Podcasts about so andrew

Check out Hammerstone! http://hammerstone.dev/Michele Hansen  0:00  Michele Hansen  0:00 Hey, welcome back to Software Social. This episode of Software Social is sponsored by Noko. https://nokotime.com/When you're bootstrapping on the side, every free moment counts. But do you really know how you're spending those moments? Which days you're most productive? If your product have time sinks that just don't pay?Here's one way to find out: Noko is a time tracker designed to help you learn from the time you track. And Noko makes it frictionless to give yourself good data, too — you can even log time directly from your Github commit messages. Try Noko today and save 15% off every plan, forever. Visit  Nokotime.com/SocialPod to start making your time work for you.Hey, everyone. So you may remember a couple of weeks ago, Colleen was facing a big decision about whether she should join an exciting project that some of her friends had started. So I'm here to tell you today that Colleen did decide to join that project. And we thought that you should hear about it from her and the team she's joining. So she is joining Hammerstone with our friends, Aaron and Sean. And you may remember Shawn from our episode a few months ago, where he was helping me learn how to market a book. So we thought we would let you listen to the episode that Colleen did on the Hammerstone podcast recently, where she's talking about joining the team. And after you listen, make sure to go subscribe to the Hammerstone podcast to get more updates about that really exciting project.Unknown Speaker  1:54  All right, we are recording. And we have three people here with us today. So the third person you want to introduce yourself.Colleen Schnettler  2:03  Hello, everyone. My name is Colleen and I have been working for Shawn and Aaron for about six months now. And this is my debut appearance on the Hammerstone podcast.Unknown Speaker  2:14  Welcome to the show. Thanks. So Colleen has been working, she said for us. But now Colleen is working with us. Colleen is a part of the Hammerstone team now. She's the third partner.Colleen Schnettler  2:29  Yes, I am super pumped. Super excited to join the team.Unknown Speaker  2:34  Yeah, so I guess we've been talking about this client for like, a year or more. And we've mentioned Colleen several times, I don't think it's been a secret. And she's the one that's been doing. She's the one that's been doing the rails side of the Refine product. And so, Shawn and Colleen have been working on this client for a long time. And the client has kind of been like, hey, what if we just keep doing this for a long, long time, we're like, great, we, that sounds good to us. And so Colleen is gonna continue working. But this client for they just, they just love Colleen, they just can't, they can't get enough of you. So, yeah, she's coming on as a partner and Hammerstone and she's gonna own the rails side of things. And I own the Laravel side of things. And Sean owns basically everything else. Kind of kind of a huge change, you know, in a whirlwind the past couple of weeks, but welcome.Colleen Schnettler  3:41  Thanks.Unknown Speaker  3:43  Yes, super cool. So speaking of owning all the other things, actually, can you guys hear me the sound just cut out weirdly for a second? We're good. You're okay. Yep. Yeah, so we, since there's three of us now, Aaron, and I have been, as I put it on the call with the lawyer yesterday, just yoloing it for the last year with our sort of like, operating agreement. So we got to hammer that out, you know, and actually do that properly given there's three of us, and that's an extra level of complication. So, the, the thing that we talked about with the lawyer, which I wanted to bring up with you guys was so first of all, I brought on my lawyer, Dalia who's awesome, and the best lawyer that I know. And I was like, Oh, yeah, I definitely want dahlias represent Hammerstone that Dalia immediately brought up that it's a conflict of interest of her because she's representing me. I'm planning for aliens. And I was like, Oh, well, I'll just find another lawyer for planning for aliens. And that's when I realized like last night, I was like, do I want to do that? Like it's, I want Dalia to represent Hammerstone but I also like kind of still want to have Dalia around for other shit for me. So I think that she had mentioned this as a possibility where like, she could represent us both. And then if there's a conflict of interest step aside, and it would go to me by default, I think is what she said. And then Hammerstone would have to find another lawyer. How does that sound to you guys?Colleen Schnettler  5:18  Yeah, so what I took from that conversation was exactly that, like, she can represent you, she can represent Hammerstone. But if the three of us as Hammerstone have a problem, she would then have to step back and then all of us would, like, if we're at the point where we all need our own attorneys, like something has gone terribly wrong, right? Like, we're probably just gonna want to Anyway, when we're talking about attorneys, that's all we're talking about is these horrible situations, right. So that is what we're talking about right now is a horrible situation that, you know, potentially could happen in the future. Get it? I'm not putting anything out of possibility. Like, I'm fine with that. I don't know, she had said something about how someone has to wait, like waive the conflict of interest. So you can ask her what that means. But I mean, I have no issues with this, because I just, I know, no one ever sees themselves in these situations, but I just cannot imagine a situation where that would happen. And if it did, then, I mean, you're so far gone by that point that, you know, I'm okay.Unknown Speaker  6:29  Yeah, I think I think I understand the same thing. So she'll represent planning for aliens, which is your holding Corporation. Shawn, shall represent planning for aliens shall represent Hammerstone. And should, Shawn Colleen and Aaron ever need representation against each other not as Hammerstone against each other as individuals, then that's when we have to say conflict of interest, or, you know, Colleen, and I get our own lawyers or whatever. Does that seem right? That's exactly it. Yeah. Yep. I'm on board with that. That's fine.Colleen Schnettler  7:02  Yeah, I'm totally fine.Unknown Speaker  7:03  She'll give us whatever papers to sign about that. And then Alright, cool.Colleen Schnettler  7:07  Sure. What I didn't understand from that call was the accountant thing. At the election, yeah, way into some tax law with a vesting schedule. For me, and that was kind of Whoosh. SoUnknown Speaker  7:24  So you got to talk to our accountant, like, so this is what we're talking about. We have our accountant, you could you could have your own, or you just use Aaron, I'm like, pushing, we just use the one accountant for all the stuff. I mean, it's not. He's an accountant. So I don't know if there's like, there's not like a conflict of interest, right? He's just gonna tell you like, what's the optimal thing to do?Colleen Schnettler  7:43  Right? This is how you should structure it. Yeah.Unknown Speaker  7:46  Yeah. And, and my understanding, I never thought about this before, I guess, because it's gonna be like a taxable event, that you could decide, take the taxes now or take the taxes later. And I think that'll probably all depend on your whole personal, you know, finance situation plus, like, what you think's gonna happen with Hammerstone, etc. So,Colleen Schnettler  8:06  right, so you guys have a Hammerstone accountant, who is also Aaron's personal accountant. It's my it's my personal accountant, but his name is Aaron is Aaron. Oh, hence. Yeah. Okay, so Shawn, you have an accountant named Aaron, who has been doing Hammerstone taxes and your personal taxesUnknown Speaker  8:30  and planning for aliens. Correct. And he's gone. Hammerstone he hasn't done Hammerstone taxes yet. We just had no money last year. So we just write ourselvesColleen Schnettler  8:39  and then Aaron, not you Aaron not accounting there. You then have your own accountant for your own stuff for your LSIUnknown Speaker  8:47  I Aaron am an account I forgot. Yeah, yeah. So it makes it worse. I'm a CPA, however, I'm not our CPA, and I'm not my own CPA. I have my own personal accountant. For Jennifer's and my taxes. And I have a I have an LLC called bits and things. And so she does, she does bits and things she does our personal stuff. She does. And I've recently switched because my old one was terrible. So yes, I have my own personal one as well.Colleen Schnettler  9:15  Okay, because I have an accountant, but I'm not totally crazy about him. So I don't know if it's easier to just switch like we're, I'm cool with that. We can talk about that more. But yeah, okay.Unknown Speaker  9:26  I think I felt like the advantage for me if having Aaron jado match to my@aol.com do my personal and LLC or an S corp actually needs the one that set that all up is that he knows like how to optimize both and they both writer and they both come into play and otherwise there's going to be a communication point between the two of you have two separate accountants or find like DIY, my personal account my personal taxes. So just for him to optimize things and be more, you know, fluid in that. It was easier to just have him do it. And then like as far as my recommendation of Aaron, like, I feel like I have a lot less problems with there. And then anybody else that I've ever talked to about their accountants and like I have, he saved me automatically a lot of money the first year that I hired him, and I have not been audited. I was audited prior to this prior to hiring him, and hadn't been audited said so. Anyway, that's, that's my pitch there.Colleen Schnettler  10:28  Yeah, not a pitch. It's really up to you. Yeah. But just not to get like two businesses. So like, my first accountant, had all these like, cool. I don't know if they're cool ideas, but he had a lot of ideas about how I should structure my LLC for like tax benefits. And then his wife died. And he retired and it was kind of dramatic. And then my new accountant who I've had for two years now, he's just not into that stuff. Like he doesn't provide recommendations. He like, I think he just puts everything in TurboTax and tells me what I owe. That's why old accountant Yeah, exactly. Nice guy. But I'm like, I can literally do that myself, like you are, you aren't advising me on like, structure anything. So I'm open to trying something new.Unknown Speaker  11:07  Yeah, so with Aaron, I do have to, like, I gotta push a little, like, if I do nothing, he'll just do what he's got sort of squared away from me. And I think he makes by default, good choices. And he's not just doing plug it into TurboTax stuff. Like he's thinking through all the various implications. And if he thinks there's something we need to talk about, then he'll generally bring it up with me. But like, I do have to, like, I wish he would provide me with like, a prompt of like, here are all the things that you should tell me, because these are the things that are gonna like impact, you know, the taxes or whatever. But I've had to kind of come up with my own list. Well, that sucks. But generally, if I'm doing something that's potentially having a tax implication, yeah, I mean, I've reached out to him, like we sold our house, I have this money sitting around from selling the house and like, what do I What do I need to do with this? etc? He's good at all that stuff? Yeah. Very cool. I still feel like space in our in our community for like, a really good accountant that like, actually does their job, like high level high touch could charge probably twice as much, you know, as mine does. And like they would be so busy. It would be ridiculous.Unknown Speaker  12:16  I agree. I think any any accountant that wants to book using savvy cow, I think you'd have a million customers. bootstrap customers, right? Oh, you you savvy Cal. You're not you're five years old. Colleen, is this accountant, the one that sent you like a 40? page? Yeah, organizer right here. Fill out all of your documents. And I said, you should just tell him No, I'm not going to do that. Is that this one?Colleen Schnettler  12:42  That's the that's the one. Yeah, I was like, What am I paying you for? Like, and again, he's a nice guy. But it was just like, like, I pay you. So I don't have to fill out the 40 page document. Like I might as well just do it in TurboTax. If this is what we're doing, yeah, yeah. SoUnknown Speaker  12:59  yeah. Any other accounting lawyering? So one sided? One thing? Yeah, the one thing that the lawyer was saying we need to talk to the accountant about is the 83 b election, which I think determines when the taxable event, like when you recognize the taxes of your new part of Hammerstone. So I think, you know, just for context, that's what she was talking about. But I don't know too much else about that. The other thing she mentioned, which I thought was interesting, is his colleagues portion of the company coming from Sean's and my portion, or is the company somehow magically expanding to have more shares? And that's something we'll need to figure out because I have no clue. I think that's also a tax base decision, basically. I think it is.Unknown Speaker  13:52  Yeah, but yeah, we're gonna have to explore all that cuz I totally get it either. Yeah, even though there was another Oh, go ahead.Colleen Schnettler  14:00  I was gonna say even stuff, like invoicing. Like we invoice the customer, the client? Do I invoice you guys? Ask us guys, US people, US people? Or do I from my LLC? Or do I take a distribution? Like how youUnknown Speaker  14:14  just did you just destroyed our bank account to yourself? Yeah. So we'll just invoice Amazon, you can just pay yourself?Unknown Speaker  14:22  Yeah, I think that's right. But I don't know, actually, we need to check because I don't know if, you know, Colleen takes that as an owner distribution. That doesn't. That doesn't offset our revenue. So like if Hammerstone makes, you know, let's say Hammerstone makes $10,000 but actually 9500 Oh, call is a good point. We need to recognize that as an expense otherwise, hammer stones pay $1,000 Yeah, so not an owner. Just contribution. No, we shouldn't do it that way. That's right. So let's not do accounting live on air because this is something that's definitely definitely one we'll need to get sorted. I don't think anything changes. You've been invoicing us, and we've been paying you and I don't think anything changes but wanting to double check that. Yeah, fun stuff.Colleen Schnettler  15:25  I know. It is like surprising. I'm sure we will be happy. We hashed all this out. But like at this point in the business, it feels frustrating, right? Because it feels like it's slowing us down. We have to have meetings, we haven't talked out lawyer to like, Oh my gosh, can we just do our work? Like, IUnknown Speaker  15:40  don't want to write tests. I just want to write the products like, this is this is the testing of business. You have to do all this stuff you don't want to do. Yeah, that's funny, though.Unknown Speaker  15:50  I don't mind it at all feels absolutely necessary. Really great. Yeah. That's wonderful. Oh, that gets a job that we have to do. I mean, got to do it.Colleen Schnettler  15:59  That's interesting. Yeah, I just I don't know. I'm just like, let's just skip all this. It's fine. But it's good to do it. You're absolutely right.Unknown Speaker  16:07  That's why we have you, Sean. So I think, you know, we have all this context. And this is actually a podcast, not just a Hangout. So I think it would be interesting to talk just quickly about how the three of us like how we ended up here. Because like Sean said, he and I have just been yoloing it and just like, yeah, we own 50% of the company. Let's shake hands. And that's because Shawn and I didn't just meet on the internet yesterday. And you know, bringing in a third partner is a big deal. But we didn't just, you know, meet Colleen off the street. So, Shawn, do you want to talk about how you and I met? And how long ago that was?Unknown Speaker  16:52  Yes. Before Isaac was born, so probably eight years ago. And I was I just quit my job to start writing sketchy CSS and I went to the bacon biz conference, right? Is that what it's called? bacon bits. Yeah, yeah. Amy hoy. And yeah, anyway, now pixelmon. The other thing. The first one, actually, right. wasn't the first one. Yeah. So yeah. And you shared a room with Josh Pigford on that.Unknown Speaker  17:18  Yeah, I did I share it with Josh Pigford. Because the way that I knew Josh Pigford was cuz I shared a room with him at micro comp. He was on. So micro comp and bacon bids were the same year that year, and he had posted on the micro comp thing like, Hey, does anybody want to share room I'm normal. That's like, I doubt you're normal. But I'll look you up. And I looked him up. And we had like a zoom call. And I was like, Yeah, sure. I don't have any friends there. And I need like, you know, when you when you go into a conference, and you don't know anyone, and it's terrifying and like you're in high school with no friends. That's how I felt. So I was like, Yes, I'll share a room with this guy. And then he went to bacon business. So we shared a room again. It's so funny that you remember that?Unknown Speaker  18:06  Yeah, I met you. I met buckbee. I met Barry. Hmm, I think there was there Pete was there. I was not there. No, no, no, Pete wasn't there. He wasn't there. He wasn't. No, no, I didn't meet Pete in real life for a few years. Oh, wow. Yeah. But Pete was working on his stripe book around that time. And then and then Andrew had. So Andrew had a company called churn buster, Andrew Culver, a mutual friend of ours. So he had this company called churn Buster and turn Buster had a HipChat support channel, which he just had it so he would invite people to hang out with him in there. And then every now and then, is it chat customers or be his churn Buster customers would pop in and ask questions. And we'd be like, well, Andrew is not here. But like, have you tried blah, blah, blah. troubleshoot the problem?Unknown Speaker  18:58  It was such a scam. We did all this support for him.Unknown Speaker  19:02  Yeah. And there was also briefly, same in that same HipChat room, there was Patrick Collison a like yeah, that's right. It was in the HipChat room with us. forgot about that. Yeah. We've had people graduate out of Yeah. Yeah, but that's what we all met was that room like buckbee invited us from that conference. And then we started hanging out together there and then meet in real life every now and then, you know, it's making this conferences etc. So we just have this little community which has been growing and changing over the years. Now, it's a Slack channel. It's not Andrews. How to intercept or gel anymore.Unknown Speaker  19:47  Yeah, eight years ago, and then Colleen, you met Andrew first. Is that right? Are you met Michelle?Colleen Schnettler  19:54  Andrew? No, I met Andrew first Sean actually. Put Michelle and I Touch I believe. So I met Andrew, I was going to the Ruby on Rails meetups in Virginia Beach. And there were like three people that attended these meetups like it was not. They were not well attended. But Andrew came to speak at one. And this was maybe four or five years ago, I don't remember. Andrew came to speak at one. And afterwards, we all went out to get drinks all four of us, because he and one of our mutual friends knew each other really well. And so Andrew told me so this is like back when I'm in my just want to launch a product phase kind of that, you know, in the beginning when you like have that really strong desire, but you're aimless because you don't have any contact salutely Yes, yeah, that's back in those days. So Andrew and I were talking about business ideas. So he told me about the slack group. So then I joined the slack group. And then I started having weekly lunches with the Virginia Beach people. And that's kind of how I got to know everyone. And then I met you guys will show that I had worked on and off together. Occasionally we were on the same contract. But we never really worked together. I feel like we were always we didn't really know each other, even though we kind of worked together. And then I met you two, what, two years ago, in real life. I think it was two years ago in the dc, dc. DC was the first time so before that I had never met Aaron and you were really active Aaron in the Slack channel. So I like didn't even know who you were. And Sean I kind of knew because he was like the React guy that worked on the same contract I worked on, but we've never really worked on together. Yeah. And then I met you guys IRL, as they say, yeah.Unknown Speaker  21:39  And we have another so obviously, we skipped the retreat last year. But we have another in person retreat coming up. Yeah, hopefully.Colleen Schnettler  21:49  Hopefully. Yeah. We'll see. I'm nervous. I'm nervous about it. Yeah, same. I will say though, good.Unknown Speaker  21:59  Saying that I feel nervous about it, too. I wasn't even thinking about it. But until recently, when all the sudden I've had to start having new, like, bubble conversations with my parents about like, Who's gonna watch Isaac if like, he has an outbreak in his class? And like, should we do the after school care for him where you guys want to commit to it? So he's not like with all these other kids? And I'm like, Oh, no, this is a retreat even gonna happen?Colleen Schnettler  22:22  Yeah, I hope so. We'll see. But I would say like going back to the three of us working together, we never really got to know each other. Well, I would say until we started working together recently, about, what, eight months ago now. I mean, I think that I don't think I any of us, and I can just speak for myself, you guys would not have invited me in to this company eight months ago, right? Like, we didn't have that relationship. I mean, we had no context on each other, we had never worked together. So I think like us forming a partnership has really grown over that working together almost every day, you know, over the extended period of time. Definitely.Unknown Speaker  23:00  Yep. I would absolutely agree. Yeah, I think. So. I think, just from my perspective, like the thing, the problem that we're working on, and maybe we should describe it, because I don't know that everyone has listened from Episode One, which you should. So the thing that we're doing is, it's like a visual Query Builder. So you know, when you go to, let's use ecommerce, because that's an easy example, when you go to an e commerce website, and you're like, I want shoes that are Nikes, in size 11, or 12, and are black and are under $100, and ship in two days. So like, you can build up your, you know, your perfect filter, just kind of like on the fly. We're building that as a component. So you can just drop it in to your Rails application, or you can just drop it into your Laravel application. And then the application developer can say, here are all the conditions that I want to offer my users, I want to offer them shoe size, and shoe color and price. And then Hammerstone, y'all figure out how do you show that on the front end? How do you do validation? How do you apply that to the database? How do you store that so that they can like, you know, generate a report and send it later. So that's like, that's the product we're building. And it's called refine, and that's what we've been working on for a long time. And I think, from my perspective, one of the reasons that I was like, Yes, we absolutely have to have Colleen is because you've spent like eight months or a year getting your head around this problem, which it takes that long, and I think you have an extremely good grasp on the problem space and it's like a very complicated problem. And you've got, like, you've got ideas on how to make it How to make it successful in the rails world, which I don't have, I don't have the context, I don't have the knowledge, I don't have the experience. And so somebody that has the whole problem set loaded into their mind and is really excited about it and wants to make it a Rails thing. I was like, Yes, let's do it. Bring her on. Absolutely.Unknown Speaker  25:23  Yeah, I think it makes sense. Because it makes sense. If we're, if we're just doing like a really small, like little project, that's gonna make a couple 1000 bucks a month. First of all, Aaron, you should just launch that without me. And then, but we're not like I think we have, I have at least a larger sort of thesis in mind for building a lot of different types of components like this. And we realized that like, we can build front ends that are compatible with different back ends, and we could build a Rails version level version of Python version, like, there's a choice for how we could like, expand our market, we could do, we could go down that route. There's other ways to do it. But like, that was a possibility. And here we are, we were presented with the opportunity to build a Rails version paid for by a client. And now we can have somebody take over that piece and own that, that's a no brainer for me. So it kind of commits us to the strategy of like, we're going for two different markets. And that's how we're going to, you know, like, increase our market size. But I also think that makes sense, long term. And it makes sense that Coleen run the run the rail side.Colleen Schnettler  26:38  I think so I have listened to your podcast, I think you guys are really, like, I feel like your excitement, I don't know, I know, you can kind of see the potential. But literally everyone I have ever worked for could use this query builder. So it's just I mean, when you describe it, Aaron, I think it's hard to describe it. Because someone asked me, he was like, What is this thing you guys are building that you're so excited about. And I was like, I don't know how to describe it concisely. But the power like when you guys first, when we first talked about this, I literally thought it was just going to be, you know, a couple scopes, right? Like, you're just like, Oh, I'm going to scope the model, and I'm going to send you the string. And you're just going to scope the model on it. And that's not what it is at. All right. So I just think, I think we can grow this business with just this product to, you know, larger than any of us have done before, like, This product is really spectacular. I mean, it's just so cool. And I think it'll be cool to like, approach it on different fronts, it'll be really interesting to see how it does in Rails versus, you know, Laravel, and just kind of see the growth trajectory. And both of those ecosystems. Yeah, it's gonna be cool.Unknown Speaker  27:47  Yeah. To get there, though, like, there's, there's some problems. You know, like, it's not, like, Yes, I definitely could, every entrepreneur could see how their product could be used everywhere. Like, that's 100% true of every entrepreneur who creates a product, like everybody should use this. But like, I think that for us, there's the obvious, like, low hanging fruit of, we're gonna get some sales from on the site, like you and Aaron are basically gonna do like dev rel, you're going to do like a little bit of content marketing, you're going to be building up the those relationships, and we'll get a few sprinkles of sales there. And those are going to be people that are going to buy it like because they're like, Oh, yeah, I was gonna build this, but instead, I'm going to buy it right. So they're already at that build versus buy decision point, then, and they already know, like, they need the thing. They already know, they need a query builder that they probably already, like, use that word or phrase even. So they're pretty far along in the process. In order for us to get out further and deeper into the market. That's where we have to start doing some convincing or pointing out to people that like, Look, you can, you could drop this into your product. Now you don't even see the need for it. But like, I could we then show can show the need for it. And I think that's a that's like another harder problem. So there's like, how far can we get on people that are going to make build versus buy decision? And how, how can we figure out systems to get in front of them right then? And then what's the next step, the next layer, like pulling in these other people that like you could add this into your app now. And it solves pains You didn't even know you had kind of situation, which is a lot harder. That's like a lot harder. A thing is possible. I mean, I've already had conversations with somebody who's interested, like they're just what are you doing? And I explained it to them. And then I explained it in the context of their app. And they were like, Oh, I need it. Right. So I know it's possible. But it's very hard. Which that's gonna be my job. Yeah, seriously.Unknown Speaker  29:48  Yeah. And I think like, Colleen, you've worked on a bunch of different clients. So you're not just looking out and being like, oh, the world needs this. You're looking back on your clients and being like, no, the people That I did work for in the app, they need this. Is that right?Colleen Schnettler  30:04  Yes. Yeah. And since they're my clients like I would, I mean, that's the nice thing about consultants. Right? I'd be like, you all need to buy this immediately. And they would. But yeah, to Shawn's point we how do we expand past our existing networks? Right? Like, that's basically, you know, we have we have pretty good networks of people in our community, people in the indie SAS community. How do you expand beyond that?Unknown Speaker  30:31  Huh? Yeah, exactly. That's, that's the hard part. But if we do that, then we definitely have a business. But that's like one of these things that we have to that's, that's the hard part. Yeah. My my movies a coupleUnknown Speaker  30:44  years, my move so far has not been expanding beyond my personal network, it's been expanding my personal network. So like I'm trying right now, to gather up more and more Laravel like connections and eyeballs. And the way I've been doing that, as you know, putting out either open source projects, or blog posts or torchlight is another great example, something that something that's not gonna make us rich, you know, independently, but is getting a lot of traction within Laravel the ecosystem of people saying like, Oh, this is really cool, let me you know, follow the story, follow this guy who's doing it or sign up and use it myself. And so that's been my move so far. But obviously, that only scales, that only scale so far, but it's definitely like, it's definitely step one, I mean, might as well start with the inner circle. SoUnknown Speaker  31:45  I think there's been me is another benefit of having Colleen was, like, takes it I was gonna have to do what Colleen is doing now, like on the rail side, like what you're doing in Laravel, I was gonna have to do that. And I am a Rails developer, but it's, I'm not as well connected in that community. And it's a bit of a stretch, I could get there. But like the learning curve was going to be large. I was trying to figure out ways to like hire contractors to like, kind of get me there and like, So this takes that off my plate entirely. And then like, focus on the hard problem. Which is like where I've been, I have gotten to the point where I have a business that is selling products, paying my bills, doing what you're talking about Aaron doing the devil stuff. And like having doing content marketing and that sort of thing. I've been there getting past that is a whole other thing that I want to figure out and do. And that's, like, that's the goal for me at least.Unknown Speaker  32:43  Well, I've never gotten to the point where I have a business paying my bills, like a product paying my bills. So I'm glad we have you beyond that, because you've been there I have not calling you haven't either, right? You have simple file upload, but it doesn't pay bills. And so to have your mind working on that issue, well, Colleen and I are doing other stuff, I think I think it's gonna work out quite just knowUnknown Speaker  33:10  for everyone. Like, I could just get you guys ahead of you and tell you how you're gonna feel a year from now. You're gonna be like, how do I make more money than this? I'm like, right on the cusp of like a real business. What do I do? Yeah. It's just the next step. Yeah. Well, hopefully you've got it all sorted out by then. Yeah, we'll have it all figured out. Yeah, perfect. I'll just have buckbee tell me what to do. Seriously,Colleen Schnettler  33:35  that usually works. Yeah, that does usually work. Alright, what else? Nobody, nobody, nobody. I'm good.Unknown Speaker  33:51  So we're gonna do, we're gonna do three people from now on, right? calling your game to join all of Yeah, yeah. Hope, right. That's great. Some, some weeks you and I can just talk technical the whole time. I think that's gonna be one of the fun things is, like, I've already picked up a lot of good stuff for the lair Val product from, like working with you. And I think that is going to expand beyond just the Refine, like, refine is the name of our product just beyond refine, into other, like, either open source packages or other products be like, hey, what? what exists in Laravel that doesn't exist in rails and vice versa. I think that'll be a fun, like cross pollination opportunity, either for content or for products. But I'm thinking right now, especially for content. Yeah. So, all right, well, so we just call it there.Colleen Schnettler  34:57  Sounds good. All right.Michele Hansen  35:00  Michelle again. That's all for software social for this week. You can go to Hammerstone dot dev to learn more about that project and listen to their past episodes. We'll talk to you next week.Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Enjoy part one of this classic episode series where Andrew Warner from Mixergy interviews Russell on the ClickFunnels startup story! Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com ---Transcript--- Good morning everybody, this is Russell Brunson. I want to welcome you back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. And you guys are in for a very special treat over the next four episodes. So let me give you some context on what's going to happen, and why you should be so excited. Alright so, my favorite podcast, other than mine of course, that all of you guys should be subscribed to is called Mixergy. Andrew Warner is the guy who runs Mixergy podcast and I love that podcast because of Andrew. He is my favorite interviewer. If you look at how a lot of people do interview podcasts, they ask questions and I don't know, I've suffered from this in the past as well. I'm not a good interviewer, at least not now. I'd like to learn how to do that skill, but I'm not a great interviewer. And most people who do podcasts with interviews aren't like great interviewers, but Andrew is like the best interviewer I've ever seen. The way he asks questions, how deep he goes and the research he does before the interviews, and all sorts of stuff. Anyway, I love his style, love how he does it so what's cool, I've actually been on the show twice in the past. And the first time, I don't even, sorry, the second time, he totally caught me off guard. I remember he asked me some questions and I didn't really know and I responded and he told me after, he told me live on the interview that he doesn't edit his interviews. He was like, “Well, that was the worst answer you've ever given.” I was like, “Oh, thanks.” Anyway, it just totally caught me off guard, but it was cool the way that he just like kind of holds your feet to the fire. So a little while ago I thought, I want to tell the Clickfunnels startup story. But I didn't want me to just to tell it, I wanted someone who would tell it from a different angle, who would ask the questions that I think people would want to know and do it in a really cool way. So I called Andrew and I'm like, “Hey, I've been wanting to do this thing, and I want to do an event around it. Would you be interested.” And he was like, luckily he said yes. So it's funny, Andrew's famous, I think I might have talked about this in the interview too, but he's famous for these scotch nights he does, and as a Mormon I don't drink so I can't go to his scotch nights. So when we planned this interview, we planned it in Provo, Utah at this place called the Dry Bar Comedy Club. So a dry bar is a bar with no alcohol. So it was kind of a funny thing. We brought those two things, my world and his world together in this one spot to a dry bar, and told the Clickfunnels startup story. And it was cool, ahead of time he did so much research. He interviewed people who love me, people who hated me, he interviewed our old business partners who are no longer part of the business. He did everything and then he came and I told him, “Everything's, you can ask me any question you want. Nothing, no holds barred, feel free to do whatever you want.” So we did the interview and it was about two hours long, and I loved it. I think it turned out amazing. And I hope you guys like it too. So I'll tell you some of the details about the Clickfunnels startup story. How we built what we did, what happened, the ups, the downs, the negatives, the positives. He brings a couple of people up onstage to tell their parts of the story. Anyway, I really hope you enjoy it. So what we're going to do, I'm going to have each episode over the next four episodes be about thirty minutes long so you can listen to them in pieces. I hope iyou enjoy them, I hope you love them. And if you do, please, please, please take a screen shot of your phone when you're listening to it, and go post it on Instagram or Facebook and tag me. And then do hashtag marketing secrets and hopefully that will get more people to listen to the podcast. And then please, if you haven't yet, go rate and review, which would be amazing. So with that said, I'm going to queue up the theme song and when we come back we will start immediately into part one of four of the Dry Bar Comedy Club Interview. Keith Yacky: Clickfunnels has changed a lot of our lives. We all have an origin story. Mine was something similar to, I set up my website on GoDaddy and things were going great. And then Dave Woodward was like, “Dude, you need Clickfunnels.” I'm like, “I don't need a Clickfunnel. I don't even know what a Clickfunnel is.” And he's like, “No, seriously man. This is going to totally change your business.” I'm like, “Bro, I have GoDaddy. They have a commercial on the Super Bowl, Clickfunnels doesn't. But when they do, I'll do it.” Well, boy was I wrong. I changed over and it absolutely changed our business and changed our lives. So thank you for that, Dave. But here's the thing, in every industry there's somebody that comes along that really disrupts the industry, that really changes it, and that really does something amazing for that industry. And as we all, why we're here, we know that person is Russell Brunson. And he has changed a lot of our lives. So before I bring him up here, they have asked me to ask you to make sure you don't do any live recording of this next interview, because the gloves are coming off and they want to be able to present it to the world. You can do little Instagram clips if you'd like, like 15 second ones and tag them. My understanding is the best hashtag and the best clip, gets a date with Drew. I don't know, that's just what they told me. So blame them. But with that, again, no videoing, and let us just absolutely take the roof off this place as we bring up our beloved Russell Brunson. Give it up guys. Russell: Alright, well thanks for coming you guys. This is so cool. I'm excited to be here. So a couple of real quick things before we get started. For all of you guys who know, who came to be part of this, we had you all donate a little bit of money towards Operation Underground Railroad, and I'm really excited because Melanie told me right before I got here the total of how much money we raised from this little event for them. So I think the final number was a little over $13,000 was raised for Operation Underground Railroad. So thank you guys for your continued support with them. Just to put that in perspective, that's enough money to save about 5 children from sex slavery. So it's a big deal and a life changing thing, so it's pretty special. So I'm grateful for you guys donating money to come here. And hopefully you've had a good time so far. Has it been fun? I really want to tuck my shirt in now, I'm feeling kind of awkward. No it's been awesome. Okay so what we're going to do now, I want to introduce the person who's going to be doing the interview tonight. And it's somebody I'm really excited to have here. In fact, I met him for the first time like an hour ago, in person. But I want to tell kind of the reason why I wanted him to do this, and why we're all here. And I'm grateful he said yes, and was willing to come out here and kind of do this. So Andrew runs a podcast called Mixergy. How many of you guys in here are Mixergy listeners? Mixergy is my favorite podcast, I love it. He's interviewed thousands of people about their startup stories and about how they started their businesses. And it's really cool because he brings in entrepreneurs and he tells, gets them to tell their stories. But what's unique about what Andrew does that's fascinating, the way he interviews people is completely different, it's unique. I listen to a lot of podcasts and I don't like a lot of interview shows because a lot of them are just kind of high level. Everyone you listen to with Andrew, he gets really, really deep. The other fun thing is he doesn't edit his interviews. So there was one interview, I'll tease him about this right now. But I was listening to it on my headphones, and him and the guest got in kind of an argument and a fight and then it just ended and they aired it. I was like, “I can't believe you aired that, it was amazing.” And then I was on his podcast a little while later, and he asked me some questions that I couldn't quite understand perfectly, so I was trying to respond the best I could and kind of fumbled through it. And instead of letting me off the hook, his response was, “Man Russell, that was probably the worst answer I've ever heard you give in any interview ever.” And I was like, “Oh my gosh.” So I'm excited for tonight because I told it was like no holds barred and he could ask me anything he wants about the ups of Clickfunnels, the downs of Clickfunnels and anything else, and it's going to be a lot of fun. So I'm excited to have him here. So with that said, let's put our hands together for Mr. Andrew Warner. Andrew Warner: I think my mic is right over here. Thank you everyone, thanks Russell for having me here. Most people will contact me after I interview them and say, “Could you please not air the interview?” And you actually had me back here to do it in person. And you were so nice, you even got us this room here. Check this out, they set us up, they're so nice at Clickfunnels. They said, “Andrew, you're staying here, we're going to put you and your family up the night before in a room.” My wife was so good, look that's her journaling. My kids were playing around, sleeping in the same, sleeping together, enjoying themselves. And then I went to call somebody who was basically let go from Clickfunnels. And my wife goes, “Andrew, why do you have to do that? That's not why they invited you here.” And I said, “I do know Russell. I know the team. They actually did invite me to really help get to the story of how Clickfunnels started, how it built up.” And the reason I was up calling people, understanding the story is because I want to make it meaningful for you. I've talked to a lot of you as you were coming in here, you want to know how they got here, what worked for Clickfunnels, what would work for us. So that's my goal here, to spend the time understanding by interviewing you about how you did it. So I want to go way back to a guy a few of you might recognize, and I know you would, and ask you what drew you to this guy when you were younger? Russell: Don Lepre Clip: “One tiny classified ad in the newspaper that makes just 30-40 dollars profit in a week, it could make you a fortune, because the secret is learning how to take that one tiny classified that just made 30-40 dollars profit in a week, and to realize that you could now take that same exact ad and place it in up to 3,000 other newspapers around the country….” Russell: I'm having nostalgia right now. So this is the story of that, I was 12, 13 years old, something like that, and I was watching the news with my dad. And usually he's like, “Go to bed Russell.” And he didn't that night and then the news got over and I think he thought I was asleep and Mash came on. So Mash started playing and then it got over, and then this infomercial showed up. And I'm laying there on the couch watching Don Lepre talk about tiny classified ads, I was totally freaking out and I jumped up and begged my dad to buy it and he said no. And I was like, “Are you kidding? Did you not listen to what he said?” Did you guys just hear that? That was a good pitch huh? It's really good. I love a good pitch. It is so good. So I went and asked my dad if I could earn the money. So I went and mowed lawns and earned the money and ordered the kit and I still have the original books to this day. Andrew: Were you disappointed? I bought it too. It was the dream of being able to do it. Russell: That's why I like you so much, that's amazing. Andrew: And it's just, all he sent you was a bunch of paper guides with how to buy ads, right. Were you disappointed when you got that? Russell: No, I was excited. I think for me because the vision was cast, it was like, he said right there word for word, you make 40 dollars a newspaper, and if you're disappointed, but he put that same ad in 3,000 newspapers, imagine that. So I had the vision of that, I think the only thing I was disappointed in, I didn't have any money to actually buy an ad. And that was more like, I can't actually do it now. Andrew: You are a champion wrestler and then you got here. Is your wife here? Russell: My beautiful wife right here, Collette. Andrew: Hey Collette. And your dad had a conversation with you about money, what did he say? Russell: So up to that point my dad had supported me, and I figured he would the rest of my life, I think. I don't know. So I was 21 almost 22 at this time, I was wrestling so I couldn't get a job because I was wrestling all the time. Then I met Collette, fell in love with her and then I called my parents and I was like, “Hey, I'm going to marry her. I'm going propose to her and everything.” Expecting them to be like, “Sweet, that'll be awesome.” And my mom was all excited, I'm not going to lie. But then my dad was like, “Just so you know if you get married, you have to be a man now. You have to support yourself.” And I was like, “I don't know how to do that, I'm wrestling.” And he's like, “Well, I'm not going to keep paying for you to do it.” I'm like, “But I literally got the ring. I have, I can't not propose now.” So that was kind of the thing. So it was interesting because about that time there was another infomercial, there's the pattern, about I can't remember exactly the name of the company, but they were doing an event at the local Holiday inn that was like, “Hey, you're going to build websites and make money.” And it was like the night or two days after I told my dad this and he was like, “you're in trouble.” And all the sudden I saw that, so I was like, there's the answer. So I'm at the holiday in two days later, sitting in the room, hearing the pitch, signing up for stuff I shouldn't have bought. There's the pattern. Andrew: Did you feel like a loser getting married at 22 and still counting on your dad for money? Did you feel like you were marrying a loser? Russell: Actually, this is a sad story because she actually, my roommate at the time, she actually asked him, “Do you think he's going to be able to support me in the future?” and he was like, “Yeah, I think so.” I'm like, I didn't know this until later. I don't think I felt like a loser, but I definitely was nervous, like oh my gosh. Because my whole identity at that point in my life was I was a wrestler and if that was to disappear…I couldn't have that disappear. So I was like, I have to figure out something. There's gotta be some way to do both. Andrew: To both what? To be a wrestler and make money from some infomercial? Russell: I didn't know that was going to be the path, but yeah. Andrew: But you knew you were going to do something. What did you think that was going to be? Russell: I wasn't sure. When I went to the event, they were selling these time share books and you could buy resale rights to them, so I was like, oh. And I remember back, because I remembered the Don Lepre stuff, so I was like, maybe I could buy classified ads and sell these things. And then I was at the event and they were talking about websites, and that was the first thing I'd heard about websites. And they're talking about Google and the beginnings of this whole internet thing. So I was like, I can do that. It made all logical sense to me, I just didn't know how to do it. I just knew that that was going to be the only path because if I had to get a job I wouldn't be able to wrestle. So I was like, I have to figure out something that's not going to be a 40 hour thing because I'm spending that time wrestling and going to school. So I had to figure out the best of how to do both. Andrew: And you obviously found it. My goal today is to go through this process of finding it. But let me skip ahead a little bit. What is this website? Russell: Oh man, alright. This is actually, the back story behind this is there was a guy named Vince James who wrote a book called the Twelve Month Millionaire. And if anybody's got that book, it's fat like a phone book. It's a huge book. I read and I was like, this book's amazing. And at the time I was an affiliate marketer, so I had a little bit, maybe a thousand people on my list. So I called up Vince and I was like, “Hey, can I interview you about the book and then I'll use that as a tool to sell more copies of your book?” and he was like, “Sure.” So he jumped on the phone with me on a Saturday and he spent 3 hours letting me interview with any questions I had. And I got to the end of it and I still had a ton of questions and he's like, “Well come back next week and do it again.” So I interviewed him for 6 hours about it. And then we used that to sell some copies of his book and then it just sat there, probably for 2 or 3 years as I was trying different ideas, different businesses and things like that. But every time I would talk to people I would tell them about this interview. I'm like, “I interviewed this guy who made a hundred million dollars through direct mail.” And everyone wanted to hear the interview, everybody asked me for it. So one day I was like, “Let's just make that the product.” And we put it up here and this was the very first funnel we had that did over a million dollars, my first Two Comma Club funnel. Andrew: A million dollars. Do you remember what that felt like? Russell: It was amazing because it was funny back then. There were people, a few people who were making a lot of money online that I was watching and just idolizing everything they'd do. I was trying to model what they were doing. And I'd had little wins, you know $10,000 here, $15,000 here, but this was by far the first one that just hit. Everyone was so excited. Andrew: How'd you celebrate? Russell: I don't even remember how we celebrated. Andrew: You married a winner after all. I mean really. Do you remember what you guys did to celebrate? No. Russell: I don't even remember. (audience responding, inaudible) It was in my list. That's a good question. Andrew: It'll come up, that list is going to come up in a second too. You ended up creating Clickfunnels. How much revenue are you guys doing now, 2018? Russell: 2018 we'll pass over a hundred million dollars, this year. Andrew:  A hundred million dollars, wowee. How far have you come? Russell: Like when did we start? Andrew: Today revenue, as of today, October 2018? Russell: Oh this year? Oh from the beginning of time until now? Andrew: No, no I mean I want to know, you're going to do a hundred million dollars, are you at 10 and you're hoping to get…. Russell: These guys know better than me, do you know exactly where we're at right now? 83 million for the year. Andrew: 83! I love that Dave knows that right, so I want to know how you got to that. I went through your site, pages and pages that look like this. It's like long form sales letters. I asked my assistant to take pictures, she said, “This is, I can't do it, it's too many.” Look at this guys. I asked him to help me figure out what he did. He created this list, this is not the full list, look at this. Every blue line is him finding an old archive of a page he created. It goes on and on like this. How long did it take you to put that together? Russell: It was probably 5 or 6 hours just to find all the pages. Andrew: 5 or 6 hours you spent to find these images to help me tell the story. Years and years of doing this, a lot of failure, what amazes me is you didn't feel jaded and let down after Don Lepre sold you that stuff. You didn't feel jaded and let down and say, ‘This whole make money thing is a failure.' After, and we're going to talk about some of your failures, you just kept going with that same smile, the same eagerness. Alright, let's start with the very first business. What's this one? This is called… Russell: Sublime Net. How many of you guys remember Sublime Net out there? Andrew: You guys remember this? Anyone remember it. You do? Russell: John does. So actually this is the first business for the first website I bought. I was so proud of it, and I spent, I don't know, I wanted to sell software so I was like, ‘what could I name my company?” So I figured out Exciting Software. So I went to buy Exciteware.com, but it wasn't for sale. So I bought Exciteware.net and Collette was working at the time and she came home and I was so excited, I'm like, “We got our first website. We're going to be rich.”  And I told her the name, I was like, “It's Exciteware.net.” and she looked at me with this look like, she's like, “Are you selling underwear, what is the…lingerie?” I'm like, “No, it's software.” And she's like, “You can't, I'm not going to tell my mom that you bought that. You gotta think of another name.” I'm like, “Crap.” So that was the next best name I came up with was Sublime Net. Like the band Sublime. That was it. Andrew: And I was going to ask you what it was, but it was lots of different things. Every screenshot on there is a whole other business under the same name. What are the businesses? Do you remember? Russell: There was website hosting, there was affiliates sites, there were, I can't even remember now, trying to remember. Everything I could think of, resell rights…. Andrew: Lots of different things. How did you do, how well did you do? Russell: Never anything, very little. I remember the first thing I ever sold was an affiliate product, I made $20 on it through my Paypal account, because I remember that night, I do remember I celebrated. We went out to dinner and I had a Paypal credit card, and we bought dinner with $20 and then the guy refunded the next day. It was so sad. But I was proud that I had made money. Andrew: How did you support yourself while this was not working? Russell: I didn't. My beautiful wife did, she had 2 jobs at the time to support me while I was wrestling and doing these things. She was the one who made it possible to gamble and risk and try crazy things. Andrew: Can I put you on the spot and ask you to just come over here and just tell me about this period and what you felt at the time? Is that, I know you don't love being onstage, Russell is good with it, but I know you don't love it. If you don't mind, I'm just going to go with one more story and then I'll come back to you. You cool with it? Good, she seems a little nervous. Actually, wait. Let's see if we can get her right now. Oh you are, okay. Russell: Everyone, this is Collette, my beautiful wife. Andrew: Do you want to use his mic? Collette: Sure. Russell: She's so mad at me right now. Collette: I wanted to come to this, who knew? Andrew: You are like his, he's so proud that he had no venture funding. But you are like his first investor. Russell: That is true. Collette: Yes, I'll be his first investor. Andrew: Can you hold the mic a little closer. How did you know he wasn't a loser? No job, he's wrestling, he's buying infomercial stuff that doesn't go anywhere. We know he did well, so we're not insulting him now, but what did you see in him back then that let you say, ‘I'm going to work extra hard and pay for what he's not doing?' Collette: What did I see in him? It was actually his energy, his spirit, because I'm not going to lie, it was kind of not love at first site, we had, we were geeko's, do you know what I mean? Shopped at the Goodwill, in baggy pants and tshirts, I don't know. But it was the person who just was always positive and we had the same goals. Andrew: That's the thing I noticed too, the positivity. When these businesses fail, we're showing the few on the screen, it's easy to look back and go, ‘ha ha, I did this and it was interesting.' But at the time, what was the bounce back like when things didn't work out? When the world basically said, you know what as sales people, when they don't buy your stuff it's like they don't buy you. When the world basically said, ‘we don't like you. We don't like what you've created.' What was the bounce back like? Hard? Collette: No, because I come from a hard working family. So I work hard. So you just work hard to make it work. Andrew: And he's just an eternal optimistic, and you're an eternal optimist too, like genuinely, really? Collette: Yeah, I guess. It works. Andrew: His dad said, ‘No more money. You had to cut up your credit cards too.' Collette: Yeah. Andrew: What was, how did you cut up your credit cards. What was that day like? Collette: Hard. Yeah hard. Those that don't know, I'm a little bit older than Russell. So I've always had this little bit of independency to go do and buy and do these things, and then all the sudden I'm like, step back sista! You gotta take care of this young man, so we can get to where we're at. Anyway, but now… Andrew: Now things are good? Collette: Now things are amazing. Andrew: Alright, give her a big round of applause. Thanks for coming up here. These businesses did okay, and then you started something that I never heard about, but look at this. I'm going to zoom in on a section of the Google doc you sent me. This is the call center. The call center got to how many employees? 100? Russell: We had about 60 full time sales people, 20 full time coaches, and about 20 people doing the marketing and sales, so about 100 people in the whole company, yeah. Andrew: 100 people doing what kind of call center, what kind of work? Russell: So what we would do, we would sell free CDs and things like that online, free CDs, free books, free whatever, and then when someone would buy it we'd call them on the phone, and then we'd offer them high end coaching. Andrew: And this was you getting customers, how? Russell: Man, back then it was pre-facebook. So a lot of it was Google, it was email lists, it was anything we could figure out to drive traffic, all sorts of weird stuff. Andrew: And then people come in, get a free CD, sign up for coaching, and then you had to hire people and teach them how to coach? How did you do that. Russell: Yeah, that was the hard thing. When we first started doing it, I was just doing the coaching. People would come in and we had a little, Brent and some of you guys remember the little offices we had, and we'd bring people in and we were so proud of our little office. And they'd come in and we'd teach them for 2 or 3 days, teach an event for them, and then as it got bigger it was harder and harder for me to do that. So eventually, and a lot of people didn't want to come to Boise. I love Boise, but it's really hard to get to. So people would sign up for coaching, and then they'd never show up to Boise and then a year later they'd want their money back. So we're like, we have to get something where they're getting fulfilled whether they showed up to Boise or now. So we started doing phone coaching, and at first it was me, and then it was me and a couple other people, and then we started training more coaches, and that's kind of how it started. It was one of those things though, at  first it was just like 5 or 6 of us in a room doing it, and it worked and so then the next logical thing is, we should go from 5 people to 10 to 20 and next thing you know, we wake up with 100 people. I'm like, what are we doing? We're little kids, it scares me that I'm in charge of all these people's livelihood, but that's kind of where it was at and it got kind of scary for me. Andrew: Sometimes I wonder if I'm hiding behind interviewing because I'm afraid to stand up and say, ‘here's what I want. Here's what I think we need to do. Here's how the world should be.' So I'm amazed that even back then, after having a few businesses that didn't really work out, you were comfortable enough to say, ‘Come to my office, I'm going to teach you. I've got it figured out.' When you hadn't.  How did you get yourself comfortable, and what made you feel comfortable about being able to say, ‘I could teach these people. Come to my office.' Who call up, who then become my coaches, who then have to teach other people? Russell: I think for me it was like, when I first started learning the online stuff and entrepreneurship, I think most people feel this, it's so exciting you want to tell everybody about it. So I'm telling my friends and my family and nobody cares at first. And you're like, I have to share this gift I've figured out, it's amazing. And nobody cares. And then the first time somebody cares, and you just dump on them, you want to show it to them. So I hadn't made tons of money, but I had a lot of these little websites that had done, $30 grand, $50 grand, $100 grand. So for me it was like, if I can show these people, I know what that did for me, it gave me the spark to want to do the next one and the next one. So for me it was like I want to share this because I feel like I figured it out. So that was the thing coming in. We weren't teaching people how to build a hundred million dollar company, but we're like, “Hey, you can quit your job. You can make 2 or 3 thousand dollars a month, you can quit your job, and this is how I did it. This is the process.” So that's what we were showing people. Just the foundation of how we did it, and we showed other people, because they cared and it was exciting to share it with other people. Andrew: Is Whitney here? There she is. I met her as she was coming in. I wanted to get to know why people were coming to watch this, what they wanted to hear from you. And Whitney was asking about the difficult period, the why. I'm wondering the same thing that she and I were talking about, which is why put yourself through this? You could have gotten a job, you could have done okay, why put yourself through the risk of hiring people, the eventual as we'll see, closing of the company, what was your motivation? What was the goal? Why did you want to do it? Russell: I think it shifts throughout time. I think most entrepreneurs when they first get started, it's because of money. They're like, ‘I want to make money.' And then you get that and then really quick, that doesn't last very long. And then it's like, then for me it was like, I want to share that with other people. And then when other people get it, there's something about that aha moment where you're like, oh my gosh they got it. They got what I was saying. And that for me was like the next level, the next high. It was just like, ah, I love that. And back then we had some success stories coming through, but now days, it's like the bigger success stories come through and that's what drives it on. That is the fascinating part. That's why we keep, because most software company owners don't keep creating books, and courses and inter….but when people have the aha, oh my gosh, that's the best for me. Andrew: That's the thing, you get the high of the thing that you wanted when you were growing up, that you wanted someone to show it to you, and if you could then genuinely give it them, not like Don Lepre. But Don Lepre plus actual results, that's what fires you up. Russell: That does fire me up. That's amazing. Andrew: What happened? Why did that close down? Russell: Oh man, a lot of things. A lot of bad mistakes, a lot of first time growing a company stuff that I didn't, again, we just woke up one day it felt like, and we were in this huge office, huge overhead, and about that time, it was 99, 2000 something like that, and there was the merchant account that me and most of the people doing internet marketing at the time, we all used the same merchant account, and they got hit by Visa and Mastercard, so they freaked out and shut down. I think it ended up being 4 or 5 merchant accounts overnight, and we had 9 different merchant accounts with that company, and all of them got shut down instantly. I remember because everything was fine, we were going through the day and it was like 1:00 in the afternoon on a Friday. They came in like, “None of the, the cards won't process.” And I'm like, couldn't figure out why they weren't processing. We tried to call the company and no one's answering at the company. Finally we get someone on the phone and they're like, “Yep, you got shut down along with all the other scammers.” And then she hung up on me. And I was like, I don't know what to do right now. I've got 100+ people and payroll is not small, and we didn't have a ton of cash in the bank, it was more of a cash flow business. And Collette actually just left town that night, and she was gone. I remember Avatar just came out, and everyone was going to the movie Avatar that night, and I remember sitting there during the longest movie of all time, and I don't remember anything other than the sick feeling in my stomach. I was texting everyone I know, trying to see if anyone knew what to do. And everyone was like, “We got shut down too.” “We got shut down.” Everyone got shut down. And we couldn't figure out anything. So we came back the next day and I called everyone up, and actually kind of a funny side story, I had just met Tony Robbins a little prior, earlier to this. So that night I was laying in bed, it was like 4 in the morning, and my phone rings and I look at it and it was Tony Robbins' assistant. And I pick it up and he's like, “Hey, is there any way you can be in Vegas in three hours? There's a plane from Boise to Vegas and Tony wants you to speak at this event. It's starting in three hours. You need to be on stage in three hours.” I'm sitting here like, my whole world just collapsed, I'm laying in bed sick to my stomach and I'm like, “I don't think I can. I have to figure this thing out.” And then he tells Tony, and they call me back. “Tony says if your business is…if you can't make it, don't show up. You're fine.” So I didn't go and then the next morning I woke up and there was a message on my phone that I'd missed. I passed out and I woke up and it was a message from Tony. And he was like, “Hey man, I know that you care about your customers, you care about things. I don't know the whole situation, but worst case scenario, if you need help let me know, and we can absorb you into Robbins research or whatever and you can be one of my companies, and that way if you want, we can protect you.” And I heard that and I was like, “Okay, that's the worst case scenario, I get to work with Tony Robbins? That's the worst case scenario.” So then I called up everyone on my team and I was like, “Okay guys, we gotta try to figure out how to save this.” And Brent and John and everyone, we came back to my house and I was like, “Okay, what ideas do we got?” And we just sat there for the next 5 or 6 hours trying to figure stuff out. And then we went to work, and I wish I could say that everything turned around, but it was the next probably 2 or 3 years of us firing 30 people, firing 20 people, closing things down, moving down offices. Just shrinking for a long, long time, until the peak of it, it was about a year after that moment, and we were in an event in Vegas trying to figure out how to save stuff, and I got an email from my dad who was helping with the books at the time, and he said, “Hey, I got really bad news for you. I looked through the books and it turns out your assistant who is supposed to be doing payroll taxes, hadn't paid payroll in over a year. You owe the IRS $170,000 and if you don't pay this, you're probably going to go to jail.” And I was like, every penny I'd earned to that point was gone. Everything was done and we'd lost everything and I was just like, I don't know how to fight this battle, but if I don't fight it I go to jail apparently. And I remember that's a really crappy feeling. Brent, some of you guys are reliving this with me right now, I know. I remember going back that night, laying in bed and I was just like, “I wish I had a boss that could fire me, because I don't know what to do, how to do it.” And that was kind of, that was definitely the lowest spot for me. Andrew: And you stuck with him? Wow, yeah.

Andrew is back! But Frank is gone. So Andrew's buddy Ken joins him to talk about their favorite types of trips.

Retailer Results Season – Will they be Requiring Monies? Join Andrew Grant and Darren A. Smith in the twenty-second episode of Grocery Guru discussing Retailer Results Season and many of the retailers who are coming to their year-end and negotiations will be tough. Retailer Results Season – Will they be requiring Monies? You Can Read the Full Retailer Results Season Episode Transcript Below: Darren A. Smith: Welcome to the weekly episode. We’re on number 22, and we’re with the Grocery Guru, that is Andrew Grant. Andrew, hello. How are you doing? Andrew Grant: Very good, Darren. Are you well? Darren A. Smith: Yes, I’m well, I’m well. This week I think has been a slow news week. So Andrew, what have you got in our post bag for us? Andrew Grant: Yeah, it has. I didn’t pick up anything really of much note this week, which is a dangerous thing to say, because it probably means I’ve missed something really important. But no, as you know, we get, what? 12, 15 queries a week, either email or whatever, from clients. And yeah, there’s been a bit of a theme over the last couple of weeks. Obviously, it’s result season, or year-end season, so just about all the supermarkets’ year ends are either between the 1st of Jan and the 1st of April basically. Darren A. Smith: Right. Okay. So we’re in results season. So you’re an experienced person, you’ve been through this for quite a number of years. I’m an account manager, let’s say, what can I expect in results season? Andrew Grant: Well, it’s one of the things I’ve been getting the most queries about. Is that obviously, most buyers are working at home, a lot of consolidation of buying teams, so fewer buyers Because I always remember when I used to do it, the pressure to get annual terms agreed with all your suppliers. You inevitably start with the very big ones. But there’s then this desperate rush to get the smaller suppliers’ terms agreed before the start of your new financial year. Darren A. Smith: Yeah, true. Okay. So if I’m a buyer and I’m in results season, January, February, March, I’m trying to get terms agreed with all my suppliers. How many suppliers might I have? Andrew Grant: It depends on the size of the category, but 30 to a 100. Darren A. Smith: Okay. So, there’s a lot I’ve got to get done. And these are quite technical, these are legal things [crosstalk 00:02:07] Andrew Grant: No, it’s a negotiation. And obviously each year I want a better over rider or I want higher gate fees for those gate fees that you’re allowed to do. So you have to have a to and fro conversation with every single supplier, assuming that every single supplier doesn’t say yes instantly. But the problem that now happens with GSCOP, and this has been where I’ve been getting the calls, is that the biggest single protection a supplier has under GSCOP is that the named retailers cannot do anything that is retrospective. It’s an absolute no-no. Darren A. Smith: All right. So let me just understand that. So I’m an account manager, you’re saying that they can’t ask me for stuff retrospectively. They can’t ask me for, now is the 1st of March or whatever it is, I want stuff for February? Andrew Grant: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So, the difficulties buyers are getting themselves into is that they haven’t agreed terms with their suppliers on time. And they’re saying things like, look, we haven’t agreed terms, we’ll roll over this year’s terms, which is allowed, but as soon as we do agree terms, the new terms get backdated to the start of my financial year. Darren A. Smith: Okay. All right. And so I understand that, are we talking about this is a Tesco or an Asda thing, is this just their policy or is it something more? Andrew Grant: Well, obviously only 13 named retailers are covered by GSCOP. Clearly I’m not going to name who … Our suppliers wouldn’t want us to be divulging which particular retailers it is. And it’s not any one particular retailer actually. So I don’t think it is … It’s not a systemic problem that one retailer is deliberately delaying its terms of negotiations. I genuinely get the impression, it’s very busy buyers with lots of suppliers to talk to, and they’re running out of time. And so they’re then obviously under pressure from their boss and the finance teams to put in place the terms for the new financial year. And some of them are making the mistake of saying, well, we’ll backdate the terms to the start of the year, which is an absolute breach of GSCOP. Darren A. Smith: Okay. And that’s where I was going with my question. This isn’t a company policy thing by any of the one or all named retailers, we’re talking about a piece of law? Andrew Grant: Oh yeah. Yeah, absolutely. No. It’s an absolute stand up piece of law that they cannot break. And some very interesting discussions. And the reason that account managers have been talking to us is they want to know, how do I use this? And our advice always is, is there any point making a formal complaint and taking one of these retailers through the legal process? Because you as the supplier don’t get much back as a result. However, most buyers will be horrified that they’ve potentially broken the law. And then obviously you’re in a negotiation around terms. So, of course the supplier can agree that we’ll backdate terms. But if I was a supplier, I’d want something back in return fairly meaty. Darren A. Smith: Of course. And if one of these 13 named retailers does break GSCOP, and they get found out, what’s the ultimate penalty of this? Andrew Grant: The ultimate penalty is 1% fine of their UK turnover. But what you have to remember is the code’s been going since, it’s been law since 2010, it’s had an adjudicator since 2015, and not a single retailer has been fined yet. Darren A. Smith: Yeah. Okay. Okay. And we’ve got a new groceries code adjudicator just come in, Mark White. Okay. Andrew Grant: Yeah. Darren A. Smith: And he’s done a Q&A on our website. All right, cool. Let’s come back to you and the results season, January, February, March, and retailers trying to get money in. You’re saying they can’t do it retrospectively. I’m an account manager, what else should I be looking out for and being concerned about? Andrew Grant: No, good point. Because the other thing that is cropping up, as these terms, documents are flying backwards and forwards, the other two biggest watch words in GSCOP, the difference between request and require. So in very broad terms, there’s very little that retailers can require of a supplier, but they can request almost anything. Darren A. Smith: Right, okay, got you. Andrew Grant: When these potentially retrospective terms documents are flying to and fro, I’m looking at the small print, and it’s amazing where it says things like, on agreement of these terms, the supplier agrees to pay for X, Y, and Zed. That’s a requirement to me. Darren A. Smith: Okay. Okay. So we’re getting into some of the gray of the law as to whether that really means require or request. What I’m hearing is three Rs. We’ve got the retrospective one, which you’ve explained to us. Then we’ve got the request and we’ve got the require. So if nothing else, an account manager ought to have their radar up for these three Rs. Andrew Grant: Yeah. And as some of our clients quite rightly have been doing, get on the phone to us or get on the email to us, so that we can give them a bit of guidance. Because to me, as I said, it’s not a question of phoning Mark White up and making a formal complaint. I think that could backfire on you. Andrew Grant: And we know from all the surveys, that over half the suppliers in the UK are frightened of making a formal complaint in case there’s retribution. I get that. But as I said, I would be using it as part of that to and fro negotiation. Negotiation’s all about relative power bases, all about tradables. If you can put your buyer on the back foot because they’ve made probably an inadvertent mistake, they’ll be horrified when you call that out. And they’ll be much more then open to some form of trading negotiation. Darren A. Smith: And that’s sometimes all you really want is just to get the buyer to the table to negotiate. And often it can be hard even just to get that to happen. Andrew Grant: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Darren A. Smith: All right. So I’m going to ask you to do two things for us to help the people listening. The first is, would you talk about the written supplier agreement for us please. Because I know that’s important. Andrew Grant: Okay. Well, we haven’t got long and it’s not necessarily something you can cover comprehensively. But yeah, the written supply agreement is the heart of any protection you have under GSCOP. And this is why these terms documents become important because it’s not specified exactly what a written supply agreement looks like. It’s not a piece of paper with a great big this is your written supply agreement on it. It is potentially your terms document for next year. Darren A. Smith: Okay. Cool. Sorry. Go on. Andrew Grant: So, the latest piece of paper, the latest terms document, the latest JBP you have could constitute your written supply agreement. And so, every account manager must go through that, as you’ve just said, with this GSCOP radar pinging in the head for any one of the three Rs. Darren A. Smith: And I understand that from the research only one in two suppliers has it, is my research up to date or has it changed? Andrew Grant: Oh no, it’s more than that. I do actually forget the number. It’s quite a high proportion. I do remember, I think Aldi and Lidl have the highest proportion of their suppliers with a written supply agreement. It’s in the 80%s. I think as you get down the bottom of the list, some of the newer retailers added to GSCOP, I still think they’re over 50, but don’t hold me to that. Darren A. Smith: Okay. All right. So we’ve still got a chunk of suppliers who potentially don’t have a written supplier agreement. Andrew Grant: Yeah. Darren A. Smith: All right. And the last bit, because I know we’ve only got 60 seconds left, is could you do a pitch for Business Safe, our new GSCOP and competition law product, for me. Andrew Grant: You’ll have to just repeat that bit Darren, we seem to have lost you for a second. Darren A. Smith: Could you do a pitch to our viewers for our new product, Business Safe, which is about GSCOP and competition law, where we keep them up to date. Andrew Grant: Yeah, no, yes, no. So, we do have that new business tool we’ve been working on. Where, I guess, it’s a bit like a doctor’s surgery, isn’t it, or these new internet doctors where if you want to have a consultation with a doctor and not wait in the NHS queue, you get on the app and you can get a qualified doctor to talk to you pretty instantly. Well, we’ve got that when it comes to GSCOP and competition law. Sign up with us and you get pretty immediate access to advice on the very things we’ve just been talking about. Darren A. Smith: Perfect. Andrew, thank you again for your guru-ness. Andrew Grant: No problem. Darren A. Smith: We’ll speak next week. Andrew Grant: Take care. Darren A. Smith: Bye-bye. Take a look at the Retailer Results Season video on our YouTube Channel. Also, check out our award-winning blog.

Two years ago, Dr. Andrew Oswari, a family medicine doctor practicing integrative medicine, was experiencing what most doctors are currently experiencing, depression and disillusionment due to their lack of ability to help any of their patients with chronic illnesses get better.  Ongoing progression of the conditions and escalating medications are the order of the day. In the January of 2019 he was tested and the results came back with an HgA1c of 7.4 and he says we was devastated.  He felt there was no way he could be diabetic since he practiced what he preached about diabetes to medical students coming through his practice.  He had happened to notice previously that one of his patients who came in regularly for a certain treatment was losing weight and he would ask her how she was doing it.  When she replied that it was by adopting the keto diet, he just blew it off but this time, in the February of 2019, when she talked about keto he paid attention.  He said he joined a Facebook group to learn about it since there was no other way to find out how it worked, especially not in medical circles. Within 2 weeks all sorts of things happened.  He just felt great, his daily headaches which he used to attribute to the stress of the job had vanished.   His irritable bowl syndrome which he thought he was stuck with for life disappeared.  "I had gone low carb just to lose weight and hopefully cure my diabetes and all these things happened", he says.  He learned about how this lifestyle could potentially address so many conditions and he immediately started contacting some of his patients with these chronic conditions, including one with cancer, and he says he has never looked back. He started looking up where he could get some training and came across LowCarbUSA®.  He found all the training we had in our partnership with the Nutrition Network and proceeded to do every module they had to offer.  That has stood him in good stead when the new non-profit, The Society of Metabolic Health Practitioners (The SMHP) launched in mid-December they had a number of pathways defined to achieve accreditation and one of those includes a number of the Nutrition Network Modules.  So Andrew became one of the first practitioners to get accredited with the SMHP and he now has the right to display the SMHP Accredited badge and use the credentials MHP after his name.  So he is now Andrew Oswari, MD, MHP.  He wrote an essay as part of his submission for SMHP Accreditation and it was so inspiring that I have provided a link to it here.

Using Shopper Language Join Andrew Grant and Darren A. Smith in the sixteenth episode of Grocery Guru: The Importance of Using Shopper Language in your category. Not using industry terms or category terms because they are creating the buffer for what should be created. By eradicating industry terminology you will discover opportunities to communicate better with your shopper and then sell more. Industry and category terms can promote confusion. Speaking to the shopper in their own language will reap dividends. You Can Read the Full Using Shopper Language Episode Transcript Below: Darren A. Smith: Welcome to Episode 16 of the Grocery Guru with Andrew Grant. How are you? Andrew Grant: Hi, Darren. Good morning. Yeah. Very nippy I think is the best thing to say this morning. Darren A. Smith: It’s supposed to get to minus 10, but let’s move on from how cold it is. Last week, we said to our viewers that this week we would talk about terminology. Now, I’m going to lead the charge on this one, because something that we’re doing wrong as an industry, or as category managers, or as suppliers, or as supermarkets, is when we use terminology that the shopper doesn’t understand. Darren A. Smith: And I’m going to give you an example. My dad used to run, he was a project manager in a Sainsbury’s store back in the 70s. And they used to have those three-legged tables and he used to have the best top fruit display in the area. “But Dad, what’s top fruit?” So Andrew, what’s top fruit? Andrew Grant: Do you know, is top fruit, apples, oranges, and bananas? Darren A. Smith: Well, it’s apples and pears, but I didn’t know. I had to ask that. So there were the signs that say top fruit and I’m thinking, “Well, no one understands what top fruit is.” When I asked that, he didn’t know. So eventually, some years ago, I asked some guru in produce. And he said, “Well it’s top fruit because it grows at the top of the tree.” Andrew Grant: Okay. Yeah. Darren A. Smith: These can’t be terms we can use in our industry if the shopper doesn’t understand them. Andrew Grant: Well, I guess also, going back to your dad in the 70s, there’s a lot of stuff. Obviously, supermarkets kicked off in the 70s in terms of the superstore format. And there’s probably terminology that was invented back then, maybe meant something to customers back then. But because most people are used to sticking their dinner in a microwave and heating it up for two minutes, it’s been lost. I mean, the one that gets me, condiments. Does the average millennial know what a condiment is? Would they expect to wear it rather than eating it? Darren A. Smith: That’s condiments. So, our challenge to our viewers is, the more we can use language that the shopper understands, the easier the category is to shop. Andrew Grant: Yeah. Darren A. Smith: And the flip side of that coin, the more we use examples that the shopper doesn’t understand, the less easy it is for them to shop, the more they’ll go somewhere else. So I wanted to give you another short story. Darren A. Smith: I was buying frozen fish for a supermarket, many years ago. And in the conversation I used to have on the phone with my account manager, we called two products, the most popular selling battered frozen fish, 076 and 077, which was their scheme number because we could differentiate it away from 079 and 080. That’s crazy. Andrew Grant: Well, I guess internally it’s not an issue. There’s a whole industry lexicon of three-letter acronyms, isn’t there? Darren A. Smith: Yeah. Andrew Grant: Or four letter acronyms. There’s your GSC, your PORS, your LFLS. Those never, if you like, leak out to the shopper. So I guess that’s okay. It’s the stuff that gets in the shopper’s face that they just don’t get. I mean, to flip the condiments one on its head, one of the more modern categories in world foods. Now, world foods. Okay. Pretty broad category. But why does just about every supermarket spit out pasta? Because I think pasta’s a world food, isn’t it? They have a world food section, they have a pasta section. Darren A. Smith: The bit that bothers me is when we try to be the buffer. So the 076, 077 was us using it. And when I think back, we were using that term because we couldn’t differentiate it. But if we couldn’t and we bought the damn thing, how the hell could the shopper at the merchant or at the fixture differentiate? And when I think now, I look back at those four products on the fixture, there wasn’t a difference. No, actually, one had the skin on and one didn’t, but we didn’t tell them that. Crazy. Crazy. Andrew Grant: Yeah, yeah. No, I guess, going back to what we spoke about last week, it’s that shopper decision hierarchy. How do you please most of the people most of the time in terms of what they’re looking for? So, you’re right. To some people, skin on skinless, it wouldn’t matter if it’s covered in breadcrumbs anyway. Is that one of the important things they’re looking for when they’re shopping? So yeah, maybe it’s that the breadcrumbs are gluten-free, something like that is more important to certain people than others. Darren A. Smith: And that would have been much better. We were not tough enough on understanding our category, understanding the decisions and rooting out some big sellers because there was no differentiation. Now, here’s the other one that really just batty. Darren A. Smith: We work with a supplier, we shall remain nameless for a moment, some years ago. And they had cooked ham and it was about this big. It’s important that it’s about this big. And it was four by four. So we said to them, “Why did you call it four by four?” “Well, it’s four by four inches because that fits in a slice of bread.” Andrew Grant: Yeah. Darren A. Smith: But on the fixture, four by four was never mentioned, but this was the biggest selling product. And they called it four by four to differentiate it from the other sea of pink cooked meats on the fixture. Andrew Grant: Yeah. Darren A. Smith: Crazy. Andrew Grant: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, that’s where obviously, the marketers need to think of the right way to sell that product. And they haven’t thought about consumer usage or the consumer benefits for it. Andrew Grant: I guess sometimes that can go wrong. What gets me is when the marketers actually… What’s the right word? Hoodwink the shopper with some of the phraseology. So they call it pizza Donna Letta. And then it says, made in Grimsby. Fresh Italian-style pizza made in Grimsby. Andrew Grant: The one that always gets me is, in the good old days when you were driving around looking for a pub to have lunch in. And you drive past the first one and it says, “Home prepared food.” You’ve driven past it before you can work out that actually, that means it came out of a big breaks truck. And what you’re actually looking for is the home prepared, I think. No. Darren A. Smith: Home-cooked, home-prepared. Andrew Grant: Home-cooked is heated up. Darren A. Smith: Right. Andrew Grant: Home prepared is we took the lid off the packet first. Homemade, homemade is what you’re looking for. Darren A. Smith: Ah, so it’s three. Andrew Grant: Yeah. But as you can see, you’ve driven a couple of miles by the time you’ve worked out, “Am I getting fresh, prepared, cooked, and made food in my pub? Or am I just getting something that’s had the lid taken off?” (silence) Darren A. Smith: Cheers. Andrew Grant: With the truth. Darren A. Smith: Andrew. Oh, you’re back. Okay. You froze for 30 seconds. Andrew Grant: Okay. Well, yeah. A bit like the food, I guess. Darren A. Smith: All right. Let’s talk about a few other examples. So I saw that even Amazon, who are obviously doing very, very well. We’ve got Amazon Prime instant video. I have no idea what that is and I’m fairly tech-savvy. Do you know what that is? Andrew Grant: Yeah. No, I’m just one of the people that whenever there was something like that, I think of whether the acronym makes up something rude. So, APIV. No, it doesn’t. APIV. Darren A. Smith: Well, we’re also working on a product slightly outside of training, but we’ll talk about that at the moment. Cyber-security. Do you know what phishing is? I’ve learned about phishing. Do you know what phishing is? P-H. What is it? Andrew Grant: That’s sending an email with a dodgy link, isn’t it? Darren A. Smith: I think that’s it. Andrew Grant: You then click on. Darren A. Smith: That’s it. So we’ve changed the training course for phishing, which people can reach to, to something called email safety. Andrew Grant: Yeah. Yeah. Darren A. Smith: And then. Sorry, go on. Andrew Grant: As you say, it does what it says on the tin is usually the best starting point for deciding what to name something. Darren A. Smith: That’s probably true. And we ought to turn the mirror on ourselves. So in our industry, we have things that we use at MBM, like individual ILO, individual learning objective. Okay. We use that term, but actually, what we’re trying to say is what’s in it for you? What the hell do you want to get out of spending five hours training to that? Andrew Grant: Yeah. Darren A. Smith: So, it happens in the training industry as well. Andrew Grant: Yeah. No. It goes back to your four by four. It should have just been called fits on a slice of bread. Darren A. Smith: It could be. And I understand what they did was by understanding there was a piece of the terminology they were using, the shopper wasn’t, then they got to a point of sandwich ham. Ideal for sandwiches, ideal for bagels. So they had different hams. So by trying to figure out what terminology they were using that doesn’t fit with the shopper, they found a new opportunity. Andrew Grant: Yeah. And I guess, talking of the bread analogy, we have toaster bread, don’t we? So what came first? The toaster or the bread? interestingly, the toaster came second, and then they reinvented the bread to fit the toaster. Because otherwise, you get a standard loaf of bread and the top third of your slice sticks out and doesn’t get nicely toasted. Unless you buy square toaster bread. So, I don’t know if you can buy a toaster that is loaf size, but most of them are square size. Darren A. Smith: Probably true. And then the other part, is sometimes we need to lead the consumer, the customer, the shopper because they won’t have the vocabulary. So I’m trying to think of what categories where we’ve led the shopper. Andrew Grant: Well, I think there was the example, a couple of examples last week. Would frozen foods really exist unless the supermarkets put it all in one place? Darren A. Smith: Yeah. Probably true. Andrew Grant: Because if you’re cooking Sunday lunch, you’re looking for again, if we use our industry terminology, a main plate protein item is what shoppers look for their Sunday lunch. So, are we having chicken, lamb, pork or beef? Darren A. Smith: Yeah. Andrew Grant: They don’t think, “Right. I’m going to have chicken. It must be frozen chicken.” Yep. We’re having chicken. And then the decision is, is it going to be fresh? Is it going to be frozen? Is it going to be wings? Or, is it going to be a whole bird? Et cetera. Andrew Grant: So, in true shopper decision hierarchy, you should put the frozen chicken portions next to the fresh chicken. But from a technical perspective, that’s tough. And it’s very expensive. So this category called frozen foods was invented. Darren A. Smith: Yeah. Yeah. True. True. Okay. Yep. That makes sense. That makes absolute sense. Yeah. Andrew Grant: Yes. I guess it is the challenge of product developers, marketers, buyers, that you don’t get hoodwinked by your own internal thinking and knowledge. Too much knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Andrew Grant: When you’re talking about, I always remember somebody saying to me the average shopping trip is about 45 minutes. There are 25,000 SKUs in a superstore. Divide 25,000 by 45 minutes. You’re down to a decision of less than half a second per product. Darren A. Smith: Yes. Andrew Grant: So, don’t make it complicated for the shopper. You’re asking them to make a decision in less than half a second. So it’s got to say what it does on the tin. Darren A. Smith: And I think that there are some categories like cooked ham, which to me seemed like just a wall of pink. Bagged salads seemed like a wall of green. But let’s talk about bagged salads just for a moment. We’re working with a client and we had shoppers in a room, one of those shopper focus groups. Darren A. Smith: And these shoppers were picking up the bags and doing this. We sort of had to, “What are you doing?” And then it reminds me of when we saw people do it with fruit. You know when you pick up fruit and you do this? The pressure test. Now, the consumer doesn’t really have a description of what they do, they just do these things. Darren A. Smith: Where we got to with the bag of salads is they call it bounce. If it felt sort of bouncy as a bag, thumbs up. If it didn’t, they weren’t going to buy it. And what the supplier cleverly did, was then put that in their QA, bounce. And tried to take the intangible to tangible. It has to look like this. Andrew Grant: Yeah. Darren A. Smith: So our challenge for our viewers is to identify five pieces of terminology that they use, but the shopper doesn’t. Andrew Grant: No, that’d be great. Yeah. Let’s get our viewers to send in some, maybe we can talk about them next week. Darren A. Smith: That’d be great because I think every one of them is an opportunity. Where we are the buffer, we need to take that, identify it and find the opportunity that sits behind it. Andrew Grant: Yeah, I agree. Darren A. Smith: All right. Andrew Grant: Very good. Darren A. Smith: Okay, Andrew. So terminology this week. Any ideas what we’re going to talk about next week? Or are we going to keep it a surprise? Andrew Grant: I think we keep it as a surprise. There’s so much potentially happening out there that something will have cropped up by next Friday, I’m sure. Darren A. Smith: Okay. Andrew, you have a good weekend. Andrew Grant: Take care and you too. Bye. For further tips and information, you can take a look at our Ultimate Guide to Category Management and our Category Management YouTube Channel. Also, check out our award-winning blog to see more Category Management tips and articles.

The scriptures chosen for this week focus on listening for the voice of God and God’s movements within our lives. God is constantly speaking in our lives through insights, encounters, hunches, dreams, bursts of energy, and inspirational thoughts. Our calling is to listen to the many voices of God, often hidden in everyday experience, and then follow God’s guidance, shaping our encounters with God in our own unique ways. In our reading today from John‘s gospel Jesus’ ministry begins with calling disciples – and significantly, disciples who will immediately go off and call others, saying, “Come and see! We’ve found him!” So Andrew calls his brother, Simon, and in today’s passage, Philip goes off to find Nathaniel. John’s point about the story of Nathaniel’s call is that Jesus knows Nathaniel; Nathaniel is called to come and get to know Jesus. Look at Nathaniel’s question: “Where did you get to know me?” In other words, he says, “We’re not acquainted, are we?” This becomes an epiphany for Nathaniel who makes the connection that John intends us to make: only God could know these things. Only God has such intimate knowledge of us.

On this episode, Ryan & Becca have a conversation with Andrew Fegler, the solo small business owner of That's So Andrew. Our discussion is driven mostly from a listener question related to how to use Instagram & Facebook for marketing. There is so much that goes into marketing period and social media marketing is a new world of its own, with each platform having unique pros & cons. Andrew shares some great insights how he uses Instagram & Facebook separately to grow his brand and make sales. We also dig more into how Andrew leverages his private Facebook group to keep in touch with his biggest fans.We finish up the conversation about efficient shipping workflows, how to pack well, shipping prices by weight, etc. Thanks to Andrew for joining us.Find more about Andrew's work here:Instagram - @thatssoandrew_Website - https://thatssoandrew.com/Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/thatssoandrew/Facebook Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/354630515003382/We hope to bring you more of these interview style episodes in the future as we hang out with other makers inside and outside of the clay medium. Thanks for joining us and we would love to hear your feedback or who we should interview next!Listener QuestionsSend us questions so we can answer anything you've been thinking about on a future episode. Send those through Instagram @wheeltalkpodcast or email us at wheeltalkpodcast@gmail.com.Follow us on Instagram:@wheeltalkpodcast@rdceramics@5linespotteryEmail us any questions or topics you'd love discussed:wheeltalkpodcast@gmail.com

On this episode, Ryan & Becca have a conversation with Andrew Fegler, the solo small business owner of That's So Andrew. Our discussion is driven mostly from a listener question related to how to use Instagram & Facebook for marketing. There is so much that goes into marketing period and social media marketing is a new world of its own, with each platform having unique pros & cons. Andrew shares some great insights how he uses Instagram & Facebook separately to grow his brand and make sales. We also dig more into how Andrew leverages his private Facebook group to keep in touch with his biggest fans.We finish up the conversation about efficient shipping workflows, how to pack well, shipping prices by weight, etc. Thanks to Andrew for joining us.Find more about Andrew's work here:Instagram - @thatssoandrew_Website - https://thatssoandrew.com/Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/thatssoandrew/Facebook Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/354630515003382/We hope to bring you more of these interview style episodes in the future as we hang out with other makers inside and outside of the clay medium. Thanks for joining us and we would love to hear your feedback or who we should interview next!Listener QuestionsSend us questions so we can answer anything you've been thinking about on a future episode. Send those through Instagram @wheeltalkpodcast or email us at wheeltalkpodcast@gmail.com.Follow us on Instagram:@wheeltalkpodcast@rdceramics@5linespotteryEmail us any questions or topics you'd love discussed:wheeltalkpodcast@gmail.com

Bradley Hopp is the co-founder of Teshuah Tea Company. He works to see young women and girls rescued from sex trafficking. On today’s episode you’ll hear stories of people who are truly kicking the darkness until it bleeds daylight.  Teshuah Tea Company: https://deliverancetea.comTeshuah Tea Company: https://teshuahtea.comTeshuah Tea Company Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/teshuahteacompanyLiberty Unveiled Podcast: http://teshuahunveiled.com     (Transcript is a guide only and may not be 100% correct.) Emily Olsen: Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight. This is Bleeding Daylight with your host Rodney Olsen.Rodney Olsen:Today’s episode contains some confronting and disturbing content. It also contains stories of hope and deliverance. My guest works to see young women and girls rescued from sex trafficking. He also produces a video podcast titled Liberty Unveiled. Links to his podcast and the anti-trafficking work are in the show notes of this episode at bleedingdaylight.net Today you’ll hear stories of people who are truly kicking the darkness until it bleeds daylight. On the surface, Teshuah Tea Company is a small business selling quality tea, coffee, and unique gift items, but there's something far more serious behind the scenes. Bradley Hopp is the co-founder of Teshuah Tea Company and he joins me today to talk about the reason behind the business. Brad, thanks for joining me on Bleeding Daylight.Bradley Hopp:Oh, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.Rodney Olsen:What is the meaning behind the word Teshuah and how does that fit into what you're doing with a tea company?Bradley Hopp:Okay, so that's a great question. Teshuah is the Hebrew word for deliverance. The deliverance is very much what the show is all about because my business partner, Andrew is a missionary and communist Asia behind the bamboo curtain and he and the team rescue underage girls out of sex trafficking over there. So minor, minor girls, and they get the girls out of this horrific situation that they're in and into our rescue and rehab facility, where we meet all of their needs. We take care of their food shelter, clothing. We give them medical care. You know, we give them crisis pregnancy counseling. We teach them to read and write. We teach them to do different work crafts and skills, like making the braclets and the tea and the coasters and so on and so forth. And then what we do is we come alongside and, and that's where I come into play is we actually buy the products from the girls for whatever they're asking on them and then half our profits are going back to the rescue facility. So it's really a double whammy for the, for the rescue house and for the girls, it's really all about deliverance.Rodney Olsen:And really what you're doing is your empowering them, because you're not just saying, Hey, I'll give you a handout you're saying, here's an opportunity for you to do something for yourself and it's actually paying off and showing them that there's a very different way.Bradley Hopp:And that's, that's the reason, you know, because living here in America, we have such a culture that is so entitled, and I'm a very much a firm believer. I grew up on a dairy farm. I grew up on a small scale farm here in Iowa. So I'm very much of the mindset that you give a man, a fish, you feed him for a day, you teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. So that's really the philosophy behind Teshuah is to economically empower the girls. We, we basically work to give them a work ethic so that they know how to provide for themselves when they leave our rescue facility and they don't have that entitlement mentality. They, they, even though we're, you know, we're providing their needs while they're under our care, they have also learned to contribute to the household. They've learned to contribute to the needs of the household through doing dishes and through doing laundry and, and working in the tea shop and, and so on and so forth. But then they're also making these crafts and these and stuff so that we can buy those from them so that they're seeing that they have skills and abilities that they can take into the marketplace.Rodney Olsen:I want to explore a little bit more about what sex trafficking means, because I think it's a phrase that we've heard too often and we become desensitized to it. But before we go there, I would imagine that for many, the idea that this is a sex trafficking, that's happening in a communist Asian country absolutely fits our Western narrative. And we would say, well, certainly that sort of thing doesn't happen here. It doesn't happen in countries like Australia or in the U S but is that the reality?Bradley Hopp:No. by, by far, no, the U S is actually the biggest consumer of pornography and U S tourists. And I'm really embarrassed to say this, but U.S. Tourists are some of the biggest consumers of the sex tourism industry throughout the world. And I used to deliver fire trucks, a million dollar, half million dollar fire trucks all over the country here in the U S. And so my world was different than a typical truck driver because I didn't stay in truck parking lots. I would, you know, hotels every night and, and whatever, but still my world crossed enough that you would see truckers against trafficking and you would see different things. And so it's very much a real problem. And I actually, the Asian country in the apartment, my partner works in their technology for running brothels has been imported into the U S through massage parlors, through karaoke clubs through front businesses like that, that provide a cover for, you know, well, it looks like a legitimate business is actually a cover for the brothels.Rodney Olsen:So it's actually a lot of the people in Western countries like ours that are actually fueling this kind of industry.Bradley Hopp:Right. And partially because of our opulence, as far as our income, you know, we're not a third world country. We have expendable income, you know? And so that makes us purveyors of this kind of, of garbageRodney Olsen:You're talking about young girls and you're talking about minors. What sort of age are we looking at here?Bradley Hopp:The youngest girl that my partner and his team have had a hand in rescuing was 11 years old. And she was literally drunk off her behind. Real briefly, the way a rescue mission goes down is they go into the brothel. They have two people inside that are not participating, but acting as patrons. It's a karaoke club. So you can go in and sing and spend the evening singing and stuff and so they go in and spend the evening singing, and then they wait until everybody else gets sauced or drunk. And then they start a ruckus. And then my partner and the team come in and, and cause even more of a ruckus and literally start grabbing, grabbing girls and picking them up and carrying them out of the building. And he picked up this 11 year old and carried her out. Now we always make sure that we at least one of our female staff in the rescue van waiting so that she can explain to the girls what's going on, who we are, why we're there. And then they ask them, do you want to come with us? And a hundred percent of them have said, yes,Rodney Olsen:It's a frightening scenario that you're setting out there. How are these girls originally lured into this traffic?Bradley Hopp:A lot of times it's either they are one of the girls, her, her parents went on vacation. She was staying with her uncle, her uncle abused, sexually abused during the, he sold their off to his if I remember right, it was his sister and then she pimped her out and then she ended up selling her or she might've sold her directly. I don't remember if she pimped her out and then sold her on or, but anyway, so that was one of the scenarios. A lot of them have aged out of the adoption system or the orphanage system by 14 in this particular country. They, they expect 14 year old people to be able to survive on the streets by themselves at 14 you know, which is being a father of six and having 14 year olds. I that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I mean, quite honestly, a lot of times it's either they were sold by a family member or they were, you know, out on the streets and somebody picked them up and, and offered them something that looked legitimate. And that's the biggest one. A lot of times, they're, they're sold a bill of goods and told, Oh yeah, well, you know, we'll get you into this whatever job. And that's not the case.Rodney Olsen:You say, you're providing all that these young girls need to return to society and to help them to heal, how do you help a young girl who's being treated in this way by probably hundreds of men. How do you teach them to trust again?Bradley Hopp:And this is where my faith comes into play because we can't on our own. We have we have a book that it was actually written by a I believe the gentleman's from Australia and he's a Christian counselor, but he has written this book and, and that's kind of been the textbook for our house mothers. They get the girls into a safe environment and obviously it takes time, but the girls begin to see the older girls that are there caring for each other and, and helping each other in that stuff. You know, they go through devotions and Bible study and, and eventually we don't force it down their throats, the girls. So I have a choice, you know, I mentioned earlier that we get them crisis pregnancy counseling, and we don't force them to keep their babies, but three out of the four have that came to us, pregnant, have chosen to keep their babies. And so that combination that we have going on, really the girls see what true Christianity is all about. And they, they begin to see that, Hey, these actually care about me in they're endangering their own lives. For me, it opens up that door for conversations and it opens up the door for, for us to be able to, to share the gospel with them, but then also to help them to recover in, in deeper ways. Because for example, let's just give a short story here. One of the girls came to us and she had been pimped out for three years, if I remember, right, she had not slept a solid night's sleep in, in at least three years. Since she came to the rescue house, she had not slept peacefully all night long. She would always wake up a night terrors and, and just horrific dreams, 28 days in, she decided to put her faith in Jesus Christ and she decided to become a Christian and that night she slept peacefully for the first time in over three years. She slept peacefully for nine hours at night, and she's not had any more night terror. She's not had any more nightmares and the awful dreams and stuff and, and it has really helped her to come to the wholeness that she needs, because limited on what we can do. I mean, we're humans, there's spiritual healing that has to happen. And we're, we're only able to give so much healing, but we can offer Christ. And, and that's where the true healing is found.Rodney Olsen:You touched on the danger, that's involved for the team that is doing these rescues. What sort of danger have they encountered? And is there an ongoing danger for them day to day?Bradley Hopp:Yeah. First off, this particular country is cracking down on, on Christians for one, for two, one of the girls, the girls are free to leave if they want to. And so one of the girls had saved up her money and she thought that her brothel owner was in love with her. So she went back to him because obviously he told her he loved her. I mean, that was always part of the bill of goods. So, she saved her money and she went back to him and she pretty quickly figured out that that was not the case when you beat her up and put her in the hospital for a week. But then when she left the hospital, she went back to one of Andrew's Bible schools, the brothel owner followed her back there. And then he called some of his corrupt police buddies at the police department there in the area and had some of his, his goons come along with him too. And they were going to bust them Well, we don't know who did this, but somebody higher up in the police department knows or must know something and actually called another police department and, and got Andrew arrested for his own protection. And they got him out of there. They took him to the prison in this country is never a good thing, put him in jail for the day. And then that night at midnight, they took him out the back door in a, in an unmarked squad car. And he's thinking, you know, nothing leaves the back door of one of these jails that ends well, especially at midnight. So they took him to a hotel and they put him up for, for 24 hours and and let everything blow over after that. Then they told him, okay, this is what's going on. So it's very real danger.Rodney Olsen:And how do you stop something like this, for the team that's on the ground there, and for you who is totally immersed in this world, day-to-day, how do you stop it from breaking you?Bradley Hopp:You have to have a sense of humor. So growing up on the dairy farm, you know, my parents always had an expression cause we went through the farm crisis, the early eighties where guys were losing their farms left and right. And my parents always said that you might as welll laugh about it, otherwise you'll cry. That's one of those stupid sayings that really has stuck with me and held true. But more than that, much more than that is, is just simply my faith in Christ and my belief in Christianity and, and what, what God has done for me, it would be very easy to get discouraged when you're, when you're going up against such wicked and such evil, you really have to have that solid foundation. Otherwise it will because you're looking at the dregs of humanity. There's many days that even as a Christian, you'd rather just throat punch somebody and you know, you hear these stories and you're just like, if I could get my hands around their neck and ring it, I would, you know, and I know the Father, God feels that same way too, but I also know the terrific testimonies that happen when brothel owners become Christians, we've had several brothel owners become Christians over the last couple of years and to see the transformation there really at the same time, it gives you hope too, because you see guys that have, that are like in, in, you know, just name some of famous America, mobsters like John Gotti and Al Capone. I mean, some of the most famous mobsters in the world, these guys are Asian tong. And as part of the mafia and part of the tong, they're not guys to be messed with. So as guys that should not be messed with when they come to Christ and they become Christians and they are willing to put their own lives on the line to see these girls rescued and set free. That's where you begin to, to grab a hold of that hope. That really is just such an astounding thing.Rodney Olsen:I imagine having some of those former brothel owners on board would give even more insight into ways to rescue the young girls that you're seeking to save and see healing for.Bradley Hopp:One of the, the very first guy or the very first brothel under the Andrew led to the Lord was kind of an interesting situation. Andrew had a, an American restaurant in this particular town. He put an ad in the newspaper for, or put an ad out for, for some waitress help for the restaurant and he had a young lady apply on a Wednesday and he said, come back on Saturday and I'll, I'll give you interview at nine o'clock. Nine o'clock came and went and it was noon before she showed up and he was like, I'm not hiring this girl. And he felt like God said, no, I want you to hire her. So he, he did reluctantly, but he did and she brought a friend of hers on and they ended up both becoming Christians and then they both had a heart to see the girls be rescued out of the brothels and to see these brothel owners come to Christ and so they, they started studying and they started taking gifts into the girls and into the brothel owners because in this Asian country relationship is extremely important, Andrew, his wife had actually helped us. The Christian psychologist that I talked about earlier, she had helped him translate his book into this Asian language. So they had a copy of it and they, they gave it to these two girls and they started studying and then they, said to this brothel owner, they said, do you want to meet an American, that speaks your language? And he said, well, heck I've never met an American let alone one, that actually speaks my language. Sure. So Andrew sat down with the guy and they got to talking and, and Andrew shared the gospel and this guy, as I said, he was Tong. I mean, he was mafia. And when he ran into Christ, it was such an encounter that he set all of his girls free, 20 girls free and gave them all severence packages, gave them on bus tickets back to their home villages and then had a fund that he had money, you know, $45,000 or $48,000 that he had made off of the girls set aside in a, in a fund for a matching fund to raise money for the rescue house and stuff. He's actually helped us. Cause he's still knows all the boys in the clubs, so to speak. And so he's actually helped us get the layouts of the buildings, do different things and has, has really been instrumental in also introducing Andrew few other brothel owners and stuff. And for example, in January of this year, we had a rescue of eight more girls. The way that one went down was really interesting because a year earlier, Andrew had sat down with a brothel owner that he had been introduced to and had shared the gospel with the guy. The guy didn't want to hear anything about it. And he was like, you know, I'm making too much money. And I don't really don't care. Fast forward to this year, January 22nd Andrew and some of his Bible students are praying one morning and they feel like, you know, like the Holy spirit says, I want you to go North. And Andrew's like, all right, I don't know anybody North of town. So he's like, alright, I guess we'll go. So the six of them, or seven of them piled into his, his SUV and they headed north of town when they drove 50 miles out into the country on the toll way. As they were driving along, one of the Bible students speaks up and says, hey I think we're supposed to turn on this side road. So they turned on the side road and when they turn there, they went 15 miles on that road, paralleling the tollway. They got up the road 15 miles and one of the other ones speaks up and says hey, I think we're supposed to turn on this turn around and go back to that, that little gravel two track and go down that road. And so they follow that for three miles out into the middle of the country, out in the middle of nowhere. And they pulled up in front of this really ornate gate. This 90 year old gentlemen comes walking out and he looks at him and says, What's your business here? You know, real gruffly. And Andrew is trying to figure out what the heck to tell the guy. Well about that time the guy's son-in-law walks out of the house. He sees Andrew. He stops dead in his tracks, and he's like, how the heck did you find me here? And Andrew, looks at him, he goes, I know I should know you from somewhere, but I don't know how and the guy says, well, you met me in my office a year ago. And Andrew's like, Oh yeah, you're the brothel.... you know it clicked on his head that he's like the brothel owner that I talked to a year ago. That guy became a Christian. His in-laws became Christians. They all received their first Bibles that night. They all got baptized and they all and he set all of his girls free. So we rescued eight more that night, just from him meeting Christ.Rodney Olsen:You're talking about releasing young girls from sex trafficking, but you're also releasing some of those brothel owners. I imagine that they would have enormous amount of shame once they come face to face with what it is that they've been doing.Bradley Hopp:They do. But at the same time, a friend of mine and I were talking about this the other day, that sin always curious consequences, you know. Look at the story of the woman at the well, or the woman caught in adultery rather, and she was brought, brought before Jesus and all the Jewish leaders are saying stone her and stuff. And Jesus looks at him and he says, he stands up. And he says, whoever is without sin cast the first stone. And then he goes back to writing in the dirt and slowly one by one, they stop and they dropped their stones and then they walk away. And something that's interesting here is legally, under the Jewish Old Testament law, she should have been stoned, but they failed to fulfill the law because they didn't bring two or three witnesses along. And they didn't bring the man along. If they caught her in the act of adultery, they should have brought him along. And so Jesus, knowing this knows that he can't justly have a case because he didn't have two or three witnesses and he doesn't have the man. And so he goes in and throws this out them, and they all walk away. Now, as I said to my friend the other day, if she would've been pregnant, Jesus looked at her and he said, go and sin no more. He didn't say, be free of the consequences of your sin. He said, go, go and sin no more. If she would have been pregnant, she would have been obliged under his, his current command go and sin no more. She would have been obliged to keep that baby. She would not have been free from the consequences necessarily of that sin. Well, you know, oftentimes we can, you know, these brothel owners, they can set the girls free, but they're still gonna have that remorse. They're free from the guilt. They're free from the condemnation. You know, he who says he, he who Christ sets is free indeed. So they would have been free from that guilt and that condemnation, but they're still gonna have that remorse, that sorrow from that. And it's going to be a godly thing. That's going to keep them from doing it again. It's not always an unhealthy thing to have that remorse because it keeps us from doing it again.Rodney Olsen:You've mentioned that some of the girls have been stolen away from their families. Some of them, their families have actually been involved, but for those girls who have been stolen from their families, is there opportunity for them to, to reunite. And what's been some of the results of that.Bradley Hopp:I don't know any of the stories of the 20 girls that were set free from the first brothel owner. I don't believe that any of the girls have gone back to that situation because a lot of times, if they do go back to that situation, they would end up back in that same situation. You know, they would have ended up back up in the same situation that oftentimes that got them there in the first place. In other words, there was some reason that they ended up getting trafficked and to send them back into either their village or whatever would be just putting them back into the hands of the, of the original sellers. So to speak the kidnappers in the first place. And so oftentimes it's safer for us to keep them, you know, they have the right to go back. If they want to.Bradley Hopp:As I said, the one girl, she saved her money from, from selling the products to us. And she used that money to go back to her, her brothel owner, because she thought he was in love with her. So they have the freedom to go back if they want to. And none of them have chosen to. One of the young ladies that actually won't talk about her parents. Won't talk about how she came to be trafficked. Won't talk about any of that stuff she actually learned to read and write. She learned to do her math. She learned, passed all of her high school classes. She got all caught up. She took her insurance classes and passed her insurance boards and is now as of last summer living in her own place. And, and actually is a licensed insurance agent.Rodney Olsen:It's an incredible story to hear someone going from being trapped into an opportunity like that, to be running themselves in their own business and to, to be doing so well in life. It must give you great encouragement to keep doing what you're doing,Bradley Hopp:It really does, because there's a lot of times where when you're doing stuff like this, especially when you're, when you're rescuing girls from just absolute hell on earth, as much as I talk about Christianity, there are sources on the other side that don't, don't want to see what we're doing done. You know, they do try to discourage you and dissuade you from doing what you're doing. So yeah, it makes it a challenge some days, but, but you look at those stories and you're like, you know what? This actually brings up a really good story that I was reminded of here a couple of weeks ago. And it really kind of summarizes Teshuah And we actually have some bracelets that I, I hadn't made this connection until just a couple of weeks ago, but we have some bracelets that have starfish on them that the girls have made.Bradley Hopp:And the story goes that this little boy is standing on the beach and it's low tide and there's all these thousands and thousands of thousands of starfish all down the beach, they're all trapped because it's low tide. And this elderly gentleman comes up and he's standing there on the shore with his little boy and he's watching a little boy throw the starfish back in. He goes, what are you doing, son? And he goes, I'm throwing the starfish back cause otherwise I'll die. And the elderly gentlemen listed and then goes son, you're not going to be able to rescue all of them. You know, you might as well just quit. You're not gonna be able to rescue all of them and you're not going to make a difference. And the little boy stands there and thinks about it for a second. And he reaches down and picks up a starfish and checks it back into the ocean. And he goes, I made a difference for that one. And that's the thing, you know, there's I was, I was looking at some trafficking numbers tonight before we came on the air and nearly more, nearly 4 million adults and 1 million children are victims of sex trafficking and seven out of 10 of them are exploited in Asia and the Pacific region. It's a 97 or $99 billion a year industry. It's a huge industry. And while we may not be able to get to all of them, we can make the difference in one or two or five or 20 or 40 or 80, we can make the difference in their lives. So it really means a lot to me to be able to make that difference, even just a few people's lives.Rodney Olsen:I was going to ask about the numbers and the scope of the problem, and you've outlined that, and it is shocking, but I do wonder sometimes. And I remember once being in India and in a street where there were hundreds of brothels and they estimated between 12 and 15,000 girls being prostituted in that street. And my mind started to turn to the amount of guys that, that each girl sees each day and therefore continuing to try and do the maths in my head and come to terms with the enormous number of people that are using these terrible, terrible services. It's a huge problem.Bradley Hopp:And you know, this is, this brings up something on our podcast, Liberty Unveiled. We were talking about on Monday when we were courting and Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested during the last 30 days. She's Jeffrey Epstein's girlfriend and accomplice. And she has supposedly has proof, well she does have proof of a global pedophile and human trafficking ring. In the UK There was a massive global pedophile ring bust, 31 children are rescued and 700 suspects are being investigated. Germany is investigating 30,000 potential suspects in a pedophile ring, 116 trafficker arrests and 1,489 victims were rescued. Florida had a six human traffickers busted, and five women rescued. Pennsylvania had eight men arrested as part of a trafficking ring. Spain had 12 arrests and a thousand victims rescued. Italy had 10 arrested in a trafficking ring. A Baltimore businessman paid $90,000 to sex trafficking operation, The feds charge. A man in California, was arrested for operating a $21 million international sex trafficking website. Bangladesh, 52 were arrested in a trafficking ring, Scotland, dozens of arrests and 18 rescued. Malaysia had 18 police officers and army officials arrested for human trafficking. It's amazing. A French man was arrested for raping 300 plus young girls. India, 67 rescued out of trafficking there. So, I mean, I just skipped over several of them, quite a few of them actually in the trafficking numbers.Rodney Olsen:When we start to try and think through these numbers and see the size of this problem. And we can see that most of the time it is fueled by a desire, especially by men who have a desire to, to act in a way that they should not be acting. And that is absolutely evil. There would be some who would see prostitution would see pornography as something that as long as the participants are willing it's okay. What would you say to that?Bradley Hopp:A major, major, major misnomer, because oftentimes men are looking at pornography and they think that the girls are willing, but oftentimes they're not. I think they said like 70% or higher are actually trafficking victims. And what you're seeing well, looks like they're willing participants, but they're really not. And oftentimes the reason they look like they're willing participants is because they've either been threatened with death or their family has been threatened, or they're, they're being told if you don't participate and you don't act the way we want you to act your family, it will be killed. There's much in the way they have coercion and blackmail. And, and so, you know, when, when men think that that, that all, this is all just fun and games and it's, and nobody's really being hurt us, not the really the case. That's not really the truth. There is no choice. If, if you are told either do this or you'll be executed or do this, or your family will be hurt and you've already been raped and you've already been, see something that happens.Bradley Hopp:And if you look at the method for most, all of the traffickers, when they're grooming somebody, they will first rape them and, and what that does psychologically to the person is it breaks down there. If you talk to trafficking victims, they'll, they'll always say after I was raped, I felt like I was worth nothing and it causes the psychological and spiritual damage to them. And so then when their frame is, are threatened and stuff, they still care for their families. And they're like, I'm not worth anything anyway. So therefore I might as well, you know, I'll to save my family. I'll, I'll do what I'm told.Rodney Olsen:It's a very dark world and sometimes we just have to call things for what they are. We're talking about an industry, so to speak, we're talking about sex work, and we use all these phrases, but obviously if women are being coerced in any way to participate, and especially for these young girls, that's not sex work, that's not an industry. That's, as you say, rape, that's, that's pure and simple rape.Bradley Hopp:This is where I get really frustrated. And really, yeah, I suppose angry would be the right word with the, I try to be nice. The numbskulls in, in Holland and, and in Northern Europe that are, that are protesting for a sex workers' rights and stuff like that. If you go back to the, really the basis of all of this, even the ones that are older and say, they're there willingly. I will guarantee that if you look back through their past, they were molested when they were a child. And so if they were molested as a child, even though they think they're there willingly, now, they didn't start out there. They were molested, they were raped when they were a child, there has been some kind of childhood traumatic damage done to these children.Bradley Hopp:Like my partner, Andrew is rescuing where they're, they're still underage and their minors, or where they say they're willingly in the industry as adults or whatever.Rodney Olsen:I don't imagine that that point of view makes you very popular in some circles.Bradley Hopp:No, but you know what? I, I'm a farmer came from Iowa and I really don't care. You know, I'm not trying to be crass, but it's, you know what I care more about. I care more about the people that we're rescuing. And I care more about the people that are being damaged than I do about me being popular or anything else. When you damage a child, you're causing things to be set in motion. And Jesus said, well, he took this, this approach to it when you damage one of these children. And he said, when you, when you cause one of these little ones to stumble, it would be better for you. If you'd had a millstone tied around your neck and you've been tossed in the ocean, He doesn't take to it kindly. It causes a string of damage in their lives. But then what it does is it also causes them to go on and become abusers later. A lot of times, and it perpetuates, you know, Andrew has an expression and it's really true hurting people, hurt people. That's the reason we take the approach of, of getting them healed in and completely made whole before we set them back out into the, into the world on their own.Rodney Olsen:I'm wondering if someone who's listening today and thinking, this is something I need to get behind. This is something I need to act on. How can they contact you and make a difference?Bradley Hopp:To make it easy on everybody? I have two URLs for our website. I have to teshuahtea.com, which is T E S H U A H .com. But the easier one is deliverancetea.com. I just decided after two years that it would be probably smart to make it a little bit easier on people. So deliverancetea.com is a easy way to find us on Teshuah or on deliverancetea .com. They can go to the donate page and under the donate page, we have a direct link, a PayPal link to the rescue house. So when somebody makes a donation there, it does not go through me. It does not go through the, the business side of everything. It goes direct to the rescue facility and helps us take care of the, because it costs a lot of money. A typical rescue mission is about $500, but after care or the initial aftercare, getting them new clothes medical care, all the things that they need, all the toiletries, all that stuff because they literally come to us with the clothes on their back and nothing else. And so we get them all new clothes, toiletries, medical care that costs about $2,000. But then on a monthly basis, per girl, that's in our rescue facility, it costs us a $16.67 a day per girl. Well, what I haven't told you about is we had a brothel owner reach out and he's like, my brothel has been shut down because of COVID and I've been housing and caring for the girls for the last six months, and I can't keep doing it. And I heard about you guys and so here's my 13 girls. So we now have 41 girls and two female staff in our, in our rescue house. We're in the process of finding a second one because obviously a 2300 square foot house is too small. So we need to expand and get more staff. So when somebody makes a donation that helps us defray the costs of, of that, cause it costs right now with 41, girls is closer to 21 or $22,000 a month that it costs us to care for everything. But a donation is, is, is a great way to get behind what we're doing.Rodney Olsen:And we'll include links to the website in the show notes. So you can check that out at bleeding, daylight.net. You can find all the information there. Brad, it's been wonderful to speak to you speaking about some, some very dark things, but, but the light is starting to shine through in, in so many of those areas. We thank you for the work that you are doing and thank you for your time here today.Bradley Hopp:Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.Emily Olsen: Thank you for listening to Bleeding Daylight. Please help us to shine more light into the darkness by sharing this episode with others. For further details and more episodes, please visit BleedingDaylight.net 

An increasingly fragmented relationship between the European Union and China, caused by the coronavirus crisis but something that was already building up before. Today we are speaking to Andrew Small, a senior fellow in Washington DC studying relationships between Europe and China and the USA and China. So Andrew, were there indications of a degradation of the relationship between Europe and China before the start of this crisis, or were there indications that the relationship may have been strengthening ? “The mainstream opinion in Europe was heading in a much more critical direction, exemplified by the European Union’s paper that came out a year ago that labelled China a “systemic rival,” and talked about the fact that the balance of challenges and opportunities with China had gone through a marked shift. There are concerns about rising authoritarianism under Xi Jinping, and in a purely economic lens, many countries in Europe have seen a marked shift. You are seeing the instrumentalisation even of the private sector in China that would work to the detriment of European companies. >> In Europe, since countries did not know just how bad the crisis could get, they were under-prepared. Are the biggest cracks in the Europe-China relationship now total mistrust ? “The handling of the early stages of the breakout has certainly exemplified a whole series of forms of distrust - the way that inflammation flows took place, repressive behaviour of the State, locking up of whistleblower doctors, suppression of information about the virus. They have also sought to exacerbate internal divisions in Europe and exploit economic fragility in Europe.” Have you noticed a correlation between the countries that have been more greatly affected by the crisis and the backlash and blame-shifting towards China ? Do you think this is justified, or a tactic to divert the blame and make the government’s handling of the crisis look good, or at least less bad ? “I think it is both. China-blaming is an obvious route for governments that have handled the crisis poorly, as you have seen in the UK and the USA. It is also justified to significant degree, and I think we are going to see a worsening of the blame-deflection. There is also well-warranted criticism about how they handled the early stages.” In the aftermath of this crisis, are we now going to see a Europe that is far less economically reliant on China ? “How far can you really rely on China in a situation like this again ? There is a wider question that has come up about the level of economic dependency on China. The buzz-word in Europe has been “diversification”. There needs to be a more effective level of diversification away from China. European companies were left dependent on China alone for their supplies alone. This is going to be a period in which Europe has to see China as a rival too.” China and the European Union, the second and third biggest economies in the world. What are the main worries about a potential degradation of this relationship on the world economy ? “I don’t think we are going to get a replication of the US-China dynamics. You will see a systematic rebalancing over time, and there will still be crucial areas of cooperation that will be pursued with China such as tackling climate change and other European priorities. Cautionary exercise rather than something that leads to a lasting restructuring, it could certainly lead to a rebalancing of global economic dynamics, some of which were underway already and will no doubt be accelerated by this.” There is no doubt that, whenever the crisis wavers, both economically and diplomatically the biggest tests for Europe and China are still to come.

In less than a minute, a large group of young salmon were released into the Sacramento River, en route to the Pacific Ocean. These were no ordinary fish. Equipped with small transmitters, these baby salmon are part of a pilot project by the California Rice Commission and UC Davis. Grown in rice fields of Yolo County, scientists hope to find ways that the farm-raised fish will add to the dwindling wild salmon population. This is part of a larger effort to reconnect the Sacramento Valley flood plains; strategically adding water to the landscape to benefit our environment. “The flood plain is really core to the historical ecology of the Central Valley,” remarked Andrew Rypel, Associate Professor and Peter Moyle and California Trout Chair of Coldwater Fish at the Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology at UC Davis. “Once upon a time, before people were over here, there was a lot of water up in the mountains.  The snow would melt in the spring, it would come down and spread out across the central valley. The whole valley was once a huge flood plain. A huge wetland. Abundant Tule plants. Fish, Wildlife. That’s all gone now. But what we do have is we have a lot of rice field habitat, anywhere in the neighborhood of 500,000 acres. We need to figure out how we can use those habitats smartly, to help fish that have evolved using flood plain habitats historically to help boost the populations.” “As many know, fish and farms have often been pitted against each other in California,” Rypel said. “It turns out that they might be able to help each other in the long run.” If the research results are positive, it could eventually lead to many Sacramento Valley rice fields being used to grow salmon each winter. “Ultimately we would like to develop what we would call a conservation practice standard,” said Paul Buttner, Environmental Affairs Manager of the California Rice Commission. “We do this for bird habitat already, where we figure out what we want the growers to do to enhance their fields for habitat. Then we develop a practice that comes with a cost share payment for those that choose to participate.” Here’s a link to find out more about our salmon project, including the sponsors that provide vital support for the research.   Episode Transcript Jim Morris: This is an interesting spot for a field trip. I'm in Knights Landing. To my right is the Sacramento River and to my left are rice fields at River Garden Farms. And there's something unusual this year. There are enclosures raising juvenile salmon. This is year two of our pilot project. Hopefully, the results here will help California’s salmon population in the future. Jim Morris: Welcome to Ingrained, the California Rice Podcast. I'm your host, Jim Morris. At the time of this recording, our world is struggling with COVID-19. My thoughts are with all and my hope is that something positive will come on this front very soon. We're following up on our previous episode, helping salmon. This is year two of the California Rice Commission's Pilot Salmon Project. And today is a big day as salmon raised on this farm are being readied for their journey to the ocean. I'm speaking with Andrew Rypel, who is associate professor and Peter Moyle and California Trout Chair of Coldwater Fish at the Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology at UC Davis. So Andrew, it's kind of a big day today in this project. What's happening? Andrew Rypel: We're seeing kind of a culmination of a lot of fieldwork that's happened over the winter here. We've been rearing baby salmon on rice fields for over a month now and they're now finally of size. We're putting transmitters in them and we're tracking them as they make their journey out to the ocean. Jim Morris: And transmitters, I mean, technology has come a long way. So how accurate are they and how much can you learn from these transmitters? Andrew Rypel: They're very accurate. So we're using acoustic transmitters, which means they transmit sound information. I wish we could use GPS tags like they do on turtles and wolves and things like that. But unfortunately, that signal doesn't penetrate water. So we have to use something called acoustic telemetry technology, that's we're putting in these, they're really the smallest available tags on the market and we're putting them in salmon as small as 72 millimeters in length. They transmit sound out into the river and we have an array of receivers deployed in the river, run by NOAA. And the detections are picked up on that array as they make their way out to the ocean. Jim Morris: And how far of a journey is it in terms of length or time? Andrew Rypel: Well, it's out to the Golden Gate and it usually takes them, well it depends on the water year, but anywhere between a few weeks to a couple of months. Usually, in years where it's wet and there's a lot of water in the river, they tend to hold and they don't go out as fast. In years that are a little bit dryer like this one, they tend to get out quicker. Jim Morris: There is not a 100 percent survival rate at a farm or in the wild. And can you talk a little bit about that? There are a lot of challenges if you're a salmon in California. Andrew Rypel: Yeah, that is the crux of the issue here. Survival of juvenile salmon. Out migration, survival into the ocean is low in California. It typically runs anywhere between three to six percent. So that's a lot of death on their way to the ocean. And it's a big reason why salmon populations are struggling in California. There's good information out there. For example, from the Columbia River that suggests that the smolt to adult return rate needs to be around two percent to have a good stable population. And we typically see smolt to adult return ratios in California below one percent. so the amount of survivorship that occurs during this critical part of salmon's life history can really make a difference in having a growing salmon population or a declining salmon population. Andrew Rypel: So what we think is that by rearing salmon on managed floodplain habitat and that's what we're calling rice fields here, they can grow bigger, faster, get out in the river earlier and have increased survivorship that might increase that percentage up a good bit. Jim Morris: Moving forward, there's a lot of effort to reconnect that floodplain. And can you explain what that means? Andrew Rypel: The floodplain is really core to the historical ecology of the Central Valley. Once upon a time, before people were over here, there was a lot of water up in the mountains, the snow would melt in the spring. It would come down and spread out across the Central Valley. And really the whole valley was once a huge flood plain, a huge wetland, abundant Tule plants, fish, wildlife. That's all gone now. But what we do have is we have a lot of rice field habitat, anywhere in the neighborhood of 500,000 acres. So what we really needed to figure out is how we can use those habitats smartly to help fish that have evolved using floodplain habitats historically to help boost the populations. And I love the story because, as many know, fish and farms have often pitted against each other in California and it turns out they might actually be able to help each other in the long run. Jim Morris: But the key for this aspect of it would be rice. Rice is a different crop than others and it works best for this application, is that correct? Andrew Rypel: Rice is basically an agricultural floodplain. It's shallow, it's productive. We're just not using it for fish and wildlife the way we could yet. Jim Morris: So once the tags are done and in and the fish are released, then there's a lot of monitoring. How long does all that take? Andrew Rypel: Well, we'll know some information right away. There are telemetry receiver stations called real time stations that transmit data in real time right to your computer. And you get that just within a week, two weeks, as soon as the fish pass by those receivers. So we'll know some information right away. And then there are what are called autonomous receivers where researchers have to go out in boats, physically get the receivers, download the data from them, and that will take months towards the end of the summer. So we'll know some quick information that's really valuable right away, and then it'll take us a while to learn the whole picture. Jim Morris: And does this speak to the value of the salmon runs? Because this is an incredible effort. Andrew Rypel: I think it does. It is amazing how much research occurs around salmon on the West Coast and particularly in California. And the fact that... It's not just us, there are all sorts of researchers around the Central Valley that are doing salmon telemetry work. And I think that shows how important those survival rates are. We all want to understand why rates are low and what we can do to boost those rates up. Jim Morris: And year one, a lot of storms, year two, not so much and it got warm, but such is life in California, are you still optimistic that there can be something of a success out of all this? Andrew Rypel: I'm very optimistic. This year's work has gone quite well. We've been able to grow the fish like we wanted in the fields we wanted without them flooding and having problems. And what we've seen so far is that the salmon in at River Garden Farms here and then also at Knaggs Ranch, where we're also raising some fish, they've had incredible growth rates. Just like previous research has shown, they've grown super-fast and super-quick. So we're tagging fish right here today that are between 72 and 90 millimeters in length. And then we have a set of fish that we're keeping at the lab that we're going to study later on. Those fish are only measuring in the 50s. So we're talking about just tremendously higher rates of growth in rice field habitat and we're getting those fish out into the system faster and we think that's going to really help their survival. Jim Morris: Paul Buttner is Environmental Affairs Manager for the California Rice Commission. And Paul, why would the Rice Commission work in this area? Paul Buttner: We share the concern over the health of the salmon fishery here in the Sacramento Valley. Historically, these salmon used the floodplain for their rearing. Much of the floodplain is now agricultural fields including rice fields. So we're interested in seeing if we can develop techniques and strategies to essentially reconnect the floodplain by using winter flooded rice fields as salmon habitat. Jim Morris: And assuming that there are good results from the project, how do you see this potentially playing out in terms of growers and helping salmon in the rice fields? Paul Buttner: Well, ultimately we would like to develop what we would call a conservation practice standard. We do this for bird habitat already where we figure out what we want the growers to do to enhance their fields for habitat, and then we develop a practice and it comes with a cost share payment for those that would choose to participate. Jim Morris: And partnerships are critical in getting this thing done. Can you comment about that? Paul Buttner: Yes. This project would not be possible without funding from about a dozen organizations in total, including major contributions by the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, Syngenta, the SD Bechtel Foundation, Corteva, Grow West and others. Jim Morris: I'm speaking with Rachelle Tallman, UC Davis graduate student who's been integral in this salmon project and last year's as well. And we are under the freeway near the Sacramento River, and what's happening tonight? Rachelle Tallman: Yeah, so we're going to be releasing the fish that we raised at Knaggs Ranch and then a portion of the fish that we raised at River Garden, and we're just kind of timing it with dusk right now. So this is close to seven o'clock and we're going to be taking our Trek, backing it down the ramp and using a slide that we made for the fish to exit more passively than us handling them. Jim Morris: And why at dusk? Rachelle Tallman: We think that it's going to actually increase their chances of survival. In terms of predation, we want to minimize that. You know, when you're putting fish in tanks and getting them prepared to release, they're a little bit stressed out so we're trying to just buy them a little extra chance if we can. Jim Morris: Of course there's still work to be done, but how do you feel? This is kind of a milestone in the project. How are you feeling? Rachelle Tallman: Yeah, it's really exciting to release fish. It means like a portion of the project's done and completed. So I'm excited and I look forward to the second release that we'll do, which will be with more of our River Garden fish and our lab fish from UC Davis. Jim Morris: With the salmon now on their way to the ocean, that will wrap up this episode. Thank you to all of our interview subjects. And remember, you can go to podcast.calrice.org to find out much more. And we would love to hear from you, so send us your comments and questions. Thanks for listening.

Hey gang! Rob and Max have been given the greatest gift of all, a holiday off! So Andrew reads some of their faves of the 2019 movie year! Thanks for listening this year! We'll be back in 2020! 

Dale had to cut out early. So Andrew and I chatted for an hour and a half after the show. Don't miss it.

On the season finale, Adam is away at an Elton John concert. So Andrew decides to talk to an old high school friend. Erik Hardin joins us to talk about his experience running the New York City Marathon and training for his first full marathon. Andrew re-hashes moments of silence for John Ritter (trust me, it's relevant if you give it a listen), and the two reminisce for the first time in 15 years.

“It was either I build this at my house or I build a company.” – Andrew NehligIn this episode, we interview Andrew Nehlig, founder of Sauna House (formerly known as Bada Bastu), a Nordic-style bathhouse located in the South Slope area of Asheville. Sauna House specializes in hot-cold therapy through a unique sauna and cold plunge circuit.So how did this all come to be? Almost ten years ago, a friend recommended that Andrew start using cold water baths to ease his sore muscles after playing intense street hockey games. So Andrew decided to start plunging in the non-temperature controlled pool behind his apartment complex in San Francisco. Later on, he discovered an abandoned sauna in the basement of his apartment building and was surprised to find that it still worked. Suddenly, Andrew had hot-cold therapy in his life every day. The benefits were astounding.Over the years, he simply could not stop thinking about hot-cold treatment. “It was either I build this at my house or I build a company,” says Nehlig. He realized that he was on to something and that other people needed to experience the “relaxation high” he had felt. Thus, the idea for Sauna House was born.In this episode, here’s what you’ll learn: - How and why Andrew started Sauna House - How hot-cold therapy works and why it is good for our health - Advice for athletes interested in hot-cold therapy - The process Andrew went through to financially fund his business - What’s coming up next for Sauna House - Andrew’s favorite places to go in AshevilleSauna House opened its doors in the South Slope area of Asheville in early 2019. They offer Hot Cold Relax (TM) therapy, massage treatments, and a unique wellness community.If you’re wondering what exactly is Hot Cold Relax therapy, you’re not alone. It works like this: you spend 15 minutes in a hot sauna, followed by a quick cold shower rinse and a cold plunge for 3 minutes in a small 50-something degree pool. After that, you simply relax at room temperature for a few minutes. You repeat the circuit two to four times for the best results. According to many scientific studies, hot-cold therapy has numerous physical and mental health benefits including reducing inflammation, stabilizing mood, improving endurance and athletic performance, and decreasing the likelihood of certain aging diseases. But most importantly, you just feel good after doing it.We hope you enjoy this episode!Curious to learn more about what we do? Making It Creative is a boutique marketing agency in Asheville. We are dedicated to working with small business owners that are deeply passionate about what they do by helping them build and improve their sales and communication strategies. Learn more here.For show notes, including some supplementary information from this episode visit: MakingItInAsheville.com/014To recommend an interviewee, visit: MakingItInAsheville.com/podcastMusic by Commonwealth ChoirIf you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, like, review, and/or share! It helps to spread the word and get more eyes on Asheville's makers. Check out Making It in Asheville on other platforms! https://www.instagram.com/makingitinasheville/ https://www.makingitinasheville.com/youtube/ https://makingitinasheville.com/subscribe/

“It was either I build this at my house or I build a company.” – Andrew NehligIn this episode, we interview Andrew Nehlig, founder of Sauna House (formerly known as Bada Bastu), a Nordic-style bathhouse located in the South Slope area of Asheville. Sauna House specializes in hot-cold therapy through a unique sauna and cold plunge circuit.So how did this all come to be? Almost ten years ago, a friend recommended that Andrew start using cold water baths to ease his sore muscles after playing intense street hockey games. So Andrew decided to start plunging in the non-temperature controlled pool behind his apartment complex in San Francisco. Later on, he discovered an abandoned sauna in the basement of his apartment building and was surprised to find that it still worked. Suddenly, Andrew had hot-cold therapy in his life every day. The benefits were astounding.Over the years, he simply could not stop thinking about hot-cold treatment. “It was either I build this at my house or I build a company,” says Nehlig. He realized that he was on to something and that other people needed to experience the “relaxation high” he had felt. Thus, the idea for Sauna House was born.In this episode, here’s what you’ll learn: - How and why Andrew started Sauna House - How hot-cold therapy works and why it is good for our health - Advice for athletes interested in hot-cold therapy - The process Andrew went through to financially fund his business - What’s coming up next for Sauna House - Andrew’s favorite places to go in AshevilleSauna House opened its doors in the South Slope area of Asheville in early 2019. They offer Hot Cold Relax (TM) therapy, massage treatments, and a unique wellness community.If you’re wondering what exactly is Hot Cold Relax therapy, you’re not alone. It works like this: you spend 15 minutes in a hot sauna, followed by a quick cold shower rinse and a cold plunge for 3 minutes in a small 50-something degree pool. After that, you simply relax at room temperature for a few minutes. You repeat the circuit two to four times for the best results. According to many scientific studies, hot-cold therapy has numerous physical and mental health benefits including reducing inflammation, stabilizing mood, improving endurance and athletic performance, and decreasing the likelihood of certain aging diseases. But most importantly, you just feel good after doing it.We hope you enjoy this episode!Curious to learn more about what we do? Making It Creative is a boutique marketing agency in Asheville. We are dedicated to working with small business owners that are deeply passionate about what they do by helping them build and improve their sales and communication strategies. Learn more here.For show notes, including some supplementary information from this episode visit: MakingItInAsheville.com/014To recommend an interviewee, visit: MakingItInAsheville.com/podcastMusic by Commonwealth ChoirIf you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, like, review, and/or share! It helps to spread the word and get more eyes on Asheville's makers. Check out Making It in Asheville on other platforms! https://www.instagram.com/makingitinasheville/ https://www.makingitinasheville.com/youtube/ https://makingitinasheville.com/subscribe/

This episode Jon is on hiatus. So Andrew's good friend Joshua Vermett joins Andy as They discuss the gospel of Jesus Christ.   Books mentioned in the podcast:   What Is the Gospel?: https://www.amazon.com/What-Gospel-Foreword-Carson-9Marks-ebook/dp/B003DQK77E/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=what+is+the+gospel&qid=1558727473&s=gateway&sr=8-1   Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms: https://www.amazon.com/Westminster-Dictionary-Theological-Terms-Donald/dp/0664255116/ref=sr_1_2?crid=RJUFF3LMGNI4&keywords=westminster+dictionary+of+theological+terms&qid=1558727519&s=gateway&sprefix=westminister+di%2Caps%2C186&sr=8-2   Music:   You Are Joy By Risen: https://www.reverbnation.com/artist/downloads/1037442   Change by (TSA) The Saviors Army: https://www.reverbnation.com/tsathesaviorsarmy 

Hims founder Andrew Dudum knew that less than 10 percent of men feel comfortable talking about their looks and health with their doctor. But even getting people to the doctor meant conflicting work schedules, travel, and countless more headaches along the way. So Andrew decided to not only destigmatize men’s self-care, but make access to prescriptions, products and medical advice easier and more affordable.

Listen in as Andrew Warner from Mixergy interviews Russell on the ClickFunnels startup story! On today’s episode you will hear part 1 of 4 of Russell’s interview with Andrew Warner about the Clickfunnels start up story. Here are some of the awesome things you will hear in this part of the story: Find out how and why Russell got started with online marketing in the first place. Hear from Collette why she didn’t consider Russell a loser, even though he had no job and she was working 2 jobs to support him. And see how after Russell’s company had reached over 100 employees, the whole thing came crashing down. So listen here to hear the beginnings of Russell’s role as entrepreneur, and how he has been able to overcome many of the obstacles thrown his way. ---Transcript--- Good morning everybody, this is Russell Brunson. I want to welcome you back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. And you guys are in for a very special treat over the next four episodes. My guess is I’m going to be at Funnel Hacking Live when you’re listening to these, so I wanted to pre-load you up with some amazing-ness. So let me give you some context on what’s going to happen, and why you should be so excited. Alright so, my favorite podcast, other than mine of course, that all of you guys should be subscribed to is called Mixergy. Andrew Warner is the guy who runs Mixergy podcast and I love that podcast because of Andrew. He is my favorite interviewer. If you look at how a lot of people do interview podcasts, they ask questions and I don’t know, I’ve suffered from this in the past as well. I’m not a good interviewer, at least not now. I’d like to learn how to do that skill, but I’m not a great interviewer. And most people who do podcasts with interviews aren’t like great interviewers, but Andrew is like the best interviewer I’ve ever seen. The way he asks questions, how deep he goes and the research he does before the interviews, and all sorts of stuff. Anyway, I love his style, love how he does it so what’s cool, I’ve actually been on the show twice in the past. And the first time, I don’t even, sorry, the second time, he totally caught me off guard. I remember he asked me some questions and I didn’t really know and I responded and he told me after, he told me live on the interview that he doesn’t edit his interviews. He was like, “Well, that was the worst answer you’ve ever given.” I was like, “Oh, thanks.” Anyway, it just totally caught me off guard, but it was cool the way that he just like kind of holds your feet to the fire. So a little while ago I thought, I want to tell the Clickfunnels startup story. But I didn’t want me to just to tell it, I wanted someone who would tell it from a different angle, who would ask the questions that I think people would want to know and do it in a really cool way. So I called Andrew and I’m like, “Hey, I’ve been wanting to do this thing, and I want to do an event around it. Would you be interested.” And he was like, luckily he said yes. So it’s funny, Andrew’s famous, I think I might have talked about this in the interview too, but he’s famous for these scotch nights he does, and as a Mormon I don’t drink so I can’t go to his scotch nights. So when we planned this interview, we planned it in Provo, Utah at this place called the Dry Bar Comedy Club. So a dry bar is a bar with no alcohol. So it was kind of a funny thing. We brought those two things, my world and his world together in this one spot to a dry bar, and told the Clickfunnels startup story. And it was cool, ahead of time he did so much research. He interviewed people who love me, people who hated me, he interviewed our old business partners who are no longer part of the business. He did everything and then he came and I told him, “Everything’s, you can ask me any question you want. Nothing, no holds barred, feel free to do whatever you want.” So we did the interview and it was about two hours long, and I loved it. I think it turned out amazing. And I hope you guys like it too. So I’ll tell you some of the details about the Clickfunnels startup story. How we built what we did, what happened, the ups, the downs, the negatives, the positives. He brings a couple of people up onstage to tell their parts of the story. Anyway, I really hope you enjoy it. So what we’re going to do, I’m going to have each episode over the next four episodes be about thirty minutes long so you can listen to them in pieces. I hope iyou enjoy them, I hope you love them. And if you do, please, please, please take a screen shot of your phone when you’re listening to it, and go post it on Instagram or Facebook and tag me. And then do hashtag marketing secrets and hopefully that will get more people to listen to the podcast. And then please, if you haven’t yet, go rate and review, which would be amazing. So with that said, I’m going to queue up the theme song and when we come back we will start immediately into part one of four of the Dry Bar Comedy Club Interview. Keith Yacky: Clickfunnels has changed a lot of our lives. We all have an origin story. Mine was something similar to, I set up my website on GoDaddy and things were going great. And then Dave Woodward was like, “Dude, you need Clickfunnels.” I’m like, “I don’t need a Clickfunnel. I don’t even know what a Clickfunnel is.” And he’s like, “No, seriously man. This is going to totally change your business.” I’m like, “Bro, I have GoDaddy. They have a commercial on the Super Bowl, Clickfunnels doesn’t. But when they do, I’ll do it.” Well, boy was I wrong. I changed over and it absolutely changed our business and changed our lives. So thank you for that, Dave. But here’s the thing, in every industry there’s somebody that comes along that really disrupts the industry, that really changes it, and that really does something amazing for that industry. And as we all, why we’re here, we know that person is Russell Brunson. And he has changed a lot of our lives. So before I bring him up here, they have asked me to ask you to make sure you don’t do any live recording of this next interview, because the gloves are coming off and they want to be able to present it to the world. You can do little Instagram clips if you’d like, like 15 second ones and tag them. My understanding is the best hashtag and the best clip, gets a date with Drew. I don’t know, that’s just what they told me. So blame them. But with that, again, no videoing, and let us just absolutely take the roof off this place as we bring up our beloved Russell Brunson. Give it up guys. Russell: Alright, well thanks for coming you guys. This is so cool. I’m excited to be here. So a couple of real quick things before we get started. For all of you guys who know, who came to be part of this, we had you all donate a little bit of money towards Operation Underground Railroad, and I’m really excited because Melanie told me right before I got here the total of how much money we raised from this little event for them. So I think the final number was a little over $13,000 was raised for Operation Underground Railroad. So thank you guys for your continued support with them. Just to put that in perspective, that’s enough money to save about 5 children from sex slavery. So it’s a big deal and a life changing thing, so it’s pretty special. So I’m grateful for you guys donating money to come here. And hopefully you’ve had a good time so far. Has it been fun? I really want to tuck my shirt in now, I’m feeling kind of awkward. No it’s been awesome. Okay so what we’re going to do now, I want to introduce the person who’s going to be doing the interview tonight. And it’s somebody I’m really excited to have here. In fact, I met him for the first time like an hour ago, in person. But I want to tell kind of the reason why I wanted him to do this, and why we’re all here. And I’m grateful he said yes, and was willing to come out here and kind of do this. So Andrew runs a podcast called Mixergy. How many of you guys in here are Mixergy listeners? Mixergy is my favorite podcast, I love it. He’s interviewed thousands of people about their startup stories and about how they started their businesses. And it’s really cool because he brings in entrepreneurs and he tells, gets them to tell their stories. But what’s unique about what Andrew does that’s fascinating, the way he interviews people is completely different, it’s unique. I listen to a lot of podcasts and I don’t like a lot of interview shows because a lot of them are just kind of high level. Everyone you listen to with Andrew, he gets really, really deep. The other fun thing is he doesn’t edit his interviews. So there was one interview, I’ll tease him about this right now. But I was listening to it on my headphones, and him and the guest got in kind of an argument and a fight and then it just ended and they aired it. I was like, “I can’t believe you aired that, it was amazing.” And then I was on his podcast a little while later, and he asked me some questions that I couldn’t quite understand perfectly, so I was trying to respond the best I could and kind of fumbled through it. And instead of letting me off the hook, his response was, “Man Russell, that was probably the worst answer I’ve ever heard you give in any interview ever.” And I was like, “Oh my gosh.” So I’m excited for tonight because I told it was like no holds barred and he could ask me anything he wants about the ups of Clickfunnels, the downs of Clickfunnels and anything else, and it’s going to be a lot of fun. So I’m excited to have him here. So with that said, let’s put our hands together for Mr. Andrew Warner. Andrew Warner: I think my mic is right over here. Thank you everyone, thanks Russell for having me here. Most people will contact me after I interview them and say, “Could you please not air the interview?” And you actually had me back here to do it in person. And you were so nice, you even got us this room here. Check this out, they set us up, they’re so nice at Clickfunnels. They said, “Andrew, you’re staying here, we’re going to put you and your family up the night before in a room.” My wife was so good, look that’s her journaling. My kids were playing around, sleeping in the same, sleeping together, enjoying themselves. And then I went to call somebody who was basically let go from Clickfunnels. And my wife goes, “Andrew, why do you have to do that? That’s not why they invited you here.” And I said, “I do know Russell. I know the team. They actually did invite me to really help get to the story of how Clickfunnels started, how it built up.” And the reason I was up calling people, understanding the story is because I want to make it meaningful for you. I’ve talked to a lot of you as you were coming in here, you want to know how they got here, what worked for Clickfunnels, what would work for us. So that’s my goal here, to spend the time understanding by interviewing you about how you did it. So I want to go way back to a guy a few of you might recognize, and I know you would, and ask you what drew you to this guy when you were younger? Russell: Don Lepre Clip: “One tiny classified ad in the newspaper that makes just 30-40 dollars profit in a week, it could make you a fortune, because the secret is learning how to take that one tiny classified that just made 30-40 dollars profit in a week, and to realize that you could now take that same exact ad and place it in up to 3,000 other newspapers around the country….” Russell: I’m having nostalgia right now. So this is the story of that, I was 12, 13 years old, something like that, and I was watching the news with my dad. And usually he’s like, “Go to bed Russell.” And he didn’t that night and then the news got over and I think he thought I was asleep and Mash came on. So Mash started playing and then it got over, and then this infomercial showed up. And I’m laying there on the couch watching Don Lepre talk about tiny classified ads, I was totally freaking out and I jumped up and begged my dad to buy it and he said no. And I was like, “Are you kidding? Did you not listen to what he said?” Did you guys just hear that? That was a good pitch huh? It’s really good. I love a good pitch. It is so good. So I went and asked my dad if I could earn the money. So I went and mowed lawns and earned the money and ordered the kit and I still have the original books to this day. Andrew: Were you disappointed? I bought it too. It was the dream of being able to do it. Russell: That’s why I like you so much, that’s amazing. Andrew: And it’s just, all he sent you was a bunch of paper guides with how to buy ads, right. Were you disappointed when you got that? Russell: No, I was excited. I think for me because the vision was cast, it was like, he said right there word for word, you make 40 dollars a newspaper, and if you’re disappointed, but he put that same ad in 3,000 newspapers, imagine that. So I had the vision of that, I think the only thing I was disappointed in, I didn’t have any money to actually buy an ad. And that was more like, I can’t actually do it now. Andrew: You are a champion wrestler and then you got here. Is your wife here? Russell: My beautiful wife right here, Collette. Andrew: Hey Collette. And your dad had a conversation with you about money, what did he say? Russell: So up to that point my dad had supported me, and I figured he would the rest of my life, I think. I don’t know. So I was 21 almost 22 at this time, I was wrestling so I couldn’t get a job because I was wrestling all the time. Then I met Collette, fell in love with her and then I called my parents and I was like, “Hey, I’m going to marry her. I’m going propose to her and everything.” Expecting them to be like, “Sweet, that’ll be awesome.” And my mom was all excited, I’m not going to lie. But then my dad was like, “Just so you know if you get married, you have to be a man now. You have to support yourself.” And I was like, “I don’t know how to do that, I’m wrestling.” And he’s like, “Well, I’m not going to keep paying for you to do it.” I’m like, “But I literally got the ring. I have, I can’t not propose now.” So that was kind of the thing. So it was interesting because about that time there was another infomercial, there’s the pattern, about I can’t remember exactly the name of the company, but they were doing an event at the local Holiday inn that was like, “Hey, you’re going to build websites and make money.” And it was like the night or two days after I told my dad this and he was like, “you’re in trouble.” And all the sudden I saw that, so I was like, there’s the answer. So I’m at the holiday in two days later, sitting in the room, hearing the pitch, signing up for stuff I shouldn’t have bought. There’s the pattern. Andrew: Did you feel like a loser getting married at 22 and still counting on your dad for money? Did you feel like you were marrying a loser? Russell: Actually, this is a sad story because she actually, my roommate at the time, she actually asked him, “Do you think he’s going to be able to support me in the future?” and he was like, “Yeah, I think so.” I’m like, I didn’t know this until later. I don’t think I felt like a loser, but I definitely was nervous, like oh my gosh. Because my whole identity at that point in my life was I was a wrestler and if that was to disappear…I couldn’t have that disappear. So I was like, I have to figure out something. There’s gotta be some way to do both. Andrew: To both what? To be a wrestler and make money from some infomercial? Russell: I didn’t know that was going to be the path, but yeah. Andrew: But you knew you were going to do something. What did you think that was going to be? Russell: I wasn’t sure. When I went to the event, they were selling these time share books and you could buy resale rights to them, so I was like, oh. And I remember back, because I remembered the Don Lepre stuff, so I was like, maybe I could buy classified ads and sell these things. And then I was at the event and they were talking about websites, and that was the first thing I’d heard about websites. And they’re talking about Google and the beginnings of this whole internet thing. So I was like, I can do that. It made all logical sense to me, I just didn’t know how to do it. I just knew that that was going to be the only path because if I had to get a job I wouldn’t be able to wrestle. So I was like, I have to figure out something that’s not going to be a 40 hour thing because I’m spending that time wrestling and going to school. So I had to figure out the best of how to do both. Andrew: And you obviously found it. My goal today is to go through this process of finding it. But let me skip ahead a little bit. What is this website? Russell: Oh man, alright. This is actually, the back story behind this is there was a guy named Vince James who wrote a book called the Twelve Month Millionaire. And if anybody’s got that book, it’s fat like a phone book. It’s a huge book. I read and I was like, this book’s amazing. And at the time I was an affiliate marketer, so I had a little bit, maybe a thousand people on my list. So I called up Vince and I was like, “Hey, can I interview you about the book and then I’ll use that as a tool to sell more copies of your book?” and he was like, “Sure.” So he jumped on the phone with me on a Saturday and he spent 3 hours letting me interview with any questions I had. And I got to the end of it and I still had a ton of questions and he’s like, “Well come back next week and do it again.” So I interviewed him for 6 hours about it. And then we used that to sell some copies of his book and then it just sat there, probably for 2 or 3 years as I was trying different ideas, different businesses and things like that. But every time I would talk to people I would tell them about this interview. I’m like, “I interviewed this guy who made a hundred million dollars through direct mail.” And everyone wanted to hear the interview, everybody asked me for it. So one day I was like, “Let’s just make that the product.” And we put it up here and this was the very first funnel we had that did over a million dollars, my first Two Comma Club funnel. Andrew: A million dollars. Do you remember what that felt like? Russell: It was amazing because it was funny back then. There were people, a few people who were making a lot of money online that I was watching and just idolizing everything they’d do. I was trying to model what they were doing. And I’d had little wins, you know $10,000 here, $15,000 here, but this was by far the first one that just hit. Everyone was so excited. Andrew: How’d you celebrate? Russell: I don’t even remember how we celebrated. Andrew: You married a winner after all. I mean really. Do you remember what you guys did to celebrate? No. Russell: I don’t even remember. (audience responding, inaudible) It was in my list. That’s a good question. Andrew: It’ll come up, that list is going to come up in a second too. You ended up creating Clickfunnels. How much revenue are you guys doing now, 2018? Russell: 2018 we’ll pass over a hundred million dollars, this year. Andrew:  A hundred million dollars, wowee. How far have you come? Russell: Like when did we start? Andrew: Today revenue, as of today, October 2018? Russell: Oh this year? Oh from the beginning of time until now? Andrew: No, no I mean I want to know, you’re going to do a hundred million dollars, are you at 10 and you’re hoping to get…. Russell: These guys know better than me, do you know exactly where we’re at right now? 83 million for the year. Andrew: 83! I love that Dave knows that right, so I want to know how you got to that. I went through your site, pages and pages that look like this. It’s like long form sales letters. I asked my assistant to take pictures, she said, “This is, I can’t do it, it’s too many.” Look at this guys. I asked him to help me figure out what he did. He created this list, this is not the full list, look at this. Every blue line is him finding an old archive of a page he created. It goes on and on like this. How long did it take you to put that together? Russell: It was probably 5 or 6 hours just to find all the pages. Andrew: 5 or 6 hours you spent to find these images to help me tell the story. Years and years of doing this, a lot of failure, what amazes me is you didn’t feel jaded and let down after Don Lepre sold you that stuff. You didn’t feel jaded and let down and say, ‘This whole make money thing is a failure.’ After, and we’re going to talk about some of your failures, you just kept going with that same smile, the same eagerness. Alright, let’s start with the very first business. What’s this one? This is called… Russell: Sublime Net. How many of you guys remember Sublime Net out there? Andrew: You guys remember this? Anyone remember it. You do? Russell: John does. So actually this is the first business for the first website I bought. I was so proud of it, and I spent, I don’t know, I wanted to sell software so I was like, ‘what could I name my company?” So I figured out Exciting Software. So I went to buy Exciteware.com, but it wasn’t for sale. So I bought Exciteware.net and Collette was working at the time and she came home and I was so excited, I’m like, “We got our first website. We’re going to be rich.” And I told her the name, I was like, “It’s Exciteware.net.” and she looked at me with this look like, she’s like, “Are you selling underwear, what is the…lingerie?” I’m like, “No, it’s software.” And she’s like, “You can’t, I’m not going to tell my mom that you bought that. You gotta think of another name.” I’m like, “Crap.” So that was the next best name I came up with was Sublime Net. Like the band Sublime. That was it. Andrew: And I was going to ask you what it was, but it was lots of different things. Every screenshot on there is a whole other business under the same name. What are the businesses? Do you remember? Russell: There was website hosting, there was affiliates sites, there were, I can’t even remember now, trying to remember. Everything I could think of, resell rights…. Andrew: Lots of different things. How did you do, how well did you do? Russell: Never anything, very little. I remember the first thing I ever sold was an affiliate product, I made $20 on it through my Paypal account, because I remember that night, I do remember I celebrated. We went out to dinner and I had a Paypal credit card, and we bought dinner with $20 and then the guy refunded the next day. It was so sad. But I was proud that I had made money. Andrew: How did you support yourself while this was not working? Russell: I didn’t. My beautiful wife did, she had 2 jobs at the time to support me while I was wrestling and doing these things. She was the one who made it possible to gamble and risk and try crazy things. Andrew: Can I put you on the spot and ask you to just come over here and just tell me about this period and what you felt at the time? Is that, I know you don’t love being onstage, Russell is good with it, but I know you don’t love it. If you don’t mind, I’m just going to go with one more story and then I’ll come back to you. You cool with it? Good, she seems a little nervous. Actually, wait. Let’s see if we can get her right now. Oh you are, okay. Russell: Everyone, this is Collette, my beautiful wife. Andrew: Do you want to use his mic? Collette: Sure. Russell: She’s so mad at me right now. Collette: I wanted to come to this, who knew? Andrew: You are like his, he’s so proud that he had no venture funding. But you are like his first investor. Russell: That is true. Collette: Yes, I’ll be his first investor. Andrew: Can you hold the mic a little closer. How did you know he wasn’t a loser? No job, he’s wrestling, he’s buying infomercial stuff that doesn’t go anywhere. We know he did well, so we’re not insulting him now, but what did you see in him back then that let you say, ‘I’m going to work extra hard and pay for what he’s not doing?’ Collette: What did I see in him? It was actually his energy, his spirit, because I’m not going to lie, it was kind of not love at first site, we had, we were geeko’s, do you know what I mean? Shopped at the Goodwill, in baggy pants and tshirts, I don’t know. But it was the person who just was always positive and we had the same goals. Andrew: That’s the thing I noticed too, the positivity. When these businesses fail, we’re showing the few on the screen, it’s easy to look back and go, ‘ha ha, I did this and it was interesting.’ But at the time, what was the bounce back like when things didn’t work out? When the world basically said, you know what as sales people, when they don’t buy your stuff it’s like they don’t buy you. When the world basically said, ‘we don’t like you. We don’t like what you’ve created.’ What was the bounce back like? Hard? Collette: No, because I come from a hard working family. So I work hard. So you just work hard to make it work. Andrew: And he’s just an eternal optimistic, and you’re an eternal optimist too, like genuinely, really? Collette: Yeah, I guess. It works. Andrew: His dad said, ‘No more money. You had to cut up your credit cards too.’ Collette: Yeah. Andrew: What was, how did you cut up your credit cards. What was that day like? Collette: Hard. Yeah hard. Those that don’t know, I’m a little bit older than Russell. So I’ve always had this little bit of independency to go do and buy and do these things, and then all the sudden I’m like, step back sista! You gotta take care of this young man, so we can get to where we’re at. Anyway, but now… Andrew: Now things are good? Collette: Now things are amazing. Andrew: Alright, give her a big round of applause. Thanks for coming up here. These businesses did okay, and then you started something that I never heard about, but look at this. I’m going to zoom in on a section of the Google doc you sent me. This is the call center. The call center got to how many employees? 100? Russell: We had about 60 full time sales people, 20 full time coaches, and about 20 people doing the marketing and sales, so about 100 people in the whole company, yeah. Andrew: 100 people doing what kind of call center, what kind of work? Russell: So what we would do, we would sell free CDs and things like that online, free CDs, free books, free whatever, and then when someone would buy it we’d call them on the phone, and then we’d offer them high end coaching. Andrew: And this was you getting customers, how? Russell: Man, back then it was pre-facebook. So a lot of it was Google, it was email lists, it was anything we could figure out to drive traffic, all sorts of weird stuff. Andrew: And then people come in, get a free CD, sign up for coaching, and then you had to hire people and teach them how to coach? How did you do that. Russell: Yeah, that was the hard thing. When we first started doing it, I was just doing the coaching. People would come in and we had a little, Brent and some of you guys remember the little offices we had, and we’d bring people in and we were so proud of our little office. And they’d come in and we’d teach them for 2 or 3 days, teach an event for them, and then as it got bigger it was harder and harder for me to do that. So eventually, and a lot of people didn’t want to come to Boise. I love Boise, but it’s really hard to get to. So people would sign up for coaching, and then they’d never show up to Boise and then a year later they’d want their money back. So we’re like, we have to get something where they’re getting fulfilled whether they showed up to Boise or now. So we started doing phone coaching, and at first it was me, and then it was me and a couple other people, and then we started training more coaches, and that’s kind of how it started. It was one of those things though, at  first it was just like 5 or 6 of us in a room doing it, and it worked and so then the next logical thing is, we should go from 5 people to 10 to 20 and next thing you know, we wake up with 100 people. I’m like, what are we doing? We’re little kids, it scares me that I’m in charge of all these people’s livelihood, but that’s kind of where it was at and it got kind of scary for me. Andrew: Sometimes I wonder if I’m hiding behind interviewing because I’m afraid to stand up and say, ‘here’s what I want. Here’s what I think we need to do. Here’s how the world should be.’ So I’m amazed that even back then, after having a few businesses that didn’t really work out, you were comfortable enough to say, ‘Come to my office, I’m going to teach you. I’ve got it figured out.’ When you hadn’t.  How did you get yourself comfortable, and what made you feel comfortable about being able to say, ‘I could teach these people. Come to my office.’ Who call up, who then become my coaches, who then have to teach other people? Russell: I think for me it was like, when I first started learning the online stuff and entrepreneurship, I think most people feel this, it’s so exciting you want to tell everybody about it. So I’m telling my friends and my family and nobody cares at first. And you’re like, I have to share this gift I’ve figured out, it’s amazing. And nobody cares. And then the first time somebody cares, and you just dump on them, you want to show it to them. So I hadn’t made tons of money, but I had a lot of these little websites that had done, $30 grand, $50 grand, $100 grand. So for me it was like, if I can show these people, I know what that did for me, it gave me the spark to want to do the next one and the next one. So for me it was like I want to share this because I feel like I figured it out. So that was the thing coming in. We weren’t teaching people how to build a hundred million dollar company, but we’re like, “Hey, you can quit your job. You can make 2 or 3 thousand dollars a month, you can quit your job, and this is how I did it. This is the process.” So that’s what we were showing people. Just the foundation of how we did it, and we showed other people, because they cared and it was exciting to share it with other people. Andrew: Is Whitney here? There she is. I met her as she was coming in. I wanted to get to know why people were coming to watch this, what they wanted to hear from you. And Whitney was asking about the difficult period, the why. I’m wondering the same thing that she and I were talking about, which is why put yourself through this? You could have gotten a job, you could have done okay, why put yourself through the risk of hiring people, the eventual as we’ll see, closing of the company, what was your motivation? What was the goal? Why did you want to do it? Russell: I think it shifts throughout time. I think most entrepreneurs when they first get started, it’s because of money. They’re like, ‘I want to make money.’ And then you get that and then really quick, that doesn’t last very long. And then it’s like, then for me it was like, I want to share that with other people. And then when other people get it, there’s something about that aha moment where you’re like, oh my gosh they got it. They got what I was saying. And that for me was like the next level, the next high. It was just like, ah, I love that. And back then we had some success stories coming through, but now days, it’s like the bigger success stories come through and that’s what drives it on. That is the fascinating part. That’s why we keep, because most software company owners don’t keep creating books, and courses and inter….but when people have the aha, oh my gosh, that’s the best for me. Andrew: That’s the thing, you get the high of the thing that you wanted when you were growing up, that you wanted someone to show it to you, and if you could then genuinely give it them, not like Don Lepre. But Don Lepre plus actual results, that’s what fires you up. Russell: That does fire me up. That’s amazing. Andrew: What happened? Why did that close down? Russell: Oh man, a lot of things. A lot of bad mistakes, a lot of first time growing a company stuff that I didn’t, again, we just woke up one day it felt like, and we were in this huge office, huge overhead, and about that time, it was 99, 2000 something like that, and there was the merchant account that me and most of the people doing internet marketing at the time, we all used the same merchant account, and they got hit by Visa and Mastercard, so they freaked out and shut down. I think it ended up being 4 or 5 merchant accounts overnight, and we had 9 different merchant accounts with that company, and all of them got shut down instantly. I remember because everything was fine, we were going through the day and it was like 1:00 in the afternoon on a Friday. They came in like, “None of the, the cards won’t process.” And I’m like, couldn’t figure out why they weren’t processing. We tried to call the company and no one’s answering at the company. Finally we get someone on the phone and they’re like, “Yep, you got shut down along with all the other scammers.” And then she hung up on me. And I was like, I don’t know what to do right now. I’ve got 100+ people and payroll is not small, and we didn’t have a ton of cash in the bank, it was more of a cash flow business. And Collette actually just left town that night, and she was gone. I remember Avatar just came out, and everyone was going to the movie Avatar that night, and I remember sitting there during the longest movie of all time, and I don’t remember anything other than the sick feeling in my stomach. I was texting everyone I know, trying to see if anyone knew what to do. And everyone was like, “We got shut down too.” “We got shut down.” Everyone got shut down. And we couldn’t figure out anything. So we came back the next day and I called everyone up, and actually kind of a funny side story, I had just met Tony Robbins a little prior, earlier to this. So that night I was laying in bed, it was like 4 in the morning, and my phone rings and I look at it and it was Tony Robbins’ assistant. And I pick it up and he’s like, “Hey, is there any way you can be in Vegas in three hours? There’s a plane from Boise to Vegas and Tony wants you to speak at this event. It’s starting in three hours. You need to be on stage in three hours.” I’m sitting here like, my whole world just collapsed, I’m laying in bed sick to my stomach and I’m like, “I don’t think I can. I have to figure this thing out.” And then he tells Tony, and they call me back. “Tony says if your business is…if you can’t make it, don’t show up. You’re fine.” So I didn’t go and then the next morning I woke up and there was a message on my phone that I’d missed. I passed out and I woke up and it was a message from Tony. And he was like, “Hey man, I know that you care about your customers, you care about things. I don’t know the whole situation, but worst case scenario, if you need help let me know, and we can absorb you into Robbins research or whatever and you can be one of my companies, and that way if you want, we can protect you.” And I heard that and I was like, “Okay, that’s the worst case scenario, I get to work with Tony Robbins? That’s the worst case scenario.” So then I called up everyone on my team and I was like, “Okay guys, we gotta try to figure out how to save this.” And Brent and John and everyone, we came back to my house and I was like, “Okay, what ideas do we got?” And we just sat there for the next 5 or 6 hours trying to figure stuff out. And then we went to work, and I wish I could say that everything turned around, but it was the next probably 2 or 3 years of us firing 30 people, firing 20 people, closing things down, moving down offices. Just shrinking for a long, long time, until the peak of it, it was about a year after that moment, and we were in an event in Vegas trying to figure out how to save stuff, and I got an email from my dad who was helping with the books at the time, and he said, “Hey, I got really bad news for you. I looked through the books and it turns out your assistant who is supposed to be doing payroll taxes, hadn’t paid payroll in over a year. You owe the IRS $170,000 and if you don’t pay this, you’re probably going to go to jail.” And I was like, every penny I’d earned to that point was gone. Everything was done and we’d lost everything and I was just like, I don’t know how to fight this battle, but if I don’t fight it I go to jail apparently. And I remember that’s a really crappy feeling. Brent, some of you guys are reliving this with me right now, I know. I remember going back that night, laying in bed and I was just like, “I wish I had a boss that could fire me, because I don’t know what to do, how to do it.” And that was kind of, that was definitely the lowest spot for me. Andrew: And you stuck with him? Wow, yeah.

Johnny and Andrew look back over the last year of the podcast, the highs and the lows, and Johnny can’t stop talking about that trip to Nashville he took. So Andrew naturally annoys him constantly over it.

This episode is very, very special to me. I had the honor of going to visit Andrew in his beautiful center in California here, and it's so incredible. I just feel so excited about sharing him with you because he is such a special person to me. I've been working with Andrew for about 2 years now, working on energy work. He is such a talented healer. What Andrew does, I can't even explain it. He's able to clear energy, move energy, really understand patterns and attachment, and really getting to the root of why we do what we do and why we are stuck in these behaviors and patterns that aren't serving us. He is just an absolute wizard. In this episode, we talked about how to truly access energy in our bodies, which is something that I know we talked about a lot about on the show, but the way that Andrew frames it is so beautiful and really allows us to dig into the part of us that feels calm, and feels safe. So Andrew had a near-death experience which really let him into this whole body of work. He didn't wake up one day, deciding to do this work. He was actually comedian. One day, he was surfing and he got smoked in the head with a surfboard, and he had a spiritual awakening. It's just such a beautiful story. He's such a grounded individual yet has this power to just heal, influence, and just be such a leader for oneness and wholeness.   About Andrew   At the age of 32, a surfboard bashed into Andrew's head when he was out surfing one day. He was left unconscious in the ocean until a stranger pulled him out and saved his life. Andrew was never the same again. Andrew began to question his identity. He became incredibly present to the world in a way he never experienced before. Andrew took it upon himself to dive deep into healing and discovered his purpose.   In this episode, Andrew shares:   Learning to access safety in our bodies, so we can use it when fear arises within us. How Andrew's near death experience led him to become a healer. How our childhood protectors have positive and negative impacts on our adult life. How to acknowledge our protectors so they don't control our experience. How shifting our perception allows us to shift our energy. The difference between true discernment and being in resistance. Being intentional and intuitive with the types of coaches and healers you decide to work with. You can find more of Andrew at: Website | Instagram | Facebook

Welcome to Investing for Beginners podcast this is episode 75. Tonight Andrew and I are going to answer some listener questions. We got some great questions in the last few weeks and we wanted to take a few minutes to go ahead and answer those on the air for you guys. So Andrew why don’t […] The post IFB75: Listener Q&A on Weed Stocks, What to Do When Your Stock Crashes appeared first on Investing for Beginners 101.

In this episode T. Susan Chang plays host to interview me about my new deck from Llewellyn – The Orisha Tarot. We talk about my 18 year journey with the Lukumi tradition that brought me to this point. This episode is a deep dive into the how and why of this deck an dthe role the spirits have played in its creation too.  You can see the deck and get it from my website here, Amazon, or at your local bookshop.  Think about how much you've enjoyed the podcast and how many episodes you listened to, and consider if it is time to support the Patreon You can do so here. And you should go see all the good stuff Susan is up to here.  If you want more of this in your life you can subscribe by RSS , iTunes, Stitcher, or email. Thanks for joining the conversation. Please share the podcast to help us grow and change the world.  Andrew You can book time with me through my site here.  Transcription SUSIE: Hello, everybody! You're hearing a different voice as the host of this week's Hermit's Lamp podcast. I'm Susie Chang, friend of Andrew, and Andrew has kindly invited me to come on the show in order to interview him about his new deck, the Orisha Tarot, since he obviously could not interview himself! [laughs] Normally, at the beginning of an interview, what I would do is introduce the guest, but since the guest is the host, I guess I'll just do a very cursory introduction of what I know about my friend, Andrew. As you know, he is the proprietor of The Hermit's Lamp, the store, which is a touchstone for all of us in the tarot community, and he is the voice behind The Hermit's Lamp podcast. He is an artist in his own right and a creator of beautiful works, decks, and he is also a priest in the Lucumí tradition, and we'll be talking about that some more. But the reason that we're here today is to talk about the Orisha Tarot, which is coming out from Llewellyn in September … What day is it?  ANDREW: Basically, today, according to Amazon.  SUSIE: For real! Fantastic! Yeah, this is very exciting. So, I understand decks are already shipping out, and I was also particularly interesting -- interested -- in doing this podcast because we're both Llewellyn authors. I've got a book coming out from Llewellyn on tarot correspondences just next month. So, shout out to Llewellyn for supporting the work of tarot lovers everywhere.  ANDREW: Absolutely. SUSIE: Yeah! So the Orisha Tarot is officially out. Congratulations! ANDREW: Thank you! SUSIE: It's been many years in the making, hasn't it?  ANDREW: Yeah, I mean it's … It's always one of those things. Where do you count that from? You know?  SUSIE: [laughs] ANDREW: I signed my contract for it about two years ago, maybe a little bit less than that. So that's probably as good a time as any. But even at that point I had already made a dozen cards and had spent five or six years prior to that thinking about it and trying to figure out what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it. So. You know?  SUSIE: Right. And actually, I'd like to back up even further, to the beginning of your story in this tradition. And to find out a little bit. Because it's been about ten years, I think you said? Something like that?  ANDREW: Ten years as a priest.  SUSIE: Mm-hmm.  ANDREW: As of August. It was 2000 when I started getting involved in this tradition. So it's been about 18 years that I've been involved.  SUSIE: Wow. So that's … Really, it's been a long journey for you. And I was listening to your wonderful interview with our friends at the Tarot Visions podcast, and I think you mentioned that you came into it through kind of a circle of friends who were exploring different esoteric traditions, and I kind of wanted to know a little bit more about what drew you. You mentioned that you were, you know, a friend had brought in his own explorations of Lucumí, and I wanted to, first of all, sort of talk a tiny bit about the context of Lucumí, since not everyone will be familiar with it, and also, a little bit more about your attraction to it. Now, as I understand it, Lucumí is a Cuban offshoot of the greater Yoruba African traditional religion, yeah?  ANDREW: So, the story you get will depend a lot on who you talk to. Like many things. Right?  SUSIE: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: You know, so, at the time of the Atlantic slave trade, Yoruban wasn't really cohesive at all. That whole area was a bunch of city states and so on, right?  SUSIE: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: So, this idea that there was sort of one cohesive African traditional religion, or ATR, which these things spread from, isn't really historically accurate. You know?  SUSIE: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: If you came from, you know, the city of Ife, then, you know, your tradition slants in one direction, certain deities are, you know, held above others; if you come from Oyo, then, you know, that's going to have a different set of traditions and sort of a different kind of more primary veneration and tilting towards certain deities over others. If you're down sort of in the coastal parts of kind of western Africa, towards the south end of that sort of prominence, the way in which some of the Orisha are going to manifest, especially the water Orisha, are different than if you're sort of further north, or inland, or in other places. You know, and so … SUSIE: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: It's important to understand that these sort of … All of these Orisha traditions and their diasporic manifestations, you know, as they found themselves in different countries, throughout the Caribbean and North and South America, they all varied depending on which groups of people were enslaved and brought over, which traditions survived, what happened in relationship to the indigenous culture that was present, you know, in Cuba indigenous culture was sort of pretty much wiped out, so there wasn't much inclusion of that into the traditions, whereas in other parts, you know, especially in South America, you know, some of those cultures continue to sort of live alongside and there's sort of more sharing of ideas. SUSIE: Yeah, it seems like in many of the diasporic manifestations, you see fates that have been heavily syncretized with whatever was going on locally.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I think that, you know, the question of syncretization is always an interesting one, you know?  SUSIE: Yeah.  ANDREW: The story that some people like to say is that they were syncretized in order to conceal them and to prevent … SUSIE: Right. ANDREW: And to protect them and to allow them to practice covertly, you know … SUSIE: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: And I'm sure that that's true in some ways. But also, you know, there's a lot of … In nonwestern approaches to magic and to spirituality, there's often a real sense of "hey, what's that guy good for? What's that spirit …?" SUSIE: Right. ANDREW: "What's that one going to do for me?" Whereas this sort of very practical notion of, you know, you come across somebody and you're like, "well, I read about this guy, what's that saint good for?" SUSIE: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: And there's the syncretization that happens, for sure, but there's also the notion of like, having more spiritual people in your corner is not a bad idea at all. Right?  SUSIE: Exactly, exactly. ANDREW: And so, so I think the history is interesting to try and unravel, but I think that we'll never really fully understand exactly what was going on with everybody involved.  SUSIE: Exactly. And I think that, you know, people of faith kind of make faith work however they can, right? You know, it's sort of like you'll always have schools of thoughts that try to keep, you know, try to distinguish and separate and go towards a purist mentality in terms of practicing faith, and then there are others who'll say, well, we work with what we've got, you know?  ANDREW: Exactly. SUSIE: Yeah. ANDREW: So, and so, to kind of answer your kind of like, about my lineage … My lineage, as far back as we know it, originates with this woman Monserrate, you know, she's the farthest back that we can trace that, and my lineage originates in Cuba and through those sort of Cuban traditions. So. Variations of the diasporic traditions, for sure.  SUSIE: Right, right. So we're talking about … We're specifically talking about a tradition that came to Cuba through the slave trade.  ANDREW: Exactly, yeah. SUSIE: And do … You actually have some reference to that in, I think, your Ten of Swords card.  ANDREW: Absolutely. SUSIE: Which seems really appropriate, yeah. So, I wanted to know a little bit more about your personal journey, in terms of whether you yourself grew up in any kind of faith community, or whether you were … you know, did you have to rebel against one? did you long to belong to a faith community? What was that like for you and what was discovering this community like for you?  ANDREW: So, I think that one of the best things that my parents did was not raise me with any traditions at all.  SUSIE: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: My parents weren't particularly religious, you know ... SUSIE: So what did you rebel against? [laughs] ANDREW: I didn't rebel against any- I mean I rebelled against everything. But we'll get to that. But what that meant was, you know, when I said to my mom, I want to go to the psychic fair and find some books on magic, when I was 12, my mom was like, okay. You know, when I like, picked out Alistair Crowley, she was like, sure, go ahead.  SUSIE: Yeah. ANDREW: So, that meant that I like had a lot of space to really get involved and think about other things, you know?  SUSIE: Yeah. ANDREW: You know, other than sort of when my parents split up and we started going to Anglican church, mostly I think because my mom wanted some community … SUSIE: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: I didn't really have a lot of connection or experience with any kind of organized religion. But what happened was, when I was 14, I almost died in a car accident.  SUSIE: Right.  ANDREW: And after that I wanted to understand everything. And so, I didn't rebel against anything as such, but what I really wanted to know was, like, what does this all mean? Right? Like all of it. You know. At that point I'd already been reading tarot for a year … SUSIE: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: I'd already been studying Crowley for a couple of years. It was already really invested in sort of a magical world view. And at that point then I just started reading everything I could get my hands on, right? So I'm like in grade 9 and 10, and reading Nietzsche and … SUSIE: Sure. ANDREW: Picking out, you know, people who can talk about these things. The youth group at the church was run by an ex-Jesuit, and so I would like corner him and be like "hey, tell me about this, tell me about that, tell me about this," and for the most part, people would indulge me and have conversations with me about it, you know?  SUSIE: Mm-hmm. Was there another organized religion that you were drawn to? Before Lucumí?  ANDREW: No. I mean, Crowley's work. You know?  SUSIE: Yes.  ANDREW: For me it was basically all about Crowley's work.  SUSIE: And you were in the OTO? ANDREW: Yeah. When I was in my ... It wasn't until much later though. It wasn't until I was, you know, well into my 20s that I actually even considered … I was like, oh, maybe the OTO exists here in Toronto. Maybe I could find people. Mostly I just practiced independently and pursued and tried to talk to people. SUSIE: Right.  ANDREW: Yeah. And then basically I left the OTO and the Armed Solace, which was another initiatory group, and moved into practicing Lucumí, you know? That was my journey.  SUSIE: Yeah, yeah. And it's been, as you said, like an 18-year journey at this point. And, so that's something I wanted to sort of ask you about, in terms of doing the artwork, telling the stories, introducing the wider world to this tradition. You know, often when we are talking about faiths we didn't grow up in, you know, there's this question of whether it's your story to tell, or whether, you know, at what point do you become a representative? And so that's a question I have for you, at what point did you feel that you were invested enough or, you know, that you had a strong enough sense of belonging to be able to bring this to other people?  ANDREW: Sure. So, there's a whole bunch of pieces to that answer. SUSIE: Mm-hmm. It's a complex one. [laughing] ANDREW: Yeah! We'll start with this. When you … When you become a priest, right? You become initiated into a lineage, right? So, you know, and when we talk about ancestors, the word we use most of the time is Egun. Right? We mean Egun to mean, ancestors by blood, and ancestors by initiation, right?  SUSIE: Right. ANDREW: And so, you know, my Egun are those priests of the Orishas, going back to Montserrate and beyond, you know, and they're lost to history beyond that. And so, part of the conversation for me is, this is my lineage, this is my, these are my ancestors at this point, right? And this is something that we take pretty seriously within the tradition, right? Initiation and lineage are really significant. SUSIE: Right.  ANDREW: And so that's part of the thing. Part of it is, although my parents did not practice this tradition, I am initiated into this lineage in a traditional way.  SUSIE: So, so there's a difference here between blood lineage and spiritual lineage.  ANDREW: But the word does not differentiate. We don't differentiate, right? So, if you … We could … You could get a reading, and, your traditional reading, and your reading could come in a good way or a bad way, depending on what's going on with you, from the Egun, right?  SUSIE: Right, right.  ANDREW: And when we're divining, if it's possible, we want to mark who that is, and we would ask, ancestors from the lineage, and ancestors from the blood line, and depending on what the reading came out as, it would guide us. And we could narrow it down, and be like, "Oh, yeah, the ancestors are upset with you, and in this case it's someone from your blood family, or in some other case it's somebody from your initiatory lineage," but we don't differentiate, the word means the same, right?  SUSIE: Yes, I seem to remember reading something this past week about the idea that your, your, they're sort of one set, one bloodline sort of over one shoulder and spiritual guidance over the other, but they sort of combine and you need both. And I guess, you know, speaking about the outlook and cosmology of the faith, would it fair to say that, you come into this religion, but the religion itself proceeds from the assumption that everybody, no matter where you come from, no matter who your parents, or grandparents etc. were, has a relationship, or a potential relationship they haven't yet realized, with the Orisha?  ANDREW: I don't think that that's actually true.  SUSIE: Okay. So that's what I'm trying to get to the bottom of here.  ANDREW: Okay. Before we come to Earth, we choose our destiny. We choose our Ori, right? Ori is sort of, not easily translated into one thing, but if you think of it as sort of your guardian angel, your destiny, and your higher self, all as one entity, that's probably a reasonable set of points to make sense of it, for people who have those ideas already.  SUSIE: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: And when you choose your destiny, before you come to Earth, it's sealed, right?  SUSIE: Right.  ANDREW: And so, we don't know what all it entails before we come, but if it's part of your destiny to get initiated into the Orisha tradition then opportunities will present themselves for that. It's not to say that you couldn't force them otherwise, but those wouldn't be in alignment with your destiny. And really, when we're talking about sort of initiation, and sort of connection, and those kinds of things, they really all ought to be dictated by either divination, or dictated by Orisha in possession of people, right?  SUSIE: Yes.  ANDREW: It's not really, you know. There are many people who will come, people will come and Orishas are like, "yeah, okay, we'll help you," right?  SUSIE: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: Or the people will come, and they'll be like, "no, you should go do something else," right?  SUSIE: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: Either direction, go over that way, go look at these people, you know, like go look at these other traditions. It's definitely not for … It's not meant for everybody, per se, and it's not closed in any, you know, in any particular way, although certain houses and certain, you know, lineages, might be more closed to outsiders than others, based on a whole bunch of different factors, but … SUSIE: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: It's much more so that, you know, if it's part of your destiny the opportunity will arise, if it's not, then, you know, you might run into it, but they might say, no, you're good, go to the other side.  SUSIE: Right. Well, this is interesting to me because I've noticed that there seem to be a lot of people who are clearly didn't grow up within the culture who have become drawn to this religion or some form of it, some form of the faith, and, you know, taken it on. And, it seems as though there is, you know, a certain openness to those who commit themselves, whether or not they grew up or had family or, you know, understood the culture. Right?  ANDREW: Yeah, I mean I think that, I think that there are opportunities definitely for people to engage and connect with these traditions. And there are definitely practitioners around who are, you know, open to people who didn't grow up in these traditions and so on, for sure, right.  SUSIE: Right, right.  ANDREW: That's definitely a thing, and you know, I mean that, I think one of the things I see that's going on is that, certain people seem like they're looking for tradition, right? They're looking for … They're kind of doing something that doesn't have a long living history, and they're kind of looking backwards for, or looking around for those things that do, you know?  SUSIE: Yeah. ANDREW: I think that's part of why the Tarot de Marseilles is sort of resurfacing. SUSIE: Right, right.  ANDREW: You know, it's, I think that it's why the Orisha traditions are shifting and coming forward more. You know?  SUSIE: Right. That's one of the things that … I guess that's why I was asking you so much about your own background in terms of, you know, working independently versus belonging, right? Because I think that that's something that a lot of us struggle with, especially those of us who grew up, you know, in an era where religious community isn't something that one takes for granted.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. SUSIE: Yeah. So anyway, I think that we should probably turn a little bit to the work itself.  ANDREW: Well, let me finish answering … Cause we started with this question of me and sort of, you know, doing this deck, right?  SUSIE: Mm-hmm.  ANDREW: You know, sort of … And we kind of started talking about the ancestral piece and drifted away, and there are a couple of other things that I want to sort of … SUSIE: Okay, good.  ANDREW: So I mean, one of the things, like I did a bunch of things around creating and starting this process, and getting permission before I started this process, and certainly one of them was sitting with my elders and talking about what I wanted to do, and, you know, getting advice from them.  SUSIE: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: And certainly part of it was asking the Orishas themselves, asking Elegua for, you know, his blessing to proceed with this project.  SUSIE: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: And also, you know, sort of sitting down with people and sort of showing my art with, you know, with different people and people of color and so on to kind of consult with my choices around representations and so on, so.  SUSIE: Absolutely, absolutely. ANDREW: I really wanted to, you know, you can never please anybody, and I'm sure there'll be some people who'll be upset by the deck, and well, you know, that's life. Right? But … SUSIE: Right. But it sounds as though you have a lot of support. At least within the community you have access to for the work that you undertook. ANDREW: Exactly. SUSIE: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Cool. So I wanted to talk a little bit about making a tarot deck, approaching a tarot deck, coming out of the various traditions you come out of. So I know that you started out with Crowley and the Thoth deck -- or, I know you pronounce it "Toth," [laughing] and also that your primary commitment as a reader for quite a while has been the Marseilles deck. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. SUSIE: So, how … Why did it seem like a natural choice to you to translate or to represent what you know from Orisha as a tarot deck? You know, I think a lot of people would say, well, you know, since there isn't an obvious 78 card structure, you know, number of deities, all the sort of correspondences that tend to underlie at least the Golden Dawn-derived decks, or the general tradition of tarot reaching back to the 15th century, you know, why, why do a tarot deck and not something more free form like an oracle deck?  ANDREW: Well, because, one of the reasons why I made this deck was because I wanted to create a bridge between the people who have traditional experience with the Orishas, and people who have experience with the traditional tarot structure.  SUSIE: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: And I wanted to use that … those two pieces as a way of creating a bridge so that people could sort of have more understanding of each other. And of what's going on, right?  SUSIE: Yeah, yeah.  ANDREW: And so, I really, you know, I mean, I've got nothing against oracle decks, I mean I released one earlier in the year. But, in trying to think about something as large and expansive as the Orisha traditions, it really … Having a clear structure, like the tarot structure, allowed me to frame and set the conversation in a way that allowed me to finish it [laughing] cause otherwise … SUSIE: [laughing] Right, it's ... otherwise, how do you know when it's done? [laughing] ANDREW: Yeah, right? I mean, we divine with, you know, upwards of 256 different signs.  SUSIE: Right. ANDREW: Each of those signs is as complicated or as a trump card, or as sophisticated as a trump card … SUSIE: Right. ANDREW: and then there's, you know, depending on who you ask, you know, a bunch of primary Orishas and maybe, you know, like even hundreds if you start getting into different paths and roads, it can expand infinitely in every direction, right? So.  SUSIE: Mm-hmm. I'm curious in whether there's much crossover between the two communities, that you've noticed. I mean tarot, and Orisha.  ANDREW: Sure, lots of people. I know lots of people who are initiated. You know, I mean, that sort of … syncretic piece, kind of "what can I do with this?", you know, that continues to be a problem with a lot of Orisha practitioners' lives, right?  SUSIE: Yeah. ANDREW: It's more purely, just the Lucumí Orisha stuff. Many people practice some combination of, you know, Paulo Moyumbe, and espiritismo, and card reading, and, you know, other things, depending on who they are and what they feel is important and what they have access to. So there's not like … There's not a lot of hard rules … SUSIE: Yeah.  ANDREW: About the Orisha tradition. Certainly not the tradition I practice.  SUSIE: Right.  ANDREW: I mean, definitely don't mix them in one ceremony. SUSIE: But it's okay if you practice them separately.  ANDREW: If you go to church on Sunday, and then you tend your ancestral Boveda, and then you have some Orisha, and you go between them, depending on what you feel and need, it depends on where you go, it's a really common experience for a lot of people. So.  SUSIE: Yeah, yeah, I'm glad you addressed that, cause that's something I was really curious about. You know, you don't dilute your practice by sort of mixing a bit of everything. On the other hand, you're one person, and, you know, if you're drawn to different practices, then perhaps you're drawn to different practices for different needs.  ANDREW: Sure. And if the Orisha don't want you doing that, they'll tell you! For sure. SUSIE: [laughing] Right.  ANDREW: They'll be like, "stop it!"  SUSIE: That's not cool. Yeah.  ANDREW: Yeah.  SUSIE: So, a little bit about what people can expect when they're approaching the cards. Now, it's not like there's a particular Orisha per card. There's Orisha in some representations of some cards, some cards have concepts from Lucumí, some cards have one of the Odu on them, so, sort of like, how did you approach how you wanted to impart all of this information structurally into the deck?  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. So, I really, I wanted to try and avoid what I had seen done in other decks in the past.  SUSIE: Mm-hmm.  ANDREW: Not because it's wrong per se, but because it doesn't give the conversation enough meat. Right? You know a lot of decks would say, well, Shango is the king, and therefore, he's the emperor, and so when I draw the Emperor I'm going to draw Shango.  SUSIE: Right.  ANDREW: And that's fair, you know, I mean Shango is the emperor, he's the king of the Orishas.  SUSIE: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: But, but there's a lot more to it than that. What does that mean? In what way does kingship or power in that way show up in a variety of different contexts, and what are the different conversations that we could have, right?  SUSIE: Exactly. ANDREW: And so, when I was sort of working with the trump cards, I wanted to embody the ideas that I see being behind, you know, behind the cards themselves: spiritual authority, earthly authority, fortune and chance, you know, like different things. I wanted to sort of embody those bigger ideas and kind of avoid kind of just a straight, this symbol = this symbol here … SUSIE: Yeah, I call that the matchy match. [laughing] ANDREW: Right? Exactly. SUSIE: Yeah, yeah, yeah.  ANDREW: When I was looking at the number cards, which for me often represent sort of more the what and the how of life, right? I wanted to kind of focus more on stories, and those things that tend to be more about particular patakis, or stories or ideas from the lives of the Orishas and the lives of their practitioners and where that kind of overlaps and integrates with those numbered cards. And then when I got to the court cards, I wanted to, I wanted to really kind of explore the way the court cards can be sort of seen to line up with roles people might play in the community. Right?  SUSIE: Right. ANDREW: So, when we're looking at those, we see … One of them, the Aleyo, the new person who's just coming to this tradition, who's ready to learn, and they're making an offering to, you know, the butcher, who is a very skilled and important part of the ceremonies in the community, to the elders who run the ceremonies, and the singers and the drummers and the artists and all of those things, so I kind of went through and sifted those ideas into where I felt they aligned with the court cards best. SUSIE: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: So, the court cards then become really positions or roles one might find oneselves in, in religion, and over time, with the traditional idea of the court cards, over time we might [00:29:27]. Over time we might be, you know, we might play this role in this community and that role in another community. And so on. So. SUSIE: Right, right. And I think hat underscores what I think sometimes we forget about court cards, which is that we can be any of them, and we are any and all of them at different times.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. SUSIE: So, about that … A word you brought up just before, which I think is pretty important for us to discuss, the word Pataki, the story. So can you tell us a little bit about how that is contextualized within the faith and also, we should mention, that that is the name of the book that goes with the deck, Patakis of the Orisha Tarot. Yeah. ANDREW: So, patakis are the stories of the Orishas and their practitioners that are meant to be instructive, right?  SUSIE: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: The word parable, you know, is a way to maybe give a different word for it in English.  SUSIE: Right.  ANDREW: And, you know, especially when we're divining, right, we'll often give a proverb, and we'll often, you know, tell a story about the Orishas. And, this is part of this oral tradition of it, that we are expressing these ideas in ways that allow us to tell the person things, in ways that are easier to hold onto, easier to integrate, that give us some meat, rather than just saying, "hey, don't do this thing," which we might also say … SUSIE: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: We might also tell the story of when one of the Orishas did that thing and what happened to them.  SUSIE: Yes.  ANDREW: "Oh yeah yeah, okay I see that. I shouldn't do that thing, cause this is gonna happen," right? There'll be a problem.  SUSIE: There's something about these stories that's so human and relatable, right? You know? I mean is it not the case that the Orisha themselves were at one time human or before they became more than human?  ANDREW: Well, that's a … That's a contested … Somewhat contested point of view. Many Orisha are what's known as urumole. They came from heaven. Right? They originated purely from spirit.  SUSIE: Mm-hmm.  ANDREW: There are Orishas who are considered deified ancestors, Shango being one of them, you know, Oduduwa being another one. You know, there are these spirits, these people who led great lives and led their communities and so on, and became, you know, deified after their death. The question that comes up in those conversations, then, also is were those lives that Orisha descending and living on Earth for a period of time?  SUSIE: Yes, right. Yeah. ANDREW: So, I mean, I think that it … I think that there's no clear answers to that. But in general, the majority of the Orishas did not start as human, but originated as part of the unfolding of creation, and then came to sort of live these lives and, you know, have these stories and experiences that we now understand. And also, when we're talking about some of these stories, I think that we also need to understand that some of them, and there's no easy historical way to say which ones are not, but a good chunk of them were probably stories about priests of those spirits.  SUSIE: I see.  ANDREW: Made these mistakes in their lives. It's like, "Oh yeah, you're Bill, the priest of Obatala who lived down the road …" SUSIE: [laughing] ANDREW: "Remember when you did this?" "Yeah, I remember," right?  SUSIE: [laughing] Right, right.  ANDREW: And those stories become, you know, part of the myth, right? Part of the lexicon of these traditions.  SUSIE: Yes. I guess what makes me wonder, you know, what their relationship with mortality and humanity is, is because these stories, the emotions and the sort of currents that they represent are things that anyone can relate to. You know, there's jealousy, there's anger, there's, you know, there's infidelity, there's theft, there are things that you don't sort of in the same way that in the Greek mythology you see people, you see deities acting badly, right? Or in ways that show that they can make mistakes too.  ANDREW: Definitely. One of my elders likes to say, you know, "They made those mistakes, you don't need to, okay?"  SUSIE: [laughing] ANDREW: Right? But, you know. We're all human. We're gonna learn or we're not gonna learn. But we'll learn one way or another. Right?  SUSIE: Right, right. So, a little bit more about deck structure. So, first of all, I noticed immediately that there were some sorts of ways in which your experience with tarot informed the deck. First of all, there's a little bit of a thought sensibility, in that your Strength and Justice are ordered in the way that the Thoth deck and the Marseilles deck do, rather than the Rider-Waite-Smith. I noticed that you have ordered it wands, cups, swords, disks, fire, water, air earth, which is a very hermetic thing. And the very fact that you call them disks also comes out of the Thoth tradition. But, I also wanted to know a little bit, for example, of ... I can sort of understand where the structure for the majors comes from, but what I wanted to know a little bit more is about the pips. Because your primary reading background comes from, as far as assigning meaning to the pips, I guess would be based in Thoth originally? I wondered if there was sort of more relationship …. Would someone who comes from a Rider-Waite-Smith tradition instantly recognize, or from a Golden Dawn tradition, instantly recognize the concepts in each of these minor cards?  ANDREW: Well, I mean I think so. [laughing] SUSIE: [laughing] I can tell you that I certainly did. ANDREW: I mean, here's my hope about this deck. You know?  SUSIE: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: I mean, so, obviously, I started with the Thoth deck, and I read with that deck for many years, exclusively. But I also read a ton of books on tarot, right, during that time. And had a lot of conversations, especially once I started branching out in the communities more, and you know, I mean, I've read lots of books on the Waite-Smith tradition, and, you know, all of that sort of and a bunch of that older stuff, you know?  SUSIE: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: Hermetic or otherwise. So when I was, when I was creating this deck, there are … People who are reading the book, you'll come to some spots, you'll hit a few cards where it's like, you know, in the Marseilles tradition, people often think of this card this way, and I'll give a little bit of context, and then when you go and read it, it'll make a ton of sense.  SUSIE: Yeah.  ANDREW: And, that's really mostly because I could have, you know, I could have written ten times as much about these cards as I did. But Llewellyn said, you can only make the book [cross-laughter [00:37:02]  SUSIE: Right, right.  ANDREW: And, and I really endeavored to sort of kind of hold what I see as kind of the middle of the road on these meanings, right? I mean I didn't … the numbering is the numbering, and to me ultimately the numbering … I mean, this might be blasphemy from a hermetic point of view, but to me the numbering of the trump cards is really largely irrelevant.  SUSIE: I think it's arbitrary, yeah.  ANDREW: It's a historical precedent that's [inaudible at [00:37:30]. SUSIE: Although, although, Andrew, I think it's important that you made Elegua the Fool. I think, you know. ANDREW: For sure!  SUSIE: Yeah. As the Orisha who comes first.  ANDREW: For sure, yeah, yeah. But, but, you know, choosing Justice to be this number or that number, I'm like, eh. I almost never read the numbers when I read cards, because I just see the cards, right?  SUSIE: Right, right.  ANDREW: So, you know, this deck is really meant to be, you know, a kind of relatively even representation of tarot as it exists today, right?  SUSIE: Yeah, yeah.  ANDREW: And so, there's not … none of it's slanted too much one way or the another. There's no like "Well, you need to know that Crowley called this card the Aeon means, you know the goddess Nuit means this... SUSIE: Right.  ANDREW: It's just not like that at all, right?  SUSIE: Yeah, I mean, my sensation as I was getting to know the deck was really that it was about the stories, and which story fit which card best.  ANDREW: Yeah. It's one of the things that I actually really … I wouldn't have guessed that I would have felt this was so important, but the feedback that I've gotten from the people who've gotten their books already, or gotten their copies already, who I shared advance copies with and stuff, is … including some non-tarot people who just are reading it because they really like me.  SUSIE: [laughing] ANDREW: The feedback I keep getting is that the material is really accessible. And to me, that's like a really important thing. You know? I didn't want to make this difficult, I avoided using as much jargon, or like, you know, Lucumí words, as much as possible. I really, you know, I didn't get into hermetic philosophy particularly anywhere. You know there are all these branches and wings of my own personal experiences and practice, that I just brought them all down to the dining hall, I was like, "All right! Let's all have lunch to talk about stuff in a general way." SUSIE: [laughing] ANDREW: You know, it's hard to make that happen, so.  SUSIE: Right. Well I think that, you know, I think it's really important for anyone coming to this deck to get to know the book, to read the book, really read the book, because it's, you know, it's 350 pages, it's real, it's got every single page not only has a story that's associated with the card, but also sort of breaks down the symbols that you included in the card, what its divinatory meaning might be, and sort of what the advice might be that goes with it. And I found that incredibly helpful in terms of, like, you know, if I came across a card where my own sort of tarot background wasn't making it immediately obvious to me what you were trying to do, I could just go to the book and it was really clear, you know, like within a minute. So, I think that it's … This is one of those things where … And I generally am not a person who believes that readers always have to go to the book, but I think it is really enriching and helpful to contextualize using what you wrote for this deck.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think unless somebody has a strong living practice with like, you know, with a traditional Orisha practice, yeah, it might be hard to start just by looking at it … SUSIE: Yeah, yeah.  ANDREW: Most people who come from those traditions and read cards, as well, then maybe they don't need the book as much, you know. It's always interesting as I share the images on the, you know, on social media and stuff, I get, you know, priests jumping on the thing, and like, "how you choose to represent this here! it's perfect!" you know? SUSIE: [laughing] right. ANDREW: They just get it, right? Because they have both of those pieces. But it's so nice to see people be moved to see themselves and to see the tradition in this way, which is really gratifying.  SUSIE: Mm-hmm, Mm-hmm. Before we move off structure and start talking a little bit more about the art and the specific cards, is there a sort of through line in each suit that we should be looking for? Something that's going on in wands only, something that's going on in cups or swords or disks?  ANDREW: That was … That was a notion that I abandoned along the way. You know, in making a deck there always comes this point where the reality check steps in, and you're like, this is the limit of what I can do, you know.  SUSIE: Yeah, yeah.  ANDREW: And the sort of the idea that there was sort of one through line for each set of suits, I didn't really, I couldn't really find it, and you know there are a couple other ideas about levels of detail and symbolic representations that I just realized I'd be spending another five years like hand-drawing beaded things all day… SUSIE: [laughing] ANDREW: I'm like, that can't happen.  SUSIE: Right, and if … I mean there are certainly color and number correspondences you could have worked with but, by forcing it into you know, existing tarot structure or hermetic structure I think you would have been doing something that was not necessarily conducive to the most rich environment of reading these cards. ANDREW: Exactly. SUSIE: You know what I mean? Yeah, although, I'm looking at … I've sorted it out, separated my deck out, Ace, Cups Swords, sorry, Wands, Cups, Swords, I'm looking at the Aces, and there's definitely, I get at least just from my background, I get an elemental feeling off of those cards, you know, a fire, water, air, earth feeling, and even if that's not something that you intended to do or carried throughout the deck, there's still something there, I think. ANDREW: For sure. I mean, in making this deck it's definitely … A lot of stuff just emerged in the creative process. And although I spent a lot of time thinking and writing and making notes about what went where and why and so on, when I sat down to make the cards, a lot of stuff just emerged as part of that process, you know, from the news, from the creativity, by chance or whatever, my own conscious formulated it, so there's a lot of stuff in there that happened as I was making the cards, it wasn't necessarily fully thought out … SUSIE: But which is just part of you, as a reader and a practitioner. ANDREW: Yeah. I mean, you spend 32 years working with the tarot, right?  SUSIE: [laughing] ANDREW: It's a lot of ideas in the back of the brain there that are trying to come out in one way or another.  SUSIE: Right. So, let's talk a little bit about the way the cards look for those people who haven't been lucky enough to pick up their decks yet. It's a gorgeous production, first of all, I think you, you know … the artwork's just stunning, and Llewellyn did a great job, I think, as well. First of all it's a borderless deck, which, thank you! [laughing] That's …  ANDREW: Llewellyn let me do something that they had never done before, which was: all of the titles are handwritten.  SUSIE: Yeah! Yeah! ANDREW: [crosstalking [00:44:55] to the cards. They're not obscured, they're easy enough to see when you're looking … SUSIE: You can find them.  ANDREW: [crosstalking] Off of the bottom. They fit in more with the artwork, so it's easier to kind of just look at the artwork, or just look for the title when you need to.  SUSIE: Right.  ANDREW: That was something that we had a bunch of conversations with …  SUSIE: I think it was a brilliant choice. Because, you know, it really foregrounds the story of the art. The art fills the frame, you know, everything about it allows you to immerse yourself in what's going on in that picture, and then secondarily you, you know, check out whatever title it was so you can sort of match it up with your own tarot knowledge. But I really appreciated that and I'm really glad that they made that decision and you, you know, suggested it. And also, the colors are so saturated and so bold. So the texture and look that you were going for was based on Gwash, right?  ANDREW: Well, so, actually, what I was … So, I used to paint in Gwash a lot, before I had kids. But, you know, having kids, and having a space to set up art, you know, a small, urban space, isn't really that easy, right?  SUSIE: Right.  ANDREW: So certainly, that's a piece of my sensibility and my aesthetic, but part of what I was really looking for was, you know, starting, it's hard to date now, but starting quite a while ago, I went from being super structured and really trying to sort of make everything perfect, to really kind of moving to a more gestural and looser way of working. And so, you know, this kind of comes out of that, you know, sort of move away from you know, sort of pursuing absolute realism to pursuing something else. And then, the other piece of the aesthetic is, you know, I wanted to include different pieces of symbolism, but I didn't want to make it look like the Thoth deck where there are so many symbols that you don't really know what to look at sometimes.  SUSIE: Yes, yes.  ANDREW: And so, one of the things that I decided along the way was, you know, there's a lot of use of textiles, especially in Africa and west Africa, and the Orisha traditions, there's a lot of use of textiles in making thrones, in making ceremonial outfits, you know, in making panuelos, which are these elaborate cloths that we put on top of the Orisha sometimes. And so I wanted to kind of have a reference to that without trying to like emulate it or create like, recreate specific patterns, but use that visual idea to create a space for that symbolic language to hold, right?  SUSIE: Yes.  ANDREW: For the use of number, and through whatever other symbols got added to those designs and so on. So.  SUSIE: Yeah, I really picked up on the fact that the design sensibility behind this had that sort of sense of, you know, scope and flow and bold lines that you get in textile. And, you know, that's not something you always see in tarot, and so it was really kind of a relief to the eye to sort of not get too, I don't know, bound up in the busy?  ANDREW: mm-hmm. SUSIE: Yeah. I think what we see is sort of a looseness of the line, and … But at the same time a real exactness in terms of what symbols you wanted to portray and the way that you foregrounded them in each card. So, so, you did this actually on an iPad, right?  ANDREW: I did, yeah. I did all of this digitally. I've been working pretty much exclusively digitally for the last five or six years now, I guess, ever since …  SUSIE: Yeah. And does that have to do with being busy, being a parent, you know, just trying to live life in addition to being an artist?  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean I don't have a studio space, you know, I don't have … Toronto is apparently one of the most expensive cities in the world to live in, thanks for that, whoever's responsible for that … SUSIE: [laughing] ANDREW: But space is certainly at a premium. And, you know, the only space where I maybe could do more studio type work is at the shop, and I already spend lots of time at the shop seeing clients and doing other stuff. I don't really want to be at work even if it's sort of as a creative outlet. And the iPad, you know, it's always with me, and when I was making this deck , I would just be like, oh, I've got an hour, time to work on one of the cards a bit. You know?  SUSIE: Yeah. ANDREW: Here's some writing. Or whatever. It's just, it's always at hand, it's super portable, and especially, I got an iPad Pro, like one of the big ones, and an Apple pencil, which finally I was able to make happen through the process and you know, it's the best thing ever, it's just … SUSIE: Yeah, and if you get interrupted, you can just save it, and pick it up later.  ANDREW: And I'm sure, like from a production point of view too, you can work in layers, like in Photoshop … SUSIE: Yeah. ANDREW: It's a real treat. So all the backgrounds are their own layers and all the symbols SUSIE: That's great, yeah.  ANDREW: The line work symbols and stuff. So if I make a mistake, if I change my mind later … SUSIE: Right, right. Plus it gives you more freedom. I mean if you're doing a background you don't want to just stop to make room for the foreground, right?  ANDREW: Right? Yeah. All also, I just sent all the Photoshops to Llewellyn, and they asked me if they could take some of them apart and use pieces for making the box and other stuff, which they did, which is fantastic. I'm so delighted with it. It just, it allows for a variety of options in a way that traditional mediums just don't, you know?  SUSIE: Yeah, I was really excited to realize that you did this in a digital format like that just because I didn't know that you could create art like this in that way and have it come out looking so good. You know? ANDREW: Mm-hmm. SUSIE: And the other thing is that I just, I thought it was really funny, that just practically speaking, that it made so much sense for you. This is one of my hobby horses, the idea of just how difficult it is to be both a parent and a practitioner, you know, just to live your life and try to do this work is a constant struggle. Like, you know, you're in the middle of a banishing ritual and some kid is like, coming through saying, Mom, I missed the bus! ANDREW: Yeah! SUSIE: I mean, it's like it's every day, you know, trying to make that work is tricky for a lot of us. So I'm glad you found a way to make this happen.  ANDREW: Me too.  SUSIE: Okay, so I'd love to, if you feel like it, I'd love to talk a little bit about specific cards. If you could just give me a second, I have to plug … My laptop's going to run out of charge. I just have to plug it in real quick. ANDREW: Yeah. SUSIE: Just, be right there. [pause] Okay, we're good. And I can strip that out of the tape, later on, if you want. Okay. So, let's talk about a couple majors. I wanted to return to the Fool card, cause I think that's super important, where you have Elegua, who is, I guess, you know I don't want to make the mistake of trying to do too much equivalency here, but he is the one who makes communication possible as I understand it.  ANDREW: Yeah. Elegua is the Orisha we speak to first in every ceremony, because he opens and closes the ways, and Elegua is all of the communication everywhere, on every single level, right. If we think about the communication between every cell in your body is that communication between the parts of the universe, you know, nothing exists or could happen without Elegua being there to facilitate that transfer of information from one place to another.  SUSIE: Right. Right. And so, I think, you know, that's what makes it so important and so appropriate that he's the first card in the deck. You have to, even to open your mouth, to gather the air to speak, you have to be there, right, although he also has a presence in a number of other cards as well. And what people will see, when they look at it, is, I guess the, a common representation of Elegua is the kind of stone or concrete head with the cowrie shells embedded in it, right?  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. Yeah, when people … A common solution, a relatively common solution to troubles in people's lives is to receive what's referred to as the Warriors … SUSIE: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: Which is Elegua, Ogun and Ochossi. It's an initiation that you don't have to be a priest to have. Anybody can receive this if it's marked or required. And they come into your life to help you fight your problems and overcome your obstacles and so on. And what there's actually, people are really accustomed to seeing these cement heads with the cowrie shells, but traditionally depending on your lineage, Elegua is … they have marked the path of Elegua, and there are many ways in which Elegua might be made. But I chose to make the one that people understand the most because I wanted it to be somewhat familiar to people, for sure.  SUSIE: Right, and this is actually a symbol that ordinary people might have in their homes, right?  ANDREW: Maybe.  SUSIE: Yeah, yeah. Well, just real quick, after I got your deck, I had the craziest dream, where I dreamed that I got up and I went outside. And this was around midnight. And the UPS truck comes, [laughing] and gives me a package with my name on it, and I open it and I suddenly start to feel really strange like I'm high or I've taken something or ingested some kind of substance, like, just through opening the package. And then I was instantly transported into some kind of rite that was going on in my dining room. And Elegua was there. [laughing] And I thought this was, obviously this is not, I knew almost nothing before this week about this tradition, but, and I certainly have no way of knowing what significance that had or what, you know I certainly can't speak for the tradition in any way, but I thought it was, so interesting that, you know, my dream maker chose to take the delivery of your deck to me as this kind of mind-altering frame-shifting event. and then introduce, you know, this personification of communication, the opener of the ways, into the dream.  ANDREW: Yup. Indeed. SUSIE: So I was very grateful for that experience. Okay. The only other major I really wanted to make sure we talked about was the Priestess card.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. SUSIE: Because it's not what people would ordinarily expect to see in a Priestess card, and I thought you could talk a little bit about what we're looking at and how it relates to the High Priestess we know and love.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. So, this is actually one of the cards that gave me the biggest trouble.  SUSIE: Mm-hmm.  ANDREW: I spent a lot of time working on this card, they're a bunch of drawings that got scrapped along the way, because I was just like, no, nope, no, no, no, that's not gonna cut it, that's too simple, that's too this, that's too whatever, right?  SUSIE: Mm-hmm.  ANDREW: You know, so what we see in the Priestess card, is we see a bunch of cowrie shells, right?  SUSIE: Right. ANDREW: And the dillogun, or the cowrie shells, are you know one of the traditional tools of divination. For olocha, for priests in the way that I'm a priest, it's the way in which we speak with the Orishas. And, when we divine with the shells, we pray, and we invoke an opening with Elegua or whoever, for an Odu, for a sign, like a, the idea almost like a card to sort of … But those energies, those Odu, are the living unfolding of the universe, right?  SUSIE: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: So, they represent all of the knowledge that was and is and all of the possible knowledge of the future, or the possible unfoldings of the future. And so, those energies that arrive when we do a reading, and come to play in the life of the person who gets the reading done … It's actually a serious ceremony to get a reading.  SUSIE: Yeah. ANDREW: It alters the course of your life, right? And, you know when we think of the Priestess or the Papess, right?  SUSIE: Mm-hmm.  ANDREW: One of the things that we can talk about is knowledge, right? And it's deep metaphysical knowledge, right?  SUSIE: Right. Which isn't readily accessible to you at a surface level.  ANDREW: And, when we think about the Hierophant or the Pope as sort of the outer face of spirituality, the High Priestess is the inner face. She's the inner mystery of that, right?  SUSIE: Right . ANDREW: And she is that knowledge which is hard to get to, that knowledge which is hard won, and that knowledge which is tied to a deep respect and a deep cosmic awareness of the nature of the universe, right?  SUSIE: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: And so this Odu and the method of divination and the process of divination, to me mirrors that, right?  SUSIE: Correct.  ANDREW: And so the shells become the mouth of the Priestess, right? And if we look at it in a sort of Rider Waite symbol, right? Cascarilla and the Ota, the black stone?  SUSIE: Yes! ANDREW: They mirror, we use those in the divination process, but they mirror those two columns … SUSIE: The boas and jacim, yeah.  ANDREW: The positive and negative vibrations that are in that sort of duality.  SUSIE: And those are a kind of … Are they a yes/no kind of stand-in?  ANDREW: Yeah, we use them and other things to ask specific questions within a reading. We each have … There's about a half dozen Ibo that all have ritual significance, and we use them in different ways depending on the nature of the question we're asking.  SUSIE: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: And then the other thing that's going on in this card is, usually people divine on a straw mat or a tray … SUSIE: Yeah.  ANDREW: With cowrie shells. And some people use a wooden tray, maybe, but more often than not a straw mat. So, I wanted to create this idea of the straw mat, but then this idea that below it is this sort of cosmic opening, right? This connection to everything.  SUSIE: Yeah. ANDREW: So, this is actually probably one of the most abstracted cards in the whole deck … SUSIE: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: In that it doesn't really show an Orisha or a thing that is sort of easily connectable, but I think that it really represents a sort of, that depth of knowledge and connection, direct connection to the voice of creation, that I associate with the High Priestess and that you know I associate with this divination process.  SUSIE: Yes. Now the Odu themselves, they're transmitted orally, right? It's not something that you just pick up a book, and not anyone can do it.  ANDREW: Yes. If you're not a priest, you cannot do cowrie shells, right?  SUSIE: Got you.  ANDREW: There's no … The best thing we could say is that you don't have the spiritual license, and my elders would be quite clear, you know, you can do anything you want with these shells, but they don't speak for the Orishas, therefore whatever you get is irrelevant.  SUSIE: Right.  ANDREW: You know … SUSIE: So it's not like what we think of … As tarot readers, we just pick up a deck and anyone can give it a go, this is something that you really need to go through initiation and be crowned as a priest to do.  ANDREW: And spend a long time studying, right? You know you need to understand that there are 256, technically 257 signs. Each of those signs has a specific hierarchical order of Orishas that speak in them. Each of them has proverbs, songs, ceremonies, offerings, taboos, patakis, and then each of those signs can come in ire, like the sign of blessing, or asobo, the negative sign, and then there are many kinds of ire and osogbo, and if you start to multiply those out, you start to realize how many different permutations are possible in this system . SUSIE: Right.  ANDREW: It takes a very long time and a lot of study to really come to understand what all those things mean.  SUSIE: Yeah, and is that something that … So, this is something that you might do as a priest, correct?  ANDREW: Yeah.  SUSIE: And did you internalize all of those 256, 257 signs or was it, is it an ongoing study? How does that work for you?  ANDREW: There's no end to the study. [laughing] SUSIE: Right. [laughing] ANDREW: Like hermeticism. When do you know enough?  SUSIE: Oh, you never know enough. No no no … [laughing] Right. Okay. Well that's really helpful in terms of getting into the card. Are there any other majors that you'd kind of like to draw attention to before we look at minors?  ANDREW: No, I'm happy to take your lead. SUSIE: Great. And honestly I would like to go through every single card in the deck, and I was having a lot of trouble sort of singling out a few that might be interesting to talk about, but given our time constraints, we'll just focus on some. I was looking at … the Nine of Wands, we're kind of going in order here, Nine of Wands [static at [01:04:39] see in this card, it's so interesting, because as I understand it, from your story, this is a representation of Yamaya, or one of her avatars I guess … ANDREW: Yeah. SUSIE: And there's a shipwreck, or an underwater ship, and [static] got a knife, and the knife has clearly just been used. So, maybe you can tell us a little bit about that.  ANDREW: Yeah, I mean, one of the things that people … In making the deck, I wanted to disrupt people's preconceived notions, right?  SUSIE: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: Of certain things. You know, like people, it's common for people to say, yeah yeah yeah, if you want love, go and talk to Ochún. Right? And Ochún will help you find love.  SUSIE: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: He might, it's possible, but sometimes [inaudible] Ochún in what context and so on and so on, right? But you know, Ochún also doesn't really dig people complaining very much, it's not a thing that she's really that into … SUSIE: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: So, depending on the attitude that you're feeling about this, Ochún might also be irritated by you approaching her about it, it's very hard to say.  SUSIE: Yeah.  ANDREW: Which is why, you know, traditional practitioners divine, right?  SUSIE: Right. ANDREW: Because the good answer is, in traditional divination, any Orisha that offers to help you with a problem can help you with that problem.  SUSIE: Right.  ANDREW: Whether we sort of generally associate that with being their purview or not, doesn't really matter, because if they say they're gonna help, they're gonna help, and you just say thank you, right?  SUSIE: Right.  ANDREW: And, so when we think about Yamaya, people think about Yamaya as a sort of loving mother energy, as a sort of always supportive energy, right? You know?  SUSIE: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: We really sometimes people are sent to work with her when they need sort of grounding and stabilizing of emotions … SUSIE: Yeah.  ANDREW: But, you know, Yamaya also has many roads and many avatars, right? So we're talking about, you know, Obu Okotu, it's not gentle, she's really a lot more like a shark, right?  SUSIE: mm-hmm. And so, you know, the idea, the thing that people often say, is that when the ship wrecks, she grabs the sailors and takes them down to their fate, right?  SUSIE: Yeah.  ANDREW: And so there's this real sort of show of strength and power with her that isn't what we would normally associate with it, but which is 100 percent a part of her personality, or at least her personality on that path, right?  SUSIE: Right. And I actually thought that this was … You know, the more I thought about it, the more it tied to my own understanding of this card. I mean when I think of the Nine of Wands, I think of someone who has been derived their strength from the vicissitudes of life, from the experiences of having suffered and having learned.  ANDREW: Yeah. SUSIE: And I think that … I also think of it as a very lunar card, so that made it kind of feel familiar to me as well. But also, the fact that power has a personality and ruthlessness to it, as well.  ANDREW: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean the Nine of Wands often turns up to speak of people who are strong clear incredibly competent, and sometimes hard for other people to relate to because of those things, right?  SUSIE: Yeah. They've been through a lot.  ANDREW: Yeah, for sure.  SUSIE: Yeah. Okay. Fascinating. And plus, it's just beautiful. You see the body of Yamaya, but at first you may not even recognize that it's a human form because of the blue on blue, it's a very underwater card. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Looking at -- Oh, you know, one of my favorite cards of all is your Ten of Cups. And, which I did receive this week, once, and what I love about it is the story that goes along with it. So maybe you could talk about that a little bit.  Sure. So when we were talking earlier in the podcast about picking your Ore or picking your destiny, right? This card represents that process, right?  SUSIE: mm-hmm. ANDREW: You know, when everybody's hanging out in Orun, up on the other side, you know where we're all spirits, eventually, people for whatever reasons decide it's time to come back to earth. You know, decide it's time to come back down here, you know, to the marketplace, to hang out and party, to fulfill something they haven't fulfilled, whatever it may be. And when they make that decision, they go, as my elders described it, you go down the hall to this room where Adela, who is the Orisha who crafts these destinies, as a series of sealed gourds … SUSIE: And that's the picture that we see on the card, we see Ajala with the gourds.  ANDREW: Yeah, I mean I think of it more as a person choosing their destiny. SUSIE: Oh, I see! ANDREW: But maybe.  SUSIE: Could be.  ANDREW: Adula, as far as I know, I've never come across any personifications of them … SUSIE: So this, so in your mind, this was the soul choosing which one. ANDREW: But, and we don't have a sort of super clear sense of karma or carry over from one life to another. It's not really … it's a mystery that we acknowledge that we don't fully understand, right? So you go into a room full of sealed gourds, and you pick something, and you really don't know, it could be horrible, right? It could be great, whatever. But if you've been good friends with Elegua, you know, and you've kind of kept good faith with him, maybe you reach out for something and he gives a little cough and says hey, not that one. SUSIE: [laughing] ANDREW: Don't take that one. Right?  SUSIE: And I love this that you have this little sketch of Elegua under the table, you know, very quiet. Very subtle. Yeah. [laughing] Just giving you a hint.  ANDREW: Yeah. So once you pick your destiny, you go back and see your creator, and then your soul goes into a body.  SUSIE: And you can see in the background of the card, you can see the outline of the Earth, so this idea that you're outside the material realm at that moment, choosing your fate, yeah, mm-hmm. I think that's just really beautiful. And I think it's quite relatable to, you know, in a traditional sense to the Ten of Cups, which I at least think of as the end of a cycle, you know, I often think of it as the end of the complete sequence of minors in some ways, because if you go through correspondences it immediately precedes the Two of Wands. But there's also this feeling, you know when you see the family on the Rider-Waite-Smith Ten of Cups, of this sort of being, they're taking a bow. This destiny is finished! And we're looking towards the next.  ANDREW: People … the belief is that people tend to reincarnate along family

When Andrew Friedman pulled out an old Flip Video camera to watch a cherished video of his newborn son, his camera wouldn't turn on. It's happened to many of us: we buy the latest new app or gadget, but within a few years it becomes obsolete as the tech industry moves on, often leaving our files behind with it. So Andrew turned to Bloomberg Technology's Brad Stone for help. This week on Decrypted, Brad and Kristy Westgard go on a mission to get the videos back. It's part of a special season exploring the unintended consequences of technology.

Burnout! It's real. It's dangerous. It's Chronic. So Andrew and Matt discuss what it is and how to avoid it when working for yourself. They also share their personal stories of dealing with burnout. Enjoy!

Andrew finds himself torn at the outset of our Season 1 finale. On the one hand, he has a hugely entertaining guest--chef/author/podcaster/personality Richard Blais. On the other, this is the week that one of the biggest chefs in the country left the spotlight after a slew of sexual harassment allegations. So Andrew and Caitlin try to make sense of that news and how a (male) writer can help, then abruptly shift gears to celebrate the season and dive into Andrew's interview with Richard. The two of them discuss just about everything, from Richard's Long Island childhood, to his time working at The French Laundry, Daniel, and el Bulli, to opening his own places, and finding stardom on Top Chef. They also compare notes on podcasting (Richard's Starving for Attention debuted just a few months before this show), cookbook writing, and pre-video game entertainment. Here's a thought: If you like what you hear, please tell your chef-fascinated friends, subscribe to Andrew Talks to Chefs (it's free) on iTunes or Stitcher, follow us on your favorite social media platforms @ChefPodcast, and/or rate or review us on Apple's podcast store. Thanks for listening! Andrew Talks to Chefs is powered by Simplecast

New Zealand-born actor, presenter, life coach and workshop facilitator Andrew Eggelton, who has starred alongside Ryan Gosling and Michael J. Fox, talks to Elizabeth Harris at Dave O'Neil's office at Grandview Hotel (Fairfield) about: The downside of being famous, and what it's really like to work in the entertainment industry. His childhood and how it helped him develop his creativity and imagination as a writer. The life-changing episode that made him dig deep and uncover his purpose. A cabin in Romania, Dracula's castle, and a dog called Darren writing a fairytale about a man writing about a dog writing a fairytale. What his Generation Y clients tell him they want most of all, and what he thinks should be taught in schools. His upcoming "Art of Play" workshops in Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane. Find out more about Andrew Eggelton's work at AndrewEggelton.com. FULL TRANSCRIPT: Elizabeth:      Welcome to Writers’ Tête-à-Tête with Elizabeth Harris, the show that connects authors, songwriters and poets with their global audience. So I can continue to bring you high-calibre guests, I invite you to go to iTunes, click Subscribe, leave a review, and share this podcast with your friends. Today I’m delighted to introduce the charismatic and insightful Andrew Eggelton. Once upon a time Andrew Eggelton was a carefree child blessed with a vivid imagination, running around the fields of … Andrew:         Otaio. Elizabeth:      Thank you. I was going to ask you how to pronounce that. So Otaio, a country town 30 minutes from Timaru – is that correct? Andrew:         Yes. Elizabeth:      South Canterbury, New Zealand. After the unfortunate discovery that he could no longer be a child, his imagination and desire to challenge the conventional would still play a large part in his adult life. Now in his forties, he’s spent over 20 years in the entertainment industry working with such people as Ryan Gosling and Michael J. Fox. Andrew:         Just to name a few. (Laughter) Elizabeth:      Yes, I’m looking forward to learning more about it, Andrew. When a life-changing moment asked him to dig deep and get specific about what he was born to do. Andrew now nurtures artists to reach their fullest potential. He reminds people just how powerful remembering to play is, and to nurture the inner child before it is lost forever. Andrew uses his intuitive coaching gift to host one-to-one intensives for artists, speakers and television presenters. Andrew guides his clients from a mundane existence to an inspired powerful life. He inspires his clients to dream, discover their purpose, and then gift package this to the world. Andrew Eggelton, welcome to Writers’ Tête-à-Tête with Elizabeth Harris. Andrew:         Nice to meet you and thank you for having me. Elizabeth:      It’s a pleasure to meet you Andrew – and to pick you up from the corner of Greville Street and Chapel Street in beautiful Melbourne. Andrew:         Yup, all in exchange just for one chai. Elizabeth:      It’s my favourite drink after all. Andrew:         Better than an Uber. Elizabeth:      Andrew, we recently discovered that we have a similar sense of humour. How do you use that wonderful sense of humour in your coaching work? Andrew:         In my coaching, I use my humour to defuse the sense of a line between me and my clients, so it allows them to realize that I’m just the same as them, and that we’re all on the same level playing field. Elizabeth:      ‘Cause it’s an equalizer. Andrew:         It’s an equalizer; takes away the ego of everybody, brings everybody down to the same level. Elizabeth:      I really like that, ‘cause I use a lot of humour too, and some people don’t understand my sense of humour, and now I’ve found one person who does, so thank you for that. You spent your childhood in a beautiful place and the school you attended was unique. Can you tell us the impact of being in such a small school, the benefits and the hindrances? Andrew:         Okay, the impact. Do you know when I first moved to the school, I was five, and there were eight pupils. Eight. And no one my age. There were two girls … Elizabeth:      Oh, were you the baby? Andrew:         I was … My dad was my teacher and principal, so that was quite challenging. Elizabeth:      Right. Andrew:         There was special treatment for sure, but probably not in the positive way - probably in the way that Dad was probably a little bit harder on me than the other children. Elizabeth:      Did that make you cry? Andrew:         Ah…it brought up some things in my later years, but we’ve worked through those now. And anyway, just to put it clear, my dad and I have a beautiful relationship. But what it taught me is that: there was no one for miles. There was no one to play with; I had no peers, so my imagination and what I did with my spare time were of my own doing. Huge bush walks and literally gone all day, you know. Elizabeth:      The importance of nature was there for you. Andrew:         Yeah, so I’d go for bush walks and leave at nine in the morning, and it wasn’t till the sun was coming down that I’d be like “Okay, it’s time to go home.” Elizabeth:      On your own? Andrew:         On my own. Elizabeth:      That self-sufficiency… Andrew:         Very self-sufficient. Elizabeth:      Were they worried about you? Andrew:         Not at all, not at all. As long as I turned up for dinner, they didn’t care. What trouble could I get into? Elizabeth:      What freedom! Andrew:         Yes, a lot of freedom. Elizabeth:      And we have a tattoo, listeners. Where is your tattoo? One of your tattoos says “Freedom”, Andrew – where is that? Andrew:         Forearm. Elizabeth:      How many tattoos do you actually have? Andrew:         Eight. Elizabeth:      And can we talk about where they are, or is that private? Andrew:         No (laughing) – I’ve got three on my left arm. “Joy”. “Kaizen”, which is Japanese for ‘little improvement every day’. I’ve got the Viking word “Inguz”, which is ‘where there’s a will there’s a way’. I’ve got “Courage, dear heart”. I’ve got Latin – “Fortune favours the brave”. I’ve got “Truth”. Elizabeth:      So a little bit like Robbie Williams, although you deny that. Andrew:         I deny I’m anything like Robbie Williams. Elizabeth:      Why, what is Robbie Williams like for you? Andrew:         Ah, I like that he’s a playful character. Elizabeth:      He’s fun. Andrew:         Yes, yes he’s fun. Elizabeth:      He’s settled down, though. Andrew:         Yes he has – and I’m looking to do the same. Elizabeth:      Oh, wonderful. What are you looking for in a woman, Andrew? Andrew:         Ah, someone who’s the opposite of me. (Laughs) Elizabeth:      What does that mean? Andrew:         You know what it is? I know exactly what I want from a woman, and that’s why I wrote that article on love that I’ll get it for you later. I want a goddess, a divine feminine woman. Elizabeth:      All women are goddesses. Andrew:         They are, they are, but in this day and age, in this day and age, if I may be so bold … Elizabeth:      You can be as bold as you like; it’s your show. Andrew:         It’s that women try to be men – they embrace so much masculine energy that it really sort of emasculates the men. And for me, being a woman is such an amazing gift. Elizabeth:      How do you know? You’re not a woman. (Laughs) Andrew:         Only by observation. I mean, you’re the closest thing to Mother Earth that there is. Elizabeth:      Can you explain that for the people who are not quite on your level of understanding? Andrew:         Okay. Mother Earth means like that nurturing soul, the ability to have a child. Elizabeth:      Is it like when I shut your fingers in the window this morning and I said were you okay. I am a nurse and I am concerned about your fingers. Is it like that? Andrew:         Well it’s kind of like that, but more authentic. Elizabeth:      (Laughs) So Mother Earth… Andrew:         So Mother Earth. Here’s the thing. I’m a pretty well-balanced guy, I think. But when I’m with a very feminine woman, I feel safe. Like I feel safe. Like if I’m in her arms, I feel “Wow, I’m safe.” Now she couldn’t protect me to save herself. Elizabeth:      That’s true. Andrew:         But there’s that feeling of ‘safe’, like there’s something calming. Elizabeth:      That’s beautiful. Andrew:         And I sat with someone recently, and they said “But don’t you get it Andrew, you make me feel safe too.” I get it – the yin and the yang, the whole, so… Elizabeth:      That’s beautiful. That’s what you’re after. Andrew:         Anyway, that’s what I’m after. Elizabeth:      That’s beautiful. So that’s what you’re after. And ladies, we don’t mind if you’ve had a child. Andrew:         You can send in an application. (Laughs) Elizabeth:      So what we’re saying is, where do we find your work? We need a website to send these applications to. Where do we find you? Where do women find you, Andrew? Andrew:         Women can find me on such sites as … (Laughs) No. Andrew-Eggelton-dot-com. Elizabeth:      We’ll talk about your great work. Andrew:         Just to finish off that last piece, about the positives of living in that small community – it wasn’t a community. It’s that during the weekend or after school I had nothing to do, so my idea of entertainment was to go over to the school and write. Or draw. I used to draw. Now I can’t do anything more than stick figures. But my writing was something … Elizabeth:      Never say “can’t”. You can get back to that. Andrew:         Yes, I could, but I probably will never. Ah I love writing – that’s where the writing came from. Elizabeth:      And I totally agree, because I love writing too. In Year Six I wrote Tilly the Red Motorcar, and my father threw it away. Andrew:         Oh really. Elizabeth:      Not intentionally. He did a big clean-out and it’s gone – he threw it away. So how do you utilize the foundation of your wonderfully carefree childhood and vivid imagination within your work, and in particular, how does this translate to The Playroom? Andrew:         The essence of what I coach, if you boil it, simmer it down to one thing, is the Art of Play. So when you write, when you present, just your everyday life, one of the things that I really coach into my clients is a sense of playfulness. I’ve always like – my aunty and my family, people who know me, call me Peter Pan. Elizabeth:      Oh, that’s lovely. Andrew:         Now, that’s getting a bit condescending as they get older, but … Elizabeth:      They’re saying “Peter Pan, you need your Wendy.” Andrew:         Yes, yes. So what that foundation taught me was the Art of Play – I get curious, I get excited. And when I public speak or go on camera or present on TV, whatever I’m doing, I get into an excited space. This is playtime for me, and that’s what I coach into my clients. It’s exactly the same thing. Reframe this – it sounds very NLP – reframe it, and it gets to a point where they turn it up on camera, and they actually get excited and they say, “Okay, this is our playtime!” If it was a child, you’d be playing with dolls or fire trucks or whatever kids play with these days. Elizabeth:      iPads. It’s very disappointing, and I was thinking about your child and how so many children would benefit from a childhood like yours. Andrew:         Absolutely. Elizabeth:      Just get outside in the dirt, run around. Andrew:         Yes. Fall out of trees. Good for you. Elizabeth:      Umm, I’m a nurse, I don’t know about that one. But if there’s a safety net under that, sure. (Laughs) Andrew:         Yes, but that’s what happened – it was a sense of playfulness. That was the foundation that was built in me from that growing up, that childhood, and that imagination. Elizabeth:      Fantastic. In your bio, you mention a life-challenging moment. Will you allow my listeners to know more about this, or will I be breaking privacy laws? Andrew:         Yeah sure, so I’ll make a long story short. So two years ago – it was September the 6th or the 9th, I slipped a disc in my neck: C6, C7. The way that works is that if the disc slips, the nerve that runs down through those discs is trapped. Now that can cause a super intense pain. If you haven’t experienced it – and not many people would have, thank God – I can only liken it to passing a kidney stone or giving birth. Obviously one of those I haven’t experienced. So that was like a shotgun blast going off – the incredible pain – and I was in Bali and couldn’t fly. Every doctor told me something different – I mean, I couldn’t even dress myself, couldn’t feed myself, couldn’t get out of bed, and this lasted for 2 months. And if I had been in Australia or New Zealand or a better place with a bit of a medical…uh…Indonesia. Elizabeth:      You should have called me Andrew; I could have come over. You could have used nursing care. Andrew:         The first thing they said when I got sent back to New Zealand was how was the depression, and I said it was super intense. And he goes “Yeah”, because after that, the physical pain…the physical pain 24/7 and I was self-medicating myself with whatever I could get my hands on to kill the pain. Elizabeth:      Not a good time of your life. Andrew:         I went into … my mind got lazy and dark and I went into incredible depression. And the life-changing moment was – I woke up one morning and I was like, “How the hell am I going to get through today? I don’t want to deal with another 12 or 14 hours of getting up to deal with people. Can I just take a pill and forget about this day?” Elizabeth:      So you were suicidal. Andrew:         I understood how people could commit suicide, yes. I’m not that kind of person myself, ‘cause I know that there’s an end. So I got up and went, “Right, enough. You’re going through this. What do you want out of it?” And I wrote down on a piece of paper – I started off with “What is your ideal day?” So I wrote down everything: what happens when I get up, who I’m with, what am I drinking, what does outside my window look like, how do I feel, what’s the look on my face – everything, right down to the minor details of the thread count on my sheets. Then after that, I had the realization, that the current Andrew wasn’t capable of having that perfect day, perfect life, because I wasn’t equipped for that. My behaviours, my beliefs, my character, the things I had to work on. So I started to write down all the things I had to become, the kind of man I needed to be… Elizabeth:      Be, do, have, Andrew. Be, do, have. Andrew:         Be, do, have. I call it ‘the man I need to be’. So I wrote that down, then I wrote down how many hours a week I wanted to work, how much I wanted to get paid, what I was going to be doing, and how I was going to serve others, and from that moment onwards, I had this whole new focus on life, and that got me into my life coaching. And I use exactly that – I call it Life by Design, and obviously I flesh it out a lot more, and the actual process is called The Design Practice, born from that moment of desperation. Elizabeth:      Isn’t that amazing how you turned that around? Congratulations, because many people can’t do that. Andrew:         They don’t know – I don’t think they know how to do that. Elizabeth:      You know what you don’t know how to do? Accept a compliment, because I’ve just offered you a compliment. Andrew:         No, you’re right. I’m not very good at accepting compliments. You’re right, but thank you – thank you. Elizabeth:      My pleasure, because that’s really pivotal. Congratulations. You write for Spiritual Biz Magazine and I’ve read a number of your great articles, including a very special piece on love, and also one about the Art of Play. When did you know you wanted to be a writer? Andrew:         There’s probably never a point when I didn’t want to be a writer. Yeah, so, like I said earlier my dad encouraged me to write when I was a child. Because there were only 8 kids at the school, where one of the things where - I don’t know if we had subjects at all – we would spend an hour or two hours writing creative stories. And then I would come back and kids would have two paragraphs or half a page, and I would come back with 20 pages, and hold fort for as long as I could. Elizabeth:      So clearly a gift. Andrew:         It’s definitely a gift, yes. So thank you. See that? Did you see that? Elizabeth:      Oh, I’m impressed. (Laughs) You are a fast learner. Well done. Andrew:         I am a fast learner. Writing is a real joy and I think there’s a versatility to my writing – I can write silly and fun, and I can also go very deep. Elizabeth:      So when you’re writing, what keeps you going, and whatever works for you could work for other people, so what would you advise other people to keep them going with their writing? Andrew:         Write, because you want to, not because you have to – for a start. I mean writing, if you’re an artist or just a creative person, writing is something – we talked about this in the car when you came to pick me up – it’s something that for me and I think other artists, we have control over it. I can pick up my laptop or pen and paper any time I want. So the trouble with – the challenge with – being a creator or artist, is especially when we explain it with being a presenter or an actor, is the gatekeeper. The audition is a process; I get the job or I don’t get the job. There’s ten No’s to one Yes – and that’s good odds. So if you’re a creative person, you just can’t wait to get to that playtime. For me, that playtime I am on set and I am playing. But when I’m writing, it’s like I feel like writing right now and I’m gonna write right now. So I get this creative outlet straightaway, and it’s that sense of playing; even when you’re going deep, it’s that sense of playing. Elizabeth:      That’s wonderful. Who or what is your major source of support when you are writing? You’ve got some cranberry juice, I see. For me, I’m definitely a coffee addict. So for you, what supports you through that? Is it friends, or is it other writers. You know writers have this wonderful community; we share – we don’t compete, I’ve found, from the community I’m in. Very generous people, and we understand that it can be very isolating to write. So if you’re feeling that way, reach out, because there’s always someone up at 2 a.m., writing something. Andrew:         Mmm, it’s true. It’s true. Do you know what, the people who support me are: one is my father, and I have a couple of friends: Jarrah, Campbell – he lives in Bali too – and they’re just like, I’ll talk to them about an article I’m writing, and they’ll “Yes, yes, go for it.” And you know the one I wrote on love when I was in Romania was one I didn’t want to print, because I actually wrote it myself and I thought – I could be judged quite heavily on this, writing about something that – (Elizabeth: It’s a beautiful piece) who am I to write on this subject, you know what I mean? Elizabeth:      I’m shaking my head, everybody. (Laughs) Andrew:         But I did it and it had a wonderful response and got shared hundreds of times. So, yeah, I’ve got some wonderful friends, and my other support is probably a glass of wine when I write. Elizabeth:      Red or white? Andrew:         Red. Always red. Elizabeth:      And there’s antioxidants in it, so I approve of that. Andrew:         Okay, so I’ve always wanted to write – for a long time I’ve wanted to write – a fairy tale, in a cabin, in Romania, overlooking the castle that inspired the legend of Dracula. Actually, the castle that inspired the novel Dracula. It’s a little town called Bran in Transylvania in Romania. Elizabeth:      Do you have a costume that you wear when you’re writing? Andrew:         No, there was no costume. Elizabeth:      No fangs? Andrew:         No, no, no. It was actually very exciting. I wrote about an imaginary character called Darren who’s a dog. And Darren left the corporate world… Elizabeth:      Right. Well, I wrote about a cat called Victoria, so here we are. Andrew:         Yes. Everybody had told Darren that dogs can’t write fairy tales. And so Darren went “Fxxk it!” And then he got on a plane and flew to Romania and travelled around Europe, ended up in Romania, and he’s been writing a fairy tale about a man… Elizabeth:      You need to put some money in Samuel Johnson’s Swear Jar. Andrew:         That’s one; that’s only one so far. So Darren said if you went ahead and jump on a plane anyway and fulfilled his dream of writing his fairy tale about Europe and ended up in Transylvania. And he’s writing a fairy tale about a man writing about a dog writing a fairy tale. So it’s multi-layered, very confusing. Elizabeth:      No, no, hang on a minute. A man …? Andrew:         Being me. Elizabeth:      Yeah, but let’s just go back a bit, so a bit slower. A man …? Andrew:         A man, writing about a dog who’s going on a journey to write a fairy tale. Elizabeth:      Everybody’s got that now, so go ahead. Andrew:         Yes. And he has not finished it – he is definitely chipping his way through it, which is nice, and it was a beautiful journey in Romania to be able to do that. But Darren got very sidetracked with many things in Europe, and that held him up a little bit. Elizabeth:      (Laughs) Was Darren auditioning for the mother of his pups, perhaps? Andrew:         I think Darren might have a few pups, though. (Laughs) Elizabeth:      In 20 years you might have a couple of knocks on your door, Andrew. Andrew:         Thai’s it. Elizabeth:      What are you working on at the moment? Andrew:         So the number one priority at the moment is I’ve got workshops coming up in New Zealand and Australia in February, March, and my number one priority is putting together how that will look. So my workshop’s called The Art of Play, and it’s for live speakers, presenters, corporates, entrepreneurs. So that’s a priority. Elizabeth:      Can we learn about that? What is the workshop about? Andrew:         I bring – if I can say so myself, which is very un-humble for a Kiwi… Elizabeth:      Just be loud and proud. Andrew:         Okay. I bring a very unique, world-class way of coaching and presenting, so a performance, and I literally have a gift, an intuitive ability to tailor my coaching to an individual. So even if I’ve got 20 different people in class, I’ll have 20 different ways of coaching. Elizabeth:      That’s because you read people very well. Andrew:         I read people very well. And part of that is because presenting never came easy to me. It’s something I worked very hard at, and had to work through many, many of my blocks. Elizabeth:      See, that really surprised me. Andrew:         Really. Elizabeth:      Yes. ‘Cause you present so well. Andrew:         That’s good to know. Thank you, thank you. So Melbourne … Brisbane will be the first weekend of March, then Sydney the weekend after, then Melbourne the weekend after that. Elizabeth:      So you’re wanting your – so you’re the focus, and we have this theatre setup, and you bring the participants down for their turn. Is that how it works? Andrew:         Yes, yes, yes. You know my favourite space – I get into a zone which is super playful, and I love it. Like when I coach, that’s my happy place. And feeding off the energy of other people, and feeding off me, and then taking away people’s expectations of themselves; that’s the first thing I do. I have this funny thing when we first start. ‘Cause I really don’t care what level people are at – it makes no difference to me. I’m going to coach you; I’m going to give you a 1 or 10. So I kind of defuse that by saying, “Look, we’re here now, and you’ve all given me your money. So I don’t care if you’re good or not.” Elizabeth:      (Laughs) I love it. Andrew:         You know what I mean? I have your money. I’m happy. Elizabeth:      Ka-ching! Ka-ching! Andrew:         My job is to take your money first. Elizabeth:      Then it’s up to you. Over to you! Take One – is it Take One? Andrew:         Yep, yep, so … but what I get is, I don’t care when people get up. I’m like, if you need to read off your script, if you want me to prompt you, I don’t care if you can’t even say your name. Like some people can’t – some people can’t even get up and say their name, they’re so nervous. And I’m like, I don’t care – that’s where you start. That’s it. So on a scale of 1 to 10 I’m going to give you a point five or a one. And now my job’s to get you to a 5, to a 10. Elizabeth:      So what I’m now interested to know is, what is a 10? Andrew:         A 10 is someone who’s very confident and keeps me – a 10 really keeps me on my toes. When you’re a 10, meaning you’re a very, very good presenter, my job is now to dig in and bring more of that personality out. Elizabeth:      Who is a 10? So that people can know. Not a personally popular 10, but a mainstream 10.  There’s ‘Oprah 10’ … who’s a 10?      Andrew:         You know some of those presenters from Top Gear? You know they bring that X-Factor – you see their personalities. Because there’s the old American style of presenting, where it’s cameras on, and all of a sudden there’s this fake personality. Elizabeth:      And you can see that. Andrew:         You can see that. It’s like “bang, bang, bang”. And that’s not presenting. That’s cookie cutter. And that’s almost like Step One of what you do. What we want is bring the personality. Because when it comes down to it, if you’re auditioning or you’re doing a presentation, what people are engaged by is your personality, your X-Factor. Elizabeth:      Oh. Really interesting. Okay. Andrew:         The reason for Darren and the Corporate Dog – I have this wonderful vision that I’m very excited about is doing a one-man stage show, and it’s just a storytelling. I stand at an altar with a big old dusty book which I will create myself, and I tell my fairytale, which is 45 minutes long. The purpose of it is to bring adults down to a sense of being children again. So it’s to let go of being adults – no bills, no mortgages, no responsibility. And for 45 minutes, just entertain using obviously audio and animation behind to drive the story, just old-fashioned storytelling. And that excites me – that’s my passion project. Elizabeth:      That would be captivating. Andrew:         Yeah. And again, you could have beautiful cute little venues. First 5,10,15 minutes would be spent talking about getting people to use their imagination again. ‘Remember what you were like when you were 5 years old’, and setting that scene, and getting adults to remember what it was like to play again and be silly and have no responsibilities. And then go, “Right. Now my audience is ready. Let’s go.” Elizabeth:      You know, you know lots of famous people. So tell me about that. Is being famous an impediment, ‘cause you know, so many people want to be famous, but when you get down to it, do you want to be famous? Andrew:         Okay, so there’s a difference. There’s people, and this is – I was speaking to my actress friend here – I won’t mention her name – on Saturday. And she said, the biggest difference is now compared to when she first started acting, was people want to be celebrity before they become actor, so an artist. Elizabeth:      So, could we have an example of that? Kardashians? Andrew:         Kardashians is a good one. Reality TV is a shocker for that. I’ve had two periods of my life where I was – I use this word very loosely, but I guess people knew who I was. Elizabeth:      Oh I’m so sorry I didn’t realize. (Laughs) Andrew:         (Laughs) That’s alright. We’re in different countries. Elizabeth:      And who were you, Andrew? Andrew:         Well, that’s it. It wasn’t – I wasn’t … Elizabeth:      Are you important, and I didn’t know? Andrew:         Yes. (Laughs) Elizabeth:      We need to define ‘important’, don’t we? You see, I think important people are people like paramedics and surgeons who save people’s lives, you know? Andrew:         Absolutely. Elizabeth:      But then I’m different. Andrew:         But if you’re an artist – I rate writer and artist as the same thing because you’re reflecting life. Elizabeth:      I’m being light. Andrew:         Yes, yes, yes. But ‘celebrity’ – what’s a celebrity? You need to be someone who’s celebrated. Pure reality TV show person or something, it’s like “That’s your job. You got lucky, you’re in a TV show, you’re pretty much a nobody, you’re not really good at anything, but the camera’s following you. And that’s why people know you.” Elizabeth:      It’s false elevation. Andrew:         I remember it was in 2001, and I was kind of hitting my stride. I was working with Ryan Gosling on Hercules. I won Cleo ‘Bachelor of the Year’ in New Zealand. I shot documentaries and a TV series called Shortland Street which is like our Neighbours. Do you know what, and I started to get all this work, but just doing stupid stuff that I wasn’t actually needed to be skilled at. I’m turning into the kind of person that I ridicule myself that you see on TV or magazines. Elizabeth:      Is it like that song Popular by Darren Hayes? Do you know that song? Andrew:         No. Do you want to know what I did? Elizabeth:      Yes. Andrew:         I moved to an island called Waiiti Island off the coast of Auckland. It’s about an hour on a ferry. I got a little house, I grew a beard, I got an amazing vegetable garden. Elizabeth:      Does this mean you grew your own vegetables? Andrew:         I grew my own vegetables. I lived there for two years, and I did nothing but write and try to identify what I wanted to do as an artist. And there was one day I was standing outside and I was speaking to a man who was my neighbor, over some shrubs, and I realized I was talking to this stranger – naked. I was naked. It was hot, you know, and I just stopped wearing clothes. Elizabeth:      Totally? Totally naked? Andrew:         Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was on an island. Elizabeth:      Did he notice? You had a fig leaf …? Andrew:         No. (Elizabeth: No fig leaf?) That was the thing. I was so used to letting it all go. And it just dawned on me: “Andrew, you’re only 28. There’s time to get off the island. There’s time to go, buddy.” I got off the island pretty quick. I moved into this new house with these two girls, and for about a month they were like … Elizabeth:      Had you not dressed for this too? It was colder there. Andrew:         I was dressed, but I was always going outside to pee on the lawn. And they were like, “Andrew, can you use the toilet?” So I told myself I’ve got to get out of this habit; it’s okay. I’m just adjusting to normal life again. Elizabeth:      And what’s normal? Andrew:         Yeah, what’s normal? Elizabeth:      What really grabs me about that story is that you were aware enough to know that you needed to change. Andrew:         Yes. Elizabeth:      And not everybody is that aware. And why are you that aware? Is it because of your dad? Is it because of your upbringing? You can sense bullshit basically. Andrew:         I can.  Elizabeth:      You have got this really sensitive BS detector. Andrew:         You know I’ve only just … I was talking to my little brother about this a few weeks ago, I’ve only just realized what a quality and an asset is, and that I am highly sensitive. Even a year ago, I didn’t realize it was such an asset … Elizabeth:      It is. Andrew:         As to what I do now, and I’m really starting to embrace it. Elizabeth:      That’s fantastic. The civilized word for that, everybody, is ‘discernment’. Andrew:         Discernment. Elizabeth:      Yes, discernment. And also civilized people using the toilet rather than the lawn, Andrew. Andrew:         Yes. Well, I’ve got that under control now. Elizabeth:      Oh, that’s nice to know. (Laughs) Andrew:         Look, the entertainment industry, if you’re talking about that specifically, it’s just so much bullshit involved. And we talked about my earlier experience, but I had another experience in 2008, 9, 10, when I was really on a roll acting, presenting and public speaking. And again I went away, this time to Bali. Elizabeth:      Which is where you live now, isn’t it. Andrew:         I live half-and-half. Elizabeth:      Half and half New Zealand. Andrew:         Was New Zealand and Bali, and now it’s going to be Australia. Yes, I’m after a bigger market, which is here. Elizabeth:      ‘Cause this is important for the woman who’s coming on the scene. So we’re looking at Victoria, or we’re looking at Sydney? Andrew:         Melbourne. Elizabeth:      Melbourne. Oh, okay. Andrew:         The thing I like about the entertainment industry … Elizabeth:      We do have good weather, you know. Andrew:         In Melbourne? You’re the first person that’s said that. Elizabeth:      I’m Melbourne through and through. Andrew:         That’s beautiful. Makes me feel like home. Melbourne I feel like I’m home – I don’t know why. My dad grew up here. Elizabeth:      Did he really? Whereabouts? Andrew:         He actually told me yesterday and I can’t remember. About an hour out. Elizabeth:      Out where – north, south, east, west? Andrew:         Out towards the … Dande  … Dande … Elizabeth:      Dandenong? Andrew:         The Dandenongs. Mountains. Elizabeth:      Oh, I lived there once. Stunning place. Andrew:         Mm, yes. Elizabeth:      Okay. So – the entertainment industry is full of people with lack of discernment. They believe their own B.S. Is that it? Andrew:         Umm, yeah, yeah. At the end of the day you’ve got to just go: “This is TV – this is just a job. I’m an artist, and if I get work I’m lucky.” Elizabeth:      Why do they believe it? Is it that adulation that they get? Andrew:         It is the adulation and look, I can relate to that. The ego is an amazing driver. And in my twenties and thirties it was my ego getting me out of bed. It was like, “Right. You wanted that. You wanted people to know who I am.” It was the adulation. Elizabeth:      Why do you want people to know who you are? I’m sorry I didn’t know who you were, Andrew. (Laughs) Andrew:         Because it’s a feeling – it’s self-esteem, isn’t it. A sense of self-love. It’s like if people adore you, it helps boost that sense of self-worth. Elizabeth:      I find that false. Andrew:         Of course it’s false. Elizabeth:      Having been a school nurse and really looking at children – you mentioned you were five – and nurturing their self-esteem, and how important it is. That doesn’t come from outside. That comes from inside. Andrew:         Always inside out. Elizabeth:      But we’re not taught that. Andrew:         No, we’re not. So what we’re taught - in a way that makes no sense to me – we’re taught that your career, what other people think of you, what you own, where you live – that defines who you are. But if you look at it from a deeper perspective, your outside world actually affects your inside, and you’re in control of that, and no one teaches you that at school. Elizabeth:      That’s why everybody needs coaches. Andrew:         Your sense of self-love, self-awareness, your sense of freedom, all your values start from inside out. When you’ve got that glowing and growing inside you, your outside world reflects that. Elizabeth:      You’ve got so many important messages to bring to the world, Andrew. It’s a very exciting time for you. Andrew:         It is, it is. Elizabeth:      That’s fantastic. That’s great. Andrew:         Thank you. Elizabeth:      What is one of the most inspirational achievements one of your clients have made after working with you? Andrew:         Before I even became a coach, I used to be able to get a lot of people to quit their jobs. Like I’m just very passionate, and when someone would talk to me about their job, I’d go – ‘cause it’s very usual in the Western world for people to go “Hey, what do you do?” And I never ask that ‘cause I really don’t care. It means nothing to me. Elizabeth:      Yeah, I know. What question do you ask? Andrew:         If I was going to ask, it would be “If you could do anything, what would you do?” Elizabeth:      Okay. And would you be impressed if they say “I’m actually doing it”? Andrew:         Yes, yeah. Like I’ve got a lot of people to quit their jobs and start following their passion. For me, I’m dealing with clients, it’s managing them through their zone of fear, resistance and self-sabotage which we all go through, and understanding that process of … When I did this whole coaching thing, I was like “I don’t want to deal with people’s problems.” Because I don’t want to sit and Skype and go to workshops and deal with people’s problems all day. So unless the first person, that’s the first thing they want to talk about - “This is what I don’t want”, I’m not interested. “What do you want?” Elizabeth:      Exactly. Andrew:         When I know what you want, we can create that – we can work towards that and shape you. And that’s exciting. And of course when you go there, you’ve got to create that vision of where you want to go that’s so bold, exciting and fun, that your mind is tricked to go, “Oh, do you know what? This looks like fun. Let’s go there. That’s nothing – this is safe.” Because your mind isn’t built for success. It doesn’t know what the hell success is. Success to your mind is being alive for your mind, right? The fact that we’re sitting here talking, your brain is giving yourself a high-five, saying “Yep! You’re still alive!” Elizabeth:      (Laughs) That’s because I’m a human. Andrew:         Yes. Elizabeth:      Cleo – what did you say? – Cleo Bachelor of the Year? What year was that? Andrew:         2001. (Laughs) Fifteen years ago. Elizabeth:      Wow. There’ll be a lot of jealousy on the other side of this podcast, I can tell you that. Andrew, one of my favourite books is Illusions by Richard Bach. What is one of your favourites? Andrew:         Just off the top of my head, there’s many, many books – one is Badjelly the Witch (by Spike Milligan), for the reason that it makes me laugh. It’s just a child who is silly. It means nothing. There’s not even a message behind the story. It’s just someone’s random creative strain of thought. I just think it’s hilarious. Elizabeth:      I love to laugh. Very important thing to do. Andrew:         It’s the audio – and you know what it reminds me of? Why I love it so much is it reminds me of when I was a little kid – when I was five, six, seven - and my dad would come into my room in Otaio, and tuning in the radio. Because at that time we only had like one or two channels, Channel One and Channel Two in New Zealand. (Elizabeth: Oh, you’re spoiled!) And TV didn’t start till like eight in the morning or seven in the morning, so there was nothing else to watch except Freddo Rock and The Muppets. And then dear dad would come in and tune in the radio, and it was Saturday or Sunday morning storytelling time, and I would lie in bed and listen to that. That’s one of my favourite memories of my childhood. Elizabeth:      That’s a lovely memory to have. What is Darren the Corporate Dog doing for Christmas? And I notice you haven’t invited him to your family celebration. Isn’t that a bit mean? Andrew:         Mm. Elizabeth:      Do you think Darren has a plan to combat your exclusion tactics? Andrew:         Look, at the end of the day, Darren and I do have a very wonderful relationship and he’s everything that – he’s kind of like no responsibility – he’s Andrew with no responsibility. Elizabeth:      Well, he’ll love Christmas then, and all the gift wrapping. Andrew:         Yes, and he’ll be there. He’ll be there at Christmas for sure. Do you know what’s wonderful about Darren is that, he just doesn’t think that people will speak ill of him, or they would say no. So he’s got that blind sense of faith. Elizabeth:      Innocence, isn’t it? That’s innocence. Childlike innocence. Andrew:         When I did tell him that – he said can I come for Christmas and I said “not an effing chance” – he wouldn’t have taken it as no. He would have thought “Haha, he’s joking. See you there.” So he will be there at Christmas time. Elizabeth:      Oh, okay, I’m pleased to hear that. Victoria will be with us too. Victoria the Cat, who’s in my book Chantelle’s Wish. Andrew:         Actually I’m sure Darren will get along. Elizabeth:      With Victoria the Cat? Andrew:         Yes. Elizabeth:      Oh, Victoria the Cat’s a good one. Andrew:         But I’ve got a bit of a treat for Darren. I don’t know if you saw, but when I was in Spain I got a bit drunk and slept on the couch, and he drew all over my face. I don’t know if you remember that. Elizabeth:      No, I didn’t see that. You never sent me … Andrew:         He wrote ‘I Love Darren’ on my face and forehead, and gave me a dog’s tongue and whiskers. Elizabeth:      You’ll have to send me the picture. Andrew:         And I’m going to shave his fur off. Elizabeth:      Oh! Is he going to be awake or drunk? Andrew:         I’m going to wait till he’s drunk. He’s always drunk. It’s his favourite pastime. Elizabeth:      So send me the picture. I missed it. Andrew:         I’ll do that. Elizabeth:      Thank you. So Andrew, this is a signature question I ask all my guests: What do you wish for, for the world, and most importantly for yourself? Andrew:         For the world, I just wish that all of us would use our God-given talents, our unique gifts, to be of service to the world, and I feel like if we were all doing that, the world would organically go in the right positive direction. And that would also mean a lack of corporate greed, the raping and pillaging of the earth … I know that we are not here to work in the system that we’re currently working in. The human wasn’t designed for that. And we have far greater possibility than what we’re showing at the moment. What I’d love for the world is for the next generation and the next generation to start to push the boundaries, and to do what we were actually designed to do, which is evolve. And not evolve in a way that’s three percent growth in a year in the corporate world. Elizabeth:      That would be so not the GDP. We’re talking about – there are a lot of children around, and when you have your child, you will learn this: they are highly evolved. Andrew:         Yeah, yeah. I can feel it. A lot of my clients for my market in my life coaching side of things, are Y Generation, and when I did my research, nearly every single one – I said “What do you want? What’s the ultimate thing you want to do?” – they said, “I want to make a positive impact on the world.” Elizabeth:      Wow. Andrew:         And you don’t get that – if I can f**king be as bold – with baby boomers. And even from my generation … Elizabeth:      It’s your show. You can say whatever you want, even swear. Andrew:         From my generation, a little bit more. But from the next generation, even more. And I think, must be very hard for them to – I can understand where the system came from. And how my parents were so – I’m not for – but this was what you do. After World War One and Two you know, this is how everyone’s going to work. But they’re wising up. Elizabeth:      People are waking up. Andrew:         They’re waking up – that’s a better word. We’re waking up; we’re evolving. We’re spiritual beings. What if at school, you were taught that via the mind, we can actually have and do whatever we want, you know. And I’ll just go in another direction, but you know, teenage suicide is off the charts – and why is that? They’re actually becoming highly sensitive beings, but they haven’t been taught what that means or how the mind works. Elizabeth:      See, I see you as an incredible mentor for young men – a powerful mentor for young men. Andrew:         It’s funny you say that, because a lot of people keep telling me to work with young men. But I love working with young women as well. (Laughs) I love working with women in general, because I have a nice relationship with women. But I like to work with young women and young men. Elizabeth:      Well I think … Andrew:         But I know exactly what you’re saying. That makes sense. In fact, the first time ever you saying that to me then just made more sense. Elizabeth:      Thank you. I’ll take that as a compliment. Andrew:         There you go. That’s 4 to 1 so far. Elizabeth:      Andrew Eggelton, thank you so much for joining me on Writers’ Tête-à-Tête with Elizabeth Harris. Thanks for tuning in everyone, and may your wishes come true. Andrew:         Thank you for having me. [END OF TRANSCRIPT]

This week due to some unforseen circumstance Saturn is absent and Justin is very sick. So Andrew joins the show through the magic of Skype to discuss Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Need for Speed, Justin's new CRT, and various NES games. Please excuse how subdued we are, everything happened very quickly and we were a bit unprepared, to say the least. So just crank the volume and listen to Justin lazily slur his words!

Genevieve and Andrew examine this year's batch of Olympics-related commercials and find a dearth of creativity. So Andrew writes his own. Plus, the folks at Wild Turkey got more than they bargained for when they asked Matthew McConaughey to be their spokesman.

It's National Marine Week in South Africa and we found a great article on 6 ways to better protect the Ocean. So Andrew goes over each way and why we should do them. 10 Ocean Tips to Conserve the Ocean: http://www.speakupforblue.com/wordpress/sufb_optinpdf Show Notes: http://www.speakupforblue.com/session29

In another of those episodes were Andrew just looks at random TV shows that went genre, this time out he watches TV shows that weren't Westerns that nevertheless did a Western episode. And there is a lot of them! So Andrew only picked a few. Hope you like them.Feedback for this show can be sent to: heykidscomics@virginmedia.com

In another of those episodes were Andrew just looks at random TV shows that went genre, this time out he watches TV shows that weren’t Westerns that nevertheless did a Western episode. And there is a lot of them! So Andrew only picked a few. Hope you like them.

In another of those episodes were Andrew just looks at random TV shows that went genre, this time out he watches TV shows that weren't Westerns that nevertheless did a Western episode. And there is a lot of them! So Andrew only picked a few. Hope you like them.Feedback for this show can be sent to: heykidscomics@virginmedia.com

David: What are the rules for prosperity in the new economy? How do you apply conventional sales skills to an online world? And is it really possible to sell from a mobile device? Those are just three of the questions that I intend to ask our special guest today, Andrew J. Cass. Andrew, welcome to DMR. Andrew: Hey, David. Thanks for having me. Good to be here. David: Well, thanks for joining me. Well, Andrew was a seven-figure producer in two separate sales businesses before the age of 35. He's also one of the few Dan Kenndy certified business advisors and co-founder and president of RemarkaMobile. So Andrew, do you think that new web-based businesses are forgetting about learning sales skills? Andrew: I do actually because what's funny today is a lot of people I think like to hide behind, they like to hide behind the internet today or hide behind the web today and sort of sell virtually, which I think you can to a degree. But I think, the more you try to remove the actual person-to-person touch that we came up with or at least, that I came up with. You're leaving a lot on the table. David: Right, okay. So sales skills then definitely apply in the new economy? Andrew: For sure. I think when we talk about the new economy, we're talking really internet, the internet economy, the mobile economy that we're in right now. I think that we rely too much on technology. I know, I don't and you probably don't, David, that's why we're here. But I think, many people do. I think they rely too much on technology and it makes them a little bit lazy and they start to forget that at the end of day, people buy people and people trust people. And they do business with people they like and trust. We have to kind of keep the person element in the sales process as much as possible. In my work, I like to talk pre-internet and post-internet since as you mentioned before, I was a young stockbroker, investment banker in New York when I came up when I was 23, 24 years old. We only had a telephone, that was it. There was no internet, no video, no Google, nothing, just the telephone. We had to make a lot of dials and do a lot of prospecting, so we really learned the art of telephone communication. Then post-internet, as I got online and built an online information information and internet marketing business, I was able to maintain the communication skills I had and then, blend them with technology; automation and leverage. I think if you do those two things, you can build an amazing business. But what I find today is people do one or the other. The old school tends to stay old school. The new school doesn't want to hear from the old school. They just want to be new school. Like I said before, they sort of hide behind technology. It's a delicate balance and it's a balance that very few businesses even explore.

The nation thawed out long enough for us to get our comics this week.  With two weeks worth of books to talk about, we needed some extra help.  So Andrew from Back Seat Box Office joined us for the heavy lifting.  Hunker in with Aron, Paul, Tim, Wayne and Andrew for the awesomeness of Super […]

Andrew is constantly thinking, talking, or writing about his never-ending pursuit of a better life & career through personal experiments, lessons learned, and smart money habits. In 2017, he took a detour off the path towards financial independence and embarked on a one-year mini-retirement. Now he is using the insights gained from a year off to reframe his goals and ambitions for decades to come.   Welcome Back!   [2:19] So Andrew took a mini retirement, when he was last on the show he was in the middle of it, now we have a chance to catch up with him and see how it went. First off, how did you plan for your mini retirement? Was there a dollar figure you needed to save up? Spoke last right at the beginning of his mini retirement, it wasn’t planned but it evolved over time, the plan was to travel the world, their number figure was $40,000 each. There was a lot of stuff that happened in their personal lives that changed their plans- Andrew’s wife got diagnosed with Thyroid cancer. Andrew was also completely burned out at work and got a lot of time to think about things [7:51] Looking back, did your mini retirement go according to plan? With your spending goals? Andrew was obsessive about his money and definitely had a number in mind and wanted to make sure he kept strong tabs on spending money. Ended up spending the less of any year since they started tracking their expenses Ended up trying to beat his goals and only spent about $30,000 in the whole year [8:1] Are there some things you weren’t expecting from your mini retirement? Like finding stuff to keep you busy etc? Andrew did a lot better job of his time keeping himself busy Coming up with a long list of things to do was important and gave him clarity Taking things one small piece at a time is really important, read Bird by Bird. [18:8] You took a break off your FI route, would you say your mini retirement set you back? And if you could go back, would you do it again? Yes Andrew would do it again, even with some of the more difficult parts of it. It didn’t make that much of a dent in their FI journey Sponsor:   [19:42] Debt Plan That Works Sign up for our upcoming course on getting out of debt. Value Link Round   [20:3] What is your savings or retirement plan? Stayed the same after mini retirement, lifestyle expenses have been in check Baseline spending and save the rest [22:48] Do you have a favorite book? Millennial Money Retire Early Not the Penny Pinching Way [24:49] Favorite quote you like to live by? “Bird by bird” - focusing on one thing at a time [25:34] Any other parting piece of guidance? Focus on more than just the money, having a magic money is great but there’s more to life than that Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/chain-of-wealth-debt-investing-entrepreneurship-wealth-and-more/donationsWant to advertise on this podcast? Go to https://redcircle.com/brands and sign up.