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You're lacking the mental discipline and it shows 

It's a sad day in America when the Cuban citizens understand FREEDOM more than we do. Don't let the LEFT take away anymore RIGHTs. Follow us on all of our Social Media pages! We can't wait to hear from you! https://www.gettr.com/user/averagejen https://www.facebook.com/realtalkwithaveragejen https://mewe.com/i/jennifersayles Email Average Jen: realtalkwithaveragejen@gmail.com --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jennifer-a-sayles/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jennifer-a-sayles/support

➣ ZOOM DHARMA TALKS: Sign up and participate with the sangha on Against The Stream Zoom Dharma talks HERE.➢ ABOUT Against The Stream is a 501(c)3 non profit American Buddhist lineage founded by Noah Levine, author of Dharma Punx, Against the Stream, Heart of the Revolution and Refuge Recovery.➢DONATE If you feel moved to donate, your donations are welcome.➣ PayPal $5 Donation > $10 Donation > Other > Monthly Recurring➣ Venmo @againstthestreammeditation

Podcast fam! Happy President's Day! Today on the show, Reid Fogler of Woodbury Row joins us to talk to us about how he got to where he is today. Reid has"gotten his masters" in investing, formed many relationships, and even partnered with NS4L along the way! He may even be trying to impersonate someone very familiar on the show. Check it out and let us know what you think! We couldn't make this show possible without our incredible sponsors. We have to give a shoutout to Colliers International Gainesville (www.colliers.com/Gainesville), UF Mover Guys (www.ufmoverguys.com), and a big thank you to Gainesville Harley Davidson for renewing their 2021 sponsorship (www.gainesvilleharley.com)! Our sponsors are the best! - - - - - Subscribe to my channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCW1tLSw2Z5MB6Yebj_2pDJA?sub_confirmation=1 You can purchase custom WHOA GNV gear by visiting us here! - https://www.whoagnv.com/whoa-gnv-shop CHECK OUT OUR LAST EPISODE: E137: The New "Laundr Bomb" | Kyle and Michael of Laundr | WHOA GNV Podcast https://youtu.be/_ZIpGDTphZ0 CONNECT WITH OUR GUEST: Reid Fogler of Woodbury Row http://www.woodburyrow.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WoodburyRow/?ref=ts Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/woodburyrowgnv/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeD6CZ5VDY2nOhQOXXkfdQA CONNECT WITH OUR PODCAST & NOMINATE A GUEST: https://www.whoagnv.com/ Instagram: http://instagram.com/whoagnv Facebook: http://facebook.com/whoagnvpodcast Twitter: http://twitter.com/whoagnv Know someone that would be PERFECT for our show? Nominate them here! https://www.whoagnv.com/nominate-a-guest/ Join us on the journey and listen on... iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/whoa-gnv-podcast/id1381002391?mt=2&i=1000410719480 Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/whoagnv/ Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/whoa-gnv-podcast Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3vZ0Bg4FJmdx3VPKg4ehMf?si=2ET-VhjXRtqIDUTp_Dau7w --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/whoa-gnv-podcast/support

As Christ-followers, how does God want us to respond to someone we disagree with? We may feel that we're doing something wrong if we don't challenge a view that's different than our own, but in reality, the only thing that matters is The Gospel.

Get ready to heat things up before the cold front! This weeks Bruh! looks at a trending movie, whats all the hype about? Plus we look back on a previous guests bet, and our own Super Bowl Prop bets. All that, AND, we are now living in our 5th decade, if we could go back and live in any of them, where would we go? Join us as always as we go back!

Arrogance blinds from seeing any other perspective

Anette Talie was born and raised in Lima Perú, moved to Florida to fulfill her life dream of studying abroad. She transferred and received her Bachelor of Architecture from Florida Atlantic University. In her 18 years in architecture, Anette has acquired a broad range of experience in architectural design, construction and effective project management on a wide variety of project types. Due to the financial crisis and great recession, in 2010 Anette started looking for other options, besides Architecture, to reach financial freedom and realized her goal of being a stay-at-home-mom. This is how in 2011, Anette finds a job managing properties for a foreign investor and in 2012 she acquires her first investment property. Now-a-days, Anette balances her family life, her career as a commercial Architect and the management of 31 units including her personal portfolio of 12 units. She recently started investing out-of-state, where she holds 4 units with a partner and are under contract for 24 more. Her goal is to continue to grow her portfolio and partner with other investors in larger deals. Anette Talie is the host of South Florida Multifamily and More facebook group with over 2,300 active members and holds a Meetup the 3rd Tuesday of the month in Ft. Lauderdale. Additionally, she is the Co-host of the W2 Capitalist Mastermind Group. Her latest project is her recently launched Podcast “Real Estate Deal Closers Show” and Video Series “3 Expert Tips”. CONNECT WITH ANETTE: TalieInvestments.com Real Estate Deal Closers Podcast KEY TAKEAWAYS: Don't Jump on the Buying Bandwagon everybody's doing it FOMO Do Your Homework Before Investing Actively Been Investing since 2013 How to Make it Through A Recession Mentally What happened to the BiggerPockets of 2013?  Episode Affiliate: https://w2capitalist.com/affiliates/ Links mentioned in this episode: w2capitalist.com/shop/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/REIforTheW2/

Hello everyone and welcome to Episode 16 - How to Craft a Rolling Social Media / Digital Marketing Internship Program for your Company.  In this episode you’ll hear this amazing guest, Jennifer Osbon! She is a Full-time professor at University of GA leading the Digital Marketing Area of Emphasis in the Terry College of Business and she teaches Social Media Marketing Strategy and Digital Marketing Analytics to both undergraduates and MBA students. We discuss the needs on both sides – the students and the corporations which sets the table as to why you should consider an internship at all. Where you should start?  She gives a great framework and ideas for the steps and considerations so you don’t make the mistake of “winging it” and she even reveals common pitfalls you can avoid!  You want to develop a reputation where students talk about how great the experience was with your firm as opposed to them saying things like, “they didn’t let me do hardly anything and I was bored to death!” She explains What is and how can you structure a “rolling internship program?” and paid or unpaid – if paid – how much?!! Did you know that universities have Internship resources – career services as well as the specific college or department with people who you can develop relationships with in order to recruit Interns? Listen in and thank you for listening! Carey (00:01): Hello and welcome to Carey Sperry, all social ya'll podcast. I'm your host, Carey Sperry. We discuss how to employ social to become truly customer centric. We identify how social is a fuel for business growth and we talk with some of the best and brightest business leaders, entrepreneurs and digital marketers. Our guests share inspiring stories and effective tactics to discover, interact, and emotionally connect with customers where they are on social platforms. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 16 how to craft a rolling social media digital marketing internship program for your company. Thank you so much for being here. I am delighted to introduce you to an amazing guest, Jennifer Osbon. She is a full time professor at university of Georgia - go Bulldogs! She leads the digital marketing area of emphasis in the Terry College of Business. She is faculty supervisor for the UGA collegiate chapter of American Marketing Association and teaches social media marketing strategy and digital marketing analytics to both undergraduates and MBA students. The courses are based on curriculum that she developed mixing strong digital marketing principles with sociology, economics and analytics. She also sits on the marketing executive board for UGA, ensuring that the curriculum taught in the classroom, provides the students with an employable skill set upon graduation. Jennifer, thank you so much for being here with us today. Jennifer Osbon (01:58): Oh, I'm so excited. Thank you for having me. Carey (02:01): Sure. So we met through LinkedIn how appropriate haha I feel fortunate and lucky to have met you. Really. Um, and when we met we had an immediate rapport, which I loved and maybe because we share both our passion for digital marketing but also teaching, I'm no college professor, but your story and how your career has evolved into playing a super important role for both students and our business world. Can you, can we start off by you briefly sharing that journey with us and kind of how you ended up becoming a full time professor of digital marketing at UGA? Jennifer Osbon (02:40): Yeah. So, well it's a little bit of lightning struck. I was at the right place at the right time. Um, but, but it is kind of an interesting story I guess. Um, I was guest lecturing in a masters of internet technology class and the PR, I basically was doing a, a capabilities presentation Jennifer Osbon (03:00): for my company. I used to own a full service digital marketing agency, and was talking about here's kind of how we see the world and where we think it's going and that kind of thing. And he said to me, you've got a lot of content here. And I said, yeah! I said, but it's really difficult to hire students to come into this world because while they're digital natives, what, they're not...., They're not really good at using these technologies as marketers. They're really good at using these technologies as users. And so that led to a conversation, um, with the marketing department chair at Terry college of business here at UGA. And I went in and I met with Charlotte Mason and sat down with her and said, she said, what's on your mind? Jennifer Osbon (03:55): And I said, well, I can't hire your students. ...Not just me. I mean, industry-wide, these kids, ...they're coming out great users, but not coming out as great marketers. And so, you know, she said, well, what would you teach them? And I kinda said, well, some sociology, some economic principles like momentum and how we develop those things online, the tectonic shift and how we spend our money in marketing these days. And, and all kinds of things- that is not tips and tricks, it's more strategies. And so she said to me, why don't you write what you just said - write it down in this particular format? And I went to a meeting with a teacher and I came away with homework. So that's kind of a what I would have expected. So I did my homework, I turned it in and she called me six weeks later and said, "I got your course approved. " And I didn't realize I had written a course, but what she had put in front of me was curriculum. Jennifer Osbon (04:56): Yeah. And so, you know, as a small business owner, I thought to myself, well, this is perfect. I'm going to have academic credentials that's going to help me with business development. I can hire the best students right off the top. The rest of them can go to work for my competitors. And, and I've done some good in the world and you know, but at the end of the day, I was thinking all about me, me, me, what am I going to get from this? And, um, I wound up, -so my deal was I was going to teach only Tuesday and Thursday mornings and be done by noon. And so I thought, all right, this is good. I'll keep my business and do this part time and it was going to be great. And I got here and I absolutely fell in love with the students. Jennifer Osbon (05:40): I fell in love with the energy that you get from being around young people. And what I learned very quickly from the students is that, you know, they've got this aptitude and if you just shift their lens, so they look at it from a business instead of a consumer perspective, their light bulbs go on. And it is amazing what they can do if it's just framed right and they're just like, Oh....I get this. And they know exactly what they're doing. Well, three year story condensed, down to 30 seconds, I wound up shutting down my business. I wound up coming to teach full time and I literally have done a complete career pivot to where now I am a full time professor and absolutely loving the ability to grow and build the digital marketing area of emphasis and breaking down what that means. The emphasis is basically students who are business students in the Terry College of Business, where they have, declared marketing as their major. Jennifer Osbon (06:45): And then what they do next is they have a choice to go deep in either professional selling or in digital marketing. And I lead that, that emphasis. And within that the school has been very, very accommodating where they say, you know what, my job description is, teach these students what they need to know. S it's not about - you need to use this particular textbook. I don't even use textbooks. Right? This industry moves so quickly. That's not that where we need to be spending our time, effort, and money. Anyway, it's turned into an absolute amazing situation. And now we're graduating students who have digital area of emphasis on their diploma from the college and they're moving straight into the workforce. Carey (07:35): Wow. What a gift to both the university, the students and the business world. I mean, you're like, what if there weren't that sequence of events? ...if it wasn't for you, I wonder how long it would have taken? Which I'm sure they would've figured it out, but it's just awesome. With that, and that you love what you do and you love being around the young student body. Jennifer Osbon (07:54): Absolutely. What was interesting about the way that it came about is that they look at curriculum every few years and they realize what's missing and then they try to go fill in those gaps. And I happen to have been the right place at the right time that made that work. Carey (08:10): Yes. Awesome. So we're going to get into a way to craft a rolling internship program for our listeners. But I just wanted to kind of mention, you know, hearing that you guide your students who are preparing for the workplace to apply their social media learnings and other digital marketing strategies and tactics to what are mostly strategies, like you said, to what's needed in the current business landscape. And this requires you and university to, like you said, continually assess the needs of corporate America. Right? So let's start with the backdrop of the needs on both sides, the needs of the students and then the corporations, which will kind of set the table as to why, - why, you know, businesses should consider an internship program at all. Jennifer Osbon (08:56): Okay, sure, sure, sure. So, well, there's lots and lots of different flavors of internships. There's part time and full time there's paid or unpaid and, and in general, what I feel like that we should talk about today is really paid full time internships where students have set duties or planned rotation where they can get a real comprehensive look at a role or a function within a company. When you think about it, students want to do internships to gain experience in their desired field. It's hard to get a job without experience. And honestly, the easiest way to know if you like a job is to actually do it. So internships really offer students that hands on opportunity where they can connect what they're learning in the classroom to the real world. And in theory, that internship experience makes them stronger candidates for jobs after graduation, right from the company being active. Jennifer Osbon (09:56): Obviously, if you hire for entry level roles, internships give you that option to try it before you buy it. College students can intern in the summer between their junior and senior years and then join full time after they graduate. And, and that usually works for large companies who have like an ongoing new associate program. But for small middle-sized businesses, you know, the predictability of, of head count increases is maybe a little bit more fluid. I mean, you don't know what your life's gonna look like six months a year down the road. But that doesn't mean to consider interns. You know, you don't have to have the carrot of a potential job in order to get students interested in interning for you. Students are building their network and they're interested in gaining experience in the industry. They're looking to line their pockets with a little bit of cash. So you can actually help students. What you become is a really good reference for when they are finding their full time job. Right? So, so internships don't have to always lead to that full time job. If the internship is crafted properly, students can add real value to your business and they can save you a little bit of money over what you would have to pay a full time person to do the same work. Right? Jennifer Osbon (11:28): People often ask, do I have to pay interns? And you know, like with most things in life, you get what you pay for. If you pay interns, it makes them feel appreciated. It makes them work harder. It also allows you to grow greater diversity when it comes to your hiring. Because if you're not paying interns, you're only gonna hire the rich kids whose parents can financially support them while they're not earning money. Right. So people ask sometimes, you know, what should you pay a digital marketing intern? Their wages can be between, you know, 12 and $20 an hour, which is way less than that 50 grand you would be paying a full time person, right? That 12 to 20 an hour would be something like 24 to $40,000 a year - just cash outlay as opposed to a $50,000 for a full time person. Carey (12:26): Well I just having a daughter in the college world right now, she's a senior at Georgia state between her friends and just random interactions that I have with college students. Like I had one in an Uber, um, not too long ago who says to me, we have to have an internship and it seems like there's a shortage. I don't know if that's accurate. That's just from there, kind of like, not desperation, but I see all the time how eager they are to find an internship and how they're saying that you have to have one to get a good job. Is there, is there a shortage? Do you know? Jennifer Osbon (13:08): Well, it's not that there's necessarily a shortage. Students know that they really do need to have an internship. Think about graduating from college and all you've got on your resume is I have this fancy shiny college degree and I scooped ice cream at the local ice cream shop and I was a lifeguard. You know, they really need something that says I got this degree and I actually know what I'm getting into. So that internship is the thing that really drives credibility for students. And so, you know, some of them will actually tell you they would rather have an internship than a study abroad. And the option to travel the world and learn how to do that is not a very attractive thing to too many college students. And they're saying, no, no, no. What's more important to me is I'd rather have a good solid internship because that gives me something to talk about in interviews. That's how I said that how they plan to launch their professional career is really, really your job. If you have absolutely no experience at all in, in whatever your field is,- it is and can be daunting and scary. Carey (14:21): Um, so wow, that's super helpful. That really kinda sets, like I said, sets the table and as to why and on both sides. So now as a business owner might say or an or a management high up management, I think this sounds like a great idea. I might want to hire an intern. So a lot of business owners and leaders might just be tempted to like slap a job ad out there without a plan. A great plan always, of course, sets up the chances for the best success. We all know, but it's not always done in practice. So like where should we start? Maybe can you kind of break out some of the steps and considerations? Jennifer Osbon (14:59): Yeah, yeah! The first thing I feel like you really need to do is set your goal and come up with what you want that intern to do and it needs to be an actual, you know, they don't just show up knowing what to do or how to add value in your business. They need well-defined responsibilities, they need deliverables. You need to set expectations just like you would for a full time employee, right? Honestly, the less time you plan, the less time you spend planning your internship roles and responsibilities, the more you can expect that they're going to get on your nerves or be a burden. These are people that are going to show up to your office every single day and they can only bring you coffee once or twice. So they need to have something to do and, and if you don't plan it out and you don't really design that experience, then you just feel like, oh, this person's always here. Just remember that's your fault. It's not theirs. Right? You're bringing them in for a reason. The first one really, really lay out what you want that person to accomplish. Oftentimes the way that you can do that is you can say, okay, here's a specific role. Maybe if it's a social media coordinator role, then they will have responsibility for creating certain posts or managing your editorial calendar or they have goals for what kind of engagement you're trying to accomplish, to see that driven up over some period of time. You can kind of set your goals based on what you're trying to accomplish, but if you lay it out, it's really clear for both you and them as to what success looks like. Right? Another thing that's really to do with interns is to let them rotate through your business. So you know, if your social component is part of a larger marketing effort and you've got some event marketing or you've got some traditional marketing or should the have different kinds of things going on, let them rotate through and see how what they do fits into the overall wheel of what you're doing doing. Then it's always a good idea to say, Hey, come with me to this meeting. And literally just put them in there and say, don't say anything, but sit here, just listen and see what's going on. It's always a good idea to do things like that with them. Sometimes an internship program, we'll have a capstone project where they tell the student, okay, here's what you'll be doing on the day to day, but also longterm you're going to be working on an over, you know, I want you to present at the end of the semester or however long the internship program is. I want you to present this. And they'll give you, you know, the students a case study or they'll say, make a case study out of what you're doing and give us feedback at the end. So the student has a longer term thing as opposed to just daily tasks and those, yeah, those all make really, really good internships. Another thing that I always advise is to get to, so it's a sediment intern program coordinator or make sure every intern that you have has an assigned buddy. Um, because again, they're not going to speak up like a full time employee would, if there's a problem, sometimes they're a little shy about bringing problems forward. So, or they're confused and they might not feel like maybe asking a question. They need it. They need that person that they can go to that they feel comfortable with asking whatever they need to ask or getting whatever answer or maybe they're getting push back in some area of the organization and they don't feel like they can, you know, take that on head on. They need to have that person that they can go to. So really having that program coordinator or a buddy or whoever is super important. And then, just making, making their development one of your priorities right? Making their development as a, you know, they're going from student to professional. Anything you can do to help life coach them in to where they need to eventually wind up is, is always is always good. Carey (19:07): Oh, those are fantastic tips and giving people bullets and things so that as they're writing out their plan, they can build those components in there. Jennifer Osbon (19:17): We also have pitfalls to avoid. One thing to remember with interns is they really are young. So if it's part of your company culture to go out and grab a drink after work, just realize they may not be 21. And what you don't want to do, put them in a position where they could feel pressured to drink. I mean, it just, it gets awkward for everybody. So if that's part of your culture, make sure that you let the student understand, we want you to come, we'd love you to be a part of this, but don't feel pressured to partake if that's not your thing. Because again, they're still very impressionable young people. Carey (20:01): Yeah, great point. I wouldn't have even gone there, but my husband and I were going by this road that leads to the Greenway here. It's for him to run on. And we noticed this brewery tucked away in a in a business community and we're like, we didn't even know that was there. And there are people inside. Um, I don't know if they serve anything besides beer, but maybe don't go there haha Jennifer Osbon (20:26): Exactly. The fact that they're young and, and speaking up for things like this can be awkward because they want to please so badly. That's their thing is that they want this to be a great experience for you and they're trying as hard as they can. So you just want to respect and maybe not put them in difficult situations. Carey (20:46): Yes. Very respectful. So looking ahead as we plan, should companies think and expect to hire one intern and then sort of see how it works out? Or what are some like alternative plans to what you referenced as like that rolling internship program? Jennifer Osbon (21:06): So, so one thing that you can do, I think you definitely need to start with with one cycle and see how it goes and see how it fits within your company. But, but let's say that you've done that and you you've had a good experience and you're like, you know what? I really could see having interns as a part of how we grow and how we deliver the work that we do for our business. A rolling internship simply means that you're continuously rotating interns each semester. So it's not just a summer long program, but every single semester. So there are students that would say, I'm going to take fall off - just work and do an internship. So that's their thing is they would not go to class, they would go to work for you, in the fall, or some would choose to do it in the spring, when spring term starts, you know, January, right after the New Year. Then some would do it in Summer. If you do a rolling one each semester you're planning to bring in new interns and say goodbye to the old. Ideally you would want to have some sort of a two week overlap so that you're not spending all of your time training and retraining people. But yet part of that is that you can actually assign permanent duties to these interns. And it's a way of having interns fill a role as opposed to hiring a full time person. Yeah. I mean it's been proven that that turnover is expensive. Jennifer Osbon (22:38): And in this situation, you're literally planning turnover, right? You're planning to have three people per year, but it may be worth it if you're doing your part to help students launch their career and you've got a really good business function that they're actually able to deliver for you. Then it could be very much a win win situation if that's how you wanted to approach it. You just tell students, you're like, okay, here is going to be a fall internship, but I need you to be around the first two weeks to make sure that we've trained in the new person or be available for questions and have kind of a little bit of an overlap or to spring internship. But I need you to start before this semester so that we can, you know make sure those overlaps happen. But that means that you're always in a cycle of reviewing resumes, interviewing and bringing in new people. But at the same time, every once in a while you find a real, a real diamond in there that you want to hire full time. Carey (23:42): Yeah. Wow. That's inspiring and you'd get real pretty good at it, you know, and comfortable with that process and meeting a lot of different people and maybe one intern would recommend another. So, then that also allows for the transparency in the expectations with the timeline. I think that's really helpful to everyone and that'll be fine. Moving on. So what, what are some ways that you see companies recruiting interns? How are they finding people or how should business leaders think about where to go to find Intern candidates? Speaker 2 (24:13): Well, finding them is actually not that hard. Finding students is not that hard. You look to your local university, right? Whichever university of choice that you would like to, to, to recruit from. Every single one of them will have a career services department. You also can reach not just university-wide but to the college. So you could go to the journalism school or the business school. You go directly to the college, or Terry college of business. Even directly to the department, the marketing department or a professor who teaches a class that's designed to build the exact skills you're looking for in your internship, whether that be sales or digital marketing or, or anything else, finding the students isn't that hard. You just look to the school from which you want to recruit, design a really, really good internship experience for the students and then build a relationship with the school and you'll have an endless supply of interns to help you grow your business. And it becomes repetitive and it just becomes- it actually becomes an enjoyable experience for sure. Carey (25:21): Yeah, very rewarding. I didn't even know that. Is there, is there like boards, digital boards that they're posted on or anything like that? Or is it more just kind of like them knowing the opportunity of the contact at the university and then them knowing the students and kind of putting them together? Like matchmakers? Jennifer Osbon (25:38): Every university will have a career services department at the university with a website specifically where you can post internships within that year. You are able to go in and upload a job description and you say, is it paid or unpaid? Spell out what kind of skills are you looking for? All of that kind of thing. And students search those pretty regularly. Also, you know, specifically in our department, I get hit up all the time, right? So I spend a lot of time with the business community trying to make sure that what I'm teaching in the classroom translates to the skills they need in the workforce. And so they'll call me directly. And they'll say, Hey, I'm looking for this and for that. And we have, we literally will send an email every single week. We also have opportunities at the college level for employer of the day. And so you're welcome to come up and stand and kind of our student area for the business school. And you can kind of, literally do speed interviews, collect resumes and that kind of thing. So, really building a relationship with the college who can then funnel the students to you is the one thing. Um, and then just be aware of this: students definitely talk about their internship experience and you wind up building a reputation as a good or bad intern opportunity. The spiral happens and the best students are competing for them and the bad ones are spiraling down and no one wants to work for those companies. Carey (27:23): Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're texting each other too! Jennifer Osbon (27:33): I guess the worst thing is when a student says, I was there for three months and they never let me do anything. So definitely right now, form an internship experience, you know, if you design a holistic and valuable experience, I promise that'll pay off for both you and for the intern. Carey (28:16): Yes. Well that's a great note to end on. I learned so much. I hope you all did too. Jennifer - Pofessor Osbon, thank you so much for being with us. This is just amazing. Jennifer Osbon (28:16): Thank you so much for having me. Carey (28:16): Okay. Have a great day, everybody! Thanks for listening to the all social ya'll podcast. For free resources and materials, head over to all social, y'all dot com that's all social Y a L L.com. Also, we'd love to hear from you, what subject areas would you like to hear about in future episodes? You can share that with us by dropping me a comment on our website or in Instagram at all. Social, y'all.  

The tables are turned this week as Stacey gets on the other side of the microphone. Kerri Sparling, writer of the long-running and popular blog SixUntilMe and now Children with Diabetes board member, interviews Stacey about her experience raising a child with type 1, what led her to claim "The World's Worst" title and much more. This is part of Children With Diabetes Celebrating Storyteller series. "There are some amazing storytellers in the diabetes community, and many of those folks have spent years honing their craft through blogs, books, and videos. Their stories of life with diabetes bring our community closer. Sharing stories helps make the journey with diabetes less isolated and instead paved with hope and camaraderie. (text from the CWD website) Stacey was excited to be selected to be part of this storyteller series, and even happier to be interviewed by Kerri. You can watch the video here, read the transcript below or, of course, listen to the audio on this episode. Check out Stacey's new book: The World's Worst Diabetes Mom! you can win a copy from CWD - must enter by March 20th. ----- Join the Diabetes Connections Facebook Group! ----- Sign up for our newsletter here ----- Use this link to get one free download and one free month of Audible, available to Diabetes Connections listeners! ----- Get the App and listen to Diabetes Connections wherever you go! Click here for iPhone      Click here for Android   Episode Transcript: This episode of diabetes Connections is brought to you by the world's worst diabetes mom real life stories of parenting a child with Type One Diabetes available as a paperback ebook and audiobook at Amazon and at diabetes connections.com. This is diabetes connections with Stacey Simms. Welcome to another week of the show. I am so glad to have you along. As always, I'm your host Stacey Sims. This is a little bit of a different week around here because we released our regular Tuesday interview episode early. If you haven't listened to that yet, it was all about the corona virus and basic information that people with diabetes need to know. Thanks very much to Gary Scheiner CDE and the director, founder of integrated diabetes services. He is always a very calm and informative presidents. He also has a great sense of humor, but I wanted to get that show out. pretty quickly, because you know, of course, as the situation is changing, podcasting is tough to get breaking news out. But we wanted to make sure to get basic information from a good source out to the diabetes community, because I've been seeing and I'm sure it's only gotten worse, a lot of rumors and the beginnings of some panic. So I hope you listened to Gary or read the interview as well, because I put it out as a blog post with just that interview, as well as a transcript with the entire episode. And I hope you've been able to share that a lot of people picked up on it and I really hope it's helped give you some good information. We'll do more as the situation changes if we need to get more information out there. And then this week is a little different because I usually do a mini episode here, where I'm just talking about one topic kind of an editorial, but I'm going to be bringing you an interview that Carrie Sperling did with me now carry most of you know, wrote the long running blog six until me she retired that last year. She's doing a lot of great work with children with diabetes. This is the group that among many other things, puts on those great friends for life conferences, the big one in July every year, smaller regional conferences throughout the year. And they do a lot of really good work in terms of information, and community outreach. So Carrie is doing some of these interviews and I was so excited to be able to talk to her. You may have seen it, they put it out as a YouTube video and I will link that right up. You want to stop right here and go to the video instead of listening. It's the exact same interview except to get to see us and it made me realize I need to work on the lighting in my office. But the information I hope is good. We talked about what led me to write the world's worst diabetes mom a lot about you know, parenting Benny, my son diagnosed right before he turned to 13 plus years ago now, privacy issues Carrie has shared this in her own life. You know, how much do you share online? How much do you not? How do you decide that? And it was really a fun conversation. It's always a A little weird to be on the other side of the microphone.   Unknown Speaker  3:02 It's not   Stacey Simms  3:02 my comfort zone. But here we go. Anyway, here is the interview that Carrie Sparling did with me.   Kerri Sparling  3:09 I am here today to talk to Stacey Simms   Stacey Simms  3:12 about this, oh my goodness,   Kerri Sparling  3:14 I had to climb on my bookshelf to get it down because I accidentally put it on the shelf that I couldn't reach without a stool. So thank you for giving me morning exercise for that. I appreciate it. But um, I Okay, let me make this more formal. I am very appreciative that you've taken the time to talk to me, and then we're going to broadcast this to the children with diabetes community and then share it through our different channels. So thank you for making yourself available. I know this has been chaotic, getting them on the line.   Stacey Simms  3:38 This is what I get out of TV, when really we just need to stick to radio, but I really appreciate it Carrie. Thank you.   Kerri Sparling  3:43 My pleasure. And so I want to jump right in because I've already kept so much of your morning already. So just if you could for a minute just introduce yourself to the community that may not know you already so they can get a sense of who you are, and then we'll get into the book.   Stacey Simms  3:54 Oh, sure. So my name is Stacy. My son Ben. He was diagnosed more than 13 years ago, which is bananas, time just flies, but he was not yet two years old. He was diagnosed with type one when he was 23 months. I have an older daughter Her name is Leah. She is three years older than him over there four years apart in school and I say that cuz she's a freshman in college now and he's a freshman in high school. I started a blog about a month after Ben he was diagnosed at the time I was working as a morning radio show host I had been a TV anchor and reporter that's the I hate pictures. Because it's all the makeup and the hair and the you know, I'm looking at myself like my headphones are so big on this is not good. I distract myself. Um, but then I started the blog and then four years ago, I started a podcast and then last year I wrote the   Kerri Sparling  4:39 book. That's that is awesome. And so so you've been sharing a lot of your family's experience and your personal experience with centered around diabetes, but going right into Stacey Simms, the world's worst diabetes mom. So this title obviously feels a little tongue in cheek because you are clearly very involved, clearly clever and also on top of things that are going on in your kids. In your family's health, so why did you call it this?   Stacey Simms  5:03 The book title came about because I had actually been working on a parenting advice book about raising a child with type one for a couple of years. And it was really boring. And it was really like had been done before. There are so many great books, especially, you know, from a layperson perspective, there are so many great books by medical professionals that can really tell you how to better manage, and I didn't want to just say, here's our story, and here's what I think. And I was writing that book, but I wasn't, I wasn't jazzed by it. It was kind of just writing, you know, old blogs and my publisher and said, Oh, put your old blogs together. We'll just put those out. You know, that just didn't sound right. To me. No friends really resonates like old blogs like it. So I was in a Facebook group, having a discussion like I still do, I foolishly still go into Facebook groups because I want to help people and I get help to still and we had a disagreement and it got heated. I really I felt strongly that this was an okay way to manage and the person was so mean and said, you're gonna you're gonna kill your child you're you're terrible parent, you know really went there. And I just said, Well, I must be the world's worst diabetes Mom, you and I slammed the computer shut and I walked away and I was like, Oh my gosh, this is it not not even think about the book but this is who I am I want to talk about making mistakes. I want to talk about living with less fear. I want to talk about not always being a slave to your beats. Are you okay? Do you need a juice box?   Unknown Speaker  6:33 Sorry, and beeping, then one of those days, but everything is fine. Thank you for asking.   Stacey Simms  6:36 But I just wanted to, I realized in that moment that I did have something to say. And it wasn't just about the old blogs. And I went back I screenshot of the conversation because I thought well, maybe this guy is bananas. It's gonna come after me. But I also deleted it. Because we didn't need my anger out there either. It wasn't just Hey, I was ugly too. So I got past that and I thought let's talk about all the mistakes I've made because we Made a ton of mistakes. And it's not a question about being a bad parent or a good parent, sure, you're gonna make mistakes with your kids, whether they have diabetes or not. And let's use those examples of mistakes to talk about resiliency and confidence and, and I think my son is better off for all the mistakes I made.   Kerri Sparling  7:16 I hope that applies to parenting outside of the realm of diabetes, because I'm not a perfect mom myself. And so it's reassuring to hear that stumbling leads to success, even if it's a modified version of the success you thought you were going towards. So I really appreciate that. And I also like the fact that it's not like here's how to be perfect by Stacey Simms, because that really puts people on their heels like you can't take advice from someone that you have on a pedestal it's always a lot easier to have a peer to peer conversation and that's why I feel like your book reads through it very a resonated for me and I'm an adult the diabetes not raising a child with diabetes but reading your perspectives gave me a lot of insight on maybe conversations that my mom and I never had or my email just think the cross Can you see that when it comes across You know, you're supporting the note cuz he's just some weird emails. But I just have a couple notes. I just wanted to look through this. But when I was reading through the book, there's the story of the first night that you guys are home with, with Benny. And, and it hit me really hard because I was thinking about my own two kids. And like I said, they don't have diabetes, but I was putting myself in your position. And it's so easy to be the person with diabetes from my perspective, but it is very, very different to be the person who carries just as much, but it's like 10,000 feet away for so much of the experience. And so do you think that it's important to have those stories shared like stories like yours and stories from adults with type one, so that we can kind of create a, an amalgam story sort of thing, like, why is that important?   Stacey Simms  8:37 I think it's a great question, because it's it's so important to recognize that the two experiences run in tandem, but they are so separate, as well. Right? We're never really going to separate them. We can't pretend they're the same. So a person with diabetes is having one experience a parent of a child with diabetes is having a totally different experience, obviously tied to By diabetes, and I, you've already said, Oh, I think it's you know, it's worse to be the parent, you've implied that by something you said, which is fine. I mean, I almost every adult with type one I know, says all my mom, it was so much harder on her.   Kerri Sparling  9:10 We're not saying it to make you feel better. We're saying, we believe that fun. Yeah,   Stacey Simms  9:14 I understand. But I disagree, because I'm not beeping, and I can walk away from it. But at the same time, it's not a question of comparing, right. And I didn't mean to put you on the spot. I'm not saying that you're doing that. But I think it's really important that we see these experiences as equally important, but very different, but then tied together. So telling all of these stories. I'm hopeful that Benny, when he gets a little older, we'll look back and read it. And he knows what he knows the stories we actually shared that ahead of time. We talked about what I could put in the book, but I'm hoping that he'll see it and kind of think, Oh, well, that was not my experience, but I'm glad to know it.   Kerri Sparling  9:50 Well, of course and you were saying it's not it's it's not about comparing them. I think it's about making a cohesive story around them like my low felt like this, but it looked and felt to my mother like this and meshing those two stories together together gives us a broader experience touch point. And I think that's so important, especially for like a teenage kid who might pick up your book and read it. And when they're in that angsty, angry part of diabetes, and they might be so furious with their parents to get your perspective on that might help segue a good conversation with their own parents. That's why I don't think this book is just for parents of kids with diabetes at cross collateralize is the whole community you know? I don't know. I think that's accurate. I'm gonna toot your horn for you that way.   Stacey Simms  10:28 One thing I think it's really interesting to talk about is you mentioned like the not perfect parenting thing. And I think it's we're under pressure, regardless of diabetes is parents right? You can't win you really can't. But I also think it's funny when you look at a lot of parenting blogs and parenting writings. It's either I'm a perfect parent and you should aspire to look like this. It's perfect Instagram photos or whatever, you know, look like us do like us eat like us. Or you have the oh I don't know what I'm doing.   Unknown Speaker  10:54 I'm so crazy on motherhood is that you know, I'm a man I look at my and I really that doesn't speak to Neither,   Kerri Sparling  11:00 right we are middle lane.   Stacey Simms  11:02 We are smart, we are strong. We are sometimes a mess. We are sometimes perfect. And I really I'm not. I know that sound like I was making fun. You know what I mean? If these archetypes, especially women we get put into, right. I'm a hard driving success story or I'm so clumsy. I fell into my man, you know, I mean, I hate that. So I tried to really in this book, kind of encapsulate, you know who I am, but who I think a lot of other moms are too, right. competent, confident,   Kerri Sparling  11:29 but not having it all together. Now might be an important part to bring up the fact that I'm wearing normal clothes from the waist up, but sweat tears from the waist down. So like I think that sort of is the it's the template for that. They need you there we go. Wait, you you would actually skipped ahead to something I wanted to ask you about. Sorry. Should No no, that's fine. This is good, though. When you're using the questions, I know and I don't normally write my stuff down. But I'm organized today. Um, but yeah, we talked about when you first started sharing your stories, and Benny was home that first night That sort of stuff. And you used to write about Benny's personal experiences and yours. And as he's gotten older, and his experiences become more his, you've said that you've stepped away a little bit from telling his stories and have embraced. I can't describe it for you. But like, what, what's it like to decide to share x in the beginning, and what makes you transition to the y?   Stacey Simms  12:19 I think it's such an important conversation. It was interesting in the beginning, and I do wish that I'd given my kids just a little bit more privacy by changing their names, or giving them nicknames. The problem for me was I was already on the radio. And we had a show where it was mostly political news. But we did talk about our personal lives a little bit. So my listeners knew when I started at that station, I had a one year old daughter. And then when I was working at that station, I was pregnant and then I had a baby and here's Benny in the hospital, you know, it was a different experience than just blogging. So it didn't really occur to me at the time and social media. Certainly what it is now isn't wasn't then what it is now. It was a different experience. But when you have a toddler, you have a baby, I mean, even going back, I was Careful at the time not to overshare I but as he got older you realize, you know people are reading this people are looking at this. There were there were only some experiences that I felt comfortable sharing and it wasn't just the good stuff, right? We shared things that things went wrong. I thought that was important. But I'm I'm on the record. I sound like a broken record. You know, I don't share my Sunday one. See, I don't have that. I don't like you know, do not share photos of your child in distress. You know, no hospital pictures. I wish I had pictures of him in the hospital and he was diagnosed for me. Sure. But you know, we didn't have our phones with us. 24 seven at that point, especially didn't have cameras on them, which sounds so ancient.   Kerri Sparling  13:43 I mean, this is what it is right? Like when I was diagnosed with diabetes, I had to pee in a bucket to test it. So like things had to not a bucket. I mean, let's be realistic about this. But you know, things have progressed and with it the the conversation about what to share and not to share and so, I mean, you talked already about not sharing his anyone see? And I think personally, I am on the same page with you about that no one needs my personal data points because their mind in their personal, but that there's a broad spectrum of decision making processes around that sort of stuff. So what made you decide not to do that?   Stacey Simms  14:14 Well, I think I'll just put a caveat in there, I think, to not mindlessly share, right? Sometimes it makes sense if you're trying to talk through something or get advice or share a situation or, or say, hey, look at this difficult situation we worked through and now we're celebrating I mean, just mindlessly is the word I tried to use about it. But what changed was when he was about seven, I think I read something by Moore McCarthy, who is a mentor of mine, and she's longtime blogger, author, I mean, yeah, faculty, you know, I probably saw her speak there and got this information, but she really encouraged me and others to think about it. And once I stopped to think about it, I realized there's no reason for my seven year olds health information to be on the internet. I'm not posting my weight and my cholesterol. And you know, my blood pressure. It's the same thing. We don't see it that way, right? But it really is. And that once I thought about it, it changed everything for me and I started sharing more, you know, great endo visit no changes, everything's on track or great endo visit. We had a whole conversation about changes we have to make sure sometimes like bad, you know, bad can be good when you get the information. Yeah, I love the finger quotes.   Kerri Sparling  15:27 But I feel like that's an important part of it too, because it's not truly bad or truly good. There's a right   Stacey Simms  15:32 dial up stations get better when you get away from the numbers. I agree. You know, you can you can have more in depth about how you're feeling and what advice you're looking for. And that sort of thing. So I've shared with friends when I've said old I'm upset about this, or can you help me with that? That's different.   Kerri Sparling  15:46 Yeah, no, of course because that's your actual personal life but broadcasting it to the broader internet as a different person retired. As a kid who grew up with Type One Diabetes, that's my perspective. And yours is parenting a kid who's growing up with Type One Diabetes. How How do you feel about I mean, you see a lot of memes from parents about parenting in general where they have like the curlers, half in their hair, and the bathrobe and the coffee cup dangling off of one arm, and they're like, parenting is so exhausting. And that feels universally haha. But when I see that same sort of meme applied to diabetes, like, this is what a parent of a kid with diabetes looks like. And they just look bedraggled and rotten and exhausted and as an adult with type one that applies a guilt to my experience that I didn't see coming. And so I'm just curious what you think about things that paint diabetes in a light that maybe they don't realize is shining directly on their kid. When parents tell those sorts of stories? Yeah, it is a great question because the reality is, maybe you didn't sleep that great last night, right? Maybe you were up three times treating a low. But are you talking about me because that was my nightlight?   Stacey Simms  16:49 Well, I do have Do you have a baby can still because there was a signal in my house. No, I   Unknown Speaker  16:52 do.   Stacey Simms  16:55 It No, I'm talking about the parent, right. So if a parent has to do that, and then wants to go on from But the next day and start talking about how hard it was. I can understand that. But I do think and my favorite meme about this and I don't think it started as a diabetes parenting meme. I think it's just a parenting meme. But it's like, you know, an 87 year old woman, and that it says like, well, parenting is hard. You know, my I'm celebrating my 23rd birthday tomorrow. Money. But I do think that you've hit it on the head, that's going to be my would share about diabetes. I think it's difficult to know where to draw that line. And we don't, we don't think because what we're doing not to get all psychological. But in doing some research for a recent podcast I was doing I found a great article about this and I can send you the link but when we're sharing things like that we're looking for likes, right because our brain As humans, we need support. We're looking for community. We actually like to get the good Brain Stuff going the dopamine or whatever, when you get the right weights real and physical and social hosting, something like that, you know, is going to bring in more of that. And it's not made up. It's not fake. Oh, yeah.   Kerri Sparling  18:09 Feeling it all   Stacey Simms  18:10 really happens. But there are better ways of doing it. I think and as you were alluding to, if we, as parents of kids with type one, don't listen to adults with type one, we miss out on this kind of conversation, because no seven or eight year old is going to say, you know, it kind of hurt my feelings or I, I really processed some guilt when you posted that, right? They're not gonna say that they may not even realize it, but we need to be mindful of that kind of stuff. And I think it's fine to have fun and you know, maybe share that privately. But um, you know, I I'm really try hard not to make diabetes, the focus of everything and not show that guilt because that's just parenting anyway.   Unknown Speaker  18:48 Right? It's just an added thing.   Stacey Simms  18:50 It is just an added thing. It's like not to get too far off topic, but when people are freaking out about sending their kids to sleep overs, sure, right, because something might happen when I was in second grade Jennifer Look, it's like At my house, we had a babysitter. We didn't eat that my parents and she put her leg on my bed. It was the 70s. It was like some metal crazy trundle bed. She cut her leg bad enough that we had to go to the ER and get stitches.   Unknown Speaker  19:10 Oh, wow. How do you prepare for that? I don't think you do.   Stacey Simms  19:15 Things happen on sleep overs. emergencies happen. Parents who say I'm gonna have sleep over have to be prepared for weirdness. And to me diabetes falls under that category. But that's a decision you have to make. And I think it's the same thing with that kind of a mean, you kind of have to make the decision of, there's a difference between, everything's fine, everything's fine. Everything's fine, which I've been guilty of for a long time. It's fine. It's fine. I'm not gonna worry about it. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I don't need any help. I'm fine. And there's a difference between that and what was me everything's terrible. Like, like sucks and you know, oh, my God, diabetes is the worst. You gotta you gotta find that medium and you've got to, at least to your children, I think it's important to fake it, but be careful about stuff like I might.   Kerri Sparling  19:57 I like what you said earlier because I read a lot about my fulness and being mindful and making sure that you're mindful, but the fact that you've cited mindlessness as a potential alternative to that, like, don't be mindless, don't share mindlessly consider the you know, the course of your actions that you're taking and how it might influence your kid. That is a huge takeaway already. For me from this conversation. It doesn't apply just to parenting diabetes, I think it applies to the whole mess being Don't be mindless about the things that you're sharing. I think that's a really, really good tip.   Stacey Simms  20:26 It's funny because I stink at being mind. Right? You're like, Oh, no, take your time when you eat and drink your tea and fever and, you know, take them home. I really don't think I can do that. But I can take an extra 10 seconds and think do I want to post this photo?   Kerri Sparling  20:39 Of course, not. In a mindfulness exercise once I was asked to spend one minute eating one m&m, and it was really strange experience and I'm sure it was really effective, but for me, it made me feel very stressed out. We can get into that later, but because we've talked a lot about parenting, and I'm sorry to be going back to my notes here. You You talked about it experience where you and your family are you at least and Benny and Leah met Nick Jonas, and how this was truly more of a thing for Leah, your daughter than it was for your son who is the one who has diabetes. And there's something that you wrote that really stuck with me because I feel like parenting a kid with diabetes, that parent is acknowledged a lot, which is fantastic. The child with diabetes is acknowledged quite a bit because they become the focal point of that narrative. But the siblings of kids with diabetes end up on this weird purgatory peripheral area, and they're not often acknowledged. And you wrote that at the end of meeting with Nick Jonas, that you had said the diabetes was in our lives. But she Leah knew we wouldn't let it take over she knew she wasn't going to be left behind and reading that now gives me goosebumps for reading it then also did too because it acknowledges a group of people that need just as much support as I do as a kid, as you do as a parent. And when I think about children with diabetes in the organization, the programming really speaks to that as well. It's not just for parents, it's not just for adults with type one is for the siblings. It really embraces the whole family. So because your wrote that awesome line. Could you say a little bit more about supporting a sibling   Stacey Simms  22:04 and, and the children's diabetes? I mean that friends for life Leah has come. And Mr. Summer schedules are always crazy. So it's rare that either one of my kids can come and like I still go, but I had a I had a blast, and she didn't really think she would. She kind of came as a favor to me.   Kerri Sparling  22:21 But she was when she was I   Stacey Simms  22:23 think she was 14 or 13. She was a teen. So she was in the teen programming. And you know, Benny was still too young to be in that programming. So they were separate. Yep. And she knew she was gonna get to go to a Disney park, which was amazing, you know, when state of fancy hotel with me and it was great. And she I don't think I saw her much. You know, she thought, Well, I'm not gonna do this. You know, we'll see how it goes. And it was wonderful, but it's really hard. You know, that's one of the few programs that there is for siblings. When when he was diagnosed, we got this reminder really off the bat and it did help us set the tone he was in high But on the Saturday, and on Sunday, I had an event that I had planned. And I do talk about this in the book. But it was an ice skating event uptown. So uptown from my house is about 45 minutes. Okay. And I was the only link between these two groups. It was a group from near my house and a group from your my work. Well, the skating rink was my work. They sponsored the rink. I didn't. I was working at a radio station that sponsored the rig. And I knew that somebody could take care of it, but it was going to be difficult. And Leah reminded me like we're still gonna go ice skating, right. We're still gonna go ice skating because I live in the south. Ice skating is exotic. No, it really is. I grew up in New York. I'm like, oh, there's never been she likes frozen ice that you walk on. Amazing, right? Magic. So I said to my husband, I'm like, We're going he's like heck yeah, go take her and he stayed the hospital and that was the day after my not your two year old was diagnosed and I'm thinking is this the right decision? Is this this is a terrible This is the world's worst diabetes mom because here I am leaving the hospital. But as soon as I I got outside I knew was the right thing. And that was the day that we said we can't let this take over our lives. So you have to be careful. Like, I don't I don't I say this not to judge but just again with that mindlessness and that mindfulness or you know, if you signs in your house that are like in this house, we're blood sugar fighting, you know, ketone, chicken, whatever it is, look, the science we will have in their kitchen. Nobody, I mean, if they're all diabetes related, of course, yeah. You know, have to be kind of careful unless you also have ice skating, hockey playing, you know, unless you want to have a litany of everything your family does. You know, I'm mindful of like, how many t shirts do I actually wear that say diabetes stuff on them all the time. And making sure like, I have stuff from my daughter's programming, and frankly, from Benny's programming that's not diabetes related. It's that kind of little thing I think that siblings really pick up on, like, if you name your dog or your cat or your goldfish after diabetes stuff, you know, it's a family pad. I mean, if it's a diabetes alert doc that might be different. I just think these are things that as simple We kind of forget, you know, they're always they're always watching and they're tallying. And you have to be honest with them that diabetes gets more attention. But with Leah, just having the conversation over and over again really helped. I mean, when she was 15, she and I had a great conversation about it. She said, I was really upset about it. And now I get it. Oh, it was amazing. I mean, he probably is back to being upset about it now.   Kerri Sparling  25:22 But it was great. You guys can talk about it is really nice, because a lot of times that animosity isn't voiced, and nobody has areas to sort of air their concerns. And so it's good that you give her space and like we mentioned in friends for life, people have that space to get that stuff out there. Oh, yeah.   Stacey Simms  25:35 I'm the over communicating Mom, you're like enough.   Unknown Speaker  25:39 Talking to me.   Kerri Sparling  25:42 We've talked about community, we've talked about sharing, we've talked about Facebook and the pluses and minuses of that sort of stuff. And it and it led me to the story that you had written about Benny losing his insulin pump. And then after that, you would, which I think is an amazing discussion about the cost of supplies, and how even small Children are mindful of the cost of things. And we'll get back to that in a second. But after that story you had mentioned, places to find support for when you have gaps like that, or you have issues like that. And I would love some perspective from you on as a parent whittling down this massive diabetes online community that we have access to, to a manageable size that kind of caters to what people might be looking for, like, advice for someone who's just jumping in and saying, there's so much how do I find what's best suited for me?   Stacey Simms  26:26 Yeah, absolutely. I think the best thing to do is if you're already online where where do you like to be? Right? Do you like Twitter? Do you like Facebook? You like Instagram, Pinterest? You got to find your house, like where do you like to live? And then once you're there, find your people. And let's have a Facebook cuz that's probably the biggest for parents. I know Instagram is a lot bigger than the last couple of years. But Facebook groups are still really really active for parents. And my advice there is be careful again, not to turn your Facebook into diabetes book which is what happened to me. I am in I am in 50 Five Facebook groups about diabetes. Now granted, I joined Facebook in 2008. So I had around for a while.   Kerri Sparling  27:07 Well, I'm just it was the look on your face. It wasn't like I'm so proud to be in 55 horrified to be in 55 it was a real mashup of the both   Stacey Simms  27:15 emotions. And that's exactly how I feel. So, because I'm like, I want to be here. And I like the vibe of this group. I like the information in this group. And I like to put my podcast in this group. But what I did was I muted the majority of this groups and that has been phenomenal. If you're not familiar as you're watching or listening. It's very easy to do, you can just mute the group. I think you unfollow the group might be the technical term, but you don't leave the group. So that way, when you want to dip into those waters, it's up your time. And my Facebook feed went back to being my real life, which is my friends, the stuff does the dumb things. I follow in a little bit of diabetes, and then I can jump back in whenever I want to. And Facebook Of course will find you you know if there's something interesting, put it right in your face, on Twitter if you're there, which is Just a crazy place to be the best, just all the politics and mess but DSM a is still your diabetes, social media advocacy is still the best hashtag on Twitter. They still do the Wednesday night chats. Those are wonderful. Instagram I'm struggling with just a little bit only because I like the realness of the stories and things that people I know that out. But I've been trying to follow more people and I'm not knocking anybody, you're all wonderful and beautiful. But I have talked to two influencer type people and I complimented one of them. That was such a beautiful shot in your hair looks so good. And you know, she said, Stacy, I have a hair person and a photographer.   Unknown Speaker  28:40 Diabetes person. What   Stacey Simms  28:43 if I had if I had a hair person and photographer I could change the world. I do wear pants. I'd be wearing pants. I would have better headphones because wearing Benny's beats I thought these would be smaller. You have cute little earbuds I don't know I haven't no here but I studio cans that are like this big I thought would be even more Your cancer headphones in the biz. But I just, you know, I can't do the influencer thing. So you but you as you listen, you might love that that might be your thing, go for it. But I think you have to find where you live where you where you feel comfortable, where's your vibe, and then you'll find your people but don't let it get overwhelming. And if you find somebody that wants to call you the world's worth diabetes. You walk away walk away unless you have a book. But I mean, really, it's not worth the argument. If someone tells me I'm wrong, I'm not going to change their life probably. Maybe I can help. I've got a good discussion going in my local group right now about finding babysitters. There are people locally I run a face for parents in the Charlotte area. Okay, started a few years back and it's been amazing. And there's a discussion right now people like I will never be able to leave my children alone. Yes, you will. And here's how. And so we're trying to help each other kind of get past that right. So   Kerri Sparling  29:59 that's See, I feel like the internet is fantastic. And it's done such a great job of connecting people who don't live anywhere near one another. But when it comes right down to human connection that people really crave in those moments of need, that hyper local stuff is huge. You can recommend a babysitter to me, but they're of no use to me in Rhode Island. But for the people who live down the street from you, they can go and call that person and they can actually hire them out. And that's, that says a lot to about the diabetes community how willing people are to give those really harder and resources and to share it with their,   Stacey Simms  30:28 with their people. That's beautiful. It is absolutely amazing. And you think I mean, I know this is a CWT interview, but the first thing that comes to my mind is going to that conference or any of the conferences that they put on. I don't even worry about what I'm packing my pack everything Ben he needs but you know if he's anything, somebody's got it, and they'll have you a 2am you know, it's just an amazing community. And I don't know, I think especially locally, knowing that we might see each other at the grocery store. Like that Facebook group is probably one of the nicest groups. I'm in   Unknown Speaker  30:59 You'll have to own what they say, right? Because they may see you over avocados.   Stacey Simms  31:02 I know who you are, right?   Kerri Sparling  31:06 We've run through the questions that I had structured for the book and my preparation. But is there anything else that you feel like it would be really pertinent to share with the specifically the CW, the audience,   Stacey Simms  31:14 one of the things I've learned just doing the podcast and now on this book tour that I've been on this year, it's just fascinating as the technology gets better and better, and you know, Benny's on the newest software from tandem, and, you know, there's all sorts of great stuff coming out. It's interesting how the change from 13 years ago seems to be almost more fearful. And it's not that it's not so much that people are afraid to let their kids do things. It's that they're afraid to let their kids get out of range. I think I'm seeing that a little bit among adults as well. Now my adult view is skewed to a lot of the influencers and people that you know, sometimes I see in person, but there's this that's another thing with the the world's worst is, you know, talking about staying in range was never part of my repertoire was like go play football, and we'll figure out how to put diabetes in the picture. I'm learning that a lot of people have. We have amazing technology. It's changed so much just in the last few years. And we need to encourage each other to use that technology to live fuller lives, rather than use the technology to post graphs. And it's just remarkable to even say that to a parent who was diagnosed, compared who was diagnosed, I mean, I've gotta watch language. No, I   Kerri Sparling  32:23 will go back to that in a second. You're right. You are right. My mommy got me it was a wee thing. Just, it was a different version of wheat. So that's a very fair statement.   Stacey Simms  32:31 I think with a 15 year old to I'm really trying to change my language over it's hard   Kerri Sparling  32:35 so of him. So I mean, his health is is your mental well being right. I mean, there's, there's no separation there. It's sorry to go on a tangent.   Stacey Simms  32:43 Well, this is a great discussion. This could be for another time too. And we'll talk more in person, but I think it's his diabetes. And I'm it's the family is affected, but it's his. So that's what I mean. And I completely lost Richard.   Kerri Sparling  32:56 Oh, wait. I was waiting to with that. I started ranges range, using technology to your benefit. I sorry,   Stacey Simms  33:06 I got all I get crazy bad language right now it's it's really hard for me to change over. But I just feel like we're finding that this the state of the art. I mean, I know what I'm saying in my community, we have a pilot program where your child is diagnosed, and they give you a dexcom in hospital when you go home. So it sounds great. But the problem is that there unfortunately, I don't know there's enough education and I'm not slamming the CDs and dexcom here has nothing to do with that. It's just the diabetes is hard. And so see everything from the beginning. Maybe you get used to that, but then the dexcom comes off and they don't wanna go to school, or they don't want to go to the waterpark, or they don't want to go on that that field trip or that overnight because they've never been without the depth causeway. And we're more and more and more of that, where I would be like, Oh, I hope your inset still on, you know, an hour but you learn resiliency, you learn stuff like that. Yes, the worst. And that's the story. When he was three, we were at a waterpark. That's in here. Instead came off and his blood sugar went really high because he was terrified of shots in sets at the time. And I thought, you know what this is going to be an hour to he's going to be fine. The long term, my indices stuff like this is okay, as long as we don't do it a lot. And maybe the running around will bring him down. It didn't, you know, so he got with Ari was 400 we change this instead, we got him home, he was fine. No ketones, blah, blah. But in my local group, someone had posted my kids dexcom came off, I'm not sending her the waterpark. I'm like, come on. Yeah, I got it. Right, we got to use this stuff to live better not let it restrict us long way of getting to that point. And that's really where I think I am right now. Because, you know, the technology is fantastic, but your stuffs gonna fall off. Things are going to fail. You know,   Kerri Sparling  34:44 you know, you have to continue on several life after diagnosis thing.   Stacey Simms  34:50 So it's been a long time. Permit this year, I can't believe it. Oh, and then you get to write about driving with diabetes, which is a Book unto itself, start, the book pretty much stops in sixth or seventh grade. So I'm not going to say that I'm an expert at high school yet, because I've only had one kid go through and she didn't have diabetes. So   Kerri Sparling  35:12 Nick Jonas at one time, so there is that there is that kind of coasting through. But um, but and so you have just been so generous with your time and your perspectives, I really, really appreciate it. And if you could just do me one solid real quick and let people know where they can find you online and where they'd be able to pick up a copy of your book. And obviously, we'll be including links to that, you know, and all the notes that are around this video, but hearing it from you is great.   Stacey Simms  35:34 Oh, thank you so much. I think the best place to go is the podcast website, which is diabetes dash connections.com. And then from there, it'll link to every place else the book, the podcast, the blog, blah, blah, blah. And   Kerri Sparling  35:45 so what's the actual URL for that   Stacey Simms  35:48 diabetes dash connections. com. Perfect. And I would love to do a book giveaway.   Kerri Sparling  35:55 Oh, we would love to have a book giveaway so   Stacey Simms  35:57 I can give away. Let's do this. Let's do a paperback And let's do an audio book. Because the audio book was really fun and interesting to do. If you ever do an audio book, it's quite the experience, like reading a dramatic play. It was very strange, very strange, totally different experience than writing it. But we can do a paperback giveaway. And then the audio book, that would be my pleasure, thank you.   Kerri Sparling  36:18 That would be amazing. And I will put a link to the giveaway page in this video and on the web page. But Stacey, thank you so much for your time for your perspectives for what you've given to the diabetes community and just being my friend, I appreciate that.   Stacey Simms  36:30 Thank you for giving me an excuse to put lipstick on today. The giveaway is open until March 20. I will link up all of the information you need. It is at children with diabetes at their giveaway page. You have to go there you can't do it on social media. We're giving away a copy of the book in paperback and an audio book as well. I'm really looking forward to seeing everybody from friends for life and children with diabetes at their conference coming up at the end of this month in Indianapolis. I'm hoping the travel plans you know stay the way we hope we are watching The virus situation I'm really not sure what's going to happen with travel. But Fingers crossed right now that we are able to do this. And I really appreciate partnering with them on this giveaway and being selected for one of their storyteller interviews. So it's really fun. Okay, our next episode next week, we should be back to normal around here minimum normal being a relative term with me. But our next episode is going to be focusing on Lilly, Eli Lilly announced almost two years ago now that they the makers of human log are getting into the pump and pen business. So we will talk to them about how they're progressing on this connected system. It's a smart system and they are partnering recently announced with dex calm, so we will be talking to them about the progress they've made and what it means for the industry. That will be next Tuesday. Okay, I'm Stacey Simms. Until then, be kind to yourself.   Diabetes connections is a production of Stacey Sims media. Benny  38:02 All Rights Reserved all wrongs avenged   Transcribed by https://otter.aid by https://otter.ai  

Ill Stop This Car (Part 3)- "I'm Right; You're Wrong!" by Cornerstone Christian Church

Happy Valentines Day to all our Striptd Down loves and listeners!! First off, no matter what you do today or this weekend, take time to love on yourself please! Show some self LOVE!! Mama's, parents or not, it's so important!! LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!! Today Ali got to chat with Desiree of the Perfect Mom blog and feel that genuine mama love! Ali and Desiree connected on social a while back, and Ali felt a very safe space with Desiree's vulnerable and real sharing and the mama's bonded off their own experiences and hardships via social! Which is what led Ali to having Desiree on today and she wanted to share her with you mama's and moms to be. Desiree is truly raw and herself in this episode and its refreshing! She talks about her motherhood journey, her own struggles with postpartum depression & anxiety, her body, her ivf struggles to bring her 3 babies into this world and so much more. Desiree and Ali have a heart to heart about all the changes they both went through and how they had to learn to love themselves again, give themselves grace and allow them selves to surrender in motherhood. Desiree shares her story of how hard IVF was for her and how her triplets came to be and where she is now as a mama. Desiree discusses her journey now and what's she's about to embark on next with adopting out her embroyo's! Desiree also has great advice for Ali as a new mama, advice about handling 1-2 babies and so much. This is a self love feel good episode with a lot of rawness and lessons and hardship in between. Desiree, thanks for reminding us we are the perfect mom's for our kids!! A self love lesson to always remember! Follow Desiree at: https://theperfectmomblog.com https://www.instagram.com/theperfectmom AND HERE'S ALI: www.alilevine.com Instagram.com/ALiLevineDesign Twitter.com/AliLevineDesign Linkedin.com/AliLevineDesign Pinterest.com/AliLevineDesign Follow our podcast Instagram   for all fun new updates and clips of each show! Don't forget if you love this podcast, leave us a 5 star review please!! Xox means so much!! https://www.instagram.com/striptddownpodcast --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/ali-levine/support

Kim is an author who works with designers on creating better business strategies on an emotional and strategic level.   Buy her book:  https://www.mebydesign.com/shop-2/branding-interior-design-visibility-and-business-strategy-for-interior-designers  QUESTIONS: 1.) What are some of the biggest problems you see designers facing? 2.) What is the best piece of advice you can provide designers when it comes to networking and getting their designs in front of the right people? 3.) How much does mindset play a role in designers feeling ‘stuck’?   4.) Do you believe that designers are lacking the right marketing or PR strategies?  Is there something deeper going on or is it a little of both? 5.) How would you advise designers to become more ‘available’ for the life they truly want?  What are some action steps they can take to become more available? 6.) How does gender play a role? 7.) So, explain to us your Visibility Strategy.  What are some step-by-step things designers can do to be more visible online and in the real world? 8.) A lot of artists and designers are introverted, myself included.  We’re not necessarily shy, but we don’t enjoy being ‘on’ and being in front of people all of the time.  Do you have any tips for introverts?  Would it be better for them to hire a PR manager or to outsource some of the extroverted tasks involved in becoming more visible? 9.) Do you have any suggestions for ways designers can earn more money in 2020? 10.) What are some of the biggest emotional hurdles designers face surrounding money and what are your tips to help them overcome these hurdles? TRANSCRIPTSpeaker 1 (00:04):What's up design tribe, but welcome back for a another episode. Now if you want to tune in to the live streams, then be sure to join in my design tribe Facebook group will where I go live with guests and do new episodes of the design tribe. To watch past episodes. Be sure to check out my playlist on YouTube for the video version and of course check out the design tribe on iTunes and Spotify for the podcast of version if you are wanting to listen while doing something else or getting crap done. All right, let's jump in. Speaker 1 (00:40):Hello. Hi everyone and welcome to today's episode with Kim Kuhteubl where we're going to discuss the her visibility strategy and also go through all kinds of questions. So Kim is an author who works with designers on better business strategies and some kind of like emotional blocks that designers sometimes have. So Kim, if you want to introduce yourself and kind of give a little bit of your backstory to everyone in the design tribe, I'm sure. Thank you so much first of all morning for having me on the show. I really appreciate it. I work with interior designers on their branding and visibility. As you said. I actually am a producer by trade and I spent a lot of time in television and contributing articles to different publications and then when I was sort of looking to transition out, I started working with a success coach and put together a package of services for interior designers and then realized, Oh wait a second, they like what I'm offering here. Speaker 1 (01:39):And it was initially video and it was blog production and blog content sort of things that I had done inside of my job as a producer is a content creator. But then I started to put together trends that were happening in terms of visibility and leadership and things that were getting in the way of designers actually getting the press or putting out the book in the world or getting the next level of client. And what it's, what I started to understand was that I was learning about women in leadership because 80% of interior designers are women. And so as I was working with them, I was learning about how women lead and also what gets in the way of them leading at their full capacity when they're creative. Right. So then what are some of the biggest problems you see designers facing? Like you said, 80% of interior designers are women I've kind of noticed as well. Speaker 1 (02:39):It's the same as true in textile design, which is my background. So yeah, I worked as a graphic designer for a little while and then I was a textile designer for seven years and I love, love, love textile design. But I did, I have noticed some kind of different design industries that women gravitate towards as opposed to men. Like a lot of industrial designers have more men tend to be more men. Yeah, it's interesting. I think that from the perspective of blocks you could, we can look at it a couple of ways. There are the business blocks and then there are the emotional blocks as a creative because fundamentally what you are as a creative, that's my dog, Ramona. Speaker 1 (03:25):We are as a creative is we're selling our creative work. And I don't know about you, but for me, when I'm being creative, I learned through my creativity. I'm a writer. I learned through my writing, I learned through the things that I create. And so when you have to offer those for sale, a lot of times there are going to be personal blocks that are involved there. So you might think, can I charge that much for my work? Is it worth it? Is it good enough? Or this work is not good enough? Because a lot of designers and creatives in general are perfectionistic. We're trying to get to our next level in terms of our creativity. So I like to look at things as done better than perfect. Otherwise nothing would get out in the world that that took a little bit of time to get there because at first I was just trying to be a perfect creative, you know? Speaker 1 (04:19):And I was like, no, well not show you that it's ugly. Or you judge it harshly. You say, that's really terrible. And meanwhile somebody else who's on the receiving end of that is finding beauty in that is finding wonder in that end. You've done your job. I think we all come here with gifts. I look at it spiritually too, that my creativity is a spiritual expression. And so there is somebody who needs to connect with that creativity and who's going to be moved by it. First it was just for me, but then eventually I'm here to serve with it. And so when you're here to serve with it, you have to get out of your own way with all of the, like the inner brouhaha that you might be telling yourself, whether you're, you have an inner mean girl or an inner insecure girl, designers. Speaker 1 (05:04):You mentioned to me that you were an introvert. And I'm an introvert as well. Most creatives are introverted. They love spending time alone. And what you have to do is choose the time that you're going to be in communication with as resists and how you're going to be in communication with others. And that's more important in that moment because you're here to be of service. Right? So I think what I'm hearing you say is that, you know, a lot of designers have these emotional blocks with, you know, kind of on one hand and I worked this price that I, that I need to charge really in order to make a decent living and support myself and also, Mmm, okay. Trying, dealing with perfectionism, you know, being afraid to really put yourself out there as, I guess what that boils down to is another block and then, Mmm. Speaker 1 (05:56):Also like when you're thinking about some of the blocks on them as an aside, at least like when it comes to something like pricing, how would an artist maybe know the market just isn't receiving what they're putting out there? Because I see that happen a lot too, where it's like, you know, you might love what you're, you know, you might love your work, you might believe in it and you're putting it out there. But if you're not seeing results, like when is a good time for an artist and maybe say, okay, like this isn't really viable for the market because you really have to have both, right? Like you have to have the emotional strength to really like put yourself out there like what you're talking about. But also there has to be a market for the product that you're putting out there and there. Speaker 1 (06:37):I don't know, there has to be someone who's willing to buy it. I I do. I love this question and I've never been asked it before in this way cause it's sparking a whole lot of things for me. Normally how I would answer it is that there's always a market for what it is you're doing. There's always a somebody who wants what it is you put out in the world. You just have to find them. And what happens is we get in our own way by thinking, Oh nobody wants to buy this. Then we start to focus on all of the reasons why nobody wants this or maybe it's not the right timing or all of those things. And so we focus on that instead of well where are the clients who want to buy this? And they might not be in your normal sphere of things, especially when it comes to design services. Speaker 1 (07:23):And this is a very common common, the problem with designers is that they have an idea in their head or they want to express their creativity in a certain way and the client wants the creativity expressed in another way and those things don't match. So they think, well I can do what they want but I'm not going to be creatively fulfilled so I can either be creatively fulfilled or I can be paid. But it can't be both. And that's not true. However, what sparking for me, when you were asking me that question was that there are many artists, the majority of artists are ahead of the curve. They're ahead of the cultural curve in terms of emotion, in terms of visuality, in terms of all of those things aesthetic. So you might be a visionary with a product that is not currently of the marketplace and you really have to figure out, I think a way to have a conversation. Speaker 1 (08:20):Cause some people are like, well they just didn't hit, the timing didn't hit. And we do see that that some people are so far ahead that they can't permeate the Geist. They can't get into the conversation, but I think a lot of times designers give up too early and we get caught up in this, again, the emotional trauma, nobody wants it. Oh maybe I suck. Well maybe this is too expensive. We go down that rabbit hole much quicker. Then we would spend the time trying to figure out who needs this now. Yes. I'm also of the belief that if you get the idea now for the moment, now you, Elizabeth Gilbert talks about this in her book, big magic. And you see this out in the world that a lot of people will get the same idea at the same time in different parts. And I think there's a, there is a reason for that, that that idea is trying to get out. Speaker 1 (09:19):So some people are more confident about that expression and if the idea doesn't get expressed, if it's not meant to be with you, it will go looking for another home. I do really agree with that. Have you read that book? I have read that book and I had kind of forgotten about that part. But yeah, I love that part. Where it was like an idea for a book and like she had, was it an idea for a book that she had and then one of her friends yep. Manifesting with one of her friends and she said it was on a kiss. Like she kissed her friends, like congratulations or something. And then she felt the idea, leave her and go to her. Her friend and her friend brings up the book. And I, I, I of, I do believe that I believe that ideas have a home. Speaker 1 (10:01):And sometimes I'm like, I, I, you know, I know for me, my creativity, I'm not always taking care of it. And so if I don't take care of my creativity, I don't feel happy as a human because it's so much a part of me. So I think as creative people, the real art for us in business is learning how to express ourselves at the highest level and then have the conversation with people in such a way that they understand the value of this work and we'll purchase it from you. Right, right. I love that. Mmm. It does kind of also bring me back to my days as a textile designer when, you know, sometimes the market just wasn't quite ready for something. Like a lot of times we would talk about something looking and I designed rugs, right? So it's not like it's not like a cool book idea or something. Speaker 1 (10:54):It's totally cool that you're doing it as a creative. It's just because, you know, me can, not everybody can, I can't design a rug. Not everybody can design a rug. So that's another thing is that we really diminish the gifts that we have because society doesn't necessarily understand it in the same way we do. But the fact that you could visualize something that goes in a room that grounds a room, that's pretty powerful in my mind. Oh, thank you. Yeah. I love designing rugs. I think what I was trying to say is just that, Mmm. I think it was pretty clear when the market was either not ready for an idea. For example, when we would do like our color research, we were seeing like a lot of [inaudible] like tans and Browns and like more warm neutrals come up. But everyone in the market in the last like five to 10 years just perfect, purchased a gray sofa. Speaker 1 (11:48):So we were like, all right, we might feel like a little too early with some of these like warm neutrals and Brown's that coming back into rugs, like people are probably still going to be going with the grays. But also at the same time, like sometimes the design might look too dated that's been in the market for a while. Like we don't need to keep designing something that looks a little bit tired or dated, so. Mmm. Yeah. So I think that, I think it's an interesting conversation. I do. I, I hadn't thought of it that way. It is an interesting conversation. Yeah. Because you, you might be ahead of the curve too far ahead of the curve in terms of, but I do believe there's always an a, a way in, otherwise you wouldn't have had the idea. And sometimes I think ideas come early to people so that we have preparedness too because they take longer to execute than we think. Speaker 1 (12:37):So that they hit the site guys like, you know, there's the book by Malcolm Gladwell that talks about the tipping point and the early the early adopters and all of the, you know, the different categories of people. And I always feel like I was always a little bit of occur ahead of the curve, but I wasn't the head a head person. Hm. But for that person, they have an audience. And I do think for creatives, we don't spend enough time cultivating our audience. We might get into judgment about who they are. We might be afraid we're not reaching them. I think a lot of creative spend a lot of time in their head, quite frankly, worried about their work and does it suck? Does my work suck? Is this worth it? Is it, should it be out there? And part of that, I have to say too, is also part of the culture. Speaker 1 (13:26):Because the culture, traditionally we'll value somebody who's coming out of finance school more highly than somebody who's coming out of sculpture school. Absolutely. Yeah. But they also value industrial designers more than, there you go. Yep. It's interesting. I dated a guy a while back that was an industrial designer and he also hired, he was a manager and hired industrial designers and they're starting salaries were like way more than a textile designer. That's a different rabbit hole. But yeah, I was like, why? Yeah. And you know, and I I T to that point, I, part of the issue is that we don't speak up whatever sort of marginalized body we are as women. A lot of the time we don't say, Hey, this is not okay. This is the value of this work. We're like, Oh, this is what we have to accept. No, we don't. Speaker 1 (14:23):So there are always people who break the paradigm who break the rules. And so if we start to say, this is actually what this work is valued, that this is how many hours it takes, this is the level, the number of years of experience I bring to this work, this is who I am as a human being. This is my original creation and this is what it's worth. And then we hold that, which is not always easy when you have bills to pay, but we hold that. Then that's kind of the work that we're doing with designers too is having designers, you know, able to ask their value and when hundreds of designers are asking for their value, then everybody starts to understand, Oh wait, Hey, I can't get this service for free. Right. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I do think it's definitely systemic as well, like at least with talking about starting salaries and all of that because Mmm. Speaker 1 (15:22):I think about it from the business owner's perspective too. And if I was a business owner and I had a rug company for example, and I said, Oh well this is like the going rate for textile designers. That's what I would offer someone as well. Right? So yeah, but no, and it's true cause you're starting you, we want to be fair and you want to know what is fair, but then there's all you're always willing to pay. I use the personality, right? If you want the Chloe purse, you're going to pay for the Chloe purse [inaudible] so you have to and how do you position yourself as that person? And then we get into a whole rabbit hole of money and our perceptions of money and what does it mean to have money and a lot of creative people and I was definitely like this before as well, like money. It's like I didn't want to have that conversation. I was having a a higher conversation than just dollars and cents. Right? It wasn't just about I was having a much higher, more important conversation but being broke. You can't have the conversation in the way that you want to because you end up struggling so much. Speaker 1 (16:31):Yep. Okay. Well, what is the best piece of advice that you can provide designers when it comes to kind of like networking and getting their designs in front of the right people and kind of like becoming that Chloe purse that you just talked about? Like how do you, how do you have leverage, especially if you're just starting out or, yeah, I like trying to get your designs in front of the right people. I think we're in a time of unprecedented access for creative people to reach their audience. So so many of you, you are Jane this as well. So many of us are actually reaching our audiences on our own with our Instagram feeds or with our Facebook feeds or our YouTube channels. So building your audience, you don't need to have [inaudible] pending on what you're selling. If you're in a product based business, it's a little bit different. Speaker 1 (17:20):When I work with interior designers, their jobs can be a lot bigger. But when you're selling [inaudible] services, you don't necessarily need a ton of clients to actually earn a decent wage and earn a really good wage. You have to have the right people who are the super fans who are focused on what it is you're doing. So I would say first of all, call two eight your audience, figure out who your super fan is, who that person is, who likes to buy from you and learn all the things about them. Where do they hang out? How do they purchase, why did they purchase, when did they purchase? All of those kinds of things. And then in terms of networking, it depends on what your ultimate goal is and putting yourself, understanding how you do fit into the market. Good place. So back to that conversation, are you more cutting edge? Speaker 1 (18:12):Are you doing what other people are doing so that you can create some press for yourself? And again, myriad outlets available to us. Now, loggers, Instagram feeds, podcasters, all kinds of people looking to tell other people's stories. So find the people who are excited about your story and share with them. Because even one fan, one super fan making a purchase, it can be that purchase that tips you over the edge. So that that's something I would do. And in terms of networking, you know, for a lot of designers will I'll say do a speaking engagement for an audience that you love. For us, like getting in front of people where you can interact or if you were, if you were a textile designer, you were saying maybe it's a workshop. If you're hosting at workshop four other artists to learn how to paint, there's all kinds of creative out of the way out of the box ways you can do [inaudible]. Speaker 1 (19:12):What I would say is this, but what it relies on, more importantly, and this is the part about visibility strategy, is that it's internal. So you really have to look at what is my mission here? What is my why? Why am I here to do, what am I here to do with my work? And then the strategy will present itself and associate itself with that. So as an example, you know I, my book branding, interior design and when I was writing it I was writing at one way and then I sort of started getting as you do when you create like different ideas and different research and I started taking it in a totally other direction so that when it to be published there were certain publishers for whom that was a fit. There were certain publishers from, I could have that conversation. The same with you, with your creative work, whatever it is that you're making. Speaker 1 (20:04):There are certain things that are going to be more people who are going to be a more natural fit for that. I had a client come to me once, it sounds like an odd thing and she had an idea for caskets. I know it sounds bananas, but she had an idea for caskets and then earns really modern earns. And I loved that idea because it was so specific and narrow that I, I mean everybody dies, right? So, but she could have, there's a handful of manufacturers who were doing that so she could have a conversation with the ones who didn't have, who had that gap in the market where she could potentially put her product. Now she, it, she didn't have the, the energy to go forward with that. And I think she thought the idea was crazy and I thought it was brilliant. I almost say that more crazier your idea, the more likely you will find an audience for it because it's crazy. Yeah. Speaker 1 (21:08):Sorry. I think of a, like the Snuggie like how popular it was and I'm like, what is silly idea? I dunno. I mean, I mean or, or you're too young for this, but when I was growing up there was like the cabbage patch doll, right? Or like all these doll, like all of the toys that come out and become like hits. I, you know, and now I have a one year old and he, he's singing like we're listening to the frozen soundtrack on Pandora radio the other day. I'm thinking to know how huge this movie was. They didn't know. I bet you that though it's going to, what, what was it about that film? And they couldn't do it in the second one, but what, what is it about that film that takes off? I think there are some things we don't know and that we can't contain. Speaker 1 (21:53):But if you ask testing this out by self, but if you ask to do the creative work that it's for the highest and best good of you and the highest and best good of others, you'll be given that. And if you stay committed to that focus and you don't drop it or let go or give up, you find an audience for it. So how much does mindset play a role in designers feeling stuck? Cause it sounds like that's something that you kind of deal with when you are working with designers. A lot. It is. I think it's, it is definitely a important for all human beings. We're, we're, we put so much emphasis in the culture on the money and the financial aspect of it, but business is human beings doing business. So we're emotionality where relationships where all of these things. So I think there's a point at which you can shut down your emotionality. Speaker 1 (22:48):But design is so personal. Creatives are so personal. This is where we get into trouble with boundaries a lot of times. So boundary setting is a huge problem for creatives because you want to help somewhat sometimes with your creative work and you're willing to help them more than you're willing to be paid well for what it is that you're doing. So mindset too, in terms of getting to your next level, how you feel about what you're doing in the world, how you feel about the people you're working with. I'll see a lot of designers get stuck after a month, bad experience with a client. So they've had a horrible experience with someone that they keep replaying over. I don't want that to happen again. I don't want it to happen again. And then what happens is they're attracting more and more and more of those experiences because they're focused on them. Speaker 1 (23:41):Hmm. I've been having a conversation about mindset for the last nine that I've been doing this with clients, but I'm also now having a deeper conversation about your soul as well because you're not your thoughts and your thoughts or things that you practice there. They can be good habits, they can be bad habits. You can be telling yourself good things all the time, but somebody is telling yourself that and whatever that entity and our energy is, that's who you are. And that's what she came to do. So I'm really more in touch with that. Like how are you here to serve? What lights you up, what makes you excited? And then we work on releasing whatever feelings or habits or practices that you've kind of gotten your way. And this ties very, this is what the visibility strategy really is. It's about being available. It's know visibility is about not only being seen in the traditional sense of the word, it's also about are you available? That's one of it's underused definitions. And for me, available is an internal game. We do things from the inside out. So once we have clarity on the inside, Oh, okay. Or vision is and who we want to serve, then the strategic portion like what is, do I use Instagram, do I use YouTube, how much do I charge? All of that is a lot easier once you have clarity on the first two pieces. [inaudible] Speaker 1 (25:09):Okay. So I'm going to skip ahead to a question that I think kind of relates to this conversation a little bit more and it is something that we kind of touched on earlier, but it's the fact that, you know, a lot of artists and designers are introverted and myself included some of the you know, things you were talking about, about, you know, reaching out or doing a speaking engagement. I can just like feel designer's like cringing, you know, like it's not that we're necessarily shy, but we just don't enjoy always being on all the time. And you said you're introverted as well, so I'm sure you can relate to that. And just being in Toronto people is, it just takes a lot of energy out of us. Yeah. Do you have any tips for introverts and would it be better maybe for them to hire like a PR manager or to outsource outsource, excuse me, some of the extroverted tasks that we don't necessarily want to do all the time that are involved in maybe becoming more visible. Speaker 1 (26:05):So that way became sort of reserve our energy for those times that we do need to be available and on. Yeah. Yeah. I think it has to be on a case by case basis and it depends on what your business and what it involves. So I would say I'm better at one on one connection. I actually really, I'm introverted, I like my alone time, but I like one on one connection quite a bit. So I will say seek to have those kinds of meetings and that's the way that you can accelerate your business is having, if you're a D a textile designer or designer or a maker, having the meeting with one decision maker or having a meeting with, you know, reaching out to the sales person or the vendor who you know, or that super fan is just like the one on one connection. Speaker 1 (26:54):So what I try to do is build relationships with people who don't mind being in front of many and then, and then I can have the one on one relationship and they can be the foot soldiers. Then there's also that you need downtime so that when you are going to be out in the world, you are militant about scheduling your receiving time or your downtime so that you can recover. Right? Because you have to recover. I, because I come from a production background and because I started, I started in theater, so I started getting my own press for theater and productions that I did. I'm a big fan of you doing your own press because you formed the relationship with the journalists. So it's again, that one on one and then they go to publication. You go with them. It's not rocket science. Most creatives I find have a natural instinct for where their stuff fits. Speaker 1 (27:48):No. Well, if you're a good creative, you, chances are you don't know. It's not a fit for that, or I don't want it to go there. You just, you have that innate discernment and I think you should naturally do your own press until it gets, until the requests are so great. Or if you can't say no, then you hire someone to do it for you. But I'm a big fan of starting on your own and doing it by yourself because you know your work best. You're going to have the best kind of conversations and people like you, they'll form the relationship with you as opposed to with others. And I'm sure you're good a one on one. You're happy one-on-one. Yeah. I like doing one on one. I love doing the podcast. Yeah. Interviewing people like you. So, yeah, I mean, yeah, I do enjoy that. Although if, I think if I had, if I was doing this all day, like back to back, you know, like I don't know, five hours a day, I think it would be too much. It's too much. Yeah. So we, I always have space between interviews. I actually did some coaching today. I'm like, Oh, I'm actually, I'm okay. It's okay because I was a happy group. I love my clients. So that's really important. That's really important for introverts too. All aspects of not only your supply chain, but your client chain. [inaudible] Speaker 1 (29:04):Have a, no, I don't know if we can, can we say swear words? Are you okay? I don't care. Have a no asshole policy. Right. Or don't work with pittas pain in the ass. Don't work with them. Right? Like no. And, and that's going to be different for everybody because my Pitta is going to be somebody else's dream client. So really honoring how you feel. You know, when I'm in the company and this person, I feel like crap or they don't really understand what I'm saying in terms of the collaboration. I don't want to work with them and just being okay with that and releasing them to go find somebody who's going to be great for them. But really being fierce about fit and fierce about what your fit is so that when you, or in a situation or you have bigger demands on your energy that you feel comfortable giving [inaudible]. Speaker 1 (29:58):So do you believe that designers are maybe lacking their right marketing or PR strategies or something deeper going on? Or is it a little of both? And I know we kind of touched on this, but yeah, I think I have a lot of clients who are like, and again, it really depends on what it is you're selling. For interior designers perspective, some will say, Oh well Instagram. And it just depends on, again, their age demographic and also who they're serving. And I'm like, the first question I usually ask is, is your ideal client on Instagram? Well, have you ever really gotten a job from Instagram? No. Now some clients do. And then I'm like, perfect. That's where you should put your efforts. If you don't get a client from the place where you're putting your marketing efforts, don't do it. Even though everybody's saying this is what you have to do. Visibility strategies are individual, so you need to choose and figure out where your people are and then have a cover. I've noticed that I'll have a different conversation with someone. I'm sure you noticed this too. I've had a different conversation with somebody on Facebook that I do on Instagram. I get a different kind of client from Instagram than I do from Facebook, and so.Speaker 1 (00:00):We really pay attention to that. So what I'm posting here is different from what I posting over here and sometimes it's the same, but I'll tweak the way I come into the story. And I think again, that's something that creatives do very naturally because you're trying to fit and to please. But I think also from a visibility standpoint, what we talked about earlier, which is not thinking that your work is good enough to get press or to be seen. So not even trying to pitch or not even trying for, for years and years work goes by. That's a problem. Your work is if, if at least people who are not your mom, at least three people who are not your mom tell you I love this work or this is really beautiful [inaudible] then figure out what those people read and pitch that Daisy because you're onto something or where do they hang out online or what would they be willing to buy it? Speaker 1 (00:58):I have a friend who's a Facebook friend who I was somebody who I went to school with. I didn't know her actually very well then and on Facebook. Now she's been posting all of these paintings and I said, Oh, I love that painting. I would love to buy it. And she's like, okay. So she sells me the painting and the now she's been developing this website and she's kind of coming out as an artist because she didn't think that her work was that great. She's judgment on her work. Okay. Just because you're learning doesn't mean that I will enjoy the output of the stage you're learning at. When I looked back at my earlier films or when I look back at the earlier thing I've written, sometimes I'm like, like, or I that doesn't resonate or I like it, but I'm like, I don't even know how I got to that. I would've never gotten to that place now. That's okay. Be grateful that you did that work and then now you're onto your next set of work. Speaker 1 (01:57):From my own personal standpoint, I feel like I've gotten on these little PR cakes where I've tried to like reach out to some press, but I haven't really heard back that much. And so I think maybe designers feel like, at least for me, I felt like I needed to have maybe a little bit more of a success story before I started. You know, really putting myself out there a lot more including like being on other people's podcasts and things like that. Well I think it's more you need a story in the moment. So if you had like a new release, that's a story. If you see, you know, if you're exploring something in a way that nobody has, like you're setting a trend in the market, that's a story. So there are ways in, well what I will say about press, it's, it's a Sisyphean task. Speaker 1 (02:42):So you really have to just keep doing it. Just have to keep doing it. And you will get a lot of nos for every yes, we get silence, radio, silence or nos and you can't take it personally. So we have a three rule follow up. We kind of, we pitch, then we wait seven to 10 days, then we follow up with an email, then we follow up with a phone call, then we drop it. If we don't hear anything and then six months later if they haven't told us to like bugger off orF off, then we will follow up again and again. You just keep doing it because chances are the, in this climate, the journalist has left and gone to another publication that also, and this is a good point which I'll make quickly, but is this the idea that if your energy is too loaded, when you're pitching, you're unlikely to get the response that you want. Speaker 1 (03:40):So if you've made it by loaded pen, this is couple things. So if you've made it mean too much. Okay. Or if you are in any way hesitant. I find it such a delicate thing. I had a client, her work was stunning. Two clients we were working on, we were working on that for them and she was pitching, we were trying to picture it. I'm like, this work is beautiful. We had three yeses from publications that all of a sudden disappeared and I was like, that is weird. This is you. So we had been journey. We had this conversation where turns out she'd had all of this like, well, I'm not really sure about that publication. And then she had all this like internal stuff going on that and I do believe in energy and the flow of energy and how that impacts things. And so she left it up with that like whole, you know, brouhaha going on and just today we were talking, she's like, Oh, this publication came to me and this one came out of the blue. Speaker 1 (04:38):And I said, yeah, because she's in a great space, she's ready to be seen. She's ready to be seen authentically for who she is. She's not afraid to be seen. She's like, it would be nice to be published, but it's not going to make her break her career if she doesn't. And it comes in really easily. So I never had anything on press in my early days. And so when I was producing theater and being and shows and things, so I would get a lot of press, which could piss people off, but I just didn't have anything on it. I was like, Oh well this is what you do. Okay. So I did it and then I would get the press. And so if you have that fun, make it a game with yourself and you're like, well this is going to be fun. Let's see if I can get two or three interviews, podcast interviews or let's see if I can get like an article in this publication. Speaker 1 (05:26):Like wouldn't that be fun? And you just make it really light. Right? You're more likely to have success with it. Cool. So how would you advise designers to become more available for the life that they truly want and what are some kind of action steps that they can take to become more available? And I know you kinda just mentioned that with just kind of knocking on the door and not putting too much pressure on it. Yeah, they do some research, create a list. Maybe people that they want to reach out to podcasts that they want to be on. Blogs are, yes. So that's from a traditional visibility standpoint. From an availability standpoint, I'll, I'll address that two ways from the availability. The internal game is first getting clear on your vision and your vision of what you want your life to be like. And you might not see that. Speaker 1 (06:16):I think visions, we talk a lot about manifestation. I do believe that visions are received and they're received. When you're in an open space and you're ready to receive them, a lot of people say, I don't see what I'm supposed to do. I can't, you know, I don't understand it. I'm like, because you're probably not giving yourself permission a lot of the time or you can't believe that it could be possible. You could have the life you see in your head. So once you've, yeah, get clarity on that and you start to do any kind of release. We have visibility. I talk about visibility blocks. I'm going to be adults on it in March and talking a little bit about the visibility block and the removal process, but a lot of it is this kind of internal energetic work. Then you can create the strategy from there. Speaker 1 (07:03):So yes, in terms of the the practice physical visibility standpoint, it's understanding what you're selling, what your product is, how it, how it is, the story of [inaudible] the product and then who needs to hear that story the most and then which publications are speaking to the people that you need to speak to. I will say though that cultivating your own following, it's really one of the best things that you can do. So building your own audience, friends upon friends, doing a newsletter. I'm a huge fan of the newsletter once a week talking to the people who want to hear from you about things that are of interest to you. [inaudible] One of the best things you can do about creating business for yourself. And I guess the question I would ask with this is, you know, what is the goal of the visibility? And this goes back to that lightness piece because sometimes people think, well if I get the press then I will have made it, but the press is just one more step in either audience generation or in sales generation. Speaker 1 (08:13):So deciding what you think the press will do for you before you get it. And then saying is pressed the best way to achieve that goal. And then saying being prepared for the unexpected. So clients who have had projects published, I had one client in a show house this year and the, the room she did got picked up in multiple publications just all over the place. It created this snowball effect. It was the best case scenario. We would have never, you didn't see that happen [inaudible] and she was getting offers and meetings and all these things were happening and she was like, and we had to just breathe through that and allow her to receive at that level. Yeah. So I hope that answers the question. Yeah. I think I'm with my audience and for myself included. Like I, yeah, I'm trying to actually license my patterns now. Speaker 1 (09:13):So one of the best ways to get in front of people is to actually exhibit at trade shows. Yes. I was going to say you need to go to the licensing show. Yeah. Yeah. But it is really expensive. So Sirtex just happened in February and I did not go to that show because I now have, I'm working with an agency. So they were there representing me and my work and I love my agent, but I'm not sure, like I'm still kind of like, Oh, do I want to work with an agent, you know, longterm because I kind of miss being at the show, but I didn't really have. And that's, you know, funding to be able to, did you have you considered partnering with like five or six other designers and having a booth? Yeah, I've, I've discussed this with other designers and they, I feel like you kind of get lost in, you know, in six designers, you know, maybe with one other designer. It's, I've seen that work really well. And I did go to blueprint show last may. Yes. But with licensing, part of the problem is that you're earning royalties, which can be great, but it just takes a very long time to like really get the ball rolling with that, you know, finance. So, so this, so this is what I would say is why is the goal licensing? Speaker 1 (10:25):Mmm aye. [inaudible] First of all, you, you can maintain your own copyright on your work. Yes. You can use the same design over and over again for different industries. And it really, your name is on the work as well. So you know, you're kind of like partnering with a manufacturer who maybe sells dishes or it could be, again, rugs or pillows or any kind of home decor. It could be Carol, it could be really any product, but you're kind of partnering with that company and you get to do the artwork side of things, but they kind of handle the rest. So you're not a lockdown with the logistics and operations and trying to sell your own product. Mmm. You are also, you have more creative license because it is your brand. It is your so, and I would dig deeper with you. So then you want to maintain creative license. Do you want to have your brand? What do you want your brand to do? Speaker 1 (11:26):Mmm, but okay, I get that. I guess that's the very basic answer, but I know you have a deeper answer. But why I began, this is the work. Yeah, the word. I think it's more about leaving a legacy and kind of being known. Like when I look at other designers that you know, that we still celebrate today and their work is still being licensed you know, like Sonya Delaney or William Morris, you know, is one of the most famous examples. But I would love to leave a legacy, whereas, you know, of course we're all going to die at some point. Like we times on earlier. You think of William Morris with the agency though, right? So what do you want to be known for? Aye? To whom to whom do you want to have this impact? Speaker 1 (12:20):I mean, I don't really mind. I mean, I guess it's more women. My designs tend to be more feminine, more modern. Okay. but you see how that gives you, you have to know that. And the reason I'll say that, it's maybe not from a licensing perspective. When somebody got you in a booth. I'm just gonna just challenge the thinking a little bit. When six designers say, well I would be lost in a booth with six other designers, how is that any different than having an agent who has 30 different designers to represent inside of a booth? Yeah, I actually would argue, yeah, I would argue that six of you and I used to, because I used to do t-shirts and underwear, so this was in another life. I had a tee shirt and underwear line and we got up to 44 stores. This was like pre-internet and before I kind of knew about an inventory was like, it was like never again. Speaker 1 (13:11):And I was like all excited about licensing too, right? Like at that point. But, and it wasn't doing pattern design, it was doing words. So it was words on the tee shirts. And they were embroidered. But the thing is is that I would say this is that knowing who you are going to serve and what you wanted, like the emotional experience you would like them to have. Like, I made this and it makes me feel happy and I want them to feel happy and then fine meeting those women and then thinking to myself, well, what products could I make? Because there's ways for designers to make products in a way that actually is not fulfilled by you. Thank God that other people are fulfilling it. So it's not a licensing revenue. There's still some work involved, but maybe you're making cell phone cases or you're making key chains or you're making however you see your applications. Speaker 1 (14:01):So really going deep on how, how do I see this pattern in application and then who and then who is going to have it and then building that audience so that you have somebody cause yes, an agent. I've had multiple agents over my career fundamentally and it's been helpful definitely at times for sure. It's like a partner and it's a collaboration. It really depends on the agents. But I do think in this time you owning your art as you said, but also reaching your people in the way that you want to is actually going to be a greater service to you. So I would figure out what is it that I want my patterns to do? What applications do they have? Will these women be winning, willing to buy it from? And then creating your own strategy from that. Speaker 1 (14:56):Is that a helpful? Mmm, there might be resistance for that. Yeah. I've definitely sold products before and it's just not something I want to do again. [inaudible] Yeah, I don't know. Okay. It was, I ended up spending a lot of time selling and that's what I don't want to do. And that's the reason why I went with [inaudible] an agent. It's because they already have those relationships with a lot of the buyers and, right. Yeah, we'll see. I mean, if it doesn't end up working out longterm, that's okay. And it's, no, nothing bad about them. But it's early days. It's early days. So what you can do from their perspective and from a buyer's perspective is to have an audience. Because when people want your things, they want your things and that incentivizes whoever is on the selling or the buying end to buy it. But like, Oh, this person, we know her because of that. Speaker 1 (15:58):So coming to the press and that visibility from a very practical standpoint, but I do think you have some deeper work to do just with those questions about who is my audience really like seeing her so clearly on the other or him on it, but it's her seeing her so clearly on the other end and then figuring out what would she like me to do with this? Because you might get some brilliant idea. It might be going two women's goods or babies goods or something you've never thought of before that your agent might not have thought of either that you can give that idea to the agent to help sell or that you can create an agreement around. Because the only thing I'll say with the licensing model is that you have to have a lot of licenses. You're going to have to have a lot of licenses or a huge volume to make it, but even then it won't. Speaker 1 (16:48):It won't happen. So you have to have a lot of licenses to make viable and it's possible. But that means you're going to have to like dig down into your emotional reserve and say, okay, we're in it for the long haul and you know, show me the fastest route and just start really you can still continue to do some of that work on your own. Like identifying people for your agent. [inaudible] Doing like little letters, not sales letters. It's hard to be a creative and just be creative. So if we can reframe the conversation two, how are we connecting with people, with people who we love, then it becomes less tedious when we have to. And if you only have to have two or three of those conversations with people you like, it doesn't feel so much like sales. Yeah, that's definitely true. And I think that's definitely what I'm trying to do is kind of build up that audience. Speaker 1 (17:49):Youtube and Instagram and I'm on the Facebook group as well, so hopefully that will, well, it will help. It will help. And designers, you know, designers should be seeing depending on are you doing on on fabric as well? Yeah. Yeah. I'm having, I have some licensing deals with a fabric company. Another with a girl who's has a bad company. Right. And then my agent has been doing a lot of work and reaching out to a lot of people, but nothing has really landed yet. So she is going to land. So all I'll just say for you is put your focus on this is where it helps doing the vision. Put your focus on what it is you want, what are the outcomes you want. Put your focus there as opposed to why isn't it landing, why isn't it landing? Why isn't it landing? Speaker 1 (18:39):Cause then you just get more of that. So put your focus on, huh, I bet when I get X it's going to, we're going to do this and this will be, and then you'll get ideas based on it being done because at some, at some level it is done. Just like the design you've seen, your head is done. Right, right, right. That makes sense. That's cool. I like that. Okay. Okay. So do you have any suggestions for ways that designers can earn more money in 2020 if they are kind of struggling to get that full time income? Ask you have to ask for more money. So set a goal for yourself about what would be a stretch for you, what did you earn last year? You might may or may not have tracked that, track it, figure it out, and then say, well, what would be more and what would be a stretch? Speaker 1 (19:28):And then ask for that. So clarity of the vision, I cannot stress this enough. So much of the plan comes from that. And the way that you'll bring more money in comes from that. And then also not making any one client or way of being your source. It might be your source, but I'm thinking like what if you got a private commission from a designer to design their fabric line? You would probably be okay with that. Is that fair to say? Yeah. Yeah. So, so there are other ways then the way that you think that you're going to make money and be open to receiving those ideas and diverting from that track if the goal is more money and then back to what is the money for because the money comes in a lot faster when you know what it's for. [inaudible] So what are some of the biggest emotional hurdles that designers face surrounding money and what are some of your tips to help them overcome that? Speaker 1 (20:39):Again, it's that worthiness piece, right then I'm not worth it that I can't ask for this, that I shouldn't ask for this. And then the other thing is being in an other client's money stories so they don't have enough money for this, which is why I should charge less. That's probably the biggest one. Or they can't afford it or they're going through a rough time for now or whatever it is that you've told yourself. So staying out of that story and staying in, what is the value of what I'm doing and asking for that. The asking is important. You'd be amazed how many people just don't ask. So you can't get, you can't negotiate if you don't ask. Speaker 1 (21:23):Yeah, that is so true. And I have this one freelance client that I haven't raised my prices and okay. A year. So it's probably time to do that. There you go. Yeah. And yeah, and you know, if there's somebody who has worked with you constantly, then they like your work and you can say, look, it's time that I'm raising my prices, I'm going to raise them by this much, by this goal. And that's, that's, that's, there you go. Right. Okay. So we'll end on how does gender play a role in like everything that we just talked about? I really do think it does play a role in the way that women are socialized. And as I said, being able to look at mostly women in terms of interior design. There are recurring themes that pursuing our creativity is selfish, that we're being selfish, that we're supposed to take care of everybody else, that we don't really need to have this creative expression. Speaker 1 (22:21):And that's just not true. Also in terms of the value piece, we're schooled to be less, less weight, right? Less in age, lesson size, less. All of these things were schooled to be less, but we are in fact [inaudible] and we're, we're taking on that programming. I think if you, you know, there's that boo ha happening with the Superbowl right now and women saying, Oh, you know, I gender looking at Jennifer Lopez, his body made me feel bad. And I think to myself, well why didn't it make you feel bad? What does she have to do with you? That is for expression or expression. But it's because we've been trained [inaudible] for feedback. We've been trained to look for other look to others for our value, which is why we have such a hard time setting it. And if we go inside and really get the full view or when we do state it, other women sometimes end men especially too, depending on who we're dealing with, we'll police this and say, well that's not where, or what do you, why do you think you can ask for that? Speaker 1 (23:36):Well, why wouldn't I be able to ask for that? So it's us really standing in our value and speaking our, so you use it and have you visibility will demand that you use your voice and it will demand that you ask for your value. Because, and again, back to the spiritual perspective, you're an expression of unlimited source. So why wouldn't you be able to ask for X amount or Y amount and why would you be here to live with this creative gift that can allow you to be in service on a very high level and live in, in poverty? That doesn't make sense. So we have to start changing the conversation about what we're asking for [inaudible] and creatives. Because what I noticed with creatives when they get going and when they understand their value, when they're receiving more income, they're in service to everybody as a whole. Speaker 1 (24:37):They're really looking at solving problems. Creatives look at solving problems, answering questions that, that a lot of other disciplines don't even ask. Yeah, that's a really good point. So I'm, I want to pop over to the design tribe Facebook group and anybody has any questions? Who's watching live? We do have a comment from Jen, Hey Jen, if you're still watching. She says yes, it's so important for women to be empowered in their work in creativity. So I think that you've definitely helped inspire a lot of people today. If anyone else is watching, feel free to drop us a question live and I'll wait for just a couple of minutes to see if we get any questions. But other than that, I'm Kim, thank you so much for coming. Thank you. It's been so much fun. I'm like, Oh, I'm live today. It's been fun to be live there you go live very often. Speaker 1 (25:36):I go live in our Facebook group once a week and it's sometimes I'm happy if there happens to be one eyeball and I can just order no eyeballs and they can turn it off really quick if I mess up. It's just but it's nice to be interviewed and ask the questions cause when you're, when you're having to think of things and I'll script pain sometimes, but I'm not always as eloquent as I'd like to be. Oh, you are. Thank you. Or Juliet. I was, I was by today, or my baby gets crying, or the dogs get barking and then I'm like, I don't have to worry about that. You don't have to worry about that right now. It's all good. Right? Well, any other questions from our Facebook group right now, but I'm sure a lot of people will be watching the replay, so if you are watching the replay, drop us a comment below and we'll get back. Great. Thank you so much. Thank you. I appreciate it. Love it. Okay, bye guys. I hope that you enjoy today's and make sure to hit that subscribe button and click the little bell to get notified every time a come out with a new video and of course, make sure to subscribe to the actual podcast so that if you are busy and trying to do other things, that you're still not missing an episode. I love you guys and I'll see you in the next episode. Bye guys. 

Day: 008 Date: Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2020 Note from Aimee J.: You have more time than you think. Topic: Manage Your Time Action: Plan out your day. Take a sheet of paper and divide it in two. On the left side, write down 24 hours starting from two hours before you wake up to 11:59PM in hour or ½ hour increments. Still on the left-side next time to the times, in pencil, block off the time you know you’re doing something, i.e. sleeping, working, activities, studying, etc. You should start to see what free time you have. Make a list of things you need to do on the left-side of the paper. Now is when you have to manage your time. Fit your to do items into the spaces not blocked off. If you can’t fit everything, then you need to do one of two things. Either one, adjust your blocked time (i.e. sleep for less, take shorter breaks, cut back on tv time, etc.), or really think on whether that to do item needs to get done today. It won’t always be easy and you won’t always make everything fit, but do your best. Here's an example of my list or check it out on my Instagram highlights: Affirmations: You are brave. You are talented. You are smart. You are unique. You are you.  =) and You are Awesome. You are Loved. You are Needed. And most importantly, YOU ARE ENOUGH. I Have Only Just a Minute by Dr. Benjamin E. Mays I have only just a minute, Only sixty seconds in it. Forced upon me, can’t refuse it. Didn’t seek it, didn’t choose it. But it’s up to me to use it. I must suffer if I lose it. Give account if I abuse it. Just a tiny little minute, but eternity is in it. Resources & Links: ToDoist ; Things ; Your Personal Hype Man ; Alexa Skill: Your Personal Hype Man ; Your Personal Hype Man on iTunes Let’s Connect: Leave a Voicemail ; E-mail Aimee J. ; Aimee on Instagram ; Aimee on Facebook ; Aimee on Twitter ; Aimee on YouTube ; Aimee on LinkedIn ; Aimee on TikTok ; Aimee on Snapchat ; Aimee on Pinterest ; Transcript: Good day family. This is your personal hype man, Aimee J. Thank you guys so much for tuning in. I promise within the next week or so we are going to get a better intro than just applause. It's coming. We're working on it, but you got to start somewhere. I couldn't wait for perfection to kick off this amazing podcast, which I am. So I have fun with doing this. It brings me back to my original podcasting days and I'm just having fun with this. So hopefully you guys are finding something out of this too. And if you are hitting me up on social media at @aimeej21 let me know. This is for you. This is kind of to help you and remind myself as well that you are brave, you are talented, you are smart, you are unique and you are you. And that is the best thing this world could get. Being yourself is the best gift you could give this world and living your life day in and day out the way you want it is the best thing you could do for yourself. So guys, we've talked about a number of things in the past week. Don't forget, even though we're not doing gratitude, uh, together, ask yourself, what are three things I'm grateful for? And repeat that to yourself every day. It's a very helpful exercise. I do it myself. I don't do it. We're not going to do it on the show anymore together, but maybe, maybe periodically. But do that on your own when you wake up, remind yourself what is, what are three things I'm grateful for? Very important exercise. It helps kind of set you right, in mindset and in focus for the day. It puts you in a positive space. So try to do that. Highly encourage it. You know, it's up to you. But I do encourage it because it is important. Today we're going to talk about managing your time. That could be a number of things. It's a huge topic. I'm really gonna focus on just one day, right? And so I want to share with you an important poem that my mentor, the late Mr. LaMont Toliver shared with me, that really resonated with me during college. And it's by Dr. Benjamin E. Mays. It's "I have only just a minute" and here's how it goes. I have only just a minute, only 60 seconds in it forced upon me. Can't refuse it, didn't seek it, didn't choose it, but it's up to me to use it. I must suffer if I lose it, give account if I abuse it. Just the tiny little minute. But eternity isn't it? Isn't that such a powerful poem? Often times we think we just don't have any time. There is no time. You know, you think of that saved by the bell episode. I'm dating myself, but where Jessie Spano is panicking about tests and studying, and she got so much going on, there's no time. There's never any time, you know, no time to study, no time to do this. We often feel that way, but guys, we actually have more time than we expect more time than we think. It's true. There are 24 hours in a day. You only need to sleep probably six or seven of that. Some of you are hardcore and need less than that, but six or seven is about the average. Do the research, see what it is, you know your body the best. So go with that. Then you have your work. So usually eight to eight hours, you may be in school, that's about eight hours, whatever that is, right? So if we're thinking seven, we're thinking eight, that's 15 that's 15 hours of 24 so if I pull out a calculator and I do 24 minus 15 that gives us nine hours left in the day, nine hours, nine hours to spend time with our family, nine hours to do our homework, nine hours to prepare ourselves for the next moment, right? So yeah, of course some time will be spent on getting ready for the day travel, right? But there's still time. Some of you guys think that there is no time because you get home and you're just, that's it. There's nothing you can do. But in reality there is time. So I want you to do this. There's an exercise that I do to help myself figure out and manage my time and want to share it with you. It's kind of noted in the show notes. So check that out in the description. It'll be there. Um, and the way it works is you take a piece of paper, 8 ½ half by 11, whatever, whatever paper you have, write down on the left side, we're gonna divide the paper into two on the left side. Write down the number of hours, a few hours before you sleep all the way to midnight. Okay, go all the way to the midnight. And if, if some of you are daring, go past midnight. So for me, I do from four o'clock to midnight and I write that down. I write within half hour an hour increments. That's up to you. Play around with what you're comfortable with. I do it by an hour and I took a picture of this. It'll be on my Instastory but I'm going to try and put it in my show notes. So check there as well so that you can see what it is I'm talking about. So you're going to write the hours, that's step one. Step two is on that same left side right next to the times. Block out time that you already know you have to take account for. School work, uh, activities. You may have Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, uh, after school programs, sports, whatever it is, go out, go ahead and block the time off. Right? You're, we're, we're doing is, we're getting a picture of where your free time is. Once you've blocked that off, you'll see where your time is going and you'll see where your free time is. And now is when you need to start managing that time. So we've set up the left side. I want you to go to the right side of the paper and write down your to do list for the day. Okay? Just for the day, what is it you have to get done today in order to sleep peacefully. Might include studying for an exam, might be doing some homework, might be doing your chores. You should include that, right? That takes up time. And now's the managing. Take the stuff on the right side in your to do list items and put it in the space that you have on the left side. And when you find out, hey, something's not fitting, there's not enough time. We got to think of one or two things. One, can we move things around, cut back a little bit on our sleep, maybe not watch TV as much as we wanted to. Right? Adjust things so that we can fit what we need in. Or two do we really need to get this item done today or can it wait till the next day? Right? That's how we're going to manage our time. That's how you have to put it together. So think about that, try that and see if you do this, you will start getting into the habit of being more in control of your time and the time and less of the time being control of you. Right? You'll panic last because you know clearly what the battle plan is. That's what we're doing. We're managing our time and laying it out and I do this every day, just kind of see what my day is going to look like. Sometimes I do it in unofficial ways. Does have to be this formal of a thing. But you know, when I was in high school, when I was in college, this is what I did. This is how I kept track of my time. So for those who are like, how do you balance everything, this is how, this is what I did, this made my life easier, right? And there are tricks for other things of managing time we'll talk about later. But start with this, start with this. Manage your time. You have more time than you think you do and maybe you're giving more time to things that don't need it. But that's where the managing part comes in. All right guys. So keep in mind, you know that this is all up to you. Even though I'm sharing this, I'm telling you, giving you advice about how to manage your time, you have to do what works for you. So I want to make sure that's clear because while I'm your hype men and I will support you through and through. At the end of the day, it's all about you. True story. Okay? So you do what you gotta do. There are apps that can help you. The Todoist is one, Things is another app. I'm sure there are plenty others that can help you. Planners have hours put in it, use that. Franklin Covey if that's still a thing, you know, find what works for you. The point and message I want to get to you today though is manage your time. Find a way, and manage your time. What I shared with you is just one option. All right? So guys, until tomorrow when we get back together, remember, you are awesome. You are loved, you are needed, and without a doubt you are enough as you are. Just because you're trying to better yourself with education. Just because you're trying to learn new things doesn't mean you're not enough. You're just improving upon yourself at your own choice and decision. So remember, you are enough. You are loved and you are appreciated. Guys. Alright, until next time when we get together, don't forget. Don't Stop, Keep Chasing.

In the third of this three-part series, Maura Sweeney '07 speaks with Jim Cavanagh '13 about forging his own path from Holy Cross into the legal profession. Recorded September 11, 2019 --- Transcript Jim:                        I realized, wow. I think what I learned at Holy Cross and I talked about the excitement of being a history major and getting lost in the stacks at Dinand. You just learned the importance of being a learner and learning that if you think, and even though things are difficult, if you buckle down and read and try to learn, you will learn and then when you do learn and you do put in the work that you can contribute and you can and you can serve. Maura:                 Welcome to Mission-Driven, where we speak with alumni who are leveraging their Holy Cross education to make a meaningful difference in the world around them. I'm your host, Maura Sweeney from the class of 2007, director of alumni career development at Holy Cross. I'm delighted to welcome to today's show.                                 In part three of this three part series, we speak with Jim Cavanagh. Jim graduated from Holy Cross in 2013 and Notre Dame law school in 2015. Despite being a fellow history major like his siblings, Mary and Joe, Jim decided to apply his Holy Cross education differently. We hear about Jim's decision to try out teaching theology before going to law school. Today Jim works as an associate at Jones day and talks about how his Holy Cross training has prepared him for the multidimensional work that he does. We wrap up by bringing the three of them back together for a speed round about their favorite memories from Holy Cross.                                 I'm excited now to turn to Jim, class of 2013, also a history major. You taught theology at Saint Sebastian school in Needham for two years before choosing to go to Notre Dame law where you graduated in 2018. You're an associate at Jones day doing something a little bit different, working across practice groups including business litigation, merger and acquisitions, banking and finance, tax credit transactions and pro bono work. You similarly take on pro bono work with the TGC Memorial fund and you've received your own slate of awards while at Notre Dame including the American law Institute CLE award for scholarship and leadership and the faculty award for excellence in civil procedure and health law, which, being recognized by faculty is really significant because I know that law school faculty seem to be some of the toughest out there. Jim:                        Right. Actually it's funny. So those awards are given based on your exam, which you're anonymous. You have a number. So I think on my civil procedure professor in particular, must've been like, “that kid won the award?” I think some of the questions I asked during my... That was my first classes I took in law school and I just remember asking a few questions, realizing, Oh, wow, I really don't know much, but that was a good... I mean, there's so many experiences in law school, but that was certainly a gratifying moment where I realized in that first semester I'd certainly come a long way. Maura:                 Right. Well and almost gives your professor the thought of, Oh wow, I shouldn't have underestimated this person. Jim:                        Right. And he never did anything to make me think that he was thought little of me at all. I just remember my own questions thinking, wow Jim, that was not a good question. Just these funny experiences. I think a lot of law students, a lot of anyone who's gone to law school certainly has these humbling moments, especially in their first year. So, that was a nice... When I realized I won that award, when it came out the highest exam score to me, I was pretty surprised myself. So yeah, that's a fun accolade to have. Maura:                 That's great. That's great. And I know you talked in preparation for this conversation about choosing to really forge your own career path separate from Mary and Joe, and so you described it as choosing the world of deals instead of the world of cases. Could you talk to me a little bit about that? Jim:                        Right. So think little... I certainly didn't know this when I was at Holy Cross and you don't even really understand it when you go to law school so much, but you really, once you get into practice, especially at a big law firm, you realize the different things lawyers do. Maura:                 Sure, right. Jim:                        And specifically there's a big divide, I mean, there's a divide between public interest work and private practice, but even just even in private practice, there's a big divide between transactional work and litigation. Litigation's, I think with the impression of everyone has a lawyer doing, what Joe and Mary do, where you go to court, you're representing a client in the lawsuit. And transactional work is you're helping a client complete a business deal so there's no judge involved. Right? You're not representing a plaintiff or defendant, you're representing, often it can be a seller or buyer or lender or borrower and so it's a completely different animal in a way. You're trying to complete the business deal. It's a collaborative... Even though there are negotiations since things, it's more of a quote when it's done well.                                 I think a collaborative exercise with the other parties counsel trying to get this deal done and in law school, even though you can learn about transactional work, there are courses on corporations and merchandise acquisitions, corporate finance. It's always in the litigation context. When years after this deal ended, it fell apart and everyone's suing each other. And what do the contracts say? What are our indemnities? So it's just a whole different world. So, it's like I said, when I interned with Jones Day after my second year of law school, it was my first exposure to wow, there's this whole other side to the legal profession that I know very little about, certainly. I mean, my dad being a litigator and Joe and Mary being litigators, civil litigators. And so I remember being overwhelmed and at first reluctant to try it. But my first year at Jones Day, it's neat, they don't give you an offer into a practice group. They say they give you a year to essentially be a free agent and work across practice groups. Maura:                 That's fantastic. Jim:                        And it's a lot, it's been great. It's difficult in a sense. There's a learning curve with almost every project. Maura:                 Sure. Jim:                        Because it's with different people, it's a different practice. So with that you move from practice to practice, so you're always learning again. So, even after eight months it's only then you start to maybe get a second project with one group and you can take everything you learned from your first product, first deal or case. And so for me, it was a very discern slowly that I learned that at Holy Cross and it certainly was a slow discernment process for me because I always imagined that I wanted to be a litigator, I wanted to be a trial lawyer.                                 And I don't know just getting out into practice even though it hasn't been so long, you see very much the practice of law is way more than the theory you learn in school where you're talking about cases in the abstract and reading appellate opinions. There's a human side of law that I think, law schools have gotten better about it now. There are a lot of internship, externship opportunities and clinical practice things... Clinical courses you can take, but more or less it's theory and then you get out and practice and you see the human side of it. Which I think is really what most of lawyer... Joe and Mary can speak to this better than me, but lawyers really spend most of their time doing client management, interacting with opposing counsel. And I don't know, for me, I was lawyered into transactional work.                                 One thing about it is, the reality is, it's quicker. Deals are shorter than a case. A case, a lawsuit, I know Joe and Mary can say this can last for years. A deal, the ones I've worked on, I know their deals, I can get stressed out maybe for a while, but they usually take a few months at most from the ones I worked on. So it's fun because there's a start and an end and it's also really intense and you're trying to get it done. But I've just found it's really exciting because you're working, the end result is something exciting. A business is getting bought, a business is growing. And I think it's really fun to prospectively make your client aware of problems or where I think litigators jump in and crisis mode where like I said, a business deal has fallen apart or something, a conflict has arisen in a person's life or in the client's life if their corporation and you're there to really guide them through that disaster, which is incredible profession.                                 And I know there's so many people who do that well, but I thought it was really appealing to work on the prospective side where you look at a deal, you look at the transaction your client's trying to complete it and you say, well, here's some things you need to think about. Because I know we wouldn't like to think that this transaction would fall apart, but if it did, you have to be mindful that you have a lot of exposure here if we don't take this step. And I think that's a real skill to have the foresight to identify the issues that can be an issue. Trying to communicate those to your client without scaring them, without getting them overwhelmed with the hypothetical, which might not happen, but also forcing them to be realistic and to think beyond the moment where you sign this deal and you have to go forward with whatever you've agreed to buy, agreed to sell, or agree to invest in.                                 And now, so it's been fun. So like I said, I discerned slowly. So I think I'm about a year in, so I have to choose a practice group. So, that's coming in the next few weeks. So, it's not going to be a litigation group. It's most likely going to be... it's going to be a transactional group. So, that's a long winded answer, but I hope I described a little bit about my encounter with learning about the other side of law. Maura:                 Well, and it seems like discernment has been something that you've really carried from Holy Cross because you didn't jump into a lot right away. And you did take a step and you taught for a few years. So talk to me a little bit about that decision to really take another step before jumping in. Jim:                        Right. Well, I couldn't have told you I started... I graduated in 13. My last day of school at Holy Cross was... Graduation was probably around May 20th and then September 1st, I was the teacher. I think I got a haircut, bought a tie and all of a sudden I was Mr. Cavanagh, teaching a class of seventh and eighth graders. And it was quite a transition.                                 And I don't think I could have told you in January of 2013 that I would be... if you told me I was teaching the next year, I would have said really? I don't think that's going to happen. So, even though I did say discern slowly that certainly happened quickly, looking back at the grand scheme of my life and just to tell you how it happened. So, I always knew I wanted to go law school. I think even though in the last few years, I think my career is going to be very different than what I imagined it would be just from growing up in our family. And our dad was a litigator and he always had... I always loved talking to him about his job and different things about his cases and I thought it was very appealing and it was just very appealing to me.                                 So, I always wanted to go, but I just knew I wasn't ready. It was always, even as a senior in college, I thought, I want to do that, but I just knew I didn't want to go right away. And I remember, I had really had no idea what I wanted to do. I think I had applied to some Fulbright scholarship, a Fulbright scholarship with Tony Cashman had helped me apply and so I was waiting on that, but I didn't really know what else. And I remember studying for finals in December. December, 2012 the first semester of my senior year, and there was an email that got shot out from the career services office and it was for internships at a prep schools and it didn't apply to me. It was a applied to rising juniors, rising seniors where you could intern at a summer camp, I forget the... Some New England prep schools and I thought just, I went to an all boy Catholic school and Rhode Island and it was big.                                 It was about a thousand boys. Some of my brothers had gone to a prep school and I just knew that it's a very small community. They all had very good experiences and played sports. And I also just was familiar with the model where you know, the teachers, they teach in their small classroom size and then your teachers are also your coaches. And the teachers are really a part of the community, especially at those schools. And I don't know, just an image of me teaching and then coaching, like hockey. I liked, I didn't play hockey here, but I love hockey and I just thought, wow, wouldn't that be a lot of fun? But I kind of dismissed it thinking I couldn't do that. I've never thought of doing that. And then I was home, it was around Christmas and my sister and I, not Mary or our sister Carol, who's also a lawyer. She started to cross examine me about what I was going to do. Maura:                 That's what the holidays are good for. Jim:                        Right. Exactly. What are you going to do? You're a senior, the clocks ticking. Do you have a plan? And I don't know. Well I just didn't want to say, I didn't have anything. I said, well, I've thought about teaching. And she said, Oh wow. And she said, where? I was like, maybe a prep school, I don't know, just from that one thought. And she put me in touch with a guy who was an alum here. He's works at CM now, guy Mike Schell. And he's just a wonderful guy. And he was a student here and had done the same thing, went right to teaching in a prep school. And so I had the long break and he was a friend of my sisters. So I gave him a call and just talked to him about what I was interested in.                                 I said, I really haven't thought about this much, but it excites me. The idea of teaching. I think it'd be fun. And I know it would be challenging and everything. And he said no. And I think he identified with what I was feeling as a senior in college and he was my guy to applying to different prep schools around that might be open to hiring a kid right out of college. He wasn't an education major, no prior teaching experience. So I interviewed at some places, made it to the final rounds and nothing was happening. But then I got an email from him that his school where he taught was looking for a new religion teacher, at St Sebastian's. So I went and I interviewed and I met the headmaster Bill Burke, who's a wonderful guy and the assistant, who was a Holy Cross alum.                                 And I just spent a day at the school and right away fell in love with it and one of my good friends from college Luke Sullivan, went to St. Sebs and I knew he loved his high school and I immediately thought, wow, this is a place I could picture myself. And sure enough they thought they could picture me there too. So it was great. I had an offer and I had a job. Spring semester, senior year. So I started that and I know... so that's how I ended up there and that was just an incredible experience and I just loved every minute of being there and it was kind of funny. It was one of those things where a year, December, 2013 I was coaching the JV hockey team, I had taught a full day class, was at the rink and just having fun. I thought, this is funny. A year ago I pictured myself doing this and didn't think it... And really laughed at it. I'm actually here doing it. So, that was great. Maura:                 It's sometimes hard to believe that work can also be fun. Jim:                        Right? Maura:                 Like I can get paid to do this. Jim:                        And that was, I remember that too, right, being at hockey practice coaching a game. And I'm thinking, I guess I'm at work right now, which is pretty cool. And actually it's funny I mentioned to you, I did some work this morning and cool beans and a bunch of students I taught who were in seventh and eighth grade are actually now here as students. And I was hoping maybe I could scare one of them. Like, Hey, like I used to do or just see one of them. And so, yeah, it was a great experience. Maura:                 Yeah, that's fantastic. I also read that you did an internship at the US attorney's office. Jim:                        Yes. Maura:                 Along your path of figuring out what you want to do. I'd love to hear a little bit about how that's informed your work. Jim:                        Right? So it was after my first year of law school. After your first year of law school is interesting because it's really a year in the books. You're learning law and the abstract and like I mentioned this earlier, you really know very little about the practice of lot itself, but you've learned a lot of legal theory and about the substantive bodies of law. So, as a first year law student, they're not too many options to intern because no one's really willing to pay you to do anything. But it's a great opportunity to work for a government agency that might have unpaid internships and have a program where you can come in and they'll give you some assignments and you'll get to see a lot of action. Maura:                 Right. Jim:                        Because I mean US attorney's office is interesting experience because they're federal prosecutors, so they're in court all the time. So, I spent a lot of time that summer, just really, I mean, more so than the work I did, just sitting in court watching... I got to watch a full jury criminal jury trial. I got to watch sentencings, plea agreements and also did some research and stuff to help an attorney. I remember that was fun doing some research and an attorney was taking it with him to argue it for the judge. I hope it went well, but one thing, so I do something very different now, right? I'm in private practice, transactional work, but it's something to see the criminal justice system at work, is I think just something as a citizen, as a lawyer especially, is worth witnessing and knowing something about, because I mean so much, sadly, a lot of people... I think Mary spoke to it earlier when she said, we have an incredible legal system in the United States and so often, right?                                 We just take it for granted, especially if you're from here and having lived in a different part of the world with a different legal system. But a lot of people unfortunately, right, like one of the times they really realize that they are part of a society governed by laws is if they have an encounter with the criminal justice system. If they find themselves charged with something. And so just knowing how that works and kind of just, I think any, every lawyer has an obligation to know a little bit about it. And also seeing it... I also, you understand that it's, for the system to work well, it takes a good lawyers, both good judges, good prosecutors, good defendants and good law clerks who help the judge and do research for the judge. And I think just that summer broadened me to realize that this system has worked and it's working every day. There are a million cases before these judges, these judges are working hard, these lawyers are working hard.                                 And I think it really, if anything just as a first year law student just makes you more aware of how important the criminal justice system is, that the people in it do a good job, the people in it are committed and act ethically. And also too that, just as a lawyer, you should know something about this because you might, before you know it, now you're a lawyer, right? So someone years down the road, hopefully I think all the guys I met here, upstanding citizens, but if they found themselves in trouble. You might get a phone call, might be helpful to know a little bit something about it, but so it was a good experience. Maura:                 That's fantastic. And how has the Holy Cross's mission influenced your life? Jim:                        Right. The Holy Cross mission for me, like I said, discern slowly and I think if you show up on campus, you're 18 it's really your first time away from home. Even though home is only 45 minutes away in Rhode Island. And I think of, just in four years you've come a long way or you should. And I think certainly Holy Cross and I think Mary and Joe harped on this in their experiences that, you do mature quite a bit in college. Just, I mean, you're 18 when you arrive, you're 22 when you graduate. So I think, I do remember it just being here and I like to think that my awareness of being mission driven grew and the whole Jesuit philosophy to be, men and women for others. And the idea that you should always be mindful of the questions of who is God, who is God calling me to be, and who is God calling me to be for others. And I think just as I went through my time here, I became more and more aware of that and I took more advantage of the opportunities Holy Cross offered to discern what God is calling you to do.                                 I went on the spiritual exercises. Actually the winter of my senior year, it was right around the time this whole teaching decision happened. And I remember I'd actually just found out I didn't get my Fulbright and I really was out of... I didn't know what I was going to do. I knew I had this idea about teaching and I just remember going on the exercises and thinking, okay, this is the time for your discernment. And really the only thing I discerned was all you can do is just respond to whatever's happening in front of you to treat the people around you with love and try to do the next right thing. To try to give your full attention to the task in front of you because that's God's plan for you that day. The people and the circumstances, he places in front of you.                                 And I remember I read a book by a Jesuit, during my experience on that retreat and that was kind of... and my mom just gave it to me before I went and it was really, I think all for a purpose. And I remember so, so when I say, how's that affects how Holy Cross drives my mission. Now, it's interesting, right? Because again, this has been a big transition year for me. I just graduated from law school, I moved back to the East coast and I've been working across practice groups and with that it's been a little chaotic. At times you feel overwhelmed and it always comes back to, what does God want me to do in this circumstance with these people I'm dealing with? And I think a lot of it just stems from the academic experience here that you should do your work well. Right.                                 That we all have gifts. That part of being men, women for others is giving the best of yourself to task. So even if it's the most monotonous, tedious task on this deal that you're asked to do as a junior associate, you're called to do that to the best of your ability. And so right now I'd say it drives my mission because you want to serve others. But it also just made me really aware of the way you serve others is by serving who's in front of you. And I've found that just to keep your sanity in a chaotic year, practicing law and to find God in it, is you really have to stay in the moment and do your best with what you have in front of you. Maura:                 Well and that probably ties in, you know my next question of this, is about your personal mission and I'm sure it's tied into that. So I guess, how have you taken that and really created your own mission? Jim:                        Right. So right now, I think my mission is really just to become confident in what you're doing. And I remember showing up at Holy Cross and being a history major and really realizing I don't write well. And so much, I mean, this is, I think just an example of Holy Cross and how the professors were great, but they were honest and blunt and said, your writing's weak. You need to get better. And I remember it took so long to get better. It took draft after draft. And I remember taking different courses and visiting professors at office hours who were always willing to help. But I remember getting over the hump, and I'm not going to say I'm a great writer, but I'm going to say that I'm certainly a better writer than I was when I started here. Mary:                    I guess your Civil Procedure professor thought you were pretty good. Jim:                        A good part of it was multiple choice.                                 And I think, so right now, what drives me is getting better and gaining in competencies because I've learned that law is extremely complicated and it's a bit daunting when you realize there's so much I don't know. But the thing is you can just keep at it and as you grow in competencies, it gives you more opportunities to serve others. Right. Because I don't know where I'll end up in my career. I mean, Joe and Mary, they graduated from law school a few years before me, so I'm not exactly sure where everything's going. But that's certainly driving me right now. How can I be, utilize my gifts, develop them the most I can. So I can serve others the way God calls me to. Maura:                 That's wonderful.                                 And think back to when you were a student and you've talked about it a little bit, you don't have to think back as far. What stands out to you about your experience on campus and how has it really prepared you for some of the challenges that you've faced? Jim:                        Right. I mentioned it in my previous answer, but certainly I found as a history major, that you certainly had the opportunity to become a better student. You had the opportunity to really develop your critical thinking because of professors who cared, professors who pushed you and professors who are really passionate about what they taught. I can think of so many examples. I think of my first class I took with Stephanie Yuhl, it was my Montserrat class, I believe they still have the Montserrat program and I wasn't just a history major because Carol, I mean, because of Mary and Joe were, but I mean certainly that helped and I thought I would be interested, but I remember taking this class on World War II and Vietnam and thinking it would just be a military history class, but with professor Yuhl it was very different. It was really about the memory of those wars and how we as a society now choose to memorialize them and what narratives get told and whose narrative get told and who are the stakeholders.                                 And you realize that there just so many layers that complicate these issues. And it just really opened my eyes to what a complex world we have and the need to be aware of that and the need to be a voice in the conversation. So with that, it helps if you can analyze, it helps if you can critically think and it helps if you can write well. And so I think to my experience at Holy Cross, it was certainly one where I grew quite a bit and I remember after that experience in class thinking, wow, I think I want to be a history major and I chose to be a history major. And then I just taking other courses with Gwen Miller, with Father K and having these moments where you're looking at correspondence from members of Congress, looking at the writings of the Jesuits in their encounter with native Americans hundreds of years ago.                                 And you really get into the primary sources. And what was the experience of this person? What are they saying about it? And I just remember it was a neat experience to have your interest inflamed in so many... In an area of study. And I think that helps for anyone who's a student here and you go to law school because of lot of... Even if you took some time off... like I didn't take time or you did something different before going to law school, you have the muscle memory of what it takes to be a serious student, to be a critical thinker, to analyze a document, to analyze someone's writings and to write well. And I think, so certainly when I think back, especially after going to law school, I think those experiences at Holy Cross certainly prepared me. Maura:                 Right. And even just the practice of learning someone else's perspective through that analysis must be so valuable. Jim:                        Oh certainly. I'm not a litigator, but I mean, so much of the study of law is right? There are two sides of the case and there's a different way and you read two different briefs that are written about the same... Based off the same facts. They can try to tell such a different story. I think Joe and Mary can probably speak to that with more detail and with more experience than I can. So always being mindful of what is the other narrative? What narrative am I overlooking? And you see that too, just applying it and you can always apply that in whatever you're doing, in transactional work negotiations. What does the other side want out of this deal? Why would they care about this?                                 And when you do that and you have a sense of where someone else is coming from, it just makes for more beneficial dialogue. And then in a pragmatic sense, it's way better for your clients, way more efficient, if the lawyers aren't talking past each other. If you're really listening and appreciating and understanding that one issue that you might be raising is important to them and you might, based on your client's position, it doesn't really matter to you, it matters to them. So taking the time to dialogue with them and then it just gives you more credit going forward. When you have something you want to talk about. So, yeah, certainly very valuable. Maura:                 Fantastic. And so this you've probably touched on also, about how your Holy Cross education influence the way that you practice law. Jim:                        Right. I guess, one thing is to just be willing to put in the work to... It's tough, especially in law because you bill per hour and you're very busy and so it's important to learn efficiency, but it's also important to do your work well. Because that's serving your client... To really... You get a long complicated contract, really sitting down and analyzing it and digging in, getting into the weeds on things. I mean, it takes some judgment. You don't want to spin your tires too much on things. And that comes, I think with time, knowing what issues to look for, what things aren't important. But really I think Holy Cross really taught me from the get go.                                 As I started the path that led me to law school and I knew the practice of law, that you really just need a great attention to detail. That you really have to take pride in your work and do it well. Because it certainly becomes a habit and I can see, actually it's interesting, I feel like law school in a way is a moment, it's the culmination of you putting into practice all the skills you've learned as a student. Because in law school, especially the first year, you only have one exam, per class, per semester. There was no study guide or anything. So it was really on you to be organized, to make sure that you're listening, to make sure that you've developed critical thinking skills to be identify what's important in your course. And then, you put that, then you write an exam and hopefully you had the right skills.                                 And then law school prepares you for law because it's really that practice. It's really just the same practice that I started here at Holy Cross of having attention to detail. Putting in the work to analyze, to read, to think and if you've been doing that for a long time, you know that's how you have to do it. You have to put in the work, but also too, you're just better at it. So certainly, I think, that's how Holy Cross is carried into my practice of law. But you still got to do it. You still got to break a sweat always. But I learned that a long time ago, I think. Maura:                 Yeah. Yeah. Oh good. What has been the most satisfying or rewarding moment for you in your work so far? Jim:                        That's a good question. A recent experience actually and I think it's great because it touches on something that I learned here at Holy Cross and I credit Holy Cross are helping me have this experience. Like I said, I'm not going to be a litigator, but for about six months this year I did quite a bit of litigation work. And I remember on the first day I got to my office, there was this big stack of briefings on my desk and I had an email that I was being put on part of this case team in this massive lawsuit that had been going on for a long time. And my job was to help prepare for depositions. And depositions, right, are pretty much just having a witness testify outside of court where a lawyer, it's not in court, but lawyers go and one lawyer questions a witness and the other lawyer defends the witness and it helps you build a record of the case and just different facts and going forward.                                 And so I had prepared for the... Helped partners in my law firm and other associates prepare for these depositions. And a lot of that is grunt work. There's so many doc... These two major institutions are suing each other. So they're just a lot of documents. So you spend a lot of time reading documents, it's a lot of grunt work and you have to pull ones you think are relevant, things that will come up in this deposition. And I remember being just overwhelmed by the case when I first got there because it was very complicated matter and we were thinking, how will I ever understand this much less be ready to look at hundreds, maybe thousands of documents and be able to identify ones which could be problematic or worth asking a witness about. And I remember in June I went to New York with the partner in the deposition for this case.                                 And I remember he had asked me for the months leading up to it, just different questions about different documents that had come up in this case. And I would read them, analyze them and shoot them off in email and everything and I remember we were preparing for the deposition and we finally started the deposition and it was the first one I actually attended and it was just a neat moment for me because when I realized I was part of a team. I was part of this litigation team and I was there on the record at the deposition on behalf of a client and also too, I remembered this case was so complicated but the deposition lasted eight hours and this was a very important witness and I realized I knew everything about the case or there was a lot I still didn't know, but I knew so much that I was with it for the seven, eight hours we were there.                                 Every question, I knew why it mattered, I knew why we were asking it. And also it was rewarding... I helped prepare the outline, seeing documents that I was asked to look at a few weeks ago and I didn't even really, just because the partner is busy, I hadn't received much feedback, some questions, points I had raised come up in the questions. So it was a rewarding moment because I realized, wow, I think what I learned at Holy Cross and I talked about the excitement of being a history major and getting lost in the stacks at Dinand and you just learned the importance of being a learner and learning that if you think, and even though things are difficult, if you buckle down and read and try to learn, you will learn. And then when you do learn and you do put in the work that you can contribute and you can serve.                                 And so I felt, even though I don't want to be a litigator, that was a great moment for me. So, I'd say, just like I said, you got to break a sweat. Probably Holy Cross taught you that. I think I did that for six months, leading up to that deposition. I felt like a rewarding moment for me. Maura:                 Yeah. Well, given what you know now, what advice do you have for someone who's interested in pursuing law? Jim:                        Right. This is certainly, I think, I know you asked Joe and Mary this question, but certainly for me, being right out of law school, I think it's certain... I had to consider, I mean, I had the discern law school in more recent time than they did and I'd say, one I've been really blown away by just, like I said, especially going to my firm, all the different opportunities that are for lawyers. So, if you're a science person, there are opportunities for in law in life and health sciences, in intellectual property if you're interested. If you're, I mean, people were passionate about civil rights and passionate and about equality injustice. There are obviously major opportunities especially in public interest in government.                                 And so one, I'd say, don't think you're pigeonholing yourself by going to law school because there are a lot of different ways you can go. But also too, it is an incredible investment of time, energy, and also money too. So, law school can be very expensive. I think it's very much worth it if you're going to be a serious student there and take the time to learn. And I think of how I grew in three years of law school. And so, I'd say certainly think about it, pray about it, discern it, but also too know, I'd say talk to as many lawyers as you can because there's so many different experiences and it's actually funny for me, because I realized when I showed up at law school, even though I had three siblings who were lawyers and a father whose lawyer, I knew so little about what law school would be like, but going through it and I thought that was really funny for a person who had always wanted to go, but I realized I was really happy that I went.                                 So that was my experience, but certainly I'd say take the time before you invest, but also know I'm an optimist and I'm a promoter of it, thinking there's a lot you can do with it. Maura:                 Fantastic. Fantastic.                                 Well now to wrap things up, I have a series of speed round questions. Quick questions, quick answers. And for this I'll ask the question and then go around and hear everyone's answer. So are you ready to tackle it? Yeah. Okay.                                 What was your favorite dorm? Joe:                        Lehy Maura:                 Joe. Yep. Mary? Mary:                    Mulledy Jim:                        Hanselman. Maura:                 Fantastic. Favorite meal on campus or favorite Cool Beans order, Joe? Joe:                        Omelets, made to order with waffles at Kimball on weekend mornings only. Maura:                 Mary? Mary:                    Pizza from the pizza kitchen. Maura:                 Fantastic. And Jim? Jim:                        Chicken parm night, definitely. Maura:                 Very nice. Very nice. Favorite class? Joe? Joe:                        Contemporary Christian Morality with Father Linnane. Maura:                 Mary? Mary:                    Law and Human Rights in China with professor Karen Turner. Maura:                 Fantastic. Jim? Jim:                        Understanding Mary with Father Gavin. Maura:                 Wonderful. Favorite professor, Joe? Joe:                        Father Linnane. Father Kuzniewski. Maura:                 Mary? Mary:                    I guess. Professor Turner. Maura:                 Great. Jim? Jim:                        Professor Yuhl, she was great. Maura:                 Favorite memory? Joe? Joe:                        Winning the Mac Hockey Championship my senior year. Maura:                 Not running down to Kimball and back? Joe:                        No, I blocked that one out. Maura:                 Great. Mary? Mary:                    The last few nights before graduation at the heart center. Maura:                 Jim? Jim:                        I will say, senior year going to the Cape with my friends, with all my friends I had gotten to know over the last four years. It was incredible. Maura:                 Great. And last question, best part about being a Holy Cross alum, Joe? Joe:                        The pride you take in the whole spirit of the school and being able to say that you're a part of that. Maura:                 Mary? Mary:                    I think just knowing you are part of such an excellent tradition and excellent institution. Something that you always have with you. Maura:                 Jim? Jim:                        In a similar way, remembering where you came from and remembering the mission you were taught here and how even though you can stray from it and it might not always feel present to you that I think just being here for four years, just being... I appreciate being ingrained with, we're supposed to be men and women for others. Maura:                 Fantastic. Wonderful and that's a wrap. Thank you.                                 That's our show. I hope you enjoyed hearing about just one of the many ways that Holy Cross alumni have been inspired by the mission to be men and women for and with others. A special thanks to today's guests and everyone at Holy Cross who has contributed to making this podcast a reality. If you or someone you know would like to be featured on this podcast, please send us an email at alumnicareers@holycross.edu. If you like what you hear, then please leave us a review. This podcast is brought to you by the office of alumni relations at the college of the Holy Cross. You can subscribe for future episodes wherever you find your podcasts. I'm your host, Maura Sweeney, and this is Mission-Driven. In the words of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, "now go forth and set the world on fire." --- Theme music composed by Scott Holmes, courtesy of freemusicarchive.org.

Do you share your CGM graphs and A1Cs online? Why? Stacey talks about the trend of sharing everything on social media and wonders if what she learned in her radio career might help us all make sense of when and how to better share. Check out Stacey's new book: The World's Worst Diabetes Mom! In 2020 we're adding these mini-episodes to the weekly line up. Each Tuesday you'll hear the regular longer format interview shows. Thursdays will be these Stacey-solo shows. Join the Diabetes Connections Facebook Group! Sign up for our newsletter here ----- Use this link to get one free download and one free month of Audible, available to Diabetes Connections listeners! ----- Get the App and listen to Diabetes Connections wherever you go! Click here for iPhone      Click here for Android Show transcript (rough copy so please excuse spelling, grammar, punctuation) Stacey Simms  0:00 This episode of diabetes Connections is brought to you by the World's Worst Diabetes Mom: Real Life Stories of Parenting a Child With Type One Diabetes, available as a paperback eBook and audiobook. Learn more at diabetes dash connections.com   This is Diabetes Connections with Stacey Simms.   Stacey Simms Welcome to something new on diabetes connections. I'm your host, Stacey Simms. And this is a mini sode, a very short mini episode. I'm going to be doing these in the new year. Just me sharing some thoughts, advice and experience. Please keep in mind, everything I'm talking about here is only through my personal experience as a parent of a child with Type One Diabetes. I am not a medical professional. And I am the author of the world's worst diabetes mom. So keep that in mind as well. One of the questions I get All the time is why don't I share Benny's numbers? Why don't I share my son's A1Cs? Why don't I post more graphs? I do occasionally show some CGM action, you know when I'm trying to prove a point or talk about stuff. But why don't I do that more regularly and especially the A1C numbers? Well, I really did share them for a long time. Benny, he was diagnosed right before he turned two and social media wasn't as big a thing in 2006 when he was diagnosed, but a couple years later, it was and I shared them on Twitter and Facebook until he was about seven, I'd say. And then I became friends with Moira McCarthy, who is a very well known author, blogger. She helps me out on diabetes connections as my co host of the Ask the D mom episodes, and she asked me to think about why I was doing that. And it really did did took me back. I took a step back on that. And after I thought about it for a while, I did stop sharing them. And here's what really helped me. It's one way of looking at it. That might sound funny. Radio really helped me make more sense of how I felt about diabetes numbers. If you're not familiar, I worked in radio for a very long time I started my career while I was in college, at a radio station. I worked at WSYR, I was the weekend reporter in Syracuse, New York for the old news station there. And then after college, I was a local TV anchor and reporter for many years, moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, where I live now in that capacity. I work for the CBS affiliate as a TV reporter and anchor for a couple of years. But I went back to radio for a decade and I did mornings at WBT, one of these big heritage radio stations. So my old Program Director, Bill White, used to caution us against putting too much stock into the ratings. You know, you get these Nielsen ratings, at least you used to in radio, and I want to say you got them every quarter. And these were the ratings that would give us I mean, not just bragging rights, which was a lot of fun to say, you know, we're number one in the market or you know, we're number two or whatever. It was, but they would also set the commercial rates, right how much the sales people could charge for a commercial at any given time on the radio station. Now, it changed a lot in the time that I was in radio, because the ratings systems switched from Nielsen ratings, which were you were writing down what you listen to, I don't know if you ever had one of these Nielsen books, but that's what it was, you would get a physical book. Remember those pen paper like a workbook, and you should write down what you listen to. That's why so many radio stations repeat their call letters a billion times, or at least they did back then. Because they wanted you to remember the call letters when you got your little Nielsen book. So if you're listen to radio station, they're always like news, weather, traffic, you're listening to news talk 1110 WBT, you know, why did we say it a million times an hour, we needed it to stick in your head so you would write it down. But then, really just a couple of years before I left radio, the portable people meter, the ppm system took over and changed everything. So ppm, if you're not familiar, is a system that was developed, I want to say by Arbitron, but now part of Nielsen. So it's like a pager almost, and you wear it. And it detects hidden audio tones, I kid you not within the audio stream, so it logs every time it finds a signal. So a ppm basically picks up when you're listening. And when it came through, there was a lot of talk about is it accurate? Is it biased to younger people who are going to walk around with this thing as opposed to older listeners who can't be bothered, you know, will it pick up stuff in gas station stores that play music or restaurants you know, blah, blah, blah, doesn't matter that ship has sailed. The ppm is now how radio stations get their ratings and it changed everything which is a story for a different time. But I will say if your your local fun morning show is talking less than playing music more, or you're hearing some changes, really you would have heard these almost 10 years ago now and the way you listen to radio Do it was because of ppm and you know now it's debatable whether radio podcasts streaming, that's a whole other story. But so ppm for us really changed the numbers. Our radio station WBT never really sold on those numbers strictly though, because we had a very desirable audience. We had an older audience, our audience had more money, they were more loyal. They were really apt to buy what we were selling. So we did not have to live and die by the ratings, thankfully, and that is what Bill warned us against my program director. If we got so caught up and excited about the really, really good ratings, would we be devastated by the bad, right where we doing a good show where we serving our listeners, my co host, used to say, super serving our listeners, you know, where we doing all we could for our clients, you know, we were doing all this at 5am where we're doing everything we could do, and that's what we were supposed to focus on. Bill's point was Don't let the numbers run your life. Life and a new station. This is really important. Think about when you might listen to your local news station, you might listen when there's a power failure and you need that radio, you might listen when there's a huge news story, you might just listen occasionally. I mean, in the olden days, you'd listen for school closings before the internet. So we'd get these, these spikes that were very attributable to events, right. And then we would get these lows, that maybe were also attributable to events. But if you got emotionally caught up and thought, oh, all these people are listening, because I'm so great. Then you could also get emotionally messed up when you're thinking they're all tuning out because of me. So you can't put the numbers before what you're supposed to be accomplishing. As a news broadcaster. We were there to inform, to entertain a bit sure, but to inform. And I think Bill's advice is really applicable to diabetes. Look, of course, numbers are important. Of course, we need to pay attention to them, but We can't run our lives around them, we can't let them have the emotional power that many seem to want to give them. I mean, I've been guilty of this too. But you have to step back and recognize they are information, they are guidelines, they are not your value. If your self worth is coming from your child's or your A1C,  I'd really encourage you as Moira did to me years ago, step back and think about that, think about why. And then I would encourage you to try to move that good feeling off of those numbers and onto other ways that you're dealing with diabetes. I mean, for very young children. I mean, that can be such a roller coaster. The victories for me, were the smiles with grandparents, you know, bedtime snuggles, milestones like potty training, you know, even when your your little kid learns to share, right? These are all ways of celebrating and as your kids get older, participating in sports or in the school play, getting their drugs permit Ben he just got his somebody come hold my hand. Oh my god. But these are things to celebrate first date, right? Oh my gosh, these are ways to celebrate with diabetes that aren't about the numbers. Just thinking back right? What stands out if you have older kids, or if you're an adult with type one, what stands out for you? Do you remember that excellent doctor's appointment? Or do you remember feeling really good and doing something that you loved? Because you have to be in range have to be taken care of yourself to be feeling good at these times is all is my point. But you're not focusing on the actual number right? If you're calling your endo appointment, mommy's report card, I am talking to you. Because what happens is, so many people share only the so called good numbers, right? But they don't want to share the so called bad ones. Because if you have publicly celebrated, let's just say a 6.5 A1C you may feel really bad about 7.8 or higher? I mean, let's be real here. And something else to keep in mind. And maybe the most important thing is that for parents, you're making these choices for your kids. You're putting their health information online, you're putting it out there adults, this is different for you. I mean, these are your choices. But parents, you're making a decision for your kids and you're really not getting their okay. And I don't think a seven year old can really decide if it's okay, right. Remember, if you're in a private Facebook group, nothing online is private, nothing you're sharing online once you hit send, or put it out there. Nothing online is private. And that's really the biggest reason why I stopped sharing Benny's A1C. I decided there was no reason for me to leave a breadcrumb trail of health information on the internet for someone and employer and insurer, anybody to find when he was an adult, I don't care how good his numbers have been. And trust me they're far from perfect. Sometimes they're No need to share that. One more thing. There is a school of thought that you don't even need to tell younger children what their A1C is. And I wish I had done that. I mean, I don't really think Benny ever knew until he was out of elementary school. But a lot of endocrinologists are now writing it down and showing the parents if you're in the room together, or maybe emailing it to you later through a health portal, which is protected by HIPAA in a way that Facebook obviously is not. And I think that's great, because you can easily find ways to celebrate or mark time with your kids or, you know, hey, we're at the endo and that's always a reason why we do. We go to a movie, we go shopping, we do a special high five, whatever works for you. But you're not celebrating the number per se. And back to Benny for a moment. Here's how I know he didn't know what his A1C was when he was little. He had a nurse asked him once he was a camp so he was in a not normal setting. And the kids were eating ice cream and I don't know why the nurse was involved. Maybe they were doing it at the health center. Who knows But he asked for his ice cream. And she said, Oh, I don't know. Should you be eating this? What's your A1C?  He was about eight, maybe nine. And he said, I don't know. He turned around and found another nurse and said, Can I have the ice cream? She was like, yeah, sure, Benny, no problem. And, you know, he told me that story when he came home from Camp, but I was kind of glad he didn't know. And I was really glad that he was smart enough to find somebody to give him the darn ice cream. I am not trying to be a killjoy here. You know, we all have what works for us. But I urge you try this. You may find it incredibly freeing not to share your numbers not to share your child's numbers. Come on, you are all so much more than the A1C or the last 24 hours on a graph. Right? You're not raising a number. You're raising a child. I hope this gives you something to think about. Agree. disagree. Remember, I am the World's Worst Diabetes mom. And the book is available on Amazon paperback eBook and audio book and it's available at diabetes dash connections. com where you can always find out more. I hope you come back for our regular full length episodes. Every Tuesday, we feature interviews with newsmakers, athletes, artists, celebrities, authors, speakers, and everyday people, quote unquote just living with Type One Diabetes. I’ve been doing the podcast for four and a half years now, and I really hope you find episodes that you love. I'm Stacey Simms. I'll see you back here next week. Until then, be kind to yourself.   Benny  12:34 Diabetes Connections is a production of Stacey Simms Media. All rights reserved. All rounds avenged   Transcribed by Otter.ai

All right. Welcome back to mindset radio. I'm your host Jeff Banman. And today I have begged, pleaded, convinced, guilt, tripped and otherwise, and probably now responsible for dinners and drinks for the rest of my life. Uh, but our guest today is the man, the myth, the legend, Jordan harbinger, and more, more myth, I think. I know. Don't beat yourself up. That's not allowed. Uh, you've done an exceptional job. I love listening to your show. Believe it or not, not everybody knows who you are, which is unfortunate. I've run across people all the time and I'm like, Hey, I finally convinced Jordan to come on the show. And they're like, who? And I know that's hard to believe...it's easy for me to believe, man. My, I have an infant son who doesn't give a crap who I am. Right? And he never will. I think. Isn't that how it is with kids?No, I, I don't know. Cause here's the funny thing with even with a little man this morning, right? So just turned two in November and we were getting ready to go for a walk, do whatever. And I turned around and I cross my arms, he looked right at me and just crossed his arms. Exactly. It's a big grin on his face. So that'll start, it'll start to come eventually.I gotta tell you this, uh, I've got, I interview a lot of people for the Jordan harbinger show as you know, cause you, you do listen to the show and thank you for that. And I've got, you know, acquaintances, I should say buddies, whatever that are like well known household names across at least America. And they're like, yeah, you know, I thought when I have kids I'm gonna finally be the cool dad because you know, super famous, super rich person that everyone, you know, cow toes to walk into a restaurant, never wait for a table, never pay for stuff half the time. And he's like, no, my kids are still like, can you drop me off at the corner? I don't want people to see that I'm with you. And like, and some of it's for different reasons. Like, you know, most of us, we're just going to be too nerdy to hang out with the kids.And for him, maybe it's like half nerdy half. They don't want their friends asking questions for their dads or something like that. Like you're dead if during that one time or that one movie. But still, it's kind of like no matter how cool like you can be on, we literally had this conversation on their yachts and they're like, yeah, well, and I'm like, I'm on your yacht watching the NBA playoffs on a big screen TV that comes up from like the mahogany whatever. And your kids are like, dude sucks. You know, like it's you just, you can't,no, never, ever. You can't man. I mean it's, you know, I've got the spectrums. Like we were talking about 15 and a half. She splits a year with me. So I spent my 45th birthday standing in line at the DMV to get her learner's permit. I'm excited though. So I mean, and you know it, it's coming back around. That's what I'm watching. They kind of, especially with the girls, you know, my oldest now coming closer to 16, we have a whole different relationship and it's very cool to kind of see that come around. Like she's excited to do stuff with me. Um, so it does, it ebbs and flows, but yeah, dude, it doesn't matter who you are. You could be the coolest cat on the face of the planet. Your kids going to still be like, alright, leave me alone. I think that's the way it goes.Yup. Exactly. So I, he's five months old. I got a few more years.A bit of time, man. You got a little bit yeah, that that first, uh, that first year and a half. You're just like you are, I have no idea who I am.Right? Yeah. I would say common. Common advice I've been given is the first 10 years they'll think I'm cool and then the next 10 years they won't. And then like in their twenties, it's kind of 50, 50, and then after age 30, again, they realize I'm not a total dumb ass and I actually have something to say. I put my own experience with my own parents, like my parents are awesome. My parents don't know anything. Oh, turns out all that stuff that I thought I knew better than I was only half. Right. Okay, fine. I was 10% right, but I'm still going to count it because I can never let them have this one. And now that I'm 40, I'm like, Oh, time is limited, you know, just enjoy it. But I don't want to waste your listeners time with reminiscing orI think it's, you know, it's all relevant and it's all things that we, uh, deal with. You know, it's like when I had Phil McKernan on and, uh, even Sherry walling and some people, you know, uh, you know, we talked about the family issue several times, especially in our community. It's like, how do I go from being fireman, a cop, you know, quote unquote hero, which I hate that term. Um, you know, but, and then step in and be a dad and be like a normal dad or a normal mom, you know? Uh, it's tough.Why do you hate that term? I think a lot of people your position, they hate that. I mean I, my dad loves his hobby is like paying for policemen's meals at restaurants, which by the way I think is not allowed in most places, but indeed in Detroit they're like, thanks. Yeah, they're hot dog, but out here in California they're like, I cannot do that. Please do not do that. I have to fill out paperwork when you do that. So, but he loves it. And, and uh, it's funny cause I think a lot of people look at servicemen, firemen, cops, et cetera as heroes. But yeah, I guess I guess it's probably uncomfortable hearing it to your face. I would, I don't know how I'd feel. It's hard to say thatit's caused a lot of conflict. It's interesting because Phil Phillip has asked me to give my one last talk in February here in Boulder. Um, and it's brought up a lot of stuff. And some of that is what you know, we're dealing with now is like, really now you've done this, you've done a lot of work on yourself, you've done a lot of different, you know, aspects. But I think for me it's like I don't, that's not, it's not why I did what I did. It's, I, I didn't do it for any of that and I'm not, you know, I think part of the thing, it's like I laid in bed and like, I want your house to burn down because I want something to go do. I want to like, I want war and conflict because I want to fulfill my destiny, my job. How does that, you know, mentally conflict with and emotionally conflict with you? Saying thank for, thank you for my service or you know, Hey, I think you're a hero. No, dude, I'm actually not because it's not how it works inside. Uh,that's, that's funny if, yeah, I think if people knew that firemen got accepted, wow, look at this big ass house burning down, man, there's, this one was really expensive. This is going to be a fun one. Then probably public perception change.Well, I mean, in, it's in for me, you know, old school, you got to think, you know, I started back in the early nineties and then when I, it's like when I came back from Kosovo in 99 nobody knew what the hell was going on. Nobody knew the services invaded and committed mass atrocities in this country and the things that we dealt with, you know, it was just, it was a blank. Right? I mean, it was, it's interesting to me pre nine 11 post nine 11 you know, when nobody gives a shit that I was a fireman. The only people that cared that I was a firefighter was the, you know, seven year old kids coming in to check out the fire truck. Nobody, you know, you didn't walk down the street. Rarely did anybody offer to buy your meal for ya on occasion. But it was super limited and nobody was walking around saying, Hey, thank you for your service. You know, pre nine 11 it just wasn't existing. And now it's in your face always. You know, and, and I, I, I get it, you know, Mike Brown and I talked about this the other day. It's, he's got a buddy that always responds with thank you for your support when they say that and then they get a little awkward because it's like, wait a minute, did I, do I support the war? Do I, do I agree with that? So it kind of is a throwback to them, uh, in a kind way, if you will.Yeah. And, and, uh, look, I think people now more than ever appreciate it just because it is in the media a lot, but I understand how the, to bring this back to value for your listeners, I understand how your self image doing whatever you do might not match what the public sees and that can actually cause some discomfort and have that not because I do anything particularly heroic, let's be clear. But people will say things like, Oh, I'll get a video from a friend. And they're like, I met the mall and the person in line in front of me at this restaurant is listening to your show. So I started talking to them and they were like amazed that I knew you. And so I'm sending a video with this random like Chinese woman in line for dumplings. She is really excited and sort of getting all like, you know, Oh my gosh, she's Jordan harbinger.I'm all excited and that makes me uncomfortable. Not because I don't enjoy it. I think it's awesome. And I think most kids up til age, whatever 30 I probably like if only that would ever happen to me, just one time in my life. But when it actually happens it can be highly uncomfortable because people get so excited and there's a part of me that's like I can never live up to that. Like I can never live up to that. And we see our own blooper reel in our head because we, they got like tripped over his own foot last night cause he stepped on a Lego and like yelled at his kid and then felt bad about it and then like got work late because he spilled coffee all over his crotch and didn't want to get laughed at. So he had to turn around and go home and change his pants.Like what? That's our self image. And then when other people are like, wow, you're so awesome. It's like thank you. But also the, you have cognitive dissonance that comes into play, doesn't feel comfortable. And so if you're in a service position and you feel uncomfortable when people give you those kinds of accolades, then congratulations. You're a normal human being and you're not a narcissist or just somebody who's maybe not done a ton of work accepting that kind of praise, which makes you a normal human being. So I want people to feel comfortable with that and not feel like, Oh yeah, I don't like that. And that makes, that makes me even more weird for not liking praise. Something's wrong with me. That's not the case. It's always almost always the case that when you feel awkward about somebody giving you high praise, it just means you probably have a healthy self image. Maybe you skew a little bit more towards negative, but that's okay because I think we're as humans kind of designed to do that. We have a negativity bias. And it's completely healthy,man. I, you know, that's exactly, so this is perfect conversation because you know, the way I look at one, why I wanted to bring you on the show, it's like you're the encyclopedia of knowledge now, right? You've been interviewed just a massive amount of people and you've gotten a chance to really one, learn a lot, but, but contribute a lot out there and you know, for today, the problem that I wanted to kind of have the conversation with you around that, that I feel like we all deal with is, especially in the services we have, this need to be everything to everyone all the time.I understand that, right? So let me, let me disassemble that a little. You mean that if you're, let's say you're a policeman, you mean you've got to be a cop both when you're at home, but also when you're out with your friends, but also when you're at work naturally, but also even on your lunch hour when you're just trying to house a steak hoagie and not get any on your uniform or cheese steak and not get any on your uniform, you can't really turn it off cause it's part of your identity. Right?Which component of that there? It's a 24 hour gig.Sure. So in every occupation has that, but you guys, and I say you guys meaning just fire, police, military, whatever. Hopefully that's clear. You guys have it more because yes, I'm a or interview or radio host or whatever you want to call it all the time. But nobody's like, Oh my God, is anybody a radio host? This man's having a heart attack, right? Like that will never happen. Interview his wife and see how she's feeling right now. Like that's never going to happen to me and no sane world will that happen. But if you're hanging out with your family on your one day off, cause you've been working a bunch of overtime, putting out fires in California and you finally got to go to your kid's party for like three hours and somebody passes out, you can't be like, look man, I have been working a lot. And that's all you, you can't do that, right? You're, you're on. And if you're a police officer and your daughter brings home a sketchy looking guy, you're not like, you know, I'm just going to pack these in guy.Yeah, this is okay. I know I recognize the gang tattoos, but look man, I am not on the clock. Have fun honey. Like that's not going to happen either. Not only because you're a dad, but because you're like, I know what that symbol means and that's, there's no way you're leaving the house with that guy. Right. And I'm sure that that happens all the time. And so in a way it's like with VR, it's, it's one of those with great power comes great responsibility. But sometimes it's like, well fine, but I want to turn the responsibility off. So I can play Xbox, dammit.Yeah, man. There's, yes. And there's this place where it's like, I mean, I, years ago all confess, long time ago I, you know, when I first started the fire service, I had firefighter plates, you know, tagline, license plates. I eventually took them off. I was like, you know what, cause I don't want to stop at the accident anymore. I don't want to, I don't want to be this. If I'm not in it on it, I want to be just average person. I want to be okay to just be, you know, Jeff, not fireman, not, you know, military guy, not agency guy and anything else. I just want to hang out. Uh, you know, I think that's a big problem.I can imagine because you can't, it's like never taking a day off, which I think we all know what that feels like as well. Just owning my own business. I know what it's like to be like. I mean, I'll sit down to a nice relaxing meal on Thanksgiving and Christmas and I'm like, I should be answering fan mail, zeroing out my inbox, reading this book for doing some prep for this show. What do I have to do? I mean, I will literally be, I try not to do this one. I'm holding my kid, but even sometimes it happens and I'll go, Oh man, in five minutes I got to put him down because I really have to get back to work. And I'm like, no, I don't. It's Sunday at 1:00 PM what I need to do is put him in bed and go watch Netflix.You know? That's, that's what I need to do. But I can't really turn it off. And I think for people who are in positions, like what your audience and what you, the position that you're in, it's even more dangerous because if I say, what's the worst thing that's going to happen if I don't finish this book today? The answer is, well, I guess I could do it tomorrow. I just have to get up a little bit earlier and maybe listen while I'm at the gym. But if somebody says, what's the worst thing that happens if I don't stop at this accident? You start catastrophizing because you either start saying, Oh my gosh, well this could happen, this can happen. You start catastrophizing or you just start thinking nothing. Who cares? I got to get on with my life. But then you probably have a crisis of conscience that's like, yeah, I shouldn't think that way.What kind of horrible person drives past an accident when they have the training to stop it. So you're compelled to, nothing's really compelling me to bust out my Kindle. Right. Like a little bit of guilt that I can turn off cause I realize it's a little irrational. Your guilt is maybe that person's child is in hell a and you don't stop because you're halfway to whole foods and your kid's crying. You know like w what, what? It's a different game and I don't think, I don't think a, what do you call us? Civilians? Like I don't think us, right. Joe's like understand that fully. Because if you're a teacher in somebody who doesn't understand their math homework and they can't get ahold of you, Oh well you'll, you'll help them out on Monday. But if somebody passed out on the sidewalk, you have almost like a moral obligation and it's hard to turn that off and realize that you need your own sanity.So I think a lot of people in your position, you put yourselves last more so than most parents do, more so than most teachers, more so than most, I don't know, public servants in another position, like the mayor of most towns is not sitting at home on the weekend and worrying about what's in the office. Um, it may be a big city, but most, most of them are hanging out with their family and having Turkey, you're the one that has to be awake at 3:00 AM for the call. And that, that level of stress is not good for you longterm. And then of course they say take a vacation and you're like, I wish I freaking good. You know, I'm on vacation thinking, hope nothing bad happens to my friends. Even if you can put society out of your mind, you got your buddies out there.Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and it's, you know, it's interesting because like we do, we, we leave ourselves last in line and there's a level of expectation I think even in relationship and friendships and et cetera. Like there's this normal like why can't you just turn it off? Why can't you just be home right now? Why can't you, you know, you're not at work, why can't you just leave that at work? And so that's kind of this be everything to everybody all the time that shows up. It's like, okay, so I've got this side of me that I can't turn off. It's a 24 seven deal that I have this moral, ethical and you know, emotional response of ness to right. That I just am always tuned into what's happening. And then, you know, my wife wants me to be freed up and easygoing and have fun and not care, right. And, and not have this thing. And so it's like there's this ebb and flow, constant conflict. And I know, cause I've listened to some of your shows that have been radically helpful for me and a lot of ways, uh, you know, the people that you've had on and just kind of beginning to dissect how I begin to create transition points or points of recovery or understand kind of how I flow from one ideal person to another ideal person in a way, right. Without then the guilt and shame and crap that goes with it.Yeah, I think there's a lot of cognitive, well we've mentioned cognitive dissonance, but there's brain science that goes into to this like catastrophizing, what's the worst thing happened? And you start going down the if trail and the stakes are higher for what you guys are doing, guys and gals, let's be clear now, there's a lot of women out there now and I, I like, um, and you know, you're in this weird position where society will look at everything. Well, police especially now, um, firemen, I dunno if are, if you're immune to this, but, uh, I can't, nothing comes to mind. But with police man, now it's like you're under fire and all of you under fire. Whenever there's any kind of negativity. And I, I would imagine any cop out there now, in fact, I wonder this, I'm so curious if, if police now feel like they're looked at differently by a lot of folks just because of what's been in the news and that really, it really sucks to hear that because I mean, when I was little, the police would come in your house and you'd say, Hey, do you want some coffee?And they'd be like, sure, thank you. Now I feel like that would just never happen. Um, because there's just this more arms length distance, at least in bigger cities, especially, um, with where the police stand. When I grew up, I didn't grow up in a small town, but they would come in and they didn't take their shoes off because, you know, that's, that's a little bit too much. But they would have, you can make them tea or coffee and they would be like, thank you. Yeah, that's, that's great. Now I don't think that's allowed. And I remember recently, I live in San Jose, California. We had a package stolen and the cop came in and sat down at our kitchen Island and open up his laptop and did the report. And I was like, wow, this is such a different experience than I've experienced anywhere else.And even just the, the times that I've dealt with the police in other big cities, even in New York, when they come in, it's just like, you almost feel like you're at the police station. And I'm like, I didn't commit any crime. I called you guys, you know? And I remember just like feeling really intimidated and I realized, Oh yeah, they have half or one, some percentage of the time these guys walk into a house and someone tries to stab them or something, you know, like, so I gotta just sort of keep that in mind, but you can't live your whole life that way. And that's just really easy for me to say as a fricking podcast or it radio guy and you guys can't turn it off. And that takes its toll. There is science behind this. When you are in fight or flight mode or when you are at least an elevated stress for a long period of time, you don't, uh, you wreck havoc on parts of your brain. Um, you age faster, your heart, uh, is obviously not as healthy as it should be. And if you're always eating on the go, those two risk factors combined are just not good lifestyle. Um, I don't want to say choices because it's, it's hard to say that it's a choice, but they're not good lifestyle factors I should say. And that's, that's really bad for everyone around you too. And so you're really caught between a rock and a hard place. I hadone too. Yah. Which is not only all those core factors to it, but then, and it's finally cool because that's why I think we're doing well with the podcast and we're growing significantly in this community because we can now have these conversations and five years ago, 10 years ago, like this just, it wouldn't even be accepted. The kind of, the idea of looking, of looking at what's going on of, you know, emotional safety and the things that we deal with. Like when I grew up that, that, those were not conversations that were had at all ever around, you know, we live in a world of suck it up, shove it down, slam it down, deal with it, and do your job. And that's how a lot of us, especially kind of in our upper thirties and forties, you know, that's how we grew up. That was the environment.And it's cool for me to at least to see that today we're able to have these conversations and they're listening, right? And people are more curious about how do I deal with this? How do I transition emotionally? How do I understand all these core factors? Right? They're just kind of the task and purpose factors and then the internal factors that are in play. I mean, I, I remember flying the episode you did with, uh, Gabriel as Rocky when you guys were talking about self-development, uh, and kind of go and add it, right? I can't remember what the tile they upset was right off hand. Uh, but I was texting you all the way through it. Like this is, you were spot on with it. Uh, I,I always remember Gabe and I do a lot of stuff together because he's a frigging genius with his research. Go ahead.Yeah, like in that [inaudible] that, that particular episode, I'm going to find it, tag it and put it into the show notes because that particular episode, you know, you went through and you talked about all the kinds of the bullshit that's out there, the reality of things, you know, he did a phenomenal job and kind of breaking down a look at self-development in a way that I believe made sense to our, would make sense to our community rather than kind of this hoopla, hippy dippy hang out kind of stuff. You know, you were talking about some of the programs you've gone to where you just felt like totally violated in it. Like, get me outta here. Uh, and you know, and you were sharing some of those stories along the way that I think really resonated with me. And resonates with our world because it's like I don't, I it, there's a fear that if I become soft or soften myself, I won't be capable of doing my job as well.Yeah. And there may be some truth to that, but it becomes, it becomes problematic because of course you wouldn't parent the same way that you police. Right? Like, well, I, in theory you should probably not do that. Yeah. I mean, what, who am I to tell anybody how to police? But that's the idea behind it and it's really, really tricky to make recommendations like that because I'm sure people out there see therapists and things like that and it's like, okay, great. Have you ever been to Iraq, Afghanistan? No. Have you ever put out a fire I've ever seen burned a child, you know, and you're there and the parents' reaction, have you ever had someone pull a knife on you? Uh, you know, while you're in a closed space and your partner is taking a leak? I don't know. You know, like all of these things are, it's hard to relate to and it's, it's hard to have somebody be like, you just need to relax more.It's like F you, right? Like, what do you tell? Sure. Tell me that while you have another sip of your latte over there buddy. Like, sure. I just need to ask some more. And then it's like try yoga and like what planet? It just feels like the people giving advice to first responders and military. It's just, they're on another planet. They're from a different planet. It's completely nonsensical in a lot of ways. And so it's not, it's not relatable, which makes it worse because it's like hearing some quack tell you to do something and it's like you just don't even understand my reality at all. And it makes you feel more isolated of cool because then you think, Oh, the help that's available is some Yodel with a four year degree who's never even left, you know, our city or state and has certainly never held, uh, held a position like mine in a F in a dirt lot like Iraq or Afghanistan.And now I'm sitting here like listening to him tell me what I need to do. It's just gotta be really isolating and frustrating and that I think is just part of the problem. And of course you've talked to other people with the same problems. It's a good support group, but you're mostly just venting as opposed to getting actionable strategies and that. That makes me kind of sad to hear because I think it's no surprise we rely on you to do your jobs to have a functioning society where I can sit here and sip my latte and Dole out unqualified advice. Right? Yeah.I mean I used to have this statement where it's like if I went to see somebody went down to sit with a psycho or whatever, I'm like, listen, if I am actually honest with you, if I actually share with you what you want me to share with you, you're going to have PTSD by the time we're done. You know what I mean? Yeah. You're going to be fucked up, like, like, and, and then I'm going to end, the problem is like we live in a world or the way our brains work, it says, so there's this whole world for me now kind of uncovering, which is this understanding of how to bring calm to chaos. All right, so we're back and you know, here's where we kind of left off and we were talking, you were, you were, were kind of exploring this understanding from the law enforcement aspect where you know, you're Sharon, you know, cops used to be able to come in and sit down, have a cup of coffee, you know, actually converse with you where today it's like 24, seven always on edge.And it's this, you know, it was interesting as we're going, because I've been looking at this quite a bit, it's like this collapse of, of stress between the public and the providers, if you will. Right? So it's like this, there's this vicious circle that's happening. I think now that's been happening over the last several years where you know the police are a little bit more under fire being watched being you know, putting them on edge, the public's on edge about the police. It's like this high state of conflict where somebody has got a run in the middle and be like, okay can everybody just settled down for a second and take a breath and kinda hit the reset button. I do see that happening significantly.Yeah, I can imagine that there's not a whole lot of resources out there. I mean it's like there are and there aren't and everyone complains about things like the VA. I don't really know much about that, but I do know that no matter how many resources are out there, it can be really tough. When you go home and your friends and neighbors are kind of oblivious, you almost maybe feel like you're living a secret life. Maybe you are living a secret life.Yeah, which my neighbor, my neighbor in Florida for years, it's like, dude, what do you do? Cause you're like disappear for several weeks and then you just play golf when you're home and your work in your garage. Like I don't understand what you do. Yeah, man. I mean I think the, I, you know, it's been an interesting conversation so far because we've kind of explored where for us there's not all the, the resources are limited and in the way that people understand or give us, and I'll say us from the community, the opportunity to express ourselves fully and actually deal with some of the struggles that we face and have an open, honest conversation or dialogue without freaking people out. I was, you know what you're talking about. If I said, if I sat out with a psych, it'd be like, you know, you'd have PTSD by the time we're done. The problem is if I lay out what I actually feel inside, I'm going to hit all the trigger words. You know what I mean? They're going to be like, you know, well I gotta call somebody, I gotta, we gotta fix this. This guy's, you know, suicidal or this guy's, you know, homicidal or whatever. It's like, no, this is just my life. This is just the way I operate.Yeah. I think that there's probably a bit of, what would you even call this, like a protective shell that everyone's in your position is able to put on, but I don't, is that healthy? That's the question, right? Is that something that is healthy and I'm not totally sure that it is. I think maybe it serves a purpose, but I think that it's also probably, there's probably a problem that I don't think most people can switch it on and switch it off. I think that's the biggest issue. That's the biggest problem is it's hard to turn it off. Then when you're at your daughter's graduation, it's just still there. And so yes, it sort of protects you, but is that something that you actually, is that healthy for you mentally?Yeah, it does. It actually work for you longterm? I mean it is, it's like we've, you know, I, I re relate it back to when I was a kid when I was three or four or five now my mom would always laugh at me because there's two things I played growing up. Fireman and army. Like that was it. And I had to put on blue corduroys to play fireman and then go change into Brown corduroys if I wanted to play army, like I had to be in context, if you will. Right? Even as a kid, and I think I've looked at that skill right now. If I take that as a skillset, how do I pull it on when I put on my uniform or when I put something on, it's like, okay, here's where I am. This is who I am for this period in time. And when I take it off, I'm no longer that right now I am transitioning into husband, wife, mom, dad, son, brother, friend, hanging out or whatever it might be.Yeah. That's got to be tricky and also mentally taxing, and I think that's very problematic because I don't think a lot, I don't think a lot of people really know that, including the people that are doing this, you know, that are in your position, know that there is such a cognitive cost, a psychological cause to making that switch. It's not just leave it at home. If you're shoving it down, it's like eating Brussels sprouts. If you don't like those, right, you're, you're cramming it in there and it wants to pop back out and it's all you're devoting cognitive bandwidth, brain power to keeping it from popping out, and that's unhealthy because it's stressful for you. It's taxing for you.It's wearing, it's wearing. I mean, I think that's where I look now at 45 exhausted most times. Right. If you actually, if I'm honest with myself and with people around me, it's like I'm just worn out.Yeah, I can imagine. And you're not going to rest well if you're consistently working on made to, I don't want to, I'm trying not to talk last here. If you just keep on pushing something down, you're not going to have, let's say you spend 10% of your cognitive bandwidth trying to push it down. 90% of you is there. So being present is tough. Um, focusing on self care is like last priority cause you're just trying not to screw up the family party by being a weirdo or whatever. Right? There's all kinds of stuff that that happens as a result of that, that that is invisible and that's, that's the problem. That's what's unhealthy. It's invisible. It's, that's what makes it insidious. That's the word I'm looking for. It's insidious. You don't see it coming because you think everything's fine, everything's fine, everything's fine. And then you're just like, why the hell am I tired constantly?How come I can't relax? And then it just, they throw a label on it like, Oh it's part of your PTSD or it's like residual trauma. And it's like, yeah, but the real truth is that you, you can't relax, you're not focused, you're constantly monitoring your surroundings even though you're in your own living room. Like that's super unhealthy. And I don't, I don't think maybe it doesn't affect everybody, but certainly people that have seen combat or conflict or people that are on this street every day, you know, like that type of stuff that doesn't just go away. And you even see it when, when a police officers and military or retired, there's, it just doesn't go away. And I think because as an evolutionary strategy, the people that survived to, to reproduce were the people that didn't shut that stuff down so easily or forget it. So. Right. They were constantly vigilant. I don't think some Roman soldier really necessarily retired and lived out the rest of his years. They probably were, I don't know, back then, dead at 30 max at or no.Well, yeah, you lose all value. I mean, in a sense a truck goes away, you lose all value. And that's where I've really looked at it to say, and you know, you brought up an interesting point where there are a lot of labels that go with us, right? It's, Oh, that's just PTSD, or Oh, you must have done something or you must have seen something. It's like, no, it's just this, this constant inability to transition effectively to kind of settle myself and to turn it off. Right. To bring the volume switch down a little bit. Um, you know, that's been the interesting exploration for me. Now, understanding kind of the biological factors that go into play, uh, deep inside in the way we are trained and developed. And then of course, you know, childhood trauma and everything else that comes into play for us. We just aren't given the tool to ebb and flow in this life that we've chosen.And yeah, it's more, it's more exhaustion. It's more, you know, self-driven stuff than it is any incident or seeing something or participating in something cause a greater population. You know, you've got chose to put on a uniform. I chose to go to combat or I chose to run in that burning building or I choose to save lives. I choose to do these things and going back to kind of where we started, it's like when you, when you call me a hero or when you elevate me, it almost dismisses what I do in a way. Does that make sense to you? I mean, what do you think about that?Um, can you clarify that a little? I need to make sure I know what you're, yeah,so, so for instance, you know, we talked about this internal struggle between like not wanting to be called a hero or not wanting to be acknowledged so much. You know, cause for me, I'm laying in bed hoping your house burns down or you know, I want to go to the next thing I want to call out on my SWAT team. I want to do these things. I want violence to occur out there in the world. And when you then call me a hero or you elevate me because of what I've chosen to do, that creates that separation right. Internally from kind of the external view of who I am. But in doing that, also, what I'm trying to struggle and balance with is like the acceptance of myself and myself in the, my place in society. It's, I feel like there's this unspoken expectation that says, you know, if we're a firefighter or a cop, you know, we're committed to service.We're committed to the people around us, you know? Yeah, we're there to save you. Yeah, we're heroes. But internally, I don't think any of us feel that way at all and we don't know how to express stuff very well. I mean, we're, I had one of the guys on the show not too long ago that literally like at 16 you know, he started riding firetrucks 16 and they ran a house fire people inside trapped and burned up and the chief sat him down in the car, pulled out a six pack of beer and says, okay, this is how you're going to solve it. You know, and no wonder he's an alcoholic later in life. Right? Yeah. Dude, that's the world, man. That's the world we live in.Yeah, that's a, that's problematic. If people are, and I'm sure that's the exception and not the rule, I hope it is. But if those are the tools that sort of the tools of the trade that you learn when you start the job or yeah, just hit the gym extra hard tomorrow, you know, like, okay, but that's a bandaid on a bullet hole. And that's very problematic because what happened, not just that it doesn't work, but then people think, man, you know, I am having a drink with the guys and burning off some steam. I am hitting the gym, I am going for a run, but I still feel kind of shitty. Something is wrong with me. And that's the dangerous part. Not like, Hey, this tool is not working. I gotta find something else. Because you know, this isn't working for everyone. Maybe we should research this. It's, this isn't working for me, but I serve shit. Don't want to be the guy that walks in and is like, I feel bad. Right. Maybe that's not the culture.It's absolutely not the culture. I mean that's, and that's where I think we're finally, you know, we're just, I mean we are, you know, this is partly why it's interesting to have you on the show because in this, in the entrepreneur space, right? I mean it's like you and I hanging out at MMT in park city, just kind of taking a break, sitting out on the balcony, bullshitting, right? In this, in this flip side of the world, there's a lot of advancement, a lot of development, a lot of openness around self discovery and what's happening and emotion and freedom around that. And, and that's, that's becoming very much more mainstream than it used to be. But our audience, I mean, we're still antiquated. I mean, we're still in the dark ages when it comes to that stuff. Like we are just on the cusp of these conversations flowing out across the, across these communities. Cause it is, it's, it is, shut it down, shove it down, deal with it. Um, suck it up, buttercup. I mean, those are the, that's the, that's the training. That's the conversation. And I've said for years, you know, the only acceptable emotion in these worlds is anger, right? You can't be too happy. You can't cause then you're fucking off. You can't be sad because then you're weak. But you can be as angry as you want to be. And I think that perpetuates. It's like it's a self perpetuating cycle we're dealing with constantly.Yeah. Th the anger is an issue. And I think a lot of guys just men in general have this as a default because we're not necessarily taught good emotional communication. And a lot of us are less wired for that in a way. And then lean on that and go, wow, where a guy, you know, and so I, I don't know about you, but my dad, his diff, he's a great guy by the way, just to clarify. But he's his default communication when he's frustrated a little bit sad, feeling a little bit stressed, feeling a little bit rushed, feeling like he is a little silly because he forgot something. He just goes and gets angry because he doesn't have the other channels. Right? Like he doesn't have the other modes. It's like he's got red and, and you're like, Hey, color this in blue. And he's like, uh, red. Right. He just can't do it. So there's fun dad. And then there's like angry dad and then there's normal dad, but there's not like sort of down today dad, there's just really short temper and shorter temper and that's no, that's sort of normal for him. His dad was the same way. All the guys in our family are the same way and I'm fighting that all the time.Man. You just described me to a T really the majority of the time. Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh, it's been difficult. I mean, I did the work with Elliot road kind of release the anger stuff, which really helps significant crazy, you know, the, on the hypnotherapy side. But it's, it's difficult. And for me, what I've noticed is it's really driven by this sense of anxiety and anxiety around not being good enough for everybody around me. Yeah, that's, that's problematic. But it's also thanks normal as well, if that makes sense. Yeah. Well, and that's, and that is, and that's kind of right. That's the purpose behind some of this show is to kind of normalize this, this conversation that says, okay, that's, yes, it's a problem. Yes. You know, it's an issue that needs attention and you're not abnormal. Right? You're not the only one feeling that way. And, and I like that you said that it's, it is, uh, there's a big man issue there around it cause it is, I mean we weren't really, we're taught to be, to create physical safety really well. We're not taught to create kind of emotional safety for the people around us at all. And a lot of waysit's a good point. And additionally, I mean even in addition to that, not only are you not taught to create psychological safety, it's not even prioritized. You know, you're not even doing it for yourself, let alone for other people. It would be different if we were also self if we were centered and grounded and you know, felt good about ourselves and that it was just, Oh, we're just sort of selfish as guys. It's like, no, we're not even creating that for ourselves, let alone for other people. And you can't really create it for other people until you create it in yourself. You know, we, we think we're fooling everyone and our kids raising these kids and we're like, yeah, I just want my daughter to be confident. Yeah. I just want my son to be [inaudible] when they see your example and you think, Oh, I'm putting on a brave face.Okay fine. But after like age seven, they can tell. Right. And then he spent 20 years being like, I'm faking it. It's like, no, your kids are like, yeah, my dad, you know, he doesn't really take care of himself. You know, he's always stressed out. We think we're putting on a brave face and it's just so obvious cause you know, the cracks show, especially when they're sitting around at the dinner table and you blow up because they mentioned they didn't finish their project and before they finish their sentence telling you that they got an extra week for it, you start talking about how they didn't get their work done, dammit. You know, and like they're just hold up dad, we got an extension. Oh, you know, it's like that kind of thing. The cracks start to show, or when we massively overreact to something that they've done and they realize that that isn't normal.Or they see other people acting normal or they're just like, why is this the case with my dad? Oh, you know, mom says it's something from work. Like kids are smart. It's, there's, someone told me, uh, you have to be really careful when you have guns in the house, right? Because kids will get their hands on it and the retort is always, no, I have a gun safe. And it's, did you know the combination to any of your parents' stuff when you were a kid and the answers yeah. By age 11, 13, 15 years old. So the key isn't, don't let the kids have the combination that against safe. It's, by the time they're obviously going to have figured out what that is. They know how to use a gun safely. Right. That's the, that's how you keep them safe. Not, not by telling them, not by diluting yourself that they have no idea how to get in there. Cause you the same fricking safe code as you do on your iPhone. So when they candy crush, you're telling them the code, right? Like they, they're onto you buddy. You know,I knew all my dad's stuff was, I'm, yeah. At a very young age. Let me ask you a question. What have been a couple of your favorite episodes this year that you've done? I mean there's, we're closing out 2019 kind of related to any of this stuff. What do you, what have you taken away from your experiences this year in all the shows that you've done?Yeah, I've done some really interesting ones in the past year especially. There's one with Jack Barsky who was a undercover KGB spy who came to America at posing as an American and he later decided that he loved America so much he was just going to stay here. And he, he ended up never getting caught up until recently actually, well after the Soviet union had fallen. And so that's a really interesting story. It just kind of shows that if you ever feel like, Oh man, this country has gone to hell in a hand basket. You know, it's nice to see somebody from the outside who's essentially one of our sworn enemies, you know, coming in and going, actually this place is great for all these different reasons that I think a lot of people don't think about every day. Um, we had Admiral James DaVita's come on and talk about character that's a, he's an interesting guy because of course he's that, he was the NATO Supreme allied commander.So that's kind of a big deal to have somebody come on and talk about that sort of stuff from straight from the horse's mouth, you know, had a lot of opportunity to do bad things and, and didn't, and uh, man, we had a guy from catch me if you can, uh, the inspiration from cashmere, if you can, that movie with Leonardo DiCaprio. We had a Frank Abignail come on and discuss the psychology behind some of the, the cons and the imposter stuff that he was doing. And so the shows run a wide gamut. Even recently we had general Robert Spalding about how China is essentially looking to overtake America with technology, but also the spy, where that's going in some of the, and how the Chinese communist party really does have it out for us. And it's very well documented. It's not a secret. We're kind of the only ones that are sleeping on.So we've done a lot of really great shows that show that both things are both going in the right direction but also need to be maintained, right? Like we need to pay attention to the direction that we take our society and our country and ourselves. Because all of those things are integral to maintaining democracy. Like we can't just work on self-development, but we also can't just be paranoid about everything around it. It's like we really have to work on the whole picture. That's really, really crucial to do. So, eh, don't we risk our, our whole, our whole way of being.Yeah, I'm mad and I think that's what I really enjoy about your show. You know? And again, part of the, my mission, I feel like bring people into my world. You know, they may not, they may not listen to Jordan harbinger. They may not know you exist. Uh, cause it's kinda not in their bandwidth being able to bring resources and tools to the table for the men and women out there that are doing their jobs every day. You know, you've got some phenomenal stuff out there that I know would make a difference in their life.Well, thank you very much. Yeah, I appreciate it. I'd love that people are listening to podcasts more now and if they're interested in this and maybe they'll be interested in the Jordan harbinger show and I'm on social media at Jordan harbinger on Twitter, Instagram, et cetera. So I'd love to hear from everybody. Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, thanks for having me on, man. I appreciate the opportunity. It's a lot of fun and talking with you is always fun.Hey man. Yeah, we just need to hang out more often and clearly now. I owe you a nice dinner and I'm going to try to be in San Diego again while you're there, but, and I'll make sure that all the links are up on the show notes. Uh, that, uh, all the links to your a one year podcast, but then, uh, Jordan harbinger.com, uh, your links to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, all the good stuff. Uh, and I know that you're, uh, I think sometimes we feel like people are untouchable or unreachable in the world. You know what I mean? And I want my listeners to know that I know you're a pretty responsive guy and you know, you offer a lot and you're really committed to, uh, bring in a conversation to the table in a variety of ways that helps solve problems everyday for people, you know, kind of the every day. That's what I really appreciate about what you do.Well, thank you very much man. I appreciate the opportunity to talk to everybody and like I said, it's always fun to chat, so don't be a stranger.Hey brother, I really appreciate you joining us today. All right,that wraps up our show and matter of fact, the last show of 2019, happy new year again, Jordan harbinger. Brother. Thank you for giving us your time coming on this show. Uh, educating me and us giving us your thoughts and your insights and really a summary of everything that you've been able to accomplish over this last year. I appreciate it so, so much. I hope everybody had a great 2019 or at least you're still here. You asked me 20 that year. 15 was a pretty much a shit show in a lot of ways, but a lot of great things came out of it and I'm looking forward to an entire new year to really blow this thing up. So a couple of little things. One, we're going to continue with the Tuesday, Thursday podcast episodes starting in 2020 for the month of January. We're going to be dealing with the operational pillar.Number two, mental acuity has some great guests lined up throughout the month. Really some phenomenal episodes, some great tools and lessons and things to learn and practical application. Please do me a favor, keep sending me your notes, your feedback, your thoughts on what we're doing and how we're doing it and if it's working for you or not. The last big thing is I need your support and keeping this show up and running, keeping things moving and giving back to you. A lot of you have asked for more, for more depth, for training, for etc. And we've got to figure out how to do that. So I put together your a hundred day operational challenge. It's available at mindsetradio.com or you can go to mindsetradio.com/opyourlife. That's Opie your life. It's a go nation basis because this podcast is a part of the operation mindset foundation. So there's some options to do that. And if for right now, for some reason you want to take on the program and you just can't swing that donation, send me an email and we'll talk about it.I'm really looking forward to bringing people into that program. We're going to begin January 15th as a group and after that you'll be able to sign up any point in time and it'll run for you and not a problem. So that'll be up in live starting January 15th make sure you get in, register early so that we can know who's coming in. Get some things set up. It's going to be a lot of fun. It's going to be a freaking ball Buster, but I promise you at the end of the a hundred days there is gold at the end of that rainbow. So I look forward to you joining me. Thanks for listening. As always, do me a favor, share this podcast out. Share it with those your work, those you love, those you like and hell. Even though she can't stand, maybe they'll shift some contacts for them.So thanks for giving me a great year, your time, your attention, your listening and your feedback. I greatly appreciate it. Thanks to all the sponsors and stepped out this year and really supported us. Roofers, Elliot Rose at the prime mind app, chief Miller apparel and all the others that just showed support across the board. I greatly appreciate it. I'm looking forward to having the conversation in the new year with you. Bring us some new guests, new tools, new techniques, and some real practical application routes from stop again, don't forget to swing by out mindset.com check out the foundation in 2020 we're going to be out on the road quite a bit, teaching a lot of the programming that's out there. So if you want to bring something to your department, pop in, fill out the grant app, and let's get this. I already started, so it's all there and available for you. Let's really elevate the conversation of how we perform at the top of our game, mentally, physically, and emotionally in all aspects of our life for 2020 that's the mission. I hope you'll join me for it. That's it. Have a great safe new year and we will talk to you soon. 

How long should your YouTube videos really be? Some say the shorter the better, while others say having longer videos will get more people's attention. In this podcast, Nate Woodbury shares his take on the matter. Stay tuned to find out how you can get people to watch your YouTube videos all the way to the end! Welcome back. How do you make your videos longer on YouTube? Right? And why do we want to make them longer? Because we've been told shorter is better. But you're going to learn some things why you want them to be longer. How long and how you can do that. How you can come up with the content so that your videos are exciting for that length of time. The quick answer is 10 to 12 minutes. You want your videos to be 10 to 12 minutes long. So we're first going to talk about why that is. Why 10 to 12 minutes? Then we're going to talk about your gold, your secrets. How much of your secret should you share, and is there anything that you should hold back? Then I'm going to introduce a way that you can actually simplify your process. Make it really really easy to narrow down your content but also make sure that it's 10 to 12 minutes in length. We're going to talk about repetition when it's bad and when it's good. We're going to talk about stories, and then we're also going to talk about having multiple tripods. Now, what do I mean by that? Wait a minute. What just happened? Okay, that was weird. We're going to talk about why we use multiple tripods. And we'll wrap up the videos talking about tightening up your video. How to actually shorten it to make sure that it's really good but yet still long enough. So, why 10 to 12 minutes? YouTube recommends between 7 and 16. I like 10 to 12. 10 to 12 is kind of the good round number that people are expecting. That's the experience that a lot of consumers of YouTube videos have. Most channels kind of hone in on that. And here's some logic behind that: YouTube posts a new ad every 10 minutes. So, the longer you can keep people on YouTube, the more ads will be able to show to them. And YouTube wants to make money. The cool thing is they pay half that revenue to us. That's a topic for another conversation. Like I'll link that up here how to make money on YouTube. But that's one of the main reasons why to have your videos that long as you want good watch time. The more watch time you have, the better your channel will perform. Now, the other reason for going 10 to 12 minutes - and this is a huge one. That's how long it really takes to build a connection and cover most topics thoroughly. Now, the next point I want to cover is, do you give away your gold or how much you share. You know what? I'm going to say it right now. Give away everything. Give them your gold. Now, how can you do that in a 10- or 12-minute episode, right? Because all this knowledge, all this experience; how can you just give them everything? Well, you narrow it down to a very very niche Pacific topic. So, let me give you an example. Paul Jenkins, he makes a lot of videos on parenting. But we did keyword research, and we found questions like "How to get kids to listen without yelling?" Or "How to get kids to go to bed on time?" You know those are so specific. And if Paul were just to make videos on parenting and how to be a better parent, it's like how do you narrow that down, right? And how do you get specific enough? You could just talk and talk and talk and yet not be focused on anything. But if the title of our video is "How to get kids to listen without yelling?" Imagine having just focused 10 minutes of content on that exact question. That's going to be a really valuable video. But now you're probably asking yourself, "Well, wait. If I give away everything..." Right? You're just giving it in these 10- or 12-minute chunks. But if you're just sharing all your secrets on YouTube, are people still gonna hire you? Are they still going to want to buy your courses or go through your programs? And the answer is absolutely. The more you give away on YouTube, the more value they will get, right? The more that they will value you and like and trust you, in their mind, they're going to think, "Wow. This channel is so valuable, and he's giving me all this for free. I can only imagine what his course is going to be like or what her course or her program or her event is going to be like." Here's the other reality: You can give them everything on YouTube, but a very small fraction of a fraction of a fraction are actually going to implement it. They're just internalizing it. They're just opening their minds to it. They're kind of having this paradigm shift of recognizing, "I could do this." When they're ready to take action, that's when they click the link and go to your website and find out how to work with you. They don't want to do it themselves. Now that they understand this, they see the value in it. Now they want to hire you. Now, you're going to deliver the same content but packaged quite differently. It's not going to be packaged in 10-minute episodes that answer their specific questions. On YouTube, each episode you're answering a specific question. In a course, you're going to take them sequentially through your content. You're going to give them assignments. They're going to be taking action. And here's the other interesting part: YouTube, they didn't pay money for. So, there's nothing holding them accountable. There's no exchange of value, right? They haven't committed themselves to anything. But if they pay a couple thousand dollars for your course, now they're committed. They're going to implement it, right? They're going to take action. They're going to take it more seriously. They're going to start to act on this knowledge that they get from you. Now, can you be repetitive? Is there a time and place to be redundant or just repeat your content or give it a summary? And the answer is definitely yes, and definitely no. Within the same episode, you do not want to be redundant. You do not want to go back and summarize and review everything that you've talked about in the video. Why not? Because people will leave. Okay? If they feel like, "Oh, I've gotten everything that's been trained." In this video, the remaining 5 minutes or 3 minutes is just a summary, just a review. They'll leave and go to the next video. Or they'll leave and walk away. So, as a default rule, never do a summary at the end of your video. And if you run out of content, just end the video there. Don't get repetitive or redundant. If you want to keep people on the video longer, then share another story. Stories are always good. Stories are fun. Stories are entertaining, and it takes the information that you've shared and makes it applicable. Here's what you can do, though, from episode 1 to episode 5 or episode 15. You can repeat the same principles. You can teach the same content. You can have a lot of content overlap. In fact, that's a good idea. Because people that are watching all of your videos will really learn those principles from lots of different angles. Most of the people who are watching these videos haven't seen the other ones. They're being brought to you from YouTube. They've never heard of you before. They're watching a brand new video. So you don't have to be hesitant about them seeing something in a previous episode. They probably haven't. Now, to talk about stories a little bit more, a story can definitely help make your video longer. But it makes the video better. Here's an example. Here's a story that I can share about a video that we made that's 20 minutes long. First I filmed a video with Kris Krohn called "How to invest your money in your 2o's" It's about a six-minute video. We made this a few years ago. The video got up to about 60,000 views, and when I looked in the analytics, I saw that most of these views came from suggested views. That means YouTube was suggesting our video to other viewers to watch after the previous video. When you see stuff like that, you notice that there's an opportunity. And so Kris and I decided to do a second video with that same title, it's called a sequel. But we wanted to make it better. We wanted to make it longer. So, in addition to telling the same story, Kris thought of other things that he could share to make the content a little bit longer. I also filmed it in another way. Instead of just sitting still on his pool table where it was in the first video, we decided to walk around and have the intro start differently. So, I had him pull up in his BMW i8. The wing door went up. He climbed out, and I followed him with my glide cam. So, he's talking as he's walking into his house he's kind of explaining things as he's going and pointing out things as cleaning lady happy to be vacuuming. We weren't planning on the video being 20 minutes, but that's how long the video was. And it actually has a really high retention rate. People are watching a lot of that video. Because YouTube likes long watched time, this video is done really really well. it's had over 5 million views. Now, you notice I was just sitting, but now I'm standing. I'm looking into the same camera. But I've got a tripod set up right here pointed at a chair over there. So, I'm just moving the camera back and forth from one tripod to the next so that we go from location 1, location 2, location 1, location 2. That mixes things up. It gives variety, and it keeps people's attention. When I prepare the outline of my content, I'll prepare it in bullet points so it allows me to make the move back and forth really easy. That's another great strategy for making your content long enough. Now, right now, when I look at the time on my camera, it says that I've been recording for about 16 minutes. I've actually been seeing a lot of ahm's and ah's. I've been doing a lot of restarts. You haven't heard those things because my editing team does a really good job of tightening it up. So what I mean by tightening it up is they'll edit out the pauses they'll edit out those ahm's, and they'll edit out the restarts. And sometimes, they'll do a zoom edit or a crop edit like this. So, see now I'm a lot closer to you. And if I were to make a mistake, okay. Watch this. I'm going to do a little test. I'm gonna say a sentence with the word elephant in it. But I'm gonna have my editing team edit out that word but do a crop edit so that you don't know that that word is even missing. Some of my favorite animals are tigers, leopards, zebras. There's lots of other animals that I like. Now, for my editing team, they followed my instructions there. Then you didn't hear me say the word elephant. But when I recorded this, I said elephant in the middle of those animals that I listed. The reason that you didn't really notice that there was a word missing is because they changed the zoom. So, do things like that to tighten up your video. And we've been talking about how to make your videos longer, but you've got to keep their attention. So take out that "ahm's" and "ahh's." Take out the pauses. Take out the restarts so that your video moves along as quick. Use two tripods to keep their attention. That way, you can keep people watching all the way to the end of your ten- to twelve-minute video. Now, they have a good foundation on how to make your videos longer. You definitely need to watch my leaf strategy video. This is the pivotal way to get people to find your videos. These are people that have never heard of you before. Just by following this simple strategy, they're going to be able to find your videos. And now you know how to keep them watching all the way until the end.

  So you've decided to start your YouTube channel! But in this digital age wherein you have a lot of competition, how exactly do you jumpstart your channel when you are just starting out? In this podcast, Nate willshow you exactly how you can grow your channel from having no subscribers to becoming a six-figure generating machine!   What do you do to grow a YouTube channel when you're just starting out? You've got zero views, zero subscribers and yet you really want to take this seriously. You really want a chance of making 6 or even 7 figures. I'm going to show you how to do that. You're definitely watching the right video because I've done that. And I've done it several times. Meaning, I currently produce 13 different channels. And there's several that are making 6 figures that I started from scratch. One of them is making 7 figures every 7 weeks. So, here's what you can expect. What I'm going to cover in this video is first, I'm going to talk about YouTube's search and I'll introduce you to my leaf strategy. Which makes it really easy for you to pull in traffic from people who've never heard of you before but are searching for your expertise. And then I'm going to talk about how to start your video and how to give content hooks so the people will stay to the end of your video. Next, I'll talk about calls to action. There's 3 different main calls to action that all that I'll teach you how to do so that you can get people to take action on your videos and send signals to the YouTube algorithm that this is a good video. Well then, talk about click-through rate. And some of the things that we've done to get better click-through rates so that you can get more and more people to click on your videos and get better results. I'll then share the sequel technique. There's a few different channels talking about this strategy. It's a really good strategy. I'm going to share how you can do it specifically to a video on your own channel and share with you a story of how we got 5 million views on one video just using this one technique. And then I'm going to wrap up this video sharing a 4 ingredient formula that if you make videos that follow these four ingredients, you will get exponential growth on your channel at the 4-month mark. It works every time. The key to getting found in YouTube search is to do keyword research before filming. You've got to do it before filming. So many people have come to me and asked, "Hey, Nate. I've got hundreds of videos. And they're just amazing content but they're on YouTube they're not getting any traffic. How can I SEO these videos. Can you help me with that?" There is nothing that I can do to SEO a video. YouTube has taken away that ability. You have to do keyword research before filming and I'll give you an example. A friend of mine Doreen's Beckman, she came to me and says, "Nate, I have a great remedy for sore throats." So, we could have just pulled out the camera and started filming her. And she shared her secret and maybe I would have titled the video, "Doreen's secret remedy for a sore throat." Okay, we could have done that but instead we chose to do keyword research first. I found the phrase, "How to get rid of strep throat without antibiotics." 9 words long. That's not a phrase that I made up. But that phrase had consistent search volume every month on Google and YouTube. So, that was a title of the video. Now, Doreen is like, "Okay, I know the formula by heart. I use this all the time but I'm going to answer it in a way that answers this specific question." I'm going to teach this principle. That video ranked number 1 on YouTube instantly. And has been getting traffic for many many years now. That's what we do with the hundreds of videos that we launch every single month across all 13 channels. Now, after you've watched this video, I want you to go watch my leaf strategy video. I'll link to it right up there. I go into way more detail on how you find the questions that people are searching for online. I show you a lot more examples and I show you the tool that you can use that you just put in your idea and it will tell you the specific questions that you can use as your video titles. Now, we're going to talk about how you start your video. See, if you've done the keyword research first, you know what the title is and your job is to do 2 things in your intro. The intro is the part that you start with right before your video logo, your branding piece or your opener. Okay, the intro, it needs to tell people what the video is about and why they should watch. Okay? What and why. What's the video about? Why should they watch it? So, I'll demonstrate this for you. Let's use that sore throat remedy example. Welcome back, in this video, I'm going to talk to you about how to get rid of strep throat without antibiotics. There really is a way. You probably have these ingredients in your kitchen. I have been using this remedy for years. It really works and I'm going to teach you everything about this remedy. Beyond just the what which I said right at the beginning, I then elaborated with another sentence or 2 explaining why I'm the person to deliver it. And although this is Doreen's remedy, I have been using it for years so I could make this video. That's it. That's your intro. You want people to know that they are in the right place that the video that they hit play on is what they were expecting. They have clarity on what the video is about and why they should keep watching. So, after that 2-part intro, then you go to a video logo. The video logo might only be 5 or 10 seconds long. 10 seconds at most. And then you come back into your content. At the beginning of your content, you'll want to lay your content hooks. Okay, content hooks give people curiosity about all the different things you're going to be teaching or sharing in your video. And you may have noticed that I did that in this video. I went through... I've got them listed right here. I went through and told you that I was going to introduce keyword research. Then I was going to talk to you about the intro. That is going to talk to you about keeping people to watch all the way through the end. That's the content hooks. Then I assured that I was going to teach to you about call to action and how to get more people to click on your videos. Then I introduced it I was going to talk to you about the sequel strategy. And then I talked to you about that exponential 4 ingredient formula that I'm going to share at the end, right? When I prepare my videos and I have my clients prepare their content for their videos, we just do it by bullet points. So, when you start into your content, you want to give a summary of these points but not telling people, "Oh, the first ingredient is raw honey the second ingredient is cayenne." No. You might say, "Well, I'm going to share with you the first ingredient..." Alright, you might say it this way: "I'm going to go through all 3 ingredients and tell you why they're in this concoction what they do for your body. And then I'll explain how you mix them all together." That make sense? So, I'm giving a summary but I'm not giving away the meat. I'm creating curiosity so that they want to watch the rest of video and get all that meat. You want to have a call to action in every video. And there are 3 different types of calls to action that you can give. One, it can be a call to action to get people to join your list. Now typically, you don't say, "Hey, if you want to join my list or get on my email list or buy something from me, click the link below." Typically you say, "Hey, I've got a free gift for you. I want to give you my book for free. If you want access to that, go ahead and click the link or go to the link in the description below." See, that type of a call to action, they'll know, they'll get your free gift. And they'll be in your sales funnel. You'll have their contact information. You can follow up with them after that. That works all the time. And you definitely want to every once in a while, have a video with a main call-to-action leading people to your lead magnet. The second call to action all share is you can get user engagement. You can ask people to like, to subscribe, to comment below. You can actually do a poll. I'm going to do a poll right here. Go ahead and click this link and answer the question. Did you know that you could do a poll on YouTube? Just click yes or no. And we'll see what percentages come up there. That's a great way to get engagement and you can have that as one of your main calls to action. The reason for doing that is the YouTube algorithm likes engagement. The more engagement you get on your video, the more YouTube will promote it to other people. Now, a third type of call to action that you want to do regularly throughout your videos is recommending that people go to other videos whether on your channel or other great videos on other people's channels. So, I've already done that in this video. I've recommended my leave strategy video. It's still linked right up there. After this video is done, I definitely recommend that you check that one up because it's really going to help you know how to find those questions that people are searching for. So, when you're preparing the content of your video, know what is the main call to action for this video? Am I going to lead it to my lead magnet? I'm going to lead it to user engagement or am I going to lead people to click on another video? When you get to the end of the video, you don't want to say, "Hey, hopefully found this video helpful. We'll see you tomorrow." Because you're essentially telling people, "Bye, you can go about your day now. You're done with YouTube." YouTube would actually rather that after they're done watching your video, they watch another one. So, at the end of the video, you might say something like this: "Now, that you've got a good foundation of how to grow from 0 subscribers and 0 views up to a seven-figure revenue stream, let's dive deep into that leaf strategy. Okay, go ahead and watch this video next. That makes sense? I'll probably say that at the end of this video. Click through rates, thumbnails, they become far more important. My business is really focused on YouTube for the last 7 years. In all the years that I've been doing YouTube, thumbnails have just become more and more important especially in the last year or 2. See, when people open up YouTube there's a whole menu of different videos that they can watch. They see an image with a title underneath. The do I want to watch this one? Do I watch that one? Do I watch that one, right? You've seen this. So, how do people choose which video to click on? It's really a matter of what's interesting. What creates curiosity. So, the first recommendation I have is to definitely design your own custom thumbnail, okay? YouTube will go through and pick three different still images from your video and you can say, "Which of these three do you like the best?" Or you can design your own custom thumbnail. You can design your own image that creates curiosity that relates to the content of your video of course but will compel people to want to watch your video or want to click on it. In the beginning, all you can do is just give it your best guess. Put your imagination and your creativity to work and create a thumbnail. You can use Canva or Photoshop for that. But then you can actually do A/B split testing. YouTube says that this feature is soon coming. Right now I use a tool called tubebuddy. So tubebuddy, I use that to do my A/B split testing. That's where I can design version A, launch it. A few days later, I launched B and then it will do an analysis and compare which thumbnail gets more clicks. Sometimes all I do is I just change the color of the text. That's it. The image, the the design of the thumbnail stays the same. I just changed the color of the text and that might change it from a 4.6% click-through rate to a 5.9% click-through rate. It's crazy. But you can do stuff like that to get better and better results. So, as you launch your channel and you're putting all this work into creating these videos, doing a/b split testing can really help you get better and better results. Now, let's talk about the sequel technique. Okay, a lot of YouTubers are using this. They'll find a very successful video on YouTube and that they'll create a sequel to it, right? They'll try and create a similar video that's better than it and they'll try and get some of the traffic from that video to then come to yours. I've tried this strategy for other videos. And it works maybe one out of every 10 or 20 attempts. And it works okay. I'm going to share a strategy that works way better, okay? And that's to look for great opportunities within your own channel. So, YouTube analytics is great. Once you've been at this for 4 or 5 or 6 months, you have a lot of videos in there. Chances are there's been some that have caused spikes. When you're in your analytics, the best thing to look at is what videos are YouTube suggesting. Okay? There's a lot of different ways that your videos can get views and traffic. You can get it from search, you can get it from what YouTube calls browse. Suggested. There's other sources of traffic like you know Facebook leads or email clicks. Okay, we're talking about suggested. If you find a video that YouTube is suggesting to other people to watch, that means YouTube likes this video on your child because it's making YouTube money. They're probably pairing ads with it. That means YouTube likes this video and it's suggesting it to other people because it's making YouTube money. Either because they're pairing ads with it and it works really, really well or this video leads to long session watch time. You know, something like that. YouTube has chosen this video and likes it and is suggesting it to other people. So, here's the opportunity that you have: You can create a sequel to your own high performing videos. Let me share with you a story, okay? So, one of the first videos that Kris Krohn and I created is "How to invest your money in your 20s?" So, I'd noticed that that video it had I believe over 60,000 views at the time and a lot of those views had come from suggested traffic. The original video is only about six minutes long. Kris Krohn was sitting in one place. In fact, he was sitting on his pool table with the red felt. And he just shared his story. So, I told Kris, we're going to redo this video. We're not... We're going to leave the old one there on YouTube. It's still doing well but we're going to make another one with the exact same title. And I thought... I tried to think like, 'Why did they like that thumbnail? Why did have a good click-through rate?" I thought if they liked his pool table, they're really going to like his car." So, I had him put his BMW i8 in the video. And when I filmed the video, I actually... I had to really twist Kris's arm at the time. He was... He didn't want to be that guy. But I had him pull up in his car, the wing door came up and I followed him with my glide cam as he walked and talked into his house. So, I followed him in through his door. His cleaning lady happened to be vacuuming so I said, "Hey, cleaning lady." Went into his kitchen. Got a drink of ice water. Went downstairs where his pool table was. Went back upstairs where a flipchart was. We made a longer video. Shared the same story but it was a lot more inviting like we're going into Kris's home. This strategy totally worked then and it's worked in many times since. Over the next 2 weeks, this channel performed above average. Okay? It was a good video. And then, it totally took off. From the next 5 weeks, our channel grew from 80,000 subscribers to 160,000 subscribers. I don't want to confuse this but we actually did two sequel videos at the time. This one that I'm telling you about was the main one. And these two videos together or the next five weeks doubled the size of our channel. We got way more views. Adsense revenue became significant. You know, 5 figures. So, how does this apply to you? Well, you'll find similar opportunities in your own YouTube channel. Just look through the analytics and find which videos YouTube is suggesting the most and create a sequel. Are you ready for the 4 ingredient formula to take your channel exponential? Right? You're going to have spikes in 4 months. It works every single time if you have these 4 ingredients. I'm serious. I've done it many times. Ingredient number 1, you've got to do keyword research before filming. Number 2, your videos have to be 10 to 12 minutes in length on average. Okay, have a minimum of 7 minutes. You can go longer. That video that I just told you about the sequel that went huge it's got over 5 million views, that one was actually a 20-minute video. We didn't plan on it being that long but it's worked really really well. Have your videos average 12 minutes in length. Okay, ingredient number 3 your videos need to have a good retention rate. You know, have an average of 45% or higher retention rate. So, if you've got a video, we'll just make math easy. If you've got a 10 minute video, people should at least be watching 4 and a half minutes of that video on average. Ideally, 10 to 12 minute video should have a 6 or 7 minute average view duration. The reason that that's an ingredient in this formula is YouTube likes watch time. And if you're putting out tons and tons of content but your videos on average are only being watched one minute through or one minute 20 seconds through. Which I've seen. This formula will not work and your channel will still grow gradually but you won't experience a spike. Okay, here's the last ingredient. Ingredient number 4 is you've got to post five episodes per week. Now, there is some controversy. Different YouTube influencers that I highly respect that are friends of mine and there are other ways that you can achieve success on YouTube with different amounts of frequency. Such as one video per week. In the space of experts making how-to informative type content, this formula works. And if you have these 4 ingredients, you will get a spike. I've never seen it fail. Keyword research before filming; 10 to 12 minutes in length; average retention rate or view duration of 45% or higher; post five episodes per week. And at that 4- month mark, you'll experience a spike. On the Kris Krohn channel, it was 4 months to the day we had a spike. We were averaging like 500 views a day. Something like that. And our first spike we got up to 10,000 views in a single day. And we never got down below a thousand or 2 a day even when that settle down. But then quickly had another spike up to 30,000. 35,000, in fact. Soon we got to a point where our average baseline was higher than our first spike. And we've never looked back. You've heard me talk a lot about keyword research in this video. And I've actually created a keyword research mini-course. So, in addition to watching my leaf strategy video that I've linked to above, down in the description and on my end screen here, it's probably somewhere on the screen, I also want you to check out my keyword research mini course. This is a free gift where I actually take you step-by-step through finding the questions that your audience is searching for. You know, so you have expertise. This'll guide through finding the questions of people are asking. So you'll know what to title your videos. Go ahead and click the link below and watch that leaf strategy video next.

In this special episode we’re talking with Michael Serrano 1/3 of the I’m Right, You’re Wrong Podcast! This week we go deep deep in the weeds on all things Star Wars! I’m Right, You’re wrong is one of our personal favorite podcasts so we were thrilled we got to sit with on of the three great dudes from the show! Michael is a fellow Super-Fan and we had a great time speaking with him. It’s always great to hear someone talk Star Wars from a different point of view! So, get ready for a double shot because it’s time to DRINK UP! Follow The I’m Right, You’re Wrong Podcast wherever you listen to. Follow Pink Milk @pinkmilkhaus, write Pink Milk at pinkmilk@gmail.com, see Pink Milk at pinkmilk.site and listen to Pink Milk on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play and, YouTube! 

Show Notes: Speaker 1: (00:00) Hey, what's up Doc? Welcome back to the simplified integration podcast. My name is Dr. Andrew Wells and this is episode four a high ticket highway. Speaker 2: (00:13) Leonardo da Vinci once said that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication and I agree. You see the problem with the way that most consulting groups approach medical integration is anything but simple. In fact, it's the exact opposite. It's expensive, it's complicated and quite frankly it's exhausting. Enough is enough. There are far too many amazing integrated clinics that are struggling. Well, I'm on a mission to change that. What I've come to find from over five years working with integrative practices is that simplicity really is the secret. The old saying of less is more is true. Through a streamlined approach, I was able to create multiple successful seven figure integrated clinics and now I'm going to show you how you can do the same. Join me as I share with you the secrets to successful medical integration and practice growth. Join me on a journey to greater sophistication through innovation. I'm Dr. Andrew Wells and welcome to the simplified integration podcast. Speaker 1: (01:09) All right doc. So it's great to have you on this episode. Now this is, this is really fun topic. I want to share a story with you to kind of explain this concept of the high ticket highway. When we first introduced, um, uh, regenerative medicine to our office, what we do, who we launch it to, our existing patient base. So we, we like sent out emails and talked about in the office and we said, Hey, we've got this amazing new therapy called regenerative medicine. It can help you with your knees and hips and back, that kind of stuff. And so we held an internal seminar in her office. I don't want to say we had like maybe 30 to 40 people. I don't remember signed up for the seminar. And, um, we knew it was a, it was actually a packed house. It was the, it was the biggest S uh, show up for an event that we ever did in our office to our existing patients. Speaker 1: (01:53) We had a couple of guests as well. And so we did the, uh, we did the seminar and then we booked consultations right after that. And I remember the first patient I met with, we went back to the consultation room and she's like, wow. She's like, this is amazing. I didn't know this was even possible to use regenerative medicine. And she goes, and I already kind of knew her health history and she said, I really want this for uh, both of my knees and my shoulder. And she goes, how much is that going to cost? And I, we had like a special promotion and stuff. I did the math on my calculator and I said, well, it's about 9,600 bucks. And she goes, can I put that in a credit card? And I said, yeah. And I say, she's like, okay, let's do it. When can I have it done? Speaker 1: (02:32) And I said, well, Hey, tomorrow. So I remember walking out of the room on what was probably a 15 minute consultation and the same day I did this seminar, I remember walking back to the front desk thinking like, I almost felt like something was wrong. Like, Oh my gosh, like we just collected 9,600 bucks for a therapy. That was like a one time therapy patient was super excited about it. And I remember thinking like, wow, like I sometimes like you get in your own head about like what, like what the patient will value for a certain thing, right? Like are they really gonna pay 300 bucks for chiropractic care or 10,000 bucks for regenerative medicine care. And really the value is in the eye of the beholder, so to speak. And this lady was, and her husband was extremely happy to pay 9,600 bucks for a real solution, for a joint pain. Speaker 1: (03:23) And I remember walking to the front desk and I'm like, wow, look, we have, this is so cool. It's so cool for the patient. And it was really excited that we collected 9,600 bucks in 15 minutes. And then I remember, uh, another doc working in my office came up to me and he had done the same day, did another consultation with another patient and she's, he said, yeah, she's doing two joints. So that was 7,000 bucks. So within the scope of like 20 minutes we had collected, what is that like 16,000 bucks. And as a, you know, the course of the week went on. I think we in our first seminar we collected, you know, it was like 60, 70,000 bucks I think with our first, our first seminar that we launched to our existing patients with no ad budget. So this was the first time I really tasted that concept of selling high ticket therapies to our patients in our office. Speaker 1: (04:08) And it was a huge revelation for me. I'm not just the the revenue collection but also um, especially I talked about this on the last, uh, the last episode was how much effort you really have to put into regenerative medicine. Cause remember it's a one time injection. So, um, that really changed my perspective on how I viewed introducing new therapies to the office. The alternative to that would be, so if it's not a high ticket highway, the other thing or high ticket therapy is, well, you know, what else can you offer? You know, you have nutrition plans and you have weight loss options in decompression. And functional medicine, like it takes a, it takes a lot of tickets, so to speak, or smaller tickets to equal one regenerative medicine ticket. So this saves, saves you so much time in. So ma, so many headaches in so many different ways. Speaker 1: (04:57) So for example, when you're, when you're running a, uh, an ad campaign, let's say you do a Facebook ad campaign, like how many ads would you have to put out and how many phone calls would you have to answer for a typical chiropractic patient? Right? It's a lot, right? You have to collect a lot of leads and, and get on a lot of calls and take care of a lot of patients to equal the amount of one regenerative medicine patient. Whereas with regenerative medicine, because it's a small niche therapy and it's a smaller demographic, you don't have to handle as many patients, right? A busy clinic may see five to 10 regenerative medicine patients per month. So let's, let me give you an example of that conservative month. Let's say you're, let's say you see five regenerative medicine patients and let's say on the low end, their case average, you're collect $4,000 per patient. Speaker 1: (05:47) That's $20,000 you made in one month just seeing five patients. That's the beauty of high ticket sales. It's less patients, it's less demand on you, it's less demand on your staff, it's less demand on everything and you benefit the patient benefits. So this is why, uh, I'm really, really passionate about high tickets. You know, high ticket items, and this is the response I get from a lot of doctors is they're, they're very uncomfortable with that. Uh, they don't know if they can sell high ticket therapies. They don't know if there are enough people in their town to make that work. Um, lots of different like, um, objections or kind of hangups people have in their, in their mind. And what I'll tell you is this, like the demand is out there. If you don't believe me, uh, walk into an orthopedic, a surgical clinic, like show up on a Monday morning or Tuesday morning at nine o'clock and, and just look around and see how busy their waiting room is. Speaker 1: (06:42) Like these are, there are, there are, there is an endless supply of patients in your town who are, who have joint pain or back pain and they're looking for solutions other than drugs and surgery. And that's where regenerative medicine fits in, right? Your main demographic is going to be your patient 55 years and older. They have a bad joint. They've already been to the orthopedic surgeon. They're looking at, they're staring down the barrel of surgery. They don't want to do that. They want other options and uh, they will pay for nonsurgical solutions to join pain because what are they getting in return? Right? You're like, well, why would someone pay that much money for one injection? Because what you're giving them in return is their life back. So many times we think of it as, well, it's a little Viola stuff. It's not worth 5,000, 10,000 bucks. Speaker 1: (07:28) Well it is for the patient because now they can, they can, uh, they can garden again. They can play with their grandkids again. They can travel. We had a patient one time, her whole goal was she wanted to be out of pain so she could go to Europe and she wanted to travel for like three months. And then she said, she goes after that. If you can get me out of pain for three months after that, like I'm, I'm good to go. My husband's passed away. I don't like, I don't have any other reason to be on earth anymore. I'll be happy if you can, if you can provide that for me. Um, and we were able to do that. So, um, that was like, she, she would've paid anything to have that experience in her life. I'll give you another example. We had a patient, um, this was a really severe case. Speaker 1: (08:07) It was a lady who came in on a motorized wheelchair and she was overweight. She was diabetic and she had severe, severe knee pain. And I remember this lady because she was like, she was desperate. She was out of options and, um, and she was so unhealthy that her surgeon refused to do a knee replacement on her because they were afraid that she wasn't gonna survive the surgery. And so I said, listen, like you're likely not a candidate, right? Cause you came into, you're not even, you're not, you're not, you're not walking on your own. You're using this motorized wheelchair. And she goes, what? Just if you can get me some relief, I just want some relief. And we x-rayed her knees and her knees look really awful. And I said, listen, regenerative medicine is not, is not going to help you the way that, um, I would like it to. Speaker 1: (08:52) And I said, you're really not a good candidate for this. She said, well, what, what type of relief could I get from this? And I said, you'd be lucky to get 5% relief. And she goes, that's worth it to me. And I said, well, what do you mean by that? She goes, I'm in severe pain. I don't want to live anymore. I can't do surgery. I can't be on these drugs anymore, but I just need to be out of pain. And she was in tears and I was, I was half until like I was tearing up listening to the story and she said, if you can provide me with a 5% relief, I want to do this because that's my only option. And this was like 7,400 bucks I think for both of her knees. And I said, listen, it's 7,400 bucks. Is that a lot of money to you? Speaker 1: (09:30) Like is this going to cut, like keep you from eating and paying your bills? Cause if that's the case that it's not going to be worth it. And she said, listen, we'll find a way to pay our bills. We'll find a way to keep food on the table. Uh, and, and her husband looked at me and said, listen, if you can provide her with some pain relief, we will find a way to make it work. And it was, it was like a lot of money for them to spend. And for me, I'm like, ah, like I had this kind of like moral dilemma, but I was very upfront with her and said, this is not, it's not going to fix your knees, but it may potentially help you get out of pain. So she ended up doing the injection and she came back, um, uh, three months later for like a checkup and she's still in her motorized wheelchair. Speaker 1: (10:09) And I'm like, eh, I was kind of dreading walking into the consultation room cause I, my fear was I kind of slid, let's lay, it didn't get any relief. Like she spent 7,400 bucks. I don't want to like, I don't want to have that conversation. I'd feel really bad if that were the case. And I came in the room and, and I said, you know, I asked her how you doing? And she started crying and I'm like, God, this is not good. And she goes, she goes, you have no idea how much he helped me and I will, what, what do you mean by that? I see you're still in the chair. And she goes, I said, how are you feeling better? She goes, yeah, I feel better. I said, how much? Cause I'm probably 10% better. And I'm like, well that's not a lot. Speaker 1: (10:45) And she said, yeah, but you have no idea. She goes, now I can actually stand up long enough to cook dinner for my husband and I can, I can, it's tough, but I can do dishes again. I can do laundry again, I can help her help out around the house. She goes, those little things have given me my life back. I feel like there's a reason to live. I can, I can take care of my husband, I can even go to the grocery store again. So like in my mind I'm like, Oh, this is not going to be worth it for her. But all she wanted to do was do these little things around the house that gave her value, that was valuable to her. And she and her husband like thanked me profusely because she felt so much better because of the injections. And I'm like, wow. Speaker 1: (11:24) Like I've, I've felt really, really good about that. And she was so happy and less left us a great review on our, on our website. And so like that, like that, that's worth it. Right? And so when you're, when you're thinking about like, will people pay for it? Are there people in my town that want to have this done? They're out there. They're looking for solutions. They're just looking for the right office and the right doctor to provide this therapy for them. So, um, if that's your thought, like you need to like get out of your head, like you put people barriers in, in their, in their brain that aren't really there, this is a real solution. People are looking for these types of results and you just need to connect with these people in your community. So, um, so this is the value of high ticket, the high ticket sales and high ticket highway. Speaker 1: (12:07) Um, I can't say enough about how much value this provides to your community and your office when you don't have to see a thousand patients a week to be profitable in your office. So listen, dog, I hope you found this valuable. This was part four of, uh, of the seven figure shortcut. And make sure to jump on the next podcast, which is, uh, episode number five and we'll cover that on the, um, on the next podcast. So thanks for joining me. I hope you have a great day, doc. Hope you found this valuable and I'll talk to you soon. Bye. Bye. Speaker 2: (12:40) Hey, innovators. Thanks for listening to the simplified integration podcast. Fact that you're listening tells me that you're like me, someone who loves simplicity, and the truth is those who embrace Implicity are some of the greatest innovators. So hope you got a ton of value from what we covered on today's episode. Be sure to subscribe and share with other docs that you feel could benefit from greater sophistication through simplification and innovation. If you've got specific questions that you'd like answered on this podcast, or you've got specific topics that you'd like me to discuss, just shoot me an email.

Hello and welcome to your one stop shop for daily enteryayment and everything dope, right here on The Matty Mo' Show! Tonight's episode is a must listen. I know a lot of people love to gloat when they're right or prove other people wrong, but see how the levels affect the reactions and more. Enjoy! One love

In life we often think in terms of right or wrong, and win or lose, as we interact with others. Today, we'll explore a third option that Krishna uses when approaching such situations.

The holidays are fast approaching and you don't want to go a drunken and dysfunctional family Thanksgiving dinner or a tear-filled and angry Christmas get together unprepared mentally and unarmed emotionally, so...Jay, Matt and the IWS team are going to help you hone your highly opinionated and tightly held beliefs so you can fight holiday fire with finely tuned, smugly superior sarcasm and an arsenal of, I'm Right; You're Wrong bombshells. The IWS team will be airing their nuclear fueled opinions as well on politics, people, music, sports, and things. There will also be witty banter, drinks, Jamie MapleLeaf boob talk, and an angry Schmoop. All of that plus your phone calls at 661.244.9852 as IWS presents: I'm Right; You're Wrong, Here's A Turkey Leg And A Gift Card

In this episode, we are joined by special guest Stuart Benson who is a freelance journalist. We dive into our scariest Halloween experiences, Jeffery Epstein's didn't kill himself, Corey Booker on The View, and many more! Don't forget to subscribe and rate, it would mean a lot to us! As well as reach out to us on social media to ask us any questions or suggest a topic for us to discuss. Instagram: @whatsthebigdealpodcast Twitter: @podcastbigdeal Facebook: /whatsthebigdealpodcast

The fear of getting it wrong. How many times have you spent your life trying to figure out how to get something right? Right? You're like, let me just get it right. Let me tweak it. Let me do this. Let me do that. I know, I do this too. What if getting it right was a lot more ease?   About Katherine McIntosh Katherine McIntosh is an Access Consciousness Certified Facilitator, Author, International Speaker, Serial Entrepreneur, Dancer, Laugher, Mountain Biker, Core Power Yoga Junkie, Adventure Seeker, Mom, Sunshine Hunter, World Traveler, and Born Rebel. Always attracted to things on the fringe, as a kid Katherine spent more time in her closet having conversations with stuffed animals and channeling spirits. She spent several years visiting Shamans in the jungles of South America, sitting in ceremony, blindfold dancing on volcanoes, performing soul retrievals, past life regressions, studying systems of the body, meditating through grad school, and fascinated by the psychology of the body, and the energy of possibilities, Katherine had quite a colorful history and used life experiences to dive into the consciousness of what it means to be alive. All of life comes to me with Ease, Joy and Glory What Else is Possible? https://www.no-judgement-diet.com/free-video-series https://www.nojudgmentdiet.com/ For more inspiration follow Katherine on Instagram at: @katherine_mcintosh              

Do you want to make your video viral? Surprising as it may sound but YouTube is not the best platform for that. In this episode, Nate Woodbury shares with us what it means, how a video becomes one, and his strategies in making a video viral. Check this out! Do you want to know how to make a YouTube video go viral? I know how to have a video get millions of millions of views but there's a secret. You actually can't have a video go viral on YouTube. What!? -What? -I'm going to explain how to get a lot of views and what I'm talking about. -So, how do you get a million... How do you get a YouTube video to go viral if it's not on YouTube? I don't get it. -Yeah. So, what viral means is that it's shared a lot, right? So, if the Facebook is the place where things can go viral, if you put a post the people just love. Maybe it's a video of your dog. You know, just really cute. Then somebody else shares that they share it, they shared. So, it spreads and it goes viral, okay? YouTube is really not a good social platform. It's an amazing platform but you're not social. If you wanted to show me a YouTube video, how would you show me that YouTube video? -I usually text a link. -You get the link and you text it? Or you'd message it or you email it. I mean you can't really YouTube it. -That's interesting. -Right? You're not going to like somehow share... We're not connected on YouTube. -It's interesting. -So, things really can't viral... they are trying to fix it. But YouTube just doing so many things right. The other platforms are doing wrong that it's like. They don't want to... They don't want to break what they've got a good thing going. -Yeah. So, but that's interesting though. Because you've heard of videos going viral. And a video can go viral but it can't go viral on YouTube. Somebody can take a YouTube video and have it go viral. Maybe it gets featured on a news station or in a newspaper or somebody else's blog or on Facebook. Even though Facebook and YouTube are enemies. And... -What? -Yeah. If... This is just a side note a little bonus.  If you put a link in your YouTube description that goes to Facebook, YouTube will... And somebody clicks on it they... "What? That person left and went to Facebook? We're going to we're not going to show this video as much." Same thing on Facebook. If you're on Facebook and there's a link, "Hey go check out my YouTube video." And they leave  and they go to YouTube." Facebook is going to bury that post. -Oh, my gosh. -So, they're ay war. Anyway. That's just a side bonus. -So, how does one do it then? -If you... I mean to go viral, you've got to create viral worthy content. And I don't know I don't know how to do it. I have never created a video that's gone viral yet. I have videos that have gotten millions of views. -Which sounds like...? -Well just end the video there. Alright. So my strategy on YouTube to get views to get traffic, there's actually 2 different strategies. 1 is search. Meaning that YouTube is an amazing search engine. People go to Google and YouTube asking questions. And they're looking for videos to watch to answer their questions. And so, I love doing... We've talked about this before. Keyword research before filming. Because you can really pull in all these searchers. I mean people all around the globe right now are asking questions about interior design that you have the answer for. So, just by making videos that answer their questions, you're pulling in that search traffic. And that's... That's kind of the foundation with all the clients that I work with, is we start with keyword research. Finding all those questions and we just go after question after question after question. And you start to build a gradual momentum. I like to look at each video as a machine. So, if you make one video that's pulling in a little bit of search traffic every single month and I set that one aside and it still keeps working but then you make another one. And you set that one aside and each video becomes the machines. And I've got this these army of video machines that are just pulling in traffic. So eventually, you're getting thousands and tens of thousands hundreds of thousands of views every month even though each video is just pulling in there a little bit. You've got a whole pile of them. -Do the videos keep pulling in there a little bit indefinitely over time or do they kind of like put the older videos down the...? -It's a very good question. The answer is they keep pulling their bit all for years and years to come. In fact, I've typically seen it gets better and better over time. -Really. -Which is the opposite of Facebook or email or... I mean if you if you write... You put your heart into an amazing email, right? You just, "I've got so much value." I'm going to you send it out. It gets viewed a lot that day. Maybe it trickles the next day. Same with Facebook. If you put amazing post on Facebook, you know, it might last a week. It's just as if it's a super amazing, it might go 2 weeks. And you get thousands of views on this post, right? A month from now, a year from now. How many views is it getting? -And that's the thing about Facebook too, is you can't really search Facebook. You can only scroll on Facebook and so... Like we know, people don't scroll very far down. -The Facebook's trying to fix that and like bringing up memories. "Remember this happened a year ago?" And that's how they're trying to repurpose old content. But I don't I get annoyed by those most the time. Sometimes they're cute. Sometimes if  it's like, "Oh, look at him 5 years ago." You know, my son or something but... -Anything about my son and I think it's awesome. -But it's not... It's not... It doesn't even compare to what YouTube has done where you can create a video, 5 years from now, it'll still be performing for you. -Yeah. That's one of the benefits. Okay, so that that's one huge way that you can get a lot of traffic. But that's gradual. Usually when you think of viral, you think of something getting a spike like... Also and it just took off. And you can actually do that on YouTube. In a previous episode that we filmed together I was providing you some coaching. I didn't introduce you. -Hi! -Katie Gutierrez. You need to check her out. She's really wanting to do some amazing things on YouTube and that's why I'm here helping her out. And we thought we would film it. So... Alright. In a previous video, we talked about... What do we talk about? We talked about how to make money on YouTube? And I talked about how YouTube has this partner program. Where advertisers pay money to YouTube. Go ahead just yawn. It's okay. So, YouTube as the partner program we talked about. Where advertisers pay money to YouTube to show their ads. 55% of that goes to the creator of the videos. Which is really cool. -That's very cool. So, YouTube is looking for good videos to promote. Meaning, good videos that perform well and bring in more advertising revenue. And that's good for us because we get 55% of that revenue. It's like we've got this partnership. It's not like it it's... We do have this partnership with YouTube. It's really really cool. While you're following the search strategy, if you make 5 videos a week, meaning 5 videos go live each week on YouTube. And you do that for 4 months, there's something magical that happens. -Oh my gosh. -Okay? That sounds like a lot and it is. Their strategic ways of doing it if you've got a busy schedule like we do, okay? We're filming 20 episodes today. Okay. It's lighten up. That's an entire month's worth. Okay. So... -And it's so effortless. -So, if we launch 5 episodes per week and we do that for 4 months, then in addition to getting all that search traffic that's gradually building momentum, YouTube will take one of our videos... Get a high 5 five. High 5 for yawns. She's having a hard time  staying awake in this this topic. When I told her that video can't go viral on YouTube, she's like... -Forget it, I'm done. You know what it is? Is that I have a bad habit of holding my breath? - Breathe. -Yeah. And I realized that I don't and I could benefit from working on it's like breathing. Because then I like hold my breath hold my breath away rather hold my breath and then my breath is like, take a deep breath, you need to yawn." -You're making her nervous. -Stop it Margaret. -Okay, Margaret. So, 5 videos a week for 4 months. What YouTube will then do is pick one of your videos and start to promote it for you. So, you don't have to pay. This is all organic. You just create the great content. And YouTube will take one of your videos and start to put it as a suggestive video next to other people's videos. So have you seen that? When you weren't watching YouTube, you've seen recommended videos. -"You like this, you might like this." -Hmm. So, your videos will start to appear there and will start to appear on the YouTube home screen. And so when your your views are going like this getting gradually was steeper and steeper and all of the sudden you'll just have a spike. And then it will settle down. But that spike not only did it cause a lot of views but it brought in a lot of new subscribers. So, let's say this is your average, we'll keep my hand here. Then you have a spike when it settles back down, you're at a new baseline. A much higher average. And then later to have another spike and another spike. -And those baseline  keeps growing with every spike. -Mm-hmm I've seen a channel double in size in 5 weeks from 80,000 to 160,000 subscribers. -What? -Just because we were... -So I'm seeing it's very very important to be putting out a lot of content all the time. That seems to be like a key. -Yeah, YouTube loves consistency. They love to promote channels that are doing the right things creating the type of content that are going to benefit YouTube. So, if we really are in a partnership with YouTube, if we create videos that we know is going to make YouTube money, they're going to promote it which in turn we get paid 55% of that and when we got a business behind it. You know, we're we make way more. -So, it's like a snowball effect. -So, that's how you make a video viral. It's not really going viral. But it's almost better than viral because it doesn't like... Something that goes viral it kind of it eventually cools down and slows down. Whereas the the videos that YouTube starts to promote... Its promoting it because it's a moneymaker for YouTube. And it will continue to promote that video because it likes to make money. The difference between a video going viral and  what you're talking about is a viral video like you only want to watch that cute cat video one time. But with this like cultivating this YouTube following, you're really creating a loyal follower. And then it's the loyal follower that's going to keep watching all your videos and then if you create this tribe of loyal video watchers. Then all of your videos are more likely to be viral, viral. -Now, that that's really the huge point here. The huge advantage of YouTube is it's not just a marketing platform. This isn't just advertising or getting traffic that turns off. You're actually building a real following. These are real people that subscribe, that love you that want to want more from you and want what you have to offer. So, let me know what you think about that? What do you think about me saying that a video can't go viral on YouTube. Do you agree with me or do you disagree? I'm interested to hear your comments below. And we'll see you tomorrow.

How did Jake Neill help B2B SaaS company SocialChimp cut its cost of customer acquisition (CAC) by 95% in 30 days? Jake Neill This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, Lead Hounds Marketing CEO and Co-Founder Jake Neill breaks down the 90 day accelerated growth strategy that he and his business partner use to help their client meet aggressive growth goals.  Jake's Digital Experience Roadmap framework can be applied in any business, and he shares the specific story of SocialChimp, a client that he worked with to cut CAC and generate more than 5,000 qualified leads. Highlights from my conversation with Jake include: Lead Hounds Marketing focuses just on strategy and leaves marketing implementation to its clients and partners. The company has a specific customer journey framework that it uses to build 9 day, accelerated growth plans for clients. One client, SocialChimp, needed a way to more predictably generated new qualified leads and customer acquisition. Using their framework, Jake and his partner cut Social Chimp's cost to acquire a customer by 95% in 30 days, and generated a 7.41 return on ad spend. They also generated 5,677 leads at an average cost per lead of $5.15. Jake says there are three things that are key to making any offer successful - the audience, the message and the offer. A successful campaign must be focused on one particular type of customer avatar, and that customer's key pain point. The Digital Experience Roadmap has seven relationship levels: strangers, visitors, leads, qualifieds, opportunities, customers and fans.  Jake generally begins by building out a good lead magnet and finds that with that in place, the rest of the roadmap tends to build itself out. Jake finds that the best lead magnets are hyper specific and able to be consumed quickly - things like checklists, tools, etc. For SocialChimp, Jake created a "real estate swipe file" aimed at realtors that is converting at 84%. Once you acquire a new lead, then you have to qualify them. Jake finds that deep dive content such as webinars and ebooks work very well at this stage. One thing that many marketers miss is the step that involves turning customers into fans. Jake says there are incredible opportunities for upselling at this stage and growing revenue without having to acquire any new customers. Jake uses paid ads to promote his initial offers and get them in front of the right prospects. When it comes to nurturing leads, Jake says it is critical to keep your marketing human and make sure you are using language you would use conversationally and not artificially pushing a sale onto someone who isn't ready for it. Resources from this episode: Visit the Lead Hounds Marketing website Check out the SocialChimp case study Connect with Jake on LinkedIn Connect with Jake by email at jake@leadhoundsmarketing.com Listen to the podcast to get learn exactly how Jake uses the Digital Experience Roadmap to build 90 day accelerated growth strategies for clients like SocialChimp. Transcript Kathleen Booth (Host): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I'm your host, Kathleen Booth, and this week my guest is Jake Neill, who is the CEO and co-founder of Lead Hounds. Welcome, Jake. Jake Neill (Guest): Hey, Kathleen. Thanks for having me. Jake and Kathleen hamming it up while recording this episode together . Kathleen: I’m excited to chat with you. Can you tell my audience a little bit about yourself and about Lead Hounds? About Jake Neill and Lead Hounds Marketing Jake: Yeah, of course. So, Lead Hounds Marketing is, we're a company of just two people, and our sole focus is on giving people a formula and framework for predictable growth. So, our objective is to put people on a path to doubling their sales. So, we live, eat, and breathe strategy specifically. So, we're not as much... Early on in our company's journey, we were doing Facebook ads, doing all kinds of things, but what we realized was there's a real need in the industry right now for people who are architects. So, what we did was we partnered up with another company in San Diego named Digitopia, and they are a full-house digital marketing company, and they do kind of the SEO, PPC, all that kind of stuff. So, we partnered with them and used their framework to engineer what we call Digital Experiences to turn strangers into fans, and then they do the implementation side, or the client does it in hands, or in-house. Sorry. Kathleen: Nice. I like that you guys have zeroed in on strategy as your strength. I think there's a lot of agencies that try to be all things to all people, and there is something to be said for not doing that and becoming very specialized. I say that as somebody who has been in agencies for 13 years. I used to own one, and now I'm in one as well. Jake: Yeah. 90 day accelerated growth plans Kathleen: Yeah. Well, one of the reasons I was excited to talk with you is that you guys do specialize in working with B2B SaaS, and you have these 90-day accelerated growth plans where you're able to get really great results for your clients. It's not like a blueprint. It's not like a copy-and-paste solution, but you do have kind of a structured approach to how you do this, and I loved that when you and I spoke you were able to share one particular case study that got amazing results, and I thought it would be fun to just use that as the example through which to break down what this framework is that you use, and how it functions. So, let's maybe start at the beginning, and if you could talk a little bit about how you guys think about the customer journey, you have a particular name for it. Jake: Yeah, totally. So, yeah, like you said, I didn't mention that earlier, but we do focus on B2B SaaS. We've done a lot across different industries, and the framework applies across tons of industries. The framework's been implemented for companies as big as Toshiba, and then all the way to startups. So, I'll show you... That's the case study that you're referring to, that we had already spoken about, was a case study for a B2B SaaS startup. I think it's a really powerful case study because it shows that you don't need also these big budgets and an established business to implement these principles. No matter what your size is, you can implement those things today. Kathleen: Yeah, and you have a couple of resources that I'm going to link to in the show notes. So, I think one of them is an example of your customer journey framework. So, if you're listening, and you want to have some visuals to refer to as you listen, if you happen to be in a place where you can do that, head to the show notes, and you can pull that up and actually see it as we talk. Click here to view the SocialChimp case study Jake: Yeah. I would highly recommend pulling up that document, and you can even pause the podcast as we're focusing on each relationship level, and you can even kind of put in your own. How would that apply to your own business? That would be really helpful. That way, it's not kind of like drinking out of a fire hydrant. Customer journey framework Kathleen: I love it. All right. So, let's start at the beginning. Talk us through how you think about customer journey. Jake: Cool. Yeah. Well, the first thing that I kind of want to start with is just the output, because I want people to understand that when you implement this methodology, that it actually works. So, we implemented it for a company called SocialChimp, and with SocialChimp, they were a startup. They were looking for funding, and they didn't really have a way to predictably acquire customers, which is what I see happening across the board. That's the biggest issue, is how do we create predictability. Tons of people are pushing a lot of different tactics, which are vital. Right? The tactics are important, SEO, Facebook ads, webinar funnel, whatever it is that you're trying to implement, but the problem is when you don't have a systematic approach to turning strangers into customers, then you're kind of like a bull in a China shop. Right? You're knocking over everything. You don't really know what's working, what's not working. Sometimes things work, but you don't really even know how it worked, why it worked. So, if you can't measure that thing, then you can't optimize it or do more of it. So, this framework really helps you get the foundation, and when we implemented it for this company, we cut their cost to acquire a customer by 95% in 30 days, and we generated a 7.41 return on ad spend, and we also generated 5,677 leads at an average cost per lead of $5.15. Kathleen: Was this all in 30 days? Jake: No. So, the first 30 days was cutting the cost to acquire a customer. That did happen, and the 95% decrease happened in the first 30 days, but the campaign's been running for a little bit. It's still running to this day, and still producing predictable results, which is really important because with the tools and tactics, they might work also for a period of time, but they only work for a set amount of time. They might be working for the next six months, but they're not really what you're going to build the foundations of a business for years and years to come. Kathleen: Got it. Okay. So, let's walk through it. Jake: Yeah. So, one last thing before I jump into the methodology is there's a couple things that you have to understand, is with all marketing across the board, there's three things that have to be hit in every single campaign. There's your audience, your message, and your offer. "With all marketing across the board, there's three things that have to be hit in every single campaign. There's your audience, your message, and your offer." - Jake Neill, Lead Hounds Marketing So, I know it's very basic, but what I'm going to assume is that you already know who your audience is, and that you can already articulate the offer to that prospect or that customer in a good way to actually move them to action. So, you already have those things dialed in. I'm going to assume that. So, if you don't have that dialed in, then make sure you dial that in before you implement the methodology. Kathleen: Yeah, and I think most listeners of this podcast probably have all that together, because they're generally pretty savvy marketers. Jake: Perfect. So, in order to understand the methodology, the first thing you need to understand is a little bit just briefly about the actual client themselves. So, we implemented this methodology for SocialChimp, and they have a software that automates social media posting for various industries, so real estate, wealth management, insurance, all kinds of stuff. So, what we had to do first was identify and hone in on our target market. This is a big mistake I see people making early on, is they try to create campaigns that funnel in tons of different customers, but you have to... You can build multiple campaigns, but for a successful campaign, it needs to be focused on one avatar. So, what we chose were real estate agents. The last thing, too, before we jump into the methodology is the... When you identify the audience, you need to hone in on a key pain point. A lot of you listening to this are going to skip this step, and you're going to start working on the Digital Experience, and it will fail if you do that, because hyper-specificity is key to the success of building out this roadmap or this Digital Experience. So, for the client that we serviced, their target market was real estate agents, so what we did was we interviewed real estate agents, we spoke to them, we did our research, we did our due diligence, and what we found was their biggest pain point was, how do I build and engage social media presence without any kind of time? So, they're all stretched for time. They want to sell real estate, but it takes a lot of time and commitment and consistency to post. So, we had to build a Digital Experience out of that. So, at this point, if you don't have the Digital Experience map, I'm about to jump into it. Definitely pause, download the Digital Experience, and then follow along with me. Kathleen: All right. Jake: So, on the Digital Experience map, we have seven relationship levels, and you see those on the side here. I'm going to briefly touch on them. There's strangers, right? That's the very first step. Someone has no idea who you are. So, the questions you have to start asking yourself is, what offers are we going to offer strangers to turn them into visitors, and then visitors, to turn them into leads, and then once we have leads, how are we going to qualify those leads, and then once they're qualified, how are we going to turn them into sales opportunities, and then once they're a sales opportunity, how do we close them into a customer, and then from a customer, ultimately, into a fan? So, those are the seven relationship levels that we have to implement in our business if we're going to see the consistency and the predictability. So, at the first level, you've got the blog post here. So, what we have is what we call a cornerstone piece of content, and that's how we turn strangers into visitors. But I want to take one step up to the lead sector just briefly, because that's actually where we start. If you can build and identify a lead magnet, a really, really solid lead magnet, then this experience begins to kind of build itself out. So, what we did for this client was... A lot of you are already familiar with a lead magnet. By the way, a quick note on lead magnets. The hyper-specificity is super important, but also that it can be consumed rapidly. I see a lot of people using things like eBooks, but those are better used for deep-dive content, which is later in the journey, because it consumes a lot of their time. So, at the lead stage, and this would change your business, if you guys can come up with a really, really, really good lead magnet, a lead magnet is... When you're thinking about a lead magnet, think about tools, checklists, things that can be consumed really quickly and solve a problem. So, with a lead magnet, the place that we always start is making a promise. So, I don't even start with the tool itself. I identify what promise can I make to the prospect that's in alignment with the key pain point. So, what's the best possible thing I could promise? So, what we did for this client was we identified, well, they want more social media engagement, and they want to do it in less time. What if I could hand you more than a month's worth of proven social media content to post to your newsfeed? Right? Where most people would go and say, "Well, let's educate them on how to post better posts." Well, the issue is they don't have time, so you're missing the mark. That's why it's so vital to identify that key pain point early on. Kathleen: That makes a ton of sense. Jake: So, what we did was we created the real estate social media swipe file out of that promise. We said, "How can we give them over a month's worth of proven content?" Well, we just went to... I think it was BuzzSumo, whatever the app is that has... You can find most engaged content. We grabbed the most shared real estate content of 2018. We grabbed 40 posts. We put them into a swipe file, into a PDF document, and then we wrote some copy. We wrote some different copy variations for each post and embedded a link. When the real estate agent clicked the link, it populated the social media post into their newsfeed and gave them 40 free posts to post for, depending on how many times you post, a month or more. Kathleen: Awesome. Jake: So, that lead actually to this day is converting at 84%. So, 84% of the people who land on that page are giving us their email address, and it's not because of the landing page design and the landing page copy. That, of course, matters, but it's about identifying an offer that aligns with that key pain point at this stage in the journey. Kathleen: Yeah. It's like the best landing page copy in the world can't make up for that offer. Jake: Yeah, exactly. It doesn't matter if you're... Yeah. I mean, you could offer a toothbrush, you could write the best copy for a toothbrush, but I don't know how many people are going to opt in, give you their email address for a free toothbrush. Kathleen: Right. Jake: So, once we identified the lead magnet here at the lead stage, the rest kind of writes itself. One thing to note as we're going to build out this experience together, each stage, as you elevate the relationship, it should be the next logical step. So, I should be able to say, "Because you read this blog post, you might be interested in downloading this lead magnet. Because you consume this lead magnet, you might be interested in watching this video. Because you watched this video, you might be interested in this product." So, it needs to be this logical progression. So, after we identified the lead magnet, we went down to the blog post stage, and this is how we turned strangers into visitors. Yes, you can create tons of different content. You can do SEO, this kind of stuff, but the cornerstone piece of content is this one kind of content that explains the value of the actual tool itself. So, what we did was we created a blog post called How to Repurpose Your Content and Get 10 Times the Exposure. So, if you notice the blog post, once again not teaching them about social media, it's showing them how to save time and increase their social media engagement. It's showing the power of repurposing content, and then the tool, what does it do? It gives you the content, the repurposed content kind of done for you. So, there has to be that logical progression. From the lead stage, now you have an email. So, if you guys know about using automated emails, this is where that would kick in, but don't let... If you don't know how to use automation and the CRM and everything, don't let that hold you back from building the experience. That's just a way to push people to the next stage. So, once you have a lead, you have to identify, how do we qualify this lead? So, this is where we build deep-dive content. So, in the SaaS space, a lot of times it's kind of videos around the product, but in most every industry, webinars work really great. This is also where eBooks can work. So, in this experience we built out a free trial video. We said, "Okay. Well, you just downloaded 40 social media posts. Well, how about we turn those 40 into an unlimited amount of social media posts?" So, that's where the free trial, we showed them the software that curates all these posts for them, and then posts it to their newsfeed every day for as long as they want. So, after watching the free trial video, we had a qualified lead, and then could offer that person a free trial offer. So, we said, "Now that you've checked out our video, now that you've checked out our software, would you like to take a free trial?" So, this is a really, really important step. It's a little more straightforward in the software space, because usually it's a demo or a free trial offer, but the foot-in-the-door offer is essentially an offer that you can give that's a low barrier to entry, so it's not your core offer. You don't want to jump in and say, "Buy my product," yet. You want to say, "What could I offer this person to get them to commit one of two things, either their time or their money?" A lot of people forget the value of getting someone to commit their time. Sometimes it's harder to get a commitment of time than a commitment of money. Kathleen: Yeah, that makes sense. Jake: Yeah. Maybe for the viewers who aren't in the software space, just some examples of ways to turn qualified leads into opportunities, let's say you're a brick and mortar. Let's say you're a dentist. People offer $20 teeth whitening. Right? It's not the core offer, but where does a dentist want to have the sales conversation? Where do they want a sales opportunity, when your mouth is open, and they're working on your mouth, and they want to say, "Hey, you've got some loose teeth here, or some crooked teeth. Have you considered braces?" Then that pushes them to the core offer. So, that's an example of an entry point offer that's not in the SaaS space, but if you are in the SaaS space, demos and trials work fantastic here. Kathleen: Yep. Jake: Then, obviously in the SaaS space, software works, selling actual software after the free trial. Now, there's all kinds of practical things about getting people to actually use the free trial. A lot of people sign up and don't use it, so you need email automations and things pushing people to actually use the software, but the software, your core offer, is that next step. Then from the core offer, after someone purchases, the next step is, how do I turn them into fans? So, at the fan stage there's a lot that we can do. What we want to focus on at the fan stage is increasing the lifetime value and the immediate value of a customer. So, what you do here is you offer complementary services to the core offer that would be interesting to the prospect in order to increase that value. So, for them we said, "Hey, you've taken the free trial. You're now using our software to post every day for you. Would you like some more awareness?" So, we offered them paid ads. We said, "You know, we're not..." Once again, it's not costing them time, but they're getting to spread their message out and build their brand and get more engagement to more people, because we're going to manage their ads for them, and maybe do something like a hundred dollars a month, something simple. But that was a really good complementary product, and we had 10% of people took that upsell, and then it allowed us to increase the lifetime value of a customer by 20%, which is extremely important because you can move your entire top line by 20% with one single offer. Kathleen: And without signing any new customers. Jake: Right, exactly. Kathleen: Yeah. Jake: So, that essentially is the framework. I don't know if there's anything that you feel like would be good to hit on in terms of helping people with the more practical side of thinking through any of these offers, but that's just one example in the software space. Kathleen: Yeah. I mean, it sounds like... So, we're talking about going from a stranger to a visitor, to a lead, to a sales opportunity- Jake: Or to a qualified lead. Kathleen: ... to a qualified lead, to a sales opportunity, to a customer, to a fan. Correct? Jake: Correct. Promoting your offer Kathleen: So, really, it's an expanded kind of concept of the customer journey. You guys have a special name for it, the Digital Experience? Jake: Yes. Kathleen: Yeah. It sounds like the key to it, at least what I'm hearing, is really deeply understanding the pain point, because if you get that wrong, it's like Dominoes. Right? You start at the beginning. If you get it wrong, nothing else works. Jake: Yeah, exactly. Kathleen: So, for SocialChimp, you did this exact thing. You walked us through all the different offers and the content, et cetera, that you created. One thing we didn't really touch on too much was, how did you promote the offer in the very beginning? Jake: Yeah. I mean, the way that we promoted it in the very beginning was with paid ads. I mean, there's a lot of ways to promote, and it also depends on your goals. What I see a lot of people missing on as well is the business math on the front end. They don't actually calculate things like, what is the lifetime value of a client? Well, maybe the lifetime value of a client is a thousand dollars, and then you have to ask yourself, well, what percentage of that profit are we willing to spend to acquire that customer? So, let's say typically a business is going to use 10% of two to three years worth of the value of a customer. If you're a startup, sometimes you'll use the whole lifetime value because you want to scale, but most businesses aren't going to use more than 10% of the first two to three years of the value, the profit, not the revenue, the profit of a client. So, it's identifying it early on, how much am I willing to spend? So, if the lifetime value is a thousand dollars, and you're willing to spend 10%, then you know the cost to acquire a customer can't go above $200. Then what you can then begin to do is you can begin to map out your conversion rate at each of these levels. So, you can say, "Okay. What percentage of visitors are becoming leads? What percentage of leads are becoming qualifieds, qualifieds into opportunities," and so on, all the way up to fans. You can then begin to reverse engineer the percentages. So, let's say at the customer stage you are turning 10% of customers... Or let's do the opportunity stage. You go to your sales team, what percentage of opportunities are we currently closing? 30%. Well, if you want to add an additional 10 customers, then you need to make sure you're bringing in another 30 sales opportunities in order to close those customers. So, you can reverse engineer all the way back to the visitors, and I'll actually... In the Digital Experience worksheet, I actually have a business math section, and you can fill that out. We won't have time to go over that in this call, but you could fill that out and identify what is your max cost per click. So, then you can decide what platforms to play on. So, if my max cost per click to drive a customer is going to be, let's say, $1.50 to turn the stranger into a visitor, then I'm probably not going to play on LinkedIn ads, because LinkedIn has a price floor, and you're not going to be able to drive traffic for that $1.50. So, setting up the business math on the front end is really important and vital to the success of campaigns, and it also helps with... If you're a CMO, for instance, and you're reporting to the CEO, it's really important because sometimes a CEO doesn't necessarily have realistic expectations of what should happen on the marketing side, and you can't dispute the numbers. Right? So, what you can do is you can show the numbers and create realistic goals around customer acquisition and what budget you'll need to fuel those customers. Kathleen: Yeah. I love that you guys focus on the cost of customer acquisition, because I think that's a big mistake that a lot of marketers make, especially those that are new to pay-per-click. I hear people ask the question all the time, "What should my budget be?" Right? They think that there's some magic lump sum number, like you're going to say, "Well, if you spend $3,000 a month, you're going to get results." It's really, the premise of the question is flawed because it shouldn't be what should your budget be. It should be how much are you prepared to spend to acquire a new lead or a new customer. As long as you're staying within that amount, your budget could be infinite. Right? Jake: Right. Kathleen: If it's resulting in customer acquisition, then you wouldn't want to cap it, certainly. You wouldn't want to say, "No, I got 10 customers. That's the end of my budget." You would want to keep it going. So, I think that's so interesting, that little shift in mindset that happens, and it's definitely something that you see... The mistake is something you see made a lot by people who are novices with pay-per-click. Jake: Yeah, definitely. So, I'd highly recommend using the business math section on that experience worksheet, and just as you build out your own experience, measure the conversion rate from customers to fan. Well, you can start from visitors to leads, and all the way up, and then measure those numbers, and it's kind of a fill-in-the-blank document, and it'll produce at the end of it what you'll actually spend. It will create the goals for what you can spend to acquire a customer, and that'll inform everything moving forward. Kind of to jump to the original question, I know I kind of went on a side tangent, I think it's an important one, but what we realized was this software was only being sold for $49 a month, so the cost per click that we could drive was on the lower end. So, we chose to play on Facebook. We didn't choose Google Ads or LinkedIn or anything like that. Of course, real estate agents are using Google, but the prices are a bit higher. So, we knew if we were going to get a really big return on our investment, then we needed to really drive home some good offers that could drive low cost per clicks, and Facebook's a great platform for that. Kathleen: Yeah. Now, you also have used retargeting. Correct? So, once somebody gets into your funnel, if you will, or into this Digital Experience, there are ways you can use retargeting to push them faster down it? Is that correct? Jake: Yeah. Yeah. So, that's actually a really important point. I'm glad you brought that up. The middle section on this experience map are the offers that we're going to give someone at each of these relationship levels, but on the outside you see things like retargeting, advertising, SEO, social media, email marketing. These are the platforms and the tools that you use to move people through the journey, and that's where I see most people starting, and that's a very, very, very bad mistake because of what we talked about earlier where you're just going to be implementing content, SEO, retargeting, and you're not going to have a systematic way to predictably bring in customers. So, we did implement retargeting, advertising, social media, all this kind of stuff, but it was to move people through the journey. So, you see, at the first stage, at the visitor stage, we started running ads. Our goal was to push as much traffic to this blog post as possible to build up an audience that we could then retarget. Right? So, retargeting, we retargeted the blog traffic to the lead magnet to get them to give us their email address. Well, now that we have their email address, we have a way of contacting them in multiple platforms. We can speak to them on email and retargeting ads still. So, for people who downloaded the lead magnet, we had email sequences. Kind of just a note on when you're doing this as well, keep it really, really, really human. We didn't say, "They downloaded the real estate social media swipe file. Quickly, buy the free trial. Watch the free trial video. Buy this thing." People can ascend really quickly through the Digital Experience, but we kept it, and our emails would follow normal relationship building, and we'd say, "Hey, because you downloaded this swipe file, I thought you might be interested in watching this video about how you could have a lifetime of proven highly-engaged real estate," and it's just like, "Hey, check this video out, and it's because the action prior to what I'm asking you to do now is you kind of raised your hand and said, 'Hey, I'm interested in this kind of thing.' Let me give you more of it." So, it's really about thinking from a value. It's not this kind of... A lot of people talk about this kind of stuff purely in funnel terms, and they think about funnels and funnel hacking, but a lot of times, people get so caught up in those things that they're just looking to make the sale as quickly as possible. But I think when you... That's why we changed the language from funnels, where people are kind of dropping down in the funnel, to elevating relationships, building experiences that are going to actually earn us the right to do business with our customer, as opposed to these kind of gimmicks that are, "Maybe we can kind of get our customer to buy with this thing." Kathleen: Yeah, marketers are the worst at that. I always say this. We're people, right? We're people who buy things, and we know, as people who buy things, what we like and what we don't like when we're marketed to, but then when we go and put our marketing hat on and become marketers, it's like we throw everything we know about being human beings out the window, and we do the opposite. It's like, the biggest mystery to me of marketing is why do we allow ourselves to do that. Jake: Yeah. I mean, it's wild. I see it happening all the time. I see people, "Hey, you read this blog post. Do you want to get on a call so I can talk about me and my product?" No, I actually don't. I also try to keep things in that human-to-human mindset and ask myself the question, number one, put myself in my customer's shoes, in my prospect's shoes. Would I want to receive this email? Does it make sense for me? Does this thing add value to my life? If the answer is no, if this email... This is a great principle to use. If you're going to send out an email, whether it's automated, eblast, or if you're going to post a blog post, so many people get caught up in, "Well, how many emails do I need in order to push them to the next step? How many blog posts do I need to post each day or each week?" The answer is not about the quantity of content that you're pushing out as much as the quality of content, because when you put something out, it says something about your brand, and if you're putting out crap, then people are going to... They're going to start associating you with, this isn't worth my time. So, if you send them enough emails that aren't valuable, they're going to start... Number one, they're either going to unsubscribe, or number two, in their mind they're going to say, "I don't need to open this email because I'm not going to miss anything." But if you're always adding value, then when they see an email come through from your brand, then in the back of their mind, "I know I'm busy right now, but if I don't read this, I may lose out on something really important to learn." Kathleen: Yeah. My little hack for that is instead of imagining I'm the recipient, because sometimes that can be hard for me, I actually think of a friend, and I think, if I were emailing my friend Abigail, what would I say? I wouldn't say these spammy things, right? I would be friendly. I would be helpful. So, I picture a real person, and I write to them, and that's really helped me a lot make things less marketing-robot-like. Well, this is so cool, and hopefully people have gone in and downloaded the visuals, because it is very helpful to follow that along in this conversation, and if you didn't, go download it afterwards and then re-listen to it again, because you'll get more out of it. The results Kathleen: But I want to recap, go back to the results you got, because this is the exact process you used with SocialChimp, and you guys had crazy good results. So, can you just mention those again? Jake: Yeah. So, when we built out this Digital Experience, we took someone who was getting terrible results, they were spending way more money than they were bringing in. Their cost per trial was $1,147. That's pretty bad. Now, what were they doing? They said, "Oh. Well, we've got a great product, and we're giving you something for free. Do you want it?" So, they were running ads straight to their free trial, but that would be like me walking up into a coffee shop and saying, "Hey, I'm pretty awesome, and I'm rich and funny. You want to get married?" Just because those things may be true, I may be awesome, and we may be a great potential match, but if I come at it with that approach, then I'm going to turn off that person. So, in the same way, I can't come across in that way to my customers. I see a lot of people telling stories about themselves to their customer, but the real question that we need to ask is, how do we change the story that our customer tells about themselves? How do we take them from point A to point Z, where they want to be? So, when we stepped away from that and said, "Okay..." They wanted to hire us originally to run their Facebook ads, and I told them, I said, "I won't run your Facebook ads because you have a much more fundamental problem. If you push traffic to this system right now, then you're just pouring water in a leaky bucket, and you're just going to be wasting money." So, we had to build out that experience, and when we did that, we cut the cost per trial from $1,147 to $56 within just 30 days. Kathleen: Wow. That's crazy. Jake: Yeah, you can see the... We were selling the product for $49, but we also had an upsell that 10% of people took, so it made the monthly payment $59 a month. So, within 30 days, as a SaaS product, they were recouping what they were spending to acquire a customer. It's really, really, really powerful for a SaaS company. Kathleen: That's awesome. Definitely speaks to the value of kind of that whole... You have to slow down to speed up. Don't just try to drive traffic to a bad offer or a bad website. You've got to have a solid foundation. I love it. Jake: Yeah. Kathleen's two questions Kathleen: Well, before we wrap up, I have two questions I ask all my guests that I want to ask you. The first one is... We're always talking about inbound marketing on The Inbound Success Podcast. Is there a particular company or individual that you think is really doing inbound marketing well right now? Jake: Well, besides you, I would say DigitalMarketer. If you haven't heard of them, it's digitalmarketer.com, and my agency's actually certified partners with them as well, they've got tons of resources. But they are phenomenal at this. They really, really, really focus on adding so much value that you almost feel obligated to purchase, because by the time they offer you anything that you have to pay for, you've already learned so much that you know a couple things. Number one, there's this kind of feeling of, well, I need to give back to this person, and then there's also the feeling of, well, I got so much value for free, I can't imagine how much value I'm going to get when I pay them. Kathleen: Yeah. Yeah, they are great, Ryan Deiss and Marcus Murphy and the whole team over there. They're just killing it. IMPACT is also a partner of DigitalMarketer. It's a great company. All right, second question. I always hear from marketers that there's just so much changing in the world of digital marketing, and it's really hard to keep up with. How do you personally stay up-to-date and on top of all of that? Jake: Yeah. So, there a lot of ways. I would also say I do stay up-to-date through DigitalMarketer because they are one of the leading trainings and resources for individual companies, marketers, and digital agencies. They're kind of on the cutting edge, and they are certified with so many people like us who are in the trenches, and then we relay that information to them so that they can get quite a large amount of data around what's working, what's not working. So, I use DigitalMarketer, and then that's how I stay up-to-date, but I really think a lost art is looking back at some of the older advertising, like some of the books, like Breakthrough Advertising. If you haven't read that, it's really phenomenal on copywriting. But going back all the way to the people who were writing direct mail and getting people to literally mail... They were mailing something to someone's house to get them to purchase a product from one single letter. It's really powerful psychology and principles to be learned from those people as well. Kathleen: Yeah. I love that whole going back and being old school. I've had a bunch of people mention that, and everyone cites different books. I think the one you mentioned is a new one. But some of these principles don't change, because they just have to do with human nature. So, it's not like there's new advances in human nature in 2019. It's the same basic principles, and I think sometimes we lose sight of that as marketers. So, great insights there. How to connect with Jake Kathleen: All right. If somebody's listening, and they want to learn more about Lead Hounds, or they have a question and they want to reach out specifically to you, what's the best way for them to do that? Jake: So, they could email me directly. My email is jake@leadhoundsmarketing.com. That would be probably the quickest way to get a response. Kathleen: All right, awesome. I will put that link in the show notes. So, if you want to reach Jake, either shoot him an email or head to the show notes and get that link. You know what to do next... Kathleen: If you're listening, and you learned something, or you liked the podcast, please leave the podcast a review on Apple Podcasts, preferably a five-star review, but I say this every week, and this week I'm going to challenge you if you're a regular listener to take a moment and do that. Leave a review if you haven't done it already. I would really appreciate it. It helps get the podcast in front of more people. If you know somebody else who's doing kick-ass inbound marketing work, tweet me @WorkMommyWork, because they could be my next interview. Thank you so much, Jake. Jake: Thank you, Kathleen. It was awesome.

A conversation on the importance of learning how to resolve conflict. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jonm-jeppson/support

Joel HubbardWhere does morality come from and how is it formed? How do we grow beyond this point?no00:44:10Morality- I'm Right, You're Wrong

We talk about private barrel selections being the new unicorns on this show all the time. But it begs the question, are we seeing so many private picks that the market is oversaturated? It seems like every week there is a new barrel in our city for sale, FOMO about some sweet sticker, or the secondary market has a crazy valuation on a normal single barrel selection. We examine all the components that go into getting single barrels such as the amount of influence from distributor reps, the amount of available barrels at the distilleries, and if you would buy from a big chain vs a small independent store. Will there ever be enough bourbon to go around and not over bloat the market? We’ll find out. Show Partners: At Barrell Craft Spirits, every release is intentionally unique, and can’t be duplicated. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. Find out more at BarrellBourbon.com. Check out Bourbon on the Banks in Frankfort, KY on August 24th. Visit BourbonontheBanks.org. Receive $25 off your first order at RackHouse Whiskey Club with code "Pursuit". Visit RackhouseWhiskeyClub.com. Show Notes: This week’s Above the Char with Fred Minnick talks about Portugal. What got you into to buying private barrel picks? What's the landscape of private picks in DC? With the increase in stores wanting private picks, are some stores going to get shut out of the program? Do you think distilleries should be taking care of the bigger accounts over the smaller stores that started doing picks earlier? Is there a bias towards certain states? Would you want to buy a private barrel pick from a big box liquor store? Does the local sales rep make a difference? What about restaurant picks? Do you think distilleries are running out of barrels for their private barrel programs? Is the market flooded with private selections? What could distilleries do to give one store an advantage over another? Let's discuss stickers. Do they influence your purchase? Should stores slow down barrel picks? Why are some people spending so much for private picks on the secondary market? 0:00 Yeah, all I think all of our products are, which ones the few that we've gotten are like my daily drinkers. Yes, I'm with you. I don't ever drink the rare stuff by myself. And nobody ever comes over. So. 0:26 Hey, everybody, welcome back. This is Episode 210 of the bourbon pursuit. I'm one of your host Kenny. And we don't really have a whole lot of bourbon news to talk about. In fact, we have none but we have some sort of fun little tidbits information plus some things that we've been working on and what we've been doing. So let me tell you about them. So I had some information sent to me a few weeks ago by Chris Middleton over at whiskey Academy. And he said this after he listened to Episode 207 with Jimmy Russell and I sat down with them. Now, you know, it's not often when you can stump Jimmy Russell and this was one thing 1:00 We had kind of talked about that's really kind of a whiskey mystery. So let's kind of dive into it. We talked about the name Ezra on the podcast, and we did that for a bit and somehow we stumbled on the topic of Ezra Brooks. Now, from my knowledge, I remember this being a fictitious name and brand but we got on the topic and it kind of just spiraled out from there. However, here's some factual information on Ezra Brooks that came from Chris Middleton. So Ezra Brooks it is a whiskey brand that is a copycat brand of jack daniels Black Label Tennessee whiskey. It was created by Frank Silverman of the Frank Silverman and company in Chicago in 1957, or he sourced Kentucky bourbon under the Ezra Brooks distilling company is an NDP filed on July 30 1958, with Herbert Silverman as the chairman. Now this was all also under the Hoffman distilling company in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. There was no Ezra Brooks no distiller, owner investors, celebrity or a day 2:00 The thief from a whiskey cemetery. He's a trademark Phantom. SO Hockley built the Hoffman distillery on the Salt River in 1880 joined II Kaufman. After prohibition, it was rebuilt with the brothers Robert and Ezra, who were brought in to run it. And those were the sons of Thomas repeat, hence the connection to the wild turkey distillery. Jimmy Russell was probably referencing the name from here and all likelihood It was not where the hazard Brooks name came from. Frank Sillerman unashamedly copied everything from jack daniels, starting with the square bottle to a similar black and white label graphic, the filigree even an image of an old distillery illustration, which jack Dino's had on the back of the label, even the trademark name Ezra Brooks with similar syndication and personalization, so we're men also attempting to replicate jack daniels unique use of charcoal filtration. As an aside, Ezra Brooks was America's second charcoal rectified bourbon was 3:00 Since post prohibition, but the processes were very crude in simplistic it's more of a gesture circulating some charcoal and the whiskey barrel for 24 hours. George decal, the other charcoal was launched in 1964. Silverman also plagiarized jack daniels unlabeled claims and copied some of the Jackie Mills print advertising messages back then. JACK, Dino's went on allocation from 1956 to the early 1960s when the consumer demand exceeded the production under the maturation. So that's a good little whiskey tidbit for you. So make sure you try to write that one down. Now you know the kind of the real history behind Ezra Brooks. So I want to give a shout out to our friends over for castle festival for hosting us this past weekend. We had a great time hitting up the bourbon lodge that was sponsored by Justin's house at bourbon and the bird review to get some dusty pours as well as some air conditioning before heading back out into the crowd the jam with bands like Judah, the lion, the killers, and Nelly 4:00 Put on actually a real good show to bring back some those early 2000 memories for lots of us. You can catch our for castle updates on our Instagram and Facebook pages. Did you catch that thing we released on Tuesday this past week? Well, you can look forward to hearing those every week from now on. We're excited to be launching whiskey quickie to give you a fun update in the middle of the week. The normal podcasts will remain unchanged, and hope you look forward to hearing more of them. If you want to catch the video versions, make sure you subscribe to our YouTube page. And you can see that sweet intro that we've cooked up. We've got no shortage of whiskey to review and we can get through quite a bit with only 62nd reviews. But if there's something that you were dying to hear, send us an email team at bourbon pursuit calm. We talked about private barrel selections being the new unicorns on this show all the time. But that begs the question, are we seeing so many private pics that the market is just becoming over saturated? It seems like every week 5:00 There's a new barrel that's going up for sale in our city. There's fo mo about some sweet sticker attached to a bottle that we want to get our hands on, or the secondary market has some crazy valuation on just another regular single barrel selection. We examine all the components that go into getting single barrels, such as the amount of influence from distributor rep, the amount of available barrels that are even at these distilleries. And if you would even buy from a big chain versus a small independent store, will there be enough bourbon to go around and hopefully not overload the market? will find out. All right, well, let's get on with the show. Here's Joe from barrell bourbon. And then you've got Fred Minnick with above the char. 5:42 Hi, Joe from barrell bourbon here, every release is intentionally unique and can't be duplicated. Once it's gone. It's gone. Find out more at barrel bourbon com. 5:53 I'm Fred Minnick. And this is above the char as I walk into this beautiful store, surrounded by 6:00 port and scotch bottles. I went up to the owner in Lisbon, Portugal. And I asked him a question, sir. Where's your bourbon? He said, Well, there's no demand for bourbon here. Nobody wants it. I love bourbon, he says, but nobody really wants to buy bourbon and Portugal. A few days later, I walked into a lovely bar. There are plenty of ports and scotches and cognacs and the bar owner boasted is like yeah, we have the largest bourbon selection in all of Porto. I'm like, Wow, fantastic. What do you got? We've got bullet bourbon. He said, I was That's fantastic. And then he had four roses and he had a couple of vintage Bourbons and he was very excited to even have jack daniels and Jim Beam. I think he had a redemption here and and an orphan barrel there in for sure. It was the largest selection of bourbon that I had seen in Portugal, and he made some nice cocktails. But at the end of the day, that was not 7:00 Nearly the amount of bourbon that I'm used to seeing, and even a random chilis in Boise, Idaho. Now I guess I shouldn't expect to go to Portugal and see bourbon littered on all the shelves. Not at all. I don't expect that one bit. But I was rather shocked to see that bourbon had not penetrated such a country field with culinary love and wine and port. So perhaps I'm naive to think that bourbon should be served throughout Portugal. But let me tell you why. When I walk into a foreign country, I look for bourbon. It's because I think of the distillers in the 1950s and 1960s, who are trying desperately to get these countries to pull down their tariffs except bourbon overseas. See, in that time frame, bourbon was not a unique product in the United States. And so places like United Kingdom, Argentina, Brazil, Spain, Portugal, they were all terrifying bourbon because there was nothing unique about it and the world. Also want 8:00 Give scotch and easy pass so it could help rebuild the United Kingdom. And so when I look at the shelves throughout the world, I think of the toil of the distillers in the 1950s and 1960s, and those in the 1980s, who were just kind of hanging on by a thread, just trying to bring bourbon back. And while I could easily say that, you know, bourbon and Portugal means less bourbon and Boise, Idaho, it's really not that simple. You see, the more bourbon grows, the more production we will have. And if we can get places like Portugal to carry, I don't know, three to five Bourbons, and every store or restaurant, that's a win for Kentucky. That's a win for bourbon. And at the end of the day, I think it's a win for you too, because that means they're going to work harder to make better bourbon. And that's this week's above the char Hey, 9:00 If you have an idea for above the char hit me up on Twitter or Instagram, that's at Fred Minnick again. That's at Fred Minnick. Until next week. Cheers 9:11 Welcome back to another episode of bourbon pursuit Kenny and Ryan here tonight talking about a particular subject that means a lot to all of the bourbon crazies, the bourbon nuts out there because this is one topic that Ryan and I I think, I mean Gosh, we're we're hundreds of episodes into this now and we start rolling back the the clock and the dials and we go back in time and I remember when Ryan was all like, Well, why would you chase unicorns when store pics are the are the real thing that you want? You know, this is this is a privately selected barrel. It only has a finite amount of bottles in it. And now it seems that the game is even getting ruined for store pics in that all right, Ryan. Yeah, now you got to start your own private label. Rare 9:58 because it's 10:00 I guess I was probably what two or three years ago I said that I was just burnt out by the whole camping and lotteries and all these, you know, limited releases and then the store pics was like my, you know, I was like man, those are the just like you said, but now it's gotten to the point where like you said every stores doing one every groups done one they got a sticker on they got this that that and then it's like, all right, what's you know what's rare about these anymore? But I mean, they are still rare because you are selecting your own barrel but uh, you know, same time I think they've kind of lost their luster a little bit, but I don't know, they're still unique. Yeah. And I think I think again, harder. Absolutely. And I think the good thing is at least with this certain topic, because there's there's a lot of ways that you can take this, you know, we've had, we've had you know, as I mentioned, Ryan talked about this a lot. We had Matt Ray, Walt Aiden, English the WWE wrestler talk about it. We had we had Brett from brick 11:00 banter on here we talked about sort of, you know, who can you trust when somebody's actually picking out a single barrel we've also had Jamie Ferris on the show before where he's had over 70 single barrels at one time in the store. So the single barrels they're not nothing new however, the craze is starting to really rise in popularity amongst you know, everywhere to the point where people are quickly selling out a single barrel pick that their total wine just got somewhere in Houston because somebody posted they're like, Oh, can I go get that let's go run and go get it real quick. So it craze the craze is starting to reach capacity. Yeah, and the crazy thing is not to keep going on a banter on our our banter. 11:46 The the the people that have been doing these are you know, for so long and that started doing these to bring interest in these single barrels are getting squeezed out. And that's kind of the the crazy thing about it. It's because there's such a demand. 12:00 The groups that you know, really bought into this and kind of made distilleries famous for it. 12:05 Because they're just a group, they're not really had the buying power of big liquor stores. So we can get into this a little more, but it's just, it's an interesting environment. It's still unique and very cool environment. But there's a lot more at play now. And so you kind of gotta weave in and out how you can end it. Alright, so we've talked enough. So let's introduce our guest, Michael. 12:27 So our guest is Michael Gallagher. Michael is a bourbon enthusiast and brought this topic to us as a way to kind of spark a conversation of what's the market going to be like now and what's it going to be like, even in the future? So Michael, welcome to the show. Thanks, guys. Thanks for having me. So before we start diving into the topic, you know, I we always have to get your bourbon story kind of where did you come from? How did you grow up in this? This this brown water wasteland or whatever it is nowadays? Well, when I was growing up by my parents and really drink it off, so I didn't really start getting 13:00 into it and probably until like, five years ago, and, and I didn't live it up here near DC for about eight years now. And being right across the line, the wild west of DC until I have a couple of liquor stores actually like the frequent because it's a lot easier to get stuff. And that actually helped me broaden my horizons as far as like the range of, you know, flavors and tastings that you can get from it. I mean, I'm not an expert in any means when it comes to figuring out like, whether these are way marzipan or what you know, we just play one on the podcast. 13:35 We ride on Fred's coattails on that 13:39 so yeah, I built a collection of myself it's just been a nice happy that I've enjoyed so what's your your collection up to this point? I probably got around 150 bottles which is probably like nothing compared to what you get but dang that's about there with me. The problem is I drink on like, like this slowly keep diminishing but Kenny Hello 14:00 He's a hoarder he's got that's not true because every time you come over I crack one open and then you just leave and so I'm I'm always stuck with all these bottles and only have like two pours poured out of them because you invite you don't invite me back. 14:14 There's a reason why that happens to for sure. I guess Michael kind of give us a little bit of an indication of like, What got you like looking into buying Perino private selected barrels that have been done either by stores or by groups or anything like that versus, you know, either regular offerings or trying to chase after unicorns. I think it was when I started collecting deeper it was more about availability I guess, because like you get to a certain point you can't, you're not going to find that many more new bottles. So it became more about the different flavors in like a four roses. You know, private select the different kinds of flavors you can get from you know, different recipes they have, which I usually found through the 15:00 Single barrel program that you know liquor stores and guys like you have done 15:07 and so what's what's sort of the landscape in DC as well because I know I know we've got friends that own stores around there and I know the way that as you'd mentioned the wild west of laws happened but what's the like the landscape of private pics because I'll tell you about the landscape of private pets here in Kentucky after you're done 15:29 as far it's just I think the the stores 15:33 if I'm understanding your question correctly did stores just happened to do as many pics as they can. I mean, I don't they don't usually get that many in they probably do like four or five years especially the my favorite store is that about which is good. Yeah, I mean, because the one thing that we you know, we kind of see around here is that there is 15:52 there's an abundance. Right? I mean, I think I think there is something to be said about having this. Everything in your backyard. A lot. 16:00 These stores have had these relationships with the distilleries for a very long time. So when they want to go and do a private pic, it's like yeah, sure. Come on in like we've been doing business forever. And then now it's starting to the point well, okay, well, bourbon, the craze is starting to go up. So now we've got stores in California and Oregon and Washington and Iowa, New York. And I everybody wants to do them now. And so there's, there's this. They're feeling this pressure. Yeah, there's tension and the pressure. And so and with that pressure, I mean, we're going to start seeing some people potentially get booted out and stuff like that. And I know Ryan, you've you've kind of seen it firsthand by you know, Guthrie, that's been on the show before. with Todd he's down in Bardstown. So, tell us a little bit about what that looks like. Yeah, so got there. A good friend of mine owns today's we talked about before, but he's been doing private pics for Gosh, I mean, it seems like it's 17:00 least seven to 10, maybe even 10 years, ever since they've been first having it. And so, yeah, he goes to plot for Russell's pics this year and four roses and they're like, Hey, 17:13 we don't have room for you this year. And, and it's based because he's a small store, you know, he doesn't do a ton of volume. And so they're basically catering to the bigger liquor stores that push the volume. And so it's kind of like squeezing the little guys out, they kind of, 17:31 you know, embrace them at first and so it's kind of like, all right, well, that doesn't seem 17:37 very fair. Very right. And we seen it with good friend of ours. Read with 17 out be I mean, they've been doing pics for ever and Campari just told them that they weren't gonna be able to do a Russell's pick. And they I mean, gosh, they've done. I mean, how many barrels that we picked that day with them six out of how many I mean, we probably 18 maybe you could just tell read and emulate it. 18:00 relationship with Jimmy and Eddie. And it was like, you're just going to shit on this relationship that's like been there forever just because they're a group and they're not a big liquor store. And so there's just been so many groups and so many liquor stores now interested in it that like, the way that these 18:19 bourbon companies are kind of determining who gets what is kind of alarming and shocking to me, and I'm not too happy about it, but I understand it is what it is. And it's like you said at pressure, squeeze markets, so they do what they gotta do, but I think I'll will All right. Well, remember that, you know, when about five, eight years, and all this stuff's out again and there, you know, calling us back up. Yeah, Michael, kinda want to get your take on that. Like, what do you kind of see is the, 18:51 the anti, I guess you could say happening, of being able to say, well, we're going to push out all these people that took it 19:00 The dance and we're going to take care of the Benny's and you know liquor barns in our backyard and going me wrong like they they get the cream of the crop for some reason I've seen liquor barn just regular like Buffalo Trace old Weller antique pictures that show up on Facebook. Holy God, I'm not I'm not kidding. They have you know, when we go we do our Buffalo Trace barrel pick they have four barrels when they do it. They have 12 1518 It's insane, right? So they treat customers a little bit differently to do you agree that these distilleries should be taking care of their bigger accounts rather than everybody that kind of has been keeping them in the dance for a while, but is as bad as it sounds. I mean, it's probably Money Talks, right? And it's almost like, to the point where to get certain bottles, like comfort like they've done in the past is these liquor stores have to push the cheaper stuff or the bottles they want to get off their hands in order to get the chance to get into the selections what it almost seems like in and so I guess another question that that we kind of 20:00 Bringing around that you know it does go by location to. I'm reading a few things that are coming here in the chat. Bill Nall says that location matters. He was in Detroit and there's a liquor store that had a barrel bourbon private pick. And it was, quote the only one in the state. However, here in Kentucky, you can go around to five or six stores and probably find one. Matt said the same exact thing he said in Iowa. There is only one for roses single barrel private selection pick for the entire state. He never saw it. He only saw there is only one Weller 107 barrel for the whole entire state of Wisconsin this year. So there is there is this sort of demographic, I guess, bias? I don't know. Maybe that's what it is like, what do you what do you all think? Do you think there is a demographic bias or is it because there's there's another underlying motive there? I guess it could be the idea of population density areas. I mean, I was not exactly a DC nuts. 21:00 DC is like this big city. But you know, DC, even DC like a liquor store that I usually go to only gets like four bottles, like a year, like four selections a year from different cup, and they're usually the big one like whistle pig for roses and stuff like that. But 21:14 I'm not around with. Yeah, I mean, I think where these distilleries are aiming, they're kind of probably starting to squeeze out the group's more so than stores. Because a group doesn't necessarily help them, 21:28 I guess, expand their brand or expand their reach. You know, we're us whiskey geeks were already in we're already buying their product. And so I think smaller stores and groups are going to get squeezed out first because like that, they just want to reach new customers and get into new markets and a group just not going to offer that especially one that's here in Kentucky. I mean, because we're going to, we're going to buy them if they're available and it's 21:57 kind of, you know, limits the reach if 22:00 just selling to so I can understand that. But at the same time we've are the ones that are, you know, like, I hate to hate hate to keep saying bring it to the dance, but we're the ones that brought you to the dance and so, so Hey, come on, give some love. No, Andy, just comment in the chat. He said, Well, groups don't sell cases of fireball. Exactly. 22:22 Exactly. And so 22:25 there's still a ton here in Kentucky. I mean, like you said, You got a liquor barn or total wine. I mean, they got the everyday Buffalo Trace and, like, even Barrow I mean, they're pleather but well when I said it, I mean they fly off the shelf like crazy. I mean, it's a it's just a different landscape than it was two three years ago. Do you think they have like deals with those like when I was in I was in Kentucky and I went to the old forester their new area where they have their you do I guess you do your single barrel select there and they had like the plaques on the wall for the people that have done pics, and like total wines has like 20 stars. 23:00 Any star was like 10 bottles I mean 10 barrels. So yeah, yeah I mean there's it's amazing right? I look at it from from a business perspective and yes it does make sense that you you help the people that sell cases upon cases upon cases of just old forester 86 or 100 or the new right or whatever it is right it's great to be able to take care of those people. 23:31 The flip side of it is is that when we start thinking about these big stores the the liquor Barnes the Benny's 23:40 you know, talk about some some massive change the total wines now when you go into one of these liquor stores, and you know, we have him around here, I'm sure that you've got a a Costco around you as well. Even though I don't know how big the Costco private barrel program is, even though they sell a shit ton of liquor but 24:00 What is what is your take? Like? would you would you feel comfortable buying a private barrel pic? Because it is that total line and you have no idea who did it? Or are you going to? Are you going to pass on it? Michael? What kind I want to get your ID on that. That Yeah, I've had that discussion in my own head a lot. As far as Do they really care about the taste? Or are they just doing the private select because it's a private select and I know it's going to sell more. I do like to tend to go to the to the groups but like you guys and that I trust like the you know, we kind of have the same flavor palette I guess you would say and I tend to stick to the smaller ones and stay away from the larger ones. Yeah, we do have costumes here in the DC whiskey read it is crazy about always posting like an update of what they have gotten each day. Yeah, I think the I guess the crazy thing about just Costco in general what's what's happened to the liquor sales because the words out that 25:00 It's, it's the cheapest, you're going to find any state that you're going to live that you're going to live and be they they get allocated items. So I'll never understand why they don't have a bunch of barrel selections or anything like that going on, because I know that they're running through a lot because that's the anomaly. That's the difference of a liquor barn and a total wine where they do have a lot of private selections, and they're trying to really put that as a differentiator. I was gonna say, I didn't even know Costco had or they don't have private selections, right? Is that what you're saying? You don't see I've never seen any or, I mean, so I will take that back. There was one that happened here, I think it was or maybe it was another location, but they just had like a knob Creek, you know, nothing, nothing crazy. But that's something that you typically don't see. And so I guess another way to kind of look at this, you know, Matt FE says in here it says, Why should you crap on the little stores, you know, you still get a single barrel into the store and it's still drives business. 26:00 But why why are you not going to help those smaller stores out? You all have a kind of take on that. 26:07 Well Could it be more about supply and demand kind of thing where they recognize that they got it they have to give these stores the largest stores their pics, but they're running out of not necessarily they're running out but they you know they probably allocate barrels of for their single barrel selection program and maybe they know that the big stores they have to take care of so that they the less store the smaller stores have less to go off of you know what I mean? Like you were saying earlier how you don't get that many barrels to choose from. Right What do you think that algorithm is? A figuring out what like, what do you have to sell to make sure that you get access to buy something that's way over my pay grade. 26:45 And my shareholder as bourbon pursuit. 26:49 podcast host but uh, yeah, I don't know. I mean, 26:54 it all makes sense when as a business fan, I mean, you 27:00 Do this too. I mean, you have those accounts that do everything for you. They're great customers, they pay on time. They, they, they're just easy to deal with. And I'm sure it's kind of like that with, you know, your bigger stores and with your district, you know, distributors and your bigger stores because it's, it's an easy relationship. It's an easy flow. And it's like, here's a reward for versus smaller store. Yeah, it might be, but they might pay slow, they might do that. I don't know. I'm just thinking outside the box here, but it you know, 27:30 it's like the 8020 rule. You know, 20% of your customers bring 80% of your revenue and so maybe they really focus on those 20% and kind of squeezing out that 80% that right now, just because they are in such a squeeze. Yeah, yeah, I definitely see that as being a motivation factor in you know, you owning your own business. You kind of have a different take on this then I think a lot of other people will to where were you do you follow the money trail? 28:00 Then you've probably have people like me who are like, well, I want to I want to have this personal connection with my, the small little local store. You know, I know them I know who's selecting the barrels, you know, when you go to a larger chain, you don't necessarily have that connection. Right? You're you're talking to hourly, hourly employees that are just sitting there stocking shelves, like, you know, it's very rare that you actually know who picked that barrel in the store behind it. Yeah, I mean, I think it's just the business landscape or in in general, it seems like more and more small entities are either being gobbled up by the bigger ones, and it's just become more in this business in more than any other it's, as we've seen with pursuit series. It's an economies of scale like none other and so, 28:53 you know, the local store, they might be, 28:57 you know, grave in heaven, but they might be you know, there 29:00 You're going to be picky, they're going to be a pain in the ass. And like, you know what we don't like these four barrels are really words, total wine, they're like, I just gives whatever, you know, it's like an easy transaction for them, then they're like, you know, it's like, we like dealing with you all, because you're not paying the ass and you're not like, bitching about us on the forums, and you're not doing this. So it's like, you know, so I can totally see it from it's all coming back. Megan says to me, because, like, but how long, you know, how motors are great, and I love having the relationship with God, they're picky, and like, they will nitpick the shit out of you. Whereas our big commercial clients, you know, they're like, as long as it looks good for the road, you know, and here's your money. And here's everything, you know, easy peasy. So let's, I that's the only way I can kind of relate to it in and you know, there's there's other thing that Matt kind of put in the chat and he says, Does it have to do it the representative that's in those states too. And, and we've seen this firsthand, at least on the podcast side as we've been doing our own private barrel selections is that the rep actually plays a huge role in this like they Yeah, they are 30:00 They are got a bottle for you. Exactly. And that's exactly what happens. Typically how this this works is that 30:08 depending on what region state of the of the nature of the US that you own, your allocated X amount of barrels, and you get to choose where these go and so it's it's a i don't know i mean i guess if you've been a boss and then you've come into the into the year and you're like, Okay, you've got 28% of raises that you can go you can figure out who gets 2% who gets 6% who gets whatever and so that is that is one thing is that a lot of these stores they they continually have to be really good to their reps to make sure that they're always going to be on deck to be able to get one of these private barrel pics because that is a that is a real thing. That is it's it's all business and shaking hands at the end of the day to guess what else would tie into the with the reps is also the restaurants increasingly increasing number 31:00 restaurants around DC have done private slicks that I've seen, like even Blanton's and Buffalo Trace and just for their just for mixing drinks to? Well, I think like I said earlier with the restaurants and bars, you're, you're putting your brand out there and exposing it to the public. And so like a high end restaurant like that, you know, diners are going to go for a high end experience, and they're going to spend money on something like that. And it just helps expose the brand versus, you know, small store small groups doesn't really do that for you. It seems like the distributor 31:37 because that is their role, which we don't really truly understand what the role is, but 31:43 it's a new it's a continually moving target. Yeah, so like, but it would make sense that the distributor would, you know, the distillers like, all right, these distributors get so many barrels and then the distributor decides who they go to 32:00 Based on like you said relationships or sales or ease of business whatever and that's I think that's how it is but maybe not I don't know and the way it should be probably 32:12 no I'm totally with you another angle to look at this is just the the boom of the bourbon market and what it is and you know we've talked about people getting pushed out just having the big guys come in and kind of small and the sort of stuff up and we've kind of heard it before firsthand that like oh like the there's not enough barrels to go around. I kind of want to get you know Michael your take on this. Do you think that's a cop out? 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And try a bottle of beer barrel bourbon and beer barrel rye use code pursuit for $25 off your first box. 34:31 You really think that four roses, the you know the Russell's the everywhere, whatever the world's here are actually running out of barrels for this particular program. I highly doubt that they're running out of barrels. Maybe for the program. Maybe that is what they already said. Like they at the beginning of the year. They were like we're not going to go beyond this. And they didn't expect the increasing number of groups and like getting with these retailers to buy more and more 35:00 And maybe it will adjust over time over the next couple years, maybe they'll realize that this is a big business opportunity for them. So they will increasingly I know that will it you know, pause a couple was it a couple years ago or their private selection? So as I pick that back up yet, but you know, yeah last year the first I guess re entry to the they're going along with the the their own distillate now, so yeah, yeah, for sure. I think they did, like 97 of them last year, which is still small compared to a lot of people that Yeah, I don't think there's I think that these brands are just so using all their resources to, 35:45 I guess, fund all their everyday brands that they're pumping out into the public is that and to be honest, single barrels are a huge pain for them. They take a lot of resources. They're getting people, you know, they have a have a coordinator. They got to take a 36:00 lunch, they got to spend four or five hours with you, then they gotta dump that one barrel and make sure all the stickers are on that bottle and make sure they got to keep track of that barrel. And it's like, like, probably just like the hell of this. I mean, this is 36:14 it's actually bad business. Yeah, I mean, it's just, it was probably something that got into like, because nobody wanted anything. They're like, Oh, this would be great. We have all these extra girls, you know, come pick your own, like, and but now they're probably like shit, why do we ever come up with that? You know, we're shooting ourselves in the foot. But uh, yeah, that's probably one way to look at it. It's probably a huge labor burden to them to make it happen. And that's why they're probably not growing the amount of barrels that are allocated to more or less Selenium then because they're growing their everyday brands and they just don't want to put the resources towards it. Yeah, there is there is a lot of resources. I do mention that that really go into it. I mean, it kind of just reminds me of, so there's a there's a farm around us. That's 37:00 button 3045 an hour away whatever it is called huber's and it seems like people always want to go there and pick their own apples. And I'm kind of like Why don't you want to go pick your own apples that's it's a weird thing for me to think of as like I just go to go to our grocery store and find a really good honey crisp apple. And I think that that's probably like the flip side of what the everyday consumer sees versus what what we see because there's probably some like person that's really an apples and they want to go and choose their own apples and they it has a unique taste profile. But however the the better side of the businesses and well let's just dump them on a truck and push them out and and get them out in the grocery stores because it's just a better way to look at it. Well they only if they only put trailers of apples like two miles before you get to, you know, huber's they have like two they have trailers of apples and pumpkins that you can buy before you can for like $1 to dollars less. If they only did that with barrels, you know, like for you get to the distillery. These are 38:00 thousand dollars cheaper discount girls right here? 38:06 Oh man, that's that's actually hilarious the way you look at it like that. So we kind of talked about the market of how big guys are kind of getting in squeezing the little people out of it. We're looking at the business opportunity from the distillery side and trying to figure out you know, what is the algorithm of who gets to to get what however, I kind of want to kind of switch the angles here a little bit because one of the things that we've seen is that a lot of this has become pretty prolific. There's everybody that's trying to get into single barrels, whether it's stores out of West Coast ne se wherever it is, everybody wants to come and do this because they they want some sort of differentiation or differentiation offering for their stores be able to sell to their customers. 38:55 And so Michael, I kind of want to take it to you is like do you see this as 39:01 Where it is becoming a flooded market of private selections that are out there? 39:09 Do I think there are too many I mean, 39:12 how how much how different Can I guess the question would be how different can like whistle pig pics be if I have five stores in DC area and I go to each one each one has a whistle pig pig because that is a bigger one than yeah it does it does get a little tiring. So that's why I like to look towards the I like I'd like them to look towards the smaller ones like I love to go into Joseph Magnus and doing that pic because I mean even though it is MTP, it is nice to have a little something different than the you know, the bigger companies. And so I'll will refute that a little bit because I did and I did a whistle pig barrel pick. I had I had five barrels. We chose two of them. We chose two of them that had two different taste profiles. And I think that's just I think that's the difference between 40:00 Maybe and 40:02 and maybe I guess I when I when I think about this maybe that's what most people also don't recognize is that yet they they're not going to send out probably a bunch of barrels that they all taste the same like everything is these unique differences these these minute profile differences or anything like that. 40:20 So I've had the chance to be able to do it and whistle pig and I think there is some some variation against looking at it towards more of the collection aspect. As far as you know, if you're collecting different models, I wouldn't want 20 whistle pigs. It's a so I guess that's where I was coming from. Yeah, that totally makes sense. Because Yeah, you don't want to I mean, it's it's hard to spend 80 to $100 on every single one of those bottles, like you've got to you've got to make sure it goes back to the fundamentals of Do you trust who's picking it? Do you know who's picking it? What's the story behind it? But you know, Michael, I kind of want to put it to you in a different way. 40:57 You know, you had mentioned that, you know, you have all these 41:00 That that could be the same and maybe, maybe because they come from the same distillery but what could a distillery be doing differently to be able to give the stores one advantage over the other? When you say, Well, I'm going to go to a different store and I choose different things do you think you think it's on the stores to not try to choose the another barrel from a, the same distillery and there should just be multiple variations or is it is it something beyond that? I guess it can be I love the way that four roses as their, I guess, their single barrel. I forgot which different program it is, but the fact that they have recipes, it's nice to see. I guess it's a telling thing for the consumer like this is going to be a different recipe. But otherwise, you don't really know until you buy it and taste it. Because I mean, it's not like you're going to go to liquor store and they have a tasting tray for you to try. There's compared to the store down the street. If you have like, you know, two different with whistle pigs. So you 42:00 You kind of like to just go forward, I guess if you were going to go do it that way, but 42:06 I mean, I kind of like the way the four roses has their recipe stuff on there. Yeah, yeah. And then you have someone like makers, you know, where they allow you to blend your own unique profile, which I think is very, very awesome. But you have to get 250 bottles out of it 42:25 in spend eight hours with them to get to that point, but uh, yeah, I mean, I don't think it's on this is still I think it's on the store to pick the you know that that's what it's all about, you know, they gotta 42:41 let me they're not going and picking unique barrel like they're not saying like, well, let's pick three different ones and send it they're like nope, here's the allocate ones. Here they go. Have at it. You know, they're going to try to make this as less complicated as possible. But, you know, 42:56 but I'm worthy. I mean, the four roses and makers are the most unique experiences. 43:00 You know, we go to the Buffalo Trace and the knob Creek and it's, they're awesome. But you know that there's very subtle differences in each barrel that you're tasting. And so it's it is hard to kind of distinguish that, except that me and Kenny have superior palates to anyone now I'm kidding. totally kidding. But uh Yeah, and it's Yeah, it's tough because they're there is a ton of them. And I guess the only way you know people are talking about stickers. That's one way to differentiate themselves. But then, like, I wonder if these distilleries in the sticker game it's like, all right, well, it's all about the stickers now. And it's become less about our brand. And it's more about the sticker game and it's kind of taken away from our brand. So like, 43:44 in the stickers are cool, but they're starting to get a little excessive as well. But uh, I don't know. I'm just rambling. Sorry. That's okay. Yeah, there is one thing I wanted to kind of mention that you would, Michael would say it like Well, let's let's go put 44:00 I'll go buy a bottle from the competitor down the street and I'll sample at my store man that's that's the craziest form of guerilla marketing there probably could be just like take a dump on your competition there. Yeah. But you know Ryan does bring up a good point I think we should we should talk about stickers because stickers or why would you even buy a barrel nowadays or buy a bottle if it doesn't have a sticker on it? That's that's the mean it's like fundamental at this point. So kind of you know, Michael kind of talk about you know, your experiences with the stickers and if it actually has any sort of influence on your purchasing habit. I mean, I won't lie I can't be a sucker for bottles especially I've the the old Fitzgerald decanter bottle back there for which is you know, it's an okay, it's, it's okay, but there was $300 sleep bottle. Yeah, it's asleep. 44:52 I mean, I enjoyed going I wouldn't did the magnetic for you guys and I enjoyed naming it and coming up with the name and whoever did this. 45:00 Design stick I didn't know who exactly what did that that was really cool as far as the Pentagon on it with the Department of bourbon but so it it's got a cool factor to it. 45:11 But I mean do you think it's you think it's starting in the point where it's jumping the shark or do you think we still got a week this is this is going to go strong still on to 2020 I think it's gonna probably keep going strong. I think people like to have their their little spin on it. 45:26 Yeah, go ahead, run well, and I was gonna say it is play out. But Michael made a good point. It is fun to come up with names because that's what I do. And 45:35 most of ours I tried to name that. Not all of them, but it is fun for the group to have their own unique name and, and because otherwise, it's just, you know, they used to be laying like you got a little tag on the Russell's bottle where you got like a little gold medallion. You're like, well, that's stupid. Like that doesn't differentiate us so it is kind of cool. And I guess that I just don't like when they take up the entire bottle. 46:00 Like, and they look all like goofy and like bright and I don't know, like kind of take away from the bottle. That's when I don't like more work on the distilleries and have them make a special bottle for every single barrel pick. Yes, exactly. Now you're talking my love language. Oh, yeah, just yeah, keep keep doing these little custom things every single time. Yeah, no, I mean, I'll kind of talk about the sticker thing a little bit because, you know, I kind of I kind of look at what you all said and I think it's, I think it is fun. I think it's, it's a unique way to be able to give something a name and and ultimately, when I look at it, I like to name stuff after that that kind of like put some sort of sentiment into it. I don't I don't name something because it just sounds cool. You know whether it has a Shawshank Redemption sticker whether it has all a Holcomb mania sticker on it or anything like that, because that that doesn't necessarily mean anything. 47:00 It just probably just sounds cool. Like it has to have some sort of story. And that's, that's really what I love. Because when you when you're able to talk about it when able to drink about and drink it again, you can look at that sticker and you can kind of reminisce on that day. And you can tell the story to people you share it with, you know, like, this is why we came up with that name. This is what happened, you know, like, case of the Mondays, it was a Monday. And like, I was super hung over from a member guest and I was like, I'm really I'm in a case of the Mondays. You know, that I can tell people that, you know, it's like, yeah, I guess the sentiment and Yeah, I agree. And what do you think it's giving more sentiment to us? Or for people that have actually where they are picking it than it does for the consumers that are getting it? 47:43 Yeah, I can see their point. Yeah, I could definitely say that. Don't you want to know why I was named that or maybe? 47:50 Well, I guess I want to know like, if I'm buying something like I was unable to make the tasting room confessions, pick from New Roof, but 48:01 They came with a name and I was like, Well what Tell me about the name? Why did y'all come up with that? And you know, and I wanted to know because I wasn't there and so it was like I got to experience it through them because of the name. I don't know. Sounds kind of dorky. You like the lore of it. Yeah, school. Yeah. No, I mean, there definitely is two angles to it. I think there are you know, there's some that that definitely just speak to people because it's a cool sticker. Like it just to take another new riff for example, like people are putting all the plays on the riff name like you've got, like, I've got a bottle called Ken Griffey Jr. It's not like like Ken Griffey had anything to do with it. It's not like the group were sitting there talking about baseball stats, when it happened. They just thought of a funny name and, and put it on a sticker, like that's all it is like it doesn't actually have any sort of connotation to the day or memory or anything like that. 48:53 However, there's another slide of this when it comes to the marketing aspect when it goes on to the Facebook forum. 49:00 When people started learning about it i mean this is a real differentiator like do you all see that like if it wasn't for going smash on a four roses bottle? Like what would that even be a thing that people elevate it to be in this 300 $350 private pick and it's just another bottle for rose or the tipsy buffalo rather exactly 49:24 if somebody comes over and is trying like a Buffalo Trace especially like the one like your pic and they point out the fact that that stickers on there it's different than the other and then I go into telling them out oh as group I'm part of that actually went and picked it so I mean non bourbon you know enthusiasts actually 49:44 get a kick out of it kind of story so yeah, not an hour like sharing all the barrel pics sweet like when people come over that's the first thing I do is like our guys what barrel pics Do you want to drive because that's like, I don't know. I think that's cooler to share those then 50:00 Just like I'll try my Pappy 20 or whatever 50:04 I'll take the Pappy 20 50:07 that's what most people want they're like I don't give a shit about you 50:14 know as a you know, as an enthusiast it's fun for me to share with people nothing they like like it to that I could be wrong 50:23 absolutely and so I kind of want to close this out on a on a another note when we're talking about just you know private barrel pics and you know whether the markets saturated or not. 50:36 Is there a reason that anybody should slow down with with these when you're when you're thinking about a company's or anything like that because it seems like there is demand it's going to be happening. And I guess maybe not. I'll rephrase that maybe not slow down from a manufacturing perspective 50:56 should should store slow down in regards of what they should be. 51:00 What a offer because maybe they're trying to push other products just to sell just so they have these opportunities. And, and just to be able to sell a bottle. I don't know like 51:11 I think bourbon enthusiasts are just increasing the numbers daily, so I don't think we're at the peak right now. So I think there's still plenty of people to come into your liquor store and buy, you know, four bottles of fireball to go get drunk, and there's a guy that wants to come in and get as many privates like the guys he can that you earn. 51:33 Yeah, no, I'm with you. I mean, 51:37 I think they should keep doing because I mean, they are fun and they, they're, it's the only way to get a unique kind of experience and bottle then, you know, the limited release game has just gotten so out of control. Like where it's just, it's always camping, it's emails. It's this it's that and it's even the store pics are kind of going that way. And so that's what's nice about 52:00 What we're offering, you know, to our people, it's fun for us to do that and offer to our Patreon people, but being in a bourbon group to like having access to this, so I mean, I don't think they should slow down. I mean, the people are talking about new riff and you know, compared to like, bigger distilleries, and what I think this sounds boring, but that they should do a cost benefit analysis and maybe, you know, Russell's and all the big boys, it's really not beneficial to them to keep doing these. And whereas someone like new riff or a newer guy, they're gaining a lot of exposure around it. And it's really helped catapulting their brand and they should really embrace this. And it kind of reminds me of like, when I went to Napa, and like you go to like cake bread or Opus one, and it's like, oh, these are these great, distinguished brands and you go and it's like the lamest experience ever. But then you go to this like mom and pop winery, where you meet the proprietor and you like, and they're like, it's real intimate and, and I think that's just how it's going to be with 53:00 bourbon kinda as it keeps evolving is that you're gonna have these big boys then you're have all these little small guys and they're going to have to offer unique experiences through private pics or coming to the distillery hanging out with you know the the distiller and creating that connection 53:17 yeah i think that this should keep on rolling with them as much as possible because I love them all right. 53:24 I lied I have I have one more question because because I keep thinking about this and I It reminds me of like a post I saw earlier. And I see I see things in the secondary market that are then just single barrel pics that are being sold for the extraordinary amounts. I kind of want to get your all state Michael first like are people dumb? Like do they need like a reality? Do they need to reality check to say like, this is just another barrel pick like That's all it is. It's not going to change your life. yet. People are spending exhausted amounts, maybe because of the sticker or maybe 54:00 Because it came from a particular group, like I want to kind of get your take on one of the same people that are paying $900 for CYPV was that it's it is ridiculous. 54:11 Yeah, I don't I can't imagine ever buying products like going to a secondary market myself. I mean, I have a hard time buying other models in the secondary market. I just kind of take my chances in DC. Yeah, yeah. 54:24 Yeah, I'm with So Bill Nall says private pics play to the fo mo and fo mo is like, bourbon is fo mo it's like the perfect product for fo mo it's 54:35 you know, there's in single barrels or even more of that because it's like we only have this one barrel. There's never going to be another one like it and this whoever picked it and it's like it's the perfect product for that and people. They like Rarity and scarcity and like if it's the more rare and scarce it is, the more irrational they're going to be about it. You know, it's we are all done in this game. 55:00 We all got our like our bad habits This is like I shit for mine. Like there's no rational reasoning behind this hobby or it does that 55:11 mean we go Kenny you go on these pics you go at even like we do pursuit series I mean there's barrels of whiskey like, like, just like you don't believe I mean there's so much whiskey out there and you're like and it is just another barrel whiskey but there is that connection to is there's that Rarity about there's that specialness about it that people just go ape shit over and it's it's just like anything you know, it's like getting you like Porsches and you know you really want a Porsche or Mercedes and it's like, well why the Volkswagens made by the same people and it says same shit you know that it's a Porsche you know, it's got the branding and everything behind it. It's just, it's marketing at its finest. You know, it's, that's that's what we deal with. So that is the fun part about this because 56:00 It makes it unique, right? It makes it a it makes it a an experience that you're able to buy a bottle and have a connection to it have a story behind it, you know the person or you know the group that that, that purchase that or that anything like that. And so you do have this connection behind that particular bottle and I think that is fun. I just think that we need to kind of like dial the height meter back, maybe maybe 20 decibels in regards to this because people just need to understand and Ryan, you said it best. You know, we have the opportunity. Anybody that goes and visits, any distillery anyone and you look around you look at all the warehouses. Just understand, it's just another barrel of whiskey. It's another one. Yeah, there's there's always going to be another one down the road. So don't you worry about that, but not that one. But not that let's see, that's what you get. That's that's what that's the hook. That's what keeps you not your suit series. 56:59 You need all the 57:00 Rose yes absolutely but that's that's kind of what keeps you hooked in is like you like what if I miss out it is and the thing is Kenny we know that and I know that but it's still I still can't get past it and I don't care because it's the Chase is the fun that's you know it's just part of the fun hobby we were enthralled with no no, I'm totally with you. So let's go ahead we'll end it on that note because I think we we did enough insulting of pretty much the whole industry at this point. So this was this was a really good conversation So Michael, please 57:34 make fun of everybody including myself. Mike want to say thank you for coming on and giving you this. This this topic to talk about it was it was really good and I want you to kind of give a plug if people want to get in contact with your or anything like that. If they can find you any kind of social. How they can follow you there. I'm on Twitter. I don't you know, not that funny but MIKG 316 1989 58:00 There we go. It's all good. Yeah, follow him there. Follow us on all the social media channels, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, at bourbon pursuit. And always make sure that you leave iTunes reviews too, because we love iTunes reviews and only share with a friend because that's what helps grow this show more. And All right, I'll kind of hand it off over to you, buddy. Yeah, reviews are great. But telling your friends even better, because you can share this wonderful experience and call them down to you know, 58:29 after they get involved with it. So now Michael, appreciate the time appreciate the show suggestion. That's what we'd love about the show is hearing from our fans and interacting with them. So if you have any things you want to talk about or hear about, let us know. And just we love hearing from you guys and we'll see you next time. Transcribed by https://otter.ai

 Welcome to Episode 9 of the Being Eve.  In this episode, you'll discover: Casey's love of storytelling Why it is so important to understanding opposing opinions Why Understanding does NOT equate to agreement The importance of backing your words with action Why listening to spectators and Doers equate to two different things Continue the conversation by joining our Facebook Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/286364138952944/  Thanks for Tuning In!  If you enjoyed this episode , please share it with your friends by clicking share!  Don't forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic episode updates for "Being Eve!" And, finally, please take a minute to leave us an honest review and rating on iTunes. They really help us out when it comes to the ranking of the show and I make it a point to read every single one of the reviews we get.  Please leave a review right now ( https://podcasts.apple.com/kw/podcast/being-eve-loving-living-thriving-without-losing-authentic/id1459390971 )  Thanks for listening!  Email us for questions and comments - BeingEve.Podcast@gmail.com  Do you want to hear the Podcast I referenced... Click here https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/brainwashed-are-we-conditioned-to-fail-amber-riley/id1455871215?i=1000439975172 --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/casey-alexis/message

What do you do when you had too much white wine and sit in your favorite chair? Right - You're watching your favorite series. And whether it is "Riverdale" or "The Umbrella Academy": It's funny to discuss your theories about everything with your best friends - especially when they're studying "Film and Screen Studies" in London! So do Jay and Thea. Song of the week: The Rembrandts- I'll be there for you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-9kPks0IfE

Email Product Manager Gurbir Singh and the Deliverability Godfather himself Andrew Barrett sit down to talk ISPs (Internet Service Providers), ESPs (Email Service Providers, and how they factor in to your emails making their way into the inbox.       TRANSCRIPT: [0:00:18] PJ Bruno: Hi there, this is PJ Bruno. Welcome back to Braze for Impact. I'm very, very excited to have with me today, two of my very good friends, special guests. One, Gurbir Singh, who's a product manager here at Braze, and he owns email. Hello, Gurbir.   [0:00:33] Gurbir Singh: Hey, PJ. How's it going?   [0:00:34] PJ Bruno: Pretty good, man. Also with us, Andrew Barrett, our director of email deliverability in the house. How's it going, buddy?   [0:00:41] Andrew Barrett: It's going well. It's going great. I'm so happy to be here in the same room with you guys for a change.   [0:00:45] PJ Bruno: I know. Andrew's usually in D.C. Doing the remote thing, but we see them all the time on Slack, the deliverability dojo. He is the Sensei. He's there answering all the questions. Today, I wanted to get these two email champs in the room. Just talk a little bit about deliverability, but also more specifically ISPs and ESPs. What are they? What are they responsible for? Let's pretend I know nothing except a small amount of information. Right now, that is, correct me if I'm wrong, ISPs, they provide the internet, they can leverage spam filters and blacklists to protect people from unwanted mail. Examples, I guess would be Comcast, AT&T, Verizon. Is that accurate so far?   [0:01:33] Andrew Barrett: Absolutely.   [0:01:33] PJ Bruno: Okay. Jump in and stop me as soon as it's inaccurate information.   [0:01:38] Andrew Barrett: No. Everything you said right there is absolutely true, but you take it one step higher. What they really are are businesses. They're businesses that are in the game to make money. Same as anybody who's actually sending mail to users of the inboxes that they provide. One of the big questions out there in deliverability land is, how do you make money off of an inbox that you're not charging anybody to use? Right? It turns out that everything we say about delivering email has everything to do with, not just the business model that we're in as marketers and senators, but also what's the ISP's business model here? Once you understand how the ISPs are making their money, all kinds of light bulbs start going off in your head around deliverability. What you find is that when you align your email sending program to the ISP's revenue requirements, what their business model is, all of a sudden, bang, deliverability happens.   [0:02:39] PJ Bruno: It's magic.   [0:02:41] Andrew Barrett: It is magic. You can't avoid it. It is an inevitable outcome of aligning your business model with the ISP. The great news is, is that everybody wants the same thing. Right?   [0:02:53] PJ Bruno: Right.   [0:02:53] Andrew Barrett: Email recipients want email that they love to read. ISPs want to be able to put that content in front of their users of the free inboxes. That's because the more often those recipients can engage with the email, the more and better opportunities the ISPs have on making money, because their customer is not the inbox user, their customer is the advertiser that's putting contextually relevant advertising alongside the email that we're sending. If we're sending mail that users want to read, the recipients are happy, the ISPs are happy, we're happy, everybody's happy.   [0:03:37] PJ Bruno: I mean, and that's the dream state is making everything happy. But I guess does it mean that traditionally, ISPs look out for the email receiver, while ESPs prioritize the email sender? Is that, not at all?   [0:03:53] Gurbir Singh: No, I mean I think ISPs definitely do look out for the users, but as Andrew said, they definitely look out for their own business model as well. Then, ESPs are really focused on working with the brands. Right? These guys are the delivery agents. They're the ones sending out massive amounts of emails on behalf of various brands around the world. Their goal is to say, I want to get you in an inbox. I want to make sure you're successful. It's kind of hand in hand a little bit. The circle of life is really, if you make the ISPs money, you're going to be good.   [0:04:27] Andrew Barrett: That's right. I mean, anytime our business model is in conflict with the ISP's business model, we lose. All right?   [0:04:34] PJ Bruno: Gotcha.   [0:04:36] Andrew Barrett: It's important to understand that the users of those free inboxes are not the ISP's customers. Right? The users of the inbox are the inventory, and it's an inventory with a super short shelf life. The ISPs, their job is to create a pleasant and curated email experience for the users for their inventory, so that they'll last long enough to show them some advertising.   [0:05:04] PJ Bruno: Right.   [0:05:06] Gurbir Singh: That's a good point.   [0:05:06] Andrew Barrett: If you can just keep that in mind, that relationship between those three parties in this little love triangle that is email-   [0:05:15] PJ Bruno: Email is a love triangle. Don't kid yourself.   [0:05:17] Andrew Barrett: That's right. It's very tightly interwoven.   [0:05:21] PJ Bruno: Okay. Let's take a step back. In the beginning, ISPs showed up materializing out of basically nothing. Right?   [0:05:31] Gurbir Singh: Well, I mean a lot of the original ISPs were just the people who provided the internet. Right? Like AOL. They allowed you to connect to the internet, and then they were like, look, there's this thing called email and you can get it. We'll provide you an inbox where you can receive all your email. Same with Yahoo.   [0:05:48] PJ Bruno: At some point along the way, there were abusers. Is that right? Because this has got to be kind of, I'm talking about-   [0:05:56] Gurbir Singh: Anywhere there's volume, there's to be people looking to game the system. Right? There's going to be abusers, there's going to be people who are going to say, "Click here and get 10 free and ringtones," and you know that takes you somewhere else where you don't actually think you're supposed to be going. There's always going to be people gaming the system, and the ISPs, that does not jive with their business models, so they created a spam folder, and they put these guys in the spam folder, and they got really sophisticated at tracking who is a spammer, who's not. That distinction is really where ESPs, I think, really help along with keeping marketers honest and saying, look, if you put this subject line in, that's spammy, don't do that. Here's some best practices. Here's how you should create your content. Here are the people you should target. Things like that.   [0:06:44] PJ Bruno: Right. It doesn't stop at best practices. Right? We got here, the Gmail Promo Tab, which launched I guess, 2013, when Gmail announced the creation of different inbox tabs, including the promotions tab. Now, initially, it was said that Gmail is killing email marketing. Was this the notion that was kind of felt across the board by marketers that this was a tough pill to swallow?   [0:07:08] Andrew Barrett: Well, marketers definitely felt that way. In fact, we saw a lot of ... A couple of guys I remember back at that time were proposing a class action suit against Gmail, forgetting for the moment that Gmail, at the same time was also providing them for use of this infrastructure that they could use to reach their intended recipients. Nevermind that. Right? They're putting us in the fake inbox. I can understand the frustration. It's hard to have something taken away that you had for so long. But the other side of the coin is that way of thinking that, oh, you're putting me in the promotion set. I think that's wrong thinking on behalf of marketers. I think that that assumes a model of advertising that is more interruptive. Right? Like TV and radio, which is very linear. You're watching your story, and wait a second, wouldn't you like to buy some soap? No? Okay, well let's get on with the story then, and so on like that. Right? Email and other digital channels are not linear. Right? I think that marketers are best served when they can get their message in front of the recipients when they are their most receptive to it, and they are most receptive to marketing messages, not when they're reading email from grandma in upper Poughkeepsie. If you interrupt that, right, you're way more likely to get exactly the wrong kind of attention from the recipient in the form of a spam complaint. On the other hand, if you're enjoying strong placement in the promotions tab, people will turn to that tab when they are ready to see the promotions. I'm not a regular guy because I like email, but I like to see what winds up in there, mostly because I'm curious about the content and-   [0:09:12] Gurbir Singh: Right. It's research for you at that point.   [0:09:14] Andrew Barrett: But I do a lot of buying out of that promotions tab.   [0:09:18] PJ Bruno: The most relevant things are pushed to the top of the promotions tab. That's pretty much how it works. Right?   [0:09:24] Andrew Barrett: It can be, especially with some of this newer stuff that Gmail is rolling out, especially on the mobile side.   [0:09:30] Gurbir Singh: Yeah. It's like the new Gmail promotion tab does that. It groups up your messages based on industries, based on relevant, for when the offer is expiring, things like that. There's a number of variables that Gmail has introduced, but the traditional promotion tab was just if you got there and it's at the top of your inbox, it's there. Right? I think that's what was frustrating for marketers is that they spent all this time learning to get into the primary tab and now they're being asked to say, by the way, we redid the promotions tab and we give you all these new levers to pull and play with. Now, go back into the promotions tab, and people are rightfully so, kind of upset because it's just being thrown at them.   [0:10:10] Andrew Barrett: Well, they're are only upset if they don't remember what marketing was like before.   [0:10:14] Gurbir Singh: Yeah.   [0:10:15] Andrew Barrett: Right? They have this beautiful one-to-one direct channel to ostensibly engaged recipients that never existed before in the history of the planet, and nobody writes a check to Gmail to send email to Gmail's users. It's a gift horse. To get angry about that seems a little disingenuous to me.   [0:10:36] PJ Bruno: It feels very human.   [0:10:37] Andrew Barrett: Well, okay fine. They're human beings.   [0:10:42] PJ Bruno: You get something you want and then you get it taken away, you get pissed off. But no, I mean, they've been optimizing that promotions tab. Right? It's card based. It's like, you know what? We know you want to be in the inbox, but let's create something great in the promotions box that actually optimizes for what you're trying to do.   [0:10:59] Gurbir Singh: Yeah. I think it's a really good push by Gmail. One, they're going to collect way more data around what the message really is. Two, they're going to collect, are people actually interested in these offers, or are we going to push people down? You can see the business opportunities there for Gmail to say, similar to ad, you can pay to be at the top or you can pay to be at the top of your own industry bundle. If I'm Nike and Adidas, I could theoretically page email and say, "Put me always above Adidas." Right?   [0:11:31] PJ Bruno: Wow.   [0:11:32] Gurbir Singh: I don't know if they're actually thinking things like that, but I just see a bunch of different opportunities that they kind of opened, that other ISPs don't even have the luxury to even think about right now.   [0:11:43] Andrew Barrett: Yeah, they could do that, but I think they have a longer game in mind. Right? If they do something that appears to inhibit, in any way, the user's engagement with the inbox in its totality, I think they're not doing themselves any favors. What I think that we'll continue to see, and I'm guessing here, too, is that the kinds of changes we'll see in the promotions tab are those that award senders who are doing a better job at sending content that appears to be more engaging to a preponderance of recipients. That is awarded a better placement in the inbox.   [0:12:25] Gurbir Singh: That's true. I think they also, or actually the first ESP in my opinion that's actually adopted a mobile phone. This update to the promotion tab is directly for people who use the Gmail application. Right? They've acknowledged desktops are going out of time and we are getting switched to a mobile only world, and they're one of the first that are actually adopting. It's like this card that's coming out, it's a static image, but future iterations allow you to scroll and tell different cards and have different images and different links.   [0:12:58] PJ Bruno: Right. That's what AMP is, right?   [0:13:00] Gurbir Singh: No. AMP is completely something that's just interactive email.   [0:13:04] PJ Bruno: But within the email you can actually kind of scroll and click in and see different.   [0:13:08] Gurbir Singh: Yeah. It's like having a website right in your inbox so you don't have to leave, which is another pain point I think for marketers because the behavior is always been, I want to drive traffic to my website, and now all of a sudden, when this thing comes out, it's still in beta, but when it does come out, you're basically telling your customers you're living within the Google ecosystem. Right? You're browsing within the Google ecosystem, they're going to do some actions. You have no insight, no way of knowing what they're doing outside of the parameters you provided them. That's it. You can't dynamically change the workflow on your website as you typically do. This is a bigger change than people think it is, in my opinion.   [0:13:56] PJ Bruno: Gurbir, you're a big part of what we do here with our email at Braze. Obviously, you helped push our content blocks live, email preference center, all this stuff, optimizing the crafting and sending of emails, a big part of what you do. How do you overcome that resistance to change? Do you guys give a lot of thought to that when you're like-   [0:14:16] Gurbir Singh: Yeah. First of all, I mean, I work with a really talented engineering and design team that kind of put all these things together.   [0:14:22] PJ Bruno: Shout out.   [0:14:23] Gurbir Singh: Yeah, shout out. I might be at the face of it when it comes down to external, but there are some true heroes back there. But yeah, I mean, we do a lot of research when we're looking into new features. The content blocks is a great example, right? Content blocks, typically known as the email only feature, with other industries. When we looked at it we said, well, wouldn't it be cool if you could use it in Push, if you can use it on web? The same exact offer being tied to a user across every channel you want. You can have that consistency easily as a marketer, without having to replicate and create these over and over again. That operational cost is what we looked at a lot. Right? The cost of a marketer sending up four separate messages, setting up four different channels, and then ensuring, is the QA right on all four of them? Testing that and then sending it out. Right? If we can reduce the time for you to create all of that, those are the things we look at.   [0:15:24] PJ Bruno: Right.   [0:15:25] Gurbir Singh: But yeah.   [0:15:29] PJ Bruno: Andrew?   [0:15:30] Andrew Barrett: Gurbir is the expert there. Every day, I will defer to his expertise there. I like to keep my head down in the inbox. That's where I'm most comfortable.   [0:15:40] PJ Bruno: That's where he belongs.   [0:15:41] Andrew Barrett: Right.   [0:15:42] PJ Bruno: That's good. I'm trying to get all these things straight in my head. Do we see, traditionally, ISPs, they do want to protect the receivers of mail, right? I mean, obviously they want to protect their bottom line, but will be under the guise of this?   [0:16:00] Andrew Barrett: Well, no, I mean it aligns very well at times perfectly with their own business model because if they're putting their own customers at risk to third parties, they're not going to keep coming back to their inboxes just to get shot at again.   [0:16:14] PJ Bruno: Gotcha.   [0:16:14] Andrew Barrett: They want to keep them around. Keeping bad things, malware, spam, other types of things, out of that inbox, speaks directly to the longevity of their business model and the longevity of their inventory, the users.   [0:16:33] PJ Bruno: Launched back last year, in 2018, you guys know about this, the BIMI. I don't know if they call it BIMI, or if it's just brand indicators for message identification? For those of you who don't know, it's a standardized way for brands to publish their brand logo online and lets logos be easily incorporated into messaging and social media applications. It does this with built in protections, which is building off of D-Mark.   [0:16:58] Andrew Barrett: Right.   [0:17:00] PJ Bruno: I mean, I guess we could say at this point D-Mark is starting to catch on more and people are using it more.   [0:17:06] Andrew Barrett: Absolutely. Gmail has been kind of a kingmaker in that regard. I mean, if you ask Gmail, they would prefer that everybody use D-Mark for everything all time, which is fine. For the longest time, it was really a tool for high value targets like financial institutions, insurers, banks, things like that to keep bad guys from trying to spoof their brand in order to capture login credentials and things of that nature. D-Mark, at its roots though is an authentication protocol, or a platform standing, a reporting mechanism that stands on top of authentication. The timing is really kind of interesting because Google Plus business pages are going away. Right? That whole Google Plus social media experiment is going to get killed off here in a couple of weeks. That was how you got your logo or your picture in the inbox next to your subject line was through validating a business page and [crosstalk 00:18:25].   [0:18:25] PJ Bruno: That was the only way to get it in there?   [0:18:27] Gurbir Singh: Well, you could do it through their promotions tab now, too. You can just pass in a logo and it works. That's why I don't get why?   [0:18:34] Andrew Barrett: Well, yeah, but I don't think they would pick up that logo unless they had some kind of assurance that you were using that logo, that you were an authorized user of that logo, which means-   [0:18:47] Gurbir Singh: You can just pass in any logo when you use the promotions tab. We've tested. I can pass on anything, which is why I find it really funny where-   [0:18:54] PJ Bruno: That's crazy. That's nuts.   [0:18:54] Gurbir Singh: Right, but it's Google, right? Look how big Google is, how many teams did they have? Clearly somebody's not talking to somebody.   [0:19:04] Andrew Barrett: Well, I think BIMI will replace that functionality.   [0:19:08] Gurbir Singh: Probably.   [0:19:08] Andrew Barrett: You've got this authentication standard backing up the presentation of this logo, and suddenly you don't have to rely on Google Plus anymore, and align in the header of your html to prove that you actually own the domain, so that the logo or the picture can turn up in the subject line. It comes at a good time and it helps to enhance this message around adoption of D-Mark.   [0:19:33] PJ Bruno: You said Google is really a big advocate of D-Mark. Do they have a vested interest in D-Mark?   [0:19:41] Andrew Barrett: I don't think that they do. I'm not sure why they're so hot and bothered over D-Mark above and beyond the other authentication protocols, SPF and DKIM, which are sort of prerequisites for D-Mark. D-Mark is just the reporting thing. The question I think that's on a lot of people's minds these days that pay attention to this kind of stuff is, does a more restrictive D-Mark policy get you better inbox? I mean, you can publish a D-Mark policy that says, if it fails, don't do anything. Right? Or you can have a D-Mark policy that says if it fails DKIM, reject it, or quarantine it, or do something with it. Do you get more inbox if you say, if it fails? Yeah, don't do anything.   [0:20:30] PJ Bruno: Or if it passes, is there some sort of reporting? If it passes and D-Mark is present, then you could have some sort of reward?   [0:20:37] Andrew Barrett: Maybe.   [0:20:38] Gurbir Singh: Like positive effect, like a scoring system, goes up or down?   [0:20:42] Andrew Barrett: Do not know. Don't know.   [0:20:44] Gurbir Singh: Black box.   [0:20:46] Andrew Barrett: I think it's still working itself out. I'm not at all sure why Gmail is championing D-Mark.   [0:20:53] PJ Bruno: I mean, this thing, the BIMI thing, it was created by [Authenticators] Working Group, which was led by cybersecurity firm, Agari, and then also representatives from Comcast. Failmail, right? Microsoft.   [0:21:07] Andrew Barrett: Well, Agari is in the D-Mark reporting business. Right? So that's their vested interest in participating, but I don't know what Gmail's is other than having a handy replacement for the death of Google Plus.   [0:21:24] Gurbir Singh: Yeah. I mean, I could see if you can be a better inbox provider and essentially wipe out spam, which is the majority of volume that these guys ever see. Right? It's like 90% plus or something. That's a lot of storage costs. Right? ISPs have to keep every email around. They just do. Right? You can scroll back years and years of your Gmail inbox and you'll see, you can still find it, you can still click it. That's sitting somewhere. They're paying for that cost. If they can wipe away 90% of that somehow with a better authentication system, that's a lot of money for somebody. I can see that being a really big beneficial ad for them.   [0:22:05] Andrew Barrett: I agree with you to an extent. There's a lot of spammers out there who are signing their stuff with a DKIM and SPF and that are publishing a D-Mark record.   [0:22:14] Gurbir Singh: Well, I'm assuming with BIMI, it's another level, essentially. That's why they're working towards that one, and hopefully that one solves it. Like anything, there's always-   [0:22:24] PJ Bruno: There's always counterfeiters out there, man.   [0:22:26] Gurbir Singh: Yeah. Someone's going to break it.   [0:22:28] PJ Bruno: Catch me if you can. Moving on, what's the future, what are the big things on the horizon that email senders should be looking for, as far as feature specific, as far as, I mean, legislation affecting anything?   [0:22:48] Andrew Barrett: Well, I think we can call the legislation one absolutely dead and cold now. The Federal Trade Commission recently completed a two year review of the 16 year old CAN-SPAM federal law and decided it was all good, man. They spent two years looking at that sucker and decided, wow, it just can't get any better than how it is, which is really, really frustrating. I was at the Federal Trade Commission in the spring of 2003 for two days of testimony from a bunch of different groups, and there was five different versions of anti-spam language. It's five different competing versions pending in the lower house in Congress. They were trying to merge all those disparate versions of the language together in what would eventually become CAN-SPAM, and they were taking all this input from nonprofit anti-spam, watchdog groups, senders. They actually had a couple of spammers on the stage talking about why they do what they do, and that sort of thing.   [0:24:02] PJ Bruno: Interesting.   [0:24:02] Andrew Barrett: It was all in. Everybody scrubbed in on this thing. What came out in 2003 act, which was largely the [Burns Widen Act 00:24:14] was terrible. I mean, not only did it fail utterly to advance a definition of spam, which I don't blame them for because that is problematic on its face for a whole bunch of reasons, but where they really fell down is that they failed to advance a meaningful definition of email. Right?   [0:24:37] Gurbir Singh: They left it as a digital communications?   [0:24:39] Andrew Barrett: For the purposes of this statute, email means "an electronic message," period. Full stop.   [0:24:48] PJ Bruno: Great.   [0:24:49] Andrew Barrett: What? Really, really bad. Ideally, the definitive quality of email would have been transit via SMTP.   [0:25:02] Gurbir Singh: Right.   [0:25:02] Andrew Barrett: That's what was needed there. You can never look to lawmakers to predict the future. It's not the law we wanted, but it was probably the law we deserved. It was just that, and so I was really astounded when they decided that they weren't going to make any changes.   [0:25:22] Gurbir Singh: Didn't California, or aren't they evaluating their own special law just for the state of California?   [0:25:29] PJ Bruno: Leave it to California.   [0:25:30] Andrew Barrett: Yeah. Well, they had one before 2003. California is great at passing really restrictive laws, only to have them be superseded by federal legislation months and years later. The California anti-spam law was very restrictive and it was in place for only a couple of months before the federal law came in and eviscerated it, superseded it.   [0:25:55] PJ Bruno: All right, guys, we're at about time. Before we close up shop, any last words of advice to email sender's, email receivers? It can be simple to something you want to go out on. What's the big takeaway?   [0:26:11] Andrew Barrett: Just remember that business relationship between those three parties, and if you can keep that in mind, that relationship will inform every decision you ever have to make as a sender. If I had to define deliverability in one sentence, it would be, how not to look like a spammer. That's it. But there's a whole lot underneath that that can keep folks talking for days, and hours, and careers.   [0:26:36] PJ Bruno: And podcasts.   [0:26:37] Andrew Barrett: And podcasts.   [0:26:38] Gurbir Singh: Andrew's going to write a book.   [0:26:39] Andrew Barrett: And career long podcasts.   [0:26:40] PJ Bruno: I have to make this a whole series. Gurbir, you got some final thoughts?   [0:26:44] Gurbir Singh: I mean, I circled back to Andrew. It is a business. Understanding the motivations of each of these guys will help you, and make you successful.   [0:26:56] PJ Bruno: Absolutely. I'll say to spammers out there, if you're looking for alternative forms of revenue, check out the speaker circuit, because apparently, they'll be willing to have you on stage. Thank you guys so much for coming to hang out with us. This is PJ Bruno, Gurbir Singh, and Andrew Barrett. You guys take care. [0:27:14]

In the wake of Davos 2019, the World Economic Forum, tensions are running high. Large companies are being scrutinized for reaping huge tax breaks while not giving back to the community. CEOs are trying to balance a board's expectation of making fiscally responsible decisions and also maintaining a culture of trust and creativity. Should tech entrepreneurs be tasked with fixing the world? Is it their responsibility?        TRANSCRIPT: [0:00:17] PJ Bruno: What's up guys? Welcome back to Braze for Impact, your weekly tech industry discuss digest. I'm PJ Bruno, and I'm thrilled to have with me today two very close buddies. Across from me is Boris Revechkis, product manager here at Braze, and also I believe descendant of Rasputin? Is that-   [0:00:34] Boris Revechkis: That's accurate, yes. What's up everybody?   [0:00:36] PJ Bruno: Cool. Here he is. And to my right, your left, we have also a good friend of mine, Ryan Doyle, who's recently become an AE here at Braze. He is the legitimate country boy turned bonafide city boy. How you doing here Ryan?   [0:00:50] Ryan Doyle: How y'all doing? Yeah, no. Only recently, seven months now.   [0:00:54] PJ Bruno: Wow.   [0:00:54] Ryan Doyle: Yes.   [0:00:54] PJ Bruno: What a turn.   [0:00:55] Boris Revechkis: Doyle Farms.   [0:00:57] Ryan Doyle: Doyle and Son Farms.   [0:00:58] Boris Revechkis: Doyle and Son Farms.   [0:00:58] Ryan Doyle: Remember where you came from.   [0:00:59] PJ Bruno: That's right.   [0:00:59] Boris Revechkis: Love it.   [0:01:00] PJ Bruno: How you guys doing? I know, Boris you're fighting a cold-   [0:01:03] Boris Revechkis: I'm getting some cold.   [0:01:03] PJ Bruno: And somehow you made it here today, I love that.   [0:01:05] Boris Revechkis: I'm hanging in there, doing it for the podcast.   [0:01:09] PJ Bruno: God, that's the commitment we need to see more of, kind of across the board.   [0:01:12] Boris Revechkis: I may faint. I may faint during the podcast, but if I do, just go on without me.   [0:01:16] Ryan Doyle: We'll keep going yeah.   [0:01:17] PJ Bruno: Yeah, we'll edit it out. We'll edit out your faint-   [0:01:19] Boris Revechkis: Perfect.   [0:01:19] Ryan Doyle: I can do your voice.   [0:01:21] PJ Bruno: Ryan, how you doing buddy?   [0:01:22] Ryan Doyle: I'm doing fantastic. Just meetings, meetings, meetings, deals, deals, deals.   [0:01:26] PJ Bruno: Cool.   [0:01:26] Ryan Doyle: They really crack that whip.   [0:01:27] PJ Bruno: They do, don't they?   [0:01:28] Ryan Doyle: Yes.   [0:01:30] PJ Bruno: You told me yesterday you had a cool little prospecting adventure and a weird experience.   [0:01:35] Ryan Doyle: Yeah, you want me to talk-   [0:01:36] PJ Bruno: Can you share? Yeah, yeah. Give a little splattering of it.   [0:01:39] Ryan Doyle: So, just the background on it was, I had a prospect who came to Braze because they were launching an app. That app had to do with paying with your face. It's a facial recognition technology. They wanted to put in coffee shops, so when you walked in you wouldn't swipe, tap, nod, whatever, you would just grab your drink and go. So I walk up to this guy's office, and there's a camera, and a screen that shows me my face, and it pulls down a match from the internet of my face. Like with a little rectangular box and some matrix-y numbers side by side, and it says, "Welcome Ryan Doyle." I'm like, "Oh, this is weird." So I go in, and he's telling me about the launch. They're talking about these pieces of third party data that they've been using at this coffee shop downstairs to test this out. Where someone will come in and they'll say, "Hey Boris, welcome back. Do you want this latte? Your significant other loves it too." Or, "Maybe you'd like to try this," or, "How's your dog?" or, "How's your child?" On the creepiness scale, they found that mentioning someone's dog was much creepier than mentioning how their children were.   [0:02:45] PJ Bruno: Yeah.   [0:02:46] Ryan Doyle: Yeah, but, they ran into the issue of, a couple of people they talked to about their dogs, their dogs had passed away.   [0:02:51] PJ Bruno: Oh God.   [0:02:52] Ryan Doyle: Doesn't happen as frequently with children I suppose.   [0:02:55] PJ Bruno: You hate to see that.   [0:02:56] Ryan Doyle: You hate to see it.   [0:02:57] Boris Revechkis: That's all very disheartening.   [0:02:59] PJ Bruno: I mean, you got to walk that line between personalizing and not going too personal.   [0:03:03] Ryan Doyle: Too personal.   [0:03:04] PJ Bruno: I feel like that's same thing goes for conversation in general. Anyways, thank you Ryan for that little tid bit.   [0:03:09] Ryan Doyle: Yeah. It was an interesting night on the live.   [0:03:12] PJ Bruno: That's good. That's good. So we got a lot to get to today. Really excited to jump in. Our first article, Amazon Isn't Interested in Making the World a Better Place by Kara Swisher from New York Times. This is, we all know that, I mean, most of us probably know at this point if you live in New York City that Amazon pulled out of their second HQ that they planned to have in Long Island city. Boris, you're a Long Island city boy.   [0:03:37] Boris Revechkis: I am. I'm a Long Island city resident.   [0:03:39] PJ Bruno: Were you excited to potentially have them move into the neighborhood?   [0:03:43] Boris Revechkis: Not particularly, and I don't think there were many in the neighborhood who were. Yeah, I have a lot of mixed feelings. Obviously, we working in tech, in some sense, have a horse in the race, but I don't know that they really considered the effect on the surrounding community. Obviously the backlash reflects that.   [0:04:04] PJ Bruno: Yeah.   [0:04:04] Ryan Doyle: Yeah.   [0:04:05] Boris Revechkis: I think they could've done a lot better job in laying the ground work for that. A few weeks ago, I tweeted, which seven I think, at least seven people read that Amazon should just take some of the benefit that they were getting in taxes and just plow that into the subway system. Just be like, "Here. Love us."   [0:04:24] PJ Bruno: Right.   [0:04:25] Boris Revechkis: Then, "Okay, fine. Now we have, okay, we have common interest."   [0:04:28] PJ Bruno: Exactly.   [0:04:28] Boris Revechkis: Be a part of the community. Contribute.   [0:04:30] Ryan Doyle: It's a corporate good will.   [0:04:30] PJ Bruno: It's as easy as that. Right?   [0:04:31] Boris Revechkis: Yeah. Kind of like get the public on your side, and it just didn't seem like they really cared what people thought about the whole situation.   [0:04:37] Ryan Doyle: They were shopping for a deal.   [0:04:38] Boris Revechkis: Yeah. Pretty much.   [0:04:38] PJ Bruno: I guess so. Yeah, I think a lot of the uproar came up, I think Miss Swisher put it so well in her article. "In an era when all kinds of public services are being cut in the city's infrastructure is crumbling, why is a trillion dollar corporation getting so much?" Then it was finally revealed how much, $3 billion in tax breaks.   [0:04:57] Boris Revechkis: Yeah.   [0:04:58] Ryan Doyle: I think-   [0:04:58] PJ Bruno: So people were kind of up in arms.   [0:05:00] Boris Revechkis: This is really reflective, I think, of the whole, and this second article we'll talk about later, the whole combination of these factors where you just have a system that's sort of out of wack. The incentives that drive progress are now driving outcomes that are clearly undesirable. Like, this article doesn't hold back in that regard, but like I love the phrase "modern [hellscape]". Like shooter for to San Francisco is a modern [hellscape], which is, that's strong language.   [0:05:24] Ryan Doyle: That's really strong.   [0:05:25] Boris Revechkis: That's strong language and-   [0:05:27] PJ Bruno: Pretty polarizing.   [0:05:29] Boris Revechkis: Yeah. Obviously she's talking about genuine problems, but is that direction we want to go in, or is that something we want to try and tweak the system so that we don't get pushed in these directions? I do think that the Amazon move into the city was something that would exacerbate the kind of issues that would push us in that direction, in the direction of problems like San Francisco has.   [0:05:50] Ryan Doyle: There was like an argument on the other side of it where the incentives that we were handing out as a city to get them here, we're far, far below what we would gain in economic incentives. Part of the argument was like, "Well, we're not giving them anything tangible. There's three billion in tax credits and what not," so it's not money that exists-   [0:06:07] Boris Revechkis: A future tax, yeah revenue.   [0:06:09] Ryan Doyle: And ready to put somewhere else, but I feel like my personal notion is that that money does come from somewhere. It comes from us in our future taxes, and part of it did come out of New York state incentives to bring new businesses here. It would've retired 1.5 billion out of a $2 billion grant that companies get for moving business to New York state. I just think part of the sentiment that I agree with is maybe people in general are tired of this trickle down notion where we put up a big amount of money, or some type of incentive with the hope that it would come back to us. I think we've just been fatigued with that type of situation over and over.   [0:06:45] PJ Bruno: Yeah. I think that's spot on.   [0:06:48] Boris Revechkis: In terms of concentrating the wealth too, we can, ideally, we would just replace that same activity by encouraging many other smaller companies to come to New York instead of one giant company. And trying to encourage the same type of outcome, but by spreading that tax revenue, or rather, break around to other companies and other industries.   [0:07:11] Ryan Doyle: I mean, Braze is here. We're about to move to a new office in New York City. Where's the incentive? You know?   [0:07:16] Boris Revechkis: That's true.   [0:07:17] PJ Bruno: Where's the tax breaks guys? I was surprised to see Amazon buckle so quickly. You know? It just seems like at the first sign of scrutiny, boom, they're out. Now it seems like they just want to bolster their office in D.C. I was very surprised that they didn't-   [0:07:33] Boris Revechkis: I think it becomes like a no-win scenario for them, because having to fight back all the negative attention if they tried to negotiate, the publicizing of the negotiations would probably be very damaging I think. So I think they decided it was just, "Why do this?"   [0:07:47] Ryan Doyle: Yeah, and I wonder if they'd had so little investment in New York already. I mean, it was just in word that they were coming here. So far, this deal is only how old that another city might've reached about, but, "Look, here's the incentive, we can provide. If New York doesn't want it, we'll give it to you."   [0:08:02] Boris Revechkis: Right.   [0:08:02] Ryan Doyle: Maybe that's yet to be announced. I thought I heard Nashville somewhere out in the ether that that might be the other location they go to.   [0:08:09] Boris Revechkis: But it's also, it's not like they're not here. Right? They have an office here. They have many employees here. They're going to continue hiring and expanding in New York and their existing office. So it's not like all or nothing. It's so-   [0:08:19] PJ Bruno: They have a foot hole.   [0:08:20] Boris Revechkis: Right.   [0:08:20] PJ Bruno: They didn't feel like they were losing much I guess.   [0:08:22] Boris Revechkis: Right.   [0:08:22] Ryan Doyle: Yep.   [0:08:23] PJ Bruno: Well, I for one, being an Astorian, and that's in Astoria for those of you who don't know.   [0:08:28] Boris Revechkis: Nice.   [0:08:28] PJ Bruno: I'm thrilled that there's not going to be so much congestion, and it's not going to turn into a complete circus on my train.   [0:08:35] Ryan Doyle: Your apartment's going to stay nice and cheap.   [0:08:37] PJ Bruno: You know what? Let's hope so. As long as I can not have a lease, and as long as my landlord just keeps all the stuff off the books, you didn't hear that here.   [0:08:47] Ryan Doyle: Yeah, we're going to cut that out.   [0:08:48] Boris Revechkis: Yeah, we'll take that out. We'll take that out in post.   [0:08:50] Ryan Doyle: That's fine.   [0:08:50] Boris Revechkis: Perfect.   [0:08:52] PJ Bruno: Perfect. All right, well let's move on to the big topic this week. As you guys know, Davos, which we all know at this point is the knight, former smuggler in service of Stannis Baratheon from Game of Thrones-   [0:09:06] Boris Revechkis: The onion knight. Man, I love the onion knight.   [0:09:07] PJ Bruno: I'm just so curious, like what's going to happen to him in the final season. That's what I really want to know.   [0:09:11] Ryan Doyle: I've never watched Game of Thrones, and you really lost me there for a second.   [0:09:15] Boris Revechkis: Wow.   [0:09:15] Ryan Doyle: I feel like I want to wait for it to all be released.   [0:09:18] Boris Revechkis: Can we just edit Ryan out of the entire podcast?   [0:09:19] Ryan Doyle: No, no, no. See, I've got the plan. They're going to release all of Game of Thrones. I'm not going to deal with all this anxiety and anticipation. I'm just going to watch it when I feel like it.   [0:09:27] PJ Bruno: You're really good at planning anxiety out of your life these days. Like, any time you identify it-   [0:09:31] Ryan Doyle: That's why I'm hanging out with you last.   [0:09:33] PJ Bruno: Wow. I noticed that. The patterns are starting to, this is a loaded moment.   [0:09:37] Boris Revechkis: This is a loaded moment. I'm not watching the last season, I'm just saying. I can't I refuse to watch it until the books come out.   [0:09:41] PJ Bruno: You can't do it?   [0:09:42] Boris Revechkis: I need the books. I need the books. Give me the books. Are you listening George R. R. Martin? You're out there, aren't you? I know you're listening to this podcast. Finish the damn book.   [0:09:52] PJ Bruno: Let me course correct a little bit. Davos, of course we're talking about the world economic forum that went down just last week I believe. There's this great article that Tim Leberecht did for Ink Magazine called Purpose Washing, Hustle Culture, and Automation: Business at a Crossroads. It's just a really good, I mean, I love his opening statement here, so let me just read it for you guys to get us in the zone. "Business leaders today must constantly wrestle with opposing forces. They must embrace data, and at the same time listen to their gut feelings. They must cater to efficiency pressures, and also create a culture of trust and creativity. They must ensure short-term profit, while thinking about the long-term impact of their business, acting as 'civic CEOs', stewarding 'woke brands'. Now some may call this ambidexterity, or others schizophrenia. At any rate, it's not surprising that being stuck in the middle of such dichotomy breeds uncomfortable tension and conflicting rhetoric. Double agendas can lead to double speak." You guys read this one, right?   [0:10:58] Ryan Doyle: Yeah, that's heavy.   [0:10:58] Boris Revechkis: Sure did.   [0:11:00] PJ Bruno: Oh, it's heavy. I mean, any initial thoughts? Ryan, you want to kick us off here? We're going to edit you out, but just go ahead.   [0:11:09] Ryan Doyle: Just on the whole topic of Davos, there was ... I just found it so interesting, like its kind of come to the head as like our own New York representative, who was kind of in this Amazon fight. Like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been talking about this certain type of marginal tax rate, and those things get brought up at Davos. People laugh at it, but it was the reality for a long time in America to have a very high tax rate marginally on a certain group of users. So, just to hear these topics brought back up right now, and then at Davos, it all just seems so timely. Then was kind of kicked off, I think again yesterday when that Tucker Carlson-   [0:11:50] PJ Bruno: Thing with Fox News.   [0:11:51] Boris Revechkis: So beautiful. Can I just call out how amazing it was that you said, "Users," instead of, "Tax payers"?   [0:11:56] PJ Bruno: Nice.   [0:11:56] Boris Revechkis: Love it. That's Braze life right there.   [0:12:00] Ryan Doyle: I just got out of a sales conversation, so let me reset. Let me reset.   [0:12:03] PJ Bruno: Rewire.   [0:12:04] Boris Revechkis: We have 300 million users in this country.   [0:12:07] PJ Bruno: You got any hot takes from the article here?   [0:12:09] Boris Revechkis: There were a lot of big ideas in this article. A lot of it was about inequality in general, which is, you know, that's a trip. We can spend a lot of time on that. A lot of it was about AI, and refers back to what we were talking about earlier with that company doing face recognition, and privacy, and responsibility. Like in the quote you read, the pressure, the tension between using data, and exploiting data, and making people uncomfortable. I thought it was interesting that the Microsoft CEO had come out in favor of a US version of a GDPR, which is very cool.   [0:12:38] PJ Bruno: Yeah.   [0:12:39] Boris Revechkis: I mean obviously, I think at Braze we're very much behind that idea.   [0:12:42] Ryan Doyle: We would love that.   [0:12:42] Boris Revechkis: We would love that idea.   [0:12:43] PJ Bruno: Yeah.   [0:12:44] Boris Revechkis: Yeah. I think that speaks to that sort of idea of responsibility. Right? Don't use data in ways that makes people uncomfortable when they're picking up coffee.   [0:12:52] Ryan Doyle: Don't mention their poor, dead dog.   [0:12:55] Boris Revechkis: Yeah, exactly. Maybe what we need is actually some legislation to create some barriers, some boundaries so that collectively we're not cringing when we walk by an advertisement and it's asking us about our last doctor's visit.   [0:13:09] Ryan Doyle: Jeez. Well, if I could just add in, I think one of the reasons we haven't had legislation is, this was in one of those articles that kind of attack myth that's been going on for a long time. That Silicon Valley is here to save the world. All these tech founders come in, and they have an idea that will not only benefit us in a business sense, but, "We are going to change the world to be a better place." Maybe that's why legislation has been so slow to get up behind it, because we not only know what people are doing with our data because it's such a new occurrence, but we kind of trust these people who say that they are going to change the world for the better. So, I think we're starting to see for the first time that might not be the case.   [0:13:49] PJ Bruno: But that's the thing. Does that mean that if you decide to start a company and become a tech entrepreneur, it is now on you to make the world a better place? Like, obviously I think if you have the means, you should try to give back, but does that mean it's just a given? It's inherent anytime a tech leader tries to start something new? Is it, "Well, you know, keep in mind you must be giving back"? You know, or is it just like, "You need to pretend to give back"?   [0:14:15] Boris Revechkis: Question for life.   [0:14:16] PJ Bruno: Question for life.   [0:14:17] Ryan Doyle: I think because, is it our duty as human beings to always try to make the world a little bit better of a place? Not just tech founders PJ.   [0:14:24] PJ Bruno: Jeez.   [0:14:26] Boris Revechkis: Jeez. Personally, I don't know whoever believed that the full T-tech industry would unequivocally and unambiguously make the world a better place without making profit first. Like, our society, corporations, businesses, are economy is structured around organization which are obligated to increase value to shareholders.   [0:14:49] PJ Bruno: Right.   [0:14:50] Boris Revechkis: Put the shareholders interests first. Like, that's how our society is organized. It's great that tech founders want to make the world a better place. Anyone who does want to, it's great, but the reality is that when a company becomes large enough, and then also becomes publicly traded, you are obligated to make certain kinds of decisions. That's the way our society is structured. An interesting counter pointer alternative to that approach would be something like a B corporation, which is something that's come up in like the last decade or so, which is kind of cool.   [0:15:22] Ryan Doyle: What's that?   [0:15:23] Boris Revechkis: It's like a non-profit that basically has come up with this, so they're like S corps and C corps. They're like the, C corps are the most common and all that. This is like a non-profit that says, "We'll certify you as a B corporation," which means you're not just looking out for your share duty to your shareholders, but you're also incorporating into every decision you make, you're impact on the community, on the environment, on society at large. It's very difficult, and not a lot of huge brands have done this yet.   [0:15:51] Ryan Doyle: Are their any examples?   [0:15:53] PJ Bruno: I was about to say-   [0:15:53] Boris Revechkis: Like Ben & Jerry's.   [0:15:54] Ryan Doyle: Like an honest corporation?   [0:15:54] Boris Revechkis: Kickstarter is a B corporation I think.   [0:15:56] PJ Bruno: Ben & Jerry's?   [0:15:58] Ryan Doyle: Of course they are.   [0:15:58] PJ Bruno: I knew I liked those.   [0:15:59] Ryan Doyle: Yeah.   [0:15:59] Boris Revechkis: It's not widely popular yet, but because it's really onerous, because you're now saddling like your board and your whole organization with this responsibility, because you're not just here to make us money. You're here to think about your impact on everyone, your employees, your customers, your surrounding community, the environment, etc., etc.   [0:16:14] Ryan Doyle: Right.   [0:16:15] Boris Revechkis: In conjunction with your financial responsibilities and interests. So it's not easy, but the idea being that we're trying to change the incentives, or this is an attempt to change the incentives corporations to do better.   [0:16:28] Ryan Doyle: We don't have to legislate that as a norm, but it would be cool to incentivize those types of bigs, just to have a little more people who are thinking in that mindset.   [0:16:37] Boris Revechkis: Yeah.   [0:16:37] Ryan Doyle: Yeah.   [0:16:39] PJ Bruno: Sorry. One of the things they picked out from this article, that I thought was an interesting thing, was the idea of reinventing capitalism. Is it a business or a government affair? I mean, I'm curious to know what you guys think, because my instinct is that it should be ... Maybe I'm just more regulation prone, because at this point, there's like a lot of bullies in the game with a lot of money and a lot to lose. We need to level the playing field a little bit, but yeah. I mean it just, I don't know. Who's it on?   [0:17:13] Ryan Doyle: I think that it has to be a dance, because it takes two to tangle. Right? Business is not going to have a direction without regulation, and regulation won't have anything to regulate without the growth of business.   [0:17:23] PJ Bruno: Yeah.   [0:17:23] Ryan Doyle: I just read this interesting book on Teddy Roosevelt, and some of his first run-ins with monopolistic industries, and how he really came to be known as the trust buster. It's just interesting this dance that happens where there might be a little give with business, and then government does a little take, but then government gives a little over here. Then there's a little more take by business. So, I think it's definitely something that happens in parallel. I just think that we might be asking it because business seems to be moving faster at the moment.   [0:17:52] Boris Revechkis: Yeah. I think there's sort of this ideal that is always pushed that from the very start of a company to the point where it's Amazon's size, it can operate under the assumption that growing is always good, and representing a larger share of your market is better always. But ultimately, we have to recognize that, in a purely mathematical dynamical system sense, when you get that big your constraints are now different. You're not just like a fish swimming through the sea. You can now touch the edges of the sea. Right? You're like, it's a fish tank now and you're a big fish, and every motion of yours, you're hitting the walls and you're crushing other fish.   [0:18:35] Ryan Doyle: That's a good way to put it.   [0:18:35] PJ Bruno: Yeah, it is.   [0:18:35] Boris Revechkis: Also, you have to, the rules of the game have now changed. The rules, as far as government is concerned, have to account for that. You can't just treat that big fish like a tiny fish in the ocean.   [0:18:46] PJ Bruno: Yeah.   [0:18:46] Boris Revechkis: With where the limits are, pretty much unreachable once you've started to actually hit the edges of the tank, like the rules of the game need to change. Otherwise, things will go wrong. I think that's just pretty much what monopolies are and why that happened 130 years ago, 140 years ago, and why we're running into it now with tech companies. Government is behind in this industry because we have people who ask Mark Zuckerberg in congressional hearings how his company makes money. They have no idea what they're talking about, and they're just completely out of their depth. Therefore, we're now in a situation where these companies are just occupying such a vast proportion of these industries, that their every decision rocks the boat, to use another ocean, water.   [0:19:28] Ryan Doyle: I like how it metaphors dude.   [0:19:29] PJ Bruno: Doesn't resonate with me.   [0:19:30] Ryan Doyle: I'm a big fish in a small tank.   [0:19:34] Boris Revechkis: So, yeah. I mean, we just have to, we have to come to the terms of the fact that we need to, and even the companies themselves need to realize like, "Hey, you're not just a company anymore that's striving to get more customers and generate more revenue. You have such an outsize influence on your surrounding society that you have to think ahead." It's like the same thing with climate change. You can't, not to invoke another massively complicated and heavy topic-   [0:19:58] Ryan Doyle: You're not getting deep enough here yet.   [0:19:59] PJ Bruno: We'll save it.   [0:19:59] Ryan Doyle: Yeah, we'll save it.   [0:20:00] Boris Revechkis: Like, you have to be aware of your outputs and what you're doing to the surrounding area. You can't just keep throwing poison into the river and assuming it'll wash away to the ocean, when now the whole river is tainted, and the ocean is tainted, and whatever, whatever.   [0:20:13] Ryan Doyle: Still talking about metaphors.   [0:20:14] Boris Revechkis: Total a metaphor.   [0:20:15] PJ Bruno: Yeah. A little real life too.   [0:20:18] Boris Revechkis: Yeah.   [0:20:18] PJ Bruno: Cool. I mean, any closing thoughts from you two before we wrap her up?   [0:20:23] Ryan Doyle: I mean, I just had one question in all of this to ask Boris, because we touched a little bit on AI and machine learning today. I wanted to ask with Boris, specifically his role here has to do with AI and machine learning. I guess, how do your moral obligations play into your day-to-day role or how you see yourself in the AI industry and learning industry? Do you ever think about the impact your decisions or your work has, and if so, how do you try to exercise judgment in the work you put out?   [0:20:53] Boris Revechkis: I mean, the short answer is absolutely. The more involved answer that we may or may not have time for-   [0:20:59] Ryan Doyle: It's a big closing question.   [0:21:00] Boris Revechkis: It is. It is.   [0:21:00] PJ Bruno: I love it.   [0:21:01] Boris Revechkis: The bottom line is that we have to, you know. Braze as a company, I think, embraces the idea that we have to be responsible with our choices and we have to consider their impacts on people. So, we have to be mindful of how we allow our own customers to use data to influence their relationships with their own end users in a way that is responsible. To use another analogy, here we go again, the way I like to think of it, if you were just like a general store owner in the old west. Your customers are coming in, and you have a business, and you're trying to see where you're making money, where you're losing money. You would find your best customers, you would try to figure out what they want, and you would cater your business to insure your own livelihood and well being. So in a lot of ways, our customers are trying to do the same thing, but they're trying to do it for millions of their own customers. So of course they can't do it, and they can't have an army of people trying to parse all the data and interactions that they have with all their customers. You need machines. You need algorithms to go and figure out what the patterns are so you can say, "Oh, this pool of customers like products x, y, z. We should focus in this area. We should cater to these customers. We should communicate with them more. Here are the customers that are disaffected. They're not interested in us anymore. Why are they not interested? We need to do better." Right? It's like those common sense questions that any business own would ask, we're now just using machine learning and AI. We're helping our own customers use machine learning and AI to answer those questions, just at a scale that's unmanageable to do without those tools. Again, long answer, but as long as we're doing that without using data in a way that would clearly make people uncomfortable and would leverage data that they don't want us-   [0:22:36] Ryan Doyle: We'll use data we didn't have the right to use.   [0:22:37] Boris Revechkis: Exactly. So I mean, GDPR is really like almost the shield for this. Right? Like, "Hey, we're just not going to use data in ways that is irresponsible or that people don't want us to do in order to further these ends." But when people are explicitly told what's going to happen to their data, and how we and our customers are going to use it, and they're okay with that, great. That's sort of what it comes down to.   [0:23:01] Ryan Doyle: Thank you for answering that.   [0:23:02] PJ Bruno: Yeah, I appreciate that too.   [0:23:03] Boris Revechkis: Yeah.   [0:23:04] PJ Bruno: I want to close it out real quick. I think this article is so good, and I really love the closing paragraphs. So this is how he summed it all up. "A perfect storm is brewing: the agony of old systems, the void left by less and less trustworthy tech platforms, the disruption of the labor markets by the fourth industrial revolution, and the critical importance of reinventing capitalism and redefining the meaning of meaningful work. In the middle of conflicting agendas, CEOs will have to make tough choices. The most responsible of them know they will have their role to place in tackling all these issues, but are also humble enough to realize that, now more than ever, business can't do it alone." Is that a cough drop?   [0:23:51] Boris Revechkis: Sorry. I had to get a cough drop.   [0:23:52] PJ Bruno: All right. Well, signing off, this is PJ Bruno.   [0:23:56] Ryan Doyle: This is Ryan Doyle.   [0:23:57] Boris Revechkis: And Boris Revechkis.   [0:23:58] PJ Bruno: You guys take care. Come see us again sometime. [0:24:00]

This week, Taylor Gibb from the customer success team at Braze brought in Senior CSM, Jordan Houghton, to discuss how she met her husband on OKCupid. Match Group finally acquires Hinge, adding to it's caché of dating apps, and don't forget about Bounce (the dating app on which you can do nothing EXCEPT meet for a date that very evening).     TRANSCRIPT: [0:00:02] PJ Bruno: On this Valentine's Day, me and the team would like to say, whether you're swiping for fun or looking for that special one, whether you're cuffing at home, or just love being alone, if you're going to give a gift, make sure it's relevant, personalized, and well timed. That apple of your eye wants nothing that isn't personal, and poorly timed, well, that's a crime. So, this year, kiddies, avoid the mess of a shameful Valentine's tragedy. Keep it personal, and treat your valentine like your customer engagement strategy.   [0:00:36] The Captain: This is the captain. Brace for impact.   [0:00:45] PJ Bruno: Hi again. Welcome back to Braze for Impact, your weekly tech industry discuss digest, and I'm so thrilled today to have back again by population demand Taylor Gibb from CS. How you doing, Taylor?   [0:00:58] Taylor Gibb: I am excited to be here. This is a big one.   [0:01:01] PJ Bruno: It is.   [0:01:02] Taylor Gibb: This is an inaugural run of me on this podcast on Valentine's Day in 2019.   [0:01:08] PJ Bruno: It is, and you brought a buddy with you, I see. You have a friend.   [0:01:10] Taylor Gibb: I definitely did. We roll deep in succeed, I like to say, so I brought one of the very best, and I'm apparently rhyming.   [0:01:15] Jordan: No. This is Jordan.   [0:01:18] Taylor Gibb: Jordan, guys, it is so good to have you here, and I really wanted to lean into our Valentine's Day festive podcast here.   [0:01:26] PJ Bruno: Ooh, I'm intrigued.   [0:01:26] Taylor Gibb: I brought a little theme in to guide today, because you know we're all thinking about love. A lot of us in New York City are kind of looking for that special date tonight, a lot of restaurant reservations out there-   [0:01:36] PJ Bruno: Don't you know it?   [0:01:36] Taylor Gibb: ... So I wanted to kind of focus in on dating apps today, and Jordan, I brought you in not just because you've got a silky smooth voice-   [0:01:45] Jordan: Oh, thank you very much.   [0:01:47] Taylor Gibb: Yeah, absolutely, but because I know that you actually... You've got a particular stance on dating apps, or at least the way that they were a couple of years ago. Do you care to elaborate there?   [0:01:56] PJ Bruno: Interesting.   [0:01:56] Jordan: I am a success story of dating apps. I met my husband on OkCupid.   [0:02:01] PJ Bruno: How about that?   [0:02:02] Taylor Gibb: That's right. Yeah. I brought in one of the very best. Jordan, tell me about your OkCupid experience there.   [0:02:09] Jordan: Okay. So, this was a few years ago. I had absolutely no intention of meeting anybody online. I just wanted to make a profile, maybe have some people reach out, make me feel a little bit better about myself, never thought I'd actually go out in person, and met some really great people, and met my husband.   [0:02:27] Taylor Gibb: That is a huge success story, and I always used to think that was rare, that you were more likely to run into a dud than you were the one, but these success stories are getting more and more prevalent. I think I saw a statistic that it's expected something wild, like 71% of couples in the year 2025 will have met online.   [0:02:45] PJ Bruno: What?   [0:02:45] Taylor Gibb: I saw that, and I thought that was just absolutely crazy because it seems like maybe five years ago that the idea of dating online was this kind of... I don't know.   [0:02:54] Jordan: No. I made the mistake of telling my mom, as I was walking to my first online date, that I actually had made a profile on OkCupid, and I was going to meet somebody, and I'm from Kansas originally, and she was literally screaming into the phone, begging me to either go to a public place, or turn around and walk home, because you don't know who you're going to meet, and they could very much be an ax murderer.   [0:03:14] PJ Bruno: So, the advice there is don't always listen to Mom?   [0:03:17] Taylor Gibb: If we wanted to tell you one thing here in this podcast, it's don't listen to your mom.   [0:03:22] PJ Bruno: It could cost you the love of your life.   [0:03:23] Taylor Gibb: Come on.   [0:03:24] PJ Bruno: So, wait. Was this the mobile app, or this is the-   [0:03:26] Jordan: This was the mobile app.   [0:03:27] PJ Bruno: Okay, cool.   [0:03:28] Jordan: I got really addicted to swiping.   [0:03:29] Taylor Gibb: An early adopter.   [0:03:30] Jordan: Yes.   [0:03:30] PJ Bruno: Early, early adoption.   [0:03:31] Jordan: Yes.   [0:03:32] Taylor Gibb: I love that.   [0:03:33] Jordan: I was very much into it.   [0:03:34] Taylor Gibb: You know, we're going to dig into a little bit more on kind of the dating apps, the pros and cons, ways they're changing here later, but I would be remiss if I didn't have a mini intro for you, PJ-   [0:03:44] PJ Bruno: Oh, really?   [0:03:44] Taylor Gibb: ... Because I know, and without going too far into detail, I know that you've used your share of dating apps, maybe a bit of a connoisseur.   [0:03:51] PJ Bruno: Oh, wow.   [0:03:52] Jordan: A connoisseur of dating apps.   [0:03:52] PJ Bruno: Where are you getting your information?   [0:03:54] Taylor Gibb: I don't know.   [0:03:55] PJ Bruno: You been through my phone?   [0:03:57] Taylor Gibb: I've been swiping through your phone when I was testing earlier.   [0:03:59] PJ Bruno: You know, I like to do research, so I like to... I have Hinge on my phone. I think that's pretty neat. We're going to touch on Hinge soon. I've tried Tinder, I've tried Bumble, and there's something to be said for it. I think I can argue for both sides. There's something very cool, especially in a city like New York, the ability to connect with random people that, honestly, I have a handful of people that are still friends to this day that I met on dating apps, so that's a cool thing, but then, of course, other side of the coin, you start to not appreciate people as much. They're just so easily dismissible, and you just don't really put the time that's required to build something that matter and lasts.   [0:04:37] Jordan: Oh, tell me-   [0:04:37] Taylor Gibb: We kind of forget that they're human beings because they're just a sound bite, maybe a picture, and one thing about them that may or may not have caught your eye, and you forget that, hopefully, they're a fully fleshed human being on the other side that might be waiting for your text, or might but hoping that you swipe right on them. I think it's really easy to have choice paralysis when there's an endless array of options.   [0:04:57] PJ Bruno: Totally. Well, that leads really nicely into our first little article here, which may be the solution to that swipe paralysis, or whatever you want to call it, people not willing to jump in and get stuck in and meet someone in person. We're really thrilled, actually, to be able to plug a good friend of ours. A previous coworker from Braze, Dylan Petro, was able to launch his dating app, Bounce, and all you can do on the app is date. Right? There no chatting?   [0:05:26] Taylor Gibb: Oh, yeah.   [0:05:27] PJ Bruno: It's just literally you connect, and that night, the date, it's on. They pick a spot. Is that right?   [0:05:31] Taylor Gibb: Oh, yeah.   [0:05:31] Jordan: They do.   [0:05:31] Taylor Gibb: That's right, and I have to say, I actually was one of the first users of this app. I remember Dylan gave a special code to a beta group of testers, and there's something really exciting about it. Right? You get a notification on your phone... First of all, love notifications here at Braze, so having get ready to go on a date, that's amazing to get delivered to your lock screen.   [0:05:53] Jordan: It also makes sense, though, because it is so time-sensitive, it's not just so-and-so likes you, or you have 35 swipe right people, but it's like, you have a date in 25 minutes, or two hours from now, so it's very time-sensitive, so that's the right channel, in my opinion. An email could get lost in your inbox.   [0:06:09] Taylor Gibb: Absolutely, and it's funny, too. This article that we brought up here says that this is the perfect dating app for Millennials who have this kind of analysis paralysis. It even said anything that I'm unfortunately very familiar with. It's like swiping through Netflix, and you've got so many options that you just end up looking at the options for an hour and going to bed.   [0:06:27] PJ Bruno: Yep, yep.   [0:06:28] Taylor Gibb: This is exactly what I do every time, and so when it comes to dating, absolutely, I'm going to keep swiping.   [0:06:33] PJ Bruno: That's the thing. It's like, because, I don't know, you always go back to the well, and I'm a big Netflix browser, and some people are just like, “Oh, my God. Pick something,” but I enjoy going through all the stuff and just keep scrolling and scrolling, and so sometimes I get into that mode with swiping. It becomes-   [0:06:51] Jordan: Definitely.   [0:06:51] PJ Bruno: I mean, they've gamified it. Right?   [0:06:53] Taylor Gibb: Oh, yeah.   [0:06:53] PJ Bruno: So, it's like you're talking to someone, and I don't know, there's always that incentive get back in and continue to swipe.   [0:06:59] Jordan: My girlfriends, they have a rule that if you've been texting for more than three days and they haven't mentioned a date, to cut it out right then-   [0:07:05] PJ Bruno: That's a pretty good rule.   [0:07:05] Jordan: ... Because they're not necessarily interested in dating, so Bounce is so interesting because it's forcing you to say, “I actually want to meet someone tonight. My makeup's already on. I got my shoes on. Let's go. Let's not just go back and forth and then just flow into the ether of ghosting.”   [0:07:18] PJ Bruno: Right. Right.   [0:07:18] Taylor Gibb: Definitely, and I know that PJ hates when he puts on his makeup, expecting to go out on a day. He's got it all, and then they ghost him.   [0:07:25] Jordan: He's got the shoes on, he's got the mascara ready to go.   [0:07:26] Taylor Gibb: God, and he just looks so good, so fly.   [0:07:28] PJ Bruno: When you put that much time into it, of course you're going to be upset when nothing comes to fruition.   [0:07:31] Taylor Gibb: Absolutely.   [0:07:32] Jordan: Lord knows, you're not going to meet someone in real life, so why would you actually go out unless you've got a date already planned?   [0:07:37] PJ Bruno: Exactly. That's silly.   [0:07:38] Taylor Gibb: So, here's the devil's advocate thing, though. I find that some of my friends who are maybe a little more shy, a little more reserved, really like to put in that emotional groundwork before they meet somebody. Love the idea of being on Hinge and being able to message for weeks. It's kind of a... You've got your Jane Austen pen pal romance a little bit.   [0:07:54] PJ Bruno: Yeah, it's a vetting process.   [0:07:55] Taylor Gibb: There's something to be said, right?   [0:07:56] PJ Bruno: There is.   [0:07:56] Taylor Gibb: Because it may be that for a certain kind of person, well, maybe for anybody, it's scary to meet somebody that night not knowing much about them. Right?   [0:08:03] PJ Bruno: Absolutely, and I'll say about Hinge, actually, out of all the apps that I've used, Hinge is pretty good about giving you more than just, okay, this is what a person looks like. They have those little prompts. Have you seen these texts? It's just like-   [0:08:14] Taylor Gibb: Oh, yeah. Oh, I love those little prompts.   [0:08:16] PJ Bruno: It's thing like, “Something I'll never do again is,” or, “One thing I'm weirdly attracted to is,” and it just is three prompts that you can pick what they are, and it just tells you a little bit about themselves, and if it's funny or quirky and weird, it's just kind of like, oh, okay, I can get down with this. So, it's kind of like-   [0:08:31] Jordan: That's why I loved OkCupid. The concept of just meeting someone because they're within a hundred feet of me and good looking freaked me out. So, I think I answered, I'm not kidding, maybe 300 or 400 questions. It was like an SAT that I filled out to potentially meet the love of my life, and it was actually really interesting, some of the questions that I differed with people. Yeah, it was really interesting to me because I'm similarly of the mind of you, Taylor, that I don't necessarily want to meet a stranger unless I'm literally in the same place as them. The idea of leaving my house and meeting a complete stranger would've freaked me out a little bit, so I think having both sides of it, either I know what you look like, I know what you think like, I know what you believe, I know what we're doing, we're both interested in sushi. Cool. Okay.   [0:09:15] PJ Bruno: One thing I'll say for the audience out there is even if you're using dating apps, and you're not quite finding that special one, you're losing if you're not learning, so at least take stuff away from it. For example-   [0:09:25] Taylor Gibb: You're losing if you're not learning. I like that.   [0:09:27] PJ Bruno: ... Two things I found, just call it research, one is that apparently I look different in every picture I own.   [0:09:34] Taylor Gibb: Great.   [0:09:34] PJ Bruno: So, apparently I look different in every photo, one, and two, girls who own cats are less likely to own guns than girls who have dogs.   [0:09:43] Taylor Gibb: That's interesting because you would think it's a little utilitarian.   [0:09:44] PJ Bruno: I'm a dog-   [0:09:45] Jordan: Have you met a lot of gun-wielding dog owners in New York?   [0:09:48] PJ Bruno: Actually, I don't run into them personally. I'm just telling you from the series of photos I see-   [0:09:52] Jordan: Oh, interesting.   [0:09:53] PJ Bruno: ... There's cat girls, and I'm like, “Cool. I like you. I'm allergic to cats, though, so sorry,” and then girls... Not all dog girls have guns, but there are way more dog girls that have guns than cat girls.   [0:10:03] Jordan: I will tell you a learning that I... I have two learnings. One, if you are taking a mirror selfie in a restroom, I'm probably not going to swipe right on you.   [0:10:12] PJ Bruno: Well, you're married, but...   [0:10:14] Jordan: Thank you very much. Tristan, I am not swiping.   [0:10:16] Taylor Gibb: She might be researching, PJ.   [0:10:17] PJ Bruno: Oh, you're doing research. That's right.   [0:10:18] Jordan: Absolute research. But no, I also realized there's a game of which person are you in this picture that I love to play, where it's like you see a group, and you're like, oh, I really hope you're the second from the right, and then there's that two second of anticipation of swiping to the next picture and being like, oh, no, you are the guy on the left, or you're the one in the back that's just at the very end of the photo. It's such a fun game because it's so exhilarating.   [0:10:45] Taylor Gibb: He's the guy photo bombing in the background.   [0:10:46] Jordan: Yes. Yeah. No, it's my favorite part. Who are you? Which on are you?   [0:10:50] Taylor Gibb: Who are you?   [0:10:51] PJ Bruno: Oh, my gosh.   [0:10:52] Taylor Gibb: Speaking of who are you, one thing I forgot to ask that I loved to hear is, I believe back in the day of OkCupid, maybe still, you would have a screen name that you'd have to put out there. Right?   [0:11:02] Jordan: Oh, gosh. Yes.   [0:11:02] Taylor Gibb: I want to hear about your screen name, Jordan. I almost forgot to ask.   [0:11:06] Jordan: Oh, my gosh. I'm going to be giving you all my secrets now.   [0:11:09] Taylor Gibb: That's what this is about.   [0:11:09] Jordan: So, my screen name, true story, I made a profile and a password, so I made a username and a password, and it sat for six months because I was too mortified, this was five, six years ago, to actually add pictures and meet someone online. My username is [Rockjock3213].   [0:11:28] Taylor Gibb: [Rockjock], like rock climbing?   [0:11:29] Jordan: Some people would reach out about that.   [0:11:31] PJ Bruno: I thought it was like rock show.   [0:11:32] Jordan: So, mine's Rockjock, [J-hock 00:11:34]. It's a KU slang. I'm from Kansas, so it was important to me that I mentioned the fact that I love Kansas, I love sports, and 3213 are two of my lucky numbers.   [0:11:43] PJ Bruno: So, say it again, one more time.   [0:11:44] Jordan: Oh, gosh.   [0:11:45] Taylor Gibb: We'd love to look this up. Everybody on the air, take notes.   [0:11:48] Jordan: Rockjock3213.   [0:11:51] PJ Bruno: Sounds like a total babe. I mean-   [0:11:52] Taylor Gibb: I love it, Rockjock. Slide into those DMs.   [0:11:54] Jordan: You know, PJ, any other time, if it hadn't been Tristan, you never know.   [0:11:57] Taylor Gibb: Just waited a few more years.   [0:12:00] Jordan: If you had done OkCupid, because Tinder and Hinge, all that scared me at the time, I wasn't quite ready to delve out of the question, question, question realm.   [0:12:07] PJ Bruno: Fair.   [0:12:08] Taylor Gibb: Well, that's a good transition, too. Right?   [0:12:09] PJ Bruno: Wow. I missed the boat again, it seems.   [0:12:11] Taylor Gibb: Well, as always, [Peej], you're one canoe behind, one safety boat behind, but I was going to say, I had a great segue before you so rudely coming off. I was going to say, speaking of Hinge, Tinder, Match.com groups, we do have another little article here that speaks to a somewhere dystopian future of dating, our overlords at Match.com, and good thing or a bad thing, essential, the article says, “Match Group, which operates dating apps like Tinder and OkCupid, completed its acquisition of the seven-year-old app Hinge on Thursday, following its purchase of a majority stake in June 2018.” So, we've got a bit of a monopoly of love on our hands here, which sounds like it would but a great slow jam, but is instead a monopoly of love. PJ, get on writing that.   [0:13:04] PJ Bruno: I'm going to do that.   [0:13:05] Taylor Gibb: Instead, means that there's one company that's kind of determining at least my friend group's dating lives in 2019. What is your take on it, fellow pundits?   [0:13:17] PJ Bruno: I mean, I think I speak for everyone in the room. Monopolies in general are a bad idea. Right?   [0:13:21] Taylor Gibb: You always end up throwing the board. I mean-   [0:13:23] PJ Bruno: You end up in jail.   [0:13:25] Taylor Gibb: ... I was bound to.   [0:13:25] PJ Bruno: I don't have a get out free card. Who knows? No. Yeah, I don't like this one bit, and I'm a big fan of Bumble and the whole female-centric thing that... Was it Whitney Wolfe Herd, I think the CEO [crosstalk]   [0:13:38] Taylor Gibb: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yep, exactly.   [0:13:40] Jordan: Previously of Tinder.   [0:13:40] PJ Bruno: Exactly. I love everything that she's done with Bumble, and they're staying strong, and they've staved off acquisition from Match Group. No, I don't like big, huge companies just absorbing and acquiring all this stuff, especially the Match CEO I guess was quoted saying, “Every person who's 18, 19, 20 should be on Tinder. We really want to be integrated into people's single social life, especially when they're young,” put the hooks in. Just because, while I said, dating apps can bring you towards a lot of really cool people, and who knows, maybe even the love of your life. I can also make you kind of be detached from society in a certain kind of way. Right? You're looking at your screen all the time. You're easily casting away person, after person, after person. I don't know. That's the thing, is I don't know if it's super good for our psyche, as far as the way that we treat people in general, and I don't know that's an outlandish thing to say.   [0:14:33] Jordan: I agree with that in the sense that one thing about choice analysis paralysis is the always consideration of what you didn't choose, so analysis paralysis being the more options you have, the more terrible your choice could be. If you had five versus 20, you could choose a statistically worse option if you had more than 20, things like that, but also, you're going to spend a lot of time thinking about the other 19 options that you didn't choose, which is very similar to dating apps.   [0:15:03] PJ Bruno: Totally.   [0:15:03] Jordan: I think that this concept that there's always the next person, which is also with these dating apps, their lifecycle, if they do their job, they're losing their audience. It's kind of like a babysitting app.   [0:15:16] PJ Bruno: Exactly.   [0:15:16] Jordan: If you get the nanny you're looking for, or the before, or the girlfriend, or the partner you've been looking for, you deactivate your profile, you're done with that. The cost of acquisition just got higher. So, for them, they either need to, as you mentioned, hook me back in by always having that in the back of my mind, that there's more option and I should go back and swipe, and I miss the gamification, or they have to buy every other part of their audience, which means this massive acquisition and having this monopoly.   [0:15:43] PJ Bruno: I see. That makes sense.   [0:15:43] Taylor Gibb: That's brilliant.   [0:15:44] Jordan: So, no, it's not ideal. I think that it's changing... It's not just my thought. It's scientifically proven that it's changing the way people date, the way people interact, and I don't necessarily think it's for the best, but I think it's part of the nature of the game that everything is digital, and we want things in the palm of our hand, literally, and we don't necessarily want to have to go out. We're paying for convenience.   [0:16:06] Taylor Gibb: That's interesting, and that's a really... It's a good take I think that a lot of people share. I will say, it's also interesting to think about being one of these companies. Right? If your goal at the end of the day is technically to match people up with their perfect other person, but then that means they're off the app. Right?   [0:16:26] PJ Bruno: Right.   [0:16:26] Taylor Gibb: So, I've posed this to clients before. I work with a few dating apps here at Braze, and I remember going in and saying, “Devil's advocate, if your app works perfectly, you're out of users. You don't have anybody in there. What does that make you feel like?”   [0:16:42] PJ Bruno: Right. It's a catch-22.   [0:16:42] Taylor Gibb: They said, “Honestly, we want as many marriages, as many people dropping off at the end of this as we possibly can do. When we look through the section of The New York Times, we want to see, 'We met on blank dating app. We met on this dating app,' and that's going to mean that we're really successful.” Now, of course, that's me going in in the moment as an outsider. It could be that there are other things that come from that, but-   [0:17:05] Jordan: It's de-stigmatizing it.   [0:17:07] Taylor Gibb: Absolutely.   [0:17:07] Jordan: The more that you see it's prevalence, that's great. I mean, I'm just going to throw this out there. I would love an app to make friends, because I think it's so easy to meet people with the instance of dating and love, and I think building community, if it's not at your office, or it's not in a friend group that you had from college, or it's not something that's based off of your personal belief system, it's really hard to make friends, and I think that's something that would benefit everybody. I know that Bumble tried to do that, I think, with business.   [0:17:34] Taylor Gibb: Bumble BFF.   [0:17:34] PJ Bruno: That's right, yeah.   [0:17:35] Taylor Gibb: Yeah.   [0:17:35] Jordan: Oh, yeah. They did it for business, too. I don't know how... I say this, but also, I met my person online, so I can't give them too much crap because I maybe wouldn't have met him otherwise. We both lived in the same city for six years and had mutual-mutual friends, never met, so I'm very grateful they were able to find the needle in the haystack was looking for.   [0:17:55] Taylor Gibb: Most definitely, and there's an app for everything. You've got your Bumble BFF. You've got your Bumble for business. I just heard today about a new app called [Tudder], which is Tinder for cows, and if you're looking to breed your cow-   [0:18:08] PJ Bruno: [Exsqueeze] me?   [0:18:08] Taylor Gibb: ... You get online, and you find a... On Tudder, you can swipe, say, "This looks like the steer for my particular cow."   [0:18:16] PJ Bruno: But how do cows even use apps?   [0:18:20] Jordan: Is it the farmer looking for the best lady cow?   [0:18:23] Taylor Gibb: I like to think it is just a cow that's swiping over there. He's got his big hoof, and he's like, “Oh, no, no. This will never do.” [crosstalk]   [0:18:29] PJ Bruno: What are the pictures of? It's just-   [0:18:31] Taylor Gibb: They're of the cows. It's absolutely 100% Tinder, just with cows.   [0:18:35] PJ Bruno: Is it like a group of cows, and you have to guess which cow is the one?   [0:18:40] Taylor Gibb: Yep, and it's always the shortest cow, isn't it?   [0:18:41] PJ Bruno: Exactly.   [0:18:42] Taylor Gibb: Always the shortest cow.   [0:18:43] PJ Bruno: It's always-   [0:18:43] Jordan: Taylor, how did you find this? Did you product hunt this, or is this from experience [crosstalk]   [0:18:49] PJ Bruno: This is a good question.   [0:18:49] Taylor Gibb: Yeah. You know, we're actually trying to get them in as a client for next year, so thanks so much.   [0:18:53] PJ Bruno: Tudder.   [0:18:54] Taylor Gibb: I've just been doing Tudder.   [0:18:55] PJ Bruno: We got our eye on you.   [0:18:56] Taylor Gibb: Look out. We're going to be sending notifications. Is your cow lonely?   [0:19:00] PJ Bruno: You know, just real briefly, I want to come back... I love that whole idea because Hinge says designed to be deleted. Right?   [0:19:07] Taylor Gibb: Yes.   [0:19:07] PJ Bruno: That's their tagline.   [0:19:09] Taylor Gibb: That's it.   [0:19:09] PJ Bruno: I love that that's their mission and standpoint, is to get everyone to get off of it. I don't really buy it, especially now that they're acquired by Match Group, which is this big, huge, monster Frankenstein company, so I just... My question is, how do you build customer loyalty? Right? It's by building brilliant experiences. Right? So, what does loyalty look like in this industry? How is loyalty fostered in an app like this?   [0:19:38] Taylor Gibb: Oh, definitely, and it's funny too because we've got these preferences, but more and more, it's preferences within this Match monopoly. Right? I like OkCupid. I like Hinge. Match says, “That's great. It's all under us. Come on in.” Yeah, fostering loyalty, and then also, there is somewhat distressingly now this price put on things like a super like, or a boost. It's like, not only do I like you, Jordan, but I'm willing to pay an extra $2.00 to show you how much I like you.   [0:20:06] Jordan: Listen, that was before my time. That didn't exist back in the day.   [0:20:12] Taylor Gibb: Do you think Tristan would've dropped a couple of bucks to say hi to you?   [0:20:14] PJ Bruno: $2.00?   [0:20:14] Taylor Gibb: $2.00?   [0:20:14] Jordan: I think he did pay to be anonymous, so you couldn't see how often he looked at someone's profile. I didn't know that existed, so there might be some people out there that knew I was heavily stalking them.   [0:20:25] Taylor Gibb: They're like, “Rockjock?”   [0:20:27] Jordan: Oh, my gosh.   [0:20:27] Taylor Gibb: Didn't you view my profile 20 times?   [0:20:27] Jordan: Okay. This is getting too real. No, but to answer your question, PJ, this is something I actually thought a lot about. As a customer success team, we were doing some workshops, just trying to think about the user lifecycle across different verticals, and we were doing data apps at one point, and this is something that I think is so critical to think of as a marketer, but also as a person, is that it can be an exhilarating experience. I got in at a really good time, I found my person, I got out. It was great. It can be an incredibly lonely experience, especially if you're somebody who is putting yourself out there and being vulnerable, and maybe not getting the number of people interested in you that you'd hoped for, or the quality of people that you'd hoped for. I think that it's imperative that these companies remember that their relationship is with the person using their app, in that when you're the person that's bestowing all these amazing compliments, you can also be incredibly silent unintentionally, and so something that I like to think about is today is Valentine's Day. This can be a really tough day for some people, so use what you have. You have the ability to talk to them. Talk to them and remind them how many people swiped on them in the last year, how many people liked their photo, or how many people did they end up getting to see to build their community, things that you're in control of that aren't necessarily how hot did people think you are, or how many people wanted to go on a date that you said no to, weirdly, vanity metrics. Use what you have at your disposal-   [0:21:53] PJ Bruno: Totally.   [0:21:53] Taylor Gibb: Literally.   [0:21:53] Jordan: ... And truly build a relationship that you can, which can be either the comforter or the cheerleader, or both.   [0:22:00] PJ Bruno: So, so well said, Jordan. I love that message to everyone out there. You know, we're in the world of automation, and it's going to make our lives continually easier and easier, but let's not forget, along the way somewhere, we can lose something as well. So, on Valentine's Day, reach out to those loved ones, even if it's over the phone. Try to-   [0:22:19] Taylor Gibb: Even if it's in a push notification.   [0:22:20] PJ Bruno: Even if it's in a push notification that's triggered in realtime or near realtime. Who's to say?   [0:22:25] Jordan: Be good to yourself, too. I think it's a love day. Love can be everything, but love should also point right back at you.   [0:22:32] Taylor Gibb: Well, I can't-   [0:22:33] Jordan: Getting sentimental there.   [0:22:34] Taylor Gibb: That's good. It's Valentine's Day. It's the day to be sappy, and quite honestly, we can end it on that note.   [0:22:41] PJ Bruno: I'd love to end it on that note. This has been beautiful, you guys. Happy Valentine's Day to you both-   [0:22:46] Taylor Gibb: [crosstalk] Happy Valentine's Day.   [0:22:49] PJ Bruno: ... And happy Valentine's Day to all you out there.   [0:22:50] Taylor Gibb: All you listeners out there.   [0:22:52] PJ Bruno: This is PJ Bruno-   [0:22:53] Taylor Gibb: Taylor Gibb.   [0:22:54] Jordan: And I'm Jordan.   [0:22:56] PJ Bruno: Thanks a lot for coming with us, guys, and take care. [0:22:58]

Helloooo! Today I’m calling to tell you what I wish future Me could have time traveled to tell Past me: “You’re absolutely right, you’re not ready. Start anyway.” In this quick episode I explain why you’re sure you’re not ready to try the thing you want to try, how to overcome your lizard brain from paralyzing you with fear, and a new approach to failure: think like a scientist. Oh, and I came up with a killer bumper sticker idea: “Today’s ceiling is tomorrow’s floor.” TM, Copyright, blah blah blah, LMK if you need a logo tee. But really, be brave—start starting. I promise it’s worth it. So…Call me when you get this? No really, call me! 510) 394-2104. Leave a voicemail with your love notes, feedback, and questions for me to research, and I’ll be sure to call you back. If you liked this episode, please subscribe, or rate (with all the stars), or leave a mushy review wherever you listen to podcasts – so I can “call” more humans with my trademarked brand of aggressive kindness. If you’ve already done one of those things, THANK YOU! Song Credit: “Semicircle Song” by The Go! Team Let’s be friends. DM me on Instagram: @alexisrockley Looking for a transcript of this podcast episode? Shoot me an email: alexis@alexisrockley.com ____________________________________ Need self-help career advice actually based in science? Check out my book-baby, Find Your F*ckyeah: Stop Censoring Who You Are and Discover What You Really Want, anywhere books are sold. But also, here: www.findyourfyeah.com ____________________________________ Got an epic idea, but feeling stuck? Maybe you want to pivot careers, launch a business, start a non-profit, quit life and travel the world...but have NO idea how you'll find the money, time, support, or resources to make this thing happen? I get it—and I've been there. You're not lazy, distracted, or lost. You just need help getting out of your own way. You need goal-setting strategies rooted in psychology, accountability, and aggressive cheerleading. In other words: Me. I can help. “Get Out of Your Own Way” is a 6-month, 1:1 mentorship program for motivated creatives who are ready to stop hesitating and start making their big, crazy, impossible goals into reality. NOTE: Bi-annual spots are limited, so apply now!

My wife, son and I drove up into the mountains recently, and our mission was to fire roast coffee up there. You may say “Why couldn't you just do that in your backyard?” Because it's not the same. We went out, did it in the wild, and we got our hands dirty, and the coffee tasted so much better. If you like the show, please check out our Official Morning Mindset Merchandise! Episode Transcription [INTRO] ♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫ *Alex* Welcome to Morning Mindset. A daily dose of practical wit and wisdom with a professional educator & trainer, Amazon best selling author, United States Marine, Television, and Radio host, Paul G. Markel. Each episode will focus on positive and productive ways to strengthen your mindset and help you improve your relationships, career goals, and overall well-being. Please welcome your host; Paul G. Markel. *Professor Paul* Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Whatever time it happens to be when you're listening to Morning Mindset. If you're listening to this with your morning coffee, fantastic. Good morning. I am your host Paul Markel and we're going to talk about leading a more positive and productive life, and if you have purchased the Morning Mindset book, good. - Morning Mindset: a 30 Day Plan for a More Positive and Productive Life. If you purchase the book, if you enjoyed the book, if you would recommend it to others, please let other people know. It would be fantastic if you would leave a review of the book on Amazon, whether you got it as a Kindle or paperback version so that other people could understand. - The fact of the matter is, third-party reviews matter a lot when it comes to promotion and people obviously know that I want to promote my own book. But if you recommend it, it may mean something else. I let's talk about getting your hands dirty. Now during a previous episode, maybe more than one, I talked about you cannot find inspiration sitting behind a desk. Right? - You're can't find inspiration sitting behind a desk, and matter of fact that phrase maybe on a coffee mug that you could purchase and sip your morning beverage out. So I took my own advice often. I need some inspiration to come up with new topics for this Beast that we call Morning Mindset podcast because you know, I'm doing it five days a week which means that five days a week. - I have to come up with a new Fresh interesting topic. Hopefully, it's interesting for you to talk about. So, what did I do? Recently recently. I went up into the mountains. Yes, I kind of live in the mountains, but I live at 7,000 feet. But technically the 7,000 feet that I live at is considered a valley because we are between two large mountain ranges. - So my wife and my son and I we drove up into the mountains and our mission was to fire roast coffee and you say “Why couldn't you just do that in your backyard?” Because it's not the same. Now, actually, what we want to do is we wanted to record it on video and I wanted to record it in an attractive setting. - What we did is we took green unroasted coffee beans, and a cast iron kettle basically a dutch oven and a hand grinder. Yes, an actual hand grinder for coffee. You pour the beans in it and then you work the crank around. It's a little box. You probably have seen him in old-timey western movies people were sitting there by the campfire and they were grinding the coffee and then a percolator. - That's right a coffee percolator, which is actually invented around. 1880 time frame. So what we did my wife and my son and I we went up into the mountains. It was pretty chilly was in the upper 30s or so, but we found a spot where the wind wasn't bad and we lit a fire, and we roasted the coffee beans now have to admit that roasting coffee beans over a fire in a cast iron skillet or Dutch oven basically was something that my wife came up with it was an idea that my wife had that she wanted to do. - She had been the manager of a coffee shop. She'd actually run a couple of different coffee shops, and she was she was very much into coffee in the process of making coffee and where it comes from and how its roasted and so on and so forth and she studied in research and she actually visited coffee roasting houses and talk to them to see how they did it and so forth and she decided that she was going to roast her own coffee and so sued trial and error she figured it out and it was time for me to actually do it. - So we did now the reason this is called getting your hands dirty is because what we actually got our hands dirty and had to light real actual fire in Asheville campfire, and there's there's soot and smoke involved you end up when you leave your clothes and your hair smell like smoke your hands are dirty from the soot from the bottom of the pan or what have you but we roasted the coffee. - Then we took the beans the freshly roasted beans dark almost black a very dark brown. Like I'm a hug any brown poured them into the hand roaster. I sat there on the ground or I'm sorry, the hand grinder ground them up, then put them in the percolator, put the percolator on the fire, on the edge of the grill. - They're boiled it up pour it into a couple of canteen cups and set by the fire and drank our coffee. Now the entire process probably took around 30 minutes, maybe a little more maybe close to 40 minutes by the time we got the fire going roasted the beans ground the beans boiled the coffee and drinking like now that's a long time. - There is no way you're sitting out there you're thinking there's no way in hell, I would invest 40 minutes in making a cup of coffee now admit that you know, that is a pretty good investment. Now the actual being roasting. From lighting the fire to getting the beans on the fire destroying them and then getting them out and cooling them took about 15 to 20 minutes or so. - So those but if you're going to do that, you could do a whole bunch of beans store them and then grind them at your leisure and Brew them as coffee. The coffee was delicious. It was wonderful one of the best cups of coffee I've ever drank. My wife agreed so it's not just me. But we got our hands dirty. - We didn't use any Electronics. No batteries. No apps no plug in anything everything we did was manual. It was old school, and we drove home. We know we spend a few hours up in the in the mountains, and yes, we videotaped it. I had my son along as a videographer and he videotaped the how to what we drove back down out of the mountains got home and that evening both my wife and I we had a really satisfied feeling. - We had that feeling that we had accomplished something, that we'd actually done something worthwhile with our time. Now, you might be thinking that's silly ball. I can just go to the store by pre-roasted beans pre-ground beans. I don't have to undertake to grind them in order to roast them. I just buy them in a bag throw them in a pot hit start and it goes and you can do that. - That's fine. I'm not telling you that you have to go out and roast your own coffee or grind your own coffee or whatever, but there's something cathartic there's something very very. Spiritually Worthy. Of getting your hands dirty and doing it yourself. How many of you had mothers or grandmothers who planted Gardens Every Spring, and they harvested the vegetables throughout the summer and into the fall and they cook those vegetables and those vegetables were tomatoes or carrots or you know corn or beans or whatever. They meant a lot to them, because they didn't just go to the store and buy them. They actually went through the real process. - They got their hands dirty planting. They pluck the weeds, you know, they tended to them that they watered when this when it wasn't raining enough, and they grew those themselves and they were very proud of that and it was something that made him feel good something that made him feel worthy and in our digital age when everything appears via the push of a button and most of the well all of our entertainment whether it's music or video or whatever or the written word in many cases, it's all notional, It's all digital. - It's not real. It's not a thing you can put your hands. I would recommend to you if you want to live a positive and productive life every once in a while. You need to take the time to get out and very very deliberately get your hands dirty. All right, ladies and gentlemen, I'm your host Paul Markel that will talk to you again real soon. [OUTRO] ♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫ *Alex* Thank you for spending time with us today. To get show notes, submit a topic request, for more from your host Paul G. Markel, visit MorningMindsetPodcast.com. That’s MorningMindsetPodcast.com. Please leave a review of this podcast on your favorite podcast player, we appreciate your time & effort, and we look forward to reading your honest feedback.

If they're not like you, you don't like them. If you're not like them, they don't like you. You have opinions, so do they, but should your differences separate you and cause you so much stress that you would rather lose relationships than accept people for their differences? This is a full episode with many angles, everyone will get something from it. Also, take the social anxiety survey at theoverwhelmedbrain.com/safe

In This Episode I talked about a disagreement that Adam Justice and I had and still have and this is my attempt to validate myself. Listen Dashboard Confessional - The Places That You've Come To Fear The Most David Gray - White Ladder The Decemberists - The Crane Wife Watch Dogtown And Z-Boys Paycheck Rockstar Enjoy, Folks!

In this episode of Building Infinite Red, we are talking about clients and some of the assumptions that often need to be challenged when creating software. Throughout the episode, Todd, Ken, and Jamon touch on the importance of knowing who your audience is, what they value, and how your ideas will meet their needs. Show Links Dropzones App Release by Mark Rickert A Dark Room by Amir Rajan Uncommon Sense by Derek Sivers Episode Transcript CHRIS MARTIN: Today we are talking about clients. It's an important topic and one that pretty much every business owner inevitably gets asked a variety of questions. The question that we could start with is: what's your favorite moment in working with clients? JAMON HOLMGREN: You would think it would be when you launch their app or their site, or something like that, but I often find that actually to be a little bit anti-climactic 'cause there's so much going on. There's usually already plans in place for a version 1.1. It's not usually like everybody gather around the big green button and then the founder pushes the button, and it goes live. Although a little side note, Mark Rickert, who is one of our developers has released an app to the app store while in free fall during a skydive. That is true. We can link to it and there's a YouTube video of it. But that's not usually how it works. KEN MILLER: It wasn't a client app I don't think. I think it was one of his apps, but still. JAMON: That was a pretty cool way to do it. But no, you would think that would be the most exciting time. The exciting time is usually during design, for me, because I feel like you start getting a lot of enthusiasm, the energy. A lot of those things start coming out during the design process. And when we get a chance to use our design process—some clients will come to us with something already designed, others will come to us who need design. When they're going through the design process, it's really exciting, you can see a lot of the possibilities. The development side of things is also fun, but a little slower moving. TODD: I agree with Jamon on the design side. Once we get through the product development and start getting into design, probably past the wireframing and into some more concrete examples, it's pretty fun to see the client get really excited. Especially if it's a situation where they show people who are interested in their product, or their stakeholders and investors, or whomever, and they had a good reaction to it. I would add the second most fun time with clients is once there is a beta or an alpha available for their beta testers. And again, they send it to them and they use words like "blown away," or something like, that's awesome. I'm not gonna lie and say, that's always what happens, but those two times I think are the most fun to me. CHRIS: One of the things that Jamon wrote in Slack that was interesting is: what are some common assumptions that clients bring to the process that have to be corrected? TODD: I don't know if there's anything that's common or consistent across clients. There are some things that come up. I would say, depending on the experience level of the client with software product development, we may have a little to a lot of teaching to do. And that's one of the things we like to do is teach. I find it particularly fun when our start-up clients are newer, they're not on their series B or something. Because there is a lot of moments that you can help them and give them kind of golden information. Both from our personal experience running start-ups, but also we work with a lot of start-ups. So we've been through this before. There are some misconceptions about software. Not necessarily from our clients, but from people who weren't a good fit for us. For example, it's very common in the world at large, to believe software is orders of magnitude cheaper than it really is. People also get very used to the quality that they see in apps like Facebook or Gmail, or these kind of things. And they think they can spend less than a car to get those things. When you're in our industry of course, that doesn't seem super logical, but from their perspective it makes sense. An app costs nothing, or $1.99. JAMON: Right. TODD: Or $4.99, so of course something like that seems cheap. What they don't know, of course, is Facebook has tens of thousands of employees. JAMON: Yeah. TODD: And even a smaller app, let's not chose Facebook, which is huge. But like Instagram, for example. And not what it is now, but what it originally was, probably cost half a million to make. JAMON: Yeah, I think I saw that they put $250,000 into their MVP originally. And it's a very simple app when you look at it, compared to a lot of apps out there. I think that's definitely something that, as Todd said, it's not necessarily the clients who end up being good fits for us. But usually we get calls from everybody, all kinds of people. KEN: Well, even those prices are reflective of just how far software has come in terms of developer productivity. JAMON: Right. KEN: Because half a million dollars doesn't even get you a house in the Bay area. And the people building your house, most of them are being paid 20, 30, 40 dollars an hour and not $200 an hour, or $100 an hour. The Bay area is full of software engineers being paid $150,000 a year and up, many that are way higher than that. And you can still build software for half a million dollars, which is actually is pretty impressive when you think about that in terms of it's inputs. JAMON: Another interesting thing that the clients don't necessarily realize when they come to us is the impact that the design process can have on their product. Usually you're thinking of design as making it look pretty, making it look nice. But there's a whole lot more that goes into that. The visual design aspect of design is usually, maybe, the last 30%, something like that. It's not the bulk of the design work. But there's a lot of value that can be added there. You can avoid expensive mistakes during design by spending the time upfront to really learn as much as you can about your core customers and the features that are necessary. Because software is expensive, so you wanna build as little of it as possible until you really know the direction that you need to go. TODD: Yeah, and I wanna be clear. You can make, for instance, a mobile app for $100,000 to $200,000. It's not a half a million. But something that's larger could be millions as well. Just wanna make that note on that price there. JAMON: I think another misconception that some clients might have when they come into it, is they don't understand necessarily all of the breadth of things that need to happen to make an app. We've had people come to us and want to build an app, but they don't necessarily realize that they also need a server and they need some sort of cloud connectivity. They might need offline support. They might need access to certain APIs for GPS or whatever. And beyond that, how to get through the app store. And how to get through Google Play. What is a compelling app store listing? What does that look like? You know, what screenshots are important? And one of the most successful apps that I've ever been involved with, which is called A Dark Room by my friend Amir Rajan, he actually only has one screenshot on the app store, and it's a very uninspiring one. But he has millions of downloads. It's just, he hit it right on the head. TODD: You know which store is incredibly hard to get through? IKEA. (laughter) Just saying. KEN: It's true. TODD: We've mentioned before in this podcast, but it's worth repeating, design is not how things look. Design is how things work. And through the very first part of our design process is product discovery. And that's even before how things work. That's what product is you want to make at all. Since we work with a lot of start-ups, we also sometimes coach them, if they need it on coming up with a customer acquisition plan and a revenue plan, which their investors, prospective investors that they pitch to, will definitely ask them about, having pitched to them myself. So design is very important and it's also one of the most difficult things that we mentioned in a previous podcast was getting from zero to one. Product discovery and design really help our clients get from zero to one. JAMON: And they're starting a business, you know, it's not just building an app. They're starting a business, or they're continuing a business that they already have. And there's a lot that goes into building a business for sure. I think that's one of the things that, maybe some friends of mine who might message me and say, "hey Jamon, I've got this app idea, it's a billion dollar idea." (laughter) "Promise not to go off and rip me off. I wanna tell you it." And it's fine, you know, the ideas are a very necessary part of this, they're a spark. They're really important. But the execution side of things involves designing and building the app, which we can do. We're really great at it, we've done it a lot of times. But also, the business side of things. There's no one right answer to how to build a business. You can see that with many different business models. And that's the tough part. Now, it can be very rewarding though, the whole journey and it's been really fun to watch our clients build business models that are sustainable and come back as they grow, as they succeed, they find new opportunities and they come back to us and say, "hey Infinite Red, we need some new features. We need a new app. We need to rebuild the app for maybe a different purpose." Those things are very fun to see. TODD: Ken, you had a great thing about ideas, when people have an idea for a business. You've talked about a lot and I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. KEN: Oh, and how they're not usually worth the paper that they're written on. (laughter) TODD: Yes. KEN: Where this came from was that, like back in the days of the dotcom boom, when everybody and their brother had some amazing idea. I would be at a social dinner with somebody and they would be like, they'd whip out an NDA and be like, I wanna talk to you about this idea I have and I need you to sign this NDA. And I'm like, "No. I'm not gonna sign your NDA." Ideas, per se, are not worth very much. Right? A high level idea, per se, is not worth very much. Like my idea's like, "hey, I have an amazing idea. What if you took a car, then you made it fly?" Right? And people will be like, "that's an amazing idea." Now, how are you actually gonna do that? And so it's kinda like, just because I have this amazing idea, "oh what if you made cars fly," doesn't mean that when somebody goes and actually makes cars fly that I have any right to that idea. JAMON: Mm-hmm (affirmative). KEN: Right? Because the high level idea by itself, although cool, doesn't actually get you there. It's the millions and millions of other good ideas that follow that, that really make something work. Jamon, do you wanna tell the dating with music, I could tell you wanna tell the dating with music story. JAMON: That's exactly what I was gonna interject. So Derek Sivers, who founded CD Baby, he has a YouTube video, it's very short. We can link to it in the show notes. Essentially it's talking about ideas versus execution. And the general premise is sort of this, that he met with a friend of a friend, and they were having lunch. And this guy had this billion dollar idea. And he says, okay, what's this great idea that you have? And the guy kind of leans over, very intense, and says, dating with music. (laughter) And Derek's like, is there anything else? (laughter) Is this ... He's like, no, dating with music dude. And it was ... he's like, okay, this idea is worth maybe the price of a lunch. Right? Like, the execution of it is the multiplier, you know, you can have a multiplier ... a great idea, not execute it at all, is really not worth much. A bad idea, executed really well is also not worth all that much. But a really good idea executed really well, is a multiplier that becomes your billion dollar idea. I don't think it necessarily tells the whole story, you know, that particular anecdote because there's also timing and other things like that. KEN: Well and that idea isn't even a multiplier idea. That's like a hint at a maybe multiplier idea. Right? JAMON: Yes. TODD: He was just being nice to the guy. KEN: He was being nice, right. So it's kind of like, when I say there's a chain of ideas, the first germ of the idea is the kind of idea that someone might get when high. Kind of like, "hey man, what if it was like dating, but with music. Yeah." (laughter) Right? That's exactly a high person's idea. I would almost bet money that that was a high idea. But anyway. The next thing is like, oh well you get people to put in their music that they like and we match people up. That's starting to be an actual idea. JAMON: Yeah. KEN: Right? That's starting to be like, what's the actual hook. And even that, there's still, like well how does it work? What's the UX? What's the viral engine around that? JAMON: Yeah. KEN: It's not just programming. Like, we're all programmers historically, so we're gonna tend to see all of the stuff that's gonna go behind that. JAMON: Mm-hmm (affirmative). KEN: Really, it's the product development of design that, or really, what's important. And a lot of the details that matter, are sometimes the ones that are not obviously to your competitors. TODD: Almost always. KEN: Almost always. So this idea that your super secret idea is gonna make everything work is, frankly, BS. JAMON: Yeah. KEN: You have to keep having those good ideas over and over and over again. Every techy who's been in Silicon Valley, or a similar environment, and around the sorts of people who have these sorts of ideas, every single one has a story of being approached by somebody who's saying, "hey I've got this great idea. I'm gonna get you in on the ground floor with it. But I just need somebody to make it." JAMON: Mm-hmm (affirmative). KEN: And we'll split it 50/50. Young techies fall for this. Very quickly you learn, uh, no. You'd better have a lot more than that for that to be a 50/50 bargain. TODD: I'm not even joking when I say that in San Francisco at least 50% of your Uber drivers will pitch an idea to you on your ride. JAMON: We got pitched in an Uber, us three. We were in an Uber not that long ago and we got pitched on an idea. And I think that it's kind of interesting because the apps that do tend to be more successful that we're involved with, they're often not big ideas. They're good ideas, they're not like huge ideas. They're existing companies that have a need that their customer base has kind of expressed, they can see it's fairly obvious. And they come to us and they say, hey we need really good execution. And that's what we're good at. They've identified the need. Have a lot of the infrastructure already in place. They already know how they're gonna monetize it. They already know how it's gonna impact their business. They just need a really great app. And that's where we really plug in. Now it has been kind of interesting to watch start-ups where they don't have that in place and how they develop that. And where they go with that. It's much more risky. A lot of them do fail. And one of the things that I've heard from some of those clients sometimes is, "Jamon, why aren't you so excited about my idea?" Now I'm not trying not to come across excited, I am excited about their idea. It's just that I've seen so many of these where there's certain other parts of the business that they lack. From my standpoint, if I was in the business of picking winners and losers, I'd probably be doing my own start-up, right? But, honestly, there's a lot of moving parts. There's a lot of variables. And not all of them are in your control. So I think it's been really cool to see the ones that do succeed. See how they piece it all together. I have a lot of respect for them, it's a difficult thing, but it's very rewarding. And then, of course, the companies that come in, like, we just started a project recently, this week actually I think. And they are an established company, they have a very big user base. A lot of people have heard of them, but they need a much better app. And they need a better app experience. And that's really where you see the clients that really shine. KEN: There may be a few people listening who are kind of mentally going like, "hmm, is that me?" What I would say is, if you think it's you, it might be. (laughter) If you wanna know, like I wanna do this thing. And I don't program and I'm not a designer, like, I don't know how to make these things and I don't really wanna be that person. If the idea isn't what's important, then what is important? What do I bring to the table that is gonna help me succeed and help a company like Infinite Red, or even just an individual programmer who I happen to find? What am I bringing to the table that will help beyond the big idea? And there's really two things. And they're big ones. And you need at least one. And preferably two. And one is, access to capital. Not just building this, not just paying us to build this. But all the marketing and everything else. Right? You're gonna need money. And you're not gonna want to be in a position where when you run out, it just dies. You need to have a plan for that. That's number one. Number two, is access to audience. If you have one of those, in good form, then you can usually get the other one. Having both is ideal. But those are the two things, those are the things that the makers that you're coming to work with, don't necessarily have. And so, if you wanna know what you can be busting your hump to be doing right now, it's getting those things. And then, if you have those and you come to somebody with your big idea and you want them to turn it into something real, you actually have something to offer. JAMON: One of the things that I think Ken and Todd bring to this conversation that I don't necessarily bring to the conversation is I haven't been on the other side. I've been a consultant for a very long time, so I see our side of it. But both Ken and Todd have worked for start-ups, probably who have used consultants. And seen the ones that have succeeded. Ken you worked at Yammer and there was an acquisition that Microsoft made there. And so it was a successful exit. And then of course there are some other start-ups that you and Todd have worked at that failed. That's something that I, maybe, don't necessarily bring that perspective to. But the consultant's side of it for sure, I see all kinds. I see all kinds of start-ups that rise and fall. TODD: I hope no one takes this as a reason not to try, for sure. I would recommend to focus on your customer acquisition strategy and your revenue strategy. You have to remember Zappos when it came out, and if you're not familiar with Zappos, it was a large company and eventually hired by Amazon, and they sell shoes. KEN: Acquired, not hired. TODD: Sorry, acquired, not hired. They sell shoes, which is probably the second oldest profession in the world. (laughter) So, obviously not a new idea. Hey, I have an idea, I'm gonna sell shoes. And you're like, horse shoes? Space shoes? No, shoes, like you put on your feet. But they had some innovation ideas inside there. Mainly extreme customer sport, and the big one was, buy five pair of shoes, send back four. Good ideas, but once again, there's a series of little ideas, like how do we allow them to buy five pairs of shoes and send back four and still make money? There's a hundred and fifty ideas in there, maybe a thousand ideas in there that matter. So it's hard to be an A-list actor, right? But if no one tried, we'd have none. So you can succeed. We get a lot of clients and sometimes their very obvious that they'll see just because they have a lot of experience or they just really understand. But we have people who don't know what they don't know. And don't know what they know yet, and that's fine too. Those people may succeed also. KEN: The number one problem that we see is under capitalization. Over capitalization can be a problem too, incidentally. If you raise too much money all at once then it can lead you to be too profligate. I've definitely seen that at start-ups. JAMON: It's way harder to say no. KEN: Yeah, that's a problem with venture capital backed companies that have just seen a bunch of interest all at once and then they have issues with that. But, under capitalization is definitely a much bigger problem because it means that every single decision you make, you're terrified. TODD: If your problem is over capitalization, please send an email to hello@infinite.red. KEN: We can help you with that problem. TODD: Today's episode is brought to you by, too much money. KEN: I'm actually being serious. (laughter) I mean, we're joking. But I'm also serious. Like, we actually know how to make your money go farther. JAMON: Yeah, and I agree with that. And we can also help with saying no. I think that that's actually one of the things that's probably surprising about working with us, is often we are pushing for not adding features. TODD: This is sounding like a commercial this time. KEN: Yeah, I'm sorry, but we're not the only ones. I'm just saying that experienced people will tell you no. And you need that if you've got a lot of money. JAMON: I think that's an important port, you look at some consultants and their not necessarily pulling in that direction, but we want people to succeed 'cause obviously that looks good on a portfolio. It's a benefit to us. One of the things we've always said, and we tell customers this, if we finish your project early, and don't spend all of your money, I'm sure you're gonna come up with more ideas. You know? It's not like we're gonna miss out. It's never been the case. If we finish a project early, the founders aren't just pocketing the rest of the money and going home. What they're gonna do is say, what about 1.1, let's get on the schedule. Let's move. There's always something else. 'Cause during the process of building an app you learn so much. And there's always more ideas. KEN: I've never seen a software project where at the end people were like, phew, I'm sure glad that everything that we could possibly think of was in that. (laughter) Like, that has never ever, ever, happened. TODD: You never know. There was that app where you just said "Yo" to people. Yo. JAMON: Yeah, didn't they raise a whole bunch of money to add more stuff? KEN: And what happened to that app? TODD: I don't wanna rant about VC. Some VC's ... not all. Some are great. Another thing, going back to your original question Chris, which we've been talking a lot about, is, common things that customers or clients may not understand. Another one is just the pure complexity of software. It's hard to understand because it's not in the real world. You can't hold it. In your house, if you ever owned a house and had work done on the house, you'll know that doing something in your living room is relatively cheap. Doing something in your bathroom is extremely expensive. Doing something in your kitchen is extremely expensive. The reason why a tiny room like the bathroom is so much more expensive than a huge room, say like, your living room. Is because the bathroom has tons of different contraptions in it. Lots of different moving parts. Lots of different things can go wrong, from your sinks to your plumbing, fans, lighting, that kind of stuff. So the number of pieces matters a lot to cost. Because software is virtual and because we can fairly easily throw on pieces. Software tends to be an order of magnitude, or more, complex than any other physical machine. A bathroom, even a car engine, is less complex than software is. KEN: It's compensated for somewhat by the fact that our tools are also more powerful. TODD: Yes. KEN: I mean, there's countervailing things there, but your point about the complexity is right. If you run out of lot when you're building a house, then your contractor says, hey we can't build there, your lot ends there. There's no such constraints for software and that makes it easy for things to get kind of hairy. TODD: If you completely disregard our part in the complexity, meaning we have to build all the moving pieces and test them and make sure that they coordinate together. Even disregarding that, sometimes people are shocked at how much they have to think about, and they're not building it all. If you just said, I wanna login screen, for example. Every app has that. That's simple. Right? The number of questions that you could be asked by someone like us, to someone who's less experienced will be shocking. And they won't have the answers to it. And each one could be thought of. Now of course we always give people common things that they should do, or whatever. But if you were to really think through the whole thing, just that one screen is way more complex than anyone imagines. JAMON: Recognizing our experience, the fact that we've done hundreds of apps and encountered so many different scenarios, I think is important for working with a company like ours. I think back, in prior years, there have been some projects that haven't gone as well. And one of the common traits of those projects is that the person I'm working with, they feel like they kind of know it all, because they do have a pretty big picture of it, and they want to put their vision down into software. It often comes with blind spots of, what are you missing here? So having a high degree of trust and communication between the two parties is one of the hallmarks of a successful project. We certainly respect what the founders bring because they have the vision, a lot of the times they have a much closer relationship with their potential users than we do. KEN: Absolutely. JAMON: We're not trying to impose our view of what that might be. But we can often bring things, like Todd was saying about the login screen. Like, you didn't think of this aspect like what happens if you forget your password, or if you don't have access to your email or something. TODD: Or you're on a plane, or Facebook changed the rules and half the users can't login. That kind of stuff. JAMON: Exactly. TODD: Another thing too, is we sometimes experience this when we get designs outside of our company. Now, a lot of designers are great, but they're never have been trained in, or have experience in software design. Our designers are classically trained designers. They can do all the normal things people think of designs, but they chose to specialize in software and website design. So, sometimes when we get an outside design, we never used to do this, but we kind of now require it. The bare minimum is we'll do a half week of design review. And we did one recently. And from a cursory look at their design, it looked like they had everything. Looked good, seemed to make sense. The design looked fine. But after a half week of a couple of our designers reviewing it, they went through in great detail and produced a map of the whole app and how everything interacts with each other. And the flows and the different actors, different type of users. That kind of stuff. JAMON: There were dozens of screens, right Todd? Like dozens. TODD: There were a lot of screens, and probably half of them weren't in the original design at all. JAMON: It was striking 'cause you could see the outline of the screen, it was empty and there's a title of whatever that screen was supposed to be. TODD: So that's an example of, even at the design part, where you have to factor in all these different scenarios that you may not have thought about. And how the user would experience it if those scenarios happen. And also make a business decision whether or not you're gonna address some of those scenarios. Sometimes you don't because it's a very small minority of your users, edge case as we call it. And it's just not worth ... the ROI and something like that would be poor. So that's something too, where it's just half the app is really missing. JAMON: And that's where, I think having that high degree of trust is really important because then our spidery senses are saying, hey, there's something missing here. Let's spend the time up front, I know you wanna get started right now, but let's spend the time up front to map this out and see if everything is here. CHRIS: I'm actually curious when someone comes to you with an idea, how do you know when to start challenging the idea? And when to write the idea off? KEN: I wouldn't say that there's very many ideas that we would write off. Because lord knows if we knew which ideas were going to succeed in this business, we would be billionaires already. And frankly, the people who are billionaires don't even necessarily know. There is a healthy degree of luck in terms of like, who ends up on which gravy train. But, that said, there's always gonna be a variety of factors that go into whether something is successful. Some of them are universal. And some of them are highly specific. And it's a little bit of a judgment call on which is which, however. We think that things like software quality and good UX, these sorts of things, are basically universal. Like that humans are humans. In those regards, we are going to push for what we think is right. When it comes to the intimate understanding of the customer, the end customer, right, the people that these start-ups are trying to attract. That's where we defer to them. We're always looking for clients who clearly have that intimate understanding of their customer. And this sort of leads into another point, which is that, someone on their team, whether it's the founder, if they're the only ones. Or someone on their team, had better really have that intimate knowledge. And they're gonna have a full time job working with us. Basically. JAMON: Yeah. KEN: Right? And that's also something that I think people have not understood. It's kinda like, hey, here you go make the software and I will dip in periodically. JAMON: Yeah. KEN: Uh-uh (negative). No. Yeah, you gotta be really committed because you're the one who really understands that like, so we're gonna be working with you to go after this. And we need you, obviously. JAMON: Yeah. KEN: Not just to write the checks, but also to tell us who this person is and what they're really gonna need. And sometimes our idea of a universal solution won't work for something specific. But that tension is really important. We're always fighting for those sort of universal values, but we're also listening to hear what specific values are and the ways that they might override universal value. TODD: Yeah, and there's not one right answer and one right design to solve any particular problem. I would pile on with Ken, the people coming to us, the founders or the department heads or whomever they are, coming to us. They really wanna understand the end user and be able to articulate that to us. And over time we learn them too. And some industries have very strong cultures that you have to be within, and if you don't speak that cultural language it instantly turns off those people. It's not just culture, but for example, we did a project for a company called PRO-TREAD, which does training for truckers. I don't know if they're the largest, but if they're not, they're probably closest to the largest in the country. And this traditionally was done if you had a trucking company, you would set up computers in the corner and then when that driver was by their home base, they would sit at that boring computer and do the forced training that they're required to do by law. Not fun. No one wants to do it. The people at the company don't wanna pay for it. Truck drivers don't wanna do it. Of course it does increase safety and stuff, so it's important to do, but it's just human nature not wanna do something that's, you know. JAMON: And I believe, Todd, that PRO-TREAD was one of the first to even computerize it. Before that is was paper tests and in classrooms. So they were kind of moving that direction already. Now this was another iteration of their platform. TODD: Correct. And this is a great example of an idea because it's simple, everyone understands it and it's obvious. Truck drivers spend a lot of time in the sleeper cabs of their trucks. At truck stops and whatnot on the side of the road and stuff. So, obviously making the training mobile was important because the training materials being on a tablet or an iPad was important. Making it not so painful for the person, so that it's not ... If you're the manager telling the drivers that they have to take this testing, getting 50% less push back because it's not as painful is a big deal to you. And also, they do need to not just get through the training material, they do need to understand it and internalize it. It actually does help, even though no one wants to do it. So the basic requirements was, it has to be mobile, it has to work inside of a sleeper cab on the side of I-80. And it still needs to maintain their already high level of guaranteeing that people actually pick up the information, and they had a variety of ways to make sure that happened. And also, be more engaging and not as painful. That was the directive to our designers. JAMON: I believe that when they first came to us they sort of envisioned the app looking basically like their web version and no real changes other than that. And we talked to them, this was a situation where we had a great rapport with the owner of PRO-TREAD and we're able to talk with him and explain where design could really add a lot of value to a touch interface. TODD: Yeah, so we actually did re-design it, not just to make it more mobile appropriate, let's say. But to really push those goals they had. Now, designers and us and them now understood the goals. I just stated them. Fairly straight forward, the goals. However, we can take those goals and we can design to those goals for sure, but we probably don't know truck drivers as well as our client PRO-TREAD does. So them having been in this industry for a very long time, really understood the nuances that would make meeting these goals through design possible. Having them really understand their users, having us really understand how to solve problems. Us having the problems be both simple, straightforward and well defined, that was a successful project and although maybe not as exciting as Uber for gerbils. Because gerbils have to get around too, and no one likes to walk. JAMON: Well gerbils do, actually, don't they? TODD: They kind of do, yeah. And they like tubes. So maybe be like Elon Musk's ... JAMON: Hyper loop. TODD: The hyper loop for gerbils. JAMON: For gerbils. TODD: Yeah, so that's a very exciting, so if we had a client came and said we want a hyper loop for gerbils and we respond, "of course. Who doesn't?" But it's just funny, but teaching truck drivers important lessons is more fulfilling when you know, when it rolls out, there's gonna be tons of men and women out there on the road having a slightly less painful day because of something worked on. And probably saving some lives. It's not as sexy, but it is very satisfying in my opinion. JAMON: Yeah, I totally agree. I actually have five uncles who are truck drivers. Very strong truck driving kind of familial influence. And maybe one or two of them might actually listen to my podcast here. So, hi uncles. (laughter) But what I think is kind of cool about this is I do know truck drivers. I didn't get a chance to work on that project myself, but there's totally a personal connection there. I understand what they go through and the types of things that they care about. TODD: I only have one brother and he owns a shipping company and he has lots of truck drivers, so I'm going to trump your four uncles. (laughter) JAMON: Let's have them fight. They're all six foot four. TODD: Although in the past he did drive, so, but anyways. Yeah. Ken, how about you buddy? JAMON: Any truck drivers there at Harvard? TODD: Aww, pick on the Harvard kid. KEN: No, I don't know any truck drivers. (laughter) You got me. TODD: Today, brought to you buy Captain Obvious. You can cut that, that was a bad joke.

This is a podcast about both having Autism, and living with somebody who has Autism. This series brings perspectives of living on & with the Spectrum from Sonya King, her son Josh, and various guests. Visit the website at  http://www.sonyaking.com/ Read the Blog: Opinionated | http://www.sonyaking.com/

There are some topics about which it seems no amount of data will change people's minds: things like climate change, or restrictions on gun ownership. Neuroscientist Tali Sharot says that's actually for good reason. As a general rule, she says, it's better to stick to your beliefs and disregard new information that contradicts them. But this also means it's very difficult to change false beliefs. In this favorite episode from earlier this year, we look at how we process information, and why it's so hard to change our views.

What's going on everyone. This is Steve Larsen and you're listening to Secret MLM Hacks Radio. So here's the real mystery. How do real MLMers like us, who didn't cheat and only bug family members and friends, who want to grow a profitable home business ... How do we recruit A players into our down lines that create extra incomes, yet still have plenty of time for the rest of our lives? That's the blaring question and this podcast will give you the answer. My name is Steve Larsen and welcome to Secret MLM Hacks Radio. What's up everyone. Hey, I'm super excited for this episode. I got something really cool to share with you. This is Secret MLM Hacks Radio. So, today I want to share with you a hack. This is something that I have been doing that is ... honestly, it's all around us and I just don't think many MLMers think about it. So I want to share with you something really cool. First off though, I ... You guys gotta know I barely graduated high school. That's not a joke. I got straight D's in all of math, all of science, all especially of Spanish, all of ... I mean, I really, and a lot of times it was like I got a 60.1 percent. I'm pretty sure that some of the teachers a lot of times just felt bad for me so they would just not, I don't know, they would just let me go on. You know what I mean? I showed up. I was there. I was consistent. I just never did homework or if I did it was just always wrong. There was something in my head that just did not click on for a long time. I had not learned how to learn. You know what I mean? So when I get to the end of my senior year and it's time to go to college, I had been applying and these colleges are like yes, no, no, yes, no, no. It's more like one said yes and all the others said no. But it's pretty fascinating to watch the application process of these colleges or any kind of institute. Let's say you're applying for health insurance or life insurance. Or your applying for to get into some program. You know what I mean? It's fascinating because I would sit there and I would write out these applications. And I didn't really want to go to college at that time. I'm grateful that I did. I'm grateful that eventually I learned how to learn. I ended up getting straight A's, which is awesome. I got one of the entrepreneurship awards from Hale graduating class which is awesome in college which is super exciting. So that was fun stuff, but I had to learn how to learn, which is it's own skill. I just kind of have never stopped since then. Anyway, about the application stuff though. It's fascinating to watch the process that they go through. Often times, there is an application fee. So you go and you're filling out this application and you're showing them what you've written to everybody, and everyone's critiquing your essay that you have to apply with it and everyone's critiquing this and that and they're ... you know what I mean? There's so much stuff that goes into a single application. Right? And you sit back and you're like, "Dang. My Gosh. I just spent like a week just putting together this application." And they wanted a fee, and they wanted this, and they're not gonna get back to me for a solid while. And I don't even know if I got in. And there's no implication yet if I actually got in at all. And I'm like, "Dang. That's pretty crazy." You know, when you think about that. And so you sat back and you think about it. And you think about it. And you think about it, kind of think of it cynically almost like man your convincing somebody why they should take your money. That's basically it. I'm glad that I went to college. I will tell you that even though I got a marketing degree, none of what I learned do I actually do. There ... what I learned at college pretty much was to prepare me to become like an analyst at a corporate marketing firm. You know what I mean? And I don't do any of that kind of stuff, which hopefully helps some people who think that they need a marketing degree to do what I do. It certainly gave me an environment to learn, however, I mostly am self taught. So, anyway ... But back to the application. You think about that. You are convincing the other person why they should be allowed to take your money. You're like, "What?! That's crazy!" It's a commitment. You're gonna be there what? Like only 60 percent of people even finish college. So these guys are banking some serious money they don't even have to dish out the final thing to you after a while. You know what I mean? And I'm not bagging on the education system. I'm just using it as an example. Think about that though. Let's think about how we could model that whole process inside of an MLM 'cause that's what I've been doing. That's what I've been putting together more formally. I've had one kind of informally for while but as far as formally though, I've been building out what we call an "application funnel", an application styled sales funnel. Where somebody has to prove to me why they should be admitted into my program. And typically what we'll do is we'll use these funnels for like high end coaching programs where someone's charging 10 grand or 25 grand, or whatever, 50 grand. And the person is trying to convince the coach why they should be allowed into the program. Right? You're like, "Whoa! Wait a second. That is literally spinning on it's head the whole sales model. You mean I don't have to know any hardcore sales tactics?" Nope. "You mean, I don't have to know tricky little one sentence things to say or little tiny body language things to get them to go crazy and join," It always drives me nuts when other people post that kind of stuff in the MLM word. Five techniques, five things you should say to get them begging to join or something like that. It was like, come on, that doesn't really, you know ... How 'bout we actually give real value? You know what I mean? So, that's what I've been doing is ...there's page number one, web page number one. It goes through and says, "Look. I'm only looking for the best of the best elite marketers. If you think that you can, if you want this group, if you want to be part of my down line which is this group of elitists. We're very open, very loving, very ... it's not that we're judging anybody or anything like that. But there is an application to join my down line. You know what I mean?" And so I have a spot where people can do that. And they go through and it says "Number one. Hey, let me know. If anything you can just fill out the application and then let's get on the phone and see if you're an actually good fit. And be aware, we do actually turn people away." And so they put their name and their email and phone number in. And on the very next page it says, "Hey. Why do you think you should be considered?" Another question is like, "Hey. Steve Larsen's crazy busy. What do you think you can offer? We believe in give and take, we'd love to be able to give you all the stuff. But we also need to know what you could bring to the team. What is it you bring?" Obviously the questions are worded much better than this. I'm just ad libbing the ones that I'm remembering. But you know what I mean? It says, "Hey. Obviously there's a financial commitment to join the MLM. It does not go to Steven Larsen. It goes to the MLM to actually set up your actual entity with them and get your position. Are you okay with that?" You know what I mean? It's stuff like that. But there's an application that's eight or nine questions that you go through that helps me see where you are before you join. Isn't that interesting? And it's a totally different set of approach, a completely different kind of approach than what my MLM the first time ever, ever showed, ever. At first, it's like this hard core. It's not that the other tactics of getting on the phone and asking people to join don't work, it's that it takes for freaking ever, there's usually a lot more heartache. I lose more friends doing that. I don't lose any this way. And I attract a kind of person, when they apply, that's awesome. You know? The kind of people who are solving problems in my team that I didn't know that they were there. You know what I mean? When you go out and you find a team like that. Then I turn around and I give that whole system that actual application style system to my down line. So think about that. I'm not pitching you on joining. I want you to know what I do. I want to flip it on it's head. So page number one. Right? Hey, this is only for the elite of the elite. But if you think that you're a marketer that wants to join us just know there's applications out for 'em. Go to step two here and they put in their email address. Step two, the next page, is a video and there's an extra application form next to it. And then the third page, after they actually submit the application, it is a form that says, "Look. Obviously positioning does matter inside of MLM to an extent. You know what I mean? I know a lot of people join what I do and it's great it's fun. I really, really, I like it. So first come first serve is a huge deal." This is pretty much what the page says. And it says, "So, if you're really interested and want to skip the line because we just call people down the line as we get applications. We get several a day. So if you want to skip the line. Go head. Heres the phone number, just call us." And I'll tell you that the people that who call you, there worth like eight times more than the kind of person that you need to call out for. It puts the sales power back in your hands. Not that you're trying to be domineering again or anything like that. But that's the application style funnel that I put inside there. And there's email automation and there's full sequences in the back. And there's all the super sexy stuff, which is amazing, that happens on behind the scenes as well, which is really, really cool. It's just, you gotta understand that you're nothing new at first out of the gate compared to everybody else. But man if you're telling 'em that you can't join unless you apply and when you do apply, you get X,Y, and Z. And I actually created an offer out of applying. Holy Crap, that's sexy. So start thinking how you can use that inside your MLM. Start thinking about how you can, what can you do to make ... I think it was last episode, I talked about scarcity and the different mental triggers that are out there. I think that was last episode. But anyway, start thinking about what ... start thinking about what you can do to inject ... That's one of the ways that I inject scarcity, and community, and authority right into my down line. So start thinking about that. It's like, you know ... What kind of person do I actually want to join my down line? Where do I want them to be in their life? What problem sets do I want them to be addressing in their life at that time? If their problem set is that they can't rub two pennies together, they're not probably ready for what I've got. It's not that they can't be successful, but the road is longer. I'm not really looking for that kind of person. I'm looking for the kind of person who is out there, who wants to be successful with this marketing, who is interested in putting together marketing systems that amplify their MLM. Right? Who actually ... you know what I'm saying? And when you do it that way and you approach it that way and you start getting really, really clear on who it is that you want, you'll start attracting those people. And one of the ways that I do it is by making people apply. I want the kind of people who are fighting to join me. Does that make sense? And if somebody I can tell is fighting, but maybe they don't have a lot of experience, that's okay. Then I'll let 'em join. If someones like, "Hey. I don't have this experience. I don't have this or this or you know, I really am broke or whatever, but I've got passion out the wazoo." That's the kind of person I want. And I want to be able to vet that person out of the rest of the crowd. Does that make sense? One of the other things that I've been doing ... So, that's what I do. Then we get 'em closed up and we get 'em the marketing systems that they need. Then get 'em started in the success paths that I have. I've got little blueprints and stuff like that. And that's how I on board people. It's totally different than what my MLM provides, totally different than what any MLM provides. So, that's how I do it though. What MLM makes you apply to join? They're not that way at all. They're all like, they're so open that they end up being exclusive, excluding, sorry, they exclude people. Right? And so instead, what I do is I actually intentionally do that and I make people apply. One of the things that I been doing is ... I'm trying to figure out right now. 'Cause I'm building out the more official version of this application styled sales funnel. But what I've been doing is when someone actually joins, I'm gonna take that data, which is gonna be so cool, and I'll put it on a google sheet. That way people can see live ... just the first name. I'm not gonna give out any personal details obviously. But I'm thinking what I'll do is I'll embed in like a little window on the page, a google sheet. And you'll be able to see the people who have been applying and those who have been accepted and brought in. And obviously, again, there's gonna be no personal data or anything like that shown in there. But how cool to be social proof. Right? That's why I'm doing it. So that you can see how close you are to the top. So you can see how fast it's growing. So you can see how fast ... Does that make sense? And it causes this ridiculous frenzy like, "Oh my Gosh! That's so freaking cool!" You know what I mean? I'm not gonna tell you the MLM ... sorry, I'm not gonna tell you the URL to it yet. Just in case you guys want to go check it out, again, I am not pitching. If you love your MLM, my gosh, stay in it. Okay? I'm not hear to take sides, that's not at all what I do. I'm here to just share with you what we do inside other industries to make prices increases, to make anticipation go through the roof, to make people beg to join you. Does that make sense? That's why we do what we do and that's why I'm doing it right now. And that's why I'm sharing with you what I do 'cause it's super, it's crazy powerful. So, those are all tools and systems that I use as almost like a rewards system like, "Hey. When you join, have comfort in knowing that this system is also yours. You know what I mean? You don't have to go reinvent the wheel." You know what I mean? So that's how I create myself as a new ... that's one of the tons of ways that I create myself as kind of a new opportunity to MLMers. Otherwise, you're kind of the same as everybody else. You see what I'm saying? So, when they're applying, I'll go on through say like, "Hey. By the way, you're gonna get this. You're gonna get this. You're gonna get this. You're gonna get this, if you get accepted. And we truly do turn people away. So, go ahead and apply and then let's jump on the phone, or jump on the phone with one of my team leaders or whatever. And we'll answer any questions that you might have. And see if it's a good fit. If not, that okay and we'll give you like a little thank you also and stuff like that." Obviously be cordial about it. We're not saying like, "Get lost" or whatever. So that's what we do. That's what I do. That's what I've been building is the more official version of that. And trying to see if I can get this cool google sheet to get embedded so real time you can see the applications coming in. How cool is that? Oh my gosh. So, anyway that's what I've been doing guys and that's why I do it. I just kind of spin it on it's head and turn it into a marketing activity rather than a begging activity. That's what I felt like the first time I was calling people or I'd go ... I went down Main Street asking people to join. Whatever it was, it was such a ... if you had a heart beat, I was asking. I wasn't clear on who I wanted. And because I wasn't clear on who I wanted, it meant I was targeting nobody. You know what I mean? So I had to get real clear. Anyway, I feel like I'm just saying the same thing over and over again now. That's what I've been doing. Shortly here, when it's done, when a few of the things that I'm waiting for happen. Then, I'll tell you guys what that URL is just so you can see what it is. Again, I'm not .. Oh gosh, please just know that I am not here to pressure you at all. I just want to show you what it is that I'm doing, so that you can see it and you can model it on your own. Whatever that is. All right guys. Have fun the rest of this day. Go crush it. Go kill it. Remember if you do what is easy, you're life will be hard. It's a good quote. I got a big quote filled wall, so sometimes I just look up and say one of them. So that's one I just looked at. Okay. If you do what is easy, your life will be hard. Whoo! Hey, thanks for listening. Please remember to subscribe and leave feed back. Would you like me to teach your own down line five simple MLM recruiting tips for free? If so, go download your free MLM masters pack by subscribing to this podcast at SecretMLMHacksRadio.com

Bryan Schott and Mike Winder make you the smartest person in the room when you discuss politics. We talk about the dumb reactions from the left and the right to the devastation happening in Houston in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. This is a perfect example of why we can't have a constructive conversation about politics in this country. Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski has bungled the response to the homelessness crisis in downtown, prompting the state to step in and fix it for her. Will she pay a political price? We speak with Bob Marquardt of "Our Schools Now" about their effort to convince voters to raise their own taxes to better fund education in Utah. Plus, we play the simultaneous game.

We cover topics dealing with Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals, Game 1 of the NBA Finals and also how Lebron James's LA home was vandalized by some racist prick(S) plus much more from the entertainment world, like Nas & Lauryn Hill doing a tour together starting in September! Follow us on IG & Twitter @BTSE_365 also you can order official BTSE Merchandise from www.btse365.bigcartel.com

There are some topics about which it seems no amount of data will change people's minds: things like climate change, or restrictions on gun ownership. Neuroscientist Tali Sharot says that's actually for good reason. As a general rule, she says, it's better to stick to your beliefs and disregard new information that contradicts them. But this also means it's very difficult to change false beliefs. This week, we look at how we process information, and why it's so hard to change our views.

The Rude Dudes are on their tummies for another delightful bonus episode ... but are those tummies ... filled with ... pizza-pizza? No-no-no. Too early for pizza! Instead they gorged on heaping helpings of 'You Again?', a 1986 sitcom in which John Stamos and Jack Klugman bounce off each other in true Odd Couple style, and 'Topsy-Turvy House', the honest to God Russian adaptation of 'Full House' in which a creepy as fuck ginger monster dotes on frightfully skinny children. Neither is ESPECIALLY compelling, but hey, you're not here for the content. You're here for those goofy, doofy, oh-so poofy Rude Dudes! Right? You're here for them? Please love us. Them. Us. THEM. XOXO

We have an idea for a movie. Drummer, a lady gamer, and a black guy all go to a dance contest. It's called, today's episode of the Heart Piece Podcast. Right? You're welcome. MasterJoe and MasterIce chat it up to talk about the revised theory of separation. Fun fact: It's not six degrees anymore. You're a lot closer to everyone else in the world than you think. Well, in theory at least.MasterJoe ran into the original Mario Bros. world record holder, Steven Kleisath, and got a visit from his old buddy Krysti Pride, who had some interesting news! Grab your Notepads and your TextEdits. It's time to talk about #hplinks! And please, peeps, don't let elderly people use seesaws.BONUS: Senior Seesaw, Circle of Gaming Life, Mario Bros.RUNTIME: 40 min

In part five of this series, Pastor Paul teaches on being approved in Christ. 

SPORTS! DOUBLE! FEATURE! Men playing with their balls and stuff! Don't you just love it?!? We sure do! So much so that we chose this week as the one in which Krissy would finally watch one of the most famous sports movies of all time: Varsity Blues! No wait...Bull Durham? What about BOTH OF THEM!?!? Right? You're feeling a little tingly in the nether regions just thinking of all this sports-related conversation, aren't you? We have to admit that this podcast is seriously cray cray. It includes an amazingly convoluted discussion of Kevin Costner monologues, "Space Beer Mountain," strip club car washes and brew-thrus, "Sex Gepettos," whipped cream bikinis, terrible Southern accents, sex and sports performance, The Dawson and much MUCH more. This episode is also rated R for our 2nd explicit ITunes certification in a row! We're sorry, our unborn child and people who loathe cursing.

Bill Scher and Traci Olsen square off over the campaign to force out Anthony Weiner. Also, how either former Gov. Jon Huntsman or Rep. Michelle Bachmann could actually get the Republican nomination.

Ben Affleck was the bomb in Phantoms yo! Oh sad little blind man. Lost chit chat. Dorff and The Lesser Baldwin. Random topics in between. A whole bunch of viewer mail. Is that chocolate or poop? Poop.