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Buckland Wood is no ordinary wood. This is magical temperate rainforest, a rare habitat not just in the UK but in the world. Cloaked in lush lichens and mosses, dotted with stone walls and bridges and with a beautiful river rambling through, it already looks and feels like a special place. But the Trust has big plans for its future. Join us to explore with rainforest guru Sam, who tells us about the bid to restore this globally important site and its huge potential to connect people with nature, store carbon and boost biodiversity. Hear why temperate rainforests are so special, along with pine marten reintroductions, backpacks on beetles and much more! Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk Transcript You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive.  Adam: For today's woodland walk, we are heading into the rainforest, but I am not going very far. Well, I'm going quite far, but not to the Amazon, or South America. I'm going to to the temperate rainforest, which isn't as well known, but is actually even rarer than the tropical rainforest. It's also known as Atlantic or Celtic rainforest. And as I said, exceptionally rare. You do find it on the West Coast of Scotland, North and West Wales, Devon, Cornwall, Cumbria, parts of Northern Ireland, which sounds like a long list, but it really isn't. And what's wonderful actually is that Britain is really the place in the world to find these things. We have a very high proportion of the global area of temperate rainforest. I'm heading to Devon to see some temperate rainforests. Anyway, enough from me. Let's go talk to an expert about Devon's temperate and exciting rainforest.  Sam: So I'm Sam Manning. I'm the project officer for the Woodland Trust Rainforest Recovery Project. We are here in Buckland Wood, which is a new Woodland Trust acquisition on Dartmoor in the Dart Valley.  Adam: Fantastic. And it's it's super new because the place we came down didn't seem to have a sign on it or anything. So when did the Trust acquire this?  Sam: So we've literally just acquired this this month and it's an extension really of two other sites that we own in the Dart Valley, Ausewell Wood, which we bought about five years ago and Grey Park Wood, which we've owned for a couple of decades.  Adam: Right. And and what are we gonna do? Where are you taking me today?  Sam: So we're going to have a walk around the wood and I'm going to show you some of the aspects of the restoration work that we have planned here, we're going to go down to the Dart River, which is a really special river. It's 26 miles long. Very, very ecologically biodiverse, very important for, in terms of temperate rainforest, and look at how we can restore that through various different natural flood management methods.  Adam: Right. Lead on, Sir. So you already mentioned the keyword temperate rainforest. Is that what this is?  Sam: Yeah. So this is sort of prime what we call hyper-oceanic temperate rainforest.  Adam: You just have to say that slowly. Hypo what?  Sam: Hyper-oceanic.   Adam: Hyper-oceanic, OK.  Sam: Yes. So there's there's two different kinds of temperate rainforest broadly. There's southern oceanic, which is any rainforest woodland that receives over 1.5 metres of rainfall a year.  Adam: Right.  Sam: Or hyper-oceanic and that is 1.8 metres of rainfall and above, so slightly techy and scientific. But what it means is is that you get two distinctly different communities of lichens or lower plants, which is what makes these woodlands particularly special.  Adam: Sorry, I've already forgotten. Are we in the rain type of temperate rainforest that gets more rain or less rain?  Sam: More rain.  Adam: More rain.   Sam: Yeah it rains a lot here.   Adam: So that's the the non-oceanic one gets more rain.  Sam: The hyper-oceanic gets a lot of rain, yeah.  Adam: Hyper-oceanic. OK, so you can see I'm a poor student. OK. So, but luckily extraordinary, I mean, it's a bit there's a chill, but it's it has been lovely weather and it's definitely dry today.  Sam: Hmm yeah, this is this is quite strange for Dartmoor really, I think this is sort of the driest March in 60 years or something. So we are we are beginning to experience much, much drier springs and summers, but one of the functions of these rainforests is they are very, very good at producing their own rain and and in 2020, during the COVID lockdown, there was a real blue sky dry sort of drought level day in that March-April period. And I remember walking through this valley in the middle of the day and there was a thunderstorm and that was occurring nowhere else even in Devon or the wider country. And that's because they're effectively these sponges that accumulate a lot of rain in winter, store them, and then produce them more in summer.  Adam: Wow. And and I mean also we we think of rainforests as basically Brazil I suppose. But but we have temperate rainforests in the UK and my understanding is, I mean, they're extraordinarily rare on a, not just the UK, a global level. Just give us a sense of how special and unusual these environments are.  Sam: Yeah, that's right. So they're they're found only on 1% of the earth's land surface. So they are rarer by area than tropical rainforest.  Adam: Right. Do you happen to know? Sorry, are we going down there?   Sam: Down there yeah.   Adam: OK, so 1% temperate rainforests. Do you know what tropical rainforests are to give us a sense of proportion?  Sam: I actually don't know that, but I suspect it's probably around somewhere between 10-15%.  Adam: OK, well, I'm not gonna hold you to that *both laugh* but but that gives us a sort of sense of just how rare these are and tropical rainforests are fairly rare anyway, but OK. So these are very, very unusual environments. And what are you trying to do here then?  Sam: Well, a lot of these temperate rainforests are ancient woodlands, but they are plantations on ancient woodlands, so they are woodlands that have existed in perpetuity for as long as records go back. But a lot of them, as you can see here, have been coniferised, so they would have been cleared of their native tree species like oak, to be replaced by non-native timber crops from places like the Pacific Northwest, which which that's also ironically a temperate rainforest landscape, but those species are not co-adapted to the species we have here. So you you get these plantations that are very, very unbiodiverse, very dark, very shading and really don't work in tandem with a lot of the light-demanding rainforest species that we have, like rowans, hawthorns, oaks, that kind of thing. Of those sites I've talked about, almost half of it is conifer.  Adam: So your your first job, ironically, is to take trees out?  Sam: Well there'll be a sort of two-pronged approach really of using natural processes to diversify the forest, make it more structured, diverse. But we will need to intervene at certain times, particularly if we have really, really rare species. So in Ausewell for example, there's a species of lichen called bacidia subturgidula, so it's got a mad Latin name,   Adam: Wow, OK I'm definitely not saying that *laughs*  Sam: *laughs* But that species, for example, we have a quarter of the entire world's population of that species of lichen in Ausewell.  Adam: Right in Ausewell, which is quite a small place.  Sam: Yeah, exactly. That's about 100 hectares, so...  Adam: And that's a quarter of the global population of this lichen is in that...  Sam: Of that species, yeah. So when it comes to that, it's really about almost surgically intervening.  Adam: That's interesting. Let's let's carry on, you you better lead on, I've no idea where I'm going. So but that's interesting because I I can see planting trees, I've never heard of people actually planting like them, I didn't think that was even possible.  Sam: Yeah. So we call it translocation and and that's really only a last a last sort of nuclear option really when it comes to lichen conservation, if we have a tree where they have a really, really rare form of, a rare population of a species, then moving that to another tree may be the difference between that going extinct or not. But here now we've had this happen, what we're going to be doing is seeding it with those rainforest tree species to start to get that regeneration and there's loads over here.  Adam: What I'm still not clear about is why is the rainforest so special? It might be, oh it gets a lot of rain, who cares? A place gets a lot of rain, so does Wales, so does a lot of bits of London. It's clearly something special, it's not the trees, so what, why is having a temperate rainforest actually a good thing, what makes it special?  Sam: Well, there's there's there's a few different things. One of them is, and this is the real key one we focus on, is the biodiversity value. So the real bad, Britain in general is quite a wildlife poor place. We have quite a low species diversity, but these rainforests are absolute wells of biodiversity globally. The key ones are these epiphytes, so we're talking about lichens, bryophytes, so those are the mosses, liverworts and hornworts. Britain has over 2,000 species of lichen, it's one of the most biodiverse places on Earth in terms of lichen species, so we're really punching above our weight in terms of biodiversity in that sense, and they're only really found in these temperate rainforest habitats.  Adam: And lichen, I love lichen, and it's a real sign of air purity and everything, they're beautiful. How much do they support, like wildlife? I'm not aware of animals feeding off lichen very much, I don't think it has much nutrients in it?  Sam: Not too much at a macro level, but if you were to delve into that microscopic world, they are absolute keystone species in terms of forming the bedrock for so many invertebrates for so much sort of microbes. But they're also functionally, and this is something I'm I'm really passionate about, is looking at these forests in terms of what they can give to us functionally and the environment functionally, they are really good at fixing nitrogen. They're very, very good at fixing carbon, but but so in terms, that's what that's what makes temperate rainforest really good in terms of climate change mitigation is they hold that water, but they also are incredible carbon stores far more carbon is stored in these forests than traditional forests in the UK.  Adam: And that's lichens playing a big role in this?  Sam: A huge part, yeah, because of the pure, like the biomass of those lichens and mosses.  Adam: Ohh interesting. OK, so where are we going?  Sam: So I would quite like to go down to that river.  Adam: I'd love to go down to the river! Can I just ask, we're not going that way, are we??  Sam: No, I think we're gonna, that's one we may drive down, I think.  Adam: Drive down there?? No no we're not going to drive down there, that's not possible! *both laugh*  Sam: Yeah, we might have to go to a scenic detour around.   Adam: OK, well, there let's go down to the river. You have to lead. You look like...  Sam: So I think if we head up back to the car, shoot down, yeah.  Adam: OK. Ohh I see. OK, OK. But we're not driving down this this hill.  Sam: No, no, I think let's go down to the main Dart actually and then you can...  Adam: OK. And then get and get back, OK. Brilliant. We have come down to the river, remind me what the river is called?   Sam: This is the Webburn.   Adam: The Webburn, which leads into the Dart. We are on proper Hobbit territory now. A moss-covered stone bridge over the Webburn. We passed a little a beautiful little cottage, actually there's a number of beautiful cottages here. So explain a bit about where we are.  Sam: So we're stood on the Webburn, the Webburn watercourse and just behind us is the confluence of where it enters the Dart River and this kind of where it feeds into our aspirations for the restoration of the site. It's what many people would consider to be quite a natural looking river or natural looking watercourse. But this really as you can see it's very straight, it's very cut down into into the ground. So we call that incision and that's a product of centuries of draining and of artificial domestication of this watercourse to allow the land around it to be drier, which makes it more kind of productive for forestry.  Adam: So that's not natural?   Sam: No.  Adam: Are you gonna do anything about that? I feel like a teacher, ‘are you going to do anything about that?'!  Sam: *laughs* That that is the plan.  Adam: How how do you change, I mean, the river has cut, therefore quite a a deep edge into the land. What would you be able to do to to change that then?  Sam: Yeah. So a couple of years ago I went out to the Pacific Northwest, Canada, Vancouver Island to see their temperate rainforest and have a look at how old growth sort of ancient temperate rainforests function, but also how they restore them. And they, I asked them to take me to a river that was their best example of a really healthy rainforest river with really good salmon populations with great biodiversity that would have been unaffected by humans. And they took me to a place called Lost Shoe Creek. And and from the bottom of the watercourse where it entered the sea to the head waters, it was, you couldn't see the water. It was absolutely covered in wood, so huge trees that had fallen in, trees bank to bank, pinned against the bank. And what that does is it creates a much more dynamic river system that doesn't go in a straight line, but also holds back a lot of the gravel with the sediment and the silt that in this kind of river is making its way to the ocean. And causing a lot of damage.  Adam: So it's allowing or maybe placing actual dead trees into into the water and we can see one tree's already there, presumably that just naturally fell in.  Sam: That's right. Yeah. So if we left this for 1,000 years, it would fill, it would be effectively be a giant log jam, and we'd start to get a lot of that naturalised process happening. And then you get much more biodiversity because there's more invertebrates in the river, there's more shelter for fish and birds, there's more habitat. But what we're effectively planning on doing is is doing something what people call stage zero restoration, so taking,  accelerating that that thousand-year process and taking it back to a more naturalised river.  Adam: It's such a a spot. I think it's time for a bit of social media video, so I'll film that and you can see that on the Woodland Trust and my sites, and then we'll crack on. Sorry, I know this is really important, but this is an amazing fallen tree over a drystone wall covered in moss, I mean, I just had to stop for a moment. Look, you talked about lichen. I know, I ask you a question then stop you answering it *both laugh*. I love this lichen, it's all on this tree. It is really, really beautiful.  Sam: So this is called seastorm lichen which is one of the few lichens that has actually a romantic sort of English name that isn't Latin.  Adam: Wow. Well, very cool. Whilst you're talking, I'm gonna take a photo. OK. Yeah, go on, seastorm lichen.   Sam: Yeah, and and so a lot of the lichens will, as you can see, grow on the branches where the light is greater. So there's almost a canopy world of biodiversity up there, and what we're doing by increasing the light levels is, is drawing these lichens down to the forest floor by increasing the light levels. But this is a really, really good example of the kind of levels of deadwood we actually want to aspire to. So in, as you can see, in most of the forest, it's completely denuded of deadwood. So we'd be lucky if we get sort of 5 cubic metres of wood per hectare. In the forest of, the temperate rainforests of Canada, they have sort of 600 cubic metres a hectare of deadwood. So you you could barely even move through their forest.  Adam: And that's super, because often people want the deadwood cleared cause you go, ‘oh well it's untidy', but that's a sort of oasis of of biodiversity.  Sam: That's right. It's a whole layer of ecology that we're missing from our forests. And we recently did a study on something called the blue ground beetle, which is a an endemic rare species to temperate rainforests. We didn't know where they went in the day, so we didn't really know anything about them, they're very elusive. They come out at night, walk up the trees, and they reflect the moon off of their blue, kind of shiny carapace. They're our biggest beetle. So we did a study with Exeter University where we put GPS tracking backpacks on them.  Adam: On a beetle?  Sam: On a beetle, to find out where they went. And lo and behold, we found that they were going into these deadwood habitats and so it just it just shone a light on how important increasing deadwood in these forests is for all of those species.  Adam: Amazing. All right. I I do encourage you to follow the Woodland Trust's social media, Insta and all the rest of them and my Bluesky and Twitter or X or whatever it is you wanna do. And I'm now gonna take a photo which hopefully you'll see on any of that social media. So do follow them all. And we're going to take a pause as I pose *laughs*. Right, I'm back from my photographic expedition. Right. So you can answer the question again now about this public debate about access and and what have you. Go on, you lead on whilst we're talking.  Sam: So yeah, Dartmoor is really kind of the centre of gravity for a wider story around public, an increasing demand from the public to access land for wellbeing, recreation, connection to nature, that has been kind of growing here, particularly in this area.  Adam: Right.  Sam: There are, I think we actually sorry, we do need to go that way, I think they've blocked the path.  Adam: OK fair enough.  Sam: We're not having to scramble.  Adam: And I think we're going back to where we came from. Alright. Although that path there looks blocked.   Sam: This one looks good. Yeah.  Adam: Oh OK.  Sam: Go through this end.   Adam: Through the little stone wall. OK. Ruby's following doing social media. Ohh OK. Yeah, sorry, carry on.  Sam: So, I suppose the concern of some people might be that increasing footfall, public access to these really important fragments of temperate rainforest, it could have a damaging effect on the biodiversity here. But the reality is that in order for people to connect with, understand and care about nature, they need to have access to it. And so we need to bring people into these habitats in a sensitive and considered way to educate people about them, but the other key thing is we need to expand these habitats. So we're part of something called the South West Rainforest Alliance. And our goal collectively is to increase the amount of temperate rainforest in Devon and Cornwall, to triple it by 2050.  Adam: OK. I mean that's worth pausing on that for a moment. That's an extraordinary task. I mean it sounds a bit, I have to say I'm a bit sceptical about that, it sounds like you plucked that out the air. How on earth would you get to tripling the cover you've got?  Sam: Well, we think we can do that mostly through buffering existing temporate rainforest, so planting around them which can then make those bigger, better, more connected, but also just by introducing trees into farmed landscapes but not in a way that damages the farming. So agroforestry. But also the inclusion of hedgerows that connect up those fragments and there's been a lot of work that's being done currently in partnership with Plymouth University to model how we would do that effectively.  Adam: And the other thing that strikes me when we talk about ancient woodland, we're talking about, well, we can't create ancient woodlands, the clue's in the name, it's got to be ancient. It is different for temperate rainforests, isn't it? These things which I've heard about are achievable in a relatively short period of time. Is that right?  Sam: That's right. So we think we can create new temperate rainforest within our lifetime. So within a kind of 40-50 year woodland establishment phase and as part of the Rainforest Recovery Project, we have a strand of work that we're calling the temperate rainforest creation trials and that includes long term scientific research to tell us how best we can create rainforest the quickest. So is it doing closed canopy woodlands like this or is it individual trees in farmland? Or is it open space woodlands or maybe even natural regeneration?  Adam: Amazing. We're by the river. Let's move on with our tales from the riverbank. One thing I I wanted to ask you, I arrived here last night. And I met well, an old friend of mine called Chris Salisbury, who runs a local sort of adventure, an ecological company, taking people for adventures in the woods and telling stories and all sorts of really interesting things, and he was telling me two things that he's noted. One is the reintroduction of pine martens which I think is talked about, but also he's seen wild boar in these woods and I've never heard of that. Are those, have have you come across those stories?  Sam: Yes, so we were actually involved in the reintroduction of pine martens last year and that was a partnership between us and Devon Wildlife Trust and various other charities. And and that was a sort of very controlled planned, strategic reintroduction of a species that's been really successful. We've brought the public along with us, and they're now part of that increasingly biodiverse and resilient temperate rainforest landscape.  Adam: Right before we move on to wild boar, just educate me, what is a pine marten? Not sure, not entirely sure I know what one is.  Sam: A pine marten is a mustelid, so it's in the same family as sort of the badger, the stoat, the weasel.   Adam: Right, what's it look like?  Sam: It's it's sort of the size of a small cat, it's brown with a white bib and it looks quite a lot like a weasel, but it's larger, but they're very much arboreal mammals, so they spend most of their time in the trees.  Adam: And were they native to this land?   Sam: Yes they were.  Adam: Hunted out were they?  Sam: Hunted to extinction for their pelts and and things like that. Yeah.  Adam: So you're reintroducing them. How successful has that been?  Sam: That's been really successful. So we've reintroduced 15 animals to Dartmoor last year and we think that that will be enough of a seed population for them to start spreading naturally now.  Adam: OK. And I've heard about what, the reintroduction in other parts of the country of pine martens. Wild boar. A a harder issue I would have thought ‘cause these are quite big beasts?   Sam: Yes.  Adam: Did, did any, presumably the Trust didn't introduce them? No.  Sam: No. So they haven't been, in the same way as pine martens were, formally introduced. There's been more of a sort of natural creep, or in some cases, so there's a term that people use now called ‘beaver bombing', which which people use completely straight faced in a lot of circles now. And that is effectively guerilla reintroduction of species.  Adam: Right. OK. So these are just people who feel that they should be rewilded and just did it without any any authority or talking to the local community they just brought them in?  Sam: Exactly without going through that sort of more defined process.  Adam: And and look, clearly this is not a Woodland Trust policy, so I'm not asking you to defend it, but but the effect of that, I mean, have you noticed anything?  Sam: I think, I mean, it's a huge subject, but I think in general, if you don't bring communities along with you by educating them, by mitigating the effect of a species, it it can damage the movement in in the longer term. The other thing I'd say about boar and those larger sort of herbivores, which would have been a really important part of our ecosystem for diversifying them and keeping that process going, they will really struggle unless we have bigger, better, more connected woodlands that are more natural anyway.  Adam: Right. I understand. So we're just going through talking about this being the rainforest, but it has been amazingly dry in the spring and now you can hear that in the crunchy undergrowth of very dry leaves. You're gonna, I'm I'm an idiot anyway, but I'm concentrating on too many things so I've forgotten the name of the river for the third time *laughs*.  Sam: It's the Webburn.  Adam: The Webburn, why can't I remember the Webburn? All right. We've come down to the Webburn, to the riverbank side. It's beautifully clear this water, isn't it? There I mean it, it's it's wonderful clear. I so want to stand in that and then I'll have wet feet for the rest of the day and the journey back to London. So I'm not going to do that. How much of a threat is this sort of environment under?  Sam: So temperate rainforest once covered about 20% of the UK and they would have clothed our western seaboard which receives that amazing sort of oceanic rainfall and temperature we've been talking about. That's been reduced now to about 2% in the UK.   Adam: OK, from 20 to 2%?  Sam: From 20 to 2, so 90% loss.   Adam: Over what sort of period?  Sam: So we're talking about millennia really. So this is they would have been at their zenith about 5,000, 6,000 years ago during the Bronze Age and that progressive multi-generation story of increasing farming, of draining, of forestry, has led to the fragmentation that we see today. In Devon and Cornwall, we think it would have covered about 75%. That's now been reduced to about 8%. So a similar 90% loss both regionally and nationally.  Adam: And are you optimistic that that's about to change? Are we now seeing a different story?  Sam: I feel really optimistic, but mostly that's because I think we're facing a lot of these holistic problems at the moment around the biodiversity crisis, around climate change, and I think rainforests are an actually incredibly cheap, scalable way of restoring nature, which will help us with the biodiversity crisis, but also protect communities from climate change. By doing some of this rewetting work, by increasing increasing tree cover, we can massively reduce flooding and massively mitigate the effect of drought on our farming and on our communities as it gets worse. We are hoping to raise £2.8 million to help us achieve the goals we have here and and the site will be open once we've achieved that goal towards the end of the year. And people can go to woodlandtrust.org.uk/southwest to find more about that appeal.  Adam: So just repeat that website again so if people want, if they, if you've got your pen or your computer keyboard ready, here is the website to go to.  Sam: Thats woodlandtrust.org.uk/southwest  Adam: And they can learn learn more about it, but also contribute there can they?  Sam: That's right. Yeah. And if they want to learn more about the Rainforest Recovery Project, we are launching a website this week called rainforestrecovery.org.uk.  Adam: So by the time you hear this podcast, all of that will be available to you at the moment I can edit it all together. It is an amazing, amazing site. I am really privileged to be here. What a wonderful place. Sam, thank you very much indeed.  Sam: You're welcome.  Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks. Join us next month when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. And don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you are listening. And do give us a review and a rating. If you want to find out more about our woods and those that are close to you, check out the Woodland Trust website. Just head to the visiting woods pages. Thank you. 

As property managers, you know how important communication is. Building solid relationships and creating trust is crucial in the industry, especially when trying to bring on new clients and doors. In this episode of the Property Management Growth Show, property management growth expert Jason Hull sits down with Sam Wakefield from Close it Now to talk about how you can level up your sales game to close more deals at a higher price point. You'll Learn [00:54] Vendor and Property Manager Relationships [09:43] Why You Attract Cheapo Clients [15:33] Building Trust in Sales [21:14] Shifting Perception: It's Not A, It's B [27:43] Learning to Improve Your Sales at DoorGrow Live 2025 Quotables “Truly all that sells is just communication.” “The second you start to develop a trend in your life, look internally because you are attracting exactly who you are.” “If we don't build the right culture, it's on us as a business owner.” “As business owners, we want to not give up big chunks of our life for just money. We want to be able to have something scalable.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive Transcript [00:00:00] Sam: A lot of times property management companies think all the companies are the same, so they're looking for maybe cheaper, whoever's cheapest, a cheaper price. [00:00:07] Sam: But then what they get is a company that doesn't communicate and doesn't show up when they say they're going to, and it's really the old adage, you get what you pay for.  [00:00:14] Jason: All right. I am trying a new platform today. This is Jason Hull and I am a property management growth expert. If you're not familiar with me, I help grow and scale property management companies and I am really good at that. And so our company's DoorGrow and we are the world leaders of growing and scaling property management businesses. [00:00:35] Jason: I've helped thousands of property managers do that. And today my guest is Sam Wakefield. Hanging out here with Sam. Sam, welcome to the show.  [00:00:44] Sam: Thanks for having me on, man. I'm glad to be here.  [00:00:46] Jason: Hey, good to have you. So, I'm really excited to get into this. We had some really nice dialogue back and forth. You coach. [00:00:54] Jason: Well, I'll let you tell. What group, category of people do you coach and you help with them with sales and closing more deals, so.  [00:01:01] Sam: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So we do sales training and basically sales systems, whole operation systems within companies, but mostly sales focused for home services. So everything from HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and then even outside of that. Garage doors, or you name it. If someone improves a home, then we help the communication side of all of those companies.  [00:01:27] Jason: Got it. So in my industry, property management people would call those vendors. That's usually what they call them. They're like, "these are the vendors." And so we thought it was fun. I went on your podcast, we had this really fun dialogue. [00:01:39] Jason: I highly recommend you go check out Sam's episode with Jason Hull and go check that out. We were going back and forth because we had done a survey each to our audiences, like what's frustrating about HVAC companies and what's frustrating about property management companies. Right. And just seeing the disconnect that existed there. [00:01:56] Jason: Which was interesting. So, before we get into this, I want to read a quick message from our sponsor. This episode's sponsored by KRS SmartBooks. Do you have properties manage, and zero time for bookkeeping headaches? KRS SmartBooks is your secret weapon. They specialize in finances for busy property managers like you, with 15 plus years of real estate knowhow and skills in AppFolio, Yardi, and more imagine monthly reports magically appearing, and zero accounting stress. Sound good? Head to krsbooks.com to book your free discovery call, integrity, quality, and a dash of bookkeeping brilliance, that's KRS SmartBooks, and that's K as in Kansas, R as in Rogers, S as in Sam. Sam. All right, so cool. Now let's get into this. [00:02:45] Jason: So we're going to talk about closing deals, but why don't you give us my audience a little bit of background. How did you get into sales and then starting your own company, helping people with sales, and like, how'd you how did Close it Now come to be?  [00:03:00] Sam: Yeah, for sure. Thanks for that question. So, I've spent almost 20 years now in home services. [00:03:05] Sam: Most of my time has been in HVAC. I've done solar. I've done a lot of different trades over the years and, you know, so I launched the Close it Now company in 2019 because I really just recognized a place where there was not a lot of modern training because truly all that sells is just communication. [00:03:26] Sam: You know, it's how do we communicate clearer and in a way where we can educate so somebody can understand, one, what we're talking about, and two, why they should care and how it's going to make a difference in their life. So at the essence of that, so I was looking for some more modern training for my people at my company that I had at the time, and I didn't find anything out there. [00:03:48] Sam: So I just said, well, now we have a space for, you know, I have communication skills. I can train people. So that's when I launched the company in 2019 and so much of my career built up to that point of, and specifically how it affects here and why I'm here today. You know, I've worked with so many property management companies and individuals across 20 years of doing this. Yeah. So I've definitely learned a lot of best practices and a lot of the things not to do, you know? Got it. I all own my mistakes as well as, you know, coming across maybe property managers that I wouldn't work with again. Right. Yeah. So from all of that experience, you know, I started the training company, so I work with those home service companies to communicate better. [00:04:33] Sam: You know, a lot of it is, you know, of course, working directly with homeowners. But also there's a huge portion of all of those companies that, you know, rely on it and need property management companies to, you know, really help them stay in business and in turn they can turn around and, you know, help those property management companies to efficiently take care of properties. [00:04:58] Sam: But there's always seems to be this kind of struggle of, you know, that back and forth. So that's obviously why we're here today is a big part of that. But that's some of my history. I've been doing it 20 years. I started Close it Now six years or in, coming up on... yeah, April this year, next month is six years anniversary. [00:05:16] Sam: Nice. Of the company. And it's been a fun ride and we've definitely helped lots and lots of organizations to you know, to grow in a way.  [00:05:24] Jason: You're helping them close it now. All right. Yeah. Got it. All right. So you're just, you're helping these vendors close more deals, right? [00:05:31] Jason: So, property managers, I think would love to hear. You're on the other side of this relationship between property managers and vendors. What have you seen and what's the general feedback that you're noticing of the property management industry? What's kind of the vendor's perspective? [00:05:46] Jason: Because I know property managers, they get frustrated with vendors, right? They're like, "oh, the vendors like say you need something when you don't and like they don't like, it's difficult to reach them or this or whatever." Right. What are some of the complaints and gripes about property management companies? [00:06:03] Sam: Yeah. Complaints and gripes about property management companies. One of the big ones is, a lot of it is kind of the same thing is lack of communication. Okay. That's always one of the biggest complaints that comes up is, you know, we will get, you know, say someone, a property manager will call in for us to go evaluate a property. [00:06:21] Sam: We'll take an air conditioning issue or something like that, so we'll show up and then we're trying to call ahead. There's no clear information was given on who to call ahead to. Then we show up to the appointment, maybe the tenant's there, maybe not. A lot of times they're not there. [00:06:36] Sam: Okay. Then we can get ahold of the property manager to even get in the place. So now we're like dancing around in the circle of, okay, who do we contact? You get frustrated, move on to the next call, then the property manager calls and "Well, why'd you leave? Somebody was there." [00:06:50] Sam: Well, nobody was there. And so all of this just seems to happen very often. [00:06:55] Sam: Too often. Yeah. So it creates a stereotype. When the stereotype is created, that means of course there's a reason for it. Yeah. And so this is one of the big ones is the lack of communication. And I know that I've heard that the other direction as well. But so that's one of the things I hear the most. [00:07:11] Jason: Yeah. Got it. Yeah, so I'm sure when a vendor finds a property manager that does communicate effectively that there's clarity in that communication happening, and they've got good systems in place. The tenant's there, the tenant understands what's going on. Everybody's informed. Then those can be really great relationships to have. [00:07:34] Sam: Absolutely. Yeah. Those are, you know, the last the last organization I was at, I was with them, I was a sales manager and trainer for six years there. And I went through about 18 different property management companies to find two to three that were worth working with. Wow. And that was, you know, just sadly. We were always open to when a property management company came to us and we're like, "Hey, we, you know, we need you to do some work. We're looking for a new vendor." We're like, "sure. Absolutely. We'll try you out as well as you're trying us out." Right. But sadly, you know, the two or three that we did find great relationships with. They were fantastic relationships because yeah, we, you know, part of my ethics is our team was like, we will show up on time no matter what. [00:08:19] Sam: Right? We always do what we say. We will never, you know, recommend something that's not verifiable from our, you know, from our testing. We're not going to just guess at this because we're not guessing with anybody's, you know? Yeah. Investment. And at the same time when we, you know, say we're going to do the work, we do the work, and we show up to do the work, we say we're going to. [00:08:43] Sam: So that was my ethics statement I always led with. And then basically I would ask the property management company, can I expect the same thing from you guys? Right? And sure enough, the second that we met in the middle and said, yes, this is how we want to do business, those relationships were always the very best ones because sure, were we a few more dollars than the other contractor down the street? Sure. Yes. But we showed up when we said we were going to and we did the right work right the first time. And so, right. That's a big part of that disconnect, I think, is it seems like so many you know, a lot of times property management companies think all the companies are the same, so they're looking for maybe cheaper, whoever's cheapest, a cheaper price. [00:09:22] Sam: But then what they get is a company that doesn't communicate and doesn't show up when they say they're going to, and. It's really the old adage, you get what you pay for.  [00:09:30] Jason: You know, property managers have the same sort of problem is that a lot of people that are looking for a property manager are just looking for the cheapest price. [00:09:38] Jason: And they hate that. They're like, "we're not all the same." Right. So I, yeah, I think it's really important. I think this is dictated by the morals, the ethics, and the values of the business owner. It's always a top down thing. And so if the business owner is a cheapo, they attract cheapo clients and they deal with vendors through this cheapo lens, and this is where there's going to be a lot of mess and a lot of communication issues, and a lot of times the business owner, and this goes for any business and any industry, has a blind spot to the fact that they're cheap. But they're, you know, you're a cheapo if you're the person that's always looking for the stupid coupon code every time you buy everything online, you're always like hunting for that like. I don't have time to do that. [00:10:21] Jason: Like that's a massive waste of my time to go find, save 10% on some stupid a hundred dollars thing online, right? Right. Like, Ooh, I'm searching around. Right. Oh, I saved $10 even though I could have made a hundred thousand dollars. Like if I just like built something awesome, right? So I think there's a mindset issue is that these property managers or vendor business owners are not valuing their time enough. [00:10:45] Jason: If you value your time, you value other people's time. You then show up on time. You then like try to make sure, like your schedule is tight, you want to make sure your schedule is full. Like you, because you value your time and you feel that it's important. And if you really value your time enough as a person, you get things like assistance. [00:11:03] Jason: You get team members, like you get support because your time is so valuable that you want to go buy other people's time because it's less valuable than your time. Right, and this is how we scale our businesses over time is we are buying other people's time that are like they're willing to trade and give up their life chunks of their life for money. [00:11:24] Jason: And as business owners, we want to not give up big chunks of our life for just money. We want to be able to have something scalable. And so I think there's a mindset thing that we have to not be cheap. We have to operate with integrity, and then our team members need to have these values instilled in them, and if we don't build the right culture, it's on us as a business owner. [00:11:45] Jason: And if we don't build the right culture, we then don't have longevity in our business. We don't get return business, we don't get return clients. We don't get to have that really good vendor to continue to work with. We don't get to have that property owner continue to want to work with us, right? [00:12:00] Jason: Because we have showcased that we are not on top of things, or that we don't have the right values or that we don't have healthy mindset. And so I feel like. At the foundation of everything. It always comes back to mindset. A lot of times  [00:12:13] Sam: I a hundred percent agree with that. It, you know, it's funny that you're kind of started this conversation going down this path. [00:12:19] Sam: This is something that's been a very basically a soapbox for me, a big hot button. Yeah. You know, when I'm coaching... [00:12:26] Sam: jump on that soapbox, Sam. Let's go.  [00:12:27] Sam: Yeah. When I'm coaching and training people lately, especially at this last week especially... yeah. You know, I'm training people with sales and that type of focus, and they, of course, people always come to me, "Hey, how do I overcome these sales objections?" [00:12:43] Sam: You know, somebody says, "I want to get three bids, or somebody says, your price is too high, I want to shop around, or I need to think about it." Yeah. And instead of just going straight to, "well, here's the word track and how to handle these objections." Yeah. We always start with: anytime that you find a trend in your life, [00:13:00] Sam: so if you're getting the same consistent objection, say somebody's getting every single time they get to the end of their appointment and the homeowner or whoever they're talking to says, "I want to think about it." It's like the second you start to develop a trend in your life, look internally because you are attracting exactly who you are. [00:13:17] Sam: I would be willing to bet that person does the same thing when they shop. So then no wonder you're getting every single one of your clients is telling you, "I want to think about it." Or if when you shop, do you ask for say, "oh, I've got to get some three bids on this thing. I got to look around." Yeah. Well, no wonder the people you're selling to always have to get three bids because we attract who we are. Yeah. And it starts right here in the mind. And it's incredible how that works.  [00:13:43] Jason: Yeah. because if we're anxious, if we have that energetic sort of anxiety of that, like things are, it's expensive, and we go into that trying to sell it to somebody. Then they can feel that and we present it differently. And so we're like, "here's the price." And like, yeah, and it's worth it. And they can just, there's so many little subtle clues they pick up on that, Hey, this seems a little high. And because sometimes like if you're presenting to somebody and they're not what I call a cheapo, there's three types of buyers, cheapos, normals, and premiums I call them. [00:14:16] Jason: And normals are like, you typically like 60%. They're like the majority, 61%. The smallest group are usually the premium buyers, supposedly. But the idea is this: if you're a premium buyer and I present a price and I'm not even going to like flinch telling you about it, I'm like, "yeah, we've got this and this is what it costs and this," and they're going to go, "oh, this person feels really confident." [00:14:36] Jason: And it's just energetically how we present it. There's no like, "Hey, I'm trying to prep you for this price, you know, reveal because it's going to hurt a little bit." Right. Or if they just have the confidence and they know they're expensive, they might even just say, "Hey, we're one of the most expensive, but we're also one of the best. Let me tell you about your options." Right? So maybe they start with a pre-frame like that, but either way, they have this confidence that they know they have value and that it's worth it, and then they present it like that, then people would go, oh, okay, but if you have that anxiety deep down related to price and you know, you're this person if you're always looking for the coupon code or the discount code or you're trying to find the cheapest way to do something, then you've got a bit of that going on. [00:15:21] Jason: Because that's your identity. And so I've noticed this. Like in order to get people to be better salespeople, I can't just give them tactics. I have to give them identity. And so, and this is why my greatest sales hack, I call the Golden Bridge Formula. It's like it's the most authentic way to sell, which is your personal why connected to the business why connected to the prospect's why. Because we always trust motives. And the default assumption in sales, if I don't know your motive and you're trying to sell to me, is you want my money. [00:15:54] Sam: Right.  [00:15:54] Jason: And if I think that's your only motive is you want my money and you're willing to do whatever it takes to get that, then you're probably maybe even willing to be unethical in order to get that might be the assumption. [00:16:05] Jason: Right? So that's kind of the default assumption in sales. And so to correct that, if I tell somebody, "Hey. I'm Jason Hull. My personal why is to inspire others to love true principles. And so what that means is I love sharing what works and learning what works and teaching to others. I would do that for free, for fun, and so I created DoorGrow and our why at DoorGrow is to transform property management business owners and their businesses. [00:16:27] Jason: And so if our whole belief system is around helping people transform their businesses. So that allows me to basically feed my addiction to learning, coaches, masterminds, books, whatever, and turn around and be able to share what's working with others. And that's just fun for me. So I have a business that basically fulfills my lifestyle and allows me to have fun and do what I want to do. [00:16:51] Jason: And you, Mr. Property management, business owner, who I'm maybe selling to, want to grow your business. And so our interests are in alignment. My business is the bridge that connects your why to my why. We both get what we want. It's the ultimate win-win, right? Everybody wins. And so I've been able to take really terrible salespeople that are really bad at selling, and I just get them clear on their own identity. [00:17:14] Jason: Mm-hmm. Who they are, why they do what they do, and have them relate that to people and then people trust them. And sales and deals happened at the speed of trust.  [00:17:22] Sam: Oh my gosh, I love this so much. It's insanely powerful too when I'm teaching people how to do just introductions, you know? A super quick formula too for the property managers out there that are listening to that, even if you're property manager, you have to get good at sales. [00:17:38] Sam: Yeah, you have to be good at communication to be able to bring more doors into your portfolio. And so the way you know, a really easy formula for those homeowners when you're having that conversation, first of all, they've got to know who they're talking to. Yeah. You know, this belief, identity, you know, matrix that I actually I love to call, I just did a keynote. [00:17:59] Sam: It's funny for everybody listening. It's almost like Jason and I have read each other's notes, but we haven't. Just did a keynote, well that's maybe a month ago in Minnesota, that the entire talk was your thoughts, create your belief about yourself, your totally belief about yourself creates your identity, and then your identity creates your outcomes. [00:18:16] Sam: Yeah. And, but we have to go back and start with those thoughts. And so, but a simple, easy formula for property managers out there having this conversation is first of all, start asking permission for things. Yes. We can't just tell, right? If we can ask it as a question, ask it as a question. [00:18:36] Sam: So ask permission, like, "Hey, before we get started, do you mind if I take a quick minute and just introduce you to our company and myself."  [00:18:44] Sam: yeah.  [00:18:45] Sam: And so first of all, anytime a conversation starts, there's always this period of icebreaking, right? Yeah. Anytime anything new is introduced in anyone's environment, there's always stiffness until that moment of rapport happens and we relax a little bit. [00:19:00] Sam: Yeah. So taking a couple of minutes to just. "Hey, before we get started, do you mind if I introduce the company and a little bit about myself? Would that be all right?" Yes. So permission to it and then just take a few minutes because I mean, so many times we'll go through this crazy presentation and then we're asking somebody to buy from us and they don't even know who we are. [00:19:21] Sam: We never took the time to even introduce ourselves. Right.  [00:19:24] Jason: Yeah.  [00:19:24] Sam: Or they don't know thing about the company.  [00:19:25] Jason: Trying to immediately shove the product or service down their throat.  [00:19:28] Sam: Yeah. No wonder they need to think about it. They don't even know who you are. And so we introduce that first. [00:19:34] Sam: It's huge. And to just getting into the things. So that's the flow. It's like, okay, now that you know a little bit about us, tell us a little bit about you. What are you looking for? Right. So then you start that discovery process, and I'm sure you trained this but the discovery process is everything. [00:19:51] Sam: We have to understand the motive behind why they want to do things. Somebody just says, "Hey, I'm looking for a property manager." Okay, great. That's one thing. "Why do you would need a property manager? What are you trying to solve? What do we want to accomplish by having a property manager for your property?" [00:20:09] Sam: So we find out, what are the pain points? What are the issues that they're wanting to overcome? And then from there, we can create a, you know, craft a conversation around it. But until we know that, we're just stabbing in the dark and just guessing it. Yeah. Well, hopefully this will work.  [00:20:23] Jason: Right. Yeah. If we just jump right to offering solutions when we don't even ask what they need it's not very effective. [00:20:30] Jason: And then they're going to have a ton of objections.  [00:20:32] Sam: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. But yeah, that's the some of the complaints we have are the communication and the other one is just not responding once we find solutions, then give them to the property manager. [00:20:45] Sam: And then it's like ghosting for who knows how long until finally somebody gets back. And so that's the other side of the communication is not getting resolution once we actually, you know, we can do this work, but we're not going to sit around here all day to wait to get it approved. We have other appointments. [00:21:02] Sam: So do we want to reschedule?  [00:21:03] Jason: It's treating the vendor like they're high value, they're going to treat you like you're high value and they're going to prioritize you. And so it really is a mutual respect relationship that needs to be built. So, Sam, I also want to bring up to our audience, you are going to be coming [00:21:19] Jason: to speak at DoorGrow Live. Yeah. And you're going to be teaching some really cool stuff. Could you just touch on real quick what you're going to be sharing at this because I wanted to come bring you to expose my clients and my audience to what you're going to be sharing and maybe you can get some people pumped up for DoorGrow Live, so. [00:21:38] Sam: Absolutely. Yeah. So thank you for the invite as well. I'm super excited to be speaking for DoorGorw Live. It's my passion, in fact to be able to help people in their daily lives, especially in conversations like this, to make it easy. I am such a firm believer that sales should be easy. If it's not easy, we're overcomplicating it. And so what we're going to be talking about at the event is I'm going to give some really simple keys to better communication so people actually not only listen, but they understand what you're saying and, more importantly, why should they care? [00:22:18] Sam: So we're going to talk about something called, the benefit lens. We're going to talk about some easy word substitutions. We're not going to be learning scripts or anything. We're going to be, we're going to show any really easy ways to get immediate buy-in to what our conversation is. Nice. And how to recruit people to be raving fans and be on board. [00:22:38] Sam: And how to ask and get referrals because that's huge in...  [00:22:44] Sam: absolutely.  [00:22:44] Sam: ...something like a property management. If every third door you added also added another one from a referral, what would that do to your business? Yeah, absolutely. So not just asking for referrals, but actually asking in a way where actually get them. [00:22:57] Jason: Right. Yeah. If you're getting enough referrals, one, because you have a good reputation, you're doing a good job, but also because you have an intention and you're asking appropriately, you create this kind of virus of growth in your business where it's multiplying. [00:23:13] Jason: Every client becomes more clients.  [00:23:16] Sam: Yep. Absolutely. In fact, we can do a quick little as an example of some of the things we're going to cover. Are you open to doing a quick little role play with me on...  [00:23:24] Sam: all right. Let's do it.  [00:23:25] Sam: Some of the conversation here. Yeah. I love role play.  [00:23:28] Sam: Let's have fun.  [00:23:29] Sam: Yeah, for sure. [00:23:30] Sam: So I'm property manager. So before we do, give me a quick little context of what is a premium price property manager and what is like a middle range property manager. And so I'll know what I'm working with here. [00:23:44] Jason: Oh yeah. Usually our clients have three different price points for that reason. So, perfect. But let's say like, real typical in the marketplace is 10% is pretty normal. Okay? And this is not what we recommend. because our clients close more deals more easily at a higher price point. [00:23:59] Jason: So we have some special pricing models, but let's say 10%. Premium, maybe 12%, and the lower would maybe be like 8%.  [00:24:08] Sam: Got it. Got it. Perfect. Alright, so I'm the project manager. So I'm going to be a premium 12%. Yeah. So what we're going to do in this conversation, I'm going to ask for the business and you're going to give me a little bit of a price flinch with, "well, the other guy was only 10%." [00:24:23] Sam: Okay. And so we'll show a quick, easy way to handle that. All right. In a way that will make sense for everybody. So, alright, Jason, so, sounds like everything that you've talked about, can you see how all the things we do will take care of the concerns that you have? [00:24:38] Sam: Yeah, absolutely. Sounds great.  [00:24:40] Sam: Awesome. Perfect. So the next steps to get moving is you know, so we're just 12% of the monthly as for us to be able to take care of all of that. And this will just need a quick authorization on this form here and we can get started right away.  [00:24:55] Jason: Ooh, okay. Well, I was expecting, you know, I talked to a company down the street, they were like 10%, which seems to be a bit more normal. [00:25:04] Jason: I don't know.  [00:25:04] Sam: More normal?  [00:25:07] Jason: I've talked to a couple companies and a lot of them all do it at 10%. Could, like, is it possible you could do it at 10%?  [00:25:13] Sam: Oh, gotcha. So listen, I mean, so we were just 12%, but listen, we're not 2% higher or 2% more expensive. We're 2% better. Can I explain to you why that is? [00:25:25] Jason: Sure.  [00:25:26] Sam: Absolutely.  [00:25:27] Sam: So at that point, as a great company, you're going to have a hit list of all of the reasons why you're better than everybody else, and what makes you that premium company. I like it. So the minute we get that permission question in of, "Hey, we're not 2% more expensive, we're 2% higher, we're 2% better." [00:25:43] Sam: Then the permission question is, "can I show you why, or can I show you how?" And they say "Yes." Then we're going to, "okay, so what we do, it's..." never talk bad about the competition. Sure. But it's always with that perspective. "So what we do is this, and what we do is this, and what we do is this. We're always going to have the availability to be in contact, you know, 24/7 or you know, whatever all of the benefits is. [00:26:10] Sam: We're going through this huge benefit list. Yeah. And then when, once we, and it works like magic, once you get to about 10 or 12 things, especially when you know, those first 10 or 12 things are things the other companies don't do. Yeah. So many times that person will go, "you know what? You're right. You know what? You're right. Let's just go ahead and do it." Yeah.  [00:26:31] Jason: I mean, you go through those things you say, "so does that make sense why maybe we're 2% better?" And they're going to be like, "yeah."  [00:26:38] Jason: You've got agreement.  [00:26:39] Sam: Cool. Absolutely. And the other thing to do in this conversation, and this is really powerful too, so, you know, we'll take you know, what's a, what's the average rent that we'd be taking that percentage off of? [00:26:50] Jason: Let's say 2000 bucks.  [00:26:51] Sam: So 2000 bucks. That's what I was going to use. "So we're talking about 2% difference. So we're looking at $40 a month or $10 a week. Is it worth it to you for $10 a week to potentially fight the headache of, you know, your property management company not responding when you need them to respond, your tenants being really unhappy, the tenants turning over and over, for, I mean, $10 a week. Is it worth it to you for that?"  [00:27:22] Jason: Yeah.  [00:27:23] Sam: So if, I mean, if you're willing to roll the dice and take that chance, then of course you could do what you want. But if you want it done right and done once, so you're headache free and you're not going to have to, because the reason you hire a property manager is to be hands off. [00:27:35] Sam: Right? Yeah. Perfect. That's why what, that's what sets us apart. Next to any of the other companies around.  [00:27:43] Jason: Got it. So hypothetical property manager, Sam here, like believes. You can tell by listening to him, he believes in what he is selling. He believes he's worth that 12%. He believes he's worth that value, and I love that reframe. [00:27:58] Jason: One of the NLP hacks I teach clients is, it's not a, it's b, and he's like, "it's not that we're expensive or higher price, it's that we're 2% better." And so you're saying this is how you are looking at it. Here's how I want you to look at it. And that's a really cool correction. I love that right there. [00:28:16] Jason: Very powerful.  [00:28:17] Sam: The other part of that too is when you take, we're not talking about the total monthly, you know, we're talking about what's 12% or 10%? We're talking about 2% difference. Yeah. Is it worth it to you for a 2% difference to take the chance on having to deal with this, having to manage your own projects, having the headache, having the you know, the angry tenants or we don't have that problem. [00:28:42] Sam: And here's proof: review, testimony. Other people in the area, for people that use us just like you guys.  [00:28:49] Jason: Yeah. Awesome. Perfect. And you're going to share some really cool stuff I know at DoorGrow Live. I'm excited, man. Me too.  [00:28:56] Sam: Let's just tip of the iceberg. [00:28:57] Jason: For a salesman to be able to like build a coaching business, teaching sales like these are the best in the world at sales, and so I'm really excited to have you come. I've sold millions and millions of dollars of stuff. I love, I'm always learning more about sales, like this is something you can always continually learn more, so I love that little reframe. [00:29:17] Jason: That's a good one. I'm excited to hear what else you have to share. This is going to be really awesome. And if you're interested, go to doorgrowlive.com and get your tickets. Get your tickets. Our theme this year is innovating the future of property management, and we are bringing future ideas. [00:29:32] Jason: I'm going to be going over hybrid pricing, a new pricing model for property managers. This is the future. We're going to be sharing our DoorGrow hiring system. This is the future of how you're going to need to do hiring, so you're not making mistakes with hires, we're helping a lot of people replace their entire team. [00:29:48] Jason: So anyway, DoorGrow Live is going to be really freaking cool. So, yeah, and it's a holistic conference as well. We're bringing people from outside the industry, people that are related to different things. I've got a biohacking expert. We've got different things just to optimize your life as an entrepreneur and to make you better at what you do. [00:30:05] Jason: So this is going to be really cool. So, well, Sam anything else we should touch on?  [00:30:10] Sam: You know, there's so much we could cover.  [00:30:12] Jason: There's a lot. We'll save it for DoorGrow Live. How can people that, if they're listening, they're like, I'm a vendor, or I've got this, or I could really use Sam's help. [00:30:21] Jason: How can they get ahold of you?  [00:30:23] Sam: Yeah, absolutely. They can go to, of course the website is closeitnow.net. That's NET so closeitnow.net. They can email me directly, sam@closeitnow.net. On an Instagram at @therealcloseitnow. Okay. Or basically search Close it Now anywhere and I pop up all over the place. [00:30:44] Sam: All right. I'm kind of everywhere on social media and on the Googles at this point. All right.  [00:30:50] Jason: All right, well we're going to close this show now, so appreciate you coming on, Sam. It's been great having you. And for those that are watching, listening, if you could use some help from DoorGrow reach out to us. [00:31:00] Jason: You can check us out at doorgrow.com. We are the world leaders at coaching and scaling property management companies. And so if you are dealing with operational challenges, team challenges, hiring challenges, or you just don't know the right strategies for adding doors or business development, we can help you with all of that. [00:31:18] Jason: So reach out to us, check us out at doorgrow.com and until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone. 

Hostia: Miroslav Wlachovský (diplomat a bývalý minister zahraničných vecí SR) a Lubomír Zaorálek (bývalý minister zahraničných vecí ČR). | Pozície európskych lídrov po samite EÚ v Bruseli: Aké sú výsledky stretnutia? Ako možno interpretovať prezentované pozície? Nakoľko jednotný je prístup členských štátov? ⁠Európska obrana v kontexte vojny na Ukrajine a postojov USA a Ruska: Existuje zhoda na potrebe posilniť kolektívnu obranu? Dokáže sa Európa naďalej spoliehať na podporu USA? Akú formu a tempo by malo mať posilnenie obranyschopnosti spoločenstva? Požiadavka SR na umožnenie tranzitu plynu cez Ukrajinu: Sú požiadavky slovenskej delegácie legitímne? Dokáže Slovensko svoje záujmy presadiť? V akej pozícii vstúpila do rokovaní, kto sú jej ideoví partneri a naopak? | Mimoriadny samit lídrov EÚ o Ukrajine. | Moderuje: Marta Jančkárová; | Diskusiu Z prvej ruky pripravuje Slovenský rozhlas, Rádio Slovensko, SRo1. Vysielame každý pracovný deň o 12:30 v Rádiu Slovensko.

The Mountain Of Boba by Samit by 826 Valencia

The Mountain Of Boba by Samit by 826 Valencia

Auto-generated transcript: My dear respected brothers, sisters, elders, Alhamdulillah today is the first of Shaban, which means that we have exactly one month for Ramadan. May Allah give us the tawfiq to prepare for it, to make and take the maximum benefit out of Ramadan al-Fariq inshallah. We have Sayyidina Abada bin Samit radiya Allah… Continue reading ROI – #1 The post ROI – #1 appeared first on Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Centre - We came to give, not to take..

Nova ofenzíva v Kurskej oblasti? Stíhačky Mirage 2000 VS F16. Horiace ruské sklady, rafinérie či letiská, ale aj znovuzrodenie Kanady. Účinkujú: – gen. Pavel Macko – Rado Macko

Things Discussed: Seth on early to talk about Lions injuries, Ira gives us a short history of Detroit-Buffalo friendship. Oklahoma: Yes they got absolutely jobbed by Szelc. Yes, it's the #1 story of the game. Pushoffs, moving screens, 75 percent of Fears's free throws, and then a soft whistle at one end while ignoring a two-handed shove at the other end. Both of those were Szelc calls. Michigan won't get a fair whistle against this guy tbut what are you gonna do about it, have Warde complain to the Big Ten? They don't care. Rest of the game: Thruck was thruck. Michigan is a good team that gets the best shots in CBB. They're doing it with the big-on-big, and they're starting to know each other. Seth: pay attention to where Goldin gets his passes, where he likes it. Gonna need a team with extreme athleticism and NBA shot-blockers to contest them. Portal: Sam runs us through the QB options. DQ is a good one, Brendan Lewis is the one we like the best, Mikey Keene is a decent floor—he played for Lindsey at UCF—but you don't want a pocket-bound popgun arm before Bryce, do you? Lindsey connection got us the Arkansas brothers. Good athleticism and presence, but see TJ Metcalf as a high-floor Walker not a difference-maker. Always want a 5th year guy at nickel from now on. Brian: Can Morris come back? Sam: It's possible; he had concerns about the offense so if they have an OC and a QB now things could change. He hasn't set up any visits. Offense needs some bodies at OL: the guy they got is a development prospect. They're all in on Josh Thompson, who's checking out Auburn and Tennessee.

Predsednik Srbije i premijeri Mađarske i Slovačke najavili nastavak 'borbe protiv ilegalnih migracija'. Denis Bećirović traži da se BiH revanšira građanima Kosova omogućavanjem "bezviznog režima". Evropski parlament odobrio Ukrajini zajam od 35 milijardi evra.

I dalje po kaldrmi do EU! Da li je Berlinski proces uspješna priča nakon 10 godina? Decenija procesa obilježena je jubilarnim samitom u Berlinu i novim sporazumom. Što je postignuo do sada? Jesu li zemlje regije sada bliže svom cilju a to je punopravno članstvo u Europskoj uniji? I koja je budućnost ovog procesa pokrenutog 2014. na inicijativu tadašnje kancelarke Angele Merkel? Nenad Kreizer razgovara s političkim analitičarem Bodom Weberom i Filipom Slavkovićem koji je pratio posljednji samit? Von Nenad Kreizer.

Potraga za nestalima na područjima pogođenim poplavama i klizištima na jugu BiH. Samit lidera jugoistočne Evrope u Dubrovniku o pomoći Ukrajini. Aktuelnosti s Bliskog istoka. O mapiranju prostora u Beogradu i drugim gradovima Srbije, u kojima se žene ne osećaju bezbedno.

Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit trace their love for writing back to childhood. Hernandez recalls writing a Star Wars short story in fourth grade, inspired by Timothy Zahn's novels, such as the Thrawn trilogy. "I remember that moment as the first time that I really thought, oh, I really enjoy doing this. I like doing this. I think I can do this," he shares. "And that bug never really quit. It never really left me." Similarly, Samit grew up in a family of writers. "My mom's a writer. My dad has written some things. So there's always been like writing in my world," he explains. "And I always saw it as a thing that people do to express themselves. And yeah, when I was a kid, I loved writing stories, making up stories with my friends." Their partnership began at Brown University, where they discovered a shared taste in pop culture. "We started as best friends,  just hanging out in college talking about movies and TV and just pop culture that we love," Samit recalls. "We just had this bond where we had basically the same taste, everything he liked I liked, everything I liked he liked. We didn't really ever disagree on anything." This synchronicity laid the foundation for their future collaboration. Hernandez adds, "We were making each other's writing better. We were making each other's creative choices better. There are things that he's really, really good at that I'm not good at, at all." Want more? Steal my first book, Ink by the Barrel - Secrets From Prolific Writers right now for free. Simply head over to www.brockswinson.com to get your free digital download and audiobook. If you find value in the book, please share it with a friend as we're giving away 100,000 copies this year. It's based on hundreds of interviews here at Creative Principles.

We don't have a new episode, this week, but rather a replay from one of our Live In the Lounge's when we would broadcast on Sundays, occassionally. June 23, 2020, Sam's mom, Rosemary (Rosie) joined the guys, and shared things from Sam's past, her past, and the gentle kindness Sam grew up with, and the sense of humor that Sam displays, many times."On September 11, 2024, Mom went home to be with the Lord.She was never afraid at the news that she would be passing. Her strength of faith was amazing, and her unwavering love for all who surrounded her was unmatched.She will be missed, every day, and I love her ...so much.-Sam-It's a short episode, but we felt it was appropriate to put this out for all to remember Sam's mom. Thank you, Rose, for everything!

Its alwasy good when what you predict cmes true ... Musheek khan ( brother of sarfaraz khan ) and Samit dravid ... are firmly the future of indian cricket ... find out why today Stock in Focus : Unique Organics join Greenstone Lobo ( author/astrologer ) and Salil Acharya ( Rj/Vj/Sports promoter ) as they dissect all send your queries in to @salilacharya with all your details ( name/place / time / date of birth ) for individual readings

Ischemic heart disease is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality. While atherosclerotic coronary artery disease (CAD) is the focus of most outpatient and inpatient evaluations for cardiovascular symptoms, up to two thirds of patients suffer from myocardial ischemia with non-obstructive coronary arteries (INOCA). Patients with INOCA have unique symptoms and are more likely to have functional limitation and repeat presentations for cardiovascular evaluation. While there has been increasing recognition of INOCA there is no specific functional status measure, limiting our ability to evaluate the course of illness or effectiveness of therapies. In this presentation, Dr. Samit Shah, interventional cardiologist at Yale New Haven Hospital who recently gave grand rounds recently to the Mayo Clinic Department of Emergency Medicine, reviews the causes of ischemic heart disease, challenges with current symptom assessment, and proposes a new path for better diagnosis and treatment of heart disease.   CONTACTS X - @AlwaysOnEM; @VenkBellamkonda; @SamitShahMD YouTube - @AlwaysOnEM; @VenkBellamkonda Instagram – @AlwaysOnEM; @Venk_like_vancomycin; @ASFinch Email - AlwaysOnEM@gmail.com

The Adventure To Skibidi Land by William and Samit by 826 Valencia

Začalo sa horúce leto, extrémne horúco je však aj na bojiskách. Ako horúco? Tak to sa môžete vážení poslucháči dozvedieť pri počúvaní 73. epizódy nášho bezpečnostného radaru s generálom Pavlom Mackom. Prajeme vám príjemné počúvanie.   1. Bojová hmla - Aktuálna situácia na ukrajinských bojiskách: taktická a strategická úroveň - Gaza, Izrael a Blízky východ 2. Zákulisie - Neohlásená a prekvapujúca návšteva Viktora Orbána po Kyjeve aj v Moskve a Pekingu, - Zhrnutie samitu NATO vo Washingtone, 3. 360 stupňov - Návšteva indického premiéra Módího v Rusku. Citát: „Trpezlivosť a vytrvalosť napĺňajú sny.“ —  Sri Chinmoy indický spisovateľ a guru 1931–2007 Účinkujú: Gen. Pavel Macko Rado Macko

V najnovšom podcaste účinkujú Marína Gálisová, Tomáš Zálešák, Martin Mojžiš a Štefan Hríb. Moderuje Eugen Korda. Rozprávali sa aj o týchto témach: - O temných zákutiach duše predsedu vlády - Hanebné rekcie na ruský útok na nemocnicu - NATO je znovu silnejšie a zodpovednejšie

Vo Washingtone sa začína samit Severoatlantickej aliancie. Na jednej strane si na ňom Nato pripomenie 75 rokov svojej existencie, na druhej sa od neho očakávajú dôležité rozhodnutia smerom k vojne na Ukrajine. Najmä v oblasti zabezpečenia jej protivzdušnej obrany. Na programe je aj presun organizácie pomoci z USA do Európy. Len hodiny pred jeho začiatkom pritom Rusko za bieleho dňa útočilo aj na civilné ciele na Ukrajine. Medzi iným na detskú nemocnicu v Kyjeve. Útoky si vyžiadali štyri desiatky civilných obetí vrátane detí. Washingtonský samit privíta Volodymira Zelenského, bude však aj posledným pre odchádzajúceho generálneho tajomníka Jensa Stoltenberga, ktorého už v októbri vystrieda Mark Rutte. Pred čím stojí Aliancia, táto 75 - ročná stará dáma? Ako sa vysporiada s pretrvávajúcou hrozbou Putina? A čo jej môže priniesť rastúca hviezda Donalda Trumpa? Téma pre Mateja Kandríka z Adapt Institute, ktorý bude v dejisku samitu vo Washingtone. „Táto stará dáma bude chcieť posunúť silnú správu o tom, že je stále čiperná, vitálna. Že je s ňou treba počítať. Kľúčovým slovom samitu bude pritom jednota“, hovorí Kandrík. Túto jednotu ďalej špecifikuje. „Jednota spojencov v ich spoločnom úsilí navyšovať obranné spôsobilosti, posilňovať kolektívnu obranu a odstrašovanie a pomáhať Ukrajine“. Nato je obrannou alianciou so záväzkom kolektívnej obrany. „Článok 5 je bijúcim srdcom Aliancie. Práve on je dôvodom, prečo sa krajiny usilujú o členstvo. Treba ho však vnímať spoločne s článkom 3, ktorý hovorí o záväzku pre každého člena Aliancie starať sa a investovať do vlastnej obrany a spôsobilostí“, tvrdí Matej Kandrík.Poukazuje pritom na fakt, že aktuálne dve percentá výdavkov na obranu boli v Nato prijímané v úplne inej bezpečnostnej situácii. Aktuálne bude podľa neho trend zvyšovania výdavkov na obranu, ktorému sa nevyhne ani Slovensko. „Ak sa pozrieme po susedoch pobaltské krajiny či Poľsko sú už na takmer štyroch percentách výdavkov HDP na obranu. Hrozby vnímajú enormne závažne. (…) Dvíhanie výdavkov do obrany je nevyhnutnosť, ktorá nás čaká“, dodáva analytik Adapt Institute. Podcast pripravil Jaroslav Barborák.

Vo Washingtone sa začína samit Severoatlantickej aliancie. Na jednej strane si na ňom Nato pripomenie 75 rokov svojej existencie, na druhej sa od neho očakávajú dôležité rozhodnutia smerom k vojne na Ukrajine. Najmä v oblasti zabezpečenia jej protivzdušnej obrany. Na programe je aj presun organizácie pomoci z USA do Európy. Len hodiny pred jeho začiatkom pritom Rusko za bieleho dňa útočilo aj na civilné ciele na Ukrajine. Medzi iným na detskú nemocnicu v Kyjeve. Útoky si vyžiadali štyri desiatky civilných obetí vrátane detí. Washingtonský samit privíta Volodymira Zelenského, bude však aj posledným pre odchádzajúceho generálneho tajomníka Jensa Stoltenberga, ktorého už v októbri vystrieda Mark Rutte. Pred čím stojí Aliancia, táto 75 - ročná stará dáma? Ako sa vysporiada s pretrvávajúcou hrozbou Putina? A čo jej môže priniesť rastúca hviezda Donalda Trumpa? Téma pre Mateja Kandríka z Adapt Institute, ktorý bude v dejisku samitu vo Washingtone. „Táto stará dáma bude chcieť posunúť silnú správu o tom, že je stále čiperná, vitálna. Že je s ňou treba počítať. Kľúčovým slovom samitu bude pritom jednota“, hovorí Kandrík. Túto jednotu ďalej špecifikuje. „Jednota spojencov v ich spoločnom úsilí navyšovať obranné spôsobilosti, posilňovať kolektívnu obranu a odstrašovanie a pomáhať Ukrajine“. Nato je obrannou alianciou so záväzkom kolektívnej obrany. „Článok 5 je bijúcim srdcom Aliancie. Práve on je dôvodom, prečo sa krajiny usilujú o členstvo. Treba ho však vnímať spoločne s článkom 3, ktorý hovorí o záväzku pre každého člena Aliancie starať sa a investovať do vlastnej obrany a spôsobilostí“, tvrdí Matej Kandrík.Poukazuje pritom na fakt, že aktuálne dve percentá výdavkov na obranu boli v Nato prijímané v úplne inej bezpečnostnej situácii. Aktuálne bude podľa neho trend zvyšovania výdavkov na obranu, ktorému sa nevyhne ani Slovensko. „Ak sa pozrieme po susedoch pobaltské krajiny či Poľsko sú už na takmer štyroch percentách výdavkov HDP na obranu. Hrozby vnímajú enormne závažne. (…) Dvíhanie výdavkov do obrany je nevyhnutnosť, ktorá nás čaká“, dodáva analytik Adapt Institute. Podcast pripravil Jaroslav Barborák.

Nedēļas nogalē vairāk nekā 90 valstu vadītāji vai deleģētie pārstāvji pulcējās Šveicē. Viņi apsprieda iespējamo miera plānu Ukrainai. Krievija tajā nebija nedz aicināta, nedz pārstāvēta. Kāds ir galvenais ieguvums no šī samita? Savukārt Armēnijā nerimstas protesti pret vienošanos par robežām ar Azerbaidžānu. Piekāpjoties savam senajam ienaidniekam, Armēnija attālinās arī no kādreizējās sabiedrotās Krievija. Kāda izskatās tuvākā un tālākā perspektīva šai Aizkaukāza nabadzīgākajai valstij? Ārpolitikas aktualitātes analizē Austrumeiropas politikas pētījumu centra valdes priekšsēdētājs, direktors Māris Cepurītis un portāla "Delfi" žurnālists Andris Kārkluvalks. Miera samits – milzu panākums vai skumja izgāšanās? Daudzi novērotāji, raksturojot Ukrainas miera samitu, kas pagājušās nedēļas nogalē risinājās Šveices kalnu kūrortā Birgenštokā, neskopojas ar rezignētām notīm. Katrā ziņā, sastatot ar sākotnēji cerēto, notikuma rezultāti tiešām ir neiepriecinoši. Vispirms jau Ķīna, kura bija aicināta piedalīties, galu galā tomēr izvēlējās izpalikt. Tādas nozīmīgas reģionālās lielvalstis kā Indija, Brazīlija, Indonēzija, Saūda Arābija un Dienvidāfrika neparakstīja gala komunikē, kurā vēlreiz apstiprināts Ukrainas suverenitātes un teritoriālās integritātes princips. Šīs valstis vairāk vai mazāk pieļauj iespēju, ka miers varētu būt panākams, Ukrainai atsakoties no kādas daļas Krievijas okupēto teritoriju. Visbiežāk šādā kontekstā izskan priekšlikums vienoties par Krimas piederību Krievijai. Agresorvalsts vadonis, samita priekšvakarā nākot klajā ar saviem nosacījumiem miera sarunām, gan apliecināja daudz lielāku apetīti. Proti, Ukrainai būtu jāatdod agresoram pilnīgi visas Doņeckas, Luhanskas, Hersonas un Zaporižjes apgabalu teritorijas. Var piebilst, ka šobrīd Krievija kontrolē tikai daļu no šiem apgabaliem, tai skaitā Ukrainas rokās ir divu apgabalu centri – Hersona un Zaporižje. Vēl Ukrainai būtu jāapņemas nepievienoties militāriem blokiem, tātad jāatsakās no potenciālās dalības NATO. Faktiski Putins kārtējo reizi piedāvājis Ukrainai kapitulāciju, kuru ne Kijivā, ne kādā no Rietumu galvaspilsētām neuzskata par pieņemamu. Izskan viedokļi, ka samita galvenais rezultāts esot skaidri iezīmēta pretstāve starp Rietumiem un Globālajiem dienvidiem, kuru ap sevi vieno Pekina un Maskava. Tomēr Savienoto Valstu prezidenta padomnieks nacionālās drošības jautājumos Džeiks Salivans, kurš līdz ar viceprezidenti Kamalu Harisu vadīja savas valsts delegāciju Birgenštokā, uzrunā nodēvēja notikumu par ārkārtēju veiksmi. Samitā piedalījās pavisam deviņdesmit divu valstu un astoņu starptautisko organizāciju pārstāvji, no kuriem septiņdesmit septiņu valstu un piecu organizāciju pārstāvji parakstīja gala komunikē. Te gan jāpiebilst, ka gala dokumenta saturs aprobežojās ar trīs kara aspektiem: kodoldrošību, pārtikas piegāžu un kuģošanas drošību un karagūstekņu apmaiņu un no Ukrainas piespiedu kārtā pārvietoto bērnu un citu civiliedzīvotāju atgriešanos dzimtenē. Tā vien šķiet, ka vairāk nekā Birgenštokas samits Ukrainas interesēm kalpoja tieši pirms tam notikusī „Lielā septiņnieka” valstu vadītāju tikšanās, kurā tika nolemts izmantot finansiālam atbalstam izlietot peļņu, kuru nes Eiropā un Savienotajās Valstīs iesaldētie Krievijas kapitāli. Armēnija ģeopolitiskajās krustcelēs Pagājušajā trešdienā,12. jūnijā, Armēnijas premjerministrs Nikols Pašinjans, uzstājoties parlamentā, paziņoja par lēmumu pārtraukt Armēnijas darbību Kolektīvās drošības līguma organizācijā – militārā blokā, kurā Krievija iesaistījusi vairākas bijušās padomju republikas: Baltkrieviju, Kazahstānu, Kirgizstānu, Tadžikistānu un Armēniju. Kā norādīja Pašinjans, divas no organizācijas dalībvalstīm faktiski sadarbojušās ar Azerbaidžānu tās pēdējo gadu militārajā konfliktā ar Armēniju, kura rezultātā pēdējā zaudējusi visas agrāk kontrolētās strīdus teritorijas un izsenis armēņu apdzīvoto Kalnu Karabahas jeb Arcahas reģionu pametuši teju visi armēņu iedzīvotāji – apmēram 100 000. Maskava tūdaļ nosodījusi Armēnijas soli un pieprasījusi saistību izpildi, t.sk. iemaksas organizācijas budžetā. Kremlis ir izrādījies neuzticams partneris, kas faktiski nekādi nav atbalstījis Erevānu militārajā pretstāvē. Nav nekāds brīnums, ka Armēnija arvien aktīvāk meklē sadarbības partnerus rietumos. Nesen notika kopīgas Armēnijas un Savienoto Valstu militārās mācības, savukārt Parīzē tika parakstīta kārtējā vienošanās par moderno franču pašgājēju haubiču „Caesar” piegādi. Tikām pašā Armēnijā jau pusotru mēnesi nerimst protesti pret valdības noslēgtajiem robežlīgumiem ar Azerbaidžānu. To priekšgalā nostājies harizmātisks garīdznieks – Armēnijas apustuliskās baznīcas Tavušas apgabala arhibīskaps Bagrats Galstanjans. Aprīlī premjerministrs Pašinjans paziņoja, ka Armēnija atdos Azerbaidžānai dažus formāli tai piederošus, bet līdz šim armēņu kontrolētus pierobežas zemes nogabalus. Arhibīskaps Galstanjans kļuva par līderi šīs atdošanas skarto ciemu iedzīvotājiem, bet, kustībai vēršoties plašumā, ieradās galvaspilsētā Erevāna, kur pulcēja ap sevi arvien lielāku skaitu atbalstītāju. Kustībai pieslēdzās arī daudzas opozīcijas partijas, organizācijas un mediji, starp kuriem ir gan rietumnieciski orientēti, gan tādi, kas tiek uzskatīti par prokremliskiem. Arī dienā, kad premjers Pašinjans nāca klajā ar minēto paziņojumu, notika plašas demonstrācijas, kas izvērtās protestētāju sadursmēs ar policiju. Varas pārstāvji apgalvo, ka protestētāji mēģinājuši izlauzties līdz parlamenta ēkai un to ieņemt, kamēr vairāku nevalstisko organizāciju pārstāvji vaino policistus pārmērīgā spēka lietošanā, jo sevišķi – trokšņa granātu sviešanā blīvā pūlī, traumējot vairāk nekā astoņdesmit cilvēkus. Tiek arī apgalvots, ka kārtības sargi mērķtiecīgi uzbrukuši žurnālistiem. Divpadsmit protestētājiem izvirzītas apsūdzības, līdz ar to par dažādiem likumpārkāpumiem apsūdzēto arhibīskapa Galstanjana atbalstītāju skaits sasniedzis teju sešus desmitus. Sagatavoja Eduards Liniņš.  

They say the best businesses are built on the foundations of friendship, and that's exactly what Samuel Loo and Singchuen Chiam, childhood pals, prove with their journey from elementary school to dominating the matcha scene on Amazon. Their tale is not just about the green goodness of matcha but a story of two friends who took divergent paths—law and business—only to converge into a powerhouse duo. With Sam's sharp legal acumen and Sing's Alibaba experience finesse, they've brewed up Naoki Matcha, a brand that resonates with quality and customer delight, nurturing it from a side hustle to a multi-million dollar success. Our conversation steers through the meticulous craft of standing out in a saturated market, with Sam and Sing revealing their three-year grind to perfecting their matcha blend. They share the trials of juggling full-time jobs while planting the seeds for Naoki Matcha, a testament to their enduring patience and entrepreneurial spirit. Their business acumen shines as they discuss the potency of Amazon PPC in propelling their revenue growth, and the strategic decision to maintain a premium on their product—ensuring Naoki Matcha is not just another tea on the shelf, but a premium experience for the discerning consumer. As we wrap up, the future of Naoki Matcha gleams with potential, from its lean operational approach to its plans for product diversification and international expansion. Their story isn't just an inspiration for Amazon FBA sellers and matcha aficionados but to anyone with entrepreneurial dreams, demonstrating that with the right blend of passion and strategy, even the smallest idea can grow into a thriving E-commerce empire. Join us as we toast to the success of Sam and Sing, and keep an eye on your social media feeds—you might just catch the upcoming viral sensation of Bradley Sutton's matcha flan!   In episode 542 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley, Samuel, and Singchuen discuss: 00:00 - Childhood Friends Start Successful Matcha Business 08:35 - Exploring Opportunities With Macha Tea  11:33 - Journey to Success 14:50 - Product Growth From Gradual to Significant 20:46 - Brand Growth Through Market Analysis 21:26 - Strategic Growth of Naoki Matcha Brand 24:37 - Matcha Market Segmentation and Competition 28:56 - Success in their Amazon Business 30:15 - Amazon PPC Advertising Strategy Effectiveness 33:37 - Matcha Success Story and Plans For Future Growth ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today, we've got two childhood best friends from elementary school who linked up as adults and started a matcha Amazon business that now does millions of dollars a year. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think.   Bradley Sutton: Black Box by Helium 10 houses the largest database of Amazon products and keywords in the world. Outside of Amazon itself, we have over 2 billion products and many millions more keywords from different Amazon marketplaces, from USA to Australia to Germany and more. Use our powerful filters to search through this database for pockets of opportunity that you might want to get into with your first or next product to sell on Amazon. For more information, go to h10.me/blackbox. Don't forget you can save 10% off for life on Helium 10 by using our special code SSP10.   Bradley Sutton: Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that's completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies or serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And we are going to the opposite side of the world today, to I believe they're in Singapore, and it's funny because the way they were introduced to me by Crystal and somebody else from Amazon she was like oh yeah, I want you to meet the Macha Bros, but I don't think that's their official name, so I'll let you guys go ahead and introduce yourselves to our audience. This is the first time we'll be on the show   Sam: Sure. So my name is Sam and this is my business partner, Singchuen. We're not actually brothers, but we work together quite closely on a business that we started together. Our business is called Naoki matcha and, as the name suggests, we sell matcha green tea powder in the United States, in the United Kingdom and in Singapore.   Bradley Sutton: You know what I've known you, of you or about you? I literally thought you guys were blood brothers entire time, not just because of that name, and so I've already learned something new. I literally thought, you guys were.   Sam: No, no. We get that a lot. We get that a lot.   Bradley Sutton: Brothers from other mothers.   Sam: Yes, I think we can go with that, yeah.   Bradley Sutton: Okay, all right, hold on now. Let's you know like I already learned something new, so let's just take it. Take it way back, both of you born and raised in Singapore.   Sam and Singchuen: Yep.   Bradley Sutton: How did you guys meet? Did you meet like some story, like you met in university, or how did you guys meet each other?   Singchuen: Sam and I met oh, this is Singchuen, by the way, so I'm the business partner. Sam and I met in primary school, so we have known each other for quite a long time.   Bradley Sutton: So that is a good story, all right. And then you just went to that. You went to the same one, or? Or you just met in the neighborhood, or what?   Sam: We went to the same one and we actually were in the same school so like 10 years, and then our paths kind of diverged for a little while. But we reconnected in university because we were both interested in like business and entrepreneurship and I think that's how it kind of like reconnected and we started exploring different things and that's how we started working together again.   Bradley Sutton: What did both of you major in in university?   Singchuen: I studied business and Sam, he was actually a lawyer.   Sam: Yeah, I studied law at university.   Bradley Sutton: Upon graduation, did both of you guys go into that field that you had studied law and business?   Singchuen: I guess in a sense that because we started a business, business would be quite relevant. But in that in another, in another complete sense, it wasn't really that relevant because the things that you studied in school were geared to get you a role in a company, so it wasn't very practical. But the concepts, they were useful.   Sam: Yeah, so after graduation I did practice law for like a couple of years and then, while doing this business, and then at the end of the two years, I realized that, like you know there was I had two opportunities and like this one kind of showed itself to be a bit more, have more potential, so I left the law and I went into e-commerce.   Bradley Sutton: Who discovered e-commerce first? Was it you, Sam?   Sam: Yeah. So I think I really found out about this opportunity on Amazon and FBA the ability to like sell in another country that is not yours. I think back in like 2015-2016 this is like early days, right but at that point in time I was still like a university student at Seoul 6th year, so we really didn't have like the kind of resources that we needed to really tackle this, this, this opportunity, right. So we spent some time like learning about how to approach it and we only really launched it like late 2016 and from then we went on our careers. We kind of like grew it slowly along the way and then after a few years, we realized that okay, the time is right, this is a good time to go all in.   Bradley Sutton: Okay. So in 2016 you guys had reconnecting, like, hey, let's do something together while still having day jobs at that time.   Singchuen: Yeah, exactly, Sam was a lawyer. I actually worked in e-commerce as well. I worked in Alibaba for quite a number of years, so it helped that I could bring a certain kind of context to how the Amazon platform worked, and so we decided to start this sort of like to see where this would be going, because it was exciting, it was an opportunity and we always wanted to have our own business. So that was sort of like the paradigm in which we started off on.   Bradley Sutton: And so at the time in 2016, when you first just started dabbling in e-commerce, it sounds like you weren't all in. Was it matcha that you got into? Was that your first thing, or was it other things?   Sam: Yeah, so when we first started, we started, as most people do, with like a search query on Alibaba.com. The first products we actually sold were like these glass teapots, so we realized that they were not too bad to sell. Actually, we reached like five figures in multi-revenue by like within a year, but we met the same problems that I think a lot of people encounter, which is that after a while, people see that you're somewhat successful and then they'll try to launch a complicated product and therefore, when we found that happened to us and we found it very difficult to grow, so we really were like scratching our heads to think about like what other types of products or categories that we could do, and that's why we landed on matcha.   Bradley Sutton: Okay, so when you landed on matcha, were you still working your day jobs, or by that time you were all in on Amazon already?   Sam: No, we were still working out day jobs because for matcha category and the grocery category we found that, like you know, it's not so much of like a quick win kind of situation. You need to invest the time and energy and you need to have quite a lot of patience before your results actually bear fruit, and for us that took actually a number of years because you need to kind of like build your credibility and gain experience in what you're selling as well.   Bradley Sutton: Are we still talking 2016? Are we already now in 2017 in the timeline, or where are we at when you guys decided matcha?   Sam: Right. So in 2016, we dabbled in matcha and then we spent the next two years essentially trying to improve the product and better understand the category and the product market fit as it is in the US, and we took like a couple of years to do that properly, and I think it was only about 2020, you know, right after COVID hit, when we realized that, okay, the product is good, we have a good product that can stand up against the other competitors in the space, and you're going to go all in and grow this thing.   Singchuen: On the side of this, because our matcha green tea is from Japan and there was a requirement I want to say it's a hard requirement, but there is an understanding that in order to get the good product in Japan, especially from suppliers, you kind of need to cultivate the relationship a little bit and take some time for them to trust you. And so it's not as though, as we didn't want the best product right in 2016. Number one it's not. It's a learning process, right, especially when what the market is telling you of a certain kind of taste that they prefer. But it's also bringing back those requirements to the suppliers and the factories to let them know this is the taste that we want and, barring communication barriers, there's still that they need to feel, feel each other out to exactly ascertain what we're looking for. And that took quite a bit more time than what you would be doing on Alibaba.   Bradley Sutton: That's what has been curious. This is not something you would just like find on Alibaba. So where did the like, how did you guys land on matcha? Was it something you guys just liked? Was it because you were doing tea cups and you just like it was a side thing? Like how in the world? Or did you find it in Helium 10? Or how in the world did you say you know what? I think there's opportunity in matcha. Let's go ahead and examine this further.   Singchuen: In Singapore, generally we are exposed to Japanese culture quite a little bit already, but more closely, I guess it's also because I liked green tea. So at the point of time I didn't drink a lot of matcha, but I knew about it. So we explored that as a potential item to try to sell and in a sense it checked all the other boxes as well right. Whether it is for the economics, the logistics, the business, fit, branding, pricing. And that's how we started off on like taking the first step.   Sam: I think also at that point in time this is like 2015, 2016, right, I think matcha was just beginning to get popular in the US. So, yeah, that's when I think the craze started, right. So I think we were also at like the right time in the right place and we realized that, you know, we could marry like our interests and the market opportunity in front of us, and that's how we really landed on matcha.   Bradley Sutton: I don't have any matcha shirts or anything, but you mentioned like Japanese culture. So I got my Astro Boy jacket here. I got my old school Japanese Tokyo Giants hat here. You know, I used to live in Japan when I was younger and and that was why you know, like matcha is not exactly a natural thing for an American person to like, but I kind of liked it. Before it was cool and now, now, like you said, it's just like booming. Everybody's like, hey, matcha, you know you can go to Starbucks and get matcha, this and you can get matcha, and you know non Asian markets, which before it was different. So that was, you know, a little bit of foresight. Now, when you first started with the matcha, you know you had said, until then you were doing dabbling in other things, were you profitable on the Amazon side? Or, up to that point, you still hadn't made profit in the first year or so of your Amazon business.   Singchuen: We tended to search for products that were more profitable on the first sale. So in that sense, the first products that we went to more like glass cups, g-ports, things like that they were already profitable. So it's not as though, as we were dabbling in things that were really difficult to do, low priced or otherwise.   Bradley Sutton: Your first matcha product that you launched? Was that the one that was successful, or did it take a couple of tries before things really started taking off?   Sam: Well, I think it is still the first product that we launched, but what we had to do was tweak the formulation over the years several times and each time we're trying to improve it and fine tune it to better suit, like the feedback that we were getting. So it is the same product, it looks the same, but they're always like tweaks over the years and this kind of like helps build that, I guess, average review score. That goes up because, like you know, you're getting closer to what people like with each iteration.   Bradley Sutton: To find that like perfect blend and everything. You kind of mentioned it and I know this about your history. So can you talk a little bit about, like we just said, this wasn't something. Oh, let me find something in Alibaba, let me just put my sticker on it. How did you look for I don't even want to call it factories, but producers of matcha in Japan like we said, it's not on Alibaba and then talk about the long process of? Actually, I believe you would fly to Japan and meet different places and try things. Talk about that long process how long did it take and what were the steps involved in that.   Singchuen: At the start, we asked for samples from willing factories and once we tasted them and we realized that this was something that could be in a ball pack of what's considered as good tasting to the market, we would ask the supplier whether they are willing to sell us a certain volume of matcha. So there are several factories in Japan that do just green tea, and their idea was sort of branch out to selling matcha as well, because there was where the growing market was, and these were the factories that were more suitable for us to go into, and once we spoke to them their experience with matcha may not be the best at the point of time, mind you, but they were willing to work with us and over a period of time, once we let them know exactly what we're looking for and they were willing to tweak to our preferences, that's when we got a good fit and from then, as our volume started going up, more and more, various factories started.   Bradley Sutton: Until that part, though. How long was that? Were we talking a month? Were we talking multiple months?   Singchuen: No, that actually took quite a long time. I think about three years at least so around 2016 to 2019,. On the marketing side, Sam was trying to define a market fit, but on the supply side, we were just trying to make sure that factories produce what we needed and the trust and formulation. That takes a while.   Bradley Sutton: How can somebody have that kind of patience? That's very rare, not just in matcha industry, but just Amazon or business industry to have that kind of patience to you know to like, hey, I'm spending two or three years to get this right. Like, is that just in your nature or what's going on there?   Singchuen: To be fair, I think we were not so much in a hurry, just to share a little bit. Personally, it's a little bit more of we always wanted to get a business eventually, but the timeline wasn't so important. We weren't in a rush. Sam, as Sam has mentioned just now, both of us had decent careers, so we were optimizing on that front as well and we're happy to wait.   Bradley Sutton: Like you said, you still had your day jobs, you know, for a time. So it wasn't like you know, like you were about to go out of business and I think that's important. You know, like people sometimes just like, all right, I'm going to quit my job before they even have like a viable business and that's what you know. That's not going to allow somebody to have the patience. That's interesting. Now, at what point in this three years did you finally have like a product just start taking off? And was it just random, like it was just one day that it started going viral and never looked back? Or was this something where it was like, all right, you know, over a few months you were selling 10 units a day, then 15 units, then 20, was it a gradual thing? Or when did what? Was that moment where it's like, oh shoot, we got this right and this is going to take off.   Sam: Yeah, I think it was really like a gradual process. But that point for us, I think, when the old shoot moment, I think, was when we realized that, like the monthly sales for this Macha product alone was quite significant and this was enough to basically sustain ourselves, number one and number two provide a good base and recurring cash flow to kind of grow the business from there. Yeah, and this was really about, like you know, as I said, 2020, mid 2020, early to mid 2020, after COVID started, where we realized that, hey, this thing has snowballed into something quite significant. So it was really a gradual process.   Bradley Sutton: If you can recall either of you, what was your sales the year before, in 2019, when you were still just dabbling in Macha and maybe still had some of the other products?   Sam: I would say that it was like maybe like six figures a year, low six figures a year, and then, okay, yeah, we was at that point in time. We were, we were often optimistic about, about close to doubling each year. So that was, that was where we were at.   Bradley Sutton: And then. So at that point, obviously still working full time jobs. And then it was at 2020, when it took off, and then you quit in 2020, your jobs or you still, even though it started taking off, you still were working your full time.   Sam: I wouldn't say it took off right. It was just at that point in time with, like, the good momentum that like we know that there's some something to stand on. So that was when we decided, okay, time to go all in. And then we know that the product was ready. And then we started doubling down on marketing in order to kind of know that, you know, this optimized product is available to everyone. And then that's how we kind of grew from there.   Bradley Sutton: What kind of marketing? I mean, obviously Amazon PPC is part of it. Was that it or other things as well?   Sam: So we did try a bunch of things at first, but by the late by late 2020, we realized that Amazon advertising PPC mainly is that engine that's going to give us the growth for the next few years, because we realized that, like on a cost acquisition basis, like you just can't beat it.   Bradley Sutton: You said 2019, low six figures. What about 2020, that your first really good year. What did you end approximately with?   Sam: I think we were just under seven.   Bradley Sutton: And then how about 2021?   Sam: Yes, somewhere, seven.   Bradley Sutton: All right. So now it's like you guys knew you had something. It wasn't just a fluke, you know. You had some consistency. Do you mind if I show your product on screen right now? For those watching this on YouTube?   Sam: Oh yeah, go ahead.   Bradley Sutton: So let me pull it up here. Was this variation family here of the superior ceremonial blend it says here, was this like your first product that you got into?   Sam: Yes, it was.   Bradley Sutton: Okay, now I'm looking. Now it's like you know, according to Amazon, according to Helium 10, you are selling throughout this variation family here, thousands of units, multiple six figures per month, just with this, with this fam variation family. So this is the one that is your, your big seller. So I mean, if I'm looking at these numbers correctly, unless this is just a very nice month here, you're like what in the you know mid seven figures now, or higher?   Sam: I think that's fantastic yeah.   Bradley Sutton: Okay and explain this product. You know there's a lot I like matcha. I understand it, but there's a lot of people who might like think like what? Like? Do you just like dump this in tea or do you actually use it to cook something? Like what? Like? How in the world are you selling almost 10,000 units of this a month? Like, what are the people buying this to use?   Sam: Right, I think the way to look at this product is that it's a form of tea and in Japan it's enjoyed as a form of tea. Now in America it's usually enjoyed in a, in a form of a latte. So imagine you have a tea and then I think in some parts of the US, like milk tea is popular, right. So in the same way you can add milk to matcha and then you get a Matcha Latte. So because people find that coffee is not working for them for various reasons whether like they feel, like you know, nervous or anxiety after that they try to find something else, right. So matcha kind of ticks all the boxes because it's got a little bit of caffeine, so you don't feel that like that anxiety that you get with coffee sometimes, and also there are like amino acids inside that help you stay alert for a longer time. So that was kind of like the health food appeal of matcha. But that's, I think, why it got popular and that's why people drink it. So we also wanted to kind of share a bit of that Japanese heritage of matcha in our product, which is why it looks the way it does, because in Japan actually the traditional way of preparing it is to take like a teaspoon of the powder, add some water and then whisk it up with this bamboo whisk until it becomes like nice and froth.   Bradley Sutton: I see that here in your A plus, your premium A plus content, so I can see a little bit of that here. You're telling that story. Really great branding here, I like that.   Sam: So they whip it up into like this frothy little mixture and I guess if you could kind of relate it back to coffee culture, I would say like it's like a Matcha Americano. That's the way that they would drink it and that's the main way it's consumed in Japan.   Bradley Sutton: Okay, now you've got just a beautiful listing here. You know, looks like premium A plus content. You're educating people here. You have a frequently asked questions, and then obviously you've got some great pictures here where you've got infographics. You've got, you know, like kind of like a history lesson of matcha. You have pictures of it. I mean what else? Like you even show the origin. I think I saw somewhere there's like different cities where this comes from. Where is that here, here? It is here Like you're like oh hey, this one is from Kyoto, this one's from Fukuoka. You have the city. So like I'm assuming that I mean, did you start this from like day one such in depth like information here, or is this just gradually how you were able to kind of hone your branding?   Sam: I think we didn't know that it would take this form at the very start. We knew that, like you know, instinctively this is the branding angle that we want to work with. But as we grew with time we know we were reacting to what's happening in the market right and how we need to kind of distinguish our brand and our product from other people and to make sure that, even though, like, they like the product but they need to have like some visual reference to kind of like make that association, to know that like, oh okay, this is now Kimatcha and I like now Kimatcha.   Bradley Sutton: You know what I'm going to check something. Hold on, let me see, I'm actually gonna run Cerebro on one of your products. I'm curious, you know you mentioned, hey, people are actually searching for Naoki Matcha. I'm just curious, like, what kind of brand recognition you have. So I'm just running Cerebro on here on our YouTube and podcast version. We'll speed this up. Let's see here, because I have a feeling, you know you've been selling for a while now and you're doing so well that there are literally people who just search for your brand name. So let's take a look at how many people are searching for your brand name here. Hold on, all right, here in Cerebro I'm gonna put phrases containing Naoki and let's apply that filter and wow, there's 45 different keywords that have Naoki in it and with thousands of search volume a month. So people like know your brand. You know just Naoki Matcha by itself has 1200 search volume and there's 45 other versions that people are actually searching for. So I mean that's kind of like what the goal is. When you're selling on Amazon, hey, sure you want people to buy you on the generic searches, like you know, Matcha Tea or Matcha Powder or something. But you know you've kind of made it when there's actually search volume for your brand.   Bradley Sutton: You guys are getting, you know, using expensive you know matcha directly from the source in Japan. You know I'm sure there maybe are some competitors going like a cheaper route. Or maybe you know, like I'm just looking here in the search for Matcha Tea and I even see you know listings that are like $9, you know $9.95. And you guys are at like $40, $39. I see some that are, well, that's a different product, but like $7, you know $15. How can you guys stay at around the top? Like I'm looking at the BSR, you're like one of the top three in the whole Matcha category. Like some people think, oh, I have to. You know, like if cheaper sources come on, I'm just going to have to try and price match and then you know race to the bottom and I like to tell people no, no, no, there's ways to still succeed even at a higher price point. What's your guys secret where you can stay at this $40 price point and still make a lot of sales despite these cheaper alternatives coming into the market?   Sam: Well, I think it's all about getting people to try it once. And once the person tries it once, right, and then they compare it to like the cheaper one that they bought before they realize, like you know, the difference is like night and day, right. So what we want to do is to make sure that they realize that they're getting like a good price for this level of quality, and once that kind of barrier is unlocked and then they realize that, hey, actually, if I pay $25 for one ounce, right, I'm getting a lot more value if I'm paying $40 for like 3.5 ounces, so the $40 one actually becomes like a good idea, even though, like it's like four times whatever is available on. You know the results when you search for matcha.   Singchuen: Just to add on to that, the cheaper matcha products are by nature of how it's grown and how it's produced. It tastes incredibly different from how matcha products of a certain price level are like because of how much more expensive it is to produce. So matcha is actually in quite a bit of a supply crunch and so there is actually not that much matcha supply to go around at the higher quality price range. In that sense, because it's so expensive, it's not possible to match the quality level if you're to go below the price. So the market kind of like segmented itself in a way. So we, as Sam has just mentioned just now, as long as we are sort of value for the price that we are offering, it's good enough for us and that's how we managed to stay above the competition. If you notice that there are other competitors that are also doing well with high BSR and they are similarly high priced. But once you do the math you realize that in addition to our better tasting product our price per gram, if you want to put it that way it's still much better than our competitors.   Sam: It's pretty competitive still.   Bradley Sutton: What's the future hold? Now you actually have Naoki Matcha in the brand name. So if you just stay with this brand, you're kind of I don't want to say limited, but it's not like you can start selling something completely off the wall under this brand, like do you have are there still enough new kinds of variations and blends that you can come up with to keep this brand going? Or have you considered, like maybe we should start something completely different, like I start a new brand? Or what's your goal for growing the business?   Sam: Right. I think for this brand there's still some room for growth, because actually so far we haven't touched the whole products that deal with, like matcha accessories. We're just starting that this year and also there are different grades of matcha right. So honestly, we are really at like that middle to high kind of grade, but we haven't really touched the other grade so far. So those are kind of like the growth opportunities that are available to us, yeah, but of course, once we hit there's a ceiling for category, once we hit that, yeah, I think you do have to choose another brand.   Bradley Sutton: Obviously, Amazon USA is your main market. Are you selling on other Amazon marketplaces? If so, which? And then also other marketplaces at all, like Walmart, Shopify or other websites?   Singchuen: We are in the UK. We're selling the exact same brand in the UK as well. It's sort of like an offshoot. We started it because some fans who have tasted it in America have gone back to the UK and so they are wondering why aren't you in the UK? So we decided to launch it over there as well, and so far the growth is okay, but not as high as in America, obviously, and in Singapore. We are on e-commerce platforms as well, and I'm not too sure we can confidently say this, but we are in the top few brands on those platforms selling decently well too.   Bradley Sutton: You know, talk about some specific strategies that you guys think have helped you get to where you are, because it's not just like I mean somebody could spend 10 years and develop like the most perfect, pure form of matcha known to mankind in history and it's meaningless, you know, without the strategy that is going to get it in front of people. So what are some of the things that set you apart from maybe the 10 other matcha people who maybe have started and gone out of business, you know, because they didn't have your strategy? What do you think set you apart from others?   Sam: Well, I think a handful of things. The first one is okay, so I think you can use. You can rely on Amazon PPC. You can look at your search term impression share reports. You can look at your keyword ranking and all that kind of stuff and that will help you in the short run. But honestly, the thing that really helped us the most was patience and making sure that your product is on a sensory level it's actually good and people like it. Once you have those two things covered, then you know you just need to get people to try to get them to tell their friends, and then, like people, their friends who are interested in matcha will buy, and then they are buying again and then this whole thing kind of grows by itself. Your PPC and all of these other tools that you have are really just like fuel that you add to this engine   Singchuen: And on the other side of things is obviously you kind of need to make sure that you treat your supplier well as well. Make sure that they understand what you're going through and make sure that you try to understand what they're going through. If language is a barrier, hire an interpreter, right, it's not too difficult. Decency goes both ways. So you may be pressed, but you got to recognize that the factories themselves, they, are pressed as well. So working together for compromise, understanding each other and not drawing too much, just to be a little bit more understanding towards each other, goes a long way. I think what tends to happen is that if you're not patient, as Sam has mentioned, you may cut off communications with factories that may help you in the future, and you don't want to do that.   Bradley Sutton: Now I'm looking, speaking of PPC, I'm looking at just what I see on Amazon and I see everything. I see sponsored product ASIN targeting campaigns right here on this one page I see you're targeting your own ASIN and sponsored display ad. I see sponsored brand ads in the search for Matcha tea. I saw sponsored brand video, regular sponsored products. So you guys are just like going all out with all the different kinds of PPC that Amazon provides. Any one of those, like you think, has performed better for you or gives you the best ROI, or is it kind of just kind of even across the board?   Sam: Well, I think at the start sponsored products perform very well, but as you get more and more ad types and different you know SV, SD, SP you mix that in. You have some DSP thrown in. The attribution for which ad actually did the sale for you gets a bit more tricky.   Bradley Sutton: That's true. That's true, yeah, because you know. But the good thing about that is you're just your top of mind because you're advertising everywhere you can. You know, like sure, maybe you don't know exactly what got the attribution, but the point is you have such a big share of voice you know, potentially, maybe compared to your competitors, that you're your top of mind for your, for your customers. Okay, so PPC is important for what's on Amazon. I'm sure you use Amazon data points as well. What about Helium 10? What's your favorite tool in Helium 10 and how has it helped you?   Sam: I think, honestly, the keyword coverage and Cerebro is still like my favorite tool. I've been using it since like 2017, when it first launched.   Singchuen: As you use, you search on Amazon and you search on other platforms take a look at how Helium 10's are like compared to others. You always use that. There's a certain sense that Helium 10's information is letting you after it. It's more of a sense. I can't really explain it, and then that really goes a long way, I think.   Bradley Sutton: Now for either of you. If there was something on your wish list for Helium 10, like, like something, maybe we don't do right now, you're like, wow, it would be so cool if Helium 10 could do this. Here's your chance to tell me what is on the matcha bros top wish list, for what Helium 10 can help now give matcha with?   Sam: Right. So I think my number one wish list would be cohort analytics. So if, for example, I can see in January how many new customers are acquired and how much, and how much of that repeat over the next 12, 24, 36 months, that would be awesome. I don't think there's none of the big analytics platforms do this. There are some specialized ones that do it that we subscribe to, but they're expensive and I'm pretty sure that you guys can do a better job.   Bradley Sutton: Awesome, awesome. Now my last question is just, you know, you guys have reached this level of success, selling millions of dollars. Obviously you two are working together. How many people total does it take to run the Naoki Matcha machine? You know like, are you guys doing 100% of the work? Do you have virtual assistants? Do you have, you know, in Singapore staff? How many people does it take to run your business?   Singchuen: Right now we are actually quite an entity, Sam, as I'm sure you can tell from this conversation. Sam does most of the marketing and I do more of the supply side operations kind of activities. So in total we have about five people running the entire business.   Bradley Sutton: Well, this has been very enlightening. I've you know, despite knowing about you guys, almost 95% of this I think was completely new information to me and obviously new to our audience. It's great to see this success story. I love matcha, so I'm going to have to purchase your, your product, and make some. I'll be your influencer. Make some matcha, some kind of matcha. Let's see I'm going to. I wanted to make a matcha flan flan like a. I don't know if you guys know what that is. That's like a Mexican dish. So that's, I'm going to make something and then it's going to go viral on TikTok and make you guys another few million dollars just for me.   Singchuen: Thank you for your support.   Bradley Sutton: You could take me out to dinner   Sam: Yeah. Thank you and looking forward to that.   Bradley Sutton: Thank you so much for coming on, and let's have you guys back on the podcast in 2025 and let's see how you guys have grown at that time.  

“Hopefully, this is a renaissance,” says Sam Jean, who returns to Cuckoo 4 Politics for another episode of Raw & Uncut as we wrap up 2023. It's been a year full of high profile labor strikes, which remind people of the power of unions to stand up to corporations to fight for a living wage. Of course, this doesn't stop many people from blaming immigrants for depressed wages and low employment. America has a history of demonizing its most newly arrived citizens, blaming them for all its problems, while simultaneously relying on them to make up large parts of the workforce. As Americans, we must question which of our foreign policy maneuvers have forced people to come to our country to seek a better life.  This hypocrisy extends to the highest positions of government. Americans continue to labor under the illusion that those on the Supreme Court hold themselves to a higher moral standard than the rest of us. Yet, as Michael points out, Judge Clarence Thomas accepts all sorts of gifts and favors from rich donors, compromising. Sam calls for term limits in the Supreme Court, to help tamper down such corruption and compromised integrity and corruption.  Meanwhile, too many conservative candidates are weaponizing their religion as a way to mystify their followers, something that Sam predicts will only become more pronounced during the 2024 election season. If there's one abiding truth, it's that Donald Trump makes everything worse.  Quotes: “We have to address why it is that people are coming here. The other thing we don't address in terms of our foreign policy is what has American foreign policy done to some of these countries that are sending us their migrants? Why? Why is that happening?” (9:20 | Sam) “It seems like the public understands that the workers have no leverage and their only leverage is to strike. And when they start striking and they start explaining what they want, regardless of how the media tries to interpret it like, ‘Oh, they expect a living wage.---the shock of it! God forbid someone get a wage that allows them to live–I  think that (18:17 | Sam) “One thing the strike demonstrates is the power of labor and organizing labor because the workers by themselves do not have sufficient leverage to stand up against the corporations. They just simply don't. You think one worker can stand up to Ford, Chrysler, GM? Not at all. So this demonstrates the power of labor, and hopefully this is a renaissance for labor movements to come back.” (19:27 | Sam)  “Judge Clarence Thomas. The man is literally hanging with big donors who are paying for his–everything–from taking him on lavish vacations, to paying for anything he wants and we think, ‘You're supposed to be impartial?' Is he another Tim Scott?” (24:28 | Michael) “There is a separation of church and state because we understand in this country that there are people who believe and there are people who don't believe. We have to treat them the same way. You don't need to insert religion to have an outcome that is fair. Can we use religious ideas to form certain laws? Of course we can, of course people do, but the laws are sufficient as they're written without a hint and a hinge of religion.” (30:12 | Sam) Links cuckoo4politics.com https://www.instagram.com/cuckoo_4_politics/ https://www.facebook.com/Cuckoo-4-Politics-104093938102793 Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Monkey bots, revolutionary polities, and robot gladiators, oh my! Shaun Duke and Daniel Haeusser are joined by the phenomenal Samit Basu for a discussion of his latest novel, The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport! Together, they discuss Basu's approach to worldbuilding and storytelling, the difficulties of writing about revolutionary change, the novel's unique POV, and so much […]

Unstacked with Sarah (Bay County Public Library) and Stephen (Huntsville-Madison County Public Library). Join us for an interview with award-winning, internationally bestselling author, Samit Basu. We'll discuss his newest science fiction novel, The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport, which is an action-packed retelling of Aladdin full of heart, humor and bots. Unwind with Samit as he shares his writing process, film and comic work, love of Aladdin, tropes, libraries and more! For more information about Samit, visit his website at: https://samitbasu.com/. Stay safe and read my friend. It's good for you! #SamitBasu #Tordotcom #Libraries #NWRLS #HMCPL #WritingProcess #Author #AuthorInterview #TheJinnBotofShantiport #Scifi #SpaceOpera #Aladdin #ScienceFiction #Robots #bollywood #folklore #storytelling

Hello hello! Today I've got for you another between-season bonus episode. This time we're breaking format to talk about i know the end, a module I published earlier this year about going back home after a long time away and all the horrors that entails. Because if you can't occasionally publish something self-indulgent in your podcast feed, what's even the point of having one?My cohost for this is my friend Nico MacDougall, the current organizer of The Awards, who edited i know the end and had almost as much to say about it as I did.For maximum understanding of this episode, you can pick up a free copy of the module here and follow along (or skim it in advance).Further reading:The original i know the end cover artThe “oops all PBTA moves” version of i know the endThree of my short filmsMy previous written designer commentaries on Space Train Space Heist and CouriersJohn Harper talking with Andrew Gillis about the origins of Blades in the DarkThe official designer commentary podcasts for Spire and HeartAaron Lim's An Altogether Different River, which comes with a designer commentary versionCamera Lucida by Roland Barthes, a photography theory book that we talked about during recording but which I later cut because I remembered most of the details about it incorrectlyWhat Is Risograph Printing, another topic cut from the final recording because I got basically everything about it wrong while recording (the background texture of the module is a risograph printed texture)Before Sunrise by Richard LinklaterQuestionable Content by Jeph JacquesSocials:Nico's carrd page, which includes links to their socials, editing rates, and The Awards.Sam on Bluesky, Twitter, dice.camp, and itch.The Dice Exploder logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!Transcript:Sam: Hello and welcome to Dice Exploder. Normally each week we take a tabletop RPG mechanic, bait our lines with it, and cast them out to see, to see what we can catch. But you hear that different intro music? That means this episode I'm doing something much more self indulgent, a designer commentary on a module I released earlier this year called I Know the End.And just a heads up here at the top, to get the most out of this, you probably want to have at least read through the module in question before, or as, you're listening. I threw a bunch of free copies up on itch for exactly this purpose, so feel free to go run and grab one. I'll wait.Anyway, I love designer commentaries. You can find a few of my old written ones, as well as links to a few of my favorites from other people, in the show notes. But I wanted to try releasing one as a podcast, because one, that sounds fun, and two, what's the point of having a podcast feed if you can't be ridiculously self indulgent in it on occasion?And I picked I Know The End to talk about because it is... weird. I don't know. It's weird. I describe it on itch as a short scenario about returning home and all the horrors that entails. But you'll hear us take issue with, I don't know, maybe every word in that sentence over the course of this commentary. It was a strange experience to make this thing, and I figured that might be interesting to hear about.It was also the first time I ever worked with an editor Nico MacDougall my friend and the organizer behind The Awards since 2023. Nico was excellent to work with and you can find their rates and such in the show notes and they are with me today to talk through this thing in excruciating detail as you probably noticed from the runtime we had a lot to say. Definitely contracted two guys on a podcast disease. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this. But regardless, I'd love to hear what you think of it. Should I do more? Never again? Want to organize the Dice Exploder Game Jam we mused about doing at the end of this? Hit me up! I'd love to hear from you. And now, here is myself, I guess, and Nico MacDougall, with a full designer's commentary on I Know The End.Nico: Well, Sam, thanks for being here on your podcast to discuss your... adventure.Sam: You're welcome.Nico: Yes.Sam: for having me.Nico: Very first question is adventure: is that really, like, the right term for this?Sam: Are we really starting here? Like, I, I don't know. I, I feel like I got, I really went into this thing with true intentions to write a proper module, you know? Like I was thinking about OSR style play for like the first time in my life, and like, we were both coming out of the awards 2022 judging, and a lot of the submissions for 2022 the Awards were modules. I thought that was great but it really was sort of like opening the floodgates of this style of play that I knew basically nothing about. And, at the same time that we were reading through all 200 submissions for the awards, I was also reading Marcia B's list of 100 OSR blog posts of some influence.And so I was really drinking from the fire hose of this style of play, and also, I wasn't playing any of it. Like, I was experimenting with Trophy Gold a little bit, which is this story game that is designed to try to play OSR modules and dungeons as, like, a story game kind of experience. And I was kind of figuring out how it works and like how I wanted to run it and how to make it go And Joe DeSimone, who was running the awards at the time was just encouraging everyone to make weirder shit and like, that was his ethos and those were the people that he got to submit to the awards. Like, it was just the weirdest stuff that I had ever read in the RPG space and... That's probably a lie. There's some weird stuff out there.It was just like so much weird stuff. It was like stuff on the bleeding edge of a whole side of the hobby that I didn't participate in in the first place. My intro to this part of the hobby was the bleeding edge of it. And I was like, alright, I, I just wanna make something there, I wanna try playing around there and see what happens.And Joe tweeted out the tweet was like, Now we're all making modules based on songs that make us cry. And I was listening to the Phoebe Bridgers album Punisher on loop at the time to inspire a screenplay I was working on. And the last track is called I Know the End, and just ends with this, primal scream.And it was, it was a hard fall for me, at the time. And the primal scream felt really cathartic. And I was spending a lot of time in the, small town where I grew up. And, this horror monster idea of a town that is, itself, an entity and like is a whole monster, and like, what does that mean exactly? I don't know, but intuitively, I like, understand it, and we're just gonna kind of drive... towards my intuitive understanding of what this thing is supposed to be. I just decided to do that and see what happened. And did that give us an adventure in the end? I don't know. Did that give us a 32 page long bestiary entry in the form of a module? Like, that sounds closer to right to me, but also, taxonomies are a lie and foolish anyways.I don't know, I made a weird thing, here it is. Nico: Yeah. So I was scrolling back in our, in our conversation to where you first shared this with me, and I... I would like to share with the audience the text that accompanied it. It was the Google Doc, and then it said, This might be completely unplayable, it might actually be a short story, or, like, a movie, but I'm gonna publish it anyway, and, you know... If that isn't exactly it, like...Sam: Yeah I like that stuff. I don't know, another thing I've been thinking about a lot this fall is writing by stream of consciousness. Like, I realized that I don't have a lot of confidence in any of my work that I feel like I created quickly. Like, the RPG thing I'm most well known for, I think, is Doskvol Breathes, which I just pumped out in an afternoon. It was just a thought that I had on a whim about how you might play blades in the dark maybe. And I finished it and then I released it and people were like, this is amazing. And I still get complimented on it all the time. I'm still really proud of it, but it, I don't have any confidence in it because it came so quickly.And, like, I know that this is something I need to, like, talk about in therapy, you know, about, like, It's not real art unless I worked on it for six months straight, like, really worked my ass off. But this process, I sort of looked back over my career as a screenwriter, as a short filmmaker, as a game designer, and started realizing just how many of my favorite things that I've made came from exactly that process of the whole idea kind of coming together all at once in like one sitting. And even if it then took like a bunch of months of like refining like it's wild to me How much of my favorite work was created by following my intuition, and then just leaving it be afterwards.Nico: Yeah, I actually did want to ask about the similarity between your, like, process for TTRPG design versus screenwriting, cause... While I have read, you know, edited this, but also, like, read your your game design work and know relatively well your thoughts on, like, you know, just game design sort of theory and stuff in general, I have never read any, like, screenwriting stuff that you've done. Although, lord knows I hope to see it someday. Sam: Well, listen, if anyone listening to this wants to read my screenplays, I'm on Discord. You can find me and I'll happily share them all. My old short films are largely available on the internet, too. You know, maybe I'll link a couple in the show notes.Nico: oh yeah,Sam: But I I think of my process for screenwriting as really, really structural.Like, I, I'm a person who really came out of needing a plot and needing to know what happens in a story, and to really especially need to know the ending of a story so I know kind of what I'm going towards as I'm writing the thing. I outline like really extensively before I write feature or a pilot, like there's so much planning you have to do, I think it is really, really hard to write any kind of screenplay and not have to revise it over and over and over again, or at least like plan really carefully ahead of time and like really think about all the details, revise a lot, run it by a lot of people for feedback over and over. But especially for me that, that having an ending, like a target in mind when I'm writing is so important. I just don't know how to do it without that.Except occasionally when I get some sort of idea like this one where I have a feeling of vibe and I just start writing that thing and then eventually it's done. And I, I've never had that happen for a feature film screenplay or like a TV pilot kind of screenplay.But I have had a couple of short films come together that way where I don't know what the thing is, I just know what I am writing right now, and then it's done, and then I go make it. And I I don't know why that happens sometimes. Nico: Yeah, I mean I would imagine length plays a factor in it, right? Like a short film, or, I mean, gosh, how many pages did I know the end, end, end up being? Sam: 36. Nico: But I find that really fascinating that, too, that you say that when you're screenwriting, you have to have it really structural, really outlined, an end specifically in mind, when, to me, that almost feels like, well, not the outlining part, but having an end in mind feels almost antithetical to even the idea of, like, game design, or, I guess, TTRPG design, right?Even the most sort of relatively pre structured, Eat the Reich, Yazeeba's Bed and Breakfast, like, Lady Blackbird games, where the characters are pretty well defined before any human player starts interacting with them, you can never know how it's going to end. And it's kind of almost against the idea of the game or the, the sort of art form as a whole to really know that.Even games that are play to lose, like, there are many games now where it's like, you will die at the end. And it's like, okay, but like, that's not really the actual end. Like, sure, it's technically the end, but it's like, we have no idea what's gonna be the moment right before that, or the moment before that. As opposed to screenwriting Sam: yeah, it's a, it's a really different medium. I still think my need to have a target in mind is something that is really true about my game design process too.Like the other game that I'm well known for, well known for being relative here, but is Space Train Space Heist, where I was like, I have a very clear goal, I want to run a Blades in the Dark as a one shot at Games on Demand in a two hour slot. And Blades in the Dark is not a game that is built to do that well, so I want to make a game that is built to do that well, but like, captures everything about the one shot Blades in the Dark experience that I think is good and fun .And that may not be a sort of thematic statement kind of ending, like that's what I'm kind of looking for when I'm writing a screenplay, but that is a clear goal for a design of a game.Nico: Yeah. even In the context of I know the end, and to start talking a little bit about my role in this as well, as, as the editor, I think the point of view, the vibe, the, like, desired sort of aesthetic end point Was very clear from the start, from the jump. And I think that in many ways sort of substitutes for knowing the end of the story in your screenwriting process.So that really helped when I was editing it by focusing on like, okay, here's the pitch. How can I help sort of whittle it down or enhance it or change stuff in order to help realize that goal.And sometimes it kind of surprises me even, like, how much my games shift and change as they reach that goal. Like, sometimes you can, like, look back at old versions of it, and you're like, wow, so little of this is still present. But, like, you can see the throughline, very sort of Ship of Theseus, right? Like, you're like, wow, everything has been replaced, and yet, it's, like, still the thing that I wanted to end up at.Sam: Yeah, another thing that is, I think, more true of my screenwriting process than my game design process is how very common that in the middle of the process I will have to step back and take stock of what was I trying to do again? Like, what was my original goal? I've gotten all these notes from a lot of different people and, like, I've done a lot of work and I've found stuff that I like.And what was I trying to do? Like, I have, all this material on the table now, I have, like, clay on the wheel, and, like, I just gotta step back and take a break and refocus on, like, what are we trying to do. I Think it's really important to be able to do that in any creative process.To Tie together a couple of threads that we've talked about here, talked at the beginning of this about how much this felt like a stream of consciousness project for me, that I really just like, dumped this out and then like, let it rip.But also, I mean, this was my first time working with an editor, and I think you did a lot of work on this to make it way better, like really polish it up and make those edges the kind of pointy that they wanted to be, that this game really called for. And that makes this, in some ways, both a really unstructured process for me, and then a really structured process, and... I don't know what to make of that. I think there's something cool about having both of those components involved in a process. Nico: Yeah, it is. I I very much agree that like, yeah, most of my sort of design stuff have, has proceeded very much the same way of just kind of like sporadically working on it, changing stuff, like revamping it, whatever. And it's like, it's sort of, yeah, in a constant state of fluxx up until the moment where I'm like, okay, I guess it's done now.What I was gonna say, I was gonna jump back just a point or two which is you mentioned Clayton Notestein's Explorer's Design Jam. And I was curious, like, what was your experience, like, using that design template? Sam: Yeah I really enjoyed it, I really had a good time with it. I had already gotten really comfortable with InDesign just teaching myself during lockdown. Like, that's what I did for 2020, was I, like, laid out a bunch of games myself and they all looked like shit, but they all taught me how to use InDesign as a program.And I think templates are really, really valuable. Like it's so much easier to reconfigure the guts of another template than it is to create something from scratch.And I like Clayton's template. I think it's nice and clean. I think you can see in all the publications that have come out using Clayton's template, how recognizable it is. How little most people stray from the bones of it, and on the one hand, I think it's amazing that you can just use the template and go really quickly and like, get something out.And also I just want to push on it a little bit more. I want something, like the template is designed to be a template. It is not a suit tailored to whatever your particular project is. But also, I think if I had tried to lay this out without a template, it would look substantially worse, and there are a few notable breaks here and there that I, you know, I enjoyed experimenting with. I like the use of the comments column for little artwork. I think that was a nice little innovation that I added.And, you know, I didn't write this originally to have that sort of commentary column as a part of it. Like, all of the text was just in the main body of it. And I like the way it turned out to have that sort of, like, director's commentary thing hanging out in the wings. lot of people have talked about how much they like that in Clayton's template. so I, I don't know, like I, think that on the one hand a template really opens up a lot of possibilities for a lot of people and really opened up a lot of possibilities for me, and on the other hand I do still look at it and I see the template And I'm like, I hope this doesn't look too much like every other person whoNico: Right, right. I mean, that is definitely the difficulty of providing those kinds of tools, because like, it makes it very easy to make things especially if you're sort of just getting started, or if you don't have a lot of confidence or familiarity with it inDesign or anything like that. But ultimately, I feel like Clayton himself would say that the Explorer's Design Template is not intended to be, like, the final template, right? It's intended to be, like, a tool that you can use to varying effects, right?Yeah, I was thinking about it when I was going through this earlier, and I was like, Oh, yeah, like, you only use the comments, column a few times, and then I literally only realized maybe five minutes before you said it, I was like, oh, wait, all the little artwork is also in that little column thing, like you just said, and I was like, oh, that's like, that's actually a really cool way to use the template, because that space is already provided if you include that column, but just because you have the column that's, you know, quote unquote, intended for commentary, doesn't mean you have to use it for commentary, doesn't mean you have to put text in there.Sam: Yeah, you definitely like learn a lot of stuff about the guts of the thing as you start playing with it.Nico: Yeah. is probably getting on the level of, like, pretty pointless, sort of what ifs, but I'm curious... If Clayton hadn't done the Explorer's Design Template Jam, or if you had, for whatever reason, like, not been inspired to use that as the impetus to, like, make this and get it edited and laid out and published or whatever, like, Do you think you still would have tried to use that template, or would you have just tried to lay it out yourself, like you've done in the past?Sam: Honestly, I think without the jam this wouldn't exist. I have like a long to do list of things at any given time, like creative projects I wanna on, youNico: Oh, yeah,Sam: know? And the thing that brought this to the top of that to do list was just wanting to have something to submit into that jam. You know, I wanted to work with you as an editor. I Always want to clear something off the to do list. I always want to have some kind of creative project. And, I wanted to submit something to that jam, but I think if you took any one of those away, I might not have put the thing out at all. Nico: Yeah, that's really interesting. But I guess that's also, again, kind of what a good template or layout or just tool in general can help is actually get these things made. Sam: That's what a good jam can do, too, right? I mean, there's a reason the Golden Cobra contest is something that I love. It's like 40 new LARPs every year and they only exist because the Golden Cobra is throwing down the gauntlet.Nico: That's very true. Well, maybe it's time to move along to more practical concerns Sam: Maybe it's time to do the actual commentary part of this episodeWe've done the waxing philosophical part, butNico: we, yeah, checked off that Dice Exploder box. Now it's time to do the actual game talk.Sam: your bingo cards Nico: Yeah, Sam: Yeah, so let's start with the cover.Nico: Yes, the cover, which I only realized it was a teeth, that it was a mouth with teeth open when you said in the outline, ah yes, it's a mouth with teeth. And I looked at it and I was like... Oh my god, it is. Like,Sam: I did my job so well. I wanted it to be subtle, but I always like looked at it and was like it's so obviously teeth, I'm never gonna get this subtle enough. But I'm I'm glad to hear that I succeeded.Nico: I truly don't know what I thought it was before, but it definitely wasn't teeth.Sam: Yeah. Well, it started as I'll share this in the show notes. It started as this image. It was like a 6x9 layout, and, the teeth were still there, and it was like, all black, and the teeth were this much wider, gaping maw, like, inhuman, unhinged jaw kind of situation. And then, in the middle of it, was a, like, live laugh love kind of Airbnb sign with I Know The End on it. It was like the mouth, like, eating the sign.And I liked that. I felt like, the problem with that was that... As much as creepy, live, laugh, love sign is kind of the like, vibe of this, I didn't really want to bring in the like, kitsch of that at all, like, I felt like that kitschiness would hang over the whole thing if I made it the cover, and I mean, this whole thing is just about my own personal emotional repression, right? And my feelings about my small town that I'm from, andabout like, my ambition, and, exactly, yeah.But I, I write a lot, and I make a lot of art about emotional repression , and I think the particular vibe of this game's repression doesn't have space for irony, or satire, or like, Do you wanna live, laugh, love? Like, I don't know how else to put it. Like, it just felt really wrong.It was like, if you put that into the space at all, it's gonna curdle the whole feeling. Nico: it's about the framing of it. I, know that Spencer Campbell of Gila RPGs has written something about this on his blog. I don't remember specifically what the context is, but he's a psychologist by training and is talking about how, like, the way that you frame something matters a lot to how people respond to it, right?So you like, if you're framing it as like, oh, you have, twelve things and I take away six from you, versus like, oh, you have nothing and then you are given six things. It's like, both scenarios, you like, end up with six but Sam: One feels like a letdown and one feels great. Yeah,Nico: yeah, and so I think in his article he was talking about in the, yeah, you know, tying that into the game design context, obviously.And I think it matches here where like, sort of runs the risk of like, priming people to expect kitsch, and I don't think that that's really present in the rest of the game. And that kind of mismatched expectations could really, like, lead to some problems when people are trying to, like, play the game.Sam: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I mean this cover is just kind of like, oh. Like, it doesn't it doesn't really tell you much other than just like there's something back there that's maybe vaguely menacing, and that's kind of it. That's kind of Nico: Yeah.Sam: Alright, speaking of which can we, can we talk about my favorite interaction between the two of us as we were working on this?Nico: Oh, yeah, I was not sure how to bring that up. yes, please do. Now that we're moving on to... For everyone following along at home, we are proceeding to the credits page.Sam: The comment I got from you while you were editing this was, IDK if it would look different in print, but having the text so close to the edge of the page is activating my fight or flight response. And I just replied, working as intended.Nico: It yeah, I had the feeling, I think, even when I sent that, I was like, this, this is not like an accident. Like, like, like no one makes this like no one does this by accident. But, yes, truly, I hope that you are following along at home because I believe that Sam generously gave a whole bunch of community copies of this game, or made them available. Sam: I believe it was 42, 069 I'm usually doing some number like that. This game, I might have done a different number, but that's, the other games that I've done.Nico: So, but the text on this, for credits page specifically, it's truly, like, at the edge of the page. Like, it looks like it could be cut off. It's like, in print, it would be like, cut off by the process of actually like, making it. In fact, feels like if you try to send it to a printer, they could almost send it back and be like, you've gotta give us some space there. Like, you simply can't do that. There needs to be a gutter, or bleed, or whatever the term is. Like, Sam: I love it. maybe one day I will print this. Honestly, like if I become a super famous game designer or something, like, this is one of the ones that I Nico: screen, slash screenwriter.Sam: yeah, yeah. This is one of the ones I'd like to go back and hold in my hand, but I also I don't know, I just love it. I, I love designing for digital as, like, a primary thing, because I just feel like most people who play the thing are gonna play it out of digital.And I don't know if that's, like, the primary audience for a lot of modules. Like, I think there are a ton of people out there who just, like, buy the zine and hold the zine in their hand and probably never get around to playing it. But I, I love the digital. I've always loved the digital. I don't know, I just like making for it.Nico: Well I mean I was even thinking about it in the context of like, you know, how you talked about how you changed the aspect ratio, I was like thinking about that and I was like, I mean, it's not like that would be impossible to print, but like, most standard commercial printers operate in like, one of the more standard like, page sizes. Even the risograph you said is what it's called, right?Sam: The, the RISO. Yeah, I don't know if it's Rizzo or RISO, but I'm gonna sayNico: The RISO background also makes the, again, just from like a fully practical point of view, it's like you're adding color to the whole thing,Like there are many potential barriers to this as like a physical product that would, that are simply not there when you're designing for digital, so like, it is nice to have that sort of freedom, like, when you're thinking about how to lay this out or, or put stuff on here, it's like, you're freed from a lot of those practical considerations.Sam: There's a few other details I want to talk about on this page just kind of like references I'm making that are not obvious.So the first is that the header font and title font of I Know The End is a font that I ripped from Lilancholy, which is this amazing book by Snow, which is ostensibly a game, but but also a reflection on childhood and personal relationship to emotions and trauma.And I love the look of the font, but I also intentionally wanted to reference that game while I was making something that felt really personal in a similar vein. And another another reference here is that the color of the whole game, like this red, is pulled from the cover art for the Phoebe Bridgers album Punisher that I know the end is off of. I, I just found the, like, most saturated red pixel that I could on the album and was like, that's the color! I love hiding little references in every little detail that I can. Nico: Yeah, it's so interesting because I did not know any of that, you know, prior to this conversation or seeing that stuff on the outline. What did you sort of hope to achieve with those references, right? Because I can't imagine that you're plan was like, for someone to look at it and be like, oh my god, that's the Lilancholy font, and that's the Phoebe Bridgers album Sam: that's one pixel from that album cover.Yeah.What am I trying to achieve? I don't know, like there's, so the Paul Thomas Anderson movie Phantom Thread Is an amazing movie, and it's about Daniel Day Lewis being incredibly serious, scary Daniel Day Lewis, making dresses, being a tailor, and an element of the movie is that he hides his initials inside the dresses, like, when he's making them, he, like, sews his initials in.And that's a real thing that, that people did, and maybe it's just for him. It's also kind of an arrogant thing to do, you know, that all these, like, women are gonna be walking around wearing these dresses with, like, his initials kind of, like, carved, it's like this power thing. But my favorite part of it is that Phantom Thread is PT, also known as Paul Thomas Anderson.Nico: Ha Sam: And, like, like, I, I just feel like when you're doing that kind of thing, it's just, what an act, it's just so beautiful and arrogant and satisfying. Like I think doing that kind of little reference and joke for myself brings me into the mindset of what I am trying to convey with the game.Like, if I'm thinking in the detail of the font selection, what do I want to reference? What do I want to bring to this game? Then, I'm gonna be I'm gonna be thinking about that in every other choice I'm making for the game, too. And even if half of those choices end up being just for me, I will have been in the headspace to make the other half that are for everyone else, too.Nico: Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. like, You could almost even call these, like, Easter eggs, right?But it also made me think about, I had to look this up actually as you were talking, because I was like, about that, the CalArts classroom number that like all of the animators that studied there fit into like Pixar movies and stuff, like, A113, A113. And I think that's also sort of a good example of it in some ways, because it's like now, with the advent of the internet, and you know, and a certain way of engaging with media, like, everyone knows what that, what that means now, or they could if they just looked it up, or they just see some BuzzFeed, you know, article that's like, you know, 50 easter eggs that you missed in the latest Pixar movie.But yeah, it's like, it's very interesting because it kind of asks who is the movie for? What's the intended or imagined audience for all of these things? And it sort of shows that, like, you can have multiple audiences or multiple levels of engagement with the same audience, like, at the same time. Maybe, I would say, it's very unlikely that any random person would just like, look at the cover of I Know The End and be like, oh, that's the Lilancholy font, but,Sam: I have had someone say that to me, though. Yeah.Nico: but, so, what I was just gonna say is like, but I don't think it's hard to imagine that like, the type of person who would, who would buy, who would be interested in I Know The End or Lilancholy, I think there's a pretty decent chance that they would be interested in the other if they're interested in one of them, right?And so it is interesting as well, where it's like, I am often surprised by like the ability of people to sort of interpret or decipher things that far outweighs my sort of expectations of their ability to do so.If only just because I have the arrogance to be like, well no one could ever have a mind like mine. Like, no one could ever think in the specific bizarre way that I do. Then it's like actually a surprising number of people think in a very similar way. Sam: Another thing I think about with making these really, really tiny references, easter eggs, it's the, not making a decision is making a decision, right? CentrismNico: Oh,Sam: Like, if you have literally anything that you have not made a choice about with intention, that is a missed opportunity, I think.And... I have so much respect for people who will just pump something out, like, write a page of a game and, like, upload as a DocX to itch. Like, Aaron King is a genius, and I know a lot of games that are put out that way, and I love that stuff. But for me, like, the kind of art creation process that I enjoy and like doing is so based on finding meaning in every crevice, finding a way to express yourself in every detail. just love doing it.Nico: you are the English teacher that the, the curtains are blue meme is referencing, in fact.Sam: Yes.Nico: The curtains are blue in I Know The End because,Sam: Well, and I know the end they are red, but Nico: yes.Imagine that being the new version of the meme: the curtains in this are red because there's a Phoebe Bridgers album that has a single pixel that is that color.Sam: Yeah, I don't know. It's true, though.Nico: Exactly. it is in fact true. But so would, in some ways, any other interpretation of...Sam: Yeah.Nico: of the red color, right? It's like you picked it because of the association with the album cover. Someone else could be like, Oh, it means this otherthing. And like that interpretation is correct. Sam: Yeah, I mean, I also picked it because of its association with blood, you know, like I, I wanted to kind of evoke that feeling too, so.Shall we do the table of contents? HehNico: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think the most interesting thing to talk about, and I want to know when this entered the sort of the design process, is the blacked out Table of Contents entry which corresponds to an almost entirely blacked out, or in this case, redded out,Sam: Yeah, Nico: messily redacted,part of, the book,Sam: Yeah, I think this was always there, I think I started writing a list of locations very early on, and on that list of locations was, like, I work in Google Docs to begin with for most of my stuff, and it was a bullet pointed numbered list, and the last list item was struck through, and it was your mom's house.And I just thought that was a funny little joke. It's like really dark? Another, just like a little detail, I have such a great relationship with my parents. Like really just a better relationship with my parents than anyone I know. And, so much of my art ends up with these like, really bad, fucked up relationships with parents, and I don't know what that's about.But, there's, there's something about, there's a piece of your hometown that is like so traumatic that you can't bring yourself to look at it. There's a piece of yourself, or your childhood, or like, where you came up, there's something from your origin story that you can't bear to face is a lot of what this is about. And even as the climax of this thing is I think in a lot of ways turning to face everything that you left behind.I mean the whole module is about that but I think fact that even when you are doing that, there's one piece of it that you can't bear to look at is really tragic and a mood to me. You know, it really felt right. Nico: it's sort of like, yeah, I'm finally gonna stand my ground and face my fear, or whatever, except for that thing. That thing, that part over there, for whatever reason, because I'm actually just very afraid of it. It really, as always, is sort of like the exceptions to the rule make the rule, or emphasize the rule. You're kind of carving out the negative space around it. And it makes it clearer in so. so Well, Yeah, so like, then the first thing of the game text itself, so to speak, is like the front and back of a postcard. And where's the picture from? It looks kind of old timey in a sort of non specific way.Sam: It's from Wikimedia Commons, I believe. I was looking for pictures of old postcards, and I wanted a small town, and, this is what I found.The postcard image is actually like a hell of a photo bash too. The stamp on it is from a real postcard I received from my cousin. The handwriting was me on just like a piece of paper that I scanned, and then the postcard is another like open source postcard image.Nico: Yeah. I am, once again, sort of showing, showing a lot of my bias here. I am often kind of against a lot of little, like, accessories, or sort of, like, physical things that are often part of crowdfunding, like, stretch goals, you know, like, it's, I don't know. I don't think it's, like, ontologically evil or anything like that, it's just, I understand, it's part of the reality of crowdfunding, and, like, attracting attention, and yada yada yada, I just personally don't love that reality. Which, of course, is easy to criticize when you're not part of a project is trying to do that, but that aside, I think it would actually genuinely be very cool to have, like, this postcard as, like, a physical object like, if the game were to be printed.Sam: You gonna make me like, handwrite every one of the postcards too? Cause that isNico: I did not say that. Oh, is that really? Well, but then, then you have it already, you can just print it off, like, or you make that the, like, I don't know, the hundred dollar stretch goal, you know, they back it at that level and then the postcard just appears inside their mailbox. Like,Sam: That wa that is creepy. I will tell you that,Nico: You say that as though it's happened to you before. You're like, well, let meSam: well, I'm not, I, I revealing nothing. How autobiographical is this? Nico: Yeah. so I guess, yeah, so getting, So this is the introduction page, the background, the introduction, giving the context to what this module, extended bestiary, what have you, what it is. My question here from a sort of meta perspective is like, how much are you trying to sort of give away at the start of this? How do you pitch this to , like to someone you know?Sam: that's a great question. I'm pretty proud of the execution here. I think I do a good job of, like, leaving some juicy hints here as to what might be going on without giving anything away. Like, the fact that I advertise this as maybe closer to a bestiary entry than a module, like, uh, what? Like, like you, you have an idea of what that means, but also like, where's the monster, what is the thing that I'm looking like, that is kind of planted in your mind in a way that I think is intriguing and sets expectations without giving the whole thing away.And, also, this is just me, like, trying to figure out how to describe this thing in real time as I'm writing. It really came from intuition. Nico: yeah. I know that, you know you're on, very much on record talking about how, you know, like, taxonomy is fake and, you know, et cetera, et cetera. Sam: As much as I love it.Nico: right, right, exactly, I mean, I feel the same way, but I, I am curious as to like if you were trying to sell someone on the idea of even just playing this game, like, how effective do you think it is of like communicating whatever this is, you know, like, is it effective to say it's kind of this, or it's not this, or maybe it's this, like, Sam: I think this is going to be really good at reaching the kind of person who will love this, and really bad at selling this to like a mass audience, you know? But luckily, I'm not trying to sell this to a mass audience. I'm like trying to make Joe Dissimone proud, you know? Like I'm trying to make like something as weird as fucking possible.and I think there's a kind of person who really appreciates that and this struggle to define what this is using existing terminology, I think is going to really appeal to the people who like this.Nico: yeah, I agree, I think it signposts well hey, you, there, like, look at this thing. Isn't that interesting. And if they're like, If they're like, no, that's confusing and I don't know what to do with it, and they go somewhere else, in some ways, it could be argued that that is like, working as intended, right, likeSam: I kind of find it interesting in the sidebar here to watch me sort of like struggle with how you're supposed to play this game, like what rule system are you supposed to use?I do think with some distance from this, the best way to experience this is as a solo game. Like to just read the thing but pause and journal about your character's experience as you sort of walk through it. I have started playing more solo games since I wrote this in preparation for a Season 3 episode of the show, and I think this would serve that experience really well.I considered even, like, rewriting this to be more of explicitly a solo experience, but I, ultimately was really happy leaving it in its sort of nebulous, provocative, what if, is this, what is this sort of state. Nico: Yeah. I would genuinely be interested to have like, the two of us play the game, like this game, like one running it, one as the player, because I don't necessarily disagree with what you said, might be better suited as a solo game, but I really do think that there is something that can be gained about, like being in a room with, like, one other person, or, you know, being on a call with one other person, or whatever and going through this,Sam: Yeah, yeah, I can feel the intensity of that as you describe it. And it sounds harrowing and... Amazing. I do, I do have this dream of like running a Mork Borg dungeon, like over the course of like three sessions, and then like taking one of the players who survives and being like, I've got another module that I think we should play with the same character. Nico: yeah. Anyways, you go home and you think you're safe, but actually, like, Sam: I do think that this as a response to OSR play is really an interesting way to try to play the game, like to Nico: just sort of experienceSam: Yeah, to try to take the kind of character that you would have coming out of that and the experience you would have coming out of that and then like get tossed into this, like that disorientation I think would serve this really well and would do something that I found I really like to do with the OSR kind of play of like finding ways to bring in more character stuff, to just have people to reflect on their person, rather than on the logistical problem solving.Nico: Mm hmm. Which, of course, in some ways also is like, I don't want to say direct contradiction, but like, moving perpendicular to a lot of the sort of OSR principles, rightSam: But yeah, I mean, fuck em. Nico: exactly, I mean, I'm not, saying that to discourage you from doing it, I'm just saying, like, I just think it's an interesting for those to come into sort of, conflict or, or whatever in, in that specific way.Sam: I mean, that's what the bleeding edge of something is all about, right? It's like, what are our principles? What if we throw them out? What does thatNico: Right, right. What if we smash things together that, like, should sort of repel each other like magnets? Like,Sam: Yeah.Nico: Let's move on to the town?Sam: Yeah. So this is the, like, GM spoiler page.Nico: Right.Sam: I don't know that I have a lot to say about this particular page. It's, it's the town. There are, like, two suggestions in the first chunk of this book that came from you that I think are really valuable to this. Like, the first is that the town is always capitalized throughout. Which I like sort of was doing, but you really emphasized, and I think was a great decision.And, the second is that there aren't any contractions in this book except for possessives. And, that was another suggestion that came from you, to have this sort of stilted, formal, slightly off kind of language of not having contractions, that I think serves it really well and is just really cool.Nico: Yeah, I have to give credit for that, to the Questionable Content webcomic, which is a webcomic that has been running forSam: God, is it still going?Nico: oh, it very much is still going, I, it updates Monday to Friday, and I, am reading, I am seated and reading,Sam: stopped reading that like a decade ago.Nico: It is officially 20 years old. It started in 2003.but so one of the characters in that she initially never uses contractions. It is always, it is, it is never, it's. Do not, not, don't, you know, is not, not, isn't and over time, as the character sort of gets more comfortable and starts to open up about her kind of mysterious past, and they'll deal with a lot of the sort of like, serious emotional turmoil that is present in the character, she like, starts to use contractions.And so, it's a specific device that is very weirdly ingrained in my head at this point, because I remember, like, realizing that when it was called out the first time, and then I will fess up and say I have re read the webcomic from the beginning several times. I have a lot of time on my hands sometimes. And it is always kind of a delight to go back to the beginning and see this character and to really notice that device because you know where she ends up and how much more comfortable she is and so to see that difference in the beginning makes it very effective on a reread in a way that is sort of present in the maybe subconscious the first time on the way through.Thank you. And I feel like it's similar here, not quite the same because I don't know if you would ever necessarily actively realize, like, oh, there are no sort of contractions here.Sam: and the town is never gonna stop being a entity of repression.Nico: Yeah, exactly. And so it's giving this like underlying anxiety kind of like,like, you're just like, Ooh, this is Sam: Yeah. It's like, what is going on? What's wrong with the language here?Nico: Yeah. And you might not even really be able to, articulate it because it's sort of hard to articulate the absence of somethingSam: And like, that's the feeling of the whole module. yeah, It's, it's just, it's a great decision. Nico: Yeah. And then of course, capitalizing town, you know, are you even really a game designer if you're not capitalizing some random words in Sam: yeah. gotta have one at least, come on.Sam: I will say I really enjoy the fact that I give no origin story for the town. I think that's also really powerful, of leaving a hole that people can fill in if they want.The mom repression stuff is kinda like that too, the like, the blacking out sharpie. Of like, that's a hole you could fill in in play if you wanted to, but I, I'm not going to. I'm gonna intentionally leave that hole there.Nico: It also is the kind of thing, right, of like, oh gosh, Nova was saying this in the Dice Exploder Discord recently, where like, part of the reason the OSR can be so sort of rules light and stripped down is because like, it is relying a lot on the sort of cultural script of like, what is a fantasy role playing game, or even just like a fantasy story in general, you know? What your knowledge of an OSR game is.And this, in a similar way, is sort of like, you know what a hometown is. Like, you know, I don't need to tell you what the backstory of this is, because you know what it's like to be from somewhere. Cause it's also worth saying, like, this game does not give any character creation instructions, right? I mean, actually, I guess that's not entirely true, because underneath the postcard, you know, it just says, A decade or more gone since you fled the small backwater town that spawned you.And it's like, yeah, that's basically all the sort of character creation information you need, like,Sam: yeah, yeah, like wait, gonna play yourself and you're gonna be sad about this, like uh, Nico: Right, or, like, or if you're not playing yourself, you are playing a person who's sad about it, like, you know, it's like, it's kind of all you really need, Sam: you have internalized the tone of this thing, like, your character is in ways the negative space of the voice of the text. Nico: Like, a weird relationship with your small hometown, we just don't need to spend very much, time covering that broad background. It's much better spent covering the specific, like, locations and people in this town that also sort of help to convey that, feeling, that information.Sam: Temptations and terrors?Nico: Yes, probably The closest thing to a system that is in here, inasmuch as it's taken roughly verbatim from Trophy Dark Sam: yeah, I do think it is notable that when I wrote this I had not played Trophy Dark, and Trophy Dark is the one where you definitely die,Nico: Right. Right. Sam: My intention was not that you would definitely die in this. I really want escape to be a big possibility at the end and so it's interesting that I went with Trophy Dark as, like, the obvious system.Yeah, I like these lists. This is just a lot of tone setting, basically, right? I don't have a lot to say about the details here. The first terror, a children's toy, damp in a gutter, is a reference to another song that makes me cry. The Rebecca Sugar song for Adventure Time, Everything Stays.But most of the rest of this is just, vibes. Here's some vibes. I don't know, I re read these lists and I was like, yeah, they're fine, great, next page. But I don't know, is there anything that stands out to you here?Nico: I mean, I think the most important thing about these lists, these kinds of things, you could maybe even sort of broaden this to like pick lists in general, is that, they kinda need to do two things, like they need to both give you a good solid list of things to pick from, if you're like, at a loss, or if you just are like, looking through it, and you're like, this is good, I want to use this.Or, the other purpose of using it is to have it sort of identify the space that you're playing in to the point where you can come up with your own thing that like, could just be the next entry on that list, right? For me at least, the whole point of like, buying a game is like, I want something that I like, can't essentially come up with by myself, you know? Because I like to be surprised, I like to be sort of challenged, I like to be inspired, and so I think a really good game is one that you sort of like, read it, and you're like, okay, like, there's great things to use in here that I'm excited to use. I also, after having read this, am coming up with my own ideas. Like, equally long, if not longer, list of things that like, fit into this perfectlySam: Bring the vibes of your small town. Nico: Yeah, exactly, that I could also use. It's like, and so it's like, it's kind of funny that like, for me at least, the mark of a good game is like oh yeah, you both want to use everything that's contained in it, and also you immediately get way more of your own ideas than you could ever use when you're running the game.Sam: Yeah. Next?Nico: Yes. Act 1. Sam: I love this little guy, I love Wes he's just kind of a pathetic little dude, and I feel sad for him.Nico: It's so funny, too, because this particular little guy, like, doesn't look very pathetic to me. Like, he looks like he's kind of doing okay. Sam: I definitely like drew, like all the art in the book I drew, and I did it by just drawing a lot of little heads, and then assigning them to people. Like, there were a couple where they were defining details about how the people looked, that I knew I needed to draw specifically. But in general, I just drew a bunch of heads and then doled them out, and like, this is the one that ended up on Wes. And, I think that the contrast between, like, in my mind, Wes is this skinny, lanky, little kid, you know, he's like early 20s, finally making it on his own, and he has no idea what the hell's going on with the world, and he always looked up to you, and he's finally getting out of town. And then he's, he's like overcompensating with the beard for the fact that he's like balding really early, and like, you know, he's, I don't know, like, I think the contrast is just fun.Nico: I love this whole life that you have for this, this little, this little guy, like, which is, I can't stress this enough, mostly not contained in the text,Sam: Yeah. yeah. I think a good NPC is like that. I think it's really hard to transcribe the characters we get in our heads.Nico: yeah, Sam: I really like the, the pun in the Town Crier, I mean like the Town Crier feels like a horror movie trope, like the old man who's gonna be like, You got don't go up to the cabin! But it's also, like I wrote that down first and then just started describing this Wes guy and then I was like I'm gonna just like make a pun out of this.This is something I did all the time while writing this, was I had, like, a little oracle going, actually, at a certain point, like, in the same way that you would in a solo game with an oracle. Like, if I was stuck for an idea, I would just roll on the oracle table and then, like, fill in a detail that was somehow related to the oracle. Nico: Mhm. Sam: That, that didn't happen here, but the idea of, Oh, I want a little bit more description for this guy, like, what should I do? I, like, pulled the word crier, and then was like, Oh, that's really interesting, like, when would this guy have cried? Like, oh, that's a great question, let's just, like, put that to the player. I'm always, like, a thing in screenwriting that is really hard to do, and that I'm always looking for is, like, really good, pithy character descriptions.Like, a friend of mine loves the one like, this is a woman who always orders fajitas at a Mexican restaurant because she loves the attention that she gets when the fajitas come out.She hates fajitas. And that description just says Nico: That's Sam: much. It's so good, right? And that one's even a little bit long for like a screenplay, but it'd be great for like an RPG thing, right?And something about like Here's a little bit about this guy. You remember when he was crying once, like a baby? What was the deal with that? Like, it's such a, like, defines everything else about him. Like, I, I, I'm really proud that.Nico: Yeah. No, that's, that's how I felt a little bit with I ran Vampire Cruise at Big Bad Con this year. And that game has some of, like, the best random NPC generating tables that I've, like, ever seen and played with.I remember one specifically, it was, like, I was like, rolling to generate a passenger, and I think it was like, the secrets part of the table, or something like that, and what I rolled was like, regrets that she never got to see the dinosaurs, and it's like, what does that mean?Like, like, Sam: She had a traumatic experience at a science museum as a kid, or maybe she's like 10 million years old, like, I don't...Nico: or, yeah, or she's just like a weirdo who like really loves dinosaurs? It's like, it's, Like, it really gives you sort of what you need to just sort of like, spin a world out of that specific detail. Sam: It's weird because I like completely agree with you, and you know, I was tooting my own horn about like this question about Wes sobbing and also like, in every single spread of this thing, I'm taking like two full pages to talk about like one or two NPCs, which is a terrible way to do the thing that we are talking about doing. Like,Nico: That is true, that is, it must be said,Sam: it makes it feel so much more like a short story, or maybe like a solo game, right? It's like, eh, spend two pages, like, getting to know this guy. Nico: who won't come up again, spoiler alert, Sam: Yeah, it feels like the right call for this thing where like, I mean it's like the text is forcing you to sit with the memory of this guy, it's like forcing you to come in and like spend more time than you would like to like back at home with these people.And there's some like location context built into all these descriptions too, and we like learn about the bakery thing here and like old stories and stuff. And like, already it's like, do we need that shit to run this game? Like, absolutely not, like, get, get out of the way, like, but also, I don't know, it feels right?And it's one of the things that makes all this weird and, you know, unrunnable.Nico: Which is of course the goal, we don't want people to run this. Yeah, no, that's something that I've thought about in my own games as well, is, is, and just sort of like, my life, I guess, is sort of like, what makes a place that place, you know, like, what makes a town a town, what makes a city a city, like, is it the people who live there? Is it the places? Like, again, kind of back to the sort of Ship of Theseus metaphor, it's like, if everyone you know leaves, and a lot of the stores turnover, like, is that still your hometown? Like... Does your relationship to it change?And so I, in defense of, of what we're doing here, it makes a lot of sense to spend so much time thinking about the people and the places that are here because that also basically is the game, right?Like, like, this is not a dungeon crawl, right? Like, this is not a hack and slash thing, It's not a dungeon crawl, like, Sam: it's a person crawl. Nico: Yeah, exactly, you're yeah, the point of you coming home is you're trying to find Sidra, the person who sent you this postcard, asking you to come home, and yeah, you're basically doing a point crawl, trying to find this person.And then there are various conditions that need to be in place for you to actually find them = And yeah, so it's like, using more words than a sort of your standard OSR like dungeon crawl or point crawl or whatever, or hex crawl, but like, it's kind of the same way where it's like, yeah, but like, that's the game, that's the adventure, like, Sam: yeah, yeah. Another detail here I'm really proud of is the like, offhand remark about how Wes and Sidra aren't talking for what are probably romantic reasons. Because the implication, there's like a strong implication that you, player, have some sort of romantic history with Sidra, like, whether it was ever consummated or not. And I love the just sort of, like, offhand, Wes and Sidra had a thing that didn't work out, because it both... leaves open your potential romantic relationship with Sidra, but also like complicates it and like darkens it from whatever sort of nostalgic quote unquote pure like memory of it you had.And I love that it just sort of brings a little complexity into what happens when you leave for 15 years. And then like what it feels like when you like, hear, oh yeah, your ex has been like, dating someone for a couple years. What were we talking about? Like just that, like sometimes like a bolt of like, information about like, someone from your past that like, you care a lot about will just hit you and you'll be like, oh, wait, what? And we're just I'm supposed to just like, take that and move on? Like, yeah, yeah, Nico: It's also a very small town, right, where it's a sort of like, oh yeah, passing reference to this because everyone knows this already, right? Like, this is old news as well as, like, in a small town, it's like, there's a small pool of people your age that you're interested in, so, not like you're gonna get with all of them inevitably, but it's like, yeah, there's a pretty high chance that you might.Last thing I did wanna say on this, do you wanna share what Wes's name was in the first draft of this that I received?Sam: What was it? I don't rememberNico: It was Glup Shitto. It was, it was one of the first comments I left! It was one of the first comments I left! I was like, Sam, you've gotta know this can't be the final thing, right?Sam: knew it couldn't be the final name. But there was something really funny to me about like the one person who like doesn't fit into town, like this little fucking Star Wars fanboy like schmuck kid is just Glup Shitto. And he's leaving town cuz like when you got that name, it doesn't fit anymore. You gotta get the fuck out of there.No wonder the town couldn't absorb him. His name was Glup Shitto.Nico: I want to say, like, I might have, like, made my first round of comments because I was, like, yeah, feeling the same way of, like, okay, obviously this is not the finalSam: yeah, yeah, I just didn't change it and you were likebruh Nico: and then, yeah, and then you, like, made changes based on the comments that I left, and I went back to it, and I'm like, it's still Glup Shitto. Like, it simply can't be this! It's not allowed! It's, it's not legal! Like, Sam: there ought to be a law.Nico: yeah.Sam: Alright, let's do Act 2 gosh.Yeah, so I made this little map. I like the little map. This is just my hometown, incidentally. Like, there's so much in this that is just, like, pulling details directly from my hometown. That oracle that I mentioned earlier, like, Northfield, Minnesota was, like, one of the things on the oracle. And you can see that here in like, the riverwalk and this little bridge over it was very Northfield. the Rube, which we're getting to next, these two bars, the kind of cowboy themed bar thing was a thing.Nico: Again, it's a very small town of just like, no sort of reasonable business person would have these specific Sam: yeah, but they, they exist here for some reason Nico: it almost feels like the kind of thing where it's like, like they can exist in a really small town, because it's sort of like, well they're the only things here, and they can exist in like New York City Sam: yeah. Nico: everything's in New York city, and like every kind of place is there, but like anywhere in between, people would just be like, I don't understand, and then it goes out of business,Sam: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, doctors always also a big portion of my childhood and my past always coming up in my stuff just because I spent so much time in hospitals as a kid. So the, inclusion of a doctor here is also very much something coming out of my hometown.I like the little mechanic here of, like, rolling and you, like, add one every, every time. I think that's a nice sort of way to handle trying to find Sidra. Nico: as like a classic Nico mechanic 'cause I simply haven't made and published that many things. But in my mind, my narcissistic fantasy, it is a classic me mechanic.Sam: I believe that came from you.Nico: I fucking love a table that like evolves over time.And it's not like I invented it, but like, I think my more standard thing is sort of like you have a table of like 12 things, and then you change which die you roll on it, you know, it's like, oh you can do like a d4 through d12 or whatever and that's like, I really like the ability to sort of go back to a table and, like, use it multiple times as opposed to, like, Okay, we have one table for this, we have a different table for that, you know.Sam: Additional persons. I really like this format for sort of generic NPCs, like, I'm not gonna tell you anything about this person, but I am gonna tell you what you think about them and your relationship to them.I think it's a really cool way of doing... Oh, do you just need to, like, bring someone in? You, like, met someone on the street or whatever? In a lot of other settings, you would just have, like, a random person, and it would be, like, the Vampire Cruise thing. If you give them an interesting detail in here, it'd be a cool thing.But I think, especially in, like, a small town format, the, like, here's your relationship to this person, because everyone knows everyone, and, every character that comes in, like, is gonna have to inspire some kind of feeling and past in you. I think this works really cool, reallyNico: It also feels very sort of true to life in terms of, at least, how I often GM things. Someone will be like, hey, can I, like, ask just, like, the next person I see on the street what they know about this thing? And I'm like, I mean, I fuckin I guess, like, it'll shock you to learn I don't have a name for that person, but, you know, I just have to, like, come up with, like, here's a weird voice, and like, a random thing they know, and like here's a name, Sam: This is a great way to turn that experience back on the player.Nico: exactly, yeah, there's this random person, you're like, alright, this is someone who owes you an apology, why is that?Like, Sam: yeah, Nico: I also wanna say that I feel like this was actually a relatively late addition to theSam: Yeah, it was. I always intended to write these, but it was like the last thing that I wrote.Nico: Yeah.Sam: Yeah.Nico: There was definitely some time when I sort of came back and looked at it, and all of a sudden there was this relatively large additional persons section in here, and I was like, huh, interesting.Sam: Yeah. I'm happy with how it came out. I think these are my best little guys. Nico: Oh yeah, Sam: I really like the unfinishedness of these little guys that you can project a little bit of yourself onto them while there's still some, like, major details there. This someone you seek vengeance upon looks a lot like a penis, and I don't know how I feel about that one, butNico: I was gonna say, I find that one fascinating as the ide

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On this episode I'm joined by Nychelle Schneider, also known as Mistletoe Kiss, a moderator from the Blades in the Dark discord and contributor to The Wildsea, the upcoming Dagger Isles supplement for Blades, and Underground Maps & Passkeys among others.Nychelle brought on the idea of customizing existing games, homebrewing mechanics for your table (or even publication). This is... a big conversation, chock full of cool ideas that I hope people take and run with. There are so many games out there, and I think there's so much to be gained by making stuff that can plug into and enhance other people's art.Nychelle also has so many interesting trains of thought about in this episode, many of which I didn't follow up on as much as I wish I had. So I encourage you to listen to what she says, and then take those ideas an run with them. I hope that every week, but especially with this one.Further reading:A post-show blogpost about Sam's joke Blades playbook The BoogeymanBlades in the DarkNychelle's Blades playbook The SurgeVincent Baker's blogpost Apocalypse World Custom AdvancementTim Denee's Dogs in the BarkSam's Blades crewsheet Spirit ChasersSam's Blades downtime hack Doskvol BreathesSeveral zines by Aaron King of PBTA moves that exist outside of games: Reading the Apocalypse, PbtA23 January Digest, and PbtA23 February Digest Socials:Nychelle's website, Twitter, and itch.The Blades in the Dark DiscordSam on Bluesky, Twitter, dice.camp, and itch.Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!Transcript:Dice Exploder: Nychelle===Sam: Hello and welcome to the season 2 finale of Dice Exploder. Each week we take a tabletop RPG mechanic and pull it apart like your dad fixing a broken vacuum. My name is Sam Dunnewold, and yes, this is the end of Season 2. We've laughed, we've cried, we've funded a whole friggin Kickstarter, and we are now going to take one hell of a break, because damn am I tired.I'm expecting Season 3 at the end of January, but we'll see how it goes. And in the meantime, keep an eye out for a number of bonus episodes I got planned. I've got that Mork Borg and accessibility episode recorded. I'm plotting out a, like, let's celebrate this year in RPGs panel show near the end of the year, and I may have a couple of other treats for you too.But this week, my co host is Nychelle Schneider, also known as Mistletoe Kiss. I knew Nychelle first as a moderator on the Blades in the Dark discord, where she's a community leader and just General encourager of everyone who stops by. Just a lovely human being. But she's also contributed to like a million projects the Underground Maps and Passkeys charity bundle of Blades content I put together a few years ago, the Wildsea, the upcoming Dagger Isles supplement for Blades. She's made A lot of Blades content. And when I asked her to come on the show, I was delighted that Nychelle wanted to talk about just that: adding your own mechanics to existing games. This is a big conversation. It's so full of cool ideas that I hope people really take and run with. There are so many games out there, and I think there's just so much to be gained by making stuff that can be plugged into and enhance other people's art. I've done this a lot with Blades myself, and I just never get enough of it. And Nychelle has so many interesting trains of thoughts about how to do this in this episode, many of which I didn't follow up on as much as I wish I had.So I really encourage you to listen to what she has to say carefully, and then keep pushing at those ideas. I hope that every week, but especially this week. So, with that, here is Nychelle on adding to existing games. And be warned, we get right into it, no hellos or anything. Okay, uh, here we go, prepare your ears for game design.Nychelle: I think a lot of times in game design, we can get caught up a lot in making sure that things function a certain way or are laid out in a certain way that's very easy for the audience or the reader to pick up the book, read it, and then go ahead and produce it.And I think a lot of times that we can get bogged down in mechanics to where we're like, oh, this is the only way you can do this.Sam: Mm-hmm.Nychelle: So like D&D, everyone knows d and d. Everyone's also like, oh, well, we obviously fight them. No, that's not the only thing you can do, but why is it baked that way? Why is our assumption perspective always that? Oh, it's because of how it's written or how it's presented, gives you a certain paradigm for you to interact with the material in a certain manner.And so for me, I like playing with that. How can I interact with the same thing? If I'm handed the same object 14 times, how can I interact with that object 14 different ways or give flexibility to somebody else who play with it in a different way that I didn't even think about. And so that's what I really do do a lot of thinking of what I create mechanics is how much fluidity is built in while it's still having a structure.Sam: Yeah. Interesting. So I think it would be useful to like immediately jump into like some examples of what you mean. So what's one example of what you're talking about?Nychelle: Oh gosh. I would say a really good example of this is in the Blades in the Dark custom playbook that I created called The Surge, which for those who are listening, you can find it on my itch. And one of the abilities is called Can I Learn Rising Moon? And essentially you can gain temporary access to a veteran ability you currently do not have, and you start a four segmented clock. So anytime you go to access this ability, you have a clock that begins, or you add a tick to this clock. And then when the clock fills, the GM will bring in a special entanglement or situation or something that happens. And that is one way that I've really got to enjoy a twist to mechanics and games is adding more flexibility because it opens up a whole new possibility of how you can play with a particular dynamic.Sam: Yeah. Part of what you're talking about here and part of just knowing your history as a designer is that you seem to really enjoy making moves and making abilities and custom content for other games than making your own games from scratch. Do I have that right?Nychelle: Yes, it's a really weird thing. But I find that my creativity, especially when it comes to game design and mechanics, I can talk mechanics all day long. I've got a really, really good grasp of game mechanics. But I also love to build things fiction first. I am definitely a fiction first, mechanic second gm. I've had a regular table, oh gosh, I think we've been playing now like seven plus years or something together and I absolutely love baking and things, but I also love jumping off of somebody else's creativity.So like when I wrote for Wildsea, it was a ton of fun because I got to go through all of the course material and whatnot that Felix had written. And it was really great being able to take little hints or tips that he kind of wove into the core and build upon that and flush it out into something that was even greater than what initially he had planned.So, yeah.Sam: Yeah, just to, to speak personally, like I think it is really hard to come up with an idea from scratch, but it's much easier to find your groove in someone else's framework. Making custom content for games is like that. And to that note, I really wish more people did it. I think you see a lot of people making custom modules and adventures and stuff in this sort of OSR and the NSR scene. But for the story game scene, the tradition is much more to make your own game from scratch. Or at least like, to make a game that is inspired by, but functionally different from and standalone to another game. As opposed to making content that can be used with something like Blades in the Dark or The Wildsea.And yeah, I think it's easier to get started from making content for other people. I think it's really, really validating, and I think more people should do it.Nychelle: Yeah, I also think that, it could be something that is within the industry, but I think there's a lot of expectations of hat wearing when it comes to technical writing or game design specifically, because everyone thinks, oh, I have to do everything. I have to learn how to do layout. I have to learn how to do editing. I have to do the writing. I have to learn the artwork or find somebody who's willing to work with me on that. I have to learn publishing, I have to learn finance regarding hey, am I, publishing this to individual game shops or a big name? Contracts? Like there's so many different hats that we just expect to discover ourselves.Which is great. It's a wonderful way for a person to diversify their skills, learn something, being like, Hey, I really enjoy layout, but I really hate editing. Or like, I have high respect for people who do edits because they come in and they change like four little words in this one paragraph, and suddenly like, I sound so much more eloquent than I was before. But there's alsoSam: I, I just worked with an editor for the first time and it wasNychelle: oh my God. Yeah.Sam: Go on.Nychelle: But you can also learn in so much when you work together as a team. So like with the Blades in the Dark Dagger Isles expansion that we did, there was so many writers that were a part of that.I did the playbooks and crew sheets. But there were so many different writers and people who were doing the setting and the factions and the lore and like the crafting. And I would go ahead and run games for them and then we would just sit back I would just hear all these stories and wonderful aspects of like, oh, well, that's actually a piece from our culture, and you can connect that to this and that. And then we would just have a brainstorming session and I would have so many notes from every single session of like, oh my God, this is amazing. And then I'd try to weave that into the crew sheets and everything, and I have so much fun with that.Something I, I learned at residency for grad school was, what are your verbs doing? What is your verb poetry? And I was like, what is this thing you're talking about? Because we had to bring in pieces and workshop them and. It was so amazing 'cause I had one mentor who essentially like took everything out of this one scene and just read the verb poetry of it.Sam: Hmm. Nychelle: And it was like, what are your verbs doing? And then changing up like two of them, legit, only two of them, and removed another thing that didn't need to be in there. And then the verb poetry was just so different. So thinking of like how to apply that to like gain, like what verbs doing a certain passage is just like a whole different way to view it.Sam: Well there's, I was just talking on some server about this, how I was playing The Exiles, em's game, and, in the middle of the campaign I was playing, she put out like a very slightly tweaked version of the rules where essentially all that had changed was a couple of words here and there in order to make the layout, the graphic design of a rules reference page feel a little bit better.And a couple of the words that had left changed the entire vibe of like a whole move in a way that I thought was much worse. And so I just kept using the old rules because I wanted that, like two words of poetry to be in there. It made such a difference at the table. Nychelle: It really does. And I think that's another thing too, is like when you get in the editing, like I don't like editing, first off. I will hands down like editors are amazing, wonderful people and I will 100% hands down pay them what they actually deserve, like the, the work that they do. But there's also, I was talking to Felix about it, when he was doing layout for Wildsea and there was a phrase that he used, but you can't leave off with only like two words or like one word on a sentence. Like if it's the end of a paragraph or something and you start a new line and there's only like two words, you have to cut two words, so it goes back up into the other one. Otherwise it doesn't look correct. Mm-hmm. You can't have, your orphans there. Yeah, that may have been the term he used. But sometimes the words that they wanna cut are the poetry words, Sam: I know Nychelle: and it's like, oh gosh, I can't have you cut that. It's like, you take out my two words, Sam: yeah. You Nychelle: ruined the entire thing. My words have no meaning now.Sam: Sometimes, when I get that note, I'm like, what if I just add a couple of words instead? And, like, that doesn't always work. Sometimes you need the space. But sometimes it does make sense to like inflate the duration of a sentence so that you can keep a couple of those poetic words I think.Nychelle: But also I think that changing up how your verb poetry happens or something else that one of the mentors mentioned was we, especially nowadays, are such in a... not political correctness, it's probably the wrong term for it... we try not to have infliction, personal infliction upon something we say. It's passive versus active voice. You're separating yourself and it's, it becomes passive. And so when you have that in your work, even if it's a technical writing such as game design, you are already putting a barrier between your audience and the words for them to be engaged.And then if your verb poetry is a certain manner and adds another barrier, and by the time they get down to the end of a passage or something, they're not engaged. They don't have the buy-in that you want, and so they're gonna go ahead and walk away.And that's another thing too that got mentioned is a lot of, just kind of like a little side tangent, but a lot of people who are not English first speakers, when they write in English, it becomes passive, not active. 'cause that's how a lot of other languages are set up. So it's kind of a weird thing where they're almost at a disadvantage from being engaged, with their audience. It's kind of interesting thing.But we do the same thing in technical writing. In game design, we do that passive versus active. Sam: Totally totally. So, I want to veer us back to the subject of hacking games for your table. And specifically, I want to talk about one of my favorite blog posts in the hobby. Uh, which comes from Vincent Baker, designer of Apocalypse World, called... Apocalypse World Custom Advancement. In which he gets the question from a reader: “is there any solution that lets players play the same playbook potentially forever?”And Vincent's answer is, yeah, just hack the game. Keep hacking the game so that you can keep playing the same character. And specifically how, like hacking the game such that the rules accommodate really powerful characters because a game like Apocalypse World or Blades can I think really see the characters outgrow the setting that they're in pretty easily. And at a certain point it starts making sense to change the game so that the world can keep up with the players.And Vincent in this post has a bunch of good ideas for how to go about doing that. And you know, there's some great ones too, in the Apocalypse World Rule book and in the Blades in the Dark hacking the game sections.I think the idea of you're going to extend your time with one campaign and one game by bringing your own custom moves to it, by bringing your own hacking and custom materials to it, is really cool.Nychelle: Well, a game core isn't supposed to be the only material we take into a game, is it? It is meant to be a diving board, a foundation for us to go ahead and move on from it. That's the whole point of any particular game system core is, okay, now here's your foundation. Now go on, evolve it, build upon it, take parts out, change things like that's, that's a whole dynamic of what happens at a game table.And one campaign I did for Blades in the Dark was we wanted to really interact with the faction game. How does the mechanics behind factions really interact with each other? And so we did an entire campaign for a year and a half just on factions. And brought in our own factions and did different clocks and things like that. But like we learned and also grew so much just out of taking one particular mechanic and saying, okay, how are we gonna play with this here? And how can we grow this? Because the core should never, I think that's one thing is we should never limit ourselves to strictly one particular thing. We, we should forever be evolving and changing it to make what we enjoy because that's the whole point of playing games is to do something we have fun with. Right?Sam: Yeah. Yeah. That's really fucking cool. Because you are absolutely right, like fundamentally what you are doing at the hobby is making your version of Blades in the Dark.A theme of this season of Dice Exploder has really been that the flavor level of a game is as much mechanics as the like rules level of the game. And every group is bringing their own flavor to play and thus hacking the game. And sometimes you get like, you see someone like Tim Dinee putting out like on the one hand, Dogs in the Bark where you're playing Blades in the Dark as a pack of dogs, which totally works. This supplement is so simple and quite short andNychelle: Dude. I have done like a mini campaign with this. It is legit the best, especially when you play some of like the rat factions as if they're from like Brooklyn and New York. It like the, oh man, it's it's amazing. Sam: It's amazing. And then of course, when you switch back to regular Blades, like suddenly every rat and dog in the city is gonna be like someone you know. Right? It is gonna be amazing, but. Also, it's such a goofy take on the game.And on the other hand, he has also put out Blades in '68, which I guess isn't out yet, but is this moving the tech level like a hundred years in the future for Blades into this like seventies themed almost setting where war is over, superstition is gone and we're doing a much different vibe on the original thing. It's gonna feel really different.And then of course, like I'm coming in like hey, you should, play Doskvol Breathes, this downtime hack where you're just taking like three sessions to play out one downtime. And other people are coming in saying, yeah, I uh, I just like pick my two downtime actions and move the numbers around on my character sheet and get back to the next score 'cause that's the thing that I like.And all of those versions of the game are really valid and really exciting.Nychelle: Oh yeah. Now there was one experiment I did and I've kind of done it throughout Covid. I have run one particular, one shot, six different tables. Same setting, same scenario, everything. Not a single ending was identical. Six different tables, and it was like, it's the same scenario, it's the same setup. You have the NPCs and everything do the exact same thing, and there was a different ending for every single six of those games, which was just amazing.When you think about what a player and what a group of players being a variable can do to a game, so if you're doing that with mechanics, if you're changing a variable in a mechanic, you know that you're gonna get something completely different.Sam: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and I think people should not, like a mantra I have about doing this, I don't know if I picked this up from someone else or not, is nothing is safe. Like you should change everything when you're doing this. Just play with everything for your table and what it means. I think this is actually from the Vincent Baker article I was talking about earlier, that really if there's a mechanic that you are using, mess around with it and see if there's something else you can do with it, but do it with intention. Like try to figure out what the purpose is for the thing that you're trying to accomplish. Like I just wrote a custom move last week playing in my regular game where it's like a pirate themed game and someone got a necromantic book. It's me, I'm the someone, I got a necromantic book that can summon a kraken when you cast a spell right. And we just like wrote a move for what happens when you try to do that? 'cause it should be a little bit bigger than just pickin' up some dice and rolling to see if you did it. You know, there should be a little bit more to it than that.And having, this is something I love from this Vincent Baker article, from the Blades in the Dark hacking the game section, is the encouragement to write moves, special abilities, mechanics, whatever you wanna call them, specifically for like named people and objects and locations in your game.There's a, an example one from the Vincent Baker article that goes: “If Groam gets his hands on you, he ties you to a table and you know he is really fucking good at that. If you try to escape, roll plus hard.” And like, then there's a bunch of options for like, specifically what happens when Groam has tied you to a table because he's really good at that.It's just so specific. It's so tailor made, bespoke to whatever table had this character Groam at it and doing that in games is just so exciting.Nychelle: Oh yeah, one of my favorite things as a GM is I've had plenty of players that will just fill out a character sheet and they're just like, yeah, my name's Bob. I'm this alignment. Or sometimes they, they won't fill out the descriptors or, or like, what they look like. They're just like, it's Bob. It doesn't matter what he looks like. But no, no, Bob actually matters. Tell me how Bob looks. Does Bob have a particular person he really likes to talk to and why? Tell me if Bob has a special butter knife that he does and he only uses it on scones. Why does Bob only use this particular butter knife on scones? Well, there's a story behind it.And drawing that story out or encouraging your table to do that, I just absolutely love because then I can have this whole thing on Bob's scone butter knife, or maybe it's a flashback score where, you know, Bob really wanted to stick it to the man, and this is how he does it because he stole so and so's butter scone, you know, for, for being outed a coin or something. Like when you start customizing or home brewing, even if it's just at your table and for anyone who's listening, you don't have to be a game designer or this person that has like all this knowledge of what not to change your game.You simply focus on your table, what you guys are comfortable with, what intention you have behind it and go from there and build it out and change it that makes sense for you guys. Sam: Yeah, the, the secret is if you're playing these games, you're already a game designer Nychelle: Exactly. Sam: But don't tell anyone. Yeah.Nychelle: Everyone's a game designer in a certain flavor or aspect. But yeah. No, it's really great when you start doing that because it also makes 'em more personal. I had a recent conversation with Allison Arth. And we were talking and discussing what does gaming actually mean? And we essentially brought it back around to it is an intended and created community. And I think that really also speaks to game design too, or changing the game, is being really intentional about how you curate and cultivate a community that you're interacting with through game design, mechanic change, maybe even the environment that you're playing with at the table.Sam: Have you ever like, changed a major rule of Blades that's not like a special ability or anything like that, but like, a more generic rule at the table?Nychelle: Mm. One I haven't really played with too much though I am looking forward to it, is magnitude. This mechanic that I feel is very much a backbone in an aspect of how you can do the thing, but also it doesn't really get brought up a lot. I find, and I feel that it doesn't really get brought, it's more of like a backseat mechanic that gets done. I.Sam: Yeah. Gosh, I should have uh, pushed us to talk about this as the whole framing device for this conversation. But that reminds me of Broken Spire, which is a blade supplement by Sean Nittner where you are starting from a place of trying to kill the Immortal Emperor. You're already on that score. Then every time you do something you like flashback to an entire score of setup in which you prepared another thing in your final attempt to kill the Immortal Emperor.And the downtime system in Broken Spire works like mechanically very similarly to Blades, but the downtime actions have all been changed so that they have much more impact on the game. Nychelle: Because you're, you're working not in micro anymore. You're working on a macro scale. And, and I think that's a, a thing that we a lot of times really get stuck in the micro. And don't realize how much the micro can impact the macro of what is actually going on or how much it doesn't impact what's going on in macro.Sam: Yeah. Yeah.Nychelle: I, I have not had a chance to play broken Spire, but had a couple of conversations with Sean about it, and I am like, dude, I, I need to play this. Sounds so badass. Sam: The, the idea of like one of the downtime actions is “say how you shift your heat to another faction. Roll for your action.” So instead of like reducing your heat, you're taking all of your heat and dumping it onto an enemy. And another one is like you just reduce the tier, the entire tier of an enemy faction. Which is wild. There's like, you're just gonna like casually in your downtime, fuck up an entire organization. Maybe it happens off screen.Even the idea that you could be taking Blades in the Dark, which by default is so much a game about like scrapping your way up from the, like bottom of the streets, you get just a couple of changes and suddenly you are monarchs of the underworld destroying factions left and right at your whim. It's so cool.Nychelle: Oh yeah. And I don't even think you're necessarily just of the underworld at that scale. You're impacting the politics, not only locally but the faction and, and the consequences of those actions across the Shattered Isles. Like there's so much that could be going on here. It's really fascinating to think about, but also to consider that of like, yeah, no, that's, chump change.Sam: Yeah. Yeah. Another, related idea to all of this that I've been pouring over in my mind a lot is the idea that the scarce resource in RPGs for me, right now anyway, is not new games and new systems, it's new settings and especially new scenarios.Like for example, I don't need another variation on Powered by the Apocalypse. Like even if someone's gonna write like a hundred beautiful moves across seven playbooks and all the rest, I'm sure they'll do a better job than me, but the thing that excites me about a new game is not what is it doing differently mechanically, it's what is the premise of the thing itself.Nychelle: Mm. Sam: in part because I know I can bring all of the tools that we're talking about here, of ways to change the game, to take a different system and change it to fit whatever the idea for this game is whether or not you've included a package of rules with your, your setting. Premise or you haven't. And that's just another thing I wanna put out into the world again, that I want to see more weird stuff to do, not ways to play the game. I have plenty of ways to play RPGs. I want more weird ideas, like story ideas that I can bring to my table that I otherwise wouldn't have had myself. Nychelle: Well, that's why you play fiction first, Sam. No, I'm joking. But no, it pretty much is because honestly, learning how to hack the game, learning how to really grasp mechanics, and like lines and veils and like, there's a whole plethora of things that each of us take. Experiences and all that stuff. But really when you pack it down, it's all tools in your toolbox, right? It's everything that you, that you sit down with at a table and you open up your box and you have all the tools there to go ahead and play and tinker with whatever is on the table. But I think that's a thing of especially when it comes to traditional RPGs, I'm going to say, and this probably will be spicy, is I think we get a little too focused on the toolbox that we bring to the table and not actually what the thing is on the table. Sam: Exactly.Nychelle: And I think that's where we really need to focus is, yes, we have the toolbox. A toolbox will evolve. Sometimes you'll, you'll be like, man, this hammer, I use this hammer every single time. It's been my friend for years. And then you switch over to a screwdriver or something else, like your toolbox will always be there. There's plenty of things to help you better utilize your toolbox. But getting the fiction, getting the narrative, and honestly getting that community together where you're creating something completely new and beautiful and it, it takes a life of its own.That's where it's really at to be quite honest.Sam: Yeah, like I am so excited to receive an ultra power badass like nail gun for Christmas, right? I'm excited to add that to my toolbox, but let's not forget that we're trying to build something.Nychelle: Yeah. Sam: The thing that we're building together is, is the exciting. Nychelle: We're trying to build a birdhouse, you know? Sam: Yeah. Yeah. And I want more birdhouses and fewer hammers. To come back out of the metaphor, I feel like I've had a couple of groups that I've played with for many years, and sometimes in those groups I feel like we've found a really comfortable groove, like a kind of story that we come back to again and again. And I, you know, that groove is a hit. I am happy to keep telling the story of that groove in variation.But I also, I'm excited when someone is able to bring me an idea for a new kind of story that's gonna like knock us onto a new groove to find a new space to play in. And mechanics are not the thing that's going to do that very often unless those mechanics are really in support of the new cool story idea.And the new cool story idea to help knock me and my longtime friends into some new place to help us explore some new story? That's the thing that gets me really going in RPGs right now. Bird houses, not hammers.Nychelle: I, I think it also comes down to being willing to explore new things. Sam: Yeah. Nychelle: it is, having that understanding of my paradigm and my perspective and how I'm viewing this game isn't the only one out there, and I want to see the game from as many different angles as possible. And I think that that is one wonderful thing that can happen is how many different bird houses do you end up seeing? if we're staying with the, with the narrative here of like, how many different bird houses do we end up making? How, how many different bird houses do we end up seeing? And again, I think it goes back to that intention of community is what are you doing with intention?Sam: Yeah.Nychelle: Sorry. I know you guys came here to talk about mechanics and we're talking about philosophy of gameplay.Sam: No, no, no. I, I gave up 40Nychelle: Uh, true. Sam: talking about mechanics. So I, I, I kind of knew what I was gonna get to with this episode topic anyway. No, I think oh, here's, here's the variation on the metaphor I wanted to say. I feel like I've made a lot of different birdhouses and I wanna make some fucking chairs now. Like, like I want, like the thing I want out of the RPG design community at large is for people to bring me some new shit to make other than birdhouses. Yeah, and I also, the other thing I wanna say is it's perfectly fine to just love polishing hammers and to really just be on that side of things and to not give a shit about what you're making. And it's perfectly fine too to just make birdhouses and only birdhouses for the rest of your gaming life. If that's what you're enjoying, like more power to you. But for me personally, the thing that I am excited about is something new. And something new on the fiction side rather than, than the mechanics side.Nychelle: I do think we're getting there in the indie gaming space. I think we're moving away from mechanic speak. It seems to be going in a very certain direction in the last few years, and I, I think we're getting more to the story and the process of building other things besides birdhouse. It's like, how many different things can we build with this? What can we build with this? It's really interesting to see like in like five years down the road, I wouldn't be able to tell you what we would build.Sam: Yeah. Make shit weird and make weird shit as uh, Joe DeSimone says. Nychelle: Oh yes. Sam: Thank you so much for coming on Dice Exploder.Nychelle: Thank you for having me, Sam. I greatly appreciate it. You've been a wonderful host.Sam: Oh, you too.Thanks again so much to Nychelle for being here. Like I mentioned in my intro, I think there's so many threads in this one to follow up on, and I want to underline two things that I really took away from it. first, making content for other people's games is just a joy in and of itself. Just like there's joy in the creating of all new games, there's joy in exploring the crevices of others. And it's often a lot easier to do. So go spelunking into someone else's head and set up camp. Second, game design is community building. The goal of these storytelling games is to sit with your friends and tell a story. And the sitting with your friends part of that is just as much something to prioritize and design for as the story part. Maybe more so. Like, deciding what snacks to buy is game design for your playgroup. Love your friends and the people you play with. And I think that's a lovely note to go out on for season 2 of Dice Exploder. If you want more of what this episode is talking about, I do have a post up on the Dice Exploder blog breaking down a custom Blades playbook that I made for playing a character named John Wick. I think it's pretty fun and gets into a little bit more examples of what we talked about today. You can find Nychelle on Twitter at mistletoe trex, on itch at mistletoe kiss itch. io, or on the Blades in the Dark Discord. As always, you can find me on the socials at sdunnewold, Blue Sky and Itch preferred. And there's a Dice Exploder Discord! Come on by and talk about the show, if you like. Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.And thanks to you for listening this season! I'll see you in a few months! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit diceexploder.substack.com

1. Európski socialisti sa konečne rozhýbali. 2. Izrael je varovaním pred nomináciami problematických ľudí za ministrov. 3. Fico sľuboval nepekné obrázky s migrantmi, už ich tu máme.

Tom welcomes to the show a successful student of his, Sam Glavin, who shares what inspired him to venture out into entrepreneurial real estate, what drew him to Tom's program, and how he's dealt with massive rejection. Today, Sam joins the show to talk through his marketing strategies, recent rehab deals he's completed, what ‘wholetailing' entails, and his future investment goals.Key Takeaways00:59 – Tom introduces today's guest, Sam Glavin, who joins the show to discuss what inspired him to pursue entrepreneurial real estate 07:21 – Why Sam chose Tom's program and Sam's biggest deal to date 13:23 – A numbers game 16:54 – Dealing with rejection (42 times to be exact) 20:38 – The tedium of marketing and making things conversational 27:32 – Sam's big rehab deal 30:54 – ‘Wholetailing' explained 35:32 – Hiring employees & building a business 39:24 – Advice Sam would give to anyone hesitating to get involved in real estate investment 43:29 – Tom thanks Sam for joining the show and sharing his storyTweetable Quotes“I say the first deal is around the corner, because it is. I worked four months to get my first deal and then it happened. And then literally two days before I sold that one, I got my next one under contract.” (10:46) (Sam)“It feels almost too good to be true to even keep it up. It's one thing to get a deal every couple of months, but to actually keep it up and start turning it into a business, I do see that mental shift you're talking about. It's hard to see.” (12:46) (Sam)“It is a low response rate for most types of marketing. I think the biggest thing is testing stuff and testing everything.” (21:29) (Sam)“I used to be very, very shy. You would have never, ever had me doing any networking events. It would be unheard of for me to do anything like that. Once I realized that you're just talking to people who have a house issue, it's just made it more streamlined. I'm not asking question after question. I'm just having a conversation with them, understanding what they need and what they want with their house.” (23:15) (Sam)“You are paid in proportion to the problems that you solve. Solving a housing issue that is some people's biggest purchase is incredible. We get paid very well for solving that issue.” (24:58) (Sam)“I will never stop having leads come in. That's the death of your business really.” (30:04) (Sam)“I want to turn this into an actual business and get into long term, tax benefit type real estate.” (38:05) (Sam)Guest ResourcesTom's LinkedInTom's Training Website Tom's TOTAL TRACTION program DealMachine Special Bonus OfferThis podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

Thomas Manuel of the Indie RPG Newsletter and the Yes Indie'd podcast joins me to talk about Secondary Missions, a mechanic from Band of Blades by Off Guard Games.In Band of Blades, a grim military fantasy forged in the dark game, you and your party go off and do missions. Meanwhile, there's a whole other squad out there doing a whole other mission! What's up with them? This mechanic tells us. It's such a change in the mouthfeel of Band of Blades compare to other forged in the dark games.We get into how it supports the genre and themes of the game, all the tough choices it puts in front of players, and how mechanics like this one that couldn't exist in any other game are often our favorites.It's a classic Dice Exploder deep dive this week. Enjoy.Further reading:* Blades in the Dark* Malazan Book of the Fallen* Band of Brothers* Darkest Dungeon* The Watch* Dream Askew // Dream ApartSocials:Thomas on itch and Twitter.Sam on Bluesky, Twitter, dice.camp, and itch.Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!Transcript:Sam: Hello and welcome to another episode of Dice Exploder. Each week we take a tabletop RPG mechanic and have its back as we head behind enemy lines. My name is Sam Dunnewold, and my co host is Thomas Manuel. Oh, so exciting. Thomas is an Indian playwright, journalist, and game designer. He runs the Indie RPG Newsletter, for my money one of the best sources of IndyRPG news on the internet and an easy subscribe. Plus he's the current host of the excellent Yes Indeed podcast. He's also the designer of This Ship is No Mother, a card based take on the kind of Mothership genre that's very much worth your time. Thomas is great, And he brought on a mechanic from Band of Blades, a grim military fantasy forged in the dark game from Off Guard Games and Evil Hat. Specifically, Thomas brought secondary missions.In Band of Blades, while you and your party are off doing one mission, there's a whole other squad over there doing a whole other mission's worth of stuff. What's up with them? This mechanic tells us.Secondary missions, have a deceptively big impact on the mouthfeel of Band of Blades. We get into how it supports the genre and themes of the game, all the tough choices it puts in front of players, and how mechanics like this one, that couldn't exist in any other game, are often at least my favorites. It's a classic Dice Exploder this week, a deep dive at its very best. Here is Thomas Manuel with Secondary Missions.Thomas, thanks for being here.Thomas: Thank you for inviting me. I'm so excited to talk about Band of Blades.Sam: Hell yeah. What is Band Blades?Thomas: Band of Blades is a sort of dark fantasy military take on the forge in the dark framework. Sam: Yeah. A band of Blades kind of play on Band of Brothers is where the name is coming from. Right?Thomas: Yeah, I, I assume it is a play on that, but it is also different enough from that show that I don't think people should use it as a touchstone. The premise of the game is that you play The Legion, which is an army that has just lost the decisive battle for the fate of humanity.There is an undead horde that is an existential threat to humanity. And we fought that battle and we lost it. And now the legion is in retreat. And it ends up being a kind of a point crawl where you're retreating from the location of the battle to a fort where you hope you can hold up there and figure things out and, you know, other pockets of the legion might end up there as well and that could be the last stand.Sam: Yeah. So we, before we get into specifics of what mechanic you brought from this I just wanna say, first of all, this game has like six different mechanics in it that I would be excited to do episodes on. Like truly there's so much innovative design in this game.And also I. I, I think it's okay. Like, I think it's a great game that was like an okay experience for me. It was like a little dark, like parts of it didn't quite, quite fit with me. Like, my experience with Band of Blades was that I'd started running a campaign in January of 2020 and it was going okay. We were like, kind of getting a feel for it when you know uh, March happened of 2020 and we were all like, this might be a little crunchier and darker than like, we wanna play right now.And I, I never really felt like it was something I was super drawn back to because I prefer a little bit more at that like minimalism level and there's, there's just so much game in this game but I, I really love so much of, of the innovation that went into this game.Thomas: I, I also think that this game is extremely innovative, like has, really interesting design. I think Off Guard Games, uh, Stras and John kind of have done so many interesting things that I am constantly coming back to it and learning stuff about design and like getting inspired by it. I ran, I think this is probably 2021. I, I ran the whole campaign uh, sort of reskinned for Malazan: Book of the Fallen and kinda set in that world if that, which, you know, I'm a big fan of that series. It's also sort of military fantasy and we ran the whole campaign and I, I really enjoyed it. I think it is, yeah, it does have some crunch. It does have some darkness, but I think it kind of balances it out really well for me. And yeah. I'm, glad we picked this one because this is in the spirit of taking something small that is not particularly discussed in the text and then kind of exploding it like, this is a great choice. Sam: Yeah, totally. So let's get into it. So what mechanic specifically did you bring?Thomas: So, yeah, we are gonna talk about secondary missions which I think in the text might be, you know, a page at most. And the idea is that like Blades or other games, one of the phases of play is a mission phase where you are going to take your player character and go out and do a mission that is going to help the legion.And then you come back and there's a second mission. There's a second mission that is other members of the Legion people you aren't controlling, what they did while you were out. And that is resolved with one dice roll. It's basically just the engagement roll. It's the same procedure as the engagement roll for the primary mission. You're gonna roll that engagement role and then just based on the result of that, of that one role, you're going to narrate how the secondary mission went. And yeah, it often goes really badly.Sam: Yeah, I mean, you have to do really well for like many people to not die. And band of Blades like has troupe play, so you're constantly rotating between characters. So you're often like sending out some of your faves onto this secondary mission. And whether or not they fucking die is gonna be determined by a single die roll.It's, it's hardcore.Thomas: It is. It is. And you know, I think it brings in that... like a war game needs to have a certain level of gravitas. And I think that's what the secondary mission is, is bringing.Sam: Yeah, totally. So, yeah, why did you bring this? Like what is it specifically about this that really made you wanna bring it on the show to talk?Thomas: Okay. So I have not seen a mechanic like this in another game. That isn't to say that it doesn't exist, but my experience of the secondary mission was that we would go on this primary mission ,and because this is a forged in the dark game, like our characters are awesome. We are going to go up against impossible odds and we are going to somehow, pull success out of the jaws of victory. And we are going to come home battered and bruised, but triumphant.And then we come back. And then we'd roll the secondary mission and we'd be like, fuck. War is hell. War is hell, and we can't save everybody. And it was often really powerful moments that led to things like, people like talking about like mourning and like how, you know, a character just died. Like how do we, how do we respond to that? Like what are the traditions around that stuff? Like in the Legion, it led to some really great moments. Yeah.Sam: Yeah. Another thing that it does with that sort of, you go off and like kick ass, then you come back to camp, is it gives you that feeling of you can't be everywhere at once. Like the Legion is bigger than just your playgroup. Like what? Any four of you, they're out on a mission or whatever. That there's all of these other people, like both doing their best and succeeding at times away from you and coming back victorious, but also often failing without you, and you just have to... it, it makes you feel small in this way that I think is really appropriate to that war setting.Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. I think through play is again, one of those other things that we could have been talking about today. And this is, yeah, it, it slots into troupe play like really well. And what it does and what true play really does is it makes this the story of the Legion.Sam: Yeah,Thomas: Like every individual character is, their own saga, living and dying. They have all the humanity that we associate, you know, that we want to inject into them and all of that stuff. But the story is the story of this Legion, which is, something greater than any individual.Sam: Yeah. You know, I was just in the Dice Exploder discord, hashtag Dice Exploder discord, this afternoon. We were having this like long conversation about the crew sheet in Blades and whether or not it's effective at what it's doing. Because a lot of people I think feel like the idea of the cruise sheet is really great and also people get attached to their own characters and don't want to... like you're focused on your character. You're not focused on the crew in the way that like Blades, I think, wants you to focus more on the crew at least according to my reading of the text.And I think Band of Blades really succeeds through troupe play explicitly and through mechanics like secondary missions at really doing the thing you're saying at, at foregrounding the story of the legion of the crew more than any individual in it.And that's really impressive.Thomas: Yeah, absolutely. I think that sort of gentle confusion about Blades as priorities is a part of the text. I think John Harper leaves the door open for troupe play but is also like, you know, people like to play their characters. So I'm gonna, I'm not gonna take a strong stance on that.But Band of Blades is like, there's a role called the Marshall, and they decide who goes on the mission, and they decide who's playing who.And I'm like, amazing.Sam: Well, it's, another thread from this conversation from this afternoon was like, a lot of people feeling like a lot of the mechanics on the Blades crew sheet are a bit unnecessary or just like not their favorite or a little bit more like paperwork like, as opposed to the mechanics on the playbooks. And band of Blades actually, like this is another mechanic from this game we could have spent a whole episode on like it's dividing up like the GM role in some ways and like all of this paperwork stuff among different roles at camp that all the players get to play like the Marshall, like you're saying. But somehow like bringing in even more crunch to that the, that crew role basically it, instead of feeling like, oh my God, I'm like drowning in the crunch, it, it really does pull you up into that Marshall level, that bird's eye view of the legion as a whole, as opposed to being down with your individual guy or, or whoever.Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, in terms of GM load, Band of Blades is doing something amazing with that restructuring that we're talking about. And in that sense, the secondary mission roll is also a part of that because what, what the secondary mission does, it takes the pressure off you as the GM to drive home a kind of misery in the primary mission.Like if you as the GM are like, I'm playing a war story. I need to bring these elements of tragedy into it, like the primary mission, players should and can succeed. And because the secondary mission and the design of the game is going to help you hit those notes and that is such a huge relief that the game allows you to simultaneously be a generous and a fan of the players while still still able to experience those themes, you know.Sam: yeah, yeah. Yeah. Another thing I like about it is how the choice of what mission is going to be the primary mission, what mission is going to be the secondary mission. And sometimes you have like a third mission that you just can't do because you don't have the people and you automatically fail it.And that choice of which of these are we gonna prioritize is a really interesting choice every time. I think a lot of that theme that we've been talking about of this being a game of is clearly a game about war and making almost like resource choices almost that like the kind of cold math you have to do in war with human life, I think it, is really highlighted every time you have to choose what mission is gonna be primary and what's gonna be secondary.Thomas: Yeah, I think there are a series of games, especially video games that have this trend of what you're actually doing is you're playing the world's worst HR manager. You know what I mean? Like, like Darkest Dungeon is a good example, right? Like, you are just sending these folks into a bad situation and then you're like, putting them in a, in a bar a church and saying, deal with your stress and come out and then you go back in.And there is a certain kind of inhumanity in that, that that cold calculating thing that you're doing. And I think Band of Blades for me specifically does a better job of that than those games. Like there is in some sense because it's a role playing game. Like you are never really treating anybody as a pawn, like you're feeling their feelings. And it is always like this hard choice to be like, Um, the most common result of the secondary mission roll is the four to five, right? Like that is, you know, it's very common to get one to three, but maybe six. And the critical result is the only result in which nothing bad happens. So, on the four to five, you are given this difficult choice of saying either fail the mission and all the troops return unharmed, or you succeed the mission, two squad members die and all the specialists take some harm. Which are wounds.And what is interesting is while so much of the game is very clear about who makes what call - Commander, you decide whether the Legion moves. Marshall, you decide who goes on the mission - the question of how the table decides this call is not explicit. The only way for us to decide, you know, it isn't the Marsh's decision, it's we all sit and we go like, oh my God, if we succeed, who is dying? And everyone has to kind of like have that thing of like, I don't, I, I don't know. And sometimes it's fine. Like it's a really important mission. You're like, we have to succeed. But sometimes you are like, nah, let's, let's fail this. Like we can eat the failure, but you know, we can't lose people.Sam: I will not have my wonderful bug man die. Like I'm too in love. Like... and no, that's, that's a great observation about Not having a specific person make this choice, unlike a lot of the rest of the game. It almost feels like you all have to get your hands bloody in this choice. Like, it's not letting anyone off the hook. You all have to put your stab into the murder victim's back, like,Thomas: Oh, that is so good. Yeah.Sam: It's, yeah, no one gets to sit this one out.Thomas: Yeah. And yeah, often you fail and then you just feel that failure. And that's, in some sense, that's easier. It's, it's simpler. It's simpler than the four to five, likeSam: If everyone is just sad, at least they're alive. But like sometimes, sometimes also the mission is like save a small town from being eaten by zombies and you're like I mean, they're probably gonna die when the zombies get here anyway. We'll save our two guys. Let's, let's move on. Let's move on. And it's, it's like, it's hard. It's hard choices.Thomas: Yeah, it is. It is. I think that is... a lot of this game is supposed to be hard choices, but I think there are various kinds of hard choices. There's the tactical choices, which is, you know, a lot of the crunch of the game is like, let's make cool tactical decisions about, you know, setting us up for success when we reach our, our destination, which is Skydagger Keep.But a lot of the, the decisions are also just emotional you know, just in terms of like what narrative we want and we've talked about like not letting people die. There's also this moment of your like, I think it's this character dies and I think that is appropriate. I think there's a moment in the Band of Blades actual play on the Actual Play channel where I think they fail a secondary roll or they get a four, five or whatever and they, two, two characters just had a fight in the, in the previous session, in, in the downtime phase or whatever, and they're like one of them died and the other person is going to have to live with the fact that the last thing that they interacted with this person was a fight. Sam: Yeah. Thomas: You know, and I'm like, awesome.Sam: We touched on this, but I really wanna highlight explicitly how this mechanic forces you into the position of doing the math with human life, but it does it without dehumanizing people. That the exact moment you just described is always the thing that you're thinking about as you make this decision that largely comes down to numbers.I, I also wanna say like, I think fundamentally the most interesting part of roleplaying games, oh, story games for me is characters making hard decisions. And not just this mechanic, but this game is absolutely riddled with hard decisions. You also were just saying that, but I, I just think it's so cool to see a mechanic that is so explicitly and reliably, that's the other thing, reliably putting a hard decision in front of people.Thomas: Yeah. You can play Band of Blades and you will have the experience that this game wants if you're willing to engage with the game on its terms and like treat these characters like as people and all this stuff, which most people playing this game will do.But that hard decision stuff, like, yeah, I think it's perfectly fine to flag that that can become grinding down. Like I know some people, Paul Beakley, I think on the Indie Game Reading Club has an article about Band of Blades. He describes how at the end of the campaign, everyone was kind of tired. And that was not my experience, but I, I get it. Like, I guess, you know, that is something that can happen both thematically and mechanically Sam: Yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah. That's like in a lot of ways that exhaustion I think is part of what the game is about.Thomas: But I, I mean, I think it's still supposed to be fun.Sam: Yeah. Yeah. It is. It is. And we did a whole episode in season one on The Watch. Right? Which is also, I think a lot about not like, can you win the war. But what is the cost of war? How do you live with the cost of war? And, and this is another game that is even more explicit about that, I think, than The Watch is, which is already pretty explicit about it.Like, you, you're not winning. You lost, like, what, cost are you gonna pay?Thomas: Yeah, I think if you are making a war game, you have to be really conscious about, you know, what you're saying about war. And yeah, both of these games, I think The Watch is, kind of using war as, as metaphor and Band of Blades is again, sort of like, very consciously stripping the glory out of this.Like, this is not that game. Which Band of brothers to some extent does have, right? It's, it's a show that it know, you know, war is awful, but like these characters are, are noble and brave and righteous and all of that to some extent. And this game is like, if we focus on the fact that it's a retreat, we can tell an interesting and sometimes under explored facet of war stories.Sam: Yeah, I should state for the record, I've never actually seen Band of Brothers, so I, I, I cannot actually speak to it, but but the, the other thing I wanted to just touch on in all that is just how brutal this game can be and like, very clearly and, and intentionally. And this particular mechanic as we've kind of discussed, I think is especially about brutality. Like when you fail, just three people die. And like several more are like critically wounded. Like you could just wipe out and every person who dies like Thomas: half a squad. Sam: And like the morale is hard to keep up in this game. And you fail one secondary mission and you're just, the whole legion is in so much trouble.It's a hard game. There's a, but you know what? You know what rule we really should have done a whole episode on is the single sentence in Band of Blades "this is a game you can lose." Like it's, yeah, it's a lot.Thomas: Again, like why is that sentence there? Why is this game that you can lose when role playing games usually aren't? And I think, again, that all flows from the decision to make a game about war. And you touched upon this adjacent mechanic, which is morale, which we should clarify that. Like, anytime a member of the legion dies, the legion loses morale and, you lose enough morale, you lose the game.Sam: Yeah. Yeah.Thomas: And other things also, but like yeah. Worse situation. Yeah. The game's over. And yeah, one failure can demoralize the squad in a huge way. And also like if you lose three squad members, a, a squad is like five people. They've lost more than half your squad. All your specialists are, you know, who went on the mission are beaten up. Yeah, it is. It is awful. And so what usually happens is that people will look at the primary mission and say, okay, we are going on this, so we failed the resource here. The fact that we are awesome and we can do stuff, let's load out the secondary mission with the best, best, you know, assets we can give it like Quartermaster, can we send them with like extra supplies? Like, you know what, what do we have to like, increase the odds there? And, and I think that is also like a kind of fun and meaningful choice. Yeah.Sam: There's something really nice in that, about how this mechanic is sort of indirectly encouraging you to be empathetic to that secondary squad. It's like, don't you love them? Don't you like feel for what they're about to go through? Like you should care about them, you should give them the extra ammo.Yeah, Is there anything about this mechanic that you have trouble with or that bumps you?Thomas: It can, if your primary mission has gone badly, it can be a second punch in the face. Like, I think, I think that is that is a thing. But otherwise nothing specifically that I can, that I can think of that is like an issue I have with it or I will change the design or something. Sam: Yeah. Thomas: Yeah. Sam: Another thing, look, one of the first things you said on this episode was that you've never seen another mechanic like this one. And I think that's a testament to how specific to the setting and genre and story that Band of Blades is telling this mechanic is.And I always love it. I love it when I see mechanics like that because I literally just before this recording, moments before this recording, wrapped up a forged in the dark Pirates campaign with one of my home groups where we just weren't using an established setting. We just like have played a lot of Blades and we were like, eh, I'll make up some special abilities and go. And it worked totally fine and for a lot of ideas I can just do that.But it, it takes. Like the new systems, the new games that are really interesting to me are the games that have mechanics like this one that are so bespoke, so tailor made to what this game is doing. And I really love that. I really really respect mechanics like that.Thomas: Yeah, and it is again a testament to band Blades, good design, and why I want to talk about, 'cause I think it's completely like under-discussed. I think we should all be talking about it all the time, is the fact that all of this is so like, enmeshed together. Right? In some sense the secondary roll is necessitated because forged in the dark is such an empowering framework for players.Right. Like, how do I tell a war story with this? And you, and you started that question and then something like this is almost, almost required. I would, I wouldn't have thought of it, but it does, it does like something like this is needed once you decide to go with this framework. And I think, yeah, it is, It does feel like something bespoke and tailor made that has then through play testing kind of integrated into everything smoothly and perfectly.Sam: Yeah. So after you've made the secondary mission roll and you've kind of determined the results of it, there's then this moment that the book encourages of you to sit at the table and sort of flesh out the story of what happened on that secondary mission. Like, you know what the goal of the mission was and you know how many people got fucked up and or died on the mission.But there's a lot between point A and point B there. So it kind of sets you up to devise this short story together of what happened on this secondary mission.And I think it does a good job of giving you enough handholds of what was the beginning and what was the end of that story, to kind of flesh it out such that it doesn't really need a framework of doing that in between. And that in itself is like pretty impressive to me.Sometimes you'll be given a mechanic as you're playing a game, like the game will present you with a mechanic where it, it has a little bit of that, like now draw the rest of the owl feeling to it. Where, where it's asking you to, fill in the blanks on something that it has not set you up well enough to fill in the blanks on. And this moment of fleshing out what happened on the secondary mission in some ways feels like drawing the rest of the owl, but in a way where like I feel empowered to draw the rest of the owl. And that's, that's cool.Thomas: And you know, one reason is that as a GM, before the Commander makes the decision of which is the primary and secondary mission, you fleshed out both equally, right? Like you have as much information on one than the other. So you're starting off in a good place, you're not taking it lightly.And then, yeah, when we get to the result, like there is this question like immediately that comes to mind of like, how did this happen? Like, you know we chose that as a secondary mission 'cause maybe we thought it was safer. And you know, we have to now, now sort of at the table discuss and figure it out because also we might be in the next primary mission playing the people who went on this mission, right?Like, we want to, we want to reflect the fact that, you know, I just broke my shoulder like last time and I'm coming like half patched up into this one. Stuff like that, like, yeah.Sam: Maybe we encountered like a new type of zombie for the first time. And so Thomas: Mm. Sam: that specialist is the only one who's seen that type of zombie before and that's gonna come up next time. They can be the person who's like Uhoh on the next mission and, and do that foreshadowing, but all that, all that.And they can also be like the person telling the horrible war story, like around the campfire, like the ghost story almost of what happened. That can be in itself, a cool downtime scene.Thomas: Yeah, I think that is actually a thing that comes up regularly often where you want to contextualize what happened on a mission to the other characters, not necessarily the players. So you wanna see it through one character's eye, like what they experienced and stuff like that. 'cause if you're going to limp home limp back to camp, you know, half your squad gone, people know it went horribly wrong. And you know, there is like, there is just this sense of like, you know, at some point we need to know why. And often it's at like the Commander Marshall level where, you know, you might role play like having a character debrief the senior officers going like, this is, this is what happened. And the senior officers had to sit around going, Yeah, it's our fault, you know, like, we made that call and we have to settle with it. Yeah.Sam: Yeah. Or like maybe you decide that one person who came back alive really was at fault and you hold a disciplinary meeting for them. Right? Like Thomas: Oh, wow. Yeah. Sam: Um, a specialist who comes back injured and carrying tons of guilt, like, yikes, I, let's do it.There's another line at the end of the procedure here that is, if any squad members died, ask someone what they remember most about one of them, which is really just like sticking a finger in the wound. Right. It, it, it's making sure if it wasn't clear enough already, like you are supposed to feel these deaths.Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. It is again, just and, and if people are sort of hearing this and going, oh, this is a bit, this is a bit much like I cannot overstate how much the primary missions can be just a joy, like a complete, like you can, you can be in this dark fantasy world of zombies. And you know, the humanity has lost the war.But like when you start a primary mission, like when I was playing it very often my players would absolutely flub the engagement roll. And they would start in like a desperate position and I'd really kind of revel in like, how screwed they were. And then they would just go, okay, flashback, this was the plan all along, this is the diversion. I'd be like, shut the.Sam: Flashback this, resist that. Yeah. I've got some explosives in my back pocket. It's all fine. There's, you, you say there's a broken themselves, one of the head zombies coming in to kill us? Like that's fine. We'll just collapse a church on their head. It'll be fine.Um, Thomas: We prepared for this all along.Sam: Yeah. Yeah. It's cool to have both of those dualities in the game, like to have the wild successes. 'cause that also feels like a part of war is like sometimes you do get those miraculous victories too.Thomas: Yeah, I will say that, and this is something that I'm still unpacking, but it can't be overstated how much culturally we have this fantasy, especially for young men of like the greatest destiny being that you gave your life on the battlefield, right? Like that you took a bullet for your comrade.Like that is such a powerful you know, cultural feeling, I think. So And it is hard to sort of have that feeling in games that don't, at the end of it, make you go, okay, yeah, I think we might have glorified war there.Sam: Yeah.Thomas: and it is this game this game lets you do that.So I am, I am going to unrelentingly recommend this to folks even though it can be dark. Like I think you have control of that dial to a huge extent. And you can You can make sure that this is a fun and pleasurable experience.Sam: All right. What mechanic from Band of Blades should I do an episode about next?Thomas: I mean, I think the immediate one that comes to mind is the idea of roles. That the one thing that players have continuity on is that they're either the Commander or the Marshal or the Quartermaster or optionally the spy or, and the Lorekeeper, I think.And yeah, they just, they just divide the GM role in a nice way. Primarily because like, those are now player responsibilities, right? It's the Marshal's responsibility to name every member in the squad as in when they need a name. It's not the GM's job, you know. And that you know, you might think that a small thing, but it's, it's a big thing.So I, I think that's an obvious other thing to kind of discuss all the ways in which Band of Blades gently and, sophisticatedly kind of divides that, GM experience.Sam: Yeah. It both distributes all the paperwork and bookkeeping that the GM or someone would have to be doing among several people so that no one person is fully responsible, and by doing so, it puts more hard choices into the hands of each player.Thomas: Yeah, and it also facilitates their mutual cooperation, right? Like when, when you have a sense of like, whose final call this is, like that doesn't mean you're not gonna discuss it. You're gonna discuss it and then someone has final call and you're going to respect that. And that does a lot for having straightforward and fluid like conversations.Sam: Yeah. Well maybe I'll have you back in a year or two uh, to do that one. Um, But uh, this was excellent. This was great. Thanks for for being here and talking about secondary missions with me.Thomas: Thanks so much. I am thinking about Band of Blades like all the time, you've just given me an opportunity to like talk about it, but if you had it, it'd just be me in my head thinking about it.Sam: Thanks again to Thomas for being here. You can find him on socials at chaibypost, C H A I B Y P O S T, but in my opinion, you're better off just subscribing to the Indie RPG Newsletter and the Yes Indie'd podcast. Links for all that in the show notes. As always, you can find me on socials at sdunnewold, bluesky, and itch preferred, and there's a Dice Exploder Discord! Come on by, talk about the show, and if you've backed the Kickstarter, claim your fancy pants roll. Our logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Gray.Thanks, as always, to you for listening. See ya next time. This is a public episode. 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Today's guest is Zachary Beach.   Zach is an Amazon Best-Selling Author of The New Rules of Real Estate Investing and revised edition of Real Estate On Your Terms. He has been an authority in real estate for 8 years now and has personally completed hundreds of real estate transactions and mentored investors to complete thousands of transactions.   Show summary:   In this podcast episode, Zachary Beach, CEO and partner at Smart Real Estate Coach, shares his journey in the real estate investing business. He discusses the challenges of traditional financing options and highlights the importance of creative financing and direct negotiation with sellers to achieve better cash flow. Zachary emphasizes the value of personal development and mindset in his success and shares insights on acquiring properties through creative financing.    -------------------------------------------------------------- Intro[00:00:00]   Zachary's journey into real estate investing [00:00:53]   Adding value to a business relationship [00:02:39]   Becoming a Virtual Assistant and Acquiring Real Estate [00:08:49]   Determining Good Deals in Creative Financing [00:11:10]   Buying Commercial and Multifamily Properties [00:14:25]   The importance of positioning in real estate deals [00:18:59]   The seven steps to acquiring a property [00:19:56]   Free book [00:21:29] -------------------------------------------------------------- Connect with Zachary:    FREE BOOK:: https://wickedsmartbooks.com/sam3/   Website: http://www.smartrealestatecoach.com  Podcast: https://www.smartrealestatecoach.com/podcast  Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/smartrealestatecoach  Google +: https://plus.google.com/+Smartrealestatecoachchannel  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/smartrealestatecoach  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smartrealestatecoach  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacharyrbeach   Connect with Sam: I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.     Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HowtoscaleCRE/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samwilsonhowtoscalecre/ Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com   SUBSCRIBE and LEAVE A RATING. Listen to How To Scale Commercial Real Estate Investing with Sam Wilson Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-scale-commercial-real-estate/id1539979234 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4m0NWYzSvznEIjRBFtCgEL?si=e10d8e039b99475f -------------------------------------------------------------- Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below: Zachary Beach (00:00:00) - You know, if you're looking at it through a traditional lens and you're either going to go raise a bunch of money or you're going to go get, you know, institutional financing, there's typically a lot higher of a monthly payment that you're going to be dealing with. So you're not gonna be able to cash flow as well compared to if I approach a seller and I say, Hey, I need my payment to be here, but I'll give you your price then, Now all of a sudden we can walk into a lot more cash flow versus having to raise the debt. Welcome to the How.   Sam Wilson (00:00:27) - To scale commercial real estate show. Whether you are an active or passive investor, we'll teach you how to scale your real estate investing business into something big. Zachary Beach is a three time Amazon best selling author of Real Estate On Your Terms. He's also the CEO and partner at Smart Real Estate Coach. And lastly, he's the co-host of the Smart Real Estate podcast. Zachary, welcome to the show.   Zachary Beach (00:00:53) - Sam It's a pleasure, my man.   Zachary Beach (00:00:54) - I'm excited to be here with you.   Sam Wilson (00:00:56) - Absolutely. Zach. The pleasure is mine. There are three questions I ask every guest who comes on the show in 90s or less. Can you tell me where did you start? Where are you now and how did you get there?   Zachary Beach (00:01:06) - Hundred percent 90s You're talking like Massachusetts here now, so we'll fly through this. So I was a bartender and personal trainer, um, just a short nine years ago and was burning the candle at both ends and was getting extremely exhausted and tired because, you know, as you can imagine, late nights and early mornings. So actually approached my father in law, who is now my business partner in multiple business ventures. And at the time he was he was revamping his his new real estate business as he got crushed in 2008. And he was, you know, coming out of the crash and got involved in this thing called creative financing and real estate investing. So I ended up joining him. And then about six months later, I was able to get my first my first property under contract, my first creative financing deal went ahead and burned the candle at both ends or burn the bridges, I should say, dropped every other job except for real estate investing.   Zachary Beach (00:02:01) - And from there on out, just continue to build up that local buying and selling entity. And then also grew a real estate coaching business at the same time and kind of brings us to where we are here today.   Sam Wilson (00:02:12) - Man, that's awesome. I love that there. I guess there's a few things here that I would I think some of our listeners would would pertain to them. When you said, Hey, I'm going to approach my father in law and say, you know, can I work with you? Can we learn how to, you know, kind of learn to do what you're doing or can I add value to you in some way? What was that conversation like then? Sure. And then how has that changed?   Zachary Beach (00:02:39) - Yeah, well, the relationship's dramatically changed. Right. So was 24 years old. Um, it was December of 2014, and. And I was approaching him because I just was exhausted. Me and my wife were. Remember, it was one morning, it was like 4 a.m. because she was also a bartender at the time.   Zachary Beach (00:02:58) - It was like 4 a.m. And we looked at each other and we were like, we got to figure out something else. And right. We were in bartending for about four years. Of course it was. It was a blast. It was like my second college. But there was a time and a place and now it was the time to to make the transition. So I said, Hey, I don't know if I'm gonna like real estate investing, but maybe I should talk with your father and see if, you know, we could fit into his current business and and see if we can create something bigger. Because I'm extremely ambitious, and I know he is as well. And let's see how we can take this to the next level. So when approached him, I said, you know, I don't know if I'm going to be good at this or not, but, you know, if you'd have me, I'd be interested in doing some things in order to generate, you know, some value to the company.   Zachary Beach (00:03:40) - And, and, and I got the sexiest job in the world, but I when got was a list of names and numbers of expired listings people that had a property on the market at one point in time and it didn't work out and he said call these people. I'll, uh, I'll work with you on your sales scripts and let's try to generate some, you know, some warm leads. And once we start moving those leads to the funnel, then we can go ahead and start making some offers and trying to do some deals together. And that's kind of where it all started. And really at the end of the day, we kind of ate what we killed. So it wasn't like he wasn't that he was going to take a massive risk on his end, but eventually, you know, ended up taking a big leap as I started to learn it and then eventually said, you know, if I'm going to really be a real estate investor, then I got to I got to really focus and I got to cut everything else out.   Zachary Beach (00:04:28) - And, you know, did that after about 4 to 5 months in the business and can hit the ground running from there.   Sam Wilson (00:04:34) - Wow. Okay. So you made an important point there. You said eat what you kill. So you brought value in father in law or not, this would pertain to any business relationship where you're looking to learn from someone who's ahead of you. And I think that's the name of the game is how to scale commercial real estate. And I certainly have employed that tactic where it's how do I add value to you? What can I do now? Maybe that isn't asking you to write a check so I can come to work for you per se, but yet I want to work directly with you. So I love I love the way you approach that and say, hey, you know, eat what you kill. You went six months and you got your first deal under contract. So what? And he handed you a list of names and numbers and said, Hey, call them up and just see where it goes.   Sam Wilson (00:05:17) - What was that process like in I guess, you know, it sounds like you had success with it six months in. So tell me how you stuck with it.   Zachary Beach (00:05:26) - Yeah, it's it's mindset is everything, right when it comes to real estate investing. And the interesting thing is I still use that skill set today, right? Is the it is the building block of real estate investing in in my perspective, which is communication. Because once you communicate properly with people and solve their problems, understanding their motivation to understand the financials, I don't care if it's single family or commercial. Once you are able to communicate and solve people's problems, well, that's where the real estate deals come into place. Any brand new real estate investor that I communicate with am always like, This is not a real estate business. This is a communication business, this is a people business. And once you're able to solve people's problems, well, now, now you're going to be able to really start to be able to build some wealth in real estate.   Zachary Beach (00:06:09) - So that's what I built upon consistently. And that's why I say, like to this day, I still use that skill set because if we enter into a new market, I just say, give me a list of expired listings and let's start let's start talking with some sellers in order to get some deals done, get straight to the source. Um, so during that, during that process, I mean, it, it was hard. I mean, for the first 2 to 3 years, real estate investing for me was hard. It wasn't natural to me, although, you know, it may say, well, you had a bar, you were a bartender, you know, you should be able to speak with anyone. And that may be true, but if you have zero real estate experience and you don't understand how the dynamics of a real estate investment deal, whether it be a traditional mainstream deal or, say, a creative off market deal, that's still a huge learning curve that you get to take on as well.   Zachary Beach (00:06:55) - So it was it was hard and it was challenging. And the only way I was able to really stick with, you know, building this out. And as I started doing real estate deals, I started to find the love for for business in general. And the only way to be successful in any type of business is to consistently work on personal development. So I found myself, you know, listening to, you know, why I was setting up the bar, you know, And I just started, you know, doing real estate deals. I was listening to Jim Rohn, not music. I had my headphones in listening to personal development. So what I noticed, though, was as I continued to work on myself personally from a mindset, from a personal development, from behavior standpoint, that my my real estate career started to get better and better and better. So then I start to make that connection that said, All right, if I can control what's up here in my mind, then you know the business is going to grow in itself anyways.   Zachary Beach (00:07:47) - I think I can't quote the exact person I used to say it, but they said, you know, your your income will never outgrow your development. So then I just started focusing on how I can develop better in order to increase my income and increase my wealth long term.   Sam Wilson (00:08:02) - I love that. I love that. And that's so true. That is so true. Your income. Well, I couldn't have said it that way, but I like it. Your income. What? How'd you say your income will never outgrow your development? Yeah. So that's. That's really cool. And you and you've transitioned. I think, you know, even in your roles inside of the company, I mean, the company obviously is not what it was nine years ago when you came on board knowing nothing about real estate. So what have those role in kind of transition's been for you as you've grown the company along with your father in law?   Zachary Beach (00:08:36) - Yeah, what's interesting is it's like I would say day one, but since probably about the first year that I started investing in real estate, I've always been simultaneously growing two companies at the same time.   Zachary Beach (00:08:49) - So it wasn't like I've ever just invested in one. So we've we have our own personal buying and selling entities, so we still buy and sell real estate with the exact techniques that, you know, we teach our students. So we have our own portfolio in southern New England. And then at the same time we have a real estate coaching company that teaches people the exact same strategies, tools, techniques, you know, process systems, tools to grow and scale their creative financing business as well. So we've always had those two business simultaneously growing. So I've evolved in both, right? I've evolved from being, you know, from day one, being a virtual assistant, basically, right? Somebody that's prospecting consistently. And then eventually I became a very well paid virtual assistant and then eventually get to a point where then I was heading up all the entire acquisitions. And at one point in time, me and my brother in law and father in law with a couple support staff were doing four to, you know, 4 to 10 deals a month, you know, with with creative techniques that most people either aren't aware of or say that it doesn't exist, like owner financing and subject to's and lease options.   Zachary Beach (00:09:59) - But then at the exact same time, I was also, you know, the CEO of our coaching company and a coach teaching people how to do this and helping them acquire real estate into their portfolio. And eventually, as that started to evolve, became more in a deal structure mode. On the on the investment side and CEO of the coaching company, which happened over the past 12 months.   Sam Wilson (00:10:24) - That's awesome. What so you guys so let's go back to this very first deal. You're looking for commercial real estate or even maybe at that point, residential real estate, I don't know. But what's your.   Zachary Beach (00:10:36) - Residential at that.   Sam Wilson (00:10:36) - Time? At that time. Okay. Primarily residential. So let's fast forward maybe then to now, like when you're looking for commercial real estate for, you know, because you have two companies, you're running there for your own personal investing, What's your buy box on other finance deals and why?   Zachary Beach (00:10:55) - Yeah, I actually got this question asked for me like just yesterday because I'm communicating with this with with a gentleman and he's been providing, say, leads because he does wholesale fix and flips, but it's trying to get involved in the creative space.   Zachary Beach (00:11:10) - So he's been providing leads and I've just been sharing with them how I've been doing it. So he said he asked me that exact question. So he goes, How do you know that this one is a good deal? And I said, Well, first and foremost, the seller said that he's open to creative terms mean that automatically jumps to the top of my list. Um, considering considering that the the challenging part of the conversation is, is asking the right questions to understand motivation but then understanding the the challenge that can be solved with a creative financing technique. Um, because everyone I mean, literally everyone has been taught one way of buying real estate. Typically if you're brand new and that's through traditional means, you go, you, you work hard, you get 20%, 25% in your pocket, you go put it down on a piece of property. Then you go ahead and you go get the rest of the rest of the financing from a bank or an institution. And then now you have doesn't matter if it's a single or a multi or commercial.   Zachary Beach (00:12:10) - Now you have a property, um, and that's how everyone's taught. So most of creative financing is an education process for the seller, so it's okay. Mr. Seller I understand your problem. Here's how we can solve it, and here's some techniques that we can utilize or some different strategies that we can utilize in order to get you to their end motivation, whether it's they want tax or estate planning benefits, whether they want a higher price, whether they want cash flow on the property. Um, it's just now providing that solution. So that's step number one. That's what I always want to know. Number one is I know it's a good deal if somebody's open to it. Um, at least I know that that's the hot lead. Then from there, it's what types of terms can I create with that seller? Because just because they're open to it doesn't mean it's a good deal, but it's definitely at the top of my list. So now I need to understand it's typically five terms that are involved in, say, an owner financing deal.   Zachary Beach (00:13:08) - So owner financing would just mean that we're going to take out the bank and we're just going to go direct the seller. The seller is going to be your bank. This is going to finance the property for you. So there's typically a handful of terms that are involved purchase price down payment or not. We have lots of deals where we put no money down. We have if there's an interest rate or not, there's lots of deals in which we do that are 0% interest rates. We have, you know, length of time and if there's a monthly payment. So those are like the the generic terms that we're that we're going to be now crafting. So once we've established those and now those terms make sense for us to buy, meaning the terms look good, we're going to be able to acquire what we're going to be able to cash flow it. We're we're going to be able to either have our exit in mind or know that we can keep it for a certain period of time to improve the value of the property.   Zachary Beach (00:13:59) - Now, once I have that, now it's okay. We got ourselves a good deal. The motivations in line, the finances are in line. Now let's just figure out the best way to go and close on this.   Sam Wilson (00:14:07) - What type of assets are you buying right now? Assuming purchase price down payment, interest rate term, which all of those then equal of course your final payment. Yeah. But what type of assets in the commercial real estate space are you acquiring right now? That makes sense.   Zachary Beach (00:14:25) - Yeah, it's a good question. So we've acquired our own commercial building that housed all of our offices, also housing all state and a couple other local businesses. So mixed use, but we also will acquire multifamily, typically up to ten units. And and it's not because like we're not willing to buy bigger units. It's just because usually up to ten units or mom and pop jobs. So they're more open to doing a creative strategy like owner financing because it's usually if we get a hold of it, it's been either inherited or they've owned the property forever.   Zachary Beach (00:15:01) - Or talk about what happened with Covid. You know, you have a certain amount of vacancy or you have a certain amount of people that are not paying and you're going through evictions for a mom and pop shop if that's their only building or they only own a couple of them, that's a big hit for them. And now that creates a big fear factor. So we'll go ahead and buy properties just like that as well. And so we'll just accumulate them in in those lower lower unit ranges because typically if you get past ten units and above, you're starting to deal with more of an institutional or other investors like ourselves. And it's it's just not as likely for you to go ahead and get good terms that you want to go ahead and acquire owner financing.   Sam Wilson (00:15:40) - Right. And you may you made a good a good clarification there on typically who the owner financier. Financier. Yeah I don't know whatever who who that is right. It's like, oh okay. It's going to be a mom and pop. They're not going to they're not going to have a massive portfolio, probably.   Sam Wilson (00:15:57) - Maybe they do. And they just can't get rid of it. But let's but so like the kind of clarification of who the type of potential owner finance seller is, how do you not wind up with dog assets? Because if something's inspired listing like or maybe I could ask that a different way, which is what are things that typically lead to an expired listing that then make it a desirable acquisition for you?   Zachary Beach (00:16:23) - Yeah, and I'll give you some clarification. So if we're buying commercial, it's typically off market. They more than likely weren't on the market at this point. So single families we we acquire a lot from expired listings. Um, so, so typically if we're going to go up to a multifamily, we'll do a specific mailing to a free and clear list. Man, you can grab those on prop stream or whatever database you're using. Debt free houses, usually they own at least one, if not multiple buildings or attached to them. And of course, I mean, you love and out of state owner as well, especially if they're a tired landlord.   Zachary Beach (00:17:03) - So just approaching those and then we'll send out a mailing. And if we get one deal out of each mailing, which you know, cost you, you know, a couple thousand bucks and in succession, then that's a we're in a good spot. And to tell you about like dog listings or things like that, again, the two things that we tend to care about are are the motivation of the seller and the finances on the property. Because if you're looking at it through a traditional lens and you're either going to go raise a bunch of money or you're going to go get, you know, institutional financing, there's typically a lot higher of a monthly payment that you're going to be dealing with. So you're not gonna be able to cash flow as well compared to if I approach a seller and I say, Hey, I need my payment to be here, but I'll give you your price then, now all of a sudden we can walk into a lot more cash flow versus having to raise the debt and the equity on the property in no way have to pay a more people or an institution so we can actually walk into properties that you typically wouldn't be able to cash flow as well.   Zachary Beach (00:18:00) - And then then of course, the end result would be one of two things. Either we'll hold on to it. Secondly, if you wanted to, even though we typically don't, you could fix improve it and then refinance it and keep it and bring in some traditional financing or do what we've done with a couple of our multis, which are go buy them on owner financing, make principal only payments for say, 48 months on the property, improve the units, turn up the units now, improve the cash flow on the property, and then let you know some of the bigger investors out there that are looking for units. Go ahead and acquire your property at a higher price because you've established the rents and made the improvements on the property.   Sam Wilson (00:18:41) - Right? That makes a lot of sense. What do you do to inspire confidence in your sellers that you're going to perform?   Zachary Beach (00:18:50) - Yeah, that's a great question, right? Because that's at the end of the day, that's what every everyone's looking for, especially if they first got the first game involved in real estate investing.   Zachary Beach (00:18:59) - A lot of it is I mean, some of it I lean on, you know, we have you know, we got a history, right. We've we've been doing these deals. I mean, I've done or participated in pretty close to 500 creative finds. It deals at this point in time nationally so I can lead on that. Secondly a lot of it just positioning at the end of the day, if you if you want the deal, you know, you need the deal like you need water sellers can tell. Um, so just keeping a good positioning and don't try to ever force a deal because it's never one of my coaches said this really well and he said it's not your timing, it's the seller's timing. So it's all about following up and being consistent and being helpful. But most importantly, I think what I always try to do my best at and what we teach our students is to is to not prejudge the asset or the person. Um, so we have this thing called seven Steps to a Taken, which is basically seven steps to acquiring a property.   Zachary Beach (00:19:56) - And our, our comps and comparables is actually step five, not step one, a step five. And the reason why is because I want to meet the seller. I want to see the property. I want to have an open dialogue without any preconceived notions before I start negotiating, because usually the seller is going to tell you what they're looking for and what they're willing to do. Now, does it mean that that's exactly what you need to do? But they're going to tell you. And if you have preconceived notions of, hey, what about that property and what about that property? And you know, what's going on here? All of a sudden you're you're already on the opposite side of the table with the seller. So we always want to get on the the same side of the seller, same side of the table as a seller. That way we can now show them a solution. And if the solution works for both parties, then you got yourself a good deal.   Sam Wilson (00:20:43) - Man That's fantastic. Zach, Thank you for taking the time to come on the show today.   Sam Wilson (00:20:48) - This has certainly been enlightening. I've learned so much from you. I love your story. Going from bartender and personal trainer. Man, you were you were literally grinding it out, like you said, going to bed late at night and then getting up early morning and probably doing personal training and everything in between. And you've really just gone out and yeah, done some really, really awesome things. It's been cool to see the way you have grown both your personal investing business, but also your coaching company, the way you guys approach creative finance, finding deals off market, the types of assets that you buy. You've dropped a lot of really, really good stuff for our listeners here today, so I certainly appreciate it. If they do want to get in touch with you and learn more about you, what is the best way to do that?   Zachary Beach (00:21:29) - Yeah, absolutely. Sam, I appreciate that. So I want to make sure that anybody that's interested in creative financing, any of your listeners, that we're able to get the our Amazon bestselling book in their hands for absolutely free and don't mean like a PDF.   Zachary Beach (00:21:42) - I mean, we'll actually ship you the book to your house. All you have to do is go to wicked smart books.com/sam and the number three that's wicked smart books.com/sam three. Go ahead and grab our first Amazon bestselling book real estate on your terms. We'll ship it out to you and probably some other goodies in there as well that you can start diving into what it actually means. Become a creative financing real estate investor.   Sam Wilson (00:22:06) - That's fantastic. And if you're listening, yes, indeed, they will ship it for free. I got my own copies here in the mail about a week ago. I think there were several books there in that package. So thanks for sending those on. I haven't had a chance yet to dig into them, but they are in my in my queue of books to read. So Zach, thank you again for coming on today. I do appreciate it.   Zachary Beach (00:22:24) - Yeah, Thank you, Sam.   Sam Wilson (00:22:25) - Hey, thanks for listening to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate podcast. If you can do me a favor and subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, whatever platform it is you use to listen.   Sam Wilson (00:22:38) - If you can do that for us, that would be a fantastic help to the show. It helps us both attract new listeners as well as rank higher on those directories. So appreciate you listening. Thanks so much and hope to catch you on the next episode.  

Jon Norman is joined by two-time County Championship winner Steve Harmison and The Cricketer Magazine's Nick Friend to look back at the week's County Cricket action. They discuss the breaking news that Samit Patel will leave Nottinghamshire after failing to get a new contract, and they reflect on his legacy in the English game. They also discuss a few of the domestic players named in England's 13-man squad to face Ireland later this month, and who could make an impact. They also reflect on the latest round of County Championship action, debate who will get relegated, and they answer your questions! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Samit NATO vo Vilniuse sa po dvoch dňoch skončil. Hlavnými témami bola zmena obrany ale aj pomoc Ukrajine, ktorá kvôli trvajúcemu konfliktu nemôže vstúpiť do NATO. V úvode podcastu si vypočujte reakcie prezidentky Zuzany Čaputovej, ministra obrany Martina Sklenára a ministra zahraničných vecí Miroslava Wlachovského krátko po skončení samitu NATO vo Vilniuse. „Sme súčasťou skupiny krajín, ktoré nám poskytnú ochranu pre prípad, ak by to bolo potrebné. Tento summit bol pre mňa predovšetkým o ochrane slovenských záujmov na východnom krídle Severoatlantickej aliancie. Summit prináša takú úroveň ochrany, akú sme pre našich občanov nikdy nemali.“ Jednou z hlavných tvári samitu NATO sa stal turecký prezident Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Samotné turecké médiá s chválou informujú, že zaistil viac ako chcel. Erdogan pred začiatkom samitu potvrdil, že Turecko ratifikuje členstvo Švédska v NATO. „Turecký prezident je známy tým, že dohody robí najradšej tvárou v tvár, najlepšie na poslednú chvíľu. Dovtedy sa mu totiž takmer vždy podarí zabezpečiť si viac, ako by ktokoľvek na začiatku vyjednávaní čakal,“ hovorí v podcaste analytička portálu Euractiv Luciu Yar.  

Today's guest is Mason McDonald.   Mason is a former hospital CEO turned full-time land flipper that utilizes systems, people, and processes to earn massive profits and invest into commercial real estate. -------------------------------------------------------------- Getting Started in Land Flipping [00:01:16] Becoming a Hospital CEO at 26 [00:02:19] Finding Success in Land Flipping [00:04:40] Different types of land and their profitability [00:09:46] Managing the business through efficient processes [00:11:09]  Using other people's money for deals [00:17:28]  Access to Institutional Capital [00:19:20] Investing in Commercial Real Estate [00:22:39] Managing Volume Business [00:24:48] -------------------------------------------------------------- Connect with Mason:  Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mason-mcdonald-748110113/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/masonm1/ Web: https://www.coachingwithmason.com/   Connect with Sam: I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.     Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HowtoscaleCRE/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samwilsonhowtoscalecre/ Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com   SUBSCRIBE and LEAVE A RATING. Listen to How To Scale Commercial Real Estate Investing with Sam Wilson Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-scale-commercial-real-estate/id1539979234 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4m0NWYzSvznEIjRBFtCgEL?si=e10d8e039b99475f -------------------------------------------------------------- Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below: Mason McDonald (00:00:00) - Whenever I got out of the corporate environment in health care, which is the most overregulated industry in the United States, I got creative. And that's where I kind of shot myself in the foot. I didn't get any deals for four months because I was texting and calling and doing all this fun, creative stuff. Then I sent more mail and I got five more deals that made me another 100 grand, you know, right after that. So where I've shifted my approaches, you know, don't get creative until you've worked a system to death, you know, copy and paste what other people are doing, because it works. You don't need to be creative in real estate to make tons and tons of money. You just need to do what works and replicate it and, you know, outsource your and delegate all the stuff you're bad at. Welcome to the How to scale commercial real Estate show.   Sam Wilson (00:00:44) - Whether you are an active or passive investor, we'll teach you how to scale your real estate investing business into something big.   Sam Wilson (00:00:54) - Mason McDonald is a former hospital CEO turned full time land flipper that utilizes systems, people and processes to earn massive profits and invest in a commercial real estate. Mason Welcome to the show.   Mason McDonald (00:01:05) - Sam It's so good to be here.   Sam Wilson (00:01:06) - Absolutely. Mason The pleasure is mine. There are three questions I ask every guest who comes on the show in 90s or less. Can you tell me where did you start? Where are you now and how did you get there?   Mason McDonald (00:01:16) - Heck yeah, yeah. So as you mentioned, I was a hospital CEO that stumbled across land flipping, bought my first deal in November of 2021, sold it in early 2022, and made a profit of 115,000 on my very first deal, which allowed me to prematurely. I had quit my job and jump into this full time. So now, you know, a year and a half in created a business that should have an EBITDA right around one and a half to $2 million this year and, you know, have a full time employee that's managing it for me.   Mason McDonald (00:01:51) - And now I'm focusing on bigger, badder stuff like commercial real estate, raising money, lending money, all that fun stuff.   Sam Wilson (00:01:57) - Man, that's really cool. Let's talk let's talk about this. I see here, for those of you that don't know and I've never actually talked about this on the show, I always just asked this question just to get to know our guests. I always ask, what's one a fun factor, a surprising view about you? And the guest will share that with me there in the in the kind of onboarding section. And it said that you were a hospital CEO at the age of 26.   Mason McDonald (00:02:19) - I was. And I had the blood pressure and health related issues of someone that was, you know, 62 instead of 26.   Sam Wilson (00:02:28) - Right, Right. What how does one become a hospital CEO at 26? I mean.   Mason McDonald (00:02:35) - Yeah. So I you know, I followed the traditional route. You got a good undergraduate degree, got a master's degree and then worked my way up for a large hospital management corporation, went from, you know, being a resident to having 90 employees in my second year to having, you know, I was in my third year and then CEO in my fourth year, got the job offer when I was 26, had just added a lot of value to the company, had, you know, younger, more innovative approach to increasing profit, reducing expense and treating your employees and patients.   Mason McDonald (00:03:09) - Right. So yeah, had a lot of success in corporate America, which is why people think I'm crazy, that I, you know, made it to the top and jump jump ship, you know, a year after being a CEO.   Sam Wilson (00:03:20) - Yeah. So let me I'm bad at math here, Mason and I'm just doing working back 26 minus four years working at the hospital puts you at 22. How did you get an undergrad, a master's degree and all of that by the age of 22, What year did you graduate or how old do you mean graduate High school?   Mason McDonald (00:03:37) - I was a 17 when I graduated high school. My parents just started me, started me in school early. I don't know if it was I was smarter, had too much aid, and they needed to get me out of the house. So school was always kind of easy for me and but I'm more of the entrepreneurial business type, which is why, you know, I wanted to be a doctor originally and made that pivot my senior year of college to, you know, I have an undergraduate neuroscience degree with a premed concentration that, you know, beyond being able to sound fancy and sound smart, never use it anymore.   Mason McDonald (00:04:10) - But yeah, yeah, I was always young, didn't drink alcohol till my senior year of college. So good for.   Sam Wilson (00:04:17) - You. There's a lot to be said for that, man. That's. That's a lot of moving. Moving pieces and. Yeah. Good for you. You're a lot smarter than I am, I promise you that. But you got to the top and you found out there's nothing there. And you said, okay. Yeah. Go do land flipping. How did you stumble across that and why land flipping versus the 1000 other possible ways that you can enter the real estate space?   Mason McDonald (00:04:40) - Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So made it to the top. And I was I'm a healthy guy, you know, active, decent diet and everything. Hypertensive stage two blood pressure for people listening that my blood pressure was running 165 over 100 which is you know and I worked in a hospital. So that's not not a good look. If the CEO is dying from health conditions in their 20s, from stress.   Mason McDonald (00:05:03) - I was working all the time, sleeping, none So always invested in or interested in real estate. Listen to all the bigger Pockets episodes, read 100 books about real estate and everything and just couldn't get started. I'd saved up some money, was actually going to go invest in a syndication opportunity for a townhome development in Colorado Springs, and the guy that was pitching it also told me that he flips land and he was making about 60 grand a month on his notes that he owner financed on land. And I said, Well, that's more money than the 8% in three years that you're promising me on this syndication deal. So, you know, did did what you know, everyone should do is I invested in education and land flipping. And yeah, that first deal kind of broke my brain of making 100 and 114, 5 or 115 grand on my very first deal. So yeah, that right there broke my. Brain and made me realize, Oh crap, I can make a lot more money with a lot less stress and a lot less work.   Mason McDonald (00:06:01) - You know, flipping the land.   Sam Wilson (00:06:03) - Right, Right. No, that's. That's really, really cool. Is it was it the gambler's curse? Where the first time you go in gamble, you make a pile of money, and then from then on, you just get just get get it handed to you. Or have you found a way to repeat those sort of return profiles over and over.   Mason McDonald (00:06:21) - Repeat over and over. But with that being said, you know, I stopped doing what made sense whenever I do it. So, I mean, I, I target people that have owned land for a long period of time and I direct mail market. And, you know, whenever I got out of the corporate environment and health care, which is the most overregulated industry in the United States, I got creative. And that's where I kind of shot myself in the foot. I didn't get any deals for four months because I was texting and calling and doing all this fun, creative stuff. Then I sent more mail and I got five more deals that made me another 100 grand, you know, right after that.   Mason McDonald (00:06:55) - So where I've shifted my approaches, you know, don't get creative until you've worked a system to death, you know, copy and paste what other people are doing, because it works. You don't need to be creative in real estate to make tons and tons of money. You just need to do what works and replicate it and, you know, outsource your and delegate all the stuff you're bad at.   Sam Wilson (00:07:14) - Right. Well, let's talk We'll get we'll get we'll get to that. How did you educate yourself on this space?   Mason McDonald (00:07:20) - Yeah, I took one of those land flipping courses and then read the books on it, you know, The Dirt Rich by Mark Podolsky and listened to all the podcasts and everything. So I paid for a course and love it, you know, my, my mentor who took the course, we own a commercial building together. He's a good friend and everything. But as I was going through it, I was like, Man, I feel like I just bought snake oil at the county fair because this doesn't seem legitimate.   Mason McDonald (00:07:43) - Legitimate? It doesn't seem real, but.   Sam Wilson (00:07:45) - Right, right. It's funny because I was explaining for those of you again, who are listening that they don't know everything. Of course, we don't talk about everything we get involved in because some of it's just stuff that's you know, there's there's the investments we talk about to our investor base and then there's the stuff that I do on the side that's just kind of like, hey, this is fun to, you know, to go invest in. And land is one of those one of those things where it's like, Oh, hey, you know what? There is an opportunity to generate sizable returns inside of the land space. But what were some of the things maybe in those first four months? I know you mentioned, um, you mentioned that you were trying to get creative, you were doing cold or you in cold calls, you were doing all the different texting, all this different stuff, and you figured out that everybody in the land space says, just go back to direct mail.   Sam Wilson (00:08:27) - Yeah. So. So what, what, what? I guess how much money and how much mail did you send before you ever got your first deal?   Mason McDonald (00:08:35) - Uh, I sent 1200 pieces of mail to make that first deal happen and I'd gotten other deals, but I passed up on them because I didn't think the returns would be as decent. I mean, even now I've got probably 2 or 300 in our cold lead section where we could make money on it. But, you know, if it's buy for 3000, sell for 5000 after, you know, title costs, which I insure every purchase and everything like that, it's not worth it, which is why I go for the, you know, the two deals I was talking about just before the show started, we paid 150 for each of them. So 300 total and we're putting them on the market one for for 50 and one for 275, you know, so it's, it's easier to make 100 grand at once than it is to make, you know, two grand 100 times.   Mason McDonald (00:09:18) - Or you can tell I'm not good at math. So which is why big numbers, I'm like, I don't understand big numbers. Let's do more big numbers.   Sam Wilson (00:09:25) - Right? You to take your shoes off for that one. Hey, so let's talk about this. There's 100 different strategies even inside of the land flipping space. There's people that buy infill lots or people that buy rural only. There's people that, you know, buy like you're talking about commercial development sites. I mean, there's there's a bunch of different strategies there. Have you honed in on one in particular?   Mason McDonald (00:09:46) - So not exactly. I stay away from kind of the recreational land just because that's going to typically sit for a while and you have to do a seller finance deal to make it make sense, which I like the quick return on cash. So but all that to say to me, it's just math. I don't care if it's industrial or commercial or vacant residential if if there's transaction volume in the area, you know, meaning properties are selling in the last 30, 60, 90 days.   Mason McDonald (00:10:14) - And if I can get a legitimate comparable analysis from a local realtor that says, hey, it's worth this much, then it's just, you know, a returns game of okay, and you know, which I attempt to double the money from like a HUD to HUD perspective of, you know, buy for 150, sell for 300 type of stuff. But yeah, so I've built out my business to have both the, the volume business of the, you know, ten, 15 K profit deals and the vacant, the vacant land and the infill lots and the nice subdivisions. And Colorado or Arizona's where we work primarily as well as some of these larger deals where it takes more time, where it's a luxury buyer of we got one that just hit the market a few weeks ago, paid 350 have it on the market for 675, where it's kind of a one of a kind product. So that'll take a few months to sell. But if you can kind of stagger your business and also use other people's money, I don't use my own money in deals anymore.   Mason McDonald (00:11:09) - Um, you know, that's kind of how we built the business. So Jack of all trades master None.   Sam Wilson (00:11:14) - Yeah, let's talk about that. And I like the idea you're talking about the volume business and then also doing the bigger, the bigger deals, because you got to I'd imagine you got to you got to catch the any fish that makes sense. Small fish with the big fish and help you take those down. But how do you how do you manage all that? And then I want to get into the money side of things. So yeah, you manage it from a people and processes perspective because there's a lot of mail to send, There's a lot of data to dig through. There is a lot of phone calls to return and or answer. There are title companies, there's money wire. I mean there's just all these little it almost boils down to a lot of administrative stuff, I would imagine. How do you make that?   Mason McDonald (00:11:54) - It adds up. So, you know, for for anyone in manufacturing or health care that's listening, I have a lean Six Sigma black belt, which is a process improvement methodology, you know, founded by Toyota, so obsessed with efficient processes that reduce waste and eliminate variation.   Mason McDonald (00:12:10) - So I, I pull the data myself now. And since I have such a wide net that I cast, it doesn't take me a lot of time. I send neutral letters. I don't do the blind offers like a lot of people do. You know, I send postcards. I'm the guy that sends the silly postcard of, you know, I want to buy your land for cash. You know, stop paying your property taxes, get paid for your land, stuff like that. So that doesn't take a lot of time to send five, ten, 15,000 letters a month. I have a full time acquisition manager that's salaried plus commission where paying him, you know, not not an overly competitive salary, but a very substantial commission to manage every other aspect of the business. And he's way smarter and way better at it than I am. So he manages it all. We have a call once a week, kind of going through the leads and everything, and he sends me stuff for approval and then he submits it to title and coordinates with the realtor and everything like that.   Mason McDonald (00:13:00) - So for me, it's kind of just, Hey, send a wire this date, which, you know, go online, send a wire really quickly, and then, you know, signing any necessary documents with the title company. So it's it's definitely administrative stuff that down the road I want to outsource when I feel more comfortable, you know, because he just started about a month and a half ago. But yeah, I hate to say it, it sounds as easy as it is, but it is relatively easy to keep it managed. You know, pull the data from prop stream. I use Pebble as my CRM, which you need a CRM if you're doing this much volume. Otherwise you're going to do what I did, which I used Excel for the first nine months and I lost all sorts of leads because I might be decent Excel, but you know, if you have a crayon box CRM that makes it super easy to to do everything, do that. So that's kind of the highest level of how I keep it organized.   Sam Wilson (00:13:51) - How did you find your lead man or call me your lead manager, your acquisitions manager? How did you find that person?   Mason McDonald (00:13:59) - Yeah, I posted on LinkedIn that I was hiring. I've got a pretty big professional network on on LinkedIn and got I got 20 or 30 applications within the first week or two. So of all of them I looked at who would make me the most uncomfortable to hire. And it was by far this guy because he's got 20 plus, 20 plus years of experience in real estate and, you know, commercial, you know, finance, doing finance for big banks, doing land acquisition and multifamily acquisition for large companies. And he runs his own syndication business on the side. So I was like, this guy makes me really uncomfortable to hire because he's way smarter than me, which is always what I recommend doing is hire people smarter than you and it's going to break your mind and change all the paradigms you have because. Then you don't realize what's possible.   Sam Wilson (00:14:48) - Y y love that. Thank you.   Sam Wilson (00:14:50) - Thank you for giving the clarity on who you hire and why. And I don't really heard it expressed that succinctly. It's hard to hire someone that makes you uncomfortable. Think that's really, really cool. Talk to me about the types of sellers that you find. Why? Why are these people selling this land at discount? And then we'll start there.   Mason McDonald (00:15:12) - Yeah. So I try to reduce and simplify everything as much as I can. I'm a pawn shop for land. I buy land for cheap and I sell it for more. I have people that are motivated sellers and I have people that are unmotivated sellers where for me, it's not an emotional decision. It's a math decision of whether the return makes sense. So why people sell to me? You know, I think we're a legitimate business where we can send proof of funds. So many people aren't going to close those deals. You know, and there's plenty of deals I haven't closed. But you're able to communicate and say, hey, this just doesn't fit our buy box.   Mason McDonald (00:15:43) - Sorry. You know, I can refer you to someone else. So I've had sellers as sophisticated as former hedge fund managers out in Connecticut to as unsophisticated as someone that inherited this land that their family's owned for 100 years. So it's just whether or not the price works for them of a lot of people, you know, and depending on your marketing campaign and your tactics and everything, you know, I went hard and heavy on the property tax marketing campaign and people were like, oh, shoot. Uh, you know, property taxes just went way up in Colorado. I want to get rid of this land and stop paying it. So, you know, we come up with a price that's fair. And I always tell everyone or my acquisition manager now tells everyone of, Hey, if you want top dollar, go to a realtor. If you want quick cash and convenience, come to us. You know, let us get this headache off your hands. You know, we'll solve your probate problems. We'll solve whatever problems you have.   Mason McDonald (00:16:31) - And, you know, then you won't have to think about it anymore. It's the same reason people use a pawn shop of, you know, they, you know, had a divorce or they had some something or something, and they don't want to deal with selling it themselves. They're going to just get rid of it to get it off their mind. So. Right.   Sam Wilson (00:16:45) - Yeah, no doubt. No doubt. The same as same pawn shops or even the estate sale analogy or just like bring them in, they auction everything off and then you're done.   Mason McDonald (00:16:54) - Oh, yeah. So it's not always the motivated seller of, you know, I've had people that are like, Hey, I need to claim a loss this year. You know, I'll sell it to you at a discount to claim a loss. So, you know, and the person I'm referencing that did that, you know, we did a I bought two pieces of land from him. You know, I had offered him over over double of what you know, he we ended up walking away with and that's making me I don't know another six figures on those two deals.   Sam Wilson (00:17:19) - That's awesome. Let's talk about the money side of it. You mentioned that you don't use your own money anymore. You use none of your own money or you predominantly use other people's money.   Mason McDonald (00:17:28) - I use other people's money. So I have a, I don't know, maybe ten that I'm selling right now that I have my own cash in right now. But for me, I think it's this. It's a difficult balance for someone that has a relatively high level of understanding of finance, of I know having a ton of cash on hand is not great, but me feeling super liquid helps me sleep better at night. Sure. So I'd you know, I'm happy to give up money in the deal to help, you know, the three F's of friends, families and fools investing with me make insane returns where an investor just makes 6,062% cash on cash return in 71 days. You annualize that. That's over 1,000% just doing a JV deal with me. So it's exciting to be able to help those people. And then yeah, so whenever all of these other ones sell that I have my own cash in, I just I won't use my own cash for anything besides marketing expense, you know, and just general OpEx within the business to help me sleep better at night.   Mason McDonald (00:18:27) - There's more than enough money for everyone to make a ton of money in this. And if if I sleep better and my returns are less, that's a win for me. I didn't leave a hard job to go get another hard job. Right?   Sam Wilson (00:18:38) - Right. Understood that man. Tell me tell me this. What's the what's been the common structure that you've set up with your JV partners? How do you how do you guys take that down and what do you guys find is fair?   Mason McDonald (00:18:49) - Yeah, it varies on the property and kind of the capital invested, but they're basically funding the entire deal, give or take a few hundred bucks of closing costs coming a little higher or something like that. And I do varying profit splits from, you know, 90, ten, ten to the investor, 90 to me all the way up to 5050, where to me, if I get a deal under contract and it's a big one and don't have the cash or refuse to put the cash in the deal, you know, I'll give up more of a profit split than it's probably smart.   Mason McDonald (00:19:20) - So and the point I'm making on that is part of the reason why I'm able to have success in this business where a lot of people are focusing on the desert squares where you buy for 500 and sell for 1500 and can take take these big deals is one. One of my investor networks couldn't do it without them. But two people will realize in land. One of the reasons it's such a hard niche to get into is you're not going to be able to really get access to institutional capital. If you go to a bank and ask them for a loan on, on, on, on a land flip, they're going to laugh at you where it doesn't matter how much money I made. Since the the asset class is different, which is also a pro because I'm not paying capital gains taxes or short term capital gains taxes, it's taxed as inventory since I'm not making any improvement. So you know, and.   Sam Wilson (00:20:04) - I'm missing I missed that.   Mason McDonald (00:20:06) - Yeah. So for the land flippers out there, which I'm not a CPA, not an attorney, this is what my and my attorney have said, blah, blah, blah is land is taxes, is inventory.   Mason McDonald (00:20:15) - So I'm not paying any capital gains taxes on it. It's just inventory. So I have it set up as an escort where I have to pay myself a fair and reasonable salary. And then, you know, I can buy land for 100 grand for 500 grand, and it's just inventory. So pretty cool. Pretty cool set up there. So that's how it's worked so far from a tax perspective for me. But my investors are happy and since you can't really get access to that institutional capital where I bought a new truck last year for the business and even though we we business had been making money and stuff, I had to have my wife co-sign on it and everything. And but that was a fun perk because I got to buy a new truck and then depreciate it fully last year. So, you know.   Sam Wilson (00:20:59) - Right? Yeah. Those are. Those are those are those are excellent benefits to what it is that we do. So like your ideas on money. Think the other thing is that at some point we all run out of money and I think that's one of the things that early on I was gosh was the first deal I syndicated.   Sam Wilson (00:21:16) - In 19. Yeah, it was 2019 and there was this internal and I was new to the newer, to the commercial real estate space. And there was this internal sort of shame that I didn't have all the money personally to take this deal down. And I was like, Oh, man. Like, I got to go like bring friends and family and other people in on the deal. And yeah, I don't have enough of my own money to actually get this deal done. And now it's like, obviously it's what we do every day as raise money because we're taking down deals that I mean, we just can't possibly begin to think about taking down.   Mason McDonald (00:21:44) - Absolutely. Well, you can't grow in scale. And what's going to happen is the inevitable of, you know, I was tired of that entrepreneurial life cycle where I'd go buy a bunch of land and then I'd go sell it and I'd be like, Man, I'm rich. And then I'd go buy a bunch of more land and I'd look at my business checking account and it's like, Dude, how did you allow yourself to get $12 in your checking account? And then it'd sell and I'd be like, No, I'm rich again.   Mason McDonald (00:22:05) - And I just couldn't do that anymore. Which is why it's like, you know, I'd rather be liquid. And then it gives me more opportunity to invest in, you know, syndications and other deals that are going to give me the tax advantages that land doesn't give me. Because even though it's taxed as inventory, if you're making seven figures, that's that's a lot to pay in taxes. So, you know, the strategy is take that profit. It's a great active business and then take it and go invest it into, you know, depreciable assets like multifamily or like commercial building or, you know, any sort of commercial buildings or industrial or whatever it is.   Sam Wilson (00:22:39) - Is that the long term strategy than to go take your profits from this and park it into passive investments and or your own personal passive investments. Is that kind of the the goal in the long term?   Mason McDonald (00:22:51) - Absolutely. Yeah. I've got I've got one commercial building that I own right now. You know, it's still getting renovated because it's in a small mountain town in Colorado, but it's going to be workforce housing, you know, mountain towns out here that they they're struggling to find affordable housing.   Mason McDonald (00:23:05) - So I enjoy that you're able to help the community provide a safe, low cost, you know, opportunity. That's a rent by the door model. So you end up cash flowing pretty significantly as well. But yeah, so take the profit from land invested in commercial real estate. You know, the one thing I learned about my first deal was it's a lot easier to tackle those big deals than it is the little one. So I'd rather go by, you know? However, big apartment complex over a single family home or small multifamily. So, yeah, take it, take it there. And then also lending money. You know, something I'm getting into now of investing in other people, you know, and allowing them to manage my money for me and then everything else and using it to go have fun, go on vacation and all that kind of stuff too.   Sam Wilson (00:23:50) - Man, that's cool. I love it. There was one one more question. Oh, here it is. I forgot. I forgot what it's going to ask you.   Sam Wilson (00:23:55) - What is like what's the what's a challenge that you're facing inside the land business right now? Like, what's the what's an obstacle that you're like, Man, this is this is something we're working on that I just haven't solved yet.   Mason McDonald (00:24:06) - Yeah, I think for me, um, you know, kind of initial challenges and how they've evolved is so I went from an executive, you know, with hundreds of employees, you know, a couple dozen direct reports and everything to self-employed. So a lot of work wasn't getting done because I was like, Man, someone needs to do that. And then I'd look in the mirror and it's like, Oh, crap, it's me. So I, you know, figured that out and, you know, started working harder and everything like that. But I think for me, it's, you know, effectively managing kind of what we were talking about of the volume businesses versus like the huge business of I've got a ton of those which take more time. And when I look at it and I'm like, Oh, it's only been three weeks since that since I purchased that property, it hasn't sold yet.   Mason McDonald (00:24:48) - So I want more volume in the business rather than more of these big deals to manage that more effectively, I think is one of the biggest challenges. So it's just adjusting My expectation of my cash on cash return per deal doesn't need to be 250%. It can be 50%. And if I can move it way quicker, then then that's perfect. That's money. So kind of adjusting the expectations that I got from the first deal to make it more of a volume business in addition to the other stuff.   Sam Wilson (00:25:18) - Right, right. And last question here for you, and this is again, going back to more the more the operations side of it. But how many of these parcels do you buy, if any, and then end up owner financing those?   Mason McDonald (00:25:29) - I only have a handful of notes right now of the properties. I kind of determine with the realtor whether it makes sense. So it's more the, the rural recreational. I've got maybe ten that I'd be willing to part ways with, you know, from a seller finance perspective.   Mason McDonald (00:25:45) - And the way I look at that is if I sell those on terms one, I'd get most of my cash invested back myself and two, that would sustain all the operating expenses of the business. So I think it's a more property by property approach where, you know, it's just whatever makes sense for your books and your risk level, you know, in case you have to foreclose on someone or, or whatever.   Sam Wilson (00:26:08) - Right. Right. No, absolutely. Absolutely. Mason You've given us a ton of things here to think about today. I love the land business. This is the this is a blast. It's here in your story here and what you've done and how you've done it and you've done it really with a I mean, a pretty light team. It's you and one other person and you've got a rock in business. So I think that's that's fantastic. Thanks for taking the time to come on the show today. If our listeners want to learn more about you or get in touch with you, what is the best way to do that?   Mason McDonald (00:26:35) - Yeah, I'm so happy to be here.   Mason McDonald (00:26:37) - You know, for me, I use LinkedIn the most, so look me up on LinkedIn. Mason McDonald And you know, I help business owners that are looking to get involved in land get started. So I do coaching as well, but I only do it with people that I know are going to be closing deals and being successful. So typically you have to have been a business owner or an executive already. So coaching with Mason and then, you know, you can message me there as well. And if you're looking for investing opportunities, diversify your portfolio either of those places. And we can just chat, chat about land, talk about land all day. So I'm happy to talk to anyone interested.   Sam Wilson (00:27:13) - Sounds good. Awesome. Mason, thank you again for your time. Appreciate it. Have a great rest of your day.   Mason McDonald (00:27:17) - Sam, you did the same.   Sam Wilson (00:27:19) - Hey, thanks for listening to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate podcast. If you can do me a favor and subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, whatever platform it is you use to listen.   Sam Wilson (00:27:32) - If you can do that for us, that would be a fantastic help to the show. It helps us both attract new listeners as well as rank higher on those directories. So appreciate you listening. Thanks so much and hope to catch you on the next episode.

In a world grappling with environmental challenges and the need for sustainable solutions, visionary leaders like Jay Samit are leading the way towards a greener and more sustainable future. The advent of the latest AI tools brings up brand new questions as we humans figure out the best way to use this knowledge tool for good and for finding sustainable solutions together. In this episode of GreenPlanet-Blue Planet, host Julian Guderley talks with Futurist, Author and Entrepreneur Jay Samit about the most concerning questions and topics that have taken the stage recently in mainstream media interviews but have not been addressed widely or appropriately. For example, does AI lie? What could a malevolent AI do to a person? Jay refers back to the movie “Brazil” from Monty Python co-creator Terry Gilliam's, which depicts a world where the AI has gone awry from corrupted programming. Could this be our future? Join this episode to explore Jay's work and views on sustainable solutions using AI. Will it work with humans, or work against us? As he notes, AI solves problems differently than humans. So how will this new human/AI world work? Jay is a change agent, who combines his vision and humor to motivate listeners to become innovators within their organizations. Jay's goal is to get people to be passionate about overcoming obstacles, while teaching them how to think bigger and embrace change. Samit provides disruptive solutions for such corporate clients as Adobe, Amazon, American Express, AT&T, Best Buy, Coca Cola, Disney, Facebook, Ford, GE, Google, IBM, Intel, McDonalds, Microsoft, Proctor & Gamble, Starbucks, Unilever, Visa, and dozens more. The former Independent Vice Chairman of Deloitte Digital, Jay has pioneered advancements in music and video distribution, social media, and ecommerce. He is the author of the bestselling book Disrupt You! Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity, and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation and Future Proofing You - Twelve Truths for Creating Opportunity, Maximizing Wealth, and Controlling Your Destiny in an Uncertain World. #Disruptor #futurist #AI #sustainable #innovator #changeagent Find Jay: https://jaysamit.com/ Find Julian: https://www.betterworlds.com/ About: Better Worlds is a communication and community building platform comprised of weekly podcasts, engaging international conferences and hack-a-thons to encourage and support the development of Web3 solutions. Our programs celebrate voices from every continent to forge a shared and abundant future. # About Better Worlds Better Worlds is a communication and community building platform comprised of weekly podcasts, engaging international conferences and hack-a-thons to encourage and support the development of Web3 solutions. Our programs celebrate voices from every continent to forge a shared and abundant future. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/julian-guderley/support

Making Space for Grief Featuring Thai-An Truong, LPC, LADC Today, we feature a popular podcast guest, Thai-An Truong who joins us from Oklahoma. Thai-An is a level 5 Certified TEAM therapist and trainer who specializes in post-partum problems as well as anxiety disorders, with a special focus on OCD. Today Thai-An describes a TEAM-CBT technique to help with grief. She believes that empathy is always crucial, and emphasizes that people who have lost a loved one need to be encouraged to express and accept their feelings and to make space for their grief. However, because empathy alone may not be enough, it is often helpful to go beyond empathy and offer specialized techniques to help the patient deal with feelings of grief and loss. In her work specializing in women struggling with post-partum depression, she has seen many women grieving over a loss—such as the loss of a pregnancy, or the loss of a parent when their child is young, or the loss of an infant at birth, or during the first couple months after delivery. She said that the entire TEAM model can be invaluable, including the initial Testing and Empathy, the Daily Mood Log to detect the grieving patient's (often distorted) negative thoughts, as well as the Assessment of Resistance (the positive reframing step, and the Methods. Healthy grief is often complicated by feelings such as depression, guilt, anger, and more. These feelings can complicate and get in the way of healthy grieving. For example, Rhonda treated a woman who was struggling with guilt over the death of her son, who was in great pain because of advanced, metastatic cancer. At one point, she told him that it was okay to “let go,” and her son died shortly after that. But then, she felt guilty and blamed herself for his death, thinking he might have lived several more days if she had not said that. Thai-An said that losing a son or daughter is one of the greatest pains a parent can have. You may beat up on yourself with “I should have done X” or “I shouldn't have said or done Y.” But these negative, self-critical thoughts and feelings will nearly always be expressions of your core values as a human being, and your love for the child you lost. This can sometimes be eye-opening, and a relief for the person who is grieving. Thai-An has struggled with grief. She told us about the loss of one of her best friends 16 years ago. He was like a brother, a young man with bipolar manic-depressive illness. At times during manic episodes, he would get high and go out “teaching” on the streets. During one of these episodes something tragic happened—Thai-An was unable to find out what—but her friend was found dead in an alley. Thai-An felt a profound sadness and regret, and to compound the problem, her friend's mother cut ties with Thai-An, who didn't even know if a funeral was held or was able to ask any questions about what happened to him.. Thai-An felt understandably hurt and angry,. She recently found out he was buried near a Buddhist Temple in Houston, Texas. She emphasized the value of maintaining a ritual with the person who has died so as to continue the relationship. For example, a woman had a beautiful baby boy who died of an overwhelming infection shortly after he was born. This woman loves nature, and thinks of her son whenever she gardens. For example, when she sees a little bird, she thinks, “that little bird looks just like him!” Thai-An feels that a wide variety of rituals can nurture the bond with the person who died. You might light a candle, or even bake a cake for the baby or person you have lost. The goal is not to achieve some kind of “closure” that is so often emphasized in the media, but rather to continue a positive and meaningful relationship with the person you have lost. Thai-An illustrated a therapeutic technique she calls the Grief Method that involves doing a role-play with the person who has died. The therapist first gathers messages that the grieving patient would like to share with their deceased loved one. The therapist then takes on the role of the patient as the patient takes on the role of the person who has diedThis gives the patient the chance to have a conversation with the love one they have lost. In the following role play, Rhonda played the role of Sam, the young man who died of overwhelming cancer, and Thai-An played the role of his mother, who was grieving and feeling guilty about her son's tragic death. Thai-An (as Mother): Hi Sam, I really miss you every single day. Rhonda (as Sam): Hi Mom, you're the person I miss the most. Thai-An (as Mother): I'm sorry we had an argument shortly before you died. Rhonda (as Sam): It's no big deal. . . We got into little fights pretty often. . . but we always got over it. Thai-An (as Mother): I regret that I left when the doctor told me to leave the room. I should have stayed, so I could be with you when you died. Rhonda (as Sam): I understood that they pushed you to leave the room, and I know that you would have stayed if they'd let you. . . I was in a lot of pain, and I was ready to leave. You gave me a lot of reassurance. Now I'm with grandma. Thai-An (as Mother): I would have done everything for you. Rhonda and Thai-An processed the experience together, and they both cried, even though it was only a role play. Thai-An emphasized the importance of letting your negative feelings flow, and continuing your bond with the person or beloved pet you have lost. For parents who have suffered the loss of a child, Thai-An recommends the book Shattered: Surviving the Loss of a Child by Gary Roe. To access her free grief training for therapists, you can visit courses.teamcbttraining.com/grief. This summer, Thai-An will be offering a special 14-week training course (2 hours / week) which will focus on treating individuals and couples with relationship problems using TEAM. For more information on this and other TEAM training courses, go to courses.teamcbttraining.com. . Thank you for tuning in today! Rhonda, Thai-An, and David

We continue Cosmic May with a look at the newest member of the Nova Corps, Sam Alexander! How does Sam stack up against other heroes, and his own expectations? Intro Last call for PuchiCon Hiatus coming up in June Background (7:05) Sam Alexander created by Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness in Marvel Point One #1 (Nov 2011) Character named after Jeph's son Sam who died of cancer when he was 17 Sam Alexander lives in a small Arizona town with his little sister, mother, and father Jesse, who works as a janitor at Sam's school, and is always drunkenly telling stories about how he was a member of the Nova Corps One night Jesse disappears, and then Sam is visited by Gamora & Rocket Raccoon, who give him Jesse's helmet and tell him he's the only Nova Corps member left in the galaxy - after the initial surprise, he encounters and heavily damages a Chitauri invasion fleet heading towards Earth, and upon his return gets trained by Gamora & Rocket Joins the Avengers briefly during AvX, and then allies with Speedball & Justice for a new iteration of the New Warriors Utatu eventually revealed that Jesse was alive, sending Sam into a state of elation Discovers Jesse serving as a Chitauri slave, and brings him home - only to later discover that it was a clone made by the Chitauri to get close to Sam, kill him, and get the helmet - the truth sends Sam into a depressive state Joins the Champions after Civil War II, as he Kamala and Miles are dissatisfied with the Avengers and their actions He encounters a returned Richard Rider, who mentors him for a spell After the Champions capture a major villain, Sam's helmet is confiscated because the kids went rogue in their efforts - this once again spirals him into depression, although he later gets it back Issues - Theme is looking for love in all the wrong places (9:40) Always looking for a father figure Ruby - stopped “hero-worshiping” his dad - that moment when kids realize their parents are only human and just as flawed as they are (17:38) Usually feels he's the odd man out on any team, whether the Avengers, Champions, or Nova Corps (25:56) Break (33:50) Plugs for Not If I Reboot You First, Geek Peak, and Howard Mackie Treatment (35:28) In-universe - Have Sam work on things without the helmet Out of universe - (38:07) Skit (42:25) DOC: Hello Sam, I'm Dr. Issues.  SAM: Hey. DOC: Thanks for taking the time to meet with me, I know you're very busy. SAM: Yeah, well not like I had much say in the matter. DOC: I understand this isn't easy for you.  SAM: I don't know why Kamala is being such a hardass about all this. She said I couldn't have the helmet back until I talked to you. DOC: Let's not focus so much on how we got here, and start talking about what we can accomplish while we're here.  SAM: *mutters*Yeah, I could go get the Ultimate Nullifier from the moon dude and end this- DOC: What was that?  SAM: Ugh, nevermind. I'm just sick and tired of always losing this helmet, having it taken away from me, or whatever. It's like… no one gets it. DOC: Then explain it to me.  SAM: What difference would it make? DOC: Seems to me it would make all the difference in the world. The helmet sounds pretty special to you. Would it help you feel better to have me understand it?  SAM: I dunno, maybe? DOC: There's your answer, then.  SAM: Can you help me get it back? DOC: You said Kamala won't give it back until you talk to me, right? So, talk to me. SAM: Fine. So, this helmet… it was my dad's. He wasn't always the best dad growing up, and he told me all these stories about how he was in the Nova Corps and he fought all these amazing battles in space and saved people all the time. I never believed him. And then one day he disappeared without a trace, but he left the helmet to me. Well, he left it to a talking raccoon and a green assassin lady, but he told them to give it to me. And it gives me all kinds of awesome powers. I can fly, I can fire energy blasts, I'm super strong. That helmet made me the only Nova Corpsman left. Well, at least until Rich came back. And it made me an Avenger, a Champion. It's helped me save the planet, the universe, other worlds. Yeah, it's brought me some trouble, but it also helped me protect my family more times than I can count. And it's helping me search for my dad, because he's alive somewhere out there, and I'm gonna find him one day, no matter what it takes. So this helmet… it's a huge part of me, it's who I am. And every time I don't have it, I feel like… like I'm losing a part of myself. Like I always have to keep fighting to keep my identity.  DOC: I see. SAM: And I wish I could make other people see how much it means to me. DOC: Have you told them that? SAM: Yeah, lots of times. DOC: What kind of reaction do you get? SAM: People roll their eyes, or they laugh and say stuff like “you need to be a hero without the helmet” or crap like that. And it's like, obviously I can't fly through space without the helmet, so yeah it makes a difference. I'm not, like, Thor or somebody. Doesn't make me less of a hero. DOC: I understand.  SAM: Do you really…REALLY? *sarcasm* you've traveled to other worlds and saved people? DOC: No…I've listened to hundreds, maybe thousands of people place part or all of their identity into one facet of their life and whenever it's not there, they try to compensate by recreating that part of themselves in other areas where it just won't fit. SAM: Oh. OK. That… kinda sounds a little accurate… DOC: Then when you try to loop in the ones that you think would understand, they're dismissive because they already have their own defense mechanisms and don't necessarily want to open up that can of worms talking to you about it. SAM: Uh…yeah…I guess that's right DOC: And at least there's someone that can show you how to do things right…if you're lucky, but then they probably don't want to stick around for all of the things going on in your head, and THEY bounce, so you feel like you're back to square one again! SAM: I mean, sometimes that's true, like with Rich. Who am I compared to that guy? But he knows what he's doing, not that I don't but, come on, man! And there's one thing you probably can't relate to still, because nobody really does. DOC: That being… SAM: *pause, deep breath* Can I ask you for an opinion? DOC: My degree and my session timer say yes. SAM: Ok…ok…a lot of times, I mention my dad, and that's when people shut me out. I don't know why. I think it's because they think I'm being a moron or too soft. Is that it? DOC: *pause* I doubt it. SAM: Why'd you hesitate? DOC: Because I don't know. I don't know all of the people you interact with. But I will tell you this. In general, people don't think about you nearly as much as you think they do, unless you are directly bringing things up about yourself. Then the switch goes on and they have to use their mental bandwidth in a way that they didn't expect. I have to pause, and it's my job. Imagine what that's like for a layperson…even a superpowered layperson. SAM: Huh. That's deep. DOC: It can go deeper. I don't think that's your real question. SAM: I don't understand. DOC: You didn't get this far to say all of this stuff to me just for the helmet. Your dad question is right street, wrong block. SAM: So I'm in the neighborhood? DOC: I…guess…thank you for explaining the metaphor. Anyway, my point is, I think you're having some conviction issues about the search for your father. SAM: It's not that I don't believe he's out there. It's just… I had thought the search was over. I brought him home. And he turned out to be a clone. That… that broke me. Because it was like losing him a second time. So now I'm back at square one. DOC: Now that, I won't pretend to understand. That type of grief doesn't vanish. Just so you know, there's no right answer. If you want to actively search, maybe take a set amount of time when you can, it makes sense. If you want to put it on the back burner, and focus on other things while you heal, that works too. Either way, we can work out a plan. SAM: Does that plan involve me getting my helmet back? DOC: *sigh* Well since you have to function at a high level I guess I have some pull to say you should have the helmet. But I'm not going to fight anyone who takes it away from you. Work out your own relationships, ok? SAM: Sooooo…I DO get the helmet back? DOC: Yes. Fine. But my point is if Kamala says no -  SAM: *ignoring the last part* I get my hellllllmet, I get my helllllllmet…SWEET! Ending (50:05) Recommended reading: First Nova series (Loeb/Wells), Champions  Next episodes: Galactus, Nova (Richard Rider), Miguel O'Hara (Spider-Man 2099) Plugs for social & GonnaGeek Network References: Eddie Murphy Buckwheat - Anthony (9:42) PKJ Interview - Anthony (24:53) Apple Podcasts: here Google Play: here Stitcher: here TuneIn: here iHeartRadio: here Twitter Facebook TikTok  Patreon TeePublic Discord

My SAMIT AND THE DRAGON song comes from our “In The Hospital" album, recorded with my buddy Bill Harley and the two pediatric nurses from Seattle Children's Hospital who instigated the whole project, Diane Gates and Penny Pefley.  We won the Best Children's Album of the Year Award from the National Assn of Independent Record Distributors in 1983!  Doctors and nurses in pediatric hospitals still use it to help kids and families.  It was new back then, but today, many traditional medical professionals use visualization techniques to help patients support their own internal healing processes.  It helps them relax and become part of the team of people who work to make them healthier.  Children are very receptive to mental imaging or visualizing stories as it's something we do naturally while we listen to stories, or daydream. And it's not just for kids.  Adults who run businesses, parents, other-abled people and elderly folks use imagery to help change some of the negative stories we carry within us, so more positive outcomes can surface.  Check it out, and I'll see you next week for another ‘Song to Chew'! ~ Listen and subscribe to my Songs To Chew podcast = anywhere you get podcasts, or https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/peter-alsop-s-songs-to-chew/id1446179156 ~ CAMPING WITH DADS = https://www.amazon.com/Camping-Dads-Peter-Alsop/dp/B08CS871QW/ref=sr_1_1 ~ www.FaceBook.com/WeLikePeterAlsop ~ www.Youtube.com/peteralsop  = videos ~ www.Patreon.com/peteralsop  = support my music & other artistic endeavors ~ www.peteralsop.com/music  = CDs & downloads  

Today on the show we have the showrunning writing duo of Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit. They are responsible for bring iconic character Pikachu to the big screen. The film starred Ryan Reynolds.Ace detective Harry Goodman goes mysteriously missing, prompting his 21-year-old son, Tim, to find out what happened. Aiding in the investigation is Harry's former Pokémon partner, wise-cracking, adorable super-sleuth Detective Pikachu. Finding that they are uniquely equipped to work together, as Tim is the only human who can talk with Pikachu, they join forces to unravel the tangled mystery.Easily one of my favorite projects they worked on is the Netflix show One Day at a Time. On that project they got to work with the television living legend Norman Lear.This comedy-drama is inspired by Norman Lear's 1975 series of the same name. This time around, the series follows the life of Penelope, a newly single Army veteran, and her Cuban-American family, as they navigate the ups and downs of life. Now a nurse, Penelope is raising two strong-willed children.When faced with challenges, Penelope turns to her "old-school" mother, and her building manager, who has become an invaluable confidant. The series offers a contemporary take on what life looks like in both good and bad times, and how loved ones can help make it all worthwhile.On television, Hernandez and Samit have written for, The Tick, Super Fun Night and 1600 Penn. They were named in Paste Magazine's list of the top 28 comedy writers of 2018. In 2019, Samit and Hernandez signed a long-term deal with 20th Century Fox Television to develop, write and produce animated and live-action seriesWe discussed how they got their big break, how they approach the craft, the world of the writer's room and much more.Enjoy my conversation with Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit.

Welcome to episode 2 of the Mind, Body, Spirit, FOOD podcast! Thank you so much to all the paid subscribers who make this work possible. Today I interview physical therapist, yoga instructor, breathwork facilitator and all around amazing being Samantha Fulton. I met Sam last year when I went to her for my own physical therapy needs (diastasis recti, which was causing other issues) and was blown away by her approach to her work. She approaches each body as a whole, unique organism, where everything is connected. This resonated deeply with my philosophies around food, and we've since developed a deep connection (and, thanks to Sam, I now have a fixed diastasis!). A few weeks ago Sam and I taught a class together called Intuitive Eating & Yoga, where I shared my practices around gaining presence and freedom around food, and Sam shared yogic principles around the body as well as how the nervous system influences digestion. Today we're diving deeper into the nervous system - what it is, how it impacts our food choices, and how it affects the ways we process food. Sam also shares simple techniques to bring ourselves back to center when we're off balance. Be sure to stay tuned until the end as she offers a beautiful practice that you can implement anytime, anywhere. You'll walk away from this episode with a deeper compassion for yourself and your own natural workings. What a gift. You can listen to the podcast right here, or, better yet, subscribe to the podcast in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. I've also included an edited transcript of the conversation below. Please pipe in with any questions or comments, and enjoy the show! Find Sam on social media @fulbeing_collective. Nicki: Welcome to Mind Body Spirit Food. I'm your host, Nicki Sizemore, and in this podcast we'll explore the rituals, traditions, and cultural influences around food and how they connect us to our minds, our bodies, our spirits, the earth and our communities. This is a space that's dedicated to bringing more presence, ease, and joy into the process of feeding ourselves. Let's dive in.Hello and welcome. I am so happy to have you here and I'm so excited about today's episode. I interview Samantha Fulton, who's a physical therapist yoga teacher, but you guys, she's way more than that. She approaches the body in such a beautiful way. In fact, I met her last year when I went to see her for my own physical therapy needs.But today we're talking about the nervous system and how the nervous system affects our relationship to food as well as our digestion. There are so many juicy nuggets in this episode, and I think you're going to get a lot out of it. Be sure to stay tuned until the end because Sam offers a beautiful practice for bringing our nervous systems back into calibration when we're off. And this has implications that go far wider than just bringing ourselves back to a state of homeostasis. This influences how we digest, but it also influences how we think about our own bodies. And I think throughout this episode, perhaps my hope is that you'll learn to have a little bit more compassion for yourself.All right, let's get to it.Nicki: Sam, welcome. I'm so thrilled that you are here, and that you're actually my first guest on my podcast.Sam: Ooh, I am.Nicki: Yes.Sam: I'm so happy to be here. I'm even more honored to be here now than I know I'm your first guest. I think you can only go up from here because I am not used to being interviewed. So here we go.Nicki: Not even possible. We're going to start with a question that I ask all my guests. What is your cultural upbringing and how has that influenced your relationship to food?Sam: I'm laughing and breathing. I grew up with my mom. My parents were split since I was very young. And so I lived with my mom and my younger brother, and my grandparents lived upstairs from us. So we were very extended family oriented. And my father actually lived with his parents as well, so I had it on both sides.Nicki: Wow, that's great. Or maybe not, I'm not sure!Sam: It was great. And other things. We were very Italian, and very food oriented. My grandparents were very focused on food as sort of the indicator on how everyone was doing. Food was comfort. Food meant social engagement. It meant family gatherings and family meals. But it was also, “how good you're doing.” You know, like, what's wrong? You're not hungry? Why didn't you finish your dinner? You look sad, you look tired, you look sick. Here, have something to eat.Nicki: So food was the remedy for all emotional distress.Sam: It was the remedy. Yeah. We joke that the Italian psychotherapy is, “here, just have a slice of mozzarella.” Some people say garlic is the Italian penicillin. We kind of used it to treat mental illness as well. I say that with a warm and open heart. I don't say that to mock mental illness at all. It's very present in my family. A lot of us needed other medicines too. But that's our running family joke.My mother was definitely more progressive though. I watched her try to figure it out. She worked full-time, so my grandparents were caring for us a lot, but my mom did cook very whole foods. Our meals were always very complete, so there was always a protein and a starch, and a veggie and a dessert, and we had to eat it all.Nicki: And did you eat at home most nights or was your mom cooking most nights?Sam: Yes, yes. We hardly ever went out to eat that. I remember we maybe had pizza nights on Fridays. But we definitely had a lot of family meals at home that were cooked by her or my grandparents.Nicki: So as you got older—and you can totally correct me if I'm wrong—food was medicine in a very emotional way. Food was an indicator of how good you were doing. How did that impact you as you got older and perhaps cooking for yourself?Sam: Oh, that's a good question. I think I had that food-oriented nature from my grandparents and extended family, but I also watched my mom work with her own body image issues. That probably stemmed from when she was a child—sort of unresolved issues. And it was the eighties and nineties, so it was very “low fat.” Diet culture was starting to emerge. I also got influenced by that, just watching her go through her journey. I think I did have an innate message to myself that food was a reward and I could use it as reward or punishment, which I think is a really unhealthy relationship. It's an unhealthy association.Nicki: I think that a lot of people listening can relate to that.Sam: Yeah. I mean, it's food and exercise. I'm a movement professional, so I see that happening with movement and exercise all the time. I guess I was conscious of the food aspect of it, but I didn't realize how present it was in my body, in my psyche. I try not to live that way, and I think I'm gradually becoming more conscious, but it's certainly there. Nicki: I know, It's interesting because you had an Instagram post before the holidays and it sparked an Instagram post for me talking about food—this kind of capitalistic view that we have of food, especially I think for those of us who did grow up in the eighties and nineties. It's an input versus output equation. With food and exercise that's absolutely what I was taught—you eat this much, you better work it off this much—instead of a nurturing, soft, gentle relationship. Both of us realize now that it's not input versus output. It's not how the way our bodies work. There are times in my life where I have a lot of energy and movement feels really good, and there are times in my life when I need a lot of rest.  I'm getting better at honoring those cycles, but it wasn't what I was taught.Sam: Right, right. That makes all the sense when you say it. It made me exhale. That's what I attempt to bring to my clientele about movement and exercise, and I think what you're trying to do with food, which is why we connected so much and we wanted to merge our worlds. Nicki: Well that gets me to my next question because last week we taught a class together called Intuitive Eating and Yoga and it was a really powerful class. I approached the class from the food perspective and you dove into yoga and the body, but also the nervous system. And I haven't been able to stop thinking about this topic. Before we kind of get into it, I'll ask you how you became interested in the nervous system and then we can kind of start to unravel what the nervous system even is.Sam: We can't really talk about almost anything else without holding holding and knowing [the nervous] system and our inner workings. When I work with people with pain, people with chronic illness, people with a static injury, an injury that just happened when they were doing X activity, or something more chronic—and when I listen to my own body, when I have pains myself or when I'm experiencing anxiety, whatever it might be—is that even when that symptom resolves, even when I don't have that pain anymore or it changes, or it shifts, it's not really done. The work can always continue. It's not ever the exercises or the yoga poses that create the lasting change. Actually, the lasting change comes when we learn to listen. When we learn to commit to a deeper relationship with ourselves on all levels.Nicki: I just got chills all up and down my body. Yep.Sam: Thank you. Me too. I know this, but then I forget it. So it's important to keep learning. Nicki: So, learning to listen, does that mean starting with the nervous system? Do you start there before you go deeper?Sam: Yes. And you know, the first thing we did together was breath work. Breathing is one of my favorite tools and one of the first tools that I use with myself and with others to access the nervous system. The breath is always right here. We always have the breath. We don't need anything else. If we're practiced in that, we set ourselves up to regulate our nervous system. I work with myself because I'm on my own wild and crazy journey with anxiety and ADHD.  I was diagnosed as an adult with ADHD, and when I started to learn about my brain and how I'm wired, it was so liberating. To learn that there's nothing wrong with me. There's nothing wrong with anyone. And the responses that I was experiencing in my body were an attempt at my system trying to regulate, trying to keep me safe. It's a very smart thing that my body's trying to do. To learn how I'm wired, it was like, oh my gosh. It was very liberating, and it also put a lot of tools at my fingertips.Nicki: So what is the nervous system for those of us who aren't versed in this language? I think all of us have a sense of the “fight or flight,” but can you explain what it is?Sam: Yes. Simply put, we're referring to the autonomic nervous system, which is conducted or regulated by what's called the vagus nerve. And the vagus nerve is one of our cranial nerves, so it comes from our brain—our brainstem. When I learned about the vagus nerve, it really shifted a lot of things for me. I talk a lot about the polyvagal theory. The old model of the autonomic nervous system is what we know to be our fight or flight response—that's called our sympathetic nervous system. That's our accelerator. It's what causes the response to fight or flight. In our modern world, it doesn't always look like fight with our fists or flight with our feet. It can look like a lot of other things, which we may or may not get to in this conversation, but it's very complex as to how that can show up in our bodies in our modern world where we're not fighting a bear or running away from a bear. But we are having other responses and other bodily experiences that feel quite like that. And then we have the parasympathetic nervous system (this is still the old model), which is our break. It's “rest and digest.” And the old model says one response is good, and the other is bad. One is up, the other is down. It was very polarized. The polyvagal theory was developed by a doctor by the name of Porges. If anybody's interested, you can look up Stephen Porges. He has a lot of resources on online. Be careful about other resources of the polyvagal theory. There are other good ones certainly, but there's also a lot of misinformation on the internet.Nicki: I can commisserate. In the food world there's a lot of misinformation.Sam: The polyvagal theory is a little bit nuanced; it's that the vagus nerve has two branches. We still have our sympathetic nervous system, which again, is that fight or flight response. But then our vagus nerve has two branches. One is the dorsal vagal branch, which is considered numbing, shutting down, freezing. This is that down energy.And then there's the ventral vagal branch, which is more balanced. When we're in this state and we're in this response, we are secure. We can socially engage, we can digest our food, we can sleep well. We can have healthy relationships, healthy exchanges. I'm not even going into our organ function, but all of these nervous system responses greatly influence our organs, our heart, our lungs, our digestive organs, our metabolic system. The theory teaches that there's a spectrum that we're on. It's not like I'm here, here, or here, but there's a spectrum or like a ladder on which we climb up or down. And we all have a different capacity to feel balanced. We all have what's called the “window of tolerance.” So my window of tolerance might be different from your window of tolerance. My window of tolerance today might be different than what my window of tolerance was when I was 18.It definitely changes as we change. And different stressors in our lives may shift where we are on the spectrum. And the goal is not to stay balanced all the time. A healthy nervous system is not always relaxed, is not always balanced. Nicki: I love to hear this. Sam: Isn't that good news? A healthy nervous system needs to be challenged. We need stressors and then we need the ability to recover. We need tools to recover.Nicki: And that recovery is probably the thing that's important. How do we learn how to recover whenwe do get stressed?Sam: Totally. There are also times in our lives that we need stress. This is an example, I need a little bit of that sympathetic activity, that fight or flight activity, if I am going to drive on the Taconic at night. I need a little bit of increased attention, a little vigilance. I need a little bit of that spark if I want to stay attentive. Or if I'm playing a competitive game or something along those lines, you want a little bit of oomph, you want a little bit of spice.Nicki: You know, it reminds me of cooking. Cooking for me is at one time very relaxing, and just kind of slow. But there are times when I love the energy—when seven things are cooking at once, and I get in this dance state and it's definitely elevated. I'm present and tuned in, but whew, I've got to be in that upper [state], keeping my eye on everything. But there's something exciting about that. There's something fun about that. I don't want to cook like that all the time though. I also want thosetimes where it's—Sam: And you don't want to stay there!Nicki: No, I don't want to stay there (laughing). This is why I don't work in restaurant kitchens, which I have done and which I do not enjoy because you're very much in that hyper state. But that's interesting to hear that we go back and forth and that it's not necessarily good or bad all the time. Right?Sam: Absolutely. And to give you an example on the flip side is that if I want to enjoy a quiet meal with my loved one and I really want to digest my food well, I want to be balanced, of course, but I also need a little bit of that dorsal vagal state. I need a little bit of that downward tone to my energy. That's what really gets my digestive juices flowing, and it gets me very present and relaxed in my body.Nicki: I love learning about this because our nervous system directly influences our digestion. I see digestion from a very energetic place. I literally had indigestion for five years after my youngest daughter was born because she was—I love you Juni—but she was a hard little baby and a hard toddler. I would go from rushing from work, to cooking, to eating, and I would never pause. I would never take a breath. She was a fussy baby at the dinner table and all of that built up. My digestion was so poor. It wasn't until I hit a wall with it and realized, wait a minute, I can see this pattern. I can see what's going on, and I can see how fast I'm moving, and I'm not even breathing through any of this. But while I was in it, I couldn't see it.Now, looking back, I can see that my nervous system was like, whoa come dinnertime. I mean, I've had a meditation practice for a very long time in the morning, but then I'd get into the kitchen and everything would be thrown out the window! I've been bringing these practices into the kitchen, and now I can see that these are nervous system practices in some way. I always take two deep breaths before I start cooking and before I start eating. And I engage my senses. While for me this was a way to bring more ease and joy into the process of cooking, this was also calming my nervous system. So what is that connection between food and the nervous system?Sam: The vagus nerve is actually also called the gut brain. And the heart brain. Isn't that beautiful?Nicki: Yes.Sam: Our body is always giving cues, always firing, always giving us subtle cues unless they need to be louder, right? They start subtle and when we don't listen, they get louder, but it's always giving subtle cues asking for attention here or there, asking for balance where it's needed. This internal messaging system is called interoception. We think of our senses as being sight, smell, taste, hearing and touch. But we actually have a sixth sense and it's called interoception. And it's more complex than I'm saying now, but it's basically our capacity to decipher these internal cues and sensations that we're feeling in our bodies, and then decide what we need based on those sensations. If we're constantly dysregulated or if we get stuck in that high energy state, if we get stuck in that sympathetic response, or if we're getting pulled down into that dorsal vagel state and we can't rebalance—we don't have tools to rebalance or we don't even know that we're not balanced—we get mixed up with the cues. We can't accurately decipher what the cues are telling us to do. It's easy to get the wires crossed. So for example do you ever eat when you're bored?Nicki: Yeah.Sam: Right? It's not hunger. We eat when we're bored or we don't eat when we're stressed, when we're anxious, or vice versa. These can go both ways because people manifest these things in all different ways. We scroll on our phones when we're feeling sad or when we're lonely. We just want go to sleep when we're in pain, or we can't sleep when we're overly tired. These things get really mixed up.Nicki: And so we're seeking something to fix the problem, but the thing we're seeking is not the cause of the problem. Is that right? Like we're seeking almost these numbing behaviors. Like, “oh, I'm so bored, I'm just going to eat something,” but actually the boredom is coming from somewhere else.Sam: For sure. These are all ways of scratching an itch. We're scratching a deep itch and we're not quite dropped in enough to our own systems and quite practiced in having a relationship with ourselves, so it manifests in all kinds of ways. We're all addicted to something—these little glass rectangles that we carry around in our hands all the time, they are big back scratchers for people. And food can also be, among many other things. But then a little more complexly, down to the cellular level, we can't digest food properly when we're dysregulated. Nicki: I can feel that in my body, but it's taken me years to understand that connection, and I didn't have a language for it until you and I started talking. So how do we know when we're dysregulated and how do we get back?Sam: Such a good question. There are so many symptoms of a dysregulated nervous system that will oftentimes look like other things and that oftentimes come as the result of other things as well. It helps to know if I tend to lean towards the fight or flight response. If that's my go-to, if I'm a high tension kind of person and I'm in fast forward mode all the time, it helps to know that our digestive system functions are actually very slowed down when we're in that state. You would think it's the opposite, but evolutionarily speaking, if we're running from a bear or if we're fighting the bear, we can't use energy to digest food. We need to conserve our energy—we're not going to have the right hormones released in our system, and our motility, the muscle contractions that move food through our system, that's not where we're going to use our energy.  We're using our energy in our large limb muscles. And vice versa, if we're stuck in that freeze or numb, low energy mode, our digestive system works overtime. It senses, “I don't have enough energy. Maybe I need to break down some food.” Nicki: So it tries to make up for the fact that you are feeling so low.Sam: Exactly. It tries to overcompensate. Our bodies are always doing that. They're trying to help; these responses are very smart. We have to thank our bodies for trying to keep us safe. These systems evolved over time, evolutionarily, out of necessity so that we would stay alive. It's our survival brain. And we evolved into higher thinking beings, and we do have the ability to decipher the threats, but our bodies don't know the difference. It's not conscious. A threat is a threat, and our higher thinking minds can say, “wait, is the fact that I'm stuck in traffic and I'm late for a meeting going to kill me?” But first we have to be in touch with what that response feels like in our bodies or else we can't connect to that.I mean, there are countless signs and symptoms. Chronic pain, which can either be the stressor or the stress response, a lot of the times it's both. Digestive disturbances [are another]. We always want to determine with the help of medical professionals if digestive issues are structural or physical, diet related or nervous system related. And most often it's a combo. You don't want to assume that just because I'm having stomach pain, I must be stressed. It's very important to rule out anything that's going to threaten your health. But yeah, sleep disturbances, irritability, emotional swings, brain fog, memory stuff, attention span issues, you know, the list goes on. Nicki: It's so interesting. My podcast launched last week, and I was having a somatic—a bodily—fear, and it would come and go. It was like a tightening. All of a sudden I'd be sitting there doing nothing and all of a sudden I'd have this fear response. First I felt like, okay, I need to acknowledge that I'm having this fear response. I feel like just acknowledging it is a major step in easing it. Even though the fear response persisted, I could see it, and I could say to myself, “oh, that's just fear. I can sit in the fear. My life is not threatened right now. The fear is coming from a deep, subconscious place. I will sit with you, but I don't need to change you.”What I think I would've done in the past when I was a younger person—that fear would've caused me to go do something to numb it. I don't know what that thing would've been, maybe exercise over-exercise or something to have given me a sense of control. But I think what I'm trying to say is that if we can feel these things that come in through our body and if we can name them, then it gives us that little bit of space. It feels like you have a little bit of space so you can be like, wait, “how do I want to react to this? What's the action going to be?” Or maybe there's absolutely no need for action. Maybe I just need to sit here with it.Sam: That is perfection what you just said. That's exactly it. And that comes from a deep place of self-compassion.Nicki: Hmm. Yes.Sam: And that is yoga. It's, “how do I show up for what's present, right here and now, without wanting to change it, without going on with a story about it. Just, this is what's here.”Nicki: This is what's here. So when those things show up and we're feeling stressed, we're feeling anxiety—or maybe we're feeling so low and so sluggish—and we can name it, we can have compassion for it and not judge ourselves for it, what are a few easy tools that you can give us to come back into our body? To connect, to calm, or to bring up?I know in working with you that breathwork has been really powerful for me in either calming the the nervous system and in invigorating myself to get moving when I am in that stuck overwhelmed state.Do you have any tips?Sam: Ah, I do. And you already introduced one, when you were saying, “when I can name it, it's very liberating.” To say something, to call it what it is, to say it out loud or in your mind, it's very, very powerful. One of my favorite go-to's is a body scan and name the sensations. We can do this with physical sensations, we can do it with pain, we can do it with hunger (or something that we are interpreting as hunger and we're not quite sure). We can do it with thirst, we can do it with emotional feelings. Whatever arises, we can do this. And even if it's emotional in nature, even if you're feeling sad or fearful, our emotions live in our bodies. Whatever is in our head is in our body.Nicki: Ah, right.Sam: So I like to either sit or lay down. And start at the very top of my head and bring my awareness there. If people are trying this at home, bring the awareness through the body, from the head, into the face, into the neck and shoulders, down the arms, into the hands, down the front of the body, the chest, the ribs, the belly, the spine from the neck down to the lower back, the pelvis and the hips, the thighs, the knees, the lower legs, the ankles, the feet, and out through the toes.See what's talking, if there's a sensation anywhere. Stay with it for a few breaths. And I love to use the phrase, “here and now I feel.” We might have a tendency to go on in our minds like, oh, you know, “here in my shoulder now I feel a tightness. Oh, well that's because I have bad posture.” We might have a tendency to attach reasoning or story or dialogue about it. And the practice is really just to describe the sensation. Here and now I feel a tightness. Here and now I feel a burn. Here and now I feel a poke. Right? Whatever it might be. Or here and now I feel joy. Here and now I feel fullness. Here and now I feel space. It can be anything. Taking a few breaths with just those describing words, with the intention of allowing it to be exactly as it is without changing it, is very powerful.Nicki: it's full acceptance, isn't it. In my body the way I feel that is, when I fully accept something, I stop resisting it. And when I stop resisting it, guess what? It can move through me. When I try to battle something within my body, it gets even more deeply lodged.Sam: Mm-hmm. Again, it comes from a place of self-compassion. We don't need any extra blame or shame or judgment about what we're feeling. Especially if what we're already feeling is hard.Nicki: Yes. Thank you. Amen.Sam: I'll also just say that there are different approaches. This technique, if it's not resonating, that's okay. There are a vast variety of approaches for folks if if they really want to get in touch with their nervous system. There are what's called top-down tools, which work with how our thoughts and beliefs affect our system and affect our bodies, which can be very powerful. This is like psychotherapy, group therapy, awareness practices like meditation, affirmations and intention settings. These can be really great tools for people who that resonates with. That top down approach from my brain to my body. And if that tends to not work for you, the bottom up approach is using our body and our breath to connect to our brain, to affect our brain. This is like breathing exercises, movement, postural positioning, body work, play, and even certain foods and drink. How does a mug of hot tea make you feel if your energy is up high? Or if your energy is down low, how does a citrusy sip of water feel? Again, it's understanding interoception sense, which practices like the body scan can really help hone. Then we start to know what tools will work for us.Nicki: Yeah, because the vagus nerve is a two-way street, right? So information goes from our brain to down into our body, but also from our body up into our brain. So if we can see that and manipulate—not manipulate that, that's the wrong word—but we can come at it from both ways. For me, that just gives me an extra little superpower where if my body is feeling this way, let's bring it up to my brain, or vice versa. There's knowledge both places. Sam: Oh you are so saying it. And you're also holding two truths. It's not the brain that directs the body, and it's not the body that directs the brain. They have a symbiotic relationship. Part of the reason why I love breath so much—part of the reason why that's one of my favorite things in the world—is because our respiratory system is the only—it's one of our autonomic nervous system functions, right? The others are our cardiovascular system, our digestive system, our metabolic system. Those things are always happening all the time. They happen automatically in our sleep. We're not thinking about it. We're digesting food. Our hearts are beating. There's a lot going on without our decision making to make it happen. But our respiratory system is the only autonomic function that is both. It's going all the time—we're breathing even when we're not thinking about it. And then we can also consciously change the breath at any moment in time.It's both voluntary and involuntary. So that's my next go-to tool. The first was the body scan with naming the sensations, and the second tool is breath. The most basic breathing pattern, if you've never worked with your breath before, there's something in the yoga practice called equal breath. It's a one-to-one ratio. I like it because it's very accessible. You can do it anywhere, and you can also pace yourself quite easily. You don't have to match anybody else's breath.You would start by just first paying attention to how your breath feels naturally and not try to change it.And you can bring a count to your in-breath, and whatever that count was—maybe you only breathe in for two—you try to breathe out for two. You match the exhale to the inhale. Then over time it might feel accessible to increase by one beat, the in-breath and the out-breath.This rhythm starts to naturally soothe the nervous system. There's a pulsating thing that our internal workings are just vibing with. It's very similar to rocking a baby. It occupies something in our brains—we don't want to be so busy, we don't want to be so scattered. It hones our attention. It's extremely powerful.Nicki: Sam, thank you so much. I feel so calm and content just from hearing you, just from witnessing and practicing these practices with you. And I hope that those of you listening out there, I hope you give these a try. Let us know where we can find you in the world?Sam: I'm a little hidden. I need help getting more present on social media and on the internet. I'm much better in person one-on-one, so, oh my gosh, I would love to meet you all in person. But my website is fulbeingphysicaltherapy.com. My Instagram page is @fulbeing_collective. And I hope to do another Intuitive Eating and Yoga workshop with you, Nicki. So your folks will definitely hear about that.Nicki: I want to thank you for these amazing teach teachings, for introducing us to the nervous system and for giving us all some—oh gosh, I'm going to say this—food for thought. Sorry, that was bad. But the nervous system, how it influences how we're eating and how we're feeling, I just feel like being granted this knowledge—just like you said—makes me feel more compassionate for myself. If there's a better gift out there, I don't know what it is. So thank you for that. And thank you for sharing your beautiful breathwork practices with us.Sam: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so grateful to be connected to you in this way and to connect with your communityNicki: All right. Until next time. Thank you so much for listening. If this work resonates with you in any way, you can support it by leaving a review or comment or sharing it with friends. Also, you can sign up for the newsletter, Mind, Body, Spirit, FOOD, and by becoming a paid member for just $5 a month you help fund this entire project. Thank you so much to all of you who are already subscribed, especially to those paid subscribers. This work could not happen without you. I'm Nicki Sizemore, and as always, remember to nourish yourself with intention and love. Get full access to Mind, Body, Spirit, FOOD at mindbodyspiritfood.substack.com/subscribe

Building a business can be lonely. As an entrepreneur, you are putting in long hours, working alone, and figuring out how to scale and grow. Alexandra Samit is a lifelong entrepreneur and founder of Alexandra Beth Fine Jewelry, based in New York City's diamond district. She joins podcast host Jaclyn Beck to discuss how she has simultaneously navigated the evolution of both her jewelry company and her own development since originally founding the business 20 years ago at 15 years old. She shares the importance of resourcefulness and community in navigating uncharted territory.Check out Alexandra Beth Fine Jewelry Connect with Jaclyn Beck on LinkedIn, follow along on Instagram @jaclynbeckconsulting and check out Jaclyn Beck Consulting for strategic advisory and/or executive coaching inquiries.

What if everyone's overarching go-to-market strategy were kindness? Well, for Host Chris Schembra's guest on this episode of Gratitude Through Hard Times, it's a concept that has been central to building a $200 million company. CEO Sam Jacobs launched Pavilion, his membership-based leadership community, after coming to a deep understanding of something very basic: We start to gain when we learn to let go. He is sharing with us the human-centric elements that are foundational not only for successful business ventures but for successful (i.e. peaceful and meaningful) lives. Sam explains how he moved away from grasping and attachment to outcomes in favor of something more authentic expansive. You'll come away from this heart-centered conversation with a clear understanding of the interplay between how we talk to ourselves and what we offer the world; why failure can be our friend and how to take a long-term approach that replaces the transactional with ongoing connectedness, personal fulfillment and long-term business growth.Sam founded Pavilion in 2016 as a support network for revenue leaders and has since opened chapters globally, establishing a robust platform for peer-to-peer connection, training, development and career resources for all high-growth professionals. Most recently, Sam is out with a new book that will change the way you think about engaging with the marketplace, whether as a corporate employee or aspiring entrepreneur. Pick up Wall Street Journal bestseller "Kind Folks Finish First: The Considerate Path to Success in Business and Life"and you won't be able to put it down!If you'd like to learn more about Host Chris Schembra and his 7:47 Virtual Gratitude Experience, please visit this link. And click here to listen to previous episodes of Gratitude Through Hard Times. KEY TOPICS:What's a moment of adversity that you've overcome in your life or career that you're actually grateful for? After four firings from five jobs in a short period of time, Sam seized an opportunity to change his trajectory and patterns of thought/behavior.Ultimate Job Satisfaction: Knowing how to generate happiness and a sense of peace.About how high participation and low attachment correlates with a universal flow of abundance in our direction.Negotiation as a career hack (and source of protection) amidst constant turnover:Do your due diligence.Pre-negotiate your severance.Be realistic about the shifts that happen after the honeymoon phase.Sam Defines Success Based on Three Key Elements:What you're good at.What you're (truly) interested in doing.Where the market is moving.About Pavilion's evolution, based on letting go of pre-conceived notions and creating self-sustaining revenue as well as a source of kindness and light in the world.Contemplating an entrepreneurial risk? Consider what might happen when you stop giving all your best ideas (and energy) to someone else's enterprise.Sam reflects on the agility required to move with markets, keeping fluid and aligning through empathy with what's happening in real time (as Pavilion did while riding the waves of pandemic)Sam's Principles for Kindness – and Success:Thinking long-term rather than transactionally builds connection.Releasing attachment decreases neediness and increases openness to surprising outcomes.Winning every single negotiation isn't the endgame. It's about building relationships over time.Sam's Formula: How to manifest $25 million in funding and a business valued at more than $200 million by emphasizing not what's missing but the joy in what's already here!Creating the Mental Attitude to Prevail:Don't chase the dollar!Re-channel negativity (true or not) towards the big-picture goal.Change the negative narratives in your head.Retrain the Brain: Substitute affirmations and self-care for unkind mental tapes.It takes nothing from anyone else for us to be kind to ourselves! QUOTABLE“What I expected when I started my career was that as you became more and more senior you achieve some level of stability, prosperity and independence but that was not happening for me.” (Sam)“Five years ago I decided … I cared more about a feeling of being independent, believing in myself, establishing some level of stability. What I most wanted was peace.” (Sam)“Gratitude is the frequency most harmonious with abundance.” (Sam) “(Pre-negotiated severance) is not about the money, it's about reducing the level of anxiety you have when you show up to work every day.”  (Sam)“When you work for somebody else you're not even renting, you are selling – forever – your best ideas to somebody else.” (Sam)“If you can listen to what the market is telling you and try to respond and provide a solution rapidly, then you can be aligned with the market. It's a process – not a static state.” (Sam)“It increases the likelihood that wonderful serendipity will happen when I don't need anything specific to happen tomorrow.” (Sam)“I'm really good at being generous and thinking long-term … and it always has a way of coming back around.” (Chris)“I try to do the right thing and treat people well … I've left my mark on this planet and hopefully I'm only halfway done, so that's something to be proud of.” (Sam)“One of the cool things you can do in life is to not be so goal- or purpose- or destination-oriented but just give yourself the chance to do nothing, take a walk in nature with no particular aim.” (Chris) LINKS/FURTHER RESOURCES:"Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It," by Chris Voss.Click here to learn about the works of Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman. "The Long Game: How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World," by Dorie Clark."Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success," by Adam M. Grant."The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself,"by Michael A. Singer. ABOUT OUR GUEST:Sam is focused on helping people unlock and achieve their professional potential. He has built Pavilion in order to help members, employees and stakeholders realize the greatness within themselves. Through its paid membership for leaders of all levels, Pavilion is dedicated to providing support, assistance, education, and career growth. A global organization with over 9,000 members and hubs in every major city, Pavilion is all about helping members (and their teams) perform better in their roles, develop the skills necessary to take the next step and expand their networks to create an engaged and supportive professional community.  FOLLOW SAM:WEBSITE | LINKEDIN | TWITTER ABOUT OUR HOST:Chris Schembra is a philosopher, question asker and facilitator. He's a columnist at Rolling Stone magazine, USA Today calls him their "Gratitude Guru" and he's spent the last six years traveling around the world helping people connect in meaningful ways. As the offshoot of his #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling book, "Gratitude Through Hard Times: Finding Positive Benefits Through Our Darkest Hours," he uses this podcast to blend ancient stoic philosophy and modern-day science to teach how the principles of gratitude can be used to help people get through their hard times. FOLLOW CHRIS:WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM | LINKEDIN | BOOKS

[00:03:00] NEWS [00:03:19] Aircraft Accident Canadair CL-215-6B11 (CL-415) I-DPCN Linguaglossa, Sicily [00:11:08] Cuban Defector Flies Stolen An-2 To Florida [00:16:16] COPA B738 at Panama City on Sep 25th 2022, Runway Excursion on Landing [00:23:48] FINAL REPORT - Incident: Transcarga A30B at Bogota on Mar 11th 2021, Rejected Takeoff Due to Uncontained Engine Failure [00:29:28] Vaping Man Kicked Off Plane [00:35:26] FEEDBACK [00:35:38] Mohammed - ATC Day in Baghdad, Iraq [00:43:49] Sam - Dizzy Pilots [00:46:27] Brewcrafter John - Altimeter Settings [00:51:42] JJ Pittsburgh - Exercise on Layovers? [00:59:03] Greg - Future of Aircraft Engines [01:04:17] GETTING TO KNOW US [01:34:20] COFFEE FUND [01:36:39] Texas Charlie - Southwest Captain Strips Naked in "Prank" [01:46:14] Sam - It's All Ball Bearings [01:48:08] Alex from California- On the Subject of Rockets as Airliner Propulsion [01:54:15] Kevin - My Introduction and My First Trip With Acme [01:57:47] Texas Anla'Shok - Mickey Mouse One [02:06:22] Chris - How are Passenger and Baggage Weights Calculated? [02:15:11] Tim W - Security of Documents on Layovers Overseas [02:30:29] Anonymous - Student Locking on the Controls [02:32:07] Spencer - Students Locking Up on Controls [02:37:10] Bruce - Update on My Niece Christina [02:39:58] Keith Carlson and Tim Qualls - Meet Up @ North Little Rock Airshow VIDEO Don't see the video? Click this to watch it on YouTube! ABOUT RADIO ROGER “Radio Roger” Stern has been a TV and Radio reporter since he was a teenager. He's won an Emmy award for his coverage in the New York City Market. Currently you can hear his reporting in New York on radio station 1010 WINS, the number one all-news station in the nation. Nationally you can hear him anchor newscasts on the Fox News Radio Network and on Fox's Headlines 24-7 service on Sirius XM Radio. In addition Roger is a proud member of and contributor to the APG community. Give us your review in iTunes! I'm "airlinepilotguy" on Facebook, and "airlinepilotguy" on Twitter. feedback@airlinepilotguy.com airlinepilotguy.com "Appify" the Airline Pilot Guy website (http://airlinepilotguy.com) on your phone or tablet! ATC audio from http://LiveATC.net Intro/outro Music, Coffee Fund theme music by Geoff Smith thegeoffsmith.com Dr. Steph's intro music by Nevil Bounds Capt Nick's intro music by Kevin from Norway (aka Kevski) Doh De Oh by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100255 Artist: http://incompetech.com/ Copyright © AirlinePilotGuy 2022, All Rights Reserved Airline Pilot Guy Show by Jeff Nielsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Indian novelist Samit Basu stopped by the Legendarium to talk with Craig about what exactly dystopian fiction is, where that term falls down, and how it differs across continents. Samit is also a multi-discipline writer, and they talked about what it means to write across several different mediums. Check out Samit Basu’s website: https://samitbasu.com/ And […]

Indian novelist Samit Basu stopped by the Legendarium to talk with Craig about what exactly dystopian fiction is, where that term falls down, and how it differs across continents. Samit is also a multi-discipline writer, and they talked about what it means to write across several different mediums. Check out Samit Basu's website: https://samitbasu.com/ And his new book, The City Inside: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1250827507   Support the show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/legendarium Check out the archives at https://www.thelegendarium.com/ Join the Discord community: https://discord.com/invite/FnCSsxx Twitter: https://twitter.com/LegendariumPod