of the fact that I didn't have a job when it was a pandemic.When I first decided to apply to med school, I'd been into the whole entrepreneurship thing since the age of 12. I learned to code. I started doing freelance web design and freelance web developer from age 13 onwards. So, in school, in high school, middle school, like we call it secondary school in the UK, I'd rush back home from school when I finished off my homework in record time, and then just be plugging away at like PHP or some HTML or some like jenky Java script. I used to make $5 here and there, and be like, yes, I'm, I'm making magical internet money. Every year when, when I was in, in high school, my friends and I would come up with a new business idea.So, we started this multi-level marketing thing and some other random pyramid schemes, and random paid surveys, and whatever we could do to make money circa 2006 to 2010. So, I always had this interest in entrepreneurship, but then when it came to figuring out what to do with my life, I was getting decent grades in school and because I'm Asian, and everyone in the UK who is Asian, their parents are doctors. So, it was like a default path for me to just like, oh, you know, why, why don't I become a doctor? And I kind of reasoned at the time that if I could be a doctor, and also be a coder on the side, that's like a more interesting combination than if I were just a coder or just a doctor.Not that there's anything wrong with either, but I felt the combination would be more interesting because of the synergy. And so I ended up going to med school, which is a weird, a weird reason for going to,[00:04:24] Nathan:Interesting to him, interesting to you, or interesting to[00:04:27] Ali:Yeah.[00:04:28] Nathan:Family friends.[00:04:30] Ali:Oh no, not family and friends, interesting to me, because it would make life more fun and interesting to me because it unlocks opportunities for creating a tech startup or whatever, further down the line. I think at the time I was drinking the zero to one Kool-Aid[00:04:45] Nathan:Well, Peter Thiel[00:04:46] Ali:Yeah, like that, where I first came across the idea that like, innovation happens at the intersection of multiple fields.And so, you know, the printing press was invented by the guy who really understood, I dunno, looms and how spinning yarn worked, but also understood like something else about something else, and combined these ideas to create something cool. So, I always found it in my head that, Hey, why don't I get really good at the medical stuff and be a really good doctor?And then on the side, if I know how to code, then I can like combine those to spin off some, fit some something interesting further down the line.[00:05:14] Nathan:I think that resonates with me of like,I think that people, especially like online creators who go and do one thing very specifically, maybe don't have as much of an interesting angle, to put into it. Like I think that some of what made me more interested.This is like, they're just hypothesizing, teaching like online business and, and marketing is having a design background, even though those are much more overlapping than say, like a big a doctor and, and, you know, a web developer, you know, as you were starting into it. But, but I think having those skills in another area makes you more interesting as a person and it gives you better stories to tell, and then it gives you a better perspective.And you're not like just pulling from the same industry over and over again.[00:05:58] Ali:Yeah, no, exactly. I, I often find that the, the YouTubers that I seem to kind of, and the, and the, and the bloggers as well, who I follow more of are the ones who seem to have multiple interests. And it kind of gets to that question of like, you know, the, the thing that holds everyone back around, like, what's my niche, like, oh, but I have to pick one thing and get really good at that.And yes, that does have some merit to it, but I often also think that, yeah, but you know, how, how can you carve out a niche for yourself? That's a combination of the other, other stuff that you're interested in, And so instead of trying to be the best, I don't know, productivity YouTuber, it's like, you're the only productivity YouTuber.Who's also a doctor who also runs a business that that's kind of how I think about it.[00:06:37] Nathan:Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. So, when you're in med school, when you started your YouTube channel or you're wrapping up med school, right.[00:06:45] Ali:That's right. Yeah. So, I started the YouTube channel in my penultimate year, so I, I, I, I done five years of med school at this point. I'd set up a few businesses. I had like two SAS products that I was using to side hustle, income, most my, my way through med school. And then in 2017, when I was in my final year, the YouTube channel actually started out as a content marketing strategy for my, my business, that business was helping other people get into med school.It was like that standard thing. Once you do something, you then teach other people how to do the thing. and it was like, you know, the creative economy before it was really called that where[00:07:20] Nathan:Yeah,[00:07:20] Ali:You kind of follow that model. And so the YouTube channel started.[00:07:23] Nathan:Because you were you teaching people like test prep[00:07:25] Ali:Exactly. Yeah. And it's so similar to pet Flynn story as well.You know, he, he started off teaching people how to do some architecture exam. I started up teaching people how to do the med school admissions exams, and that's kind of transitioned into a coaching business, which then transitioned into the YouTube channel.[00:07:40] Nathan:Okay. And so as the YouTube channel started to grow, like, what were some of those first milestones, you know, as you're getting to, how long did it take for you to a thousand subscribers and then maybe, you know, 5,000 or 10,000? Like what milestones stand out.[00:07:52] Ali:Yeah, so I started in the summer of 2017 and it took me six months and 52 videos to get to the first thousand subscribers, six months in 52 videos. I was putting out two videos every week while preparing for med school finals and kind of neglecting my exams for the sake of YouTube, because I could see the YouTube thing was like, oh, I really want to do this.I think the ROI on being a YouTube or is going to be higher than the ROI and getting an extra 2% in my med school finals. that was, that was the theory. Anyway, So, yeah, it took six months of the channel to get a thousand subscribers, another like four or five months for it to get up to 5,000 subscribers.And at the point where I was at around 4,005,000 subscribers, there were two like really good things that happened. Number one was a collab with a much bigger utuber. his name is Ibz Mo. So he and I got to know each other through university and he had 60 K at the time. And so he and I did a collab which took off and helped the channel get exposure.But also there was a video that I made my, my very first video that actually went viral, which was a video about how to study for exams. now this video is a bit weird because like I'd actually planned for it to happen like a whole year before I made it. So when I started YouTube, I, I sort of consumed the hell out of everything on the internet, around how to be a YouTuber and, Sara Dietschy and Casey Neistat had this thing whereby Casey Neistat, enormous YouTuber, Sarah DG would take YouTube who was smaller at the time.She went from 40 cases. Over to like one through over a hundred, a hundred thousand, basically overnight because Casey Neistat shouted her out. and the way that she described that, and I, that I found in some random interview, like on the YouTube grapevine, was that you, you benefit from a collaboration with a bigger utuber, but you only benefit from it.If there is already a backlog of really high quality content on your channel. And so I took that to heart and I knew that, okay, at some point I want to do a collab with a bigger utuber. And at some point I want to try and make specifically a video on how to study for exams, but I knew number one, I needed to have a backlog of hot, cold, high quality content because otherwise no one would care.And secondly, I knew that it would take me about a hundred videos to get good enough at making videos to actually be able to make a decent video about exams. And so that was like my 82nd or something video, which I, I, I I'd had in the back of my mind for so long since, because since getting started button, you know, I need to get my skills up.I need to put in the quantity so that I can actually make videos that are hopefully.[00:10:06] Nathan:Okay. That's interesting. Yeah, because coming, doing a collab and coming to a channel and it's like, okay, they have four videos. And the one that I saw in the collab is actually the best one they've ever done. Like it's sort of, it doesn't have the same ring to it as if you come in and be like, wow, this is incredible.Like, one of my favorite bloggers, you know, it's separate from the YouTube space, but I got him, Chris Guillebeau was an author and blogger and I followed him in the early days. And I had the experience of, he had written a guest post for Tim Ferris and I was reading Tim versus blogging. This was probably 2011, maybe.And I was like, oh, this is really good. I love it. I think it was on actually on travel, hacking, you know, credit card points and all of that. And so I clicked over to his site and I think. Over the next, like two days, I just read the entire website, you know, Nate, it was like years worth of blog posts and all that, but that was the experience.Right. The guest posts is a collab of some kind and then coming over and you're like, you're just deep dive and consume everything rather than the experience of coming over and be like, oh, okay. That's interesting. You know, and like moving along and the back catalog is what, what, drives that?[00:11:09] Ali:Yeah. Yeah. I had, I had that exact experience with Derek Sivers who I discovered through the Tim Ferriss show and Mr. Money mustache, but it's coming through a temporary. I was like, all right, I'm spending the next week of my life. Just binge reading all of your blog posts that you've ever written for the last 20 years.And now it's like, I've got this information downloaded into my brain.[00:11:24] Nathan:Yeah. I love it. Okay. So one thing that I wondered about is as you spend all this time, you know, on med school and, and then, you know, becoming a doctor, it's a big investment. then you also have this love for YouTube and the channels growing. Like the channel now has 2 million subscribers and, and, this is wild success.How do you think about. Like when you made that switch to YouTube, as your full-time thing and leaving behind, at least for now your career as a doctor, how did you make that decision? How did sunk cost play into it? You know, all that,[00:11:59] Ali:Yeah. So this is, it's still something I think about to this day. It's like, there's this balance between how much do I want to be a doctor? And how much do I want to be a YouTuber? when I made the decision at the time, it was, so it was about actually this time, last year, where I took a break from medicine intending to travel the world, but then pandemic happened and ended up being a full-time YouTuber.And then like back then, what I was thinking was I'm, I'm only going to do this for a little while. Cause this YouTube thing is going well right now, the problem with YouTube and like the creative stuff in general is that there's not a lot of like longevity to it necessarily. Like there are so few YouTubers who are big today that were also big 10 years ago.And so that's the thing that I constantly keeps me up at night. Like how will I continue to stay relevant? You know, X number of years from now. And to me, the medicine thing always seemed like a great, you know, my main hustle is being a doctor and my side hustle is being a YouTuber so that no matter what happens, you know, at least I'll have a, a full back career to kind of fall back on.[00:12:53] Nathan:Pretty sure doctors have irrelevant 10 years now.[00:12:55] Ali:Yeah, I'm pretty sure doctors will be relevant. So I wouldn't, I wouldn't have to worry in that context. in the UK, the way the medical system works, there's also like, after you're a doctor for two years, at that point, there's a very natural gap and a lot of people will take some time out to, to go traveling or whatever.And just so happened that COVID happened to that exact point just as I just, as I left to take a break. But I was, I was on the, the school of greatness podcast with Louis hose, last, last week. And he, he was calling me out on this. He was saying that basically I was bullshitting myself because I think the reason why I was holding onto the medicine thing was a profound sense of risk aversion.It was number one. The what if I, what if I lose everything at least then I'll still be able to be a doctor. And number two, it was a case of like, oh, but. I, you know, my brand was built up of the back of being a doctor. And if I lose that, then you know, who am I, why does anyone listen to what I have to say?Who will care what I have to think anymore? Because now I'm just a YouTuber rather than a doctor, which has like prestige and it has like clout. And he basically just called me out and dismantled, like all of my BS on all of those funds. And that really, really got me thinking. Cause like, you know, ultimately the thing that I care about is teaching and inspiring people.And if I think about, if I could only do one thing for the rest of my life, it would not be saving lives as a doctor. It would be teaching people. And that's the thing that YouTube lets you do and lets you do it at scale. And that's the thing, the internet that today. And so now right now I'm going through this phase of having to really think about like, am I only holding onto the doctor thing because of because of fear. And am I holding onto fear and sunk costs, which is obviously like a stupid thing. do I really want to go all in, on the YouTube stuff and then the business stuff, because my real passion is teaching. I don't know any, any thoughts on that balancing, like the fear and like the sensible decision would like following your passion.And it sounds so cliche, but yeah.[00:14:48] Nathan:Yeah. No, it all makes sense to me. The place that I would go is, you know, as you, cause there's, there's fear on both sides, right? I've given up the, being a doctor and then there's fear of what does this career as a, as a creator, as a YouTuber look like in five years, in 10 years. And I would lean in on that side and try to figure that out.Like who are the people, questions I would ask, who are the people who. You admire, who have had longevity in their careers. Right. Cause in the, in the blogging world that I've been a part of the last I want to spend, I guess, almost exactly 10 years now. There's a lot of people who are not around anymore, you know, like they're still alive.I'm sure they're living wonderful lives, but they don't live internet, you know, internet visible lives anymore. and then also seeing like what, what does your business look like in that? It's how you do dependent? Is it, what does that look like? So as you look five years ahead, this something I want to ask later, but, but I'm curious for now, like five years, 10 years ahead, like what are you doing?What's the, what does your, your audience look like? And what role does YouTube or other things play in[00:15:50] Ali:Yeah. Yeah. I think if, if, if I think about people who have longevity, I think you're one of the examples that comes to mind where you started off as a blogger, and then you did the ebook thing, and then you went into the SAS thing, which is now like, absolutely like, you know, exploded. so that's really cool.The other people who I look to are, you know, people like Tim Ferris, who. Has gotten bigger every year, since before I work, we came out and it wasn't a one hit wonder. We started off with the books and then he did a great job of transitioning into the podcast where now it's less about him and more about kind of spotlighting other people and building this almost the institution of his, his personal brand, which is built off of teaching people.Cool, cool things. yeah, I think about it, like in that context, like the thing that you and Tim have in common is that you've both gone, moved away from being very personal brand heavy and more towards being somewhat institutionalized in your case and convert kit in his case, through his podcast.And that's kind of how I see it for myself in a dream world, whereby let's say five years from now, I'm still like doing YouTube videos and teaching people and I'm learning things. And then teaching people, the things that I've been learning. Cause I, I enjoy that kind of stuff, but it's become, becomes less about me personally and more about kind of showcasing other experts.Building a team and building a brand that can be dissociated from my personal name, if need be.[00:17:09] Nathan:Is there a blueprint that comes to mind? So I think about this, a lot of where, where this goes with the highest leverage point to direct an audience to, I —-wrote an article called the billion Abdaalar creator, that is about like this exactly of, you know, if you have an audience of 10,000 or a hundred thousand or a million people, like, what is the thing that you would point that to long-term.And so I'm always looking for these blueprints that other people have created, right? Like I think, Dave Ramsey would be an example of someone who has taken this.Podcasting a radio show is basically a podcast. you know, and taking it to this extreme of, I don't know what they have, I'm making up numbers, but in the ballpark of like 500 to a thousand employees, they've got like this franchise thing, they've got courses that they're, you know, you can sign up for everywhere.Like it's this massive media empire that I can draw a pretty consistent line from, you know, blogger with 10,000 subscribers or 10,000 podcast downloads consistently to that of like continually working away at it. Not to guarantee you that, that you'll hit that, but you know, there'll be other people on Michael Hyatt or, anything else or there's the software direction that I went.So are there like specific blueprints that you look at and be like, okay, that, but[00:18:30] Ali:Yeah.[00:18:31] Nathan:Of it.[00:18:32] Ali:Yeah. I think for me, the playbook that I'm currently following is trying to be a cross between Tim Ferris and Cal Newport.In that Tim, Tim Ferriss in the context of starting a podcast, interviewing experts on stuff. And I need me to, I probably add someone to that. Tim Ferriss, Cal Newport, and the crash course, the YouTube channel, which is run by Hank and John Green, whereas also taking the Tim Ferriss model of podcast, interviewing other people.And then, then that becomes its own kind of content, which helps people, the Cal Newport model of actually I think he he's done a great job of straddling the two worlds of old world prestige of being a professor at Stanford or wherever he's a professor at a part-time and also being a part-time writer and blogger and internet personality type person.And then like taking elements of those and combining it with like the YouTube airy type thing, whereby I think, I think what's missing from the world of podcasts these days is that there are so many podcasts and there is so much incredible wisdom, which back in the day used to be locked up inside either textbooks or in scientific journals.Now, the people who write those scientific journal review papers are being interviewed on all the podcasts. but they're being interviewed in the context of a three hour long discussion. And yes, you could listen to the three hour long discussion. Yes. You could listen to the podcast clips that they've got, that they've been posting through Daily Content Machine on Twitter or whatever, but it's just not as actionable as someone actually creating a compelling YouTube video.So, you know, you could listen to Andrew Huberman interview, the world's expert on longevity about all the eight different things you should do to increase your life. And very few people would follow that advice because there's no in a digestible format. And so if I'm thinking like what I'm, what I'm thinking is that if we can do the podcast thing, we can do the kind of Cal Newport thing of combining old world prestige with new world, kind of content, and also do it in the format of like YouTube videos that are accessible to the mass market and, you know, a lay person audience that is kind of the combination that I see myself doing over the next like five years.And that feels quite exciting.[00:20:32] Nathan:Yeah. So that target of like the 10 to 15 minute YouTube video, that's really well crafted and architected to have the table of contents and even skip to the sections. And it's like, look, this is what you need. And it's not just what was covered in an hour long interview, but also like, and then we pulled in this and when they referenced this thing, like, this is what they're talking about.We can illustrate it with visuals and everything else.[00:20:55] Ali:Absolutely. Yeah. And that's the thing that I'm hooked. So in the process of building a team around, which is something I wanted to talk to you about because you've built a big team over time, I was speaking to Derek, you're a director of marketing as well about building a team and he had, so he had loads of advice to share.So that's, that's a challenge for me right now. It's like, you know, two years ago, it was just me last year, this time, last year, there were three, three of us full-time well, two full-time. It was me working as a doctor and a part-time assistant, and now there's 12 of us, but now we're hiring another 10 people.So by next month it's going to be maybe like 20, 20 of us a hundred. It's all those problems associated with scaling a team and leadership and management. And that's the kind of stuff that, I've been really as sort of very much on the steep learning curve of, and that I'm very excited about getting better at,[00:21:44] Nathan:Yeah. what's the reason that you're growing the team so quickly.[00:21:48] Ali:Well, let's see, because we just have a lot of money. once, once we launched our, yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a good problem to have. We're just like very cash rich and expertise poor as someone described as, We launched our cohort based course part time, YouTube academy this time, last year, it did phenomenally well, I'd been doing classes on Skillshare, which started off as making like a few hundred to a few thousand a month and is now compounded to the point where we make some way between 60 and $80,000 every month, just passive income of Skillshare classes.That means that every month we're just making more and more money. And I see the, I see the numbers going up and I see them go up and I, I see basically like, well, why, why are, why aren't we doing anything with that money other than just[00:22:30] Nathan:Right.[00:22:31] Ali:every year.[00:22:32] Nathan:Okay. So really quick, since you mentioned, are you okay sharing some of the numbers, like the numbers from part-time YouTube academy?[00:22:38] Ali:Yeah. so we launched the first cohort in November last year. I think this year we're on track to do maybe like $2 million revenue and like 1.1 0.5 million profit, 1.6 million profits, something like that. next year we're hoping to take that up to like 5 million revenue. Which again, all of these feel like, like dumb numbers, I'm just plucking out of thin air.Cause it's like, I I've, I'm, I'm really bad at like projecting, protecting financials. Like it's all, it's all just a guess. Anyway, like if we could do four cohorts and sell 600 places, that would be 5.5 0.1 million revenue. It's like, that's actually, that's actually doable, but it's just such a fricking ridiculous numbers.It's like, how on earth can that be doable? It's just like, how, how does it even work?[00:23:23] Nathan:Yeah. Welcome to the internet. And, when you have substantial leverage, like things that were possible, like seemed insane before you're like, oh yeah, I know that math checks out, you know?[00:23:34] Ali:Yeah, exactly. I suppose if somebody, to you for ConvertKit was I think last I checked, you were on 20 million annual recurring.[00:23:41] Nathan:Yeah. We're at 20, 28 and a half. Now[00:23:44] Ali:Well the hell that's going to quickly compounding.[00:23:48] Nathan:The magic of compounding, This is fascinating to me because a lot of, I feel like a lot of content creators are, you know, get to your stage and they're like, okay, what, you know, what Lamborghini should I buy right now?Have you thought about putting the line beginning in your YouTube videos? I'm kidding, please.Don't[00:24:05] Ali:I mean, I've got a Tesla model three, so that was my, a splurge.[00:24:08] Nathan:That was your splurge. Yeah, exactly. you know, so interesting to me that you're hiring at the rate that you are, which is to be totally clear is the rate that we hired at ConvertKit like slow at first of like two or three, four, and then it started to, like started to really take off. And I think in, let me think how long eight months we went from four people to 21 people.And, and that worked really well for us. And we were growing really, really quickly. And, and, like in that time, I think we 10 X revenue, like going. 30,000 a month in revenue to 300,000 a month and revenue. and so that that's absolutely a wild ride. And then we kind of paused there for a second and we like methodically about, okay, what are the roles that we need?How do we build the team culture within the group that we have? How can we invest in those relationships? We also had our first team, like in-person team retreat at that time. and so I think it's really important as you grow a team that quickly to make sure you're really, really, yeah. Intentional about, the team culture, which like, that's one of the things like, what does that even mean?How do you, how do you do that? And the way that I do it is being clear about the mission of what you're building and why. and then investing deeply in the relationships with each person.[00:25:32] Ali:Okay. And what does, what does that mean?[00:25:34] Nathan:Was, so you're hiring all these people, right? And let's say you're hiring from you're very much the face of the.And so if someone's applying to like, oh, I want to work with Ali, right? Like, let's do that. And so they have this relationship with you and what you don't want is this, you'd end up with this hub and spoke model where you're the hub and everyone has a relationship with you and they don't have it with each other.And that's just the, it's a natural way that things are joining, right. Or the way it comes about. I, the same thing when people wanted to start working at ConvertKit, they wanted to work at convergent, but they a lot wanted to work with me. And so you have to invest deeply in turning that hub and spoke into like a spiderwebs where if you're not at the core of it, they all are riffing on ideas.They, you know, understand each other's, families and like individual values and everything else. and that matters more. And so you have to know that the natural state of things is not ideal and you need to like aggressively work, to change that. So that you're less important than your own.[00:26:39] Ali:Oh, interesting. Yeah. That's exactly the challenge that we're having right now where. Still all of the things kind of flow through me, but it's, I think over the last few months, as I've gotten like business coaches and working with, with our mutual friend, Sean, as a coach, as well, and reading sort of dozens of books about like leadership and management and like org chart structure and all that jazz, we're starting to get to a point where I actually do feel like stuff is happening without me.And it's like the best feeling in the world when they're just doing stuff. And I'm like, whoa, wow. That's actually a great idea. It was so well done. And you've actually done this better, better than I would have done this. Whoa. Okay. This is really cool. so hopefully as the team expands, yeah, the, the, the culture thing is interesting.I think so far, I haven't given any thought to culture in the slightest as just sort of happened organically slash accidentally. but one of the exercises that Sean, Sean took me through was the thing of like, imagine, you know, a year from now or three years from now, what is the sort of business that you want to have?Like you go into work in the morning, like what, what do you want to say. It was only after that. I kind of thought about that, that I realized that for me, what that dream looks like, it's actually having an in-person team having like a studio, maybe, maybe in a place like London that we can invite people over to for podcasts and focus for collabs having an in-person team.Or maybe once a once a week, I have brainstorm meetings with, you know, our writers and researchers and stuff, and we figure out what we're doing. Maybe once a week, I filmed stuff for the YouTube channels. And maybe once a week, I sit down to record a podcast with someone cool. And the rest of the time I spend like chilling, or, you know, writing or reading or doing other, working on the businessy type stuff.And we have like a COO or general manager or whatever you want to call it, who runs the day-to-day operations without needing my input. and it was only really when I kind of said that out loud, I'm just going to ask, so, okay, well when you just make that happen and I was like, oh yeah, you're right.I could just make that happen. And then, because I think before I just, I, I drank the remote work Kool-Aid so, so much that I just sort of assumed that you had to hire remotely. Then I realized, hang on, given that this is the sort of business I want to be in where we're all actually in person, because it's more fun.I can just hire people who are only London. And so when we're not doing that, hiring people who are only in London, which feels weird, but it means we also have, you know, a few dozen applications rather than a few thousand to, to deal with, which is, which is kinda nice.[00:28:59] Nathan:Yeah. And that's something that when you get clear on that, and that's why so many people want, besides journaling or whatever, other journaling coaching, any, any form of getting that clarity, it's you realize that you're like following this meandering path and like, and then we can do this and then that, and then you realize like, oh, I can just draw a straight line from point a to point B and just do that now.And it's, it's so powerful and you'll save yourself a lot of trouble because then you won't be at a point, right. Where you say we've built a 25 person team. That's like, maybe there's six in London. And then, everyone else is spread throughout the world and people are loving aspects of that, but then they're feeling like the people in London are getting more time with you and right.And you go and create this major culture problems because you had an intention like, or an internal desire that you never expressed, explicitly. And then once you express that and then everyone's like, oh, okay. So I know that it's them working for you remotely right now. I know that I either long-term need to switch to being a contractor of like, just providing a service, you know, or I need to move to London or I need to fully transition out.Like, and there's like a beautiful clarity in that, that when you just keep it inside, you like no one will, no one will experience.[00:30:17] Ali:Hmm. Have you, have you got any like prompts that you find helpful in this sort of journaling thing and figuring out what you want from the business and from life?[00:30:25] Nathan:So, you and I both share a passion for coaching and I hire a coach as well as name's Dan, from an organization called reboot. so he asks all kinds of questions. one, I was navigating a scenario recently that was just really frustrating. And, he said, okay, I want you to picture when you're 40.So I'm 31 right now. So nine years from now, how would your 40 year old self looking back, you know, basically 10 years be proud of how the situation was handled. And that was a version. So basically the prompt would be like stepping forward, not just, what do you want 10 years from now, but like stepping forward and trying to really imagine that scenario.You know, what's pushing you to do, and then looking like looking back on it as a memory of how you handle this next period of difficult transition or any of that. So that'd be one version. Another is like really pushing on like the five why's and really digging in of why do you want that thing? What do you, what are you actually trying to accomplish?I'm sure there's more, butYeah. Are there others that you use.[00:31:38] Ali:Yeah, that question of why did I come across this? I can't remember where I was like to cite my sources, but, the thing of when, when making a decision, think about what decision your like 10 year older self would have wanted you to make, to be like the best version of yourself.And I've been thinking about that recently in the context of this thing of do I go all in on the YouTube thing or do I just kind of do Hoff medicine off YouTube? And I do think out of 10 years from now, I would have wanted myself to make the decision of actually just going all in on the passion project and just seeing what happens with that.If it doesn't work, it didn't work, but at least having a go rather than feeling kind of pulled in two directions, which are sort of incompatible because of the amount of time commitment that a physical career like medicine takes.[00:32:25] Nathan:Yeah. And it's hard when you're like, if you have a 10 person team and you're, you're the only one that's part-time right. Like that, that will result in, you wish you could spend more time with the team. You, you know, you being the bottleneck and things, you shouldn't be it made me think of like the, on the team side of things.There's a movie called the intern, Robert DeNiro and Hathaway.[00:32:44] Ali:No, yeah. I really enjoyed that. It[00:32:46] Nathan:It's a fun movie.And there's a scene in it. So Anne Hathaway runs this, like a fashion tech startup, but th but there's a scene early on when she's like rushing from thing to thing and everything is going to her for approval and all of this stuff.Right. And I remember watching the, how she's so important. It'd be nice to be that important. And then the second one, you stepped back and you're like, that is a terribly run business. Like, what is she doing? You know, like the whole thing, if she wasn't there, the whole thing would fall apart. Cause no one would have our approval for like the homepage designs or, or whatever else.And so, going back to the hub and spoke thing, that's the, you know, you'd like watch that little clip of the movie and then go, okay. That, but the opposite, like that's[00:33:30] Ali:Yeah,[00:33:30] Nathan:To go.[00:33:30] Ali:Yeah. There's one. So, often, you know, someone in my team will message me being like, Hey, you know, we, we need to discuss item X. can you, me and Angus hop on a call and discuss item X. And these days are reply with, can you and Angus discuss item X? Like, do I absolutely have to be on this call?And they're often like, oh no, I guess you don't. Yeah. You know, I mean, I'm just gonna take care of it. I'm like great, wonderful. and I'm always surprised when that works. it's like, oh yeah, this doesn't work. I actually don't need to be involved in everything. but I guess it's, it is that balance of, and I think sometimes the team does feel frustrated that I I'm involved in too many things.I've heard and they feel like maybe I don't necessarily trust all of their decisions. it's like, you know, my name that is going on all this stuff and I trust, but I want to, I want to be able to verify, like if I ask why was something done? Like why, why that pricing plan, rather than that pricing plan,[00:34:22] Nathan:Right.[00:34:22] Ali:Like a reason behind it beyond, oh, it's just, we just sort of plucked numbers out of thin air.[00:34:26] Nathan:Yeah. So two things that makes me think of is one, creating a culture where asking questions is encouraged and not just, Like asking questions of like, Hey, could you explain this to me? I truly don't understand it, but, but also like asking for, is there a reason behind this? You know, why did you do that?And then the other side, when people come to you and say like, Hey, what do you think we should do? Then you ask them, what do you think we should do?And then going like, oh, well I think X, Y, and Z. And you're like, okay, why do you think that because of this great, let's do that. You know, you have more and more conversations where like people come to you and then they make the decision and[00:35:05] Ali:Yeah,[00:35:05] Nathan:Place.[00:35:06] Ali:Yeah, yeah. I'd love to get to that point. I think I need to do a better job of, of doing that. the most, the most obvious example is like when we're brainstorming video content ideas and we're coming up with titles. so we had a meeting earlier today and, you know, the team came up with a few concepts and like 20 titles for each one.And then I made the final decision. I was like, oh, I kind of liked the sound of like title number five. but what I probably should do in that context is, okay, Gareth, if you were making this video, what title would you go for? And then kind of seeing what happens. And I guess there is an element of like, you know, I, I trust my gut on what makes a good title more than I trust anyone else's in the team Scott's or what makes a good title.But I'd like to be able to either train someone it's hard to train someone for this, like find someone who's got like trust more. And so who, who I can just fully outsource the responsibility of coming up with a decent title for, because it is such a huge part of what makes a successful YouTube video[00:36:00] Nathan:Yeah. Okay. On those lines. When you make a video, do you know how often do you know when it's going to be like a video that really hits?[00:36:09] Ali:Think about 20% of the time.I can, I have a gut feeling that, okay, this could be a banger. and th the way I think about it in my head is sort of in terms of Banga potential. So a video called I dunno, nine passive income idea is how I make $27,000 a week that has high bang of potential, a video call.The power of positive thinking the potential, like that's not going to be back. It's like, okay, can we increase the bang of potential by making the title more clickbait? and so for example, you know, I've been working with a life coach for the last few months. I want to make a video about it. I've been thinking, you know, how, like really the thing I worked with them on was how to figure out what I want from life.But a video called how I'm, how to figure out what you want from life. You know, maybe two out of five bang of potential, a video called I hired a life coach for $3,000. Here's what I learned. That's got bag of potential. And so often it's just like a tweaking of the title where it's like the more click baity and sensationalized the title that is annoyingly often.The thing that chorus that correlates most strongly with how much of a banger is this city you're going to be. And the formula that I try and use is sensational click baity title combined with like very deep nuanced. So that someone clicks on the video thinking, huh? And then they're very, very impressed by the production value by the structure, by the academic newness of it, by how awful it is.I think it's crossed the Pepsi, at least that's the intention.[00:37:32] Nathan:Okay. That's interesting to me. I have this like running fantasy as I teach. People how to build wealth and make money. Like, those are some of my favorite topics. I can talk about them all day. And so I was joking with someone that I was going to do, like these real estate seminars, you know, that you see advertised where it's really scammy or you're really just paying for that person's private jet.You know, or it's like, it's the, the MLM equivalent, multilevel marketing equivalent of whatever. Like I'm going to use the same tactics, but then like actually deliver real value. And like the ticket that I charged would just be like 50 bucks and it all go to, I don't know, clean water, charity water, or something like that, you know, basically saying like, I'm going to hook people in with the same thing, clickbait and then deliver, like substantial value that will actually be life-changing.Yeah. And so[00:38:23] Ali:Yeah.[00:38:23] Nathan:The same thing. I like it.[00:38:25] Ali:Yeah. I think it's a great idea because you kind of need to use the clickbait. Like there's literally no way someone's going to click on something. there's a channel, V very, to cm, which made an amazing video, like a few days ago, about the difference about the importance of clickbait and how, and how much it works.And his overall point was that like click, click bait is kind of the wrong word. There is sort of, I think, I think the two terms where there's this sort of like intrigue Bates, which is that, you know, oh, this is interesting. I want to, I want to click on this. And then there is, I can't remember what he said, but it's like, sort of trashed bait, which is that I'm going to stick a bikini model on a thumbnail and has nothing to do with that.But, and so there's those two, two different ones where like, in a way, the way that you title something or the title of your book or the cover of some. It's so, so important for getting the message across. And we shouldn't see that as being a bad thing. Whereas the word clickbait, it includes, you know, things like what is what what's a good headline designer.What's good marketing coffee, but it really shouldn't because clickbait has, it is a dirty word, but it, it shouldn't be because the cover of something is so important to how that thing is perceived and whether people are going to see it or not.[00:39:33] Nathan:Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. How do you think about the thumbnails and then like the, say the first 30 seconds of the video, those are two separate questions, but as both of those in, in driving engagement,[00:39:44] Ali:Yeah. So thumbnail is really, really important. I think on our channel, we were bad at thumbnails. I'm not a fan of our thumbnail style. we're trying to evolve and iterate on it over time whereby the, you know, and so w w whenever someone's an early stage, utuber, it's like, you're, you're uploading the video.And then you think about the title. And then you think, okay, let me find a, still from the video that I can use with someone else, and then maybe you downloaded it, ramp up the contrast saturation, blah, blah, blah, sticker, clarity, filter on it, and maybe put some text on it in Canada. That's like the, the new YouTube, YouTube way of doing it.When you become a little bit more pro you start thinking of the title in advance anything, okay, what's the title of this video going to be, and then you make the video and you've got the title already. but the thumbnail is still a bit of an afterthought because it's, it's quite hard to think about something else.And that's the point where we're at. and the gold standard is where you have full about the title. And you have literally made the thumbnail before you even think about writing the script for the video. And that is a place where we would like to get to. so we're looking to hire like a graphic designer and, you know, a YouTube channel producer whose job it's going to be to work with a graphic designer at any time, because we, we we've got hundreds of ideas at the top of our pipeline, but at the moment, our bottleneck is in developing those ideas, crucially with a decent title of decent thumbnail and a rough talk, rough amount of talking points.And so, yeah, we're doing everything we can to make the thumbnail more of a first-class citizen, because it's just so stupidly important on YouTube. And in fact, often, you know, if, when I've heard YouTubers would like 10 million plus subscribers speak about thumbnails, they view the thumbnail as being even more important than the title, because the thumbnail is the first thing that really catches the viewer's eye.And the first thing that they see. so yeah, I think we do vaginal thumbnails. Well, relatively speaking, and we're trying to improve at it. I think equally the first 30 seconds is just ridiculously important where everyone's attention is so like all over the place, but if you don't hook the viewer within the first like five seconds, you see that huge drop off in engagement.And again, other other YouTubers that I look up to really, really obsess over the first 30 seconds to one minute of the video and when we teach our YouTube, of course, and we analyze like, what makes a good, like what do these sort of 5 million plus view videos happen? It's like often there's like a cut every single second in the first 30 seconds, like some new piece of gear or something happening on screen.It's just like so rapid and fast and really holds your attention. Whereas for the rest of the video, you can kind of switch to a car every five seconds or something happening every 10 seconds, the ten second rule. but certainly the first 30 seconds, like Panama, it's gotta be like really, really, really sharp and on points.Otherwise people just don't watch.[00:42:16] Nathan:Yeah, that's fascinating. I'm realizing that it's true for a lot of channels I've seen grow really quickly are employing the same things. that's something that's I wanted to ask you about on the monetization side is you're selling a high value course, to like a big audience, you know, 2 million subscribers on YouTube.You also have a what? Lower a hundred thousand subscribers on, on email.All right.[00:42:38] Ali:Yeah.130 or something.[00:42:41] Nathan:Nice. What's the, like, how does your approach differ when in promoting that, you know, a new course, like the part-time YouTube academy on YouTube versus on email.[00:42:50] Ali:I think I'm still scared of selling. It's really bad. I need to get over it. I was, so I was really, really scared of selling like a year ago. And when I had the idea for the part-time YouTube academy, it was on like the 16th of August, 2020, where I wrote the notion page about it for the first time I was thinking, okay, you know, this, this is either going to be a Skillshare class.I eat free, or it's going to be like maybe a 50 to $200 kind of self-paced course. And you know, I can really, really over-deliver on content. Cause I know what I'm talking about here. And so $200 is an absolute steal for this. No one's ever going to complain that this is not worth it. And then I spoke to, I think people that you probably know Tiago Forte and David Perell who run their own like cohort based courses.And they challenged me. You know, what if you had to do this live? What if you had to charge a thousand Abdaalars for it, how would it change your approach to the course? And starting to think in those terms made me really changed the way that we did a personal course and it became a high, second thing. It made me realize that actually what the world needed was not, or what needed to be grandiose, like what the internet needed.It was not, another YouTube or making a self-paced course on how to be a YouTuber. The thing that's actually holding people back is the accountability and the community. And these are things that you get in a live cohort. but getting back to your point about how, like the difference in, in setting it.So we actually only advertised it on Twitter and on the meeting list. initially I didn't even mention it on YouTube because I was so scared of mentioning the course on YouTube. And I think the reason I was so scared of mentioning the course on YouTube is a problem with YouTube that I've spoken to a bunch of other creators about, which is that the people who comment on the videos do not reflect the audience at all.[00:44:29] Nathan:Right.[00:44:30] Ali:Like, if you think about who comments on a YouTube video, it's generally kids, it's generally kids with with enough time on their hands to comment on to comment on videos. And so I was always scared. Like, my audience is not going to appreciate the fact that I'm selling a high ticket course. They're going to think I'm a snake oil salesman or something like that.And my audience mental model was the people who comment on my videos. And it took me a little bit of like an epiphany to realize, hang on, the people who I'm targeting are people with jobs. People would like, you know, six figure incomes, people who want to do the creative side hustle and take it seriously.They are not the 14 to 17 year old kids commenting on my videos. And that was such a major like revelation of like, I can actually completely ignore the comments and I can just go by the analytics that tells me like 40% of my audience is age like 24 to 36 in the U S fantastic. Those are the people I want.Whereas on email, you don't really see that as so, so clearly. And so I think, and especially because I've read your stuff. Read a lot around email marketing, but so little around YouTube marketing. I'm much more comfortable selling on email than I am selling on YouTube, but it's, it's something I'm trying to get better on.So,[00:45:31] Nathan:Are you able to track attribution for signups or that kind of thing of what's coming from YouTube versus email now, right? You're doing at least some promotion of it on YouTube.[00:45:40] Ali:Yeah. we actually, so in the first cohort where we did, we didn't promote on YouTube at all. So it was like 50% Twitter, 50% email, I think for the most recent cohort, even now we don't really promote on YouTube very much. It's less just like a very, very subtle casual plug at the start of a video.I think about 30% came in through YouTube and the rest came in through again, Twitter or email.And so, but you know, one of the things that we're hiring for is a marketing marketing manager to basically just lead marketing for the YouTube academy. And that was some of the stuff that, that your pal Derek was was, was helping us with.[00:46:13] Nathan:Yeah, they're good at all of that kind of stuff of taking, I mean, all the things that I did over the years of like, oh, there's, one-off push here, they're entering into like, okay, that was great. Look at the results we got from it. Also, we're going to do it as a system now, and it's going to work like this and it's going to drive consistent results over time, rather than like these spikes or that sort of thing, which I'm good. okay. Something else like in that journey, we kind of left off as you were, you know, I guess the last we're talking about YouTube numbers was, you know, like five, 10,000 subscribers. I want to hear a little bit more about going from that 10,000 to 100,000 and then like, I think it's a huge jump, but a hundred thousand to 2 million.[00:46:54] Ali:I think it is absolutely fancy. It's just the law of compounding and consistency and, you know, the results happen very, very slowly and then very, very fast. And before you know it, you know, Jim Collins, I thing has that model of the flywheel that it takes. It takes a hell of a lot of energy to get going, but once it starts to go, then it, it becomes unstoppable.I think it's, it's the case for any interesting kind of compounding could growth projectory, you know, YouTube channels, convert kits, any software platform that's growing. and so in year one, I think we hit maybe like 20,000 subscribers by the end of it. Then year two was probably the next few hundred thousand year three was the next like million in year four.It's just wrapped up wait, where we just hit the 2 million mark. And then at the end of year four, so it was just, you know, perfectly matches it maps onto one of those exponential growth curves. The scary thing about that is that like, if you extrapolate it further, that means we're going to be on like 4 million subscribers by next year.And that's just completely unfathomable to me because it's like, okay, that's just never gonna happen. And there is a point at which the, the compounding growth curve stops, That's the thing that I worry about. I don't really worry about it. That's the thing that I'm trying to build more and more like pillars of support around the business, a diversification, more into courses, more into books, more into stuff that is dissociated from my personal brand and also from my personal YouTube channel specifically.Yeah, it's, it's, it's weird. It's one of those things we look back on and you kind of forget like, oh yeah. When, when I started, like, I remember like when I started working as a doctor, I had, I hit 50,000 subscribers like that, that, month. And then a year later when I was having my first like appraisal, where they, your supervisor looks at how good a doctor you were.The first thing he said to me was there were 263,000 people following a YouTube channel. How the hell did that happen? And so I have that number in my head is like, oh yeah. Once I, at the, at the end of 2019, when I, when I finished my first year, I was Dr.. That was what. And then it was like my it's my second year of working as a doctor when the pandemic struck and the pandemic, me and my channel really take off because all of a sudden people were sitting home and watching YouTube videos.I think that was when we had and subscribers. and now a year on from that point, we've just had 2 million and it's just been just insane, insane growth. but obviously consistency compounding the thing I always tell my students is that, you know, YouTube can change your life. but you have to put out a video every single week for the next two years.And if you do that, I guarantee it'll change your life. I can't put any numbers. I can't tell you how many subscribers you'll have or how much revenue you have, like a hundred percent guarantee. You will change your life at the very least in terms of skills or connections or friends, or, you know, just opportunities that will come your way as a result of posting consistently on YouTube.And everyone here is that advice. And like, you know, so few people actually follow that,[00:49:43] Nathan:Yeah.[00:49:44] Ali:With me. You know, I've been trying, I've been trying to hit the gym for the last like eight years. Never done it consistently until I got a personal trainer and now I'm actually seeing gains, Yeah, compounding and consistency, which is some of the stuff that you talk about as well.[00:49:55] Nathan:Yeah, for sure. Is there a point in there where you saw things plateau at all? Like right. There was the, a flat part and an S-curve where you started to think, okay, I need to change something or push through this or anything like that, or has it always just been consistent?[00:50:10] Ali:Yeah. So I don't really look at the numbers very much. the way that's, you know, my, my theory of numbers has always been that like the, the numbers were, were always outside of my control. And the only thing that I could personally control were the number of videos I was putting out and how, how good I felt about the quality of those videos.That second one I got rid of very quickly, because I realized that what I feel about the quality of my own videos does not match at all what the audience feels about the quality of my videos. And therefore I'm not even gonna think about that. So the only metric I care about is just putting out two videos a week.The thing that I, I think of more. When it comes to, okay, these are, this is a bottleneck. We have to like push through. It is when the channel starts to feel like it's a bit stale. And there's been a few times, boy for four and a bit years now, or I felt like, okay, we've kind of been doing the same thing for awhile and it worked to get us here, but maybe what necessarily got us there.So most, you know, initially it was like medical school stuff or it's that Kevin doing medical school stuff for a whole year. I need to kind of branch out from this. And it was like student stuff in general. And it was like, okay, I, I'm not, I'm not graduated to the student. There's only so long. I can keep on just peddling the same stuff around how to be an effective student.It's all kind of, of it. I mean, it's, it's obvious, but it's, you know, there are a finite number of things. There's like a few techniques that work really well and you make videos about them over and over again. So it, it feel stale now more, more recently, the productivity hustle lead type stuff has started to feel a bit stuck.And so now we're now thinking, okay, what's the next level? And that was what prompted the idea to start any podcasts that we're what doing, trying to mimic basically the Tim Ferriss show or impact theory or school of greatness, or these other sorts of broadly in-person interview podcasts interviewing like entrepreneurs, CEOs, creators, and other inspiring people about how they find fulfillment in work and in life that's like the spiel for it.And I, I, I hope that will be like the next level, and be able to expand our content beyond just me talking about productivity or me talking about tech.[00:52:06] Nathan:Right.[00:52:07] Ali:Mostly based on that gut feeling of stillness that I feel okay. The writing on the wall is that this is going to decline unless we change something rather than about the numbers.[00:52:15] Nathan:Yeah. That makes sense of figuring out. I mean, it's in the quality of the product that you're delivering, you know, and making sure that you're continuing to innovate their innovative buzzword, but you know what I mean? so one other thing that I see you doing throughout all of this is making sure that it's fun.And so I'm curious for your[00:52:33] Ali:Yep.[00:52:33] Nathan:On like, what's your philosophy around making this fund? why is that important instead of just like, or in addition to the like rigorous discipline?[00:52:43] Ali:This is literally the thing that I'm writing a book about right now, which is that, you know, people have been asking me for it for years, how you said productive. Even when I was in like high school and university people would be like, oh my God, you do so much stuff. Like how, how are you so productive?How do you, how do you will have it? And it always felt a bit like, you know, people, people had this weird image of me that I was some kind of productivity guru. And now the comments on my videos, like, oh my God, he must be some sort of absolute machine. But you know, I, I, I, I line until like 11 o'clock in the morning this morning, the only thing that got me out of bed was a zoom meeting with the team.And I scroll Twitter for a solid, like 45 minutes today. And I wasted, you know, I, I finished up with a call about half an hour before we were meant to start recording. And I was like, ah, How much work are you ready to get done in half an hour at school, Twitter, often Ariba. So I'm just like genuinely really lazy.And all of the people who actually know me know that I'm really lazy and are completely baffled that the internet thinks I'm a productivity group. I think the, if there is one secret that secret is that I just make everything that I do really fun. and so I think that's got kind of two components.The first component is finding things that you already find fun and then doing them. and that's fine. it's, it's, it's quite hard to do that because often the things we find fun are the things that are not really suitable for a career. Like, you know, I enjoy playing the guitar and do I ha I enjoy playing board games.I enjoy watching Netflix. Like it's very hot. It's hard to make a kind of sustainable career out of that probabilistically. Yes, I could become the next ninja, but it's pretty unlikely I could become the next John Mayer was pretty fricking unlikely. and so the, the lever that I try and pull is figuring out ways to make the thing that I'm already doing, figuring out ways to make that more fun. And I think I've just sort of been subconsciously doing this for my whole life, because I don't like doing stuff that's boring. I only like doing stuff that's fun. And I figured out like a few different, different things I can do that. Basically it tricks my brain into having more fun, which makes me more productive, but it also makes my life more happy.And it also means I don't really need discipline because it's like fun. Like, you know, when

Within the last five years, outdoor gear company Sherper’s has gone from less than one percent of its business revenue coming from ecommerce to now having a 50/50 split between in-store and online. And for this fourth-generation family business, that move to online has been both challenging and rewarding.As an old-school mom and pop business, Sherper’s has always prided itself on building personal relationships with customers and providing a level of customer service you won’t find with the big guys or digitally-native companies. So finding a way to create a digital experience that allowed Sherper’s to scale its operation yet maintain a personal touch was a top priority for the company. Leading the way in that journey is Nathan Scherper, the President of Sherper’s, who has come a long way from those days of scrubbing toilets for the family business when he was just 12 years old.On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Nathan takes us behind the scenes of how Sherper’s built out its ecommerce platform, what its competitive edge is over the Amazons and Walmarts of the world, and how the Sherper’s online platform performed when the pandemic forced more people than ever before online and in search of outdoor goods to cure their cabin fever. Plus, Nathan provides some insights into what it takes to keep a family business running for multiple generations, and why hiring talent is less about skills and more about personality. Enjoy this episode!    Main Takeaways:Hire The Person, Not The Resume: Personality matters and should be a driving force in your hiring process. Most people can be trained to do a job, so the key thing you have to do is identify the person you want to hire and understand their current skill set. Then, gauge what they are willing and able to do for the company and train them to do what makes sense.Compete Where You Can Win: It’s tempting to go all-in on paid advertising to try to compete with the big guys. But if you’re a smaller company or start-up, there’s no way that your budgets will be able to match those of the giants. Your investment is better spent elsewhere, like finding a niche influencer who can form an actual connection with your customers. So find where you get the most bang for your buck.Pent Up Demand: Many people believe that as the world opens back up, the desire to get out and shop is going to lead to a boom for retail, particularly small businesses. Customers have learned that they can buy necessities from the big guys online, so the weekend outings are more likely to be to local shops and restaurants and will lean more toward impulse buying.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie Postles:Welcome to Up Next in Commerce. This is Stephanie Postles, CEO at Mission.org, and your host of this lovely show. Today, I'm chatting with Nathan Scherper who currently serves as the president at Sherper's. Nathan, welcome.Nathan:Hi, good to be here.Stephanie Postles:Good to see you. I feel like I need to be like, coming live from Lake Michigan right? Is that where you're at?Nathan:Yeah. The shores of Lake Michigan. I feel like I'm that meme of what your job is, and what your friends think you do, and your family thinks you do, and your coworkers think you do. And I'm hitting the stereotype right now at camping, but I think it's only the second time I've been camping in the last two years because it's been a busy run.Stephanie Postles:Wow. I was thinking, I'm like, "This must be Nathan's thing.Nathan:No.Stephanie Postles:He's out in the woods living his best outdoor life to really get the brand right."Nathan:Yeah, for sure.Stephanie Postles:That's fun. Sherper's is an outdoor retailer, fourth generation family owned and operated, and I want to hear all about the background, starting back in like 1935, because we haven't had on many companies that have been family owned and operated for that long. And your company especially seems like it's gone through many transformations and changes over the years. And I was hoping you can start with the story and what was Sherper's doing back in the '30s?Nathan:1935, it was opened up by my great-grandfather, Sam, and it was actually a men's haberdashery. So it was church ware, it was like top hats and canes and suits, and that's what they sold.Stephanie Postles:I didn't know what haberdashery was, I literally Googled it. I was like, "What is this word?"Nathan:Yeah. That's what it started out as. And then my grandfather and his brother, they fought in World War II, I believe it was. And when they came back, there was just a ton of army Navy surplus because the government was selling off all the uniforms and the gear and everything, and you can buy it really, really inexpensive at auctions. So they thought it would be a good idea to buy all this stuff up, bring it back and sell it. And that was when the camping boom started, and a lot of the stuff that the military was using because they were basically camping, they bought that all up and sold it to people in Wisconsin to go camping.Nathan:And so it was a surplus store probably from the '50s really up until today, we still carry surplus, but then we started to transition to more of a general outdoor store, I would say, in the '90s and picked up brands like Columbia and Eureka tents and some of the more name brand camping, brands that we know of today.Stephanie Postles:Awesome. So you entered the business in 2015, or is that when you officially became [inaudible]?Nathan:Yes. That's when [inaudible] I came back at my first day on the job was when I was 12 because I really, really wanted to work. And I worked in a store location where my aunt was running the store and first day I had to go around the store and write on a note pad, every single product that we carried. And if I didn't know what it was, we had to go back through the store and my aunt had to tell me what it did. And then after I did that, she made me clean the toilets. So that was my very first day on the job. But worked throughout high school as a summer job. Once at college had a six year run in corporate America at Abercrombie and Fitch. And then after that came back into the family business and then the role I'm currently in now.Stephanie Postles:Okay, cool. Did you always know that you were going to come back and be a part of the business again? Or were you like one of those people, it's like, I'm not doing the family thing, I'm off to do my own thing for awhile?Nathan:It was always in the back of my mind. I thought it would be a really cool thing. There was zero pressure from my family to come back into it, if anything, I think they were like, go and do your own thing. Because I think sometimes you want the opposite for your kids of what you had. So I think my dad was like I wish there might've been something outside of the family business. I wonder what I could have done. So he said, "Go explore that." But I did that for six years and I loved my corporate American job. I learned a lot of things, but really I just wanted to have something that was more entrepreneurial. And if I succeeded, it was because of me. And if I failed, it was because of me. And what better business to go back into, because it had been established, but it needed some things to continue on into the next generation and yeah, I just never looked back and it's been a great choice.Stephanie Postles:Yeah. That's very cool. So thinking about a company that's been around for so long, I'm sure there are a lot of lessons and themes that you guys look back on where you're like, wow, this is what kept us running. Because thinking about like staying running for that long and staying relevant, it seems very difficult. So what lessons or theme did you guys have around the business that maybe it's still true today?Nathan:I think it's kind of cliche, but customer service first and foremost. We've always been small. We've been like that small mom and pop shop, and being able to do things that maybe some small mom and pop shops can't do, but I've always had that mentality where we know customers' names, can go out of our way for customers. I think that's been one of the biggest things for us as we've stayed true to who we are over the 86 years of business.Stephanie Postles:Yeah. Cool. So you guys did not have an ecommerce presence five years ago right? When you entered into the business, were you just strictly retail?Nathan:We were pretty much strictly retail. I think we were doing like 0.01% on ecommerce. We had a website, there were a couple items up there. But it really wasn't a focus just because it was going to be a huge investment. We had to have somebody who knew what they're doing and run it and then just the technology and the labor behind it, it was going to be a huge leap of faith. It wasn't anything that I think my dad and my brothers in the business with me were willing to do at that point until we set up a plan and trying to figure out what the best jump into it was going to beStephanie Postles:What did the early days of strategizing look like to try and convince people to come on that journey with you and show them that this is a good way to go?Nathan:Yeah. One of our store managers was the one who did the first website. He learned how to do the backend things of the website and build product. So we had him a couple hours a day off the floor building that, putting product up. And we really got to the point where I was like, "Okay I think if nothing else, we need a website that shows the product that we carry in the stores, because for the local people, that's where they're going to first, especially for big ticket items, like a kayak or a tent. They might not be buying it online, but they're going to research it online before they come into the store. For me that was the first step, is we at least need to get the shelves stocked on the website and show the product that we have. Once I realized that could be step one, and if we sold 20 more kayaks a year, it was going to be worth the investment that we put into it, I hired somebody full time for the website and I've never looked back from there.Stephanie Postles:That's great. So now are you more 50/50 with like retail versus ecommerce sales? Or what does it look like today a couple of years later?Nathan:In 2020, we're almost exactly 50/50 again, coming from less than a percent five years ago.Stephanie Postles:Wow. Very cool. And I'm guessing the whole pie also increased. It wasn't like, "Oh it cannibalized retail-Nathan:No.Stephanie Postles:... now you're getting more access."Nathan:Yeah. If anything, I think it helped local retail again, just letting people in our area know what we have to come into the store for it. It was easy for them to research something on Amazon, but then if they were just like, "Oh, I'll buy it on Amazon rather than coming to the store. Now, we've got the website that they can research it on our site and either come into the store or buy. So I think the local market it's helped especially with COVID for people who still wanted to shop with us when we're closed. It absolutely helped. And then it opened up the infinite market share of the internet basically.Stephanie Postles:Yeah. So then you had to start finding new acquisition channels to connect with people online where maybe you're used to the more local scene, like bringing people into the retail locations. Tell me a bit about how you had to shift your mindset around gathering new customers that maybe you weren't tapping into before, or even knew how to connect with?Nathan:Yeah, I think it happened organically. We didn't really do a lot of paid advertising. Initially we had a pretty good social presence that we were doing and I think the product of the website was really good, but we really didn't do a whole lot of paid advertising right away. And I think for us, it was finding niche markets online that we could play in. And we've been a store that's always carried unique and hard to find items, and it was trying to figure out what those unique and hard to find items were online that people would come to our site, experience our site, like it, and then maybe come back for something that wasn't quite as niche because they had a good experience with us.Stephanie Postles:What are some unique and hard to find products? I'm trying to imagine, like in the outdoor world and like what's unique.Nathan:Yeah. I think we had like some ... I think a lot of it was at first we were a surplus store and that was Army Navy surplus, but it was almost like how can we transfer that to current goods? And maybe it was a last year model of tents or maybe it was a last year color of a Patagonia something, and we had that and we might be the only one that had it left. We could probably offer it at a discount because we might have bought it at a discount as an overstock, and I think that brought a lot of people in initially and it's still part of our business model. Not all customers need the latest and greatest of something. Even in the outdoor space for things are fairly technical, it doesn't change a whole lot your year over year. So if we could offer that value to our customer of something that REI didn't have, or another big player didn't have that drew people to our website just like it has our stores.Stephanie Postles:Yep. You guys have a lot of good brand partners. Did that get accelerated once you had an ecommerce presence, or did you always have a lot of partnerships even before that?Nathan:We had a lot of great partnerships honestly. Even some of the bigger brands we work with are still family owned and operated businesses, so we kind of always had that tie. But I would say the businesses that we had the best relationship with are the ones that we grew online, the ones where we could sit down at a show or have a meeting and say, "Okay, here's your business strategy? Here's our business strategy. How do they align? What can we do?" And those conversations have resulted in growing the business with some of those brands 10, 20 times over in the last couple of years.Stephanie Postles:Yeah. The one thing I'm thinking about is like with a company that has a bunch of products and brands that they're curating and selling, how do you keep your customer to keep coming back to you? I'm imagining, okay, I go and I buy a Patagonia jacket from you guys, and I had a great experience, but then maybe in I don't know, three or five years when I want a new one, how do you make sure that I remember you instead of just going to Patagonia and just buying directly from them?Nathan:Yeah. We have all the traditional things where we'll put a thank you 10 coupon in the box, and tell a little bit of the Sherper's history. We'll get them on our email blast. We'll try to get them to follow social media. But I think the big thing is again the customer service piece of it. Our ecommerce team is two people, so you're going to get somebody who knows what they're talking about. They've been with the company for a long time now. If there's an issue, sometimes it gets bubbled up to me and I'm actually dealing with the customer. It's still that there's a face to the name when you're dealing with us, and I think people appreciate that. If you look at our Google reviews, anything that has to do with online, they're like, "Wow. I was actually able to talk to a person. I was actually able to talk to a person who had used this tent.Nathan:I was actually able to talk to a person who could fix my issue." I always want to stay in that sweet spot where we're still that small local family owned and operated, I think no matter how big we get online, that has to still be there. And I think if we were ever sacrificing that for volume, we would lose part of our competitive advantage. I don't think I would ever want to do that.Stephanie Postles:Yeah. I love how you guys lean into the story and go all the way back to the early days of like how it started. I want you to tell a bit about the name and what happened, of like why your last name does not match the company's name, and just like how you lean into that story to really ... Yeah to me, it sells the vision of the company and makes me connect more than I would with maybe another brand that doesn't have that same kind of story.Nathan:Yeah. So that's one of our favorite stories [inaudible] customers too. So my last name is spelled S-C-H-E-R-P-E-R, Scherper, and the store is S-H-E-R-P-E-R. And the story goes that when my great grandpa's Sam went to open up the first store location, the last thing he bought was the sign, but he didn't have enough money left for a sign that would fit enough letters for the full, last name. So he dropped the C from the name and it's been the same way ever since. And for us, like that resonates with me, because I just think of like my grandpa and my dad just being super frugal and watching expenses, and making sure that you're not overextending yourself. It's evolution not revolution as we go forward.Nathan:So like that sticks with me and then even just our surplus nature and off-price nature, sometimes it doesn't need to be perfect. What is the cost benefit of entering into something? It might not be the best and brightest, but does it work and can you afford it? Okay. Go for it. And so that resonates with me too. We have a section of our store that we're just starting too, that we're going to call The Lost C. It's the C that we dropped from the name and it's our clearance and off-price section in the store to play up just that savings mentality.Stephanie Postles:That's great.Nathan:It's been a message that stuck with me, for sure.Stephanie Postles:Yeah. It's fun that you're finding new ways to incorporate the story and not changing it, but finding new marketing ways to sell the story and connect with the consumer now, that might be a little bit different than what people wanted to hear about back in the '30s and '40s. How do you find ways to capitalize on that and sell it in a way that is still is highlighting your company and the great products you have, but also is making sure people continue to hear about what's behind the company? And like you said, the clearance thing, that's such a good marketing tactic and would easily pulled me into this story where a lot of people don't have that advantage.Nathan:Yeah, so I think, again, it's just like, we are a small locally owned and operated store, and that's always been a message, I think as of late, and especially during COVID I think that was a message. But I think people realize that they can get a different level of service from them than they can the Amazon's of the world. And like, yes, Amazon is always going to win, or most of the time they're going to win on the speed, but they're not going to do certain things. And one of the things that happened during COVID that we had always done, but we played up is we sell canoes and kayaks while we were shut down, we did free delivery of all our canoes and kayaks within a 25 mile radius around the store. And actually it ended up probably being 100 or 200 miles in some cases, and my brother and I just delivered boats to people.Stephanie Postles:Oh my gosh.Nathan:To keep things going, we had a one trailer, we bought another trailer, and as people were buying boats, we said, "Okay, yeah, we'll be there tomorrow. If you buy it now I'll have your boat there tomorrow. You don't have to come to the store. You don't have to worry about the rack for your car. Pay over the phone and it'll be there tomorrow." And Amazon can't do that. Walmart can't do that. There are places that can't do that. So us being small and flexible and being able to do that, that's still, I think how we can win and have that competitive advantage.Stephanie Postles:Yeah. And how many retail locations do you all have right now?Nathan:We have three brick and mortar. We had two when I started and we opened up a third in 2018.Stephanie Postles:Okay. Next I'm thinking about you and your brother trying to deliver all these boats and that's wild. It also seems like you have to have employees of a certain mindset. Even when you're talking about the store owner or manager who was like doing your website, that seems like such a different employee than maybe other retail locations have access to.Nathan:Yeah.Stephanie Postles:Or delivering boats.Nathan:You hit it on the head. That's exactly it. Everybody's day is different every single day, especially as the owner and president my day changes all the time, but our ecommerce person, if we get 16 pallets of deliveries in one day and we've got to fit them in the background, she's down there unpacking boxes. If somebody is out sick and on the ecommerce team, my manager is filling in. So everybody knows what to do, and that can be frustrating sometimes because it pulls you away from work. I'm not going to say employees are always super happy that they're working on one thing, they get pulled to another, but they're always willing to do it. And that's really how I hired and how the people that have succeeded with us are just willing to do anything on any given day. And we've reaped the benefits from it because there's never, "Oh, that's not my job or I wasn't trained to do that." It's just, okay, this is our company, this is our business. I'll do whatever it takes.Stephanie Postles:Yeah. How are you sourcing and recruiting people like that? Because a lot of people will come into an interview and say, "Oh yeah, I'll do whatever it takes." But then when it gets down to it, I don't think everyone does. So how do you identify that in someone? What kind of qualities are you looking for? What questions are you looking for that'll find people who are new scrappy and have grit and ready to get their hands dirty, but then also be placed wherever. Like what are you looking for?Nathan:Yeah. I think part of it is like we've had some long-time employees. So just yesterday we celebrated the 20th anniversary of one of our employees. He started when he was 55 now he's 75. We've had people for a long time. We've got another employee that's been there for 25 years that are not family members, and a lot of family members have been there for awhile. But I think everybody else is ... I've always hired on personality. I think you can train people most things that they need to know, or if somebody is really a go getter, they can train themselves on something. I think it has been personality. Our ecommerce person as we were going with, she was one of the first people that I didn't really know, and had met off of a job recruiting website, but the interview went really, really well and I liked her.Nathan:She worked for us for about a year and she really liked it. She said, "My husband's thinking of a new career, would there be something at Shepers that you think would work for him?" And I was like, well, I had met him a couple times, and I was like, "Yeah, let's talk." And he was a great guy. She was obviously awesome for me and married to him. So I was like, yeah, let's hire him. We'll figure out something for him to do. He ended up managing like our shipping and receiving department. He's now transitioning over to our website and some of our third party marketplaces. It's just been finding the person and then saying, "Okay, what is your skillset? What are you willing and able to do? And here's the job and it's probably going to change next year, and as long as you're willing to do that, we'll keep growing."Stephanie Postles:Yeah. I love that. It's more focused on yeah personality and mindset, and as long as you can learn, you'll be good, so yeah [inaudible]. Hang on one sec. When you're thinking about ... When I go back to like COVID questions, which I've avoided those, but for you guys, it seems relevant because outdoors expanded a ton, everyone was doing outdoors things. I'm sure you guys grew a ton. What were some of the challenges this past year and a half or so around probably getting a lot more interest in sales and new customers coming in and inventory things? What kind of challenges did you guys experience?Nathan:Yeah. Like to take one step back, the first challenge was March of last year, are we going to be around for another year? I think that was the big thing. I had a date on the calendar where it was like, okay, if we can't do the revenue that I'm expecting us to do what we're going to do. And then all of a sudden it was with this boat thing, I was talking about the deliveries. I was going into the store and just doing some things at the store, paying bills and get ready for when we would open up, and the phone was ringing off the hook and it was ... I was just so upset that I couldn't reach those customers, so I ended up having the phone at the store rerouted to my cell phone, so I was getting all the calls.Nathan:All of a sudden I was like every day somebody was like, "Do you sell kayaks? Do you sell kayaks? Do you sell kayaks?" And for me it clicked. It was like, "Oh my god, this is all anybody has been to want to do is go outside." So probably two, three weeks in the lockdown, I was like, "Okay, we need to beef up. We need to go after this inventory." I hadn't canceled any of my orders because I didn't want to do that to my vendor partners. I wanted to see what was going to happen. And then all of a sudden I got on the phone with them and I was like, I want to double my order. And all of them were like, are you crazy?Nathan:Like everybody is canceling their orders right now. And I was like, no, this is going to explode. So it was just getting all that inventory in. Luckily we had the inventory to do it because there was a couple bike stores in my town that they were out of bikes by the first week they opened up. So although the industry was doing well, they couldn't get the inventory and they had to basically shut their stores down again because they didn't have anything. By that, like, "Okay I want to know what people are calling about. I want to know what my customer wants." Like, that's always something that we put at the forefront. And when I found that out, I was like, "Okay, we've got to double down on this."Stephanie Postles:Yeah. Do you think that would have been something you would've learned from maybe your customer support team or other employees, or is that something where you were like, you really just need to get in there and get your hands dirty for maybe twice a week, every quarter, have calls come to you, so you hear the trends and can stay on top of things?Nathan:I think both. I think I have a great team and I think they use their ... They're all super, super intelligent people and a lot of times bring stuff to me that I'm not saying. I think that it probably wouldn't come to me, but I think experiencing it myself, especially in a time with so much uncertainty and especially when everybody was worrying about everything, I don't know if an employee would have come to me and been like, "The phone's ringing off the hook, you should order more kayaks when you're not generating any revenue and paying us all our paycheck right now." I don't know if anybody would have come and told me that. I think in that specific instance, I might've not have had the confidence to say, "Okay, let's go after this." If I hadn't done it myself.Stephanie Postles:Did you experience any issues with like the supplier running out of inventory? Because it seems like it's such a [inaudible] of like sure you can order more, but then if they didn't order more of their parts and they were maybe planning for a pullback that could also negatively impact you guys.Nathan:Yeah. Honestly, I would say it's impacting us more this year because we're finally feeling it. I think I was able to scoop up a lot of the inventory that maybe people canceled last year and we were able to get, and then I think when everybody realized it there was ... the industry boomed and I think those suppliers probably didn't have as much on order as they thought. And then just everything that's happening with shipping and logistics and the nightmares that are going on right now with that, it's been tougher to get inventory. It's finally catching up to us, but I think since we were the ones who supported those companies before and supported our vendors before and have good relationships over the past years, they're definitely doing everything they can for us. Whereas some other retailers might not be getting quite the same treatment and I'm super appreciative of that.Stephanie Postles:What are you planning for, for the next couple of years now that I feel like you were a little bit ahead just because you were able to see what your customers wanted, you jumped on it really quickly. Now, I'm like, well, let's peek into the future. What are you guys planning for now in terms of [inaudible]?Nathan:I think luckily we were already doing a lot of the things that the big guys are trying to pivot to, like the buy online pickup in store, or the ship from store. Like we didn't have a distribution center so we shipped from store. We pulled product off the store and we shipped from store. So all of that stuff that has these fancy names and acronyms, we were already doing just out of necessity. Curbside pickup we were already doing. "Yeah. Okay yeah. We'll take something onto the parking lot, and put it in your truck." We've always done that. I think that stuff, I think we're going to be set for.Nathan:I think it's just looking for, from the ecommerce side, I think it just additional channels to sell, and things are changing so rapidly just with different marketplaces and how you can sell on social media, and just making sure we keep up with that and making sure that the brands that we do have good relationships with, are we doing them the best service? Is their product getting out there in all the different ways that Sherper's can get it out there and continue to grow with them that way?Nathan:I think that's going to be a big piece. And then for us being small independent retail stores in small local communities, I think we're going to see a boom when everybody feels like it's safe to go back out and shop again. I think, yeah, maybe people aren't going to go back to Walmart or Walgreens or those places quite as much because they learn they can buy online and get their necessities there. But I think the like, "Oh, it's a nice sunny Saturday, let's go shopping in one of our towns and hop around and go eat at the local restaurant." Like I think we're going to see a resurgence of that too. So I think some of the more mom and pop small downtown middle America stores are going to see a little bit of a resurgence. I'm excited to see that too.Stephanie Postles:There's definitely a lot of pent up demand I think for people wanting to get back in person and be together and experience going to a store and being able to see the curated collections and doing all the things that they haven't been able to do in a while. How are you all thinking about creating that environment or maybe you just leaning back into it when you haven't done it for a little while and doing new things?Nathan:Yeah. I think it's leaning back into it, and I think even just like ... We had decent traffic in our stores. We've got fairly big stores and they're never super crowded, so we've had a decent amount of people come back even after the lockdown. But I think just leaning back into that customer service and just like dealing with real life human beings, I think like everybody's getting zoom fatigue and a little bit of work from home fatigue. Like, yeah, it's nice, and yeah we might want to continue on with it a couple of days a week, but we don't want to be sitting in our underwear at our desk on Zoom five days a week. Like we want to go back to a little bit of normalcy with that. So I think it's the same thing.Nathan:Like, okay, yeah, Amazon was great. The getting grocery delivery was great, but like it's also great to go into a store and talk to somebody who knows what they're talking about, and maybe they talk to you into something that you weren't necessarily thinking. You thought you wanted this tent, but after talking through it with a human being, who's been in the tent, who can tell you their stories of why they like something, that experience you maybe haven't been having over the last couple months. I think just again, leaning back into that is going to be key for us.Stephanie Postles:Yeah, I agree. It makes me think of this one show I watched, I think the guy is like Tim Allen's the name. It was like the whole outdoor world show and they, it reminds me of I forget what the other store is, but I'm not obviously big in outdoor stores, but you walk in there and it's like a thing where you're like, I'm going to spend, it's like Costco. I'm going to come in an hour to walk through this store and see all the new products and talk to people, like I'm committed when I go into stores like that. And yeah, I love thinking about like different partnerships and events and just where the world could be in another, hopefully six months to where we can get back out there and explore again.Nathan:Yeah, absolutely.Stephanie Postles:When you've been going through this ecommerce journey, launching a website, like what are some lessons that you've gotten from going through that experience these past couple of years and what are you doing differently now?Nathan:Yeah, that's a good question. I don't know. I think I've always been like, we need to evolve, I want to evolve, but I've been cautious as we jump into stuff. And I think the biggest thing was trying to figure out what's the investment going to be, and if it doesn't work out what would the effect be on the business? If we through X amount of dollars at something, and that never came back in, what would that happen? And I think ... in one sense, I think it's been good because we've been cautious and the things that haven't worked out that haven't hurt us that much, and the things that have worked out have been awesome, but just continuing to seek those things out and understand what they are, and it's something that just knowing that different things are out there, and are potentials and possibilities is important. So doing as much research as I can in what might help us grow, especially from the ecommerce standpoint.Stephanie Postles:Yeah. So what experiments haven't worked out and what things are you betting big on right now that you're excited about?Nathan:I think the one thing that we did is we went fairly heavy into pay digital advertising at some point and we still do it, but I think ... kind of like we were talking about how can we win against the Patagonia selling direct or Patagonia and REI? Well, we went after that one point and pretty quickly I realized we can't compete. Like we don't have the advertising budget to compete on Patagonia's number one jacket. I think that was probably one of the biggest lessons that we entered into and said, "Okay, although that's working for some of the big guys and people are ... the Google shopping ads are huge for some people that wasn't going to work for us. I think that was probably the biggest learning. I think for us, it's looking at just technology, that's going to help us scale, and help us still have the service level.Nathan:We do still have the feel that we do, but be able to handle some of the backend logistics. I think that's the biggest thing we've made. Last year we made a decent amount of investment in it, and then coming out of COVID, we've made a little bit more investment in some of those things, just to have us be able to handle the volume that we saw over the past year.Stephanie Postles:Yeah. Are you looking into different types of content? Because to me that feels like a more level playing field now where you can compete against the bigger brands, because it's essentially like who's more creative? Who has the better TikTok videos? Who can hone in their community and their tribe to follow them wherever they go? How have you guys thought about things like that maybe aren't as costly and you can actually [crosstalk]?Nathan:Yeah. I think that's like the biggest low hanging fruit for us. We do a good job with social media, just posting and feeling very authentic and natural. But it's not something we spend a ton of time on. I think it's always like an afterthought and we have Facebook, we have Instagram, but we really haven't started up Snapchat or TikTok. And our customer demographic, at least in the stores has always been a little bit older, so it was like, okay, if we do that most of our customers are going to laugh. They don't even know what TikTok is. But it's how can we get that next customer in, now when we're expanding into the ecommerce world there's a whole huge untapped market there.I think that's a low hanging fruit for us and something that we talk about a lot.Nathan:I think at some point that'll probably become somebody's full-time job. Again, I think that's one of those things, okay, do we want to hire somebody on, have another salary on the books for social media manager? Or can we get by and have everybody do it a little bit? And then what's worked for me in the past is at some point we'll be like, "Okay, this isn't working. We're at the point where we can see we're getting the returns on it. I don't have enough time to do it anymore. My ecommerce manager doesn't have the time to do it anymore. My warehouse manager, who was helping out a little bit doesn't have time anymore, so okay. We need to invest in this person." And we've been lucky because every time we've done that, we'd find the perfect end individual for that. So yeah, I would say in the next year or so I could see that happening for sure.Stephanie Postles:I'm imagining a whole screenplay of like your guys' story and starting up and changing the business, and going through its ups and downs, and it seems like a catchy ... a good product placement type of piece of content to create that would be evergreen and yeah continue to have returns for a long time just because the story is so different than [crosstalk] other brands.Nathan:Absolutely.Stephanie Postles:I love that. Also, yeah. It's fun thinking about all your employees chipping in. Like your warehouse manager doing social media and stuff or whatever it may be, that's great. Did you have to change your backend logistics once you went into the world of ecommerce? Before it sounded like you were pretty local based and you were shipping from your stores. Once you have orders coming in from Florida and California and Seattle, like, how did you think about adjusting your backend to meet those needs?Nathan:Yeah, absolutely. I think it was ... A lot of, it was like research and setting some of those things right away, but usually it was, a problem would occur and we'd be like, "Okay, there's got to be a solution out there to fix this problem." And nine times out of 10, there was, because somebody had experienced it before us because we were a little bit later to the game. But there was a lot that went into it. I think it was 10 years ago that we computerized the business before that it was just like an old register, like there was nothing. There was no inventory, anything like that. So that was before I came in. But that was the first big thing is that we actually computerized everything. And then when I came in, it was switching over our website hosts.Nathan:That was a big thing for us, and our stock and stores didn't sync with our stock online. So working with our point of sale system. We've got a great point of sale system that it's a small, independently owned and operated thing. So if we want anything, we go to him and say, "Hey, we need this to work with this. Can you do it?" And nine times out of 10, again, he's able to do that, so that's been great for us. It was syncing that stock right away. And then I think a lot of it then was on the backend of, okay, how do we manage all these orders coming in from different places with stock being in different store locations, and some of the software that's out there as been great for us, but that had been some of the bigger investments in the last year.Nathan:Especially as volume went up because there were times where you could limp along and we were okay and we weren't making the stakes, but all of a sudden if we were going shipping five packages in my smallest store location to 30 packages a day and there's only two or three employees who are working there, it needs to be as simple as possible to be able to keep up with that. So it's something that came out of necessity.Stephanie Postles:Yeah. Now that you're quite a few years in, if you were to look back from when you're first starting out, what advice would you give yourself from [crosstalk] you know now?Nathan:It's going to be harder than you think it is. I think like-Stephanie Postles:Always.Nathan:I thought it was going to come into this and I was like, "Okay I've got my experience from corporate retail. There's things that like the business is not doing. We're a little bit antiquated. All I have to do is like build a website and then sail off into the sunset and it'll be great. And it was a lot more work than I thought it was. And the corporate world is stressful because you don't have control over everything. But so like it wore on me after a while, but I think having your own business there's things that are better about it, but then there's also things that are a lot more stressful about it. So like when COVID hits, having to worry about like all my employees paying their mortgage and do I keep paying them their paycheck, and things that you just don't worry about when you work for a big corporation. Like the worst thing that can happen is you get laid off and you have a good resume and you go on and you get your next job.Nathan:I think that's been something that I didn't really think ... I knew about it, but I didn't think it was going to be as impactful as it had been over the last five years.Stephanie Postles:Yep. Yeah. It's definitely way different.Nathan:Yes.Stephanie Postles:I as well came from the corporate world and yeah, running a company and having to think about employees and when things aren't going great sometimes, being like, oh this is so hard. Trying to figure out what's the right thing to do, and oftentimes not having a playbook and yeah, it's a struggle.Nathan:And sometimes you don't have as many people to bounce ideas off of, and it's your decision at the end of the day. And if you choose wrong, it comes back to you. I had said that earlier, that's one of the reasons that I wanted to leave corporate America, but that's a tough 11 o'clock PM decision sometimes, and sleep on it one night and then you got to go and buck stops at you so ...Stephanie Postles:Yeah. Yes, I feel that. Were there things that Abercrombie that you learned that you brought into the business, or you're like now I've been in a whole different well, I guess omnichannel world selling online retail, like a big brand. Is there things that you picked up from there that you tried to incorporate into Sherper's?Nathan:For sure. I was a merchant there is what they call it, and it's basically a hybrid between a ... you work with the design team and manufacturer all the clothing, so basically from the sketch phase to when it actually gets sewn in the factory. That whole process was me and then basically the buying. So all the buying really helped out all the retail math and knowledge of how to look at things, and what reports to pull and things like that, that really helped out. But then from that like manufacturing standpoint, that helped me out too. We have some private label goods, so again, being unique and getting what our customer wants. We have a few tents and backpacks and down jackets and things like that, that with some of that experience that we had, I was able to work with some of my vendor partners and manufacturer that and get things that maybe aren't in the market.Nathan:It's not maybe something that's going to sell really well in Denver, Colorado, or Seattle, Washington, where some of these big outdoor retailer companies are based, but in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, this is all anybody wants. So I could go out manufacturer, bring it there, and some of those things have been my best selling items in the store. So that was definitely something that was a big benefit from having that experience at Abercrombie.Stephanie Postles:Yeah. That's really cool. Is that something like the white label products? Is this something you're going to lean into more over the coming years?Nathan:Yeah, I think so. And as we've been able to scale, and as we've been able to scale ecommerce like that's really helped out with it, because in order to do that, you need to order minimum order quantities. So when we were only two brick and mortar stores to 1,000 jackets, that was a huge order and that might last us two or three years, so we wouldn't really see the returns on that right away. But now being three brick and mortar stores and opening up the ecommerce side of it, I can do some more of that private label because I have some in the more buying power behind it, so I can see us expanding on that for sure.Stephanie Postles:Very cool. All right, well let's jump over to the lightning round. The lightning round is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I'm going to ask a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready, Nathan?Nathan:I'm ready.Stephanie Postles:Okay. If you had a podcast, what would it be about and who is your first guests be?Nathan:That's a good one. I think it would be about like mental health. I think that's a topic that's become bigger and bigger over the last couple of years, and I think it's important. And I think maybe not as like self-help, but I think just talking about how people deal with certain careers and certain lifestyles, and people who don't have a care in the world, and people who all they do is have panic attacks. I think just talking about how people cope with different things. And somebody ... I'm not a huge basketball fan, but Kevin Love is somebody ... He's a basketball player who's been really outspoken about his mental health and just how he deals with being in the spotlight and having a stressful job. It's not maybe a doctor, but to have everybody's eyes on you and everybody counting on you, he talks about that a lot, and it's cool to see just different people's mindsets.Nathan:So I think he would be somebody that I'd have on and just talk through the process of how do you live life? How do you set your life up for success both personally and professionally, and what makes you tick? I think that would be my focus for sure.Stephanie Postles:Yep. That sounds good. What's the nicest thing anyone's ever been for you?Nathan:Ooh, that's a good one. I would say probably the, just like the support of my wife. She's in the other room right now and letting me do this. We're on our first day of vacation, so we got married ... We got engaged, married, and now we're pregnant in the last 365 days.Stephanie Postles:Wow congratulations. That's interesting.Nathan:Yeah. So I think just like the sport, especially over this year, just being there for me, it's being the spouse of somebody that has their own businesses is probably the hardest job, and the second hardest job is having your own business. I think just like being there for me and being that support system has been awesome.Stephanie Postles:Yeah, it's so needed when running your own company.Nathan:Yeah, for sure.Stephanie Postles:What's one thing you don't understand today that you wish you did?Nathan:Cryptocurrency. I get it, but I'm just curious of how it's going to impact retail. I think just how that evolves and what happens there, and if that's the next big wave of something that really has a huge impact on retail. It'll be interesting to see that, and it's something that I need to keep my finger on the pulse to see what's going on with it, because it is so abstract to me.Stephanie Postles:Yep. Yeah. That's a good one. And the last one, what one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year?Nathan:I think probably shipping and logistics. I think just the cost of it and the complexity of it, and just how that's evolving. I think what you're seeing with Amazon taking on more of their shipping and logistics and continuing to build out warehouse centers. I know Walmart, I think has the patent on a floating blimp distribution center where the drones are flying out of it. I think just what happens in that in the next couple of years is going to have a huge impact on pricing, and profitability, and what consumers are expecting. I think that's going to be the biggest thing this year and probably in the next five years too.Stephanie Postles:All right, Nathan. Well, this has been such a fun chat. Where can people find out more about you and Sherper's?Nathan:Yeah. So sherpers.com. We also have a sister site that's called mkeblades.com. It's where we have all of our knives. That was something that I learned when it came to the store. There's a lot of knife collectors out there, so we have our outdoor hunting knives you would use, but just as people collect coins or cars or anything like that, they love knives as well, so we've got that side as well. And then otherwise we've got three brick and mortar store locations in a triangle around Milwaukee. So if you're ever in the Milwaukee area, absolutely look us up.Stephanie Postles:Cool. I want to come. That sounds fun. Thanks so much for joining us.Nathan:Thank you.

Nathan: Lacy. I've been noticing lately that a lot of folks are struggling and I had this sneaking suspicion that you might have something helpful to say to folks.Lacy: Hmm,Nathan: So do you.Lacy: do I have something helpful? Say folks who are struggling? Um, me too. Amy can say that you're not alone. there's a wonderful Quaker phrase called you know, this holding center. meaning that we're, you know, we're noticing that we are deepening in Christ and that we are, stable, but the storm is raging around us.Nathan: It's a unique storm and has been for you guys. Can, can you share a little about that with Doug and son?Lacy: Yeah. I'm, I'm married to an emergency room physician. he, serves our community and our local hospital. so that's meant that since March. We've had, a unique experience. Well, actually not unique, you know, worldwide, there's lots of healthcare workers. We've had this experience, of what it looks like to weather this storm.with this second, third, I don't know what they're calling this new, increase in COVID cases. we've had to really reconsider what our faithfulness looks like in this season.  So we, Doug and I were not sleeping in the same bed. We're all living in the same house.He has so far declined to sleep in the greenhouse. And I'm sleeping on a blow up mattress in the living room.Nathan: Yeah. Yeah.Lacy: yeah. And it's been, it's been hard for our kids. For our, our youngest daughter is still at home with us. It's been very difficult for her.Nathan: What's her struggle been?Lacy: You know, and I, I just want to say, I did ask her permission to make sure it was okay. That I, I talked a little bit about it, but, we're a bit of an anomaly in our community.We've been super careful. We live next door to my parents. And we just want to be super careful. So lots of the adults we've always had this belief, that it takes a whole lot of people to raise children. Don't have it all.Nathan: Wait a minute. You, you wrote a book about children. You're you're not the expert. You're not, you're not the mom of the year.Lacy: Good gracious. Absolutely not. Um, so yeah, we've sort of, had community around us and some of our community their faithfulness has looked like different, different levels of restrictions than ours. And so that's brought up big conversations in our house. In a really vulnerable act -- again I have asked her permission -- she said, you know, mom, all of these adults that have had spoken into my life all of these years, some of them, many of them, don't have the same level of  attention to this as you and dad do. She said, I'm wondering if, if you and dad are crazy. And I was  really grateful that she could give me her really true feelings, how she feels about this. And I felt really isolated and alone.Nathan: What'd you say?Lacy: I think one, lots of people are feeling this and lots of teenagers are feeling this. If we think of Dallas, Willard's different dimensions of the person and he talks about, and one is social context. Well, the main way that adolescents, one of the main dimensions of the self that they're engaging is their social context.And so they in this season have not had that, or they've had it in different ways and, and that's created a loss within them. And for sure they are feeling that. So I could hear that in her conversation with me.  And I needed to be able to, in that moment -- we were driving, which is a great place, can I say to talk, is to give them some space and, you know, as long as you can keep it on the road, it's a good place that they feel free to talk. And I was, I felt really grateful that she could talk to us about it. I felt like it was our faithfulness to continue in the path what looks like for us to love our neighbor well, which means that she, she couldn't do, she can't do all the social things that she's wanted to do and is so conditioned to doing. And I had to make space for her to be angry about it,that anger in this season lands with me.Nathan: yeah. Holding center. What does that mean?Lacy: well, practically for me, what does it look like right now? That's praying the Psalms. there's a little Salter that comes  from Paraclete Press, it's called, a book of daily prayer. The Paraclete Psalter. And, and thenNathan: Better than mine?Lacy: Well, it, what it does is it, has you read that throughout the different times of the day, so you have morning, afternoon, evening all of the daily office and you read through the whole Psalter in a month. Which, you know, we're at what, nine months in here. and what I really like about it is that it includes the lamenting Psalms. And so, part of the way that I've been able to hold center is by praying those lamenting Psalms. So that anger that gets pushed on me as a parent, which it happens. Is, I can funnel that into the lamenting Psalms and to God who can handle that. The weight of teenage, frustration and anger, honestly, I'm certainly no mother of the year, it's too much for me to bear. I can funnel it through these lamenting Psalms, and into God and God can handle it.Nathan: That's right. It's worth noting that God allowed certain Psalms in there.Lacy: Oh, yeah. And they're Oh, can I just tell you they're not pretty? One of the other pieces that, where we're having these conversations of consequence in our home too, is that, healthcare workers are exhausted. When their colleagues get sick, you know, they're taking on extra shifts, their shifts are longer in order to take care of patients.At our tiny hospital, the second COVID wing has opened up, the ICU is filling. So healthcare workers are dealing with their own anxiety. And their own faithfulness, you know, they came into this profession wanting to help people. And often our communities, different levels of people's discernment around this can really tick away at their sense of feeling United. So you know that they are all in this together. They can feel like that, that they're fractured from their community and  that can weigh heavy on them.Nathan: I remember sitting in a faculty meeting once and they were talking about bringing the faculty and staff together and kind of building, you know, some sort of community. And my friend was a history professor and his, his specialty was in world war II. He just kind of leans over and he says, well, we need an enemy.That's how you bring people together. There's a common enemy. You know, he was, he was big, somewhat, you know, serious. So what's confused me as I thought at the beginning of a pandemic. And some of these things that, that what we would see is a little of what it seemed like happened during world war II, we're in this together and buying bonds and let's, you know, save flour or whatever to kind of help the cause.And it's really confused me in a sense how that's not happened. And it does seem that some of the greatest divisions are among Christian folks. And, you know, what does church look like and how do we, and then the interactions with each other  have not been good and been really, really destructive.So I'm wondering if you had any, any thoughts about that or any potential ways to move forward or we can move forward.Lacy: I think that our experience as a family that has a healthcare worker as a main member of our family has implications for the division that maybe we feel as a nation. I wonder if Christians could see healthcare workers as fellow human beings. Who longed to have encounters with Christ, even if they can't really verbally articulate that. And the quote keeps coming to mind that we cannot proclaim the good news and be the bad news. So what would it look like, Church, to be the good news? To healthcare workers. And I think that's a, fateful question maybe that we could all live with. What would it look like? Because nurses and techs and doctors and all the folks who, are protecting us. Who are working long hours they're watching. And we can say lots of things. In fact, we write them on posters and we walk them in the streets, but who we are -- that speaks louder than anything else. And I think the next sort of group of people that I have the honor of listening to. And I mean, it, honor, incredible honor, our pastors and educators, and I, get to accompany them in spiritual direction and they're also experiencing incredible divisiveness. Depending on what, the decisions that are being made.  they're meeting resistance on all sides. What would it look like to be the good news to your child's teacher? To the pastor of your church.Nathan: What does it look like for you in this season to be the good news... to love well?Lacy: For us as a family, it means that I'm sleeping on a blowup mattress in the living room. Because my parents live next door. Because of, if Doug gets sick, I don't want to, you know, pass it off somewhere else. To be the good news looks like being vulnerable with people who  find theirselves in a different  place than I am, in terms of what their level of faithfulness is. And, having conversations over zoom, having masked conversations, it means to, for me to actually show up. I've noticed in myself what happens, when I sort of move into that judgmental space. And I mean, it's so easy right now to move there --  it's just so easy. In fact, I feel quite sure that I will, if I listened to this podcast, I'm going to be like, Oh, Lacy.So I almost want to beg forgiveness on the front end. But when I notice I'm moving into that judgmental space, I know that I have moved away from the person in front of me.  it's very difficult to judge up close. and it's easier to judge from a distance. So, you know, I'm, saying if we disagree, can we have a conversation? Can I hear what your point of view, which would you like to hear mine and my experience. I mean, in many ways, this is why I agreed to have the podcast to talk about this a little bit publicly. I want to move in, move closer. So that's vulnerability, moving closer, praying the Psalms. Oh, please definitely pray the Psalms. I thought about taking an Exacto knife and just cutting all the lamenting Psalms up like a little book, just read those, but cutting and pasting is really not my forte. but the other thing that has been a gift, and maybe I can , you know, turn it towards a gift.One of the gifts has been play. We have played more. I have personally played more in this season than I have played in my entire life. I think. Yeah. You know, I was born into a family who knows how to work.I mean, we are workers. I started waiting tables, I bet I was seven when I was, when I could hold plates, hot plates. I learned how to combine work in play, but just flat out play.  It is my youngest daughter who has taught me how to play. And it was out of necessity. It was, we were going to turn on each other and there, and then we were going to have like a homicide of some kind and we didn't do something if we didn't get out of our little house.And so it, it started in the spring and we were outside playing.  I have learned, right now we're out. So we've got a lot of snow this winter and we're out in the snow. We have a dog who had to have her front leg removed last Christmas. Her name is Maggie and she's a border Collie.So she, you know, she moves a lot. She runs the five acres all the time, and it was so difficult for her to learn to walk again without, I mean the back leg, they, they recover quite quickly, but that front leg is such a powerhouse. And she's done a great job moving without it, but I haven't seen her face light up until we got that first snow.And I mean, even as we're talking, I'm watching her outside, running through the snow with those three legs. And I mean, you know, she's hopping with that front leg and that there is just something about snow. That is inviting us to play. And something about Maggie only three legs.  She had cancer. We don't know how much longer we're going to have her with us, but just seeing that playfulness, she puts her nose underneath the snow and throws it up over her back.She kind of burrows down underneath it. She kicks it with her back legs. And it's just really inviting me to play.Nathan: Hmm, that's good.Lacy: And there's, there's something about those two P's right now -- praying the Psalms and Play. And it's again, it's I think it's that intersection of the deep, the deep sorrow of suffering. My grandparents,  got COVID and,  they got it at church.And my grandfather has a CT scan today. There is the very real named losses that are happening right now. And there is an invitation that seems to becoming from God through nature, inviting, inviting me to play.Nathan: Can I tell you about my cat?Lacy: I love cats.Nathan: So I needed a mouse cat. I have this, this barn that I'm working in and it had some mice, so I just need a mouse cat. So, so we, we got this cat that lived on the streets, you know, it was a stray and I didn't think I'd really see him around. You know, skiddish, whatnot. This cat. Oh my goodness. Well, first off it's like a dog.He follows me, like when I take walks, he walks with me and his little tail drags in the snow and he's just the most loving cat and. It has felt like play me and this cat, like we walk around together and I'm doing things around the yard and it, it just has felt like this little companion that God has given me the midst of this.So many adults struggle with play, self included. It's is there any word that you might give to people who hear you say play and they kind of, yes, but I don't know how to do that.Lacy: Yeah. First of all, think back to when you were a child, what did you do in your, in your, when you were very young? That you really enjoyed? Play can involve like a glorious loss of time. So when did you lose track of time and what did you do?Did it have something to do with being outside? Did it have something to do with creating something? Did you lose track of time as you were creating something? Did it have to do with telling jokes? You know, as my grandparents have suffered from COVID the last couple of weeks, this is  my grandparents that are the funniest. I learned to tell my first jokes from this grandmother and, in her deli on 42nd street in Odessa, Texas.  I learned to laugh with her she's hysterical. So we've been talking about all the different jokes that we used to tell and the funny things that happened as we worked in restaurants together over the years.So are there some things that you used to do with people that you love, that, you lost track of time that gave you that sense of being connected with someone bigger than yourself?Nathan: I love this phrase, glorious loss of time.Lacy: And it's not the kind of glorious loss of time that's happening right now in a pandemic. One more like we're on, you know, somebody says what's today's date and it's like, it's March three, four, or whatever.Nathan: That's where you forget, you forget that you're bound to a clock, right. And just, just, Oh my goodness. It's two in the morning. Wow.Lacy: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I am very uncoordinated. I have like low level coordination. But long ago, um, when I was at, I was a teacher at new covenant Christian school in Penfield, New York. And at this charismatic Christian school, in chapel, Wednesday chapels, the kids danced.And I come from a Baptist tradition and no adults don't even dance. Nobody danced. That's Southern Baptist. There are other Baptist traditions that are, are wonderful dancers. This was new to me and the children taught me to praise God and dance at the same time, but the kiddos taught me. So I would say to someone who's like, I'm not sure I know how to play.If there's a child around, ask them to teach you. So this is their mother tongue, and so they can teach you to speak it. So that would be the other. how about trying out dancing? There is a song that's come out of South Africa called the... I think it's called the Jerusalem dance and we found a couple of YouTube videos on it and we're practicing.This is kind of a lot throwback to 1980s line dancing and we're practicing it in our house. It's really kind of a lot of fun. I'm terrible...Nathan: Right. I believe you on both ends. How is play a spiritual act or can it be a spiritual act?Lacy: Oh, absolutely. Play as a spiritual act in many ways. One is that it helps us forget ourselves, but not in the sense of self rejection, but because there, there are, there's sort of two ways to go in forgetting ourself. Forgetting ourselves in freedom, means that we still have a sense of self forgetting ourselves in rejection is separation.So, so play invites us to, forget ourself through self acception. And that means that we're being accept. We receive ourselves as being accepted by God, and we show up with all, all of who we are. So play very much invites us into that. We can set ourself aside because we're fully there. play also helps us to experience unity.One of the ways that my youngest daughter explained unity to me once was, you know, mom, when I'm on the back of, Pepper, that's one of our horses and she's trotting, I know the difference between me and her, and when she moves into a gallop, I know the difference between me and her, but when she breaks into or run, I don't know the difference. And play helps us experience that unity with , often, with God.And with another, that, that we feel that deep sense of being connected. I mean, when we're dancing this Jerusalem dance and we actually nail off, well, we, when I actually nail all the moves Anwen nails and every time there's a sense of glorious unity between us and the Melody and beat of the music, it's it brings incredible amount of joy to us.Nathan: Sometimes when I'm looking at nature and I'll, I'll see a bug or a bird or something, and I'll, I'll just kind of go, you're just playing around. Aren't you like? Like there just feels to be this playfulness in the w there is no reason to make that flower so intricately beautiful. So I  think God plays.Lacy: One way, way that we have played is by watching movies together lately. That's, that is a way play. And we have watched a movie called my octopus friend.Nathan: Oh, I saw thatLacy: Oh, you know, he talks about octopus and how this particular octopus plays. So animals do play. And one of the things that I think play does for us as a spiritual practice as well is it opens us to be learners.I mean, when we have a sense of play, we are not trying to get things perfectly spot on. I mean, our inner compulsion for failure takes a break. And we can learn more. So if we have this sense of play in our lives, then our inner compulsion around getting things exactly right. And I mean, that's true right now in the pandemic.Right. For, for us as a family with a healthcare worker, we can have an inner compulsion, like, you know, where's our mask. you know how much hand sanitizer can one person schlep around town picking up groceries? I mean, we, when we, anyway, we got a bottle of some that smelled terrible. In fact, we all agreed that it smelled like horse manure or so we're walking around feeling like we smell so bad.With this hand sanitizer anyway. So what play can do is to help us lower that compulsion that we're all having right now, wherever your faithfulness lies.Nathan: Lacey, thank you for your vulnerability, sharing your story.Lacy: You asked me in the beginning, what did I want people to know? I think I want people to know the thing that I have wanted to know, which is that you're not alone. We're not alone.Nathan: I'll take it. Thank you friend.Lacy: Thanks.

Nathan: Marlena, tell me about your book.Marlena: Yeah, I'm glad  to talk about this --  The Way Up Is Down. I'd read through the gospels frequently, I should say, listen to them online before I go to bed at night, just to  hopefully absorb the life of Jesus into my life, through listening and, my imagination and mind.And I noticed that a lot of things stood out to me about Jesus.First, that he could have been born in a palace, but he chose to be born poor, which I could identify with because I grew up very poor in my life. And also I was struck by how many times, as people say, he talked about the upside down kingdom: Many of the first will be last and the last shall be first,  and the greatest person in the kingdom will be the servant of all.How  in the upper room where he bowed to wash the disciples feet and he says to those in the room, you don't know what I'm doing now, but later you will. And also Philippians chapter two, where, it talks about, the fancy word kenosis. He emptied himself so that he might be full of God.And so my book basically is about what it would look like to empty ourselves of all that is not Christ so that we can be full of the grace of God and live that way. And, I think it seems to run contrary what we see in the broader Christian culture.And I was so disillusioned with the witness of the church that I wanted to look at the life of Jesus and see and contrast it with how we seem to be collectively living. That said there's a many beautiful saints people that I've met, but I just feel like our witness is not that of Jesus.Nathan: What does it look like to empty ourselves?Marlena: Well, it can be a very difficult thing to do. I know you knew Dallas Willard, but I remember how he would always use the example of not having to have the last word in an argument or when someone put him down, it could be something, I don't want to say as simple as that, because that's difficult, not unleashing our anger on people that we could be justified in unleashing it at, we're in a time where, even, Christians use their words to hammer others, even justifiably so. Like sometimes people do and say things that are horrible and awful online and maybe in-person. And I could see, myself, easily just striking back or if you're attacked, you know, but Jesus tells us in Matthew 5:44 to love our enemies.And so, I empty myself. We empty ourselves, have the right to strike back at people in interpersonal relationships. Of course I'm always careful to tell people that we don't tolerate abuse or allow ourselves to be abused. That's not what I mean, but, I think too in the racial kind of tensions that have continued since the founding of America.Those of us that have privilege and it could be, you know, your racial status, like as a white person, or it could be wealth, Jesus emptied himself of that to serve other people. And that's what it looks like. And it would call for kind of some hard decisions. Like what are we going to do with our money?I remember when I was younger, a teenager or in my early twenties, maybe it's because I didn't have a lot of money, but I could not fathom what Jesus was talking about when he said you will either serve God or money. I'm like, what does he mean? And over the years, that question has been answered.I think that a lot of times the church bows to what money will do instead of doing what's right. You know, and I know it can be a hard decision because some pastors are put in positions, for example, I've I know pastors who've been told if you keep preaching this way or that way, I'm going to take my tithe and take it elsewhere, when they're preaching from scripture and Christian tradition and with the tithe goes, it could be a staff position, you know, depending how much money that person gives.And I just think a lot of times in the church we've chosen to serve money instead of serve others. And that we can kick people that are down, even though I believe it's that Isaiah 42, where he says a bruised reed, he will not break. and it seems sometimes the church is guilty of breaking bruised reeds and hurting the people that Jesus made a beeline to. And those are some of the things I reflect upon in the book, especially that the last will be first.One of my favorite things that I wrote about were the people with intellectual disabilities in my church.just like Lazarus was at the rich man's gate, you know, asking for food and the rich man rendered Lazarus invisible. I think God sends us teachers, I call it--you know, people to teach us the way of Jesus. But at first we wouldn't think that there are teachers. It might be, again, people with intellectual disabilities, it might be the elderly, the poor, or it could be family members within our own household, that God has allowed to be in our life and our paths and we ignore them.We can abuse them and denigrate them when they're the very people that God could use to teach us the way of Jesus. And so that's, again, how, you know, the last might be first. Like these people that I abuse or denigrated. Like CS Lewis talks about in the great divorce. I talk about us, Sarah Smith of Golders green.She was poor on earth, but in a CS Lewis' rendition. She's a great queen. And I actually think that. Maybe on the last day or when kingdom comes, you know, the last will be first and we'll be in for a big surprise.Nathan: There's a very personal piece in the book. I'm curious. How does your story fit into this narrative?Marlena: Yeah, I could really identify with Jesus. I used to say, Lord, why did you make me poor? or did you allow me to be poor? I don't know all the theology behind it. Right. I can never ascertain that. And I don't think we have for millennia, but, I used to wonder why I was allowed to, if you want to use that language to suffer and, you know, I think about not having gifts on Christmas, not having Thanksgiving dinner.I used to hate the holidays because of that. I'm just working cutting wood to earn gas money for my dad. And that allowed me to realize that Jesus said, well, I, you know, I didn't have somewhere to lay my head. And I was like, Oh, I can be in solidarity with Jesus in this way. He understands what I went through.You know, I'm not in the same condition I was growing up. But I still suffer, I guess, what would you call it? Like the consequences of, I would say it's probably generational poverty, you know, no wealth passed on to .. . I don't know to give me some kind of, and my husband too, a cushion. So, everything we've had to pay, you know, by God's grace for ourselves.I think that allows me maybe to see from the bottom up, maybe it's allowed me to see people, the people that the world neglects that have been such an example of Christ to me. And  it might be the, the weight of glory where he talks about, people become such bright lights that you're almost tempted to bow down and worship them or such, you know, maybe hideous monsters.And I have felt like this overwhelming sometimes. Uh, desire to curtsy, to people just cause I see the love of God and the love of Christ in them and see how they live in the every day.  You know, saints every day saints. I just almost see light emanating from them.And usually, I mean, They not even aware of it themselves. Um, and so I give thanks to God and I say, thank you, God, that you've graced me with your presence through these people. And so I'm really kind of fascinated with the Lord, just how he turns everything upside down and that he can relate to me and I can relate to him and his,  at least from American standpoint, I'm not even going to compare myself to the rest of the world, but by American standards was poverty.Nathan: I keep a notebook in my pocket at all times. And part of it's, cause I have some memory challenges, but part of is because I hear something or I have a thought and I just want to remember it. But the other day, I wrote there's a certain trauma to poverty and.Almost like a Maslow's hierarchy, right. Growing up in poverty, it comes with a lot of challenges that I don't think people outside would know. One of the quotes that got me was this statement I think it was Howard Zinn the difference between poor folks and sociologists is poor folks know what they're talking about."You know, there's a certain thing you learn in that, that you can only learn from going through it. And I love that, that that helps you connect with Jesus. Who are some of your teachers.Marlena: Oh, that's a good question. Besides, you know, I love the people at Renovaré, but in the context of what we're talking about, I think of Paula who's now with the Lord. She had Alzheimer's when I met her, I was, director of discipleship at my church. And you know, she would sing my name like "Mar-len-a".And I couldn't believe that Paula remembered my name because she had Alzheimer's. I was, you know, I was newer to the church and her eyes would light up when I came by and she'd come give me a hug. And she just taught me a lot. I mean, just the sparkle in her eyes when she saw me and not just me, I know other people, but I thought, you know,  I think that's how God looks at me the way that Paula looks at me.And I talk about it in the book at one point. She got really teary-eyed. One time she was talking about remembering when she was young, cause someone called her a moose, you know, saying she's ugly when she was a young girl, she remembered that and she's was, you know, a tall lady. And, um, what I saw such beauty in her and I said, no, Paula, you're so beautiful.And another time she started crying because she was forgetting. And she was wondering, you know, is this forgetting gonna affect me and my relationship with God? And I said, no. And then I came home and told my husband about that.I asked him, I said, Sean, how do you think the Lord interacts as far as spiritual formation with people that have Alzheimer's, you know, what kind of relationship? He said that Jesus doesn't mind introducing  himself to Paula over and over again, and to other people.And I was just like, Oh my gosh. Yes. That's exactly what, I was just floating with his comment about it because yeah, Jesus, doesn't it mind introducing himself to Paula over and over again in a new, so Paula was one of my teachers.I used to work with migrant farm workers, asylum seekers, inner city youth. Speaking about poverty, you know, every day it's hard, like getting to school and,  just the obstacles that people have to overcome just to do simple things.And over and over, I just saw love for other people, deference to other people, joy, hard work. A lot of the people that we talk about as our teachers, people have stereotypes like lazy, only wanting a handout and most of the poor people I know that I've ever met are very hard workers.Of course there are people that take advantage of the system, but I've seen rich people that take advantage of the system and middle-class. So taking advantage of the system, isn't particularly salient among the poor it's all levels of society. The Catholics talk about this, even the Eastern Orthodox talk about how the poor can show us the face of Christ.It's not like you have some kind of sainthood because you're poor, but I think it's just because of vulnerability and there's nothing to prove, you know, nothing to prove. And so you could be full of the life of Christ because there's not a lot of things blocking that.  I've often thought that in my own life, like, well, I don't really have much to prove.I have no networks I can, rely on or point to this or that. And sometimes I've grieved that because I'm like, well, that would be a great help right now in my life. But then it drives me to God.Nathan: Many of the poor folk I've known are the most generous people. My father-in-law, lived in pretty extreme poverty and we used to send him food. Like we, uh, kind of surprise him and have food delivered to us, to his house.And he'd invite everybody over. He just would have a big party, you know, and I just, I love that. There's something beautiful in that. Um, but do you see that too, in your work with migrant farmers?Marlena: Yes. I, I think there's statistics too. Like, I don't know, per capita or however, the poor are more generous than those with more money and I do see it. The generosity comes from maybe memory, you know what it's like not to have, and you don't want other people to go through that. And you know of other people, maybe like your father-in-law like, Hey, you know, people would enjoy a good meal today. They don't have to go shopping. We're going to provide dinner.I mean, Jesus himself was poor, right? He was so poor and he was generous. Yes, he was God, but  I think about the multiplication of the loaves and the fish. Jesus was like, you know, it's I know it's going to be hard for you guys to get food, so let's multiply the loaves and the fish.And something else I tell people too, Nathan, is that Jesus, everything he spoke he lived out So when he tells us in Matthew six, you know, don't worry about tomorrow, what you will eat or drink, which is a message I have to remind myself of frequently. He said that because he had to consider the birds and the lilies himself, because, you know,  he was poor.And he had to depend on our Heavently Father for food, for his daily bread and that makes it into the Lord's prayer, you know, give us today our daily bread. I think he included that because he had to pray that frequently, whether it's literal daily bread nourishment, or whatever else that we need for our lives, because Mary wasn't rich and, in Luke it talks about how women and others provided out of their purse for the ministry of the disciples.Joseph was probably old when he married Mary and so we don't see any more about him in the Bible after Jesus was 12 years old. So for her to be a widow at that time, she depended on her son to take care of her. So Jesus was caring for his mom.Like you said, your family with your father-in-law. In this case, Jesus was caring for his mom. She was part of his ministry. And so I'm convinced that he knew what it was like to consider the birds and have to depend on the father for the daily bread. For him and his mom.Nathan: Earlier, you mentioned loving our enemies. What does that look like? How did you work that out in the book?Marlena: When I was young, I was in Puerto Rico in the fourth grade and I was almost kidnapped after I got off my bus. I think the person probably would have kidnapped me, but I got off the bus, his car followed me and said, Hey, in Spanish, where's this place.And you know, I'm like a nice person, you know, I'm like, okay. Yeah, it's here. And I went up and the man grabbed my hand and exposed himself and tried to make me touch him, you know?  It was an assault and that picture stayed with me. I was 10 years old.Well, after that, I was in fourth grade. I, you know, I didn't want to be around men. My parents would say, Hey, go to the store or go into the sprint in and get me like a, you know, a milk or whatever. I didn't want to do that. You know, this was  the late eighties.But I remember fifth grade,  we moved back to the mainland of the United States. We lived in this little green trailer and I didn't have much to do after I would do like, whatever chores I had and do homework. So I would read the Bible, like for two to four hours a day, about the ages from 10 to 14.And I think that's what my people have said: you have a divine imagination. Well, I think that's where it came from looking back. But I remember what Jesus said in Matthew 5:44, that you have to forgive your enemies. And  I'm like, okay, that means I have to forgive this man whose face I remember even till this day whose name I will never know.And so I started praying at 11 years old for this man that assaulted me. Because Jesus said, pray for your enemies, you know, like, taking Jesus at his word as a little girl. Cause if you don't forgive others, you won't be forgiven. You know, it also talks about that in there.That's when that practice of praying for your enemies and forgiving them started in my life. So fast-forward, I should say I've worked with farm migrant farm workers who provide our food and  there's a lot of human rights abuses against them and asylum seekers and immigrants.And I know it's  for some people it's a great political issue for them. For me, meeting people and hearing their stories firsthand. I think it's a human rights issue and a biblical issue. And you know, that we have  a certain kind of obligation to them.But because of that, I get attacked by people.  I've been called unChristian, a communist, or, you know, all sorts of  what people consider derogatory words.  And I was like, I just have to pray for people that say things to me. I say you have no idea what you're talking about.You just are acting on  hearsay. I've talked to people in person. And so I have to forgive them for insulting me.And so I have to wrestle with that. To forgive my brothers and sisters, not only for hurting me, I don't know what the word is for that, but when I see them doing harm to the most vulnerable people.Nathan: I have a theory on Jesus' statement to pray for our enemies. That it's as much for us as it is for them. And the reason I say that is because when I do that, it, sets me free. There's something that happens when I really dig in and pray for someone, you know, how we define enemies, it's a tricky word, but, it changes me and  it liberates me from their  nonsense or  abuse. What do you think of that?Marlena: I think you said it so well, and  I think about what kind of spiritual formation and Jesus's humanity, right? Because yes, he was fully God fully, man. Like I think his Spiritual Formation culminated in two things.  In the Garden of Gesthemane when he said not my will, but yours be done when, you know, he said, get me out of this basically but he went through with it.And also on the cross, when he says father, forgive them for they know not what they do. You know, like, so spiritual formation can not be microwave. For him to be able to say when he was being speared,  spit upon, mocked, when his disciples ran away... to be able to forgive his disciples and cook them some fish on the beach afterwards. That was years of culmination.You know, some people ask, well, how can we  forgive our enemies, especially if you've been sexually abused. I want to be very careful that it could take maybe a whole lifetime, or you might get to the point where say, God, I want to be able to do that, but I can't, you know, you're very honest about it.It doesn't always happen right away. And I think it depends on the seriousness of the transgression against you, but I think, yeah, it does change us. And it's one of God's graces and it doesn't happen always right away. And  for some people I've had to pray for years, you know?Cause I think that I'm good and it wells up in me again and I get very upset and then I have to say, okay, God, they claim to be your children to please bless them, even though they're doing so much harm.Nathan: I'll sometimes start with the prayer of  I want to forgive, you know, or, or I want to want to, right? I don't even want to, but I want to be in a place where I would like to and sometimes That's the only place we can start.Marlena: Yeah, yeah. Agreed. Yep.Nathan: For folks reading the book. What do you hope for them to take away from it?Marlena: There's been a lot of people, they're disillusioned with the church for good reason, right? And some people have been, I think, badly taught like that they're, you know, they call it worm theology. Like God just can't stand you and God just... you know, God tolerates you. That's not the God I've known.I talk about one point in the book where my daughter, when she was three and I won't go into the story right now, but it culminates with her saying, so mommy, you're saying, God looks happy at me. God looks happy at me. And I said, yes, God looks happy at you. That was her translation of what we were talking about. God looks at us with love and joy.And so I hope that readers would take that away. And also,  maybe with some of the stories I shared and insights that you can really live like Jesus. There are people that live like Jesus in the world, the saints, these beautiful people, that many of the last will be first.So that's why it's called The Way Up is Down because you know, the world has a way of success, but Jesus way of being lifted up is not the way of the world and that Christians, when they take the way of Jesus. Nouwen called it downward mobility, when they take that way, it talks about in Philippians chapter two kenosis that you might not win accolades from the world, but you will bring great joy to God and you will do much good in the world.So that's, that's my hope.Nathan: It is very backwards. Not just American culture, but church culture. I remember when I was teaching, I used to work with Brother Lawrence's book, Practice of the Presence of God. And, and I remember I had a student go, so wait, he was a dishwasher, right? Yeah, he's a dishwasher. Wait, wait, how come he didn't move up? Why did he stay a dishwasher? You know, he was like kind of a failure. This guy, why didn't he... And I thought it is so ingrained in us that this idea of downward mobility or that there's kind of a nobility in remaining a dishwasher that that was, um, a beautiful thing for him to stay with that.But it is very, very foreign to us.Marlena: Yeah. And it's not always easy because we have this message in the church, right? Like bigger, better numbers.  And it's the way of the world that's ingrained itself in the church, but you're right. That's not always the way of Jesus. I mean it might be for your life, but it's not always.Nathan: How have you reconciled with the church?Marlena: I write a little bit about how I've been hurt by the church. And I haven't been forthright about it, but how I've reconciled with it because I do see saints in everyday life. If I wouldn't have seen people that are like, Jesus, I don't know that I could be a Christian. Because people have asked me  why are you still Christian?I'm like, because I see people that live like Jesus. And so when the people that don't live like Jesus, I said, that's not God, I know Jesus. And I know what he's like, and that's not it. So, my hope and prayer is that I don't ever become the things I despise and that, you know, further down in Philippians two, that hopefully I will shine like one of the stars in the universe.So people give thanks to God, at least that's my prayer.Nathan: Marlena. Thank you so much for your time and your story.Marlena: Thank you so much. I'm glad to be here.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Julia: So we're talking about your wedding, Nathan. Was it a stressful experience for you?Nathan: Yes, I think you could say that it was pretty stressful in several ways. The first one was a kind of stupid thing was that a long time ago I'd broken a tooth and a couple of days before I got married, the tooth got stuck in a chocolate bar and broke again. So I'd been to an emergency...Julia: You looked pretty then?Nathan: Yeah, I'd been to an emergency dentist session to have a new cap stuck on but I was really worried that (a) I couldn't speak properly because my mouth was still a bit getting used to the shape of the tooth and I was worried that the tooth was going to fall off but also I'm not very good in front of large groups of people and I had to, I had to do some speeches and I hadn't really...Julia: You made a speech?Nathan: Yeah, I didn't really memorize the speeches properly and so I really struggled with the speeches but I think the other thing was that I couldn't relax because everybody was taking photos and every time I wanted to have a drink of beer or have a mouthful of food, someone was like just one more photo, just one more photo and so I kept on saying to people like I'm really tired, you know, I'd really like to eat my food and everybody kept on coming up and taking photos and I actually got a bit frustrated and a bit...Julia: You were grumpy on your wedding day?Nathan: Well, I get grumpy everywhere. We had three parties so the first party was...Julia: Three parties?Nathan: Yeah, we had the wedding ceremony and then we had the meal and then we had a second party where we did some games and then we had a third party at a karaoke booth which was fantastic.Julia: Right and were you still in your wedding gear for all those parties?Nathan: Yeah. Actually I said to you sometime before that my wife had two wedding dresses but by the time we went to karaoke she was on her third wedding dress.Julia: Oh, wow.Nathan: So she had a pretty good time getting changed.Julia: It was a huge event then?Nathan: It was.Julia: How long did it take to plan this wedding?Nathan: I think it took only two months. My wife's pretty organized so she's like this is going to happen, this is going to happen, boom, boom, boom.Julia: So she made most of the important stressful decisions?Nathan: Oh yeah. The planning was easy for me. I just said yes to everything.Julia: And did you go on a honeymoon?Nathan: That's a major bone of contention. That's, I've never been forgiven for this because we, I guess we really didn't have a huge amount of money and afterward my wife wanted to take...Julia: You spent a lot on the wedding.Nathan: Yeah, she wanted to have a really romantic honeymoon in the Maldives and I'd actually put the idea of the Maldives into her head when I was drinking one time and afterward, we didn't do anything after the wedding because we'd been really busy during the wedding getting friends and family to fly in.Julia: You needed a break?Nathan: Yeah, but then about a month later we went to Thailand, and then we went to Singapore and we did lots of small trips in Malaysia and different things but they weren't really romantic and so my wife is still waiting for her romantic honeymoon.Julia: You went traveling, well that's nice.Nathan: Yeah, well.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Julia: So we're talking about your wedding, Nathan. Was it a stressful experience for you?Nathan: Yes, I think you could say that it was pretty stressful in several ways. The first one was a kind of stupid thing was that a long time ago I'd broken a tooth and a couple of days before I got married, the tooth got stuck in a chocolate bar and broke again. So I'd been to an emergency...Julia: You looked pretty then?Nathan: Yeah, I'd been to an emergency dentist session to have a new cap stuck on but I was really worried that (a) I couldn't speak properly because my mouth was still a bit getting used to the shape of the tooth and I was worried that the tooth was going to fall off but also I'm not very good in front of large groups of people and I had to, I had to do some speeches and I hadn't really...Julia: You made a speech?Nathan: Yeah, I didn't really memorize the speeches properly and so I really struggled with the speeches but I think the other thing was that I couldn't relax because everybody was taking photos and every time I wanted to have a drink of beer or have a mouthful of food, someone was like just one more photo, just one more photo and so I kept on saying to people like I'm really tired, you know, I'd really like to eat my food and everybody kept on coming up and taking photos and I actually got a bit frustrated and a bit...Julia: You were grumpy on your wedding day?Nathan: Well, I get grumpy everywhere. We had three parties so the first party was...Julia: Three parties?Nathan: Yeah, we had the wedding ceremony and then we had the meal and then we had a second party where we did some games and then we had a third party at a karaoke booth which was fantastic.Julia: Right and were you still in your wedding gear for all those parties?Nathan: Yeah. Actually I said to you sometime before that my wife had two wedding dresses but by the time we went to karaoke she was on her third wedding dress.Julia: Oh, wow.Nathan: So she had a pretty good time getting changed.Julia: It was a huge event then?Nathan: It was.Julia: How long did it take to plan this wedding?Nathan: I think it took only two months. My wife's pretty organized so she's like this is going to happen, this is going to happen, boom, boom, boom.Julia: So she made most of the important stressful decisions?Nathan: Oh yeah. The planning was easy for me. I just said yes to everything.Julia: And did you go on a honeymoon?Nathan: That's a major bone of contention. That's, I've never been forgiven for this because we, I guess we really didn't have a huge amount of money and afterward my wife wanted to take...Julia: You spent a lot on the wedding.Nathan: Yeah, she wanted to have a really romantic honeymoon in the Maldives and I'd actually put the idea of the Maldives into her head when I was drinking one time and afterward, we didn't do anything after the wedding because we'd been really busy during the wedding getting friends and family to fly in.Julia: You needed a break?Nathan: Yeah, but then about a month later we went to Thailand, and then we went to Singapore and we did lots of small trips in Malaysia and different things but they weren't really romantic and so my wife is still waiting for her romantic honeymoon.Julia: You went traveling, well that's nice.Nathan: Yeah, well.

In this episode of About That Bible, Nathan and Ailsa go over the story of Abraham. Abraham is the father of our faith and we discuss his covenant with God. Timestamps: 01:23 What are covenants? 04:45 What is Abraham’s walk with children? We know that he doesn’t have children for a long time. 12:40 Abraham is going to be a blessing to the nation. You can follow our podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast! Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/2L1CbHq Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2XnuDFb Follow our other social media! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aboutthatbible Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/aboutthatbible About That Bible is made by Every Nation Church, New York. Find out more about Every Nation NYC. Episode 004 Transcript Ailsa: Welcome to About That Bible with Every Nation NYC we are here to help you get more out of that Bible. My name is Ailsa, this is Nathan and we're going to talk about the Bible. It's as simple as that. Today we are talking about Abraham and covenant. Nathan:Yeah. Ailsa: Yeah, Abraham, the father of our faith and covenant. First off, Nathan, can you summarize? I'm going to help you. Nathan: Please do. Ailsa: The life of Abraham, who is Abraham? Nathan: Abraham is a nobody until God calls him. He says 'leave your father's house, come and follow me, I'm going to bless you, multiply you, make you a great nation.' And so then we set off on this epic journey. God and Abraham he gets in some fights. He wins some fights. Ailsa: He wonders about. Nathan: He wins some fights saving his brother, brother in law? Ailsa: Nephew. Nathan: Nephew, Lot. And then eventually God delivers on his promise and gives him a son. And that's Abraham's life. Ailsa: That's Abraham and then he starts being the family that leads to Jesus basically. So, Abraham, you talked about how he gets these promises with God and we call that covenant in Christian circles, could you help us out, what on earth is that? Nathan: In Judeo Christian circles. Ailsa: Yes. Nathan: A covenant is an agreement between any two people really. It was a promise and it was typically done with an exchange of kina an exchange of goods or. Ailsa: Stuff? Nathan: Yeah. Ailsa: Is it more binding than a promise? Nathan: It's like a formalized promise. Ailsa: Ok. Oh, like we have one. Nathan: Yes, we do and there was some exchanging of stuff. Ailsa: Oh yeah, rings! Nathan: Not a dowery. Ailsa: Thanks for this, that was good. Yeah. So what is, can you help us out, what does Abraham promise, what are they exchanging goods with God? Nathan: Yeah, so the first one that we encounter. First God just calls Abraham out and he says, 'leave your fathers house' and Abraham starts following him. It's shortly thereafter that God promises specifically an offspring. He says before, 'I'll make you a nation' but then he promises specifically, it's going to be an offspring. Ailsa: To be clear, Abraham at this point, he's quite old. Nathan: Yeah, he's 75 when God calls him. Ailsa: No kids. Nathan: And no kids. Pretty sure it's a done deal that he's going to have no kids. Ailsa: Yeah. Nathan: But then God makes it clear, like no, it's going to be an offspring, your offspring. Abraham continues on for a while, it's about ten years later, I think, that God formalized the covenant with him in Genesis chapter 15. Ailsa: Does it give us a date? time periods? Nathan: It gives us ages. Ailsa:Ahh, ages. Nathan: And so I think it says 10 years later. And then by the time Abraham has his son Isaac he's actually 100. Ailsa: Oh man, so. Nathan: So he does wait 15, no sorry, 25 years from the time of calling to the time of delivery. Ailsa: So the covenant with God that Abraham has is or Abram at the time, is for what things mainly? Nathan: So God promises that he's going to make Abram a great nation that he's going to bring him a son, that he's going to bless him with land, and that though this blessing, he's going to be a blessing to many nations. A blessing to the world. Ailsa: Ok, so, We're going to take a break, but we're going to come back and we'll talk about Abraham and children, Abraham and the land, and Abraham and the blessing. Nathan:Sounds good. Ailsa: Great. Nathan: So, if you are looking for a church, I'd like to talk a little bit about the church that I lead and I'm a part of. It's called Every Nation NYC, There you can know God, grow together, discover your purpose, and make a difference. We exist for you. We're founded in central Manhattan and you can find more information at everynationnyc.org, there you will find service times and locations as well as other events that we have on offer. I hope that we can see you at one of our services coming up. Ailsa: And now we're back. So, Abraham What is Abraham's walk with children. Because he does not have children for a long time but God shows up and gives him a promise, what's going on? Nathan: Yeah, god promises children, and it seems like he does not deliver for quite a while. Ailsa: Yeah. Nathan: And so around the ten-year mark Abraham's wife Sarai at the time takes matters into her own hands and says ‘we've got this concubine,’ or not even a concubine excuse me just her servant. Ailsa: To be fair, she does this straight after one of the covenants right? Nathan: Yeah, God cuts like a formal covenant with Abraham it's very formalized in Genesis chapter 15 and in Genesis 16, boom. Ailsa: There is a reason that those sit right beside each other in the Bible. So then, what happens with Sarah? Nathan: Sarah offers her servant to Abraham, says here 'sleep with this woman and let's see if we can make a baby that way.' Ailsa: So she's trying to get around the covenant? Or like make the covenant happen in her own way? Nathan: Yes, yeah, she manipulates the covenant and tries to find a loophole in it. Ailsa: Which by the way, I actually kinda like about the story, because you're like oh yeah, I totally do that right? You get a promise from God and then you try and like, oh this is what he means. This is what he means that he doesn't mean that I'm going to have a baby he just means, maybe like you know, Abraham's going to have a kid. Nathan: Well, so explain how we, how we might do that in a real-life circumstance, hopefully, hopefully, nobodies like offering their... Ailsa: No, I did not mean like that, ahh you know. But, there are times, you know, where we get a promise from God and we think well, maybe this is what he means when he says that. Like he can't mean fully like the full miracle that I'm imagining, he maybe just means that I'm going to you know, I can't think of an actual example right now. That's just not helpful. Nathan: So in some way settling for less. Ailsa: Yes, and we make up what the promise might mean. Nathan: We could probably potentially do that often with a spouse or something like that. Ailsa: Oh yeah, good one. Like, you know, we could just settle. Nathan: Definitely, potential all over the place to settle in our lives for less than what God has promised us. Ailsa: Yeah, but in the end, God makes a way, he makes his way with Abraham and Sarah. Nathan: He does, so Abraham does sleep with this woman, Hagar, Sarai's servant, maid, and they make a baby, call him Ishmael. And God makes it very clear, Abraham almost like brings him to God, God appears to him again and he's like well here's my son, and God says, 'not that one'. And that's actually when God cuts a second covenant with Abraham and this one is the covenant of circumcision. The first one was all the animals. Abraham chops all these animals in half. And in this one, Abraham gets chopped himself, it's very personal. Ailsa: Ahh, so it almost like drives it deeper in some ways. Nathan: I'm sure it felt a lot more personal for Abraham on the second round. Ailsa: Just like, Not what I meant Abraham, not what I meant. Nathan: And so that very distinguishes Ishmael, not in the covenant and Isaac who is now the product of this circumcised Abraham, is part of the covenant cut. Ailsa: And Sarah's Son. Nathan: And he's Sarah's son, yes. Ailsa: And she gets pregnant at. Nathan: I think 90 years old. Ailsa: Wow. Nathan: It's a miracle. Ailsa: And then the rest of the Bible goes through how there's a whole line and there's a whole bunch of families that come from Isaac. Nathan: Yes, we are waiting on the promised seed of the woman from Genesis 3 When God preaches the gospel to satan in Genesis 3 to the snake he says, 'there's going to be an offspring of this woman' and so the Bible has this full genealogies all the time genealogies, genealogies and it's saying that the one, the promised one is coming, the promised one is coming. Ailsa:Yeah. Nathan: And they're all summed up in Jesus. and there are no, from the star of Matthew and Luke, there are no more genealogies in the new testament. Ailsa:  Because of Jesus and we're done. Nathan: They've been summed up, yeah. Ailsa: So we've got the promise of Isaac, and then there is also a promise to do with the land. And what is or a covenant to do with the land what's that? Nathan: Yeah, there is, God promises Abraham That he's got this land for him. That it's going to be his land, and today it's the land of Israel modern-day Israel. Ailsa: But, he does not get it right? Nathan: That's true he does not get it. He does not see, I mean he sees it, but he does not own. Ailsa: But does he like live, does he like walk around and live on it? Nathan: Yes. He's like kind of nomadic. He's in it but he's living a nomadic life. He's a shepherding, he's herding his flocks there. By the end of his life, he buys a small piece of it. Ailsa: Ok. Nathan: And he buries his wife Sarai there or Sarah there. And that's it. Ailsa: That's all he sees of it. But when you read the Bible again you see where his people get to inherit that. Nathan: Yes. Ailsa: Ahhh, that's a bummer though, isn't it? He got this promise from God and he didn't see it. Nathan: But he was faithful in the meantime and I think that this is like really important. So often times Christians see their life and all of God's promises hinging on their immediate future. So if it doesn't happen in the next week, if it doesn't happen in the next year, five years, ten years. God makes promises that are bigger than our life. Bigger than even our life span. He's thinking generationally, he's thinking long term. So often times we can live with a level of disillusionment because we were just not patient or did not have a big enough scope. So God's covenants he means these things they are deep they're meaningful He's going to deliver but he does not always deliver... Right in the next thing. Ailsa: Right in the next six months. Nathan: I'm going to find a scripture verse from the new testament that talks to this. Ailsa: Oh, nice. Nathan:So here's this scripture, it's Hebrews chapter 11, verse 13 through 16. I'm going to read verse 13 and 16."These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth...  But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city." and then it goes on to talk about how Abraham when he was tested, offered up Isaac. So the context is all about Abraham and Sarah, how they saw the land but they did not possess it. But even so, God was preparing for them a city. What's funny is that that is not even fulfilled in the conquest of Israel. It's fulfilled much much later and is still yet to be fulfilled when the city of Jerusalem will come down Revelation chapter 20. Ailsa: Oh man, so you're saying the covenant of Abraham is not yet completed? Nathan: The covenant continues. Ailsa: Oh, that's like ongoing. Ok, and then the last bit they talk about how he's going to be a blessing to the nations? Nathan: He's going to be a blessing to the nations. And so it's hard to do when you don't have any land and you don't have any great resources, you don't have any children and God brings to Abraham this child and it's though Isaac and through the generations that follow that the people of Israel are going to come about. The Hebrew people, the Jewish people. And it's from them that we get the Messiah, Jesus. Ailsa: Yeah. Nathan: And so God has this plan all along to bring his son into the world to bring Jesus into the world to be a blessing. So when we look at this as well and we consider Christianity and it's global spread particularly if you have a global mindset Christianity is not head in any one ethnicity, it's not held in any one single culture, it's a truly global religion. It's not tied to North America or Europe or South America. There are millions of Christians in Asia, there are millions of Christians in Africa, Millions of Christians in South America, North America, and Europe. It's truly global. Ailsa: And that all comes from the covenant with Abraham. Nathan: That is. That's the promise of God that he made thousands of years ago to Abraham. Ailsa: To one man. Nathan: That we would all be blessed through him. And so that's why we call him the father of our faith. Ailsa: And on that note that was about that bible with Every Nation NYC. Don't forget you can follow us on Instagram or Twitter at AbouThat Bible and if you're interested in Every Nation NYC you can go to evarynationnyc.org and you can find all our service times on there. Thanks, guys, we'll see you soon.

In this episode, Nathan and Ailsa discuss the Book of Job. Timestamps: You can follow our podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast! Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/2L1CbHq Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2XnuDFb Follow our other social media! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/about.that.bible Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/about.that.bible About That Bible is made by Every Nation Church, New York. Find out more about Every Nation NYC. 003 Job Transcript Ailsa: Welcome to About That Bible with Every Nation NYC, we are here to help you get more out of that Bible. We are reading a plan at the moment and you will find that plan in the notes if you want to follow along too. We're going to discuss different bits as we read along. You can also follow us on Instagram or twitter @AboutThatBible or go to our website everynationnyc.org for all of our podcasts there. But without further ado let's talk about that Bible. My name is Ailsa this is Nathan we're going to talk: Job. Nathan: Alright. Ailsa: I feel like every time we come to talk about a book of the Bible it's always like oh my goodness this is a crazy one, but here we are again Job. Nathan: This one is definitely no exception, it's a beast. Ailsa: Yeah, it's Job. True confession, until very recently, in fact until we did this plan I don't think I'd read the whole of Job. Nathan: Ok. Ailsa: Because it had always been like, Job, this is really depressing and meaty. And I put it off. Nathan: I definitely don't blame you. I think I've only read it in its entirety maybe twice or three times. It's not like the most uplifting thing, is it? Ailsa: No, and that's why we're going to talk about the main point of Job, and it's not a hugely uplifting topic, but here we go. So, I think Job is talking about whether the world works in a just way and whether God is just. Nathan: Yeah! Ailsa: Yeah, let's start by summarizing Job and then we can come back to whether God is just. You know that really small question. Nathan: I mean the simple answer is yes, right? Ailsa: Is it? I think that's what we like to call trite. Nathan: Podcast, done! Ailsa: Trite, simple and trite. Let's try to summarize job first so we know what we're talking about. What is Job? What's going on? Nathan: It's an immense book, it's 40 some odd chapters long if not longer? Ailsa: Yeah. Nathan: And basically we open and God is holding court in heaven. God is surrounded by other spiritual beings. Ailsa: Which you do not get very often in the Bible I should add. Nathan: So yeah, you have this heavenly scene. Ailsa: It's like a God chat, yeah. Nathan: We don't know who's seeing this we don't know who's narrating this but there he is. And out of the midst comes stain and sais... actually, no, God says... How does that start? Ailsa: Well, I think he's like, "oh Job". Nathan: God's just bragging on Job. Ailsa: I think so and then satan's like, he's only good because he wants things from you. Nathan: In any case, either God or satan raises the subject matter of Job and satan’s like, exactly, he's only serving you because you're so good to him God. Ailsa: Yeah, and then we move on to, well, then satan's how about I prove to you that I'm right, God's like how about I prove to you that I'm right and then God's like ok you can go test Job basically. Nathan: Yeah. Ailsa: Then Job has like a terrible time. Nathan: His life goes totally sideways. Ailsa: Terrible. Nathan: Up until that point he'd been a very righteous person. He'd served God, he'd made sacrifices on behalf of his children in case they'd got up to a little mischief while they'd been partying. And I love likes how teenagers, you know, in ancient Hebrew culture. Ailsa: They were also being teenagers. Nathan: Yeah, they're basically the same. And so Job's praying for them, he's praying for his wife, he's working hard, he's living for God the best he can and then everything starts collapsing around him. Literally, I think a house falls on his children, his animals die. Ailsa: Lots of people come and like take away all his different kinds of animals. I think there are different people that come and it's irrelevant but I think it's kinda funny, it's not funny obviously, but I think you know what I mean. Nathan: There are all sorts of calamities and disasters and only one person survives and it's just the messenger and he comes and says, "Job, awful news, everybody died. All your sheep have died, all your camels have died." Messinger after messenger. Ailsa: Yeah, and then his friends pop up. Nathan: He's got three friends. Ailsa: Three friends, they pop up. They're like so good at the beginning, they're like hey we're just going to sit with you because you're like suffering and terrible things. Nathan: They just sit in silence don't they? Ailsa: I'm like, I'm going to write that down, that's good. And then they start, then it starts being this back and forth. RIght so one friend will talk for a bit and then Job will answer. Next friend, Job answers and it's like that for a lot of chapters. Nathan: I think there are three cycles of that. Yes and then a fourth friend turns up out of nowhere. Elihu, something like that. Ailsa: He pops up. Nathan: And he's young and he brash and he gets the job done and he disagrees with Job and he disagrees with Job and he disagrees with the friends, but he honors God. He lifts God up. He has a very high view of God. And what's tempting while we're reading Job and what's hard is that each person is bringing their perspective. Each person is true, but it's not kinda not universally true. Like his friends are saying, well you must have done something wrong and as you're reading it you're like yeah Job has certainly done something wrong. Ailsa: I always think that. Nathan: Yeah, there's no the way that you're perfect. Ailsa: He's a human. Right? Nathan: Yeah. And then Job's like I've done nothing wrong and then Elihu comes and it's just like who do you trust? Who do you believe through the whole thing? Ailsa: Yeah, I'm not sure. Nathan: And you don't really have any clarity through most of the book. Ailsa: No. Nathan: Until, finally, in some of the last chapters, God turns up. Ailsa: Yep. Nathan: And boy does he ever turn up. He comes in in a whirlwind. And basically tells Job, stand up, dress like a man. Ailsa: Dress like a man? Nathan: I think he says that, like, dress yourself like a man. Ailsa: I don't know what that means. Nathan: I don't know. Ailsa: At that point, put a dress on, Right? Nathan: Probably, oh yeah. Moving on. And God just lets him have it, He's like, you're not god, I am, and where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth, where were you when I made it snow. When I made it rain? Have you seen the heavenly storehouses, you know, filled with snow? Have you seen these mountain tops? Have you seen the depths of the ocean? Were you there in deep dark space when I did this and that? And Job is just dumbfounded, there's nothing that he can say. He's done. Ailsa: He's done, God has the last word, and then he basically gives him double back at the end. Nathan: Yep. Ailsa: Which is another hard bit. Nathan: Only after rebuking his friends. He's like you guys, you treated Job wrong, The three friends, Elihu never gets another mention as far as I can remember. Ailsa: I don't think so. Nathan: And then Job, you need to pray for your friends. Ailsa: Yeah. Nathan: So that they can be restored as well. Ailsa: So, Thinking about those friends, because most of Job is about the friends, what do they tell us about whether God is just or whether we're seeing an unjust God? Nathan: His friends have a very simplistic view of the world. Ailsa: Yeah. Nathan: It's very black and white. Either God is good, and therefore God rewards good people or because you're doing so poorly in life, surely you've done something wrong. God's just you're doing bad so you must be the bad guy. It's a very black and white world view. And I think that like, if we ever say, you know, as I did at the start of this video, Yeah, God's just, I've got all the answers. Ailsa: Yeah, you're just being like them. Nathan: No, I want to clarify that, God is just, right? Like I thorough, thorough believe that. But when I say that I have all the answers I've got the worldview that's going to solve everything, pull everything together, what it does is it basically turns you into a judgemental person. Ailsa: Yeah. Nathan: And that's what happens to his friends. Is that they become very judgemental. They start making up stuff, surely you've tortured widows, or you've robbed widows. Surely you've done this, surely you've, you know, not fed the people that are in need that come to you. Surely you've turned them away empty handed. Or something like that. They just make up these horrible accusations. Ailsa: Well, they start trying to work out what Job's been doing wrong. To make sense. Which we still do, right? We still, like to think oh this is happening to someone they are suffering in this way, we like to think we're more sophisticated than this. But we like, we like victim blame. Nathan: Oh yeah. Ailsa: They are like classic victim blamers. Nathan: That's exactly what is happening here. Ailsa: The thing I find interesting though is that they, so at the end, and you did mention this, God is like so ticked off at them. And they've actually stood up, they have like, They have stood up and said God is just, Job you must be wrong. Which, you know we're saying that's not very nice, that's judgemental. But like, they seem like they're on the side of God. But then like, he's really ticked off at them. Like Job basically has to save them. Nathan: That's a great point. Ailsa: What are we supposed to do with that? Like they seem pro-God. Nathan: Well, don't be a judgemental, religious. Oh..  Yeah? Like, oh I've got access to God, therefore, you're doing bad, you must be doing wrong. God is more ticked off and that's like a theme in the bible, Jesus to the Pharisees, Paul to the Galatians. Ailsa: Oh that’s true. It's not like an original to Job moment. Nathan: I mean, yeah it's early in, well, I don't know, we can talk about history about when it was written but yeah, it's a theme through all of the bible isn't it? Ailsa: Yeah. Nathan: God does not like religious bigotry. Ailsa: Yeah. Man, they just think they're doing the right thing though. The fourth friend, He also thinks God is just though. But it is different? Nathan: I don't think he pins it on, he doesn't' pin it on Job. Ailsa: No, I think he's a bit annoyed at Job. I think maybe he's annoyed at Job for how he, how he blames God at one point, I think. Nathan: Well, that's fair enough, God doesn't get mad at Elihu, the fourth friend. Ailsa: No, I don't think so. That's the other thing, like, we see with Job, we see someone who does get annoyed at God. Like God is not annoyed at Job at the end. That's actually interesting. He's annoyed at those friends, he's not annoyed at Job. Job has accused God of possibly being unjust. Nathan: Wow, yeah. So Job has just brought his emotions to God. Ailsa: Yeah. Nathan: After going back and forth with his friends he's like that's it I want to talk to God I want him to prove himself to me. And I think that's something that like King David does. He brings all of his emotions to God. It's similar to what Job does. And I think that God understands like this world is tough and we want to see where he is and what he's doing. But on the other hand, he's also a lot, a lot bigger than we can understand and fathom so we don't always get the answers that we're looking for. Ailsa: No I don't think that you get any of the answers. So like you're left, you read Job and you think, ok so why is this dude suffering? And actually, you're kind of given the answer at the beginning, right?  You've got like God and satan having a chat and you know the reason that job is suffering in this instance is because satan sort of thought that he should have a go at him. And God was like, OK. So you see that, but there's no real reason outside of that. And Job never knows. Like he never gets the answer right? Nathan: No. He doesn't. and he doesn't get an explanation for why he gets everything back. And there's never even an attempt at a reason. Ailsa: No, it's like it's not even bothering to answer that. Nathan: No. Ailsa: And the God and satan bit is very unsatisfactory. Nathan: Oh yeah. And I think that's the point. It's supposed to be unsatisfactory. Ailsa: That's terrible, we hate that. Nathan: Well like, yeah, but like, bad stuff happens and we never get the answer in life. and so that's basically what Job is opening up. The world is not black and white. Good stuff happens to bad people. Bad stuff happens to good people. But that does not make God unjust. Ailsa: Oh man. Nathan: Alright, so we are right now reading through the Bible chronologically. And so it appears kind of halfway kind of after Genesis 11 you go to Job. What we've seen is that there's this satan character, running around, you know, as a snake. Ailsa: That's true. Nathan: And then in Genesis 3, God limits his authority in some way. Like, he says, cursed are you. You're going to be on your belly, eat the dust of the earth. That God in some way limits satan’s authority. And satan doesn't like this. And so in Job what I see is satan saying, Yeah of course people still like you God, you've taken away what I'm allowed to do with them. And it's like if you've ever been using an umbrella on a rainy day, and you're like, has the rain stopped? How bad is it out there? You pull it back. What hits Job is like a welter, a torrential downpour of rain. Like, yeah, satan is still at large, he's still a bad guy, but God got him on lockdown. So he's still able to go around and do his accusing thing and his lying thing but he's not going to just drop a house on your kids. Ailsa: Ok, that makes sense so you've got like, you've got like the limiting of satan in that first bit of Genesis and then you see how that actually plays out on Job. Nathan: So that's the way I see it as we read it chronologically that's what I see happening. Ailsa: Rather than, rather than it being like, God is punishing Job. Nathan: Yes. Ailsa: He just takes his thing away. Nathan: His grace. So like grace is something that we don't deserve. We never earn or deserve God's grace and so God is constantly I believe extending grace to every being on earth, making our lives better than what we deserve all the time. And here in Job we see a sneak peek at what it could be like if God did not limit the evil powers of this world. Ailsa: Yeah. Nathan: So that's what I see when I read it chronologically. Ailsa: Yeah, and where does it normally, what do we learn about the book from where it normally sits in our Bible? Nathan: Normally, it sits with the wisdom literature. And you get Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job. And I love the work that the Bible Project did on this explaining the evolution of wisdom literature, they build one on top of the other. So, Proverbs has this very simplistic kind of black and white view of the world. If you do good, good stuff is going to happen to you. If you do bad, if you sleep in, and you don't work then you're going to be poor. And that's mostly true. But there's always the exception. And then Ecclesiastics comes along and says the wicked prosper. What's the point of life? And it kinda tears up the groundwork of Proverbs. And then Job comes along and says, yeah that's all true, but you know what? God's still just. He sits on his throne. His wisdom is way beyond our wisdom and we've got to trust him whether we like it or not. And that's like really really hard. Ailsa: Yeah. Nathan: I think the authors knew that from the very start. And that's why Job struggles with it, that's why his tree black and white friends struggle with it. Elihu never even really gets his head around it. Ailsa: Yeah. Nathan: It's really tough. Ailsa: At least we see represented people struggling with it though. Nathan: Yeah, yeah. Ailsa: It's like, it's ok to like really struggle with it. Nathan: The nature of sin; and I'm thinking Adam and Eve fell and what they did was they said, we're not going to trust you as God, we're going to take our trust from you and pull it inward. All of a sudden, the universal center of right and wrong is going to rest here [in me]. And so when bad things happen to me I'm going to say this is wrong. And God's saying no, the worlds quite messed up now and so to accomplish ultimate good you're going to think that it's wrong. Your little world is going to experience something that does not feel good for you in the moment. Ailsa: That is super hard. Nathan: And so God is asking for us to expand our world and allow our world to be bigger than us in our suffering. Ailsa: Ooo, it's like such a hard one to read. This is why people are like, oh Job. Nathan: Yeah, so Job is super uplifting. But I believe it is because bad stuff is happening. But what Job is saying is that there is reason, there is a point. That God is still in control. And that Romans chapter 8, we bandied about quite a lot, or it can be bandied about, and I don't want to just use it tritely, but I believe it points in, it funnels in to Job here. "All things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purposes." God is working stuff for good. Ailsa: But on a much bigger scale than we can comprehend basically. Nathan: Yes it does not mean that at the end of your life you know, on your deathbed, God is going to turn up and be like, well here's why your cat died when you were three, Your granny died when you were seven, you know, your father left you when you were twelve. He's not going to do that. Sometimes we get glimpses of that in the world and most of the time... No, I believe that when you walk with God you do get the narrative kinda unfolding. Ailsa: Do you mean like you do understand more of why things happen sometimes? Nathan: Yes, but you do gotta hold on for a long time. Ailsa: Yeah, and it's not also like, 'like for like'. Like you, you don't get to see like oh, you sin - this happens. Or you're like good - this happens. Like it's more complicated. Nathan: Your cat dies at three so you can go into veterinary school and solve cat AIDS. Ailsa: Or not even that. Like the, if you're a good person, then you get good blessing. Or, you know, you follow God and then you get a good thing. Like what Satan accuses Job at the beginning of only doing it for what he can get out of God. Nathan: Yeah, so we've got to follow God because he's God? Ailsa: Yeah. It kinda seems like that because that's kinda what it says on the end. God's like I am God and bigger than your, any of your stuff. Nathan: Yeah. Ailsa: Yeah. Nathan: He deserves it, he's God and we're not. Even though our heart cries out, "yes I am yes I am." Ailsa: Yeah, I know. We're like but surely I understand and Job's like, you don't understand. Nathan: I've got enough wisdom! Ailsa: And that's Job. Yeah, we get to see a man wrestling with just not understanding. Nathan: Yes. Ailsa: Yeah. And he gets all this stuff back at the end. But it's not because he was good. Right? I think God makes that clear, it's just grace on the end. Nathan: It's just grace. There's all sorts of little droplets of grace all the way through. All the way through Job. Job keeps referencing and alluding to these incredible Christological foreshadowing pieces. Ailsa: What do you mean by 'Christological foreshadowing pieces' because that's a whole bunch of turms. Nathan: So Job keeps using these phrases that the only answer to these phrases is Jesus. The only way that this is ever going to be solved is Jesus. So at one point he's like, 'I wish that I had an advocate who could place his hand on God and place his hand on me.' I'm like, well who's going to touch heaven and earth at the same time? Ailsa: Jesus. Nathan: Jesus. Another point he says, "For I know my Redeemer lives and shall stand upon the earth." Who's this redeemer, who's going to stand on the earth? Jesus. Right? Ailsa: Yeah. Nathan: And then ultimately the way that Job suffers, everything around him dies, he has basically died. LIke to everything, to the world, to his wife, to his kids, to everything around him is dead. And then God says, 'this is the guy who is going to restore these self-righteous friends back to God.' And even Job himself is a little bit like a Christ figure. Ailsa: Yeah, because he keeps being, standing in the gap for these people. Nathan: He stands in the gap for his friends, that's right.  Oh gosh, yeah, for his kids at first. Ailsa: Yeah, for his kids on the front end and then for his friends on the back end, right? Oh, it's all about Jesus. Nathan: It is all about Jesus. Or you can read it. Ailsa: All about Jesus. Nathan: I think Jesus read it all about Jesus. Ailsa: Probably, probably. Still, but, I think we're still left, I think it's all about Jesus, but I think we're still left with it's ok to be grappling with this stuff. Nathan: Yeah, it's a lifelong struggle, it really is. And for somebody who is struggling it's just, you kinda have to hold on, just keep going, trusting that God is good, trusting that your Redeemer lives, has stood upon the earth. That God is crushing suffering. And will one day fully and finally make it right. Ailsa: Yeah and on that note, Job. Nathan:  Yeah, Job it's a struggle. Ailsa: It's a struggle. Nathan: The struggle is real. Ailsa: It's an important one though because the struggle is real in real life. Job, I don't want to say done because that's not Job done. Done. Nathan: Job, the conversation is opened. Ailsa: Yeah. Nathan: We're finished opening the conversation. Yeah that's a good way of putting it. Ailsa: And Job we're finished opening your conversation, and done. Nathan: Moving on. Ailsa: That was About That Bible with Every Nation NYC. You can follow along the same reading plan as us and you'll find the link for that in the notes and you can read too. Don't forget you can also follow us on Instagram and twitter @AboutThatBible and you can find all our podcasts at everynationnyc.org or all the places that you can find podcasts. See you later guys. SHOW TRANSCRIPT: Ailsa: Welcome to About That Bible with Every Nation NYC, we are here to help you get more out of that Bible. We are reading a plan at the moment and you will find that plan in the notes if you want to follow along too. We're going to discuss different bits as we read along. You can also follow us on Instagram or twitter @AboutThatBible or go to our website everynationnyc.org for all of our podcasts there. But without further ado let's talk about that Bible. My name is Ailsa this is Nathan we're going to talk: Job. Nathan: Alright. Ailsa: I feel like every time we come to talk about a book of the Bible it's always like oh my goodness this is a crazy one, but here we are again Job. Nathan: This one is definitely no exception, it's a beast. Ailsa: Yeah, it's Job. True confession, until very recently, in fact until we did this plan I don't think I'd read the whole of Job. Nathan: Ok. Ailsa: Because it had always been like, Job, this is really depressing and meaty. And I put it off. Nathan: I definitely don't blame you. I think I've only read it in its entirety maybe twice or three times. It's not like the most uplifting thing, is it? Ailsa: No, and that's why we're going to talk about the main point of Job, and it's not a hugely uplifting topic, but here we go. So, I think Job is talking about whether the world works in a just way and whether God is just. Nathan: Yeah! Ailsa: Yeah, let's start by summarizing Job and then we can come back to the weather God is just. You know that really small question. Nathan: I mean the simple answer is yes, right? Ailsa: Is it? I think that's what we like to call trite. Nathan: Podcast, done! Ailsa: Trite, simple and trite. Let's try to summarize job first so we know what we're talking about. What is Job? What's going on? Nathan: It's an immense book, it's 40 some odd chapters long if not longer? Ailsa: Yeah. Nathan: And basically we open and God is holding court in heaven. God is surrounded by other spiritual beings. Ailsa: Which you do not get very often in the Bible I should add. Nathan: So yeah, you have this heavenly scene. Ailsa: It's like a God chat, yeah. Nathan: We don't know who's seeing this we don't know who's narrating this but there he is. And out of the midst comes stain and sais... actually, no, God says... How does that start? Ailsa: Well, I think he's like, "oh Job". Nathan: God's just bragging on Job. Ailsa: I think so and then satan's like, he's only good because he wants things from you. Nathan: In any case, either God or satan raises the subject matter of Job and satan’s like, exactly, he's only serving you because you're so good to him God. Ailsa: Yeah, and then we move on to, well, then satan's how about I prove to you that I'm right, God's like how about I prove to you that I'm right and then God's like ok you can go test Job basically. Nathan: Yeah. Ailsa: Then Job has like a terrible time. Nathan: His life goes totally sideways. Ailsa: Terrible. Nathan: Up until that point he'd been a very righteous person. He'd served God, he'd made sacrifices on behalf of his children in case they'd got up to a little mischief while they'd been partying. And I love likes how teenagers, you know, in ancient Hebrew culture. Ailsa: They were also being teenagers. Nathan: Yeah, they're basically the same. And so Job's praying for them, he's praying for his wife, he's working hard, he's living for God the best he can and then everything starts collapsing around him. Literally, I think a house falls on his children, his animals die. Ailsa: Lots of people come and like take away all his different kinds of animals. I think there are different people that come and it's irrelevant but I think it's kinda funny, it's not funny obviously, but I think you know what I mean. Nathan: There are all sorts of calamities and disasters and only one person survives and it's just the messenger and he comes and says, "Job, awful news, everybody died. All your sheep have died, all your camels have died." Messinger after messenger. Ailsa: Yeah, and then his friends pop up. Nathan: He's got three friends. Ailsa: Three friends, they pop up. They're like so good at the beginning, they're like hey we're just going to sit with you because you're like suffering and terrible things. Nathan: They just sit in silence don't they? Ailsa: I'm like, I'm going to write that down, that's good. And then they start, then it starts being this back and forth. RIght so one friend will talk for a bit and then Job will answer. Next friend, Job answers and it's like that for a lot of chapters. Nathan: I think there are three cycles of that. Yes and then a fourth friend turns up out of nowhere. Elihu, something like that. Ailsa: He pops up. Nathan: And he's young and he brash and he gets the job done and he disagrees with Job and he disagrees with Job and he disagrees with the friends, but he honors God. He lifts God up. He has a very high view of God. And what's tempting while we're reading Job and what's hard is that each person is bringing their perspective. Each person is true, but it's not kinda not universally true. Like his friends are saying, well you must have done something wrong and as you're reading it you're like yeah Job has certainly done something wrong. Ailsa: I always think that. Nathan: Yeah, there's no the way that you're perfect. Ailsa: He's a human. Right? Nathan: Yeah. And then Job's like I've done nothing wrong and then Elihu comes and it's just like who do you trust? Who do you believe through the whole thing? Ailsa: Yeah, I'm not sure. Nathan: And you don't really have any clarity through most of the book. Ailsa: No. Nathan: Until, finally, in some of the last chapters, God turns up. Ailsa: Yep. Nathan: And boy does he ever turn up. He comes in in a whirlwind. And basically tells Job, stand up, dress like a man. Ailsa: Dress like a man? Nathan: I think he says that, like, dress yourself like a man. Ailsa: I don't know what that means. Nathan: I don't know. Ailsa: At that point, put a dress on, Right? Nathan: Probably, oh yeah. Moving on. And God just lets him have it, He's like, you're not god, I am, and where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth, where were you when I made it snow. When I made it rain? Have you seen the heavenly storehouses, you know, filled with snow? Have you seen these mountain tops? Have you seen the depths of the ocean? Were you there in deep dark space when I did this and that? And Job is just dumbfounded, there's nothing that he can say. He's done. Ailsa: He's done, God has the last word, and then he basically gives him double back at the end. Nathan: Yep. Ailsa: Which is another hard bit. Nathan: Only after rebuking his friends. He's like you guys, you treated Job wrong, The three friends, Elihu never gets another mention as far as I can remember. Ailsa: I don't think so. Nathan: And then Job, you need to pray for your friends. Ailsa: Yeah. Nathan: So that they can be restored as well. Ailsa: So, Thinking about those friends, because most of Job is about the friends, what do they tell us about whether God is just or whether we're seeing an unjust God? Nathan: His friends have a very simplistic view of the world. Ailsa: Yeah. Nathan: It's very black and white. Either God is good, and therefore God rewards good people or because you're doing so poorly in life, surely you've done something wrong. God's just you're doing bad so you must be the bad guy. It's a very black and white world view. And I think that like, if we ever say, you know, as I did at the start of this video, Yeah, God's just, I've got all the answers. Ailsa: Yeah, you're just being like them. Nathan: No, I want to clarify that, God is just, right? Like I thorough, thorough believe that. But when I say that I have all the answers I've got the worldview that's going to solve everything, pull everything together, what it does is it basically turns you into a judgemental person. Ailsa: Yeah. Nathan: And that's what happens to his friends. Is that they become very judgemental. They start making up stuff, surely you've tortured widows, or you've robbed widows. Surely you've done this, surely you've, you know, not fed the people that are in need that come to you. Surely you've turned them away empty handed. Or something like that. They just make up these horrible accusations. Ailsa: Well, they start trying to work out what Job's been doing wrong. To make sense. Which we still do, right? We still, like to think oh this is happening to someone they are suffering in this way, we like to think we're more sophisticated than this. But we like, we like victim blame. Nathan: Oh yeah. Ailsa: They are like classic victim blamers. Nathan: That's exactly what is happening here. Ailsa: The thing I find interesting though is that they, so at the end, and you did mention this, God is like so ticked off at them. And they've actually stood up, they have like, They have stood up and said God is just, Job you must be wrong. Which, you know we're saying that's not very nice, that's judgemental. But like, they seem like they're on the side of God. But then like, he's really ticked off at them. Like Job basically has to save them. Nathan: That's a great point. Ailsa: What are we supposed to do with that? Like they seem pro-God. Nathan: Well, don't be a judgemental, religious. Oh..  Yeah? Like, oh I've got access to God, therefore, you're doing bad, you must be doing wrong. God is more ticked off and that's like a theme in the bible, Jesus to the Pharisees, Paul to the Galatians. Ailsa: Oh that’s true. It's not like an original to Job moment. Nathan: I mean, yeah it's early in, well, I don't know, we can talk about history about when it was written but yeah, it's a theme through all of the bible isn't it? Ailsa: Yeah. Nathan: God does not like religious bigotry. Ailsa: Yeah. Man, they just think they're doing the right thing though. The fourth friend, He also thinks God is just though. But it is different? Nathan: I don't think he pins it on, he doesn't' pin it on Job. Ailsa: No, I think he's a bit annoyed at Job. I think maybe he's annoyed at Job for how he, how he blames God at one point, I think. Nathan: Well, that's fair enough, God doesn't get mad at Elihu, the fourth friend. Ailsa: No, I don't think so. That's the other thing, like, we see with Job, we see someone who does get annoyed at God. Like God is not annoyed at Job at the end. That's actually interesting. He's annoyed at those friends, he's not annoyed at Job. Job has accused God of possibly being unjust. Nathan: Wow, yeah. So Job has just brought his emotions to God. Ailsa: Yeah. Nathan: After going back and forth with his friends he's like that's it I want to talk to God I want him to prove himself to me. And I think that's something that like King David does. He brings all of his emotions to God. It's similar to what Job does. And I think that God understands like this world is tough and we want to see where he is and what he's doing. But on the other hand, he's also a lot, a lot bigger than we can understand and fathom so we don't always get the answers that we're looking for. Ailsa: No I don't think that you get any of the answers. So like you're left, you read Job and you think, ok so why is this dude suffering? And actually, you're kind of given the answer at the beginning, right?  You've got like God and satan having a chat and you know the reason that job is suffering in this instance is because satan sort of thought that he should have a go at him. And God was like, OK. So you see that, but there's no real reason outside of that. And Job never knows. Like he never gets the answer right? Nathan: No. He doesn't. and he doesn't get an explanation for why he gets everything back. And there's never even an attempt at a reason. Ailsa: No, it's like it's not even bothering to answer that. Nathan: No. Ailsa: And the God and satan bit is very unsatisfactory. Nathan: Oh yeah. And I think that's the point. It's supposed to be unsatisfactory. Ailsa: That's terrible, we hate that. Nathan: Well like, yeah, but like, bad stuff happens and we never get the answer in life. and so that's basically what Job is opening up. The world is not black and white. Good stuff happens to bad people. Bad stuff happens to good people. But that does not make God unjust. Ailsa: Oh man. Nathan: Alright, so we are right now reading through the Bible chronologically. And so it appears kind of halfway kind of after Genesis 11 you go to Job. What we've seen is that there's this satan character, running around, you know, as a snake. Ailsa: That's true. Nathan: And then in Genesis 3, God limits his authority in some way. Like, he says, cursed are you. You're going to be on your belly, eat the dust of the earth. That God in some way limits satan’s authority. And satan doesn't like this. And so in Job what I see is satan saying, Yeah of course people still like you God, you've taken away what I'm allowed to do with them. And it's like if you've ever been using an umbrella on a rainy day, and you're like, has the rain stopped? How bad is it out there? You pull it back. What hits Job is like a welter, a torrential downpour of rain. Like, yeah, satan is still at large, he's still a bad guy, but God got him on lockdown. So he's still able to go around and do his accusing thing and his lying thing but he's not going to just drop a house on your kids. Ailsa: Ok, that makes sense so you've got like, you've got like the limiting of satan in that first bit of Genesis and then you see how that actually plays out on Job. Nathan: So that's the way I see it as we read it chronologically that's what I see happening. Ailsa: Rather than, rather than it being like, God is punishing Job. Nathan: Yes. Ailsa: He just takes his thing away. Nathan: His grace. So like grace is something that we don't deserve. We never earn or deserve God's grace and so God is constantly I believe extending grace to every being on earth, making our lives better than what we deserve all the time. And here in Job we see a sneak peek at what it could be like if God did not limit the evil powers of this world. Ailsa: Yeah. Nathan: So that's what I see when I read it chronologically. Ailsa: Yeah, and where does it normally, what do we learn about the book from where it normally sits in our Bible? Nathan: Normally, it sits with the wisdom literature. And you get Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job. And I love the work that the Bible Project did on this explaining the evolution of wisdom literature, they build one on top of the other. So, Proverbs has this very simplistic kind of black and white view of the world. If you do good, good stuff is going to happen to you. If you do bad, if you sleep in, and you don't work then you're going to be poor. And that's mostly true. But there's always the exception. And then Ecclesiastics comes along and says the wicked prosper. What's the point of life? And it kinda tears up the groundwork of Proverbs. And then Job comes along and says, yeah that's all true, but you know what? God's still just. He sits on his throne. His wisdom is way beyond our wisdom and we've got to trust him whether we like it or not. And that's like really really hard. Ailsa: Yeah. Nathan: I think the authors knew that from the very start. And that's why Job struggles with it, that's why his tree black and white friends struggle with it. Elihu never even really gets his head around it. Ailsa: Yeah. Nathan: It's really tough. Ailsa: At least we see represented people struggling with it though. Nathan: Yeah, yeah. Ailsa: It's like, it's ok to like really struggle with it. Nathan: The nature of sin; and I'm thinking Adam and Eve fell and what they did was they said, we're not going to trust you as God, we're going to take our trust from you and pull it inward. All of a sudden, the universal center of right and wrong is going to rest here [in me]. And so when bad things happen to me I'm going to say this is wrong. And God's saying no, the worlds quite messed up now and so to accomplish ultimate good you're going to think that it's wrong. Your little world is going to experience something that does not feel good for you in the moment. Ailsa: That is super hard. Nathan: And so God is asking for us to expand our world and allow our world to be bigger than us in our suffering. Ailsa: Ooo, it's like such a hard one to read. This is why people are like, oh Job. Nathan: Yeah, so Job is super uplifting. But I believe it is because bad stuff is happening. But what Job is saying is that there is reason, there is a point. That God is still in control. And that Romans chapter 8, we bandied about quite a lot, or it can be bandied about, and I don't want to just use it tritely, but I believe it points in, it funnels in to Job here. "All things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purposes." God is working stuff for good. Ailsa: But on a much bigger scale than we can comprehend basically. Nathan: Yes it does not mean that at the end of your life you know, on your deathbed, God is going to turn up and be like, well here's why your cat died when you were three, Your granny died when you were seven, you know, your father left you when you were twelve. He's not going to do that. Sometimes we get glimpses of that in the world and most of the time... No, I believe that when you walk with God you do get the narrative kinda unfolding. Ailsa: Do you mean like you do understand more of why things happen sometimes? Nathan: Yes, but you do gotta hold on for a long time. Ailsa: Yeah, and it's not also like, 'like for like'. Like you, you don't get to see like oh, you sin - this happens. Or you're like good - this happens. Like it's more complicated. Nathan: Your cat dies at three so you can go into veterinary school and solve cat AIDS. Ailsa: Or not even that. Like the, if you're a good person, then you get good blessing. Or, you know, you follow God and then you get a good thing. Like what Satan accuses Job at the beginning of only doing it for what he can get out of God. Nathan: Yeah, so we've got to follow God because he's God? Ailsa: Yeah. It kinda seems like that because that's kinda what it says on the end. God's like I am God and bigger than your, any of your stuff. Nathan: Yeah. Ailsa: Yeah. Nathan: He deserves it, he's God and we're not. Even though our heart cries out, "yes I am yes I am." Ailsa: Yeah, I know. We're like but surely I understand and Job's like, you don't understand. Nathan: I've got enough wisdom! Ailsa: And that's Job. Yeah, we get to see a man wrestling with just not understanding. Nathan: Yes. Ailsa: Yeah. And he gets all this stuff back at the end. But it's not because he was good. Right? I think God makes that clear, it's just grace on the end. Nathan: It's just grace. There's all sorts of little droplets of grace all the way through. All the way through Job. Job keeps referencing and alluding to these incredible Christological foreshadowing pieces. Ailsa: What do you mean by 'Christological foreshadowing pieces' because that's a whole bunch of turms. Nathan: So Job keeps using these phrases that the only answer to these phrases is Jesus. The only way that this is ever going to be solved is Jesus. So at one point he's like, 'I wish that I had an advocate who could place his hand on God and place his hand on me.' I'm like, well who's going to touch heaven and earth at the same time? Ailsa: Jesus. Nathan: Jesus. Another point he says, "For I know my Redeemer lives and shall stand upon the earth." Who's this redeemer, who's going to stand on the earth? Jesus. Right? Ailsa: Yeah. Nathan: And then ultimately the way that Job suffers, everything around him dies, he has basically died. LIke to everything, to the world, to his wife, to his kids, to everything around him is dead. And then God says, 'this is the guy who is going to restore these self-righteous friends back to God.' And even Job himself is a little bit like a Christ figure. Ailsa: Yeah, because he keeps being, standing in the gap for these people. Nathan: He stands in the gap for his friends, that's right.  Oh gosh, yeah, for his kids at first. Ailsa: Yeah, for his kids on the front end and then for his friends on the back end, right? Oh, it's all about Jesus. Nathan: It is all about Jesus. Or you can read it. Ailsa: All about Jesus. Nathan: I think Jesus read it all about Jesus. Ailsa: Probably, probably. Still, but, I think we're still left, I think it's all about Jesus, but I think we're still left with it's ok to be grappling with this stuff. Nathan: Yeah, it's a lifelong struggle, it really is. And for somebody who is struggling it's just, you kinda have to hold on, just keep going, trusting that God is good, trusting that your Redeemer lives, has stood upon the earth. That God is crushing suffering. And will one day fully and finally make it right. Ailsa: Yeah and on that note, Job. Nathan:  Yeah, Job it's a struggle. Ailsa: It's a struggle. Nathan: The struggle is real. Ailsa: It's an important one though because the struggle is real in real life. Job, I don't want to say done because that's not Job done. Done. Nathan: Job, the conversation is opened. Ailsa: Yeah. Nathan: We're finished opening the conversation. Yeah that's a good way of putting it. Ailsa: And Job we're finished opening your conversation, and done. Nathan: Moving on. Ailsa: That was About That Bible with Every Nation NYC. You can follow along the same reading plan as us and you'll find the link for that in the notes and you can read too. Don't forget you can also follow us on Instagram and twitter @AboutThatBible and you can find all our podcasts at everynationnyc.org or all the places that you can find podcasts. See you later guys.

Download this Episode On today's episode, we talk about the shiny object, ways to build your business and modern marketing. Please leave us a review and subscribe for more! reThink Real Estate Podcast Transcription Audio length 24:20 RTRE 64 – Get Off My Lawn: A Guide to Modern Marketing in Real Estate [music] [Chris] Welcome to re:Think Real Estate, your educational and hopefully entertaining source for all things real estate, business, news and tech.  [Christian]: I am Christian Harris in Seattle, Washington. [Nathan]: Hi, I am Nathan White in Columbus, Ohio. [Chris]: And I am Chris Lazarus in Atlanta, Georgia. Thanks for tuning in.  [music] [Chris]: Hey everybody and welcome back to re:Think Real Estate. Chris here with Christian and Nate. What's going on guys? [Christian]: Hey fellas. [Nathan]: What's up? Another week since last week. And I don't know. You know, the usual grind here. It's… [Christian]: You seem excited to be alive. [Chris]: ow's your CRM coming Nate? [laugter] [Nathan]: It's gonna get done after I get back from Key West next week. So… [Christian]: Let me know. I will walk you through it.  [Chris]: Man. [Nathan]: Work hard play hard boys. Work hard play hard. [Chris]: Must be good to be a real estate agent.  [Nathan]: I guess so. [Christian]: It is good to be an agent.  [Nathan]: I like it. What are we talking about today? [Chris]: Well we were just talking about [censored] marketing in real estate and how not to do it. You were just showing us a sign of a real estate agent that put his sign out in the middle of the Utah backcountry. On a…what was that Nate? [Nathan]: I mean literally it's in bum [censored] Egypt. I mean it was out…I mean literally it's a like a 16 mile hike. Like I mean maybe it's genius because here I am talking about it. Right. I don't know. [Chris]: Good marketing. [Nathan]: You know, I mean I don't know. But literally like it's like who's gonna see this, you know. Like you spent a…I mean what's an average sign cost? Hundred bucks? [Chris]: 47. [Nathan]: What's that? [Chris]: 47. [Nathan]: You use the cheap one.  [Christian]: Depends on how many you buy at a time. [Chris]: That's a temporary sign with the thing in the middle. [Nathan]: OK well either way I feel like this guy throw away 47 dollars. Because I doubt he'll ever go back to get it. But, you know, bad marking. You know, Christian was asking me do I do marketing. No. I mean yes and no. I think we've talked a little bit about that. That Ohio running realtor Instagram is of course my marketing. Even though it has nothing to do with Realty. [Christian]: Your Donut Saturday with your son. That's marketing. [Nathan]: It is but it had…I mean that was actually started before I became an agent. So I'll be at…a ton of people identify me through the donut Saturday. But I don't…I don't…I don't mail stuff out. I don't, you know, I'm not out blasting stuff on social media. I really hate most of that stuff. I think there's…there's more organic ways to do it. and I generally find that there's more bad examples than good examples. [Christian]: Yeah so you're saying that there are different ways to do marketing? [Nathan]: Yes but…let's go…there's…there's many different ways to do marketing. The question is can you do it well? And my answer would be no. Most agents do not do it well. [Christian]: So there's plenty of examples of bad marketing. How do you…how do you not do bad marketing and do good marketing? What is that? What does that mean? What are those standards? [Nathan]: Well I think…OK so I, you know, how do you not do bad marketing? OK well that'd be like saying all right, it's same reason I don't take pictures. Right. I'm not a [censored] photographer. And I'm not in marketing either.  If you have a marketing background, maybe I get it. But most of the stuff I see agents do is poor. It's poor video. It's poor pictures. They're there…I don't know what even the terminology is when they create their own business cards. It's just horrible. Like there's a reason there are people they get paid in marketing. And you should go pay them to do it. I mean you get a better result. I'd rather be really… [Christian]: Do you? Do you Nate? [Nathan]: Yeah I think so absolutely.  [Chris]: So please do not go buy the printable like perforated business cards and then use your word art. And print them. [laughter] [Nathan]: Yeah word art. Yeah right. Well you see a lot of that. You see really bad names of real estate teams. And, you know, it's just like oh man it's so tacky. I mean there's…I guess there's a place for them because they're still doing business. But… [Christian]: Well…well I'll back this up a little bit. I don't know if you wanna scratch this or not. So, you know, we've got a bit… [Chris]: No this is all good.  [Nathan]: I know you've been picking at soething.  [Chris]: This is alright.  [Christian]: So so far we've kind of [censored] around about bad marketing which is very subjective. Because… [Chris]: Welcome to the water cooler. [Christian]: What's that? [Chris]: Welcome to the water cooler.  [Christian]: Right, you know, like I myself when it comes to marketing try to put myself at the consumers shoes. And say “OK what's, you know, what…what's the objective of the marketing and am I accomplishing that?” You know, and so I think there's unfortunately most…at least in my experience, most, you know, brokerages and agents. You know, there's kind of the standard of like “Yeah well you do a farm, you know, and you just solds and just listed postcards and you have, you know, your face on your business card and, you know, just kind of all this really low bar like everyone does it. Everyone's told to do it.”  And people who aren't agents don't pay any attention to it. They don't care. You know, it doesn't bring them any value. It goes right in the recycling. You know, you direct me on stuff. And so that brings a question about what is…what is good marketing. Yeah I know what caught my attention as a new agent when I saw social media stuff that stood out or community events or, you know, things that I thought were interesting and unique in this space.  And I think that's kind of the key. Is like is it different? Is it gonna catch people's attention in an industry of white noise? Or, you know…And so I think a lot of that there's not just like hey you do this one thing and that's good marketing. I think in this world of noise, you have to have many touch points. It has to be consistent. It has to be driven towards a specific end result. You know, whether that's someone saving up for email or a meeting or liking your page or following you. You know, like it all has to be designed in a consistent way to…to push people towards a certain desired objective. And most people don't approach marketing in that way. There's kind of like half hazard-ly throw stuff out there without a desired intention in mind.  [Chris]: It's a weak thought Christian. Among real estate agents. [Christian]:  What's that? [Chris]: To think about how the consumer is gonna like the content and the message. [Christian]: Yeah.  [Chris]: You know, it's…I'm not a marketer. By all means like that's not my forte. I can train a real estate agent to sell and have a successful business. I could teach them some of the techniques that they should think about when they're finding how to market themselves. But by all means I am NOT a marketer. Like I'm not gonna create a campaign. I am NOT gonna run all that stuff. I'll leave that to other people who are more creative than I am and just let them do their thing. [Christian]: But it certainly had that desired effect to you once. And you could send that to a marketer. [Chris]: I…I know what we need to accomplish. And so here in Georgia, we…we actually do recruit new agents at my firm. So we have…we get all of the information for the people who pass and we send out collateral. We send out like we send out really nice marketing pieces to them. And so my wife recently got her real estate license to help out in the office because she's a part owner in the company. So some of the things that she's doing, she needs a license now. So she got her license and just for the hell of it we decided “OK we're gonna see what other brokerages are sending out.” And it ranges. Some of them send out, you know, one eight-and-a-half by 11 piece of paper that's a letter. Some of them send out postcards. Some of them send out…there's one KW office. They send out like this worksheet. Right. And it's got this three boxes or three columns and a bunch of rows. And each row it's like “Check about if this broker offers this.” It's like a broker checklist. Interview other brokers and see if they have everything we have. [Christian]: Like a comparison sheet. [Chris]: Yes. Yes that's exactly what it is. And that was probably the most creative. There was a Coldwell Banker office, it sent three po…three postcards from the exact same broker. Brokers face on it. And then it has like no message. Right like the postcard says like “Be bold.” Or like “Be strong.” Like on one. And it's like you've got two or three words taking up the entirety of this like six by nine postcard. And it doesn't say anything of value at all. It's just like motivational [censored]. So then like we look at what we're sending out. And we're sending out this like…we're sending out two mailings, in depth packet of everything that the company offers on this. Like premium glossy photo. And I'm like “You know what? This is why people call us off of this stuff. It's because these other brokers that are in our market doing this, it's garbage.” You got to…you got to focus on what the consumer is gonna want. I'm glad you do that. [Christian]: Sure. Well I think to, you know, the key in on what you said, you know, it's a little cliche these days or whatever. But talking about bringing value. Right. Like you've got to resonate with whoever you're trying to get in front of with something that…that they're going to, well, resonate with. You know, there's gonna be a value that they use. That…that catchphrase. And so it's typically not going to be “Hey I just sold this house or I closed in five days.” They don't give a [censored]. They don't know what that means. Like, you know, but if you are like, you know, you're specializing in a certain community. And, you know, you're sending out something who says “Hey have you checked out this new pizza joint that they just opened? Here's the interview with the owner.” You know, like that doesn't have anything to do the real estate. But you're getting your name and message out there. In alignment with “Hey this person is actually invested in the community. Actually supporting that business of actually providing something to the people that would frequent that business, who might find that interesting.” As an example of, you know, a community aligned marketing strategy that's, you know, one touch piece amongst many.  You know, whether that's, you know, if you're gonna do a farm have that be consistent. And there's technology you can utilize to do, you know, retargeting Facebook or Google Ads that, you know, have that consistent message to those same people you're mailing. If they, you know…you know that kind of thing. But that takes planning. That takes technical expertise. And I think that's a far cry from, you know, Nate was saying “Hey I'm not a marketer. Hire that [censored] out.” And I agree with. That but there's so a lot of low bar marketing stuff out there, that's like…My last brokerage, you know, they've had like a social media company come in who basically said “Hey, you know what Facebook is? We'll take care of that for you. And what they meant by that is “If you sign up with us, we're gonna send out this exact same [censored] generic posting…” [Chris]: That you would. [Christian]: Yeah right. And like, you know, I'd be falling for some this people. And you'd see the exact same posting on six different agents sites in the same company, because they're just sending out the same generic [censored]. I'm like that does more to harm you and your reputation that does to like not send anything out at all. [Chris]: Definitely. One of the major things that I learned when…when we started doing SEO on our website, is that for any third party, like if you really want to get your money's worth, you have to hire in-house. Like if you're not hiring in-house, you're just going out and hiring a firm, unless they are a premium level firm where you have a dedicated account manager that is spending X number of hours on your account every month…you're just not gonna get your money's worth. [Christian]: Right and it's not gonna be cheap. [Chris]: Hire in-house.  [Christian]: Yeah. [Chris]: Where you have to monitor it in-house and then outsource the work itself. But to just go out and say “Here take care of it.” That's…that's like, you know, you're eating in a den of snakes.  [Christian]: Right. Well and if you're gonna hire that out, if you're an agent you're like “Hey marketing is not my forte. I'm gonna hire it out.” you better make sure that wherever you hire is asking you questions. To make sure that that content is, you know, in your voice. It's, you know, it's not gonna be, you know, if someone who's following X agent knows you personally, and they see something coming out, they're like “That doesn't sound like them. They wouldn't send something out like that.” Like now you've got a authenticity issue. And, you know, you're going to be doing more damage. I mean especially as you we're seeing, you know, the demographic shift and the impact of social media. What people care about is…is authenticity, being genuine. If they catch wind of “Oh you just hiring out some generic someone, someone, some bot or some company is running your social media…yeah unfriend. Not interested. I'm not going to work with them because, you know, they can't even bother to post real stuff from themselves.” [Chris]: If you're looking to hire an ad agency, you're gonna be on retainer for a minimum of 5k a month. And that does not include your ad spend. Like if you want a good ad agency, if…if you're just looking to hire, you know, a marketing consultant who's gonna charge you, you know, 150 dollars a month, for this number of posts on social media, it…it's…you might as well light your money on fire. It's not going to do anything for you. [Christian]: Well there's different…I mean they're just from models, you know. I mean I'm a very DIY person. But I also know that me, I'm not a professional marketer. Like I know, you know, kind of the strategy aspect of it and…but, you know, I've hired like a local marketer. Who would sit down with me and flush out, you know “OK this is what you have going on. How to be aware where are your missing pieces. And not leverage things where they're not connected.” That kind of stuff and kind of map it out for me. And then I go execute it. Now if you can hire someone to execute it's, that is gonna be a lot more expensive. Because that's very times, you know, intensive.  [Chris]: Yeah I mean and that's gonna be the difference. Like you can…you can bring in a consultant, for almost anything. But then you have to do the work. And the consultant is not gonna come up with the whole idea for you. They're gonna help you work through it. So but if you want…but if you're…My point is, you know, if you're hiring, you know, the hundred and fifty hundred and ninety nine dollar marketing company online, that's a subscription, versus you really want advertising, it's a difference.  Like you've got that retainer every single month. And you've got to hit that spend limit with them. And that does not include your ads. [Christian]: Sure. [Chris]: They'll go through and they'll do everything from your direct mail pieces, to video creation, to all of it. [Christian]: Right. And that's gonna be an actual marketing campaign with multiple platforms and tiers. Not just “Hey we're sending out social media posts on your Facebook.” It's entirely different. And I mean it's some agents who don't, you know, see the benefit of that. Or like “I don't have time for that” you know, like Nate. I mean he stays busy enough and successful enough to not need that. But…but I mean the stuff he does organically is still marketing. It's just not your typical overt cheesy agent stuff. Which I think speaks…it's a lot more powerful than if you did the traditional “Just sold, just listed, hey look at me, I'm in an open house.” You know, and everything's just overtly real estate. Which it doesn't resonate with the majority of people, the majority of the time. [Nathan]: No and, you know, I think you actually…what's you're gonna see and unbeknownst to you guys, but you're gonna see me doing a little more marketing here in the future. But yeah well I have the luxury though of…Our company just brought on a marketing director that has a very strong marketing background. So we will have an in-house marketing department that… [Christian]: Nice. [Nathan]: Make, you know, will be able to take on what visions I have. Or I don't want to say visions. I call them thoughts. Yeah I mean I had a meeting with her last week. She's awesome and I…I equate what she can do to what like my tattoo guy does. Right. I come up with this wild little sketch on a piece of paper that looks like a third-grader did it. I say “Hey here.” And then a week later he hands it back and I'm like “I don't know how you got that, but it's perfect.” You know… [Christian]: Sure. They will take your vision and make it into something. [Nathan]: And make it into something and Karen will be able to do that for it. Some…a lot of brokerages I don't think have, you know, that good fortune of having a marketing director that has a very solid background with a large company that can create some of these things we want. Within the vision that you need to do. I think it's important that whatever your theme is, you have consistency with it. And a lot of people don't do that. I think a lot of real estate and what you do is marketing. Right. So if you're gonna do it, do it well. [Christian]: Sure. Well I think a lot of agents don't realize it like what they're putting out there, you know, is represent themselves. You know, because I mean you can have your marketing and your advertising. Typically people use them interchangeably. But they're not, you know. Like for us, you know, we just, you know, ponied…pointed up. And…and hired Max the designs to…to do our marketing piece, you know, pieces. Which is essentially a design firm, you know, small design team down Los Angeles that walks you through a creation process of like everything, from color scheme to…to fonts to like what's the feel, you know, your brokerage has. And all those kind of stuff to make stuff that's customized for you. All the pieces are consistent. Totally customized to provide a platform. All your agents can log in and create their own stuff. Customize it, you know, download it.  Like all that is like the bare minimum marketing pieces that you can then use for presentations or social media stuff. Or…or whatever. But, you know, something like that gives you a consistency for your agents, for your firm. But then on top of that you've got the actual “OK I'm gonna run a marketing campaign and that requires, you know, some intentional thought behind. What's my desire goal? What messages are gonna resonate with whom? What platforms win?” You know, much more complex than just aesthetic marketing piece.  You're muted.  [Nathan]: Everybody got quiet. So… [Chris]: No one's muted. We just were talking…[laughter]. All right. Well I think that is definitely you now… [Christian]: Helpful. Hopefully it's interesting. Oh boy this is the funny part.  [Nathan]: Anyway.  [Chris]: No I mean it's…it's great. We…we haven't put anything in place like that for our firm right now. Even though we have a…our listing coordinator has a marketing background. She's actually in portfolio school right now. So to kind of an extent we can…we have that ability. She'll bounce some ideas off of us. We'll bounce ideas off of her. Actually just to make sure we're not doing anything stupid.  But for everything with us, it's a lot of…it's word-of-mouth. And I think that that's another type of marketing that people don't pay enough attention to. Going back a few years to when Scott Stratten [phonetics] talked about on marketing. At Inman he said, you know “If you want word of mouth, what do you do? You do something worth talking about.” So there…there's that whole aspect to marketing our businesses. Doing things like Ritz Carlton. Doing things like Disney. Doing things…taking so much advanced precaution with our clients, thinking about their problems before they ever have it. That that way the client has no other alternative but to say how great their experience was. And I think that that's something that, you know, we need to figure out or put more focus on also, because that stuff's free. [Christian]: Yeah well and that's what, you know, for all that you're leveraging the client experience. Right. It's how you do your business, you know. All the marketing advertising is how you build up from, you know, getting in front of people to get them to that place where they're your client. And then that experience comes in and the referral business can happen. It's all part of a, you know, a long cycle of business. Hopefully. [Chris]: Absolutely. So I think that's good. [Nathan]: Yeah. [Chris]: Any final thoughts while you're at it? [Christian]: I would say as an agent, know your strengths, know your weaknesses. Don't try to do everything. Hire out the stuff that you're not an expert in. In this case marketing. But, you know, you got to find…you got to find someone that can draw out what that vision is. So that it's consistent. Enhances your brand as opposed to completely contradicts your…consistency. [laughter] Words. [Chris]: Nate any final thoughts? [Nathan]: No. Stay off Facebook. Don't request me. [laughter]. Get off my lawn you kids. Seriously I was like…all of that stuff that everybody else does, don't [censored] do it.  [Christian]: There's that. [Nathan]: I don't want to be your friend because you're not gonna sell me a house. All right. All right. Guys good luck and hope it works out for you. [Chris]: Yeah. All right so basically there's different types of marketing. Figure out what you want. Avoid the shiny object. Don't think that you're gonna find something that is going to solve all of your problems for one low monthly subscription. And then don't leave out the word of mouth. Make sure you're doing the things for your clients in your daily business. Make sure that your clients are your number one focus. Because guess what? Costs a whole lot less to keep a client than it does to acquire a new one. Everybody this has been re:Think Real Estate. We'll catch you next Monday. [music]  [Chris]: Thanks for tuning in this week's episode of the re:Think Real Estate Podcast. We would love to hear your feedback so please leave us a review on iTunes. Our music is curtesy of Dan Koch K-O-C-H, whose music can be explored and licensed for use at dankoch.net. Thank you Dan. Please like, share and follow. You can find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/rethinkpodcast. Thank you so much for tuning in everyone and have a great week.  [music]  

Download this Episode We've all been there on our real estate path. Today we discuss the difference between calling ourselves a professional and actually being a professional. reThink Real Estate Podcast Trannscription Audio length 28:02 RTRE 63 – Being a Pro vs. Saying You're a Pro [music] [Chris] Welcome to re:Think Real Estate, your educational and hopefully entertaining source for all things real estate, business, news and tech.  [Christian]: I am Christian Harris in Seattle, Washington. [Nathan]: Hi, I am Nathan White in Columbus, Ohio. [Chris]: And I am Chris Lazarus in Atlanta, Georgia. Thanks for tuning in.  [music] [Chris]: Hey everybody welcome back to re:Think Real Estate. Chris Lazarus here. Here with Christian Harris and Nathan White. Nate you've got a bone to pick with some people. What's going on dude? [Nathan]: I mean call it a bone or not. But so I was just recently on a trip with some buddies of mine. And I was ranting. Or we were individually ranting I should say, about our industries that we respectively work in. And of course I got some puzzled looks and different things and, you know, about my rants. And ironically enough, one of the guys on the trip called me the day after we got back.  And he says “I have new respect for what you were talking about.” I said “What do you mean?” He says “Listen, you know, my…my aunt, you know, she…she passed away and…and one of my family members is selling her house. And the agent that my aunt hired said ”Listen I don't really want you telling anybody that somebody passed away in the home. Yada yada yada.”” The agent responded with “Trust me this is what I do for a living.” My friend then said “Please ask me how many houses has she sold.” I said “Well Larry how many houses as she sold?” He said zero. And he said “I totally get it.” He said this individual, you know, is making it appear I guess if you would, that they're an expert in our industry and, you know, what we do, but they've not sold a home. They have a license. Right. They're a realtor. Right. But they've done zero business. So again there…there is there's some delineation here between who's an agent who is a licensee. Right. And I get it. Just wound up. I mean I get it, you know, but I don't I also don't get it. I was taught “Fake it til you make it.” When I started. And I don't…I don't think that's the way to go. I think there's a lot of other paths to go through education and training and certain things, that I believe, you know, yourself and Christian both provide. But what would you two tell an agent in this situation? Right. [Chris]: Oh I wouldn't say…I would tell the agent “Look don't tell people this is what you do for a living until you actually make a living off of it.” [Nathan]: Christian? [Christian]: I mean my whole thing…because I was kind of taught same thing. Kind of “Fake it til you make it. Yo here's some scripts to make it sound like, you know, what you're talking about that you don't.” What I tell my new agents is like, you know, “Don't…don't come out and say “Hey I'm brand new. I don't know what I'm doing.” But positioning in such a way where you're saying “Hey, you know, I'm working closely with my designated broker. If I don't have the answer I can get it. You're getting two for the price of one. It's not just new agent flailing out there trying to pretend like they know what they're doing.”” So, you know, essentially don't lie but also don't come straight out say “Hey I don't know what I'm doing and I have no confidence. You know, I'm probably gonna [censored] up and [censored] over your listing, you know, I'm a seller.” But at the same time don't…you merely like you yeah you have all experienced in the world when you don't. because it's not hard to find out information about how experienced or how long an agent's been licensed. [Chris]: Doesn't even require an open records request. You can just look it on Zillow. [Christian]: Yeah I mean and…and…and that's it. And it may not be the case with every real estate firm. But for us, you know, we closely work with our new agents to make sure they're providing the best experience. They know what they're doing. They're not, you know, floundering, you know. And I know business brokerages are supposed to do that. [Chris]:Floundering. Like flopping around flopping around [laughter].  [Christian]: Yeah flopping around the land.  [Nathan]: Like a fish out of water is what it looks like. [Chris]: Yeah. [Christian]: It's hard…it's hard for a new agent to mask that when, you know, you don't really know how the process works, and you don't really know the direction you're supposed to be going and what you're supposed to be saying to your client, you know. [Nathan]: Wouldn't this be an interesting industry change if you had to have some intern or externship with so many transactions under your belt before you were to able to go out and represent a buyer or seller? [Chris]: That makes sense. That's what we do for new agents. They have to have six transactions under their belt before the training wheels come off. At a minimum. And for the first six transactions they're heavily mentored through them. So they're…they're not alone. They have people like their first deals they've got a mentor that's going out. And…and working with them. Teaching them how to do the consults for the buyers. And for the listing consult. So that by the time that agent gets ready to go out and be on their own, they generally have a great idea of what they're doing. [Christian]: Yeah well that's a great way to do it. I mean I love how you formalize that. Obviously that takes, you know, a brokerage's,  you know, certain amount of experienced agents and size. And, you know… [Chris]: Yeah I'll let you know when we get at that level too. [laughter] [Christian]: It is a structure. Because you could say technically the industry requires it. but, you know, when the laws basically says, you know, “Additional designated broker oversight for the first two years” like that's really loose. And it's not, you know, it's not really…there's not really a standard for that. Even though technically new agents are supposed to be more heavily monitored. There's no…there's nothing in place a, you know, firm to firm, insuring that happens. [Chris]: Yeah I mean there…I was talking to somebody the other day he was telling me about a person who's making a switch from another firm. And this person was also a recruiter. And he was like “Yeah this person brought about a hundred and forty people over to the brokerage. And about a hundred and twenty of them left.” And I'm like “What?!” Like I don't even want to turn that number. Like I'll bring ten and one will leave. Like I'm not gonna turn a hundred and forty people to get twenty.  It's just ridiculous the lack of oversight that some of these brokerages put into actual retention and training and development. It's literally taking the pickle, throwing it at the wall and seeing which one sticks. [Christian]: Sure. Well I mean and it's well-known, and I've been saying this for years. You know, like most firms, you know, most of the industry is just focus on numbers. Like all we want is people in the seats. Licensed agents, you know. We're not really concerned about retention and training and empowering because there's gonna be, you know, a dozen new agents with, you know, dollar signs in their eyes waiting to take their spots. You know, when…when they fail. [Nathan]: It will be like “Oh let's look at our checklist. You have a license. Check. You have a pulse. Check. Oh yeah good. You can…you can join us.” And uh, you know, I often get the question “Hey what…what led to your success as an agent?” I don't want to call myself successful but I do well. And I know what I'm doing now. And I think a huge part of it and I will I will tap the shoulder if you would of the team lead, Tim Reel [phonetics], that I had at Keller Williams when I started, is…is that I…part of it… Let me rephrase this. I viewed it as an internship. Right. I knew I was gonna pay a steep cut on my team splits. And KW split. But I also knew I was gonna get an education. And I wasn't standing alone. I wasn't by myself. And I was constantly getting feedback or more importantly I was getting mentorship. I think that's what a lot of people want. And…and that helped me. And then when I did want to go out and do my own thing and kind of stand on my own feet as a solo agent, I had the capability to do that. So, you know, that's always been my win at KW. Don't…you're not a technology company. You're a training company. KW gave me some great bones. You gave me a great foundation. So any agent that is potentially listening to this, that's struggling or is thinking about coming an agent, I would tell “You…you want to do well? Go be on a team. Go…go learn.” I don't…I don't, you know, that's just me.  [Christian]: And I say you're pretty fortunate because, you know, I've heard, you know, I've heard many things as far as, you know, people kind of getting on team. I mean KW is kind of what they're known for. You know. But it's a…it could be very hit and miss. Because, you know… [Nathan]: Yes. [Christian]: I mean you could be, you know, you can be fortunate where the team lead is actually interested in mentoring and training, in empowering their team members. But I've also seen people that, you know, get on teams and all this is a call center. And they were promised “Hey we're gonna train you. We're gonna teach you this stuff.” And they're not learning anything except for making sales calls and scripts. You know, it could be very…very hit and miss, as far as the team structure goes and the attitude of the leadership. [Nathan]: Same as I tell a potential client. Interview realtors. I tell a potential realtor and if you have a lot of teams. [Christian]: Yeah. [Chris]: Interview teams. Interview brokers. Interview office staff. Interview whoever you can. I mean… [Nathan]: Interview your clients. You don't necessarily want all your clients that come to you.  [Chris]: No stay away from my clients. You're another agent. I don't want you talking to them. [laughter] [Christian]: Yeah I am gonna interview your clients. [Chris]: So…but this is…this brings us back to like a great point. Right. Because you've got three types of agents. You've got the full time agents. Right. These are the people that are in here all the time. These are the people that this is how we make a living. Then you have the part-time agents which I don't have an issue with part-time agents. Part-time agents they're putting in the hours. They may not be in at 40, 60, 80 hours a week. But they're in it 10, 20, 30 hours a week. And that's enough so that they generally understand what's happening in the industry. And they're able to build and maintain a client base and, you know, do a few deals every year. Then you've got the problem. The last type of agent it's the sometime agent. The agent that hangs their license. They're just a licensee. They're not in it full-time. They've got another job and they'll sell a house whenever their family member comes to them and says “Hey, you know, you're a real estate agent right?” “Yeah. Yeah I am.” And they're really not. And they…they don't fully understand what's going on. And when they take a deal that's when things go sideways. So I think the clarification is what kind of agent do you want to be? If you're…if you're coming into the industry are you going to be a sometime agent? Or are you gonna be a part-time agent? Because if you're…if you're just dipping your toe in the water and this is new for you, you have to be a part-time agent. If you're anything less than that you're never gonna learn enough to be successful. You know what? You know what? We can just steal from the Game of Thrones on that. Because, you know what we say, to us sometimes agent…not today. [Christian]: Not today.  [Nathan]: Not today. [Christian]: What I was gonna say so…so that's as we jumped into this, you guys are like “Hey let' talk about this thing.” “I don't know what you're talking about.” So…so we talked about licensee versus an agent that's [crosstalk]. That's what you mean? [Nathan]: Yes. [Christian]: I got you. I think… [Nathan]: I think I've told the story once. I insulted a woman. She's…we were having a conversation. [Christian]: You insulted someone? No way. [Nathan]: Yes. And she said something like “Oh you're real estate agent?” And I said “Yeah.” And she said “Me too.” And I was like “Great. How many houses did you sell last year?” And she's like “Four.” And I was like “You're not an agent.” She got all upset. I was like…what…like…I don't know. [Christian]: You have a way with words Nathan.  [Nathan]: Like I mean it is what it is. I mean I…yeah that's right. But there needs to be so many changes in our industry. And, you know, again we can talk about the barrier and entry. Yeah. Yeah. I do want to talk about two things on this episode, I guess. If we want to just get going and keep going.  [Chris]: Well let's keep going. [Christian]: But before we get away can I say something? [Nathan]: Go. Get away.  [Christian]: Get away. So to your point Chris about the licensee versus an agent and the three types of agents, and it's interesting. It seems like there's so many new agents that get into it just to be a licensee. It's basically like “Hey I can make, you know, a lot of money just, you know, accidentally selling a house now and then, to…to a friends.” So they're not invested in learning or building a career. They're kind of testing the waters. And memorably they fail and realize, you know, usually it's too late. “Hey this actually cost me a lot of money and I'm not really willing to put in the time. And real estate doesn't work”. You know. [Chris]: It's…it's like people come in here and, you know, you can go and get a real estate license and you can go and sell your own home and you can buy your next home and you can earn a commission. Great. Yeah it offsets your down payment.  [Christian]: Sure. [Chris]: But you factor in that you do that once every ten years and it's…it's really not worth your time.  [Christian]: Right. Well I like your distinction between basically, you know, the part-time, who is still again with the time they have, they're investing and learning. Versus the “I'm just sitting here with my license doing other stuff until something comes my way. And then I flattened my way through it.” And because I think it's a big difference. I think a lot of people in the industry inflate the two.  Like I was having a conversation the other day with, you know, some agents from another indie brokerage here in town. And I love that brokerage but they're very…very high standards on who they'll accept. Like if three times a week there or you're gone. You know, you have certain production what are you gone. [Chris]: Good. [Christian]: I think that's great but that means… [Chris]: I wish more brokers did that. [Christian]: But that means that they don't do part-time agents. And, you know, this particular agent I was talking to, was basically cuckooing part-time agents. I was like listen “The people that can do it full-time like you you're basically taking it elitist stance, because people have kids or they have other jobs or, you know, it's just not the priority in life to spend 80 hours a week trying to make real estate work.” And I think there's room for that because just because you're part time doesn't necessarily mean you're inept. Or, you know, don't know how to do real estate. It just made you're focusing on other things. You know. [Chris]: Wait really? Because I thought whatever my preconceived notions were, we're correct. [Christian]: But I'm saying I think there's a difference. Because part time agents can invest in their training and knowledge and experience just as much as a full time. But that's a lot different than someone who just is seating on the sidelines waiting for real estate to come to them. [Chris]: As long as they're putting in the hours. And…and it's actually interesting that you bring that up. Because there was a study done by a university talking about entrepreneurship and going and creating your own self-employed income. And the success rates. And somebody who does it part-time at first, believe it or not has a thirty percent greater chance of success rate, long term. Than somebody who just dives in off the deep end full-time. So you can have somebody who's coming in part-time 20 hours a week and as long as they're working those 20 hours there's a greater chance of success that that person is going to be a long-term successful real estate agent. Then somebody who comes in off the bat, full time and has one way to go. [Christian]: What…it's interesting. Is that because they're runways longer because they have a supplemental income. Or something as opposed to… [Chris]: Yeah. The caveat with this is that those people are actually putting in the work. Right. They're working 20, 30 hours a week.  [Christian]: Sure. Right. They're not sitting around at their home office watching Netflix and occasionally making a call or something. [Chris]: Yeah. [Nathan]: Well I mean aren't there plenty of full-time agents who work a lot of part-time hours? [Christian]: That's true. That's a good distinction. They usually don't make it either. [laughter] [Nathan]: I mean I know plenty of full-time agent, who I mean it's like “[censored] if you're full-time than you suck.” [laughter] I mean it's because you look at their sales history. Like great you sold six houses last year. But you're full-time. And then there's the part-time agent who sells twenty five a year. Right. So… [Christian]: Again that comes down to your hustle and your focus. Because I've seen full-time agent that, you know, that are there full-time, but they're mentally…they're all over the place. [Nathan]: Yeah right. So I, you know, I don't like to get into this, you know, “O you're full-time, part-time.” Again sales cure is all, where I come from. And if you have a history you have a history. That's what I…that's what I like to look at is, you know, it's what matters. If somebody says “Well I'm a full-time agent.” Well great you'd be a full-time agent with [censored] sales. Right. I mean that's easy. And so I'd rather say Hey you're an agent with a great history.” That…to me is important. That's where we can delineate the that whole thing.  Is…let's not get into full-time, part-time. Yeah, the sometime, I don't want to get around. But let's just get into “Hey what did you…” I tell them “What did you sell?” Ask them what did they sell last year. What they do. Which may be and, you know, part of this I wanted to ask in this kind of segues into the other side of this, is does area specialization in a normal market, like where I'm at, in Columbus, does that matter anymore due to the amount of data that is available? My argument would be “No it doesn't matter.” [Chris]: I would argue you, against that.  [Nathan]: I figured you would. Yeah Christian too. [Chris]: Yeah.  [Nathan]: But that's just me. So… [Chris]: And I think it comes down to the level of service that somebody wants to bring. If…if you have like three agents going up against one neighborhood, and one agent knows everything about the neighborhood, all the history. Everything that has taken place there. Everything that's going in. All the development that…that's happening. Then that agent can sell not only the house but also the story.  And if you could sell the story, you know, that…that's the best way to market right now. Whereas if you have two other agents that don't know that info, then they're just…they're either competing on price or they're competing on marketing ability. [Nathan]: All right go back in there. There's an agent you left out of this. What about the agent that has the capability to use their commission as leverage on a deal? That's not in the area. [Christian]: I mean I think it… [Chris]: Where would he use that laverage? [Nathan]: Towards closing costs. Say…saying…because in our market you can do that. Right. Say…say I specialize in Dublin. Right. Ohio. But I want to go to…I got a client who want…your potential client who's interested in buying in New Albany, that yeah I've done deals over there. But I'm competing against a New Albany realtor. And…and I can offer…say Christian's my buyer. I can incentivize him to use me because I can say “Hey you're gonna buy $500,000 home. You know what I'll do? I'll take three thousand dollars on my commission and credit that to you towards closing cost and pre-paids and closing cost.” Now in a competitive market I'm gonna choose the agent that's got leeway to give me something. Or that could bridge appraisal, help with closing cost or something like that. Over somebody who says “Oh I specialize in an area.” That's just me and my train of thought. [Christian]: I mean the specializing in an area, I…I'd say the value really depends on which side you're on. Like…like when I'm on the listing side I think it like I specialize in West Seattle. But I do other areas of Seattle in the suburbs. Like I remember specifically like I helped a military friend of mine sell this place and well the suburbs here.  Now I didn't…I've never sold a house in that area. And so one of the questions I had to ask is like “Hey tell me about your neighborhood.” Like “There's a main…there's a main road going through here. Our house is on this side of it. A lot different than this side.” Because I can look at the numbers all day long but as the stats don't tell me, you know, why people move to this area. Or what the demographics are. Or who the ideal buyer is gonna be.  You know, so you've got to do a lot more digging and you actually know the area for that. And on the buyer side I don't think that's as important. I mean it can be. You can leverage it. but, you know, you're not really…I think it's more important on the seller side. Because you're gonna use that information, that knowledge of the neighborhood to target that ideal buyer.  [Chris]: And I think… [Christian]: What to focus on. [Chris]: Yeah and Nate to your point, I think you're you're kind of comparing apples to oranges right now. Because you're…you're talking about two completely different value propositions. That the agents can base on. And, you know, all of them work. Right. There's a million different value propositions on how you can build your business. Whether you specialize in historic or new construction or this one area or whatever it might be. Or you…you leverage some of your commission income to incentivize, you know, the client base.  You know, you can pay. It's one way or another. If you want to take some of your commission and do that on the back end through a rebate, you know, who am I to judge? All of them work. They're all different business models. And I don't call one discount versus one traditional. They're just different business models. It just depends on what's right for the individual agent. And what's right for the individual agent has to line up with the broker that they're with. Because not all brokers will allow their agents to do a commission rebate. Or to donate some towards closing costs. Whatever that might be. But it has to…like they all work. Like one agent may have a value proposition. And their proposition may be “I know everything about this area. Use me because I'm gonna make sure you're fully informed.” And then another agent may say “Well we're not as familiar with the area but we'll make sure that you have this financial instead of…” And then it's just up to the buyer. Right. The buyer may want money or they we may want their choice to be 100%. So it can go either way. [Christian]: And I'd say I mean you can't you can kind of think about in terms of like your commission is one of the terms of the contract. And so it's something that you could leverage just like you can any other terms, you know. That's something that you directly have control over versus, you know, the buyer. But, you know, options. [Nathan]: Right. Just curious. I mean you see it often. I mean…and I've done it. but, you know, we'll waive appraisal. And, you know, I will use my commission as a bridge in case that commits…that appraisal comes in short. And I've had plenty of times. It never has. We've been fine. I've had times where it comes in short and hey that's fine too. Again it's…it's as much for the seller when I represent a buyer to offer, you know, to say “Hey I'm willing to use my commission as a bridge in case it doesn't.” Because then they know they'll, you know, they'll get that money. So… [Chris]: I think that that's something to be careful about. So you're… you're very well versed in that Nate. But for your average agent, like if they're going into putting their livelihood on the line, like they got…they're gambling on themselves. [Nathan]: Yeah they are. [Chris]: And…and that's what you're doing. And you're good. And I would probably gamble on myself if I had to take the bet. [Nathan]: I like it. [Chris]: But I think that there's a lot of agents that for general advice…Don't do that well.  [Nathan]: Yes. You also…you got to remember I am fair. I keep 100% of my commission. Truly 100%. Right. So, you know, I don't have a split. So you got to think on a normal agents, say they're on a 60/40 split, you know, they're already taking a hit. Right. So they're potentially gonna take a bigger hit? Like, you know, they do have to be cautious. I…I have a little…I have a lot more leeway. Let's be honest. But… [Christian]: Sure. Not all the firms are going to support that. You know, so… [Nathan]: No they're not.  [Chris]: And you know as general…for our audience, as general advice I'm gonna say don't do that. Mainly because I don't know, you know, if I'm talking about the average agent, right. [Nathan]: Right. [Chris]: They're not gonna be at that level to where, you know, I would feel comfortable just saying “Hey go out and put your commission on the line.” Because guess what? They do that. They say “I'll bridge the gap on an appraisal.” And the appraisal was four percent off instead of three. [Christian]: Well yeah… [Chris]: Now what's gonna happen? [Christian]: I mean you should always have…always have a cap, you know, as far as how far you'll go. You know, I mean I think in general, the principle I like. Because you're basically partnering with your clients, with skin the game. As opposed to you like “Hey, you know, here's all the terms. If it doesn't work out, well I'm fine. But you're gonna get [censored].”  [Nathan]: Well and my part in it is where I bridge part of the gap. My client will bridge part of the gap. But my commission will supersede their bridge. So but again what we're doing and like you said is, you know, kind of like in Top Gun. Right. You know, when you went fully inverted over the other plane and they're like this, you know. So that's the maneuver I pull. And I just haven't taken the picture yet. So…[laughter] [Chris]: International relations. [Nathan]: That's right. So anyway those are my two concerns or thoughts…would, over the last week. [Christian]: It's a creative way to do what you have to do, in a competitive market. [Nathan]: Yes.  [Chris]: Just make sure you run it by your broker. [Christian]: Always. [Chris]: And have your lawyers look at your language in your contract.  [Nathan]: Yeah you actually have to disclose that too, here. So… [Chris]: Yeah you do in Georgia also if you're doing that with the commission. The buyer has to pay tax on that too. [Nathan]: Really? [Chris]: Yeah. Otherwise you have to claim it. [Nathan]: Yeah that's true. [Chris]: Yeah. All right. Well I mean I think that was pretty good. So just recapping. If you're…if you're brand new in the industry, you know, you you're one of three people, you're a full-timer, a part-timer or some timer. Don't be a some timer. Because if you're a some timer, you're never gonna learn everything you need to know in order to be successful at this job.  And then, you know, figure out how you want to build your business. Right. You can…you could do a bit model like Nathan and use your commissioners leverage as long as you do it right. Or you can be the expert in your field. Know everything about everyone.  And everything that's going on in your neighborhood. And make sure that you're the source of information. Either way the business models work. Pick what's right for you. This has been another episode of re:Think Real Estate. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next Monday. [Nathan]: Peace. [music]  [Chris]: Thanks for tuning in this week's episode of the re:Think Real Estate Podcast. We would love to hear your feedback so please leave us a review on iTunes. Our music is curtesy of Dan Koch K-O-C-H, whose music can be explored and licensed for use at dankoch.net. Thank you Dan. Please like, share and follow. You can find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/rethinkpodcast. Thank you so much for tuning in everyone and have a great week.  [music]  

For our first entrepreneur acquisition update episode, we are speaking to Nathan Singh, a buyer who made a purchase through Quiet Light eighteen months back. Nathan is a great example of how a buyer can get a good deal and beat out other buyers just by being personable and investing in the seller. It turns out that it's not always the person who has an all-cash offer on the table that wins the deal. Having a Nathan was more appealing and likable to the seller, won out on a deal, and today we are hearing all about how the acquisition transition has gone for him. Episode Highlights: Nathan tells us all about the two WordPress plugins he bought and what each does. Any regrets regarding the multiple and the use of an SBA loan for the transaction. The company growth rate and any challenges Nathan's faced. Where the growth has come in and what he attributes that growth to. Staff retention and how the transition is going within the staff since the original transition period. Nathan's tips for an easier transition. The importance of involving the customer in order to create a relevant product road map. The biggest challenges and successes of the businesses. Things Nathan has implemented to ignite that growth. Way's Nathan keeps his relaxed disposition. Growth Goals for the next 12-24 months. Nathan's 3P's advice to entrepreneurs looking to strike out and acquire a business. Transcription: Mark: Joe, about a year ago you had Nathan Singh on the podcast. Nathan was a really good example of how a buyer can get a good deal, beat out buyers that maybe have a little bit of a stronger position with their offer or if they're a cash buyer just by being kind and generous and investing more importantly in the person that's selling the business. And I guess it's time for an update from him. Joe: Yeah, Nathan did a great job. His seller was Syed Balkhi. He owns Opt-In Monster. That's not the one we sold but we sold two of his WordPress plugin sites which are essentially SaaS businesses and Nathan beat out a full priced all cash buyer with a full price SBA deal where Syed agreed to carry a 10% seller note which was pretty substantial based upon the size of the business. And it's a story I've told often in the different events that we go to and here on the podcast so sorry for folks hearing it. I'm repeating it but yeah the first podcast we did with Nathan was all about that and the transition and training and things of that nature and we're doing an update. I think this is probably our first entrepreneur acquisition update. And he talks about what it's been like for the last 12 months; some of the wins, some of the losses, some of the challenges, the team and things of that nature. It's a great episode to see what people have done. I think really probably more like 18 months later. I think we sold it to Nathan in the fall of '17. Mark: Yeah, I get asked all the time like do you guys follow up with people that have bought these sites and what does it look like a little bit after. And frankly, we don't do enough update follow up with people who have bought so this is good. I'm glad that we are doing this with somebody we're doing on the podcast live so that people can actually hear how the acquisition has gone a year and a half later. Let's get right into it I want to hear from Nathan. Joe: One more thing I want to just shout out a reminder this new intro that we have, we've got some movie quotes in there. If you can figure out what the movie quote is for the intro go back and rewind, listen to it, put it down in the show notes and we'll give a call out to you in the next episode. Joe: Hey, folks Joe Valley here from Quiet Light Brokerage and today we have our first ever Quiet Light update or acquisition update. We've got Nathan Singh on the podcast; Nathan, welcome. Nathan: Hey Joe. Joe: Good to be back, good to have you back man. I tell your story often. I share the story that it's not always the person who has an all cash full price offer that wins the deal and that being likable is one of those intangible very, very important factors. And for those that didn't listen to the podcast that we did with Nathan, he … I want to say won a deal where someone was bringing all cash to the table at a full price deal and Nathan came to the table just being more likable. He happened to go to the same school as the seller Syed Balkhi. I know it's the Gators, is that … wait a second, hold on, I'm going to put on the hat because I have it. I have it. There it is. Nathan: There you go. That's the right one. Joe: And I didn't plan this I just happened to have the hat up in the cabin. It's been there since fall of 2017. So it's … I'm going to get it wrong and Syed he should … he sighed so loudly when I got it wrong. Is it Florida State? Nathan: No, I would have sighed again, real loudly. Yes, University of Florida. Joe: I'm sorry. Nathan: [inaudible 00:04:41.8] Joe: There it is. There was obviously a quick connection between you and Syed on the conference calls because you both went to Florida State. Nathan: University of Florida, not Florida State. Joe: Okay. Folks, obviously I don't pay attention to schools in Florida. I'm from the Northeast originally and we don't follow our college teams at all. Now for those watching the video, my hair looks great. Okay, I just took the hat off. You connected with him on the school but you also connected with him in terms of the way that you wanted to keep the staff in place and take care of them and that it becomes a family or an extended family. And that just really resonated with him and he didn't want to call the end with you whereas the all cash buyer it was all about the fact that he was all cash he could do a quick close and these types of things but it was a little rough around the edges. Syed believed in you, trusted in you, and actually took an SBA deal where he had to not be all cash, he got 90% and so he carried a pretty substantial seller note that won't be paid in full for … I don't remember the exact terms of the deal but probably a balloon payment in year five along those lines. Does that sound about right? Nathan: Yeah. Joe: Alright. So you bought Soliloquy and Envira Gallery. Can you tell the audience a little bit about both of those businesses and what they're all about and what they do? Nathan: Yeah sure. So both of those businesses are pretty similar in the sense that they are WordPress plugins. Envira Gallery is basically a gallery plugin. That's a really simplified way to put it but it's really a photo management system. And if you Google best WordPress gallery plugins you're probably going to see that in just about every result you see. Soliloquy same deal. It's a slider plugin. Essentially if you've ever seen sliding pictures and things like that in PDFs and videos that's what Soliloquy does. But essentially it just makes developers and designers lives a lot easier when they're developing this sort of thing. That's not something they really want to get into so it just streamlines the whole process. The whole gallery management system is there. And it can display multiple galleries in pictures and sliders in a very professional way. And especially for photographers, that's a big deal. And that's what Envira Gallery does. Joe: Did you have a lot of experience, direct experience in WordPress and plugins and things of that nature before buying the business? Nathan: Not at all. At least some people actually have worked in WordPress to some extent whether they've blogged or … I've had very minimal. I've looked at the backend years ago at one point I'm like no way. So WordPress has come a long way since then. A lot of people who have … who used WordPress and have been keeping abreast of that news, Gutenberg came out, what it did is essentially went straight for the head of Wix and Shopify and some of the really easy to use platforms for building websites. So Gutenberg is that which is a WordPress site builder. It's built in. It's made by WordPress. So that's the main thing for all users, now you can get in the backend. It makes it a lot easier. But no previous to that I was pretty new to it. I didn't really understand the dynamics and the market but the only thing that I had that was slightly close to that is I developed an app before in iOS. And so it was again it was being a part of this community and having some community standards when you have plugins that are uploaded to the depository. Joe: Okay. So you were an entrepreneur. You did sell a business. I sold it for you prior to buying this one but no WordPress experience. You bought it … this business with an SBA loan and it paid a what I would say is a fair multiple. A lot of folks might say I think it's strong. I won't say it. You're welcome to say if you want to. But do you have any regrets in terms of the multiple and the use of an SBA loan in the purchase of this business? Nathan: No I don't think so. Regarding the multiple, we did pay a strong multiple. I knew that going in but I also knew going in … I've gone through hundreds of business over the past few years, I talked to owner things like that. In order to get those businesses kind of like with Envira Gallery and Soliloquy where the churn was pretty good … it's essentially a SaaS business. It's been well maintained. It comes from a good pedigree by way of Syed Balkhi. So all those things played a huge part in me wanting to go ahead and stretch what I was looking to do in that multiple. But on the same end when you're doing an SBA it made that decision a whole lot easier as well. So given the SBA process, I mean I've talked about that in the last podcast that we did as well it was … it's come a long way. And so for me having gone through the trenches and years and years of trying to get SBA loans for businesses with no assets and getting to that point and seeing it streamlined with a guy like Stephen Speer and kind of what Bank United did, it's just … I mean it was like a dream to go through that really quickly. But yeah I mean we're here year later and I don't regret it. The only thing I will say that I kind of … was a thing I didn't sort of anticipate is how quickly the interest rate did change. And it does change year after year but it wasn't so drastic that it affected the business in any way. But it did increase just a bit there so. Joe: Your loan had a variable interest rate. Nathan: I think it was more as a result to the Fed increasing. Joe: Okay. Nathan: It was something that I was aware of but it was just political things happened and it increased a little bit there. Joe: Okay. Alright so why don't you tell us how things are going? Are you seeing the business … what, we closed in the fall of 2017 so it's been a little over 18 months, have you seen the business grow? Are you challenged by anything or is it growing year over year at this point? Nathan: Yes, so it is growing. It's a pretty healthy double digit growth. Joe: Double digit growth, okay. Nathan: So no complaints there. Challenges are really again coming and yeah I've been pretty much like industry agnostic every business I got into. Like I usually know nothing about it and I prefer it that way in some cases. And so coming in and learning it I've been attending the Word Camp. I went to Word Camp in US. I went to Word Camp Miami and really connecting with the people that are shaping where WordPress is going. And just some quick stats for people that like numbers, WordPress was around like 25% or so in all the websites in the world pretty much and now they're around 33 or 35% and that's continuing to grow. And just about every major web site that you probably visit is on WordPress. So the fact that that market share is growing there's … that's helped a lot with the organic growth as well. Joe: Is that US growth or a combination of US and international? Nathan: I think it's a combination of both it's like it's used in the world but definitely United States I think that WordPress has a pretty solid share there. Joe: You know it's interesting that's not something that we zeroed in on in the client interview with Syed in terms of WordPress growth. Is it something you thought about prior to and during due diligence prior to the LOI and due diligence or is it just worked out that way that you bought essentially a SaaS business on a platform that is growing? Nathan: Yeah, I think it was a little bit of both. So I understood that WordPress was … at that time the numbers haven't been released. The numbers are officially sold on Word Camp US or just before. So the actual numbers I didn't really know at what rate it was growing but I did know that just the nature of the open source WordPress community, the fact that they're building a bond and we talked about … a little about Gutenberg during the acquisition as well but just having seeing the route that they were going in relation to all these other paid sites, and what the paid platforms did to me it made sense that WordPress is going to continue to grow. It's got a foundation to expand on and so it did play a little … not a significant amount in terms of the actual business acquisition. Joe: Excellent. One of the big reasons why you and Syed are working together now was that you were going to bring the staff over, keep everybody involved and you worked remotely from a home office whereas everybody else I think does as well. How has that transition worked out in terms of the staff and you and are you still working together? Nathan: Yeah, great. Yeah, it's been great so we talked a little bit about this again in that previous interview but there was kind of a bumpy ride with the staff. Again full time they've been with the previous company for several years and they were part of a larger outfit. So there were some worry there that it's just going to be us, essentially four folks transferring over to a completely new owner; my smaller company, how is that all going to work out? I think that just … it was a trust thing and I think after a couple of weeks that they saw that I was in the trenches with them and I was really working to make their lives easier, making sure they're taken care of. You know we went on a retreat, we stayed in Austin, we stayed in a big house; an Airbnb together, really got a chance to bond and we're doing it again this year as well. I think those things all sort of helped build that trust. I mean from where we were to point one just like in any transition when you're taking people's livelihoods and basically giving it to this owner that's completely new and they've never met there's always that kind of anxiety and stuff. But we've come a long way in that time and I'm happy to say that pretty much the entire team is still in place. One person did move on to another opportunity but outside of that, the core folks are still there. Joe: Oh, that's great to hear. Syed is probably happy with that as well. As far as the training and transition goes I know that normally it's up to 40 hours over the first 90 days after closing is the standard in the asset purchase agreement, have you needed to reach out to Syed and other folks that are in the upper level management side or were of this business beyond that transition and training period so that you just reached out if you had a quick question that didn't come up in the first 90 days? Nathan: Yeah, I think it was that. It was the first maybe really the first month or two is the bulk of the questions and stuff. Syed was really good about it. We went through training together. Thomas the co-founder was there as well or actually the founder. And so we recorded those conversations, went through each one of the processes and so I had all that. That helped tremendously so if you are selling try doing that. Go through recorded conversations and go through the process of what you do day to day and that really helps for them to not have to ask any questions. They can just look at the video again. Joe: Oh, it's a great idea and we use a Chrome extension called Loom, L-O-O-M on a daily basis when a broker has a question for me or I have a question for someone else they often just record their screen and send that. What software do you use? Nathan: We use Zoom. Joe: Better. Okay. We're on Zoom now and we're recording. Fortunately, as you all will hear in an episode or two I just did a podcast this week. I jokingly said it's the best one I've ever done but I forgot to hit record. So we'll be doing it again next week but I'm sure the guest will bring that up in the podcast for sure. Alright, let's talk about the biggest challenges that you have had since buying the business back in the fall of 2017. Nathan: Yeah, I would say the biggest challenges for me just like with any other business is kind of getting on that horse and riding it. It was just that the day to day stuff, making sure there was no loose ends that I was missing. I think aside from that it was really that there was not a strong product roadmap going forward. So everything would have gone well until up until that point and I think the team was kind of like well we're just fixing stuff how long do we want to just continue just fixing stuff day to day? And so that was just like kind of shaving a product roadmap, again I'm coming in super fresh so there's not a whole lot I can bring to it in terms of this is exactly what we need to do to take us to the next level, right? But the great thing is since I run other businesses and you kind of get a process within yourself that you can apply to these other businesses and for me, it was like let's ask the customers. And that's exactly what we did. We went straight to the customers, put out a survey; short, less than 60 seconds to complete. What are the features you like most, what do you want to see, how are we doing, stuff like that and they let us have it in a good way mostly. Joe: In a good way, okay. Nathan: And so the great thing is that they were happy with this feature set and they provided some stuff that would make them much more happier. And so that is what we're working towards right now. Joe: So they gave you that product roadmap and then your team is working on that. You're not working on it, you're just visionary and they're actually doing the actual work itself, right? Nathan: Yeah, you're right the developers … you know what I did is basically help create prioritize the roadmap. And so the things we have to do first which is we got to rebuild some of our functions and things like that. That's the most important part; to keep … to build on that foundation. And then outside of that, it's going to be basically hitting those priority items and then doing those in truncheons as we move along based on that. Joe: What would you say are your biggest successes or triumphs? Things that maybe they were a challenge but you've overcome them and see that it's maybe something that kept you up at night but it's changed and it's a big part of your business now. Anything like that? Nathan: I think for me it's been a little bit of the marketing, kind of the way to take the market. WordPress is a little bit different in the sense that we have three versions that are on this .org repository. They've got somewhere in the range of 150 to 180,000 active users or active installs, probably more than that with Soliloquy. And so there's not a lot of data we can gather. And up until recently there wasn't a lot of … there's not a funnel that you can put them through to bring them over to the paid versions because again it's actively monitored and it's a lot different than if you have a trial version and you're moving them on to a paid version of the funnel. So I think the challenge was trading out ways to get around that and still playing by the rules. So again opt-ins we've recently put in opt-ins in the free version that wasn't something that we could do previously but things in WordPress community has changed. So that's going to be a huge boom for us. Aside from that kind of marketing directly to the WordPress base, a lot of designer and phyto developers that are used to a certain thing. So one thing they weren't used to was re-occurring payments, annual subscriptions and things like that but honestly, it's become something of paramount importance to anyone that's running plugins that they have to be running a SaaS type program in order to survive or else you won't be able to make it. Joe: Have you changed the payment system with these two products? Have you changed the way that the customers are paying for it? Nathan: The payments have stayed the same. I think a lot of it was showing them the value of continuing that. Joe: Okay. Nathan: Because again WordPress is a little bit tricky because once you pay for it once you basically own it for life. Joe: I got you. Nathan: So here that is really … is bringing in those value added updates and the value added support; the source support is probably like number two on our most celebrated feature of Envira Gallery and Soliloquy. We get it all and we saw it in the survey as well. So making sure that we're doing everything we can for that customer experience just from the support standpoint and not only at the stuff that we're doing as far as updates and things like that. Joe: So you really brought your marketing experience and expertise into the business and that's how you're triumphing in a sense. Is that what it is attributable to the growth that you've seen, the double digit growth or is it that it was going that way and you're just on for the ride and making sure you don't break it. Nathan: Yeah, I think there's a balance between those. So initially … mostly when I go into these types of acquisitions I'm looking for something that's like the first year I'm learning. It's not like I can insert myself and change things at day one like say if you got a content site when essentially you're dealing with software. So it's always very different, the base is different, and then the software base is different in terms of developers and things like that. So for me, it's applying the past knowledge of just making a great intuitive software, changing up the interface to what I believe is just a more … a better user experience, and outside of that applying some of those basic marketing things that just need to be done. In this case a lot of that, the basics have been done, but it's that out of the box stuffs that really needed to get taken care of. Joe: I love that first year just learning approach. I see lots of these businesses that are listed and sold. There's a certain amount of year over year growth and the goal is to at least sustain that. And I had a call this week with someone that blew up the SKU count dramatically and it was his kind of biggest failure but at the same time it turned out to be a little bit of a triumph as well because there are some SKUs that are now generating an awful lot of revenue. But there's also a great deal of loss there as well. So I like that learn in the first year process. And what kind of things are you working on now that were never done before in the business? Nathan: Yeah, so there's a couple of things that have also attributed to the growth outside of just again being a SaaS business with not a terrible churn. And the churn for WordPress businesses I think is probably a little bit above average of what other people see in WordPress. Again you buy one so you can potentially keep it. So outside of that, it's been growing. Our affiliate revenue, that's been increasing pretty tremendously. But we had a lot of articles that had been written that were getting pretty decent on the traffic, didn't have any ads on there, didn't have really any affiliate links things like that. So that's one of the things putting in those affiliate links, building more articles around those really high performing traffic. I think at the time this wasn't taken to do that and sort of nurturing that so that's … I've seen— Joe: Are these affiliate links for other plugins or SaaS products or physical products or a combination of all three? Nathan: So the shoe in for us really became the funnel editing tools. We did a lot of … there's been a lot of [inaudible 00:22:24.1] done, tools such as Photoshop and things like that. And so lot of traffic to that kind of stuff. And it just made sense to start saying hey if you don't have Photoshop and you want to do this stuff that you see in this tutorial here's where you can go. And that's pretty much it. And then building off of that and saying what are those Photoshop competitors are out there well there's Skylum Luminar, there is Capture One, there's all these different types of photo editing tools that are kind of riding on the coattails and maybe on the heels of Photoshop. So writing tutorials for those and the same type of strategy that was used and say hey if you don't have it you can go get it over here. Joe: That seems like such a logical thing to do, slow down and read the article, what are people looking for, what can we … Do you know what you're doing? You're helping the audience. They're reading an article about editing and you're then offering them the best photo editing tools right there within the article and you happen to be making money off of it as well. Nathan: Absolutely. And it wasn't the intention of just skyrocket the affiliate. It just made sense. I was like a rational person would mainly look at that and be like you know what this is already an article at Photoshop so you probably already have it. That's not true. There's a lot of people that wouldn't make something black and white and something color in the black and white picture but they didn't know they needed specifically Photoshop to do it. So they end up going … picking up the Creative Cloud plans 9.99 or 19.99 or whatever a month not three or $400 as it used to be. So it's just a lot more easier and accessible. Joe: How did you find the affiliate platform to use, those affiliate themselves? Nathan: Yeah. So share sell has already been in use in the previous ownerships so that's just one of those things. But in this case, it wasn't really even bad. It's just getting … just registering for the program and dropping them the wings and saying hey I should always focus on this some more too because it looks like to be growing. Joe: Pretty easy stuff then. Nathan: Yeah. Joe: Now you mentioned an e-mail list as well; you've historically had lots of free users, a huge e-mail list. Have you ever done anything with that and if not are you planning to do anything? Nathan: Yeah. So the free versions, there was really no list before because there's no way to collect emails from before. So we've started an opt-in for that which again I think is only … it's been a few couple of short weeks but already we're seeing the results come through. The only … the list that we do have is just essentially people that have paid the pro. But the great thing is we're able to cross sell with Soliloquy because generally if you need something like Envira Gallery you probably need something like Soliloquy. Joe: Yeah. Nathan: So that's continuing churn along as well. Joe: That's fantastic. Nathan you look so happy and relaxed and just chill, are you always this way or is it you're just in a good position in right now that you're running this business and see the trends and whatnot? I mean what's the deal? Let's get simple. Nathan: It's a little bit of both so I would be in positions where things were going absolutely terrible and so the short answer is I meditate every day so that I just accept things as they are so that makes life a lot easier for anyone listening. The second part is I think it is that I paid a higher multiple but I've got the security of if all else fails and I can't figure out what to do it will still follow some level of revenue that was expected. So outside of that, I was just building upon that success that's already sort of continuing as well. Joe: Excellent. What's in the works of … goal eyes what are you looking at in the next 12 to 24 months? Anything that if we come back for the second update in another 12 to 24 months what are you hoping to achieve? Nathan: At a minimum, I'd like to achieve that same double digit year over year growth. But I think again entrepreneurs try to go all triple digit all these different revenue channels. Again I opened up the affiliate revenue more and that's beginning to be more of a significant one. But a couple more like that I think would be interesting and just continued growth man. I mean the main thing is … this is one of the things we discussed earlier. It's just that focus on the customer; making sure they're happy, making sure that we're hitting all those needs and then the business kind of just takes off by itself if you're hitting all those things. Joe: That's it. A clear and simple plan; not too complicated. Focus on the customer makes a lot of sense. Any words of advice from one entrepreneur to others in the audience; people that maybe they're working in the corporate world and want to be the next Nathan Singh. Any advice that you can give in terms of running your own business and overcoming challenges and things of that nature? Nathan: Yeah, I would put it safely into patience, persistence, and presence; those three things. Joe: Alright. Patience I get that. Persistence I get it. Presence … meaning? Nathan: Meaning I think as entrepreneurs what we get into is too much looking around to see what someone else is doing or where they wanted to be in a couple of years and getting super stressed if they don't hit those goals. Remember that is just your perception of where you wanted to be, reality happens different things. And I think that if you're approaching everything in a present moment, I'm not trying to sound like a spiritual guru here. Joe: It's just natural though. I like it. Keep going. Nathan: If you're approaching everything in a present manner you're likely to focus on what you're doing at this point and not be so stressed about all those other stuff. Because essentially that's going to be what's going to mess you up; it is worrying about the future, worrying about how things are not going, things like that. Focus on what the problems are at the current moment and do those things at that minute, at that second and just kind of block everything out. I just feel like everybody is uniquely designed to run their own race. So don't look left and right just do your own thing and you'll get to where you're trying to get to. Joe: I like it. I like it very much. Nathan Singh thank you very much for coming back on and giving us the first ever Quiet Light update. I look forward to doing this again. I wish you the best of success. Nathan: Absolutely. Good talking to you Joe. Joe: You too. Links and Resources: Envira Gallery Solliloquy

When sourcing an Amazon business, there are many complex factors that go into finding the right product and getting the right margins. Today's guest founded Sourcify, a SaaS product that helps people source the product and improve the manufacturing process. Sourcify takes a look at every factor possible when building out margins and lead times to optimize the logistics behind the ordering process. By decreasing costs, revenue increases and therefore the value of your business goes up. Nathan Resnick started this fast-growing b to b software-driven sourcing company in 2002. His fascination with e-commerce and foreign imports goes back to when he was living in China as a high school exchange student and started importing products to the US, making a few thousand dollars a year. He started a Shopify store at age 19 and reached his first six-figure income year. Nathan became fascinated by the process and the capacity of these factories. Sourcify makes it easy for you to bring products to the marketplace, streamline errors, and cut unit costs. Episode Highlights: How Sourcify's offices are structured for optimal global presence. The current tariff policy issues and how Nathan recently landed in the press. Ways a strong team and strong factory relations benefit both sides of the sourcing process. IP protection and factory relationships. Percentage margins sellers should look for in a factory. Shortcuts to avoid with suppliers. The importance of having quality control parameters in place before shipment. Markets where Nathan sees production increases emerging apart from China. One of the most common problems with Amazon business when it comes to inventory management. Avoiding duties and taxes via Mexico. The domestic and international laws that can allow for this at certain values. Mistakes in creating and retailing that Nathan sees and his tips for going around them on the manufacturing side. How important/beneficial it is to visit the factories for e-commerce entrepreneurs. Scaling up and understanding the factory's capacity to match that scale. Transcription: Joe: Mark, one of the biggest challenges for startup entrepreneurs much like Amanda talked about on the podcast is sourcing great products. There's lots of experts out there with podcasts that help and they're very, very good information but sometimes people need a little bit of a boost; a little hand-holding. And I understand you had Nathan Resnick from Sourcify on the podcast to talk about just that. Mark: Yeah, absolutely. So he founded Sourcify.com which is a SaaS product. They have thousands of pre-vetted factories, hundreds of product categories, and what they do is they help you source that product and also improve that entire sourcing process. Because there's a lot of complex factors when it comes to A. finding the right products and then B. making sure that you're getting the right margins out of those products and getting your timing right. I mean Joe how many Amazon businesses have you looked at where the owner says well if you could just figure out the inventory ordering system because I missed out and ran out of inventory business could have done so much more. It's like every single business, right? Joe: Every single one I asked the question have you ever ran out of inventory? The answer is always yes, the follow up question is how much revenue did you lose during that time period and then how do you overcome that? And yeah it's often working capital, better planning, software, things of that nature. It's always a challenge though. Mark: Well, so the software does this. It takes a look at … and he explained this. He says imagine you're selling watches; you're not just working with one factory because that factory might be ordering the wristbands from a completely different part of the world and so you need to factor all of this in when you are building out your lead times and also understanding your margins as well. And so we talked a lot about how do you negotiate better rates, when should you negotiate better rates, how do you establish good relationships with your manufacturers and other ways that you can really optimize logistics behind your ordering process. This guy … I'll just be blunt, he's way smarter than I am. Joe: Okay, well that's not very hard though Mark. Come on now. Mark: Well, that's not. That's like 95% of the people in the podcast. Joe: I understand he had one really, really cool tip in terms of importing. Mark: I'm not going to try and explain what it is here on the intro. You're going to have to wait and listen for it but he talks about using Mexico as a place to import products to be able to save a substantial amount of money on that importing process. So I'm going to let you guys listen to that and tell me … send me an e-mail if you found that tip to be absolutely killer because it literally … like you'll probably hear me in the interview, he threw me off my normal pacing that I don't have because I didn't know where to go. I was like wow that was really an incredible tip. So listen for that and … yeah, a really interesting guy who's done a lot in just a couple of years. Joe: Well, I think any tips and tricks that people can learn to decrease their cost increase their discretionary earnings increases the value of their business if and when they ever decided to sell it so I'm looking forward to listening to this one myself. Just a quick reminder everyone, movie quote, if you heard it, if you want to rewind, if you know what it is, drop it in the notes below and we'll give you a shout out on the next episode. Mark: Nathan thanks so much for joining me. Nathan: Mark, it's my pleasure. I'm really excited to be here. Mark: You and I just met. We met at Prosper Show. We talked for I think like two minutes before I was like you got to be on my podcast. I want you to come on board. And you were very gracious to agree. Would you mind giving everybody just a quick background on who you are, the company you're with, and why I asked you to come on the podcast? Nathan: Totally. Yeah, I mean I run a company called Sourcify. We are the fastest growing B2B manufacturing order management system. What we do is enable companies to source out the best factories in the world as well as bring their supply chain online so they can be data driven and understand how their unit cost, lead times, and quality defect rates have been fluctuating per product and per factory. People always ask okay Nathan how did you get in to all this? And really it actually stems 10 years ago. I was living in China as a foreign exchange student with a host family that didn't speak English, attending a local Chinese high school, and started importing products from different markets in Beijing where I was living. So we import all sorts of products, sell them on e-Bay and Amazon. In high school, I think senior year where you're just making a few thousand dollars a month and then by the time I turned 19 I had my first low six figure year through my own Shopify store and really just became so fascinated by e-commerce as well as the power of these factories to produce all sorts of products. So about two years ago I started Sourcify and we've been on an awesome journey so far. I'm really excited to continue to help organizations streamline and optimize their production overseas. Mark: Yeah, I just was doing a little bit of show prep here and people that listen to the show are probably going to laugh at that because we don't do a ton of show prep. That's why I don't do the intro. But you've gotten some really impressive press with what you're doing. I saw Forbes publish a piece on you and the growth in Shopify. Share where your offices are right now. You have multiple offices all across the world. Nathan: Yeah, so I mean kind of crazy [inaudible 00:06:05.0] with us and press was last year, especially with this China trade tariffs. Everyone was talking about how these tariffs are affecting companies that are importing products from China. And for us we have offices in China, Vietnam, and India and run production everywhere from the Philippines to Pakistan; basically every country in Asia. And so we became a hot topic. We were on CNN, CNBC, and nearly all over the news and it was an exciting time and still is. I mean I think really if you looked at China as a whole it's gotten more expensive and so for us, we've got three offices overseas and then in America; we're headquartered in San Diego and have small offices in Las Vegas as well as [inaudible 06:43.7] Utah, right outside Salt Lake City. Mark: Yeah the Las Vegas area, that's got to be just for all the conferences that are held there right? Nathan: Yeah. Mark: I mean we're always out there. Nathan: Yeah. Not for all the partying. Mark: Right. I wish I had known this a year ago … or not a year ago but when all the tariffs that was hitting. I had James Thompson who's the co-founder of Prosper Show. I had him come on the podcast and we were joking that we had to have a Canadian come on the show to explain US policy as it relates to China but cool. How old is Sourcify? Nathan: So we started in March of 2017 so just about two years old and it's been a pretty amazing journey. We produce in over 300 product categories; everything from hair extensions to bags to bunk beds. I mean you name it. Our abilities are widespread and really that stems from having a strong sourcing team as well as strong factory relationships. So a lot of times organizations when they work with Sourcify they're able to increase their margin just by buying in volume through our customers that might be producing similar products and so that's one of the main benefits I think. Mark: Yeah, I want to get into a lot of the kind of details of these … of sourcing products and also some of the differentiation. And you kind of … you touched on something that I was going to ask about so I'm going to jump the gun a bit here with this. Is this an open sort of book where you can see some of the other products that are being manufactured here and if so the question [inaudible 00:08:12.1] Joe's mind is protection of IP through your platform. What does that look like? How do you protect people's intellectual property? Nathan: It's a great question. So first and foremost every customer that uses Sourcify has complete transparency. They can see who the factory is and our goal as a software driven sourcing company is to enable these organizations that work with Sourcify both buyers and factories to have better workflow management and a production process to actually understand what's going on in the production runs. Right now like pretty much every company we talk to is using e-mail and Excel spread sheets to manage production and that works to an extent but it gets very complex. And so from an IP perspective number one every customer keeps their factories in their own database and number two basically when we talk about IP it's protected at the borders. So a lot of organizations and a lot of people ask Nathan should we go try to file trademark, should we go try to file patents in China or through Asia and most of the time it's not going to be worth your money or time to go out and try to file those patents or trademarks in China. But what you should do is file trademarks and patents here in America on your products. So if a company is importing your products under your brand name or trying to sell on Amazon under your brand name a lot of times you can show the Customs and Border Patrol or Amazon themselves and say hey I own this brand, this company is clearly knocking me off. I did not authorize them to import or sell these products on my behalf. And the right thing that these law enforcement agencies or Amazon should do is to give you full control of your products to sell them yourselves. Mark: Okay cool. So let's talk about you've already mentioned that some of these guys are kind of they're starting out with these in Excel spreadsheets and to control the manufacturing process and it works for an extent. I would love to know because in our world we're helping people prepare their businesses for sale. We run into this all the time. We have people who come to us with all the metrics that they think they should be presenting and all the metrics that they think are important when it comes to selling and then we have to kind of adjust their mindset as to alright that's a good start here's what we should be doing. So let's start with this, how do you find people mostly attack that product sourcing and product development? Nathan: Yeah I mean I think first and foremost it stems from a vendor analysis. Are you actually working with the right factory that should be producing your product? Hopefully, you've done enough due diligence with your supply chain to understand if you're working with a factory or trading company or wholesaler or agent. Best bet is you're working with a factory that's great, that's fantastic. Hopefully, you haven't outgrown them. There's a lot of organizations that we see haven't renegotiated their terms or prices in two or three years and you've 10X the production volume that you're buying at and you're still paying a higher rate. I mean the smart thing you do is go renegotiate those existing contracts and prices with that factory. If you do an analysis and you find out you are working with a trading company or agent number one you've got to understand okay how much margin do I think this trading company or agent is making. We see a lot of organizations that a rep will say we see the factory numbers they're only making 1% or 2% on my production run. I mean unless they're a really large scale facility that's trying to just take up but like keep their production line going there's no business that's going to run off of a 1 or 2% margin. I mean you can't even put bread on the table with a 1% margin in most organizations. And so when you come with that perspective in mind and you think that you've out negotiated everyone and really have a strong factory it's not to say that they're not strong factory it's just to say that I mean I don't even think you should try to get your factory to run on a 1% margin because it's just not sustainable. They'll probably be even making quality cuts or messing up the lead times or working with the wrong vendors because I think what a lot of people and supply chain team members don't necessarily understand about manufacturing is that most of these facilities that are exporting products to America or Europe or wherever your products are going are dealing with a lot of sub suppliers. So they have suppliers that handle the different components that make up your products. So, for example, let's say you're producing watches. Those watch factories are going to have the watch strap, the watch taste, the watch movement, the watch hands; all of these little pieces that make up that watch are assembled and put together by the factory that you're working with. And until you get to a scale where you're spending at least a few hundred thousand dollars probably more so a few million dollars on production overseas you aren't going to dive into those sub-suppliers and really understand okay how much is each little component costing. And even then building relationships with those sub-suppliers to cut costs is not going to be worth your time until you're spending a significant amount of money on production overseas. Mark: Yeah. So what margin should people be expecting there? You said 1% is probably not realistic. What should they be expecting? Nathan: I mean we've had the opportunity actually to invest and buy factories at Sourcify and we haven't done that and I don't think we will in the near future. But I mean most factories that are attractive to us are running on at least 15 to 30% gross margins and I think that's sustainable. I think as a business you want to have some margin to reinvest in new machines. You want to have the margin to invest in your team. You've got to have margin there to grow and create a good environment. And I think that's a key dynamic of any business let alone factories and especially even factories when sometimes especially as your brand might grow you try to sell into larger retailers like Walmart or Disney or whatever it may be. Those larger retailers have their own requirements of your facilities to be able to sell your products in that retailer. So if your factory can't pass a Walmart cert or a Disney cert you're not even going to have the opportunity to sell into those larger retailers. Mark: Yeah, so that makes sense to just be investing and making sure that … I think that the mindset that I hear sometimes from both buyers and then also some of the owners of these businesses when they're renegotiating these contracts over and over with their suppliers is forgetting that on the other side there's somebody still trying to run a business and it affects that downstream quality. I'm sure it's downstream, probably upstream quality of the product that you're getting in return and trying to sell which leads nicely into my next question which would be what are some things that people should be looking out for with their current supply chain and maybe trends over time? Everything starts out good with the first batch of products you receive and everything is going well, what should things that would people be looking for on a regular basis from their suppliers? Nathan: Definitely. I mean I think first and foremost there's a lot of people that I think try to take short cuts in their supply chain. I think the biggest short cut that I see people taking is not booking quality control inspections before shipment and before you pay that production balance. I mean you can get a quality control inspection done through our partner for QC is Asia Inspection. They just rebranded to Qima. They charge under $300 or around $300 to send a person to the factory to inspect those products before shipment and before you pay that deposit. And if you don't have a quality control inspection process or program in place you're going to be getting a container load that might have defective products or might all be wrong and there's no reason for you not to put those checks and balances in place on every single production run. I mean I don't care if you've been working with the factory for two or three years there's always going to be some products that might be defective. And I'm not saying these QC teams are going to check every single product. They might check 10, 20, 30% of the products depending on the size of the production run but at least you have images and an analysis of what's going on with those products. And sometimes these are very simple mistakes or quality defects where like for example on … I know one of the production runs that we had going on this week there was threads that hadn't been cut on these bags. There were loose threads. We said hey before these are shipped we like all these threads to be cut. We don't want these bags coming into America with these threads hanging out. So sometimes it's very simple quality control metrics and other times you find out the code being on certain furniture or certain lamp is wrong whatever it may be. And so having that in place I think is really just a must. I mean there's no reason not to have quality control in place before shipment because you don't want your products showing up at an FBA warehouse or your own warehouse and you find out oh wow the 30% of these products are defective. So you've got to have checks and balances in place before shipment and then also one of the things that we do at Sourcify that I recommend everyone do if they can depending on their buying power is say to their factories and put in contracts, say we aren't going to pay for defective products. If the products don't meet our quality control inspection we aren't going to pay for them and we're going to discount them from our purchase order. So let's say 3% of your products have quality control defects, well now you're saving 3% of your PO because those products are defective. And so putting that in writing, making sure that's clear with the factory is really I think the biggest kind of misstep I see companies doing when they're producing products overseas. And then when we talk about trends it was really the last year it still is right now but transitioning and diversifying supply chains outside of China is huge. I mean so many companies literally every single day are talking to us about producing products in Vietnam, India, Bangladesh, with Philippines. I mean all across Asia. I was on a flight last quarter the Philippines back to Guangzhou from Manila and on my right and on my left were two Chinese factory owners that have just transitioned some of their facility to the outskirts of Manila to start factories in the Philippines. And the reason being is labor rates are more affordable in the Philippines and other parts of Southeast Asia. The biggest challenge stems from the operations of a factory which these Chinese factory owners already know how to operate a factory effectively and you know really just the raw material where do these raw materials come from or produce these products. These factory owners in China have that figured out and there are some free economic zones in certain parts of Southeast Asia where you can actually import products from other countries into this free economic zone, manufacture the product in that economic zone and then export it for free. The benefit of the country is just to really increase labor rates in that area. And so that's I think really the biggest trend and kind of what's most overlooked in current companies that are producing products overseas. Mark: Yeah, you anticipated one of my questions which was the different markets where you're seeing production increase. I know with the tariffs were being threatened and imposed there was a lot of question about well where can we go if these prices rise up? And dump tell that in with some of the reality of the issues that Amazon sellers are dealing with producing China, right? This three month kind of standard lead times if you're shipping on an ocean it makes it really difficult for people to manage their inventory. So on this side of the ocean what countries are you seeing emerge at this point as potential viable players if any? Nathan: Definitely, I mean I think right off the bat I want to touch on the inventory side in terms of inventory planning. I think we're both friends with Chad at Skubana. I think they do a great job of inventory management and helping you manage that across different channels. One of the key components that I think a lot of companies fall short on is how do you tie that data into factory lead times. And so when you can take lead time data from Sourcify and tie it into you inventory analytics that you have through a tool like Skubana that's a lot of powerful insight that you can put together. And when you're starting to diversify your supply chain outside of China you've got to understand that now the raw materials are potentially coming from a different country than your products should be manufactured in. So for example in Vietnam, we work with a pretty high end apparel brand and they get their fabric from Taiwan. It's about a two week lead time to get the fabric from Taiwan and put it to their facility in Vietnam and all the cut and sew there and so another timeline that they have to put into their analytics and planning. I mean I think forecasting is a huge challenge with any e-commerce business. Ad I think in any … I mean you probably see this all the time in any Amazon business or any e-commerce business a lot of times when you're going through a high growth period there's going to be a time where you're almost running out of inventory or you did run out of inventory either because you misplanned or because you're going to have to cash to put in the inventory. And so I think it's a crazy dance that these e-commerce companies play when they're trying to understand okay how much money should I put in the inventory, how much should I spend on paid acquisition. It's a balance that's really hard to figure out on the early days and until you have the data to forecast more effectively you're going to be playing that dance. And I don't know if there is like a one size fits all answer. I mean you might know … have a bit more insight in regards to that than I do but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on that. Mark: No. Honestly again I mean as I know a lot of the people that listen to the podcast here are looking for their own acquisitions and they're trying … they look to this podcast for some insights and if you can figure this one part out this is the number one problem that we … no maybe not the number one problem but one of the most common problems I see with Amazon businesses is that most have some level of seasonality; typically Q4 unless … but I mean not always but some have some sort of seasonality. And so we see one of two things happen either they run out of inventory at the most crucial time of the year on some of their best sellers or they overbuy or their shipment dates miss the seasonal period. And so let's say that you overbuy and you have a seasonal product where you're hitting December … November and December for that Q4 Christmas rush now January hits and you got to sit on a whole bunch of inventory for a year. Or even worse … and again this happens more often than people might want to admit, they get those shipments late. They get them the second week of January. And it could be even more difficult if you have spring seasonality because you have Chinese New Year in there. And if you get caught up in that well you can completely miss all of your windows there. So the idea of combining something like Skubana; yes Chad is a friend. I had him on the podcast. A great guy. Super smart. Combining that with Sourcify, anyone who figures that part out most of the businesses that we list are undervalued in some way given that they've missed their hot periods one way or another. Nathan: Yeah I mean I think that ship times there is something that you should be able to control in terms of planning at an early stage. That could be a bit challenging, I could see. But in terms of your ship times I mean that's something that you should really have under control and under wraps with your freight forwarder and with your factory. What's crazy to me just talking about ship time briefly is that even a lot of freight forwarders they're getting looped into factories over e-mail and trying to go back and forth to schedule a freight pickup. I mean all of that should be able to be effectively synced up and e-mail is a fine channel to do that but I mean I think there's got to be a better method. I mean a lot of companies that use Sourcify they link in their freight forwarders so they communicate directly with their factory online and track what's going on. But otherwise it's just a bunch of people CC'ed on different emails and it's actually kind of entertaining sometimes to see the back and forth between a factory and a freight forwarder got to figure out when they can schedule a pick-up of products. Mark: That's fascinating. Alright, I'm not going to skip on the other question though about this side of the ocean countries and emerging markets if any and maybe you are going to say this— Nathan: Oh in terms of like North America? Mark: North America or even South America, but [crosstalk 00:23:42.8] three month sort of lead time. Nathan: Yeah. So I've actually been doing a lot of research into Mexico. We're headquartered in San Diego and so there is a huge amount of opportunity in Mexico just south of the border here. And I think it stems from … basically, it's kind of a similar dance that these companies play that are transitioning production outside of China is where does the raw material come from. There's a lot of … not a lot of raw material sources in Mexico and so a lot of those facilities that are doing injection molds or cut and sew are importing those products from other countries. But there are a lot of companies that are producing products in Mexico and I think it's a growing opportunity. The other dynamic that I want to touch on that a lot of e-commerce companies are starting to look into and I think it's a huge trend is actually handling their warehousing and fulfillment right out of Mexico just across the border from San Diego. And you can actually if you're doing pick and pack B2C shipments directly to consumers you can actually avoid duties and tariffs no matter where the product was produced. And I'll walk you through in how this works. So basically you can avoid duties and tariffs by handling your fulfillment and warehousing in Mexico while having the same experience as if these products were fulfilled from California. And the way that that works is there's two laws you have to know of. Number one is Section 321 which is an American law that says when you're importing a product that's valued under $800 you don't have to pay duties or tariffs and that product. The law number two that you need to know is the IMX program which is part of NAFTA; the North American Free Trade Agreement, and what that enables our organization to do is import a product into Mexico and export a product back into America without having to pay any duties or tariffs between America and Mexico. And so the way that this works is that you import your products from China or Vietnam or any country that are producing these products to import them in bond into the port of Long Beach, have them trucked down in bond across the border, warehouses directly across the border from San Diego, your warehouse and pick and pack your products out of there. Every time you have a customer and buy a product in your website it's pre-labeled in Mexico and there's trucks going across the border every single day and under Section 321 because those products are pre-labeled and each under $800 in value you don't have to pay duties and tariffs on those products. And it's basically these trucks go across the border every day, drop these products off at USPS, UPS, FedEx, there's distribution centers literally right across the border from Mexico and San Diego and it's been incredible doing research and exploring that dynamic down there. And there's companies that are literally wiping off millions of dollars in duties and tariffs from their balance sheets just by handling fulfillment and logistics out of Mexico. And there's a lot of big companies that we all know like Taylor Guitars, Bombas Socks, these hundred plus million dollar organizations have been doing fulfillment and warehousing in Mexico for three plus years now. I mean it's really a robust operation and there is one provider that I know of called Baja Fulfillment that handles mid to smaller sized e-commerce companies. But for the most part, most of these organizations are focused on larger enterprises because that's where you're going to get the volume. Mark: That is phenomenal. It's actually such good information you knocked me completely off my game as to the other questions I wanted to ask. Nathan: Well, I mean we can answer questions in regards to this because a lot of people don't necessarily understand the dynamics and how it works. It's nothing necessarily new but here's the key dynamic. So every drop shipping entrepreneur that's drop shipping products from China into America they're using Section 321. That's how these e-packet shipments work because you don't pay duties and tariffs on those products because each one is pre-labeled and pre-sold and shipped over via China Postal Service and then USPS into America. And the reason why those products are so cheap is number one those shipments are subsidized by our government. There's a lot in the air in regards of those if that's going to change but Section 321 is here to stay. I mean that's a law that's been passed through Congress even if something were to happen … would happen with our current Trump administration I mean he wouldn't be able to change it himself is basically what I'm saying. And so there are millions of packets that come into America every single quarter that are based on Section 321. The key dynamic here is instead of having to warehouse your products in China or wherever you're producing your products you can actually import the container duty free, truck it down to Mexico in bond, and then you're basically picking and packing those products out of Mexico with the same fulfillment experience as if it was out of California because these trucks are going across the border every single day. So it's pretty crazy dynamic and there's not many providers or even e-commerce companies that are really doing it right now. But being here in San Diego it's something that I've been spending a lot of time on and really just become very interested in. Mark: That's fantastic; I'm going to completely shift gears mainly because I don't have any questions on that. That was a phenomenal bit of advice. I want to talk a little bit about that product manufacturing process and developing new products. Obviously most e-commerce businesses you need to be continually releasing new products or at least variations on that. What are some of the mistakes that you see from people creating and retailing some of these proprietary products in that process of looking for the factory, the manufacturer, and maybe shortening up that exchange that happens between the manufacturer and eventually getting it out to retail? Nathan: Yeah definitely. That's a great question. I would say if it's a product under IP protection what a lot of companies do is have one piece made at one facility, another piece made at another facility, and then either have one of the facilities assemble it or assemble it here in America. I would not suggest really assembling domestically just the labor cost and headache is going to be too much. But sometimes it doesn't make sense to diversify your supply chain to have more IP protection under place. I think at the end of the day a lot of this IP protection in China really revolves around your factory relationship and dynamic with them. But then again if it's a really, really hot selling product like these fidget spinners or the inflatable chairs that came out the other year; those things shot up like a rocket ship and literally everyone was claiming to sell them and invent them and all this is craziness. So I think really when it comes IP protection it still stems from having that dialed in here domestically but overseas it's a matter sometimes of diversifying your supply chain, building a relationship with your factory, and I would also recommend visit them face to face. I mean I'm in China once a month at our office in Guangzhou and in Vietnam and it's a lot of travel but it really helps us establish a brand and connection overseas. Mark: How important do you think that is? Because I've had clients play on both sides where they are there at least once a year, I've had other people say I visited once like five years ago and I just don't see the need to visit more frequently. Nathan: Yeah I mean I don't think it's necessarily a need. I think it depends on your business. For us, we've got a subsidiary in China. We have a dozen or so full time employees in China and more in Vietnam and in India. And the dynamic there is mostly just our business puts me in a position where it's a lot of management and making sure things are operating smoothly there. But if I was an e-commerce entrepreneur I mean as long as I have my checks and balances in place, communication is fluid, and everything is going smoothly, there's not necessary a reason to go over there. All you're going to do is see the facility, probably have some tea at the facility, grab dinner, maybe drink some bijou or something and basically break bread with your factory which is awesome. It's a great experience and really a cool culture dynamic. But I think if you just … if you're really going over to optimize costs or really negotiate in person I mean that could be beneficial especially if you're having a challenge with kind of things getting lost in translation between communications with your supplier. So I think it depends on the business. I mean I know eight figure e-commerce companies where the founders have never met their suppliers before and do exceptionally well and I know eight figure founders that don't go … that go over once a quarter or pretty often. So it depends, I mean I don't think there's a one size fits all answer to that. I just think it depends how your supplier has been performing and I think it's the key question that you have to ask. Mark: I want to talk real quick about scaling and also scaling up with the factory and their ability to match scale. Have you seen clients run into problems with that where they scaled so quickly manufacturers simply can't keep up and finding quality factories to be able to backfill that demand? Nathan: Definitely. I mean I think there's two key ways for Amazon businesses to scale up. Number one is just increasing paid acquisition or ranking higher for keywords, the other is to diversify your product offering; start selling products and product categories that you weren't selling in before. And there's different strategies, I mean if you're selling products in new product categories you're going to have to do a lot of sourcing work to make sure you're getting those products made effectively and that's … it takes a lot of work and a lot of time. Whereas if you're scaling up with the same products every factory that you work with if you say hey I'm going to order 10 times the number of units they're going to be thrilled. They're going to be very excited. Does that mean that all those products can be produced at their own facility? Maybe not, there could be a dynamic where they produce products with sub-contracting factories that might not have the cleanest facilities, might have a higher quality defect rate. And so that's something to be aware of as really understand okay, what is my actual true factory capacity? That's hard to understand without actually going to visit the facility but there is … I think kind of the key way to understand that is what I call just the kind of white paper trick where you could basically have the rep that you talk with at the factory write your name and date on a piece of paper and have them go around the facility filming a video with that piece of paper in the video or pictures so you can actually see what that facility looks like without going there. And that way you know at least this rep that you're talking to you has theaccess to that facility. Who knows if it's the actual factory that is producing your products or not or maybe you'd be able to see your products on the production line but at least you know that that rep has access to that facility. Mark: This has been really useful and we're unfortunately running out of time. So let's end it with this and I'm … you've offered a ton of useful information so let's talk real quick about Sourcify and the particular benefit that Amazon sellers are going to see from it. You touched on it at the beginning but this is a kind of chance to be maybe a little more direct with that. Nathan: Yeah totally. I mean our goal is to enable organizations to optimize our supply chain. Typically when a company works with Sourcify, they save anywhere from 10 to 50% of their costs overall in their supply chain. The way we do that is either by enabling them to work more effectively with their existing factories through our software, diversify their supply chain across Asia, or diversify the vendors that they're working with in China if they're just producing products in China. So we got boots on the ground here. You're more than welcome to come visit us and we'd be happy to connect online. You can find me on LinkedIn [inaudible 00:35:18.8] just Nathan Resnick or if you go to Sourcify.com that's where we're at. Mark: Very cool. Thanks so much for coming on and a huge shout out to John Corcoran and Jeremy from Rise 25 for connecting us actually at Prosper Show. I think I was talking to Jeremy and he's like hey you got to meet this guy. He's great you're going to love him. And he was right. So thank you guys for the introduction. Thanks for coming on and yeah I'm sure I'll be talking in the future. Nathan: Awesome. Thank you. Links and Resources: Sourcify Nathan's LinkedIn Skubana

Download this Episode We've all been there. Life hits you like a freight train and knocks you off course. Today we discuss how to get the train back on its track. Tune in to hear about how we deal with death, struggle, and negative outside voices. reThink Real Estate Podcast Transcription Audio length 28:18 RTRE 60 – Breaking Out of a Rut in Your Real Estate Business [music] [Chris] Welcome to re:Think Real Estate, your educational and hopefully entertaining source for all things real estate, business, news and tech.  [Christian]: I am Christian Harris in Seattle, Washington. [Nathan]: Hi, I am Nathan White in Columbus, Ohio. [Chris]: And I am Chris Lazarus in Atlanta, Georgia. Thanks for tuning in.  [music] [Chris]: Everybody and welcome back to re:Think Real Estate. I'm Chris here with Christian and Nate is back. No longer sick. Welcome back Nate.  [Nathan]: Thanks. Thank you. [Chris]: Yes. All of energy today. [laughter]  [Christian]: He is possessed to be here. [Chris]: Oh. Let's see those jazz hands Nate. [Nathan]: Hold on. [laughter]. [Christian]: What are you typing? [Chris]: Not even…Not even ready to start. There we go.  [Christian]: Yeah don't worry about this.  [Chris]: So we were just talking before getting started here about, you know, what do you do when you're in a rut. Like you're just out of it, you know, listening to Nate's voice. He's in a rut right now. Even if it's just for the next hour. So like Christian what do you do when you're in a rut? Like how do you pull yourself out of it? [Christian]: I mean I'll tell you one thing that's key to not do and that's to quit, and to listen to the demons, you know, that are speaking…speaking lives in your head about how your failure and your, you know, nothing's ever gonna change and it's gonna be like this forever. I'm sure I'm just the only one that hears those negative thoughts but… [Chris]: It's gonna be like this forever. You're a failure. [Christian]: Don't listen to them. I know. See now I'm hearing the voices for real. This is so real. [Chris]: [laughter] In your headphones.  [Christian]: Yeah in my headphones. So that's the first thing you don't do. [Chris]: Yeah I gotta agree. [Christian]: For me personally, you know, I just kind of keep my head down and keep going. But I mean I lot of it depends on why I am in a rut. Is it like a family rut where relationships aren't going great? Is it work? Is it financial? You know. Because I think, you know, the solution to those are all gonna be a little different. But the key to getting out of those is leaning…leaning on people. You know, like being honest. Having people that can come around to you and speak truth into that. Whether it's co-workers or family members or, you know, besties, you know. Don't isolate yourself because that's…that's doesn't go well for most people. [Chris]: Gotta have your besties. Nate. [Nathan]: Yep. [Chris]: What do you think? [Nathan]: What's the question again? [Chris]: How do you get out of a rut. [Nathan]: Oh how do you get out of a rut. [Christian]: It's your topic buddy. [Chris]: Yeah this is your choice Mr. “I'm in a rut.”  [Nathan]: How do you…You know, I don't know. You got to find, you know, how you used to work triggers. You got to find….one you got to be able to identify you're in a rut. Right. I mean, you know, yeah I just kind of went through one. Yeah I was sick for a week. Had some unfortunate family things happen. And, you know, it was just [censored] death of you. I mean it's what it was but you know it side tracks you. Right. You know, as I call it the…the train gets off the rail. So you one you got to recognize that the…the freaking train you're on is off the rails. And then you got to figure out what's the trigger to get it back on. You know, for me it's being very scheduled and stuff. And just it's…I don't know you have to just recommit.  You know, what's the…I used to have a mentor who used to say “You kind of have to recenter the salt on the plate.” And I think that's what you got to do. You got to be able to identify it. You got to figure out, you know, why you're in it. OK get out of it, you know, and then , you know, there's certain things. I don't know you can read motivational stuff. I mean Gary Vee I, you know, it's not for all people but he's for me. And I can get on a pity party and he gets me out of the pity party. So [Christian]: Yeah nice kick to the junk to get you back on track. [Nathan]: Yeah and I think in our industry, I think we all get kind of jaded at times. You get….you get I don't know. You get frustrated and then you get sidetracked.  [Christian]: And it's just you. [Nathan]: Yeah all right. [Chris]: No it's definitely not just you.  [Nathan]: Yeah I know it's everybody. I was talking with a colleague the other day and, you know, he said “Man I just…” he said “I didn't do [censored] for six months.” And now you know, he knew it. He identified it. But, you know, he's like the worst part is now I gotta play catch-up. I, you know, we all, you know, we get these peaks and valleys. And I don't…I don't like to get in those peaks and valleys. I like to have, you know, a nice steady stream of income. Right. [Chris]: Well six months is a little bit too long. That…that's not all right. Six months is an active decision to say “You know what, I'm just not gonna work.” [Nathan]: Yeah. [Christian]: I think it's called clinical depression. [Nathan]: Yeah well, you know, he was working on his home doing some other things. Fine. But… [Christian]: OK so he's just distracted. [Nathan]: He's just distracted and I think we all can get distracted. And then I think we just get frustrated. You know, we can get in our own way. So and, you know, it's, you know, you hear a realtor say “Oh I'm…” You know, we talked about this before. You know, “I'm so busy” And you say “What do you have going on?” And they're like “Oh I got one house in contract.” But you're so busy like…I don't know. It's…when I'm not busy, I'm not busy. You know, I don't even like the question what people say “Oh it's spring time right now. You're, you know, you must be busy as all get out. I'm steady. I'm not busy as I'll get out. But when you talk to me in November, December, January and February, guess what? You get the same response. Versus a lot of people say “Well I ain't got nothing going on.” So staying out of a rut I think is important. I think it's important that you identify how long you're in one. And it only took two weeks to get in one. Just because of, you know, being sick. And we're all self-employed. Right. o… [Chris]: Yeah I think I think one of the things is it doesn't take too long to get into a rut. Like one thing can happen and throw you completely off the rails. And then it…you have to go through…well depending upon what it is, you've got to go through these stages of healing to kind of get back into your groove. So if it's…if, you know, if it's family that's throwing, you know, things at you that are like “Oh, you know, what you're wasting your time. You're not in a good environment. The industry is gonna end soon. Your real estate agents are gonna be obsolete. Everything's gonna be AI in tech.” I just got that from my [censored] father the other day. And… [Christian]: Ouch. [Chris]: Yeah like “Really, no I…I don't think it is but, you know, that…that's great that you're encouraging me. I really appreciate that.” But you got to go through this stage of accepting what has happened. Seeing it from, you know, multiple points of view. Realizing that, you know, you're either making the right decision and then you double down on your decision, or there's some corrective action that needs to happen. And then you need to make the corrective action. [Christian]: I mean I'd say that, this is kind of cliché, but I definitely say that it's very important to…as you're trying to, you know, realize, you know, “OK what's…what set me in this rut and how do I get out?” is to try to only focus on things that you can affect. Right. As most of stuff in our life we have no control over. You can't control other agents, can't control the market. You control what you do and how focused you are. And, you know, your attitude and all that kind of stuff.  But I'd say that's definitely key to getting out of it is not…not, you know, what we call catastrophizing, if that's a word, which I don't think it is. But, you know, essentially… [Nathan]: It sounds great. [Chris]: Yeah if it's not a word it sounds like a word and it should be a word. So yeah… [Christian]: It's…it's a word that would they use in in the military's newer…what they call it, resiliency training . Essentially, you know, one of the keys to, you know, not getting in a rut or recognizing when you are going into rut is recognizing, you know, a mindset that's a downward spiral of catastrophizing everything. Where, you know, one thing happens and then you just assume the worst and then that, you know, self-fulfilling prophecy happens. And you keep spiraling downwards as opposed to, you know, “OK let's look at the big picture. Let's not think of the worst thing let's think of, you know, outcomes that are positive and, you know, be optimistic as opposed to pessimistic”, you know.  This is one of the mental tricks of, you know, how are you going to position yourself mentally to get out of the rut. As opposed to, you know, staying in that rut. [Chris]: I like that. That's really good. So Nate, cuz you ran for 24 hours last year, what was like what was going on in your head and do you think that any of those things could be used to get you out of a rut ? [Nathan]: Well I'm getting ready to run for twelve hours soon again. I think it's just it's…it's a semental staying power if you would. Because what's the easiest thing to do in any of those scenarios are with what we do for a living, what's the easiest thing to do? [censored] it. Quit. Right. [Chris]: Like quit. Don't even… [Nathan]: Just quit. Right. I mean I think what most people don't realize and, you know, I can use it running wise or even and, you know, in this rut…What we think of and perceive is something that maybe feels like forever, is really not that long of a period of time. Right. When I did that race out in Colorado or run out in Colorado, there was a gentleman that, you know, he quit after, you know, about 16 hours. And he said “I can't do it anymore.” And I said “Dude just take a break. Don't leave the course. If you leave the, you know, if you leave the course, you can't restart. But you can you could take a rest, that's fine. It's OK. If you want a rest for thirty minutes or three hours then you could start back up on whatever mile you're on.”  Right. And he said no he couldn't do it. He went back to his hotel. About twenty three hours and thirty minutes into it I seen him at the finish line, start/finish line. And, you know, him lapping through and he comes and pulls up beside me and starts running. And I was like “What are you doing back out here?” He's like “I should have listened to you.” He's like “I left. I got back to the hotel. I took 30 minutes. Laid down and I was like nah I feel great now.”  So I think what we do is it's…it's how we perceive that. Right. like “Oh you're in a rut.” And I have been in a rut for two weeks. And it's that like Christian said, you get the self-fulfilling prophecy. And then it does spiral out of control. Right. versus if we can kind of slam the [censored] brakes on things, and go “Hold up. All right. Reset.” And…and grab a hold of it by the balls a little bit, you know, then…then you've got a good opportunity. But I think we just we, you know, society as a whole and what, you know, whether it's real estate or not, we…we just get caught up in that bad moment. So you got to be more optimistic than pessimistic. [Christian]: Yeah well I think it also help if, you know, kind of speaking to people getting into the industry, if there was a more realistic portrayal of what it's like to be a new agent. Because I mean I've, you know, speaking of our first quarter was very, very rough financially. And we have like five agents that just gave up. Just “I'm done. I'm not renewing my license. This was too hard.” And it's kind of that lack of resiliency because they'd…I don't think they had a realistic expectations coming into it. They're like “You can't just sit on YouTube while you, you know, quote to do your calls.” [laughter] Like you're not gonna get…You know, so there's a lack of resiliency. There's a lack of hustle. A lack of urgency and then, you know, no matter what, you know, your brokerage does, or people come up alongside you, they don't do it. They don't listen. And then they quit. And you're like “Yeah I kind of saw the writing on the wall.”  You're like, you know, it's…from the perspective of a broker like it's really easy to become jaded. And, you know, my version of a rut looks differently, you know, because I'm looking at agents and productivity and, you know, margins. And that kind of stuff. From agent perspective, you know, it's trying to get business, you know, having people say no to you. Or if you're new to an area trying to figure out how to get the word out there. And, you know, that kind of stuff. But either way it comes down to like not giving up, being resilient when things don't go perfectly, not letting that spiral and ruin the rest of your day.  [Nathan]: I would agree. [Chris]: Definitely, you know, you've got to be able to compartmentalize a little bit to know “Hey, you know what this is not that big of a deal.” Or, “You know what, this sucks. But, you know, I gotta keep ploughing on because if I stop I'm never gonna get this done. I'm never gonna hit my goal. So I've got to keep going.”  You know, it took, you know, I was in a rut a few weeks ago. And it took me a good five to six days to work my way through it. And it wasn't until I kind of saw some things from a different angle that, you know, it was…I realized, you know what, what I was doing was correct. And, you know, this one situation was an outlier. And it really didn't affect what I was doing as much as I thought it would. [Christian]: Yeah I mean a lot of what we're talking about here is your perspective. Right. And earlier I mentioned not letting yourself be isolated. And the reason for that is that other people can bring a perspective that you don't have. You know, they're looking at that from the outside. Where you may be, you know, kind of myopically looking at your feet. And, you know, where you just stumbled while they're looking at the big picture of like “But look at all this potential and look at where you came from and look at what's ahead of you.”  You know, I think that's very important to have that community around you, of people that can speak into you. Well that's your spouse or business partner or whatever. [Chris]: And sometimes you don't even want to hear it. Sometimes you're just like “You know what, I…I'm not even gonna listen” and you have to hear from some like third party that has nothing to do with you. Because, you know, those that are closest to us sometimes we feel like they're just, you know, boosting us up. And it's not authentic. [Christian]: Right. And then your wife says “That's what I've been saying to you.” And you're like “Oh sorry.”. [Chris]: Yeah. [Christian]: I get that [censored] all the time. My wife's like “Why wouldn't you just listen to me. That's what I was telling you.” And I am like “Oh [censored] you're right.” [Nathan]: Well that's…that's the funny flipside of being resilient. Another word for that could be stubborn. Or [laughter] hard-headed, you know. So what keeps you driving for it could also be what keeps you from listen to people. So … [Chris]: Yeah I think not so much that, but we have…we have this tendency that if something shakes us to our core. like that we're…if something happens it's that messes us up and throws us way off track, then we have this tendency to not exactly trust everything that we've done, up until that point 100%. So if there's something…if there's something that's in our core circle that's telling us something and then whatever happens throws us off our game, then we're gonna immediately have a certain distrust for this. And we're gonna go to an outside source to verify whether we're right or wrong. And once we do that, if we verify “You know what, what we've been doing is right.” then we come back to that circle and like “You know what, everything here is good.” We're happy. If something's wrong then we're gonna come back to that circle and be like “Wait what the [censored] is going on here? Like why…why are you saying this. Or, you know, why didn't…why…” You get it. Yeah it's…it's not just about listening to those that are closest to us. It's a mental thing. Like if something…mentally we've got to recenter ourselves. [Christian]: It sounds like you're saying that insecurity creeps in, depending on where we feel like things went wrong. [Chris]: Yeah definitely. And I mean it all depends on whatever happens. Right. because sometimes it's something small and it's not a big deal and it maybe, you know, maybe it's something that we're just disappointed in, and it's gonna take us, you know, a few minutes to get over. Or maybe it's something…maybe it's a personal attack or something that a relative is going in, the new agents is going. You're not making any money. You need to stop. Right. This is…you're…you're wasting your time, you're wasting your money, you're wasting our money, if it's a spouse. You know, even if you're doing the right things you may have not planned long enough. Nothing ever happens fast enough. Nothing ever happens, you know, the way that we want it. So you've got to kind of have that margin of error that you can work with. [Christian]: Sure and when you come into with…realistic expectations. Right. I mean so much of what happens in relationships that goes wrong, or getting in a rut that…that, you know, the reason we get there is because expectations are unmet, or our situation changes. You know, like if…if we think is gonna be easy and it's not, you know, we get in a rut. If, you know, we expect to make more money in the first quarter than we did, you know, it's easy getting in a rut. I mean it's just kind of…and not letting those quote failures drive you or dictate you. Because I mean what, you know, one man's failures is another person's learning, try opportunity. Yeah and that's something I've had to learn. Is like theoretically I understood. You know, as this ethereal concept I understood that failure was inevitable, and I need to be able to learn from that. But than going through that, that's experientially a lot different.  [Nathan]: So I need to get over this whole thing of how my job interferes me living my best life. [Chris]: You have the one job that you not interfere with you living your best life. [Nathan]: I don't have a job.  [Christian]: This is coming from the guy who's taken like several vacation this month to go down to…[crosstalk] [Nathan]: I know. I know. Listen you…listen I don't even have a job. I have…I do something I enjoy and love. I'm fortunate that I don't even do it as a job. I get to do what I enjoy. [Chris]: That's good. [Christian]: Yeah well let's…let's take us a little deeper and more personal. I mean Nate you kind of brought up the subject, cuz this last couple weeks have been pretty rough for you. I mean what have you found to be helpful kind of getting out of this rut for you? [Chris]: And first do you need to lay down on the therapist couch and put five cents in the jar? [Nathan]: No. Again it's…what's been helpful for me I mean again it's…I think, you know, what's the old saying? You know, you you're the average of the five people you spend the most time around. So I think it's also about the people you surround yourselves with. And that, you know, when you do get in that, they'll help you with that. You know, or they'll, you know, they'll they're kind of champion you and…and support you to say, you know, “Hey yeah…” You know, when you say “I'm in a rut or I'm this” they'll…they'll boost those spirits.  And it won't be an ego boost. It won't be one of those things like “You're the best thing in the world next to cotton candy.” But they know how to push you in the right direction to support you. And I think that's what…having that support is important. And I mean that ranges from colleagues that I have, to neighbors, to a wife. Like, you know, it's…it's all those things. You know, it…it makes, you know, surviving that period of time easier.  And…and sometimes you just need that outer push. And you also need it…I think you need the people around you that are honest with you. You know, what I mean? [Chris]: You don't need “Yes men. Yes.” [Nathan]: Yeah right. Yeah you need somebody to go tell you the truth. I mean that's, you know, that's, you know, my friends, the people I surround myself with will tell me, you know, what they think. And…and sometimes I don't want to hear it. [censored] A lot of times I don't want to hear it. But it is what I needed to hear. [Christian]: Sure. No one likes hearing the hard truth. [Nathan]: Yeah, no you know. [Chris]: But to be able to appreciate it though when it's in front of you. [Nathan]: Yeah. Yeah you're right. [Chris]: That's one of the hard…the hardest thing that I've found is when, you know, getting that criticism. Whe…when you just want to wall up and go into like active defence mode. Like just letting your body language relax. Having, you know, open gestures and trying to be open-minded to put yourself in the other person's shoes, and see what they're seeing.  [Nathan]: Right. [Chris]: And then trying to see if there's some corrective action that needs to be made there. That's…that's hard when you just go into like “Alright go ahead, give me the feedback because it's rare that I ever get feedback like this. So, you know, take advantage of it while you can.” [Christian]: Sure. Well it can be challenging too because, you know, no one's perfect and no feedback is gonna be perfect. So you have to like decide “OK what's an honest truth that I need to hear” versus “OK that part is kind of [censored]. I'm gonna not take that, you know, what I'll take, you know, kind of not throw the baby off the bathwater.” Like taking the truth where you find it whether that's in, you know, quote a rival or enemy, or that's in someone who's, you know, really close to you and has your best interest at mind. You know, like that could be…it can be challenging. Because, you know, typically I find that if you're playing it safe, there's gonna be a lot less friction and a lot less controversy and criticism. If you're really pushing the bounds, that's when things get tough and people can get ugly. So… [Chris]: Yeah. [Nathan]: You know, I know how to…at least I know how to do it. I know how to have a fight with myself. If that makes any sense. You find out [crosstalk] Yeah I know how to like… [Chris]: Elaborate on that. [Christian]: Yes do. [Nathan]: Because you've got to be willing to call your own [censored]. Right. You've got to be willing to kind of punch yourself in the face. Right. you've got to be… [Christian]: I need to watch conversations with you. [Nathan]: Yeah. Right. That's a staff meeting. Remember? It again it's, you know, you…it's like…I mean it sounds crazy but it's having that conversation in your head of “Hey Nathan, stop being a pussy and do what you know, what you need to do. Get your [censored] up off the couch. Or wake up on time. Or eat right. Or whatever it is. You're not doing these things. Stop…stop [censored] yourself.” And just having that honest, you know, that David Goggin [phonetics] said, you know, “You got to be able to look that man in the mirror.” Right. And that man in the mirror is, you know, me. And so if you can't have that honest fight, dialogue with yourself internally, I don't think it matters what anybody tells you then. [Christian]: Well the starting place for that is being self-aware. Like if you don't know yourself like you're gonna have a real tough time having that honest conversation. [Nathan]: Well most people can't do that though. They live in some [censored] fairyland. [Christian]: Well yeah, you know, I mean we all have our blind spots. Some people are more aware than…than others, you know. [crosstalk] The most important thing in life is…is being honest about that, you know.  [Nathan]: Right. Sorry. I don't know. You gotta find what works for you. I know what works for me. [Christian]: Yeah you…you be unique. [Nathan]: I'm good at doing that. Chris are we gonna wrap it up? [Chris]: Yeah so I think we…we hit on some good points. The…I think no matter where you are in your career you're gonna get hit with something that's gonna throw you off your game. You're gonna…you're gonna have a Nate moment where you got to be in front of the mirror and you got to kick yourself in the [censored].  You know, one of the things that I tell some of the new agents is, you're always gonna have a boss. And even when you're self-employed you still have a boss. It's the person in the mirror. And who do you want to work for? Do you want to work for a strong leader? Somebody who's going to step up and challenge the things that needs to be challenged to make sure that things are getting done that need to be done? Somebody that's gonna keep it on track? Or do you want to work for somebody who is just very lackadaisical and doesn't really care when you clock in?  And you have a boss, whether you're working for somebody else or yourself. So it's just a matter of making sure that you're doing the right things for you. When you get stuck in a rut, you got to pull yourself out of it. One way or another.  [Nathan]: Yeah, you know, Henry David Thoreau [phonetics] comes to mind. Sorry. Pulling out the big gun. But, you know, he said “What lies…what lies ahead of us and what lies behind us are small matters compared to what lies within us. And when you bring what's within you, out into the world, great things happen.” Right so, you know, I think you gotta remember what's inside. [Chris]: We need to set up Nate's…Nate's motivational quotes of the week. [Christian]: I know that's good. That's a good one. And as kind of closing thoughts…kind of reflecting on our conversation here. You know, obviously people's struggles are vary based on them, their personality, situation and what not. A lot of we've been saying is, you know, kind of “Don't give up. Keep trying. Push harder.” Yeah that kind of stuff. But I also want to say that it's not entirely up to you or it's not just about working hard or trying harder. Because sometimes, you know, you push too hard and you work too much and you get sick. And, you know, your body forces you to…to take a break. So I know for me one thing that's rejuvenating, and it can help me get out of a rut sometimes even when I feel like my rut is I have too much to do, is to act…intentionally take a break. Spend more time with the family. Unplug from work. Now some agents, you know, err on that side too much. Where, you know, spend too much time…they spend too much time relaxing. And not enough time working. I don't think that's our problem. And I think that's a lot of agents problems.  But give yourself permission to take a break, rejuvenate, spend time with family, you know, not always be…be working. Because sometimes that's all it takes to get out of a rut.  [Chris]: I couldn't agree with you more. And, you know, it's…sometimes it's hard for…for agents to take off, you know, an entire week from work. Just do a few long weekends every now and then. You don't have to…you don't have to take off a week or two weeks. Sometimes that's…that's not realistic. But make sure that your mental health is in check. And that you're taking some time to decompress and unwind and put things in perspective. What I've found is that when…when I'm able to do that, I'll come back with some new ideas. Because I'm not thinking about, you know, the day-to-day. I'll be able to just kind of, you know, day dream. Whatever it is. Read a good book and come back with, you know, a new perspective on what we're doing. So couldn't agree more with you Christian. Nate great points.  Everybody thank you so much for tuning in to this week's episode of re:Think Real Estate. If you haven't already ,please go to the website which is rtrepodcast.com. sign up for the newsletter so you never miss an episode, whenever we drop one, which is every single week. Thanks for tuning in everybody. We'll see you next week. [music]  [Chris]: Thanks for tuning in this week's episode of the re:Think Real Estate Podcast. We would love to hear your feedback so please leave us a review on iTunes. Our music is curtesy of Dan Koch K-O-C-H, whose music can be explored and licensed for use at dankoch.net. Thank you Dan. Please like, share and follow. You can find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/rethinkpodcast. Thank you so much for tuning in everyone and have a great week.  [music]  

Order our new book today and join the marriage after God movement. https://marriageaftergod.com Here is a quote from the Marriage After God book. "Just as God has led us on a journey with specific work to do, your marriage is also on a journey toward the extraordinary work God has prepared for only the two of you to do." This chapter included part of our story and so today we want to highlight a piece of our story. In the second year of our marriage when things were really tough, we moved to Merritt Island Florida, where we met Nathan and Daisy Walter...except when we met them they were dating and then got engaged. *Dear Lord, Thank you for your creativity in how you made each and every one of us. Lord, you put so much thought and care into how you made us. Thank you for the resources you have given to our marriage and the unique talents and gifts that you have blessed us with. We pray that as Christian husbands and wives, we would not only desire to use all of the tools we have, but also pursue what you want us to do with them. We pray you would show us how you would like us to invest what we have so that we can grow your kingdom in this world. help us to encourage each other and affirm each other in how we use the gifts talents experiences testimony and resources that you’ve given to us. we pray that your name would be magnified as we remain obedient to all that you’ve called us to do. we pray that our marriages would represent and reflect your divine love story. May we be ambassadors of your love to this hurting world. inspire us to be creative in the ways that we share about you and share about the faith we have in you. thank you for the gift of life and for salvation. In Jesus’ name, amen!* READ TRANSCRIPT [Aaron] Hey we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God. [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today we're in part eight of the Marriage after God series, and we're gonna be talking with Nathan and Daisy Walter about the impact we have in this world. Welcome to the Marriage after God podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage. Encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life. [Aaron] Love. [Jennifer] And power. [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. [Jennifer] So we just want to first of all, just say thank you for everyone who's been following along in this series. We hope that it's been inspiring you and impacting your lives. [Aaron] You know, we're at the halfway point which is exciting. Yeah, yeah. Super awesome, but before we move on in this episode today, we just want to ask you guys to leave a review, this is just one way that you guys can help support the podcast by spreading the podcast. When you leave a review, it helps other people find the Marriage After God podcast. And it's super simple, all you have to do is scroll to the bottom of the app, leave a star rating review or a comment review, and Aaron and I really appreciate it. [Aaron] And also the reason we're doing this podcast in the first place, the entire podcast, and this series, this 16-part series, is because we wrote a book called Marriage After God, and you can get it today, and we'd love for you to get that, that's one of the best ways you can support this podcast. And also to support your marriage and to support the marriages around you, and just go to shop.marriageafterGod.com, and pick up a copy of our new book. We wrote this book for you guys. [Jennifer] So today, we have good friends of ours, Nathan and Daisy Walter, hi guys. Hey how are you doing? Hello. [Jennifer] Thanks for being with us today. [Aaron] We're so excited to have you guys on. [Nathan] We're excited to be here. [Daisy] It's good to be here. [Aaron] Awesome, so why don't you, cause a lot of people know us and our online presence, but they don't know all the people we know. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] And so that's one of the reasons why we wanted to do all these interviews, is to let people know all the people that have helped shape who we are today, that God used in our lives, and you guys are one of those couples in our life. We've known you guys for a very long time. Why don't you let everyone that's listening know who you are, your children, what you guys do, and how we know you? [Nathan] Right, well my name is Nathan Walter, and this is my wife. [Daisy] Daisy. [Nathan] And we have three kids It took me a second. Flynn, who's five, Aurora who is [Nathan And Daisy] Two. [Daisy] And Ivy's nine months. [Nathan] Nine months goes by fast. We are youth pastors at a church in Florida, and we also have a worship band called the Quiet Science. So, between all that, we stay pretty busy. [Daisy] Yeah, stay pretty busy. [Aaron] With half of that, you're busy. [Daisy] Yeah, and just the kids alone. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] So if anyone's familiar with the book launch surrounding the Unveiled Wife and our marriage story there, Daisy and Nathan are the ones that wrote that worship song that we wanted to launch with that book, called "The Unveiled" and it's available on YouTube if you guys want to check it out. [Aaron] It actually still gets tons of views. [Jennifer] I love that song. [Aaron] Yeah, people say it's like their favorite worship song. [Jennifer] You guys are so talented. I remember we had already been hanging out in our friendship for quite awhile, and we were hanging out at Daisy's parent's house when you guys had some instruments out, and you started kinda just fiddling around with them, and we didn't realize that you guys were like-- [Aaron] I know we had no clue you were-- [Jennifer] Really creative, you had a band. [Aaron] It was like months of knowing you guys. And you guys are like, you guys start playing and singing in the living room, we're like, what's happening right now? [Nathan] Awkward. [Daisy] I'm like, oh my God, why did we do that? [Aaron] Well, I think you guys were like practicing or something, [Daisy] Probably. [Aaron] Maybe you were going to be giving a show and we had no clue that you guys were part of a band. Anyways, we, go ahead. [Daisy] Oh, no, it's just like, oh by the way, we have a show. [Aaron] Yeah. But, how long has it been, we've known them? We met them in pretty much the first year that we were married, so 12 years now we've known you guys. [Daisy] Yeah. [Aaron] And you guys weren't married yet back then, you guys were dating when we met you. [Nathan] No. [Aaron] And then we got to go to your wedding. And even though we live on literally opposites of the country, probably the farthest distance we can be from each other. We still tend to keep in touch. [Daisy] Pick up where we left off. [Aaron] And pick up where we left off. That's one of the things we just love about you guys, is you guys are always changing in the right direction, you're always growing closer to God. But you're always the same to us. Which is cool cause we're growing with you, so. Why don't we get into the icebreaker question? [Jennifer] Yeah, so, this is an interesting one. If you could have dinner with anyone from the Bible who would it be and why? And it can't be Jesus. Cause we know that's a given. [Daisy] Um, I would say Isaiah. I know that's probably, I don't know. It's my favorite book and I just think, I don't know, he just seems like a wise old soul. And that's like, I don't know, that's my, thing. In every cast, every movie, my favorite character is the wise character. Like Gandalf. Like, I need wisdom, help me out! But I just-- [Jennifer] It makes for great conversation. [Daisy] It does! I just, I don't know, I feel like, whenever something amazing hits me, I'm always like, "Oh my gosh, of course, "I'm reading Isaiah." Not that the rest of the Bible isn't amazing, but I just, I love Isaiah, I would love to meet him. Well, I will meet him, but. [Nathan] Yeah, we will meet him. [Daisy] We will. [Jennifer] Okay, what about you, Nathan? [Nathan] You know, my first answer was gonna be Paul, but I feel like that's really, um, just because he wrote a lot of letters about the church, and I would want to get his opinion about the church today and get all fired up with him. But I also, I don't know, I didn't want to be like, super, well never mind I'm not gonna do two. I was just gonna do two. I guess, just I was gonna say Paul or an Old Testament prophet, cause the thing I like about the Old Testament prophets or that I respect, is that they were alone. They were like completely alone declaring the Word of the Lord, and I know Paul was, it just seems like they were, there were so many people on Mission, you know, I just respect the Old Testament prophets having to do it by themselves with nothing but the Word of the Lord, and it's like, how did you guys do it? How did you stay strong? [Aaron] Especially back then, when there was no church yet, it was God telling these men, like, "Hey, go speak this." And they're like, "Wait, they're gonna kill me "if I do that." [Daisy] Yeah, yeah. [Nathan] And my Old Testament prophet would have been Elijah, so. I know I didn't say it, but. [Aaron] Oh there you go. [Jennifer] So you picked two. [Daisy] Yeah he did. [Aaron] Elijah did have some pretty rad things he did. [Daisy] Yeah. [Jennifer] Great, well thanks for playing that little game with us. It always helps to let other people know a little bit more about who you guys are. [Nathan] And you can catch people who don't know the Bible. Here's a quote-I know, they're like, what person is that? So, here's a quote from chapter eight of our book. And then we'll get into the topic. "Just as God has led us on a journey "with specific work to do, "your marriage is also on a journey "toward the extraordinary work "God has prepared for only the two of you to do." So the idea of this chapter is just talking about the uniqueness of how God created all of our marriages and how He's given us unique talents and gifts and resources. And the specific purpose of this chapter is to show kind of that journey that Jennifer and I have been on and how He's uniquely gifted us, and all the different experiences, especially our relationship with you. You know, not everyone has this kind of relationship with you, and not everyone has the kind of relationships, everyone has different ones, and different resources and different experiences. And then toward the end of it we explain, but the point is, this is our marriage. It's not yours. And you, you and Daisy, have your own story, your own unique talents, gifts, resources, your own tool belt is what we call it. And God desires all of us, each one of us, to use what He's given us for His purposes, for His glory. And that we don't sit back and say, "Well, since I don't have Aaron and Jennifer's marriage "and their experiences and their education, "and their talents, then I must not be usable." Or, "Since I don't have this person over here "and what they've gone through and what they have, "I'm not usable." The truth is, that God's given us all-- [Jennifer] We're all one body. [Aaron] Yeah, unique gifts, talents, resources, for the sake of the body, and for what the body's doing. What God's doing in this world. So, that's the purpose of this chapter, but today we get to chat with you guys to talk about the influence that you guys had in our story, and just to talk about where you guys are at and how we met, and so we're just gonna have some fun with that, and we hope that and pray that everyone listening gets just blessed by this conversation, and gets to also think about what God's doing through their marriage and in their marriage right now. [Jennifer] So one of the things that we mentioned that's a part of our tool belt is relationships, and so we thought it would be cool to kind of dive into our relationship, with you guys, and just kind of go back to the beginning, because we met you guys at a time when, that first year of marriage was really difficult for us. And we didn't have a lot of relationships. But we were going to the same church, and you guys and your families loved on us, in a time that we really, really needed it. That time was impactful for us because even though we were enduring hardship, in our marriage, and we weren't really talking about it, we still were able to find ways to experience friendship together, with each other, and with you guys, and so I wanted to highlight that and how that impact is still impacting us in our relationships today. And has really impacted the ministry that everyone gets to benefit from this Marriage After God ministry. So Daisy and Nathan, what are some ways that we have had fun together? [Nathan] Honestly, when I was thinking about that, there's so many things that I think we did and they were all pretty mundane. And I think-- [Aaron] Yeah, yeah. [Nathan] I think that's what makes good friendships, is like, so many of our memories, I think, are sitting around on the back porch, playing some game Aaron had us play. Made up. Like, is it... And we were able to have fun no matter what we did, and I think that's kind of, not the key to good friendship, but I think it's evidence of good friendship, because there's so many people you're around where you gotta fill the silence, or you feel like you're entertaining, or you... And I think from the very beginning, we were always able to just, no matter what we were doing, we were having fun. So-- [Aaron] I like that. I think what you just said right there, is evidence of good, close relationship is not feeling like it's a one-sided thing. Cause that's essentially what entertaining is, you're entertaining a guest versus you're spending time with a, with a friend. Just being in the presence. Yeah. Being in the presence of. Daisy, what are some of the things that you remember that you guys, that we had fun with? [Daisy] I remember going to, Charles and Casey's wedding, and you guys like, doing the lift, remember when you were dancing? [Aaron] The lift? [Daisy] Yeah! The Dirty Dancing lift? And you're like, "Come on, Jen, run toward me, run toward me!" She was like, "I don't want to!" And you made her do it. [Aaron] I don't remember this at all! [Jennifer] I don't remember it working very well. [Nathan] It was the Dirty Dancing lift. [Daisy] It was the Dirty Dancing lift, and remember their wedding was like, on the beach, that was the most fun wedding. And toward the end you're like, "Come on, come on, run, run toward me!" You did it in front of everybody on the dance floor. [Jennifer] How embarrassing. [Aaron] I forgot how weird we are. Yeah, and for everyone-- Of course, everyone was cheering. [Nathan] Yeah, I think all the girls were jealous, were like, "Why don't you do that with me?" That's so romantic of you! [Jennifer] What's funny about this story is that, Aaron and I, we just don't like dancing, like it's a hard thing for us. So that's really funny. [Aaron] I think we did most of the dancing around Daisy and Nathan. You guys drew the dancing out of us. So when I think about our relationship, I remember, we didn't initiate it. I don't remember us going to you guys, I actually remember us feeling pretty, not lonely, but just kind of there, at the church at the time. We just kind of, working with that mission organization. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] And I remember just, we would go on Sundays, and we had some people we knew and we'd say hi, and just did the normal Sunday thing. But I remember one Sunday, we were leaving church and walking out to the parking lot, and a car just pulls up to us. And invites us to lunch. And it's your mom and dad, Daisy. They're just like, "Hey you guys wanna go to lunch with us?" [Jennifer] I remember we went to Red Lobster, and back then Aaron and I could not afford that, and it was like, heaven. [Aaron] It was such a treat. That you guys just did that. Do you remember, were you a part of that, like did you know us before that moment? And you know, your parents driving up and inviting us, what was happening in that kind of season? [Nathan] I don't know, I think, we were kind of the same way. Well, Daisy had gone to that church for a long time, but I think, um, we didn't have any friends that were couples. And I think that Daisy's parents were really like, "Hey there's this couple that we're gonna invite to lunch." And we're pretty shy and we don't do that kind of stuff, so it was almost like a, like they set us up Like you're matchmaking us. on a date or something. [Aaron] It was a blind double date, I love that. [Jennifer] It worked. [Nathan] Yeah, and I just remember from that moment on, we hung out every day that we could. [Daisy] Yeah, like every day. I feel like we hung out every single day. [Jennifer] I remember, we went to lunch that day, and then we went back to your parents' house, and we stayed there until like midnight, I think. [Daisy] Yeah, I remember that. [Jennifer] It was an all day thing. [Aaron] Didn't we go swimming? We swam a lot. A lot. [Daisy] Yeah, you always wanted them to turn on the jacuzzi. What I love about that. Yeah, the hot tub, yeah. [Nathan] That was Daisy's original answer, when it was like, "What did we do a lot?" Daisy was gonna be like, "The hot tub, "I think we were in the hot tub." [Daisy] Aaron was always like, "So, jacuzzi anybody?" And I'm like, "Uh, sure." [Aaron] It was, it was really great. And I think, so there's a couple things that were happening, cause Jennifer and I, and you guys didn't realize this, your parents didn't even know, you know, Jennifer and I were going through spiritual and just emotional turmoil in our marriage. But I think a couple things happened, we, I want to use the word used, we used our relationship with you guys to help us cope with where we were at. Which is, I think, a thing that we're called to do, we're supposed to lean on each other in the body of Christ, and rely on those relationships for strength. You know, when the Bible tells us to bear one another's burdens, whether you guys knew it or not, you guys were bearing burdens with us, that we would come and just, those many nights, many, many nights, you're right cause we spent, probably couple, three, four, five days a week with you guys sometimes. [Jennifer] Thank you for being so willing-- [Aaron] Yeah, thank you for being there with us. To build that friendship. [Nathan] It was fun. [Daisy] Oh, we were having so much fun. [Aaron] Yeah, and just having fun with you guys, and chatting with you guys, and I remember we had lots of spiritual conversations, but, like you said, even the mundane things were, it was safety for us. And it kept us from spiraling into oblivion in our marriage, alone, because we had people with us. It made the dark times, the hard times for us bearable. And again, you guys didn't even really know, that was our fault for not really sharing with you guys where we were at. But what I love is that, you were saying that you guys didn't have those close relationships either, and how the Lord orchestrates like, "Hey, here's two of my, two couples, four of my children, "that I'm gonna bring together and use them "in each others' lives," whether we know it or not. You know, just because we're walking as Christians with each other. Um, so, why is friendship in marriage so important? Like, I'm bringing all this stuff up but I'm trying, I want to draw this out for the people listening. Okay, so why are friendships in marriage so important, first, and secondly, why was it so important to you guys? [Nathan] I think that I value, our friendship more now that I don't get to see you guys all that often. Because, I think the older you get the more you realize how rare it is, that you have friendships with other couples that, both of them have a heart after God and a heart for you. And it's encouraging to know that, those relationships can exist, and that we can perhaps have other couple friends like that. I mean, we only have like two or three couple friends like that, that are all throughout the United States. But it's kind of nice to know, these are our brothers and sisters in Christ, and God has them elsewhere right now, but we're all on Mission. And even though it feels like we're apart, we're on Mission together for the same thing, for the same Kingdom. And even though we don't get to see them a lot now, we'll get to see them later, when the mission is complete. And I think that when things get rough, especially in terms of friendships with other couples, we always have that reminder of like, we have another, there are other friendships out there that we will get to see again, and they go through these same struggles as we are on Mission for the Kingdom of God, you know? God just has us different places on Mission, and it's nice to know that other people, there are others out there that are like you, that are on it. It's just encouraging, even, even without getting encouragement from people talking to you, just to know that you're out there doing it is, I don't know, it just gives you hope and encouragement. [Aaron] So having that, just the experience that we had over those, you know, year and a half, two years, of building our friendship, what you're saying is, has given you, a standard to look forward to, in relationship with other believers, and an excitement for that. Do you feel like that's, so that standard, that way of walking with other Christian couples, other believers, has inspired you and Daisy to be those kinds of friends to others? Whether or not they can fulfill the other side of it? Like do you feel like you guys, you're like, "Oh this is what it looks like, "this is how we're gonna attempt to walk "with other Christians?" [Nathan] Yeah, definitely. I think that having a blueprint for what a godly friendship in marriage looks like is certainly helpful when you are creating new friendships with other Christians. I think it's helpful to have a blueprint of what that looks like. [Jennifer] That's really good. And can you explain a little bit about your and Daisy's friendship in marriage? Because I feel like, we've been talking about friendship as a couple with other couples, but why is friendship within marriage so important? And how do you guys cultivate that? [Nathan] It's funny, we've had to think about that a lot lately as we, as we lead a youth group and we're talking to kids who are wondering about future relationship and relationships that they're in, and as we model a godly relationship for them. I think most of our strong bond comes from being in ministry together and trying to inspire these kids. And a lot of the kids mention, often, at school, like for the kids that are really chasing after God, they mention the loneliness. How lonely it is. And we just kind of, as we counsel them, have come to realize, and Daisy's actually the one who counseled them on this, who was like, "That's why it's so important who you marry. "That you marry a man of God or a woman of God, "because often the person you're with, "is hidden, possibly the only one there with you, "walking after Christ." And as she was telling me that, I was reading how Jesus sent out the disciples, and he sent them out two-by-two. And it was, in a duo, was the word. And often, I feel like, in marriage, we are the two-by-two. We are the ones Huh. I like that. standing together. We are the ones that encourage each other. We are the ones who pick each other up. When I'm down, she's the one who pulls out, and she doesn't just encourage me regularly, she pulls out the Bible, and she's like, "Well, you remember Joseph, when he was in prison..." You know what I mean, and just starts preaching at you. And it's not just regular encouragement, it's the word from God, coming from my wife. And like, you can't, it's hard to even survive without that. It is so essential, I think, cause I just look at it like that. We're going out two-by-two, and she is the person God has put me with, for our ministry to go out into the world. She's my encouragement, but she encourages me through the Word. And I just think it's vital. [Aaron] I love that. And the two-by-two, the friendship aspect of knowing, like, you can't be friend with the world and friend with God, you can't be, it's hard to have an unequally yoked relationship where one's a believer, one's not a believer. Which is why the encouragement should always be, to singles, like, "No, no, you chase after, "you marry a believer. "Someone who loves God." And uh, sorry, I love that, and Daisy it's really awesome that you, you help Nathan like that, where you preach the word of God to him. Cause like, what better friend than someone that's gonna say, "No, actually, this is what the Bible says, "remember it. "Don't forget, Nathan." Right. [Aaron] And vice versa. [Daisy] Well, I think, I think we do that. It's cool though, I think that we do that for each other. Cause it's like, I don't know. I think Nathan can tend to be more melancholy than I am, but like, I feel like there's always a balance. When I'm in that place where I'm like, "Oh, I don't know." And it's like, Nathan does that for me, and it's just cool cause it's like, I don't know, it's like I've got his back and I know that he's got my back, and I think that that's really important, that I know that he's also listening to God and being moved by the Spirit. Like I can trust, I can trust him in that way. [Nathan] Yeah, I think it's important, like what we always do, there's no encouragement. People can tell me like, worldly encouragement, and it can make me feel good for a second. But I think with a spouse and someone walking through life with you that knows you well, we're just giving each other like, spiritual smacks in the face, almost. Where it's like, "You stop, you get up! "It says he stand on the Word "of the Lord and God has said this "and that's what we will trust in! "You stop hanging your head, you look up!" You know what I mean? "Where does your help come from?" And you just kind of like, you know what I mean? [Daisy] I don't say it like that! [Nathan] But it's like. [Aaron] That's how Nathan hears it, though, Daisy. Yeah, yeah. [Nathan] It's just kind of like this inspiring, you know, don't fall into that, that's lies. This is the truth. And that's what we stand on. [Daisy] Yeah, and well, the person that you marry, I think this is why, this is what we're always really trying to impart to the kids is like, the person that you're dating and the person that you marry, they have the strongest voice in your life. They'll end up replacing your friends, your parents, not like in your relationships, but as far as having the strongest voice in your life. So it is important to not just you know, be attracted to somebody, cause I think, you know, that's easier. [Aaron] It is important, but not as important, yeah. [Daisy] It's not, you know? You have to, you know, you have to have other things. And I think being friends with the person that you're with and someone that you can trust, when you marry them, they'll have the strongest voice in your life. And so do you want someone that's also following Christ, to have the strongest voice in your life? And hopefully the answer is yes for them. [Jennifer] It is for us! [Aaron] That's such a good, it's such a good encouragement. So taking, not just who you marry, right? But most people are listening, are hopefully already married. We have some singles that listen. But, the other side of this is those voices, right? Going back to friendships outside of the marriage, those people have voices too. There's a scripture that says, "Bad company corrupts good morals." And the principle of that is like, who you spend the most time with is going to have the loudest voice in your life. So like, your spouse is the loudest voice, right? And then, you know, the biggest influence. And then your relationships that you spend the most time with outside of that. And that's kind of what I want to encourage everyone that's listening, the importance of aligning your lives, your relationships, with other believers who are walking the same direction, are chasing the same things, who believe the same words that you believe, you know, in the Word of God, in the Bible, and aren't trying to, "Oh, don't worry about that. "Oh, that's not a big deal. "Oh, you wanna go do something else?' Not trying to take you somewhere else, but are trying to keep you there. And I think that principle that you have in marriage should just go straight out, too, and the Bible teaches that. To not be unequally yoked, not just in marriage, but in our relationships. [Daisy] Yeah, oh yeah. [Aaron] It says, "What fellowship does light "have with darkness?" Doesn't mean we can't have friends or relationships with unbelievers. But we can't have fellowship with them. And what you were talking about in the beginning of, you know, we had fellowship with you guys. The ability to just sit and be still with you guys, and laugh, and have jokes, and have fun, and eat meals, and talk about hard things and deep things with you guys, was fellowship. And we've, like you've said, that template, we've taken that template forever. Like all of our relationships, we look at it, and we, we say, "Okay, we're gonna walk with these people "the way we've walked with you guys." But actually more so because we weren't as open with you guys as we should have been. We were learning back then. And I believe we actually would've had a, probably, even a deeper relationship, if we had been more honest back then, but we didn't know how to be. We hadn't been taught that. We hadn't experienced what that looked like until later on in our story. Which again, happened around friends, of the same nature. So you know, it happened in those same environments that we had with you guys. But I want to ask you guys, speaking of the big picture, speaking of what God's doing in our lives, through our lives, in this world, for His Kingdom, we talked about how we didn't know what God might have been doing. But looking back, we look at the relationship we have with you guys and God leading us into that relationship, and the impact that you guys have had, not only on our story, but on the ministry that God's used us in, has been immense. You know, we talk about how we probably wouldn't be here today, together, if it wasn't for you guys. [Jennifer] Yeah, I feel like hanging out with you guys gave us a reprieve from the turmoil that we were experiencing intimately in our relationship. So it was like this hopefulness of, well, we still get to hang out with our friends and we still get to do these fun things together, so it gave us this breath of fresh air and hopefulness for the future. [Aaron] Yeah, and I don't know if you guys realize that. Have you guys realized that kind of impact? I know it wasn't intentional, necessarily, but looking back, do you see like, wow, God used us in the Smiths' life? [Nathan] No. [Daisy] No. [Aaron] Awesome, okay. [Nathan] I mean, honestly, when I look back, when I know now what I know about the struggles you were going through, mostly I just feel bad. Like I wasn't a good friend for not noticing and that I missed an opportunity. [Daisy] Yeah. [Nathan] You just feel kinda, I don't know, maybe foolish, like I wasn't listening to God. Or like, "Man, God, like, "they were right there going through this stuff "and I didn't even know, "like how could I not have known?" But honestly, that has made me try to be more aware. You know? I'm like, Awesome. [Nathan] "Man, are these people going through stuff I don't know?" Cause I don't wanna, I don't wanna miss that again, you know? [Aaron] Yeah. [Nathan] I'm glad the story ended up well, where God was able to move and use it. But like, what if, I think like, what if God placed us there to save something, and what if it broke down later? And we missed our opportunity to be the hands of God? [Jennifer] I appreciate you sharing that. [Nathan] But it makes me, it's definitely something that I think we've added to our blueprint of what a Godly relationship looks like. Is like, watching out for them. Watching out for your friends. Watching for signs that they might not wanna talk about or face but I mean, I think that's what Christians do. We're supposed to hold each other accountable, encourage each other, and sometimes, everyone hides stuff and doesn't wanna be honest and talk about issues, but that's what God's called us to do. [Aaron] You have to be light in each others' lives. [Nathan] Yeah. And so I think we've just kinda added that to the blueprint of what we wanna do for future friends. [Jennifer] I love that you shared that. And I just wanna point out a couple things. The first being that, even though you didn't know back then, you guys still were walking faithfully and were obedient to what you knew, which is how to be a righteous person, and how to encourage one another. And that's what you guys did for us. So I think the encouragement here, for those listening is, even if we don't know the details of what other people are going through, and we still walk in obedience, we still have an impact. And I think that's really awesome. [Aaron] And I was also, I was thinking, of the Scripture, when Paul's talking about, "One waters, one plants, "but it's the Lord who brings the increase," and I just want to encourage you guys that, and those listening that, even though you didn't know, it's possible that, well we're all in a place where we didn't know certain things, but our maturity levels as Christians, you guys, weren't married yet until later. [Daisy] Right. [Aaron] And so, being faithful where God has you, with the knowledge that you do have, yeah you probably back then, could have asked us some questions, right? But you didn't know to, right? But that doesn't mean you weren't faithful. It doesn't mean you didn't do what you were called to do. You might have been naturally walking in that relationship with us, but it was out of a love for Christ in how you guys just normally live, and how you interacted with us. And I just want to encourage you that, you guys watered us. Whether you knew it or not, you may not have been the one planting, and I think you partly were planting in us, too, but the Lord's the one that brought the increase in our story. That's none of our responsibilities to bring the increase. God wants us to be faithful with either the planting or the watering or the both. And so, those listening, recognizing that we are to be faithful in our walks with Christ, and the knowledge that we have of Him, and to walk with other believers the way the Bible tells us to. Regardless if we have all the answers, regardless of if we know how the story's gonna turn out, whether we have all the puzzle pieces in the right spot, He just wants us to be faithful in those relationships the way He wants us to be. And what happens is God brings the increase. You know. And the encouragement, also, to people who are trying to witness and encourage people that aren't followers of Christ yet. Who don't, who aren't regenerated in the Spirit, who haven't accepted the Gospel, to be faithful in who we are as Christians, in the message that we've been given, and knowing that God's gonna do with that seed and the watering what He wants to do with it. And trusting that, and just continually being faithful in that, so. I just want to encourage you guys that, whether you knew it or not, you were watering and planting in us, seeds of faithfulness, of friendship, of truth, encouragement, and all of those things, God has used in our life. And so, I love that God has also used our relationship to show you how you guys can more intentional in your future relationships, and I'm sure you have been. [Daisy and Nathan] Yeah. [Aaron] Which is something God wants us to be, and so I think that's just wonderful. [Jennifer] Yeah, that was gonna be my other point. When you were talking about how it's made you more vigilant to ask those bigger questions, and to have eyes to really see and discern what people are going through, and I think that also is an encouragement and testament for those listening that we can be, you know, people who pursue intimate relationships with other believers in this way and be willing to ask the bigger, harder questions, for their sake and for ours, so that we can exhort one another. [Daisy and Nathan] Mmhmm. [Nathan] Yeah. [Aaron] So I want to just ask you guys, we're talking about friendship and relationship and whether or not you knew God was using you doesn't really matter, because God was. And when we're faithful to God and just walk with Him, and-- [Daisy] Say yes to Him. [Aaron] Say yes to Him, and we pursue the things He loves and wants, He uses it. And He is faithful in that way. But in your own personal lives, you guys have been given a tool belt as well, and you have gifts and talents and resources and relationships and things that God's given to you and wants you to invest for His purposes. How do you guys encourage each other to use the gifts that you have? In your marriage and to those outside your marriage? [Nathan] Just in the positions that we're in, I think a lot of the things that we have in common, that God uses most in us, is our musical abilities. And we love worship. And our love for youth and their struggle that they go through. And I think that, honestly, I think that I love Daisy the most when I'm watching her worship, or watching her counsel a young girl. I don't want to sound weird, but it's like, really attractive to see her using her gifts for God's glory. And God's given me similar gifts. [Aaron] That's awesome. [Nathan] That's how God kind of pairs us, I think. You know, like, we have passions for the same thing, and I think I love her most when I'm watching her use it or when she'd come home and she's like, "Oh, this girl's talking to me about this, "and I said this," And when I hear her answers, you're just like, "Oh man, it is so, man God just used you, "and what wisdom!" And you have to encourage each other in that, too, because usually after I say something or she says something or counsels someone, we come back and we're like, "This is what I said! "Was that okay?" You know, and it's nice to have someone be like, "Yes, no, that was spot-on, that was so good what you said. "I mean, that's what I'm gonna say, "if I'm ever asked that question." You know, and in a ministry, sometimes you feel the weight of every word that you say. This person needs hope in this moment, and they've come to me and I'm the person who has to give it to them. I am God in their, I am the person God can use right now, oh God, please, like this is important. So it's really nice to have someone to check with. Or be like, "Man, did I get that right?" And kind of, check your wisdom. And it's so nice to have someone who's there with you in the trenches being like, "Oh man, no, that was God, that was awesome." [Daisy] I feel the same way, I just feel like it's, I don't know, you have so much wisdom. I'm like, "This kid wants to talk to me, "I need you to be there, so you can say smart things!" Not like, not that I'm not smart, I don't know, I just feel like sometimes I get tongue-tied, and I'm just like, "Okay, Nathan, you gotta do this for us, "represent us both." I don't know. [Aaron] You guys are answering exactly what I was thinking. [Nathan] But that's also like, why it's important that I encourage her. Because often, she'll say things that I wouldn't have thought of, like sometimes the right intelligent answer isn't what a person needs to hear. They need to hear a loving answer. Sometimes they just need an open ear. And I see so many times when people say, "Oh I didn't have the right answer," and then I'll just like, "Maybe God just wanted you to listen in that moment." And so, I think what Daisy says is awesome. And so I like, encourage her, be like, "No, you can do it, you are capable. "When you say stuff, I'm like, 'Man, that was awesome! "'How'd she come up with that?'" I just think it's nice to be reminded by the person you care about the most, that you know, God is using you and that you're on track. [Jennifer] I think that's so powerful. And to tie it back into what you guys were talking about earlier, about voices, and you know, the impact that we have in each other's lives, like you guys are ministering to young kids, and as a couple, your voice is so powerful and so impactful, and when you go back to, you know, conversations of what you guys have been through, or experienced with these children, you're refining each other, and you're building one another up, you're encouraging one another, you're gleaning from each other the wisdom that you're each sharing, and you're cultivating that voice that you're sharing with the world. And I love that, and the impact is unfathomable, like you'll never know the extent, the impact you're actually having in each individual life that you guys are ministering to. And I think that's true for every marriage after God. And that encourages me. [Aaron] Which is why we need to be excited about what God's doing in us, faithful about it, and just like, you know, you brought up the Old Testament prophets. The Bible tells us that, in Hebrews, none of them got to see what they were told they were gonna see. They were looking forward to what we get now. And so this idea that we might not ever see how God is fully moving, because this picture He's building is huge. But as long as we're excited about it, we're encouraging each other, we're moving forward, we're faithful in the things He's given us, and investing for Him. God's gonna do what his purposes are in this world, and we get to be used sometimes, which is awesome. And so, praise God for what He's doing in you guys, and through you guys, and we praise God all the time for, just our relationship with you, and what it means to us. And so our prayer is that, the couples listening will be able to experience close biblical friendships and how that can impact the world for God's Kingdom, how it can impact their marriages. [Jennifer] I would like to encourage them listening, everyone, all of us listening, to remember that we don't have to sit around and wait for God to give us friendships, but that we have an obligation to be the friends that He has called us to be in other people's lives, and we can start doing that today. [Aaron] Or we can wait for our parents to set us up Set us up. On a double friendship date. Well let us take from your parents' advice and let's do this for our kids. Set them up on double friendship dates. [Jennifer] You know, at the end of every episode throughout this series, we've asked each couple to share this last question, and so we're gonna ask you guys as well, it's, in your own words, what is a marriage after God? [Nathan] I think a marriage after God, I think starts with each individual seeking after God with all their heart. And then, then when you come together, and to each of you individually, God comes first, then when you come together in marriage, everything you do is for His glory, and is about Him and about furthering His Kingdom. And the evidence is shown in your children, in the way you spend your time with them, and the things you say to them. And the way you encourage them, and the way you build them up, and the way you handle their mistakes. It's evidenced by, how you encourage one another, where your encouragement comes from, are you just encouraging someone like, "No, you're the best!" Or are you like, giving them biblical encouragement? Which is where the real strength is. And like, and it's evidenced by sharing each other, like "Oh this is what I read in the Scripture today." Like you can amass so much more biblical knowledge if you have two people reading the Bible and then sharing with each other what God showed. [Aaron] That's awesome. [Nathan] Or even like, reading the same thing and having different, "This is what God showed me," "This is what God showed me," and like, God kind of like, uses us to sharpen each other in every aspect in our lives. In parenting, in work, in ministry, in health and fitness. [Aaron] It's true. [Daisy] Well yeah, I think just having Jesus at the center of your marriage kind of changes your priorities, you know. And I don't know, it's like, it kind of takes the, hopefully it's not like it's perfect from the get-go, but I think it really helps with like, the selfishness you can find in marriages, or even just friendships. When you're constantly reminding yourself that Jesus is at the center, I think it really helps keeps your priorities straight, you know. [Aaron] That's so good. The point is like, hey, remember what we're doing? We're getting off track, what's going on? Love that. So guys, we love you guys, we miss you guys a lot, so you guys need to come to Bend, Oregon and visit us soon. [Daisy] Oh, we miss you, too. [Nathan] We love you guys, too, we miss you. [Aaron] So, can you guys let everyone know where to find you guys, your music. [Nathan] Yeah, we are the Quiet Science. We are on Instagram. We're still on Facebook. We are on, you can listen to us on Spotify, we're on iTunes, we're everywhere. The Quiet Science. [Aaron] The Quiet Science. [Daisy] He always says it really fast. [Aaron] And we definitely want to encourage everyone to go check em out, their music is awesome. They've been doing it for years and they do it as a couple. [Daisy] Our secret band. [Aaron] Yeah, we want to thank everyone for listening to today's episode. We pray that it's been an encouragement to you in your marriage, to seek out godly friendships, and to realize that God wants to use your story, He wants to use the relationships in your life to impact this world for His goodness, for His purposes, for His Kingdom. And so we're just gonna end in prayer. [Jennifer] Dear Lord, thank you for your creativity in how you made each and every one of us. Lord, you put so much thought and care into how you made us. Thank you for the resources you have given to our marriage, and the unique talents and gifts that you have blessed us with. We pray that as Christian husbands and wives, we would not only desire to use all the tools we have, but also pursue what you want us to do with them. We pray you would show us how you would like us to invest what we have so that we can grow your Kingdom in this world. Help us to encourage each other, and affirm each other in how we use the gifts, talents, experiences, testimony, and resources that you've given to us. We pray that your name would be magnified as we remain obedient to all that you have called us to do. We pray that our marriages would represent and reflect your divine love story. May we be ambassadors of your love to this hurting world. Inspire us to be creative in the ways that we share about you, and share about the faith that we have in you. Thank you for the gift of life and thank you for salvation. In Jesus' name, Amen. [Aaron and Nathan] Amen. [Daisy] Amen. [Aaron] So again, thank you for joining us on this podcast episode. This is part eight of the Marriage After God series. We're halfway, we have eight more episodes and eight more interviews. You're not gonna wanna miss em, so we look forward to having you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at MarriageAfterGod.com. And let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

Download this Episode There are so many different needs that individual real estate agents have for their business. Many agents need detailed support and guidance in building and operating their business. Others need a framework that they can operate their business within that will lead to greater predictability in their income. Each agent is different within the real estate space and Brokers should understand how they can tailor their model to match different needs of agents. What do agents want from their broker? The re:Think Real Estate Podcast focuses on different aspects of the real estate industry. We share stories of amazing agents that defied the odds to create a name for themselves in the industry. We also share best practices for what works for us in our daily lives. Tune in every week to hear a new episode. Oh, and while you're at it please leave us 5 STAR review on iTunes! Real Estate Podcast Transcription Audio length 29:39 RTRE 51 – What Do Real Estate Agents Want? [music] [Chris] Welcome to re:Think Real Estate, your educational and hopefully entertaining source for all things real estate, business, news and tech.  [Christian]: I am Christian Harris in Seattle, Washington. [Nathan]: Hi, I am Nathan White in Columbus, Ohio. [Chris]: And I am Chris Lazarus in Atlanta, Georgia. Thanks for tuning in.  [music] [Chris]: Everybody and welcome back to re:Think Real Estate. I am Chris Lazarus here with Christian Harris and Nathan White and we're so glad to have you along for the next 30 minutes. Guys what is going on? [Christian]: Just trying to stay warm. It's snowing again in 2019 in Seattle. It's actually pretty bad so it's like adages of snow and lots of hill lots of nice… [Nathan]: Yeah I guess…It's tougher for you guys in Seattle with your skinny jeans that come up past your ankles and getting wet and you not knowing what to do. [Chris]: It was hard tracking to the local coffee shop this morning right? [Christian]: Yeah. I am a steady guy in the eye. [laughter]. [Nathan]: My Fedora blue is off in the heavy snow and I didn't know what to do. [Christian]: I got my flannel and my…down. [Chris]: I don't know if I can make it to the grocery store for more almond milk.  [Christian]: You can come here and try to drive down in the 18% grade in the ice and see how you do. [Nathan]: When I went to pick a granola for the day care it was really challenging. [crossover talking] [Christian]: It must have been really nice living in the woods and having… [Nathan]: It was a great episode. Guys I gotta go [laughter].  [Christian]: That's a little [inaudible] I get it. [Chris]: Thanks for tuning in to re:Think Real Estate. We'll catch you…No I am just kidding. So no what are we talking about this week Christian? [Christian]: Let's talk about what agents want or what we think agents want. Or what agents think they want but then they find out they don't really want that. [Nathan]: This is great since I am an agent and I can't wait to think what 2 brokers think we want or at leats…[laughter]. [Christian]: Well we're also agents. I mean technically we're brokers in Washington but…you know I know there's things that I want which is why I set up my brokerage the way I did. But then you also have the… In my experience you kind of have like what agents say they want, what they think they want and then you actually find out what they want. Because you provide them all the things they say they want and they don't use them. Or they still go somewhere else because they're lured by something else sexy and shiny. And then realize the grass isn't actually greener. So I think it's actually interesting conversation to have. What do you guys think? [Chris]: Well I think that you know…for that is gonna depend on where the agent is in their career.  [Christian]: Correct and what they want. [Chris]: You're got all new agents. You've got all different types of brokerages. You know your new agent is gonna need a lot more than your experienced agent so where do you want to start first? [Christian]: Yeah I mean yeah I would say there is probably you know on the spectrum 3 major groups of agents I would say. There's the agent who doesn't need the help, doesn't want the help, just wants a low fee, low cost structure to do their own thing.  [Chris]: OK. [Christian]: That's fine that's gonna be like Nathan, you know, what you're doing. You know you started at KW you got your feet under you and kind of went out to do your own thing. You know, after you figured it out.  And I think there is the bulk of agents which is kind of in the middle of. They want some support of some sort whether that's access to the broker for questions or marketing or CRM or systems or something. They're gonna want some sort of support and they're willing to pay up a higher split for that.  And I guess you could say maybe like Redfin or something is kind of the other, I don't know if I would say other end of the extreme, where it's employee based. It's not independent contractor based you know. So you're got no anonymity because you're not an independent contractor. You're playing your part in the cog as a cog and a corporation. [Chris]: I think…I think those are on the grand scheme of things. Because most offices don't operate on employee bases. I think we can probably categories those like team members. Those that don't want to build their own business, just want leads provided to them, go out close to sale, be a sales agent.  [Christian]: there you go so their value that they're looking for is being part of a team.  [Chris]: OK. [Christian]: Yep. [Chris]: Well let's start with the…with the bulk of the agent. What do you think most agents want in a brokerage Christian? I am putting you in the hot seat first. [Christian]: Yeah that…It's…As I figured out or trying to figure out this independent brokerage thing you know and discovered things as you know agents have come and gone…I think what they want or what they realize that they want or need…I don't know. You cut that out [laughter].  I think what agents come to value is some sort of system in the organization because they realize very quickly that most of them are not organized. And so they're gonna have that provided to them without them having to figure out technology and CRM and that kind of stuff. But I think it's something that a lot of agents have to discover. It's probably not something that they value up front.  You know they have to discover “OK I am getting business and I am bringing it with my head cut off you know and I cannot really handle so much because I am scattered, you know.” I mean that's…That was kind of my idea. I mean that's what I saw was agents want to be in front of people. There's not necessarily systems, processes organized. You know, that kind of stuff. So the whole idea is you come here, we provide that so you can go out and be in front of people and not have to worry about thinking you know the back end stuff. [Chris]: So basically all the behind the scenes taken care of so they can focus on selling. [Christian]: Yes and no. Actually I think it's not initially valued until they realize that they're not good at it. And they need it. So…It's not sexy so…but I think some things are sexy, they're a little more obvious. Would be like marketing. Like you know are there options for me to have a listing that I don't have to create from scratch. You know.  Whether that's internal marketing team or some sort of template platform. You know that they provide it for you. Or social media post of something. Something that makes it easy to get in front of potential clients or you know marketing stuff for your…for your buyers, for your sellers. That sort of thing.  I think a big one which is…seems pretty universal is access to the broker when they have questions. You know so…because I have had people come here say “I can't…it takes 3 days for my broker to get back to me”. You know and I am like “That's kind of ridiculous you know, you have one job as a broker. You know”. Technically I mean that's kind of the big thing it's like supporting the agents when they have legal questions. Contract questions [laughter]. You know if you're not doing that what the hell are you doing? You know.  [Chris]: Nate what do you think? [Nathan]: There's is many things here. Like you know me. I am the bear bonds. I don't moat, I don't need all the fluff. You know… [Christian]: Oh fluff huh? [Nathan]: You know what I mean with it [laughter]. [Christian]: I know what you're saying. [Nathan]: But you talk about like we go back to this you know agents being so busy, right. So you know an agent says “Well I need all this, right…Or…”. But than they don't actually use it. And so I…I…like I was in that box. Like I had all the stuff but I didn't use it. So why am I paying for it. So… [Christian]: Sure. [Nathan]: There are so many different directions you can go. You're right on the types of people I think that the sharks like myself that you know or hunter killers, whatever you wanna call us that you know we're happy going out and hunting and eating what we kill and that's…We really enjoy that.  And then there's that middle of the pack you know I call it your dad bought group, right. You know they're just happy standing in lane [laughter] and not doing anything. And that belly is gonna appear and they're not gonna be much about it. They're comfortable. That's what we are as a society. Were a [censored] comfortable. So they're not gonna challenge anything at all right. They're just gonna say “Yeah I don't mind giving out 60-40 split. I am good I am getting my CRM that I am not using.” All this [censored] that they're not really using but they're telling themselves they're happy. What they are they're just comfortable and they're not truly uncomfortable and I think to be a hunter killer or shark you've gotta be comfortable being uncomfortable.  And then you've got that far end of the spectrum of that person who's got really no ambition to me or they just…they don't know what the [censored] they're doing and they're on that employee you know plan. So go for it. You know that's happy. And that's fine. I…I love the middle of the road pack. There's you know they're great and they do a great job and people have different circumstances right. And I don't want to feel like I am bashing that middle of the road pack. Why? If you're a mum or a father, a single parent whatever it may be, you may need all those things to support you. Maybe you can't get out and you know be the hunter killer that you really want to be. Which I would challenge and say you could. But maybe that is just what works for you at this given time.  So you know I could…Again I could talk about a lot of different things. When I started I wanted leads. I wanted leads and I wanted to know how to talk to them. Converse to them. And become more educated and knowledgeable. That's what I wanted. So than once you get past that phase I think than there's the evolution. You kind of have that fork on the road to go down this path and you stay there.  And then you're just happy in your zone and you go “Well I wanna go this way”. And you go the opposite direction. So I think it depends on the type of individual or personality you are and I think it depends on where you are in your career. I mean hack, I might get to the later stages of this and go “Man I am good you know what”. And join a team and get comfortable and take a 60-40 split and be happy, right. I don't know.  [Christian]: Yeah I mean I'll push back a little bit on the characterization of the middle. Because to me it's such a broad…I think most agents would wall into that as far as agents are gonna line in franchise or whatever.  There is a good size group of them that are comfortable that aren't doing anything, that don't have a sense of urgency. You know I would say that's probably the same group that you know brings industry down as far as you know ill trained, ill experienced. Those are always gonna be there you know until we radically change, you know, where the bar is in the industry. Training or something. You know.  But I would say that I think there is a mischaracterization just because you're kind of in that middle, that you're not hungry. It doesn't mean it. Yeah I know plenty of agents who are killing it because they're hungry and because they're using…Because they're organized or you know have a team or whatever you know. I think you can be successful kind of doing that alone like you know not having a CRM or being an organized or refusing… [Nathan]: I am organized. [laughter] [Christian]: Not having a CRM and that sort of thing. But…Because I think if you're driven you're gonna be successful. Just a matter of you know kind of that quality of life or that you know…running with your head cut off. How much business can you handle. How much do you want to handle versus kind of having it…it systematized whatever so.  I think you can do it like you're doing it or be in the middle so to speak. And have that stuff provided to you. But I think you also hit an interesting point about leads. You know a lot of agents are willing to give up you know, splits because they want leads handed to them. And I am kind of divided on that because I mean in general my thinking is “Well if you as an agent can't figure out how to get your own business, what good are you? Like that's your job, is to figure out the business. What the broker is handing to you, the leads, the business, what do you need agents for? Like they did the hard work for you, you know.” The contract once you've been through the process is easy.  So I mean that's just kind of me. So that's not something we do and theoretically it's something that maybe we'll try to figure out or whatever but it's kind of ideologically speaking you know I don't want lazy agents that just want the business handed to them. You know I want sharks like yourself [laughter]. I want people that are motivated that are gonna go figure it out you know. [Nathan]: So than what would you provide to me as a shark? Like you know I do good business. So you're here in the Ohio market. You want me. You're like “Man I need Nathan on my team”. Or “How do I make this happen?” What are you gonna give me or what are you gonna provide me that's gonna change… [Christian]: I don't think that you would find value in the things that we provide so I don't know if that would be a good fit. Because for us is you know you come here, we give you your email, your CRM training. Back office stuff. If you're like “I don't need that I have my own thing.” well you're probably not gonna see the value in this let's give the culture we provide. You just want to go your own thing.  And I have had agents that said “Hey I don't think you're a good fit because all you want to do is do your own thing and you don't want any part in like the Sea-Town culture or what we give you. You don't find value in that so you want to negotiate a different split. Like it's not how we do it. You know it's not what we're looking for”. So it comes down to you know, what the agent values and what the brokerage's strength is.  [Nathan]: But you didn't pitch. You didn't pitch me. You didn't say… [Christian]: No I am not pitching you. I want agents that see the value that we bring. I am not gonna settle to an agent. I don't. I don't…I don't settle. I don't do pitches. I mean like this is what we do. This is what we're about. If you want to be part of it great. If you don't you know there's just no brokerage down there that won't give you anything. Wont charge anything either. [Chris]: So I think you both hit on some good points. But what are the key things that for…I think you both missed is humans are…We have a pack mentality. We want to belong to something that is bigger than ourselves. It helps with motivation. It gives us a sense of purpose in our lives. And I think the majority of agents choose their brokerage based off of how they…how it aligns with who they are personally. Yeah you have people that go out and do their own thing. But even the people that are…are attending you know their meetings in a video game are still a part of something that they feel aligns with their core values.  Another thing that I think is extremely valuable in the brokerage stand point is that a lot of agents don't know what they don't know. Their…their job is to make a living. Their job is to serve their clients and to go out and to make sure that the client is getting the best experience, that they are generating a referral and repeat business, that they're able to be the shark and to go out and get new business. Their job is not to follow industry trends. It's hard to do that stuff when you're doing a full time sales job. To be able to see what's on the horizon and look at the industry from you know, 30 thousand feet or 100 thousand feet versus being on the ground in the business are 2 completely different skill sets. And you know there are agents that don't see value in that. There are a lot of agents that they don't care one way or another because they just want some leads and they want to go out and sell. But then I think a vast majority of the agents really want to know what's going on and to have all the data that is collected really put into a form that is presentable and easily understood so that they can relate that to their clients and reinforce that they are a true expert.  I think that there is a lot of value that can be brought by the brokerage on this level and I think that a lot of agents when they realize that that is one of the core focuses of an office can really determine whether or not that is something that fits in line with what they want.  Now you guys both talked on leads and leads are a funny thing because leads can make a good agent great. Leads can help a new agent increase the size of a database very quickly. And if when they're done right form a brokerage stand point leads are not about giving handouts because for example our lead team has extremely strict requirements on their metrics and if their metrics aren't met their leads will be paused until they're able to complete the metrics that are required. At that time they will be reinstituted. And if they continue not living up to that message I've got a waiting list of people that want to be on that team.  And it's not to say that everything is done at a higher split. The leads are because we have a cost associated with that. But mostly the agents that are doing the leads they're only paying a higher split on the leads that we generate. Everything else is on their normal split for performance. So it just gives them an incentive to…if as a broker I can give some of my agents an extra 10 or 15 thousand dollars a year in their pocket that's business that they otherwise would not have had, and increase their database for future business down the road than I am doing my job well.  And if I can do that without you know hindering their ability to grow their business and be successful I am doing my job well. And when we're doing that along with building a culture and giving people that cause that they can believe in and that mentality of belonging than I am doing my job well. Now those are the things that I think a broker needs to do.  [Christian]: Yeah. I think you're exactly right. That kind of that culture I mean what we usually lead with as a brokerage is the culture and the experience. You know. And the experience is through technology blah blah blah, and things that we provide but the culture you know is not something that is replicatable.  [Chris]: No, culture takes years to develop. [Christian]: Yeah it's good. [Chris]: And it can be killed with one bad action. [Christian]: Right. And it's something that you know I see you know anecdotally I have seen here as far as…you know I can't speak about culture per se but definitely that hurt mentality you know I have seen you know form a distance like the brokerage I started off with like it started off…Because they're some big franchises you know within 2 miles of my office here. And you know I have seen you know the manager team left you know that brokerage, that franchise and went to another franchise and than you started seeing just and exodus of agents from that brokerage to the other brokerage just I mean just huge turn over in agents that had been with this brokerage for you know 10 years, 15 years.  And it wasn't because this other brokerage provides something better. It was because they like the people. Everyone is going there. That's the place to be. You know like it wasn't a tangible thing it was a more local grasp grip culture and the people you know. And you know and somebody I am trying to hack this. I am like how you know the people we're been bringing on they come to me already sold. They're like “We love what you're doing, the philanthropy, the culture. Innovation. We wouldn't be part of this.” But they're new agents and I am fond of that but that takes a lot of work up front to train and mentor and stuff.  What I am trying to hack you know is like how do I increase my ratio of experienced agents to brand new green agents? If you figure it out let me know [laughter]. Because it comes down to what the Sea-Town have that X, Y franchise doesn't have or can't provide. You know why would they leave some place they're comfortable and then no people as established brand or name whatever to this unknown scrappy indie brokerage?  [Chris]: Yeah so our focus is primarily on new agents. We...We put a ton of effort and time into training. So we have a lot of experienced agents that came to us back in the day when we were…just starting out. And our costs were so low that people came over. You know I bet back in the day Nate you would have been paying less with us at Sellect than whatever you're paying now. And we had to go away from that.  But interestingly as we got away from that we moved towards splits that were more in line with the services that were offering performance increased. Agents were making more now paying us a little bit more than the ever did. When they were paying us hardly little…hardly anything. And you know 100% of nothing is still nothing. And when we focused on production and training and we increased the splits people see a lot more value in what we do and our per person productivity has gone up since 2015. It was around 300.000 per person. Now it's a little over…Just under 1.1 million per person. So performance is tied to it. Yeah. [Christian]: Yeah I mean that's an interesting point because that is something that we're starting to try to do. Because before it was just kind of me doing 1 on 1. And I am a big believer in training support you know because my experience was you go to a brokerage, the brokerage is like “Welcome aboard. You know you have a heartbeat, good luck. Let us know if you need anything”.  And maybe would provide some training here and there but nothing systematized. Nothing is priorities. You know there's no organization to any of it. And as a new agent you don't know what you're supposed to ask. I mean like “OK I have a contract question.” “Do you have a specific question to ask me?”. You know that's not…”Teach me how to…how to business plan and how am I gonna generate you know, build my business”.  So we're starting to do more on that. I am very involved in that and since we're coming again to your point Nathan like agents you know, may say they want one thing but than their action maybe betray that they don't really value that. So we've had you know some agents sign up for you know our new training and stuff but you know there has been push back of “Oh it costs money?” And “Oh I don't have the time”.  And I am like “Hey listen like you put…you get out of it what you put into it and if you don't want to put money into it, you don't want to put time into it you're obviously not serious you know.” I am willing to work around scheduling stuff but I am not gonna pay for you. Like you know. So that kind of stuff can be difficult. Kind of trying to figure out who is a good fit and who is worth investing in versus they did. You know. [Chris]: So I've got a question for you Nate. So being in the style of brokerage where you're the hunter killer, you're the shark. You're going out and doing everything for your business, where are you getting the insight, the direction? Where do you find time to find that on your own without you know hindering your sales business? [Nathan]: Insight direction into what? [Chris]: Future of the industry. Strategy where you need to position yourself in the next few years?  [Nathan]: Well… [Christian]: The pivoting. [Chris]: We did an episode on pivoting. [Nathan]: I mean there is more than 1 real estate podcast in the world [laughter]. [Chris]: No no. [Nathan]: I am just kidding. [Chris]: I mean why would you say something like that? [Nathan]: It's amazing what is free out there right? You know again through reading alone and listening to other podcasts or you know you can gain a path of knowledge. The other side is to talk to other agents. You know there's…I have a few colleagues here you know I am very close with. And they're not at our brokerage at all but you know if I got an issue, a question “What would you do? What do you think?”. You know I call them.  You know you play in a playground and, you know, of like people and I think it helps grow. You know, its…You know secret agents don't make money. Well secret agents aren't gonna learn. If you don't go and mix and mingle and network with people that are like you. And it doesn't have to be a ton but you're not gonna learn anything right. You have to go to a place that does have a culture of sharing ideas and not the “It's all out for me”.  You know I applaud KKW when I was there. I had that culture you know with the people that I at least worked alongside. So I think that's important. You know there's plenty of ways. Again I think it's agents. Sometimes we love to act like we're so busy but we're not. I think it's about prioritizing your day and having a daily work flow and this is a job.  So many people sometimes you know, how do you do again this is a job but it's one I love, it's one I am passionate about. If you're passionate about something you're gonna learn more about it. You guys all know I love to run. Right. I know a [censored] lot about running. [laughter] I am not good at it. I am not good at it but I know a lot about it right. So…You've loved… [Chris]: Wait what are you talking about you're not good at it? [Nathan]: I don't know well that's the good thing about running. You…To be good all you have to do is be able to run right?  [Chris]: Yeah. You start moving you don't stop. [Nathan]: Right exactly. But something you're passionate about you're gonna be inclined to learn more about it. So if you're an agent listening to this and you're not truly passionate about what you do, if you don't truly care maybe you need a different occupation. [Chris]: Or you need to talk to somebody who is passionate about what they're doing and you see if some of that can rub off on you. [Nathan]: Yeah that's a whole episode of “Your why”.  [Chris]: Yeah you gotta find your why. [Nathan]: Yeah. [Chris]: Well I want to give kudos to you because most agents, and I think you're kind of the out wire there as Christian said earlier. Most agents don't have the time or the desire or just the energy to go out and do those things, mix and mingle and have discussions with people in the industry. And for those people that's where a solid broker comes in.  For the handful that can do it on their own we're got plenty of brokers that have a solo shop and they're producing. They own a firm. They do great work, they do great jobs. So it doesn't always take a brokerage. But they're…You've gotta have some sort of community or pack mentality. You've gotta have something you believe in, something you can grow with. And something that you can aim for.  Alright everybody than you so much for tuning in to this episode of re:Think Real Estate. I think it was a great talk. If you haven't already, please go to rtrepodcast.com that's for re:Think Real Estate. So rtrepodcast.com. Sign up for our newsletter. You will be notified every time a new episode drops. Also please, please, please go to iTunes, Google Play and leave us a 5-star review in Spotify or wherever you want to find us so that people know that we're good. I don't know. Thanks for tuning everybody. Have a great week.  [music] [Chris]: Thanks for tuning in this week's episode of the re:Think Real Estate Podcast. We would love to hear your feedback so please leave us a review on iTunes. Our music is curtesy of Dan Koch K-O-C-H, whose music can be explored and licensed for use at dankoch.net. Thank you Dan. Please like, share and follow. You can find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/rethinkpodcast. Thank you so much for tuning in everyone and have a great week.  [music]  

Keeping a positive outlook while building a business is not always the easiest. Today we talk about the tips and tricks we use to keep our minds focused and free from distraction and negative thoughts. Mindset matters. Real Estate Podcast Transcript Audio length 28:12 RTRE 52 – Keeping a Successful Mindset in Real Estate [music] [Chris] Welcome to re:Think Real Estate, your educational and hopefully entertaining source for all things real estate, business, news and tech.  [Christian]: I am Christian Harris in Seattle, Washington. [Nathan]: Hi, I am Nathan White in Columbus, Ohio. [Chris]: And I am Chris Lazarus in Atlanta, Georgia. Thanks for tuning in.  [music] [Chris]: Everybody and welcome back to re:Think Real Estate.  I am Chris Lazarus here with Christian Harris and Nathan White. What is up guys? [Nathan]: [crosstalk] [Christian]: I am possibly feeling good. Kind of good mental outlook. [Chris]: You got a good mental outlook?  [Christian]: I am happy. [Chris]: What about you Nate? How is your mental outlook going today? [Nathan]: As strong as usual.  [Chris]: Fantastic. [Christian]: All the exercise. All this endorphin is gone. [Nathan]: It's also about not letting the…not letting that other devil on the shoulder creep in. [Chris]: Oh yeah definitely. It's always there. Today everybody we are talking about the mental state. The attitude to be peak performance, businessman, person. Whatever you wanna call it. But we're gonna talk about how your attitude and your metal state can impact not only your business but our personal life. Your family.  Everything that you do is impacted by your mental state. So guys who wants to take it off with the first point on this? Nate you're doing a lot with…with running and just being all around crazy person. So why don't we start with you? [Nathan]: Yeah I mean I guess you can. Sure. Whatever. Huh. [laughter] The…you know we talk about mental state right. I guess that's a question I get asked a lot. You know they say “How do you run so far? How do you do what you do?”.  And you know I tell people it's really it's not the physical. It's a couple of things. One is the mind. It is…it is having the mental fortitude to as we…as I said when we were getting into the show, talking that other guy off your shoulder who is telling you the whole time “You know you can quit”.  The other side of the mental state if you would is commitment. You know I probably said it before in our podcast. I talk about Ritual says it but you know he says it the moment of commitment the universe will conspire to assist you. There's Casey Neistat who is a filmmaker. He has a plan or a recipe if you would for success. That he guarantees to work. And I think it is all within this category.  What Casey says is “All you have to do is commit your entire life to something which will result in either 1 of 2 outcomes. Either you will succeed or you will die trying which is in itself its own form of success, right?”.  You know we're always…we're always looking for the easy way to do things either be in life, or even as a realtor. Realtors I think we're the best example of like “Oh wait sweet, that's gonna make me a million dollars. Oh wait look over here that's gonna make me this”. We're looking for the easiest way instead of committing to something and having the right mindset.  I will use us as an example right. We could have been traditional realtors when we said we were gonna set out to do the podcast. And I think you know not knocking on everybody on industry but you know a lot of people would have said “Alright fine after 10 episode…” they call, they call it quits.  [Chris]: They have. [Nathan]: Because the mindset was wrong going into it. When we started this we said before even recording an episode “We're committed to 100 episodes win, lose or draw”. Right. Because we have, we have no way to measure anything by doing it 3 or 4 times. And maybe even 100 is still not where we wanted to be but we stuck with the commitment to do it. Is it a [censored] and a pain the [censored] and do we have to coordinate all these other things that we have to deal with? Yes. [Chris]: At times. [Nathan]: But we are committed. And that takes mindset. Just stay committed to it. Right. I think any of us at any given point could have said “God is this…” You know we probably all said “Is this worth it?”. We have had those moments but you have to fight through the moment of doubt to move past it which generally is very fleeting. And it's quick and then we progress. Right.  So…you know mindsets it's everything we do. It's not just real estate. It's in your personal life and your daily life and your rituals. I mean I could preach about it all day I guess. You know a lot of what I have accomplished I consider myself an average Joe but I think what sets me apart is I have a different mindset.  [Christian]: Yeah I will add to that if I could. [Nathan]: No. [Christian]: I think… [Chris]: No you can't. Nate is gonna talk for this episode. [Nathan]: We don't need your opinion. We're just gonna stop there and work it out. [Christian]: Episode over. I think you're right. I think you know not giving up and being consistent is a big part of it. But I think the mindset as you're going through it and how you respond to you know using the example of the podcast. It takes up time and planning you know. We're blocked out 2 or 3 hours you know every week. Every couple of weeks to knock these out. And you know I could be thinking myself “Oh man this is a pain in the [censored]. I don't have time for this. I don't really like Nate but you know whatever. [laughter]” Whatever are my excuses. [Nathan]: Not liking me is a good one. [Christian]: But…But instead you know I choose to try and focus on “Well this is beneficial. Hopefully we will provide some value to other agents and this thing is gonna start you know being a momentum”. You know it's kind of what do you focus on? Do you wallow in the negatives or do you look towards you know, the positives?  And that's one thing that I think really, really can keep things going. Keep your energy up and just in life will keep you going. Because you could just wide knowingly and try and not give up. But just hate your life and be miserable and you know be an energy suck to everyone around you. Or if your attitude is you know right it will be the other. It will be again life empowering and energy. Giving and inspiring instead of what most people don't like being around. You know.  [Chris]: I think that you know when it comes to the thoughts that people have I think the difference between somebody who is successful and somebody who is not is their ability to control where their focus is going. And I think there is a common misperception by those who are unable to keep a positive attitude about how that happens.  And one of the…I wanna say it was in the Success Principles by Jack Canfield. But one of the best things that I have read is that everybody gets the train of thought. Everybody gets doubt and everybody gets the feeling of optimism at times and everybody struggles with “Is this for me or am I doing the right thing? Am I wasting my time? This is such a pain in the [censored]. I am not seeing the results”.  But the difference between people who are successful and the people who are not is the people who are successful have those thoughts and then they just watch those thoughts you know fly by. Right. Everybody…the train is gonna come and go. You can choose whether to ride it or not. And that's one thing that I have tried to do is that when those come up pay attention to it for a few minutes than get back to work. And you know I don't have time to wallow or think about whether this is gonna work or not. Just get on to the next project. [Christian]: Yeah I think you kind of remind me when you're talking about kind of the thoughts we have. You know because you can just be kind of the positive energy you know feng shui “I am just one with the universe, it's all about the feelings” right. [laughter] How do you get there? You can't just force feelings. [Chris]: No. Yeah. [Christian]: And I think a big part of that is…You know we're talking about intentionality there but I think there is intentionality in your thoughts. You know because like… [Chris]: Definitely. [Christian]: Because we're all…we all have internal voice. Internal dialogue right. We're always telling ourselves there is always a story that we're telling ourselves. Now that story could be full of lies or it could be full of truths. It could be life empowering or life sucking. And so if we're not conscious of… [Chris]: That's good. [Christian]: If we're not conscious of what we're telling ourselves…you know like something bad happens I tell myself and I am subconsciously telling myself “Man there he goes again. I am a total idiot. I am a marron. I can't do anything right. Nothing is gonna work”. Like you're gonna spiral downwards.  But if you're like “OK it's a little setback. I am gonna keep going forward. I am gonna make a suggestion.” You know like that's going to keep you going forward. And if you're not conscious of what we're telling ourselves or what story we're living our lives out of than you know our emotions are gonna be all over the place and we're not gonna know why. Because our thoughts largely will dictate “OK do I respond well to this? My emotions are going to you know get better or am I gonna spiral into the self-sabotaging depression”. Those thoughts that we have and what we're telling ourselves largely will dictate that. [Nathan]: But what did Henry Ford say? He has one of the greatest lines of all time.  [Chris]: Whether you think you can or you can't you're right. [Nathan]: Either way your right. [Christian]: That's right. Exactly. [Nathan]: Believe that like any of the journeys that I have bene on in my life and hell I have been on some. You know they were…they were hard. They were painful. They weren't…they weren't colossi. The reward though was the journey in itself. The not quitting. The really finishing the task, right.  And I think anybody that has been through whatever life experience it may be they are…they already know this. They know what's true. Right? You know I mean so…but it's…it is you know the mind itself it can be your best friend or your worst enemy, right? I mean you know I think and I was doing my 24 hour run and it's 3 a.m. in the morning. You know I've got that guy on my shoulder and that part of my mind going “Why the [censored] are you out here for? What are you doing?” Right.  And at any moment I could have just quit. I could have said “This is enough.” But what I had to realize is that moment of doubt, the moment of fear generally they're very short. They don't last as long as I think one likes to think. If you can get past it than it's OK but you kind of have to…you know you have to commit the daily pressure and what, you know, compels to just progress sometimes. You gotta give yourself you know over and over and over you know…I am good at what I do because I failed a lot. And I think a lot of people when they have failures they…they just quit. [Christian]: Right. But you took those failures and you said “What can I learn and how can I grow?” and not try to give up and not try it ever again because it's risky and painful. Super painful.  [Chris]: And that's the key. Like you learn from the mistakes. You know one of the things that I have seen in being the difference between especially new agents coming into real estate. Those being successful or those that are very fleeting in the industry is how long their outlook is. Because if people are focused on short term , right. If you're focused on “Oh I've gotta get 3 byers in 3 weeks” and that doesn't happen than you get discouraged. OK “Well I've gotta get 3 buyer sin 3 months now, that's a little bit more reasonable”.  But when people start doing things like prospecting and mailing campaigns and maybe they subscribe to do a lead platform like Zillow or Sync or Boom Town or whatever it is, people always expect immediate results and they don't have a long forecast because things don't happen overnight. And if somebody goes into something with a plan of you know “I am gonna try this for 3 months and see if it works” and then 3 months in they haven't…they barely got the system set up and they don't know how to work it yet and they're not getting the results and they throw the hands up and they say “I have been paying for this for 3 months and it's not working”.  People who go in with that kind of mindset have such a completely different and less successful experience than somebody who is like “You know what I am gonna go into it, I am gonna give it 3 months to learn it, 6 months to execute and then I am gonna evaluate in the last 3 months and I am gonna commit a year to this and see if this is a system that I want to continue with”.  And people who go in and they study it and work at it diligently…It's like a CRM right? What's the best CRM? The one you use. Doesn't matter the software. Not to be a jab Nate. [Nathan]: No it's OK. [Chris]: [laughter] But you know when it comes to the fortitude of how well somebody is gonna be…How likely their success is. If they have a long outlook right, if they have a 2 year business plan and something happens to them at months 3 but they know that they're in it for 2 years they're a lot less likely to be negatively impacted by whatever that event is at month 3. They're like “I got a long way to go”. And then they just get back on the saddle. Versus who is like “OK I am gonna give it 6 months”. And than they come in and they barely have enough time to set up their email account. It's gonna be a different story. [Christian]: Yeah I think…I think realistic expectations are important. You know I would say if you want to be successful and you know specifically in real estate or just business in general, don't be a…don't be afraid to take risks. Because if you're afraid of failure like you're never gonna take a big enough risk to really make a difference in your life. [Chris]: Couldn't agree more. [Christian]: Like Nate saying you know…you know like the more you fail hopefully you learn from that and that is what leads to success, not playing it safe and never trying. I know for me I learned this pretty early on form my military career you know because I joined…I joined the army at 25. And my whole goal was special forces.  You know I am like “If I am gonna serve than I am gonna serve the best”. And the elite and whatever. So I knew going into it that it was gonna be a tough road. And I guess it was physically demanding, hardest thing I have ever done but as a mental part that really kills people. There is you know total studs out there that you know as soon as it starts getting tough or inconvenient they are like “I am done I am out”.  You know but one of the things I have learned going through special forces assessment that the qualification course is you know instead of kind of doing the…what we do with the procrastination, instead of saying “I'll start exercising tomorrow, I'll start doing this tomorrow”. You kind of reverse it and say “I will quit tomorrow”. But you know “This road march sucks. Plenty of miles wearing 60 plus pounds. I will quit tomorrow. I will quit in a kilometer. I will quit when I get over that hill. OK there's just one more hill and I will quit than”. And before you know you've finished. Before you know you've succeeded. [Chris]: I like that. That's awesome. [Christian]: It is just these mental games you kind of learn to like keep yourself you know acknowledge the reality that “Yeah it sucks but I am gonna keep going. I am gonna do my best”. You know and that's all you can do. You do your best and before you know it you realize you can actually withstand mental and physically a lot more than you think you can. [Nathan]: I'll…I can talk about this all day but I will leave it with this. I admire a true…I carry him around in my hand all day long because I you know we have talked about my headset and I have to have my little tricks. But Ritual says “Practice your craft. Whatever shape or form that may be late into the evening with relentless giber. Embrace the fear, let go off perfection. Allow yourself to fail. Welcome the obstacles. Forget the results. Give yourself over to the passion with every fiber of your art and live out the rest of your days trying to do better. I can't promise you'll succeed in the way our culture inappropriately defines the term but I can absolutely guarantee you that you will deeply become acquainted with who you truly are. You'll touch and exude passion and discover what it means to truly be alive”.  [Christian]: That's enough said. [Nathan]: Yeah love that man [laughter]. [Chris]: That's good stuff. So for real estate agents we ride an emotional roller coaster. We have periods where we're like “Oh great this is awesome. Get a client, somebody who actually wants to work with us”. And then “Oh man that client they already signed a brokerage agreement with somebody else”. Or “They went out and they bought a home that was a Feesbo and they're now not gonna give me a commission”. Or “They went and bought a new construction and they put me down as the agent”.  Than we've got all sorts of ups and downs. You know. “Got the first contract”. And then the financing falls through right before closing. And I mean it just happens over and over and over in our industry. So guys how do you take a beating and get back up the next day? [Christian]: Yeah it's a good question. I mean it's how the mentality and how what we were talking about applies to real estate specifically is…I don't know I mean Nate just made it kind of simple or whatever but just do your best. Don't worry about what everyone else around you is doing. You know because there is so much especially culturally with kind of the politics and kind of the…what's the word I am looking for, not segregation but you know, the extremes. You know people are very polarized. [Chris]: Oh yeah. [Christian]: Very polarized. So you know it could be very easy to…I don't know what point I am trying to make here. You can cut this out [laughter]. So I guess how it applies to real estate. [Chris]: Yeah how do real estate agents keep taking a beating? How do they get up every morning, get punched in the throat and then go to bed and wake up the nest day with a smile in the face to get punched in the throat again. [Christian]: Yeah I would say just keep…you know trying your best. Do your best. Don't worry about what everyone around you is doing. You know because I mean it's very easy to get cynical and complain in this industry and you know I am a big believer that complaining and negativity is a cancer. You know it spreads like it infects you know culture infects an office, affects those around you. Not in a good way you know.  So I try to tell myself “OK when I find myself complaining or thinking to myself hey this other agent is a complete marron like I go out of my way to like OK maybe they're just new, maybe they're having an off day or maybe they are a marron”. But it doesn't really do any good to like spread that around my office [laughter]. You know. You know so I am just like “OK note to self don't do that. Learn from this”. You know learn from other people's either just traditional things that I don't like or the things I think are wrong. Instead of just complaining about it you know do something about it and you know maybe they need help you know. Maybe they didn't get good mentoring or their brokerage sucks or something. You know just do what you can to help yourself help those that you know ultimately effect and do thing that you can have a change on, have an effect on. You know things that you can't change just write it off your back, let it go. Just take care of yourself. [Nathan]: Let's just go back. How…what's the answer to the question? I don't have one. That is it. I honestly I don't…I don't have one. I think you have to lose a lot. I think you have to fail a lot to appreciate what you have. Because I think it's hard for a lot of people to appreciate what they truly have because they never went without.  I see it a lot. You know it's always the wanting of more, more, more. I can tell you form experience of having nothing. Literally having nothing. I am thankful for what I got every day. So…You know you want to really find out go and test yourself. Go sleep outside for 2 nights with a blanket and nothing else but a cardboard and find your food. And literally do something like that. Do something extreme. Really crazy like that sounds crazy. But go do it.  Just experience for 2 days what it is like to be homeless or something. You know I could think of crazier things but that's just a good one. And then maybe you will take a step back and appreciate what you do have. Again being grateful is I don't know for some people it is a hard [censored] thing. And we should be more of it. So mindset. You are who you are. You control you know what you can control and I can't control you or anybody else. But you can as an individual. So make that choice everyday and have a great day. I would start there. [Christian]: Yeah that's an interesting point because you have been thinking about this a lot because I have an 8 year old kid who you know has a pretty…pretty damn good life [laughter] and doesn't know it you know. And so thinking about like you can try to teach gratitude which is obviously what we're doing you know as parents. But you know the reality is like without the perspective of like never having known what is like to be really hungry or cold or you know lonely without friends or whatever like it's really hard to teach them so we're trying to teach them “OK responding well.”  Just because you know if you're like “This is my expectation up here and nothing in life ever meets it” you're always gonna be dissatisfied. You know versus kind of a more realistic like “Hey I got up in the morning. There is lung in my air and I am upright on 2 feet. Like life's good. [laughter] you know I am not in crying pain or whatever”. You know. So there's always…always something good that you can focus on as far as being grateful.  I think a huge cancer in our society is…has come to this envy class welfare thing where essentially you know we may be like “Hey I am doing pretty good” and then someone on the news brings stuff up well “You know the richest people in the world are getting richer but the middle class blah blah blah”. And like “How does that affect me?” It doesn't. I was fine until a minute ago until I find out someone has aa billion dollars more than I do and now I am just pissed off.  It's like their success doesn't make me less successful. It's all like envy class welfare politicizing all of this you know stuff like that keeps up pissed off and miserable and ungrateful. You know like focus on what you do have. It could be a whole lot worse and don't always be wanting what someone else has. You know. [Chris]: That's awesome. You know one of the things that I think helps agents when they're…you know when they get beat down and they're starting their career and they have those big failures, is you know just look at it in perspective. We try and keep a support system around them so that they're not going off and wallowing on their own. We try and encourage them to focus on the behavior. Focus on what you need to do. Focus on the actions. Focus on reaching out to your clients or your database and creating a great relationship with them. Focus on doing something to improve somebody's day.  So if your client fell through and you know got stood up at a showing, well now you've got some time that you can go and try and brighten somebody else's day. Somebody that is in your network that you can remind them what you do but also at the same time do something nice for them. To let them know that you're thinking of them.  And I find that when agents do that and they go out and they show gratitude towards everybody else which is awesome. I love that you brought up gratitude. It changes their mindset right. If I am in a really bad mood and I go and do something great for somebody I am not gonna be in that bad mood for a long time. Especially if I can feel good about what I was able to do for someone.  And you know if you get stood up in an appointment you get that deal that falls through just take that as an excuse to have some extra free time to do something good in somebody else's life and eventually that's gonna all pay off as dividends. Because I think too many…too many agents, too many people focus on the short term. They focus on “What are my numbers? What are my numbers? What do my numbers need to be? Why aren't they there?”. And they don't focus on the behaviors. They don't focus on “Am I doing the right thing?”. They are going to eventually lead to a better performance. So I think that's kind of the big thing that I have seen. I don't know. Hopefully it helps answers… [Christian]: I mean I would say just kind of say in wrapping up to some up all this in general having a good attitude which you know starts with those right thoughts, the true thoughts that live in your head you know will lead you to gratitude which will lead you to empathy and hopefully understand the people and be more compassionate will lead you to just being a better more happy satisfied human being [laughter]. Which you know how can you not be successful in life if like that's your outlook. [Chris]: People do business with people they know like and trust. You're happy… [Nathan]: You have a choice people, folks. You have a choice. [Chris]: Yeah if you've got a great outlook, people are gonna want to do business with you. You got a great outlook and you know what you're doing people are gonna want to do business with you and they're gonna refer you to other people. Simple as that. So thanks for tuning in everybody. This has been another episode of re:Think Real Estate. We'll catch you next Monday.  [music]  [Chris]: Thanks for tuning in this week's episode of the re:Think Real Estate Podcast. We would love to hear your feedback so please leave us a review on iTunes. Our music is curtesy of Dan Koch K-O-C-H, whose music can be explored and licensed for use at dankoch.net. Thank you Dan. Please like, share and follow. You can find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/rethinkpodcast. Thank you so much for tuning in everyone and have a great week.  [music]  

Ever wonder why some people leave a bad taste in your mouth after meeting them? Successful marketing requires building a relationship with your audience. Many real estate professionals avoid this and instead grab a bullhorn and shout at their audience expecting the same results. Tune in for today's episode to hear us talk about how to NOT be annoying in your interactions with the public. The re:think real estate podcast is hosted by Chris Lazarus, Nathan White, and Christian Harris. Thank you for tuning in. Please subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Audio length 30:15 [music] [Chris]: Welcome to re:Think Real Estate, your educational and hopefully entertaining source for all things real estate, business, news and tech. [Christian]: I am Christian Harris in Seattle, Washington. [Nathan]: Hi, I am Nathan White in Columbus, Ohio. [Chris]: And I am Chris Lazarus in Atlanta, Georgia. Thanks for tuning in.  [music] [Chris]: Everybody welcome back to re:Think Real Estate. I am Chris Lazarus here with Christian Harris and Nathan White. What's going on guys? [Christian]: Hey fellas what's happening? Alright [laughter]. Today we're gonna talk about being annoying [laughter].  [Chris]: That's a great intro for that Christian. Before we get started Nate how is your CRM doing? [Nathan]: Yeah…anyway… [Chris]: [laughter] Alright. So yeah, we definitely want to talk about being annoying and how not to do that. Today's episode we're talking about marketing. And our good friend Joe Rand over from JoeRand.com just came out with an article a few days ago which was “Stop being annoying-The 3 phases of communication technology and why nobody likes us”. So great article. Nate you found this. Why don't you tell us a little bit about it? [Nathan]: Well I didn't find it. It happened…you know I found it, whatever. I saw it. It was funny because I was having thoughts like Joe was having and Joe was much better with words than I, that's why he has a couple of books right? But I just…I was getting annoyed because like I get on Facebook right and it's just…it's just…It's not even Facebook anymore. What we used to know right. It's kind of like you know how MTV changed. It's all marketing. It's just marketing. And a lot of it it's realtors who won. I mean I'm not…I hate to be that guy to pick on our industry but again we got a content. It's horrible but again you know whether it's from…And I mean I am looking here right now. Some golf advert to realtor, to realtor, to realtor. Like it's just nonstop and it's poor. And I don't know I feel like we find a good you know what would you call it, a medium, and than we go and ruin it and people hate us for it. And Joe you know wrote the article about how to stop being annoying. He offers a 3-part solution. Phase 1 the excitement. Phase 2 solicitation. 3 is the protection.  [Chris]: Let's talk about that. [Nathan]: Well let's talk about it but I want to get to the point real quick on this and then we go back to the 3 phases.  And then he offers he says “What's the solution?”. He says “Well we can't do anything about everyone else”.  I agree 100%.  “But we can police our own behavior”. Instead of using email, social media, phones to make annoying calls that only serve our own interest we need to focus our outbound marketing efforts on providing a service to other people. Think about what they need not what you need.  [Christian]: But being client centric? What. That's crazy. Thinking about other people.  [Chris]: I've never heard of that before.  [Nathan]: I don't think we've ever talked about that have we? [Chris]: No it's completely out of line with this show.  [Nathan]: So Phase 1. Phase 1 is excitement. [Chris]: And so phase 1 like I think he compared it to people getting an answering machine right. Everybody got an answering machine and everybody wanted to see the red light blinking and then telemarketers just ruined it. And then nobody has an answering machine now and people barely check their voicemail. [Christian]: Sure I mean I think the idea is you know I mean there's quite a number of books on you know technology and evolution of it and this plays right into that theme of when something new comes out it's exciting. Everyone wants it. You know it goes back to like the days of pre-TV with you know door to door salesman. You know like being at home is boring so people wanted people to come to the door.  And then that got saturated and you know you had the mail. People enjoyed getting mail and then you know solicitations and advertisement got in the mail and now people you know hover over the recycling bin throwing away mail.  And you know now you're getting that you know with social media. Like you used to enjoy getting on social media and checking in with friends and whatever and now you have to whip 30 you know half of it is solicitations from agents or other marketers, you know, as agents. We're getting solicited for leading this or growing your business that you know by who knows who. You know so self-described gurus. And you know now you have to filter there. Now you know it takes away the joy of what once was. Looking forward to getting online or looking forward to getting the mail or looking forward to someone getting to your house. Now it's annoying. [Chris]: Yeah we find something that we enjoy. We get excited about it. New technology and all the advertisers start catching on to it. They start saying “Oh we can reach people in a new way through this technology”.  And then they start soliciting and soliciting and hounding us left and right through the mediums that we're enjoying. And that's the end game right? Because that's how these platforms make money. It's though advertising. They're advertising companies.  And then what happens next that's what Joe says is phase 3. That's protection. We stop paying attention to them. We develop coping mechanisms to not be solicited and not listen or not pay attention to the ads that are coming on. And I think that this is a big reason why our attention span has now become that's less than a goldfish. Because that has been a coping mechanism to pay…to not pay attention to all of these solicitations that we're getting.  [Christian]: Yeah I mean I would say that part of it is just a medium of social media. Not necessarily being advertised. You know it's you know there's another big leaf. There is a message in that medium so it's not just the only thing they're consuming is the message you know but consuming a message via print versus auditory, versus you know social media. You know like it's gonna do different things in your brain. You respond differently you know.  But it doesn't help that we now have all this extra white noise to filter through to get to what we actually wanna see which is typically you know friends and family and not solicitors trying and sell us something. [Chris]: Absolutely and so let's talk about how we cannot be annoying. You know I friend people in real estate all the time and last week somebody reached out on Facebook, sent me this message. This person is in real estate.  This is what they said “Hey Christopher I almost didn't message you because I don't want to come across spammy. LOL. My wife and I have had some great result with “Thrive”. More energy [cough] mental clarity, weight management. I even sleep better. It might be for you and I think or it might not and that's OK. Just wanted to share what's working for me. Would you be open to more info?” There's absolutely nothing of value that that person delivered to me. And it's just… [Nathan]: If you're not sleeping well it could be of value. [Chris]: Well do I want more energy or do I want to sleep better? I mean does…is it just me or those 2 are completely different ends of the spectrum?  [Nathan]: [censored] I just want my kid to stay in his bed at night and not interrupt my sleep so if they can fix that for me in that email. [Chris]: [laughter] I mean it's what has become of people. And that person is in real estate and they are paddling a multi-level marketing product on the side. I mean do you think that their real estate marketing may end up following similar pattern? I don't think it's a farfetched to actually see that leap being made. [Nathan]: I think-no go ahead sorry. [Chris]: No I mean I…kind of the point I kind of make here is if you're just going out and peddling something in front of somebody they're gonna ignore you. Those are the coping mechanisms that we have developed now. It's no longer…like we don't like being sold things.  [Nathan]: No I am attracted to the brands or things that eat my curiosity. That I don't feel like they're jammed down my throat.  And so I'll use a perfect example and in no form or shape I represent them but recently I have been doing the Purple Carrot Meal Delivery right. And I just hashtag it on my Ohio running realtor Instagram. You know “#purplecarrotblablabla”. The…I take pictures of the food which is really good. But I have had more people reach out to me just through organically saying “Hey can you tell me a little bit more about Purple Carrot?”.  I am not…I am not on there going “Purple Carrot is the bomb bla bla bla”. I put what the meal is. I state you know whether it is cous cous or whatever it may be, insert a joke there and take a really nice picture and then put it out there.  And I have had a lot of people private message me or DM me or whatever you wanna call it and say “Hey can you tell me more about it?”. I am not forcing it down anybody's throat. I am not saying you have to have this”. But it has created interest.  I am a brand ambassador for Prevail Botanicals. You don't see my thread on Facebook with Prevail every day. We use a hashtag. We don't jam it down your throat. Have that people say “Hey what stuff do you use with your sore muscles and your AT pains from running and bla bla bla” and I say “It's Prevail”.  If they wanna know more than they'll ask but I feel it's the same with real estate. Like if somebody is really genuinely interested in real estate they're gonna ask you. Just...you don't have to jam it down people's throats. At least I believe that you're a [censored] realtor. Like just I don't know I feel like we're so over the top. Like over the time. Like “What do you like better this back porch or that back porch?” “What I like is when you don't post [censored] like that personally but…”  [laughter] Like nobody cares right. I just…They don't care about interest rates unless they are buying a house. They don't care about houses unless they are buying a house. So that's me and it works for me. It doesn't mean it works for everybody else. And my colleague, Mr. Harris, has his hand up over there so I am gonna let him talk on that. I am gonna thank you Christian.  [Christian]: Alright. I am gonna play the devil's advocate here for a sec. What if someone…What if someone is listening and thinking “Well how do we know they're real estate agents there?” Where is the balance between letting someone know and being in sales and annoying when you talk about houses? [Nathan]: Because there is a way to be subtle about it. Like you know…like I don't…I just…like when I go to a closing the biggest thing that I do other than my hashtag that's on a separate entity but I check into a closing and I put “Doing a closing thing”. People know…I mean most people know, I don't want to say everybody, but they know that I am a realtor or that in some way I am doing that business. And there's other ways.  I don't know. I just don't want my social media feed filled with that crap and guess what I have taken the option of doing. I have taken the choice of filtering all that out. You know. It's that old advertisement. You don't like something on the TV change the channel. I have changed the channel. So… [Chris]: I think it all comes down to the message. Marketing is required. The marketing is the…it is the whole process of staying top of mind in our sphere but there are different ways that we can do it right.  So an example is, Nathan you just brought up rates. Your typical buyer doesn't care about the rate. Unless they're very savvy. They care about the payment. So if your post on social media “Up rates just jumped again” and all you talk about is the rate than that doesn't really provide any value to them. That your target audience may know that you have something to do with real estate but they're not really paying attention to that message.  On the other hand if you say “Rates just jumped again” so…and then you kind of put that in context and say “Well a $200.000 house now the payment went from on average about 12.000 to now about 13.000” that means something a little bit more that is easier for somebody outside of the industry to understand.  I think that marketing involves us putting ourselves in the potential client shoes. The shoes of the consumer, to understand what is important to them.  If you talk about due diligence right they don't care about due diligence. They buy a house once every 10 years. They don't need to know that stuff every day. They need to know what is going on in the community. Right.  Realtors should be the digital mayor of the community. They should be out there saying “Well we have these festivals going on. I'll see you there”. Or share a personal story that really somebody can resonate with that may reflect around what you do professionally that gives some sort of authenticity and come insight to show that you're human and that you're not just trying to sell them on something. Because that's…that's been the focal point for everything that we do. That's the idea behind client's centricity. Is putting their needs first. We need to do that in our marketing too.  [Christian]: I think you being up an interesting point. It's a lot of it comes down to marketing you know that is that. And in my experience yeah the majority of what is being peddled out there is marketing in real estate you know by franchises, by gurus, by trainers is pretty much the opposite of you know Joe Rants “Don't be annoying”.  You know they say “You gotta be top of mind”. And to them that's making your phone calls and pestering people and going online. And if you go “Oh by the way if you know anyone that can buy or sell a house” like everyone is taught to say that so everyone says it so no one…so it means nothing to no one. People are just like “Oh yeah that's what a realtor says” you know. It's like a stand up. You know that's bad marketing. That is low bar. I am not thinking I am just told to do this and I am gonna do it and supposedly that will give me result. They probably are not the results that you want.  [Chris]: I think you just hit the nail in the head there.  [Nathan]: I do too. [Chris]: Thinking. And that's the problem. If you're gonna market effectively you have to think about what the message is that is gonna solve the problem for your consumer. [Christian]: Well you have to start with who your consumer is. You know if it is the population that you asked well there is your first problem. Like that should not be your targeting market. You know. [Chris]: You've got different segments right. You've got …there might be an itch that you work. And that might be your thing to go after her whether that we based off of a previous profession, a hobby. Whether you're running or cycling or you just love giving back in the community and you're in the philanthropy space. You have geographic which is you can market based off of where you live and where you do business or you can go and just focus on something specific in real estate right.  If you focus on if you're in the equestrian market and you've grown up in the equestrian world and you understand horse ranches better than anybody else that is something that you can specifically market to but the fact is that no matter what you're marketing to, what segment that is you've gotta find out a way to provide value to them.  It's geographic. Share what's going on in the community. I can't tell you how many times I have heard that said, “Share what is going on in the community“ and how little people actually do it.  [Christian]: Yeah I mean even if you don't have all that figured out just be an interesting person [laughter]. I mean like I think like Peter Lorimer or something you know. Obviously he's got a big personality like British accent and stuff but like this guy has hands in everything. And it's all really interesting to watch or listen to. You know, and I get the impression he is trying to sell to me. Like it's always helping agents or you know “Look at this cool thing, this is what I am doing in my life right now”. Like it's never “Hey if you're looking to buy or sell you know in Los Angeles…” or whatever you know yeah I mean you could figure it out.  So going back to kind of our initial conversation about Joe Rants 3 things it's as you were giving that example you know you received a social message whatever it was. It is interesting that we have gotten you know most people think we are related to this. We've gotten so far along the hiatus to the sales pitch that they don't even pretend it's not a sales pitch. They just come up like “Hey I hope this isn't annoying to you” or “I hope this doesn't come off as spammy” [laughter] which really means “This is a standard sales pitch”. [Chris]: Yeah you know “I am about to annoy the hell out of you”. [Christian]: As if that's more authentic and will make it less salesly or you're more likely to you know like they think that that's they know that's a barrier and they think that admitting it will be less a barrier. When in reality that's just like “Oh thankfully I didn't read the whole message. Delete”. Just put it up front so I can delete quickly you know.  [Chris]: Definitely. I mean my response to him was” you know “You should have stuck with your gut. [laughter]. It was definitely spammy and annoying. And shouldn't have messaged me.” But agents do that all the time. Real estate agents they do the same thing that multi-level marketing people are doing. “Hey haven't talked to you in a while. Wanted to reach out and let you know I am in real estate now. Do you know anybody that is looking to buy or sell in the next you know 30-60-90 days”. Whatever it is.  Agents do that all the time and there's…it's actually really easy to not do that. Like if you meet somebody and they ask you what you do the first thing you're gonna say is “Real estate”. And they're just gonna come down and immediately ask you how the market is. That is the instantly question that the buyers or anybody that you meet are gonna ask you once they find out that you're in real estate. So what do most agents do? Well most agents the moment they get asked that question they say “The market is great. The market is great. When are you looking to move?” or “Are you looking to move?”. They immediately position themselves for the time share pitch. And that's the high pressure.  [Christian]: That's desperate. [Chris]: They come off as desperate. And the people that are on the opposite side they don't feel like they're on a conversation anymore. They feel like they're being cornered into becoming a lead. And people don't want to be considered a lead. They want to be considered you know their name and they don't want to be you know a prospect.  So a great way that that can be changed is instead of asking them “Well you know are you looking to buy or sell?”. “Who is your realtor?” “Oh I don't have a realtor I am not in the market”. “Oh great well not everybody is in the market at all time. So who do you call when you need to file your tax assessment? Who do you call when you're trying to figure out how much money you should spend on the renovation and you want to make sure that you don't get negative equity?” “Like these are kind of free services, they're complimentary services that we offer to everybody in the community as part of our company and I'd love to be able to be that person for you if you ever need to reach out. If some of these people end up using me to buy or sell some of us don't but it's not a big deal but we're here for you and we want to provide value”.  Doing something like that the conversation goes a whole different way. People have respect for you for not trying to sell them. They thing that you're a professional and that you don't need to beg for the business and it's just a different impression that we can leave on the people that we meet. [Nathan]:  That's just…it makes me think of this example of why we have a bad name. Next door you know the social site, right? OK right so somebody the other day posted “Hey I got friends looking to move in the neighborhood. If you know anybody looking to sell let me know.” Of course it got like 5 responses right. And one of those responses is somebody I know that is getting ready to least and bla bla bla. What they didn't realize as soon as they responded the person said “Well I am an agent and I've got clients looking in this area, what do you have and I'll let you…” It's the classic [censored] you know. They didn't have anything.  [Christian]: Switch.  [Nathan]: It was just the baiting switch. And my client was just like “Man that is so shady” and I was like “And people wonder why we have such a bad name. When you do [censored] like that it's just horrible”. I like…I wanted to message everybody in that thread and “Hey you do know this person is an agent and they're actually not looking for their family member, they're trying to find new clients. Like it's such a [censored] shady way to do things”.  [Christian]: Do you guys follow the broke agent? [Chris]: [laughter] Yeah on occasion.  [Nathan]: Yeah you're talking to him [laughter]. [Christian] Alright. You know there's a funny you know GIF meme he posted the other day. It was like it was a clip from one of The pirates of the Caribbean movies where Jack Sparrow is being chased across the beach by a mob, you know. It's like I think the subtext was like “You know when someone posts online about their selling their house and these agents just the mob of agents chasing them you know”. It's like pretty much sums it up. [Nathan]: Yeah they go “Opportunity oh my God lets start salivating and jumping over each other”. [Chris]: So lets talk about that. If someone posted online that they want an agent what do you do? [Christian]: They usually won't though. They're usually more cryptic like “I am moving to this area” or “I am fixing my house up to sell”. Like you…I mean no one goes out there and says “Hey I am looking for an agent”. [Chris]: Well like OK so whatever the message is whether that is cryptic or direct what do you do? [Christian]: Well usually there is over 150 replies by other desperate agents by the time I read it so I usually do nothing.   [Chris]: OK. Nate do you do anything on those posts? [Nathan]: It depends. And sometimes yes I will. But I try to spin it from what you said. What value I can give them upfront. And part of that I think it's just being honest you know. So…you know again if they choose you than great. I have never had it happen. Actually no. I take that back. I had person that I did speak with who actually didn't list their home but they appreciated that I was just honest. They felt that everybody reached out to him swung him some line of [censored] and I just told him what I felt. But we all know that's me so… [Chris]: Well you're good at that. So one of the things that has worked for me because I actually have gotten some business off of some of those posts. Everybody is gonna comment “Oh so and so is a great realtor. So and so is a great realtor”. What I have done in the past is I have reached out to them directly. Send them a private message.  [Nathan]: Yeah. [Chris]: If I knew them personally I would send them an email or text. I would just say “Hey I saw your post online. I know you're gonna have a million people that are hounding you for business. Just be careful who you hire. Make sure you vet them properly. If you need anything just know that I am in real estate and…” Throw a couple of credential in there but just let them know that if they have any questions you know we're here to answer it.   I have had more conversations with people like that and I have received probably 6 or 7 referrals off of threads where people were like hundreds steep. I have received 6 or 7 of those referrals where I have messaged different agents and let them know the exact same thing. And people appreciate that. They don't like being sold. They don't like being pressured. And it's just a different environment. You get out of this competition thread and you get into this 1 on 1 message. And people like feeling like they're the center of the universe so you just make them feel that way.  [Nathan]: I agree.  [Chris]: Good so I like being right. [Christian]: So awkward silence yeah. How do you sum up this episode? What are your takeaways here other than don't be annoying? [Chris]: Yeah I mean we've gotta be careful with our message. It's so easy to get out there and just want to tell everybody that you're in real estate. But I think that agents need to put some thought behind what they're saying. And really think about how it's gonna come across to the people that they're delivering the message to.  We've talked about proving value throughout the history of the show. And I think that now more than ever that's gonna be more and more important. Especially with the rise of the high byer where they're getting ads saying “Hey it's so easy don't deal with all the hassle. Don't deal with being hounded by 100 agents when you comment online. Don't deal with staging or showing or any of that just let us sell it.” And people are so willing to avoid us and to avoid the showings and the solicitations that they're willing to give up 20-30% of the total value of their house just to not do that. And I think that that is absolutely insane. So we've got to shift our focus. Anything else guys? [Christian]: I would say if this is confusing to you as an agent forget everything that's you know your broker or the better agents told you about it in prospecting and hounding people and being top of mind. Just think to yourself “Hey would I like someone else to do this to me?”  If the answer is “No I don't want someone calling me pretending like they care about me just to ask if I am looking to buy or sell this year” well don't do it.  If you don't want someone knocking on your door without you inviting them over, don't [censored] do it. You know I mean like it's really not that hard. Stop making excuses about “Well this is my job and if I don't tell them or bug the [censored] out of people, if I am not annoying than I am not doing my job”. Well figure out how to do it not annoying or you will find another job to do.  [Chris]: And I'll just add on to that because calling is important. It's not to say “Don't call your prospects” but when you call them don't say “Hey do you…I can sell your house. I can do this”. [Nathan]: [laughter] Don't lead with that.  [Christian] Provide some value. Yeah. [Chris]: You know provide value. “Hey what can I do to help? I am sure you're getting a million calls right now” or “It's been a while since we've touched base. What…Where are you in the process?”. Make it about them. [Christian] Right and I will add. The value is not you calling them as an agent. You know I have had…I have seen online threads where basically an agent has been told their whole career to provide value but they don't know what that is. They think just them showing up is them providing value.  You know like it's…It reminds me of the scene from Office Space where you know the guy is being grilled like “What exactly did you say you do here?” “I AM A PEOPLE PERSON. WHY CAN'T YOU SEE THAT?!” [laughter]. “I PROVIDE VALUE. WHY CAN'T ANYONE SEE THAT?” Like you're probably not providing value if people can't see that. [Chris]: Exactly. [Nathan]: Amen. Cool.  [Chris]: Hey any final words? [Nathan]: No. Don't be annoying. I agree that what Christian said, if it would bother you than you probably shouldn't be doing that. Just what sounds like common sense is really not common sense or maybe is that whole adage of the easiest thing to do are the hardest things to get done.  [Chris]: I like it. Alright. Well everybody thank you so much for tuning into our 50th episode of Re:Think Real Estate. We appreciate you tuning in and listening. If you haven't yet please go to the website rtrepodcast.com. Subscribe so you never miss and episode and give us a 5 star review on iTunes and Google Play. We'll catch you next week. Cool.  [music] [Chris]: Thanks for tuning in this weeks episode of the Re:Think Real Estate  Podcast. We would love to hear your feedback so please leave us a review on iTunes. Our music is curtesy of Dan Koch, K-O-C-H, whose music can be explored and licensed for use at dankoch.net. Thank you Dan. Please like, share and follow. You can find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/rethinkpodcast. Thank you so much for tuning in everyone and have a great week.  [music]  

There's been lots of industry chatter about the difference between running an agent-centric brokerage vs. a client-centric brokerage. Today we break down the article written by Erica Ramus for Inman News. The client experience drives the culture, training, and behavior for how brokerage offices interact with their sales agents. We spend time clarifying the difference between the two philosophies and share insight into how our businesses are run. Tell us what you think in the comments below! Episode Transcript RTRE_Ep_46  Audio length 25:46 RTRE 46 – What is a Client Centric Brokerage? [music] [Chris] Welcome to re:Think Real Estate, your educational and hopefully entertaining source for all things real estate, business, news and tech.  [Christian]: I am Christian Harris in Seattle, Washington. [Nathan]: Hi, I am Nathan White in Columbus, Ohio. [Chris]: And I am Chris Lazarus in Atlanta, Georgia. Thanks for tuning in.  [music] [Chris]: Everybody and welcome back to re:Think Real Estate. I am Chris Lazarus here with Nathan White and Christian Harris. Guys how are we doing today? [Christian]: Great thanks for asking. Happy to be here.  [Nathan]: Fantastic and cold as you know what because it was 66 the day before yesterday and now it is 21. I don't understand what is going on. [Christian]: The joys of being in the mid-west. [Nathan]: Oh my God.  [Chris]: How is everybody coming across with the weather? [Nathan]: Listen I can't wait to…I can't wait to get to Florida in a week in a half so it's coming. [Chris]: I feel you. We're heading there the same weekend I think. [Christian]: We are yeah. [Chris]: So we were just talking before we started kicking off and there was a great article that came out on Inman recently by our friend and former guest on the show, Erica Ramus about the difference between agent centric brokerages and client centric brokerages and why an agent centric broker is not the way to go for the future.  So…There was a lot of kick back. It was a hugely popular article. I got a little bit of a quote in there. Christian was majorly quoted in the article because… [Christian]: I am very quotable.  [Chris]: Yeah you're a very quotable guy apparently. [laughter] So Christian why don't you tell the audience a little bit about the article and what the difference is between being agent centric and client centric? [Christian]: Sure yeah I mean in a nutshell you know it was nice because we met Erica at Inman Connect last year in 2018 San Francisco and between me you and Jackie Sotto [phonetics] you know there was definitely some like mindedness as far as how we run our brokerages or any brokerages and focus on building it with a client experience in mind.  And so I think the article is based off of you know kind of the strength we so in Inman or different conferences where a lot of…you know the bigger brokerages would get up and just kind of tell and tell they're agent centric. You know it's all about the agent experience, all about the tools, all about the support. And very little talk about the client you know which to me and to her seems very backwards.  So, you know, she reached out to us and we got some of her ideas and wrote an article and it seems like it kind of hit it…It hit a nerve. You know a lot of people understood that. Essentially what we're saying with being agent centric…or sorry with being client centric is that everything we do is informed by how we as a brokerage can empower our agents to provide a better service and experience for their clients. And ultimately their clients, our clients if they're successful you know brokers become known for something, we're doing something big and better as opposed to just turning up transactions like a big franchise might and not really having any oversight or care how the agents do the business. They just want them to do business. [Chris]: So it's…It's not about attract, retain, recruit the agent. It's about providing the experience for the client and how…how can…I think a lot of the pushback from some of the comments on the article talked about “Well why can't you have both?”.  [Christian]: There was a…when there was pushback that's kind of what I saw. And to me that says that they don't really understand the mindset. Because you can't have both. You can't be centered on 2 different philosophies. Right? You're either agent centered… [Chris]: You represent the buyer and the seller at the same time. [Christian]: Exactly. There's a conflict of interest there because it's…your focus and direction is gonna be going in 2 different ways. Because I think a lot of the franchiser are focusing on they're talking about being agent centric, they're focusing on recruiting, retention, how can we give the agents the things that they think they want, that they think will help them to be successful. But most of that stuff centers around legion back office stuff, CRM, technology. Very little that interfaces with the client and has anything to do with the client experience.  I mean there are some exceptions in there as far as like the marketing maybe with Compass or something. But most of it is geared around you know “How can we please the agent to build our brand?” And to me that seems backwards you know. And maybe that's just the mentality but in the indie brokerage we have lectures about being smaller and how to control that experience and how the agents we have and their focus better. You know to me it's all about how can we service the client better and everything we provide to the agent in support to new tools is geared towards that. As opposed to just making them feel good or providing free business or something and it doesn't really have an impact on how they service their clients or how they interact with their clients.  [Chris]: So Nate you were the big franchise and then you went to a smaller more growth orientated firm. What's your take on this from an agent's perspective? [Nathan]: Oh man well I feel like if you're agent centric than you're more of an owner centric kind of guy. Right. It's about profits and bottom lines to the individual that owns that brokerage if you would. Shoot. I also…well you know if I go back to when I became an agent I wasn't taught about the client experience. You know I was taught “Let me show you how to lead generate”.  There was never anything about taking care of the client, putting the client first. It was about “You need to make 100 calls a week, you need to have your lead trackers sheet and out of 100 you hope to get 1”. But nobody said anything about “This is how you take care of a client”.  And so for me luckily coming from a hospitality background I get it. I understand what it means to take care of a client. Have I not hit it out of the park with a few? Yeah I have. We all falter, right? But I…I…I have better grasp I guess because of the hospitality industry. And I actually see people that, at least in my market, that got into the industry the same time I did that have a hospitality background have done well because they understand client focus. So you know not the 2 mowed horn but as we were talking I am in the top 15% in Ohio. For agents. I am a solo guy. [Chris]: Congrats. [Nathan]: Again…Thank you. I go to…I take care of my clients and I think 98% of my clients would tell you I would bend over backwards. I would do what is necessary for them because ultimately it is my reputation as well. So… [Christian]: Yeah I think…I think that's a good…Obviously agents tend to have a different perspective as brokerage owners. Well I think the good brokerage owners have been agents or still are in some regards so they're connected to that side of things.  You know it makes sense I think to a lot of people if you're gonna be client centric that's the agent who is doing that. Some of the push back I have seen is, well the brokerage client is the agent and their job is to service them while the agent's job is to service the client. You know I think that kind of goes to me it says you don't really understand this mentality. You know, because if you as a brokerage owner if the brokerage doesn't care about the client experience or the clients, well their agents aren't gonna care about them. You know that mentality and that transaction mentality is gonna triger down. [Chris]: That is amen. Amen. It all comes from the leadership. Leadership sets the tone for everything that is gonna happen in the company. And if the leadership is saying “You know what go on sell, sell, sell and not focus on the relationship or the experience that that client is gonna have” than how do you think that that is gonna play out long term?  [Nathan]: Yeah. [Chris]: If the firm said “Go on recruit, recruit, recruit” and all it wanted for you to do is recruit for your down line than how does that benefit the end user? How does it benefit the consumer? Because the broker owns the contract. The agent leaves, the broker still owns the client. And every single industry except for real estate, every single industry cares about that consumer experience. Any financial advising firm, any single one of them. You know all their advisers are independent contractors. They still care about the end user experience.  [Nathan]: Again I go to the restaurant background. It's simple as like caring about the food that comes out of the window that goes to the guest, right. It's about driving those relationships. We talked in the last episode and the one before that about 2019. Back to basic relationships.  Again this relationship is not only from agent to agent but more importantly just agent to your client…to you to your client. And having that relationship that is meaningful. I don't know, you know, I called a client the other day and just to say “What's going on?”. They haven't bought or sold anything for over a year but it was just “Hey what's going on? How are you? How is Bobby? How is Sue?”. You know like you just have those relationships. Care about your people. It will go a long way to serve you better. [Chris]: Wait you actually care about your clients? I didn't realize you did that. [Nathan]: I do. I don't care about the co-host I work with but I… [Christian]: He pretends not to care about people. He is a teddy bear inside. [Chris]: OK. [laughter]. [Nathan]: I pretty much am a teddy bear. People figure it out and I am like [inaudible]. So… [Chris]: We have seen those articles come out on you. [Nathan]: Yeah. They didn't interview me about those things. I don't know it's maybe because I drop the F bomb too often. But… [Chris]: Probably they did the background on you and they were like “Yeah…” [Christian]: we'll pass. [Nathan]: Yeah and you know looking through some of the comments that you said you know on this article some people just truly they just don't get it. I am like, you know, you want to beat them over the head. I am just like “Really how do you not…how do you not understand that?”. [Chris]: Well I think one thing I have learned over the last year and a half, if you focus on the consumer that doesn't mean that you're ignoring your agents. [Christian]: Exactly. That is a common misconception. [Chris]: It is a common misconception so that's why I think a lot of people don't understand why you can't have both. But a broker that is running an agent centric firm, the job for that broker is to recruit, retain and develop agents and that is it. It doesn't…They don't care about the interactions that that agent has with that customer or the client. The end user experience does not matter. It is all about the experience that the agent has with the firm. Does the agent have the technology? Does the agent have the tools and the training to do their job? Is the training going to allow them to sell and create a massive income? It doesn't necessarily mean it teaches the agents how to have a great customer experience or built a referral based business.  [Christian]: Yeap. [Chris]: And when we're talking client centric from a firm perspective it means that we are teaching and training the agents how to give their clients the best experience possible. It doesn't mean that we're not training them how to lead gen. It doesn't mean that we're not training them on all the tools. It doesn't mean that our agents aren't important to us. Because the agents are the life load of the company and their success is our success. [Christian]: Amen. Yeah. [Chris]: But it does mean we're putting on the clients first. [Christian]: Yeah I mean just got a second there if someone I mean a listener is having…can't wrap in their head around this I would say that you know if a brokerage is agent centric you're probably not gonna get a great, you know ,customer experience from that agent. Or if you are it's gonna be very hit and miss depending on you know the agent.  But if you're client centered you're also going to be providing the tools resources training to that agent to make them as successful as possible. So you know you focus on one you're not gonna get the other. You focus on client centric you're gonna get both.  [Chris]: Absolutely. [Christian]: You know another way to look at it is you know if you're at a brokerage and you're like “I can't really tell like are they…like are they client centered or they're agent centered”. I think one key indicator of that is does the brokerage, the guy who does the brokerage, does the managing brokers, do they care how you do your business? If they don't care and they just want you to follow up on your leads and they close transactions they're agent centered.  You know they don't care about the reputation of the brokerage. They don't care how they…you know if you get referral business because they don't care how good you are at servicing your clients. [Chris]: If it's uniform? Right? If you go from broker to broker and you get the same type of answers. If it's all focused on the client versus if it's all about your business. That's another good way to tell. [Nathan]: I would like to add actually ask a question because I don't know. I am sure there is but whoever is listening, hey Sean Carp if you're listening email me at nathan@linkapm.com but I want to know who teaches, if there is a brokerage that really teaches this. I don't know about it either that… [Christian]: Wait we do but… [laughter] [Nathan]: Well right right I am just saying outside of our… [Chris]: If you're in Georgia 770-509-0265 call us for career info. [Nathan]: Outside of our spectrum like and I specifically mean more big bucks but like… [Christian]: Sure. [Nathan]: I would like to go you know of it's possible on my market but I would travel to within the Ohio region, to go and hear somebody. I would really love to hear somebody speak about it and just see what they're saying because I feel like I have a good grasp of what I again hospitality is and that's customer, client centric. I mean hospitality right.  I would love to hear that. So anybody out there knows hey hit us up, shoot us an email. I'd love to hear it. Sean Carp I am sure you know somebody you could direct me to so do that. But I would be curious. [Chris]: I would like to hear that too mainly because I feel this is a growing movement. I think after…after the whole Facebook debacle with peoples' privacy and big companies, the focus really for the last 6-9 months in business has really been on being human. Humanizing business, focusing on the relationship and I think that has just started to gain steam. So anybody who is doing that please let us know. [Nathan]: Amen. [Christian]: You know I would say you know for listeners who are listening to this, this would be like “Why do I care like hay are you guys talking about this”. I would say it matters because the reputation in that industry is not great. And it's not great because of the transactional, non-relational sales, salesyness of industry.  And because of that there has been huge gaps in the industry that left room for people like Zillow and Redfin to come in. Now you can you know be mown to them and whether on not become a brokerage or whatever but it's your fault. It's the industry's fault that Zillow is thriving. Because they're…they're unapologetically client centered. And here we have agents who are arguing about whether or not you should be client centric. It's like you don't get it. Like you're gonna become obsolete. [Nathan]: Because of [censored] like you we have the reputation we have. [Christian]: Yeah exactly. [Chris]: But we're talking about the agents. [Christian]: Right. In our little spheres we're trying to make a difference, you know. [Chris]: It being all about the agent is why NAR sold realtor.com.  [Christian]: Yeah. [Chris]: It being all about the agent is why the MLS has kept all the data public and Zellow exists. Agent centricity caused the problems that are there because we didn't focus on the consumer. [Christian]: Yeah exactly. [Chris]: Period. [Christian]: Exactly.  [Chris]: So if I am agent Christian… [Christian]: You're a Christian agent or agent Christian? [Chris]: No if I am an agent, Christian. [Christian]: Oh comma Christian. OK got it.  [Chris]: Comma Christian. If I am an agent and I am looking for a broker. I am building my business. I am with a broker. I don't know if I am agent centric or client centric. And I am hearing this podcast and I am like “Maybe I want to be with a client centric broker”. What impact would that have on my business?  [Christian]: I think that would have a huge impact because they are gonna be focused on your success and your repeat referral business based on the outstanding experience you provide which unfortunately a good experience is not a common thing or focused in real estate. Even…even from an agent perspective.  So I mean I think it would…Yeah we were talking about how you're differentiating yourself. Having a good client experience I guess is a general thing. You can do it in many different ways but being that…having that as a focus that is going to differentiate you more than anyone else. And you know a big part, a big key part of that is what systems you have in place in order to have clear and consisting communication because the single biggest thing you can do when it comes to, you know, servicing your client is communicating well, being available. You know to me it's basic stuff but you know when I hear you know other people's clients or friends of mine who have had bad experiences it almost always centers around “I didn't know what was going on. I couldn't get a hold of my agent you know they didn't tell me anything”. And that is a really simple problem to solve.  [Nathan]: So let me ask the questions to the broker. I mean I have my own answer if you would but so what does that look like? What's…what's an example. I don't want to use I use myself in fact which is great, right.  So I just closed on a very nice home for a client of mine that is from Brazil. They relocated here for work and they are back in Brazil doing some stuff. They needed the home painted. They needed new flooring installed and several other things. They were gonna be and actually are as we speak gone to Brazil. Who do you think is taking care of getting that painting estimates and getting the house painted, letting contractors in and getting contractors in for the floor. Finding the selections, making sure…To me that is client centric. I've gotten my check, it's already cashed. It's in the bank. But I want to make sure when they get back from Brazil that this home is ready to go. That they can move in and be seamless and I know plenty of agents who once they got that check they would have been like “You're on your own”. [Chris]: Oh yeah. [Nathan]: So to me…To me that's…that's client centric. Like I don't want to say I am going above and beyond but I feel like that's…that's what I need. I've got another client getting ready to sell their home. They're older. They're moving into a retirement community. They have to move all their furniture. They're 80 years old. Who do you think is moving it? Me. [Christian]: Your contractor filling for Home Depot? [Nathan]: Nope me. I am the one out there. My title company is actually gonna assist me and we're gonna get these people moved. Those are the things to me that there's…you can't even put a value on it. And it reaps rewards. So if you do things like that for your client you will win all day. That to me is what it looks like. I would assume to you all that's the same kind of thing or different examples.  [Christian]: Word. I want to hear what our listeners think. I want comments. I want dumpster fire. I want bickering. No I don't want that. I just want to know what people just think. [Chris]: Yeah I want the client to tell us if an agent centric is better. [laughter] No one thing is we're all on the independent side but I don't want our listeners to think that being client centric is exclusive to the independent side. I don't want them to think that you know the franchise or large firm cannot be focused on not being client centric because we have a great example of a client centric person which is Joe Rand. Who is Rand realty, metro…not metro. Better homes and gardens Rand realty out of New York. And he literally wrote the book on this. [Christian]: He's got a new one coming out that talks about it.  [Chris]: Exactly. It's coming out and it is incredible. And it's all about being good at your job. And that is what client centricity is about. As the agent it's about being good at your job and if you're with a client centric broker they are going to help you be good at your job and not just at lead generation converting and selling. But long term business building, creating a referral book that is going to help you set yourself apart like the best agents. Because the bets agents are the ones that are getting 80-90% repeat referral business because they have done the work, they have built the relationships, they have focused on the client.  And that's it. It's not…It's not exclusive to a small firm, it's not boutique, it's not independent. It's not franchise. It's about the leadership and whether or not the leadership is setting the example with the agents that…It is not OK to not focus on your clients. Or if they're setting the example that as long as you keep closing the numbers we're gonna be happy with you. That's it. [Nathan]: Yeah I agree. [Christian]: Yeah you're right. Amen.  [Nathan]: Alright and drop the mic. Mic dropped. [Chris]: I can't drop it it's on a suspended arm.  [Christian]: That's true it's suspended yeah.  [Chris]: Alright so before we wrap up for this episode any final thoughts on agent centric versus client centric and I think we're starting to beat a dead horse here but final thoughts? Nate, Christian go.  [Nathan]: It's not rocket science people. We didn't invent anything new. We're not coming up with something that's different. It's…I don't know. It's kind of the human thing. Be kind. Do what's right if that makes sense. So it should. I don't know thought the easiest things to do are the hardest things to get done so… [Christian]: Yeah I agree you know. You know it seems like it should be kind of the basics for like how we do business but unfortunately it's very rare so hopefully it becomes less rare but then we'll have to figure out some other way to distinguish myself in our brokerage so [laughter]…but I will cross that bridge when it gets there.  [Chris]: Absolutely. Couldn't agree with you guys more. I think that one thing that agents should look at if they're trying to figure out if being client centric is for them, look at every single other business industry period. And whether or not they put their clients' needs above everything else. Or if they decide that selling and then forgetting about them is the best thing. If they're…you can look at any company, any case study, any MNA they're all going to involve how the customer is treated and how the client experience is. I mean you can look at Ask Jeeves versus Google. Does anybody talk about Ask Jeeves anymore? No they don't. Google has… [Christian]: In the last 15 years.  [Chris]: Google has focused on the client and they have provided what the customer wanted. You can look at Zillow that's because we didn't do our jobs. So let's start now.  It's been a great episode. Thank you everybody for tuning in. This is re:Think Real Estate. Please go to rtrepodcast.com. Subscribe to the newsletter so you get a notification every time we launch a new episode. Go to iTunes leave us a 5 start review and share this. Please share with your friends, anybody in real estate that you think needs to hear it. Share the message. We'll talk to you next week.  [music] [Chris]: Thanks for tuning in this week's episode of the re:Think Real Estate Podcast. We would love to hear your feedback so please leave us a review on iTunes. Our music is curtesy of Dan Koch K-O-C-H, whose music can be explored and licenced for use at dankoch.net. Thank you Dan. Please like, share and follow. You can find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/rethinkpodcast. Thank you so much for tuning in everyone and have a great week.  [music]  

Download this Episode Welcome back for another episode of re:Think Real Estate. On today's episode, we reach back to our second episode to review our predictions for the real estate market in 2018. We discuss where we were really right and where we were less right! We also talk about our predictions for the 2019 real estate market and what we believe will happen this year. This real estate podcast is about helping brokers and agents think about how their business is run. We discuss what is working for us in our business and how our businesses are growing. If you have any questions or topics that you would like answered on the show, please email chris@sellectrealty.com. re:Think Real Estate is the best real estate podcast to follow for real estate brokers and agents looking to build their business. Tune in weekly here or wherever your podcasts are found. We are on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, and more. Please leave us a review and let us know what you think. Episode Transcript: RTRE_Ep_45 Audio length 34:58 RTRE 45-2019 Predictions for the Real Estate Market [music] [Chris] Welcome to re:Think Real Estate, your educational and hopefully entertaining source for all things real estate, business, news and tech.  [Christian]: I am Christian Harris in Seattle, Washington. [Nathan]: Hi, I am Nathan White in Columbus, Ohio. [Chris]: And I am Chris Lazarus in Atlanta, Georgia. Thanks for tuning in.  [music] [Chris]: Hey everybody and welcome back to re:Think Real Estate. We're here early in 2019. I am here with Christian and Nate. Guys how are we doing? [Christian]: Hi, how is it going? [Chris]: Nate is silent. [Christian]: No Nate.  [Nathan]: Good good. [Chris]: Oh he's with us. He joins us today. Last time…so last week we talked a little bit about…shoot what did we talk about last week? [laughter] Did we like…So last week we talked about… [Nathan]: Do you remember? [Christian]: We just recorded it. [Chris]: Was it in the notes? [laughter]. Smart. Thinking smart. So last week we talked about what is it gonna take to sell a home in 2019. We used the “Think Smart” acronym and we mentioned that we were gonna talk about our second episode from when we launched the podcast which was our predictions for 2018. So we wanted to talk and see what came true and what didn't. So Nate we're gonna start with you. First off let's hear what you had to say in episode 2 of last year.  [Nathan]: I am scared.  “That's the market is gonna continue to grow. Unemployment is at an all-time low. Job creation is growing gradually. Braeden wrote about that. And so I don't think we're gonna see the housing market slide. I think we're gonna see it grow very fast.  In our market here in Columbus we had an all-time low in inventory. The new builts are…you can't build them fast enough so it's…it's gonna continue to grow. The challenge I think for real estate agents is how do you get your slice of the pie and how do you do that?  The other thing I think we're gonna see is more influences upon technology or AI, but we have do we have a balance of what we do as individuals and a balance of what that AI does for us as well.” [Chris]: Alright so Nate a lot of it was…for you was that it was gonna be continued market growth, that it was gonna be pretty…Value was gonna be of great importance. Providing that value for our clients and really working on improving the communication. Tech and AI, you…having that balance to assist. What do you think? [Nathan]: I think we're still there some. I think it's gonna evolve even more in the sense of I think there was a lot of playing if you would with tech and we saw like you said when we were talking. Kelly came up with KW and several other things. I think that what we're gonna see though is from all this tech people are gonna realize again we actually provide the most value.  Again I go back to how do we blend the 2. We saw a lot of companies come in a fury all trying to get their slice of the pie and 6 months later they were an afterthought, right. So I think that we realize there's a space for it right and that's good and I am OK with that but there's still a very large space for us and what we do which is awesome.  I don't think we're gonna have that…What's that Will Smith movie. IRobot or whatever you know where everything is that way. Right so…[laughter] but there should be a large…I don't want to say “curtailing” maybe is the word. But we're gonna see some of that dial back I think a bit. And you know you are already hearing depending of what circle you run in, about you know agent value and what agents provide. I find it comical. I am not picking on Kelly, but you all are late to the party. Now it's all about “OK great we had that”. Now it's going back to being agent centric almost right. So…Interesting that you know if you're talking about tech now than you're a little late. So… [Christian]: Sure. [Nathan]: So I think you need to be focused on what you do and what you provide to your clients.  [Chris]: So I think you are right. You know last year you said that there was gonna be a balance between using technology and the agent providing value.  [Nathan]: And we're finding that out. [Chris]: And I think that…I think that that's how the year worked out. There was…I think you had all these big announcements about tech but then kind of half way through the year I think it got fueled by that whole Facebook thing…is that when the huge data breach happened. I think that a lot of people started putting more focus on the relationship, on how they're interacting with the people. [Christian]: And I would say I think on the stuff that plays for tech…but I think kind of the sexiness of it is wearing off a little bit in the sense of I think it's a little bit of a tech and automation fatigue, you know, that the trends is going back to the basics of relationships and serving your clients. Whether that's tech of whether that's man also. [Chris]: Yeah I think people are finally realizing that they're not gonna push a button and that everything is gonna be done for them. Like you could push a button and they can send an email campaign and that helps but you gotta pick up the phone. You gotta talk to people and you gotta have that one to one connection so…Christian…Nate well done I think you were spot on. I think that your predictions for 2018 came true. What do you think Christian, you think he was right? [Christian]: Unfortunately, I think he was. No I think it's good. Yeah I think it was pretty spot on. [Chris]: Yeah you're guru level there Nate. Watch out don't let it happen again, you might think you're smart. [laughter] [Nathan]: You know I am gonna keep fooling people and sooner or later they're gonna be like “You're not fooling me anymore”. [laughter] [Chris]: Well done. Alright Christian let's hear what you had to say last year. [Christian]: “I think there's gonna continue to be that tension between what you'd call the discount model tech enabled and the traditional model. So as Nate said I think there's gonna be increased need for individual agents and brokerages to define themselves and provide value outside of just…just do real estate and “I am gonna give you a good experience””. [Chris]: Alright so you were talking a lot about the push back against the traditional real estate model. What do you think? You think that came through? [Christian]: I'd say for the most part. You know I mean the…the…what we're seen with the EXP you know virtual brokerage I mean they're…I think you're saying they like acquired or gathered 16.000 new agents last year. [Chris]: Yeah they're 16k. [Christian]: You know Compass, you know, they're kind of a hybrid as far as, you know, they're not franchised but they're definitely pushing the tech in the marketing and doing things differently. They're, you know, growing like…like wild fire, wild flowers. I don't know. They're growing, they're doing good. [Chris]: You're out in the west coast you should know what a wild fire is.  [Christian]: Yeah that's true [laughter]. And you know I think we've seen, you know, big…the big growth in the indie brokerage you know scene. The rise of indie brokerages as far as people wanting to get a better consumer experience and a company and agents that are invested in the community and you know just totally gets a…you know what's kind of in the local marketing and stuff. And you know to see Zillow you know we're getting into their iByer thing and you know doubling down in the consumer. Advocating for consumers and that's their main focus and you know there's been a lot of hub hub, you know, a bunch of murmuring in the real estate space with you know “Is Zillow alienating their premiere agents or is what they're doing working of bettering stuff?”.  I mean they're willing to and have enough of market share. You know they're a brokerage, you know. they make clients as agents but they're willing to mix it up in order to continue pushing the bounds of what the consumer wants. What's best for them as opposed to the traditional franchise which isn't interested in that at all. They're interested in maintaining a status quo. And I think you're seeing they are losing market share because of it. [Chris]: Yeah. Yeah I agree with you there. We saw pretty much a lot of franchise agents move to the EXP model because you know they're gonna play this…spend that whole split. You know they don't want to play for the overhead. They like that whole MLM aspect of it where they can get a percentage of it back.  Now another thing that you mentioned…So I think you were right on point there. Another thing that you mentioned at the start of last year were that efficiencies with technology were gonna increase the tension on commission rates. Things that we can charge as a broker. Do you think that played out? What do you think? [Christian]: You know I don't have any numbers so you know I am not really sure but I mean I am increase hearing more about you know 100%, you know, commission models and that sort of thing. Which I mean those have been around for a while but they seem to be getting more and more popular as agents are looking to cut their costs and not have a big split.  Yeah I don't what the trend of that is gonna be because, you know, even in my book there is a give and take. If you're getting 100% commission split you're probably not getting a lot of support. And if you have a high split theoretically you'd be getting more support and have a physical brokerage. [Chris]: Theoretically. [Christian]: And access to your designated broker and all that kind of stuff but like…So I don't know it's hard to just get a blank statement saying “100% models provide you nothing” because there are some that provide just as much as a full service. I am not really sure how they do that other than maybe just being massive or having you know no broken order or no staff or something.  [Chris]: Nate what do you think? Do you think that played a part last year? [Nathan]: Yeah I mean again I am you know the indie small guy too that was with the big name. Still got a lot of strong opinions on it if you would. [Chris] : You? Nah. [Nathan]: It…It's…I go back to the word we talk about all the time. It's about value. But you know what we do now in 2018-19 is way different than what people did in 98-99. Like it's just…it's different so again you have to adapt you have to change.  You know somebody the other day was asking me you know questions about flat free models, this and the other. You know he was thinking about going to Cornecall [phonetics]. I hate the word. Everybody says it. But discount in commissions and again I can argue that all day. But I asked him… [Chris]: It's a different model. [Nathan]: Yeah right that's what I said. I said…I asked the guy and said “You pissed off at Amazon?”. And he said “Why?”. I said “You mad at Amazon?”. He said “Well no I get a great deal through them”. I said “OK don't be mad at me”.  Right it's just a different thing right. Nobody…You know everybody says that's not a fair comparison. It's just somebody did something different, right. And so I hate the word discount. Right it is what it is.  So…I think we will still see more people going to the independent side if the large big bucks brokerages can't figure out this value component. I think too many people see through what they quote on quote “offer” right now. The smart ones that is.  Now you know a new agent, there's different ways to go about it and what they offer them but I mean you call me. I just got a phone call. I know what it is about. But he's gonna try to sell me on what they can provide me. Man you better come on with a strong pitch. Like best I know. Like…Because I am not going anywhere. So I don't know… [Christian]: What…And I mean that's the…that's the tricky thing about the franchises and the value proposition is that they really are stuck in the where everyone is an independent contractor therefore we can't tell them how to do their business therefore they don't control any of the client experience for their agents. And all the tools they provide are totally optional you know and if they kind of suck because you know “Hey we have our own proprietary internal CRM or home search site or app” Or whatever. They're probably gonna be terrible and part of the reason you're paying so much is because you spend all these money to cut some bill some part stuff that can't compete with Zillow or a dedicated third party CRM, you know.  [Nathan]: It keep swinging at home runs. [laughter] [Christian]: I suppose indie brokerages which their focus is gonna be agent support, standardized culture and processes and training… [Chris]: We might have a bias [laughter]. [Christian]: Yeah I mean we don't…that is…that's what I have seen but universally that's what I see. I look at any of the franchise around here and the client experience and value proposition is all over the place as opposed to indie brokerages where that is their bread and butter of the “This is the value we provide. People want to be here because of blah blah blah blah blah”. You know and somebody goes to franchise the only value proposition I hear is “Well you get the name”. And I am like “That's not value proposition.”. Like… [Nathan]: If somebody comes to me again with “Hey once you've reached the third level…”I…If I wanted to be a recruiter guess what I would have been? I would have been a recorder. Like that's just not what…That's an MLN to me and you know and sorry if that bothers you. Actually no I am not sorry if that offends you. I am who I am. But…[laughter] getting to the third level whatever it is it has 0 concern for me. [Chris]: Every day I have somebody from EXP either friend me, send me a Facebook message, a LinkedIn request. “Hey what do you think is gonna happen with the market next year?” It's like they're pitching this. They study it. They train on it. [Christian]: I love it when they don't do their research and they're just pitching the brokerage owner. ”Hey you wanna come over”. Like “Yeah you don't know who you're talking to do you?”. [Chris]: There's a lot of averages. Anyway. Back to your predictions Christian I think that you know when you talked about the efficiencies with tech putting tension on the percentage I don't think you were off. But I think that what ended up putting more tension on it was how much value somebody can bring to the table.  I don't think it was tech. I don't think it was really tech putting the pressure on it. I think it ended up for 2018 really being how much value was brought in by the individual agent. Were they doing the things they were doing like the give back programs? And the high quality photos and met report? I think that ended up playing a huge role also. Tech to the stand point that you know like you mentioned if they're heavily leveraged, if they have lots of debt, they have to charge much more. I think you were right there but not necessarily on the bottom line percentage. [Christian]: The reason percentage. [Chris]: Yeah. Yeah I think in a…I think the broader reason ended up being value. [Christian]: Sure. [Chris]: And Nate after what you said I gotta presume that you agree with that? [Nathan]: Yes. [laughter] [Chris]: Alright so last but not least let's hear what I had to say last year. Take it with a grain of salt.  “We've had a lot of tech. Like the last 3 years in real estate it's been like nothing but tech. It's “Oh what's your website, what's your SEO what's your…you know how are you getting your leads? Are you doing you know the big 4 or you doing like predictive analytics now?” I think we're gonna see a lot of step back in those services from a lot of agents. And I think there's gonna be a big push as a lot of these suburbs bring in an urban feel as they're being redeveloped. I know we're experiencing a lot of that in Georgie.  I think we're gonna see a lot of agents really refocus on being hyper local. I think it's gonna be a lot of tech in the support and the systems and how they're able to make the transaction smooth but I don't see these big companies that are coming in trying to do disruption. I don't think we're gonna have a lot of focus on that”.  Alright so I also thought that there was gonna be a lot of tech. That there was gonna be a lot in the leads SEO, Zillow and predictive analytics which I think we saw a lot in that field. Right guys? [Christian]: Yeah. Yeah I mean there's certain things that you know…I think that you…I don't think…[background noise]. [Chris]: Stop doing that. It kills your mic [laughter]. [Christian]: I don't think…Oh does it. OK sorry… [Chris]: Yeah [laughter]. [Christian]: Yeah so I can assure things that aren't really ready for prime time. Like I can't speak push on like AI or…you know Alexa Skills and that sort of thing you know they're very rudimentary but there's been a lot of focus on them you know. So we'll see that grows in importance in 2019. [Nathan]: I don't think it's gonna grow really honestly. I think we're kind of out of…hat do you call it. Out of very flat. I think people are still like...There's a lot of discovery there has to be done with that stuff and I think we are a long way out before it really needs to concern any of us. But I could be wrong. [Chris]: Well tech played a big part. Now we have the whole conversation about the wrestle or the…the standardized data feeds that the MLS has put out. Here is a lot of pressure on the MLS to move to an API format which would pretty much make the IDX obsolete.  So there was a ton of work in the tech sector for 2018 but also probably my biggest prediction for last year is that we are gonna start seeing a lot of redeveloped neighborhoods. Lot of small town down town communities start urbanizing. Start feeling that…that kind of multiuse feel and that along with that we're gonna start seeing an increase hyper locality with how the agents operate. I think that is where a lot of independent broker rise is coming from. Small brokerages operating on a very hyper local kind of manner. Really owing the neighborhood, owning the town, owning the down town. Are you guys seeing that? [Christian]: Yeah I mean definitively in kind of the urban area Seattle even you know even the cities do some pretty big zoning changes to increase density in the loafer or in the ADUs and putting in a new light rail and all sorts of changes for you know a denser urban core. So yeah. [Chris]: Nate what are you seeing in Ohio? You're muted. [Nathan]: I just lost my whole train of thought when it got muted. [Chris]: Nate what are you seeing in Ohio? [Nathan]: You know what I see in Ohio and I will probably get slammed for this. We're a busy market but what I see in Ohio is we're always a day late and a dollar short or whatever it is. But we're late to the party. I don't know where I am going with this right now so just edit this out. My whole train it's… [Christian]: But there's been… [Nathan]: My whole train of thought just went sideways because I had a kid walk in the room. [Chris]: So we're talking about the urbanization of downtown areas in the suburbs. So the hyper locality of agents about really owning that. What do you think are you seeing that in Ohio? [Nathan]: Here we go. Yeah you are seeing some hyper locality. There's, you know, I could sit here and name quite a few agents off here real quick that specialize in certain areas. Again I still argue you don't have to. Does it help? Yeah I mean why…why go and have this wide area that you're gonna cover such as myself. I go everywhere. It can be a pain. When you can do just as well on a small hyper local area that has value.  I think you're getting push back thought now form consumers a little bit because it…you have the hyper locality but you also have the gentrification of neighborhood that is pushing on a whole other segment that is causing a whole other problem that I could talk about for days. So there's good and bad in it with both I guess. So…But you are definitely seeing it here. [Chris]: Yeah now you're starting to see like brokerages really taking advantage of that becoming that hyper local brokerage, that downtown brokerage?  [Nathan]: From the perspective of teams yes but not a brokerage like…You know downtown say you want to be in a certain area of the short north or what not here. VNR, View Tech and Rough you know like boom. But automatically they come to mind. Right? If I go down to an area called Old Oaks than I think like Jim Ross. He was…left Key Realty to just go to Remax I think. So again it's not necessarily the brokerage, it's the individuals or the team that is down in that area. [Chris]: Excellent. Alright so I don't know. What do you guys think? Do you think we were on point? Do you think we got 2018 right?  [Christian]: I think we're about 85% accurate. [Chris]: 85% accurate. [Christian]: Or maybe that's me. Nate was pretty spot on. [Chris]: Nate…Nate I think was dead on. [Nathan]: I feel that I mean yeah I feel good about what I said then. I feel good about what I say now. But I don't know looking at 2019 I think we're gonna see…what's the proper word. Regression? Is that right? [Chris]: Well let's talk about that. Let's talk about what we're gonna see for 2019. Where do you think we're gonna see regression in?  [Nathan]: I think people have over complicated what we do. And I think we're gonna see a “back to basics” kind of mentality. Which is upfront, relationship driven, client focused mentality for the successful real estate agent.  Now I want to be very specific. I want to say the ones that are successful I think really…You know when I say successful I mean long term but I think we're gonna see a heavier focus on this relationship building, you know not kind of hit it and quit it mentality. Or letting AI do the work for them. Because they realize they have automated everything they do. They have lost touch with those people. I mean your word for 2019 is relationships. Right? [Chris]: Yeah. [Nathan]: So again I don't…You know some of us can see the wiring on the wall so I think we're gonna see that we're gonna go back to basics. That's what I'll call it. Back to basics in what we do. AI is a good thing. The technology is a good thing but let's get back to the core of who we are.  Joe Rand has got that new book coming out. I am telling you he even speaks about it. I guess I can say that. He talks about it. We're gonna go back to basics so… [Christian]: Thank you Nate you stole my thunder. I was gonna say focus on relationships and client experience. So yeah there you go there's my 2 sense. [laughter] [Chris]: Alright well Christian what else do you think is gonna happen in 2019? Let's take your predictions now outside of you agree with Nate. Great. What's gonna happen either market or interests, broker level? What do you think? [Christian]: Sure. I mean I think the markets, the writings on the wall I don't think it's gonna…I don't think it's gonna fully flip to a balance to a buyers' market. But I do think the silage market is gonna severely cool.  You know like here in Seattle people are freaking out because, you know, the last half of year it you know home values have dropped 11%. But a year of a year it's still up 2 %. So I think we're start seeing the normal umbers of a healthy market which are gonna be 2-4% increase over a year and not 40% for the last 5 years which is what Seattle has seen. So… [Chris]: Yeah no biggie. [Christian]: So I think it's gonna…I don't think it's gonna entirely shift. I think…you know or level out. I think it's gonna continue going up in a much more moderate. [Chris]: I think that…I think that you're probably on point there and that can probably speak in the nation as a whole. I think that for Atlanta we're probably gonna see something similar. Continued growth, but growth at a much slower rate. I think that our growth rate is probably gonna be cut in half at best and probably by 90% at worst. But we're still gonna grow. We've got too much infrastructure that is booming. We've got extreme demands for jobs here. So as long as that stays steady I think we're looking at something similar.  So Nate you kind of covered what your predictions are for interacting with clients.  Christian you kind of covered what we can expect for 2019 for the market.  So I guess that leaves the broker level. What we can expect for brokerages. So for 2019 I think we're gonna see a divergence in how…what kind of brokerages take off. And I think it's gonna go really 1 of 3 ways and we're gonna see a lot of movement in 3 different directions.  1 is you're gonna see the Redfin partner agents and Redfin agents growing exponentially. I think there's gonna be a lot of growth on that bottom sector of low commission, kind of higher quality service but low commission. So there's gonna be that movement.  Than I think on the other side you're gonna see agents moving towards very high tech companies. That's gonna be your Compass. And your EXP. You're gonna have that “We want high tech and we want low interaction”. They're gonna be flocking from the traditional franchise model.  And I think the third direction that they're gonna be moving into is the independent boutique. We're gonna see a rise of boutiques that are very…cultured centric. You're gonna see people who get together and the culture is the most important part. We're gonna see a lot of rise from that. I think that you can expect a lot of brokerages across the nation that are maybe 10, 20, 30 agents right now to probably double or triple their numbers so long as they can keep the management and the culture intact as they grow. And that's gonna be one of the hardest things to do that that segment is gonna have to kind of deal with and overcome.  But I think that we're gonna have those 3 movements. Away from franchise into high tech, low touch into the low discount model high volume and then the independent movement. [Christian]: Interesting. Can I give a little push back into one of those? [Chris]: Please do. [Christian]: I think, I could be totally wrong. I usually am wrong. That the… [Chris]: No you're 85%. [laughter] [Christian]: I am 85%. I think…I think that the discount brokerage model I think it's…we're not gonna see as much growth in that. I think that the word is starting to get out that you know Redfin is not so great. That the experience isn't so great. The outcome isn't so great.  At least that is what I have seen here. You know I have had a couple of…a couple of you know listing appointment that were like “I never list with Redfin”. You know. And because of that I think if you understand value and you maybe talk with people that use them you know word gets out that you know yeah you save a percentage or 2 but at what cost? [Chris]: Yeah and here's the reason… [Nathan]: For clarity let me ask you a question. List with Redfin or list with a Redfin partner agent? Because they're different things. [Chris]: Well hang on. [Christian]: I am saying the model.  [Chris]: Oh boy. [Nathan]: Oh no you can't do that, you gotta break it down. [Christian]: Well I am saying the model in the sense that like if your primary value proposition as a brokerage is more cheap that comes at a cost. And I think the word is starting to get out that discount brokerages by in large provide an inferior experience, results, whatever.  Now I mean obviously that depends a great deal on the agents but if your model is you know you've got one listing agent for an entire zip code of you know a million people there's not gonna be a high touch good quality experience there you know.  [Chris]: Wow and here's the… [Christian]: You know and even Redfin is shifting greatly away from the original model to not being that much different than the conventional brokerage.  [Chris]: Yeah here's the reason why I think that that is gonna be one of the moves.  [Christian]: OK. [Chris]: We have 1.4 something million realtors. We're almost back to 2008 levels of the number of realtors. We're gonna be switching to a market where agents don't understand how to deal with properties that have been marketed long. So they…the time on market is gonna increase. It's gonna be a lot of realtors that have not had to really work like hard to buy or sell a house. You know for the buyers agent their skill set is turn a nob and open a door. For the seller skill set the selling agent you know their job is to put the property on an MLS and let it sell. They haven't had to challenge their skills.  So I think that when this market shifts we're gonna loose agents. They're gonna leave the industry. But I think that a lot of those agents may move to a higher volume lower skill set style. Not to say that Nathan is lower skill set but to a discount model of where they're able to do a lot more business at a lot lower rate. Just because they don't have that background to be able to go out and compete in the market with agents that are on a higher skill set.  Now Nate that's nothing against you because you operate at a very high skill set. And your marketing is at a very high quality. But there are agents out there that do not. So… [Christian]: Yeah but there's only so much room for them. You know Redfin is only gonna hire so many people. You know. It can't be like “I can't make it as an independent contract” or something.  [Chris]: Yeah not just Redfin. [Christian]: Yeah that's a big one yeah. [Chris]: But there are plenty of regional brokers. There are plenty of regional low cap brokerages that are not gonna force an agent into charging whatever the broker's set rate is and they can go and charge whatever they want to charge. They're gonna move in that direction. They're gonna move to where they're competing on price not on skillset. So…so… [Christian]: Oh sure I can see that. Yeah. [Chris]: So I am mending my predictions for 2019. It is not specifically to Redfin or Redfin-like companies but to companies where the broker is more lenient on what they can charge. Where they can set their own rate and they're gonna compete on value. OK. [Christian]: OK I can see that. My hang up was kind of the Redfin model you know. [Chris]: Got it. Got it. So nothing against Redfin. Great company. Very high productive employee model company. [Christian]: There's gonna be a reputation where individual agents in standard franchise aren't per se. So... [Chris]: Well they're also extremely productive because their salary. Unless they're partner agents but the Redfin agents that are with Redfin corporate, their salary. So they are… So recapping again for 2019 Nate what is happening? [Nathan]: We'll see back to basics from a realtor perspective, agent perspective. We're gonna see an interest rate bump. And we'll see some market correction. We're not gonna have crazy like last year which was great but I think we're gonna see some stabilization which is…which is fine by me. [Chris]: Back to basics, relationships, more of a balanced market. Christian what's your recap? What's happening this year? [Christian]: Yeah I think the market is gonna be slowing down but not necessarily becoming byers market. It's just gonna be a slow down on the increase in values. We're seeing the economy like it used to be good and inventory is still rather limited but we're plenty folding, it has been this whole last year. [Chris]: 2019 you've got our predictions. The word…my word is relationship for the year. I think that Nate is right on point with that. If you haven't go to the website rtrepodcast.com. Subscribe. Get our updates every time a new episode is launched. This has been re:Think Real Estate. We're now well into 2019. Let's kick some butt. Take care.  [music] Thanks for tuning in this week's episode of the re:Think Real Estate Podcast. We would love to hear your feedback so please leave us a review on iTunes. Our music is curtesy of Dan Koch K-O-C-H whose music can be explored and licenced for use at dankoch.net. Thank you Dan. Please like, share and follow. You can find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/rethinkpodcast. Thank you so much for tuning in everyone and have a great week.  [music]  

Panel: Charles Max Wood Guest: Nathan Kontny This week on My Ruby Story, the panel talks with Nathan Kontny who has been in the Ruby community since 2005. He once was a chemical engineer, and then got into programming after a broken ankle incident; after that...the rest is history! Today, Nathan and Chuck talk about Ruby, how to begin a startup company, Rockstar Coders, balancing life, and much more! In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 1:05 – Chuck: E365 is the past episode you’ve been featured on. 1:14 – Nathan comments. 1:20 – Chuck. 1:56 – Nathan: Been in the community since 2005. I am a developer and entrepreneur. I do a lot of YouTube and videos nowadays. 2:50 – Chuck: How did you get into this field? 2:55 – Guest: It’s weird. I was a chemical engineer in the past. Back in the day 1996 I was learning... My love for it started through an internship. It was kind of a scary place dealing with harmful materials. Make sure you aren’t carrying uranium with you, and wear multiple gas masks at all times. There was an acid leak through someone’s shoulder. I didn’t love it, but something fortunate happened. I broke my ankle in one summer, and when I showed-up they made me go to this trail where I couldn’t be near the chemicals. Well, the director had computer problems and asked him to help with him. I put in code and out came results. In the chemical industry it was/is: “Maybe the chemicals will react to this chemical in this way...?” It was this dopamine rush for me. After that summer, I wanted to do programming. 7:16 – Chuck: Same thing for me. This will manifest and then boom. I had a friend change to computer major – and this led me to the field. 8:45 – Guest: Yeah, I had a different career shown to me and then I had a choice. 9:02 – Chuck: How did you find Ruby? 9:05 – Guest: I got a job but they wouldn’t let me program because I didn’t have enough experience. I had to teach myself. I taught myself Java – 9 CDs back in the day. I stayed up late, and did anything I could to teach myself. I taught myself Java. I got promoted in the business and became a Java developer. After 5 years of that I started doing freelance work. I love Ruby’s language and how simple it was to me. I have flirted with other languages, but I keep coming back to Ruby. 13:00 – Chuck: The same for me, too. Oh, and this makes this so much easier, and it extends so much easier. I have questions about being an entrepreneur. Anyways, you get into Ruby and Rails, you’ve done a bunch of things. What are you proud of and/or interested in with Rails? How do you feel like Rails helps with building things? 14:00 – Guest shares his past projects.  I was proud of just hosting Rails, because there were so many changes back in the day. I have helped with open source contributions back in 2009. There was a security problem and I discovered this. Nothing happened and I just went in and fixed the bug; an infamous contribution. I am proud of my performance work. I made a plug-in for that, etc. Also, work with Highrise. 17:23 – Chuck: Yep, Highrise people will know. I’ve used Highrise in the past. 17:38 – Nathan: Yeah. 17:50 – Chuck and Nathan go back and forth. 17:58 – Chuck: You’ve done all these different things. So for a start-up what advice would you give? People are doing their own thing – what’s your advice on an incubator, or doing it alone or raising capitol? 18:41 – Nathan: I take a middle road approach. You do what makes sense with your business. What works for you? I would do that. It’s hard to pick-on what incubators could be. Ownership is everything – once you don’t own it – you loose that control. Don’t loose your equity. I wanted more control over my box. I would be careful raising money – do that as a last effort. Keep your ownership as far as you can. But if you are up against the wall – then go there. 22:29 – Chuck: Now I have 2 jobs: podcasting and developing this course. I guess my issue is how do you find the balance there between your fulltime job and your new fulltime job? 23:01 – Nathan: Yeah it’s tough. I do, too, now I am building something and trying to balance between that and Rockstar Coders. Clients have meetings and there are fires. There is no magic to it. I thought bunching your days into clusters would help me with focus, but it’s not good for the business. I don’t think the batch thing isn’t working for me. A little bit on, a little bit off. I think MT on Rockstar. Wednesday I take a half-day. Thursday all start-up, etc. It’s just balance. It can’t be lopsided one way or the other. Just living with my girlfriend and now wife was easy, but having a kid in the evening is tricky. I create nice walls that don’t interfere. I don’t know that’s it. 25:55 – Chuck: It sounds like they are completely separate. What I am building affects my people at work. I find the balance hard, too. 26:21 – Nathan: It’s also good to have partners who support you. 27:19 – Chuck: Do you start looking for help with marketing, or...? 27:27 – Nathan: Yeah that’s hard, too. Maybe? Some people aren’t in the US and they might be more affordable. My friend found someone in Europe who is awesome and their fees are cheaper. Their cost of living is cheaper than the U.S. There are talented folks out there. 28:50 – Chuck: Yeah, I had help with a guy from Argentina. I am in Utah and he was an hour ahead. So scheduling was easy. 29:27 – Nathan: I have a hard time giving that up, too. It’s hard to hire someone through startup work. Startup work needs to be done quickly, etc. BUT when things solidify then get help. 30:28 – Chuck: They see it as risky proposition. It seems like the cost is getting better so the risk is there. 30:48 – Nathan: There is tons of stops and goes if I look back into my career. In the moment they feel like failures, but really it was just a stepping-stone. It was just a source for good ideas, and writings, and things to talk at podcasters about, etc. I just feel like short-term they feel risky but in the long-term you can really squeeze out value from it. I am having trouble, right now, finding customers, it could be risky, and there might not be a market for this. But I am learning about x, y, and z. Everything is a stepping-stone for me now. I don’t feel like it’s a failure anymore to me. 32:50 – Chuck: What are you doing now? 32:55 – Guest: Rockstar. 3 / 4 teenagers want to be YouTubers! That’s just crazy and that will keep going. I want to be apart of that. I am making programs so people can make their own videos. That’s what I am fooling around with now. 35:06 – Chuck: Yeah we will have a channel. There is album art. I’m working on it.  I will start recording this week. 35:43 – Nathan: It is hard to get traction there. I don’t know why? Maybe video watchers need quicker transitions to keep interested. 36:12 – Chuck: I could supply some theories but I don’t know. I think with YouTube you actually have to watch it. Podcasts are gaining traction because you can go wherever with it. 36:51 – Nathan: Right now commuting can only be an auditory experience. When we get self-driving cars then videos will take off. 37:14 – Chuck: Picks! 37:19 – Advertisement!  Links: Ruby Elixir Rails Highrise Rockstar Coders Nathan’s Medium Nathan’s Twitter Nathan’s LinkedIn Nathan’s YouTube Past Episode with Nathan – DevChat.TV Sponsors: Code Badges Get a Coder Job Cache Fly Picks: Charles Board Games: Bubble Talk Shadow Hunters Apples to Apples The Resistance Airbnb Zion National Park Nathan Writing is important. Masterclass! Book: Living with a Seal Book: Living with the Monks Sara Blakely – Spanx

Panel: Charles Max Wood Guest: Nathan Kontny This week on My Ruby Story, the panel talks with Nathan Kontny who has been in the Ruby community since 2005. He once was a chemical engineer, and then got into programming after a broken ankle incident; after that...the rest is history! Today, Nathan and Chuck talk about Ruby, how to begin a startup company, Rockstar Coders, balancing life, and much more! In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 1:05 – Chuck: E365 is the past episode you’ve been featured on. 1:14 – Nathan comments. 1:20 – Chuck. 1:56 – Nathan: Been in the community since 2005. I am a developer and entrepreneur. I do a lot of YouTube and videos nowadays. 2:50 – Chuck: How did you get into this field? 2:55 – Guest: It’s weird. I was a chemical engineer in the past. Back in the day 1996 I was learning... My love for it started through an internship. It was kind of a scary place dealing with harmful materials. Make sure you aren’t carrying uranium with you, and wear multiple gas masks at all times. There was an acid leak through someone’s shoulder. I didn’t love it, but something fortunate happened. I broke my ankle in one summer, and when I showed-up they made me go to this trail where I couldn’t be near the chemicals. Well, the director had computer problems and asked him to help with him. I put in code and out came results. In the chemical industry it was/is: “Maybe the chemicals will react to this chemical in this way...?” It was this dopamine rush for me. After that summer, I wanted to do programming. 7:16 – Chuck: Same thing for me. This will manifest and then boom. I had a friend change to computer major – and this led me to the field. 8:45 – Guest: Yeah, I had a different career shown to me and then I had a choice. 9:02 – Chuck: How did you find Ruby? 9:05 – Guest: I got a job but they wouldn’t let me program because I didn’t have enough experience. I had to teach myself. I taught myself Java – 9 CDs back in the day. I stayed up late, and did anything I could to teach myself. I taught myself Java. I got promoted in the business and became a Java developer. After 5 years of that I started doing freelance work. I love Ruby’s language and how simple it was to me. I have flirted with other languages, but I keep coming back to Ruby. 13:00 – Chuck: The same for me, too. Oh, and this makes this so much easier, and it extends so much easier. I have questions about being an entrepreneur. Anyways, you get into Ruby and Rails, you’ve done a bunch of things. What are you proud of and/or interested in with Rails? How do you feel like Rails helps with building things? 14:00 – Guest shares his past projects.  I was proud of just hosting Rails, because there were so many changes back in the day. I have helped with open source contributions back in 2009. There was a security problem and I discovered this. Nothing happened and I just went in and fixed the bug; an infamous contribution. I am proud of my performance work. I made a plug-in for that, etc. Also, work with Highrise. 17:23 – Chuck: Yep, Highrise people will know. I’ve used Highrise in the past. 17:38 – Nathan: Yeah. 17:50 – Chuck and Nathan go back and forth. 17:58 – Chuck: You’ve done all these different things. So for a start-up what advice would you give? People are doing their own thing – what’s your advice on an incubator, or doing it alone or raising capitol? 18:41 – Nathan: I take a middle road approach. You do what makes sense with your business. What works for you? I would do that. It’s hard to pick-on what incubators could be. Ownership is everything – once you don’t own it – you loose that control. Don’t loose your equity. I wanted more control over my box. I would be careful raising money – do that as a last effort. Keep your ownership as far as you can. But if you are up against the wall – then go there. 22:29 – Chuck: Now I have 2 jobs: podcasting and developing this course. I guess my issue is how do you find the balance there between your fulltime job and your new fulltime job? 23:01 – Nathan: Yeah it’s tough. I do, too, now I am building something and trying to balance between that and Rockstar Coders. Clients have meetings and there are fires. There is no magic to it. I thought bunching your days into clusters would help me with focus, but it’s not good for the business. I don’t think the batch thing isn’t working for me. A little bit on, a little bit off. I think MT on Rockstar. Wednesday I take a half-day. Thursday all start-up, etc. It’s just balance. It can’t be lopsided one way or the other. Just living with my girlfriend and now wife was easy, but having a kid in the evening is tricky. I create nice walls that don’t interfere. I don’t know that’s it. 25:55 – Chuck: It sounds like they are completely separate. What I am building affects my people at work. I find the balance hard, too. 26:21 – Nathan: It’s also good to have partners who support you. 27:19 – Chuck: Do you start looking for help with marketing, or...? 27:27 – Nathan: Yeah that’s hard, too. Maybe? Some people aren’t in the US and they might be more affordable. My friend found someone in Europe who is awesome and their fees are cheaper. Their cost of living is cheaper than the U.S. There are talented folks out there. 28:50 – Chuck: Yeah, I had help with a guy from Argentina. I am in Utah and he was an hour ahead. So scheduling was easy. 29:27 – Nathan: I have a hard time giving that up, too. It’s hard to hire someone through startup work. Startup work needs to be done quickly, etc. BUT when things solidify then get help. 30:28 – Chuck: They see it as risky proposition. It seems like the cost is getting better so the risk is there. 30:48 – Nathan: There is tons of stops and goes if I look back into my career. In the moment they feel like failures, but really it was just a stepping-stone. It was just a source for good ideas, and writings, and things to talk at podcasters about, etc. I just feel like short-term they feel risky but in the long-term you can really squeeze out value from it. I am having trouble, right now, finding customers, it could be risky, and there might not be a market for this. But I am learning about x, y, and z. Everything is a stepping-stone for me now. I don’t feel like it’s a failure anymore to me. 32:50 – Chuck: What are you doing now? 32:55 – Guest: Rockstar. 3 / 4 teenagers want to be YouTubers! That’s just crazy and that will keep going. I want to be apart of that. I am making programs so people can make their own videos. That’s what I am fooling around with now. 35:06 – Chuck: Yeah we will have a channel. There is album art. I’m working on it.  I will start recording this week. 35:43 – Nathan: It is hard to get traction there. I don’t know why? Maybe video watchers need quicker transitions to keep interested. 36:12 – Chuck: I could supply some theories but I don’t know. I think with YouTube you actually have to watch it. Podcasts are gaining traction because you can go wherever with it. 36:51 – Nathan: Right now commuting can only be an auditory experience. When we get self-driving cars then videos will take off. 37:14 – Chuck: Picks! 37:19 – Advertisement!  Links: Ruby Elixir Rails Highrise Rockstar Coders Nathan’s Medium Nathan’s Twitter Nathan’s LinkedIn Nathan’s YouTube Past Episode with Nathan – DevChat.TV Sponsors: Code Badges Get a Coder Job Cache Fly Picks: Charles Board Games: Bubble Talk Shadow Hunters Apples to Apples The Resistance Airbnb Zion National Park Nathan Writing is important. Masterclass! Book: Living with a Seal Book: Living with the Monks Sara Blakely – Spanx

Panel: Charles Max Wood Guest: Nathan Kontny This week on My Ruby Story, the panel talks with Nathan Kontny who has been in the Ruby community since 2005. He once was a chemical engineer, and then got into programming after a broken ankle incident; after that...the rest is history! Today, Nathan and Chuck talk about Ruby, how to begin a startup company, Rockstar Coders, balancing life, and much more! In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 1:05 – Chuck: E365 is the past episode you’ve been featured on. 1:14 – Nathan comments. 1:20 – Chuck. 1:56 – Nathan: Been in the community since 2005. I am a developer and entrepreneur. I do a lot of YouTube and videos nowadays. 2:50 – Chuck: How did you get into this field? 2:55 – Guest: It’s weird. I was a chemical engineer in the past. Back in the day 1996 I was learning... My love for it started through an internship. It was kind of a scary place dealing with harmful materials. Make sure you aren’t carrying uranium with you, and wear multiple gas masks at all times. There was an acid leak through someone’s shoulder. I didn’t love it, but something fortunate happened. I broke my ankle in one summer, and when I showed-up they made me go to this trail where I couldn’t be near the chemicals. Well, the director had computer problems and asked him to help with him. I put in code and out came results. In the chemical industry it was/is: “Maybe the chemicals will react to this chemical in this way...?” It was this dopamine rush for me. After that summer, I wanted to do programming. 7:16 – Chuck: Same thing for me. This will manifest and then boom. I had a friend change to computer major – and this led me to the field. 8:45 – Guest: Yeah, I had a different career shown to me and then I had a choice. 9:02 – Chuck: How did you find Ruby? 9:05 – Guest: I got a job but they wouldn’t let me program because I didn’t have enough experience. I had to teach myself. I taught myself Java – 9 CDs back in the day. I stayed up late, and did anything I could to teach myself. I taught myself Java. I got promoted in the business and became a Java developer. After 5 years of that I started doing freelance work. I love Ruby’s language and how simple it was to me. I have flirted with other languages, but I keep coming back to Ruby. 13:00 – Chuck: The same for me, too. Oh, and this makes this so much easier, and it extends so much easier. I have questions about being an entrepreneur. Anyways, you get into Ruby and Rails, you’ve done a bunch of things. What are you proud of and/or interested in with Rails? How do you feel like Rails helps with building things? 14:00 – Guest shares his past projects.  I was proud of just hosting Rails, because there were so many changes back in the day. I have helped with open source contributions back in 2009. There was a security problem and I discovered this. Nothing happened and I just went in and fixed the bug; an infamous contribution. I am proud of my performance work. I made a plug-in for that, etc. Also, work with Highrise. 17:23 – Chuck: Yep, Highrise people will know. I’ve used Highrise in the past. 17:38 – Nathan: Yeah. 17:50 – Chuck and Nathan go back and forth. 17:58 – Chuck: You’ve done all these different things. So for a start-up what advice would you give? People are doing their own thing – what’s your advice on an incubator, or doing it alone or raising capitol? 18:41 – Nathan: I take a middle road approach. You do what makes sense with your business. What works for you? I would do that. It’s hard to pick-on what incubators could be. Ownership is everything – once you don’t own it – you loose that control. Don’t loose your equity. I wanted more control over my box. I would be careful raising money – do that as a last effort. Keep your ownership as far as you can. But if you are up against the wall – then go there. 22:29 – Chuck: Now I have 2 jobs: podcasting and developing this course. I guess my issue is how do you find the balance there between your fulltime job and your new fulltime job? 23:01 – Nathan: Yeah it’s tough. I do, too, now I am building something and trying to balance between that and Rockstar Coders. Clients have meetings and there are fires. There is no magic to it. I thought bunching your days into clusters would help me with focus, but it’s not good for the business. I don’t think the batch thing isn’t working for me. A little bit on, a little bit off. I think MT on Rockstar. Wednesday I take a half-day. Thursday all start-up, etc. It’s just balance. It can’t be lopsided one way or the other. Just living with my girlfriend and now wife was easy, but having a kid in the evening is tricky. I create nice walls that don’t interfere. I don’t know that’s it. 25:55 – Chuck: It sounds like they are completely separate. What I am building affects my people at work. I find the balance hard, too. 26:21 – Nathan: It’s also good to have partners who support you. 27:19 – Chuck: Do you start looking for help with marketing, or...? 27:27 – Nathan: Yeah that’s hard, too. Maybe? Some people aren’t in the US and they might be more affordable. My friend found someone in Europe who is awesome and their fees are cheaper. Their cost of living is cheaper than the U.S. There are talented folks out there. 28:50 – Chuck: Yeah, I had help with a guy from Argentina. I am in Utah and he was an hour ahead. So scheduling was easy. 29:27 – Nathan: I have a hard time giving that up, too. It’s hard to hire someone through startup work. Startup work needs to be done quickly, etc. BUT when things solidify then get help. 30:28 – Chuck: They see it as risky proposition. It seems like the cost is getting better so the risk is there. 30:48 – Nathan: There is tons of stops and goes if I look back into my career. In the moment they feel like failures, but really it was just a stepping-stone. It was just a source for good ideas, and writings, and things to talk at podcasters about, etc. I just feel like short-term they feel risky but in the long-term you can really squeeze out value from it. I am having trouble, right now, finding customers, it could be risky, and there might not be a market for this. But I am learning about x, y, and z. Everything is a stepping-stone for me now. I don’t feel like it’s a failure anymore to me. 32:50 – Chuck: What are you doing now? 32:55 – Guest: Rockstar. 3 / 4 teenagers want to be YouTubers! That’s just crazy and that will keep going. I want to be apart of that. I am making programs so people can make their own videos. That’s what I am fooling around with now. 35:06 – Chuck: Yeah we will have a channel. There is album art. I’m working on it.  I will start recording this week. 35:43 – Nathan: It is hard to get traction there. I don’t know why? Maybe video watchers need quicker transitions to keep interested. 36:12 – Chuck: I could supply some theories but I don’t know. I think with YouTube you actually have to watch it. Podcasts are gaining traction because you can go wherever with it. 36:51 – Nathan: Right now commuting can only be an auditory experience. When we get self-driving cars then videos will take off. 37:14 – Chuck: Picks! 37:19 – Advertisement!  Links: Ruby Elixir Rails Highrise Rockstar Coders Nathan’s Medium Nathan’s Twitter Nathan’s LinkedIn Nathan’s YouTube Past Episode with Nathan – DevChat.TV Sponsors: Code Badges Get a Coder Job Cache Fly Picks: Charles Board Games: Bubble Talk Shadow Hunters Apples to Apples The Resistance Airbnb Zion National Park Nathan Writing is important. Masterclass! Book: Living with a Seal Book: Living with the Monks Sara Blakely – Spanx

​The Great Wall of China is the largest man-made structure ever built, stretching for over 4,000 kilometres from central Asia, across the Gobi Desert, through the remote, cold mountains of northern China to end on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. Nathan Hoturoa Gray, a young New Zealand lawyer, wanted to be one of the first Westerners in history to walk the entire length of the Great Wall...In 2000 he looked over the Gobi desert with an unlikely group of traveling companions including a Buddhist Monk, a Mormon golfer and an Italian recording artist. He saw a flash of light in the distance. In a landscape where the wall often disappeared into the sand for miles, he knew that light would be the first guiding point on what would turn out to be an incredible two year journey.In this episode, Nathan talks about his incredible adventure and his book: First Pass Under Heaven - One Man's 4000km Trek along the Great Wall of China. A Penguin best seller, the book is available worldwide.EPISODE HIGHLIGHTSHow to travel through the desert for days carrying only 750 ml of waterUnderstand how group conflict can bring bad juju on the pathThe familiarity of being somewhere you've never been beforeCultivate your ability to see signs and navigate using your inner compassTrust you can get what you need as long as you aren't too greedy and are in harmony with yourself, with others and with the environmentThe deeper reasons behind building the Great Wall apart from defensive strategyWhat does the Great Wall have in common with the Camino and the pyramids?For more about this episode go to: www.leaderscalltoadventure.com/1Visit Nathan's website: www.greatwalldvd.comTRANSCRIPTLori: [INTRO]What possessed you to walk the entire length of the Great Wall of China?Nathan: Well, basically, I mean, if I'm completely honest it was all ego initially. I just had this call up with this invitation to go and be the first westerners in history to walk the length of the Great Wall. My kind of ego reared up and thought, ‘Yeah, cool, I'll give that a crack.’ That was probably the initial impetus, but if I'm really honest, I was working as a lawyer in Alaska and I was visiting this gallery one time and it was a photo gallery of all these glaciers in the area but there were these two photos of China and they just stood right out from all the other photos and I just had this very very strong draw to these two photos. I had no idea that I'd go to China later on in the future, but I just knew at that moment that there was something going on and I would be in that country. I didn't have any desire to go to China at that stage. About six to eight months later, I got this first email from a friend who was working with my twin brother in London on an aerial theatre danceshow called De La Guarda. He'd been invited by a Buddhist monk who had come up with the idea to walk the wall and was basically trying to find other members to complete a documentary on this guy's walk. That's when the invitation came to me. Initially, it was like I had a lot of fear and I didn't really want to do it, but then when he said we'd be the first group of westerners, then my ego was like, ‘Yeah, man, ok, I'll give this a crack.’ Essentially, that got us out there in the first place - that whole ego thing. That was a whole month of hemming and hawing and preparing and being scared pretty much out of my wits with the whole idea of the journey. Once we got out there, it was quite different because we took a two-day train from Beijing and we'd been in Beijing for about three weeks preparing, just learning as much language as we could just to get a little bit of the language so we could survive out there. I didn't know any Chinese at all before we got to China. I had traveled through about fifty countries before that stage. I was used to being around other cultures and being in one place one day, another place the next day and I very much enjoyed that type of lifestyle, but in terms of taking on this whole new sort of alien culture, it was completely new. We just kind of had to prepare. When we got out there, that two day train ride and I was sitting at the very first watchtower for the Great Wall, basically, to put it into a context, you've got the Himalayas right in back of the south of you. It's stretched as far as the eye can see to the south. Then, in front, you've got the Gobi desert and it spreads out as far as the eye can see. The Great Wall, it kind of comes down this black mountain that you're on top of and it weaves out into the sand and about two kilometres later, it disappears like a worm in the sand. So, you just don't know where to go. It just stops. And so, I was just looking at this vista and the other guys were down in the bottom, just sort of hanging around in the middle of the day. I was sort of saying to myself, ‘Now, do I really want to do this? What am I here to do? ‘ And, I just made this promise that I was going to walk all the way to the ocean and as soon as I said that little promise to myself, there was this flash of sunlight on this rocky outcrop, far, far, far to the north right in the heart of the desert. I just saw it and I knew that in that second that was the direction we had to head. It was kind of like a sign or what we called a tohu that our Maori ancestors would have looked at when they were about to embark on their massive sea or land migrations. In the early days, they discovered New Zealand or traveling through the country back in the old days in the last thousand years or so. It really felt like that kind of connection so I just had this very strong clear sense that was the direction we needed to head. So, I went down the mountain and caught up with the other four guys and they were not too sure what to do. We then go back to the hotel and I said, ‘Nobody is going to head this way. We just walk straight into the desert.’ And then, by the end of the day, when we reached the rocky outcrop, there were these three tents basically filled with Chinese irrigation workers. I think they were fixing up some sort of pipe set-up. It was basically a way of getting some food and then they invited us and we had or tents, but they fed us and gave us this opportunity. There was no way that I knew that those people were going to be there, but that calling was so strong and then we were looked after. And that's basically what the first three months of walking the Great Wall of China was like. It was like going into the heart of the Gobi desert so you don't know exactly where the next village was where you're going to survive. The maps we were using, the villages were so small, that they didn't point them out on that map so we had no idea. We could just work out vaguely where that wall would go or that was there and just keep on following it in faith and then just keep on walking until eventually we came across a village and we could get our next meal. We did have some food that we carried with us like scroggin, fruitand noodles too. It was quite light food. We couldn't carry too much stuff. So, we were pretty reliant on the hospitality of the Chinese peasants as we went. But, it was, pretty much one of the journeys of, you don't know where the next village is, you just gotta keep on going. And just have faith in the wall - that it will provide. That was the whole initial experience of going through the Gobi desert.Lori: Right, now, in the Gobi desert, would the wall just sort of disintegrate and then you wouldn't know where it connected up again? You'd look in all directions and you couldn't see it and then you just had to get some sort of sense, is that how it worked? Piece by piece?Nathan: Yeah, it's pretty much. That was quite interesting because usually what they would have is that there would be a watchtower on the horizon and as long as you could see that watchtower, then you'd walk towards that watchtower and then you'd generally be able to see the next one. And, so, a lot of the wall in between would have dilapidated with either sand dunes had gone over it or had just over time withered away. And so, we pretty much, tried to climb one watchtower and then we'd be able to spot the next one at the next horizon and then sort of head in that direction. And then see the next one and the next one. So, that was generally the way that we went across the Gobi. A lot of the time, we just couldn't see the wall for three days, three or four days. It had just all gone. The thing was after we're walking this wall for quite a few weeks, you just kind of tune into that energy of where it would have been. Because, the way they built it was always the most beautiful places. It was kind of like...it was almost as if you felt building a big ley line across the place.Lori: Yeah, yeah. I found that fascinating, that part of your book where you talked about, ‘The strategic reasons for the Wall being built probably weren't the reasons.’ Maybe you could just expand on that a little bit because I really found that interesting.Nathan: Yeah, totally. Basically, the superbrains behind the Wall, they needed to get the money from Beijing from the emperor to complete the Wall building. Actually, it was the Mongolian presence up north, people like Genghis Khan, archenemies who would come through and invade and raid the Chinese villages that fell around where the Wall was before that time, but they needed the money to build up those walls to protect those villages. So, that's how they got the money, but there are so many places that the Wall was existing that really served no protective purpose at all. That kind of got us thinking, especially as we got really deep into the journey as to ‘Why? Why did they build this here? There's no way for Mongolian hostiles to go over that mountain or just go around here.’ There was just no point to it. It just really felt like that the superbrains were just marking a line across it. As you were walking, especially in the desert, you'd sort of look up at the stars and you'd see how the watchtowers would be all marked out and they'd line up with the stars. These are some of experiences I've had, experiences like at the Camino de Santiago in Spain and the pyramids in different places. It was kind of like little power spots. The thing was, when the Wall wasn't there, after about six weeks of walking, we just knew where it would be. We'd just feel the best path to take and sure enough, three days later, the wall would appear again. We would've been right on track. We found where it was. There are probably a lot of reasons why that was the case. In some cases, it was the energy of the building. In other cases - the Wall is also the world's longest graveyard - so you had a feeling that a lot of men perished in those areas as well and feeling their energies. It was kind of you had that sense of being guided across wherever it was and sort of being looked after.Lori: How about water? I mean, you're going through the desert. What sort of distance are we talking about between these watchtowers? Was it ever an issue that you could run out of water?Nathan: Yeah. I mean, that actually was really kind of interesting, because, the thing was, one of the walkers, my partner from Italy, all he carried was a one litre water bottle. All I had was one litre water bottle and a 750 ml water bottle. It was just nothing really to walk in the...Lori: That's really nothing, no. That's not even a day's worth of water.Nathan: Not even a day's worth of water. And, the thing is, we learned that the water is very precious. Water is literally like gold. We would drink it very, very carefully. And, only when you came across a village and had a chance to refill with the locals in terms of they'd give us some water or they'd go to a well and we'd get some more water that way. So this was a key element of the journey.Whatever we needed, as long as we didn't ask for too much, as long as we weren't greedy or we lived in harmony with our environment, then whatever we needed would just come. Water, it seemed someone would just come, out of the blue and you saw someone in the desert. You couldn't see that many people near you. You knew you had to meet that person and that person was going to be helping you out in some way. Then it would often lead to giving you some water to survive on or giving you some food that you needed or telling you a piece of information so that you would avoid a potential catastrophe that was hanging out a little further down the line that you couldn't see yourself, but you felt like you were being looked after.Lori: Interesting. Were there any times that let's say, the energy of the group was off because you did start this journey as a group of five, correct?Nathan: Yeah.Lori: Did you ever find that the experience, that maybe, you know, something was up in the group and that the energy was off and therefore the experiences that you were attracting were also reflective of that dynamic? Did you experience that as well?Nathan: Really interesting question because the five of us initially....well, I had a good friend of mine from New Zealand and I knew the Argentinian photojournalist who I'd met a couple of times before the trip. But, the other two, the monk and the man from Italy, I hadn't met until we went to Beijing and it turned out we all had quite different ideas on how we felt the journey would transpire. Even though we all had that desire, that willingness to go walk the Wall, as it turned out, once we got out there, it was like, a couple of guys were far more interested in doing a doc(umentary) for National Geographic. A couple of us were far more interested in just walking the Wall and feeling that experience, more of just having that spiritual walk. It was almost like some were writers; some were filmmakers. The Buddhist monk, he was much more interested in just visiting all the temples around the whole area to see how much religion had re-emerged since the times of the Cultural Revolution. We actually had different ideas on it. We were actually only all together for ten days and then the monk disappeared and then after 21 days, the four of us split into two and two - which, as it turned out, was actually a much easier way to walk the walk. Much less pressure on the peasants - when you are going to a village and you find big guys coming in and they are needing to be fed and haven't eaten and had just walked 30, 60 ks or whatever - when there were two of you, it was a much easier way to have that experience. But, it was actually quite hard emotionally, especially to realize that for people that you've known for a long time in your life, the journey wasn't going to work very well with those particular relationships. So, once we kind of split up on our different ways, the journey was so much better in many ways. But, also...I mean, there were still amazing experiences on every level, but we had to be true to whatever our calling, our intention was on that trip and once that happened then the journey was able to unfold more easily.Lori: That's an interesting piece though. I mean, there's that clarity and the ability for you to follow through on the clarity of your intention of your experience and then things sort of conspiring to work for you versus when you're not clear, maybe you're going along with some dynamics in the group are not necessarily true to your own inner compass, then things can go awry. Would that be a fair thing to say?Nathan: Completely, yeah. Like, for example, there were times as well when we split up as a group and then the trouble really started to begin and lots of experiences like - a couple of guys got detained by police and army. I had a situation where there was…I came across quite bad luck energy where there was a stabbing and murder experience as well.Lori: Yeah, right.Nathan: These things tended to happen when within ourselves we weren't working as a group, when the split and our egos were taking over too much. We were trying to be so - all about ourselves and all about winning the race and getting there first or whatever. Then, the Wall or China was giving us quite hard lessons to say, ‘No, this isn't the way to go about it. You need to try and work as a team if you can and be more communal in approach.’It was quite a good strong teacher in that way even though the lessons were quite harsh. But, once we learned our lessons, the journey unfolded in a more positive way. So, yeah, it was pretty interesting in that way.Lori: Mmmhmm. Very interesting. Yeah. One of the questions I had written down for you (reading the book), was when you talked about a situation where, ‘If you are anxious about getting to your destination, you're in for a hell of a ride.’ This thing, right? The sorts of people you attract, it seems, are equally stressed out. It seems like we're on that track here - where you are basically attracting that kind of thing. If you're not in a good place yourself, you're getting that also in your experience. So, that you found that when the group was able to gel and were able to surrender, I guess to the experience rather than have their agendas running, that things went well for you, yeah?Nathan: Yeah, definitely. Actually, I learned that the first time I was really hitchhiking properly in my travels. I was up in Vancouver Island and I wanted to go hitchhiking up the west coast. I was waiting at the side of the road. It was really interesting. I got dropped off. And, there was this bridge and I thought, ‘Ah that would be kind of cool experience actually to be able to walk across the bridge to see what's below it and there's a nice spot straight after there where cars could stop and it would be quite a good place to stop and pick up hitchhikers.’ This was before I did the Great Wall experience.So, I started to walk across the bridge and I got really anxious about not being able to get to my destination. I put my thumb out as I was walking out to the cars that were coming past. And so, one car screams right past, but the second car actually stops and I thought, ‘Man, I don't want this ride. I've missed out on this experience of walking across the bridge and just seeing what's below it and seeing that view and just taking my time.’ And so, the lady that picked me up in her car - she was really stressed out and she had had a car accident with one of her mates the day before. She drove really fast and I just, I got out of that ride and I was a little bit shaken up and I thought to myself, ‘No, you just gotta take your time and just have faith that you'll get there in the end. Don't worry about it. Don't get too anxious.’  I got off that ride and said, ‘That's ok.’  I sat down and had some lunch and bike riders came. It was an amazing experience watching at the riverside just like watching that movie called ‘Mask’ which starred Cher and just have this little scene unfold. They finished their lunch and they went off and it just felt like a nice time for me to go back to the road again and sure enough, boom, I went back on the road and there was my ride. So by having those experiences and using that wisdom to apply that to the Great Wall experience was super helpful. Lori: Yeah. That leads actually into another question that I have here about this conversation that you have with Paolo about mental manifestation. You want to tell that story?  Because, I thought that was fantastic. (It's) about ‘What would you eat if you could have anything right now?’Nathan: Yeah, he was a very interesting character. Spending these long days in the desert walking and having just to pass the time (these) were the sort of conversations that you'd have. They could be quite deep and very interesting on a philosophical level. One time we were walking and he just asked me, ‘So, what would you like to eat?’ And, I'd make a joke or whatever, just sort of used to that. We kind of worked out a consideration of what was available in the environment that we were in and then I think I just said, ‘Noodles and I'd like an apple. Maybe some biscuits - would be so cool.’ Then, later on that day, we'd totally forgotten about that conversation and we came across a village and then you're getting fed these noodles and there are some apples, some biscuits (laughing). It was such a miracle. Every time it was like, ‘Oh my God, this is so amazing! This is such a miracle.’ After awhile, it was not such a miracle anymore, it's actually just life. It's just what happens. And, in the desert, you don't have the distractions of the big city with all the people around you or lots of thoughts, lots of ideas or lots of chaos. When you're out in the desert, there's no distraction. You just notice how your thoughts manifest and that was the power of that walk through the Gobi for those three months. I know they talk about Jesus going into the desert for 40 days. I don't know exactly too much about what transpired, but it really felt like that sort of learning was going on in terms of what we have as human beings, what power we really do have which is beyond that of say people who just focus on making lots of money and that's what it's all about and pour all their energy into that process. You don't have to worry about the route to get there.  It became more direct, straight to the source. Lori: Hmm, that's interesting. Would you say that the power in that is basically the ability to not be distracted and to be very clear in your intentions or what is it? What's the magic in that?Nathan: Yeah, I think that's exactly what it is. It's just not being distracted and very clear on your intentions, just as you said, and then just remembering that intention. That's the challenge. For example, when we met the people of the Gobi, the Chinese peasants over there, money didn't exist. The concept hadn't even gotten there. We were like the first western minds to be bringing those concepts. They just barter their food, grow their crops, passing food between their neighbours and live in this way. These people are pretty much the happiest people I ever met in my life. I mean, they were amazing. They were so present, so conscious, so giving - incredible. Really awesome morals. Not necessarily religious, but they just knew how to be good human beings, knew how to treat strangers and incredibly happy and full of self-worth. These people were the people we were living off for that first three months. It was such a different world where we would go to give them some money after they'd look after us and they'd just look at us with, ‘What's this? It's not about this.’ The connection was through looking at each other in the eyes and passing across the energy in that way. It was about the experience of sharing our culture. That's the payment. That's the transaction.Lori: Wow! So, there's a real acknowledgement of worth, of your own individual worth as a human being in that culture then, would you say? It's not about the currency, it's about knowing that the connection, the ability to connect with others and to know the value of just being alive. It seems a lot more present. Nathan: Yeah. That's a perfect explanation. The way I look at it, it's the way of the ancients. It's the way they've been doing things the last 2000 years. The human species has gone through massive changes the last few hundred years which has kind of taken us off that old path. There's nothing wrong with whatever path. It's all learning and experience, but if you look at a lot of the crises and the financial problems that are going on, that was eventually going to come to a head because that system isn't so sustainable anymore.Lori: Absolutely, yeah.Nathan: Yeah, it doesn't work. The ideas don't work. Lori: Yeah.Nathan: But, other than that, these people were just so inspiring to give us that sort of teaching so that when we did come back to the bigger cities like Beijing, it was such a great shock to the system.Lori: Yeah, what happens in the cities then? What happens to people, the nature of life? What do you think? What's the key factor that keeps people sort of disconnected from themselves in that urban environment? What is that?Nathan: I don't know. I think there are so many different influences and so there are so many different varying ways to move this way and move that way and each conversation, I know my experience, well, I'll go do this, I'll go do that. It's very difficult to stay very focused on one thing; to remain very strong in the direction that you are going.  But a lot of the time, it's just like if you put it in a conceptual level, it's like you've got this nucleus of the atom and there's millions of atoms in the nucleus just buzzing around, buzzing off each other, feeding off each other's energies, generating stuff, building buildings, whatever is happening at the level of society and then outside that nucleus of atoms, you've got these kind of more rare individuals, like electrons for example and they're just cruising around the nucleus and they'll come in from time to time to feed and maybe get some money to sustain whatever the activities are outside the nucleus and then they'll go back out and travel. And, so you've got those people. Then somebody's got a motorbike and he can go further out. So, he'll go maybe two levels of electron out if you're looking at it in an interplanetary context. So, they'll have their experiences and be broader minded in terms of what they see, what they do. And, then you'll have people who are kind of just like asteroids and they are just cutting through nucleus after nucleus which is what we were like on the Wall. We'd come to one village. As you come into the centre of the little village, you'd see all the old people sitting in the market square and that's what they do most of the day. The other bodies would be running around and exploring as much as say we were. You'd feed off their energy and they would make a comment on you and you could tell what they were seeing was quite strange to them because those kind of experiences didn't come by too often. Then we'd leave their village and we'd come out and be meeting the people who owned a motorbike and sort of explore further out. Then, boom, then you'd be gone from that energy all together and eventually you'd just be in nature and then you'd come to the next village and you'd come to the next nucleus. It was kind of like that idea. You're like asteroids going through these mini planets in that sense. Sounds a little bit out there, but it's the kind of experiences I found there. Just the learning that I got from having that kind of explorer-type experience and going from culture to culture and just feeding from each different sort of mindset really impacts the way that I look at the world now and how I function and how I hold myself in these various environments whether I'm in or out of the society or not. Lori: Interesting, yeah. Your ability to transition through different places. Nathan: Yeah. To be honest, when I first came back from China, I had break, quite a long break. I was about 3000 kilometres through the trek then. I really pushed my body to it's actual limit so I had to come home and recover and I did recover and I found it very, very difficult after being in the wild - on the Wall for so long - to readapt to the western world and life that I originally lived. I used to be a lawyer and had this driven, competitive sort of lifestyle. What I'm finding now is when I cross between both sides, between the wild and the more educated realms I am getting more used to making those adjustments. It's part of your life experience; know what works for you and what not to do after you've made those mistakes and just to better fit in so you don't ostracize yourself out if you've been out in the wild for awhile. So, in that way, I'm a lot more balanced. When I was walking the Wall, I really did take things to the uttermost extreme in terms of getting out there, but not going too far that I couldn't come back.Lori: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Looking at this thing that I noted down here. I think it's important to mention this at this point about your sense of the vastness of the planet when you're out there. You said that your ‘mind became diffuse, expanding through the landscape.’ I love that. I love that statement. Tell us about that. Nathan: Yeah, totally. For example, every two weeks we'd come across a city. You'd be walking for two weeks and just come across these little villages. Some would have a hundred people. Some would maybe have fifty people. Some might have a thousand. Then, you'd just be in nature for a few days and just nothing. Then, you'd see this city in the distance. It would be fifty kilometres away. The city would have three million people, it would be almost the size of New Zealand but in the context of where I'd been going through all those mountains and deserts, you come and you see this city as a little tiny fragment, it's like a little paua shell, abalone shell just on the beach. That's how small it was reflecting off the sunlight in the far, far distance away.  Okay, there are a lot of us. There are seven billion of us now on the planet. Compared to where I've been in this sort of holy, untouched natural world, we just seem so small and it made me feel so insignificant, but at the same time having walked those experiences, having walked that history, having walked what was built all that way, all that distance, that's what made you realize what human beings are capable of and was so mind-blowing. It's kind of interesting. It's good to hold on to that humility and know that, know your place. But, at the same time it informs us of our strength and what we can achieve. Lori: Yeah, so, in other words, still have faith in humanity in order to find some solutions to the current issues on the planet mainly in terms of how to forge a sustainable future where we can all thrive, that the earth can remain intact and in integrity and a place of beauty and resilience. Nathan: Yeah.Lori: Yeah.Nathan: On that note, I learnt a lot from the people in the Gobi. They had such few resources. It's a land with very little water. Whatever they could scratch together to have for food, they managed to do that, but they managed to survive despite having no resources. And, if the planet wants to go down that road where two thirds of the planet was to desertify, reach desertification levels where we've really drained the resources of the planet. It was amazing to see how our species can adapt and can do things. Hopefully, we won't have to go down that road. We can be a little bit more forward looking and realize we don't need that much to be happy, really. We just limit our desires and coming down to a psychological level of just sort of...Lori: Well, yeah. That's very interesting about how this quest for more, more, more, it comes from an internal inability to acknowledge our own value and therefore, we are looking on the outside for more. What you're bringing up here in the people that were out there and their simple lives. They don't need a lot to be happy. There's this sort of understanding of what real value is. If you'd like to comment on that, I'd love it. Nathan: That's exactly what it was. They were very special. I really felt like I was so privileged to have spent that time with those people because when I did go back to Beijing after three months walking through the Gobi....to put it in context, my Chinese walk was one where we were communicating by simple gestures and just looking each other in the eyes and staring. You're almost reading each other's minds to communicate for most of our needs, just because my language at that stage, at that early stage in China was so limited. Then, I'd gone into Beijing and it was so interesting. Back in the city, back where people are cutting deals and they're trying to outdo the other and I'd just look at these guy's faces and it was so glaringly obvious when people were lying or had some agenda.  I could so clearly read what was going through their minds because that's just the way I was communicating for all those months. The thing with the people who are out in the desert is that there just wasn't an agenda. They just were (for want of a better word) the ‘natural human animals’. There was just no personality or agenda to taint what they were doing. There's no deviousness. In big cities it's about making the money to get whatever you needed for whatever  your goal was. You could see that deviousness. You could see those agendas. They were fairly obvious after that amount of time. It was so fascinating how it all works. Lori: I would almost at this point like to jump to this statement or summary. ‘The farther that you get away from your connection to nature, to the human animal that you are, the harder that it really is to understand what your value is as a human being.’ Nathan: Yeah, that's a really interesting question because for some people, they'll use their culture. I know that a lot of my Maori friends and cousins and brothers, they'll really stick to their Maori culture as their form of identity and their way of being. Many times in my life, I know I will stick to those values just to find my sense of self-worth and value as a human. Other people will stick to their religion whether it's Christianity or Buddhism or Islam and that's their beacon of direction and what can be conceived of value and for others its money, or wealth or material well-being. For another person, it may be getting a girlfriend or whatever. Everyone has their own type of ‘religion’ that makes them feel like whatever truth it is they’re exploring. It's hard judging anyone. If you start to judge other people because of what they're doing because it's different to you then you gotta ask yourself the question, ‘Well, why am I thinking that what I'm doing is right?’ as opposed to their way. That's when conflict arises - so it’s a matter of having that awareness. I learned a lot through the fifty-five countries or whatever it was of traveling, being around those different cultures and realizing they are different, they are different type of animal that is fascinating and I'm really interested and I'll learn what I can from it. Some parts of that animal, I'm not going to like. I just haven't been brought up that way. But, there will be some parts which are really amazing and I'll think those are really cool values and I'm going to try and bring that into my life and change myself that way. I guess all of my travels have influenced me, hopefully for the better in that way of being open enough to take on what other people have to share with me. Lori: Or to identify different parts of yourself maybe that you didn't know were in there, but seeing that in the external world, was that (it)??Nathan: Completely. Lori: Yeah.Nathan: When I was traveling through the Middle East and Europe and Asia and in South Africa, Africa as well where it was like ‘Whoa’. It was almost like a sense of comfort like I had already been there especially when the awe of places like Wadi Rum in Jordan had this overwhelming effect of peace on me.  The first half of the Wall which I felt like, I'd been there too. Well, not me per say, but my ancestors had walked through those parts. The place and journey just flowed so well and I felt that. The second half of the Wall, I knew nobody had been there of my ancestors or anyone because I was forging that path for the first time and it was so hard - difficult months of experience to reach that. It really felt like I was forging it for the first time. When I look back at the history of the people, what was happening was that they had walked all the way through China, come down through the Middle East, down through Asia, come down through the Himalayas, down to South East Asia and said ‘We should go in the canoes’ to the Pacific Islands. Then around 800-1000 A.D. made their way to New Zealand. You kind of sense that whole migration route and sense the new places where they hadn't been. Those kinds of experiences, just being sensitive enough to feel those old energies is why you get this draw to go there. It brings up a lot of questions and it could be past life stuff or it could be migration routes, what your ancestors were up to and having their knowledge as part of your genetic code or muscular, deep body understanding. Lori: Wow! That's incredible. I would say that this sort of awareness that you embody -  I don't feel that a lot of people know that they have access to that. Can you talk about that? Your own ability to feel these energies and to see the signs; to be supported in your life by life itself? Can you talk about how you do that; how you use your own inner compass to navigate your life?Nathan:   It's something that I have been working on for years.  I can remember when I first went to UC Davis as I had got a scholarship from New Zealand to complete the last year of my law degree in California and all of a sudden I had so much more freedom than I was normally accustomed to what with the life pathways of going to school and being herded almost like a sheep through all these channels and phases.  I actually really liked it as I worked hard, took instructions well and excelled and had a very successful early career because I followed those (for want of a better word) 'fences' very well.  And then I got to the stage in life where I was like in a big open paddock and I could go anywhere and I would be like so where do I go?  So I would be on my bike in UC Davis and could go right or left down different streets towards University so I would spend the time choosing which way to go by listening to what way did my intuition want to go?  So I did a lot if work on this particular 'skill' of reading my intuition, especially when I was travelling because of all this freedom I now had to open myself up to these type of experiences.After a while I found that I was so in tune with my intuition it would really serve me, especially when trying to access food on the Great Wall.  For example if there was a gap in the Wall and I had the choice to walk on either side if I followed my intuition I would often come across an opportunity to get some food and when I didn't I would look back when coming across the next gap in the Wall and would see that there was a group of people that I had missed that I could have secured food from.So I'm not too sure exactly what it is that is guiding us but there is something in our human capabilities that if you tap into it, can put you at an advantage as to what is available out there to help you achieve your dream or journey, or experience.This is definitely something that one can work on and tap into if you are open to this particular power, in that way.Lori:  Yes it is what a lot of leaders do and this is the leaders call to adventure right?  I feel that a very important quality of leadership is to follow your own inner direction and use that to take a stand because if you are leading, how exactly do you lead, you know? You're not following if you are leading, you're leading right!? So what informs your decision?Nathan: Yes and that is what comes down to the huge challenge in life because you are not always going to be the leader so you need to know how to follow in order to learn how to be a good leader as well and thus be effective in both roles or jobs.I know that there is a lot of times in my life where I'm going 'what am I doing next, where am I going?' and I really need to have that time with myself to really connect with who I am and where I want to be going and then re-identify with what my calling is, because it is very easy to jump on someone else's bandwagon whether it be a corporate structure, a person that inspires you or a family member or whatever it is that you feel you would like to be following for a bit, but I find that if I start to do that for too long I start to get a lot of warnings or signs that tell me I can carry along with that path if I want but it's not necessarily going to be in your best interests with what life perhaps has planned for you or wants you to be doing. So knowing your internal compass is naturally very important, but I do enjoy both following and leading overall and essentially is what works best for you at the time.Lori:  What was it that got you through to the end of this 4000 km walk?Nathan: I think at the end of the day it is just probably blind obsession as it was the only thing that I could really ever think about with regards just achieving that goal and thus was completely motivated towards that particular objective and it really took that to be able to get to the end.  Even when I came home for a break when I was about 3000 km through the journey and my body had been so battered, even when I was technically 'resting' I couldn't get that journey out of my mind, so it really was like an obsession which in many ways was the compulsion to get me there.  This is not necessarily such a healthy thing because to be focused on that one sole thing for such a long time can close you off from other experiences, but for this particular journey I just really needed that particular drive and blind level of focus to get there and it was the same with writing the book as well.  It required such sacrifice of every other life option at the time just to get to the end, to the extent that in some ways were I to do that type of experience again I would do it differently because there wasn't enough balance - it was too driven and too focused that I missed out on a lot of other life experiences around that time, but having said that I got the journey done and got the book done and they are two achievements that I am very proud of and the sacrifices that they took were of no comparison to the enormous benefit of getting the book out there and completing that particular journey because they were definitely the two biggest accomplishments of my life at this stage. So to put it all into context on the Great Wall journey itself, you would be walking and you would come up to a mountain and you'd see the last few days of walking where you had been, you'd see all the pitfalls, the villages where you had eaten at, the spot where that guy had told us to go round this way to avoid this steep gully and basically all the past you had encountered and then you would turn around from the top of that mountain and you would look to see the Wall head out to your future and you didn't know exactly what was going to happen as it was still your future but you would have an idea or feeling after so much walking of what was going to kinda happen, and that's when I started to tune into reading signs and omens.  For example, sometimes I would see some birds flying and I would question ‘why are those birds there?’ and as you are on your own are wondering what possible meaning those birds could be?  So you are forging ahead with your life path with the Great Wall in front of you as the journey (which was the plan) but you didn't know exactly what was going to happen but you could get insights and ideas of what was coming from warnings or good feelings so it was an interesting mindset to be adopting, especially going through all these experiences and building on them as I faced this challenge, it also became easier to want to finish the entire trip because you did not want to give up knowing all that you had gone through already. So I had one experience on my own where I had been caught by the Chinese army and it was full on and I didn't know what was going to happen with that experience but when I got through it and then the hundreds of mountains all around me that I had to travel through and over, it just gave me this strength knowing all that I had already achieved to tackle the next challenge along the path.  It just the same as when you are say building a house or putting a case together for court you just have to take it all step by step and that eventually gets you to this massive destination.  So it ultimately brings things right back to simplicity of being in the moment and making the most of that particular moment and doing it the best you possibly can so you are in the best possible position to carry on and make the most of the next opportunity that comes up during the next stage of the journey.  So you have this collection of days, 9 months of them in all, and eventually you look back and you have 4000km of them behind you from the top of the mountain and it's such an empowering feeling because as the Wall comes to the end at the ocean you own all of that journey. So for example when I went back to cover the Beijing Olympics many years later and I would see snippets of the Wall of that journey I knew I had been to all those places and that was a part of who I am, it's a part of my mana, or my status or destiny.It was a proud realization and not the reason that I had taken the journey for, but was an extra additional benefit nonetheless.  So what we go through in our lives is what we become as people and that's what you carry to the next challenge you take on, so having that 4000km behind me for example there's not too much that can faze me too much anymore because I know in myself that I have gone out there and completed something that was seemed conceivably impossible in my mind when I first set out to do it.  So for the two full years the entire journey took I realized that if I can apply myself to achieve that I can just put my head down and be humble and take things step by step and I will eventually get there with whatever I choose to do next so it just gives you this inner strength. Lori:  Yes because your life was at risk a number of times out there wasn't it?Nathan:  Yes, the whole point of the journey in that you didn't know when or where you were going to get your next meal and in some cases didn't eat for a couple of days, there's lots of snakes and the heat is 45 degrees centigrade, and right down to -20 degrees and we didn't really have the polar gear to really stay alive in such extreme temperatures so we were basically just walking to stay alive and finding shelter in the middle of the day if we could or places where we could swim and cool off in the summers so we were really relying on our own wits because we had no support crew, because those that have that have a completely different type of experience when at the end of the day someone is out there looking out for you, so we didn't have that , we just went out there with faith really, just a will to walk the Wall and that will alone saw us through and that's paying huge credence to the Chinese people because  they were phenomenally generous in hosting and looking after us, they really did propel us along and keep us going.  I wouldn't have been able to walk 5% of that wall without their support, kindness and generosity.Lori:  They were your support crew. You had to surrender to their support really.Nathan: That's exactly what it was. And that was the most humbling thing about the trip was having these people be so amazing to us.Lori: Especially the fact that they were willing to share everything with you.Nathan: That was the amazing thing as it was this mutual sharing in each other's cultures, especially with the kids who hadn't seen white people face to face before so you'd know that when you walked passed them and witness the sheer shock in their facial expressions that you had just expanded the boundaries of their cerebral awareness in that very second. It was at moments like that where you realized there was this huge responsibility as they were forging their perception of the 'white man' or the 'foreigner' in that very encounter and they were going to hold that for potentially the majority of their lives given it was so remote. So we went out there and learned over time to give across as much love as we could possibly muster and just be so giving and kind so if that was the one representation they were going to have in their lives it was going to be a bloody good one. This was the responsibility that we held having this cultural exchange.  The same would happen when you had walked 30km to come into a village and you are so exhausted and these people are feeding you, and you are so grateful, like I've never been so grateful, and the food had never tasted so good, and the company so savoured, and you would have the whole village coming into this family's home to just sit there and stare at you all night, and you're exhausted but you'd just look straight back at them and we would be exchanging this energy by all this staring, and our two cultures were attracted to each other.  I just don't know how that journey would have worked if our cultures weren't attracted to each other. I know in Australia for example there are a lot of problems between the local Aboriginees and the British colonists and there wasn't that sense of mutual attraction so there were a lot of issues between those races, where Chinese and Europeans have a lot of connection so it opened a lot of doors for us, and that's what pretty much kept me alive in that sense so we were really lucky in that way as well.  So our nights were just sitting and staring at each other in awe and the next morning we would be on our way carrying on to the next village. So it was a real privilege to have that opportunity to experience this right at the time when those areas around the Great Wall had just been opened, and being some of the first people to go through there in a very long time.   Lori:  It took you a lot of years to complete the journey and the book.  How did you manage financially and fit it all in with you career?Nathan:  Yes, good question.  I started walking in 2000 and ended it exactly 2 years later in 2002 which in itself encapsulated 9 months of walking overall.  I would sustain myself during that time as well as the three years that it took me to write my book and another year on top of that to get it published by Penguin - what I was doing is that I would do a three month working contract at a law firm or a legal government agency to save some money.They also have an artist scheme in New Zealand which enables you to basically get the same as being on the unemployment benefit without doing employment finding programs and dedicate all your time to doing your art which I utilised for two of the years that I was writing my book.  I was literally living off $140 a week - just enough for my rent and a little bit of food.It was interesting living in this way however because when I would go into the supermarket it was the same life as being on the Wall in some ways because all the supermarket deals would just come along my path so I could afford everything.  Yet when I really started to make money, those deals were no longer there anymore and things were more expensive - so I started to notice that even in the Western world there is that same flow, that same kind of energy as in China so it was a matter of taking those skills I had learned on the Wall journey and applying it to my current reality. Hence by keeping my intention to complete the book - life was still trying to help me out so long as I was not too greedy and living in harmony with the environment.  So I had more than enough to get me through.  It wasn't a great time such as running round 5 star resorts and having a superstar lifestyle, it was hard knacker but there was just enough to enable me to get to the end as long as I followed through on that intention.  Again if your intention was good, then life would seem to help you out, but if your intention wasn't, then trouble would often occur.Lori:  Indeed that will certainly keep you on track - the struggle teaching you where you need to change yourself - inevitably.Nathan:  During the promotional period of the book all the energy that I had invested in its creation came back as it turned into a best seller and reciprocated to the time spent.  It was more like a delayed series of experiences rather than going to work each week for a set salary so that I would get paid a similar amount later down the track.Lori:  What has life been like for you since you got your book out there - you're still travelling but what is your next big adventure or idea that propels you forward now?Nathan:  I had already been to 50 countries and my goal was to get the book done before traveling again as my new challenge which upon completion my travels transformed from solely exploratory  into more like an extended book promotional tour which saw me go through Australia, China, USA and the UK for the next two years in the build up to the Beijing Olympics and also writing stories for the magazines that I have been working for freelance over the past 12 years on the side.Stories that interested me were looking at the Tsunami Recovery Program in Thailand as I had been in Thailand in 2004 when the Boxing Day Tsunami hit and I missed it by just one day so I had that emotional attachment to that absolute tragedy.   I also wrote about the changes to China from 2000 through till 2010 as infrastructurally, psychologically and culturally it had changed so much over this incredibly historic time in the country. For example, Beijing had built over 7000 sky-rises in the lead in to the Olympics which totally blew my mind with regards how much the country was progressing and then last year I went to the Soccer World Cup and covered that in South Africa and the main reason was because I was an exchange student there in 1993-4 when I was 18 during the build up to their first free democratic elections and I had never been back s so returned exactly half a lifetime later.That trip was a very strong flow as well as three of my friends were in the New Zealand Soccer team going over there so I wanted to support them as well as writing about how much the Apartheid system had changed since I was there during the build up to Nelson Mandela's key election victory.  It was great to see how much positive change there had been in that timeline. So basically I get driven by ideas that involve travel but have a certain political issue, world event or competition attached to that place which deepens my experience.  For example there is the Rugby World Cup here in New Zealand so I am back home getting engaged with what is going on around the country during this historic time for New Zealand.  Its nice and is what kind if dictates my life at present but I know, being 37, that I will get to that stage where I will start to think about having a family and finding a partner - so those dreams are slowly becoming more of a priority and that is where my body is wanting me to be.  So I'm not stressing about that kind of particular direction, I'm still very much following my desires and staying in the moment of each day - but I have got this sense that based on the experiences I have had I know that the right people will come along at the right time so long as I stick to my laurels, goals and dreams and just let everything fall into place.  So I believe that things will come at the right time and if they don't then they are just life lessons as well so it's all good. Lori:  Is it always your passion pushing you forward or is it you just being open to life and the signs that prompt you along - especially looking at your South Africa trip - what is the deciding factor? Is it you, and then things start falling into place or is it that circumstances align in a certain way and then you think that you are interested in that and just go with that.  How does it work for you?Nathan: It's an interesting question.  With the South Africa trip I had wanting to go back for a really long time because I had had such an amazing year there on exchange, such a profound experience watching the rise of Mandela and the build up to those first free democratic elections.That was the first year that I had definitely 'lived history' in my life.  I was almost too scared to go back, and I was still in touch with some of my friends there, some of whom were rugby Springboks and rugby players I had caught up with in the UK and I was planning to go there the year before but it just wasn't the right time. I could sense it, like having a strong spiritual warning not to go there yet, and waiting till the next year for the Soccer World Cup it was so the right time - but that trip was definitely coming from my original intention.  But there are a lot of times when I simply don't know what to do next so those are times that I try to stay grounded and save some money and do the basics in life, so that when the exploration opportunities do arise then I have the means to be able to capitalize on this.  There is a reason and purpose for everything I think so it is more of a balance of my own desires and more external forces the latter of which was certainly the Great wall trek.  So my view is whatever is meant to be will be so just go about it as humbly and with your best possible effort and hopefully I am happy with how it all pans out. Lori:  You've accomplished so much via this receptiveness to your own life really - the openness to just observe and see and respond - essentially giving your life a chance to show you.Nathan:  Exactly. It's a really great way of putting it.  Like with the Wall for example I was really attached to the outcome to the extent that I was blindly driven so that I couldn't be a happy person until I had achieved that goal, and by going through that process I have learned that you don't have to be that blindly attached to something, it's not necessarily that healthy.  You'll get there, in the end, you'll get there.  Just be patient, let things unfold in their own time, don't be so regimented and restrictive with regards time, as its not necessarily the best way to go forward, so I've learned to be a lot more relaxed in the last say 4 or 5 years than I was in my early twenties where we had been brought up in our late teens in such competitive environments.  Indeed there is nothing wrong with that at all, as it can get things done and lead to some really positive results but the journey through China really changed me and made me realize that there are other ways to follow your dreams and learn your lessons. Lori:  On that note, because we all have our different calls and things that we are compelled to do our life shows us what we are meant to do right? With your wisdom and guidance how can other people answer their inner calling in a way that makes sense and has some level of comfort in that - how would you advise people to do that?   Maybe they would love to do something tremendous like you have done but they do not even know what their thing is to do?  How would you guide them in figuring that out?Nathan:  I have a lot of time in my life where I don't know what to do next.  Without a doubt I think that this is part of the human condition.  You're just lost, you have no idea or inspiration, you are like, 'oh man what do I do?' and I have that a lot, without a doubt.   For example when walking the Wall it just gave me this place to be everyday and was quite a nice journey to set my intention to as I didn't have to think much about what I was going to do next for the following couple of years.  Yet if I am really lost I just have to be on my own and go to a quiet place and let me come back into me, so I am not too influenced by too many things out there, and just try and see where I am at, where my body is at, what it is kinda wanting at this particular stage of life just for my own mental and physical well-being, to find that core gravity and if I can find that feeling clearly - then when I go back out into the world I am still responsive to what is around me, but that time has made me stronger in myself and my convictions to what sort of journeys I will go on because what I have learned in my travels, I do recognize flow very quickly, for example I will be working on a show that my twin brother is creating and be totally engaged with what that journey entails, and as soon as I finish that job, the very second that relationship is cut off then the rugby world cup, which is my latest work project will immediately become fore and centre of my life.  So I will start to notice a lot of tourists that are visiting the city and I get to make a decision whether or not I am ready to jump on that flow and get my camera out and start taking photos, whatever it is that I want to do around that particular experience, and then I will cut myself off from that and be with a friend or partner and have that particular time with them, if am needing a romantic experience, and as soon as that terminates then my twin brothers show work will appear again. Hence my career is simply jumping from these different flows whether it be tourism work, connecting with people etc.  Sometimes its enough to do one's head in looking at all these varieties of energy coming into my life and going with them, but I think that the important thing is during that time on your own is to have developed enough inner strength and sense of self that this gives you the ability to make the best choices that arise in these encounters which are ultimately best for you.  There's no right or wrong, it ultimately is what it is, however although this is the way that I operate today this is certainly not the only way to operate and I am certainly no master on these matters.  Life's an ongoing inquiry and there is always a lot of learning going on down the road...Lori:  I think that's really interesting about taking that time, because you have the answer from within, it's just that need to suss it out and keep looking for that quest of what I should do or what other people would want me to do instead of taking that moment to connect in with yourself and determine what is good for me and what message is my body telling me that I need to do.   That's a very important guide - our body!Nathan:  Yes I think that's vital. I can remember when I was 23/24 and working in the law offices and I enjoyed it, as it was a really good experience, but my body was so eager and I was constantly looking outside the window thinking 'oh man I want to be out there'.  So I listened to my body's needs and was so happy as I essentially changed my career to being more of a journalist because it was more conducive to being out there.  Its like my body wanted to be experiencing all these cultures, witnessing environmental degradation, poverty, over population, ultimately seeing life; and now it takes a lot more effort for me to have the passion and ability to do all those things so I will still keep it in my life (that freedom piece) for say three months a year, but it is not the be all or end all that it was throughout my twenties.  The body now doesn't mind doing the job in the office, connecting with my community etc.as a guide it has kept me relatively happy, as even though a lot of my friends have high level legal roles and are stuck there, I have all this variety and just simply have no regrets.  So by following my body I was more aware of my lifespan and how there are times to certain things and time not to do them.The body has an innate wisdom that our minds take a while to come around to but if you do have the fortune and freedom to be able to follow these whims then they seem to end up ultimately good for you and your health, which is definitely the most important thing overall.As long as you are happy and doing what you want your blood flow will be healthy and you are unlikely to be picking up cancers and diseases which often stem from conditions like depression,which often happens if you are living a life you were not designed to be living.  I certainly can feel it when my depressed thoughts are impacting my body.Lori:  So you think your body freaks out when it is going against its inner wisdom? Is that what happens?Nathan:  If I am putting myself under massive stress and doing things that I can put up with for a while, (like the Great wall trip where I put my body through enormous stress from the sheer undertaking and really knocked myself around), and so I learned the hard way through that trip, (fortunately I didn't kill myself or go all the way), and when I took the time I needed to recover from that journey I learned that you simply don't have to be that blindly driven - you are still going to get there - but there is a more balanced way, a more middle way of doing it. And this was my own personal way of learning my own limits and working around them, and so that now when I take these journeys and do travel, instead of having some outlandish idea and taking it all the way I tend to take my time to the half way point, and it is such a more pleasant experience, a nicer way of approaching it in my life.  So I am just going with where my body and mind is at - at that time, and being in tune with that, even if it means retreating into myself to meditate and help make it easier for me to find that place.  Yeah, so that's just my way, but I am sure everyone has their own way of finding out what calls to them most.  If you can follow your passions and what feels right, it's probably a good

毎月第１週は「ドラマで英語を学ぼう」の新作「オーストラリアの冒険（Adventure in Australia）」をお届けしています。広島大学に留学していた、オーストラリア出身のHelen Needsさんが作成したオリジナルドラマです。３人の登場人物（Takako, Carmel, Brian）と一緒にオーストラリアを旅しながら、オーストラリアの英語や文化に触れてみましょう。 第四回目は、Brian、Carmel、Takakoがヒッチハイカーと話をしている場面です。 （聞き取りのポイント） ・Brianによれば、彼らの目的地はどこですか。 ・Nathanは興奮したらどのような癖があると言っていますか。 ・解説を聞き、会話で使われている次の語句の意味を考えてみましょう。(1) It’s good to boost the testosterone levels in here. (2) Should I hold my breath? 毎回、ドラマの中で使われている表現をJoeとKanaがていねいに解説します。 今回お借りした素材 写真：Wikipedia Download MP3 （18:00　10.3MB　中級） "Adventure in Australia" (C) 2011 Helen Needs and FLaRE.Adventure in Australia Written by Helen Needs (#4 Picking up a hitchhiker) Carmel: (whispering) Takako. He’s cute! Brian: Hey, mate. Can we give you a lift? But we’re not going far. Takako: We’re not? Brian: You’re welcome to get in ‘til Washpool. Takako: Oh, so you’ll tell him, but not me? Lucky! It’s Washpool! Nathan: Washpool? Really? That’d be awesome. You must be angels. I don’t usually hitch but I missed the last bus. I thought I’d make it on foot but the sun’s coming down so fast. I didn’t think I’d get there in time to set up my tent. And this damn didge is so heavy, I’ll never know why I agreed to carry it home for a mate. I’m heading back to Sydney after this. I’m a teacher. I’m having some personal days and the agency hasn’t had anything much for me. I took the opportunity while it was waving a big red flag in front of my face and shouting ‘pick me!’. Brian: So…that’s a yes, then? Nathan: Oh yeah, sorry. I talk a lot when I’m excited. Sorry, I won’t annoy you, I hope. Carmel: So, hop in. Hi, I’m Carmel. This is Brian. And this is Takako. Takako: Hi. Carmel: She’s a teacher, too. And she’s on holiday from Sydney. Road rage is her problem. Nathan: It’s bad, isn’t it? Sometimes I wonder what I’m doing there. I was born around these parts. They call me back every now and then. More now than then. I can’t thank you enough for the lift. I was starting to lose hope. And, my god, how good is the river at the moment? Just magic. Wish I had a canoe. Carmel: Is that so? Nathan: Sorry, talking again. Brian: It’s fine mate. It’s good to boost the testosterone levels in here. The girls were about to really start picking on me. I’m their favourite pastime on road trips. Carmel: No, we never. Brian, you really should go and see someone about these paranoid delusions of yours. Brian: See? Hey, you’re quiet, Takako. Takako: Yes, I am. I’m thinking of something particularly cruel to say. Give me a minute. It’ll come to me. Brian: Should I hold my breath? (Written by Helen Needs)

毎月第１週は「ドラマで英語を学ぼう」の新作「オーストラリアの冒険（Adventure in Australia）」をお届けしています。広島大学に留学していた、オーストラリア出身のHelen Needsさんが作成したオリジナルドラマです。３人の登場人物（Takako, Carmel, Brian）と一緒にオーストラリアを旅しながら、オーストラリアの英語や文化に触れてみましょう。 第四回目は、Brian、Carmel、Takakoがヒッチハイカーと話をしている場面です。 （聞き取りのポイント） ・Brianによれば、彼らの目的地はどこですか。 ・Nathanは興奮したらどのような癖があると言っていますか。 ・解説を聞き、会話で使われている次の語句の意味を考えてみましょう。(1) It’s good to boost the testosterone levels in here. (2) Should I hold my breath? 毎回、ドラマの中で使われている表現をJoeとKanaがていねいに解説します。 今回お借りした素材 写真：Wikipedia Download MP3 （18:00　10.3MB　中級） "Adventure in Australia" (C) 2011 Helen Needs and FLaRE.Adventure in Australia Written by Helen Needs (#4 Picking up a hitchhiker) Carmel: (whispering) Takako. He’s cute! Brian: Hey, mate. Can we give you a lift? But we’re not going far. Takako: We’re not? Brian: You’re welcome to get in ‘til Washpool. Takako: Oh, so you’ll tell him, but not me? Lucky! It’s Washpool! Nathan: Washpool? Really? That’d be awesome. You must be angels. I don’t usually hitch but I missed the last bus. I thought I’d make it on foot but the sun’s coming down so fast. I didn’t think I’d get there in time to set up my tent. And this damn didge is so heavy, I’ll never know why I agreed to carry it home for a mate. I’m heading back to Sydney after this. I’m a teacher. I’m having some personal days and the agency hasn’t had anything much for me. I took the opportunity while it was waving a big red flag in front of my face and shouting ‘pick me!’. Brian: So…that’s a yes, then? Nathan: Oh yeah, sorry. I talk a lot when I’m excited. Sorry, I won’t annoy you, I hope. Carmel: So, hop in. Hi, I’m Carmel. This is Brian. And this is Takako. Takako: Hi. Carmel: She’s a teacher, too. And she’s on holiday from Sydney. Road rage is her problem. Nathan: It’s bad, isn’t it? Sometimes I wonder what I’m doing there. I was born around these parts. They call me back every now and then. More now than then. I can’t thank you enough for the lift. I was starting to lose hope. And, my god, how good is the river at the moment? Just magic. Wish I had a canoe. Carmel: Is that so? Nathan: Sorry, talking again. Brian: It’s fine mate. It’s good to boost the testosterone levels in here. The girls were about to really start picking on me. I’m their favourite pastime on road trips. Carmel: No, we never. Brian, you really should go and see someone about these paranoid delusions of yours. Brian: See? Hey, you’re quiet, Takako. Takako: Yes, I am. I’m thinking of something particularly cruel to say. Give me a minute. It’ll come to me. Brian: Should I hold my breath? (Written by Helen Needs)